Espionage is a state-of-the-art folder encryption tool for your Mac that can secure your folders. It has a simple, easy-to-use interface, which is sure to save you time. Just drag-and-drop your folders and you’re pretty much done.

One of the great things about Espionage is that it uses powerful AES-256 encryption. This is the same type of encryption used to protect top secret classified information and documents. So, you can rest assure that your folders are safe and secure on your Mac.

Set Up Espionage

First, you’ll need to download Espionage 3 from its official website. Espionage is not free (current cost $29.99), but it does come with a 14-day free trial. This is more than enough time for you to see if it’s worth purchasing. In my opinion, it’s definitely well-worth the price since its service is lifesaving and invaluable.

When you run Espionage for the first time, you’ll be greeted by the Setup Assistant. Click “Next” to get started. On the next screen, click on “Next” and then click on “Agree” to agree to the License Agreement.

You’ll need to create a strong master password. Be sure to use something unique because this is the password you’ll use to view your secured folders. The password strength indicator will let you know if your password is weak, good or  strong.

Once you click on “Next,” you can choose to start Espionage when you log into your computer. It’s recommended that you choose “yes” here.

This time when you click on “Next,” Espionage will ask for permission to access your contacts.

On the final screen of the Setup Assistant, you can subscribe to the Espionage monthly newsletter; if you do, you’ll be informed about security and new products.

Secure Your Folders with Espionage

Now that you’re done with the Setup Assistant, it’s time to secure your folders. You should see the Espionage lock icon on your menu bar. Click on it to bring up the Espionage window, where you’ll need to enter your master password; this small window is where all of the magic happens.

When you unlock Espionage, you’ll then be able to drag-and-drop the folders that you want to encrypt. After dragging a folder to the window, the encryption process will begin and you’ll see a progress bar and timer for that specific folder.

What Espionage does here is create a secure disk image of the folder and then moves the original folder to the trash. So, when you go to the original folder’s location in Finder, it will be empty.

Upon completion, the folder will be locked – the blue switch on the right side will turn off; clicking on the switch again will unlock the folder. To see more information about the folder, click on the information (“i”) icon to the right of the folder. Here you can also decrypt the folder, create folder actions, adjust its size, choose an auto-lock time, and more.

To view an encrypted folder, you must first unlock it from the folder list (click the switch to unlock) and then double click on it. The folder will open up in Finder. When you’re done, you can manually lock the folder or wait for it to automatically lock (depending on your custom settings).

The Espionage window will also automatically lock after a certain amount of time, which you can customize in preferences – click on the gear icon at the bottom right corner of the window to go to preferences.

As you can see, Espionage is an extremely useful app that can boost the security of your Mac’s folders. Everything is done from the menu bar, making it a breeze to use. If at any time you change your mind about a folder, you can just as easily decrypt it and return it back to its original location. Simple.

If you’re worried about prying eyes, give Espionage a try!

The post Secure Your Folders with Espionage Encryption [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

While Mac OS X has the ability to add color labels to your folders (right-click a folder and choose a label), there’s no internal way to change the actual color of your folders. However, the Folder Magic app changes all of that in a snap; it’s the perfect tool to help you make custom folders for your Mac to change and brighten up the more traditional folders.

Using Folder Magic

1. Download Folder Magic from the Mac App Store. While the app is free, there are some available in-app purchases that will add some useful features. Without these in-app purchases, you’ll only be able to apply the free “Glass” collection to your folders.

For instance, you can unlock a photo collection that includes over 200 unique photo folders (for $0.99). You can also unlock the creator tool (pictured above) so that you can create your own personalized folders in a simple image editing interface (for $1.99).

2. When you first open the app, you’ll see the main Folder Magic window, along with the colorful Glass folder collection. When you click on a folder you’ll see the folder creation options pop-up which will let you delete that specific folder or apply it to any folder(s) on your computer.

3. To apply a custom folder to folders on your computer, click “Select items” and browse to the desired folder(s) on your Mac. Once you select the folder(s), click “Open” and the custom folder will be applied immediately. The next time you go to the folder in Finder, you should see your custom folder.

4. You’re all done. Following these instructions, you can apply custom folders to as many folders as you’d like in minutes.

Conclusion

As you can see, creating custom folders with Folder Magic is as simple as 1-2-3. The app is a breeze to use and has a user-friendly interface. Even though you can’t apply photos, animals or flags to your folders for free, you can easily unlock these collections for an affordable price.

