text:
Possible to make desktop icons bigger than max?
I have my desktop icons set as big as they'll go... but would like them even bigger if possible!
Is there a way to do this?

Would Sys Pref / Accessibility / Zoom help?

did you set the size using Show View Options?

@Andyroo not in my situation unfortunately but thanks!

Go to Macintosh in the Finder. Once there be sure to display contents in icon view. Now while in Finder go to the View Menu and near the bottom select "Show view options". This brings up the panel shown below.

Move the top slider to the right for larger icons.  You may have to move the grid slider to increase spacing as well. You can experiment with these two sliders to get the default view you want.

Sorry but that's what I'd done already! maybe I need to look for some kind of plugin... thanks anyway though!

well if you do that some apps have icons as big as 1024x1024 you surely don't want them bigger than that.  That only fits a few on your desktop at once.  How big do you want the icons to be?


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'Change resolution' in menu bar
I just upgraded to Catalina with a new Mac... and am wondering if it is possible to change the screen resolution from within the menu bar?

I was sure I used to do something like this years ago in Snow Leopard or Lion or something, but I might be getting mixed up with the 'external displays' menu.
Is this possible or do I need to go into System Preferences each time?

Each time? How often do you need to change the resolution of the screen?

I am not awre of anything built-in to macOS that would do this, however there is a utility that will do this.
Though I have never used it myself it has been around for a long time and often comes up in MacInTouch discussions as a great utility: SwitchResX.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Stop accountsd + Mail.app from completely obliterating my CPU when the internet drops
When I have Mail.app open, and I leave Wi-Fi range or my internet connectivity drops, the fans whirr up and CPU usage completely spikes (accountsd is using all the CPU, not Mail.app itself) and my laptop becomes too hot to touch.
How do I prevent this from happening?

There may be a preference/setting that is causing this, you can try making a second (test) account, logging out of your regular account and logging into the new one and trying there. If that is it then I would remove all of the mail/accounts related preferences in your profile and setting those back up.

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


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Microphone not detected when using 3.5mm splitter
I use a Mac Mini and bought myself a headphone splitter so that I don't have to fiddle about when I need to use my microphone... e.g I don't want to have to unplug my speakers whenever I have a Skype call.
When I have my microphone plugged into the 3.5mm splitter my Mac won't detect my microphone, although my speakers work just fine. I've also tried it with two different splitters.
Is it not possible to get it to work this way?

Do the splitters have 3 conductors (TRS) or 4 (TRRS)?

See https://www.cablechick.com.au/blog/understanding-trrs-and-audio-jacks/ for a plug guide

Thanks both, I realise now that the splitter was only for headphones! I imagine I'll need to order this instead https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079PJL14Y


text:
MacBook stays connected to wifi but loses internet connection
Every few minutes my internet connection drops on my MacBook Pro 15" Mid-2015, running macOS Catalina 10.15.5.
It stays connected to wifi, at least it indicates as such in the menu bar and System Preferences.
However, I can't use the internet again until turning off and on wifi.
Also, I can't connect to my router's webpage itself (normally http://192.168.1.1/ is my router's config pages) when this issue happens.
However, from the terminal ping continues to work, for my router's IP and for names like google.com.
This issue breaks: Safari.app, Discord.app, wget, curl, dig, Firefox Developer Edition.app, Chrome.app, Folx.app, Mail.app, .... almost everything internet-related I can think of testing except ping. ping times don't even increase while the rest of the internet "drops".
This doesn't happen on any other device in the house.
How can I stay connected to the internet all the time without having to worry about needing to reconnect like this?

My MacBook, like all other devices the problem doesn't  happen on, gets its IP address using DHCP.
While the wifi is working:

While I can't connect to the internet:

According to support.apple.com/kb/SP719, your Mac supports "802.11ac Wi‑Fi wireless networking; IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible", is the wireless router configured accordingly?

I'm not sure how to check... but I found on one page of my router's settings "Generic MAC80211 802.11bgn (radio0)" this text.

How does your Mac get the IP address, over DHCP or is it static? According to https://support.apple.com/kb/SP719, your Mac supports "802.11ac Wi‑Fi wireless networking; IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible", is the wireless router configured accordingly? When you lose your Internet connection, which are the RSSI and Noise values displayed for your wireless network when you Option-click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar?

@jaume i added info to the question. ping continues to work for some reason

If you can ping Google, you didn’t lose Internet.  It appears to be an issue with browsing.  It might be s DNS issue as well.  Start with a different browser first and let’s go from there.

@Allan it breaks: Safari.app, Discord.app, wget, curl, dig, Firefox Developer Edition.app, Chrome.app, Folx.app, Mail.app, .... almost everytihng internet-related I can think of except ping. ping times don't even increase.

ping allows you to get out, but everything else fails?  What about traceroute?  Let's try something different.  Issue the command traceroute -d bing.com and let me know what you get.  (Google might be cached in DNS, so I figured Bing would force a DNS lookup)

Just to make sure, you're not seeing your firewall as the first hop?

Ahhh..Let me know when you get a result.

@Allan all hit 64 (max) hops, all timed out. The domain names were all resolved to IP addresses correctly, ping continues to work, even for things not in the cache (despite dig not working? weird...), but traceroute just * * * forever

A recent article on Cult of Mac entitled How to fix Wi-Fi and Bluetooth interference on a Mac may give some insight. In your screenshots, your wifi is running on 2.4GHz which is the same as Bluetooth according to the article.

If a wireless connection is a must, you may find that a change in router settings is what you need. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices use the 2.4GHz band as standard, but modern routers also support the 5GHz band.

I was about to ask about my audio skipping that is playing over Bluetooth. I noticed that my router does have 2.4GHz running. I am currently testing to see if my problems are resolved.

Well, it doesn't happen on any other device in the house, and ping times don't increase, so I don't think it's due to interference.

I had the same problem and after a couple of unsuccessful hours with Apple support I was ready to send my new MacBook back for a warranty repair.  The 'fix' in my case was easy:  I STOPPED USING FOLX!  I've not had this problem for 2 weeks now.  I now just need an alternative to Folx, compatible with Catalina (10.15.5)

This is very interesting. I actually have Folx installed, so maybe this is what causes it. I'll have to check next time I'm on that network.


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Iphone 6S+ WIFI Connectivity Issues
My Iphone 6s+ has been working fine on my rogers ignite wifi up until a week ago.. now I have been experiencing some odd issues.
Can't connect to certain sites - I can connect to google but I cannot connect to reddit/global news.
Can't connect to certain apps- I can connect to google home/whatsapp/youtube but no games
can't access modem from my Iphone6s+ browser
Safari says "cannot connect to server" if I try to go on reddit and if I try to access the modem from the safari browser, I get the following message: "cannot connect to internet".
I can't access the apple servers (to download from the app store).
I've tried:
restarting phone
clearing website and cache
resetting all network settings
restoring iphone (twice)
updating to newest OS
rebooting modem
resetting modem back to factory settings
The wifi works on all other devices (iphone 8/10/tvs/laptops) for downloading/reddit/mobile games.
I can use my iphone 6s+ mobile data/a different devices hotspot, to connect to reddit/app store on my 6s+ but it just won't work when I'm connected to the WIFI.
Does anyone have any ideas? This seems absurd... I've called my ISP and they said everything looks fine..
Sometimes, when I try accessing yahoo.ca from my iphone 6s+, it shows me a screen that says "This device is paused".. I've gone into the modem and it doesn't show this device is paused or blocked

I have an iPhone SE (6S in a 5 case) and I use Rogers. (1) disconnect and forget the Wireless Connection. Does Cellular connection work fine?   (2) Consider trying a different router off the Rogers Modem.  (3) I turned off Rogers wireless and set up my own wireless router.

Yes the cellular connection works fine, I might try disconnecting the Ignite pods. Does this sound like the wifi antenna is broken?

That is a distinct possibility since you did a fresh IOS install. You might consider calling Apple Support about this.


text:
When using my Apple ID, how can I sign out from within an app?
I have successfully managed to log into an app using the Apple Authentication functionality.
I am now trying to log out, and the only way I have found is through the Settings → Apple ID → Password & Security → Apps Using Your Apple ID.
I would be very surprised if there is no other way to do this from within the application, as it would make more sense. Most common users don't even know they can do this from within their settings.

That setting is to remove the association between the Sign In with Apple and your app. This is effectively deleting the account.  The user does not want to do this routinely. To sign out of your app, you simply discard the token you have cached, requiring them to sign in again if they want to use your app; this will seamlessly sign them back in with the same account. Sign In with Apple is deliberately designed to use a single account in your app per Apple ID.

Unfortunately, Apple does not have a sign out function available to use for the "Sign in with Apple". Currently, the user must go into the Settings application and revoke permission.

Deleting an account is very different to signing out no?

It all depends how you program each functionality - it can be exactly the same.


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How does iOS decide between DHCPv4 and DHCPv6
If I understood correctly, when a device connects to a network (wireless in my case), it will send both a DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 (if supported).
I've setup openwrt on my router in order to view the DHCP requests (with wireshark).
I have that windows clients consistently send both DHCP and DHCPv6 requests, but it looks like iPhones (iOS 14) never do. (DHCPv6 is not supported on Android, it seems)
Now, my router doesn't have a DHCPv6 sever, but I assumed it doesn't matter because I'm not interested in the station actually acquiring an address, I just want to see the request.
How does an iOS device decide whether to send a DHCPv6 request, and how can I force it to do so?
Does the iOS device somehow know that there's no DHCPv6 server before sending a request?

I believe that a DHCP request is sent to determine what is available via DHCP and if the server does not support IPV6 it will not request it. It sounds like Windows is sending those requests regardless.

