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In Show 1414, Lee looked at the Option key on macOS and how it can be used in conjunction with other keys on your keyboard to get to commonly-used actions quickly. There was a lot there, however it's not the only key with hidden talents; The Globe key (also known as the Function key) performs a similar role. In this video, Lee shows you some of the useful functionality it's hiding that might very well be of use to you when spending time at your Mac.As a bonus, you also get a brief look at BetterTouchTool, a wonderful utility that Lee used to remap one of the top-row function keys.

It's time to get a little geeky! When it comes to using Mail daily, lots of tasks can become repetitive and whilst it may not seem like a lot of time is wasted on these actions, when you add up the time involved, it soon builds up. Now lots of these tasks can be automated with a little bit of AppleScript and in this video, Lee walks you through three simple examples that will help create new message templates, download files to a specific location as well as move messages and change their flagged and read status.

You can also download the text files Lee uses as examples, from the link below.

Proton Mail is part of a growing suite of privacy-focused applications developed by scientists who met at CERN. Designed with security and freedom as core principles, Proton Mail not only offers robust encryption—it also delivers a clean, user-friendly interface.

In this video, Lee guides you through everything you need to know to get started. You’ll learn how to set up different types of Proton Mail accounts, compose encrypted emails, and see what it’s like for someone without a Proton account to receive a password-protected message. Lee also covers how to forward emails from Gmail into Proton Mail—and even how to migrate your entire Gmail account if you’re ready to make the switch.

More of a conceptual video this time round as Lee walks you through his menu bar setup, starting with a look at how it's structured, followed by a brief look at the software used to manage it. Then, the bulk of the video centres on some brief overviews as to the apps themselves, and how they are used. If you are looking for inspiration as to how to set up your own menu bar, or just look for some new apps, this could be the video for you.

Every September we take a look at the major releases of macOS, iOS and iPadOS to ensure you have the latest knowledge so you can use these operating systems to their full potential.

There are, however, a lot of features that get released over the course of the year that can go unnoticed. In this video, Lee rounds up some of the most popular updates since that last major release. He also showcases the Vision Pro app at the very end, for those of you who own Apple's spatial computing device.

These update apply to:

macOS 15.0 and above

iOS 18.0 and above

iPadOS 18.0 and above

Launchpad has been available on your Mac for a long time, and yet it's easy to forget that it's there.  It's an extremely useful utility that can be faster at launching applications than Spotlight is.In this video, Lee walks you through the different ways you can invoke Launchpad, use it to remove applications, as well as mimic your iOS layout. You also get that Power User feeling by using the Terminal application to add more rows and columns to your setup via the command line.  There's something for everyone in this video!

When your Apple laptop's battery is working as it should, you don't tend to not notice; it just works.  However when the things you do on your Mac are causing it to drain more quickly, it can have a significant impact on your day to day.  In this tip video, Lee walks you through some key settings you can apply to keep your device lasting longer when you are off of the mains.  You also learn how you can use Activity Monitor (a utility built in to macOS) to identify and troubleshoot apps and processes that affect your battery's performance.

Sometimes we have tools at our fingertips that we may believe only have one purpose. The App Switcher, that is built into macOS, is one such example. Using Command and Tab to switch between applications is muscle memory for many users. However in this video, Lee shows you that it can also be used to quit apps, hide them, as drag and drop files between them, and more.

The App Switcher is a feature available on all version of macOS, so Command-tab away!

Help is the menu that sits on the far right of the menu bar on macOS for all applications. It can be easily ignored, despite its ability to assist you with your efficiency in using your apps and systems, without the need to go to the web to search for information. It's right there when you need it!

In this video, Lee shows you how you can use the Help menu to browse User Guides, find menu commands, get updates on new features, and even control your menu bar just from the keyboard — no mouse required!

Apple’s build-in Reminders app has received a lot of love recently and the requests for utilising a Kanban view for managing reminders has been granted. Splitting your reminders into different columns offers a new way to organise your tasks and projects. In this video, Lee shows you how to set that up using a real world example. And with Templates now available for those projects you often repeat, Reminders has become even more useful.

