How to delete all local TimeMachine snapshots I have automatic backup enabled and local TimeMachine snapshots take a large amount of disk space. This space is listed as purgeable in disk info, but cannot be actually used until the system decides to free it up. How can I force TimeMachine to delete those snapshots?

In Terminal, execute this small script:

for d in $(tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates | grep "-"); do sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $d; done

The script lists all snaphosts and deletes all of them in a loop.


Multiple user iCloud accounts on same computer Mac iMac and iCloud is 2TB using up about 1.4TB. I'm at my partners for a while and trying to use her MacBook Air 128GB. When I set up a new user account under my iCloud account it started to populate her MacBook Air till it's totally full and unusable.

Whats the best way to use her MacBook Air and still have access to my stuff without (over)filling the drive?

In your account on your partner’s Mac , open the system preferences and turn off iCloud for photos and documents or sign out of iCloud and let the local copies of your data be deleted.

Then if you sign in again, skip the automatic, sync all option and only choose items you need. Photos and documents can be allowed on a space available need or you can just leave all that in the cloud. Choose to optimize the storage if you can.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208682 (iCloud setup)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996 (Optimize Storage)

You can enable settings so only a portion of the data downloads:

Having more iCloud space than actual disk space (on macOS)?

If both accounts enabled optimizations in the manage settings for iCloud, it might work to have all things turned on for full iCloud for both of you.


Updating Operating System to play Diablo 3 My girlfriend has a MacBook Air 2012 and we were thinking of playing Diablo 3 together. When she tried to install Diablo 3, she got an error saying that her operating system is outdated. She tried to update her operating system but received an error that she cannot update her OS. I have several questions:

Does Apple impose an operating system cap because her Mac is too old?
Is it advisable to upgrade her operating system to the lastest version, or would it be too much of a strain on her system resource?

Macbook Air 2012: Spec
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp670?locale=en_US

i5 - 1.8Ghz
HD Graphics 4000
4GB RAM
128GB SSD

Just doing a quick search, we can find the System requirements for Diablo III we see that the minimum macOS requirement is El Capitan (10.11). If you are using Yosemite (10.10) or Mavericks (10.9), this game will not work.

We also see that it's capable of running on Sierra (10.12).  You should be able to upgrade to at least El Cap with no performance issues.

To address your specific questions:

  Does Apple impose an operating system cap because her Mac is too old?

Yes.  In fact, with the release of Sierra, many vintage Macs were left out in the cold.

  Is it advisable to upgrade her operating system to the lastest
  version, or would it be too much of a strain on her system resource?

It's not a requirement to upgrade unless you need to, but given your case that you wish to use a specific application (game), it's necessary.  It's always advisable to upgrade as there are lots of fixes and added features with new releases.


iPhone 4 email encryption I have a nice new iPhone 4.  I can use it for my work calendar, but not my work email.  The reason why is because I work for a medical company and email is very protected.

I have heard that the encryption that comes with the iPhone 3GS is laughable for real enterprise use.

Did it get any better with the iPhone 4?  Or is that just an OS based thing?

If it is iron clad safe then I might be able to convince my company to let me get emails on my device.

The article cited in your question is from before iOS 4 started using "Data Protection, which is Apple's term for creating an encryption key based on the users lock code or password. Basically the hardware encryption is used, but only accessable after a user has created an encryption key (which is based on the entered Passcode), and as soon as the phone is locked or turned off, the key is erased.

The problem is that apps are only going to encrypt data if they utilize the Data Protection API, which the Mail app does: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4175

It's also what setup the groundwork for the remote wipe feature, which destroys the Key as well. source


How to import m4v files into iTunes 12.2.1.16 on Mac OS X 10.1.2.16? I converted some mkv files into AppleTV3 files with Handbrake so I could import them into iTunes to watch on my AppleTV 3.

I can't seem to import these files into iTunes 12.2.1.16  on Mac OS X 10.1.2.16
I've tried dragging the files and using File> "Open File"
No error messages appear.

How do I import m4v files into iTunes?
If this is not possible, what format should the files be converted?

When adding an .m4v file, or other acceptable A/V type file extensions, to iTunes either by drag and drop or using File > Add to Library... the file is added to Home Videos under Movies.

In a fresh install of OS X, in the image below, it shows the available tabs when selecting Movies in iTunes.  Note there is no Home Videos tab.

In the image below, after adding a video to iTunes the Home Videos tab appears under Movies and shows the added video.


Embed SVG image in email composed in mail.app? Is there any way to embed an SVG in an email? If I try to attach it the same way I'd embed an image file, it comes out as an attachment, rather than a visible image.

For some content (e.g. charts, diagrams), .svg is much smaller than images, so it would be nice to send smaller emails by embedding .svg.  Apparently mail.app can render them ...

Never mind. Despite the fact that the compose window shows the .svg as an attachment, if you send the email to yourself, it renders properly when you receive it.


How to programatically set Terminal theme/profile Context for this question:
I'm writing a bash script to automatically setup any Mac with my tools/preferences, ideally with one command if possible.

The question:
I have a .terminal theme file that i use and i'd like for the script to be able to set it as the default terminal profile without having to do it through the GUI after running my script, is there a command for this?

Alright i've figured out a solution:

To set the terminal theme programmatically you need to write to your systems preferences. So the easiest way that i found to do this was to extract the user preferences from an existing mac first. This assumes that you've already imported your .terminal file into the profiles of the Terminal on your existing machine. So first on the existing mac you need to run the following (My theme is called Material-Theme, replace that part with your own):

plutil -extract Window\ Settings.Material-Theme xml1 -o - ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist > theme.xml

This will create a theme.xml file for you to use in your script. The next thing is just to edit the file a little. This could be automated, but if you're like me you only need to do this part once, so i did this manually. Open the file and remove the surrounding xml at the top and bottom so that all you have is the dict, mine looked like this for reference: https://pastebin.com/zfXFRY2e.

Now in your script on the new machine you can just run the following to insert this theme into your user preferences:

theme=$(<theme.xml)
plutil -replace Window\ Settings.Material-Theme -xml "$theme" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist
defaults write com.apple.Terminal "Default Window Settings" -string "Material-Theme"
defaults write com.apple.Terminal "Startup Window Settings" -string "Material-Theme"

Now after running the above when you fully close the Terminal app and restart it, your theme should be the default. This process can probably be improved but this worked for me!

Note you might also want to run defaults read com.apple.Terminal and check if there are any other keys that are relevant to your theme. In my case i found "NSWindow Frame TTWindow Material-Theme" = "0 327 640 450 0 0 1280 777 "; so my script includes this as well defaults write com.apple.Terminal "NSWindow Frame TTWindow Material-Theme" -string "0 327 640 450 0 0 1280 777 "


Running actions when I disconnect external monitor I would love to auto start Bartender (by the way, excellent app that hides some of your notification area icons) when I unplug my external monitor from my Mac.

Is there any app or script that could do that?

Try ControlPlane. It allows you to trigger various actions, including launching applications, based on a variety of "evidence sources" (which include which monitors are connected). Have a look at the full feature list, but it should accomplish what you're looking for.


EFI Partition Change name and Logo I've installed Windows again but this time on a external SSD.
it's all working fine, but when holding the alt/option key it's giving me Macintosh HD and EFI partition.
how can I change this name "EFI Partition" and its logo?
the logo is a orange one.
and I also want it to show up in system preferences startup selector on mac OSX.
it's only showing me Macintosh HD.

The icon displayed in the Mac Startup Manager can be changed by putting a icon set file named .VolumeIcon.icns in the root folder of the EFI partition used by Windows. Or, you can follow the instructions at the end of this answer.

A png file can be converted to icons file by using the commands sips and iconutil. A script for doing this is given below.

#!/bin/bash
#
#
if [[ $0 != "$BASH_SOURCE" ]]; then
    bash "$BASH_SOURCE" "$@"
    return
fi

Convert() {
    local -i "n=${1%%x*}"
    [[ $1 != *@2x ]] || n="2*n"
    sips -s format png -z "$n" "$n" "$full" --out "$name.iconset/icon_$1.png"
}

Main() {
    local "full=$1"
    local "base=$(basename "$full")"
    local "name=${base%.*}"
    rm -rf "$name.iconset"
    mkdir "$name.iconset"
    Convert "16x16"
    Convert "16x16@2x"
    Convert "32x32"
    Convert "32x32@2x"
    Convert "128x128"
    Convert "128x128@2x"
    Convert "256x256"
    Convert "256x256@2x"
    Convert "512x512"
    Convert "512x512@2x"
    iconutil -c icns "$name.iconset"
    rm -r "$name.iconset"
}
set -u
Main "$@"

For example, if you were to download this Windows 10 logo png file to the same folder as the script file, then the command given below would replace the png file with a icns file. Here, the script file is named createicns and Windows10.png is the png file. The result would be the creation a Windows10.icns file, which you would rename .VolumeIcon.icns.

./createicns Windows10.png

  You can also download icns files for various operating systems from this website. I converted the Windows 10 logo png file and posted here for download. The file name is Windows10.icns.

The label displayed in the Mac Startup Manager can be changed by using the bless command. Assuming diskutil list shows your external drive is disk2 and the EFI partition is first on the drive, then command below would mount this partition.

sudo diskutil mount disk2s1

Assuming the EFI volume is labeled EFI, then the command below would change the label to Windows.

bless --folder /Volumes/EFI/efi/boot --label "Windows"

This command creates the two hidden files given below.

.disk_label
.disk_label_2x

Afterwards, the command given below can unmount the EFI partition.

diskutil unmount disk2s1

The Start Disk pane in System Preferences may not shown an Windows installation on an external drive. Or, if the installation does appear, you may not be able to successfully select the installation. AFAIK there is no fix for this.

There is an alternative where rEFInd can be used to select the default operation system directly from Windows, macOS and most Linux installations. However this requires installing a GUI script in each operation system as well as installing and configuring rEFInd.

