text:
How to remove Apple's activation lock in iPad Air
I have an iPad Air which someone gave me, and he said that he's forgotten all his Apple ID details and stuff. So I tried my best to try to unlock it (already used the DNS bypass). What I'm trying to ask here is, is there a way to completely remove the activation lock? Maybe by jailbreaking it. My iOS is version 10.1.1

No way. Replace the NAND flash inside it is your only solution.

Have you called Apple? Maybe they can offer other ways to unlock the system that your “someone” can help with. One of them is proof of purchase. “Apple ID details and stuff” are recoverable. So one has to be highly suspicious of the legitimacy of this device.


text:
Connecting 2 HDMI monitors with 2 adapters on both side of USB-C port on 2018 MacBook Pro
I am thinking of buying 2 of this adapter for my Macbook Pro 2018?
By plugging the adapter from both side of the USB-C ports, can i connect it to 2 external HDMI monitors?

Yes. It is possible to connect two HDMI monitors using two adapters.
Each of the four USB-C ports (2 on either side) support connecting external display.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
EarPods are louder when put backwards into my ear
My EarPods (wired EarPods) broke recently.
Now if I put them in normally I can barely hear them, even at max volume.
If I cup my ears with my hands (with the EarPods in my ears in a normal position) then it's very loud again.
If I put the backs of the EarPods into my ears then it's loud, or upside down is also louder than the normal orientation.
Every other pair of EarPods I've tested work fine, it seems to be a problem with this specific pair.
How can I fix this problem?
I assume the speakers have twisted inside of them (maybe not), is there a way I can safely and reversibly open the EarPods to put it back the right way round?

I apologize for any offense. I deleted the comment -  I have seen cases where wax buildup in the ear canal can affect sound like but I shouldn’t have joked about body modification.

No need to edit - you used the correct names. I have just heard of AirPods working louder for some ear canal upside down. You surely can edit to avoid anyone else making that jump to hardware you’re not asking about. The speaker and vents are different in each.

Referring to the iFixit's Apple EarPods Teardown, it appears that it would be pretty hard to open up the ear drums, put the speakers right way round and assemble them back correctly.

With such a tight fit between the two halves of the EarPods, simply pulling them apart wasn't an option. We knew what we needed to do.

This isn't something you'd want to try at home. Once these Pods are open, they're not closing back up unless you want to involve glue.

Additionally, they are not rated well on serviceability or reparability front.

But unfortunately, these products are still of the throw-away kind. Sourcing parts is next to impossible, and it would be a tough sell to convince someone to take apart their earbuds instead of buying a new pair. They will never be the same once taken apart.

If you still have the original warranty for the iPhone with which the EarPods were bundled, you can try getting a replacement.

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


text:
I was able to change lock screen wallpaper but can't change of that screen which comes after sleep on MacBook pro
I was looking some ways to customise my mac, and I saw a way to change lock seer wallpaper by keeping the same name "com.apple.desktop.admin.png" as of the automated lock screen wallpaper

When i opened my mac after shutdown

I got that blurred image after i closed my mac's flap or lid and even by pressing sleep in the apple menu, how can I change it also?

The best way to fix it instead of going through your cache is to use a free utility called Onyx.
It will enable you to change it very easily to whichever photo you like!

I that blurred image is just the desktop image, so if you set that to what you want under System Preferences > Desktop and Screensaver it will appear as you want (blurred.)
In Mojave they stopped the blurring (from what I can tell)


text:
Virus detected. how do I remove it?

How to fix this?
I am on High Sierra.
I can't purchase, Help!

.exercise files are not runnable on macos where did the.exe come from?

@Mark - You can still have .exes on the machine - they can't run unless you've got Boot Camp or a VM, but they can be present.

Which "antivirus" software are you using? As said in an answer download a free and safe (Avast for instance) antivirus before purchasing anything.

First get another antivirus & see if it agrees.
Google 'Mac free antivirus'. Pick one you've already heard of.
If it agrees you just saved yourself some money.
If it disagrees, then there are 3 possibilities.

The first antivirus was more accurate.
The first antivirus was less accurate & is showing false positives.
The first antivirus just wanted to scare you into buying it.

We may never know which.
If you can find the files referenced, you can upload them to Virustotal for further evaluation.

I downloaded Avast, it removed that.

I prefer to back things up to an external drive, then wipe and reinstall the app.
Since this in an exe file, you won’t likely have it run on the new system and can get a nice free tool like MalwareBytes Mac software to clean things.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/


text:
Finder doesn't auto-refresh
If Finder is open on a folder, e.g. ~/Downloads, when I download something it doesn't show up. I have to click on another folder, then open ~/Downloads again to see the download.
I am on macOS 10.13.6 but hadn't noticed this problem until recently.
How can I fix it?

When did you last reboot?

I've noticed the same thing, but it predates High Sierra by quite a bit. I've wondered why there's not a "Refresh" button... sometimes the issue can be persistent; even surviving closing and re-opening Finder windows. But it's not consistent either... sometimes it happens, other times not. +1 question

@Tetsujin yesterday

Try killing the folder view settings: rm -f ~/Desktop/.DS_Store

This is apparently a long-standing problem that has never been addressed. I suppose the answer is, "Deal with it".  :)


text:
Installing gcc twice on a Snow Leopard machine?
I have an old early 2008 Macbook that runs Snow Leopard and can't upgrade to anything better. I wanted to install a C++ compiler on it and finally stumbled across this:
https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer
I did something pretty stupid. I ran the install twice...
What effects would this have? Will it take up two times the space on my computer? The compiler itself seems to be working fine in the command line, but I'd like to get rid of any useless files from installing it twice. If so, how can I do that?

I’m sure you can upgrade the MacBook to something newer than Snow Leopard if it’s 2008 ... as an FYI, at the very least Lion or Mountain Lion

There is an old version of Homebrew for Snow Leopard - just install that and then brew install gcc

Macports keeps builds up to date for p;d Systems - there are updates for Tiger onwards - the earlier ones will miss sonme ports mainly where the source uses new features

Where does the installer write to? I would expect it to be by default to the same files every time.


text:
Display not working with Mac mini
I recently bought a new LG Ultrawide display.
I connected it to my Mac mini with a Display Port to HDMI cable.
But nothing is showing up on it. But it is working with HDMI cable over HDMI port.
What is wrong?

The most likely cause is the adapter you're using is a passive adapter (it just reorganizes the signals from DP to HDMI).  What you need is an active adapter that actually recreates the signal.  (I explain more in the link).  However, you should be using a DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable and not do any conversions.  HDMI is a flaky (IMO) technology.

Some Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapters won't support HDMI at higher resolutions, it is possible this adapter won't work at the higher resolution of your new monitor.
At work myself and my colleagues have found this is the case with a lot of cheaper adapters I used to buy, such as this one:
https://www.startech.com/AV/Displayport-Converters/Mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI-Cable-Adapter-Converter~MDP2HDMI
You could try a new adapter, these are the ones we buy at work and they seem to work well:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Griffin-GC17096-Video-Display-Converter/dp/B003CK8TZ8

@user3439894 my understanding of the new code of conduct was to be nice to other people. The reason for this is the original draft of my response refered to the fact that at work myself and my colleagues look after a number of Mac Mini's which is why there was a mistake. However there is no need for this kind of attitude towards the community.


text:
Make apps smaller / "zoom out" apps
I made my screen resolution much smaller, so now most apps look 4x larger than I'm used to.
iTunes and Finder for example are much larger than they need to be.
Can I make everything about these apps smaller?
The text, the window sizes, the icon sizes etc.
Macbook Pro w/ Retina display, mid-2015 15".
I used RDM to make my screen to 720p. Previously had been 1080p HiDPI

What tool or setting did you change when you "made screen resolution much smaller"? A little about your hardware and screen might help us help you as well.

@bmike RDM to make my screen 720p.

Thanks. I don’t know RDM but the details will surely help someone offer a better answe

Go to the screen and right-click on the desktop. This brings up a menu and the last option is to "Show view options". Select this. You'll get a small window where you can adjust the icon size.
You can also change font size and icon spacing.

But nothing else?

i updated my answer.  Sorry.

The minimum font size is only 10. I need it smaller. Also, this doesn't change the size of the window top-bar, side-bar, or the font of the app itself (e.g. the title of the window)

Go to System Preferences, then displays. From there you can change the Scaled sizes to your liking.

The resolution is to my liking.I just want these windows to be smaller.

@theonlygusti I don’t understand. You set the resolution to 720p, yet you want a more pixel density so that your windows will look smaller. Apple’s Retina screens are designed to give you the option to choose how big you want the scale of everything on screen while not loosing out on picture quality.

No, I don't want more pixel density. I just want the windows to use less pixels

@theonlygusti The only way to tell macOS to use less pixels for elements on the screen is to increase the amount of pixels on the screen. Is there a specific reason you want your screen at 720p?


text:
Icons with .js extension
I ran CleanMyMac 3 earlier today and after cleaning my MacBook all my .js files have PHPStorm icon. How can I reset it to default icon ?

You need to re-associate the default application.

Select a .js file and Get Info, ⌘I
Expand Open With and choose an application from the pop-up that you want to open .js files with.
Click Change all

You may need to log out and back in again for all the icon to refresh

I tried this and it doesn't work. I restarted Mac a it's still showing those ugly icons :(

After re-associating, what happens when you open one of the effected .js files? If it still opens in phpstorm, you may have other issues. Try restarting in Safe mode, and if that fails, run the following in terminal: update_dyld_shared_cache -force. If it does open in the new program, you might need to un-install PHPstorm, set the binding, then re-install.

Its pretty easy, here's how you do it:

First of all select your folder/file in Finder, then right click on it and select Get Info.
In the info panel, click on folder/file preview in the top left corner.
Now, when the preview is highlighted, hit backspace ( ← ) on your keyboard.
Done!

