The Control-Click In addition to the two preference options outlined above, macOS provides an alternative method of secondary clicking. Holding down the Control (Ctrl) key on your keyboard when you. Control-click on a Mac is similar to right-click on a Windows computer—it's how you open shortcut (or contextual) menus on a Mac. Control-click: Press and hold the Control key while you click an item. For example, Control-click an icon, a window, the toolbar, the desktop, or another item.
I wrote a post stating that I could not find the Windows Ctrl+Home keyboard shortcut equivalent on a Mac. Well I'm here to tell you that I found the keyboard shortcut combination that does the same thing on a Mac. The Excel Gods are with me. Hallelujah!
Finding My Way Home
The key to finding this elusive keyboard shortcut is in the Keyboard Viewer. On your Mac select the Apple icon () and click System Preferences… Select Keyboard, and then make sure to click the Keyboard tab. Check the box for: Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar.
Click the Keyboard Viewer icon in your Mac menu bar and a nice replica of your Mac keyboard will appear.
You will notice that this viewer reflects the keys you tap on your keyboard. The screen shot above shows the Command and Shift keys are depressed. The Keyboard Viewer will also show different symbols when you press various keys, like fn, Control, Option, Command, etc.
This is where I noticed something interesting. While depressing the fn key, the left arrow button changes its angle to point up about 30 degrees. Knowing that allowed me to do a little testing in Microsoft Excel 2011 for the Mac.
Excel Control+Home Key on Mac
What I found is that the Windows Control+Home keyboard combination can be replicated on a Mac by either of the following keyboard shortcut combinations. This is the home key on Mac:
What I found is that the Windows Control+Home keyboard combination can be replicated on a Mac by either of the following keyboard shortcut combinations. This is the home key on Mac:
fn+Command+Left Arrow
fn+Control+Left Arrow
How to change video format on mac. Another mystery solved.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Another aid in finding keyboard shortcuts comes in the form of an overlay for your Mac keyboard. The kind folks over at Excel Skin™ gave me an overlay that slips over the Mac keyboard and shows, via color coding, a wide array of shortcuts that work in Excel for Mac. Here is why you might want an excel skin.
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For the first 20 years or so of its life, the Mac was infamous for having only a single button on its mouse. That meant there was no way to right-click on a Mac mouse. However, you could achieve the same thing by pressing the Control key and clicking with the mouse button. The Control-click was the Mac right-click. On websites and applications that supported right-click, Control-clicking still achieves the same thing on Mac as right-clicking does on a PC mouse.
Fast forward several years and Apple mice still don't have a right button, in fact they don't have any buttons at all. And neither do the trackpads on the MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. Now, however, macOS has support for right-clicking, or secondary clicking, as Apple calls it. And so if you buy a third party mouse with a right button, you'll be able to use it to, for example, pull up a contextual menu.
How to right click on a MacBook
Apple calls the function most people understand as a ‘right click' a ‘secondary click.' That's because there are a number of options for performing the action. However, it amounts to the same thing. To set up the secondary click on a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro, do the following:
- Go to the Apple menu and select System Preferences.
- Click on the Trackpad pane.
- Choose the Point & Click tab.
- Check the box next to secondary click.
- Click on the little down arrow.
- Choose Click with two fingers; Click in bottom right corner; or Click in bottom left corner.
If you prefer tapping to clicking on the Trackpad, check the box labelled Tap to click. You'll notice that in the Secondary click options, ‘Click with two fingers' has changed to ‘Click or tap with two fingers.'
While you're in the Trackpad pane, you can also configure the Tracking Speed of the pointer, that is how quickly the pointer moves across the screen as you move your finger on the trackpad. Just move the slide right to make it go faster or left to make it go slower.
How to snipit on mac. You can also configure the gestures for scrolling and zooming, as well as gestures for other features such as Mission Control, App Exposé, and Notification Center.
You might find that after you've configured the secondary click, the option you've chosen doesn't suit you — you might invoke it accidentally, or it might be uncomfortable to use. If so, just go back to System Preferences and choose another option.
How to right click on a Mac mouse
Apple's Magic Mouse may not have a visible right button, but underneath that sleek white shell, it can differentiate between a left click and a right click, in the same was as the trackpad on a MacBook. Here's how to configure the right, or secondary, click on a Mac mouse.
- Launch System Preferences from the Apple menu or by clicking it in the Dock.
- Click on the Mouse pane.
- Click on the Point & Click tab.
- Check the box next to Secondary click.
- Choose ‘Click on the right side' to enable right-click on a Mac mouse.
Note: If you have an Apple mouse, you can have the left side as the secondary click and the right side as the regular click. To enable that, just select ‘Click on the left side' instead.
While you're in the Point & Click tab, you can use the slider to adjust the tracking speed of the mouse.
How to change the speed of double-clicking your mouse
For most of us, the default speed for double-clicking a mouse button works just fine. But for some users, with different requirements, an adjustment may be needed. You can change the length of time macOS waits for a second click in order to register a double-click, which is useful if you have difficulty moving your fingers quickly.
To adjust the double-click speed, do the following:
Control Click What Is Click
- Launch System Preferences and click the Accessibility pane.
- Click Mouse & Trackpad in the left hand sidebar.
- Drag the slider next to ‘Double-click speed' to the left to make macOS wait longer for the second click.
While you're in that pane, you can also change the delay that occurs when you drag a file over a folder and wait for it to spring open automatically. If you find that if you drag files over folders and the folders spring open unintentionally, you can slow down the spring load speed. Or if you find you have to wait too long when you want a folder to open, you can do the opposite. Drag the slider next to ‘Spring-loading delay' to the left to make the folder open quickly, or to the right for a longer delay.
Pro tip: The Mac right-click function is managed using the Trackpad, Mouse, and Accessibility System Preferences panes. These are all standard macOS System Preferences. However, third party apps and plug-ins also install their own panes sometimes. Mostly, that's fine — it's the way you control the app or plug-in. But sometimes it can cause a problem, such as when Flash gets out of date.
In cases like that, you can use CleanMyMac X's Extensions utility to safely uninstall it. Just click on the Extensions utility, choose Preferences panes, check the box next to the one you want to delete and click Remove. You can download CleanMyMac for free here.
As you can see, it's very easy to right click on a Mac and to configure how the click works using System Preferences. And it works the same way for the Trackpad, too. Both are configured from their own panes in System Preferences. And additional options can be found in System Preferences' Accessibility pane.
Control Click Macbook
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