Have you used Folder Magic to create custom folders for your Mac, or do you plan on using it? We’d like your input. Let us know below in the comments area.

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Using Macs Fan Control

1. You’ll need to download Macs Fan Control. It’s a free download that is available for Mac OS X and Windows (Boot Camp). In this tutorial, we’re using Macs Fan Control for Mac OS X.

2. Unzip the folder and drag Macs Fan Control.app to your Applications folder.

3. Once you run the application, the Macs Fan Control window will appear on your desktop; you’ll also see its icon on your menu bar.

4. In the Macs Fan Control window, you’ll see the min RPM, current RPM, and max RPM. You can also see see the control status for your fans; it will show “auto” by default.

Right-clicking on one of your fans will let you change the control; you can choose between automatic (controlled by system), constant RPM value (set by you), or sensor-based value (set by you).

Note: RPM = revolutions per minute and is a measure of the frequency of a rotation.

5. If you choose the “Constant RPM value” control option, you will be able to enter your desired RPM value for your fans.

If you choose the “Sensor-based value” option, you can choose a sensor and enter values for the fan speed and maximum temperature.

6. On the right side of the window, you’ll see a column for Temperature Sensors. Temperatures are measured in Celsius, but you can change them to Fahrenheit within Preferences.

To access Preferences, just click on the “Preferences” button under the Temperature Sensors column.

Note: In Preferences, you can also choose to display a specific temperature sensor value or display a fan RPM value next to the menu bar icon.

As you can see, Macs Fan Control provides real-time monitoring of your Mac’s fan speeds and temperatures. It lets you control each fan individually and helps to keep your Mac functional with cool temperatures.

How do you control your Mac’s fans?

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gfxCardStatus is really easy to use since it essentially just lists the power-hungry applications on the menu bar. Additionally, it also lets you monitor your graphics card and manually switch modes to increase battery life.

Here’s how to view which apps are affecting your battery life.

1. Download gfxCardStatus from this Web page; it’s compatible with OS X 10.7 and up. When you unzip the file, drag gfxCardStatus.app to your Applications folder.

2. When you run the application, you’ll see a new item on your menu bar. Click on the icon to see information about your graphics card and the applications that are affecting your battery life (listed under Dependencies).

While you can’t close out applications from this menu, you can close them out directly. As you can see, this is a really easy way to extend your battery life – just close out the apps that are using the most power.

3. You can also switch your graphics mode from the gfxCardStatus menu by choosing: integrated, discrete, or dynamic. Dynamic Switching is best for extending your battery life.

Note: Certain applications may not allow you to switch your graphics mode to Integrated Only, which is the more battery-friendly mode. You can find out more on the gfxCardStatus website.

gfxCardStatus quickly and easily shows you which apps are affecting your battery life, and you can in turn close them out and spend more time using your Mac and doing the things you really want to do with your time. Do you have any other methods for determining how your battery life is being affected? Let us know in the comments area below.

Photo Credits: polaroidmemories and Surat Lozowick

The post Find Out Which Apps Are Affecting Your Battery Life in Mac appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Unfortunately, Mac OS doesn’t include any time of lazy loading feature for Login Items, but there is an app that can help. DelayedLauncher is a free Mac app that will delay the startup time of your Login Items, thus decreasing the time it takes to start using your Mac.

Since DelayedLauncher doesn’t come with any instructions, here’s a quick tutorial to help you out.

1. Download DelayedLauncher from this Web page, unzip the file, and drag the .app file to your Applications folder.

2. Next, head over to your Login Items (Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Login Items). From here, remove all of the items that you plan to add to DelayedLauncher.

3. You’ll also want to add the DelayedLauncher application to your Login Items. To do this, click on the + (plus) button and choose DelayedLauncher from your Applications folder. When you’re done, it’s safe to close out System Preferences.

4. Now you’ll want to open DelayedLauncher and your Applications folder (in Finder). From here you can drag items from your Applications folder to DelayedLauncher.

Note: Even if you don’t want an item delayed, you can still add it to DelayedLauncher since there’s also an “instant” option.

5. Once you’ve added all of your desired applications to DelayedLauncher, you can customize the delays for each one. Click on an item and use the slider at the bottom of the window to choose a delay time – from instant all the way up to 5 minutes.

