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Joseph Humfreys' Substage integrates the natural language approach offered by products like ChatGPT into the Finder on macOS, allowing you to action complex commands that would normally take multiple windows or multiple apps to accomplish.

Imagine needing to email a video, but it's too large? You've taken some great photos with your iPhone but the format doesn't work when uploading to a website? Just ask through Substage to make the video smaller, or change the photo type. You learn this and a lot more with Darcy as your guide in this short video.

Proton Mail has always been at the forefront of privacy and security. But now that same company has expanded into a wide range of apps with the same philosophy. We explore how many of them complement Mail, like Proton Calendar for organising your schedule while sharing important events with all involved. Proton Drive provides a secure storage space for all your documents, allowing you to collaborate on documents or share files using password protected links.

Then go a step further with Proton Pass for securing not only your passwords, but documents of all types including ID and banking information. To top it all off Proton have created their own VPN service to protect all your information as you browse the web from anywhere in the world.

Whilst helping his daughter with her finances before heading off to college, Lee found himself using the stock Calculator app on both iPhone and iPad and realising there was a lot more to it than he realised. He already knew about several of its features, but there was a fair amount left to discover, making it an excellent topic for a Tuesday Tip Video. In this screencast, you learn how to use the Scientific Calculator, Maths Notes, built-in unit Converter, and more.

When the Action Button was introduced to the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max in September 2023, it replaced the traditional mute switch, which had been present since the 2007 iPhone. So many people just converted this button back to muting the device! There's so much more you can do with it though, and in this video, Lee shows you how he does indeed still use it as a mute switch, but also as an input button for tasks, ideas and memories at the same time.

Lee is passionate about using hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts to get to actions quicker when using his Mac. Remembering them all, however, can be a tricky affair. Not so if you use Ergonis' KeyCue, a highly customisable utility that allows you to view a list of application and system hotkeys with the touch of a button.

In this video, Lee shows you how to configure KeyCue not just to view hotkey combinations, but also files and folders, Typinator (Lee's preferred text expansion tool) abbreviation sets, emoji tables, lists of URLS, and more.

KeyCue requires macOS 10.12 and newer.

A constant bugbear of many Mac users has been trying to find a reliable solution for backing up both iCloud Drive and iCloud Photo Library data. After all, it's important to note that these are NOT backups within themselves, and it's a good idea to have a separate solution for them - especially for those beloved photos.Parachute Backup for macOS is a great utility that does exactly this and in this video, Lee actually uses it for the first time to see if it's worth the praise it's been receiving. The results speak for themselves.Parachute Backup costs $4.99 in the Mac App Store

Have you ever glanced at your iPhone and realised that you're down to your last 10% of charge with no charger in sight? Or set off on a trip knowing that the charge on your iPhone isn't going to last the day and you left your battery pack at home?

Low Power Mode to the rescue.

Lower Power Mode optimises your battery life by switching off non-essential services and gives you extended power just when you need it. In this tip video, Don takes you through the basics of Low Power Mode. He also shows you to create an automation in Shortcuts that turns on Low Power Mode automatically based on your battery's charge level.

Lee loves having little sticky notes around his desk, that have little bits of information, like phone numbers he's jotted down, important information relating to the project he's working on that he knows he needs to go back to.  Everyone loves a sticky note, however not as many people know that there is a built-in Stickies application on macOS.

In this video, Lee not only shows you how to create and format sticky notes to your liking, he also works around the lack of support for Stickies in the Shortcuts app and walks you through a couple of scripts you can create to automate the creation of Stickies with just a keystroke.

Downtime is a precious commodity so when you get some time to sit back and consume media, whether it's a movie, series, book, audio book or playing a game, you want to be sure you're making the most of that time.  Sequel is an application that Lee has embedded firmly into his workflow as it allows you to add titles into wishlists from a variety of sources and then, when you get the chance to sit down and relax, it can guide you to ensure you are not wasting time, scrolling for the next thing to watch. You can add items manually, or from an external source and Sequel has a Magic Lookup feature that enables it to read a web page and find media that can be added to your Sequel database. You can set up Release Reminders so when your new show lands, you don't miss it and it's a highly customisable application with great Shortcuts support and Home Screen Widgets.

In his video, Lee walks you through the application end to end.

Numi is a sleek, notepad-style calculator app for macOS designed to blend natural language with powerful calculation features. You can type expressions like “$20 in euro - 5%” or “today + 2 weeks,” and Numi instantly interprets and computes the result in a clear and elegant interface. It supports simultaneous multi-step calculations, unit and currency conversions, time-zone and date math, percentages., and maintains a history of your calculations in organized “notes,” making it both intuitive and efficient.

In this video, Lee walks you through some of the best features of Numi.

Numi runs on macOS 10.13 or newer.

Whilst it's important to keep your Mac as clutter-free as possible, it's even more important to do so prior to upgrading your operating system. With macOS Tahoe just around the corner, Lee thought it would be a good idea to revisit CleanMyMac.

