macOS Cheatsheet

macOS Symbols

  • ⇧: Shift
  • ⌃: Control
  • ⌥: Option
  • ⌘: Command
  • 🌐: Globe / Fn (note: usually not available on non-Apple keyboards)

Keyboard Layouts

OS Shortcuts

  • ⌘ + space: Spotlight (search)
  • ⌃ + ⌘ + Q: Lock screen/computer
  • ⌃ + ⌘ + V: Paste text without formatting
  • ⇧ + ⌘ + 3: Screenshot - entire screen (saved in desktop)
  • ⇧ + ⌘ + 4: Screenshot - draw region (saved in desktop)
  • ⌃ + ⇧ + ⌘ + 3: Screenshot - entire screen (copied in clipboard)
  • ⌃ + ⇧ + ⌘ + 4: Screenshot - draw region (copied in clipboard)
  • Fn + Up/Down: Text scroll page up/down
  • Fn + Del: Text forward delete
  • ^ + ⌘ + Space: Insert emoji
  • ⌃ + ⌘ + F: Toggle full-screen
  • ⌥ + Left/Right: Go to next/previous word
  • ⌘ + Left/Right: Go to start/end of current line
  • ⌘ + Tab: Cycle through open apps
  • ⌘ + ` (backtick): Cycle through windows of the same app (when 2+ are open/running)
  • ⌃ + Tab: Cycle through open tabs (Chrome, VSCode, etc.)
  • ⌘ + Del: Delete a file
  • ⌘ when dragging a file: Move the file (instead of copying it)
  • ⌘ when dragging menu bar items: Reorder the icons (note that some might change order again in the future)
  • ⇧ + space: Next input source (default is too cumbersome)
  • space: when having one or more files selected at Finder: Preview the file(s)

App Shortcuts

Web Browsers

  • ⌘ + R: Reload tab
  • ⌘ + W: Close tab
  • ⌘ + T: Open new tab

Google Meet

  • ⌘ + D: mute/un-mute microphone

Rectangle (personal shortcuts)

  • ⌃ + ⌥ + Left: Move to left half
  • ⌃ + ⌥ + Right: Move to right half
  • ⌃ + ⌥ + Up: Move to upper half
  • ⌃ + ⌥ + Down: Move to lower half
  • ⌃ + ⌥ + Enter: Maximize
  • ⌥ + ⌘ + -: Make window smaller
  • ⌥ + ⌘ + =: Make window bigger

Terminal

  • ⌃ + R: reverse search

Vim

  • Fix no colors: echo "syntax on" >> ~/.vimrc from a terminal

VSCode

  • ⌘ + F: Find text in open file
  • ⇧ + ⌘ + F: Find text in all project files
  • ⌘ + P: Find file
  • ⌃ + -: Go back
  • ⌃ + G: Go to (often, go to a specific line number)
  • ^ + Tab: Cycle through tabs (open files)
  • Select multiple lines, then ⇧ + ⌥ + I: Multi-line editing
  • ⌥ + ⌘ + T (customized shortcut): Enable/Disable Copilot Completions

Tools

brew/Homebrew: The package manager for macOS. Required for many of the tools.

