5 underappreciated macOS settings I take advantage of to energy up my MacBook

The historical past of macOS goes again a long time, and Apple has been iterating on the working system year-over-year since its inception. As such, the favored desktop OS has been endowed with a broad assortment of options, customization choices, and different helpful system instruments all through time.

A number of the settings discovered inside macOS are comparatively well-known, together with the choice to allow tabs in Finder, to regulate the dimensions and positioning of the Dock, and to tweak the aesthetics of the person interface. Hidden under the floor, nevertheless, are a set of extra obscure (and but extremely helpful) settings that each Mac proprietor ought to learn about.

Listed here are 5 underappreciated and underacknowledged settings inside macOS that I all the time make use of when utilizing a MacBook or different Apple-made pc.

5

Tiled home windows have margins

Benefit from your monitor’s display actual property

On a recent set up of macOS, the Tiles home windows have margins toggle is switched on by default. This setting provides a small quantity of padding round open utility home windows which have been positioned side-by-side, with a purpose to give every interface room to breath. When you’re working the OS on a big exterior show, then this feature is good to have, however it makes rather a lot much less sense on a laptop computer.

By unchecking this margins setting, snapped home windows will show proper subsequent to 1 one other, with no padding. This lets you take full benefit of the restricted display actual property of a MacBook, with extra content material displayed on display and fewer of your wallpaper displaying via.

To take away the padding round tiled home windows, observe these steps:

1. Navigate to System Settings > Desktop & Dock.
2. From right here, merely toggle off Tiles home windows have margins.

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You may by no means must open the Passwords app once more

With the discharge of macOS 15 Sequoia, Apple launched a standalone Passwords app. Moderately than having to dig via System Settings to find and replace saved account credentials synced with iCloud, this new app streamlines the method to a fantastic diploma.

Lesser-known, nevertheless, is the hidden Passwords Menu Bar choice that may be enabled. When toggled on, this provides a quick-access shortcut to all of your saved account usernames and passwords proper from the system’s most important Menu Bar, whereas nonetheless sustaining a stage of safety by way of passcode or biometric unlock.

So as to add the Passwords shortcut to your Menu Bar, observe these steps:

1. Launch the Passwords app.
2. From the Menu Bar, click on on Passwords > Settings…
3. Right here, you will be prompted to enter your password or to authenticate biometrically.
4. As soon as in, examine the Present Passwords in Menu Bar choice from inside the Passwords Settings window.

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3

Three finger trackpad drag

Drag round home windows and spotlight textual content with out lifting a finger

Throughout the PC area, Apple is thought for its wonderful implementation of trackpad gestures. Owing to its top-down strategy to each software program and {hardware}, the corporate has been capable of craft a set of gestures that really feel silky easy, responsive, and pure.

Whereas mostly used gestures are enabled by default on a recent set up of macOS, one particularly is disabled: Use trackpad for dragging. This selection unlocks the power to tug round open utility home windows and to focus on textual content by way of a three-finger swiping gesture, versus counting on a press-and-drag movement. Other than being an accessibility function, it feels surpringly fluid to carry out this gesture — as soon as I received used to it, I by no means appeared again.

To allow three finger dragging in your trackpad, observe these steps:

1. Launch System Settings.
2. Navigate to Accessibility > Motor and click on on Pointer Management.
3. From right here, click on on the Trackpad Choices… button.
4. Toggle on Use trackpad for dragging, and choose Three Finger Drag from the Dragging type dropdown menu.

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2

Sizzling Corners + Shift

Sizzling Corners are nice, however this hidden tweak makes them even higher

Many macOS customers are already aware of the Sizzling Corners function, which helps you to arrange actions to happen when hovering a mouse cursor in direction of designated corners of the display. Lesser-known, nevertheless, is the power to complement Sizzling Corners with a modifier key.

In my private expertise, I usually discover myself by chance triggering Sizzling Corners once I do not imply to, which is the place this hidden tweak comes into play. It permits you to press down on one of many following keys when choosing a fast motion: shift, ctrl, decide, and cmd. This fashion, triggering Sizzling Corners by chance is prevented, with out having to disable the function itself.

To configure Sizzling Corners with modifier keys, observe these steps:

1. Launch the System Settings app.
2. Navigate to Desktop & Dock and click on on the Sizzling Corners… button within the backside right-hand aspect of the window.
3. A separate window will pop up, with 4 dropdown menus corresponding to every nook of your show.
4. When choosing an motion from every dropdown menu, accomplish that whereas holding down a modifier key.
5. Whenever you’re happy, click on on the Finished button within the decrease right-hand nook.

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1

Spaced out Dock icons

A easy terminal command for organizational followers

The Dock is a macOS staple, and its goal is multifunctional. It permits you to pin continuously used apps and folders to it, decrease lively home windows into miniature thumbnails, entry the system’s Finder and Launchpad, and drag undesirable recordsdata to Trash.

Whereas Apple supplies a number of customization instruments to regulate the Dock to your liking (together with the power to resize and reposition it), there’s really a hidden customization instrument that I all the time make use of. By performing a easy Terminal command, you possibly can add ‘hidden’ icons to the Dock, which may then be repositioned or stacked subsequent to one another to create a way of visible hierarchy.

So as to add empty icon slots inside the Dock, observe these steps:

1. Launch the Terminal app from inside the Launchpad or from Finder > Functions > Utilities.
2. Copy and paste this command into the Terminal window, after which press Enter: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add ‘{“tile-type”=”small-spacer-tile”;}’; killall Dock
3. Each time you enter this command, a brand new clean icon will seem inside your Dock. From right here, you possibly can transfer it round similar to every other app icon.
4. To take away an undesirable clean icon, merely drag it out of the Dock and it’ll disappear.

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