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1. Open the File Explorer

Windows keyboard shortcut: Windows key + E

Easily the most valuable utility on your PC, the File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer) lets you view, sort, and inspect all the files and folders on your system, as well as any connected or networked drives. Launch File Explorer in a flash with this simple keyboard shortcut.

2. Minimize all open windows

Windows keyboard shortcut: Windows + M

Got a bunch of open windows cluttering your Windows desktop? Use this keyboard shortcut to make them all hide in the Windows taskbar (the bar that sits at the bottom of your Windows desktop).

3. Peek at the desktop

Windows keyboard shortcut: Windows key + comma

Just want to take a quick look at what’s behind your open desktop windows? Press and hold the Windows key plus the comma to take a peek. When you release the keys, your open windows will instantly reappear.

4. Lock the screen

Windows keyboard shortcut: Windows key + L

Need to step away from your PC for a moment? Here’s a keyboard shortcut that lets you quickly shield your desktop from prying eyes.

5. Open Settings panel

Windows keyboard shortcut: Windows + I

You can tweak everything from your lock screen password to your screensaver by diving into the Settings panel, and you don’t have to click to do it.

6. Rename a file or folder

Windows keyboard shortcut: F2

Nope, no need to right click a file or a folder to give it a new name. Instead, just select the file, then tap a single function key.

7. Put an item in the Recycle Bin

Windows keyboard shortcut: Control + D or just press the Delete key

Want to toss a file or folder into the Windows Recycle Bin without having to drag and drop? Just select it, then use this keyboard shortcut.

8. Delete the selected item immediately

Windows keyboard shortcut: Shift + Delete

Here’s a clever trick you might not know: rather than putting a file or a folder in the Recycle Bin for future deletion, you can instead wipe it instantly off your hard drive. All you have to do is use this simple keyboard shortcut.

9. Launch an app in the Windows taskbar

Windows keyboard shortcut: Windows key + a number key

Want to open or launch a pinned item in the taskbar using only the keyboard? Just press the Windows key, then press the number key that corresponds to the order of the taskbar item, counting from left to right (and not counting the Task View button, which sits immediately to the right of the search box.)

10. Move the cursor quickly between words and paragraphs

Windows keyboard shortcut: Control + right arrow, left arrow, down arrow, or up arrow

Here’s a powerful shortcut that’ll let you zoom around a document with ease. By pressing Control + the left arrow, you’ll zip the cursor to the beginning of the next word. Press Control + right arrow to move the cursor to the previous word. Control + up arrow sends the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph, while Control + down arrow make the cursor jump to the beginning of the next paragraph.

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First things first, though…

What’s the Safari toolbar?

Basically, it’s the big wide bar along the top of the Safari web browser. Inside the toolbar, you’ll find a series of buttons, including the Back and Forward buttons, a button that opens the Safari sidebar (where you’ll find your bookmarks and saved web pages), the address bar (for URLs and searching), the Share button, and the Tabs button.

But here’s the thing: you don’t have to settle for the “default set” of Safari buttons. If you like, you can pick new buttons to add, remove ones you never use, or rearrange the buttons as you see fit.

How to add or remove Safari toolbar buttons

To get started, open Safari, click View at the top of the screen, then select Customize Toolbar. When you do, you’ll see a menu of new Safari toolbar buttons to choose from.

See one you like? Just drag it into the toolbar, or drag an existing button out of the toolbar. You can even rearrange toolbar buttons or “flexible” spacers with your mouse.

The 6 Safari toolbar buttons you need to try

OK, now that you know how to add, move and rearrange buttons in the Safari toolbar, read on for six of my favorite toolbar buttons, starting with…

1. iCloud tabs

Want to quickly see which Safari tabs you have open on your other iCloud-connected Macs, iPhones and iPads? Just add this toolbar button and click it to view active Safari tabs on your other iOS devices, then click a tab to open it.

