Your Mac is running a little slow these days. It takes forever to boot up. You have to delete something just to download that file attachment from Carla in accounting. Any time you stream a video it seems to lock up for a few seconds. Let's fix all that.
If you connect a Mac to an external monitor using HDMI or DisplayPort, you'll often lose the volume controls on your keyboard. Depending on how you use your Mac, this can be kind of annoying. Here's a weird workaround.
Picture-in-picture is one of the best new features in macOS Sierra, but when you try to move the video around your screen it automatically snaps to the closest corner. OS X Daily points out you can move it where you want by holding down the Command key.
If you own a MacBook, you're likely well aware of how scrolling and right-clicking work on the trackpad, but you may not know how to invoke Quick Look, Notification Center, or Exposè. Whether you're new to macOS or you just never bothered to learn them, these gestures can make your life a little simpler.
Mac: If you swap between a Western and a non-Latin keyboard layout on your Mac, like Hebrew, Chinese or Kannada, you'd usually need to do so by clicking an option in the menu bar. MacWorld points out you can set the Caps Lock key to easily swap between keyboards.
One of the new, handy features in macOS Sierra takes care of something you probably don't think much about: Cluttered files filling up your hard drive. Now there's a built-in utility that replaces those third-party tools and makes it easy to find space-hogging files and old applications.
Mac: Siri is one of the landmark features in Sierra, but while you can call it up in three different ways, a keyboard shortcut is probably the most useful.
Siri is the landmark new feature in macOS Sierra, but unfortunately you have to click the icon or a keyboard shortcut in order to talk to your computer. Since "Hey Siri" is one of the best features on iOS, this is a bummer. Good thing you can hack it into your Mac too.
Picture-in-picture video is a cool feature of macOS Sierra, but only a small handful of videos online seem to support it. One big one that's missing is YouTube. However, iDownloadBlog points out you can force a video into Picture-in-picture with a double right-click.
If you have a lot of text files on your computer, distinguishing between them can take a lot of effort. Over on How-To Geek, they remind of us the oft-forgotten feature in OS X called Summarize.
Searching for and using Emoji on a Mac is a bit frustrating, so over on GitHub, user warpling shares their set of substitutions that makes it easier to place emoji anywhere you need them.
Have you ever set up a new Apple device only to discover that for some reason your iMessage conversations have forked off and created multiple threads for the same person? It's an annoying and incredibly common problem, but Six Colours shows off how to fix it.
Mac: The best part of working in the command line is the fact you never really need to touch your mouse, but navigating through the commands you've used can be a bit cumbersome. Over on How-To Geek, they point out a simple way to jump between prior commands using the mark feature.
Nesting folders is one of the simplest, most common ways to organise files. For some bizarre reason, you cannot nest folders in the Apple Notes app on iOS. MacSparky points out that it's possible from the Mac app though.
Mac/iOS: Apple rolled out a handy new password protection feature for its Notes app on iOS and OS X in recent updates, but it's not super obvious how to actually use it. Here's how to lock those notes.
iOS/Mac: If you've owned a lot of Apple devices over the years, your iCloud account is probably cluttered with iPhones, iPads or Macs you no longer own. This can be a little annoying, especially if you're using two-factor authentication. The Sweet Setup shows off how to clear them out.
Depending on the size of your Mac's screen, the font in Finder windows can be awfully small and hard to read. If you want to up that font, OS X Daily shows you how.
The startup sound is a Mac's way of letting you know everything is OK, but sometimes, things go bad and you need to boot into a different mode then usual. Mac's have a bunch of options for this, and all they require is that you hold down a keyboard shortcut at boot.
Mac: Sick of using those boring, static images as your wallpaper. If you want to spice things up a bit, the GIFPaper app can set any GIF as a wallpaper.
When you plug in your iPhone, iPad, or just about any SD card with a photo on it, Photos loves to pop open. We've shown you how to turn this off on a device-by-device basis, but if you'd prefer a more all-in approach, then a Terminal command is your best option.
