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Ask HN: What feature did you find after years of using macOS?

326 points by hooda ↗ HN
For me, it was finding that I can use "Stacks" in Finder to clear desktop. For years, I was irritated with screenshots lying all over my desktop screen but didn't have the energy to sort them manually. When I found out Stacks, I was like ...

539 comments

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nicoburns
Wait until you find out you can change which directory screenshots save to. I have a dedicated "screenshots" directory in my home directory. And then a stack in the Dock for it similar to the one for the Downloads folder.
Operyl
Even better, you can just have those screenshots save to only your clipboard. Just add ctrl to your combo, _or_ you can remap it in Keyboard under System Preferences.
davidivadavid
Whoops, just posted that too. Definitely one of the most time-saving shortcuts I found in the last few years.
etimberg
Any idea if there is a way to remove the preview that shows up in the bottom right corner? OSX doesn't write the screenshot until after that disappears which is annoying
rileytg
> Another good tip for screenshots is disabling the floating thumbnail. Just open the screenshot app and disable it in the options menu.
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jdub
Shift + Command + 5… click "Options" in the bar down the bottom of the screen.

(Also, try hitting space a couple of times in that mode.)

logicuce
You can also do it using commandline

`defaults write com.apple.screencapture show-thumbnail -bool false`

nxpnsv
Found out the other day that you can drag and drop this into a document...
etimberg
Hmm, it must be something special in certain apps. I've tried that into the Slack desktop app and it didn't accept it
nxpnsv
That’s odd that was my exact learning example
mattkevan
The preview thing is really handy as you can directly drag and drop it into a document or chat window or whatever.

After you’ve done that it won’t be saved, which is great as you can quickly snap and use a screenshot without having to switch to the Finder - and the desktop doesn’t get cluttered with hundreds of images.

freetonik
A huge problem with this is that some apps don't "accept" this drag and drop, and the preview just disappears without saving the screenshot file. I can't remember the exact apps which behave that way, but I've been burned and irritated multiple times because of this. As a result, I disabled the preview feature and added the screenshot folder to the dock just like OP did.
statictype
I’ve seen this with most cross platform apps - like Slack and Skype.

What I found you can do instead is use Cmd-C to copy it and then paste it into the app. That generally works.

monocularvision
And folks wonder why people get annoyed with non-native apps on Mac.
nemosaltat
Onyx, and some other utilities from Titanium centralize some handy tweaks like this in a simple GUI.
cel1ne
Shift + Command + 4, then space-bar -> capture windows.
davidivadavid
Wait until you find out you don't even have to save screenshots (most of the time) and can copy them straight to clipboard, and Cmd-V them where you need them. Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-3/4.
stjohnswarts
Yeah this is what I do 98% of the time. I'm usually not taking a bunch of screen shots. Just 1 or 2, usually because copy/paste from slack is such a PITA
sumedh
Thanks, I did that now. I hate all the screenshots on my desktop.
yarsanich
Creating one-file pdf from large pdf file with simple page drag to the home screen using Preview.
clairity
yes, and you can compose all sorts of decks by showing the sidebar and dragging images/pages between window sidebars.

i sometimes compose quick-and-dirty UX flows from mockups this way.

blaesus
Preview can modify images. There's a button with a pencil icon that toggles a toolbar for simple image editing, such as adding lines, shapes, or texts.
snowwrestler
There’s a little prism icon too which opens a panel for Lightroom-type modifications like exposure, shadows, highlights, levels, sharpness, etc.
crazygringo
I mean I thought I was a Preview power user, but had never clicked that little toolbar button.

Blows me away I can do that stuff in Preview. Wow.

jjoonathan
It's got a good solid-color-to-alpha tool too!
mistersquid
I've been using the Markup in Preview since they went system-wide in macOS Mojave. (Today I learned that Markup debuted as an extension in Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. [0])

This comment and its children sent me on a spelunking mission and the treasures I found. Markup has a Loupe tool and Speech Bubbles.!

Such features are many, various, and somewhat obscure, akin to Easter Eggs. (Both undiscoverable and handy to know.)

