text:
How do I get event invites as calendar app notifications
My wife has an iCloud account and we use calendar events to highlight family staying over or working from home days, medical appointments etc.
I have an iCloud account. My wife invites me to an event she creates and I receive an email. I would expect this to come directly in the calendar app inbox.
Currently I have to open email click 'accept' which opens an iCloud url  and I have to accept again for wife to see I have accepted. I then have to go back to email and open the attached .ics file and choose add to calendar for it to appear in my calendar.
My wife and I agreed to use an alias for iCloud email as the invitee address in this scenario I never receive emails of notifications.
I've contacted apple support and have a case number but at this point no solution. I'm appealing to the masses for help.
Thanks
P.s both using iOS 12 on iPhone 8+ and iPhone 8. Also have iPad Pro 1st Gen also on iOS 12.

who's calendar are you using ? Google ?

We are both iCloud/iOS only

We can both create events and send them to each other. We get emails. But we don't get calendar.app notifications and invitation does not appear in the app's inbox. As I said above the work to accept the meeting and to ensure it's a) in my calendar and b) wife can see I have accepted it in her calendar is quite frankly ludicrous.

There may be an issue with the actual calendars that you are displaying, and the default calendars associated with each device?
I would check 2 things.
First, the default calendar on your iOS device. Settings -> Calendar -> default Calendar (ensure it is iCloud)
Second, ensure that the calendar you are seeing in Calendar is your iCloud. In Calendar, tap “Calendars” at the bottom, and ensure iCloud is checked off
Now when you create events, they should default to your iCloud account, and you should be able to add invitees and see their RSVP status
Hope this helps!


text:
disable screensaver
I stop my computer from sleeping by going into System Preferences > Energy Saver > Power Adapter and sliding "Turn display off after:" to 'Never'.

But after a long time the mac screensaver turns on and I have to type my password to get back into the computer.
How do I stop that from happening?
I want my computer to forever stay as I left it, and not start screensavers or log me out or anything.

The only solution I have found is to use an app like Caffeine or Amphetamine to keep the machine awake "forever."

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences…, then click Desktop & Screen Saver. Click the Screen Saver tab. Then set Start after: to: Never

If the option is grayed out:

The system administrator has set the screensaver timeout. You can't change it without removing the profile, which will probably cause you to lose network access.

(Source)

Go to: System Preferences > Desktop/Screensaver then on the bottom left click "Start after....' and change it to 'Never'

What to do if the Start after button is greyed out and don't do anything on clicking.

That's a very good question. If there's not a simple explanation here, that might make a great stand alone question if you want to ask it @user318572

You can turn off the password requirement to quit the screensaver in System Preferences > Security > General.
Then your Mac will wake from sleep/screensaver with just a nudge of the mouse/touchpad, or a keypress.
Bear in mind that without this password protection, anyone can access your MacBook when it is unattended, or if they steal it.  The password requirement does not log you out: it just locks the screen.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Unable to resize main HD after deleting Bootcamp Partition
[Note:This question is dissimilar to the other ones like this since my Bootcamp partition does not show up on listing the drives in terminal.]
I added my bootcamp partition to parrallels desktop. I removed the VM and opted to keep the files.
Naively, I ran the following commands.
diskutil list
diskutil eraseVolume jhfs+ BC1 disk0s3
diskutil eraseVolume fat32 BOOTCAMP disk0s3

I then set out to restore my HD using Boot Camp Assistant. It said that there was an error so I ran First Aid on my completely empty Bootcamp partition. After clicking done to continue,the partition VANISHED.
So I was left with 100 gb space missing. Here is my output when I list all the drives:
 #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         150.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +150.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            95.7 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 56.0 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                512.4 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

Also the following command ,
 diskutil cs list

..returns the following:
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

But on the Apple forums, I saw that they should return output.
Also I was repeatedly getting this error in any attempt I made in restoring my drives.Something to do with my "object map".
error: btn: invalid btn_btree.bt_key_count (expected 152418, actual 152419)

Is there a way I could perhaps make another partition taking up the remaining space and merge it with my main HD?
Any help would be appreciated!!
Edit: After executing the command
sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

....this is what I got back:
Started APFS operation
Aligning grow delta to 100,684,705,792 bytes and targeting a new physical store size of 250,685,575,168 bytes
Determined the maximum size for the targeted physical store of this APFS Container to be 250,684,547,072 bytes
Resizing APFS Container designated by APFS Container Reference disk1
The specific APFS Physical Store being resized is disk0s2
Verifying storage system
Using live mode
Performing fsck_apfs -n -x -l -S /dev/disk0s2
Checking the container superblock
Checking the EFI jumpstart record
Checking the space manager
Checking the space manager free queue trees
Checking the object map
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume Macintosh HD was formatted by hfs_convert (748.1.47) and last modified by apfs_kext (945.200.129)

This did not work, but I can remember reformatting the Boot Camp partition to Mac OS Journaled before I sought to restore the drive.
Edit :
It was something wrong with the B tree node (no idea what that is)!??
So I went into self mode by Cmd-S when restarting.
Then type in the commands:
/sbin/fsck -fy

In my case it pointed out what went wrong and then I typed in YES.
So there where a bunch of y's being printed on the screen.I am assuming it was doing some check of some sort.It ran for well over an hour.I press the power button (dont reccomend doing so,but then again it worked for me) and restarted into Mojave.
And voila I removed the "Free space " using disk utlity and it worked like a charm!

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

@DavidAnderson I executed the command but unfortunately it did not work.

Do I have some data that is unaccounted for because I keep getting this error:

error: btn: invalid btn_btree.bt_key_count (expected 152418, actual 152419)
Object Map Invalid

The command I posted in my original comment is correct. The problems you are having would appear to have nothing to do with deleting the Boot Camp partition. Your APFS partition may have been already corrupted and you are finding this out just now. I do not know how to fix your present problem.

Ah my bad.I edited what went wrong into the question

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


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How to connect iPhone to USB Type-C Portable Monitor?
I'm trying to figure out a way to connect iPhone 5 (lightning) to ASUS MB16AC portable monitor with USB type-C input as only connector that at the same time serves as power supply. Thought about some scenarios. Could you check if any of these can work or provide some tips that could send me the right direction?
Thanx in advance

AV adapter lightning to HDMI > HDMI cable to USB-C with power supply
Problem is that the HDMI cable would have to send signal from HDMI to USB-C. Most of cables on market work the other way round. I'm not sure if it's possible to DIY such a cable? see connection diagram
Lightning > USB-C cable
I recon this can't work without a dedicated app on iPhone that would send video and power over the cable towards the monitor.
How difficult would it be to write such an app?

I don't think it's possible. The lightning AV adapter creates an Airplay display, which won't work properly over USB-C.
More here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251990738 and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/mqhwez/comment/gvt4eob.

The ASUS MB16AC portable monitor accepts either DisplayLink or DisplayPort input.  This means you have to get a DisplayPort signal out of the iPhone or the DisplayLink drivers into the iPhone and use the appropriate USB adapter on the iPhone.  As I write this I believe there are not any drivers for DisplayLink video adapters or displays.
The Lightning port on iPhones does not provide a video signal like how USB-C ports would normally do, it relies on the adapter to do the heavy lifting.  An iPhone with an HDMI or VGA adapter would be told by the adapter to provide a compressed video signal to the adapter, then that adapter decompresses the signal and converts that into HDMI or VGA.  It is certainly possible to find a conversion device that will turn the HDMI signal into DisplayPort, but that doesn’t sound like it would be necessarily helpful.  A conversion device kind of destroys the portability of the display.  It is also possible for someone to build an adapter that can take the video signal that an iPhone produces and turn that into DisplayPort, that would seem actually quite trivial since it has been done with HDMI and VGA, but I have not seen such a product on the market.
Buyer beware with DisplayPort/HDMI adapters as many of them rely on “dual mode” ports to function.  These adapters work with DisplayPort outputs going into HDMI mode for backward compatibility, the port is producing the HDMI signal and the cable or adapter is just wires (maybe a signal booster or amplifier) meaning no actual conversion is done outside the source device.  I see nothing to indicate the display supports “dual mode” so it is unlikely that it has any kind of HDMI backward compatibility.
A Lightning to USB-C cable will not work in connecting to this display because, again, the iPhone doesn’t produce a video signal all on it’s own.  Also, the cable is built in such a way to put the iPhone into USB B-mode (or device mode, as opposed to A-mode or host mode) and the USB-C end of the cable tells what it is connected to it to go into USB A-mode.  The Lightning to USB-C cable is a USB A-to-B cable but with different mechanical fittings, it lacks the wires and electronics to pass a video signal.  The cable lacks the ability to function for anything but USB and power.
It would be unlikely to find a Lightning to USB-C cable capable of DisplayPort or DisplayLink because it would be too easily confused with a cable for charging and USB data.  Apple and the USB-IF group have requirements on cable design and such a cable would almost certainly violate one, the other, or both specifications.
What could happen is a Lightning to DisplayPort cable or adapter and that could be connected to a DisplayPort to USB-C cable or adapter.  It seems silly to have to do that from first sight but by digging into the specs it makes a bit more sense.  The idea is to maintain user expectations on what a cable looks like and what it does, fail to maintain that consistency and USB-C becomes even more confusing.  USB-C is confusing enough as it is.


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How can I see which filetypes a given application can open?
I have an app, it's refusing to open a file with a certain file extension. How do I check which file extensions it will open?

I think the go-to app is still RCDefaultApp (freeware). Hasn't been updated since 2009... still works in Mojave.
It can list & optionally reassign any app, UTI, extension etc.


text:
AirPrint stopped working after upgrade to iOS 12.0
I cannot print from Notes on my iPhone 6s+ since updating my phone to iOS 12.0 and I get the following error: No AirPrint Printers Found. My bonjour printer settings have not changed, and my router settings have not changed. I have tried 2 printers so far: a Canon MX512 and a Canon MX452. I actually noticed the MX512 stopped working a few months back, although Airprint was definitely still working with my MX452 until the most recent update. Both printers work fine with my laptop. What could be the cause/how can I fix this?

