Innehållsförteckning för No. 199 från iCreate

However well you think you know your Mac or iOS device – well you should do, you spend enough hours using them – there are undoubtedly ways in which their efficiency can be improved. Maybe you spend unnecessarily long amounts of time performing the same tasks, or maybe you’ve never delved into the far-flung corners of your Settings or System Preferences to discover what hidden options may lurk to enhance the performance of your device to better suit your needs? This is why we have tapped into the best, little-known, rarely-exploited secrets of your devices to being you the 50 Best Apple Hacks for Mac and iOS. Also in this issue we assist you in taming your email inboxes once and for all with the ultimate Mail Masterclass and, as…

The Terminal is not something you will need on a daily basis, but it is one of the best tools for hacking your Mac. Provided you are careful with what you input, you can make changes in seconds that will last for years of Mac usage. 41 SS hidden files Input ‘defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE’ and hit Enter. Now type ‘killall Finder’ and all of the hidden files will be displayed in Finder. Just make sure that you are careful when deleting files if you are not sure what they are. 42 Keep the Mac awake In Terminal you can simply type ‘caffeinate’ and your Mac will stay awake until you press Ctrl+C. It’s a very simple way to keep your Mac running, but you can also download…

Because we take our iPhone with us wherever we go we always have a camera close to hand to document daily life. As a result our Phone will be crammed full of shots that we’ll need to process and share. Although we can edit images using our iOS Photos app we may want to tweak them on our Mac’s larger screen using the wider range of tools found in the desktop version of Photos. Fortunately we can set up our iPhone to automatically upload new shots to our iCloud account. They will then be ready to view, edit and share in the Photos app on any of our other iCloud connected devices. By syncing with iCloud we can also store low-res photos on our iPhone so that it doesn’t get…

Funnily enough, given all we can do to work with instruments in GarageBand, we often take vocals for granted. In fact, the singing bit is often the focal point and hugely important to get right. This starts with the input of course and recording talented, tuneful vocal lines well and cleanly. So you’ll need a decent microphone, but what next? Well, a great first step is to explore the track patch library and the application of preset options for shaping the sound. All customisable, each provides instant processing to add subtle changes like added brightness, compression and fuzz, or something more extreme. In this guide we’ll find those patches, apply them and identify the impact that a handful of them have on your vocal tracks. Step-by-step  Apply patch effects to…

Don’t forget MIDI Since the effect is created by placing part of a region onto a track containing an AU plugin, you can use this technique just as well for MIDI regions as well as with audio tracks. Knowledge base It’s delay time! Delay effects repeat audio you feed into them. You control the number of repeats generated and the timing of the space between repeats. Short delay times of just a few milliseconds can be used to thicken a vocal sound, but the type of delay time that works best for this technique should be something like a quarter or eighth-note Tempo sync This sets the delay times so that the repeats fall in time with the beat of your project – simply select the required note duration value.…

Two types of document can be created with Apple Pages – there is a standard word processor document and a page layout document. A book and a magazine illustrate the difference. A book runs on and on with page after page of text, whereas a magazine has well defined sections like the contents, features, tutorials, readers’ letters, and so on. Each section has a specific design. A magazine is built on templates and they are used throughout. Pages can create magazine-style layouts by using master pages. A document can have several master pages with different designs and when a new page is added, you choose which master page to base it on. Then you fill in the blanks and swap image placeholders to create the page. It saves time and…

When macOS Mojave was released, it removed the option to print photo books, calendars and cards direct from the Photos app, which many Mac users relied on for personalised gifts. However, Mojave does include third-party extensions for the Photos app and so RR Donnelley, Apple’s global supplier of the aforementioned print services since 2005, launched Motif, a service built on Apple intelligence that continues to allow you to create your own photo projects and get them printed out and delivered to your door. The app is being updated regularly to include more handy features and couldn’t be easier to use, as we will now demonstrate. Step-by-step  Create your own Motif photo projects 1 Download the app Go to the App Store and download the free Motif app. When it has…

Do you like to work in silence or do you prefer your Mac to be more talkative? There is a lot your Mac can say and it can be surprisingly chatty, saying all sorts of things from the time to what is on the screen. Siri is the obvious way the Mac talks to you, and if you don’t like the default voice, it can be changed and a different one selected. The Mac can read out text on the screen, such as in web pages and in the Apple News app. This is particularly useful when you come across a very long article or news story and want to just sit back and listen. There are even novelty voices and they can be assigned to alerts and time announcements.…

