Hi Nadine! I feel your pain. I have a MacBook Air from 2012, and without its power cable plugged in, my Air only seems to run for about an hour before its battery dies.

So, what’s the deal? Does your four-year-old MacBook Air need to be replaced—and if so, how much money are we talking here? Or is it still possible to wring a little life out of your MacBook’s dwindling battery?

Why your MacBook battery gets weaker and weaker

The lithium-ion batteries in laptops like your MacBook lose their capacity over time, with Apple estimating that MacBooks should keep about 80 percent of their battery capacity after 1,000 charges. Assuming you give your MacBook Air a full charge each day, 1,000 chargers comes out to about two years and nine months. After that, you can expect your MacBook’s battery to get weaker and weaker.

Related: 8 battery-saving iPhone tips

The MacBook Air’s sleek, sealed case sure looks great, but it also means you can’t replace the battery yourself.

Beyond the time factor, there’s also the demands that MacOS software updates put on older MacBook batteries. With each major update comes new and potentially power-hungry features, and a few updates down the road, a MacBook battery that once gave you three hours of battery life might eventually give you fewer than two.

If the battery in your aging MacBook Air barely makes it past breakfast, you’ve got a couple of options.

Option #1: Replace the battery

Because most modern MacBook models, including the Air, feature cases that are sealed completely shut, you can’t replace your MacBook battery by yourself.

However, you can always take your MacBook to an Apple store or an authorized service dealer. The Apple store will replace the battery of an out-of-warranty MacBook Air for $129. Battery replacement for a 17-inch MacBook Pro will run you $179, while swapping a new battery into a 12-inch MacBook or a MacBook with a “Retina” display will cost $199. (Click here for more details and prices.)

Option #2: Try some battery-saving MacBook tips

Don’t want to cough up the cash to replace your MacBook battery? Read on for a few tips that’ll help squeeze more life out of the MacBook battery you’ve got.

Dim your screen brightness

Probably the number-one battery hog on your MacBook Air is the backlighting on the display. When you’re on battery power, turn the screen brightness down as low as your eyes can stand; doing so will make a huge difference in your MacBook’s battery life.

Click your MacBook’s battery meter for a list of apps using a “significant” amount of battery power.

Also, you can set your MacBook’s screen to dim itself automatically when you’re on battery power; just open System Preferences from the Apple menu, click Energy Saver, click the Battery tab, then enable the “Slightly dim the display while on battery power” option.

Check for battery hogs

Your MacBook can tell you if any of your running programs are gobbling up more power than they should be. Click the battery life indicator in the top-right corner of the screen to find out which apps (if any) are using “significant” power, and quit them if you can.

Unplug any iPhones, portable hard drives, or other peripherals

Your MacBook’s USB port can power and/or charge devices like an iPhone or an external hard drive, but doing to puts tremendous strain on your MacBook’s battery. Unless your MacBook is connected to a power source, don’t plug in your iPhone or any other peripherals if you can avoid it.

Hope that helps, Nadine. Still have questions? Let me know!

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Hi Mike! Yep, it’s pretty confusing that there’s an Emoji & Symbols option in the Edit menu that doesn’t seem to do anything in the photo app for Mac. As it turns out, the Emoji & Symbols window is just a standard Finder feature, and it’s not compatible with Photos at all.

Click the Extensions button, then click Markup to begin drawing arrows in your Photos images.

That said, there is a relatively easy way to add arrows, circles, squares, and even text to your images. One way is by using the Preview app, a method I’ve already covered. But you can also add arrows to pictures in the photos app for Mac, too. Here’s the trick.

Open the image, click the Edit Photo button in the top-right corner of the screen (it’s one marked with a trio of sliders), click the Extensions button that appears to the right of the photo, then click Markup.

You should now see seven new Markup buttons in the top-left corner of the screen. The first three buttons let you free sketch, draw shapes and arrows, and add text, respectively, while the following four buttons let you adjust the width of drawn lines, change the color of lines and shapes, and tweak text fonts and sizes.

You’ll find the arrow button under the Shapes menu in the Mac’s Photos app.

