macOS Mojave For Dummies

Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus has been writing the "Dr. Mac" column for the Houston Chronicle for more than 20 years. A regular contributor to a variety of technology publications, he's a proud Mac aficionado who's written or co-written more than 85 how-to books on all things Mac, including multiple Mac operating systems, the iPhone, the iPad, Office for the Mac, and GarageBand.

• Introduction 1About This Book 1Foolish Assumptions 3Icons Used in This Book 3Beyond the Book 4Where to Go from Here 4Part 1: macOS Basics 5Chapter 1: macOS Mojave 101 (Prerequisites: None) 7Gnawing to the Core of macOS 8A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner (or Any User) 10Turning the dang thing on 10What you should see on startup 11Shutting down properly 14A few things you should definitely not do with your Mac 15Point-and-click Boot Camp 17Not Just a Beatles Movie: Help and the Help Menu 19Chapter 2: Desktop and Windows and Menus (Oh My!) 23Touring Finder and Its Desktop 24Anatomy of a Window 25Top o’ the window to ya! 28A scroll new world 29(Hyper)active windows 31Dialog Dealie-Boppers 32Working with Windows 34Opening and closing windows 34Resizing windows and window panes 35Moving windows 36Shuffling windows 36Menu Basics 39The ever-changing menu bar 39Contextual menus: They’re sooo contextual! 40Recognizing disabled options 41Navigating submenus 42Under the Apple menu tree 43Using keyboard shortcut commands 44Chapter 3: What’s Up, Dock? 45A Quick Introduction to Your Dock 46The default icons of the dock 46Trash talkin’ 49Opening application menus on the dock 51Reading dock icon body language 53Opening files from the dock 54Customizing Your Dock 54Adding dock icons 54Removing an icon from the dock 57Resizing the dock 57What should you put on your dock? 58Setting your dock preferences 59Chapter 4: Delving Deeper into Finder and Its Desktop 65Introducing Finder and Its Minions: The Desktop and Icons 66Introducing the desktop 66Bellying up to the toolbar 68Figuring out what an icon is 72Identifying your Finder icons in the wild 72Aliases Are Awesome! 74Creating aliases 75Deleting aliases 76Hunting down an alias’s parent 76The View(s) from a Window 76Moving through folders fast in Column view 76Perusing in Icon view 79Listless? Try touring folders in List view 79Hangin’ in the Gallery (view) 81What’s next on the (View) menu? 81Finder on the Menu 83The actual Finder menu 84Like a road map: The current folder’s pop-up menu 86Going places with the Go menu 87Customizing Finder Windows 89Adding folders to the sidebar 89Setting Finder preferences 90Digging for Icon Data in the Info Window 93Chapter 5: What’s New in Mojave’s Finder? 97Cleaning Up Your Desktop Automatically with Stacks 98Managing your Stacks 100Quick Actions: Now Playing All Over Mojave 101Getting the most out of Markup 101Trimming video without launching an app 104Do It Quicker with Finder Quick Actions 105Creating PDFs without launching an app 105Creating custom Finder Quick Actions 105Four More Cool Mojave Tricks 106Shooting screens 106Dynamic desktop images 109Recently used apps in the dock 109Mentions of Gallery view 110Part 2: How Stuff Works 113Chapter 6: Having It Your Way 115Introducing System Preferences 115Putting a Picture on the Desktop 118Setting Up a Screen Saver 120Putting Widgets on the Dashboard 121Giving Buttons, Menus, and Windows a Makeover 123Adjusting the Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad, and Other Hardware 127Styling Your Sound 135Chapter 7: Opening and Saving Files 137A Quick Primer on Finding Files 138Understanding the macOS Folder Structure 138Understanding nested folders 139From the top: The Computer folder 140Peeking into the Applications folder 141Visiting the Library folders 141Let it be: The System folder 142There’s no place like Home 143Your personal library card 145Saving Your Document Before It’s Too Late 146Stepping through a basic save 148Save As versus Duplicate: Different names for the same result 154Open, Sez Me 156With drag-and-drop 157With a Quick Look 158When your Mac can’t open a file 158With the application of your choice 159Chapter 8: File and Folder Management Made Easy 163Organizing Your Stuff in Folders 163Files versus folders 164Organizing your stuff with subfolders 164Creating new folders 166Navigating with