Author: Cory Bohon

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

The dictionary in OS X provides typing and spelling-correction support (such as autocorrecting as you type, or the red lines under misspelled words). This dictionary service is important to helping users type error-free in OS X and applications, but did you know there’s a way to train the dictionary so that it learns new words that it doesn’t recognize? In this how-to, we’ll show you exactly how it’s done.

Learning Words

If you have turned on spell check as you type, then you’ll notice that in most OS X applications that support it, misspelled (or thought-to-be-misspelled words) will appear with a red underline beneath them. Sometimes, though, correctly spelled words are marked as misspelled — this can commonly occur with uncommon words, names, and places of business.

In these cases when the word is actually spelled correctly but OS X simply doesn’t recognize it, you can easily add the word to the OS X dictionary so that it qualifies for autocorrection and spelling suggestions in the future when typing. To do so, right-click on the supposedly misspelled word and select the “Learn Spelling” option that appears in the contextual menu.

Removing Learned Words

If you no longer wish to have the word in the OS X dictionary, then you can easily remove it by typing in the word, then right-clicking on it, and selecting “Unlearn Spelling.”

Removing Multiple Learned Words

If you have a lot of learned words that you’d like to get rid of, then you can manually open the plain-text file that stores these learned words. To do this, open a Finder window, then press Command + Shift + G (or go to Go > Go to Folder…). Type in “~/Library/Spelling/” and click “Go.”

In the directory that opens, you’ll see a file called “LocalDictionary.” Simply open this file in TextEdit, remove the unwanted words, then save the document. You can also reset the entire dictionary by removing the “LocalDictionary” file to the Trash, then emptying the Trash.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll provide some tips for getting Apple’s Mail app to sync better with Gmail.

Question

Since Mavericks appeared, the new OS seems to have turned Apple Mail into a piece of junk for those of us who use IMAP versions of Gmail. Now it can take 10 minutes for Apple Mail to sync with Gmail. Apple’s updates don’t seem to have helped much. It’s sent me and others searching for Apple Mail alternatives. How about some external wisdom?

Answer

Integrating Gmail accounts with most mail clients has long proven difficult, but Apple Mail seems to have special difficulties with the IMAP version of Gmail. Fortunately, there are some troubleshooting steps that we can go through to hopefully solve this particular issue.

For issues with syncing, it can be helpful to change a particular setting in Mail that controls when Mail checks for new messages. This is something that has worked for many people: 

01. Open Mail > Preferences.

02. Select the General tab. 

03. Under the drop-down menu for “Check for new messages” select a time period to check (for example, every three minutes) instead the of “Automatic” setting.

04. Quit and relaunch the Mail application.

Changing Mail to check at specific intervals instead of “Automatic” can help with mail synchronization issues. 

Another tip that has helped others is to periodically quit Apple Mail, then launch it again. Many people have noted their mail messages immediately appear after the relaunch of the application. If you’re still having issues and a restart won’t help, then try clicking Mailbox > Take All Accounts Offline, then click Mailbox > Take All Accounts Online to “refresh” your mail.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

The Mac prides itself on keyboard shortcuts. For almost every command, there is an equal keyboard shortcut that can provide an action faster. Being familiar with the keyboard shortcuts on your Mac will help you navigate and work faster. In this how-to, we present to you five commands that will change your life once you start using them. They’re simple to use, easy to remember, and can make using your Mac even faster. Continue reading for the full details.

1. Quick Delete

Deleting a file can be a little time-consuming as you drag the file from the Finder window to the Trash, and then empty your Trash by either right-clicking on the Trash, or using the menu item in the Finder menu.

This process can be a bit quicker with this keyboard shortcut. After clicking on a file in the Finder, press Command + Delete to cause the file to be immediately sent to the Trash.

To further speed up the process, you can empty the Trash by pressing Command + Shift + Delete, then pressing return when the confirmation dialog is displayed. Pretty nifty, huh?

2. Instant Dictionary

Sometimes we just need to know the meaning of a word while we’re writing an article or using iMessage. Fortunately, OS X includes a built-in dictionary, and, since OS X Tiger, it has also included a keyboard shortcut to make finding the meaning of a word much easier.

Simply place your mouse over a word in a text field, and then press Command + Control + D. When you do this, you’ll see a popover appear above or below the word that displays the dictionary meaning.

If you’re having a hard time getting the word to select, then highlight the word with your mouse cursor, then try the steps above again. Click anywhere outside of the popover (or press the Esc key) to have it dismissed.

