text:
How to show split view spotlight results without clicking
I just upgraded to Big Sur.
Something I don't like is that Spotlight doesn't show BIG RESULTS for dictionary definitions and calculator, unless you click on them.
It used to be that the answer to the calculation was automatically displayed largely in a panel on the right half of the results.
Similarly for the dictionary, in fact Spotlight now doesn't show me the word's pronunciation, etymology, alternative definitions, etc, unless I click on the result physically with my mouse (maybe there is also a hidden keyboard shortcut for it)
How can I make it present the results as it used to in Catalina, without me having to do any additional action other than search?

Spotlight has changed quite disruptively for many workflows and I am not sure that in right direction. There is a choice: adapt or resist the change. Following is from adaption perspective:
How to display calculation results largely in a panel on the right half of the results > press ⇥ (TAB) at the end of calculation.
For dictionary > use ⌘ ↓ to navigate to Definition block and press enter (or alternatively enter term, then ⇥ (TAB) which displays preview and then navigate to Definition block; during navigation preview stays open)
If you are looking for "word's pronunciation, etymology, alternative definitions, etc" then one option it to search directly within Dictionary app (or use dict:// at the beginning in Spotlight and then press Enter which takes to Dictionary term)


text:
Show battery percentage on macOS lock screen?
How can I show battery percentage on my Mac's log-in screen?
My menu bar normally shows batter percentage, I have the option enabled in System Preferences, but when I close my laptop lid and reopen it or lock my screen and have to log in again, I can't see the battery's percentage, just the icon.

Since the release of Big Sur, there appears to be no option to show battery percentage on the login screen. One thing you could do is submit feedback about this to Apple, which I've done since I want the option show battery percentage on my computer's login screen as well. Hope this helps!
EDIT: While not the same as on the lock screen, you can display the battery percentage on your Mac's screensaver by using the free and open-source screensaver Aerial. While not mentioned in the official documentation, the creator has mentioned it as a feature on Github, and I've been able to test and verify that the screensaver does actually have that feature.
If you can't upgrade to Ventura as Daniel Ting suggests in another answer, this is probably the easiest option for you.

The battery percentage has been added back to the lockscreen in macOS Ventura!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How can I switch to/from dark mode depending on "darkness" instead of sunset?
On BigSur the Sunset-Detector works but it doesn't make sense, because in the real world darkness arrives a bit earlier than sunset. It hurts my eyes, because I stay focused on my work and don't notice that it's dark already.
How can I have macOS toggle dark mode earlier/later than sunset/sunrise for whatever location I'm currently in?

You could change your time zone.

@JasonConrad what if my timezone is dynamic. I don't want to play with the settings every week. Also messing with timezone means wrong time/calendar/weather/reminder/alarm information. So I think this solution will definitely not work.

Well, not to mention all of the other collateral damage that might cause.

I don't know the answer, but dude just go dark all the way. Trust me.

Basically you (and third party developers) don’t get to automate this since it’s a private API. This article explains the situation in great detail and offers three tools to get you close to customizing it.

https://setapp.com/how-to/use-night-shift-for-mac

First, turn the night shift off under “Schedule” in the night shift menu. This disables it schedule from activating, but doesn’t disable the feature.

I wonder if your setup is the ambient light sensor changing and not the schedule, though.

It will activate when it notices your environment is darker than normal, and disable itself when you’re back to daylight or bright environments.

Keep in mind this option will trigger automatically, which can be frustrating if you’re in a spot where the light fluctuates.

Short of using an automation tool to define your own preferred schedule or just automate toggling this manually, you can use Apple’s implementation or just take breaks and manage your lighting external to the display.
Some excellent automation tools include

https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html
https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/

Keyboard Maestro allows toggling of Dark Mode, for instance. And https://sunrise-sunset.org/api offers a API to get sunrise/sunset times depending on location.

@nohillside you are amazing. The script is pretty easy to toggle with automation, but API is icing on top!

@nohillside thanks for the API, I'll write a program myself :D

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


text:
Why Auto-Dark-Mode doesn't work sometimes?
I'm using the 2020 Intel MacBook Pro and I'm facing the following problem.
The Auto-Dark-Mode of MacOS is not as stable as iOS or iPadOS. If I'm using a single app in foreground (probably Safari) and it's sunset time, the Auto-Dark-Mode works as expected, but when I'm working on a project so I have 5-6 apps opened together in foreground, Auto-Dark-Mode fails but the wallpaper goes to Dark-Mode (but the the apps doesn't), and it happened right now while I'm writing this post.
Note: When I toggle Dark-Mode manually after Auto-Dark-Mode fails, they goes to Dark-Mode as expected (if they have light mode, for example some apps like VS-Code don’t change their theme with system). I’ve faced this issue on Catalina as well.
How can I resolve the issue?

I personally say in dark mode, but what program are you using that doesn't seem to change?  Is it just Safari or another program? Does that program support Dark Mode? Does the Safari site support Dark Mode as well?

When It fails, It does for all the programs. Then I have to manually go to System Preferences and set Theme to Light/Dark then to Auto Again, then It updates.

"Please tell me if my problem is a common one" doesn't solve a practical problem. Also, are you sure these 5-6 apps support auto-switching at all?

If you were to quit thee applications and relaunch them after the dark mode turns on, what happens?

@ErniePC12 I never tried that, because that procedure has more steps than simply updating the settings in System Preferences.

@ErniePC12 I prefer Light Mode on daytime and Dark Mode on night time.

I'm sensitive to bright light, I need dark mode. Even this site hurts at times. I am wondering if the applications might not know how to switch over to the other side. Websites that support dark mode will only switch when loading the content. Try relaunching the affected apps and see if they adjust after the switch.

@ErniePC12 there are some programs that injects JavaScript to force websites to turn dark, you should try them.

Well personally I think "when macOS creates the event for toggle theme" due to "heavy load on the cpu" macOS itself avoids to update the theme. and also I think it's specific to Intel Macs.

@nohillside It's not an opinion based question, it's a real issue of macOS since macOS Mojave.

I'm sure the problem is real. The question as written asks for opinions and experiences though, not for solutions. It also lacks important details as listed in the comments above. You've already been adviced on taking the Tour, please also read the articles in the Help Center (especially the ones about asking questions in https://apple.stackexchange.com/help/asking) to better understand how this site works.

Tell us what you have tried so far and what macOS version. Suggestions: find out whether all apps support dark mode (I had issues with the WhatsApp client), restart your Mac, try it in single user/safe mode, reset SMC/NVRAM/PRAM, create a different user try there, reinstall the programs, check if certain apps trigger it (try one by one), check if heavy load (CPU, RAM) has anything to do with it, if you can, re- or better clean install macOS, start from a different boot device,...

Well I have fresh-installed macOS BigSur, fresh installed apps (not from time machine). Nothing helped. And as I said it doesn't happen when there is only 1 or two apps in foreground. Since iOS have silicone and it works so smooth that's why I think it's specific to Intel macs, and I need non-intel-mac user's "opinion" to make sure what I'm writing is true.

@nohillside I think I have improved my question. Please review.

The question was put into the review queue after your first edit but didn‘t receive enough votes to have it reopened. It looks much better with your recent edits.

I am running a 2017 15" MBP. It has never failed as far as I know to toggle dark mode. There are much lower-spec'd Macs out there that have support for this feature, I really doubt that it has anything to do with it being Intel. Please edit all the info you state here in the comments into your question, so others don't have to dig through comments. If you think its performance issue, then I would suggest you check the activity monitor and also start testing if it happens with every app, one by one.

I also noticed this issue on my fresh install of macOS Monterey 12.0.1. Only wallpaper was darkened, but app windows were not. I had to manually switch on dark mode, then all apps windows were switched to dark mode as well. After this manual intervention, The General -> Appearance was changed to Dark automatically (which is more annoying than this bug already).

The answer is quite trivial: because macOS is buggy even in such core features.
A workaround I use when I face similar glitch in the evening: going to system settings, not forcing dark mode, but "forcing" light mode instead, then returning setting back to "Auto". Switches immediately. But more likely the next evening you'll have to do it again. Why? — Because macOS is buggy even in such core features.


text:
Why does my terminal show % instead of $? (macOS Big Sur)
I'm starting to learn python and I've been having to use my terminal a bit; however, all tutorials I have found online show the login info and input symbol as user-macbook:~name$, as well as inserting $ for running commands. However, my terminal displays user@Macbook-Air ~ %, and the usage of $ is not computed. What could be wrong?
Thanks!

What do you mean with „the usage of $ is not computed“?

I can't find an accepted answer to dupe this to, and since it's always been answered in comments, I'm going to make it a real answer so we can point people here. (Yes, it should be on Ask Different, but it gets asked here a lot.)
See macOS different Prompt meaning `%` vs `$` and Updated my shell to zsh, command prompt now ends in a % for a couple of recent versions.
You've switched from bash to zsh (this became the new default in 10.15), and zsh has a different default prompt. The commands you find online will still be fine. You don't type the leading $. That's just indicating where the prompt is (and in zsh it's %).
If you wish to switch back to bash, use the following command to change your default shell:
chsh -s /bin/bash

There is no automatic switching to zsh. Accounts which were using bash stayed on bash after the upgrade.

@nohillside But it is true that new accounts and new Macs will use zsh by default.

Rob, you could mention that the prompt is totally configurable (but leave how to as an exercise for the inquiring mind).


text:
Disable weather.com in Safari
In Safari if I type a place name or place name + weather and press enter, I get taken to the weather at weather.com

How can I make it do a google search instead?

I can't repro. If I do that I get a drop-menu with the weather, but if I hit Enter I get a regular Google search, even though this is one of those things Google like to answer for you right at the top of the page. https://i.stack.imgur.com/D1AjW.png

You can disable this in Safari Preferences

Does that translate roughly as "Include Safari suggestions"? I have that switched on & still get to Google.

