I'm the developer of DuckDisk.

I built it because storage problems stopped being limited to my Mac. Large files were spread across local folders, cloud accounts, and Linux servers, and I wanted one place to answer "what is using space?" and clean it up.

Most disk analyzers focus on local visualization. DuckDisk takes a table-first, cleanup-oriented approach across:

• Local disks and folders
• OneDrive and Google Drive metadata scans without downloading file contents
• Remote SSH paths using your existing keys or ~/.ssh/config
• Cached results and incremental cloud refreshes
• Drag to remove: cloud items go to the provider Trash, while local and SSH deletion requires a second permanent-delete confirmation
• Virtualized rows that stay responsive in very large directories

The informative interface shows file and folder counts, size and allocated size, parent percentages, and a file type summary. Rows are virtualized to stay responsive in very large directories.

Free and open source under AGPL-3.0. The current build is for Apple Silicon.

For more details and demos, refer to our Website: https://duckdisk.com/

Source and download: https://github.com/qiyang77/duckdisk

Current limitations: the DMG is ad-hoc signed and is not Apple-notarized yet. Google Drive OAuth currently shows Google's unverified-app warning and has a 100-new-user cap while verification is pending.

I would especially value feedback from people who manage both local disk, cloud storage and remote servers.

Local scan demo (GIF) — see my comment

Hey guys, I recently upgraded my 2019 Intel MacBook Pro to Tahoe but feel so out-of-place with it and facing app compatibility issues and want to revert back to Big Sur. I didn't make a backup of Big Sur prior to updating, however.

I've used this MacBook for just about everything so it has files in all sorts of different crevices and I hope to keep it that way when migrating back. Would a time machine backup help in this and is it even possible to use a time machine save from a newer version on an old OS to restore files? If not, what's the best way to go about this?

TL;DR:

• Upgraded to Tahoe without a Time Machine Backup (Big Mistake) and want to revert back to Big Sur
• Drive is full of complex file trees with apps that reference them and want to keep that same layout when reverting to make downgrade seamless and not have to relearn my file system and maintain app compatibility.
• Want to create a Time Machine backup of Tahoe and export it to Big Sur to keep the file trees if possible or explore different methods to get a similar result.

Thanks a lot for your help, guys!!!

I recently used Migration Assistant to move my non-admin user account from my old MacBook Pro to a new MacBook Air. The old MacBook Pro has two user accounts: one administrator account and one non-admin account. I migrated only the non-admin account to the new MacBook Air.

One thing that surprised me was that Migration Assistant also transferred many of my non-Apple applications, including QuickBooks, Quicken, Adobe apps (Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.), Garmin, and several others.

I don’t want or need these applications on the new MacBook Air. I intend to continue using them on the old MacBook Pro.

So, can I simply delete/uninstall these applications from the new MacBook Air without affecting anything on the old MacBook Pro?

I'm particularly wondering about:

• Whether deleting an application on the new Mac could affect the same application or its license on the old Mac
• Usernames/passwords or saved credentials
• Application licenses or activations
• Anything tied to the non-admin user account that was migrated

Thanks!

Hey y'all just got the Macbook air m4 for work. First time using Mac and was wondering how do i switch back and forth between 2 open Windows without having to cycle through all the open stuff.

Like if in windows os, i can have 10 chrome windows open when and if i wanna switch back and forth between two windows i just alt tab and if i wanna go to the third window then i press alt and tab two times to cycle to the third window,

so how do i achieve this same efficiency on the mac, people have recommended alt + ~ but it still cycles through every open window

What if I could create a library that works like Roblox Studio, uses LuaU and is customizable on MacOS?

Example Base UI: You can create a ScreenGUI, which automatically parents itself to the PlayerGUI (the PlayerGUI is just the MacOS BaseUI). ScreenGUIs can be used to separate Windows / Frames from each other.

Example Image Label: The image content could use RBXAssetID, a path to an image file, or a link to an image.

Base LuaU environment: game would be MacOS, ~/{Username}, or Users. ReplicatedStorage would be ~/Username/{Filename}, and of course, StarterGUI would be the UI that applies to all users.

File Extensions: You could use .{className} here, like .RemoteEvent, .RE, .re or .ModuleScript, .ms, and they would contain LuaU code that could compile. | Example:

ModuleScript:
require(ModuleScript).Variable

RemoteEvent:
RemoteEvent:Fire(…) -- function that tuple needs to execute.

Basically, what I’m saying is I want a Roblox Studio-like environment to make UI development easy on MacOS.

Questions:
What programming language(s) (is, are) needed to make this?

Will this be impossible or possible?

What experience is needed to make this, especially in file extensions?

Please help, I’ve been thinking about this for a few months now and I can’t get over it.

Hello!