6. When you’re done, you can close out DelayedLauncher. The next time you login into your computer, the DelayedLauncher app will start up and your applications will load according to the delay times that you’ve chosen.

There you have it. No more sitting around and waiting for all of your applications to start all at once when you log into your Mac.

The post How to Delay the Startup Time of Your Login Items [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

This time I’m sharing a similar tool called AppsBar. It also adds an iOS-type multitasking functionality to the Mac via a launch bar. However, AppsBar displays your recently closed apps at the top of the screen, as opposed to the bottom. It also uses very few resources and does not engage the discrete GPU, so you won’t have to worry about it slowing down your computer.

Here’s how to get quick access to your recently closed Mac apps with Appsbar.

1. Download Appsbar from the Mac App Store. I happened to catch it when it was on sale for free, but it’s now priced at $2.99.

2. When you open AppsBar, you will see its icon in your menubar. Clicking on the icon will open the launch bar and you will see your recently closed applications in the order in which they were last closed; less used apps will have a semi-transparent icon. Clicking on an icon will immediately open the app.

3. Click on the icon on the far right side of the launch bar; it will look like 3 arrowheads pointing down. This will bring up AppsBar settings.

4. There are just three options to turn on/off: autostart at login, drag gesture, keyboard shortcut. Turning the drag gesture on will let you left click on the menubar and then drag down to open AppBar. Turning the keyboard shortcut on will let you use “Command + Option + B” to open AppsBar.

5. If you want to remove an app from the launch bar, just click and hold on it until an “x” appears at the top right. Then click on “x” to close it out.

Just as AppsBar is much simpler than TaskBoard, it’s also easier to use and more convenient. You won’t have to worry about your Dock or anything else getting in the way. do you have a different way of accessing your recently closed apps on a Mac? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Get Quick Access to Your Recently Closed Apps [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Phlo may not seem that useful if you’re working in the browser already, but if you’re working in another application, Phlo is a great way to do a quick search when needed.

Here’s how to search websites from your desktop with Phlo.

1. Download Phlo from the Mac App Store; it’s currently free (regularly $3.99). When you run Phlo, the search bar will appear on your desktop.

2. The first thing you’ll want to do is customize its Preferences so that it’s just the way you want it. To do this, go to Preferences from the Phlo menu.

3. In Preferences you can set up a global hotkey that can be used to show/hide the search bar. By default it uses Option+Spacebar.

You can also choose where to show Phlo’s icon: on the dock, menu bar, or both dock and menu bar. The icon simply serves as a way to show/hide the search bar.

4. On the Sites tab in Preferences, you can add, remove and edit your search engines and searchable websites. You can edit the search URL and name if you need to. If you add new websites, you can also test them to make sure they’re working properly.

5.  There are a ton of websites included with Phlo and in different languages, so you probably won’t need to do much here. When you’re done, close out the Preferences window.

6. When you want to perform a search, you can click the Phlo icon or use the keyboard shortcut. To change the search engine or website, click on the name of the website on the right side of the bar.

That’s it! When you enter a search query, the results page will open in your default Web browser.

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Here’s how to add your browser bookmarks to Spotlight.

1. Download the Brow app from this website and install it on your Mac.

2. When you run the app for the first time, you’ll see its icon in your menu bar. If you find the icon irritating, you have the option to make the Brow icon invisible so that it only runs in the background. Since the app does not need to be running for your bookmarks to be accessible with Spotlight, this is simply a matter of preferences.

3. You’ll also need to grant Brow access to your browser’s bookmarks. Click on “OK” to get started.

3. When that message disappears, you’ll see two options that are off by default: run invisible and launch at login.

You can turn either or both options on if you’d like. If you choose to run invisible, then you’ll still able to access Brow’s preference window from Launchpad, Spotlight, and Finder.

4. Now you can grant access to your Firefox and/or Chrome bookmarks. Click on the “Grant Access” button next to the appropriate browser in the preferences window.

5. When you click “Grant Access,” brow will open a file selection window. There’s no need to browse or to select any file or folder though; just click on “Grant Access” and you’re done. Brow will begin to sync your bookmarks. You will also need to grant access to your sync data output folder.

6. You will know that your bookmarks are synced because a green light will show next to the Sync Status. You’ll also see the number or bookmarks synced next to the browser. Once everything is all synced, you can quit Brow.

