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How to Rename Files & Folders in iOS Files App

written by applenws

The iOS Files app and iCloud Drive offer a file system of sorts for the iPhone and iPad. One frequently used capability of file systems is the ability to rename files and folders as necessary, and as you might expect, the Files app for iOS offers this functionality too.


Apple is quite consistent with these functionalities across their operating systems, so if you’re already familiar with renaming a file or folder on the Mac or renaming an app folder on iOS then the technique should be immediately familiar to you.

How to Rename Folders & Files on iPhone & iPad with Files App

  1. Open the “Files” app on the iPhone or iPad

    2. The Files app

  2. Navigate to the file or folder you wish to rename in the iOS Files app
  3. Tap directly on the file or folder name

    4. How to rename files and folders in iOS

  4. Use the keyboard to edit, delete, or rename the file or folder as necessary, then tap on the “Done” button to set the name change

    5. How to rename files and folders in iOS Files app

Simple, and easy.

The renaming process is the exact same whether the target item is a file or a folder.

Renaming a folder in Files app for iOS

You can rename just about anything found within the Files app and iCloud Drive, whether it’s a folder you just created yourself, a webpage PDF you created, a file that was saved from another iOS app, something copied to iCloud Drive from a Mac, or elsewhere.

Because many items in Files app are stored in iCloud and not locally, there is sometimes a slight delay with the renaming of files or folders from taking effect on other devices using the same Apple ID. For example you may change a file name of a document from an iPad in the Files app, but because it syncs through iCloud and Apple servers, it may take a moment for that change to reflect in the Files app of another shared iPhone, or even the iCloud Drive app on the Mac, any slight lag depends on the speed of the internet connections in use.

Remember, the iOS “Files” app used to be called ‘iCloud Drive’, but with the new name it also earned the ability to have files stored directly on an iOS device through apps (but not directly from user input, as of now anyway). Regardless of how the Files app is named the data stored within will be the same, and it’s the same iCloud Drive data you can access from another iOS device or Mac using the same Apple ID too.

Source: OSX Daily

February 16, 2018 0 comment
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How to Temporarily Disable Touch ID and Face ID with Siri on iPhone or iPad

written by applenws

If you ever find yourself wanting to disable Touch ID or Face ID authentication methods on an iPhone or iPad, you can easily temporarily disable the biometric authentication in iOS by using a simple Siri command.

With Touch ID or Face ID temporarily disabled, the iPhone or iPad must then be unlocked with a passcode instead of either a fingerprint or face scan.

How to Disable Touch ID or Face ID Temporarily on iPhone and iPad with Siri

The trick is quite simple, simply ask Siri whose iPhone it is. If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s the same method used to determine the owner of a found iPhone or iPad, and coincidentally it will also lock down the biometric authentication features of the device.

  • Summon Siri as usual, either via Hey Siri, Home button, or Side button, depending on the iPhone or iPad
  • Say “Whose iPhone is this?” to disable Touch ID and Face ID temporarily

Ask whose iPhone is this to lock down Touch ID and Face ID

You can verify this yourself by triggering Siri and asking “Whose iPhone is this”, and then testing out Face ID or Touch ID authentication. The biometric authentication will not work and instead it will say that “Your passcode is required to enable Touch ID” or “Your passcode is require dot enable Face ID” and bring up the typical passcode entry screen of iOS.

Touch ID and Face ID temporarily disabled with Siri command

Important: You must disable Touch ID and Face ID with “Whose iPhone is this?” and NOT “Whose iPad is this?”

Yes, I know it sounds weird, but you must ask “Whose iPhone is this” even if the device is an iPad.

If you ask “Whose iPad is this” then Siri tells you to go to apple.com for some reason instead.

Maybe this Siri quirk will be resolved some time, but for now be sure to refer to your iPad as an iPhone instead to lock it down from biometric access.

Siri thinks iPad owner is on an Apple website so you must ask about iPhone instead

Note that when asking a device “whose iPhone is this”, Siri will nearly always transcribe the request as “Who’s iPhone is this”, which it has been doing for a long time probably because ‘whose’ and ‘who is’ sound similar. Regardless of Siri transcribing the wrong word or not, the feature still works, just remember to ask “Whose iPhone is this” on iPhone and iPad, because Siri currently does not know how to find ownership of an iPad unless you call it an iPhone.

