macOS Catalina: The Missing Manual

Chapter 14. Photos

Apple loves introducing or standardizing some new technology, persuading us to use it—and then abandoning it the minute a better tech comes along. (The floppy drive, CD burner, 30-pin connector, headphone jack…)

And sure enough. It replaced the beloved but aging iPhoto with a new Mac app called Photos, updated for the modern age of phone photos. And in Catalina, it has overhauled Photos yet again, to make it look and work more like the iPhone/iPad version.

The Top Controls

The controls along the top of the window come and go, depending on the mode you’re using. But you may as well meet the most common ones:

• The slider at top left controls the size of the thumbnails. (You can also pinch or spread two fingers on your trackpad, if you have one.)

• The button opens an information panel. For a single photo, it reveals the date, time, shutter speed, file size, and other photographic details; for a group of photos, it shows you how many there are, their date range, and how much storage they’re eating up.

• opens the Share sheet. This is where you can do something with this photo besides just staring at it. You can use it as your Mac’s wallpaper, print it, copy it, text it, send it by email, use it as somebody’s headshot in your Contacts list, and so on.

• Favorite (). When ...