Eighty Shades of Option Key

Stuck between the Command and Control (ctrl, or ^) keys, the Option key, also
called Alt key, because of the switch symbol ⌥ that adorns it, is… magical! It is
(almost) never used alone, but in combination with other keys, to launch various
actions.
Its usefulness is variable, but it will often allow you to access hidden functions, to
work more quickly on certain specific tasks... For example, how many of you have
already duplicated a file using the Duplicate item in the File menu? …While dragging
and dropping while pressing Option is much faster?

Indeed, in many cases, the Option key is used to duplicate an object: a file or folder
in the Finder, a graphic object or a table in Numbers or Word, a cell in Excel, or a
layer in Photoshop, combining Option with a action is equivalent to making a copy of
this element. Another action often associated with Option is "All": for example, "show
all", or "expand all" in the lists, or "activate all"... However, it has other uses,
sometimes very well hidden.

The little guide lists seventy various tips, from the particularly useful to the very
futile... Obviously, it is not a question here of being exhaustive, but rather to give
ways to encourage you remember to press the Option key during all your
manipulations with the mouse and the keyboard... in order to save you time and
make you more productive, even... have fun!

Eighty Shades of Option Key 1

 1. This document is ©Gete.Net Consulting. It is available for free download for
personal information purposes. It may not be copied partially or entirely without
the author's consent. However, it can be provided in addition to course support
as part of training on a simple request to the author at: consulting@gete.net.

💡 About Gete.Net Consulting

A service company created in 2006, Gete.Net Consulting offers consulting, audit,

support and training activities to companies on integration of the Apple platform into
their environment: Mac, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, services...

Gete.Net Consulting cultivates a unique experience based on on-field expertise as

well as in-depth and validated knowledge of the Apple environment.

Gete.Net Consulting is certified: Apple Certified Technical Coordinator, Jamf Certified

Server Admin certifications, and is also a partner of Jamf, Filewave, Sophos,
Retrospect…

More info: https://www.gete.net/consulting/

More tips and tricks in French:  https://blog.gete.net !

The Finder
Menus and preferences
Within Apple apps
Safari
Mail
Contacts
Calendar
Photos
Control Center
Launchpad
Preview
Maps
TextEdit
Pages, Keynote, Numbers and the other Apple apps
Microsoft Office, Adobe CC… and other third-party apps
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Adobe Creative Cloud

Eighty Shades of Option Key 2

 Dropbox
Terminal
1Password
Jamf Admin
FileWave
Miscellaneous

The Finder
As the central piece of your Mac, the Finder has many and many tips with the Option
key.

1. Close or reduce all windows

Press Option and close a window by clicking on the red button to close all windows.
Click on the yellow button with Option to reduce all the windows of the application to
the foreground in the Dock. This also works with most apps.

2. Bring back all windows from the Dock

By the way, you can also press Option and click on a reduced window in the Dock to
maximize and put back all windows from the same app to front.

3. Duplicate a file or folder

Drag and drop a file or folder while pressing Option to duplicate it on the same
volume.

4. Unfold all details in the Get Info window

Get Info on a file or folder (File -> Get Info) and press Option while pressing on a
disclosure triangle to unfold or fold all details.

5. Display the Inspector

When you press Option, Get Info becomes Display Inspector. This is a contextual
information window, that changes its contents dynamcally if you select another file or
folder.

6. Resize columns

If a Finder window is displayed in columns view, press Option and double-click on

the resize icon at the bottom of the column. You'll resize all columns at the same
size.

Eighty Shades of Option Key 3

 7. Resize a window from its center

Click and drag the corner of the window and press Option key to force the window to
resize from its center.

8. Activate Slideshow mode

With Option, the Look icon becomes a play button, to display the preview of the
selection in Slideshow mode (full screen).

9. Launch the System Information utility

Click on the Apple menu and press Option: About this Mac becomes System
Information and launches the utility of the same name.

10. Unfold a whole list at once

In a Finder window presented in list mode, click with Option on the triangle in front of
a folder to display its content as well as that of all its subfolders at once. If you click
on the triangle again, all the folders unfold.

11. Open a folder by closing the previous one

Double-click on the icon of a folder with Option: the folder opens in a new window
and the previous one closes.

12. Cut and paste a file

As on Windows, copy a file with Cmd + C, then paste it with Cmd + V to the place of
your choice and add Option to move it rather than duplicate it.

