It’s pretty sad that there are so many “hidden” things in an OS that’s supposed to be so easy to use. I hadn’t thought about it before, but the sheer volume of them has surprised me. I knew of the existence of a lot of these shortcuts myself, but I’d never tried to think of them all at once until I started compiling this page. Now that I have many of them in one place (there’s more to be added - I think there always will be), I find myself wondering about ease of use. Anyway, enjoy. i've gotten really annoyed with all things Mac lately to build and repair them. Here is a list of some of the things I would like to remember myself. This is a collection of the (poorly documented) key-sequences that do things. It’s probably possible to find all this information within Apple’s Knowledge Base, but it’s currently scattered across multiple entries.

 

 

To use a keyboard shortcut, or key combination, you press a modifier key with a character key. For example, pressing the Command key (the key with a symbol) and the "c" key at the same time copies whatever is currently selected (text, graphics, and so forth) into the Clipboard. This is also known as the Command-C key combination (or keyboard shortcut).

A modifier key is a part of many key combinations. A modifier key alters the way other keystrokes or mouse clicks are interpreted by Mac OS X. Modifier keys include: Command, Control, Option, Shift, Caps Lock, and (on portable Macs) the fn key.

Here are the modifier key symbols you can see in Mac OS X menus:

(Command key) - Sometimes called "Apple key"; on Apple keyboards this key also has an Apple logo ()
 (Control key)
 (Option key) - "Alt" may also appear on this key
 (Shift key)
(Caps Lock) - Toggles Caps Lock on or off
fn (Function key) - Located in the lower left corner of built-in keyboards on portable Macs

 

On Boot

Key Combination	Effect
mouse down	Eject removable media ( I think Boot ROMs prior to 2.4f1 excluded the CD drive )
opt	Bring up OF system picker on New World machines - boot to 9 on pre-New World machines
F8	Bring up Mac OS X boot partition selector (DTKs only?)
cmd-period	When OF system picker is active, open the CD tray
cmd-opt	Hold down until 2nd chime, will boot into Mac OS 9 ?
cmd-x (or just x?)	Will boot into Mac OS X if 9 and X are on the same partition and that’s the partition you’re booting from.
cmd-opt-n-d	prevent native drivers from loading (System 7 until 9.x?)
cmd-opt-shift-delete	Bypass startup drive and boot from external (or CD). This actually forces the system to NOT load the driver for the default volume, which has the side effect mentioned above. For SCSI devices it searches from highest ID to lowest for a partition with a bootable system. Not sure about IDE drives.
cmd-opt-shift-delete-#	Boot from a specific SCSI ID # (# = SCSI ID number)
cmd-opt-p-r	Zap PRAM. Hold down until second chime.
cmd-opt-n-v	Clear NV RAM. Similar to reset-all in Open Firmware.
cmd-opt-o-f	Boot into open firmware
cmd-opt-t-v	Force Quadra AV machines to use TV as a monitor
cmd-opt-x-o	Boot from ROM (Mac Classic only)
cmd-opt-a-v	Force an AV monitor to be recognized as one
c	Boot from CD. If set to boot to X and no CD is present, may boot to 9.
d	Force the internal hard disk to be the startup device
n	Hold down until Mac logo, will attempt to boot from network server (using BOOTP or TFTP)
r	Force PowerBooks to reset the screen
t	Put FireWire machine into FireWire Target Disk mode
z	Attempt to boot using the devalias zip from first bootable partition found
ctl-cmd-shift-power	Reset power manager (with computer off)
shift	(Classic only) Disable Extensions
shift	(OS X, 10.1.3 and later) Disables login items. Also disables non-essential kernel extensions (safe boot mode)
cmd	(Classic only) Boot with Virtual Memory off
cmd-v	(OS X only) show console messages (verbose mose) during boot. Also invokes Safe Mode
cmd-s	(OS X only) boot into single user mode
cmd-opt-c-i	(Mac IIci only) Set date to 20 Sep 1989 to get a graphical easter egg
cmd-opt-f-x	(Mac IIfx only) Set date to 19 Mar 1990 to get a graphical easter egg
cmd-opt-shift-tab-delete	Erase startup disk under 7.1(?)

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