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Hot corners are one of those Mac features that take about two minutes to set up and then save you clicks every single day. You assign an action to any of the four corners of your screen, and the moment your cursor hits that corner, the action fires. No clicking, no keyboard shortcuts, no menus to dig through. If you spend all day on a Mac and want a faster way to lock the screen, capture a note, or see your desktop, this one is worth setting up.
How to set up hot corners
The whole thing lives in one settings panel, and changes take effect instantly. You do not have to restart anything.
- Open System Settings.
- In the left sidebar, click Desktop & Dock.
- Scroll all the way down to the bottom and click Hot Corners.
- For each corner you want to use, click the dropdown, pick an action, and hit Done.
That is it. The corner is locked in and ready to use right away.
Every hot corner action explained
Here is what each option in the dropdown actually does, so you can decide which ones are worth a corner:
- Mission Control: shows you all of your open windows at once.
- Application Windows: shows all the windows of the app you are currently using.
- Desktop: slides every window out of the way so you can see your desktop.
- Notification Center: opens the notification panel you normally have to click in the top right.
- Launchpad (Apps): shows every app installed on your computer, which is a fast way to find one you need.
- Quick Note: opens a new sticky note in the corner of the screen, great for capturing an idea fast.
- Start Screen Saver: kicks off your screensaver right away instead of waiting for the timer.
- Disable Screen Saver: keeps the screen awake, which is useful during a presentation when you are not touching the computer.
- Put Display to Sleep: shuts off the monitor without sleeping the Mac, handy when something is running in the background.
- Lock Screen: instantly drops you into the password lock screen when you step away.
The corners I actually use
You do not need to fill all four corners. Pick the actions that match how you work. For me, the ones that earn their spot are:
- Start Screen Saver: I use this constantly to get a clean screen with no apps showing before I go to film.
- Quick Note in the bottom right corner, so I can capture an idea without breaking my workflow.
- Desktop and Mission Control, which are both handy for jumping around and finding files fast.
Add a modifier key to avoid accidental triggers
The one downside of hot corners is bumping the mouse into a corner and firing an action you did not mean to. There is a fix for that. When you are in the dropdown picking your action, hold down a modifier key (Command, Option, Control, or Shift). Now you have to hold that key while your cursor hits the corner for the action to trigger, so accidental swipes do nothing.
A few practical use cases
If you are not sure which actions to assign, here is how I actually put them to work day to day:
- Flick to the Desktop corner to clear the windows and grab a file quickly.
- Drop a Quick Note in the bottom right to jot an idea without switching apps.
- Use the Lock Screen corner whenever you walk away from your desk.
- Hit the Start Screen Saver corner when you just want a clean backdrop with nothing open.
Set up the two or three that sound useful to you, and you will wonder how you worked without them.
