Category: Tips and Tricks

Settings for Seniors

MacMAD Meeting Topic September, 2026

Our Apple devices have literally hundreds of settings, most of which you have likely never changed or maybe even seen. We’re going to explore a few of those that might be helpful as we get older. Maybe your eyesight isn’t what it used to be, or maybe you find these devices to be just too darn complicated.

You may find some of these hints useful. These are mostly for iPhone, with a few for Mac and iPad.

Screenshots in this article are from iOS 26 and iOS27 beta. Some features may move or change in future releases.

Navigating Settings

The hard part might be finding the setting you want to change. Settings are arranged into groups of related settings, so it’s not just one big list.

If, in the settings app, you see a little arrow to the right like >

That means that there is a settings sub-section there. Some sub-sections have additional nested sections below them. Think of it like nested folders.

iPhone Settings Screen

Fortunately, Apple has provided a search function to help navigate all these settings. The search field is at the bottom of the screen in recent versions.

Here’s an example of searching the settings for “Assistive”.

Admittedly, the hard part is knowing the exact name of the feature you are searching for.

Assistive Access

Assistive Access is for someone who needs or wants a phone but doesn’t have the desire or ability to deal with all the complexity of iOS. It reduces the user experience down to a few apps with big buttons.

Assistive Access makes iPhone or iPad extremely simple! It’s the best option for someone with cognitive impairment or someone who just doesn’t need 90% of the features. Also good for parental control scenarios. Assistive Access is intended for scenarios where there is a caregiver and a user. But, You could set it up for yourself.

It’s not real simple to set up. You need to create a new 4-digit Assistive Access passcode for entering and exiting Assistive Access. You also need to choose the Apps and features that will be available from a long list.

In my testing, I had trouble waking the iPhone in Assistive Access mode, and always had to sign in using the passcode although the phone was set up with Face ID. Your results may vary.

Assistive Access Screen showing 8 large App Icons.

In general, the Assistive Access user can only use the Apps present on the home screen, and cannot install new apps or change the settings. Only by entering the 4-digit Assistive Access passcode can a user escape the protective environment of Assistive Access.

Assistive Touch

Assistive Touch helps iPhone and iPad users who have trouble remembering or executing the gestures defined by iOS and iPadOS. Many older users cannot reliably do the special swipes and other gestures to access the Control Center, Notifications, Siri, the App Switcher, etc.

When Assistive Touch is turned on, a gray dot appears on the edge of the screen. (The Assistive Touch control can be seen towards the lower right of the previous image of Assistive Access.) Tapping that dot reveals the special Assistive Touch menu. The Assistive Touch dot can be dragged to any edge of the screen by the user in case it is interfering with something else on screen.

Tapping the “Device” button leads to more options shown below:

The features of Assistive Touch are customizable:

Assistive touch is a simple feature that can make your device easier to use with very little penalty. There’s no reason not to give it a try. Assistive Touch can be turned on in Settings->Accessibility->Touch->Assistive Touch.

The Magnifier

The Magnifier is not really a setting, but an App that exists in the Control Center.

The Magnifier uses your camera to magnify nearby objects. It’s great for reading the small menu print in a dark restaurant. Besides enlarging the image, it also makes it brighter, thus easier to see.

The Control Center is Customizable so the Magnifier may not appear in your Control Center unless you add it, or it may appear in a different location than shown here.

iPhone Control Center – Magnifier Icon in Red

The Control Center can be accessed by swiping down from the extreme upper right of your screen (for devices with Face ID). For devices with a home button, Control Center appears when you swipe up from the very bottom of the screen.

Below is the magnifier in use shown examining some obsolete coins.

Magnifier View of Pennies

Zoom

The Zoom feature magnifies items on screen. Settings->Accessibility->Zoom, then Double Tap with three fingers to invoke or dismiss.

Wikipedia page on Steve Jobs with region of magnified text.

Text Size

You can adjust the size of text in most Apps with Settings->Display & Brightness->Text Size. This size control is further extended to even larger text in Settings->Accessibility->Display & Text Size->Larger Text.

