Bob LeVitus, better known as Dr. Mac, has been writing on all things Mac since 1996. He's a regular contributor to technology publications and has penned over 90 how-to books on macOS, iPhone, iPad, Office for the Mac, and GarageBand.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: macOS Basics 5

Chapter 1: macOS Monterey 101 (Prerequisites: None) 7

Gnawing to the Core of macOS 8

A Safety Net for the Absolute Beginner (or Any User) 10

Turning the dang thing on 10

What you should see on startup 11

Shutting down properly 14

A few things you should definitely not do with your Mac 15

Point-and-click 101 16

Not Just a Beatles Movie: Help and the Help Menu 18

Chapter 2: Desktop and Windows and Menus (Oh My!) 23

Touring Finder and Its Desktop 24

Anatomy of a Window 25

Top o' the window to ya! 27

A scroll new world 29

(Hyper)active windows 30

Dialog Dealie-Boppers 32

Working with Windows 34

Opening and closing windows 34

Resizing windows and window panes 35

Moving windows 35

Shuffling windows 36

Menu Basics 38

The ever-changing menu bar 39

Contextual (shortcut) menus: They're sooo contextual! 39

Recognizing disabled options 41

Navigating submenus 42

Under the Apple menu tree 43

Using keyboard shortcut commands 44

Chapter 3: What's Up, Dock? 45

A Quick Introduction to Your Dock 46

The default icons of the dock 47

Trash talkin' 49

Opening application menus on the dock 51

Reading dock icon body language 53

Opening files from the dock 54

Customizing Your Dock 54

Adding dock icons 54

Removing an icon from the dock 57

Resizing the dock 58

What should you put on your dock? 58

Setting your dock preferences 60

Chapter 4: Getting to Know Finder and Its Desktop 65

Introducing Finder and Its Minions: The Desktop and Icons 66

Introducing the desktop 66

Bellying up to the toolbar 68

Figuring out what an icon is 71

Identifying your Finder icons in the wild 72

Aliases Are Awesome! 73

Creating aliases 75

Deleting aliases 76

Hunting down an alias's parent 76

The View(s) from a Window 76

Moving through folders fast in Column view 77

Perusing in Icon view 79

Listless? Try viewing folders as a list 79

Hangin' in the Gallery (view) 81

What's next on the (View) menu? 82

Finder on the Menu 84

The actual Finder menu 84

Like a road map: The current folder's pop-up menu 87

Going places with the Go menu 88

Customizing Finder Windows 90

Adding folders to the sidebar 90

Setting Finder preferences 90

Digging for Icon Data in the Info Window 93

Chapter 5: Delving Even Deeper into Monterey's Desktop and Finder 97

Cleaning Up Your Desktop Automatically with Stacks 97

Managing your Stacks 100

Quick Actions: Now Playing All Over Monterey 101

Getting the most out of Markup 101

Trimming video without launching an app 104

Do It Quicker with Finder Quick Actions 105

Creating PDFs without launching an app 105

Creating custom Finder Quick Actions 106

Four More Cool Monterey Tricks 107

Shooting screens 107

Dynamic desktop images 109

Part 2: How Stuff Works 111

Chapter 6: Having It Your Way 113

Introducing System Preferences 113

The Desktop & Screen Saver System Preferences Pane 115

The Desktop tab 116

The Screen Saver tab 117

The General System Preferences Pane 118

Adjusting the Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad, and Other Hardware 121