If you cant select that .js than do the same thing to a different .js

All of my .js, .css, .php files are using this icon, which means it'd be a lot of work to do that manually.


text:
Could I change my old Apple ID for when I do updates on my Mac?
I've got a mac Mini 2014 that works wonderfully.  I've got this little issue that when I need to do the macOS updates it prompts me for my old Apple ID that I use no more.
Now I'm using a newer Apple ID for both iCloud Preferences and the App Store.
Is there any way to get rid of this old Apple ID and use just the new one for updates too?
I'd appreciate any help, thank you.

You'd need to nuke & pave, so the Mac 'belongs' to the new ID & abandon any apps that were purchased with the old one, too... but it prompts me to ask - why did you abandon the old ID? That was always going to become an issue in the future.

that's horrible, do I really need to wipe and install just for that?.  I stopped using the old email I used for my Apple ID for some reasons.. Thanks for your answer.

It would have been simpler to change the primary email address associated with the old ID... & yes, to remove it, it's nuke & pave, with no restore from Time Machine, except piecemeal for docs etc.


text:
Unable to resolve hostnames inside macOS chroot jail
I just created a chroot jail with inetutils, coreutils and bash. Most of the things seem to work. I can ping ip addresses and hosts that are inside /etc/hosts, however, I can't ping hosts that are not in /etc/hosts. I copied both resolv.conf and protocols to the chroot jail, but I still cannot ping hostnames. Which file am I supposed to put inside the jail so I can resolve hostnames? I have also read some stuff about scutil, but I want to avoid copying more binaries as much as possible.
$ ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=120 time=22.322 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=120 time=26.672 ms

$ ping google.com   # Host not in /etc/hosts
ping: unknown host

$ ping example.com  # Host in /etc/hosts
PING example.com (93.184.216.34): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 93.184.216.34: icmp_seq=0 ttl=50 time=160.226 ms
64 bytes from 93.184.216.34: icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=147.602 ms

Is there a cookbook or list of steps for which your jail was constructed? If no answers start flowing an edit to document how you set your jail up might help narrow what step broke DNS for you.

@bmike I am actually working on a script that automatically creates a chroot jail. You can find the script as a gist on Github. I don't think this is considered a programming question since I'm not asking for programming help. This script simply downloads the files from GNU, compiles them, puts them in the jail and adds the macOS specific files.

Wonderful details. This is 100% on topic here. Let me know by pinging me or flagging if this gets closed for any reason. This will be a nice alternative for someone that doesn’t want to just make a container os and virtualize their jail on top of macos.

Interesting script, you should consider creating a github repository for it.

This is a duplicate of this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33356677/how-can-i-get-dns-resolution-to-work-inside-a-mac-os-x-chroot-on-el-capitan   Unfortunately I'm not able to tag this as a duplicate.

Basically the problem is that newer macOS versions use mDNSResponder to resolve host names, and the standard library inside the chroot isn't able to contact the mDNSResponder. Without that communication, resolving names isn't possible. You'll want to install an responder inside the chroot jail in order to get it working.

I was able to get it to work by making sure the /etc/resolver.conf existed in the chroot and then symlinking /var/run/mDNSResponder into the chroot.
$ sudo chroot -u user "/Users/user/Source/macos-mkjail/test_jail" /bin/bash
bash-4.4$ ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (216.58.194.164): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.58.194.164: icmp_seq=0 ttl=53 time=10326.366 ms
64 bytes from 216.58.194.164: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=44.899 ms
64 bytes from 216.58.194.164: icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=39.388 ms
^C--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 39.388/3470.218/10326.366/4848.030 ms
bash-4.4$exit
$

This worked flawlessly. Thanks! I'll make sure to add this to mkjail, both in the interactive shell (since copying the files to a different system will break the hard link) and as a part of the creation process.

Could you be more specific on what did you do? Please put the commands you've ran as others could benefit form it

Did you mean /etc/resolv.conf since I don't have a resolver.conf file on my system.
I am still not able to get dns resolving in a chroot to work. Exact steps how to achieve that would be really beneficial.

Basically the problem is that newer macOS versions use mDNSResponder to resolve host names, and the standard library inside the chroot isn't able to contact the mDNSResponder. Without that communication, resolving names isn't possible. You'll want to install an responder inside the chroot jail in order to get it working.
You can find more information in this post:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33356677/how-can-i-get-dns-resolution-to-work-inside-a-mac-os-x-chroot-on-el-capitan

Sorry for being late, but how do I install a responder and does it have to be the one built into macOS or can I use a different responder if there is such a thing?

Copy /etc/resolv.conf from your host-system into the chroot and hardlink the mDNSresponder-socket into the chroot and sudo ln /var/run/mDNSResponder $CHROOT_ROOT_DIRECTORY/var/run/mDNSResponder. By hardlinking the socket will be reachable inside the chroot too. Works on 10.15.


text:
How does Time Machine work?
I want to do a fresh re-installation of macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 on my computer. To do so:

I uninstalled all unwanted apps.
Backed up my computer with Time Machine.

First question
After reinstallation when I use my backup to restore my files and settings, will it restore any unwanted files such as: preferences, directories and leftovers from apps that I had deleted or will Time Machine exclude them and not transfer to my freshly reinstalled macOS?
My second question
Does Time Machine backup caches, temporary files, directories and other similar stuff, which can be generated again without any harm ?
I've been searching a lot recently but I haven't found a clear and conclusive answer.

You can choose if you want to restore everything or simply select folders etc

Please provide your OS version while asking a question about a mac system behaviour. It's like asking a question about mechanics, talking about a VW golf injector... Which model? Which engine?

Welcome to Ask Different.  Next time, please ask one question per question. Then link the two by commenting or pasting the link from one in the other.

@NiborNdj for this question the Mac model does not matter and I don't think the os does either

@Mark I think it does, config files path can change from an OS version to the other, as well as config file contents. My metaphor with the car has a wider spectrum but I was not asking for the Mac model ;)

To avoid a long and fastidious answer:

Time Machine is duplicating (incremental backup) your root folder, i.e. /.
However, you have the ability to exclude folders from the backup (see: macOS Sierra: Exclude items from a Time Machine backup
The answer to question 2: caches and temporary files are not backed up. They are a part of the default exclusion list of Time Machine. You can see the full exclusion list here: /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist.
The answer to question 1: Time Machine backups folders as Applications Support, Preferences. So, to be short: if you consider that removing an app == moving  in the Trash folder, then you will restore all the files spread on your system by the apps you "deleted" before your last backup. If you deleted them properly by removing the .app and all the linked files spread on your system, you will end up with a clean system.


text:
Disable Dock in Full Screen
I have disabled the Dock in the desktop spaces with the following command.
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 1000 && killall Dock

But when an app is in full screen mode, I can still open the Dock when I move the mouse to the screen edge and then move it again in that direction.
How to disable the Dock in macOS High Sierra in full screen mode?

Suggest you read https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/59558 first.

The best workaround I've found:
defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 1
killall Dock

This makes the dock so tiny that it won't ruin your fullscreen workflow when it does pop out.

this hides the dock everywhere (plus you didn't write the command to revert to its original status, if someone tries it)

defaults delete com.apple.dock tilesize; killall Dock

You can set the dock to show and hide in the system preferences pane. Go to system preferences and check the box to hide and show the dock. After doing this you can set a time for how long you must hover over the dock pane to make it appear. This is done with the following terminal command: defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 5 && killall Dock. This sets the time to 5 seconds. You can make that number much larger to accomplish what you want.
The details of this answer came from here. This link also tells you how to turn it back on.

macos conveniently ignores this setting when you are in full screen. You can set to show it after 1000 seconds, but when in full screen, it will use default settings...


text:
Not able to mount EFI partition with diskutil after installing Ubuntu
I installed Ubuntu as dualboot for a specific task to a 30 GB partition. It worked, however I found out I could do the same thing in macOS, so I removed the 30 GB partition. I also wanted to remove Ubuntu files from the EFI partition, but diskutil no longer mounted the partition.
$ diskutil mount disk0s1
Volume on disk0s1 failed to mount
If the volume is damaged, try the "readOnly" option
$ diskutil mount readOnly disk0s1
Volume on disk0s1 failed to mount
If the volume is damaged, try the "readOnly" option

However, I can still mount the partition with the mount command and modify it's contents.
$ sudo mkdir /Volumes/EFI
$ sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI

I can also still boot into Windows, meaning the EFI partition is fine. Why is diskutil failing to mount this partition and how can I fix it? I also read that formatting the EFI partition will break future firmware updates, so I don't want to format it.
Here's the output of diskutil list:
$ diskutil list  # Not the full output
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         425.1 GB   disk0s2

Occasionally, you will encounter scarecrows. Here is one such example.
Observe:
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil mount disk0s1
Volume on disk0s1 failed to mount
If the volume is damaged, try the "readOnly" option
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ sudo diskutil mount disk0s1
Password:
Volume EFI on disk0s1 mounted
Marlin:~ davidanderson$

The message is meant to scare you, thus the term scarecrow. Nothing is wrong, you just need to add sudo.

Why is that the case? Does it have anything to do with the Linux installation? Why wasn't it like that before? I could mount the EFI partition without being superuser before.

@pixelomer: Apple is constantly changing macOS to make it harder to fix problems. Often, the problems needing fixing are do to bugs created by Apple. In this case, I suppose there is no reason the average user would ever need to mount the EFI partition, therefore macOS now requires a sudo.


text:
Apple Watch is not recognising any activity. What is the problem?
I have the original Apple Watch(I bought it as soon as it was released in 2015). I have now realised that it is not tracking any of my activity data, and that it displays 0 for all of the 3 categories, even after a day of running and exercise. How can I resolve this issue?

Unpair your watch from your phone and re-pair it. It will reset the watch.
Go into the Watch app on your phone, tap your watch at the top of the app screen, tap the "i" button, then tap Unpair Watch.
After this is complete, re-pair the watch to your phone and see if your issues are resolved.
If that doesn't work, you may need to call Apple support or take it in to the Genius Bar.

