Technologies
10 Mac Hacks You Should Know About
Make life easier with these Mac shortcuts and hidden features.
MacOS is considered easier to use than other operating systems such as Windows and Linux, according to the digital inclusion consultancy Digital Unite. If you’re one of the millions of Mac users, you’ve probably come across a few MacOS features that have surprised you. There are plenty of hidden features in the operating system that Mac users might not know about, like taking a screen recording on your Mac without having to install additional software.
Here are 10 Mac features, tips and tricks you don’t want to miss out on.
Use Split View
Split View lets you have two apps running side-by-side on one Mac screen without having to resize either window. This saves you from switching between apps and losing your place if you’re working in two different programs.
Here’s how to enable and turn off Split View.
1. Open two apps and place them on opposite sides of the screen.
2. In the top left corner of one app’s window, hover over, or click, the green bubble to open a dropdown menu.
3. Select either Tile Window to the Left of Screen or Tile Window to the Right of Screen. That app will fill that side of the screen.
4. Click the other app on the opposite side of the screen for the app to fill the remainder of the screen.
To exit Split View, click the green bubble again or press Esc on your keyboard. This only exits one app from Split View — the other app will now be in full screen mode on its own Desktop.
Force quit with Option
If an app on your Mac has frozen or isn’t working properly, you can use the Option key to quickly force quit the app. Press and hold Option, then in the dock across the bottom of your screen click with two fingers the app causing you issues. Then click Force Quit to shut down the malfunctioning app.
Use Spotlight for conversions and simple math
Spotlight can make conversions and solve simple math problems.
Screenshot by Zach McAuliffe/CNETYou can use your Mac’s built-in Spotlight feature to perform searches as well as conversions or do simple math. To open Spotlight, press Command + space bar or click the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of your screen in the menu bar. Then, type in a math problem or what you want to convert — like gallons to liters — and Spotlight will do the rest. No Google needed.
Try different shortcuts to take a screenshot
Screenshots are an easy way to maintain receipts for digital purchases or have extra copies of tickets for flights or sports games. On a Mac, there are a few different shortcuts to take screenshots.
Pressing Command + Shift + 3 takes a screenshot of your entire screen. This is a useful way to screenshot a video quickly so you don’t miss a frame.
Press Command + Shift + 4 turns your mouse into a crosshair. This lets you click and drag the frame for your screenshot part of your screen or an app’s window.
If you press Command + Shift + 4 and then press your space bar, your mouse turns into a camera icon and it can take screenshots of the window, application or other element your mouse is over. When your mouse is over a specific element for a screenshot, that element will have a light-blue filter over it to show it’s being selected. Taking a screenshot this way also makes the screenshot look cleaner and gives it a nice shadow.
Taking a screenshot of a window makes the image appear cleaner.
Screenshot by Zach McAuliffe/CNETEasily take a screen recording
Sometimes people learn better by watching a video than reading instructions. In these instances, taking a screen recording is better than any detailed list you might write.
Press Command + Shift + 5, then in the toolbar that appears near the bottom of your screen, click either of the icons highlighted below. The icon with the dashed border on the right will allow you to set a border to what you’re recording, and the icon on the left will record your whole screen. When you’ve selected which you want to use, click Record. To stop recording, click the Stop icon in your Menu bar across the top of your screen, or you can press Command + Control + Esc.
These two icons enable screen recording on Macs.
Zach McAuliffe/CNETSave screenshots and recordings in a different location
Screenshots and recordings save to your desktop by default, and they can quickly clutter your workspace. But you can choose a new location to save these files so you can keep your desktop nice and tidy. Here’s how.
1. Press Command + Shift + 5.
2. Click Options.
3. Under Save to, click one of the preselected destinations, like Documents or Messages, or Other Location to save your screenshot and recordings somewhere else, like a specific folder.
Easily preview files
If all your files in Finder or on your Desktop are named something similar or look the same, you can preview your content without opening them. Click a file once and then press your spacebar. Your file is now viewable without opening the Preview app. To close the file, press your spacebar again.
You can also quickly view and exit a file by selecting a file, holding the spacebar to preview it and then releasing the spacebar.
