Ten Advanced Hidden Tips for macOS: From Hidden Applications, to Terminal Commands

For macOS 15 Sequoia

Intro

Here are 10 tips for macOS that you probably didn't know.

One thing I like to do in my spare time is find out new tips for macOS. Digging through underrated tips and ones which might not be useful to me (better managing windows, mission control, etc.), I have found a few useful tips which I want to share.

Most of these will work with any recent version of macOS. Ones that require a certain version or later will be mentioned if I know when the feature came out.

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Some of the tips mentioned in this guide will require you to enter commands at the terminal. For those who don't know, the terminal is like the command prompt in Windows.

To open the terminal, do the following:

1. Navigate to Spotlight with Command+Space
2. Type Terminal and press enter.
   • Alternatively, navigate to /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
3. Paste the command that you wish to enter, and press the Return key to confirm the command.

You will know that a command has executed successfully when you hear your username followed by your computer's name then a %, like the following:

Levi-Gobin@Levis-MacBook-Pro ~ % 

For those curious, this tells you that the User "Levi-Gobin" is using the computer "Levi's MacBook Pro", and the current directory is "~", or the home directory.

macOS will alert you if you try to close the terminal while something is running. You can stop the currently running command by pressing Control+C. You can use Control+L to clear the text field if things get too cluttered.

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Tip 1: turn any file into a template, no matter what it is.

If you want to use a file as a template, you can turn it into a template, no matter the file extension. You can tell macOS to turn it into a template. This works for any kind of file (txt, pdfs, word documents, pages files, etc.)

1. Open Finder and find the file you wish to use as a template.
2. Press Command+I to open the Info window.
3. Check the "Stationery pad" checkbox.

• Whenever you open this file, it will be duplicated, and the duplicate will be opened.
• macOS will play the standard paste/duplicated sound when this happens.

Tip 2: Lock a file to prevent modification.

You can lock files so that you don't accidentally delete them, or other apps can't delete them and make changes.

Note, this doesn't stop anyone from deleting the file. When trying to delete the locked file from the finder, macOS will display a message stating that the file is locked. You can move it to the trash anyway.

You cannot delete the file, even if you use sudo chmod +rw, or sudo rm -rf in the terminal.

Locking a file prevents you from accidentally moving it to the trash or modifying it. Apps that try to delete the file will be unable to delete the locked file.

1. In Finder, find the file you wish to lock.
2. Press Command+I to open the info window for the file.
3. Check the "Locked" checkbox.
   • This is not the "Lock" toggle button under the sharing and permissions section.

Tip 3: Navigate faster with faster key repeat rates.

By default, when holding down a key, it will get repeated 12 times per second. This can be decreased to around 0.5 key presses per second (one key press every 2 seconds), and can be increased to around 30 times per second in System Settings, and up to really fast key repeat rates using a terminal command shown below.

1. Open System Settings and navigate to keyboard
2. At the top, you can find two sliders:
   • Key repeat rate: Increase the slider to make keys repeat faster, or decrease to make keys repeat slower.
   • Delay until repeat: Adjust how long you need to hold the key before it begins to repeat. This can be adjusted from 2 seconds to 0.25 seconds (250 MS).

Make the keys repeat faster!

In the following command, 1.15 is the highest key repeat you can go in system settings. You can enter values as low as 0.01 which will cause keys to be repeated endlessly, or at least for a very long time after you let go of the keys.

defaults write -g KeyRepeat -int <n>

Replace <n> with a number. I would recommend setting the key repeat rate to 1 (double the fastest setting in system settings) if you are looking for a fast setting, which is what I prefer.

Adjusting the delay until repeat setting faster than in system settings

The following command will allow you to adjust the delay until keys begin to repeat.

Warning

Setting the value too small with a high key repeat rate will cause keys to immediately begin to repeat before you can release them.

If you enter a too small of a value and your key repeat is set too fast, good luck changing it. Be prepared to use the trackpad commander.

defaults write -g InitialKeyRepeat -int <N>

Tip 4: TinkerTool: the app that lets you adjust hidden settings

This is an app, rather than something that is built into macOS. TinkerTool provides you with extra settings built into macOS which you would have to normally enter in Terminal. It can be gotten here for free. I will discuss the settings I change. (It is recommended to give TinkerTool full disk access to change certain settings like custom email sounds, but is not required.)

