OS X tips

How to change where screenshots are saved on your Mac

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Tired of screenshots cluttering your Mac's desktop? Here's how to change where they're saved!
Tired of screenshots cluttering your Mac's desktop? Here's how to change where they're saved!
Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor

app-factor-logo-thumbnail I take a lot of screenshots on my Mac. This typically results in my desktop being cluttered with files I don’t really need to be there once I’m done with them.

That’s why I decided to change the location where my Mac screenshots are stored. My desktop is now clean and I still have quick access via a folder on my desktop. Here’s how you can do the same.

How to save only your most treasured iMessages in OS X

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Keep only what you want, get rid of the rest.
Keep only what you want, get rid of the rest.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac (Original image by Patryk Sobczak/Unsplash)

When it comes to the Messages app, saving all your iMessages can be a good thing, letting you go back in time and see the delightful conversations you’ve had with your loved ones or even just checking to see where you’re supposed to meet up on Friday.

Of course, there might be a few of them, however, that you’re not super keen on saving. You may not want to get rid of an entire iMessage conversation thread, but there might be bits of it you’d rather forget.

Here’s how to get rid of parts of your iMessages while saving only your most treasured iMessages in OS X.

How to supercharge your Netflix watch list

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Watch it your way.
Watch it your way.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac (original image Volkan Olmez/Unsplash CC

It was a good day when Netflix added My List to the list of awesome features it has to allow us to watch anything we want on our TV, computer, or game console. It lets us all keep track of what we want to watch while helping corral the overwhelming amount of distracting movies and TV shows on offer.

However, Netflix still wants to manage what you watch; My List is ordered by some magic Netflix algorithm that makes sure it puts movies it wants you to see up front.

Switch your Netflix My List queue to Manual sorting, then move some stuff around, and you’ll supercharge your Netflix watch list in no time.

Here’s how.

Beat Netflix region restrictions to watch whatever you want

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Watching a UK-only  movie on Netflix from the US.
Watching a UK-only movie on Netflix from the US.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If you live in the United States and use Netflix, you might be disappointed to find out that some shows, like Kajaki: The True Story, are unavailable due to region restrictions.

These are based on licensing agreements that Netflix has with content providers. Many shows and movies are region-locked, which means that you can’t watch a show in the U.S. if it’s only available in the U.K., and vice versa.

There is a way around it, however. Here’s how to beat Netflix region restrictions to watch whatever you want, whenever you want, from wherever you want.

5 Netflix keyboard shortcuts that put you in charge

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Netflix on a MacBook
You now have to pay more for the best Netflix package.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

When you’re binge-watching a show like Walking Dead or Person of Interest on Netflix, you may at times need to get up for a snack or bathroom break (or both).

Fumbling around for the mouse to bring up the playback overlay is fine, but using the keyboard to pause your streaming media is much faster. Here are five hidden keyboard shortcuts that will put you in charge of your Netflix experience.

Netflix’s hidden streaming menu will solve your buffering woes

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Netflix
Expect Netflix to stay in the no. 1 spot for the foreseeable future.
Photo: Global X / Flickr CC

It’s happened to all of us: We get to the thrilling conclusion of the latest Daredevil or Jessica Jones episode, and suddenly Netflix’s “buffering” logo appears, bringing our TV binge to an abrupt and unwelcome end.

Luckily, you can use Netflix’s hidden streaming menu to set your streaming speed to a lower tier, which should bypass the buffering foolishness. Here’s how to find it.

Stay distracted: Keep Netflix video running in the foreground on your Mac

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Watch your favorites while getting work done, too.
Watch your favorites while getting work done, too.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

Sometimes, work is boring. You might need a distraction from whatever routine task you’re doing on your Mac, like entering data into a spreadsheet or replying to email. Netflix is a great idea, but you have to portion your screen or move windows around in order to both watch a show on Netflix as well as get your work done.

Not anymore, though, as NEnhancer lets you use the magical power of Chrome to get a Netflix movie or TV show in a small window that will float on top of any other apps you’re running, making sure your Netflix video running in the foreground on your Mac.

Just be sure to actually get your work finished, too.

How to eliminate the adware that’s plaguing your Mac

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Don't get caught like this.
Don't get caught like this.
Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

In addition to various viruses that can harm your Mac, there’s a different kind of annoyance you might have stumbled upon: adware.

This might manifest itself as a web page that tells you you’ve been infected, with an accompanying phone number to call or malicious website to visit, or it might even show up as an ostensibly helpful Mac app you don’t remember installing.

