Control Your Mac Using Siri

I’ve waited impatiently for Siri to come back to the Mac, which continually seemed to me to be perfect surroundings for the smooth-spoken virtual assistant to take in residence on. Not best does Siri paintings nicely on the Mac, the Mac model of Siri brings new abilties and functions. After all, Siri on iOS gadgets is restrained due to the available processing energy, storage, and reminiscence on an iPhone or iPad.

In addition, the Mac has pretty some greater peripherals available that would advantage from using Siri as an interface detail. “Siri, print and collate six copies of the document 2017 quarterly report” Siri won’t be quite as much as that command but, however it may now not be too a long way off. With the electricity to be had to your Mac, Siri would be clean enough to recognize “print” as a command to open the default app for the file named “2017 quarterly file” and then print out the number of copies requested. Collating could be a provider provided via the printer. Although Siri doesn’t recognize “print” but, there may already be a manner to apply a voice command to print from a utility. You can locate info within the Control Your Mac With Voice Commands guide.

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Siri Command List for the Mac

While we wait on Siri to benefit a chunk more intelligence, you may nonetheless use it for a fantastic quantity of commands for features observed simplest at the Mac, in addition to for most of the commonplace instructions that have been a part of Siri since it was first launched for the iPhone 4S in 2011. To help you make fine use of Siri on your Mac, here’s the 2017 listing of Siri commands that the Mac OS understands.

About Your Mac

How speedy is my Mac?: Siri knows many variations of this query, including “what processor do I even have?” and “is my Mac speedy?”. Siri will provide the solution with details about the processor used by your Mac, what number of cores it has, and the rate at which the processor runs. Siri may even offer to reveal extra details. If you choose the Details choice, the About This Mac app can be launched.

How tons reminiscences does my Mac have?: There are several one-of-a-kind methods to ask this question, and to this point, Siri responded to all the ones I notion of successfully with the aid of telling me the quantity of RAM on my Mac, the speed of the reminiscence, and the sort hooked up. Siri can even provide to reveal extra information so that it will open the About This Mac app. Unfortunately, Siri isn’t smart sufficient yet to choose the Memory tab in the app for you. What’s my Mac serial range?: Siri will go back to Mac’s serial quantity. You can shorten the command to just “serial number,” and the equal result can be lower back.

How much unfastened space do I have? Siri will go back to the free area on startup pressure. Siri doesn’t recognize whilst you ask this query approximately other drives, which include “How a good deal free space do I even have on Tardis?” (that’s my Time Machine force). Siri also offers the same answer to how lots lose space and how much total area, which is not an identical question. How a good deal iCloud storage do I even have?: The unfastened area currently available to your iCloud account is returned. Siri would not seem to respond nicely to versions of this question, which includes definitely asking “cloud garage.” What OS version is this?: Siri responds to this query with the version range and construct range, including macOS 10.12.3 (16D32). It’s a piece disappointing that the OS name, together with Sierra, is not given.

Finder

Siri gives some methods to locate and show folders and files; it is aware of several references to a folder. You can ask Siri to:

Open my Expenses folder.
Show my Downloads folder.
Get the Travel Plans folder.

Each command will cause Siri to search the Finder and show the discovered folder inside the Siri window. Open, Show, and maybe interchanged. It’s instrumental in applying the word folder in the command, so Siri is aware of it is looking the Finder for a folder and no longer opening an application that could have the identical call, consisting of “Open Photos” as opposed to “Open Photos folder.” Siri can locate files simply as easily as folders, and you could use several modifiers to both assists in the search and outline what to do with the record whilst observed:

Open the layout overview document in Pages. “Open” is excellent used while you wish to launch an app to view a selected record. If no app is distinct, the default app is used to open the record. To open a document in an app, the record ought to be precise; for example, saying “Open untitled” will probably lead to Siri displaying several documents with the call untitled inside the name. Get the Word document Yosemite Firefall. A software type consisting of Word doc can be used to assist Siri in picking out a document. Show the pix on my Desktop. Desktop is a area modifier that Siri is familiar with. In this case, Siri will best look in the Desktop folder for image documents. You can use any folder call as a vicinity modifier.

