OS X Mountain Lion: Use Dashboard widgets

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Use Dashboard widgets

Your computer comes with several widgets already in Dashboard. You can add other widgets, and display more than one of the same widget. For example, you might want to use several World Clock widgets, each showing the time in a different city.

Examples of Dashboard widgets

Open and close Dashboard

  • To open Dashboard from your trackpad, swipe right with three or four fingers. To close Dashboard, swipe left.
  • To open Dashboard from your keyboard, press the Dashboard key, or press F12 (Fn-F12 on portable keyboards). To close Dashboard, press the key again.

    Dashboard keyboard key

Add a widget to Dashboard

  1. Open Dashboard.
  2. To show the widget bar, click the Open button (+) at the lower-left corner of the screen. To scroll through the widgets, click the arrow buttons on the bar.

    You can also press Command (⌘)-Equal Sign (=) to open the widget bar, and Command-Left Arrow and Command-Right Arrow to scroll through the widgets.

  3. To use a widget, click its icon or drag it out of the widget bar.

To organize widgets, drag them where you want them. To hide the widget bar, click its Close button (x).

Stop using a widget

  1. Open Dashboard.
  2. Click the Close button (x) of the widget you don’t want to use anymore.

    If you don’t see a Close button (x), press the Option key and move the pointer over the widget.

    A Close button (x) also appears on each widget in use when the widget bar is open.

Last Modified: Sep 4, 2015
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