Built for compatibility.
Mum always said to “play nice with others”. Your computer should too. With macOS, you can use Microsoft Office, connect to most printers and cameras, join PC networks and even run Windows.
Mum always said to “play nice with others”. Your computer should too. With macOS, you can use Microsoft Office, connect to most printers and cameras, join PC networks and even run Windows.
With macOS, you can move all the information from your old PC to your new Mac. Built-in Windows-to-Mac migration in macOS automatically transfers your documents, music, contacts, calendars and email accounts (Outlook and Windows Live Mail), and puts them in the appropriate folders and applications on your new Mac. Just like that.
If you buy your Mac at an Apple Store, Personal Setup can help you get off to a great start.
Every Mac comes with Pages, Numbers and Keynote — powerful productivity apps from Apple that help you create stunning documents, spreadsheets and presentations. You can collaborate with one person or many people to create and edit Pages, Keynote and Numbers files. And everyone can work on the same document at the same time — from across town or across the globe. You can also open, edit and save Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files with these apps, so you can easily work with others, regardless of whether they’re on a Mac or PC.
Fun fact: there’s a version of Microsoft Office written just for Mac. So you can use Word, Excel and PowerPoint on a Mac just like on a PC.
macOS also provides built-in support for the latest version of Microsoft Exchange Server. So you can use all the apps you love on your Mac, and have access to your mail, contacts and calendar from the office, all at the same time.
Your Mac comes with iCloud Drive, which lets you safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images and any other kinds of files in iCloud. Then you can access them from any device, including your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC.1
Thanks to its support for industry standards, macOS works with virtually all email providers and websites. It also lets you view the most common file types, including Office documents, PDFs, images, text files, MP3s, videos, ZIP files and more.
So if you’re moving files from a PC, or if your friends and colleagues send you files, you can rest assured they’ll work beautifully on your Mac.
Almost any device that connects to a computer via USB, audio cable or Bluetooth will work with a Mac. That includes digital cameras, external hard drives, printers, keyboards, speakers and even your right-click mouse. And with technologies like AirPrint and the array of class drivers included with macOS, you can start using these devices as soon as you plug them in — no need to manually download additional software.
Have a Windows application you need to use once in a while? No problem. Every new Mac lets you install and run Windows at native speeds, using a built-in utility called Boot Camp.
Setup is simple and safe for your Mac files. After you’ve completed the installation, you can boot up your Mac using either macOS or Windows. (That’s why it’s called Boot Camp.) Or if you want to run Windows and Mac applications at the same time — without rebooting — you can install Windows using VMware or Parallels software.2
The Finder not only lets you browse files on your Mac, it also makes it easy to find files on other computers — both Mac and PC — on your home network. Computers that allow file sharing automatically show up in the Shared section of the Finder sidebar, allowing you to browse files and folders you have permission to view.