Place OS X Dashboard Widgets on the Desktop

The F12 dashboard is one of my favorite features in OS X. If you have a widget that you use all the time, however, it’s sometimes a bit of a nuisance switching back and forth between the dashboard and your desktop.

There’s a hidden dashboard feature that will allow you place dashboard widgets right on your desktop. I’ve found this to be particularly useful with the calculator widget and a post-it note or two (especially during the tax season).

Just type the following command into a Terminal window (use NO instead of YES to undo this property change):

defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES

Then restart the dashboard application by typing the following:

killall Dock

Now if you click and hold a widget in and hit F12 to return to the desktop, you can drop the widget onto your desktop and it will stay there. The widgit will sit above any other application windows and will always be immediately available, no F12 required. When you are done, just drag it back to the dashboard with the same technique to return it.