If you’re a Mac user who relies on iCloud Drive for data syncing and cloud storage, you might appreciate knowing that you can enable an optional iCloud Status indicator in the Mac Finder.
The iCloud Status indicators in Finder can tell you if a file or folder is only in iCloud, on the local Mac, ineligible for iCloud, waiting to upload, transferring, and more. Note these iCloud Status indicators are different from progress indicators, though you can also check the progress of iCloud file uploads and downloads in Mac OS if desired.
How to Enable iCloud Status Indicator for Mac iCloud Folders
Go to the Mac Finder
Navigate to an iCloud Drive folder, or if you use iCloud Desktop and iCloud Documents to there *
Switch the folder to List View (click the List view button, or go to View menu > As List)
Pull down the “View” menu and choose “View Options”
Check the box for “iCloud Status” to enable the iCloud Status indicator for the iCloud Drive folder
Close out of View Options
Once the iCloud Status view option has been enabled, it will be visible as a column in List view. Like other sort columns, you can move it around as desired.
You can also right click on the file list headers and choose to toggle “iCloud Status” from there, which is quicker than going to View Options preference panel.
Note if you disabled iCloud Desktop and Documents folders on MacOS so that your desktop and documents aren’t uploading into iCloud, then this iCloud status indicator feature won’t be available for those directories, and instead will be limited to iCloud Drive. This is signified by the iCloud Status option being grayed out and unselectable.
With the iCloud Status indicators enabled, anytime you are copying files to iCloud Drive from Mac or moving files to iCloud from Mac OS you will see the indicator change for those files. Likewise if there is other activity within the iCloud folders, that will show with the iCloud status indicator as well.
If you frequently put data into iCloud Drive or an iCloud enabled Documents or Desktop folder, you might want to think about adding iCloud Drive to the Mac Dock for quick access. It can also be helpful to watch upload progress of files and folders that are transferring to iCloud from the Mac.
Want to change the tracking speed of the cursor on a Mac? Maybe you want your mouse to move around on the screen faster? Perhaps you want the Mac trackpad to move the cursor slower?
You can manually change the tracking speed of either a mouse or trackpad connected to a Mac, and you can even have different tracking speeds for a mouse as you do for a trackpad, a handy trick for users who have both input methods in use on their Mac.
How to Change Tracking Speed of Mouse / Trackpad Cursor on Mac
Go to the Apple menu in the upper left corner of the display
Choose “System Preferences”
Select “Trackpad” or “Mouse”, depending on which you have or want to adjust the cursor tracking speed for
For changing Trackpad tracking speed: Under the “Point & Click” section, look for “Tracking speed” and adjust the slider on the scale from “Slow” to “Fast” as preferred, the tracking speed changes immediately so you can test the change right away
For changing Mouse tracking speed: Adjust the “Tracking speed” slider on the scale from “Slow” to “Fast” as desired
Close out of System Preferences when finished
What tracking speed you use is almost entirely a matter of personal preference. Some users really like a fast tracking speed, while others prefer a slow speed. You should try out different settings and see which works best for you. Often you’ll find somewhere in the middle of the tracking speed slider options offers a good compromise.
Remember you can change the tracking speed of the cursor for input devices independently from one another. For example, you could have the internal trackpad of a MacBook Pro set to fast tracking speed, but any connected mouse could have a slow tracking speed, or vice versa. To independently change the cursor speeds of different input devices, just connect each input device to the Mac and then go to the “Mouse” settings and then the “Trackpad” settings and adjust each as needed. (Side note; you can also independently control mouse and trackpad acceleration speeds with a third party tool, but that’s a different topic)
Note a separate preference setting exists so that you can also change the scrolling speed of a mouse or trackpad on the Mac, which applies to either gestures for scrolling or to scroll wheels.
Some related helpful tips may be changing the size of the Mac cursor, and if you notice the cursor randomly getting big when you move the mouse or trackpad suddenly and you don’t like that, then you might want to disable Shake To Find on the Mac.
Need to delete a virtual machine from Parallels or Parallels Desktop Lite? Removing a virtual machine can be necessary when you’re finished using a particular environment, operating system, or VM for any reason, and it’s also common to remove unneeded virtual machines to free up disk space.
