However, since we live in an increasingly global world, we occasionally have to consider time zones when scheduling meetings. Business travelers have long needed to keep track of meeting times as they move across time zones, and the number of online meetings spanning the globe has skyrocketed since the pandemic. Whether you’re scheduling appointments on the other side of the country or collaborating with a remote team, it’s essential to be able to work effectively with time zones on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Here’s what you need to know.

Fact 1: All Events and Reminders Have Time Zones

The first thing to understand is that every calendar event and reminder has an associated time zone. However, that’s not always obvious—you won’t see any options for adjusting time zones in Calendar on the Mac unless you enable an advanced setting, and reminders never show their time zone.

By default, events use the local time zone of the device on which you create them, which is usually appropriate. However, you can adjust an event’s time zone to make sure you’re notified at the right time after traveling.

Unlike calendar events, timed reminders in the Reminders app are permanently linked to the time zone in which they were created, and this setting cannot be altered. When traveling across time zones, reminders’ local times will adjust accordingly, triggering alerts at unexpected times.

Fact 2: Time Zone Display Can and Will Change

The second point to grasp is that calendar apps display the times of events based on two factors:

• Device time zone: Apple devices typically set their time zone automatically based on location. If you live in Virginia and fly to Oregon, your iPhone will switch from Eastern Time to Pacific Time as soon as you take it out of airplane mode, and your Mac will do the same once it connects to the Internet. You can manually set the device time zone in Settings/System Settings > General > Date & Time, but that’s seldom necessary.
• Calendar time zone overrides: You can make the Calendar app display events as if you were in a different time zone. This feature can help you confirm that events scheduled in another time zone show up at the correct times. On the iPhone or iPad, enable Settings > Apps > Calendar > Time Zone Override. Be careful not to forget about this override, or it may lead to confusion later. On the Mac, go to Calendar > Settings > Advanced, select “Turn on time zone support,” and choose a time zone from the pop-up menu that appears near the upper-right corner of the window.
  

When an event’s time zone differs from your device’s current time zone or the time zone override setting, Calendar will indicate the discrepancy. For example, an event at 2 PM Eastern Time event viewed on a device set to Pacific Time will display as 11 AM, with the original time zone noted in parentheses.

Working with Event Time Zones

When creating events where the time zone might be significant, you have three options:

• Stick with the local time zone: Since all events are associated with a time zone, if you do nothing when creating an event, it will default to your current time zone. This is appropriate when the event will be shared with someone in another time zone through an invitation or shared calendar. However, it poses issues when creating events related to a trip.
• Change to a remote time zone: When scheduling your future self in another time zone—perhaps for business meetings or conference sessions—you can set those events to the time zone of your destination, ensuring they appear at the correct time once you arrive. On the iPhone and iPad, choose the time zone when setting the start time. On the Mac, with time zone support enabled, select it from the Time Zone menu.
  
• Switch to the floating time zone: For travelers who frequently cross time zones, Apple supports a special “floating time zone” that ensures events appear at the same local time regardless of location. For example, a noon lunch meeting set with a floating time zone will always appear at noon, whether you’re in Boston or Denver. However, the floating time zone does have its limitations. While all Apple devices synced through iCloud honor the floating time zone, you can create events with it only on the Mac, not on the iPhone, iPad, or iCloud.com. Additionally, syncing events through Google Calendar or Microsoft Exchange should work, but if you edit an event on the Web or with non-Apple apps, it will revert to the local time zone.

Common Time Zone Scenarios

Now that you understand that events are always associated with time zones, how they appear in Calendar, and how to specify particular time zones for events, let’s look at some common time zone scenarios:

