Setting Printing Defaults in Mac OS X through presets and CUPS. By clicking the down arrow at the end of the printer drop-down, it expands to the full list of options in the print dialog window. You can see some common printer settings now but a lot more customization is in the bottom drop-down, in this case labeled Safari. Oct 11, 2013 Move the Dock with a Key Modifier & Drag to New Location. Storing the Dock on the right side of the display works well if you have the desktop icons hidden, otherwise it may overlap some of your default items, like hard drives and mounted shares: The bottom location is what most Mac users are familiar with and it is the default: The shift +.
A lot of Mac programs—Finder, Mail, Safari, and Pages, for example—will let you edit their default toolbars, so you can add buttons for quick access to the features you use the most. This means that you don’t have to go traipsing through menus to find the commands you’re looking for, so let’s learn how to customize toolbars on the Mac!
First, let’s be clear about what I mean I say “toolbar.” An app’s toolbar is the often-grey area that appears at the top of the app’s window. For example, I’ve highlighted Finder’s toolbar with a red box in the screenshot below:
Editing the Toolbar in Various Mac Apps
Where Is My Mac Toolbar
Mac Toolbar For Windows
To access the mode that will let you edit that toolbar, you can either look under the View menu for an option called Customize Toolbar…
…or you can right– or Control-click on the toolbar itself to find the same option:
Once the Customize Toolbar box pops up, you’ll see every button available for the application you’re in. These will vary between apps, but here are the choices for Finder:
As another example, here’s what Mail looks like:
Finally, here’s Pages’ window (whew, that is a LOT of options!):
Adding and Removing Custom Toolbar Buttons
To actually customize the toolbar, find a button you’d like to add and then click and drag it onto the app’s toolbar. You’ll see a green circle with a “plus” appear when you’re hovering over a valid location in which to add your new toolbar button. You can drop the button in you’re desired location on the toolbar and the existing toolbar buttons will reposition themselves to make room.
With the “Customize Toolbar” window open, you can also remove any unwanted buttons, too. Just click on an existing toolbar button, drag it outside of the app’s window, and release your mouse or trackpad button. If you mistakenly remove a button, you can always find it listed in the available options in the Customize Toolbar window, and you can re-add it at any time.
Restoring the Default Toolbar
Finally, if you’ve made a bunch of changes and have decided that you want to revert back to where you started, just drag the entire default set of buttons up into your toolbar and let go.
When you’re satisfied with your changes, click “Done” to save the settings and continue on.
I have to say that the biggest surprise of writing this article was looking at all of the buttons available in Pages! I don’t think I’ve ever tried to customize my toolbar in that app, so holy cow, was I surprised. I mean, I like having easy access to stuff, but WHOA.
The toolbar at the top of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard screen gives you one-click access to many basic tasks. You can customize the icons that appear on Mac’s toolbar to facilitate your work style and preferences. The default icons on the toolbar include:
Back and Forward: The Back button moves you to the previous window’s contents. If you use the Back button, the Forward button appears.
View: Click this control to toggle between the four view modes (icon, list, column, or flow).
Quick Look: Click this control to display a window with the contents of the selected file or document without launching the corresponding application.
Selecting a folder and pressing the spacebar displays a summary of its size and last modification date.
Action: Click this pop-up menu to display context-sensitive commands for the selected items.
Search: You can search for a file or folder using this box.
Adding or deleting items from the toolbar is a great way to customize Mac OS X. From the active Finder window menu, choose View→Customize Toolbar. You see the sheet shown here.
To add items to the toolbar, drag them from the Customize Toolbar dialog up to the toolbar at the top of the window.
To add an item between existing buttons, drop it between the buttons, and they obligingly move aside. If you get exuberant about your toolbar and you add more icons than it can hold, a double-right arrow appears at the right side of the toolbar. Clicking the arrow displays the icons that won’t fit.
In fact, the Customize Toolbar dialog isn’t necessary for some toolbar modifications: You can also drag files, folders, and disk volumes directly from the Desktop or other Finder windows and add them to your toolbar at any time. To remove a file, folder, or disk volume from the toolbar, hold down Control and click (or right-click) the icon on the toolbar; then click Remove Item from the pop-up menu.
You can also hold down Command and drag any item off the toolbar, or hold down Command and drag toolbar items to reorder them.
You can always drag a file or folder into the Sidebar column at the left of the Finder window.
To remove an item from the toolbar, drag it off to the center of the window.
Naturally, you can swap item positions. Just click an item, drag it to its new spot, and then release the mouse button.
To choose the default toolbar configuration or to start over, drag the default bar at the bottom of the window to the toolbar at the top.
This is the toolbar equivalent of tapping your ruby slippers together three times and repeating, “There’s no place like home.”
To toggle between displaying the icons with accompanying text (the default), the icon only, or a text button only, click the Show pop-up menu at the bottom of the Customize Toolbar dialog.
Toolbar Settings Menu
After you arrange your toolbar as you like, click the Done button.