13 Things to Do on a MacBook Pro when Bored in 2024

Here are Ideas to Use your MacBook effectively even when your feel alone and Bored in Office or Home. Do these cool things to make a day.

Macs are expensive, and Mac users are a bit selective. But MacBook has several cool features that are fun, engaging, and interesting to use. Your Mac will be your savior in times when you find yourself in the mood to do something entertaining without leaving the comforts of your home at the same time. MacBook provides you with endless options to choose from. You’ll never be bored again as long as it is functional and working, you. On the other hand, Apple doing innovative in the MacBook series, so, We can run the iPhone game on M1 MacBook.

The MacOS’s market share is under 10 percent of the world’s operating system. So, by purchasing a mac, you have made a fantastic choice. Mac lets you do so many cool things that you can’t do anywhere else. Mac’s operating system is user-friendly, but at the same time, it packs a lot of power under the surface.

We’re here to help you make the most of your MacBook and never get bored.

1. Add to Your Reading List

Safari doesn’t support RSS feeds anymore. Although other browsers like Chrome offer this functionality, you’d still want to keep using Safari. Safari offers you a great substitute feature called Reading List.

Reading List adds a temporary bookmark to the pages that you don’t want to save to your main bookmarks but want to return to anyway. And if you’re going to add to your reading list in seconds, there’s a quick way to do it. Hold down together shift+cmd+D on the web page. Yup, it’s that easy. Your reading list will stay in sync across all your Apple devices, so that’s the bonus!

2. Play Chess

Play Chess with Friends in Game Center
Play Chess with Friends in Game Center

One of the coolest things to do on a Mac is playing chess because it is preinstalled on all Mac computers. You only have to go to your Applications folder to access Chess. And the game will be ready to go!

You can play the game against another human player or even the computer. You can also change the look of the chess set to metal, glass, or marble under your preference. Alternatively, You can change the game’s difficulty level—Play Tank iMessage Games on your iPhone or Play 8 Ball Pool Game in iMessage.

3. Use preinstalled Office Software for free

You may have used Microsoft Office if you’ve only used Windows before. MS Office has been available on Mac for some time, but that isn’t your only choice! Your Mac will include Apple’s productivity suite that comes preinstalled with iWork. This fantastic software set can save and open MS Office formats. You can even look delicately at LibreOffice if you want more choices. You can do anything you want with this free productivity suite, which can be installed easily.

4. Set Up Speech Recognition and Improve Productivity

Suppose you want to make your work even faster, Mac’s got your back! By simply setting up Mac’s built-in speech recognition system, you can command your computer to do a wide range of things merely using your voice. It is one of the coolest things to do on a Mac.

On MacOS Ventura, Sonoma or later:- Go to the Apple Logo > System Settings > Keyboard > Dictation (Use Dictation and keyboard Together).

On MacOS Monterey & Earlier:- First, go to App, and then go to System Preferences, followed by Accessibility, and finally Speakable Items to set it up.

However, if you click the radio button, you can program various phrases into your Mac. These programs will correspond to different commands. Set a keybinding to allow your Mac to record your speech, and you’re all set!

5. Annotate and edit PDFs without Additional Software

Editing PDFs is quite inconvenient. Especially on Windows, you must download specialist software to edit PDF documents. Luckily, that’s not the case with Mac! Mac has a load-up Preview which is a cool thing about the machine. It is a built-in PDF viewer and editor software. You can annotate and edit your PDFs natively in Preview without downloading any other software.

Adding your signature to the PDF is easy as a piece of cake! Hold up a piece of paper with your signature to the webcam, and your signature will be added to the document without any hurdle!

6. Use Your Photostream as Your Wallpaper

If you prefer keeping wallpaper that’s changeable, then you have to set up your iCloud’s Photostream as your wallpaper! You can use the entire Photostream or add individual photos to serve as the background as you like.

