Cool and Helpful Tricks You Should Know To Use Your Computer Like a Pro
You might have been using your computer in the least productive way. Here I’ve compiled some cool and helpful tips and tricks that will boost your productivity and save your time and effort.
The first thing is keyboard shortcuts. Yeah, the mouse is cool, but the keyboard is way cooler. Keyboard shortcuts just not only gets your job done quickly but also improves the efficiency.
Windows Key Shortcuts
Win | Displays or hides the Start screen |
Win + A | Opens notification and Action Center |
Win + M | Minimizes all windows |
Win + Shift + M | Restore all windows |
Win + C | Opens Charms |
Win + D | Shows desktop |
Win + E | Opens Microsoft Explorer |
Win + G | Opens Game |
Win + H | Opens on screen keyboard |
Win + Tab | View all virtual desktops at a glance |
Win + R | Opens the run window |
Win + Pause/Break | Opens the system properties window |
Win + L | Locks the computer |
Win + I | Opens settings |
Win + X | Opens power user task menu |
Win + Q / Win + S | Opens Cortana |
Win + W | Opens Windows Ink workspace |
Win + P | Opens projector menu |
Win + . | Shows emoji |
Win + , | Temporarily peak at the desktop |
Win + +/- | Opens Magnifier and zooms in/out |
Win + Esc | Exits Magnifier |
Run Command Shortcuts
First, open the Run window by hitting Win + R shortcut and type in the following commands. These commands can be quite useful, so it’s worth remembering.
calc | Opens Calculator |
charmap | Opens Character map |
cmd | Opens Command prompt |
control | Opens Control panel |
fonts | Opens Fonts |
firefox | Opens Firefox (if installed) |
chrome | Opens Google chrome (if installed) |
winword | Opens Microsoft Word |
excel | Opens Microsoft Excel |
powerpnt | Opens Microsoft Powerpoint |
outlook | Opens Microsoft Outlook |
notepad | Opens Notepad |
wordpad / write | Opens Wordpad |
wmplayer | Opens Windows media player |
mspaint | Opens Microsoft Paint |
osk | Opens On-screen keyboard |
cleanmgr | Opens Disk cleanup utility |
timedate.cpl | Opens Date and Time properties |
inetcpl.cpl | Opens Internet properties |
logoff | Log out windows |
shutdown | Shutdowns computer |
shutdown -r | Restarts windows |
regedit | Opens Registry editor |
taskmgr | Opens Task Manager |
msconfig | Opens System configuration |
dxdiag | View System information and DirectX information |
appwiz.cpl | Opens Add / Remove program |
control admintools | Opens Administrative tools |
diskmgmt.msc | Opens Disk management |
diskpart | Opens Disk partition |
%temp% | Opens Temporary folder (Note: Delete the contents of the temporary folder) |
Browser Shortcuts
Home | Go to the top of the page |
End | Go to the end of the page |
Ctrl + T | Open a new tab |
Ctrl + W | Close current tab |
Ctrl + D | Add bookmark |
Ctrl + Shift + D | Bookmark all open tabs |
Ctrl + H | Open History |
Ctrl + J | Open Downloads |
Ctrl + N | Open new browser window |
Ctrl + U | Open page source |
Ctrl + + | Zoom in |
Ctrl + - | Zoom out |
Ctrl + 0 | Restore original size |
Ctrl + 1 | Switch to the first tab |
Ctrl + 9 | Switch to the last tab |
Ctrl + E | Opens the search bar in the address bar |
Ctrl + F | Starts the Find utility |
Ctrl + L / Alt + D / F6 | Highlights the text in the address bar |
Ctrl + Tab | Moves through each of the open tabs |
Ctrl + R / F5 | Reloads page |
Ctrl + S | Saves page |
Ctrl + P | Print the page |
Ctrl + Shift + Delete | Opens the Clear browsing history window |
F11 | Full screen mode |
F12 | Open Developer menu |
Trick 1: Just type in the name of the website in the address bar on a browser and press Ctrl + Enter to add the ‘www.’ and ‘.com‘, prefix and suffix automatically. |
Youtube Shortcuts
K / Space | Toggle Play / Pause the video |
Left Arrow | Go back 5 seconds |
J | Go back 10 seconds |
Right Arrow | Go forward 5 seconds |
L | Go forward 10 seconds |
Numbers 1-9 (Not the keypad numbers) | Skip to a particular section of the video (eg. 5 goes to midpoint of the video) |
