Apple computers have always consciously aspired to the cachet of luxury accessories. Just look at how the Apple Watch uses the terminology of expensive timepieces (crown, complications). No different is the aura surrounding the companyâs high-priced Mac personal computer line. Though the selection of form-factors isnât quite as wide as for Windows 10 PCs, the Mac line makes up for that in its refined hardware that includes appealing members such as the all-in-one iMac, the slender MacBook Air, and the upcoming, extremely powerful, and surprisingly upgradeable Mac Pro.
13 macOS Tips for Windows Users
Youâve seen all those sleek MacBooks in the coffee shop, so now you want be part of the club. Or maybe you find yourself in front of a Mac at work and need to get going with it. Here are a few pointers for Windows users making the move to Apple.
Just as slick as Appleâs hardware is its macOS operating system, and in many cases, it requires less tinkering and troubleshooting than Windows. A lot of that stems from the hardware coming from the same company that makes the OS software. By contrast, Windows needs to support literally millions of hardware combinations and a much more enormous range of software, including legacy programs and AAA games.
Manage windows on Mac. When you open an app or the Finder on your Mac, a window opens on the desktop. Only one app at a time is active; the name of the app (in bold) and the app menus are shown in the menu bar. Some apps, such as Safari or Mail, let you open multiple windows or different types of windows at the same time. MacOS provides several ways to manage open apps and windows. Using dtrace to see how Bluetooth Explorer.app computes the list: difficult last resort The Proximity App from this forum post: Doesn't have a command line interface, so I cant query it remotely. I can write a script that stores the state in a file to read later, but it only works for one device at a time.
Another reason to seriously consider moving to a Mac is if youâre an iPhone user. Tie-ins include the ability to answer text messages from the computer, make FaceTime calls, and see notifications. You can do a lot of that with Skype, which offers a good iPhone app, but that doesnât work with standard SMS messages from your phone. Sticking with all Apple products also lets you easily send video and audio using AirPlay, and files and photos using AirDrop. Android phones get good support in Windows 10âs Your Phone app, which does support SMS messaging, but Microsoft hasnât been able to get similar functionality for the iPhone yet.
If youâre a longtime Windows user, there will be adjustments to make in your computing behaviors and procedures. People used to claim that macOS was more intuitive than Windows, but if youâre used to working in Windows, youâll probably find just the opposite. For example, thereâs no Start menu, so where do you start? For me, itâs not a huge paradigm shift, but rather some furniture is rearranged, and some operations differ. The tips below can get you started with your journey to Apple land.
Start-Free
Windows users are accustomed to initiating computing activity from the Start button, which pops up the Start menu. Thereâs nothing similar on macOS. You start by clicking an icon on the desktop, using Spotlight search to find what you want to start doing, choosing an option from the top menu bar, invoking the Launchpad by icon or shortcut key, or tapping a Dock icon. The Launchpad is an attempt to give Macs an iOS benefit, though it doesnât make a whole lot of sense with a non-touch screen. Another program-launching option that some Mac users have found helpful in streamlining OS use is the Alfred app, which includes a set of automation utilities and a program launcher that adapts to how you use your Mac.
The Menu Is Usually Not in the App
Windows users are accustomed to looking for the main application menu along the top edge of the program window. On Macs, for many apps you wonât see the program menu there; instead, it will appear as part of the OS rather than part of the app, occupying the top margin of the desktop. The concept is that macOS windows are documents belonging to an app, rather than the application itself. All that said, occasionally an app will actually include a menu in its window, but that usually duplicates whatâs in the main menu bar.
Minimizing and Maximizing Windows
macOS puts these window controls at the top left of the window rather than the top right and uses colors rather than icons to indicate function. Itâs intuitively based on traffic lights: Green is full screen, yellow is minimize, and red is close window. Windows users may, however, find it to be counterintuitive to tap the same green icon to reduce the size of a full-screen window, but thatâs how it is in Macland. Note also that closing all the windows of an app doesnât close the app itself: You can hit the red circle on all of your Safari windows, and the Safari menu will remain on the top menuâsomething that may perplex Windows users.
