How to Use Hot Corners on a Mac

This article explains how to set up and use hot corners on Mac. This feature lets you perform actions quickly by moving your cursor to the corner of your screen.

Set Up Hot Corners on Mac

You can use one or all four hot corners per your preference and decide which action to take from a list of options.

1. Open your System Preferences by going to the Apple icon in the menu bar or using the icon in the Dock.

2. Choose Mission Control.

3. Select Hot Corners at the bottom.

4. You’ll likely see dashes for each hot corner except for the bottom-right corner. By default, that corner opens Quick Note since the release of macOS Monterey. But you can change it if you like.

5. Use the drop-down menu for each corner you want to activate and select the action. You have ten different options: opening Mission Control or the Notification Center, starting or disabling the screen saver, or locking your screen.

6. If you want to include a modifier key, hold that key as you make your selection. You can use Command, Option, Control, Shift, or a combination of these keys. You’ll then see the key(s) displayed next to the action for that hot corner.

7. For any corner you don’t want to activate, keep or select the dash.

   When you finish, select OK. You can then close the System Preferences and try your hot corners.

Using Hot Corners on Mac

Once you set up hot corners, it’s good to give them a test to make sure the actions you picked work for you.

Move your cursor using your mouse or trackpad to one of the corners of the screen you set up. It should invoke the action you picked.

If you included a modifier key in the setup, hold that key or the key combination as you move your cursor to the corner.

Remove Actions From Hot Corners

If you decide later that the actions for the hot corners aren’t working for you, you can remove them.

1. Return to System Preferences and Mission Control.

2. Choose Hot Corners.

3. Then, use the drop-down list for each hot corner to select the dash.

4. Click OK when you finish. You’ll then return to ordinary screen corners without any actions.

What Are Hot Corners?

Hot corners on macOS let you invoke actions by moving your cursor to a corner of the screen. For instance, if you move your cursor to the top-right corner, you can start your Mac's screensaver, or if you move to the bottom-left corner, you can put your display to sleep.

Plus, you can add a modifier key such as Command, Option, Control, or Shift. So, you can set up a hot corner to require a key press when you move your cursor to that corner. It stops you from accidentally invoking an action if you move your cursor to a corner for another reason or by mistake.