easy tutorials • Sierra secrets • Advanced skills
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>>> Contents
Contents Our expert tips and easy step-by-step guides will help you get the best from macOS Sierra
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The basics 8
Meet macOS Sierra
14
Set up your new Mac
16
Migrate from an old Mac
18
Migrate from Windows
20
The Sierra desktop
22
Master the Finder
26
Master Mission Control
28
Manage your login items
29
Launch apps quickly
30
Using Notification Center
32
Discover the Today view
34
Command your Mac by voice
36
Search with Spotlight
38
Get at your files anywhere
40
Using iCloud with a Mac
42
Using iCloud Drive in Sierra
The Ultimate macOS Guide
Mac apps
Go further
46
Browse the web with Safari
72
Hidden secrets of macOS Sierra
48
Make the most of Mail
86
Setting macOS preferences
52
Make a date with Calendar
88
Work better across devices
54
Make the most of Reminders
90
Pay for things more easily
56
Lay out newsletters in Pages
92
Back up with Time Machine
58
Chart family history in Numbers
93
Never lose your work again
60
Make more of Keynote
94
Recover from major problems
62
Discover the Photos app
96
Become an Apple Genius
66
Photos’ newest features
68
Get to know iTunes 12
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The basics Get started with your Mac’s key tools
8
Meet macOS Sierra
29
Launch apps quickly
14
Set up your new Mac
30
Using Notification Center
16
Migrate from an old Mac
32
Discover the Today view
18
Migrate from Windows
34
Command your Mac by voice
20
The Sierra desktop
36
Search with Spotlight
22
Master the Finder
38
Get at your files anywhere
26
Master Mission Control
40
Using iCloud with a Mac
28
Manage your login items
42
Using iCloud Drive in Sierra
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The basics
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>>> The basics
Welcome to Sierra macOS makes your digital life easier all round
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The new version of the Mac’s operating system makes your computer better than it’s ever been. Whether you’re new to the Mac or upgrading from the older OS X software, there’s much to love in Sierra. Most notable is Siri, which enables you to talk to your Mac to see things like a list of files you worked on recently, the weather forecast, or to have it play specific music without you having to search iTunes. All the things you can do with Siri add up to make your Mac more enjoyable to use. The new macOS also makes better use of Apple’s iCloud Drive, so if you also own iOS devices or another Mac, you can share your desktop and documents among them, so that you never find yourself left
high and dry on a project due to a file being saved to one device’s local storage. Working with your ever growing library of photos is easier, thanks to powerful new image analysis tools that analyze your pictures to help you pinpoint, at any time, all those that show one of the thousands of objects or scenes it can detect, such as a beach, flower, or dog. If you’re fully invested in Apple devices, you can wake your Mac just by virtue of your Apple Watch being on your wrist and unlocked – no need to enter your password! Over the next few pages we’ll introduce you to more of Sierra’s standout features, and point you to the pages of this book that will help you learn how to use them.
Siri enables you to look up info and instruct your Mac to do things by voice, rather than using the pointer.
Many apps that can create multiple windows gain the ability to organize them in tabs to keep things tidy.
Navigation in iTunes – and how the optional Apple Music subscription service integrates – is easier.
The Optimized Storage feature identifies settings that‘ll free up storage, often by sending to iCloud.
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Welcome to macOS Sierra
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>>> The basics
Master Mission Control Work more efficiently with multiple desktops in macOS Sierra REQUIRES macOS Sierra (some features work in older versions) you will learn How to make the most of Mission Control IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes
Mission Control has been a feature of the OS X operating system (now macOS) since 2011, when it appeared as part of the release of OS X 10.7 Lion, but its roots go back to Exposé, which made its debut back in 2003 with OS X 10.3 Panther. As the name implies, Mission Control is envisaged as the control center from which you run your Mac. In reality, you could use your Mac for years without ever activating it, but it’s very useful when you need to find that one crucial app you’ve lost behind a dozen open folders, or you simply need to get a handle on which
apps you currently have running. Apple refined Mission Control with the release of OS X El Capitan in 2015 and we’re pleased to say that nothing has changed: the desktop background in Mission Control is not blurred like it was in previous versions, and thumbnails of virtual desktops don’t appear until you cursor moves over them. Here we’re going to show you how to use the features of Mission Control in macOS Sierra, how to manage your apps and different desktop spaces, and how you can customise Mission Control in the Settings app. So, let’s take control of your Mac and get started!
