If you want to use Location Services on your Mac in the Maps app, web pages and elsewhere, you need to have Wi-Fi turned on. But if you use a wire connection, you may not want to have Wi-Fi enabled. You can, however, turn on Wi-Fi and tell your Mac not to connect to your home network. This leaves Wi-Fi on, but not connected, which is just fine for using Location Services. How to turn on Location Services on a Mac. Click on the Apple symbol in the upper left corner. Click on 'System Preferences.' Click on 'Security & Privacy' in the top row. Click on the 'Privacy' tab. Click on the padlock icon in the bottom corner of the window. You will be asked to.
Location Services in macOS are used by a whole host of apps and websites to provide a number of different services.
They allow calendar apps to tell you how long it will take you to get to an appointment, for example. And, of course, they allow Apple’s Find My services to locate you, your friends, or your devices. However, they also allow search engines to show you adverts relevant to your location. And location data is personal, so you might not want every possible app or website having access to it. Fortunately, you can control who can see your location data and when. Here’s how.
How to disable Location Services on Mac
Go to the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.
Select Security & Privacy.
Choose the Privacy tab.
Select Location Services on the left hand side.
Click on the padlock and type in your admin name and password.
Uncheck the box next to Enable Location Services.
Press Turn-off in the dialog box that opens.
Quit System Preferences.
With Location Services switched off, no app or web service will be able to access location data on your Mac. Obviously, that will affect how some apps and services work and prevent others from working at all. Google Maps, for example may not able to provide directions from your current location. However, it won’t prevent websites and apps from gaining any information at all about your location. Some, for example, will detect your IP address and try and use that to determine your location. That’s why, if you use Twitter, for example, you may still see the name of the city or region you’re in on tweets you post. Other sites may use cookies stored in your browser when you did allow access to location data – those are not deleted when you turn off Location Services. In fact, location data, such as metadata in images, is retained in files when you switch off Location Services.
If you’d rather exercise more nuanced control over which apps can access location data, here’s how to do it.
Follows steps 1-5 above.
Leave the Enable Location Services box checks, but go through the list of apps and uncheck the ones you don’t want to access your location. Those that have used location data recently are flagged with the Location Services icon.
Quit System Preferences.
If you take this approach to controlling your location data, it’s worth turning on the location indicator in the menu bar, so you can see when an app or service is using it.
Follow steps 1-5 in How to Disable Location Services.
Scroll down to System Services and click Details.
Check the box next to Show location icon in the menu bar when System Services request your location
Press Done and quit System Preferences.
How to turn on Location Services on Mac
Click on the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.
Select the Security & Privacy pane.
Click on the Privacy tab.
Choose Location Services.
Select the padlock and type in your admin username and password.
Check the box next to Enable Location Services.
You will see apps that want access to Location Services listed in the main window. Those that have access have a checkmark next to their name.
Uncheck any apps you don’t want to have access to your location data.
Quit System Preferences.
If your main concern about allowing apps and services access to your location data is privacy. And particularly if you are worried about being tracked in a web browser, there’s a great deal more you can do to protect yourself. The first step is to take control of the data websites store on your computer in the form of cookies and cache files. I’ve found that the easiest and quickest way to do that is to use CleanMyMac X. It cleans up cookies, your browsing and download history, the list of wifi networks you’ve connected to and more, all with just a couple of clicks. Here’s how to use it to delete cookies.
Install and launch CleanMyMac X — a link to download free editon
Choose Privacy in the sidebar.
Click on the browser whose cookies you want to remove.
Check the box next to Cookies.
Press Remove.
There are a few other things you can do to prevent websites tracking you. The first is to swap Google for DuckDuckGo. Whereas Google grabs as much data as it can about you to feed to advertisers so they can display relevant adverts, DuckDuckGo doesn’t track you and doesn’t display adverts.
You could also consider using a virtual private network (VPN). By signing up for a VPN service, you ensure that all the data transmitted to and from your Mac is encrypted. You can also choose which country it looks like you’re connecting from. So you can be as anonymous as you like. Your ISP won’t know what sites you’re visiting, and the websites you visit won’t know where you’ve come from.
There are also a number of extensions that can help secure your privacy while you surf the web. Ghostery Lite blocks ads and trackers, and you can customize it so that you can choose to allow some adverts. Traffic Light helps protect you from phishing attacks, by finding hidden trackers and warning you about malicious websites.
By the way, did you know that CleanMyMac X can manage your browser extensions and scan your Mac for malware?
Location Services in macOS can be very useful, particularly when it comes to getting directions, locating people or devices, or just finding the nearest branch of your favorite store. However, there are times when you might not want to hand over location data. Fortunately, by following the steps above, it’s very easy to control who can access or turn it off altogether.
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A network drive, also known as a NAS (network attached storage) drive, is a storage device that connects to a home or office network instead of your computer. Some of the advantages of this are obvious: for example, you can get access files from a smartphone, tablet, or computer without having to plug the drive in.
Other, perhaps less obvious, positives of NAS include things like automated backups and the ability to mirror data on two drives. In other words, NAS offers a flexible and protected way to manage Mac storage that’s far beyond that of standard external hard drives. Read along to learn how to map a network drive and avoid some common NAS mistakes.
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What is a network drive used for?