• When traveling to another time zone: For events during an upcoming trip, you can either manually set the event’s time zone to match your destination or use the floating time zone. The manual approach ensures that events appear at the correct local time once you arrive, although it may be confusing to visualize before departure. The floating time zone maintains the same “wall clock time” regardless of your location, making it easier to plan your schedule before you leave.
• Creating events while away: Conversely, when scheduling an appointment back home while traveling, set the event time zone to your home time zone. The event will appear on your calendar at the correct adjusted time. The floating time zone works well as an alternative for personal events that should take place at the same local time, no matter where you are.
• Trips with multiple time zones: For complex itineraries involving flights and travel transitions with departure and arrival times in different zones, the Calendar app on the iPhone and iPad allows you to create events that start and end in different time zones. Tap the Time Zone option beneath the Start and End time pickers to set different time zones. Although you cannot create these multi-zone events on the Mac, they will display correctly on all your synced devices.
• Remote scheduling: When inviting people from different time zones to an event or scheduling meetings with team members in various locations, create the event in your local time zone. The invitations and shared events will automatically adjust to each recipient’s time zone. When searching for optimal meeting times across multiple time zones, use a tool like World Time Buddy, which provides visual guidance for overlapping business hours.
• Reminders can be tricky: Since reminders always use the time zone where they were created, their local times will shift as you travel, leading to notifications at unexpected times. The only workaround is to edit their times manually when you arrive at your destination and again when you return home. Alternatively, consider using an app like Due that keeps reminders consistent with “wall clock time.”
• Scheduling global events: When planning a webinar or other online event that people in many different time zones might attend, use a tool like Every Time Zone to identify suitable times across various regions. After creating the event at the selected time, drag it from Calendar to the desktop to generate an ICS file for sharing with participants. This file will reflect your local time zone, and when attendees double-click it to import, their calendar app will display it at the appropriate time for them.

Although we’ve focused on Calendar on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac here, the same concepts—except for the floating time zone—apply to other apps like Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. By keeping these time zone concepts in mind, you can avoid calendar confusion and ensure that you don’t miss important meetings, regardless of where in the world you find yourself.

(Featured image by iStock.com/STILLFX)

Social Media: Managing time zones in Apple’s calendar tools is straightforward if you remember two key points. Our article clarifies your options and explains how to handle common scenarios.

The post Working with Time Zones in Apple’s Calendar Apps first appeared on MacTech Solutions.

No one is sticking floppies to their fridge anymore, but we still occasionally see the modern equivalent: saving data or documents in places that are likely to disappear. Just as you shouldn’t write the only copy of essential information on an easily erased whiteboard, you shouldn’t store important data in any of these locations:

• Unsaved documents: While autosave is becoming more common, it isn’t universal and often doesn’t activate until a document has been saved for the first time. When you create a new document, always save it right away, before you do anything else. Otherwise, you risk losing all your work if the app crashes, the Mac kernel panics, or the power goes out.
• Trash: We know, we know! Who would put something in the Trash that they want to keep? But it happens. Don’t do that! On the other hand, there’s also no reason to empty your Trash regularly unless you’re low on space. A good compromise is to choose Finder > Settings > Advanced and select “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.” This way, you’ll always have a 30-day grace period to recover mistakenly deleted items.
• Clipboard: Most people know that the clipboard serves as a temporary holding place, overwritten with each new Copy or Cut. However, if you’re unaware of this, you might write something lengthy, use Cut to place it on the clipboard with the intention of pasting it elsewhere, and then forget to do so right away, resulting in data loss on the next use of Copy or Cut. Always paste anything you cut immediately. Many utilities (such as Copy ‘Em, Keyboard Maestro, LaunchBar, Pastebot, and Raycast) provide clipboard history so you don’t lose clipboard data immediately, but you still shouldn’t rely on it persisting indefinitely.
• Email Drafts mailbox: There’s nothing wrong with starting an email and coming back to it later to finish—that’s the point of the Drafts mailbox. It’s also a sensible way to begin a message on one device and complete it on another. However, avoid storing anything in Drafts for an extended period, and be aware that items there may disappear without warning. (And never, ever store anything in your email Trash mailbox—it will be deleted eventually.)
• Temporary folders: Thanks to its Unix roots, macOS includes several temporary folders, one located at /tmp and others specific to each user. These folders are cleared regularly, such as when the Mac is restarted, left idle for a long time, or when drive space is low. Storing important data in a temporary folder is a digital version of Russian roulette.
• Downloads folder: Although the Downloads folder isn’t inherently volatile, it’s unwise to store anything important there. You might forget about that document while tidying up and accidentally delete it, or you might use a cleanup tool in the future that does it for you.
• USB flash drives: There is nothing wrong with putting files on a USB flash drive. However, avoid storing the only copy of an important file on one, as it is too easy for the drive to be lost or damaged.
• Public computers, virtual machines, and sandboxed environments: This scenario is unlikely but not impossible. Imagine you’re working on a public computer in a lab and save a file on the desktop. When that computer reboots, it will likely delete all data to return to a fresh state for the next user. The same could apply to a virtual machine used for testing or a sandboxed environment that you log in to remotely.

