Introduction: Now, in addition to having our menu bar at the top, we can also access a lot of the features of the menu bar through a secondary menu. Let’s take a look at the secondary menu on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.

Secondary Menu: We know that we have our menu bar at the top of the display. Well, also, we can get a secondary menu that shows underneath our cursor, so I have my cursor here. If I tap on my trackpad, I have a trackpad, if I tap on my trackpad with two fingers, by default, what we get is a secondary menu. You’re going to see it has a lot of the same features as our menu bar. If I go under file here, I can go and create a new folder. If I go to my secondary menu, I can go and create a new folder.

Open a Document with a different Application: Let’s go and select a file here. I have this image. I’m going to select it, tap on it once. Now, when I go up under file, what I’m able to do is I’m able to open this. I can open it up with a different application. I’m going to tap with two fingers on my trackpad, and now what I can do is I can open it. I can open it up with a different application. I can go and apply a tag to it. We know that we can access this now by tapping with two fingers on the trackpad, and we get our secondary menu, but wonder if you don’t have a trackpad and you have a mouse. Well, what you can do is you can set one of the buttons on your mouse to open up the secondary menu.

Setting Options for a Moue wiht Multiple Buttons: To do that, you go to your system preferences, and then you go over to mouse, and you’re going to see all of the preferences for your mouse. In my case, I have multiple buttons here. Now what I do is I set the left button here to be my secondary button. Now when I click that button, what it’s going to do is it’s going to show my secondary menu. Now, let’s say you didn’t have a mouse that has buttons, you have one button on it, so then what do you do? Well, you can also access the secondary menu by using the control key. Now what I’m going to do is I’m going to hold down the control key, and all I have to do is click with my trackpad or my mouse. I click one time, and I have my secondary menu. We can access it, if you have a trackpad, by tapping with two fingers. If you have a mouse, you go and set what button you want to have to access your secondary menu, or what you can do is you can hold down the control key.

Setting Lower Left Corner of Trackpad for Click: Now, let’s say you’re coming from windows. With windows, what you do is you tap in the lower left-hand corner or, the lower right-hand corner of your trackpad to access the secondary menu where we can mimic that same behavior. All I have to do is just go to my system preferences, and then we go over to trackpad. Under point and click, you’re going to see we have secondary click, and by default, it’s set for clicking or tapping with two fingers. When I click on this, I can set it to click in the bottom right corner or the bottom left corner. I’m going to leave it at two fingers, and let’s close this.

Accessing an App’s Secondary Menu: Now, in addition to accessing our secondary menu in the Finder, we can also access it through various apps. As an example, let’s go and open up my calendar. When I secondary click on a day here, I’m going to go to the ninth year, and I’m going to tap with two fingers, I can go and easily create a new event. If I go to the 25th year and control-click on it, what do you think is going to happen? Hold down the control key and click. I can create a new event. Let’s go and open up Safari. I open up Safari, and now let’s go and open up Apple. I’m going to Apple’s website here, and then when I access my secondary click or secondary menu, what I can do is I can go back, I can reload the page, or I can go and print the page.

That’s how we access the secondary menu on the Mac.