Mac How To

If you stumble across a webpage or a link in a different language, you can instantly translate the website to English directly from Safari. Unlike Google Chrome, Safari even translates the text inside images using Live Text.

And, if you accidentally change the language of a website to one you don’t speak, you can turn this feature on to help you change it back. At Cult of Mac, we use the feature to translate rumors or blog posts often written in Chinese, Korean or Japanese, like this.

You don’t need to select the words paragraph by paragraph and copy them into Google Translate (or even Apple’s own Translate app). Get the entire page in English at the tap of a button. Here’s how to make the most out of this handy Safari feature.

You might only use the Mac’s built-in Preview app when you need to read a PDF or zoom in on a picture, but there’s much more to the software than meets the eye. It’s a pretty handy image editor for Mac, too.

In this how-to, I’ll go over six features that will let you make the most of Preview, a handy tool that’s an overlooked benefit to using a Mac. I have three tips for working with documents and three for editing pictures.

There are lots of things you can do with an old Mac. No one will fault you for upgrading to Apple’s latest and greatest, but your old Mac can still find a job to do, too.

It used to be that when your old iMac kicked the can, you hollowed it out and made an aquarium or a desk lamp. These days, Macs have a much longer shelf life. The right model can give you years upon years of loyal service. (Not to mention, modern Macs are too thin to house a fish.)

Here are the six best things you can do with an old Mac. Watch our latest video or keep reading below.

Apple is perceived as a laggard in the AI race — despite that, Apple has developed the single best computer for AI research. The new Mac Studio with an M3 Ultra chip, which supports up to 512GB of unified memory, is the easiest and cheapest way to run powerful, cutting-edge LLMs on your own hardware.

The latest DeepSeek v3 model, which sent shockwaves through the AI space for its comparable performance to ChatGPT, can run entirely on a single Mac, Apple AI researchers revealed Monday.

It’s a machine that fits comfortably on your desk, rather than a server farm; it costs the same as a used Honda Civic, not a new Lamborghini.

How did this happen? Most remarkably of all — by sheer coincidence. Here’s why the Apple silicon architecture makes for the best AI hardware, a use case Apple didn’t mean to design it for.

The Mac pointer (also called the cursor) is black with a white outline by default, but you can change the pointer color if you want to make it more prominent. Plus, you can even change the Mac pointer size. 

You might lose track of the small cursor if you have low vision — or just a really big monitor. Making the pointer larger can make it easier to see. 

Changing the pointer color to, for instance, bright red can make it easier to see, too. You can choose any color, like light purple or green, to fit the aesthetic of your setup. (This is especially cool if you have a matching colorful iMac.)

Here’s how to change your Mac pointer size and color.

Sick of apps constantly asking you to rate them? There is a way you can block App Store rating requests completely on iPhone, iPad and Mac so that the pesky popups no longer appear. We’ll show you how.

The M4 Mac mini is so tiny that taking it on trips isn’t an unreasonable idea. With the right accessories, you might not need a MacBook. Seriously.

Here’s the gear needed to turn Apple’s diminutive desktop into a portable computer for your next holiday or even business trip.

It’s easy to rename multiple files at once on a Mac using the Finder’s batch rename tool. If you have a big series of pictures, videos, screenshots or documents in a series, you can use this feature to rename them all in a similar format and sequence.

You don’t have to take on such a tedious task by hand.

So, you accidentally disabled Bluetooth on your Mac, and now you can’t use your wireless mouse or trackpad. You could dig out a wired mouse to reenable Bluetooth, but that’s a lot of effort. Instead, just use your keyboard to turn on Bluetooth on your Mac without a mouse.

We’ll show you how to get out of this computing pickle.

If you love your iPad, there’s no reason to buy a second computer. Add a few accessories and you can quickly transform an iPad into an iMac mini — a small desktop computer easily up to personal use.

I use an iPad as my primary computer, so I have some recommendations for items to take your tablet to the next level.

You can set notifications from specific apps to stick to the top of your iPhone screen. With persistent notifications in iOS, when your phone is unlocked and an important alert comes in, it will stay visible at the top of the screen until you act upon it. It’s an easy way to make sure you don’t miss (or forget about) critical notifications on your iPhone.

This proves super-handy for things like medication reminders. It also works wonders if you’re the sort of person that ignores notifications once they disappear from your iPhone screen. I’ll show you how to make your notifications sticky.

macOS Sequoia is a pretty comprehensive update with some fantastic new features, like iPhone mirroring, window tiling, and text message formatting. Although Apple Intelligence — the AI features coming to Mac, iPhone, and iPad — will continue grabbing headlines for the next year, it won’t arrive until later in the fall. Plus, only Macs with Apple silicon will support Apple Intelligence. Additionally, users can look forward to a new shaking head emoji, expanding the ways people can express disagreement or disapproval in messages.

Still, macOS Sequoia brings some game-changing new features — and it’s out right now. Find it in System Settings > General > Software Update. It’s compatible with most of the same Macs as macOS Sonoma, dropping support for the 2018 and 2019 MacBook Air.

After you update, here’s the big list of things you can check out.

Mac Hot Corners are shortcuts for your mouse. Just throw your mouse cursor to the corner of the screen (the easiest place to hit) to perform quick actions. You can instantly lock the screen, start a screensaver, show the desktop, show all windows and more.