Contents of an icns File

The contents of a icns file can vary depending on the version of OS X or macOS you are using. The table below can be used to compare the differences between an icns file create using El Capitan (OS X 10.11.6) and one created using Catalina (MacOS 10.15.4). Both files were creating using the same script as given above. The descriptions came from Wikipedia.

 10.11   10.15   Type = Description
------- ------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   X             s8mk = 16x16 8-bit mask
   X             is32 = 16×16 24-bit icon
           X     ic04 = 16x16 ARGB
   X       X     ic11 = 16x16@2x "retina" icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X             l8mk = 32×32 8-bit mask
   X             il32 = 32x32 24-bit icon
           X     ic05 = 32x32 ARGB
   X       X     ic12 = 32x32@2x "retina" icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X             t8mk = 128×128 8-bit mask
   X             it32 = 128×128 24-bit icon
           X     ic07 = 128x128 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X       X     ic13 = 128x128@2x "retina" icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X       X     ic08 = 256×256 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X       X     ic14 = 256x256@2x "retina" icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X       X     ic09 = 512×512 icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X       X     ic10 = 1024×1024 in 10.7 (or 512x512@2x "retina" in 10.8) icon in JPEG 2000 or PNG format
   X             name = Unknown
           X     info = Info binary plist. Usage unknown

  Note: The icns files produced using Catalina appeared to only work with the firmware included with newer Intel Macs. The icns files produced using El Capitan appeared to work with the firmware included with all Intel Macs. I wrote "appeared", because I could not test on all Intel Macs.

A script, that can print out the types in a icns file, can be found in the file Notes.dmg, which is part of the Mac icons project.

How to Install the icns File

Enter the command diskutil list to determine the EFI partition where the Windows 10 boot files are stored. On my Mac, I get this:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         800.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Fish1                   98.0 GB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                91.5 GB    disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data Fish2                   10.5 GB    disk0s5

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +800.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Muskie                  32.2 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 107.2 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      8.6 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Snapper - Data          660.0 GB   disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Snapper                 11.2 GB    disk1s6

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk2s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                499.9 GB   disk2s3

The only external drive is disk2. The only EFI partition on this drive is disk2s1, so this is where the Windows 10 boot files are stored. The command below will mount the volume stored in this partition.

sudo diskutil mount disk2s1

This volume appears in the Finder as EFI. If I right click on the the volume and select Get Info, the following window appears.

To install the .icns file, drag the file and drop over the icon in the upper left corner of this window, as shown below.

The result is shown below.

The .VolumeIcon.icns file normally does not appear in the Finder. To view hidden files in the Finder, the key combination ⌘+shift+. needs to be pressed. The image below shows all the files and folders in the root folder of the volume in the EFI partition.

Finally, enter the command below to unmount the EFI volume.

diskutil unmount disk2s1

References

Create a Set of Icons That Includes High-Resolution Versions
Use iconutil to Create an icns File Manually
Apple Icon Image format
SourceForge Mac icns Project


When does an automatic app update happen on iOS? Sometimes I have a very large backlog of app updates (20+) and other times I do not. Sometimes app updates happen when I'm not using my phone. Sometimes apps start updating immediately after I unlock.

What are the exact, technical criteria that govern when an automatic app update happens?

I think there might even be some sort of concurrency limit, like three at a time.

When the device checks for updates, it builds a list of all apps that need updating. All of those updates will be installed assuming these criteria are met:

The iOS device must be on and/or asleep.
The iOS device must be connected to power and/or battery is almost full.
The iOS device must be connected to a cellular data network and/or Wi-Fi.
Updates larger than 100MB will only be downloaded over Wi-Fi, never cellular. You can also disallow updating over cellular.
If device is in Low Power Mode it will not update


How to play audio in Safe Boot? I am having an issue recently which causes my MacBook Pro 2015, 15", to spontaneously (and randomly?) shut down.

These shut downs do not happen in Recovery Mode or Safe Boot.

Temporarily, before I am able to identify and fix the root cause, I would like to continue using my laptop.

I am actually very happy using Safe Boot for now, I can do almost everything I want to do.

However, I can't figure out how to enable audio output while in Safe Boot mode.

I know it's not really intended, so possible workarounds may be awkward, but how can I hear the sound output from my MacBook while it is in Safe Boot?

The only external speakers I have access to are my iPhone 7's (iOS 13.3) and lots of pairs of headphones (although idk if those count as "external speakers"). I added this information because I wonder if it's possible to stream the sound output through my iPhone perhaps (network connectivity seems to work fine while in Safe Boot), if it is indeed impossible to play audio on the MacBook while in Safe Boot.

I have the exact same problem with my 15" mid-2010 MacBook Pro.  It does not suddenly reboot when in Safe Boot-- only in the normal boot.  Apple is aware of this problem but will not assign even one engineer to look into this problem as I have been complaining to them for over 6 years about this.
I was told that possibly the battery needs to be changed-  but Apple stopped making batteries for this model years ago.
So, theonlygusti, if you change the battery and it works properly or not, please let me know. I'll be very appreciative.


How can I get back the thin monospace font on EI Capitan with PhpStorm 10? I found that after I updated my OS X to EI Capitan a few weeks ago, the fonts used in my terminal and PhpStorm 9 are made a bit thiner (I didn't change any settings in terminal and PhpStorm 9), I really like these thin fonts. Is this because of some font rendering settings in OS X? Because I didn't change any font settings in terminal and PhpStorm.

But after updated my PhpStorm to version 10 today, the font in PhpStorm went back to the bolder one (Menlo).

Anybody knows how I can get back the thiner font in my PhpStorm?

This is actually a new feature in PhpStorm 10. Open up PhpStorm's preferences and go to [Appearance & Behavior > Appearance]. Under the "Antialiasing" section, change "Editor" to "Greyscale". There are a few other options. Play with it and see what you like.


iMac won't open user accounts! I have a newer (2009 I believe) iMac, running Yosemite.

It powers on, the Apple logo and progress bar appear, as well as the mouse cursor, but then nothing happens, the screen just stays on and illuminated. Any ideas as to what's up?

it sounds like you never get a logon screen, correct? If so there is likely a problem with the disk, Mac OS or something installed.

First thing to do is to boot up holding the Shift key. When you see the Apple logo you can release it. Now wait for it to boot fully. Safe Mode takes quite a bit longer as it also does some thorough disk checking so be patient.

If you can log in, then do so and start turning off startup items as something that was installed is interfering with the boot process.

If it still does not boot, reboot and hold CommandR to get into recovery mode. run disk utility and reapir the disk, paying attention to any messages that Disk Utility gives you. If it can't repair the disk you can do one of 3 things: erase the HD (losing all files and settings) and reinstall Mac OS. Reinstall Mac OS right over top of what you already have (if it will let you without reformatting the HD) or get another disk repair utility like DiskWarrior and hope that can fix the issue.

If it can repair the disk try booting again. If it finds no problems the Mac OS is likely hosed and needs to be re-installed.


What is the normal fan speed on Mac computers I have noticed that fan speed on my Mac is 499 rpm. Now this is a computer with installed OSX El Capitan, Xcode 8.2.1... I have noticed this when Xcode got crashed few weeks ago (the information was provided in Xcode crash log). Now, today, when it crashed again, I have noticed the same fan speed, which is 499...That is a bit odd I must say, because rpm are very low, and I got same number twice.

I wonder is this accurate info actually and what is the normal fan speed for MacPro3,1?

There is no "normal" speed for a fan in a computer.  The fan spins at a speed necessary to keep the CPU temp in the "normal operating range."1

For your particular Mac, the  maximum operating temperature is about 82°C (180°F).  However, keep in mind that this does not factor in other components like heat from drives, adapters, etc. which may also go into calculating when a fan is engaged.

1 See section 5 in Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2400 Product Family Thermal/Mechanical Design Guide May 2012


what is the best way to get my gmail contacts on my ipod touch contacts list i have a new ipod touch and i want to get my gmail contacts available on the ipod touch contacts.

what is the best way to do this?

iTunes offers this option in the sync panel out of the box, at least with an iPhone:


Can Login Items be added via the command line in High Sierra? Can Login Items be added via a command in terminal?

I would like to add a few essential utilities like ShiftIt and Alfred to my Login Items via a script when I'm configuring a new Mac. In versions of macOS previous to High Sierra these items were stored in a plist in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist but since High Sierra has been released it seems they've been migrated to be loaded via a new mechanism.

I am interested in ways to set Login Items from a terminal primarily for High Sierra but interested from an academic perspective to know how it could be done in prior releases of macOS.

macOS Catalina Update: While the information in this answer holds true as stated and tested in the versions of OS X/macOS listed below, it does not work in macOS Catalina 10.15.

I tested the following under macOS 10.14.6, macOS 10.13.1 and OS X 10.8.6.

In Terminal, using the following syntax:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to make login item at end with properties {path:"/path/to/itemname", hidden:false}'

Note: If there are spaces in a path filename, do not escape the spaces with a backslash (\) when it is in quotes.

Tested with an application named EventScripts:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to make login item at end with properties {path:"/Applications/EventScripts.app", hidden:false}'

It returned:

login item UNKNOWN

Which is apparently the normal output with this command and was verified by preforming the same action in Script Editor.

Then looking in System Preferences > Users & Groups > $USER > Login Items, EventScripts was added.

Notes:

In OS X 10.8.6 it updated the following file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist

In macOS 10.13.1[1] it updated the following file:

~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.backgroundtaskmanagementagent/backgrounditems.btm

Which, by the way, is also a plist file, but with a btm extension.

You can also delete a Login Item from Terminal using the following syntax:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to delete login item "name"'

Where "name" in the command is as show in the output of the following command:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get the name of every login item'

[1] Update: The backgrounditems.btm file is still the target file since macOS 10.13.1 and later.


Why does Mac OS X turn off monitor #2 when an application is maximized on monitor #1? I am running OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 on a Mac Mini system with two monitors. When I maximize an application on monitor 'A', monitor 'B' then goes black while that application maximizes to fill 'A'.

Why the heck is this happening? How do I fix it?

Thanks!