Related: An easy way to save your open Safari tabs in a bookmark folder

2. Home

Believe it or not, the venerable Home button isn’t among the default set of Safari toolbar buttons. Drag it in and click it to visit your favorite Home page. To set a new Home page, click Safari, Personalize, General, then edit the Homepage field.

Related: How to set multiple Home pages for your web browser

3. Zoom

Having a hard time reading the tiny text on a web page? You can boost the size of everything on the page by clicking View, Zoom In—or, even better, just drag the Zoom button into the toolbar.

Related: How to zoom the entire screen of your Mac

4. History

What was that web page you were visiting the other day? Just drag the History button into the Safari toolbar for an exhaustive (and searchable) list of your recent browsing activity.

Related: 7 ways to make the most of Safari for iPhone and iPad

5. Favorites Bar

Just below the main Safari toolbar is the Favorites bar, a thin stripe that contains buttons for your very favorite websites. If you want to hide the Favorites bar until you really need it, drag the Favorites Bar button into the Safari toolbar, then click the button to toggle the Favorites bar on and off.

Related: Missing the Favorites Bar in Safari? Here’s how to get it back

6. Print

From recipes to receipts, there are plenty of reasons to print from web—and if you’re a Safari user, you don’t have to click File, Print to do it. Just drag the Print button into the Safari toolbar to open the Print menu with a single click.

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When was the last time you gave the trash can on your Windows desktop any thought? Not recently, I’m guessing. But if you take a closer look, you’ll find the humble Windows Recycle Bin has a few cool tricks up its sleeves.

Read on for four gotta-try Windows Recycle Bin features, from making the recycle bin empty itself automatically to putting trashed files back where you got them.

1. Delete files from the Windows Recycle Bin immediately

When you toss a file in the recycle bin, it doesn’t actually get deleted right away. Instead, it’ll sit in the trash—and take up space on your hard drive—until you empty it manually or until it hits a preset limit (which I’ll cover in a moment).

Just change a single setting to make the Recycle Bin delete files the moment they’re trashed.

Of course, keeping trashed files on your system temporarily is a good idea in case you change your mind later. But if you’re positive you want to ditch a file right away, you can skip the recycle bin and delete it immediately.

One way to do it is to right-click it, hold down the SHIFT key, and then select “Delete” from the pop-up menu.

Want all the files you delete to be trashed permanently and skip the can? Right-click the recycle bin, select “Properties,” then click the “Don’t move files to the Recycle Bin” option.

2. Set a size limit

Let’s say you do want to temporarily keep deleted files in the recycle bin. That’s fine, so long as you remember to take out the trash once in a while. But who wants to bother with that? Me neither.

The recycle bin will empty itself automatically once you set a maximum size.

Well, you can always set a size limit for the recycle bin. Once the total size of your deleted items hits the limit, the recycle bin will automatically toss the oldest files.

Here’s how you do it:

• Right-click the recycle bin, then select “Properties.”
• Make sure the “Custom size” option is selected, then choose a maximum size—anything up to the total size of your hard drive.
• Click the “Apply” button, then click “OK” to close the settings window. You’re done!

3. Put trashed items back where you found them

So, you dumped a bunch of files in the recycle bin but you’re having second thoughts. Now what?

You can restore everything in the Recycle Bin to their rightful place with a single click.

You could just open the recycle bin, pluck the items out and drop them onto your desktop. A handy alternative, though, is to let Windows send the file back to its original location.

Just open the recycle bin, select the file you want to “un-delete,” click the Manage menu at the top of the recycle bin window, then click the “Restore the selected items” button. You can also click the “Restore all items” button to put everything in the recycle bin back where it was.

4. Hide the Windows Recycle Bin from your desktop

Don’t want the recycle bin icon cluttering up your desktop? You can hide it in just a few clicks.

Just check or uncheck the box to reveal—or hide—the Recycle Bin from your desktop.