Note: It seems that Brow only works with Google Chrome and not other Chromium based browsers. I’m using Chromium on my Mac, but it does not show up in the browser list. Lucky for me, I’m using Xmarks so my bookmarks are the same in all of my browsers.

That’s all there is to Brow. Now when you search in Spotlight, you’ll see your Firefox and/or Chrome bookmarks shown in the Documents section.

Note: Safari bookmarks are shown in the Webpages section. This makes it easy to tell the difference between the two.

The post Search Your Browser Bookmarks from Spotlight [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

If you’re looking for a really quick way to kill running applications, meet AppKiller. It’s a simple Mac app that lives in the menu bar and lets you kill running applications in one click.

Here’s how to kill running applications form the menu bar with AppKiller.

1. Download AppKiller from this Web page. You will see it linked within the text, towards the bottom.

2. You will need to unzip the downloaded folder and drag AppKiller.ap to your Applications folder.

3. Once you run AppKiller, you will see its icon in your menu bar. Click on it to display all of your running applications and simply click on the application that you want to kill. Clicking on a running application will immediately kill it (without a verification message), so be sure that you indeed want to quit the application before clicking.

4. By default, your running application list is sorted by PID (process identification number) in ascending order. However, scrolling over the Preferences menu option will show even more sort options.

For instance, you can sort by CPU usage or Memory usage. This makes it easy to find and kill those CPU or memory hungry apps that may be slowing down your Mac. From Preferences you can also display all process, only your processes, or only your windowed processes.

Plus, the “Click sends” menu options let you change the BSD signal that you send to your running applications via a mouse and via a keyboard shortcut. The option “Killed” is selected by default, but there are many other options like: quit, terminated, suspended, stopped, information request, and more.

Note: AppKiller is a 64-bit application and runs on Mac OS X 10.8 or later; an Administrator password is required to install it.

The post Quickly Kill Running Applications from the Menu Bar [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

To help you boost your productivity when using your Mac, we’re providing you with a cheat sheet featuring all of the top and most important keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS:

Download Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts Cheatsheet

Can’t get enough of this? We have prepared a downloadable cheat sheet for you so you can access to it when you need it.

Download it here.

The post Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcut CheatSheet + Download appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

This menu bar application has features that, in my opinion, should be included with every Mac. For starters, you can tell Wimoweh not to go to sleep while running specific applications. You can also set a sleep timer to have your Mac sleep during certain times.

You can also easily keep your Mac awake indefinitely, or at least until you’re ready for it to go to sleep. This is already available in Mac OS X, but Wimoweh gives you easy access to it.

How to Use Wimoweh

1. First, download the Wimoweh application from its official Web page. You’ll see a link to download the most beta recent version right under the News heading.

2. Once you unzip the folder, drag the Wimoweh.app file to your Applications folder and open the application.

3. You should now see the Wimoweh icon in your menu bar. When you click on it you’ll see your current power source and the minutes remaining (if you’re on battery power).

Along with that, there are four important menus/options that are used to customize Wimomeh and control the way your Macs sleeps:

Apps Prevent Sleep – This displays any applications that are currently preventing your Mac from going to sleep; you’ll only see something listed here if you’ve enabled one or more apps in the ”Never Sleep Whilst Running” menu or if you’ve enabled the “Prevent Computer Sleep” option.

Never Sleep Whilst Running – This is where you can choose a single application or multiple applications that must be running in order for Wimoweh to keep your Mac awake.

Prevent Computer Sleep – This is an option to prevent your computer from sleeping. Click on it to enable, otherwise it will stay disabled. Note: If you enable this option, then you can’t use “Prevent Computer Sleep Until” menu; it will be automatically disabled.

Prevent Computer Sleep Until – This menu is much like the sleep timer feature on most televisions. It lets you choose a specific time (in military time) to put your computer to sleep. Drag the slider until you’re at the desired time/minutes. Note: Using this menu will automatically disable the “Prevent Computer Sleep” option (above).

4. After you have everything set the way you want it, you will want to go down to the preferences menu; there are just a few options that can be enabled here – everything is disabled by default.

You can choose to open Wimoweh at login, prevent your display from sleeping, and hide power information from the menu. You can also purge remembered apps, which is basically like a reset button. This is good if you want to start over.

