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After “Mother of All Breaches,” Update Passwords on Compromised Sites

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January’s big security news was the Mother of All Breaches, the release of a massive database containing 26 billion records built from previous breaches across numerous websites, including Adobe, Dropbox, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It’s unclear how much of the leaked data is new, but it’s a good reminder to update your passwords for accounts on compromised sites, especially those you reused on another site. Cybernews has a leak checker that reports which breached sites include your data. More generally, password managers often have a feature that checks your passwords against the Have I Been Pwned database of breaches and helps you change compromised passwords—1Password’s is called Watchtower, shown below. You can also search Have I Been Pwned directly. Don’t panic if your email address appears in numerous breaches because some of the theoretically compromised accounts may be defunct sites, trivial sites you used once 10 years ago, or duplicate password manager entries for a site whose password you already updated.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Prae_Studio)

Social Media: Worried about the “Mother of All Breaches” that has been making the rounds in security news? We share a leak checker that can tell you if your email address was involved and recommend that you update any compromised passwords.

Annoyed by Inline Predictive Text Suggestions? Here’s How to Turn Them Off

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In a slight nod to the hype surrounding generative AI, Apple added inline text prediction capabilities to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. They can be helpful, particularly on the iPhone and iPad, where it’s often much easier to tap the Space bar than to finish typing a word or sentence. But that’s less true on the Mac, where a fast typist can be slowed down or derailed by the suggestions, and some people dislike having an AI finish their thoughts. The feature is easily turned off. On the iPhone and iPad running at least iOS/iPadOS 17.2, go to Settings > General > Keyboard and switch off Show Predictions Inline. (Leave Predictive Text on to continue to get suggestions above the keyboard.) On the Mac running macOS 14.2 Sonoma or later, open System Settings > Keyboard, click Edit under the Text Input header, turn off “Show inline predictive text,” and click Done.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Armastas)

Social Media: If you’re not a fan of the new inline text predictions on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can easily turn them off and get back to typing only the words you want to appear.

Time Machine Now Offers Daily and Weekly Frequencies

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Since its inception, Time Machine has backed up on an hourly schedule. It then keeps hourly backups for the previous 24 hours, daily backups for the last month, and weekly backups back to the start of the backup. Once free space on the backup drive gets low, Time Machine deletes older backups to make room for new ones, always maintaining at least one copy of every backed-up file. The traditional hourly backups are usually fine, but starting in macOS 13 Ventura, Apple lets you choose a daily or weekly schedule instead. One of those might be useful for Macs that are turned on infrequently or where very little important data changes. It also might reduce resource usage and how much data Time Machine backs up. Most people shouldn’t need to change the backup frequency, but if you’ve always wanted to, now you can.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/STILLFX)

Social Media: Has Time Machine’s hourly backup frequency been problematic for you? Starting in macOS 13 Ventura, you can instead choose a daily or weekly backup schedule.

Use StandBy to Make Your iPhone into a Clock, Photo Frame, and More

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iOS 17 brings a new mode for the iPhone: StandBy. All you have to do is connect your iPhone to a charger wirelessly or with a cable, position it on its side in landscape orientation, and press the side button to lock the screen. Standby works best with a MagSafe charging stand. Swipe left or right to switch between three screens: widgets, photos, and clocks. Swipe up and down to move between widgets, photo collections, and clock styles. On the widget screen, touch and hold to add and remove widgets, and on the photo screen, to choose which collections and albums to display. You can choose how long the display stays active in Settings > StandBy > Display. By default, it will stay on all the time on iPhone models with an Always-On display; a tap or nudge will wake it on other iPhone models. Finally, StandBy remembers your preferred view in different locations, so it can be a clock in the bedroom, a photo frame in the kitchen, and a clock at the office.

(Featured image by Apple)

Social Media: The new Standby mode turns your iPhone into a digital picture frame, clock, or customizable widget display—and it remembers which approach you prefer in different locations.

How to Merge Two Similar Folders in the Mac’s Finder

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You’ve ended up with two folders whose contents—hundreds of files or more—are similar but not identical. Perhaps you’re recovering from a sync failure, or maybe you pulled an old version of the folder from a backup and aren’t sure what’s different. Regardless, here’s how you can merge them in the Finder. Make sure the folders are named identically and are in two different locations on your Mac. Press and hold the Option key, then drag the folder that contains more files to the location that contains the folder with fewer files. In the dialog that appears, click Merge to copy only newer files from the source and those not already in the destination. (It’s not a two-way sync; for that, you need an app like ChronoSync.) The Merge button appears only if the source folder contains files not in the destination; if the folders contain just different versions of identically named files, you’ll get only Stop and Replace buttons. For safety, always work on copies of your folders and check your work afterward to ensure the right things happened.

