Edit videos in quick time player.

Edit videos in QuickTime Player IN MAC

If you've recorded a fun little video and it needs just a small amount of tidying at the start and end before it goes online, there's an easier way than delving into iMovie.
QuickTime X can trim the start and ends of videos if you go to Edit > Trim... in the menu, then drag the handles at the start and end of the timeline that appears to set a new beginning and end of the clip. Click Trim when you're happy with it.

If you want to take a section out of the middle of a clip, you can use the Split Clip menu option.
You can split your video more than once and remove sections you don't want, and you can even insert other videos where the splits are.

Use Automator and Services for speed

Automator is a tool built into OS X that enables you to build your own workflows of commands, making complex tasks much easier in the future. Use it to build your own little apps that perform a specific task, to make a workflow to modify batches of files, or to create new Services, which are functions you can access from a right-click. You could use Automator to rename a large number of files, to convert images to a different file type, to turn text files in a folder to audio files, and much more.

1. To create something in Automator, open it, then choose what type of thing you want to create: each is useful in different circumstances, so click on them to see descriptions. Select the one you want and click Choose (or open an old Automator file).

2. Start creating the steps of your workflow by dragging Actions from the left-hand side of the screen to the empty space on the right-hand side. Actions are categorised by application and file type, or you can search for something at the top. Just click an Action's name to see what it does.

3. Once you've built up your workflow, you can click Run in the top-right corner to test it (though you won't be able to fully test everything this way). If there are any problems, the part where it failed will have a red cross next to it, and the log underneath will explain any warnings.

Use the app switcher to do more

Most MAC users will be used to using CommandTab to switch applications, but this little interface is more flexible than it seems at first. For a start, if you bring it up, then keep holding Command and hover your cursor over the icons (or press the and ' keys), whichever app is highlighted when you release Command is the one you'll switch to.

Also, when you've got an app highlighted, you can do a few other things: press Q to quit an app instantly; press H to hide an app from view; or press the up or down arrows to see the highlighted app's open windows in Mission Control.

Finally, if an app has windows that have been minimised, switch to it, but hold Option when you release Command - the minimised windows will all reappear back from the Dock.

Do quick sums with Spotlight

If there's a very quick calculation you need to do when working, but you don't want to break your flow by opening the calculator or bringing up the dashboard, you can use Spotlight instead.

Just hit Command[space] to open Spotlight, and then type your sum - you can even use brackets for more complex maths.

The answer will appear where Spotlight's results usually come up, and you can copy the results with Commandc.

Upload movies to YouTube with QuickTime

There's an easier way to get your movies online than going through YouTube's web interface. Double-click your movie on your o open it in QuickTime Player, then click on the Share icon in the player and select YouTube (though you can choose other services).

The first time, you'll have to log in, but after that you'll be taken straight to options for giving your video tags, a description and categorising it. You can also make a movie personal, so that it's not immediately visible to the wider world.

Speed up the Bookmarks bar

Safari's Bookmarks bar is a great way to make your favourite sites easy to access, but you can actually speed things up even more! When you place a site in the bar, it's assigned a keyboard shortcut based on its position - just press
Command1 to access the first site in the bar
Command2 to access the second, and so on.

Close many windows quickly

Sometimes, working at your or a while can leave you with a lot of open windows - lots of Preview images, for example, or Finder windows.

Rather than closing them individually, you can close all of an application's windows at once by pressing OptionCommandW. It only closes windows from the currently active app, so your other work is safe.

Hide apps quickly

Full-screen apps make it easy to focus on something, but that's not the only way to clear yourself of distractions: if you want to hide all open applications except for the one that's currently active, press OptionCommandH and they'll disappear - you can show them again by selecting them in the Dock.

Conversely, to hide only the active application, just press CommandH. If you click the desktop while holding CommandOption, you'll hide all application windows except for Finder.

Open a file's location in Finder from Spotlight

When you don't know where a file is, Spotlight is the easiest way to find it, but you won't always want to open the file: you might just want to see it in Finder.
To do this, highlight the result you want in Spotlight, but hold Command when you click on it. This will open the file's location in Finder.
You can also use this trick with files displayed in Stacks on the Dock to open them in Finder.