Quick Look Stay in control
Top bar Move the cursor to the top of the screen in Mission Control to reveal the top bar, where you can access all your desktop spaces.
Desktop spaces The different desktop spaces you’ve created are a bit like multiple monitors you can swap between, and can be accessed from the top bar. Click the + icon to open a new space.
Running apps When you enter Mission Control, the apps currently running on your system minimize to their own, well organized areas of the screen, so you can see what’s going on. 26
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The Dock The Dock stays visible throughout Mission Control, which means you can still launch your favorite apps at any time.
Mission Control
How to Navigate Mission Control in macOS Sierra
Activate To activate Mission Control, swipe upwards with three fingers anywhere on your trackpad. All open applications will spread to different corners. To return, just swipe back down the same way.
Moving apps If you have a lot of apps open, open Mission Control and drag and drop an app into a new desktop at the top of the screen. Drop it onto the + symbol (top right) and you’ll create a new desktop to drop the app into.
Dashboard settings Dashboard is off by default in Sierra. In Mission Control settings you can turn it on and choose whether to overlay Dashboard onto your desktop or give it its own space. Choose an option and hit ™ to launch Dashboard.
Switching apps
A new desktop
Your apps still run as normal, so videos keep playing and web pages update. To switch to a particular app, click on it. This returns you to a standard application view, but with the app selected in the foreground.
You can have many desktop spaces. In Mission Control, move your cursor to the top bar and it will expand. To add a new desktop space, click the + (right-hand corner). To delete a space, hover the cursor over it and click the X.
Adding app spaces You can drag apps to the top bar and let them “float.” These apps don’t belong to a desktop – they can be accessed via Mission Control or the Alt+† app switcher. Drop another app on them to enter a Split View mode.
Change shortcuts You can change the keyboard, trackpad or mouse shortcuts to Mission Control, Dashboard and Show Desktop in Mission Control settings, or press the ß, ≈, Alt, or ç keys while looking through the list.
Settings You can customize Mission Control; open up System Preferences from the Dock, and choose Mission Control in the top line of icons. You can choose a different way of launching Mission Control from the pop-up menu.
> Group by app By default, thumbnails in Mission Control are displayed as a single layer in Sierra. You can change this by checking “Group windows by application” in the Mission Control settings.
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>>> The basics
Using iCloud with a Mac Wireless backup and syncing with other computers and iOS devices Do you use an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch in addition to your Mac? Assuming it runs iOS 5 or later, you can make use of a free Apple service called iCloud. To put it simply, iCloud enables you to sync your music, photos, contacts, and various other kinds of data – including your documents – wirelessly and automatically to the “cloud.” This means that they’re stored on Apple’s servers and are available on any compatible devices – your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, or PC – wherever you might be and whenever you need them (as long as you can get online, and open a web browser). Even if you have just the one Mac and no iOS devices (we know, we know, it’s very unlikely!) it’s worth linking it to iCloud, so that you’ve got an online backup of your stuff – the service works seamlessly with many of your Mac’s built-in apps,
including Mail, Calendar and Safari. Apps can access your iCloud Drive directly in the Open and Save windows, so it’s like an extra remote drive (see page 42). Here we’ll show you how to set iCloud up on your Mac, and also how to use Find My Mac, a key feature (accessible from an iOS device or on the web) that enables you to pinpoint your Mac’s location if it goes astray (but remains online), send a message to it so that whoever finds it can contact you to arrange its return or, if you’ve given up hope of getting it back, even wipe all your data remotely. You can also keep track of all of your iOS devices and perform the same locking/wiping actions on them (being able to wipe your data is particularly useful if you happen to lose your iPhone!). iCloud can keep a whole range of things in sync between all your devices, including iCloud.com emails, notes, calendars, contacts,
Safari bookmarks, website logins, documents, and data from compatible apps, and more. You can decide which of these things you want to keep synchronized. And with macOS Sierra’s Optimized Storage feature, you can choose to keep your most precious files in the cloud, helping you save space on your Mac. Turn to page 38 to find out more.
Enable iCloud First of all, you have to enable iCloud in Sierra. To do this, click > System Preferences > iCloud and sign into your account (or create one if you haven’t done so yet). Enter your Apple ID and password (see boxout over the page) then click Sign In. For now, we’ll enable both data backup and Find My Mac, but we can easily tweak what’s backed up (read step 3 to find out more).