3. Special Characters

When typing, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to include an accent mark on a certain letter, or perhaps use another special character. OS X has your back in this situation.

To easily access special characters while typing, simply press and hold down a key that contains an alternative character. Similar to iOS, you’ll see a popover appear that allows you to select an accent mark or another alternative to the pressed character.

4. Paste and Match Style

If you’ve ever copied and pasted text from a website into a text document, then undoubtedly you’ve had to reformat the text to match the styling of your document. This can be a bit of a pain if you copy and paste a lot of text.

To ensure that the style isn’t kept when pasting text into your document, you’ll want to use the Command + Option + Shift + V command. This command means to “Paste and Match Style.” This command is invaluable, but often forgotten about, or unheard of by new Mac users.

5. Secret Menu Bar Options

This is a hidden trick that will leave you wondering how you’ve ever lived without it. The majority of Apple system icons in the menu bar have a secret life: By option-clicking them, you can get even more information, and access hidden features.

One of our favorite tools is the volume icon in the menu bar. Clicking on it normally would just reveal a single line volume control to adjust the volume output; however, if you hold down the Option key and click it, you’ll see many new options that you’d normally have to go digging through System Preferences to get access to. This shortcut can let you have access to settings for output and input devices, without ever leaving your currently active application.

Try this little trick with other system icons to see what you can find.

Follow this article’s author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll let you know what to do if your Mac’s audio is playing through its speakers when you’re trying to use headphones.Question: Whenever I try using headph…

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

Since the introduction of Lion, Apple has included a special section in the Finder called “All My Files.” As its name implies, it finds and displays all of the files on your system when clicked. This is great when you want to view a listing of all the files on your system sorted by modification time, but what if you want more control over this section of the Finder? It’s possible, and we’ll show you how to do just that in this Easy Mac Hacks article.

The “All My Files” section of the Finder is just a fancy Smart Folder. Before Mavericks, you’d have to go through the Terminal to hack your way around and customize this Smart Folder behavior, but now it couldn’t be more simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Open a new Finder window.
2. Select “All My Files” from the sidebar.
3. Click the Action icon in the toolbar. (Hint: it looks like a gear.)
4. Select “Show Search Criteria.”
5. Once you do this, you’ll be presented with a list of criteria that the Finder uses by default to find all of the files on your system.

Using the filtering UI, you can remove any currently displayed filters by pressing the “-” button beside of the criteria; or, you can add new criteria by pressing the “+” button on any of the criteria items, then filter to your heart’s content.

When you’re done, press the “Save” button at the top of the filtering list. Be sure to make a note of the default filtering items in case you ever wish to restore the functionality to the defaults without reinstalling the operating system!

Follow this articles author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we check out Apple TV and explain how you can use it play media content that’s been saved to your computer.

Question: I use an Apple TV, and I was wondering if there is any way to save movies or a TV series that I want to watch on my computer hard drive so that I can watch them later? I have DSL, which makes it difficult to stream my shows. Is there any way to do this with the latest Apple TV?

Answer: Absolutely! Using AirPlay, you can purchase your shows, movies, and other iTunes Store content on your computer using iTunes, then play it back over your local network to the Apple TV. Because streaming the content from your computer to your Apple TV happens locally, the speed depends on your wireless router rather than your Internet connection. 

To begin, purchase any content from the iTunes Store: movies, music, and TV shows all work with AirPlay. Next, once the content files have downloaded, navigate to iTunes, and begin playing the content using the latest version of the iTunes software.

Selecting the AirPlay button will prompt iTunes to divert the content to an Apple TV connected to your local network.

Another way to handle this is to set up iTunes Home Sharing. To enable this, checkout the Apple guide located at http://bit.ly/ml_appletvsharing.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

Securely storing certain information in the universal PDF format can be a good thing — after all, your bank, insurance, or other personal information could be contained within PDF documents. That information, if it got into the wrong hands, could compromise your personal security. Lock down your PDF documents using this simple trick in the Preview application.

To begin encrypting a PDF document that you’ve already created, open the file with the Preview application. Next, perform these steps to encrypt the PDF document that you just opened:

1. Hold down the option key.
2. While holding down option, click the File menu. Note that Duplicate has changed to Save As.
3. Click Save As.
4. Check the option for Encrypt, then enter and confirm your password to encrypt the document.

This is the easiest way to encrypt a PDF document that you have already created or have lying around on your disk.

The next time that you attempt to open the document with Preview, you’ll see that you’re now required to enter the password that you saved the document with before the contents of the PDF are visible to the reader. This adds an extra layer of security when emailing documents or storing them on an unencrypted computer.

