🗑️ Take out the trash: On a Mac, hold down Cmd + Shift, then press Delete. Boom, your trash can is empty. On Windows, you’re better off right-clicking and selecting Empty Recycle Bin.
🍎 Three shortcuts for Macs:
- Ctrl + Cmd + spacebar: Opens the emoji picker.
- Cmd + Shift + 5: Opens the screenshot tool for capturing the entire screen, a window or a selected portion. You can also record your screen from this menu.
- Cmd + Opt + Esc: Opens the force-quit menu.
“Come on!” We all have that feeling when we close the wrong browser tab. Get it back faster than navigating the history menu. On a PC, hit Ctrl + Shift + T to reopen your last tab. On a Mac, it’s Cmd + Shift + T. (You can use it multiple times to get back old tabs.)
Mac shortcut: You have a folder full of photos all named “IMG_2348” or some nonsense. Open the folder, hit Cmd + A to select all the files, then right-click and select Rename. Replace “IMG” with something like “Hawaii.” Bam! Done.
Show the desktop on a Mac: Shift all your open windows to the side and get to the shortcuts on your desktop by holding down Cmd and pressing F3. Pressing F3 on its own shows you all the windows you have open. Easy-peasy!
Lock it down: Need to quickly lock your computer? Hit the Windows key + L to get the job done. On a Mac, it’s Ctrl + Cmd + Q.
Sneak peek: In Safari, preview a website before you click the link. Using your mouse, hover the pointer over the link, then press Cmd + Ctrl + D. Voila, a pre-click preview. Click outside the preview, and it disappears.
When you just need space to think: Press Windows key + D on a PC to close all your open windows to the taskbar and see only your desktop. On a Mac, press Cmd + M to minimize your open windows.
On Windows, get a detailed report that includes usage, capacity and battery life estimates. Open the command prompt by hitting the Start menu, then typing in cmd or cmd.exe in the Run command box. Press Enter. Now, smarty-pants, type or paste in the following: powercfg /batteryreport
Mac file shortcut: If you need to rename a bunch of files on macOS, you don’t need to do it one by one. Select them all in Finder, then hold down Cmd and click on one of them. Choose Rename to apply the same change(s) to them all.
Mouse shortcut: Highlight some text, hold down Ctrl in Windows (Cmd on Mac), click your left or primary mouse button, then drag the text elsewhere. When you let go of the mouse button, your text will be pasted there. Neat, right?
Tip-tap tab: Move through your open tabs with just your keyboard. Press Ctrl + Tab on Windows or Cmd + Tab on a Mac to cycle. To quickly close your active tab, hit Ctrl + W on Windows or, on your Mac, Cmd + W.