Have you tried updating the firmware on your printers?  I have an Epson inkjet and  I had to run their utility to do the update, now I can see it on my iPhone X.  Also, you might try running the network setup on the printers again, see if that helps.

I have had the same issue.  The only way, temporary at best, I could see the printer from my iOS device was to change the Bonjour name of the printer from the local network site for the printer.  Works once, and then same issue recurs, though.

With several versions of iOS 12 out, if you still have this issue with updating your iOS, it’s clear you’ll need to get into troubleshooting your network or contact the vendor of your printer.
AirPrint still works on iOS 12 and if there were widespread issues, we would have a whole lot more questions here about it.
Also, have you wiped your iPhone and restored it as new (or done an erase all content and settings) and then tested AirPrint without loading your backup? It could just be an issue with your installation of iOS and not that the printer is not going to work with iOS 12.


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Automatically answer phone call on iPhone
Is it possible to set up my iPhone to automatically answer phone call for me?
I work in an environment where I constantly receive a number of incoming phone calls. To make it physically less straining, I use my iPhone connected with my EarPods. It's a hassle to pick up the iPhone and slide on screen, or to reach out to press the button near microphone of my EarPods to answer the call.
I would also like to have a mechanism to configure the duration of time my iPhone rings before the call is automatically answered.
I generally answer every call that I receive, irrespective of the caller. However, it would be nice to have the ability to know the name of the caller if the caller is a contact saved in my phonebook.
I am using an iPhone 8 running iOS 12.0.1.

Is it possible to set up my iPhone to automatically answer phone call for me?

Yes, there is a built-in accessibility setting that you can use for exactly this task.
On your iPhone, in Settings app, navigate to General → Accessibility → Call Audio Routing (Last item under Interaction section) → Auto-Answer Calls. Tap on the switch shown against Auto-Answer Calls to enable it. (The setting is turned off by default)

Once enabled, you'll get the option to configure the duration of time to wait before a call is automatically answered. You can set any time interval from 0.0 seconds to 60.0 seconds in steps of 1.0 second.

I generally answer every call that I receive, irrespective of the caller. However, it would be nice to have the ability to know the name of the caller if the caller is a contact saved in my phonebook.

To hear the caller name announcement, you can use another built-in setting. Go to Settings app and navigate to Phone → Announce Calls (Under Calls section) and select one of the available options s desired.


text:
How to harden user/login password?
In High Sierra or Mojave, is it possible to harden our login password so that the hash is more difficult to crack? I'm not a crypto person, but can we increase the iterations, transforms, hashing algo strenth or something... to make the CPU work harder when using sudo and such? I know Debian/Ubuntu distros are capable of such hardening and keepass has a similar feature. Is it possible in macOS?

Longer passwords make them harder to crack.

This is more of a MacOS config question than a security question.

Is your intent to modify the operating system or just program your apps to salt and iterate more slowly?

On MacOS you can use PBKD2 (Password Based Key Derivation 2) to create secure password verifiers. This is an accepted method by NIST. Supply a random salt (you can save it with the hashed password) and an iteration count such the the derivation takes around 100ms.
When saving a password verifier just using a hash function is not sufficient and just adding a salt does little to improve the security. Instead iterate over an HMAC with a random salt for about a 100ms duration and save the salt with the hash. Better yet use a function such as PBKDF2, Rfc2898DeriveBytes, Argon2, password_hash, Bcrypt or similar functions. The point is to make the attacker spend substantial time finding passwords by brute force.
See NIST Digital Identity Guidelines
See this How to use CommonCrypto for PBKDF2 in Swift 2 & 3
 or example code.


text:
Mouse cursor moves to left edge of screen with no input
I can surfing and the mouse cursor will abruptly move to the far left of the leftmost screen.  This can happen even if my hand is not on the mouse.
The mouse will also turn off at random intervals, requiring that I unplug and replug it in. (Mouse is a standard microsoft usb corded optical mouse with scroll wheel)
Both problems are happening more frequently, the mouse jump several times an hour, the power off several times a day.
Hardware Mac Pro 2012;
Yosemite current.
In my search I've found other people who have this problem, but so far have not found one that either explains it or provides a solution.

Sometimes optical mice will make the cursor jump around if you lift the mouse from the surface it is on, or twist it so that one side comes up a bit. Try using a dark mousepad to reduce this or make sure you're keeping the mouse flat.

Try another mouse.

Ok.  Found old mouse.  Will report back.  Why would orginal mouse do this?


text:
keyboard shortcut to position tab
How can I set up keyboard shortcuts to put a tab into a position?
⌘1 for example selects the first tab, can I make a keyboard shortcut like ⌘⌥1 to make my current tab the first tab in the tab bar?

If you are using Chrome, the Rearrange Tabs extension works perfectly.

For Safari, you can setup an Automator service to run this Applescript and bind it to a key combination:
tell application "Safari"
    activate
    tell front window
        move current tab to before first tab
        -- for some reason it just creates a new tab with the same URL,
        -- so we need to do this:
        close current tab
        set current tab to tab 1
    end tell
end tell

To set up an Automator service and assign a keyboard shortcut to it:
Edit: On macOS Mojave in Automator, services might be named "Quick Action" or "Contextual Workflow".

Open Automator and choose "New Document"
Select service as the type of document
At the top, set it to "Sevice receives no input in Safari" like this:

Search for and drag in a "Run Applescript" action
Replace the (* Your script goes here *) text with the code from earlier
Test the script to make sure it works with the Run button
Save the service with whatever name you want
Close Automator and now go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services
Find the service that you just created(it should be in the "General" section) and use the "Add Shortcut" button to add a keyboard shortcut for it.

Now you should be able to use the keyboard shortcut.

Here's a GIF of it in action:

Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent the reloading of the tab when moving it. It is impossible to get the same effect as actually dragging the tab to move it.

This makes the tab refresh

macOS 10.14, Safari 12.0

I also can't choose "service" as the document type. I have 4 tabs open, didn't use a keyboard shortcut, just ran it from Script Editor to test.

I can't create a service in Automator.

What are the options it shows then?

Workflow, Application, Quick Action, Print Plugin, Folder Action, Calendar Alarm, Image Capture Plugin, Dictation Command

Odd: I see this(service is right next to application). Try scrolling down a bit?

Lol, even in your example gif, the tab refreshes

Yeah, but the tab still moves. You want it to literally move and not create a new tab with same website?

exactly. I want to simulate dragging+dropping the tab

Oh. I've searched everywhere for this, couldn't find anything. Nothing in the documentation/dictionaries either. Looks like this is the closest thing you can get to moving tabs with keyboard shortcuts unfortunately.

@theonlygusti If you are fine with using Chrome, I edited my answer to include a Chrome extension.


text:
Macbook Air: shutdown on 50% battery
Target machine: MacBook Air, 13-inch, early 2014, MacOS Sierra 10.12.6, used for 4 years very carefully without any problems.
Battery has only 70 cycles, condition reported as "Normal", and still works good on long flights.
However, yesterday I faced a problem, when the battery was about 50%, system just performed hard shutdown. I tried to turn it on twice, it kept shutting down after 2-3 seconds after the system boot. After plugging in power it works without any problems.
I doubt if I can reproduce the problem, it means I should work from the battery in the moment of shutdown (and lose work results)
Does anyone met the problem? How to detect the reason, is it hardware or software, or just system settings (I believe, it should be warning and regular shut down, never drained the battery before)?

when was it last time you did reset the SMC (that is responsible for battery control). Also take deeper look in to battery condition in About this Mac.

it can be tricky to do, so watch the magsafe light must flicker to know you did it right.

Did both SMC and PRAM reset. I think it's really time to change the battery

Judging from the symptoms I highly suspect it's an issue with the battery. I recently had my late 2013 Macbook Retina serviced because it experienced exactly the same issue: Immediate shutdown when the battery was drained to 60%. It would instantly turn back on if connected to power. My battery was 5 years old and had about 240 cycles. The apple engineer told me that the battery needs to be replaced because it was so old and coulndn't hold a charge.
What does the System Information (Click on Apple Logo while holding down option to access it) report about your battery?

Can you check what coconut battery reports about the remaining actual charge? It would be really interesting to see what the actual fully charged capacity of your battery is and the designed capacity. If it's less than 80% of the designed capacity when the battery is fully charged then I would recommend replacing the battery regardless of its cycle count.

Yeah, you are right, 78% of designed capacity

Only 70 cycles in 4 Years.
I bet you leave your system plugged in most of the time.
What is happening here is SMC thinks the power level is below the set threshold so it needs to power down the system into deep sleep mode. So how to fix?
It's quite simple you need to do a SMC reset and cycle the battery a few times by fully discharging it and recharging it. That way the setpoint is memorized correctly.
Some examples .. this is old battery ... needs replacement. Notice the Fully Charged Capacity has dropped from new at ~8000 to old at ~2600.

I tried to calibrate the battery in my MacBook along with the help of battery status apps like Coconut Battery Mac app. The tip is reset SMC and to charge your MacBook fully to 100% and leave it for a few hours at that state.  If you don't then the battery won't calibrate correctly. This guide mentions this. Also you have to do this a few times for the battery to calibrate properly.


text:
Pausing app store updates in Mojave
On my less-than-ideal internet, updates such as XCode take many hours to download, and basic browsing (e.g. stack exchange) slows to a crawl while they're loading. I'd like to be able to pause the download and resume it later.
I know I can cancel downloads by pressing the download ring in the App Store app, but I can't find any way to pause downloads in a way which can be resumed later without re-downloading the whole thing. The internet leads me to believe that this used to be possible by right-clicking the app's icon in the dock and selecting 'pause', but this doesn't appear in Mojave (neither on the app being downloaded nor on the app store itself).
What do I need to do to pause an update?

This answer doesn't work anymore?

