You are coming from the dark side of OS to the OS X. Welcome. Your Mac is capable of amazing things but you have to know where to look and what to touch!

Will start from the basics, with some of the applications that come bundled with every  Mac, explain their functions and how to use them.

FINDER

In Windows, if you need to view the contents of your hard disk, thumb drive, CD or DVD, you’ll would probably double-click on My Computer. In other words, you’re using Windows Explorer.

Finder is the Mac-equivalent of Windows Explorer. It allows the user to view the contents of local drives, networked drives, optical drives, portable drives, folders, files and so on. Think of it as a the place where you can control your machine from. Finder manages applications, files, disks and devices on your Mac.

There are 3 components to the Finder. These are probably the most obvious to a new Mac user:

• The Dock

 

• The Finder Menu Bar

 

• and the Finder Window, the control panel of your Mac

The Dock

The dock is undeniably one of the main attractions when you switch to a Mac. It’s an ever-accessible venue where your frequently-used applications can call “home”.

The dock is divided into 2 sections by a broken line. The left section of the Dock houses your applications. Running applications are represented by a blue dot under them. The right section may be filled with anything, from images to bookmarks and even folders. Since OS X Leopard, these folders appear as “Stacks” and they spring up to reveal their contents. The number of items on the dock is virtually limitless — it will automatically adjust its size to accommodate.

To add an application to the dock, simply click and drag it to a desired position, then let go. To remove an application from the dock, drag it off the dock and let go.

The Menu bar

The menu bar is that long bar located at the top of the screen. From left to right, it houses the Apple icon, application menus, menu bar applications, system icons, the time and finally, Spotlight.

One of the things that you must realize is that the Mac’s menu bar is dynamic. The menu bar will change to display the menu of the foremost application or whichever application that was last used. The active application is always displayed on the left, directly next to the Apple icon.

The Finder window

The Finder controls the desktop in such a way that it will display any connected devices: hard drives, networked drives, portable drives, disk images etc.

You can easily customize the desktop, simply right-click on the desktop, select ‘Show view options’ and check the box next to ‘Show item info’. Very useful here is Arrange by.

The Finder windows are what pop up every time you double-click on the hard disk icon on the desktop. These windows let you browse your Mac and view files, folder contents, launch installed applications and gain access into system files and utilities.

On the left of the Finder window lies the sidebar. Generally, the sidebar hosts a list of attached devices, networked drives, a customizable list of places/locations on your Mac and a slew of quick search terms that can easily help you to find your files.

If you are connected to a network with Windows PCs or other Macs, they will appear in your Finder sidebar under ‘Shared’.

The sidebar is customizable. You can drag anything you like onto the sidebar for easy access (a tutorial HERE).

Likewise, you can also remove any of the sidebar items to prevent them from showing up. Just click and hold, then drag them off the sidebar.

If you would like to customize the Finder background with a solid color, have a look at this TUTORIAL or if you want to have an image as a background then look at this TUTORIAL

And if you want to change the default icons and folders we have 2 tutorials. HERE for the free application you can use to replace the icon set and HERE for free hand picked  icon sets.

Inspector

If there is ever a need to check the details of more than one file individually without manually opening a Get Info window each time, there’s Inspector.

Inspector is basically a ‘Get Info’ window that dynamically updates to show you the file properties of every file that you click on. This sidesteps the issue of having too many Get Info windows. Using Inspector, you get one Get Info window that changes the instant a new file is selected.

There are 3 ways to invoke the Inspector.

• Pressing Command + Option + I
• Right-click a file, hover the cursor over ‘Get Info’, press the Option key and watch as‘Get Info’ changes to ‘Show Inspector’
• With Finder in focus (the frontmost application), click on the File menu, hover on ‘Get Info’, press the Option key and again, it will change to ‘Show Inspector’

That’s pretty much it for your Finder. Play around with it and customize your desktop, Finder window background or color….in one (2) words: have fun!

Quick Look

Have a look at this other TUTORIAL for another essential feature of OS X: Quick Look