text:
Can I record video and then make a call while recording?
This is so not me:

But I was curious if there was a way to call 911 while recording, so, anyone who is like this can at least have an option. :-)

It is possible, you can just hack your phone. Idk if jailbroken phones can do this or not, but physically it should be possible. Is it worth all the trouble you'd have to go through? Not really (imo).

@theonlygusti, agreed. Might make an interesting feature request for the future though. This guy could have used it. Can't believe people like this exist... Also, listen to how the newsreader pronounces "fiery." ^_^

Actually, now that I think of it. Such a feature might be unlawful because it allows recording of conversations...

I understand the privacy concerns for making regular calls while recording, but an exemption for emergency numbers would be very useful (for other reasons than pictured above). If you're the sole witness of a crime, it would be beneficial to both record what's happening and alert the police at the same time. That's a tough decision to make in an already tense situation – to either delay calling for help or give up on possibly valuable evidence.

No, as soon as you receive a call or initiate a call the video recording is stopped.
With an active call it's not possible to record a video at all.
I have tested this with iOS 9.3.x, iOS 10.3.x and iOS 11.0.x.

Just out of curiosity, do you know if the iPhone has forceable glitches for certain features? I remember being able to have two tabs open on Safari. One YouTube, and one, say, news, and if I tapped the play button on YouTube and then almost instantaneously but slightly after press the news tab I could listen to YouTube music while reading the news. Is there any way to force it via a glitch like that?

@uwnojpjm There are no glitches that I’m aware of.


text:
Is there a tool similar to powertop for macOS
I am looking for a tool similer to powertop for macOS. I'd like to see which processes have the largest power use (activity monitor shows apps but not servers like nginx and node and I'd like to see the power use of those server processes too). Any suggestions?

Activity Monitor does show all processes. Check what is ticked in the View menu

In addition to the Energy tab in Activity Monitor, there is the command-line powermetrics that gives you more detailed information, such as CPU wattage and C-States. Try the --show-process-energy option for the same Energy Impact metric as Activity Monitor.

In Activity Monitor.app

Select View > 'All Processes'
Select the 'Energy' tab
Click on the column 'Energy Impact'

Not exactly like powertops, but you can use powermetrics:
sudo powermetrics --show-process-energy

More details from the manual:

powermetrics gathers and display CPU usage statistics (divided into
  time spent in user mode and supervisor
       mode), timer and interrupt wakeup frequency (total and, for near-idle workloads, those that resulted in pack-
       age idle exits), and on supported platforms, interrupt frequencies (categorized by CPU number), package C-
       state statistics (an indication of the time the core complex + integrated graphics, if any, were in low-power
       idle states), as well as the average execution frequency for each CPU when not idle.

Also, you might want to use the top command:
top -stats pid,command,power -o power -l 0

There's a tool called asitop, which looks like this:

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Change safari input device (microphone)
I was trying to use this website: https://guitar-tuner.appspot.com
But it wasn't working at all even after I allowed it access to the microphone.
I suspected this may be to do with me having six different "microphones" (input sources—I have both soundflowers, a device for my TV, and a bunch of virtual ones from Loopback)
I thought maybe Safari was using the wrong microphone, so I went to these two sites to check that and neither worked (they didn't even prompt for microphone access):

https://www.onlinemictest.com/
https://www.onlinemictest.com/microphone-settings/mac-os-x/

Are you sure Soundflower & Loopback won't fight each other?

@Tetsujin yeah I've had both installed now for three months at least without any problem

I gave up on Soundflower altogether at about Mavericks, tbh. It got very crashy. I usually route with Audio Hijack, which suits my visual sense. Loopback I have but haven't yet really found a good use for - it kind of has a bunch of 'hidden' setups in the app itself & I'm not sure how you would route one input to a given app with it... that's more an audio hijack job.

Some 'demo' routings from Audio Hijack, so you can see what I mean - https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/203004/nice-audio-mixer-repeater/203009#203009 also https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/271164/split-input-channels-using-soundflower-and-aulab/271194#271194 and https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/274090/mono-output-from-an-external-dac/274103#274103

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Failed Bootcamp partitioning bricks drive -even after reinstall
Been looking everywhere online, could only find references to Lion and Yosemite, with one unsourced page (macOS + Windows 10 + shared data partition) saying that all the old methods would no longer work.
I have a new 2017 Macbook Pro, with a 512 GB SSD. I wanted to run Windows on it (obviously). At first, I just ran the Bootcamp Assistant and everything went well. But then I decided that I wanted a shared exFAT partition between my MacOS Sierra and Windows 10 installs. I tried to repartition the Mac partition with Disk Utility, and ended up bricking the laptop. First Aid kept giving "Invalid number of allocation blocks" errors, and the laptop refused to boot.
I gave up and reinstalled Sierra via the Recovery Partition. However, when I try to rerun Bootcamp Assistant, it always gives a "Disk failed to be partitioned" error. I'm even unable to partition the main drive further with Disk Utility. I've done everything - clear PRAM, /sbin/fsck -fy, reinstall Sierra, even DiskWarrior. The laptop functions fine, but I find myself unable to create any new partition.
Moreover, every failed attempt nevertheless creates 64+8 GB of unformatted partitions, which corrupts the partition table. Each time this happens, I am unable to boot until going through recovery mode to fix it with Paragon's Hard Disk Manager.
How can I fix the system for bootcamp?


text:
Screen sharing turned off, but appears as "enabled"
I used this command to disable screen sharing:
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

But when I try to confirm if it's disabled using the following, I get "enabled"
[[ -f /etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd ]] && echo 'enabled' || echo 'disabled'

Am I misunderstanding something? I would like to turn screen sharing off, and confirm that it is off.

Why don't you just look in System Prefs/Sharing & toggle it there? Would save several layers of guesswork.

I did, it appears off, but I am trying to figure out why it appears as "enabled" via the command in the op.

As an amateur in other languages, I'd be suspicious of && something || something - but my coding chops aren't good enough to know if I'm right or wrong, sorry.

Your shell script code is simply a check for the presence of the file /etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd.  If the file is present, it prints enabled, else it prints disabled.
However, this file is always present (in 10.13 and possibly under 10.12 as well) whether the screensharing agent is currently active or not.  Watchfiles in launchd are not necessarily checked for their presence or non-presence (unlike pidfiles in Linux, for example).  Changes and updates to the file can also trigger actions.
It's probably best to rely on launchctl's actual facilities for introspection, via sudo launchctl list or the newer launchctl print system commands, rather than checking for the presence of legacy files.


text:
Where did my CoreStorage partition go?
I have a 2015 MacBook Air 128GB with Sierra Recent purchase as new from Apple, still under warranty). A couple of months ago I was looking at the SSD using DiskUtility and saw that the SSD seemed to be a lot more than 128GB, it looked like it was 256GB. 128GB was available to me and the rest was a CoreStorage partition. (Give or take a few GB for the Recovery partition.) So I thought that if I could remove the CS partition, I would have 256GB available to me, not 128GB.
A couple of manoths later, I finally got time to try it. Much to my surprise, there is no CS partition anymore. HD Utility doesn't show one, so I tried Terminal and still no CS partition, whereas previously there was a CoreStorage partition shown. And the SSD is only 128GB.
So where did the CS partition go?

You didn't install High Sierra at any point? If so, that might have removed core storage container and converted it to an APFS container. Some other tools can remove all core storage as well and leave you with a traditional HFS+ on disk structure as opposed to HFS+ embedded in core storage.

I haven't installed HighSierra yet, but I did have my OS reinstalled a few months ago (at a Genius Bar) to try to fix a different problem. However, I don't see why this would have eliminated the CS partition. And anyway, if it did, where did those CS GB go?

It is possible that you misinterpreted what you saw. The diskutil list command in Terminal, for example, would show you both the 128GB physical disk, as well as the 128GB CoreStorage logical volume. These are listed separately, but are in fact the same storage.
Running disktuil cs list in Terminal will confirm if you have a CoreStorage volume or not. To my knowledge, it's not likely that a CoreStorage volume would revert itself. One possible cause that I can think of would be a reinstall of macOS.

How can they be the same storage if they are different partitions? The MacOS part is 120GB, the restore part if 5GB (I think) and the CoreStorage was 100GB or so. The diskutil cs list command says I now have no CoreStorage partition. But I had one, or so I thought. Maybe I hallucinated it? I sure wish I had kept screenshots of that, but who would have thought it would disappear?


text:
Notification Center "Show Message Preview" doesn't work
In Notifications Preferences, I have the "Show Message Preview" option disabled for Mail.app, but nonetheless, message previews still appear in Notification Center.
How can I fix this?
macOS Sierra, Mail.app 10.3

The checkbox only affects the notifications when they display as a notification, not when they are subsequently shown in Notification Center. Notifications are always shown in full with the message preview when viewing them in Notification Center.


text:
How do I run a terminal script when mounting a specific disk?
I have rsync set up, I have set up rsync as a UNIX executable and named the bash script as 'backup' and I saved it to /usr/local/bin so whenever I type backup in terminal it would do a backup to my external disk. But I want it setup in such a way whenever I plug in that drive it would run that bash script. I have already googled this but it doesn't work with High Sierra.

What have you Googled that doesn't work?

Ok as per all the suggestions the users gave I googled and found a nice .plist file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd >
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.company.popup</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>sh</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/backup</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartOnMount</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>`

I have put this code under ~/Library/LaunchAgents and runs at login.Thanks for all your replies again it helped me find a better code.


text:
What does the command `csrutil clear` do?
When I read the arguments of csrutil it says csrutil clear will erase the existing configuration SIP:
csrutil
usage: csrutil <command>
Modify the System Integrity Protection configuration. All configuration changes apply to the entire machine.
Available commands:

    clear
        Clear the existing configuration.
    disable
        Disable the protection on the machine. Only available in Recovery OS.
    enable
        Enable the protection on the machine. Only available in Recovery OS.
    status
        Display the current configuration.

    netboot
        add <address>
            Insert a new IPv4 address in the list of allowed NetBoot sources.
        list
            Print the list of allowed NetBoot sources.
        remove <address>
            Remove an IPv4 address from the list of allowed NetBoot sources.

