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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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

7 Handy Command Line Tips You Don’t Want to Miss

Oct 17, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Terminal icon in OS X

Getting comfortable with the command line is often just a matter of learning a few command tricks and finding uses for them, and we’re going to offer six handy tricks that you’re almost certain to find some use out of regardless of your skill level in the Terminal. Read on, you’ll be downloading files, using … Read More

How to View Only Videos Taken with iPhone in the Photos App

Oct 16, 2013 - Leave a Comment
View Only Videos on the iPhone

A very welcome change has arrived to the Photos app post iOS 7 that allows you to easily view only videos taken with an iOS device, presenting them in an easy to view and share format. This is a huge improvement to past editions of Photos app, and the new sorting feature prevents you from … Read More

Use “Show All Music” to Toggle iCloud Songs Showing in Music App for iOS

Oct 15, 2013 - 5 Comments
Turn Off "Show All Music" to hide iCloud songs from iTunes

Music bought from iTunes and stored in iCloud are part of the iTunes Match service, which basically lets you store all your songs and music in iCloud, and can then be streamed and downloaded to your iOS devices. By default, those songs are shown in the iOS app Music playlist with a little cloud icon … Read More

Recover Deleted Files from Mac with DiskDrill

Oct 15, 2013 - 5 Comments
Recover deleted files in Mac OS X

Did you remove a file or folder from your Mac drive or an external drive, and now you need it back? Don’t freak out yet because there is some potentially good news; you may be able to recover the deleted files from the Mac with the help of a third party tool called DiskDrill.

Prevent Zip Clutter by Moving Archives Automatically After Unzipping in Mac OS X

Oct 14, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Automatically Move Archives After Extraction in Mac OS X

Anyone who downloads files from around the web, ftp, torrents, and elsewhere will eventually wind up with a lot of archive clutter sitting around on their Mac in the form of tons of zip, rar, sit, and other compressed file formats. This is because the default behavior is set for archives to maintain their existence … Read More

How to Lock Orientation to Stop Screen Rotation in iOS 10, iOS 9, iOS 8

Oct 14, 2013 - 14 Comments
Using Orientation Lock in iOS 7

Yes, you can still lock the screen orientation in iOS 10, iOS 9, iOS 8 and iOS 7 to prevent the display from rotating itself when an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch has been physically turned onto its side. The orientation lock is now in a quicker access location contained within Control Center, making it … Read More

Cut, Copy, & Paste Files Directly from Spotlight in Mac OS X

Oct 13, 2013 - 1 Comment
Spotlight

Spotlight is the wildly useful search feature built into Mac OS X (and iOS) that is accessible by hitting Command+Spacebar. It can seemingly find and do everything, but did you know it also includes basic file system functionality? Using some little known tricks, you can copy and cut files directly from Spotlight, letting you easily … Read More

Personal Hotspot Dropping Connections? Try This DHCP Client Fix

Oct 13, 2013 - 10 Comments
Fix Personal Hotspot dropping connections

Personal Hotspot lets you share a devices cellular data connection with other devices or computers by turning a device into a wi-fi router, and it’s easily one of the better features of the iPhone and cellular iPad models (and Android phones for that matter). The iOS Personal Hotspot usually functions without a hitch, but sometimes … Read More

5 cd Command Tricks All Command Line Users Should Know

Oct 11, 2013 - Leave a Comment
Mac Terminal icon

One of the most commonly used command line tools is ‘cd’, which stands for change directory, and as you probably know is used to navigate directories and switch between one folder or another within the file system. For those just learning and starting to familiarize themselves with the Terminal and command line, here are five … Read More

How to Move the Dock Position in Mac OS X

Oct 11, 2013 - 9 Comments
Change the Mac Dock location

The Dock sits at the bottom of the screen on every Mac by default, and it will stay there unless it has been relocated either with a settings adjustment or a key modifier. If you’d like to switch the location of where the Mac OS X Dock resides, you can easily do so with either … Read More

iTunes Store Not Updating? How to Reset the iTunes & App Store Cache

Oct 11, 2013 - 1 Comment
Refresh iTunes Store and App Store caches

The iTunes Store updates frequently to display new apps, music, movies, TV shows, and the free app of the week, and typically you can see the new stuff by just clicking around in iTunes to visit the various stores and media content areas. But sometimes the iTunes Store may display stale content, particularly if the … Read More

How to Make a Photo Black & White on the iPhone

Oct 10, 2013 - 3 Comments
Convert a photo from color to black and white with the iPhone

The iPhone now includes advanced photo and image editing features that allow you to apply various filters to pictures taken on the device. Since iOS 7, this can all be done natively without the need for any third party apps, and one of the better filter sets lets you quickly make any color photo into … Read More

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