Why?
Personally,. because I don't think they ever thought it through properly. There's a lot about fullscreen that's like that.

The fix is possibly System Prefs > Mission Control > check Displays have separate Spaces

The better fix is don't use fullscreen, use Alt/click on the green button to maximise instead.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to move the position of a tab in Safari? How do you move a tab's position amongst other tabs using the keyboard? Is it possible?

There does not appear to be a built-in keyboard shortcut to change the position of a given tab amongst other tabs in Safari.  At least none listed in the Apple Support Documents listed below.

Safari 6/7 (Mavericks): Safari shortcuts
Safari 8 (Yosemite): Safari keyboard and other shortcuts
Safari 9 (El Capitan): Safari keyboard and other shortcuts

One might be able to create an Automator Service with a Run Apple Script Action to manipulate tabs in a Safari windows and then assign it a keyboard shortcut in Keyboard System Preferences, however I'd imagine it might not be to easy to code.

Update:

I looked through the Safari AppleScript Dictionary and played around with the coding of an AppleScript script to manipulated tab ordering, or I should say the appearance of tab ordering, as even a simple command such as move last tab to before first tab required a refresh of the URL. In other words whether or not I coded it via move or switching the URL of the current and next tab, etc, all methods I tried forces/requires a refresh of the URL, where dragging and dropping a tab only changes the tab order and does not refresh any tab when done in a DnD manner.

In conclusion, if you don't mind the tab URL being refreshed then the appearance of drag and drop can be accomplished however to physically move a tab without it refreshing would probably require the use of third-party utilities and much more complex coding then coding using move or swapping the URLs of adjacent tabs, etc.


Do I have an SSD and a hard drive on my MacBook Pro? I looked at the details provided in  my
system report/storage and I noticed that it appears I have a hard drive of 499.05GB and an additional SSD drive of 499.42GB. Does this mean I have 1TB of data? I only have 139GB available so do I have 500GB 'hiding' somewhere? (If so where??)
I am unsure how to interpret this information- why does it list both storage types? Is it duplicating the information?

  Macintosh HD:

  Available:    139.8 GB (139,800,666,112 bytes)
  Capacity: 499.05 GB (499,046,809,600 bytes)
  Mount Point:  /
  File System:  Journaled HFS+
  Writable: Yes
  Ignore Ownership: No
  BSD Name: disk1
  Volume UUID:  EF0908C8-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX80333709

  Logical Volume:  Revertible:  Yes (unlock and decryption required)
  Encrypted:    Yes
  Encryption Type:  AES-XTS
  Locked:   No
  LV UUID:  8CC9C88D-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX2002329B

  Logical Volume Group:
  Name:    Macintosh HD   Size:    499.42 GB (499,418,034,176 bytes)
  Free Space:  18.9 MB (18,903,040 bytes)
   LVG  UUID: EE040070-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXA83B309

  Physical Volumes:

  disk0s2:     #is this a second disk?

  Device Name:  APPLE SSD SM0512G
  Media Name: APPLE SSD  SM0512G
  Media   Size:   499.42 GB (499,418,034,176 bytes)
  Medium Type:  SSD
   Protocol:  PCI
   Internal:  Yes
  Partition Map Type: GPT(GUID Partition Table)  #does this mean its partitioned?
  Status: Online
  S.M.A.R.T. Status:  Verified
  PV UUID:    A1391405-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXX2E8FCDF3

If you consider SSDs being hard drives then you have an SSD and a hard drive on your MBP. It's still only one device with ~500 GB disk space.

The main partition of your SSD is encrypted with FileVault2. While enabling FV2 the main partition is transformed to CoreStorage which is an LVM - an additional layer between physical disk and file system. The resulting Logical Volume is shown as an additional disk in Disk Utility/diskutil info.

A common partition layout looks like this:

disk0 (500.1 GB) → disk0s1 (209.7 MB) EFI
                 ↘ disk0s2 (499.4 GB) Macintosh HD
                 ↘ disk0s3 (650.0 MB) Recovery HD

disk0s2 (Macintosh HD) is mounted to root (/)

After converting the disk to CoreStorage, disk0s2 is converted to a Physical Volume which sets up a Logical Volume Group. The existing file system on disk0s2 is shrunk a bit, converted to a Logical Volume and encrypted:

disk0 (500.1 GB) → disk0s1 (209.7 MB) EFI
                 ↘ disk0s2 (499.4 GB) LVG/PV → disk1    (499.05 GB) LV/Macintosh HD
                                             ↘ metadata (~370 MB)
                 ↘ disk0s3 (650.0 MB) Recovery HD

Now disk1 (~disk0s2) is mounted to root (/).

So disk1 is almost congruent to disk0s2 (except some 100 MB at the end of disk0s2 which is used for metadata and isn't encrypted).

CoreStorage is not limited to encrypt volumes as FileVault2 "container". Every regular volume can be converted to a CS LVG/PV/LV. Apple uses it to create Fusion Drives and SSDs are usually partitioned/formatted as CoreStorage volumes.


How to fix the time display at the top of the screen flashing? Sometimes when I unlock my iPhone 6s 64Gb with iOS 9.2 the time display at the top of the screen flashes or the whole display at the top of the screen (signal strength time and battery) takes a second to appear. This seems to happen only after not using the phone for more than 30 seconds. Ex. I put the phone on standby, unlock it one minute later. It also seems to happen more often when I use the fingerprint scanner to unlock it, not as much when I enter my passcode, and when I unlock the phone quickly like unlocking from standby with a fingerprint rather than waking the phone up first and then unlocking it. Has anyone else experienced this and does anyone know how to fix it, or is it just a minor bug that will be fixed in 9.3?
-Thanks

I've noticed the same thing, but only when there was a notification on the lock screen.  I'm chalking it up to that, and not worrying about it.  But still interested to learn more if anyone knows anything.


Resizing a partition to increase into space before itself Simple Explanation:

Expanded Explanation:
All I want to do is delete disk0s9 and have disk0s4 resize and take up the empty space.

I want to

Delete container disk4 (disk0s9).
I don't want the either volume in partitions disk0s2 or disk0s8 to absorb the space.
I want the volume (disk0s4) after it to increase in size, appropriately.

ISSUE:
Every time I attempt to delete / resize using the Diskutil in High Sierra (I miss Yosemite's), the internal disk preceding the disk gets the space :(

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS High Sierra             70.0 GB    disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s8
   4:                 Apple_APFS Container disk4         19.9 GB    disk0s9
   5:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         159.5 GB   disk0s4
   6:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               650.0 MB   disk0s7

ACTIONS ATTEMPTED:
Every time I try and resize the partition / remove it, disk0s2 gets the additional space.

ASK:
How do I resize the last portion, while maintain data and not doing a backup / recreate mess?

I know there has gotta be a good way to resize the partitions without having to back everything up and remake from scratch.  I just can't seem to master the new Diskutil when it comes to resizing partitions non-standard ways.

Thanks in advance!

You can not do what you have proposed by using the tools provided by macOS. Partitions can grow and shrink, but the start of the partition must remain fixed. There are exceptions to this, but none apply in this case. There are third party tools that can move a partition. For example, Paragon offers a Hard Disk Manager for Mac application which makes the following claim.

  Enables to move the left or right border of the selected partition, thus not only resizing but moving it on the disk

The time required to move all but the smallest partitions is usually quite lengthly. I suppose this might be one reason Apple does not provide this type of tool. An exception would be when resizing a Apple HFS partition. The Disk Utility application and the diskutil command will move any Apple_Boot partition that is the next partition stored on the drive. Usually, this partition and is small in size (under 1 GB) and therefore can be moved fairly quickly. With the introduction of APFS, Apple eliminated the need for partitions of this type.


iPod touch 3rd-gen won't play videos in Safari My iPod touch 3rd-gen won't play videos in Safari. It shows a play button with a line crossing it.

It used to play but now there's this problem.

What can I do?

THat circle with a line cross through it means that the format is not supported on the iPod Touch, or any other iOS device.

It is usually related to flash video's.
If you are looking at a youtube video go check out m.youtube.com. It should load most videos to play just fine.

However if the source of your video is not a youtube (or other big site) then you may be out of luck.


Default folder icons missing after user account rename I started using a MacBook Air M1, macOS Big Sur 11.2. When I created the user account I selected a lowercase name for the home directory. Later, I wanted to change that to a first uppercase name. I found and used instructions for that (log in as a different user, rename directory, modify account info to point to the right directory). All of this worked fine; I can log in without problems, all files and foldes are there.
However - in Finder, all top level folders in my home directory now have the generic folder icon. No special icons for Documents, Music, Movies, Pictures, Downloads, Desktop, Public.
How do I restore those?
Any help appreciated - thanks.

I had never modified account info correctly. It still indicated the lower case directory as home dir - and that worked since the file system is not case sensitive. No more help needed.


Mapping ::1 to 127.0.0.1 I am no expert in DNS or IPv6. I am using a brand new Mac with what seems to be the default:

127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost

I have enabled Apache. With the above hosts file, localhost is not working in the browser. From what I have read I think it's ipv6 that I haven't configured Apache for.

What I tried:

127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             127.0.0.1

Everything works fine now. My question is, is mapping "::1" to "127.0.0.1" ok? Am I breaking/losing something in DNS by doing this. If so, I am not clear how to edit my conf file to allow apache to answer to localhost.

You're not actually mapping ::1 to 127.0.0.1 in this case. You're providing an invalid name for ::1 that is essentially disabling the entry. You can't map an ipv6 address to an ipv4 address - they're not compatible.

If you need localhost resolution for ipv6 to not be enabled, simply comment the ::1 line out, or don't include it at all.


Format External Disk in FAT, NOT FAT32 I have an external device which mounts as an external drive and which I must format in FAT, not FAT32, for use elsewhere. Is there a way to do that from Snow Leopard?

This should do the trick:

In Terminal:

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS <newname> <diskID>

where  is the new name for the disk and  is the disk identifier (you can find this by getting the disk info from Finder or Disk Utility, or by typing "diskutil list" into Terminal).


