And if you share a Mac with others, you'll learn how you can each personalize your preferences to suit your needs.

You can find the system preferences either on the dock or in the Apple menu.

The options are grouped into categories.

In the first row, you'll find settings to control the appearance and functions of your desktop and application, windows you can set up and customized items like your keyboard and your mouse or track pad.

With these settings here, you can change your Internet related settings.

Finally, you'll find options to add new users and address those with specific needs.

You can click any icon to get more detailed options.

Here.

You can choose colors for your desktop and windows and change your default Web browser to return to the main menu.

Select the grid button.

If you're unsure where to find a setting, the search feature is a great help.

Maybe you want to back up your files as you start typing, a list of possible matches will appear possible.

Locations will light up as you type and help you narrow down your search.

If you see what you're looking for.

Selected from the search results, the setting will open automatically.

Let's go up to the grid button to take a closer look at the other settings.

Options.

If you're just getting started with your computer, some of the default settings may not work well for you.

You may want to customize items like your keyboard and mouse or track pad, depending upon what your computer has in this case will choose mouse.

Here you can change the direction of scrolling natural scrolling, as shown in the video insert is the default, but you may be more accustomed to the reverse direction below it.

Secondary click or right click is not checked by default.

Selecting this will enable right clicking if you like.

You can also adjust your mouse tracking speed to make it faster or slower.

With some settings, you will need an administrator password to make changes.

For example, under users and groups, some options will be great out.

Clicking the lock icon will prompt you to enter your administrator password.

This lock will stay open until you close the system preferences.

You can add new users by clicking the plus sign or select a user to make changes to their settings.

Any user who knows an administrator password can make changes to all the user settings, so you may want to restrict who has access to an admin password.

While we're here, you may consider choosing log in items thes air applications that will open each time you log into your account.

This may be a great option for a couple of APS you use every day.

However, you may want to be careful not to add too many APS to the list, since it could take them a while to open each time you log in.

If you have Children using this computer, you may want to enable parental controls.

Let's click the grid icon and choose parental controls from the menu again.

You will be prompted to enter an admin password, then choose a user name from the list.

You have the option toe limit, which applications can be used in the Web preferences.

You can limit Web browsing and even choose specific websites to allow.

Under the time tab, you have options for setting time limits for your child as well.

Now let's click the grid icon to check out accessibility.

Mac OS gives you many options to make it easier for you to work on your computer.

If you prefer to listen to text instead of reading it, you can enable this under speech.

Here, you can select how you want the voice to sound and even use shortcut keys to enable it.

If you would like to talk to your computer instead of typing, you could do this under dictation.

You can get more details under open dictation preferences.

If you have connected an external hard drive to back up your files, you will need to set it up using time machine.

When you connect the drive, you may see a dialog box asking you if you want to use it to back up your computer.

If you don't see it, you can go to Time Machine, where you can add the dis manually by going to select disk.

While system preferences controls most of your computer's preferences, it doesn't change settings for applications.

If you want to make changes to a specific application, you'll need to go into the applications preferences.

For example, in safari, you can click the safari menu and then preferences to change your settings just for this app.

As you change your settings, keep in mind that they will Onley affect the current user account.

If you have more than one user on your computer, each person can separately adjust their settings and customize them to their unique needs.

Now that you know the basics of customizing your settings, we invite you to explore the system preferences for yourself so you can personalize your Mac OS experience.

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