There's a number of trouble shooting steps that can and should be taken prior to resetting the watch.  See this article:  https://www.igeeksblog.com/apple-watch-not-tracking-steps/

@Allan Not really much troubleshooting before they say to do what I already suggested. And they even say it's probably a temporary fix, and re-pairing the watch is the only way that really fixes it.  Either way, it seems resolvable.


text:
Can I capture photos in Raw mode on iPhone 6 without have to pay for a 3rd party app?
I am looking for a solution (preferably free of cost) to capture photos in RAW mode on my iPhone 6. The solution/tool should be able to capture RAW mode image before camera converts to JPEG/PNG.
I am also willing to Jailbreak the device if required.

The built-in camera app in iOS doesn't support capturing RAW photos. You'll have to rely on a 3rd party app.
Since you are not looking for a paid app, you can download VSCO a free app that supports capturing photos in RAW mode.
OTOH, on the paid front, Halide Camera is a highly regarded app by photography enthusiasts and power users alike.
Note: No affiliation whatsoever. The answer is based on personal experience and ratings on the App Store.


text:
rEFInd is not working in macos high sierra 10.13.6 on 2018 MacBook Pro 13 inch even after proper installation
I have installed rEFInd in my mac by going into recovery mode -> open terminal -> csrutil disable -> cd "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/username/Downloads/refind-bin-0.11.2" -> bash ./refind-install -> csrutil enable -> reboot
But on reboot it shows and loads the Apple icon first and then opens the Boot Recovery where I need to select my hard disk and restart the mac and it boots into macos without showing rEFInd option at the beginning. How to resolve this?

Can you confirm the file were copied to /Volumes/EFI/EFI/refind folder?. To do this you will need to mount the EFI partition. This can be done with the command sudo diskutil mount disk0s1.

EDIT: You'll have to run the ./refind-install program in macOS after you've run csrutil disable in the Recovery OS. This will most likely solve any issues you have with installation.
Original answer: I think your problem is that you've tried to disable csrutil through a terminal in MacOS, which won't work. Try following the steps in this article to go into Recovery OS, run csrutil disable; reboot in the Terminal, and then try going through the normal refind install steps. It's your choice if you want to re-enable System Integrity Protection afterwards, but again you'll have to do it through Recovery OS.
Hopefully this advice was interesting and useful to you, and I wish you good luck.

I've already done the same thing as whatever you have answered here. I was into Recovery OS. Didn't work.

Oh, ok. Thanks for the clarification. I've edited my answer, I hope it helps.

This answer did not work. Tried Mojave and refind v0.11.4.


text:
Create USB install stick from Mojave
Since macOS Mojave moved the OS install to its system preferences and you can't download installers directly anymore, how would you go about creating an Mojave USB stick from Mojave onwards?

Its impossible to tell until 10.15 is in beta.

What JBis said. Apple may do BETA software installs/updates differently than the released version. We will all find out when they release macOS Mojave. It would be good to wait a day or so after that as many people who are paid to write about Macs will likely have info on creating a stand alone installer.

@JBis, You said, "Its impossible to tell until 10.15 is in beta.", why do we have to wait until 10.15 is in beta, 10.14 will be out long before 10.15. :)

@user3439894 Mojave is released from the App Store.

Seems they added the installer recently to the new App Store on Mojave. If you search for macos mojave the installer shows up in the results under the "Utilities" category.


text:
Create symlinks in time machine backup?
I have a time machine backup /Volumes/MyTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/MyMachine. Exactly as Apple creates a Latest symlink pointing toward the latest snapshot, I would like to create symlinks toward other snapshots. But I get permission denied when I do, in terminal,
% cd /Volumes/MyTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/MyMachine
% ln -s 2018-06-11-xxxx my_link

where 2018-06-11-xxxx would be one of  the snapshot. I even get permission denied with sudo!! Is there something wrong with my Time Machine disk or is that normal on MacOS High Sierra?

There are access control lists in addition to the typical permissions that lock you out of the time machine destination and prevent this. You might succeed in disabling that when Time Machine isn't looking, but when it starts up, it will likely notice you messed with the files it wrote and mark that destination as read only and never back up again to that destination.
You'd then need to retire it to a shelf or erase the drive and let Time Machine exert total control over a blank folder and start over with backups.
That being said, you can do this by maintaining your folder where you create the links outside the /Backups.backupdb folder (my best suggestion) or changing ACL and removing the restrictions Apple puts there.
Here are a couple related articles on the chmod to mess with the ACL lists - you might need a general article as well if you've not listed / modified / added / removed ACL on macOS - that's quite an article in and of itself that I'll leave for another question to answer.

How to remove my local Backupdb.backupsdb?
How do I change the ownership of files backed up with Time Machine
Time Machine and the dreaded negative sign (this is what happens when Time Machine detects a modification of permissions or content - the prohibitory sign and the "you need to start over" message)
Can't chmod or chown a file in TimeMachine backup directory
Moving Time Machine backup between two local disks results in full backup instead of incremental (pain experienced even trying to move the whole folder "intact")


text:
Time machine tells me UID or GID have changed but they don't seem so!
Using tmutil compare to show the changes between the latest snapshot and the current state of the disk, I am told that most of, if not all, my files had their UID or GID changed. Here is one line from the output of tmutil compare as an example:
! 85.9K   (UID, GID)            /Volumes/A/path/to/file

But ls -n does not show me that (501 is the logged user, and 20 is group staff):
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501  20  88007 Dec  4  2017 /Volumes/MyTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/MyMachine/Latest/A/path/to/file
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501  20  88007 Dec  4  2017 /Volumes/A/path/to/file

The two files look exactly identical but Time Machine thinks they differ. Why?!?
Background: I had a system disk, let's call it A, in my MacPro, with a Time Machine backup. For speed, I created a new system disk B on SSD, I moved some files from A to B but I will keep most of the data on A because B is too small. So now I would like to continue using the same Time Machine backup. The recommended way to do that is the command-line utility tmutil for that: I did
sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/MyTimeMachine
sudo associatedisk -a /Volumes/A /Volumes/MyTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/MyMachine/Latest/A

It worked: I can browse the snapshots of disk A back and forth in time with the Time Machine interface. However, before starting a backup, I checked with tmutil compare what Time Machine thinks has changed on disk A, and that's the discussion I started this question with.

The current state of the disk and the last snapshot of it will always differ. There are constant I/O processes reading from and writing to your disk.

UID/GID have no reason to change, especially not on the scale I am seeing. There is something systematic going on but I don’t understand what!


text:
How does one import an old Exchange email archive into Apple Mail?
I have an archive of old emails from a former project that I worked on. On that project, I was given my own Exchange email address and subsequently have a ton of emails for which I created an archive. That old Exchange address and account are closed. How can I import all the emails into Apple Mail or Gmail?

Do you mean you have an .ost file? If not, what kind of "archive" format is it? Was the archive created with Microsoft Outlook or with another mail client?

Thx for responding. Yes, I have a .ost file that was created from Outlook. I also have all the emails still sitting in my Apple Mail since the account was linked. I could export them from Apple Mail. I just want to delete the old Outlook account when I am done.

Can I just move all of the emails from one mailbox to another? Then delete the account?

Have a look at this - hope it helps.

Thx. It does help! It is in progress so hopefully, it will work out for me. I was able to make an mbox archive of the Exchange mailbox, then import it to back to my mailbox and finally move the emails to the mailbox where I wanted them.  Looks like the biggest drawback is they are moving from the Import verrrrryyy slowly. It is 13K+ emails and the move is crawling along...but it seems to be working. thanks for the article!


text:
Convert multi-page PDF to single PNG
I have a multi-page PDF.
I want to make a PNG which is just all of these pages appended. I.e., the bottom of page 1 is attached to the top of page 2, etc.
Preview.app's Export... > PNG option saves it as a ... multi-page PNG? I didn't know those were possible, but Preview opens up this PNG like it has many pages and Safari doesn't seem to be able to display both these "pages" properly.
I just want to convert a PDF into a very tall PNG, which is all of the pages on top of each other.

There is an app PDFElement6, a free trial version is available that will do what you want. The trail version is limited to only a five page PDF.


text:
Simulate iOS's "reduce white point" feature on OS X El Capitan
I've become fond of iOS's "reduce white point" accessibility feature to reduce the intensity of bright colors, which makes the screen much easier to use in the dark -- nicer, in my opinion, than simply turning down the brightness.
On OS X El Capitan version 10.11, is there a way to simulate this feature using native OS X tools, or ones available on the internet? I couldn't find anything.
Thanks for the help.

Can you take a photo of with and without

Possible duplicate of Can I lower the minimum display brightness? How?

@ankiiiiiii, what the OP wants is not a duplicate. I have that same necessity for some monitors, which distort whitepoint, and reducing brightness does not help it. But reducing the whitepoint using Gamma Control (as posted below) fix it. So this is a different question and I know well what the OP wants because I suffer from the same problem.

@Prado OP hasn't been online lately, but it would be better to reject all the apps in that question after trying them once at least. the answer with 19 upvotes has some indicators about good apps

@ankiiiiiii, yes, the best solution is to find any native way for doing that using internal MacOS commands, and not some external application. I agree with you. Thank you, I am reading the 19 upvotes answer.!

This is a solution that work nicely, but it is not free.
Gamma Control - is a professional app to control the brightness of color on your mac. Really useful to correct color & black on any projector, that's why I paid for it at first ~25$.
Get it in the App Store
The put these setting on:
1- Max brightness on you mac
2- In Gamma Control put the White Point Luminance as you like (between 0.3 and 0.6 I enjoy)

This is exactly what the OP needs/want to do. The author of this app has a Github account with several source code he used to create it. I don't know if you a are a user or a developer, but the information about how he does that is there. On the authors home page there is link to his Github account.

