One of the simplest tricks on Mac is press Spacebar to preview files. It works on a surprisingly large variety of file formats: office docs, PDFs, audio files, video files, fonts, etc. Saves a lot of time.
Spotlight
Cmd + Spacebar is the shortcut to Spotlight search which you can use to quickly open apps or files. This is a very simple and well-known feature and one of my most used keyboard shortcuts on the Mac. Spotlight can also perform calculations and look up other useful info like current conversion rates for currencies, the weather and flight statuses.
Digitally Sign PDFs with Preview
Preview app can automatically create a digital signature to allow you to digitally sign PDFs. Go to Preview, Tools, Annotate, Signature, Manage Signatures. Then hold up a signed piece of paper to the webcam and it will automatically create and save that digital signature for you so you can use anytime you need to digitally sign a PDF in the future.
Emoji Keyboard
To bring up the emoji keyboard in Mac OS simply press ctrl+Cmd+space
Quickly hide or close apps
Hold Cmd while pressing tab to scroll through your open apps. When you reach the app you want to close or hide, press either Q to quit or H to hide the app.
Dictation
MacOS has a built-in speech to text feature called Dictation. Instead of typing, just press the fn key twice and a microphone icon will pop up and then you can start speaking into your microphone and it will type out what you’re talking and when you’re done you just click Done.
Screenshots
Cmd + shift + 4 = Capture dragged area & save to desktop
Cmd + shift + 3 = Capture entire screen & save to desktop
Cmd + ctrl + shift + 3 = Capture entire screen & copy to clipboard
Cmd + ctrl + shift + 4 = Capture dragged area & copy to clipboard
Cmd + shift + 4 + Space = Capture a window & save to desktop
Cmd + ctrl + shift + 4 + Space = Capture a window & copy to clipboard
Quickly create file from selected text
Select text then drag and drop to desktop or folder and it will automatically create a file with the selected text in it
Precise Volume/Brightness Control
Hold Shift + Option and change your brightness or volume to adjust in smaller increments for more precise control.
Summarize Text
Mac OS allows you to quickly summarize long pieces of text in just a few seconds. To summarize a text first select it, right click on the selection and click on “Summarize”. To enable the summary feature, click on the app name in the status bar, click Services, Services Preferences, scroll down and check “Summarize”.
More Space
If you own a Mac with a Retina display you can scale the screen to create more screen space. This feature also works if you have a second monitor connected to your main Retina device. Go to System preferences, Display, Click Scale, and choose More Space.
Quick Dictionary
If you have a Trackpad you can select a word and do a 3-finger tap to quickly bring up the definition of the selected word.
Looking for a cheaper SuperDrive alternative? This right here is all you need. It’s the Samsung SE-218CB/RSBS USB Ultra Portable External DVD Writer, and it’s the best external DVD drive for Mac and Windows. Why is it the best? Well it’s affordable, portable, recordable, and supportable. Let me explain.
It’s affordable because it’s less than $30 with free shipping on Amazon.
It’s portable because it’s slim (only 5.83″ x 0.55″ x 5.67″) and it’s USB-powered meaning it doesn’t require a separate power cable.
It’s recordable because it can burn all kinds of discs such as CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD-R dual layer just to name a few.
It’s supportable because it works right out of the box with Mac OS X, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (even works with older versions of Windows too). It comes with a USB cable, which is really all you need to get started. Just plug it in and it’s ready to go.
It does have some pretty fast read/write speeds too, with an average of 3MB per second read speed. I also like the way it looks. It has a sleek back design, and it’s pretty lightweight. So if you’re looking for one of the best external DVD drives for less than half the cost of a SuperDrive, then this is a great choice.
Using MacX Video Converter Pro is the easiest way to convert YouTube to iTunes file formats. With this app you can download and convert YouTube videos and put them into iTunes and from there you can sync them onto a device such as an iPhone, iPad, or iPod.
This application is available for Mac & Windows users so if you click on a link above you can download it instantly to your system. It also converts many video files so you can convert an FLV file to an MP4/MP3, etc. You can convert nearly any video file, as well as download & convert YouTube videos to put them into iTunes.
First go to YouTube and find your video. Then copy the URL address of the YouTube video that you want to convert into an iTunes compatible file. Then click the YouTube button in MacX Video Converter Pro. Here you’ll paste the YouTube URL address into the text box then click OK. Choose the output folder where you want the YouTube video to be saved.
