Uwes Blog


Mac OS X Quick Tips

Here is a collection of Mac Quick Tips, i use often. It will be supplemented, every time i find a new Tip.

hidden files in Finder on/off

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true; killall Finder
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean false; killall Finder

show content of the ~/Library folder

chflags nohidden ~/Library

special characters on us-international keyboard

Character Key combination
°Shift + Option + 8

special characters on german keyboard

Character Key combination
|Option + 7
~Option + n
{Option + (
}Option + )
\Option + Shift + 7 (Option + /)
[Option + 5
]Option + 6

quit Application in Task Switch

press Q when the task is selected

create/burn ISO Image from cmdline

hdiutil create -format UDTO -srcdevice /dev/disk2s0 cd.cdr
mv cd.cdr cd.iso

hdutil burn cd.iso

boot time key functions

keyfunction
altboot different OS
Nboot from netboot disk
Tstart in target disk mode
cmd-vverbose mode

clipboard and comandline

With pbcopy and pbpaste the clipboard is accesible from the comandline. For example with

ls | pbcopy

you get an directory listing in the clipboard.

limit size of backup.sparsebundle on server

hdiutil resize -size 200g -shrinkonly machine.sparseimage

screen shots

keyfunction
cmd + shift + 3entire screen
cmd + shift + 4portion of screen
cmd + shift + 4 → spaceentire window