The Eclectic Light Company
Clean install macOS
Medium and Message: Monotypes
Should you restart or cold boot?
Jerusalem Delivered: 1 A forgotten epic
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 344
What was that, a crash, freeze or panic?
Painting the spirits of water: Ondines and their curse
Last Week on My Mac: Signs of distress
Painting the spirits of water: gods and Naiads
Saturday Mac riddles 344
How could logging out help?
Reading Visual Art: 241 Sculptor
How to tell where a file or folder is
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
In memoriam Carlos Schwabe: 2 1898-1908
Can you still run old App Store apps?
The Dutch Golden Age: Decline and legacy
Can you slim macOS down?
Medium and Message: Tondo
Is that signing certificate still valid?
Painted stories of the Decameron: Overview and contents
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 343
Which cryptexes does macOS Tahoe load?
A painted weekend in the Alhambra 1886-1914
Last Week on My Mac: Local network privacy revealed
A painted weekend in the Alhambra 1767-1883
Saturday Mac riddles 343
What’s happening with code signing and future macOS?
In memoriam Carlos Schwabe: 1 1890-96
Can you disable Spotlight and Siri in macOS Tahoe?
The Dutch Golden Age: Mills
How Time Machine backups can fail silently
Medium and Message: Oil on copper 1620-1926
How local network privacy could affect you
Medium and Message: Oil on copper 1575-1610
Providable 1.2 works on non-English systems, and why it didn’t previously
Painted stories of the Decameron: Brother Philippe’s Geese
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 342
How to open a suspicious document or app
Paintings of human flight 2: Blériot to the Battle of Britain
Last Week on My Mac: Does your laptop Mac get scanned for malware?
Paintings of human flight 1: before Blériot
Saturday Mac riddles 342
Explainer: Copy and paste, drag and drop
Reading Visual Art: 240 Gallows
Hiding text in PDFs
The Dutch Golden Age: Unique imagery of Domenicus van Wijnen
Check Time Machine backups in macOS Sequoia and Tahoe
Medium and Message: Fans from Europe
Archive webpages using textClippings
Medium and Message: Fans from Japan
Exclude or include items in backup, search, iCloud Drive and QuickLook preview
Painted stories of the Decameron: Griselda’s suffering
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 341
Open up Finder clippings with Disclipper, and a Providable update
Paintings of Le Cannet: 1928-45
Last Week on My Mac: Drag, drop, clipping
Paintings of Le Cannet: 1901-27
Saturday Mac riddles 341
Text, strings and Unicode
Painting the first month of the New Year
How macOS has grown 2019-2025
This Year in Paintings: Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, Frederick Edwin Church and others
ICYMI: a selection of the best Mac articles of 2025 – 2
The best of 2025’s paintings and articles 2
ICYMI: a selection of the best Mac articles of 2025 – 1
The best of 2025’s paintings and articles 1
Data formats used in textClipping, webloc and mailloc files 1994-2025
Commemorating the centenary of Félix Vallotton’s death
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 340
Is your XProtect stuck on 5324?
Commemorating the bicentenary of the death of Jacques-Louis David 2: Revolutionary
Last Year on My Mac: Look back in disbelief
Paintings of 1925: past and future
Saturday Mac riddles 340
Use and access clipping files: textClippings, weblocs, and maillocs
Paintings of Christmas Trees
Use Providable to check file histories
Christmas paintings
Inspect provenance and quarantine info in Providable, a Christmas present
Commemorating the bicentenary of the death of Jacques-Louis David 1: Before the Revolution
Explainer: UUIDs
Paintings of 1925: people
What blocks QuickLook from some directories?
Painted stories of the Decameron: Ansaldo’s enchanted garden
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 339
When the Finder suffers premature ejection: a longstanding bug
The Annunciation re-imagined 1850-1923
Last Week on My Mac: Upgrades and the standard user
The Annunciation imaged 1430-1680
Saturday Mac riddles 339
Explainer: Storage settings
More than a Nabi 4: Félix Vallotton 1915-1925
Standard users can upgrade macOS
Reading Visual Art: 239 Bread as food
How to recognise a genuine password request
Paintings of 1925: landscapes
Which extended attributes does macOS Tahoe preserve?
