MacTricksAndTips.com

Hey

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last couple of days. Life got a bit busy with loads of work being suddenly piled on. I’m sorry if you missed any of my tips. They will start up over the next couple of days, back to normal. This tip is going to be quick but still very useful.

Every so often an application will misbehave. It wont do what you want. For example Mail will not download new emails, iCal will not change a calender. Although you could go through clearing your preferences, deleting cache files or enableing debug menus there is a quicker and simpler way.

This method method is to close and open the application. I no it sounds so obvious, but the amount of times I see people who don’t do this amazes me. Most people go on the internet and spend ages when they try to diagnose the problem.

This tip is really simple. Press Command + Q to quit the application. Wait a couple of seconds for the processes to end, check through Acitivy Monitor, and then open it up again. Usually your program is back to normal and running again.

I do this all of the time, frequent offenders are Mail and Word. A quick re-open and the problem is solved as the RAM is flushed and a fresh copy is opened. Try it next time before you go trying to find the hack or fix that is probably not needed. If problems do happen all of the time, it may be worth investigating further. But as a quick tip a app restart is always worth a try.