The Help menu in Mac applications can lead you to documentation, assist you in locating menu commands, and may also point you toward a developer for additional support. Sometimes you can even search documentation directly.

Search for Menu Commands

Did you know the Help menu contains a search field? If you think an application contains a certain menu command, you can search for it via the Help menu.

For example, in the screenshot above, I’m in Safari. I went to Help and searched for “book,” then moused over the Add Bookmark… menu item. The app pointed me to the Add Bookmark… command in the Bookmarks menu.

There’s even a keyboard shortcut for Help: Command+? (or, effectively, Shift+Command+/). So, you can press this shortcut and immediately start typing your search in the menu.

Look Up Documentation

Applications designed following Apple’s guidelines have embedded documentation that you can access and search via the Help menu.

For example, in Mail, I searched in Help for “attachment,” selected “View, save, or delete attachments in Mail o…,” and Mail presented the above utility window atop my Mail window.

I scrolled down to find the instructions for deleting email attachments while retaining the message body, which is one way to recover storage in an email account.

Other Support & Resources

Some applications use their Help menu to point users toward additional support and resources provided by the developer.

In Fantastical, I can visit the Help menu to contact Flexibits for support. Or, in 2Do, I can call up a Walkthrough Tutorial of the app or load the PDF manual in my web browser.

The Help menu is also a great place to search for keyboard shortcuts in an application. Many apps have a dedicated page listing shortcuts as part of their documentation. Check it out and see what you can find!