My question is does executing csrutil clear erase the configurations for SIP?

From System Integrity Protection – Adding another layer to Apple’s security model:

When csrutil clear is run, SIP goes back to its factory-default settings. That means SIP is enabled if it was disabled previously and any custom configuration is cleared out.

The custom configuration consists of a list of IP addresses of allowed NetBoot sources.


text:
How to "scroll" a clip so that it stays the same length but shows a different part of original video?
Analogy: the clip as viewed in the timeline is actually a window, behind which the entire original clip lies.
I want to move the original clip side-to-side behind this window, so that the window's size and position don't change, but it shows a different part of the original clip.

I have imported 3 videos into final cut pro. Each video is, on its own, at least 20 minutes long, but I've cut them all to be 15 minutes, 5 seconds, 5 minutes in order. There are "straight" (the most basic) cuts to transition from one to the next (i.e., nothing fancy).
The second clip, in-between the two other clips, is the right length but I'd like to show a different part of its video. I.e., instead of the 5 seconds it's currently showing, the first 5 seconds of that video (the original video that was imported), I'd like it to show a 5 second clip from the middle of that video.
Is there a way I can do this easily?
In my real project the timeline is full of audio and some other videos so I don't want to stretch, re-cut, delete etc. the middle video.

Choose the Trim tool (T) and drag the clip along the timeline. The start and end points remain fixed on the timeline and the clip moves within, up to the start/end point of the clip, denoted by red markers.

Nice it was that simple! Interestingly audio aligned with the clip also scrolls when doing this.

Just to add that your trim tool cursor should be aimed at the middle of the clip, and then dragged to get your ripple. Don't inadvertently trim the beginning or end points.

What if the end point is the end of the video? How can I make it reduce the video's length

@theonlygusti Then you just want to trim the video, use the standard arrow tool or trim tool and drag the left edge of the cut to the right.


text:
Double dot on spotlight calculator
So I'm playing around with the Spotlight calculator, and came across a weird thing:
If I type
1..1, I receive 0.1
5..6, I receive 3
523..6.1, I receive 31.38
Does anybody know what mathematical function this is?
Edit: This works on macOS Sierra 10.12.2, as for people in the comments, it looks like three dots are required on macOS High Sierra.

I don't get those results when I use Spotlight on my MBP on High Sierra.  I get a bunch of different answers but none of them is mathematical.

This doesn't work for me with two dots, only with three

Yep, 3 dots is what it takes.

@fsb Huh... Works perfectly fine for me with two. I'm on Mac OS Sierra 10.12.2.

What is happening, is the calculator splits the numbers and dots into the following:
5..6=3 turns into 5 * .6 = 3
As we know that . is another way of saying 'multiply' its simply, 5 multiplied by .6
As for 523..6.1=31.38, it turns into 523 * (.6 * .1) = 31.38


text:
What happens if you delete the contents of the EFI partition?
So, I was playing around with the diskutil command.  Then I thought of mounting the EFI partition. It mounted successfully and I viewed its contents. When I right-clicked on a file I saw an option to move it to the trash.
So I was thinking: what will happen if you delete the contents of the EFI partition? Will they be recreated when you wipe the entire disk and reinstall MacOS?
PS: I would also like to know where the EFI partition is located?


text:
How to eject a drive automatically after pen drive is plugged in?
I have set up a .plist file which would automatically backup my files whenever I plug in my pen drive but I would like to eject it after the process is complete. How do I accomplish this?
Here is my job definition - how do I modify it to eject my drive after backup is complete:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd >
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.company.popup</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>sh</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/backup</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartOnMount</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

PS. I have put thus file under ~/Library/LaunchAgents

You need to eject it in the shell script, not the launchd plist. man diskutil might help

Also: Please have a look at the edit I've made to see how formatting works  here.

You just have change the UNIX executable file.Modify it like  rsync -aH source destination && diskutil eject /Volumes/BACKUP >> desktop/log.txt

If rsync fails then Volumes/BACKUP will not be ejected. Is this your desired result?

No rsync does not fail it works perfectly fine.And how can rsync fail please do give an example.

@geek there are a lot of reasons rsync can fail, eg. permission errors on read or write. With your current code you have no way of finding out whether something went wrong

Yes you are right @Patrix but I have found a way to save the output of the file to a .txt by adding >> log.txt to the end of the shell script.Thanks by the way for warning.


text:
New iPhone 8 asking for App Store password for someone else's account
I have an iPhone 8 that was set up from an iPhone 7 backup.
Every few minutes I get a popup asking for an App Store password, except the account it's specifying is an account that belongs to a family member.
Similar questions say that this can happen when an app was installed using a different App Store ID. So to fix this, I uninstalled every installed app.
I'm still getting the popup. Is there any way to fix this?

So to make sure, the only apps installed are stock iOS apps? (And if that's the case, why not erase it completely and start anew, not from a backup?)

Have you tried having them sign in to your phone?

@Sirens I would, they're not available to do so

Head into Settings > iTunes & App Stores and at the top you should see that your iPhone is logged in with your family member's Apple ID.
Click on the Apple ID, then tap on Sign Out and then login with your Apple ID.

My Apple ID is already there.

What exactly does the pop-up say?

Sign In To iTunes Store - Enter the password for your Apple ID -
someoneelse@gmail.com - Password:

Ok this should fix the problem, open the App Store, tap on the profile icon from the top right corner and then tap on Sign Out

Tried that too, no dice.

That’s all the possible solutions I got, did u restart your phone after signing out on the App Store?


text:
How can I ask Siri to play the first video of a YouTube search?
YouTube's search bar is pretty good at finding the most relevant video for a popular search. Like, if I search for "dog of wisdom" the first video is the one I want to see, so I had the thought the other day wouldn't it be nice to be able to ask Siri "play the first YouTube video with search 'dog of wisdom'" and have it play the video immediately. There are no doubt a lot of searches like this, i.e., where the first video of the search term is expected to be the one you want, so that you don't even have to scroll around to find it. Is this something that could be done?

No. And see this Q&A on how Siri works with third party apps: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297352/can-i-use-siri-with-these-apps

@pjc90, yes, but how is it then that I can play a YouTube video and close the screen (black) while still listening to the music, namely on my iPhone. Is that just a glitch "feature"?


text:
How do I force Safari to show me Google search result pages in history?
Safari's history doesn't seem to include Google search result pages.
Steps I go through which re-create this issue every time:

Search for anything from Safari's omnibar.
Visit a result (by clicking it).
Optional step: do anything else in Safari.
Hit ⌘+Y to load up the history.
Enjoy not seeing that intermediary Google results page in the list.

This is really frustrating.
How can I force Safari to show me Google search result pages in history?
I'm using Safari 11.0 (13604.1.38.1.6) and macOS High Sierra 10.13.

I guess you can add Google as a favorite bookmark, and turn on the ⌘1 shortcut to go to the first favorite bookmark from Safari preferences

@SkeletonBow how does that help me out?

You can go to google using that shortcut, and it'll be saved to the history. Of course it's a mere workaround

@SkeletonBow I think you might have misunderstood my problem. Even if I  google for something using your method, the results page isn't pushed to history.

Ah, okay. Sorry.

Did you ever find an answer to this? I'm dealing with the same thing

Also, I've found that if you don't click a result then the results page will be saved ¯\(ツ)/¯

@Wmbuch I haven't found an answer yet unfortunately

This also occurs if you go to www.google.com directly and then search, rather than using the omnibar to search

This appears to only be the case (in my version of Safari at least) when using Google.  The other supported search engines in Safari do not remove the search page from the search history.

Click History > Search Results SnapBack or ⌥⌘S via keyboard shortcut

This has some unfortunate limitations over it simply appearing in the history: it only works in the same tab the search was performed, and it only works for the most recent search performed in that tab.

You mean use this instead of the back button?

@theonlygusti At the time this post was created Safari had an annoying behaviour that navigating via the back button skipped Google search results pages. It appears to have been fixed since then, thankfully!


text:
How to enable SSH via terminal without sudo?
I want to play a prank with my friend in where I open a ssh connection with his Mac. I need SSH to be enabled on this Mac first, which requires admin rights.
Is there any other I can enable SSH without sudo or an AppleScript?

There is a reason why admin rights are required to enable  remote access...

It's not a bad question - not sure why the down vote.

Do you have a physical access to the targeted Mac?

Will your friend accept the gift of a new nice looking USB key?

Does your friend click quickly on link within his E-mail?

Yes the link I will lead him to a automator app which will save the command of ifconfig to a file then I will tell him to send it to me. But I just added a dialog box to my app which will tell him to enable SSH.

You should probably socially engineer your friend to install some "secret message" app so you can communicate and when they enter their password, your installer "does the deed" in a pre- or post- install script. Except that might be a felony in some places and certainly opens that computer and all on it to anyone else wanting to try to ssh in, so maybe prank them another way?

I had forgot to mention I told him to change his password to f and he said he would do it!

I would hope not since that would be a huge security vulnerability in the OS. Remote executable access without end user approval would be a highly exploitable vulnerability in the OS.
That being said, I wouldn't presume it's not possible but if it were possible, I would expect that to be a very closely guarded secret and not shared publicly.
A "white hat" might disclose this to Apple, the vendor to fix and then announce.
A "black hat" might develop the exploit and then sell it for millions of $$ or weaponize it for their nationality / social group of choice.
At this point, the definition of who is wearing the white/black hats is going to be highly controversial and subjective. About the only thing everyone can agree upon is all hat colors gain/lose social status having found and chosen how they disclose.


text:
Burn marks on iMac Screen
I'm wondering has anyone seen anything like this before? Was using my 2009 Unibody iMac this morning and noticed black, burn-like, marks appear on the screen gradually.
The machine wasn't under heavy usage or anything, however the screen felt extremely hot to touch.
The previous week there was condensation looking areas behind the glass.
Any input appreciated, thanks.

