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How to Stop “Upgrade to MacOS Sonoma” Notifications on Macs

Feb 13, 2024 - 9 Comments
Stop the notifications to upgrade to macOS Sonoma

Are you tired of seeing the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” notifications on your Mac running Ventura or Monterey? If so, you can hide those notifications and stop the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” nagging on your Mac. It’s not unusual for Mac users to continue running older versions of system software, well after a new version … Read More

How to Speed Up Auto-Showing/Hiding Dock on MacOS

Feb 12, 2024 - 17 Comments
The Mac Finder icon

A subtle way that you can tweak MacOS to make it feel a little faster is to speed up the auto-hiding and auto-showing time of the Dock. This obviously only applies to Mac users who hide their Dock by default, and the emphasis needs to be on feel faster because while this is removing a … Read More

How to Get the Older Style MacOS Alert Dialog Back

May 12, 2022 - 1 Comment
Older Mac alert dialog window style

MacOS Monterey and MacOS Big Sur introduced a new style to the MacOS alert dialog boxes, which look more like something you’d see in iOS than MacOS. In the new design style for MacOS alert dialog windows, everything is centered with the app icon on the top and the alert messages below, whereas the older … Read More

How to Change or Remove Font Smoothing on MacOS Monterey & Big Sur

Apr 6, 2022 - 7 Comments
How to Change or Remove Font Smoothing on Mac

Are you noticing blurry text on your Mac’s display while navigating through the menu and across apps? More specifically, has this been an issue ever since you updated to macOS Monterey or Big Sur, and on a non-retina display? If so, chances are, font smoothing is enabled by default, and for some users they feel … Read More

How to Get Your Mac Dock to Show Running Apps Only

Feb 8, 2022 - 11 Comments
How to Get Your Mac’s Dock to Show Running Apps Only

The Default Dock on macOS shows off many of the apps that come bundled with your Mac out of the box. Many users customize it right away by adding apps they use on a regular basis, and removing those they don’t. However, some people may prefer to have a cleaner Dock, and to minimize the … Read More

How to Use Light Theme with Dark Menu Bar and Dock in MacOS Mojave

Oct 15, 2018 - 39 Comments
Choose the Dark theme again but this time it only impacts menu bar and Dock

Enabling Dark Mode in macOS Mojave tranforms the entire user interface appearance into an all-dark look, and while it’s very popular with many users, some other Mac users may not want a full dark mode appearance on their Mac. Instead, some Mac users may prefer a more limited Dark theme experience that only applies to … Read More

How to Fix Blurry Fonts in MacOS Mojave for Non-Retina Displays

Sep 26, 2018 - 32 Comments
How to adjust font smoothing settings in macOS Mojave

Do you think fonts and screen text looks fuzzy, blurry, or excessively thin in macOS Mojave? If so, it may be due to changes in anti-aliasing in Mojave, particularly for users with non-retina displays. If you are running macOS Mojave on a Mac without a retina display, or with an external monitor that does not … Read More

Try a (Very Broken) Dark Mode on MacOS High Sierra

Jul 6, 2018 - 9 Comments
Try broken Dark Mode in macOS High Sierra

Mac OS has long had a dark menu and dark Dock option, and macOS Mojave 10.14 has a true Dark Mode theme that shifts the entire visual appearance to a pleasing dark interface scheme. But if you’re running macOS High Sierra 10.13.x, you can use a defaults command entered into the terminal to enable a … Read More

How to Show the Expanded Print Details Dialog in Mac OS by Default

Mar 19, 2018 - 17 Comments
How to show the expanded Print dialog always in Mac OS

Do you frequently access the detailed printing options when printing from a Mac? If so, you’ll really appreciate this trick to always show the expanded print dialog window and settings screen.

How to Disable the Focus Ring Animation in Mac OS X

Aug 17, 2016 - 33 Comments
Finder

One of the most subtle animations found in Mac OS X and macOS is known as the “focus ring animation”, which is a sort of zooming highlight around where ever the cursor focus goes in a text book. Many users likely haven’t even noticed it, it’s that subtle. If you have no idea what the … Read More

How to Disable Hot Corners in Mac OS X

Aug 10, 2016 - 6 Comments
Disable Hot Corners on Mac

Hot Corners are a feature of Mac OS that allows a user to point the cursor into one of the far corners of the display to summon a set feature, like triggering Mission Control, Launchpad, Dashboard, Notification Center, revealing the desktop, start or disable a screen saver, or put the display to sleep. Many Mac … Read More

Get Mac OS X to Stop Asking to Use New Disks for Time Machine

Jun 22, 2016 - 8 Comments
Time Machine in Mac OS X

All Mac users should setup Time Machine backups with an external hard drive, Time Capsule, or network drive to insure they have regular automatic backups made of their stuff and MacOS X installation. But once you have a backup drive established with Time Machine, or if you use a different backup approach entirely, you may … Read More

How to Change Launchpad Icon Grid Layout in Mac OS X

Mar 9, 2016 - 18 Comments
Change the Launchpad grid icon count in Mac OS X

Launchpad is the quick application launcher available from the Mac OS X Dock and a keystroke that looks quite a bit like the Homescreen of iOS. By default, the Launchpad app grid usually displays icons in 7 rows and 5 columns of apps, but with a little adjustment from the command line of OS X … Read More

How to Prevent Gatekeeper Turning Back On Automatically in Mac OS X

Nov 5, 2015 - 15 Comments
Terminal in macOS

Gatekeeper is a security feature built into Mac OS X which helps to prevent unauthorized applications and code from executing on a Mac. Most users have encountered Gatekeeper before when they go to open an application downloaded from the internet, where you see an “App can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer” … Read More

How to Make Crash Reporter Appear as a Notification in Mac OS

Oct 13, 2015 - 16 Comments
Crash Reporter as a notification in Mac OS X

Advanced Mac users who are either in development or another field which experiences frequent app crashing may find the persistent Crash Reporter windows with the ‘App quit unexpectedly’ message to be a nuisance, interfering with their workflow in Mac OS X. While one longstanding option is to disable the Crash Reporter dialog completely in MacOS … Read More

Find Detailed Wi-Fi Connection History from Command Line of Mac OS X

Jun 3, 2015 - 12 Comments

There are some situations where knowing exactly what wireless networks a Mac has connected to and when that connection was last established can be helpful. We’ll demonstrate how to uncover a comprehensive listing of specifics about previously joined wi-fi networks on a Mac, which will include the last connection date and time (to the second!), … 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 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

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