iPhone Tricks, Gigabit Wi-Fi, and Life on 256GB

Mac Geek Gab — Your Questions Answered, Tips Shared, Troubleshooting Assistance

Dave Hamilton, Pilot Pete & Adam Christianson

How To, Technology, Education, News, Tech News

4.8 • 977 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You’re sitting on a goldmine of Apple and tech hacks this week. From drag-and-drop magic on your iPhone to bypassing pesky paywalls with News+, you’ll pick up power-user moves fast. If your Mac’s hiding your Desktop folder, it might be time to nuke that Finder.plist…or maybe update your Finder’s sidebar settings. Need to upgrade your Wi-Fi to keep up with 2Gbps fiber? You’ll get step-by-step tips, plus real-world advice on NAS setups and whether Synology is still your best friend in 2025. Spoiler: Synology’s forcing their own drives now for a lot of newer units—don’t get caught unprepared.
Rocking only 256GB of storage? You’re not alone—Dave, Pete, and Adam walk you through clever external drive picks and how to shift Documents and Desktop to external storage, or leaving it in place and having Hazel doing the heavy lifting. And when it’s time for Cool Stuff Found, strap in: from booming RockSteady speakers to the slick Thunderbird Identity Chooser and a genuinely helpful email app called eM Client, the crew keeps the hits coming. Don’t Get Caught missing the chance to boost your tech game this week.

00:00:00 Mac Geek Gab 1088 for Monday, May 5th, 2025

May 5th: Revenge of The Fifth
Police Code 10-88 – Advise phone number of officer
MGG Monthly Giveaway – Win an eero Outdoor 7
We’ll be at Macstock and so can you for $399 with MACGEEKGAB50

Quick Tips

00:00:01 Robb-QT-Don’t forget about drag-and-drop on iPhones
00:07:08 Stephen Robles Video on Perplexity vs. Siri
00:08:25 Joe-QT-Open articles in News+ to bypass paywalls

Try Reader Mode on paywalled news sites

00:13:08 Ben-QT-1086-Resolve Mysterious Disappearing Desktop Folder by Deleting Finder.plist
00:17:01 Change icon by refreshing the favorite in your Finder sidebar

00:17:38 SPONSOR: Insta360 X5 Camera. To bag a free invisible selfie stick worth US$24.99 with your purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code “mgg”, available for the first 30 purchases only.
Your Questions Answered and Tips Shared!

00:19:05 Terry-What steps do I need to take to upgrade my WiFi to match my 2Gbps fiber?
00:30:02 Sean-Advice about Large Local Storage or NAS

Synology DiskStation as Personal Cloud

00:44:18 SPONSOR: Storyworth uses quick, weekly email prompts to create a unique keepsake hardcover book for you or your loved ones. Save $10 on your first purchase at StoryWorth.com/MACGEEKGAB.
MOAR Questions Answered

00:45:47 Synology to require Synology-branded Drives in 2025-plus units
00:48:51 Glen-Living with 256GB storage in a laptop
00:50:35 Brian-Using 256GB on an M2 MacBook Air

Buffalo External 2TB Thumb Drive
Transcend 2TB Thumb Drive

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's time for Mac geek cab, and listener Rob brings us our quick tip of the week by saying,
0:05.6	I completely forgot about how you can drag and drop between apps on the iPhone.
0:11.4	I was recently trying to send a contact to a contractor.
0:14.8	The contractor had messaged and called me, but I never saved their number in my contacts.
0:19.5	But I needed to share a number with them.
0:21.7	So I went into my contacts app, tapped share, and loved, of course, that I could choose exactly
0:26.4	which info I wanted to send, just the name, title, location, and phone number.
0:29.9	And it was at that point, I realized because I didn't have the contractor's number saved,
0:34.3	I couldn't choose them as the destination of this share. So, I long pressed the
0:41.1	contact card I had created, kept my finger on the screen, swipe to the home screen, opened messages,
0:48.2	of course, with the other finger, and dropped it right into my existing conversation with my
0:53.2	contractor, and it worked perfectly.
0:56.1	It turns out that drag and drop works across lots of apps now that I've rediscovered it.
1:01.8	More quick tips like this, plus your questions answered today on MacGeekab 1088 for Monday, May 5th, Revenge of the 5th, 2025.
1:34.9	Greetings, folks, and welcome to MacGeekab, the show where you send in tips like that.
1:36.3	We share the answers.
1:38.7	You send, or we share the tips.
1:40.6	You send in questions, we share the answers.
1:41.4	Easy for me to say.
1:42.6	You sending cool stuff found.
1:43.6	We share that too.
1:51.3	The goal is each of us gets to learn at least five new things every single time we get together.
	...

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