0 (Not the keypad numbers) | Restart the video |
F | Full-screen mode |
Esc | Exit Full-screen mode |
Home | Go to the beginning of the video |
End | Go to the end of the video |
Up Arrow | Increase Volume |
Down Arrow | Decrease Volume |
Shift + > | Increase speed |
Shift + < | Decrease speed |
M | Mute / Unmute video |
C | Turn Captions on / off |
B | Cycle through options for caption background color |
| Trick 1: Left click on the video and click on ‘Loop‘ to repeat the video. |
| Trick 2: Left click on the video and click on ‘Stat for nerds‘ to view dropped frames of video, current frame, video dimensions and others. |
| Trick 3: Convert a YouTube video into a GIF, by adding ‘gif‘ before youtube in the URL, i.e. www.gifyoutube.com |
| Trick 4: Download any YouTube videos simply by placing ‘ss‘ at the beginning of the video link, i.e. www.ssyoutube.com/… |
Google Password
Visit Google Password.
Are you like, “Woah!”? Remove passwords which you think, Google should not remember or which can harm you if your account is hacked.
This feature really helps me to remember my old passwords or password on a website which I don’t visit frequently. It saves me from the trouble of clicking forgot the password.
Google History
If you want to find out which website you visited on which particular day then, Google History will help you to get those data.
Google Maps Timeline
Do you want to remember where you were on a particular day at that particular time? Visit Google Maps Timeline.
God Mode
God Mode is a shortcut to access all the operating system’s control settings from within a single folder. Here’s a tutorial on How to Enable God Mode on your computer.
Task Manager
All your life you have been using the shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Delete to open the window and select Task Manager while you can directly open Task Manager by using the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
Turn off ads in uTorrent
uTorrent is the most popular and frequent application you use when you wish to download a movie, games, music and other applications. Most of us use the free version and are annoyed by the ad banners that keeps displaying on it. So here’s a way to disable the ads and offers.
To turn off ads and offers:
Open uTorrent > Options > Preferences > Advanced.
You will see the following window.
Here you’ll find a large list of flags for the app and a filter box. Search for and disable the following flags:
- offers.left_rail_offer_enabled/left_rail_offer
- gui.show_plus_upsell
- offers.sponsored_torrent_offer_enabled/sponsored_torrent_offer_enabled
- bt.enable_pulse
- gui.show_notorrents_node
- offers.content_offer_autoexec
Reverse Image Search
Most of you might know about the ‘search by image’ option in Google where you can upload an image and search the web for it. But you can directly search for the image in reverse to know exactly where it came from.
Just hold S and Right Click on the image to reverse search the image.
Temporary Emails
To avoid spam from certain websites, use disposable temporary email services to sign up for the stuff.
Below are few of the services offering temporary email facility:
Quickly Launch a New Instance of the Program
The taskbar icons can also be used to quickly launch a second (or third, fourth, …) instance of a program.
Just hold down Shift and open the program by left clicking on the mouse and you will get a new, clean version of the software.
Use Mouse Scroll Wheel to Open the Link in New Browser
Have you ever wondered the purpose of the middle wheel on the mouse except for scrolling? Click on any link with the middle wheel and the link opens in a new tab.
I will be adding more tricks in the coming days. If you know some more tricks and shortcuts, then you can comment down below. I would really appreciate that. Please share this blog so that other people can also learn about it.
