F.1 Basic Emacs usage under macOS and GNUstep

By default, the Alt and Option keys are the same as Meta. The Mac Cmd key is the same as Super, and Emacs provides a set of key bindings using this modifier key that mimic other Mac / GNUstep applications (see Windowing System Events under macOS / GNUstep). You can change these bindings in the usual way (see Customizing Key Bindings). The modifiers themselves can be customized; see Mac / GNUstep Customization.

S-mouse-1 adjusts the region to the click position, just like mouse-3 (mouse-save-then-kill); it does not pop up a menu for changing the default face, as S-mouse-1 normally does (see Text Scale). This change makes Emacs behave more like other Mac / GNUstep applications.

When you open or save files using the menus, or using the Cmd-o and Cmd-S bindings, Emacs uses graphical file dialogs to read file names. However, if you use the regular Emacs key sequences, such as C-x C-f, Emacs uses the minibuffer to read file names.

On GNUstep, in an X-windows environment you need to use Cmd-c instead of one of the C-w or M-w commands to transfer text to the X primary selection; otherwise, Emacs will use the clipboard selection. Likewise, Cmd-y (instead of C-y) yanks from the X primary selection instead of the kill-ring or clipboard.