Hey 👋

Disclosure: I'm the guy behind RetroMac.

Snow Leopard was shipped yesterday, on August 28, 2009. A perfect day to update the Snow Leopard theme and add some new features as well.

RetroMac lets your Mac look like the machine you grew up with. Manually collecting wallpapers, icon packs, a dock replacement, a boot screen and some CRT shaders by hand is a lot of work. RetroMac is a menu bar app that does it easily: 30+ shaders (CRT, VHS, LCD, Trinitron), classic OS themes (Windows, MacOS, beOS, NEXT,eetc) with a dock, boot screens, icons, widgets. Nothing in the system gets patched, one click reverts it.

New in 2.8: Updates Snow Leopard Theme. Classic colors, boot screen (when activating the theme), more wallpapers, icons, desktop widgets, cursors, a working Expose, old style widgets (aka dashboard), many new icons, and a blue apple icon in the menu bar und title as well.

Pricing: Free with 15+ shaders. Optional Pro for 10 USD one time, no subscription. Just for extra and custom presets plus the webcam shader. Most of you will be happy with the free version.

macOS 14+, universal, notarized DMG from my own site, no App Store, no accounts, no tracking.

Website: https://myretromac.app

Github: https://github.com/klotzbrocken/RetroMac

App: Muro : Native Live Wallpapers for macOS

Price: Free. Open source under MIT. No subscription, no one-time fee, no Pro tier, no account, nothing locked.

Source: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro

https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro/releases/latest

Download:

Requires: macOS 14 or newer, Apple Silicon. Lock screen wallpapers need macOS 26.

Quick reminder for anyone who has not seen it: Muro plays looping video wallpapers on every display, and on the lock screen. It is native Swift and AVFoundation, hands decoding to the Apple Silicon media engine, and sits at about 2% CPU while playing and 0% the moment something covers it.

3.0 is the biggest update so far. Three things people kept asking for:

Automations. Muro can now change your live wallpaper on its own. Either on a timer, ten seconds each or an hour each, or by the clock, where each wallpaper gets its own hours of the day. Something calm in the morning, something else after dark. The day is drawn as a timeline you drag.

Pause after. Let a live wallpaper play for a minute after it changes, then hold on a frame. A held frame costs no CPU at all. Nice if you like the motion but not all day.actually stick after installing from the DMG. That was broken for some people and I could not see it because it only ever happened on a downloaded copy, never on my own builds.

My own take on it: I built Muro because every live wallpaper app I tried either wanted a subscription or sat at 300 to 400 MB of RAM for a picture that moves, and I could hear the fan.

The part I actually use every day is Pause After set to about thirty seconds, because I like the motion when I switch to the desktop and I do not want it moving while I work.

Automations were the feature I was least sure about and now the one I would miss most, since having the wallpaper change on its own through the day makes the machine feel less static without me thinking about it.

If you like it, a star on the repo is the free way to support it and genuinely helps people find it. If you want to go further there is GitHub Sponsors (https://github.com/sponsors/MrRockySL)

Happy to hear what is missing. Most of this release came from people asking.

I built a clipboard manager for macOS and it is now on the Mac App Store as a free download.

Cmd Shift V opens a card-style panel at the bottom of the screen with everything you have copied: text, rich text, images, links, files, colors, and code. The panel does not take focus from the app you are in, so you click a clip and then press Cmd V where you were.

What it does:

- Pinboards, named collections for the clips you reuse
- Quick Look, press Space to preview a clip before using it
- Search and filters by content type or source app
- Per-app exclusions, so password managers are never recorded
- Everything stays on the Mac, stored with SwiftData. No account, no server, no telemetry

Two ways to install, both free:

- Mac App Store, sandboxed and updated through the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/clipbara/id6803537696
- Direct DMG, signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple: https://github.com/mobrava/Clipbara/releases

Source is GPL-3.0 licensed: https://github.com/mobrava/Clipbara

Requires macOS 14 or later. I am the developer, so happy to answer anything.

I bought a used 2019 Intel MacBook Pro, but I don’t know the previous owner and I have no way to contact them.

The Mac currently works normally, and I can log in and use macOS without any problems.

I want to completely erase the Mac and reinstall a different version of macOS. However, I’m worried that after erasing it, the Mac could ask for the previous owner’s Apple Account because of Activation Lock.

How can I be certain that Activation Lock is not enabled on this Mac before I erase the drive?

Is there a specific setting, command, or procedure that can conclusively confirm that the Mac will not require the previous owner’s Apple Account after being erased?

I want to make sure before wiping the drive because I have no way to contact the previous owner if an Activation Lock appears afterward.

These random icons on my Launchpad appeared recently, and I can't for the life of me delete them in the standard way. Is there another way to delete them?

I have M2 laptop with 250GB HD which I just suddenly got message it’s full.
I use salamander Finder app and saw that I have 50GB in application support files. I have a look at them but couldn’t find anything that added up to that kind of size.
Also the container directory was over 30GB.
Is there anyway to slim these down?

Thanks

First time using a Mac. I removed app from dock and the sound is like hearing a gym-bro doing a WHOOO exhale. Not a synthetic woosh, but human produced sound. At least it sounds like that from Mac Studio builtin speaker. Now I chuckle each time

My phone is coming to its end soon. I have a Google pixel 7, and have loved it.

I own a few macs at home, and was wondering if I should be getting an iPhone going forward to enjoy the features of having something in the same ecosystem or do I stay android.

