A trackpad acts like a mouse in most respects, but the trackpads on MacBooks don't have buttons. Instead, you just tap anywhere on the trackpad with one finger to. You can zoom in on a document, web page, photo, or other item by placing two fingers on your trackpad and moving them apart. You can zoom back out by pinching your fingers together. The zoom gestures can be enabled or disabled from the System Preferences menu. This morning, Apple updated their Boot Camp app to version 6.0 bringing support for Windows 10 in an official capacity. Granted, users could already use the previous version to install Windows 10.
By now, most Mac die-hards are used to getting such questions from their PC-using friends as 'How can you use a mouse with just one button?' All that even though Apple makes the best trackpads in the business and you can use any mouse you want with a Mac anyway.
No matter what you think of the keyboards on Apple's laptops, their huge, luxurious, Multi-Touch, Force Touch trackpads can't be beat. And macOS includes tons of handy trackpad gestures that you might not have even tried yet: left-click, tap to click, select text, sweep every window out of the way to reveal your Desktop files, and so much more. If the native options are not enough, you can expand your toolkit with Swish, an app that has 28 intuitive gestures you can adapt to streamline the everyday workflow.
Create your own trackpad gestures
Control your Mac with a wave of your hand. In addition to keyboard shortcuts, you can also create gesture shortcuts for your trackpad and magic mouse. Try the best software right now!
Even better, with a utility like BetterTouchTool you can customize gestures on your trackpad further, as well as set up a mouse or any other input device you can connect to your Mac. If a mouse or trackpad action is taking too long, or somehow hurts your hand — for example, selecting text with a trackpad — there's probably a better, faster, easier way to do it. Here's how.
Common mouse and trackpad gestures
If you've got a Mac laptop, you should go to System Preferences and open the Trackpad pane. It's already packed with gestures you might not be using that can really speed up some tasks on your Mac.
There's no mystery to these options, either. As you mouse over or select each gesture, a video preview on the right will show exactly what will happen. It's definitely worth a few minutes to watch all the previews and decide which gestures could work for you.
Some gestures even have options you can select from a dropdown menu. For example, in the Point & Click section, you can enable the Secondary Click gesture by checking its box, and then the dropdown lets you choose if that secondary click will be a two-finger tap or click in a specific corner of the trackpad.
Here are some useful built-in gestures you might not have known about. You can enable and customize them in System Preferences ➙ Trackpad:
Look up & data detectors. Select a word and then Force-click (or click with three fingers) to look it up in your Mac's dictionary and thesaurus. Find it in the Point & Click tab.
Tap to click. Check this box to click with just a tap of your finger, instead of needing to press down hard enough to hear the sound and feel the haptic feedback.
Scroll direction: Natural. Uncheck this box in the Scroll & Zoom tab if you want scrolling on your trackpad to work the same as it does with a mouse: swipe up to scroll up, swipe down to scroll down. If this box is checked (and it is by default), scrolling works like it does on your iPhone and iPad: swipe up to scroll down, and swipe down to scroll up. Some people are really particular about this, and you could be one of them.
Rotate. When you're editing a photo that needs to be rotated, this gesture in the Scroll & Zoom tab lets you just turn the photo by rotating two fingers on the trackpad. It snaps into alignment at 90, 180, and 270 degrees, but you can stop anywhere you like.
Notification Center. In More Gestures, you can enable opening the Notification Center with a quick swipe of two fingers from the right edge of your trackpad, like you're pulling the Notification Center in from the side of the screen.
Mission Control and App Exposé. If you tend to keep too many apps or too many windows open, you need these options turned on in More Gestures. Mission Control lets you swipe up with four fingers to see every window you have open, across all apps. Swipe down with four fingers and App Exposé displays the windows you have open in the current app.
Look up & data detectors. This lets you select a word and then Force-click (or click with three fingers) to look it up in your Mac's dictionary and thesaurus. Find it in the Point & Click tab.