> Find a lost Mac If you’ve set up Find My Mac and your Mac is connected to the web, you can find where it is. On an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, install the Find My iPhone app. On a Mac or PC, use a web browser to go to icloud.com and sign in. A map will load with all your registered devices shown as pins. To locate one, click All Devices and choose its name from the list. If
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you’ve misplaced your Mac or fear that it’s fallen into the wrong hands, click its name to see your options: you can make it play a
sound to help you locate it, make a message appear on its screen or remotely lock it. You can even opt to wipe all of its data.
Location Services Naturally, it’s essential to grant the Find My Mac service access to your location for it to do its job. If you’re happy with this, click Allow. You might be asked to OK various other options, after which you’ll see a list of the different bits of data that iCloud can sync with your Mac.
Configure your iCloud backups Following on from tip 2, check or
Using iCloud
uncheck the boxes to set what is synced with iCloud (and therefore your different Macs and iOS devices). You can choose to sync Mail, Reminders, Notes, Contacts, Calendars, and more – explore the list and see what’s right for you. Some offer further options. At this point, if there’s an alert symbol next to Find My Mac, click the adjacent button. Resolving it might be as simple as enabling Wake For Network Access in System Preferences > Energy Saver.
Buy more storage You get 5GB on iCloud for free. But as you add things (on all your devices), the capacity bar at the bottom fills up. And, believe us, it doesn’t take long to fill up that space (especially if you want to backup one or more iOS devices, and use iCloud Photo Library and Optimized Storage). You can however, click Manage to cull your backups and other unwanted files. Or – perhaps a more sensible option – click Buy More Storage. A 50GB plan costs just 99¢ a month, with 200GB available for $2.99 per month, 1TB for $9.99 per month and 2TB for $19.99 per month.
You can use iCloud to sync documents, calendars, photos songs, apps, and other data across your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. photos as well as other options. It’s great to know your data is just a click away, wherever you are.
Get your documents If you enabled iCloud Drive, you can click its icon at icloud.com to download your files, edit them locally in whatever software is available, then upload them again. You can even use web app versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote within your browser in macOS, Windows or Linux.
Access over the web If you’re away from your Mac and need to access something in iCloud, you can do so from any computer which is connected to the internet. Just head to icloud.com in a web browser and sign in using your Apple ID. However if you try to access the site from an iOS device it will refer you to setting up your iCloud account – and if you’re trying to use an Android phone or tablet you may get an unsupported browser warning. iCloud.com gives you access to synced email, contacts, calendars, notes, reminders, and
iCloud Photo Library Apple has long utilized cloud sync for photos with Photo Stream, but iCloud Photo Library takes things further, keeping all your photos and videos in the cloud. It’s available with iOS 8.3 and later, or OS X 10.10.3 and later, or online by using the
Photos app at iCloud.com. Note that you may need to buy more iCloud storage to use iCloud Photo Library. Also, don’t rely solely on it – always keep local backups of your photos and videos.
Your Apple ID An Apple ID is a personal user name you use for everything to do with Apple, including buying apps from the App Store and getting a song or a movie from iTunes. If you’ve ever done any of these things or bought your Mac (or anything else) from Apple’s online store, then you’ll already have an Apple ID. If not, it’s easy to create one. If you’re setting up a Mac, iPad or other iOS device for the first time, you’ll be prompted to create an Apple ID as part of the process. Whenever you’re asked to sign in to use iCloud or other features, you usually get the option to create an Apple ID if you don’t already have one. Alternatively, just browse to appleid.apple.com. If you already have an Apple ID, you can click on Manage Your Apple ID to update your personal details. maclife.com 41
>>> Mac apps
Browse the web with Safari Take a tour of the essential features of your Mac’s web browser REQUIRES macOS Sierra; an iCloud account you will learn Useful tricks to make browsing the web easier IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes
Safari does everything you’d expect of a web browser, but it’s also tightly integrated with Apple’s iCloud service and your Mac’s trackpad or Magic Mouse for gesture control. It doesn’t matter that your Mac doesn’t have a touchscreen – you can simply swipe horizontally with two fingers on a trackpad (or one finger on a Magic Mouse) to move between pages you’ve visited. Once you’ve signed into social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, Safari’s Share button makes it quick and easy to post a link to a web page so that your friends can also view it.
The browser’s integration with iCloud enables you to pick up an iOS device or switch to another Mac and have access to all of your bookmarks, your browsing history, and web pages you’ve saved to read later – even when you’re offline. It also keeps your website account login details in sync between devices by saving them to a secure online keychain. Safari will even suggest a strong, unguessable password when you create an account, which saves you wasting time trying to conjure one up. So now let’s take a closer look at the headline features in Safari that you’ll quickly come to depend upon each day.