Follow this articles author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll take a look at issues that may prevent your Mac from properly entering sleep  mode.

Question: I have a late 2012 iMac running Mountain Lion, and I’ve been having trouble with my computer entering sleep mode recently. It’s supposed to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity, but sometimes it simply doesn’t do it. Other times it wakes up from sleep mode automatically, and I come home to discover that the computer has come to life without me doing anything. Any ideas?

Answer: There could be several things that are causing your Mac to wake up, or not go to sleep, and it can be a bit difficult to troubleshoot this issue to find out what that cause might be. 

Apple does, however, provide a Knowledge Base article on the issue. This is an attempt to help users pick the solution for their particular situation and ensure that all settings are properly enabled. It should help your computer to both sleep properly and stay asleep when you want it to. Here are some of the highlights of the note: 

> Energy-saving preferences could be set improperly. Ensure that when you go to System Preferences > Energy Saver, that the slider for setting the computer’s sleep setting is set the way you wish. 

> Other users could be waking the machine remotely using shared resources. Ensure that if you connect to your computer using network access that you disconnect in order for the computer to go to sleep. You can disable network wake by going to System Preferences > Energy Saver, and unchecking the option for “Wake for Wi-Fi Network Access.” 

> Bluetooth devices such as keyboards and mice can wake your computer if a key or button is pressed. Try switching off these Bluetooth peripherals when your Mac is not in use. 

You can view the full list of troubleshooting steps by visiting http://bit.ly/ml_sleepissue.

One solution is to disable “Wake for network access” (or “Wake for Wi-Fi network access” on older versions of OS X) to ensure that connected computers don’t accidentally wake your Mac.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll let you know how to prevent unwanted music from syncing to your iOS device from the cloud. 

Question: When I got my new iPhone 5s, I did a sync to iCloud. However, there was music on the cloud that I don’t want anymore. How can I get rid of iCloud-stored music so it doesn’t re-sync every time I sync back up with the cloud?

Answer: There are two ways that music could sync to your device, and we’ll cover both of these ways and show you how to get rid of the music that has synced to your device. 

The first way that music can get onto your device is through a feature of iTunes in the Cloud, which is that previous purchases will show up and can be streamed to your device. You are not able to get rid of music from this section since music purchased from your iTunes account is linked to your account for the life of the account. To disable iTunes in the Cloud purchases, visit Settings > Music, and disable the option for “Show All Music.” Disabling this feature will ensure that all music that has been downloaded or that is stored in iCloud will no longer be shown in the Music app. 

iTunes in the Cloud purchases can be disabled in settings.

Another feature that could be at issue is iTunes Match. This paid feature allows music that you’ve stored in your iTunes library on your computer to sync over the air to your iOS devices. This option can be disabled By going back into Settings > Music, and disabling iTunes Match. 

This will, of course, cause all songs (not just the ones that you don’t like) to stop showing in the Music app. At this point, unfortunately, Apple does not provide finer-grained controls for picking which music is synced to your mobile devices through iTunes Match.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

Have you ever accidentally pressed the power button on your MacBook, only to find that you now have to go through the process of awakening your computer? While your Mac will awaken faster than any other computer on the planet, it’s still an annoying process. Fortunately, you can change the behavior of the power button so that it displays a dialog instead of powering down your computer. Continue reading to learn how to do this.

In order to change the power-button behavior, you’ll want to open the Terminal application (located in /Applications/Utilities), then type in the following command, followed by the enter key:

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow PowerButtonSleepsSystem -bool no

When you enter this command, you’ll want to restart your Mac to ensure this new preference is loaded into the system.

Once entered and restarted, whenever you press the power button on your Mac for a second or two, you’ll be prompted to specify whether you want to sleep, restart, shut down, or cancel. No longer will your Mac choose to sleep automatically.

If you decide that you no longer wish to have your Mac do this, then you can easily reverse the command by opening the Terminal and typing in this command:

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow PowerButtonSleepsSystem -bool yes

When you restart, your Mac will be returned to its normal behavior, automatically putting the system to sleep when the power button has been pressed.

Follow this articles author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll teach you how to recover missing applications that are built into OS X, including utilities. 

Question: I believe that I have accidentally deleted some of the default applications that came with OS X, and I’m not sure how to reinstall them. I’m missing my entire Utilities folder under Applications. How can I get these applications back onto my computer system?

Answer: The default applications bundled onto your system usually requires messing around with the Terminal to remove them, and even then, they can be difficult to remove. If they’ve been removed, however, you can get them back by simply reinstalling your version of Mac OS X. 