There are also a few locations that generally aren’t problematic but deserve extra attention due to the higher likelihood of losing data:

• Third-party app folders in ~/Library: Some apps store their data in folders they maintain within your user account’s Library folder. While this is acceptable for data managed by those apps, we advise against putting anything else in these folders since it’s impossible to know how the app might deal with data it doesn’t recognize during a cleanup or major update.
• Desktop: It’s fine to work on documents stored on the desktop, but we recommend filing them away carefully when you’re finished. If you frequently move files in and out of your desktop, it’s all too easy to delete something important accidentally. Additionally, if you have iCloud Drive’s Desktop & Documents folder syncing enabled, you might unintentionally delete files from another Mac due to being in a different context.
• Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive: Cloud storage services are entirely acceptable locations for important data, but they all offer options that store files only online, downloading them only when necessary. These options may prevent online-only files from being accessible when you’re offline or from being backed up locally. Worse, if you share cloud storage with others for collaboration, they could accidentally delete your data. Be sure to enable any available version history options and ensure everything is backed up locally.
• External drives or network storage: Many individuals and organizations store essential files and data on external drives and network storage. This approach is perfectly valid, provided that these locations are backed up. When designing your backup system, remember to include your external drives, network servers, and NAS devices. Lastly, if an external drive is encrypted, ensure that you have a backup of both its data and the decryption key.

If you want to avoid all these issues, save your files in your Documents folder and make sure you have a solid backup strategy.

Don’t Leave Your Important Work to Chance

At MacTech Solutions, we’re jealously protective of our customers’ data — and we can help you build a backup strategy that fits your life.

Whether it’s organizing your files, setting up Time Machine, or choosing the best storage options, you don’t have to do it alone.

Visit MacTech Solutions today in Finishing Touch Plaza, Wichita Falls — and let’s keep your digital life safe, secure, and stress-free.

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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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App Failures

The most common problems occur in apps, where you have to worry about crashes and file corruption. (Cosmetic bugs and broken features are annoying, but apart from reporting them, there’s nothing you can do about them and they shouldn’t cause you to lose work.) To protect yourself from crashes and corruption, we recommend the following:

• Save new files immediately: Although many apps auto-save, not all do. Whenever you start a new file, save it immediately and frequently as you work. That way, a crash can’t cause you to lose everything you’ve done.
  
• Use always-on backup software: Backup software like Time Machine and Backblaze run throughout the day, making versioned backups that let you restore earlier versions of a file. Those backups can be a lifesaver if your document becomes corrupted.
• Make manual versions of critical files: For documents where losing work would threaten your continued employment, we recommend making manual versions at least daily, preferably on a cloud storage service. Append a version number to each file, and keep all the versions until you complete the project.

Connectivity Failures

As more of our work has moved online or requires access to online resources, always-available connectivity has become necessary. Many people feel incapable of getting things done without Internet access. Here are some workarounds:

• Be able to switch between Wi-Fi and Ethernet: If one method of connecting to your local network fails, switching to the other can let you get on with your work with minimal interruption. A wireless access point failure could send you to wired Ethernet, or Ethernet cable damage could make Wi-Fi the only option. One shortcut for this is to keep both network adapters active in System Settings > Network, so the Mac can use either.
  
• Turn on a personal hotspot: If your Internet connection goes down, the fastest way to get your Mac back online may be to connect to your iPhone’s personal hotspot. Set it up in Settings > Cellular > Personal Hotspot and choose it from your Mac’s Wi-Fi menu.
  
• Identify a public hotspot: Assuming you have a Mac laptop, the better part of valor may be to go somewhere with Internet access, whether a coffee shop, the public library, or the house of a friend or family member. If your problem falls outside business hours, you might even be able to access a public network from a nearby parked car.
• Purchase backup networking hardware: Organizations should maintain backups of their networking gear. In the event of hardware failure, being able to swap a backup router, access point, switch, or cable into place will minimize downtime. Make sure to record your networking configurations so you can configure the new devices quickly.

Storage Failures

Historically, the most failure-prone aspect of a Mac was its hard drive because of its moving parts and insanely tight tolerances. Flash storage used by solid-state drives is far more reliable and resilient to physical bumps and drops. However, it’s still in constant flux as macOS and apps constantly read and write data, so software bugs can result in directory errors and other forms of corruption. We recommend a three-part backup strategy to protect against storage failures—make sure to dedicate drives for backups rather than using them for general storage.