@Tetsujin Yes it does. If I tick off both "Include search engine suggestions" and "include safari suggestions" I get the behaviour shown in the question (with DDG and with Google). If I untick the second option it searches as expected

If I switch both off I lose the helpful little drop telling me the 'simple' answer, but I still get Google search if I hit enter - https://i.stack.imgur.com/nOZfv.png (I used a different town just so it wouldn't remember what I did last time) Hmmm… I wonder whether the OP has it stored in "Manage Websites" on the Quick Search??

@Tetsujin I don't have weather.com listed there

Me neither. I can't figure out what triggers that. Going to weather.com doesn't add it, nor does it change my search bar result except that it now adds the history item at the bottom, as I've now been there before. https://i.stack.imgur.com/fJ6m9.png

Turning off the top option "Include Safari suggetsions" worked for me. All my bottom three are still checked


text:
Sound often randomly disappears from menu bar
System Preferences > Show volume in menu bar often randomly unchecks itself since upgrading to Big Sur.
Very annoying to look to change my volume or sound output, then find it missing from the menu bar.
How can I stop this from happening?

System Preferences > Show volume in menu bar often randomly unchecks itself since upgrading to Big Sur.

If it's a bug, I would provide feedback to Apple at: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

How can I stop this from happening?

If under System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar > Sound > Show in Menu Bar is checked and set to [always], not [when active], then sorry no, I do not know how to stop it from happening, however, I can offer a workaround that will automatically restore the icon to the menu bar when it disappears.
This is done using a Launch Agent and a shell script using osascript to run some AppleScript code that will click the checkbox with it gets unchecked.
In Terminal, assuming the pwd is your Home directory:
touch checkSoundMenu; open -e checkSoundMenu; chmod +x checkSoundMenu

Copy and paste the following example shell script code into the opened checkSoundMenu document and then save and close the document.
Back in Terminal:
sudo mv -v checkSoundMenu /usr/local/bin/
sudo -k

Example shell script/AppleScript code:
#!/usr/bin/osascript

set thePropertyListFilePath to POSIX path of ¬
    (path to preferences from user domain) & ¬
    "com.apple.controlcenter.plist"

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    tell property list file thePropertyListFilePath to ¬
        set soundIsVisible to value of ¬
            property list item "NSStatusItem Visible Sound"

if soundIsVisible then
    return
else
    if running of application "System Preferences" then
        try
            tell application "System Preferences" to quit
        on error
            do shell script "killall 'System Preferences'"
        end try
        delay 0.1
    end if

    repeat while running of application "System Preferences" is true
        delay 0.1
    end repeat

    tell application "System Preferences"
        run
        set current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.sound"
    end tell

    tell application "System Events"
        tell front window of application process "System Preferences"
            repeat until (exists checkbox "Show volume in menu bar")
                delay 0.01
            end repeat
            click checkbox "Show volume in menu bar"
            delay 0.1
        end tell
    end tell

    tell application "System Preferences" to quit
end if

With the shell script taken care of, create the Launch Agent in Terminal, assuming the pwd is your Home directory:
cd Library
[ ! -d LaunchAgents ] && mkdir LaunchAgents
cd LaunchAgents
touch com.my.menu.bar.sound.plist
open -e com.my.menu.bar.sound.plist

Copy and paste the following example XML Plist code into the opened com.my.menu.bar.sound.plist document and change you in the value for WatchPaths to your Home directory, then save and close the document.
Back in Terminal:
launchctl load com.my.menu.bar.sound.plist

Example XML Plist code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.my.menu.bar.sound</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/checkSoundMenu</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <false/>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/you/Library/Preferences/com.apple.controlcenter.plist</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Notes:
The use of this workaround will require changes to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility in that osascript needs to be added and checked. You should be prompted for this when the checkSoundMenu shell script runs for the first time when the com.apple.controlcenter.plist file is changed, e.g.:

"osascript" wants access to control "System Preferences" Allowing control will provide access to documents and data in "System Preferences" and to perform actions within that app. -- Click: [OK]

"osascript" wants access to control "System Events". Allowing control will provide access to documents and data in "System Events" and to perform actions within that app. -- Click: [OK]

"osascript" would like to control this computer using accessibility features. Grant access to this application in Security & Privacy preferences, located in System Preferences. -- Click: [Open System Preferences]

Click the Lock, enter your credentials, and check: [√] osascript

You should of course trigger this manually the first time by unchecking the Show volume in menu bar checkbox in: System Preferences > Sound
I would toggle it a couple of times to make sure the Launch Agent is working as desired so when it does trigger naturally it works as expected.

This was tested and worked for me in macOS Big Sur with System Preferences > Language & Region set to English (US).

Reverting Changes
To completely undo the changes made by this, in Terminal:
cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents
launchctl unload com.my.menu.bar.sound.plist
rm com.my.menu.bar.sound.plist
cd /usr/local/bin
sudo rm checkSoundMenu

In System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility uncheck and remove osascript if not being used otherwise.

is there a way to get it to appear in the same position?

@theonlygusti, RE: "is there a way to get it to appear in the same position?" -- For the fact that the third-party app Bartender can keep the icons arranged the way one sets them, I'd have to say there is a programatic way to do it, however, I do not know it, sorry. You can use Bartender to do it, but I'm not sure its worth $15 USD to do it just for that, that's a decision you'd have to make after trialing it. (I have no affiliation with the developer of the mentioned third-party app.)


text:
Why can't Finder quicklook the mp4 I just encoded with ffmpeg?
I just did ffmpeg -i My\ Movie.mov vid.mp4 to convert iMovie output to an MP4.
I can't quicklook the mp4 as usual (by pressing space), nor does Finder show a thumbnail for it.
Here is ffmpeg -i information for a quicklookable mp4:
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'playable.mp4'
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf58.45.100
  Duration: 00:00:21.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 746 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 640x360 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 612 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 12800 tbn, 50 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc.
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler

Here is ffmpeg -i vid.mp4:
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'vid.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    title           : My Movie
    encoder         : Lavf58.45.100
    keywords        : iMovie
  Duration: 00:00:53.40, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 316 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High 4:2:2) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv422p10le, 480x270 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 190 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 12800 tbn, 50 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : Core Media Video
      timecode        : 00:00:00:00
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 119 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : Core Media Audio
    Stream #0:2(eng): Data: none (tmcd / 0x64636D74)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : Core Media Video
      timecode        : 00:00:00:00

How am I meant to use ffmpeg to turn My Movie into an MP4 that can be quicklooked?

On macOS Catalina I just created a movie with iMovie and it was saved as an MP4, so no need to convert. Does macOS Big Sur save a movie created  with iMovie as MOV by default, can it also do MP4 so as not to need FFmpeg?

@user3439894 maybe it can save to mp4. How do I convert this mov to a quicklookable mp4 though?

On my install of macOS Big Sur I do not have iMovie so I cannot do any testing under macOS Big Sur unless I download it, which I do not want to do, sorry. As to the issue at hand, without having a sample MOV file that exhibits the issue, I have nothing to test with to see if I can analyze the issue, sorry.

@user3439894 here is an input and ffmpeg -i My\ Movie.mov vid.mp4 output https://we.tl/t-PnNI2JM9WY

If you want a workaround, open the MOV in QuickTime Player and export it, then use FFmpeg and the resulting MP4 will be QuickLook playable. Otherwise, you'll probably have to play around will additional FFmpeg options for the conversion.

You may not have the same issue, but in my case, the problem was that the
handler_name cannot be more than 29 characters. To fix, you could try a
command like this instead:
ffmpeg -i 'My Movie.mov' -metadata:s handler_name=SoundHandler vid.mp4

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/3623


text:
iMac won't read DVD-R and DVD+R
I have a couple of TDK DVD-R and Maxell DVD+R that I have used to store photographs on. The DVDs are about 12 to 13 years old, but I have tried reading a few on a Windows PC and so far all could be read without error.
When I insert one of the DVD-R into my 2010 iMac running macOS 10.13.6, the computer futilely attempts to read the DVD only to eject it after a while. This is the same for all DVD-Rs. When I insert one of the DVD+R, my iMac tells me that I have inserted an empty medium and asks me whether I want to burn data on it. This is the same for all DVD+R.
The iMac does have trouble reading newer audio and video DVDs, but it faithfully reads all my old audio DVDs. I therefore think that there is nothing wrong with the drive, like dirt on the lense, but a compatibility problem with the software trying to read the DVDs.
What can I do?

It is more likely that the drive is dying. And, hate to say it, but depending on how they are stored and what brand of DVD you bought they could all have failed. Less likely but possible. Buy a Mac compatible DVD drive from a company with a liberal return policy, or find a safe way to borrow (or use...) a Mac from a friend.

Some drives never liked +/- R discs even if they wrote it themselves. I still have two external drives that I use, infrequently now, but one does up to blueray the other is earlier... so the drive on the iMac does some and the externals catch the others. After all 3 then I chuck the dvd...

Amazon has an inexpensive CD/DVD reader/writer with free returns if you're an Amazon Prime member. If your DVDs can't be read, you can at least return the drive.

If you have a computer which can read the DVDs: get an external USB storage device, connect it to the computer which can read the DVDs and copy all DVDs to that device.


text:
What's the best way to prevent my Mac from updating macOS?
I'd like to keep my Mac on Catalina forever. Other than disabling "Automatically keep my Mac up to date", is there anything else I can do to prevent my Mac from upgrading to newer macOS versions? I'm still interested in receiving Catalina updates and Safari updates, but they don't need to be automatic.
This machine will be kept online, but only used for audio software. It doesn't need to be secure.