@fsb ah, yes; it does. Somehow I missed that in my searches. Thanks.


text:
Connect Yamaha MDBT01 Wireless Bluetooth MIDI Adapter to macOS Mojave
I just bought a Yamaha MDBT01 Wireless Bluetooth MIDI Adapter.
I plug it into my keyboard. It powers on, there is a red light showing on the MIDI adapter, and it briefly flashes green at regular intervals.
I read this guide from Yamaha for connecting to macOS. It says to launch Audio MIDI Studio.app and then navigate to Window > Show MIDI Studio.
Then it says to click the bluetooth button:

Unfortunately I can't find this button in mine, so I don't know how I am meant to add the MIDI Adapter as an input.

I have screenshots but can't upload them to stackexchange

You should be able to upload screenshots while editing your post. If, for whatever reason, this doesn't work for you, make them accessible through Dropbox/imgur/iCloud/whatever and add the links.

The bluetooth button's in the tool bar. Add it from the window that pops up after clicking that.

The Bluetooth button is in the Toolbar not the Title Bar.

MD-BT01 doesn't work with Mojave. Ask me how I know…
Anyway, the problem seems to be with the OS 10.14 Audio MIDI Setup.app. I copied Audio MIDI Setup.app from Utilities in a backup HD I happened to have of OS 10.12 Sierra, pasted it to the Desktop of 10.14.4 and launched it.
And hey, presto! – as soon as I switched on my Roland AX-1 keytar with MDBT01 connected, the Bluetooth icon appeared in the MIDI window. After that I just followed the instructions in the Yamaha guide you refered to and started playing in Live 10. Yay!
So, to the OP: you just need to get hold of Audio MIDI Setup.app from Sierra (or possibly earlier).
Good luck!


text:
iPhone 8: Home button doesn't move inward when pressed, but iPhone makes a click sound
I recently upgraded from an iPhone 5s to iPhone 8.
Whenever I use my iPhone 8, the Home button doesn't move inward when pressed. It sure works, I try a bit hard to press, but it doesn't move inward like it used to on iPhone 5s. Instead I feel a different kind of buzz/vibration in my iPhone.
Is there anything wrong with my iPhone 8? There is no visible physical damage on the device, the iPhone is working absolutely fine, but I am concerned that something may be wrong with my iPhone 8 and the button isn't pressing fully, possibly due to some manufacturing defect.
I bought the iPhone around a month and a half ago and have original warranty, so I can ask Apple to replace the unit.
What should I do?

You need not worry. Since your iPhone is functioning fine, most likely there’s nothing wrong with your iPhone 8.
With the iPhone 7/7 Plus announced in September 2016, Apple introduced a new style of Home button which no longer physically clicks. Similar Home button is built into iPhone 8/8 Plus.
The click that you experience is a form of tactile feedback to let you know that the button press is successfully registered by the iPhone. You need not press it too hard under the assumption that it is damaged and requires a harder press.
You can read more about the new Home button in the Apple support article, How to use the Home button on iPhone 7 and iPhone 8.

The Home button on your iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, or iPhone 8 Plus is unlike the Home button on other iOS devices. Instead of moving inward when you press it, the Home button detects the presence and pressure of your finger. When you press the Home button, you feel a slight click.

What you are experiencing is called Haptic Feedback produced by the built-in Taptic Engine. You can read more about the new Home button in iPhone 7/7 Plus/8/8 Plus in the linked articles:

The iPhone 7's new home button isn't a real button

As well as killing off the headphone jack, Apple has dropped the mechanical home button from the new iPhone 7, replacing it with a static version that's force sensitive. Instead of a button that physically moves, the new home button will use Apple's "taptic engine" to click back at users. Vibrations delivered through the home button will be used as notifications, with unique buzzes for things like text messages and calls.
The new home button, which uses a "taptic engine" to give you physical feedback when you press it — it's pressure sensitive, too, so it can tell if you really mean to press it or just tap it.

Daring Fireball: The iPhones 7

The home button on both iPhones 7 no longer physically clicks. Instead, it’s a force touch sensor, and it uses the improved Taptic Engine to provide simulated click feedback.

Note: The linked articles are mostly talking about iPhone 7 as it was with this iPhone that the new Home button was introduced for the first time. As far as the Home button is concerned, the contents are equally applicable to iPhone 8.
Additionally, this style of Home button is exclusive to iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. It hasn't appeared in any of the iPod touch and iPad models so far. The last released models of iPhone have completely phased out the Home button and have instead started incorporating Face ID for authentication.

Thank you very much :) I was really not aware of this and was worried that there's some kind of defect in my iPhone. Thanks again for the explanation.

Additional pro tip: you can change the feedback intensity in Settings > General > Home Button if you wish!

Incidentally, it's likely the reason for this change was to improve the water resistance of the device. Physical buttons are leaky openings.


text:
uninstall homebrew without uninstalling packages
I want to show someone how to install homebrew.
I want to uninstall homebrew (so that I no longer have a brew command) and then paste the install command into my terminal, and it goes through a normal installation procedure.
But once it's done installing, I should still have all of the packages I've already installed.

Unclear: is this really just for show? Do you want a production machine use for this demo? Isn't rm /usr/local/bin/brew enough?

@LangLangC this is really just for show. idk if that's enough, I'm assuming the brew install script will behave differently if homebrew is already installed


text:
can't see timeline in final cut pro

I was clicking lots of buttons in the toolbar to try to hide things I didn't need (browser, inspector, etc.: I wanted the preview window as large as possible to get more detail in a crop) but the timeline disappeared too.
I thought "great that means the preview window can be even bigger".
But now I can't get the timeline back.
In fact, both the browser and the timeline toolbar buttons are greyed-out:

How do I show the timeline again?

Nevermind, luckily I figured it out almost immediately after asking.
I pressed Command-Control-1 (⌘ctrl1) to show the browser, and for some reason that un-greyed the timeline button, so I clicked the timeline button to show it again.
Then I could even hide the browser again but the timeline stayed visible.


text:
App locker for iPhone
I use an iPhone 6s. I am looking for an app locker. I tried searching on the App Store, found various app locker apps but none of them works.
Is there any method to lock my apps?

Who do you need to lock them from... & why?

The said functionality is neither built into iOS natively (unlike some Android phones), nor is it available via any 3rd party apps.
However, certain apps which deal with sensitive content give you the ability to restrict access partially or totally via Touch ID/Face ID authentication. Common examples include banking, financial data management, password manager apps etc.
Partial restriction entails requiring successful authentication when accessing sensitive parts of an app (such as when authorizing a purchase on the App Store). Total restriction entail requiring successful authentication every time when accessing the app (accessing a password manager app).
Total restriction is very similar functionally to app locker feature offered in some Android devices either natively or via a 3rd party app.
To learn more about Touch ID and Face ID, refer to these links:

Use Touch ID on iPhone and iPad
Use Face ID on your iPhone or iPad Pro

A good number of built-in and 3rd party app support Touch ID/Face ID authentication. You can also search for apps catering to specific required feature (hiding sensitive photos, videos, notes) with support for Touch ID/Face ID authentication to access content.
Look for Touch ID/Face ID support in an app when going through its description or settings. Apple's Notes app for example lets your lock certain notes with Touch ID. 1Password - Password Manager for iOS offers total restriction and asks for authentication every time you try to access the app (very similar to app locker functionality).


text:
Downloading issue with safari
While downloading any file from safari on Macbook Air, If downloading is paused due to any reason like internet access lost..etc, I am imposed to restart the downloading process rather than resuming.
is there any solution?

what is your Safari version, MBA, and OSX

Safari version 12.0(14606.1.36.1.9)

It is sometimes possible to resume downloads in Safari. Click the download icon in the toolbar, and check the color of the "↻" icon. If the icon is gray, just click it to resume the download. However, if the icon is orange, do not click it, as Safari will delete the partially downloaded data and restart the download from scratch.
When Safari cannot resume a download, it is usually possible to resume it with curl instead. I do this so often, I actually made an Automator workflow to expedite the process.
https://github.com/Wowfunhappy/Automator-Quick-Actions/blob/master/Resume%20Download.workflow.zip?raw=true

Extract the zip file
Double click the .workflow and install it.

The next time a Safari download fails in the middle:

Go to the recent download list in Safari. If applicable, click the "x" to fully cancel the download, and then click the magnifying glass to reveal it in Finder. DO NOT click the orange retry ("↻") button; doing so will delete all partially downloaded data.
In Finder, right click on the partially downloaded file and select either Resume Download or Services → Resume Download.
Wait for the percentage in the terminal window to reach 100%. Note that this percentage does not include the part of the file that was downloaded previously, so it will always start at 0. If the download fails again, resume it again by focusing on the terminal window, hitting the up arrow key, and then the enter key.

Not all downloads can be resumed this way—some servers make it technically impossible—but in my experience it usually works.

Hifsa, it is always best to indicate what versions of macOS you have and also what specific model of Mac you have when asking a question here. It is often necessary to have that information to provide a (potential) solution. Both are available under the Apple Menu by selecting "About this Mac."
That said if a download does not complete you can click on the download icon in the Safari Toolbar and get a list of recent downloads. If the download failed for whatever reason there will be a light gray circular icon to the right of the file name that you can click on to resume the download.
It will depend on why the download failed as to whether or not the download will resume or start over. I have seen both behaviors on Macs in a variety of macOS versions with little or no understanding of why some you can pick up where you left off and some require you to start over from scratch.


text:
macOS: which font do I need to install for "Word Separator Middle Dot"
I have this option in my vimrc:
set listchars=tab:>-,trail:¬,extends:>,precedes:<,space:⸱

I use this char: https://unicode-table.com/en/2E31/
for space, word separator.  Though it does not show up, instead question mark appear [?]
Does anyone know which font do I need to setup for this?

The next page of that link shows it  displaying in times new roman and arial https://unicode-table.com/en/2E31/

(Go to full version )


text:
Reposition Spotlight search bar to its default location in macOS Mojave
I accidentally dragged and moved the Spotlight search bar shown on pressing Command + Space. This is what it looks like now:

I want to re-center it, but I am not very sure how to do it precisely. Is there a way or a setting to move it back to its original location again?
I am using macOS Mojave 10.14.

Thank you @NimeshNeema for the correct term. I didn't notice yet that it is called Spotlight.

