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macOS Platform Conventions

Mouse Instructions and macOS Platforms

The documentation typically presents conventions for Microsoft® Windows® platforms. Therefore, some conventions and operations differ on the macOS platform from those that appear in the rest of the documentation. The intended action for the macOS platform is typically obvious. Mouse operations follow macOS conventions.

Make the following replacements to adjust documented mouse instructions for Macintosh platforms if you are using a one-button mouse:

  • Replace right-click with Ctrl+click

  • Replace middle-click with Command+click

Navigating Within the MATLAB Root Folder on macOS Platforms

On macOS platforms, MATLAB® is installed as an application bundle. The root folder, the string returned by the matlabroot command, has a .app extension.

To view the contents of the MATLAB root folder in the Mac Finder, right-click the MATLAB application bundle, and then select Show Package Contents from the context menu.

To view the content of the MATLAB root folder from within MATLAB:

  1. On the Home tab, in the File section, click Open file.

  2. In the File Browser dialog box, press Command+Shift+G to open the Go To Folder dialog box.

  3. Enter the full path to a folder within the MATLAB application package, for example, /Applications/MATLAB_R2019a.app/bin.

  4. Press Go.

To open a file with a MATLAB command, such as edit, specify the full path of the MATLAB root folder. For example: 

edit(fullfile(matlabroot,'/toolbox/matlab/demos/lotka.m'))

MATLAB Dock Menu

Starting in MATLAB R2012a, the MATLAB Dock menu lists open windows and documents associated with the running MATLAB. Choosing an open document from the Dock menu brings the selected document's window to the foreground. In addition, the MATLAB Dock menu includes the item Open Additional Instance of MATLAB. This option starts another instance of MATLAB. You can select Options > Keep in Dock, but only for the first MATLAB instance. Use Open Additional Instance of MATLAB to start additional instances rather than trying to keep multiple MATLAB icons in the Dock.