Click the Windows button in the bottom-left corner of the screen, then click Settings (it’s the icon on the side that looks like a little gear), Personalization, Themes (look in the left column), scroll down to the Related Settings heading, then click “Desktop icon settings.”

Now, see the Recycle Bin checkbox? Uncheck it, then click the Apply button; once you do, the Recycle Bin icon will disappear from your desktop.

To get the Recycle Bin back (and remember, it’s not really gone, just hidden from your desktop), check the Recycle Bin box, then click Apply again.

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Take a screenshot

Want a snap a picture of whatever’s happening on your Mac desktop? Here’s the fastest, easiest way to do it: press and hold COMMAND + SHIFT + 3.

You can take a screenshot of just a portion of your Mac’s screen; press and hold Shift, Command, and the number 4 key, then click and drag.

To snap an image of just a portion of your desktop, press and hold COMMAND + SHIFT + 4, then drag the crosshairs across the part of the screen you’d like to capture.

As soon as you release the keys, the image file containing your screenshot should appear on the desktop, complete with a date and timestamp.

Related: 5 super-easy ways to take a screenshot on your Mac

Take a quick look at a file

You don’t have to go to the trouble of launching a program to sneak a quick peek at an image, a Word document, or another file on your Mac’s hard drive.

Just select a file or a group of files, then press the space bar to enable the Mac’s “quick look” feature.

Instead, try this: just select the file with your mouse, then press the space bar.

When you do, a read-only preview of the file will appear on your Mac’s desktop, perfect for taking a quick look (and indeed, the official name for this Mac feature is “Quick Look”) at, say, an image file without having to launch the Preview or Photos app.

Move or hide the dock

Want to move your Mac’s dock—you know, the shaded area at the bottom of the screen, where all your favorite apps sit—to the side, or hide it altogether? Easy.

You can move the Mac dock to the left or right side of the screen.

Just click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select System Preferences, then Dock. To move the dock from the bottom to the side of the screen, just select the “Left” or “Right” options next to the “Position on screen” setting.

You can also set the dock to hide itself until you really need it by enabling the “Automatically hide and show the Dock” setting. Once you do, the dock will slide off the desktop; to get it back, move your mouse near the bottom of the screen (or toward the side, if you’ve moved the dock to the side of your desktop).

Related: 8 ways to make the Mac desktop dock work for you

Make the mouse pointer bigger

Finding an itty-bitty mouse pointer on a big-screen iMac can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Luckily, there’s an easy way to boost the size of the mouse pointer.

You can easily boost the size of the Mac’s mouse pointer from the Accessibility settings panel.

Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select System Preferences, click Accessibility, then click Display in the left column. See the “Cursor size” setting? Drag the slider until you can see the mouse pointer without having to squint.

Related: 2 easy ways to spot a teeny-tiny mouse pointer

Put a missing hard drive icon back on the desktop

So, one day you boot up your Mac only to notice something’s missing from your desktop: your hard drive icon. Where’d it run off to?

No “Macintosh HD” icon on your Mac desktop? Make sure the “Hard disks” box is checked in the Finder Preferences window.

Beats me why the Mac’s hard drive icon occasional makes a break for it. The good news is that you can get it back on your desktop in a snap.

Click the bare desktop to make the Finder menu option appear, open the Finder menu, select Preferences, then check the “Hard disks” option under the “Show these items on the desktop” setting.

Turn the corners of the screen into “hot” corners

Don’t want to have to remember an obscure keyboard combo or a multi-finger gesture to just, say, turn on your Mac’s screensaver, or make all your open windows fly off the desktop?

You can select one of several options for each hot corner—anything from revealing your desktop to activating Mission Control.

Luckily, there’s an easy way to start your screensaver, switch desktops, view your Mac apps in Launchpad and more with a simple flick of the mouse. All you have to do is enable the Mac’s “hot corners” feature, which triggers specific actions whenever you move the mouse into a corner of the screen.