Copy text while previewing files
If you’ve got a document or screenshot full of text, you can copy the content from those files while previewing them. Preview the file by selecting it and hitting the spacebar, then move your mouse over what you want to copy and your pointer will transform into the cursor icon. You can now select and copy text like you normally would. This can be especially helpful if you’ve taken a text-heavy screenshot, like a recipe, and want to convert it into a document for better organization.
Write with emoji online and in apps
You can use the emoji keyboard in more places than just your iPhone.
Zach McAuliffe/CNETEmoji are a fun way to communicate with people in text, online chats and comments. Most people know how to access their emoji keyboard on their iPhone, and you can access the same keyboard on your Mac, too. You can use the emoji keyboard in certain apps, like Notes, social media chats online and search tools, like Google. However, this doesn’t seem to work on certain sites, like Google Docs.
To access the emoji keyboard in most places on your Mac, click into a text box or other location you’d type a message and press either Function — the Fn key — or Control + Command + spacebar. Both will pull up your emoji keyboard where you can search for the emoji you want, as you would on your phone.
Easily rename files
Renaming files can help keep your folders organized and easily searchable. To easily rename items, select a file and press Return. The file name will be highlighted and you can start typing your new file name.
For more Apple news, check out what’s new on your iPhone with iOS 16.4, the highs and lows of Apple’s Classical Music app and the rumors around Apple’s AR/VR headset.
Technologies
Apple Desperately Needs to Launch a Foldable iPhone Flip Next Year
Commentary: Apple is the only major phone company without a folding phone. That needs to change in 2026.
Apple’s iPhone 17 came and went and while we certainly love the iPhone 17 Pro and its vibrant cosmic orange color, I can’t help but be disappointed that the long-rumored foldable iPhone Flip wasn’t part of the company’s September launch event. Most Android phone-makers, including Samsung, Google, Motorola, OnePlus, Xiaomi and Honor are multiple generations into their own folding phone lineups, and it’s beginning to feel like Apple is late to the party. That might be a problem.
Apple dominates in the premium phone category, but foldables — which fit into the premium space in terms of price — are already nipping at its heels, with Motorola telling CNET that 20% of customers buying its Razr foldable jumped ship from Apple. Meanwhile, Samsung is in the seventh generation of its Flip and Fold series. As Lisa Eadicicco discovered during a visit to Seoul, «foldables are everywhere» in Samsung’s home country of South Korea.
With nearly every major Android phone-maker entering the foldable market, Apple risks losing potential customers. It also runs the risk of letting a rival like Samsung become the go-to name for foldables, which could make it harder for Apple to make an impact if it eventually launches its own device. Furthermore, early adopters drawn to foldable tech may be too entrenched in the Android ecosystem by the time Apple’s phone arrives to want to switch to iOS.
Apple is unlikely to be worried. It’s estimated that around 20 million foldables from all manufacturers were sold worldwide in 2023, while Apple reportedly sold 26.5 million iPhone 14 Pro Max handsets in the first half of that year alone. In 2024, foldable sales were flat — and 2025 isn’t fairing much better, according to analysts at CounterPoint Research, although Samsung did report record numbers of preorders for its latest foldable. Clearly, Apple feels it has yet to miss the boat.
Apple has always found success in biding its time, observing the industry and launching its own take on a product when it’s ready. Apple didn’t invent phones, tablets, smartwatches or computers, but it found ways to take existing products and make them more useful, more valuable in day-to-day life and — dare I say — more exciting. It’s why the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac lines dominate the market today.
For me, I need to see Apple’s take on the foldable phone. I’ve written before about how disappointed I am in foldables. I’ve been a mobile reporter for over 14 years and phones have become increasingly dull as they’ve converged to become slight variations on the same rectangular slab.
Read more: Best Flip Phone for 2025
Foldables promised something new, something innovative, something that briefly sparked some excitement in me, but several years in, that excitement has dwindled to the point of being extinguished. They are fine products and while I like the novelty of a screen that bends, they’re not a revolution in how we interact with our phones. Not in the way that the arrival of the touchscreen was when we were still pushing buttons to type out texts.
