MacMaxxing (v.) getting the most out of the Mac you already own
From brand-new to MacMaxxing in 100 bite-sized lessons.
Your Mac can do approximately eleven billion things.
You only need about a hundred of them.
Is this you?
If you're any of those, start at lesson one.
Every square is one thing you'll know how to do.
TapClick #1 to start, or any square to see what it teaches.
Free. No account, no sign-up.
Every square is one thing you'll know how to do.
TapClick #1 to start, or any square to see what it teaches.
These are not the hundred things a Mac can do.
They are the hundred worth knowing,
in the order that makes each one easier than the last.
Ten levels.
You don't have to finish all 100.
Learn enough to make your Mac work the way you need it to.
Or keep going. We certainly aren't going to stop you.
Knowing that a shortcut exists isn't particularly useful if you never use it again.
So every lesson hands you something small to try, right then, on the Mac in front of you. Thirty seconds, and it is yours.
The exercises should feel ridiculously achievable because they are. Thirty seconds here. A minute there.
Eventually, the things you're learning stop being things you're learning. They're just how you use your Mac.
BelowBeside this: one of the hundred
Lesson 05
Space shows you what is inside a file. Somebody should have mentioned this sooner.
Do this now
Open Finder. Select a file. Press Space. Close the preview with Space again. That's it.
You will know it worked when
A preview appears, and its contents change as you arrow down the list.
Lesson five of level three, word for word.
By the end of level one you will open any app without touching the Dock, rescue one that has frozen, and find the file you just downloaded.
The key you'll use constantly.
Pressing Command will not give you more command over your life. It will, however, give you considerably more command over your Mac.
Find and open almost anything without hunting around for it.
Your Mac is quite good at finding things when you let it.
Jump between open apps without reaching for the mouse.
Once this becomes muscle memory, watching someone click through the Dock becomes surprisingly difficult.
Peek inside a file without opening it.
It is exactly as useful as it sounds, which is unusually considerate naming.
Screenshot exactly the part of the screen you want.
Much better than taking a picture of your monitor with your phone. We know who you are.
Right-click on your trackpad.
Yes, Macs have right-click. Civilization has survived.
That's just part of Level 1.
Start Level 1 →There's using a Mac. Then there's MacMaxxing.
MacMaxxing is getting as much speed, capability and usefulness as you can out of the Mac you already own.
It starts with knowing where your downloads went.
It can end with keyboard-driven workflows, automation, command-line tools and a Mac configured so specifically for you that using somebody else's feels mildly inconvenient.
You decide where to stop. But why would you?
0/100
01
If knowing something won't meaningfully improve how you use your Mac, it has to make a very good case for being here.
02
There may be seventeen ways to accomplish something. We'll start with the one we'd actually tell a friend to use.
03
We explain things clearly without talking to you like you've recently suffered a head injury.
04
Tiny exercises are built into The 100 because fingers remember things that eyeballs forget.
05
Some Mac apps are excellent. Some are unnecessary. Some solve problems that arguably should not exist. We'll tell you which is which.
When the built-in version runs out
Your Mac comes with an astonishing amount of capability already built in. So we're not interested in filling it with 83 menu-bar utilities because someone on the internet said they were “essential.”
But occasionally there's a better way. When there is, we'll show you.
Clipboard
ClipDrawer
Your Mac's clipboard remembers the last thing you copied. One thing. Copy something else and the previous thing is gone. This seems unnecessarily dramatic.
ClipDrawer gives your Mac a clipboard history, so the things you copied five minutes ago don't cease to exist simply because you copied something else.
See ClipDrawer →Might as well get ridiculously good at using it.
Start with #1 →100 things. 10 levels. Start with one.
Mac for Newbies