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Thoughtful, detailed coverage of everything Apple for 36 years
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Category: Problem Solving

Adam Engst 1 comment

How to Determine What Apps and Content You’ve Bought from Apple

Adam Engst shows how you can access your Apple purchase history to uncover when and for how much you purchased apps and content, providing insights into your past Apple transactions.

Adam Engst 30 comments

AppBITS: Online Check Reports Internet Outages

This Mac utility can monitor your Internet connection’s stability with minimal resource use, helping you track and respond to outages.

Adam Engst 10 comments

AppBITS: FileUtils Turbocharges the Finder

If you want more from the Finder, check out FileUtils. It offers options for immediate and secure deletion of files, support for more compression formats, more powerful batch renaming, file checksums, and more path formats.

Adam Engst 11 comments

Guided Access Turns Your iPhone or iPad into a Sharable Single-App Tool

Want to let someone use an app on your iPhone or iPad without sharing your passcode? Try the Guided Access feature that’s hidden deep within iOS and iPadOS. It prevents users from straying into other apps and keeps your notifications private.

Adam Engst 12 comments

Restoring Office Document Associations after Sequoia Upgrade

If you’re having trouble opening Word and Excel files after upgrading to macOS 15 Sequoia and the latest version of Microsoft Office, reassociating the documents with their apps will fix it.

Adam Engst 17 comments

How Gmail Users Can Configure an Email Alias in iPhone Mail

Frustrated by having to reveal his backend Gmail address, Adam Engst figures out how to configure Mail on the iPhone to use a Gmail alias.

Adam Engst 8 comments

How to Avoid Sequoia’s Repetitive Screen Recording Permissions Prompts

Despite online criticism that continued through multiple betas of macOS 15 Sequoia, Apple has maintained the monthly permissions prompts for screen recording permissions. Adam Engst explains why these prompts reduce security and are examples of poor interface design before suggesting a way of eliminating them for a period of time.

Adam Engst 10 comments

Helium Is the iPhone’s Kryptonite

Not that you were planning on seeking it out, but Apple recommends that you keep your iPhone and Apple Watch away from high concentrations of helium.

Adam Engst 4 comments

Solving the Backblaze “Permission Denied” Restore Error

The relatively new Backblaze Restore app makes it much faster and easier to restore backed-up files to your Mac, but if your initial restore fails with a “Permission denied” error, here’s the solution.

Adam Engst 34 comments

macOS 15 Sequoia’s Excessive Permissions Prompts Will Hurt Security

macOS 15 Sequoia displays permissions prompts for apps that require screen recording permissions—more than just screenshot apps—at least once per week and after every restart or logout. Adam Engst explains why this is both unnecessary and counter-productive.

Adam Engst 44 comments

macOS 14.6.1, macOS 13.6.9, iOS 17.6.1, and iPadOS 17.6.1 Fix Advanced Data Protection

Apple’s latest updates address a problem that prevented users from turning Advanced Data Protection on or off. What other problems might they fix as well? Read on for details and our installation advice.

Adam Engst 35 comments

Help Build a Tool To Track Apple Support Page Changes

It’s possible to write software that can traverse the entire universe of Apple support pages. Wouldn’t it be helpful if there were a tool that would tell you which pages were new or had changed? 

Adam Engst No comments

Talking about Troubleshooting on the Chit Chat Across the Pond Podcast

In which Adam Engst and Allison Sheridan talk through Adam’s solar inverter connectivity problem as an example of how small assumptions can prevent successful troubleshooting.

Adam Engst 14 comments

How to Turn Off iCloud Private Relay to Work Around Outages

Apple’s iCloud Private Relay traffic anonymization service went down last week for some users, causing various connectivity problems in Safari and other apps. If you experiencing connectivity problems, try turning off iCloud Private Relay temporarily.

Adam Engst 21 comments

Solar Inverter Connectivity Problem Reveals Weak Troubleshooting

After failing to reestablish Internet connectivity for his solar panel inverters following a spate of power outages, Adam Engst finally figured out the problem with the help of a support tech who made him break it down into its constituent parts. Read on to learn from his mistakes.