Modern Web browsers offer profiles, a powerful but often overlooked feature. Whether you’re juggling work and personal browsing or managing multiple projects, browser profiles can make your digital life more organized and efficient.

Why Use Browser Profiles?

The overarching reason to use browser profiles is to make it easier to focus on one thing at a time. Imagine you’re working on a bathroom remodel at home while negotiating a new contract with an important client at work. You probably don’t want to be distracted by tabs showcasing countertop surfaces when you should be estimating client deliverable dates. That’s especially true if you use the same Web apps—Gmail, Google Docs, Slack, Trello—to manage both personal and professional projects.

By setting up separate browser profiles, you can keep your work and personal browsing completely separate. That includes different bookmarks, sets of tabs, and account logins for the same websites. When you open Google Docs in your personal profile, you will find sheets that track the timeline for your bathroom remodel in your personal account; switch to your work profile to view only documents in your work account.

Other common uses for browser profiles include separating clients—particularly when managing accounts for them—keeping research projects or hobbies distinct, and maintaining a clean browser environment for testing.

What’s Stored in a Browser Profile?

Each browser profile maintains its own distinct set of browsing data and settings. While specifics may vary slightly among browsers, options include:

• Bookmarks/favorites: Saved websites, possibly in hierarchical folders
• Browsing history: The chronological list of websites you have visited
• Saved passwords: Login credentials for websites if you rely on the browser rather than an independent password manager
• Extensions and their settings: Which browser extensions are installed and how they’re configured
• Cookies and site data: These store website preferences, login status, and site-specific information
• Stored forms and autofill data: Saved addresses, payment methods, and other form data
• Browser settings and preferences: Search engine preferences, home page and startup settings, theme and appearance options, and privacy and security settings
• Open tabs and windows: Including tab groups and recently closed tabs

When you switch between profiles, you get a completely fresh browser environment with its own set of everything listed above. You can log in to the same website using different accounts in various profiles, and your activity in one profile won’t impact or be visible in another.

Setting Up and Switching Between Profiles

Getting started with profiles is simple. Here’s how to create and switch between them in Safari (in macOS 14 Sonoma and later), Google Chrome, and Firefox. Before you get started, though, a few tips:

• Give profiles descriptive names and distinct colors so they’re easy to identify.
• Keep the number of profiles manageable because too many can become confusing.
• If you create profiles for clients or projects, periodically review and tidy up unused ones.
• Keep in mind that profiles are intended for organization and efficiency, not security—anyone with access to your Mac can switch to any profile.
• Chrome and Firefox profiles are stored on a particular computer—they won’t sync with another copy of those browsers on another computer.

Safari

Safari profiles share more data than those in Google Chrome and Firefox, and unlike the other two, Safari profiles automatically sync between devices. All bookmarks and saved passwords are accessible to all profiles, although you can choose a separate primary bookmark folder for each profile. Note that Safari stores its current settings in a permanent Personal profile that becomes visible only after you create a new one. To create a new profile in Safari:

1. Choose Safari > Settings > Profiles.
2. If this is your first new profile, click Start Using Profiles. Otherwise, click + to create a new profile.
3. Enter a name, and choose a symbol and color.
4. Select a folder within your bookmarks to hold the profile’s primary bookmarks.
5. Click Create Profile.
   
6. Choose how new windows and tabs open.
7. Click the Extensions tab, and select the extensions you want to use with the profile.

Every window in Safari is associated with a profile, so switching between them can be as simple as clicking another window or using the Window menu. At most, you have to open a new window for the desired profile:

• Choose File > New Profile Window. If you have three or more profiles, the command becomes File > New Window > New Profile Window.
• With the sidebar closed, click the profile button and choose New Profile Window to create a new window. When viewing the Start page, you can choose Switch to Profile Window to change the profile for the current window.
  

Google Chrome

Google Chrome has had browser profile support for many years. Like Safari, you start with a default profile. To create a new profile in Chrome:

1. Choose Profiles > Add Profile. Click to continue without an account or sign in with a different Google account.
2. Enter a name and pick an icon for the profile.
   
