II really want a good VPN I just went to their site and as I always select what cookie I get etc I wanted to do the same here. Firstly there were so many I had to chose, but most importantly the way it is set up makes it really difficult to know if you are disagreeing or agreeing. This seems to be a thing now. They get us coming or going . Hahaha! Bit disappointed really .
A few bugs are really annoying in Sonoma, and I've reported all of them to Apple, but none of them have been removed yet. All of them have been around for at least 6 to 9 months. Are you seeing any of these?: 1) An identical Siri use tip appears in a window during login which has to be closed manually. Everything stops until you close that notification. 2) A notification tells me that some of my data is not syncing to all devices. That's because I have a couple of older devices on the network. The notification appears during every boot up, and is visible in Settings as a red '1' notification. It cannot be disabled, as far as I can tell. 3) Show Desktop upon clicking the Desktop always happens until I turn it off in Settings. But it will not save my preference, and returns at every login. I want to click on the Desktop for various other tasks. 4) A warning that my Time Machine drive is not encrypted appears every time I connect it. I don't want Time Machine to be encrypted, because I want to be able to use it when I reinitialise a local drive after Beta testing. I also want to use it with the next computer I buy, so that I can clone my older device. An encrypted Time Machine would not be useful. I cannot see a way to turn off the notification.. All of those items are interrupting workflow with otherwise unwanted extra Trackpad taps. Any helpful suggestions for clearing these bugs and annoyances would be most welcome. Thanks in advance.
@@rjbse yes you can. But only using shortcuts , if you also want window snapping as an option you still need another app like Rectangle of Tiles (both free). There are a lot of paired alternatives but I don’t know why anyone would really need those, apart from having paid for them in the past already.
@@tjb9930 the ability to restore a system in 40 minutes, including preferences is good to have too, although time machine restore has been crippled lately. But yeah, I spend lots of time with the terminal too.
@@bufordmaddogtannen i even gave windows a shot with the windows subsystem for Linux. Pass. The mac terminal and homebrew are really great. I just wish Apple would cut power users some slack. I did use time machine once, and it really was nice.
In a multi-monitor environment, I find MacOS often opens app dialogs in random locations, often not on the same monitor as the parent app. If you have multiple spaces assigned for each monitor, then the dialog may end up in a space that is not even visible.
This - and windows can be moved to displays where none of the control handles are accessible, forcing you to into Mission Control to make the window snap into the useable display space.
As a lifelong windows user, I have finally made the jump to a MacBook in the hope that it will integrate better with my iPhone and iPad. It does of course, but the problem is all the little things that the system does differently and knowing how to change or get around them. There doesn’t seem to be a tutorial that isn’t either too basic for me or too complicated, but your videos are invaluable as they do cover a lot of those things - Thanks!
Long time Mac user here. I actually used most of those tips after watching this. I think what made your video great is that these aren’t necessarily hidden setting, just ones that we don’t automatically think to change. Thanks!
I wish the notifications had an "all off" button as opposed to having to click in and out of each thing. System sounds and notifications are always the first thing I turn off so i'm with you there. Also thanks for having such a naturally spoken cadence in this video, the unnerving constant jumps cuts that so many TH-camrs use are so jarring, unnatural and distracting from the video, yours was perfect so I appreciate the extra effort to get each sentence out in one take instead of stitching so many varying cadences together and cutting every pause and breath. Subbed!
I am two months into my transition from Windows 10 on a high end HP laptop to Mac OS Sonoma on a MacBook Air. I love just about everything about the Mac. Especially how all of my devices (iPhone 14 Pro, iPad Air 5th Gen, iPad 11th gen, Apple Watch Ultra, and MacBook Air) work so seamlessly together. My experience just improved tremendously with your suggestions on Finder. Wow! So much better! Your tips are fabulous. Thank you, and will buy you a coffee.
The number one annoying thing for me is when on any forum and I want to add an image from my mac, clicking on the button opens up folder view where I can go to the folder the image is in, but the thumbnails are far too small, even at their largest setting, when I have many images that are similar (Astro photography) it is almost impossible to recognise which one I want to use. If I could enlarge the thumbnails, it would make my life so much easier. I can click once on an image which will magnify it, but this just doesn’t help, as I find myself having to click on loads before finding the right image. Windows PC’s let you set the size as large as you like, but I cannot do that in my Mac
Just ignore that folder view and instead open your own Finder (or Photo) window, locate your image of choice, and drag it into the original folder view.
@@donlibes that seems like extra steps which aren’t needed with a PC, and I’m not sure it would work well, I would have to come off the page I’m on, open finder, find the image than drag it somewhere else. On a PC, I just click the add image icon, and it is at a size I know what I’m doing. No navigating elsewhere etc. I currently do something similar, I am making a comment, and know I want to share an image, so use finder to look for it, and just remember the file name, then when using the icon to upload it, I have the actual name, all extra work that would not be needed if I could just resize the images in the folder view I’m presented with from a forum link back to my computer
@@Jimages_ukyou literally just press space bar when the image is selected to invoke quick look. You will instantly get a huge preview of the file. You can then dismiss it with the space bar again or use the arrow keys to navigate to another image to preview
Very nicely done! And for the toolbar in the finder, you can also cmd-drag just about anything to the toolbar. For example, I put 5 or 6 key apps that I use up there and can simply click on them (I have so much in my dock!) - can even put a spreadsheet or really most anything!). Steve on 2 Dec 2023
The window minimising Genie Effect is probably the first setting to get rid of. I remember Steve Jobs showcasing it when introducing Mac OS X but more than 20 years later, it's still there and still as annoying as on day 1. I am wondering how come Apple hasn't scrapped it already.