See hidden options

Holding Option actually lets you get to more options in the menu bar, as well as in the menus themselves. For example, the Restart..., Shut Down... and so on options in the Apple menu are followed by an ellipses to indicate that they'll bring up a dialogue when selected, but if you hold Option when clicking them, you can skip this dialogue and immediately perform the action.

Hold Option while looking through other menus and you'll see more options change, such as 'Add Link' becoming 'Remove Link' in Mail. Similarly, try holding Option while clicking the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi icons in the menu bar to see more details and options for your connections.

Rename duplicate and revert files easily

In OS X Lion, Apple introduced some new features for working with files, and a new hidden menu to access them. When you've opened a document, move your cursor over its name to bring up a small black arrow just to the right. Click this arrow and you bring up a menu with some of these new options. The most useful are the ability to rename and duplicate files, but you can also lock a file to prevent further editing, change it so that the file is stored in iCloud instead of only on your hard drive (though only in compatible apps), or move the file.

The flashiest feature is the ability to revert to a previous version of a file, though: you can choose an older version from what's listed in this menu, or click 'Browse All Versions...' to enter a Time ne-like interface, where you can scroll through older versions of that file and compare them to the current one.

Switch audio source/output from the menu bar

If you have headphones or speakers set up with your and if you have a headset or microphone connected, you might find yourself wanting to switch between different inputs or outputs, but this doesn't have to mean a slog to System Preferences every time: hold Option and click the volume adjuster in the menu bar and it'll bring up a list of audio inputs and outputs. You can then select the ones you want (though it can't display too many, so might be limiting for complex set-ups).

Quickly type out the phrases you regularly use

If you find yourself regularly typing the same things - whether that's a single Unicode character that doesn't have a keyboard shortcut, or an entire chunk of text such as an email signature or even just an email address - the built-in Text Replacement feature in OS X is a boon.

Go to the Text tab of the Language and Text pane of System Preferences and click the . Put the shortcut you want into the left column and the text you want it to expand to in the right. (One idea our friend Craig Grannell had is to preface all these shortcuts with '[[' so that you don't accidentally mistype something to trigger a ) You then have to make sure Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement is checked in each of the apps you want this to work in.

Quickly and perfectly select chunks of text

Sure you can use the mouse to click and drag over a section of text, but you have to be quite precise to position the cursor perfectly - which slows you down - and you can often capture rogue spaces and punctuation that you then have to edit out if you're copying and pasting. But there is a quicker way!.

• 1. To select a word, position the mouse cursor anywhere along its length and then double-click. To select an entire paragraph, position the mouse cursor anywhere inside the paragraph and then click three times. But wait, there's more!
  

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• 2. Let's say you want to select three words in a row. Position the cursor somewhere on the first word then double-click, keeping your finger pressed down on the second click. Now drag left or right to the last word - you'll see you're now selecting a word at a time.
  

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  3. Not quite selected everything you wanted? Hold Shift and then click beyond your selection to add the text in between to the selection. Alternatively, to make a selection, position the cursor where you want the selection to start, scroll to the end then click while holding Shift.

Select text in non-standard layouts

If, though, the text you're selecting isn't in a neat paragraph, you might think you can't select it. But actually, that's not so! Holding down Option brings up crosshairs to let you select a rectangle of text, which is ideal for copying columns of numbers, for example. Alternatively, holding down Command will let you select non-contiguous bits of text.

'Non-contiguous' might be a phrase you've never come across before, but in this context it just means bits of text that aren't next to each other in a sentence or paragraph. Let's say we wanted to select the first sentence of this tip and this paragraph at once; we can easily do that by selecting the opening sentence then select this paragraph while holding down Command. Best of all, you can combine the previous tip with this one, so you could click and drag to select the first sentence and then triple click the paragraph while holding Command.

Select text in non-standard layouts

If, though, the text you're selecting isn't in a neat paragraph, you might think you can't select it. But actually, that's not so! Holding down Option brings up crosshairs to let you select a rectangle of text, which is ideal for copying columns of numbers, for example. Alternatively, holding down Command will let you select non-contiguous bits of text.