To set this up, follow these easy steps. First, load up the Display and Screen Saver settings. After that, select your iCloud Photostream as the library. Finally, pick a folder for your Mac to source images from, and you’ve done. You can use Photostream as your screensaver if you prefer to keep your wallpaper static instead! In addition, Enable Slow Motion Screensaver on Mac from System settings on the latest macOS.

7. Swipe between your Open Apps on MacBook

If you’re bored, then you’ll love this tip—this one’s exclusive to MacBook Pro with a trackpad. Multi-touch is not just limited to your iPhone alone. Nowadays, so many people use social media apps on their mobile devices than ever before. Hence, it’s essential to download and use the right ones and make sure they are fast to navigate and seamless. With MacBook, your trackpad will come equipped with multi-touch, as well. You can use multi-touch to swipe between open apps.

Simply put three fingers on the trackpad and gently swipe right or left to navigate between full-screen apps. Swiping up with three fingers will open up Mission Control, and swiping down will open up Expose. These tips will speed up your navigation and keep you entertained!

8. Summaries of Long Documents made easy

If you are someone who regularly needs to write long documents, you’ll love this added feature on your MacBook Pro. Word counts can be constricting. When you use a Mac, you can easily make summaries in a second without even lifting a finger! You need to enable the following feature to summarize a document. First, go to System Preferences, then go to Keyboard, followed by Shortcuts, and then Services: here, and finally enable Summarize! Highlight the text you want to summarize, then right-click, and hit Services, and then Summarize! This feature pulls out the most salient points and makes rewriting in a snip.

9. Rename Multiple Files at One Time

Having an organized filesystem seems impossible at times. And imagine renaming a massive batch of files one at once! Mac got you covered in this department. With MacBook Pro, you can easily rename batches of files, so goodbye boredom!

First, you have to highlight all the files you want to rename. After that, just click on ‘rename x files.’ Here, x is the number of files you have selected. A window will open up that will let you rename the whole batch of files in just a single go.

10. Text from your Mac easily

Texting is not limited to your phone because you can set up your Mac to both receive and send texts. You don’t even need an iPhone to perform the task.

You have to set up your MacBook with the same email address your iMessage account is linked to, to set this feature. After that, head to Settings, then Messages on your iPhone. By clicking on a phone number in your contacts, you can send as many texts as you like!

11. Find new Apps with Ease

With MacBook, you can always find the App you are looking for! But, how? It’s easy! First, you have to load up Launchpad and start typing the name of the App that you are looking for and want to use. A list of apps will appear on the screen that has been pulled up, and it will get smaller with each keystroke. You’ll soon be graced with that particular App that you want to use. Learning Launchpad is mandatory if you need to find apps quickly and without any fuss.

12. Encrypt the important folders

Apple’s approaches to privacy are top-notch. One of the best examples of this is encrypting files and folders on MacBook. So, when you are bored, you can get along with encrypting the essential files and folders.

This feature will protect your data from prying eyes. Open Disk Utility, then go to File, go to New, and finally hit the Blank Disk Image. After it’s done, set the name, location, and size, and choose the encryption method you create. Finally, hit Create. You will now have a secure location on your disk where all your most important files will be saved!

Check out: Best Browser Games for Mac & PC.

13. Conclusion

We’ve shown you what cool things you can do with your Mac when you feel bored. However, these are just a few. There is so much more you can do with a MacBook. Additionally, these tips will make your life easier, and used by these. Your productivity will increase too.

But, before you play around and explore, install a program to protect your device against malware and similar threats. You’ll need this software even more if you constantly access the Internet to download files and images.

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Karly Wood

Karly Wood is a journalist based in Ohio who specializes in covering Apple and technology trends. With a varied experience in reporting on public safety, government, and education, her insights bridge multiple disciplines, providing readers with a well-rounded perspective on today's technological advancements. If you need to contact me, you can reach me at karlywood.ohio@gmail.com or through (Facebook)

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