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Shortcuts on macOS: A review

macos shortcuts opinion

This is an opinion piece on Shortcuts v5.0 (1144.2) for macOS Monterey v12.0.1. Readers of my blog know I use Automator, AppleScripts, and shell scripts to get stuff done. So I was curious to see if I could replace all these with just Shortcuts. TL;DR: no, no I can’t.

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Shell script to move duplicate files

macos shell

I setup Firefox on macOS to automatically download files to my “Downloads” folder without prompting (under Preferences... > Downloads, and select Save files to... instead of Always ask you where to save files). If there is an existing file with the same name, Firefox appends (1) to the filename (then (2), (3) and so on). Over time, I land up with files with similar file names, which may or may not be identical. This shell script finds and moves duplicate files to a different folder... for subsequent manual deletion.

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CoreSimulator Crash Loop

guide macos

Last month, one morning, my MacBook (still running Catalina) started behaving strangely - though I was not running anything, it was sluggish as the CPU was too busy and the fans were on high. I traced it to the iOS Simulator service that comes with XCode.

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AppleScript to change clipboard image format

coding macos office

For the longest time, I’ve struggled to get the macOS version of Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) to paste images as PNG or JPEG, instead of the default TIFF. TIFFs make the files far larger than they need to be! I’ve resorted to macros, shell scripts, Quick Actions... all paste PNGs (lossless) into MS Office! But I just found another method with AppleScript.

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Monitoring MacBook temperature

guide macos

I have been having issues with my Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro - as the notebook heats up, the LCD display starts to die. Initially the display would glitch - black bars or lines of dead pixels would appear at the bottom of the display,. Then these dead portions start to “jump” causing the display to flicker. The glitches progressively affect a larger and larger portion of display, until the display gives up and just just goes blank! Perhaps the flexgate design flaw with the ribbon cable between the motherboard and display...

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Hide Firefox Toolbar and Tabs in Fullscreen

coding macos javascript

I use macOS spaces (virtual desktops) to arrange the various apps I frequently use. I have one space setup with two Firefox windows, in fullscreen Split View mode. But by default, Firefox windows are not really “full screen” for me, in that the tabs, toolbar and bookmarks bar will still be displayed. Here is my workaround to force the browser to full screen.

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