Table of Contents
Introduction 1 About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 3
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 4
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: macOS Basics 5
Chapter 1: macOS Big Sur 101 (Prerequisites: None) 7
Gnawing to the Core of macOS 8
A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner (or Any User) 10
Turning the dang thing on 10
What you should see on startup 11
Shutting down properly 15
A few things you should definitely not do with your Mac 16
Point-and-click 101 17
Not Just a Beatles Movie: Help and the Help Menu 19
Chapter 2: Desktop and Windows and Menus (Oh My!) 23
Touring Finder and Its Desktop 24
Anatomy of a Window 25
Top o’ the window to ya! 27
A scroll new world 29
(Hyper)active windows 30
Dialog Dealie-Boppers 32
Working with Windows 34
Opening and closing windows 34
Resizing windows and window panes 35
Moving windows 35
Shuffling windows 36
Menu Basics 38
The ever-changing menu bar 38
Contextual (shortcut) menus: They’re sooo contextual! 39
Recognizing disabled options 41
Navigating submenus 41
Under the Apple menu tree 42
Using keyboard shortcut commands 44
Chapter 3: What’s Up, Dock? 45
A Quick Introduction to Your Dock 46
The default icons of the dock 47
Trash talkin’ 48
Opening application menus on the dock 51
Reading dock icon body language 53
Opening files from the dock 54
Customizing Your Dock 54
Adding dock icons 54
Removing an icon from the dock 57
Resizing the dock 58
What should you put on your dock? 58
Setting your dock preferences 60
Chapter 4: Getting to Know Finder and Its Desktop 65
Introducing Finder and Its Minions: The Desktop and Icons 66
Introducing the desktop 66
Bellying up to the toolbar 68
Figuring out what an icon is 71
Identifying your Finder icons in the wild 72
Aliases Are Awesome! 73
Creating aliases 74
Deleting aliases 75
Hunting down an alias’s parent 75
The View(s) from a Window 76
Moving through folders fast in Column view 76
Perusing in Icon view 78
Listless? Try touring folders in List view 78
Hangin’ in the Gallery (view) 80
What’s next on the (View) menu? 81
Finder on the Menu 83
The actual Finder menu 83
Like a road map: The current folder’s pop-up menu 86
Going places with the Go menu 86
Customizing Finder Windows 89
Adding folders to the sidebar 89
Setting Finder preferences 90
Digging for Icon Data in the Info Window 93
Chapter 5: Delving Even Deeper into Big Sur’s Desktop and Finder 97
Cleaning Up Your Desktop Automatically with Stacks 97
Managing your Stacks 100
Quick Actions: Now Playing All Over Big Sur 101
Getting the most out of Markup 101
Trimming video without launching an app 104
Do It Quicker with Finder Quick Actions 105
Creating PDFs without launching an app 105
Creating custom Finder Quick Actions 106
Four More Cool Big Sur Tricks 107
Shooting screens 107
Dynamic desktop images 109
Recently used apps in the dock 109
Mentions of Gallery view 110
Part 2: How Stuff Works 111
Chapter 6: Having It Your Way 113
Introducing System Preferences 113
The Desktop & Screen Saver System Preferences Pane 116
The Desktop tab 117
The Screen Saver tab 118
The General System Preferences Pane 119
Adjusting the Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad, and Other Hardware 122
The Keyboard System Preferences pane 122
The Mouse System Preferences pane 128
The Bluetooth System Preferences pane 129
The Trackpad System Preferences pane 129
The Sound System Preferences Pane 131
Changing sound effects 132
Choosing output and input options 132
Chapter 7: Opening and Saving Files 133
A Quick Primer on Finding Files 134
Understanding the macOS Folder Structure 134
Understanding nested folders 136
From the top: The Computer folder 137
Peeking into the Applications folder 138
Visiting the Library folders 138
Let it be: The System folder 139
There’s no place like Home 140
Your personal library card 141
Saving Your Document Before It’s Too Late 143
Stepping through a basic save 145
Save As versus Duplicate: Different names for the same result 151
Open, Sez Me 153
With drag-and-drop 154
With a Quick Look 155
When your Mac can’t open a file 155
With the application of your choice 156
Chapter 8: File and Folder Management Made Easy 159
Organizing Your Stuff in Folders 159
Files versus folders 160
Organizing your stuff with subfolders 160
Creating new folders 163
Navigating with spring-loaded folders 163
Smart folders 164
Shuffling Files and Folders 167
Moving files and folders 167
Selecting multiple icons 169
Playing the icon name game: Renaming icons 170
