Reorganized System Preferences

In this video, we’re going to take a look at the new reorganized System Preferences on macOS Catalina. Let’s go to my Mac. Now, what Apple did with System Preferences is it just did a little reorganization. Let’s see what has changed. To do that, we go up to our Apple menu, and then we go over to System Preferences. When I open it up, we have a new window, and you’re going to see, it looks slightly different if you’re coming from an older version of macOS. What has changed? Well, we have a couple of different things here. The first thing is, they took iCloud out of one of our preferences here. These are called Preferences. iCloud used to be just a separate preference here. Now, you’re going to see it as located up at the top of our System Preferences.

If you’re familiar with an iPhone with iOS 13 or iPad with iPadOS, when you open up the settings app, it’s going to look very similar. Our iCloud settings are up at the top. Well, now with macOS Catalina, they’re at the top of our System Preferences. How do we go and access all of our different services with iCloud? All we need to do is go over to our Apple ID, and then you’re going to see all of our different services. Over on the left, we have different categories, overview, name, phone, email, password, security, payment, and shipping. If I wanted to get a glimpse, I would click on Overview, and I can see an overview of my iCloud settings. I want to view all of the services, then I go over to iCloud here, and I can view all of the different services. I uncheck any service I no longer want to use. Then when I click on Media & Purchases, I can go and set up how I want to have my Mac handle purchases.

If I wanted to use touch ID for purchases, I have a MacBook Pro that has touch ID, I select this, and I can use touch ID. I want to manage my subscriptions, I click on Manage, and I can manage my subscriptions. I can also see all of my different devices. This is where we find our iCloud settings. All we have to do, I’m going to click on this. We have to go over to Apple ID, and we can see all of our different iCloud settings. It is no longer located just under a separate Preference Pane.

What else is new? Well, what they did is they just reorganized us. In past versions of macOS, our System Preferences were divided into four different categories. Well, now, if we look, we have two different categories. Our first category includes our General settings, Desktop and Screensaver, Dock, Series, Spotlight, Screen Time. Then our second set of preference panes includes our Software update, Network, Bluetooth, Sound, Keyboard, Time Machine. Instead of looking at four different categories, we now have two different categories with our iCloud up at the top.

In addition to reorganizing our System Preferences, Apple also added a couple of new preference panes. We have Screen Time. This is where we can see how much time we’ve spent on our screen and add App Limits. Then if you have a newer Mac, we also have Sidecar. With Sidecar, what you can do is you can use your iPad as a second monitor. It does have to be a newer iPad as well. I have an iPad Pro, and then I also have a newer MacBook Pro. What I can do is I can use my iPad as a second monitor. I’ll talk about these two items, Screen Time and Sidecar, in separate lessons, but in addition to reorganizing our System Preferences, you may see a few new preference panes as well. That’s what’s new with System Preferences. Apple just moved iCloud to the top, so it’s easy to access. To view your different iCloud settings, you click on Apple ID. Also, they reorganize our preference panes slightly, and instead of having four categories, we have two categories. Depending on which Mac you have, you may see a few new preference panes as well.

That’s what’s new with System Preferences in macOS Catalina.