Become More Efficient on Your Mac with These 5 Keyboard Shortcuts

All the different keyboard shortcuts are one of the many reasons I love my Mac! Keyboard shortcuts can save you time and make your overall user experience more enjoyable. Below are the 5 keyboard shortcuts that I use everyday:

1. “Command + F” (Find)

How often have you done a google search for a lesson plan or resource and come up with thousands of results? Who has time to read through an entire website or article? The “command + F” shortcut can help you quickly identify if a website is going to be useful. Hit “command + F” to bring down a search box (see image to the right) and search the web page for keywords or phrases. The search will tell you how many times and where the key words appear on the page. This shortcut has been a big time saver for me!

2. “Command + M” (Minimize Windows)

One of the biggest differences between a Mac and PC is minimizing and expanding open applications. Using “Command + M” helped me adjust to this difference. “Command + M” minimizes any open window. Now I don’t have to mess with the red, yellow, or green buttons in the upper left hand corner of open applications.

3. “Command + tab” and “Command + Q” (See running applications and quit unwanted applications)

This one I recently learned about from our great TSA Janet Woods. You can hit “command + tab” to see all the running applications at any given time. If you hold down “command” and continue to hit “tab” you can cycle through the running applications. Stop on any application you don’t want running and hit “Q” while still holding down “command” to close that application. This can be a big battery saver!

4. “Command + C” and “Command + V” (Copy and Paste)

Sharing website urls via email and twitter is a big part of my job and requires me to copy and paste quite often. I simply click on a url and hit “command + C” to copy the url and “command + V” to paste the url into an email or tweet. I probably use these two shortcuts the most.

5. “Command + Z” (Undo)

The undo shortcut is a close second to copy and pasting in terms of the shortcut I use most often. Simply hit “command + Z” to undo a mistake you made while typing.

What keyboard shortcuts have you found helpful? Leave a comment below and let us know!