Forgetting Things Mac OS

Arbi Karamians December 17, 2007 TutorialsMac

By pressing certain key combinations, you can do things that normally need a mouse, trackpad, or other input device. To use a keyboard shortcut, press and hold one or more modifier keys and then press the last key of the shortcut. For example, to use Command-C (copy), press and hold the Command key, then the C key, then release both keys. Once a wireless network has been forgotten, Mac OS X will no longer join it automatically – even if it is the only network available. If you change your mind, the forgotten network (s) can be re-joined or remembered again simply by choosing it from the wi-fi menu bar selection. You can also remove it again at anytime by repeating the same steps. Don't forget that, if you have a modern Mac that has Bluetooth 4.0 and a recent iOS device (iPhone 5 or later, for example), then you can easily send files from your Mac to your iOS device using. Open the Apple menu and select Shut Down or hold down the power button and select Shut Down from the pop-up menu. Hold down the power button to turn the Mac on again and hold for several seconds.

This tutorial is out of date and no longer maintained.

It’s been a couple months since Apple released its new operating system Mac OS X Leopard, and that’s more than enough time to give it a nice once over. (See our introduction to Leopard and some of our favorite Leopard features.) The first thing you’ll notice is the new look. Not just the new dock or the new login screen, but also the folders and the crisper, sleeker look of icons and folders. We think it’s safe to say Apple junkies were expecting something pretty, because if there’s one thing Apple is known for, it’s their impressive design. Once you can get past the pretty, shiny things, you start to notice some amazing functionality.

We want to outline some of the more significant upgrades and 10 things you’ll love about Leopard. The following items will be in no particular order simply because people use their computers for different reasons and our number 1 might be your number 10. That said, let’s look at some of the fun new features.

1. The Dock

We mentioned the dock a bit earlier simply because it’s worth mentioning. You’ll immediately notice that the dock is laid out differently in the sense that it’s now more “3D” as the icons are laid out on plane rather than a backdrop. Oh, and did we mention that it’s reflective?

Once you’re done minimizing and maximizing windows to see the cool effects, you’ll notice that the dock has some new functions. After your initial startup you’ll have new icons for Spaces, Time Machine, Systems Preferences, as well as a Downloads folder icon. We’ll cover most of these later on, but let’s look at the Downloads folder next.

2. Downloads Folder

Forgetting Things Mac Os Download

This feature kind of broadsides you, because you don’t need it until you actually download something. Forget the days where your desktop would be cluttered with PDFs, PSDs, and DMGs. Any download you start will automatically go straight into your download folder, so no more forgetting whether you chose Desktop, Pictures, or some other location to save your file.

You’ll know exactly where your download went, and you’ll know exactly where to go to get it. Doesn’t sound like an entirely innovative idea, we know, but trust us: After a few downloads you’ll start to love it. Now, let’s say you’ve been downloading pictures of your favorite actor or actress for your side project as an “entertainment blogger” and you want to find a specific picture from the downloads folder. Bring on Stacks!

3. Stacks

Stacks are folders you can place in your dock for items you need to quickly access. Downloads is a Stack that comes pre-installed with your new Leopard Dock. The name “Stacks” doesn’t make sense until you see how it works. Click on the Downloads folder and you get a stack of the pictures, folders, and anything else you’ve downloaded.

The items in that stack will fan out and allow you to see what’s in that specific folder. You can change the preferences to have your items displayed in a grid if you don’t like the fan feature. Whether you use fan or grid is irrelevant. The main point is that you have all of your folder items right there in front of you, but more importantly out of your way. See, isn’t it nice to have a nice clean desktop? We think so too, and so do second and third grade teachers all over world.

4. Spaces

Spaces is useful for the serious multi-taskers out there. Let’s say you’re a super hero and you’re designing new outfits while you’re checking on stats in your fantasy football league. Mouse right click. (What? Super heroes don’t like fantasy sports?) Spaces can accommodate! You can arrange different Spaces for different things and even assign a specific Space to specific programs.

You can also add more columns and rows and have up to 16 different Spaces! With 16 Spaces you can certainly get all your super hero work done. Seriously, though: If you’re wearing lycra spandex you’ve got other things to worry about.

5. Time Machine

It’s happened to all of us – you’re using your computer and you accidentally delete something. Something important: Documents from your childhood, your project due in 5 hours, or maybe even your pictures of Jessica Simpson for your entertainment blog. You’re in trouble, right? Nope, because you had the good sense to set up Time Machine, which backs up all of your files automatically to a storage device.

