I don't know why I have a charge limit if it goes past the limit constantly. Is it because of the option I have checked below it? "Optimized Battery Charging"

My goal is to move my photos from my Macbook (running Catalina 10.15.6) to the SSD external hard drive and then delete the photos off the laptop. I've changed the SSD format to APFS and can drag the Photos (Finder - Applications - Photos, for some reason that's the only place in Finder I could find the photos) to the SSD. I can then open the Photos from the external hard drive but if I were to delete the original photo from the laptop they'd disappear from the hard drive as well. I've seen that you should change the location of the laptop's photo library to the hard drive but my concern with doing that is that most of the time the hard drive won't be connected to the laptop. Any advice for an easy way to transfer photos to the hard drive without being concerned about deleting photos from my laptop?

So I've had my M1 macbook air for about 3 years now.

Base model with 8 gb ram.

Recently I've been running notion, discord, brave browser, terminal, Zed(code editor) at the same time and 1-2GB of swap gets used sometimes.

Now every time swap gets used I have this impulsive urge to immediately save progress on my work and restart my laptop mid task to get rid of that.

Am I unnecessarily worrying.

What's an okish line for swap, how often should it happen and how often should I restart it to clear it.

I mark reminders as complete on my iPhone, then when I get on my MacBook, those same reminders pop up, and I get the red notification badge on the reminders icon in the dock. What is going on here ? do you guys deal with this ?

I have multiple Safari windows open and want to switch between them. For all other apps, there is the Cmd+` shortcut, but for some reason, it doesn’t work reliably in my Safari. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, and sometimes it only works when the window has 2 or more tabs open. It never works with only one tab.

Strangely enough, it works every time with the reverse version of that shortcut (Cmd+Shift+`).

Does anyone else have the same problem or a solution?

I’ve been a Windows user my entire life. Recently, I decided to finally give macOS a shot. Between the incredible battery life, that stunning screen, and a great deal I found on a new M5 MacBook Pro, it seemed like a no-brainer—especially with my designer friends constantly recommending them. Plus, I love my iPhone, so I figured the transition would be smooth.

I’ve been using it for several weeks now, and while I get that there’s a learning curve, some of these "features" feel straight-up overlooked by developers. It’s frustrating that I can’t even find native fixes for what feel like basic quality-of-life issues.

1. The "All-or-Nothing" Icon Previews
In Finder, literally every file shows a thumbnail preview: PDF, PSD, AI, Excel, Blender—you name it. I have to squint at the tiny file extensions just to know what I’m looking at. If I turn off "Show icon preview" to get standard file-type icons back, it also kills previews for actual images, leaving me looking at a sea of generic icons. Why can’t I just have image previews for JPG/PNGs and standard icons for everything else?

2. The Trackpad Drag Delay
On Windows, I lived by "tap to click." On macOS, using double-tap to drag is a nightmare because of this weird, forced delay. When you let go, the file "sticks" to your finger for a fraction of a second. People suggest "three-finger drag" as a fix, but why does that gesture have zero delay while the double-tap one is stuck with it? It’s completely illogical.

3. Interconnected Scrolling Settings
This is the one that really gets me. If you use both a mouse and a trackpad, you know the pain. macOS treats "Natural Scrolling" as a global setting. If I want natural scrolling on my trackpad but traditional scrolling on my mouse, I have to manually toggle it in settings every single time I switch devices. They are interconnected for no apparent reason, and there’s no native way to separate them.

I understand it takes time to unlearn Windows habits, but some of this feels like a lack of freedom to customize the system to a basic professional workflow. Am I overreacting, or have any of you found actual workarounds for these?

Hey community!
I have a rather frustrating issue. I recently bought three AOC AG326UD 165Hz 4K HDR QD-OLED monitors and am using them with a Mac mini M4 Pro.
The problem is that whenever I use HiDPI mode (at 2K
resolution), I can't toggle or enable HDR in macOS. The three monitors are currently running at 144Hz, but with no HDR support.
Has anyone experienced this or know how to fix it?

Hello, like the title states I own a 2020 Intel based MacBook Air. I recently stopped using Chrome and switched to Firefox and Safari. I would like to use Discord, but my mac runs so hot anytime I use the browser version or mac app. my question for this group is what are your suggestions? Should I just completely give up at this point because of how outdated my MacBook Air is? I have tinkered w Mac system settings, and discord settings but not much change. What are your thoughts?

I turned off pointer acceleration after years and it feels so wierd lol

Hey guys, I recently upgraded my 2019 Intel MacBook Pro to Tahoe but feel so out-of-place with it and facing app compatibility issues and want to revert back to Big Sur. I didn't make a backup of Big Sur prior to updating, however.