If you are running OS X Lion or later, then you can start up your computer while holding down the Option key, and select “Recovery HD.” Selecting this option will boot your computer into the Recovery partition. From here, select “Reinstall OS X,” then follow the instructions to reinstall. 

When reinstalling OS X, none of your content should be be overwritten, but it’s best to always create a backup beforehand just to be safe. Once reinstalled, the default applications, including the Utilities folder, should reappear on your Mac.

Reinstalling OS X is the only way to get back the default applications once they have been removed from your system.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

In OS X Mavericks, Apple introduced a new feature called App Nap. This feature was designed to cut CPU and other computer resources to power-hungry applications when those applications are not currently in use. It’s one of several OS X features that has helped increase the battery life on Mac portables, but unfortunately, this feature isn’t without downsides. If you’re noticing that applications don’t complete their tasks in a reasonable amount of time, then it could be due to resources for those apps being cut when they are backgrounded or left unattended. Following this guide will show you how to disable App Nap when these issues arise.

Disable App Nap on a Per-app basis

If you’re noticing that only one application is having difficulties with App Nap, then you can easily disable it by locating the application in question and pressing Command + I (or choose “Get Info” from the contextual menu). In the Get Info window, check the option to “Prevent App Nap” and you’re done. App Nap will no longer affect this application. (Not all applications offer this option.)

Disable App Nap system-wide

If issues still persist with your applications and App Nap, or you don’t worry about system resources being utilized resulting in battery life issues (such as on a desktop Mac), then you may want to disable App Nap system wide on your Mac.

To disable App Nap on your Mac completely, simply open the Terminal application (located in /Applications/Utilities) and type in the following command followed by the enter key:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

To completely disable this feature, you will need to log out of your account, then restart your Mac.

Re-enabling App Nap system-wide

If you realize that you want App Nap again on your system, open the Terminal application again, then type in the following command, followed by the enter key:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool NO

To re-enable this feature, you will need to log out of your account, then restart your Mac.

Cory Bohon is a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer. Follow this article’s author on Twitter.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll tell you how to combine multiple iPhoto libraries into one.

Question: Somehow I’ve created many iPhoto libraries, some of which are nested within other iPhoto libraries. How do I make it so that I have just one iPhoto library? I get the feeling there is more to it than just dragging the contents of one into the other.

Answer: You are correct — this process is a little more complicated than simply copying one iPhoto library into another. You can do it manually, but it’s usually error-prone and will typically leave you with duplicate photos. The easier way to merge multiple iPhoto libraries is by using the iPhoto Library Manager, which is available for $29 at http://fatcatsoftware.com/iplm.

Using the iPhoto Library Manager, click on the Merge Libraries icon in the toolbar. Here, you will be prompted to drag-and-drop all of the libraries that need merging into the “Source Libraries” section. After doing that, drag-and-drop the library that all of the sources should be merged into using the Destination Library section. We’d advise merging into a new, empty library, and choosing your Desktop as its location. 

One of the tasks that iPhoto Library Manager can perform is automated library merging.

Next, you should choose what happens when the application encounters duplicate files in the “Duplicate Handling” section, and set a few other options in “Options.” When you are done, click “Preview,” and if you are happy with the changes, you can then go ahead with the merge.

After you’ve verified the merge worked and all of your photos are intact, then delete all of the source libraries from your home directory’s Pictures folder, and move the newly created library from your Desktop to the Pictures folder in the Finder. Your new library should load when you fire up iPhoto; you may need to hold down the Option key while starting iPhoto, then select the iPhoto library you wish to open manually.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll let you know how to put a stop to spam email.

Question: I receive hundreds of spam emails per day. Is there a way to easily add the sender to my “delete email from this sender” rule or otherwise make the spam easier to block using my Mac?

Answer: The built-in Mail spam filtering that is included with Apple Mail is good (and it has definitely gotten better over the years), but it’s still not the best that’s available. However, there’s an easy-to-use plugin that is available for Mail that allows for better email spam filtering. 

The plugin is called SpamSieve, and it’s available from the developer’s website (http://c-command.com/spamsieve) for $30. It provides a blacklisting feature that allows you to block a sender’s email address and catch all of the emails from them. Plus, SpamSieve includes a Bayesian spam filter that can learn from your emails and color your emails based on how spammy each message is by parsing the language in the email.

Blocking emails with SpamSieve is a piece of cake, and it ensures that 100 percent of the blacklisted email will not get through to you.