Quick Look Essential tools
Favorites Your favorites and most visited sites are only ever a click of the search field away. They can also be set to appear when you open a new tab.
The Smart Search Field Click here to enter a web address or something you want to search for. As you type, Safari suggests sites to visit and relevant pages from your bookmarks and browsing history.
The Sidebar Click the Sidebar button at the left-hand end of the toolbar to browse bookmarks, pages you’ve saved to read later, and links shared with you via some social networks. 46
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Share a page Use this to post a link to a page on a social network, email a link, or bookmark the page.
Safari
How to Surf faster with Safari
Take a closer look To zoom in, spread two fingers apart on a trackpad. Alternatively, double-tap with two fingers (one on a Magic Mouse) to focus on what’s currently under the pointer. Pinch or double-tap to zoom back out.
AutoFill passwords In Safari > Preferences… > AutoFill, check “User names and passwords.” Safari offers to remember details when you sign into a website, and fill them in. It can store things like credit card info and addresses, too.
Add to Reading List Move the pointer over the current page’s address and click the + that appears to its left to add the page to Reading List. This feature saves the entire page so you can view it even when offline.
See all open pages When zoomed out on a page, pinch two fingers together to go to an overview of all open pages or tabs. If there are many, Safari stacks them up by site. Start typing to search and reduce the number shown.
iCloud Keychain After you sign into iCloud and set up its Keychain feature, website account and bank card details are kept in sync between your Macs and iOS devices. Safari will also suggest strong passwords when you sign up to things.
Get updates The sidebar shows bookmarks and Shared Links, and a few other useful things. Look for an RSS link on the page and click it – you’ll now be able to see that site’s updates in the sidebar without visiting it.
Favorite sites When viewing your Favorites, you can drag a site from the Frequently Visited group into Favorites. To add the current page to Favorites, click the site address and then drag the icon to its left down into that group.
Monitor downloads A button appears at the far right of Safari’s toolbar when downloads are in progress – it isn’t always visible at other times, though. Click it (or press ç+L) to check on the progress.
> Notifications As an alternative to receiving site updates in the sidebar, some sites ask if they can show them as notifications. You can manage these in Safari > Preferences.
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>>> Go further
HIDDEN SECRETS OF
macOS
Sierra 80 tips and tricks to get more from your Mac with Apple’s latest upgrade words: Christian Hall, Lucy Hattersley, Kenny Hemphill, Craig Grannell, Alan Stonebridge
pple’s great at getting users excited about the new features in its annual upgrades to the Mac. This time, it was all about Siri, your desktop in the cloud, and more clever Continuity cross-platform tools. These are fantastic headline features, but Apple doesn’t like to get too detailed about how it all works. That’s where we come in. We already brought
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you our look at how to make the most of Sierra’s top features but now we dive into detailed changes that Sierra offers, no matter how subtle! We go over those headline features again, uncovering all the tricks that will help you get the most from them, but we also look at macOS’s window management, iTunes and Apple Music, Photos, and the new-look Messages.
macOS Sierra tips
m ac | L i f e ’ s fav orit e S i e rra tips
>>> We love that you don’t have to type your password when you wake your MacBook, thanks to Auto Unlock, which bypasses password entry if you’re wearing an Apple Watch. It’s a bit buried away, though: go to – System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Also, when the text in a notification is truncated by its two-line height, you can now simply drag down from the bottom edge to expand the text message and read it in full. And when files are syncing with iCloud Drive, you can click the progress indicator next to it in Finder’s sidebar for more detail.
We like some of the simplest tricks in Safari, such as the ability to undo the closure of more than just one tab by pressing ç+Z multiple times. Alternatively, you can reopen a specific tab that’s further back in the sequence by choosing it from the new History > Recently Closed menu. Simple things like this make Sierra a joy to use on the Mac. We also think the Reduce Motion feature is great if you don’t like the animated transitions in Mission Control and other parts of macOS. You’ll find it in > System Prefs > Accessibility > Display.
Some of Finder’s new tricks are worth noting: by default, it asks for confirmation before moving things from iCloud Drive to elsewhere. This gets irritating if you enable Sierra’s ability to put your desktop in iCloud and save things there temporarily… you’ll find an override in Finder’s Advanced preferences. There’s also an option to separate out your files and folders in the same bunch of preferences. This puts folders first in your Finder view (above your files), which we think really helps when you need to quickly drill down into your Mac’s subfolders to find something.