IPv6 autoconfig should be telling clients on that network link whether or not there is a DHCPd they should be talking to.  It's not "link comes up, send a request".  That doesn't stop a client from DOING it, but you'll probably note the iOS devices have an autoconfig address even though they never sent a request.  https://www.ictshore.com/free-ccna-course/dhcpv6-basics/


text:
Do the Airpods Pro change how your internal voice sounds?
This is just a question for owners of Airpods Pro. I've noticed that with regular earbuds that seal with a foam or soft plastic tip, the seal makes your internal voice sound weird. This is very jarring and makes speaking normally very difficult. This makes earbuds very uncomfortable to use for meetings/phone calls.
Apple's regular wired earbuds don't have a perfect seal, and talking with them in doesn't change the way my voice sounds to myself. This is good, but the earbuds also don't fit well in my ears and keep falling out.
I can't find anyone talking about this online, possibly because I don't know what terms to search for. I'm wondering if anyone with Airpods Pro can let me know:

Are you familiar with this problem? It's possible that not everyone experiences this.
Do the Airpods Pro have this problem, where your voice sounds different to yourself? Does this change if you use Transparency mode?

I worked in radio for 20 years as a DJ and believe me the first few years of being on the radio your voice doesn't sound like your voice. Accurate or not it is something people who don't routinely hear their own voice rarely get used to.

I've wondered this for years @SteveChambers - when you record your voice is it more accurate to what other people hear or is it completely different?  I swear this is what I think I sound like:  https://youtu.be/trwLjCfb6ik   :-}

Not to be too pedantic here. but what you hear in your head is sonically affected by your voice (coming from the vocal cords in your neck) resonating in your head. recording your voice (barring audio processing and microphone issues) is precisely what other people hear when you speak.

I think I'm quite familiar with your problem. Sometimes it makes me stutter when speaking on the phone, and when singing it's just really inconvenient.
With the Airpods Pro on transparency/pass-through mode, I personally feel that it's very natural to speak or sing with the earbuds in. I think it works really well, without any delay or disturbances that would make it sound unnatural.

No they do not - not due to plugging your ears and not due to loopback.
Both AirPods and AirPods Pro don’t loop back audio, so you don’t get any negative effects whatsoever. You have to go out of your way to loop the audio back with a tool like LoopBack to get any hint of your own vocalizations in the mix.

https://www.rogueamoeba.com/loopback/

AirPods Pro can be even better in transparency mode if you don’t like to have any attenuation. The Pro on full isolation mode are less effective than Etymotic ER-6 and more effective than foam noise protectors in my experience in terms of external noise and less impactful to making you think your voice is different.

I believe I understood your question perfectly and have the best answer possible. No need to accept my answer - others can have a different take. I don’t think I can make the answer better, unfortunately after these edits. I get the effect you speak of with Etymotic and foam earbuds. I don’t get it with the AirPods. I contrasted the experience with them. I reinforced my belief that the Apple kit is too open to cause a big effect, but just because I don’t jam the EarPods in my ear deeply doesn’t mean others could have a different subjective experience if they jam the device too far in.


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Square brackets on Swedish Keyboard - MacBook Pro with Catalina MacOs
Each time I need to use square brackets '[]' I need to find them somewhere else and Copy & Paste them. I could add an extra language to my keyboard and switch languages every time I need to use square brackets but it would be nice to find simpler way that works with the Swedish keyboard.
I use Catalina MacOS and I've tried both using the keyboard of my MacBook Pro and and external Logitech keyboard but so far no success.

Simplest way to find anything like this is from the Keyboard Viewer, available as an option for the menu bar in System Prefs > Keyboard > Input sources [or also in that pref itself]
Finding the Swedish layout in that panel shows [ & ] on Opt 8 & 9 respectively.


text:
Budget eGPUs for Mac Mini?
I thought it sounded quite cool that you can connect an eGPU to a Mac Mini to boost it's performance, but had no idea just how expensive those things are!
Here is one I found recommended on a YouTube video, almost £800:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-08G-P4-2182-KR-GDDR6-GeForce-Graphics/dp/B07GQTRH9W
I've tried looking for alternatives but struggle to find any... are there just not that many eGPUs out there or something?
It would be good if I could find one for around £200–£300 — I would mainly be using it for the likes of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects... maybe some 3D software too. I'm not after anything too hardcore, just something to improve on what I already have.
Are those really unrealistic expectations price-wise?

The linked graphics card is not an eGPU, it's just a regular PCIe GPU. The 'eGPU' part is a separate product entirely. Here are a few - https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=mac+egpu&i=computers&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 You need to then put your 800 quid card in it [some models can take up to three cards]… or pick a cheaper card.

You already have a 'budget' GPU inside the Mini. I would expect the Intel integrated unit to be more than capable of your workload.
There is a danger that you spend a lot of money on a GPU and not notice any performance benefit.
You can always check Activity Monitor to see if your GPU is being 'overloaded' by your work, using the GPU History panel. It's worth checking to see whether any lack of performance is caused by the GPU, or whether it's just shonky Adobe code.


text:
Custom app keyboard shortcuts: different commands with the same name
I've created some custom keyboard shortcuts for Sketch within system preferences:

I'd like to create some additional shortcuts, but what do I do when the commands have the same name within the dropdowns? e.g. there are multiple commands called 'Left' depending on which dropdown you use, see one here:

You can spell out the exact "path" to the menu item in question using the  "->" separator when you enter a value for the "Menu Title" in System Preferences. So, in your case, instead of "Left," you'd enter "Arrange->Align->Left" (without quotes) as the menu command in System Preferences.
Source


text:
Increase Siri home button press time
I want to have to press the home button on my iPhone 7 iOS 13.5.1 for longer to activate Siri.
At the moment it frequently activates unintentionally because I have a habit of holding the home button for a few moments while lost in thought and exiting my current app.

You can probably turn off the ability to use the home button for Siri and just use “hey Siri” - open to that?

I have a habit of holding the home button for a few moments while lost in thought and exiting my current app

There's no setting and no access to any of the iOS files (unless you jailbreak) that changes the duration of the hold button press to activate Siri.
Unfortunately, it will be a habit that you're going to have to change/break. After all, the "long press" required to activate Siri is only 1.5 seconds.    The other option will be to change your workflow to either

use "Hey Siri"
use headphones and activate Siri with that button.


text:
Mysterious extra 100GB of hard drive space taken up
I have a 250GB SSD hard drive on my Mac.
Last time I checked the remaining space was about a week ago when I removed Bootcamp and free'd up an extra 50GB of space. This left me with around 150GB space remaining.
I've just checked today and only have 60GB free!
I've also instealled 'Clean my Mac' and checked for junk files, but it only found 9GB worth.
The only real folders I can think of that take up room are my Dropbox folder (which contains all of my files, at least all those that I'm aware of) and my Applications folder.
Both of those folders combined only take up 50GB amount of space according to Finder.
I read that the 'Library/Caches' folder can take up a lot of space there, but only found 10GB (possibly what was found my CleanMyMac)
I've also emptied my trash.
Also I read on another forum about running the following command in Terminal:
~ % sudo rm -r /System/Library/Caches

But I just get the following error:

rm: /System/Library/Caches: Read-only file system

I can't even think of where else to look for what could be taking up all this room?

that worked nicely thank you so much! turns out I totally forgot I sync'd a 75GB folder on Dropbox! for some reason that wasn't registering in Finder when I checked the size of the folder, but after checking In DaisyDisk everything seems to be showing properly... maybe time to unsync that folder!

I'm glad it helped. Thanks for letting us know. :)

I don't suppose you have any idea why my Finder wasn't displaying the correct folder size for my Dropbox at all? (until now anyway)... maybe that's for a separate question though

I really don't know - haven't used Dropbox in years. Maybe try a new question, but it might be as simple as "it didn't get around to adding up the numbers yet". Some structures don't calculate until you look at them - Heisenberg-style ;)

I've just found that, when unsync'ing the folder, that Finder didn't update again straight away. Then I found a hidden Dropbox cache folder which is apparently stored for 3 days. Think that might have something to do with it


text:
GNU version of locate - gupdatedb fails with "gfind: failed to read file names from file system"
I try to test GNU version of locate command. First, I have to create the database like this :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths=/Volumes --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

Unfortunately, 1 minute after launching the command, I still get the following error :
gfind: failed to read file names from file system at or below '/': No such file or directory

I don't understand where this error could come from ?
UPDATE 1: I replaced gfind by find commad and correct path of find which is /usr/bin/. Unfortunately, I get embarassing error messages like this when I launch the gupdatedb command like this :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /Volumes /System' --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

Here the error messages :
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.PKInstallSandboxManager: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.cleverfiles: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/mnt: No such file or directory
find: /System/Volumes/Data/.DocumentRevisions-V100: No such file or directory
etc ...

I tried to modify into /usr/local/Cellar/findutils/4.7.0/libexec/bin/gupdatedb file, the option :
: ${FINDOPTIONS="2 > /dev/null"}

But the issue is this option is set in front of the command find, not at the end, so it is not correct in the following of the file.
Given the fact there a lot of find commands after in the script, I can't add manually each time the 2 > /dev/null terminal option.
Anyone could see how to suppress all these error messages from find command when I launch a gupdatedb command ?
UPDATE 2: I finally managed to create a database with gupdatedb (GNU version of MacOS updatedb command) by doing :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /System /Volumes' --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

The issue now is, when I do a research on a substring of a file or directory, the informations seems to be duplicated in results (sub_string  is simply the part of a file or directory name) :
For example, if I do a : glocate -d ~/locatedb_gupdatedb sub_string
Then, I have duplicates results like :
/System/Volumes/Data/Users/fab/sub_string.dat
/Users/fab/sub_string.dat

I don't know how to exclude '/System/Volumes/Data/' from these results : however, I have well specified in --prunepaths option the directory System, why isn't it taken into account in database created by gupdatedb ?
Or maybe I should perform a :
sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /System/Volumes/Data /Volumes' --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedb

??
Any help is welcome to exclude this directory
/System/Volumes/Data

from indexing database.
UPDATE 3: Here is an example of quickly generating a database with updatedb on Debian 10 Buster. Few modifications of normal using have been done between the timestamps of the 2 commands updatedb.

So I conclude there is a really a difference betweeen GNU/MacOS and GNU/Linux implementation.
Any explanation is welcome.

Not sure we are the right place to ask about Linux , it also makes your question rather broad.

