Say Hello to Siri

Looking for a file? Want to dictate a note, create a reminder for an important event, turn on Bluetooth, or make a call? Doing any of these things doesn’t have to take more than a single click now that Apple’s digital assistant has finally come to the Mac. And unlike with your iPhone or iPad, Siri on the Mac makes it easier for you to multi-task. You can keep doing what you’re doing while Siri completes a job for you ①.

Enable Siri

If you didn’t enable Siri when you installed Sierra, you can enable it now by going to System Preferences > Siri and selecting the Enable Siri checkbox. (To disable Siri, go back to System Preferences and uncheck the box.)

Get Started

To start talking to Siri, your first step is to invoke Siri, using any of these methods:

• Click the Siri icon in the Dock ②.

• Click the Siri icon in the menu bar at the top of your display.

• Press and hold Command-Space. Careful here: if you hold Command and then tap the Space key, you’ll activate Spotlight instead.

  If you prefer a less finicky shortcut, change it by going to System Preferences > Siri and choosing an option from the Keyboard Shortcut pop-up menu, such as Hold Option Space. Or, choose Customize to create a shortcut of your own devising—a field appears where you can press the keys you want to activate Siri.

• The sidebar ”Hey, Siri!” explains how to set up a voice-activated option.

When you activate Siri, you hear a chime and the Siri window appears in the upper-right corner of your screen. When Siri is listening, a line pulses at the bottom of this window—if you don’t see this line, click the Microphone icon at the bottom of the window. Ask your question or make your request.

To ask another question, click the Microphone icon in the Siri window or reactivate Siri using a method above.

Change Siri’s Voice or Language

You can change Siri’s voice on your Mac, just as can on your iPhone or iPad.

Go to System Preferences > Siri and browse the choices in the Siri Voice pop-up menu.

If you’ve chosen English (for any country), you can pick from a number of voices, including American, Australian, British, Irish, and South African—most (but not all) come with both male and female versions. Other languages typically come with male and female options. (If you’re learning a language, talking to Siri in it—even just to hear its jokes—can be fun as well as great practice.)

Find Files with Siri

Now that Siri is on the scene, you can hunt down files, folders, and more without having to type a thing. Siri recognizes natural-language requests and is fast and fairly accurate.

Ask for What You Want

To find a file or folder, tell Siri to “Find file <name>” or “Find <name> folder.” Siri can find files stored in iCloud as well as in the cloud-storage service Dropbox.

You don’t have to be exact with the name. For instance, when asked to “Find Apple Watch file,” Siri found the ebook Apple Watch: A Take Control Crash Course. Likewise, when I made a vaguer request like “Find files named Graham,” Siri brought back 115 files with “Graham” in their name. The more specific your are, the better your results.

Here are some requests to try: “Show my Documents folder.” “Open my Movies folder.” “Find documents I opened Friday” ③.

Refine Your Search

You can narrow a large list of results by adding on to your query by voice. For example, if I ask Siri to “Find my camp receipts folder,” I can then say “Just the one tagged with Red” ④.

However, in my testing, Siri often got confused by efforts to refine queries this way. Also, if your first attempt at refining the search (“Just from May”) is unsuccessful, you can’t ask again (“Just from June”) without triggering a Web search. Siri thinks you’ve moved on to a new topic.

Get a Little More Information

When Siri gives you results, sometimes you need more information to know which file is the right one:

• Peek at a file: Click once on its entry in the Siri results list to select it, and press the Space bar (this feature is called Quick Look).
• View a file or folder icon in the Finder: Control- or right-click its entry in the Siri results list and choose Reveal in Folder. A Finder window opens, with that file selected.

Work with System Preferences and Information

Siri is lightning fast when it comes to tweaking System Preferences, saving you the trouble of digging through menus and dialogs.

