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The Minimise Easter Egg lives on

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Everything you need to know about how to have fun with this Easter Egg, which is even better in more recent versions of macOS.

April 27, 2026 Macs, Technology

Explainer: Preferences

Hundreds of app preferences are hidden away in ~/Library/Preferences and elsewhere. What do they contain, how do they work, and how can they crash an app before it’s even running fully?

November 1, 2025 Macs, Technology

Should you repair permissions?

First we repaired disk permissions, until SIP made that impossible. Then we reset user permissions until Apple withdrew that advice. Next we ran repairHomePermissions in Recovery. Should you still use that?

October 27, 2025 Macs, Technology

SwiftUI on macOS: Settings, defaults and About source code

Swift source code to accompany the matching article on SwiftUI on macOS: Settings, defaults and About.

April 30, 2024 Macs, Technology

SwiftUI on macOS: Settings, defaults and About

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How to add a tabbed Settings window with different controls, for settings saved by UserDefaults, and extend the app’s About window.

April 30, 2024 Macs, Technology

How to change an unknown system setting

How to get the most out of System Settings, third-party alternatives, and what to do if you still can’t find the setting you need to change.

August 8, 2023 Macs, Technology

Preferences, permissions and problem-solving

Repairing permissions has a long history in Mac OS X. The permissions concerned have changed over the years, and it’s no longer what it once was.

August 3, 2023 Macs, Technology

Preferences: Property lists and their use

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Introduction to property lists, used in many places as well as the mainstay of preference files. How to change them safely without risk of conflicts.

August 2, 2023 Macs, Technology

System settings that aren’t in System Settings

Where would you set the default call handler for macOS? And where in System Settings do you set the default web browser?

July 29, 2023 Macs, Technology

Changing preferences isn’t so simple

Before you try editing or trashing that preference file, ask whether macOS in the form of cfprefsd isn’t going to undo your work.

November 25, 2022 Macs, Technology

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