If you want to draw some arrows, click the Shapes button, then click the arrow in the drop-down menu. When you do, an arrow will appear right on top of the image; just click and drag to move the arrow, make it longer or shorter, or change the direction in which it’s pointing. You can also drag the handle in the middle of the arrow to bend it one way or another.

Once you’ve put the arrow where you want it to go, you can click the Shape Style, Border Color, and Fill Color buttons to change the width and color of the arrow, or click the Text button to add a caption.

All finished? Click the Done button—and yes, you can always go back to the image to edit the arrow again.

Hope that helps, Mike. Still have questions? Let me know!

Click here for more Mac tips!

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Hi Susanne! Happy to hear that my iPhone tips have been helpful—and hey, now I’ll know what it means when someone says “Slán!” at the pub.

Just tap and hold a letter key to see all the available accent marks.

So, how do you add accent marks to letters as you’re typing on your iPhone? It’s simple, actually.

Tap and hold a specific letter (say, the letter “a”) and a pop-up menu of accent marks will appear—everything from acute (“á”) and grave (“à”) accents to umlauts (“ä”) and tildes (“ã”).

How do you select the accent mark you want? The trick is to keep holding the letter key you first tapped, then slide your fingertip to the correct symbol and release.

If you lift your finger from the touchscreen keypad and then try to tap the accent-mark key, the menu of accent marks will disappear before you can tap it.

Bonus tip

Tapping and holding a key isn’t just for typing accent marks; it’ll also work for symbol keys. Tap and hold the dollar sign, for example, and you’ll get a menu with signs for the yen (“¥”), the pound (“£”), the euro (“€”), and the cent (“¢”).

Click here for more iOS tips!

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Hi Mary Ellen! That’s a tough situation. Normally, I’d suggest saving money by simply moving your Wi-Fi router closer to your Roku. But since we’re dealing with a weak Wi-Fi signal that’s shared, I’m guessing that moving the router closer to your condo isn’t an option (although it doesn’t hurt to ask, right?).

All that said, I actually do have a few of suggestions that might help you squeeze a bit more bandwidth out of your weak Wi-Fi signal, starting with…

Try a Wi-Fi Extender

As long as your condo’s shared Wi-Fi router isn’t too far away, a wireless extender may do the trick. A Wi-Fi extender piggybacks onto to an existing Wi-Fi access point to create its own local network, which essentially extending the range of the original network.

A Wi-Fi extender piggybacks onto to an existing Wi-Fi access point to create its own local network.

Setting up a Wi-Fi extender is easy. All you need to do is power it up, then use the extender’s configuration utility to choose a nearby Wi-Fi signal to extend. If the router you’re trying to extend is locked, you’ll need its password. You can then give the extender its own SSID (the name the extender uses to identify itself when you’re searching for Wi-Fi signals) and connect your Roku and other devices to the extender rather than your condo’s Wi-Fi router. You could also just keep the same SSID as the shared router, but doing so would make it tough to tell whether your devices are connected to the extender or the (weaker) shared signal.

While Wi-Fi extenders are easy to use, they’re not necessarily cheap. The one I use in my Brooklyn apartment goes for about $100, and the cheapest extender recommended by The Wirecutter costs about $65.

The other issue is performance. If your condo’s shared Wi-Fi router is too far away or if there’s too many other competing Wi-Fi signals nearby (which I’m guessing is the case, given that you live in a condo), an extender may not be able to connect to the shared router—or, even if it can, the boosted signal might not be strong enough for smooth streaming video.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out if a Wi-Fi extender will work in your particular situation is to try one, so you might want to make sure you’re protected by a 30-day return policy before you break out your credit card.

Note: If you do decide to go for a Wi-Fi extender, you should do your best to ensure that the extender uses one frequency band to connect to the main Wi-Fi router and another for connecting to other Wi-Fi devices, like your Roku. Most Wi-Fi extenders these days are dual-band, giving you the choice or either the speedy but short-range 5 Ghz band, or the longer-range but slower 2.4 Ghz band. If your extender uses the same frequency band for connecting both to your condo’s shared Wi-Fi and connecting to your Roku, you’ll degrade wireless performance for everyone on the network, not just you. If all that sounds complicated, well, it is; luckily, Wirecutter has tips (scroll down to the paragraph that begins “The main problem with…”) on the best way to configure your extender.