"This machine will be kept online, but only used for audio software. It doesn't need to be secure." – I would urge you to reconsider that stance. Being a good Internet netizen means caring about the community as a whole. Insecure computers not only put the owner at risk, they are also used to attack others. In fact, the overwhelming majority of attacks is launched from insecure computers that were taken over, also the overwhelming majority of spam and phishing mails is sent from insecure computers connected to the Internet. Famously, one DDoS attack on Stack Exchange was launched by a network

… of security cameras that were not properly secured.

As professional hacker, I can highly recommend you to not update to the latest version of your OS, including security updates. This makes my job of breaking into your computer much easier!

Actually that is pretty easy to do.
I've got a 16" MBP on which I do not want to upgrade to Big Sur (at least yet) and here is what I have done.
First go to System Preferences > Software update and uncheck "Automatically keep my Mac up to date" like this:

Then click the "Advanced..." button and un check everything except the first option, like this:

Note that is is OK to leave the last option "Install System data files and security updates." But being the mildly paranoid techie I choose to leave that off. Your call tho.
Note that there is really no way to hide the Big Sur "Upgrade Now" button but when there are updates for your current macOS version they will appear below that under a very small "more..." link. That will NOT install Big Sur. Instead it will install just the updates to your current version of macOS.

I would strongly recommend not disabling 'Install system data files and security updates' option, as that disables updates to security data files. You can leave 'Download new updates when available' enabled if you like, while that will likely download Big Sur (as well as any Catalina updates), it won't install them. 'Install app updates from the App Store' doesn't affect system updates, only apps from the App Store, so that can be left either enabled or disabled. 'Install macOS updates' is the only one that would cause macOS to automatically install updates. Note that even with that disa

"But being the mildly paranoid techie I choose to leave [security updates] off." - What?!

Thank you for answering the question as asked.


text:
Exploring RAM contents
I would like to explore the contents of the RAM my application is using? I would like to see if I can find that string I allocated. Any suggestions to print out the entire contents of my application's memory to the terminal?

To find the C string ”FooBar” in your heap:

$ lldb PathToYourAppBundle/Contents/MacOS/YourAppName
(lldb) command script import lldb.macosx.heap
(lldb) r
Pause execution with ControlC.
(lldb) cstr_refs -m FooBar


text:
How to prevent Macbook from bluetooth reconnecting to lost connections?
I have an Macbook Pro mid-2017 and a pair of Bluetooth ear-buds.
When I turn bluetooth off and on again on the Macbook, the ear-buds do not reconnect automatically, but when I just put the ear-buds in its case, so they turn off and I take them out again, they reconnect automatically.
When I get home and take the ear-buds out they still do reconnect, but when I take them out on the next morning, they don't.
It seems like there is an timeout or something for "lost Bluetooth connections".
I already tried this command:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist DontPageAudioDevices 1

Like I described it works, when I turn Bluetooth off and on again, but not when I only turn the ear-buds off.

For now I did an workaround with Controlplane:
Run program if connected to specific wifi?
When I leave work and my Mac does not detect the wifi it will turn off bluetooth.


text:
I have an external 1TB Seagate Harddrive but it shows that only 268MB is available. Why?
I tried to erase it with Disk Utility but unsuccessful. It still shows that only 268MB is available, while another utility program (balenaEtcher) used for writing image files, shows 1TB free space. How to make it to display 1TB in Disk Utility?

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:             Apple_APFS_ISC                         524.3 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         494.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:        Apple_APFS_Recovery                         5.4 GB     disk0s3

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +494.4 GB   disk3
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            15.1 GB    disk3s1
   2:              APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 15.1 GB    disk3s1s1
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 439.1 MB   disk3s2
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk3s3
   5:                APFS Volume Data                    231.6 GB   disk3s5
   6:                APFS Volume VM                      20.5 KB    disk3s6

/dev/disk6 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk6
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 FV                      268.4 MB   disk6s1
   2:                      Linux                         8.5 GB     disk6s2
                    (free space)                         991.5 GB   -

Can you add ([edit]) the output of diskutil list please?

I found a solution to this problem. I had to first attach the hard-drive to Windows 10 and delete the last two volumes in /dev/disk6 (DOS_FAT_32 "FV" and Linux) through Windows disk management. After that I attached it back to the Mac and via disk utility erased it one more time with structure APFS.

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:             Apple_APFS_ISC                         524.3 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         494.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:        Apple_APFS_Recovery                         5.4 GB     disk0s3

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +494.4 GB   disk3
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            15.1 GB    disk3s1
   2:              APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 15.1 GB    disk3s1s1
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 439.1 MB   disk3s2
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk3s3
   5:                APFS Volume Data                    231.7 GB   disk3s5
   6:                APFS Volume VM                      20.5 KB    disk3s6

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk5         1000.0 GB  disk4s2

/dev/disk5 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1000.0 GB  disk5
                                 Physical Store disk4s2
   1:                APFS Volume Naamloos                1.2 MB     disk5s1

Go on this link it and select your operating system.
https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/kb/how-to-format-your-hard-drive-220151en/


text:
Disable Safari top result in Spotlight
Since Big Sur, for absolutely anything I put into spotlight, the top result and the selected-by-default result is Safari.

How do I get rid of this row entirely? Or, skip it to select the second row by default.

There is no way to remove Safari suggestions in Spotlight. I would suggest you rebuild the index first to see if that will resolve the issue of other results not showing up first.


text:
How to get rid of the “Do Not Disturb” Menu Bar icon?
My macOS menu bar contains a dim crescent moon shaped icon.

When selected, this menu drops down.

How do I get rid of this visual affordance?

Uncheck the Show in Menu Bar option located in System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar > Do Not Disturb

Note that you can also show the icon only when Do Not Disturb is active by checking the option and select when active option.

Now it's in Control Center though, or alternatively you can press and hold CMD and drag it away with the cursor (see answer by Egor).

@tama's answer is correct, but as a quicker way you can also hold the ⌘ Command key and drag the icon out of the menubar to remove it.

This trick works with a number of the macOS system icons in the menubar.

It didn't work for me in this case

Added demonstration GIF to the answer - it definitely works for me.

Nice one! I completely forgot about this method. It works with every Control Center widgets.

Rather annoyingly, you can also click the icon to display the menu then drag the "Do Not Disturb" header to remove/rearrange the icon. I do this accidentally all the time with the sound menu.


text:
Change date (but not time) in datetime column to date in date column
I have a table with, among others, two columns, one for a date (e.g. "22. March 2021"), the other for a time (e.g. "16:00"). Internally, the date column contains only dates, but the time column internally contains date and time (e.g. "16:00" is actually 22.03.2021 16:00:00 with only the time shown, as the footer makes clear). This is a problem, when I want to sort the table and the date-part of the time column doesn't coincide with the date in the date column (which often happens when I copy-paste a time from another field).
What I would like to do is to either

strip the date from the internal representation of the time column (but I believe times without dates aren't possible in numbers)

or

replace the date in the internal representation of the time column by the date from the date column.

Can either of the two be achieved without manually editing each and every cell?

Example for option 2.

should become:

Note the footer!

Can't you just use a formula which takes the date from the left column and the time from the right, and creates a new datetime value?

@nohillside I guess, except not "just".

@fluctuatingpsychosis what am I missing =DATEVALUE(datecol)+TIMEVALUE(timecol).  You probably also need to format to show "DATE + TIME" .. but other than that ??

@MrR Thank you. I tried that. Now I have a third column but haven't actually changed the existing second column. And when I try to delete the second (time) column and replace it with the new third, the value in the new third column is lost because the reference column no longer exists. So calculating a new column doesn't actually achieve my goal of changing the value within an existing column. I have tried to copy-paste the results from the third column to the second column or pasting them to a code editor first to reformat the dates and enclose them in quotes, but they turned into strings.

This is what hidden columns are for.  If you were to copy the data in again then it wouldn't calculate.  You can hide the columns you don't want.  If you want to replace the value copy the elements in the combined, then go back to the one you want to replace and go "Paste Formula Results"

@MrR The problem with that is that I have to continually edit the table, entering new rows manually. If I have to always unhide the hidden column for that, then that's a lot of hassle. I'm hoping to clean up the existing entries.


text:
Need advice on connecting Macbook Air to HP all-in-one box (Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 4, I think)
My daughter has a non-most-recent Macbook Air with what I thought was originally a mini-DP output but it turns out to be a Thunderbolt (probably v2 since the Mac is only a couple of years old). This particular model seems to have {audio out, USB-A, power} on the left, {SD (I think), USB-A, Thunderbolt 2} on the right (both listed front to back).
We want to use one of our existing monitors hooked up to another of our systems, without having to remove and re-insert cables all the time.
This monitor is fed via HDMI from a HP Thunderbolt dock (HSN-IX02) which only has a Thunderbolt/USB-C input, but many other outputs (HDMI, DP, etc). The monitor has HDMI, DVI and DSUB inputs of which the first two are in use.
I very foolishly bought a mini-DP-to-DP cable, thinking that would work just be plugging the Mac mini-DP output into the dock DP output, not realising at the time that:

the latter was an output rather than an input; and
the Mac output wasn't even a mini-DP :-)

So I think what I need is a cable with male Thunderbolt 2 at the Mac end and female Thunderbolt/USB-C at the dock end (the dock has a hard-wired input cable with male Thunderbolt/USB-C).
My concern is that all the cables I look at seem to assume the Thunderbolt/USB-C is at the Mac end (which is true for more recent models) and I don't want to blow more money on the wrong cable. In any case, the Thunderbolt/USB-C end for these cables is male and I need female.
So I guess my question is: will such a cable work from Thunderbolt-2 at the MAC to Thunderbolt/USB-C at the other end? I assume I will also need to purchase a female-female gender-bender to connect at the dock end as it's the wrong gender.
A secondary question is: what are my other options, if any, for external displays on this Mac? There appears to be no other output ports and I'd rather not have to buy another monitor since we have no place to put it.

