You can create a screenshots folder and default all of the screenshots straight into it. That’s been a lifesaver for me.
Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
181–190 of 540 posts
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#182double click the edge of a window to expand it to the edge of the screen. hold alt while double clicking to get the opposite edge to also expand.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#183Every time you do a screen recordin with quicktime, encode it to h264 to save a LOT of space and make it playable on any device.
To do that use Handbrake, whick is open source and the go-to app for any encoding.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#184You can tell Finder to show actual folder sizes instead of just "--". Right click in a folder -> Show View Options -> Calculate all sizes. I'm not sure why it's not the default, it's not like Finder needs to traverse the folders hierarchy to calculate the size (I hope!).
It does have to traverse the complete filesystem to calculate the sizes. That is how most filesystems work (files have sizes, folders do not - so a folder size doesn't exist and is just a sum of whatever it contains)
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#185CMD + UP to up one dir in finder. Maybe I've got messed up settings or something, I don't know, but when I want to go up a folder I don't see a button or a an item called ".." that can be clicked. Did this drive anyone else nuts?
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#186⌘⌃⇧4 – for screenshots that go directly into your clipboard
⌘O – open file/folder in Finder
⌘J in Finder, Set as Defaults — sets default view options for all folders (struggled a lot with Finder inconsistencies before finding this out)
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#187This has been around for a long time but most people don’t know about it:
Dragging and dropping files from the finder into an file selector window (ie. Open File in most programs) will navigate to that file and select it. As others mentioned this works in terminal as well to give you a path, but actually this generally works in any text box (unless it specifically handles paths being drag ‘n dropped). This also works with multiple files / multi file selection, and in the case of inserting the path as text, they are space delimited and auto quoted (convenient for shell use).
Edit: This icon can include the one at the top of a finder window (the window title). That’s actually interactable and can be dragged and dropped for the directory itself.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#188When typing or editing text, Option-arrow to move the cursor one word to the left or right Command-arrow to move to the beginning or end of the line Combine either of these with the shift key to quickly select text.
Wow, I use these all the time in VSCode but didn’t realize it wasn’t specific to that application. This works especially well when combined with multi-cursor selection: place whatever 10 cursors for 10 sets of like information, Option-Shift-Arrow to select multiple like-code blocks by word.
This experience alone was enough to convince me it was time to learn vim.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#189I have long used Shift-Command-4 to take screenshots, but I only recently discovered Shift-Command-5, which provides finer control (and it's much easier to use when I'm working at my treadmill desk). Also, Command-K to clear out a terminal window (also often works in similar places, such as the MAMP error log viewer).
My favourite hidden function: Pressing space after Shift-Cmd-4 toggles window mode. In window mode, only the window you select will be captured.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#190Increase Finder window size by dragging (in home directory), then press Cmd + Shift + E to make Finder open new windows with the new size. Works until a reboot. Why? Because those stupid windows are too small by default.