Other Big Sur tips and tricks
There are even more ways to get the most from Big Sur.
We’ve covered tips and tricks for the major apps that are included with Big Sur, along with those associated with the biggest improvements and changes in the OS. However, there are lots more smaller changes and much more you can do to tune up macOS Big Sur and get it working exactly the way you want it to.
1 Clean up Voice Memos
Voice Memos in macOS has been brought into line with the iOS versions, and that means you can now “enhance” memos to reduce background noise. Choose the memo you want to enhance in the list of memos and press Edit. Click on the Enhance button (it looks like a magic wand). Undo the enhancement by clicking the icon again.
2 Use folders with Voice Memos
You can now organise memos in folders. Click the sidebar button at the top-left of the window to display the sidebar. Press the folder icon at the bottom of the sidebar. Give the folder a name and press Save. You can now drag memos on to the folder.
3 Delegate reminders
You can now delegate, or “assign” in Apple terminology, reminders to other people. This can only be done for reminders created in a list that you share with others. To share a list, click on it and then click the People icon and choose how you want to share it. Once it’s shared, when you create a new reminder, click the People icon between the location and deadline buttons and choose who you want to delegate the reminder to. You can also Ctrl-click a reminder after you have created it and choose
“Assign to.”
4 Check for pollution
You can ask Siri for a report card on air quality that will display details of things like carbon monoxide, ozone, and particulates in the atmosphere locally. Just ask “What’s the air quality?” and Siri will tell you the headline reading and display the details on screen.
5 Use Quick Styles in Notes
Quick Styles enables you to format text without navigating several menus. You can apply a style such as heading, sub-heading, or bulleted list; or make text bold, italic, underlined, or struck-through. In any note, click in the main note window and select the text you want to style. Press the “Aa” button in the toolbar and choose a style.
6 Change note to light background
If you’re using Notes in Dark Mode, you can change the background of any note to white to make it easier to see its content. When your Mac is in Dark Mode, Ctrl-click in the body and choose “Show note with Light Background.”
7 Change your profile pic in Messages
Pinned messages give more prominence to profile pics, so it’s appropriate that you can now choose your own in Messages. Click on Messages and Choose Preferences > General. Hover over the profile pic and choose edit. Click on the photos icon to choose a photo, the emoji to choose an emoji, or the pencil to use your initials. Or, scroll down to choose a Memoji or one of the stock icons.
8 Pin conversations in Messages
Ctrl-click on any message thread in Messages and choose Pin. The thread will now be pinned to the top of the list and displayed as the profile picture of the other person in the conversation. You can also pin conversations by swiping right over them and choosing the pin icon, or by dragging a conversation to the top of the list. You can pin up to nine conversations.
9 Check privacy labels for apps and websites
Privacy has been at the heart of recent updates to both macOS and iOS. The two areas where this is most obvious in Big Sur are the privacy labels in the App Store and privacy information in Safari. In the App Store, navigate to the app you’re interested in, scroll down to App Privacy, and click See Details.
In Safari, navigate to a website and then click the shield icon to the left of the sidebar. Then just click the drop-down menu to see the trackers on that page.
10 Use Quick Look in Spotlight
You can now preview documents in Spotlight using Quick Look. Click the Spotlight icon in the menu bar or use its keyboard shortcut to invoke it. Type your search query then click on any document such as a PDF or text document to see a preview in the right-hand window. Use the scroll bar or two-fingered gestures to scroll through the document. You can enlarge the window by clicking and dragging it from the top or bottom.
11 Use an APFS-formatted disk with Time Machine
Big Sur now allows you use an APFS disk with Time Machine.
You will first need to reformat the disk you want to use in Disk Utility and choose APFS. You can then select it in the Time Machine pane in System Preferences.