In this episode, Alex Hall shows us how to look up the definition of a word using Spotlight in macOS.
To do this, press Command-Space from anywhere in macOS to open Spotlight, and type the word you want defined. Then press Command-L, followed by Return, and a window with the definition of the word you searched for will be displayed.
In this episode, Crayton shows us how to move files and folders in Finder using the keyboard.
To do this, navigate to and select the file or folder you want to move, and choose Edit > Copy (or press Command-C.) Then, open the destination folder and press Command-Option-V to place it in that location.
In this quick tip, Chris Wright shows us how to permanently delete files and folders on macOS.
To do this, in Finder, navigate to and select the item you want to delete, and press Command-Option-Delete. Click Delete in the confirmation dialog, and the item will be deleted immediately, bypassing the Trash.
In this episode, Tyler demonstrates how to schedule an email to send later using the Mail app in macOS.
Have you ever needed to send an email but didn't want to interrupt someone's work or personal time? With the Send Later feature, you can schedule emails to be sent at a specific date and time, making sure your message arrives at the most appropriate moment.
To do this, compose an email in the Mail app, interact with the "Send" group in the toolbar, and choose an option from the "schedule to send message" menu button. If you choose the "Send later" option, a dialog will appear allowing you to choose a date and time. After the message has been scheduled, it can be found in the "Send later" mailbox, and you can change the scheduled time by opening the message and clicking the Edit button within the "send later banner" group.
In this podcast, Tyler Stephen shows us how to share folders in iCloud Drive on a Mac running macOS Catalina 10.15.4 or later.
More information on sharing folders with iCloud Drive is available on this Apple Support page.
With folder sharing in iCloud Drive, you can share entire folders of files with friends, family, or colleagues. Then, you can work together on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or iCloud.com.
When you create and share a folder in iCloud Drive, participants can access all the files in that folder. If you add a file to a shared folder, it's automatically shared with all participants, too. You can also add or remove participants, edit sharing permissions, or stop sharing a folder anytime.
For iOS 17, macOS Sonoma
If you have multiple Apple devices, you may know that there are many features that allow them to integrate with each other to keep content up-to-date across all of them. In this guide, I will give an overview of how iCloud, the service that facilitates this interconnection, can help you manage and sync your content, as well as how it can help protect your privacy and security. The good thing about it is once you have a few things set up, features largely work automatically with very little additional interaction required from you, the user.
iCloud is the Apple service that allows Macs and iOS devices to keep content in sync between them. By default, you get 5GB of free storage space, upgradable up to 12TB, to store data such as documents, photos, emails, contacts, calendars, and more. With any paid storage plan, you get several additional features marketed collectively as iCloud+.
In this episode, Tyler demonstrates the VoiceOver Text Checker on macOS, a feature that identifies common errors in typed text such as misspellings, repeated spaces, and misplaced capital letters.
This feature can be accessed via Keyboard Commander, and by default is mapped to the letter D. When in a text field, pressing this command should present menus for the types of errors identified in the text, such as misspellings, white space, etc.
For macOS Sonoma
If you’re coming to macOS from Windows, you’re probably used to either downloading apps from the Microsoft Store, or downloading an app package from a website and running its included installer. On macOS, there are several ways apps can be installed and uninstalled, which I will give an overview of in this guide. The good news is that whatever methods the developer has employed, the installation and uninstallation processes should seem very straightforward to you, the user.
In the first of a series of podcasts intended to help new users of VoiceOver on the Mac, David Woodbridge shows us how to get VoiceOver running on any Mac laptop or desktop.
These demonstrations were recorded on a Mac running OS X Snow Leopard, but the procedure is still the same at the time of posting.
In the second of a series of podcasts intended to help new users of VoiceOver on the Mac, David Woodbridge shows us how to use the Keyboard Helper feature in OS X to familiarize yourself with the keyboard layout and functions.
These demonstrations were recorded on a Mac running OS X Snow Leopard, but the procedure is still the same at the time of posting.
Each year in June, Apple previews the next major version of macOS, along with updates to its other software platforms, at its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC.) At this event, Apple announces and demonstrates a select number of headlining new features, and makes a prerelease version available to developers so they can test the new software and provide feedback before the public release in October.
This is important because when substantial feature additions and changes are made to an operating system as intricate as macOS, many bugs will also be introduced. This can include issues with how third-party apps and accessories interact with the operating system, making thorough testing by developers crucial.
Since 2005, I have used a variety of Macs, and have regularly used every version of macOS from Tiger to Monterey since then. Over that time, I’ve witnessed the various changes to VoiceOver, both major and minor, as well as how VoiceOver on macOS helped usher in a whole new world of mobile accessibility on iOS and iPadOS.
Today, with the Mac’s transition to Apple Silicon and the performance potential that it’s helped to unleash, it can be argued that the Mac is experiencing something of a renaissance. Indeed, as an AppleVis member, I’ve noticed an uptick in posts related to macOS, including from those who are potentially interested in buying their first Mac, those enquiring about how to complete various tasks on macOS, those experiencing issues, and others. No, I don’t have a hard number to back that up, just my observation.
Earlier this year Apple came under some criticism after a report by the Guardian on how Apple hired contractors to listen to a small percentage of anonymized ‌Siri‌ recordings to evaluate the responses with the purpose of improving accuracy and reliability.
In response, Apple promised that it would introduce options in a forthcoming update that would allow users to opt out of sharing their audio recordings.
Those options arrived with the releases of iOS 13.2, iPadOS 13.2, and macOS 10.15.1.
In this podcast, Tyler walks us through how to access and change these new options.
In this episode, Jonathan Simeone shows us how to add and remove items from the Finder sidebar on macOS.
The Finder sidebar is a list of folders and devices that can be quickly accessed from any Finder window or open and save dialog in macOS. You can choose which categories of items appear in the sidebar by choosing Finder > Settings, (or pressing Command-Comma) clicking the Sidebar button in the toolbar, and selecting the categories you want to include.
To add a specific folder, focus on it in Finder and choose File > Add to sidebar (or press Command-Control-T. To remove a folder, focus on it in the Sidebar and choose "Remove from sidebar" from the context menu, accessed by pressing VO-Shift-M.