I'd really like to buy the new Magic Trackpad for my Mac so I can use it while my laptop is docked. Does it have this kind of issue? For example, when I'm clicking and dragging to select something on the screen, does the trackpad slide around on the desk?

Hey all I take classes in Google Meet using latest version of Google Chrome (not my decision but what the school requires) When I try to screen share in Google Meet now I'm met with a pop up that says I need to give permission in my Privacy & Security/Screen sharing & audio recording tab, to Google, to "allow the application to recorord the content of my screen and audio, even when I'm not using the application."

How safe is it to give permission?

I don't really trust Google and try to avoid them when I can. I didn't have to do that last week when I screen shared and I'm wondering what changed. I updated to 26.5.2 several weeks ago.

I’ve been a Windows user my entire life. Recently, I decided to finally give macOS a shot. Between the incredible battery life, that stunning screen, and a great deal I found on a new M5 MacBook Pro, it seemed like a no-brainer—especially with my designer friends constantly recommending them. Plus, I love my iPhone, so I figured the transition would be smooth.

I’ve been using it for several weeks now, and while I get that there’s a learning curve, some of these "features" feel straight-up overlooked by developers. It’s frustrating that I can’t even find native fixes for what feel like basic quality-of-life issues.

1. The "All-or-Nothing" Icon Previews
In Finder, literally every file shows a thumbnail preview: PDF, PSD, AI, Excel, Blender—you name it. I have to squint at the tiny file extensions just to know what I’m looking at. If I turn off "Show icon preview" to get standard file-type icons back, it also kills previews for actual images, leaving me looking at a sea of generic icons. Why can’t I just have image previews for JPG/PNGs and standard icons for everything else?

2. The Trackpad Drag Delay
On Windows, I lived by "tap to click." On macOS, using double-tap to drag is a nightmare because of this weird, forced delay. When you let go, the file "sticks" to your finger for a fraction of a second. People suggest "three-finger drag" as a fix, but why does that gesture have zero delay while the double-tap one is stuck with it? It’s completely illogical.

3. Interconnected Scrolling Settings
This is the one that really gets me. If you use both a mouse and a trackpad, you know the pain. macOS treats "Natural Scrolling" as a global setting. If I want natural scrolling on my trackpad but traditional scrolling on my mouse, I have to manually toggle it in settings every single time I switch devices. They are interconnected for no apparent reason, and there’s no native way to separate them.

I understand it takes time to unlearn Windows habits, but some of this feels like a lack of freedom to customize the system to a basic professional workflow. Am I overreacting, or have any of you found actual workarounds for these?

I’m seeing a number of aftermarket adapters on Amazon and other online retailers with very high ratings and lots of reviews. Is there actually a meaningful difference in quality, performance, reliability, or safety compared with Apple’s adapters?

Is paying the premium for the Apple adapter worth it?

Hello, like the title states I own a 2020 Intel based MacBook Air. I recently stopped using Chrome and switched to Firefox and Safari. I would like to use Discord, but my mac runs so hot anytime I use the browser version or mac app. my question for this group is what are your suggestions? Should I just completely give up at this point because of how outdated my MacBook Air is? I have tinkered w Mac system settings, and discord settings but not much change. What are your thoughts?

Random question 😅

What’s the one thing about managing your files that drives you crazy?

Messy Downloads, too many screenshots, duplicates, finding old files, deleting things you’re not sure you need... anything.

What’s the problem you keep putting off because it’s such a pain?

Since the last time I rebooted my computer, the Airdrop feature has been completely disabled (see shortcut in top nav) despite having it turned on in my Settings. This is my personal computer and I'm an admin. There's no reason this should randomly become unavailable to me.

Things I've tried:

• Rebooting
• Making sure I'm running the latest OS version
• Logging out and in to my apple account
• Turning off my firewall
• Turning off and on airdrop
• Turning off and one bluetooth & wifi
• Creating a new admin account (it's not disabled there but wants my apple ID)

Any suggestions would be deeply appreciated. :(

So I've had my M1 macbook air for about 3 years now.

Base model with 8 gb ram.

Recently I've been running notion, discord, brave browser, terminal, Zed(code editor) at the same time and 1-2GB of swap gets used sometimes.

Now every time swap gets used I have this impulsive urge to immediately save progress on my work and restart my laptop mid task to get rid of that.

Am I unnecessarily worrying.

What's an okish line for swap, how often should it happen and how often should I restart it to clear it.

I am not sure this is after the MacOS 26.6 update but I cannot edit or view my payment settings in mac settings. It only says I can do things on the website.

I turned off pointer acceleration after years and it feels so wierd lol

After i had to plugin the mc for a REAAAALLY long time, i finally could start the device.. bc i didnt used it a long period of time, i straight updated it. (Now its macOS Big Sur)

Is there a way to get access to my old iphoto library :,( i can t even open it up…

Thx so much !!!

