r/MacOS 12h ago

Tips & Guides Most underrated: folders in Dock

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389 Upvotes

I feel like this feature is glanced over so often when comparing to Linux and Windows. I know Windows simply can't do this, but haven't looked deeply into Linux yet. If anyone knows, I'm running Fedora 😁

I love quick access to Downloads, Desktop and Screenshots from where I can just drag drop into any app without having to open Finder.

Anyone have other handy folders docked?


r/MacOS 24m ago

Tips & Guides PSA: Mac Storage Filling Randomly (Possible) Cause

• Upvotes

Hey all,

I've been battling my mac's storage space for the past few years, where- sometimes- it would randomly fill up all of my remaining storage, seemingly with nothing? This got logged as System Data in the breakdown, which isn't totally helpful. When restarting the computer, this phantom data would all vanish- but sometimes, fill back up in as short as 20 minutes.

I never could get a good answer from customer support (I don't think they knew either), so after finally breaking down and doing some self research, I tracked the cause for me- that being, that Mac auto-downloads the default background wallpapers, in 4k, 240fps, even if you don't use them as your background. They're very nice videos, but it'll sometimes download them en-masse, causing 5-25 gb to mysteriously vanish with no clear reason.

To check if this happened to you-

1: Open finder

2: At the top of the screen, click Go -> Computer (note: you do need just 'computer'; the library we navigate to later is different than what Go's "library" option will bring you to. Confusing, I know)

3: Go to your hard drive, and then into Library -> Application Support -> com.apple.idleassetsd -> Customer -> 4KSDR240FPS (note: You made need to enable hidden folders to see the library folder? I don't quite remember, but if you don't see it, check another guide on how to reveal hidden folders)