Here are some of the things you can ask it: “Is Bluetooth on?” ⑤ “Turn Bluetooth off.” “Put my Mac to sleep.” (Note that Siri can’t restart your Mac.) “Make the screen dimmer.” “Show me my Wi-Fi settings.” “Change my wallpaper.” “Turn up the volume.” “What time is it?” “What’s the date?”

Likewise, Siri can answer basic questions about your Mac that otherwise would require a trip to Apple  > About This Mac and its many submenus. For example: “How fast is my Mac?” “How much storage do I have available?” “How much RAM do I have?” “What is my Mac’s serial number?”

Do Tasks with Apps

Just as it can find files and help you change basic settings without breaking a sweat, Siri on the Mac also offers access to your apps.

Open an App

Say “Open <app name>” to get things started. Note that Siri can’t close apps.

Add a Reminder

A helpful Siri feature is the ability to quickly set a reminder for yourself.

• Say: “Remind me to call my sister at 5 p.m.” and Siri makes a reminder for 5 p.m. Or, say: “Remind me to take out the trash in the morning” and Siri creates a reminder for the next day at 7 a.m.
• Click the Reminders item in the Siri window to jump to the app and make adjustments. Or, click the Remove button that appears below the item to delete it completely ⑥.

Keep an Eye on the Calendar

Siri can add, change, or tell you about events in your calendar:

• Get the gist of the day by asking: “What does the rest of my day look like?”
• Say: “Set up a meeting with Brianna for tomorrow at 3:00.” Siri creates the event and even warns you of conflicts. Say: “Move my 5 p.m. meeting to tomorrow at 2 p.m.” and Siri shuffles things around.

Track Friends and Family

• Whether you find it creepy or convenient, Siri can tap into Find My Friends to help you keep tabs on your loved ones.
• Ask it: “Where are my friends?” “Let me know when my daughter gets home.” “Is Dave at home?”⑦

See a Map

Siri can ask for directions, show a map, or find local businesses. Say: “Give me directions home,” “Show me Sonora, California.” “Give me walking directions to the closest comic book store.”

Look Up a Word

There’s no need to open the Dictionary app or do a Google search when you’re at a loss for words. Just say: “What does blatherskite mean?” ⑧

Make a Call

Say “FaceTime with Mary” to start a video chat. Or, if you’ve set up your Mac to make audio calls through your iPhone (see Turn Your Mac into a Speakerphone), say “Call Bob at work.”

Manage Your Messages

• Siri can send, read, respond, and search for messages in the Messages app.
• Say “Send Dad a message” or “Send a message to 555-1212.” Siri creates a new messages and waits for your words.
• Or, say: “Read my new messages.” After Siri reads you a message, it’s easy to dash off a quick reply, for example, you can say: “Tell him I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

Deal with Mail

Siri offers a quick way to send, check, or search for email messages:

• Say “Show email from Jason from yesterday” or “Check email.” (Mail must be open for Siri to have access to the newest messages.)

• To find a particular message, try: “Find emails I received yesterday.” Or, “show me emails from <name>.”
• Siri will even start a new message and fill in the To and Subject fields: “Email Mandy about the party tomorrow.” Then, it waits for you to dictate the details.

Find Your Photos

Siri can search your photos. Ask it to: “Show my photos from Monday,” “Look up my videos taken in Portland, Oregon,” or “Show me my favorite photos” (ones that you’ve marked in Photos by clicking the heart icon).

If you really want your mind blown, though, ask Siri a question that ties into Photos’ new Advanced Computer Vision. For instance, ask Siri to “Show me pictures with water” and Photos opens to a collection of your images it thinks include water.

Photos can pick out a strange and wonderful variety of objects and scenes, including tree types (“Show me pictures of oaks”), plants (“Show me pictures of roses”), dog breeds (“Show me pictures of collies” ⑩), and little ones (“Show me pictures of babies”)—4432 in all, according to Apple.

Not all of these—facial expressions, for instance—worked in my testing. However, Photos is flexible enough to realize that “dog” can mean more than one thing ⑪.

