iMac For Dummies

Say hello to your iMac with this bestselling guide

Excited to put your cool iMac through its paces? Go ahead! Say "Hey Siri" to look up information, use the large monitor to play a game or watch a movie, share documents with your iPhone or iPad, or video chat with friends or family. With its optimized system speed, your iMac can keep up with anything you want to do. How cool is that?

Your iMac comes stuffed with features, and iMac For Dummies is your tour guide to explore all of them! This updated handbook has you covered, no matter if you need to work or want to play. You can:

• Scroll, tap, and swipe your way through the Mac operating system
• Set up Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other settings in Control Center
• Say "Hey Siri" to have the Apple assistant search for information or launch apps
• Play video games, music, movies, or TV
• Stay in touch with people through Messages and Facetime
• Use productivity apps, including Numbers, Pages, and Keynote
• Sync to iCloud and across all your Apple devices

The all-in-one design of the iMac with its monitor, processor, graphics card, and internal drive makes it ideal for work and entertainment. Pick up your copy of this comprehensive guide to the iMac, filled with screenshots and how-to steps, and ensure you use your iMac to its full potential.

Introduction 1

Foolish Assumptions 1

About This Book 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started with Your iMac 5

Chapter 1: Okay, This Machine Looks Really, Really Weird 7

Intel iMac or M1 iMac - That Is the Question 8

An Introduction to the Beast 9

Major parts of your major appliance 9

Important hidden stuff 14

Choosing a Home for Your New Pet 15

Picking the right location 15

Considering the convenience factor 16

Unpacking and Connecting 17

Unpacking your iMac For Dummies 17

Connecting cables like a true nerd 18

Discovering All the Cool Things You Can Do 19

What software do I get? 19

Looking forward to fun on the Internet 20

Applications that rock 21

Would you like to play a game? 22

Stuff You Oughta Buy Right Now 22

Chapter 2: Life! Give My iMac Life! 25

Throwing the Big Leaf Switch 25

Mark's Favorite Signs of a Healthy iMac 26

Harriet, It's Already Asking Me Questions! 27

Setting up macOS Monterey 28

Registering your iMac 29

Importing Documents and Data from Your Old Mac 29

Manually Importing Documents and Data from Windows 31

Chapter 3: The Basics Behind macOS Monterey 33

Your Own Personal Operating System 34

The Monterey Desktop 34

Check out that Control Center 36

Wait a Second: Where the Heck Are the Mouse Buttons? 39

Launching and Quitting Applications with Aplomb 42

Performing Tricks with Finder Windows 45

Viewing your stuff 45

Scrolling in and resizing windows 46

Minimizing and restoring windows 47

Moving and zooming windows 48

Closing windows 49

Juggling Folders and Icons 50

A field observer's guide to icons 50

Selecting items 52

Copying items 54

Moving things from place to place 54

Duplicating in a jiffy 55

Using Finder Tabs 56

Keystrokes to Fame and Fortune 57

Special keys on the keyboard 57

Using the Finder and application keyboard shortcuts 58

Speeding Things Up with Shortcuts 59

Home, Sweet Home Folder 60

Working with Mission Control 62

Switching Desktops with Spaces 63

Personalizing Your Desktop 64

Taking Control of Your iMac 66

Customizing the Dock 67

Adding applications and extras to the Dock 68

Keeping track with Stacks 69

Using Desktop Stacks 69

Using Dock Stacks 69

Resizing the Dock 71

What's with the Trash? 71

All You Really Need to Know about Printing 72

And Just in Case You Need Help 74

The Monterey built-in Help system 74

The Apple web-based support center 75

Magazines 75

Local Mac user groups 75

Part 2: Shaking Hands with macOS 77

Chapter 4: What's New in Monterey? 79

Shortcuts Hit Your iMac 80

Let's Get Focused 81

Putting Tags to Work 82

Hiding Email the iCloud Way 83

FaceTime Over the Web? 83

Chapter 5: A Nerd's Guide to System Preferences 85

An Explanation - without Jargon, No Less 86

Locating That Certain Special Setting 88

Popular Preferences Panes Explained 89

The Displays pane 90

The Desktop & Screen Saver pane 91

Mission Control preferences 93

The General pane 95

The Energy Saver pane 97

The Dock & Menu Bar pane 98

The Sharing pane 100

The Time Machine pane 101

Apple ID preferences 102

Notifications & Focus preferences 104

Chapter 6: Searching Amidst iMac Chaos 107

Doing a Basic Search 108

