9 useful Mac features you might not know about in 2022
Apple's Mac range is crammed with features to help you stay productive, but some of those tools are rather easy to miss. In our Mac tips and tricks guide, we've rounded up nine features that you'll find useful.
Did you know, for example, that you can silence incoming notifications to keep you focused in your home office? Or that you can 'throw' a Safari page from your Mac right to your iPhone without having to send the link in an email?
Keep scrolling for our tips covering MacBooks, iMacs, Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro. Plus, we've got details on why signing up for Which? Tech Support is a great option if you need to deal with any frustrating Mac problems.
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1. Start a task on Mac and finish it on iPhone
If you own both an Apple laptop and an iPhone, you can start a task on one device and swap over to the other seamlessly. For example, you might have a Safari page open on your Mac and then decide you want to carry on reading while you're on the move. This is all done using a tool called Handoff.
Before you can use Handoff, you have to activate it on both your Mac and iPhone. Check the Apple website (under the Handoff heading) for details on which devices are compatible. Both devices also need to be signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID, with Bluetooth and wi-fi enabled.
To activate Handoff on Mac:
- Click the Apple icon and choose System Preferences
- Select General
- Choose Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices
To activate Handoff on iPhone:
- Go to Settings
- Select General > AirPlay & Handoff
- Enable Handoff
Now, let's test the feature. On your Mac, open Safari and navigate to the Which? website. Then, from your iPhone, access the App Switcher by swiping up slightly from the bottom of your screen. You should see a Safari banner – tap it to open the same page you were looking at on Mac.
2. View two web pages at the same time
This is called split view, and you can put two web pages or even two apps side-by-side on your screen.
Hover your mouse over the green full-screen button in the top-left of your window. From the drop-down menu, choose Tile Window to Left of Screen or Tile Window to Right of Screen. Your window will then fill whichever side you chose. Then click a window on the other side of the screen to view it alongside.
To stop split view, click that green button again and the window will exit – alternatively, swipe left or right with four fingers on your trackpad.
3. Knuckle down with Do Not Disturb mode
If you need to power through tasks on your Mac without being distracted, Apple's Focus mode can help you stay on track. It works by temporarily hiding notifications that pop up in the corner of your screen.
To activate Focus, you can use Control Centre in the top-right corner of your screen. Click the Focus button to configure the tool. You can activate Do Not Disturb for one hour or until this evening.
From the same menu, you can select Focus Preferences, which lets you see certain notifications even if you're in Do Not Disturb mode – a message from a friend or family member, for example. You can also set up the tool to automatically turn on at a specific time.
A pair of noise-cancelling headphones can also help you block out distractions. To see which models we rate highly in our expert lab tests, check in with our guide to the best headphones
4. Change your screen resolution to enlarge the text
By default, Mac will automatically determine the 'best' size for on-screen text and objects. However, if you'd prefer to make elements larger, you can make some adjustments.
Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your screen, then choose System Preference. From here, select Displays – you'll see an image of your computer alongside screen resolution and brightness settings.
Next to the Resolution menu, select Scaled. Now, you can choose to make text larger, or do the opposite and give yourself more screen space to work with. Pick the setting that works best for you and then close the Displays window to finish.
For more tips on making your computer more accessible, whether you have a Mac or a Windows PC, see 9 easy ways to make your PC easier to use
5. Jot something down with Quick Note
This is a very simple Mac feature, but a handy one if you're regularly taking notes. All Apple computers come with the Notes app pre-installed, but if you want quick access to it, you can use a keyboard shortcut.
To open a Quick Note, simply press and hold the Fn key, then press Q.
If you want to always start a new Quick Note (instead of opening the previous one), open the Notes app and choose Notes > Preferences, then deselect Resume last Quick Note.
You can also send Safari links right to a Quick Note. From the Safari app on Mac, open the website you want to link to, click Share and then choose New Quick Note or Add to Quick Note.
If you're thinking of treating yourself to a new iPhone, don't part with your money without consulting our expert Apple iPhone reviews
6. Organise your desktop with stacks
The stacks feature on Mac will neatly arrange your files into groups, based on the type of file. For example, you can have a stack for documents, another for images and another for spreadsheets.
With stacks enabled, every new file saved to your desktop will be sorted into a group automatically.
To activate stacks on Mac, click the Desktop, then View > Use Stacks. To see what's contained within a stack at a glance, swipe left or right on the stack using two fingers on the trackpack, or one finger on an Apple Magic Mouse.
7. Annotate a PDF
With PDFs – the predominant file type of choice for business communications – it can be very frustrating that you have no way to easily edit them. Until now.
Double click on your PDF file and it should open up in Preview, the default PDF viewer on Mac. If not, you can find it within your Applications folder.
Once the document is open, click the pen icon, which then opens the markup menu bar underneath. Using the tools in that bar, you can highlight text and annotate your PDF. Once you've finished annotating it, you can share the PDF via the File > Share option in the Menu bar.
8. Rename lots of files in one go
Renaming files can be a tedious task, but if you’re using a Mac with Yosemite or later, you can do it with one simple action. This should save you some time when you're organising your most important documents, pictures and videos.
Select all of the files you want to rename, right-click, and then select Rename. This presents you with three options for renaming:
- Replace Text allows you to change, for example, the ‘IMG’ part of file names with something more relevant. For example, ‘IMG_01’ and ‘IMG_02’ could become ‘Dad’s birthday_01’ and ‘Dad’s birthday_02’.
- Add text will let you add text before or after all of the file names you've selected.
- The format lets you choose between naming presets, one of which will work the date into file names.
When you've picked one of the above options, click Rename to apply the changes.
9. Interact with text on an image
Since the arrival of Live Text on Mac, it's possible to select and interact with text embedded within an image you'd have open in Preview.
In the example above, you'll see that it's possible to highlight a phone number found within a picture. From your Mac, you can then add that phone number to your address book, or dial the number through a connected iPhone.
Other features of Live Text on Mac include:
- Copy text on an image and paste it into another document
- Look up the meaning of the text to open the dictionary
- Translate text to your chosen language
- Search the web for the text
- Share the text with others through email or text message.
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