The problem here is that you are running GNU's updatedb with the macOS's find. gupdatedb is a shell script that expects to be running a GNU-compatible find. In particular, it converts --prunepaths to a GNU-compatible basic regular expression.
--prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /Volumes /System'

converts to
PRUNEREGEX="\(^/private/tmp$\)\|\(^/private/var/folders$\)\|\(^/private/var/tmp$\)\|\(^*/Backups.backupdb$\)\|\(^/System$\)\|\(^/Volumes$\)"

GNU BRE (basic regular expressions) treat \| as an "alternative" operator:

‘foo\|bar’ matches either ‘foo’ or ‘bar’

This is a GNU extension to the BRE syntax, and the macOS find operator does not accept it. So the whole prune string fails to match anything.
The macOS (and POSIX) BRE does not have an alternative operator, so it is not a super easy fix. The macOS updatedb script converts the alternative into explicit -or operators in the find command. You can modify the GNU script to do that. Or get gfind to work.
By the way, GNU's updatedb script builds a completely new database from scratch on every run, just like macOS's.
Your Debian installation is using mlocate which is a completely different implementation than GNU locate, not as widely ported, and not available on macOS AFAIK. And even though mlocate runs quickly on your Debian installation, that does not mean it runs a lot faster than GNU locate. Both run in under a second building the entire database from scratch on my Debian installation when all the disk metadata is in RAM (which is usually the case).
Apple provides mdfind, which uses the incremental database created by mds, which is largely triggered by file system events. This makes it (theoretically) much more efficient than even mlocate, which still has to traverse the entire directory structure looking for changed directories. The problem is that incremental builds accumulate errors. That is why locate, with its full rebuild every time, is still around and preferred by many.

"By the way, GNU's updatedb script builds a completely new database from scratch on every run, just like macOS's. "  : This is not the case with Linux, isn't it ?

@youpilat13 I am looking at the code from GNU findutils 4.7.0. It is not specific to macOS, so I expect it is the same on Linux. If you look at the code in general, updatedb just runs a find command to find all the files and then processes the output into a database file. Since find has to scan the entire directory tree to find new files anyway, there is no performance benefit for an incremental update (at least not one worth the effort).

@OlfPro It"s weird, on my Debian, I have not this behavior, updatedb updates only just what has been modified between a last of utilization, typically a few hours or minutes. I conclude the implementation is not exactly the same.

Do you know a tool that doesn't any to buidd at each time all the hard disk ? mdfind is pretty good but instable (sometimes results appear and sometimes not).

@youpilat13 Let me know what version of updatedb you are running on your Debian system. When I run apt install locate on Debian Buster I get the one from GNU findutils 4.6.0 which creates a new $LOCATE_DB.n and if successful, replaces the old database with the new one.
AFAIK, mds does incremental updates for mdfind. If mdfind is missing something not excluded on purpose (by privacy settings or turning of indexing of a drive, for example), I recommend using locate :-) It does not try to do incremental updates so is much more reliable, if somewhat out of date.

@OdPro I put an example into UPDATE3 of just updating on Debian 10 with updatedb. I did few modifications (creating some files, directories between the 2 dates). And as you can see, the database is generated very quickly. So  there is really a difference in implementation between Linux and MacOS.

@youpilat13 It is not a difference between GNU/macOS and GNU/Linux. Your Debian installation is using mlocate which is a completely different implementation than GNU locate, and not as widely ported, and not available on macOS AFAIK. Also, both GNU locate and mlocate take less than 1 second to update the database on my Debian system. You need to compare the two utilities on the same system to get a fair assessment.

It seems that the answer here is that there actually is no answer - or at least not one that doesn't require a large effort to overcome - have I got that correct? I installed my copy of locate from MacPorts - I'm a bit disappointed as MacPorts usually just does not release a port that doesn't work properly.

The Apple version is run via /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb which is a shell script. Some additional paths are excluded from the search there. In Mojave these are
: ${PRUNEPATHS:="/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb"} # unwanted directories

PS: I don't have Catalina so you may need to check whether other paths need to be excluded as well.

Thanks for your quick answer but the issue is about the root directory "/", the message is : gfind: failed to read file names from file system at or below '/' .I tried to do, with your sugeestion : sudo gupdatedb --prunepaths='/private/tmp /private/var/folders /private/var/tmp */Backups.backupdb /Volumes' --output=$HOME/locatedb_gupdatedband I get the error message above. Do you  think it's a sudo problem ?

@youpilat13 It's probably more complex than it seems, the shell script runs find and then feeds the result into the locatedb updater. Don't know how the GNU version works but maybe you can just use a copy of the shell script to feed the GNU version.

Why do you need to use GNU locate when there's already one installed?

@MarcWilson . Because I expect the GNU version to have the same behavior than on Linux systems, i.e when we have already a database, if we launch another updatedb command after few hours of using, the current database is updated and not erased to build entirely another again. This is a waste of time to rebuild all the database and unfortunately, this is the dafaut behavior of classical updatedb command of MacOS.

Documentation showing that this is the behavior of BSD locate?


text:
Macbook Pro 2015 Lid seemingly overnight stopped from closing properly
When I plugged my Macbook Pro (Early 2015) yesterday, the lid was closing perfectly. This morning I woke up early and left without checking on the laptop. 8 hours later, I came back and realized the lid wasn't closing properly by a huge margin (look at picture).
It's like something is preventing it from closing all the way... I'm currently in vacation in a hot country and few months ago I received some warnings about changing the battery. Could it be that the battery is getting swollen and is deforming the case preventing the lid from closing properly?
If so is it dangerous? Will it stop getting swollen if I stop using the Macbook? I kind of want to repair it myself but I don't want to wait a month to replace the battery if it's dangerous...
Thank you for your help

Here the information on the system information panel:

EDIT: I Just checked on a flat surface and the bottom case is definitely deformed:

The most obvious diagnosis at this time would be a swollen battery.
A swollen battery can cause different symptoms from a misaligned track pad to a malformed keyboard.  In your case, it appears it's mis-aligning the case causing the lid to not close properly.

Why is my Early 2014 MacBook Air's Trackpad Uneven?
Stiff trackpad on Macbook air
Macbook Pro mid-2015 15" swollen battery

A battery swells because the off gasses that are normally vented are trapped (see the first link for more info); the battery swells like a balloon.  Suffice to say, this is more than an inconvenience, this can cause something called "thermal runaway" where it could cause a fire.
I strongly suggest that you get this addressed as quickly as possible.  It's impossible to predict if/when this could occur, but it is very dangerous.  You cannot put out a thermal runaway fire as the chemical reaction will continue.  This is why firefighters simply allow hybrid and electric cars to burn out; they will try to contain the fire, but they cannot extinguish it.
At a minimum, from a non-safety point of view, the battery is warping the aluminum structure - it could be permanently be bent, or unlike it's counterpart steel, will tear once it reaches a certain point.

It would also be prudent to unplug the computer, so the battery receives no more charging current. This may slow or stop the swelling. It won't solve the problem — only battery replacement will do that — but it'll make the time before repair less risky. Even better would be removing the battery from the MacBook, but ifixit.com reports that job is "difficult" at https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Display+Mid+2015+Battery+Replacement/89284 The article "Take Extra Precautions" linked on that page contains additional useful information.


text:
iOS VPN configuration: which ip do apps see?
If I have a VPN configured on my iPhone, which ip address is accessible by some other app on my phone? For example, if I use some news app, will the app's server know my true ip address or the ip assigned by the VPN?

Apple doesn’t really tell applications much about vpn since there are other ways to check if a resource on the internet is reachable, so most apps just check what they want to access is available or try to request something and then indicate waiting or failure.

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/49581

It really depends how smart a programmer is if they track any or all interfaces and also match up your request to their server logs which will show your NAT address in all cases.
It also depends on the VPN if it’s app specific or system general and split tunnel exposes multiple network interfaces to each app in practice.


text:
Is there a way to zoom with the front camera on an iPhone (iOS 13.5.1)?
I'm running iOS 13.5.1 on an iPhone XR. I can zoom with the back camera (in by "spreading", out by "pinching"), but is there a way to zoom with the front camera?

Go to this website and purchase the App from the App Store. Once installed you also zoom with the front camera. https://camera.plus

Thank you for responding to the request for details such as a link. Having that usually avoids down votes but isn’t strictly required. I will edit the side conversation as answers are best when not chatty and they address the question and not side bar comments.

Many thanks for this answer, @JanD. But can you post a link confirming that this program does indeed allow front zoom on the XR. I couldn't find that stated at the site you linked to, unless it was implied in jargon I didn't understand. Thanks again for your help. I should add that I'd welcome other answers too. Digital zoom seems quite a simple thing, so there may be some free programs out there that provide this function.

With the app Camera+ you can zoom the front camera.

It’s helpful if you provide a link to the app and maybe even a description of how it can solve the problem

As a courtesy to explain my comment earlier, your original post as flagged as “Low Quality” and my comment is offered as constructive criticism in case you could  make your answer better.  I highly suggest you review our Code of Conduct in regards to your last comment and [help] for site expectations on commenting, flagging and voting.

I edited Allan’s post above and removed an out of bounds rude comment. Hit me up on [meta] if anyone isn’t clear how to vote or post.


text:
How to check what communication mode is being used with an external monitor over the USB-C/Thunderbolt plug
If I understand correctly, if you connect an external monitor to a Mac there is more than one way the signals can be sent to the monitor.
It could be HDMI, it could be USB Two-lane Displayport, it could be USB four-lane DisplayPort Alternate Mode, it could be Thunderbolt Displayport, it could be Displaylink.
Is there some place on the Mac it will tell me which mode is being used?

Yes.  System Report.  Click on the Apple Logo (top left of Menu Bar) *About this Mac → System Report → Graphics/Displays

That said.....

It could be HDMI, it could be USB 2 lane Displayport, it could be USB 4 lane DisplayPort Alternate Mode, it could be Thunderbolt Displayport, it could be Displaylink.

You're confusing/conflating a bunch of things all into one big lump.  Let's see if we can sort through the confusion - and yes, the industry doesn't help at all in making things less confusing.
The technology...