3. If desired, choose Chrome > Settings to adjust settings and active extensions for the new profile.

Every window is associated with a profile, so switching is often just a matter of clicking the desired window or choosing it from the Window menu. To open a window for a different profile:

• Choose Profiles > MyProfile.
• Click the profile icon in the toolbar and choose the profile you want.

Once you have multiple Chrome profiles, the app will ask you which to open on each launch. From this screen, you can also remove a profile by clicking the vertical dot menu and choosing Delete. If you deselect “Show on startup,” Chrome will open the last used profile at startup. You can always access this screen by clicking the profile icon in the toolbar and choosing Manage Chrome Profiles.

Firefox

Although Firefox was the first browser to support profiles, they remain poorly integrated into its interface and can be confusing because each opens in another instance of Firefox— a new Firefox icon appears in the Dock for each. To create a new profile in Firefox:

1. Type about:profiles in the address bar to open the About Profiles page.
2. Click Create a New Profile.
3. Name your profile and optionally select a custom location for profile storage.
4. On the About Profiles page, in the listing for your new profile, click “Launch profile in new browser” to open a new instance of Firefox with it.
   
5. Configure this new instance of Firefox as desired.

Opening a new profile instance can be tricky since it’s essentially like opening another app, but there’s only one Firefox icon in your Applications folder. While there are command-line tricks to make switching easier, this is the simplest approach:

1. Type about:profiles in the address bar to open the About Profiles page.
2. In the listing for the profile, click “Launch profile in new browser.”

To simplify this process, open the About Profiles page in each profile and drag its proxy icon to the Bookmarks toolbar. That way, you can click the bookmark in the toolbar for quick access to About Profiles.

Once multiple profile instances are open, you can switch between them by clicking their windows or Dock icons.

Be Careful with External Links

Browser profiles struggle with one scenario: opening links from other apps. Imagine you’re busy in your Work profile but take a quick break to check your personal email. You receive a link from your bathroom designer with possible lighting options, so you click it. Since your browser is using your Work profile, the link opens there, and you have to transfer it manually to your Personal profile or risk muddying your organization.

However, this is a minor obstacle, given how beneficial browser profiles can be for organizing your online activities, whether you’re juggling multiple projects or simply keeping your work and personal browsing distinct.

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Social Media: Apple’s built-in text replacement feature expands a short abbreviation you type into something longer, but a simple menu option can prevent it from working in a Mac app. Here’s how to fix it.

The post Text Replacements Not Working on the Mac? Check This Setting first appeared on MacTech Solutions.

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iPhone Mirroring Benefits

iPhone Mirroring provides a handful of benefits, including:

• Centralized notification management: Once you’ve set up iPhone Mirroring, notifications from your iPhone can also appear on your Mac, ensuring you stay informed while maintaining focus on your work.
• Increased productivity with a keyboard: Typing on a physical keyboard is faster and more efficient than using the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, making iPhone Mirroring a helpful tool for entering and editing lengthy texts.
• Reduced physical distractions: Keeping your iPhone out of sight helps you avoid being distracted by it. With iPhone Mirroring, you can access important apps and notifications without letting the physical iPhone capture your attention.
• Simplified file transfer: Certain apps allow file transfer between the iPhone and Mac using a straightforward drag-and-drop method.
• Access to iPhone-only apps on the Mac: Many apps are available only for iOS, and iPhone Mirroring lets you interact with them directly from your Mac, removing the need to switch devices.

iPhone Mirroring Requirements

A few requirements must be met before you can begin using iPhone Mirroring:

• Your iPhone must have iOS 18 or later, and your Mac needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.
• Both devices must have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on.
• The devices should be in close proximity and signed into the same Apple Account.
• Handoff must be enabled for the iPhone in Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity and on the Mac in System Settings > General > AirDrop & Handoff.

