10 hidden macOS tricks you should be using in 2026

You're probably using Spotlight just to launch apps. That's like buying a Swiss Army knife and only using the toothpick.

Press Cmd+Space and Spotlight opens. Type a maths equation and it solves it. Type "32 USD in GBP" and it converts the currency on the spot. Type a file name and it surfaces the file, with a preview, before you've finished typing. It's also a Shortcuts launcher, which means you can trigger automations without touching the mouse at all.

1. Press Cmd+Space to open Spotlight from anywhere.
2. Type an app name, equation, or currency conversion and get instant results (no Enter needed for calculations).
3. Use search operators to narrow results precisely: kind:pdf, date:today, author:"Jane Smith".
4. Go to System Settings > Siri & Spotlight to enable or disable specific result categories if results feel cluttered.
5. To trigger a Shortcut, just type its name in Spotlight and hit Enter.

A single cluttered desktop is the productivity equivalent of doing all your work on one tiny desk with no drawers.

Mission Control gives you a bird's-eye view of every open window and every virtual desktop (Apple calls them Spaces) at once. The real power is in separating contexts: one Space for email and comms, another for your main project, a third for reference material. Switching between them takes less than a second.

1. Press Control+Up Arrow (or swipe up with three fingers on the trackpad) to open Mission Control.
2. Click the + button in the top-right corner to add a new Space.
3. Drag windows up into different Spaces to separate contexts.
4. Press Control+Left/Right Arrow to swipe between Spaces instantly, without opening Mission Control.
5. Right-click any app in the Dock and choose Assign To to pin it to a specific Space.

Finder gets unfairly dismissed as basic. Configure it properly and it becomes a proper project hub.

Three things transform Finder: colour tags (which let you group files across any folder by project or status), Smart Folders (live saved searches that auto-populate as you create new files), and a customised toolbar that puts your most-used actions one click away. Together, they replace a lot of manual file-hunting.

1. In Finder, go to View > Customise Toolbar to add the Path Bar, Tags button, and New Folder button.
2. Right-click any file and assign a colour tag. Use the Tags section in the Finder sidebar to see all files with that tag, regardless of where they're stored.
3. Choose File > New Smart Folder, set your criteria (kind, date modified, tag, or any combination), and save it to the sidebar.
4. Enable View > Show Path Bar and View > Show Status Bar so you always know where you are and how much space is available.

If your desktop looks like a filing cabinet exploded, Stacks fixes that in about three seconds.

Desktop Stacks groups all your loose files into tidy piles automatically. Screenshots pile up in one stack, PDFs in another, images in a third. Click any stack to fan it open. Ignore it and the desktop stays clean. It sounds minor until you've actually used it and realised how much mental energy a cluttered desktop quietly drains.

1. Right-click the desktop and choose Use Stacks.
2. Right-click again and choose Group Stacks By: Kind, Date Added, Date Modified, or Tag, depending on how your brain works.
3. Click any stack to expand it and access individual files.
4. Drag a file onto an existing stack to add it to that group.

Every time you reach for the mouse to do something your keyboard could handle, you're paying a small tax on your time. It adds up fast.

macOS has keyboard shortcuts for virtually everything. A core dozen alone, used consistently, save a meaningful chunk of clicking every week. More usefully, you can create custom shortcuts for any menu item in any app, without any third-party software.

1. Learn these first: Cmd+Tab (app switcher), Cmd+` (cycle windows in same app), Cmd+Shift+3/4/5 (screenshots), Cmd+Option+Esc (Force Quit), Cmd+Ctrl+Q (lock screen immediately), Cmd+H (hide current app).
2. To create a custom shortcut, go to System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts.
3. Click +, select the app, type the exact menu item name (spelling matters), and assign your key combo.
4. Use Cmd+Option+H to hide every app except the one you're currently in. Instant focus.

Your phone and Mac are in a quiet conspiracy to interrupt you constantly. Focus modes end that.