How to enable multiple words on Quicklook search? I'm trying to use Quicklook feature by using the Force touch of the Macbook Pro's 2018 (with Catalina) trackpad with multiple words but I can only use it with single words.

Like in the following picture:

If I select more than one word for Quicklook it will only search the one above the mouse. I have seen the feature used in the MacBook pro 2019 and it supports multiple words quicklook.

Like in the following picture:

Do Macbooks 2018 and earlier supports this QuickLook force touch feature for multiple words?. If that is the case, how can be configurable?

Does Macbooks 2018 and earlier supports this quicklook force touch feature for multiple words?

I have MacBook 2017, macOS Mojave. Multiple words are picked up in Safari when they start with Capital letters, for e.g. proper nouns. This however won't work in Firefox.

I am not aware of configuration.


How can I set the background image the same on all master slides without editing each master slide individually in Keynote? In PowerPoint the master slides have inheritance, so you can set common elements on all the master slides easily. I don't see anyway to do this in Keynote. For example, if I want to set the background image on all the master slides then I need to edit the background image on each master slide.

How to set the background image the same on all master slides without editing each master slide individually?

It appears the correct answer is I cannot do this unfortunately.


Offline webpages reader/browser for iPad iPhone? Is there an app for iPad/iPhone that allows me to save an entire webpage including JavaScript, AJAX actions, images, etc., and open it when offline?

Offline Pages lets users save entire web pages for offline reading, including formatting and images; 4.99 USD on Apple App Store.

Open in App Store


Disable Two-Factor Authentication for macOS? How to disable Apple’s Two-Factor Authentication for macOS?

Older Macs do not support Two-Factor Authentication. As a side-effect, a user cannot access their iTunes account in iTunes on any older Mac, and cannot buy music.

Two-Factor Authentication is applied at the account level, not at the device level. So you can either remove it entirely from your iCloud account, or you’ll have to use it on all of your devices equally.
If it worked any other way a hacker could simply pick the least secure entry point to attack your account.
Thankfully you can still login on an older device, even with Two-Factor Authentication enabled.
First, login using your regular credentials, just as you would on a system that did support Two-Factor Authentication. An authentication code will be sent to all your Trusted Devices. Now simply login again, this time appending your authentication code to your password.
For instance if your account is basil@icloud.com, your password 123apple and your authentication code 456789, then you would login using the following credentials:
basil@icloud.com
123apple456789

You can read up more about this at Two-factor authentication for Apple ID:

What if I use two-factor authentication on a device running older software?
If you use two-factor authentication with devices running
older OS versions, you might be asked to add your six-digit
verification code to the end of your password when signing in. Get
your verification code from a trusted device running iOS 9 and later
or OS X El Capitan and later, or have it sent to your trusted phone
number. Then type your password followed by the six-digit verification
code directly into the password field.

Apple also provides a few additional methods to Get a verification code and sign in with two-factor authentication.


What is the difference between a 32 and a 64 bit installation on a 64 bit machine? I'm about to install Eclipse on my McBook Pro (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo - so 64 bits if I'm not mistaken). What are the consequences of installing a 64 vs a 32 bit package?

The main difference between 32-bit processors and 64-bit processors is the speed they operate. 64-bit processors can come in dual core, quad core, and six core versions for home computing (with eight core versions coming soon). Multiple cores allow for increase processing power and faster computer operation. Thus, software programs that require many calculations to function operate faster on the multi-core 64-bit processors.

Another big difference between 32-bit processors and 64-bit processors is the maximum amount of memory (RAM) that is supported. 32-bit computers support a maximum of 3-4GB of memory, whereas a 64-bit computer can support memory amounts over 4 GB.

More bits means that data can be processed more accurately and in larger chunks.
More bits means our system can point to or address a larger number of locations in physical memory.

Sources / more info: here and here.


help to Identify MacBook Pro I'm trying to buy new laptop, and one seller has three different laptops, but I can't figure out what the difference between new (2012) models of Apple MacBook Pro: MD104RS/A, MD104Z/A, MD104LL/A ?

Meaningful differences between these models are keyboard and power plug.
RS/A is for Russian/former USSR market, Z/A is designated as international(do not know what it means practically) and LL/A is for US/Canadian market.


sleep or restart macbook pro Is it better to just close the lid on a macbook pro or should I shut it down?

When I restart a computer, and I have multiple desktops open, will the desktops all restart with settings saved to reopen applications on those same desktops?

If I have an application open on desktop 4 and options --> this desktop so that the application only opens on desktop 4, will desktops 2 and 3 automatically open if I did not have them open at restart? At restart, if I just open the application that is saved on desktop 4, will applications 2 and 3 restart automatically?

Is it better to just close the lid on a macbook pro or should I shut it down?

That depends on you; many computer users almost never shut down their computers. It's fine to put it to sleep if you know you are going use the computer again soon. Sometimes though, it's best to shut it down if you're not going to use it for a day or two, as it will save a little bit of energy and heat from being wasted in your laptop. Also, shutting down completely wipes away the computer's RAM, which might have some corrupt/junk data left in it from various things the computer does. It also lets the computer's components cool down. I definitely recommend you shutting down at least once a month or so.

  When I restart a computer, and I have multiple desktops open, will the desktops all restart with settings saved to reopen applications on those same desktops?

From Os X 10.8 and later, yes they will, all your desktops will survive reboots and all the applications will "remember" in which desktop they were open. Though, when you hit 'restart' you will be prompted a message to confirm, and there will be this option: Reopen windows when loging back in, make sure it's checked.

  If I have an application open on desktop 4 and options --> this desktop so that the application only opens on desktop 4, will desktops 2 and 3 automatically open if I did not have them open at restart?

No, they won't. As I said earlier, if you have desktop 1-2-3-4 open and then you restart the system, they will reappear then. If you close a desktop, for example 2, desktop 3 will become desktop 2 and desktop 4 will become desktop 3.
So if you have only two desktops open and you open the app that was saved to work on desktop 4, former desktop 2 and 3 won't appear, the app will just bind on the new desktop where you open it.

  At restart, if I just open the application that is saved on desktop 4, will applications 2 and 3 restart automatically?

As stated above, they won't.


How to remove autocomplete (autofill) entries from Chrome? (Shift+Fn+Delete doesn't work) In both Firefox and Chrome (latest versions) when I start typing an address of a website I have visited before, it shows a bunch of autocomplete entries.

If I want to delete a specific entry, in Firefox I can press up or down to select that particular entry, and press Shift+Fn+Delete and it's gone.

Somehow I remember this used to work in Chrome as well, and this is also what I find on various websites. But it doesn't work. At least not in my current version of Chrome (the latest).

How do I remove specific autocomplete entries from Chrome, other than just deleting the entire history altogether? (which I'd rather not do)

In case it's relevant, I'm running MacOS Mojave 10.14.6.

When you go into the Settings of Chrome, you will find a Auto-Fill chapter on the left menu bar. Click there and you can manage all your addresses, credit cards and passwords which are used for the autofill function.


iOS App Minimum Version Distribution Does anyone know the distribution of the required iOS for apps on the App Store?  To clarify, I am not looking for the version distribution on devices (like this question).

Basically, I want to know how many apps I would be unable to use if I bought an older iPhone that no longer gets iOS updates.

Thank you!

The latest iOS Development tools (as of mid-September 2012) no longer support iOS devices running a version below iOS 4.3.  So apps compatible with devices that can't run iOS 4.3 drop off a cliff as developers update their apps using the current Xcode, which use is required to fully support the iPhone 5.

Some developers support only down to iOS 5.1, as that's the highest supported OS for the 1st gen iPad.

Warning: If you have apps for such older iOS devices on iTunes on your Mac, don't update the apps unless the required minimum OS is appropriate.  Or make backups of your iTunes library before you update.  iTunes will throw working versions of apps in the trash after downloading a recent update, and may even delete these apps off of your older device (which is very bad).


Managing and sorting home movies and shorts in iTunes? I currently have a large collection of short movies from Youtube and quite a large selection of home movies.

What is the best way of managing all these files? I need to keep them separated from my iTunes purchases and DVD rips...

I'd like to sort them in separate pools (movies, shorts, home movies) but also categorize them even the home movies (vacations, weddings, paintball events...).

I would like to access them from the Apple TV, sync to iPhone etc... So I'm stuck with iTunes.

How should I proceed to organize them.

This is a pretty personal question, but:

Personally, I keep home movies in iPhoto. Seems a better location to me. They go with the photos of the event, keeps everything together. iPhoto for me is personal collections of events, and iTunes is proper content to watch.

Shorts go in Movies (you can't create a top-level category in iTunes) with everything else. You can use Playlists to categorize. You can set your own Genre in the meta-data to aid categorization.


Cannot Add new Google Account on iPhone I have existing Gmail accounts for Mail on my iPhone, but I want to add a new one. I went to Settings -> Passwords & Accounts -> Add Account and I tap Google, and nothing happens. Here is a GIF:

This is iOS 12.1 on iPhone 6. Any ideas of how get around this to add a new Gmail account? Rebooting the phone, toggling WiFi off/on, and holding the lock + home button for 15 seconds to reset the phone did not fix either.

I held my finger on the Google button for about 15 seconds, let go, went back 1 screen, then tapping the Google button worked. I don't like this answer because I'm not anywhere near certain if doing this fixed the problem.


Are there any performance limitations when running a VM of a Boot Camp installation? I'm planning on installing Windows on my Mac, and would like to be able to use both Boot Camp (for when I need to be able to use all of the hardware of the computer) and a virtual machine (for those times when I don't want to restart).

I noticed that both VMWare Fusion and Parallels allow you to set up a virtual machine which uses the Boot Camp installation, which is exactly what I want because I want to have one installation of all the programs.

However, I'm wondering if using a virtual machine with the Boot Camp installation has the same exact performance as creating a brand new virtual machine.

The thing that prompted me to think that they might not have the same performance is the marketing text on VMware Fusion's website:

  Boot Camp Improvements — Up to 5x faster disk performance with Boot Camp virtual machines and a new option to disable authentication.

