100 MAC & iOS SETTINGS YOU NEED TO TURN ON NOW!

Whether you have just purchased an Apple device or are an experienced user of Apple products, the operating systems that drive the technology hide many secrets that aren’t initially obvious. Many are buried within the System Settings/ Settings apps on your Mac and iPhone/iPad, often in places you wouldn’t expect – which is certainly the case with the recent macOS Ventura update – so it’s always good to familiarise yourself with the various options available and turn them on if they can enhance the way you use and interact with your devices.

Here we have compiled the 100 most essential settings for Mac and iOS that you need to turn on/off straight away – the first 50 are Mac-specific running macOS 13 (Ventura), and the second 50 are iPhone-specific running iOS 16. We should also point out that we have tried to avoid repeating settings across Mac and iOS, so the iCloud settings, for example, that we highlight on Mac should also be activated on your iPhone.

Siri & Spotlight settings you need to change

Remember, you can do pretty much anything on your Mac by asking Siri, your digital personal assistant. But if you prefer a more hands-on approach to, say, finding a file, then your Mac’s built-in search facility, Spotlight, can be as thorough as you want.

01 Read Siri responses

Click on ‘Siri Responses’ and enable the ‘Always show Siri captions’ option. This will show what Siri says onscreen, so you’ll never be in two minds as to what Siri’s response was. You can also turn on ‘Always show speech’ to check that Siri is interpreting your speech correctly.

02 Turn on “Hey Siri”

Go to System Settings>Siri & Spotlight and ‘Ask Siri’ should be turned on by default. Activate the ‘Listen for “Hey Siri”’ button and you will be able to set up your digital personal assistant to react to your voice. This can be useful for getting things done quickly by saying “Hey Siri” followed by a command.

03 Speed up Spotlight

To make your Mac’s Spotlight search more streamlined and effective, scroll down through the ‘Search results’ section and untick any categories you don’t want Spotlight to scrutinise as you enter your search criteria. This will make Spotlight quicker at finding exactly what you want to see in the listed results.

04 Change Siri’s voice

Click ‘Select’ next to the ‘Siri voice’ option and you will be able to choose different voices from different regions, such as American, Australian, British, Indian, Irish and South African. Click on one to hear an example, then select it and click ‘Done’ to save it for future use.

05 Type Siri questions

If you’re self-conscious about issuing commands to Siri verbally, go to System Settings>Accessibility>Siri and then enable the ‘Type to Siri’ option. Now, when you click on t