10 Mac Beginner Tips In 6 Minutes

Here are some tips for those new to the Mac. Learn how to quickly switch to other apps and windows, launch apps, use Hot Corners, type Emoji and more.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are ten Mac beginner tips in six minutes.
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So the apps that you most use may already be here in the Dock. But if you want to launch any app on your Mac at all you can go over here to Launchpad. Click and Hold and A list will come up with all of your apps. If you want it to appear a little faster hold the Control key and Click or two-finger click on a trackpad, right click on the mouse. You can use the Keyboard to search. So I can type f to jump to f or fi and it jumps right to Final Cut Pro. Then Return will launch the app.
Now to switch between apps you may already know how to use the Application Switcher. You hold the Command key down and then while holding it down you tap Tab on your keyboard to move through the Applications that you have running. Once you are at the Application you want to switch to you just lift your finger off of the Command key. But you can also switch between Windows in your currently running app. To do that look above the Tab key on American keyboards and use the Command and Backtick key. That will cycle through the windows. The way to see all the windows for the apps on your current desktop just use Control and then Up Arrow to go into Mission Control. You don't have to use Mission Control's other functions. You can just search for the window that you want and Click to switch to it. 
A lot of time if new Mac users want to get a window out of the way they'll use the yellow button here to minimize the window into the Dock. Instead of doing that use the  Hide command. You'll find it here in the Application Menu. Hide and then the name of the app. Command H is the keyboard shortcut. So to get reminders out of the way I can just use Command H to hide. To get all of the Page's windows out of the way Command H will now hide all of those. You can use the Application Switcher to Unhide. Just switch to that app. 
Now you may already know about Spotlight. Using Command Space brings up Spotlight. You can search for files. But you can also use this as a Calculator. Just type a math formula, like this, and you get a result. You can even use parentheses to do things that would be difficult to do using a calculator. You can also use this for Conversions. So type something like this and you can see how it converts it. Here's another example and another example. You can even do currency conversions like this. 
A handy way to trigger things on your Mac is to use something called Hot Corners. Go into System Settings and then go to Desktop & Dock. Scroll all the way to the bottom and there is Hot Corners. So, for instance, if you want to put your Mac to sleep really easily you could assign Put Display to Sleep to the top right corner. Now if I move my Pointer up there it will put my Mac to sleep. While you're doing this you can also hold the Modifier Key, like the Command key, Control, Option, Shift or any combination and then you need to hold those modifier keys down while you move your Pointer over there for the Hot Corner to work. This will prevent you from accidentally triggering the Hot Corner. 
Now to take a Screen shot or to record your screen there are whole bunch of different keyboard shortcuts you can use. There is really only one you need to remember. That is to use Command Shift and the number 5. This brings up the controls here at the bottom. You can switch between capturing the entire screen, a selected window, a portion of the screen, or recording the entire screen or a portion. Under Options you have all the different options. Like where the screenshots get saved to and then you could just click the record button or often just click the screen or window you want to capture to start. 
Just about any situation on your Mac you can bring up a  Context Menu that will help you get things done. On windows this is usually referred to as Right Clicking. If you have a mouse you can actually right click to bring up the Context Menu. On a trackpad you can use two-fingers to click or you can use Control and the Click on anything. So you can click here on this file and it brings up this Context Menu with all these different things you can do with whatever it is you have selected. But this works with objects in just about any app. So you can select a word in Pages, for instance, and then Control click on it and bring up the Context Menu here. In Mail you can Control Click on a message to bring up a Context Menu. Or Control Click on a Mailbox. Or Control Click on an image in a message. In a Web browser you can Control Click on a link. You can Control Click on the page itself. In Photos you can Control Click on a photo. You can Control Click on something on the left sidebar. You get the idea. 
Now in the Finder you may already know about Quick Look. Quick Look is a way to Preview something you have selected in the Finder. So here's an image. The icon is really too small for you to see the image. But with the File selected I can press the spacebar and it brings up Quick Look. But another way to preview things in the Finder is to go to View and then Show Preview. This brings up a preview here on the right side of the Finder. It works in any Finder view. So you can see it here in Column View. You can see it here in Icon View as well. 
When you're typing in an app if you want to add an emoji character or other special character just use the Keyboard Shortcut Control Command Space and it brings up the Emoji & Special Character Viewer. You can scroll through here to find what you want and click on it to add that character. Another way to bring this up is to use the fn or Globe Key on your Mac and then the letter e. Once you bring it up you can just type and it will search. Use this for all sorts of symbols as well. 
Now you're probably used to using Tabs in a web browser. Here I am in Safari and instead of a new window I can create a new Tab. I can have multiple tabs. But on the Mac you can use tabs in virtually any application. For instance I have these three windows open here in Pages. I can go to Window here and then Merge All Windows. You can see I've got them now in Tabs. You can even do it here in Mail. If I go to File there's New Viewer Window. If I hold the Shift Key down then I get New Viewer Tab and you can see I've got two tabs here. So I can be looking at inboxes in one and Sent Messages in another. 
So here is a bonus tip. Notice how I use the Shift Key to change the menu items here in the Menu Bar. You can do that in almost any app. The Option Key is commonly used for this. So if you're in a menu like this, hold the Option Key down and see how things change. For instance here you can see Duplicate changes to Save As if I hold down the Option Key. In the Finder a lot of items in File will change if you hold down the Option Key and give you more commands. In the Go Menu if you hold down the Option Key you get the ability to go to your Library Folder. It's not there if the Option Key isn't held down. 
Hope you found these tips useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 2 Responses to “10 Mac Beginner Tips In 6 Minutes”

Teena

2 years ago

Hi Gary, I always love your tips! I'm using MacBook Pro with Big Sur. I just tried typing a calculation into Spotlight, exactly the same as you did in the video, but nothing happened. I then added = at the end and nothing happened. So I pressed Enter as well - and nothing happened. The only result I get is "Search The Web". Just had a look in Preferences/Spotlight and discovered I need to click the Checkbox for Calculations - perfect! I thought this extra info might help others :-)

Alice unawai

I’m a senior.I need help getting my iphonexr & iPad & MacBook 13 to work together.need to learn how to copy &send.. And how to organize my 13000 photos

Comments Closed.

10 Mac Beginner Tips In 6 Minutes

Comments: 2 Responses to “10 Mac Beginner Tips In 6 Minutes”

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