Not everyone knows that this magnifying glass exists, but it can be very useful. The magnifying glass follows the movements of the mouse cursor, allowing you to zoom in on the image on the screen. Below we explain how to activate the magnifying glass.
Magnifier in Preview: this is how it works
- Open an image in Preview on Mac.
- Press the tilde sign (~) on the keyboard.
- Move the mouse arrow to the spot where you want to see more detail.
- Zoom in or out by pinch-and-zooming on the trackpad (or on the Magic Mouse).
You can also open the magnifying glass by going to Extras > Show magnifying glass in the menu. This can be more convenient than simply zooming in on an image by using Command+ and Command-. The magnifier has been in macOS for years, even from Mac OS X Lion, but for a long time not everyone knows that it exists.
You can read more tips about the Preview here:
- Combine multiple PDFs with the Preview app on Mac
- Preview lets you extract images from a Mac app
- Customize the Preview toolbar on Mac with your favorite items