Use an Ethernet cable

If your shared Wi-Fi router is too far away for a Wi-Fi extender to work, you could try another option: a direct wired connection.

You can always just connect your Roku (or Apple TV, pictured here) to a router directly via Ethernet.

Simply put, you could connect an Ethernet cable to one of the Ethernet ports on the shared Wi-Fi router and then string the cable all the way to your condo. You could then connect the cable directly to your Roku—or, even better, connect it to your own Wi-Fi router, thus creating your own local Wi-Fi network.

The upside of using an wired Ethernet cable is that you won’t have to worry about signal loss between the shared Wi-Fi router and your condo. (There’s always a little signal loss whenever you’re dealing with a lengthy Ethernet cable, but it’s minuscule compared to how much Wi-Fi signals degrade over a comparable distance.)

The downside, of course, is convincing your building manager to let you string Ethernet cable from the shared Wi-Fi router to your unit, plus the hassle of actually running the cable.

Try a powerline networking kit

If dealing with all that Ethernet cable sounds daunting, here’s an idea that might sound more tempting: using the existing electrical wiring in your building to extend your condo’s Wi-Fi signal. A “powerline” networking kit generally comes with a pair of small adapters, each with their own Ethernet ports. You connect one adapter to the main Wi-Fi router via an Ethernet cable (a short cable this time), then plug the adapter itself into a nearby power outlet. Next, you take the second adapter, plug it into another power outlet in a different room (or a different unit, in this case), connect it via Ethernet to your Roku, another Wi-Fi router or any Ethernet-enabled device, and voilà—you’re connected.

Powerline adapters let you set up data networks using standard electrical outlets, but you’ll pay a price in terms of performance. (Image credit: Zytel)

Powerline networking kits are generally a bit cheaper than Wi-Fi extenders (Wirecutter’s top pick is only about $85), and since you only need to plug them into exiting power outlets, there’s no need to string Ethernet cable.

Again, though, you’ll need to check with your building manager to see if they’ll let you connect a powerline adapter to the condo’s shared Wi-Fi router. Also, as with Wi-Fi extenders, powerline data performance will suffer the further the two adapters are from each other.

Other factors that might slow a powerline network’s performance to a crawl include whether the powerline network would need to jump from one electrical circuit to another (probably yes, since the condo’s shared Wi-Fi router isn’t located in your unit), as well as how many other electrical appliances are plugged into those circuits (a lot, I’m guessing).

Downshift your Netflix bandwidth usage

OK, so let’s say the Wi-Fi extender didn’t work, powerline isn’t an option, and you struck out with the super when you asked about Ethernet. Now what?

Change your Netflix bandwidth settings could help smooth out video playback over a weak Wi-Fi signal.

Well, if you use your Roku to watch Netflix videos, there’s another option: lower the amount of bandwidth Netflix needs for streaming. Doing so might let you stream Netflix movies and TV shows over a weak Wi-Fi signal without buffering, although you’ll sacrifice video quality—potentially a lot of video quality—in the process.

Just log in to your Netflix account on a desktop Web browser, hover your mouse over your profile name in the top-right corner of the page, click Your Account in the menu that appears, then click “Playback settings” under the My Profile heading.

Next, pick a setting. Try “Medium” first to see if that plays smoothly; if not, downshift to “Low.” (These playback settings will transfer over to the Netflix app on Roku, by the way.) You might have to settle for VHS-level video quality, but at least the picture won’t freeze every few seconds.

Use (or rather, don’t use) your Android or iOS device as a wireless hotspot 

So, what about tethering your Roku to your hotspot-enabled Android or iOS device—would that work? Perhaps, but unless you’re fine with massive overage charges on your wireless bill, I’d advise against it.

Why? Because streaming video over a cellular data connection could easily blow through your monthly mobile data allowance in a matter of hours, particularly if you’re watching HD-quality video. Even if you’re lucking enough to have an unlimited 4G data plan, your unlimited data usually doesn’t extend to using your phone as a hotspot.