Final Thoughts

Wimoweh is a simple application that’s extremely easy to use, and it includes some essential features that are great at controlling how and when your Mac sleeps. Whether you use your Mac as a media player, use it for downloading, or something else that shouldn’t be interrupted, Wimoweh can definitely help.

The post How to Control When and How Your Mac Sleeps appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

I often change my default browser depending on the task at hand. As you probably know, all browsers have their benefits and work great for different things. This is where Objektiv really comes in handy.

How to setup and use Objektiv

1. Download Objektiv from its official Web page. Then unzip the folder and drag the .app file to your Applications folder.

2. Open the Objektiv application. Immediately in the menu bar you’ll see the icon for your default browser on Mac.

3. Clicking on that menu bar icon will display all of the browsers that you have installed on your Mac. When you select a browser from the status menu, it will become your new default browser.

4. If there is an application listed that has been incorrectly detected, hold down the ALT key and then click on the item. This will blacklist that app and hide it from the status menu. For example, RealPlayer and Snagit are not browsers, yet they show in my status menu (pictured above), so I’ve hidden them from my list.

If you ever want to add something back that you’ve hidden, you’ll find it under “Hidden Items” in the status menu. Click on it to add it back.

5. You may also want to go to Preferences so that you can launch Objektiv on login and/or autohide the status bar icon. Another option is to record a hotkey for the app, which can be used to launch the app or to show the status bar icon (if you hide it).

With Objektiv, changing your default browser on Mac can be done in a matter of seconds. As you can see, this app is sure to save you time and boost productivity if you switch often.

The post Quickly Change the Default Browser on Mac From the Menu Bar appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Launch iTunes, then go to the advanced settings of the iTunes app (Advanced -> Turn on Home Sharing). Once active, after logging in, you should see a Home Sharing tab on the left side of the main screen of iTunes.

2. Start Adding Computers.

On the computers you want to share with, repeat the first step. Go onto one of these additional computers, activate Home Sharing in iTunes, and log in with the same Apple ID you used in step one. Choose your computers wisely, as an iTunes account can only be shared with five computers.

3. Check the Connections.

By now, all computers sharing the same Home Sharing account will also see the other connected computers there. When clicked, you can view the music they have, along with applications and multimedia.

4. Begin Transferring.

You will be able to add some of the songs found on those libraries onto your own. To do so, you have two options. If there’s one or two songs you want to add, you can simply click on each one, and drag into their respective section in the “Library” region of iTunes. If there are more, it may work better to click “Command” + each song you’d like to transfer. From there, drag the highlighted songs or multimedia to their final destination.

5. Let iTunes Take Care of the Sharing for You.

If you find that you and the computer you are sharing with repeatedly have similar tastes in music, or even if you want to automatically have any other future content sent to your Mac, you can easily activate “Automatic Transfer.” Just go to “iTunes -> Preferences -> Store”. Select which content you’d like to automatically download based on devices connected to the same account.

Home Sharing in iTunes is a great way for your content to easily get transferred to your Mac, whether it’s at home or in an office. If you have used this method before, let us know in the comments how this has allowed for a more streamlined transfer of iTunes content.

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Creating Folder Action in Automator

1. Open Automator. Select “Folder Action”.

There are tons of things that you can get it to perform with Folder Action. Today we will show you how to automatically resize images in the folder. Once you get the hang of folder actions, you can then customize everything to fit your needs.

2. Next, select a folder that you want to attach the Folder Action to. In this example, since we are mainly dealing with images, we will use the Photos folder.

3. Select “Photos” from the Library column at the left side of the Automator window, follow by “Scale Images”.

4. Drag the “Scale Images” option to the Actions section. You will receive a prompt asking you if you’d like to keep the original file as well as the one that is resized when added. If you’d like to keep the original file as well, click “Add”. If not, click “Don’t Add”.

5. If you have selected “Add”, you should now see two actions in your Workflow. The first item is labeled “Copy Finder Items”. This is where you select the folder to store the resized images. The second item is the “Scale Images” action where you can specify the size the photos are resized to. You can do so by percentage or pixel.

6. Lastly, save this workflow. Now, whenever an image file is saved to that folder, it will be resized to the size you specified earlier.

Removing the Folder Action

If the Folder Action is not working for you, here are the steps to remove it from your setup.

1. Open the Finder and navigate to the folder where you have attached the Folder Action to. Right click and select “Folder Action Setup”.

