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Use 1Password to Enter Your Mac Login Password

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We think of 1Password as being helpful for entering passwords on websites and in iPhone and iPad apps. But its Universal Autofill feature has a hidden capability that lets 1Password enter your Mac login password when you have to provide it to change certain system settings, install apps, format drives in Disk Utility, and more. (But it won’t work to log in at startup before 1Password is running.) To turn this feature on, click the New Item button in 1Password, search for and select “Mac login” ➊, give it a name that will sort alphabetically to the top, like “2020 27-inch iMac” ➋, enter your password, and click Save ➌. From then on, whenever you’re prompted for your Mac login password ➍, press Command- (Backslash, located above the Return key), and then click the desired login or press Return to select the topmost item ➎.

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

Social Media: 1Password is tremendously helpful for entering website passwords, but a little-known feature also enables it to enter your Mac login password for changing system settings, installing apps, and more.

Send Photos in Messages Faster with This Hidden Shortcut

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On the iPhone and iPad, to send a photo to a Messages chat, tap the ⊕ button and then tap Photos in the list that appears to reveal the photo picker. That’s not difficult, but it requires an extra step you can avoid with this tip. If you’re running iOS 17 or iPadOS 17, instead of tapping the ⊕ button, touch and hold it for a second to bring up the photo picker immediately.

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

Social Media: It’s not hard to add a photo to a conversation in Messages, but with this tip, it’s even faster and easier!

Too Many Windows Open? Close Them All Quickly with These Tricks

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Have you ever selected a bunch of files and accidentally opened them all by double-clicking one? Or perhaps inadvertently pressed Command-I to get info, ending up with oodles of open Info windows? Here’s a quick way to recover. You can close all the windows in any well-written app with judicious use of the Option key. Press it while clicking the File menu and Close Window becomes Close All Windows. Command-W closes one window; Command-Option-W closes all of that app’s windows. If you’re a mouse person, Option-click the red close button in any window to close all the rest.

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

Social Media: Next time you inadvertently open a large number of windows, you can use these Option-key tricks to close them all quickly.

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.

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.

Open the Mac’s Control Center with This Obscure Keyboard Shortcut

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With macOS 13 Ventura, Apple brought Control Center from iOS to the Mac, providing a unified interface for features that users need to turn on and off regularly or that receive frequent adjustments, like screen brightness and audio volume. Clicking the Control Center icon in the menu bar brings it up, but it’s a small, hard-to-hit target. For faster and easier access to Control Center from within any app, press fn-C. (All current Apple keyboards have an fn key, but if you’re using a third-party keyboard that lacks one, you’re out of luck.)

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

Social Media: Control Center brings together controls for a collection of core macOS features, but its menu bar icon is small, making it hard for some to click. Luckily, there’s a hidden shortcut to bring it up quickly from the keyboard.

watchOS 10.1 Brings Double Tap to the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2

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Apple recently released watchOS 10.1, with support for the much-ballyhooed double-tap gesture that selects the primary action in many apps without requiring that you touch the screen! It’s available only on the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, where you activate it by raising your wrist and tapping your thumb and index finger together twice. On the main Apple Watch screen, a double tap opens the Smart Stack of widgets you would otherwise get by turning the Digital Crown, and subsequent double taps advance through the widgets. A double tap also activates the primary action in many apps, such as answering and ending phone calls, playing and pausing media, viewing and scrolling through messages, ending timers, stopping and resuming the stopwatch, snoozing an alarm, responding to reminders from the Workout app, and performing the primary action from notifications. Whenever you double tap, you’ll see this icon at the top of the screen. If you have a supported Apple Watch model, give it a try!

(Featured image by Adam Engst, article image by Apple)

Social Media: Apple’s promised double-tap gesture is now available in watchOS 10.1 for those with an Apple Watch Series 9 or Apple Watch Ultra 2. Give it a try to perform the primary action in a watchOS app without touching the screen.

Erase Image Content in Preview with Copied Color Blocks

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Apple’s Preview is a surprisingly capable graphics editor for making quick changes to screenshots and other illustrations, but it lacks a built-in way to delete content while leaving the background. Here’s the workaround—select a rectangle of the background color, copy it, paste it, and then move it over the undesirable content—as shown in the After screenshot below, where blue selection dots denote the pasted box. As you resize the box, press Shift to prevent it from resizing proportionally, which helps you make it the shape you want. If you need a second box of the same color, Option-drag the first box to copy it. When you save and close, your boxes will be merged into the image, permanently removing the content underneath, so make sure they’re in the right spot before moving on.

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

Social Media: Have you ever needed to remove some content from a screenshot or other illustration? There’s no need for a fancy graphics app—you can do it quickly in Preview with this little-known trick.

Frustrated by System Settings? Use the View Menu or Search

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In macOS 13 Ventura, Apple replaced the creaky System Preferences with System Settings, which uses a more iOS-like interface. Many people find System Settings overwhelming, partly because they had memorized where to look in System Preferences (but System Settings has many other design flaws as well—it’s not your fault). We have two recommendations to make it more easily navigable. First, for an alphabetical approach, use the View menu, which lists the panes that way, along with the top-level items in the General settings pane. Second, make heavy use of the search field at the top of the System Settings sidebar—it’s the only way to find some deeply nested settings.

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

Social Media: If you have trouble finding things in macOS Ventura’s System Settings app, you’re not alone. We have advice to help you navigate alphabetically or jump directly to a deeply nested setting.