Condensation from water? This teardown at iFixit can help identify what lives behind the LCD panel. Something's gone kerflooey!

No. Don’t open the iMac just for that condensation or fog. See my answer and the linked question. Only if it’s permanent / smoke / particulate deposit would an open and clean and investigation be in order.

This happens all the time.
Condensation and fog like effects are almost always benign and transient. Shut down form15 minutes minimum and restart.
The image persistence is somthing all LCD will eventually succumb to and some can show that even when brand new. Either power off entirely for hours or days or have an all white screen saver engage and prevent partial content from staying on screen static.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_persistence


text:
Is cron command supposed to work like this?
I've set up cron to run a script hourly but when I reboot cron does not work. Does this mean that I should run cron whenever I boot into my Mac? The cron command which I use cron 5 * * * * path/to/script.sh. Is there any problem with cron or I this kind of behaviour expected?

cron has been deprecated in favor of launchd.  Have a look at this answer for a primer on how to setup a launchd job that executes at a given interval.

@Allan I know that launchd makes the job easier but like cron because I just have to type one line. I am lazy :)

You don't need to call cron directly. Any commands you want to run need to be added to the crontab of the user they should run as. You can edit your crontab by running
crontab -e

or, if you are an admin user and want to edit the crontab of another user,
crontab -u USERNAME -e

PS: Run man 5 crontab for details about the format of the file, what kind of special commands you can use, and some samples. 5 * * * * /path/to/script seems to be ok though.

On macOS High Sierra (and perhaps earlier), cron is disabled in some configurations. There is, however, still a LaunchDaemon for it.
Check to see if cron is enabled:
sudo launchctl list | grep cron

You should see com.vix.cron.plist if cron is running. If cron is not running, you should do:
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.vix.cron.plist

That will start cron, and the -w switch will make sure it starts after reboots as well.


text:
Can I make my Mac have two passwords for one account?
Is there any way I can get my login to accept two different passwords?

I know if no way to do this, with anything

Why? What is the problem you are trying to solve?

You can set two different admin accounts (with two different passwords), such that if you forget the password for one account you can login to the other and change it.
You can also join two accounts using the shell group command and reset permissions (which is really complicated).
There is other ways, but I'd think more laterally about your objectives.

Short answer: No. There is no way to specify this in macOS. I've never seen this ability in any operating system I've used in 35+ years in the profession.
You can set a firmware password on your Mac, adding an extra level of security before a user login, but it is not recommended.

Why is a firmware password "not recommended," and by whom? For a laptop, presumably more subject to theft than a desktop, protecting against the easy boot-from-a-USB-stick login password bypass seems to me a reasonable precaution,

Just do not forget your firmware password.

"Not recommended" in that if you forget the Firmware password, you're locked out of your system. Only Apple can get past the Firmware password for you, but you must provide acceptable proof of ownership, which can be hard to prove if you're not the original owner. Enrolling your Mac in AppleCare is the best way to prove ownership, even if it has lapsed. If you do choose a Firmware password, write it down and store it safely somewhere. If you choose to sell or give your Mac as a gift, make sure to disable the FW password beforehand.

Nowadays you can somehow using a Signing Stick or Smart Card…
You set a user account with it's password and you associate / pair that user with « sc_auth » in order to use « smart card » along with it's PIN…
That can be somehow « handy » for a small business to login as a defined user (eg. if sick) whilst making sure the user doesn't have to provide it's password… Therefore you have to either force the person to use a « smart card » to login everyday or alternatively setup one for the user account as a bypass.
Check also Removing smart card login from my Mac
Environnement with more users should consider not having to login as the user but use delegate accesses and simplify user login experience with solutions such as https://jumpcloud.com/blog/mac-system-login-microsoft-365-password or https://www.jamf.com …


text:
How do I run an app using launchd at regular intervals?
I have an app which is written in AppleScripting language which checks if the S.M.A.R.T. status is 'Verified' if it is not then it will automatically show me a dialog alert. But I need it to run every 30 minutes. I used cron before but it never works with .app extension. So how can I accomplish running the app at regular intervals using launchd?

launchd neither works with app bundles (which is just a folder). You always have to choose a/the binary (e.g. /usr/local/sbin/smartmontool or *.app/Contents/MacOS/app_binary)

Not that I'm against AppleScript, but wouldn't this be much, much easier in bash?

@Allan That in part might depend on how comfortable one is scripting in bash vs, AppleScript. Could use a combination of both. bash to do the S.M.A.R.T. status checking and AppleScript via osascript to display a dialog box or notification in Notification Center. But that's also what do shell script in AppleScript is for.

@user3439894 To get that status, AS would have to (at minimum) issue a shell command in bash anyway (diskutil info diskX | grep -i smart).  That would be the meat and potatoes of the script right there.

In AppleScript, e.g.: display dialog "SMART Status: " & (do shell script "diskutil info disk0 | awk '/SMART Status:/{print $3}'") buttons {"OK"} default button 1

Rather than close this as too broad, I'll answer as if this were asking for  suggested tools to make it easier to debug your launch configuration. I'm not saying don't learn launchd and launchctl as they are very powerful, just that your question might be a bit too broad for a two or three paragraph answer. Also - This doesn't prevent someone from being kind and doing all the work for you.

Use oascript to call your ApplesScript.
$ oascript foobar.applescript

In your plist your ProgramArguments definition to launch the app would be as follows:
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>osascript</string>
        <string>foobar.applescript</string>
    </array>

To get your item to run, you need a StartInterval definition which takes an integer for the number of seconds (1800 for 30 mins) between runs.
<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>1800</integer>

A simple but functional plist would look as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.foobar.app</string>
   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>osascript</string>
        <string>foobar.applescript</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>1800</integer>

</dict>
</plist>

It doesn't seem to work I am using .scpt file. Can you help me out with a complete .plist file?

See this answer for details on writing the plist

Yeah thanks but I want it to run hourly not on a specific time or day. So I need help on this.

I'm trying to to completely rewrite an answer that already exists, but I have put the most essential parts here.

If the OP truly has an app - why not write a shell script that's basically - while (true) do open /path/to/foo.app; sleep 1800 done? Might be easier than the path down turning it into a proper launch daemon or agent type script or installing / activating cron

@bmike - easier yes, but this is a good opportunity to learn the new technology

Apple documents everything you need to write a hand crafted XML file to save to the filesystem and than load using launchtl load /path/to/xml but the documentation is very dense, assumes you have several days or weeks of experience and time to learn.
I recommend starting with a tool like LaunchControl or Lingon to ease your learning curve and add a nice interface to pick times like 30 minutes for the repeat interval instead of needing to code 1800 seconds into the xml file.
Here is what you'd enter for your 30 minutes and run only when the user is logged in constraints in the LaunchControl app

Again, you can do this by hand, working through every hurdle you will face (debugging errors to standard out and standard error when things don't work, debugging permissions and folder / file locations) but that's typically too broad a question here for getting someone from an idea to working implementation.

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html

I'd go for the easy tools unless you have a desire to master several scripting tools and the launch daemon and control system under the hood.


text:
Location Services shown on menu bar even though all apps are disabled
I have encountered a weird problem with my Macbook Pro (mid 2017/macOS Sierra 10.12.6). It shows the Location Services icon on the menu bar, many times a day, even after unchecking all application from location services except 'Setting Time Zone' & 'Find My Mac' (under 'System Services'). I have also unchecked 'Show location icon in menu bar when System Services request your location', that means 'System Services' can use location services without showing on menu bar.
Why does location icon show up, is there any app which is using location without my knowledge? I take my privacy seriously. or is it some malware/adware.
Please see images:

When you click on the icon on the menu bar, what's shown as using location?

after clicking on that icon, it opens up 'Security & Privacy' in 'System Preferences', since all apps are unchecked nothing is shown regarding which app was using location service.

Does it go directly to System Preferences or show a list like this first?

Looking at the screenshots above, the location icon is most likely showing up because you are allowing System Services to access your location. As long as every app in that list is unchecked, the only services that will use your location will be System Services.


text:
Can I modify defaults to get a website to popup when I hold down a letter on the keyboard?
You know how if you hold down 'i' on the keyboard you get î, ï, í, ī, į, and ì by selecting from number 1-6, well, what if I want, say, for example, igloo.com to pop up as a seventh option when I hold down i. That way I can store things in my keys, even longer stuff not necessarily websites.

You can't modify the keyboard Press-And-Hold for iOS, but I am wondering why Keyboard Shortcuts don't work for you?

Press and hold can't be a "key combination?"

press-and-hold can't be modified in iOS.  It's even protected now via SIP in macOS, so it technically can't be anything except what Apple defines it as.  The question still remains...does Keyboard Shortcuts not work?

No, it does, but I just thought it'd be a cool feature, no?

I can see the value in it.


text:
AppleScript auto-responder with incrementing number
I'm trying to create an auto-responder that will respond to any email from a certain address with something like:

Thank you for your email.
  Your number is #0000042.

The number should increment every time it sends one of these emails.
After looking online at the expensive solutions it looks like my best bet is automating something with AppleScript - possibly saving the last number in a file and incrementing it.
What would such a script look like?

What do you have so far? Are you looking for an entire script or just incrementing the "Your number is #0000042." part of the script?

@user3439894 An entire script, or at least the basics.

I've expanded my answer with a complete script.

