A quick overview.
One of the best features of .Mac for folks who have more than one Macintosh is the .Mac Sync feature. This feature makes it possible to automatically synchronize selected data on all computers registered on your .Mac account.
The key here is the word “register.” To synchronize with .Mac, .Mac needs to know about your computer. That means registering it through the use of the Sync panel of the .Mac preferences pane.
- Choose Apple > System Preferences or click the System Preferences icon in the Dock.
- Click the .Mac icon in the System Preferences window that appears.
In the Account panel, make sure you’re signed into .Mac. The panel should look something like what’s shown here, but with your info. If you see fields to enter a Member Name and Password, you’ll have to provide those and click the Sign In button to log in.
In the Sync panel, if necessary, turn on the Synchronize with .Mac check box and select an option from the pop-up menu. This registers your computer with .Mac.
(You can find details on how to set up the actual synchronization on pages 451-453 of my Leopard book.)
If your computer has previously been registered and, for some reason, .Mac syncing has been turned off, you may see a dialog like the one here. Click Use Same Name only if you’re sure you’re enabling syncing for the same computer previously set up.
You can see a list of computers registered to your .Mac account by going the next step. Click the Advanced button in the Sync panel of the .Mac preferences pane. After a moment, a list of registered computers appears.
To unregister a computer, select its name in the list of registered computers and click the Unregister button. Then click the Unregister button in the confirmation dialog that appears. Keep in mind that if you unregister a computer, you will no longer be able to sync with it via .Mac.
Page References
You can learn more about .Mac and its sync feature in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide on the following pages:
- .Mac’s Web-Based Features, page 448
- Using .Mac with Mac OS X, pages 449-450
- .Mac Sync, pages 451-453
- iDisk, pages 454-459
- Back to My Mac, page 460
More Information
You can find some additional information about registering and unregistering computers in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 on Apple’s Web site.
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