4: Check the videos in there to see how much space they are taking up.

~~~

Now then- if that is eating up all of your storage, how do you fix it?

Please note, I am not a tech-spert at all. Fuck around with system files at your own risk. I'm simply relaying my own experience for you to use as a jumping-off point, not to copy verbatim without thought. Okay? Okay.

To fix it, I:

1: Changed my background & screen saver to custom ones, to avoid needing the Mac defaults

2: Went into the folder listed above, and deleted all the videos

3: Cleared out my trash to permanently delete them

4: Dragged the folder to the "favorites" section of finder, so I could quickly access it later if need be

Note that this isn't actually a permanent solution. The backgrounds'll probably decide to download again, seemingly at random- you might get a few minutes of peace, or maybe a few months of peace. No real way to know.

But, it's at least more convenient than restarting your whole computer every 20 minutes for weeks on end, so I thought I'd share my findings~


r/MacOS 2h ago

Help External HD not mounting on either Mac after leaving it plugged in during Migration Assistant transfer...

3 Upvotes

Hi alll.....last night I erased my iMac (Sequoia). After restart, I connected my WD external hard drive and began moving a few folders over. Worked great. The drive also worked perfectly fine on my Macbook Pro (Catalina). I used Migration Assistant to transfer some files to the iMac from the MBP. As that was finishing, iMac froze on black startup screen but wouldn't progress from there. I realized I had left the ext HD plugged in, and knowing from the past this causes issues, I unplugged it. It unfroze and finished restarting just fine. Now, the ext HD does not show up on either of my Mac's desktops, but does show up in Disk Utility, although it will not mount. Format is ExFat. I plugged it into a Windows PC and then back to my mac....no change. It does show up just fine on the PC and I can access the files successfully. Anyone have any ideas or thoughts on what changed?? I appreciate all of the help in advance!

Also wanted to add that when I click on First Aid, it immediately fails.


r/MacOS 22h ago

Help My Macbook Pro doesn't recognize my Western Digital HDD (Works on Windows!)

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87 Upvotes

Hey dears,
both of my Macbooks don't see WD MyPassport HDD 4TB, even though Windows Laptop sees it, so I assume the problem is about MacOS, the HDD is intact.

I tried Disk Utility, nothing is seen.
Does it have anything to do with adapter? It worked before with no issues.

Does anyone know what I need to do to make it visible and so that I can interact with it on Mac?

Thank you!


r/MacOS 11m ago

Help Startup too quick and I'm having issues with Startup Apps/Blockers

• Upvotes

Hi I'm currently having issues my startup loading times let me explain.

I have blockers and all sorts to stop me from betting and getting into any bad habits, however after protecting my computer with a bunch of apps and learning how to make scripts on terminal to block settings. I found that I have 2-3 second window in which none of the login items popup/startup which allows me to quickly unselect all the blockers and then fall back into bad habits and get back into bad habits. Is there anything you guys recommend like purchasing or anything to stop that or delays so my apps can start up way sooner?

I’d really appreciate the help!

MODEL: Macbook M5 I bought it last year in November/December


r/MacOS 4h ago

Help Mouse keeps getting stuck moving between screens. Does anybody know how to fix?

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2 Upvotes

It's quite hard to explain so I've filmed a very short video. I have tried everything within display settings on both devices, with no luck.

Chatgpt told me to try the "double push method" which apparently "realigns" the devices, but I haven't had a great deal of luck with that either.

My Mac and MacBook are 2021 and 2020 M1s, both running on Tahoe.

Any help would be appreciated.


r/MacOS 10h ago

Help WhatsApp’s new sidebar makes it impossible to use in half-screen on macOS

5 Upvotes

Why did WhatsApp make the new sidebar so wide? 😩

Before this update, I could easily resize WhatsApp to **half of my screen** and use another app on the other half.

Now, because of the new sidebar with **Chats, Updates, Communities, etc.**, WhatsApp's minimum window width is wider than half of my screen. So I **can't fit WhatsApp and another app side-by-side anymore**.

This is especially annoying on macOS when you regularly work with two apps side-by-side. The previous layout worked perfectly fine.

**Please give us an option to collapse or hide the sidebar, or at least reduce the minimum window width.**

Anyone else annoyed by this update?


r/MacOS 1d ago

Help Is there a way to make Google Drive stop installing this shit?

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258 Upvotes

I deleted these apps so many times, and they always come back after a few weeks :/


r/MacOS 6h ago

Help My tech support guy deleted Docker.raw. Now it won't run fix fonts (Callas). Now what?

0 Upvotes

See title. I was almost out of memory, tech support guy is rooting through stuff, I explained I use the app for work projects (it's part of our accessibility remediation in concert with PDFix), he deletes anyway. I deleted the app, I rebooted, I reinstalled, I deleted the app again, I deleted the library files, I reinstalled the app, I deleted the new install, I reinstalled again, I made sure the library files were gone, I emptied the trash and I still get this error message.

Action Fix Fonts (Callas) failed with exit code 125

I feel like I've taken all the steps advised by people in this sub and on other forums. I'm at a loss. Does anyone have advice they can offer? Thanks.


r/MacOS 6h ago

Help Any way to resize and create a new partition on macos without admin permission?

1 Upvotes

r/MacOS 9h ago

Help Graphics glitch after unplugging external monitors

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1 Upvotes

Hi everyone,
I have a base M3 Macbook Pro and I have an issue with the graphics every time I disconnect the two external monitors.

I have one 4K monitor connected with a USB hub and a vertical Full HD one that I occasionally connect with the Mac's HDMI.

At the moment I am running the macOS 26 but it's an issue I've also had with macOS 15.

Does anyone know why this happens? It's not permanent, after a reboot everything works just fine, but this shouldn't happen...


r/MacOS 1d ago

Discussion Something is MacOS which has been irking me for a while

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41 Upvotes

Sure it's a small thing, but aren't Apple products supposed to be meticulously polished?


r/MacOS 13h ago

