Apple’s macOS is a popular operating system and includes a number of important usability features. In this video, you’ll learn about file types, the Apple App Store, system folders, backup features, and more.
Apple’s macOS is very similar to Windows, Linux, and other operating systems in a number of ways. One of these is the way that macOS uses file types. This is an extension that is put onto the end of a file name that commonly denotes what that particular file is used for.
For example, if you’re using Microsoft Word, then you’ve probably seen a docx extension. If you have compressed files, they may be compressed with zip and you have a .zip extension. In macOS, we have a number of important extensions you need to know about.
One of them is the .dmg extension. This is an Apple disk image. This is very similar in functionality to an ISO, image, but it is specifically made to work on a macOS device. If you were to mount that .dmg file, it would look as a drive inside of your Apple finder.
Another important file type in macOS is the .pkg file type. This is an installer package, and it’s used to distribute software. Instead of running setup.exe, like you would in Microsoft Windows, you install an application that has a .pkg extension, and it runs through an installer script on your macOS desktop. And in macOS, we don’t have .exe files. We instead have .app files.
A-P-P stands for the application bundle. This is a little bit different than an executable because an app file contains many different files inside of it. It is indeed a bundle. And you can view this bundle of files by right-mouse clicking in the Finder and choosing View Package Contents. So although you’re double-clicking on this app file to start an application, it’s really accessing a number of different files that are held within this application bundle. From the end-user’s perspective, they never see this bundle of files. All they see is the .app file, and they can double-click that file to start their application.
macOS also has an App Store. This is a centralized repository of applications, updates, and a way to centralize all of these patches under one application. If you’re wondering if there are updates to a particular application, or you’d like to know if application updates have already been installed, you can start the App Store application and click on the Updates option to see what the most recent updates are.
This can be set up to automatically install these updates so you never have to think about it. Your applications are automatically updated when they’re made available to the App Store. Or you can choose to install these manually. So you can go through this list and manually choose what applications you would like to update and when you would like to update those. And if you’d like to get a much larger list of all of the applications that are installed and their latest status, you can click the User ID and name down on the bottom left of the App Store.
Applications in macOS usually don’t have an Uninstall application. To remove an application, you simply delete the .app file. It goes into your trash, and the application is uninstalled. This is one of the benefits of having an application bundle. To get rid of all of the files associated with that application, you simply delete the entire bundle. However, there may be times when you have an application that does have a formal uninstall program.
You simply start the uninstall program, and it will go through the process of formally uninstalling the app from your macOS machine. For example, this LogitechGamingSoftware.app includes an uninstaller.app. And you can run that program to remove everything associated with the Logitech Gaming application.
Just as Windows has special folders for holding user documents or storing program files, we also have special folders within macOS. One of these special folders is the Applications folder. And as the name implies, this is the folder that contains all of the applications that you’ve installed. This is very similar to the Program Files folder that you might see within Windows. So it’s one place to go in your finder that says Applications, and it lists out every app that you can access in macOS.
And of course, these are application bundles. So if you want to uninstall an application, you simply highlight it in the Applications folder, hit the Delete key, and it is uninstalled from your system. And just as we have a users folder in Windows, we also have a users folder in macOS. This is where all of our user documents are stored. And there will usually be multiple folders within the user folder, one for each user that logs into that system.
I pinned my user folder on my left-side favorites list. And you can see here there is a Professor folder that has a little house next to it. That is my home directory. And it’s found under /users/professor.
There are some folders in macOS that are used by multiple people who have access to this system. One of these is the /Library folder. This is a library folder that is just off the root of the macOS file system. These are support files, such as scripts, fonts, and other files that may be used by multiple applications and by multiple users on the system.
Each user also has their own Library folder. We usually designate this as a ~/Library. This means that’s your home directory. And within your own home directory is a library folder. If you went into /users/professor, you would also find a /users/Professor/library, for example. These are files that normally a user would not need access to. And by default, this folder is hidden within the finder. You can still directly access this folder, of course. So if you need to do any troubleshooting, you can always go directly to the ~/Library folder.
And of course, we need somewhere to store all of the important operating system files for macOS. And in this operating system, we store them under /System. This is very similar to the files that we might store under a backslash Windows directory on your Windows computer.
If you own an Apple device, then you’re probably already aware of the Apple ID. This is an identification that you use to log in to your Apple device that designates that device as belonging to you. You would normally use that Apple ID with all of the Apple devices you own. So when you purchase an app on one device, that app appears on all of the other devices that you’re using.
If you’re using an Apple device for business, then you don’t want to use your personal Apple ID. Instead, you would use a Managed Apple ID. This is something that’s managed by the company through an application called the Apple Business Manager. This also integrates with Active Directory, so you may be able to use the same username and password you use for your Windows infrastructure to integrate into your Apple infrastructure.
This also allows connectivity with an MDM, or a Mobile Device Manager, so that you can manage all of these devices from one central point. And of course, the person managing all of these devices for the organization can use Apple Business Manager to move apps, assign permissions, and coordinate the access of data among all of these different devices.
Backups are an important task that can often resolve a number of different problems you might run into. And there is a backup application included with the macOS operating system called Time Machine. Time Machine provides automatic hourly backups to a centralized Time Machine server. And since this backup is occurring behind the scenes, you can use Time Machine to go back in time to find exactly the file you’re looking for.
Time Machine also creates daily backups for the past month. And you can get weekly backups for all previous months before that. Of course, there’s only so much space on a backup volume. And Time Machine will begin to delete the oldest documents as you begin running out of space on your Time Machine volume.
Although there are some anti-malware features built into the macOS operating system, there’s no single application you can use to check antivirus or anti-malware features. However, there are many different third parties that create security software for antivirus or anti-malware that you can install on macOS. And although the vast majority of malicious software is written specifically for Windows, there is still dangerous software that can be installed on a macOS operating system.
You, of course, still need to use best practices for security, regardless of what operating system that you’re using. And if you are using third-party software, it might be a good idea to increase the frequency of updates to make sure that you are always able to identify the latest malware.
macOS also includes an automated process for updating the operating system itself. This software update feature can be found under your System Settings in the General section, and it’s under Software Updates. This is different than the updates you have in the App Store, which are really focused on individual applications. This part of the software update features inside of your system settings is designed for updates of the operating system itself.
You also have control over what type of updates are installed. For example, you can choose to download new updates the moment they’re available. You can install macOS updates or choose not to install updates to the core operating system. This is also where you can tell the App Store to install application updates automatically. And there’s also a section for installing security responses and system files. And we’ll talk about those in just a moment.
You also have the option for installing beta updates. These are updates to the operating system that have not been released yet by Apple and are generally in a testing phase. This feature is not turned on by default, and you want to be very careful about turning on beta updates because some of these updates are not fully tested and could cause problems with your operating system.
Many of the patches that we have for our operating systems are things that we can install normally every month. These may not be high-priority updates but may be important to keep the operating system running at peak efficiency. But occasionally, there may be a security issue that needs to be patched immediately. And the macOS operating system includes a way to do this through the Rapid Security Response, or RSR.
You’ll find the option to disable Rapid Security Response under the options included in the Automatic Update section. This last option for installing security responses and system files is turned on by default. This is also a feature available in iOS and iadOS, so if you’re using an Apple iPhone or an iPad, then you have this option also available in those operating systems.
This allows Apple to push out these updates immediately if there is a critical security issue. And if they have sent out an update, they will modify the number associated with the operating system version. And if you happen to have a letter next to the OS version, that means that it has received a Rapid Security Response update.