Text Size and Larger Text Settings

Display Zoom

Hey Siri, make everything bigger than everything else.

On iPhone or iPad Display Zoom has two options, Default or Larger Text. This is misleading, because it doesn’t only affect text. What Larger Text does is resize the entire screen, making most everything look bigger.

I liked the Larger Text option right away. Everything is just a bit bigger and clearer, with very little penalty. On the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the screen resolution changes from 2868 x 1125 to 2436 x 1125. That makes everything 17% larger in each dimension, while showing you 85% of the pixel count in each dimension.

This seems like a quite reasonable tradeoff and it just makes everything a little easier to see, at the expense of super fine detail, which older eyes probably can’t see anyway.

Your results will vary with the model of iPhone or iPad. The system claims that your iPhone will need to restart for this change, but in practice I didn’t see a restart — the screen just went blank for a few seconds.

Unless you have great eyesight, or great reading glasses, this will make a nice improvement for you, and you won’t notice those slightly larger pixels.

Above is a side-by-side comparison of the settings screen with Display Zoom set to “Default” text (Left), and “Larger Text” setting on the right.

MacOS Display Resolution

Display Zoom on iOS is similar to the long-standing Display Resolution setting on MacOS. Found under Settings->Displays, this option makes everything on your Mac screen larger or smaller. If you have more than one monitor, you will have to make separate adjustments for each.

When you hover your mouse over the display size options, you will see the pixel dimensions displayed for that choice. Depending on your monitor setup, you may find some of those scaling options don’t look so great.

Again, one of the options is labelled “Larger Text”, but it make everything larger — not just text.

Bonus Tip – Use Keyboard with iPhone or iPad

Many people may have never thought of using a keyboard with their iPhone. You can connect a USB or Bluetooth keyboard to your iPhone or iPad.

If you have a spare keyboard around, you may be able to save a lot of frustration typing on the tiny iPhone on-screen keyboard. Besides typing text, the keyboard can operate many of the functions of your iPhone. I was able to change brightness & sound volume, switch between Apps, navigate the home screen, take a screenshot and similar actions using only the keyboard.

Like many features on iPhone, you can dig deeper into Accessibility settings to find even more functionality. This article goes into extreme detail of all the buttons and functions that can be performed using a keyboard with iPhone.

Scan with Continuity Camera

January 2026 Meeting Topic

You can use your iPhone to scan paper documents into the Preview App on your Mac. This is a really convenient way to get documents into a PDF file so that you can email them, etc.

You can scan either into a new, blank document, or an existing PDF document, in which case your scans become new pages in that document.

In the Preview App, select File->Import from Phone->Scan Documents.

You’ll then see this prompt on the Mac.

Your iPhone will automatically open the camera app as show below.

The iPhone automatically finds the document in the camera view and captures the scan when the image is in view and stable. You don’t need to press the shutter button. The automatic shutter can be a bit disconcerting if you are not used to it. If you want to turn it off, the button marked “shutter” will disable the auto-shutter, and you can then take each scan manually.

You will have the option to scan multiple pages. There will be a check mark at the upper right. Tap that when you have scanned the last page.

The pages will then automatically appear in Preview on your Mac.

This is very easy and nearly foolproof. Your devices need to be on the same iCloud account, and up-to-date with software, iOS 18 or greater, and MacOS 18 or greater.

Screen Sharing with FaceTime

January 2026 Meeting Topic

Screen sharing with FaceTime can be a great tool for helping or collaborating over the Internet. It allows two-way (or multi-way) audio and/or video chats. It also allows you to view or control someone else’s screen (with permission). If you ever need to help someone who doesn’t live with you this is a great tool.

Prerequisites

FaceTime itself works on Macs, iPhones and iPads. You can do a FaceTime call to a Windows user also, but that mode doesn’t support screen sharing.

On Apple devices, both parties must have an Apple ID and be signed into that on those devices. Most Apple users do have an Apple ID, and their devices are usually signed in.

