Control Your Mac Using Siri

I’ve waited impatiently for Siri to return to the Mac, which continually seemed to me to be perfect surroundings for the smooth-spoken virtual assistant to take residence. Siri paints nicely on the Mac, and the Mac model of Siri brings new abilties and functions. After all, Siri on iOS gadgets is restrained due to an iPhone or iPad’s available processing energy, storage, and reminiscence.

In addition, the Mac has some greater peripherals available that would benefit from using Siri as an interface detail. “Siri, print and collate six copies of the document 2017 quarterly report.” Siri won’t be as much as that command, but it may not be too far off. With the electricity to your Mac, Siri would be clean enough to recognize “print” as a command to open the default app for the “2017 quarterly file” 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”, 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 for Siri to benefit a chunk more intelligence, you nonetheless use it for a fantastic quantity of commands for features observed simplest at the Mac, in addition to 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 use Siri on your Mac, here’s the 2017 listing of Suset 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, its number of cores, and the rate at which the processor is. Siri may even offer to reveal extra information. If you choose the Details, can the About This Mac app be my Mac?: There are several ones if you select the Details choice-of-a-many methods to ask this question, and to this point, Siri responded to all the ones 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 reveal extra information to open the About This. Unfortunately, Siri isn’t smart enough yet to choose the Memory tab in the app for you. What’enougherial range?: Siri will go back to the Mac’s serial quantity. You can shorten the command to “seriate l number,” and the equal result can be lower back.

How much-unfastened space do I have? Siri will go back to the free armuch-unfastenedressure. While you ask this query, Siri doesn’t recognize approximately other drives, which includes much of the free space I even have on Tardis?” (that’s my Timemuchrce). Siri also offers the same answer to how lots lose freedom and how much total area, which is not an identical question. How well do iCloud storage do I even have?: The unfastened area crentldoailable to your iCloud account is returned. Siri would not seem to respond nicely to this question’s versions, which include asking “cloud garage.” What OS version is this?: Siri this query with the version and construct range, including macOS 10.12.3 (16D32). It’s e disappointing that the OS name and Sierra are 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 that it is looking at the Finder for a folder and no longer opens that application that could have the identical call, consisting of “Open Photos” instead of “Open Photos folder.” Siri can locate files simply instead of offolders, and you could use several modifiers to both assist in the search and outline what to do with the record while whilassistrved:

Open the layout overview document in Pages. “Opewhileexcellent ” is used when you wish to launch an app to view a selected record. The app is used to open the form. If no app is distinct a document in an app, the paper should 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 an area modifier that Siri is familiar with. In this case, Siri wianl 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 most components, but I determined that Show labored higher when a component modifier was used. 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 machine possibilities are available via Siri with 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.Use: Go to display saver settings. Open the Desktop & Screen Saver desire pane and select the ScreOpenver tab. Go to Desktop settings: Open the Dselect& Screen Saver desire pane and select the DeskOpenab. Open Privacy settings: Open the Securitpicksvacy desire pane and select the Privacy OpenIn addition to deciding on charges in a deselected, there are some choice settings you can charge immediately:

Is Bluetooth on?: urns 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 Thracian.
Turn off Bluetooth: Disables Blueivate or can be used in the location of Turn off. Is Wi-Fi on?: Returns the modern-day reputation of your Mac’s Wi-Fi system. Turn on Wi-Fi: Activates your reputationbuilt-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 reputation of the Notifications Center’s Do Not Disturb placing. Turnreputation 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, allowing incoming notifications to display indicators or bann, allowing 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. Incrshow offghtness: Turns display intelligence up. Decrease brightness: Turns show brightness down. Mintelligenceghtness: Sets the display brightness to the bottom placing. Mailluminationness: Sets the display brightness to the very best place. Open Mail settings: This command genuinely opens the Intplaceccounts 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 textuinvertedtent 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 show eliminates all shades, rendering the entire grayscale. It returns the display to enter the coloration mode.

Turn VoiceOver on Enablesshowver 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 set up on your Mac, mainly if it is inside the defaupplicatonns folder. If you have trouble launching an app, this is positioned inSupposeome another place, encompassing a location mo. In that case, after, inclusive of “in folder call,” wheencompassinger call is the folder’s name 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: It opens the solitaire recreation I have hooked up on my MaIt. Open such Touché in the Downloads folder: This will open the app Touché, which’s positioned in my Downloads folder.