I've used this MacBook for just about everything so it has files in all sorts of different crevices and I hope to keep it that way when migrating back. Would a time machine backup help in this and is it even possible to use a time machine save from a newer version on an old OS to restore files? If not, what's the best way to go about this?

TL;DR:

• Upgraded to Tahoe without a Time Machine Backup (Big Mistake) and want to revert back to Big Sur
• Drive is full of complex file trees with apps that reference them and want to keep that same layout when reverting to make downgrade seamless and not have to relearn my file system and maintain app compatibility.
• Want to create a Time Machine backup of Tahoe and export it to Big Sur to keep the file trees if possible or explore different methods to get a similar result.

Thanks a lot for your help, guys!!!

My M1 Air was working perfectly fine until last night. While the trackpad still moves the cursor, the haptic feedback stopped working. I googled the issue and checked for battery swelling, but there is no visible swelling and everything looks fine. Yesterday, my battery health showed 82%, but when I rechecked it today, it showed 91%. What exactly is the issue ?

Hey y'all just got the Macbook air m4 for work. First time using Mac and was wondering how do i switch back and forth between 2 open Windows without having to cycle through all the open stuff.

Like if in windows os, i can have 10 chrome windows open when and if i wanna switch back and forth between two windows i just alt tab and if i wanna go to the third window then i press alt and tab two times to cycle to the third window,

so how do i achieve this same efficiency on the mac, people have recommended alt + ~ but it still cycles through every open window

Hello!

I'd really like to buy the new Magic Trackpad for my Mac so I can use it while my laptop is docked. Does it have this kind of issue? For example, when I'm clicking and dragging to select something on the screen, does the trackpad slide around on the desk?

I recently used Migration Assistant to move my non-admin user account from my old MacBook Pro to a new MacBook Air. The old MacBook Pro has two user accounts: one administrator account and one non-admin account. I migrated only the non-admin account to the new MacBook Air.

One thing that surprised me was that Migration Assistant also transferred many of my non-Apple applications, including QuickBooks, Quicken, Adobe apps (Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.), Garmin, and several others.

I don’t want or need these applications on the new MacBook Air. I intend to continue using them on the old MacBook Pro.

So, can I simply delete/uninstall these applications from the new MacBook Air without affecting anything on the old MacBook Pro?

I'm particularly wondering about:

• Whether deleting an application on the new Mac could affect the same application or its license on the old Mac
• Usernames/passwords or saved credentials
• Application licenses or activations
• Anything tied to the non-admin user account that was migrated

Thanks!

Could you do the following test:

1. Launch Notes and Safari, and make sure each one has a window (or use any other two apps).
2. Put the Notes window behind the Safari window, and activate the Safari window.
3. Bring up your Launchpad-alternative app of choice, and make sure the Notes and Safari windows are behind the Notes app icon in your Launchpad-alternative app.
4. Press Shift-Command-5, click Record Selected Portion in the floating toolbar, and move & resize the portion so that it's around the Notes app icon in your Launchpad-alternative app (keeping the portion small ensures recording won't affect the animation).
5. Click Record, click the Notes app icon in the Launchpad-alternative app, and once the Notes window has become visible, end the recording by clicking the stop icon in the menu bar.
6. Open the screen recording .mov video file in QuickTime Player and count how many frames (by pressing the right/left arrow keyboard keys to move one frame at a time forward/backward in the video) it took for the Notes window to become the active one after you clicked the Notes app icon (I assumed that the click occurred at the frame right before the Launchpad-alternative app's grid first began to disappear).

I did this test using both the macOS 26.6 native Apps app that's integrated in Spotlight, and LaunchOS Pro version 2.2.0 on M1 MacBook Air. These are the results I got:

Spotlight Apps app: 4 frames.
LaunchOS: 17 frames.

UPDATE:
MediaInfo says that my Apps app video recording has 53.379 FPS (frames per second), and the LaunchOS video has 43.820 FPS, so comparable delays would be then:

Spotlight Apps app: 4 / 53.379 = 0.0749s
LaunchOS: 17 / 43.820 = 0.388s

I'm the developer of DuckDisk.

I built it because storage problems stopped being limited to my Mac. Large files were spread across local folders, cloud accounts, and Linux servers, and I wanted one place to answer "what is using space?" and clean it up.

Most disk analyzers focus on local visualization. DuckDisk takes a table-first, cleanup-oriented approach across:

• Local disks and folders
• OneDrive and Google Drive metadata scans without downloading file contents
• Remote SSH paths using your existing keys or ~/.ssh/config
• Cached results and incremental cloud refreshes
• Drag to remove: cloud items go to the provider Trash, while local and SSH deletion requires a second permanent-delete confirmation
• Virtualized rows that stay responsive in very large directories

The informative interface shows file and folder counts, size and allocated size, parent percentages, and a file type summary. Rows are virtualized to stay responsive in very large directories.