Whats the model.  Click on Apple at top left, click on About This Mac, and what does it say in the MacBook... line?  This so we can identify the ports you have. MBA 2018 (and later) are Thunderbolt 3, MBA 2017 are Thunderbolt 2. Do you have a web page with spec of your doc? I can't find HNS-IX05.

If it is TB2, you can use a miniDP cable to connect directly to a miniDP monitor. See TB2 section of https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201736. You can also get a miniDP to HDMI cable - but I don't know of a cable known to work with MBA.

@Gilby: "Macbook Air (13 inch, 2017)", so I guess it's Thunderbolt 2. And apologies for the misinformation, the dock is HSN-IX02, not HNS-IX05. I've now corrected that in the question and the HP doco is at https://support.hp.com/au-en/product/hp-thunderbolt-dock/20075223/manuals.

Have a look at this: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/398384/2015-mbp-thunderbolt-2-output-to-thunderbolt-3-dock?rq=1. Basically, this doesn't really work, because Thunderbolt is such a complex but powerful connector, adapting version 2 to 3 doesn't work that well. I'd get a simple mini-DP to "whatever input is left on the monitor" and connect like that.

@X_841: the only cable remaining on the monitor is the DSUB15 (VGA) since the HDMI and DVI are both taken. Not the best option in terms of quality but I'll look into it. Thanks.

Like @X_841says.  Amazon have TB2 to VGA cables though you will be limited  to1920x1200 resolution at best.

@Gilby: that's not too bad, the internal screen is only 1440x900 anyway. It'd obviously be nice to have 4K or 8K but that's a bit beyond what I need :-)

@X_841: I've ordered a miniDP-DSUB15 converter from Amazon (VGA is unfortunately the only free input on the monitor). You should post your comment as an answer so I can upvote/accept assuming it works. Or disparage you if it doesn't :-)

And now I know it works. If @X_841 (or someone else) doesn't post an answer in a couple of days, I'll self-answer and accept on their behalf. Questions need answers :-)

Thanks for accepting my answer and glad it worked :)

First: Your Macs Thunderbolt 2 (TB2) port can act like a mini-DP port, so any cable that is mini-DP to something that can be connected to your monitor will work. However, connecting your TB2 MacBook to that docking station will most likely not work and may be expensive.
You mentioned there is a free VGA port on your monitor, so I would get a miniDP to VGA cable. Inexpensive and should serve your needs. However, as Gilby has pointed out in the comments this will usually limit your resolution to 1920x1200.


text:
Force open link in same tab?
In Safari I can hold cmd to open a link in a new tab, I can hold cmd + shift to open in a new tab and focus the new tab, I can hold cmd + alt to open in a new window.
Is there any combination I can hold to forcefully open a link in the same tab? So, if there is a link on the current page that would normally be opened in a new tab (I believe by using target="_blank"), can I skip the process of opening it, closing the previous tab, then focussing the newly opened tab?
Lots of sites which try to force you to stay on them by opening every link in a new tab are very frustrating to use. Please let me know if there's a solution so I can force links to open in the current tab when I want them to.

You can always mouse over the link, right-click Copy Link then press: ⌘L ⌘V Enter Yes it a bit of a pain but once you get use to it, it's quicker than it opening in another window to have to close the other window etc.

@user3439894 it's not quicker than left click > ⌘⇧[ > ⌘w

For me the point of forcing opening in same tab is to retain the history, so that I can navigate back to the original page. With the OP's comment, the new tab doesn't remember history. So that's one advantage of @user3439894 proposal.


text:
Explanation /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
I would like to understand exactly what this command does. I know this command installs homebrew on macOS, but I would like to understand the meaning of the syntax:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

For example:
/bin/bash is the path to the bash folder
what about the other parts?

/bin/bash executes a new instance of bash
-c passes one or several commands to be executed
$(...) runs the command within () and returns its result (Command Substitution)
curl ... gets the file specified in the URL

So basically bash gets called to execute the content of the file fetched by curl.
Some things you may try to understand this in more detail

run curl ... to see what curl returns, or curl ... | less to examine it in more detail
run /bin/bash -c 'echo "Welcome to bash"'
read man bash and man curl

Notably, this is a very memory intensive way of achieving the desired effect (running the script pointed to by the URL).  If you are already running in bash, you can instead do bash <(curl ...) to get the same effect without having to store the whole script in memory (it will save the output from the bit in <(...) to a temporary file and then pipe that to stdin for the instance of bash being invoked).

@AustinHemmelgarn You've got it the wrong way round: <(…) doesn't usually create a temporary file. And it doesn't pass the data to bash's stdin but rather as a file argument that points to a special /dev/fd file representing a pipe. You could alternatively pipe into bash's stdin, using the regular pipe syntax, by passing the -s option.

I want to add that if you're security conscious, you should never cut-n-paste such a command from a web site to run on your computer like that.
The HomeBrew project is a well-known and respected piece of software so I'm not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with installing it. However, their web site could be compromised in the future, where this command no longer performs as intended.
Also in general it is a good idea to not learn a habit of just cut-n-pasting commands like this to install software.
A security conscious way of handling this situation would be to download the install.sh file to your computer first. Then you need to read it through and understand what it does - and only then run it. Note that it is not a good idea to merely browse the install.sh file in a browser to determine that it is okay, as it is actually possible for a malicious server to detect whether or not you're browsing the script in a browser, or actually downloading to immediately execute it - and they could swap out the contents underneath you.
The main problem here is ofcourse that few people will know how to read and understand shell scripts.

Eh. If the Homebrew website is compromised then so are presumably its formulas. It isn't practical to read the source code of every software you install.

Perhaps - perhaps not. Even though you have only guarded against one potential problem out of many, that is at least one less to worry about. And yes, it isn't practical to read the source code of every software you install - everyone agrees about that. That's why I think it would be a good idea for HomeBrew to be even better at ensuring that malicious software doesn't get through. For example when you're installing something with HomeBrew, the resources that are fetched (for example source tar balls) are integrity checks by means of a SHA hash. If the dependency has changed, then you will

know it. Imagine if the formulae themselves were signed using public key cryptography, so that you could very that the formulae themselves were at least signed by a trusted approver at the HomeBrew project. Similar to how programs installed through the App Store are signed by Apple, so that you know that they at least run some automatized checks on it, and possibly manually reviewed some parts of the functionality. These things are not perfect, but if you look at package managers on other systems, you'll find that a lot of effort went into this.

As mentioned, HomeBrew is a particular "bad example" - but it is more about not getting into the habit of just pasting whatever installation string that you find on any web site. Other types of software exist that try to make it easy for user's to install in a similar way - but they might not be hosting their web site on GitHub, but rather on something that it not as secure. Better to be in the habit of checking what exactly you're executing. I know that when you get the program installed, even if you have checked the installer shell script, the program might itself be malicious, so nothing

is perfect......

@KonradRudolph Also, it is not immediately apparent that the OP's command is running the homebrew installation script.  It is running a script downloaded from a website which is not immediately apparent that it is part of GitHub where the homebrew project is / might be located. (Is githubusercontent.com controlled by the same party as github.com?) Actually, this entire workflow is full of opportunities for security issues.  If you download the script and read it, you're (more) protected against many vulnerabilities due to typo-squatting and malicious commands lurking on the internet.


text:
How do I create an "artificial" redirect on iPad?
I have a webserver running under the 0.0.0.0 address, bound to a given port - let's call it 8080. By using 0.0.0.0 as the host address, I can successfully access my webserver from the iPad using my computer's network IP (192.168.100.5).
Turns out my server has some redirections pointing to 0.0.0.0:port, and 0.0.0.0 is unknown to my iPad. One idea I had is to make the iPad interpret 0.0.0.0 as 192.168.100.5, but after some thorough research, I couldn't find successful answers on how to do that.
So here I am: how can I make an iPad, using Safari, to interpret 0.0.0.0 as 192.168.100.5?
A parallel example would be, every time I access http://whatever, I'd like my browser (Safari) to access https://google.com or something.

There's no IP address named 0.0.0.0. Therefore you cannot be running a web server on that address, and that is the reason why your iPad cannot open such an address.
You might be confused because when programming, it is usually possible to specify that you want to bind for example port 8080 on 0.0.0.0. However in that case, 0.0.0.0 is not an address - it is a specific non-address values that means that indicates to the operating system that you want to bind port 8080 on any network interface (i.e. on all the IP-addresses on your computer).
The problem here is not with the iPad. Instead you have a misconfiguration on your server that has caused it to send out redirections to 0.0.0.0. Those redirections are invalid in themselves. Ordinarily servers like that are by default setup to redirect to the same IP address that the user accessed the server by initially.


text:
Is there any difference installing command line tools with xcode-select --install or through developer.apple.com
Is there any difference installing command line tools with xcode-select --install in the terminal and installing it through the graphical program from developer.apple.com ?

There shouldn't be any difference, no.


text:
Safari: save webpage with CSS / images folders
I'm trying to save a webpage to my computer, and I'm not having any luck doing it with Chrome... so instead I'm trying Safari.
I would like it so that it saves all the CSS and images in their respective folders, aswell as a separate .html file.
I only seem to have the following options:

Save a 'webarchive' file that has all html / css / images combined into one
Save just a .html page with all the html / css linking to those on the live site

Is it possible for me to do this using Safari?

I could have sworn that the webarchive format was better than that XML nonsense with encoded everything in it. Firefox will do that if you ask it to save a web page. You'll get a folder with the resources in it and an HTML file that references those files that looks like the source page. But that ain't Safari, sorry...

