Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

While many Mac users know about using Split View for sharing the screen with two apps, you can also use it to split the screen between two windows of the same app. You can put two safari windows on either side of your screen and still have access to tabs and the toolbar of each.

You can decide whether you want your hard drive, external drives, CDs and networked drives on your Desktop. Some users prefer to not have these items on the Desktop since they are easy to access through the Finder. Others may find they miss these but don't know how to get them back.

The Calendar app makes it useful to print out blank monthly calendar pages for use at work or home. You can also include events or birthdays on the printed page. This can be useful for planning or just having a calendar in a room away from your Mac.

You can have your Mac speak text to you and also have it save that audio as a file that you can listen to later or even on your iPhone after syncing the file via iTunes. Learn how to take a text file and convert it to a spoken word audio file using the Terminal.

Figuring out what you have on your hard drive that takes up a lot of space is simple if you know how to view the contents of your drive. You can use the List view and View Options to easily see which major folders use a lot of space, and then continue to dig down to see what inside those folders is using the space.

If you have some work to do in System Preferences, there is no need to go back to the main icons screen each time you want to just to a new section. Instead, click and hold the Show All button at the top (looks like a button with 12 dots) and a list with each System Preferences category will appear. Select one to jump right to it.

If you delete files from an iCloud Drive folder you can usually recover them from the Trash on your Mac. But even after you have emptied the Trash, you can still recover files by using a function on the iCloud.com website.

By default Flash apps are not going to appear on webpages in Safari. However, it is easy to enable them by clicking on the prompt or using Safari's Preferences. In some cases, using Preferences may be the only way to get Flash working properly on a site.

The new Apple Support app is available in the iOS app store and will help you solve problems on your iOS devices and Macs. In addition to including helpful information, you can use it to call Apple or schedule a call or repair.

If you want to see what song is playing and have some basic iTunes controls on the screen, but don't want to have the huge iTunes window compete for screen space, then try using the iTunes MiniPlayer. This special window is part of iTunes and provides information and controls in a small window that you can keep on top of other windows while you use your Mac.

Using Airport Utility 6.x there is a “summary” screen that lists the devices connected and information about them. To get to it, click on the Airport device icon so you see its basic information and the “Edit” button. Then hold the option key down and quickly double-click the Edit button. This brings up the same window as normal, but with an additional Summary screen.

If you are running out of storage on your iOS device, there is an easy way to see which apps are using the most space. In Settings you can see a list of apps sorted by the amount of space they are using. You can use this list to delete apps and sometimes content.

If you have a suggestion, feature request or complaint, you can send it to Apple though their special feedback page. This page isn't for support, but rather for general feedback and comments. You are unlikely to hear back from Apple, however.

You can search in the Finder for files by file extension instead of content or full file name. If you do this often, you can save the search for easy access in the left sidebar of the Finder window. You can then simply adjust the extension each time you do a search.

You can use your own sounds for alerts in macOS Sierra and Mail. You'll need to convert the sounds to AIF format and put them in the Library folder. Then these custom sounds will show up after restarting System Preferences or Mail.

Usually you cannot use iCloud.com on an iPad or iPhone because you are automatically redirected to a screen that asks you to set up iCloud on the device. But by using the Request Desktop Site button, you can access your iCloud.com account on someone else's iPad or iPhone, or access iCloud.com settings on your own iOS device.

The Mac Dictionary app in Sierra lets you open multiple windows and tabs. Use File, New Window or New Tab (Command+N, Command+T). This lets you look up a word and leave it on the screen while you look up another word. You can even use the dictionary in one window and the thesaurus in the other. If you Command+click on any word in a definition it shows it in a new tab. Command+Option+click shows it in a new window behind, and Command+Option+Shift+click shows it in a new window on top.

If you use key repeat on your Mac, you may want to adjust the settings to suit your needs. You can change the delay before a repeat starts, and also the speed of the repeat. You can also turn this feature off if you never use it to avoid mistakes.

If you need to take the extreme step of reinstalling macOS Sierra, you can do so using Recovery mode. You can choose to erase the drive and start fresh, or simply replace macOS and leave your documents and apps alone. This is handy for fixing extreme problems or before passing the Mac along to a family member.

If you are about to sell or give away an old Mac, it is important to erase it completely and reset it so it is exactly as it was when you first bought it. It is important to remember to sign out and remove all accounts and services first, then erase the drive, and then use Internet Recovery to install its original operating system.