Mac App Limitations

Once everything is set up correctly, launch the iPhone Mirroring app on your Mac. A few splash screens explain the basics during the first launch, and afterward, your iPhone will appear in a window. You can move it anywhere you wish and treat it like any other Mac app, with one notable exception—resizing. It does not have a green zoom button, and you cannot resize it by dragging the window edge, but it does offer three size options you can choose from the View menu.

iPhone Hardware Limitations

Using iOS and iPhone apps works pretty much as you’d expect, but there are some limitations. Notably, the iPhone camera and microphone aren’t available, although audio from the iPhone plays through the Mac. Face ID and Touch ID are also not accessible for obvious reasons, which may block access to apps and features protected by biometric authentication. There’s no way to access Notification Center or Control Center, nor to switch apps by swiping the Home indicator—presumably because those three swipes are special due to being at the edge of the iPhone screen. You cannot access the Lock Screen or perform any action that requires a physical button. Finally, you can use only one Continuity feature at a time, so other Continuity features like Universal Clipboard and AirDrop won’t function while you are using iPhone Mirroring.

Core iPhone Interactions

You’ll pick up the basic iPhone interactions quickly. Clicking is like tapping, Control-click acts like touch-and-hold, and swiping on a trackpad behaves like swiping on the iPhone screen. If your Mac has a mouse without swipe gestures instead of a trackpad, click and drag to swipe or use a scroll wheel (hold Shift to scroll horizontally with a scroll wheel). Buttons in the iPhone Mirroring window’s title bar take you back to the Home Screen and open the App Switcher—those actions involve swipes that would be difficult or impossible. Even easier are the keyboard shortcuts in the View menu for Home Screen (Command-1), App Switcher (Command-2), and Spotlight (Command-3).

File Transfer

Although the lack of Universal Clipboard prevents copying between your Mac and a mirrored iPhone, you can transfer files from apps that support it, like Files and Photos. Simply drag and drop between the Mac and the iPhone Mirroring app in either direction. With Files and Photos, it’s usually easier to use iCloud Drive in the Finder and the Mac version of Photos, but other apps may not be as well integrated.

Ending and Restarting Mirroring

Switching back to using the iPhone directly is simple—just unlock it to disconnect from the Mac. When you’re done, lock the iPhone and click the Connect or Resume button to resume.

Dealing with Multiple Macs and iPhones

Connecting an iPhone to multiple Macs is not an issue, although only one can use it at a time. To remove access for a Mac, use the iPhone to navigate to Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity > iPhone Mirroring, tap Edit, and then tap the red delete button. If you have more than one iPhone available for iPhone Mirroring, you can select which one to use in System Settings > Desktop & Dock, just below the “Use iPhone widgets” setting—the menu appears only when the Mac detects multiple iPhones nearby.

On final note. In iPhone Mirroring > Settings, you can choose whether to require your Mac login for every connection or to authenticate automatically. Set it to “Ask every time” if your Mac is shared with others, if others know your Mac password, or if you want to enhance protection against potential malicious software. It’s more secure but slightly more inconvenient.

In the end, if you frequently find yourself reaching for your iPhone while working on your Mac or wish it were more accessible, try iPhone Mirroring. It’s an easy, effective way to work between the devices and reduce unnecessary interruptions.

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We’ll focus on the Mac with macOS 15 Sequoia, but these features other than Video Viewer are also available on the iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. Macs still running macOS 13 Ventura or macOS 14 Sonoma can get Safari 18 but miss out on the Highlights feature. Regardless of platform or macOS version, you access all these new features from the Page menu at the left of Safari’s address bar, which takes over from the previous Show Reader View button in Safari 17.

Highlights

Sometimes, when you visit a website, you just want a quick bit of information, like a restaurant’s address or a store’s hours. For those running Sequoia, once you turn on Safari 18’s Highlights feature, the Page menu icon in Safari’s address bar will show a purple sparkle if it detects information on the page that it can call out for you. Click it to learn more.

It can be hard to predict what Highlights will call out. It’s fairly reliable at showing location and business information extracted from Maps, and it may display biographical information about people on pages about them. For long articles, it may provide a quick summary you can use to see if it’s worth reading more. Apple says Highlights will also offer quick links to learn more about people, music, movies, and TV shows.

