Mac Tips & Lessons
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macOS Classes5 Lessons
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Favorite Features in macOS Sonoma9 Lessons
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Make Your Favorite Websites Act Like Apps with macOS Sonoma
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macOS Sonoma: Screensavers & Wallpapers
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Click your Wallpaper to Show the Desktop
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Add Widgets to your Mac's Desktop
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My 3 Favorite New Features in Reminders with macOS Sonoma!
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iCloud Passwords for Chrome: Seamless Access to Your Passwords
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Make your next Zoom Presentation stand out with Presenter Overlays
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Turn off Click Wallpaper to Show Desktop
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Build your own Apple Passwords app in 5 minutes! A Step-by-Step Guide
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Make Your Favorite Websites Act Like Apps with macOS Sonoma
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New & Updated in macOS Ventura12 Lessons
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How to Manage your Open Windows with Stage Manager
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New Setup Options and Filters in Focus on the Mac with macOS Ventura
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View Forecasts and More in the New Weather App on the Mac
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Add Multiple Stops to Routes in the Maps App with macOS Ventura
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Create Templates for Reminders Lists with macOS Ventura
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Maximizing Your Storage on macOS Ventura: A Guide to Managing Space
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Discover the New Clock App on MacOS Ventura
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How to Keep Scroll Bars Always Visible on Mac (macOS Ventura)
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Manage App Store and Streaming Services Subscriptions through the Mac
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Save time typing text and Emojis on your Mac with Text Replacement!
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3 Ways to Remove the Background in a Photo
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Stop Apps from Launching when your Mac Starts Up
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How to Manage your Open Windows with Stage Manager
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Getting Started with the Mac13 Lessons
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14+ Tips for Getting Started with a New Mac (and older Macs)
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How to tell which macOS you are using
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Getting Around your Mac
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Working with Finder Windows
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Accessing Folders and Navigating Folders
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A Look a the Folder Hierarchy of the Mac
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Using Keyboard Shortcuts
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Notifications and the Notification Center
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Searching with Spotlight Search
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System Preferences Overview
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Mac Quick Look Demystified: Preview Files with Ease!
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Quickly access Mac system settings with Menu Bar or Dock
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Learn Cut, Copy, and Paste on Mac
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14+ Tips for Getting Started with a New Mac (and older Macs)
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Menu Bar Lessons for the Mac4 Lessons
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Dock Lessons for the Mac11 Lessons
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Automatically Hide the Dock
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Open Recent Documents from a Closed app with the Mac's Dock
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Open an App's Recent Documents through the Dock on the Mac
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Change the Position of the Dock
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Working with Applications in the Dock
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Documents and Folders in the Dock
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Customizing the Dock
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Add Printers to the Mac's Dock
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3 Easy Tips for Organizing your Folders in the Mac's Dock
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Unlock Hidden Settings for the Dock
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How to Add Folders to the Mac Dock
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Automatically Hide the Dock
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Finder Lessons for the Mac24 Lessons
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Opening an Enclosing Folder from a Finder Window
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Adding a Folder to the Sidebar in a Finder Window
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Cycle through your Open Finder Windows
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Set What Folder A New Finder Windows Shows
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Finder Window View Options
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View Unopened Documents with Quick Look
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Arranging Files and Folders
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Actions and Tasks
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Finder Windows as Tabs
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Customizing the Sidebar
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Customize the Finder Window Toolbar
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Show the Path Bar in a Finder Window
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Keep Folders on Top
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Show the Status Bar in Finder Windows
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Set what is searched in a Finder Window
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Hide your Hard Drives from the Desktop
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Add Documents to a Finder Window Toolbar
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Resizing Finder Window Columns
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Copy the location of a File or Folder as Pathname
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Set what your Finder Windows Open To
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Show the Mac's Clipboard in a Window
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Create a PDF from Multiple Images with Quick Actions on the Mac
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The ultimate guide to the Mac's Finder: 24+ tips included!
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Need help Organizing Your Mac? Master Smart Folders Today!
