- Hot Corners are simple gestures that allow you to quickly trigger an action when you move the pointer to a corner.
- To set up Hot Corners on Mac, go to System Settings -> Desktop & Dock -> Hot Corners and set specific actions you wish to trigger on every corner of the screen.
- To use Hot Corners on your Mac, simply move the pointer to one of the four corners.
A Mac offers some really cool shortcuts and gestures that can ease your digital life. One such productivity booster is Hot Corners on Mac. Well, this isn’t a new feature. They have been around for quite some time and are also used on other systems as well. This convenient macOS feature is hidden away, so you might not have come across it yet. Using Hot Corners can help you save time it would take to otherwise perform the same function. Also, they are much easier to use than remembering the keyboard shortcuts. So, it makes all the sense to use them. In this article, we’ll tell you how to set up and use Hot Corners on a Mac. Without any ado, let’s move along.
What are Hot Corners?
Simply speaking, Hot Corners are simple gestures that allow you to quickly trigger an action when you move the pointer into any of the four corners of your Mac’s screen. The user has the complete freedom to configure each hot corner with a specific action which will be performed when they drag the cursor to that corner of the screen.
Basically, macOS offers 11 options for each hot corner. The list may appear to have limited executable actions, but it has some nice options to simply your digital life. Here are these:
- Mission Control basically exposes all of the apps open in the Desktop you’re working on.
- Application Windows shows all of the windows of the application in focus.
- Desktop moves all the applications out of view and shows the desktop.
- Notification Center opens the notification center, so you can take a quick glance at your notifications.
- Launchpad is basically where all your apps reside, and you can launch the apps you need.
- Quick Note offers a quicker way to jot down ideas and add links.
- Start Screen Saver starts the screen saver on your Mac.
- Disable Screen Saver disables the screen saver so it never appears.
- Put Display to Sleep instantly shuts the display and puts your Mac to sleep.
- Lock Screen basically locks the screen to protect your important data while you’re away from your Mac.
- No action
According to your preferences, you can mix and match different actions for your Mac corners. For instance, you can launch Mission Control when you move the Mac pointer to the top-right or lock the screen when the pointer is in the bottom-right corner.
How to Enable and Set up Hot Corners on Mac
It’s super easy to set up Hot Corners on a Mac. The only reason why some users might haven’t used this feature yet is because it’s tucked deep inside the System Preferences. Just follow the below steps to configure Hot Corners on macOS:
- From the Apple menu at the top-left corner, choose System Settings. Alternatively, you can open System Settings from the Dock itself.
- Scroll down the left sidebar and click on Desktop & Dock panel.
- Here, scroll down to the bottom and click on Hot Corners.
- This will bring up a small window where you can set up the functions you want the Mac to trigger for every corner of the screen.
- Click on the dropdown boxes adjacent to the corners you want to set up and select the function.
- You can also use a modifier key with the hot corner. Simply press and hold the Command, Option, Shift, or Control keys or a combination of these keys, while you’re browsing through the pop-up menus.
- Once you’ve selected the functions, click on Done.
Now, you’re all set to use Hot Corners on your Mac and trigger the functions that you assigned to each corner.
How to Use Hot Corners on Mac
Once you’ve set up Hot Corners on your Mac, they are ready to use. You can trigger any of the functions assigned to the Hot Corners by moving the Mac pointer to that corner. The corner gestures won’t interfere with your regular usage so you don’t have to worry much. After all, you have to move the cursor all the way to the top-left, top-right, bottom-right, or bottom-left corners to trigger the action, and you don’t do these gestures mistakenly or in normal usage.
The only hot corner I use on my Mac is the bottom left corner to lock my Mac. I can quickly lock the screen when I’ve to attend an important phone call or jump to a quick meeting. Rather than the top corners, I prefer using the bottom ones as I’m less likely to trigger them accidentally. Well, it’s a sort of personalisation, so there is no “one-size-fits-all” setting. There are no such best settings for hot corners, it completely depends on the user.
That’s how you can set up and use Hot Corners on a Mac. Now that you know all the basics, go ahead, play around with a few options, and figure out what works best for you. If you ever want, you can also disable Hot Corners on your Mac.
We’d love to hear about your experience using hot corners on your Mac. Also, if you’ve come across any doubts, feel free to drop them in the comments below.
