Using the Special menu

Volumes let you browse disks, view information about files, preview documents, and open items.

In addition to that, volumes allow you to eject disks, partitions, or servers and mount ejected disks.

Ejecting and mounting disks

This submenu lets you quickly access the items in your home folder (documents, downloads, music, pictures, movies, ... ).

On Mac OS X 10.7, the Library folder in your home folder is hidden. If you need to open or browse it, hold the Option key while displaying the Home submenu.

This submenu lets you access the items in the Library folder in your home folder. The Library folder contains files used by Mac OS X and your applications, including your preferences, and is hidden on Mac OS X 10.7.

Note: The Library item is available only on Mac OS X 10.7 since the Library folder is visible on Mac OS X 10.6 or earlier.

This submenu lets you quickly access the folders you have recently opened or browsed using the Special menu.

To change the number of recent folders, use the Number of Folders submenu at the bottom of the Recent Folders submenu.

To clear the Recent Folders submenu, choose Clear Menu from the Number of Folders submenu.

This submenu lets you open documents that you have used recently.

By default, recent documents are sorted alphabetically. To list them from the most recent one to the oldest one, choose Sort Chronologically from the submenu. To change the number of recent documents, use the Number of Documents submenu at the bottom of the Recent Documents submenu.

To clear the Recent Documents submenu, choose Clear Menu from the Number of Documents submenu. Clearing the Recent Documents submenu also deletes documents from the Recent Items submenu in the Apple menu.

Note: Recent documents are not available on Mac OS X 10.4.

This submenu lets you connect to servers that you have used recently.

By default, recent servers are sorted alphabetically. To list them from the most recent one to the oldest one, choose Sort Chronologically from the submenu. To change the number of recent documents, use the Number of Servers submenu at the bottom of the Recent Servers submenu.

To clear the Recent Servers submenu, choose Clear Menu from the Number of Servers submenu. Clearing the Recent Servers submenu also deletes servers from the Recent Items submenu in the Apple menu.

Note: Recent servers are not available on Mac OS X 10.4.

This submenu lets you look up contact information, display phone numbers, create email messages, visit home pages, invite contacts to a chat, copy mailing labels, and create vCards.

Accessing your Address Book contacts

This submenu lets you browse your iPhoto library, open albums, preview photos, view ratings, keywords, and metadata, and copy photos to the Clipboard.

Browsing your iPhoto library

This submenu lets you browse your Aperture projects, preview photos, view metadata and keywords, and copy photos to the Clipboard.

Browsing your Aperture library

You can add frequently used folders, smart folders, and files to the Special menu, so that you can quickly access them.

This submenu lets you check system memory usage.

You can view physical memory allocation, swap space, and virtual memory statistics and open Activity Monitor to learn more about the processes running on your computer and their memory usage.

This submenu lets you view the time elapsed since you last restarted your computer.

If you have installed Classic, these commands let you start, stop, and restart Classic.

To force Classic to quit, hold the Option key while displaying the Special menu.

Warning: By forcing Classic to quit, you lose any changes to documents open in your Classic applications.

These commands let you quit, launch, and quit and automatically relaunch the Finder.

To force the Finder to quit, hold the Option key while displaying the Special menu.

This command lets you quit and automatically relaunch the Dock application.

To force the Dock to quit and relaunch it, hold the Option key while displaying the Special menu.

This command lets you lock your screen while you are away from your computer, keeping your applications and documents open.

This command lets you put your computer to sleep.

These commands let you restart or shut down your computer, and log out of your account immediately, without displaying a confirmation message.

Note: On Mac OS X 10.7, windows will be restored or not when you log back in depending on whether the "Reopen windows when logging back in" checkbox was selected or deselected when the confirmation message was last displayed. To show the confirmation message, hold the Option key while choosing Restart, Shut Down, or Log Out.