For window management, my personal favorite has become Swish. It’s trackpad-gesture based and requires less precision (of either clicking a button in a specific spot or having to drag windows to specific areas). Highly recommend giving it a shot, can’t imagine my macOS experience without it 👌
The one thing that I hate about MacOS is the click-to-focus policy of the window manager. Is there a window manager that offers focus-follows-mouse so I can click buttons in a partially obscured window without the window rising to become the frontmost window?
Amethyst has a focus follows mouse feature. Very annoying when you try to reach a small window on top of a bigger one ^^ The tiling modes (especial two pane) are great tho.
@@sporqist Thanks though as far as I can tell, amethyst doesn't have a way to stop autoraise so as soon as you click on an element in the background window, it raises it. I'd prefer a way to control that separately.
couple other things i had to fix to make my mac more usable, -get an alt tab app that makes alt tab more like windows so its actually useful. -sped up the doc animation which in turn also made it way more responsive. (before sometimes moving mouse down there dock takes like a second to come up or doesn't at all, now its fast and comes up every time) -got a scroll app that made scrolling on trackpad and the magic mouse not locked to the same direction. -get rectangle so i can window snap the windows to my desired location including full screen -swapped command key and world key functions. pressing command C to copy/paste is effing dumb. now i can copy paste without cramping my hands.
It’s a lot like moving to a nicer, newer house. There will be growing pains as you have to unpack and get everything organized. But after the initial hump you are so much better off!
These are really helpful suggestions and I will implement a lot of them. One thing I find particularly annoying is the way windows will suddenly fly off the screen unexpectedly. I have no clue why this happens. Now to get on with cleaning up the finder and tool bar!
Oh, I have 95% percent the same settings :-) One thing I'm missing here and think it can be useful: Reduce / Configurate the number of file types that are shown in spotlight. I personally enabled only "Applications".
one for the next time you tackle this topic... sometimes the "minmize" button is there... sometimes its greyed out. Would love to know how to make it always there.
Thank you for excellent revised settings. A recent weirdness in Ventura - multiple Documents folders in sidebar. Also whose idea was it to remove the search bar window so an extra click to open it every time. There’s more…
A Finder window problem that I have yet to find a solution is in column view, all the columns are the same width, regardless of their content. When there is a deep and complicated folder structure (like on a server at work), it is very inconvenient to navigate. I would like the option of the columns to automatically resize to fit the content, i.e. narrow when the folder names are short and wide when the file names are long - not all the same width.
I expected you to address why Finder folders always seem to be a mess. They open in different views, they are sorted weirdly, etc. But still nice video and thanks for the touchId tip, that is quite usefull. Also REALLY expected you to have a Studio Display haha.
Great video! The most annoying thing is the missing counterpart to Windows with CTRL+X and CTRL+V and that the formatted text is always copied when copying. Ultra annoying when editing text and Excel.
My biggest annoyance is that there is no way to delay the menu bar appearing when it is hidden and you move your mouse to the top of the screen. I work a lot with virtual machines and remote servers in full screen and when I go to click on a menu button in the VM or remote server the Mac menu will pop down, blocking what I was trying to click on in the VM. There needs to be a setting where you can delay it appearing for a couple seconds. This happens to me many times every day. Setting it to never is not really a good option because then there will be a menu bar in a video that I am trying to watch full screen.
As an avid user of both Mac and windows…unless there is a specific piece of software that is Mac only, windows is a far better operating system for daily use. Everything from file browsing to search to windows snapping. macOS is just too finicky and deliberately designed to be different which means it’s designed not to be logical as other companies design to be logical.
@@scottd1342 You don't know a thing since Window does way better files managment, FEM analysis, CAD design and etc. Mac is just too limited in so many way and you can't reach multitasking or create big servers to stored data in. So no, Mac is not more useful under certain circuatances xd. It is apparent you don't use android phone since it does connected automatically and you can even recieve notifications from there and even you can search for files on that android and either save it or open up the file from there.
@scottd1342 Mac only suited for things like blenders, video editing or programming. But for more demanding workloads, data science and simulation of organism and big assemblies. Window is the better offer here and thanks you for proving that window still have way more compatibility than Mac Os offers. Window manage file management league above Mac os that a free software fix like "rectangle" to make it more user friendly prove otherwise that it is not as intuitive. Even for big servers, Window is mostly preferred over Mac OS. Mac OS is simply a skin of linus but way too limiting
The most frustrating thing that I deal with every day due to my specific workflow is the on-screen caps Lock notification. It cans be turned off, and nags you all the time as long as 1- caps lock is on, and 2- you aren’t actively typing. Argh!
Everything on this video, except for Siri and Touch ID (two things I never use), are things that I always change on a new Mac. When I was managing the fleet of Macs for my company, I also set up all of these settings for all our computers using Configuration Profiles and scripts via our MDM server. My users really appreciated having all these creature comforts already set up by the time they first logged into their assigned Macs. Now that our parent company is managing our computers, they don't go as deep and we have to manually change these again.
You really don’t use touchID on your mac? You manually type out your password every single time it’s required? Don’t you find that cumbersome? Or you use the apple watch unlock feature instead?
I would love to know how to get rid of the annoying text identifier icon in Photos when looking at single images in full screen mode? Thanks for the great videos - I always find them useful!
I also think the native windows management is awful, but with Stage Manager, using apps in fullscreen and sometimes using alt + resize, I think there is a Mac way of doing things that isn't too bad. The small problem with the third-party apps imo is that you feel OSX is not designed for it, although it works pretty well.
