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D KE C pA
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macOS Sierra
es
The No.1 guide to making the most of your Mac
Digital edition of this book!* See page 146 for more
624
Sierra secrets
Do more with iCloud Master the Photos app Take control with Siri
THZ20 2017
PRINTED IN THE UK
£9.99
macOS Sierra | Contents
Contents Get started
Meet Apple’s new OS and get your Mac set up 10 16 32 34 36 38
Welcome to Sierra 80 amazing ways to get more from Sierra Set up your new Mac Migrate from an old Mac Migrate from Windows Run Windows with Boot Camp
The basics
Master the key elements of using a Mac and macOS Sierra 42 44 48 50 52 54 56 58 59 60 62 64 66
The Sierra desktop Master the Finder Make the most of Optimized Storage Discover Desktop & Documents Using iCloud Drive in Sierra Discover macOS gestures Master Mission Control Manage your login items Launch apps quickly Using Notification Center Discover the Today view Make the most of Siri Search with Spotlight
Setup & preferences Make Sierra work for you 70 72 74 76 78 80 81 82 84
Setting up your desktop Alter the look of your Mac Setting macOS preferences Using iCloud with a Mac Set up iCloud Keychain Manage user accounts Enable Sierra’s dark mode Get more info about your Mac Manage multiple displays
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85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 94
Define your audio sources Master input devices Using Bluetooth Set up a printer Networking and sharing Sharing from your Mac Share files wirelessly Work better across devices Facebook integration
Mac apps
Find out about all the amazing apps that come with Sierra 98 102 104 106 108 110 112 114 116 120 122 124 126 128 130 131
Make the most of Mail Browse the web with Safari Make a date with Calendar Make the most of Reminders Get from A to B with Maps Get to know iTunes 12 Discover Apple Music Download great books Do more with Photos Manage your photos in Sierra Make the most of Notes Make more of Keynote Chart your family history Lay out newsletters in Pages More apps for your Mac Using the Mac App Store
Advanced
Back up your Mac, recover lost files and much more!
134 136 137 138 140 142 144
Pay for things more easily Back up with Time Machine Never lose your work again Recover from major problems Secure your Mac Get started with Disk Utility Become an Apple Genius
macOS Sierra | Contents The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook | 7
Get started | Welcome to Sierra
get started | Welcome to Sierra
Welcome to Sierra
macOS makes your digital life, work or play, easier all round The best 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 of all 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 find it by hand in iTunes. All the things you can do with Siri add up to make
your Mac more fun and enjoyable to use. However, that’s just the start of Sierra. The new macOS also makes better use of Apple’s iCloud Drive service, so if you also own iOS devices or another Mac, you can share your desktop and documents among all of 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 now, thanks to powerful new image analysis tools that automatically
analyse your pictures to help you pinpoint, at any time, all those you’ve taken 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 on which you can learn how to use them.
Sierra’s headline feature is Siri, which enables you to look up information and instruct your Mac to do things by voice, rather than moving the pointer around and clicking things.
Many of your apps that can create multiple windows gain the ability to organise them in tabs to keep things tidy.
10 | The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook
Understanding navigation in iTunes and how the optional Apple Music subscription service integrates with it is easier.
The Optimized Storage feature identifies settings that‘ll free up storage, often by sending things to iCloud.
The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook | 11
Get started | Welcome to Sierra
Welcome to Sierra | get started
Get started | Sierra tips
get started | Sierra tips
80 Amazing ways to get more from
macOS Sierra We’ve spent hours uncovering the hidden secrets behind your Mac’s new OS
A
pple’s great at getting users excited about the new features in its annual upgrades to the Mac – and macOS Sierra is no exception. We've already looked at the headline features in this guide, starting
16 | The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook
on page 10, and we're going to look at these – and many more – in much more detail in the rest of this Handbook. Here, though, we've assembled 80 of our favourite Sierra tips and tricks, which you can use as an at-a-glance guide to help
you make the most of Apple's latest Mac operating system. Over the next 12 pages you'll discover just how much you can do with macOS Sierra and reveal the incredible secrets that can help turn you from a Mac user into an Apple genius.
