1/20/20
9:00 am

10 Types Of Accessories You Should Consider Getting For Your Mac

There are lots of useful accessories you can get for your Mac, ranging from $4 to $500 or more. Take a look at 10 very useful accessories you can get, what they will do for you, how to search for one online and what to look for when purchasing.

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Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here's my list of ten accessories that you should seriously think about getting for your Mac. 
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So let's start off by looking at the only accessory that I think is not optional. You should always have a backup. So get an external drive and start a TimeMachine backup if you don't already have one. They can be pretty cheap. They can start as low as $65 and for about a $100 you can get a 4TB drive. The key is make sure you get a USB 3 drive. You don't want any old USB 2 drive. They're much slower. There's really no reason to get one that has external power. You should be able to take this thing and plug it right into your Mac and that's it. No extra cables. When you search for portable drives that's pretty much what you get. 
Next if you have a Mac that doesn't have a battery, so in other words not a MacBook, so you have an iMac, a Mac Mini or a MacPro you should definitely be running an uninterruptible power supply or ups. These devices can be relatively cheap. Even the cheapest ones should give you a couple of minutes if the power goes out for you to save your files and shut down your Mac gracefully. Now one problem that Mac users have when buying these is that they often come with software and the software is for windows only. That's because you don't need that software on a Mac. In System Preferences under Energy Saver you'll have all the controls you need if you want to connect your ups to your Mac to get extra readings like the amount of power in the battery. Or you cannot connect it at all. I don't. I just use it as a regular ups and know that if I get a power outage I just want to shut down as soon as possible and not try to work for any amount of time off of the battery.
You can spend a lot of money to get one that has all sorts of extra features and can keep working for half hour or even an hour after the power goes out. But at the very least just get a cheap one so you don't instantly loose all your work the second you have a power outage.
Now if you use a digital camera chances are it has a SD card in it. There's no reason to carry around that cable and connect your camera to your Mac directly. As a matter of fact usually transferring files that way can be pretty slow. Instead pull the SD card out of the camera and use a really cheap SD card reader hooked into your Mac to transfer the photos. Make sure you get the right type. If you have a MacBook you're going to want a USB-C connector. If you have an older desktop Mac that only USB-A make sure you get one with that.
Another cheap little USB device you can get is a HDMI adapter. These allow you to connect your Mac to any screen that's using HDMI. Now just about every classroom and business meeting room has a projector with HDMI nowadays so there are plenty of opportunities to use this. Plus when you're on vacation you can plug your Mac into the hotel or AirBNB's television this way to watch Netflix. Just make sure you bring along a cheap HDMI cable to go from this adapter to the TV. 
Now Hub is something that a lot of Mac users can't live without. If you need to connect a lot of accessories you're going to need something like this. It serves the purpose of adding more ports to your Mac. It also allows you to connect one cable to your back and then have a whole bunch of accessories hooked up to the Hub. There's a lot of variety here. For ones that just have USB ports to ones that have SD card readers, HDMI, power, all sorts of other things. Make sure you get the right one for your Mac. Either USB-C or USB-A.
Now if I was using a MacBook Pro as my primary Mac I would no doubt have a second power adapter. Having only one adapter means it has to come with you everywhere. Having two means you could have one at home or one at work or one in the bedroom and one in the living room. For a second one sometimes you can even find them that have USB outs as well so you can charge your iPhone and other accessories from the same power adapter as you charge your Mac. But in general this is the one accessory where I recommend buying from Apple because there are a lot of bad power adapters out there that just don't last or don't charge nearly as fast as the official Apple ones.
If you use a MacBook Pro it may look indestructible. I mean the thing is made out of aluminum and sitting on your desk or on your lap you maybe think I don't really need a case for this. But when you shove it into a backpack or carry-on or decide to carry it on campus with you it could easily get scratches and dings. It's worth getting a cheap case or a sleeve just to protect it. It's hard to find one of these that costs anymore than $30 bucks and you could think of them as disposable. One could take a little bit of damage and you toss it and replace it with another cheap case.
I already recommended getting an external drive to Time Machine backups. Well, I'm going to also recommend getting another one for archiving purposes. An archive is when you have a file or project that is taking up a lot of space on the drive but you're not really using it anymore. It's an old project and you may never even need it again but you don't want to delete it forever. So you have a drive like this and can transfer files there. Now you still have them but you're saving all that space on your internal drive. I've had an archive drive as long as I can remember on all of my Macs. For less than $100 you get a ton more space to store stuff.
Now along the same line you can get a USB flash drive. These flash drives are small and very portable but they're not nearly as fast as regular hard drives. So they're not great for actually working with everyday. What they are great for is transferring files. You can format them as ExFAT and then you can read them on Windows machines and on Macs. They're handy to have in case you need to transfer files especially large files between your Mac and somebody else's computer. You can now get ones like this that have both USB-C for MacBooks and USB-A for all other computers. So the same data can be read no matter what type of USB connection you've got on your machine.
Here's the most expensive item on my list but I think it's worth it. If you've spent $2000 on an iMac or a MacBook or something why not get a second display. For about $300 you can get a 4k display. It uses Mini DisplayPort so you can hook it up with a cheap cable and you have an entire second screen on your Mac. Think about that. If you have a $2000 MacBook with one screen for $300 you can add an entire second screen to your Mac. The same thing for an iMac. That screen real estate can come in very valuable when you're multi tasking. This is definitely something to think about.
Here is a bonus one. You may want to think about getting an external microphone. The microphones in Macs are good and keep getting better with every generation. But they're still no substitute for an external microphone that you can get closer to your mouth. Now you can spend $200 and get something that's really decent like the ones I use but you can also spend as little as $30 to get a decent USB microphone that will allow you to have much better audio. This is great whether you're creating videos or just using audio or FaceTime calls on your Mac. You may also want to think about getting a full headset to allow you to do calls with much more relative privacy especially if you work in public spaces a lot.
So you may notice that I've left off a lot of traditional peripherals like printers and scanners. For printers I believe in trying to be as paperless as possible. The same with scanners trying to get as little paper in as possible. If I need to scan something I find the iPhone works really well too. How about you? Which accessories can you not live without.