Thanks for this and your previous video on tweaks to improve the OS experience in Mac. My biggest complaint about macOS is having to click a window to shift focus. I have searched and cannot find a way to allow the focus to shift with the mouse position. It looks like there used to be, but the feature was deprecated.
yabai -m config focus_follows_mouse autofocus You will need to install some stuff before you can get this to work, but if you google the phrase above you will find instructions!
I liked your idea about Siri. Not so much an annoyance for me but your idea is a terrific workaround. I will give this a try. That way I can simply press F5 on the keys and then read the text reply. Thank you 👏🏽
I recently converted from being a long time Windows user to a MacBook Pro user and find your videos extremely helpful in that transition. 1 question: I downloaded Google Crome (not a fan) but when I restart my device, the Google Chrome icon appears as a "?" and I have to downloaded it again. I am sure I am doing something wrong. Also have you done, or would you do a comparison of the recent iPads ? Thanks.
Check to see if Chrome is in the /Applications folder, some apps require you to drag an app into Applications (or some other folder) to fully install, otherwise the app disappears once the DMG window of the installer is closed.
I love the hide scroll bar because I never use it ever since I have a scroll wheel and a trackpad. It's much faster to use those 2 than mouse over the scroll bar and scroll. The files open with the wrong app is also very annoying in windows 11 too and talk about notification, windows 11 notification, especially those windows update is way more annoying than mac OS haha.
the appearance scroll bar always change is not ideal for viewing content in full screen like your youtube video, it keeps the bar there even in fullscreen.
Once again, you've given me tremendously helpful tips that I can easily implement after years of using my Mac. LOL. Thanks a million for this great video.
Just one question, how it’s more convenient to disable the fingerprint scanner for passwords compared to typing passwords that are unreadable (8 symbols or more) for 20 different accounts or apps? I tend to forget passwords the moment I typed them in.
With the option turned off, all your passwords still autofill, but you do not need to use touchID to authenticate that. They just fill with a click of the mouse or automatically.
Thanks for another great video. Most annoying in Finder is not being able to set column widths. Always having to faff with dragging a column wide enough to see the whole file name. What am I missing?
Been a PIA user for years. Don't use except in public situation. However, and this isn't a dig against PIA, but using one of their IP addresses in a foreign country to watch my USA based streaming services, mostly does not work. I get a pop up from the streaming service saying that you are using the IP of a VPN and they strongly suspect you are not where you say you are. They then won't let you stream. BTW, thanks for your content.
are there any settings to bring back features from macOS Catalina notifications? It baffles me why I can no longer complete a reminder for example with one click. Ever since the macOS Big Sur redesign I have been stuck with a worse notification experience. I don't like having to hover over more options and hope it stays selected when you click. It adds extra time and extra steps for dealing with notifications. Another example is in Catalina you could quick replay to an iMessage with one click. They also used to show how many notifications were in an email stack for example. Now it is a slightly tweaked design of the notification to tell the user there are more in the stack which can be easy to miss. I haven't been happy with iOS or macOS notifications since Catalina (and the respective iOS)
I'm literally about to press "buy" on a new Macbook Pro M3 Pro after using Windows For 30+ years, I am a Pixel user with an iPad Pro, and I'm dreading how it will all work 🤣🤣 but I want the Mac for Lightroom and Photoshop use, I'll be checking out the rest of your videos!
Dear Tom - this is a great video. Until now I had always been under the impression that Apple fans are almost sect members, defending their chosen vendor and OS with religious fervour. Having necessarily been a work user of Windows for 37 years and professional technical user of Unix, Linux and more obscure OSes I too was irritated by the decisions being made for me about convenience, appearance, defaults and more. It's so refreshing to see such a competent and experienced guy sharing his fixes for pet peeves. Luckily the OS MMI layer allows the settings to be manipulated. And of course I'm secretly relieved that there's unix under the hood in case there's some manipulation eg. of a text file that is elegantly and quicker done in unix. All the best, Rob in Switzerland
I've been Mac user since 2007 and recently bought M3 Max computer with macOS Sonoma. I must say I am absolutely horrified by the user experience. Using this machine in "clamshell" mode hooked to Apple's very own Studio Display and scrolling text is choppy, mouse (magic mouse) lags or does not track at all, system animations are broken, etc. For the first time in 17 years I am seriously thinking of switching to Windows . It's can't possibly be this bad.
Nice vid, most of which I already use. However one big annoyance, for me since Sonoma, but I hear from other users it’s on earlier versions. As a photographer I like to have my drives showing on desktop, makes it easier for backing up files/folders. Problem is, all drives down right side, put Mac to sleep, then when I wake it up again, drives are scattered all over the desktop.
I find it really annoying that when tabbing between applications any kind of mouse movement will/might also move your selection to the wrong app. I have found no way to circumvent this, so if you know of a way to disable mouse interacting with the tab window, that would be amazing!
Thank you, I’ll be working with your pdfs this afternoon to do just about everything you suggest here, including using mom, which I’ve already download but forgot about. Is there away to copy parts of your pdfs to load into my Notes app? I haven’t been able to copy anything on my own.
You’ve probably heard this a bazillion times, but I generally use windows, and I like being able to cut field to the clipboard and paste them, rather than drag and drop- is this still disabled by default these days?
I hate scrollbars, never use them. With a Magic Mouse the faster you scroll the faster it scrolls, plus home and end buttons to quickly jump top or bottom of a page. Similar to moom is better touch if using a Magic Mouse and better snap tool which lets you setup custom gestures and keyboard shortcuts for snapping windows etc.
