Mac Zoom: How to Make Everything on Your Screen Much Larger

Every Mac computer comes with a built-in Zoom feature that can make the entire screen — or a portion of it — much larger. Whether you find text hard to read, buttons hard to see, or want a closer look at a photo or document, Mac Zoom is free, already installed, and takes less than two minutes to turn on.

Mac Zoom has two main modes. Full screen zoom enlarges everything on the display — text, icons, images, and menus — while you pan around by moving the mouse. Picture-in-Picture mode shows a separate zoom window that you can position anywhere on screen, while the rest of the display stays at normal size. Picture-in-Picture is useful when you want to zoom into one area while still seeing the full layout of what is on your screen.

You can control Zoom entirely with keyboard shortcuts. Once enabled, pressing Option + Command + Equals sign (=) zooms in, and Option + Command + Minus sign (−) zooms out. Pressing Option + Command + 8 toggles Zoom on and off entirely. If you prefer not to memorize keyboard shortcuts, you can also set Zoom to respond to a two-finger scroll on your trackpad while holding the Control key.

The zoom level can go from a subtle 1.5x (slightly larger) all the way to 20x (extremely close-up). For everyday reading comfort, 1.5x to 3x is usually the most useful range.

For users who want even larger text without zooming the entire screen, you can also increase the overall display size. Go to System Settings → Displays and choose a lower resolution, which makes all elements appear larger.