Use TinkerTool to disable animations

If you don't rely on animations, use TinkerTool to disable animations.

Finder Animations

1. In the table, find "Finder" and uncheck the following options:
   • Animate opening info panels and Desktop icons
   • Animate selecting info panel categories
2. Press "Relaunch Finder".
   • Finder should relaunch in the background. If Finder gains focus, press Command+Tab.

Dock Animations

1. In the table, find the Dock category and check the following options.
   • Disable animation when hiding or showing Dock
   • Disable delay when showing hidden Dock
   • Minimizer Effect: Change to scaled (This can also be changed in System Settings)
2. Press Relaunch Dock.
   • VoiceOver will silently focus into the dock. Press VO+Escape to unfocus the dock.

Other settings

TinkerTool has so many settings. I don't have time to cover them all in this guide, but here are a few highlights sorted by the category they appear in:

1. Finder
   • Show hidden and system files (checked)
   • Add “Quit” item to Finder menu (checked): Allows you to quit Finder with Command+Q and cause it to not appear in command+tab switching. MacOS will behave normally when Finder is quit.(VoiceOver Commands that open files or applications will not work while Finder is closed. It can be reopened with the dock.)
   • Show selected path in window title (checked): Shows the path of the folder you are in in the window title, which VoiceOver will announce whenever you open a new window.
   • Don't create hidden .DS_Store files over a network connection (checked): Prevents macOS from creating ".DS_Store" files over the network, which store configurations relating to how folders are displayed and comments.

2. General

   • Keyboard: Support key repeat (allows you to hold down a key to have that key be repeated rather than special characters showing up.)
   • Prefer expanded Save dialogs when using new applications (checked): Allows navigation controls to navigate to different folders to be displayed when saving a file or folder.

   For these changes to take effect, you must log out and back in.

3. Desktop
   • When applications crash: Use Notification Center (checked) (shows notifications from Problem Reporter in Notification Center, rather than a full dialog.

4. Applications

   • Time Machine: Don't ask for backup disks when connecting new drives (checked): Prevents macOS from asking if you wish to use a drive for Time Machine.

   You must log out and back in to apply these changes.

Save your TinkerTool settings

You can save your settings, so you can share them to a new Mac.

From the file menu, select "Export".

Choose a location to save the file. This file can be opened on another Mac with TinkerTool installed, and settings supported by the version of TinkerTool on the other Mac will be imported.

Tip 5: Disable "Disk not ejected properly" notifications

If you are like me, you know when it is safe to unplug a disk; if no data is being written to the disk. macOS, on the other hand, doesn't know that you know when to eject a disk; thus, it tells you when a disk hasn't been ejected properly.

For most modern hard drives, SSDs, SD cards, flash drives, etc., you can remove them without ejecting them from the system if you know that no data is being written to them.

macOS will send you a notification saying that the disk hasn't been ejected properly. This can be disabled.

Run the following in Terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.DiskArbitration.diskarbitrationd.plist DADisableEjectNotification -bool YES && sudo pkill diskarbitrationd

macOS will now remain quiet when force ejecting a disk.

Tip 6: Stop typing your sudo password

For frequent terminal users, this one might be useful.

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Note: This will only work for versions of macOS 14 and upwards. Earlier versions require you to edit a file (not discussed here). With the older method, you would have to do this after every update. With the new method described here, once you do this once, you will not have to do it even after updating.

If you have TouchID, you can use your finger print for sudo commands in the terminal.

In terminal, paste (rather than type) the following:

sed -e 's/^#auth/auth/' /etc/pam.d/sudo_local.template | sudo tee /etc/pam.d/sudo_local

Tip 7: Access hidden applications on your Mac.

Who remembers the DVD Player, Keychain Access, and the Wireless Diagnostics app?

A lot of these have been phased out, deleted from macOS, or can't be accessed.