Our favourite Sierra tips 1 If you own an Apple Watch you'll love the new Auto Unlock feature, which saves you from having to type a password whenever you wake your Mac – it simply unlocks automatically. This option is a bit buried away, though; go to System Prefs > Security & Privacy > General to switch it on. 2 Also, when the text in a notification is truncated by its two-line height, you can drag down from the bottom edge to expand and read it in full. 3 And when files are syncing with iCloud Drive, you can click the progress indicator next to it in Finder’s sidebar for more detail.
4 Another handy feature is Safari’s new setting of a default zoom level for pages, rather than a minimum text size. This is can prove very useful on the MacBook, as the design of many sites coupled with the short screen height means little content is visible by default. With a Multi-Touch input device, you can quickly zoom in on what you want to read. 5 It’s useful to know that Siri’s keyboard shortcut uses an unusual action of holding down keys for a moment. You can swap to a regular press and set your own key combination in > System Preferences > Siri.
6 We also think you'll 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. 7 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. 8 We also think that the Reduce Motion feature is great if you dislike animated transitions in Mission Control and other parts of macOS. You’ll find it in > System Prefs > Accessibility > Display.
9 The Finder has some nifty new tricks too: By default, Finder asks for confirmation before moving things from iCloud Drive to elsewhere. However, this can get 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. 10 There’s also an option to separate out your files and folders in the same bunch of preferences. This puts folders first in the view (above your files), which we think really helps when you need to quickly drill down into your Mac’s subfolders.
The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook | 17
Get started | Sierra tips
Sierra tips | get started
Get started | Sierra tips
get started | Sierra tips
macOS Sierra: Photos 11 Find people by face
12 Process other faces
14 Add a batch
15 Hide unwanted faces 16 Quick access
The way people are identified and organised has changed. To see them, click Albums, then double-click People. You’ll see faces the app has identified in your photos. Double-click one to see all the images it believes are one person.
In the People album, again click Add People. This time. ç-click two or more of the faces and then click Merge & Add (top right) to tell the app faces it has identified are the same person. Photos will merge the photos under one person.
Photos doesn’t necessarily show all of the faces it has found right away in the People album. To see more, click the Add People box next to the last face, click a face to select that photo, then click Add near the top right of the window.
If there are too many faces in the People album, you can hide those you don’t want to see. ç-click on the faces you want to hide to select them, then ≈-click on one of the selected photos and choose the ‘Hide…’ option.
13 Name a person
Move the pointer over an unnamed face in the People album and click Add Name below it, then type that person’s name. Photos suggests matches from Contacts. If it suggests the correct one, click it. If not keep typing the name.
If you have a great number of faces in the People album, ç-click those you want to mark as favourites to select them, then drag them to the Favorites section at the top of the window. (If it’s out of view, it’ll reappear when you drag.)
17 Pick a flattering shot 18 Fix mistaken identity 19 Revisit old memories Photos automatically selects the ‘Key Face’ for each person, but you can change it to another if you want. In the People album, double-click the person for whom you want to set a new key face, then ≈-click the photo you want to use instead and choose Make Key Photo.
18 | The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook
If Photos has wrongly identified a person in a photo you can fix it. Doubleclick that person in the People album and click Show All (scroll down if you can’t see it) to see pics identified as them. ç-click any that are incorrect and then ≈-click one and pick ‘<name> is not in this photo.’
The Memories feature gathers photos of events and people, which you can look at individually or as a slideshow. Go to the Memories view. If Photos has auto-generated any, double-click one to see its contents, then click the toolbar’s play button to start the slideshow.
Get started | Sierra tips
macOS Sierra essential tips
20 Make memories
To manually create a memory, open any album, then click Show as Memory (top right). Scroll all the way down and click Add to Memories. All the photos in the album will be included in the memory.
