MacMost: Archives

If you have a MacBook or a Mac with a Magic trackpad, there is no right button for you to press. But you can still right click using a variety of different techniques.

You can now make noncontiguous text selections in Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Learn how to use this new feature and some possible uses including an interesting way to make noncontiguous pastes.

If you feel your MacBook battery drains too fast, there is probably something you can do about it. First check out a graph that shows you the battery drain over time. Then use various techniques to figure out which app is the problem. You can even figure out if it is a specific web site you are visiting that is causing the issue.

Those thin keyboard covers you can get for your MacBook may look like a good idea, but they can break your MacBook. Also avoid camera covers and screen protectors.

When switch to Mac from Windows, or needing to use both, the major differences between how the similar-looking menu bars on these two operating systems is important to understand.

When talking about your Mac and other Apple products it is often important to use the right terms in order to communicate and get help or discuss ideas. Learn the different between the pointer and cursor, battery life and longevity, memory and storage. Learn how to correctly identify which Mac you have and which version of the operating system it is using.

While it is easy to sort by numerical or alphabetical values, there is no simple way to sort with a custom order like High, Medium and Low. But you can use simple SEARCH or MATCH formulas to do a custom sort if you need it.

When searching for information online you may not get your answer right away when you get to a web page. Instead of reading the whole page you can search for text within a page to quickly find what you want. Here's how to search for text on a web page on the Mac in Safari and on the iPhone.

If you lost your iPhone, it may have been stolen and your troubles may not be over. Because your iPhone is locked down by Apple security, you may now be contacted by a scammer looking to trick you into unlocking it for them.

There are a variety of ways to translate text between languages on your iPhone. You can select and translate in almost any app, including text you write. You can also translate text inside photos and spoken text in a special built-in app.

Your Mac has a built-in translation feature that works almost anywhere. You can translate text to read it, or to aid in communication. You can even translate text embedded into photos.

If the data in your Messages app is taking too much space on your Mac, iPhone or in iCloud, then you should clear out old photos and videos in conversations. You can do this in the Messages apps, but also in Settings. Then be sure to save and delete photos as you get them moving forward.

Using the arrow and modifier keys will let you efficiently write and edit on your Mac without needing to take your hand off the keyboard to use a mouse or trackpad.

Here's a quick start guide to using the Photos app to edit your pictures. You can straighten, crop, adjust light and colors, fix problems and add filters.

New Mac users are often confused about how third-party apps from web sites are installed. After downloading, all you get it is a file that when opened just shows the app with an arrow and folder. Here's what to do next.

You can take the subject of one photo and copy it onto the background of another photo using just when comes with your Mac, without ever taking the photo out of your Photos library.

You can use your iPhone as a scanner to scan documents directly to your Mac. No need to transfer from your iPhone to your Mac afterward. You can scan right to a file, into a new Preview PDF, or into a document or email message.

If you need a file listing to use in a document you can get it by copying and pasting from the Finder if you know a trick. But you can also get file listings as text from the Terminal and then wrap that command into a Shortcut.

If you need to get photo from your camera, an SD card, or an iPhone or iPad, but don't want them in the Photos app, you can do it with the Image Capture app that is already on your Mac.

It is easy to add a drawing to a note in the Notes app on an iPhone or iPad. But what about on a Mac? You'll need to add a blank image first, but once you set it up the first time it is easy to add a drawing or sketch to any note.