... which I understood to mean that, in the past, a normal virtual machine (i.e. one that doesn't use Boot Camp) was faster than one that uses a Boot Camp installation, and now with the upgrade, it's 5x faster... yet it's still not as fast as the normal virtual machine (since then they would probably mention that it's now as fast as a traditional virtual machine).

Is there a performance difference when using a normal virtual machine vs. one that uses a Boot Camp installation in VMware Fusion or Parallels? If so, which one is faster and by how much?

Update: Since there are two attributes to compare, the wording is a bit confusing.
For clarification, let:

  A = Performance of normal VM on VMware Fusion 3
  B = Performance of Boot Camp VM on VMware Fusion 3
  C = Performance of normal VM on VMware Fusion 2
  D = Performance of Boot Camp VM on VMware Fusion 2

I understood the marketing text to mean B = D * 5, and I inferred A > B since they mention that Boot Camp needed improvements, and rather than saying it's now as fast as a normal VM, they give a "5x" figure.

As I use it on regular basis I can say it's good performance of using Bootcamp installed windows via VMWare Fusion 3.

Here is process I followed.

Make a bootcamp partition using Bootcamp Assistant for the space.
Install the Windows XP version.
Open the VMware and select the bootcamp partition, when you create a new virtual machine for Windows.
VMWare installs few utilities on the bootcamp partition, to use it to boot via Fusion.
Once all this is done, you can launch this windows version like a normal virtual machine in Fusion.

If I want a lite usage of windows I will boot via Fusion, if I want to run heavy programs then I will boot into Bootcamp, but I rarely does it, as Fusion VM is 99% OK for me for all activities including development with Eclipse.


Triple boot on Macbook Air with external SSD I own a 2015 Macbook Air running Mojave. I plan to triple boot Mac, Windows 10, and Linux by installing them (Windows and Linux) on an external SSD and booting from there. Preferably, I don't want to use rEFind or similar, as I don't want to make any (major) changes to my Mac.

In my search for answers, this thread in particular caught my eye as a viable solution, however a full explanation on how to resolve the problem was not given.

Basically, I would like to have a full list of steps (doesn't have to be too detailed) that would allow a new-ish user like me to complete a triple boot from start to finish, elaborating on this step:

  Use more than one EFI partition. A drive can have more than one EFI partition. Additional EFI partitions do not have to reside at the beginning of the drive.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I have found a good resource over here which covers how to setup up all the boot files, and installs rEFInd on the external drive rather than the internal one. I will edit again to confirm if it works :) In the meantime, I am satisfied with existing person's documentation of the beginning steps.

EDIT 2: I have successfully triple booted from an external SSD, so thanks to everyone who helped me plus the random writer on Medium. It seems like Linux distros are getting better every day, because apparently by mounting the drive's EFI partition to /boot/efi during installation, Manjaro's boot manager handles both the Linux and Windows operating systems. To be honest the hardest part was writing Windows to the USB. I still have a few problems with Linux to sort out (no wifi drivers, Nvidia graphics card causing GRUB to not boot) but everything's well documented.

I think I may be able to help you triple boot, although I haven't tried triple booting yet. I do know how to install Windows on a separate SSD, and I'm pretty sure you can just install Linux by partitioning the SSD. Here are the steps:

Step 1: First, you have to install both Windows 10 and Ubuntu ISO files. Ubuntu from here: Ubuntu ISO File, and Windows 10 from here: Windows 10 ISO File

Step 2: Connect your SSD and partition it in Disk Utility, however you want it. You should probably name one of them "Windows" and the other "Linux", so it's easier to identify.

Step 3: Now, you will need another USB for this, 8 GB or more, so you can store the installation files. Then use Bootcamp Assistant, click continue, and click Create a Windows 10 or later install disk, and make sure Download the latest Windows support software is also checked.

Step 4: Click continue, and I think you can choose the Windows 10 ISO image and install the Windows installer on the USB. It should take around 15 minutes for it to finish. Then restart your Mac while holding Option.

Step 5: Keep holding Option until a screen that shows "Mac" and "WININSTALL" shows up. There may be other drives, but you can ignore them. Use your arrow keys to select "WININSTALL" and press Enter.

(The image is an example, yours shouldn't show Windows)

Step 6: Follow the steps through the installer, and when you get to the "Choose drive" page, and make sure to select the correct drive. If you choose the wrong one, it may erase everything. If you named the partition on your SSD, choose the named one (maybe "windows") and click next. If next is greyed out, click format and try again. If it is still greyed out, then you will have to reply with the error it shows on the bottom left.

Step 7: If the previous step goes smoothly, then it should install Windows 10 on that partition of your SSD. If it successfully installs, it should automatically restart to the Windows 10 Setup for new computers. Follow the steps on the screen and it should finish successfully as well. Now, I think that there will be a "Bootcamp Drivers install" or something pop up. Install that as well so you can use Windows 10 properly with Mac.

Step 8: Alright, you are halfway done now! (The next part about installing Linux is assumed, and reply if you have problems. I'll try to fix them). Restart your mac again, and hold Option. Select the Mac drive to go back into MacOS. Now follow these steps here, from Ubuntu Tutorials. It should explain everything more clearly than me.

Step 9: I don't have any screenshots, but it should be just a simple "follow the steps on the screen" type of thing. You should be able to select where you install it, so make sure to click on the other partition (named "Linux" probably)
and install. Once it finishes, it may put you in the Ubuntu login screen or setup screen or something, and just finished the setup.

Step 10: Ok, hopefully, you have successfully triple booted with Windows 10, Linux, and MacOS. To switch between the 3 boots, just restart your computer while holding Option, and select the drive you want to go to.

Hopefully, nothing goes wrong, but if some error or something happens, just reply with the error or explain what went wrong, and I'll try to fix it for you.

  Good luck!


Apple Mail local vs. server folders: advantages? Can anyone explain what would be advantages/drawbacks if one uses local vs. server folder, like Draft etc.? Thanks!

Local folders remove mail from the server, so if you're limited on space on the server then you can store messages locally. Almost always this isn't an issue, and as mail in remote folders is still downloaded for offline use, you're not gaining anything for offline access there.

Choose a remote folder so you can access the mail from anywhere, unless you have a really specific reason otherwise.


automate saving screenshot (already in clipboard) to a file in bash I work on the command line quite a bit and often have to take a screenshot a region of the screen and save it to directory I am currently working in.

(let's assume I've already taken the screenshot and clipboard has it).

This is how I have to do it right now (after have the screenshot in clipboard):

launch Preview.
in Preview, ⌘ + N (File, New from Clipboard) creates a new file with the clipboard contents.
go back to command line and copy the directory name (copy the results of pwd)
go to Preview, ⌘ + S for Save.  Type / gets me a directory navigation prompt where I can paste my directory name from step 3.
Finally, give the actual file name, this_is_where_I_get_the_error.png in my example.

I'd like to do this instead:

$savemyscreenshot ./this_is_where_I_get_the_error.png

How would I go about writing that savemyscreenshot command?  In bash?  As an Automator script (which has to be callable from the Terminal, else that defeats the purpose somewhat)?

All things being equal, would slightly prefer a javascript flavor of the Automator script over AppleScript.

env:  MacOS Sierra

screencapture is a CLI tool built into macOS for taking screenshots, in /usr/sbin/screencapture.

To take a screenshot and save it to screenshot.png:

screencapture -x screenshot.png

To screenshot a region, you can use -R, where x,y are the coordinates of the top-left and w,h is width and height of the capture.

screencapture -x -Rx,y,w,h /path/to/capture.png

To interactively choose a region, use -i

screencapture -i screenshot.png


Putty - equivalent Mac SSH client and commands I'm trying to find out what the equivalent Mac SSH client is and set of commands are that would achieve the below. In Windows we use the Putty CLI utility 'Plink' to set up a SSH connection to a SSH server for web proxying purposes.

plink -l username -pw password -D 8080 -P 443 -ssh 1.2.3.4

This command establishes a SSH connection to host IP: 1.2.3.4 over port 443 using the username and password specified. It then presents a local port (8080) available for other applications on the local host to connect to, for example a web browser. Within the web browser we configure a SOCKS proxy using our own IP address or 'localhost' as the proxy server, with port 8080.

I don't know enough about Mac to replicate this putty tool's function and it's not a standard ssh client and I haven't seen plink documented to map things to a unix situation.

This is standard ssh and covered in the man page for TCP forwarding.

ssh -f -L 8080:localhost:443 1.2.3.4 sleep 10

I changed as little from the manual page (8080, 443, 1.2.3.4) so you can find it and the explanation there on OS X. You will want to increase the sleep time if you browser isn't going to connect in the next 10 seconds.


Will Face ID work upside down? I want know more about the new feature Face ID in iPhone X, if user hold it's iPhone X upside down then Face ID will work?

Not on iPhone X/XR/XS

  Face ID, as currently implemented (2017), does not work in landscape orientation. (The camera system is optimized for portrait.)

From Rene Ritchie's iPhone X review.

However the new 2018 iPad Pro devices do support Face ID in any orientation.


How can I use Sparrow to send iCal e-mail notifications instead of Mail.app? I am really annoyed how iCal uses Mail.app to try to send e-mail notifications. It always pops up Mail.app and I do not want it to at all. How can I make iCal use Sparrow instead to send e-mail notifications/reminders?

I tried this: http://gidogeek.com/post/6037637963/ical-sparrow

But that didn't work for some reason.

There is a solution to your issue but it requires a little AppleScript jiggery pokery.

Johan Bruning posted an AppleScript for this on GitHub. He's included instructions for installing it in the README which is also visible on the project's GitHub page.

In his blog post about the script he writes, "I am happy to report it works like a charm and my iCal now finally sends e-mails trough Sparrow."


Sending message from Terminal does not work when the Mac is sleeping I have a script that LaunchControl runs in the middle of the night to back up my database and send a message that it has been done. The message is sent as follows:

osascript -e 'tell application "Messages" to send "backup completed" to buddy "admin"'

I am running macOS Mojave. This works fine if I test it during the day, but in the middle of the night it, the message is not sent even thought the backup occurs. Presumably it has something to do with the fact that my machine is asleep. How do I fix this?