2. In the window that show up, you can either disable “Folder Action” altogether, remove this folder from the Folder Action, or remove the Folder Action from this folder. In most cases, clicking the “-” button at the bottom of the screen will delete the folder action attached to this folder.

That’s it.

Now, it is your turn to utilize your creativity to create the Folder Action to automate your life.

The post How to Setup Folder Actions to Automatically Resize Images in Your Folder [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Sure, you can constantly keep any page open in a tab in your browser, but not having to open the browser to view it would be even more convenient. That’s where an app like Website Wallpaper comes in handy.

With Website Wallpaper, you can turn any website into an interactive desktop wallpaper. This will in turn give you around the clock access to your favorite webpage, all without having to open your browser.

Here’s how it works.

Getting Started

First, you’ll need to download Website Wallpaper from the Mac App Store. It will cost $4.99, which in my opinion is worth the price.

Once you install and run the application, the Preferences window will open automatically. Your current desktop wallpaper will be replaced with a blank grey background for now.

Customizing the Preferences

1. Decide on a URL to use for your wallpaper and enter it under URL in Preferences.

2. Under the General tab, you can choose to automatically start Website Wallpaper when you start your Mac so that your interactive desktop wallpaper will be active right away. You can also choose to show the application icon in the menubar, dock, or both.

Finally, you can choose to show your desired URL on one or all of your monitors (if you have multiple monitors).

3. Under the Wallpaper tab, you can layer the Web page to show in the front or back of your desktop icons (if you have any).

If you choose “back of desktop icons,” then you won’t be able to interact with the Web page. You’ll be able to view it, but you won’t be able to click on any links, fill out forms, scroll the page, etc.

If you choose “front of desktop icons,” you can enable/disable the mouse and keyboard; you’ll need to enable the mouse and keyboard so that you can interact with the page. You can also decide what to do when you click any links on the URL: open in main frame, open in browser, or ignore.

4. Under the Screen Saver tab, you can also use your URL as your screen saver. You can choose to start the screen saver in 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour. If you don’t want to use the URL as your screen saver, choose “never.”

Interacting With Your Wallpaper

Once you’re done customizing the Preferences, you can click “Done” to see your new interactive desktop wallpaper. Remember, you can only interact with your wallpaper if you choose “front of desktop icons” under the Wallpaper tab.

Interacting with your wallpaper is just like interacting with a webpage in your browser. You can do just about all of the same things as you would in your browser, such as scrolling up and down the page and clicking links.

Quick Tips: Searching from your desktop

A good way to make use of Website Wallpaper is to set the URL to Google.com. In this way, you can perform a search directly from your desktop.

Final Thoughts

If there’s a URL that you’re constantly visiting throughout the day, then Website Wallpaper is the perfect app for you. You can use this interactive desktop wallpaper to keep tabs on your favorite news site, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and more. Plus, being able to actually interact with that site right from your desktop makes it even better.

How do you plan to use Website Wallpaper on your Mac? Let us know below in the comments section.

The post Turn Any URL Into An Interactive Desktop Wallpaper [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

However, Mac OS automatically saves those screenshots to your desktop and automatically appends a file name – “Screen Shot [date] at [time].png“. GrabBox is a handy app that will automatically save your screenshots to your Dropbox Public folder. Once the screenshot is saved, the URL will be automatically copied to your clipboard for sharing.

Usage

1. Download GrabBox, unzip the folder, and drag the .app file to your Applications folder.

2. When you first start GrabBox, you’ll be taken through an initial setup process. You’ll need to go to your Dropbox Public folder, select a file, and copy the public link. You can also choose to automatically start GrabBox at login.

3. Once you click “OK,” that window will close. Next you’ll want to click on the menubar icon and go to “Preferences.” This is where you customize GrabBox further.

Things you can customize include:

• Choose to display GrabBox in the menubar or the dock.
• Enable a prompt before uploading so that you can add a custom name if you’d like.
• Enable random filenames, instead of the default.
• Enable short URLs and choose between 07.no or bit.ly.

4. To view your screenshots, click on the GrabBox menubar icon and select “Browse Uploads.” Your Screenshots folder will open.

That’s it. As simple as that.

GrabBox is a great tool for anyone who takes a lot of native screenshots on their Mac, and want to keep the desktop clean. If you have tried it, let us know what you think.