[0] https://tidbits.com/2018/11/19/macos-hidden-treasures-the-ma...

gentryb
Cmd + Shift + ? = Easy way to access menus via keyboard
eddyg
or Ctrl+F2 if you prefer to start at the Apple menu
tgv
For me, it just opens the application's "Help".
JMTQp8lwXL
From there, you can use the arrow keys to navigate to the menu option you'd like.
tgv
No, it opens the actual help window or link. The menu doesn't get selected.
corytheboyd
The keyboard shortcut in finder to take you to your home directory, cmd + shift + h if I recall correctly. Makes it trivial to keyboard navigate to anything when you can easily start from the same place every time!
hooda
You can also set which folder (downnloads/documents/desktop) to open by default when you open a new Finder Window.
NaOH
If you don't know, that shortcut also works in Open/Save dialogs. The same is true for nearly all the shortcuts in the Finder > Go menu (go to Desktop switches to Command-D in those dialogs).
house9-2
cmd + shift + h = home directory

cmd + shift + a = applications directory

cmd + shift + d = desktop directory

Semi-related, type `open .` in terminal to open that directory in Finder

ramses0
`xdg-open .` is the Linux equivalent.
haddr
And when you are in terminal and want to change dir to some different path, just drag and drop it from finder (either a file or just a icon from the title bar)
donarb
If you cmd-drop a file icon into Terminal, it will automatically cd into the parent directory, it prefixes the path with cd and appends ; at the end and executes it. If the icon is a folder, it will automatically cd into that directory.

If you shift-drop a file icon into Terminal, it will paste the file path to the command line without escaping spaces.

throwawaw
Is there a reverse version of that last one? For navigation I prefer Finder over `cd; ls`, but once I end up where I want to be I generally need a terminal.

edit: Another user replied with what I want as I typed this! Thank you haddr.

roryokane
You’re referring to the tip to drag the Finder folder onto the Terminal window. There’s another way that is easier if you don’t already have a Terminal window open:

Install the app “cd to…” (https://github.com/jbtule/cdto) and add it to your Finder toolbar. Now clicking that icon will open a new Terminal (or iTerm) window within the selected folder.

m463
I use cmd+shift+u all the time.

It's great when you don't have a mouse, or don't want to use it:

cmd+tab: pulls up app switcher, keep clicking until you select Finder

cmd+shift+u: opens utility menu t: highlights Terminal.app cmd+o: opens a terminal

type

antipaul
Could also spotlight search for Terminal

cmd-space, terminal, return

GavinAnderegg
There are a whole bunch of these as well! If you open a Finder window, and look at the Go menu, you'll see all the options. You can also use Cmd-Shift-G to open a path entry dialog with tab completion.
throwaway333444
Setting most (but not all) system preference using the terminal. It made doing clean installs every year so much easier. https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/main/.macos
muli_d
This is gold. Thanks!
ta1234567890
Super curious about your yearly clean installs. Could you do a short breakdown of your process and the tools you use to manage it?

Also, what do you use for backups?

Thank you.

TaqPolymerase
Do you have a good way of discovering these keys / syncing them with the UI? I like to do the same thing but sometimes change a setting in the UI and don’t know what to update in my script without diffing the entire prefs directory before and after the change.
niteshade
AFAIK diffing is the only way, I'd love to hear if anyone has a better technique
SPBS
are you mathiasbynens? If so, thank you. I've been using that script as a reference for my own clean install script. Not sure where else I could have found the information, seems like Apple themselves are against documenting it and have in fact deprecated some of the settings in later macOS versions.
juancn
Why do you do clean installs? I've been moving the same MacOS image since 2006. Four machines, without any issues using whatever MacOS provides at the time.
heyvirgil
Dotfiles are wizard AF. Been using them on my departmental deployments for a while now and will never go back.
bryceneal
I solved the screenshot on the desktop problem by using a program called Hazel. It can automatically move and sort files based on any number of criteria. I set it up to move all screenshots on my desktop to a ~/tmp directory. This has worked pretty well for keeping my desktop completely empty which is my preference.
donatj
You can actually just change where they go in the Command-Shift-5 option menu.
Roybot
Dictionary word lookup with a single gesture.

