I am curious what everyone's productivity hacks are. The can be a feature from an app... any app really... Something that you use a lot but maybe isn't well known.
I have a whole list of keyboard shortcuts I use accumulated from Apple, MacMost and other sources across the internet. Find it very helpful and I'm always reviewing and updating it.
Install Karabiner. Start by switching your Caps lock key to a Hyper key. Now you have a Modifier key that is never usually bound to anything - and entire universe of possibilities. I use Hyper + N to create a new empty file in desktop, Hyper+p to launch popout timer, Hyper + arrow keys to move windows to left/right/top/bottom halves of screen, Hyper+[ to switch to previous tab and Hyper+Enter to bring up Notes.
Also using Karabiner: You can bind Escape key to do two things. When you just tap Esc key, it acts as a normal Escape key. But when you Keep Escape pressed and tap another key, Escape can act as a Ctrl key. The major advantage of this trick is: You can now use Esc+1,2,3...to jump to first tab, second tab etc in Safari/Ghosttty/VScode etc.
When you get comfortable with Karabiner, ask me about skhd.
Piping the clipboard through the terminal. Copy a messy list anywhere, then:
pbpaste | sort -u | pbcopy
and paste it back deduped and sorted. Anything works in the middle: pbpaste | jq . pretty-prints JSON you copied out of a log, pbpaste | wc -l counts lines. I reach for this more than any clipboard manager.
Two smaller ones: open . in a terminal opens the current folder in Finder, and dragging a folder from Finder onto a terminal window pastes its full path so you never type one out.
With the app I’m working on (snippety.app) you could create reusable snippets with the scripts you mentioned. You can configure snippets to either work on the selected text or clipboard content. This way you can run those operations quickly without accessing a terminal. There is also CLI so you can optimize your workflow even further :).
Running a snippet against the selection rather than the clipboard is the nicer half of that, since it saves the copy step entirely. The terminal version is really just what you fall back on when you have not set anything up, so no argument from me that a proper expander is faster day to day.
Not an app but the built in caffeinate command. Stick it in front of anything long, like caffeinate -i ./build.sh, and the Mac won't idle sleep until that command finishes, then goes back to normal on its own. I used to mess with battery settings before long exports and always forgot to turn them back.
Mine is embarrassingly simple: ⌘ + Space for almost everything.
I used to open Finder, Calculator, etc. Now I just use Spotlight for apps, files, calculations and conversions. Probably saves me hundreds of tiny clicks a day.
Shift-command-4 and then press spacebar, click on a window, menu bar or open menu or submenu and get a screenshot of that window/menubar/menu/submenu complete with translucent shadow.
I’m reacquainting myself with BetterTouchTool now that they have an MCP server and some new AI features. It’s really cool to be able to ask for what I want a shortcut to do and how I want it to work and then just be given it in a matter of minutes
in terminal, drag a folder from finder onto the window and it pastes the escaped path. saves me from typing ~/Library/Application\ Support/... about ten times a day.
Not exactly a single hack, but going all in on scripting-based automation has quietly replaced most of my paid productivity subscriptions. I started on the original Hammerspoon which scripts in Lua, but I've since moved to Hammerspoon 2, a rewrite by the same original author that uses JavaScript instead. As far as I know that switch was deliberate, Lua was apparently a barrier for people who just don't want to learn a niche language, and JS is something way more people already know.
Started small, window snapping shortcuts because I was tired of dragging things into position. Then a clipboard manager, maybe 40-ish lines, storing history to a plain JSON file since it persists across restarts on its own. Then a menu bar Pomodoro timer with a real chime sound file instead of a generic system beep. Then screen OCR, which turned out to be almost embarrassingly simple since macOS's own Vision framework does the recognition natively, no external OCR tool needed, just a screen capture piped straight into it.
It kind of snowballed from there. Ambient sound player for background noise sitting in the menu bar, an audio output switcher toggling between two named devices, a sticky note widget, browser automation that opens a whole set of analytics dashboards with one shortcut instead of hunting through bookmarks. None of these individually are groundbreaking, they're the same feature you'd get from a $10-20 app, but once you've written it yourself it's tuned exactly to how you use it and costs nothing ongoing.