To get started, open the Apple menu, select System Preferences, click Desktop & Screen Saver, click the Screen Saver tab, then click the Hot Corners button in the bottom-right corner.

Once you do, a pop-up will appear showing all the “hot corner” options for each corner of the screen. Click one of the four pull-down menus and pick an option—anything from Start Screen Saver to Mission Control (to see all your virtual desktops), Desktop, or Put Display to Sleep. To keep a corner from going “hot,” just pick the “-” option.

Choose an easier way to right-click

There’s more than one way to right-click on a Mac’s trackpad. There’s the tried-and-true way—press and hold CONTROL, then click—but you can also tap the trackpad with two fingers, tap the bottom-right corner of the trackpad, or tap the bottom-left corner.

You can visit your Mac’s trackpad settings to unlock a couple of additional right-click options.

To pick your favorite way to right-click, open the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select System Preferences, click the Trackpad button, then make sure the Point & Click tab is selected. Now, under the “Secondary click” setting, take your pick.

Related: 4 ways to right-click on a Mac trackpad

Get your missing scroll bars back

Wondering what happened to the scroll bars on your Mac windows? They disappeared a few years back, and sadly they appear to be gone for good … well, unless you change this MacOS setting.

Nope, you can’t get the Mac’s jumbo-sized scroll bars back, but at least you can keep the new, skinny-mini scroll bars visible at all times.

Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select System Preferences, click General, then select Always under the “Show scroll bars” section.

Yes, your restored scroll bars will still look anemic compared to their previous design, but hey—it’s better than nothing.

Quit a frozen program

If you’re staring at a spinning beach ball because one of your Mac apps has locked up, there’s an easy way to get back on track without restarting your entire system.

You can force a frozen Mac program to quit in just a few clicks.

Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select Force Quit, click on the program that’s misbehaving (it’ll probably be flagged as “Not Responding”), then click the Force Quit button.

The frozen program should promptly quit; after that, you can give it another try or pick a new app to launch.

Related: How to force a frozen Windows or Mac program to quit

Sign a PDF with your fingertip

Need to sign a PDF? No need to print it out, sign it and scan it. Instead, you can use your Mac’s trackpad to trace your signature with your fingertip, perfect for signing a PDF without having to put pen to paper.

Just click on a saved signature to paste it into a PDF.

Launch the Preview app (look in the Applications folder, or search for it with Spotlight), click the Tools menu, select Annotate, Signature, click Manage Signatures, then Create Signature.

A new window will appear with two tabs at the top: Trackpad (for tracing your signature with your Mac’s trackpad) and Camera (for snapping a photo of your signature). Go ahead and select the Trackpad tab (here’s how to use the camera instead), then click the “Click Here to Begin” button. Just trace your signature on the trackpad, press any key when you’re done. If you’re satisfied with the result, click the Done button.

To use your saved signature, open a PDF in Preview, open the Tools menu, select Annotate, Signatures, pick a saved signature from the menu, then drag it wherever you’d like. You can also use the little blue handles to resize the signature if needed.

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Hi Nadine! I feel your pain. I have a MacBook Air from 2012, and without its power cable plugged in, my Air only seems to run for about an hour before its battery dies.

So, what’s the deal? Does your four-year-old MacBook Air need to be replaced—and if so, how much money are we talking here? Or is it still possible to wring a little life out of your MacBook’s dwindling battery?

Why your MacBook battery gets weaker and weaker

The lithium-ion batteries in laptops like your MacBook lose their capacity over time, with Apple estimating that MacBooks should keep about 80 percent of their battery capacity after 1,000 charges. Assuming you give your MacBook Air a full charge each day, 1,000 chargers comes out to about two years and nine months. After that, you can expect your MacBook’s battery to get weaker and weaker.

Related: 8 battery-saving iPhone tips

The MacBook Air’s sleek, sealed case sure looks great, but it also means you can’t replace the battery yourself.