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
The Dutch Golden Age: Troubled women of Paulus Bor
Why was the 26.2 update much larger for some than others?
Painted stories of the Decameron: Abducted brides
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 338
Why can’t my Mac get log entries or find XProtect scans?
The Temptation of Saint Anthony 1660-1908
Last Week on My Mac: How good is AI at solving Mac problems?
The Temptation of Saint Anthony 1430-1650
Saturday Mac riddles 338
Explainer: WindowServer
What has changed in macOS Tahoe 26.2?
Apple has released macOS 26.2 Tahoe, and security updates to Sequoia 15.7.3 and Sonoma 14.8.3
More than a Nabi 3: Félix Vallotton 1907-1914
Did you know your photos are being syndicated?
Reading Visual Art: 238 Bread of life
How online search and AI can install malware
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
The Dutch Golden Age: Stories
Hunting extended attributes with an update to xattred
Medium and Message: Oil on paper
Create a bootable external disk for Apple silicon Macs in Tahoe
Painted stories of the Decameron: The pot of basil
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 337
Who decides to quarantine files?
Fog on the Thames 1900-1926
Last Week on My Mac: Making better use of security extended attributes
Fog on the Thames 1844-1899
Saturday Mac riddles 337
Explainer: Numbers
More than a Nabi 2: Félix Vallotton 1900-1906
Quarantine, MACL and provenance: what are they up to?
Reading Visual Art: 237 Blacksmith
The Anatomy of a macOS App
The Dutch Golden Age: Jan Miense Molenaer
Manage Login and Background items
Medium and Message: On a cigar-box
How to restart Spotlight, and why you might want to
Painted stories of the Decameron: A father’s revenge
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 336
Textovert 1.1 can now convert PDF files to other formats
The earthly delights of Hieronymus Bosch 2
Last Week on My Mac: Losing confidence
The earthly delights of Hieronymus Bosch 1
Saturday Mac riddles 336
Explainer: PDF format
More than a Nabi 1: Félix Vallotton 1885-99
Explainer: Text formats
The Dutch Golden Age: Aelbert Cuyp 2
Podofyllin 1.5 beta can export PDF to RTF
The Dutch Golden Age: Aelbert Cuyp 1
Inside the Unified Log 8: Find the error
Medium and Message: En plein air
Textovert 1.0: a convenient wrapper for text conversion
Painted stories of the Decameron: Nastagio degli Onesti’s breakfast
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 335
Convert text between file formats, including webarchives
Painting along the Loing: Moret
Last Week on My Mac: The mystery of Safari’s Web Archives
Painting along the Loing: Grez
Saturday Mac riddles 335
Explainer: Data and metadata
Reading Visual Art: 236 Carpenter
Does Preview write PDF/A?
The 400th anniversary of the birth of Paulus Potter
Diagnose Spotlight local search problems
The Dutch Golden Age: Winter
Viewing metadata in the Finder
Medium and Message: Glazes and optical effects
Which local file systems does macOS 26 support?
Painted stories of the Decameron: Introduction
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 334
How to save web pages using Safari
In Memoriam Sofonisba Anguissola, who died 400 years ago
Last Week on My Mac: Five Tahoe bugs
Four great women painters after Sofonisba Anguissola
Saturday Mac riddles 334
Explainer: .DS_Store files
Reading Visual Art: 235 Fish B
How the Clock hoards timers until it breaks
Reading Visual Art: 234 Fish A
Does that SSD Trim, and why is it important?
The Dutch Golden Age: Chiaroscuro in Utrecht
Erase All Content and Settings does what it says
Medium and Message: Varnish and the mists of grime
Big guns for Tahoe problems: which radical fixes still work?
