Hazel 4.0

Today sees the release of Hazel version 4.0. I’ve talked, written, and screencasted about Hazel at length over the years. It’s one of my very favorite Mac utilities. The new version has some great features like:

  • The ability to apply rules to smart folders
  • Rule syncing between Macs
  • Previewing your rules while editing them
  • The ability to toggle extensions

There’s more. Put simply, Hazel can materially improve your productivity. About a month ago I committed to creating a Hazel Video Field Guide. I’ve got a lot of time in this project already and it is looking great. I expect I’ll have a release within the next two weeks. Stay tuned.

Anker’s New USB-C Charger

A friend recently turned me on to this USB Type-C charger from Anker. If you’ve got a USB-C charging MacBook, it’s a great investment.




The 60W charger plugs into the wall and offers four USB and and one USB-C charging ports. I use this next to my bedside table, where I nightly plug in my various Apple devices. Previously I was using a standard USB to USB-C cable to charge the MacBook. It was quite slow. The USB-C charging port in this new device charges the MacBook at full speed. The remaining USB ports also use Anker’s PowerIQ to charge devices (like my iPad) at up to 2.4 amps.

I own a few of these devices and whenever I travel, I always take one with me. This new one just became the official MacSparky travel power adapter because of its faster charge rate. There is also surge protection and temperature control. Third party power adapters always felt sketchy to me but over the last few years, Anker has become my go-to brand.




MPU 318: Backing Up

It has been years since we gave proper attention to backing up your Mac, iPhone, and iPad on the Mac Power Users. This week’s episode dives deep on the current backup options along with our recommendations and tips for dealing with backups. We also cover some of the sticky issues, like online vs. local, family and friends that don’t cooperate, photos and video, and how to account for time-delayed ransomeware. This show came out great and has something for everybody.

Sponsors are:

  • TextExpander from Smile Type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
  • Marketcircle We help small business grow with great Mac, iPhone and iPad apps including Daylight and Billings Pro.
  • Fracture Bring your photos to life.
  • Squarespace: Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Sponsor: Hoban Press Notecards




This week MacSparky is sponsored by Hoban Press. In our digital age, there’s something extra special about the stationery and calling cards that roll off Hoban’s 1902 letterpress machine.




I’d particularly recommend considering getting some of Hoban’s notecards. I’ve bought notecards from Hoban for both my personal use and my law practice. I love them and my friends and colleagues love receiving them. For truly special people, I even will add a wax seal. Writing a note and sending off one of these notecards lets me channel my own inner J.D. Salinger. One of my favorite notecards is the simply designed Kennedy Notecards but if you want to go nuts, Evan will help you with your own custom design. I made a craftsman style notecard for my personal stationery and I love it.

Since Hoban Press first started advertising here, its proprietor, Evan Calkins, was able to leave his day job and is now working full time at his passion of creating beautiful letterpress paper products. There are several categories of Hoban Press products available to you. Get your own letterpress cards and stationery and use the offer code ‘MacSparky’ during checkout to receive free shipping.

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Home Screens – Larry Salibra


This week’s home screen features Larry Salibra (Website) (Twitter). Larry, from Ohio but now living in Hong Kong, was a founder of pay4bugs.com and, among other endeavors, wrote an interesting post about how to put Live Photos on the web. So Larry, show us your home screen.


What are some of your favorite apps?

Apple Music is my current favorite app. It’s really done a lot to introduce me to new music outside of my normal comfort zone. When I don’t know what I want to listen to, I listen to Beats 1. When I hear a song on Beats 1 I like, I’ll add it to my music and sometimes even dive deeper and explore that artist’s other works. Before Apple Music, music discovery via radio was much higher friction.

I use the Hong Kong Observatory’s weather app to check out weather radar whenever it looks like it’s going to rain to plan my driving route around any potential rain clouds. I drive a scooter, and like to avoid getting soaked. Hong Kong has a lot of mountains and islands and it’s amazing how by choosing a slightly different route – perhaps through a tunnel instead of over a bridge, or on the non-rainy side of a hill – to a destination you can avoid getting wet.