If the goal is to have a

feature to reduce the intensity of bright colors, which makes the screen much easier to use in the dark

Then this is quite a stupid way to go about:

As usual the tools and settings provided by Apple do not do anything useful:

Apple’s color adjustments don’t do much
On a screen this bright and effective at delivering bright light to the eye, the mild “Night Shift” settings Apple provides just don’t have much impact.
  Night Shift’s default setting is not capable of dialing things back to the level of the old phones with Night Shift turned off.
  Compared to previous phones, with the screen the same brightness (luminance), your eyes will see twice as many melanopic-weighted photons as you would on an iPhone 6 (20% from the spectrum, and nearly double from the geometry and directionality).
  Let’s be clear: this screen is now well beyond the range of early iPads to delay sleep. It’s not a “little” screen anymore, and it’s very good at making light that your non-visual photoreceptors will see.
Measuring the brightest iPhone ever: iPhone X

The right tool for this kind of job is f.lux.

Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow?
Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen?
During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun.
f.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.
f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.
Tell f.lux what kind of lighting you have, and where you live. Then forget about it. f.lux will do the rest, automatically.

At least there used to be other tools available (Nocturne, DarkAdapted, RedScreen or similar…) and you might also play just with display colour profiles to achieve a similar effect. That is basically  just a nuisance and requires manual intervention all the time. But the above tool called f.lux just does it all with less hassle, customisable and automatically. You might also change the preferences to suite your needs in terms of colour better. It just works.

see my comment to the other poster and let me know if I'm mistaken.

Using the built-in calibration tool in System Preference > Displays, you can adjust the whitepoint of your monitor:

and save as many profiles as you wish:

correct me if I'm wrong, but this adjusts the color temperature and seems to give different results (closer to f.lux) than the iOS accessibility feature. The "reduce whitepoint" feature appears to be more like a brightness reducer than a color-temperature changer.

If you have an iPhone, try it out and see what I mean. Settings -> Accessibility -> Reduce Whitepoint.

On second thought... it looks like the color temperature is actually changed (warmer, so -- consistent with what you're doing) on the iPhone, so it's possible I am just mistaken. The brightness however is definitely reduced as well.

This just changes the temperature, not the whitepoint level intensity, which is what the OP needs


text:
Preferred Order of NVRAM/PRAM, SMC, and OS resets
Is there a preferred order in which I should reset the NVRAM/PRAM, SMC, and OS on my MBP?
If so, what is this order (and why)?

Edit: I intend to do all of them to completely reset my computer. No need to explain what each does, I know what they do.

It’s not clear what completely reset means, but dozens of people ask this so I’ll put a general answer and hope you don’t mind. I’m curious why you’re asking if you know what each does?

Yes, don’t do any of these until you have a very specific reason to do each. They handle entirely different functions so cycling through each of them would be equivalent to not even refining what you want to handle.
Take a medical analogy:

bandages are for cuts
anti-inflammatory is for swelling
anti-pyretic is for fever
rest and liquids are for colds
antiboitics are for infections

Prescribing the wrong treatment just wastes time and can cause further injury if you’re not treating the actual problem at hand.

The answer would be better if it listed these very specific reasons. The medical metaphor is very imprecise.

How is it imprecise?  I think this answer makes a very clear analogy to emphasize the point that you use certain tools/procedures when you have particular symptoms.  You don’t use every medicine in your bag for every case.


text:
Keep low power mode on all the time
I would like Low Power Mode to be the default state of my device.
When I get to 80% battery it toggles itself off automatically.
How can I stop it turning itself off?
How can I always keep my phone in low power mode (or some other equivalent)?

With ios13, you can make an automation that turns on low power mode when your phone turns it off.

This looks quite nice. Can't test it yet.

This is done with the Shortcuts app, go to automation tab at the bottom of the app, then click the + sign in the top left, then add a Personal Automation, select Settings | Low Power Mode, then set to OFF, and action is Low Power Mode On, and disable Ask Me before Running. https://tinyurl.com/y5lv8ebm

How to do this on ipad?

Better explained here: https://ios.gadgethacks.com/how-to/keep-low-power-mode-enabled-indefinitely-your-iphone-0207407/

You can configure most of your phone's settings to be the same as their Low Power Mode equivalents. This includes turning off email fetch, background app refresh, automatic downloads, and iCloud photo sync. As well as setting screen lock to 30 seconds and keeping the brightness low.
List of Low Power Mode settings

There is no way to achieve this functionality as it will always turn off at 80% as the purpose of it is to extend your phone when at low battery.
From this Apple Support discussion:

Low Power Mode reduces or turns off Email fetch, Hey Siri, Background
  app refresh, Automatic downloads, Wi-Fi associations, and some visual
  effects. If you can live without having those features available on
  the phone, you can keep it on low power mode. But after you charge
  your iPhone to 80% or higher, Low Power Mode automatically turns off,
  so you'll have to turn it back on again.

This is not helpful

@theonlygusti I said there is no way to keep it on

Cronios lets you do so with help from shortcuts. It is not officially possible to run shortcuts in background for long.
I would like some community help in making the shortcut which runs in the background or is triggered by battery percentage hitting 80 and then toggling Low power mode on.
This workflow is not as understandable to me as compared to other languages I generally code in.
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/df0f2c800dc748d2903ccc54e2b99c24
https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/aau4iq/cronios_run_your_shortcuts_on_an_automatic/
https://routinehub.co/shortcut/1370
Also I am not affiliated to this product in any development or business.


text:
Unable to remove file or change permission on mac as root.
I cant remove files from /Library/Extensions/ even if i run bash script as root.

I also tried to change flags with
chflags -R nouchg
chflags -R noschg
Here is output for ls -l even after chmod -R 777:
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  96 Aug  7 12:25 FileProtect.kext
rm -rf returns following:
rm: /Library/Extensions/FileProtect.kext: Permission denied

What can be reason for such behaviour?

There are a 2 reasons I can think of why this file (well, directory) might not be deletable.

Check for the "restricted" flag. This is part of SIP, and you should be able to see it via ls -lO /Library/Extensions/FileProtect.kext. If following the group you see "restricted" then this file is flagged as being protected via SIP. This shouldn't normally be the case for a file under /Library/ but people do the weirdest things.
The kext itself is blocking the delete operation. As it's in /Library/Extensions, there's a reasonable chance it's loaded automatically. If it implements a kauth vnode scope listener or a MAC policy, it can arbitrarily deny file operations, including deletions.

In either case, the solution is to boot into the recovery environment and to delete it there.

Thank you for your answer. I needed a way to do it without rebooting. It seems like the task is impossible. In my particular case there is a way actually. FileProtect.kext is a part of Bitdefender Antivirus. Bitdefender is distributed with self uninstall script. I broke it and execution did not delete Antivirus, but it turned off self protection. Without it I eventually got managed to remove Bitdefender.


text:
Cannot enable FileVault on macOS High Sierra
I've just got a new MacBook Pro, currently running macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra. As I'm the only one using it, it only has one user account, which does have admin privileges. However, I'm encountering some problems attempting to enable FileVault 2 disk encryption.
If I try the standard method of going into settings -> security & privacy, then clicking "enable FileVault", nothing happens. No error message, it just doesn't respond.
Going into terminal, I've tried running sudo fdesetup enable, which returns the following message. Error: A problem occurred while trying to enable FileVault. (-69594).
Based on a previous answer I saw on here, I then tried booting into recovery mode, and running sudo rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone.
This tells me that the sudo command is not recognised. Alternatively, running without sudo returns /var/db/.AppleSetupDone: No such file or directory.
Basically, I've no idea what else to try, short of wiping the computer and starting from scratch. Any ideas (preferably FileVault, but I'll accept other full disk encryption methods), or is that my only option?

Being on MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 the following worked for me. Process was partly derived from below mentioned reddit and https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/unable-to-enable-filevault-on-macos-mojave/.

Tested for all user accounts on the computer in terminal the command sudo sysadminctl -secureTokenStatus USER_NAME_HERE. It returned for all accounts "Secure token is DISABLED for user". If this is different, see below.
If for all users step 1 returned "Secure token is DISABLED for user", boot into Recovery mode (reboot and hold command-R)
In Recovery mode start Terminal window (menu Utilities -> Terminal)
Execute command resetFileVaultpassword to change the passwords for all users.
Then restart back into normal mode. For me changing all passwords resulted in TouchID becoming disabled, but I could re-enable without issues.
Now back in normal mode, terminal confirmed for command from step 1 that "Secure token is ENABLED". Go to System preferences and enable FileVault.

My understanding is that if for at least one user the return in step 1. says "Secure token is ENABLED for user", this user could be used to re-enable the desired admin user by
a) promoting the TOKEN_user to admin,
b) login with the TOKEN_user,
c) change the password of all non-TOKEN_users (according to https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/74scld/unable_to_turn_on_filevault_on_high_sierra_apfs/do1beb1/ this will make them users with a TOKEN as well), and finally
d) change promoted TOKEN_user back to normal user.

Thank you so much for documenting this process!

This worked for me.

You don't need to boot into recovery mode to run
sudo rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Try it again from your normal volume. That will make your Mac think it is the first time  you have started up, and will run through the setup process again. That should mean that the new user you create in that process has the power to enable FileVault. However, that should have happened the first time.
If that doesn't work, I can recommend a couple of sites for background info:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/74scld/unable_to_turn_on_filevault_on_high_sierra_apfs/
https://derflounder.wordpress.com/?s=filevault
I had a slightly different problem than yours, but the same error code (-69594) when trying to add the ability to unlock FileVault for a particular non-admin user. The user in question didn't have the SecureToken status. I solved it by deleting the AppleSetupDone file, creating a new temporary admin user, logging in as that user, and giving the
non-admin user the SecureToken status with the sysadminctl command described in the Reddit article


text:
Can I display top charts in my app using album artwork from iTunes?
I have used this iTunes API to display the top charts in my app but recently I received an email from Apple about the complaints that Recording Industry Association of America  (RIAA) want to take my app down because of the infringement of album cover artwork. I have seen a lot of others apps are showing the artwork, like:

iMusic
Music Player & Unlimited Songs 4+

and many more.