When you switch an app to full screen, it behaves like its running in its own virtual desktop. Something that took a minute for me to wrap my head around is that itâs possible to have two âfull-screenâ apps running in the same virtual desktop, each taking up only part of the screen. Apple calls this view Split View. Thankfully, you donât really need to worry about the whole virtual desktop concept (which Apple calls Desktop Spaces), since you can still switch among apps using the Command-Tab shortcut. You can also see where everything is by opening Mission Control (equivalent to Windowsâ Task View). This shows all your virtual desktops and all their constituent running apps and lets you switch among them. The Dock, Not the Taskbar
Along the bottom of your Mac screen you see a row of icons that resembles the Windows Taskbar. Indeed it does function similarlyâwith some key differences. The Dock is split between two main sections. Most of it is dedicated to app and system utility shortcuts on its left side. On the right, past a thin line, are document icons. When you download a file, it usually appears in the latter area, and clicking on its icon springs up an arc of other previously downloaded file icons.
Unlike in Windows, clicking on an application icon in the dock doesnât guarantee that the appâs window will appear on the desktop. This can be a source of frustration to Windows users, who can expect the appâs window to appear when they press its Taskbar icon. Remember to think of the windows in macOS as documents rather than the apps themselves. You know which app is running by the top menu row on the screen, which always reflects the program that currently has the focus. As in Windows, click-and-hold (or right-click, though thatâs an unfamiliar gesture for Mac users) on a Dock icon to get some options for the app it represents. You donât get things like Jump Lists or previews, but one thing I like about the Dock is its Zoom option, which enlarges icons as you hover the mouse over them. Get to Know the Finder
The Finder isnât all that different from Windowsâ File Explorer. One difference, however, is that its main left-hand sidebar doesnât show you the folder tree the way Windows does, and indeed the items in this left panel donât correspond to everything in your driveâtheyâre just shortcuts, or Favorites. You can see the folder hierarchies in the main, center panel in List view. In its favor, Finder offers tabs for those who would find them useful. It also offers a Column view and a Slideshow view for files. Finder lets you organize files by color codes and keyword tags.
The Notification Center
Iâm a big fan of unified notification systems on desktop OSes, even though they owe their existence to mobile platforms. Like Windows 10âs Action Center, the Macâs notification center is a great helper and organizer. Unlike Windowsâ Action Center, unfortunately, it doesnât offer quick controls for things like brightness and connectivity. It does, however, offer a Today tab that shows you your weather and schedule. On that tab, you can switch to Do Not Disturb mode to stop being notified. If you have an iPhone, it lets you reply to SMS text messages and iMessages from your computer. You also see email and system notifications there.
Spotlight Search and Siri
macOS doesnât have Windows 10âs always-displaying search box in the lower-right corner next to the start button. It does, however, always show two icons for searching in the opposite corner of the screen at top right: Spotlight and Siri. Spotlight lets you start typing to run apps, find documents, and look up info on the web. Siri does the same, though only with your voice. You can optionally set the latter up to respond to âHey Siriâ just as you can with Cortana. As someone who gets to type enough in life, I really appreciate being able to save my fingers once in a while by using a voice assistant.
Installing Apps: Drag that Disk Image, Sometimes
As with Windows, there are a few different ways to install an application. The standard, old-school method is to download a DMG (disk image file) from a website, double-click it (to mount the virtual drive), and then drag its contents to the Applications folder. After this, you unmount and delete (unless you want to keep for backup) the downloaded DMG.