Thanks I'll give FF a go, hopefully I have better luck with that than Chrome... main reason for me wanting it saved as a web page is because I need to modify the HTML / CSS

The free tool WebArchive Extractor by Rob Rohan can extract the individual files from a .webarchive. Hope this helps!


text:
Remove audio device which is not kext
When I had some problem with the audio (apparently boom crashed in background) I checked the Sound Preferences in System Preferences, and found a extension called DeviceName, I don't remember myself installing this, and it doesn't have any kext installed along it, How Do I uninstall it?

You have an audio driver.
Check out the path below to see if you can make progress
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL

Restart the audio service
osascript -e 'do shell script "launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod" with administrator privileges'

Is there any reason you run osascript -e instead of just sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod


text:
GarageBand Plugins won't work because developer is not certified
So I was downloading plugins for Garageband. They were Audio Units, so they work with Garageband, and I was also able to drag and drop my Component files into the Components folder, my usual process of being able to use plugins on Garageband. You know going to Macintosh HD> Library> Audio> Plug-Ins> Components. I've done this process lots of times. It works. But when I tried to use the new Plugins--Which I will say, do show up in Garageband--it says “Plugin Name.component” cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified.". When I click Cancel it says "Audio Unit plug-in can’t be used" and then just does nothing.

This has been happening with all the new plug-ins I've been adding, I haven't been able to use one. I've tried restarting multiple times and it still says the same thing.
How can I fix this?

Best guess: you'll need to go into the System Preferences and give explicit permission for those files to be opened. I'm not sure which SE site is the right one for finding the explicit instructions, so I've flagged your question for the moderators.

I’m voting to close this question because this is not directly related to the musical functions of music software; rather it's a software or system problem better addressed on an appropriate SE site.

Can you go into settings -> security -> general and check if there is something on the lower right hand corner, like an "allow xyz button" or something similar? Try this when this error message appears

Which version of macOS are you running, where do you download the plugins from?

You could try removing the quarantine attribute, which likely causing the problem. See the answer here for details:
"Install Spotify" can't be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software


text:
Bootcamp Assistant giving errors and so is Disk Utility. Mac isn't allowing me to install Windows like I have before!
I have scoured the internet for a solution to finally be able to use Bootcamp but nothing at all has worked.
I previously used BCA to install Windows 10 on my computer but after about a year or so, my PC has been getting slow and has been convoluted with software so I wanted to wipe it all (with saving the needed files and folders) and start again.
However, after successfully removing all partitions on my APFS drive, my computer is refusing to partition my drive again and allow me to use the bootable USB of Windows 10 I have ready.
The two main methods I have tried are using BCA to partition and create Bootcamp and then I tried to manually partition my disk with Disk Utility, but both methods gave me errors when in the process of partitioning.
EDIT: I have just wiped my entire computer using Recovery Mode and it still won’t let me partition my drive.
BCA error:

Disk Utility error:

Any help is much appreciated!

You posted the statement: "after successfully removing all partitions on my APFS volume". Well, APFS volumes do not have partitions. This leaves me wondering what you really did.

Sorry I phrased that wrong, I meant to say that I removed all the partitions on my HDD (Macintosh HD). There are no volumes as of now.

Which Recovery Mode did you use to wipe the entire computer? For example, there is the Recovery Mode that already exists on the internal drive of your Mac. Also, there is a Recovery Mode that requires booting over the Internet. Additionally, there is a flash drive installer that you can boot from, which can be used as a Recovery Mode. I do not believe you can wipe the entire computer when booting from the Recovery Mode that already exists on the internal drive of your Mac. Does wiping mean you used the Disk Utility to highlight the internal drive and then select the Erase button?


text:
Uninstall Anaconda from macOS Big Sur
I've some question about uninstalling Anaconda from macOS Big Sur. I was wondering if someone can please help me figure it our what to do.
I followed the instruction on the official website (https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/install/uninstall/) plus some other guides, but I'm note an expert and I didn't reach my goal.  That's what I did:
1) conda install anaconda-clean
2) anaconda-clean --yes
3) rm -rf ~/.condarc ~/.conda ~/.continuum
4) rm -rf ~/anaconda
5) conda remove -n myenv scipy
                         *PackagesNotFoundError
6) conda remove scipy
7) conda remove scipy curl
                         *PackagesNotFoundError
8) rm -rf ~/anaconda3
9) rm -rf ~/.anaconda_backup
10) export PATH=”/Users/MYUSERNAME/anaconda3/bin:$PATH

At the end I've deleted the application throwing it in the trash and emptying it.

I'm not sure I did the right steps, maybe you can give me some advice. However, I didn't delete everything because I have still a folder in /opt path, /opt/anaconda3. I'm sure another folder was in /user/MYNAME, but I think I've deleted it, because I can't see it anymore, even in the hidden folders.
Then, if I run
conda list

lots of other packages are still available:
# packages in environment at /opt/anaconda3:
#
# Name                    Version                   Build  Channel
_ipyw_jlab_nb_ext_conf    0.1.0                    py37_0
anaconda-clean            1.1.0            py37hecd8cb5_1
anaconda-client           1.7.2                    py37_0
[...]
zlib                      1.2.11               h1de35cc_3
zstd                      1.4.5                h41d2c2f_0

Also, conda still run in my terminal as I see (base) every time I open it, here an example:
(base) MYUSERNAME@MacBook ~ %

I also post the content inside .bash_profil, because maybe It can be related with "my terminal (base) problem":
# >>> conda initialize >>>
# !! Contents within this block are managed by 'conda init' !!
__conda_setup="$('/opt/anaconda3/bin/conda' 'shell.bash' 'hook' 2> /dev/null)"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    eval "$__conda_setup"
else
    if [ -f "/opt/anaconda3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" ]; then
        . "/opt/anaconda3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
    else
        export PATH="/opt/anaconda3/bin:$PATH"
    fi
fi
unset __conda_setup
# <<< conda initialize <<<

I just wanted delete all the packages and files related to Anaconda.
Thanks in advance

We can which anadonda (or type anaconda, or maybe something else for zsh) and it will tell us where the command is. It is strange that you kept anaconda3/bin in your path at step #10. /opt is also used by macPorts... maybe it was installed that way? We could spotlight search for anaconda and then do "Show all files..." to try to find left-overs. There's also a third-party application 'Find Any File' which searches for file names and other attributes. Applications store their files under Documents, Library, and Library/Application Support.

I’m going to answer, just let it be. Unless you have a backup from before you installed this and it was only installed briefly, we would need to review every single thing you did to get the tool installed to answer this. Worse, if you run a correct command twice, you will get errors, they interact and you can’t delete a file twice.

I guess your shell is ‘/bin/zsh’. Could you confirm I am right? If it is the case, then check for the modified by anaconda parts of ~/.zsh_profile and  insert in your question.

For your own protection, don’t follow recipes or shell scripts you don’t understand. You can cause huge damage to your environnement with a single character in a command like rm -rf /opt/anaconda3 ( for example a single [space] after the first [/] ).

The issue is that the uninstall instructions assume that you have installed anaconda for just yourself however you have installed it for all users of the machine.
The installation put it in /opt/anaconda but the uninstall instructions assume you place it is ~/anaconda
The uninstall for a single user only needs the first 4 steps (and possibly 3 is not required as 2 does that) and a step to alter your shell startup files
But step 4 has to use the directory you installed anaconda in which is not always ~/anaconda. In your case /opt/anaconda
You can find out the correct path by running conda info before starting to remove things  The entry for base environment shows you the directory to remove.
To remove the entries from your shell first note that your step 10 is NOT what the uninstall doc says. The doc says look for a line like that and then edit to remove it. However for more confusion the doc does not cover the normal new updates to .bash_profile . You have to remove the section starting with # >>> conda initialize >>> and ending with # <<< conda initialize <<<
So I think (I have not tested as I need conda) the steps are

Run conda info and note the base environment
conda install anaconda-clean
anaconda-clean --yes
rm -rf ~/.condarc ~/.conda # I think 3 might do this
rm -rf <the value found in step 1>
Edit your shell startup files to both remove any entry altering your path for conda and also the parts in the conda initialise section
When you have tested all remove the backup directory shown in the doc

This is a specific example of a common problem. Installers and applications that spray files and detritus all over the filesystem and rely on users to run many scripts, all changing weekly with version upgrades quickly becomes an intractable problem. You should be able to reclaim the 5 GB of space easily without worrying about some stub files and mostly empty config files.

Open the Terminal.app or iTerm2 terminal application, and then remove your entire Anaconda directory, which has a name such as anaconda2, anaconda3, or ~/opt. Enter rm -rf ~/anaconda3 to remove the directory.

If you’ve deleted the main program and the main folders (which I repeat above), I would say you’re good. Set up Time Machine so you’re backing up going forward and next time you want to install similar tool chains and environments, be sure you have a backup so you can roll back if that install gives poor results. Unless there’s a large file lying around you won’t gain anything cleaning up hundreds of files and other tools let you find folders and large files to clean them together.

In the unlikely event you have some issue caused by the leftover files, it’s less complicated and less time consuming to erase and reinstall a Mac and get your documents and apps reinstalled than it is to reconstruct what anaconda installed and surgically reverse every remnant left on the filesystem.
Worse, if you rm the wrong thing, you may delete more than you bargained for.

How can I make 'rm' move files to the trash can?

A safer bet is to substitute open for rm and you do need to recognize -rf or any flags passed to rm and delete them. Use the command line to open the folders rather than removing them is my advice if you don’t get exactly the syntax of the commands you are copy and paste into terminal. The writer of those guides assumes you know what the commands do or you won’t blame / sue them if you make an error and delete your home folder and all your pictures and documents.

