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Use Hover Text to magnify on-screen text

Hover Text is an interesting macOS accessibility feature that magnifies the text that’s displayed on your screen. This can be any regular text, a menu item, or a button.

As the name suggests, when you hover your mouse cursor over the text, macOS will magnify and display a high-resolution zoomed version of the text in a separate window. This makes reading content a whole lot easier, whether the font size is tiny, or even if the screen is far away from where you’re seated.

This is an accessibility feature, but really anyone who use computers with high-resolution displays can potentially find utility in this capability. Anyone who has used any modern device knows how difficult it can be to read tiny text sometimes, so having the ability to magnify text is obviously helpful.

To enable Hover Text:

• Click on the Apple menu from the top-left corner and choose "System Settings..."
• Click on "Accessibility"
• Select "Hover Text"
• Enable "Hover Text" (to further customize this feature, click on "i" right next to the switch button)

As per the default settings, if you hover the cursor over any text that’s displayed on your screen while pressing the Command key, macOS will bring up the zoomed version right below it.

 

Protect removable media with encryption

Using removable media, such as USB flash drives or removable disks, is a convenient way to transport information. However, if the removable media is lost or stolen, someone else can access its data by mounting the media on another computer.

If you want to keep private or confidential information secure on removable media, you need to encrypt the information on it.

WARNING: When you encrypt a disk or other media, the disk format is converted to the APFS format and then encrypted. Macs with earlier versions of macOS that don’t support the APFS format are not able to read the device’s data. Consider whether you need to connect the media to a Mac with an earlier version of macOS before you encrypt the data. You can also update your other Mac to the latest version of the macOS that supports the APFS format.

To protect your removable media with encryption:

• On your Mac, click the Finder icon in the Dock to open a Finder window
• In the sidebar, Control-click the item you want to encrypt
• Choose Encrypt [item name] from the shortcut menu
• Create a password for the disk and click Encrypt Disk

Be sure to record and keep this password in a safe place. You cannot access the data on the encrypted disk without it.

It may take some time to encrypt, depending on how much information is stored on your Mac. However, you can use your Mac as usual while the disk is being encrypted. To decrypt an encrypted disk, Control-click the disk you want to decrypt, then choose Decrypt [item name] from the shortcut menu.

Get a copy of your personal data from Apple

Learn how to download a copy of the personal information Apple has stored about you.

Like most technology companies, Apple stores information about you on its servers. Unlike most technology companies, however, Apple does not store identifiable information such as locations, instant messages, and so forth. Thanks to Differential Privacy techniques, Apple can build smart services without using the cloud for insight, keeping information about each individual user completely private.

The list of personally identifiable things Apple knows about you is rather short compared to other technology companies. Identifiable information Apple knows about you includes the following:

• Apps you’ve downloaded
• A log of every time you updated your installed apps
• Movies, books, and other media you’ve downloaded
• All of the songs you’ve stored in iTunes Match
• In-app purchases you’ve made on your devices
• All the devices you’ve bought from Apple, along with their serial numbers
• A log of every AppleCare support query you’ve made
• A repair session log of what was damaged
• Serial numbers for both the old and replacement parts

Your archive does not contain identifiable data already included within your Apple ID account, such as calendar content, your iCloud emails, iTunes content, and so forth.

To download your Apple data archive:

• Visit the Apple Privacy Policy webpage at privacy.apple.com and sign in using your Apple ID and password
• Click "Request a copy of your data" under the Manage your data > Get a copy of your data section
• Choose the data you want to download
• After selecting what you want to download, click the "Continue" button
• Select a maximum file size for each file (irrespective of what you choose, you will get all the data)
• Click "Complete request"

You have now successfully requested Apple for your data. They will notify you on your Apple ID email address in about seven days. Once you receive the email, click "Get your data" within the time frame mentioned at the top of the email. Sign in with your Apple ID, and you will see the "Download your data" screen. Click the little download icon next to the data types to download them locally to your computer (open the ZIP file and dive in to see your data).

 

Screen record on Mac

Capturing a screen recording on your Mac is valuable for a variety of scenarios. There are handy third-party apps to help with this, but Apple offers a free built-in option with macOS.

With modern macOS releases (Mojave and later), Macs have a hidden screen record app with more advanced controls like a timer, save to destination choices, show/hide the mouse pointer, remember last selection, microphone control, and more.

If you mostly do straightforward screen recording on Mac, the native functionality is free with no app to download.

• On your Mac keyboard, press the combination Command + Shift + 5 (can be used while running any app)
• In the bottom middle of the screen, choose the rectangle with a circle icon to record the whole screen or the dotted-line rectangle with a circle icon to record a selection of your screen
• Click the Options button if you’d like to enable the microphone, show mouse clicks, select a save location, and more
• Choose Record to start
• When you’re done, click the Stop button (circle with square icon) in the menu bar found in the top middle/right of your screen
• Your recording will show up on your Mac’s desktop by default unless you picked a different save location

You can also pull up this menu in QuickTime by clicking File > New Screen Recording but the keyboard shortcut is usually faster.

 

Factory reset Mac

If you are going to sell, return, or give away a Mac, you almost certainly want to factory reset the computer first. Performing a factory reset on a Mac will erase all data on the Mac, and return it to a clean slate as if the computer were brand new, without any data or personal files on the computer at all.

Erasing a Mac and returning it to factory defaults has never been easier, thanks to the addition of a “Erase All Content & Settings” feature introduced in newer versions of macOS system software. Gone are the days where you had to manually erase and then reinstall system software, now you can simply let MacOS handle the task for you by choosing to erase and factory reset the Mac through a handy built-in feature.

The approach is available in macOS Ventura and newer only.

Be sure to back up the Mac with Time Machine first! Proceeding will erase all data, files, and information from the computer. This will erase all data on the Mac. Do not proceed unless you have backups of your data. Failure to backup will result in permanent data loss!

• Pull down the  Apple menu and go to “System Settings...“
• Go to “General“
• Choose “Transfer or Reset”
• Click on “Erase All Content and Settings”
• Confirm that you want to erase everything, log out of your Apple ID, and remove all data from the Mac by clicking “Continue”
• Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process

When the Mac has finished factory resetting and erasing everything, a freshly installed version of the current version of macOS will boot into the typical “Hello” screen. Assuming you’re going to be gifting this Mac or selling it, you probably do not want to set it up yourself, instead let the recipient handle it.

This same factory reset feature also exists in macOS Monterey, but it is accessed slightly differently on those Macs. To factory reset a macOS Monterey Mac, go to the  Apple menu > System Preferences > System Preferences menu > Erase All Content And Settings. Be sure to backup all data beforehand, as usual.