It seems to me that what Apple's email says is going to be the most important thing here.
For example are they asking you to remove the artwork? Or are they just trying to inform you that they're getting complaints?
My thinking would be that since you're publishing an app on Apple's App Store that you'd have to take their email as a strong indicator of what you can do (or need to do).
As a registered Developer, you can also call Apple Developer Program Support in your country for clarification/guidance.
Finally, if Apple wants you to stop showing the artwork, it may be worth mentioning the other apps to them. However, it is entirely possible that Apple has also written to their developers too asking them to take the same action.

@BOBOKING Okay, in that case I suggest you call Apple Developer Program Support and tell them about your email and ask what action, if any, you need to take? At least that's what I would do. It's the only way to get some certainty as to what Apple requires (if anything) of you. If Apple doesn't require anything of you, then it's a judgement call whether you want to pursue it further (e.g. by contacting RIAA or seeking legal advice). Beyond that there's really nothing more anyone here can do for you, beyond providing a personal opinion.

Ah, they've removed the phone numbers! :( I'll have to check to see if they've just been moved elsewhere. In any case, if it was me I would go with Feedback and Other Topics > My issue is not listed. The only other option I'd also consider is Development and Technical > Other Development or Technical Questions.

No unless you license that artwork. Contact the owner of the art to get a license.
You can’t include fonts or music or text you didn’t make and the same with art.
If you’re not sure about the law in your country start with getting a lawyer to read through the contract you signed as a developer and then work through the Apple legal page on what iTunes and API licenses mean.
Worse, you’re likely running afoul of specific app review guidelines.

3.2 Business Models
4.5 Apple Sites and Services
5.2 Intellectual Property

But maybe a small change is all Apple is asking. Why not make the change they asked and resubmit for review?


text:
How to stop mac from default booting in deleted windows via boot camp?
I bountied this question Boot into Mac from Windows after failed Bootcamp after being trapped in Windows hell on my mac, after the first time using boot camp.
When I got back to my mac I erased windows and reformatted boot camp following the answer to this question How to remove Windows Operating system from Bootcamp?

If you installed Windows on a disk that has a single partition

Start up your Mac in OS X.
Open Disk Utility, located in the Other folder in Launchpad.
Select the Windows disk, click Erase, choose the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) >format, then click the Erase button.

Now whenever I restart my mac I have to hold onto the option key to select the mac (and reboot it from there as it defaults to the Windows keyboard and the keys do not match, so I cannot submit my password - don't' ask).
This is what I have when I open boot camp and disk utility:

Erasing the boot camp volume does nothing, as does unmounting. I'm too scared to play around with it beyond this. If I never had to touch Windows OS again I'd be happy, but it's an unfortunate evil. I've gone back to Parallels desktop.
Most of the solutions I've found online have not helped me remedy any of these issues from trying to make it work to wanting to get rid of it - which is why I'm here.
I accept I may have sacrificed the disk space and may never be able to claim it (grrr can't think too hard about it). But I swear to Apple, they'll be taking this machine back if I can't stop it from booting up on Windows.
My machine:
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)
4 GHz Intel Core i7
32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
How can I stop my mac from defaulting to open Windows?

Great linking and use of a bounty. I see the erase procedure as potentially a new question thread. Asking bootcamp to remove a partition is fragile and can break. You’re always safe to make a good time machine backup and then erase / install - repartitioning the drive itself as GUID and one volume. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904 - hopefully  NVRAM and a new election in startup pref pane works for you.

The NVRAM holds the location of the default OS, so resetting that might get you back to the default search order. If you want to set it explicitly, Apple’s article linked below as well can help:
From How to select a different startup disk:

Use Startup Disk preferences
When you use Startup Disk preferences to select a startup disk, your
Mac starts up from that disk until you choose a different one.

Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click Startup Disk.
Click the lock and enter your administrator password.
Select your startup disk, then restart your Mac.

NOTE: Restart the Mac by clicking the Restart... button. This process checks the system has the correct permissions to start, then writes your choice to NVRAM.

Yep and I tested it - a random restart and it's working. You will note, I only have one start up option, even though it was starting in bootcamp - uninstalled windows

@bmike, yeh the addition of NVRAM makes sense. It's driven me nuts.

I urge you to expose Apple url as plain text - add the English title after if you want that too. People on iOS can’t see you are linking to an official Apple KB article as you have written it

@bmike, you said, "People on iOS can’t see you are linking to an official Apple KB article as you have written it", well while I have not used iOS for a while nonetheless, unless things have changed, one can tap and hold the link to see a Link URL preview which one can take action on. As to "I urge you to expose Apple url as plain text", you and I have never seen eye to eye on this subject and while I have respected your wish to not edit your posts with raw URLs, please show me that same respect. Thanks!

I didn’t roll back your change and simply explained in comments why I made the change - I totally understand you’ve thought about this as well - your edit was just fine by me. We (the larger community) can discuss in [meta] whether we want to formalize any preference. Tapping and holding causes all sorts of pain on iOS and is super inferior to just letting the text show clearly but you are right, there isn’t a community consensus today.

Here’s what I see as the ideal way to cite an Apple KB https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/179888/5472 and most importantly, thanks for posting and editing it to be the best answer you can.


text:
How can I get Apple Watch style Activity reminders on iPhone / iPad
Example: watchOS reminds users to that it’s “Time to stand!”.
Is there any way to leverage the default apps provided by Apple to get these notifications on iOS devices?
The default reminders app is a bit too tedious for this and 3rd party apps seem to require you to open them regularly to prevent their notifications from being disabled.
Preferably, this can be accomplished without owning an Apple Watch, but I'll accept an answer which requires one if no other options exist.

I think this is not possible on the iPhone with the default installed apps. Only way to get these notifications seems to be on an Apple Watch.

For now I think you'll have to get an Apple watch or look into 3rd party apps.

Can you add a bit of info about what you tried that led you to this answer?

It's not a feature of the OS unfortunately. There's no way to set up reminders or any other default iOS app to detect when you've been sitting for too long, for instance. A third party app would be the only way to go.

There is no way to implement this on iOS without 3rd party-apps.
There seems to be a good third-party app here.
This reminds you to stand at your office. It is free. You cm get custom alarms at your office location and you can set when you want to stand up in intervals.
There is also another app here. This is similar to the other app, but this one doesn't seem to be as popular.


text:
Backup Photos photobook templates
I want to backup the photobook templates in Photos, because they will be discontinued at the end of the month and I want to continue to use them.
I found a cache here,
/Users/user/Library/Containers/com.apple.iPhoto/Data/Library/Application Support/iLifePageLayout/ThemeCache

but looks like it's just a cache, I want to have a backup of the files, so when in a few years I need them again, I can restore them.

"they will be discontinued at the end of the month"? What do you mean?

@JBis when you open the Photos app and try to create some product, it tells you that this feature will be discontinued at the end of this month, and you need to download some alternative app from the app store (and alternatives are not good)

Ah. Not sure how to do what your doing but I doubt that the same format would work for third party apps (unless the apps suggested are made by Apple).

@JBis no, the suggested apps are independent from Photos, they're just opened from Photos and have access to the Photos library. And of course, you can't save as PDF


text:
A device named "iPhone" in Location Services on my iPad will not stay deleted
iPad/General/Restrictions/Location Services is on.
Share my location is on.
From this device - MyiPad (I named my ipad MyiPad)
Then under that it shows the word iPhone.
My iPhone is named lAiPhone not iPhone.
I am able to swipe it to the left and select delete, but then is is back in about 3 seconds.
I want to know exactly what it is. What can I check. How can i get rid of it. I do not have any paired devices.

Any iPhones logged into iCloud with the same appleId?

Yes my iphone, but I named my iPhone.

if it was my iphone i would think it would be listed as a device seperate and show the correct name that i named it. Hmm ...I will try and log out and then back in. Thank you


text:
iPad Mini Not Restoring?
The pass-code has been entered incorrectly on my iPad so many times that a screen showed up saying:

iPad is Disabled. Connect to iTunes

I have tried two methods to restoring the iPad.

Connect the iPad to the computer. Hold down the home and power buttons at the same time. When the screen goes blank, wait two seconds, then release both buttons.  I went to Itunes and held down the correct buttons until apple recognized iTunes recognized the iPad was in recovery mode. I then chose the restore option on the screen. When Itunes finished and restarted, the same screen showed up: iPad  is Disabled. Connect to iTunes
Hold down the volume/home/power button at the same time till the apple icon shows up, release all the buttons. When this happened, the Apple diagnostics screen showed up and when I clicked Exit Diagnostics, the Ipad restarted, and went to the same  iPad  is Disabled. Connect to Itunes screen. When I chose the second option Start Diagnostics, It told me to go to apple.com/support.

Is there any way to fix this and restore the iPad? I do not need to save my old data.

Connect your iOS device to your computer and open iTunes. ...
While your device is connected, force restart it: ...
When you see the option to Restore or Update, choose Restore. ...
Wait for the process to finish.

I mentioned in my question as Method 1 that I followed the instructions on Itunes and the Ipad returned to the same disabled screen. I'm sorry if i was not clear enough and have edited the question.

so it is disabled because you entered the wrong password repentantly, do you now the right password ?

I think I still know it. The iPad has been disabled for over a year!

Restoring it from iTunes should have worked. But this only works if you have previously synced your device with iTunes and have a backup stored on your computer.
If you know the right password... do following.
Try to back up the iOS device in iTunes
The first thing you should try to unlock your disabled device is a simple iTunes backup.
Connect your iOS device to your computer via USB and open iTunes. Select the device in the upper right-hand corner to display its properties in the main screen.

iTunes backup
Click on the "Back Up Now" button to start a sync.
You may be prompted to type in your password on your iOS device to start the sync because the device is locked.
Once you have typed in your password, you can cancel the back up and start using your device.

