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
Battery Usage Preferences
Learn which apps are using significant energy and about other options to manage your battery on your Mac.
Learn how to better manage your battery on the Mac through the Battery Preference Pane in System Preferences, including the new Battery Health options introduced with macOS Big Sur. You can set how you Mac behaves depending on if it is charging or not, as well as have it learn how you charge your Mac to increase the longevity. See how to manage your Battery in this video for the Mac.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
In this video, we’re going to look at our battery management options on the Mac, including a few new features introduced with macOS Big Sur. Let’s take a look at battery management options on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.
Now to manage your battery, what we need to do is we need to go to our System Preferences. So I go up underneath the Apple menu, and then we go over to System Preferences. From here, what we need to do is we need to go to Battery. Now, this pretty much goes without saying that if you have an iMac, you will not see this option. This is primarily for MacBooks, MacBook Airs, and MacBook Pros. So now I click on it to manage my battery.
Up in the upper left-hand corner, we can see our battery. This is the state of charge. So mine is fully charged. This was introduced with macOS Big Sur. So now I can easily see what my charge level is on my Mac. Below that, we have four different categories. I have Usage History, Battery, Power Adapter, and Schedule.
With Usage History, I can see my battery level here for the last 24 hours. So you can see that mine has been pretty much fully charged. I can also see, for the last ten days, my energy usage. So we can see how much energy has been used from my battery. So we can see that Friday here. I didn’t use any of my battery. If you want to get a glimpse of your battery usage, you can easily do that just by going to your Usage History.
Our next two options are for Battery and Power Adapter. We can have our Mac behave differently when it’s on battery, as opposed to the power adapter. We may want to keep the display on a little bit longer when it’s on power, but turn off earlier when it’s on battery to conserve battery. We may want to turn off Power Nap when it’s on battery; Power Nap will check your email and other things while your Mac is sleeping. Well, when it’s on battery, we want to conserve that battery, but when we’re on the power adapter, we may want to turn Power Nap on. So we have a lot of the same options here available to us in these two categories.
Let’s take a look at Battery here. We can see that I can set how long I want my display to be on. When I go back over to Power Adapter, I can see that I can set my display slightly longer. This is why it’s to the right a little bit. So we have various options here that we can set when our Mac is on battery, as opposed to when it’s plugged in.
Let’s take a look at one new option they added with macOS Big Sur – Battery Management. We’re going to go back over to my Battery settings. When this is turned on, your Mac will increase your battery’s longevity by changing how it is charged. What it does is watches how you charge your Mac on a daily basis. Once it learns your daily habits, what it’ll do is it’ll only charge it to 80% on a regular basis. So as an example, Monday through Friday, you use your Mac. You do not need a full charge. When you have Optimized Battery Charging turned on, your Mac will see that, and it’ll charge it only to 80% on a daily basis. But now, on the weekends, you find that that 80% charge isn’t enough, your Mac will soon learn this, and then on the weekends, it’ll charge it to a higher capacity. It may charge it to 90% or even a hundred percent. But then, when Monday through Friday comes along, it’ll bring it back down to that 80%. Again, this is to increase the battery life. This is a lithium-ion thing.
This is what lithium-ion batteries like. They do not like to have a full charge. It is well known that is Chevy Volt only charges their batteries to 60%. If you have a Tesla, it is recommended that you charge it to 80 or 90% daily. You do not charge it to a hundred percent unless you’re gone on a long trip. Through machine learning and Optimize Battery Charging, your Mac will learn how you charge your Mac and then charge it appropriately.
We also have Battery Health. This is where we can see what our battery condition is. We can see that mine as normal, and then also where we can manage our battery longevity. Well, what does this do? What, what it’ll do is it’ll reduce peak capacity. It’ll slow down your computer when it’s at peak capacity to extend the battery life span, to make your battery last longer. So it’s going to slow down your Mac a little bit when it’s at peak capacity, but you’re going to you get a longer battery life out of it. If you need to have that peak capacity, what you’ll want to do is turn this off. But then, when you turn this off, your battery may not last as long. This was introduced with macOS Big Sur.
Our last option here is Schedule. With Schedule, what I’m able to do is set if I want my Mac to start up or wake up at a predetermined time every day and go to sleep or shut off.
The last thing I want to show you is how you can show your battery status in the menu bar. You can either do this under the Battery category or the Power Adapter category. I’m going to go to Battery here, and then up at the top, you’re going to see Show Battery Status in the Menu Bar. Again, if you go to Power Adapter, you’re going to see the same thing. When I select this, what it does is it puts the status of my battery in my menu bar. So now I can easily see the status of my battery. What kind of a charge it has on it. I can see that mine is plugged in, and it is fully charged. If I wasn’t plugged in, I’d be able to see how much time I have remaining on my battery. This was added back in macOS Big Sur. We used to see how much time was on our battery a few macOS’s ago, then Mac removed, or Apple removed it, and now with macOS Big Sur, they added it back in. You can’t see it on my screen here or my display because my Mac is plugged in.
I also have Using Significant Energy. These are the apps or the features that are using significant energy. So I have ScreenFlow here. This is using significant energy; that’s because I’m recording with it. My display is a little bit bright. It’s using significant energy. If I wasn’t using ScreenFlow, what I would do is I would quit out of it to save battery life, and then I would also reduce my screen brightness to, again, save my battery life. So we can easily see what is using significant energy as well.
I also have Battery Preferences, where it opens up my battery preference pane from System Preferences.
So that’s how we can monitor our battery usage and increase our battery life on the Mac. This is all done in System Preferences under Battery. We do have a few different categories. We can see our Usage History. We can set different options for when our Mac is on battery or power adapter. And then we also have a schedule. And then if you want to add your battery status in the menu bar, you just go to Battery or Power Adapter, click on Show Battery Status in the Menu Bar, and you have easy access to seeing what the state of your battery is and which apps are using significant energy.
Those are the battery options we have on the Mac, including the new options we have introduced with macOS Big Sur.