Quick-fire questions

How should I clean my Mac’s caches out?

> You shouldn’t need to, although they can malfunction or you might want to rebuild items like font caches. Start up in Safe mode, with the ß key held (or via M1 Recovery), let your Mac run for a couple of minutes, then restart normally. This can cure various problems, and should be harmless.

How can I check for errors in my Mac’s log?

> The log is now busy and can contain tens of thousands of entries every minute, making this difficult. The bundled utility Console works mainly with a live stream of messages, and makes it hard to look back. Free apps Ulbow and Mints show log history; they’re at bit.ly/mac371logutilities.

How to open my encrypted disk without a password?

> If it’s an APFS (Encrypted) volume or encrypted by FileVault, and you didn’t set up a Recovery Key, you’re out of luck unless you’re a government security agency. Even then, only the password can unlock an encrypted volume.

Why does spellcheck dislike ‘there’ so often?

> With three words to choose from, the macOS spellchecker often gets this wrong. As it’s correctly spelled, you can’t add it to your dictionary. Select the word and click the Learn button in the Spelling and Grammar panel.