Hidden junk Folders created by apps no longer on your Mac, iPhone or iPad appear and they are irritating if you like to keep your storage clean. There does not appear to be a way to delete them. Find unused apps iCloud in System Preferences provides some clean-up functions and on the left are items created by apps on the Mac, iPhone or iPad. You may see some that you no longer have installed. Clean the junk Files and data are kept just in case you want to reinstall an app on your Mac, iPhone or iPad. If you will never use this again, click ‘Delete Documents and Data’ to recover the storage. Show hidden files There are many hidden files on the disk and iCloud that Finder never shows.…

Think about the people in Apple Contacts and you have family, friends, work colleagues or contacts and so on. People naturally cluster into groups and it can be useful to create them in the Contacts app. Instead of searching for people, selecting the Family group, for example, instantly shows all your relatives, or selecting a work group lists everyone at work. It is also possible to specify relationships between contacts, such as spouse, father, mother, brother, daughter and so on. This can be for your own family or for other contacts. Relationships add an extra bit of information that is useful in searches, so a search for ‘John Smith’ shows both John Smith and Sarah Jones, if Sarah is his daughter. Step-by-step  Organise contacts to manage them better 1 Find…

Take a deep breath in a city and you can bet it’s not a blast of fresh air. There are so many pollutants around, from ground-level ozone to carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, that it’s a good idea to know how hazardous the air is in any given location. With Apple Maps, you can now get a solid feel thanks to the addition of the Air Quality Index. Presenting itself as a number, it resides in the bottom-right of the screen along with the weather and temperature and, because it changes as you move around the map and draws upon real-time data, it should help you to avoid unhealthy situations, particularly if you’re sensitive to pollution. It was added to iOS 12.2 so make sure you…

Sometimes you happen to come across text in a photograph containing words in an unfamiliar language that you’d like to translate. If you have Google Translate installed on your device, it allows you to access your images and receive an instant translation of any foreign words contained within them. It should help you avoid manually translating any tricky text. There are many potential uses for this feature. Perhaps you’ve got a photograph of a sign, snapped a letter or seen an interesting looking magazine article. Maybe you’ve spotted an image with foreign text online (just take a screenshot, import it into Google Translate and you’ll soon discover what it says). It’s certainly a useful feature to know about as the holiday season kicks in. Step-by-step  Decipher foreign words from images…

There is, and it is all done through Finder, which is designed to hide the complexity of file structures within macOS, but allows advanced file management if needed. One of these more advanced features is the ability to deal with batches of files and make changes to them all simultaneously that would otherwise take you a long time if you were to do it individually. Here we show you how to batch-rename files, but you can also change the format of files here too. 1 Highlight items Locate the items that you wish to batch-rename and then click and drag to highlight them all in Finder. Add individual files by Cmd+clicking on them. 2 Right-click Right-click or Ctrl+click on the highlighted files and you will see the option to ‘Rename…

Requirements macOS 10.13 or later • 64-bit processor • 14.6MB Learn more getdrafts.com Available from App Store WORDSMITHS NEVER quite know when the mental floodgates will open to pour out rich musings and prose, but Drafts is ready and waiting to capture your creative ideas when they do. The app is universal across Mac, iOS and Apple Watch and can be instantly launched on Mac via a ‘quick capture’ shortcut, which can be set up in Drafts>Preferences>General. Tapping this shortcut causes a text window to instantly appear on your Mac desktop, ensuring that no thoughts are lost as your mind is allowed to wander. “Tapping a shortcut causes a text window to instantly appear on your desktop, ensuring no thoughts are lost” The app comes with syntax highlighting for markup…

David Crookes This month our iOS expert dissects the recent iOS 12.2 update to uncover the best new features, including how to monitor the air quality in Maps and schedule your downtime. Shaun McGill Tech expert Shaun has hand-picked 50 of the very best Mac and iOS hacks – the hidden settings, options and features that help you unleash the true power of your Apple tech. George Cairns This issue, our creative expert demonstrates how to edit your iMovie footage in layers and exploit lens distortion for the benefit of your projects in Final Cut Pro. Facebook iCreateMagazine Twitter @iCreateMagazine Instagram icreate_mag Email icreate@futurenet.com…

