- Six Mac settings you need to turn off now.
Increase battery life, improve personal privacy.
Let's get into it.
Let's open up with system preferences.
- Let's get into it.
All right.
System preferences, Apple menu, upper left-hand corner
of the screen, click on that.
Scroll down to System Preferences and click on that.
- [David Lynch] So, let's click on Security and Privacy.
Then let's make sure you're in that privacy tab.
Click on Privacy.
- All right, yeah, you've got four tabs
at the top.
You've got General, File Vault, Firewall, Privacy.
- [David Lynch] Once we're in- - [David Payette] We're in.
- [David Lynch] - Privacy, go to Location Services.
Hey, you're already there!
So, click that lock, we need to unlock
to make some changes here.
- [David Payette] Okay, so click the lock to make changes.
I'll click the lock.
You can either use touch ID if you've got that set up,
or you can enter your password.
I have touch ID set up, I'll use that.
- [David Lynch] Great, and this,
look through this list of apps, and ask yourself
"Does this app need access to my location?"
A lot of the time, the answer is going to be "no".
However, Weather, for instance, is going
to need your location to deliver you weather
where you live.
- Waves Central.
Does Waves need to know- which is an audio plugin-
where I am?
- No. - No.
Auto Editor, this is a final-cut pro auto-editing software.
No, no idea why they would need my location,
except to collect data about me.
The other thing here is that all
of these are battery drainers.
Visual Studio Code, I think not.
I'm not programming any applications
that use location.
- Look through this list of apps, and you might
be surprised of some of the things
that you see in here.
You might not have even known
that they were- - Yeah.
- -accessing your location.
- Skype doesn't need to know where I am.
- So, once you've gone through that,
click on Details next to System Services
at the very bottom of the screen.
We're gonna turn off the unnecessary System Services.
So, let's turn off location-based alerts.
Location-based suggestions.
- Oh dear.
- [David Lynch] Timezone and system customization.
And if you're not traveling through timezones a lot,
not super important, you can always come back
in here too and just turn it back on
if you take a flight into a different time zone.
- System customization.
Does this mean that like, I change a setting?
And what is this actually doing?
Well, in different countries,
different things like WiFi networks
are configured slightly differently.
So, if you're traveling to a different country,
turn this on like David just said.
- [David Lynch] Yeah.
- [David Payette] If you're not, it's not gonna
make a difference if you're in New York or Massachusetts.
- Right.
- It's the same.
- [David Lynch] Yeah, significant locations,
go ahead and turn that right off.
This used to be called Frequent Locations,
and Apple said "Hey, that sounds really creepy, so-"
- "Let's change the name."
- "Let's change the name." - It's like Time Warner Cable.
- Yeah. - They said, "oh, we stink,"
"let's make it Spectrum."
- [David Lynch] Find My Mac, you're gonna want
to leave that one on.
And if you have Apple Care Plus for your Mac,
and you lose it, and you wanna file a claim for loss,
you need to have Find My Mac turned on.
Otherwise, they're just out of luck.
We got that chip from a Larry Nickelson,
our Super David member.
- [David Payette] Yep, he's a gentleman.
- [David Lynch] If you want to join Larry, hit
that Join button down below.
You'll get access to a bunch of great perks.
- [David Payette] Yeah, Larry's a Super David,
you don't have to go that deep.
If you want to become a Super David,
we'll have you in a livestream with us.
- Yeah. - How cool is that?
Anyway, we just got Larry to a thousand subscribers.
- That was pretty cool.
- That's pretty cool.
Speaking of a thousand subscribers, we're trying
to get to 1,000 times 1,000 subscribers.
- There you go, that's a million.
- That's a million, we're almost there.
If you could hit that Subscribe button for us,
it would not only help us, but would help people
all over the world to find us.
- [David Lynch] Back to the Mac settings, Home Kit.
Leaving that on, or turning it off?
- I am turning it off, because I
don't use the Home Kit settings.
Like, if I leave home, do this?
- Right.
- I do it in a different way.
- Yeah.
Networking and wireless?
- No.
- [David Lynch] No. - [David Payette] No.
- Click Done at the bottom of the screen.
- Okay.
- And now on the left here,
let's look at Photos, Camera, and Microphone.
We wanna restrict which apps on your Mac
actually have access to these things.
A lot of apps don't need access
to your camera and microphone all the time.
- Right, and your photos-
- [David Lynch] And your photos too-
- [David Payette] Photos is first!
- Does Terminal need full access to my photos?
Probably not.
If you don't recognize anything-
this is like, Daisy Disc.
Let's say you installed some piece
of software four years ago, you don't remember
what it is, but does it really need full access
to your photos?
