macOS Overview – CompTIA A+ 220-1102 – 1.10

macOS includes important tools for managing the operating system. In this video, you’ll learn about file types, the Apple App Store, corporate restrictions, backups, and more.


If you’re working with apps inside of Mac OS, then there are a number of file formats you need to know about. One of these is the DMG file format. This is the Apple disk image format. And if you double click this file, it will open up inside of your finder, and show you all of the files that are contained within this disk image. This is commonly used to distribute software where you can double click the DMG file, see the list of all of the files inside of that image, and then launch the setup program from inside the disk image.

Some application developers will distribute their application through an installer package, and it’s delivered as a .pkg file. This is very similar to a setup.exe program that you might see in Windows. You double click the pkg file in Mac OS, and it will start a setup program where it can ask you questions and then perform the installation for that software.

And once the software is installed, you can usually find it as a .app file or application bundle. To you this appears in the file system as a single file. But you can right mouse click on the app file, and view package contents to see all of the files that are used by that application. This makes it very easy to manage this app. If you need to move the app, you just move the .app file, and if you need to remove the app from your system, you simply delete the .app file.

If this application was installed from the Apple App Store, then you can perform all of the management of that application in the store itself. There’s an option within the store for updates, and it will show you all of the applications that need to be updated on your system. This can be done automatically behind the scenes, or you can specify individual applications to update. You can also view a list of all of the apps that you’ve installed from the App Store, allowing you to decide what apps you’d like to keep on your system and which ones you may want to remove.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s very easy to remove a .app application file because you simply move it to the trash, and your application is now uninstalled. There are some applications, though, where you would need to run a separate uninstallation program. This is usually included in a folder associated with the app. So you might have a Logitech.app file, but a separate uninstaller.app that then removes all of these files from your system.

If you own an iPhone, iPad, or Mac OS computer, then you probably have a personal Apple ID that you use for authentication. You can view this in the operating system itself, and it allows you to connect to iCloud and synchronize across all of these different Apple products. But if you’re using Apple hardware that was provided by a company, you don’t want to use your personal Apple ID.

Instead, you’ll be assigned a managed Apple ID, and that’s managed by your employer through the Apple Business manager. This allows them to integrate these systems with Active Directory infrastructure that may already be in place. It can connect to the corporate MDM, or mobile Device Manager, and your employer may use this to manage the deployment of applications on these Apple devices.

If you’re using Mac OS, then you have a backup system built into the operating system called time machine. Time machine will take all of the files that are on your system and back them up to a separate file repository. It will then take any changes that occur every hour and back up those files as well. It performs daily backups for an entire month, and then it rolls everything up into monthly updates that are available on that storage facility.

As long as you have drive space available, you can continue to add files for weekly, daily, and hourly backups. But eventually, you will run out of space on that backup system, and time machine will automatically delete any of the oldest files while you’re saving the newest ones to the time machine backup.

If you’ve ever installed Windows, then that Windows comes with its own version of anti-malware software. But if you look at Mac OS, you’ll notice that antivirus or anti-malware software is not included with the operating system. However, there are many third party options available for installing real time and on demand scanning for malware on Mac OS.

In the industry, the vast majority of malware and other malicious software is running on a Windows platform. And there are methods within Mac OS that are designed to prevent this malware from getting on to a system and propagating itself. But you may still want to install some third party software to add additional security to the operating system. If you do install some anti-malware software, just make sure that it’s scheduled to update itself constantly so that you’re always checking against the latest anti-malware signatures.