Your device must have a microphone. A camera is helpful. All iPhones, iPads, iMacs and Mac laptops have a camera and a microphone, but some desktop Macs do not have those built in. You can use FaceTime audio and screen sharing on a Mac with a microphone only but no camera. This is despite a message that says “To use FaceTime, connect a camera.“

It seems weird that to do screen sharing (in either direction), you must have a microphone, but that’s the way it works at present.

If you try a FaceTime call without having a microphone, it may appear to work at first, but when the other party answers, you’ll get “Call Failed“.

FaceTime screen sharing requires iOS 18 or newer on iPhone, and iPad OS 18 or newer on iPads.

Messages and FaceTime

You can launch a FaceTime call from within the Messages app. This is probably the most reliable way to get started with screen sharing.

By exchanging text messages with the other party, you are greasing the skids by making sure that you have their correct Apple ID contact information. You can also ask them if this is a good time for a FaceTime call, and ask them to start using their Mac instead of their iPhone, if you want to share the Mac screen. It’s usually easier to deal with screen sharing on a larger screen. But if you want to share an iPhone or iPad screen, that works too.

Once everybody is ready, and using the devices you want, you can start a FaceTime Audio or Video call from the Conversation menu in the Messages App.

Screen Sharing and Facetime options are in the Conversation Menu of the Messages App.

When you screen share from Messages, it actually begins a FaceTime call. The recipient than has to answer that call before the system will ask for screen sharing permission. If asked to share your screen, you can accept, decline, or choose to share only a particular window.

In the example below, screen sharing is in progress. You see a FaceTime window above, and a shared Safari window below. The local user is sharing their screen with the remote user. Screen Sharing controls are visible at the top of the screen, and at the top of the shared window.

When screen sharing on the Mac, you can choose to share your entire screen or a specific window. Sharing only a specific window is good for privacy, but also as a practical matter, reduces the screen real estate occupied on the receivers screen, showing only the relevant information. This is especially important when the sending system has a larger screen than the receiving system. There’s little point sharing your 4K Mac screen to an iPhone. It would appear tiny.

FaceTime on iPad/iPhone

Here’s the FaceTime controls on an iPad. The red X hangs up the call. To the left of that is the screen sharing icon. Pressing that brings up the menu below, where you will want to press Share My Screen.

If you don’t see the screen sharing icon, try switching to a video call, even if both parties don’t have cameras. This sometimes makes the sharing icon appear.

Here’s what a FaceTime Video call looks like on an iPad. In this case, the other device did not have a camera. Note the small green dot at upper right. This is the universal indicator that some App is using your camera. If it appears yellow, that means an App is using your microphone. The region at lower right contains your own camera feed. (from this iPad)

Note that for iOS/iPadOS version 17, Screen Sharing is supported, but not remote control.

Microphones for Macs

If your Mac doesn’t have a microphone, you can use just about any USB microphone. Many are available. If you have a Mac Mini, be aware that it does have built-in speakers, although they are pretty weak. You will want your microphone cord long enough to get it away from the speakers and closer to you.

A great substitute for a USB microphone is a Bluetooth headset or Air Pods. That is recognized as a microphone for FaceTime purposes, and works really well, providing noise isolation.

Air Pods are a great choice for a video or audio call even if your device has a built-in microphone.

Share Your Screen

So, now you are happily sharing your screen, or your caller’s screen. You can converse back and forth discussing and explaining what you both see on screen. This is what you came for. Enjoy!

Assistive Access – July 2025

Last night we talked about Assistive Access, a greatly simplified operating mode for iPhone and iPad. Here are links to Assistive Access info:

We’ve already gotten an important question on Assistive Access: How do I turn it off, and get out of Assistive Access? You can exit Assistive access by triple-clicking the side button (power button). This brings up the option to exit. You’ll need to enter the 4-digit assistive access code that you originally setup to exit back to your usual user interface.

