Tips & tricks

A distraction blocker: stronger than your willpower

Apps like Cold Turkey or Freedom block chosen websites for a set period. Decide once, and it holds for the whole morning.

Anki: learn in half the time with spaced repetition

Flashcards with an algorithm that quizzes you right when you're about to forget. For languages, exams, and professional knowledge alike.

Obsidian: [[links]] weave your notes into a network

Double square brackets create a link to another note — and backlinks show you where it's referenced from.

Obsidian: the daily note as a safety net for your day

One place where you dump notes, ideas, and links all day long. Sort it out in the evening — or don't; search will still find it.

Shift+F3: change letter case without retyping

Shift+F3

Caps Lock stuck on by accident? Select the text and Shift+F3 cycles between lowercase, Title Case, and UPPERCASE.

Word without distractions: Focus mode

View → Focus hides the ribbons and leaves just the page. Writing without visual noise.

Find and Replace in Word: more than just text

Ctrl+H

Ctrl+H can also replace formatting, double spaces, and paragraph marks. Cleaning up a whole document in a few clicks.

Word: heading styles instead of manual bold text

Heading 1 and Heading 2 aren't just about looks — they power the navigation pane, an automatic table of contents, and chapter collapsing.

Switch keyboard languages instantly without touching the mouse

Ctrl+Space

Ctrl+Space switches between two keyboard layouts. A must for developers and anyone writing in more than one language.

Half- and quarter-screen window layouts

Newer macOS versions support window snapping — drag a window to the edge, or hold Option over the green button for instant layouts.

Look up a word with three fingers: the built-in dictionary

Ctrl+Cmd+D

Tap a word with three fingers (or Ctrl+Cmd+D) and up pops a definition, translation, and Wikipedia entry — without leaving the text.

AirDrop: a file on the next device in two seconds

Don't email files between Apple devices. AirDrop is faster, doesn't compress anything, and has no size limits.

Safari Reader: an article without the ads and clutter

Cmd+Shift+R

Reader view strips an article down to nothing but text and images. Read without blinking banners — with your own font size.

Hide the Dock and reclaim a slice of your screen

Cmd+Option+D

Cmd+Option+D hides the Dock. On a laptop that gets you a noticeable strip of extra screen — the Dock slides out only when you want it.

Copy text right out of images and photos

macOS can select text in a photo or screenshot just like regular text. Grab a phone number off a photo of a business card in two clicks.

Split View: two apps side by side, full screen

Hold down the green button on a window and pick a half of the screen. Perfect for writing with reference material alongside.

Emoji and special characters with one key

Ctrl+Cmd+Space

The 🌐 (fn) key or Ctrl+Cmd+Space opens a panel of emoji and special characters — with built-in search.

Space bar: preview a file without opening an app

Space

Select a file in Finder and press Space. PDFs, photos, video, and spreadsheets appear instantly — no waiting for an app to launch.

Frozen app? Force quit without restarting

Cmd+Option+Esc

Cmd+Option+Esc is macOS's version of Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Quit a frozen app in three seconds.

Spotlight: launch apps without touching the mouse

Cmd+Space

Cmd+Space opens Spotlight — the fastest way to launch anything on a Mac. You can practically stop using the Dock.

Spotlight as a calculator and unit converter

Cmd+Space

No need to open a calculator or google an exchange rate. Spotlight calculates and converts currencies and units right in the search field.