The Mac must be powered on to run your script. Only a few Apple specific processes are allowed to run via PowerNap.

pmset

You can use pmset to schedule your Mac to wake in the middle of the night.

  pmset allows you to schedule system sleep, shutdown, wakeup and/or power on. "schedule" is for setting up one-time power events, and "repeat" is for setting up daily/weekly power on and power off events. Note that you may only have one pair of repeating events scheduled - a "power on" event and a "power off" event. For sleep cycling applications, pmset can schedule a "relative" wakeup or poweron to occur in seconds from the end of system sleep/shutdown, but this event cannot be cancelled and is inherently imprecise.

  type - one of sleep, wake, poweron, shutdown, wakeorpoweron
  date/time - "MM/dd/yy HH:mm:ss" (in 24 hour format; must be in quotes)
  time - HH:mm:ss
  weekdays - a subset of MTWRFSU ("M" and "MTWRF" are valid strings)
  owner - a string describing the person or program who is scheduling this one-time power event (optional)

See How to Power On Your Mac at a Specific Date and Time for more details, including a graphical approach, and alternative tools.


How does Xcode communicate with an iOS device? I can plug in an iOS device and tell Xcode to run my app on that device or stop it. I can have the app paused at any time and use the debugger to debug the running app. How is this all possible? There must be some kind of a background process on iOS that acts as a liaison between Xcode and the debugger and iOS.

When you connect iPhone to Xcode and you click 'Use for Development', Xcode will download and mount DDI(Developer Disk Image). This image has DebugServer.app along other utilities that permit Xcode to perform development actions.


Is there a way to sync contacts between an android phone and an iPad without using a computer? If I use a computer, then I can log into iCloud to download all my contacts, copy them to google and sync between gmail and the android phone.

Is there a way to do this without a computer and just extract all my contacts from iPad and then send the file containing all my contacts to myself as an email, so I can download the file from gmail? Without a computer, it seems all I can do is extract contacts one at a time.

Thanks in advance!

As comments have alluded to, if you go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts on your iOS device, you can select "Add Account" and add your Google account there.  Once you set that up, you can configure it to sync contacts (and email, calendar, etc) to your Google account.


Does NVRAM, PRAM or SMC have anything to do with the red light on a Riser lighting up but then not lighting up after a reseat and riser switch? One of the red leds for dimm 3 raiser b lit up red on my MacPro early 2008 lit up, so I reseated the ram in question on it by switching it with it's counter part (swapped dimm 3 for dimm 4) and switched it from the top to the bottom riser.   Then I had the full amount of RAM again and no red light.

I also run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on it.

I have never reset the nvram, pram, or SMC on it, and so I was wondering if that is somehow related to such strange events in the hardware as the led lights coming on and going away after reseating the ram as I did.

As you may know, the Non-Volatile RAM (NVRAM) and System Management Controller (SMC) have totally different purposes.

In terms of the red light you're referring to:

resetting the NVRAM will have absolutely no bearing on this whatsoever
resetting the SMC could have an influence, but probably not in the way you're asking about.

At its core the SMC is responsible for power management and controlling the thermal environment of your Mac. Typically this covers things like interpreting and responding to various sensors, battery charging, sleep/wake/hibernation, the power button and restarts/shutdowns, LED indicators, and so on.

Since the red light needs a power source, as do RAM chips to operate, it's quite possible that resetting the SMC could have an impact on the light:

directly in terms of its own power source
indirectly because the associated RAM isn't getting the power it needs and therefore triggers ECC errors which triggers the red light.

However, despite the above explanation, in most cases a red light indicates nothing more than the fact the RAM isn't seated properly. Removing and reseating the riser(s) will usually rectify this problem. While it may seem unlikely that this was the problem in your case, it actually doesn't take much for this to occur (e.g. the computer is moved, bumped, etc).


El Capitan MIDI broken My oxygen 25 midi keyboard is 'compliant with el capitan' according to the m-audio website, but I noticed none of my DAWs could establish a connection or receive a midi signal.

To prove no signal received, I downloaded midi monitor after following instructions here:

Apple Midi Test

Launching MIDI MONITOR, I get the following message

  MIDI Monitor could not make a connection to its MIDI driver. To fix
  the problem, quit all MIDI applications (including this one) and
  launch them again.

  For now, MIDI Monitor will not be able to spy on the output of other
  MIDI applications, but all other features will still work.

This leads me to believe the problem is with my OS upgrade rather than my hardware. I upgraded to 10.11.2 with the hopes that it may fix the issue, but it was to no avail.

What can I do to restore midi function in my macbook pro? This was working prior to el capitan upgrade.

We had the same midi issue after upgrading to El Capitan 11.10.2. After working many hours with Apple's support team, they finally suggested we revert back to Yosemite. Weak sauce or apple sauce, you decide :)


What's the best way to recover data from corrupted iPhone 6s (iTunes not working/iCloud not used) What has happened... the timeline:

29 Nov around 23:00 :   iPhone 6s full backup encrypted

30 Nov around 07:00 :   iPhone 4s synched (backed-up automatically in the process / incremental backup)

30 Nov around 18:30 :       iPhone 6s full backup encrypted

Around 30 Nov 22:00  :      Need to recover the iPhone 6s

29 Nov backup not visible on the backup list !

30 Nov 7:00 can be used but it recovers 4s backup onto 6s (included 6s app and some - not all - 6s data)

30 Nov 18:30 visible but when try to recover it says its corrupted operation failed (seems like my backup got mixed up)

I also have backup of iPhone 6s from 27 Sep, it works as well but when used I get again everything. I recovers iPhone 6s data and applications and iPhone 4s (applications)!

I can clean up the Sept 27 recovery but really need notes from Nov 29/30.
Is there a way to move them (backup files to a backup that works from 27 Sep)

If not are there tools to recover data?

I have found:

https://drfone.wondershare.com/ios-data-recovery.html

https://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/register/

Are there reliable/clean?

Appreciate any help!

Best regards,
Damian

PS. All backups are local iTunes based.

If you only need to get the notes from your backup, just download third party application to extract your notes from the Backup ( but if that is encrypted, most softwares ask to decrypt the backup first. So I assume 27th November backup is not encrypted)

After the extraction of Notes from backup, restore 27th November backup to iPhone and import those Notes from the PC (Which you are extracted from backup)

Import notes from PC : https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT205793

It is not quite possible to repair a corruped iTunes backup because mainly those are encrypted. So you best shot is what I described.

I think you have asked that whether these provided links applications are reliable and clean. I've used DrFone program personally and that wasn't quite satisfying. But that could be great for you since that has good ratings. Give a try to find out which program is the best for you to do your task.


Run and build Visual Studio project on Mac OS X Can I open a Visual Studio C++ project on Mac OS X and run the app?

Although you will get more info from Windows/Mac developers on StackOverflow, I can tell you that depending upon the project and its dependencies, you might get away with it or you may not. Of course nothing Windows related can be run on OSX, so if you're only doing a "hello world", chances are you will be able to run it, provided you have the right toolchain to build that (gcc++, etc.)

Regarding whether there's a "Visual Studio Compatible IDE" the answer is "no" (unless you consider MonoDevelop which works 'ok' for some things).

The solution, of course, is to use one of the virtualization alternatives (Parallels, VMWare) or simply have a windows partition via Bootcamp.


Connecting Macbook Air 2011 to HP LP2475w monitor.. use DVI, HDMI or Display Port? The HP LP2475w supports all of the following inputs:

  DVI-I, HDMI, DisplayPort, Component Video, S-Video, and Composite Video

Which one is the preferred to connect the Macbook Air's mini-display port to?

I have this monitor since 2008. My experience with a MacBook Pro 13" (early 2011) is:

HDMI

Any cable will do it, but you'll have to override the Mac OS X settings to force RGB mode. To do that follow the instructions in

http://ireckon.net/2013/03/force-rgb-mode-in-mac-os-x-to-fix-the-picture-quality-of-an-external-monitor

DVI

No problem, but only with Apple's official adaptor + DVI to DVI cable. In this case, image quality is perfect and I haven't got issues waking from sleep. I also tried with a 43€ mini DisplayPort to DVI 1m cable from Clicktronic and I saw random red and green pixels on dark areas of the screen. I also observed this issue with another mini DisplayPort to DVI cable from a different (cheaper) manufacturer.

DisplayPort

Using CA's mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable I have extremely annoying jitters and shakes on the screen. In between those, the image quality is perfect but overall renders the usage annoying. It looks like it gets better as the monitor stays turned on for some time (about an hour). I've also observed issues when waking from sleep. Apparently the problem is not the cable, and reports of good compatibility do exist.

http://estore.circuitassembly.com/products/mini-displayport-to-displayport-adapter-cable-1m.html


Apple Account Country Change I really need to change my apple account country. I would like to see a TV show but I can only find it in the US store, and because I am in the Emirati store, it won't show up in that store. I do not understand why apple has placed the 'country store' system because when someone in a different country wants to buy a certain item, they aren't allowed to. Can I change my account store or is it not possible?

Apple has separated the store into different countries because the rights to movies and shows can be owned by different companies in each country. For example a film might be distributed by Paramount in the United States and 20th Century Fox in the rest of the world (as was the case with James Cameron's Titanic). So Apple has to make separate deals with these companies to distribute their content in the store.

You can change the country attached to your account, but then in Apple's own words: "After you change the country of your account, you won't see the items you purchased from the previous country’s store in the Purchased section."

To change the country you may need a payment option located in that country. Again in Apple's own words: "only German credit cards can be used to buy content from the German iTunes and App stores".

Life would be easier for us if this wasn't the case, but unfortunately Apple has to follow the rules of the people who own the content they are distributing through their stores.


Automatic download of top apps from iTunes App Store in iTunes Is there a script or other way to have iTunes download the top (free) apps (in all categories, or specific category) from the app store, like once a week or day?