Tap to click. Check this box and you can click with just a tap of your finger, instead of needing to press down hard enough to hear the sound and feel the haptic feedback.
Scroll direction: Natural. Uncheck this box in the Scroll & Zoom tab if you want scrolling on your trackpad to work the same as it does with a mouse: Swipe up to scroll up, swipe down to scroll down. If this box is checked (and it is by default), scrolling works like it does on your iPhone and iPad: Swipe up to scroll down, and swipe down to scroll up. I uncheck this box within about 2 seconds of getting a new Mac, but it's really a personal preference.
Rotate: When you're editing a photo that needs to be rotated, this gesture in the Scroll & Zoom tab lets you just turn the photo by rotating two fingers on the trackpad. It snaps into alignment at 90, 180, and 270 degrees, but you can stop anywhere you like.
Notification Center. In More Gestures, this gesture lets you open the Notification Center with a quick swipe of two fingers from the right edge of your trackpad, like you're pulling in Notification Center from off the side of the screen.
Mission Control and App Exposé. If you tend to keep too many apps or just too many windows open, you need these two options in More Gestures. Mission Control lets you swipe up with four fingers to see every window you have open, across all apps. Swipe down with four fingers, and App Exposé displays the windows you have open in the current app.
More trackpad options in Accessibility
Some of the best trackpad gestures are surprisingly not included in System Preferences ➙ Trackpad at all. For example, the ability to select text by dragging three fingers over it, instead of trying to hold down the trackpad with a thumb while dragging an index finger across the text, which could cause hand cramps after a while.
This particular feature can be found in System Preferences ➙ Accessibility ➙ Mouse and Trackpad. First, you can adjust the double-click speed and specify a delay before folders spring-load when you hold a file over them. But then switch to the Trackpad Options to find the magic trick. Inside that menu is a checkbox to 'Enable dragging' and a dropdown that lets you select 'three-finger drag.'
It might take some practice before it's second nature. Besides selecting text by dragging with three fingers, you can also move the selected text around and even app windows the same way.
Create custom trackpad gestures to fully control your Mac
While System Preferences controls trackpad gestures that work across macOS, you can also create custom trackpad gestures to control features in the apps you use the most. All you need is BetterTouchTool.
If you have a MacBook Pro with the new Touch Bar, BetterTouchTool lets you add app-specific features as Touch Bar buttons, so they are always right at your fingertips. The Touch Bar is contextual, so once you get it set up for each app you use, the buttons will change as you move from app to app.
The BetterTouchTool utility lives in your Mac's menu bar, where it can let you customize gestures for trackpad or other input devices, and even have your windows snap to specific areas of the screen too.
How to customize gestures with BetterTouchTool
To start with BetterTouchTool, click its icon in the menu bar and then go to Configuration. You'll see all the possible input devices you can customize in a black toolbar along the top, including your trackpad, keyboard, Magic Mouse, a graphics tablet, regular mice, BTT Remote (which is a companion app for iPhones and iPads), Touch Bar, and Siri Remote. For this example, pick Trackpad.
In the pane on the left, you can choose which apps will support the new gestures. They can be Global, work just in the Finder or other specific apps (just click the plus icon to add them).
Once you've chosen all apps, click the Add New Gesture button at the bottom of the main pane. You can pick from a huge number of one, two, three, four, and even five-finger gestures, or your gesture can be a custom tapping pattern or even use some Force Touch functionality. Here, you can specify a modifier key that needs to be pressed at the same time as well, but it's a good practice to avoid using the keyboard when setting up trackpad gestures.
When you're done with the gesture, you should tell BetterTouchTool what this gesture should actually do. If the action has a keyboard shortcut, for example, you can enter that in the Custom Keyboard Shortcut field.
If the action doesn't have a keyboard shortcut yet, you can always create a new keyboard shortcut for it in System Preferences ➙ Keyboard ➙ Shortcuts. Go there first to set up a keyboard shortcut for any menu item in any given application and then head back to BetterTouchTool to set up a gesture that can stand in for that keyboard shortcut.
