Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's figure out where to find things
in the new Systems Settings App in macOS Ventura.
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So in macOS Ventura the System Preferences app has been around in macOS for years. It has been
completely replaced by a new Systems Settings App. This does the same thing that System Preferences
did but it looks completely different. It looks a lot more like the Settings App on the iPad
and the iPhone than it does the old System Preferences app. However, a lot of things
have moved around and it may be difficult to find some settings in the new Settings App.
Now in the old System Preferences app in Monterey you start off here at the top level seeing all the
different categories of preferences. You can't actually change anything until you
select a category. Let's start off by going into the General Category here. Then you'll see some of
the settings that don't quite fit anywhere else. This is kind of like a miscellaneous section.
Now in the System Settings App in Ventura there's also a General Section there. But that is not
related. That's much more like the iPhone and iPad General Section where there are lots of different
subsections for General Settings. Instead most of the stuff that you used to find in the General
category in Preferences would now be in the Appearance Category in System Settings. You see
here if you compare them everything from System Preferences General, from Appearance settings to
Scroll Bar settings, are what is exactly here in the Appearance Section which you will note
that things are a little different. For instance instead of checkboxes we have now got Switches
that look a lot like the iOS switches. Menu items are more modern as well. But
other things like these little icons you can select and these radio buttons stay the same.
So what about the other parts of the General Preferences here. Like Default Web Browser
and Preferred Tabs. Well, Default Web Browser is in a different location now.
You'll find that under your Desktop & Dock in System Settings. If you scroll down here,
under Windows & Apps, you'll see Preferred Tabs When Opening Document, and you'll see
the options there. Default Web Browser is also here and you could select that. So that's under
Desktop & Dock now. You'll also find here under Menu Bar, Recent Document Applications
and Servers. You can select a number there the equivalent to this in System Preferences, General.
Handoff, however, is in its own section under General. General has basically more categories
in here. So instead of making this list longer some of them are tucked in under General.
There's AirDrop and Handoff. This is where you'll find the settings for Allow Handoff.
Now back here under General you've got the Settings here for your Apple ID and iCloud
Account. So you have Apple ID here. You click there and you get to all the settings that
have to do with iCloud. It is its own little section in here. You get the same thing here
in System Settings. But you just click right here, this category, and then you'll have all
the same things. Here's iCloud and you can dive down into that and find all of the same
things. This is also where you'll see all your devices. Here they are in Preferences. They are
just further down here in the list in Settings. This is also where you'll find the iCloud Storage
that you see here in both. They just put it at the top now. You've got your Optimize Mac
Storage setting and you have individual settings for things like, for instance, iCloud Drive.
Back in System Preferences we had one category for Desktop & Screen Saver. You go into here
and they are two separate sections. Desktop & Screen Saver at the top. But now in System
Settings they each have their own top level category. So you have Wallpaper here which is
the same as Desktop. You could do the same things here. Here you choose from the different types of
desktops including colors. You can drag your own image into here just like you could here
in System Preferences. Instead of having this list here on the left you would now Add a Folder
like this and it would add it to this list here. You can also add a photo album right
there. If what you've chosen has options, like dynamic light & dark, you can select them here
rather than over here. Now instead of going to a subsection in Desktop & Screen Saver for
Screen Saver options you now have a top level section here for Screen Saver. You have all the
same options here. Of course now you also have a new Ventura specific screen saver.
Dock & Menu Bar under System Preferences were together and you had this list here on the left.
The first item gave you all the preferences for the Dock. But in System Settings now the
Desktop & Dock are together here. You could see you have all those same Dock controls and the Menu
Bar controls as well if you are looking for those. Plus you have the new control for Stage Manager
here. Back in System Preferences the list would continue with Control Center items. You could
select something and determine whether it is also shown in the Menu Bar as well as Control Center or
for other things whether it is in either the Menu Bar or Control Center. Now you've got a separate
section here for Control Center and you have all those same items. But now you've got this little
pop-up menu here to choose instead of checkboxes.
Mission Control used to have its own section there. But now its under Desktop & Dock and
if you scroll down you have a whole section here for Mission Control.
There's those four same checkboxes, they are now switches, and you have a button here for Shortcuts
where you can control the three different types of shortcuts for Mission Control. Here is where
the Hot Corner's button is. So that is under Desktop & Dock now rather than Mission Control.
In System Preferences we had Siri and Spotlight as two separate sections here
with all the controls for each. Now you've got that in one section, Siri & Spotlight
together. You'll find all of the Siri controls here. You'll find the Spotlight controls with
all of the same checkboxes here and you've got a button now that gets you to Privacy,
the same section as this, where you can exclude folders from Spotlight Search.
So Language & Region is top level in System Preferences.
For System Settings it is now under General. So we will finally get to look in General here
for something and we've got Language & Region and we will find those same settings there.
