Mess Up Your Desktop with 6 of Our Favorite ‘Hidden’ macOS Mojave Features

With the release of macOS Mojave, we went hunting for features that might be hiding amongst all the changes to the OS. What we found were some nifty capabilities hiding, for the most part, in plain sight.

Even more features are expected to show up over time as more users work with the macOS Mojave, but for now, here are our top 6 hidden features of macOS Mojave.

Note: Some features in this article were tested with the beta version of macOS Mojave. Let us know in the comments if you see any changes in the features. 

Recent Apps in Dock
The Dock gets a new organizational tool; it can show three of the most recent apps you’ve used in a special area of the Dock. This new feature is located after the Apps section of the Dock, and before the Documents and Trash section of the Dock.

If this seems similar to the Recent Applications Stack that you can create in the Dock, it is, but with a few differences. First, the recent apps aren’t displayed in a stack but as individual icons in the Dock. Second, only apps that don’t already have a home in the Dock are displayed. This prevents duplicate apps from showing up in your Dock.

The recent apps section of the Dock has very basic controls you can set:

Launch System Preferences by clicking its icon in the Dock, or by selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu.

Select the Dock preference pane.

Place a checkmark in the box labeled, “Show recent applications in Dock to enable the feature or remove the checkmark to turn off the feature and reclaim the Dock space.”

Currently, the recent apps Dock section is limited to three apps; it would be nice to have the ability to set how many can be seen.

Desktop Stacks
It may be pressing the issue to call this feature hidden since Stacks on the desktop was shown off at WWDC. Nevertheless, there are a few features that didn’t get shown.

Desktop stacks allow you to clean up your desktop, organizing all the items scattered about the desktop into stacks. The stacks are usually organized by kind, placing all your image files into one stack, all your PDFs into another, etc.

You can control how stacks are created, and the sorting order they use, by either selecting View, Group Stacks By from the Finder menu, or right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Group Stacks By from the popup menu. No matter which way you get there, the sorting choices are:

• Kind (the default)
• Date Last Opened
• Date Modified
• Date Created
• Tags

The desktop stacks work much like stacks that reside in your dock; clicking or tapping on a desktop stack causes the stack to open and display its content. You can then select an item to open or work on.

Stacks also support scrubbing through their content without opening them. Simply place your cursor on top of the stack, then, with a trackpad, slide two fingers side to side to scrub through the content, or with a Magic Mouse, use a single finger to perform the scrubbing.

To enable Stacks: From the Finder menu, select View, Use Stacks. Or, you can right-click on the desktop, and select Use Stacks from the popup menu.

To disable Stacks: You can remove the checkmark from the Use Stacks menu by repeating the above steps. Once the checkmark is gone, the stacks are removed, and all of their content is flung back onto your desktop.

If you’ve disabled Stacks, there’s another hidden trick related to cleaning up your desktop, or in this case, not cleaning up your desktop. Right-click on the desktop and once the popup menu appears, hold down the option key. A new menu item will appear, labeled Mess Up Desktop. Selecting this menu item will scatter the desktop files all around, making a mess. Want a bigger mess? Select the Mess Up Desktop menu item multiple times.

It will be interesting to see how long Mess Up Desktop stays in the beta, and if it makes it to the release version of macOS Mojave.

Missing in the public beta, but likely to show up in the release version is an option to specify the sort order within a desktop stack.

Siri Can Help Find Lost Passwords
If you’ve forgotten a password, say to a website, you can ask Siri for help. Just say something like, “Hey Siri, what’s my Netflix Password?”

The ever-faithful assistant will check to see if the forgotten password is in your Keychain, iCloud Keychain, or Safari password list. If it is, your login credentials will be displayed using the appropriate password utility. You still need to know the password for the login utility; Siri can’t help you with that.