BetterTouchTool's Predefined Action menu also includes actions that you might not find in standard menus for other apps, such as closing or resizing windows, starting the screen saver, or summoning Siri.
How to use a custom drawing as a gesture
If you're wondering how far trackpad gestures can go, just imagine that you can draw anything and turn it into an action. Let's see how.
In the Drawings tab of BetterTouchTool Preferences, you can use your trackpad to draw a line that you can then assign to an action, which will make the drawing into a trackpad gesture.
When creating a drawing, BetterTouchTool will ask you to repeat it several times, so the software can recognize its variations too. Then just click Finish and Save before assigning that drawing to a keyboard shortcut or action. Drawings, in general, open tons of possibilities for custom gestures beyond taps and swipes.
How to trigger multiple actions with one gesture
Once you've gotten the hang of setting up gestures to perform one action, it's time to level up! BetterTouchTool can let you assign multiple actions to one gesture, which lets you shorten multi-step workflows you repeat every day.
For example, if you want a gesture to open your web mail client in Safari from anywhere on your Mac, here's what you'd do:
In the sidebar on the left, select Global
At the bottom of the main pane, click Add New Gesture
Select a gesture. In this example, it's Tip Tap Left. A little animation of it appears next to the Add New Gesture button, so you can see how it works. This gesture consists of putting one finger down and tapping with the second.
In the Predefined Action dropdown, select Launch Application, which asks you to specify which application to launch. Choose Safari.
Now click the Attach Additional Action button. This lets you put in another action (predefined or a keyboard shortcut) that will run sequentially after the first one. Enter ⌘ + T in the Custom Keyboard Shortcut field to have Safari launch a new tab.
Include as many more actions as you need. For this one, that's just a Predefined Action called Open URL, which asks for the URL to open the first time you set it up.
Control your Mac using BTT Remote for iOS
If you get the companion BetterTouchTool (BTT) Remote app for your iPhone or iPad, you can simply use your mobile device to execute BetterTouchTool gestures on your Mac, as long as they are both on the same WiFi network. These gestures should be set up in BetterTouchTool Preferences under the BTT Remote tab.
BTT Remote also lets you access your Mac's file browser and menu bar from your iPhone or iPad — plus, it can turn your device's screen into a trackpad. This effectively lets you control your Mac from across the room, which can come in extremely handy.
Remote-controlling with your smartphone is especially great if you use your Mac as a substitute for TV. For example, you could set up a BetterTouchTool gesture for BTT Remote to launch Safari and open Netflix in a new tab. Then just switch to the trackpad and pick a movie.
Another gesture could open your favorite locally stored video file in Elmedia Player, take the app fullscreen, and turn up the volume. Now your favorite movie is only one tap away. Any other adjustments with media keys can also be easily done with BTT Remote.
Arrange app windows in one click
Another useful feature in BetterTouchTool is how it can snap your app windows into their preferred spots on the screen.
In the BetterTouchTool Preferences, click the Settings gear to enter the Basic Settings and check the box to Enable Window Snapping. Now when you drag a window's title bar to a corner of your screen, a window outline will appear showing which corner or side of the screen the window will snap into. To maximize a window, drag it to the top edge of the screen.
If you find these controls pretty basic, you can go into Advanced Settings ➙ Window Snapping to tweak more granular controls that will make the feature work exactly the way you want. Say, if you only want half and fullscreen apps, no quarter-screen apps, you can set that up. If you want the half-screen apps to take up 70% and 30% of the screen respectively, rather than 50–50%, that's doable too. You can even leave a little empty space between windows as padding.
In fact, if you click the BetterTouchTool menu bar icon, you'll find an option called Snap Areas (Advanced Feature) that lets you create new snap areas using the current window as a template. This should help tremendously in keeping your Mac's desktop organized so you don't have to take the time to manually arrange your windows every single day.
