116 MACWORLD DECEMBER 2021
HELPDESK MAC 911Mute switch: With the hardware Ring/
Silent switch set to Silent, the snapshot
sound is disabled. You can flip this
switch on and off at will if you prefer to
have the click off sometimes and on at
others. However, the Silent switch is a
systemwide mute, so no iPhone sounds
will be made.
Set system volume to zero: You can
also (or instead) set your volume for alert
sounds to zero. If Settings → Sounds &
Haptics → Change with Buttons is
enabled, you can use the Control Center
or the side volume down button.
However, if that switch is disabled, you
have to separately slide
the Ringer and Alerts
level to the far left in
Settings → Sounds
& Haptics.
One further note: A
few countries require a
shutter sound on devices
that take photos. While in
those countries, which
include Japan and South
Korea, the snapshot
sound will always trigger.
It appears to be based on
the SIM, as travelers from
other countries who swap
in a local SIM find their
snapshot preference
overridden.
WHAT TO DO WHEN
SWITCHING TO A MAC WITH A
SMALLER DRIVE
For reasons of cost, we might buy a new
Mac with a smaller drive than the one
we’re replacing. If your current Mac has
more data stored than the capacity of the
new one, you probably feel you’re in a
pickle. But you can strategize how to make
this transition work.
When planning the transition, I highly
recommend that you try to keep free at
least 50GB on a 256GB drive, and 100GB
on drives that are 512GB and larger. Here’s
how you can reduce your storageOptimize Mac Storage lets you offload unneeded files to iCloud
Drive across many apps and for general storage.