Beyond the time factor, there’s also the demands that MacOS software updates put on older MacBook batteries. With each major update comes new and potentially power-hungry features, and a few updates down the road, a MacBook battery that once gave you three hours of battery life might eventually give you fewer than two.

If the battery in your aging MacBook Air barely makes it past breakfast, you’ve got a couple of options.

Option #1: Replace the battery

Because most modern MacBook models, including the Air, feature cases that are sealed completely shut, you can’t replace your MacBook battery by yourself.

However, you can always take your MacBook to an Apple store or an authorized service dealer. The Apple store will replace the battery of an out-of-warranty MacBook Air for $129. Battery replacement for a 17-inch MacBook Pro will run you $179, while swapping a new battery into a 12-inch MacBook or a MacBook with a “Retina” display will cost $199. (Click here for more details and prices.)

Option #2: Try some battery-saving MacBook tips

Don’t want to cough up the cash to replace your MacBook battery? Read on for a few tips that’ll help squeeze more life out of the MacBook battery you’ve got.

Dim your screen brightness

Probably the number-one battery hog on your MacBook Air is the backlighting on the display. When you’re on battery power, turn the screen brightness down as low as your eyes can stand; doing so will make a huge difference in your MacBook’s battery life.

Click your MacBook’s battery meter for a list of apps using a “significant” amount of battery power.

Also, you can set your MacBook’s screen to dim itself automatically when you’re on battery power; just open System Preferences from the Apple menu, click Energy Saver, click the Battery tab, then enable the “Slightly dim the display while on battery power” option.

Check for battery hogs

Your MacBook can tell you if any of your running programs are gobbling up more power than they should be. Click the battery life indicator in the top-right corner of the screen to find out which apps (if any) are using “significant” power, and quit them if you can.

Unplug any iPhones, portable hard drives, or other peripherals

Your MacBook’s USB port can power and/or charge devices like an iPhone or an external hard drive, but doing to puts tremendous strain on your MacBook’s battery. Unless your MacBook is connected to a power source, don’t plug in your iPhone or any other peripherals if you can avoid it.

Hope that helps, Nadine. Still have questions? Let me know!

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The trick: turning on a Mac feature called Mouse Keys, which lets you move the Mac mouse pointer by tapping the keys on your numeric keypad—or, if you don’t have a separate numeric keypad, by pressing a set of keys within the keyboard itself.

How to turn on Mouse Keys

To get started, open the Mac’s System Preferences panel by clicking the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, then select System Preferences.

Next, click Accessibility, select Mouse & Trackpad in the left column, then check the Enable Mouse Keys checkbox.

How to move the Mac mouse pointer with a numeric keypad

The Mac’s Mouse Keys feature will let you move your mouse pointer using a numeric trackpad—or, if you don’t have a trackpad, you can tap keys on the keyboard itself.

Now, let’s give it a try. If you have a numeric keypad, press the “8” key to nudge the Mac mouse up a tad. The “2” key will move the mouse down, while the “4” and “6” keys will move the mouse left and right, respectively. The “7,” “9,” “1,” and “3” keys will move the Mac mouse up and to the left, up and to the right, down and to the left, and down and to the right.

Press the “5” key to click the mouse, click “0” to click and hold the mouse button, and press “.” to release the mouse button.

How to move the Mac mouse pointer with a trackpad

What if you don’t have a numeric keypad for your Mac? No problem; instead, use the box of nine keys bordered by the “7,” “9,” “J” and “L” keys. You can also press the mouse button by tapping the “I” key, tap “M” to press and hold the mouse key, and press “.” to release the mouse button.

Sounds easy, right? Well, here’s the catch: when Mouse Keys are enabled, you can’t use the assigned Mouse Keys for anything besides moving the mouse—in other words, no typing, which is particularly vexing if your Mouse Keys are smack-dab within the keyboard. Luckily, there are a couple of shortcuts for turning Mouse Keys on and off.

