How to make text bigger on a Mac and stop squinting

If you catch yourself leaning toward the screen or narrowing your eyes to read, the text is too small for you, and a Mac gives you several ways to fix that. The biggest one is in System Settings > Displays: choose a scaled resolution closer to Larger Text, and everything on the screen gets bigger, menus and windows included.

For a single app, press Command and the plus key to zoom in, and Command and minus to zoom back out. Safari remembers the zoom you choose for each website. And recent versions of macOS have a Text size setting under Accessibility that makes text bigger in the apps that support it, without changing anything else. The rest of this post goes through each one, plus the pointer, which is easy to lose on a large screen.

Start with the display: Larger Text or More Space

Open System Settings > Displays and select your display if you have more than one. For a built-in Retina screen, and many external ones, you will see a row of previews running from Larger Text at one end to More Space at the other, with Default somewhere in the middle.

• Moving toward Larger Text makes everything bigger: text, icons, menus, buttons and windows. Less fits on the screen at once.
• Moving toward More Space does the opposite. It is tempting on a laptop, and it is one of the easiest ways to end up squinting by the afternoon.

On a Retina screen these scaled settings stay sharp, so you are not trading clarity for size. Try one step toward Larger Text and use it for a day before you judge it. It often feels too big at first and normal by the end of the day.

External displays vary. Some show the same row of previews. Others show a list of resolutions, and you may need to turn on Show all resolutions, if your display offers it, to see the scaled options. On a display that is not Retina, the non-native resolutions can look a little soft, so the per-app methods below may suit it better.

Zoom inside an app: Command and plus

Most apps that show documents, web pages or messages zoom with the keyboard:

• Command + makes things bigger. You don't need Shift: the key with the equals sign on it works.
• Command - makes them smaller.
• Command 0 (zero) goes back to the normal size in many apps, including Safari.

This works in Safari and most other browsers, in Mail and Messages for message text, and in Terminal, where View > Bigger and Smaller change the font size of the window you are in. In apps like Pages and Preview, look for a zoom control in the View menu or the toolbar. Zooming in one app leaves every other app alone, which makes it the right tool when only one thing is hard to read.

Safari: make the web bigger and keep it that way

Web pages are where small text causes the most squinting, because every site picks its own size.

Zoom a page

Press Command + or use View > Zoom In. Safari remembers the zoom for that website, so the next time you visit it opens at the same size. View > Actual Size, or Command 0, puts it back.

Set a default for every site

In recent versions of Safari, Settings > Websites has a Page Zoom section. It lists the sites you have zoomed, and at the bottom there is a setting for all other websites. Raise that one step and every site you have not set by hand opens bigger.

Stop tiny text at the source

Safari's Settings > Advanced has an Accessibility option, Never use font sizes smaller than, with a size you choose. Turn it on and small print on web pages is raised to at least that size. It can make some carefully designed pages look crowded, so start low and raise it if you need to.

Use Reader for long articles

For a long article, View > Show Reader (Command Shift R) strips the page down to the text, and Reader has its own controls for text size. It does not work on every page, but on news and blog posts it is the easiest way to read comfortably.

One setting for many apps: Accessibility text size

Recent versions of macOS have a setting that changes reading size in several places at once. Go to System Settings > Accessibility > Display and look for Text size. It opens a panel with a slider and a list of the apps and system features on your Mac that support it. Move the slider to set a preferred reading size for all of them, or choose a different size for any one app in the list. Apps that have their own text setting may show as customized in the app.

A few other settings nearby are worth knowing:

• Menu bar size. Some recent versions of macOS offer a larger menu bar in the same Display section, if your Mac shows it. You may need to log out for it to take effect everywhere.
• Sidebar icon size. In System Settings > Appearance, set the sidebar icons in Finder, Mail and other apps to Small, Medium or Large.
• Finder text. In any Finder window, choose View > Show View Options (Command J) and raise the text size. Each view (icons, list and so on) has its own setting.
• Increase contrast. Also under Accessibility > Display. Borders and controls stand out more, which can make small labels easier to pick out.

Zoom and Hover Text for a quick closer look

Sometimes you only need to read one small thing: a footnote, a tooltip, a tiny label in a dialog. System Settings > Accessibility > Zoom has two tools for that.

• Zoom. Turn on Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom. Then Option Command 8 turns zoom on and off, Option Command = zooms in and Option Command - zooms out. You can also turn on Use scroll gesture with modifier keys, which by default lets you hold Control and scroll to zoom.
• Hover Text. With Hover Text on, hold Command (the default) and point at any text, and a large copy of it appears in its own box. It is surprisingly handy for small print in settings and forms.

Make the pointer easier to find

On a large screen, or after you have made text bigger, a normal size pointer can be easy to lose. In System Settings > Accessibility > Display, under Pointer:

• Drag Pointer size from Normal toward Large.
• Turn on Shake mouse pointer to locate, so that moving the mouse back and forth quickly makes the pointer big for a moment.
• In recent versions you can also change the pointer's outline and fill colors, which helps on busy backgrounds.

A quick reference

Squinting is a signal

Squinting and leaning in are worth taking seriously, because both put strain where you don't want it. Leaning toward the screen pulls your head forward and rounds your shoulders. Narrowing your eyes keeps the muscles around them tight, and staring hard at small print can cut down your blinking, which leaves eyes tired and dry by the evening. There is more on that in dry eyes at the computer.

Bigger text fixes the cause on screen. If you need it bigger than you used to, or still struggle after these changes, get your eyes checked by an optometrist. Many people start to find close text harder to read somewhere in their 40s, and glasses made for the distance of a screen can help a lot.

A nudge when you creep closer

Even with bigger text, most people inch toward the screen as the day wears on. Notchpals has a Posture moment for that drift, called Screen distance. If your crew includes a Posture character such as Sir Pounce or Barnaby, it peeks out of the notch once in the afternoon or early evening (the window runs from 2 to 7 PM) with a request to lean back. Sir Pounce, being a cat, makes it personal.

Sir PounceLean back. Only kittens press their noses to the glass.

Your Eyes character (Blip, Bill or Blush) adds eye breaks in the spirit of the 20-20-20 rule. They rest the focusing muscles, which bigger text alone can't do. Bill doesn't soften the request.

BillThe screen is not going anywhere. Neither am I. Look far away. Twenty seconds.

Make the text bigger first, though. No reminder helps much if you still have to squint to read the line it interrupts.