When I connect the iPad to iTunes and open iTunes, I get a prompt to allow access to the iPad. When I click ok this shows up: iTunes could not connect to this iPad. an unknown error occured (0xE8000015)

@Redline so it is still blocked ! This trick only works if you have previously synced your device with iTunes

In addition to using iTunes, you can also use iCloud to unlock:
1. Visit the iCloud webpage with another device and log in to your Apple account.
2. Select "Find iPhone" among various functions on the page.
3. At the top of the page you jump to, click All Devices.
4. Select the iPad that is now disabled among all displayed devices.
5. Find the "Erase" button, all data and screen lock on iPad will be erased.
6. iPad will restart automatically and you can access iPad without screen lock.
If you have synced data with iTunes before, this method is also worth trying: https://www.fonecope.com/fix-ipad-is-disabled-connect-to-itunes.html#Part2


text:
Does resetting NVRAM reset EFI Boot Order?
I've had a Macbook Pro for a year or so now and have experimented with quite a few Linux distributions which have added and changed things in the EFI Boot Order. I am looking to clean things up. The tool efibootmgr for Linux does let me make changes and cleanup as necessary. However will resetting NVRAM reset the EFI Boot Order for me?

AFIK only OSX system reinstall does that.

NVRAM is a standalone chip on your logic board, backed up by small battery.
EFI resides on your SSD. (hard drive)
Showing battery for the PRAM (NVRAM)

So no, resetting NVRAM will not impact EFI.
To restore EFI, you have to reinstall the OS X.

I'm pretty sure "Which OS should I boot by default" is at least sometimes stored in an NVRAM variable. In Hackintosh systems, if emulated nvram isn't working properly, changing the startup disk won't work.

@Wowfunhappy you mean from which disk not which OS

Well, this applies to different partitions on the same disk as well.

I have experienced that resetting the PRAM may have the effect of making Linux boot possible.  The fact that NVRAM and EFI storages are separate is good to know but does not allow to conclude, as some program could read in NVRAM and write in EFI.  Moreover the linux program efibootmgr seems to be able to act on EFI without reinsalling OSX (I did not try).

I am not a specialist but I think the answer is yes.
On system which uses the UEFI firmware, EFI boot manager entries are stored in the non-volatile RAM.
So it seems that if you reset the NVRAM (alias PRAM) then boot order might be affected.
Indeed I have just checked that resetting the PRAM on my Macbook wiped the output of efibootmgr.
Installing MacOX X is not necessary to restore the EFI partition, installing any Linux will do it also. (Mac OS also installs a recovery partition.)


text:
Extract data from an iPhone with broken screen
I have an iPhone SE with a broken screen. I want to extract the data from it so I can keep my photos etc. Though, there's a little problem. Since I can't unlock the phone with the passcode, and if I could, I can't touch on the "Trust" button. I just can't access my phone again.
I've read about keyboards that were connected to the phone's USB port. I was wondering if there's another way to fix this, since I haven't a Lightning USB camera adapter, so I can't connect the keyboard to my iPhone.
Siri is unavailable because of some weird problem, the phone doesn't connect to my Wi-Fi. The "dr Fone" software doesn't work, probably because of the locked phone.
1- Brocken Screen (not accessible)
2- No USB for external Keyboard
3- Siri unavailable (broken WiFi)
4- dr Fone not working (broken screen)
5- no iCould back up
I'm afraid I'm not going to see my data again but I put everything on everything.
Does anyone have the redeeming idea?

sounds like lost cause unless you were connected to iCloud.

@Buscar웃 yeah I wish I was connected, but I'm not so I'm hoping for anyone who has another idea... Thanks anyway!

Your best bet is to use the Search function on this site and go thru several dozen similar questions and see if any of those answers work for you.  It looks like you've tried everything already (except for restoring from a backup to a different iPhone).

Take a look at a service like iPad Rehab  Unfortunately, not backing up either locally or to iCloud pretty much mitigated all of the "free" options available.

Yeah, I haven't backupped my phone in a longgg time (if I've backupped it already) so that isn't an option...

Your best option is to

Repair/Replace the broken screen

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+SE+Display+Assembly+Replacement/61305
now you can log in and all your data is still there, and you have a working phone.
Kit for the Job costs $50
Loosing Photos- Priceless

Yeah, I think you're right... Because no other people had better ideas I think I'm gonna fix it your way, thankss!! (If someone has another good idea, you're free to still answer the question:)

If you have backed up the phone within reasonable time, you can restore from backup to a new phone.
Depending how broken the screen is (It may be not showing you things, but still responds to touch), you may be able to use someone else's phone to 'map' the locations of the number keys, and in effect do it blind.  This would allow you to make a fresh backup, then restore that to another phone.
If the phone is recent enough, it may be worth it to get it fixed.  If the phone is not recent enough, then talk to one of these hole in the wall fixit places, and get them to replace a screen, let you pay for it, then bring the phone back and have them take their screen back.  In effect you are renting the screen for long enough to recover your data.
take it to an apple store, and ask them to transfer the data to a new phone.

It's the other way around. I can't touch the screen anymore but I still can see time etc. I think I'm gonna fix the phone. Thanks!


text:
What is the value of iCloud.com if 2FA requires your device?
It would seem that the point of iCloud.com and its web apps is to provide access to your content on the go, when for whatever reason, you don’t have access to your device itself.
But if logging into the website requires you to first authenticate yourself with the device, then what is the point of the website?
Of course if you have your device handy — then you wouldn’t need the website...
How is this not a glaring oversight by Apple?

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question.  Logging in to 2 different places to verify your identity is the '2' in 2FA.  The point of iCloud.com is to give you another way to access your info but it's not only, or even largely, because you don't have access to your device.  If you're asking why Apple does this then your question could be closed as off-topic so you might want to rephrase it to focus on the actual problem you're having.

Having another way to access your info is great, but not if accessing it requires you to be carrying a device which already has access to it. That is the point.

How is it any sort of "oversight"?  You automatically assume that accessing the content via the "device" is always preferable, without specifying what the "device" is.

@bigmapidea But then it wouldn't be two-factor authentication. It would simply be a login with a password. If that doesn't work for you then you need to find a less secure way to access your data and don't use icloud.

The first time you access a 2FA-protected iCloud account on any device you've chosen to use with 2FA, you must provide the correct credentials with that device to assure iCloud that it is indeed the device you've selected to receive 2FA authentication. You are then offered the choice of ignoring future requests for authentication on that device for some duration of time. Every so often, you must re-authenticate with the 2FA credentials to reassert your identity. Does this help?


text:
Which audio interface standard (or API) does macOS use?
For instance: Windows supports DirectSound & ASIO, Linux supports PulseAudio & Jack, etc.
A basic google search currently does not seem to answer this basic question.

Apple's main low-level Audio Framework / API for macOS 10.0+ is Core Audio .
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreaudio

Framework
Core Audio
Use specialized data types to interact with audio streams, complex buffers, and audiovisual timestamps.
  SDKs
Overview
The Core Audio framework (which is not an umbrella framework for the other services in Core Audio, but rather a peer) declares data types and constants used by other Core Audio interfaces. This framework also includes a handful of convenience functions.

Apple actually supports multiple frameworks & APIs, including AudioUnit & OpenAL.
Core Audio is actually based on OpenAL.


text:
USB mouse/ trackpad not letting gestures. Content Caching, Touch Display
I have in Sharing on My MacBook Pro... Content Caching - Share internet connection. Share this computer internet connection and cached content with iOS devices using USB.
I see on my iPhone under Touch Display - Unlock iPhone to allow USB accessories connect when it has been more than an hour since your iPhone was locked.
My trackpad stopped working a while back and now I have this Logitech that I found around in the house. I have seen on here that Logitech can be used for several computer monitors. So is it possible that I can go on a different computer with my USB mouse and access my MacBook Pro?

Why can't you just connect the Logitech mouse to your MacBook directly?

It is directly connected, because my settings are forcing me to keep it connected if I want to use my computer. That is why I question.


text:
Recover obscured pixels
If I screenshot something on my phone and scribble out the text:

Is it possible to get the text back?
Are there computer programs that can analyse that jpg to see what’s under the scribble.

Can't write answer now but all info is here https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/13/ios-markup-reveal-redact-sensitive-info/

I'm one of those PITA people who never takes a chance. I REMOVE any text I want redacted, screencap it and then fill the empty box with black, That way there is nothing to recover. Sure it is not likely that your friends have NSA level image recovery tools, but it is so easy to leave nothing to analyze.

This has been covered a couple of times on Security SE & the answer is basically "it depends on how you obscured it" - https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/184099/secure-way-of-masking-out-sensitive-information-in-screenshots/184100#184100

@tetsujin it is obscured with the screenshot annotation pen tool

If you are scribbling the text while still editing the screenshot, you can press the undo button to restore the original image, press the Done button and select Save to Photos.
If you have saved the screenshot to Photos after scribbling the text, there is no way to revert the image and restore the original one.


text:
Change video dimensions iPhone
On my macOS laptop I change video dimensions easily using ffmpeg, normally something like
ffmpeg -i vid.mp4 -vf “scale=iw/2:ih/2” our.mp4

On the iPhone I can’t find out how I can resize a video that I recorded.
How do I do that (for free)?
I want to make saved videos smaller (they have already been recorded, I know I can change the recording dimensions in settings)

did you try Video Compressor for iOS on the App Store, it's free and works on iPhone and iPad.

@Buscar웃 I can’t find it.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-compressor/id482465886?mt=8

@Buscar웃 I don’t want to pay for this

ok try this one https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-compress-reduce-movie-size-shrink-video/id1163846234?mt=8


text:
Install ffmpeg on iPhone
Can I use ffmpeg on my iPhone and edit videos in my camera roll with it?

Are you ok with jailbreaking? That's the only way to do it.

If your device is jailbroken, you can install the ffmpeg package:

 ffmpeg
This package is open source on GitHub nin9tyfour/FFmpeg-iOS-build-script which you can use to build a more recent version and manually install it yourself if the version of ffmpeg provided by this package is insufficient for your needs.

