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In this fifth instalment of Tiny Mac Tips, Allison brings even more ways to increase your skill level on the Mac. You may know some of these (and can say to yourself, "I knew that!") but you probably don't know them all.

For future reference, every one of the tips you'll learn is also available in text at the links below:

If you're teaching or presenting on your Mac, KeyCastr helps your audience follow along by displaying your keystrokes on screen. It's fully customizable and can show exactly what you want, in the style you prefer.

Presentify complements it perfectly by letting you draw beautiful annotations directly on screen. Every tool is customizable and accessible via quick keystrokes, and a highlighted cursor ensures your viewers can follow your every move. In this video, Allison is your guide and show you in detail how to use this useful tandem.

MindSpace is an incredibly powerful mind mapping app that imports maps from Markdown, OPML, TXT, FreeMind, iThoughts, and more. It works across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS and has Family Sharing support.

The interface is intuitive on all platforms and supports many common keyboard shortcuts to add and move nodes around, and even fold and reveal nodes at different levels.

You can define relationships between nodes with arrows of different formats, as well as create summaries of a collection of nodes with curly brackets. You can add images, web links, and comments to nodes, and much more.

MindSpace has all of the other mind mapping capabilities you expect, like the ability to work in outline view, fabulous search tools, and the ability set a focus node to get rid of distractions. At the time of recording, the subscription pricing starts at a minuscule dollar US per month, or you can get a lifetime license for $13!

SoundSource is a menu bar app from the fine folks at Rogue Amoeba. This powerful utility gives you fast access to system devices, allowing you to control the settings for your Mac's output, input, and sound effect audio devices right from your menu bar.

You can apply per-application audio adjustments like changing the volume of any app relative to others as well as sending individual apps to different audio outputs.

SoundSource also lets you apply audio effects everywhere. You can make any app's audio sound great with simple built-in effects as well as support for Audio Units plugins. Join Allison as she takes you through its features and benefits.

Have you ever wished a web service had a dedicated Mac app instead of staying in the browser? With Unite, you can create your very own. With 90 pre-built apps from popular websites for social media, shopping, news sites, and more, you may find the one you want right away. But Unite lets you create them from scratch, and you can also make what Allison calls "Super Apps" with multiple web services as tabs in the same Mac app. Join Allison as she shows you the ins and outs of Unite, with lots of useful examples and tips.

Unite runs on macOS 12 (Monterey) or later, and is available as part of your Setapp subscription (as of this video's release).

Markdown is a powerful and yet simple markup language that allows you to create formatted text documents, all while writing in plain text. These plain text documents can be opened and read in any text editor.

In this tutorial from Allison, you learn the basics of the Markdown syntax, like bold and italics, as well as making checkboxes, create links, and even embed image links, to name a few. Allison also shows you several applications that support Markdown, including her favorite, Typora, plus TextEdit and BBEdit (with Brett Terpstra's Marked as a companion renderer). She plays around with Markdown in Meta's Messenger, Apple's own Notes, and much more.

PowerPhotos works with the built-in Photos app on your Mac, providing powerful tools to manage your photos and videos. With PowerPhotos, you can split large libraries, as well as merge existing libraries. You can find and delete duplicate images with full control of how duplicates are defined and managed.

You also get a much better metadata editor, which even supports batch editing. Join Allison as she guides you through PowerPhotos' extensive feature set, with real world examples.

Get a 20% discount at checkout by using code SCREENCASTSONLINE (This offer is valid through January 10, 2026.)

PowerPhotos 3 is a one-time purchase of $39.95 USD, and requires macOS Sonoma or newer. If you already own PowerPhotos 1 or 2, you can purchase an upgrade for $19.95 USD.

** SPECIAL DISCOUNT for SCO members: get a 20% discount at checkout by using code SCREENCASTSONLINE **

See more information in Resources below.

Sindre Sorhus is a prolific Apple developer who has 55 apps (so far) and this week, Allison Sheridan will introduce you to 3 of them.

• Dato is a menu bar app that gives you access to your calendar and reminders, even creating them right from the menu bar. You can join video calls right from Dato and tailor the app to the view you like. 

• Aiko gives you on-device transcription using Whisper AI, which means your data isn't shared anywhere, and it runs on macOS, iOS, and even visionOS.

• With the browser picker app Velja, you'll be able to control where web links open, including directly to apps like Zoom instead of taking a trip through Safari first.

Audacity, a multi-track audio recorder and editor, has been in active development by the open source community for 25 years. Even though it's free, it's an incredibly powerful tool. In this tutorial Allison shows how to navigate the entirety of the user interface of Audacity, and gives you a taste of some of the more advanced features it offers. You also learn how to search the extensive and extensive user manual, in case you want to dig even deeper with Audacity. Oh, and don't miss the really cool web search tip from Allison towards the end.