There are two more possible ways to install a Mac app. If the developer has packaged the program as a PKG installer file, you get a normal installation procedure with a small dialogue box that steps you through installation options and goes away when you click Close. My favorite way to get an application (for bot Mac and Windows) is in the OSâs app store. The Mac App Store (like the Microsoft Store) handles installation and updates automatically, runs the app in a sandbox for greater security, and lets you install it on any Macs logged into your Apple Account in the store. Like Microsoft, Apple wants you to get apps from the OSâs store; unfortunately, both stores are sadly underpopulated compared with the mobile app stores. To uninstall an app, you simply drag its icon from the Applications folder to the Trash icon at bottom right. The operating system doesnât use DLLs or registry entries to support applicationsâall of an appâs code is contained it its own .app file. Documents created by the app you deleted will remain untouched, however. To remove all traces of an app, there are several utilities that can do the job. Learn Trackpad Gestures
Thereâs a good chance that the Mac youâre switching to is a MacBook, with that big, fabulous trackpad, and even if you use a desktop, you can get a separate Apple Magic Trackpad 2 (which we recommend). To make getting around your MacBook and getting it to do what you want, itâs a good idea to learn the most-common trackpad gestures. The number of fingers used is key to Mac gestures. You can see video clips of the gestures in Apple Menu > System Preferences > Trackpad by hovering the cursor over the gesture descriptions.
Many of the gestures resemble those used in iOS, though thereâs the difference that, unlike on an iPhone (or a Windows 10 touch-screen PC) your finger isnât right on the object youâre interacting with. Pinch two fingers to zoom out and separated them to zoom in. Swipe two fingers to navigate forward and back on websites. To simulate right-clicking on a mouse, tap with two fingers at the same time. To show the desktop, you spread three fingers out while keeping the thumb steady; pinching this way opens Launchpad. To switch between full-screen apps, swipe sideways with four fingers. Swiping up with four fingers reveals Mission Control, and down opens Expose, showing all the current appâs windows. Run Windows Apps
There are macOS equivalents for most popular Windows applications. For the times you need to run Windows apps on a Mac , however, there are a few options . One is Parallels, which creates a full virtual version of Windows inside your Mac. Cameyo lets companies run Windows apps in a web browser on any device, including Macs. For the true Windows experience, you can even install Windows 10 alongside macOS on a Mac, using the Boot Camp utility. This doesnât come with any of the performance or translation side effects of running a virtual machine, which requires interpretation between the system hardware, host OS, and guest OS.
Touch Bar
If youâre lucky enough to have one of the Apple computer models that sport a Touch Bar, itâs worth getting familiar with that input option. Of course, on Windows, you can have your whole screen support touch input. The Mac Touch Bar interface changes based on what app or system function your engaged in. When using a web browser, it offers buttons for your favorite websites.
Its default is to offer Esc, brightness controls and, sound controls, and Siri. My one misgiving with the Touch bar, however, is that you lose a steady row of function keys that always reliably do the same thing. Fortunately, you can go into Preferences > Keyboard > Touch Bar shows setting and choose F1, F2, etc., and those keys will remain constant. If you want the App-based customizing after making this setting, just hit Function key. Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
Like Windows, macOS takes advantage of keyboard shortcuts for frequently needed actions. Just keep in mind that the Command key usually replaces the Control key, even though Macs now do have a Control (or Ctrl) key. So, instead of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V for copy and paste, you use Command-C and Command-V. The Mac has Command-Z for undo, but no Command-Y for undoing the previous undo.
From a Windows userâs point of view, the Mac has no Delete key. What Macâs call the Delete key is a backspace key. If you want to delete the character in front of the cursor rather that in back of it, hold the Fn key while tapping the Delete key. Taking Screenshots
The Macâs operating system has had great screenshot tools that Windows has finally caught up to with Snip & Share. On the Mac, you press Command-Shift-3 shoots the whole screen and Command-Shift-4 gives you a crosshair for selecting a rectangle to capture. If you want a shot just of the active window, hit the Shift key after Cmd-Shift-4. These combos donât capture the image to the clipboard; for that, you substitute Ctrl for Cmd. Once youâve got a capture, much like in iOS, you see a thumbnail of it in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen, and clicking that opens a rudimentary image editor and markup tool. This lets you crop, highlight, draw on, and add text to the image. Once done, you can share to any standard output, including iMessage, email, AirDrop, and so on.
