Why does my phone say I can't backup to iCloud even after deleting lots of video? I have an iphone 4s and I got an error message saying it can't do a backup because I have more than 5 GB to backup (more details listed on my question here).   When i go into the detail i see that the Camera role was taking up 5.1 GB itself so thats why it can't do any more backups.

I got suggestions on this answer to download files onto computer and then delete them off my phone.

The issue is that i just went and deleted all of my videos (which must have been over 1 GB) but when i go to the iCloud settings page it still shows the Camera Roll as having 5.1 GB.

Is there anything that i need to do to have it realize that i just freed up a lot of space?

Your answer lies deep in the settings app on your iPhone.

Go to iCloud - Storage & Backup - Manage Storage - your device

Backup settings allow you to save space in iCloud by excluding app data in the next back up. You can toggle on more and more buckets of data until the estimate is low enough to allow the next backup attempt to succeed.

When you turn off data under iOS 7 where it says Backup Options: Choose the data you want to back up. - this does delete the backup copy of that data, so consider paying for more space (or cleaning up elsewhere) if you cannot afford to lose that backup copy.

Assuming you have data you are willing to risk losing or is backed up to iTunes on a computer, then you can clean enough space and add things back slowly (triggering another backup after each addition) once a small minimal backup has been completed successfully.

Furthermore, if you go to the above screen and turn off Camera Roll backup, it will prompt you to delete these files from the iCloud server backup, freeing the space immediately (just because you delete the videos on the device, they take up backup space on iCloud until you purge the backup by category or delete it entirely and start over).

Your iCloud space has to remain full of files that were backed up and now deleted on the device for it to function. After a few days of backups, the old backups expire and no longer take space but in your case you might want to purge them intentionally rather than wait for it to happen programatically.


Photos App : Using Photos App on a library that is stored on a USB Flash Drive I would like to store my Photos library onto an external USB Flash drive.
I have found other articles explaining that it was possible to store a Photos library onto an external USB SSD or HDD and would like to do the same on a USB Flash Drive.

The reason for the above is that a USB Flash drive (i) holds enough space,(ii) is MUCH smaller and (iii) can always be plugged in.

In the case that this is possible I have some specific questions and would very much appreciate if someone could shed some light on this.

Is it possible to use a USB Flash drive to store a Photos library and access this library when I use the Photos app?
Does performance greatly suffer or is acceptable when using the Photos app (browsing or editing pictures) with the above configuration?
Would it be suggested to format the USB Flash drive to another more Mac friendly format? If yes what would be suggested?
On the other hand, in the case that I were to use an external HDD using USB 3.0, would the performance be equal or below to using a USB Flash drive?
Lastly would I need to remove the external drive from the exclusion list from Time Machine in the case that I wanted Time Machine to back it up?

Thanks in advance if anyone can provide some feedback.

Much Appreciated!

You should format the secondary storage as OS X extended and journaled. That ensures the mount of the device is quick and you don't have to wait for a full fsck cycle if it unmount uncleanly. The speed penalty of journaling is almost un-measurable. The speed penalty for not journaling is huge each time you mount the drive.

You want OS X style ACL and permissions, so don't choose FAT or other formats if you care about speed and no bugs/issues.

Here is guidance on the actual move and measurement tools to check drive speeds if you don't simply want to time the Photos app once you've moved the folder.

Moving home folder or large folders to HDD
Can I move applications and other data to a JetDrive 128 GB for MacBook Air


iPhone iOS 12.2: music star ratings aren’t saved I’ve had this problem for a while, possibly since the start of iOS 12.

I have Show Star Ratings switches on and can access the star rating for songs in the Music app. I select Rate Song... from the action sheet, tap a star rating in the alert view, then tap the Done button. However the rating is not saved: if I open up the rating alert view again, it’s back to 0 stars.

This is happening both for music I’ve purchased from iTunes and other music I own.

Has anyone else experienced this? How can I fix it?

I noticed that when I've done this on my iPhone, and then opened the Rate Song... dialog again, right afterwards it too showed 0 stars; however when I looked at the song in iTunes on my Mac it showed the appropriate rating. When I returned to the iOS dialog it was correct as well. So I think it's working. it's just taking a bit for the interface to catch up.


Force Safari to open in fullscreen I'd love Safari to open in fullscreen mode.

It doesn't look like Safari natively supports this.

