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How to Add, Customize, and Use Widgets on Mac

Nov 23, 2020

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The customizable widgets that you know and love on the iPhone and iPad are also available on your Mac. Here’s how to add, customize, and use the new widgets on your Mac running macOS Big Sur and higher.

How to View Widgets on Mac

Widgets in macOS Big Sur and higher are a part of the Notification Center, which no longer has its own icon in the menu bar. To access the Notification Center and widgets, click on the time in the top-right corner of the screen.

If you’re using a Mac with a trackpad, a two-finger swipe-in gesture from the right edge of the trackpad will also open the Notification Center.

The Notification Center is broken down into two halves. At the top, you’ll see all your notifications (with a button to expand the Notification Center if you have more notifications), and in the bottom half, you’ll see your widgets.

You can scroll up to view all your widgets. Here, click a widget, or a part of a widget, to interact with it.

How to Add New Widgets on Mac

By default, macOS adds a couple of widgets to the Notification Center (like Calendar, Weather, and more). You can add more widgets from Apple and third-party apps to the Notification Center.

To add more widgets, open the “Notification Center” and scroll down to the bottom of the list. Then, click the “Edit Widgets” button.

Alternatively, you can right-click on any widget and choose the “Edit Widgets” button to get to the widget editing screen.

You will now see a three-pane interface. The first pane shows a list of all the apps that support widgets. The middle pane shows previews of widgets. The last pane is, of course, your Notification Center.

You can scroll in the middle pane to see a list of all widgets from all apps, or you can select an app to only show widgets from the particular app.

The middle pane will show a live preview of the widget. Below the widget, you can switch between the Small, Medium, and Large sizes. After changing the size, simply click the widget (or click the “+” button in the top-left corner of the widget) to add it to the Notification Center.

This will add the widget to the bottom of the widgets list.

To add a widget to a particular place in Notification Center, drag and drop the widget where you want.

Once you’re done adding widgets, you can click the “Done” button from the bottom of the Notification Center, or you can click anywhere in the empty space on the screen to close the Notification Center.

How to Rearrange Widgets on Mac

Rearranging widgets in Notification Center on Mac is quite easy. Open the “Notification Center,” find a widget, click, and drag it to pick it up.

Then, move the cursor where you want to move it.

Release the cursor to move it to the new place.

This works when you’re in the widget editing mode and when you’re just viewing widgets in Notification Center.

How to Customize a Widget on Mac

Widgets on Mac work in the same way as the widgets on iPhone and iPad. Once a widget is added, you can customize it to change the data, style, and more.

RELATED: How to Customize Your iPhone Home Screen with Widgets and Icons

If you’re in the widget editing mode, simply click a widget to enter the customization mode.

If you are viewing widgets in Notification Center, right-click a widget and choose the “Edit (Widget)” option (this option only shows up if the widget is customizable).

Now, you’ll be able to customize the widget to your liking. In this example, we will customize the Weather widget. Here, click the “Location” option.

Then, search and add a different location.

Once you’re done, click the “Done” button.

You’ll now see the updated widget in the Notification Center.

How to Change Size of an Existing Widget on Mac

As we mentioned above, you can choose the size of the widget when you’re adding it to the Notification Center. You can also change the size of the widget at any time from the Notification Center.

To change the size of an existing widget, simply right click a widget. Here, choose the “Small,” “Medium,” or “Large” option from the “Size” section.

The widget size will be updated instantly.

How to Remove Widgets on Mac

There are two ways to remove a widget from the Notification Center. To quickly remove a widget, open the “Notification Center,” right-click a widget you want to remove, and select the “Remove Widget” option.

Alternatively, you can scroll down to the bottom of the Notification Center, and choose the “Edit Widgets” button to enter the widget editing mode.

Here, click the “-” icon from the top-left corner of a widget to remove it from the Notification Center.

Just like the Mac, there’s a lot you can do with the customizable widgets on your iPhone and iPad:

You can create your own custom iPhone widgets with different data parameters like calendars, reminders, and more.
You can stack multiple widgets on top of each other (a feature that is not available on the Mac).
To create an aesthetic home screen, you can create widgets with transparent backgrounds.

RELATED: How to Create Custom Widgets on iPhone