Skip to content
Thoughtful, detailed coverage of everything Apple for 34 years
and the TidBITS Content Network for Apple professionals

Category: Productivity

Adam Engst 17 comments

Messages Becomes More Flexible and Forgiving of Mistakes

For many people, Messages gains some of the most welcome new features of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS 13 Ventura. You can now mark messages as unread, edit messages, unsend messages, and more.

Josh Centers 3 comments

Tab Wrangler Keeps Your Browser Clean by Automatically Closing Tabs

Do you have tons of browser tabs open, either because you forgot to close them or because you’re holding on to them to read or act on later? The Tab Wrangler extension for Chrome and Firefox closes them automatically while maintaining a list of closed tabs, just in case.

Josh Centers 30 comments

European Union to Mandate USB-C in Electronic Devices by the End of 2024

A new European Union directive aimed at reducing electronic waste and saving consumers money will require new electronic devices to charge using USB-C. Most observers assume this will cause Apple to replace Lightning ports with USB-C across its product line.

Josh Centers 16 comments

Meditate for Free with the Oak App

Oak is a free alternative to subscription-based guided meditation apps. It offers a simple menu of meditations that should be more than enough for most people.

Josh Centers 15 comments

How to Use Note Tags and Quick Notes

Apple added two features to Notes in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey to enhance your note-taking. Note tags give you an alternative way to organize your notes, while Quick Note gives you an always-available shortcut for creating notes on your Mac and iPad.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata 10 comments

Continuity Camera Turns an iPhone Into a Mac Webcam

If you think the webcams built into the latest Macs and Apple’s Studio Display leave a bit to be desired, there’s an alternative: Continuity Camera. Harnessing an iPhone as a Mac webcam, Continuity Camera provides a high-quality virtual-camera system in the upcoming iOS 16 and macOS 13 Ventura.

Adam Engst 8 comments

Examining Slack’s New Free Plan Restrictions and Motivations

Slack has overhauled the limits on its free plan, claiming that the majority of active free teams will have access to more message and file history than before. But your mileage may vary—and some people feel betrayed. Adam Engst explores the topic and muses about what we should be able to expect from free services.

Adam Engst 9 comments

TipBITS: Disable Live Text for Easier Selecting in Preview

Having trouble dragging selection handles in Preview because Live Text wants you to select text in the image instead? Here’s how to turn off Live Text if necessary.

Glenn Fleishman 29 comments

Apple Brings Mail Merge Back to Pages

Years after removing the feature in a major rewrite, Apple has returned mail merge to Pages so you can use data from Contacts or a spreadsheet to customize letters, envelopes, or cards.

Adam Engst 1 comment

How to Use Extra Space on an APFS Time Machine Drive

Want to use the extra space on your APFS-formatted Time Machine drive to store non-backup files? Howard Oakley explains how you can make that possible by creating an APFS volume or an APFS container.

Josh Centers 40 comments

Five Solutions for Pasting Plain Text on a Mac

Most of the time, when you copy and paste text, the original formatting is carried over. We explore a handful of methods for stripping unwanted formatting so you get just the text.

Adam Engst 4 comments

TipBITS: Edit Slack Messages More Easily on the Mac

A recent update to Slack alerted Adam Engst that the app had an option to restore a much-missed feature to open the last message for editing with a single keystroke. If you’ve been pining for that feature, read on.

Adam Engst 14 comments

TipBITS: Always Show Window Proxy Icons

Adam Engst stumbled across an Accessibility setting that ensures that window proxy icons—those little icons that appear next to window titles—show at all times, rather than after a 1-second hover. This setting returns proxy icons to their former utility, and if you’re not clear what that was, Adam explains that too.

Adam Engst 18 comments

OWC Releases Affordable Thunderbolt 4 Cables

If you want to avoid confusion surrounding USB-C cable compatibility with USB and Thunderbolt, get a Thunderbolt 4 cable, which supports all the protocol, data throughput, and power delivery possibilities. OWC now sells three Thunderbolt 4 cable lengths for $24, $34, and $57—far less than Apple’s $129 entry.

Adam Engst 10 comments

Luna Display Turns a 27-inch iMac into a 5K Display

The Luna Display dongle, when connected to a 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display using Thunderbolt, turns the iMac into a full-fledged 5K display. However, Adam Engst found that it comes with a fair number of tradeoffs.