A simple way of implementing the auto incrementing would be to use an AppleScript property variable:
property responseNumber : 42

Property values are "remembered" between calls to your script.  So, in your handler simply use:
set responseNumber to responseNumber + 1

However, the property value is reset whenever the AppleScript is compiled. So you would need to manually change the 1 in property responseNumber : 1 to the latest value when you changed the script. Using a file is therefore a more robust method and using a preference file to record the current property value means you can use built-in functionality.
A basic AppleScript example (with no error checks nor testing, since I don't use Mail), to give you an idea:
property responseNumber : 42
property prefFileName : "your.domain.in.reverse.emailresponder.plist"

on perform_mail_action(theData)
    my readPrefs()
    tell application "Mail"
        set theSelectedMessages to |SelectedMessages| of theData
        repeat with theMessage in theSelectedMessages
            set theReply to reply theMessage
            set the content of theReply to "Thank you for your email." & return & "Your number is #" & (zeroPad of me given value:responseNumber, minimumDigits:7) & "." & return
            send theReply
            set responseNumber to responseNumber + 1
        end repeat
    end tell
    my writePrefs()
end perform_mail_action

on zeroPad given value:n, minimumDigits:m : 2
    set val to "" & (n as integer)
    repeat while length of val < m
        set val to "0" & val
    end repeat
    return val
end zeroPad

on readPrefs()
    -- Get the path to the property list
    set plPath to (path to preferences folder as text) & prefFileName
    tell application "System Events"
        set plContents to contents of property list file plPath
        set responseNumber to value of property list item "ResponseNumber" of plContents
    end tell
end readPrefs

on writePrefs()
    -- Get the path to the property list
    set plPath to (path to preferences folder as text) & prefFileName
    tell application "System Events"
        set the value of property list item "ResponseNumber" of contents of property list file plPath to responseNumber
    end tell
end writePrefs

Save this script in your ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.mail folder and set-up a Mail rule to call it.
You'll also need to create the appropriate plist file in your ~/Library/Preferences folder with the following contents:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>ResponseNumber</key>
    <integer>42</integer>
</dict>
</plist>


text:
What happens if you run dd without any argument?
I was working with Terminal then suddenly I thought of running dd without any arguments. Then it started doing something then I immediately started doing something. I got scared so I aborted it using ^C.
Output of dd:
$ dd
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes transferred in 2.556354 secs (0 bytes/sec)
$

I'm not 100% sure, so won't post this as an answer, but I'm pretty sure nothing happens since dd on its own has no input or output targets. In fact, I would expect it to just hang.

dd is a "stream duplicator".
Using dd with no operands means it will be reading and writing to the standard input/output (keyboard and screen).
From the man page (man dd)

The dd utility copies the standard input to the standard output.

So, issuing the command dd and then sending a break ControlC results in nothing being input, and nothing being written. Until you sent the break, dd was waiting for input.
Here are some examples (press ControlD to tell dd you are done entering text)
$ dd
Hello, World

results in
$ dd
Hello, World
Hello, World
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
13 bytes transferred in 6.140313 secs (2 bytes/sec)

To convert from regular to upper/lowercase:
$ dd conv=ucase
Hello, World
HELLO, WORLD

dd conv=lcase
Hello World
hello world

You said, "dd is a "stream duplicator".", can you provide an authoritative reference to that statement?

I put it in quotes because I based it from memory when I first learned it.  I think it had to do with IBM, but I don't know for sure.

Since we're dealing with I/O and that's a stream, I suppose it's okay. +1.


text:
Is /dev protected by SIP?
So I know /dev contains all the drivers required for mouse , keyboard etc but can some dangerous malware delete the folder? Or can someone manually delete the folder with sudo?

The directory that SIP (About System Integrity Protection) covers are

/System
/usr
/bin
/sbin
Apps that are pre-installed with OS X

/dev contains all the drivers required for mouse , keyboard etc

No.  These are device nodes or special files that access the hardware directly.
Device drivers are usually located in the System Library as kexts (Kernel Extensions).  See this answer for more further details.

can someone manually delete the folder with sudo?

Yes, you can delete this folder however, it should be restored upon reboot because these nodes are dynamically generated as hardware is detected.  Under Linux and BSD, the command makedev will regenerate your devices.  mknod will do the same for macOS.
From the man page (man mknod)

The mknod command creates device special files.

So, can malware delete or affect these files?  Possibly, but it would be counterproductive because it would need root access to begin with and whatever changes would be temporary at best.

SIP does prevent block-level writes to protected disks (e.g. writes to startup drive /dev/disk and /dev/rdisk devices), otherwise you could easily bypass restrictions. See https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193368/what-is-the-rootless-feature-in-el-capitan-really

"Under Linux and BSD, the command makedev will regenerate your devices. mknod will do the same for macOS." – Actually, on almost all modern Linux distributions, /dev is dynamically managed by udev. Static makedev (or MAKEDEV) scripts haven't existed for over a decade. (Before udev, /dev was sometimes a virtual filesystem called devfs.) Also note that both the udevd daemon as well as the venerable old MAKEDEV scripts, simply call the mknod utility, and the devfs filesystem driver calls the mknod syscall.


text:
High Sierra shows wrong disk usage for photos in information

I installed high Sierra a few months ago and nowadays there seems to be a problem with System Information.app, it always shows the disk usage wrong like for example System 40GB but it shows photos to be 0KB even though I have 19GB worth photos and DaisyDisk reports correct disk usage.
I have tried booting into safe mode and rebooting, this persists after restarts
Screenshot:

I have run this scan as root user not admin.
so how do fix this missing photo sizing in system information.app?

do you have cloud sharing turned on?

Yes I do. Should I Disable it and my  cloud storage plan is 5GB and I used all of it.

Could you specify what figures of used/free space are displayed by DaisyDisk? And also by Disk Utility and Finder's Get Info?

Yes I will upload it shortly.swa16

I recently ran into this - on my 500GB SSD, my free space was only 5% where I expected more like 75%.  I found an answer in a blog that worked for me:

Apple state that they automatically remove local snapshots when disk space is low, but their definition of low is apparently only 5GB of free space remaining – not really much free working space in 2017 when you might want scratch space of 22GB for 1 hour of 4k 30FPS footage.
On older MacOS releases, it was possible to disable the local snapshot feature entirely, this doesn’t seem to be the case with High Sierra – but it does appear to be possible to force an immediate purge of local snapshots with the following command:

sudo tmutil thinLocalSnapshots / 10000000000 4

From the tmutil manpage:

thinlocalsnapshots mount_point [purge_amount] [urgency]

Thin local Time Machine snapshots for the specified volume.
When purge_amount and urgency are specified, tmutil will attempt (with urgency level 1-4) to reclaim purge_amount in bytes by thinning snapshots.
If urgency is not specified, the default urgency will be used.

You may want to include a brief summary of the blog entry.   Consider the value of your answer to readers who have printed out on paper.

Best. Command. Ever. Just purged 160GB of TM snapshots to make space for MY stuff.

Greatest command ever!

What do these 10000000000 4 mean?

@ololobus - I added the relevant details from the tmutils manpage.

Most likely the space is taken by Time Machine. It keeps making local snapshots when the persistent TM storage is not available. The local snapshots can pile up to as much as 80% of disk space. After the next backup, or when the disk space runs low, the local snapshots are automatically removed by macOS. So this is not really a problem that needs a fix, the system will take care of it.
That said, I'd agree that the System Information app needs a fix on High Sierra. It seems to include the local snapshots into "System" category and therefore it appears as used space, while Finder counts the snapshots as "purgeable", including it into the "available" space. This inconsistency is confusing.
DaisyDisk currently includes the snapshots into the used space (as opposed to Finder). Previously the snapshots could be revealed (./MobileBackups folder) when scanning "As Administrator", but starting from High Sierra and APFS, the local snapshots are saved outside the scannable area, so DaisyDisk simply shows a bigger "hidden space" segment. An update of DaisyDisk is said to be coming that will display purgeable space more consistently with Finder: https://daisydiskapp.com/manual/4/en/Topics/HiddenSpace.html?subtopic=StillHiddenSpace

But I don't use time machine do backup I use rsync

I had a similar problem just now: Finder, "Get Info", and Disk Utility were all reporting 18GB free on a 250GB SSD that should have had plenty of free space. Under "About this Mac"->Storage, it reported 130GB of "System" usage. None of the space was listed as "purgeable", and macOS started complaining about lack of disk space.
I found a solution in this Apple discussion thread. In my case, the problem was fixed by going to Time Machine Preferences and removing an old backup drive (that had long ago died) from the list of backup drives. Immediately, the available disk space on my SSD started being reported correctly as 120GB.

This worked for me as well.

I found that just opening the Storage Administration window (in System Information) fixed this.
This was important as I needed to restore my photo library from Time Machine and throwing the broken folder in the trash and emptying the trash did not release the diskspace.  Disk Utility said there were five snapshots on the disk which most likely was the culprit.

Disk Utility was giving incorrect storage numbers on my main hard drive (SSD) and also two external SSD drives.  This method worked for me (I did not have an issue with snapshots so far as I know).

You need to reindex your Spotlight cache. To do this

Go to System Preferences → Spotlight → Privacy
Click on the plus symbol and add your macOS hard drive you're having the wrong status/info problem
After adding your particular hard drive, quit System Preferences then wait for a few seconds.
Again open System Preferences → Spotlight → Privacy and this time remove your previously added hard drive.

What this does is it reindexes and creates the .Spotlight-V100 files on your hard drive. There are also various sudo commands to perform this step but for now try this!

I tried the method but it's taking a lot of time to index so once it finishes I will approve your answer

This answer doesn't solve my problem but I think spotlight is not indexing my photos because I have 20 gigs with photos but it shows 0KB so I think I will add my pictures folder in spotlight>Privacy like how you told me to add my main hard drive.

I tried but nothing seems to work can you help me around this problem.

@Geek Upload a screenshot of your Storage Status and spotlight privacy Tab and did you added the entire hard drive or only the Photos folder?

At first I added my whole hard drive then I added my pictures folder.

I have uploaded the screenshot.

@Geek Is this an external storage and I also had a similar issue and Apple suggested me the above said steps and it worked for me but I don't know why in your case it's not working!

