The Best Free Gadgets & Widgets app downloads for Mac: App Store Preview iStat pro FlipClock Time Machine Brightness iStat nano Woobies Space Invaders. Your Mac’s Dashboard hosts a range of mini apps, known as widgets, that are designed to provide you with easy access to important features and information. However, not everyone is a fan of the Dashboard, with some Mac users preferring to disable the Dashboard entirely.
With iOS 14, you can use widgets on your Home Screen to keep your favorite information at your fingertips. Or you can use widgets from Today View by swiping right from the Home Screen or Lock Screen.
Add widgets to your Home Screen
- From the Home Screen, touch and hold a widget or an empty area until the apps jiggle.
- Tap the Add button in the upper-left corner.
- Select a widget, choose from three widget sizes, then tap Add Widget.
- Tap Done.
You can also add widgets from Today View. From Today View, touch and hold a widget until the quick actions menu opens, then tap Edit Home Screen. Drag the widget to the right edge of the screen until it appears on the Home Screen, then tap Done.
Add widgets to Today View
- Touch and hold a widget or an empty area in Today View until the apps jiggle.
- Tap the Add button in the upper-left corner.
- Scroll down to select a widget, then choose from three widget sizes.
- Tap Add Widget, then tap Done.
Edit your widgets
With iOS 14, you can configure your widgets. For example, you can edit the Weather widget to see the forecast for your current location or a different location. Here’s how:
- Touch and hold a widget to open the quick actions menu.
- Tap Edit Widget .
- Make your changes, then tap outside of the widget to exit.
You can also move your widgets around to put your favorites where they're easier to find. Just touch and hold a widget until it jiggles, then move the widget around on the screen.
Use widget stacks
With iOS 14, you can use widget stacks to save space on your Home Screen and in Today View. You can use Smart Stacks or create your own widget stacks.
Create a Smart Stack
A Smart Stack is a pre-built collection of widgets that displays the right widget based on factors like your location, an activity, or time. A Smart Stack automatically rotates widgets to show the most relevant information throughout the day. Here's how to create a Smart Stack:
- Touch and hold an area on your Home Screen or in Today View until the apps jiggle.
- Tap the Add button in the upper-left corner.
- Scroll down and tap Smart Stack.
- Tap Add Widget.
Create your own widget stacks
- Touch and hold an app or empty area on the Home Screen or Today View until the apps jiggle.
- Drag a widget on top of another widget. You can stack up to 10 widgets.
- Tap Done.
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Edit a widget stack
- Touch and hold the widget stack.
- Tap Edit Stack. From here, you can reorder the widgets in the stack by dragging the grid icon . You can also turn on Smart Rotate if you want iOS to show you relevant widgets throughout the day. Or swipe left over a widget to delete it.
- Tap when you're done.
You need iOS 14 to use Smart Stacks or create your own widget stacks.
Remove widgets
- Touch and hold the widget that you want to remove.
- Tap Remove Widget.
- Tap Remove again to confirm.
Learn more
- Learn more about Widgets on your iPad.
- Learn how the Photos app organizes the people in your photos.
MacOS comes with a Dashboard, wherein you get widgets, apps designed to use a function or access a service. Widgets allow you to quickly access apps by switching to the Dashboard environment.
Apple designed the Dashboard so that widgets could run in a protected area. To understand it better, you can think of it as a Sandbox. Therefore, to enter the Dashboard app, you need to leave the Mac desktop.
However, this makes widgets a separate part on your Mac, which seems to be inconvenient to access. Would it not be great if widgets could exist on your desktop?
Well, it is possible. Apple even provides the steps for developers to let them test and debug their widgets on their desktop during development.
In this post, we have discussed how to add widgets to Mac desktop.
How To Add Widgets To Mac Desktop?
You can get your widgets on your desktop using Terminal. We need to enable Dashboard development mode using Terminal.
Step 1: Click on Go->Utilties-> Terminal.
Once Terminal is launched, type in
- defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
Now, Hit Return
Note: Please make sure you enter the command in a single line in the Terminal app.
Step 2: Now type the below command into Terminal:
killall Dock
Hit Return
Note: Make sure the case of the text matches as the above.
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This will make your Dock vanish for a second.
Step 3: Now type the below command on your Terminal to end the current session:
exit
Press Return or enter.
Now close the Terminal app.
Once done, you need to follow a few more steps:
Step 4: Move A Widget To The Desktop
Now that you are done with Terminal commands, you need to follow some additional steps:
If you have OS X Mountain Lion or Earlier, then follow these steps:
Note: Please make sure F-Lock is enabled
- Press F12 or click Dashboard icon from Dock. Now select widget by clicking it and press the mouse button. Keep pressing the mouse button until the next step is completed.
- Press F12 again and drag the widget to desktop at any preferred location. Once the widget is placed, let go of the mouse button.
If you have a newer version of macOS than above, then follow these steps:
- Go to System Preferences (locate it from Apple menu)
- Select Mission Control.
- Locate Dashboard, from the drop-down menu, select As Overlay instead of As Space (in case of Yosemite, El Capitan. and macOS Sierra). Remove checkmark beside Show Dashboard as Space (in case of Mountain Lion or Mavericks)
- Press F12 and get Dashboard icon. Select the widget and press the mouse button.
- Keep the mouse button pressed and press F12 and drag the widget to the desktop. Once the widget is on desktop, release the mouse button.
Additional Tip: You can always place the widgets back in Dashboard, for that: Click on widget and press mouse button. Now don’t release the mouse button and press F12 and drag it to a preferred location on Dashboard.
To disable Dashboard Development Mode, you need to follow the same steps as we have followed in the first section. Only different would be in the first command,
- defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode NO
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Instead of Yes, you need to type No after the command and hit Enter to execute the command. Followed by the two commands,
- killall Dock
exit
So, in this way you can add widgets to your Mac desktop. Widgets on your desktop seem to be a great option to improve productivity, however, it is not recommended to keep widgets on the desktop if you have a small screen.
Bonus Tip: If you want to get third-party apps as a widget on your Mac desktop, you can always use Flotato app to get web apps of any of the websites you frequently use.
Read this to know more about Flotato app.
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