The Mac Calculator: three calculators in one!

You know about the Mac’s Calculator app. (You don’t? Look in the Applications folder.)

Mac Calculator App in Basic mode
The Calculator in Basic mode

But, did you know that the Calculator can do all sorts of fancy stuff, like sines and cosines and exponents and factorials and random numbers and square roots? Just click the green button (the one you’d click to zoom in other apps, 3rd from the left for my color-blind friends) and you get the advanced calculator. Click it again and it’s back to normal.

Mac Calendar app in Scientific mode
Calculator in Scientific mode

There’s a third version of the calculator–a programmer calculator– and you access that one from the View menu.

Mac Calculator app's View menu
Choosing the Programmer calculator
Mac Calculator app in programmer mode
Calculator in Programmer mode

You can switch between the three Calculator modes from the keyboard:

  • Basic mode: ⌘-1
  • Scientific mode: ⌘-2
  • Programmer mode: ⌘-3


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2 thoughts on “The Mac Calculator: three calculators in one!

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  1. Well, this is about the dozenth article I’ve clicked. They all tell me how to get to the programmer (which I was able to do after the first click), but none of them tell me how to use it.

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