For me, the most annoying thing about MacOS, is that I cannot use my fingerprint when I power up my macbook... Like, why not? It's way safer than my pin. Same goes for updates and other files
I've been using the Mac since '93 and I know how I want my windows arranged. Usually overlapping a bit so I can see all my windows but easily tell which one is on top. I rarely use the green button at all. Full screen is for movies and DOS users. I do like to have full info displayed on my windows. I also like New Folder and Print in my toolbars, even though these are available from keyboard shortcuts. I'm also very stingy about notifications. People talk about distractions when they're using their computer. If your dog is misbehaving, it's not his fault, it's your fault.
I must say I am a bit tired of seeing your criticism of Apple in most of your recent posts, on doing a quick review of all your previous posts it’s quite obvious your attitude toward Apple products has changed. I previously looked forward to your TH-cam posts but with the negativity creeping in, I’m wondering if we are about to see a radical change to a competitor, ( did someone say Google?) I hope this isn’t the case and we will see a return to proper honest, unbiased reviews. I have no problem with criticism of Apple and like all tech companies, Apple has made their share of mistakes. I question why your reporting has become overwhelming negative toward Apple products recently and I don’t believe that Apple has recently become a company who no longer care about their customers
I really wish tabs in Safari could be colored to better highlight types of files open in Safari, and also to better highlight which tab is open. I notice you don’t use the dreadfully designed Magic Mouse. Which mouse do you use, and suggest, for the Mac? Also, how do you have different screensavers on each screen? I have two screens and have the same screensaver on both.
He is using a Logitech MX Master 3S in "Pale Grey" You can use basically any mouse you like on the Mac with good results. No need for a special Mac version ... though some of the Mac versions may come with matching colorways.
For the past 8 years I have only used Mac Os and the the close minimize and open irritates me the most just does not work the way it should biggest waste of time.
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Tell Tim cook to take his hats off for windows os.
II really want a good VPN I just went to their site and as I always select what cookie I get etc I wanted to do the same here. Firstly there were so many I had to chose, but most importantly the way it is set up makes it really difficult to know if you are disagreeing or agreeing. This seems to be a thing now. They get us coming or going . Hahaha! Bit disappointed really .
A few bugs are really annoying in Sonoma, and I've reported all of them to Apple, but none of them have been removed yet. All of them have been around for at least 6 to 9 months. Are you seeing any of these?:
1) An identical Siri use tip appears in a window during login which has to be closed manually. Everything stops until you close that notification.
2) A notification tells me that some of my data is not syncing to all devices. That's because I have a couple of older devices on the network. The notification appears during every boot up, and is visible in Settings as a red '1' notification. It cannot be disabled, as far as I can tell.
3) Show Desktop upon clicking the Desktop always happens until I turn it off in Settings. But it will not save my preference, and returns at every login. I want to click on the Desktop for various other tasks.
4) A warning that my Time Machine drive is not encrypted appears every time I connect it. I don't want Time Machine to be encrypted, because I want to be able to use it when I reinitialise a local drive after Beta testing. I also want to use it with the next computer I buy, so that I can clone my older device. An encrypted Time Machine would not be useful. I cannot see a way to turn off the notification..
All of those items are interrupting workflow with otherwise unwanted extra Trackpad taps. Any helpful suggestions for clearing these bugs and annoyances would be most welcome. Thanks in advance.
For managing windows I really recommend rectangle as a free option to e.g. you can use keyboard shortcuts as well to arrange the windows.
Or Raycast!
@@BryceDriesenga wait you can manage windows with raycast??
@@rjbse yes you can. But only using shortcuts , if you also want window snapping as an option you still need another app like Rectangle of Tiles (both free). There are a lot of paired alternatives but I don’t know why anyone would really need those, apart from having paid for them in the past already.
Not every program window works well with Rectangle. Apple should build a Pro version of MacOS like Windows does
Rectangle is amazing, I highly recommend it as well
"An annoying feature of the Mac is that it thinks it knows better than you do..." for everything, and that is the biggest thing I hate about Macos.
Windows does the same thing. It thinks it knows better.
@@thihal123 that's why both are garbage. The only thing saving macos for me is - the command line.
@@tjb9930 the ability to restore a system in 40 minutes, including preferences is good to have too, although time machine restore has been crippled lately.
But yeah, I spend lots of time with the terminal too.
@@bufordmaddogtannen i even gave windows a shot with the windows subsystem for Linux. Pass. The mac terminal and homebrew are really great. I just wish Apple would cut power users some slack. I did use time machine once, and it really was nice.
@@tjb9930
I am glad you found something
that works for you.
In a multi-monitor environment, I find MacOS often opens app dialogs in random locations, often not on the same monitor as the parent app. If you have multiple spaces assigned for each monitor, then the dialog may end up in a space that is not even visible.
That's what it's designed to do. Your expectations are outside of its functionality.
@@BeeRich33 What would be the design logic to open a dialog not visible to the user?
This - and windows can be moved to displays where none of the control handles are accessible, forcing you to into Mission Control to make the window snap into the useable display space.
I found that running two screens has so many little things like this that in the end one is best.
As a lifelong windows user, I have finally made the jump to a MacBook in the hope that it will integrate better with my iPhone and iPad. It does of course, but the problem is all the little things that the system does differently and knowing how to change or get around them. There doesn’t seem to be a tutorial that isn’t either too basic for me or too complicated, but your videos are invaluable as they do cover a lot of those things - Thanks!