21 Hide a memory
To remove a memory you no longer want to see in Photos, whether it’s one the app has autogenerated or one you’ve manually created, click the Memories tab and then select all the memories you want to get rid of by ç-clicking on them. Next, hold ≈ and click on one of your selection, then simply choose Remove Memory from the contextual menu. The items you selected will then disappear from the Memories view.
22 Pick a visual theme
To choose a new theme for a memory’s slideshow, open the memory, click the play button on the toolbar, click the Themes tab, and then pick a theme. A preview of your selection appears in the popover. Click Play Slideshow to view the animated memory full screen.
The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook | 19
Get started | Set up your Mac
get started | Set up your Mac
Set up your new Mac
If you’ve bought a new Mac, here’s how to get started with it SKILL LEVEL
Anyone can do it
IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes
YOU’ll NEED macOS Sierra
When you first switch on a brand new Mac, there are a few steps to go through before you can get going with it. For starters, you’ll need to personalise your Mac, and optionally connect it to the internet and Apple’s iCloud service. The Setup Assistant guides you through these important steps in just a few minutes. You’ll need to confirm the language you want to use and verify your keyboard
About Apple ID When setting up your Mac, you’ll be asked whether to connect it to your Apple ID, or create a new one. This is not mandatory, but many of Apple’s services depend on Apple ID. The most notable is iCloud, which synchronises your calendars, contacts and other data between your Mac, iPhone and iPad. Find out more on page 76.
layout. The latter of these steps is especially important if you aren’t using an Apple keyboard, which is most likely if you’ve moved to the Mac from a Windows PC and kept your existing mouse and keyboard.
User accounts You’ll also create an administrator account and assign a password to it. The password is important because it protects access to your Mac’s contents and the ability to make major changes to it. There’s nothing to stop you using this account as your own, but it’s better for security if you create a second account
It’s good security practice to create a second ‘Standard’ account for personal day-to-day use
for personal use and set its account type to Standard. This account, and others for your whole family, can be created after you’ve finished the Setup Assistant’s steps and reached the desktop. These options can be altered later, should you go astray or change your mind (see page 80). You also get an option to register your Mac with Apple, but this isn’t compulsory.
Migrating If you’ve been using a Windows PC or another Mac, the Setup Assistant gives you an opportunity to transfer data from the old machine. This includes your files, Mac apps, stored email messages and personal settings. If you use an Apple trackpad or Magic Mouse, the direction in which you move a finger to scroll differs from a Windows PC. However, this can be reversed after the Setup Assistant completes its job. If you need help with this and other gestures that help you to get around in macOS Sierra, turn to page 54.
HOW TO | Set up your new Mac in minutes
1 Confirm your country and keyboard
First, specify your country, then click Continue. Your country determines the keyboard layouts offered on the next page. Choosing the correct layout on that page is important if you have connected a keyboard that either isn’t from Apple or has a non-standard layout. If your keyboard layout isn’t shown – perhaps you’re using a Welsh keyboard – tick Show All under the list of layouts.
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2 Connect to a network
You’ll next see a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks. Click yours, provide its password and click Continue. If your network isn’t listed, perhaps because it’s set to not broadcast its name, choose Other to provide its name manually. You might need to scroll down the list to see this option. If you’re using an Ethernet cable or don’t want to go online, click Other Network Options, choose the appropriate option, then click Continue.
Using the Migration Assistant Although the Setup Assistant offers to transfer your data from another computer – either an old Mac or its Time Machine backup, or a Windows PC – this doesn’t have to be done at this stage. The Migration Assistant is available at the desktop to perform the transfer later on. To find it, click the Finder’s icon in the Dock, then press
ç+ß+u to open the Utilities folder, where it is located. Simply double-click the Migration Assistant icon to open it. Migrating your data can be done via a hard drive or a network or direct cable connection. Pages 34 to 37 show you how to use the Migration Assistant in two circumstances: if you’re upgrading from a
previous Mac or migrating from a Windows PC. If the second applies to you, visit support.apple.com/kb/DL1557 in your PC’s web browser to download the Windows Migration Assistant to transfer your files. You need to run the Migration Assistant only once, but you can call upon its services again when it’s time to upgrade your Mac.