Get automated gestures out of the box
If customizing every gesture feels like too much work, you can get a tool that does it all for you. Swish is a newbie-friendly alternative to BetterTouchTool. It comes with 28 intuitive gestures that will speed up your workflow, organized by the type of task. No custom actions here, you can quickly adapt available gestures and start using them.
It's super easy to get going with Swish since you don't really have to adjust any settings. Simply open the app, check available gestures in Preferences — you'll find instructions on how to control apps, windows, manage snapping, etc. — and get back to work.
Another huge perk of Swish is that it's built natively for macOS and therefore feels like its integral part — at the first touch. The app works with the Magic Mouse and uses the macOS internal logic, which makes things smooth and easy.
Take full control of your trackpad
Once you get going with BetterTouchTool and Swish, you'll wonder how you ever lived without gesture control before — the trackpad is so incredibly powerful with the right tools at your fingertips. And when you get BTT Remote involved to fully control your Mac from your iPhone or iPad, the sky's the limit.
Best of all, you can try both BetterTouchTool and Swish for free during a 7-day trial with Setapp, a subscription platform with more than 190 best-in-class Mac apps to supercharge your productivity. Time to challenge yourself to come up with a few time-saving shortcuts today!
Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
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When I bought my first Mac (it was Mac mini), I absolutely hated it. So, I installed Windows using Bootcamp and used it as a PC. With my next purchase, MacBook Air, I didn't have enough space to install Windows, so I had to learn how to use macOS (Apple's operating system).
It took me almost a year to learn basics. I don't want you to waste a year, so I assembled an absolute minimum you need to know to use Macs efficiently. All you need is to read this blog and open each link I have to other posts I wrote. I guarantee, in the end, you will know more than 95% of users who have been using Mac for years.
So, how a beginner can learn using MacBook Pro or MacBook Air? If you are switching from PC, you need to learn keyboard shortcuts, Spotlight Search, and Finder. Then learn how to install new apps without getting a virus on your MacBook. And finally, learn how to use advanced topics, such as Siri and backing up with Time Machine.
First things you need to know
If you ask what the absolute minimum any MacBook user must know, I will name two: right click and Spotlight Search.
Right-click
I must admit I didn't know how to right-click for at least a year after having my first MacBook. I tried to press on all parts of the trackpad (the sensitive area under the keyboard in the middle) but couldn't invoke the right click.
I even came to the conclusion that stupid Macs don't have right-click functionality, the cornerstone of every Windows app. One day I mentioned this fact in front of a sales guy, and he showed me how to do it.
Needless to say, I was extremely embarrassed. After all, I was a programmer, and he was a sales rep.
After this accident, I decided to stop being arrogant and learn how to do things on Macs the Apple way. Once I learned how to use MacBooks, I fell in love with Macs.
There are two ways to right click (also called a Secondary Click) on MacBook:
- Touch the trackpad with two fingers simultaneously.
- Press the control button and then touch the trackpad.
Learn more here about right click and other keyboard shortcuts.
Spotlight Search
This is the best feature of all in any Mac. Try following: press Command button and then hit Spacebar. You will see a search bar. Now you can type something in the bar. I use Spotlight Search for following things:
- Find the document
- Start application
- Perform math calculations
Main controls of a new Mac
In the picture below, I marked two main controls:
- Dock
- Menu Bar
The Dock
The Dock is a place where you can have icons of the applications you use most often. It is also a place where you can see currently running apps even if they were not in the Dock initially. Active apps have a little dot under the icon (in the pic above, you can see that both Safari and Google Chrome browsers are currently active).
You can configure the Dock by adding or removing apps. If you want to add an app, it must be running, so it becomes active in the Dock. Then you can right-click on the app and select Options->Keep in Dock.