Also, a question came up about converting a lot of photos. Here is the solution we showed in the meeting:

Turn Any macOS Folder into an Image Converter (Mac Rumors)

Also, the macOS Finder has a convenient way to convert multiple images at once. Select some files, then right-click, or Ctrl-click to bring up the contextual menu. Then go down to Quick Actions and select Convert Image. You will see options to convert to JPEG, etc.

Several people asked questions about photo albums in Photos on the iPhone. One tip that might help you make albums appear more prominantly for you:

In Photos, scroll all the way to the bottom where you will eventually see Customize & Reorder.

On that screen, you can select which views of your photos you want to appear in Photos, and drag them into the order you prefer. I have put Albums at the top here, and turned off Memories and Featured Photos. It’s entirely personal preference, and you can adjust this as you like.

As always, here’s the complete iPhone User’s Guide from Apple. On that page, either use the search, or click Table of Contents to get started. If you read that, you’ll be ahead of everybody in understanding the iPhone. Note that the User’s Guide is always for the latest version of iOS. If you are using an older version, it won’t be exactly applicable.

The MacOS System Permission Dialog

Computer users are frequently asked to enter passwords. They are often confused by these requests. Their two most common questions are:

  • Which of my many passwords does it want?
  • Is it legitimate and safe to enter my password here?

The MacOS System Permission Dialog can help you with the answers.

Which Password does it want?

When you see a dialog similar to this, you know it is from your own Mac. It wants either the username and password that you use to sign onto your Mac at startup, or the credentials of an administrator account on the computer.

Installer is trying to install new software. Enter an administrator's name and password to allow this.

So, don’t enter your iCloud password, or the password to any of your other on-line accounts. You should use a username and password for the Mac that you are sitting in front of at the moment.

The details of this dialog may vary. It might say Installer, or some other program, and the wording may vary depending on the situation.

Is it safe?

How do you know it is safe to enter your account password in this dialog? With MacOS, Apple controls the type of dialog boxes and windows that programs are allowed to display. Programs are not allowed to display windows without title bars. That is reserved for system dialogs. Apps can ask the system to display dialogs on their behalf, and text from the App may be included in the dialog, but the overall dialog is controlled by MacOS. You will notice that these system permission dialogs do not have title bars at the top. The usual red, yellow and green dots are not present.

MacUpdater wants permission to update. Enter an administrator's name and password to allow this.

This could still be spoofed to an extent. After all, you are looking at such a dialog box right now, displayed on a web page. Would it be safe to enter your password here? No. Web pages can and do display whatever they want, as do application programs.

Although they will probably pop up in front of some other window, legitimate system dialog boxes can be dragged to the desktop, where they will display in front of your desktop pattern, without any title bar, as seen above. Malicious web sites or programs cannot duplicate this behavior.

However, to make it tricky, you may have to grab them by the very top of the window, where the title bar would be, in order to be able to move them.

The other safety test is really up to you. Even though the dialog itself is legitimate, it may be asking you for a permission you don’t want to grant. For installer permissions, only grant permission if you are knowingly in the process of installing or updating a program. Don’t agree to install a program just because a web site told you to.

Think twice before giving programs special permissions. Does a word game legitimately need permission to access your microphone and camera? Probably not. You shouldn’t grant it unless there is some real, unusual reason.

Administrator privileges are required to make changes to CCC backup tasks. Enter your password to allow this.
Carbon Copy Cloner asking for Administrator Privileges

Above, the application Carbon Copy Cloner is asking for Administrator Privileges. This is a very powerful and sweeping request. You should trust the program and it should have a very good reason before granting this request. Carbon Copy Cloner has a long and good reputation, and it is performing system-level functions, so I choose to give it permission.

There is an exception to every rule. The legitimate dialog below from the System Settings app cannot be moved or dragged. Because it appears in the context of System Settings (a built-in and integral part of MacOS) I trust it anyway.

Privacy & Security is trying to modify your system settings. Enter your password to allow this.

I hope this discussion has given you some useful hints about entering passwords on your Mac. I hope the computer elves were good to you this Christmas and happy New Year to you.