Hope this helps, Mary Ellen, and good luck!

Anyone else have suggestions with how to deal with weak wi-fi signals in shared spaces? If so, post ’em below in the comments.

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Hi Lorraine! You’ve touched on a sore point when it comes to the iOS Mail app, which lacks an obvious way to delete all messages without tapping Edit and then selecting each message one by one.

Personally, I’d love it if you could, say, tap, hold and swipe to select a bunch of messages at once (similar to what you can do in the Photos app), but alas, that doesn’t work in iOS Mail.

The “Trash All” button doesn’t appear in the All Mailboxes view of the iOS Mail app.

There is a way…

That said, there is a way to quickly delete all messages in the inbox of an individual mail account, or in a specific mailbox within an account. But if (like me) you’re a fan of the All Mailboxes view in Mail, the Trash All button is easy to miss.

For some odd reason, the Trash All button doesn’t appear in the All Mailboxes screen. Instead, you’ll need to back up (tap the Mailboxes button with the arrow in the top-left corner of the display) and tap on the inbox of a specific mail account.

Once you’ve arrived at an individual account inbox, tap the Edit button to reveal the Trash All button (it’s in the bottom corner of the screen). Tap it, then tap the confirmation button to delete all the messages in the inbox.

Deleting all messages from a specific mailbox

You can also delete all messages with a specific mailbox within a mail account. Go back to the main Mailboxes screen, tap a mail account under the Accounts heading, tap a mailbox, then tap Edit and Trash All to delete all the messages in the mailbox.

No, the Trash All method isn’t as elegant as being able to swipe to select a bunch of messages at once, but it’s better than nothing.

Click here for more iOS tips!

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Hi Mary! I don’t know a way to view an old snapshot of your Netflix queue, but I think I can do you one better: a list of every Netflix video you’ve ever streamed.

And if you want to delete a video from the list—maybe to nix some of those “Because you watched” recommendations—there’s a way to do that, too.

Just tap the little “x” to delete a video from your Netflix viewing history.

Here’s what you do…

• First, hover your mouse over your username on the main Netflix home screen, then click “Your Account.” If you’re using the Netflix app for iOS or Android, tap the three-line “hamburger” button in the top corner of the screen, then tap “Account.”
• Scroll down and click (or tap) “Viewing activity”—and there it is, a list of everything you’ve ever streamed. Or, if you’re still into physical media, rented, from Netflix. For me, the my Netflix queue goes all the way back to 2007.
• You can delete a title from the list by clicking the little “x” next to its name.

Don’t see a video that you watched on the list? Maybe it’s because you streamed the title using a different Netflix profile. Go back and switch profiles (just click or tap your username in the top corner of the screen), then head back to the “My Activity” screen.

Hope that helps, Mary. Still have questions? Let me know!

Bonus tip

See the switch in the top corner of the “My Activity” screen? By default, it’s set to “Watching.” Toggle the switch to “Rating” (the star) to see a list of all the Netflix titles you’ve rated.

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Both Android and iOS devices will give you a privacy warning before installing a third-party keyboard like SwiftKey or Swype.

Hi Geraline! I completely understand your hesitation to install any Android or iOS app that warns that it can access everything you type, including email addresses, credit card numbers, and even passwords. But should you let that stop you from using third-party keyboards or “gesture typing” apps like Swype and SwiftKey?

The makers of Swype, SwiftKey, Flesky and other third-party keyboard apps swear that they’re only interested in scanning your typed words so they can better predict your next words. The better they know your typing habits, they say, the more precise their predictions will be.

Oftentimes, apps like Swype and SwiftKey will ask if they can send your “usage data” (encrypted and anonymized) to their servers and add your data to a giant pool of data from other users, all in the interest of boosting the accuracy of their predictions.

Even if you opt-out of such “share my usage data” options, your Android or iOS device will still dutifully warn you that you’re essentially letting a third-party app take a peek at everything you type.

If you’re paranoid about trusting a third-party keyboard with your personal data, you can always opt out of any “share my data usage” options.

So, should you be worried? The answer: it depends on who you trust.

Swype, Swifty and most reputable third-party keyboard makers promise that they’re not reading your texts nor otherwise watching your keystrokes.