Whether it’s populated or diskless, has one bay or more than five, a network drive is typically used as an alternative to cloud storage. It may be easy to drag and drop files to something like Google Drive or Dropbox, but just a bit of drive mapping can make using a network drive a fantastic cloud alternative.
Some of network drive’s key advantages include:
Better control over your files
More security features than cloud services
Flexibility without compromising on privacy
Being used by multiple users across multiple devices
Map network drive on macOS (one-time)
Nowadays, most NAS devices are seriously easy to map. Let’s say that you’ve been working on a document in your home office but have just remembered a key fact that you want to include. Time to make a quick edit from your wife’s laptop before you forget about it!
Network drive access can be obtained in three simple steps, provided you don’t mind having to repeat those steps if the connection drops, you restart your Mac, or the device is disconnected:
In Finder, either hit Command+K to bring up “Connect to Server” or click Go > Connect to Server
Enter the path of the network drive you’re trying to map (e.g. smb://192.168.1.300/shared/Files) and click Connect
Enter your login details and password then click OK to mount the network drive
You can now access the relevant drive either via your desktop or the sidebar in Finder windows.
Map network drive on macOS (remount after reboot)
Maybe you have a server in your office with a connected network drive and want all your employees to be able to connect to it so they can collaborate on shared documents. If you want to keep a Mac connected to a network drive, even after restarting, the easiest way to do this is to follow the three steps above then add these:
Hit the Apple menu, then System Preferences > Users & Groups
From here, select Login Items and click + to add a new item
Find your network drive and click Add, then close the window
Now, your network drive will be mapped and automatically remounted when you reboot your Mac. Network drives won’t, however, connect automatically if you’re using a different WiFi network.
Make a network drive accessible from Mac desktop
Depending on your settings, mounted drives may not always appear on your desktop. That’s not necessarily a problem if you don’t mind only being able to see connected servers in Finder window sidebars and open/save dialogues.
If, however, you want your NAS device to always be just one double-click away (in the same way that most people have Macintosh HD as a visible item on their desktop) just follow these steps:
Open Finder > Preferences or click Command + to open Finder Preferences
Click the General tab, then tick the box next to Connected servers
Close Finder Preferences
Remount a mapped network drive with one click
Managing, or working across, multiple departments that each have their own network drive? In that case, it can be handy to create aliases of mapped network drive(s):
Right click on any mapped NAS device on your desktop.
Select Make Alias
This might not sound like anything all that significant but, as the subheading suggests, you can use this alias to reconnect to a network drive with one click. That can be very helpful if you need to keep jumping between different shared drives.
How to manage files with network-attached storage
In most cases, macOS’s default tools are sufficient for viewing, editing, and deleting files. That might change, however, if you’re using a NAS device. For example, it’s very easy to end up with a ton of duplicate files on your network drive where it’s likely you’ll be less concerned about making the most of your storage as you might be with a built in hard drive.
Gemini is a great tool for digging out any duplicate content on your drives, so you can ditch everything you no longer need while hanging onto backup documents, photos, etc.
Open up the app and hit the giant + or drag your folder of choice into the window
Choose from recommended locations or select a custom folder
Push the green Scan for Duplicates button to get started
Delete duplicate files manually or use Smart Cleanup to automate the process
For a more granular approach to file management, you might want to consider something like DCommander or Forklift. These apps both offer dual-pane file management, as well as features like batch renaming, copying, and deletion, in a more seamless way than your default Finder.
Although Forklift was designed with FTP management in mind, it’s become a favorite of network drive users because of how closely it resembles macOS. Billed as a Finder replacement app in parts of its marketing material, you won’t find an app much more native unless it comes out of Cupertino.
Plus, actually getting started with the app is incredibly simple:
Open up the Forklift app
Use the left-hand panel to find the file(s) you want to move across
Select the right-hand panel then, using the sidebar, click on your network drive
Start moving, renaming and archiving files
If Forklift isn’t for you then you might prefer to take a look at DCommander, an approved Mac alternative of Total Commander for Windows. In addition to two side-by-side file panels that look very similar to those of Forklift, DCommander puts a wider range of commands and features (including quick file viewing, selective file unpacking, navigation history, and a great looking Dark Mode) at your fingertips without the need to leave the dual-panel display.
Both apps let you do things like mark certain drives as favorites, create and browse archives, and get previews of items. In short, they’re much like macOS’s Finder … only better. It’s difficult to overstate how much easier it becomes to manage Mac storage with dual-pane browsing until you try to organize your network drive without it!
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Effectively manage Mac storage day-to-day
Thanks to macOS, network drive mapping is a pretty simple process even if you’re not particularly tech-savvy. You might be out of luck if you’re hoping to access a NAS device from another network using standard macOS tools but, at present, that’s pretty much the only thing keeping network drives from competing with the cloud at the mainstream level.
If remote access isn’t such a concern for you and you’re using NAS as an alternative to cloud, then it’s definitely worth taking a look at programs like Forklift or DCommander to make file management easier once you’re done drive mapping, as well as Gemini to ensure that your NAS device isn’t filling up with duplicate files you don’t need.
Best of all, the software mentioned above is available for a free trial through Setapp, a collection of over 150 high-quality macOS applications from the best developers around. Manage your Mac effectively today!
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How To Add Apps To Location Services On Mac Computer
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