Thank you for your help @bmike . I tried to run rm -rfi ~/opt but it seems no folder exist. Do I digit the wrong path for the opt folder? I don't understand what ~ is for the path. I can see a folder in .opt/anaconda3 . Also, following the anaconda website, I installed anaconda-clean but seems it didn't do much. Unfortunately, the most annoying problem is conda running in the terminal, as I can see (base) in any terminal session. .bash_profil contain the script I found in, with references to conda.

See, I would not delete things in general @Andrea wait to determine that folder even takes enough space. The harm in deleting too much is too high. Don’t rm is my advice. Instead use open  and have Finder show you what you have and drag the files to trash. You likely broke anaconda clean by trying other uninstall steps out of sequence (or just had a broken / incomplete installation in the first place).


text:
How do I type an acute accent on the Russian PC keyboard layout?
I need to write an acute accent over over a Russian letter to indicate stress. Google tells me to switch to QWERTY, hold the letter key and select the accented one. This types a U+00E9 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE, but I'm using Cyrillic letters, not Latin letters and what if my letter isn't in the Latin alphabet, like И?

Here is a custom layout I made once which lets you put in the stress marks on Russian text.
The combining acute character needed for this is also available in the ABC Extended keyboard at Option Shift e, or in the Character Viewer at U+0301

On QWERTY I can type an acute accent with Option Shift e and then a letter to put the accent on, but when I switch to QWERTY, type Option Shift e then switch back to Russian to type the letter, the accent goes away.

The Qwerty keyboard cannot produce the character you need, which is the (separate) combining acute accent that you type after the base letter.  The Qwerty keyboard uses a deadkey system to produce characters which already have the accents attached to them. If you type Russian and then use ABC Extended to type option shift e, you can get things like ю́

Dropbox files are pretty temporary by nature; do you mind if I add this file to archive.com, so that there is a more permanent reference for people seeking the same thing in the future?

@Alex. By all means, good idea!


text:
macOS 11: Get system information (GPU, resolution) programmatically (in C)
I need to access data about GPU and screen resolution in C, not using system_profiler, because it takes too long(.3s-.5s system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType), and needs greping and cutting, which is not that fast either.
Caching would be answer, but very short-sighted as someone can use different monitors etc.
Unfortunately system_profiler is closed source.
EDIT: I used CGDisplayPixelsWide and CGDisplayPixelsHigh to get resolution. During compilation i had to compile with -framework Cocoa -framework IOKit. Only minus that it gets system resolution rather than screen resolution. So function looks like this.
static char *get_resolution()
{
        int screen_width = CGDisplayPixelsWide(CGMainDisplayID());
        int screen_height = CGDisplayPixelsHigh(CGMainDisplayID());
        ...
}

This might need an edit to be on topic here. Code level questions would get migrated to Stack Overflow, but interactive scripts (python with objective C bindings specifically) and grep plus system calls can also be powerful and performant. We don’t have enough detail to go on for more than the two helpful answers provided already.

displayplacer allows to read and write display settings and is open source. I'm not sure about GPU details though.
The API used seems to be defined in IOKit/graphics/IOGraphicsLib.h.

I'm not certain of specific APIs, but looking at the source code of an open source application that works with display resolutions or GPUs may be beneficial. Two examples I can think of are RDM and gSwitch (RDM hasn't been updated for a while but there are up-to-date forks available).


text:
How to automatically type pre-defined text with a simple command on IOS?
On IOS 14.4 or above, is there any way to automate/simulate the process of entering text into the currently focused textfield, (even a password textfield)?
In an ideal world, with the text cursor blinking, you could just say, "Hey Siri, type string_5" where string_5 has been predefined as your email address or password, for example***... or maybe use some kind of keyboard plug-in.
But you can't do that at the moment... or can you??
What I've tried so far:

The "Paste It" keyboard app.

Result: Doesn't work / app is seemingy broken.  Even if it did work, for some asinine reason, it needs internet access and "the developer can see whatever you type."  No thanks.  If there were a keyboard app with this feature... that doesn't use the internet, and also works, that would be nice.

The Text Replacement feature of IOS, such that, for example, typing "ezpz" results in "mysuperlongemailaddress@place.com" being entered.

Result: Works well, but this technique won't work for password fields.

The Shortcuts app.

Result: I haven't found a way of accomplishing what I'm trying to do.  I know the Shortcuts app can do scripting and all kinds of stuff so many it's possible?

Just telling Siri, "type [the stuff I want to type]" or "paste [stuff]."

Result: Either it doesn't work at all or she thinks I want to send a text message.  Siri doesn't understand "type into the currently focused textfield."
*** - The username/password use case is just an example.  Password managers are of no use to me.  I don't want to use one and also I'm using Microsoft Edge, so I don't think they would work, anyway.

If you want to simplify password entry, a password manager or iCloud Keychain might be an option.

What you are trying to do with password entry is literally why password managers were invented in the first place. For all other places I'd use the text replacement.

I editted the question

If you're ok with non-official apps try Clip. It's a clipboard manager so you have your copy history at hand.

If you are looking for a more powerful version of the built-in text replacement feature, you might want to look at TextExpander (commercial and rather pricey – this is not an endorsement). Note that, like all third party text expansion tools, it relies on a keyboard extension to work in other apps. For security reasons, iOS will not allow third party keyboards to work in password fields; the only integration with these is via the password manager API (hence the recommendations above).


text:
How to take screenshots in rapid succession
Spamming cmd-shift-3 only takes a screenshot every second or so.
How can I take screenshots more frequently than this? So that e.g. double-tapping cmd-shift-3 will take two screenshots?
I remember being able to take fast screenshots in the past, maybe before Big Sur or Catalina.

One option is record sceen video (⌘ + shift + 5) instead of taking screenshots, after that stop video in desired place in Quicktime, ⌘+C (copy to clipboard), in Preview ⌘+N (New from Clipboard), save as jpg, png, tiff etc.

Still works as fast as I can repeatedly press 3 here in Big Sur.

⇧⌘3 works as fast as I can press in Big Sur 11.4 Beta 1 and I don't remember having this issue on previous versions of Big Sur.
Try with a new user account to rule out interference from a running app.

Do you know how I can test what could be causing the slow down?

I figure you may find this useful.
This following AppleScript code will take multiple screenshots with a delay of .01 seconds between each.
Hopefully you have basic knowledge of how to use AppleScript
global captureCount, theCount
property theCounter : {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100}
property someName : "Screen Shot " -- Edit This To Desired Saved File Name
property delayInSeconds : 0.01 -- Edit To Desired Delay In Seconds For Screencaptures

activate
set captureCount to (choose from list theCounter ¬
    with title "Auto Screen Capture" with prompt ¬
    "Choose How Many Screenshots To Take" default items 5 ¬
    OK button name "OK" cancel button name "Cancel") as text as number

activate
set saveToFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Select A \"Save To\" Folder") as text

set theCount to 1

tell application "Finder"
    if alias (saveToFolder & someName & theCount & ".png") exists then
        repeat while alias (saveToFolder & someName & theCount & ".png") exists
            set theCount to theCount + 1
            delay 0.1
        end repeat
    end if
end tell

takeScreenShots(saveToFolder, someName, delayInSeconds)

on takeScreenShots(saveToFolder, someName, delayInSeconds)
    repeat captureCount times
        do shell script "screencapture -x " & quoted form of POSIX path ¬
            of (saveToFolder & someName & theCount & ".png")
        delay delayInSeconds
        set theCount to theCount + 1
    end repeat
end takeScreenShots

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    select alias saveToFolder
end tell


text:
How can I universally disable titles on hover in Safari?
How can I prevent tooltips from appearing when I hover elements with the title attribute, in Safari 14 on macOS Big Sur?

You can change the delay for all Safari tooltips by setting NSInitialToolTipDelay. If you set a really long time, it's like they're disabled. For example, 10 seconds:
defaults write com.apple.Safari NSInitialToolTipDelay -int 10000

Delete to use the default value
defaults delete com.apple.Safari NSInitialToolTipDelay

Safari stores preferences in its sandbox container and defaults will only look in the container if you don't have a preferences file from a time when Safari wasn't sandboxed (e.g. if you've upgraded macOS and kept your home directory). Check you don't have a ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist file for defaults to use the one at ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist, or manually provide this domain to defaults:
defaults write ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari NSInitialToolTipDelay -int 10000


text:
My iPhone cannot "see" all the books on my Mac via Mojave iTunes
I have 18 books in Books.app on my MacBook Pro running Mojave. When I open iTunes and look at the Books on my phone, it shows 5 books.
Changing the iTunes radiobutton from "All books" to "Selected books" lets me select among those 5. As far as I can tell, the other 13 are invisible to it.
Any clues where to look, what settings to change, what to reboot (again), or whatever?
Please don't tell me to upgrade my OS X version, since I have too much expensive 32-bit software to make that attractive.

I thought I had found a fix for my situation in this post:

"iBooks does not seem to be recognizing that books have been previously purchased when the purchase price has changed."

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8613752 (Not the most meaningful questions because it presupposes the problem, which turns out no to be the case.)

After doing as suggested, "Books -> File -> Move Books From iTunes", then resyncing my Books, everything was in my Library, as expected.  I had previously not been able to find any explanation of what "Move Books From iTunes" was about or what it did.
So I reported that here as an "Answer". Except that it didn't last.
Now, of 18 books in Books on my Mac, iTunes Devices > My iPhone > Books shows 8 of them. A few minutes ago it showed 5 and then I did the "Move Books From iTunes" routine again. It reported that it was moving 15 books. I don't know which ones are missing from the 15 because I now only show 6 of them after updating. 5 books, a different 5, then 8, now 6. And the current 6 does not include any of the ones I'm actually reading. I would quit trying if and when I finally got all 3 of those on the iPhone at the same time.
I keep restarting iTunes, rebooting my iPhone, restarting Books on the Mac, running the "Move Books From iTunes" routine, in hopes that some combination will be the magic sequence of what is being updated in what order so that I can read those three books on my iPhone. Right now, it can't even "see" them to allow me to select them.

