How Tos - Page 2

If you've ever tried entering a complex password on your Apple TV, you know the pain. That default linear keyboard layout has you swiping endlessly left and right, hunting for characters like you're playing some sort of tedious game show. The annoying default keyboard layout on Apple TV Here's a secret that'll save your sanity: You can switch to a grid layout that actually makes sense. Head...

There are several ways you can take screenshots on a Mac. Preview offers the option from its File menu. There's also a little screen capture app in the macOS Utilities folder called Screenshot. But the simplest and most common method is to use your Mac's built-in shortcut key combinations. Taking a screenshot is as easy as hitting Shift-Command-3 to capture the whole screen, or Shift-Command...

If your iPhone regularly runs out of battery later in the day, Low Power Mode is one way to make it last longer. You can also make Low Power Mode automatically turn on when your battery reaches a certain custom level. Keep reading to learn how. Most iPhone users are familiar with the way iOS throws up a prompt to turn on Low Power Mode when the battery reaches 20%. Low Power Mode can also be ...

Introduced in iOS 15, Focus mode is an expansion of Do Not Disturb that allows you to set up different permissions for apps, contacts, and more depending on what you're doing. Apple has since expanded what Focus modes can do with new features, including the ability to activate Low Power Mode on your device when a specific Focus in enabled. Here's how it works. The Focus options now include a ...

Losing your Apple Account password can make your digital life a misery, as it can leave you locked out of the account that you use to manage your Apple devices, unable to access your iCloud data and manage your app and service subscriptions. In this scenario, Apple can't just reset your password for you, especially if your have two-factor authentication enabled. Setting up a recovery key is ...

Sometimes when you share a webpage link with someone, you just want to bring their attention to a specific passage or sentence to make your point, rather than have them read through the entire article. In 2020, Google added a function to its Chrome browser called Scroll to Text Fragment (STTF) that helps you achieve this. It allows URLs to link directly to any visible text on a page. You may ...

If you're a Mac user with a Windows PC background, you'll probably know how to use the typical copy and paste commands in macOS. But there's a handy clipboard trick that's worth keeping in mind. In Windows, the Copy and Paste key combinations are Control-C and Control-V, respectively. On the Mac, it's very similar – all you do is use the Command (⌘) key instead of Control. But did you...

Remotely controlling the shutter on your iPhone's camera lets you include yourself in the photo while avoiding the limitations of a selfie. For example, it allows you to take a picture of a wider scene with you included in the frame, which is ideal for landscape shots or group photos. If your iPhone is on a tripod, taking the shot remotely also reduces the risk of camera shake. Here's how to do...

In iOS and iPadOS, Apple includes an option for users to specify the Bluetooth accessories they connect using pre-defined individual labels. Labeling your Bluetooth accessories helps to identify connected devices and improve audio notifications. Apple says that classifying Bluetooth accessories like this can also ensure that real-time Headphone Audio Level measurements are accurate....

In iOS and iPadOS, Apple includes a built-in screenshot feature that also provides you with the ability to capture an entire webpage on your iPhone or iPad that you can then save or share with someone as a PDF document. By converting full‑page screenshots into PDFs directly within Safari, you can preserve the exact layout and content of lengthy articles, receipts, or social media threads...

Apple devices support a relatively unknown three-finger gesture that lets you share a photo across your devices in super-quick time. It's a neat trick to fall back on if AirDrop is playing up or your iCloud Photos are taking ages to sync. Universal Clipboard is usually associated with copying and pasting text, but by using this gesture, you can make it work really well for sharing images...

In iOS, the Control Center can be used to quickly take a picture, jot down a note, turn on the lights, control your Apple TV, and much more. It's useful and convenient because you don't even have to unlock your iPhone or iPad to use it. However, with that convenience comes a potential security issue. If you use Control Center to create Instant Notes, for example, you might not want anyone...

In macOS, Apple allows you to share Tab Groups in Safari with colleagues, friends, and family. Keep reading to learn how it's done. Introduced back in macOS Monterey, Tab Groups are designed to make organizing and preserving open tabs more manageable in Safari without having to have those tabs active. In a Tab Group, you can easily collect and save related tabs, which can be especially...

In Safari on iPhone, it's not unusual for the number of tabs you have open to quickly get out of hand. Here's how to temporarily clean things up without losing your tabs. If you have no use for all your open tabs, you can simply select one, then press and hold on the tabs button in the bottom-right corner of the screen. This will bring up an option to "Close All [x] Tabs," X being the number ...

On computers and mobile devices, file extensions are the suffixes that apps append to filenames. When you see an item like "document.docx" for example, the .docx extension tells the computer and the user what the file is and what to open it with. Some users don't feel the need to see the extensions of files when viewing them in a file manager, but others prefer to have them displayed to help ...

Your iPhone has multiple touch and gesture capabilities that can enhance how you interact with apps. Some, like pinch and zoom, are well known enough to be considered second nature, but others are less obvious, like the one we're about to explain. Two-Finger Drag to Select Items If you have apps where you habitually tap on each individual item in a list to select them – emails in your...

With recent software updates, Apple has made some major changes to the way its stock Mail app looks and works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Keen to roll back these changes and revert to how Apple Mail functioned before the updates? Keep reading to learn how it's done. When Apple released iOS 18.1, it added a priority messages feature to the Mail app for devices with Apple Intelligence. Then in...

In Apple's iOS 18.4 software update, there's a new Ambient Music feature available in the Control Center options on iPhone. It's free to use, and does not require an Apple Music subscription. It's also more customizable than most users probably realize. Keep reading to learn how. There are four different sound categories to Ambient Music, including Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing....

When using macOS Finder in List view, you'll see the sizes of individual files – but not folders. Instead, folders show a pair of dashes (--) in the Size column. macOS skips calculating folder sizes by default to keep List view performance fast, especially in directories with many nested files. But if you want to keep an eye on folder sizes in certain locations, or even globally, there are a...

In iOS 17 and tvOS 17 and later, Apple includes a feature that lets Apple TV users locate a misplaced Siri Remote using their iPhone. Keep reading to learn how it's done. Prior to the launch of the latest ‌Apple TV‌ 4K, there were rumors that Apple would build ‌Find My‌ functionality into the ‌Siri‌ Remote. That didn't happen. Instead, Apple introduced a new iPhone option that...