Tagged macOS

App to Uninstall Apps on CLI

My previous app remover was a one-time purchase app that went into maintenance mode with no major improvements since its release. It also lacks one feature I’d consider fundamental, one I would find useful for AI-assisted environments — exporting the list of files it found. Search for an app, and it gives back a listing in its GUI. For a human end user, that may be enough. Put AI into the mix, though, and a text list not only makes it easier to keep track of what was removed but also lets the AI vet the files before they are…

App to Remove Apple Intelligence on macOS

The key feature delivered with macOS 27 Golden Gate is Siri AI, part of Apple Intelligence. And unlike the previous macOS, Golden Gate lacks the simple on-and-off switch to disable the AI. Not to mention the models, reportedly around 12GB, stay on the drive.

App to Preview Markdown in Quick Look

Markdown is not a hard format to edit. Any native text editor, paid editor, or even personal knowledge manager can handle Markdown files to some degree. But that is not particularly helpful when the goal is to open a README file in a newly discovered open-source project. Quick Look on macOS, while it displays the file as-is, does not render Markdown properly.

How to Set Up Daily Time Machine Backup with Local Hourly

This piece is a continuation from an app-to I published a few days ago. Currently, Time Machine does not natively support hourly local snapshot creation when the backup schedule is set to daily. Although it sounds counterintuitive, the key here is “local snapshot”. Time Machine runs on snapshots, capturing what has changed at every interval. Creating a snapshot locally is a light task, whereas pushing the snapshot to a remote location isn’t. Hence why I searched for a solution.

App to Customize Time Machine Schedule

Of many things I have adopted over the course of years, Time Machine is one element that is both most helpful if hell breaks loose and least updated since. I have discussed the shortcomings of Time Machine and shared some of the possible remedies before. Apple’s own iOS backup system supersedes macOS Time Machine. It is remote, and nothing equivalent is offered on the Mac yet. But one feature was added rather recently: rudimentary scheduling.

App to Test USB-C Cables on macOS

I did float the idea of buying a USB-C tester only to be thoroughly defeated. USB-C, as it stands, is more about the physical shape of the plug and port, not what is traveling on the cable itself. However, USB-C simply isn’t “one cable to rule them all”. Type C is more a nutrition label or laundry tag — universal in format, but nothing in the rules says a cable has to support all of it.

macOS to Drop Encrypted HFS+ Support by 2027

Apple announced that macOS 28, which will be released in 2027, will not support encrypted HFS+. The support document simply calls it “Mac OS Extended file system”. You may want to double-check old archival HDDs if they’re still formatted to encrypted HFS+. I’d recommend simply reformatting the drive to encrypted APFS, though decrypting the volume is an option too.

App to Prune Time Machine Backup

Time Machine is the reason I recommend macOS for regular users. It’s quick. It’s simple. It’s set and forget. But there also comes a point where your Time Machine destination, be it remote or local, needs pruning. The cleanest solution without additional tools is to create another destination on a regular basis, perhaps with every new machine. However, keeping two independent destinations comes at the cost of double the initial commit.

How to Remedy “Go to Line” on Nano Editor

There are a few annotations that only Unix-likes are fixated on, one of which is ^. It means the Control key on the keyboard. Official Mac keyboards often include the annotation right on the keycaps, so it is never difficult to find. However, there are shortcuts that just won’t work even after the deciphering. For example, “Go to Line” on GNU nano. The Homebrew version of nano editor says the shortcut is ^/, yet it fails to register.

What Remains of Fable 5 Ban

Apple said Apple Intelligence would bring AI to its brand. It was a broken promise, unless Genmoji is to be considered a success. Apple is now saying the new Siri AI will deliver the promises they made back in 2024. Neither iOS 27 nor macOS Golden Gate has been officially released (available only in beta), but this definitely marks the beginning of the full transition toward AI-centrism in consumer OS. The dependency is real now — local or cloud, there’s no opting out.

How to Band-aid Fix macOS Music App Freezing on Launch

The app in question is the Music app bundled with every Mac, not to be confused with the streaming service from the same company. And unfortunately, I was not able to narrow down what causes the issue. Upon opening the app, none of the UI is working. The only recourse, even though the app is not “unresponsive”, was to quit it.

How to Change tmux Scroll Buffer (History)

It’s funny how I discover the settings I would have wanted to change before I run a massive migration script. This is a story of tmux, yet again. tmux is definitely a better tool to have when the work is done remotely over Terminal. The only downside of it all, aside from being old-fashioned CLI, has to be what I took it for granted on local Terminal sessions — history. tmux has limited history or scroll buffer.

How to Add Mouse and Scroll Shortcut for tmux

While tmux is a wonderful tool on its own, for mere mortals like myself, I jump back and forth between GUI and CLI. At least, that’s the impression I am getting from tmux why I am not getting 100% out of it. The shortcuts, quite frankly, are not intuitive for modern GUI users mind.

App to Create Scroll Screenshot on macOS

Though many browsers already support exporting a webpage as a long screenshot (or a scroll screenshot), from my experience, it doesn’t help the fact that it is filled with non-essentials. It’s a fact of all media. If you are saving only certain part of the post, exporting the entire page into PDF or JPEG is likely a step that will produce quite a lot of waste. And unlike iOS, screenshot tools on macOS are generally too expensive for one feature.