We often overlook the depth of the software we already have on our Macs. One example is Apple's Photos, which has amazing tools that are kept folded away so they don't intimidate those who don't want or need these advanced options. To help you understand what you can do using these tools, Allison dives deep into every one of the editing controls, using a variety of shots from her personal library.

You learn about all 12 adjustments and all of their options, including things like the difference between Definition and Sharpen. Allison explains why you might see Filters while other times you'll see Styles in Photos, the differences between Curves and Levels (and which of the two she prefers) and much more.

This tutorial was recorded on a Mac running macOS Sequoia 15.2.

In Allison's fourth round of Tiny Mac Tips, inspired by the series she's been posting on her website, and designed to help you become a Mac power user, she teaches you how to:

• Get access to more display resolutions

• Use Quick Look to triage files

• Use your iOS device to scan documents directly into your Mac

• Uncover all of the hidden capabilities of the Dock

You also get a quick tour of podfeet.com where Allison shows you where to find her collection of Tiny Mac Tips!

Ice is an open source app that helps you tame your menu bar. You can choose which menu bar items show at all times and which are hidden until you need them. You choose a secondary menu bar to display hidden items, or a unique method that actually hides the menu items of other apps running in the foreground. In this episode, Allison leaves no stone unturned as she shows you all the ins and outs of this useful and flexible utility. When you decide you like Ice, you get to choose how much it's worth to you. No subscription needed!

Ice runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or newer.

If you're frustrated with your current podcast player, Overcast may delight you with how it lets you tailor your podcasting experience. Maybe you've tried Overcast before but found the interface confusing. The app has gone through a major redesign, and in this tutorial Allison guides you on how to use the power of this flexible application with lots of examples.

Overcast will run on iOS and iPadOS 17 or newer, watchOS 10 or newer, and you can use it on a Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 14 or later.

• The free version contains small banner ads at the bottom of the player

• Overcast Premium is $10 per year

In the Notability Foundations installment, Allison taught you how to use many of the tools in the toolbox, how to convert or search handwritten text, how to draw geometric shapes, how to use Templates for your virtual "paper" and more.

In this tutorial she’ll walk you through some more advanced features covering many ways Notability can be a great companion whether recording lectures (or even Apple keynotes!), more handwriting using Apple Pencil and Zoom View, using the versatile ruler for more precise drawing of lines and shapes, and a lot more. Get ready to take your Notability skills up a few notches.

Notability for iPad requires iPadOS 16.0 or newer.

Notability is a long-standing note-taking app for iPad, iPhone, and Mac, that seems to have no boundaries. In this new foundational tutorial Allison teaches you the nuances of the first half of the tools for creating notes from free-form drawing to vector shapes. You learn about basic templates, and how to share notes.

Allison then continues by showcasing Notability's ability to read and search your handwritten notes or convert them to typed text. Finally, you get to see a few examples of how she uses Notability to capture her ideas and help with a favorite hobby of hers.

Find Any File lets you search for files on your disk in ways that Spotlight can’t. It uses the system driver’s fast search operations and lets you search for file properties and inside bundles and packages that are normally hidden. You can think of it as a way to augment Spotlight when searching for files on your system.

In this episode, Allison goes deep on Find Any File and reveals its power with several useful examples.

If you're new to the Mac or even a seasoned user, it's always helpful to learn more ways to become a master of macOS. In this third series of Tiny Mac Tips, Allison gives playful and interesting examples to teach you how to add shortcuts to menu items that don't have them, how to get that elusive "Save As…" option back, close all windows with a single click, and a lot more. You're sure to learn new tips, and even remember ones you'd forgotten about!

We all love to post images on social media and often we're trying to figure out how to gain more followers to get more reach. One of the ways you can increase your audience is by adding descriptions to your images so that visually impaired people can enjoy them, too. These descriptions have different names: alt tags, alt text, alternative text, descriptions, or sometimes simply captions. In this tutorial, Allison teaches you how to add alt text in several social media platforms using her iPhone. You also learn how to use a free application called Be My Eyes to add incredibly good captions for your images using AI, saving you the trouble of thinking them up yourself.

Bartender 5 is required for macOS 14 (Sonoma) and also comes with big improvements in capability. You can now create Profiles for the different contexts in which you work, and you can set up automations with Triggers based on apps, battery, location, WiFi network, time, and even scripts.Allison demonstrates how all of this works, and also shows you how this version of Bartender lets you style your menu bars like never before.