The word ‘hack’ suggests that you need programming skills or in-depth knowledge of an operating system to change it to work for your specific needs, but this is not the case. A hack can be anything from going deep and building a small app to using your iPhone or Mac in a different way to what would normally be expected. macOS and iOS contain a number of features that will allow you to take advantage of what is available and to use each to the best of your ability. The fact that these features are not always obvious should not stop you from utilising them and, even better, the vast majority take a second to learn in order to gain massive time-savings and usability benefits in the future. Here we…

There is more flexibility in terms of hacks you can use and create in macOS despite the fact that many people see the OS as somewhat buttoned down and inflexible. This is simply not true and you can do whatever you like your way. 21 Make an Apple logo You may not think that creating an Apple logo is a big deal, but there are many times when it could come in handy and make messages and emails more personal. Simply hit Alt+ Shift+K and a sweet looking Apple logo will be input. 22 Batch rename files Renaming files is a chore, particularly photos which can be named with random letters most of the time, but there is a simple hack to rename multiple files at once. Highlight the files…

There are some tricks in iOS that feel like hacks because despite not actually needing any tweaks from you, they offer huge time-saving when used repeatedly day after day. Their simple effectiveness will make you wonder how you ever lived without them. 46 To the minute In the Calendar app you get the choice to add a start time for an appointment in five minute increments. If you double-tap the minute wheel it will change to one minute increments for precise recording. This is a simple hack that will be hugely useful for some people. 47 Quick pings In the Find My iPhone app if you need to play a sound to locate a lost device, you can simply 3D Touch the app icon and a list of available devices…

Most camera lenses will add some distortion to your footage. This can be subtle – such as barrel or pincushion distortion – where the image bulges outwards or inwards. Wide-angle lenses such as those used by a GoPro or drone can add more noticeable distortion to your clips, causing straight lines to appear curved. High-end photography apps such as Lightroom CC enable you to counteract distortion using lens profiles. Sadly Final Cut Pro X lacks the ability to apply lens profiles to wide-angle clips, but there is a workaround. By using fisheye effects you can deliberately warp parts of a clip to reduce the presence of distorted lines. This workaround isn’t perfect, especially if the camera pans or tilts, but it can help straighten out those barrelling curves. Step-by-step  Use…

A table of contents near the beginning of long documents created in Pages, such as reports or ebooks, makes them much easier to navigate. How would you find anything in a book that did not list chapters and page numbers at the front? When faced with a long document you need to be able to jump directly to any place in it. As the writer, you need this when writing and editing, and as a reader, to continue reading or jump straight to a place of interest. Manually creating a table of contents is possible, but presents problems. For example, changing the text could require a tedious and time-consuming update to the contents. For this reason, Pages automates the table of contents and it is created and updated automatically. You…

Master page menu Ctrl+click a master page thumbnail and choose to create a new blank master page or duplicate the selected one. Rename master pages with names that show what they are used for. Add photos Add photographs and shapes to the master page to indicate where images should be placed. When editing the document with this master page, Ctrl+click images and replace them with the real photo. View options Click the ‘View’ button and if there is no Edit Master Pages item on the menu, go to the File menu and select ‘Convert to Page Layout’. Return here and click ‘Edit Master Pages’. Create placeholders Add text items to the page, but do not bother entering any text. They are placeholders – places where text can be entered. Style…

Creative tools If you click on an image or text box then you’ll bring up the editing tools. Click on a text box, for example, and you’ll be able to change the font, text colour, alignment, spacing and more… Knowledge base Expected delivery Once you have created your photo project and gone through the checkout process you can choose the delivery method and speed at which the physical copy arrives – and there are options to suit many timeframes. They range from next day delivery to 6-11 working days and the price will vary depending on which option you go for. Photo alerts If the resolution on certain images isn’t ideal for your photo project then you will be notified via small alert icons. Consider swapping for better quality images.…

Speak on demand This is a very useful feature to enable – the Mac reads text out loud so you don’t have to. Select text in almost any app and press Option+Esc to hear the Mac speak it. Voice and speed These announcement options enable you to choose the voice used and what is said when an alert notification appears on the screen. Select a phrase from the list or set it to a random one. Enable announcements If you are busy working, you may not notice an alert in the corner of the screen. Enable this to speak them and click ‘Options’ to customise the speech and phrases used. Speak the news Did you know that you can select text in stories in the Apple News app, Ctrl+click and…