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>>> Go further
iTunes and Apple Music ven before macOS Sierra, Apple was in the process of making iTunes easier to understand, not least by reintroducing the app’s persistent sidebar (while browsing your library) to make navigation clearer. Many people still find the app’s integration with both the iTunes Store and the Apple Music subscription service a little jarring. With iTunes 12.5, included with Sierra and also available as an update all the way back to OS X Mavericks, Apple has further tweaked things for a cleaner-looking interface, and it has added new preferences to make iTunes work better for you.
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> I m p r ov e m e n ts to A p p l e M u s i c 1
New navigation
With the category selector (top left) set to Music, three Apple Music-related features are listed between Library and Store to the right: For You, Browse, and Radio. When you click one of these items, the page you’re shown now displays its name in very large type. To the right of that headline will be the names of subsections of that category; click those to explore what they have to offer.
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2
Find Connect
Apple has rolled Connect, the feature that keeps you up to date with artists’ activities, into the For You section, which offers personalized recommendations. This is a natural place for Connect to reside (rather than a discrete item in the navigation bar, as it was before) because its contents are also tailored to the artists you explicitly choose to follow or whose music you add to your library.
3
Be more choosy
You can prevent the automatic following of artists and give yourself full manual control of whose Connect posts you are shown. To do this, choose Account > Profile, clear the checkbox for Automatically Follow Artists, then click Save. To see who you’re following, pick Account > Following. Click a Following badge to unfollow someone, or click Find More Artists and Curators to see Apple Music’s suggestions.
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Better structure
Browse (previously called New) is also broken down into subsections: New Music, Curated Playlists, Videos, Top Charts, and Genres. This is a big improvement, because it’s quicker to get straight to the content you want, the amount of scrolling required is reduced, and options are presented as smaller morsels that are easier to digest. The Radio tab is also divided into more focused subsections now.
> Better behaviors
> Get back star ratings
> Offer feedback
There are also tweaks to how you browse your music library. The Recently Added category presents you with a much longer timeline than before, which is broken down into periods going all the way back to when you started building your iTunes library. They start with This Month, followed by Last 3 Months and Last 6 Months, after which the contents of your library from even further back in time are listed under the year in which you added them.
Since Apple Music started, iTunes has offered two systems for rating tracks: traditional star ratings (out of five) and a heart icon for tracks you love, the latter of which influences what suggestions appear in For You. In iTunes 12.5, you may find stars no longer appear when you put the pointer over an item, but they are still available, which is good given the flexibility they offer for Smart Playlists. You just need to turn them on in iTunes’ General prefs.
With internet radio stations, iTunes already allowed feedback on tracks to guide what gets played, but elsewhere it only allowed you to mark tracks as loved. That’s now gone. For the track that’s playing, choose Song > Dislike or put the pointer over the status area, click the ellipsis that appears, then choose Dislike. For tracks, place the pointer over their row in, say, a track list, hold Alt and click the adjacent heart – it’ll then be struck through with a line.
> Hide some clutter
> Check on song lyrics
> Save storage space
With iCloud Music Library enabled, the Albums view can look ugly thanks to the number of album covers that are likely to have a download badge in their bottom-left corner. You can now hide these icons: go to iTunes > Preferences and turn off “Grid view download badges.” After doing this, to download a whole album just right-click its cover and choose Download, or expand its track list and then click the download badge to the right of its title and artist.
iTunes can now retrieve lyrics for tracks. To see them for the track that’s currently playing, click the list-like icon to the right of the status area, then click the Lyrics tab in the panel that appears. To see lyrics for an item in your library, select it, press ç+I, then click Lyrics. This even works for tracks imported from CD that Apple Music has matched against Apple’s library, but you’ll probably find some that aren’t obscure for which Apple doesn’t yet have lyrics.
In iTunes’ Advanced preferences there’s a new item that permits the app to remove movies and TV show episodes once you’ve watched them. It’s a simple but effective change – the kind that, once you start using it, you wonder why it wasn’t introduced sooner, nearer to when limited-capacity flash storage became the norm in portable Macs. Enabling this behavior is one of the recommendations made by Sierra’s Optimized Storage feature.