“

Is there a script... to have iTunes download the top (free) apps (in all categories, or specific category) from the app store, like once a week or day?

”
No. But its a really neat idea. And iTunes is very very scriptable.

“

Is there a... other way to have iTunes download the top (free) apps (in all categories, or specific category) from the app store, like once a week or day?

”
Yes, its called AppleScript, and it is the language of iTunes automation.

Unfortunately, it appears the #applescript@freenode.irc channel is quite dead (which says more about irc than AppleScript!), but there are still some great online and offline resources available.
I found a very nice tutorial for beginners to get you started.


Why won't an fsck-declared-good volume mount? I have a CoreStorage logical (virtual), encrypted volume that will not mount, even though fsck_hfs declares it clean. Does anyone know what the deal is here?

Here is the drive information:

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *960.2 GB   disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Discover                959.3 GB   disk4s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk4s3
/dev/disk5 (external, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Discover               +959.0 GB   disk5
                                 Logical Volume on disk4s2
                                 9BB5BE72-0024-46D2-A1BB-69AB51247E06
                                 Unlocked Encrypted

where disk5 is the unlocked, but not mounted virtual volume. Here are the results of fsck_hfs on the unlocked virtual volume:

** /dev/rdisk5
   Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-305.10.1).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
   The volume name is Discover
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
** Checking multi-linked files.
** Checking catalog hierarchy.
** Checking extended attributes file.
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** Trimming unused blocks.
** The volume Discover appears to be OK.

I had put in the password for the encryption, and as I would expect, fsck_hfs seems quite able to read the encrypted data, without it being mounted. This is what happens when I try to mount:

% diskutil mount 9BB5BE72-0024-46D2-A1BB-69AB51247E06
disk5 is a CoreStorage Logical Volume which failed to mount
% diskutil mount disk5
disk5 is a CoreStorage Logical Volume which failed to mount

Of course, no clue is given as to why it failed to mount.

I am running the latest El Capitan.

I had same problem... fix/work-around was in Terminal do something like:

mkdir /tmp/3

sudo /sbin/mount_hfs /dev/disk3s3 /tmp/3

df -h  /tmp/3
Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused      ifree %iused

/dev/disk3s3  464Gi  249Gi  215Gi    54% 3279960 4291687319    0%   /private/tmp/3

BTW, if you have extra ram, you can do faster checks of volumes, esp Time Machine disk, with a command like:

sudo fsck_hfs -f -c 6200m /dev/disk3s3

** /dev/rdisk3s3
   Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-366.70.1).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
   The volume name is SeaTMimac1012.noindex
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
** Checking multi-linked files.
** Checking catalog hierarchy.
** Checking extended attributes file.
** Checking multi-linked directories.
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** The volume SeaTMimac1012.noindex appears to be OK.

Tho it was ok, none of these would mount it: DiskUtility (horrible one in 10.12), diskutil mount, etc.


How to make Web Apps appear as First-Class Mac Desktop Citizens I keep ending up with a myriad of open tabs in Chrome. It is a pain to switch between them compared to switching between regular mac apps.

So I would like be able to

pin them to the task bar
identify them using their favicon (task bar / ⌘ + TAB)
always open them in a separate window

Just like it appears to be possible on windows: https://www.howtogeek.com/141431/how-to-turn-web-apps-into-first-class-desktop-citizens/

I am looking for a solution with Chrome. But if there's a solution with another browser I may even consider switching...

Found a great way on Chrome Version 75.0.3770.100:

1) go to the website you want to convert to an app

2) click on three dots / more tools / Create Shortcut + make sure to tick 'open in new window'

That's it - you now have an app that you can pin to your dock and you can cycle through them with cmd + tab. Awesome!


Can I downgrade macOS to OSX Mavericks if the earliest OS that came with my Mac is macOS Sierra? Google gives me conflicted answers on this.

On Apple's website it says that the earliest os you can restore to is the one that originally shipped with your Mac.

However, I found articles and links like MacWorld that says otherwise. So I thought maybe there are some tricks that can be used to accomplish that goal.

Is this possible ?

Thank you for your help.

If your Mac originally shipped with Mavericks, then yes, you can install Mavericks on it, regardless of whether when you bought it, it had Sierra on it.

Otherwise, no.  Think about it.  If your Mac was released after Mavericks, Mavericks won't have hardware drivers for it.


Why does Flashlight for Spotlight does not work on El Capitan? Can anyone explain, on a deep level, why Flashlight for Spotlight does not work on El Capitan?

Flashlight for Spotlight works by injecting its own code into the Spotlight process. This is how it manages to "intercept" your interaction with Spotlight in order to enhance it.

El Capitan comes with "System Integrity Protection" (SIP) enabled by default. Amongst other things, SIP protects system processes, such as the Spotlight process, from code injection from other processes. Another example is that you can cannot attach a debugger to a system process when SIP is enabled. Therefore Flashlight for Spotlight cannot, in a factory default install, inject its code into Spotlight - and thus it doesn't work.

You can relatively easy disable SIP by booting to Recovery Mode and running csrutil disable and rebooting. It can be enabled again by running csrutil enable in Receovery mode. again.

If you disable SIP you can use Flashlight for Spotlight on El Capitan, but will miss out on the protection you get from having SIP enabled.


iPhone 5s crashing infrequently, despite restoring I just got my new iPhone 5s last week. Sometimes it crashes. Even App Store, Music and Voice Memo crash, but it does not happen frequently. Then there are about two times the phone freeze for a moment while I was browsing through my photo and when I was downloading app. Here is my diagnostic and usage screenshot:

I have restored my phone to factory setting yesterday but the problem still persists, so is my problem serious or is it normal? Since the Apple Store is quite far from my house, is it worth my time travelling there?

I would absolutely recommend a genius bar appointment if it's convenient and they can be sure your phone is reporting these crashes to Apple Engineering. That being said, you have a totally normal volume of logs and glitches for a new OS release that hasn't had time to have all these little bugs patched.

Of the messages you listed, these are harmless and diagnostic whether you have an app crash or not:

awdd-YYYY-mm-dd-hhmmss-whatever-else
log-aggregated-YYYY-mm-dd-hhmmss-whatever-else
LowMemory-YYYY-mm-dd-hhmmss-whatever-else

Your phone is set up report each crash anonymously (they strip the identifier of the device from the reports intentionally) and the genius bar will ensure you are reporting these so that Engineering can make sure the most common crashes get sorted out.

The other benefit of the genius bar is they can run hardware diagnostics. You can also get these to run by seeking phone or web support in many areas:

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/contact/

Click the link that says you can get connected with an expert online.

Now, if you can't get to the genius bar, I can also say that they won't likely be able to dig into any of the crash logs other than perhaps the LowBattery log and LowMemory log and they will just look at them with you. You can look at them and figure out mostly what is going by reading the english descriptions and ignoring most of the hex (0x2f8107c6) and UUID (3A197A6D-1D9B-4F1D-BE12-356F8D3F3C2B).

LowBattery logs are how Apple (and the astute user) can tell if the battery needs replacing or if the programs are just using too much power in the background. LowMemory logs are just diagnostic - kind of like keeping your weight so that you can look back and tell when you were gaining, when you were holding steady and when you were losing.

These logs make the most sense when you track them over time and not so much that you have one now to 13 at this point.


Keystrokes in right top corner A friend of mine has a setting turned on on his macbook. As you can see in the screenshot below, the shift, function, control, alt and command keys show up in the top right corner when pressed. Where can this setting be turned off?

It must be something like :

  System Preferences > Accessibility > Keyboard > Sticky keys options > Display pressed keys on screen


Can your information security be compromised by opening attachments in Gmail in iOS? I know people can put virus or other dangerous programs in email attachments and send them to you, but is that just for the computer world and not tablets? I mean, if you get such an email to your Gmail account and open it on iPhone for example, is there still a risk of having your information secretly stolen or something?

Theoreticly there's always a certain risk since no system is 100% secure. But given the measures Apple took/takes to make iOS as secure as possible that risk is kept rather low. Currently there is no known security hole regarding what you describe.


Use old iPod touch screen So I have a cracked ipod touch 4 Gen screen. Is there any use for this now? Is there possibly a way to get an adapter to HDMI or something similar? The screen works fine besides the cracked glass.

Apple (Wal-mart, Best buy, and others carry it also) does sell 30 pin to HDMI. If you have an Apple TV you could stream via Airplay.

If you are adventurous you could try to replace the screen and digitizer, I did a quick search on Amazon and came up with multiple prices above and below twenty dollars. For directions search Youtube or iFixit.


Would different emails for iCloud explain why I've lost contacts & pics I set iCloud up with my then email address. I signed out then signed back in with my new email address . Would this cause me to have lost contacts & pics?

Yes, if you haven't changed your primary email on your iCloud account from the "then" email address to the "new" email address, logging in with a different email means you are now probably using different Apple ID all together and are seeing the contacts and pictures –or lack of them– of this Apple ID.

The proper way to change your Apple ID main email address is described here:

  Sign out of every Apple service and device that uses your Apple ID.
  Sign in to your Apple ID account page.
  In the Account section, click Edit. Under your Apple ID, click Change Email Address. You might be asked to answer one or more of your security questions.
  Enter the email address that you want to use as your Apple ID. A verification code will be sent to your new email address.
  Enter the verification code from the email into the fields provided and start using your updated Apple ID.
  Sign back in to all Apple services with your new Apple ID.
  After you change your Apple ID, you need to use your new sign-in information with all Apple services that you use.

Additionally, you're probably going to have trouble using the "new" email address now, given you cannot use the same email address for two Apple ID's. If you run into that problem, please ask another question (the solution probably involves adding a third email address to the "new" Apple ID, making it the primary email address, and deleting the "new" email address in order to make it available for use again).
Sorry, there is no solution to the last part, apparently: Remove an email address from apple-ID


What is "private browsing" used for? What is it when you are in "private" from the home screen?   What does private browsing do for me and what are the pros and cons in using it?

Private Browsing protects your private information and blocks some websites from tracking your behavior. Safari won't remember the pages you visit, your search history, or your AutoFill information.

