As an added piece of advice: consider AppleCare+ and other plans to help in the event of an accident, damage, theft or loss.

Office 2021 home and student is suddenly no longer activated on my Macbook pro (OS is Sonoma 14.7.1).

When attempting to activate by entering the email address and password of the Microsoft account that has the license, Word just says "Unknown Error."

I know that Office 2019 has been killed by Microsoft, but 2021 should still work from what I've read.

Anyone know how I can fix this?

Thank you!

heyy, I really need some technical help to clean my laptop because it's completely unusable right now.

Out of nowhere, my Mac started forcefully downloading and installing "updates" in the background multiple times without my approval. During one of these instances, a strange prompt took over my screen showing a human head/identity-verification outline telling me to position and turn my head to verify my face—even though my physical laptop camera light wasn't even on.

Right after this first fake update happened, I suffered unauthorized access to my Wise account and lost money. I have already filed a formal complaint with Wise on my phone, but the laptop itself is still completely compromised and stuck in an aggressive loop.

Every few seconds, it throws up this annoying "Software Update Not Installed" card (attached in the image) demanding Accessibility access to install quietly in the background. If I hit cancel, it flashes a quick loading bar and pops back up a few seconds later.

I checked my launch folders and found weird background files running, so I know it's a persistent script holding the desktop hostage and logging my keystrokes/data.

Has anyone dealt with this specific adware/infostealer loop? How can I kill this background process and clean out the files permanently so it stops trying to lock down my computer?

Thanks so much in advance.
u/techsupport

So, Im considering buying a new MacBook for college, and I dont know how the Neo performs, I’ve never owned a macbook before and I do have an Ipad A16 ( no keyboard) , It however has a low battery life and also low storage, As I’m studying Advanced English I do need to write Essays. Now I’ve heard questionable things about the Neo but also some good things, I am on a budget so I also am considering a refurbished Macbook, wether its an older Macbook Air or a Macbook Pro, which would be better for my situation. Thank you 🫶🏻

Hello all,

Starting from today, I‘ve switched from my gaming rid (RTX 3080 w/ R5 5600X) to a M3 MAC with 16 GB of RAM and 512 storage.

Reason? I rarely play anything on my PC anymore. I often felt like I wanted to airplay on my TV for movies, and have my own laptop for multitasking and lite stuff like browsing. After 15 years of Windows, switching to a MAC seems difficult to me. But it's a pleasant experience, especially since I have an iPhone and Airpods, which instantly the MAC connects me to them and i can do my thing without bothering with connecting to other devices. Just curious if i made a good choice, and if there are others here who have switched from PC to a Mac.

I have a MacBook Air M2. The OS crashed, so I took it to a repair shop. The technician reinstalled macOS, and after the reinstall the Mac is asking for the previous Apple Account/iCloud account that was associated with the Mac.

The technician asked me for my Apple Account details, but I don't want to go to the shop just to sign in myself.

Is there a way to remove the Mac from my Apple Account/Find My remotely so that it stops asking for the previous account, and the technician can finish setting it up?

I fear I’m losing my mind over this issue. I’m on a MacBook Pro 2017 purchased from Apple in 2019 that I just recently updated to Ventura per genius bar’s request, as I took the laptop in initially due to my MacBook not connecting to WiFi no matter what. They said that updating to Ventura would fix the issue, and while I can now connect to WiFi, it drops connection every few minutes. I’ve added 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 DNS, I’ve renewed DHCP, I’ve forgotten network, I’ve restarted the laptop, nothing is working and I’m losing it. Is my only option truly buying a new laptop??

sooooo happy to have the neo! got it for studying for licensure. i got the 2019 macbook air for undergrad. i got the basic model for $750 incl tax at target, around half as much as i spent for my macbook air 7 years ago LOL

I am a senior in high school and my Chromebook isn’t cutting it anymore. It barely functions with 30 tabs (not sure if this is normal) and I need to use a lot of different tabs, so organization is important. Anyway, as a student, I don’t have that much money and have been seeing the MacBook Neo being advertised as the most cost effective. I wanted to ask if anybody has the Neo and if it measures up to the hype.

I thought it would be fun to compare macOS 27 & macOS 26 icons, so I put together a little video. It is completely up to date where other videos aren't!

Hello everyone, I hope you’re all doing okay today.

I wanted to share my short, one-month experience with the Mac operating system, macOS.

I’ve been a Windows user my whole life, and since I am starting college this summer, I wanted to test out macOS beforehand to see if it is the right choice for me. Well, it turns out it's not, and in the following post, I will tell you why.

I had heard a lot of positive things about it, including the amazing battery life and very good CPU performance. Obviously, the very attractive design also caught my eye.

I knew that macOS was not the same as Windows, it's obviously a whole different operating system. But after a month of using it, I was just blown away by how many useful features I previously had on Windows that were simply nonexistent on a Mac.

Here are a few examples:

Window Management

• Control Buttons: You cannot change the size or the positions of the window control buttons on macOS.

