Hot Mac OS Tips Posts

How To: Lower Screen Brightness on Your Mac Below the Default

You can use the F1 key to notably dim your Mac's display, but sometimes that just isn't dark enough. If you're working in pitch black conditions, have a migraine or tired eyes, or just want a more comfortable environment, you might want your screen even darker—without making it pitch black.

How To: Shazam for Mac Makes Collecting New Songs Easy

Shazam has ushered in an age where any song we like, but don't recognize, can be almost instantly identified. While the whole process is easy enough—just pull out your phone and hit a button—there are still moments where we might miss those quick and fleeting tunes.

How To: Open Third-Party Apps from Unidentified Developers in macOS

Apple has a built-in way to protect you from opening up potentially malicious apps on your computer in Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, and macOS Sierra. This setting, named Gatekeeper, will never stop you from installing apps from the Mac App Store, but it could from anywhere else. If it's an app you're sure you want to install on your system, here's how to do it.

How To: Remove Duplicates & Customize the “Open With” Menu in Mac OS X

As a regular Mac OS X user, I have a love/hate relationship with the "Open With" contextual menu. Sometimes, it has just what I need. Other times, it's often packed with unnecessary or duplicate items, or missing the app I want to open the file up with the most.

How To: Install the Command Line Developer Tools Without Xcode

OS X is built upon a UNIX foundation, which grants you access to the benefits that UNIX offers, including the standard toolkit (make, gcc, clang, git, perl, svn, size, strings, id, and a lot more) via the command line developer tools, which are an essential if you're a developer. Aside from developers, the command line tools can offer benefits to normal users as well, like the ability to purge RAM for better performance.

How To: Run Multiple Instances of the Same App in Mac OS X

With the use of Terminal, anyone can run multiple instances of the same application on a Mac. When you have multiple windows open in a web browser, the windows are all running under the same Process ID (PID). But, with multiple instances, each has its own unique PID. So why would you want to run multiple instances of the same app? There are several reasons a person may run clones of the same application, but the most popular would be so that the user could multitask. Some applications, like t...

How To: Reformat Mac OS X Without a Recovery Disc or Drive

As I've said before, slowing down is not an option for me. At one point, I realized that there were plenty of files on my Mac that I didn't need any more, but too many to delete individually. In other cases, your Mac can be experiencing some major malfunctions: constant crashing, locked controls, slow boot times, missing files, etc.

How To: Export Your Original Images, Live Photo Videos & Metadata in Apple Photos for Mac

When you export an image from the Photos app in macOS, you may not be getting the whole deal. In the export menu, you need to select either JPEG, TIFF, or PNG, and if you don't make any adjustments to the quality settings, it'll likely be compressed. If you need the original full-resolution file or want to get the video that's attached to a Live Photo, there's a simple way to do it.

How To: Every Mac Is Vulnerable to the Shellshock Bash Exploit: Here's How to Patch OS X

Heartbleed, move over. There's a new bug in town, and this time it's also affecting Mac and Linux computers. It's called Shellshock (its original official title is CVE-2014-6271), and it's currently got a 10 out of 10 severity rating over at the National Cyber Awareness System. While some updates have been issued to fix this bug, they were incomplete, and your system is probably still vulnerable, as it has been for the last probably 20 years.

How To: The Easiest Way to Resize All Windows on Your Mac Simultaneously to the Same Dimensions

It can feel pretty chaotic when you have a lot of open windows on your Mac that are different sizes, but there's an easy way to organize the mess in just a few seconds.

How To: Remove or Add 'Where from' Metadata in Files on macOS

When you download files from certain apps like Safari and Chrome on your Mac, those files are tagged with the "Where from" metadata attribute. Depending on where the file was downloaded from, this attribute may refer to the host's URL, a sender's email address, or another piece of identifying information. While not obvious, you can delete or even change this attribute.

How To: Change the Default Save Location of Screenshots in Mac OS X for a Cleaner Desktop

While my desktop is usually neat and organized, it quickly fills up with screenshots each and every day. Usually, I end up putting them in a folder or just trash them, but why not make the entire process of taking and organizing screenshots easier by changing their default save location? With the help of Terminal, I'm going to show you how to change the default save location of screenshots to anywhere you want in Mac OS X.

