Mac OS Tips Features
How To: Make Your Mac Look & Feel More Like Your iPhone
Is your Mac starting to feel messy and sluggish after using iOS 8 on your iPhone every day? Even with all of the iOS-friendly features built in to Mac OS X Yosemite, your Mac can still feel kind of "old" in comparison to an iOS device—but it doesn't have to. Using the tips and tricks below, you can easily make your Mac desktop or laptop look and feel like iOS 8 in no time.
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: Hunt Down Space-Hogging Files on Your Mac with Disk Inventory X
I love my MacBook Air, but the fact that it runs on only 128 GB of flash storage causes me to move most of my files to the cloud. I don't mind having to be connected to the internet in order to access my files, but it's definitely a hassle trying to figure out which files I should move in order to save the most space. Usually, I don't even bother even trying until I see the dreaded "Your startup disk if almost full" warning. Currently, the only real way to find your biggest files in Mac OS X ...
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: 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: Monitor System Usage Stats in Your Mac OS X Menu Bar
Like a car, your Mac needs to be monitored and cared for to keep it running as smoothly as possible. While your vehicle comes with a ton of gauges to keep track of your oil, temperature, and in some cases, even tire pressure, your Mac has no easy way to watch for low memory or high disk usage. Normally you would have to open up Activity Monitor to take a look at your usage stats, but now there is something better.
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: Control Spotify Music from an Easy-Access Notification Center Widget on Your Mac
After utilizing Spotify's My Year in Music tool, I came to realize that I listened to over 30,000 minutes of music in 2014. Most of that was played while working from my Mac using the desktop version of the service.
How To: Conserve Data When Tethering to Your Personal Hotspot
I'm lucky enough to have internet access on my laptop practically everywhere I go because of my mobile hotspot plan. All I have to do is enable the personal hotspot feature from my iPhone and I can surf the web on any Wi-Fi enabled device. But of course, there's a catch.
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: 10 Reasons Why You'll Want to Use Screen Savers Again on Your Mac
Yes, screen savers are fun to look at for a few seconds, but those animations actually used to serve a purpose beyond simple entertainment.
How To: This Mac App Uses Your Webcam to "See" If You're Still There Before Putting It to Sleep
Most of the time, if you're actually using your computer, it won't just go to sleep on you. But when you're reading a long article or watching a video and don't move the mouse or use the keyboard for a while, the screen automatically dims or goes into sleep mode.
How To: Find Out If the FBI Is Keeping Tabs on Your Apple Device (UPDATED)
It's no secret that there's a lot of surveillance going on these days. It's easier than ever to end up in a database, and even former government agents are speaking out about the atrocious amount of spying being done against our own citizens. They've targeted our laptops, cars, IP addresses, and now they're coming for our iPhones. AntiSec hackers managed to get their hands on a list of over 12 million Apple UDIDs (Universal Device IDs) from an FBI computer, and they published 1,000,001 of the...
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: 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: Organize Your Mac's Dock by Adding Blank Spaces as App Icon Dividers
Terminal is powerful tool that every Mac OS X user should explore. With it, we've shown you how to save iPhone voicemails, extract and back up text messages, and even check for vulnerabilities in your system, all using commands issued from within Terminal.
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 Ultimate Guide to Password-Protecting Files & Folders in Mac OS X Yosemite
While you may not have loads of secret files hiding on your computer, there might be one or two items that need a little extra security, like a file of website logins or a folder of risqué photos.
How To: Mimic Your iPhone's Lock Screen in Mac OS X with This iOS-Style Screensaver
The iOS 7 release brought with it many new aesthetic upgrades, from new flat, vibrant icons to a sleeker text messaging interface. Another small, yet noticeable, difference is the minimal and clean lock screen, which removed the overbearing "Slide to Unlock" background bar in lieu of just the text.
How To: Temporarily Override Your Mac's Sleep & Screen Saver Settings from the Menu Bar
Although sleep mode and screen savers contribute to the security and energy preservation of my MacBook, it can become a nuisance when they initiate unwelcomely. Yes, I could just change these settings in System Preferences, but to do this every time I momentarily leave my Mac unattended would be tedious, to say the least.
How To: Run Any Android App on Your Mac
One of the best features of Android is the fact that it's open-source, giving developers the ability to use it on pretty much any device they can think of, like on a Windows PC using Andy. That's what drove the creators behind the Android-x86 project to port over the mobile OS to any computer running an Intel processor.