How to toggle Mouse Keys on and off

First, you can press a specific keyboard combo—COMMAND + OPTION + F5—to open the Accessibility Shortcuts menu. From there, you can quickly turn the Mouse Keys feature on or off.

Related: How the Mac’s “Sticky Keys” feature makes it easier to press keyboard combos

With the right setting enabled, you can toggle Mouse Keys on and off by tapping the OPTION key five times in a row.

Even better, though, you can toggle Mouse Keys on and off by pressing the OPTION key five times in a row. To do so, head back to the Mouse & Trackpad settings within the Accessibility preferences pane, click the Options button, then check the box next to the “Press the Option key five times to toggle Mouse Keys” setting.

A few more Mouse Keys tricks

The Options panel also has a couple of sliders: one labeled Initial Delay, and the second marked Maximum Speed. These sliders control what happens when you press and hold a mouse key to repeat a mouse movement. Move the Initial Delay slider from Short to Long to change how long it takes for the mouse pointer to start moving after you press and hold a mouse key, or fiddle with the Maximum Speed slider to control how quickly the mouse can move while you’re holding a key.

Finally, trackpad users can disable the trackpad while Mouse Keys are enabled by checking the box next to the “Ignore built-in trackpad when Mouse Keys is on” setting.

Click here for more Mac tips!

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Ready to crack open a Kindle book in your Web browser? Let’s get started.

Opening the Amazon Cloud Reader in a web browser

First, launch your favorite web browser, then visit the Amazon Cloud Reader site at http://read.amazon.com.

Next, sign in to your Amazon account—or, if you don’t have a free Amazon account yet, click “Create a new account” to sign up for one.

Related: How to borrow a Kindle book from Amazon

Once you’re signed into your Amazon account, a window will appear with instructions for setting up your browser to store your Kindle books for “offline” reading, when you don’t have an Internet connection. Again, click the big yellow button and follow the instructions (they vary slightly depending on your browser).

If you’ve already bought Kindle books before, you’ll see them in a grid in your browser; just click a book cover, and presto—you’re reading.

How to buy Kindle books in the Amazon Cloud Reader

No Kindle books yet? Click the “Kindle Store” Button in the top-right corner of the page to begin shopping. Once you’ve chosen a Kindle book to buy, make sure to select your Kindle Cloud Reader in the “Deliver to” drop-down menu, which sits right below the “Buy” button.

Related: How to buy Kindle books on an iPhone or iPad

Don’t worry, you can always send your purchased book to a new device under your account by selecting “Manage Your Content and Devices” under the “Your Amazon” menu near the top of the page.

Managing your Kindle bookmarks, font sizes and background colors

As with the physical Kindle e-reader, the online Cloud Reader lets you add bookmarks as you read, and you can change the font size or background color of the pages.

The Cloud Reader will automatically download the most recently opened books in your Kindle library for when you don’t have an Internet connection (provided you went ahead and enabled the Cloud Reader’s offline reading mode). You can also manually select, or “pin,” a book for offline storage; to do so, just right-click on its cover in the Cloud Reader library.

Related: How to reset the furthest page read of a Kindle book you’re reading

Done reading? Then just close the browser window. And yes—you can always read your Kindle books from another browser or even a different PC or Mac once you log into your account.

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1. Yank seldom-used icons out of the desktop dock

So there I was, idly poking around the app dock at the bottom of my Mac’s screen when I noticed just how many dock icons I never, ever click on. The Apple Maps icon? Never use it. iBooks? Ditto. GarageBand? Hardly ever.

Don’t need the Contact app icon in your Mac dock? Just drag it out.

If you see any app icons in the dock that you haven’t clicked on in the past six months, do yourself a favor and drag them out with your mouse. Doing so won’t delete the app, only its dock icon, and by paring down the number of icons in the dock, you’ll be making the dock itself that much more useful.