With the free Google Forms, you can create surveys, polls or organize events that you can customize, including adding photos and choosing a theme. In this episode Allison walks you through the settings for Google Forms, and then shows you how the answer format you choose affects how people interact with your form. Multiple-choice vs. checkboxes, and grids vs. linear scales can provide a different type of answer and give you the right results. Join Allison and start creating forms easily.

Retrobatch, from the creator of the well-known image editor Acorn, is a highly capable image manipulation tool that uses drag-and-drop nodes to build workflows. In this tutorial, Allison starts by making a very simple workflow that adds a border to a group of images very quickly, then walks through the interface using this as an example. You then go through a more complicated example with Allison of how Rules and JavaScript (part of the Pro version of the app) helped her solve a real-life problem. You will surely think of multiple ways Retrobatch can assist you in processing your images.

One of the ways you can save your memories is by creating physical books, calendars, and more out of your photos. In Apple Photos, you can create projects using extensions from different companies to do just that. In this tutorial, Allison uses her Mac to explain how to install these extensions from the App Store to make projects, and then takes a closer look at two of them: Mimeo Photos and Motif. For her project, she creates a photo book and walks you through the many options each service offers to make your photo book memorable.

Allison this week tells you about an application that she's been using for years, and that's Under My Roof (né Home Inventory, which Allison covered back in 2014). The purpose of Under My Roof is to help you keep track of everything to do with your home. This includes all of the items that you own, from your car to your computer equipment, right down to your stamp collection. It also excels at keeping track of related documents, such as receipts, insurance policies, certificates, and the like. It is truly a fully-featured app and with Allison as your guide, you discover how it can assist in your quest to document everything under your roof.

TouchRetouch is an iOS and Mac app that is designed to help you remove unwanted objects from your photos. With a touch-first interface, it is trivially easy to remove things like power lines, smudges, and even fences forming a mesh. In this video, Allison shows you how the app works, mainly on iPad, but also on iPhone and the Mac. TouchRetouch is an amazingly capable app and worth well more than its $4.00 price tag!

Allison is back with another series of tiny Mac tips designed to help you be more productive on your Mac. Whether you're a novice or a seasoned veteran, you're bound to learn something new.

She has five blog posts (so far) describing each of the tiny Mac tips she's demonstrated. You can use the written version as a handy reference to refresh your memory: Tiny Mac Tips Part Five with Links to Parts 1-4

If you’ve been using a Mac for a very long time, it’s quite likely that you know a lot of little tricks to get macOS to do exactly what you want, the way you want it. If you're new to the platform however, you may feel as though you could be more efficient. No matter which camp you belong to, Allison shares several hidden gems that will make you more efficient while using your Mac.

Keyword Search is a free Safari extension for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. With this utility, you can search your favorite websites directly from the Safari Smart Search field using just a couple of characters.

Keyword Search comes preconfigured with several popular websites and in this episode, Allison walks you through each of them and shows you how they work. You also learn how to configure your own custom searches on websites you frequent often, and take a brief look at Keyword Search on iPhone.

Audio Hijack allows you access to record and route audio in ways that Apple didn’t build into macOS. Version 4 brings a dramatically improved user interface, making it easier for new users to understand and filled with enhancements for those already familiar with the software. Allison is here to show you this versatile audio tool and its features, using real world examples.

If you find yourself having to teach friends, family, or co-workers how to perform functions on their computer, you know how powerful sending screenshots can be. We have a lot of options for taking and annotating those, but when you need multiple screenshots to explain a longer process, a specialized tool might be in order. In this tutorial Allison shows you a dedicated program on the Mac (and PC) called Folge. You learn how to create guides using screenshots and an exhaustive collection of tools to enhance your instructions. Once your guide is complete, Allison shows you the different export formats, including her favorite, Rich HTML.

One of the best ways to commemorate a special occasion is by producing a compelling slideshow with music. FotoMagico from Boinx Software is an app for iPad and Mac designed just for making slideshows. As you get to know FotoMagico, you’ll quickly realize that it’s highly capable with many advanced features. Allison focuses on the Mac in this screencast as she walks you through the creation of a slideshow in FotoMagico 6.

Parallels Toolbox is a menu bar app that includes 40 small utility apps. Many of these tools can be found as standalone programs elsewhere, but the magic of Parallels Toolbox is that they're bundled in one consistent interface, right at your fingertips.

With Allison as your guide, you discover Parallels Toolbox and how useful it can be in your day to day computing tasks.

You may think pivot tables are for spreadsheet nerds, and there's some truth to that. Allison's goal, however, is to show you how enjoyable and useful they can be.