How To: 13 Terminal Commands Every Mac User Should Know
When you think of Terminal, you probably imagine some hacker sitting in front of their computer in a dimly lit room trying to break into an FBI database. In reality, it's just a simple tool that can make using your Mac much easier.
How To: Access Recently Used Apps & Documents Faster on Your Mac
Apple makes it easy to access your favorite and most recently used applications and documents in Mac OS X. You can simply add your favorite apps and folders to the dock, and you can always visit the Apple menu from the menu bar to see a list of your most recently used apps and docs.
How To: Upgrade to Mountain Lion from Leopard (OS X 10.5 to 10.8)
Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) is out today, available in the Mac App Store for just $20. Unfortunately, installing Mountain Lion requires that you already have a Mac running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) or Lion (OS X 10.7). If you're currently running a Leopard system, you're out of luck, and need to pay $29 to upgrade to Snow Leopard, and then an additional $20 to upgrade again to Mountain Lion. That sounds like way to much trouble to me. But why exactly is Leopard incompatible? Turns out it's not—m...
How To: Download OS X 10.11 El Capitan on Your Mac
For those unwilling to wait until the Fall for the official release of Apple's latest Mac OS X, El Capitan, you can sign up for the public beta today and get it sometime this summer. If that's still not soon enough for you, there is a way to get it on your Mac right now.
How To: Laplock Protects Your MacBook from Thieves in Public Places
Coffee shops are a relaxing place to get work done on your laptop; there's free Wi-Fi, fresh coffee, and people generally leave you alone. Inevitably, those cups of coffee will go straight through you, resulting in a much-needed bathroom break. But while you're attending to your bodily functions, who's attending to your MacBook?
How To: Disable Password Prompts When Downloading Free Apps in the Mac App Store
Whether you want to edit photos, compress files, play games, or DJ your next party, there's a free Mac app that can help you out. But things can get annoying real fast if you download a lot of free apps from the Mac App Store, since you have to type in your Apple ID password each time.
News: Apple Evolution Timeline
Apple Evolution Timeline (click to magnify) by Edwin Tofslie.
How To: Keep Your MacBook Awake with the Display Closed
It's pretty logical for your MacBook to sleep when you close its lid, but under certain circumstances, you may not necessarily want this feature to kick in.
How To: Turn Off MacBook Pro Screen with the Lid Open and Using an External Monitor
This is a working solution for those using an external monitor on their MacBook Pro's running Yosemite. The previous terminal commands for Mavericks no longer works on Yosemite, so this how to do it.
How To: Take Window Screenshots Without Drop Shadows on Your Mac
There are many ways to take a screenshot in macOS (previously Mac OS X), but all of the well-known options give you a drop shadow in the picture when snapping application windows.
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: Disable Annoying Software Update Notifications on Your Mac
Software update notifications are meant to be a reminder to keep your operating system and apps up to date, but that doesn't mean that they never get annoying.
How To: Use Siri to Control iTunes, Put Your Mac to Sleep, & More from Your iPhone
While Apple's Continuity feature has certainly impressed me, I can't help but feel like it could be used to create a better connection between my iPhone and Mac. Sure, Handoff allows me to pick up where I left off in certain applications between the two devices, and it lets me pick up calls and send text messages on my Mac, but I want even more functionality.
How To: Activate the Little-Known Paper Tape Feature on Mac OS X's Calculator App
Calculator applications are standard on almost every computer and mobile device now, but they can be a pain to use. If you're performing longer equations, it can be really annoying to not be able to see the trail that shows how you got there.
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: These 9 Tips Make Gaming on Your Mac Not Suck
When most people think of "gaming computers," they're probably thinking of Windows-based PCs. They offer a huge variety of devices with better equipped software and hardware for a cheaper price, and there are more available games than there are for OS X-based systems.
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.
News: 3 Unique Alternative Web Browsers for Your iOS Device
A few weeks ago I wrote about Atomic Web as the best web browser for iOS devices, and while I believe it is a superior option, Atomic Web is not the only alternative web browser you can use on your iOS device. There are three more—Dual Browser, iCabMobile, and iSwifter—that are all great options because of their unique features. Let’s check them out.
How To: Connect an External Display to Your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro
If you have no desire to get a separate Mac desktop computer, but want to either supersize your laptop's screen for gaming or need to get additional screen real estate while you work, then connecting your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro to an external display is the right call.