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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Connect to SMB & NAS Network Shares in OS X Mavericks

Oct 30, 2013 - 19 Comments
Connect to SMB NAS shares in OS X Mavericks

Sharing files between Macs and NAS drives and Windows PC’s has always been very easy, but Mavericks brought a slight change that has caused some problems for certain users in mixed PC and Mac environments. Without getting too geeky, Apple adjusted the default protocol for SMB (Samba, the Windows file sharing ability) from SMB1 to … Read More

Disable App Nap on a Per Application Basis in OS X Mavericks

Oct 29, 2013 - 1 Comment
See what apps are using App Nap in Mac OS X

App Nap is a great feature that arrived with OS X Mavericks which automatically pauses applications once they have gone unused for a period of time, helping to reduce energy consumption and saving battery life for portable Macs. Though App Nap can make a big difference in extending the battery life of MacBooks, there are … Read More

How to Show the User Library Folder in OS X Mavericks

Oct 28, 2013 - 15 Comments
User Library folder in Mac OS X

All of the latest versions of OS X have opted for a conservative approach to showing the users ~/Library/ directory, a folder which contains a variety of important files, settings, preferences, caches, and many specific files that are required for apps to run as intended. Because of the possibility of unintentional harm to a users … Read More

Change the Alarm Clock Sound on iPhone

Oct 28, 2013 - 10 Comments
Alarm clock in iOS

Many of us rely on the iPhone as an alarm clock these days, but unless it has been changed, the default alarm clock sound effect is usually the same as the default iPhone ringtone. That can cause some frustration and confusion as you’re half asleep and the alarm goes off, sounding like you’re getting a … Read More

How to Turn Off Automatic App Updates in iOS

Oct 27, 2013 - 1 Comment
Blue dot next to app name iOS

Automatic Updates is a feature that came along with modern iOS versions which allows updates to installed apps to download and install themselves, allowing for a very hands-off approach to the app updating process on an iPhone or iPad. For many users this is a good thing to leave on, since it takes the hassle … Read More

How to Hide the Menu Bar on External Secondary Displays in Mac OS X

Oct 27, 2013 - 11 Comments
Hide or show the menu bar on external Mac displays in OS X

For Mac users who use external screens, multi-display support has been greatly improved in new versions of OS X, but one feature that is either loved or hated is the addition of the secondary menu bar that is visible on the external display(s). The secondary menu bar serves the obvious purpose of providing easy access … Read More

How to Clean Install OS X Mavericks

Oct 26, 2013 - 11 Comments
How to Clean Install OS X Mavericks

The default solution for installing OS X Mavericks is to download it free from the App Store and then perform an upgrade from a previous version of Mac OS X, whether that’s from Mountain Lion or Snow Leopard. Upgrades are fast, efficient, and most important, very easy, and that’s the recommended option for the vast … Read More

Search the Web & Wikipedia from the iOS Home Screen with Spotlight

Oct 26, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Quick web search from iOS home screen with Spotlight

Want to quickly search the web or Wikipedia from the Home Screen of iOS? Just turn to Spotlight, the built-in search engine. Sure, the Spotlight search is often used as an application launcher or a way to quickly find old emails, notes, and contacts in iOS too, but you can also type more generic queries … Read More

Turn Off “My Photo Stream” to Free Up 1GB+ of Space in iOS

Oct 25, 2013 - 19 Comments
My Photo Stream working as intended

Photo Stream is undoubtedly a useful part of iCloud for those with multiple iOS devices, but it has a feature that often goes unused which may be wasting your preciously small iOS device capacity. This love-or-hate feature is the “My Photo Stream” album, it’s enabled by default and intends to automatically sync your most recent … Read More

Access 40+ Beautiful Wallpapers Hidden in OS X El Capitan & Mavericks

Oct 25, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Hidden wallpapers in OS X Mavericks

Some of you may recall that a series of beautiful new screen savers were introduced with the OS X Mountain Lion, and we here at OSXDaily showed you how to uncover the amazing images from those screen savers with a little bit of digging to use as your desktop wallpaper. It turns out you can … Read More

6 of the Best Simple Tips for OS X Mavericks

Oct 24, 2013 - 4 Comments
Simple but great tips for OS X Mavericks

OS X Mavericks is an excellent update for Mac users that has tons of great features, but even though the free update is aimed at power users with many advanced behind-the-scenes improvements, that doesn’t mean that all the tricks are complex. In fact, some of the best features new to Mavericks are some of the … Read More

Enable Subtle Fading Transition Effects in iOS 12, iOS 11, iOS 10 etc to Replace the Zoom Motions

Oct 23, 2013 - 10 Comments
Fading transition effects introduced in iOS 7.0.3

Have you ever noticed that iOS moves around a lot? With lots of zips, zooms, motions, parallax, there’s a lot going on with the animations on iPhone and iPad If all the crazy user interface zooming in-and-out effects of iOS 12, iOS 11, iOS 10, iOS 9, iOS 8, & iOS 7 aren’t your cup … Read More

Create an OS X Mavericks Installer Drive in 4 Simple Steps

Oct 23, 2013 - 145 Comments
Create an OS X Mavericks Install Drive

OS X Mavericks is now available to everyone as a free download, and while you can update as many Macs as you want by downloading the installer repeatedly from the Mac App Store, a better option for many is to create a simple bootable USB install drive. We covered this some time ago using a … Read More

Show the Last Time a File Was Opened & Accessed in Mac OS X

Oct 21, 2013 - 6 Comments
Show file access time on a Mac

You can show the precise last time a specific file was opened, an app was launched, or folder was accessed on a Mac, and the information is visible directly in the OS X Finder. There are actually two simple ways to see this file access information, and both are equally useful though as you’ll see … Read More

Prepare a Mac for OS X Mavericks the Right Way

Oct 19, 2013 - 3 Comments
Prepare a Mac for OS X Mavericks

OS X Mavericks is the newest major operating system release for Mac users, versioned as OS X 10.9, and it’s now available as a free download. Packed with over 200 new feature enhancements and refinements, it includes some very handy new features that will make a lot of Mac users happy, ranging from Finder tags, … Read More

How to Use Private Browsing with Safari for iOS 14, iOS 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, etc

Oct 19, 2013 - 13 Comments
Safari icon for iOS

Private Browsing is an optional Safari browsing mode that causes no data from the browsing session to be saved, this means no cache files, cookies, or browsing history will be stored or collected in iOS, making for a fairly anonymous session on the client side. Using Safari Private Browsing is a popular browsing choice for … Read More

How to Quickly Create Beautiful Abstract Wallpapers for iOS 7

Oct 18, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Before and After wallpaper creation

Many have noticed that iOS 7’s overall appearance is largely dependent on the devices wallpaper, and a good or bad wallpaper can make or break the look of things along with general usability, particularly for the home screen. It turns out that some of the best looking wallpapers on iOS 7 are very abstract, multicolored, … Read More

Hide Contact Photos from “Favorites” on the iPhone

Oct 17, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Phone app

The iPhone now displays a small contact photo thumbnail alongside contacts in the “Favorites” section of the phone app. This certainly looks nice if you have a lot of custom pictures set for contacts, but having a bunch of goofy contact photos can look unprofessional in some environments, and for users without a contact photo … Read More

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