I have switched from Windows to a Mac — what is actually different?

Most switching frustration comes from a handful of design decisions that are consistent once you know them. Learning them deliberately in an afternoon is much quicker than discovering them one irritation at a time.

Step by step

1. Learn the modifier key swap.Command does what Ctrl did: copy, paste, save, print, quit, and switching applications. Ctrl still exists and does other things. Option is roughly Alt. This one change accounts for most of the first week's friction.
2. Understand closing versus quitting.Closing the last window of an application usually leaves the application running, which is why the menu bar still shows its name. Quit deliberately with Command-Q. This is not a bug and it is the single most common source of confusion.
3. Note where the menu bar lives.At the top of the screen, belonging to whichever application is at the front — not attached to each window. Look up there when you cannot find a menu, and check the application name at the left to confirm which program you are actually commanding.
4. Learn how software is installed.Many applications arrive as a disk image that you open and then drag into the Applications folder — that drag is the installation. Eject the disk image afterwards. Some use a proper installer package, and the App Store handles the rest. Uninstalling is usually dragging the application to the bin.
5. Forget drive letters.There are no drive letters. Drives appear on the desktop and in the sidebar by name. Your files live in a home folder with Documents, Downloads, Pictures and so on, structured much as they were.
6. Learn the Finder's differences.There is no cut-and-paste for files by default — copy, then paste-and-move with a modifier key, or drag. Delete goes to the bin with Command-Delete rather than the Delete key. The path bar and the go-to-folder shortcut are worth turning on early.
7. Set up the trackpad and right-click.Right-click is a two-finger tap or click, and may need enabling. The gestures — swipe between spaces, pinch, three-finger navigation — are genuinely good and worth ten minutes in the settings.
8. Learn Spotlight properly.Command-Space opens a search that launches applications, finds files, does arithmetic and conversions and looks things up. It replaces a lot of navigating, and heavy switchers rely on it entirely.
9. Find the equivalents you already know.Activity Monitor for Task Manager. Disk Utility for disk management. System Settings for Control Panel. Time Machine for the backup tools. Force Quit with Command-Option-Escape for the unresponsive program.
10. Sort out file sharing with Windows machines.Macs read Windows-formatted drives but do not write to NTFS without extra software. For a drive shared between both, use exFAT. Office formats open fine either way; PDF removes all doubt.

Tips

• There is no registry and no defragmenting. A lot of Windows maintenance folklore simply has no equivalent, and looking for one wastes time.
• Screenshots have their own shortcuts and go to the desktop by default. Learn the region-capture one on day one.
• The green button full-screens rather than maximises. Hold Option while clicking it to get the maximise behaviour you expected.
• Software updates, including for applications bought from the App Store, are centralised in system settings rather than per-application.
• Macs do get malware, less often. You do not need a heavy security product, and you should still be careful what you install and where it came from.

Questions people ask