This solved it for me. I have a 1TB SSD as my Macintosh HD and was "down to" 86GB, even after deleting 100GB of known files. After this Spotlight procedure, it now shows 310GB available. Nice! I guess the question is, why does this seem to correct the space available count?

I have Carbon Copy Cloner installed (https://bombich.com) and it has a feature called CCC Snapshots. It occupied more than 200 GB of deleted data for a future backup in form of a snapshot (see https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/leveraging-snapshots-on-apfs-volumes).
When I used tmutil listlocalsnapshots / there where two entries regarding Carbon Copy Cloner.
You can delete them using the CCC user interface: Select the hard drive in the lower left and then you get a list of snapshots that you can delete.
Big thanks to the guys from Daisy Disk that have a huge collection of possible reasons and mine was one of them: https://daisydiskapp.com/manual/4/en/Topics/HiddenSpace.html?subtopic=StillHiddenSpace

I solved this issue just relaunch finder.
Click on apple logo->Force Quit->Finder and click Relaunch.
So I opened my finder and it shows the correct size.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Mac equivalent to iOS Colour Filters (Tritanopia)
I have Tritanopia (Blue / Yellow) colour blindness.
In iOS I can use Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations > Colour Filters > Blue / Yellow Filter to boost the relevant colours on the display.
I looked around but apart from applications hacks and messing with monitor calibrations I couldn't find anything easy.
Is there an equivalent on Mac?

I've used the xSCope app to do this using their loupe tool (so it's not for full screen use) for several years and it's a workhorse of other design and measurement goodness. You might check out f.lux as well but that seems to be more bio-perception for decreasing blue hues on a circadian cycle that tracks sunrise and sunset.

http://xscopeapp.com
https://justgetflux.com

I don't think this full screen feature is embedded in macOS High Sierra (yet) and it's not explicitly enabled on older Mac OS versions in as usable a format as iOS 11 does. Perhaps later in the year or next year this would come natively.
In the mean time, you could use a third party app or try setting a custom color calibration / display profile for some light correction. I don't think either of the above is as powerful as iOS accessibility, though.

Thanks @bmike. Just to clarify, I can use xScope to change boost blue / yellow across the entire Mac display, just like on the iPhone display. Thank you.

@gentlemanhog I've edited to clarify that xScope only changes the loupe - not the whole screen. You'd need something like f.lux I suppose there.

Thanks @bmike. Understood. I contacted The IconFactory and they said the same. Thank you for your help anyway. It's much appreciated.

I know this question is old, but just in case someone else needs it, there is Screen Color Filter app available in iTunes store for macOS. Works similar to iOS Color Filters under Accessibility -> Display Accommodations.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screen-colors-filter-color-tint-dim-hev-block/id1177401419


text:
Is there a way to move all applications from one monitor to another?
Like many, I have an issue where when I plug my laptop back into my dock, all of my full screen applications are on different monitors than they were previously. They stay grouped somehow, but just switch which monitor they're on (so the apps on screen 1 are all now on screen 2, the apps on screen 2 are now all on screen 3, etc).
Is there a way to move all (or at least groups) of my applications to another screen instead of dragging each one-by-one?

Well, I thought the Display Preferences > Gather Windows would do the trick, but just tried it and it seems not.

Are all the apps in the same window?

No, it's multiple full screen applications on each monitor.


text:
Is it safe to force shutdown a mac while booting?
So I have the 2015 "13 MacBook so I read some articles to update firmware by holding the power button so i tried to try it for fun but I misunderstood the article and I held the power button while my mac had completed 1/4 of booting process. So I accidentally force shutdown my mac while it was booting. So should I worry about some firmware error or some sort of software error which I can't notice?

Any forced shutdown can leave a file in a bad state. At boot, you would only corrupt a system file, so that's usually easy to reinstall the OS so I suppose if you care about user data - that's the best time to force a stop.
High Sierra supports internet recovery and bootable install media, so the options to reinstall are much better than the old days where you needed a CD or DVD to reinstall and it took a long time.

Thanks for the immediate response actually i don't care that much about a system file because maybe the system itself may rebuild it. And also I don't notice any type of problem in my mac!

But I believe no system file would have been corrupted because in the 1/4 boot process only the kexts are loaded.


text:
Finder is not saving my changes at Desktop (i.e Arrangements)
Less than a week ago, I just upgraded my MacBook Pro (Early 2015) to macOS 10.13.1.
I am not sure if the problem was caused by this. Everything was fine, nothing went wrong during the installation, but after a few days I noticed that Finder wasn't saving my Desktop looks/arrangements.
Yes, I tried to delete Finder preferences and restart Finder.
Yes, I tried to delete .DS_Store file.
Yes, I tried to delete and recreate ~/Desktop folder.
I also looked at this apple discussion, this post on OSXDaily and this post at macosx.com but none of the solutions worked.
So now, here is my question: How can I make Finder save my desktop arrangements without reinstall?
EDIT: I just did a Disk First Aid now, and it didn’t seem to help.

Have you used Disk Utility to do First Aid on your boot disk?

I did it now but it didn’t help.


text:
Create shortcuts "select next" and "select all" for Mac keyboard
In Sublime or Atom we can "cmd+D" to select next matching character/text. And "cmd+ctrl+G" selects all matching chars/text. How to make such shortcuts in Mac so I could use them everywhere I want - on browsers etc.
For ex. there is a string - "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". In Sublime I select letter "o" and if I hit cmd+D other letter "o" being selected also, then I can hit Delete and both letters being deleted. I cant think of any reasons for this global OS feature to not be possible. Or are any?

“cmd+a” usually selects all - at least when I use it in folders or in word docs etc

@Solar Mike - clarified my question


text:
MacBook Pro 2011 - I think we wiped my entire hard drive
I think my partner wiped our entire hard dive including backup utilities etc.
Whenever I start up my MacBook I get a “no entry” or “prohibited sign” (circle with line through it).
I’ve tried booting up in safe mode with the same response, I’ve tried running disk utility and that also does not work.  I’ve tried resetting my ram with no difference.
So once I found out these results I tried re-installing via internet download but that produced a 6009f! Error (?).
I’ve tried bootable USB, however whenever I try to run it, it just restarts my computer leading me to the prohibited sign.
Any and all suggestions welcome. I don’t care about the data loss I just want my laptop back. How can I wipe and reinstall an OS?

"everything" doesn't actually tell us anything. 6003F is a network connectivity error, so oughtn't to be connected to any attempt to boot from USB or the Recovery Partition. Could you please expand your question to actually include what you tried & what the results were?

Have edited. Please let me know if this isn’t enough. Thanks.

I’ve tried running disk utility and that also does not work. I’ve tried resetting my ram with no difference  Huh?  How do you run DU when you can't boot?  Also, what do you mean by "resetting RAM?"  Finally...from where did you obtain/create the bootable USB?

HI Allan i may be using the wrong terminology please excuse me. What I mean is when you press Option on start up. The bootable USB I downloaded the OS on my other computer and used terminal to turn it into a bootable drive.

@Sam - assuming that the other computer is a Mac - did you test out to ensure that it boots properly?


text:
Seamless title bar and terminal background?
How can I make the title (and tab) bar of iTerm 2 exactly the same color as the terminal background so that it's impossible to tell where one starts and the other begins?
How it is at the moment:

What I'd like it to be:

Sorry I don't really know for sure, but there is no option for that I know of. As a last resort you could edit the source code for the interface, you could fork there.
If you wanted you can check the advanced tab in the preferences, but i don't think you'll be successful there.


text:
Trackpad does not function after 8 hours of sleep
Yesterday I left my MacBook to sleep for a long 8 hours and usually I wake up my MacBook by clicking the trackpad but today surprisingly the trackpad did not have that 'click' noise I could move the cursor around but I could not click on anything but after a restart the trackpad functioned correctly. This problem is occurring the first time for me this never occurred to me I just want to know why this is happening.

This has happened to me before to many times. I haven't found one particular thing that works every-time, but after I try different things it eventually starts back up.
Possible solution #1

Unplug all external device from the computer
Hold the power button for 20 seconds then release
Click the power button in attempt to boot

This sometimes works for me, if it doesn't work, try Possible Solution #2
Possible solution #2
Try an SMC Reset
If this doesn't work then I attempt Possible Solution #2 again. I basically just loop the 2 solutions. Also sometimes leaving it for 5-10 minutes after a couple of cycles.
I apologize that this isn't that exact. But this is my method of fixing this issue, and it has always eventually worked for me.

I will try out soon and update.


text:
Accidentally deleted /etc/paths
I had recently messed up my $PATH variable so I thought if fixing it by removing the /etc/paths but I found out online solutions to fix the $PATH variable  by just editing the ~/.bash_profile so I moved the /etc/paths to the trash but then I accidentally emptied the trash so now its gone so now should I worry about some critical system apps to stop working if yes how should I fix this?

Restore from backup

I have backup of my home directory only.

Then reinstall the OS and set up a proper backup

But I don't think it's neceesary

True but it is the easiest and probably quickest way nowadays. It used to be reinstalling or restores took hours from tape. Now from time machine etc only a few minutes. Probably less time than you have spent on asking the question

Yes you are right but I don't have a huge disk I only have a 32GB sd card so I can't take backup of my pictures which is 20GB in size and 12 gigs of desktop files and apps.

The /etc/paths file is used as an initial value for the PATH variable. It should contain:
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

Its protection, owner and group should be:
-rw-r--r-- root wheel

/etc/paths is used by /usr/libexec/path_helper ... man path_helper says "default PATH and MANPATH values are obtained from the files /etc/paths and /etc/manpaths respectively." The file should exist so that PATH is set correctly.

But it is not necessary right?

Uh creidhne thanks for your reply I have added the paths file and there is a typo in your answer there are two /usr/bin so I replaced one of them as /bin.


text:
How to enable iTerm 2's Option-Click feature? (Not duplicated)
In its document (https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-one-page.html), it reads "If enabled, option-click will move the cursor to where the mouse pointer is. If you install shell integration, this will be well-behaved at the shell prompt by not sending up and down arrow keys." But it seems like when I do Options-Click it just goes to last command (arrow up).
This answer here is no longer a solution - deprecated, and the source code is removed (Option + click in iTerm), and the thread should be removed/archived.