https://media.giphy.com/media/Vg5tebSFuj1DFtHwrd/giphy.gif

hooda
Tap on a word with 3 fingers.
donatj
You can also hover over the word and hit Command-Shift-D for people not using a trackpad.
GolDDranks
Sadly, that used to work better than it does now. From some versions ago, it was upgraded to be "smarter" and do google searches and link lookups and whatnot. I'm nowadays struggling to get the dictionary lookup shown. That's a shame; as a non-native speaker it's a super helpful feature. I've been trying to disable the other shenanigans, but without much success.
GolDDranks
Woah, I found a way to fix it! You need to remove the checkbox "Show Spotlight results in <whatever the feature's name is in English>" in Spotlight settings. I wouldn't thought that I need to go look for settings elsewhere to fix that.
sneak
That used to send whatever word (possibly a password, or some other confidential thing) you deep-clicked on out to the lookup server unencrypted. If you happened to be on open wifi (like in a coffeeshop), it would broadcast it totally unencrypted to everyone within radio range. I reported it and now it uses TLS. :)
hamiltont
Show hidden files (dotfiles) inside any finder window or file open dialog: Cmd + Shift + .

Discovered after ~10 years

Roybot
This is awesome.
nemosaltat
I’ve been using `defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall dock` for at least 15 years. A quick DDG search, indicated this shortcut arrived in High Sierra. Has it been around longer?
uranusjr
It has been around for as long as I can remember, and I have been using Mac since 10.3.

—

Edit: Thinking about it a bit more, it might not be that long since I wasn’t into programming back then and hidden files meant little to me. The first time I used it was probably around Leopard.

—

Edit 2: It seems like the feature debuted in Lion (10.7). This would make sense since Finder was overhauled in that version to add several features.

manmal
Not even temporarily, it’s a permanent, system-wide setting.
hamiltont
snap, I never realized it was permanent. Guess I just kept turning it off. Thanks! Updated parent comment
duncans
Why would they not put this in the View menu? I can even imagine someone invoking it by mistake and not working out how to undo it.
bhj
Exactly, it's also a needless pain point for those switching from Windows, where the checkbox is relatively accessible, if a few clicks away.
chaboud
That’s wild. I’ll leave it off, though. I don’t trust Finder to handle file operations safely and effectively (too many dangling files, partial copies, and littered indexing files in my history).

If I have dot files, I’m gonna go all grey beard and handle them in a terminal.

prh8
This is one of the most useful ones here that I didn't already know, thank you
digital_voodoo
This doesn't work on my Mac. Only Cmd + Shift + Fn + . works. Don't know why, tbh.
Brajeshwar
Remember this is a toggle, so you can toggle hide/unhide with the same shortcut. I use it pretty often.
mattalbie
Also, it works in open/save dialog boxes.
kjakm
I believe desktop Stacks is only a version old (10.14) so you probably haven't been missing it for too long fortunately. Another good tip for screenshots is disabling the floating thumbnail. Just open the screenshot app and disable it in the options menu.
dagmx
On the topic of screenshots, one I didn’t know was hitting space before you take a screenshot will make it capture an entire Window, including the shadow instead of having to drag a region
untog
Plus holding option while you click takes a screenshot without the shadow, which I find vastly preferable. I only found out about that a couple of months ago, after a long time being annoyed.
Solstinox
Double click text to select a word. Triple click text to select the whole paragraph.

For decades I assumed that there’s some weird fluky behavior when trying to select a word and accidentally selecting the paragraph.

tonmoy
This is same in Windows and Linux as well
ffpip
This feature is present everywhere.

Windows, Android, all browsers I use, inside apps, etc

danthewireman
You can also double click a word, keep the mouse button down, and drag. This will select whole words. I use this a lot.
Solstinox
I didn’t know that either, thank you! It works with triple-click paragraphs too.
tksb
Along the same lines for text navigation and manipulation:

opt + [arrow keys]: To move through text respecting word boundaries.

cmd + [arrow keys]: To move through text respecting line boundaries.

Add shift to either of those and now instead of navigating, you're selecting the text.

opt + delete: deletes full word behind cursor

cmd + delete: deletes full line behind cursor

bredren
Has anyone found a way to name desktop spaces anything other than Desktop 1, Desktop 2 etc?
house9-2
Not a built in feature:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/211954/how-can-i-n...

Some people on this post are using ‘Stickies’ app to put a label on each one?

Otherwise, there are 3rd party apps that do it.

bredren
Thanks for this. I did look into this a while back and both Total Spaces and the github project require at least temporary disabling SIP.

I may go for that commercial app anyway because it really is costly to lose context built up in a space. Especially when you have a lot of completely unrelated projects you want to task switch between.

