Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at some new system
and app settings in macOS Sonoma. MacMost is brought to you thanks to a
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Now with every major update of macOS comes some new settings. Both in System Settings and some
of the built-in apps. So to look at these we're going to go to System Settings here. The first
one we're going to look at is one where I've changed it from the default myself. This is
when you click the Desktop background it will move all windows out of the way. This is the equivalent
to what we had before and it still works if you use F11 or sometimes the fn key and F11,
depending upon your settings. That will do the same thing. So this functionality isn't new. It is
just clicking the Desktop to make it happen that is new. To turn this Off all you need to do is go
into System Settings to Desktop & Dock and then there is a setting for this under Desktop & Stage
Manager. Here you'll see Click Wallpaper to Reveal Desktop. You can switch it from Always to Only in
Stage Manager. Stage Manager was new in macOS Ventura and it has this functionality in it. So
you can go back to how it worked in Ventura where this only happens in Stage Manager or
have it switched to Always where it will work in Stage Manager and also in regular Desktop mode.
While we're here in Desktop & Dock there is a whole new section here for Widgets. Of course
widgets are the new functionality where you can put things like clocks and calendars and notes
and stuff on your Desktop. You can choose to have these widgets shown on the Desktop,
Stage Manager, in both or neither. So you can basically turn widgets off by
turning off both of these. You can choose the widget style. Have it be full color always,
monochrome always, or switched depending upon whether the Desktop is focused on. You can
also choose whether or not iPhone widgets are allowed in addition to Mac widgets.
Another change is what the Lock Screen looks like. If you go and lock your screen you'll
see a big clock now at the top. But you have the option to turn this Off. So for
that you want to go down to Lock Screen and then you've got a new setting for
Show Large Clock. You can have it on Screen Saver and Lock Screen, Only Lock Screen,
or Never. So if I switch it to Never and lock the screen you can see it is gone.
Now let's go to Accessibility Settings. Under Vision, if you go to Display,
there's now something new under your Text Size. You can go to a submenu here and it lists some of
the major apps, like Calendar, Mail, Messages, and such. You can set a size for the fonts inside of
those particular apps to something different than the default size. So changing this will actually
change it in other places, like notice how it is changing there in System Settings. But if I wanted
this to stay as the default and maybe Calendar be larger I can set Calendar to something like
that. All of these, of course, have either the default or use the preferred reading size here
to obey the System Settings. Right now we only have these apps here but third party apps may
be able to add themselves to this list and in the future Apple may add other apps as well.
If we go back to the top level of Accessibility, under Zoom now, you're not going to see anything
new here. But, Zoom actually has changed because now when you turn Zooming on each display has its
own zoom level. So here I'm going to show you both of my displays. My Pointer is over one display and
I can zoom in on that display. Now my Pointer is over in the other display and I can zoom on that
display. Displays can have separate zoom amounts. Also in Display there is a new setting here for
Auto Play Animated Images. So, if you have this turned Off,
things like animated GIF's won't automatically animate. You have to click on them to do so.
Now let's switch away from System Settings for a minute here and go into an app. Safari
has some new settings. So if we go into Safari and then we look at Safari settings here then
let's first start by going to Search. Search allows you to pick a search engine just like
before and you've got these five to choose from. What's new is there is a second choice of Search
Engine. This is for private browsing windows. So you can choose one for your regular windows
and then when you open a private browsing window you can have a separate Search Engine for that.
Now if you go to Privacy there is a button here for Advanced Settings. One of the new
things in here is Use Advanced Tracking & Fingerprinting Protection. Then you can set
it for All Browsing or Private Browsing. So this will try to prevent websites from
tracking you from site to site. Note that the word Fingerprinting here is very confusing for
a lot of people. It has nothing to do with your actual fingerprint. It's talking about
trying to figure out who you are or what site you've been to based on things about you. Like,
for instance, that you're a Mac user using a certain version of Safari with a certain
screen size and other settings and it can kind of match that from site to site to figure out
if you're the same person or not. So turning this on will hide a lot of that information.
Now if we go over to Passwords here there is a new setting if you go into
Password Options. That is to Cleanup Automatically. So the idea here is when
you get verification codes in Messages or Mail, these are the two-factor codes that
you will use one time and then they are not valid for anything anymore, you could have
those messages and emails automatically get deleted when you're done with them.
If we go to Privacy here you've got Private Browsing require Password to
View Locked Tabs. So, when you have a private browsing window open and, say,
you don't use Safari for awhile or you lock your Mac then you go back to that private tab you're
going to need to enter in your Mac Account Password in order to open those up again.
