Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard This program is for advanced users who know how to use it without doing harm to their macs. The authors are not liable for data loss, damages, profit loss or any other types of losses connected with the use or misuse of the program. Current Version: 2.4.2. To find out what’s new, visit the New Features section of the Manual. Recommended Download – Latest Version of Audacity. Left-click the Audacity.dmg link below to go to the Fosshub download page (where our downloads are hosted). Virtual Machines. We recommend using a virtual machine program, ideally Parallels or VMWare Fusion, to run Windows applications on a Mac without rebooting.For maximum performance, which is particularly necessary for gaming, we recommend dual-booting Windows with Boot Camp instead.
If your Mac desktop or Mac laptop is acting sluggish or programs are failing to run, you need to know how to restart your Mac computer. Restarting or rebooting your Mac essentially clears your computer’s memory and starts it up fresh. When you restart your computer, your Mac closes all running programs and offers to save any files you’re working on. After you choose to save any files, your Mac will finally boot up again.
To restart a Mac computer, you have three choices:
- Press the power button (or press Control+Eject) and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart button.
- Choose the Apple key and then click Restart.
- Press Control+Command+Eject (or Control+Command+Power button).

Pressing the Control+Command+Eject/Power button is the most reliable way to restart a Mac because it doesn’t rely on the Mac OS X operating system.
Restarting a Mac computer isn’t the same as turning the computer on and off, which completely resets it. If you really want to make sure that your computer starts up correctly, turn it off, wait a few seconds, and then turn it on again. If you’re in a hurry, try restarting your Mac, and if that doesn’t fix the problem, you’ll have to turn it off and on again.
If your Mac freezes, restarting might not work. If your Mac is generally acting weird, restarting isn’t your only option. Macs are known not to need a lot of maintenance or troubleshooting, but if restarting (or rebooting) doesn’t work, consider some other basic troubleshooting options for your Mac.
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Files you download from the Internet are often compressed or zipped so that they take up less space and arrive much faster than files that haven’t been compressed. You can easily identify compressed files by their extensions, such as .zip (a common standard used in OS X and Windows) and .sit. Before you can use these files, you must learn how to unzip files on mac computers for proper access – luckily the process isn’t that complicated!
How to unzip files on mac computers
Unzipping a file on a mac computer is user-friendly and intuitive. To unzip files on a mac, simply follow the steps below:
- Double click the zipped file.
- The file will automatically be decompressed by Archive Utility into the same folder the compressed file is in.
- Access the extracted files by clicking the appropriate icons.
Alternatively, if the method above does not work, you can right-click on the .zip package, and select Open With > Archive Utility (default).
Apple and third party software
Apple used to include a program called StuffIt Expander to decompress zipped files, but doesn’t now that OS X lets you unzip files (but not .sit files). However, StuffIt from SmithMicro Software still comes in handy for opening other types of compressed files, notably the .sit or .sitx compressed types. Go to www.stuffit-expander.com or www.stuffit.com/mac/index.html to download a free version of the software or to splurge for the Deluxe version. In addition to compressing files, StuffIt Deluxe lets you encrypt and back up files.
Meanwhile, you can archive or create your own .zip files through OS X, which is useful if you’re e-mailing a number of meaty files to a friend. Right-click (or Ctrl-click) files you want to compress inside Finder and choose Compress Filename. The newly compressed files carry the .zip extension. The archive is created in the same location as the original file and is named originalfilename.zip. You can also choose File→Compress. If you compress a lot of files at once, the archive takes the name Archive.zip.
By default, compressed files are opened with the Archive Utility. It appears in the Dock (in Leopard) while the files are being unsqueezed, unless you choose to open them with Stuffit Expander or some other program.
How to zip files on a mac

On the flip side, you can also archive or create your own .zip files through OS X, which is useful if you’re e-mailing a number of meaty files to a client or friend. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to easily zip files on a mac:
- Right-click or Ctrl-click the multiple files you want to compress (whether on the desktop or inside the Finder).
- Select Compress Filename from the pop-up menu.
- The files are now compressed in a .zip extension and the archive is created in the same location as the original file name, except with the .zip appended to its name.
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On some Apple computers, you can also compress a file by simply choosing File→Compress. If you compress a lot of files at once, the archive takes the name Archive.zip.