While the answer in Option + click in iTerm may be out of date, Ask Different does not archive or remove once correct but now legacy information. Instead modify the original question, place a bounty, or down vote the now incorrect answer.

See also https://apple.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3120/how-should-we-manage-questions-that-have-very-different-answers-per-version-of-m (even if it is not macOS as such in this case).


text:
Dock glitch when closing apps
When I'm closing an app, and the dock is about to refresh the app icon (from opened to closed), and the cursor is in the area of the dock, a splitting glitch happens as show in the picture below. For less than a second. But it's quite ugly and annoying.

Is there any procedure to take that may solve such GUI-related issues on macOS Sierra?
My specs:
13" Retina MacBook Pro (late-2013) 2.4Ghz Intel Core i5, 8gb RAM, Intel Iris 1536MB, macOS Sierra 10.12.2

Welcome to Ask Different! :) It'd be useful if you could edit your question to include what model Mac you have and its specs.


text:
iPhone screen degraded performance - evident when using Maps
I have an iPhone 5s and I have the following issue: after a while, the screen gets progressively less responsive and horizontal and vertical stripes appear. Things are much worse if I use the phone while moving (especially when using Maps) than if I'm at home or at the office.
Is this behaviour indicative of a screen problem or of something else like a motherboard fault?
In the attached pictures, you can see the typical striped pattern.

Hi, can you clarify whether these stripes are white, grey, or coloured? Also, are the stripes always present, or just when your phone becomes less responsive? Finally, what happens if you do a full reboot?

@Monomeeth the stripes are coloures, and placed around the objects in the screen (see the images added to the question). If the phone is idle, the stripes are not visible; they become more and more evident as you use the phone. Pressing the home button makes things momentarily better. In the worst case, there are stripes and the screen is not responsive. No stripes are visible after a reboot.

I've seen a few iPhones with vertical lines over the years, but can't recall if I've ever seen one with horizontal lines.
Firstly, just to get this out of the way, I assume this is the original screen? I have seen strange behaviour such as this when non-genuine screens have been used. If you have a non-genuine screen, this could very well be your problem.
Assuming it is a genuine screen, the first thing to try (because it's easy to do) is a full reboot of your phone. By this I mean simultaneously holding down the power and Home buttons until you see the Apple logo on your screen.
If a full reboot doesn't work, then the next thing to try is to manually do a full backup of your iPhone (via iTunes on your Mac/PC) and then restore the iPhone from that backup. This process resets your iPhone to default settings and can erase any firmware glitches.
Finally, if none of the above explains or resolves the issue, then it's going to be a hardware issue. This could be a faulty/damaged display, but may also just be a loose connection. You're best bet is to take it into Apple or some other repairer to look at.

I followed the steps you suggested, and the lines are still there. I'm now downgrading to iOS 10 and afterwards I'll bring it to a shop to check the screen and the connections.

If you're on iOS 11 then there's no way to downgrade to iOS 10. I would just take it into a repairer to look at. All the best with it!


text:
Fourier transform audio files?
I need to batch-process some (several hours of) audio files and get their frequency/amplitude data.
I really have 10 folders each containing many wav files and I need the averages of each folder. I need to get the levels of different frequencies across each folder, and computing the levels individually for each file then averaging would work, and if you know of another method please suggest it.
Is there a command-line tool (or other resource) that will compute these Fourier transforms for me?

SoX can do this:
play file.wav stat -freq

It will output  something like this:
file.wav:

 File Size: 191k      Bit Rate: 256k
  Encoding: Signed PCM
  Channels: 1 @ 16-bit
Samplerate: 16000Hz
Replaygain: off
  Duration: 00:00:05.98

In:0.00% 00:00:00.00 [00:00:05.98] Out:0     [      |      ]        Clip:0    0.000000  0.005858
3.906250  0.006152
7.812500  0.006272
11.718750  0.006785
15.625000  0.004786
...
In:17.1% 00:00:01.02 [00:00:04.95] Out:43.0k [    -=|=-    ]        Clip:0    0.000000  0.057157
3.906250  0.004143
7.812500  1.779299
11.718750  0.120536
15.625000  0.062992
19.531250  0.059568
23.437500  0.149960
...
In:100%  00:00:05.98 [00:00:00.00] Out:264k  [      |      ]

    Clip:0
Samples read:             95616
Length (seconds):      5.976000
Scaled by:         2147483647.0
Maximum amplitude:     0.440094
Minimum amplitude:    -0.298309
Midline amplitude:     0.070892
Mean    norm:          0.041338
Mean    amplitude:     0.000022
RMS     amplitude:     0.064054
Maximum delta:         0.529938
Minimum delta:         0.000000
Mean    delta:         0.011127
RMS     delta:         0.025654
Rough   frequency:         1019
Volume adjustment:        2.272
Done.

The ... are omitted lines, of which there are many (thousands).
These sections:
3.906250  0.006152
7.812500  0.006272
11.718750  0.006785
15.625000  0.004786

Are a table of Frequency against Level.


text:
Hide Notification Center button from menu bar in High Sierra
How do I get rid of the Notification Center button in the menu bar in High Sierra?
It's that one in the far right:

I'd like the space it occupies to disappear too. Apparently it used to be possible to hide the icon but the space would remain.
Also, I want to continue using the Notification Center; currently I access it with a gesture on my trackpad.
The answers to Remove the Notification Center icon from the Menu Bar do not work for me in High Sierra.

Possible duplicate of Remove the Notification Center icon from the Menu Bar

With the introduction of SIP, making changes like this has gotten a wee bit more complicated. The answer by walshie4 shows how to disable it. The answer by mulquin indicates you must disable SIP to make the change with launchctl that governs the appearance of this icon. A blank space will remain in that location, however - only the icon is removed. Remember to re-enable SIP when you are finished!

@IconDaemon which answer are you referring to? edit oh you were talking about SIP, I already know how to disable SIP. Disabling SIP is not the answer to this question though.

Do you want to disable notifications as well?  or just remove icon?

@jmh just hide the icon, I'd like to be able to access the notifications centre by swiping on my trackpad

The answers were out of order in the posting. You disable SIP, run the launchctl command, then re-enable SIP. Does the launchctl command not disable the icon from appearing?

@IconDaemon launchctl unload just stopped notification centre from working but left the icon untouched. I want notification centre to work, and I want to hide the icon. The answer basically does the opposite of what i want.

If you find an answer let me know, because I looked into this before and it didn't appear to be possible any more.

The Bartender app allows you to hide and rearrange menu bar icons - it may work for you.


text:
How to hide Spotlight in menu bar but keep the ⌘Space keyboard shortcut?
I want to hide spotlight from the menu bar

I never click this button.

So I followed the instructions here and used this code to change the Spotlight file in some way:
sudo perl -pi -e 's|(\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x47\x40\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00)\x42\x40(\x00\x00\x80\x3f\x00\x00\x70\x42)|$1\x00\x00$2|sg' Spotlight

It hid the menu-bar icon, but it also disabled the ⌘+space keyboard shortcut that I use a lot.
Is there a way to hide the icon in the menubar but allowing the keyboard shortcut to work?

I just saw this other question asking the same thing but for Yosemite.
The accepted answer doesn't work for me on High Sierra, and all the other answers suggest using third-party tools like Bartender which I don't want to do.

Possible duplicate of Hide notification centre button from menu bar?

@fsb lmfao the questions are different so I don't think they're duplicates. Who knows, maybe the answers will be similar.

This question could probably be closed and the duplicate updated with your additional requirement.

@fsb why would I do that? This is no "additional" requirement, it's a separate question.

Were you able to figure this out?

Best thing I could find is an app called Bartender

Have you tried dragging the Spotlight Icon off of the Menubar while holding down the Option Key this should remove the Icon from the Menubar (if Apple didn't change that) if this also stops the Shortcut from working (shouldn't if i remember correct) give Alfred (https://www.alfredapp.com) a try works like Spotlight but also has some other nice Features which Spotlight is Missing

Haven't found a way to hide it completely, but you can hold Cmd and then drag the spotlight button all the way to the left of the menu bar.

The easiest way I know to do this is with a third party app like Bartender (https://www.macbartender.com). The app is used to hide pretty much any menu bar icon, and has a lot of great features. It's kind of a "must have" for and Mac Power User.


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Is /usr/local a per user folder?
Is /usr/local a per user folder?
homebrew says
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/etc
/usr/local/include
/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig

This can happen if you "sudo make install" software that isn't managed
by Homebrew. If a formula tries to write a file to this directory, the
install will fail during the link step.

You should change the ownership and permissions of these directories.
back to your user account.
  sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/bin /usr/local/etc /usr/local/include /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig

Doing so would make those folders belong to a particular user which would mean another user using the same machine would be S.O.L. unless those folders are some magic per user thing.
Are they? They don't seem to be at a glance but I probably don't know how to figure out if they were.

No, /usr/local is not a per-user folder. It's the same directory for all users. I've been down this road with homebrew and done the chown to /usr/local on a laptop that only I use, but my other non-homebrew-aware Macs all show permissions similar to this for /usr/local:
%ls -ld /usr/local

drwxr-xr-x   213 root     wheel    578 Aug 28 11:58 /usr/local

And they work just fine like that.


text:
What is the initial contents of /usr/local on macOS 10.13?
I'd like to reset /usr/local to whatever it would be if I reformatted my mac and reinstalled macOS 10.13
Is that state documented? If there was content there is there a way to reset it back to it's original state?

It is empty so sudo rm -rf /usr/local/*

Does 10.13 have pkgutil available?

@fd0 What has that to do with the question? I don't know but in 10.12 it is /usr/sbin/pkgutil so I would guess so

@Mark pkgutil can list the Apple installed packages and can list files installed by those packages. On 10.12, the package-com.apple.pkg.RemoteDesktopClient is installed in /usr/local.

