Let's dive deeper into navigating our Mac and organising our files & applications.
Finder is a special application on your Mac, and perhaps the most important. Finder allows you to navigate through the folders & files on your computer. It is very similar to the PC equivalent, called Windows Explorer.
To open Finder, click the very first icon on your Dock.
Now that we have navigated to the new 'playground' folder, we can explore some of the different ways you can view and organise files & folders in Finder. See how many of these you can find.
Now that we are comfortable working with files and folders, it's important to take a step back and get an overview of the folder structure of a Mac.
Your home folder is where everything belonging to your user account is stored. If you have multiple user accounts on your Mac (e.g. for a child or spouse), each user has their own home folder which is private to them.
It is not recommended to store anything right inside this folder - instead, store your files in one of the folders already in your home folder. They are described in the below images.
Apple devices can easily share files between each other using AirDrop. AirDrop uses a combination of Wifi & Bluetooth to connect to nearby devices.
This is especially useful if you have just taken a photo on your iPhone and want to edit or store it on your Mac, or if you have students using iPads and want them to 'hand in' their work to your computer.
Use this guide on Apple to try out AirDrop. You will need a 2nd Apple device to test with - either iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
Just like iPhone and iPad, Macs have an App Store. It is not the only way to install apps on your Mac, but it is the safest.
Open the App Store from your Dock, or by searching with Spotlight (command+Space).
The App Store requires an Apple ID. You may already have one.
All installed apps on your Mac are located in the Applications folder. You can access that folder in a number of ways:
You can also drag applications from this folder into your Dock to keep them there even when they are not open.
Uninstalling an application is usually as simple as deleting the application file from the applications folder, then emptying your trash.
Lastly in this activity, we want to draw your attention to some useful apps that are included with your Mac (or freely available from the App Store). Watch the videos below to see them demonstrated!