Inserting Newlines in the Mac’s Messages App

On the heels of yesterday’s semi-Mac-specific post, here’s one that’s entirely Mac specific. If you’re a Linux or Windows user, there won’t be anything very interesting for you in this offering.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball, provoked by a New York Times crossword clue, notes that the Enter and Return keys are not the same even though they most often perform the same function. If you didn’t already know this, the piece provides an interesting bit of information.

What was really interesting for me, though, was the footnote. One of the annoying things about the Apple Messages app is that pressing the Return key sends the message—unlike the iOS versions that have a separate Send button—so that it didn’t seem possible to format the message with separate lines. Gruber has the answer: pressing ⌥ Opt+Return will insert a newline without sending the message.

This isn’t worth declaring a national holiday over, of course, but it does resolve one more small annoyance so it’s been a good day.

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