Distraction Control

Every website wants you to SUBSCRIBE TO A NEWSLETTER! and WATCH OUR VIDEO! and SHARE THIS ARTICLE! It’s exhausting. In Safari 18, Apple has added a feature that can help you turn down the volume on websites that constantly try to lure you into doing something other than what you intend. Distraction Control lets you remove annoying parts of a Web page. It works on nearly anything on the first use, but Apple warns that “hiding distracting items will not permanently remove ads and other content that updates frequently.” (That’s what most people want, of course, but such a capability would anger advertisers and publishers whose business models rely on ads.)

To clean up a Web page, click the Page menu and choose Hide Distracting Items. Then, move the pointer over areas of the screen you want to remove—if Safari can identify an item as a discrete object, it will gain a blue outline. Click it to make it disappear in a cloud of digital dust. Additional clicks will remove more items; Safari keeps count in the location bar. Click the Done button in the location bar to save your changes, or click Cancel if you were just testing. As you can see in the right-hand sidebar of the Yahoo page in the image below, the result is a cleaned-up view with much less distraction.

Redesigned Reader

Another way to eliminate distractions when reading on the Web is to use Safari’s Reader mode. When you click the Page menu and select Show Reader, Safari reformats the text and images in an article, removing extraneous ads and gewgaws. Once you’re in the redesigned Reader, click the Page menu icon again to access the customization options that let you choose from four color themes, nine different font faces, and various zoom levels

With Apple Intelligence on a Mac with Apple silicon, Reader also offers to summarize long articles. It may also provide a table of contents if the article contains appropriate headings, but it’s hard to predict when that will work.

Video Viewer

Finally, those who watch a lot of Web video will appreciate Safari 18’s new Video Viewer, available only on the Mac. Whenever you’re watching a video embedded in a Web page, clicking the Page menu reveals a new Video Viewer command. Choose that to expand the current video to fill the Safari window, overwriting whatever else might have been on the page so you can focus on the video.

Once you’re in the Video Viewer, switching to another tab in Safari or another app whose window obscures at least half the Video Viewer window causes Safari to switch to Picture in Picture, moving the video to a small window that floats above all other apps. You can resize that window and move it to any screen corner while it’s open, and it remembers its size and location for subsequent uses. Although multiple tabs and windows can use Video Viewer simultaneously, only one can be in Picture in Picture at a time.

Even if these changes aren’t world-changing for everyone, they make Safari an ever more capable Web browser, so it’s worth giving them a try to see if they’ll improve your Web experience.

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Oddly, Categories are currently available only on the iPhone. To maintain the same email experience across all Apple devices, you’ll have to wait for future versions of Mail on the iPad and the Mac.

Here are answers to questions we’ve heard about Mail Categories.

Can You Turn Mail Categories Off?

Apple turned Categories on by default in iOS 18.2, but not everyone appreciates the change. If you have your own organizational system, find the extra sections distracting, or just want to see all your email in one list, you can turn the feature off. Tap the ••• button at the top right of the Mail screen and select List View.

It’s also possible to keep Categories turned on but still see all your messages in a simple chronological list. Swipe left on the line of buttons to switch to an All Mail category that shows exactly what you’d see in List View.

What Appears in Each Category?

With Categories turned on, Mail automatically separates your mail into four categories:

• Primary: Personal messages, plus time-sensitive information from another category
• Transactions: Order confirmations, receipts, and shipping notices
• Updates: News, mailing lists, newsletters, and social media updates
• Promotions: Sale announcements, new products, coupons, and anything commercial

These categories are built-in, so you can’t select some but not others. Nor can you add your own.

Is There a Way to Recategorize Messages?

Unfortunately, Categories isn’t very good at categorizing messages at the moment. (Perhaps it should use Apple Intelligence!) In particular, we see newsletters and other items that should be in Updates incorrectly showing up in Promotions. Fortunately, you can easily recategorize messages from particular senders so Mail can correctly categorize similar messages in the future. How you recategorize messages depends on whether a message is in Primary or another category. For messages in Primary, tap the left-pointing blue arrow at the bottom of the screen and then tap Categorize Sender. For messages in other categories, tap the ••• at the top right of the screen and then tap Categorize Sender.

