Widgets — small windows that display live information — have appeared in various forms in macOS over the years. Most recently, they appeared in Dashboard, a feature that was superseded and then replaced by Notification Center. But widgets are back and have been gradually improved in recent versions of macOS. They were moved from Notification Center onto the desktop. In this article, we’ll show you how to add widgets on Mac’s desktop.
What are widgets?
Widgets are like mini apps that sit in Notification Center, or if you choose, on your desktop and display live information. They can be used to show the weather, stock prices, or the song currently playing in Apple Music, among many other things. Widgets can be interactive. For example, you can mark items as completed in the Reminders widget. Third-party apps can also have their own widgets. If you have an iPhone and use the same Apple ID, you can even display widgets from your iPhone apps on your Mac. Usually, widgets have three options for their size and how much information they show. You can choose which one to display.
How to add widgets on your Mac
- Click the date in the menu bar to reveal Notification Center.
- At the bottom of Notification Center, click Edit Widgets.
- You will see the widget Gallery appear at the bottom of the screen. Scroll through the gallery or search for a widget.
- When you’ve found the app whose widget you want to add, choose a size and click on it and hold.
- To add the widget to the desktop, drag it onto the desktop and release it. To add it to Notification Center, drag it onto Notification Center and release it.
Alternatively, control-click or right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose Edit Widgets. Then, follow the remaining steps listed above.
How to remove widgets
To remove a widget, you can follow the steps above but at Step 3, instead of looking for a widget to add, click the ‘-’ at the top left corner of the one you want to remove. Or, with the widget visible, you can Control-click or right-click it and choose Remove Widget.
How to customize a widget
Most widgets allow you to choose what information they display. Reminders, for example, allows you to choose which Reminders list you want to see, and Calendar allows you to choose which calendar to display. To make that choice, right-click or Control-click the widget if it’s on the desktop, and choose Edit “widget name”. You will then see the available options. Choose one and click Done. If the widget is in Notification Center, you will need to display Notification Center first.
How to manage widgets
There are some controls for widgets in System Settings.
- Click the Apple menu and choose System Settings > Desktop & Dock.
- Scroll down to the Widgets section.
- You will see an option to choose whether you want widgets to be displayed on Desktop or Stage Manager. Choose the options you want.
- Beneath that, you will see an option for widget style. Choose Full color, Monochrome, or Automatic.
- The next two options allow you to choose whether to include iPhone widgets in the Widgets Gallery on your Mac and which web browser to use when you click a link in a widget. Choose the options you want.
If you want to reposition one or more widgets on your desktop, just click on the one you want to move and drag it to where you want to position it then let go. Widgets don’t display when apps are in full-screen mode and when an application window is active, desktop widgets dim so they don’t distract from the window.
How to keep your Mac free from junk files
If you have lots of apps and widgets installed on your Mac, it can quickly become cluttered with junk files. That’s a problem for a couple of reasons:
- Most importantly, it takes up valuable space on your startup disk, sometimes several gigabytes’ worth.
- Junk files can conflict with each other or with files that are added later and that can cause your Mac to slow down or become unstable.
The solution is to regularly remove those junk files. But that’s easier said than done. These files include settings files from apps no longer on your Mac, temporary files that were never deleted, multiple versions of the same document, universal binary versions of apps, and old Mail attachments.
Getting rid of all those files manually would be very time-consuming and, well, tedious. That’s where CleanMyMac’s Cleanup tool comes in. With one click, it scans your Mac, looking for all those junk files. When it’s done, it reports back on what it has found. You can then choose to remove all of that junk with a few clicks or review each category and decide for yourself what to do. Get started with a free CleanMyMac trial and follow these steps:
- Open CleanMyMac.
- Click Cleanup > Scan > Clean.
What to do if you can’t see iPhone widgets on your Mac
To display iPhone widgets on your Mac, your Mac will need to run macOS Sonoma or later, and your iPhone will need to have iOS 17 or later installed. You will also need to be signed into the same Apple ID on both devices. If all those conditions are met, you should see the option to view iPhone widgets in System Settings > Desktop & Dock. If you click an iPhone widget and don’t have the same app installed on your Mac, you will see a message telling you that you will need to view it on your iPhone.
Widgets are a great way of displaying information in Notification Center or on your Mac’s desktop. And if you have an iPhone, you don’t even need to have the app installed on your Mac. They have also been designed carefully to be as unobtrusive as possible while still allowing you to interact with them. Follow the steps above to add widgets on your Mac.
