Posts By: Gary Rosenzweig

Here's how to remove the background from an image using the Preview app that comes with macOS. The Smart Lasso tool does a so-so job, but it is useful to know how to use it in case you only occasionally need to do this and don't wish to purchase another app to edit images.

This free vector graphics tool can come in handy when you need a shape for Pages or Keynote, but don't have anything like Adobe Illustrator to create it. By exporting as a PDF, you can bring a vector graphic into Pages or Keynote so it looks great.

Here's how to remove the background from an image using Affinity Photo. You can use this to blur the background or replace it.

The Mac app Pixelmator Pro has a variety of tools for removing the background of a photo. The best method is combining the Select Subject tool and then refining the selection with Quick Selection. You can use this to blur the background or replace it.

Screen Zoom allows you to zoom in on a portion of the screen to see the images or text there when they are too small otherwise.

You can use the Shortcuts app to make it easy to add new Reminders. This could come in handy if you often find yourself recreating the same reminders every day or week.

If you are looking to buy a MacBook soon, here's a rundown of the current models and the differences between them.

Did you know you can use Swift as code in the Mac Shortcuts app? You can do other languages as well: Perl, Python and Ruby. AppleScript and JavaScript too, of course. Here's an example of using a bit of Swift in a Shortcut to sort lines of text. And here's the Shortcut if you want it. <a href="https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/8ef27a8d83334ece808e699ce086de67" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/8ef27a8d83334ece808e699ce086de67</a> 

Merging two folders can seem difficult or impossible until you learn this trick. While it is easy to drag and drop new files into an existing folder, you'll need to decide which ones to keep and which to replace on a file-by-file basis. However, a hidden feature of the macOS Finder lets you merge the files in folders, keeping the newest versions.

You can use bookmarks in Safari to store the locations of web pages so you can return to them easily. You can access bookmarks several ways, search for them, edit them and organize them. Plus many tips and tricks for using bookmarks.

We'll most likely see a new larger iMac, MacBook Air, Mac Pro and iPhone 14 in 2022. What else will Apple release? Will we see a new MacBook Pro? iPads? Mac mini? AR glasses?

You can use the Delete key on yoru Mac's keyboard to delete text in both directions, delete selections, objects, files and more. Sometimes you need to add modifier keys to delete or access special functions.

Recently I've been trying to use LaunchPad instead of Spotlight, because it seems a little more reliably fast.

Apple provides a wide variety of shapes in Pages, Numbers and Keynote. You can go way beyond just filling them with a solid color. You can edit the lines of a shape, combine shapes, use gradient fills, creative borders, shadows and much more.

Hide My Email is a new privacy feature of macOS and iOS that allows you to create forwarding email addresses to give to sites, services or anyone you send email. The recipient never sees your real email address. You can use this to manage future spam email or just maintain a level of privacy by not sharing your real email address.

In Preview you can select just a portion of a PDF document. Then you can paste that into a new PDF document, another type of document, email message and more. This can be used in a variety of useful ways.

If you need to hand your iPhone to a ticket checker, cashier, security guard, or police officer to show a document or your ID, be sure to use Guided Access first, to lock the iPhone into that one app and restrict access. You can also use Guided Access to allow children to play games on your iPhone or iPad.

Here's how to compare two tables to see which rows are missing from one or the other. You can also compare two tables using multiple columns. Conditional highlighting can show you which rows don't match.

Instead of trying to use the software provided by your scanner's manufacturer, use the built-in Image Capture app on your Mac instead. You can scan documents and photos with a variety of settings and options.

I was thinking that I could take today's video about 20 places to look to clean up your Mac and turn it into a Shortcut. Then you can just run that Shortcut and it will tell you how much space is being used by these things. Here is where I'm at so far, with three of those items in the Shortcut. Here's some of that code. You can use it in the Terminal as well as in Shortcuts. I'm hoping this works out and I can turn this into a tutorial and share the final Shortcut. du -sh '~/Movies/TV/Media.localized/Home Videos' | cut -f1 du -sch '~/Movies/TV/Media.localized/Movies' '~/Movies/TV/Media.localized/Downloads-TV' | tail -n1 | cut -f1 du -sch '/Library/Application Support/GarageBand' '/Library/Application Support/Logic' '/Library/Audio/Apple Loops' '/Library/Audio/Apple Loops Index' | tail -n1 | cut -f1