Focus isn't just Do Not Disturb with a rebrand. You can configure exactly which apps and contacts can still reach you, set it to activate automatically at certain times or locations, and have it sync across every Apple device you own. A well-configured "Deep Work" Focus is genuinely one of the highest-leverage things you can set up on a Mac.

1. Open System Settings > Focus and click + to create a custom Focus (call it "Deep Work", "Reading", whatever fits).
2. Set allowed contacts and allowed apps. Everything else is silenced.
3. Enable Focus Status so iMessage contacts see you're unavailable without you having to explain.
4. Add automation: set it to activate at a specific time, at a specific location, or when a particular app opens.
5. Toggle Focus instantly from the Control Centre icon in the menu bar.

Adobe Acrobat costs a fortune. Preview does most of the same things for free, right now, on your Mac.

Preview gets ignored because people assume it's just a file viewer. It isn't. It has a full markup toolbar with highlights, text boxes, shapes, signatures, redaction tools, and an Instant Alpha background remover for images. For the vast majority of annotation tasks, you never need to open another app.

1. Open any PDF or image in Preview and click the Markup toolbar icon (the pencil tip) or press Cmd+Shift+A.
2. Use the Text tool for notes, the Shapes tool for arrows and callouts, and the Highlight tool for passages you want to flag.
3. To add a signature: in the Markup toolbar, click the Signature button, then draw on the trackpad or photograph a written signature with your iPhone camera.
4. For images, use the Instant Alpha tool (under the Markup toolbar) to remove backgrounds by clicking and dragging over the area you want gone.

If you own a Mac and an iPhone but treat them as separate devices, you're leaving a genuinely useful setup on the table.

Continuity is Apple's name for the set of features that blur the line between your devices. Universal Clipboard means copying on your phone and pasting on your Mac just works. Continuity Camera means your iPhone becomes a dramatically better webcam. Sidecar turns an iPad into a second display. AirDrop moves files between devices in seconds. None of it requires any setup beyond being signed into the same Apple ID.

1. Make sure all devices are signed into the same Apple ID, on the same Wi-Fi network, and have Bluetooth enabled.
2. Copy text or an image on your iPhone, then press Cmd+V on your Mac. Universal Clipboard handles the transfer automatically.
3. On a video call, select your iPhone as the camera source in the app's video settings for a noticeably sharper image.
4. Use Sidecar via System Settings > Displays to extend your Mac desktop onto a nearby iPad.
5. Transfer files via AirDrop from the Finder sidebar or Control Centre, to or from any nearby Apple device.

macOS's clipboard holds exactly one thing at a time. Copy something new and whatever was there before is just gone. That's a strange limitation for a machine this capable.

Maccy is a free, open-source clipboard manager that stores everything you've copied, searchable by keyword, accessible with a single hotkey. Copy a snippet of code, a URL, an address, a paragraph: they're all there when you need them. It's one of those tools that feels trivial until you've used it for a week, at which point going back feels broken.

1. Download Maccy from maccy.app (open-source and free).
2. Launch it and go to Maccy preferences to set it to start at login.
3. Press the configured hotkey (default Cmd+Shift+C) to open the clipboard history popup.
4. Type to search previous copies, then press Enter to paste the selected item into your current app.
5. In Maccy preferences, enable Ignore Passwords so credentials copied from password managers aren't stored in plain text.

Dragging an app to the Trash doesn't actually remove it. Not fully.

Every app you install scatters preference files, caches, and support files across your Library folder. Dragging the app itself to the Trash leaves all of that behind. Over months and years, it accumulates. AppCleaner finds every associated file and removes the whole lot in one step, for free.

1. Download AppCleaner for free from freemacsoft.net/appcleaner.
2. Drag any application onto the AppCleaner window, or browse its built-in app list.
3. Review the full list of associated files it surfaces, tick everything you want removed, and click Remove.
4. Enable SmartDelete in AppCleaner preferences so it prompts automatically whenever you drag an app to the Trash.