Some Helpful Shortcuts

macOS has some keyboard shortcuts that I use every day, but aren’t well-known. They’re not just time savers, they’re great ways to mentally reset between tasks.

Hold down option + close a window

This will close every window in an application. So let’s say you have 7 Chrome windows open and just need to reset your brain. Control+close is your friend.

Command + option + click an app

This will open a single app and hide the other ones. So maybe you need to focus on email? Command + option + click your Mail app. Focus time.

Window > Merge All Windows

Maybe you have 15 Finder windows open, or 7 browser windows, or 4 Terminal windows. Select Window > Merge All Windows and they’ll turn into tabs.

Safari: Arrange tabs by website

If you right-click a tab in Safari, you can organise your tabs by website. Helpful for culling tabs.

Safari: View > Show Tab Overview

After arranging tabs by website, it’s easy to go into Tab Overview to see all your tabs in a grid, then click to easily remove them. Bonus points for doing this after Merging All Windows!

Command-click from Spotlight search

When you use Spotlight, you get search results. Clicking the result launches it, but what if you just want to go to the location of the file? Command-click.

Command-click from Finder header

If you’re in a Finder window, you can command-click to easily navigate up the tree. So if you’re looking in Documents, command-clicking the word “documents” gives you quick access to your Home directory.

Take more walks, drink more water, get more sleep

This will supercharge everything I wrote above. It’s a real multiplier!