I’d go so far as to say lack of Spaces feature polish in MacOS is impacting my ability to efficiently maintain open source code. Because those projects only get special extra time from me these days.

Apple should make more spaces API open to developers if Apple won’t improve this important macOS feature.

egypturnash
This may or may not work for you: each space dedicated to a project has a desktop image related to the project - a logo, an important visual asset, etc. It mostly works for me. Wish you could name the damn things out of the box though.
bredren
This is a good idea. I started testing this previously by just choosing different wallpapers, but didn't take a step further to photoshop in some text.

I may yet in addition to the space naming. It feels like it would be helpful to see on the wallpaper using expose, and also from the three finger swipe up.

Really, Apple should allow this meta to be overlayed on a wallpaper instead of having to photoshop it in. I'm perplexed on why Spaces has gotten zero improvements for so long.

egypturnash
I never bother adding in text. It's just a matter of choosing images that are obviously-related for me.

Working on the graphic novel? Go to the desktop with a model sheet of one of the characters/props. Working on the Mastodon instance? It's the desktop with the image I drew for the front of the site. Drawing furry porn commissions? Hello, desktop with an endless rotation of Doug Winger's work.

m463
I used to use stickies years ago but it became too cumbersome. Something would happen and I would have the individual stickies back to their workspace.

I wish there was a workspace-specific description - big letters describing the workspace that fade, or a watermark for the background image.

I mean something designed into the window switching.

NateEag
Focusing the menubar with Control-F2.

You can then navigate by arrow keys or typing. Space bar activates the highlighted menu/submenu.

It makes life so much better.

Control-F2 itself was slightly broken in 10.14 (IIRC), so I hacked up a dumb workaround in my Hammerspoon config:

https://github.com/NateEag/dotfiles/blob/99f6b641151f85f6f78...

donatj
Command-Shift-? is the better version of this imho, directly opens the help menu and you can just type the name of the menu item and hit enter. Way quicker than navigating to it.
hobs
Yep this is what I came to say - OSX's help menu automatically searches all menu commands and if you hover over them it will open up the menu, show you the location, and if you hit enter just use it for you.

This is also something you can generally call from Applescript as well, if you want to automate application behaviors.

IggleSniggle
Mind sharing an example AppleScript of that? Every time I’ve dug in there, it’s never had quite what I wanted. But this seems like an especially leverage-able idea.
NateEag
Very cool. Thanks for sharing!
clairity
note that ctrl-F1 by default toggles keyboard access, which breaks (some of) the other ctrl-Fn bindings (which i just found out by testing this). you can disable this in keyboard shortcuts of course.
wosc
Thanks so much, it has been a constant annoyance for me that _sometimes_ Ctrl+F2 just doesn't do anything. It did not occur to me to check if that's a known issue, I just wrote it off as a glitch in the matrix. Your workaround is going to make my daily menu usage go much more smoothly, thanks!
shrumm
my favourite feature is how the title bar icon in any app that’s editing a file (textmate/ word etc) is a pointer to the actual file unlike windows.

- you can drag that file anywhere to move it.

- CMD click it to see a breadcrumb menu showing where it is and navigate to the folder

on a similar vein, dragging a file into an open file modal box makes it browse to the containing folder. In windows, dragging a file would move the file into that folder.

I combine the above two quite a bit. Editing a file in app A, need to upload it somewhere via browser. Drag file from title bar into open dialog box, done.

minxomat
Demos of all the drag and drop behavior can be seen in the Aqua keynote. Lots of people don’t know how powerful it is on macOS even though it was THE big feature at launch.
PascLeRasc
You can even drag the file into a terminal window to turn it into the full path.
wildrhythms
Also works with copy-paste from Finder into Terminal (or iTerm). Love that feature
JadeNB
> my favourite feature is how the title bar icon in any app that’s editing a file (textmate/ word etc) is a pointer to the actual file unlike windows.