Could you show me the files I sent to Mary? The name you operate desires to be contained in the Contacts app. Find the spreadsheet despatched to me this week. You can specify dates or time frames, along with today, this week, or this month. Get, Show, and Find are interchangeable for the most component, but I determined that Show labored higher when using a time frame modifier. In all instances, the files Siri observed had been proven in the Siri window and could be opened from there by double-clicking the document name.

System Preferences

All of Mac’s machine possibilities are available via Siri with the aid of the Open command and the preference call. Be certain to encompass the word choices, including:

Open Display options.

By adding the possibilities modifier, Siri may not be careworn and become showing a popular search or establishing an app with a comparable name. Some, however, never all, of the system preference settings can be accessed by the use of Siri and beginning your command with “Go to” or “Open.” Some examples: Go to display saver settings: Opens the Desktop & Screen Saver desire pane and selects the Screen Saver tab. Go to Desktop settings: Opens the Desktop & Screen Saver desire pane and selects the Desktop tab. Open Privacy settings: Opens the Security & Privacy desire pane and selects the Privacy tab. In addition to deciding on tabs in a desire pane, there are some the choice settings you can access immediately:

Is Bluetooth on?: Returns the present-day status of Bluetooth.

Turn on Bluetooth: Enables Bluetooth. You also can use the words Activate or Enable in the area of the phrase Turn on.
Turn off Bluetooth: Disables Bluetooth. Deactivate or can be used in the location of Turn off. Is Wi-Fi on?: Returns the modern-day repute of your Mac’s Wi-Fi system. Turn on Wi-Fi: Activates your Mac’s built-in Wi-Fi machine. You can also use Enable or Activate in the region of Turn on. Turn off Wi-Fi: Disables Wi-Fi for your Mac. You also can use Deactivate or Disable in the location of Turn off. Is Do Not Disturb on?: Returns the modern repute of the Notifications Center’s Do Not Disturb placing. Turn on Do Not Disturb: Enables the Do Not Disturb characteristic for the Notifications Center. Enable or can be substituted for Turn on.

Turn off Do Not Disturb: Resets the Notifications Center to the default placing of allowing incoming notifications to display indicators or banners. Disable or may be used in place of Turn off. Put my Computer to sleep: Invokes Sleep, turning the show-off and notably lowering the energy intake of your Mac. Increase brightness: Turns display brightness up. Decrease brightness: Turns show brightness down. Minimum brightness: Sets the display brightness to the bottom placing. Maximum brightness: Sets the display brightness to the very best placing. Open Mail settings: This command genuinely opens the Internet Accounts desire pane, supplying you with access to a few Mail account settings, as well as Twitter, Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Yahoo!, and others. Accessibility Siri knows some of the accessibility alternatives available for your Mac.

Increase cursor length: Enlarges the cursor. You can use the word mouse or pointer in the region of the cursor. In addition, Siri will display a pointer size slider with which you can best track the cursor size. Decrease cursor size: Reduces the dimensions of the cursor—all of the options mentioned in Increase cursor size practice. Turn on invert colors: The show hues may be inverted, placing white textual content on a black historical past. Turn off invert colorations: The display will return to the default of black textual content on a white historical past. Turn on grayscale: The display eliminates all shades, rendering the entirety in grayscale. Turn off grayscale: Returns the display to the default coloration mode.

Turn VoiceOver on Enables VoiceOver to offer spoken descriptions of items on the computer screen. Turn VoiceOver off: Disables the VoiceOver provider. Turn Zoom on: Enables the zoom characteristic, letting you use keyboard shortcuts to zoom into an area on the display screen.

Zoom in = ⌥⌘= (Option + Command + =)
Zoom out = ⌥⌘- (Option + Command + -)
Turn Zoom off: Disables the zoom function.

Applications

Siri must release any app you have set up in your Mac, mainly if it is located inside the default /Applications folder. If you have troubles with an app launching, this is positioned in some other place, encompass a location modifier, inclusive of “in folder call,” wherein folder call is the name of the folder that consists of the app. You can use Launch, Open, or maybe Play, when suitable, including Play (call of recreation) when it is time to take a game to destroy.

Some examples of launching apps:

Launch Word: Launches the Word app. Open Safari: Launches the Safari internet browser. Play Full Deck Solitaire: Opens the solitaire recreation I actually have hooked up on my Mac. Launch Touché in Downloads folder: This will open the app Touché, which’s positioned in my Downloads folder.