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT203036


Is it possible to buy a replacement iPad screen of the same quality as Apple's? I've found a few companies that offer replacement iPad digitizers (the digitizer is the glass/touch screen part of your iPad), but I'm worried that they might be different to the official one.

Having broken the glass on my iPad 3 I initially spoke to Apple, but they wanted far too much to repair it ($400!). I then looked into third-party repairs (which were still quite pricey), and then discovered DIY repair kits.

Replacing the glass doesn't seem too difficult, based on the tutorials I've looked at, so my only concern now is the quality of the replacement kits.

Is it possible to buy a repair kit that has parts that are (more or less) identical to Apple's? I wouldn't want to replace the a part with something inferior :(

iFixit is a great resource for repair manuals and the corresponding parts.  It appears they currently (2-13) have iPad digitizers for ~$100.

Personally I only have experience purchasing internal iPhone parts from them, but they are a reputable company and I would trust their quality if I were in your position.


Make iTunes recognize MP3 audiobooks with ID3 tag Apple iTunes recognizes and categorizes MP4 audio files (preferably with an .m4b extension, not .m4a nor .mp4) correctly as audiobooks if the tag field stik MediaType is set to 2 for Audiobook. I shall assume that its successors, i. e. Music, Podcasts and TV, do so as well.

Classic MP3 files, however, use a different metadata tag format: ID3, which has no official, documented way to mark a file as an audiobook. (One can use any string for TCON content type, usually labeled genre, but that does not seem to matter to iTunes.) The kind of audio can manually be set in the iTunes GUI, but this will apparently not add or change the ID3 tag in any way, instead just update the database entry and possibly file location. This has been documented many times on the web, as has converting the MP3 into an AAC MP4.

Is there any way to tag an MP3 file in such a way that Apple audio players/managers will import it as an audiobook without manual correction?

As an alternative, Iʼm considering to put a remuxed MP3 audio stream (i.e. not reencoded with AAC) into an MP4 container (v2, i.e. MPEG-4 Part 14, .m4b file extension), but I donʼt know yet whether Apple supports them correctly.

MP3s can also use different tag formats, e.g. APE from Monkey's Audio, but as far as I know none are recognized by iTunes.

No, there is no documented way to mark MP3 files with ID3v2 tag as audiobooks in a way that Apple products (or any hardware or software player really) would understand. There apparently is also no undocumented way known either.

Although there is a public Github repository, the development of ID3v2 has stalled for over a decade now and should not be expected to be picked up ever again, because more recent container formats, like MOV-based Part-14 MP4, use different metadata formats.


iMessage on old iPhone So in the past few days I just retired my old iPhone 5 and upgraded to the new iPhone 6.

Once I took the SIM out, I expected just standard carrier calls and texts to stop working (for obvious reasons) but for some reason all forms of iMessage seem to have stopped working too.

For many reasons I intend on still using the iPhone 5 without a SIM so is they're any reason as to why iMessage stopped working? I thought it would have assumed the functionality of what would essentially be a very large iPod touch.

Enabling and disabling it in settings hasn't done much, yet it is activated successfully upon turning it on. I don't receive messages anymore and sending messages causes it to instantly fail.

This seems to be related to Apple's attempt to make it so that if you are moving from iOS to Android other iOS users can still message you as your iMessage will be disabled.

I managed to get a friend's phone to work by sending him an iMessage to his Apple ID. This seemed to fix it and now he can send/receive messages with others too.


How to use Keychain to Auto Login into Authenticated Websites I am running El Capitan.

I added login credentials into Keychain as follows:

Name/Where (the full web url)
Account (the login username)
Password (the login password)

I then launched the web page and was thinking that what keychain would do is auto fill the login credentials.

Nothing happened.

Am I mis-understanding what keychain is and does?

Is there a way on the macbook to auto populate the username and password on a website?

Thank you...and be kind please -- I am a long time PC user and just got my first macbook the other day so I am trying to learn and make my way around the new machine.

I'll talk you through this... what does a traditional keychain do? It organises your keys in a central location for you to access in an adhoc fashion. I'd argue that a keychain also mitigates risk of you losing any one of your keys accidentally. Food for thought... would you leave your front door unlocked with your keychain (including other keys) sitting freely in the key slot?

So the Mac Keychain is conceptually the same, it organises your cryptographic keys and mitigates risk of loss by securing it with your Mac password. Given that your password IS the entry point keychain, you got yourself a chicken and egg scenario. But anyway, I would sternly advise you not to pursue this idea any further. If somebody stole your device or remotely logged into it, and you had your system automatically logging you in, you'd be handing over your keys to a potential thief. In some ways, this might be even more dangerous than compromising your physical keychain.

So by concept, the Mac "Keychain" would be referred to in general IT terms as a "Key store", that is responsible for facilitating the storage of private and public keys. What you are asking for is essentially an "Authenticator" or an SSO (Single Sign-On) solution.

My recommendation: if you configure your everyday user account as a non-administrator, then you should be able to have it auto login to OSX. You shouldn't be using an administrator or Root level account for general purposes. If you get hacked or attacked by malware while logged in as an admin then youve pretty much handed over those admin rights to the Malware.


Convenient Way to Turn an Apple Note to EPUB Recently I have converted one of my iCloud notes into an EPUB by first copying and pasting its content to Pages (by parts, since the entire content was not willing to be copied for some reason), then by manually designating all the headers as Pages headers (to get the table of contents working), and then by using the Pages "Export to EPUB" option. This was a lengthy and unpleasant procedure. Is there a better way to turn a note into an EPUB? By the way, I specifically need to have all the images from the note in the resulting EPUB document.

Sorry you had challenges with the copy to pages. In my experience, the content from the note to Pages is generally excellent and one step. Pages has EPUB export capabilities and it will take over all function for authoring from iBooks Author in the next OS release cycle in 2020.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211136

I think you will find the hassle to get it into pages lessened over time and benefit from having it in a format you can edit easier than PDF.


Pencil by FiftyThree – Work with Apple Notes.app in iOS 9? Does the Pencil by FiftyThree work with the new drawing features in Apple’s Notes app in iOS 9?

Apple Notes app is not listed on their list of compatible apps.

The vendor offers a software development kit (SDK) for apps to integrate Pencil functionality. That suggests apps not using that SDK will not work with Pencil.

Yes - it works very well on all iOS devices up to and including the iPad Pro. The Pro does some special refresh rate enhancements with Apple's Pencil that you won't get full advantage of, but this stylus is very nice and I think some will prefer it's ergonomics over the faster response of the pencil.

From https://www.apple.com/apple-pencil/ this is explained as follows:

  When iPad Pro senses Apple Pencil, the subsystem scans its signal at an astounding 240 times per second, giving it twice the data points it normally collects with your finger.

So, your finger, the Paper by 53 pencil hardware and other stylus will be scanned at 120 times per second.

The other important feature that the Paper stylus and Apple Pencil share is that they communicate angle data to the iPad via Bluetooth. Apple's notes read that information in the notes app, but Apple's notes app do not read angle data from the Pencil hardware, so it's more like your finger with no additional bluetooth data for the Paper SDK. I've tested this on several iPad pro in the stores.


Do iPhones fully sync with Google services and other Web apps? I'm looking for a smartphone: either an iPhone or an Android. Here are my requirements:

Contacts must fully sync with Google Contacts. That means that whenever I add a contact in Gmail, it must show up automatically in the phone's contacts. The reverse must be true as well.
Calendar must fully sync with Google Calendar.
Access Google Docs easily, preferably without third-party apps.
An app that makes use of Google maps for navigation.
Good support for Chinese input software, including both pinyin and handwriting.

In short, I want a small device that allows me to access the Internet in any way at any time (I will get a phone plan that includes unlimited Internet access). All the data should be stored in the cloud rather than on the local device.

Can an iPhone do all the above? Or is an Android a better choice because the OS is done by Google?

Edit:
Another issue: how good is the iPhone's hardware? The hardware on my last smartphone (a Dopod with Win Mobile 5) fell apart ( both in terms of speed and hardware) after a year of use. Do iPhones have similar problems?

I have an iPhone 4. I love it. Google has a sync service for iPhone which will do #1 and #2. Your desire #3 is easily done through the browser. There's a built-in google maps app to fulfill your wish #4.

So, the iPhone can do what you want.

That said, it sounds like you want an Android.

EDIT, since you asked about hardware

After over 2 years of use, most of it without a case, except for a few minor scratches my iPhone 3G is fine. The only thing even close to degradation is a barely noticeable "stickiness" to the front main button.

My new iPhone 4 seems just as solidly built. I can't imagine these things falling apart without some sort of abuse.


How do I setup a cron job on OSX to launch a website in safari every 4 hours? How do I setup a cron job on OSX to launch a website in safari every 4 hours? I'm looking to have it open on top of every window. It's basically a reminder for staff.

0 0,4,8,12,16,20 * * * open "http://google.com/"

The 0,4,8,12,16,20 is every hour that the cron will run (in this example, every 4th hour).


Is there a way to monitor the signals an HID (Human Interface) device sends to the OS? There is a way in the mac world to monitor all the signals an HID device (a remote)  sends to the OS?
The final aim is to handle those and remap them to keyboard shortcuts.

More details: a Logitech remote I have (Logitech S510 media remote, a combo keyboard/mouse/remote) doesn't works on macOS (just the volume controls and few other buttons works). I was wondering if there is an easy way (in any language) to listen the remote signals and remap them.
So the first step is to find a way to monitor the signals and check if all buttons signals are recognized by the OS.

NSEvent

To monitor input events sent to macOS from Human Interface Devices (HID), look at NSEvent's addGlobalMonitorForEventsMatchingMask:handler:. This is the method used to associate scripts and tasks to hotkeys by third party macOS tools.

You will likely need to write in Objective-C or Swift and codesign the resulting binary. I expect you will also need to grant the binary additional access rights at runtime – probably in the Accessibility panel of System Preferences > Security & Privacy.

A search on GitHub will provide a few sample projects using this method.