Starting with OS X El Capitan 10.11, it became possible to freely drag and move around Spotlight search bar.
To reposition it to its original location, simply tap and hold on the Spotlight search button in the Menu bar (shown towards right) for a couple seconds. This should do the trick!

Wow! It was so simple yet, not easy to guess. This worked for me. Thanks.

Since El Capitan, you can move the Spotlight bar/window. Just
  click-and-drag it to wherever you want.

When quoting content from somewhere else, always provide a link back to the source. If your answer is identical to another on the site, perhaps the question should be marked as duplicate? If not, please tailor your answer to the specific question being asked, thanks.


text:
Can you charge a 2018 Macbook Air through a USB-Hub?
In other words I want to plug the hub into my Macbook Air and the power into the Hub
[Power]-->[Hub]-->[2018 Macbook Air]

I bought 2 hubs and neither seems to be able to do this. I tried a VANMASS 9-in-1 USB HUB and a Sicotool 8 in 1 Type C Combo USB C Hub Adapter
In either case the Macbook Air shows
AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  Wattage (W):  5
  Charging:     No

update
Okay so I tried a bunch of things. First off I'm using an Anker 60W Powerport 6 as power. I made the assumption, I guess wrong, that given the power adaptor that comes with the Macbook Air is 30W that this Anker 60W would deliver enough power. But apparently that's wrong. If I connect it directly to the Macbook Air it just says
AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  Wattage (W):  12
  Charging:     No

So, apparently the hub is taking 7W?
I plugged the Apple 30W USB-C Power Adaptor into the hub and I get
AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  Wattage (W):  19
  Charging:     No

So now the question is, if I go out and buy say the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adaptor and plug it in to the hub will in finally start charging through the hub?

if I go out and buy say the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adaptor and plug it in to the hub will in finally start charging through the hub?

Answer: Yes, I went to the Apple store, plugged on the Apple 60W USB-C Power Adaptor and System Info shows the Macbook Air was charging.
So I guess the 60W Anker is not 60W for a single port

This is incorrect.  The MacBook Air conforms to the USB 3.1 Power Delivery Specification.  The Anker is a power bank, not a hub and is not USB 3.1 compliant so it cannot negotiate power as per the PD spec.  The other hubs you listed in your Q, do supply power, but it's designed to supply power from your computer, not to it. To do what you want, you need a bank, hub, or dock that supports USB 3.1 power delivery

I'm not sure what you're saying as for being incorrect. It is correct that a more powerful power supply worked, in particular the Apple 87W USB-C Power Adaptor worked with either hub in between the power adaptor and the computer. This answer says nothing about the Anker. The Apple 30W USB-C Power Adaptor did not work through either hub. Both hubs claim to be USB 3.1 power delivery able but they both sucked up enough power that the Apple 30W USB-C power supply wasn't able to charge through those hubs.

Actually many hubs can have this features.
I purchased a type c hub last days, and it can charge mt laptop
But i don't know if it's limited to the computer model.
https://www.amazon.com/CZHOON-Charging-Chromebook-Nintendo-Laptop-Gray/dp/B07C1R8KFC

Here's one important detail that will answer a lot of your questions, Apple iDevices will draw no more than 12 watts from a USB-A port.  Another important point, Apple iDevices use USB-PD (power delivery) to get more than 12 watts from any USB-C power brick or dock.  Quick Charge and PowerIQ power bricks will not work unless they explicitly state they are USB-PD compatible.
It doesn't matter what the power rating of the power supply is, an Apple iDevice will draw no more than 12 watts from a USB-A port.  If there is a USB-A connection anywhere in the chain from the wall outlet to the Apple device then the power will be limited to 12 watts.  That Anker 60 watt USB power brick?  That's 60 watts because it's 5 ports times 12 watts per USB-A port.
Some non-Apple devices will allow more than 12 watts per USB-A port, such as Quick Charge and PowerIQ.  They do this by putting a protocol other than USB-PD over the USB port.  Apple iDevices will not "talk" anything other than USB-PD to negotiate power draw and so will fall back to a kind of "safe mode" of 5 watts maximum that dates back to the days of USB 1.1.
I want to hammer this point home because it seems people here are missing this important point and it's causing them to waste a lot of time (and possibly money) on trying to get more than 12 watts through USB-A.  It won't happen.  Or it should not because if it does happen then something is on fire or is about to be.
To get more than a 12 watt trickle into your Apple iDevice (laptop, tablet, or phone) it needs to connect to a hub, dock, or power brick by USB-C or Lightning.  If there is a USB-A connector at any point between the wall outlet and the Apple device then charging will be limited to 12 watts, possibly 5 watts.  If there is a hub, dock, or other device between the wall outlet and the power input port on your Apple device then it needs to get power from something other than USB-A.  Most often this will be a USB-C power brick but some docks will use something like a barrel connector or 4-pin DC input, something capable of handling enough power for the dock with enough left over to charge the Apple device, then the connection to the iDevice will be USB-C or Lightning.
Seeing a dock consume 7 or 11 watts sounds a bit high but if there's other devices plugged in other than the iDevice then that would explain the power draw.  I have used a 27 watt USB-C power supply to keep my MacBook Pro powered before.  My dock will consume 2 watts of that for the dock itself and the keyboard and mouse attached to it.
If the power supply is not powerful enough to power the dock and meet the power draw of the iDevice at the time then there will be nothing left over to charge the battery.  In which case you should get a more powerful power supply that uses USB-C and USB-PD.
To complicate things further the cables can be the weak link.  There are 3 amp USB-C/USB-PD cables and 5 amp USB-C/USB-PD cables.  You need not be concerned about that unless you need or want more than 60 watts.


text:
Install Mojave 10.14.2 beta on a different partition
I wanted to test macOS Mojave 10.14.2 Public Beta so I downloaded and ran the macOS Public Beta Access Utility provided by Apple. However, I don't seem to have an option to download a full installer instead of directly upgrading to the beta. Do I really need to install 10.14.1 to a different partition and run the beta access utility from there to upgrade to 10.14.2? Is there a way to download the full installer for the beta?
Current OS: macOS Mojave (10.14.1)
Hardware: A hackintosh PC that works perfectly with macOS Mojave. I also have a Macbook Pro but I won't be installing the beta on it.

Have you enrolled in the beta testing program?

I don't have a paid developer account, I am enrolled to the Apple Beta Software Program and I only receive public betas.


text:
Not being able to verify apps
I have an iPhone SE, running iOS 12. As part of a programming course I do, we made some apps. 4 in total.
Whenever I try to open one of these apps I get this message:

However when I go to settings and verify it tries to verify it as shown here:

But then it goes back to say not verified. How can I fix this?
EDIT: I am connected to WIFI and it works

Welcome to Ask Different :) Can you please check if your iPhone has an active Internet connection?

@NimeshNeema I'm not that new :) Yes it does have a connection as demonstrated by the photos

The pictures don't show an Internet connection just connection to WiFi can you access anything via safari does the Internet router provide a proxy that you need to set up?

@Mark No it doesn't

You have apps installed as "enterprise apps" - i.e. it is not apps installed via the App Store, via TestFlight or directly from Xcode as a developer. Enterprise app installation is supposed to be used only by enterprises installing their own custom apps on their own devices - it is not intended for public distribution.
In order to verify these apps, you'll need to have a working internet connection, and especially you must have unhindered access to https://ppq.apple.com Apple Support
However, it is not enough to have a working internet connection. The enterprise distribution account with Apple that was used to sign these apps must still be valid (i.e. subscription paid) - and the enterprise must not have revoked these specific apps.


text:
Should a USB Switch work with late 2018 MacBook Air
I have a UGREEN USB 3.0 Switch. It has 4 USB A sockets on one side and 2 on the other. Its point is to share the 4 things plugged in on one side with 2 computers. I've been using it with a 2014 MacBook Pro and a 2017 Razer Blade sharing a keyboard, mouse, and USB ethernet adaptor for the last 3 months.
Today I got a late 2018 MacBook Air. I tried connecting it to the same switch but it's not working and so I'm wondering where the issue is. It could be

Bad cables. I'm using USB C to USB A cables. I've used these cables for other things in the past. I tried 2 3 different cables. An Anker Cable, a TacMad cable, and a Elecom USB3-AC15 USB 3.1 cable. All 3 cables work fine for other USB devices

Wrong cables? Maybe there is more than one kind of USB-C to USB-A cable?

Bad Switch. The switch works but maybe something is incompatible?

This isn't supposed to work. I have no idea but maybe there is something about USB-C that makes it just not suppose to work

???

To add to that I have a VANMASS 9-in-1 USB HUB. If I plug that between the switch and the macbook air everything works. In other words
[2014 MBP]<---------USB-A-USB-A-cable--------->[USB Switch]<->[Mouse] works

[2018 MBA]<---------USB-C-USB-A-cable--------->[USB Switch]<->[Mouse] doesn't work

[2018 MBA]<->[USB Hub]<---USB-A-USB-A-cable--->[USB Switch]<->[Mouse] works

Note that this is both without and with external power to the switch. Without power the switch doesn't light up (it does with the MacBook Pro and Razer). With power it does light up and pressing the button on the switch switches the LED indicator on top of the switch but the MacBook Air still doesn't see the mouse and keyboard without the hub in between
I'd like to not need the hub. It seems like I should be able to connect the MacBook Air directly to the switch just like I was doing with the MacBook Pro
Any idea what the issue is?

your USB Switch is not powered, the HUB is

I added power to the switch. No difference.