2. Check how many programs are launching themselves at startup

If it takes forever for your Mac to fire itself up in the morning, it could be because there are too many programs trying to open themselves at startup. Want to speed up the process? If so, consider crossing some apps off the startup list.

Just select an app and click the “-” button to remove it from your list of Login Items.

Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, click System Preferences, click Users & Groups, make sure your username is highlighted in the left column of the window, then click the Login Items tab.

Now, check the list of programs that launch when your Mac starts up. Some of them—like, say Dropbox or Google Drive—you may want to keep. Others—like Mail or iTunes—might be overkill. To take an app off the list, click its name, then click the “-” button near the bottom of the window. If you change your mind, you can always click the “+” button to put an app back on the Login Items list.

3. Spruce up your cluttered desktop

If you’ve got a jumble of icons cluttering your Mac desktop, there’s an easy way to straighten things up. Just right-click your Mac’s desktop, then select “Clean up” from the pop-up menu. Doing so will arrange all your desktop icons in a nice, neat grid.

The “Clean Up By” option makes it easy to quickly organize your desktop items.

You can also select “Clean up by” to organize your desktop icons alphabetically or by size; once that’s done, you can rearrange your icons any way you see fit. Want to keep your desktop icons sorted at all times? Right-click your desktop, then select the “Sort by” option

Related: 6 easy ways to tidy up your desktop

4. Change your desktop wallpaper

How long have you been staring at the same wallpaper on your Mac? In my case, way too long. Make a change by right-clicking the desktop, then select Change Desktop Background.

You can set your Mac desktop wallpaper to automatically change itself every day, hour or even every five minutes.

You can choose from dozens of images in the Desktop Pictures folder, or pick one of your own snapshots from the Photos section.

If you like, you can also set your desktop wallpaper to change itself every day, once an hour, or even every five minutes.

5. Empty the trash can

This might seem like an obvious spring-cleaning chore, but regularly emptying the Mac’s trash is one of the easiest ways to clean up your Mac—and it’s easy to forget, too.

Don’t forget to empty your Mac’s Trash regularly—or, even better, set it to empty itself each month.

Just the other day, I peeked into the trash and found several gigs of junk sitting there—and given that my MacBook Air only has 128GB of storage, freeing up five gigabytes of space is a big deal.

Go ahead and right-click the Trash icon in your desktop dock, then select Empty Trash.

Even better, you can set the Trash to empty itself once a month. Click the desktop, click the Finder menu at the top of the screen, select Preferences, click the Advanced tab, then click the “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days” checkbox.

6. Trash your least-used applications

Speaking of taking out the trash, a great way to clean up your Mac is by sifting through the Applications folder and looking for apps—particularly the big ones—that you hardly ever use.

You can use the Sort button to quickly pinpoint the Mac apps you use the least.

To get to the Applications folder, just open any Finder window, then click Applications in the left-hand sidebar.

Now, let’s do a little sorting. Click the Sort button (the one with six little boxes and a down-arrow on the right), then pick an option. Sorting by Size can help the biggest space hogs, while the Date Last Opened will pinpoint apps that you haven’t touched in ages.

See anything you don’t need anymore? If so, you can just drag the app into the Trash.

Bonus tip: Some of the biggest apps on your Mac are likely Apple programs like iMovie and GarageBand, which you can always redownload from the Mac App Store after deleting them.

7. Clean out the Finder sidebar

While you were looking for the Applications folder in the Finder sidebar, you may have noticed that the sidebar itself was cluttered with items that you don’t need or never use, like the Movies directory or AirDrop.

You can organize your Mac’s Finder sidebar just about any way you like.

If you want to make a change, feel free to drag sidebar items up, down, or even out. You can also drag any of your folders into the sidebar, perfect for creating a handy shortcut.

To restore a default item to the sidebar, click on the desktop, click the Finder menu at the top of the screen, select Preferences, then click the Sidebar tab. You can then check or uncheck any of the default sidebar items to hide or restore them.

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