Looking at time in /usr/sbin/pkgutil --file-info /usr/local the package-com.apple.pkg.RemoteDesktopClient is not part of the standard install


text:
How to delete a folder that has 65535 links on it?
Somehow a folder from /var/folders (/var/folders/2j/8_50ggln3wz21k4gmfx86drh0000gn/T/ on my machine) got 65535 links to it. This caused my machine to not boot anymore.
I managed to fix the booting issue my renaming it to something else (mv T X) in recovery mode.
The problem is I can't get rid of it (rm -rf or even ls on it hangs).
ls -tahl ~/.Trash
total 0
drwxr-xr-x+    67 <user>  staff   2.1K Nov 30 00:30 ..
drwxr-x---  65535 <user>  staff   139M Nov 29 22:14 X
drwx------      3 <user>  staff    96B Nov 29 22:01 .

And if I try:
rm -r ~/.Trash/X
...(hanged, does not return)

Are you giving it enough time when it “hangs”?  How are you determining that it’s “hung” vs “just taking a really long time”?

I let it run for 1 hour+. the folder has only 139MB. Also, empty trash takes a long while and does not do anything

Please don't crosspost to multiple SE sites. Pick one & stick to it. https://superuser.com/questions/1272973/how-can-i-delete-a-folder-with-65535-links

Managed to remove the folder. I've used verbose mode and saw the progress

Wow.  I suggest  trying the following:
cd ~
sudo find ./.Trash/X -delete

If that stalls out, then try:
cd ~
sudo rm -rf ./.Trash/X/*
sudo rm -f ./.Trash/X/*
sudo rm -rf ./.Trash/X

If that triptych also fails, then I would like to see the output of
sudo stat -x ./.Trash/X

Hope that this helps,
F.


text:
iOS wifi options with built in VPN
When connecting to wifi on iOS via the settings application there are some wifi networks listed that have a second line that says something like “protected by CyberGhost”, does that mean that the wifi option has a VPN built into it? If so does that mean the connection between the iOS device and the router will be encrypted? Or is it just a VPN from the access point onwards towards the internet?

Please add a screenshot so we can see what you see :-)

I’ll try to add a screenshot when I’m near an example again but I’m mostly in a rural area without examples.

Do you have a CyberGhost VPN app installed on your device??

No this is usually in coffee shops or public wifi locations, some residential areas


text:
How to boot OS X on MacBook 2009 with broken internal keyboard?
I recently pulled my old MacBooks 2009 out of the closet. Not sure what the exact model is, but anyways, a few years ago I spilled water on the keyboard, so most of the keys don't work anymore. (Sadly the special keys don't work either, like option, command, and control.) Before I stopped using it, I wiped the internal drive, for security purposes.
But now I need OS X for certain work I am doing (Objective C programming for a large scale project,etc). I have the DMG file, which I had on a backup, for OS X El Capitan. I used my Ubuntu machine to convert the DMG to an ISO, and then put then burnt OS X on to a USB. I plugged it in to the macbook, started it up, held down the option key (on an external keyboard) and it didn't work. Any idea on how to fix this would be highly appreciated!

External USB, not Bluetooth? Are you sure the option key you held down is the Apple option key. If your keyboard is an old Dell, or similar you might need to hold down Ctrl instead to get the bootup chooser running.

DMG of what exactly? Is it an installer of some sort? I'm confused as to where this came from, as AFAIK, no bootable image for macOS is distributed in a DMG.

The terminal utility for making OS X install mediums allows you to create a DMG.

Was the external keyboard an Apple keyboard or a PC keyboard? I believe there is a difference with respect to the option key.

@david-anderson, it was a a typical PC keyboard, num pad, etc

I have a 2007 iMac with a keyboard from a HP PC plugged into the USB port. Everything works OK, except when trying to boot to the Mac Startup Manager. Holding down the Alt key does not work. I have borrow a Apple USB keyboard from a different Mac when I want to do this.


text:
Detect when an application goes fullscreen?
I would like to detect that event from an Applescript. I have found the lsappinfo command-line app, which has a listen command that seems to fill my need exactly, but going fullscreen does show up in the output. Here is what I tried. First I ran in Terminal
lsappinfo  listen +all forever

Then I clicked on a Safari window, and then clicked on the green button to make it fullscreen, then exited fullscreen and went back to terminal to see the output. I then did it again but without going fullscreen, just clicking on a Safari window, and then clicking back on the Terminal window. In both cases, the sequence of events is

FrontApplicationPresentationModeChanged, received by Safari
PresentationModeChangedBecauseFrontApplicationChanged, received by Safari
BecameFrontmost, received by Safari
LostFrontmost, received by Terminal
MenuBarAcquired, received by Safari
MenuBarLost, received by Terminal
FrontApplicationPresentationModeChanged, received by Terminal
PresentationModeChangedBecauseFrontApplicationChanged, received by Terminal
BecameFrontmost, received by Terminal
etc

The "fullscreen event" should have shown up between 6 and 7 in this list but it is conspicuously absent!
This is on MacOS 10.12.6. It feels like a bug to me. Does somebody know whether it works on other versions of MacOS? Is there any other way to achieve my goal?

You might want to have a look at EventScripts, which has an Entered fullscreen event, under its Spaces Events, that can trigger an AppleScript. It's just $3.99 USD at the Mac App Store Preview. Also take a look at Available Events and Parameters to see all of the events that can trigger an AppleScript. Other then a satisfied customer, I have no other affiliation with Mousedown, the developer of EventScripts.

Thanks for the suggestion! A very useful app indeed, which I did not know about. Unfortunately, the "Entered fullscreen" event is never triggered. I tried with other events, and the scripts get run as advertised but not "Entered fullscreen"! Does it work for you? And if so, what is your configuration?

I am not sure if this solves your issue or not but the easiest way to detect whether or not a window is full screen would be to compare it's window dimensions to the window dimensions of your "desktop window". See below:
tell application "Finder" to set screenSize to bounds of window of desktop

tell application "Safari" to set windowBounds to bounds of front window

if windowBounds is equal to screenSize then
    return "It's Full Screen"
else
    return "Not Full Screen"
end if


text:
iPhone SE, iOS10, why does it randomly *require* the lock code?
I have my iPhone SE set to use my fingerprints to access it, and this is normally the way I get into my phone.  By at seemingly random intervals (absolutely no pattern that I can detect), the phone will require I enter the actual unlock code.  The phone has definitely not been rebooted, crashed, or anything of that sort.
What causes it to just randomly sometimes want the lock code?  It happens anywhere from once per week, to once every couple of months, but never with any pattern to the frequency that I can detect.

That does indeed look like a duplicate. I even searched but didn't find that question. The strange part is in my case I am absolutely certain that I have gone more than six days without entering my passcode before and not been prompted with this.

If you used TouchID frequently during those 6 days I believe it wouldn‘t ask

Aha ok, so then that would make sense.  I guess the combination of all the rules adds up to what appears to be a random interval, but actually isn't.  Thanks for finding that question for me!


text:
How to see Spotlight history?
Can I see the history of what I've typed into Spotlight?
If not on default macOS, are there third-party apps that will add this?
I want to be able to look back through things I've searched for, I use Spotlight for things like translations and so on and it' since to be able to refer back to past searches to jog my memory.

This isn't possible as far as I can see.
Spotlight does not keep track of your history(in a way that is user accessible anyway).
This might help.

You could write an app that took your input.  Logged the input. Have spotlight do a search.  You would always have to run this app to have your input logged.
I wrote this applescript to do the job. How to run this app.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tysKhdpYorE
on run
 set spotLightInput to the text returned of (display dialog "What is spotlight input?" default answer "")

 log "spotLightInputis " & spotLightInput

 -- write a log file of the query to the user's home folder with name translation.txt
 set unixActualInput to "echo " & (quoted form of spotLightInput) & " >>~/translation.txt"
 log "unixActualInput is " & unixActualInput

 try
  set fromUnix to do shell script unixActualInput
  log "fromUnix is  " & fromUnix

 on error errMsg number n
  log "run spotlight..." & errMsg & " with number " & n
 end try
 tell application "System Events"
  keystroke space using {command down}
 end tell
 log "delaying for spotlight to appear"

 delay 2
 log "typing..."

 tell application "System Events"

  keystroke spotLightInput
  delay 1
  keystroke return
 end tell

end run

There is the Alfred app. If you are familiar with how the command history works on the terminal, it's the same principle.
On an empty alfred search, you can move up in your query history by using the up arrow key (and down to go back).
I'm not sure though if this requires the paid powerpack (although I do recommend it for it's extensibility).

Alfred search is not the same as Spotlight search though.

@nohillside He did mention though: "are there third-party apps that will add this". But yes, you are right. Alfred is not spotlight.


text:
Safari see times in history
I use Safari on my MacBook.
I'm disappointed the History page doesn't show times a site was loaded.
How can I view the times that a website was visited?
Other answers on this site don't work for me on High Sierra, the path ~/Library/Caches/Metadata doesn't exist.

On High Sierra the path is: ~/Library/Safari/History.db
I believe it's a SQLite database. The timestamps are stored in native Core Data format so you'll need to convert to something human readable (e.g. http://andrewbranch.github.io/coretime/).


text:
Search directory of .psd files for specific text?
I have a directory of hundreds of Photoshop files (.psd) and need to locate files by searching for a string of text that exists within a file.
Using Finder to search for "Contents" doesn't seem to work.
Is there an app to accomplish this?

Have you tried EasyFind. It's a very quick searcher and you can search content of files in a folder. I don't know how it handles photoshop files though.  I don't have any so I can't check it for you.

Apparently an app called PSDMind once existed, although I can't find it anywhere.