• Back up with Time Machine: Time Machine works well and is tightly integrated into macOS. Use it to create versioned backups of your data so you can restore either individual files or your entire drive.
  
• Make nightly duplicates: Bootable duplicates that could take over for a dysfunctional boot drive used to be an essential part of a Mac backup strategy, but the difficulty of making them and booting a Mac from an external drive has reduced their utility. Nevertheless, the fastest and easiest way to restore data is often by copying it from a duplicate. Duplicates also provide secondary backups if something were to go wrong with your Time Machine drive. Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper are the most popular backup apps for duplicates.
  
• Maintain Internet or offsite backups: In the event of fire, flood, or theft causing the loss of both your Mac and your backup, an offsite backup is a must. The easiest and most reliable method of making a backup somewhere else is an online backup service like Backblaze or Crashplan.
  

Overall Mac Failures

Macs may be reliable, but they’re still vulnerable to physical damage, particularly laptops you carry with you all the time. Bumps and drops can damage a screen or internal connectors that connect the keyboard and trackpad. You can do a few things to minimize the impact of a broken Mac.

• Use the desktop/laptop approach: Although Mac laptops are powerful and expandable enough for all but the most intensive tasks, supplementing a powerful desktop Mac with a less expensive laptop gives you more flexibility and provides a backup if your primary Mac fails.
• Maintain an extra keyboard, trackpad, and display: Getting your work done requires a functional keyboard, trackpad or mouse, and monitor. If any of those accessories were to fail, having an extra one around would let you get back to work with minimal fuss.
• Keep an old or extra Mac as a backup: Those relying on a single Mac should consider keeping an older Mac around as a backup if you have to send your current Mac to Apple for repair. This approach works only if your old Mac can run your current apps. An organization might maintain a backup Mac that could be temporarily swapped in for any employee’s broken Mac.
• Borrow a Mac from a colleague, friend, or family member: If you don’t have an extra Mac that’s sufficiently capable for your work needs, perhaps someone you know does. It’s easy to create a new user account that will keep your data and theirs separate and private. Start in System Settings > Users & Groups.
• Remember Apple’s 14-day return policy: If all else fails, remember that you can buy a Mac from Apple (in person or online) and return it with its included accessories and packaging within 14 days for a full refund. It’s a generous policy that shouldn’t be abused, but it could be a lifesaver if you’re under deadline when your Mac dies.

Of course, you’re welcome to call us for advice about working around any of these tech failures, but these suggestions should get you back in the saddle quickly and with minimal loss of work.

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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Social Media: Macs may be more reliable than ever, but they still suffer from hardware and software failures. Follow our advice to minimize the impact of inevitable failures.

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For more information on all the great Apple products and features, 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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Where things can get tricky is with external drives. In some situations, permissions can prevent you from accessing files written to an external drive on one Mac from another Mac. That happens because the first admin user account created on a Mac is given the UniqueID of 501, regardless of its name. (Because, Unix.) If you create additional accounts, they get UniqueIDs of 502, 503, and so on. Again, the names are irrelevant; all that matters is the UniqueID.

If you write files to an external drive while logged into the 501 admin account on one Mac but then try to access those files from an account with any other UniqueID on that Mac or any other, macOS won’t let you. No 503 account, for instance, can access a 501 account’s files.

There are tweaky Unix solutions to this problem, but Apple realized this would be an issue from the early days of Mac OS X and provided a single-click solution: the “Ignore ownership on this volume” checkbox. When selected, it tells macOS to pay no attention to permissions for all the files and folders on a drive, regardless of what that might mean.

To access this setting, select the drive in the Finder, choose File > Get Info, and expand the Sharing & Permissions section at the bottom. Before you can select the checkbox, click the lock icon and enter your admin password when prompted.