If you want to remove an app from the Dock, you can click on the app icon, drag the icon without releasing the touch and then stopped touching the touchpad. Mac will make a Poof sound, and the app disappears. Don't worry, the app will not get deleted, and you can always add it back to the Dock later.
Additionally, you can change the look and location of the Dock. You can move the Dock to the left, right, or bottom. You can make icons in the Dock larger or increase the size of the icon when you hover over it. And finally, you can hide the Dock when it's not active, so you can have more space on the screen.
While you can always remove or rearrange icons in the Dock, there are two icons that appear first in the Dock. The very first icon is the Finder, and the second is Launchpad.
Finder
Finder is a file manager on Mac. Any time you need to browse folders on your Mac, find files, add or remove folders and files, you will use Finder. I wrote a blog that covers Finder very extensively.
Interesting fact: you cannot remove Finder from the Dock, nor can you move it from the first place.
Launchpad
Every app that comes preinstalled on Mac and any app you download and install later is located in the Applications folder. Launchpad is an easy way to display all apps.
Just click on Launchpad, find the app, and click on it to start. If you have too many apps, then you can use a search bar to filter the one you need.
Granted, if the app icon in the Dock already, you don't need Launchpad to start it.
How useful is Launchpad? Frankly, I almost never used it. There is a much easier and faster way to start an app without scrolling multiple windows.
All you need is to start Spotlight Search, type the name of the app, and start it from there.
Menu Bar
The main feature of the Menu Bar in macOS is that it changes depending on which application is currently active. If you are familiar with Windows, each application there has its own menu. On Macs, there is only one place where menu functions are located, and they always at the top of the screen.
Try it yourself. Click on the Safari icon in the Dock. The icon will start bumping in place – it means the app is starting. Finally, when it starts, you can see that the menu has changed. Now the second item on the menu is 'Safari.' You can set Safari preferences from this menu item. Other items have changed as well: File, Edit, Bookmarks, etc.
Now, click on the Mail app. The second item becomes 'Mail.' And then there are Mailbox, Message, Format, etc.
The only part of the menu that does not change is the Apple logo. It's the system menu. No matter which application is active, the Apple log is always there. From here, you can restart or shutdown the Mac.
Another useful menu item is Force Quit. In the Mac world, when users need to kill unresponsive apps forcefully, they call it Force Quit. So, next time, when your Safari stops responding, click on the Apple logo, then click on Force Quit, find the app in the list, and Force Quit it. However, don't use this function to close apps regularly.
Setting up a new MacBook
Most people, when they get a new computer, start with customization.
Change the Desktop background
Right-click anywhere on the screen. In the context menu select 'Change Desktop Background.' Now you can change the Desktop background by selecting from the pictures or themes that came from Apple or use your own photos. You can also change the screensaver.
As always with Apple, there is more than one way to get to the same dialog. Let's try to use Spotlight Search. Start the Spotlight Search by using the Command+Spacebar combination. Type 'Desktop,' and you will see a list of various apps or documents. Click on 'Desktop & Screen Saver,' and you will see the same dialog. Do you see how powerful Spotlight Search is?
System Preferences
Another place where you can make the changes to the behavior and the look of your Mac is the System Preferences app. Using Windows analogy, it's a Control Panel.
From here, you can add/remove users, change Display preferences, configure Security options, set up printers, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and many other things. You can start System Preferences from the Dock or using Spotlight Search.
The cool thing about the latter is that you can start individual sections in System Preferences from Spotlight Search directly. For instance, I never start System Preferences if I need to change user settings. I type users in Spotlight Search and then click on 'Users & Groups' in search results.
Hardware
MacBooks don't have touch screens (yet), unlike most Windows laptops. And it makes sense.
I had a Dell laptop with a touch screen, and I almost never used it. If you keep poking the screen with your fingers, the screen becomes greasy very quickly. Also, cleaning the screen becomes a pain: Windows will start multiple apps while you are wiping the screen.