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Opening an Enclosing Folder from a Finder Window
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Manage Applications on the Mac24 Lessons
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Easily Open the Applications Folder
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Apps and Significant Energy
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Set which Applications Open at Login
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Add the Applications Folder to the Dock
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Close Windows when Quitting Apps
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5 Ways to Find and Open your Applications on the Mac
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Finding your Applications Folder
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Switching between Open Applications
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Hiding Open Applications
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Launchpad and Applications
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Opening Applications with Spotlight Search
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Installing Applications
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Removing or Uninstalling Applications
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Applications in Full-screen Mode
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Finding an App’s Preferences or Settings
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Open Apps with the Launchpad Icon
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Use Keyboard Shortcuts to Switch between Open Apps
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Shrink Apps to Prevent the MacBook Pro Notch from Obscuring App Controls
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Prevent In-App Rating & Review Notifications
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How to Check App Version History on Your Mac
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How to Use Multiple Desktops with Spaces
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Switch between open apps with the Mac's App Switcher
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Enhance your Mac experience by Installing iOS apps
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Add a Signature to a Document
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Easily Open the Applications Folder
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Manage Files and Folders on the Mac30 Lessons
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Selecting Documents and Folders
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Working with Save Dialog Boxes
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Deleting Files and Folders
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Copying, Moving, and Grouping Files
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Move Selected Files into a New Folder
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Specifying Applications for Documents
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4 Ways to Open a File on the Mac
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3 Ways to Force Quit an App on the Mac
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4 Ways to Edit Finder Window Sidebars on the Mac
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Create A New Folder with Selected Files on the Mac
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Using Spring-loaded Folders
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Compressing Files and Folders
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Convert and Compress Images with Quick Actions
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Viewing Document Information
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Renaming Files in Batches
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Tagging Files and Folders
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Set What App a Document Opens With
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Open Windows Media or WMV Files
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Tips for finding your Downloads Folder
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See Folder Sizes in a Finder Window
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Duplicate Documents with Stationery Pad on the Mac
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Reverse the Print Order of your Document
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Creating PDFs on a Mac: Two Easy Methods
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Save Time and Effort: How to Select Multiple Files on Your Mac
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How to Easily Zip and Unzip Files on Your Mac
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Learn how to use Find and Replace on the Mac
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Rename Multiple Files on the Mac
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How to Manage Storage on Your Mac - Easy Tips & Tricks!
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Ever Wondered How to Rename Mac Files? Top 7 Tips Here!
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11 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Desktop Experience
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Selecting Documents and Folders
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General macOS Lessons21 Lessons|1 Quiz
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Have your Mac Learn Spelling
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Close Notifications with a Swipe
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Working with the Today View
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Using Siri
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Using Mission Control
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Add Virtual Desktops with Spaces on the Mac
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Sharing Files with AirDrop
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iCloud Options
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Take a Screenshot of your Display
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Add Emojis as Text
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View All Open Windows as Thumbnails
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Copy, and Paste and Match Style
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Type Special Characters with the Keyboard Viewer
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Set where Screenshots are Saved
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Add a Timer to Screenshots
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Hide all your open windows to show the Mac's Desktop
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Turn on Do Not Disturb Temporarily
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Using Split View
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The Mac’s Magic Shortcut to Trashing Files and Photos Quickly
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10 Little Known Tips for the Mac
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Keyboard Navigation on the Mac
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Have your Mac Learn Spelling
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Preferences or Settings for the Mac34 Lessons
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Organize and Hide System Preference Panes
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General Preferences
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Working with Printers and Scanners
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Share Connected Printers with other Macs
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A Quick look at Sound Preferences
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A closer look at Internet Accounts
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Creating User Accounts
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Set an Animated Emoji for your Mac User Profile
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Customize the Date and Time in the Mac's Menu Bar
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Adding Parental Controls
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Change the Cursor Size
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Show the Date in the Menu bar
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Change the Clock in the Menu Bar from Digital to Analog
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Set the Scroll Bar to Always Show in a Window
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Create a New user Account
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Text Replacement
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Quickly Look up Information with the Trackpad
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Shortcuts for opening System Preference Panes
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Rename your Mac
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Searching your System Preferences
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Set the Default Browser on the Mac
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Reduce the Transparency in the Menu Bar and Dock
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Open Preference Panes from the Dock
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A closer look at Wi-fi Settings
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Using Hot Corners
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Select what macOS Updates you want to install
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Create Keyboard Shortcuts for Menu Items
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Use Keyboard Navigation to Move Focus
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Enable Fast User Switching to Switch between User Accounts
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Use Touch ID to Switch between Users on the Mac
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How to Zoom into your Mac's Display for Easier Reading
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How to Extend Your Mac Display to Your iPad
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Disabling Showing the Notification Center from the Trackpad
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Can Force Click Boost Your Productivity on your Mac? Find Out How!