There are three scenarios where enabling “Ignore ownership on this volume” is helpful:

• Multi-user access: Imagine that you share a Mac with family members or colleagues. You want to keep your email and text message conversations private but need to share numerous other large files stored on an external drive. (For just a few files, use the Shared folder alongside your user folders.) By enabling “Ignore ownership,” you can be certain that all users of the Mac can do whatever they need to with those files.
• Access from multiple Macs: Suppose you have a portable SSD containing video files you want to display from any Mac. Perhaps they’re canned business presentations or home videos. Since you cannot know what the UniqueID of the current account on any given Mac will be, selecting “Ignore ownership” will ensure that you can open your videos regardless.
• Juggling user accounts: Although it’s a bad idea to do this willy-nilly, some people regularly create and delete accounts for their own use. Since all the accounts are used by a single person, they don’t think about permissions as an issue, but macOS does unless they select “Ignore ownership.”

In general, when using an external drive to move files between accounts, people, or Macs, select “Ignore ownership” to prevent pesky permissions problems.

But that doesn’t mean you should turn on “Ignore ownership” in every situation. There are some situations where enabling the setting would be inappropriate because it’s essential to preserve permissions:

• Boot drives: macOS itself relies on specific permissions and won’t even show the checkbox for boot drives. If you’re planning to install macOS on an external drive and use it to boot a Mac (Apple provides instructions), make sure not to select “Ignore ownership” before starting.
  
• Time Machine drives: Time Machine cares deeply about maintaining correct permissions, so you should not enable “Ignore ownership” on a drive that you plan to use with Time Machine. After Time Machine starts backing up to a drive, the “Ignore ownership” checkbox disappears.
  
• Bootable duplicates and other backups: Similarly, if you’re using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to create a bootable duplicate of your boot drive, “Ignore ownership” must be unchecked. Retrospect also warns users to turn off “Ignore ownership” on backup and restore drives to ensure that permissions are preserved. Other backup apps likely have similar requirements.

One last thought. If you run into permissions-related problems reading files from an external drive, it’s worth enabling “Ignore ownership” to see if that resolves your issues. If it doesn’t, or if the problems keep cropping up in different contexts, contact us.

For more information give us a call today!  940-767-MACS (6227) MacTech Solutions, 4020 Rhea Rd, Suite 3B, Wichita Falls.  We’re open Monday thru Friday, 10am to 6pm

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Stay away from bargain-priced cables from no-name Chinese manufacturers, and if you see a supposedly genuine Apple cable selling for a too-good-to-be-true price, consider the possibility that it’s counterfeit. Apple created a detailed page that explains how to identify counterfeit or uncertified Lightning accessories.

Why spend more on cables? Inexpensive cables are likely to wear out sooner, but the main concern is that many modern cables carry power along with data. A short circuit could result in hardware damage and, in extreme cases, could generate sparks, smoke, or even fire. While fires are extremely unusual, it’s easy to find reports online.

When it comes to damaging hardware, USB-C is much less of a problem than a decade ago, thanks to Google engineer Benson Leung. After a bad USB-C cable fried his Chromebook, he embarked on a one-man crusade to identify good and bad USB-C cables. Due in part to his efforts, Amazon started prohibiting listings of USB-C cables and adapters that weren’t compliant with the USB-C specs. You may still encounter bad cables Amazon hasn’t identified or dodgy cables sold through other retailers, but the danger is lower than it used to be, particularly with cables from name brands.

Although Apple has now standardized on USB-C cables for charging, Lightning cables remain common for older iPhones and iPads. Both are readily available in gas stations and drugstores, but you’ll do best if you stick with cables from brand-name companies. They cost more, but do you trust a cable sold next to tabloids and Twinkies? It will probably work in a pinch if you need to fill in for a lost or forgotten cable on a trip, but don’t rely on it afterward.

Even the best cables will fail if you mistreat them. Follow this advice to ensure a long life for heavily used cables:

• Don’t create sharp bends in the cable, especially near the connector. Sharp bends can eventually break the insulation and reveal the wires inside. Even before that, if the wires get too close, they can heat up and melt the insulation.
• When unplugging your device, pull from the plug instead of farther down on the cord to avoid stress on the connection point.
• When coiling your cables, avoid wrapping them tightly around something that’s not round. A tight wrap can cause kinks that degrade the wires inside.
• Don’t put heavy objects on cables or sandwich them between a desk and the wall. Anything that compresses the cable can cause damage.
• iPhones are fairly water resistant, but try to keep the charging port and cable plug clean and away from liquids. Pocket crud or a droplet in the wrong place could cause a short circuit. Because of their metal jackets, USB-C cables are less susceptible than Lightning to such problems, but it’s still worth being careful.
• If a cable’s insulation ever breaks so you can see the wires inside, discard it immediately. It’s always worth maintaining a collection of a few cables of every type you use so you can replace damaged cables right away.
  