USB-C describes the physical port attributes (connector type) not the actual port itself.  It's actually a USB 3.x port or a Thunderbolt 3 port with a Type C connector, but we've been saying USB-C for short; and yes, doing things this way made everything overly complex and confusing

Your Mac (assuming 2018 or later because you referenced USB-C), natively outputs a DisplayPort signal.  Period.

"Lanes" just refers to the bandwidth of the USB or Thunderbolt signal.

USB Alt or Alternate Mode is when the DisplayPort signal is "added" or embedded in the USB signaling.  USB by itself doesn't have display capability so if your computer manufacturer enabled this capability (i.e. Apple 12" MacBook), you will be able to connect an external display to your MacBook via the USB-C port.  From the Texas Instruments PDF linked above:

This configuration enables other protocols such as DisplayPort (DP) ... ... to transfer over Type-C cables

Thunderbolt is actually several signals all in one: PCIe, USB 3 (soon will be 4.0), DisplayPort 3.2 and Power Delivery.  If you connect your external display to a Thunderbolt 3 port, you're still connecting it to DisplayPort.

DisplayLink is a technology that allows manufacturers to embed the video signals on USB/Thunderbolt, Ethernet and WiFi connections.  This is something at the manufacturer level and really, the only time consumers actually get involved with this is when Apple doesn't include the drivers or there's an issue with it supporting something like daisy-chaining.

What you connect to...

If I understand correctly, if you connect an external monitor to a Mac there is more than one way the signals can be sent to the monitor.

Not exactly.  Generally speaking there's only one way signals are sent to your Mac and that's from a DisplayPort signal.  There are Macs with HDMI ports (Mac mini for, example) but since we're referring to the USB-C port - there's only one connection - DisplayPort.
Your end device (monitor) may be HDMI, however, and depending on how that signal was converted, it my be unidirectional.  In other words, it won't communicate back that it's using HDMI.
Yes, you can use a USB-C to HDMI or DVI or even VGA adapter. The DisplayPort signal can be converted to these formats with passive or active adapters (I suggest active).
From the Comments....

It would seem it would be nice to know is it (a) 2 lane and so I'm limited to 30hz at 4k (b) 4 lane and so all my USB bandwidth is being eaten and external storage will be slow, or (c) thunderbolt and so everything is good.

That's not how it works.  It's not just one big pipe where everything is shoved through and if you use so much of USB you reduce your video or frame rate.
The "lanes" that you're referring to have to do with the data lanes that can be sent.  This is not something that can modified nor utilized by the user in any way.  If you have a USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, using a USB 3 cable with "4 lanes" isn't going to improve your video or USB throughput in  any way.  What you need to focus on is the specifications of your hardware.  Looking at the specs

If your Mac has stated specifications, it has to meet those specifications.  Your peripherals also have to meet these specifications.  Whether you have 2 lanes or 4 lanes makes no difference.

. Given there are 3 types of Displayport is that telling me it could be any of those 3 or specifically one of those 3 and it would display something different for the other 2 types of Displayport?

Where do you see "three types of displayport"?

I listed them in my question. As an example most USB-C hubs only support 2 lane Displayport so if you have a 4k monitor you'll get at most 30fps.

See my answer where I said "you're confusing/conflating...."  There's only one DisplayPort.  There are versions where it evolved to add more capabilities/speed/bandwidth, but there's only one DisplayPort.

yes, and the entire point of my question is to find which version is being used. It sounds like the answer is "no" it won't tell me. It would seem it would be nice to know is it (a) 2 lane and so I'm limited to 30hz at 4k (b) 4 lane and so all my USB bandwidth is being eaten and external storage will be slow, or (c) thunderbolt and so everything is good. Plugging in via a hub I know does not support 4k at 60hz I see nothing in System Report that tells me I'm using a slow connection.

This is becoming a perfect example of question scope creep and somewhat of an XY Problem.  There's a fundamental misunderstanding of the technologies on your part because 1) these aren't options you get to choose, b) if things worked the way you described, it would all be out of spec, and c) "Thunderbolt = everything is good" makes no sense whatsoever (see my bullet point on Thunderbolt)

The XY problem is you're interpretation. My question is simple. To rephrase this question. Imagine you have 3 USB hubs unlabeled. Only one of those hubs supports 4k at 60fps. You only have a 2k monitor locally so you can't test by using a 4k monitor. So you plug each each hub one at a time between your Mac and your monitor. How do you tell which one is the 4k/60fps capable hub? Note that many monitors have hubs built in so this is really the same as plugging directly into the monitor. There is nothing XY about wanting to know which type of connection is being used which is what I asked.

Does your network switch tell you that it's gigabit capable when you only have a 10/100 card in your computer?  Does your computer know it's using a CAT5 or CAT5e or CAT6 cable?  The way you've phrased your question emphasizes my point that there's a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology.  No USB hub is capable of 4K at any FPS.  That's like saying which car is capable of 30 knots at a 2m depth.  I've repeatedly said Thunderbolt is 4 different signals including DisplayPort and the fact you're ignoring that is baffling.

I'm baffled you've ignored the question and are getting angry about it. If I asked "can my computer tell me if it's using CAT5, CAT5e or CAT6 and it can't then the answer is "no it can't" not "here's some other info that doesn't answer the question". As for USB-C hubs that support 4K there are plenty of them. I own one. They are not thunderbolt. I own one of those as well. The thunderbolt hub cost > $300. The USB-C hub only about $120. It does do 4k at 60fps vs the 2 I bought before that that don't.

No, you put a whole bunch of things in there that made no sense.  I'm trying to fix your confusion so you don't keep going around trying to solve a problem that actually doesn't exist.  For instance, what you own is a USB-C to HDMI (or something else) adapter with USB-A/SD card, or whatever.  There are no Thunderbolt hubs - there are thunderbolt docks.  The Thunderbolt dock has more capability because it includes the PCIe bus.  But you seem think you need to know how many lanes you have/use for some reason.

Here's an article on it. Feel free to point out why it's wrong. It contradicts what you're saying and makes it very clear that there are 5 types of ways for video to get from a computer to a monitor over a USB-C/Thunderbolt cable. It even gives lists of devices that use each method. My question was and still is, can my Mac tell me which 1 of those 5 ways is being used.

The article isn't wrong.  You're misunderstanding it.  They're explaing the underlying technologies that make it possible to send video over a USB/Thunderbolt port.  Read the part of my answer re: specifications and capabilities.  Whether you have 2 lanes or 4 is irrelevant to you. It's also irrelevant to whether or not you still have enough bandwidth to transfer files.


text:
Into Finder, when clicking on a color tag, loading unfinishing and finally no folders displayed as expected
I have a bad experience with color tag into Finder. Indeed, when I click on red color tag, I expect the displaying immediately of the directories that I have associated to this red color tag (2 directories actually).
Here below an example of the issue : the french word "Chargement" means "Loading".

As you can see, I am waiting for this loading and once this message has disappeared, nothing else appears, none of the directories associated to the color tag red.
If someone could explain me the origin of this issue and how to solve it, this would be fine to tell it.

I had this exact issue recently and these steps solved it for me.
First try to rebuild the spotlight database:

Open System Preferences and select Spotlight
Select Privacy
Drag your HDD icon from the desktop to this pane
Wait a second and then remove it.

This should rebuild the spotlight database on that drive.
If that fails you can do it manually using the command line in Terminal.
This command will do a system wide Spotlight reindex:
sudo mdutil -E /
This is a more extensive rebuild as it removes a possibly corrupt index database:

mdutil -i off /
sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100
sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V200
mdutil -i on /
mdutil -E /

There are many websites and forums that explain how to do this.
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/rebuild-spotlight-search-index-on-mac/


text:
Where should I place local executables on macOS?
I often write system-wide scripts and I wonder where to place my executables on macOS.
On many Linux system, /usr/local/bin (also /usr/local/sbin) is usually empty and I place my executables in there.
But on macOS, /usr/local/bin has already contained a lot of executables provided by such as Homebrew.
I understand /usr/local/bin is the most proper directory to place executables locally installed and similar questions also are answered /usr/local/bin, but I feel hesitant to contaminate by mixing my executables.
Is it good manner to place my executables in /usr/local/bin in spite of many other executables existing?
In other way, I am wondering where is the second best directory to place my executables.
I think /opt/bin is the second best at the moment because /opt/bin seems to proper directory to place my executables by its purpose and /opt/bin does not exist by default on macOS (empty assured).
Is there any idea or advice about my wondering?
similar questions (answered /usr/local/bin is best):

Where do you keep your own scripts on OSX?
Where should I cp oc binary to on MacOS?

I like ~/.local/bin as described in the systemd file hierarchy, extending the XDG spec. Doesn't require special permissions, keeps ~ clutter free, but is still easy to find.

@BenjaminW.
Thank you for your opinion!
I have been using ~/.local/bin too for many years.
I agree completely that this is smart way for personal use executables.
But I wondered where to place system-wide my executables.

Oh, system wide, right! Symlinks into /usr/local/bin is what I do for that.

@BenjaminW.
Thanks again. mattficle answered and showed the concrete way to symlink /usr/local/bin. I will follow the way you and mattficle suggested.

Homebrew doesn't directly install packages to the normal locations in /usr/local/, it installs to its own directory (/usr/local/Cellar by default) and then symlinks the files to /usr/local/bin (or lib, opt, and so on).
You could follow this pattern and create your own directory in usr/local/ to store your executables, and then symlink them to /usr/local/bin. This would let you keep all your own files organized in one place without needing to add a new directory to your $PATH.

@mattficle
That's a smart idea. I love it!
I worried about I could not separate easily my executables from another executables after mixing those.
The way you suggested is solved my worry completely.
Thank you very much!

I really like this solution! I think it's better than the usual solution of mixing your executables into one of the standard folders


text:
How to read iBooks offline
I can't figure out how to download a book to my iPhone 7 iOS 13.6 that's currently stored in iCloud.
How can I download the book so that I can read it offline later?

Did you download the books app ?