Apple Notes is a useful app for collecting bits of information like text and images, but it can also create complex notes with text formatting that are almost like documents. You might on occasions want to turn a note into a standalone PDF file that you can email or send via Messenger, or share on the web, well Notes has a great export feature for that. But if you want to export multiple notes then you’ll need another app and Exporter saves notes as separate files. If you have notes elsewhere and want to add them to Apple Notes, you could copy and paste the contents of each one, but that is slow and tedious work. Use the import feature in Notes to create notes from files instead. Step-by-step  Export…

Many new Mac users are switchers from other operating systems like Windows and Linux, and can’t let go of the old OS. The solution is to run it in a virtual machine, which runs it like an app in a window on the desktop. It doesn’t affect macOS and sometimes doesn’t even use any disk space. If you need Linux and can’t give up software you use on it, or if you are just curious about Linux, VirtualBox enables you to run it and use it like it was installed on your Mac. Here we are using the latest VirtualBox 6 and Puppy Linux (puppylinux.com). There are many flavours of Linux and this one is small, yet packed with features and is easy to use. Step-by-step  Install Puppy Linux on…

Add contact relationships Some contacts are related to others, like spouse, mother, son and so on. Edit a contact, click the ‘+’ and add a Related Name field. Use it to add a relationship. It is used in search results. Create contact groups Group options on the File menu enable you to create groups of contacts manually or automatically using Smart Groups. Turn the results of a search into a new Smart Group using this menu option. Custom group rules Choose what information is used to determine whether a contact appears in a Smart Group. Create Smart Groups of recently changed contacts or archives of contacts that have not changed for some time. Smart Group rules Contacts do not need to be added to a Smart Group – you create…

Explore the tools If you have used the Preview app then you’ll be familiar with the tools available in Markup. You can draw on your attachments, add shapes, create text labels, highlight, zoom in and even add your signature. Shape recognition If you use the free-form drawing tool to draw common shapes, Markup will recognise them and tidy them up. You can switch back to your original from the menu that appears. Sign forms Although Markup is useful for annotating images, it becomes even more useful when filling in and signing PDF forms without having to leave Mail and open up your Preview app. Using Markup To start using Markup, compose an email, attach an image, then hover your cursor over the image. A small arrow will appear in the…

Have you customised the Apple News app since it was installed? The first time it is used, it asks a few questions about your interests so it can show relevant stories, but after using the app for some time you may find its sources need tweaking. You can customise the news sources and topics presented in the news feed by removing items you don’t like and adding new sources, and train Apple News by using the ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ buttons and the news feed will change to reflect your preferences. News also has a double set of notification options and you can fine-tune what appears on the lock screen and Notification Centre. We’ll show you how to see the most interesting breaking news while hiding the mundane reports. Step-by-step  Add…

Screen Time is both a blessing and a curse, letting you know just how many hours you’ve spent glued to your iPhone or iPad on the one hand while making you feel rather guilty for potentially wasting so many said hours on the other. Built into iOS as of version 12, Screen Time is supposed to prompt you to take control, but only now can you customise a downtime schedule for individual days. It’s certainly a useful feature. You could use it to stop yourself endlessly checking social media updates after you’ve gone to bed at 10pm during the week, for instance, while pushing downtime back to 2am on a Saturday in order to give you easy access to your apps during a Friday night out. In other words, it…

The internet has made the world a much smaller place. We’re able to instantly communicate with billions of people across the globe thanks to messaging services and email and it doesn’t particularly matter if you can’t speak a certain language because an abundance of free online translation services can step in to assist. One of the best is Google Translate but having to visit a website or app to read a message in a language you don’t understand can be a pain. Likewise, composing a message via a site or app before pasting it into an email, SMS or social network can be time-consuming. The solution? A translation service built into a keyboard which lets you remain in the app you’re using to converse. Molto bon, nein? Step-by-step  Get speedy…

Generally, we’d say you shouldn’t share a password but there are occasions when you may want to grant someone access to an account. There are also times when you may want to log into your own account on a particular Apple device but you don’t want to store a password in iCloud. With iOS, you can store your password on your device and AirDrop it to another. Once you know how, it’s rather simple. You can open up your list of accounts, select the one you need and choose where you want it to go within a very short amount of time. In each case, you’ll be asked to authenticate yourself using Face ID or Touch ID. The recipient will then receive a message and be able to agree to…