Now that Apple has finally brought pivot tables to Numbers, we can create them on our Macs, iPads, and even iPhones. Faced with a pile of data, pivot tables can help you can turn that mess into actionable information.

Allison uses data she's collected about solar energy generation and power consumption to demonstrate how to take a long spreadsheet and turn it into a simple 4x4 pivot table that answers the question, "Am I generating more power than I'm consuming?"

Joplin is a free open source note-taking app that works on all major platforms. It has a very active lead developer and community supporters, and provides a clean and functional interface that is a joy to use.

In this week's episode, Allison shares her passion for Joplin and takes you on a tour of its features to get you started on an app that may very well be a perfect fit for your needs.

You're probably very familiar with System Preferences if you've been using macOS for any length of time. Over the years, however, Apple has added more and more functionality and options into the various Preference Panes so it's hard to know every trick buried within.

This screencast is not a methodical walk-through of every available feature. Instead, Allison cherry-picks some of the more interesting and buried options that you may not know about.

Fission is an audio editor that is equally at ease with lossless and lossy (compressed) audio file formats. It is designed with speed and ease of use in mind for editing audio, and provides useful tools like trim, split and the combining of audio files into one. Fission can also handle specialized file formats such as iPhone ringtones, chapterized AAC files, and offers direct publishing to SoundCloud.

In this screencast, you get a complete tour of this nifty utility with Allison as your guide.

In this fast-paced tutorial, Allison shows you 14 tips and tricks in iOS 14. Most of the tips will also work in iPadOS, and nearly all will work regardless of your iPhone model. These tips will speed you up and reveal functionality you may not have known iOS even had.

You may have been using iOS for a very long time and think you can’t be surprised, but even if only a couple of these tips are news to you, it will be worth it. And if you’re new to iOS, buckle up!

Allison introduced you to Synium Software's Screenium 3 as an excellent app for screencasting in a previous show (SCOM1029) and showed you some basic functionality.

In this advanced tutorial, you learn many useful techniques and tools to take your screencast to the next level. These include recording Apple TV's user interface, multi-language generated speech and subtitles, animating shapes, text, and other objects, as well as more advanced configurations for the keyboard, desktop, and mouse clicks.

Screenium is inexpensive, and yet a remarkably capable video recording and editing application, perfect for making professional screencasts. It is so extensive in fact that we're going to give you this basic tutorial, followed by an advanced tutorial at a later date.

In this first part, Allison goes over the interface and explains in detail how to configure Screenium. You also learn how the timeline works, see how transitions and chapter markers are created, and more.

If you live on a small screen or have a lot of menu bar items, you need Bartender. This great utility, which has gone through a major redesign only for Big Sur, brings huge advancements in how you can control your menu bar items. With Allison as your guide, you learn about Bartender's many features and how to best customize them for your specific workflow.

Loom allows you to capture video of your screen and optionally your webcam while simultaneously uploading the video to the Loom online service. When you're finished recording, you can use the Loom web service to crop out portions of your video screencast, add calls to action, and share a link to your video.

In this week's episode, Allison gives you a tour of Loom and walks you through its workflow for creating screencasts.

Logoist 4 is a vector design program that helps you create unique art for logos, business cards, and more. In this project-based tutorial, Allison Sheridan shows how she used the software to create the cover for the Taming the Terminal book, available in Apple's Books Store. She explains how the templates in Logoist 4 give inspiration and walk you through the vast array of modification options available that allow the user to customize their design.

Notability from Ginger Labs has been around for over ten years. It turned the iPad into a full-featured note-taking app and has remained a favourite with countless users since.

In her very first ScreenCastsOnline tip video, Allison Sheridan walks you through some recent improvements to Notability that enhance handwriting. You learn about drawing shapes, creating various types of lines, and take a peek at the handwriting recognition feature.

This week, Allison takes you on a tour of xkpasswd, a web app that helps you create long, strong, and yet memorable and easy-to-type passwords. It comes with several presets such as one for creating Apple ID passwords that are easy to type on an iOS keyboard. You can tailor this flexible password generator's settings to your exact specifications.

Even if you currently use a password manager, there are some passwords you have to frequently type or even speak to your Apple TV remote. Make those passwords easier to say and to type by using xkpasswd to create them.

Loopback from Rogue Amoeba allows you to combine application audio and physical audio input devices together to be used within other applications. For example, combining the Music app with your microphone for a video call. You don't need a complicated mixer if you learn to use Loopback.

Allison also revisits Audio Hijack and shows you new features that enable you to capture the audio from special sources like Siri, Text to Speech, and VoiceOver. She also takes a very brief look at the new capabilities to broadcast Internet radio using Audio Hijack's Broadcast and Live Streaming options.