Open the Mac’s Control Center with This Obscure Keyboard Shortcut

ByEmily Dolloff

With macOS 13 Ventura, Apple brought Control Center from iOS to the Mac, providing a unified interface for features that users need to turn on and off regularly or that receive frequent adjustments, like screen brightness and audio volume. Clicking the Control Center icon in the menu bar brings it up, but it’s a small, hard-to-hit target. For faster and easier access to Control Center from within any app, press fn-C. (All current Apple keyboards have an fn key, but if you’re using a third-party keyboard that lacks one, you’re out of luck.)

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: Control Center brings together controls for a collection of core macOS features, but its menu bar icon is small, making it hard for some to click. Luckily, there’s a hidden shortcut to bring it up quickly from the keyboard.

Similar Posts

  • For the Best Mac Webcam, Use Your iPhone

    The near-ubiquity of videoconferencing is a lasting effect of the pandemic. The ease of gathering a group virtually usually more than makes up…

  • This is the craziest Presidential election cycle that I have seen. I first got involved when President Johnson was running against Barry Goldwater and that seemed pretty crazy especially after I lost faith with the President over Vietnam. But this time it would be great comedy if the stakes were not so serious. I have to tell you that seeing Donald Trump ask people to raise their hands in a pledge is one of the scariest things I have seen in a long time.

    Voting is so important and our system is messy with primaries, caucuses, super delgates and conventions but it is also the basis of our democracy. I am proud to say that the Vermont legislature passed an automatic voter registration bill unanimously this week, meaning when you get a driver’s license you are automatically registered to vote. You really do not have the right to complain about your leaders if you do not get out and vote. So, exercise your right and go to the polls when the circus comes to your state!

    Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    _Don, Emily & Hadley_

  • Errata

    Last week a typo slipped by our proofers. Command+M is not open a new document but that command is Command+N. Sorry about that. To make up for it here are a couple more keyboard combinations you might find handy:

    **Command-Option-Esc** – If an app stops responding, you might need to force it to quit. You can do that with a right click on the app icon in the dock, but it’s even easier if you hit this keyboard shortcut. This will bring up the Force Quit dialog, which you can then use to make that non-responsive app quit. You might need to Command-Tab you way out of an active frozen app first, though, or use **Command+Shift+Option+Esc** to quit the currently active app.

    **Command-Option-P and R** – Here’s one that might challenge your fingers dexterity. Fortunately, you will hardly ever have to use it but it is used to reset your non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM). Information stored in NVRAM can include speaker volume, screen resolution, start-up disk selection and recent kernel panic information. If you are asked to reset your P-Ram or NVRAM here’s how you do it.

    1) Shut down your Mac
    2) Turn on your Mac
    3) Immediately after you hear the start up sound, hold down the command, option, P and R keys
    4) Hold those keys down until you hear the start up sound again and then release them.