As well as being able to control your Apple TV, your Siri or Apple Remote can also be used to control the television itself. Its functionality is simple but it is very effective: you can change the volume, turn the TV on and off and get it to switch to the correct input to reduce the amount of fiddling around you need to do. All of this should work automatically but it may well need a bit of tweaking first, both on the Apple TV device and on your television itself. Here we show you how to connect the remote and we look at the settings that may be throwing a spanner in the works. We explain how you use the functions too. The idea is that watching Apple TV…

AirDrop This is an ad-hoc service in iOS and macOS that enables the transfer of files among supported Macintosh computers and iOS devices over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth without using Mail or a mass storage device. Books This is Apple’s own ebook reading and store application for macOS and iOS. Originally released in 2010 in conjunction with the launch of the iPad, when it was known as iBooks, the ‘i’ was dropped from its name with the release of iOS 11 back in 2018. Home This app lets users set up their iOS device to configure, communicate with and control smart home appliances that utilise Apple’s HomeKit software framework. By designing rooms, items and actions in the HomeKit service, users can enable automatic actions in the house using Siri or other…

My Time Machine backs up so frequently that I lose track of the changes. Can I find out which files were backed up? There are lots of good third-party apps that can show you what has changed between Time Machine backups. Our favourite is called TimeTracker (you can download it for free from charlessoft.com) as this shows you both the contents of your Time Machine backup and anything that has changed in a separate list, making it easy to keep track of all of the changes. I recently purchased a 2009 MacBook Pro. Can I upgrade the memory? Unfortunately not. The absolute limit of memory that you can install on any MacBook manufactured before 2010 is 8GB, and you’ll struggle to find any 16GB memory that would be physically compatible…

Release date March 2001 • New features: Aqua user interface, Dock, Terminal, Mail, Address Book, TextEdit, OpenGL, AppleScript, Sherlock search engine Original price: £99/$129 Price now: £25/$20 Codenamed ‘Cheetah’, Mac OS X (the tenth version of Apple’s Macintosh operating system) was a radical departure from the classic Mac OS and boasted a head-turning Aqua interface complete with 3D desktop icons and, for the first time, the Dock, which presented a better way of organising and launching applications. It also introduced a brand new code base that was completely separate from Mac OS 9, a Darwin Unix-like core and a completely new system of memory management. However, at the time of release, the standard RAM of most Apple computers was 64MB – but OS X required 128MB and 1,500MB of hard…

There are many hacks you can use that are not obviously part of the mobile operating systems and if you know where they are you are good to go. You can also utilise many other options to bring new functionality to your mobile Apple devices. 31 Stop the music Within the Timer function of the iPhone Clock app you can go to the ‘When Timer Ends’ section and scroll down to the bottom to select ‘Stop Playing’. You can now leave music playing, in Apple Music or Spotify and it will automatically stop when the timed duration finishes. 32 Lock the focus It is annoying when you focus on an object and then move to see the focus lost. If you hold your finger on the main Camera screen you…

The main thing to remember with ‘hacks’ is that they are often not what you would consider to be true hacks. You don’t need to programme your own apps to make things work the way you want them to because it could be as simple as tweaking an accessibility feature or downloading and using a third-party offering that performs a specific function. iOS may be locked down in most of the important ways, but with a little imagination and some careful thought surrounding what you want your iPhone to do, you can hack the entire system to fit your life. A Mac or iPhone that has not been hacked in any way will never truly be yours.…

One way to edit a collection of clips more creatively is to combine them using video layers in the timeline. By placing one clip on top of a separate and parallel clip you can access the powerful Video Overlay Settings tool which enables you to mix two clips together. You can also make two layered clips simultaneously appear in separate halves of the screen to present two different perspectives of a place. Video Overlay enables you to place a smaller picture inside a bigger one too. You can use this picture-in-picture effect to add extra information to a scene. In this guide, we’ll show you how to access the Video Overlay Settings tools and customise them. Step-by-step  Mix clips using layers 1 Import assets In Projects click the ‘+’ Create…