Send Your Location via Satellite with Find My

I had a chance to try out the new feature of the Find My app that lets you send your location via Satellite. This is perhaps not so easy to demonstrate, since it requires you to be at a location without WiFi or cell service. I was traveling in some areas of North Carolina without cell coverage, so I took advantage of that to try out this new feature.

Prerequisites

  • iPhone 14 or 14 Pro (or later, presumably)
  • iOS 16.1 or later
  • Friend(s) previously added to “Share my Location” in Find My
  • Be away from cell and WiFi coverage
  • Be outdoors with a clear view of the sky

Sharing your location via Satellite in Find My doesn’t send your location to anyone in particular. It just makes your location available so that friends who already have access to your location can access it. It never asked me who I wanted to send it to. Sending your location is a one-way transmission. You do not receive anyone else’s location, or any other data, except a confirmation that your location was sent.

You start off by pressing Me at the bottom of the Find My app.

You will then see an option to Send My Location under My Location via Satellite.

In Progress. Note Satellite tracking icon at top.

Note the little green satellite tracking icon at the top.

Tapping the tracking icon brought up this screen. You turn to face left and right to keep the white dot centered in the green arc. The iPhone acquired the satellite and sent my location quickly and easily. It seemed like it would have worked without me doing anything special to aim my phone.

I hope this little preview gives you some idea of what to expect if you ever need to send your location via satellite. The most important thing is that you must set up sharing your location with friend(s) in the Find My app before leaving on your trip to a remote location.

Find Duplicate Photos with Gemini 2

A question came up at last month’s MacMAD meeting on how to save space by finding and removing duplicate photos on the Mac.

One way to do this is with Gemini 2 from MacPaw software.

You tell Gemini which folder or folders you want it to scan, including your Photo library. It scans them pretty darn fast.

Scanning Your Files

It finds duplicate files of all kinds, not just photos.

Gemini’s Main Screen with List of Duplicates

You can sort and search these in various ways. You can then select groups of the duplicates for deletion.

Details of a Duplicated Photo

You should be very cautious about deleting duplicates en masse. The duplicates may be in folders belonging to specific applications which expect to find them in those locations. Or, you may want to have duplicates in specific locations for your own organizational purposes.

It probably isn’t worthwhile trying to remove all duplicates. If you can find a few large files that can be deleted, or find entire folders that you no longer need, you may recover a lot of space with a minimum of effort and risk.

Gemini 2 is available on a subscription basis starting at $19.95 per year, or an outright purchase starting at $44.95. It is also available through a subscription to SetApp (also from MacPaw).

I Want to be Notified

This post is part of the presentation for MacMAD’s meeting for Tuesday, March 15, 2022.

There are a number of Apps, web sites and cloud services that provide useful notifications. Of course, there are many, many Apps dying to notify you about trivial things. In this post, I’ll give you a few ways to be notified about interesting things in the real world that may be useful to you.

Heart Health Notifications

This is first, because it could be very important. If you have an Apple Watch, be sure to turn on the notifications for irregular rhythm in the Apple Watch App->Heart on your iPhone. These notifications have probably saved lives by prompting people to get prompt medical attention. You might want notifications for unusually high or low heart rates also.

Financial Institutions

Your bank, credit union or brokerage may support various notifications. These can range from conveniences to important security notifications. For example the Bank of America (BofA) App has notifications for various security alerts. Make sure the alerts you want are turned on in the App, and also check that your Settings allow notifications from that App. In this case, under Settings->Notifications->BofA.

BofA App Security Alerts Configuration Screen

Local Emergency Alerts

The web site Nixle.com is used by local governments to broadcast emergency and other information of local interest. You don’t need to sign in or anything. If you send your zip code by text message to 888777, that will subscribe you to text notifications for your local area. What that means depends on where you are. Not all locations in the U.S. use the Nixle service, but many do. Here in Brevard County, you’ll get texts notifying you of things like road closures, brush fires, hurricane information, and Rocket Launches. (The Brevard Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activates for each launch in case of a launch accident.)

Nixle Text Alerts for Controlled Burn and Atlas Launch

Roads and Traffic

Your local governments may provide notifications of traffic problems in your area.

