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How to Manage Fonts with Font Book on Mac

Tap through the steps to see how to manage your fonts.

  1. Open Font Book

    Launch Font Book through Spotlight search or from the Applications folder.

  2. Install a new font

    Double-clicking a font file opens a preview window, and clicking 'Install Font' registers it with the system. You can also drag several font files at once into the Font Book window to install them all together.

  3. Check the font preview

    Selecting a font in the list on the left shows a preview of its style and available weights on the right.

  4. Deactivate fonts you don't use

    If you'd rather hide a font from the list without deleting it outright, select it and click 'Deactivate' -- you can turn it back on again whenever you need it.

  5. Remove a font completely

    Select a font you no longer need and delete it to remove it from your system entirely.

  6. Organize fonts into collections

    To group fonts by project or use case, create a new collection and drag related fonts into it.

Especially important if you do a lot of design work

Installing fonts without any organization eventually clutters up the font lists inside your other apps and can slow them down, so it's worth building a habit of keeping only the fonts you actually need active and deactivating the rest -- a small habit that pays off in day-to-day efficiency.

A quick way to spot font conflicts

Font Book also flags duplicate fonts automatically and lets you resolve them right from its own interface, so if a document's formatting looks slightly off across different machines, checking for duplicate or conflicting font versions there is a good first step.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a deactivated font still take up disk space?

Yes -- deactivating a font only hides it from your font lists and apps, it doesn't delete the underlying file, so it still takes up the same amount of disk space.

Will Font Book tell me if I have duplicate fonts installed?

Yes, Font Book automatically flags duplicate fonts and gives you an option to resolve them by keeping only the copy you want and removing the unnecessary duplicate.