Find the owner of an iPhone by asking Siri also locks down biometric unlocking and requires a passcode

A potential significant advantage to the Siri approach is that it can enacted and used entirely hands-free with ‘Hey Siri’, meaning you can disable Touch ID and Face ID with a device that you don’t have directly on your person. So for example if the iPhone or iPad is sitting on a coffee table face up, you could say “Hey Siri, whose iPhone is this” and it would lock down biometric authentication attempts.

There are other ways to disable Touch ID and Face ID temporarily, for example you can temporarily disable Face ID by pressing the side Power button and then canceling the shutdown request, or by pressing it five times repeatedly, or you can disable Touch ID with repeated attempts with the improper fingerprint. And of course you can always completely turn off Touch ID in iOS, disable Face ID, or use iPhone X without Face ID enabled at all too, and by disabling biometric authentication the passcode must always be used to unlock an iPhone or iPad instead.

If you enjoyed this tip for privacy or security reasons, you may also enjoy these general iPhone security tips that apply to iPad as well.

Source: OSX Daily

February 15, 2018 0 comment
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How to Save a Webpage as PDF on iPad and iPhone the Easy Way

written by applenws

Want to save a web page as a PDF on iPad or iPhone? Generating PDF files of webpages and web articles is now easier than ever before in iOS, thanks to a new obvious “Create PDF” feature that is available in modern system software releases.


Any iPhone or iPad running iOS 11 or later now has the capability of creating a PDF file from any webpage in Safari through a direct feature; that means there is no more guesswork with hidden Save As PDF iOS gestures, or printing PDF 3D Touching, or forced use of iBooks (though those tricks still work if you prefer the secret approach), instead you can just directly initiate PDF creation with a simple method we will detail here in this tutorial.

This offers by far the fastest and easiest way to turn any web article or webpage into a PDF file on iOS.

How to Save Webpage as PDF on iPad and iPhone

This ‘Create PDF’ feature requires iOS 11 or newer. The walkthrough below demonstrates this capability on iPad but the feature is identical on iPhone as well.

  1. Open Safari on the iPad or iPhone

    2. Safari

  2. Visit the webpage you want to save as a PDF (for example, this webpage you’re reading right now)
  3. Tap on the Sharing button, it looks like a box with an arrow flying out of it

    4. Save a webpage as PDF on iOS

  4. From the Sharing options, scroll through to find “Create PDF” and tap on that

    5. Save a webpage as PDF on iOS by choosing Create PDF

  5. You’ll be brought to a new screen with the PDF file visible, tap on “Done” *

    6. Save a webpage as PDF on iOS

  6. Choose “Save File To…”

    7. Save a webpage as PDF on iOS

  7. From the Files app iCloud Drive browser, tap the location or Folder you want to save the webpage PDF to and then tap on “Done” to save the PDF

    8. Choose location to save the PDF of webpage to in Files app

A PDF file of the active webpage has now been created and saved to the Files app on the iPad or iPhone.

You can confirm the webpage PDF was created and saved properly by going to the “Files” app in iOS and then choosing the iCloud Drive folder or location you chose to save the PDF to.

The PDF file created from a webpage in Files app of iOS

* Before tapping on Done, you can also tap the little marker and use Markup to draw, doodle, or write on the PDF file if desired.

By default the name of generated PDF files from Safari will be in the format of “Safari – (Date of Creation) – (Time of Creation).pdf” but you can always rename it in the iOS Files app to be something more descriptive if desired.

Because Files app is also iCloud Drive, you can access the saved webpage PDF from any other iOS device or Mac that uses the same Apple ID via the Files app in iOS or via iCloud Drive on a Mac.

Oh and here’s a bonus quick tip that can help any created PDF files from Safari look a bit better: if a webpage saved as PDF is a little too cluttered, or you just want to remove any extra styling, you can use the use the Reader trick for printing webpages and articles without ads from iOS Safari and then use the Create PDF method once Reader mode has been activated on the article in question. The Reader view strips out just about all styling on a webpage and just leaves the text and images remaining, which can make for a simpler looking PDF file as well.