In either case, tap the desired category on the next screen and confirm your action.

The main problem with recategorizing is that messages from discussion-based mailing lists may be identified by their senders, not the list, so you may have to recategorize every sender from the list separately.

Why Are Messages from the Same Sender Grouped?

When you open a message in Transactions, Updates, and Promotions, you may be surprised to see a digest view that displays all the other messages from that sender. It’s often a helpful way to keep like messages together. Opening a message shows the most recent message, but you can scroll to see the rest. Whether you scroll up or down depends on whether Settings > Apps > Mail > Most Recent Message on Top is turned on. Additionally, how many lines appear in the message view depends on what you’ve selected in Settings > Apps > Mail > Preview.

Not a fan of the sender groups? You can turn the feature off for each of Transactions, Updates, and Promotions by tapping the ••• at the top right and deselecting Group by Sender.

What Are Priority Notifications?

If you’re using an iPhone 15 Pro model or any iPhone 16 with Apple Intelligence turned on, you may see priority notifications on the Primary screen. It’s designed to surface the most important messages, as determined by Apple Intelligence. If you don’t like it, tap ••• in the upper right and deselect Show Priority.

Overall, Mail Categories feels like Apple is playing catch-up with other email apps. If it works with your email stream and you find it useful, that’s great. But if not, don’t hesitate to turn it off and return to your familiar email workflow.

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If the document you’re previewing has multiple pages, you’ll see thumbnails along the right side that you can scroll through using your mouse or trackpad, or by pressing the Page Up/Page Down keys. But you aren’t limited to just viewing a file: click the Open With button to open the file in its default app, or click the Share button in the upper right to send it to someone else via email, Messages, or another sharing service. PDFs and images will also show the Markup button that lets you annotate the file directly, and images have a Rotate button.

If you need to scan through a set of files in a folder, you can press the arrow keys while the Quick Look window remains open—how you move among the files depends on the Finder window’s view. In List view, for instance, using the Up and Down arrow keys can be a great way to browse through a collection of pictures. You can even interact with the Finder while using Quick Look, which means you can delete an unwanted photo by pressing Command-Delete while previewing it.

Quick Look works well for evaluating or comparing multiple files. Select a bunch of files and press the Space bar to open them all in Quick Look. The Left and Right arrow keys let you cycle through your selection; there are also Back and Forward arrow buttons at the top left of the Quick Look window. To the right, you’ll see a Thumbnail button that displays the selected files in a grid—click any thumbnail to focus on just that item.

To remove the distraction of your desktop, click the Zoom button in a Quick Look window. If you have multiple files selected, you can even start a simple slideshow from the zoomed Quick Look window—it’s a quick way to show off a folder of images. Another way to get to a zoomed Quick Look window is to select the files in the Finder and press Option-Space.

What file types does Quick Look work with? Not everything, but out of the box, Quick Look supports text files, RTF files, HTML files, images, audio, video, PDFs, iWork documents (Keynote, Numbers, and Pages), Microsoft Office files, fonts, and more. Third-party apps can extend Quick Look to support proprietary formats, and developers have released independent Quick Look extensions. Many people appreciate these three extensions:

• Folder Preview (free) displays the contents of folders in Quick Look.
• BetterZip (free for viewing) lets you look inside Zip archives and other compressed files.
• Peek ($7.99) not only supports 530 file types but also lets you copy, search, navigate, and more directly within the Quick Look window.

Although it’s best known in the Finder, Quick Look is available elsewhere on the Mac, including the examples below, so it’s always worth selecting what you want to preview and pressing the Space bar to see if it works.

• Spotlight: Preview search results to see if they’re what you want
• Open dialogs: Preview files before you open them
• Time Machine: Preview versions of files before restoring them
• File transfer apps: Preview files on remote servers before downloading
• Messages: Preview files added to conversations before opening them
• Mail: Preview attachments to email messages

To manage your Quick Look extensions, open System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions, scroll to the bottom, and click the ⓘ button next to Quick Look.

Finally, note that if your Mac has a trackpad, you can invoke Quick Look by force-touching a Finder icon (press deeply until you feel a click) instead of pressing the Space bar.

