Easily Stop Folders Opening Automatically when Hovering Cursor Over Them on Mac

Stop Folders Opening Automatically when Hovering Cursor Over Them

I really hate how folders open automatically when you hover your mouse cursor over them on Mac. Sometimes I need to place a number of files into different folders, and having them open automatically when I just want to drop something in there is a real pain. It slows me down, and is just plain annoying. Thankfully, it is easy to stop this behavior. Open Preferences, and look for the accessibility option.

Preferences TabOnce you have the accessibility tab open, look for mouse & trackpad options in the left pane, and then click it to open.

accessibilityNow you will be able to see the source of the problem. Spring loaded folders.

Springy Folders

To slow down the time it takes for folders to pop open when you are hovering over them, slide the slider towards “long” delay. To stop folders from springing open automatically completely, uncheck the “spring-loading delay” option.

Springy DelayProblem Solved!

Stop FaceTime asking for a Password in OS X Mavericks

Facetime LogoAll of a sudden, when I turn on/log in on my Macs that are running OS X Mavericks, I am getting a window that asks me to input the password for FaceTime. This really started driving me crazy, as I don’t use FaceTime, and I don’t even have a camera connected to my Mac Pro.

Facetime Password RequestTo stop this from happening, I just turned FaceTime off. To do this, open a new finder window, and then open your Applications folder. Now click/open FaceTime. Click and drag down the “FaceTime” menu option and simply select “Turn FaceTime Off”.

turn-facetime-off

 

Stop iPhone Apps (like Cheezburger) opening App Store at Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Game of War and Zelda Dungeon

cheezI really love the “Cheezburger” app on my iPhone. The photo streams of “I Has A Hotdog” and “Failblog” really help to get me through the day. But lately, for no reason, the app goes away, and the app store opens up to games like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Game of War and Zelda Dungeon. It is SOOOO frustrating!

Game of War App Screen CaptureI have found a “Work Around” for this problem, and it’s pretty simple. To stop this from happening, open up “Settings”, and then select “General”, and there is an entry in there called “Restrictions”.

Restrictions Screen CaptureIf you are using “Screen Lock” you will have to enter your password to open this section. Once you are in, simply turn “Installing Apps” off.

Installing Apps Screen Capture

Once you have done that, you can close out of settings, and go back to browsing Uninterrupted. The only down side is that if you want to download a new app, you will have to go back in and turn “Installing Apps” back on.

Stop DVD Player from starting automatically

I have been ripping my DVD’s of the hit show for car guys “Rides” for use on my WDTV Live Hub, and I gotta tell you, each time I change the disc Apple’s DVD pops up and it is starting to drive me nuts!

After spending 20 minutes combing through every single item in DVD Player’s preferences, it occurred to me that this is probably a system preference, and to stop it bugging the heck out of me, I could turn it off in there.

To stop DVD Playing automatically each time you insert a disk open your system preferences, and select “CD/DVD”.

 

Right down the bottom as an entry for DVD, that says “Open DVD Player”

 

Change the setting to “Ignore” and now you can rip your DVD’s in peace!

 

In case you are wondering, I am using “MakeMKV” to rip my dvd’s from disc straight into a high quality MKV video format which is compatible and plays beautifully on the WDTV and WDTV Live Hub devices. You can check it out at makemkv.com.

How to stop OSX Mac Mail threading/grouping emails and conversations together

Grouped Conversations in Mac MailMac Mail has a feature now that groups emails with the same subject line together into a collapsed “forum thread” like manner, which saves space when you are looking at your inbox. The problem I find with it is that there just aren’t enough bells, whistles and foghorns to catch my attention when a new email arrives and its a reply to something in that thread. I need more than just the number in the bottom right corner incrementing. As a result, I have lost/not read some emails lately.

Thankfully, there is a solution for this, but it requires a bit of patience to implement as it is not a global fix. For some reason, emails are grouped by default, and you have to ungroup on a thread by thread basis…….Thanks Apple.

To do so, highlight the thread you want to ungroup, then in the menu bar select “View” and uncheck the option that says “Organise by Conversation”

Turn Off Email Grouping

Now you will see each email as a single item in your inbox again, and new and unread emails will go back to having that little blue dot to the left. If you want to continue to see threads from specific contacts in an ungrouped way, you can just ad a rule (in the rules tab in mail preferences pane) to highlight email from them with a unique background colour.

Ungrouped Email Conversations

Again, as I said, this isn’t global, its thread by thread. So if you REALLY hate this feature, a quick way to start making it go away is to select all messages in your inbox simulataneously (Highlight one, then click command and A) and then uncheck “Organise By Conversation”.

Change All Threads

If you are using Mac Mail as an RSS reader, this method also works to ungroup new posts on sites you are following.

If you have any other idea’s on how to work around this annoyance, please reply in the comments.

Disable and stop that annoying delete confirmation dialogue box in OSX Lion

delete-dialogue-boxI know that dialogue warning boxes are there for a reason, and they protect us from accidentally deleting stuff we don’t really want to delete, but I work with dozens of files, and dozens of versions of files at a time. If you are someone who has the need to delete files a lot, and likes to see the “Empty” trash can icon (like me) it is possible to disable that annoying “Are you sure you really want to empty your trash can, even though you just specifically right clicked on the icon and purposely selected the “empty trash” option?” dialogue box.

Click on your desktop to activate the finder, then under the “Finder” menu, select preferances.

delete-confirmation-dialogue-boxOnce you have selected “Preferences” and the preferences pane is open, its just a simple matter un-checking the “Show warning before emptying the Trash” option.

delete-confirmation-dialogue-box

Its only a little thing I know, but if you are a true “Power-User”, this is a godsend that can save you a lot of extra clicks.