As mentioned before, you’ll need one of the most modern iOS releases to have access to Create PDF feature in the Safari Sharing function. You can either update to iOS 11 or later to gain this PDF creation capability, or rely on a different method of saving webpages as PDF files. Four alternative options for generating PDF documents of webpages include:

Each of those methods offers the same end result of a PDF file generated from a webpage, but with the new direct “Create PDF” option available in Safari for modern iOS it is hard to want to recommend any other choice unless your iPhone or iPad is on an older system software release.

Do you know of any other handy tips, tricks, or techniques for generating PDF files from webpages on an iPad or iPhone? Share them with us in the comments!

Source: OSX Daily

February 13, 2018 0 comment
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How to Show Hidden Files on MacOS with a Keyboard Shortcut

written by applenws

Modern versions of Mac OS offer a super-fast and easy way to reveal invisible files on a Mac, all you need to use is a keyboard shortcut. With a simple keystroke, you can instantly show hidden files on a Mac, and with another strike of the same keyboard shortcut, you can instantly hide the hidden files again too. This is by far the fastest way possible to show and hide invisible files on a Mac. You won’t need to use the defaults command to show hidden files (though it still works), instead you can just use the handy keyboard shortcut anywhere in the Finder or a file access dialog.


To use the hidden files keyboard shortcut, you’ll need a modern version of Mac OS system software, including macOS High Sierra and macOS Sierra, anything beyond 10.12 should support the invisible files toggle keyboard shortcut.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, hidden files and hidden folders on a Mac are typically either system level items, configuration data, or some other file or folder which is usually hidden from the average end user for a reason. Thus, revealing hidden files is usually only necessary for more advanced Mac users, whether it’s to view, edit, or modify some particular invisible file or folder, or contents therein.

How to Show Hidden Files on Mac with a Keyboard Shortcut

Using the Show Hidden Files Keyboard Shortcut is incredibly simple, here’s how it works:

  1. From the Finder of Mac OS, navigate to any folder where there might be hidden files (for example, the Macintosh HD root directory, or a user Home folder)

    2. Finder icon on the Mac

  2. Now press Command + Shift + Period to instantly toggle to show hidden files

    3. Show hidden files on Mac with a keyboard shortcut trick

Here is an example of what the Macintosh HD directory looks like after hidden files are made visible, and after hidden files are made invisible again, this is demonstrated in animated GIF format so that you can see the hidden files appearing and disappearing:

Show and hide Hidden Files with Keyboard Shortcut on Mac as shown in animated GIF

As you can see the hidden files and folders become visible and invisible as the keyboard shortcut is pressed.

The hidden files and folders, often marked as hidden via chflags command, setfiles, or by placing a . period as a name prefix, will instantly become visible. The now visible hidden files will be displayed as having slightly faded names and icons, to offer a visual indicator that the file or folder in question is usually hidden.

Hidden Files are now visible in Mac folder with keyboard shortcut

Note that with hidden files made visible, they will become visible in all folders on the Mac, just like what happens if you use the defaults command to show hidden files in Mac OS and Mac OS X. The big difference between modern Mac OS releases and earlier versions of system software is that now the Command + Shift + Period keyboard shortcut is available to show and hide invisible items in the Finder, whereas before you had to use the defaults write command in the Terminal to reveal or hide those files and folders. If you prefer the command line approach for whatever reason, it is still available to modern Mac OS releases.

How to Hide Hidden Files on Mac with Keyboard Shortcut

And of course you can quickly toggle to hide the hidden files again and make them no longer visible by using the same keyboard shortcut:

  • Navigate anywhere in the Mac Finder and hit Command + Shift + Period again to hide invisible files

Hidden files are invisible again with toggling the same keyboard shortcut

Toggling the hidden files keyboard shortcut will impact all folders on the Mac.

Command + Shift + Period is the Keyboard Shortcut for Toggling Hidden Files in Mac OS

Just remember that pressing down Command + Shift + Period in the file system of Mac OS will hide or show invisible files.

The keyboard shortcut to show or hide hidden files on Mac OS

The visual indicator of hidden files and folders is fairly obvious. Here’s a folder (root Macintosh HD) with hidden files invisible, the default state:

Hidden files invisible in Mac OS

And here’s that same folder with hidden files made visible via the keyboard shortcut, as you can see there are many more items in the same directory but they are hidden from the usual Finder view of the user. Each hidden file or folder is represented by the faded opaque icon and name:

Hidden files are made visible in Mac OS

If this keyboard shortcut sounds familiar to you and you’re a longtime Mac user, it’s probably because the Command Shift Period trick has long worked to toggle viewing of invisible items in Open and Save dialog boxes, it’s just that now that same keyboard shortcut can toggle the visibility of invisible items in the general Finder of Mac OS as well.