However, MacBooks have tools that can significantly improve your productivity if used properly: Trackpad (best in class), Touch ID, and Touch Bar.
Multi-Touch Gestures
Multi-Touch Trackpad (Apple's name for the touchpad) supports lots of cool gestures involving multi-finger touches and swipes. To see how to use gestures by typing Trackpad in Spotlight Search. This will bring up a dialog box where all gestures displayed in short clips.
My favorite gestures are:
- Scroll – Put two fingers on the trackpad and move up or down to scroll
- Zoom in or out – Pinch with two fingers and increase the distance between fingers to zoom in or opposite to zoom out.
- Show desktop – Spread your thumb and three fingers apart to show the desktop.
Touch ID and Touch Bar
How To Use Apple Trackpad
When Apple first introduced Touch ID, my kids loved the feature. They insisted on registering their fingerprints so they could unlock my MacBook Pro.
I personally love this feature; it's so much better than typing the password. If your MacBook has Touch ID and you didn't enable Touch ID when setting up your laptop, you can always enable and add multiple fingerprints in System Preferences.
I usually register at least two fingers (right and left hand), so if my primary hand is wet or dirty, I can use another.
Also, Touch ID behaves as a Shutdown button. If you push and hold the Touch ID, it will force MacBook Pro to shut down. To start the laptop that was turned off, push Touch ID again.
Touch Bar is another cool feature. Similar to the Menu Bar icons in the Touch Bar, change with the change of active app. If the Mail app is active, it will show New Message, if Safari is active then New Tab.
If you are just starting using MacBooks, then it's extremely useful. However, someone like me struggles to switch from using keyboard shortcuts to using TouchBar.
One thing to note is that if you install Windows on MacBook (as I often do), TouchBar loses its flexibility nature. It always shows function keys.
External Devices
Old MacBooks had multiple extension ports: USB 2/3, SDHC, HDMI, Thunderbolt, a special port for the charger (Magsafe). Now all they have USB-C ports. Even charging happens through USB-C. So, if you had old external devices, you either need adapters or buy new ones. If all you have is two USB-C ports, I'd recommend to buy a hub to connect all devices.
Since Apple is historically greedy when it comes to disk space, sooner or later, you will need an external hard drive. However, most hard drives come preformatted for Windows. But, generally, it's not a problem, you can reformat it to a Mac format. All instructions are here.
And in case you don't know which external storage to choose, check my recommendations on the most reliable external hard drives for Macs.
Apps in MacBook
Installing apps
Any MacBook Air or MacBook Pro comes with a bunch of apps pre-installed, and most of them are pretty good. However, soon enough, you will need to install 3rd party programs.
There are two ways to get new programs:
- Download from App Store
- Download from program vendor
Download from App Store
Downloading from the App Store is my favorite way to get new apps. If you have an iPhone, you already know what the App Store is. Apple vets all applications in its store to make sure that it works well with macOS and does not contain any malicious code. In other words, the App Store is the safest inventory of Mac programs.
To download an app from the App Store, start it using Spotlight Search or Launchpad. You must be signed in with Apple ID. Search for the app or category. Click on Get and Install buttons. If the app was paid, then Apple will use the credit card linked to your Apple ID.
Another cool thing about the Apple Store is that it remembers all apps you downloaded previously, including those you paid for. So, if you delete (intentionally or accidentally) the app, you can always re-download it again.
Installations of new apps on Macs are easy. They simply get copied to the Applications folder. No registry non-sense.
Uninstalling apps
Uninstalling apps on Mac is easy. All you need is to use Finder to open the Applications folder. Find the app, right-click on it, and select Move to Trash. In most cases, this is enough to delete the program. However, sometimes, the app caches some data in system folders. Those items might not be deleted. So, some people use 3rd party tools for clean uninstall.
Download from program vendor
Some vendors do not have their software registered in the App Store. The reason often is financial. Vendors must pay to be hosted in the Apple store. Another reason is security. If the app contains malicious code, the only way for them to get on your Mac is to allow them to download their apps from the internet.