In my investigations, I have found that for a switch to work successfully, it needs to be connected to a USB hub. Even the Apple USB/HDMI to USB-C adapter will do.
Also, plugging a USB switch after the KVM switch helps to deal with some devices (My USB mic) that seem to cause trouble when directly plugged into the KVM switch.
The two switches I have experimented with are the USB3.0 4 port 2 way KVM from UGreen and a similar one from Belkin. (No HDMI, only USB switching)
It is a little finicky, and I am not sure why. The same switch works flawlessly between by Thinkpad and Desktop (Windows)
Hope this helps.
This is what my ioreg -p IOUSB currently looks like:
+-o Root  <class IORegistryEntry, id 0x100000100, retain 23>
  +-o AppleUSBXHCI Root Hub Simulation@00000000  <class AppleUSBRootHubDevice, id 0x100000405, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 13>
  | +-o USB 10/100/1000 LAN@00200000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000407, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 14>
  | +-o USB3.1 Hub@00100000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x1000019d1, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 12>
  +-o AppleUSBXHCI Root Hub Simulation@01000000  <class AppleUSBRootHubDevice, id 0x100000418, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 8>
  +-o AppleUSBVHCIBCE Root Hub Simulation@80000000  <class AppleUSBRootHubDevice, id 0x100000433, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 15>
  | +-o FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)@80200000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000435, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 14>
  | +-o Apple T2 Controller@80100000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000439, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 13>
  | +-o Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad@80500000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000440, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (1 ms), retain 20>
  | +-o Headset@80400000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000446, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 11>
  | +-o Touch Bar Display@80600000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x10000044a, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 13>
  | +-o Ambient Light Sensor@80300000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x10000044e, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 11>
  | +-o Touch Bar Backlight@80700000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000456, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 11>
  +-o AppleUSBXHCI Root Hub Simulation@14000000  <class AppleUSBRootHubDevice, id 0x10000046a, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 9>
    +-o USB2.0 Hub@14100000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x1000019be, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 14>
      +-o USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter@14120000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x1000019e2, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (3 ms), retain 12>
      +-o USB2.0 Hub@14110000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100002349, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (1 ms), retain 14>
        +-o IOUSBHostDevice@14114000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100002364, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (1 ms), retain 14>
        | +-o HHKB Professional@14114100  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100002378, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (3 ms), retain 12>
        | +-o USB Receiver@14114300  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x10000238b, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (6 ms), retain 16>
        +-o USB2.0 Hub@14111000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x1000023ed, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (1 ms), retain 15>
          +-o Samson GoMic@14111100  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100002405, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (11 ms), retain 18>
          +-o HD Pro Webcam C920@14111200  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100002454, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (13 ms), retain 19>
          +-o Flash Drive@14111300  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100002f5a, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (4 ms), retain 12>

The USB-C Digital AV Multiport (at address 0x1000019e2) was necessary for the switch to function. But it was still being finicky with my USB mic (Samson GoMic@14111100) so I added a USB2.0 Hub@14110000 (this one by Sabernet) in-line and everything is working well.

The link to the USB switch is dead.  Even so I think I found all I need to know about it from this.

It has 4 USB A sockets on one side and 2 on the other.

No wonder it doesn't work, it's using USB-A ports as inputs.
The USB-A port is not to be used as an input, doing so can damage USB hardware that complies with the USB specification.  The switch, and any cables that came with it, are non-compliant with the USB spec and continued use is running the risk of damaging something far more valuable than the USB switch.  I know you don't want to hear this but that USB switch is junk, throw it away.  It will not work with any USB compliant cables you will find.  Looking for non-compliant cables to work with this switch means buying cables that can damage anything that complies with the spec.  I'll take this point by point.

Bad cables.

Your new cables sound fine, the cables that came with the switch are "bad", they were built in a way that violates the USB spec.  They had to in order to use USB-A as an input on the switch.

Wrong cables? Maybe there is more than one kind of USB-C to USB-A
cable?

There is more than one kind of USB-C to USB-A cable.  The kind you want have the USB trident icon on them.  It's not illegal to make a cable that does not comply withe the USB spec.  It is illegal to not comply with the spec and use the trademark on the cable without permission.
There is no "right" cable for this switch because a compliant cable will not work and the cable that will work is non-compliant.  Once this switch is gone then that means looking for the right cables for what replaces it, and that's not known until you find a replacement.

Bad Switch. The switch works but maybe something is incompatible?

The switch is incompatible with the USB spec.  That makes it "bad" in my mind.

This isn't supposed to work.

It's not likely to work, whether it is supposed to or not.

???

Indeed.  It's a big question on how this got passed any QC checks.  Get rid of the USB switch and all cables it came with, they do not comply with the USB spec and can damage hardware that does comply.
If you are using this USB switch to share a keyboard, mouse, and ethernet then it sounds like you need a KVM switch, not a USB switch.  KVM means "keyboard, video, mouse" and are common for when people want to use two computers on one desk.  If you are switching USB and video separately then a KVM switch will save on that.  If you must share the Ethernet adapter then look for a KVM switch with USB accessory ports.  I'd find a way to not share that Ethernet adapter if possible, that just sounds like trouble.

I actually got this to work with my MacBook Pro 2021. According to UGreen's website here: https://www.ugreen.com/products/ugreen-usb-3-0-4-port-switch, it states:

How to Use It on USB C Port of Your Laptop
Since the USB C to A data cable basically doesn't support the OTG function, if you want to use this product on a USB C port, please use an OTG USB C to A Adapter with our USB A to A cable.

So, to make it work, you use a USB C to A adapter.
[2021 MBP]<--->USB-C-USB-A-Adapter<--->USB-A-USB-A-cable<--->[USB Switch]<->[Mouse] works

My Pixel phone came with a USB C to A adapter, so I tried that out, and it works now.

That does not really answer ther question does it? To me, that's a "I'm having/I had a problem too" answer which could have been posted as a comment.

I made it more clear what the solution was.


text:
cut sections of silence from audio

I've been going along a long audio clip, and using the blade ⌘B on either side of sections of silence, and then deleting the sections of silence.
Is there a way to automate this?
Delete sections of silence from the audio clip, leaving it as multiple discontiguous clips (but that all have at least some sound)?


text:
Is Apple Watch accurate in measuring activity?
I just got my first Apple Watch and I notice the activity app tells me I've completed various goals at very strange times. I'm not particularly active. I exercise 15-20 minutes 3 times a week. But, I'll be sitting on my sofa late in the evening and I'll get up to get something from the refrigerator and my watch will tell me "Congratulations! You reached your goal for X!". I'll turn over in bed and it will tell me "Congrats, you reach your goal for Y!"
This happens regularly that in periods of doing almost nothing the Activity app tell me I reach my goal.
That got me thinking how does it actually work? How does it know me lifting food to my mouth is different than me living a weight?
Is there any info on how accurate Apple Watch is knowing what the user is doing?

In terms of logging specific activity with the Activity app or third-party apps, I found it very accurate while using Apple Watch to train for triathlons.
For a passive activity like those you are describing, my understanding is AW is using the accelerometer together with HR measurements to determine activity and is not always accurate.  You can for example just wave your hand about to get a "stand hour" and I've noticed move data increasing while in the car.
This is not a problem specific to Apple Watch though, all other fitness trackers I have had given similar issues. I think generally it will get better over subsequent OS releases as the AI is further trained and improved. You can dig into the detail of what it thinks has happened by looking into the Health app on iPhone, selecting the category and drilling into "show all data"


text:
How can I stop the system changing name extensions of my files?
I have a created an executable Perl script, starting with
 #!/usr/bin/perl

and have called it t. So when I launch ./t on the Terminal the script is executed and everything is fine.
But apparently some hidden daemon in my computer does not like this, and after a few minutes of existence under the name t, the file's name is automatically changed into t.pl.
I find this unacceptable. Don't I have the right to name files as I want on my machine? It is not a system file, just a personal script in my home directory. How can I avoid this intrusion of Apple into the private life of my files?

What editor are you using to create the file?

That‘s not standard behavior in macOS. What other applications, utilities etc do you have running? With which editor do you create the file? If you run cp t t1, does the copy get changed as well?

I use BBEdit to create the file. I just did the test: after a mv t.pl t it takes about three seconds to be transformed back again into t.pl. During those three seconds I did a cp t t1 and the t1 remains without extension, even if I execute it. Following your advice I removed t.pl and copied cp t1 t, and the new file name seems to remain stable. What happened? Who was the evil spirit changing my file's name? BBEdit?

I have lost touch about the newer versions of macOS, but the file system used to store files using a file name and an additional MD5 hash, which allowed it to find files back should they have been moved or renamed and even allowed open applications to be moved.  So, if you, at one point, saved the file accidentally as t.pl and opened it (with an editor/itself) and then simply renamed it t while still opened, whatever had a tap on that file may have renamed it back.  Copying the file as t1 and then back to t will change the MD5 hash, so any other program likely lost track on the file.

It's related to BBEdit then. Is there anything in the preferences or similar which tries to automatically add suffixes.

@Phoenix macOS has never used such a system with MD5 hashes as far as I know. It is pretty standard on Unixoid systems (including macOS) that you can move, rename, etc. open files (including applications). The programs that have these file open do not access them by filename or path, but rather by inode.

@jksoegaard Thanks for correcting. It had been quite some time when I read it (10+ years?) and I may have misinterpreted it back then.  It just got stuck with me that way. Though the principle in this regard is the same with inodes:  As long as the file is “just” renamed/moved, the inode stays the same and copying a file would change the inode, which makes it a different file.

@Phoenix The big difference is that inodes do not change when the file content changes, but MD5 hashes do. Similarly when you create a hardlink between two files it is based on the inode.

@jksoegaard, when you gave the explanation with the inode, it all made sense.  Have been “moving on” to Linux a while back now and see the parallels.  Thanks again for the explanation!


text:
Sharing an Apple ID with my son
I've noticed lately that my son's photo's are appearing in my album.  We've both had iPhones and shared my ID for years now so i can only assume something has changed within the software. We both have iPhone 7's.
How can i make it so we can't see each others photos but can still have our own and back them up to the cloud as we used to?

That sounds like Family Sharing in iCloud https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201088

If you have he same id then there is really only one album. You should hae separate ids and use Family sharing


text:
How to find the IMEI and serial number of an iPhone before selling it?
I am selling away my iPhone 5s as I wish to upgrade to a new one. The IMEI number mentioned on the back side of the device is scratched.
How do I determine the IMEI and Serial Number of the device.
Is there anything else that needs to be taken care of before giving away the iPhone?

Welcome to Ask Different :) What is the version of iOS running on your iPhone. You can determine that by going to Settings app → General → About and look for an item titled Version.