This popular utility from MacPaw has undergone some changes since we last covered it in 2021, with a whole new interface as well as some new features. Lee shows you My Clutter which sorts through your storage, deleting your unneeded files, and Cloud Cleanup which connects to your cloud storage provider and helps improve your sync times by only syncing files you truly need.

CleanMyMac runs on macOS 11 or later.

Dynamic Island is the latest in software innovations for the iPhone, enhancing the notch with seamless interactions for live activities, media control and so much more.  NotchNook brings these innovations and more to the notch on MacBook Pros, and introduces a virtual notch on other Macs.  Interact with this area to write notes, use your calendar, control what's playing and access your Siri Shortcuts without opening any other applications.  For professionals, the notch houses a tray which stores files that can be previewed, opened or airdropped.NotchNook is $25 for a one off purchase, $3 per month for a subscription, or you can pick it up as part of your Setapp subscription

There are many different apps that track your nutrition and diet, but few do it as effortlessly as FitCounter. Use your camera to scan foods while you shop, showing their nutritional information including calories, protein, fats and carbs. Add them directly to your breakfast, lunch or dinner for that day or save them to your library for later use. And overall picture of what you’re eating throughout the day emerges, advising you to increase or decrease consumption to meet your goals.  Meals can be saved for reuse, and FitCounter even offers a large digital cookbook so you can get ideas for meals, recipes and include them in your tracking.FitCounter is a subscription-based product costing £29.99 for an annual payment at time of recording, or £5.99 per month if paying monthly.

Whilst working from his web browser this week, Lee was trying to capture some text from an image that wasn't playing ball…He then discovered a workaround that he wanted to share.

This led him to creating this short video covering Live Text on macOS and how you can use it to capture information. At the end of the video, Lee fires up Shortcuts and creates a simple shortcut that automates this process for you!

The feature shown here will work on a Mac with an M1 chip or newer running macOS 12 or later.

Snailed It Development Ltd have got another hit on their hands with the release of Capsule, the Medication Tracker for iOS and iPadOS that can really help keep you on top of the medications you need to take. It's a highly customisable app that focuses on one premise, and executing that premise well - ensuring that yourself, and your loved ones, take your medication when you should. With support for advanced scheduling, minimum dose frequencies, tags, Shortcuts and Widgets, this is a must-have application if you have a complex medication routine that needs regulating.

After a lengthy beta testing period, DEVONthink 4 is out and in this video, Lee kicks the tyres of the best new features that come with it. It will come as no surprise to users of DEVONthink that AI is now a core addition to the feature-set, however unlike other applications, it's not forced upon you at every turn. In fact, you can install the latest version and not even realise that AI is available -  which is a good thing. It can be used in a small capacity, or as the main framework behind all of your work -  the choice is yours.

Lee will walk you through how to configure DEVONthink to use a 3rd party AI engine for basic queries, summarisation, transcriptions, advanced queries with multiple documents, even writing scripts with the built-in Script Assistant! Not all features are AI-centric. DEVONthink 4 now introduces Audit-Proof Databases, which prevent modifications to ANY files contained within, we have automatic versioning for documents that are edited within DEVONthink as well as the ability to add a Table Of Contents to any PDF file. It's a solid update.

Have you ever wished you could write your own application but didn't know where to start? Do you find programming to be difficult and intimidating? Well it's now possible to create apps from scratch with zero programming knowledge; All you need is an idea.

In this tutorial, Don dives into the power of Replit, a web-based platform that creates apps, websites and more, without you needing to write a single line of code. You learn alongside Don as he designs a simple to-do app, improving on it using Replit Agent which does the heavy lifting, and bringing it to life as a fully featured, multi-user web app and iPhone app.

While many apps like Apple’s native Passwords do a good job of organising and securing your login credentials, there are many more types of data that need the same treatment. Access provides a secure space to store a range of information like bank details, drivers licences and passports. With even more categories that include gift cards and software licences. This app can secure almost anything with private, customisable spaces and provides the perfect addition to your regular passwords manager.

Whilst scouting through some recent Indie app releases, Lee happened upon a wonderful utility for macOS that helps streamline your Desktop items. If you are the kind of user who loves having a desktop full of files and folders, yet finds it gets overloaded, InfiniDesk is for you, as you can create individual virtual desktops that house subsets of these items.

This tip video starts off with an overview of macOS Desktop Spaces and how they work, and concludes with a walkthrough of the InfiniDesk application.

In the first set of apps by the prolific developer Sindre Sorhus, Allison taught you how to use Dato, Aiko, and Velja. She's back with four more small but powerful apps from Sindre.

Plain Text Editor for Mac, iPad, and iPhone gives you a place to get your thoughts down without distraction of things like formatting.

Online Check simply tells you when your Mac has gone offline, and when it goes back online.

If Dato was too much in a calendar menu bar app, Today might be for you. It only shows you the things on your calendar today.

Any Text will let you create text widgets on your lockscreen or home screen of your Mac, iPad, and iPhone.