@anki yes (I did download the Books app)

Oh now I understand. you cannot make sure that the book will stay downloaded offline if sync is turned on. Either turn off sync, or keep the iPhone online all the time

@anki I checked in my downloaded books collection, and  it said the book was there. I just turned off iCloud Drive and Reading Now syncing in iBooks in settings, and now the book doesn't even appear in the downloaded collection.  It says I have no downloaded Books

~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/ Find all the books in this folder and airdrop them to the iPhone. That's the only way I found that keeps books offline on iPhone. Or use another app.

You can right-click on the book of interest and you get a menu of options. Under 'share', there is an option to email the book. You can email the book to yourself and then save it on your iPhone.

This works only for imported PDFs. On Mac, other books (files) can be found in /Users/me/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/

on my computer, it works for Books and PDFs. I just tried it on a novel I downloaded and it worked fine.  But your method is much better.


text:
Why does the "hand" cursor in macOS have three vertical lines?

What are the three vertical bars in the middle of the cursor supposed to represent?

Looks like a Micky Mouse glove to me.

I believe it is a classic white glove which, in real life, had white piping on the back, three stripes of it usually...

Even the Apple glove has a notch

I’m voting to close this question because asking why Apple does or doesn’t do something is out of the scope of what’s considered on-topic for this site

We can quickly remove the 'why' in a case like this, & replace it with a 'what' - what is the hand symbol supposed to represent?

I think mens leather gloves now usually have the three lines as do white cotton gloves

@agarza Except that Mickey, like most cartoon characters, only has 4 fingers.

It's a housekeeping, or butler's glove - similar to the ones Mickey Mouse wears.
The 'indentation' actually is on the underside in real life, & is usually a button-fastener, but liberty has been taken to give a more skeuomorphic look.
A tradition since at least Victorian times. A symbol of cleanliness & discreet, professional service.

More images at Alamy - https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/white-gloves-butler.html


text:
Is there a way to make my macbook automatically execute a script every time I connect it to an external monitor?
I would like to make my macbook automatically connect to a specific wifi and launch Lunar everytime I connect it to my external monitor, and vice versa when I unplug it, but don't know where to start...
I could write a script that keeps checking whether or not an external monitor is connected every, for example, 60 seconds, but I would like to do something like "event driven" that is neither checking nor doing anything at all until an event ("external monitor plugged" or "external monitor unplugged") occurs.
Any hint?

No one answered and I'm still looking for a simpler solution but I've found a workaround creating a little SwiftUI app.
//
//  ContentView.swift
//  HomeSweetHome
//
//  Created by Daniel Falbo on 20/08/2020.
//  Copyright © 2020 Daniel Falbo. All rights reserved.
//

import SwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {

    func execute(script: String) {
        let task = Process()
        task.launchPath = "/usr/bin/env"
        task.arguments = ["/Applications/HomeSweetHome.app/Contents/bin/\(script)"]
        task.launch()
    }

    var body: some View {
        Text("")
            .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity)
            .onReceive(NotificationCenter.default.publisher(for: NSApplication.didChangeScreenParametersNotification)) { _ in
                self.execute(script: NSScreen.screens.count > 1 ? "connect" : "disconnect")
        }
    }

}

It's basically just a Text object that listens for didChangeScreenParametersNotification.
Since the Text object must be alive in order to listen for notifications, an istance of the app must always be opened or minimized (does anyone have any idea on how to avoid this?).
Every time it receives a notification, it checks the number of connected displays, if there's only one display connected, it executes my disconnect script, else it executes my connect script.
This is what the scripts look like:
#!/usr/bin/env sh
#
# connect
#
open -a Lunar
networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 $SSID $PASSWORD

#!/usr/bin/env sh
#
# disconnect
#
killall Lunar
networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 $SSID $PASSWORD

And this is what the app looks like

This helped me connecting to a wifi programmatically

Brilliant code! Thanks so much for sharing it - I can see lots of people wanting to craft this to automate their setups.

On macOS 13, use MenuBarExtra to create a status bar app without window:
//
//  MonitorStatusApp.swift
//  MonitorStatus
//
//  Created by ZJG on 2023/6/28.
//

import SwiftUI

@main
struct MonitorStatusApp: App {
    @State private var sc = NSScreen.screens.count
    func execute() {
        sc = NSScreen.screens.count
        if (sc < 2) {
            return
        }
        let task = Process()
        task.launchPath = "/usr/bin/env"
        task.arguments = ["/Applications/auto_screen_setup.sh"]
        task.launch()
    }

    var body: some Scene {
        // pass
        MenuBarExtra {
            Button("Quit") {NSApplication.shared.terminate(nil)}.keyboardShortcut("q")
        } label: {
            Image(systemName: "display.2").onReceive(NotificationCenter.default.publisher(for: NSApplication.didChangeScreenParametersNotification)) { _ in
                self.execute()}
            Text(String(sc))
        }
    }
}

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.


text:
Apple AirPods pair and connect but no sound
Background
I was on a call at work today and was switching back and forth from my iPhone 10 to my laptop.  After switching from laptop to iPhone my 2nd Generation AirPods stopped playing sound.  They could connect but would not play any sound.  I purchased these 3 weeks ago and they are not physically damaged.
Trouble Shooting Steps
Here are the steps I went through to troubleshoot

I attempted to pair and connect with a 3rd device.  I was able to pair and connect but no sound.
I did a hard reset by holding the button on the back of the AirPod case for 15 seconds with the AirPods in the case.  I saw the light indicates and my iPhone had me pair the device again, still nothing
I disabled automatic ear detection, no change
I reset network services on my device.  No change

Does anyone have any idea where to go from here?

If you did a hard reset and they don't work with either your iPhone or your laptop (multiple devices) it's safe to say that they died.
They're under a month old so I would return them for refund/replacement immediately.  Products fail - it happens.  You're just lucky enough that it happened during the "return to retailer" period (usually 30 days) and not when the warranty runs out 48 weeks from now.

Before submitting them for repair or replacement to Apple, I would make sure you have thoroughly unpaired them from every device (laptop, phone, everything) and reset them one more time to clear any possible Bluetooth cache issues.  Then you can always seek further support from Apple.


text:
Google Earth Pro not working after upgrade to Catalina
After I upgraded my macOS to Catalina on my MacBook Pro 2018 (13.3", i5, 16GB RAM, TouchBar), Google Earth Pro will not open anymore.
When I launch the app, it opens the window but it will freeze and there's this annoying spinning beach ball. I have to force quit to quit the application.
What I've tried:

I installed an older version of Google Earth Pro, but that did not solve the issue.
I also cleared out the cache, turned off atmosphere, and my places in the repair window.

Does anyone have the same issue, is there anyway to fix this?
I can use the online (browser) version, but I'd like to use the application because it has more functionality.

I had a similar problem.  Google's help wasn't very helpful.  I reset my MacBook's SMC and it works fine.  Link to steps for any Mac: https://www.macworld.com/article/224955/how-to-reset-a-macs-nvram-pram-and-smc.html
Hope this might help, although a year later.


text:
Installing Big Sur Beta 5 on Catalina: stuck on black screen
Mac mini (late 2014)
macOS 10.15.6
running from a bootable microSD card (inserted into SDXC slot)
no firmware password
FileVault enabled (should be supported for install as of Beta 4)
Enrolled my Mac into the Public Beta program, downloaded macOS Big Sur Beta through Software Update (I do assume it downloaded the latest version i.e. Beta 5?), ran an update.
After a few hours updating, it stuck on “less than a minute remaining” for a good hour, then rebooted and hang up on the black screen with Apple logo. Diagnostics and Disk Utility’s First Aid find no issues. Rebooting in Safe Mode presents with a login window but gets stuck when progress bar reaches 100%. Clearing NVRAM and rebooting in Recovery mode leads to the same black Apple screen eventually.
I then rebooted in Verbose Mode. Terminal displayed many ‘failed to bootstrap path’ error notices, but nevertheless continued running the boot until it hang and resolved to black Apple screen.
Before switching to the black screen, it displayed the following:
setSystemTargetUUID will use / as the target
Found update container: LPAPFSContainer: AppleAPFSMedia
Found update container but did not find update volume.
mountAndGetUpdateVolumeMountPoint defaultMountPoint failed to get defaultMountPoint
process_update_result_state: no update result file, assuming 1st boot after a restore
OSVersion changed. Notifying clients
Attempting to cleanup saved RecoveryOS state.
RecoveryOS status file not present(not an error)
RecoveryOS connectivity data file not present
Clearing out RecoveryOS logarchives
Deleting RecoveryOS logarchive files
Using default RecoveryOS logarchive preservation timeout

I thought issues with APFS containers were resolved in beta 5 release?

Resolved in macOS Big Sur 11 beta 5
APFS containers with non-default allocation block sizes are now supported for installation. (64312561)

Terminal then proceeds scheduling kernel threads. The very last lines before it hangs and switched to the black screen:
en2: promiscuous mode enable succeeded
_dill_attach_flowswitch_nexus: en2 9000 1500
en3: promiscuous mode enable succeeded
_dill_attach_flowswitch_nexus: en3 9000 1500
IOConsoleUsers: time(0) 0->0, lin0, llk1,
IOConsoleUsers: gIOScreenLockState 3, hs 0, bs 0, now 0, sm 0x0
Got incomplete channel sequence length 0, should be 16
postMessage::1412 APPLE80211_M_BSSID_CHANGED received
en1::IO80211Interface::postMessage bssid changed
AirPort_BrcmNIC::getSSIDData(): Get failure: APPLE80211_IOC_SSID: 02

How can AirPort function be the one that breaks the boot? Do I read it correctly?
Any thoughts on what might have gone wrong?


text:
Clean install still loads old data
A while back I erased the HDD on my old iMac, without installing a new OS.
Today, I plugged in a bootable High Sierra USB and installed that on it. I expected it to be a clean install, but somehow all my old files are there. I didn't even have to create a new user account as my old one still appeared to be active.
It's a good job I didn't give it away to anyone or sell it.
I think I noticed a 'recovery' partition when I went to boot from the USB, could this have happened because of that? Is there a way I can just erase all my old data and start afresh?

