Properly Installing Applications

Article, Finder, Mac OS X, Novice | April 2nd, 2008

At some point in your Mac OS X experience you’ll need to install an application. This is quite a simple process, however there are many people who don’t exactly know how to properly install an application, especially if it doesn’t do everything for you.

In this tutorial we’ll learn how to properly install an Application from a .dmg file we’ve downloaded off the Internet. In this case, we’re installing a program called Firefox which is a great web browser - an alternate to Safari.

1. When you double click on your .dmg file you may be prompted to Accept a Software license agreement depending on what the developers have done. If this is the case, click the Accept button to continue. You’ll now see the application and may be thinking, “Wow that was easy, now I can just double click this icon and I’m done”, but this is not the case. You need to actually drag the application into the Applications folder. To do this, click and drag the application’s icon over to the Applications folder on the left column under Places. You will see a progress bar as the application is copied to the Applications folder.
2. Now that you have the application properly installed you can click on the Applications button under Places on the left column to access it. Scroll down to your application - in this case Firefox. If you double click on it now, you will launch the application.
3. Now we’re going to take one last step and add the application to our dock. You don’t have to do this, but if you access the application a lot it makes sense to have it on the dock. This step won’t copy it again, but rather make an easy to click link on your dock. To do this, simply drag the application from the Finder window to the dock. You will see the other icons on the dock move to the side, allowing you to add the new application to the dock. Release the mouse button to add the application to the dock.
4. Our final step is to unmount the applications installer. To do this click on the eject button on the left column. It is now safe to delete the .dmg file.

There you have it, you have successfully and properly installed an application! The steps may very depending on the application you want to install, but for the most part this is the process you need to go through to properly install applications.