The relevant Apple page, showing most of the various places to find the numbers looked for: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204073

You can easily determine the IMEI and the serial number by going to Settings app → General → About and looking for fields named IMEI and Serial Number (along with host of other information).

There's also an Apple support document titled Find the serial number or IMEI on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch which is worth going through.
The other crucial step to take before giving away your iPhone is to make sure you have synced all your important data (Contacts, Photos, Notes etc.) to iCloud. Also, make sure to create a backup of your iPhone if you wish to restore it to a new iPhone. The backup can be created either on iCloud or an Mac or a Windows computer using iTunes.
Once you have backuped up all the important user data, make sure you sign out of iCloud. To sign out of iCloud, go to Settings app, tap on your name shown with profile picture (this should be the first item just below the Search bar), scroll down and tap on Sign Out (last item shown in red).

You may also be asked to turn off Find My iPhone. Do so by tapping on iCloud on the same screen and than tap on Find My iPhone. Toggle to turn off the switch shown in front of Find My iPhone.

When signing out, iPhone prompts you to choose between deleting or keeping data (Contacts, Notes, Reminders etc.) locally on device. It is recommended to delete the data from device as you are giving it away. As an extra security measure, it's recommended to factory reset the device. Do so by going to Settings app → General → Reset and tap on Erase All Content and Settings. You may be prompted to provide the device passcode.

Once the device is erased, do not set it up again before giving away. It is possible to see the IMEI number even on an iPhone that isn't setup.
It's recommended to go through the Apple support document What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and make sure to follow all the official guidelines.

Thank you very much for showing the instructions. Let me follow them one-by-one.

Thank you for sharing the easy to understand information and instructions. I was able to follow them and have reset the iPhone.

The ICCID is unique to your SIM card and should also be blacked out.

@DoubleD I'm not sure how sensitive the ID is, but it's still visible in the edit history. If necessary a mod could help altering the history so this isn't possible anymore. I'll leave it to Nimesh to decide whether that's worth a mod-flag.

Just type *#06# from you iphone to get your IMEI no.


text:
Disable user-specific background programs/services
On Mac OS X/OS X/macOS, there are some programs or services that run in the background and they usually have an icon up in the menu bar on the right. One example is Dropbox and another is VMware Fusion. My account runs slower than the others on this computer and I'm pretty sure it's because various background services/programs do not run on the other accounts. I do not see any item in the System Preferences program that allows me to switch these off. How do I switch them off? Is there a file in ~/Library that controls these things?

What does activity monitor show.?

@Mark How is that going to help?

It will show what processes are slowing the machine down or if you are running out of memory. That is don't guess what is happening but measure it.


text:
move pdf through clipboard
$ cat scaswd.pdf| pbcopy
$ pbpaste > astasd.pdf
$ open astasd.pdf

astasd.pdf cannot be opened, but scaswd.pdf is a valid pdf file.
Is there a way I can stick a pdf onto my clipboard and paste it somewhere else?

I want to copy a file from my local computer to a remote one I can only access with ssh, without using intermediary file-hosting servers.
(I can't scp)
For text files copy and pasting between terminals works.
For binary files, like a pdf, I need another solution.

I think that mac doesnt support file copying this way. What are you trying to achieve? if you want to copy files in terminal there are easier ways.

@BenjaminScherer copy a file from my computer to a remote computer I can only access with ssh (I can't scp)

Do you have rsync?

@BenjaminScherer yes

rsync -avz localFolder/ root@192.168.0.101:/path/on/remote/

@BenjaminScherer won't work for the same reason scp doesn't work, the computer I need to copy to isn't accessible on the internet. I ssh to one computer, then I ssh to another one from that computer's local network. I guess I could do a 2-step rsync or scp

Id recommend you change your question with more details. From what you have said https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9139417/how-to-scp-with-a-second-remote-host could help you.

pbcopy < 1.pdf ; pbpaste > 2.pdf ; open 2.pdf works fine for me in El Capitan.

From the man page of pbcopy

pbcopy  takes the standard input and places it in the specified
  pasteboard. If no pasteboard is specified, the general pasteboard will
  be used by
         default.  The input is placed in the pasteboard as plain text data unless it begins with the Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)  file
header  or  the
Rich Text Format (RTF) file header, in which case it is placed in the pasteboard as one of those data types.

So from this it would seem that only documents with RTF format or EPS format can be copied and pasted from these commands.
Finder does support copy and pasting files however, so cmd c, and cmd v, will copy and paste files in finder.

You can cat the pdf file and redirect the output to a file without using the clipboard.
cat scaswd.pdf > astasd.pdf; open astasd.pdf

Partial or preliminary answer, needs work on the exact syntax, scripting experts, please help:
The clipboard can do a bit more than the manpage for pbcopy and pbpaste reveals. Obviously, most of us have copied and pasted something else then pure text. Pictures for example.
You might try something like this:
osascript -e 'set the clipboard to (read POSIX file ("/Users/YOU/test.pdf") as PDF file)'

The above is not the correct syntax near às PDF file` and will throw an error. But it works for JPEG files, PNGs etc.
Leaving out the latter part with the slightly incorrect input-syntax copies 'something' to the clipboard.
Checking the content with `osascript -e 'clipboard info' gives then not something like

Unicode text, 92, string, 46, styled Clipboard text, 22, «class utf8», 46, «class ut16», 94

but

astasd.pdf: PDF document, version 1.4

Only that this is then not copied out correctly.
`


text:
How to save a black & white photo as a color photo with Preview App
I open a black & white photo (.jpg) with Preview App (Version 10.1):

Then i copy and paste a colored icon:

But after saving the picture and open it again the color is missing:

Preview annotations such as lines, boxes and colored text added via the Preview app are similarly saved as black and white when re-opened in Finder.
Finder and Preview tell me the image's "Color profile" is set to "Generic Gray Gamma 2.2 Profile" and the "Color space" is "Gray".
I cannot find an easy way how to save this photo (originally saved as b&w) as a color photo with the Preview App.

Instead of saving, go File > Export... and save as a new JPEG.

Testing in macOS 12.1, Export of a B&W image with color Preview annotations also creates a B&W file. Just like Save.


text:
Unable to download an app in iOS 12
I am unable to download an app that I wish to use on an iPhone running iOS 12. Tapping the download button shows the download progress indicator, but the app download doesn't start.

The app store page of the app shows the following message:

The developer of this app needs to update it to work with iOS 11.

I am not using iOS 11, but iOS 12, running on an iPhone 8. So shouldn't the app download fine?
What can I do to install this app?

I think you are going to need to talk to the developer. The message means they need to update the app to install on iOS 11 or newer

Thank you for clarify. I though it was about iOS 11.

There is no way to download and install this app (unless the developer of the app updates it to work).

The developer of this app needs to update it to work with iOS 11.

The above message is a bit misleading and is applicable for devices running iOS 11 and later.
The app in question is built in 32-bit mode only. An iOS app could be programmed by the developer in either 32-bit mode, 64-bit mode or both. (Note that only one single app is hosted on the App Store, no separate 32-bit and 64-bit version).
Apple started supporting 64-bit apps first with iPhone 5s which featured a 64-bit processor. All the subsequently released models of iPhone feature 64-bit processor.
Apple has stopped supporting 32-bit only apps starting with iOS 11. To run such apps on iOS 11 and later, the developer need to re-program it with support for 64-bit mode.
If you wish to use the app, your only resort would be to find an iOS device running iOS 10 or earlier (which supports the app), or contact the developer of the app and request them to update it with 64-bit support. You can find the contact information for the app developer on the App Store page of the app.
This is the official explanation by Apple as mentioned on the Apple Support page, About iOS 11 Updates:

iOS 11 is performance optimized for 64-bit apps. 32-bit apps will need to be updated by the app developer to work with this version of iOS.

Again, the same is applicable for iOS 11 and later.

Thank you for explanation. I was not aware of 32-bit and 64-bit.


text:
Downgrade without SHSH2 Blobs
I recently upgraded to iOS 12.0 from 11.2 and I didn't save my SHSH2 blobs. In the process, I stupidly lost my jailbreak and realized there are no iOS 12 jailbreaks that are public yet. How do you downgrade to iOS 11.2 without SHSH2 blobs? I am aware that downgrading results in a factory reset and restoring your data with iCloud will bring it up to that iOS version, unless there is a way to do it that I am not aware of...

You don't - without SHSH2 blobs you won't be able to.


text:
How to remove boring message from itunes
I try to remove from itunes this boring message window that appears periodically :

I have never had this message before and I don't know how to desactive it.
I have unchecked the following options into "itunes > preferences" :

Any help is welcome

Does it say "your session with iTunes will expire" ?

-@Buscar웃 yes, the english traduction of this boring window is : "your session iTunes has expired"

Sorry, that is the iTunes Store, not the iTunes on you computer, so you connection with iTunes Store expires?

yes, do you know how to remove it ?

In iTunes menu bar go to Account and Sign out of iTunes store. That will stop that message.

My French is bit rusty, but if i understand it right, that message is from

iTunes Store

, telling you the session has ended.
To stop that message do following.
In iTunes menu bar got to Account, then Sign out.

into iTunes > Preferences ? I don't see the label "Account" ?

No, not iTunes preference, in the the iTunes menu bar, File, Edit, Song ...Account

ok,  I have an old version of iTunes, that's why I have not this Account label in menu bar

do you know what version you have

version 12.6.2.20

I have 12.8 and pretty sure yours should have the Account in the Menu Bar, if not click on Apple (top left) then on App Store, then sign out there

great, I found it with Apple top left menu. thanks !

@youpilat13 you are welcome


text:
Is it time for a new battery?
I have an iPhone SE, for just over a year. My battery health which I find in settings is decreasing quite rapidly.
Right now it is at 94%:

Recently it has been going down around 1% a month.
After December 31st, the battery replacement will be more expensive. When should a battery be replaced and do you think it is time to replace mine? Are my vlaues normal?

Start by checking the charge holding capacity and the cycle count using coconutBattery app.

your values are all normal, so what is the question ?