How Cool Is That? Discovering What Spotlight Can Do 111

Expanding Your Search Horizons 112

Customizing Spotlight to Your Taste 114

Chapter 7: Putting Common Apps to Work 117

Remind Me to Use Reminders 118

Taking Notes the Monterey Way 121

Staying Current with Notification Center 123

Introducing the Maps Application 126

Switching Views in Maps 128

Getting Directions Over Yonder 129

Creating and Using Guides 130

Catching Up on News 132

Using Favorites and Channels 133

Part 3: Connecting and Communicating 135

Chapter 8: Let's Go on Safari! 137

Pretend You've Never Used This Thing 137

Visiting Websites 139

Navigating the Web 141

Configuring Your Home Page and Start Page 144

Adding and Using Bookmarks 145

Working with the Reading List 148

Downloading Files 149

Using History 150

Tabs Are Your Browsing Friends 151

Printing Web Pages 153

Protecting Your Privacy 154

Yes, there are such things as bad cookies 154

Banishing pesky iCloud Keychain passwords 156

Handling ancient history 156

Setting notifications 157

Avoiding those @*!^%$ pop-up ads 157

Chapter 9: Expanding Your Horizons with iCloud 159

So How Does iCloud Work, Anyway? 160

Moving, Saving, and Opening iCloud Documents 161

Putting Handoff to Work 162

Expanding Your Horizons with Sidecar 163

Configuring iCloud 163

Managing Your iCloud Storage 165

Chapter 10: Creating a Multiuser iMac 167

Once Upon a Time (an Access Fairy Tale) 168

Big-Shot Administrator Stuff 169

Deciding who needs what access 169

Adding users 170

Modifying user accounts 172

I banish thee, mischievous user! 174

Setting up login items and managing access 176

Tackling Mundane Chores for the Multiuser iMac 181

Logging in and out of Monterey For Dummies 181

Interesting stuff about sharing stuff 184

Encrypting your Home folder can be fun 185

Chapter 11: Working Well with Networks 187

What Exactly Is the Network Advantage? 188

Should You Go Wired or Wireless? 189

Be a Pal: Share Your Internet! 191

Using your iMac as a sharing device 191

Using a dedicated Internet-sharing device 191

What Do I Need to Connect? 192

Wireless connections 192

Wired connections 197

Connecting to the Network 200

Sharing stuff nicely with others 201

Use Your Firewall! 203

Chapter 12: Hooking Up with Handy Helpers 207

Connecting Printers 207

USB printers 208

Network printers 210

Connecting Scanners 211

Using Photo Booth 212

Conversing with FaceTime 214

Sending Instant Messages Across the Network 216

Part 4: Living the Digital Life 219

Chapter 13: The Multimedia Joys of Music and TV 221

What Can I Play in Music? 222

Playing Digital Audio Files 223

Finding songs in your Music library 227

Removing old music from the library 227

Keeping Slim Whitman and Slim Shady Apart: Organizing with Playlists 228

Know Your Songs 230

Setting the song information automatically 231

Setting or changing the song information manually 231

Ripping Audio Files 232

Tweaking the Audio for Your Ears 233

A New Kind of Radio Station 234

Tuning in your own stations 235

Radio stations in your playlists 235

Creating a custom Music Radio station 236

iSending iStuff to iPhone and iPad 237

Burning Music to Shiny Plastic Circles 238

Feasting on Music Visuals 239

Exercising Parental Authority 239

Watching Video with TV 241

Buying Digital Media the Apple Way 242

Chapter 14: Focusing on Photos 245

Delving into Photos 245

Working with Images in Photos 248

Import images 101 248

Organize mode: Organizing and sorting your images 250

Edit mode: Removing and fixing stuff the right way 257

Exploring iCloud Photos 262

Putting My Photo Stream and iCloud Shared Albums to Work 263

Chapter 15: Making Film History with iMovie 265

Shaking Hands with the iMovie Window 266

A Bird's-Eye View of Moviemaking 269

Importing the Building Blocks 270

Pulling in video clips 270

Making use of still images 272

Importing and adding audio from all sorts of places 272

Building the Cinematic Basics 275

Adding clips to your movie 275

Marking clips 276

Removing clips from your movie 277

Reordering clips in your movie 277

Editing clips in iMovie 278

Transitions for the masses 279

Even Gone with the Wind had titles 280

Adding maps and backgrounds 281

Creating an Honest-to-Goodness Movie Trailer 281

Browsing Your Video Library 283

Sharing Your Finished Classic 284

Chapter 16: Recording Your Hits with GarageBand 285

Shaking Hands with Your Band 286

Composing Made Easy 288

Adding tracks 289

Choosing loops 291

Resizing, repeating, and moving loops 294

Using the Arrangement track 296