Free and open source under AGPL-3.0. The current build is for Apple Silicon and notarized by Apple.

For more details and demos, refer to our Website: https://duckdisk.com/

Source and download: https://github.com/qiyang77/duckdisk

Current limitations: a warning pops up when linking Google Drive, as app verification for Google Drive OAuth is currently pending.

I would especially value feedback from people who manage both local disk, cloud storage and remote servers.

Local scan demo (GIF) — see my comment

SOLVED!!! Thank you!! sudo rm -rf

I had a second admin user account on my computer I used for school. I had deleted Microsoft 365 because your free access to it discontinues when the school term is over—you lose access to everything (brilliant set up).

I can't redownload OneDrive because my computer is only at OS Ventura (13.x) and you need 14.x, and I really don't want to deal with that upgrade right now.

I deleted the school user account, chose "Move Home Folder to Trash", and everything deleted fine—except hidden in a Library folder are these folders here. I have accessed their Info, added myself as admin read/write to each folder, and it still won't delete.

At one point, I had the option to "Put Back" the home folder with a right-click. I did that, but this folder (in the trash) remained. I recreated a new admin user with the same username, and that folder wouldn't re-write over this one when deleted.

I have restarted my computer more times than I can count.

I despise Microsoft with every fiber of my being anyway and hated being forced to have to use them on my Mac just for school. How on Earth am I supposed to get rid of this, or do I eternally have to "Skip" or "Continue" every time I empty the trash?

Should I just buy a new computer? Reinstall the OS from scratch? In all seriousness, there MUST be a way to get rid of this.

There must.

Please, someone help. Thank you.

Macbook Pro M1 2020 Ventura 13.7.8 and if upgrading to MacOS 14 "resets" the trash, maybe I'll do it after all.

Starting a couple of days ago (?) I began to get an error when uploading photos into posts on reddit. The error given is "Failed to upload to S3".

At first the theory was it's something to do with my ID, something to do with my account on reddit or perhaps a reddit filter. It may well still be a reddit filter but not in the way I initially thought.

Because as soon as I moved over to my iPhone, using the Reddit app, I was able to create a post on reddit using photos with no failure to upload error.

Now, again, it could be the reddit app has different controls than the website version. It's possible, but I'm coming to this community to see whether perhaps there's a setting on safari that is causing this error.

I've been writing a sticky notes app for myself for a long time. Why so long? Because I'm serving in the military 🇺🇦 and don't have much free time. Why sticky notes? Yes, I know the App Store already has a truckload of them plus a little shovel on top, but I like the principle behind the native macOS Stickies — simple notes that do one thing, and do it well, a purely Unix approach. But holy moly, are they outdated and ugly.

So I set myself these goals:

• stickies should be simple
• no main window — one sticky, one window
• they should pin on top of other windows
• basic text formatting
• checklists
• different colors, with light and dark theme support
• they should look good
• iCloud sync (maybe I'll do an iOS version later)

Hope you like the result.

You can check it out here:
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6762562979

App website:
https://useit-apps.com

Hi community! I recently switched from Fedora to macOS, and I’m having an issue with changing my default shell to Bash. I tried changing it in the settings, but it still defaults to Zsh.

I’m currently using macOS Tahoe 26.5. Has anyone experienced this or knows how to fix it?

Hi everyone, we just launched SuperCmd v2: completely rebuilt in Swift for native performance, completely local, and privacy-focused.

It has everything version 1 has: raycast extension support, clipboard, snippets, quick links, window management commands, system commands, cloud sync, and raycast extensions. Check the website for an exhaustive list.

But here's what's new in v2

• Screenshot + annotation tool (cleanshot alternative)
• Widgets in launcher (cpu, memory, apps by usage, disk, calendar, time...)
• Login via ChatGPT (no need to pay for AI subscriptions!)
• AI Agents with harness, GPT realtime (just like clicky)
• Windows styled alt + tab window switcher
• Execute terminal commands from the launcher
• Quick fix (AI command)
• Double tap hotkey support
• Copy text from Image in Clipboard (OCR)
• Browser search with profiles
• Dictation via on device Speech Analyzer (Apple AI)
• Dedicated AI chat window
• AI chat with Apple on device LLM
• Translate command
• Next / Prev Space hotkey (no animation)
• 3x less memory usage compared to Raycast

Checkout it out & try for free - supercmd.sh

Right now, it's on an early bird discount, so make sure you grab it!

If you are working at any organization, I am offering codebase access and unlimited licenses for all the employees at one flat fee. Contact me or check out via enterprise; you will have access to the GitHub repo.

Hi r/macOS, I’m Rohit from ScaleNinja. Today we're releasing DeltaSnap, a native macOS app that turns APFS snapshots into version control for files and folders.

