3 Ways to Add Save As Menu in macOS Apps

You need some time to setup the Mac after purchasing, especially if you are switching from Windows. The reason is that Apple does not provide customization for most of the things. That does not mean you need to live with the problem forever. You can get things done indirectly or from the backend commands. In this article let us explain how to add save as menu in macOS.

Missing Save As Menu

If you have noticed carefully all Apple apps will miss the default ‘Save as’ option in the ‘File’ menu. Some people can live with it but most of us cannot. Whether it is an image, simple text document or rich Pages document, you may need to save the file into different location after modification.

Below is an example of TextEdit showing the missing ‘Save as…’ menu.

Duplicate Menu

With the missing save as option, you need to duplicate the document for creating a copy or modified version.

• Click on the ‘File > Duplicate’ menu to create a copy of the document.
• Edit the content on the copied document, if you want.
• Press ‘command + s’ to open ‘Save’ menu.
• Change the name of the file.
• Select the location.
• Save the document as a duplicate in different location.

Unlike ‘save as’ option where the original version is kept untouched, duplicate option works in different manner. As the name indicates, duplicate option will simply create another copy of the same file. So duplicating file is a tedious job and not same as ‘Save As…’ option. You will also embarrassed especially if you are habituated with traditional save as option under file menu.

3 Ways to Add Save As Menu in macOS

Well, here is a trick. Basically, Mac hides the ‘save as’ option which is still there under ‘File’ menu. Below are the three different ways you can make it visible:

1. Using option key
2. With keyboard shortcuts
3. Permanently adding in the menu

1. Using Option Key

You can view the ‘Save As…’ option by using the option or alt key. Let us explain with TextEdit.

• Open a TextEdit document and click on the ‘File’ menu.
• Press one of the ‘Option’ or ‘alt’ keys.
• You will see the ‘Save As…’ in the menu now.
• The ‘Save As…’ option will simply replace the ‘Duplicate’ menu with different shortcut. ‘Command + Shift + S’ is the shortcut for ‘Duplicate’ menu, while ‘Option + Command + Shift + S’ is the shortcut for ‘Save As…’ menu.
• Press ‘Option’ button and click on the ‘Save As…’ menu to open the dialog box.

You can use this option for toggling ‘Save As…’ and ‘Duplicate’ menu items.

2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts

As mentioned above, you can use the same shortcut keys even though the ‘Save as…’ option is not visible in the menu item. Press ‘Option + Command + Shift + S’ keys to see the ‘Save As…’ option under ‘File’ menu. It will be uncomfortable to press these keys all at a time, you need to use both hands for this purpose.

3. Permanently Adding Save As in File Menu

Both the above options are simple but temporary. There is another trick that you can use to permanently add the menu item.

• Go to ‘Apple Menu > System Preferences…’ and look for ‘Keyboard’ icon.

• Click on the ‘Keyboard’ icon and go to ‘Shortcuts’ tab.
• Choose ‘App Shortcuts’ from the left sidebar. Now click the + icon on the right side as shown in the below picture.

• From the ‘Application’ dropdown, select ‘All Applications’ or only select the application on which you want to enable ‘Save As…’ menu item.

• Enter ‘Save As…’ in the ‘Menu Title’ text box. Remember to enter the title in similar manner it shows in the menu with capital letters at the start of each word and three dots at the end.
• Click inside the ‘Keyboard Shortcut’ text box. Press and hold ‘Shift’ and ‘Command’ keys and then enter ‘S’ key. This will add the shortcut as ‘Command + Shift + S’.
• Click ‘Add’ button and quit the ‘System Preferences…’.
• Now open TextEdit or Pages or any other Apple apps.
• Click on the ‘File’ menu to see the ‘Save As…’ option is added.

If you do not see the option, quit and relaunch the application. Otherwise, restart your Mac and check the applications.

Keeping Both Save As and Duplicate Options

In the above method, the shortcut keys ‘Command + Shift + S’ are the same for ‘Duplicate’ menu. Hence, ‘Save As…’ will replace the ‘Duplicate’ in the menu item. If you want to keep both options then try to add different shortcut for ‘Save As…’ menu that is not overlapping with any other shortcuts in the menu items. For example, you can add ‘Command + Shift + Z’, so that both ‘Save As…’ and ‘Duplicate’ items will appear in the menu with different shortcuts.

Removing Save As Menu

If you do not like to keep the ‘Save As…’ option and want to go back to default settings then follow the below process:

• Go to ‘Apple Menu > System Preferences… > Keyboard’.
• Navigate to ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ tab.
• Choose ‘App Shortcuts’ from the left menu.
• Select the ‘Save As…’ shortcut and click on the minus icon to delete the shortcut.

Now check the applications to confirm the ‘Save As…’ menu is removed.