10 Life Hacks Every Mac User Should Know
The term “Mac power user” is a bit vague and almost sounds like an exception, but I want to tell you that if you use your Mac regularly, you are definitely a power user. You don’t have to exclusively use the command line or keyboard shortcuts to be a power user. Even though I work on a Mac all day, every day I constantly discover new keyboard shortcuts, amazing apps I’ve never heard of, or just general tips I’ve never come across before.
If this describes you, you’re undoubtedly a seasoned Mac user, and I’m here to share the tips that have helped me optimize my workflow over the past few years. From setting up automated routines to save time to launching apps faster, this guide has something useful for every Mac user.
Spotlight Search is your best friend.
Spotlight search is one of the most underrated tools on the Mac. Even though I’ve had my share of complaints about its sluggishness, it remains my go-to search tool for a multitude of tasks. It can be accessed with the Command-Space keyboard shortcut and used for everything from launching apps to converting currencies. Simply open Spotlight and type £100 (or any other currency), and you’ll see it automatically convert that amount to your local currency. You can also use it to convert imperial to metric units, create calendar events, search for files, or create quick actions .
And if it still doesn’t suit your workflow, you can always replace Spotlight with a more suitable alternative, such as Alfred or Raycast .
Try Spotlight’s advanced features
If you’ve updated to macOS 26 Tahoe, you’ll notice Spotlight has gotten a bit better. It now lets you do two things you didn’t before : check your clipboard history and create keyboard shortcuts for common actions. You can enable clipboard history by going to System Preferences > Spotlight > Clipboard Results and opening it with the keyboard shortcut Command-Space-4 .
Speaking of automation, Spotlight has a new feature that lets you add keyboard shortcuts to speed up common actions. Press Command-Space-3 to open the Actions tab in Spotlight, and you’ll see a list of supported actions. Next to some of them, you’ll see an Add Keyboard Shortcut button. Click this button, and you can customize the keyboard shortcut to perform it. For example, I set the keyboard shortcut “sm” to send a message. Once I type it and select the action in Spotlight, it allows me to type a message and send it to any of my contacts without opening the Messages app. You can freely customize as many keyboard shortcuts as you like and use Spotlight as a gateway to various actions in apps.
Use the app to control the volume of each app
One of the most common problems with Macs is the difficulty in setting different volume levels for each app. If app notifications are too loud and interfere with video playback, the easiest way is to use an app to set individual volume levels for different apps . The free Background Music app does a decent job of this, but if you’re willing to pay for a better interface, you should consider SoundSource ($45).
Optimize window tile settings
macOS has long lacked useful window management features, but it now has some good basic options . You can press fn-ctrl-left or right arrow to move windows, or simply drag an application window to the left or right edge of the screen to see window arrangement options. You can also hover your mouse over the green button in the upper-left corner of any application window, where you’ll see a variety of window arrangement options. Some window arrangement settings are also available in System Preferences > Desktop & Dock > Windows , so be sure to check them out.
While macOS’s built-in window tiling features work well, their implementation isn’t as sophisticated as those of third-party apps, which also offer many advanced features unavailable in Apple. Free window management apps like Loop and Rectangle offer many more options for positioning and arranging windows. If you’re willing to pay, apps like Moom ($15) and Rectangle Pro ($10) are even better, as they support precise custom layouts and support multiple displays.
Make the most of your Mac’s display notch
New MacBooks have a notch in the display, a design decision by Apple to give you a larger screen without increasing the size of the MacBook. The notch looks like dead space on your MacBook, but some apps add a ton of useful functionality to this space. You can have things like music controls, calendars, battery status indicators, AirPods connection indicators, and more right in the notch on your Mac’s display. Alcove ($15) is my favorite app for this , as it brings iPhone’s Dynamic Island to your Mac. It shows you when your Mac enters focus mode, highlights volume and brightness changes, and when AirPods are connected. It also has gesture-based music playback controls and more. But if you only want music controls, you can get Tuneful ($5) , which does a decent job and costs much less.
The Option key hides a treasure trove of functions.
The humble Option key on your Mac’s keyboard holds the secret to many hidden functions . Hold down the Option key and click the clock icon in your Mac’s menu bar. You’ll notice that this enables Do Not Disturb mode on your Mac. Additionally, this key displays detailed Wi-Fi network information, offers more export formats in Preview mode, and has a number of other features that are only accessible by pressing the Option key when opening a menu in the menu bar.
You can customize the docking station
Your Mac’s Dock is a great place to store the apps you use most often so you can quickly launch them. However, there are many interesting ways to customize your Mac’s Dock to make it even more useful . After you’ve cleaned up the Dock by removing unused apps and replacing them with the ones you need, you can also add dividers to organize the Dock and use folders to group multiple apps under a single icon. All of these options are built into macOS, but third-party apps give you access to even more options. The free app TinkerTool makes it easy to add dividers and has additional Dock customization options, while uBar ($30) gives you the freedom to completely change the look and feel of the Dock. If you really miss Windows, uBar lets you replace the Dock with something similar to the Windows 11 taskbar.
The screenshot tools are great.
Your Mac has some amazing built-in screenshot tools , and you should definitely make the most of them. Press Command-Shift-5 to see the full range of screenshot and screen recording tools you get for free. These tools are great and have been designed with a lot of care and attention, but for some people, they won’t be enough. If you need some useful features, like capturing scrolling screenshots of entire web pages, repeatedly capturing a specific section of the screen, or displaying keyboard keys while recording, then you should consider replacing your Mac’s screenshot tool with something better . My favorite app is CleanShot X ($29) , and I’ve been using it for over six years. It has all the screenshot features you could want, and its screen recording tools are pretty good, too.
There are easy ways to free up space on your Mac.
If your Mac’s storage is full, it will slow down significantly and may eventually crash. Therefore, it’s important to always have some free space. Your Mac already has a simple built-in way to free up storage space . To get started, go to System Preferences > General > Storage . By following the recommendations on this page, you can easily clear out a significant amount of storage space in just a few clicks. Also, don’t hesitate to enable automatic deletion of files from the Trash on your Mac.
All of these tools are really good, but I highly recommend DaisyDisk ($10) for those looking to free up even more space. It’s faster than macOS’s built-in methods, has a more user-friendly interface, and lets you see exactly which apps or folders are taking up too much space. Cleaning also takes just a couple of clicks.
Back up your photos to local storage.
Everyone knows about iCloud and uses it to back up photos to the cloud. The only thing I don’t like about this approach is that iCloud is a syncing service, not a full-fledged backup. If you delete photos from iCloud on your iPhone, they’ll be deleted from all your other Apple devices. To protect yourself from accidentally deleting photos or losing precious memories, I recommend backing up your photos elsewhere. Parachute Backup ($5) is a great Mac app that lets you back up your iCloud photos to an external drive . I recently used Parachute Backup to back up over 12,000 photos to a hard drive on my home network, and the app completed the job flawlessly in about two hours.