If you own and use a smartphone or tablet, you’re probably familiar with getting apps for your device. On Androids, you go to the Google Play Store. On Apple devices, you open the App Store. There are tens of thousands of apps in both of these stores and exploring them can sometimes be mind-boggling.

Despite people using the smartphone and tablet stores, we’ve discovered that many people never even look at the stores on their computers! Yes, both Macs and PCs have stores built into their operating systems.

The screenshot above is a capture of the Mac app store while these two photos show the opening page of the Microsoft Store:

In both stores, there are tons and tons of apps that you can use on your computer. Are you a Facebook member? Instead of going to the Facebook web page, you can download the computer app for Facebook and it will work similarly to the phone/tablet app. You can save time by using the app instead of your browser.

To help you find new apps, both stores have apps divided into categories. If you want games, there’s an area for that. Like music? Music apps are sorted into their own group, too.

Just like the app stores for tablets and smartphones, there is a huge selection of free apps for your computer. The apps that cost money are generally priced reasonably.

If you’re not using your computer’s store, I encourage you to open the store and spend some time exploring the apps. On a Windows 10 PC, you should have an icon on the task bar that looks like a shopping bag:

If it’s not there, simply go to the search field and type “Microsoft Store” (without the quotes) and it will appear at the top of the search-results window. If you want to use Cortana, wake her up (Hey, Cortana!) or click on her icon in the task bar and say, “Microsoft Store.” She will open the store for you. On a Mac, you should find the icon for the Mac store in the Menu:

If it’s not there, you can open Finder and look under applications.