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>>> Go further
Setting macOS preferences Master System Preferences to get your Mac working your way The System Preferences window is your Mac’s nerve center: if you want to tweak how something works in macOS Sierra, this is where you’ll usually do so. You’ll find System Preferences in the menu. It’s laid out in rows of easily identifiable icons with a brief name description given underneath. Clicking each icon opens what’s known as a pane with the available settings within. When viewing a pane, clicking the button with a grid of dots at the top will take you back to the main window, or you can use the back and forward buttons at top left, similar to those in Safari. Here, we’ll show you the essential options that every new Mac owner needs to check out, such as security and internet accounts, and others that will simply help you to personalize your Mac.
Colors To alter the color that appears when you highlight text, click General and make your choice from the second drop-down menu, labelled Highlight Color. If you’re not happy with the standard hues, why not choose your own? Simply select the Other… option, which will open up a color picker wheel. The top drop-down menu enables you to switch the standard macOS blue
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color to graphite (or gray). This is the color you see in scroll bars and whenever you click menus.
Stop snoozing To prevent your Mac going to sleep after a short time, open up the Energy Saver pane. This contains sliders where you can set how long your computer must sit idle before it goes to sleep. If you have a Mac notebook, you can set different times depending on whether it is plugged into power or running off its battery. The Energy Saver pane is also where you can schedule your Mac to start up or shut down at a specified time. Note that this is separate from the screensaver, which you configure in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane.
Internet Accounts macOS Sierra makes it easy to set up accounts for all your favorite email services and social networks, with many settings preconfigured for you. All you have to do is add your login details and Sierra will do the rest. To add an account, click the + button on the bottom left of the pane and then choose the service you want to set up. You can also set up accounts manually using the Add Other Account option.
Each to their own Everyone who uses your Mac can have their own account, enabling them to set their own desktop background and work in their own environment, without having access to your setup. After you set up multiple accounts, your Mac starts up with a login screen, and accounts can be switched at any time within Sierra. It’s best to use a Standard account most of the time and log in
as Administrator only when needed. To apply Parental Controls, select an account and then check “Enable Parental Controls.” See the next step for more details on what exactly this means.
Parental controls Do you want to stop your children opening certain applications or visiting particular websites? Parental Controls is where you can help ensure they stay safe. It even tries to block adult content automatically, or you can set a list of banned sites manually. You can also limit how long your children can spend on your Mac, prevent them changing their password, and hide profanity in the Dictionary app.
Notifications Mirroring the iOS equivalent, macOS Sierra has a Notification Center. Click the button at the far right of the menu bar and you get two tabs: Today shows widgets you can arrange and install; and Notifications lists alerts from apps, such as missed calls and Facebook messages. In the Notifications pane, you define how appear.
Share and share alike Sharing files over your home wireless or wired network is easier
System Preferences
than you may think. The Sharing pane contains a list where you can switch the various services on and off, including screen, file and printer sharing. If you’re not sure what a particular option does, click its name and an explanation will appear top right. Below this, you’ll see further settings – usually, who you’d like to give access to.
Sound settings Most of the time, the volume keys on your Mac’s keyboard are all the audio control you need, but the Sound pane offers that little bit more. You can select input and output devices, which you’ll need to do if you use your speakers during the day but want to switch to headphones in the evening. Another useful setting to note here is the audio input level – tweak this if you use a microphone with Sierra’s speech recognition features and find it’s having trouble picking you up.
System Preferences makes it easy to find what you need with the use of clear icons.
Search Bar If you’re not sure where a particular option lives, try typing some keywords into this search bar.
Lock it down Even if you’re the only person who uses your Mac, it’s worth keeping your machine safe and secure. Use the Security & Privacy pane to require a password to wake your Mac from its screensaver, to disable automatic login, and to set up the FileVault encryption system. It may also be worth setting up the firewall (but note that it may prevent some apps from working unless you specifically grant them network access). Manage this by clicking the Firewall tab followed by the Firewall Options… button.
Changing desktop Bored with the background image on your desktop? Set an alternative in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane. In the left column, pick a folder that has images in it, and check “Change picture” below. Use the drop-down menu to decide how often it changes. Avoid the fivesecond and one-minute options, as the constant swapping just gets distracting – if you want to look at your photos like this, you’re probably better off with a slideshow!
A drop-down list will show you the named preferences that match, and as you use the up and down arrow keys to move through that list, you’ll see the relevant pane’s icon highlighted. Click it to jump to the correct pane. Note that you can also search System Preferences’ panes using Spotlight. Press ç plus the Spacebar and type your keywords – the results will appear in the System Preferences category. maclife.com 87