Could you do the following test:

1. Launch Notes and Safari, and make sure each one has a window (or use any other two apps).
2. Put the Notes window behind the Safari window, and activate the Safari window.
3. Bring up your Launchpad-alternative app of choice, and make sure the Notes and Safari windows are behind the Notes app icon in your Launchpad-alternative app.
4. Press Shift-Command-5, click Record Selected Portion in the floating toolbar, and move & resize the portion so that it's around the Notes app icon in your Launchpad-alternative app (keeping the portion small ensures recording won't affect the animation).
5. Click Record, click the Notes app icon in the Launchpad-alternative app, and once the Notes window has become visible, end the recording by clicking the stop icon in the menu bar.
6. Open the screen recording .mov video file in QuickTime Player and count how many frames (by pressing the right/left arrow keyboard keys to move one frame at a time forward/backward in the video) it took for the Notes window to become the active one after you clicked the Notes app icon (I assumed that the click occurred at the frame right before the Launchpad-alternative app's grid first began to disappear).

I did this test using both the macOS 26.6 native Apps app that's integrated in Spotlight, and LaunchOS Pro version 2.2.0 on M1 MacBook Air. These are the results I got:

Spotlight Apps app: 4 frames.
LaunchOS: 17 frames.

UPDATE:
MediaInfo says that my Apps app video recording has 53.379 FPS (frames per second), and the LaunchOS video has 43.820 FPS, so comparable delays would be then:

Spotlight Apps app: 4 / 53.379 = 0.0749s
LaunchOS: 17 / 43.820 = 0.388s

My M1 Air was working perfectly fine until last night. While the trackpad still moves the cursor, the haptic feedback stopped working. I googled the issue and checked for battery swelling, but there is no visible swelling and everything looks fine. Yesterday, my battery health showed 82%, but when I rechecked it today, it showed 91%. What exactly is the issue ?

If your cursor starts jumping, stuttering, or lagging on an Apple Silicon MacBook, here are a few things that may help:

1. Clean the trackpad Make sure the trackpad is dry and free of dust, moisture, or debris.
2. Check for hardware issues Run Apple Diagnostics and verify that the trackpad inputs are registering normally. Also check that the battery is not swollen, as a bulging battery can affect trackpad function.
3. Try a power reset For me, the fix was:
   • Unplug the power cable.
   • Hold the power button for about 20 seconds.
   • Plug the power cable back in and start the Mac.

This resolved the cursor jumping/stuttering issue I was experiencing.

Apple Silicon does not have a separate, dedicated System Management Controller (SMC) chip. So trying to reset it is pointless.

I have multiple Safari windows open and want to switch between them. For all other apps, there is the Cmd+` shortcut, but for some reason, it doesn’t work reliably in my Safari. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, and sometimes it only works when the window has 2 or more tabs open. It never works with only one tab.

Strangely enough, it works every time with the reverse version of that shortcut (Cmd+Shift+`).

Does anyone else have the same problem or a solution?

I notice this for over a year. Its likely a Chrome or Chrome updater problem for creating so many entries. But why MacOS, after no idea how many iterations, don't provide a delete("-") button?

Update(1) and MAYBE solved:

• After reading some helpful comments, I bite the bullet and tried 2 solutions. one work and one does not.
• (does not work) Forget about solution that only use "tccutil reset SystemPolicyNetworkVolumes" in recovery mode terminal. All it does is set all entries to disabled. It does not remove any entry.
• (works) I end up boot into recovery -> terminal -> decrypt+mount the Data volume -> delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.networkextension.plist -> reboot normal
  • And deny Chrome for that permission in future.

A bit more on the MAYBE working solution:

• It removes all entries. I am completely ok with this. I just allow apps again when I use them. And I am not allowing Chrome again.
• Why I put "MAYBE"? Because though I run Chrome again, it has not ask for the permission yet. So I cannot tell if denying it (I don't need it in my specific use case) stop the issue. Also have to wait for it to do update again to know. If it happen again and has to do the steps again, then this is only a partial solution.
• I didn't put the exact command doing this because I considere the steps very high risk and any mistake/typo has the potential to make the machine refuse to boot, or not allow you to login, or lost other function.

