Mac Tips & Lessons
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macOS Classes5 Lessons
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New in macOS Sequoia3 Lessons
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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 & 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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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 in macOS Monterey6 Lessons
New Control Center
Learn how to access and customize the new Control Center Apple introduced in macOS Big Sur.
In this lesson for macOS Big Sur, I show you the new Control Center Apple introduced. With the Control Center, you can access features such as Wi-Fi, Do Not Disturb, volume, and screen brightness. You can also customize the Control Center and add some control to the Menu Bar for even easier access. See how the new Control Center works in this lesson for what’s new in macOS Big Sur.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
In this video, we’re going to look at the Control Center on the Mac; Apple introduced a new Control Center with macOS big Sur. With the control center, we can adjust our display, brightness, our sound levels. We can turn on, do not disturb. We can adjust our keyboard brightness. We can even customize this Control Center. Let’s take a look at this new Control Center that Apple introduced to the Mac’s macOS Big Sur. Let’s go to my Mac.
Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, this Control Center was introduced with macOS Big Sur. So if you’re using an earlier version of macOS, you will not have access to this Control Center.
So I’m using macOS Big Sur. So what is this Control Center that I’m talking about? Well, if you’re familiar with an iPad or an iPhone, you know that you have easy access to various controls, such as your display brightness. We have the same options now with our Mac; if we go up to our menu bar in the upper right-hand corner, you’re going to see we have this new icon here.
This is the Control Center. When I click on it, I have access to various controls. I want to change my wifi settings. I click on wifi here, and now I can change my wifi settings. I can switch to a different network. Let’s go back up to our control center. I want to adjust my display brightness. I slide this to the left or right to change the brightness.
Same thing with the sound I want to turn on. Do not disturb. I click on this. And now what I can do is I can turn on, do not disturb for a preset time. So to access our control center, we go up to the upper right-hand corner and click on the Control Center here. Now we can customize these controls in the Control Center.
In other words, what we’re able to do is move some of these controls outside of the Control Center and into our menu bar and move some of these from our menu bar. In to our Control Center here, so he can customize it. So we have limited customization options, but we can customize it to customize a Control Center and our menu bar here.
What we do is we go over to our System Preferences. So now, what I do is I go up to the Apple menu, and then I go over to System Preferences. What we need to do is we need to go to our Dock and Menu Bar preference pane. I select it, and then over on the left, you’re going to see, we have Control Center underneath control center.
We have all of our different controls. Now I mentioned that we can customize some of these controls. If I were to take a look at wifi here, you’re going to see. It tells me that wifi is always available and the Control Center. So I can’t remove it from the Control Center, but what I can do is I can remove it from the menu bar right now.
It is in the menu bar because this is selected. So if we go up to my menu bar, you’re going to see, I have my wifi here. If I want to remove this from my menu bar, all I have to do is de-select this. And it is no longer in my menu bar, but it still is in. My Control Center, because it’s always available in the Control Center.
Let’s take a look at another one. I’m going to turn this back on. Let’s go over to do not disturb. I select it. We can now see that it is in the Control Center, but it is not in my menu bar.
If I use do not disturb a lot, I may want to move it to my menu bar. All I have to do is select this. And now we can see, we have, do not disturb in my menu bar. I’m going to de-select it. I want to remove it from my menu bar. When I swipe up, you’re going to see; I have other modules with these modules. What I’m able to do is add and remove them from my control center and my menu bar.
Let’s go to fast user switching. If you have multiple users on your Mac. What you can do is you can add this in the menu bar and in the Control Center. If I were to select both of these, it would show up in my menu bar and the control center; let’s go and add it to the Control Center. I click on it. And now, when I go to my control center, you’re going to see a have fast user switching.
Again. If I were to click on show in the menu bar, it also would show in the menu bar. I’m going to de-select this. And then I also have menu bar only options. So these are not in the control center. So for spotlight here, you’re going to see it. It says show in the menu bar, but does not have anything to do with the Control Center.
So all I can do is take this out of the menu bar. I can not add it to my Control Center. Same thing with Siri and time machine. I click on time machine. I can show it in the menu bar, but it can not add to my Control Center. So that’s how we access our Control Center on the Mac. This was introduced in macOS Big Sur.
So if you’re using an earlier operating system, such as macOS Mojave or macOS Catalina, you will not be able to access the Control Center. To access the Control Center, you go up to the menu bar, see an icon for the Control Center, click on it, and see all of the different controls available to you to customize it. You go to your System Preferences, and then you go to Dock and Menu Mar.
So that’s a look at the Control Center on the Mac.