Quick-fire questions & answers
Touch ID has stopped working. Is it broken? In Settings > Touch ID & Passcode, enter your passcode and check that your iPhone is set up to use Touch ID for unlocking, Apple Pay, and Apple’s various stores. If that looks okay, shut down your iPhone, wait a minute or so, turn it on and retry. How can I keep private notes away from iCloud? In Settings > Notes, turn on the On My iPhone account. You can make this the default location in the setting immediately above, if you want. To make a private note in Notes, tap the item at the top left until you see the folders list, then tap a list in the On My iPhone section. Lists there are stored only on that particular device.
Can I stop others accessing my Wi-Fi during the day? If your Wi-Fi spills into a public area and you want to secure it when you’re out or during the night, some routers can be configured to turn their radio signals off or to low power mode on a schedule. Check in the router’s manual or the advanced settings of its admin tool. How do I check my firewall blocks incoming traffic? In your router’s admin tool, note the router’s external (public) IP address. Connect your Mac to another internet connection, such as your iPhone’s Personal Hotspot, open Network Utility, then run a port scan on that IP address. You should never do this on another IP address, as it is considered a hostile act.
What’s fastest for file transfers between Macs? Use Target Disk Mode over Thunderbolt, which enables you to browse one Mac’s drive on the other. If both Macs are in macOS, on one go to System Prefs’ Startup Disk pane, click Target Disk Mode, then Restart.
If one is shut down, power it on and hold T until a Thunderbolt icon appears; if a firmware password is set on your Mac, hold Alt instead, enter it, then press T.
When finished, eject the Mac in Target Disk Mode from the other before shutting it down.
How do I restore items in the Open Recent submenu? Occasionally, a crash or bug may clear the contents of an app’s Open Recent submenu. The list is maintained by Launch Services, part of macOS over which you have little control. Try restarting; if that doesn’t fix it, temporarily starting up in safe mode ( bit.ly/macsafemd) should. How to find files in system folders? In Finder, choose File > Find. In the criterion’s leftmost pop-up menu, choose Other. In the list that appears, put a tick next to ‘File invisible’ and ‘System files’ and click OK. Set up rules (click + to add a second) to check these attributes, matching against ‘Visible or invisible’ and ‘are included’, respectively.