After installing SpamSieve, navigate to Filter > Show Blocklist (or press Command + 4). Here, you can blacklist the sender of a message by pressing the + button in the toolbar, then entering the email address of the sender. When using a smart spam filter like SpamSieve, it’s a good idea to read the manual and train it on each of your messages until it begins to learn from your habits.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.

Every Monday we show you how to do something quick and cool using built-in OS X utilities such as Terminal, Apple’s command line application. These easy hacks can make life better and simpler, and don’t require any knowledge of coding — all you need is a keyboard to type ’em out!

You may have come accross applications that run in the menu bar without cluttering your Dock with an icon, but did you know that any OS X app can be made to work this way? Continue reading and we’ll show you how.

Hide the Dock Icon

Start the process by quitting any open apps that you want to perform the trick on. Next, you must locate the app’s associated .app package. Find the app itself (it’s usually located in your /Applications folder), then right-click the application icon and select “Show Package Contents” from the menu.

Locate the Info.plist file in the Contents folder that appears. (To be on the safe side, you may wish to make a backup copy of the file, since altering it incorrectly could make the app inoperable.) Open the Info.plist file with the TextEdit application, then add the following two lines of XML into it:

<key>LSUIElement</key>

<true/>

These two lines of code need to go inside the ending “</dict>” that’s just before the line ending with “</plist>” for this trick to work. In other words, place these new statements above the last two lines; if you place them anywhere else in the file, then the hack won’t work.

Save and quit the file, then open the application that you applied this hack to and you’ll notice that the Dock doesn’t display the app icon, saving a bit of space.

Codesigned Applications

There’s one more step to the process if the developer has signed the application with an Apple Developer Certificate — and that includes all Mac App Store applications. Without this step, you’ll likely get a crash when opening the app. To prevent this, you’ll need to re-sign the application using the following command in the Terminal:

sudo codesign -f -s - /path_to_app/appname.app

Replace “/path_to_app/appname.app” with the path and the application name that you just tweaked the Info.plist for. After doing this, press enter, and enter your password. The application will be re-codesigned and you should be able to launch the app without any issues.

Re-show the Dock Icon

To undo this change, simply re-open the “Info.plist” file you made the changes to and remove the two lines of XML you added. Restart the application, and the Dock icon will begin appearing again when the app is running.

Some Caveats

As with all hacks, there are a few caveats you should know when using this method to run applications:

Hiding the dock icon also disables the top menu-bar controls for the app, so unless you know the keyboard shortcuts or the app runs in single-window mode or resides in the system tray, you may want to think twice about performing this trick. Additionally, this hack may be overwritten whenever you update the application, and you will be required to perform the steps above again. Also, even though it doesn’t look like it, the application is still running, and still taking up system resources. If you do this to enough apps you may notice your computer slow down a bit, and you will need to quit apps to bring the Mac back up to speed.

Cory Bohon is a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer. Follow this article’s author on Twitter.

Got an Apple, Mac, or iOS tech question? We have the answer. In this week’s installment of Ask, we’ll explain how you can get high-quality album art for your iTunes music.

Question: I have iTunes-purchased music and music from my CD collection that I ripped to my iTunes Match account. iTunes-purchased album covers are crystal clear, but the ripped CD collection album artwork is fuzzy. I have tried everything, including contacting Apple, but haven’t found a solution yet. 

Answer: iTunes-purchased music has artwork that is specially designed to be crystal-clear on all of your devices because it was purchased directly from Apple. Depending on when you ripped your music, the Apple server may or may not have been around to provide you with crystal-clear artwork for your library. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to resolve this issue. 

The first step is to select all of the music belonging to a particular album, and then press Command + I (to bring up the Get Info window). In the Get Info window, select the artwork tab, then delete the artwork for the album. Finally, press the OK button to save the changes. 

Deleting the Album artwork manually will force iTunes to find and fetch it again from the iTunes servers.

You’ll notice that your artwork disappears, but fear not: Select File > Library > Get Album Artwork. This will send all of your album data to the Apple iTunes servers, which will match up your music to the proper, crystal-clear album artwork that is the same that you would get if you had purchased your music directly from the iTunes Store. If iTunes cannot fetch artwork for a particular song, you will be notified when the album artwork fetch has completed. 

Selecting Get Album Artwork from the File > Library menu is the easiest way to kick off a fetch request for iTunes to fill in the missing artwork.

If iTunes cannot fulfill the request for artwork for some of the songs, you will get a notification after it has finished processing your library.

Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer.

Got a tech question? Email ask@maclife.com.