What’s bothering you the most ? I made the switch couple of months ago and now I have developer level knowledge about MacOS and FreeBSD
Long time Mac user here. I actually used most of those tips after watching this. I think what made your video great is that these aren’t necessarily hidden setting, just ones that we don’t automatically think to change. Thanks!
The three finger drag option in accessibility to drag windows with the touchpad is in my opinion the best hidden macOS feature.
absolutely! it’s a game changer!
Yes - I don't even know why isn't it on by default
It used to be under Trackpad settings and they freaking moved it to the accessibility settings. God knows why.
One more thing put in the most random of all places. Of course youll look for trackpad options in accesibility, who dont.
I wish the notifications had an "all off" button as opposed to having to click in and out of each thing. System sounds and notifications are always the first thing I turn off so i'm with you there. Also thanks for having such a naturally spoken cadence in this video, the unnerving constant jumps cuts that so many TH-camrs use are so jarring, unnatural and distracting from the video, yours was perfect so I appreciate the extra effort to get each sentence out in one take instead of stitching so many varying cadences together and cutting every pause and breath. Subbed!
I am two months into my transition from Windows 10 on a high end HP laptop to Mac OS Sonoma on a MacBook Air. I love just about everything about the Mac. Especially how all of my devices (iPhone 14 Pro, iPad Air 5th Gen, iPad 11th gen, Apple Watch Ultra, and MacBook Air) work so seamlessly together. My experience just improved tremendously with your suggestions on Finder. Wow! So much better! Your tips are fabulous. Thank you, and will buy you a coffee.
The number one annoying thing for me is when on any forum and I want to add an image from my mac, clicking on the button opens up folder view where I can go to the folder the image is in, but the thumbnails are far too small, even at their largest setting, when I have many images that are similar (Astro photography) it is almost impossible to recognise which one I want to use. If I could enlarge the thumbnails, it would make my life so much easier. I can click once on an image which will magnify it, but this just doesn’t help, as I find myself having to click on loads before finding the right image. Windows PC’s let you set the size as large as you like, but I cannot do that in my Mac
Just ignore that folder view and instead open your own Finder (or Photo) window, locate your image of choice, and drag it into the original folder view.
@@donlibes that seems like extra steps which aren’t needed with a PC, and I’m not sure it would work well, I would have to come off the page I’m on, open finder, find the image than drag it somewhere else. On a PC, I just click the add image icon, and it is at a size I know what I’m doing. No navigating elsewhere etc. I currently do something similar, I am making a comment, and know I want to share an image, so use finder to look for it, and just remember the file name, then when using the icon to upload it, I have the actual name, all extra work that would not be needed if I could just resize the images in the folder view I’m presented with from a forum link back to my computer
Space bar shows large image, then arrows up or down to browse? Or use the gallery view in finder?
Space bar ftw. Full size image and as the person above said, you can use arrow keys to flip through. Works for any type of file too
@@Jimages_ukyou literally just press space bar when the image is selected to invoke quick look. You will instantly get a huge preview of the file. You can then dismiss it with the space bar again or use the arrow keys to navigate to another image to preview
Very nicely done! And for the toolbar in the finder, you can also cmd-drag just about anything to the toolbar. For example, I put 5 or 6 key apps that I use up there and can simply click on them (I have so much in my dock!) - can even put a spreadsheet or really most anything!). Steve on 2 Dec 2023
Love your videos, but I have low vision. Please consider doing your demos with dark mode. It's so much easier to see than the white backgrounds
The window minimising Genie Effect is probably the first setting to get rid of. I remember Steve Jobs showcasing it when introducing Mac OS X but more than 20 years later, it's still there and still as annoying as on day 1. I am wondering how come Apple hasn't scrapped it already.
For window management, my personal favorite has become Swish. It’s trackpad-gesture based and requires less precision (of either clicking a button in a specific spot or having to drag windows to specific areas). Highly recommend giving it a shot, can’t imagine my macOS experience without it 👌
The one thing that I hate about MacOS is the click-to-focus policy of the window manager. Is there a window manager that offers focus-follows-mouse so I can click buttons in a partially obscured window without the window rising to become the frontmost window?
Amethyst has a focus follows mouse feature. Very annoying when you try to reach a small window on top of a bigger one ^^ The tiling modes (especial two pane) are great tho.
@@sporqist Thanks though as far as I can tell, amethyst doesn't have a way to stop autoraise so as soon as you click on an element in the background window, it raises it. I'd prefer a way to control that separately.
One of your best! I used many of these! I didn't realize how much notifications were annoying me until you mentioned it.
Amazing video, very helpful. The cadence of your voice and your voice in general is very pleasant
Just got a MacBook Air after 10 years of using only windows and your video was a great start, great work.
couple other things i had to fix to make my mac more usable,
-get an alt tab app that makes alt tab more like windows so its actually useful.
-sped up the doc animation which in turn also made it way more responsive. (before sometimes moving mouse down there dock takes like a second to come up or doesn't at all, now its fast and comes up every time)
-got a scroll app that made scrolling on trackpad and the magic mouse not locked to the same direction.
-get rectangle so i can window snap the windows to my desired location including full screen
-swapped command key and world key functions. pressing command C to copy/paste is effing dumb. now i can copy paste without cramping my hands.
Thanks. I just got my first Mac this week and it’s a bit more tricky to switch to it than I thought it would be
It is, but totally worth it.
It’s a lot like moving to a nicer, newer house. There will be growing pains as you have to unpack and get everything organized. But after the initial hump you are so much better off!