As mentioned before, you can still show and hide hidden files in Mac OS with a defaults command if you want to, or you can enable with a defaults command and hide them again with the aforementioned keystroke, but the defaults string syntax is simply no longer necessary to gain quick access to the hidden files.

Again, this keyboard shortcut trick only applies to modern MacOS releases, earlier versions of system software will need to use the command line method instead.

Whether you show or hide invisible files on the Mac is entirely up to you, but generally speaking having them made visible is most appropriate for advanced Mac users who need to access the hidden directories or files that are scattered throughout Mac OS. Absolutely do not remove, modify, or delete any hidden files without knowing what you’re doing, many of them are configuration files for various apps, programs, and functionalities, or are necessary components to Mac OS and software.

Source: OSX Daily

February 12, 2018 0 comment
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How to Watch YouTube Links in Safari on iPhone & iPad Instead of Opening YouTube App

written by applenws

If you have an iPhone or iPad with the third party YouTube app installed, you may notice that when you click to open a YouTube link from Safari or elsewhere, you’ll discover he YouTube app opens to watch the video. This happens even if you want to watch the YouTube video on the YouTube website in Safari for iOS.

There are a few workarounds to this situation, each of which will allow you to stay on the YouTube website in Safari, so if you’re annoyed with the YouTube app launching (or trying to open the page in the app) when watching YouTube videos from an iOS device, read on to learn your options.

Option 1: Cancel the “Open this page YouTube” Request

If you recently installed the YouTube app, you might see a request when you visit a YouTUbe URL asking “Open this page in YouTube?”

Just tap “Cancel”, then tap into the URL bar of Safari and hit the Go / Return button again. This should cause YouTube to stay within Safari and view the video.

Option 2: Keep YouTube in Safari by Using the Mobile URL Trick

The next option is to modify the URL of the YouTube video you want to watch in Safari on iOS.

  1. Tap into the URL bar of Safari when you load a YouTube URL (or paste one into the Safari URL bar)
  2. Look for the “www.youtube.com” and replace “www” with “m” so the URL looks like: “m.youtube.com” then tap Go

Change YouTube URL to stay on Safari

Option 3: Delete the YouTube App in iOS to Prevent Launching

This is a bit radical, but if you’re frustrated by Safari constantly redirecting YouTube links to the YouTube app in iOS and can’t deal with the prior workarounds, then simply deleting the YouTube app from iOS is a solution as well.

  1. Go to the Home Screen of the iPhone or iPad and locate the “YouTube” app
  2. Tap and hold until the app starts jiggling then tap on the “X” and then “Delete”

Delete the YouTube app will prevent it from launching

By uninstalling the app from iOS, YouTube videos will always load in Safari, since there will no longer be a YouTube app installed to launch on the iPhone or iPad.

By the way, if you’re using a much older version of iOS you can rely on the Restrictions trick outlined here for similar effect, but it’s basically the same effect as deleting the app in modern iOS releases.

Do you know of any other workarounds, solutions, or tricks to handle YouTube links in iOS? Let us know in the comments!

Source: OSX Daily

February 11, 2018 0 comment
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How to Disable Breathe Reminders on Apple Watch

written by applenws

The Apple Watch will periodically remind you to breathe with the Breathe app, which attempts to guide a user to take a series of deep breathes after it nudges you and tells you to “take a minute to Breathe.” This is much like the Apple Watch reminding you to stand up and move around, as the wrist watch attempts to nudge you into healthier behavior. The Breathe function is aimed at being “mindful” and the associated iPhone Health app tracks the breath data through the “Mindfulness” section of Health app data. But not everyone wants the breathe reminders on their Apple Watch, so if you’re not turning purple from forgetting to inhale and exhale, then you can disable the breathe reminders on Apple Watch.

This tutorial will walk through how to adjust the Apple Watch Breathe reminders in three different ways; turning off the Breathe reminders completely, snoozing them for a while, and also who to turn them off just for the day.

