Lesson 2. Set Up and Configure macOS

This lesson focuses on both initial setup and ongoing macOS configuration. With a new installation of macOS, you use Setup Assistant for configuration. After that, you almost always use System Preferences and configuration profiles. This lesson also introduces the tools you use to verify system information.

If you have just upgraded an existing Mac with a previous version of an Apple operating system, you will still see Setup Assistant, but you will be presented with fewer configuration steps. Most importantly, you will be prompted to enter your Apple ID and password to complete the iCloud setup. Even if you previously set up iCloud on an existing Mac, when Setup Assistant is running you need to reenter your authentication information to complete the upgrade to macOS Sierra.

Several Setup Assistant steps are optional, and some steps may not appear depending on the Apple operating system configuration. Even so, a few steps are required to set up macOS Sierra. While you’re in Setup Assistant you cannot skip these steps:

Language selection

Country selection

Keyboard setup

Apple terms and conditions acceptance

First account creation

You can easily change the settings you select in Setup Assistant by accessing corresponding settings in System Preferences. Changing settings after completing Setup Assistant is covered later in this lesson.

Next, the Setup Assistant screen requires that you select your country; this information is used to set regional language options, set the appropriate Apple online stores, and complete the registration processes. At this point, you will also have to select the primary keyboard layout. System language and keyboard layout settings can be changed later from Language & Region preferences.

Otherwise, the assistant will try to figure out which type of network connection you need to set up and present you with the appropriate configuration screen. On most Mac computers, this will be the Wi-Fi network setup screen, where you can select a wireless network and authenticate to it. Alternatively, you can postpone setting up networking at this point, and do it later from Network preferences. Lesson 19, “Manage Basic Network Settings,” covers this topic in greater detail.

If you do not have a previous system to migrate settings and data from, leave the default choice, and click Continue to proceed with the Setup Assistant process.

Once you have entered or created an Apple ID during Setup Assistant, the account is automatically configured for several services, including Messages, FaceTime, Game Center, and iCloud. Additionally, if the Apple ID has been previously used for purchasing, it will be automatically configured in the various online store applications including the Mac App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store. If you use separate Apple IDs for iCloud and store purchases, you also have the option to enter both Apple IDs during the Setup Assistant process. Lastly, in subsequent Setup Assistant steps, this Apple ID will be preentered for optional configuration of computer account setup and system registration.

Two-step verification for Apple ID was introduced in 2013 and can be enabled from the Apple ID account page, https://appleid.apple.com/. Because of its age, two-step verification can support older Mac operating systems and iOS versions.

Two-factor authentication uses improved methods to trust devices and deliver verification codes, and offers a more streamlined user experience. However, two-factor authentication is only available to Apple IDs with iCloud enabled and at least one device that’s using iOS 9 or OS X El Capitan 10.11 or later. Further, two-factor authentication can be enabled only from a Mac or iOS device meeting these system requirements.

When entering an Apple ID while using the macOS Sierra Setup Assistant, a variety of situations can occur depending on the security configuration of your Apple ID:

If you’re entering an Apple ID that already has two-step verification or two-factor authentication enabled, you will be prompted to verify your Apple ID via additional steps. At the time of this writing, if your Apple ID has two-step verification enabled, you are not required to update to two-factor authentication.

If you’re creating a new Apple ID, you will be prompted to enter security information, including the option to enable two-factor authentication. Because you’re using macOS Sierra, you will not have the option to enable the older two-step verification method.

If you’re entering an Apple ID that hasn’t been used in a while and doesn’t have additional security features enabled, you will be prompted to update your security settings, including optionally enabling two-factor authentication. Again, because you’re using macOS Sierra, you will not have the option to enable the older two-step verification method.

Only Apple IDs that have signed in to iCloud on a Mac or an iOS device have access to iCloud services. If an existing Apple ID has never been used for iCloud, entering this account during Setup Assistant will upgrade the Apple ID to include iCloud services. Further, Setup Assistant will automatically configure your Mac to use iCloud for most services.

The following iCloud services will be enabled by default in most cases: iCloud Drive, Photos, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Safari, Notes, and Find My Mac. If the Apple ID you enter belongs to the @mac.com, @me.com, or @icloud.com domain, then Mail is also automatically configured. After you create your local computer account, Setup Assistant will also prompt you to enable iCloud Keychain.

