Your top questions to Mac 911—and some answers

We love being the place you come to with a purpose to discover solutions to nagging issues. Whereas the Mac 911 title predates iOS, iPadOS, and iCloud, we’re glad to reply questions on all these subjects in addition to macOS and any Apple {hardware}, software program, or service.

We can assist prevent a while in the event you seek the advice of this record of essentially the most generally requested questions we obtain. This tremendous FAQ offers transient solutions to points that characterize a considerable portion of all the e-mail we obtain, together with hyperlinks to our full-length columns with extra particulars. A few of these columns date again a number of years, however they continue to be updated for the steps you must take, even when the looks of some interface components has modified.

Concentrate on Pictures and iCloud Pictures

Ever since Apple launched Pictures for macOS in 2015, we’ve seen an enormous variety of questions concerning the Pictures apps for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, in addition to iCloud Pictures (previously iCloud Picture Library).

As a normal tip, in the event you’re in search of assist in managing Pictures for macOS libraries, I extremely advocate Fats Cat Software program’s PowerPhotos, which I final reviewed in December 2015. Amongst different issues, it might probably migrate iPhoto and Aperture libraries. PowerPhotos can also be the one instrument that may merge Pictures libraries, and works with Apple’s database format to seek out and take away duplicates. For its $30 price ticket, you get each PowerPhotos and a duplicate of iPhoto Library Supervisor, which can assist prep or handle iPhoto libraries.

Listed below are the questions requested most steadily about Pictures and iCloud Pictures.

macOS: Erase, revive, beta releases, and Wi-Fi

After Pictures, we get a number of questions associated to macOS, notably coping with cleansing up a system on the market or restoring one which appears to have gone kaput.

Let’s begin with erasing a Mac, by chance or deliberately erasing information, or a Mac that received’t begin up macOS or boot in any respect:

• “I’m promoting my Mac. How do I wipe it correctly earlier than sale?” I like to recommend making a minimum of one, if not two, full backups that you simply confirm for accuracy, after which observe our directions: “Find out how to put together a Mac on the market or a return to an employer.”
• “I can’t restart my new Mac into restoration mode.” Apple’s new M-series Macs, beginning with the Apple silicon M1 chip, have a wholly totally different technique to entry the particular restoration mode used for troubleshooting, sharing simply volmes on the startup and different connected drives with out beginning up in macOS, and ensuring system safety settings. See “Find out how to discover each troubleshooting boot mode on an M1 Mac.”
• “I by chance deleted all my information. How can I get them again?” Should you don’t have any backups by way of Time Machine, a web based hosted backup, or synced variations of your information, learn this column for extra concepts. The information could also be gone for good. (You must beginning backing up right now: learn “Find out how to create a backup technique with terabytes of information.”)
• “I can’t get macOS to begin.” If the recoveryOS quantity in your drive stays energetic, you may energy up with the precise mixture of keys for an Intel Mac or an Apple Silicon M-series Mac, and use macOS Restoration to reinstall macOS. If it’s lacking, on an Intel Mac, you may strive web Restoration. With an Apple Silicon M-series Mac, if the Mac is non-responsive, you need to use both the “revive” or “restore” choices, which require entry to a different Mac, the proper peripheral cable, and an web connection; learn “Find out how to revive or restore an unresponsive Mac from one other Mac.” You can even attempt to reinstall macOS from an exterior USB drive: see “Find out how to create a bootable macOS Massive Sur installer drive. (Now we have articles on find out how to create installers for older variations of OS X and macOS, too.)
• “My Mac received’t present a drive or restoration choices.” Should you get a flashing query mark, your drive might have failed or grow to be broken. You might be able to use web restoration with an Intel Mac or the revive/restore choices for an Apple silicon Mac. Apple suggests a number of different choices, too. If none of that works, search out assist from Apple Assist or a restore store that works on Macs.

Listed below are a number of different questions that generally come up round macOS.

• “My Mac says Wi-Fi not put in. Why?” This one is a poser, because it might be a community configuration corruption drawback in macOS (or OS X), a {hardware} failure, or one thing else totally. I’ve some recommendation in “What to do when your Mac says Wi-Fi {hardware} isn’t put in.” Sadly, it’s sometimes a {hardware} failure that may require restore or alternative of the principle circuit board. As a substitute, you should buy a $25 USB-based Wi-Fi adapter, the Edimax AC1200, although it requires USB Sort-A. As of April 2021, the required driver solely works by macOS 10.15 Catalina; a Massive Sur driver replace is anticipated, nonetheless.
• “My keyboard received’t let me kind sure keys.” Check out “Your Mac received’t kind U, I, O, J, Okay, L, and M? Right here’s why” and “What to do whe you caot kind certai letters o your MacBook.”
• ”The place did All My Recordsdata disappear to within the Finder?” Folks cherished the Finder’s All My Recordsdata” search, which appeared by default within the sidebar and when opening new tabs or home windows. For unknown causes, Apple dropped it after macOS 10.13 Excessive Sierra, changing it with a a lot worse Recents possibility, which is extra restricted in some ways. You may add a alternative for All My Recordsdata by following a number of not-that-complicated steps in “Find out how to use Highlight’s question language to create an All My Recordsdata-like characteristic.”
• “I can’t discover my FileVault Restoration Key!” No worries, except you want it to reset a login. Seek the advice of “Find out how to discover your FileVault restoration key in macOS” and in addition “Is your macOS FileVault Restoration Key present? Right here’s find out how to test.”
• “I’m following your directions to unenroll from macOS beta releases, and it’s not working.” Whereas now we have directions at “Find out how to depart the macOS beta program,” a number of readers haven’t been capable of get this to work.