I like the Breadwallet bitcoin wallet. It’s well done both technically and visually.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Twitter. I love to see what’s going on and get involved in silly Twitter debates about China, cybersecurity or Bitcoin.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

I’m definitely underusing OmniFocus. It’s my go to for everything I need to do, but I’m not as disciplined as I should be keeping it organized.

What is the app you are still missing?

I’m really looking forward to the Blockstack iOS client. Blockstack is a blockchain-based global internet database has the potential to revolutionize the way we as consumers manage our private information, store our login credentials and access information. Think decentralized domain names and decentralized FaceBook login secured by the Bitcoin blockchain.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

I use my iPhone all day. I’m using it listening to music on while I’m working. I keep sound notifications turned off and frequently set the phone (and my watch & mac) to do not disturb to escape from the constant deluge of iMessage, Whatsapp, Wechat, Telegram and other messages.


What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I’m using the Bitcoin ticker widget and the Air Quality widgets. I like to keep track of the price of Bitcoin and how much damage is being done to my lungs if I’m traveling in Mainland China. (The air in Hong Kong is usually pretty good!)

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

The camera is the best feature of my iPhone. It’s really changed how I keep in touch with my friends and family. My brother, who currently lives in Bulgaria recently called me on Facetime from the Munich airport on a layover on his business trip to the UK because he wanted to show me the planes he was watching from the observation deck. It’s amazing that we can still share these moments even though two brothers from Ohio spend most of our lives on opposite sides of the earth thousands of miles from home. iPhone enables that..

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I’d like to see Apple do something about Apple Maps in Hong Kong. It hasn’t received any of the improvements maps in the rest of the world has and is light years behinds the maps they offer their customers in Mainland China. The obvious solution would be to let us use the maps users in Mainland China get since the China supplier’s maps of Hong Kong are much, much better than what we’re forced to use.

(Here are some tweets that show the difference between Apple Maps view of same place from both sides of the border.

I’d also like to see them improve the UX of Apple Notes. Folders work inconsistently across platforms and the app sometimes feels sluggish with a lot of notes.

iMessage is also another common source of problems. The phone number/apple id aspect of iMessage causes a lot of problems. I usually give people my apple id and tell them they can reach me via iMessage. Most people don’t even know that you can send iMessages to “emails”. What will then happen, is that person sends me an iMessage that comes from their phone number. Our messages stop getting delivered as soon at the person changes phone numbers by switching SIMs. I live in a part of the world where people are always changing numbers. Hong Kong’s country code (852) covers an area the size of New York City and most people don’t want to pay for roaming, so they usually switch to a local sim card as soon as they board the plane or cross the border, not realizing that switching sims will “break” their iMessage. If you exchanged Apple IDs with each other, it keeps working as you’d expect. If you didn’t (most people don’t), your messages just never get delivered or one party will suddenly get a message from a new unknown number.

Apple could easily fix this by making iMessage send from Apple ID by default, but it’s probably too late in many markets where Whatsapp or Wechat reigns supreme and many people have removed the Messages app from their home screen altogether.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

Yes. I have the Apple Watch Sport 38mm with the white band. I’m using the utility watch with the activity, weather and sunset/sunrise complications. I like to do outdoor activities like hiking or swimming, so it’s important to know how many more hours of daylight I have. I also often stay up late and want to make sure I get to sleep before the sun comes up.

The killer app for my watch is turn by turn driving directions on my Vespa – much safer than how I’d previously have to pull over to the side of the road in busy traffic, take off my riding gloves, fumble to get my iPhone out of my pocket and then hope I could memorize the upcoming turns. It’s been a real life saver – literally!


What’s your wallpaper and why?

I recently changed to a colorful cityscape I found online. I really like how it brings out the capabilities of the iPhone 6s Plus screen and brightens up what has been a rather dark and rainy spring. Honestly, though I don’t see it very often, because I’m usually listening to music so the album artwork is on my lock screen.

Thanks Larry.

Drafts App Sale Plus Screencasts

Over the last month I’ve been busy creating screencasts on how to use Drafts on my iPhone and iPad. There is a whole slew of them. This is, essentially, a full MacSparky Video Field Guide and if you’ve ever wondered about Drafts, here’s your chance to master it. Drafts is going to release the screencasts over time and you can read all about it right here.