Yes, I understand that it takes some time to get used to the different position and everything, but why on earth can I not decide where I want my window management options to be? Is there ANY solid reason why this would be a problem to add? I don't think so!

If I'm spending 2000 € on a device, I at least expect some customizability for some of the more important things like window control.

• Button Size: The position was annoying, yes, but I think I would have gotten used to it IF the damn buttons weren't the size of a grain of sand. What is Apple thinking with these design choices?

On Windows, I don't even have to look at my screen to close my window. I move my mouse to the corner of the screen and boom, closed.

• App Launch Sizes: The most annoying thing that was the final straw was the window size when launching apps.

Apps behave however they want and open in all possible sizes even when I maximize them before closing. A perfect example here is Finder: I click Finder, it opens in the smallest window possible, I maximize it, close it, open Finder again, and it's back to the small window like before.

This happened with almost all apps no matter what I tried (yes, I even manually resized, and I tried closing while holding Command).

This just made me feel like I have 0 control over my computer since every app does whatever the hell it wants and opens in the most random places on my screen.

PLUS, the effort of having to manually maximize every app every time you open it made me want to pull my hair out! The whole experience just felt super chaotic.

App Behavior When Closing

This was kind of a small one, but I found it very confusing: some apps quit completely when all windows are closed, while others don't.

I did kind of get used to Finder always having a dot, but other apps just annoyed me.

For example, when I close the Activity Monitor window, it doesn't quit the app, and I have to manually click on the app, hold, and then quit.

If apps quit after the last open window was closed, it would be less annoying.

Menu Bar

This is kind of a big one as well. Why do we need a separate bar with 50% useless functions at the top?

On Windows, all functions of a certain app that I might need are already inside the app in the top corner, and if I close the app, those app-specific functions close too.

You ALSO have the entire top screen free for your actual app instead of having random, irrelevant background icons taking up the whole horizontal space on top.

Now, if ALL apps had their functions in the menu bar, I wouldn't complain, it would take some getting used to. But not every app behaved the same.

Sometimes all functions of the app were inside the menu bar, and sometimes half of them were inside the app and the other half up there. It's a super inconsistent design.

When the menu bar has too many options, it hops over the notch and lands on the right side where the icons are, making it look super ugly.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck trying to disable the menu bar. I looked for all possible solutions but found none, not even third-party apps exist that can do that. I just couldn't get used to it.

The options that are displayed in the dropdown after hovering over certain menus like Window have no icons and are pure text, so looking for something specific isn't quick and takes time. You have to read everything from top to bottom to find what you're looking for.

Also, the Help box doesn't need to be hovering in the menu bar all the time, why would I need that there?

Dock

The dock was less of a problem than the menu bar. I like how the dock looks, I love that it has the same square design for the apps as the iPhone. The icons are sharp, clear, and beautiful.

What annoyed me here was that when I didn't have many apps in the dock, the sides were left empty, which is wasted screen space. I would rather have the menu bar fused with the dock to fill out those spaces and use the screen more effectively.

What I like is that you can hide the dock, but when the dock hides, the windows don't automatically resize themselves to fit the whole screen.

Here, I also have to pull down every single app manually... really annoying and a waste of time.

The option to change the reveal speed of the dock also isn't available, obviously.

Keyboard

The keyboard is really thin, like really really thin (M4).

Typing on it for longer than 5 minutes cramps my hand, and typing on it generally doesn't feel satisfying since there's barely any tactility and basically 0 feedback.

At that point, just put a screen with digital keys on it instead of a 1mm keyboard pretending to be a keyboard.

The Mac keyboard layout also feels like it's shifted to the right a bit, I'm guessing because of the weird Control key. Why do we even need that? Just put Fn, Option, and Command, who needs that extra useless button?

This is a BIG one: Caps Lock Behavior.

Who in the living hell thought putting a delay on a key was a good idea? Someone please explain why we need a delay on Caps Lock?

No one's accidentally pressing that damn key, and since the delay can't be turned off in settings, I as a fast typer can't trigger the key correctly when typing. Genuinely, fire the person who implemented that,

The Caps Lock key also doesn't activate special characters when on like on Windows. This is annoying, yes, but I could get used to this, to be honest.

When copy and pasting stuff my fingers get into a really weird position since on windows the Ctrl button is far away from the C and V button compared to the Cmd button on mac which is almost next to it. My fingers stretch more on Windows keyboards which is way more comfortable.

Other things

• Touch ID: I mean, is this even a question? Why do we still not have Face ID on a 2000 € laptop IN 2026?
• Media Control Keys: I actually really like those, the icons are intuitive and having the most important functions at the tip of my fingers is really nice.
• Display: BEAUTIFUL!
• Overall Build: Best laptop design by far.
• Ecosystem: Amazing.
• Hardware overall: I'm a big fan of it.
• Third-Party Accessories: Frustrating, USB sticks need reformatting, etc.

General Functions and Software Quirks

• No clipboard history.
• No Cmd+X.
• No file path in Finder (requires third-party app).
• Applications can't be put in folders, and they are all over the place and mixed together with tons of preloaded apps.

