System Preferences, Settings, and Customizations in Mac OS 12 Monterey

Name: System Preferences, Settings, and Customizations in Mac OS 12 Monterey
Author: Nizar Dajani

Learn the essential skills to use system preferences in macOS effectively

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Course: On-Demand

In this lesson, we will learn about System Preferences. If you want to customize your Mac machine, then these settings are found in System Preferences. And System Preferences is an app so you can open it like any other app. For example, it can be in your Dock as I have it here, or you can go to Finder, then Applications, and open it from this window. Or you can also go to Spotlight and type System Preferences and then hit Enter. So this is System Preferences and there's so much to do here. So it's best to explore all these settings one by one and customize them based on your needs, wants, and personal preferences. This window is currently divided into sections or panes. The section at the very bottom contains third party app settings, while the other sections are all Mac OS related app settings. And at the very top, I have my name and profile picture. You can change this picture by clicking on it and then choosing a picture from these options like an emoji or a Memoji or a picture from your computer. I'll cancel out of it since I don't want to change my profile picture right now. Then on the right, we have Apple ID and I'll click on it. And here it shows information about me like my name, my phone number, email, passwords, payment and shipping information which are all things associated with my Apple ID. And right under that, I have iCloud. And then on the right side, these are the apps that can store their data in iCloud so I can check or uncheck them as I please. And for media and purchases, these give me a few settings if I want to use Touch ID to buy and download apps. And there's also an option to manage subscriptions like Apple TV+ or something similar. To return to the main window for System Preferences, I can click on the back button or this Show All icon. Now, one key distinction to understand is that System Preferences have settings for your computer in general, like how to control display settings, password settings, Bluetooth connectivity settings, and much more. However, each app that you open in your Mac OS also has another set of preferences that are very specific to that app only. For example, if I open TextEdit and then go to the TextEdit menu, then Preferences, I see many settings here which are very particular only to this app. But going back to the System Preferences, these settings are for your computer in general. And if I click on the general tab, I can see such settings like making the appearance of my computer as light or dark. It's currently set to light. And let me click on dark now to show you the difference. Now I prefer the light option so I'll revert it back to light. Also, from this window, you can control things like scrolling, which default browser to use, how you want documents to open, how many items to show up in the recent items list, and so much more. So in short, you almost have full control on how everything can and does behave on your computer. And if you're not sure about a particular setting, you can always click on the question mark icon at the bottom-right corner and that will open a window explaining all the different settings and their options. So since it's not productive for me to show you each of these settings, I do urge you to go through them one by one, see what the settings are, and customize them as you wish. And if there's something that you want to customize or you don't know where to find it in the System Preferences window, we can use the search field in the top-right corner and I will cover search in the next lesson. You also might find some settings that are locked and need an admin user password to unlock it. For example, if I go to the users and group settings, I can see a locked icon. And next to it, it says I need to click the lock icon to make changes, at which point it will ask me for a user password. So most settings are open and don't require a password to change them, while some sensitive settings do require an admin password to change. And one last point about System Preferences is that it contains an Erase Assistant tool. Whenever you're ready to sell your computer, say to buy a new one, for example, it's suggested that you complete some tasks like signing out of your Apple ID, erasing any data, and so on. So if I go to the System Preferences menu, then Erase All Contents and Settings, this opens up the Erase Assistant window and I'm prompted to enter the admin password. I'll type it in. And now you can see this task will do the following things like sign me out of my Apple ID, remove all my Touch IDs, unpair any Bluetooth devices, as well as turn off location sharing. In short, all settings media and data will be erased. So it's a convenient tool to use instead of having to do all these tasks individually. But since I don't want to do that now, I'll go to the Erase Assistant menu and quit the app. So in this lesson, we learned about System Preferences. Thanks for watching.

Beginner Provider : Nizar Dajani 3 Lessons · 10m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

System preferences contains many settings to help you customize your Mac to best suit your style and specific needs. Whether you are first setting up your Mac or just looking to learn more about it, it is very helpful to understand the different customizations that are available to you. It is worthwhile to spend some time getting to know system preferences.

In this course, you will learn about system preferences, how to search for system preferences, and how to customize system preferences. There are many options and settings in system preferences to help you control and customize your Mac experience.

What You'll Learn

Describe what system preferences are and the role they play in customizing your Mac
Explore the options and settings available within system preferences
Search for specific system preferences on your Mac
Customize system preferences to suit your style and specific needs
Recognize the various settings contained in system preferences
Identify how to customize macOS to control your Mac experience

Key Takeaways

System preferences contains many settings that help you customize your Mac to best suit your style and specific needs.
Understanding the different available customizations is helpful whether you are first setting up your Mac or just looking to learn more about it.
System preferences offers many options and settings to help you control and customize your Mac experience.
The course covers exploring system preferences, searching within system preferences, and customizing system preferences.