3 Migrate from an old computer
4 Sign in with your Apple ID
5 Create an administrator account
6 Register your Mac
The next page asks if you want to transfer information from your old Mac – either directly or from a Time Machine backup of it – or from a Windows PC. Even if you have an old computer, you don’t need to do this now. It can be done later by running the Migration Assistant utility. See page 34 for instructions on how to use it to with an old Mac, or page 36 to transfer data from a Windows PC. Click Continue to proceed.
Accept Apple’s terms and conditions for macOS Sierra and iCloud, then create an admin account. This is needed to make changes such as security settings. It can use your Apple ID’s credentials or different ones. Click Continue and, if you signed into iCloud, choose whether to use iCloud Keychain, and then set whether diagnostics info is shared with Apple and app developers. You’ll also be asked if you want to enable Siri.
You’ll be asked whether to enable Location Services, and then whether to sign in with an Apple ID. This is recommended: it enables data to be synced between your Mac and other devices over the internet using Apple’s iCloud service, and to use Find My Mac, which can locate a missing Mac (see page 76). You might already have an Apple ID for buying from the iTunes or App Stores, or you can create one here if you don’t have one.
The final step is to register your Mac with Apple by providing your address and other contact details. Again, this is entirely optional. When you advance past this, the Setup Assistant might take a few minutes to do some last-minute work behind the scenes. When it’s finished, the desktop will fade into view. Now the fun begins. If you’re new to Macs or unfamiliar with macOS Sierra, you’ll find a tour of the desktop on page 42.
The Ultimate macOS Sierra Handbook | 33
Get started | Set up your Mac
Set up your Mac | get started
The basics | iCloud Drive
the basics | iCloud Drive
Using iCloud Drive in Sierra Keep your files in sync between your Macs and iOS devices For a while Apple pushed back against old school file systems. On iOS, documents only lived ‘inside’ apps. With iCloud, cross-device syncing worked well when using the same app on iPad, iPhone and Mac. However, when using multiple apps, you had to copy documents between them; this often resulted in many part-finished files strewn across devices. With iCloud Drive, Apple added a more typical file system to the core iOS experience, and made it accessible on Macs and iOS devices. You can delve into app-specific folders, but also add folders of your own, just like in Finder on a Mac. Now, in macOS Sierra, Apple is making a particularly audacious move regarding iCloud Drive, enabling you to keep your Mac’s Desktop and Documents folders in the cloud. This option is offered when you first set up Sierra, but you can turn it on later in System Preferences’ iCloud pane. With this feature active, your Desktop and Documents folders appear in the iCloud section of Finder’s sidebar. And files stored in those locations are made available everywhere. On an iOS device, you can open iCloud Drive. On Macs using the same Apple ID and with the same settings, your documents will sync in the background. On a Mac running an older version of macOS, you’ll find your files in the Desktop and Documents folders within iCloud Drive. Or you can access them in the iCloud Drive web app at iCloud.com. Regarding the specific folders that sync, Apple reasons they’re the most common places for saving files; also, images and other media are already catered for by existing iCloud services. There are, however, some snags to be mindful of before jumping in. Firstly, there’s no granularity whatsoever at this time. The feature is either on or off. Secondly, if you work with massive media files, be wary of slowing your internet connection as your devices try to sync them with iCloud Drive. Finally, whatever you store in iCloud Drive eats into your iCloud storage plan. By default, Apple gives you just 5GB for free. That said, the convenience of more easily accessing files will, for many, be worth a few quid each month.
1 Enable iCloud Drive Sign in to your iCloud account in System Preferences. iCloud Drive is listed at the top of the list of iCloud features. Tick the adjacent box. If you used its predecessor, Documents in the Cloud, to store things, you’ll be asked whether to upgrade it to Drive. Be aware that iCloud Drive only works with devices running iOS 8 or later, or OS X 10.10 Yosemite or later.