Simply erasing a HD does not actually remove any data, only the pointers to where it is. This however, does not mean it will be found again by simply installing a fresh new OS, you would have to make a concerted effort to recover it. Therefore, there is some error in your method or description of it.

Have you tried the security wipe? Seven passes or even more with 1’s and 0’s ?

How did you erase the HDD?  What command(s) and/or procedures did you do?  @Tetsujin is correct, especially with respect to recovery. There’s no data recovery provision in the macOS install.

Thanks for the replies, I ended up giving it another shot by booting from my USB and then erasing the drive through disk utility... originally I just booted up with CMD+R then formatted the drive and left it. It seems strange that that didn't work the first time round, it's as if I need to boot from a bootable USB just in order to format the HDD properly (hope that makes sense)


text:
iMac shows a "flashing globe" screen and then continues to startup normally
I have another particular issue with my iMac. Every time I hold the N key on startup to boot from a NetBoot server, it shows a globe icon (I know it was flashing) for just 20-30 seconds and then it just continues to start up normally. Does anyone know how to fix this issue?

What is the current macOS version? If you reboot your Mac and hold Command+Opt+R, do you see a spinning globe and eventually a Recovery Console?

Just to make sure we're on the same page - do you have a net boot server running locally?

No, I DON'T! Stop asking me that!

There's you're answer - you need a Netboot server for it to boot off the network.  Were you instead thinking about booting from Recovery?


text:
can an Ipad with only a Lightning to USB cable be used to control a lasermaster 2. Lightburn software is hoped to be used
I've purchased a LaserMaster2 engraver. I would like to use a current Ipad to run LightBurn software to control it. The Ipad only has a Lightning port and I have the Lightning  to USB cable I use to charge the Ipad. would that work ? Assuming all drivers are correct and the control board is functional.

If you already have all the relevant parts: have you tried? What was the result? What do the manuals for the engraver and the software say?

There is no iOS version of LightBurn, so.. no.


text:
How can I download a iOS Shortcuts file to my Mac?
I have created a iOS shortcuts (Workflow) on a iPad. Finally, I would like to save and send a backup to Mac. This has been really easy in the past. Unfortunately it is no longer possible to share any Shortcuts via eMail, ftp client or other non iCloud services. It looks like Apple locked down Shortcuts to iCloud. Users are forced to use iCloud. Anyway, when I click the iCloud 'Get Shortcut' link it won't download the workflow://shortcuts file.
How can I download a iOS shortcut to my Mac?

You can save a shortcut you have on your iOS device to a .shortcut file using this shortcut: Save .shortcut. This works with shortcuts you’ve created or imported from iCloud.
Run the shortcut to be prompted to choose a shortcut from your list of shortcuts, then the Quick Look action opens the shortcut as a file, and you can share the file using the Share button in the top-right to Save to Files, AirDrop or elsewhere.
Unfortunately it’s no longer possible to import .shortcut files back into the Shortcuts app by opening them on iOS.

Thanks for in-depth explanation. It worked like a charm! This is exactly I was looking for. Due to the lack to re-import .shortcut files back from macOS to iOS clients it's kind of useless. To deploy shortcuts files you have to use iCloud shared link. I would prefer to share .shortcut files directly via email or WebServer.


text:
Can you access an AirPort Extreme (5th Gen) disk from an iPad
I have a need to share data between a MAC (Catalina) and an iPad Pro (13.7) and do not want to send it up and down to iCloud due to demands on the home broadband (joys of living in the U.K. countryside).
I have a AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Generation) running 7.8.1 with a USB disk but every time I try to access from the iPad Files app it just reports 'Could not be completed' as it's not supported.

I tried by name, by IP and with / without the smb:// at the front but the above is the result. (I know afp:// is a no-go but Apple do not say this anywhere).
I've tried the USB on the family router but it impacts surfing and creates router crashes.
I could leave the Mac on and share the data directly but I'm trying to cut down power use (esp as it's just gone up 8%) and the poor old Mac is 8 years old (hurry up ARM chips)... I know I could use an SD card and 'sneaker net' but I'm lazy...
Third party firmware for these boxes just does not exist - shame as the are solid boxes I think they were just a casualty of limited sales.
I'm not at a point to buy a NAS and do not to get a Pi to share the disk so was wondering if you have any ideas or know of an AirPort that can share its disks with an iPad?

Unfortunately you can't do it. The Airport Extreme runs SMB1 and can't be upgraded to a later version. SMB1 is not secure and the Files app will not allow connections to it.

Guessed it was something like that - I was hoping that the different versions released after this one may have supported it.  Looks like I'm back to iCloud for now and planning what I need to share.  Now to find out how much 1Tb costs...

I actually tested it with my Airport Extreme running 7.9.1 just to be sure (hopefull?) but still doesn't work. Works great with my Synology NAS, though. Good luck with iCloud - maybe cheaper than you think ;)


text:
Copy home directory from one Mac to another both running macOS Catalina
I have a new 16" and an older 15" MacBook Pros both running macOS Catalina. I want to transfer all my the content in my home directory to the new MacBook Pro while retaining the same username.
How do I do this?
Different problems have occurred since I have a huge amount of data about 1.3TB of it to transfer.

With scp -rp: Over my local Wi-Fi network, it is slow and mainly, files with a too long full path are not copied.

With rsync -aZv: Slow here too and there are the same issue than with scp with the long full path of filenames to copy.

By linking the 2 MacBook Pros with a Thunderbolt cable : With Shared directory, too slow and I have had at each time errors that stops the copy, which is very frustrating.

So, how can I copy all this data (even with a long full path for files) on to the new MacBook Pro ?
i.e how to to be able to copy all the content of my /Users/name/ directory into another directory of my new macbook pro 16", i.e into /Users/name/home_from_old_macbook_15_inch/ ?

Is Migration Assistant an option?

Transfering 1.3TB over WiFi or wire will take some time with any method you use. What do you mean by "slow"/"would take too much time"? How long would it take with the methods you mentioned, how long would be acceptable?

@nohillside : The main issue is that I have some files not copied since the full path is too long with scp and rsync : how to circumvent this ? In the absolute, I don't want a very fast method but mostly to be able to copy all the content of my /Users/name/directory into another directory of my new macbook pro 16", i.e into /Users/name/home_from_old_macbook_15_inch/ .

Your comment asks a different question than your question does. If some paths/files don't get copied with rsync or scp they may also fail with other approaches. Can you edit your question to focus on the actual problem and add the error messages you get (including the path/files in question).

Really your first and best option is Migration Assistant as it is designed to deal with anything the filesystem throws at it. Just create an admin user and make sure there is no account on the target Mac with the user account you are migrating. Target disk mode is probably fastest but you are limited by the connection method not by the software you use to transfer the files.

Migration Assistant was designed by Apple to do just that.  A direct copy may have problems because some of the things in ~/Library depend on MAC address, and some may change due to differences in hardware or O.S. version.
With 1.3 TB, speed cannot be expected.
You’ll have to have nothing else running (not even Time Machine or Spotlight indexing) to avoid error -42.  According to http://www.macwizard.com/errors.html, that means “too many files open.”  If no other apps are running, then report to Apple that Migration Assistant has a bug.  Actually two of them—it should not open too many files, and if it does get that error, it should close some and keep going instead of quitting.

After a long time, I get a frustrating (-42 error) and I don't understand why ?

It amazes me that Apple for fifty years has chosen not to improve their diagnostic messages.  CP/M and HDOS had more informative diagnostics in the 1970s.  I’ll add detail to the answer.

I will suggest that you undertake a method that not only copies the source directory from one machine to another but also copies that source to a third backup / archive drive. Time Machine + Migration Assistant has been mentioned. Another option is a third-party backup/archiving utility such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Finally, as you note, you can try to decode the right ways to do the transfer via the shell commands.
Set up the process to copy/clone/backup the source to the external drive. Let it run overnight as needed. Then, invert the process to copy/clone/restore the external drive to the new location drive. You worry over the time for the transfer when you can/should instead just do it right to devote the time needed to transfer the given amount of data robustly.

I want to suggest to create a Time Machine backup of older 15" MacBook, then restore the backup in new 16" MacBook. Just configure Time Machine to exclude system files and applications for saving time and space.
The main issue must be the extra storage for saving the backup, but I'm quite sure that's not a problem since you have two MacBook Pro.

Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
Click: Options…
Click check box for: Exclude system files and applications
Click: Save
Create a backup.

Use this link as reference:
Exclude files from a Time Machine backup on Mac

Migration Assistant can restore files from a Time Machine backup or directly from the original account.  And (except for bugs), it is smart enough to skip or modify things incompatible with the destination.  It also allows you to select only a user account for transfer.


text:
Make a keyboard shortcut to do three finger swipes
How do I create a keyboard combination that can be held down to treat the successive mouse moves as if they were three-finger-on-trackpad movements?
So I can hold down e.g. cmd and shift, then move the mouse, and it would be as if I were performing that movement with three fingers, to perform things like

change spaces
expose mission control
show application windows

There are of course already individual keyboard shortcuts for all of the three-finger trackpad actions.
However, these are (often) two-handed keyboard shortcuts.
I would like to configure a left-hand only "modifier", which will then treat my next mouse move as if it were performed with three fingers.

RE: "(which does things like change spaces, expose mission control, and show application windows)" -- There are already keyboard shortcuts for these actions.

@user3439894 they are two-handed keyboard shortcuts, and I want a left-hand only "modifier", which will then treat my next mouse move as if it were performed with three fingers.

You can change the default shortcuts in [System Preferences] > [Keyboard] > [Shortcuts].