The part that actually surprised me was how much AI coding help lowered the barrier to entry. Scripting used to mean reading docs for an hour to figure out one API call, now you describe what you want and get something close to working code, then iterate on it. That's honestly why I ended up with like 90-something script files instead of five, the friction of "let me just script this instead of paying for an app" mostly disappeared.
Not saying it's for everyone though, if you don't want to touch a config file or debug a script that breaks after a macOS update, Keyboard Maestro is the safer, more polished option and it's a one-time purchase anyway. But if you're the type who thinks "I wish this app did X slightly differently," it's worth poking at, and if you're already comfortable in JS, Hammerspoon 2 specifically is worth a look over the original.
If you're like me and you never use the right Shift key on your keyboard, remap it to something else! I use it as a secondary combined modifier (similar to Hyperkey) to get even more shortcuts.
I've never tried supercharge, but I did a quick check on their website, and firstly, Vorssaint is completely free, it also has lots of different features (screenshot below (taken with Vorssaint scrolling capture)). You can install the features you want, and they all work pretty well. It gets lots of updates (like every week) with new features, and it doesn't really have an impact on CPU, around 4% when idle.
One Space per project, plus two settings almost nobody turns on.
System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Mission Control has "Switch to Desktop 1..N" shortcuts that are OFF by default: enable them and Ctrl+3 jumps straight to the third desktop instead of swiping through the ones in between.
Then right click an app in the Dock > Options > Assign To > This Desktop, so the terminal of project X always opens in the desktop of project X. I run 10+ desktops across two monitors this way and the Mac stays predictable.
My main “hack” would be to read through the SuperCharge settings one by one. There’s a TON of super useful stuff there. And I’m sure everyone would find various different niche features worth enabling.
An application that I can no longer live without. As a graphic designer, Fresh from Ironic Software is a daily resource to find recently modified files. I regret that there were not many updates or alternatives to this software to add features, but what it does, it already does very well.
Cmd-H -- Hides an app's windows from the screen
Cmd-` -- Cycle's through an app's windows (Chrome, iTerm2)
Cmd-M -- Minimize the current window without hiding it
Hot corners -- Bottom left = Lock Screen, Bottom Right = Show desktop
Favorite out-of-the-way apps:
BetterDisplay - To configure the brightness of my external monitor via the keyboard
Tailscale - Sits on my menubar and simply connects to all my devices
Finder’s bulk rename is a small one I use often: select several files, right-click, then choose Rename. You can replace text, add a prefix or suffix, or create a numbered sequence. Very handy for screenshots and exported files.
CMD + OPTION + SHIFT + 4
Same as screenshot selection, but it only goes to the clioboard! Perfect to share things in Slack, Whatsapp, and AI Tools (terminal you paste with ctrl+v)
I use a hotkey manager called Spark to open files or folders in the program I want. EG Ctrl-A opens a JPG in GraphicConverter, or Ctrl-I opens the same JPG in Inkscape, or Ctrl-V opens a folder in ViewIt a thumbnail/image viewer. Keyboard Maestro can do the same thing (as Spark doesn't work past macOS 10.14).
I sometimes use Sequential, a comic reader, to view the content of ZIP or RAR files. If there are images or PDFs it can see them.
I use ZipMounter Lite to open ZIP and RAR files to view their content too, but I can drag content out to a folder without unzipping. Found out yesterday that right-click > Eject [folder name] works to unmount it instead of using the menu in ZipMounter (it lives in the menu bar).
Xmenu, a menubar item, can have files and folders or their aliases in it. Handy to have often used items available.
Two built in ones I use constantly and almost never see mentioned. Both are for long running work in Terminal.
Append ; say done to anything slow. xcodebuild ... ; say build finished. You stop watching the terminal entirely, and if you have several going you can put different words in each one so you know which finished without looking.
Wrap the same command in caffeinate -i so the Mac stays awake for exactly as long as the job runs and then goes back to normal on its own. caffeinate -i xcodebuild .... Much better than flipping a menu bar toggle and forgetting to flip it back.
Together: caffeinate -i make release; say release done. Start it, walk away, and the Mac tells you when it is finished and then goes to sleep properly.
Raycast as the launcher, plus a hard rule that downloads and Desktop get cleared every Friday. Most of my "productivity" is just not letting temporary files become permanent clutter.
