I’ve been using a Mac for more than a decade and there are things I do like second nature without thinking when it comes to keyboard shortcuts. I’m sharing stuff I use most often, thus making it my top five shortcuts.

In no particular order:

  1. SCREENSHOTS
    There is a basic way to take a screenshot on Mac (Command + Shift + 3) and there’s a better neat way. Using Command + Shift + 4 lets you select the exact area of what you want to screenshot. Just use the trackpad to select (or a connected mouse). Once you let go, it takes the screenshot of the very specific area.
  2. EMOJI KEYBOARD
    If you follow me on Twitter, you know I love me some emojis. The quickest way to bring it up is Command + Control + Spacebar. It also lets you search the keyboard with keywords, especially useful when looking for flags, ha. Also if you hover over the emoji you can see what they are labelled as, and if you use them correctly, like those yellow faces.
  3. FORCE QUIT
    Often referred to as the Ctrl + Alt + Delete version for Mac, Command + Option + Esc will let you force quit applications that are not responding or if you want to relaunch Finder if it’s hanging for too long.
  4. ACCENTS
    This is easy and you may have discovered it accidentally but also something I use almost daily. Just long press the letter you want to add an accent to (like èé) and press the corresponding number to get it. 
  5. SEARCH
    The search function is one of my favourites because I use it to open apps. Just hold Command + Spacebar and it will search your Mac for anything. So instead of navigating to the Applications folder, I just do it this way. Or to locate files.
  6. BONUS – RIGHT CLICK 
    Back in the day when I was stationed at an office, the first thing people asked me on Mac was how do you right click? This is kinda intermediate and falls on the Trackpad settings. Go to Point & Click > Secondary click and choose ‘bottom right corner’. Now you can click the bottom right of the trackpad to bring up those settings when navigating.

These are quite basic and at a beginner level. If you’re new to Mac, hope you found it useful.