@JivanPal that doesn't help for this question

I made Mac Mouse Fix.
It lets you use Mission Control, App Exposé, and Switch between Spaces by simply clicking and dragging in different directions. It also feels super responsive and native.
(I works almost exacly like OP asked for, with the difference that you'll have to hold a Mouse Button - instead of Keyboard Modifiers - and then move the mouse to simulate Trackpad input.)
On top of that it's open source, easy to use, 100% free, and it also has a bunch of other cool features that make your mouse better!
Download | GitHub

Great tool, thanks!


text:
Is it possible for iPhone's MAC or other network specifications to change through update to IOS 14?
NOTE!!!
I already know that MAC address is static and is about the hardware's address. But i don't know what's happening,
Here is what got me wondering.
On the router in our house I set MAC filtering so that only our devices can connect.
Recently after i updated my iPhone 7 to IOS 14, i had my phone joined to the same wifi, but once i felt like i have a slow connection, i changed network to mobile data.
After a couple of days i found out that i don't have any message or email notification popping up when I'm on WiFi and there was the time i knew i have no access although I'm connected to the WiFi network.
So i searched for solutions. People suggested restarting my phone, resetting network setting and these sort of things(non of em worked).
Just a few minutes before, i reset the router and as a result, all the MAC restrictions are gone and its working properly.
I also think there might be other things that could change through this reset, but i cant work it out.
Moreover i changed the router's configuration (network name and passphrase) a couple of times before; another waste.

Yes, iOS 14 introduces a new type of MAC address randomization named "Private WiFi Addresses". This means that iOS selects a new, random MAC address for each WiFi network you connect to. Note that only the first time you connect a new address will be chosen - it stays the same for that network the following times you connect.
You can disable this behavior from the Settings app on the phone. Choose WiFi and then press the (i) button for the network in question. Ensure that "Private Address" is not enabled.

Relevant Apple post is here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211227


text:
iMac beeps 3 times repeatedly when trying to boot up from a Mac OS X install DVD
I have another issue with my iMac, the issue is that it beeps 3 times and they repeat when I start up from a Mac OS X install disc. Recently, I inserted a Mac OS X install disc into my computer, and used the Startup Manager to select the install disc and start/boot up from it. After a while at the grey Apple logo screen, the Mac played 3 tones, and then after 5 seconds, the tones played again/repeated, indicating a POSSIBLE hardware issue, and the startup procedure halted. Do you know what three tones, then a five second pause mean on a Mac? Might be an issue with the RAM. Do any of YOU know?

Anyone might know that this solution would be helpful. Try holding down the C key at startup to start from a bootable CD or DVD.

Let us know if this is the answer you was looking for ;)

Eh. My brother has an iMac from early 2009. I tried booting from the DVD, and then, it seemed to work fine.

The requirement needed to boot from the Mac OS X install disc I have in my house: you need an iMac from 2009.

I tried "C" on my iMac and it did boot from the CD, but, the same problem occurs again. Too bad!

Will the Mac boot from the retail DVD my dad brought home? I hope so...

3 tones indicate a RAM failure, my recommendation is to remove all the RAM sticks and verify one by one; to identify which one is damaged.
If you need more information check this useful link:
About Mac startup tones

Thanks for your answer! For now, I'm not going to tear down my iMac to remove the RAM sticks.

If one of the RAM sticks is dead, you don't necessarily have a choice...


text:
rsync on macOS Catalina : filename overflows max-path len by 2
I am trying to use rsync to transfer files to a Macbook Pro, like this :
rsync -avn --delete /Users/name/ fab@remote.local:/Users/home_name_from_old/

Unfortunately, I get the following errors on some files/directories :
filename overflows max-path len by 2

Here an example of what I get when I perform this operation of rsync above :
filename overflows max-path len by 2: Phd_2019_2020/Travail_2_Etude_de_la_stabilite_des_C_l_Probleme_avec_TAKAHASHI_ie_2_plateaux_dans_la_derivee_des_Cl_et_aussi_faire_varier_Omega_DE_sur_CAMB_et_regarder_si_les_P_k_changent_21_OCTOBRE_2019/Main_Directory_Work/TSAF_Main_Directory_STARTED_from_13_NOVEMBRE_2019/Test_Comparaison_SUITE_TAKAHASHI_STARTING_BY_USING_CAMB_PYTHON_CAR_PROBLEME_CUTOFF_SITUE_SOIT_A_2e-5_ET_LAUTRE_A_2e-4_ESSAYER_LA_METHODE_DINTERPOLATION_IMPLEMENTE_DANS_CAMB_avec_boost_accuracy_2_ET_k_per_login_75_29_DECEMBRE_2019/STUDY_of_PIC_SUITE_JE_PLOT_2_Pk_FOR_2_VALUES_DE_Omega_m_DIFF_IE_2_STEPS_DIFF_DONC_2_MEME_Z_FAUT_ETRE_DANS_ZONE_PATHO_cad_2e-4_CAD_LA_1st_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DU_PIC_AVEC_600_photoZ_ET_600_Pk_FILES_ET_JE_PLOT_AVANT_ET_APRES_CA_SUGGESTION_DE_LEWIS_05_01_2020/CAMB-1.0.12/fortran_original/SAVE_IMPORTANT_SCRIPTS_ET_Archive_current_Cl_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DES_2_PLATEAUX_DE_TAKAHASHI_AVEC_DER_15_PTS/Analysis_Pk_vs_Step_der_15_pts/Archive_WP_Pk_der_15_pts_step_8.283979084506619e-06/wm_dw2/Pks8sqRatio_ist_LogSplineInterpPk_iz_316.dat

Or yet, now with filename overflows max-path len by 1: error :
filename overflows max-path len by 1: Phd_2019_2020/Travail_2_Etude_de_la_stabilite_des_C_l_Probleme_avec_TAKAHASHI_ie_2_plateaux_dans_la_derivee_des_Cl_et_aussi_faire_varier_Omega_DE_sur_CAMB_et_regarder_si_les_P_k_changent_21_OCTOBRE_2019/Main_Directory_Work/TSAF_Main_Directory_STARTED_from_13_NOVEMBRE_2019/Test_Comparaison_SUITE_TAKAHASHI_STARTING_BY_USING_CAMB_PYTHON_CAR_PROBLEME_CUTOFF_SITUE_SOIT_A_2e-5_ET_LAUTRE_A_2e-4_ESSAYER_LA_METHODE_DINTERPOLATION_IMPLEMENTE_DANS_CAMB_avec_boost_accuracy_2_ET_k_per_login_75_29_DECEMBRE_2019/STUDY_of_PIC_SUITE_JE_PLOT_2_Pk_FOR_2_VALUES_DE_Omega_m_DIFF_IE_2_STEPS_DIFF_DONC_2_MEME_Z_FAUT_ETRE_DANS_ZONE_PATHO_cad_2e-4_CAD_LA_1st_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DU_PIC_AVEC_600_photoZ_ET_600_Pk_FILES_ET_JE_PLOT_AVANT_ET_APRES_CA_SUGGESTION_DE_LEWIS_05_01_2020/CAMB-1.0.12/fortran_original/SAVE_IMPORTANT_SCRIPTS_ET_Archive_current_Cl_MISE_EN_EVIDENCE_DES_2_PLATEAUX_DE_TAKAHASHI_AVEC_DER_15_PTS/Analysis_Pk_vs_Step_der_15_pts/Archive_WP_Pk_der_15_pts_step_8.283979084506619e-06/wm_dw2/Pks8sqRatio_ist_LogSplineInterpPk_iz_67.dat

and the output of rsync --version :
$ rsync --version
rsync  version 3.1.3  protocol version 31
Copyright (C) 1996-2018 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
Web site: http://rsync.samba.org/
Capabilities:
    64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
    socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
    append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, no prealloc, file-flags

rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.

I guess the path is too long. How do I circumvent this problem?

Also: what is the output of type rsync; rsync -V?

This doesn't look like the Catalina version, did you install it via Homebrew or similar? Don't think the Catalina version behaves differently though, your paths are just too long. If this is a one-off transfer, you can try scp -r or a tar pipe via ssh.

@nohillside If I buy an external drive of 2TB and create a Time Machine image, could I transfer this image (or import it) inside the new MacBook Pro ?

Probably. You could probably also use migration assistant, use a more elaborate shell script to transfer sub-trees, shorten some top-level directory names (you can rename them on the target machine afterwards), or try to use scp instead of rsync

Also, the question shows that rsync doesn‘t support paths that long, the bounty message talks about scp instead. Which one has issues?

@noohillside both scp and rsync produce the same error : "filename too long".

Honestly, why don‘t you just shorten some directory names for the transfer and rename afterwards?

Rsync has internal buffers to hold the names of files. These are hardcoded to have a value MAXPATHLEN which is defined to be an OS dependant value or  1024 in the code from https://github.com/WayneD/rsync/blob/d2a97a7ab492e0d0548708251309e077e6aa8c8b/rsync.h
So you path names are too long for either macos or rsync

Which command could allow me to copy all the files with a path over 1024 ? If I pass by a combination rsync/ssh, I guess the issue will remain. Maybe by copying on a harddrive, the command cp will circumvent this problem, won't it ?

If this is a OS limitation you can't do it in anyway

And sys/syslimits has PATH_MAX defined as 1024 so I think no C code can read paths of more that 1023 characters. Althogh I think HFS+ does allow more

Is HFS+ already present on my MacBook pro Catalina ? Maybe the solution is to use Time Machine utility to create a copy of my entire /Users/user directory with a Airport Time capsule ? but I don't know how to create a distant drive between the 2 MacBook pro, any help is welcome

If I buy an external drive of 2TB and create a Time Machine image, could I transfer this image (or import it) inside the new MacBook Pro ?


text:
Find my iPhone unknowingly turned off
I recently saw that "Find my iPhone" was turned off on my phone. I am 100% sure that I have never disabled Find my iPhone, and I believe it should be enabled by default. Does anyone know of a particular reason why this may have been disabled?

it's nearly impossible to turn it off without knowing the password. Find My iPhone is off by default

Perhaps you have signed out of iCloud

In order to disable "Find My iPhone" you'll need to know both the AppleID password as well as any device pass code. It cannot really be done accidentally by just tapping once or by someone that lent your device for a minute to call someone.
There's also nothing in iOS that automatically disables "Find My iPhone" for you.
However, contrary to what you write, it is actually disabled by default. So most probably you have never enabled it.


text:
Can Apple decrypt iCloud data of third-party app?
Suppose that a third-party app is encrypted (say, with AES 128), and that this app stores data in iCloud through iCloud Drive. In general, can Apple decrypt this data as it would with data stored in native iOS apps?