First things first, you can quickly dismiss and postpone the Breathe reminder as it appears on your Apple Watch simply by tapping the ‘Snooze’ button rather than the ‘Start’ button.

How to Turn Off Breathe Reminders on Apple Watch

To completely disable Breathe reminders, do the following:

  1. Open the Watch app on the iPhone that is synced to the Apple Watch
  2. Tap the “My Watch” tab
  3. Tap on “Breathe” and then go to “Breathe Reminders”
  4. Choose “None” to disable Breathe Reminders on Apple Watch

    5. Disable Breathe Reminders on Apple Watch

You can also change the frequency of breathe reminders in the same setting section if you’d rather have fewer or more reminders to breathe, rather than turning the feature off entirely.

How to Mute Breathe Reminders for the Day on Apple Watch

Another option is to mute Breathe reminders for the day, this will disable the feature for a day only and not turn the feature off completely:

  1. Open the Watch app on the iPhone that is synced to the Apple Watch
  2. Tap the “My Watch” tab
  3. Tap on “Breathe” and flip the toggle for “Mute for today”

Whether you mute the Breathe feature for a day, simply snooze it for a while, or turn it off completely, is entirely up to you and how you use Apple Watch.

The Breathe feature is just one of a variety of functions the Apple Watch offers for health maintenance, including the Apple Watch pedometer and heart rate monitor, along with workout tracking and other fitness related capabilities. But it’s not just the Apple Watch with health tracking functionality, as the iPhone also can function as a pedometer and track steps as well as distance too. Some users may find certain features more useful than others, so it’s good to customize these health and fitness tracking functions to suit your own needs.

Source: OSX Daily

February 9, 2018 0 comment
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How to Select Multiple Photos Quickly on iPhone and iPad with a Drag & Select Gesture

written by applenws

Modern versions of iOS offer a convenient dragging gesture that allows iPhone and iPad users to quickly select multiple pictures from the Photos app, without having to continuously tap on images or use the select by date method.

With the iOS drag and select gesture, you can choose as many photos as can be seen on screen, which you can then share, add to folder, move, or perform other actions with. It works very similar to clicking and dragging to select groups of files or images with a cursor on Mac and Windows computers, but given the touchscreen nature of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, you utilize a tap and drag instead.

How to Choose Multiple Photos on iPhone & iPad with a Tap & Drag Gesture

Here’s how to use the Drag & Select Gesture to choose many photos quickly in iOS:

  1. Open the Photos app in iOS and go to any album, or the Camera Roll

    2. open THAT PHOTOS APP

  2. Tap on the “Select” button

    3. TAP ON SELECT BUTTON TO SELECT PHOTOS

  3. Now tap on the image to start, and continue to hold down while dragging elsewhere on screen to another image, lift to stop selecting images

    4. Tap and drag to select many photos at once with a simple gesture in iOS

You can both select and unselect images with drag and select (the opposite being drag and unselect I suppose), so try it out even if you don’t plan on performing any action, sharing, or moving the images in question. The animated gif below demonstrates visually how this drag-to-select gesture works:

Select multiple photos quickly in iOS with a tap and drag gesture

Once the multiple images are selected in Photos app, you can share them, transfer via AirDrop to a Mac or other iOS device, move them into different folders, save to the Files app and iCloud, and much more.

Like many other gesture related tips, this is one of those tricks that you should try out yourself and learn how it works. Once you familiarize yourself with it, you’ll see just how fast and efficient it is.

This drag-and-select trick is obviously limited to what images are visible on screen, so it may be a bit more useful for the larger screen iPhone and iPad models compared to the smaller screens. Accordingly, if you’re trying to delete many images from the devices, a better approach is still to use the select all by date trick to bulk remove photos in iOS regardless of the device, since by selecting from date you will also select images that are not visible on screen that are within the date range. Either approach is going to be much faster than tapping multiple photos one-by-one to remove them or perform another action.

Do you know of any other convenient gestures or tricks to select multiple photos at once on an iPhone or iPad? Let us know in the comments!

Source: OSX Daily

February 8, 2018 0 comment
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How to Use Lock Screen in MacOS High Sierra

written by applenws

Mac users have long been able to use various tricks to lock the screen of their computers, but with MacOS High Sierra 10.13.x onward, a simpler and faster option is now available on the Mac with an official Lock Screen feature.