After setup, you can verify and modify iCloud service settings from iCloud preferences. iCloud is covered in this guide where appropriate—specifically, in Lesson 7, “Manage Security and Privacy,” Lesson 17, “Manage Documents,” and Lesson 22, “Manage Network Services.”

You must provide a new password for the local administrator account. Importantly, the password you define for this account does not need to match the Apple ID password.

As you can see in the previous screenshot, two methods are provided to help you recover from a lost password. First, you can define a password hint, which is a clue intended to help you if you forget this account’s password. Although you can define more than one word for the password hint, you cannot set the password hint to the same text as the password. In this case, a better choice is to allow your Apple ID to reset this account’s password. This feature can also be disabled, but it will come in handy later should you forget your account password.

If you choose not to set the time via Location Services or it isn’t enabled, you will be required to manually set a time zone for the system by selecting a city in your time zone. After setup, you can verify and modify these settings from the Date & Time preferences.

If you choose not to set up iCloud Keychain at this point, you can do so later from the iCloud Preferences. Lesson 8, “Manage Password Changes,” covers this topic in greater detail.

New in macOS Sierra is the ability to save the user’s local Desktop and Documents folders to iCloud Drive. Users signed in with an Apple ID that supports iCloud Drive will see the option to move their local Documents and Desktop folders to iCloud Drive.

If you choose not to upgrade to iCloud Drive or move the Documents and Desktop folders to iCloud Drive at this point, you can do so later from the iCloud preferences. Lesson 17, “Manage Documents,” covers this topic in greater detail.

If you select the option to turn on FileVault, you will also be allowed to save a FileVault recovery key to iCloud. If you don’t choose the option to allow iCloud to unlock the disk, then you will be presented with another screen showing the FileVault recovery key. In this case, you are responsible for manually saving the recovery key to a safe location.

After Setup Assistant is complete, the system will begin to encrypt the contents of the system volume. The computer will not have to restart, and the encryption will complete silently in the background. Because this option appears only on systems with a single local user account, only that local account will be allowed to unlock the encrypted system during startup. If the account password is lost, the disk will remain locked unless it is reset using a FileVault recovery key.

If you choose not to enable FileVault at this point, you can do so later from the Security & Privacy preferences. Lesson 10, “Manage FileVault,” covers this topic in greater detail.

When you open System Preferences, you’ll notice it is divided into four or five separate categories (rows) of preference icons. The first four categories of preference icons are built into macOS. Although the rows are not labeled in the interface, the first four categories represent personal, hardware, Internet, and system settings. A fifth, and final, category of preference icons will automatically appear if any third-party preferences are installed.

Accessing a set of preferences is as simple as clicking the relevant preference icon. Most System Preferences changes are instantaneous and don’t require you to click an Apply or OK button. In the System Preferences toolbar, clicking the Show All button (representing a grid of icons) to the right of the navigation arrows returns you to the view of all preferences.

You may notice that some preferences have a lock in the lower-left corner. These can be accessed only by an administrative user account. If a set of preferences you need to access is locked from editing, simply click the lock icon, and then authenticate as an administrative user to unlock it.

If you are logged in as a nonadministrative user in macOS, more preferences will be locked than if you are logged in as an administrative user. For example, if you are logged in as an administrative user, Mac App Store preferences will not show the lock icon, whereas if you are logged in as a nonadministrative user, Mac App Store preferences will be locked by default.

The lock icon appears in a variety of places, not just in System Preferences. The lock icon is a general indication that access to the item requires administrative authentication. This is often the case when an item represents a change that affects all users.

A profile is a document that includes instructions for specific settings. For example, profiles can contain settings for Internet accounts or network preferences. Profile documents can be identified by their icon and the filename extension of .mobileconfig.

When a profile is installed, user and system settings are automatically configured based on the profile’s content. Thus, an administrator can create a profile that contains a complex variety of settings and then share this profile document with multiple users. The users can then easily install the profile themselves instead of having to manually configure settings. In other words, profiles can save administrators as well as users a lot of time.

Both Apple and third-party developers provide software for creating profiles. Apple alone is responsible for multiple tools that can create profiles, including Xcode, the Apple Configurator application, and the Profile Manager service of macOS Server.

Different general types of profiles are tailored to specific purposes. For example, configuration profiles contain settings that automatically configure certain functions. Trust profiles contain digital certificates, which are used to validate and secure service connections. Enrollment profiles are used to establish a connection to a profile management service, more commonly known as a mobile device management (MDM) service.