How To: You're Uninstalling Mac Apps Wrong: Here's How to Remove Them Completely

Uninstalling an app on your Mac isn't as straightforward as you would think. When you drag and drop an app into the Trash, then empty it, the main app itself may be gone, but many associated files and folders are left behind. So how do you get rid of them? There are a couple of ways.

How To: Know When Apple Batteries Need to Be Serviced or Replaced

Not all batteries are created equal, but one thing's for sure—they all lose capacity over time. Thankfully, the advanced lithium-ion batteries in your MacBook and iPhone are meant to last for several years before they begin to lose their overall charge capacity.

How To: Get the Beautiful New El Capitan Wallpaper for Your Mac & iPhone

Apple just released the latest developer preview of OS X 10.11 El Capitan, currently in its sixth beta. While this latest build mostly deals with tiny improvements and bug fixes, it also includes a brand new breathtaking wallpaper of the El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park.

How To: Dual Boot Windows 10 & Mac OS X on Your Mac

While Windows 10 is still a few weeks away from a public release, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy its brand new features right now. Anyone with an Insider Preview account can install Windows 10 on their computer. And that doesn't just go for those that own a Windows PC—Mac users can get their hands on Windows 10 as well.

How To: Receive Notifications When Your Name Is Mentioned in Messages

Group chats can get annoying real quick if the people in them are sending rapid-fire texts without hesitation, especially if none of them are any interest to you specifically. Luckily, it's easy to mute notifications for specific message threads. You can even leave a group chat if everyone is using iMessages, but that could lead to you missing an important message.

How To: Close All Open Apps on Your Mac with a Single Click

Normally, if you want to close all of the open apps on your Mac, you'd have to either quit them all one by one or restart, shut down, or log out while making sure to deselect “Reopen windows when logging back in." The latter option is great, but it doesn't always work in Mac OS X, and what if you don't want to restart, shut down, or log out?

How To: Create a Bootable Install USB Drive of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

Apple released the new Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite in the Mac App Store for everyone to download and install for free on October 16th, 2014, but downloading a 5+ GB file for each of your computers will take some serious time. The best thing to do is download it once and create a bootable install USB drive from the file for all of your Macs.

How To: Check if Third-Party Apps Are Safe to Install on Your Mac

Malware often disguises itself inside of seemingly non-malicious files, such as installer packages, where it can then gain root access to your computer to track activity or steal your information.

Office for Mac 2016: See What's New & Try Out the Public Preview

If you've ever attended school or held a job, you're probably well familiar with Microsoft Office, whether you used it or not. It's the most popular office suite available, and has been for some time. Apple does have its own suite of productivity apps (iWork), but Microsoft Office has always been the industry leader for word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

How To: Get the Dark Mode Boot Screen on Your Pre-2011 Mac Running Yosemite

When Yosemite was released, a more detailed boot screen came to your Mac. So now, just like on Apple's mobile devices, you will see a loading bar telling you how far into the startup process you are. Apple also decided to add a black version of this boot screen to newer Macs, leaving those of us who purchased a computer before 2011 out of the loop.

How To: Get Apple's RSS Visualizer Back as a Screensaver in Mac OS X 10.8 & Higher

Back in the day when computers relied on CRT monitors, having a static image displayed for too long actually resulted in the image being burned into the screen. For this reason, screensavers were developed, which display animated images in constant motion to prevent burning in when you stepped away from your computer.

How To: Customize Spotlight Search in Mac OS X Yosemite

Spotlight, Apple's selection-based search system, received a major facelift on Mac OS X Yosemite. Packed with dozens of new features, such as a central search window and increased app suggestions, the reworked Spotlight was a breath of fresh air.

How To: Get the Transparent 3D Dock Back in Mac OS X Yosemite

While change is good, it isn't always welcomed. All software updates with radical redesigns and brand-new features bring at least a few complaints from those accustomed to previous versions. iOS 7 got a lot of flak from iOS 6 users, as did iOS 8 from iOS 7 users.

How To: Adjust Your Mac's Volume in Quarter Increments (And Silence the Sound Effect)

Sometimes, the volume buttons on a MacBook can be pretty annoying. It's too loud, so you turn it down one notch, and now you can't hear your movie at all. It's too low, so you turn it up one notch, and now you can't even hear yourself think.

How To: Install the Classic Windows 3D Pipes Screensaver on Your Mac

Back when CRT and plasma monitors were still a thing, screensavers served a purpose beyond just aesthetics: the moving images and patterns prevented static images from being burned into the display.