With the new Lock Screen feature, you can instantly lock down a Mac through a system-wide menu option, or with a keyboard shortcut. Once Lock Screen has been enabled, a proper user login and password must be entered before the Mac can be accessed again. This is an excellent privacy and security feature, and one that Mac users should familiarize themselves with if they frequently use their computers in a public setting, be it at work, school, home, or anywhere else they may want to password protect their computer to prevent unwanted access.


Note this specific Lock Screen feature is only available in the latest versions of Mac OS, including macOS High Sierra 10.13.x onward. If you’re on an earlier version of Mac OS system software, you’ll need to rely on other methods to initiate the lock screen on a Mac as described here, or if you have a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar you can set a dedicated screen lock button.

How to Use Lock Screen in MacOS via Menu

You can enable the Lock Screen on Mac OS from anywhere via the Apple menu:

  1. Pull down the  Apple menu from any application
  2. Choose “Lock Screen” to instantly lock the Mac screen and bring up the login window

How to lock screen in MacOS via Apple Menu

Locking the screen is instantaneous, and the Mac will require a password to login and regain access.

The Lock Screen feature does not log out of the user account, or quit any applications, it also won’t start a screen saver right away, it only locks the screen by bringing up a familiar login window thereby requiring the user name and user password to regain entry to the Mac.

Another option to enable the Lock Screen feature on the Mac is to use the keyboard shortcut…

How to Enable Lock Screen in MacOS via Keyboard Shortcut

The default keyboard shortcut for the new MacOS Lock Screen option is Command + Control + Q, you can hit the keystroke at any time to lock down the Mac:

  • Hit Command + Control + Q to activate Lock Screen on the Mac

Lock Screen on Mac with a Keyboard Shortcut

Once you hit the command sequence on the keyboard, the Mac screen will instantly lock out, thereby requiring a login to regain access.

For many users, using the keyboard shortcut for Lock Screen will be faster than the menu option, and it’s likely that the keystroke approach is the fastest way to initiate a screen lock procedure on any Mac.

Note that you can change the Lock Screen keyboard shortcut if you’re unhappy with Control + Command + Q for whatever reason by going to the Keyboard system preferences. If you find yourself accidentally quitting apps instead of locking the screen, you may wish to do that. Just be sure your new keystroke doesn’t conflict with anything else.

To reiterate, these dedicated Lock Screen keyboard shortcut and menu options are only available to the latest versions of macOS system software (10.13+), but that does not mean that users of prior Mac OS software releases are left in the dark or without similar options to quickly activate a password screen to lock down a Mac. In fact, all versions of Mac OS can enable a lock screen associated with the Mac Screen Saver feature as described here that can be activated by keystroke or by a mouse corner. Another option is to use an optional Screen Lock button on the Touch Bar of MacBook Pro if you have one of those Macs.

The primary difference between the new Lock Screen option in modern macOS releases versus the older lock screen trick available in earlier Mac OS releases is that the new variation is officially recognized as “Lock Screen” whereas earlier versions of Mac OS would indirectly go about enabling a lock screen by activating the screen saver with password protection. The end result is basically the same however, though the new variation won’t immediately enable a screen saver, whereas the screen saver based approach always immediately does.

By the way, if you’re using the Lock Screen feature for security and privacy reasons (and you should be if your Mac gets used in any work place, public location, school, or even many home environments) then you’ll also want to be certain you enable FileVault disk encryption on the Mac so that all data on the hard drive is encrypted, further protecting your personal data from prying eyes or potential privacy incursions.

Do you have any other handy tricks relating to the Lock Screen feature on the Mac? Share them with us in the comments below.

Source: OSX Daily

February 7, 2018 0 comment
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How to Use diff to Compare Two Files at Mac Command Line

written by applenws

Need to quickly compare two files for differences? The command line ‘diff’ tool offers a great choice for users comfortable with the Terminal. Diff allows you to easily compare two files, with the command output reporting back any differences between the inputted files.

The diff command is available by default on the Mac, and it works the same in Linux and other unix operating systems as well, just in care you were wondering, and for Windows users it’s quite similar to how the ‘fc’ file compare tool works.

For best results you’ll want to be working with plain text files of some sort and not rich text. If need be you can always make a copy of the file and convert it to plain text via the textutil command line tool on the Mac, or even by using TextEdit.