Administrators can provide profiles through any means that one would use to share any other document. For example, an administrator could send a profile via email or make it available as a download from a link on a website. Alternatively, administrators can automatically push profiles to a macOS system that is enrolled in an MDM service like that provided by the Profile Manager service of macOS Server. Details regarding the creation of profiles are beyond the scope of this guide, but every Mac administrator should be familiar with how to identify and verify these profiles.

From Profiles preferences, any user with administrative privileges can install, verify, or delete a profile. The previous screenshot shows an installed trust profile that contains a digital certificate. Delivering this type of information via a profile is ideal, because it simplifies a process that would take several more complicated steps using a traditional method.

Verifying the results of an installed profile is a bit more difficult, because the profile could contain multiple settings that affect a variety of services and applications. However, inspecting the details section of an installed profile in Profiles preferences is a good starting point. Again, in the previous example, the Settings section shows that this is a trust profile containing a digital certificate. As covered in Lesson 8, “Manage Password Changes,” you can open the Keychain Access application to verify the installation of this certificate.

The initial view of the About This Mac window shows you the system software version, Mac model name, processor type and speed, total system memory, graphics card information, and Mac serial number. Clicking the system version number reveals the system build number.

Of the information in the About This Mac window, a few items are vital to the identification of the macOS system and Mac hardware:

System version number—This number represents the specific system software version currently installed on the computer. The first part, 10, obviously represents the tenth generation of the Mac operating system. The second section, 12, represents the twelfth major release of macOS. The final portion, in this case 2, represents an incremental update to the operating system. Incremental updates generally offer few feature changes but often include a number of security and bug fixes.

System build number—This appears when you click the system version number and is an even more granular representation of the specific system software version installed on the computer. Apple engineers create hundreds of versions of each system software release as they refine the product. The build number is used to track this process. Also, you may find that the computer-specific builds of macOS that come preinstalled on new Mac hardware differ from the standard installation builds. This is an important detail to note if you are creating system images for mass distribution—computer-specific builds of macOS may not work on other types of Mac hardware.

Mac model name—The Mac computer’s model name is most often derived from the product marketing name for the Mac, followed by a relative release date. For example, the previous screenshot was taken on a “MacBook Pro Retina, Mid 2012.” Because Apple releases very few Mac models each year, this naming convention is specific enough for hardware support identification.

Mac serial number—The hardware serial number is also located somewhere on the Mac case, but sometimes it can be difficult to find. Serving the same purpose here as it does on many other mass-produced products, the serial number is a unique number used to identify that particular Mac for maintenance and service issues.

Clicking the buttons across the About This Mac window’s toolbar reveals more details about the computer’s hardware and support options. Quite possibly the best feature of this window is the Support and Service buttons, which link directly to specifically useful areas of the Apple Support website. The contents of the links are generated dynamically to show the most up-to-date support information about macOS and your Mac. For example, the Specifications link opens a webpage with the full specifications for your specific Mac.

You will use System Information to locate critical system details in nearly every lesson of this guide. Additionally, one of the most important uses of System Information is as a documentation tool. Anytime you need to document the current state of a Mac, you can use System Information to create a detailed system report by choosing File > Save from the menu. This creates a System Information–specific file (with the .spx filename extension) that can be opened from other macOS systems.

Although these log files are stored in various locations on the system disk, you can easily locate and inspect log files via the /Applications/Utilities/Console.app. Opening Console reveals a list of log files under the Reports column. You’ll note some items in the Reports column are actually folders containing additional multiple log files. Simply select an item in the Reports column to reveal its contents.

The Console application is all new for macOS Sierra and includes useful new features such as the ability to easily find errors across all log files, and the ability to view the log files from iOS and tvOS devices connected via USB. Additionally, should you need to share a log file with others, you can do so easily by selecting the log file and then clicking the Share button in the toolbar.

You will use Console throughout this guide to uncover detailed information for various applications and processes.

The initial macOS configuration is simple, thanks to Setup Assistant. However, in this lesson you will learn how a few of these initial configuration settings can have fundamental and widespread effects on the system.

In this exercise, you will configure a clean installation of macOS on your class computer. Configuring macOS for this class entails answering a few basic questions and setting up the initial administrator user account. Completing these tasks will acquaint you with the Setup Assistant application.

1 At the Welcome screen, select the appropriate region, and click Continue.

2 At the Select Your Keyboard screen, select the appropriate keyboard layout, and click Continue.

Setup Assistant evaluates your network environment and tries to determine whether you are connected to the Internet. This can take a few moments.