Renaming multiple icons at once 171
Compressing files 171
Getting rid of icons 172
The Incredible iCloud Drive 172
Chapter 9: Comprehending the macOS Clipboard 175
Introducing the Clipboard 175
Copying Files and Folders 177
Pasting from the Clipboard 179
Big Sur’s Universal Clipboard 179
Part 3: Getting Things Done 181
Chapter 10: Five Terrific Time-Saving Tools 183
With a Quick Look 184
Share and share alike with the Share menu 185
Slide into Slideshow (full-screen) mode 186
Spotlight on Finding Files and Folders Faster 187
Using the Find command 187
Using the Spotlight menu and its keyboard shortcut 190
Blast Off with Mission Control 191
The Mission Control pane: It’s painless 191
Hot corners are hot stuff! 194
Mission Control’s Spaces from 30,000 feet (an overview) 194
Getting around in space(s) 197
Taking Control of Essential Settings 198
Launchpad: The Place for Applications 200
Chapter 11: Organizing Your Life 203
Keeping Track with Calendar 204
Navigating Calendar views 204
Creating calendars 205
Deleting a calendar 206
Creating and managing events 207
Reminders: Protection Against Forgetting 210
Getting started with Reminders 210
To do or not to do: Setting reminders 211
Sharing lists and assigning reminders 213
Everything You Need to Know about Notification Center 213
Tweaking Notification settings 214
Widget management 101 216
Using Notification Center 217
Use Notes for Making Notes 218
Tracking Productivity with Screen Time 221
Chapter 12: Are You Siri-ous? 223
What Siri Can Do for You 224
Working with Siri 226
Making Siri Your Own 226
Chapter 13: Maps Are Where It’s At 229
Finding Your Current Location with Maps 229
Finding a Person, Place, or Thing 230
Views, Zooms, and Pans 231
Maps and Contacts 233
Time-saving Map Tools: Favorites, Guides, and Recents 234
Favorites 234
Guides 235
Recents 235
Smart Map Tricks 236
Get route maps and driving directions 236
Get walking directions 237
Get directions for public transportation 237
Get traffic info in real time 238
Flyovers and look arounds 238
Do more on the Info sheet 240
Chapter 14: Apps Born in iOS 241
Taking Stock of the Market with Stocks 241
Adding and deleting stocks, funds, and indexes 243
Details, details, details 244
Charting a course 244
Read All about It in News 245
What are your interests? 246
How News works 247
Managing your news 247
Recording Memos with Voice Memos 248
Recording a voice memo 248
Listening to a voice memo 249
Naming a voice memo 249
Trimming a voice memo 250
Controlling Lights, Locks, and More with Home 251
Part 4: Getting Along with Others 253
Chapter 15: (Inter)Networking 255
Getting Connected to the Internet 256
Your Internet service provider and you 257
Plugging in your Internet-connection settings 258
Browsing the Web with Safari 259
Owning your toolbar 261
Using the Safari sidebar 263
Searching with Google 267
Protect yourself from malice (and ads) 269
Checking out Help Center 270
Audio and Video Calls with FaceTime 270
Chapter 16: Dealing with People 273
Collecting Your Contacts 273
Adding contacts 274
Importing contacts from other programs 276
Creating a basic group 276
Setting up a smart group (based on contact criteria) 277
Deleting a group or smart group 279
Sync + Contacts = your contacts everywhere 279
Chapter 17: Communicating with Mail and Messages 281
Sending and Receiving Email with Mail 281
Setting up Mail 282
A quick overview of the toolbar 283
Composing a new message 284
Sending email from the Contacts app 286
Checking your mail 288
Dealing with spam 289
Mailboxes smart and plain 289
Changing your preferences 292
Sign here, please 293
Mail rules rule 294
Take a (Quick) look and (Slide) show me some photos 296
Markup and Mail Drop 297
Communicating with Messages 299
Chit-chatting with Messages 300
Chapter 18: Sharing Your Mac and Liking It 303
Introducing Networks and File Sharing 304
Portrait of home office networking 305
Three ways to build a network 307
Setting Up File Sharing 309
Access and Permissions: Who Can Do What 311
Users and groups and guests 311
Creating users 312
macOS knows best: Folders shared by default 317
Sharing a folder or disk by setting permissions 318
Useful settings for permissions 322
Unsharing a folder 324
Connecting to a Shared Disk or Folder on a Remote Mac 325
Changing Your Password 328
Changing your account password on your Mac 329
Changing the password of any account but your own on your Mac 329
More Types of Sharing 330
Sharing a screen 330
Sharing the Internet 331
And yet more ways to share 332
Part 5: Getting Creative 333
Chapter 19: The Musical Mac 335