Here in Florida, the site FL511.com provides very specific customizable alerts for traffic problems on Interstates. It is only for the Interstates and other major roads. Here in Brevard it applies to I-95, US-1, A1A, and maybe the major causeway roads. You have to create an account, and sign in, but then you can create favorite routes and set up alerts for those routes in case there are any “incidents”, etc. You can specify to be alerted only within certain hours, and certain days of the week or month. You can also specify to be alerted only when travel times are expected to exceed a certain percentage of normal. Notifications can be by text or email.

On the City of Melbourne’s web site you can subscribe to email notifications for traffic advisories, etc.

Rocket Launches

The Next Spaceflight App is great for those of us on the Space Coast who like to follow local rocket launches. Because the App covers rocket launches world wide, you will probably want to specify your favorite launch sites so that you are not bombarded with launch notifications from distant continents.

Favorite Launch Locations Selection

You can specify to be notified a day before each launch, an hour before the launch, or 10 minutes before the launch, or any combination of those.

Custom Searches

You can save a specific search on eBay. This can be helpful if you are looking for something that rarely comes up for sale. When your search term is matched, you will get an email. If you save a search for a common item, you will get eBay notification messages every day. The usefulness of this may depend on how carefully you choose your search terms. Remember, you can include a minus sign to exclude certain words from your search.

Of course, you must have an eBay account and be signed in to create saved searches. I use this to search for items that may be relevant to my family genealogy. I have found several interesting items by this method.

You can also use Google Alerts to perform similar searches on any web site or on the web in general. You can focus your search more exactly using hints from Google Advanced Search. Again, it might be helpful to exclude common but undesired words with the minus sign. You can limit your search to a particular site with the site: keyword. For example, searching for:

iPhone site:macmad.org

Will find the word iPhone, but only on macmad.org.

Other Notifications

  • Weather – The Dark Sky app, now owned by Apple, has timely, local notifications
  • Package Delivery – Amazon, and UPS can notify you of package deliveries
  • Mail – USPS Informed Delivery sends you a daily preview of your mail
  • Utilities – FPL can notify you of power outages and power restoration estimates
  • Security – Burglar Alarms, Security Cameras, Motion Sensors, your car, etc.

Customize your Notifications

You can customize notifications to your preference for iOS and iPadOS in:

Settings->Notifications

In the Notifications settings, you can adjust the settings individually for each app, specifying whether it is allowed to send you notifications, and what type (badges, alerts, sounds and or banners). For notifications sent by email, you can prioritize them by adding the sender to your contacts list and marking them as a VIP (with the star). Add contacts to your VIP list using:

Mail App->Mailboxes->VIP->ⓘ

Then you can allow VIP-sent emails to give you different notifications than your other routine emails:

Settings->Notifications->Mail->Customize Notifications->VIP

This can make important notification emails pop up an alert right away.

Use iPhone as Web Cam with Detail

I have a MacMini which has no built-in camera. During the pandemic, I have been doing more on-line teleconferencing (mostly Zoom and Facetime meetings). I have used various cameras and various software to connect them to my computer.

I recently came across Detail, from Detail.co . This application allows you to use your iPhone or iPad as a web camera for your Mac. This is the best solution I have seen yet, and the iPhone has a good-quality camera, so my video looks good.

The Mac application does much more than that, which is both an advantage and disadvantage. It is a disadvantage in that it makes it harder to learn to use. There is a video tutorial on the site. The quick summary is to download the Detail app from the iOS or iPad OS App store on your iPhone or iPad, and also download the app for Macintosh from the web site. The app can work wirelessly, or via a USB cable (recommended).

You may want a tripod adapter for your phone. I bought this one and it seems like a good one. You might want to use that with a small desktop tripod like this, if you don’t have one.

Detail is not free, and they are kind of cagey about the price. I actually don’t know how much or how often they charge. There is a 14 day free trial period. I discovered and got access to Detail through my Setapp subscription, which is excellent for just-in-time discovery of useful, curated apps.