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
Adding Parental Controls
Learn about Parental Controls with macOS Mojave and previous versions of macOS.
In this lesson for macOS, I look at how to add parental controls to a user on the Mac. Parental controls include managing which apps are accessible, website, purchasing options, time on the computer, and other options.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
Introduction: In this video, we’re going to take a look at how we apply parental controls to a user account on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. To use parental controls to any one of your users, what you first need to do is open up System Preferences, select it. Now, what I recommend doing is going over to Parental Controls. You can apply parental controls through Users and Groups, but I recommend doing it through Parental Controls. Why is that? Well, we can only apply parental controls to standard users. You cannot apply parental controls to an admin user. When I click on parental controls here, it only shows me my accounts to which I can apply parental controls. It’s not going to show me any admin accounts, but when I go back over to my Users and Groups, what I do is I see all of my accounts, so I could accidentally apply parental controls to an admin user. When I do that, what it does is it takes administrative rights away.
To apply parental controls to any user in the Users and Groups, you first go and unlock it, type in the password, and then go and select the user. Again, you want to make sure that they’re a standard user, and then you go over to Enable Parental Controls. When you select this and click on Open Parental Controls, what it does is, it opens up that parental controls preference pin.
Again, what I find easier to do is, or recommend what people do, is go over to Parental Controls. From there, you’re going to see all of your accounts that you can apply parental controls to. You’re not going to see all of your admin accounts. Now again, the first thing we need to do to apply parental controls is just going and unlock it, click on the lock, enter the password.
If you want to add a new user from this preference pane, you can add a new user. All you have to do is click on the plus here, and it’ll add another standard user. I click on it, type in the name, the account name, password, and then create user. I’m going to cancel here. Now, let’s see what options we have. I select Pepper here, and now what I need to do is I need to enable parental controls. I click on it, and now what I do is I set what parental controls I want. You’re going to see; we have various categories up at the top. I can set restrictions for apps, web, stores, time, privacy, and others.
With apps, what I can do is I can set, do I want to allow them to use the camera? Do I want them to join multiplayer game center games? I can also limit mail to approved contacts, so they’ll only be able to use mail from contacts that I supply, and I can limit applications on the Mac. If I don’t want them to open up a specific app, such as QuickBooks, I can go and add that app down here, and then they will not be able to open up that app.
Let’s go over to web. With web, what I’m able to do is set restrictions on websites. I can allow unrestricted, which means there’s going to be no parental controls. I can try to limit access to adult websites, and then I can access only specific websites. If you set, try to restrict access to adult websites, what you do is you click on customize, and then you can always allow specific websites and never allow other websites. I’m going to click on cancel again.
With stores, we can set to disable the iTunes Store, iTunes U, and Apple books. They won’t be able to make any purchases. I can also restrict it. I can limit music with explicit content, movies, TV shows, apps, and books with explicit content.
With time, what I’m able to do is set time limits on the computer. We have weekday time limits. All I have to do is set limit weekday use to, and then I can set for how long. Right now it’s set for three hours a day. Now, this is for the weekday. On weekends you may want to give them a little more time. You can set a separate time for weekends and select this, and you can see that default is set for five hours a day. On weekdays, they’re going to have access to the computer for three hours on weekends you’re going to have access to it for five hours. I also have bedtime. I can restrict access to the computer for specific times. Again, we have school nights, Sunday through Thursday, and then the weekends. We can set up separate times for school nights and weekends.
We have privacy. I select this, and I can set what apps have access to this user’s location or contacts. What this does is this does not restrict the user from using contacts, what it does is restrict other apps from using the context, calendars, or reminders. It’s not for the user; specifically, it’s for other apps.
Then our last option over here is other. When I select this, I can turn off Syrian dictation. I can disable the editing of printers and scanners as well as block CD and DVD burning. We also have restrict explicit language in the dictionary, prevent the doc from being modified. Once you set up the doc, they will no longer be able to modify it. Then we also have a simple finder. I seldom see this being used, but what it does is it simplifies the Finder app.
Down at the bottom, we have logs. Logs will always show no matter what tab we’re in. If I go back over to apps here, you’re going to see we still have logs. Or what is it? Well, I click on this, what I can do is I can set how long it’s going to keep the activity of this account. It’s set for three months by default. If I were to log into this account, I’d be able to see the logs for this account. I’d be able to see what they were doing. We have logs for applications as well as for web. When you are finished, you click on done, and you’re back to your parental controls.
Now let’s say you have multiple accounts, and you want to apply the same settings to all of your accounts. Well, you can do that by going down to the little gear here. Once you have all of your parental controls set up here for Pepper, all you do is select this, click on it, and then you can go and copy these settings. Once I copy them, I would go and select another user. Let’s go ahead and copy this, I’m going to copy it, select another user, the guest user, let’s say, and then what I can do is I can go and paste these settings to the guest user. You don’t have to go through all of the settings again for each user. You can copy and paste. Then this is also where we turn off parental controls for an account. If I no longer want to apply parental controls to this user, I would select turn off parental controls.
That’s how we apply parental controls to a user account on the Mac.