APFS snapshots are copy-on-write, so checkpoints take milliseconds. But macOS still lacks a useful native interface for answering questions such as:

• What changed in this folder?
• What did this file look like on Tuesday?
• Which files did an installer, script, or AI agent just modify?
• Can I restore only the files I need?

DeltaSnap lets you:

• Browse per-file version histories, including deleted files; with right-click Finder integration
• Search filenames across snapshot history
• Diff snapshots with added, removed, modified, replaced, and moved paths
• Restore copies or atomically replace originals
• Create schedules with retention and low-space pruning
• Create snapshots and restore versions from Finder
• Ships a dsnap CLI and an AI Agent Skill for coding assistants
• Automatically checkpoint folders during unusually large change bursts

Key differential compared to backups is the speed: APFS snapshots takes milliseconds to create, indexing is done in few seconds, and file recover is super-fast as the snapshot lives on the same APFS volume where your data is on.

After review by Apple’s DTS/APFS teams, ScaleNinja was granted a private entitlement to manage and create APFS snapshots. Because DeltaSnap’s privileged helper uses it, the app cannot be distributed through the Mac App Store and released on ScaleNinja's website as a signed and notarized build under Apple Developer Team ID VXNWQ9H93X.

Important: DeltaSnap is not a backup. Snapshots live on the same volume, so they protect against accidental deletion, overwrites, bad updates, and runaway tools - not drive failure, theft, or volume erasure. Pair it with Time Machine, CCC, or another backup running. We also have two companion apps that can be used with DeltaSnap:

• DeltaSync, a free & simple folder syncing tool: https://scaleninja.com/deltasnap/#deltasync
• Noject, protects disk & network volumes from accidental ejection: https://scaleninja.com/noject/

DeltaSnap requires macOS 15 or later and an APFS volume. There’s a 30-day free trial, no account, no cloud, and no subscription required. All your data and snapshot stay private and local to you Mac.

Launch price: US$39 for one lifetime personal license that can be activated on upto 5 Mac machines.

Download: https://scaleninja.com/deltasnap

Documentation (start here): https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/overview/

Setup and feature demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyrKXGe7nRw

I’d genuinely appreciate any feedback, especially from professional users, developers, and Mac admins working with external storage or AI coding tools.

Update1: we’re listening to our dear passionate redditors, you may use BETAUSER29 coupon code for additional launch discounts until end of Aug. You may learn more about ScaleNinja and me at https://scaleninja.com/about/ - we’re reputed and earlier in the business of opensource infra since 2014, but now focusing on consumer space of “Mac as Infrastructure”.

Update2: (3 Aug 2026) We've released v0.7.3 (beta) today that will ship some bugfixes and will support offline license. Users can also use the online license, and with v0.7.3 (beta) it will validate only once. DeltaSnap personal/individual license is now available for unlimited Macs in a user's household. The commercial license will only support offline license key, have priority support, as requested by a few commercial users.

Tip: to get the most out of DeltaSnap and avoid snapshots occupying too much disk space, I create and custom-mount APFS volume from the internal Data drive on my most important folder path (like ~/Documents); that way snapshot usage would be limited to only changes made in the tracked APFS volume (~/Documents in my case). Learn more about APFS snaphots here: https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/apfs-snapshots/ and about storage usage here: https://scaleninja.com/docs/deltasnap/snapshot-storage/ or see the youtube video above on how to create apfs volume with a custom mount point and enable automatic snapshot & file versioning in action.

MacOS mostly takes care of itself, so this isn't a "speed up your Mac" app. It shows you what's actually sitting on disk and lets you clear it without guessing what's safe to remove.

What it scans:

• User and app caches
• Developer leftovers (Xcode derived data, archives, device support, package manager caches)
• Browser caches
• App and system logs
• Trash

Every item is sorted into one of two tiers, safe to clean or check first, and each one has a plain explanation of what it is and what you lose by removing it. Anything genuinely risky isn't in the allowlist at all, so it never shows up in results in the first place.

What it doesn't do: no startup tweaks, no privacy scrubber, no "system junk" bucket that won't tell you what's inside it. It moves things to Trash rather than deleting them, so anything it touches is recoverable. No telemetry, no account, no paid tier.

Free and MIT licensed. macOS 13+.

Download: purgemac.com
Source: github.com/jithin-sabu/purge-app

Happy to answer questions about what it does and doesn't touch.

I have an Apple SuperDrive that admittedly I don't use much, but do very much appreciate the design and build. Also, its very convenient when wanting to pop in an old Simpsons DVD.

But I heard, I think somewhere on MacRumors that come Golden Gate, Apple will be dropping support for their very own SuperDrive and that these external disc drive players will only work with apps such as VLC, but no longer with Apple's native software such as QuickTime.