Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let's take a look at the new
Control Center in macOS Big Sur.
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So let's take a look at one of the most notable new features of macOS Big Sur and that's Control
Center. Control Center you can find in the Menu Bar and it replaces a bunch of the Menu Bar icons
or status menus that you would normally see at the top right. Instead of having a bunch of those
they're combined now in this one right here called Control Center. If you click on that
Control Center is revealed. It looks at lot like Control Center in iOS and performs some of the
same functions. So before we had different Menu Bar items here for things like WiFi, Display,
Sound but now they're all combined here in one and you can control them
just with this one item. So let's take a look at what we've got.
We've got here a group that controls network activity. So we have WiFi here, Bluetooth, and
AirDrop. Now like a lot of these if you click on them and they will go into a deeper menu. So let's
click on WiFi here. As you can see it takes me into a new set of controls where I have a button
here to turn WiFi on and off. I have my preferred network. I have other networks that I can click on
and see a list and I can go to Network Preferences and System Preferences. Now to go back up I can
either click here or I can click just here where there is no control and it will take be back up.
Now there's a big button here for Do Not Disturb and I can simply click it quickly to turn on Do
Not Disturb and click it again to turn it off. But there's also a little arrow here that if I click
that I go into more controls. So, for instance, I can turn on Do Not Disturb for a limited amount of
time if I want or go right into System Preferences for finer controls. For Keyboard Brightness it's
just a button in here. But if I click it it goes down and gives me bar that I can adjust. Screen
Mirroring will give me a list of devices that I can mirror my screen to. In this case I have some
Apple TV's. Now Display Brightness is a control that is right here and I can adjust it without
digging down deeper into Control Center. But I do have this little arrow here that I can click
and now I can go deeper and you could see here I have not only the display brightness
but I have Dark Mode on or off and Night Shift on or off. The same thing with Sound.
I have Sound control here and I also have the ability to click here into choosing which device
the sound is coming out of. My internal speakers, some airplay devices, and a Home Pod in my case.
For Music I have a set of music playback controls here.
Now a lot of these items can actually be made into regular Menu Bar buttons if
you'd rather they be there. You can do that without even going to System Preferences.
For instance if I wanted to add WiFi here I could simply click,
drag and drop and I get a WiFi indicator up there. I could do that with most of these. For instance
Do Not Disturb I can drag up here and now I have a quick Do Not Disturb on or off button
but I also notice that if I click on it I have access to all these other settings.
If you didn't like the idea of having to dig down into the Display Settings to turn on
Dark Mode or Night Shift, well, you don't have to. You could drag Display up here and now with
this control I could click and have access to Dark Mode and Night Shift in one last step. So
the same could be done with anyone of these. I could bring Sound up here. I could bring Music
up here. But there's another way to access these controls and a little bit more as well.
That is to go to System Preferences and then go to Dock and Menu Bar. Here, if you look at the left
sidebar you could choose which settings you're looking at. So by default you have Dock & Menu Bar
here. Instead of that go down below and you've got Control Center. Click on anyone of these
and it will show you Control Center here and highlight the item that you have selected. Then
you'll have choices here. So for instance for WiFi I have Show in Menu Bar. I can uncheck or check
that and you could see it appear or disappear from the Menu Bar. I don't have the option to
remove it from Control Center. Anyone of these under the Control Center heading I could go into
and Show or Hide in the Menu Bar but it's going to stay in Control Center.
Now for some of these I have further controls for when it's in the Menu Bar. So, for instance,
for Do Not Disturb I can have Show in Menu Bar, Always, or Only When Active. So only when I turn
on Do Not Disturb will it appear in the Menu Bar and then I can use it to turn it off. For Screen
Mirroring I can do the same thing. I could have it shown in the Menu Bar but Only When Active.
If I scroll down here the same thing with Sound. So only when Sound is playing I could
have it in the Menu Bar if I want or have it there always and Now Playing as well.
Now under Other Modules you've got some other things here. Accessibility Shortcuts isn't in
Control Center. But I could add it by checking here. It's just a button. I could also have it
in the Menu Bar. I could do the same thing for Battery. I could have that in the Menu Bar or in
the Control Center as well. I can choose whether or not percentage is shown in that button too.
Fast User Switching I could have that either in the Menu Bar, Control Center, or both. Then there
are a few items here like Clock, Spotlight, Siri, Time Machine and I could decide whether or not
they are in the Menu Bar. But there is no place for them in Control Center. So now that I've added
these three I could see them in the Control Center at the bottom just as simple buttons. But since
I did select to have the percentage here for the battery it shows me that. So the Battery Control
at least has some information in it and if I click on it it'll take me deeper down here and show me
some more information. If I click on Fast User Switching it takes me into Fast User Switching
controls and if I click on Accessibility it gives me the Accessibility Shortcuts.
Now I know I'm going to be asked about Keyboard Shortcuts. Is there a way to have a keyboard
shortcut bring up Control Center. The answer is NO. Which kind of makes sense because even
if you had a keyboard shortcut bring this up all these controls here use the cursor. So you
need to use your mouse or trackpad and click on things. So it really doesn't help to bring it up
with a keyboard shortcut if you need to use your mouse or trackpad to do anything with it at all.
So that's a look at Control Center in macOS Big Sur. Since this is a completely new feature it's
going to take some time to get used to it. Now that you've upgraded to Big Sur it's
worth it to spend a few minutes playing around with it and try to use it as much as you can
over the first few days until it becomes natural to access those controls there.