Here’s how you can easily delete a virtual machine in Parallels and remove it from the Mac (or Windows PC).
How to Remove Virtual Machines in Parallels & Parallels Desktop Lite
Launch Parallels or Parallels Desktop Lite, but do not start any virtual machine
Select the virtual machine you want to delete from the Control Center (if Parallels launches immediately into a VM, exit the VM and go to the main screen first)
Go to the “File” menu and choose “Remove”, or alternatively right-click on the VM and choose “Remove”
Select “Move to Trash” to delete the virtual machine without saving anything, or choose “Keep Files” to be able to use the VM again in the future if needed
Repeat with other virtual machines you want to delete
Now go to the Finder and empty the Trash as usual (or right-click the Trash icon in the Mac Dock and choose “Empty Trash”)
Emptying the Trash is necessary to actually delete the virtual machine from the Mac and free up disk space on the computer.
It doesn’t matter if you use the File menu or the right-click menu to delete the virtual machine, the steps are the same afterwards.
Note: if you’re deleting a virtual machine from Parallels on Windows, you empty the Recycle Bin instead of the Trash like on the Mac.
Note that if you simply move the virtual machine to the Trash but don’t empty the Trash on the Mac, that VM can be recovered anytime before the Trash is emptied by simply going to the Trash, locating the vm file (usually labeled as the OS with the file extension “.pvm” like ‘Debian Linux.pvm’) and adding that VM file back into Parallels.
Virtual machines offer a powerful way to test out and use other operating systems by running them in an application layer atop an existing operating system, and this capability is not limited to Parallels or Parallels Desktop Lite. You can use virtual machine software like VirtualBox or VMWare for running Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows 2000, NT, 98, 95, 3.11, Windows with older versions of Internet Explorer ranging from IE 7 to IE 9, Ubuntu Linux, ParrotSec Linux, or just about any other Linux distribution, BSD, a variety of versions of Mac OS and Mac OS X including MacOS Mojave and macOS Sierra, BeOS / HaikuOS, and many other operating systems too. And of course you can delete virtual machines from VirtualBox and VMWare too if needed.
If you’re using a Mac with Hey Siri voice activation enabled but you’d like to turn the voice listening feature off, you’ll find that it’s easy to selectively turn off Hey Siri while still leaving the usual Siri invocation methods enabled in MacOS.
How to Disable “Hey Siri” on Mac
Go to the Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”
Select the “Siri” preference panel
Uncheck the box next to “Listen for Hey Siri” to turn off Hey Siri on Mac
Close System Preferences
Remember this is only turning off the “Hey Siri” voice activation method which is actively listening for the ‘Hey Siri’ voice command, it does not Disable Siri on the Mac completely.
Now you can say “Hey Siri” all you want near the Mac and it won’t activate the voice assistant. But you can continue to access Siri through keyboard shortcut, the menu bar item, Dock icon, Touch Bar, or any other Siri access method on the Mac. Another advantage to this is that you can use Type to Siri on the Mac for typing Siri commands and requests.
This is aimed for the official Mac Hey Siri method, which is limited generally to newer machines, but if you’re on an older Mac model which is using the alternative method for allowing Hey Siri in MacOS then you would have to turn off those specific settings instead.
As with all settings, you can reverse this at any time by choosing to enable Hey Siri again through the same preference panel in MacOS. If you do disable Hey Siri then turn it back on again later, you’ll have to go through the voice recognition setup process again, which is fairly quick and requires you to speak a few phrases to the computer.
Obviously this is aimed at Hey Siri for Mac, but anyone can turn off Hey Siri on iPhone or iPad too if they don’t want the voice activation feature on their iOS device either.
Mac users who have switched from the Windows platform may be accustomed to hitting the F5 function key to refresh a web browser, web site, or webpage. The F5 key is used as refresh or reload in most Windows web browsers, so when Windows users switch to Mac they might be wondering what the equivalent refresh button is on the Mac, since hitting F5 on the Mac either usually adjusts keyboard backlighting or does nothing at all.
