“Hidden” options on OSX

Sometime we need to make some tweaks en our OS. Most of the time this options are in “System preferences” via the UI, but other “hidden” options are available from the CLI (Terminal), like:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
killall Finder

this command change the default scheenshot format (PNG) to JPG

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true
killall SystemUIServer

to disable drop shadows on a screenshot

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false
killall Finder

this one hide all icons in the desktop. To revert this, change to “true”

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'
killall Dock

add space to the icon’s docks

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true;
killall Finder

show hidden files/folders (false to hide)