Tweaking the settings for a track 297

Sharing Your Songs 299

Creating song files in Music 300

Exporting a project 301

Burning an audio CD 301

Part 5: Getting Productive with Your iMac 303

Chapter 17: Desktop Publishing with Pages 305

Creating a New Pages Document 306

Opening an Existing Pages Document 307

Saving Your Work 308

Touring the Pages Window 309

Entering and Editing Text 310

Using Text, Shapes, and Graphics Boxes 310

The Three Amigos: Cut, Copy, and Paste 310

Cutting stuff 311

Copying text and images 311

Pasting from the Clipboard 311

Formatting Text the Easy Way 311

Adding a Spiffy Table 312

Adding Alluring Photos 314

Adding a Background Shape 315

Are You Sure about That Spelling? 316

Setting Your Font Defaults to Speed Things Up 316

Printing Your Pages Documents 317

Sharing That Poster with Others 318

Chapter 18: Creating Spreadsheets with Numbers 319

Before You Launch Numbers 320

Creating a New Numbers Document 320

Opening an Existing Spreadsheet File 321

Save Those Spreadsheets! 322

Exploring the Numbers Window 323

Navigating and Selecting Cells in a Spreadsheet 324

Entering and Editing Data in a Spreadsheet 325

Selecting the Correct Number Format 326

Aligning Cell Text Just So 327

Formatting with Shading 328

Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns 329

The Formula Is Your Friend 330

Adding Visual Punch with a Chart 332

Printing Your Spreadsheet 333

Chapter 19: Building Presentations with Keynote 335

Creating a New Keynote Project 336

Opening a Keynote Presentation 337

Saving Your Presentation 338

Putting Keynote to Work 338

Adding Slides 340

Working with Text, Shapes, and Graphics Boxes 340

Adding and Editing Slide Text 341

Formatting Slide Text for the Perfect Look 342

Using Presenter's Notes in Your Project 342

Every Good Presentation Needs Media 343

Adding a Background Shape 344

Creating Your Keynote Slideshow 344

Printing Your Slides and Notes 346

Part 6: The Necessary Evils: Troubleshooting, Upgrading, and Maintaining 349

Chapter 20: It Just Sits There 351

Repeat after Me: Yes, I Am a Tech! 352

Step-by-Step iMac Troubleshooting 352

The number-one rule: Reboot! 353

Special keys that can come in handy 354

All hail Disk Utility, the troubleshooter's friend 356

Disk repair made easy 358

Mark's iMac Troubleshooting Tree 359

Okay, I Kicked It, and It Still Won't Work 364

Local service, at your service 364

The macOS Help Center 364

Apple Help Online 364

Chapter 21: I Want to Add Stuff 365

More Memory Will Help 366

Figuring out how much memory you have 366

Installing memory modules 367

Can I Upgrade My Internal Drive? 371

Consider your external options 372

Gotta have internal 373

Weighing Attractive Add-Ons 374

Game controllers 374

External drive arrays 374

Video controllers 375

Audio hardware and MIDI controllers 375

Chapter 22: Tackling the Housekeeping 377

Cleaning Unseemly Data Deposits 377

Managing your storage in macOS (or cleaning things the elegant way) 378

Getting dirty (or cleaning things the manual way) 379

Using a commercial cleanup tool 382

Backing Up Your Treasure 383

Saving Files 384

Backing up to an external drive 384

Backing up to DVD 384

Putting Things Right with Time Machine 386

Maintaining Drive Health 388

Automating Those Mundane Chores 388

Creating an application in Automator 389

Creating an Automator login item 390

Updating macOS Automatically 391

Part 7: The Part of Tens 393

Chapter 23: Ten Ways to Speed Up Your iMac 395

Nothing Works Like a Shot of Memory 396

Hold a Conversation with Your iMac 396

What's Up, Siri? 397

Keep Your Desktop Background Simple 397

Column Mode Is for Power Users 398

Make the Dock Do Your Bidding 398

It All Started with Keyboard Shortcuts 399

Hey, You Tweaked Your Finder! 399

Keep in Touch with Your Recent Past 400

Go Where the Going Is Good 400

Chapter 24: Ten Things to Avoid Like the Plague 401

Keep Things Cool 402

Phishing Is No Phun 402

Don't Rely on a Single Password 403

Do You Really Want a Submerged Keyboard? 404

Don't Use Antiquated Utility Software 404

Don't Endorse Software Piracy 405

Call It the Forbidden Account 405

Don't Settle for a Surge Suppressor 406

Refurbished Hardware Is No Deal at All 406

iMacs Appreciate iCleanliness 407

Index 409

Mark L. Chambers is a technical author, computer consultant, programmer, and hardware technician with over 30 years of experience. He has written over 30 computer books, including MacBook For Dummies, 9th Edition and Macs For Seniors For Dummies, 4th Edition.