If you’re planning on leaving the YouTube file in iTunes all you have to do is click the Apple tab and choose the iTunes tab and then click Start. But if you plan on putting the YouTube file on a device after it’s in iTunes you can choose your device specifically on the corresponding tabs. This not only converts YouTube to iTunes, but it also converts YouTube to all kinds of formats. You can choose from all the different tabs available for specific devices. You can even convert the YouTube video to an MP3 file so you can have it as a song in your iTunes library. You can do that by using the Music tab. But for now I’ll just choose Apple and iTunes so I can put the YouTube video into iTunes directly and then click Start.
It will download, convert, and add the YouTube video into iTunes automatically for you. Once it’s finished downloading and converting you’ll see it pop up in your Explorer window. Then open iTunes and you’ll see the YouTube file in there. You can watch it in iTunes or sync it to a device such as an iPad, iPod, or iPhone by plugging in the USB cable and syncing iTunes with your device. That’s how easy it is to convert YouTube to iTunes files!
Built in 420+ video/audio codecs and advanced HD video decoding engine, MacX Video Converter Pro brings users an all-in-one video converting solution with top quality and efficiency. The is app owns powerful abilities to convert HD videos including MKV, M2TS, AVCHD, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and SD videos like AVI, MPEG, MP4, H.264, MOV, FLV, F4V, RM, RMVB, WebM, Google TV to Mac & Windows computers, iMovie, iTunes, iPhone 5, iPad Mini, iPad 4, iPod touch 5, iPod classic, Apple TV, PSP, etc.
With this video converter users can download website videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe etc. It also features unique ability to convert Multi-track HD videos in M2TS, MKV, AVCHD, HDTV BDAV and MPEG-TS formats, offering users the most convenient way to choose preferred audio language track, as well as create VOB files from videos to burn your favorite videos to DVD for a backup.
Okay so this is going to be a quick overview on how to use Clean My Mac 2 to clean up your Mac and speed it up, make it faster, and get more hard drive space. So at any time during this video if you click on the annotation on the top of this video it’ll take you to Clean My Mac’s website where you can download it. Or you can click the link in the description below, and that will take you to the site as well.
So once you’ve downloaded and installed Clean My Mac 2 it will take you to this opening screen here. Now what I love about Clean My Mac is it does exactly what its name says. It cleans up your Mac and it does it in a very simple and powerful way. And the design is very, very beautiful. It’s got a very elegant design. They really made this app look pleasing to the eye.
Now the Automatic Cleanup represents a complete cleanup guide which incorporates all other modules of Clean My Mac. Automatic Cleanup is the most efficient and rapid cleanup, and it’s divided into three main steps. The Full Scan will look through all possible areas on your Mac and automatically identify all the items that it can safely get rid of. The full scan involves System Cleanup, iPhoto Cleanup, Trash Cleanup, and Large and Old Files. There’s also an inbuilt Ignore List so you don’t have to worry that Clean My Mac will select anything for removal that it shouldn’t. All important items will not be listed in the scan results at all.
Now after the full scan is over you’re presented with a brief results list which includes items suggested for automatic cleanup. Clicking the Clean button at this point will remove all the stuff that clutters your Mac. For instance, removed items will not include any of your personal or vital system files. What you get after Automatic Cleanup is a faster Mac with a significant amount of additional free space on it with literally no effort from you at all.
And right after Automatic Cleanup you’re presented with the Manual Cleanup steps you should take to free up even more space. When you’re done with Manual Cleanup you can click the Summarize Cleanup button to see your overall results so that you clearly know how much space was saved.
The System Cleanup section helps you take care of all the unneeded items generated by your system and applications. After you start a scan, Clean My Mac will use an algorithm to determine what files can be safely removed automatically so you shouldn’t worry about system stability. What you get after the scan is a visual representation of items that can be instantly removed with no harm. In order to review the particular stuff you’re about to remove just click the Detailed Results button, and you can see all the items that it’s about to remove. Clicking the main Clean button will remove all the unneeded items and free up a significant amount of space.