These are really helpful suggestions and I will implement a lot of them. One thing I find particularly annoying is the way windows will suddenly fly off the screen unexpectedly. I have no clue why this happens. Now to get on with cleaning up the finder and tool bar!
Oh, I have 95% percent the same settings :-)
One thing I'm missing here and think it can be useful: Reduce / Configurate the number of file types that are shown in spotlight. I personally enabled only "Applications".
one for the next time you tackle this topic... sometimes the "minmize" button is there... sometimes its greyed out. Would love to know how to make it always there.
THanks, fixed the disappearing scroll bar.
Thank You! This is an extremely useful video for me, very helpful 😊from Dallas, Texas
Thank you for excellent revised settings. A recent weirdness in Ventura - multiple Documents folders in sidebar. Also whose idea was it to remove the search bar window so an extra click to open it every time. There’s more…
A Finder window problem that I have yet to find a solution is in column view, all the columns are the same width, regardless of their content. When there is a deep and complicated folder structure (like on a server at work), it is very inconvenient to navigate. I would like the option of the columns to automatically resize to fit the content, i.e. narrow when the folder names are short and wide when the file names are long - not all the same width.
Rectangle is free alternative for window management
OMG as a windows user new to mac this is SO helpful, thanks!
I tried Moom in the past, but I prefer (and recommend Swish).
I expected you to address why Finder folders always seem to be a mess. They open in different views, they are sorted weirdly, etc.
But still nice video and thanks for the touchId tip, that is quite usefull.
Also REALLY expected you to have a Studio Display haha.
Great video! The most annoying thing is the missing counterpart to Windows with CTRL+X and CTRL+V and that the formatted text is always copied when copying. Ultra annoying when editing text and Excel.
@@bcyc2004 unfortunately only in some cases, not at all applications.
My biggest annoyance is that there is no way to delay the menu bar appearing when it is hidden and you move your mouse to the top of the screen. I work a lot with virtual machines and remote servers in full screen and when I go to click on a menu button in the VM or remote server the Mac menu will pop down, blocking what I was trying to click on in the VM. There needs to be a setting where you can delay it appearing for a couple seconds. This happens to me many times every day.
Setting it to never is not really a good option because then there will be a menu bar in a video that I am trying to watch full screen.
Probably a way to do it if your willing to use terminal commands
@@rosalyschijf2157 If there is a way using the terminal I haven't found it, and no results show up in a search.
As an avid user of both Mac and windows…unless there is a specific piece of software that is Mac only, windows is a far better operating system for daily use. Everything from file browsing to search to windows snapping. macOS is just too finicky and deliberately designed to be different which means it’s designed not to be logical as other companies design to be logical.
‘We’re Apple. We know how to use your Mac/iPad/iPhone better than you do.’
@@scottd1342 You don't know a thing since Window does way better files managment, FEM analysis, CAD design and etc. Mac is just too limited in so many way and you can't reach multitasking or create big servers to stored data in. So no, Mac is not more useful under certain circuatances xd. It is apparent you don't use android phone since it does connected automatically and you can even recieve notifications from there and even you can search for files on that android and either save it or open up the file from there.
@scottd1342 Mac only suited for things like blenders, video editing or programming. But for more demanding workloads, data science and simulation of organism and big assemblies. Window is the better offer here and thanks you for proving that window still have way more compatibility than Mac Os offers. Window manage file management league above Mac os that a free software fix like "rectangle" to make it more user friendly prove otherwise that it is not as intuitive. Even for big servers, Window is mostly preferred over Mac OS. Mac OS is simply a skin of linus but way too limiting
The most frustrating thing that I deal with every day due to my specific workflow is the on-screen caps Lock notification. It cans be turned off, and nags you all the time as long as 1- caps lock is on, and 2- you aren’t actively typing. Argh!
Everything on this video, except for Siri and Touch ID (two things I never use), are things that I always change on a new Mac. When I was managing the fleet of Macs for my company, I also set up all of these settings for all our computers using Configuration Profiles and scripts via our MDM server. My users really appreciated having all these creature comforts already set up by the time they first logged into their assigned Macs. Now that our parent company is managing our computers, they don't go as deep and we have to manually change these again.
You really don’t use touchID on your mac? You manually type out your password every single time it’s required? Don’t you find that cumbersome? Or you use the apple watch unlock feature instead?
Also what was your favourite software to use for Mac MDM?
Extremely handy video, thank you so much. At the same time I wonder why Apple choose so often for a certain very non logic default setting.
I would love to know how to get rid of the annoying text identifier icon in Photos when looking at single images in full screen mode? Thanks for the great videos - I always find them useful!
Will do...forgot you were jet setting again !...have a great time and say hello to the boss..
Can we talk about Finder killing external disks, please?
I've used windows and Linux for a long time and I'm learning Mac OS now. This has been a very helpful video, thank you!
Thanks, information is very helpful and added a couple of changes on my new Mac. Just subscribed 👍
I also think the native windows management is awful, but with Stage Manager, using apps in fullscreen and sometimes using alt + resize, I think there is a Mac way of doing things that isn't too bad.
The small problem with the third-party apps imo is that you feel OSX is not designed for it, although it works pretty well.
Thanks for this and your previous video on tweaks to improve the OS experience in Mac. My biggest complaint about macOS is having to click a window to shift focus. I have searched and cannot find a way to allow the focus to shift with the mouse position. It looks like there used to be, but the feature was deprecated.
yabai -m config focus_follows_mouse autofocus
You will need to install some stuff before you can get this to work, but if you google the phrase above you will find instructions!
