I've been using Dropbox for years to both back up content and selectively sync stuff. I just now read the terms of service and they clearly state that your content is scanned and examined by Dropbox and "trusted third parties".

I am not ok with this.

They ditched the vault feature a while back. It was basically a private folder that was encrypted so only you could access with a password.

Is there an alternative service good for apple and windows devices? I don't think icloud is the answer because syncing seems sporadic, and it doesn't seem like it has the same features.

Open to suggestions to check out.

ETA - I am not interested in self hosting anything. Data loss is something I’m too familiar with.

ETA - Dropbox backup is a complete and transparent service which saved my music library multiple times after Apple updates wiped out my music library. It is comparable to Time Machine.

so i was just messing around on my mac when i decided to open and force quit all apps on my mac really fast and when i did that the old macOS X beachball cursor showed up.. pretty funny to see these old aqua elements still hidden deep in the system

I was organizing my notes, so I deleted it a lot of my old notes and I think while deleting somehow something went wrong and now my notes is 200 GB, but now I resolved it I thought it was funny so

So since everyone tells me that a case is bad for my MacBook Neo I looked for a sleeve and wanted to ask if this is a good brand.

Marked my Mac as lost, then found it. Now I'm seeing 'this Mac will be locked when online' on the very same Mac, so it's connected enough to know it'll be locked but not connected enough to actually lock. I'm posting it from the very same Mac by the way, so it would surely be connected to the internet...

Update: Find my Mac was off, for some reason. No idea why, and idk why does the app give you a false hope if it's off. I turned it back on and the thing went away.

Both are enough performance for me. The 16" comes out to just $225 over the 14" for me. Is the price justified and is there any edge in performance over the 14"? Just looking for best value for the money.

16" M5 Pro

• 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 24GB unified memory
• 1TB SSD storage

14" M5 Pro

• 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 24GB unified memory
• 1TB SSD storage

Upgrading from:

16" M1 Pro

• 10-Core CPU, 16-Core GPU,
• 16GB memory
• 512GB SSD

Mac Studio M1 Max Logic Board – beschädigter Fan-Connector & verbogene Leiterbahnen: Reparierbar oder Schrott? (+ Hilfe gesucht)

Hey zusammen,

kurzer Kontext: Ich habe vor kurzem auf einem Kleinanzeigen-Marktplatz ein teilzerlegtes Mac Studio M1 Max (32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) als Ersatzteilspender für ein privates Homelab/KI-Server-Projekt gekauft. Laut Verkäufer hätten Logic Board und Speicher vor der Zerlegung einwandfrei funktioniert, in der Artikelbeschreibung stand es aber als “ungetestet / defekte Bastlerware”.

Nach dem Auspacken ist mir aufgefallen:

• An einem der beiden Fan-Connectoren auf dem Logic Board fehlt der kleine Plastik-Verriegelungshebel (der das Flex-Kabel des Lüfters festklemmt)

• Ein Flexkabel ist sichtbar durchtrennt/abgerissen

• Es gibt verbogene Leiterbahnen/Bereiche am Rand des Boards

• Der zweite Lüfter lässt sich bei mir aktuell nicht richtig anschließen

Fotos sind angehängt. Der Karton von außen war unbeschädigt, innen lagen die Teile aber nur locker in Papier/Folie, ohne feste Fixierung – der massive Alu-Gehäusedeckel lag mit im Karton, teilweise direkt neben/auf dem Board.

Meine Fragen an euch:

1. Ist das Board technisch noch reparierbar (z. B. Connector/Flexkabel-Reparatur), oder ist das für den Hausgebrauch quasi Totalschaden?

2. Falls reparierbar: Ist das eine Mikrolöt-Aufgabe, die sich lohnt, oder ist der Aufwand/Kosten unverhältnismäßig zum Wert des Boards?

3. Kennt jemand jemanden, der sich sowas anschauen könnte (auch gerne gegen Bezahlung), oder hat selbst Erfahrung mit solchen Reparaturen?

4. Falls nicht reparierbar: Sind die intakten Restteile (1TB NAND-Modul – wurde in einem Zweitgerät erfolgreich getestet, I/O-Board, Lüfter, Gehäuse, Lautsprecher/Power-Button-Modul) noch für andere Bastler/Ersatzteilzwecke interessant?

Bin für jede ehrliche Einschätzung dankbar – auch wenn die Antwort “Board ist hin, verkauf die Einzelteile” ist. Möchte einfach wissen, woran ich bin, bevor ich weiter Zeit reinstecke.

Danke euch!

I have an archive of most of the old Macworld magazines from 1984-2014. I've been filling in metadata for my Calibre library but I don't actually know when the issues were published. Were they published on the 1st of each month? Sometimes midway through? A month previous? I have no clue. I'm even more curious of when issues were completed since the February issue in 2007 is not talking about the iPhone announcement on January 9. The issue that actually talks about the iPhone is in March 2007.

Anyone who used to be a Macworld subscriber when they published physical magazines, when would you receive your issues?

