General tips, tricks and
fixes for macOS 10.15
The big and small changes that could surprise, delight or mess up your day
T
he first thing to check if
you’re having any problems
with macOS Catalina is that
you have the latest update. This is
now handled in System Preferences >
Software Update. Many of the bugs
initially reported have been fixed since
version 15.0: see bit.ly/applenewcat
for a summary.
If you enrolled in the macOS public
beta to get Catalina early, make sure
you’ve switched from this to the final
version, or you won’t get updates. This
is a two-step process. First go to System
Preferences > Software Update. Below
Software Update on the left, look for the
words: ‘This Mac is enrolled in the Apple
Beta Software Programme’. Click Details
and agree to ‘Restore default update
settings’. Having done this, you’re still
not off the beta. At this point, you need
to open the App Store app, search for
macOS Catalina, get it and install it.Goodbye to 32-bit
Being an avid reader of MacFormat,
you’re hopefully already aware that
Catalina is the first version of macOS
that’s incompatible with 32-bit apps.That includes a lot of classic games –
many still on Steam, for example,
although Steam itself has been updated- as well as software you might need for
work and drivers for older hardware.
If you’ve upgraded to Catalina and
then remembered a 32-bit app you still
need to run, there’s no simple option
to downgrade back to Mojave or
earlier, although you can do so from
a Time Machine backup (see bit.ly/
applerevertos), preferably after making
a separate full backup of your current
setup just in case.
Another solution, short of digging
out an old Mac, is to install Mojave on a
separate drive or partition, then start up
from it when you need to run those apps.
Mojave is no longer listed in the Mac App
Store, but you can get to it via bit.ly/
masmojave. Download and run the
installer, and select a suitable empty
drive. In future, hold the å key at
startup to choose which to boot from.New app security warnings
U
nfortunately, in Catalina,
Gatekeeper will refuse to run
apps that aren’t ‘notarised’
through Apple’s developer
programme. To bypass this, ≈-click
the app icon in the Finder, choose
Open and confirm.
A bunch of macOS’ services –
features under the bonnet that can
be accessed by apps – are nowclassed as ‘restricted’, requiring your
permission, and you’ll also see more
privacy alerts inviting you to allow
or deny access. None of this means
anything bad is happening, but just
think whether you recognise the
named app and were expecting it to
do something; if not, Catalina might
have alerted you to an inadvertently
installed malicious app.Trash canned
In Catalina, when System
Preferences > Language & Region
> General > Region is set to United
Kingdom, the place you put
unwanted files is now called the
Bin. If you’re nostalgic for Trash,
you can set Region to United States,
but you’ll need to restart for this to
take effect. It’ll cause shenanigans
with your keyboard, spellcheck and
more, so you’ll probably just have
to get used to Bin.FEATURE Catalina tips & tricks
22 | MACFORMAT | APRIL 2020 macformat.com @macformat