spring-loaded folders 167Smart folders 168Shuffling Files and Folders 170Moving files and folders 171Selecting multiple icons 172Playing the icon name game: Renaming icons 173Renaming multiple icons at once 174Compressing files 174Getting rid of icons 174The Incredible iCloud Drive 175Chapter 9: Comprehending the macOS Clipboard 177Introducing the Clipboard 177Copying Files and Folders 178Pasting from the Clipboard 180Mojave’s Universal Clipboard 181Part 3: Getting Things Done 183Chapter 10: Four Terrific Timesaving Tools 185With a Quick Look 186Share and share alike with the Share menu 188Slide into Slideshow (full-screen) mode 188Spotlight on Finding Files and Folders Faster 189Using the Find command 190Using the Spotlight menu and its keyboard shortcut 192Blast Off with Mission Control 193The Mission Control pane: It’s painless 194Hot corners are hot stuff! 196Mission Control’s Spaces from 30,000 feet (an overview) 197Getting around in space(s) 199Launchpad: The Place for Applications 200Chapter 11: Organizing Your Life 203Keeping Track with Calendar 204Navigating Calendar views 204Creating calendars 205Deleting a calendar 207Creating and managing events 207Reminders: Protection Against Forgetting 210Getting started with Reminders 211To do or not to do: Setting reminders 212Everything You Need to Know about Notification Center 213Use Notes for Making Notes 217Chapter 12: Are You Siri-ous? 221What Siri Can Do for You 221Working with Siri 223Making Siri Your Own 224Chapter 13: Maps Are Where It’s At 227Finding your current location with Maps 227Finding a person, place, or thing 228Views, zooms, and pans 230Maps and Contacts 231Timesaving map tools: Favorites, Recents, and Contacts 232Smart map tricks 234Chapter 14: Four New (iOS) Apps in Mojave 239Taking Stock of the Market with Stocks 240Adding and deleting stocks, funds, and indexes 241Details, details, details 242Charting a course 242Read All About It in News 244What are your interests? 244How News works 245Managing your news 245Recording Memos with Voice Memos 246Recording a voice memo 246Listening to a voice memo 248Naming a voice memo 248Trimming a voice memo 249Controlling Lights, Locks, and More with Home 250Part 4: Getting Along with Others 251Chapter 15: (Inter)Networking 253Getting Connected to the Internet 254Your Internet service provider and you 254Plugging in your Internet-connection settings 255Browsing the Web with Safari 257Owning your toolbar 258Using the Safari sidebar 261Searching with Google 265Protect Yourself from Malice (and Ads) 267Checking out Help Center 267Audio and Video Calls with FaceTime 267Chapter 16: Dealing with People 271Collecting Your Contacts 271Adding contacts 272Importing contacts from other programs 274Creating a basic group 275Setting up a smart group (based on contact criteria) 276Deleting a group or smart group 277The view is lovely 277Sync + Contacts = your contacts everywhere 278Chapter 17: Communicating with Mail and Messages 281Sending and Receiving Email with Mail 281Setting up Mail 282A quick overview of the toolbar 282Composing a new message 285Sending email from the Contacts app 287Checking your mail 289Dealing with spam 289Mailboxes smart and plain 290Changing your preferences 293Sign here, please 294Mail rules rule 295Take a (Quick) look and (Slide) show me some photos 297Markup and Mail Drop 298Communicating with Messages 300Chit-chatting with Messages 301Chapter 18: Sharing Your Mac and Liking It 303Introducing Networks and File Sharing 304Portrait of home office networking 305Three ways to build a network 306Setting Up File Sharing 309Access and Permissions: Who Can Do What 311Users and groups and guests 311Creating users 312macOS knows best: Folders shared by default 319Sharing a folder or disk by setting permissions 320Useful settings for permissions 324Unsharing a folder 327Connecting to a Shared Disk or Folder on a Remote Mac 327Changing Your Password 331Changing your account password on your Mac 331Changing the password of any account but your own on your Mac 332Changing the password for your account on someone else’s Mac 333More Types of Sharing 334Sharing a screen 334Sharing the Internet 335And yet more ways to share 336Part 5: Getting Creative 337Chapter 19: The Musical Mac 339Apple Music and iTunes Match Rock! 340Introducing iTunes 341Working with Media 344Adding