We’ll cover the F5 key equivalent on the Mac for most web browsers that you’ll encounter, so if you’re a recent Windows switcher you should find this guide particularly helpful.
Command + R is the Refresh Keyboard Shortcut on Mac Web Browsers, Usually
The keystroke for reloading or refreshing a webpage on most web browsers for the Mac is Command + R, and that applies to the majority of Mac web browsers, including Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Epic, Brave, and others.
We’ll dive into specific web browsers next to discuss each individually and also some specific tricks for each to reload without cache, if that’s necessary.
F5 Refresh Equivalent in Safari for Mac
Safari is the default web browser on a Mac, so it’s probably what you’ll be using by default unless you change the default browser, so this is probably the most important to cover first. To refresh or reload a webpage in the Safari web browser on a Mac, you press a simple keyboard shortcut combination:
Command + R reloads a webpage in Safari on Mac
Command + R in Safari for Mac reloads a webpage, making it essentially the same thing as hitting F5 on Windows when viewing a webpage.
Using Command+R to refresh in Safari works the same in the standard Safari version that comes preinstalled on all Macs, along with Safari Technology Preview and the developer version too. It’s one simple keyboard shortcut; Command + R is the Safari equivalent to F5 in a Windows browser.
Note that if you want to refresh a webpage in Safari without loading cache, you can use Command+Option+R, or hold down the Shift key and then click the refresh button, or you can empty the Safari cache. Reloading web sites without cache is typically for advanced users and developers only.
F5 Refresh Equivalent in Chrome for Mac
Reloading a webpage in Chrome on the Mac uses the same keyboard shortcut combination as does Safari on the Mac, cmd+r. This includes Chrome, Chrome Canary, and other Chrome dev versions.
Command + R reloads a webpage in Chrome on the Mac
Indeed Chrome on the Mac also uses Command + R to refresh a web page or website, which is the exact same reload keyboard shortcut that Safari uses. This obviously makes it easy to remember, since you only have to remember one keyboard shortcut for reloading.epic
You can also add the Shift key to that same keyboard command to force refresh a webpage without loading cache in Chrome, but that’s typically used by developers and most users won’t need to do that.
A handful of other browsers use Chrome as their basis, including Epic, which has a handy geolocation proxy tool, Brave, and others. All of these Chrome spin-off browsers also use Command + R to refresh the browser.
F5 Equivalent in Firefox for Mac
Are you a Firefox user on the Mac? Great, the Firefox refresh keyboard shortcut is the same as the other browsers yet again!
Command + R will refresh a web site in Firefox in Mac OS
You might be noticing a recurring theme here… much like F5 is the default refresh browser and webpage option on Windows computers, Command+R is the default refresh option on Mac web browsers.
F5 Equivalent in Opera for Mac
If you use Opera (which has an excellent free bundled VPN and is therefore a worthwhile browser to add to some users collections for that reason alone), then you’ll be relieved to know that Opera also uses the same keyboard shortcut as other Mac browsers for refreshing webpages:
Command + R refreshes a webpage in Opera for Mac
As you probably noticed by now, basically regardless of the web browser itself, the Command+R keyboard shortcut for reloading a webpage on the Mac is so ubiquitous and widely adopted that there isn’t a single variation that moves away from that. So much like F5 refreshes web pages on Windows, Command+R refreshes web pages on the Mac, making Command+R the F5 equivalent.
What about refreshing in other apps?
Many other apps have refresh functions as well, but not all of them have keyboard shortcuts associated with their functionality. For example, you can refresh the Mac App Store with Command+R as well, but you if you want to refresh Finder file system you’ll have to try something different as there is no direct refresh option.
This is just one of many useful things to learn and remember for Windows switchers to the Mac platform. Some other helpful tricks can be learning what the HOME and END buttons are, what Page Up and Page Down are, the Print Screen button equivalent, what the ALT key is (if it’s not labeled, depends on the keyboard and region of the Mac), and mimicking the DEL forward delete function. All of these are possible (and so much more) on the Mac, but because most Mac keyboards are a bit more minimalist and simplified, it can require some minimal adjustment to get acquainted with the new keystrokes and keyboard shortcuts to accomplish tasks that may have been routine habit in the Windows PC world.
