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.