Note here you've got General Settings and Settings Per App and here you've got that as
a list that you could click this Plus button here and Add an App and Add Custom Settings.
Notification and focus were together in System Preferences. You can see them as two different
tabs here. Now they've each got their own section. So you've got Notifications right here. You've
got options here for Notification Center at the top. Then you've got each of the different apps
and you could dig down into a specific app and look at the Notification options for that app.
Then the Focus Section of Notifications & Focus is now right here just under Focus
and you can add Focus options there. You can Edit them here.
It's all the same set of settings, just displayed in a different way.
Internet Accounts allows you to add email, Calendar, Notes accounts,
things like that. You could do that here at the System level and they would just
be available in those apps. You have the same thing here. It's just a little further down,
Internet Accounts. You have the same options. You can click Add Account and Add a New Account.
Passwords in System Preferences allows you to get access to your passwords and you could see
the list here and access them without having to go into Safari. You've got the same thing
here just a little further down. You've got Passwords and you've got the List. You can
get the info by clicking on the little i button right there. You can edit with the Edit button.
Users & Groups has its own top level section in both System Preferences and System Settings. Now
the List is featured at the main part here and you could Add an Account. You can get Info on
a specific account like that. That's where you would go to change the password. But how about
Login Items. Login Items isn't here in Users & Groups anymore. It's now under General and has
its own section login item. It's got the List right here but it has a new feature in System
Settings. It also shows Launch Demons. These are things you are usually hidden. They are not here
in Login Items. But when you install an app and it asks you Should the app launch automatically
every time you login and you say yes and it doesn't appear here it is usually doing it
at the System Level as a Launch Demon. It's hidden from you. It's hard to get access to
but now with System Settings in Ventura we have this List here and we can turn them On and Off
without having to use the Terminal or Edit Files in your Library. Note though that it
shows the name of the developer, not the name of the app. So I'm already seeing people panicking
over things they don't recognize here because they know the apps they are using very well but
they may not recognize the official name of the developer of that app. So if you see something
you don't recognize here, just Goggle that name and you usually will be able to pretty
quickly associate the name of the developer with the App that you know you are using.
A big section in System Preferences is, of course, Accessibility. It gives you
access to all sorts of subsections in here for accessibility. Unfortunately this hasn't changed
too much. There's an Accessibility section right there. You will see the same List and
you'll be able to dive into individual sections and see the same controls, the same buttons.
The Screen Time Section here is at the top level in System Preferences and you'll find it
as well in Screen Time in System Settings. You'll notice the List here mirrors the List over here.
If you click Options you'll see those options here and you'll simply see them
at the bottom of the list. Then you could dig down into each individual section
and you get basically the same information, the same controls.
Now in System Preferences there was a top level category for Extensions. This allowed you to look
at the various different categories of extensions. Like extensions for photos editing. Extensions for
Quick Look. Finder extensions. Then see which apps you had that also included extensions and you can
enable or disable them. Now you won't find that here. It's now under Privacy & Security. Then in
here if you scroll down you'll find Extensions all the way at the bottom. This is where you'll
find those categories and then be able to turn On and Off different extensions. Now
Security & Privacy takes you to this section here in System Preferences. We have General,
FileVault, FireWall, and Privacy. Now you have Privacy & Security here in
System Settings. This looks a lot like the Privacy Section here in System Preferences.
If you're looking for some of the other things here you have to scroll down past the Privacy
List and you'll see, for instance, Allow Apps Downloaded From here. You'll see FireVault
Settings here. But Firewall, if you use that, that's now under Network. You find Firewall there.
You'll find Software Update now available in General Software Update.
Then you've got the Advanced button here that is equivalent to hitting
the Information button there including the new option for the Rapid Security Response
Updates where you can get security updates without having to reboot.
In System Preferences we had a Network Section and under the Network Section
you had all of your network options here and you had an Advanced button and you could set
things up specifically like that. If you wanted to control Wi-Fi you would select
Wi-Fi here on the left then you could set the Wi-Fi network, turn it On and Off,
and all of that. Now in System Settings you have separate categories for Network which is now a
List. You can Add a Service to this list. You can Edit existing services. But you also have
a separate section for Wi-Fi. You can see it takes you to the same place. So Wi-Fi looks like
this at the top level but if you go into Network and select Wi-Fi you get to the same location.
The Sound controls are a little different in that we had different sections here for Sound Effects,
Output and Input. Now the top is Sound Effects. Then Output
and Input are two sections here at the bottom. Keyboard settings on System Preferences now map
to a Keyboard Section here in System Settings. You've got a lot of the same things but it is
in a List format. So instead of having Keyboard and then Text, you've got Keyboard and under that
Text and then you've got Text Replacements as a button and that brings up that control there.