If you’re experiencing the pain of malicious adware, we’re here to help. Here’s how to eliminate the adware that’s plaguing your Mac.

This simple command will keep your Mac apps bleeding-edge

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You're a Terminal command away from keeping your Mac updated more frequently.
You're a Terminal command away from keeping your Mac updated more frequently.
Photo: Lifehacker

Here’s a surprising fact: By default, OS X only checks for software updates once a week. That’s shockingly infrequent, considering the fact that iOS and Windows both check for critical updates every day.

If you’d like your Mac to keep more on top of things, there’s an easy way to tell it to check for software updates more frequently.

How to maximize your El Capitan windows without going full screen

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Don't let OS X windows take over your whole screen.
Don't let OS X windows take over your whole screen.
Photo: Luke Chesser/Unsplash

It used to be that if you wanted to zoom any window on your Mac to see as much of the content inside it as possible, you’d hit OS X’s green button in the upper left of the window.

As of OS X Yosemite, the green button turned into a “full screen” trigger, zooming any window out to completely fill your Mac’s monitor.

If you hate that behavior, here’s an easy way to get the original zoom feature without the full screen.

Pro Tip: Get higher-quality exports from Photos app

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Photos app does some things differently than iPhoto did.
Photos app does some things differently than iPhoto did.
Photo: Apple

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugAs a longtime iPhotos user, I’ve taken my sweet time getting to know the new Photos app in OS X. But I can tell you this much: It brings a few differences in the way it does stuff.

One of the new subtleties of the Mac’s Photos app is how it treats exporting your pictures. There are two ways to get your images out of the Photos app. One will give you a smaller file; the other will preserve the higher resolution of the original photo.

Here’s how to make sure you’re exporting your photos at the quality you want.

How to find out which Mac apps are using your location

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Find out when your Mac is looking at your location data.
Find out when your Mac is looking at your location data.
Photo: Apple

As our digital lives converge across mobile and desktop devices like our iPhones and Macbooks, we rely on them knowing where we are at any given time. Safari suggestions, for example, count on knowing your location, as do any Maps searches or such.

You might want to know when your Location data is being used, however, for privacy reason. If you enable the Location Services menu bar, you’ll be able to see when any app is accessing your private location data, making it more possible to lock down any sources you don’t want using it.

Here’s how to get that menu bar notice working.

How to send app crash reports to OS X Notification Center

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Crash reports don't have to interrupt your Zen.
Crash reports don't have to interrupt your Zen.
Photo: Lifehacker

OS X is about as reliable as any operating system out there, but apps still can — and do — crash. When they do, they take up the entire middle of your screen, interrupting whatever you’re doing, even if the app that crashed was running in the background.

It’s a mild annoyance, true, but it doesn’t have to be an annoyance at all. Here’s how to push crash messages to Notification Center instead of the middle of your screen.

Apple hides beautiful Retina wallpapers on ‘Something New’ website

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Perfect for an iPhone, right?
Perfect for an iPhone, right?
Photo: Jake Sargeant/Apple

If you’re looking for some amazing new Retina-display-quality images to wallpaper your Mac, iPhone or iPad, you might want to head over to Apple’s “Start Something New” campaign web page.

The sub-site — part of an ongoing advertising campaign highlighting how creative you can get with Apple products — has a bunch of amazing images that zoom around when you mouse a cursor across them.

Here’s how to get them to spruce up your device.

The easy way to add emojis to everything on your Mac

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Emoji for all your textual needs.
Emoji for all your textual needs.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre / Cult of Mac

In Apple’s Messages app, you can easily add emojis with a quick click on the little happy face icon in the iMessage text field. If you use a chat app like Slack, you can do the same.

But what if you want to add an emoji to an email, a letter, or any other text field? Turns out there’s an often-overlooked menu item (with a corresponding keyboard shortcut) that lets you do just that.

Check it out.

Get iTunes to stop asking you to authorize your Mac

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iTunes on Mac
iTunes ain’t dead yet.
Photo: Apple

Trying to play a song in iTunes and getting the same error over and over can be frustrating. If your computer isn’t authorized with your Apple ID via iTunes, it won’t let you play any songs you’ve downloaded from the iTunes Store until it is. Sometimes iTunes will seem to get “stuck” prompting you again and again with the need to authorize.

If you’re having trouble playing your purchased iTunes on your Mac due to the repeated prompts to authorize your computer, there are a few things you can do.