Simply click on the Time Machine icon and it allows you to scroll back and forth through your Mac’s history and choose a time period that would restore your Mac and restore the data you just lost. Time and time again you’ve been told backing up your files is important, necessary, and a lifesaver. It’s all true. And now it’s also easy - so easy that after you set it up you won’t even know you’re doing it.

6. Boot Camp

Intel-Mac users were very excited to hear that Apple would make Boot Camp available to the public – something that allowed all Intel-based Macs to use Windows. Now Boot Camp is built into Leopard and is no longer a secondary install. If you’ve never used Boot Camp, the setup assistant will guide you through your setup process. Simply grab a copy of Windows and run the setup process.

So now when you need to use a Windows program, for whatever the reason, Boot Camp makes it increasingly simple to do so. As the Apple website says, “Leopard is the world’s most advanced operating system. So advanced, it even lets you run Windows…”

7. Parental Controls

Have some little Mac users in your home? Want to make sure they’re safely using the family computer? You can manage your child’s usage in a number of ways while monitoring their use. You can limit the applications they use, content they view on the web, limit mail and iChat usage, place time limits on when and how long they use the computer, and view logs of websites visited, applications used, and what they did on iChat. It’s all available in your Mac’s System Preferences.

In a world of uncertainty, it’s good to know you can be certain your child is safe when they’re on the computer.

8. Finder

Another improvement to an already useful feature can be found in Finder. You will immediately notice the new sidebar and how items are grouped. The most useful groups are the Today, Yesterday, Past Week, All Movies, All Images and All Documents groups. Yup, they’re all exactly what they say they are.

The Today folder will show you all the files you’ve accessed that day, and the Yesterday folder will show you all the files you accessed yesterday. Most effective card counting system. The All Movies folder will show every movie you have on your Mac, and The All Images folder will show you all the images on your Mac.

9. Cover Flow

Cover Flow looks as good as it is useful. Never before have you been able to visually arrange your files and folders. It’s always been grids or lists of files and folders and frankly, it’s just boring.

Let’s say you’re looking for a specific picture of Tony Danza for your blog: You shouldn’t have to click on each picture one by one to view them all. In cover flow just hit the arrows right or left or drag the bar and you scroll through pictures with ease. In my opinion, Tony Danza has never looked better.

10. Roll Your Own

Forgetting Things Mac Os X

We’re leaving the last item up for grabs. The reason? Apple released Leopard with 300 new features and to choose just 10 to discuss is somewhat silly. So number 10 is up to you. We’ve simply outlined 9 features which are the most notable upgrades in the new version of OS X - so go ahead and take off that Super Hero cape and put down the People Magazine you’re using for blog research and take a look around your Mac and find whichever feature you’d consider to be number 10!

Subscribe to our email newsletter

Sign up and get Macinstruct's tutorials delivered to your inbox. No spam, promise!

A lovely aspect of any macOS is just how thought-out most of the processes are, without users having to even lift a finger. For example, once you connect to a WiFi network on your Mac, it will remember the network forever and automatically join it every time it becomes available.

When the WiFi is buggy and needs some work though, automatic connection might pose a problem. So learning how to forget networks on Mac might prove to be useful sooner or later.

One app can solve every Mac problem

Get Setapp to fix your WiFi issues. Actually, all kinds of issues. It’s a universal Mac assistant that solves your tasks with apps.

How To Delete Network On Mac And Optimize WiFi

Your Mac’s ability to remember all past wireless connections, especially if you tend to travel regularly, will add up to quite a long scroll pretty quickly. Just imagine every new WiFi login at the airport, train station, hotel, restaurant, client’s office, open public network, and more. A good thing, at least, is that all WiFi credentials are stored in Apple Keychain, which then makes them available on your iPhone and iPad through iCloud. So why do you sometimes need to delete networks and how to do it?

Why forget a network on MacBook

Contrary to what you’d normally expect, lots of people search for how to forget network on Mac, as automatically connecting to networks sometimes creates more problems than convenience. Let’s take a look at some examples:

  • You’ve used your neighbor’s WiFi during dinner, and your Mac keeps connecting to their network, even when you’re back home

  • You want to automatically connect to another network in your building

  • You might be interested in how to delete network on Mac when you have a hard time with your regular WiFi and want to reset it

  • You could’ve accidentally connected to the wrong open network or public WiFi, which is not ideal for private matters such as online banking

  • You intend to clean up your long list of networks just to keep things tidy

Once you’ve decided to forget WiFi network on Mac, the process is fairly easy — just follow the guide below.