Screenshot Toolbar
The Mac has long had the ability to take screenshots using keyboard shortcuts or the Grab app included with the Mac. Those options aren’t going away; instead, Mojave builds on them and offers a new screenshot toolbar with options to:

• Capture entire screen
• Capture selected window
• Capture selected portion
• Record entire screen
• Record selected portion

There’s also a set of options that allow you to:

• Save to the Desktop, Documents, Mail, Messages
• Set a timer for None, 5 seconds, 10 seconds
• Select a microphone to use
• Show a floating thumbnail
• Show the mouse cursor

While most of these screenshot options were available previously, having them all gathered together in one toolbar is a vast improvement. But the icing on the cake for many will be the ability to mark up a screenshot or edit a screen recording.

After you take a screenshot or screen recording, you can double-click the thumbnail image to display the image, as well as access basic markup tools.

You can add text, shapes, highlight areas, or a signature, and rotate the image as well as crop it. When you’re done, you can save the changes as well as share the image with others via social media, Mail, or Messages, as well as send it to other apps on your Mac for further editing.

Screen recording can be edited to trim the start and end points. You can save the file, share it with others, or send it for further editing in other apps you may have.

System Software Updates
You may notice something missing from the newly designed Mac App Store: software updates that pertain to the macOS system. System software updates have been stripped out of the Mac App Store and moved to their own preference pane in the System Preferences.

This new location allows you to set preferences specific to how system software updates occur, versus those for the various apps you have installed on your Mac.

Launch System Preference by clicking on its Dock icon, or by selecting System Preferences from the Apple menu.

Open the Software Update preference pane.

Software Update will check for any updates for your Mac’s system software, as well as updates to drivers for the printing, graphics, storage, and boot systems. Security updates are also checked using the new Software Update preference pane.

You can set your update preferences by clicking the Advanced button.

A dropdown sheet will display the available options to automatically:

• Check for updates
• Download new updates when available
• Install macOS updates
• Install app updates from the App Store
• Install system data files and security updates

Make your selections by placing a checkmark next to each item you wish to have automatically performed for you.

I recommend placing checkmarks next to: Check for updates, Download new updates when available, and Install system data files and security updates.

When you’re ready, click the OK button to save your preferences.

When a system update is available, a Dock badge is displayed on the System Preferences icon; a notification banner is also displayed.

Gallery View Options
We mentioned some of the Finder improvements in the Rocket Yard’s First Look at the Developer Beta. One of the new Finder Features is Gallery View, a replacement for the older Cover Flow view.

The new Gallery View has a lot going for it, especially when working with a folder full of multimedia files. As an example, an image file selected in the Gallery View will not only automatically display an image preview, but also show you the file’s associated metadata, such as image size, resolution, camera type used, lens, and lens settings.

And while having easy access to the metadata can make many tasks easier, you’ll also find that you can rotate the image or mark up the image directly from the Finder. But wait, there’s more. Just below the metadata pane you’ll find a More button. Clicking the More button will bring up a popup menu listing Quick Actions; tasks that can be performed on the selected file. For an image file, you’ll likely see Create PDF, letting you quickly convert an image file to a PDF.

But you can also customize this popup menu by selecting Customize.

The Extensions preference pane will open with the Finder selected. You’ll see a list of actions that can be added to the More button’s popup menu. Currently, Apple provides these actions, but actions can be created by third parties, as well as created using the Automator app, which is included with the OS. I expect to see a large number of actions, such as converting from one file format to another, being added quickly.

For now, try placing a checkmark in the action labeled Set Desktop Picture, and then close the Extensions preference pane.

Click the More button again, and the new action will be displayed in the popup menu.

Those are our top 6 hidden features for macOS Mojave. What have you found in Mojave that surprised you, delighted you, or made you scratch your head? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Other Topics You Might Like:

Six Mojave Features You Probably Don’t Use, But Should Five macOS Mojave Utilities You Should Get to Know Stacks on Stacks: A Guide to macOS Mojave’s Simplest New Desktop Feature A Guide to macOS Mojave’s New Screenshot Tool