macOS Catalina: The Missing Manual

Chapter 11. The Free Programs of macOS

Right out of the box, macOS comes with a healthy assortment of about 50 freebies: programs for reading books, finding your way, writing documents, doing math, even playing games. They’re all designed not only to show off some of macOS’s most dramatic technologies, but also to let you get real work done without having to invest in additional software.

Some of the programs you’ll find in your Applications list are covered in other chapters: App Store (“The Mac App Store”), Launchpad (“Launchpad”), Mission Control (“Mission Control: Death to Window Clutter”), Time Machine (“Editing the Share Menu”), System Preferences (“The System Preferences Window”), Photos (“UP TO SPEED: The Deal with Microsoft Word”), Preview (“Preview”), Font Book (Figure 15-13) QuickTime Player (“QuickTime Player”), TV (“Saving the finished movie”), Music (“TV Output”), Voice Memos (“Voice Memos”), Mail (“Setting Up Mail”), Contacts (“More Anti-Spam Tips”), Safari (“The Unified Address/Search Bar”), and Messages (“Welcome to Messages”).

This chapter guides you through the rest of your software library, one program at a time. The important programs sit in the Applications folder in the main hard drive window, and a couple of dozen less frequently used apps await in the Applications→Utilities folder.

Tip

You can jump straight to the Applications folder in the Finder by pressing Shift--A (the shortcut for Go→Applications), or by clicking the Applications folder icon in the ...