The Keyboard System Preferences pane 122

The Mouse System Preferences pane 126

The Bluetooth System Preferences pane 127

The Trackpad System Preferences pane 127

The Sound System Preferences Pane 129

Changing sound effects 129

Choosing output and input options 130

Chapter 7: Opening and Saving Files 131

A Quick Primer on Finding Files 132

Understanding the macOS Folder Structure 132

Understanding nested folders 134

From the top: The Computer folder 135

Peeking into the Applications folder 136

Visiting the Library folders 136

Let it be: The System folder 137

There's no place like Home 137

Your personal library card 139

Saving Your Document Before It's Too Late 141

Stepping through a basic save 142

Save As versus Duplicate: Different names for the same result 148

Open, Sez Me 150

With drag-and-drop 152

With a Quick Look 152

When your Mac can't open a file 153

With the application of your choice 154

Chapter 8: File and Folder Management Made Easy 157

Organizing Your Stuff in Folders 157

Files versus folders 158

Organizing your stuff with subfolders 158

Creating new folders 160

Navigating with spring-loaded folders 161

Smart folders 162

Shuffling Files and Folders 164

Moving files and folders 165

Selecting multiple icons 166

Playing the icon name game: Renaming icons 167

Renaming multiple icons at once 168

Compressing files 168

Getting rid of icons 168

The Incredible iCloud+ (and iCloud Drive) 169

Chapter 9: Comprehending the macOS Clipboard 171

Introducing the Clipboard 171

Copying Files and Folders 173

Pasting from the Clipboard 175

Monterey's Universal Clipboard 175

Part 3: Getting Things Done 177

Chapter 10: Five Terrific Time-Saving Tools 179

With a Quick Look 180

Share and share alike with the Share menu 181

Slide into Slideshow (full-screen) mode 182

Spotlight on Finding Files and Folders Faster 183

Using the Find command 184

Using the Spotlight menu and its keyboard shortcut 186

Blast Off with Mission Control 187

The Mission Control pane: It's painless 187

Hot corners are hot stuff! 189

Mission Control's Spaces from 30,000 feet (an overview) 190

Getting around in space(s) 192

Taking Control of Essential Settings 193

Launchpad: The Place for Applications 194

Chapter 11: Organizing Your Life 197

Keeping Track with Calendar 198

Navigating Calendar views 198

Creating calendars 199

Deleting a calendar 200

Creating and managing events 201

Reminders: Protection Against Forgetting 203

Getting started with Reminders 204

To do or not to do: Setting reminders 205

Sharing lists and assigning reminders 206

Everything You Need to Know about Notification Center 207

Tweaking Notification settings 207

Widget management 101 209

Using Notification Center 210

Getting focused 210

Use Notes for Making Notes 211

Take a Quick Note with Quick Note 215

Tracking Productivity with Screen Time 215

Chapter 12: Are You Siri-ous? 217

What Siri Can Do for You 217

Working with Siri 219

Making Siri Your Own 220

Chapter 13: Maps Are Where It's At 223

Finding Your Current Location with Maps 223

Finding a Person, Place, or Thing 224

Views, Zooms, and Pans 225

Maps and Contacts 227

Time-saving Map Tools: Favorites, Guides, and Recents 228

Favorites 228

Guides 229

Recents 230

Smart Map Tricks 230

Get route maps and driving directions 230

Get walking directions 231

Get directions for public transportation 232

Get traffic info in real time 232

Flyovers and look arounds 232

Do more on the Info sheet 233

Chapter 14: Apps Born in iOS 235

Taking Stock of the Market with Stocks 236

Adding and deleting stocks, funds, and indexes 237

Details, details, details 237

Charting a course 238

Read All about It in News 239

What are your interests? 239

How News works 240

Managing your news 240

Recording Memos with Voice Memos 241

Recording a voice memo 241

Listening to a voice memo 242

Naming a voice memo 243

Trimming a voice memo 243

Automating Repetitive Tasks with Shortcuts 244

Controlling Lights, Locks, and More with Home 245

Part 4: Getting Along with Others 247

Chapter 15: (Inter)Networking 249

Getting Connected to the Internet 250

Your internet service provider and you 251

Plugging in your internet-connection settings 251

Browsing the Web with Safari 253

Owning your toolbar 254

Using the Safari sidebar 255

Checking out Help Center 260

Chapter 16: Dealing with People 261

Collecting Your Contacts 261

Adding contacts 262

Importing contacts from other programs 263

Creating a basic group 264

Setting up a smart group (based on contact criteria) 266

Deleting a group or smart group 266

Sync + Contacts = your contacts everywhere 267

Audio and Video Calls with FaceTime 268

About SharePlay 269

Chapter 17: Communicating with Mail and Messages 271

Sending and Receiving Email with Mail 271

Setting Up Mail 272

A quick overview of the toolbar 272

Composing a new message 274

Sending email from the Contacts app 276

Checking your mail 278

Dealing with spam 279

Mailboxes smart and plain 280

Changing your preferences 282

Sign here, please 283

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