This behaviour seems to come 'for free', so, when it breaks, I can only assume that it's intentionally broken. One of the many ways that Adobe Acrobat violates the design language on macOS is by making this somehow not work. (They also break print to PDF–I guess because otherwise you wouldn't pay for the PDF creation capabilities—and do their absolute best to make sure you don't access the native print settings, which is fun because Adobe's own print settings don't play well with the printer accounting software at $WORK).

robertoandred
I hate hate hate that they're hiding proxy icons in Big Sur.
jooize
Proxy icons?
js2
The icon in the window title bar is often referred to as the proxy icon. I thought this was Apple's official name for it, but I can't find any evidence to support that in Apple's documentation.
djxfade
Damn, what a bummer. Is there any way to re-enable it?
donarb
I've read that you can hover over the spot and it'll appear.
Sirened
It appears almost instantly when you mouse over where it used to be. I've been living on it for the past few weeks and haven't changed my muscle memory at all.
shantara
>- CMD click it to see a breadcrumb menu showing where it is and navigate to the folder

Similarly you can right click the window title (click with two fingers on the touchpad) for this functionality. It's very useful to navigating up in the folder hierarchy in Finder without adding any new icons to the toolbar.

adrianmsmith
> my favourite feature is how the title bar icon in any app that’s editing a file (textmate/ word etc) is a pointer to the actual file unlike windows. you can drag that file anywhere to move it.

I knew about this feature but it took me about a year or two of using macOS every day and the feature only working about 50% of the time before I understood how to get it to work reliably.

For those, like me, who were having problems: You have to click and hold the mouse button over the window, then hold the mouse there for a short period of time (e.g. half a second), then drag. If you drag too quickly it'll move the window instead.

projektfu
I also like how you can usually rename or move an open file and the app that has it open updates itself.
nthState
You can hover/long press on the green traffic light item to tile your screen.
throwaway413
literally just discovered this yesterday myself for the first time - still prefer Spectacle, but nice that it’s there.
delgaudm
Spectacle is no longer being maintained. Rectangle [0] offers the same functionally and is OSS

[0]https://rectangleapp.com/

throwaway413
Oh nice, it looks good! Gonna try it out.

I’ve never had even a single issue with Spectacle so not really a big deal to me that it’s no longer maintained. It Just Works, from my experience - with that said who knows for how long, I guess.

prh8
When I first saw Rectangle, I thought I saw there was one Spectacle feature it was missing due to APIs. I'm looking now and it looks like it has everything I use, which is great.
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muli_d
You can delete files immediately (i.e., skip moving to the trash) in Finder by holding the Option key in addition to Command + Delete (or Backspace).
randomdata
That you can hold down certain keys, like i and o, to access a list of similar characters that aren't found on the keyboard.

My 1 year old taught me that one.

JadeNB
One can be forgiven for finding this after long years of useage, because it didn't used to be the case. I'm not sure when it was introduced, but it was in a (to this oldster) recent version.
fedorareis
It was introduced sometime after that feature became standard in the iOS keyboard. So yes, it is a relatively new feature.
frereubu
I actually turn that off - https://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/enable-key-repeat-mac-os-x-l... - so it's easier to write things like noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
m463
It's one of the first things I turn off. annoying.

I also have repeat set to fastest and delay until repeat the shortest.

jooize
May not produce the same feel, but there is:

  defaults write -g NSRepeatCountBinding -string "^u"
> This default controls the numeric argument binding. The default is for numeric arguments not to be supported. If you provide a binding for this default you enable the feature. This allows you to repeat a keyboard command a given number of times. For instance “Control-U 10 Control-F” means move forward ten characters.

— https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Co...

foldr
There are also easily memorable keyboard shortcuts for common accents in languages that use roman script. E.g. Opt+e followed by any character places an acute accent on that character. Opt+u adds an umlaut, etc. etc.
sgt
I've switched that off many years ago so I forgot that's even a thing. In my opinion the best way is to get hold of those characters with the option key. So if you need ñ you can just type option-n + n, or option-o for ø.
david422
Hold down the option key when selecting text (in some editors) and it enables columnar selection. Can be very useful for certain editing tasks.
nguyenkien
This depend on softwares not OS features. Vscode can do that in all OS
GolDDranks
Cmd-R (R for "reveal") in the open/save file dialog opens the present directory in Finder. This is useful as I commonly want to do some additional janitory tasks in the directory.
mikehollinger
A complimentary feature: when you want to “open” a file from some file open dialog box, instead of navigating through the dialog, go find the file some other way and drag-n-drop it onto the dialog. The file won’t open, BUT it’ll pop over to the directory and select the file for you to then open in the context of the application.

I use this all the time when I either have something handy in Finder or can find it more quickly with alfred.

Vincenttermini
Marking a file as "Stationary Pad" will create and open a copy every time you open the original. Good for templates or any other file you don't want to accidentally save changes to.