3 If you are asked to select your Wi-Fi network or how you connect to the Internet, configure it appropriately for your Internet connection. If you are performing this exercise in a class, please ask your instructor how you should configure your computer.

If you are not asked about your Internet connection, your computer’s network settings have already been configured via DHCP, and you may move on to step 4.

4 At the “Transfer Information to This Mac” screen, select “Don’t transfer any information now,” and click Continue.

If you were replacing a computer, the other options would assist you in migrating user data and system information from the old computer to the new one.

5 If the “Enable Location Services” screen appears, select “Enable Location Services on this Mac,” and click Continue.

6 If the “Sign in with Your Apple ID” screen appears, select “Don’t sign in,” click Continue, and then click Skip in the confirmation dialog that appears.

You will set up an Apple ID account in a later exercise.

7 At the “Terms and Conditions” screen, read the macOS software license agreement. If there is more than one agreement, you may need to click “more” under each agreement to get the full text. When you have finished reading, click Agree.

8 In the confirmation dialog that appears, click Agree.

9 At the “Create a Computer Account” screen, enter the following information:

Full name: Local Admin

Account name: ladmin

Password: If you are performing this exercise in a class, enter ladminpw in the Password and Verify fields. If you are performing this exercise on your own, select a more secure password for the Local Admin account. Be sure to remember the password you have chosen since you will need to reenter it periodically as you use this computer.

You may provide a password hint and change the other options if you want.

10 Click Continue.

11 If you are prompted to, select your location to set the computer’s time zone; then click Continue.

12 If you are prompted to share diagnostics and usage, choose whether you want to share diagnostic information with Apple and application developers, and then click Continue.

13 If you are prompted to enable Siri, deselect “Enable Siri on this Mac,” and click Continue.

14 If you are prompted to set up Touch ID, click Continue, then click Set Up Touch ID Later, then click Continue in the confirmation dialog. These exercises do not use Touch ID.

Skip Exercise 2.2, “Configure an Existing macOS System for Exercises,” and proceed to Exercise 2.3, “Examine System Preferences,” to configure your preference settings.

To provide a consistent environment for the rest of the exercises in this guide, you will use System Preferences to create a new administrator account.

2 From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.

3 In System Preferences, click Users & Groups.

4 In the lower-left corner, click the lock icon.

5 In the dialog that appears, enter the password for your existing administrator account, and click Unlock.

6 Click the Add (+) button below the user list.

7 In the dialog that appears, enter the following information:

New Account: choose Administrator

Full Name: Local Admin

Account Name: ladmin

If you are performing this exercise in a class, enter ladminpw in the Password and Verify fields. If you are performing this exercise on your own, select a more secure password for the Local Admin account. Be sure to remember the password you have chosen since you will need to reenter it periodically as you use this computer.

You may provide a password hint if you want.

8 Click Create User.

9 If you are prompted to turn off automatic login, click Turn Off Automatic Login.

10 Quit System Preferences, and log out.

11 At the login screen, select the Local Admin account, and enter its password (ladminpw, or whatever you chose earlier).

12 Press Return.

13 When you are prompted to sign in with your Apple ID, select “Don’t sign in,” and click Continue.

You will set up an Apple ID account in a later exercise.

14 When a dialog appears asking if you are sure you want to skip signing in, click Skip.

15 If you are prompted to enable Siri, deselect “Enable Siri on this Mac,” and click Continue.

16 If you are prompted to set up Touch ID, click Continue, then click Set Up Touch ID Later, then click Continue in the confirmation dialog. These exercises do not use Touch ID.

17 If you are prompted to share diagnostic data with application developers, choose whether you want to do so, and click Continue.

Proceed to Exercise 2.3, “Examine System Preferences,” to configure your preference settings.

In this exercise, you will configure some preference settings to make the rest of the exercises easier. This exercise also introduces configuring application and system preferences in macOS.

1 If a notification informs you that software updates are available for your computer, click Later, and select Remind Me Tomorrow from the pop-up menu that appears.

You will install updates during the Lesson 4, “Update macOS Software,” exercises.

2 If a notification suggests turning on auto updates, click Not Now.

3 If any dialogs open with a “Do you want to use <some volume> to back up with Time Machine?” prompt, click Don’t Use in each dialog.

4 From the menu bar, choose Finder > Preferences. If you prefer, you can use the keyboard shortcut Command-Comma instead.

You can configure the Finder preferences in much the same way as any other macOS application.