I liked your idea about Siri. Not so much an annoyance for me but your idea is a terrific workaround. I will give this a try. That way I can simply press F5 on the keys and then read the text reply. Thank you 👏🏽
I recently converted from being a long time Windows user to a MacBook Pro user and find your videos extremely helpful in that transition. 1 question: I downloaded Google Crome (not a fan) but when I restart my device, the Google Chrome icon appears as a "?" and I have to downloaded it again. I am sure I am doing something wrong.
Also have you done, or would you do a comparison of the recent iPads ? Thanks.
Check to see if Chrome is in the /Applications folder, some apps require you to drag an app into Applications (or some other folder) to fully install, otherwise the app disappears once the DMG window of the installer is closed.
@@patricktaylor7947 thanks.
This is very useful, Thank you! 😁
I didn’t know about the first video with 10 other things I’ll be watching that today for sure.
Love your channel. Fab info delivered in easy to understand ways. Thank you.
I love the hide scroll bar because I never use it ever since I have a scroll wheel and a trackpad. It's much faster to use those 2 than mouse over the scroll bar and scroll.
The files open with the wrong app is also very annoying in windows 11 too and talk about notification, windows 11 notification, especially those windows update is way more annoying than mac OS haha.
Always one or two bits I need. Thank you!
Why does your QR code have a periscope view of the Loch Ness Monster in the middle?!
the appearance scroll bar always change is not ideal for viewing content in full screen like your youtube video, it keeps the bar there even in fullscreen.
Once again, you've given me tremendously helpful tips that I can easily implement after years of using my Mac. LOL. Thanks a million for this great video.
Great content as always. Thanks
Still looking for a solution to keep the dock in Mac display permanently instead of randomly moving to external display.
I’ve used MOOM for years! It’s excellent!
Just one question, how it’s more convenient to disable the fingerprint scanner for passwords compared to typing passwords that are unreadable (8 symbols or more) for 20 different accounts or apps? I tend to forget passwords the moment I typed them in.
With the option turned off, all your passwords still autofill, but you do not need to use touchID to authenticate that. They just fill with a click of the mouse or automatically.
Thanks for another great video. Most annoying in Finder is not being able to set column widths. Always having to faff with dragging a column wide enough to see the whole file name. What am I missing?
Your content is so interesting and useful man!
What happened to being able to control date formats in Finder, etc.
Been a PIA user for years. Don't use except in public situation. However, and this isn't a dig against PIA, but using one of their IP addresses in a foreign country to watch my USA based streaming services, mostly does not work. I get a pop up from the streaming service saying that you are using the IP of a VPN and they strongly suspect you are not where you say you are. They then won't let you stream.
BTW, thanks for your content.
Excellent. Love this content and in my language 😂. Keep up the good work.
are there any settings to bring back features from macOS Catalina notifications? It baffles me why I can no longer complete a reminder for example with one click. Ever since the macOS Big Sur redesign I have been stuck with a worse notification experience. I don't like having to hover over more options and hope it stays selected when you click. It adds extra time and extra steps for dealing with notifications. Another example is in Catalina you could quick replay to an iMessage with one click. They also used to show how many notifications were in an email stack for example. Now it is a slightly tweaked design of the notification to tell the user there are more in the stack which can be easy to miss. I haven't been happy with iOS or macOS notifications since Catalina (and the respective iOS)
Thanks!
Thank you very much, I really appreciate your support!
I'm literally about to press "buy" on a new Macbook Pro M3 Pro after using Windows For 30+ years, I am a Pixel user with an iPad Pro, and I'm dreading how it will all work 🤣🤣 but I want the Mac for Lightroom and Photoshop use, I'll be checking out the rest of your videos!
Dear Tom - this is a great video. Until now I had always been under the impression that Apple fans are almost sect members, defending their chosen vendor and OS with religious fervour. Having necessarily been a work user of Windows for 37 years and professional technical user of Unix, Linux and more obscure OSes I too was irritated by the decisions being made for me about convenience, appearance, defaults and more. It's so refreshing to see such a competent and experienced guy sharing his fixes for pet peeves. Luckily the OS MMI layer allows the settings to be manipulated. And of course I'm secretly relieved that there's unix under the hood in case there's some manipulation eg. of a text file that is elegantly and quicker done in unix.
All the best, Rob in Switzerland
Amazing….always a pleasure to watch
I've been Mac user since 2007 and recently bought M3 Max computer with macOS Sonoma. I must say I am absolutely horrified by the user experience. Using this machine in "clamshell" mode hooked to Apple's very own Studio Display and scrolling text is choppy, mouse (magic mouse) lags or does not track at all, system animations are broken, etc. For the first time in 17 years I am seriously thinking of switching to Windows . It's can't possibly be this bad.
Very useful video, thank you! Subscribed 😉
Nice vid, most of which I already use. However one big annoyance, for me since Sonoma, but I hear from other users it’s on earlier versions. As a photographer I like to have my drives showing on desktop, makes it easier for backing up files/folders. Problem is, all drives down right side, put Mac to sleep, then when I wake it up again, drives are scattered all over the desktop.
you might want to try tweaking the sort by and arrange by settings in the view options window for desktop (command J)
I wish you could keep both windows active in split screen. Having to click each one before using it is really annoying.
Hey, what kind of keyboard is this in your video?
I find it really annoying that when tabbing between applications any kind of mouse movement will/might also move your selection to the wrong app. I have found no way to circumvent this, so if you know of a way to disable mouse interacting with the tab window, that would be amazing!