'Non-contiguous' might be a phrase you've never come across before, but in this context it just means bits of text that aren't next to each other in a sentence or paragraph. Let's say we wanted to select the first sentence of this tip and this paragraph at once; we can easily do that by selecting the opening sentence then select this paragraph while holding down Command. Best of all, you can combine the previous tip with this one, so you could click and drag to select the first sentence and then triple click the paragraph while holding Command.

Zap your cursor around the text for easy editing

You waste a lot of time switching from the keyboard to the mouse to move your cursor around text. Force yourself to learn these text navigation shortcuts, though, and you'll be zipping around your words in no time!

• OptionLeft Move one word to the left
  
• CommandLeft Move to the start of the line
  
• Replace with the other arrow keys and see what happens!
  
• Add Shift to these commands to select text as you move
  
• T Transpose (swap) the two letters either side of the cursor

Get in-line synonyms definitions and more

Sometimes when you're writing, you might not always be able to reach for that perfect word. Or maybe you're not even sure if you've used the right word and need to check, just in case. Or maybe you just want to do a bit of research for an essay, for instance.

Happily, the built-in Dictionary in OS X puts synonyms, definitions and even Wikipedia within easy reach. Select a word or phrase with your mouse or using keyboard shortcuts and then either right-click the selection and click Look Up or tap Ctrl CommandD.

In the pop-over window that appears, simply click the headings to open the standalone Dictionary app in that mode, and you can click the ellipsis to see more entries. Best of all, you can change the order that the dictionary, thesaurus and so on appear in the Dictionary app's preferences, so if you're always reaching for synonyms but never use Wikipedia, say, you can move the thesaurus to the top and even disable Wikipedia entirely.

Connect to the internet through your iPhone

The iPhone comes with a feature that enables it to share its 3G or 4G mobile broadband connection with other devices (though this must be allowed by your network operator), making it perfect for getting your nline wherever you are. There are three ways to connect your o your iPhone to share its signal: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB.

To begin, go to the Personal Hotspot option in the iPhone's Settings menu, and turn it on. If you want to connect over Wi-Fi, find the Wi-Fi network created by the iPhone in your Wi-Fi options, select it, and enter the password shown in the iPhone.

To connect using USB, plug your iPhone into your nd you should get a dialog that takes you to the Network section in System Preferences, from which you can select the iPhone. For Bluetooth, activate Bluetooth on both devices and pair them, and the connection option should again appear in System Preferences > Network.

Share a DVD drive with Remote Disc

Remote Disc enables you to effectively share a DVD drive between multiple letting you, say, use an older i SuperDrive with a ok Air to install software. To activate this on the hat has the disc drive, go to System Preferences > Sharing and check 'DVD or CD Sharing', then insert the disc you want to share.

Make sure the other s connected to the same network as the disc-laden one, then open a Finder window and look in the sidebar for Remote Disc in the Devices section.

Click it, then double-click the computer you want to connect to.

Print to the next available printer

It can be annoying having to wait for someone else to print out large documents when you're in a hurry, so use this tip to minimise the wait if you have access to more than one printer.
In System Preferences > Print and Fax, you can select multiple printers and create a Printer Pool. You can then select this Pool from the print dialogue in apps instead of your individual printers, and if one printer is in use, your ill automatically send the document to one that's free instead - no waiting!.

Use Home Sharing to share your iTunes library

It's pretty common for members of a family or a shared house to want to share their music or movies with each other, and you can do this easily with iTunes. Go to iTunes > Preferences > Sharing, and then check the box labelled 'Share my library on my local network'. If you want to limit who can access your library, set a password in the box near the bottom, otherwise everyone will be able to access it.

You can also limit sharing to particular areas or playlists in your iTunes library. Once Home Sharing is turned on, other iTunes users can see your library by clicking the Library drop-down menu in the top-left of iTunes. iOS device users can also access libraries through Home Sharing by going to the More tab in the Music or Videos apps.