  • 7Zip: brew install sevenzip + 7zz from terminal.
  • BetterCapture: Free full-featured screen recording.
  • CotEditor: Better replacement for TextEdit, but still fast and not feature-bloated.
  • Disk Space Analyzer: Check where is your used space located. The free version is more than capable.
  • eza: Better ls, with features like hyperlinks. My config (invoked via l):
# add to .zshrc or similar
alias l='eza -l --icons --hyperlink --color=auto'
  • Flushing DNS cache: sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder.
  • Funter: Tool to show/hide hidden files in Finder. As an alternative, you can enable displaying hidden files system-wide from a terminal via defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true; killall Finder;.
  • Git:
brew install git
  • I disable the zsh globbing pattern matching because can collide with command lines that include * or ?. Otherwise, you can run commands prefixed with noglob (source) to explicitly disable the pattern matching just there.
  • KeePassXC: My preferred password manager.
  • Kitty: Lightweight and fast terminal.
  • jq: The command-line JSON parser.
  • NodeJS:
# install (specific LTS version)
brew install node@22
npm install -g npm
# updates
brew upgrade node@22
npm install -g npm
  • Menu Bar Spacing: Allows to compact the menu bar items.
  • noTunes: Because who would ever want to disable Apple Music, you can't do it easily. This open-source tool allows you not only that, but also to set any other application as the default app for music.
  • OBS Studio: The ultimate (free) application for live streaming and screen recording.
  • OmniDiskSweeper: Check where is your used space located. Simple, but free.
  • OpenSuperWhisper: macOS dictation app, with local models.
  • Pinta: FOSS image editing software.
  • Python: Using brew, you can install multiple Python versions, e.g. brew install python@3.11.
  • Rectangle: Allows decent moving and resizing of windows. Highly customizable.
  • Standard Notes: A simplistic alternative to take notes. Free version is restricted to text-only, but still provides sync.
  • The Unarchiver: To open most compressed file formats.
  • tree: Add a tree command via a simple zsh alias: alias tree="find . -print | sed -e 's;[^/]*/;|____;g;s;____|; |;g'".
  • VMware Workstation Pro: It is now free for personal usage. Windows 11 runs quite well on it, but guest OS are limited to ARM versions.
  • You can install watch on macOS via brew install watch, and back to running tests in loop or checking when a process runs (via 'pgrep -fl <app>')
  • XCode CodeThemes: Themes for the IDE. To install them, copy the file(s) to ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/UserData/FontAndColorThemes/ (create the folder if does not exist).

Gaming-Related

  • Mac Source Ports: macOS Builds of FOSS game engines.
  • AppleGamingWiki: Compatibility lists for many Windows games, to see if you can run them via Parallels, Crossover, or any other way.
  • Porting Kit: Wine for macOS, using Metal.

Miscellaneous

Fixes and Tweaks

  • How to remove the annoying and inconsistent menu icons: defaults write -g NSMenuEnableActionImages -bool NO in a terminal, and restart your machine.
  • How to launch vscode from the command line in macOS.
  • How to specify a different language than your macOS locale: export LANG="en_US.UTF-8" at ~/.zshrc.
  • If you have issues with e.g. Google Chrome accessing other devices in your local network (e.g. 192.168.0.1), go to System Settings ⇾ Privacy and Security ⇾ Local Network ⇾ Enable Google Chrome there. You might need to clear the browser's cache/history to pick up the changes.
  • How to compress a folder into a password-protected zip: Go to terminal and zip -er <filename>.zip <folder>.

Handy Special Characters

  • ⌥ + n, then n (ABC input source): ñ
  • ⌥ + n, then ⇧ + n (ABC input source): Ñ
  • ~ £ €
  • ⇾ ← → ⇽ ✅ ❌

Not actively used Tools

Suggestions of tools I find interesting or used in the past.

  • caffeinate: Prevent system from sleeping, optionally waiting for a pid to finish.
  • CrystalFetch ISO Downloader: Free tool to download Windows 10/11 installer ISO images. You need to provide your valid Windows license key.
  • DeskPad: Virtual monitor for screen sharing.
  • iTerm2: A better terminal, fast and very customizable.
    • I recommend to change the preset at Settings ⇾ Profiles ⇾ Keys to the Natural Text Editing one
  • MemoryCleaner: Quicker than using the Activity Monitor.
  • P4Merge (Helix Visual Merge Tool): One of the few free visual diff and merge tools for macOS I've found.
  • Picard: A nice audio files tagger, including support for tagging scripts.
  • Stats: Menu bar systems monitor.
  • Tomito: Pomodoro timer. Free and without ads.
  • uBlock Origin Lite
  • UTM: QEMU-based Virtual machine runner. Allows x86 and x64 VMs on ARM hosts, but beware, those are emulared and thus very slow.
The macOS Cheatsheet page was written by Kartones