FOR YOUR MAC, iPHONE AND iPAD

Written by Carrie Marshall

There’snever been a better time to be an Apple user. Whether it’s your iPhone or iPad, Mac or Apple TV, Apple hardware and software is smarter, more useful and easier to use than ever – and it’s all about making you the centre of your Apple universe. From tiny tweaks to enormous improvements, the latest versions of macOS, iOS and iPadOS are packed with features to make life simpler. And the good news is that the good stuff keeps on coming; we’re on the brink of brand new operating systems for Mac, iPhone and iPad that will have even more improvements.

In this feature we’ll discover the features, shortcuts and tweaks that’ll save you tons of time and endless amounts of effort across all your Apple kit: from Mission Control in Monterey to Safari Extensions in iPadOS, these tried and tested time-saving tips will make every day easier.

Desktop makeovers

1 Control notifications

System Preferences > Notifications (macOS 10.15, Catalina) or Notifications & Focus (macOS 12, Monterey) gives you lots of control over which apps can notify you and how they can do it, enabling you to get the updates you want without your Mac constantly telling you about unimportant things.

2 Change the Dock

≈-click on an empty bit of the Dock and you can change its size, its magnification level and its position on the screen. You can also decide whether it should hide away when it isn’t in use so that there’s more screen space for the app you’re currently using.

3 Find Focus (Monterey)

Monterey’s Focus modes enable you to set different kinds of notification preferences for different times or tasks. For example, you might have one for work, one for personal time and another for lunchtime. It’s easy to create and edit modes in System Prefs > Notifications & Focus.

4 Get stacking

If, like us, your Mac Desktop is often where you dump stuff, ≈-clicking on it and selecting Use Stacks will make your Mac life a whole lot neater. This feature organises items into appropriate stacks, such as images and PDF documents. It makes things tidy and faster to find.

5 Do more Desktops

Use the Mission Control key on your Mac keyboard to create and switch between multiple virtual desktops. This is a great option for studying or working; you can have all the key apps in one desktop and pesky temptations, such as social media apps, in another.

6 Add your iPad

From Catalina onwards, Sidecar enables you to use a compatible iPad as a second screen. Go to the Window menu and you should see a Move To section listing the available iPad(s). Cick on the iPad and the app will move to it. Both devices need to be on the same network with the same Apple ID.

Start up faster!

1 Speed up startup

Your Mac may have unwanted programs or program helpers that load every time you or others log in, slowing down your startup and adding to your Mac’s workload. You can see them and remove them in System Preferences > Users > Login Items.

2 Start your Mac automatically

You can get your Mac to start up or wake up at a specific time. Go into System Preferences > Energy Saver > Schedule and you can create a schedule that applies to every day or even specify certain days.

3 Unlock with your Watch

If your Apple Watch is passcode protected, you can use it to automatically unlock your Mac when you get close to it. To enable this, go into System Preferences > Security & Privacy > ‘Use Your Apple Watch to unlock apps and your Mac’.

Finder Groups make it easy to find what you’re looking for by organising your files and folders by kind, by size or by other criteria you select.

Finder, faster

Get what you need more quickly

1 Get tagging

Tags are a brilliant way to organise and access files. To create tags for flagging files and folders in the Finder, go to Finder > Preferences > Tags. You can use multiple tags, so for example you might apply Work and a project name.

2 Sort your Sidebar

Finder’s Sidebar is one of our most-used Mac features, and if you go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar you can choose what it should and shouldn’t display. You can also drag folders from the Finder into the sidebar for faster access to them.

3 Transform the toolbar

You can change the Finder toolbar to include the commands you use most: just ≈-click on it and choose Customise Toolbar. You can now reorder, and add and remove toolbar icons. If you mess it up, just drag the default set from the bottom of the pop-up.

4 Locate the Library

Your Mac’s Library doesn’t usually appear in the Finder’s Go menu – the idea is to stop people wandering into it by accident – but you can make it appear by holding down the ≈ button when the Go menu is visible.

5 Get into Groups

If you click the Action button in a Finder window you’ll see an option to Use Groups. This organises the current folder’s contents by type, such as folders, documents, images and so on, or by type, or by date, or by any other attribute. It can make very large folders much easier to navigate.

6 Use Spotlight as a launcher

WIth the exception of copying and pasting, the keyboard shortcut we use most on our Mac is ç+[Space bar]: that’s the Spotlight shortcut, and you can use it to carry out quick sums and conversions or to launch specific apps.

7 Use more Widgets