There is also a 30% off sale on the app from now through May 2 so if you’ve been on the fence, you’ve really got no excuse now. Below is the Overview screencast that gives you a good idea what you can do with this essential app.

Apple Music Recommendations. Not “For Me”

Apple Music has been great for our family. We all love music and we all listen to different kinds of music. Thanks to Apple Music we are listening to more music than ever and spending less money doing so. I know this shouldn’t be news for anybody that’s been in the subscription music game for any amount of time, but with the $15 a month family price point, it’s really been great for us.

All of that said, I really hate Apple Music recommendations. Below is my “for you” recommendations earlier today.



With the exception of a single Miles Davis album none of those are “for me”. I suspect the reason I get so many pop recommendations is because my family shared a single iTunes account for many years. However, we are now all on separate family sharing accounts and I can assure you that I’ve never favorited a Beyoncé album. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)


My favorite music largely includes obscure living jazz artists and less obscure dead jazz artists. I’ve wasted hours favoriting albums and marking other “recommended” playlists as ones I don’t like. Nevertheless, I open iTunes nearly every day as I work at my iMac and get the same Selina Gomez album thrown at me in place of Thelonkous Monk.

Maybe if I started a new iTunes account from scratch I would be in better shape. But that would require me to walk away from thousands of dollars of music, movies, and apps I purchased from iTunes in the past. I’m in a cage of Apple’s creation and I believe they should figure a way out of it. At the very least, if I tell Apple Music I don’t like the One Direction playlist (again, not that there is anything wrong with that), Apple Music should not throw it at me again … every day … for the rest of my life. How does the algorithm not take into account when the user specifically says, “please don’t show me this again”?

The net result of all of this is that I am unable to use Apple Music recommendations. I guess that’s okay because I know other ways to find new and interesting music but it also just kind of sucks.

Stack Social’s Pay What You Want Bundle




StackSocial’s Spring “pay what you want” bundle is worth consideration. Because you get to choose your price, it accommodates all budgets. If you pay more than the average price, you’ll receive the full upgraded bundle with all 13 applications. There are several good ones on this list, many of which I’ve already paid full price for. There are a lot of apps here but to me, the combination of Screens 3, Pomodoro Time Pro, and Marked 2 are really what sells this bundle. Here’s the full list.

Marked 2 ($13.99 value): Bret Terpstra continues to improve upon this markdown swiss army knife. In the years since Brett first released this app it has grown to do so much more than just Markdown, including Fountain, CriticMarkup, MathJax, Scrivener, MarsEdit, and VoodooPad. It’s a long list.

Screens 3 ($29.99 value): Remotely control your computer with this user-friendly VNC for Mac. I started using Screens when it was version 1 and I’ve never looked back. There are lot of VNC applications out there but Screens does it solid reliability and a modern user interface. I’m using it even more now that I keep using the iPad Pro.

Pomodoro Time Pro ($4.99 value): Define & manage tasks, track progress. I recently broke myself out of a rut but bringing disciplined work bursts into play using pomodoro timers. This stuff works. Here’s a pretty timer to help you along.

Owlet ($499 value): Turn your 3D models into photorealistic images

Flux 6 ($99 value): Build websites with this powerful & user-friendly WYSIWYG tool

AfterShot Pro 2 ($79.99 value): An all-in-one RAW convertor, photo editor, and high-speed photo manager

Hands Off! ($49.99 value): Controls the access of web apps to your network and disks

FoldersSynchronizer 4 ($40 value): Synchronize & back up files, folders, and disks

AllMyMusic ($29 value): Record audio from any online streaming site

iClip ($14.99 value): Easily organize & access the contents on your clipboard

FilePane ($4.99 value): Drag a file, folder, text or images from any app

Emulsion App ($49.99 value): A powerful flexible digital photo librarian & editor

skEdit 4 ($29.99 value): Easily craft & edit quality code in this text editor

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The MacSparky Mailing List

For years I’ve been getting emails from readers asking me to put together a regular newsletter. I’ve decided to commit and start making a monthly newsletter. The newsletter will have some original content and point at other content that I hope is interesting. I’ll be publishing the first such newsletter this week so if that’s your thing, go sign up.