Mac OS

Mac OS, Mac OS X, or macOS, is the operating system that resides on Apple’s desktop and portable computer lineup. Built upon a Unix core, it is easy to use yet highly advanced, extremely stable, and an excellent OS for productivity and creation. Browse through our articles or use the search feature to look for something specific that is pertinent to the Mac operating system.

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Enable Dark Mode in OS X Yosemite Beta with a defaults Command

Jun 19, 2014 - 10 Comments
Dark Mode in Yosemite beta

Mac users running OS X Yosemite Beta 2 can get a glimpse at the upcoming “dark mode” feature that was mentioned briefly during the Yosemite overview presentation during WWDC 2014. Essentially, dark mode turns many user interface elements of OS X Yosemite into significantly darker variations of themselves, swapping out whites and light grays for … Read More

Copy the Current Path from Terminal to the Clipboard in Mac OS X

Jun 18, 2014 - 3 Comments
Terminal in Mac OS X

While it’s fairly easy to copy a folder path from the Mac GUI and Finder, or even to copy the path into the Terminal with a drag & drop trick, going the other direction and getting the current path from the command line and then having it accessible to the broader OS X clipboard is … Read More

OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 2 Released by Apple

Jun 17, 2014 - 13 Comments
OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 2

Apple has released OS X Yosemite Developer Preview 2 to Mac users running OS X 10.10 beta builds. The new build includes many bug fixes, feature enhancements, and additions to the beta release of OS X, and arrives versioned as 14A261i. The updated build is available to download through the Mac App Store, and Mac … Read More

Prevent System Sleep While a Process or Command is Active in Mac OS X

Jun 16, 2014 - 4 Comments
Caffeine prevents sleep while a command is running

Many Mac users use utilities to temporarily prevent their computer from sleeping, often relying on sleep corners, the third party tool called Caffeine, pmset, or more recently, the command line utility that is now bundled with OS X called caffeinate. By default, the Caffeine menubar item and the caffeinate command both will prevent sleep as … Read More

How to Crop an Image in Mac OS X with Preview

Jun 16, 2014 - 22 Comments
Choose the rectangular crop tool

Cropping is an essential image editing function, helping to improve composition of a photo, to emphasize the focus of an image, or to reduce unnecessary parts of a picture. While many Mac users use third party tools to perform image cropping, no additional apps are needed to perform the task in OS X, because the … Read More

Safely Removing a Drive to Avoid the “Disk Not Ejected Properly” Alert in Mac OS X

Jun 13, 2014 - 32 Comments
Disk not ejected properly alert dialog in Mac OS X

The Mac issues a warning when an attached disk, drive, or volume has not been ejected properly, this is to insure against data loss on the drive in question, and it is good advice to follow. Of course the next obvious question for so many newcomers to the Mac platform is how on earth to … Read More

Instantly Email a Webpage URL from Safari or Chrome with a Keyboard Shortcut in Mac OS X

Jun 12, 2014 - 11 Comments
Email this webpage with a keyboard shortcut

Anytime you find yourself reading something particularly interesting, worthwhile, or helpful on the web (like OSXDaily.com) you may find yourself wishing you could share the active URL quickly with someone else. While many users may manually copy and paste the sites URL to an email client, there’s a better way that is supported by both … Read More

Save an Audio or Video File Directly from the Media Viewer in Safari

Jun 11, 2014 - 11 Comments
Save an audio or video file from Safari in Mac OS X

Many Safari users have noticed that when trying to save a raw audio file or video file that is loaded directly from the web within Safaris media viewer tab or window, the “Save As” default option will bring about a ‘.webarchive’ file – not exactly the multimedia file that users are looking to save. This … Read More

Use ditto to Copy Files & Directories Intelligently from the Mac Terminal

Jun 11, 2014 - 11 Comments
The ditto command

Most longtime command line users rely on the cp command to copy files and directories, but Mac OS X offers another solution with the ‘ditto’ command. Ditto is slightly more advanced but can be advantageous to ‘cp’ for several reasons, as it not only preserves ownership attributes and permissions but also file resource forks and … Read More

How to Install OS X Yosemite on Any External Drive (Thumb Drive, USB Disk, etc)

Jun 9, 2014 - 29 Comments
Install OS X Yosemite

We’ve covered how to install OS X Yosemite onto a separate partition of an internal hard disk and dual boot with OS X Mavericks, but many Mac users have wondered if it’s possible to install OS X 10.10 onto an external drive instead, thereby avoiding any modifications to the primary Mac hard drive or partition … Read More

Want to Beta Test OS X Yosemite? Sign Up for the Official Beta Program

Jun 6, 2014 - 16 Comments
OS X Yosemite

If you can’t wait until the fall to get your hands on OS X Yosemite, and you don’t want to cough up the $99 to get a Mac Developer Account just for the current Developer Preview access, Apple provides all users with a third option; joining the official OS X public beta program. The OS … Read More

How to Install OS X Yosemite Beta on a New Partition & Safely Dual Boot

Jun 5, 2014 - 55 Comments
Install OS X Yosemite

OS X Yosemite is an amazing update to the Mac operating system that’s really better experienced than seen, but due to it’s current early beta status, it’s generally not a good idea to upgrade your primary OS X volume to the 10.10 beta quite yet. Instead, the safest approach is to install OS X Yosemite … Read More

OS X Yosemite System Requirements & Compatible Macs List

Jun 3, 2014 - 33 Comments

OS X Yosemite will be one of the most exciting updates to Mac system software in many years, complete with an all new user interface, major iOS integration, and tons of new features. Of course all the excitement surrounding Yosemite is largely useless if your Mac won’t actually run OS X 10.10 when it launches … Read More

28 Screen Shots of OS X Yosemite [Gallery]

Jun 2, 2014 - 82 Comments
AirDrop on Mac

OS X Yosemite offers a major visual redesign of Mac OS X, with heavy usage of translucency, transparencies, redesigned icons, a new appearance to the Dock, a completely redesigned Notification Center, and so much more. Set to be released this fall as a free download with tons of features to go along with the visual … Read More

OS X Yosemite Set To Be Released This Fall As A Free Download

Jun 2, 2014 - 1 Comment
OS X Yosemite logo

The next major Mac operating system, OS X Yosemite, will be released to the public this fall. While a specific release date has yet to be announced, fall of 2014 officially begins on September 22 and ends on December 21, offering a vague timeline for the launch and to expect when all Mac users will … Read More

OS X Yosemite is the Next Mac OS: Here’s a First Look

Jun 2, 2014 - 23 Comments

OS X Yosemite is the next major release of the Mac operating system. It’s set to be a whopper of an update for the Mac, with a major new user interface overhaul and a slew of amazing features. Let’s take a quick look based on what we’ve seen so from the OS X Yosemite presentation … Read More

Try Preventing the Bluetooth Wake Ability if Your Mac is Randomly Waking from Sleep

May 30, 2014 - 3 Comments
Disable Bluetooth waking a Mac from sleep

Many Mac users choose to put their computers to sleep when they’re not in use, and unless Macs are scheduled to wake at a specific time, the computer should stay asleep until it has been manually awoken by user input, like a key press or mouse click. Should of course is the operative word here, … Read More

Open Folders as New Windows Instead of Tabs in Finder of Mac OS X

May 28, 2014 - 20 Comments
Open folders into new windows rather than tabs in Mac OS X

The Mac file system received tabbed window support in OS X Mavericks, which also caused opening new Finder windows into launching new tabs rather than an actual new Finder window. While this helps to cut down on window clutter when browsing the file system, it can also be kind of frustrating if you want to … Read More

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