(Featured image by iStock.com/RerF)

Social Media: If you want to merge two folders that contain some of the same data, a little-known Finder feature can do it for you.

Keep Your Contacts Current by Adding Siri-Suggested Content

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Remembering to update your contacts with new email addresses, phone numbers, and postal addresses can be hard. But if you’ve received that information in Mail or Messages, Siri’s data detection capabilities can help. Open Contacts on the Mac and press the Down arrow to cycle through your contacts. When you see one with information in light gray and a parenthetical like (Siri Found in Mail), click the ⓘ button to the right ➊ to see some context in the source message. If the information is correct, click Add to Contact ➋ to keep it.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Brett_Hondow)

Social Media: Want an easy way to add email addresses, phone numbers, and postal addresses to Contacts? If you’ve received that information in Mail or Messages, Siri can help.

If Mail Fails to Send, Try, Try Again (Instead of Changing Servers)

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Sometimes, something goes wrong, causing Mail on the Mac to have trouble sending a message. When it does, you may see an error like the one below, encouraging you with a default button to try another configured server. Don’t do it! Always click Try Later. If that still doesn’t work, contact your favorite tech support professional to troubleshoot the problem with the SMTP server associated with the account from which you’re sending. Attempting to send through another SMTP server is a recipe for trouble because various anti-spam checks may fail, causing your message to be filtered as spam or bounced back to you. Worse, if you select a different server and click Try With Selected Server, Mail remembers that choice going forward, so you will have to reset it manually later.

(Featured image by iStock.com/Marut Khobtakhob)

Social Media: If Mail on your Mac throws an error about being unable to send a message, always have it try again later rather than switching to a different server. Otherwise, your messages may look like spam and be blocked.

Lift Objects from Photos on the iPhone

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Have you ever wanted to extract an object from a photo for use in another context? Starting with iOS 16 on a relatively recent iPhone, you can do that with many photos. In the Photos app, touch and hold the object, and if Photos can extract it, you’ll see a highlight run around its edges. Raise your finger, and a popover lets you copy the object, look up information about it, turn it into a sticker (in iOS 17), or share it. Or you can start dragging the object, switch apps with your other hand, and drop it into another app, like Messages. With Universal Clipboard, you can even lift an object on an iPhone, copy it, switch to Preview on your Mac, and choose File > New from Clipboard. File this one under Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law, which states, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: Starting with iOS 16, Apple made it possible to extract objects from photos. You can drag objects to other apps, copy them, turn them into stickers, and more.

Use This Hidden Setting to Stop Triggering Caps Lock Accidentally

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There’s little more annoying than accidentally touching the Caps Lock key while typing and having your text suddenly TURN INTO CAPITAL LETTERS, which we all know is seen as shouting. Unless you have some reason to type in capital letters regularly, you can prevent this mistake by disabling the Caps Lock key or remapping it to another modifier key. In macOS 13 Ventura and later, choose System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Modifier Keys, and choose from the pop-up menu next to Caps Lock. (In earlier versions of macOS, open System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys.)

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: If you very seldom want to type in all caps, disable or remap the Caps Lock key so an errant key press doesn’t turn it on accidentally.

Locate a Featured Lock Screen Image in Photos

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iOS’s Photo Shuffle wallpaper does a great job of identifying attractive photos for your Lock Screen. However, if you’re like us, you’ll sometimes wonder when or where you took a Lock Screen photo. Here’s how to figure that out. Touch and hold the Lock Screen when it’s displaying the photo in question, tap Customize, tap the Lock Screen wallpaper, tap the ••• button in the lower-right corner, and tap Show Photo in Library. Then you can swipe up to reveal more information about the photo, swipe left and right to see the photos on either side, or pinch to see it in the context of your entire photo library.

(Featured image by Apple)

Social Media: Do you sometimes wonder when or where you took a photo that iOS’s Photo Shuffle wallpaper is displaying on your Lock Screen? Us too, and here’s how to find out more.