Your Siri request appears at the top of the Photos window along with the number of matches.

Post to Social Media

If you’ve set up Facebook and Twitter accounts (go to > System Preferences > Internet Accounts to get started), Siri can do basic social media mojo for you. Say: “Post to Facebook the dog park is crazy today!” or “Tweet another rainy day in Portland.”

Search Social Media

You can search Twitter (but not Facebook). Say: “What’s trending on Twitter?” “What are people saying about peanut butter?”

Control iTunes

Siri lets you search for music, TV shows, or movies as well as play a song, skip a track, or pause play:

• Say: “Play Grateful Dead playlist.” “Play the top song from 1975.” “Play more like this.”
• You can play and search for podcasts, too. Say: “Search for Clockwise podcast.” “Play podcasts.” “Jump back 30 seconds.”

Get Answers to Questions

Just like the Siri you’ve come to know and love on your iPhone and iPad, Siri on the Mac is ready and willing to answer all sorts of questions. And although its ability to refine searches is fairly limited when you’re trying to find files, in many cases, Siri will help you narrow down general queries.

For example, ask it “Who won the game?” and Siri will ask you to choose which league: “Baseball, basketball, football or soccer?” (If you ask “Who won the big game?” you’ll see results from U.C. Berkeley and Stanford’s most recent encounter on the football field.)

Sports

Siri has answers to most sports question you throw at it. Ask it about scores, game schedules, and standings, as well as player and team information:

“When do the Timbers play next?” “Show me the soccer scores from last night.” “Who is the heaviest player in the NFL?” “Who has the best batting average?” “Who won the world series in 1959?” “What teams are in the WNBA?” “Show me the roster for the Golden State Warriors.”

If you stump it—say, with a question about <gasp> tennis—Siri searches the Web for an answer.

Do Math and Conversions

Ask Siri a math or conversion question and depending on its complexity, it pings either the Calculator app or Wolfram Alpha to find what you need.

Ask it: “How many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?” “What’s 26.2 miles in meters?” “How much is a 15% tip for $202?” “What is 35% of 80?” “Solve x^2 + 4x + 6 = 0.” Or, for laughs, ask it: “What’s 0 divided by 0?” ⑫.

Research Movies

Search for movie information, find showtimes and theaters, read reviews, and look up award winners.

Ask it: “What movies are playing?” “What’s playing at the Hollywood Theater tonight?” “Show me the reviews for War Dogs.”

See Stock Info

Whether the market is a bull or a bear, Siri has its pulse. Ask it: “What’s Coca-Cola’s stock price?” “How are the markets doing? “What did Twitter close at today? “Compare AAPL and the NASDAQ.”

Get the News

Keep track of what’s going on by asking Siri questions like: “What’s the news from the Olympics?” “What are the headlines today?”

Check the Weather

You can ask Siri weather questions like: “Should I wear a sweater today?” “Will it rain this weekend?” “What’s the weather for tomorrow?” Or even “When is sunrise in Moscow?”

Search the Web

If Siri doesn’t know an answer, it typically searches the Web, but you can direct Web searches yourself, too: “Google images of owls,” “Show me videos of cute kittens,” “Bing Ursula K. Le Guin.”

Enjoy Random Facts

Siri’s bread and butter is the random fact. Ask it: “How big are great white sharks?” “How many calories are in a Big Mac?” “What’s the mortgage rate today? “What is Beyoncé’s best-selling album?” “What’s the population of Boring, Oregon?” “What planes are flying above me?” or “Why are leaves green?”

Unlike your friends and relations, Siri will never get tired of your questions. Keep ’em coming.

Ask Siri What You Can Ask

To learn more about what Siri can do, say: “What can I ask you?” It replies with a list of categories including Finder, System Preferences, About this Mac, Apps, FaceTime, Messages, and much more. Click a category to see sample commands.