Input Sources is also a button where you can access that and you've got Touch Bar Settings,
if you have a Mac with a Touch Bar, and Keyboard Shortcuts now under a
button as well. Dictation though is just a section here at the bottom of the main list.
I know a lot of us access Keyboard Shortcuts and Text Replacements all the time. It is a
shame to see these buried down in Keyboard underneath buttons you have to click.
Trackpad and Mouse Settings can be found here at the top level. So let's take a
look at Trackpad Settings and compare them, You can see that the videos that previously
demonstrated things have now been replaced by these little animated illustrations. We
still have the same three sections, Point & Click, Scroll & Zoom, and More Gestures
with just more modern switches and controls. Now Displays, if you go to Displays here,
you can see I've got two screens. So it's going to show me the two screens. I need
to go to Display Settings in order to access the settings for each one. On this Mac I only
have one screen attached. So when I go to Displays it shows me that display and I've
got the controls for it right underneath. If I were to add a second display here you would see
that I would simply click the Display and then get to choose the Settings for that
display. So you still find all the controls in the same place but it's another Update,
the second version of macOS in a row where the Displays' control have received major changes.
We've got Printers & Scanners here and it's pretty straight forward in either one. If you
want to add a printer to the list you simply click the button here just as you would click
the Plus button there and you can add a new printer. You can select a printer from the list,
set the default paper size. You can dig down into the individual printer settings just like before.
Now what you see for Power is going to depend on the type of Mac you've got. Here I see Energy
Saver because this is a desktop Mac. A Mac Studio. The equivalent though on this machine, since it is
a MacBook, would be the Battery. You're going to see all the different battery controls here
because this is a MacBook and you would see the regular Power and Sleep Controls
here. So it is a little hard to compare these two. But either way you find the Energy Saver
or Battery Settings at the top level. For Date & Time Settings it's at the
top level in System Preferences. But now it's in General under Date & Time.
Sharing Settings are also under General. So you find them right in there. You'll be able
to switch On and Off all the things here that were on the left before. Add You Host Name is
now at the bottom. If you want to add shared folders and control which folders are shared
you click the i button for File Sharing. That's where you get to all of those. So it's the same
thing here. You go and select the item that you want and you'll see the options appear on the
right. Now you've got this i button that you click and you get to those settings.
Time Machine controls are no longer at the top level but under General and Time
Machine. You have the same set of options here for excluding different folders.
Finally Startup disk that is now under General as well. You can select it there.
At the bottom of System Preferences you may find more Preference controls for specific Apps that
you have installed. The same thing here in System Settings. You'll find those listed at the bottom.
A notable new addition here is a whole section for Lock Screen. So Lock Screen had settings that were
taken from other places. For instance under Security & Privacy here's Show a Message When
the Screen is Locked, Require the Password after a certain amount of time. You've got
your When Switching Users settings here which before would have been under Users & Groups.
Login Options. If you have Touch ID you'll find the controls for that under
Touch ID & Password. There's a top level item for Game Center if you use that. You've got,
of course, Wallet & Apple Pay if you have Touch ID on your Mac.
Another change is that System Settings now includes system information that previously
would have been found by going to the Apple Menu and About This Mac. You can see all of
this here and you can go to different sections in here under Storage. You can go to Manage to
go to the special Storage Manager. Then in Overview you would click System Report to go
to the special window that gives you all seeds of information about your Mac. Now in System
Settings you could still get to it but by going to the Apple Menu, About This Mac. But when you
click More Info it is actually going to take you to the About section inside of General. So you
can just go to System Settings, General, About and get to that information there. If you scroll
down you could see the different sections like Display Settings and here's the Storage Manager.
Also there's the button that takes you to the System Information.
One of the best changes now is that Search works a lot better which is just at the
right time because this is when we're going to be searching for things that we can't find
because we're used to looking for them in a certain place in System Preferences. So,
for instance, if you can't quite remember where Mission Control is you can just Search for it.
You'll find the results are a lot more inclusive than they used to be in System Preferences. For
instance Hot Corners, you can see exactly where you can get to it. They're in Accessibility
and also Desktop & Dock. You can see how it brings it right up.
So definitely System Settings is going to take some getting used to especially if you've been
using System Preferences for years and years and you have this built-in memory of where things
are. But also keep in mind that people coming to Mac from the iPhone and iPad are now going
to find it much easier to find Settings because they match where they are used to looking. Plus,
I think, another big advantage to System Settings is since everything is in kind of
a List it is going to be easier for Apple to add new Settings. Before a lot of the Preferences'
sections had a specific design and to add a new switch somewhere meant redesigning the entire
section. But now that most of it is in kind of a List View they can easily add new Settings in the
middle or at the end of a section. So hopefully we'll get some new Settings' controls that will
help us customize our Macs even more. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.