Update: It appears that every time I run the Books "utility" File > Move books from iTunes, I toggle between two sets of books. One set has 6 books and the other 16, with a total of 18 different books. I have no clue what put which books in which list.
Unfortunately, there are two books that I am in the middle of, one happens to be in each list, so I cannot switch between those books without connecting my iPhone to my Mac, using "Move books from iTunes" to get the other list active, and then syncing that list. My previous set of books disappears off my phone, replaced by the new set. Then I can read in the other book. I repeat that when I want to go back to the first book. This will probably force me to just finish one or the other book by brute force, rather than following my whims. Oh well.


text:
List all HEAD formula brew
How do I list all formulas I installed with brew install --HEAD. Certain formulas depend of more recent version of a formula and upgrade every time I run brew upgrade if a commit has been pushed, I wish to check if the dependency has been satisfied and install normal version.
This was the case where neovim nightly(5.0.0) where it required HEAD version of luarocks (Undocumented in release page) and recently just works with normal installation

Does this answer your question? brew: create install script for all installed packages/casks

@fsb brew bundle doesn't differenatiate between HEAD and normal release

Welcome to Ask Different.  This seems like an XY question. What are you trying to do with this once you have a list? There may be an easier way to accomplish the end goal - but it’s ok to just ask this if you can clarify what you expect the results to look like.

Why do you need to chase most recent commit in the first place?

brew list --versions | grep HEAD
$ brew list --versions | grep HEAD
libimobiledevice HEAD-bfaf1a1
libusbmuxd HEAD-73cb5c1


text:
Safari mute tab while it isn't playing audio
In Safari 14 on macOS Big Sur 11.2.1, How can I mute the current tab in Safari when it isn't playing audio right now?

I don't think you can.
Even if you add a key command, it simply doesn't respond & stays greyed-out unless there is actually audio playing. It doesn't even highlight if video is playing, if it has no sound.


text:
How to download Macaulay2 for MacBook Pro?
I want to install Macaulay2, and first need to install Homebrew for this.
I was following https://brew.sh/ by putting
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

into my terminal but it asked for a password. I don't know where I would go for this?
Is there an easier way to get Macaulay2 for my computer? I have the macOS Big Sur version 11.1.

Homebrew needs your Mac password because installing most SW (including homebrew) requires permission from an admin user, which is given by you entering your password.  Just enter the same password you use when you log into your Mac, and homebrew should get installed.  Then, you can type brew install Macaulay2/tap/M2 to install it.
UPDATE: According to https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/Macaulay2/Downloads/MacOSX/index.html you can also download the SW on a disk image and just drag the Macaulay folder to the Applications shortcut in the disk image, like this:

Then follow the instructions in that ReadMe file to complete the configuration steps needed to use this SW.  This will allow you to use this SW on your Mac without any need for homebrew.


text:
Is it possible .zshrc is not available in ~?
I can’t find the file .zshrc in my user home folder, is it possible it doesn’t exist and I have to create it as a new file? I use zsh as default shell on macOS 11.2.3

It doe s not exist by default a nd you have to create it did it work before as you can configure zsh to re d the rc file from a mother directory

Usually, files don't spring into existence by themselves. If you want to make use of this file, you have to create it using a text editor.

There is no .zshrc file in your home dir unless you create one, which you can do with a plain text editor of your choice. Do make sure that you save the file as plain text (not rich text) and that do not add an extension like .txt to it.


text:
How to stop iPhone from deleting local music?
I download music to my iphone.
When I try to play the media offline some days or weeks later, it says I cannot because I am offline. They have cloud symbols next to them.
How can I stop this happening? I still have more than sufficient storage (6GB) for the songs that keep getting deleted

Does this answer your question? iOS 11 how to prevent iBooks from moving my books to the cloud?

@anki thanks, I'll have to wait a while to see if that works for Books. But this list doesn't have Music in it


text:
How to play an mp3 on an iPhone without installing anything?
How can I play an mp3 on an iPhone 7 (iOS 14) without installing a third party mp3 player?

iTunes would seem like the obvious answer… why not that?

Can you be more specific?  I use the Music.app in 14.5, and all I have are .mp3

@Tetsujin I think iTunes doesn't exist for iOS 14, I have only iTunes Store and Music, and I can't choose "Open with.." for eiher of them

@red_menace how do you open the mp3 in Music?

I just play it.  Is getting the file(s) onto the device the actual problem?

Where is this mp3? [btw 'iTunes' == 'Music'] Why anyone would rename one of the most recognisable app names on the planet to something as non-unique as 'Music' beggars belief.

@red_menace actually, I can play it from inside of the Files app

@Tetsujin I agree with you. I'm also not a fan of needing an accessory app on top of it for buying any kind of non-subscription music.

I don't actually have any subscription music. I'm most definitely not in the target market for 'renting' music. ;)

It can be played from inside of the Files app

I just manually manage my music, drag-and-drop from the Finder, and they show up in Music.

@red_menace you're clearly on macOS, this quesiton is for an iPhone

I understand that, and am talking about an iPhone.  I just mentioned how I put the .mp3 music files on my phone so that they show up in the Music.app, without having to use anything else such as Files.


text:
Sync Safari tabs but not history between devices
How can I sync my Safari tabs between my iPhone 7 and my MacBook Pro without syncing the two browsers' history?

Do you mean other than iCloud Tabs or does that do something you don't want?

@fsb it doesn't seem to work for me at all.

Please check out this article. It explains how to set up iCloud Tabs (So a way to access open tabs across all your Apple devices that have Handoff enabled. It's basically a way to open a tab on one Apple device that is currently open on an different Apple device)


text:
Emulating ARM (M1-like) macOS on an x86 Intel Mac
Is it possible to emulate a macOS machine with RISC/ARM architecture on a physical x86 macOS machine? I suspect this is of value for those hoping to test the viability of their workflows on Apple silicon. In such cases, a performance penalty is of no consequence.
The only discussion I can find is here, though I don't find it particularly convincing or authoritative.

Possible yes theoretically. Qemu will run arm code but the macos libraries won't b e  there.  As the last point says that is what the Mac mini is for. Remember apple is a hardware manufacturer

I realize this--I don't expect Apple to provide such functionality nor make it easy to accomplish. I also don't think that this is what the Mac Mini "is for".

Yes, in theory it is possible to emulate a M1 Mac on an Intel Mac. As such there's nothing "magical" about the M1.
However in practice you're going to run into various problems, mainly that there's no readily available software that does this. You can get much of the way of emulating the CPU itself using qemu. qemu already supports emulating various aarch64 CPUs, but it doesn't emulate the M1 and its Apple-specific instructions (yet), nor does it emulate the rest of the SoC or the rest of the Mac's peripheral units.
Last there's the question of legality. When you want to run macOS, you need to be properly licensed for that. You will need to investigate the license carefully to ensure that you can run the M1 macOS software on your Intel machine.

Answer check for the middle paragraph--thanks.

What do you mean by “answer check”? Do you disagree with something specific in that paragraph?

No, the opposite. I "green check-marked" your answer to confirm it as answering the question.

Update: Blackberry has now done this via QEMU + some other steps.

They have only done a very limited emulation. As I wrote in my answer, to actually emulate an M1 to run a full macOS, you would need to extend the existing qemu implementation with support for the Apple-specific instructions, the rest of the SoC and the peripheral units. Blackberry has done none of those things. They have used qemu and emulated some (not all) of the new registers on the M1 CPU. They then succed in booting a Xnu kernel that they compiled themselves to match the emulator. I.e. they're not booting stock macOS. They are then able to get a command line. Still an [...]

[...] accomplishment, but not really the same thing. I.e. there's no graphical mode, there's no running ordinary macOS applications, there's no peripheral support besides a few standard ones (such as Ethernet), no support for the GPU, etc. You cannot run a stock macOS kernel either.


text:
How to check if text message has actually been sent?
On my iOS 14.5.1 iPhone 7 how can I check if an SMS message has actually been sent or not?
It is just a green bubble with no sent confirmation nor 'pending' indication anywhere near it in the Messages app. I don't trust my 1-0 bar fluctuating network connection.
How can I find out if the message has been sent or not?

Press on message, hold and swipe left to see timestamp? I don’t know whether it’s operator based but if my SMS is not sent it is accompanied with red circle with exclamation mark.

@AivarPaalberg that happens for me only as soon as sending fails, in the obvious case of having no network connection at all for exampl. I don't know how to distinguish between sent and pending.

Does this answer your question? SMS Message doesn't state it has been sent especially this answer https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/62874/237 (SMS is not a reliable transport)


text:
Is there a way to change the keyboard delay when switching virtual desktops in OSX?
I use OSX 10.14.6, and I use virtual desktops to organize tasks. Often, these tasks involve typing. I will set an app to fullscreen mode and switch between desktops with the trackpad on my Macbook Pro.
When I switch desktops, there is an animation delay, which is fine. However, it seems that application focus does not immediately switch. This means that the first few keystrokes after a swipe gesture are captured by the original app (that I'm moving away from), not the target app. An example for this is Terminal - I may be working with commands in Terminal in one desktop and working with program output, or a website, or some other task in the other. Keystrokes are not captured correctly after the swipe gesture.
Is there a way to change this behavior? Is there a PLIST that can be edited to ensure that there is no delay between application focus, even if there is an animation involved?
Thank you.

If you use Ctrl/[num] the transition is twice as fast & you can type immediately… however, you can't do that for fullscreen apps, only numbered Spaces.

Unfortunately, it's not immediate. (I use the accessibility option to reduce animation.) The application focus seems to wait on the animation to complete.

