Thursday, October 30, 2014

How to use Handoff on your Mac

Handoff lets you start something on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac and pick up right where you left off on one of your other devices. That means you can start an email on your iPhone and pick up right where you left off on your Mac. We've already shown you how to use Handoff for iPhone and iPad so now let's take a look at how to access and use it on your Mac!

Before beginning, note that you'll need to be using a Mac that supports Handoff and be running OS X Yosemite or later. Here are the Mac models that are compatible with Handoff —

  • MacBook Air (2012 or newer)
  • MacBook Pro (2012 or newer)
  • iMac (2012 or newer)
  • Mac mini (2012 or newer)
  • Mac Pro (Late 2013)

How to access and use Handoff on your Mac

  1. Ensure both wifi and Bluetooth are turned On across all your compatible devices. Compatible iPhones and iPads will need to be running iOS 8 or higher.
  2. Make sure all your devices you'd like to use Handoff with are on the same wifi network.
  3. Start using a Handoff supported app on a device other than your Mac. In this example, we'll use the Messages app— there's a list of supported apps below as well.
  4. Look at the dock on your Mac and you should see an icon appear on the left hand side for the app you're using on your other device.
  5. Click on the icon and you should be taken right to where you left off on your other device.

That's all there is to it! Handoff currently works in a handful of Apple's own apps and others by third party developers. Here is a list of the apps Apple currently supports with Handoff —

  • Mail, Safari, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, Contacts, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote

As always, third party apps will consistently be updated to support handoff by many developers. However, if you find a particularly awesome one, be sure to let us know what it is in the comments!








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