songs 345Adding movies and TV shows 347Adding podcasts 348Listening to iTunes Radio 349All about Playlists 350Creating a regular playlist 351Filtering your Library with Column Browser 352Working with smart playlists 353Burning a playlist to CD 354Looking at the Genius playlist 355Chapter 20: The Multimedia Mac 357Playing Movies and Music in QuickTime Player 357Books App on the Mac 359Buying an e-book 360Shopping for e-books without Apple 362Reading an e-book 363You’re the Star with Photo Booth 365Viewing and Converting Images and PDFs in Preview 367Importing Media 369Downloading photos from a camera 369Downloading DV video from a camcorder 371Chapter 21: Words and Letters 373Processing Words with TextEdit 373Creating and composing a document 374Working with text 375Adding graphics to documents 379Font Mania 380Types of fonts 381Managing your fonts with Font Book 381Installing fonts manually 382Chapter 22: Publish or Perish: The Fail-Safe Guide to Printing 385Before Diving In 386Ready: Connecting and Adding Your Printer 386Connecting your printer 387Setting up a printer for the first time 387One last thing: Printer sharing 390Set: Setting Up Your Document with Page Setup 390Print: Printing with the Print Sheet 392Printing a document 392Choosing among different printers 393Choosing custom settings 393Saving custom settings 396Preview and PDF Options 396Part 6: Care and Feeding 399Chapter 23: Features for the Way You Work 401Finally, a Dark Mode 402App Shopping, Improved 403Using Your iPhone as Your Mac’s Camera or Scanner 406Talking and Listening to Your Mac 408Keyboard System Preferences pane: You talk and your Mac types 409Commanding your Mac by voice 410Listening to your Mac read for you 413Automatic Automation 415Script Editor app: Write and edit AppleScripts 416Automator app: Automate almost anything 417A Few More Useful Goodies 420Accessibility System Preferences pane: Make your Mac more accessible 420Energy Saver System Preferences pane: For energy conservation and sleep 422Bluetooth System Preferences pane: Where Bluetooth lives 423Ink System Preferences pane: Visible to pen-input tablet users only 423Automatic Login in the Users & Groups System Preferences pane: Don’t bother with the login screen 424Allow your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac 424Boot Camp Assistant app: Run Windows on your Mac really 425AirPlay Mirroring 426Handoff 426Chapter 24: Safety First: Backups and Other Security Issues 429Backing Up Is (Not) Hard to Do 430Backing up with Mojave’s excellent Time Machine 430Backing up by using the manual, brute-force method 434Backing up by using commercial backup software 435Why You Need Two Sets of Backups 436Non-Backup Security Concerns 436About viruses and other malware 437Firewall: Yea or nay? 439Install recommended software updates 440Protecting Your Data from Prying Eyes 441Blocking or limiting connections 441Locking down files with FileVault 442Setting other options for security 443Chapter 25: Utility Chest 445In the Applications and Utilities Folders 445Calculator 445Activity Monitor 446Disk Utility 448Grapher 453Keychain Access 453Migration Assistant 456System Information 456Terminal 456Capturing Your Screen 457Mojave screen-shooting 101 458Mojave screen-shooting options 461Mojave screen recording 461Chapter 26: Troubleshooting macOS 463About Startup Disks and Booting 463Finding or creating a startup disk 464They call it a prohibitory sign for a reason 464Recovering with Recovery HD 466Step 1: Run First Aid 466Step 2: Safe boot into Safe mode 467Step 3: Zapping the PRAM/NVRAM 468Step 4: Reinstalling macOS 469Step 5: Things to try before taking your Mac in for repair 469If Your Mac Crashes at Startup 470Optimizing Storage 471Part 7: The Part of Tens 473Chapter 27: Ten Ways to Speed Up Your Mac Experience 475Use Those Keyboard Shortcuts 476Improve Your Typing Skills 477Change Your Resolution 477Get a Mac with a View — and Preferences, Too 479Purchase a Faster Mac 481Add a Second Display 482Add RAM 482Upgrade to a Solid-State Drive (SSD) 483Upgrade to a New Hybrid Drive 483Subscribe to My Free Newsletter 485Chapter 28: Ten Great Websites for Mac Freaks 487The Mac Observer 488Macworld 488TidBITS 488iMore 489AppleWorld.Today 489The Wirecutter 490Apple Support 491Other World Computing 491dealmac/dealnews 492Working Smarter for Mac Users 493Index 495