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
Paintings of Dante’s Inferno: 16 Overview, Purgatory and Paradise
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 333
How to install security updates without upgrading to Tahoe
Impressionists at Argenteuil 2
Last Week on My Mac: Tahoe 26.1 disappointments
Impressionists at Argenteuil 1
Saturday Mac riddles 333
Explainer: Permissions, privacy and TCC
Botticelli’s studio
Inside the Unified Log 7: Claude diagnoses the log
Reading Visual Art: 233 Sirens
How Tahoe 26.1 has enabled automatic security updates
The Dutch Golden Age: Water
Appearance revisited: Get Tahoe 26.1 looking in better shape
Apple has released updates to XProtect and XProtect Remediator
Early bugs in macOS Tahoe 26.1: VMs and Finder Services
Medium and Message: Industrial chemistry
What has changed in macOS 26.1 Tahoe?
What can I do with my apps?
Apple has released macOS 26.1 Tahoe, and security updates to 15.7.2 and 14.8.2
Paintings of Dante’s Inferno: 15 Lucifer himself
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 332
Why old installers may not work
The way of the Spartans 2
Last Week on My Mac: What do those CPU frequencies mean?
The way of the Spartans 1
Saturday Mac riddles 332
Explainer: Preferences
Gustave Doré’s paintings: After the war
When time is out of joint, the log falls over
Gustave Doré’s paintings: Before the war
Updated CPU core frequencies for all current Apple silicon Macs
The Dutch Golden Age: Jacob van Ruisdael’s trees
Disentangling timestamps with Dropera 2
Medium and Message: Soot and milk
Updating CPU frequencies for Apple silicon Macs
Paintings of Dante’s Inferno: 14 Count Ugolino
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 331
Should you repair permissions?
Louveciennes landscapes: After the war
Last Week on My Mac: Why Spotlight can’t find some files
Louveciennes landscapes: Before the war
Saturday Mac riddles 331
Explainer: How does macOS recognise file types?
Reading Visual Art: 232 Alchemy
Be careful when interpreting APFS timestamps
The Dutch Golden Age: Johannes Vermeer 2
A Spotlight bug affecting all recent macOS: the LG error
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
The Dutch Golden Age: Johannes Vermeer 1
Gain access to a locked Mac with Recovery Assistant
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
Medium and Message: Sticks and crayons
Rewriting a file’s history
Paintings of Dante’s Inferno: 13 Treachery
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 330
LogUI build 77 improves readability of log entries
A painterly family: the Alma-Tademas 1884-1943
Last Week on My Mac: The quiet firmware revolution
A painterly family: the Alma-Tademas 1836-81
Saturday Mac riddles 330
Explainer: FileVault
Reading Visual Art: 231 Tiger
Inside the Unified Log 6: Difficult times
Commemorating the centenary of Christian Krohg’s death
Check if an app is stuck in translocation
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
The Dutch Golden Age: Ordinary people
Check your Mac is secure
Medium and Message: Surface texture
Inside the Unified Log 5: Navigation
Paintings of Dante’s Inferno: 12 Fraud and inciting division
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 329
Is Tahoe quicker to launch apps first time?
In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Impressionism
Last Week on My Mac: Tahoe’s elephant
In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Barbizon
Saturday Mac riddles 329
Explainer: How is XProtect’s data updated?
Reading Visual Art: 230 Wolf
How to migrate macOS virtual machines
Christian Krohg painting social reality 4: 1898-1924
What to do when your Mac can’t get to the login window
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
The Dutch Golden Age: Nocturnes
Resolve a file’s path from its inode number
Medium and Message: Knives, fingers and long brushes
What to do when APFS has problems
Paintings of Dante’s Inferno: 11 Bribery, hypocrisy, theft
Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 328
Inside the Unified Log 4: Log entries
The Journey of Life 2
Last Week on My Mac: Has macOS virtualisation ground to a halt?
The Journey of Life 1
Saturday Mac riddles 328
Explainer: inodes and inode numbers
Reading Visual Art: 229 Celestial events
Welcome to Tahoe’s Launch Angels
Christian Krohg painting social reality 3: 1888-95
Why did that macOS upgrade take so much space?
Apple has released an update to XProtect for all macOS
The Dutch Golden Age: Everyday life of Gerard ter Borch
LogUI 1.0 build 74 adds a Diagnostics Tool for your logs