The one tip you love sharing to power or non-power users

Woah. I had no idea. This will be amazingly useful.

I have a folder on my dock that is a smart folder for anything with the tag ‘pinned.’ The things i know i will need often, wherever they may be saved on my mac, just get that tag and are always right there in my dock. It is also a very strict list. Theres not more than 10 items pinned. Emergency numbers and documents, personal budget spreadsheet, stuff like that. I either need it fast or need it often.

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When taking a screenshot of app window (CMD+Shift+4+Spacebar), hold the option key before clicking to take the screenshot without any drop shadow.

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I’m puzzled. Can you help me understand how your comment fits the topic of this thread? The original post notes: “I’m wondering if there is one Apple tip you would feel most people would benefit from.”

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Cool – and probably avoids relying on 3rd party software to track things. :+1:

Katie

How’d you mean? I have Excel docs and things like that pinned. Just things i need often. Mostly spreadsheets, pdfs or a specific folder.

If you have an app freeze up on you, just Cmd+Opt+Esc and this brings up the force quit window! Just learned that one today…

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A Use for Tags

Create three Finder tags: TOL (top of list); Current; Someday.

TOL is for items that need to happen today or it is a priority that they happen soon.
Current is for items that don’t have to happen today or even that soon but you don’t want to lose track of and want them within arms reach.
Someday is for items that may or may not ever happen and you want to keep them from disappearing.

I find that calendaring items often times is too rigid as when the time comes and goes and I was off doing something else a little train wreck in the calendar occurs. I’ve done this so many times that the flexibility of working off a prioritized list works better.

A neat thing about tags is that they show up in the MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Once you get the hang of them they are very easy to add and remove AND you can configure Keyboard Maestro on the Mac side to add and remove them even more easily.

Also, you can create saved searches in the side bar of a Finder window for each of these tags that makes accessing and switching between them very convenient.

Once you’ve started doing this and working off the lists that this generates, you may find yourself adding prefixes to your folder or file names to further sort the items in your lists. Sorting by file name or date added gives different useful views of your items.

I suggest keeping the TOL list to no more than 20 items as it is very unlikely you’re going to be doing that many items during the next 2-3 days.

When the Someday list starts becoming pages and pages long, it’s time for a heart to heart talk with yourself about what you’re actually up to. :wink:

This is just how I’ve come to use this idea over a long time of many iterations, your milage will vary and likely morph over time.

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Just did this last week for my mom. And she’s on Windows 8, so I can’t find anything on her system with that stupid start non-menu. Thinking of getting her an iPad for Xmas.

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Learn to use Applescript, Terminal and Automator. All three applications are included for free, on any and all Macs.

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Except for terminal (the unix/linux command line actually), that’s not the best advice in the world. Applescript has very little value, and Automator was once promising but never really took off. You’d be better of learning a scripting language like Javascript or Python these days. These have also value outside the Apple world.

This is, of course, a matter of opinion, however I am concerned about the future of AppleScript and Automator. Furthermore, Applescript is sufficiently different from other programming languages that it is perhaps not good a first language to learn.

So, @vco1, I agree with your conclusions but for somewhat different reasons.

To expand on that you can also drag and drop folders from both the Spotlight result list and more importantly Alfred into any file picker dialog (open, save etc.)!
My entire workflow of managing files relies on Alfred’s brilliant fuzzy search for folders. As I usually use unique (sub)folder names for projects, I often will move files around just with Alfred’s move file action.

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