Apple macOS or Windows 10?
For a feature-by-feature comparison between the two market-leading desktop operating systems, read our feature, macOS vs. Windows: Which OS Really Is the Best?
Apple's macOS platform includes Terminal, which is equivalent to Command Prompt in Windows OS. Since the macOS is based on UNIX, Terminal might give you a vibe of a dangerous tool where one wrong command can wreck your system. Sure, it is valid only to an extent. There are a bunch of harmless commands that are usable in customizing the interface and other settings of macOS.
The Terminal on macOS can be extremely useful in tweaking the performance of your Mac. Now it entirely depends on what you want to achieve. In case you have been dreading to use it, you can always get comfortable by using simpler tricks. Here are the top 11 terminal command tricks to try on your Mac.
Also on Guiding TechHow To Speed Up a Slow MacRead MoreNote: While selecting/copying a command, make sure you scroll all the way towards right to select the complete command in the gray box. Otherwise partial commands will not work as intended.1. Open Folders
One of the coolest ways to get familiar with the Terminal is to use it to open files and folders. I know that clicking on Finder will do the same. However, using Terminal, you can open a specific folder or a file without exposing your file structure to anyone.
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Let's say you want to open your Documents folder. Then you can type the following command and then hit Enter.
And that opens my Documents folder. There's a DOCX file in there. I can use Terminal to open that too. For that, you need to type out the command with some requirements â the path of the respective file:
Open -a 'Application Name' /Path/to/File
So for opening the DOCX file in the Documents folder of my Mac, I typed in the command below and then hit Enter:
Donât confuse this issue for Gatekeeper restrictionsGatekeeper is a macOS security feature that only lets you open Apple-trusted software. If you see a message that âmacOS cannot verify that this app is free from malwareâ then youâre dealing with Gatekeeper.Generally speaking, you can bypass Gatekeeper restrictions by control-clicking the application and selecting Open from the pop-up menu. Some users say it takes over half an hour for the progress bar to fill up.This issue doesnât affect all Catalina users, which suggests that could be a solution.But first, letâs explore some less time-consuming suggested solutions. A new alert warns you the software is unverified by Apple and may contain malicious software, but you can still choose to Open it anyway.Take a look at our other articles for. If macOS says it cannot verify your app you need to bypass Gatekeeper.
![]() That opens up the specific file using the predefined program. You can also use the wildcard character (*.extension) instead of the full filename. However, if you have more than one file in carrying the same extension, then it might freeze your Mac for a bit. 2. Change Default Save Screenshot Location
By default, the macOS Mojave stores the screenshots on the Mac's desktop. Now if you have iCloud sync enabled, which I am sure you do, then it keeps uploading to your account. Thankfully, you can change the save location for the screenshots instead of crowding your desktop.
Here's the command you need to type before hitting Enter:
In the above command, you can provide any specific file location instead of ~/Downloads as shown.
After hitting Enter, I need to reset the SystemUIServer for the changes to take effect immediately. So feed in the following command.
Though it is not required, I would recommend restarting your Mac. 3. Change Screenshot Image Type
The macOS saves the screenshots in JPG format by default. You can change that to save them in PNG or PDF formats too. Here's how to do that quickly with this specific command:
After that, you need to kill the SystemUIServer again. Most commands which require some system changes shall mandate shutting down the SystemUIServer. So do that quickly. Now, your new screenshots will save in the PNG format. Do note that PNG files are generally larger than JPG files. So keep an eye on how much storage space they consume. 4. Show Hidden Files
Have you tried looking for the option to let the Finder show hidden files? Well, it is tougher than picking the show hidden files on Windows. I always forget how to enable that. Thankfully there is a helpful command that makes it happen in a few seconds.