- Probably not.
- Kinda one by one, just ask yourself,
"Does it need access to my photos?"
Look at one below that, to Camera.
- [David Payette] Camera on the left-hand side.
Do these apps need access to my camera?
Blue Jeans. - Blue Jeans.
- Sort of, the Facebook alternative to Skype.
E-cam Live, I have no idea what that is
or where it came from.
- So, we should say though, like an app like Zoom,
is going to need access to your camera
if you want to show up on camera during a Zoom call.
So, it's not like we're saying
"turn it off for everything," we're not crazy.
But just be selective about what apps can
actually use your camera.
- Because otherwise, the app can just
be using your camera. - Right.
- You should see the green light at the top, though.
- You should.
- But you shouldn't have to put tape
over it like so many people did
in the Apple store. - [David Lynch] I know.
Let's go down.
One below that is Microphone.
- [David Payette] Okay, here we are.
Adobe Premiere Rush, that's video software.
We're going to let that continue to use Microphone.
But again, E-cam, I don't know what that is.
Izotope RX8, Go To Meeting, Microsoft Teams, OBS, Skype-
- Yeah, I mean, Skype, another app that's gonna need access
to your microphone if you want to do a Skype call
with someone, and you want them to be able to hear you.
It's gonna need access to your microphone.
- Be careful of apps that you don't recognize.
Those are the ones to uncheck.
- [David Lynch] After Microphone, scroll down
to Input Monitoring.
- Sounds innocuous. - Sounds innocuous.
- Is it?
No.
Well, sort of.
Allow the apps below to monitor input
from your keyboard even while using other apps.
So, all the time, they can be checking
out my keystrokes. - That's weird.
Do you want Discord monitoring (David Payette laughs)
all your keystrokes on your Mac?
Probably not! - Certainly not.
Not doing that.
So, I unchecked that, apparently.
- Yeah.
- A while ago. - Smart.
One below Input Monitoring, Full Disc Access.
Why should people restrict access
to the full disc? - [David Payette] Because.
Allow the apps below to access data
like Mail, Messages, Safari, Home, Time Machine backups,
so like, literally every file on the computer.
(David Lynch laughs) Uh, we don't want that.
- Right. - Because, not only
for privacy, but really, it could.
If you've got an app that's old, it could screw
up your whole computer. - True.
- It's too much access.
A lot of times you'll see these sort
of weird-looking things, like com.adobe.
This is called- I forget what it's called,
a reverse domain name?
Com.adobe.acc, the creative file installer.
I'm going to leave that checked because I sort
of recognize it, but anything that you don't recognize,
you should just uncheck.
And then if you're having a problem,
just come back in here and turn it back on again.
But a lot of things, like, for instance,
Izotope product portal.
This is an app installer that I need.
But it doesn't need full disc access.
Let's keep scrolling down below Full Disc Access.
We're gonna go down to Apple Advertising.
- [David Payette] Okay, well, all the way
to the bottom, Apple Advertising.
- [David Lynch] So, personalized ads, uncheck that box.
People, we get a lot of pushback on this.
They say, "I wanna see personalized ads,"
"I don't want low quality ads."
But websites can still deliver you contextual ads
based on what you're reading.
If you're on an iPhone help website,
or a Mac help website, you're gonna see,
Mac repair ads, or buy a new computer.
- One above Apple Advertising
is Analytics and Improvements.
Let's click on that.
So, just uncheck all of these boxes.
- Little bit of a battery tip
here for you, save some battery life, it's good.
- Yeah, help Apple improve.
Yeah, I don't even think you have
to uncheck all of them, David.
Because you can go, "Boom!"
Top one, and the bottom one turns off
at once. - [David Lynch] Wow!
- If you turn off Share Mac,
and then improve Siri and Dictation- no thanks.
- Saves a whole click.
For more great tips, like how to save one click,
when you're going through System Preferences
on your Mac, subscribe to this channel!
Hit that big, red subscribe button, blow the video up.
- Yeah, do that please.
Even if you appreciate the fact
that you just saved one click.
- Yeah (David Lynch laughs) - Maybe you're grateful.
- Grateful. - For every click
that you save.
Maybe the clicks add up, David.
- They do add up. - They do.
- Those are some Mac settings you need
to turn off now, thanks for watching!
- Checking out my keystrokes.
- That's weird.
- Yeah.
- That's weird. So do you want Discord checking
out your keystrokes? (David Lynch mumbles)
- My D strokes?
(David Payette laughs) Definitely not.
- (David Lynch mumbles) I'm having a D stroke.
(David Payette laughs)
Do you want Discord-