Most Mac users see Apple Preview as only an app to view images, PDFs, and other documents. That’s it. If that sounds like you, you are leaving a lot on the table, because Preview has quietly grown into one of the most capable apps on macOS, and it’s available for free.
I use the app daily to edit images, markup and sign PDFs, redact information, and so much more. So let me walk you through seven things you probably didn’t know Apple Preview could handle.
You can rearrange, combine, and pull out PDF pages
If you regularly work with PDFs, this one will save you a ton of time. Preview lets you easily rearrange pages in PDFs, combine multiple PDFs into one, and even extract specific pages from a PDF.
To perform any of these actions, first you have to enable the thumbnail view. To do this, open a PDF file in Preview and go to View → Thumbnails or hit the keyboard shortcut ⌥⌘2 to reveal the sidebar. From here, you can click and drag pages to rearrange them in any order you like.
You can also drag a selected page out of the sidebar directly onto your desktop, and it will save those pages as a new PDF. No need for any extra software.
You can also drag a PDF document or pages from other PDFs inside another PDF to merge them.
Stop people from snooping on your PDFs
If you are sharing a sensitive PDF with someone and you don’t want anyone else to read it, you can lock it using Preview so only people with the correct password can open it.
To do this, open your PDF, click the info button in the toolbar, find the security lock icon under Permissions, and click the Edit button.
Now, check the box to require a password to open the document, set your password, and save the changes. You can even control what others can do without the password, like allowing them to print the file, but nothing else.
Another way to hide information is by redacting it. It permanently obscures the information so no one can read it. Note that once you save a redacted document, even you won’t be able to get the information back so ensure to create a copy of the original document before redacting it.
To redact a document, open the Markup toolbar and click on the Redact tool. Now, you can highlight any text or just select an area to redact it.
Read PDFs at night without burning your eyes
This one is a recent addition and an incredibly useful one. If you use your Mac in dark mode, Preview now has an option to match that for your PDFs. Go to View → Use Dark Appearance for PDF, and the blinding white background flips to a dark background that’s much easier on the eyes. Just keep in mind that this option only shows up when your Mac is already set to dark mode.
Remove image backgrounds without a third-party app
Preview also offers several image editing tools. Out of all the editing tools, my favorite is the one that lets me remove an image’s background. Yes, you don’t need Affinity or Photoshop to remove a background from an image.
Preview can do it. Open an image, go to Tools → Remove Background, or hit the keyboard shortcut ⌘⇧K. As you can see in the image below, Preview has done a great job of removing the background and cutting out the subject.
Open any image you just copied
Here is a little trick I use all the time. If you copy an image to your clipboard, you don’t need to paste it into a photo editing app to save it. Just open Preview and go to File → New from Clipboard or hit the keyboard shortcut ⌘N. Your copied image opens instantly, ready for you to edit, resize, or export.
Mark up screenshots and PDFs like a pro
The markup toolbar in Preview is genuinely great for quick edits. You can draw circles or rectangles to highlight something, add text, draw arrows, and even drop in your signature.
While CleanShot X handles all my screenshot annotation needs, Preview is the app I use to markup my PDFs. And if you don’t deal with dozens of screenshots every day, Preview’s built-in functionality will be more than enough for you.
Bonus tip: extract high-quality app icons
I don’t know who will need this feature, but I use it regularly, so I am sharing this as a bonus. Sometimes I need to use app icons to create images (like the one you see at the top of this article).
If you have the app already installed on your Mac, you don’t need to hunt for the icon image on the web. Just go to the Application folder in Finder, select the app, and copy it.
Now, launch Preview and use the “New from Clipboard” option, or use the ⌘N keyboard shortcut to open the app icon as an image in Preview. Now, use the ⌘S shortcut to save it to your desktop.
Apple Preview is more than just a viewer
The point is that Apple Preview is genuinely powerful, and it’s sitting right there on your Mac, completely free. Whether you are managing PDFs, editing images, or trying to keep a late-night reading session from blinding you, Preview has you covered. Give it a proper chance, and I think it will earn a permanent spot in your workflow.
