Merlin MannKeyboard Shortcuts.
If you use a Mac, it's valuable to revisit this page at least once a year.
I can pretty much promise there's at least one thing here you didn't know you could do.
Yes. You, too.
Want to up your basic typing game?
Learn the text navigation commands, and your life will NEVER be the same.
You'll quickly realize you’ve been mousing around like a goddamned caveman.
I have a colleague who is appallingly knowledgable about tech in general and Macs in particular, and he just learned about `Shift–Command–?` on Tuesday.
See, it's not just for getting to "Help."
Start typing, and it's also one-click access to every menu item in your current app.
Please try it right now. Hit `Shift–Command–?` and start typing.
Cesar Cavazos@hotdogsladies this is awesome! Thanks for sharing it.
I do feel like a caveman.
@cavazos It takes a while to get them in your bones, but boy, is it ever worth it.
noah@hotdogsladies this regularly elicits a “how did you do that‽” response from people.
Typing in the “Help” dropdown is one of the few things I attempt to teach tech-averse people as it allows them more naturally search for what they need.
It’s such a delight to teach them about this feature and/or shortcut. Allows everyone to feel like a “power user”.
Alan McCoy@hotdogsladies Exception: If TextExpander is running with the default “Quick Actions” global hotkey setting (`Shift-Command-/`), it hijacks `Shift-Command-?`.
Easy enough to fix by removing that TextExpander hotkey assignment.
Joe Rosensteel 🏳️🌈@hotdogsladies I knew you could do that in the menu, but I didn't know about that keyboard shortcut, that's great. Thanks
James Blanding@hotdogsladies For years I had my menubar set to auto-hide, and `Shift-Command-?` was my way to get it to appear so I could look at the clock.
For I, too, am broken inside.
Thomas N (old account) 
@hotdogsladies @joesteel FYI ⌘? also works on iPad
Champagne@hotdogsladies Brilliant.
Justin Saucier
John Siracusa@justinsaucier (Come now.)
Matt Quaiil@hotdogsladies best tip ever, but it didn't work for me until a co-worker helped me find this _deeply_ embedded setting. That I had obviously turned off in my journeys somewhere. For the future people:
System Preferences | Keyboard | Keyboard Shortcuts… | App Shortcuts | > All Applications | Show Help Menu
And now you know why we’re all so weird about having proper arrow keys.
Nick Foster@hotdogsladies using Option to select by word is life changing. It works for backspacing too!
Craig Hockenberry@hotdogsladies The mnemonics for the Control keys are so great and have clearly stood the test of time. It's pretty amazing that we've been typing them since the late 1970’s.
Mark Gardner@mjgardner @hotdogsladies They work in any NSTextView or UITextView. So you can use them in Tot on both your Mac and iPhone/iPad.
@chockenberry Holy shit, Craig.
: j@fabrica:~/src; 
@hotdogsladies @chockenberry If you want to cut out all the middlemen and intervening history, there is an ancient C implementation of TECO still maintained: https://github.com/blakemcbride/TECOC
(TECO wasn’t actually a codebase, it was a vibe. Everyone wrote a new one in assembler for each architecture. This was back when IBM didn’t /sell/ their software, so their consultants just handed you the source for you to share among users.)
Zach LeBar@hotdogsladies this is why writing on an iPhone always feels like using a crayon to me.
I can probably get my point across, but the process isn't elegant and I feel a bit silly when I try to say anything too serious.
On a Mac with a keyboard I feel nimble and flexible, capable of changing my mind with ease, pivoting direction at a moment's notice.
I had to edit this because I missed a word. I rest my case your honor.
@zachlebar So well put! Yes!
Christian Keefer-Moomaw@hotdogsladies I make heavy use of those Control key sequences and it drives me *batty* when applications overwrite those bindings. Microsoft Office is a noteworthy offender in this area.
Anthony Allison@cdmoomaw @hotdogsladies Yes! I work on a Mac and iPad, and using any MS application breaks my brain when I try to do text selection and navigation. Why they think someone using a Mac should used Windows shortcuts is beyond me.
Chuck Skoda@hotdogsladies I remember CS classes in college, watching my professor zip around his computer without taking his hands off the keyboard. I was flabbergasted. What had I been doing with that clunky mouse my whole life?
Todd Lemoine@hotdogsladies There's a command for deleting by word instead of character (I forget what it is; I should look it up). I have a co-worker who uses it adeptly and every time I see them do it over Zoom, it's like they're a f*cking real-life wizard that just opened a portal so we could, you know, just grab a coffee.
Matt Bonney@hotdogsladies I credit you (and associated company) with my level core Mac competency, and I have done my best to share as much of this stuff with those in my life. No one — including Apple — teaches anyone any of this stuff!
Allen Shull 
@hotdogsladies Control-T: “what are you, some sort of wizard?”
Glacies delenda est@hotdogsladies The first two images are lists of commands I use constantly throughout my day, every day. The third image is a list of commands I had no idea existed and am flabbergasted by.