How To: Tired of Chess? Here's How You Find the Secret Games Hidden on Your Mac

I can definitely say that my MacBook is one of my best friends, but I was still very disappointed when I realized that the only game my laptop came with was chess. For starters, I'm not very good at chess. I haven't even beat the computer once, which really grinds my gears. But, it has come to my attention that chess isn't the only pre-installed game on my Mac—there seems to be some hidden gems that I simply wasn't cool enough to know about. For some of you, this may be old news, but for me, ...

Mac Troubleshooting: How to Find Your Restart, Shutdown & Uptime History

When was the last time you restarted or shutdown your Mac? In the post-iPhone era, most devices are now powered on almost constantly. For better or for worse, the computing landscape has accommodated this "always on" trend, but you still need to periodically restart your devices—especially your Mac.

How To: Increase the Sound & Quality of Your Mac's Speakers

During a power outage at my apartment this year, I watched movies on my MacBook Pro instead of on my television. While I had no complaints about the screen size, I did have an issue with how low the audio coming from my speakers was. External speakers would help, but I don't want to buy them or lug them around every time I want to watch a movie.

How To: Convert HEIF Photos from HEIC to JPG or PNG with MacOS Monterey's New Time-Saving Shortcut

If you regularly run into issues opening images that use the .heic extension, the easiest solution is to convert the file into a more compatible format. Using apps like Photos and Preview on a Mac makes the process simple, but macOS Monterey just streamlined the process so that you don't even have to open an app anymore.

How To: Create a Bootable Install USB Drive of macOS 10.12 Sierra

While it hasn't gotten as much attention as iOS 10, Apple's big 10.12 update to their Mac operating system is finally out for all to enjoy—and you can download it for free from the Mac App Store right now.

How To: See Which Apps Are Using Your Network Connection Right from Your Mac's Menu Bar

Monitoring your Mac with widgets can be the first step in identifying bandwidth issues, but finding the root of the problem can be a completely different story. Usually you will have to open up Activity Monitor in Mac OS X to look for apps hogging your bandwidth, but with Loading, you can get a detailed data usage report right from your menu bar.

How To: Hide All Desktop Icons with One Click on Your Mac

Cleaning the clutter off of your desktop every so often is a great idea. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that you're actually going to do it. Whatever the reason, you may not have time to get everything organized, but luckily there is a way to temporarily "clean" your desktop in a hurry.

How To: Add Custom or Pre-Made HTML5 Widgets to Your Mac's Desktop

Apple hasn't been the most avid supporter of widgets over the years. Yes, they added them to the Notification Center in Yosemite, but that requires a drawer to be opened and closed whenever you want to check them. In my search for a better solution, I came across Ubersicht by developer Felix Hageloh.

How To: Make Yosemite Look More Like Classic, Pre-Mac OS X Systems

Nostalgia sometimes gets the best of us—hence the reason we geek-out when we see emulators for SNES on Apple devices or N64 on Android.

How To: Create a Bootable Install USB Drive of Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks

Apple may have made Mavericks more accessible to Mac users everywhere at the fair price of zero dollars, but unfortunately, they made it trickier to create a bootable install drive of the Mac OS X 10.9 operating system.

How To: Seamlessly Use Your Mac's Keyboard and Mouse on Your iPad or Another Mac

With the release of iOS 15.4, iPadOS 15.4, and macOS 12.3, Apple unleashed a ton of new features. We saw a preview of one of the most anticipated new features way back in June 2021 when it was announced at WWDC, and now it's finally available for everyone with an iPad and Mac.

How To: Trick Your MacBook's Touch ID into Registering Twice as Many Fingerprints for Each Account

While Touch ID has been a part of the iPhone's legacy since 2013, Apple waited until 2016 to add biometrics to its MacBook lineup, and it's not as impressive. An iPhone with Touch ID can register up to five fingerprints, but Macs can only register a maximum of three per account. If that seems unfair, there's an easy trick to doubling that number, meaning six of your fingerprints could unlock your laptop!

How To: Cast Music (Or Any Audio) From Your Mac to Chromecast

Although I know it will never happen due to Apple and Google's tempestuous relationship, I sometimes wish I could cast iTunes or Apple Music from my Mac to Google's Chromecast. When you don't have speakers to blast your music, the television is a great alternative to amplify your music.