The .psd file format is a binary file, which can make searching more difficult but not impossible. I just tested searching for a specific text string, using grep, that I knew existed in a .psd file and it was found because the text still existed as a separate layer in the layout of the photoshop document, not merged down to another layer. So if the text layer containing the target search text has been merged down, it probably will not be found. It wasn't when I merged it in the one it found before merging it for the second search test.

I have no idea if this will work because I don't know how PSD files store text, but try this. Open terminal (applications/utilities), type cd <space> and drag the folder containing PSDs onto the terminal; the folder path will be filled in. Hit enter. You are now "in" that folder in your terminal.
Next, do grep -i "some string here" *.
cd tells the system to change directory. grep is a command line utility that opens a file and searches for a string. -i is a flag that tells grep to ignore case sensitivity. Then you give it the string and * means all files in the current directory.
See if that turns anything up.

This works quite well, thank you! However it cannot search subdirectories. Any fix to allow that action?

Glad it worked! Add -R to the grep command and it'll search recursively.

Thank you! The process is slow, but I assume that's due to the dozens of layers in each of my PSD files. But this is truly helpful!

I'm really glad it worked out, because I wasn't sure that Photoshop stored text as actual text in the file.  You can also try mdfind (which is the command-line version of Spotlight), it's the only thing that might be a bit faster; repeat the same steps as above but instead of using grep, type mdfind -onlyin . "some text here" - it'll be nearly instant but may not be able to find what you're looking for, presumably due to Spotlight not knowing how to interpret and properly index the Photoshop files.


text:
Is there a way to make an iOS device brick itself every 2 hours?
I'm trying to limit the amount of time my kids can play on their iPad. Sure there is guided access mode and other solutions out there but here's what I really want:
I hand the iPad to kid with no password on it, he can unlock and watch or play for 2 hours, then, without warning the device goes all black and shuts off complete for 2 hours before it boots up again.
i.e. forcing the kid to go outside and play before he can be an ipad junkie again.
With the other solutions I've read about I need to either:

unlock the iPad first and set time limit each and every time I hand it to kid
somehow protect the password I used to login and not let kid just factory reset the iPad.

I'm looking for this way at the firmware level (maybe with jailbreaking) to make this every 2 hour thing is just part of the device.

If you brick the device, then the device cannot be used again, plus this isn’t possible on iOS

You want to lock the device down so they can't change anything but "somehow" protecting your own password is a challenge? I don't think anything is going to help. Except perhaps hide all the chargers in your home and give the devices to them with only enough power to last approximately two hours.

Uhh nope, to brick it it has to be wiped, which means no software is running which means the iPad doesn't know the time and can't stay bricked for 2 hours.. this is also a parenting question, not a technology one. By the time you are trying to make devices turn themselves off, I'm sorry to say, you're running around trying to deal with effects, not causes. Even if you could do this, if you don't address how your kid deals with technology vs being social in a different way, you'll just be back in a few days with a new problem. Not a dad, maybe I shouldn't speak to that, but I see it a lot.

It may be easier to just take it from him and then lock it away until you're ready for him to have it. You can also add restrictions (with a passcode) to prevent access to certain things but if you forget the restrictions code you'll have to erase the iPad. Taking it away from him might be best.

I heard a radio program about obesity in kids (no implication here however) but the conclusion is relevant : “to make a difference, parents have to get off the sofa”, so take him out and do things or are you giving him the ipad to have “me” time...


text:
Spotlight calculator always scientific notation?
How do I get the spotlight calculator to always use scientific notation?
This is how it looks by default:

But I would rather that the answer above was displayed as 2.07935e-10

Looks like you'll need to force a result too big or small to be shown in decimal format.
So multiply everything by 1e100 to force scientific format, and then just subtract 100 from the exponent that appears:


text:
OS X can’t be installed on “Macintosh HD” because the version of macOS is too new
I'm currently running Sierra, trying to download the El Capitan installer from the App Store, but am unable to due to the message in the title.
Is there any way around this, or am I forced to erase my HDD and download an OS from internet recovery mode? Am I able to pick a specific OS to download from recovery mode if that was the case?
To note:
I don't have a back up system to restore to. I have a drive to load the installer on to.
Thank you.

what model and year is your mac?

@jmh MacBook Pro Retina 13" Early 2015

See https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/271104/revert-to-el-capitan for how difficult this is, without losing data - even with multiple backups.

@Tetsujin I don't mind losing all my date, I've backed most of my important things up. I'm just curious to know if there is a quicker way to download the installer directly, rather than having to completely wipe my HDD and downloading having to download my OS from internet recovery mode, and then download El Capitan from that one.

You can try downloading it from your purchased list, but I'm pretty sure you'll have to boot it from USB & nuke/pave. I ended up going back to a clone made just before update, though I tried so many variations before doing that, that I've lost track now.

@Tetsujin I don't have it in my purchase list unfortunately, Never downloaded it before. Think the only option is to complete wipe, download an old OS from internet recovery and then download El Capitan from there. Might as well get the trek started haha.thank you for your time and help

If you don't have it in Purchased, you won't be able to get it from Apple. You can only get 'the original OS' or 'the latest OS your machine can run'. Nothing else. ...& don't be fooled by the El Capitan you can find on the main App Store - it will only install if your machine cannot run Sierra or later.

@Tetsujin Wow... thank you for that last bit of information. You may have just saved me a hell of a lot of time. I'm currently on Sierra, so even if I reverted back to an older OS and then tried to download El Capitan from that OS, it would not allow me to as I have the ability to download a newer OS. That is so ridiculous, nobody at Apple warned me about this, I would have lost so much time for nothing. Guess I'm going to have to find an installer from somewhere, a torrent or something. Do you have any recommendations by chance?

Well, for in future, always download the current major OS, even if you never intend to install it - then you can always get it at any time. As to where to acquire it now, sorry, no idea. I do have them all in my purchase list, right back to Lion, so never needed to. ..Having said that, things seems to have changed since High Sierra - Sierra now seems to have gone entirely from the App Store. Apple are changing the policy but I'm not certain exactly how.

@Tetsujin This is really forward, and I'd completely understand if you weren't able to do this, but... Would you be able to upload the installer to a Google Drive or weTransfer for example to allow me to download it? Assuming you still have the installer in your App Store under purchased. I could send you $5 as a thanks.

I've got a 10.11.1 installer right here, throwing it to Google drive at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZzNXRzb1qwJWeocTEQFlNEEcyqOhVb9l You'll have to get the combo updater afterwards to update it. Tag me when you've got it. I don't need the 5 bucks but I'd like the space back as soon as I can.

@Tetsujin I cannot thank you enough for your help and kindness, downloading it right now and will let you know as soon as it is done. Thank you so much.

@Tetsujin I've competed the download, thank you. I have the file InstallESD-002.dmg, just wondering how do I go about making this a bootable installer? I've only ever done it with the official Installer Application.

@Tetsujin I figured it out, no worries. I opened it, made invisible files visible and then restored the Basesystem.dmg to my USB and moved the package folder and Base system chunk list to the installer folder (followed a tutorial). Thank you so much for everything, I really appreciate it. Best wishes and Merry Christmas! Hope you have a great one

@Tetsujin Could you please extend the time for the shared link please? Currently I'm on High Sierra but I would like to downgrade back to El Capitan (I haven't downloaded it before) and I still couldn't find any working solution to get the ElCap installer.

Sorry, I can't; otherwise this will turn into a request stream pretty rapidly - see https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/309399/how-can-i-download-an-older-version-of-os-x-macos


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Can I release our iOS app on Christmas
iTunes Connect says:

Make sure your apps are up-to-date and ready for the winter holidays. New apps and app updates will not be accepted December 23 to 27 (Pacific Time), so any releases should be submitted, approved, and scheduled in advance. Other iTunes Connect and developer account features will remain available.

If I have the app already approved by Apple before the deadline, can I still release it on Christmas if I use the "manual release" or "automatically release no later than" option?

The answer is yes, you can still release an app during Apple’s holiday time. I have done this and it worked.

This could be a question that no-one here can answer unless they've previously tried to do this over the Christmas period, so my suggestion would be to call the Apple Developer Program Support number for your country.
To find the number, refer to: https://developer.apple.com/contact/phone/
I just feel this is the best way for you to get a definitive answer.

Thanks! I’ll call. I upvoted this answer but I won’t mark it as correct yet.

Did you get any information? Would be very interesting for me too


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Enable Apple Music on iTunes
I'm unable to activate Apple Music on iTunes 12.7
When I go to Preferences -> General There is no Show Apple Music option.
Apple music works fine on my iPhone.
How do I enable Apple Music on iTunes?

Did you look under "iTunes > Preferences > Restrictions", if "Apple Music" has been disabled?

I just checked and its not disabled. @Redarm

The solution was to go to Account on the top bar and then click Authorisations-> De-Authorise This Computer and Authorise again.
After this the Apple music will be shown in iTunes Preferences.

First be sure you are logged in with the same Apple ID on both devices.  Then go to iTunes > Music, and click on "For You"  You can then either choose "Try it now" (if you do not have a subscription) or "Connect"


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Can I backup my iphone on Activation lock mode
My iPhone 6 is locked to icloud,, it has never been synchronized with iTunes i need a way to backup it,, is there any modded iTunes or any program can help me.

note: i know the password of my icloud but i need the backup cause i know a way to extract the Apple Id from it..

If it's activation locked, there's nothing at all you can do with it until you unlock it... using the password you already know.

i can't unlock it without Apple Id..

So you don't know your Apple ID but you know the password for it?

If there was a way round the activation lock, what would be the point of it? @patrix - I'd VTC this as a dupe of https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/114985/how-can-i-bypass-activation-lock except I already flagged as unclear.

@Tetsujin There actually is a way to recover a forgotten Apple ID, it's described in the answer to the question I linked to when closing the Q. But I wonder how many people remember the email they registered their AppleID under if they forgot the AppleID itself.

@patrix - indeed. The 'forgot ID' link is actually linked from the activation lock dupe I proposed, but yours is more direct, sure.