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Organize and Hide System Preference Panes
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Troubleshooting Lessons for the Mac16 Lessons
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Finding Help for your Mac
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Backing Up with Time Machine
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Restoring Files with Time Machine
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Erase a Hard Drive
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Force Quit an App on the Mac
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Restart or Relaunch the Mac's Finder
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Force Quit Apps from the Apple Menu
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Putting it All Together
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Automatically delete items in the Trash after 30 Days
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Troubleshooting Bluetooth Connections
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Manage Storage Space with macOS Monterey and Earlier
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Reclaim Local Mac Storage Space by Removing iCloud Drive Downloads
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Disable Unused Sharing Options on Your Mac If You’re Not Using Them
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Forget Wi-Fi Networks that are Troublesome
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View memory usage in Activity Monitor on Mac
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Erase All Content and Settings on a Mac
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Finding Help for your Mac
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New in macOS Mojave12 Lessons
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Dark Mode Appearance
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Dynamic Desktop Pictures
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View Recent Apps in the Dock
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Gallery View for Files in Finder Windows
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macOS Software Updates in System Preferences
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Desktop Stacks for Files on the Desktop
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Keep Desktop Folders on Top of Files
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View File Metadata
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Quick Actions and Markup Files
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Continuity Camera from your iPhone or iPad
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New Privacy Options
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New Screenshot Options
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Dark Mode Appearance
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New in macOS Catalina19 Lessons
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See which apps will no longer work with macOS Catalina
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See which apps are 32-bit
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Opening Recent Folders from the Dock
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Reorganized System Preferences
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New Window Management Options
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New Screen Time Preferences
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New Music App
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New TV App
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New Podcasts App
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Manage your iOS Devices through the Finder
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What's New in the Photos App
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What's New in the Notes App
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What's New in Safari
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What's New in the Mail app
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New FindMy App
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New Catalyst Apps
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New Security and Privacy Features
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New Redesigned Reminders App
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Use an iPad as a second Display with Sidecar
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See which apps will no longer work with macOS Catalina
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New in macOS Big Sur15 Lessons
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What hasn't changed with macOS Big Sur
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Notification Center
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Allow Wallpaper Tinting in Windows
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Filtering Mail Messages
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New Control Center
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A look at the Finder Window Toolbar
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New with Desktop Pictures
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Play Startup Sound
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Drag and Drop Controls to the Menu Bar
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Battery Usage Preferences
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Change the Date & Time in the Menu Bar
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Do Not Disturb location in macOS Big Sur
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See what is Now Playing
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It’s Time to Consider Upgrading to macOS 11 Big Sur
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How to Reveal the Proxy Icon in Big Sur
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What hasn't changed with macOS Big Sur
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New in macOS Monterey6 Lessons
Searching with Spotlight Search
Learn about searching your Mac with Spotlight.
In this lesson for in macOS Mojave for the Mac, I look at how to search the Mac using Spotlight. In addition to finding your files, folders, and applications, you can also use Spotlight to open your files, folders, and application.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
Introduction: Now, let’s take a look at how we search our Mac using Spotlight Search. Let’s go to my Mac.
Spotlight Search: To search your Mac, what you do is you go up to Spotlight in our menu bar. It’s always going to be located on the right side. You’ll see a little magnifying glass. When I click on it, I get a little field that pops up, and we have our Spotlight Search. Now, there’s an easier way of accessing Spotlight Search.
Using Key Commands to open Spotlight Search: Instead of going up to the menu bar and clicking on the magnifying glass, what I find easier to do is just use Command-Space, and you have to do it in that order, the Command key and the space bar. So, I’m going to hold Command and Space; I get my Spotlight Search. If I were to go and reverse, Space-Command, it would not work. I do need to use Command and then space bar.
Now, how does this work? Well, all we have to do is start typing, and then Spotlight will come back with a number of results. These results are going to be categorized. They can be websites, contacts, files, or even applications. This is how I will typically open up my applications by using Spotlight Search. Let’s go and search for a file. I know I have a file called family budget. I’m not sure where it is.
Viewing Spotlight Search Results: I just start typing in here family, and as I’m typing, we’re going to get different results. Now, you’re going to see that this is categorized. I have my top hits. This is what Spotlight Search thinks I’m looking for. If I were to hit the return key, what it would do is it would open up my parental controls. Why are parental controls included? Because Spotlight Search searches more than just the title. Parental controls include preferences or settings for family options.