If you decide to download something from the internet, make sure to run it through antivirus. What? Didn't you know that Macs can have viruses? Sorry to disappoint you, but Macs can be infected by malware. In fact, the very first virus was written for Macs, not Windows.
3defy software, free download. If you don't have an antivirus, the least you can do is to check the downloaded file on Virus Total. It's a site operated by Google, and it's free.
Standard apps
As I already mentioned, MacBooks come with a couple of dozens of useful apps. I wrote a detailed blog post about all of them. Here I just want quickly touch on the main ones.
Siri
If you have an iPhone, you already familiar with Siri, a virtual assistant. Siri on Macs is the same as in iPhone, but it's even more powerful.
Did you know you don't have to use a voice with Siri? Yes, you can simply type the commands, and Siri will execute as if you made a voice command. This feature could be useful if you are in the library or a similar place. You can find all sorts of cool tricks you can do with Siri here.
Messages
You can send and receive messages on your Mac if you have a linked iPhone using iMessage. However, I don't like this feature. The last thing I want is for people to read my messages on my Mac even if I already deleted them from my iPhone.
On the other hand, FaceTime is a nice video chat app. You can FaceTime to anyone using iPhone, iPad, or Mac. You can even make group calls.
Photos
Keep your photos organized with the Photos app. You can share photos across all your Apple devices. Photos app even has some editing capabilities in case you need to change brightness, apply filters, crop, and rotate photos. Photos can be stored either on the disk or in the iCloud.
iCloud
Speaking of iCloud, it's a cloud storage provided by Apple. You can choose which applications can store data in iCloud by configuring in System Preferences.
I highly suggest to go over iCloud settings and make sure to select only things you want, because by default Apple gives you only 5GB for free. You can always purchase more, however.
iCloud is central to many apps. For instance, Find my iPhone uses iCloud. Your passwords will also be stored encrypted in iCloud.
The default mail client in macOS is called Mail. You can have multiple accounts in the Mail app. While I never connect to my main email account (I prefer to use it online to minimize problems if I lose my laptop), I often connect my secondary email accounts.
The Mail app is not something that makes a strong impression; there many apps that have way more features. So, if you are a power user, I'd suggest finding something else.
Safari
All Macs come with a default internet browser – Safari. It's a pretty good app. The biggest advantage of Safari is that it uses less energy than other browsers because it was written by Apple. But you are definitely not limited to Safari only. You can always download Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox if you want.
iTunes
For a long time, you would use iTunes to listen to music and watch movies. With macOS Catalina, Apple split the functionality between four apps: Podcasts, Music, Apple TV, and Books.
AirDrop
Did you ever need to transfer docs or photos between Mac and iPhone? You can use AirDrop for this. The app allows sharing content wirelessly between Apple devices.
TextEdit
MacBook Pro comes with a simple text editing tool – TextEdit. Frankly, I really hate it. I am a programmer, and I need way more functions when working with text files. For instance, I am using Visual Studio Code app when writing this post. Check here my recommendations on text editors.
Terminal
Sooner or later, you will need to do something on the system level. And sooner or later, you will need to learn how to use Terminal, a command-line tool in Mac.
Productivity tools
Capturing Screenshots
If you are coming from the PC world, you probably noticed that there is no PrintScreen button on the keyboard. How do you take screenshots then? It's very simple, macOS has several keyboard shortcuts. You may need to remember just one: Command, Shift, 3.
It will capture the entire screen. It's exactly how I made screenshots for this post. I captured the entire screen and used Preview to cut the things I needed.
But this key combination is not the only one. Believe it or not, I wrote a post with 27 screenshot tips.
Managing files and folders
More about Finder
I already mentioned Finder, a file manager for Mac. It's a good tool to browse and create folders. However, it lacks a fundamental feature – it does not have a function to create files. I don't know why Apple doesn't make it easy, but I solved this problem by installing a simple free app.