- Get Info on file. - Check Stationary Pad box.

browningstreet
That's a strange name/label for an awesome feature.
Vincenttermini
I know, right? Been using Macs for 25 years and discovered it a few months ago on accident. Not sure how long it's been there, but definitely a dumb name!
cefstat
I remember this from the classic Mac OS days (i.e. System 7) circa 1994. It’s probably even older than that.
jonpurdy
This is so incredibly useful! I also remember it from those days as a kid. I wish I knew it was still a thing all this time!
ingorichter
It's been there for a very long time. I used to teach DTP with QuarkExpress back in 92 and this feature was gold. It helped to preserve and not destroy the page templates of the magazine. The fine folks at this publisher had a hard time adjusting to the new world and it saved me so much time when they messed around with the layout and page settings
ntauthority
It'd make sense if the label were actually "Stationery", which is practically a paper template.
simondw
Fortunately, that is how it's spelled.
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projektfu
It should be Stationery. At least it was back in System 7.
defulmere
Interesting feature, but it seems to work only when opening the file from Finder.

If you open the file from within the application itself (I tested with Pages) or via an external app (Terminal, LaunchBar, etc) then it opens the original.

scarface74
I did not know that feature was still around. I just got a work MacBook after not owning a Mac for years. That was a feature of System 7 - in 1992.
monokh
Mac has a storage explorer called "Storage management app". I found it great for making space as it can sort by categories and file size. Before realising this, it was a pain to find decent software for the MacOS.

I imagine this was added recently.

GavinAnderegg
Cmd-Ctrl-Space (⌘⌃␣) for the character/emoji picker. Also, under Keyboard in preferences, check the "Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar" option to get it as a menu-bar icon. This also includes the keyboard viewer, which is handy to figure certain Shift-Opt-Whaterver combos for seldom-used characters.

EDIT: Updated with the actual default command.

JadeNB
> Ctrl-Opt-Space for the character/emoji picker.

I think this may not be the default; it doesn't work for me.

While speaking of the character picker, does anyone know a way to get less broken search in the picker? For example, I frequently find myself looking for math italic characters in Unicode. Despite the description being, say, "MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL A", it doesn't come up when I search for 'small'. In this case searching for 'mathematical' or 'italic' works, but there are other cases where I just have to guess search terms randomly (or go look up Unicode tables elsewhere).

GavinAnderegg
Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well.
JadeNB
> Oops! Sorry! I meant Cmd-Opt-Space here. Also, yeah, the search is pretty janky in my usage as well.

Indeed, I thought that might be what you meant … but that opens the Finder search window for me, so I think that that shortcut also is not universal. Probably some of these differ depending on whether you've got a fresh install or an updated system that may carry along shortcuts from an older release.

EDIT: adsche (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24092377) suggests ⌘⌃␣, and that works for me.

elliekelly
If you go to the Edit menu in finder (or any application) all the way at the bottom of the dropdown menu you’ll see “Emoji & Symbols” and to the right it should tell you the shortcut keys.
GavinAnderegg
Yeah, looks like ⌘⌃␣ is the actual default command.
adsche
It is ctrl+cmd+space for me and I don't remember changing it.

Completely agree about the search. E.g., I sometimes want the cmd sign (⌘), which is named "place of interest". Sure, that makes sense from unicode and in other contexts but I would expect to find it as cmd or command in macos.

joombaga
How do you close it? Cmd-W doesn't work for this type of window.
christefano
Hit the same key combo that invoked the character picker (⌘⌃Space in my case).
crazygringo
Doesn't work for me. It opens the emoji picker, but doesn't close it. :(

Tried in both Chrome and TextEdit.

roryokane
I don’t know of a keyboard-only way, but I see that ⌘W does work after you focus the floating window by clicking on its title bar. Of course, you can also click the tiny red close button to close the window directly.
egypturnash
This is so useful and I really hate that some chat clients use their own text input box where it doesn't work.

There are a LOT more sets of characters available in the picker, hit the gear menu in the upper left and select "Customize List".

SPBS
windows recently got this feature as well, it's Win + ;
dawnerd
If you took a screenshot to your clipboard but want it saved as a file you can open preview and hit cmd N.
donatj
You can drag the folder icon from the top of a finder window into an apps open/save dialog and the dialog will navigate right to it. This also works with files.