13. Deselect everything

If Command + A selects all the selected elements, well... Option + Command + A

deselects all the elements (but pressing Esc key does the same action, so...).

14. Force an application to quit

By right-clicking (or click maintained) + Option on the icon of an active application in

the Dock, Exit becomes Force Quit. On the Finder icon, this brings up the Relaunch
command.

15. Close a space in Mission Control

Display all Mission Control desktops (with the F4 key for example) and press Option:
a cross appears next to each virtual desktop to allow you to delete it.

Eighty Shades of Option Key 4

 16. Display the User Library folder

Press Option and click on the Go menu: a Library menu will appear to access this
hidden folder.

17. Copy the path of a file

Press Option and click on the Edit menu: Copy becomes Copy as a path name to
allow you to easily retrieve the file path and paste it elsewhere.

18. Ignore duplicates during file copy

When copying files, if files with the same name already exist, the Finder offers to
keep the originals by renaming them. With Option, Ignore appears, to allow you not
to copy duplicate files.

19. Immediately delete files

Press Option while pressing Cmd + Delete to display a dialog to delete the selection
immediately without sending it to the Trash first.

20. Rotate left a picture

If a picture is displayed and the Rotate left action is available in the Preview pane,
press Option to transform it to Rotate right.

Menus and preferences

21. More information in the Wi-Fi menu...

Eighty Shades of Option Key 5

 Click on the Wi-Fi icon with Option to display additional information about the Airport
network in use (channel used, signal strength, Airport ID...). You will also find an
option to disconnect from the current Wi-Fi network.

22. ... And in the Bluetooth menu

Click on the Bluetooth icon with Option also brings up options, including the ability to
reset Bluetooth devices.

23. Go to Network settings directly from Wi-Fi menu

In macOS Ventura, clicking on the Wi-Fi icon while pressing Option changes the Wi-
Fi Settings menu to Network settings, allowing fast access to these settings.

24. Open the preference System Monitors, Sound, Mission Control...

Press Option with the keyboard brightness key (i.e. F1/F2) opens the Monitor
System preference (and the same with the sound volume keys and the Sound
System preference). And the same with the Mission Control key, Spotlight key….

25. Place the scroll bar at the desired place in the window

Press Option by clicking on an empty area of a scroll bar to jump exactly where you
want rather than scroll one page after another. This setting is reversed if you have
checked Jump to the spot that’s clicked in the Appearance setting.

26. Switch on / off all Remote Management settings

In Remote management settings, press option and click on one of the checkboxes to
check every checkbox. What a time saver!

27. Change the sound input or output via the Sound menu

Option-click on the sound setting icon in the menu bar to change the input or output
sound to be exploited.

28. Browse other Time Machine discs

Press Option by clicking on the Time Machine menu: the Browse other Time
Machine disks option becomes Enter Time Machine, which allows you to navigate to
other Time Machine backups stored elsewhere than on the default backup disk.
Similarly, the option to check your Time Machine backups will become available.

29. Edit a script directly from the Scripts menu

Click with Option on a script presented in the Scripts menu to open it in the Script
Editor (you can activate the Scripts menu from Script Editor’s preferences).

Eighty Shades of Option Key 6

 30. Restart, turn off or close the session... Immediately

These three items from the Apple menu see their ellipsis disappear if you press
Option... which means that the action will be immediate (without dialogue).

31. More sophisticated searches with Spotlight

If you search with the Finder's Search function, press Option: the + button becomes
"...", which allows you to further filter the results with Boolean conditions.

32. Customize the Control Strip

If you have a Mac equipped with Touch Bar, press Option while clicking on the
Finder View menu: Customize the Touch Bar becomes Customize the Control Strip,
i.e. the control bar folded to the right of the Touch Bar.

33. Activate Do Not Disturb / Focus mode

Press Option and click on the notification icon at the top right or the Notifications
Center to disable all notifications on your Mac (they will be active again automatically
the next day, or if you do Option + click again).

34. Show advanced options of Caching Service

In the Caching Service, press Option key, and the Options button become Advanced
Options.

Eighty Shades of Option Key 7

 Within Apple apps

Safari, Mail, Photos… Get the most of the apps with the Option key!

Safari
35. Download a file with Safari

Click on any link in a web page with Option pressed: you will download the file
directly.