I did hope that Google’s Pixel Fold would be the phone to catapult the foldable forward, and while the recent Pixel 10 Pro Fold — the second generation of Google’s foldable — does offer some great updates, it still doesn’t offer any kind of revolution. Instead, it feels more like a «me too» move from Google. Ditto for the OnePlus Open. So I’m left instead to look toward Apple, a company with a track record for product revolutions, to create a new take on the genre that genuinely drives forward how we use our phones.
That innovation won’t just come from the product design. Apple works closely with its third-party software developers, and it’s that input that would help a folding iPhone become genuinely useful. My biggest complaint around foldables right now is that while the hardware is decent, the devices are essentially just running standard versions of Android with a handful of UI tweaks thrown in. They’re regular phones that just happen to bend.
Few Android developers are embracing the folding format, and it’s not difficult to see why; the users aren’t there in sufficient numbers yet to justify the time and expense to adapt their software across a variety of screen sizes. The multiple folding formats already available mean Android foldables face the same fragmentation issue that has plagued the platform since the beginning. Android-based foldables are simply a more difficult platform for developers to build for than regular phones. Apple would be able to change that, as it proved with the iPhone and iPad.
Given Apple’s close relationships with top-tier developers — not to mention its own vast developer team — I expect an eventual Apple foldable to offer innovations that make it more than just an iPhone that folds in half.
And I truly hope it does. I want to look forward to tech launches again. I want to feel excited to get a new gadget in my hands and feel that «wow» moment as I do something transformative for the first time.
In short, I don’t want to be bored by technology anymore. Apple, it’s over to you.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Nov. 27, #430
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Nov. 27, No. 430.
Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.
Fittingly, today’s Thanksgiving Day Connections: Sports Edition is mostly about football (although the yellow category covers all sports, really). If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.
Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.
Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta
Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Grab some points.
Green group hint: Pass the turkey.
Blue group hint: Face your big rival.
Purple group hint: Playing with letters in team names.
Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Yellow group: Places where one scores.
Green group: Associated with the NFL on Thanksgiving.
Blue group: College football rivalry «cups.»
Purple group: NFL teams, with the first letter changed.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is places where one scores. The four answers are end zone, goal, hoop and plate.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is associated with the NFL on Thanksgiving. The four answers are Cowboys, Lions, Madden and Turducken.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is college football rivalry «cups.» The four answers are Apple, Commonwealth, Governor’s and Territorial.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is NFL teams, with the first letter changed. The four answers are fills (Bills), Mets (Jets), pears (Bears) and yams (Rams).
Technologies
Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, Nov. 27
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Nov. 27.
Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
It’s Thanksgiving, but I wasn’t too thankful for today’s Mini Crossword. It took me nearly four minutes to solve and has some very tricky clues. Read on for the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.
If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword
Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.
Mini across clues and answers
1A clue: Enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal
Answer: FEASTED
8A clue: Back half of a GOAT?
Answer: ALLTIME
9A clue: Sudden urge
Answer: IMPULSE
10A clue: Santa’s landing place
Answer: ROOF
11A clue: Abstain from eating
Answer: FAST
15A clue: Tough guy
Answer: BRUISER
18A clue: Ready to use without further assembly
Answer: TURNKEY
19A clue: Some pieces of [circled letters] at the Thanksgiving table
Answer: WINGS
Mini down clues and answers
1D clue: Inside the foul line, in baseball
Answer: FAIR
2D clue: Furry monster with a falsetto
Answer: ELMO
3D clue: Pet food brand
Answer: ALPO
4D clue: Thanksgiving side dish that can fill the [circled letters]
Answer: STUFFING
5D clue: Shop ___ you drop
Answer: TIL
6D clue: M M M M
Answer: EMS
7D clue: Billy ___ Williams, actor who played Lando Calrissian in «Star Wars»
Answer: DEE
12D clue: Requests
Answer: ASKS
13D clue: «Get what I’m saying?»
Answer: SEE
14D clue: Give it a go
Answer: TRY
15D clue: «I should mention …,» for short
Answer: BTW
16D clue: N.B.A. power forward ___ Hachimura
Answer: RUI
17D clue: Large coffee dispenser
Answer: URN
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