Top 10 macOS Ventura tricks. macOS Ventura was officially released on October 24, 2022, it offers several innovations that take the Mac experience to new levels such as Continuity for the camera, Stage Manager, news regarding Mail and Messages, and other important ones such as those present in Safari which inaugurates a passwordless future with passkeys.
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Some innovations and peculiarities are immediately evident for others you have to sift through the system. Below you will find 10 interesting tricks that you may not have known about regarding the new operating system.
1-Set up limited data consumption with WiFi
By opening System Settings, it is possible to select WiFi and show details about the WiFi network to which the system is connected; if you click on “Details…” from this section, you can activate and deactivate the “Limited data consumption” item. This feature from iOS and is useful if we use the iPhone or other phone as a hotspot with a cellular or internet plan that provides for limited data usage or if you are in an area where data speeds are low.
With this mode active, apps reduce data usage in different ways (for example by disabling background updates, reducing the quality of streaming content, disabling automatic downloads and backups, pausing updates to services such as iCloud Photos).
2-Quick view in results with Spotlight
“Quick Look”, in Italian “Quick View”, offers as always a quick and complete preview of files of almost all types without the need to open them. You can rotate photos, crop audio and video clips, and use the editing tool right in the Quick Look window. In macOS Ventura, you can press the spacebar after selecting a search result to preview the file in Quick Look. It is now possible to find images in Photos, Messages, Notes and in the Finder, and also on the web, directly from Spotlight, and thanks to the “Live Text” function it is also possible to search for an image based on the text contained in the image.
3-The Clock app and various settings
Not everyone has noticed it but the iOS and iPadOS Clock App is now also available for Mac, integrated into macOS Ventura. The app in question is very convenient for seeing the local time in another country or setting a personalized alert on the fly; it is possible to set time zones, timers and alarms, customize the functions as we want using the menu bar or Finder shortcuts, or by asking Siri. From the main screen it is possible to select “local times” (choosing the cities to be displayed), alarm clock (to set an alarm clock with any setting relating to the days, indicate a label, the am and whether or not to apply a delay), start stopwatches and timers .
4-The background sounds
In iOS 15 Apple had added the “Background Sounds”, a feature that we now also find in macOS Ventura. Continuous playing in the background of balanced electronic sound, or ocean, rain or stream noise, masks unwanted ambient or external noises helping the user to concentrate, stay calm or rest. As you use the device, sounds fade out or blend in with other audio sources and system alerts. To take advantage of this function, open System Settings, hence the “Accessibility” section and click on “Audio”; at this point it is possible to activate the background sounds, choose between various sounds (stream, rain, ocean, etc.), set the volume and choose whether or not to disable these sounds when the Mac is not in use.
5-Changing secure passwords with Safari
A peculiarity of Safari on Mac is the ability to create secure passwords; When a website asks you to create a password, you can click the password field, click the AutoFill key button, then choose “Suggest New Password.” As always, a safe password is suggested, with a yellow background; it is possible to reject the suggested password and now also change the safe passwords suggested by Safari according to the specific requirements for each site.
6-Copy Wi‑Fi password in Network Preferences
By opening Settings, selecting the Wi-Fi item in the left column, in the right panel it is possible to view the known Wi-Fi networks and from here copy the password (useful for sending it to someone); from this same section it is possible to disassociate the networks when they are no longer needed.
7-Measure Metal performance
One of the new features integrated into macOS Ventura is Metal 3 technology; developers using these APIs can create games that take full advantage of the Mac’s hardware, resulting in better performance, more responsive games, and graphics with enhanced details. Some developers are working to offer AAA-class games and among the titles already able to take advantage of Metal 3 there is Capcom’s Resident Evil Village, launched on the Mac App Store on Friday 28 October, whose improvements are evident from the more interactive and high frame rates. A peculiarity of macOS Ventura is a tool that shows what in jargon is called HUD (heads-up display), with which users and developers can realize Metal performance in real time. The HUD in question supports games for Apple Silicon, games run with Rosetta 2 and those native to Intel CPUs. You can activate the HUD from the command line (from the Terminal), by typing:
/bin/launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 1by starting any game (which uses Metal) the window with various details will appear at the top right. Among the visible data: the name of the chip, the graphic resolution, the rendering frequency (ideally 60 fps with traditional screens), the calculation times in milliseconds for each image (with the minimum and maximum values on the right), the memory used (on Macs with Apple Silicon CPUs there is no limit but on Intel Macs the value should remain below the amount of memory on the video card). You cannot change the size or position (top right) of the window. To turn it off, just write this command in Terminal:
/bin/launchctl setenv MTL_HUD_ENABLED 08-Adjust the frequency of your Time Machine backups
New options for Time Machine in System Settings allow you to choose how often to back up with Time Machine by choosing from “Manually”, “Once an hour”, “Once a day”, “Once a week ”. The options in question are useful for those who, for example, make backups on traditional hard drives at night and want to avoid hearing hum and other noises at night.
By default in previous versions of macOS, Time Machine takes a snapshot of your startup disk approximately every hour and keeps it for 24 hours. An additional snapshot of the last successful Time Machine backup is kept until space is required for other operations. When your backup disk is unavailable, Time Machine automatically uses local snapshots to help you restore your files (these backups are called “local snapshots”). As always, you can create a Time Machine backup by plugging in an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive by opening Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar; alternatively you can choose the Apple menu > System Settings > General and from here click on Time Machine, and select the backup disk.
9-Set a reminder to reply to an email
If you are unable to reply immediately to an email received with Mail, you can right-click (or equivalent combination with the trackpad) on the message, choose “Remind me” and select the options: “Remind me in an hour” , “Remind me tonight”, “Remind me tomorrow” or “Remind me later”: in the latter case a window will appear allowing you to set a time and date to remind yourself to reply to the message; after setting these parameters, click on “Schedule”: a reminder will appear in your inbox on the day and time indicated.
10-Stage Manager from the menu bar
The Stage Manager is one of the most evident innovations of the new macOS Ventura, useful for maintaining concentration and working in multitasking. To call up Stage Manager, just open the Control Center which is located next to the date in the macOS top menu bar and call up the function; if we want to further reduce the steps and have an icon available to activate/deactivate the Stage Manager on the fly, just open System Settings, select “Control Center” and under “Stage Manager” set the option “Show in toolbar menu”. A handy icon will appear in the menu bar which will allow you to activate/deactivate the function on the fly.