Quick Look takes just moments to learn, but it can save you hours of time poring through files on your Mac!

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Although Control Center has changed a bit over the years, it provided relatively minimal customization options until iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. Previously, in Settings > Control Center, you could choose which controls appeared and in what order, though a few essential controls always appeared at the top.

With this year’s operating system updates for the iPhone and iPad, Apple decided to give us nearly free rein to personalize Control Center, even allowing us to add multiple pages of controls. While some people will go wild and utterly reimagine what Control Center can do for them, we expect most to employ more modest tweaks that make it slightly easier to use.

Here’s what you can do in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18:

Learn the basics of getting around in Control Center: 

• Open Control Center: Swipe down from the upper-right corner of the screen.
• Move between Control Center pages: During the initial swipe to open Control Center, keep swiping down to navigate to later Control Center pages, represented by tiny icons on the right side of the screen. Once Control Center is open, swipe up or down anywhere on the screen to move between pages or tap the icons.
• Use controls: Tapping an icon in Control Center usually either toggles a setting (like Orientation Lock and Silent Mode) or opens an app (like Magnifier or Wallet). Many display additional options when you touch and hold them (tap the Focus icon to toggle Do Not Disturb; touch and hold it to access more options, each of which offers even more settings). A few controls allow direct manipulation (like Now Playing, Volume, and Brightness).
  

Add, organize, and remove items from Control Center:

• Enter and leave editing mode: Tap the + icon in the upper-left corner, or touch and hold on any empty part of the Control Center screen, much like you enter wiggle mode on the Home Screen. You can swipe between screens in editing mode as well. When you’re done, tap any empty area to leave editing mode.
• Add a control: In editing mode, tap Add a Control at the bottom of the screen, search or browse for available controls, and tap the one you want to add to the current screen. Note that many apps now provide controls, vastly increasing the actions available from Control Center.
  
• Move a control: Touch and hold a control and drag it to the desired location. While holding the control, drag it to the bottom or top of the screen to move it to a different page.
• Add a new page: When you’re in editing mode, a new empty page always appears at the bottom. To make it stick around after you exit editing mode, add or move a control to it.
• Resize a control: If a control has a curved resize handle on the lower-right corner of its icon, drag that handle to make the control larger or smaller. Most offer only 1-slot, 2-slot, and 4-slot sizes, with the latter two adding the name—we’re partial to the 2-slot size because we have trouble recognizing little icons. (Control Center would benefit from an option to display names under 1-slot icons as it does on the Add a Control screen.) A few controls, notably Now Playing, are more malleable—it offers two 4-slot sizes, an 8-slot size, a 16-slot size, and a full-page 32-slot size.
  
• Delete a control: To remove a control, tap the – button in the upper-left corner of the icon.
• Reset the layout to the default: It’s easy to go overboard and end up with a mad scientist layout. To return to the default set of controls, go to Settings > Control Center > Reset Control Center.

Take advantage of extra Control Center tips and settings:

• Check privacy status alerts: In the middle of the screen, you may see one or more small icons and an app name ➊. That indicates the app has permission to do things like track your location, use the camera, or record with the mic. Tap that area to see more details.
• Power down the device: Touch and hold the power button at the upper-right corner of the screen ➋. It’s similar to holding the physical side button and one of the volume buttons for a few seconds, except the physical buttons also provide sliders for viewing your Medical ID and making an Emergency SOS call. Even if you cancel the power-off action, you must enter your passcode to re-enable FaceID.
  
• Turn off Control Center access in apps: If you accidentally invoke Control Center in apps because you want to swipe near the top right of the screen, go to Settings > Control Center and turn off Access Within Apps.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with Control Center’s customization possibilities. There’s no harm in sticking with the default layout, but our initial advice is to think about what you use Control Center for now and make sure those actions are well-represented by icons on the first page. Also, if you have trouble remembering what particular icons do, resize them to the 2-slot size so you can see their names. Later on, you can look through the full list of available controls and add those that seem appealing.