5 Select the options to show hard disks and connected servers on the desktop.

6 From the “New Finder windows show” pop-up menu, choose your startup volume (typically named Macintosh HD).

7 At the top of the Finder Preferences window, click the Sidebar button.

8 Select “ladmin” in the Favorites section of the sidebar and “Hard disks” in the Devices section. “Hard disks” should be fully selected (a check mark in the checkbox), not just partially selected (a dash in the checkbox).

9 Close the Finder Preferences window.

1 From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.

2 In System Preferences, click the icon for Sharing preferences.

3 Enter a unique name for your computer in the Computer Name field. If you are performing these exercises in a class, your instructor may recommend a naming convention.

4 Press Return.

Notice that your local host name (.local name) that is displayed under your computer name updates to match your new computer name.

5 Depending on whether you are performing these exercises in a class or on your own, you may or may not need to set up the Remote Management service.

If you are performing these exercises on your own, skip ahead to “Adjust Your Trackpad/Mouse Preferences.”

6 If you are performing these exercises in a class, select the Remote Management checkbox.

A dialog asks what you want users to be able to do using Remote Management.

7 Hold down the Option key while clicking one of the checkboxes to select all the options in the dialog.

8 Click OK.

Note that since Control-click always works as a secondary click, these instructions describe it as Control-click.

1 Click the Show All (grid icon) button in the toolbar.

2 If you are using a trackpad, select the Trackpad pane.

Adjust the “Tap to Click” and “Secondary click” options to your liking. (A secondary click opens shortcut menus, normally the right mouse button or Control-click.)

Click “Scroll & Zoom,” and use the “Scroll direction: natural” option to adjust which direction it works. The default is that moving two fingers up moves the window contents up.

Check the other options under “Scroll & Zoom” and “More Gestures” and make any appropriate changes.

3 If you are using a mouse, select the Mouse pane.

If your mouse has a scroll wheel (or equivalent), use the “Scroll direction: natural” option to adjust in which direction it works. The default is that pushing the wheel up moves the window contents up.

If your mouse has multiple buttons, use the “Primary mouse button” option to control which button is the primary (used for selecting; usually the left button) and which button is the secondary (used for opening shortcut menus; usually the right button or Control-click).

4 Quit System Preferences.

Proceed to either Exercise 2.4, “Download the Student Materials in a Classroom,” or Exercise 2.5, “Download the Student Materials Independently,” depending on whether you are performing these exercises in a classroom or independently.

In this exercise, you will download the student materials required for the rest of the exercises in the guide.

1 If necessary, open a new Finder window by choosing File menu > New Finder Window or by using the shortcut Command-N.

Look for the server named Mainserver in the Shared section of the sidebar. If Mainserver is not shown, click All to view all the shared items.

2 Select Mainserver. If you had to click All in the previous step, you will have to double-click the Mainserver icon.

3 Open the Public folder.

2 Copy the folder by choosing Edit menu > Copy “StudentMaterials” from the menu bar, by pressing Command-C, or by Control-clicking the folder and choosing Copy “StudentMaterials” from the shortcut menu.

3 Open the Macintosh HD (either from your desktop or from the Finder window sidebar).

4 Open the Users folder.

5 Open the Shared folder.

6 Paste the StudentMaterials folder into the Shared folder by choosing Edit menu > Paste Item, by pressing Command-V, or by Control-clicking in the Shared folder and choosing Paste Item from the shortcut menu.

This creates a copy of the student materials on your computer. If your instructor has included software updates in the student materials, it may take several minutes to download them. You do not need to wait for it to finish.

7 Drag your copy of the StudentMaterials folder to the right side of the dividing line in the Dock. (The Dock is divided into two sections; the left side holds applications, and the right side holds folders and documents.) Be sure to place it between other entries (so it is added to the Dock) rather than over another entry (which would move it into that folder).

You will be opening the StudentMaterials folder frequently, and this gives you an easy shortcut to it.

8 Optionally, you can drag the StudentMaterials folder to the Finder sidebar in the Favorites section to give yourself another shortcut to access it. As in the Dock, be sure to place it between other entries.

9 Choose Go menu > Applications (or use the shortcut Command-Shift-A).

10 Drag the TextEdit application into the left side of your Dock so that you will always have an easy way to launch it.

11 If it hasn’t finished yet, wait for the StudentMaterials folder to finish downloading to your computer.

12 Unmount the Public folder by dragging its icon from the Desktop onto the eject icon at the right side of the Dock. The eject icon replaces the Trash icon when something ejectable is selected.