The post Automatically Save Your Screenshots to Dropbox [Mac] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Grabbing PDF Text

Most PDF documents are essentially images of text. For this reason, it is difficult to accurately take text from PDFs into anything usable. However, there’s an automator workflow that can grab the PDF text and save it to a text file.

1. Open Automator. Select “Application” when asked of which document you’d like to create.

2. In the “Library” column, select “Files and Folders”. Next to the “Library” column, in the column for program options, drag “Ask for Finder Items” to the “Action” section.

3. Back to the Library column, select “PDFs”. Next to the “Library” column, in the column for program options, drag “Extract PDF Text” to the “Action” section

4. In the “Extract PDF Text” item you dragged into workflow, find the option labeled “Output”. Select “Rich Text”.

5. Under “Save Output to”, select which location you’d like to save the text to.

6. Click “Command + S” to title and save the workflow. Select “Application” for “File Format”

When you need to extract text from the PDF file, simply run this workflow (or application) and select the PDF you’d like to convert. It will then grab he text from the PDF file and save it to the location you specified previously.

2. Quitting All Running Applications

When you are on Mac, there are two situations when you just need to purge yourself of all active applications.

1. if you are an individual who likes to keep your Mac on throughout the day and evening, then having an application running regularly can be brutal to your system.
2. On the other hand, if you are working on multiple projects at a time, your system goes into overdrive when you have multiple applications open.

This workflow allows you to have one thing working at a time.

1. Open Automator. Select “Workflow” when asked of which document you’d like to create.

2. In the “Library” column, select “Utilities”. Next to the “Library” column, in the column for program options, drag “Quit All Applications” to the “Action” section

3. To exclude certain applications from quitting, click “Add” and select the application(s)

4. Click “Command + S” to save the workflow. Select “Application” for “File Format”

You can pin this workflow (application) to the dock so next time you can just click it to close all applications.

3. Create your own clipboard manager

Copying text on Mac only allows you to have one thing on your clipboard at a time. This means, if you copy a video link and want to then copy the text from another individual, the only thing you can paste is the latter. This workflow allows you to have a text file created for everything you copy to clipboard. This will act as a simple clipboard manager and allows you to easily refer back to previous clipboards later.

1. Open Automator. Select “Workflow” when asked of which document you’d like to create.

2. In the “Library” column, select “Utilities”. Next to the “Library” column, in the column for program options, drag “Get Contents of Clipboard” to the “Action” section.

3. In the “Library” column, select “Text”. Next to the “Library” column, in the column for program options, drag “New Text File” to the “Action” section.

4. Under “Options”, select “Show this action when workflow runs”. This will allow you to be prompted before such a file is created.

5. Click “Command + S” to save the workflow. Select “Application” for “File Format”.

You can get this workflow (application) to run during startup so everything you copy will be pasted to the text file.

4. From Text to Audio

Finally, staying with text, the last workflow we will preview is text to audio. This workflow allows you to take the text that you have copied to clipboard and have an audio file of the text saved automatically to your Mac. This is useful when taking class notes in school, needing an audio grocery list, or even for the visually impaired.

1. Open Automator. Select “Workflow” when asked of which document you’d like to create.

2. In the “Library” column, select “Utilities”. Next to the “Library” column, in the column for program options, drag “Get Contents of Clipboard” to the “Action” section.

3. In the “Library” column, select “Text”. Next to the “Library” column, in the column for program options, drag “Text to Audio File” to the “Action” section, under “Get Contents of Clipboard”.

4. Take a look around the options, make adjustments accordingly, including voice style and where the audio file is saved.

5. Click “Command + S” to title and save the workflow. Select “Application” for “File Format”

Whenever you run this workflow, it will create the audio file from the last clipboard item.

Conclusion

Automator has multiple benefits in the way you use your Mac. The program makes use of workflows to make for a more productive use of your Mac. While being an Automator master takes more time and workflows with greater difficulty, making Automator work for you in a noticeable way is easy and approachable for just about anyone. Let us know in the comments below how you have made use of the Automator program to help with making Mac usage more productive and time saving for you.

The post Make Your Life Easier With These 4 Useful Automator Workflows For OS X appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Where is Font Book?

You can access Font Book in the Applications folder of your Mac. However, this isn’t the most functional way of accessing Font Book, especially if you want to access the application regularly. If you’d like to access Font Book another way, you can do so with “Command + T”. It’s important to ensure that you are doing this command in an application supporting Font Book or font changes (Font Panel). For example, doing a Command + T will bring up a new tab rather than Comic Sans in an app that doesn’t support font changes. To be safe, you can always go to” Format -> Font” to find font options.