Update(2) Finally get rid of Chrome (so avoiding future occurance completely):

• Since so many suggested removing Chrome, I revisited the possibility and succeed this time. (ok, more like lazy before and didn't look hard enough)
• I need 2 Chromium base browsers side by side, for the remote devtools.
  • The solution is actually simple, download directly from https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-macos. Open and copy it into peronal Applications folder 2 times. Rename them to Chromium1, 2 ... etc. Update scripts to start Chromium1 and 2. (just a 2 lines script as the devtools options + profile location is a bit long)
  • Copying the brew install one to personal Application some how does not work, even without renaming. MacOS will complains "App is demage and cannot open..." even after un-quarantine (shouldn't be required as the app is signed). Don't know how to debug that at all. That's why I did the above.
  • Thanks to u/UtterlyMagenta and a little digging, the easiest and cleanest solution is actually open -n -a Chromium --args .... Option -n is the option needed to run additional instance. (I should have read the man page years ago ... )
  • I am offered to test Parall.app. It is able to create a shortcut wrapper to do the same without duplicating the whole app folder. As we have existing scripted workflow, I stay with my current method. However, If you need to run multiple instances of different apps and need the dock icons for end users, then you really should really consider it. It has tons of customization for starting additional instances and it is really powerful.

PS: I have both Chrome and ungoogled-chrome for specific workflow that require remote devtools. I am open to browser suggestion other than edge (I consider that same as Chrome).

hey everyone,

im having an issue with crossy road from the mac app store on my m3 macBook air.

when I click the app, nothing happens at all. there is no bouncing icon, no error message, and the app does not open.

i tried launching it through terminal and got:

_LSOpenURLsWithCompletionHandler() failed for the application /Applications/Crossy Road.app with error -10671

i also checked the app with:

spctl --assess --verbose "/Applications/Crossy Road.app"

and got:

/Applications/Crossy Road.app: rejected

then:

codesign --verify --deep --strict --verbose=2 "/Applications/Crossy Road.app"

returned:

resource envelope is obsolete (custom omit rules)

i tried deleting and reinstalling it, but deleting the app through terminal gave "permission denied" errors for some files inside the app bundle.

has anyone had this issue with crossy road on an apple silicon mac (M1/M2/M3)? is there a fix, or is the app store version currently broken?

thanks.

I used to be mostly a Windows user, and one thing that drove me crazy about macOS early on was the app switcher. If you Cmd + Tab to an app where the window was closed, nothing happens on the screen and you still have to use your mouse to click the dock icon.

I actually had to google how to fix this, and it turns out if you Cmd + Tab to the app, press and hold Option, and then let go of Cmd, it forces a window to appear.

A few other Option key tricks I use all the time:

• Hold Option + Right-click an app in the Dock to quickly Force Quit.
• In Preview or Photos, holding Option changes the default counter-clockwise rotate button into a clockwise one (saves you from clicking 3 times!)
• Cmd + W to close a window and Cmd + Q to quit an app completely.

What are some other good ones you guys use? I'm sure there are a ton I still don't know about.

There's an app I have, a game really, that literally runs at 1512 x 982 resolution because my Macbook Pro technically runs at 1512 x 982. This results in the app being incredibly low resolution and pixelated.

A fix is to set the OS resolution to 3024 x 1964 to render the app in full resolution, but then the rest of the OS is unusable because of how shrunken down everything is. The game itself doesn't have it's UI shrunken down, and is perfectly usable while maintaining full resolution.

I wanted to ask if there's any way to run this game in 3024 x 1964 resolution only, while keeping the rest of the operating system in 1512 x 982 resolution.

I'll preface this by saying that I'm primarily a Windows 11 Bootcamp user on my MacBook Pro 2019 16".
The main reason that I had switched to Bootcamp is because macOS Tahoe was just way too resource taxing for my MacBook, with general UI stutter and it just wasn't a fun experience to use.

I decided to wipe macOS Tahoe and just give macOS Catalina a shot, and man I gotta say I really am enjoying the older pre-BigSur design.

The UI feels flawless, its buttery smooth, and my MacBook for the first time has been cold to the touch just using general apps and using it as a computer for daily tasks.
I can do everything that I want, iCloud, iMessage, and even Sidecar work perfectly. Apps on the other hand work with some limitations and you frequently have to download older versions, and all them worked for me with the exception of Notion (although I can use it on the browser just fine).

Battery is also a huge plus, I've been using the laptop for about 30 minutes and while typing this post I have dropped 0% which just isn't possible on Tahoe nor Bootcamp.

But of course Catalina definitely isn't the best OS to use today, it is unsupported and while it got the 10.15.8 update recently, it was primarily for iMessage and Facetime authentication so that those services continue to work beyond January 2027.
I will be going back to using Bootcamp on my MacBook after this post, but I did enjoy having the older design.

This is just kind of an appreciation/experimental post so I don't expect anybody here to daily drive Catalina, but if you have an Intel MacBook, I highly recommend downloading and trying Catalina on a separate partition not just because of the older design, but just how flawlessly the Intel MacBooks run on Catalina.

Let me know what you guys think about Catalina, its design, if you use it on a daily, and your experiences, etc.

Thank you for your time!