After that, you need to force shut the Finder. Now you should see a lot of hidden files in the Finder. They would be greyed out but still visible. If you roll back this change, then you need to change TRUE to FALSE in the command. 5. Switch Off the Dashboard
Apple promoted the Dashboard view to access calculator and sticky notes quickly. I bet you rarely use that one for you can launch the Calculator app or Sticky Notes app using Mission Control of Spotlight. So you can switch it off and don't have to worry about opening it by mistake.
Here's the command to turn off the Dashboard.
Next, you must kill the Dock so that the changes are correctly applied. Now I don't have to worry about accidentally opening the Dashboard. If you want to switch it on again, then change TRUE to FALSE in the command. Also on Guiding TechHow to Install New Fonts in Mac OS XRead More6. Download Files
Did you know that you can download files using the Terminal? Yes, you don't need to keep the browser running just for that file. The only requirement here is that you must have the file's download link. So the command syntax is:
curl -0 downloadlink
First, navigate to the folder where you want to download the file. For that, you need to switch to the Downloads directory.
After that, you can feed the command to download the VLC for macOS from the official site. It would appear something like this: Note: There is a letter O in the command and not the 0 (zero).7. Ditto for Backups
Copying files and taking backups on macOS is quite swift â thanks to the SSDs and the flash storage. However, it does take a while to copy a large amount of data. Thankfully, Terminal offers a useful command to copy files. Here's how you can do it while watching the name of files that the command copies.
ditto -V /currentpath/ /new/path/
So I want to copy the DMG downloaded in the previous section to the desktop.
That should do the needful. If you want to copy the files to an external drive, then you need to provide the destination path correctly.
8. Always Show File Path in the Finder
If you have switched from Windows recently, you would have noticed that the Finder on macOS doesn't show file path like the Explorer in Windows. However, you can force Finder to show you the file path with this command:
After hitting enter, you need to stop the Finder.
After you hit Enter, the Finder will relaunch. Then you should see the file paths at the top of the Finder window.
9. Power Chime on Connecting the Charger
Has it ever happened that you've connected the MagSafe charger to your Mac but forgot to flip on the power switch? I have lost the count. Thankfully, I stumbled upon this useful command that provides an audio feedback chime whenever I connect the MagSafe charger.
Macos Command Line Reference
Feed this command in the Terminal and hit Enter.
10. Stop Your Mac from Sleeping
Often you are downloading a massive file, and you don't want your Mac go to sleep. If it is a temporary requirement, then a simple command can make it happen. Just type the following command, hit Enter and walk away from your Mac.
In this command, the number 600 signifies seconds. So with this command, the Mac won't sleep until 10 minutes (600 seconds). You can enter a relevant number of seconds or just the word 'caffeinate' to prevent your Mac from sleeping.
However, if you close that Terminal window, then the command will stop executing and the Mac will go to sleep on a predefined time.
11. Check Your Mac's Uptime
Wondering how long it has been since you've restarted your Mac? A simple restart can sort a lot of things in order and boost your Mac's performance. Here's a command to check your how long your Mac has been running without a Restart or a Shutdown
That should give you all the details with a timestamp.
Also on Guiding Tech#productivityClick here to see our productivity articles pageUsing Terminal Is Fun
The Terminal is an absolute delight to use and tinker around in the macOS. However, we would strictly advise against using random commands provided by unverified sources or strangers. Other than that, these commands should run on latest macOS Mojave update till last few versions.
You should always double-check the Terminal commands that involve removing, deleting or disabling any service. If you stick to our list, then you would be confident of using Terminal like a pro.
Next up: Are you bored of the same old Lock Screen on your Mac? Here is a nifty guide that will show how to customize the lock screen on your macOS Mojave running Mac. The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextHow to Customize the Lock Screen on macOS 10.14 MojaveAlso See Macos Command For See All Windows 8#terminal #macosDid You Know
Thunderbolt 3 is a data and video transfer protocol and is developed by Intel.
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