2 Control your storage With iCloud Drive turned on, click its Options button to see a list of apps that it works with. Your iCloud account provides 5GB of space for free, but as well as storage for these apps, it’s also used for iOS device backups and your email accounts. Unticking a box here removes any folder an app has created at the top of iCloud Drive, but luckily it doesn’t prevent you from manually saving to it.
iCloud Drive in sync Syncing documents across iCloud Drive is undeniably easy – but you do need to be a little careful when saving your documents. The contents of your iCloud Drive are automatically synchronised between all of your devices, but you need to make sure that the device from which you make changes to a file is online so that those changes propagate to the other devices. Otherwise, your changes won’t appear on your other devices until you have a web connection. Bear this in mind when you’re editing documents on the move.
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3 Tidy up storage
Click Manage at the bottom right of iCloud’s preferences to see what’s using your iCloud storage. Selecting an app reveals how much space its documents and data take up in iCloud, and a button to delete it all. This is fine for, say, a game you’ll never play again, but risky with documents you’ve created. It’s better to search iCloud Drive using the Finder.
6 Patience pays off
When you save a new or modified file, it takes a moment to upload to iCloud Drive. Browse to its location in Finder and you will see an up arrow along with a data transfer indicator below its icon while it syncs. If you’ll next work on this file on a different device, ensure this is gone before shutting down.
7 Search for files
Storing things in any way you want can make them hard to find later – it’s always best to set up a folder structure for your documents as outlined in tip 5. However, if you’ve already saved files across iCloud Drive and are unsure where they are, it’s not a problem. Go to iCloud Drive in Finder and type in the search bar (just as you would when searching for files locally on your Mac). In the bar’s suggestions list, pick an attribute (in our case, a tag). Finder will show matches regardless of location and kind. Finally, set the options bar to look only in Drive.
Arrange files by their tags
4 Save a document
If ‘Where’ is currently set to a local folder, you’ll see two iCloud Library items at the top of the dropdown menu that appears: one that saves to a folder named after the app you’re using (such as Keynote or Pages), and one labelled iCloud Drive under Favourites, which allows you to simply dump the file loose at the top of your iCloud Drive folder.
wherever, and 5 Save whenever, you want Click the triangle next to the filename to expand the dialog box to a view similar to a Finder window. Now you can easily browse all of iCloud Drive’s contents and save the file wherever you like, just as on an external drive directly attached to your Mac. Click New Folder to create whatever folder structure suits your workflow.
After you’ve searched upon tags (see tip 4) click the Item Arrangement button in the dialog’s toolbar and pick Tags. This changes the presentation of results so that matching files are visually broken up into groups by tag, which can help you to quickly sift through a large list of matching files.
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The basicas | iCloud Drive
iCloud Drive | the basics
Setup & preferences | iCloud
setup & preferences | iCloud
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 52). 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 (it’s very handy being able to wipe your data if you 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 synchronised. 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 48 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 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.
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1 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 tip 3 to find out more).
2 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.
your 3 Configure iCloud backups Following on from tip 2, tick or untick 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.
iCloud Photo Library Apple has long utilised 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 6 Get 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.
Your Apple ID You can use iCloud to sync documents, calendars, photos songs, apps and other data across your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
4 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, 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 79p a month, with 200GB available for £2.49 per month, 1TB for £6.99 per month and 2TB for £13.99 per month.
5 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 photos as well as other options. It’s handy to know your data is just a click away, wherever you are.
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Setup & preferences | iCloud
iCloud | setup & preferences
Mac apps | Photos
mac apps | Photos
Make more of your photos in macOS Learn how to manage and edit your images in Apple’s Photos app SKILL LEVEL
Anyone can do it
IT WILL TAKE
Give yourself at least 30 minutes
YOU’ll NEED
macOS Sierra, some photos to play with
Photos is a powerful yet easy to use image editing and management app that – with the launch of macOS Sierra and iOS 10 – has been gifted with an even greater range of useful features, including Memories. If you’ve used the Photos app on iOS, the Mac version will seem familiar. It provides the same ways to explore your photo library, the same methods for organising photos into curated albums and sharing them with people. Over the next six pages you’ll be able to discover how Photos for macOS organises the images and video that
you import from your iPhone, iPad or digital camera; how you can assign categories and keywords – and how you can geotag your photos with locations if your phone or camera haven’t already done that for you. On page 119 we’ll also walk you through Photos’ built-in editing tools, which enable you to crop, apply filters, remove blemishes and make other adjustments to your photos so they look as good as possible. We’ll explain too how the new Memories feature (see page 120) works and how it adds powerful new ways for you to find and arrange your most cherished photos.