There’s no doubt that, when applied to a vocal track as a whole, the proper use of effects such as reverb and delay can make or break a vocal. Every so often though, there may come a point in a song that’s just begging for the one-off application of a hitherto-unheard effect. Known as ‘spot FX’, because they occur in just the occasional spot in the song, these special moments of ‘ear-candy’ can be set up in a number of ways, but probably the quickest and easiest is by creating an empty track with the same channel strip settings as your source track, copying the target region onto the new track, then applying the effect just to that isolated region. So, without any further delay, here’s how it’s done. Step-by-step…

Choose ToC items Click the ‘Edit’ button to open this configuration panel and use the checkboxes to choose which items appear in the table of contents. Some or all items can be included and the ToC auto-updates. ToC navigation The table of contents is not just for your information and this panel is a useful navigation tool. Each item is clickable and takes you straight to the section of the document or ebook. Indent ToC items To help navigate the table of contents, indent items so that section headings stand out and it is easier to see subsections. Change the indentation level with these two buttons on the right. Style the text The table of contents is built automatically by Pages and it uses text styling to determine whether an…

Remove files and data no longer used from iCloud to free up space and keep it tidy Apple provides 5GB of online storage in iCloud and it sounds a lot, but when you start using it, the free space disappears very quickly. You can’t afford to waste it with files, folders and data you no longer use. Many apps store files and data on iCloud and when you no longer use the apps, the data should be cleared to free up the space. Even if you have paid for extra storage and don’t mind wasting a gigabyte or two, you might want to keep iCloud tidy. It just feels good to have organised storage that is clean and uncluttered. It makes finding files easier and it means you don’t have…

Knowledge base Export limits Notes can be locked with a password in the Notes app and if they are exported with Exporter, only the title is saved, not the contents. To export locked notes, select one in Notes and enter the password. All notes are unlocked and are exported by Exporter. Deleted notes are also exported and saved to a Recently Deleted folder. Export one note A single note can be saved as a PDF file by selecting it in Notes and then using File>Export as PDF. This preserves hyperlinks, titles, images, bullets and other formatting. Export multiple notes If you need to export multiple notes, use Exporter from the Mac App Store. Click the arrow icon and then choose where to save the notes. They are written as plain…

Use the desktop apps The simplest and most useful apps are on the desktop, like Write, Calc, Paint, Browse, and so on. Try them. No files can be saved unless you install Puppy Linux on the virtual disk drive. Install Puppy Linux Puppy Linux runs without installation and nothing is saved to the Mac. Click ‘Install’ and choose to install it to the virtual disk drive (just a Mac file) to save settings, files, etc. Configure Puppy Linux Setup is Puppy Linux’s version of System Preferences. Open this to change things such as the desktop resolution. Settings you change are not saved unless Puppy Linux is installed. Knowledge base Linux live CDs Linux is often provided as a ‘live CD’ and this means nothing is installed to the Mac’s drive.…

Whether you’re opening your Mail app for the first time or simply want to add additional email accounts to the app, the process is quick and easy. Start off by going to Mail>Add Account and then follow these steps. 1 Choose your provider Choose the provider of your email account from the list. If it isn’t listed then choose the ‘Other Mail Account’ option and then you will be asked to enter additional details. 2 Enter your credentials Fill in your email address and password and then click ‘Sign In’. If you’re setting up an iCloud account then you’ll need to select which apps you want to use and sync with.…

As well as creating mailboxes to store important emails, another quicker method is to use flags. There are seven coloured flags to choose from. Once you start using flags, you can also rename them to suit your requirements, as we will demonstrate. 1 Flag emails Highlight a message in your inbox, click on the Flag menu in your toolbar and select one of the seven different flags to assign to your message. Flagged emails can instantly be found by clicking ‘Flagged’ in the sidebar. 2 Rename flags You can rename your flags, but only if at least two different types are being used. Now click on the disclosure triangle next to the Flagged mailbox in the sidebar to reveal the flags being used. 3 Highlight and type You can now…

The Search field in Mail is more powerful than you’d think and can be used to find anything. You don’t even have to worry about what language you use. Whenever you search for something, the results will be listed in the messages thread. 1 Enter dates Obviously, entering keywords will throw up results related to what you type. If you enter a month, Mail assumes you are searching for the most recent example of that month – for example December 2018. 2 Enter ranges You can also find emails between specific dates. Enter, for example ‘12/1/19-22/1/19’ and you’ll be able to view all of the emails that you have received between those two dates. It is surprisingly versatile. 3 Find attachments Similarly, if you type something as general as ‘Attachment’,…