Pro Tip: Sort by date and app and never miss a Mac notification again

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This makes all the difference when searching for notifications.
This makes all the difference when searching for notifications.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugLike iOS, OS X has its own Notifications Center to keep you abreast of all the stuff going on in your world, from calendar events to reminders.

Unlike iOS, OS X El Capitan defaults to a date sorting system that groups all your Notifications together by the date they were triggered. That’s super handy if you’re searching for a notification you got today, but don’t remember what app it came from. If, however, you want to sort by the app the notification is coming from, or–better yet–sort by date and app, you’re in luck.

Here’s how to choose a different option.

Pro Tip: Set your Mac to perpetual Do Not Disturb mode

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So many birthdays, man.
So many birthdays, man.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Pro_Tip_Cult_of_MacNotification Center on OS X seems like a great idea, most of the time, until you get a ton of notifications about things you really don’t care about all at once. You’ve got to click all the little “close” boxes, or click and drag the Notification banners to the right. It can be downright disconcerting.

You can turn on Do Not Disturb for 24 hours, after which it’ll default back to “Disturb.” You can hack your way in and turn off the feature altogether, but then you wouldn’t be able to see any Notifications, ever.

If you want the best of both worlds–Notifications that you can open the Center to see but that don’t pop onto your screen all the time–check out this cool tip.

Pro Tip: Quick way to find stores that take Apple Pay

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Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugApple Pay is showing up in more places these days, but if you live in a town like mine, it can be hard to know exactly where those places are.

Want to know whether that hip restaurant down the street or your local pharmacy supports Apple Pay before you get there? Here’s a super easy trick using either your iPhone or your Mac.

Pro Tip: Bring your Mac to life with a custom video screen saver

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Now you can get any video you like up on your Mac's screen saver.
Now you can get any video you like up on your Mac's screen saver.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugIf you’re enamored of the beautiful aerial screen savers on your new Apple TV and want to do something similar on your Mac, you’re in luck.

SaveHollywood is a screen saver module that will work on any Mac running OS X 10.8 or later, and it lets you play any movie you want when your Mac enters screen saver mode.

Here’s how to get it set up.

How to get Hey Siri-style dictation on your Mac

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Ah, dictation on your Mac. What could be better?
Ah, dictation on your Mac. What could be better?
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If you’ve called out, “Hey Siri” to your iPhone before, you know the joy of this Star Trek-style technology. You don’t even need to hold the Home button down. Sure, your iPhone needs to be plugged in, but it’s a pretty neat party trick.

Excitingly, you can do something similar on your Mac: activating dictation with a voice command. The next time you get a great idea and need to document it, you can just call to your Mac and dictate it right then. No pen, no paper, no walking all the way to your keyboard.

Here’s how.

Pro Tip: Keep your boss from snooping on you with Tor messenger beta

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Even some of my screenshot has to be secure.
Even some of my screenshot has to be secure.
Screen: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bug While you may chat about state secrets while on your Mac at work, you might not want your chats to get out there or be archived. The answer is to use encryption so no one can intercept your messages and figure out you’re really angry at your boss.

The Tor Project aims to make anonymous, off-the-record chats simple with a new instant messenger app you can run on your Mac or Windows PC. Simply run the app (now in beta), log in to your preferred instant messaging service or services, and talk about whatever you want, secure in the knowledge that your chats are safe from your boss’ prying eyes.

Pro Tip: Delete files immediately in OS X El Capitan

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Get rid of your files immediately in El Capitan.
Get rid of your files immediately in El Capitan.
Photo: Steve Lambert/FlickrCC

Pro Tip Cult of Mac bugEvery day, I delete files. Usually, they’re images or screenshots I download or use for my work here at Cult of Mac. These kinds of files pile up across a full day, and I just want to get rid of them to de-clutter my workspace.

Even if I use the Command-Delete keyboard shortcut to get them to the Trash, I still need to empty the Trash (with Shift-Command-Delete), making this a two-step process.

OS X El Capitan brings a feature that lets me skip one of these steps. Here’s how to delete your files immediately using your El Capitan-enabled Mac.

How to keep Facebook from dredging up your worst memories

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facebook-logo-file
It won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Facebook’s algorithmic nostalgia is all well and good — until it starts pulling up the worst memories you’ve shared. Not everyone wants to be reminded of these awful memories.

Introduced this past March, “On This Day” is a Facebook feature that lets you re-share important digital memories from one year ago. Now you can keep specific people and/or dates from appearing in your feed, thanks to a pair of filters introduced on the social network.

Here’s how to make sure your worst memories aren’t surfaced by Facebook.