Have you ever wished your Mac would update MacOS system software on its own? If you’d like to take a hands-off approach to updating your system, you can enable automatic MacOS system software updates. With this feature enabled, not only will your Mac automatically check for new system software updates, but it will download and then automatically install the macOS updates too.
Enabling automatic MacOS software updates is great for convenience, but it’s really only recommended if you also have setup Time Machine for regular Mac backups, which are also automated once that setup has been complete. Without regular backups, there is a chance that an automatic update could go awry and lead to hassle or data loss, thus if you are considering using automatic macOS updates then it is important to use Time Machine for backups too.
How to Enable Automatic MacOS System Software Updating
Want a Mac to automatically update system software itself? Here is how you can enable that:
Go to the Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”
Select the “Software Update” preference panel, then choose either of the following options:
To automatically update both MacOS system software and Mac App Store apps, check the box for “Automatically keep my Mac up to date”
To only auto-update MacOS updates to system software and security updates, click the “Advanced” button then check the boxes for: “Check for updates”, “Download new updates when available”, “Install macOS updates” and “Install system data files and security updates” *
Exit out of System Preferences when finished
Once you have automatic MacOS updates available, the Mac will periodically check for any available system software update, and if one is found it will download and install it automatically. This process tends to happen in the middle of the night if the Mac is left on, otherwise it aims to happen when the computer is not in use.
You can still manually check for MacOS software updates with this setting enabled if desired, though the necessity for doing so is diminished since this sets the process to be automated.
* The option for “Install app updates from the App Store” can be enabled here as well if you want Mac OS to automatically update your Mac App Store applications as well. That setting can also be enabled or adjusted through the Mac App Store settings directly. We’re focusing on enabling automatic system software updates to MacOS here, however.
To be clear, auto system updates is not a new feature, though it is different now in MacOS 10.14 onward compared to prior releases. Much like the process of updating MacOS system software manually is different in macOS Mojave 10.14 onward compared to prior versions of Mac OS X, the setup for enabling automatic MacOS software updates is different now too compared to auto-update in prior Mac OS X versions too. This is largely because system software updates no longer come through the Mac App Store, but instead through the System Preferences again. So if you’re reading this article and wishing you had the feature on your Mac with an earlier MacOS release, you probably do, it’s just in a different settings location.
Obviously a feature like this requires internet access, so if the Mac is not on the internet then automatic updates will not work.
Whether or not you want to use this feature likely depends on how you use a Mac, how often you backup, if you prefer a hands-on approach to maintenance, whether you install updates through System Preferences or by using Combo Updates, and other personal preferences. Like other settings, you can always disable this feature later if you decide to.
Want to change the voice of Siri on a Mac? There are numerous voice options for Siri available, and on the Mac you can change the voice of Siri to be male or female, and you can even change Siri’s accent too.
Siri must be enabled for this to work, so if you turned it off you would need to turn it back on again in Siri settings. Any change made to the Siri voice, gender, or accent will apply to all Siri interaction on the Mac, so whether you summon Siri through the Dock, menu bar, keyboard shortcut, using Hey Siri, or the Touch Bar, does not matter, the voice change will apply universally.
How to Change Siri Voice on Mac to Different Accent or Gender
Go to the Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”
Choose “Siri”
Pull down the dropdown menu next to ‘Siri Voice’
Select one of the Siri voice options:
American (Female)
American (Male
Australian (Female)
Australian (Male)
British (Female)
British (Male)
Irish (Female)
Irish (Male)
South African (Female)
South African (Male)
Summon Siri to test out Siri to confirm the voice change has taken effect
Regardless of what Siri voice you choose, the Mac Siri commands available remain the same, even the goofy ones.
The Siri voice options discussed here are obviously for English speaking users, and thus they might be different for other languages and regions of the world, and depending on what language is set on the Mac.
Changing Siri voice gender is a nice and simple way to customize the Siri experience, and whether or not you prefer the Male Siri voice or the Female Siri voice is largely a matter of personal preference.
You’ll find that changing the Siri accent can offer a fun way to personalize Siri, and even if you’re not from a particular region it can be pleasant to engage with Siri using a different accent. Do note that some subtle inflections may be different and so if you’re not familiar with a particular accent it may not be the best experience to use a different one.