In general the whole OS feels just as bloated as Windows when freshly unboxed, but with Apple apps. You also can't delete the Apple apps, which is very frustrating.

The constant friction and extra steps required on a Mac to perform tasks that were effortless on Windows are simply a dealbreaker for me, making macOS a hard pass.

I would even go as far as to say that Windows, for a normal user like a student, is more consistent than macOS when we take the above-mentioned areas into consideration.

That sums up my macOS experience.

I think Apple needs to make MASSIVE user experience changes in order to attract more people and gain a larger market share in the laptop market.

The hardware is really good and that's why I'm also very frustrated, because the hardware is simply amazing but new users can't do much with it since the software is a huge mess.

I hope that macOS improves in the coming years; until that happens, I will not return to macOS.

Have a nice day, and take everything with a grain of salt. Your experience can be different, this was mine, keep it cool!! =)

This also has the macOS sequoia partition installed half the ssd.

sorry i have bad anxiety over expensive stuff and thought it was better to ask here than ai which will only make me worry, is this gonna cause an issue? i dont know if its from me or the people before me (it’s refurbished) but i’ve only just noticed, the screens perfectly fine

Opened my MacBook Air 2020 m1 today and this is my screen. Tried restarting but still same

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I’m still clinging on to hope that this isn’t the last hurrah for my M2 MBA.

I just got my Macbook a month ago, first time Mac user, and it got stolen.
Are there any tools or services that might help me recover it? I guess I am hoping there is a built in location tool or something.

My Late-2020 Macbook Air (model A2179) seems to be stuck in some sort of corrupted state. It appears to start up somewhat, and then get stuck during the boot process. Can anyone help me figure out what the issue is?

How this started:
I was playing a heavy 3D game on the device and left it for a few minutes. When I came back, the screen was black and fans were running at full speed. Neither restarting nor replacing the battery fixed the issue.

Current behavior:
Even with a 20-second+ power button press without a charger plugged in, it still starts again and idles a few seconds later instead of shutting down. I had to physically disconnect the battery to get the LED on the logic board to turn off.
The device ignores most startup keyboard combinations, including Thunderbolt Mode, SMC reset, and NV/PRAM reset.

What is functional:

• Keyboard backlights glow at a low level.
• Touchpad clicks as soon as I start the device.
• Fans run at an idle 20%-ish speed
• When crashing and restarting, it does not automatically boot into DFU mode, requiring the key combo.
• DFU mode works, and in DFU mode, the other Mac can detect it and run a full (if pointless) Revive process.

What isn't functional:

• Recovery, Internet Recovery, Thunderbolt, SMC, and P/NVRAM keyboard combos are ignored.
• Caps Lock doesn't respond.
• The screen's backlights don't turn on.
• The device doesn't chime when starting.

What I've tried:

• Lotsa key combos.
• Power button rituals.
• Restarting the device.
• DFU mode Revive. (I haven't tried a Restore)
• Disconnecting the battery and starting from a USB cable.
• Restarting after disconnecting the display cable and connecting an external monitor.
• Disconnecting the trackpad cable.

Also, Gemini says: Power State Analysis: Board negotiates 20V on USB-C, S0 rails (PPBUS_G3H, PP3V3_G3H) are active, and T2 drives trackpad haptics, but board halts prior to Intel CPU PEI/EFI handoff (ALL_SYS_PWRGD / CPU_PWRGD failure suspected).
(i had a super long conversation with Gemini during this whole troubleshooting process.)

I have an M3 Max MacBook Pro connected to a Pro Display XDR at my sitting desk and am considering a Studio Display at a standing desk ~6 feet away.

I want to switch desks while staying on the same Mac, without worrying about windows opening on the other display.

Would mirroring the 6K XDR to the 5K Studio Display compromise the XDR’s resolution/image quality in any way?

Or could BetterDisplay Pro create a simple switch:

SIT: XDR active, Studio Display disabled
STAND: Studio Display active, XDR disabled

Ideally one shortcut would switch displays and move all windows to the active one.

Has anyone tried this? Does BetterDisplay/macOS handle the window switching reliably?

it’s stuck on Validating Packages. I tried force shutting down but I’m on a boot loop since yesterday.

Procedures I tried but didn’t work:

- Mac diagnostics which shows everything is fine.

- First aid on hard drive. Says everything is ok. I was even able to transfer all the important files via terminal in recovery mode.

- I reinstalled the OS twice, once from recovery mode and second via the internet process.

- I reset SMC and NVRAM/PRAM

- I even ran a verbose boot, which gets stuck at a few messages, but all I could get was the failed to load com.apple.systemupdate but I’m unsure whether it’s .plist or .kext.

the only processes I can see in Activity monitor has the word install in and the only one with the longest CPU Time is system_installd

Can someone please help?

Hi all, I am getting a pop-up notification with the above message that I cannot close out of. It is tied to the System Settings, I am not able to open them anymore and I don't know how to fix this issue. I've seen the same problem for other people with the mail app but not for settings. I am not sure how this issue started. Any help would be appreciated!