Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Mac Keyboard Shortcuts for Beginners”.
This short video tutorial is one of a series that focuses on keyboard shortcuts on the Mac. So please check out the other videos that are part of the series and let’s jump right in now and get started the shortcuts that I’m gon na share in this article are ones that I think, are imperative for all Mac beginners. To be aware of now. Some of you that have been using the Mac for a while may not be aware of all of these shortcuts, but especially if you’re new to Mac, if you’re used to using Windows, especially or if you’re, just new to using computers at all.
And you have a Mac, these will be particularly useful to you. If you’re like me, you’ll end up opening multiple windows, multiple software programs on the screen and pretty soon you’ll have quite a mess. You can see.
I’Ve got several things open and it’s just too cluttered for me. So what are some things that you can do to solve that problem? Well, on a Mac, you can hold the command key, that’s just to the left of the spacebar and then tap the tab. Button and look what happens when you do that now, I’m still holding command, but I tapped tab and look what it does. It gives me a series of icons and each of these icons represents a different program that I have open at this time now.
If I tap tab again, look what happens it tabs over and selects a different app each time I tap tap now my thumb is still on the command key, but using this method and using this keyboard shortcut, I can easily switch from let’s say the App Store To Chrome to the finder to word or whatever I have, that is open and active. So that’s a very useful keyboard shortcut. It helps you switch back and forth quickly from one app to the next great. Now, let’s say it’s the end of the day and you would like to shut off your computer, let it rest overnight. You can use this same keyboard shortcut command, tab to quickly shut down all of these different software applications.
What you would do is tap tab until it gets to one that you want to shut down and then tap Q to quit. Now my thumb is still on command, so I’m holding command and then I’m tapping q and one by one. Each of these will get shut down: q, okay and very quickly.
You can shut down all of the apps all of the software programs that are open on computer okay. So that’s a combination of command, tab and command queue. You do command tab to get this list here of open, apps or programs and then keep your thumb on command and just tap Q to quit, each of those one by one. Okay, so very, very quickly. You can clear out and shut down all of your programs and you’ll be able to then shut down your computer now. Another keyboard shortcut that you really need to be aware of is one.
That’S particularly useful when you’re browsing the internet surfing the internet and let’s say you go to a website and while you’re on that website, maybe you would like to also go to another website now. Many of you know that you can create a second tab right. I can click this plus sign to give me a second tab, but there’s actually a keyboard shortcut. That’S much better, just hold command and tap T and you get another tab that you can use to browse.
So I can use this to go to Google, let’s say, and then I could hold command and tap T to get a third tab. So this is really nice now I’m showing this in Safari, but it works just as well in Chrome, okay, here I am in Chrome command tab and I can get multiple tabs. It also works in the finder, so here in the finder, if I tap command tab, look, I get another tab in another tab and this is very useful, especially if you want to move things or copy/paste them from one area of the finder to another, having multiple Tabs can be very useful now. That’S not all this command T for new tab is also usable in many other apps and services and tools so try it out and see if it works in the applications that you use now. The last Mac keyboard shortcut that I’m going to show in this tutorial is one that I hope you never have to use, but trust me you will, and that is let’s say something goes wrong with your Mac. It’S frozen or a particular application is frozen.
You know when I first started using Mac. People told me that I would love it because it would just never crash the way Windows computers crash. Well, I do love my Mac, but I also love Windows and honestly, I haven’t noticed a huge decrease in the number of crashes. Maybe I’m just hard on computers, but anyway it will crash or freeze from time to time and one thing you can try to help. You out in that situation is hold command.
The command key on the keyboard, then hold option just next to the command button and then tap escape, and this gives you the force quit menu, as it says here. If an app doesn’t respond for a while select its name and force quit so click key note, for example, force quit. It says: are you sure you’re gon na lose any unsaved changes? That’S fine force quit same with preview.
I can force quit that now. This, like I say, is mostly for when things stop working right now, these things are all working, and so it’s much better for me to use command tab like I showed earlier and then use command Q to quit. Out of them, that’s the better way, but if something is malfunctioning, this force quit is probably the best option.
You’Re gon na have to close down some of these applications that might be causing your computer to freeze great. So hopefully, those keyboard shortcuts help you out and please consider watching my other video tutorials, especially the ones that focus on mac keyboard shortcuts and please consider subscribing to my youtube channel for more videos about technology for teachers and students and watch for a new video. At least every Monday .