You don't have to install anything in theory. There are other ways to create new files in the Finder.
Another thing that Finder does beautifully is a file search. If you keep losing files, or if it takes you longer than several seconds to find the document you have worked recently, check my file finding tips here.
Similarly, maybe you don't want someone to find the files (documents, photos, videos) on your computer. In this case, I have 7 ideas on hiding files on Mac.
Custom Tags
Another cool feature for organizing files in Finder is custom tags. I use them to tag documents I am using for work, photos from vacations, or fun pics. Once you organize the files, finding what you need is very easy.
Switching from Windows PC to Mac
I know how frustrating it is to switch from one platform to another. I often read on various forums funny stories where Mac users complain about Windows and PC users complaining about macOS. Here I want to point to some non-obvious things for non-Mac users and some very useful tips.
Closing apps
Apps on Macs have three circles: Close, Minimize, and Maximize. The first problem is they located on the wrong (left side). But this is not the most disturbing. If you click on the red circle with ‘x', the does not get killed.
If it is a browser with multiple tabs, all tabs will be closed. But the browser (or any app) will still be loaded into the memory. It still uses RAM. You can tell if it's still running by a little dot under the app icon in the Dock. Apple does so to reduce the start up time.
How To Use Touchpad On Macbook
If you short on memory resources and you want to unload the app fully, you can do it from the Menu Bar by selecting Quit menu item or using keyboard combination Command + Q.
Delete button
Delete button works as Backspace – it deletes a symbol in front of the cursor, not behind as you would expect. So, how do you delete the character after cursor position – use the Delete button while holding the fn key.
Trash
Trash is a name for Recycle Bin. You can delete a file or folder in the Finder by using Command+Delete. The deleted file will be moved to Trash. You can then restore the file from Trash or empty it.
One thing to note, emptying Trash in macOS is a blast. It may take an hour to empty a big Recycle Bin in PC, but clearing Trash is almost instantaneous.
Use Command key instead of Control
We all used to copy and paste a lot. You can use right-click to Copy and then Paste items in Finder or other apps. Or you can use the keyboard shortcuts, but with Command key: Command+C to copy and Command+V to paste. However, there is no Command+X in macOS.
This is another thing that took me long to learn. If you want to Cut and Paste, all you have to do is select the item, use Command+C to copy, and then Option(Alt)+Command+V to move.
Option (Alt) is a button used a lot to modify menu actions in macOS. For instance, if the app does not have Save As functionality, try using the Option key – the menu will change and enable Save As.
Task Manager
If you are having issues with your MacBook Pro and wondering where is the Task Manager, Apple has a nice app called Activity Monitor. Check how to use it to kill misbehaving apps here.
Other apps
If you really want to run Windows apps on Mac without installing Windows, you can do it. For instance, before I learned how to use Preview to edit pics for my blogs, I used Paint. Macs also have a nice calculator app. Much better than the one in Windows.
Securing MacBook
Since Macs are not cheap, I strongly advise to spend a little time and make sure that you can find your MacBook if it gets lost. Or make sure that thief can't get to your data: Track Stolen or Lost MacBook.
Time Machine
No, this is not a sci-fi novel; it's a name for Apple's backup tool. I strongly suggest making at least one backup copy. You will thank me one day. I can't tell you how many times I had to restore my MacBooks when I did something irreparable.
Conclusion
I think that's all I wanted to share with you. If you have any questions or missed anything here, send me an email at [email protected]
P.S.
Now, when you know how to use MacBook, it's time to learn how to maintain it, so it works for years and years until you get tired of it and splurge money on a new device:
P.P.S.
While I tried to put as much information as possible I realize that it is hard cover everything in one post. So, if you serious about learning macOS and Mac basics, I suggest to check a Udemy course written by the founder of MacMost (one of the oldest sites about Macs).
macOS Catalina Basics