Or have they?

If you want to see a list of hidden applications on your Mac, including ones you have probably used before, go here:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications

Here are a bunch of hidden system utilities. I will list the ones that I know of and what they do.

1. About This Mac
   • Whenever you open the "About This Mac" option from the menu bar, this application gets opened in the background. You can open it like any other application, same for all of the applications in this list.
2. Archive Utility
   • If you have dealt with zip or other archive files, you know that the archive utility is what expands these files. It opens, expands the file, and then shows that file in Finder and then closes. Did you know it can archive files? Press Command+K to archive a file. You can press Command+Comma to adjust settings.
   • If VoiceOver says "Archive Utility has no windows", press Command+Comma to adjust settings, or Command+K to archive a file.
3. DVD Player
   • If you used a Mac back in the day, you would know that the DVD player, well, does just that, plays DVDs. Normally it only opens if a DVD is inserted into an optical drive connected to your computer, but you can access it here.
4. Feedback Assistant
   • If you have used the feedback assistant, you might have heard VoiceOver say "alias". That is because the feedback assistant is installed on all Macs. It is located here, with an alias to your Utilities folder. It can be opened even if you aren't testing a beta.
5. iOS App Installer
   • If you have an .ipa file, you can install it via the iOS App Installer. This only works on M-powered Macs. Normally when you open an .ipa file, this app opens automatically. If it doesn't, you can find it here.
6. Keychain Access
   • Up until macOS Sequoia, you could use the Keychain Access app to access items in your Keychain, and even secure notes. These can't be accessed with the Apple Passwords app. You can still access them with the Keychain Access app.
7. Wireless Diagnostics
   • If you need to diagnose connection problems, you can open the Wireless Diagnostics app. It usually can be found when macOS says that it is having issues connecting to a network. It can manually be opened here.

Tip 7.5: other applications within the CoreServices folder

There are other applications which aren't in the Applications folder within CoreServices.

1. Add Printer
   • Whenever you need to add a printer, this app opens. You can manually open it here.
2. Install Command Line Developer Tools
   • When you perform the xcode-select --install command, this app opens and installs the command line developer tools. If you want to manually install them, you can open this app.
3. Installer
   • Whenever you open a .pkg file, the installer app opens and installs the pkg file. You can manually open the installer app and select a pkg file from here.
4. Software Update
   • You can open this app to open the system settings page for Software Update.

Tip 8: Make VoiceOver activities for system apps.

When creating an activity, you can navigate to the CoreServices folder and select apps from there to be used for activities. This might be useful if you prefer a certain grouping behavior when in the control center. Other examples could be making a VoiceOver activity speak/behave differently in the dock. To implement this, do the following:

1. Open VoiceOver Utility
2. Navigate to the Activities tab and create/modify the activity you want to add for the hidden application.
3. Press Command+Shift+G, and type/paste /System/Library/CoreServices
4. Select the applications you want to apply to this activity.

Tip 9: Make an alias to any file.

If there is a file that you access that you want quick access to, press Command+Control+A on the particular file. The alias will be saved in the same location as the file you made an alias to, unless you can't write to the folder. It will then be placed on your desktop. It can manually be moved to another location. This might be useful for making aliases for all those hidden applications.

Tip 10: Use a separate "Files" volume to store data that you wish to transfer between macOS partitions

This one is more useful if you boot multiple versions of macOS, such as beta testing.

Create one APFS volume to place files from both partitions to access.

1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Press Command+Shift+2.
3. In the table, find the "Container disk3" option.
4. Press VO+Shift+M, and find "Add APFS Volume".
5. Name your volume, and press OK. When it is done, you can transfer data quickly between 2 or more versions of macOS.

For it to appear on the desktop, do the following: 1. Open Finder settings with Command+Comma. 2. Select General. 3. Check "Hard disks".

Now, your new volume will show up on the desktop.

If you only want your new volume to show up on the desktop, create an alias to it as described above.

Closing thoughts and remarks

Some of these tips can be quite powerful and useful, especially if combined.

I hope you like these tips, and I will probably do more of these if I can find more time.