No, you do not need and should not get a new battery. 94% after a year is pretty good. Apple’s recommendation is a replacement if the battery gets below 80% of maximum capacity. The cost increase after the 31st isn’t so much that it’s worth replacing so early.
For context, my iPhone 6s, which I received the day it was released, is at 75% maximum capacity after pretty heavy usage for over 3 years, so you don’t have anything to worry about for a while. (I’m hopefully going to get the battery before the end of the year.)

You don't have to replace the battery  for at least 3 years. Even after solid usage. iOS 12 is really good on the battery. Don't let the battery hit 20% or less all the time before you push some juice into it.

Apple products have really long life which is good as it lasts years.
If you need a second opinion, visit an Apple store, just hear what they say but listen to yourself before you decide and this is only after you hit 80% of max capacity.

Replace it only when you think that your phone is pushing too hard for normal tasks and you run out of battery before evening or so.


text:
Weird Distorted Paint Screen When Waking MacBook Air 2017 (High Sierra)
Once in a while when waking my MacBook Air (from being off the charger and closed to open), I see a weird paint screen flash for a second (probably less then that). It kinda resembles that paint like-screen they show off on the iPhone XS (I don't think there is a connection between the two, but I say this so you can get a example of what it looks like). It also goes away like a screensaver, it like pops out and goes to the lock screen. (when you wake from a screensaver, that motion is what it kinda looks like when it goes away).
What is this that I keep seeing?

It would be helpful if you had your phone recording it (video) while you attempted to replicate the problem.  It's kinda hard to see from this distance.

I would love to, but I have some limitations in what I have. Long story short: I don't have a phone, and it is something outside my control. I'll try to get some footage of this, but I might not be able to.


text:
iPhone turning off on low battery
My iPhone SE on iOS 12 has been acting strange recently.
Yesterday, it turned off at around 10% and when I tried to turn it on it said that it has no power. Two minutes later, it turned on and said it had 14% capacity remaining.
Today, when it was at around 10%, it turned off. Then I turned it on  and it said 12%. Two minutes later, it turned off. It says "connect to power."
After a few minutes I tried again and it turned on. Then it gives an error saying  that it "can’t connect to my mobile data network" and then the  phone crashes.
I turned it on again, and it worked normally.
What is causing this?
EDIT: After digging around my batter settings I found this:

So is the Performance management doing its job now ?

Since battery problems vary by model, would anyone mind if I put the model name into the title.

Your battery is failing/has failed.
The symptoms that your iPhone is exhibiting is the same as what discussed in the following posts:

Mid 2012 MBP shuts down claiming no power with charge at 30% or 40% or more
Why is my MacBook Pro showing the low battery screen while at 100%?
Fully charged MacBook Air turns off when power cord removed

Basically, when you see a percentage of battery remaining, it's a calculation based on what it's measuring (volts, amps, draw, etc.) at that moment in time.  You cannot measure remaining capacity - this  especially noticeable if one of the in-line cells is faulty.
The only solution to this problem is to replace the battery.

On one of my other posts it was concluded that my batter was healthy. It’s health is at 94%. Will this be a persistent issue? Can I just keep my phone charged and it will be fine?

In your other question you didn't indicate you were having any issues.  If you were to disclose the symptoms presented here in that previous question, you would get a vastly different answer.   Just because it's got a low cycle count, and calculates a 94% capacity doesn't actually mean it's a 94% capacity.

I only had the symptoms from yesterday. So you recommend a battery replacement? I am kind of hesitant as it’s only been a year. What do you mean by “doesn’t actually mean a 94% capacity”

Also I edited my post with a new discovery

A 94% capacity is a calculated value based on measurements of the whole (all cells) at a particular point in time.  It has no idea the condition of the individual cells and if one is failing there's no sensor in the iPhone that will tell you this.   It's like putting a brick in your gas tank - you think it's full when it really only has 90% capacity and the car has no way of knowing the brick is in there.

If the symptoms presented yesterday as you say, don't change that question because people wrote answers based on what you presented (accurately) then.  What you're doing is changing the entire premise of the question making their answers invalid.  This question is perfectly fine for what you're trying to accomplish.

So would you recommend a battery replacement? My iPhone did something as shown in the picture to prevent this from happening.

Yes.  Replace the battery.  The performance shutdown/slowdown was implemented by Apple.  If, from your previous post, this is under a year, it's probably still under AppleCare.  If not, still do it because you stated that the battery replacement will go up Dec. 31.

But with the replacement is it true that they don’t give you back the same phone and you need to backup? I don’t have any iCloud storage.

I can't comment on what they do, but you should have a backup.  If you don't have iCloud, you can still backup to iTunes

nice answer Allan .
also please tell us how old your phone is.
I suggest going to settings-> battery-> battery health and see what does the number say. it can be a temporary fix if you can negotiate on either performance(will be fast but may shutdown) or experience(will be slow but won't go off).
Apple's letter regarding batteries

My phone is over a year old and the health is 94 %

@DaniilManokhin https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT208387
according to this article, several messages  indicate diff. battery situations. and yours falls under normal degradation where no battery replacement is required. all you said was a combined effect of low battery and a sudden load after switch on. even I have the same situation as your phone. One day it crashed moments after turning it on and battery went from 60 to 9 and it heated up. after restart, I locked it and put it on airplane mode to relieve some pressure from network. and charged it ofc.it works fine.
relax and wait till 80 %

try not to let it go beyond 15 and use low power mode and turn off non essential services at that time. one more point I concluded after referring to many sites is that most shutdowns happen at the time of launching any app. I recommend not closing lighter apps. low power mode anyway disables Background refresh so charge decay is lower than constantly opening and closing. this may light up some debate here but it's an estimate and needs to be researched.


text:
Stop public betas from downloading on iPhone
I have an iPhone SE running iOS 12 with the beta profile installed. I don't always update to the next beta when it comes out.
Is there any way to stop updates form downloading as they can take up quite a bit of space?

Did you check if  the automatically install updates is turned off?

@NimeshNeema Automatic updates are off. But it is not that they are installing it is that they are downloading by themselves

I don't believe it is an option without an MDM, but if you use an MDM you should be able to Defer Software Updates for a set number of days.
If you are running macOS Server you can use Apple's Profile Manager, if not I believe there are a few free MDM's if you only have a handful of devices.
Alternatively, you could remove the profile that opts you in to betas. That freezes your device and when you're ready to upgrade, then add the profile back and do the deed, repeating the removal as soon as you restart to prevent the next from arriving.


text:
mark mail as read without opening
When I get a mail notification I can hover it and I see options to "delete" and "reply" but I almost never want to do either of those.
Normally I want to ignore it, and mark it as read, or I want to open it and read it.
Opening it is currently possible.
But how can I mark it as read in Notification?

did you do any research on the topic ?

Modifying Notification center pop up would be near impossible task, to add the "Mark as Read" option to the mail pop up.
It would require some heavy duty programing, but someone might prove me wrong and just do it.
But it is a good suggestion so send it to Apple, so they might do it in next release.

idk I have sent so many suggestions and never had any response nor seen any of it implemented

keep trying it might work one day :)


text:
Missing font from app site
I'm running High Sierra on my iMac. Occasionally I'll respond to a request, that pops up on my screen, to read about an app or to try it. Sometimes when I do that a window pops up that looks like the one below.

I don't know what to make of this. Is there a font missing on my machine or is this a problem on the other end? Once I clicked in what I thought was the positive response box but it was followed by a similar pop-up. Anyone know what to do about this so I can read it or contact the site?

How do I find the question that was previously asked?

Nevermind. i found it...


text:
Macbook Pro does not mount printers after adding them
I have a Macbook pro here running MacOS Mojave. When trying to add a network printer, I select the correct driver, and click add nothing and happens. There is no record of the printer being listed under the pane. There is no error message and when going into a browser to try and print there is no record of it there either.
Has anybody else experienced this?

Is your printer air print enabled?

How long did you wait? My current printer takes up to two minutes to be added.


text:
Emptying trash interrupted due to low disk space, resulting in "snapshot meta data tree is invalid"
I was silly enough to set a bunch of video encodes running and leave my computer resulting in it running out of disk space.
On return to discover it I tried to empty the trash which would have solved the issue but due to low disk space that did not complete properly.
I ended up having to reboot the machine and the "emptying trash" dialog/process did not exit properly.
On reboot the trash appeared empty but none of the diskspace that should have freed was available.
Third reboot this time into safe mode, what freed up space was adding a new tiny file to trash (just a random screenshot) and emptying trash. That freed up the 150G I was expecting.
However, now with system appearing to run normally and the space freed as expected, I do a disk utility first aid check and the following appears.
Can someone explain what does this error mean?
I'm contemplating a restore from time machine backup.
It's obvious that I could "just restore anyway to be on the safe side", but I'd like to understand a bit more if possible about what has happened if anyone can help out and offer any specific diagnosis or such. Thanks.

I now realise that "Snapshot" refers to time machine snapshot, which you can see with tmutil listlocalsnapshots /. I also did tmutil deletelocalsnapshot referencing one which that listed which had '(dataless)' following it. I did not need sudo, and the immediate result is that disk util check now passes without errors. It appears, for now, that things just might be OK, so I'll probably just make sure my tm backups keep rolling, and hold off on the restore from tm backup. I'll re-evaluate in a week I think.

Here's the link where I got the solution (I also used man tmutil) https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8092082


text:
Why would an app constantly monitor /etc/passwd?
I noticed today that Adobe Desktop Services is constantly monitoring /etc/passwd.

Would would be the point? Passwords are not stored in /etc/passwd so why would an app monitor /etc/passwd? What info might they be trying to monitor?

