Mac OS

Messages in Mac OS X has two methods of time-stamping messages; an automatically applied timestamp when a new conversation starts or message is received, and a lesser known ability to view the timestamp of any iMessage or text message sent with the Mac Messages app. We’re going to focus on the latter approach since it … Read More

Each time you download a file from the web with Safari, it goes into a list of downloaded items contained within the browser. In modern versions of Mac OS X, this downloaded list item deletes itself automatically after a day passes, but if you want to change how often and when Safari clears the download … Read More

The standard viewing window of Photos app in Mac OS X shows a series of thumbnails for each image, and if you double-click on any particular image it gets larger and takes over the app. If you wish to view the next picture, most users will click on the back button, then double-click on another … Read More

Apple has released two new beta builds of OS X El Capitan, Developer Beta 8 for those registered in the official Mac Developer Program, and Public Beta 6 for Mac users in the Public Beta test program. The new builds arrive as 15A279b and 15A279d, respectively.

Mac based web developers are probably familiar with manually starting and stopping the Apache web server in OS X through the command line by now, but if you want Apache to start itself automatically upon boot and reboot of a Mac, you’ll want to go a step further and use launchctl. By doing so, webdevs … Read More

Ever wished you could set a Macs wallpaper image from the command line in OS X? As a matter of fact, you can change the desktop background picture from the terminal, which can be useful for a variety of situations ranging from inclusion in a setup script, to remote management, automating, or whatever else you … Read More

Though it’s generally recommended to use the ‘Default for display’ screen resolution option, Mac users who connect their computer to an external display or TV may find it helpful to be able to see, access, and use all possible display resolutions for a particular screen. This can be particularly useful if a display Mis either … Read More

Mac users who favor the Safari browser as their primary means of web access in Mac OS X may find it helpful to switch the search engine used by default in Safari. This determines which web search tool is used through the URL address bar and elsewhere in Safari. Safari allows you to choose between … Read More

Need to restore a Mac from a Time Machine backup? This article will show you how to do that. While Macs have a great reputation for being stable and rarely experiencing major issues, the reality is that sometimes things can go wrong. Typically this happens when either a hard drive fails or a Mac OS … Read More

Apple has released an update to the Recovery feature for Macs running beta versions of OS X El Capitan. The update is recommended for all users running OS X El Capitan to install.

Apple has released OS X El Capitan Developer Beta 7 alongside OS X El Capitan Public Beta 5 for users participating in the beta testing programs for Mac system software. And yes, it’s basically the same Public Beta 5 that was released and then pulled yesterday. It’s unclear why the initial release of El Capitan … Read More

Apple has released the fifth Public Beta release of OS X El Capitan to users participating in the Mac Public Beta testing program for OS X 10.11. The new build arrives as 15A262c and the accompanying release notes suggest it should be installed by all users who are running the public beta versions of Mac … Read More

For Macs who have multiple user accounts on a single computer, sometimes you may log in to multiple user accounts concurrently. This leaves the prior user account logged in while another user account session opens. There’s really nothing wrong with that, aside from reducing available resources, but sometimes you may wish to log out the … Read More

Want to quickly import images into Photos app on the Mac? It’s quite easy to bring new or old pictures into the Mac OS X Photos app, and while there are actually many different ways to accomplish the importation, we’ll cover a few particularly fast methods. Whether you want to add pictures to Photos app … Read More

Apple has released OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite to Mac users, the update aims to “improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac” and is therefore recommended for all users to install on their hardware running OS X Yosemite. Release notes accompanying the update are brief, but the update includes several important security fixes which … Read More

Typically if you’re looking to determine the file type and encoding of an item, you can simply look at the file in the Mac Finder, check the file name extension, Get Info about the file, or even open it to quickly find out what the file is. Of course, that’s limited to the user friendly … Read More

The Mac Finder offers a variety of methods of merging two folders contents together into a single directory. One option allows users to join different directory contents together that contain files with the same names, using the ‘keep both’ function in Mac OS X Finder.

While Macs usually work flawlessly, sometimes peculiar issues pop up. One such unusual case is when the USB ports on a Mac suddenly stop working, seemingly out of the blue. While there may be several reasons (or no reason) for USB ports ceasing to function with no cause, the good news is that it’s typically … Read More