How to Use Diff to Compare Files at the Command Line

The diff is a command line tool, thus you must first launch the Terminal app, found in /Applicaitons/Utilities/ and then you’re ready to begin.

The basic syntax for diff at the command line is as follows:

diff (file input 1) (file input 2)

For example, if in the present directory we want to compare bash.txt and bash2.txt, the syntax would look like the following:

diff bash.txt bash2.txt

The -w flag can be handy for plain text files because it tells diff to ignore white space when comparing files. And of course you can use a full path to the files to compare as well if need be, for example to compare an edited hosts file with another version elsewhere:

diff -w /etc/hosts ~/Downloads/BlockEverythingHosts.txt

Sample output may look something like the following:

$ diff -w /etc/hosts ~/Downloads/BlockEverythingHosts.txt

0a1

# time for a break

9a12

> 127.0.0.1 facebook.com

The greater than and less than symbols serve as pointer arrows of sorts, indicating which file the difference originated from in relation to the order presented in the original command syntax.

Diff is quite powerful, you can also use diff to compare two directory contents, which can be helpful for verifying backups or file changes or file integrity.

Obviously diff requires the command line, but if you’d rather be in the familiar graphical interface of Mac OS when comparing documents there are various options available as well, including comparing two word documents with Microsoft Word or if you’re working with code and syntax, try the Xcode FileMerge tool, git, or even the excellent BBEdit text editor for Mac. And if you’re on windows, the ‘fc’ command works basically the same as the diff command, with ‘fc file1 file2’ achieving more or less the same comparison as diff.

Have any other tips for diff, or for comparing two files against one another? Share them below!

Source: OSX Daily

February 6, 2018 0 comment
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How to Hide All Other Windows Except Active App on Mac OS

written by applenws

Want to quickly focus your attention on the active application in Mac OS by hiding all other windows? There’s an excellent little-known keyboard shortcut and menu item that does exactly that, and when executed properly you will hide literally every window and open application on the Mac except for the currently active application.

This is an incredibly useful keyboard shortcut and feature if your Mac screen is overloaded with a million windows and apps and you want to quickly dismiss unused background apps, without having to quit them or arrange any other windows. All this does is hide the inactive application windows, it doesn’t close anything, so you can easily get to the hidden apps again if need be.

How to Hide All Inactive Windows & Apps in Mac OS: Command + Option + H

The keyboard shortcut to hide all other inactive windows and apps on the Mac is simple:

Hide All Other Apps and Windows in Mac OS

Hitting that keystroke combination will instantly hide every other app and window in the background, but keep the foreground windows and app active and available.

Think of this as a quick declutter keyboard shortcut.

This Command+Option+H keyboard shortcut may sound familiar to you, perhaps because it is a variation of the ever-useful Command+H keyboard shortcut on a Mac which hides all windows, including the active window and app, except of course the active app and windows stay open and visible with this variation.

So remember, Command+Option+H hides all windows from all applications except for the currently active window. Whereas Command+H hides all windows from the currently active application. With either of these keystrokes, you can just click on the relevant Dock app icon to find the windows again.

This Hide All Other Windows and Apps trick pairs particularly well with enabling the translucent Mac Dock icons for hidden apps tip since that makes it extra easy to identify which apps are hidden by transforming their Dock icons into slightly transparent to indicate being hidden.

How to Hide All Other Windows and Apps by Menu Item

If you’re not a fan of Keyboard Shortcuts you can also access the Hide All Others option via menus in any application:

  1. From the active application you want to maintain focus from, pull down the application name menu (for example, Preview)
  2. Choose “Hide All Others”

    3. Hide Others from the menu item in Mac OS

The effect of the menu option is exactly the same as the keyboard shortcut.

Another great window/app de-clutter and focus tip is to use Spaces, specifically opening a new Desktop Space from Mission Control on the Mac and using that new virtual desktop as a place to use a specific application that requires focus.

And if you ever want to hide and minimize absolutely everything open on a Mac, you can use Command+Option+H+M to both hide and minimize all windows, whether they are active in the foreground, background, or not.

If you enjoyed this tip you’ll likely appreciate this collection of 7 tips for window management in Mac OS as well.

Source: OSX Daily

February 5, 2018 0 comment
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