For more information on all the great Apple products, features, and services, give us a call!  940-767-MACS (6227).  Or stop by MacTech Solutions, 4020 Rhea Rd, Suite 3B, Wichita Falls.  We’re open Monday thru Friday, 10am to 6pm

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Apple gives everyone 5 GB of storage for free, which is enough for core services, like iCloud Keychain, and to try the other services. However, those who wish to take full advantage of iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive, in particular, must subscribe to iCloud+. Along with extra storage, iCloud+ subscribers can use:

• iCloud Private Relay, which blocks tracking of Safari traffic, DNS queries, and most non-HTTP Web traffic
• Hide My Email, which creates random, unique email addresses that automatically forward to your inbox
• Custom Email Domains, which lets you register your own custom email domain and use it in a personalized email address

For now, though, we’ll focus on storage. Apple’s iCloud+ rates are similar to those for storage at Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, though the specifics vary slightly by service. Apple charges:

• 50 GB: $0.99 per month
• 200 GB: $2.99 per month
• 2 TB: $9.99 per month
• 6 TB: $29.99 per month
• 12 TB: $59.99 per month

Audit Your Storage Needs

How much you should get depends on how much data you wish to upload to start and how quickly you expect that amount to grow. For most people, iCloud Photos consumes more storage space than anything else, although syncing your Desktop and Documents folders between Macs using iCloud can also chew up space.

If you’re not currently using iCloud, use File > Get Info to determine the size of your Photos Library (located in your Pictures folder), and do the same for your Desktop and Documents folders if you want to sync them. You can also anticipate iPhone and iPad backups consuming up to 20 gigabytes or more.

Remember that you can share iCloud+ storage space with people in your Family Sharing group. Checking how much space others in your family would also like to use is worthwhile.

Get Started with iCloud+

Subscribe to iCloud+ in Settings/System Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Upgrade to iCloud+. (In pre-2024 versions of Apple’s operating system, tap Manage Account Storage and Change Storage Plan.)

Then, you can turn on iCloud Photos in Photos > Settings > iCloud on the Mac or Settings > Apps > Photos on the iPhone and iPad. (We recommend having one Mac use “Download Originals to this Mac” so you have a local copy of everything.) If it’s compelling for you, turn on Desktop and Documents folder syncing in System Settings > Your Name > iCloud > iCloud Drive on each of the Macs you want to participate—you don’t need to do anything on iPhones or iPads because everything from your Macs automatically appears in the iOS Files app. The initial sync, which uploads and deduplicates everything, can take days, depending on the upstream bandwidth of your Internet connection.

Once you’re set up, you can see and manage all the apps and services using iCloud. Go to Settings/System Settings > Your Name > iCloud, and next to Saved to iCloud, tap See All. Tap any app to see more information and change its settings.

Running Low on Storage Space

Like a physical drive, your iCloud account can run out of space. When that happens, you can delete data or pay for more space. To see how much you’re using and how that breaks down across different apps, open Settings/System Settings > Your Name > iCloud and, at the top, tap Storage or click Manage. You can then drill down to see more details about each app. For Photos, iCloud Drive, Backups, and Messages, Apple provides suggestions for removing large files to save significant amounts of space quickly. Most other apps offer only an option to delete all your data. Generally speaking, you should delete an app’s data only if you don’t anticipate ever using the app again.

As you get close to your space limit, your devices will prompt you to upgrade so you don’t encounter failures caused by a lack of space. Unsurprisingly, Apple makes it easy to upgrade to a larger tier.

Although there’s nothing exciting about online cloud storage, having more iCloud+ storage significantly improves the experience for those with multiple Apple devices who would appreciate a seamless photo experience with iCloud Photos, accessing their files anywhere, and backing up their iPhones and iPads without needing to connect to a Mac. iCloud storage works well and is reasonably economical for what you get.

For more information on all the great Apple products, features, and services, give us a call!  940-767-MACS (6227).  Or stop by MacTech Solutions, 4020 Rhea Rd, Suite 3B, Wichita Falls.  We’re open Monday thru Friday, 10am to 6pm

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The post Setting Up and Managing iCloud+ Storage first appeared on MacTech Solutions.