The Interface of Font Book

When you load up Font Book, you are presented with the ability to choose from various fonts in the center and left side of the screen. You can also preview the fonts on the right side of the screen. At the top of the Font Book window, you can search through fonts and even paste and preview your text in Font Book. Clicking the “i” button allows you to view more information.

Clicking the “+” button below the “Collection” category allows you to make an album of fonts. Clicking the “+” below the “Font” section allows you to add your own fonts. Clicking the checkmark allows you to disable a specific font. Of course, font size options are available on the right side of the screen.

Downloading Fonts

Downloading fonts from Font Book is simple to do. First off, click the “+” sign under the Font column. This will bring up a Finder folder that will allow you to search for the font you’d like to download. It’s important when downloading fonts to have them placed in an easily accessible location. If you are interested in downloading high quality fonts, and not so sure where to start, two websites that I make use of for new fonts are Google Web Fonts and FontShop. Both offer amazing, new fonts that are high quality and unique.

Troubleshooting

Lastly, Font Book can sometimes have issues with duplicate or unsupported fonts popping up around your Mac. If this occurs when you download a new font, or you discover it when searching around Font Book, there are some official ways of fixing the problem. When a dot appears next to the font name, simply right click the font(s) to “Disable/Remove” the font, “Validate” the font if the issue is present, or click “Resolve Duplicates” when that is discovered.

Font Book offers many options in terms of what you can do with your fonts – adding new ones or adjusting the amount of fonts you have already. Let us know in the comments below if you, too, have discovered the joy of font choices and which are your favorites.

The post Font Book on Mac: A Thorough Tutorial appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

While the configuration option is readily available in the Preferences pane, it is not obvious that it is referring to the cursor speed.

1. Open the Preferences pane and go to the Keyboard section.

2. Under the “Key Repeat” section, move the slider all the way to the right (Fast). You can also move the “Delay Until Repeat” slider all the way to the right (short).

That’s it.

The post How to Adjust The Cursor Speed in Mac [Quick Tips] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Found is a free Mac app that provides “a lightning-fast, intuitive search experience that finds files across your Mac, attached external drives, and personal cloud services.” With Found, you’ll be able to make sense of all those messy files that you have all over the place to make your search for files on the Mac and Cloud much easier.

Getting Started

1. Download Found from the Mac App Store and then open it on your Mac; you’ll be taken through a short setup process.

2. In the first step, you can choose to enter your email address and sign up for the Found newsletter or you can simply skip it.

3. Next, you can add the folders that you want Found to search through. Just click on the “+ Add” button next to each folder that you want to include. You can also add additional folders and drives via the last “Add Additional Folders/Drives” option.

4. In the next step, you’ll add the cloud storage folders that you want Found to search through. Again, click the “+ Add” button next to each service that you want to add.

I’ve noticed that Found only shows Dropbox and SkyDrive here, but after you’re done with the initial setup, you’ll find more services in Preferences. Supported cloud services include Evernote, Google Drive and Gmail. And yes, you can add more than one of each type of account (e.g. multiple Gmail accounts).

5. You can next choose to enable a few options: launch Found at login, send anonymous usage data, and send crash reports in the background. If you want to change these settings later, you can do so in Preferences. You can access Preferences from the menu bar icon.

Using Found

6. When you’re done with all of these steps, you’ll see the Found window pop out from the left side of the screen. Clicking anywhere outside the window (when you’re not performing a search) will automatically hide that window.

When you want to see the Found window again so that you can search for files, you can use the menu bar icon or the hotkey defined in Preferences. By default, the hotkey is a double-tap of the Control key, which is pretty easy to remember.

7. Found shows you results in real-time, so as you type in a keyword or phrase into to the search box, you’ll see results appear below the search box.

8. Found also has its own little browser window that will automatically pop up next to the search window which lets you view each result as your browse through them.

9. You can double click on an item to open it or right-click on it to show two options – open and open in Finder.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, Found is a real lifesaver when it comes to search for files on the Mac and Cloud. It’s a simple application but provides amazing functionality that you’ll soon find you just can’t live without.

The post Found is Better Than Spotlight. It Searches The Files On Your Mac And In The Cloud appeared first on Make Tech Easier.