Batch renaming files in Finder.[1] It's quite useful and one of the few GUI-based looping operations that takes me less time than fat-fingering the shell incantation.
[1] https://osxdaily.com/2015/05/28/batch-rename-files-mac-os-x-...
Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
211–220 of 540 posts
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#212I recently discovered some nice helpers to resize windows: - Hold down the option key while resizing a windows (with the mouse) to also resize the opposite side. This also works when resizing the window on a corner to resize all edges at once. - Double click a window border to enlarge this side of the window up to the edge of the scereen. Hold down the option key to enlarge also the opposite site. - Double-click the…
I didn’t know about the first one. But I learned about the last 2 within the last year because I can’t install software on my work computer.
On my personal computer I use Better Touch Tools.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#213How easy it is to move between various OS's now. I thought a mac user was mac user, but I think it is trivial for most users to swap to Linux and Windows now.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#214i posted mine yesterday[0], about being able to alt-tab between windows of all applications, not just between applications or tabs. i remapped that to opt-cmd-tab for easier access.
does anyone know how to turn off wifi on startup via scripting?
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#215This 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…
> this works in terminal as well to give you a path
I'll add that if you want the path of a file and the destination application doesn't support drag 'n' drop, right click on a file in finder, then hold the Option key and you'll see the copy command changes from "Copy" to "Copy as Pathname".
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#216That you can hold down certain keys, like i and o, to access a list of similar characters that aren't found on the keyboard. My 1 year old taught me that one.
One can be forgiven for finding this after long years of useage, because it didn't used to be the case. I'm not sure when it was introduced, but it was in a (to this oldster) recent version.
It was introduced sometime after that feature became standard in the iOS keyboard. So yes, it is a relatively new feature.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#217Cmd-space to bring up spotlight
Type whatever you want.
Cmd-b
Your default web browser with your default search engine will now open and perform your query. I can't stress this enough how much I use this workflow when writing code.
Another thing for the OPs issue with the screenshots, (there's a few steps via terminal so maybe try the above shortcut to search for an article on how to do it) you can have all your screenshots redirect to a folder.
For example all of my screenshots end up in $HOME/screenshots
Also, another cool and sometimes useful shortcut, holding option while clicking is a big thing in osx. Try click the wifi icon in the top right corner whilst holding the option key. It will give you a bunch more details :)
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#218- Ctrl + Cmd + Shift + 4 will let you take a screenshot of a region of your screen and copy it to the clipboard. It can then be pasted directly into most applications, from email clients to chat clients. No random screenshots sitting around. If you want to capture a whole window, press Space after the initial shortcut, then click the window. - While a menu is open, hold Option; if you're lucky, you'll get some additi…
Cmd-Shift-5 for some more nice screenshot options, including disabling that floating window that appears before your screenshot gets saved to the Desktop
Cmd-Down also opens in Finder, just like Cmd-O
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#219That you can hold down certain keys, like i and o, to access a list of similar characters that aren't found on the keyboard. My 1 year old taught me that one.
I've switched that off many years ago so I forgot that's even a thing. In my opinion the best way is to get hold of those characters with the option key. So if you need ñ you can just type option-n + n, or option-o for ø.
Re: Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?
#220If you use spotlight and type in a word, you can press command + L, to jump to the dictionary definition