Whatever Siri voice you choose will impact all ways of interacting with Siri when Siri speaks, including both Hey Siri and regular Siri.
This obviously applies to Siri for the Mac, but you can also change Siri voice in iOS too for iPhone and iPad users.
The default keyboard settings on modern Mac OS versions include a shortcut for typing periods quickly. This means that hitting the spacebar twice will insert a period automatically at the end of a sentence or word.
Automatically typing periods comes to the Mac from the iPhone and iPad world, and while some the period typing shortcut can be desirable for some Mac users, others may not like it as much. If you do not like the automatic period typing keyboard shortcut on the Mac, you can turn this feature off.
How to Disable Auto Period Typing Shortcut on Mac
Go to the Apple menu and choose ‘System Preferences’
Select the “Keyboard” preference panel, then choose the “Text” tab
Locate the setting for “Add period with double-space” and toggle the checkbox to the OFF position
Exit System Preferences
Now when you hit the space bar twice, or type a double-space, a period will no longer be inserted automatically. Instead, to type a period you must manually hit the period key on the Mac keyboard.
For some Mac users this is entirely a matter of personal preference, but there are situations where this period typing shortcut can be problematic. For example, if a Mac keyboard is double-typing spaces at random, you may find that periods are being inserted erroneously while typing and where you don’t want them to be placed. Turning this setting off can resolve that situation.
This obviously applies to the Mac, but the period shortcut setting also exists in the iOS world, where you can turn off the automatic period typing on iPhone and iPad too.
The double-space period shortcut setting is the default on new macOS versions and with new Macs, but some users may have made the change manually to enable automatic word capitalization at the start of a new sentence, and inserting periods after double-spacing. Whether you like this setting on or off is going to be up to the user and how they type, and like all system settings you can easily change it again at any time.
If you open iTunes and expect to access your local music library collection, you might be perplexed when you find that a music library is not immediately visible. Instead, launching modern versions of iTunes goes directly to the iTunes Store. Some iTunes users then attempt to access their iTunes music library by selecting the ‘Music’ dropdown menu but still are unable to find their local music library. Not to worry, if you can’t find your local music collection in iTunes, we’ll show you how to quickly access the local music library in iTunes on the Mac or Windows PC.
Note this tip is for accessing and seeing the full iTunes library within iTunes itself. This is not aiming to access iTunes music files which is discussed here if that’s what your objective is.
How to Access iTunes Music Library in iTunes on a Computer
Open iTunes app
Look near the top of the iTunes window and click on the ‘Library’ button (sometimes this is labeled as “My Music”)
This will switch iTunes to the iTunes Library view rather than the iTunes Store
This may sound obvious to some Mac and Windows PC users, but after visiting with someone recently I learned they were convinced their iTunes Music Library had been deleted or vanished. In fact the iTunes Music Library was still there, but because iTunes opened directly to the Store and they kept using the pulldown menu to try and access Music, they stayed stuck in the iTunes Store and never found their actual music library within iTunes. Basically they were unable to find their iTunes Music because they were looking in the wrong part of the app, so don’t go for that menu item to find a library – the dropdown menu chooses the type of content seen (Music, Movies, etc) rather than the library itself:
This might be a helpful tip for users who rely on iTunes to manage a local music library collection.
A similar difficulty for some iTunes users is when selecting an iPhone or iPad in iTunes, which can be counterintuitive or confusing for some people. Fortunately that is also quite simple. Sometimes simply learning how to do things reveals just how easy it is, even if the task is not initially obvious.
Older versions of iTunes defaulted to launching directly to a users local music library, but that behavior changed with modern iTunes releases which now default to opening directly to the iTunes Store instead.
Remember this is for interacting with an iTunes Library in iTunes itself. If you need to gain access to the actual audio files from iTunes you can follow these instructions to find iTunes files, or you can simply navigate to the iTunes library location as discussed here.