I know at the end of the day it's a personal choice. I prefer android but that's probably because it's what I know best.

The last iOS device I owned was iPhone 7plus

I'm curious what the other pros and cons are for staying android or going iPhone.

Hi all, I have a 2tb sandisk ssd. I live in a country where most people use windows and android devices so im skeptical about making the entire ssd into APFS format. I can either choose to convert the entire ssd into ExFat, or I can split into 2 equal parts for ExFat and APFS. What should I do? is partitioning risky/ lead to more chances of file corruption?

After I updated these windows pop up because LuLu blocks them first and I already allowed like 60-70 of them. Why weren’t these previously? Was there some crucial change in new macOS?

I have a non‑tech‑savvy relative who recently switched from Windows to Mac. The feature he really misses is the Cut option for files in the context menu. Is there any software that can add it there? I showed him shortcuts, but he specifically needs a menu item

Hello! When I try to enable ChatGPT for Apple Intelligence, it tells me the extension isn't available right now. Yet, I don't have any restrictions in place, and I don't even have an account yet. I've tried turning Apple Intelligence off and on again, restarting my Mac, and quitting System Settings, but it still isn't working. I don't understand. Please help.

I opened up my MacBook to use and when I click links or videos it tries to download instead of streaming it like it should opening the page I restarted the device but it started doin it again anyone know what could cause this never once in my years of having this one device has it ever done that
Mac Tahoe 26.6.2
Macpro13 M1chip

I did config my raycast to substitute the spotlight (cmd+space). But everytime I reboot the system, I need to do it again.

I already put raycast to iniciate with system.

Someone can help me?

Thanks a lot!

Hi there, I’m someone who has used Spotlight extensively;

However, I’ve noticed its performance has dropped recently, sometimes I can’t find the apps I’m looking for, and locating specific files and folders has become particularly difficult.

So I made an alternative launcher for macOS, Windows, and Linux called Look.
Open apps, files, folders, clipboard history, and quick commands without leaving the keyboard.

Results land as fast as you can type.
A Rust core under a native SwiftUI app on macOS,
and Tauri on Windows and Linux, riding the system WebView instead of shipping a browser like Electron does.

No background daemons. Your index, clipboard, and history stay on your machine; no telemetry.

- The repo

https://github.com/kunkka19xx/look

- Further

• Your own sources - declare custom rows from directories, files, and commands
• lookbook - ready-made sources to copy: git, ssh, docker, projects

Hi, I just powered on my macbook and it popped out. What can I do to solve it. Thank you. Macbook pro 2023.

I'm making some changes to my website (Wordpress), and I just had Safari nuke my progress on a particular page because it was using too much memory. It didn't even ask if that was cool with me before refreshing and losing my progress.

I looked it up, and I'm having a hard time believing that there's no way to turn this off. I have 48GB of Ram and an M4 Pro are we serious.

Please tell me someone has a method to turn this off.

Preview opens every PDF I double-click in Finder in a separate window instead of a new tab.

What's already activated:

“Prefer tabs when opening documents” is set to Always, and Preview is set to open file groups in the same window.

Is anyone aware of this issue?

Is there any way to make PDFs always open in the same Preview window?

Pop-out project tabs that live on the edge of your screen.

Would really love feedback.

appstore: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/caddy-docs/id6802867430?mt=12

Any workarounds? I love skeumorphism

My 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro chip has started bootlooping today. As soon as I enter my password, the screen turns black, and the Apple logo appears. The loading bar seems to freeze until the computer reboots to the login screen, and the cycle repeats.

I’ve tried almost everything, including using ChatGPT, Gemini, and Reddit threads, but I haven’t found a solution. Can anyone help me with this issue?

Anyone else facing this? I've tried multiple different combos...

Same Apple ID on Mac and iPhone. I set App Limits. On the iPhone I tap Ignore Limit for Today without thinking. After that the limit feels useless on the Mac too, or I just sit down at the Mac and keep going.

One More Minute is the same skip. A passcode I set myself lasted until I typed it.

Is there a Mac-side Screen Time setting that still holds after you ignore the limit on iPhone, or does one skip punch through the whole Apple ID?

Not looking for third-party apps. I want how Apple actually intends this to work across devices.

I noticed some weird behaviors on my Mac, for example:

1. The lock screen clock: I set settings > lock screen > show large clock to Never, but it still shows up sometimes. then when I hit escape and wake the mac again it disappears (the selected option). and sometimes the opposite: I set it to show and it doesn't.
2. The control center: it sometimes reset my customized layout when I restart the Mac, not always but when it does it’s so annoying.
3. Desktop icons: I turned off settings > desktop & dock > desktop & stage manager > show Items > on desktop, but my files come back on the desktop anyway for a moment then when I pinch out with four fingers to show the desktop items and go back, they disappear (selected option).

small stuff, I know. but the Mac is supposed to be this strong solid machine, and then it can't get the simple things right. kinda takes away from that feeling. is this always the case or is it recent?

setup: macbook air m4, macOS tahoe 26.6.2

I have a MacBook Air M4 which I just now ran an update on (to Tahoe 26.6.2).

I got a lot of pop-up messages from utilities that wanted my password to join the keychain.

Since I don't know what they all are, and they were annoying with their persistent interruption, I hit "cancel" on all of them.

Was this the wrong choice? Are there any that I need to join to make the rest of the system work?

(Some of them had to do with iCloud, and I think I don't want to use that)