Ever wanted to know where exactly a specific file came from? Perhaps some document that appeared in the Downloads folder of a Mac, or maybe a weird file that’s laying on your desktop, what is the origin of that file? Maybe it’s an archive file, maybe its an mp3 or m4a file that you want … Read More
You can play any song or audio file directly from within the Quick Look windows of Mac OS X, and that means music can be played from Finder as well as Open and Save dialogs, or anywhere else you can use the Quick Look function.
An underused feature of Mac OS X is the ability to use any Finder window as an application launcher. This is actually a feature of the Toolbar, which is usually thought to just hold things like the back and forward buttons, list and icon views, etc. But in fact, that same toolbar can launch apps … Read More
Here’s a Quick Look tip that’s pretty useful: you can zoom into any picture or PDF within Quick Look by holding down the Option key and then using the scroll wheel or trackpad. Try it out!
You can use the tab key to auto-complete paths within Go To Folder on the Mac, a particularly handy trick to keep in mind the next time you’re navigating directory paths on the Mac. Tab key auto-completion is a feature that many command line users are familiar with, particularly those with a unix and linux … Read More
Did you know that you can immediately open any directory from within the Open & Save dialog windows found throughout Mac OS X? Say you want to open a file contained in a folder which is buried deep in the file system and you know the path, or that you want to save a file … Read More
Did you know that you can customize the backgrounds of any Finder windows in Mac OS X? This is a nnice way to customize the appearance of your Mac a bit, and you can either choose images or colors, or go with the default setting of a simple white background. In the screenshot above, the … Read More
You can immediately launch any file into its associated application from Quick Look preview mode by holding down the command key and then pressing the down arrow key, so if you’re looking at a PSD file it will launch in Photoshop, a JPG into Preview, MP3 into iTunes, etc, directly from Quick Look! Thank you … Read More
Did you know that you can quickly see or hide all the hidden files in a directory from any Mac Save window with a simple keystroke? This is very useful when you are saving a file to a directory that will appear as invisible, also known as a dotfile in OS X.
You can quickly compare any two images side-by-side by using Mac OS X’s QuickLook feature. * Select the two pictures within the Finder that you want to see side-by-side * Hit the Spacebar to enter into QuickLook mode * Click on “Index Sheet” at the bottom of the Quick Look window (it’s the icon with … Read More
When you have extended information displayed under icons with the Finder from the ‘show item info’ Finder preference, you’ll occasionally run into an annoying truncation with used and available disk space. While one easy solution to this is to expand the spacing to show the full file names of Mac desktop items (the recommended method), … Read More
You can make save a lot of clutter from showing in the Dock of Mac OS X by making applications minimize into their own Dock icon. What this means is that if you minimize an app, rather than having the little thumbnail stay on the right side of the Mac Dock, it will minimize directly … Read More
You can create a folder that is hidden from the default Finder GUI view by taking advantage of Mac OS X’s unix underpinnings. That probably sounds a lot more complex than it is however, and it turns out it’s actually really easy to make a completely hidden folder on the Mac. This walkthrough details how … Read More
You can run Mac OS X in Grayscale mode by adjusting the display settings in the Accessibility or Universal Access control panel. Likewise, you can stop a Mac from running in greyscale mode and get full color back by disabling the setting in the same system control panel. This is an easy display settings adjustment … Read More
Using multiple monitors is an easy way to dramatically increase your productivity, but I’ve often heard complaints that when the secondary monitor needs to have the menubar to make it even more useful. SecondBar solves that problem. This nifty little app just duplicates the menubar across multiple displays, letting you have full access to the … Read More
You can open a folder into a new window (or tab) by holding down the Command key when you double-click on the folder to open it within the Finder of Mac OS X.
If you have a bunch of files you need renamed on your Mac, and the computer isn’t new enough to have the built-in batch rename feature, then Name Mangler is a decent solution in a fairly crowded field. With a good interface that is intuitive to use, you can easily batch rename tons and tons … Read More
I was recently asked to do some maintenance work on a relatives iMac, and one of their chief complaints was the speed of Photo Booth, the fun application that takes pictures and distorts them with your iSight. Upon inspection of the machine, I found that Photo Booth was running extremely slow, launching the application would … Read More
