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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Customize What Shows in the iTunes Sidebar

Feb 7, 2014 - 1 Comment
Show the Sidebar in iTunes

The iTunes sidebar is now invisible by default, but if you’re one of us who like to show the sidebar all the time you may also want to customize what’s visible in it. This lets you control whether or not to hide or show any of the iTunes library media types that are visible in … Read More

M3U Files: How to Play or Download the Contents of an M3U Playlist

Feb 6, 2014 - 8 Comments
M3U file

If you have ever downloaded an M3U file thinking you were going to get a song, audio file, or podcast, you’ve probably noticed the file size is tiny, and the m3u doesn’t really do anything on it’s own. This leads many users to wonder how to play the audio file, or how to convert that … Read More

How to Add a User to the Sudoers File in Mac OS X

Feb 6, 2014 - 12 Comments
User added to the sudoers file in OS X

Advanced users may need to add a user account to the sudoers file, which allows that user to run certain commands with root privileges. To greatly simplify what that means, these newly privileged user accounts will then be able to execute commands without getting permission denied errors or having to prefix a terminal command with … Read More

Use the Live iPhone Camera Filters to Add Flair to Your Photos

Feb 5, 2014 - 4 Comments
iOS Camera icon

Filtering photos has long been a popular obsession of iPhone users, whether through Instagram, Afterlight, Snapseed, or the Facebook Camera app. Apple took that popularity to heart and built a variety of filters directly into the iOS Camera app, though the feature has gone largely overlooked by many users. Unlike some of the more garish … Read More

How to Uninstall Plugins from the Mac Mail App in Mac OS X

Feb 5, 2014 - 13 Comments
mail

There are plenty of useful Mail plugins out there for Mac OS X, but sometimes their use wears out, or the plugin doesn’t get updated for a new version of the Mac Mail app which renders it unusable. If you’ve ever wanted to uninstall a Mail plugin in Mac OS X you’ve probably discovered that, … Read More

MagSafe Won’t Charge a MacBook? It’s Probably a Simple Fix

Feb 4, 2014 - 308 Comments

The MagSafe power adapter is brilliant, using magnets to secure a connection between a MacBook and the AC power charger, it not only breaks away quickly to help prevent mishaps, but it also quickly snaps on to provide power to the Mac. It usually works flawlessly, but on some rare occasions, the MagSafe adapter is … Read More

Quickly Find Newly Installed Mac Apps in OS X Launchpad and Finder

Feb 3, 2014 - 4 Comments

Ever installed a new app or two on a Mac and then went to find them, only to be lost in a sea of other applications that are already installed? For those of us with a ton of apps installed this happens often, but OS X offers several ways to sort through the clutter and … Read More

How to Stop Web Site Push Notifications in Mac OS X

Feb 3, 2014 - 7 Comments
Notifications

Many websites are using push notifications to send updates and alerts to Mac users. These alerts are signed up for through Safari, and then arrive as banners appearing briefly on the desktop, then fade away to sit in the Notification Center of Mac OS X until they’ve either been cleared out or addressed manually. If … Read More

Launch Directly Into the Music App from Control Center in iOS

Feb 1, 2014 - 2 Comments
Jump into the Music App from Control Center

If you have music actively playing, or a song or iTunes Radio station is paused within the Music app, you can quickly jump to the Music app by going through the Control Center of iOS. In many cases, this lets you adjust songs or radio stations quicker than using the multitasked to switch apps. This … Read More

Turning On Mac Touch-To-Click Support from the Command Line

Jan 31, 2014 - 13 Comments
Enabling touch clicking from the command line of OS X

Touch-based clicking is an alternate input form that uses trackpad (or Magic Mouse) taps as a click. For most Mac users, turning on tap-to-click is best done from Mac OS X System Preferences, but advanced users who require more control, automation, or remote enabling of the feature can also enable tap-to-click through the command line … Read More

Include Mac System Files in Mac OS X Searches with a Simple Adjustment

Jan 30, 2014 - 6 Comments
Search system files in Mac OS X

Need to find a system file or several, but you aren’t entirely sure the directory path of where that system item is located on Mac OS? Maybe you’re looking for a plist file and you aren’t sure if it’s in the user Library folder, or the System Library folder? Rather than digging about in the … Read More

How to Prevent Control Center Access from the Lock Screen of iOS

Jan 30, 2014 - Leave a Comment
Prevent Control Center access from the Lock Screen

The Control Center feature of iOS offers quick access to some of the more frequently used settings toggles on the iPad and iPhone, like wi-fi and orientation lock. This is undeniably convenient, but not every user wants these toggles to be readily available to anyone who picks up their device, and in some higher security … Read More

Change How Long Notification Banners Persist for in Mac OS X

Jan 29, 2014 - 21 Comments
Notifications banner in OS X

Banner notifications pop up on the side of the screen in Mac OS X and disappear on their own within a few seconds. Some users may find that banner persistence time to be either too long or too short, and that is what we’re going to focus on changing here, giving you some control over … Read More

How to Enable Tap To Click on Mac Trackpads with Mac OS X

Jan 28, 2014 - 34 Comments
Tap to click on the Trackpad in Mac OS X

The tap-to-click ability is enabled by default on most PC laptops, while on the Mac side of things it’s usually disabled by default. For the unfamiliar, tap-to-click means that a single tap or touch on the MacBook trackpad or Magic Trackpad is registered as a click, thereby preventing the need to actually press down the … Read More

Give Your Mac a Black Menu Bar in OS X Mavericks with ObsidianMenuBar

Jan 28, 2014 - 13 Comments
Black menu bar in OS X Mavericks

The menu bar of OS X has two default color choices, simple grey, or translucent, which varies a bit based upon the wallpaper used. Neither of these looks are really anything to write home about. That’s why the third party mod ObsidianMenuBar is a nice alternative, it gives your Mac a black menu bar. It’s … Read More

How to Verify (& Repair) a Disk from the Command Line of Mac OS X

Jan 27, 2014 - 8 Comments
Repair Disk from the Command Line

The Disk Utility app bundled with Mac OS X has a command line equivalent which offers advanced users the ability to perform disk maintenance from the terminal, including disk verification and repairs. This allows for a variety of helpful troubleshooting abilities, including the possibility to remotely issue disk repairs though SSH, or through Single User … Read More

Make a Word & Character Counting Service for All Apps in Mac OS X

Jan 27, 2014 - 25 Comments
Word and character counting service for all apps in Mac OS X

While some writing and text apps have native word and character counters as part of their built-in feature set, not every app does. That can be changed easily though by creating a Mac OS X Service that will provide word counts and character counts from just about anywhere on a Mac that text is selectable. … Read More

Swipe Between Open Apps Faster at the iOS Multitasking Screen

Jan 25, 2014 - Leave a Comment
multitask faster in iOS by swiping the icons

Most iPhone and iPad users know the iOS multitasking screen is where you can quit the apps you no longer want open, and it’s also where you go to switch between any of the open apps on the device. But if you have a lot of apps open, you may notice that switching from the … Read More

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