Useful keyboard shortcuts on a Mac [closed]

Question

Most Mac OS users know about ⌘-Q for quit. And ⌘-C, ⌘-X, ⌘-V for copy cut and paste. Likewsie ⌘-P for print and ⌘-S for save.

Is there a keyboard shortcut for maximizing a window? Or minimizing it?

Are there other daily-use keyboard shortcuts you use on your Mac?

Answer 1

Command Spacebar (⌘ +              ) is the default shortcut for Spotlight, which is very useful for finding/launching applications, documents, or for quick access to a calculator.

Answer 2

Some of my favorites:

⌘Shift4 Cursor changes to a cross-hair, drag over a screen area to capture a portion of a screen to a file on your desktop...

⌘ShiftCtrl4 Same, but to the clipboard...

Hover the mouse over a word and press Ctrl⌘d - the system dictionary / thesaurus pops up for the word under the mouse. Only works in Cocoa programs (ie, not MS Office...)

Many more HERE

Answer 3

⌘-` cycles through windows in the current application (if they're in the same Space).

⌘-tab cycles through active applications.

Answer 4

I mainly use the emacsy ones:

ctrl a: start of line
ctrl e: end of line
ctrl k: kill line from cursor
ctrl t: swap last two characters

For OSX ones:

cmd e: eject

Answer 5

Most applications use ⌘+m to minimize a window.

As for your question about a keyboard shortcut for zooming a window, there is some discussion here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051227001809626

I think the most straightforward solution is to type the following in the terminal:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSUserKeyEquivalents '{"Zoom" = "@^Z"; "Zoom Window" = "@^Z"; }'

Most applications have a "Zoom" or "Zoom Window" menu option (usually in a Window menu) — the above command sets the default keyboard shortcut for that to ⌘+control+z

Another handy shortcut: when you really get in trouble and an application is non-responsive, ⌘+option+esc will open the Force Quit Applications dialog.

Answer 6

Sleep computer = Option+Command+Eject

Shudown/restart dialog = Control+Eject

Answer 7

This knowledge base article from Apple is very helpful.

Answer 8

You can get informations on keyboard shortcuts on Mac OS 10.6 in "System Preferences" => "Keyboard" => "Keyboard Shortcuts"

Answer 9

The Apple support page for Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts contains a pretty complete list. (Applies to all Mac OS X 10.x versions.)

Answer 10

Command-Period (⌘-.) is the Mac OS univeral "Stop" key command. It should be the same as clicking "Stop", "Cancel", "Escape", etc.

Answer 11

Now this one isn't built-in - so I don't know if it counts - but with ShiftIt you can use Ctrl + Alt + Cmd together with your arrow keys to snap the window to the top, bottom, left or right half of the screen. Together with C you center it.

ShiftIt also allows you to maximize windows with Ctrl + Alt + Cmd + F; shortcuts can be changed to suit personal preferences.

Answer 12

Showing hidden files in Finder's Open / Save dialogs is one of my favorites:

⌘+Shift+. (press twice to toggle)

Another useful setting I always turn on when installing OSX, is to be able to press Tab to move keyboard focus between all controls in windows and dialogs:

1. Open System Preferences > Keyboard.
2. Under "Full Keyboard Access:" select All Controls.

Then, I can Tab around between e.g. "Do not save" / "Cancel" and "Save" buttons (when trying to quit an application with unsaved content) and then hit   Space  on the button I want to 'click'/choose.