This TechCrunch post does a nice job of summarizing the privacy policies of the biggest third-party keyboard developers, with most of them noting that their keyboards are specifically designed to ignore sensitive data like passwords and credit card numbers.

If you’re feeling paranoid, you can always scour the settings of any third-party keyboard you install and make sure to “opt-out” of “share my usage data” or cloud-connectivity options.

Just disable to “Allow Full Access” setting to keep a third-party keyboard for iOS from phoning home.

iOS users can also disable the “Allow Full Access” setting for any keyboard, which effectively blocks the keyboard’s ability to connect to the Internet. (Just tap Settings, General, Keyboards, tap a keyboard, then disable the Allow Full Access option.)

OK, but where does that leave us? Well, that’s up to you. Personally, I’ve decided to go ahead and trust that Skype, SwiftKey and the like will protect my usage data and look away when I type my passwords. But in the end, you’ll need to make your own decision. If you’re in doubt, don’t tap the “Install” button.

Hope that helps, Geraline. Still have questions? Let me know!

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Hi John! If you “like” a fan page on Facebook, the owner of that page will (of course) see that you’ve liked it, and there’s nothing stopping them from clicking through to your Facebook profile and checking out whatever’s publicly viewable on your page—including, potentially, your Facebook Friends list.

You can set the privacy setting for your Facebook Friends list to anything from “Public” to “Only Me.”

As with most everything on your Facebook profile (a.k.a. your “Timeline”), the privacy settings on your Friends list can be tweaked—and with the right setting, no one will be able to see your Friends list, including the owners of Facebook pages you’ve liked.

To check who can see your Friends list—and, if necessary, lock down its privacy settings—here’s what you do…

• Visit Facebook on a desktop browser, go to your profile page (click your name in the top-right corner of the screen), scroll down to the Friends module in the left column, and click the “Friends” heading.
• Now, you should be looking at a big list of your Facebook friends. In the top-right corner of the list, there should be an “Edit Privacy” button; go ahead and click it.
• Click the pull-down menu under the “Who can see your friend list?” heading and pick a setting—anything from “Public” or “Friends” to “Only Me.”

All done? Then let’s test. Go back to your main profile page, click the three-dot menu button in the top-right corner of the page, then click “View As.”

When you do, you’ll see your Facebook profile as strangers see it. If you set your Friends list privacy setting to “Friends” or “Only Me,” your Friends list will be hidden—and yes, that applies to the owners of any Facebook pages you’ve liked. (Remember, you only “liked” their pages; you never added them as friends.)

Bonus tip

If you haven’t done so already, Facebook offers a handy “privacy checkup” feature that’ll guide you through the most important Facebook privacy settings. On Facebook for desktop, just click the padlock icon on the top-right corner of the screen and select “Privacy Checkup.” On the Facebook app, tap the “More” button (either in the bottom-right corner of the screen on iOS, or the top-right corner for Android), tap Privacy Shortcuts, then tap Privacy Checkup.

Click here for more Facebook tips!

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Hi Page! Without taking a look myself, it’s hard to say what might be slowing your Mac Mini down, but there are a few things you can do to diagnose the problem yourself—and if you’re willing to spend a little cash, there may indeed be a “magic bullet” that’ll give your Mac a serious boost.

The Mac’s Activity Monitor app can tell you if there’s a program or process that’s slowing down your Mac.

First, you can try seeing what’s going on inside your Mac by launching the Activity Monitor app. You’ll find it sitting in the Utilities folder of your hard drive, or just do a Spotlight search for “Activity Monitor.”

Launch the app, click the Memory tab up at the top, then click the top of the long Memory column to sort the list of apps by the amount of system memory they’re using. See anything taking up an unusual amount of memory—more than a gigabyte? If so, try quitting the suspect program. (Note: You’ll probably see an entry for “kernal_task” at the top of the list; that’s an important Mac system process that should be left alone.)

Also, check out the Memory Pressure gauge at the bottom of the Activity Monitor window. Is the gauge smooth and green or do you see yellow and red spikes?

