Mac 101: Mac essentials

The desktop, Dock, Finder, menu bar, and Spotlight

These are five of the most basic elements of your Mac.

• Desktop
  

  The desktop is a place where you can store files and folders. At the top of the desktop is the menu bar, and at the bottom is the Dock. To learn more about the desktop, please see this article.

   
• The Finder
  The Finder shows you your files in windows, and can be used to find anything on your Mac. Each Finder window has a sidebar to help you navigate. You can choose to view windows as icons, lists, or columns. To get a closer look, use Quick Look. You can rename, create, and organize folders. For much more information about using the Finder, please see Mac 101: The Finder.
   
• The Dock
  
  
  
  At the bottom of your desktop is the Dock. You'll find icons on the Dock for the Finder, Launchpad, Mission Control, Mac App Store (see below), Mail, Safari, FaceTime, Address Book, iCal, iTunes, Photo Booth, iPhoto for importing and managing your photos, and System Preferences to tweak your system.
  
  To the right of the line on the Dock you'll find Stacks. Your Mac comes with built-in stacks such as Documents and Downloads. Click a stack to see what's in it, then click any file in the stack to open it. To learn more, please see Mac 101: Stacks.
  
  The right-most item on the Dock is the Trash, which you can use to delete files and eject mounted volumes. See Mac 101: The Dock for more information.
   
• The menu bar
  
  Along the top of the screen is the menu bar. Its choices change based on which application you're using, or if you're in the Finder.
  
  Use status menus on the right end of the menu bar for things like sound, data and time, Wi-Fi connection, and your online chat status.
  
   
• Spotlight
  
  
  Open Spotlight from the menu bar. Use Spotlight to search for files such as documents, emails, dates in iCal, and webpages that you've visited. Spotlight also does math equations!

Pointing, clicking, and getting around

When you move your mouse or finger on a trackpad, you control a pointer (also known as a cursor) that moves across your screen. The pointer allows you to select and interact with the various items on your screen, including selecting files, clicking buttons, dragging sliders, and so on. Sometimes the pointer may look like a hand, a crosshair, an I-beam, or another icon, depending on what you're doing and the application you're using.

For example, if you're using Safari to view this webpage and move the pointer across it, notice that it turns into an I-beam when you move it over text or a text field. When you see this, you can usually interact with the text or field below it. When you move the pointer over a button or link, the pointer turns into a hand, letting you know that you can click on the item.

Depending on what you're doing and what application you're using,
your pointer (far left) may change appearances

Clicking your mouse button or trackpad button once allows you to select the item that your pointer is on. In other words, if your pointer is on a file's icon, clicking once will select it. If the pointer is on a button or link, clicking once will activate it. If your pointer is on a text field, clicking once highlights the field and allows you to start typing text in it.

If you want to open a file, folder, or application, click your mouse button or trackpad twice. This is known as double-clicking. In general, you'll need to double-click items if you want to open them from a Finder window or the desktop. The exception to this is opening stuff from the Dock—just click once on an icon in the Dock to open it.

Window Close, Minimize and Zoom buttons

Every application and document window has three colored buttons (Red, Yellow and Green) in the upper left corner:

• Red button closes the window.
• Yellow button minimizes the window into the Dock. Click the window icon in the Dock to restore it.
• Green button will zoom the window to show its content. Click again to return the window size.

When the cursor hovers over the buttons, these symbols appear:

Mac App Store

Your Mac comes with many applications already installed. You can find much more software for your Mac online with the Mac App Store. Simply click its icon in the Dock to visit the App Store. After purchasing and downloading, applications are automatically installed in your Applications folder, and added to the Launchpad. To get updates for Mac App Store applications, simply open App Store and click the Updates tab.

For more information, please see Install, update, and uninstall apps.
 

Updating your software

Your Mac has a built-in feature called Software Update that allows it to automatically check for available updates from Apple daily, weekly, or monthly when your computer is connected to the Internet. It takes into account the software you have installed on your computer, and new updates released by Apple so that it only shows you the relevant updates.

Using Software Update is easy: You can either wait for it to make its scheduled check for updates (every week by default), or manually check for updates by choosing Software Update from the Apple () menu.

You can also download software from Apple Downloads and install the software yourself. To install software, just double-click the installer file and follow the onscreen instructions.

Remember, updates for software that was purchased from the Mac App Store are obtained via the Mac App Store's Update button instead of Software Update.

To learn more, please see this article.

Back up and restore files with Time Machine

Time Machine backs up all your Mac's files to a disk of your choice. If you accidentally delete a file, you can restore it quickly with Time Machine. Use Time Machine preferences in System Preferences to configure your options. To learn much more, please see Mac 101: Time Machine.