Do you mean “can they if iCloud, macOS and other Apple products work the way Apple says that they do” or “can they if Apple is  lying about how its products work”?

I initially intended the former, i.e. assuming that their products and services work as they claim, but on second thought, I'd also be curious of the situation in which they're lying.

If Apple is telling the truth, then they can’t access your data, assuming the third-party app developer doesn’t store your AES key in iCloud. Apple has no way to get at a key stored locally on your device (according to Apple) and no way to decrypt the data without the key (according to everything we know about cryptography).
If Apple is lying, then of course all encryption keys created or used by third-party apps could be secretly transmitted to Apple’s servers so that they can be used to decrypt your data, even if the app thinks it’s only storing them locally.

https://faq.whatsapp.com/iphone/chats/how-to-back-up-to-icloud/?lang=en This says that whatsapp messages stored in iCloud are not protected by end-to-end encryption. But might they still be encrypted by Whatsapp in such a way that "honest" Apple cannot read the messages?

@Dion They might be, but since WhatsApp doesn’t say that they are, it’s safest to assume that they aren’t. It would, for example, stop you from restoring the backup to a different device if it was encrypted with a locally stored key.


text:
parallel with copy command is very slow to clone 2 directories
I am on MacOS Catalina. This command is very slow :
parallel -j32 cp -rpf {} /Users/henry/ ::: /Volumes/henry/
The goal is to  clone the /Volume/henry to /Users/henry directory.
/Volume/henry is shared across my network.
Could anyone tell me what's wrong in my command : I have 1.3 TB to clone.
Any help is welcome.

A few questions:

How slow is "very slow"  - is this a gigabit network? If so, maximum speed will be ~112MB/s, likely less with overhead.

32 parallel threads reading the network drive may be causing I/O issues, you can see if this is happening using something like htop

@Scot from what I have tested, it would take 24 hours or more to copy all files/directories. htop doesn't show multiple processes when I launch the above command, surely my command is incorrect, what do you think about this ?

You likely need an asterisk in there, otherwise parallel won't parallelize the copy. Something like this:
parallel -j32 cp -rpf {} /Users/henry/ ::: /Volumes/Henry/*

The command should likely be adjusted like this:
parallel -j32 cp -rpf {} /Users/henry/ ::: /Volumes/henry/*
Note the asterisk, this will allow parallel to parallelize across the folders/files present to be copied within the top level of /Volumes/henry/.
With the above command, there will be as many concurrent copies as /Volumes/henry/* expands to, which is why the original command (without the asterisk) was slow (it was performing one parallel copy).
However, since you are copying so much information, I'd recommend an alternate approach, and use rsync rather than cp. rsync might be slightly slower, but it verifies that copies complete properly, so would help guarantee that the destination matches the source, and it is resumable in case the process prematurely ends.
Something like this should work:
parallel -j32 rsync -av {} /Users/henry/ ::: /Volumes/henry/*
Finally, you may need to play around with the number of maximum threads, 32 might be too high depending on the I/O of your disks on the source and destination, and depending on how many folders/files there are in the folder /Volumes/henry/. Since this copy is network bound, 32 threads may not speed the copy up as much as is hoped.

As the limit here is disk access or network speed I doubt parallel will speed up rsync. Just use the simpler way


text:
Is it possible to print from PowerDOS/DosPad to iOS print dialogue?
I recently installed PowerDOS/DosPad — which is effectively DOSBox on iOS — onto my iPad mini 1. I use it for Dale Harris’s POS.
It works great, the only problem is I just can’t seem to figure out how to print to the iOS 9 print dialogue or any sort of print. I have a Bluetooth receipt printer that I would like to use.
Thank you to anyone who has any advice on how to make this possible.

https://github.com/litchie/dospad/issues may be the better place to get answers actually.


text:
Cannot save Chrome links to desktop / Finder
I'll often save links from Chrome to my desktop or Finder, simply by dragging the URL from the address bar to wherever I want to save the shortcut to.
But all of a sudden it won't let me anymore. I think I used to get the green + icon showing when I'd be dragging it, but now I just get the website name and then it just disappears when I unclick my mouse:

I've just tried doing the same in Safari and that won't work either (although not sure if it normally would as I never use that browser).
I've tried Googling the answer but can't seem to find anyone else with the same problem, has anyone else had this?

I just tested in Catalina (10.15.7) and I can drag URLs from the address bar in Safari, Edge, Firefox, and Chrome (latest version of all mentioned).  What version of macOS are you running?  Versions of browsers?  Try creating a new user (as a test) and see if it works in that account.  But to be candid, that's a rather peculiar way of bookmarking things...doesn't your desktop get super crowded?

@Allan okay so I finally found the solution to the problem... turned out I just needed to restart my machine! somehow it took about 3 days for that to occur to me!


text:
How can I make all animations instant?
How do I get rid of these kinds of animations:

Switching spaces
Minimising windows
Entering Mission Control
Exiting Mission Control

in macOS Catalina 10.15?

Why is this down voted?  It's a perfectly reasonable question.

How is this question different than existing ones? https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/253756/ https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/329536/ (which all seem to be a grab bag of specific preference tweaks)

Just being pragmatic here...the dupe link is about speeding up animations, not "getting rid of" and only one answer vaguely addresses Mission Control.  It talks about "the old behavior" but if someone isn't familiar with "the old behavior" how would they know what that is?

Something which might help (but it doesn't go all the way) is to enable the 'Reduce motion' option in the System Preferences section Accessibility:


text:
iphone SE gyroscope issue
I have a problem with my iPhone SE i recently got that and did a factory reset on it the problem is gyroscope sensor seems to have some malfunction but I don't think it'd be a hardware problem because everytime i restart the phone it works ok the raise to wake,screen rotation, compass and... but after a while all of these stop working. I did settings reset,updated from ios 13 to 14.0.1 what else can i do!?

Is this still under warranty from Apple?  If so, take it back to them to repair or replace it.  If you did an update to the latest OS and there's still a problem, it could be hardware related and that's very difficult to troubleshoot via a Q&A site.

Hardware issues can be intermittent - it works fine one moment and then malfunctions another.  Given there's no widespread reporting of gyroscope issues like you're describing, it's unlikely to be software as the OS doesn't change from device to device.  If you want to be certain, factory reset your phone (don't restore anything) and see if the problem returns.  If it does - it's hardware.  If it happens after restoring - it's probably an App.

thanks so then i have to take it for repair and it doesn't have warranty anymore I may have ro take it to some unofficial repair shop because as i know there is no apple store around where i am


text:
How do I make the emoji keyboard pop up faster

I am typing something in a text field
press ctrl+cmd+Space to show the emoji selector
type an emoji name
click the emoji I want

But the computer delay between (2) and (3) is way too long, and the first few characters of the emoji name isn't entered into the emoji search bar. The animation takes so long to finish.
How can I get rid of the emoji pop up animation so that I won't have this problem?
Or, alternatively, how can I circumvent this problem entirely and use another (equally convenient) method of inputting emoji?

What do you consider too long?  1 sec, 5 sec, 30 sec.  And what do you mean by animation?  Is that displaying the emoji screen?

@jmh yeah it pops(slides?grows?) up similar to the genie animation of minimising and opening windows to dock

@jmh currently the delay between pressing ctrl cmd space and being able to type in the emoji search bar is simply too large. I would like to make this delay feel as if it doesn't exist. If I take my typing speed of ~170 wpm and assume that's the indicator of how much time is between every single one of my keypresses, then that would mean the delay should be at most 0.07 seconds. Obviously the shorter the better.


text:
How to Airdrop images from my iPhone to my computer to avoid JPEG compression?
When I transfer images from my phone to my computer, I believe they are converted to JPEG and compressed.
I don't want lossy compression, the full resolution images are worth more to me than a few kilobytes on my disc. I don’t know if I can control this.
How can I transfer images with 100 percent quality and resolution?

Airdrop doesn't offer any such setting about compression. You can try saving to Files first, and then Airdrop it, or wait it to sync. Make a dedicated folder for such task and keep freeing it every few weeks.

Question... believe based on what?


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Add striped effect to own events in Calendar.app
Sometimes I see events like these on external calendars shown in my Calendar.app:

There is a striped pattern behind it. Makes it look cancelled.
How do I add this effect to events that I create myself?

That is how Calendar indicates that you have responded with a 'Maybe' to the meeting invite. There isn't a way that you can create your own meeting and respond to yourself with a maybe. However, you could create a separate calendar account and send yourself (original calendar) invites, to which you respond 'Maybe'.

Good answer, thanks for explaining it. I wish that Calendar.app let you apply this graphical effect manually. How do you "send yourself invites"?

made slight edits: I am suggesting creating an additional calendar account, and send an invite to the original calendar, where you indicate 'maybe' (two calendar accounts needed)


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How to select part of the text of a link in Safari 14.0 on macOS 10.15.7
I asked a very similar question before: Select and copy part of the text from a link in Safari
How can I copy only a section of text from a hyper link? For example in google results:

How can I copy "Inosuke Hashibira" from that link?
Previously, the only solution was to use a custom extension or userscript.
Now two years have passed, and I can't figure out how to add custom extensions anymore. I also don't really want to go through all the trouble of installing a userscript manager just for this, especially since Safari's not very friendly to extension developers and often breaks them every update, and (probably because of this) developers don't seem to care for supporting Safari.
How can I select part of a link in Safari nowadays?

Best I could do was select only Inosuke Hashibira | Kimetsu no Yaiba Wikia | Fandom and press ⌘C, then paste it elsewhere and delete everything but Inosuke Hashibira.

Not the most eloquent way of doing it but still delivers results without any extension.
Hover over link, open contextual menu (two finger press), select 'Inspect Element' (this will open split window and land you on selected element),

double click on text between span tags (to make text field 'active'), copy needed part of text, close split window.