The version of Reminders used in this screencast is the latest one available for iPadOS. The features shown here are identical on the Mac as well as iPhone. Make sure your devices run iOS 17 or newer, and macOS 14 or newer.

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!

In episode 1412, we looked at how Writing Tools (part of Apple Intelligence) can help you improve how your text is formed. In this video, Lee looks at two more features that have landed in the first wave of Apple Intelligence: Summaries and Smart Replies. Summaries work in Notification Centre, where your alerts can be summarised into the most optimal text, as well as Mail and Messages where you can get a summary of the information displayed rather than read through it all. With Smart Replies, Apple Intelligence can form a response to the message, for you to accept or amend as needed. Lee shows you how to set it all up in this short video.

See Resources section below for system requirements needed to run Apple Intelligence on your device. 

In our weekly ScreenCastsONLINE Newsletter, Lee started adding a Quick Tip on the end; a couple of lines on that help you do something more efficiently on your Apple device, and that you may not have known about. As he's been collecting them, Lee realised that there is a lot you can do with the Option key! Whether quickly showing or hiding parts of the interface like the toolbar or sidebar, opening weblinks or accessing hidden functionality, the Option key can help you with many common tasks.

In this video, Lee runs through several of his favourites across a few apps, and of course, Finder.

This video was shot on macOS 15 Sequoia. If you are running your Mac on an earlier version, some graphical elements might look different.

The first wave of Apple Intelligence has landed — in the US at least!  One of the main features that you can now take advantage of is Writing Tools. These tools help take your text and rewrite it, making it more professional, humourous, concise as well as proofread your writing to ensure your syntax, spelling and punctuation are on point. Lee walks through this exciting new feature in this video, and also shows you that you can use Writing Tools on third-party apps, Drafts in this case.

To run Apple Intelligence, you need a compatible iPhone, iPad, or Mac. (See resource below.)

Software requirement:

iOS 18.1 and above

iPadOS 18.1 and above

macOS 15.1 and above

We use Finder on our Mac every day. But how well do we really know it? Many new features have been added over the years, (most recently in macOS Sequoia) so we felt it was time for an update.

Follow along as Darcy explores the nooks and crannies of Finder, including grouping items using a variety of options, batch renaming files, organising using tags, and customising the sidebar to keep your most used folders at the ready. You also learn how some useful info about iCloud Drive, and how you can have your Desktop and Documents folders available to all the devices connected to your Apple Account.

In this week's episode, Don explores some of the new features of macOS Sequoia which was released a few days ago, on September 16. He goes over many improvements to existing apps, as well as the brand-new Passwords app, Photos updated interface, the integration of Reminders with Calendar, and much more. He also stresses the importance of having a backup of your Mac before considering upgrading to this new version of macOS. If you are relying on important software on your day-to-day work, it's also crucial to make sure that it is compatible with this new version.

It's been a while since we kicked the tyres on Pages for Mac, so Lee thought it was time to take a look at some of the more advanced features the app has to offer. It's far more than just a word processing application. In fact, we create the ScreenCastsONLINE Monthly Magazine using Pages! So in this video, Lee goes over the difference between a word processing document and page layout document, and looks at advanced settings for creating margins, tab stops, laying out your page and formatting your text. He also shows you charts, how to review documents with Track Changes, as well as reverting to previous versions of your files, and much more.

• Pages for Mac requires macOS 13.0 or later.

• Latest Pages videos on ScreenCastsONLINE

Continuing our focus on the apps we get as part of our operating systems, this week we are looking at Calendar on the Mac. There is no shortage of third-party calendar applications to tempt us, and it's true that many of them are compelling and offer unique power user features along with beautiful, modern interfaces. However if you need an application that is reliable, connects with a large number of calendar providers, and interacts with other built-in applications like Mail and Contacts, then you need only look at Apple's Calendar app.

In this video, you learn about all of the main features with Lee as your guide, from the basics of event entry and management, all the way to configuring time-to-leave alerts as well as printing full-size planners.

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!

In episode 1341, Lee released the first part of his deep dive into Apple Notes, covering how to create notes, format them, create links and work with attachments.  In this second instalment, he focuses on organising your notes using folders, tags and Smart Folders. Lee also covers collaborating with others and exporting your notes for use with other applications.