You can use the package from the command line using a Terminal.

 NewTerm 2
A terminal emulator package, installable with Cydia.

NewTerm is a continuation of the Mobile Terminal project, a versatile terminal emulator for iOS.

You can also use an SSH app from the App Store, however this requires you to change your SSH port from 22 since iOS prevents localhost access to port 22, so suggestions for apps and instructions are out of scope for this question.

This is the real answer.

Can I do it with Cydia Impactor and skip jailbreaking?

@theonlygusti No, you need to be fully jailbroken to install these.

In a word NO.
FFMPEG is a command line video converter and iOS has no command line. There are plenty of programs that can edit video though, not the least of which is Apple's own iMovie.
A simple search on the iTunes store (the only place you can install software from) for "edit video" will turn up a lot of apps.
(Yes I know all about jailbreaking and what is possible, command lines and alternative applications, etc. But we do not discuss or support people with Jailbreaking issues, there are other places for that)

This website does support jailbreaking. See the jailbreak tag.

ffmpeg is both a command line utility and a software library allowing modification of various media files. As a command line utility you won't find ffmpeg in the App Store, as there's no command line support in iOS.
However parts of ffmpeg are also used as a software library (usually in the form of libavcodec) in a wide range of applications, some on iOS as well. For example VLC on iOS uses it to decode and display media files. My searches did not show up unfortunately any good apps that use either ffmpeg or libav for encoding & editing purposes, but it's likely a few of the video editor apps you'll find will use these software packages as their backend.


text:
Stop autocorrecting certain words
I don’t want autocorrect to correct certain “words”
For example, I want to type “ig” without it changing to “if”
I thought I’d be able to do this by adding an “ig” to “ig” shortcut in the text replacement part of my keyboard settings.
But it still autocorrects it every now and then.
How can I completely stop autocorrect on certain words?

@SteveChambers That is for macOS. This question is tagged with iOS and iPhone.

sorry, my bad, retracted


text:
Creative Cloud login window won't be visible
I'm using El Capitan 10.11.6 and whenever I have to log in into Adobe Creative Cloud the login window stays hidden behind everything else. It wont show even using command+tab, neither clicking the icon on the Dock. I have to quit or hide every other app to reach it.
Is this a known issue? Any insight on how to avoid this problem?

What version of CC? I'm guessing compatibility issue, as El Cap is getting a bit old these days

The CC is the latest Adobe release, it is up to date. My IT technician says High Sierra is not good, so he wont upgrade our systems...


text:
Boost video’s bass
How can I boost the bass of a video?
On my MacBook I’d use ffmpeg
ffmpeg -i in -af bass=g=15 out

But I haven’t found ffmpeg in the App Store for my phone.
iMovie on iPhone seems next to useless.
So, how can I change the audio EQ of videos on my phone?
I tried some online site but it errors every time so it’s probably broken, another site wants me to sign up which I don’t want to do. I couldn’t find an app for this myself, and the only way to get ffmpeg is apparently by jailbreaking but there’s no jailbreak for iOS 11.4.1 yet.

There is a media player for iOS based on FFmpeg 4.0. I know nothing about it but found it on a google search. You can check this out if you like. https://github.com/DeviLeo/DLGPlayer

There are also several sites that describe building ffmpeg for ios. I searched on "ffmpeg ios" using google.


text:
How do I get the Shortcuts app in iOS 12?
I recently upgraded my iPhone 5s and iPad mini 4 to iOS 12. I came across Shortcuts app for iOS 12 in this review article.
I think Shortcuts app is pretty interesting and would like to give it a try. However, I was not able to find the app on my iPhone and iPad. I thought it will come installed as part of iOS 12 like Stocks and Tips apps.
In the App Store app, I can see all the other apps published by Apple, but Shortcuts app was not in the list. Even searching for Shortcuts on the App Store doesn't show the app.
How can I get the app? Is it available for my iPhone and iPad, or are they too old to run the app?

Shortcuts app is available for all the devices running iOS 12. You can use this App Store link to access the app.
Open this answer directly on your iPhone/iPad and tap on the link above to directly open the App Store page of the Shortcuts app and download it. Alternatively, open the link in Safari for macOS and AirDrop it to your iPhone/iPad. This will directly open the App Store page for the app where can download it.
Your devices aren't too old to run the app. There is no special device capabilities required for running the app. The app is supported on all the devices capable of running iOS 12. (For iPhones that goes as far back as iPhone 5s.)
Shortcuts used to be a 3rd party app called Workflow before Apple acquired the app and hired the development team. You can learn more about the app here.
Apple has shared a pretty in-depth user guide explaining how to use this big step forward for iOS - the features are baked deeply into iOS and 3rd party developers can write extensions that let shortcuts and Siri reach into those apps and do work and automation.

Shortcuts User Guide

Awesome! Thanks I was able to get the app that way. Really nifty way to get the app on iOS device. I think Shortcuts app should come bundled as a part of iOS 12. Thanks again.

@Madhu I’ve explained how this was a third party app that Apple bought out the entire company - offered jobs to the developer and most importantly - gave a like to Federico Viticci’s web site where he and some amazing people write how to use this app.


text:
How to set multiple-author metadata for an item in iBooks?
While I can edit books' author metadata in the list view, I can’t seem to be finding a way to set multiple authors for a single title. Is there any way to do this, so that I can have, let's say, two separate author entities for a book?
defaults read ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/Books.plist

...,
{
      BKAllocatedSize = 131072;
      BKDisplayName = "An Introduction To Software Architecture";
      BKGeneratedItemId = 409BAEEB1FD9D2272D63E97BFB7CDEBD;
      BKGenerationCount = 3;
      BKInsertionDate = 558100869;
      BKIsLocked = 0;
      artistName = "David Garlan, Mary Shaw";
      explicit = 0;
      isPreview = 0;
      itemName = "An Introduction To Software Architecture";
      metadataMigrationVersion = 20140106;
      modificationDate = "2000-11-13 17:55:48 +0000";
      pageCount = 42;
      path = "/Users/Sepehr/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/An Introduction To Software Architecture.pdf";
      releaseDate = "2000-11-13 12:55:48 +0000";
      sourcePath = "/Users/Sepehr/Books/An Introduction To Software Architecture.pdf";
      updateDate = "2000-11-13 17:55:48 +0000";
      versionNumber = 0;
},
...

How can I get more than one author added in the metadata for an iBooks document?

Kindly edit the question to clearly specify your query.

I don’t get the close votes. This is pretty clearly asking about how to edit the filesystem metadata for files that the books reader will use. Please flag this for reopening if it somehow gets closed and an edit to explain your OS requirements doesn’t get it reopened.

If I understand your question correctly you are struggling with defining several authors for an iBook. Yet your code example shows only a read command and properties with several authors included. What have you tried to define several authors?

I'm sorry for not being clear enough. That's exactly what I want to do; multiple authors for a book. So that I can have those authors as separate authors in the Authors tab. I tried different formattings, using semicolons, commas, etc. But it seems to be updating that artistName key as just a string. Also tried updating ePub files using Calibre to no avail.

So you basically want several artistName entries in the metadata structure? Not sure this is even possible (keys must be unique), do you have an example of an iBook where it is defined as such?

And: in the example given there are multiple authors. Is this not what you want? The question would benefit a lot if you could include (in the question, not in a comment) an example of what you want to see at the end.

All this metadata exists on the filesystem, so you could use the xattr command line to change pretty much anything, but I find the documentation and syntax to be very challenging to get and use.
I would start by trying xattred editor and perhaps the easier tools SearchKey / SearchKeyLight

https://eclecticlight.co/downloads/

The author has a very superb blog explaining why the app was made in the first time and how to use it as well if you don’t get the buttons or features. Think of all these metadata as a key value store. You just name the attribute (like modification date) and then set a value (today’s date or whatever). Same for page count and in your case, the author metadata string type.
Since you are reading the overall catalog, I would focus on changing the metadata in each book one by one (perhaps working on a throwaway ebook or duplicate copy of a book if you don’t have a good backup and restore procedure for the books you store in iCloud).

To give you an update, there's this com.apple.iBooks.author#S xattr attribute on iBooks epub/pdf files which is of type String. I don't think I can change to something like a multivalue key, or to create a duplicate key. I also tried the app you suggested, no way there as well. It only allows you to edit the string content of the key as string.

And trying to set a duplicate attr, obviously overwrites the previous value. xattr -w "com.apple.iBooks.author#S" "Another author here" "Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.epub".


text:
Upgrade to install iOS 12 on iPhone 8
I recently bought an iPhone 8. Today a badge appeared on the Settings app. Opening the app lead me to Software Update.
My iPhone is showing an update available for iOS 12.
I have some chat data in WhatsApp and Messages which is important. Also have some important photos. I don't want to lose all this data. What measures can I take to ensure data safety?

It is recommended to upgrade your iPhone 8 to iOS 12. iOS 12 is a free, major software update available for all eligible iOS devices. A major iOS software update named with an incremented version number is released by Apple every year. iOS 12 was released this year on 17 September 2018.
An iOS update helps you get more out of your device that you already own via free software update. iOS 12 is also touted by Apple to be a evolutionary update with a focus on performance. Thus, it is recommended to upgrade your iPhone 8 to iOS 12.
It is obvious to be concerned about safety of your data. To ensure that you don't lose access to your data, it is recommended to have a full backup of your device. If you use a Mac or a Windows computer, you can use iTunes to perform a full backup of your iPhone. In case you don't have a computer, you can also choose to backup your iPhone to iCloud over-the-air. Do note that the basic (free) tier of iCloud provides 5 GB of storage space.
To enable iCloud Backup, on your iPhone go to Settings app → Your name on top →  iCloud → iCloud Backup and turn it on.
Messages exchanges via Messages app are backed up to iCloud as well. WhatsApp has an in-app mechanism to take chat backup which you can use. (Behind the scenes, WhatsApp also uses iCloud storage for backup).
Last, to ensure safety of your photos, you can enable iCloud Photos in Settings app → Your name on top →  iCloud → Photos and turn on iCloud Photos.
Don't forget to make sure you have enough iCloud storage to enable all the aforementioned data backup. You can buy additional storage by choosing the desired monthly plan.
Note that apart from an yearly major update, a bunch of minor updates are also released by Apple frequently. iOS 12 has introduced the ability to turn on automatic updates which you can use. To turn on automatic updates, after installing iOS 12, go to Settings app → General → Software Update and turn on Automatic Updates.
It is a safe practise to have all the data backed up before upgrading iOS. The way the process is designed, OS upgrade doesn't affect user data or any installed apps on your iPhone and is generally safe to do so. Only recommendation is to keep the device battery charged/plugged in to a power source to ensure that the device doesn't run out of battery while update is in progress.