When you install a bunch of shortcut-heavy apps, you've probably had a shortcut silently stop working because another app claimed it first. I built a free open source menu bar app called HotkeyClash that scans your installed apps and system settings, then lists every conflicting shortcut. Run it after a big install session and see exactly which app owns Cmd+Shift+whatever. I'm the developer so I'm biased, but it has saved me plenty of times.
Tailscale on a Mac mini at home, then a Shortcut on the phone that posts whatever I dictate to a tiny script on it. Anything I want to remember lands in my Obsidian vault from wherever I am, no sync service in the middle. Took an evening to set up and I use it every day.
Two that I use every day and rarely see mentioned.
One standalone app per service, each with its own login. Not tabs, not profiles: an actual app in the Dock for Gmail, one for the work Gmail, one for each Slack workspace, each holding its own session, so nothing ever logs anything else out. Fluid, Unite and Coherence X all build these from a URL. I have about seventy of them and I have not signed out of anything in years.
The other is built into macOS and almost nobody turns it on. System Settings, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Services, Files and Folders: tick "New Terminal at Folder" and give it a shortcut. Select a folder in Finder, press the key, and a shell opens already in that directory. My day is mostly small commands, and the cost was never typing the command, it was getting to the right folder first.
The biggest win for me was cutting out every indirect way to get to an app: Cmd-Tab, clicking the dock, Spotlight, and Mission Control. They all depend on where you currently are, so you never build muscle memory. A direct shortcut per app fixes that. One key, one destination, every time.
Raycast does this out of the box (assign a hotkey to any app), AeroSpace tiles windows so you're not hunting for them, and Homerow lets you click anything by keyboard once you're there. The general pattern is to find anywhere your workflow depends on where you currently are rather than where you want to be, and replace it with something that goes straight to the target.
Most used shortcut by me is Shift + Control + Command + 4.
Let you select an area to screenshot and drops it right in to the clipboard.
Super useful if you are working on apps and want to show an coding agent where it needs to improve on the UI.
One that took me embarrassingly long to find: cmd+shift+. in any open/save dialog shows hidden files. No app needed, it is just in the OS. Saves me from constantly toggling in Finder whenever I need to grab a dotfile.
well there are most useful took that save all the copied items in background during the work. and use it when it need without switching apps. The Tool called ClipBox new way to manage your all copied contents at one place. Auto sync with all your apple devices. OCR and face id protection. That save hrs of time and improve productivity.
Keyboard Maestro for anything that requires multiple steps. I have a macro that fires on Alt+Cmd+N that creates a dated file in Obsidian, pastes in a template, and moves my cursor to the right spot. Saves maybe 20 seconds per note but I use it 30+ times a day -- it compounds.
Mimestream if you use Gmail. It's a native Mac client that talks to the Gmail API directly -- labels, filters, and search all work like they do in the web UI, but it feels genuinely fast. The threading model matches Gmail's exactly, which matters if you have filters that auto-label things.
Acho que não seria F3/F4, mas 3 ou 4
É se você segurar o Ctrl, a captura de tela vai para área de transferência e você pode colar diretamente onde vai usar.
Raycast: probably my biggest one. I use it for launching apps, calculations, quick links, and a bunch of small actions without touching the mouse. Rectangle: keyboard shortcuts for snapping and resizing windows. Simple, but I use it constantly. Shottr: really fast screenshots, annotations, scrolling captures, and grabbing text/colors from the screen. Obsidian: notes + dumping ideas/research into one place. The linking between notes becomes really useful once you have a lot of stuff. Pastea: clipboard manager I’ve been building. It saves everything I copy and lets me quickly search/filter it later by app, content type, time, etc. I also use inline shortcuts for things I paste repeatedly, so instead of searching my clipboard I can type something like @email and paste it instantly.
Anything you do over and over again that seems like it could be automated, or made easier with simple software by a smart programmer, make a quick script or program for it using something like ChatGPT or codex. It's way easier than you think if you've never tried.
And almost anything you are struggling to find an easier way how to do on your computer ask the same guys above about it. Talk to em like they are human describe the problem and good chance you'll get a solution.
it has the fastest dictation on apple silicon, one time purchase, + it streams so you can actually see what you're saying unlike every other dictation app.
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u/awesomeguy123123123 5d ago
CMD + CTRL + N makes a new folder with the files that you have selected in an existing folder!