How to forget a network on Mac

If joining any given WiFi every time it’s in range is bothering you, just forget network on Mac with a few straightforward steps.

This is how to delete WiFi network on Mac:

  1. Click the WiFi icon in the menu bar ➙ Open Network Preferences

  2. With WiFi selected, hit Advanced

  3. Scroll through Preferred Networks to find the one you no longer want to auto-join

  4. Select that network ➙ click the minus (-) button below to forget a network on MacBook

  5. Repeat for every network you’d like to delete or highlight a few to remove at once

Bonus: you can literally drag the networks up and down to indicate priority. The ones higher up are going to be connected to first. When you’re done, simply hit OK to save changes.

Once you get your MacBook to forget networks, you’ll no longer get connected to them, unless you do so manually. Your iCloud Keychain will also be updated, so the change will affect all the devices that sync to the same iCloud account. Boreout! mac os.

How to rejoin a forgotten WiFi network?

Once you forget WiFi network on Mac, it won’t automatically join it anymore — but, of course, you’ll still be able to do so if you want to. Simply treat the network as any new WiFi you’d like to connect to: click on the name of the network when you’re in its range and provide the password — from now on your Mac will auto-join it again.

Or not. If you’d rather have it as a one-time connection, it’s fairly easy to ensure when you know where to look:

Forgetting things mac os download
  1. Click on the WiFi icon in the menu bar

  2. Open Network Preferences

  3. Make sure to uncheck “Automatically join this network”

  4. Apply to save the changes

How to optimize the quality of your WiFi connection?

Learning how to forget WiFi on Mac may, in fact, help with the quality of your wireless connection in general. And if you need more tinkering — why not let the Apple ecosystem do all the heavy lifting? Start by testing performance-enhancing apps like NetSpot and WiFi Explorer.

Control your network

With NetSpot installed on Mac, there’s no WiFi problem that can’t be fixed. The app identifies problems and solves them automatically.

NetSpot will diagnose, manage, troubleshoot, and boost your WiFi coverage without requiring you to have any special technical background. This app’s WiFi channel scanner effortlessly determines real-time upload and download speeds, visualizes signal strength in any living area or office space, troubleshoots signal problems, and detects WiFi dead spots. In short — an ideal companion for planning smart WiFi networks, no matter the size, or simply improving existing ones with a few additional hotspots.

Forgetting Things Mac Os Catalina

To see if your WiFi is the best it can be:

  1. Switch tabs to Survey in NetSpot’s toolbar

  2. Click “Start a new survey”

  3. Fill out the basic info and Continue

  4. Draw or upload the map of your space

  5. Input two points by clicking on the map and specify the actual distance between them in the box below and click Continue

  6. Place the marker on the map for it to scan your WiFi

For help with more data-based WiFi connection troubleshooting — give WiFi Explorer, another network analyzer, a try.

WiFi Explorer can help you identify and fix common network problems with your connection without the need to call your ISP (because who wants to do that?). The app will scan your network environment for band range, signal quality, security status, and more to identify channel conflict and coverage issues, and give you recommendations on how to improve your WiFi connection quality.

What’s especially helpful — WiFi Explorer will create visual graphs that make it easy for you to assess the situation at a glance without having to dive deep into the numbers. To start with WiFi Explorer:

  1. Simply launch the app for it to begin gathering data

  2. Move through tabs like Network Details, Signal Strength, and Spectrum to see WiFi performance visually, or refer to the table for raw stats

Now you see why learning “how do you forget a network on a Mac” is useful for cutting down the number of WiFis your Mac auto-joins and hence improves the overall quality of your connection.

Best of all, don’t just try to forget WiFi network on Mac manually, use NetSpot and WiFi Explorer, which are both available to try for free via Setapp, a platform of more than 200 Mac apps created to solve just about any problem you might have with your Mac.

Now when you know how to forget a WiFi network on Mac, you can go and enjoy all the things your Mac does for you automatically to improve your life!

Setapp uses cookies to personalize your experience on our website. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our cookie policy.