Finally, Photos, of course, can also use iCloud to make your entire photo library available on all of your Apple devices (well, those running iOS 8 or later) without you having to choose when and what to sync. Take a photo with your iPhone and the next time that device goes online using Wi-Fi, the photo will sync to iCloud and then appear on your Mac. It works the other way too, for photos added on your Mac. Photos also works seamlessly with iCloud Drive and icloud.com. We’ll cover all of these features – as well as the ability to create shared albums on our tutorial beginning on page 118.—>
QUICK LOOK | Find your way around PHOTOS for macos See more or less 1
Drag this slider to resize the thumbnail previews below.
Various views
Photos shows your pictures in chronological order. Albums contains your curated collections. Shared shows photos you’ve published to iCloud for others to see, and Projects is where you design calendars, books and other things to be professionally printed. 2
Make things
Click the + button to make albums and to showcase your photos in printable projects. 3
Share things
Click the Share icon to email a selected item, publish it to a social network or share it via iCloud. 4
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1
4 2 3
HOW TO | organise your photos
1 Create an album
Go to File > New Album. Enter an album name. You’ll see your photos as moments (shots taken around the same place and time). Click a photo to select it for inclusion in the album, or move the pointer over a moment’s title row and click Select Moment to mark all of its contents.
2 Add photos to an album 3 Create a Smart Album While marking photos for inclusion, click Selected (top-left) to review your choices. Click a photo again to remove the tick and exclude it. When you’re satisfied, click Add (top-right) to see the album’s new contents. Click Albums or the back arrow in the toolbar to see all albums.
4 Organise your albums 5 Play a slideshow In the Albums view, those you’ve created can be dragged around to rearrange them. Folders can be used to group albums (and other folders). Choose File > New Folder to make one. When a folder is selected, the Play and Share buttons will act upon its entire contents.
Select one or more albums or folders, or open an album and select some of its contents (ç-click to select more than one item), then click the Play button in the toolbar to choose a presentation theme and music (including tracks from iTunes) to accompany your slideshow.
Go to File > New Smart Album to set rules that automatically gather photos from your library. Click the + to add more criteria, and choose whether any or all of them must match. To modify a Smart Album’s criteria later, click the cog next to the Smart Album’s name.
SLIDESHOWS Slideshows created with the Play button aren’t saved, but those made with the + button are kept in the Projects view. Select Export (top-right) to save them as videos.
6 Mark a favourite photo 7 Show more information 8 Quickly find people To mark a photo as a favourite and have it placed in the Favourites album, put the cursor over it and click the heart at its bottom-left, or select several photos and click the heart on one to mark them all. While viewing a single photo, click the heart in the toolbar or press the . key.
Go to Window > Info to see metadata for the selected photo, such as camera settings and place taken (if recorded). You can add a title, description and keywords (press ® after each), all of which Smart Albums can inspect. You can also manually identify people.
The Faces album shows people detected in your photos. Double-click to name one. You’ll see other photos thought to be of them, and be asked to confirm or correct. When you’re done, the person’s face appears larger in the album —> and acts a shortcut to all photos of them.