If you use your Mac with a standard two-button PC mouse instead of Apple’s Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse, Hot Corners can replace the multitouch gestures that you miss out on. The Mac’s built-in Hot Corners feature gives you a really quick and easy way to navigate your computer, and I recommend you turn them on and use them.

Some people achieve and maintain zero unread emails; some let that red badge climb into the thousands. It’s never too late — you can become one of those clean inbox people like me. What can help you along the way to Inbox Zero are these six tips in Apple’s own Mail app for iPhone and Mac that you might not have known about.

Well, beyond the obvious Tip Number 0: You should always hit the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of every unsolicited promotional email as soon as you get the first one. After you kill all those unwanted subscriptions, these six lesser-known features of the Apple Mail app will make you a true pro at managing your email.

AirPods are the wireless earbuds that ordinary Bluetooth headphones want to be when they grow up. They’re seamlessly integrated with your iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Mac. They’re deceptively simple — but if you want to get more out of them, you need to dig through Settings. These AirPods tips will show you where to look to unlock maximum functionality.

I did some spelunking and found six super-handy hidden features you might not know about.

If you work on a Mac, these six useful apps can help you get that work done faster. And you don’t need to take time to download them or figure out if they’re worth the price — you already have these apps on your computer.

These come with every Mac, and you can locate them in the Applications and Utilities folders. If you’re in the Finder, just hit Shift-Command-A (⇧⌘A) or Shift-Command-U (⇧⌘U) to find them.

I’ll walk you through a few of the more useful Mac apps hiding there that you probably haven’t heard of.

Although the Mac offers fantastic support for opening and editing PDFs in the built-in Preview app, the simple act of copying and pasting text from a PDF can still be a nightmare. For instance, selecting text on a two- or three-column document often selects across the whole width of the page, which is totally useless. Luckily, there’s a better way to copy text from a PDF on a Mac using Apple’s Live Text feature.

Taking a quick screenshot and using Live Text often yields better results when you need to copy text from a PDF or an image. (It also works with photos and old document scans as well as PDFs. Here’s how to do it.)

The Mac offers many options for taking screenshots without installing third-party apps. You can take a Mac screenshot that shows the entire screen, get a clean image of a specific window, or select specific areas to capture. There’s also a built-in way to take a video of your Mac screen (and even record a voiceover for your screen recording using your microphone, headset or AirPods.)

We’ll show you various ways to take a Mac screenshot so you can decide what’s best for your needs.

You can make a GIF on your iPhone or Mac out of any Live Photo or video you have in your photo library or saved to your computer. You don’t need to download any apps — simply add a shortcut, and you can do it directly from the share sheet.

Of course, not all looping animated images are GIFs. A faster way to animate your Live Photos is with the iPhone’s built-in Loop effect. In the Photos app, just tap on the “Live” tag in the upper left and select “Loop.” This will produce higher-quality results, but might not be compatible with third-party apps like Snapchat or Discord.

If you need an actual GIF file, there’s still a pretty easy way to make them on your phone or Mac. I’ll show you how.

You can change the name of your Apple devices, whether you have an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, AirPods or Apple TV. By default, it’s just “[your name]’s iPhone.” But you can give your iPhone its own unique name, like Kit-Kat or Magic Rectangle.

Also by default, when you set up a new iPhone, the name is transferred. This can get confusing if you keep old phones around because you’ll see “John’s iPhone,” “John’s iPhone (2),” maybe even “John’s iPhone (3)” and more. The same is true for Apple Watch, Mac, iPad and AirPods.

The name of your device shows up among a bunch of Apple features like AirDrop, Find My, Personal Hotspot, AirPlay and more. If you use these features often, giving it a unique name will make it easier to identify.

Here’s how to fix this mess on all your Apple devices. Keep reading or watch our video.

If your Mac is running slow, there are a few things you can do to speed it up and better understand what’s slowing it down.

It’s not just that your Mac is old — although that is an important factor. It could be that you don’t have enough memory, especially if you like to use Google Chrome. You may have a bunch of apps running in the background. There also might be dust in the vents, keeping your Mac from running nice and cool.

Check out our latest video or keep reading to learn why your Mac is slow and how to speed it up.

Setting up a new Mac is an experience in itself. But once you finish your initial setup, you should change these Mac system settings for a better experience. These five easy tweaks to default Mac system preferences will speed up your workflow and save you time.

Irrespective of whether you are a new or long-time Mac user, below are five settings to change on your Mac. Keep reading or watch our latest video.

The 2024 Super Bowl is Sunday, and football fans can watch via their favorite Apple device. Maybe it’s on an Apple TV connected to the big screen in your living room, or you might need to watch on your iPhone because you have to be at work tonight.

Whatever your setup is, here are the best ways to stream the big game.

Screen sharing from your Mac to Vision Pro is a great way to work inside the headset while using your Mac’s keyboard and trackpad. You can enlarge your Mac’s screen to enormous size, and surround it with apps that work inside Vision Pro.

It’s called Mac Virtual Display. Unfortunately, it’s limited to only one Mac screen. But set up right, it can be the ultimate big screen setup — without the actual big screens.

Here’s how to use your Mac with Vision Pro.

Find My is built into most Apple devices, and helps you locate them if they go missing. It can be used with MacBook, iPad, AirPods and more.

If you haven’t been taking advantage of Apple’s free device-tracking system, here’s how to get started.