Hola thanks for the content!
Great video. Very helpful!
What is annoying about using touch ID to enter passwords? Personally that’s one of the things I like most about the Mac.
Thank you, I’ll be working with your pdfs this afternoon to do just about everything you suggest here, including using mom, which I’ve already download but forgot about. Is there away to copy parts of your pdfs to load into my Notes app? I haven’t been able to copy anything on my own.
How to get rid of apple music popping up from time to time ?
I have no use of this app but can't get rid of it...
You’ve probably heard this a bazillion times, but I generally use windows, and I like being able to cut field to the clipboard and paste them, rather than drag and drop- is this still disabled by default these days?
How you record screen and facecam at a time and what is your editing software?
VERY Helpful, thanks
Dude - you’re a lifesaver
Very Very useful guide; I’ve taken your advice re VIA VPN.
I hate scrollbars, never use them. With a Magic Mouse the faster you scroll the faster it scrolls, plus home and end buttons to quickly jump top or bottom of a page. Similar to moom is better touch if using a Magic Mouse and better snap tool which lets you setup custom gestures and keyboard shortcuts for snapping windows etc.
Really helpful. Thanks.
pia vpn is Philippines one of the countries, is there a list of these?
How about it opening preview windows always on the left of the screen? Maddening.
i used magnet for window management
For me, the most annoying thing about MacOS, is that I cannot use my fingerprint when I power up my macbook... Like, why not? It's way safer than my pin. Same goes for updates and other files
Aslong as you are on ssl webpages all data except for headers are encrypted
should u make video about best feature of win 11 :D
I've been using the Mac since '93 and I know how I want my windows arranged. Usually overlapping a bit so I can see all my windows but easily tell which one is on top. I rarely use the green button at all. Full screen is for movies and DOS users.
I do like to have full info displayed on my windows. I also like New Folder and Print in my toolbars, even though these are available from keyboard shortcuts.
I'm also very stingy about notifications. People talk about distractions when they're using their computer.
If your dog is misbehaving, it's not his fault, it's your fault.
I must say I am a bit tired of seeing your criticism of Apple in most of your recent posts, on doing a quick review of all your previous posts it’s quite obvious your attitude toward Apple products has changed. I previously looked forward to your TH-cam posts but with the negativity creeping in, I’m wondering if we are about to see a radical change to a competitor, ( did someone say Google?) I hope this isn’t the case and we will see a return to proper honest, unbiased reviews. I have no problem with criticism of Apple and like all tech companies, Apple has made their share of mistakes. I question why your reporting has become overwhelming negative toward Apple products recently and I don’t believe that Apple has recently become a company who no longer care about their customers
@@gregsims380 I'm curious about what you find to be "critical of Apple" in my posts.
How in 2023 Finder doesn't show you the size in bytes of the files you've selected, but does show you free disk space is beyond me.
I really wish tabs in Safari could be colored to better highlight types of files open in Safari, and also to better highlight which tab is open.
I notice you don’t use the dreadfully designed Magic Mouse. Which mouse do you use, and suggest, for the Mac?
Also, how do you have different screensavers on each screen? I have two screens and have the same screensaver on both.
He is using a Logitech MX Master 3S in "Pale Grey"
You can use basically any mouse you like on the Mac with good results. No need for a special Mac version ... though some of the Mac versions may come with matching colorways.
For the past 8 years I have only used Mac Os and the the close minimize and open irritates me the most just does not work the way it should biggest waste of time.
Hmm... Kinda strange priorities/ choices/ options, at least in the eyes of someone who begun his Mac experience back in MacOS 7.6 (Classic) - and for the time being decided to stay "below eleven", as 10.9 system seems to be the last one actually developed "by humans, for humans". No hard drives on desktop?! No labels? OK, that I can understand, labels past 10.4 just SUCKS, big time. They are basically the contradiction of what they were meant (and meant for) back in MacOS 9 when they were introduced (AFAIR). "Wrong app" for "wrong" files? Yeah, the "resource fork" thingy was a great idea, pity it's gone. Long gone.
Eye-cloud? Never 'eard of 'im (and I'm gonna keep it this way as long as possible - remember, a "cloud" ain't any freakin' "cloud" - it's SOMEONE'S else computer! Which can be hacked, hint, hint...).
Disabling "empty Trash warning"? Oh, dear... Wait till you develop kinda spastic mouse, which can do both right and left click at the same time, at a single click - so when you decide to check the content of the Trash, you suddenly realise the mouse briught up right-click menu AND clicked on "empty the Trash" command at the same time. And since "no warning", then "poof!" ("You cannot undo this action"...)
Disappearing scroll bars and auto-hiding menu bars - oh, couldn't thing about any invention more stupid... No, WAIT! Yeah, the total lack of CLEARLY DEFINED windows' borders. Can't get any dumber than this... except maybe Firefox contextual menu which is plain white, jsut as a standard white background of a standard white page.
"Green light button"? Another great leap backwards. Open Text Edit, increase magnification (aka "zoom", the window won't get bigger, so you'll see only a part of the page. Click "green light button", and PRESTO! VOILA! The window will get... fork, SMALLER. Like, how come they got it right in the Classic, all the time, and now it's all forked up?
"Scale effect"? You mean, like it used to be back in, uhm... System 6? No, srsly? Wow, what a "new, amazing feature" (©Steve J.)
best tool i use is tinker tool
I'm annoyed that widgets on the desktop will hide icons on the desktop.
Wish there was way to have get info window not shoot off to the left Anyone know how to fix this, said he long time mac user