In the end, the advice is simple. Spend a little more on quality products from reputable manufacturers so you don’t have to worry about a $3 non-compliant USB-C cable damaging your pricey iPhone or worse. What’s worse? Your house burning down.

(Featured image by Adam Engst)

The post Use High-Quality Cables for Optimal Performance and Safety first appeared on MacTech Solutions.

All that’s by way of saying that you don’t have to shrink images that you share in email or Messages in most cases, and doing so can cause problems for recipients. The most common issues people run into are images being too small or fuzzy to see, not matching the dimensions needed for a website, or being too low quality to save for posterity.

There are exceptions. Smaller or lower quality images may make sense when sending or receiving in rural areas with slow Internet connections, places with no Wi-Fi and tenuous cell service, and remote locations with only satellite Internet. In those cases, you’ll either realize that messages are taking a long time to send or hear from the other party that it’s a problem. But, most of the time, it’s best to send actual size images, so let’s look at how you ensure that.

Sending Actual Size Images in Email

How do you ensure you’re not sending downsized images in email? In Mail on Apple’s devices, the details vary slightly depending on which device you are using, but in each case, you want to use the Actual Size option. Neither Gmail nor Outlook suffers from this problem. Here’s what you need to know for each of these email clients:

• Mail on the Mac: When you drop an image into a Mail message, an Image Size menu specifies the size at which it will be sent. Small resizes the longest side to 320 pixels, Medium to 640, and Large to 1280. Actual Size sends the original image, which is what you want. The Image Size menu remembers its setting, so if you send one image in a smaller size, you probably want to reset it to Actual Size for the next one. If you attach multiple images in a single message, they’ll all be resized similarly.
  
• Mail on the iPad: On the iPad, when you add an image to a message, you’ll see a note in the header information that says something like “Images: 2.9 MB.” Tap anywhere in the header to reveal extra header fields, including an Image Size line with options for the different sizes. Small and Medium work as on the Mac, resizing the longest side to 320 and 640 pixels, and Actual Size sends the original, which is generally what you want. However, Large resizes the image to half the size of the original if appropriate or leaves it alone if not. Multiple images will be resized to the selected size.
  
• Mail on the iPhone: Because of the iPhone’s smaller screen size, Mail on the iPhone asks how to resize the image(s) after you tap the send button. The results are the same as on the iPad, described above.
  
• Gmail on the Web: You don’t need to do anything when sending images in Gmail to prevent them from being resized. Although Gmail lets you visibly resize an image with handles and offers Small, Best Fit, and Original options when you click, none of them change the file size or resolution of the image being sent. Only some receiving email apps (including Gmail and Outlook, but not Mail) will display the sent size. Regardless of the visible size, opening an attached image reveals that it’s the original. Note that Gmail has a 25 MB limit on attachments and may refuse to send a message with more than that or may resize images to make them fit. If you need to send an image at a particular size using Gmail, resize it before attaching—see below for a tip on how to do that.
  
• Outlook on the Mac: You can visibly resize images sent in Outlook on the Mac, but doing so affects only the displayed size, not the file size or resolution of the attached image. Email clients receiving an Outlook-resized image may do so at the sent size, but opening it reveals that it’s the original image. If you need to send an image at a smaller size, resize it before sending—read below for help.
  

Avoiding Lower-Quality Images in Messages

Although it may seem confusing, keeping images from being resized in email is pretty straightforward. Ensuring that you send full-quality images in Messages is trickier because there are multiple variables in play:

• Turn off Low Quality Image Mode: Make sure you turn off Settings > Messages > Low Quality Image Mode on the iPhone and iPad. (The Mac has no comparable setting.) This mode downsizes images sent via iMessage (blue bubble conversations), making them smaller and lower quality. Only turn it on if it’s paramount that you save bandwidth due to a slow connection or data cap.
  
• Avoid sending via SMS/MMS: There’s no need for Low Quality Image Mode for messages sent via SMS (green bubble conversations) because the MMS technology used to send images for SMS conversations has size limits that vary by carrier, usually between 500 KB and 3.5 MB. Messages automatically resizes and compresses images to fit within carrier limits. You have no control over this process, which is likely to be unpredictable. If you need to send someone a full-quality image, use email instead of SMS. Happily, in iOS 18, Messages will support the RCS standard that allows full-quality images.
• Prefer high-speed connections: Although Apple doesn’t document anything along these lines, some suggest that Messages may reduce image size or quality when using slow networks. If you (or your recipient) experience issues while using weak cellular connectivity, try again when connected to the Internet via high-speed Wi-Fi.