Large and Old Files helps you locate, review, and remove large files and folders that you haven’t opened for months and probably don’t need any more. The default location is your home folder, but you can select any location to analyze such as internal or external drives, network folders, or any other places where files are stored. Now once you’ve selected all the places that you want to scan just hit the Scan button to analyze the files. After the scan is over you’ll be presented with a list of all the large and old files that you have. Now what I really love about Clean My Mac is the customization. For instance here you can customize the filter by setting the minimum size of displayed items and the time they were last accessed. So now you can select the unwanted files and click Remove to finalize the process and clean up your hard drive
iPhoto Cleanup is a powerful space saving feature for those who have large iPhoto libraries. This feature looks through your iPhoto library to locate unneeded original copies of images kept by iPhoto after you’ve edited them. You can start scanning your default Library or select a different library to analyze. After the scan is over, Clean My Mac will show you the results and allowing you to automatically remove items that are completely safe to get rid of. These may include rotated and fixed redeye original copies. Then you can decide what items you want to remove and click the Clean button and it’ll finalize the process. After the cleanup is over you get the same iPhoto library but it weighs a lot less.
Trash Cleanup helps to empty all system trash folders of your internal and external drives including iPhoto trash. Now here there’s no need to initiate any scans. Clean My Mac automatically locates all trash folders and presents you with a list of them from the very start. You can use the main Empty button right away and permanently remove all the stuff you had in all the listed trash folders. Or you can click on a trash folder and go through the items to remove its contents. Then after you decide on all the items that you want to remove permanently just click the Empty button. And again you’ll be left with more free space on your hard drive.
The Uninstaller provides easy and complete application removal from your Mac. It presents you with a list of all the applications that are installed on your Mac even if they are not in the main applications folder. The applications list represents all supported applications that are installed in your default applications folder or anywhere else on your Mac. If you wish to uninstall an application just select it. You’ll see the main app file itself and all of its related items. Now the Leftovers section provides you with a list of items on your system that earlier belonged to applications that you’ve already trashed. Basically the files that are no longer used by any of your apps and only waste space. The Unsupported section will list all the applications that are present on your system but cannot be used with it. Now once you’ve selected all the items that you wish to remove you’ll just click the main Uninstall button at the bottom.
The Extensions Manager allows you to remove or disable your widgets. Apart from your ordinary applications there are quite a lot of other software components on your system that can be generally described as extensions, and they’re all listed here. After you’ve reviewed the list you can click the Disable button next to virtually any item to isolate it from your system, or you can select items for complete removal using the corresponding checkboxes. After you’ve looked through the sections and selected the unwanted items you can go ahead and use the main Remove button at the bottom to completely remove them and clean up your system.
The Eraser lets you quickly dispose of any unwanted files from your Mac without going to the trash first. If you have any file or folder that you wish to permanently remove just click the Select Files button and add the unwanted items to Eraser. Now when you’re all set you can just click the main Erase button and it’ll get rid of all the unwanted items.
So that’s my overview on how to use Clean My Mac 2 to clean up your Mac and speed it up, make it a lot faster, and gain a lot more hard drive space. This is a highly recommended application for your Mac. It’s won a Reader’s Choice award for the best Mac system utility application two years in a row. So if you don’t have it go get it right now. Click the link at the top of this video or in the description below. It’s a must-have if you’re a Mac user. So if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up, and leave a comment in the comment section below and let me know how much free space you’ve gained after using Clean My Mac. And make sure you subscribe to my channel so you’re notified when I upload more helpful videos like this in the future. I will see you all next time.
MacX DVD Ripper Pro, in my opinion, is the best and easiest way to rip or copy DVD movies to your Mac if you’re planning to put those movies on your iOS device later. It’s very simple to use. It can copy a DVD in just a few clicks. It’s extremely fast and saves you a ton of time because there’s no need for additional converter programs and you don’t have to configure any settings. It will automatically copy the DVD in the best video quality that is compatible with your device so it fits perfectly on the screen. And it comes with free lifetime updates so you know you’re always able to copy the latest movies when they come out.
Next you’ll load your movie disc into your DVD drive and open MacX DVD Ripper Pro. Once it’s opened you’ll click the DVD button in the top left and choose OK. Once the output profile window pops up you’ll select Apple device then choose iPhone, iPad or iPod depending on what device you have. Then select the model of your device and click Done.
It will automatically select the main movie file for you. Then you can select the folder where you’d like the movie to be copied to. So you can click Browse then click Run and it will start to copy the DVD.
Once it’s finished the window will pop up with your video in it. Now you’ll just open up iTunes and browse to the folder and drag and drop the video file into iTunes. And when it’s done copying you’ll sync your iPad, iPod or iPhone with iTunes via the USB cable.
Now once your device shows up in iTunes you’ll click on it then click the Movies section. Then select sync movies, click apply, and your iOS device will sync & copy the DVD movie. And now when you open up the Videos app on your device your movie will be in there. Easy! That’s my review on MacX DVD Ripper Pro from MacXDVD.com. Hope you enjoyed!