You should now skip Exercise 2.5, “Download the Student Materials Independently,” and proceed to Exercise 2.6, “Install a Configuration Profile.”

In this exercise, you will download the student materials required for the rest of the exercises in the course.

1 Open Safari.

2 Navigate to www.peachpit.com/register.

3 Enter the ISBN number for this book: 9780134713854.

4 If you already have a Peachpit account, sign in to it. If you do not, follow the prompts to create one.

5 Answer the challenge question[s] as proof of purchase.

6 Click the Registered Products tab on your Account page.

7 Click the Access Bonus Content link below the title of your product to proceed to the download page.

8 Click the link to download StudentMaterials.zip.

The student materials for these exercises will be downloaded as a ZIP archive and automatically expanded into the StudentMaterials folder.

9 Click the Downloads (down-arrow icon) button near the top right of the window.

10 Click the view (magnifying-glass icon) button next to StudentMaterials.

Your Downloads folder opens in the Finder, showing the StudentMaterials folder inside it.

11 On your desktop, find the icon for your startup disk (generally Macintosh HD), and double-click it.

This opens a new Finder window showing the contents of the startup disk.

12 Open the Users folder.

13 Open the Shared folder.

14 Drag the StudentMaterials icon from the Downloads folder into the Shared folder.

15 Close the Downloads folder.

16 Drag the StudentMaterials icon from the Shared folder to the right side of the dividing line in the Dock. (The Dock is divided into two sections; the left side holds applications, and the right side holds folders and documents.) Be sure to place it between other entries (so it is added to the Dock) rather than over another entry (which would move it into that folder).

You will be opening the StudentMaterials folder frequently, and this gives you an easy shortcut to it.

17 Optionally, you can also drag the StudentMaterials folder to the Finder sidebar in the Favorites section to give yourself another shortcut to it. As in the Dock, be sure to place it between other entries.

18 Choose Go menu > Applications (or use the shortcut Command-Shift-A).

19 Drag the TextEdit application into the left side of your Dock so that you will always have an easy way to launch it.

In addition to manually configuring settings on macOS computers, you can control a computer’s settings by installing profiles. This capability allows you to easily standardize the configuration across multiple computers.

In this exercise, you will demonstrate this by setting your Energy Saver settings with a configuration profile.

2 Select the Energy Saver pane.

3 Note your computer’s sleep settings. Depending on the model you are using, they may differ from those shown here.

4 Quit System Preferences.

5 Open the StudentMaterials folder. Remember that you put a shortcut to it in your Dock.

6 Open the Lesson2 folder.

7 Open Energy_Saver.mobileconfig.

The profile automatically opens in the Profiles pane of System Preferences.

8 Click Show Profile to display the details of the profile and its payload (the settings it contains). You will need to scroll down to see its full contents.

9 Click Continue.

10 Click Install.

11 Enter the Local Admin account’s password (ladminpw, or whatever you chose earlier) when prompted.

The Profile pane now lists the configuration profile as installed.

12 Click the Show All (grid) button in the toolbar, and then select the Energy Saver pane.

The Energy Saver settings have changed to match those in the profile.

13 Quit System Preferences.

1 From the Apple menu, choose About This Mac.

A dialog appears showing basic information about your computer.

2 Click the macOS version number (below the large “macOS Sierra”). The build number (a more specific identifier for the version of macOS you are using) is displayed.

3 Click through the Displays, Storage, and (if it is shown) Memory tabs in the About This Mac window’s toolbar to view more information about your computer hardware configuration.

4 Click the Service tab.

5 Click “Check my service and support coverage status.”

6 In the confirmation dialog that appears, click Allow.

Safari opens and displays a coverage check page at apple.com.

7 If the website asks you to enter a code (a CAPTCHA challenge), do so.

The coverage page shows your computer model name and warranty status.

8 Quit Safari.

9 In the About This Mac window, click Overview.

10 Click the System Report button.

System Information opens and displays a more detailed report about your computer hardware, network, and software configuration.

11 Explore the system report by clicking information categories in the report’s sidebar. Some categories may take a while to load.

12 From the menu bar, choose File > Save, enter a name for your system’s report, and then click Save.

When saving reports like this, it can be helpful to choose a naming convention that includes the computer name (or other identifier) and the date.

System Information finishes gathering information on your computer and saves it in a report that documents your computer’s current status.

13 Quit System Information.