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Mac apps | Photos
Photos | mac apps
Advanced | Disk Utility
advanced | Disk Utility
Manage storage in Disk Utility An essential tool for checking health and formatting and encrypting drives When you buy a new storage drive, when you want to encrypt some files to carry around on portable storage, or when files are corrupt or apps exhibit unexpected behaviour, the first tool to turn to is Disk Utility. This isn’t the sort of app you’ll use every day, which is why it’s stored in the Utilities folder (found within your Mac’s Applications folder) – though that’s only one of the places you can run it from. In
SKILL LEVEL
Could be tricky
IT WILL TAKE
At least 10 minutes
YOU’ll NEED Disk Utility
Disk Utility can encrypt a drive and protect access to it with a password in the process
the event of a serious problem that stops you getting into macOS in the first place, or to ensure no files the app needs to fix are in use, you can start your Mac in Recovery mode and run the First Aid feature, which diagnoses and tries to repair damaged drive structures. Disk Utility isn’t just for fixing problems. If you buy an external drive that isn’t preloaded with an app that preps it for use with a Mac, you can use Apple’s tool to reformat it too. If that drive also happens to be a portable drive or a flash drive, you’ll probably want to encrypt it so if it’s lost or stolen, your files aren’t immediately readable. Disk Utility can protect a drive with 128-bit or 256-bit AES encryption, the latter of which is secure enough to be used by governments and public bodies.
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Quicklook THE MAIN WINDOW Disks/volumes
This pane lists all 1 of the storage attached to your Mac – internal and external, and disk images. When the arrow next to a disk or drive is pointing down, all of the volumes (partitions) on it are shown indented below.
Menus
Look under File, Edit and Images to find options for altering the password for an encrypted disk, to verify 2
an image is intact, and to restore it to a drive.
Operations
With a drive or a volume selected, certain items in the toolbar will be available to use – ‘Partition’ when a drive is highlighted, for example, and ‘Erase’ when either is selected. 3
Summary info
Select a volume or a drive to see an overview of its contents and technical attributes. 4
HOW TO | manage and protect drives
1 Run a health check
2 Format a drive for Mac 3 Format as encrypted
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Select either a drive or a volume on the left, click First Aid in the toolbar and then click Run when asked to confirm the operation. Disk Utility will run through some health checks to ensure that everything is okay with the item you selected, and it will attempt to repair problems.
Format for Windows
To share a drive with a Windows PC, set its format to ‘MS-DOS (FAT)’ if the drive or volume is under 32GB in size, or ExFAT if it’s larger than that. Its label can be 11 characters long, but filenames can be longer. Both macOS and Windows will be able to write to the drive.
When you buy storage, it’s likely to be formatted for use with Windows. On the left, select the drive or the volume on it, then click Erase. Choose ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled)’. (If you selected the drive, set Scheme to GUID if you want to put a second copy of macOS on it.)
Encrypt without erasing
A Mac volume can be encrypted without erasing its contents – but make a backup first! In Finder, choose Go > Computer, hold ≈ and click the volume, choose ‘Encrypt…’ and set a password and a reminder. After clicking Encrypt Disk, ≈-click the volume to check progress.
Particularly with a portable drive, you might want to encrypt its contents in case you lose it. In this case, choose ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)’ as the format. You’ll be asked to set a password, which will be required to access the drive upon connecting it to a Mac.
recovery mode Your Mac contains a Recovery system for emergencies. If, for some reason, you can’t get into macOS Sierra to use Disk Utility’s First Aid feature, hold ç+R as soon as you’ve powered on your Mac.
6 Partition a disk or drive 7 Back up to a disk image 8 Securely erase a disk To split a drive into smaller partitions – perhaps to limit space that’s available to Time Machine – select it (not a volume on it) and click Partition. When you click the + below the pie chart, space will be reapportioned from the volume that’s selected (highlighted in blue).
You can make a disk image from a folder, such as to archive a project. Choose File > New Image > Image from Folder, and then select a folder and click Open. The image’s contents can be compressed and encrypted. Double-click a disk image in Finder to open it like a real drive.
Some researchers say it’s unnecessary to erase a modern hard drive multiple times before it’s abandoned. If doing so eases your nerves, select the drive (not the volume on it), click Erase followed by Security Options and then choose the number of passes to make over it.
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Advanced | Disk Utility
Disk Utility | advanced