I personally would hold until they fix this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52390368/array-state-will-be-cached-in-ios-12-safari-is-it-a-bug-or-feature which could break a website somewhere. I don't know if a patch was released to fix this or not, but doesn't seem like it.

Also note that if you backup to iTunes you need to encrypt the backup [don't forget the password or it's gone forever!] in order for it to also backup personal info & keychain passwords. Unencrypted backups contain no 'sensitive' data so if you use one to restore, your passwords [for everything] will need to be re-input one at a time.


text:
rEFInd - can boot to Mac Recovery or Ubuntu, but shuts down after loading bar for MacOS
I have rEFInd installed on my 2015 rMBP - I can access the boot menu for rEFInd (although sometimes this doesn't appear / runs very slowly), and all the right options are there, but when I select MacOS it shows the Apple logo / loading bar, but turns off once the loading bar has completed.
I can (sometimes) get to the Apple Recovery OS, where everything works as it should but I can't work out how to get back to the point where I can boot into MacOS. If necessary, I don't mind completely removing the Ubuntu partition but I would prefer not to have to restore / reformat the MacOS partition as there are important files I haven't backed up.

Just to add, I've tried all the recommended key-combos at startup (Recovery, Internet Recovery, Safe Mode, Resetting NVRAM)

Why are you using rEFInd? The current version of Ubuntu does not require rEFInd. You can select Ubuntu from the Startup Manager. Perhaps you have other operating systems installed? Also, is macOS installed to a JHFS+, Core Storage or APFS partition?


text:
Stop password characters from being shown
When I type in a password in iOS 11.4.1, the last entered character is shown only for a split second.
For security reasons, I do not want the characters to get echoed. How do I disable this split second preview and show only the dots instead?

Short answer, it is not possible to do so.
This functionality is built into iOS and it is by design. Showing a character for split second lets the user visually verify that correct character is entered.
If you are concerned about someone watching over your shoulder, consider using a password manager. Apple's iCloud keychain can store and enter passwords for you. If you upgrade to iOS 12, built-in support for 3rd party password managers in included in iOS. You get an option to enter password via it in the keyboard toolbar area. When entering password using password manager, no character is echoed and only dots are shown.
While it is also possible to use password manager in iOS 11.4.1, you'll have to resort to manually copying and pasting the password where the characters aren't echoed.
Password Autofill in iOS 12 now works with 1Password, Dashlane, and LastPass

Auto-filling login details by 3rd party managers works with Safari in iOS 11.x as well

Apple are retarded. I know that all my friends and I watch only he keyboard when entering passwords, how is a split-second preview in the password field useful to anyone except attackers

@theonlygusti Why Apple chose to do something or not is not something that can be commented on. If you have a concern, consider sharing feedback with Apple or better file it as a bug report.


text:
Export video to Live Photo
So everywhere I see how to convert a Live Photo into a video or a gif, but how do you save a video as a Live Photo?
The goal here is to take a video and make a Live Photo for use on iOS lock screen.

intoLive - Live Wallpapers app is the app you are looking for.
It takes a video and exports it to Live Photo which can be set as video wallpaper on supported devices.

Doesn’t this cost money? Also, if there a way to just do it with like Adobe Premiere or something?


text:
Tranferring Photo Library from iPhone to iPhone
I am planning to buy a new iPhone and I was wondering how to transfer my entire Photo Library from the old iPhone to the new one, keeping the same folder organization and without losing photos' metadata (e.g., creation date, GPS location, etc.).
I don't want to do it via iCloud (as I don't have enough space available), so is there another (free) way to perform this action?

How do you currently back up your photos? How many photos do you have?

I have around 1000 photos. I backup my Phone through iTunes (and I regularly download my photos on my MacBookPro Photo app).

If there are already in the Photos app on the MBP can't you just sync them to the new phone from there?

If I'm not wrong, I think that transferring photos from the MBP to the iPhone will create a separate (and independent) folder in the iPhone photo gallery. On the other hand, I'd like to have the old photos to be in the same folder of the new photos that I'll take with my new iPhone.


text:
Accidentally erased APFS partition while resizing Windows Bootcamp disk
This is my first post here. I recently wanted to add some more space to my windows' partition so I shrunk Mac HD by 60GB and rebooted.
I then used windows to join the unallocated space with its partition but something went wrong! I restarted the system and noticed that the Boot Manager was no longer able to find Mac HD, which makes me think the partition table has been accidentally overwitten.
Mac HD is running Mojave, APFS while Win HD is running Windows 10, NTFS.
So I tried to boot in recovery mode (Online version since it can no longer boot from the old recovery partition) and diskutil was showing 840GB of unallocated space (Mac HD).
I'm pretty sure the data is still there, can you help me restore the table?

how did you shrunk

I used disk utility

I have the exact same problem – how did you access you data? Or did you manage to rebuild the APFS container to run again?

I restored the APFS container copying the exact same container ID from one of my friend's computer with my same configuration. That turns out to be very dangerous but if you do it carefully you can get your data back as I did.


text:
How do I add a label to identical cards in Wallet?
I have 2 identical transit cards in my Apple wallet. One is for personal use. The other for business use.
Unfortunately, other than the position in the stack and the amount of money on the card there is no way to tell which card is which.
It seems like there has to be some way to add a label to the cards, ideally at the top so I can know which one to select.
How can one add a label to cards in Apple wallet?

This doesn't appear to be possible at present. (See Apple discussions 8208759 and 8126880.)
As you point out, the only currently available options seem to be sorting your cards in an order you can remember or relying on details like a card balance or the last four digits of a card number.
On the other hand, if it's important enough to warrant the trouble (not to mention the awkwardness), you could perhaps create your own dummy cards and use them as labels, naming each for a card you want to identify and sorting it above the card it refers to.
You can request a feature at https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html.


text:
What happens to questions on the Apple Support Communities website when you delete an Apple ID?
What happens to the questions and answers on the official Apple Support Communities website when you delete their associated Apple ID?
Are these deleted, remain as-is, have their username anonymized, or something else?

did you check your self ?

The Apple ID has not yet been deleted.


text:
Mojave App Store Only Shows "Updates" Tab
I'm having trouble with the App Store since installing Mojave. The issue seems to have been addressed here, but since I'm new to this site, it won't allow to post there with follow-up questions. I'm not sure how to find/fix the "CFBundleVersion" issue described in that article. Furthermore, when I click Apple > App Store, it opens the current (broken) version, not an older version of the App Store. Any advice for someone who's a novice? Thank you!

let me give you some points so you can ask follow up questions.

Never mind, just figured out an easier way to resolve this:

Spotlight > System Information.
In the lefthand column, locate Software > Applications.
Find "App Store" in the list. If there are two versions, click the older one and identify its location.
Navigate to that location in Finder and confirm (via right click > Get Info) that it's the older version. Delete it.

Voila!

Thank f**k if i could upvote more than once i would, thank you! ❤

I still have the same problem. I cannot delete the previous version and if I try to drag it to the trash it says "App Store cannot be modified or deleted as it's required by macOS" The old version is in the previous content folder. Any ideas?


text:
How to switch to the latest active desktop, is there a hotkey?
I've a little of a search but haven't found anything.
Is there a way to switch to the latest active desktop? Or should I create a special hotkey for that?

that would be the previous used ?

@Buscar웃 yes...........


text:
Shared printing is no longer working
I run a Mac mini as a server in a small company. With macOS Server. Also a print server with a few shared printers.
This is the error message in the CUPS log:
Unable to encrypt connection, internal error

Yesterday the macserver.local self signed certificate expired. So I renewed it. Restarted the Mac. Still the same error.
What I tried:

Restarting CUPS
Turning off Sharing Printers (in system preferences > sharing)
Changed trust settings of certificate in Keychain to Always
Removed shared printer and re-add it again
Everything suggested here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7610729 (excluding reinstalling macOS)

Still the same error. What is the solution for this problem?
If there is additional information required please let me know.
Cups error log:
E [11/Oct/2018:19:57:26 +0200] [Client 16] Unable to encrypt connection: Internal error

cupsd (security) in console:
CSSM Exception: -2147409622 CSSMERR_TP_NOT_TRUSTED

Unlikely, but an idea - is the date & time set correctly on both server and client?

@Ashley yes date and time is correct

I believe this thread could be of benefit to you.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7610729
This sounds like an access/trust issue to the certificate.
You can try changing the trust setting on the certificate within Keychain>Doubble Click on certificate>Trust>Always Trust
If not, the CUPS logs could be beneficial to narrow down the issue

I updated my question, I already tried every thing in the thread you provided (except reinstalling).

@pjc90 Within your Keychain Acess, do you have any old keychains - on the left under 'Keychains' - that are not in use? If so, try delete those.

@pjc90 Furthermore, do any of your certificates have a blue dot on the bottom right with a white '+' inside? This could mean that you have a duplicate copy of this certificate within one of your other keychains that is overriding the trust settings. Any certificate that has that specific dot, can you try setting that to "Use System Default"

I deleted all old keychain items. No blue dot on the bottom right