Welcome to Mac Help, our new column focused on helping you, the reader, with troubles you're having on your Mac. This installment's question comes from Doug Larsen, who needs help sharing files between his and his wife's user accounts on their family Mac.
Dough writes:
My wife and I sometimes want to share files with each other. A year ago we got our first Mac but before that we were both longtime Windows users. In fact neither of us had even touched a Mac before that so everything about OSX is new to us.
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I setup different user accounts for us and for the life of me I can't find an easy way to share files. With Windows you have the Public folders where files are easily shared but on the Mac there doesn't seem to be anything like it. I always have to find some clunky workaround to share a file with my wife who is using the very same machine.
There is an equivalent to the Public folders feature in Windows, but it's pretty well hidden. For whatever reason, Apple doesn't make it very easy to use. Fortunately it's not difficult to set up.
First of all, setting up different user accounts on the same Mac is a great way to keep things organized, and I wish more people would do it. You share the same applications and system files, but your individual settings and your documents are completely different. It's an efficient and productive way to let more than one person use the same Mac. So kudos, Doug, on doing the right thing.
If you check your /Users directory, you should see a folder called 'Shared.' That folder is dedicated to shared files that can be managed between different user accounts. A few of the applications I've installed use it so they can run without any trouble regardless of which user account is active, but you can use it for whatever you wish.
To access the Shared folder, simply open the Finder and select the Go menu, then select Go to folder.. (or type command-shift-G). Then type /Users and hit return.
You should be staring at the list of user folders on your Mac, with a Shared folder there as well. If you'd like to make it easier to access, simply drag that Shared folder into the Favorites sidebar on the left of your Finder window, or (as I pointed out in last week's column), command-drag it to the Finder toolbar if you'd prefer to have it on the top.
Either way you'll be able to access the Shared folder instantly, so you and your wife can both have access to common files you need. Whoever created the file will retain ownership of it, so the second person will need to make a copy of it and edit the copy. Eye tracking app for mac windows 10.
Another way to do it is to use a third-party sync tool like Dropbox, but that requires you to upload and download the file using the Internet. This way the file stays local only on your Mac, which could be an important consideration if security (or bandwidth conservation) is paramount.
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OS X Mavericks is very good at handling multiple displays. Any active display can have a Menu Bar now. But how do you get the dock to actually appear on the active display? Here's how to do it.
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In Mavericks, any display can be the active display. You can tell which one is active by looking at the Menu Bar at the top. The active display will be crisp and white while non-active displays will have a Menu Bar that's dimmed and translucent.
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My second display, made active but no dock.
One might expect that by clicking in a secondary display, the dock would jump over there. But it doesn't.
To bring the dock over to a different display:
If you've clicked on a display to make it active, note how the Menu Bar brightens. But you don't need to.
Without clicking the mouse again, move the cursor all the way down to the bottom of the screen. This is the same technique as if you had invoked System Preferences > Dock > 'Automatically hide and show the Dock.'
When the cursor touches the bottom, the Dock will rise up from the bottom and stay there on the selected display. (If you had previously enabled 'Automatically hide and show the Dock,' it will disappear as you move the mouse upwards, but remain tied to that display.)
To move the Dock back to the main display (or any other display), repeat the process starting with Step #1.
Active (second) display after sliding the cursor to the bottom. The Dock rises!
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Discussion
My theory is that the dock doesn't jump between screens when you make a new one active because it may not need to. There doesn't seem to be any point in this kind of abrupt, possibly dizzying animation, especially without the user's consent.
Also, this movement of the Dock isn't really a Preference. It's more of a dynamic user action, a Finder gesture if you will. I believe that's why there's no reference to this gesture in System Preferences - which is where one might be tempted to look.
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Finally, if you're one of those people who puts the dock, vertically, on the left side of your main display and the second display is logically to the left, the cursor will just slide to the second screen, as it should. As with this case, there may be other combinations that don't work as expected.