Of course while we're looking at new settings here it should be noted that we have an entire
new section called Profiles that allows you to setup different profiles in Safari. So
you could use this to, say, have your cookies be separate. So you
could be logged in to a website using one account and then in a profile be logged in
using a separate account. So this whole new section here deals with creating profiles
and managing them. I'll be looking at Profiles in detail in a future video.
Now another thing that you could find in Safari, but also in System Settings,
is the ability to Share Passwords. So, I'm going to do it in System Settings
here. I'm going to go to the Password Section and you could see here Shared
Passwords and Passkeys. So you can use the Get Started button here and you can set this up.
So now that we are back in System Settings here let's go to Wallpaper. This looks very
new because it is centered now on the new arial wallpapers. You've got a variety of those here.
Now one thing about these is that you don't have them on your Mac by default. You need
to Download them. So if you were to switch to one and you see there's a little download arrows here,
it would actually download it and then it would take up space on your Mac. The question that
everybody has got is once you've downloaded one of these dynamic wallpapers how do you get rid of it?
There's no delete button or offload button. Well, there's no way to do it here in System Settings.
You have to actually go to the location on your drive these are stored and delete them manually.
So to get there in the Finder I'm going to choose Go and then Go to the computer level,
so the top level. Go into your hard drive and then into Library. So now you're at the top level
Library Folder, not your User Library Folder. From there you're going to go into Application
Support and look for com.apple.idleassetsd. Go in there and then you'll see Customer. Go down
into that and you'll see a lot of folders. These are for different resolutions for these. So you
can do Command J and then Calculate All Sizes here. For me it shows that it's got the largest
one. So the 4k 240 frames per second versions of those. Now, if I want to get rid of them
I can just dig down in here and I'm going to find them all. There are going to have names that you
can't really use to identify them. But if you select one in QuickLook you'll see it. Yes,
these are standard videos that you could, say, take and play around within iMovie if you wanted
to. If you want to get rid of one of these just drag it to the Trash and Empty your Trash. Or,
if you want to clear them all out and redownload just the ones you need,
select them All and then drag them all to the Trash and Empty Trash. Now note if you do that
this will not update System Settings. So System Settings doesn't know in the Wallpaper Section
that you manually deleted these. So what you want to do is simply just a quick Restart or
Logout and Log into your account and that will then update what's downloaded and what's isn't.
Now another new thing in macOS Sonoma is Game Mode. So whenever you run a game,
whether it is a casual game or a super hardcore massive triple A title,
it's going to go into Game Mode. So here I am. I've got a simple game running and you could
see Game Mode up here. So note the you've got the setting to turn Game Mode off. Game Mode,
of course will optimize everything centering on the game. So a lot more processor memory is going
to go to the game that you're playing, which you would probably want if you're playing the
game. But if for some reason it's a casual game and you're also switching back and forth from it
to other apps and you don't want Game Mode, you can always just switch it off like that.
So back in System Settings there is something new if you look under Mouse.
There is now an option under Advanced for Pointer Acceleration. So you can now set
Pointer Acceleration for the mouse separate from having that going in the trackpad.
Also, under Bluetooth you're going to find different settings for some Air Pods. So
under Air Pods Pro here I've got those that have been previously used on this Mac. If I click the
i button notice I've got a bit better control over whether or not the Air Pods connect to the
Mac. You can set it to connect Automatically or Only When Last Connected to this Mac.
Now a big setting that gets lot of attention is under Siri & Spotlight.
That is the ability to set what Siri listens for. So now it can listen for
its name or its name preceded by the word Hey. Or you can go to the older setting
where it always has to be proceeded by the word Hey. Or, for course, you can switch
this off so you have to use the Menu Item here or keyboard shortcut to trigger Siri.
There aren't really many new settings in the Productivity Apps but Reminders has one. Remember
now we have the new Grocery List in Reminders where we can set a list as the type Groceries
and then when we add items they will immediately be categorized in different sections. You also
have the ability to change where something is. So, for instance, if I were to add cookies here,
it puts it under Snacks & Candy. If I say hey I want cake to be under Snacks & Candy as well it
is going to remember that. So next time I type cake it should put it under Snacks & Candy. You
can reset that by going to Reminders, Settings and you'll see Grocery List, Reset Grocery Categories.
I want to end by showing you one System Setting that actually isn't new because it was added in
Ventura. But not originally in Ventura. It was added in the middle. I think the .3 version of
Ventura. That is if you go into System Settings and then General and then Software Update,
then under Automatic Update click the i button there. There are separate switches for what
gets automatically updated. Of course I've got these all checked. But now there is a separate
item here for Install Security Responses in System Files. That is for Apple's Rapid
Security Response. When there is something very important that needs to be updated
in order to protect you. So you definitely want to make sure you have that turned On.
There's a look at a whole bunch of new settings that you could checkout once
you've updated to macOS Sonoma. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.