Full-screen mode on a Mac is pretty great. Unlike Windows, where full-screen apps have been the default since forever, the Mac’s full-screen abilities are a fairly recent addition. And the default is still for apps to launch in smaller windows, which is the Mac Way. But what if you want those apps to launch in full-screen every time you open them? Well, by changing one setting — and abandoning in ingrained habit — you can have exactly that.

Bonus: Full-screen app launching will only apply to the apps you choose, leaving the rest of them to behave normally.

Does your brand new MacBook Pro go into meltdown when it’s plugged into power? Do the fans spin up into a blast of white noise, while the heat makes your hands sweat as you type? Is your kernel\_task pegged using 100% of the CPU when you check things out in the Activity Monitor app?

If so, don’t worry — it’s not your Mac’s fault. It’s you. You’re charging it wrong.

Yes, if you plug your USB-C power cable into the left-hand side of your MacBook Pro, you might make it overheat.

Zoom is the world’s favorite app during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its flagrant privacy abuses, and a history of startlingly bad security holes, people are using the videoconferencing service for remote teaching, conference calls and virtual get-togethers.

If you — or your boss or a stubborn family member — insist on using this software rather than one of the safer Zoom alternatives, this Mac tip will save you a lot of trouble. Using the Push to Talk feature will make your Zoom life a lot easier.

This week we collaborate on songs in the “Google Docs for music,” edit video in Darkroom, block the Touch Bar from accidental taps, and gain other essential tools. These are the best apps and updates of the week.

I have an app I use every day, but whenever I open it, it opens to a new, blank document, instead of the project I was working on when I closed the app. To open that project, I have to mouse up to my Mac’s menu bar, click on File > Recent Items…, and find it in there.

To fix this, I set out to find a way to easily access the last few projects from this app. What if I could put this list of recent projects into my Mac’s Dock? It turns out that you can easily do this, using a quick Spotlight search, a Smart Folder and a drag to the Dock.

Darkroom, one of the best photo library and editing apps on iOS, is now also one of the best video library and editing apps on iOS. In today’s update, Darkroom adds support for editing your videos. Not cutting and chopping them up, like iMove, but changing how they look, as if you were applying filters and edits to a still photograph. And the along thing is, it’s instant, just as fast as editing a still image.

Right now, you shouldn’t be using the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad. Thanks to a serious exploit, a hacker can take control of your iOS Mail app just by sending you a malicious email.

You don’t need to open that mail for it to do its bad business. In fact, you don’t even have to have the Mail app open for the attack to work. Yesterday, we covered the news of this attack, and you can read all about the consequences. Today we’ll show you how to protect yourself by changing just one setting.

This is the second of a two-part video feature on integrating your Elektron synthesizers, samplers and drum machines with Ableton Live on your Mac.

In this video, we’ll show you how to use the brand new Overbridge 2 app and plugin to record up to eight tracks simultaneously over a single USB connection. We’ll also dive into FX routing on the Elektron’s Digitakt sampling drum machine, which is powerful but confusing at first. Finally, we’ll explain how to use the Overbridge plugin to sync Ableton and the Digitakt, and to record loops through a normal analog mixer.

Someone sends you a link that looks like this:

https://youtu.be/rZdrlpz3MOo

What do you do? Well, that one is probably safe, as it uses YouTube’s own URL shortener. But what about all those other shortened URLS you see in emails, on Twitter and everywhere else? They could link to anything. A cautious person never clicks on links in emails. And only an insane person would click on shortened links in emails. That’s why you need today’s shortcut, which lets you expand a URL, preview the actual link, and then tap a button to either open it or dismiss it.

Overbridge 2 is an amazing new app/plugin from Swedish drum machine and synthesizer maker Elektron. As its name suggests, it acts as a bridge between your computer and Elektron’s hardware boxes.

Using Overbridge, you can plug in, say, the Digitakt drum computer and sampler, and stream all eight of its audio tracks to your Mac or PC over a single USB cable.