Have you ever been typing on a Mac laptop keyboard and noticed that hitting the spacebar sometimes randomly inserts double spaces between words? Or maybe you’re typing some other letter and randomly two of that key is doubled-typed? Some MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook users have discovered this happens seemingly at random, where hitting a key or the spacebar actually inserts two spaces or two characters instead of one, which is a nuisance at best and problematic at worst.
Mystery double key presses are a well-documented issue with some MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook computers, and while it’s not clear what causes the issue or how widespread the problem is, if you’re encountering the double typing issue yourself, you may find a settings change in Mac OS can help reduce the frequency, or even fix it entirely. We’ll also cover a few other possible troubleshooting options for addressing double typing issues on Mac laptops.
How to Fix Double Typing Key Problems on MacBook Pro & MacBook Air
Note this settings change may not resolve the double typing problem for everyone, but for some Mac laptop users it does appear to completely remedy the double typing key and double spacebar issues. It’s a simple settings change either way and thus is worth a try, here’s what to do:
Pull down the Apple menu and go to “System Preferences”
Go to the “Keyboard” preference panel, and choose the Keyboard tab
Locate the “Key Repeat” slider setting and adjust it to the “Off” position
Exit out of System Preferences
Open any typing application (TextEdit, Word, Pages, etc) and try to replicate the double-typing issue by typing sentences and phrases as usual, the double space and double typing issue should be resolved
If you’re able to successfully type sentences, phrases, spaces, keys, letters, numbers, and anything else without double-typing occurring, then your issue may be resolved entirely by this simple settings change. If the double typing problem is now resolved when this feature iso ff, that could indicate a bug associated with the Key Repeat functionality in MacOS, though that’s purely speculation.
Unfortunately not all MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air users will have such luck, and some Mac laptop owners may discover they issue persists despite changing the key repeat settings.
Mac Laptop Still Double Typing? Clean the Keyboard!
If the Mac is still double typing characters and spaces, the next thing you should do is clean the Mac keyboard, which can be made easier with an app called ‘Keyboard Cleaner’ that temporarily blocks the keys on a computer so that they can be pressed down without inserting any characters. Typically wiping down the keys with a very lightly damp cloth or
If you have a 2016 or later MacBook Pro with the newer flat keyboard design, then you can also choose to follow this official instruction set from Apple on cleaning a MacBook / Pro keyboardwhich involves a series of gymnastic movements of the computer with precise angle instructions, rotation suggestions, and directional recommendations on how to blast a keyboard with a third party compressed air canister. It’s a fascinating support guide, and the method described using compressed air might work to resolve key issues for you.
Help, my MacBook Pro / MacBook Air keyboard is still typing double-spaces and double keys!
If you cleaned the keyboard and made the above settings change to Key Repeat and yet you find your Mac laptop keyboard is still randomly repeating keys when pressed once, it is possible the MacBook Pro, MacBook, or MacBook Air keyboard has a physical hardware problem.
The good news is that Apple actually has an extended service program for faulty keyboards on some Mac laptop models, including all 2016 MacBook Pro models, all 2017 MacBook Pro models, all 2015, 2016, and 2017 12″ MacBook models (note the keyboard program does not include any 2015 MacBook Pro or Air model, which had a completely different keyboard design). In fact, the first keyboard issue identified by Apple with the faulty keyboards on some Mac laptops is “Letters or characters repeat unexpectedly”. Thus if your Mac laptop falls in that model release year, you may be able to get a free keyboard repair. If you aren’t sure which model year Mac you have, you can check when a Mac was built and what the Mac model is with these instructions.
The “Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro” from Apple covers many modern Mac laptops with the new flat key keyboard design. Interestingly, the 2018 model year MacBook Pro and 2018 MacBook Air are not included in the keyboard repair program list, despite those Mac laptops having the same flat keyboard design, and despite some users have issues with double-repeating keys as well (yours truly included with a max-spec 2018 Retina MacBook Air, hence part of the motivation of this article).
Regardless, if you have a 2018 model year Mac laptop that is experiencing the double-key press issue, and cleaning the keys or disabling the aforementioned ‘Key Repeat’ does not work to resolve the double-typing keyboard issue for you, you might want to reach out to Apple Support anyway, because many 2018 Mac laptops will still be covered under the limited warranty.