Apple Music and iTunes Match Rock! 336
Introducing Music (the App Formerly Known as iTunes) 337
Working with Media 340
Adding songs 341
Listening to Radio 343
All about Playlists 344
Creating a regular playlist 344
Filtering your library 346
Working with smart playlists 347
Burning a playlist to CD 348
Looking at the Genius playlist 348
Chapter 20: The Multimedia Mac 351
Playing Movies and Music in QuickTime Player 351
Watching TV 353
Using the Books App 354
Buying an e-book or audiobook 355
Shopping for e-books without Apple 357
Reading an e-book 358
Finding and Listening to Podcasts with the Podcasts App 360
You’re the Star with Photo Booth 361
Viewing and Converting Images and PDFs in Preview 363
Importing Media from a Camera or Camcorder 365
Chapter 21: Words and Letters 369
Processing Words with TextEdit 370
Creating and composing a document 370
Working with text 371
Adding graphics to documents 374
Font Mania 375
Types of fonts 376
Managing your fonts with Font Book 376
Chapter 22: Publish or Perish: The Fail-Safe Guide to Printing 379
Before Diving In 380
Ready: Connecting and Adding Your Printer 380
Connecting your printer 381
Setting up a printer for the first time 381
One last thing: Printer sharing 383
Set: Setting Up Your Document with Page Setup 384
Print: Printing with the Print Sheet 386
Printing a document 386
Choosing among different printers 387
Choosing custom settings 387
Saving custom settings 390
Preview and PDF Options 390
Part 6: Care and Feeding 393
Chapter 23: Features for the Way You Work 395
Finally, a Dark Mode 396
App Shopping, Improved 397
Using Your iPhone as Your Mac’s Camera or Scanner 399
Talking and Listening to Your Mac 402
Keyboard System Preferences pane: You talk and your Mac types 402
Commanding your Mac by voice 404
Listening to your Mac read for you 406
Automatic Automation 409
Script Editor app: Write and edit AppleScripts 409
Automator app: Automate almost anything 410
A Few More Useful Goodies 413
Accessibility System Preferences pane: Make your Mac more accessible 413
Battery and Energy Saver System Preferences panes: For energy conservation and sleep 415
Bluetooth System Preferences pane: Where Bluetooth lives 416
Ink System Preferences pane: Visible to pen-input tablet users only 417
Automatic Login in the Users & Groups System Preferences pane: Don’t bother with the login screen 417
Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac 418
Boot Camp Assistant app: Run Windows on your Mac really 418
AirPlay Mirroring 419
Handoff 420
Chapter 24: Safety First: Backups and Other Security Issues 421
Backing Up is (Not) Hard to Do 422
Backing up with Big Sur’s excellent Time Machine 422
Backing up by using the manual, brute-force method 426
Backing up by using commercial backup software 427
Why You Need Two Sets of Backups 428
Non-Backup Security Concerns 429
About viruses and other malware 429
Firewall: Yea or nay? 431
Install recommended software updates 433
Protecting Your Data from Prying Eyes 434
Blocking or limiting connections 434
Locking down files with FileVault 434
Setting other options for security 435
Chapter 25: Utility Chest 439
In the Applications and Utilities Folders 439
Calculator 439
Activity Monitor 441
Disk Utility 442
Grapher 447
Keychain Access 447
Migration Assistant 449
System Information 450
Terminal 450
Capturing Your Screen 451
Big Sur screen-shooting 101 452
Big Sur screen-shooting options 453
Big Sur screen recording 454
Chapter 26: Troubleshooting macOS 457
About Startup Disks and Booting 457
Finding or creating a startup disk 458
They call it a prohibitory sign for a reason 458
Recovering with Recovery HD 460
Step 1: Run First Aid 460
Step 2: Safe boot into Safe mode 461
Step 3: Zapping the PRAM/NVRAM 462
Step 4: Reinstalling macOS 463
Step 5: Things to try before taking your Mac in for repair 463
If Your Mac Crashes at Startup 464
Optimizing Storage 465
Part 7: The Part of Tens 467
Chapter 27: Ten Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Experience 469
Use Those Keyboard Shortcuts 470
Improve Your Typing Skills 471
Change Your Resolution 471
Purchase a Faster Mac 473
Add RAM 473
Add a Second Display 474
Use Your iPad as a Second Display 474
Upgrade to a Solid-State Drive (SSD) 475
Get More Storage 476
Subscribe to My Free Newsletter 477
Chapter 28: Ten Great Websites for Mac Freaks 479
The Mac Observer 480
Macworld 480
TidBITS 480
iMore 481
AppleWorld.Today 481
The Wirecutter 481
Apple Support 482
Other World Computing 482
dealmac/dealnews 483
Working Smarter for Mac Users 483
Index 485
