The iPhone defaults to showing message previews on the lock screen of iOS, revealing the sender name and message content text. Because of potential privacy ramifications, many users turn off message previews on the lock screen which hides the message content, but then to read the full message users have to go to the Message app, right? Not entirely. Devices equipped with Touch ID can reveal the hidden message preview directly from the lock screen simply by authenticating without unlocking the device, and without having to open the messages app at all.

This is an excellent though little-known privacy trick that lets you read hidden messages from the lock screen, it’s easy to use and implement into your work flow. Privacy conscious users should particularly enjoy this tip but it can also be helpful to anyone who just wants to keep private conversations private on the screen of an iPhone or iPad, whether it’s out in the open, on a desk, or otherwise.

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Making an alias for a Mac application, folder, or file, offers an easy way to access that item without having to track down its original location. Instead, you can place an alias anywhere and it will launch the original item immediately, while the original item remains in its original location. An alias on the Mac works similar to how a Shortcut does on Windows, and you can store them anywhere you want.

Aliases have been around on the Mac for a very long time, but they’re often underutilized in the modern era due to other features like Spotlight, Launchpad, and the Dock. We’re going to offer a quick review of making aliases on the Mac to offer shortcut access to any files, folders, documents, or applications.

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Messages sent from an iPhone or iPad may occasionally fail to send, instead displaying a “Not Delivered” error message along with a little red ! exclamation point next to the failed message. While this may be annoying, you can easily resend a message from iOS Messages app with minimal effort.

You can resend an iMessage or a text message that has the “Not Delivered” error message easily.

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If you watch a lot of YouTube particularly in the dark or evening hours you may find it useful to enable the all-new Dark Mode YouTube interface. Dark Mode is just what it sounds like, it basically inverts the YouTube color scheme so that the background and surrounding interface of YouTube is blacks and dark grey rather than whites.

It looks great, and you can enable Dark Mode for YouTube on any web browser.

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For many computer users, filling out PDF forms and PDF documents is a routine occurrence, and the Mac Preview app allows you to easily and quickly fill in a PDF file. The great thing about using Preview to complete PDF forms on the Mac is that there are no additional apps or downloads needed, it’s included with every version of Mac OS and Mac OS X system software.

Whatever the kind of PDF file, if it has forms to fill out you’ll be able to complete the document and save it, ready for whatever usage is necessary.

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Some more advanced Mac troubleshooting and diagnostics techniques require a user to access the Terminal from Mac OS Recovery Mode. We’ll show you how to quickly access the command line while a Mac is booted into Recovery Mode.

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If you have a PDF form you need to fill out, you’ll be pleased to discover that iPhone and iPad can fill in PDF documents rather easily thanks to the built-in Markup feature of iOS. There’s no need to print out any documents, you can handle editing the PDF entirely from iOS.

Given how PDF forms are a fairly common occurrence, whether for an invoice, job application, new patient forms, loan documents, or any of the other droves of documentation you encounter in life, you’re almost certainly to use this feature once you discover it exists.

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It’s looking like new iOS wallpapers will arrive in the next version of the system software, as a trio of new images has appeared in the first beta of iOS 10.3.3. But there’s no need to wait for the final version, you can get the nice wallpapers for your iPhone, iPad, or Mac right now.

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Apple has released the first beta versions of Mac OS 10.12.6, iOS 10.3.3, tvOS 10.2.2, and watchOS 3.2.3 for users enrolled in the system software beta testing programs.

The new beta builds likely focus on bug fixes and minor adjustments to the operating systems, and no major new features or changes are expected.

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The Mac Messages app may occasionally fail to send a message correctly, when a message fails to send it is made obvious by a little red (!) exclamation point and a “Not Delivered” message under the failed iMessage or text message. But you don’t have to retype the message or just let it go, instead you can use a little trick to resend the message again on the Mac.

This works to resend any failed message from the Messages app in Mac OS, including iMessages and text message assuming SMS has been configured to be sent and received from the Mac. Here’s how you can use this neat little trick:

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Apple has released MacOS Sierra 10.12.5 for Mac users. The small point release update to Sierra includes security updates and bug fixes, and is therefore recommended to install for all users running a prior MacOS Sierra build.

A separate security update release is available for Mac users running OS X El Capitan and Yosemite.

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Apple has released the final version of iOS 10.3.2 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The small software update is said to include bug fixes and security enhancements for iOS devices and thus Apple recommends installing the update.

Separately, Apple has also released macOS 10.12.5 for Mac, watchOS 3.2.2 for Apple Watch, and tvOS 10.2.1 for Apple TV.

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Safari on the Mac has the ability to run third party plug-ins, some of which may perform additional services and bring additional functionality to the web experience. Plug-ins include things like Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and other similar multimedia tools that are added into the browser. While some web sites may require these plug-ins, they are generally not needed for most modern web experiences, and old plugins can lead to security issues or other problems with web browsing and app stability. For that reason, troubleshooting, and others, it can be helpful to disable plug-ins in Safari on the Mac.

We’ll focus on disabling all Safari plug-ins on the Mac by turning them off completely, irrespective of which are installed or running. This is a blunt approach as it turns off all plug-ins in the Safari browser entirely.

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Command line users may find it helpful to change and rename the file extension of a group of files in a directory. For example, let’s say you have a batch of files with the file extension “.txt” but you want all of those the file extensions to be “.py” instead. That’s what we’re going to demonstrate here by relying on simple bash scripting to change a group of file extensions at the command line of Mac OS / OS X, but this will also work in linux and other unix flavors too.

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Many of us rely on iPhone as our primary camera, but no matter how great (or not) you are at photography, who couldn’t use some advice on taking even better pictures? That’s why it’s worth checking out a “how to shoot” web series that Apple has created, which includes a helpful series of 20 short video clips which demonstrate various pointers for taking better pictures with the iPhone 7 camera. Sure the focus is on iPhone 7, but most of the tips will apply to other iPhone camera users as well however, so if you don’t have the latest and great iPhone don’t feel too left out.

A broad variety of photography tips are covered in the how-to series from Apple, some of which you’ll have read within our many photography tips, and many of which are great general advice about using lighting, angles, and compositions to capture better images.

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You can disable third party Safari extensions on the Mac without completely uninstalling them. This can be helpful for troubleshooting purposes, various testing scenarios, and many other situations, whether you’re a developer, trying to determine if and which particular extension is causing an issue with Safari, or even maybe just giving a trial run to a similar extension.

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Can’t remember how to spell a word? You can ask Siri to spell the word for you! That’s right, good old Siri on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad has no problem helping you spell words if you can’t think of where to begin and when autocorrect is off or otherwise failing you, is this Siri feature supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or what? You’ll think it’s great too.

Here’s how you can stop fumbling with a confusing word and use this great Siri spelling trick on any iPhone, Mac, or iPad that has Siri enabled.

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Have you ever sent an email to or from an address at the wrong domain? Maybe you accidentally sent a personal email from your work account? The Mail app on iPhone and iPad includes a feature which can help you avoid that situation by marking any address outside of a specified domain as you compose or reply to an email message in iOS Mail. The great thing about marking addresses with domain specificity is applies to both addresses being sent to and your send from email address too, so it can help prevent you emailing the wrong person or from accidentally sending an email from the wrong From address in iOS too.

This is kind of a pro iOS email trick, and it’s most obviously useful for business and work related iOS devices, or for users who have added multiple email accounts on their iPhone or iPad with a mix of both personal and work or business email accounts on the same device. This feature is really easy to setup, let’s review how it works.

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