Tips & Tricks

Tips and tricks for all things Apple! Whether you want to learn tips for a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or much more, you will find many tricks, tips, tutorials, and excellent walkthroughs for Apple devices and software here.

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How to Turn Off Spell Check in Mail for Mac OS X

May 14, 2015 - 14 Comments
Disable spell check in Mac Mail app of OS X

Mac Mail users may find that even if they have disabled auto-correct in OS X, an automatic Spell Check function continues to persist in the Mail app of Mac OS X. For users who are confident in their spelling abilities, bothered by the spell-check function, or who are just tired of correcting the auto-corrections in … Read More

Get Details of Movie Showtimes from Siri and iPhone

May 13, 2015 - 3 Comments
Find out What movies are playing with Siri

Wondering what time a movie starts? Or maybe you want to see a movie tonight and you aren’t sure which one? Maybe you just want to see any movie at a specific time? As long as you have your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch handy, you can get all sorts of movie showtime details by … Read More

How to Reset the Mac OS X Dock to Default Icon Set

May 12, 2015 - 9 Comments
Finder of Mac OS X

The first time you login to a new user account, boot a fresh Mac, or a clean Mac OS X install, you’ll be presented with a default Dock selection without any customizations, which includes a variety of apps depending on the Mac hardware and what software is installed. A common default Mac OS X Dock … Read More

How to Cancel Sending a Message or SMS from iPhone

May 10, 2015 - 35 Comments
Messages

If you’ve ever hit “Send” on an iMessage or text message that you wish you could take back, or perhaps you’d just like to cancel a sent picture because it’s stuck on ‘Sending’ and taking forever to send the message due to a congested network connection, then you may find this iPhone “cancel send” trick … Read More

How to Disable Swipe Navigation Gestures in Google Chrome for Mac

May 9, 2015 - 41 Comments
Mac Multi-Touch Gestures

Many Mac apps support a two-finger swipe to go back / forward gesture, but not all users wish to use the scrolling gesture. For those who use Google Chrome, you may find that if you have disabled the system-wide “Swipe between pages” feature, you’ll still have the swipe navigation available in the Chrome app. This … Read More

How to See the Exact Location Where a Photo was Taken with a Mac

May 8, 2015 - 9 Comments
Find the picture location in GPS > Show in Maps

The digital cameras included with iPhone, Android, and many others, have an option to geotag pictures using the devices GPS hardware, effectively pinpointing the exact location a photo was taken and bundling that geographic location data into the metadata of a picture. While you can turn off photo geotagging on iPhone and iPad, many users … Read More

How to Filter & Mute Unknown Senders Messages on iPhone & iPad from Known Contacts

May 7, 2015 - 31 Comments
Filter unknown senders messages in iOS

iPhone and iPad users can opt to use a new “Filter Unknown Senders” feature in the iOS messaging app which will automatically hush and separate inbound messages that are coming from unrecognized contacts. This is extremely useful if your phone number is publicly listed on a web site like Craigslist, if you’re a public figure, … Read More

How to Adjust Mail Drop Minimum File Size Threshold for Mac Mail

May 6, 2015 - 12 Comments
Using Maildrop for Mac Mail app in OS X

Using Mail Drop allows you to send larger files over email than typically allowed by uploading the sent file to iCloud from Mail app in OS X, and then passing the link to download that file onto the recipient. The default MailDrop threshold for mail attachments is 20MB before kicking in and offering the service, … Read More

How to Reset Launchpad Layout in Mac OS Catalina, Mojave, Sierra, OS X El Capitan & Yosemite

May 5, 2015 - 36 Comments
Launchpad without Blur

Launchpad serves as a quick way to open applications on the Mac from a familiar iOS-like icon grid interface. If you’ve customized the way these app icons and arranged in Launchpad, you may decide you’d like to start from scratch and reset their order to how things appear when you first get a Mac. Resetting … Read More

How to Disable Gatekeeper from Command Line in Mac OS X

May 4, 2015 - 22 Comments
Gatekeeper warning in Mac OS X prevents unknown apps being launched

Though most Mac users will want to keep Gatekeeper enabled for security purposes, some advanced users find that Gatekeeper is overly zealous in preventing third party apps from being used in macOS and Mac OS X. While it’s easy to turn off Gatekeeper through the System Preferences on a Mac, another option is to disable … Read More

Fix an “Unapproved Caller” SecurityAgent Message in Mac OS X

May 3, 2015 - 40 Comments
Finder of Mac OS X

Rarely, Mac users may encounter a random error message which appears somewhat disconcerting, with an OS X pop-up message saying “Unapproved caller. SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software.” This message can appear at random when using certain apps, or after logging in or a reboot, and is sometimes followed by crashing and other … Read More

How to Add Text to Video with iMovie in Mac OS X

May 2, 2015 - 17 Comments
Saving a video with iMovie for Mac OS X is a unique experience of file saving using a Sharing menu

If you want to place some text onto a video, the iMovie app for Mac is a good place to start. This is good for putting a title onto a movie, placing some basic subtitles on a silent video, captions on a video, or at a specific point in a movie, adding a watermark to … Read More

How to Read .cap Packet Capture File on Mac OS X with tcpdump

May 1, 2015 - Leave a Comment

Whether performing a packet trace or sniffing and capturing packets from a network, the result is usually the creation of a .cap capture file. That .cap, pcap, or wcap packet capture file is created regardless of what you’re using to sniff a network, a fairly common task among network administrators and security professionals. Perhaps the … Read More

How to Enable Extensions in iOS Share Sheets

Apr 30, 2015 - 4 Comments
How to enable Extensions in iOS

Extensions are optional add-ons to iOS that can bring additional features from third party apps into the broader iOS Share Sheet menus. Extensions can allow for a wide range of tasks, including interacting with apps, sharing to specific services, photo editing features, uploading, and quite a bit more, and once enabled, they’re easily accessible from … Read More

How to Change Scrolling Speed of Mouse or Trackpad in Mac OS X

Apr 29, 2015 - 10 Comments
Change the scrolling speed of a Mac trackpad

Scrolling through documents, web pages, and other data with a trackpad or mouse is one of the most common computing tasks and used gestures. By default, the scrolling speed on a Mac is not particularly speedy, but with some settings changes you can customize the scrolling rate in Mac OS X for both a Mac … Read More

How to Stop Automatic Emoji Replacing Emoticons in Messages for Mac OS X

Apr 28, 2015 - 10 Comments
Mac Messages icon

If you use Messages on the Mac to as a way to send texts, iMessages, Facebook chat, AIM, or whatever else, you’ve certainly noticed that new versions of Messages in OS X will automatically replace an emoticon with an emoji icon substitution. While many users like Emoji characters and they work great when messaging other … Read More

Force App Store to Refresh in iOS with a Repeat Tap Trick

Apr 28, 2015 - 9 Comments
App Store refresh

If you’ve ever waited for an update to appear on the iOS App Store, either for an available app, an app update itself, or for the Top and Featured pages to refresh, you know that sometimes the App Store can sit stale. While you can often trigger an update to show up by changing the … Read More

How to Use FaceBook Messenger on Mac OS X via Messages App

Apr 25, 2015 - 68 Comments
Mac Messages icon

Facebook Messenger is a popular means of communicating, but the Mac doesn’t have a dedicated Facebook messaging app like the iPhone or Android does… or does it!?! Indeed, you can use Facebook Messenger to message friends from OS X, and in moments you can set up the Mac Messages app to function as a Facebook … Read More

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