If you’re seeing spikes, that’s a sign that your Mac is running low on memory—and if you’ve got a three-year-old Mac Mini running on a new version of Mac OS X, that’s definitely a possibility.

Now, you were asking about a “silver bullet” for a slow Mac, and in my experience, here it is: a memory upgrade. It’s a quick way to give a sluggish system a big speed boost. Even better, memory upgrades are relatively cheap, and (so long as you’re handy with a screwdriver) you can generally do them yourself.

Now, not all Macs have “user-accessible” memory. Many of the latest, thinnest MacBooks, for example, are sealed tight, as is the 2014 Mac Mini.

Check the “About This Mac” window to see if you can upgrade the memory on your Mac.

To see if you can upgrade your Mac’s memory, click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen and select About This Mac. If you see a Memory tab, click it for details on how much memory is installed on your Mac, plus how many removable memory modules are available.

Click the “Memory Upgrade Instructions” link for details on how much more memory you can install, and how to install the modules yourself—typically a process that involves little more than loosening a few screws and snapping the (delicate) modules into place. For the Mac Mini, you don’t even need a screwdriver to open the case.

No “Memory” tab? If so, your Mac’s memory probably can’t be upgraded, although you can always search Apple’s support site to be sure.

In your case, Page, your three-year-old Mac Mini has slots for two removable memory modules, probably (I’m guessing) with 2GB of memory in each module, for a total of 4GB of RAM (short for “Random Access Memory”).

If you want, you could double that total to 8GB by buying a pair of 4GB memory modules, which (according to my quick research) would set you back about $40 or so. Want even more memory? If you have an “late-2012” Mac Mini model, you could spring for a total of 16GB of RAM (or a pair of 8GB modules) for $80-ish. Older Mac Minis can only handle up to 8GB of RAM.

You don’t even need a screwdriver to open the Mac Mini’s case.

One thing to keep in mind about memory upgrades: you must install modules in both memory slots on your Mac, and both modules need the same amount of RAM. In other words, if your Mac Mini has a pair of 2GB RAM modules installed, you can’t just replace one of the 2GB modules with, say, a new 8GB module. Instead, you’ll need to remove both the old 2GB modules and install (for example) a new pair of 4GB or 8GB modules. Sounds like a waste, I know, but that’s the deal. Update: While Apple recommends using only “matched pairs” of RAM modules, the DIY gurus over at StackExchange say that you can mix and match differently sized modules, so long as you don’t mind losing a tiny bit of performance. If you’re at all nervous about upgrading your RAM, though, you should probably stick with Apple’s guidelines.

You can shop for memory online; Amazon (which seems to sell everything and anything) sells memory modules, while sites like Crucial.com and Kingston.com will step you through the process of picking the right memory for your system.

Your neighborhood computer repair shop probably offers Mac memory upgrades too, perfect if you’re squeamish about prying open your Mac’s case yourself.

Hope that helps, Page. Still have questions? Let me know!

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Hi Nicole! Congrats on the new Mac, but yes, I can see how it might be a bit odd that there’s no hard drive icon sitting on your desktop.

Now, one way to deal with a missing Macintosh HD icon is to simply select New Finder Window from the Finder’s File menu at the top of the screen; doing so will open a new window that’ll allow you to dig into any volume accessible from your Mac, including your hard drive.

No “Macintosh HD” icon on your Mac desktop? Make sure the “Hard disks” box is checked in the Finder Preferences window.

That said, I totally get why you’d want the missing Macintosh HD icon back on your desktop. Here’s how to do it.

• Click the Finder’s File menu at the top of the screen (just click the bare desktop if you don’t see the word “Finder” next to the Apple menu), then select Finder Preferences and click the General tab.
• You should now see a list of all the items that will show up on your desktop. Go ahead and check the box next to “Hard disks.”

Now, go back and check your desktop. You should see the missing Macintosh HD icon sitting right there, right where it should be.

Hope that helps, Nicole. Still have questions? Let me know!

Bonus tip

Click the Sidebar tab in the Finder Preferences window to pick and choose which items appear in the sidebar of any Finder window. Among the choices: “All My Files,” Applications, your hard drives, and Downloads.

Click here for more Mac tips!

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