I tested it empirically, otherwise I wouldn't have suggested it.


text:
Can't find an option to turn off cellular data for an application on iPhone (iOS 14)
I'm trying to turn off cellular data for an application on iPhone running iOS 14, I know that you can go to Cellular section in Settings and there will be a list of applications including the options to turn the cellular data on or off, but I can't find my application in that list to turn it off. Can someone help me with this? Thanks for your help!

Knowing what the app is might at least let someone else see if they can repro the condition.

Have you tried going to the app itself within settings? It should have a toggle there. Try searching the app name in the search box at the top of settings.

I can't stand this iPhone "feature", but for an app to appear in the list where you can turn cellular data on or off:

the app must be launched once with cellular data on;
sometimes it is not enough - you must not only launch the app, you must do something with it actively.

Though, it may be that for newer iPhones this is not longer the case.


text:
Prevent QuickLooking excel spreadsheet from crashing laptop
When I quicklook, accidentally/intentionally or thoughtlessly, some excel .xslx files in Finder (this one for example is "only" 272 KB, so maybe the problem is the large number of rows and columns or something else), it renders the file correctly in the quicklook window, but causes everything except my mouse pointer to freeze (can't scroll the preview, can't change window, can't change spaces, can't change any graphics on the display except mouse pointer position) and eventually a few minutes later my screen turns to multicolored static and the MacBook restarts. I can speed that up by closing and reopening the lid.
How can I stop this from happening? If possible I'd still like to be able to quicklook excel files that won't cause a crash, but if it is one that would cause a crash I would obviously not like to crash as a result of pressing space or an arrow key.
Quicklooking the csv equivalent of the xlsx does not cause a crash.
I do not have any MS Office programmes installed.
$ qlmanage -l
List of all generator IDs: (
    "com.apple.quicklookgenerator.iChat",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.package",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.pdf",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.audio",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.contact",
    "org.n8gray.qlcolorcode",
    "com.apple.garageband.quicklookgenerator",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.iCal",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.movie",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.image",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.livePhoto",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.web",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.LogicXQLGenerator",
    "com.apple.iBooks",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.certificates",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.bookmark",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.text",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.eps",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.clipping",
    "com.fiatdev.QLMarkdown",
    "fr.whine.qlimagesize",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.font",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.office",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.standard-bundles",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.iconset",
    "com.apple.iWork.iWorkQuickLookGenerator",
    "com.apple.qlgenerator.locPDF",
    "com.whomwah.quicklookstephen",
    "jp.co.celsys.LipPreview"
)

What version of Office do you have? Do any other file types cause crashes when QuickLooking? Can you provide the output of qlmanage -l in the Terminal? (that's an L, by the way.)

@benwiggy I updated the question with that info

The first thing I would do is remove (or disable) those third-party QL managers: n8gray, QLMarkdown, quicklookstephen, LipPreview. Remove them from the QuickLook folder in ~/Library or /Library. If they are bundled in an app, then that might be a bit more difficult.


text:
How to hide the Dock from Mission Control in macOS Big Sur?
How can I stop the Dock from ever appearing in macOS Big Sur?
defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 9999 && killall Dock

Makes it practically never appear, apart from in Mission Control.
How can I get rid of the Dock from Mission Control?


text:
why cannot I see Library folder under my home directory in Finder?
I could see ~/Library through Unix command in Mac, yet I cannot see it in a Finder window. I need to go as Finder -> Go to folder -> ~/Library, then I can find it. Does anyone know why is it like that? Thanks! It's macOS Big Sur.

We have a number of previous questions about this: "Where did the ~/Library folder go in Lion?", "How does Finder decide if a file should be hidden?", and this tip for opening it. Also, here's a MacWorld article about opening it. Or is your question about why Apple decided to hide it?

If you want to always see your Library folder in the Finder, you select your Home Folder, then select "View" menu, then "Show View Options" (CMDJ), then check "Show Library Folder". The Library folder will be then visible in the Finder.

NOTE: This only works if one selects their Home folder from the Sidebar in Finder. Selecting ones Home folder anywhere else in Finder does not produce the necessary view options containing the [] Show Library Folder checkbox.

Yes, that folder is hidden by default along with another bunch of files and folders becasue most users never need or want to go into it.
To make it visible press:
ShiftCommand .
That's Shift-Command-Period, it will reveal all the hidden files. There is also a command to un-hide just the ~/Library folder:
chflags nohidden ~/Library


text:
How to open Markup tools faster in Preview
Since a recent update to Preview (Big Sur?), the edit button is two clicks away on "narrow" images:

How can I force Preview, regardless of the image dimensions, to always open a window that is wide enough for the Markup button to be only one click away?

In fact, even better would be if someone has a method that can just open the Markup options by default:

At the risk of stating the obvious, just customize the Toolbar moving the Markup button to be the first item to the right of the filename in the Toolbar.

@user3439894 oh yeah, that works


text:
Gmail iOS app: What’s a work around to *save* all my deleted gmail messages?
I want an easy way to save all of the messages I delete. Gmail automatically empties the trash after a few months. I want to keep all my deleted messages so I can find something several months later that didn’t seem important, but now is.
Can I create a script that will move the messages from the deleted or trash (or bin) folder to something like “archived forever” ?? Where Can I hired someone to do that?
I read most of my emails on an iPad and swipe to delete the messages. I know that I could select and move them to a folder that would not be deleted, but that’s a lot of work for the 75+ messages I get each day.
Thanks for any help... I can pay for quality help on this problem.

I’m voting to close this question because It is about an iOS application.

Unless you indicate to actually delete emails in Gmail (or move them to Trash), it actually simply changes the tag on an email to the 'All mail' tag. (some apps, like Apple Mail, give you a button to move to Trash). In the Gmail all, go to settings and change the swipe action to 'Archive'. This will remove the message from view, but will move it to 'All mail'. You can go into the 'All mail' folder to see all these archived emails.


text:
Where does Safari save recently closed tabs?
When I force the immediate exit of Safari with open tabs, then restart Safari, this message appears:

Safari was last opened when opening Windows terminated immediately. Do
you want try to open the windows again to open?
If you stipulate that window won't do it again you may have to open
and position the window yourself.

I deleted the Safari location before opening Safari, so before the message appeared, everything in ~/Library/Safari was deleted. How can Safari restore everything? I also used the purge command line utility to purge the RAM.

Possibly in ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Safari.savedState but I don't want to delete mine to test.
Confirmed as working, by the OP in comments.

Glad to hear it - I'll update the answer now we have it confirmed. Thanks.

When you do have ~/Library/Safari there's a file LastSession.plist in it that is exactly what it's name says. I often save sessions that I want to come back to by taking copies of that file & copying them back when I want to revisit a given session.


text:
How to delay charging iPhone battery past 80% on iOS 12?
Note: I'm talking about iOS 12, not iOS 13.

A new feature of iOS 13 is delaying past 80% battery charging (as described here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512 ).
  The iPhone I have (iPhone 5s) cannot update to iOS 13 so I'm wondering how that functionality could be used/ imitated/ implemented on iOS 12 ? I would really like to use this feature, or an imitation of it.

Thanks for your help !

Maybe buy a charger that allows to set to a timer so that it stops charging after x minutes?

@JBallin I don‘t think that kind of chargers exist (after having searched on Google), and even if it did, I don‘t think it‘s very practical. But your help is appreciated !

Here’s one. The most practical solution is to buy a new iPhone.

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I can't really afford a new iPhone currently.


text:
Backup/restore to multiple removable volumes
I remember using old DOS software to backup an entire hard drive to a set of floppy disks - yes that long ago! With the backup target folder identified it would come up with a number of floppy disks required, then ask for them to be inserted one after another. To restore the backup you begin with the first backup of the set, it tells you that the other 'n' disks will be required and then after inserting them sequentially the backup was restored.
Now I have a large iPhotos library (~200GB), and it's mirrored in iCloud and I'm reasonably confident about that. However I want a backup. Doesn't matter how good or reliable someone else's infrastructure has been, disasters happen.
An external hard drive can make a backup of that in one bite. I don't want to use an external drive for this. Apart from other considerations it is always tempting to make use of an external drive for something else.
External removable media such as BDXL optical discs are write-once and some promise archival life spans. I would like to be able to use them as a backup destination. Of course one of these discs cannot hold the entire photo library, best capacity available now is 125GB or so. Being able to use these discs as permanent backup would be a good solution.
Does such a program exist? I have read a few roundup and review type articles and they all make much of needing to create an account and uploading everything for some software and of simply copying to a volume or a Time Machine for others.
An app that could backup a folder to multiple volumes of arbitrary size would be OK as long as these images could then be backed up/restored and then reassembled into the original folder.

The 'Industry standard' used to be Toast Titanium though I haven't used it in a decade. Having said that, you could buy a new HD for the price of the software.

I agree with Tetsujin. Even without considering the price, IMO you are better off with backups on another drive. It's easier to set up, you can still make it a "one time copy" and then put it in a bunker and if its not being used a hard drive (or even better) an SSD also has a great longevity. This one for example even comes in a waterproof case: https://www.amazon.de/ADATA-Externe-wasserdicht-staubdicht-ASD700-512GU3-CYL/dp/B01N1GPDQ2/ref=sr_1_6?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=externe+ssd+512gb&qid=1623262752&sr=8-6


text:
Preview select freehand pen tool
Since a recent preview update there is no freehand pen tool in the markup toolbar anymore

There is only the shapes/arrows/best-guess pen tool.
I can force it to be freehand by two clicks after drawing every single line:

Preview used to be my go-to for drawing diagrams or annotating screenshots quickly.
Is there a way to select freehand drawing tool by default in Preview? Or reveal it in toolbar? Or not require me to click after drawing every line?
Or, what is now the most painless and fastest way to freehand draw in macOS?

Isn't this the same as  https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/402396/freehand-preview-pen-missing