36. Delete the history but not the site data

With Option, click on the History menu: Clear history becomes Clear history and
keep site data. In other words: you will keep cookies and other site information but
the site will simply be deleted from the history.

37. Close all tabs except the one in use

Press Option while clicking on the close button of this tab to close all the other tabs
(and yes, it's curious, to click on the close button of one tab to close the others...).

38. Reload the page

Eighty Shades of Option Key 8

 Press Option and click on the View menu: Reload page becomes Reload the page
from its origin, eliminating the reload from the local Safari cache.

Mail
39. Modify an information detected in Mail

When a postal address, a phone number... is detected in a message, a triangle

appears next to the detected information. If you click on it and select Add to address
book, a card appears to change the information. If these are incomplete, press
Option: the form can be opened in the Address Book.

Contacts
40. Display user groups (Contacts)

With a contact selected in Contacts, press Option: the different groups to which this
contact belongs will be highlighted in blue.

41. Export a group of contacts in individual V-Card (Contacts)

Press Option and drag a group of contacts to the desktop: each contact will be
exported as its own V-Card.

Calendar
42. Adjust the schedule to the quarter of an hour (Calendar)

When you display the information panel of an appointment, click on the arrows
indicating the time and end with Option: you will adjust the time of the appointment
quarter hour by quarter hour rather than minute by minute.

43. Accept all notifications at once

If multiple notifications are displayed in the Notification view, press Option to

transform the Notification to “OK All”.

Eighty Shades of Option Key 9

 Photos
44. Rotate a photo

When a photo is selected, you can rotate the photo to the right by clicking on the
rotation button. But with Option, the rotation is done to the left.

Control Center
45. Close a Widget from Control Center

Once the Control Center is displayed (additional tip : fn+N will display the
Notifications Center), click Option and hover over a widget: the close button appears,
allowing you to close only this widget.

Launchpad
46. Delete an application from LaunchPad

After displaying the LaunchPad, press Option to display a cross next to some
applications (only those from the Mac App Store). Click on the cross to remove it
from your Mac.

Preview
47. Improve text selection with Preview

It is sometimes difficult to select text in several blocks of a PDF document with

Preview. However, if you press Option, you will be able to more easily select the text
hovered over by the cursor.

Eighty Shades of Option Key 10

 Maps
48. Change the angle of view in Maps

Press Option and drag the cursor to change the viewing angle of the map in Maps by
dragging the mouse.

TextEdit
49. Quit and close all windows

Press Option to change Quit to Quit and close all windows. This will prevent Auto-
save to kick in and ask to close windows and save active documents which may not
be saved. This This works for other apps that support Auto-save as well.

Pages, Keynote, Numbers and the other

Apple apps

50. Shift the lines of a paragraph... except the first

By dragging the paragraph cursor into the ruler, you move the entire selected
paragraph. With Option, you move all the lines, except the first.

51. Resize an object from the center

Press Option while dragging the cursor to draw an object (figure, histogram, table...)
from its center (instead of the upper left corner).

52. Rotate an object from opposite corner (Pages, Keynote, Numbers)

Eighty Shades of Option Key 11

 If you press Shift and select a corner of an object, you can rotate it from center. Add
Option to perform rotation from the opposite side of the selected corner.

53. Insert a line break in an array

Press Option + Return to add an additional row in a cell of a table.

54. Insert a tab in an array

By default, the Tab key selects the adjacent cell. With Option, you move the text in
the cell according to the programmed tabs.

55. Remove rows or columns that are not empty (Numbers)

It is impossible to resize a table in Numbers by deleting the rows or columns already

filled... unless you hold down the Option key.

56. Add cells to a formula with keyboard (Numbers)

Type a formula (i.e. =SUM) then press Option to add the cells using the arrow keys
to move to the target cell and release Option each time. You can even add Shift to
select multiple columns or rows.

57. Place a vertical marker (Pages)

Clicking on the ruler and swiping down adds a horizontal marker on the page. Press
Option before clicking to create a vertical marker.

58. Apply an object style without changing the text style (Pages, Numbers,
Keynote)

If you create a text block, you can apply a predefined style to this block (Format >
Style), and the text style is modified accordingly. To apply only the block style without
changing the text style, press Option while choosing the block style.