The Mail app does a pretty good job of catching junk mail based on what it learns when you mark emails and junk. Here we show you how to set up a junk filter and manage your less savoury emails. 1 Set it up Go to Mail>Preferences>Junk and make sure that the ‘Enable junk mail filtering’ option is turned on. You can also determine what happens when junk mail arrives and what mail is exempt from here. 2 Access junk mailbox When you have put your junk parameters in place via Preferences, suspect emails are automatically moved to the Junk mailbox, which can be accessed in the Mailboxes column to the left. 3 Overrule action If you see a message that has been moved to Junk that isn’t, you can…

You may be surprised by just how much information we give away on social media and via online searches but what you can do about it? You could manually delete your tweets, delve into Facebook’s settings and clear both your search history on Google and your voice searches in Alexa. Or, you could install Jumbo and get it to do the hard work for you. Jumbo will delete up to 3,200 old tweets, depending on the timescale you set. It will also configure and strengthen 40 Facebook privacy settings, delete Alexa recordings and tell Google how long it can store your results for. It does so without saving your passwords for these services on its own servers and everything, it says, happens securely from your iPhone. Support for Instagram and…

Each new version of iOS brings new features and ways of working and playing with your iPhone and iPad. There are many tweaks here and there, such as a new icon, as with AirPlay, new privacy features in Safari and improved media players in Siri and the lock screen. Maps shows more information, like air quality and the weather can be controlled… the weather display anyway. Each tweak Apple has made to iOS 12.2 is small in itself, but they add up to some significant changes, and the company is not done with the updates – iOS 12.3 is not far off and there are app updates in the pipeline. It is going to be a busy year for Apple with many changes and features coming to iOS. These are…

Has your heart ever missed a beat? Or are you curious about how your ticker is performing? If you have an Apple Watch Series 4, you can take an electrocardiogram right from your wrist using the new ECG app. It lets you pick up on an irregular heart rhythm should you experience a rapid or skipped heartbeat – a potential sign of atrial fibrillation, an illness that can cause strokes if left untreated. As such it could be a possible lifesaver so it’s certainly worth giving a go. If you don’t have a Series 4 Watch, you won’t have access to the special electrodes in the back of the wearable nor the electrical heart sensors in the Digital Crown. But you can still benefit from the iOS 5.2 upgrade: tap…

My Mac Mail app is constantly showing that it is downloading messages in the activity pane. This has been going on for weeks – is there a way to stop this? Start off by clicking on the ‘Window’ menu bar item within the Mail app and select ‘Activity’. This will bring up an activity monitor that will show if any messages are currently downloading. If this is clear then it may be time to rebuild and reindex your Mailbox. Start off by clearing your Junk and Trash mailboxes and then click on the ‘Mailbox’ menu bar item within the Mail app and select ‘Rebuild’. You will need to do this for each mailbox and the process can take hours, rendering your Mac less responsive than usual during this time. As…

Key features Planar magnetic drivers • 10Hz-50kHz frequency response Learn more audeze.com Available from amazon.co.uk WITH THEIR LARGE HEXAGONAL casings and unsightly ear hooks, we weren’t initially bowled over by the appearance of Audeze’s iSine10 in-ear headphones, but we soon thawed when we plugged them in and started listening – they sound brilliant. The design is actually key to this because it means that large ultra-thin 30mm planar magnetic diaphragms with Uniforce voice-coil technology can be housed within to work in conjunction with power-enhancing fluxor magnets and deliver one of the most accurate in-ear audio experiences we can remember. Even at very high volumes the distortion (THD) is less than 0.1 per cent, which is unheard of in headphones of this type. Working our way down the cable, which is…

Requirements iOS 10.0 or later • 759.7MB Available from App Store Learn more ludia.com REMEMBER POKéMON GO? Replace the Pokémon with dinosaurs and you basically have Jurassic World Alive. It uses Google Maps data to display a map of your immediate area and close by are dinosaurs and supply points. Tap a dino to select it and you can launch a drone into the air above. This is used to fire darts into a target on the dino’s back to collect DNA samples. The prehistoric creature doesn’t just stand there and take it, however, and can set off on a run, making targeting tricky. There is also a strict time limit to adhere to so you can’t hang around – get in there and gather the DNA samples quickly. When…