Checking out Apple ID points

Whereas the Apple ID account has existed for a few years now, Apple nonetheless presents no technique to merge, cut up, switch, or principally manipulate most of what’s related to an account. You may’t cut up purchases amongst two accounts for individuals who shared one; you may’t merge synced information, purchases, or different info from two or extra accounts into one. In consequence, we get plenty of Apple ID questions on a regular basis. Listed below are the most typical.

“I’ve two Apple IDs (or my associate/partner/and so forth. and I every have one).” Many individuals have wound up with two Apple IDs that handle totally different components of their Apple expertise due to how Apple launched totally different companies. I take advantage of one account that was registered first as an iTools account, for all of my synchronization, whereas one other, which began as my private e-mail tackle, for iTunes and App Retailer purchases.

Many individuals additionally write in as a result of two or extra individuals of their household grouping (whether or not a pair or together with youngsters or mother and father or others) have distinctive Apple IDs they usually need to share purchases or info amongst them, questioning if Household Sharing is an effective possibility.

There’s actually nothing you are able to do about any of those conditions, however individuals who have been informed this prior to now by Apple and supposed gurus like yours really proceed to ask, as a result of it’s so irritating and appears unreasonable.

I do have some normal recommendation, nonetheless:

• If what you’re doing is working however annoying, it is best to be taught to just accept it, as a result of it appears unlikely Apple will ever change this. I’m typically pissed off in establishing new units or coping with surprising password requests for iCloud, the App Retailer, and different Apple properties attributable to my two-account state of affairs, however it does work reliably. I haven’t misplaced any information, and I can all the time entry my purchases.
• Should you’re utilizing e-mail by way of iCloud with one account, and have all of your purchases on one other, you may transition every little thing besides e-mail to your buying account, and swap to have every little thing sync by that account for iCloud. You may tie iCloud in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to the acquisition account, and arrange an email-only connection in your email-focused iCloud account. I counsel a plan in “Are you able to merge synced information from a number of Apple IDs?” and “Find out how to merge two macOS accounts into one.”
• Household Sharing may go in some instances, although I don’t love the implementation. Chris Breen wrote up a transition suggestion in 2014 that also works, however not for everybody.

“I share an account with another person; can we cut up it in two (as a result of they’re now an grownup youngster of mine, I and the opposite individual have cut up up, we now need separate accounts)?” That is truly simpler than merging two accounts into one, with the exception that objects bought in a single account stay with that beginning account. Nonetheless, different information could be migrated; learn “What to do when breaking apart a shared Apple ID account.” And, if the individual you’re separating out into one other account is a part of a Household Sharing group, they’ll retain entry to most or all the purchases within the Apple ID they have been previously a part of; see “Find out how to cut up up an Apple ID amongst members of the family and ahead their e-mail.”

“I’ve an Apple ID in a single nation; how can I alter the nation for that Apple ID’s registration?” You may, however you lose entry to all of your purchases. You may keep separate Apple IDs which might be registered in several nations, however that may be problematic whenever you need to swap amongst them to entry totally different purchases or information, as I clarify in “Find out how to use totally different iTunes accounts for various languages.”

No, Siri, no!

Siri has limitations round appropriately spelling stuff you communicate and appropriately saying phrases and names. There are some workarounds.

• “Siri received’t spell one thing appropriately.” Siri might transcribe a reputation or phrase incorrectly. You may add the appropriately spelled model of the phrase or title to a contact title, and that may sort things. You can even swipe down on the Siri display screen and sort to right misspelled phrases in its model. It’s presupposed to get higher over time as you make these corrections, however Siri nonetheless transcribes “Offie” as a substitute of the app “Authy,” irrespective of what number of instances I right it.
• “Siri received’t pronounce my title or another person’s title appropriately.” You may inform Siri that it received it flawed, and Siri offers different pronunciations from which you’ll choose, or you may add a phrase or title to a contact and use a hidden phonetic area in Contacts to supply the proper technique to say it. Sadly, this doesn’t all the time work, both, to evaluate by reader experiences.

Sorry, we will’t allow you to with correcting Apple Maps

As a result of now we have written about find out how to report errors in Apple Maps to Apple, many hasty and informal discoverers of Macworld’s web site imagine we both are Apple or have a magic conduit to that land of fruit and aluminium. We don’t.

Nonetheless, we do have this column that explains find out how to file corrections your self—or, in the event you don’t have an Apple system, find out how to get somebody with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac to file a correction for you. Learn “Apple Maps lists your location incorrectly? You may report it.”