59. Replace Duplicate by Save as...

Since Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), Apple has replaced the Save As command with a
Duplicate command in its programs managing automatic recording. Press Option
while clicking on File to use Save As instead! It also works with Preview, TextEdit...

60. Select another library (Photos)

Press Option immediately after launching Photos: a dialog offers you to select
another Photos library.

61. Change the direction of image rotation (Photos)

Eighty Shades of Option Key 12

 After displaying an image, press the Option key to turn the rotation button to the left
into a rotation to the right.

62. Start playing Genius (iTunes)

In music mode, press Option: the Previous Song button turns into Genius. Click on it
to play songs that go well together.

63. Add sound control points (iMovie)

In the audio timeline of an iMovie sequence, click Option to add control points and
thus vary the sound volume as you wish.

64. Paste and adapt the style

In many Apple applications, Paste with Option becomes Paste and adapt the style:
in this case, you paste the text without its original formatting, so that it retains that of
the current document.

Microsoft Office, Adobe CC… and other

third-party apps
There are many other apps that also support using the Option key ! Here a few
samples.

Microsoft Word
65. Show dimensions in the rules (Word)

Drag the paragraph sliders into the rule with Option to show the dimensions of
margins and paragraphs. This also makes it possible to adjust a column more
precisely by temporarily disabling the magnetic grid function.

66. Repeat the last key (Word)

By pressing the Option + Enter keys, you repeat the last keystroke.

Microsoft Excel
67. Add a column by moving the others (Excel)

After copying one or more cells, press Option and a column header to paste the
selection, which will also move all the columns to the right (this also works to store

Eighty Shades of Option Key 13

 them). If nothing has been copied, a blank column will be added.

68. Change the behavior of the copy handle (Excel)

The copy handle allows you to quickly generate a list after typing text in a cell (for
example, a list of days: you type "Monday", and by dragging the handle down, Excel
generates the incremental list: "Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday..."). But by pushing
Option, the copy handle will make a simple copy (here, "Monday" will be copied to
each cell).

Adobe Creative Cloud

69. Turn the background into a layer (Photoshop)

When you open a simple image, its content is by default in the background. To turn it
into a layer, double-click on its name in the layer palette with Option.

70. Reset the settings of a dialog (Photoshop)

When a dialog box is active, press the Option key: the Cancel button turns into
Reset, which allows all settings to be restored to their previous value.

71. Hide all other layers (Photoshop, Pixelmator)

Click on the eye icon next to a layer with the Option key: the other layers are then
automatically hidden.

72. Select from a selection (Photoshop, Pixelmator)

Whatever the active selection tool, press the Option key: it will allow you to remove
pixels from the current selection using this tool.

73. Zoom in / out of the image (Pixelmator)

Press Option while activating your mouse wheel to enlarge or reduce the display of
your image on the screen.

Dropbox
74. Show the classic menu

If you don't like the modern look of the Dropbox menu, press the Option key while
clicking on the Dropbox icon on the menu bar to display it in a more... classical look!

Eighty Shades of Option Key 14

 Terminal
75. Move the cursor anywhere

It is not always convenient to place your cursor wherever you want in a Terminal
window! But with Option + click in the desired place, it becomes child's play.

1Password
76. Change 1Password Mini menu

Option + click on 1Password Mini in the menu bar displays another menu.

77. Display passwords

Press Option key in any item of 1Password to display the hidden text in plane sight.

Jamf Admin
78. Display the Preferences window at launch

Eighty Shades of Option Key 15

 Press Option Key while launching Jamf Admin to display again the Preferences
Window in order to type a new URL.

FileWave
79. FileWave Admin : force full VPP / DEP Sync

In FileWave Admin > Settings > VPP & DEP, press Option key to perform a Full sync
of VPP or DEP with Apple servers instead of a simple sync.

Miscellaneous
80. Remove the shadow from the screenshots of the windows

Take a screenshot with Command + Shift + 4, then press the space bar to take a
screenshot of a window. If you click while holding down Option, the shadow will not
be applied to the screenshot.

81. Choose boot partition (Intel Macs only)

Eighty Shades of Option Key 16

 Press Option key at startup to choose on which partition to boot. This does not work
on Apple Silicon Macs.

Aaaaaaaaaand that’s all folks. For now, at least. Please send your comments to
consulting@gete.net !

Eighty Shades of Option Key 17