Help YouTube playback error on macOS Tahoe — how do I fix this?

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1 Upvotes

I’m running macOS Tahoe and I’m getting this error when trying to play a YouTube video. I’ve attached a screenshot of the error.

I’ve already tried emptying the cache, clearing my browsing history, turning off all extensions, and even uninstalling all extensions. The problem goes away temporarily after doing this, but then comes back again after watching around 3–4 videos.

At this point I’m not sure what else could be causing it.

Has anyone else experienced this on macOS Tahoe? If so, have you found a permanent fix?


r/MacOS 7h ago

Bug what is the notification sound coming from my mac it is driving me crazy

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0 Upvotes

I somehow turned something on my mac that is now making sounds every once in a while i have turned off every accessability setting i could find yet it still plays intermittantly. I cant really describe the sound either i keep saying carnival whistle but nothing seems to undewrstand what sound I am refering to.


r/MacOS 7h ago

Help Help with Activation Lock with a sole apple product

0 Upvotes

Hi! So my sister got a hand me down macbook air from a distant relative and got so excited because it was the first time our family ever got an apple product and she quickly finished setting it up as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we dont know if my sister made a typo or whatever, but when she wanted to use it again, the password wasnt working. She's kinda impatient, so she tried retyping it over and over and over again until the account got locked. We had know idea about this activation lock thing until it happened.

We tried using the method from the apple website with the serial number and stuff but that requires a confirmation link to be sent and well...the only access we have to the email is through the laptop (the apple account isnt signed in anywhere else. I know. Very dumb). Now were worried if there's still any other option to unlock it so that my sister can still use the laptop for her online classes.

Genuinely please help :( We're very casual technology users and seriously had no idea how strict apple was when it came to these things. I really really don't want it to just become paperweight.


r/MacOS 1d ago

Discussion Is it me or did RAM usage/memory leak improve massively ?

27 Upvotes

In 2020 I stupidly drank the cool aid that 8GB with M1 is enough. For years using my personal macbook was frustrating and I have been mainly using my work macbook which has 32GB of ram.

Recently i started using my personal macbook more frequently again and my previous frustrations are gone. It's no longer stuttering


r/MacOS 14h ago

Help Postman toggle line comment

1 Upvotes

Hi,

I'm using Postman on my new MacBook Air M5 (keyboard layout Italian). My previous pc was a windows. I'm used to use Ctrl+Ăš to toggle line comment. Now on macos it doesn't work and even using AI I'm not finding some keymap to use. How can i fix this? I found Option + shift + a but it's not that same because it's a block comment.


r/MacOS 6h ago

Help Is there a solution for this!

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0 Upvotes

r/MacOS 4h ago

Tips & Guides Downgrading from Mac OS Tahoe to Mac OS Sequoia. Is it worth it?

0 Upvotes

I decided to downgrade from Mac OS Tahoe to Mac OS sequoia because I thought it was worth it and didn’t like the look of Liquid Glass and it still has security updates until fall 2027 so do you guys have any tips to make it better


r/MacOS 8h ago

Help How to get volume panel on lock screen?

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0 Upvotes

Normally it does, but after 2-3 days, it stops showing up on lock screen. Also it moves from centre of screen to right. How to get it to show up on lock screen again without having to reboot?

On Windows I could kill the explorer.exe process to fix these kind of bugs, anything similar?


r/MacOS 7h ago

Help battery health drastic degrade!!

0 Upvotes

i have a m1 air purchased just a month ago. it has 51 count cycles and my battery health has degraded to 96% and i'm concerned! is it normal? i don't think so? i have brave as a browser so does it contribute to degrade my health? help this poor woman out.


r/MacOS 17h ago

Help Video files don’t seem to work when putting them on Lexar USB

0 Upvotes

Whenever I load MP4 and MKV files onto Lexar USB, sometimes they don’t work, especially when putting them from my Levano Windows desktop and then try to open the files on my 2011 MacBook Air. They seem to work when I put files from the Mac MacBook Air on the USB and then open them on the Windows computer I have there, but not vice versa. But sometimes when putting and before files directly from my MacBook, they won’t show up, but sometimes some of them randomly still do? What’s going on?

Here’s a link to the kind of USB I’m talking about: https://a.co/d/0j0nxXdN


r/MacOS 11h ago

Help any suggestions on how to optimize ram?

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0 Upvotes

this is my ram with a few things open:

  1. google chrome with messenger and this reddit tab
  2. spotify
  3. BoringNotch

i know that the green is perfectly healthy but im gonna need more space for school work since i got some big documents here and there ;-;


r/MacOS 9h ago

Discussion What's your uptime?

0 Upvotes

I'm at 20 days on my M4 MacBook Air and 49 days on my M2 Mac mini. I think both would be higher if I hadn't performed an OS update and had a power outage!

Not sure how to check? Open Terminal and run 'uptime'.


r/MacOS 1d ago

Tips & Guides is it feasible to turn this into my main laptop in 2026?

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35 Upvotes

hello! just recently got handed this old macbook air from 2016, and im wondering if theres any way i can make this usable for everyday use like web browsing, college work, watching movies, etc. (being able to play minecraft and mmos too possibly, but seeing that ram i dont expect much lol)

the laptop itself works fine, but im already running into issues downloading legacy versions of firefox and visiting most webpages (even reddit, so im writing this post on my phone). ive seen people suggest switch to linux, but ive been a windows user for life so i dont know my way around any other os much.

please let me know if you have any insights at all! thank you in advance for all of them :-)

UPDATE: ive decided to update the macbook to monterey following this tutorial. ive been using it for the better part of the night and it works perfectly for what i need it to do!! thanks to everyone for chipping in, helped me figure out which route to go:-)

friendly reminder that no tech is just scrap and im REALLY glad i was able to get use out of this one