Comments: 20 Responses to “10 Types Of Accessories You Should Consider Getting For Your Mac”

Danny Davis

5 years ago

Hi Gary, thanks for all your great tutorials. I have a late 2018 mac air so I am limited to just two USB-C ports and have been using a Satechi USB-C hub but I am very dissatisfied. It is very slow to connect, often will not recognize usb drives or my iPhone when I attempt to connect through the hub. So I am wondering if you would have a recommendation for a replacement. Something with at least two usb-3 ports and a usb-dc port and perhaps a card reader. Thank you for any help.

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Danny: Sorry, I don't have a recommendation. Sounds like you got a bad one. Most should work fine so just try another. I've got 4 USB-C ports on my MacBook Pro and it is rare I even use one of them (besides power to charge).

John Russell

5 years ago

A necessary accessory for me is a DVD drive. (Yes, really :-) ) A magazine that I really love (NPhoto, a Nikon-specific publication) always arrives with photo-related lessons on disc.

MichaelM

5 years ago

Great presentation. Liked the idea, especially, of bringing along an HDMI adaptor.

Justine Murdy

5 years ago

Hi Gary, love your tutorials. I always learn something important! I'm wondering about advice I got from a technician recently who said back-ups aren't really necessary anymore due to iCloud - is that person crazy? It came up because my Time Machine backup was so full that I would need to dump all the backups to free up space to start it over again. Thanks.

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Justine: That's wrong, but a little right. Storing your files in a cloud service does protect them from one thing: if your device(s) break or are stolen, you can get a new device and log on to your cloud service and your data will still be there. That assumes it is ALL in the cloud. Some people store files, but not photos, or vice-versa, for instance. But having your own personal backup copy of your important data (photos!) is important too. Plus, Time Machine protects you from mistakes too. If you delete a file by mistake, or make changes to a file and want to revert, then Time Machine protects you there whereas a cloud service may not. I would never go with just "using the cloud" as my backup solution.

Sam

5 years ago

I've been told that if you unplug an external drive and Time Machine is left turned on, Time Machine will back up once every 24 hours to your internal drive and pretty soon your internal drive will be fill. Is this correct?

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Sam: No. Where did you hear that? Sounds like a misinterpretation of Local Snapshots. That is when Time Machine will backup some files using unused portions of your local hard drive. "Unused" being the important part. Local Snapshots can really save you, so it is a feature to be celebrated, not feared. Read https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015 for details. And then don't change anything as this won't fill up your drive at all. You won't even notice it.

Bruce

5 years ago

I keep an extra USB-to-lightning connector as a "must-have." Keeps my iPhone charged, helps with iPhone updates, transfers to Photo. And yes, a DVD player/burner. Player because I still have many DVDs and rent others. Burner because I archive some things onto CD.

Ed Adams

5 years ago

I am on High Sierra. I am not seeing the UPS tab in the power saver in the system preferences?

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Ed: Do you have your USP connected to your Mac with a USB cable?

John Scully

5 years ago

I'd recommend when purchasing a USB hub it should be a powered one. That way you can concurrently attach multiple USB powered external drives. Otherwise it won't drive the external disks. I've a hub with 2x4TB and 2x5TB humming away happily on my iMac. Plus 2xTime Capsules - old system programmers don't take risks with backups :-)

Rich Howell

5 years ago

Following up on Gary's recommendation, I went looking for a USB 3.0 external drive. Reading reviews, most seemed Mac "unfriendly." Anyone have a recommendation of one that works smoothly for a Mac running Catalina?

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Rich: Where do you see that they are Mac unfriendly. Hard drives should be hard drives. They are platform-independent. They may come formatted for Windows, but you just reformat them using Disk Utility and they should be ready to go,

Matthew Bowers

5 years ago

An additional monitor, yes. If you're like me, you want to have a Retina display like the one on the iMac and you also want one that looks like an iMac. Of course, you could buy another iMac, but not fairly economical, do you have any recommendations? Thanks! Appreciate everything you do.

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Matthew: I like my LG 27-inch 4K screen. But I haven't compared it objectively to others.

Maryriver

5 years ago

The only accessory I want is a wireless mouse that fits my hand and works without erratic movements and periods of complete refusal to go where I want it. Apple's shape hurts my hand and 3 logitech that I tried just flake out. Do you have any suggestions?

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Maryriver: Ever considered switching to the Magic Trackpad? Better gestures, finer control, nothing to hold in your hand. A majority of Mac users use trackpads instead of a mouse.

Curran Raymond P.

5 years ago

Gary: Will you do a video on how you have your office set-up, including hardware specifics, to maximize your productivity. Sometimes I see glimpses of your set-up. Like I think you have multiple monitors and maybe one is in "portrait mode." Where's your scanner and printer. Anything that you disclose would be appreciated as I think your experience would be very relevant to me.

Gary Rosenzweig

5 years ago

Curran: I'm consider it. I've done it before, but on Patreon. Here's a preview: 3 screens, a 4K one and two 1080 ones turned vertical on each side. Old laser printer I try to never use (paperless) and I tossed my scanner and use my iPhone for that now.

Comments Closed.

10 Types Of Accessories You Should Consider Getting For Your Mac

Comments: 20 Responses to “10 Types Of Accessories You Should Consider Getting For Your Mac”

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