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, p.