Bonus Tip: How to Resize an Image Manually

Let’s flip the problem around. Say you use Gmail or Outlook and need to send an image with specific dimensions or a smaller file size than the original. How do you do that easily? Preview! That’s right, Apple’s Preview works well for resizing images and shrinking file sizes.

To resize an image you have open in Preview, choose Tools > Adjust Size and enter the desired width or height into the appropriate field. As long as Scale Proportionally is selected, Preview will automatically set the other dimension to resize the image proportionally. You can choose other units, but pixels is generally best. Preview even reports on the resulting size at the bottom. After you click OK, save the image.

What if you want to reduce an image’s file size without changing its dimensions? With the image open in Preview, choose File > Export, choose JPEG from the Format menu, and move the Quality slider to the left to increase the JPEG compression. Preview reports on the new file size each time you move the slider. You’ll want to export a few tests to determine the best combination of file size and quality.

Generally speaking, changing an image’s dimensions is a better way to reduce file size than increasing compression.

But really, in most cases, just send the original image.

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With modern Macs using the barest trickle of power in sleep and both apps and macOS almost never crashing, many Mac users have gone to the opposite extreme, letting their Macs run for months between restarts. However, such an approach brings with it new problems, and as with so many things, there’s a happy medium.

Why are we banging this particular drum? As an off-the-cuff estimate, about a quarter of the problems reported to us can be solved by a restart. Really! Just click the Apple menu and choose Restart. As long as you save your work first or when prompted, nothing bad will happen.

Here are our top six reasons you should restart periodically:

• Improved security: Restarting itself doesn’t generally improve security (although it could theoretically clear malicious code running in memory). However, installing macOS updates requires a restart, and we strongly recommend installing security-focused updates shortly after they’re released. If you resist installing updates because of the need to restart, you’re increasing your risk significantly.
• Resolve problems: Modern Macs may be more stable than ever, but things can still get funky. If apps are crashing, peripherals aren’t connecting, you’re seeing visual glitches, or anything else seems wrong, the first troubleshooting step is a restart.
• Better performance: We all have a feel for how long different tasks on our Macs take. If icons for launching apps bounce longer than usual, windows draw slowly, or you see the spinning pinwheel repeatedly, restart. Performance problems are often caused by a poorly coded app or out-of-control process causing your Mac to run out of physical memory and switch to slower virtual memory. Restarting clears such issues.
• Recover drive space: Another memory-related bonus of restarting is that it can free up drive space. When macOS starts to rely on virtual memory, it creates swap files that can consume gigabytes of space. Restart, and all that space is returned, at least until your app usage requires it again.
• Get updates: Most apps notify you of updates at launch, and some automatically download their updates but install them only when you quit. Either way, a restart results in all your apps quitting and relaunching, which ensures they either install or at least notify you of important updates.
• Start fresh: Even if having 20 or more apps open isn’t affecting your Mac’s performance, a clean slate can help you focus on your work better. A simple restart quits everything and lets you start over with just those apps set to launch at login. For a completely fresh start, make sure to deselect “Reopen windows when logging back in” in the restart dialog. Of course, if you have a lot of documents open and need to return to them, leave that checkbox selected to pick up exactly where you left off.
  

There’s no set schedule on which you should restart, but if you use a Mac at work and like routines, it wouldn’t be problematic to restart on Friday evening as you wind down to leave for the weekend. That way, you’d return to a clean slate on Monday morning. It’s also totally fine to restart whenever it might be helpful.

Just don’t fear the restart—modern Macs, especially those with Apple silicon, restart quickly, and the benefits far outweigh the few minutes of downtime.

Remember-if you need service or support for your Apple products in North Texas or Southern Oklahoma, we are here to help! Mac Tech Solutions, 4020 Rhea Rd, Suite 3B in Wichita Falls or click here to contact us now! And, be sure to follow us on Facebook, too!

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Social Media: You can go for weeks or months without restarting your Mac, but it’s a good idea to restart more frequently to increase security, avoid or resolve problems, get updates, and generally clear your Mac’s decks.

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