Computer owners are always looking for ways of saving space, especially those with only a 128GB MacBook. There’s a number of neat tricks to save space, but utilizing iCloud Drive is especially useful – and for more than just clearing up disk space, too. It can save gigabytes of disk space, true, but also makes all contained files and folders available on every single device you own, be it desktop or mobile. It's the built-in Mac optimization tool that has become more and more integrated into the macOS and iOS since Apple first announced it. Read More…
Mac Optimization Articles
How to Disable Keychain on Mac
Having your social media accounts impersonated is the last thing you want: your profile information is a goldmine for cyber criminals because it is exactly the kind of data that they are looking for to personalize their phishing scams. For this reason Keychain Access, a security feature of macOS built to streamline the workflow of Mac users, becomes a security threat on shared computers, and as such it is highly recommended that system administrators disable it. Read More…
How to Securely Delete a User Account on a Mac
Shared Macs will invariably have multiple user accounts, and sometimes there are cases where you’ll want to delete a user account but keep the others. The reasons can be varied, but the good news is that it's super-easy to do if you are an administrator user, which is the only user with such privileges. Do note, however, that the process is irreversible. Read More…
How to Clear Downloaded Files and Downloads History on macOS
By default, most apps will use the Downloads folder to save download files. That's the folder where all files downloaded onto a Mac made from the internet – whether via Safari, other web browsers, AirDrop, or sent through iMessages – will end up. And if you don't keep an eye on that folder and clean it from time to time, it will quickly grow into a disk-space hog, perhaps even bigger than the Pictures folder where all photos are stored by default. Read More…
How to Delete Installer Files on a Mac
Mac users often find their Downloads folder filled with disk images that they previously downloaded from the internet, files that – having already installed the apps – they forgot to delete after unmounting the image. As you may already know, installer files for macOS come with a DMG file extension – otherwise known as an Apple Disk Image – and are similar to ISO files. Read More…
Bypassing EFI Lock on Your Mac
For years, Apple has provided multiple methods to protect the data on a Mac: separate user accounts, passwords, passkeys with Face or Touch ID, and file encryption via FileVault. Plus, it includes an optional low-level security measure that prevents starting up from storage devices other than the selected startup disk.
This last option is known as the firmware password or Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) lock and was used on all computers before 2023 when Apple finished shifting from Intel processors to silicon chips. The password isn’t necessary with the newer Apple silicon as the firmware functionality that it restricted is now found in macOS Recovery, which requires user authentication (when FileVault is enabled). Read More…
Effectively Removing Safari Cache, Cookies and History
Big Brother is watching you, and it follows every step of your digital life. The bill repealing FCC internet service providers (ISP) privacy rules should act as a wake-up call to all internet users since it has set the stage for ISPs to sell people's browser history. Read More…
Removing Languages and Architectures With Monolingual for Mac
It's easy to fall into the trap of false promises that many companies make of gaining large amounts of space by removing localization files on a Mac. Fortunately, the free Monolingual‘s message is clear: it’s possible to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space and nothing more. True to its name, the third party software, aims to serve one clear purpose, which is simply to make the Mac monolingual. Assuming that you are using your Mac in only one language, English, then Monolingual offers the removal of all other languages as well as non-Intel architectures to free up space. Read More…
How EtreCheck Can Help Optimize Your Mac’s Performance
Some of us are rather particular about the health of our Mac, and would like to check on it as often as possible to ensure there are no unexpected problems arising. Thankfully it’s rather simple to get a snapshot of the overall status of your Mac, either by reading the logs with Console or using the free app EtreCheck. If reading the gibberish-like text of the logs isn’t a challenge for you then that's no problem (check out our crash log reading guide if you’re interested in understanding these scripts), but the average Mac user just wants a clean, easy-to-understand report of the Mac’s current health. That's what EtreCheck aims to deliver. Read More…
How to Quit All Open Apps at Once
Are you seeing the infamous spinning beachball of death? Has an application become unresponsive and needs to be closed? There could be too many processes running at once, or you have not one but two or three problematic apps that are putting too much pressure on your hardware. Luckily there is a very simple way to force-quit all apps, and in fact we can even show you how to quit apps in six different ways. Read More…
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