Mac

Stay up-to-date on the latest Mac news, and tutorials. Get expert tips and tricks to optimize your Mac’s performance and learn about the latest Apple products and software updates. Discover the best Mac apps and accessories to enhance your user experience.

DaisyDisk: the best app for cleaning up your Mac

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

As an owner of a Late 2013 MacBook Pro with a measly 256GB of flash storage, space is at a premium for me. Yes, I keep an external drive for all of my video content, but with a drive this small I still find it necessary to keep tabs on my storage space and delete unneeded files on a regular basis.

You can always use the Finder to manage storage space, but that can get tedious. Although it's technically capable of doing so, the Finder isn't the best tool for analyzing your available storage space and deleting files.

Instead, I find that a Mac App Store app called DaisyDisk does a superb job of helping me managing my Mac's storage space. DaisyDisk is a $9.99 Mac App Store app with an awesome looking interface that makes managing storage space a walk in the park.

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Review: WALTR for Mac converts & transfers any video to iPhone and iPad, no iTunes required

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 7, 2015

Getting DivX and MKV movies, FLAC audio files or audiobooks onto your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad is an incredibly cumbersome multi-step procedure, one that involves third-party apps like Handbrake to transcode “foreign” media files into iOS-friendly formats before importing them into iTunes for syncing with your iOS gadgets.

I've tried many, many apps which promise to get the job done before deciding to settle on WALTR by young European startup Softorino.

Now, I'm not exaggerating when I say that WALTR is an absolutely incredible piece of software. This nifty program literally takes the pain away from transferring media to iOS devices without worrying about file types.

Its lightning fast algorithm is hands down the best I've ever seen, on any platform, ever. I've been happily using WALTR for months now and couldn't be happier with it. And trust me when I say that you should be using WALTR, too, especially if you aren't jailbroken and want the simplest solution possible for transferring media to your device without going through iTunes.

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Using BetterTouchTool to cycle through Safari tabs

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

BetterTouchTool is a free Mac utility that allows you to supercharge your Mac's trackpad gestures. There are literally hundreds of uses for an app like this, but I'd like to share with you one particular use case scenario that I find extremely useful.

I've set up BetterTouchTool to allow my MacBook's trackpad to quickly cycle through all of my open tabs in Safari using a simple two-finger gesture. Have a look at our full demonstration video and tutorial for all of the details.

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Review: you don’t need Apple Watch to get reminded to stand up with this nifty Mac app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 4, 2017

Your Apple Watch pings you when it's time to stand up and move a little and so should your Mac, except that it doesn't. Maybe you don't own an Apple Watch? Lead a sedentary lifestyle much? Hopelessly out of shape? You should make standing up a habit as standing for just three hours every day, five days a week, has the same health benefits as running ten marathons a year.

You could create a reminder to ping you every hour to stand up, but that's not an elegant solution as these alerts reach all your devices, not just your Mac.

A far better solution that I want to talk about today would be something like Stand. Stand is a simple Mac app built by developers Red Davis Hector Simpson which sends you a notification every hour to get up from your desk and move around a little.

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Final Cut Pro X updated to version 10.2.2 with new camera support and export options

Jeff Benjamin ∙ September 3, 2015

During its normal Thursday update, Apple issued a new version of Final Cut Pro X. Version 10.2.2 is primarily a bug fix update, but it does usher in a few new features.

Users of Final Cut Pro X will benefit from the addition of new camera support, new export options, and improved compatibility with third-party asset management apps. As you might expert, it's recommended that all Final Cut Pro X users update to this latest version at your earliest convenience. 

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How to repair disk permissions on Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 14, 2023

Some Mac hiccups and startup issues can be resolved by repairing disk permissions in macOS. Disk permissions allow your Mac to control what users have access to files and folders on your Mac.

Unfortunately, it's quite easy to unintentionally mess up disk permissions. In fact, the very act of installing and uninstalling apps on your Mac can over time result in broken permissions.

And when file permissions break, your apps might be allowed to alter each other's files or even modify read-only system files, which in turn can lead to various permission errors and erroneous behavior in macOS. It is therefore essential that disk permission in macOS are as they are supposed to be.

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to verify and fix disk permissions in macOS, which is typically a basic troubleshooting step to fix any software issues your Mac might be plagued with.

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How to boot your Mac in Target Disk Mode

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 14, 2023

Our tutorial series dealing with the many ways you can start up your Mac continues with Target Disk Mode, a feature Apple conceived to allow your Mac to act as an external disk for another Mac.

It's not surprising that the vast majority of average Mac owners are totally oblivious to the existence of Target Disk Mode, and who could blame them? After all, Target Disk Mode isn't exactly front and center on macOS.

In this tutorial, you're going to be taught how to activate Target Disk Mode through the System Preferences application, or enter it directly at boot time with a simple keystroke. I'm also going to explain in layman's terms why, when and how Target Disk Mode should be used.

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How to create animated GIFs on Mac

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

From time to time, I like to include GIF animations in my posts on iDB. I usually use GIFs when I want to demonstrate some functionality without making a full blown video to do so. GIFs are great for quick demonstrations where videos aren't necessarily needed.

Whenever I include a GIF animation on a post, there's usually at least one comment inquiring about how I went about making the GIF. Although there are many options out there for creating GIFs, including using Photoshop, I personally prefer GIFBrewery ($4.99 on the Mac App Store) from the folks over at Hello, Resolven Apps.  GIFBrewery is solely focused on creating GIFs, and thus, it's fairly straightforward and easy to use.

In this post, I'll show you my GIFBrewery workflow, and how I use this awesome Mac app to quickly create great-looking GIF animations from videos.

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How to use Time Machine on your Mac – the full roundup

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Over the last several months, we've revisited Time Machine, the backup utility present in OS X. We've showed you everything from performing an initial Time Machine setup, to encrypting Time Machine backups, to restoring specific files from those backups.

Time Machine is a great tool that every OS X user should become intimately familiar with, and in this roundup, we'll revisit each of the topics covered over the last couple of months.

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VMware updates Fusion for Mac with support for El Capitan and Windows 10 with Cortana

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 24, 2017

VMware today released Fusion 8 and Fusion 8 Pro with support for running Windows 10 with Cortana on OS X 10.11 El Capitan Macs.

A virtualization solution, VMware allows you to run OS X and Windows 10 side-by-side as opposed to dual-booting between the two operating systems.

Fusion 8 and Fusion 8 Pro also support native display resolution of the iMac with 5K Retina display, the USB-C port and Force Touch trackpad of Apple's 12-inch MacBook and sport other enhancements.

The company said existing Fusion 6 or Fusion 7 customers can upgrade to Fusion 8 for $49.99 or Fusion 8 Pro for $119.99. And if you're a Parallels Desktop for Mac user, VMware will treat you to a cool forty percent discount on Fusion 8 and Fusion 8 Pro.

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