Searching within Documents: You’re also going to see I have iCloud here. Again, iCloud includes different settings for family. In addition to searching for the title, Spotlight Search also searches the internal document. If you have a document with the word ‘family’ in it, it’ll come up in my results. Let’s take a look at more of these results. Now, below that, we have my spreadsheets. You can see I have a number of different spreadsheets here. Now, it’s only showing four of them. If I wanted to see more spreadsheets, what I do is I go to the right of spreadsheets here, and you’re going to see “show all.” Click on this, and I can see all of the spreadsheets.
Below that, we have my folders. Again, we have “show all,” so I can see all of my folders. I have ‘family’ in them. I click on any one of them to open it up. I keep scrolling up; I have my documents. Then we also have images. We can see that they’re all categorized here. If I’d like to see a preview of the file, I just click on it once. And then if I want to open it, I just double-click on it. I can also use the arrow keys to make my selection. I generally never use my trackpad or my mouse when I’m using Spotlight. I’ll use Command-Space to pull up the Spotlight field, start typing.
Previewing Results: Then what I will do is I will use the arrow keys to go and find the document that I want. Once I find it, I can see a preview to the right. If it’s the one that I want to open, I just hit the return key and open it up.
Viewing the Path of a File in Spotlight Search Results: Now, let’s say you wanted to find out where this document was on your computer. I’m going to go to the first one here. I want to see where this is on my computer. Well, to do that, what I do is I hold down the Command key. When I do that, I’m going to hold down the Command key. You’re going to see below my preview here, the path. This is on my Drobo in my training files, and it’s called family budget. If I go to the next one here, I’m going to hit the down arrow.
Now, I’m going to hold down the Command key. I can see that this is on my Mac in macOS Mojave in my documents folder. Now I can also open up this folder. Let’s say I don’t want to open up the document. I want to open up the folder. To do that, what I do is I hold down the Command key again. I can see the path. Then all I have to do is just double-click on this. I’m going to double-click, and it opens up that folder.
Opening an Enclosing Folder from Spotlight Search Results: Instead of opening up the document, you can also just open up the folder. This way, you can see all the other files in that folder as well. I mentioned that we could open up applications with this. I’m going to close this window, and now let’s go and Command-Space to bring up my Spotlight Search. Let’s say I wanted to open up numbers. All I have to do is start typing numbers here, and you’re going to see my top hit here is numbers – the application. All I have to do is just hit return, and it’ll open up numbers. It’s my favorite way of opening up applications through Spotlight.
Again, I have my documents that have numbers in them. I have “Other.” And then I have my folders. I know I have a video on ziplining. I’m not sure where it is. I type in here ziplining. I’m going to get different results. You’re going to see we have my movies. I want to see where this is. How do I do that? Hold down the Command key. Now I can see, it is in my documents folder. I also have Siri suggested websites. I have Siri Knowledge, websites, and then I also have web videos. Then if I wanted to open up this video, I just hit the return key.
Spotlight Search Settings: Now we do have a few settings for Spotlight Search. I’m going to close out of this. I’m going to hit the escape key, and it closes it. Now what we do is we go down to our system preferences, and then we go over to Spotlight. This is divided into two different areas here, search results and privacy. With search results, what we can do is we can set what we want to receive results from.
Let’s say I didn’t want to include bookmarks & history from my web browser; I just deselect this. Then when I search, it’s not going to search my bookmarks & history. Let’s say I didn’t want to search fonts; I deselect this. Then when I search for something, it will no longer show me the fonts. If you’re getting results that you no longer want to see, just go into the system preferences and then go to search, and you’ll be able to deselect what you no longer wish to see the category you no longer want to see.
Privacy Options for Spotlight Search: Then we have privacy options. I click on it. From here, what I can do is I can exclude external hard drives as well as folders from my Spotlight results. If I no longer wanted to have any results from my Drobo, what I would do is I would go down to the plus here.
Then what I would do is I would go over to my Drobo here, and then I would click on choose. Then when I do that, what it’s going to do is it’s going to add Drobo to my list here, and it will no longer include any files from Drobo in my search results. Now we can also do this with folders. I go back down to plus. I click on the folder that I no longer want to include. I’m going to go to my documents and let’s go and click on choose. Now it will no longer include documents in my search results.
We can also just drag and drop. What I can do is I can also just drag a folder or an external hard drive onto this window, and it’ll add it to the list. I’m going to go and remove these. So, I’m going to click on documents, click on the minus, and then we have our Drobo. I click on the minus again, and now it’s going to search everything again.
That’s how we search using Spotlight Search on the Mac.