Adobe Desktop Service wasn’t looking at your /etc/passwd. Apple’s system library was.
Apple’s system library wanted to know your username so it can find your home directory. It then decided the best way to figure out your username was to look it up in /etc/passwd. Adobe Desktop Service just wanted to know the path to your home directory, and (correctly) used the CoreFoundation framework for that. That’s why the call appears under Adobe’s process.
Details
In your screenshot, the Caller entry says something like _fsi_get_user. This is the symbol of a private subroutine in one of macOS’s system libraries, libsystem_info.dylib, located in /usr/lib/system.
The public source code of the _fsi_get_user function reveals the following logic:
if (geteuid() == 0)
{
  // […]
}
else
{
  f = fopen(_PATH_PASSWD, "r");
  _fsi_get_validation(si, VALIDATION_PASSWD, _PATH_PASSWD, f, &va, &vb);
  fmt = 1;
}

Looking at the decompiled code in libsystem_info.dylib (for example, using Hopper Disassembler) confirms that _PATH_PASSWD is indeed the file name /etc/passwd. (The source code further down in file_module.c also explains why there’s a call to fstat immediately after the fopen: the implementation of _fsi_get_validation does that to figure out the last modification time of your /etc/passwd.)
In other words: Adobe wasn’t looking at your passwd file; Apple’s system library was.
Connecting the dots
There are many possible call stacks that may connect Adobe Desktop Service’s code to the _fsi_get_user function. A bit of static analysis suggests the most plausible candidate would be NSHomeDirectory, a utility class in Foundation.framework.
Looking at Adobe Desktop Service’s binary reveals that it indeed calls [NSHomeDirectory UTF8String]:
*100032ac4   call   imp___stubs__NSHomeDirectory
*100032ac9   mov    rsi, qword [0x10008a178]  ; "UTF8String"
*100032ad0   mov    rdi, rax
*100032ad3   call   qword [_objc_msgSend_100088350]

Apple’s implementation of NSHomeDirectory will then lead us to /etc/passwd fairly quickly. My educated guess on the most likely chain of function calls would be:
Adobe Desktop Service → [NSHomeDirectory UTF8String] (in Foundation.framework) → NSHomeDirectoryForUser → CFCopyHomeDirectoryURLForUser (in CoreFoundation.framework) → _CFCopyHomeDirURLForUser → getpwuid (in libsystem_info.dylib, re-exported via libSystem.B.dylib) → si_user_byuid (this is where Apple decides at runtime which source it’s going to use. For example, if your user ID is between 1 and 499, your /etc/passwd will be consulted instead of Directory Services.) → file_user_byuid → _fsi_get_user.
To be extra sure, I further analyzed the binary Adobe Desktop Service and as expected, it contains no single reference to /etc/passwd. (I haven’t checked whether or not Adobe Desktop Service does other shady things, though.)
The whole analysis would have been a little easier if you had actually clicked on one of the entries before you created the screenshot. Your app would then have shown the relevant stack trace in the bottom right corner (it’s the lines where it says Stack Trace). But hey, I had a lot of fun figuring it out, and I’ve learned a lot that way!
Verification
To confirm that my analysis is correct, you may want to click on one of the /etc/passwd entries in your Instruments app and find the terms NSHomeDirectory and file_user_byuid somewhere in the stack trace.

From the information in your screenshot, the program is not trying to "monitor" the contents of the file. It is instead repeatedly asking for the metadata about the file (i.e. does the file exists, how large is it, when was it created, etc).
Only Adobe can tell you why they have coded their program the way they did.
However note that there are multiple logical explanations of why they did what they did - that does not involve any "spying" or "nefarious" activities.
For example this particular daemon program (i.e. background service) might constantly check for the existence of /etc/password in order to determine that it is (a) not sandboxed, and (b) not stripped of its permissions so that it is forbidden to examine that file.

The funny part is that it seems to close the file before calling fstat(). But this may be just a side effect of Instruments.

@nohillside No it doesn’t. You must have misread the screenshot. Take a look again and you’ll see clearly that it opens, fstats and closes. You cannot call fstat() on a closed filedescriptor.

Isn't the first column the sequence number, with the calls going from bottom to top?


text:
Remove Google Maps Account History
I have a simple question regarding Google Maps. I am not signed in with Google, and don't use their services anymore, yet, when I start Google Maps I get the following:

How can I completely eliminate that account that Google shows me?

Have you tried deleting that account on Google's side?  Are you signed into this Google account from any app or browser on your device?  Have you removed that account from iOS's Settings?

Also, have you tried to delete Google Maps and reinstall it again?

Of course I’ve tried the obvious, and GMaps is the only Google app on the phone. Not only that, but I never use social logins, so no Google/Facebook for me, I use email sign ups. Apps, however, when removed do not carry with them their payloads such as previous preferences. I see that with GMaps, but also Spotify does this: when reinstalling it finds the old login preferences.


text:
Can I remotely access an iPhone from a computer overseas?
I'm in England and have no Apple products.
My mom's in North America. We both have Internet. She's unskilled, but having difficulties, with iPhone that I'd like to access remotely from my Windows laptop.
Can I?

Did you consider teamviever app

@Buscar웃 No; I didn't know about it! Thanks for introducing me!

I would recommend the TeamViewer app.
Both side have to have it (you and your Mom).
You would download the version for your PC
while your Mom can use the iPhone version.

Here is the download site for all devices and OS.
Once installed your mom has to share her Login and the password with you.

Can Windows PCs use this? I just tried to download it, but https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/teamviewer/id692035811 states "This app is only available on the App Store for iOS devices."

for windows version go here https://www.teamviewer.com/en-us/download/windows/


text:
Can't empty trash after deleting Time Machine backups
I have a 4 GB drive with Time Machine backups on it that I've not used in a couple of years.  It's nearly full.  I wanted to start using it again, but first I wanted to remove ~2/3 of the backups, to free up space, while keeping a good sampling. Thus I removed 50 of the 70 backups (cmd-delete in Finder), alternating removing two and keeping one while going through the entire list chronologically; as a consequence, what remains goes back just as far, just with less frequency.
But, after doing this, the drive is still nearly full.   I figured that's because I needed to empty the trash, but when I tried to do that it removed items slowly, and then stopped. So I stopped the emptying and checked trash, and saw nearly nothing had been removed.  I then ejected the drive, after which the trash was empty.  But when I re-mounted the drive, the items in trash all reappeared.
There is a procedure given in this thread, but the behavior the OP describes doesn't exactly correspond to what I'm seeing:
How can I manually delete old backups to free space for Time Machine?
So: Should I try the terminal command in the above thread?  Or do the problems I'm having indicate my Time Machine partition may be corrupted?  If the latter is the case, it would make the most sense to just reformat the disk and start clean.  Granted, it would be nice to have some of the old backups, but I don't have a critical need for them (not critical enough to buy a new disk and put this one in storage).
UPDATE: Never mind. I tried adapting the instructions given in the post Allan linked, and couldn't get them to work.  So I just erased & reformatted the entire disk and started over.  In retrospect, my mistake was following an answer I found elsewhere on apple.stackexchange.com, which said one could delete individual backups in Finder by dragging them to the Trash.  I should have instead used tmutil in Terminal.

@Allan Thanks, that post corresponds to my situation more closely than the one I found.  Should I delete my question, since it's a duplicate?

You can mark it as a dupe as well - this will help others find their way to the answer

How do I mark it as a dupe?  BTW, I looked over the procedure in that link, and it doesn't exactly apply to what I need to do, since that's to erase all of backups.backupdb, while I need to erase the specific subdirectories I put into trash (I didn't move all of backup.backupdb into Trash).  So I tried modifying it. Not sure if I did this properly but I'm waiting for it to complete now.


text:
27" Apple Cinema Display (video and power) to one USB-C
I've got an Apple Cinema Display with ThunderBolt-2 and MagSafe-1 connector and would love to combine these two cables to one ThunderBolt-3 to supply power to the Mac and video and sound to the display on one cable.
The TB-2 on the outside is connected to a TB-2 port on the inside.
The MagSafe-1 disconnected to two "pins" GND and Voltage on the inside.
There are TB-2 to TB-3 adapters (e.g. Apple) on the market. Is there a way to connect the "power pins" to the TB2-3-adapter and solve my problem?
(I've done a lot of soldering and working with Arduino etc.)

Welcome to Ask Different! :)  I hope you come to find this site has a lot to offer! In case you haven't already, it's worth taking the time to read the tour. All the best!

Is there a way to connect the "power pins" to the TB2-3-adapter and
  solve my problem?

No.  This can't be done.
This is not a matter of just dumping in some power on some of the pins.  Thunderbolt 3 supplies USB 3.1 signaling which conforms to the power delivery specification.  Meaning, power is negotiated between the two devices for up to 100W (20V at 5A); it's not simply supplying a set voltage (5V) at a maximum amperage of 3A (USB 2.0 spec).

From the image above VBUS (power) is provided on pins A4, A9, B4, B9.  However, it's not a constant, it's negotiated over the CC bus (CC1 and CC2).  By hard soldering in the power (16 to 20V DC) from the Magsafe, you could potentially fry equipment that's not expecting (or requesting) that much voltage.

Nice answer. Very clear to follow and covers all the bases! :)


text:
Update MacbookAIR Firmware without original hard disk
I got original SSD broken.
My MacbookAir 7.1 got only YOSEMITE Internet Recovery.
Now, I've bought a SAMSUNG 970 NVME M.2 disk and the system could recognize it using NVME kext patched but cannot boot because my MacbookAir was never updated with HighSierra (and so, no BootROM upgrade is done.With High SIERRA NVME disks become bootable)
Do you think this tool could help me? http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,852.0.html
Other way to follow?
No way to boot the disk using CLOVER or reFIND for the moment. (am I missing something?)
The only thing I've done is reinstalling YOSEMITE successfully directly to external drive using Internet Recovery, but when trying to update to HighSierra or Mojave the NVME disk and the external one are both unselectable due to "missing firmware"

if it is Firmware you are looking for yo can find it here https://support.apple.com/downloads/macnotebooks

Try upgrading to Sierra first, not High Sierra

This Is not a duplicate...The firmware download Is not available in apple link...I said MacBook Air 7.1 and in the Site the firmwares cover tipo the 6.2(higher versione foto firmware upgrade while installing new osx release)

The Sierra Will not solve my issue because NVME support arrives in High Sierra...but the main problem Is that ti upgrade fronte Yosemite ti High Sierra internal hdd ESP Is needed otherwise It fails...It seems..