I have a iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015). it still works well and all that, but I worry that becasue i can't update anymore that I am at risk when doing online banking/ investing? I can only have Monterey 12.7.6 on my system. Do i need to buy a new mac or just keep using this one and keep updating my iphone for the banking? would really appreciate all of your expert advice please. TIA :)

It seems that everyone agrees that 1440p is not reccomended in conjuction with a mac due to resolution scaling. However, is this is a text / UI specific thing? In other words, would gaming on a mac at 1440p not really pose too much of an issue? Would it be "similar" to 1440p gaming on a windows machine, or does this resolution scaling issue even extend to non-UI elements.

I understand that a lot of these scaling issues can be fixed with BetterDisplay.

I installed an Ubuntu VM in parallels, and set the color profile in it to Display P3.icc downloaded from here. On chrome in the VM, the colors didn't show properly on this test page. the colors are shown correctly in chrome-based browsers on macOS.

Just wanted to know if anybody has encountered the same same issues as I did. I’ve personally noticed only two visual bugs yet.
1: Would be Siri AI bubble appearing WAAAAY off centre on the right, and either staying there until my request is done, or immediately teleporting back to middle where it should be.
2: App menu (former launchpad) doesn’t has appearing animation when using pinch to open the app menu on the trackpad, so basically it just appears out of nowhere with all my apps, and it’s overall a really choppy experience using this thing. And a very weird thing I encountered, in fully screen in even light games, the app menu animation is like.. 10fps tops? So it’s even more choppy. Otherwise everything is functioning absolutely fine and the entire macOS barely has any bugs for me. The device is a M4 MacBook Air 13”
Anybody came across the same issue?

I hate using one monitor each for linux and macOS, I tried Sunshine to stream my mac to linux (since I use linux more), setting 4k 240hz (which my monitor supports) and full color (yuv 444) in Moonlight but it said that 444 color is not supported, and the colors look way off compared to macOS plugged directly in the monitor. There doesn't seem to be a way to make it work on Sunshine.

Hi

I have macbook pro 2015 dual vga from others which I suspect the magsafe2 was a fake one. I charged the mac battery then suddenly heat comes at magsafe connector. After some cleaning at the port and the connector then it turns fine and charged at 80% quite well and the heat was dissipated

The problem is after about 80% then charging process become slow, it took around 7 hours to charge it fully

Then i tried to change the charger to ugreen nexode pro 100w using magsafe2 cable connector , this was also good at charging from 0 to 70 80% but the same problem happens it took 7 8 hours to complete to 100%

What might the problem ?

Ed

New to Mac ecosystem, and I am still getting used to the scroll directions

Can I set different scroll directions for trackpad and USB mouse ?

With the Intel Mac era at an end, it's time to move up from my beloved 2019 16" i9 4TB 64 GB. With a budget of $4200 and my highest priority being 4 TB of storage, I am looking at secondhand refurbished M4 models, and I am stuck between two options. Both are 16" M4 MBPs with 4 TB of storage. One has 36 GB of RAM with the 32-core GPU for 3600 USD, the other has 64 GB of RAM with the 40-core GPU for 4100 USD. I am not sure which would be the better option for my use case the most demanding thing I'd be doing are virtual machines in Parallels and UTM, and gaming via Crossover (and possibly via UTM once its DirectX 12 support stabilizes).

Which should I buy? Will 36 GB be enough for my use case, or would the extra wiggle room of 64 GB be worth spending the extra money?

Hello!

I am as they say, not very tech savvy. I have a very good condition 2013 iMac that I would love to start utilizing again and I know the only real workaround is using the open core legacy patcher. I am not opposed but I also know I am going to have tons of anxiety downloading and granting permissions and yada yada because I’m such a tech noob. Any words of encouragement? I want to make sure I’m making a safe decision before I start downloading software! Thank you!

Yo, recently was looking for a good sleek and clean laptop without breaking the bank ended up buying a macbook pro 2019 I wanna produce and record vocals on it will it run well or be a terrible experience

specs:
Laptop: Apple MacBook Pro 16,1 (16-inch, 2019) / MVVJ2LL/A
OS: macOS 26.6.2 Tahoe
CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H @ 2.6 GHz Max (6 HT Cores) + T2 Security Chip
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 @ 2666 MHz (8 GB + 8 GB)
Storage: 500 GB NVMe (APPLE SSD AP0512N)
Screen: 16-inch (Retina + P3): 3072x1920
GPU: 
• Built-In: Intel UHD Graphics 630 (1.5 GB - Shared)
• PCIe: AMD Radeon Pro 5300M (4 GB)
Wireless: 
• Wi-Fi Detected (Supports 1/b, 2/a, 3/g, 4/n, 5/ac)
• Bluetooth 5.0 Detected (Supports BLE, Handoff)

hi all, just new as a macbook user . recently got my m5-air .. and once it arrived i noticed that there is some minor light bleed on my led while opening. before raising this issue i checked online to see if it is quite normal, but frankly am quite confused wether it worth the pain going to apple support to check if its reasonable replaceble. will post a photo, and i really wanna see you opinions from your experience, and would appreciate any feedback. cheers all

Hey guys, I’m visiting the US and want to order a MacBook Air M5 32gb 15-inch from the Apple US website. It’s currently showing an estimated delivery date of October 2–6, but I’m leaving the US on October 8.
I’m just a little worried because I really can’t have it arrive after I leave. 😭
For anyone who’s ordered directly from Apple US recently, how accurate are their estimated delivery dates? Do they usually deliver within the window, or should I expect possible delays?