After some research I thought the best alternative may be to run an AppleScript when Safari opens forcing Safari into fullscreen mode.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Safari"
    set value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of window 1 to true
end tell

How can I run this script every time Safari starts?

You could save this script in ScriptEditor as an .app and name it something like "Safari Maximized.app".  Then every time you want to launch Safari in full screen mode, just launch your new app.  You may need to adjust the delay setting in the code.

This works for me in the latest version of Sierra

tell application "Safari" to activate
delay 1
tell application "System Events"
    perform action "AXPress" of button 2 of window 1 of application process "Safari"
end tell

Don't forget to allow access for your new app through gatekeeper


iPad won't let me update apps after update to iOS 14 Since updating iPads to iOS 14 I am not able to update apps. After hitting update I am asked for password which I do fill correctly. After about ten seconds the password dialogue appears again, and again, and again.
I do remember on both iPads Apple tried to force me into two factor authentication which I absolutely do not want. I have clicked on Later as there was no other option for opting out.
What can I do to be able to update the apps? Of course apart of setting up two factor authentication?

As of June 17, 2020 you can not turn off two-factor authentication and you can not use some features without enabling it. It was optional, highly encouraged and opt-in on iOS 12 and iOS 13.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915

Can I turn off two-factor authentication after I’ve turned it on?
If you already use two-factor authentication, you can no longer turn it off. Certain features in the latest versions of iOS and macOS require this extra level of security, which is designed to protect your information. If you recently updated your account, you can unenroll within two weeks of enrollment. Just open your enrollment confirmation email and click the link to return to your previous security settings. Keep in mind, this makes your account less secure and means that you can't use features that require higher security.

I have not tested the unenrollment in the two week grace period but have no reason to believe it won’t work as described. The services Apple ties to two-factor (which is easily confused with the previous two-step process)  have been changing outside the iOS major release cycle
The only thing that’s changed with iOS 14 is Apple removed the opt-in UI since the services themselves are now forcing the upgrade in security.
You still want to closely manage all the security at this page whenever a device gives you a hassle or unexpected challenge. (This much hasn’t changed in many years)

https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage

Once you review your current settings above and make the security page happy, you may have to choose between this model requiring a second factor past your password and managing the prompts, trying it and declining the features or just letting the features that mandate this fail and go unused.  It appears you could also keep using older software with two-step or relying on the security questions and just a password for existing AppleID.


Does anyone know why app "Recovery Partition Creator" is now an un-maintained project? Does anyone know why app "Recovery Partition Creator" is now an un-maintained project?   I wanted something like this to use on 10.14.5  but I am noticing the app hasn't been maintained since 10.13 .   I replaced the SSD on a MacPro but had to restore it from a time machine backup and I wanted to update the recovery partition software to latest, because it comes with 10.12 I think,  if possible.

github.com/MagerValp/Create-Recovery-Partition-Installer.git

Is there an alternative?  I am not intending this to be an opinion generating question, but rather a technical question.

Maggsy got a different job and got out of tech entirely.

Try this one:

http://musings.silvertooth.us/index.php/2016/10/05/recovery-partition-4-0-4/


Managing multiple Java Installations After hours of Googling I'm a little depressed with the results..

For work, I have multiple Java Installations, some of them via SdkMan, and some of them seem to found there way into the /Library/Java ...

Now to the problem: If I try to start any .jar File (self coded or not) via double-click, it just says 'Couldn't open jar file, check console for errors'.

But if I try to start the same jar File from Terminal, it works just fine.

I know for sure that my Terminal uses another Java Installation than the MacOS 'JarLauncher.app', but I can't find a way to specify the Java installation for this. Under System Settings > Java, there should open a Java Control Panel, but it refuses to open, even after hitting the re-open button several times.

I tried removing the old Java Installation files with the guides I found online, but so far no luck.

Does anyone know how to solve those problems? It's my daily work to write little .jar file Scripts to help colleagues on their workflows.

Currently installed are: Java8u121 via SDKman and /Library/Java Folder, and Java9 via normal Oracle Install Tried removing the others, but not sure if I cleaned them up good enough.

Sadly it's no option to reset the whole system, it's a company managed laptop, and I don't know what will happen to all connected Systems, most of all the ActiveDirectory Sync.

Using MacOS Sierra 10.12.6, not allowed to upgrade to High Sierra yet.

The /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin (the JRE) is the one that launches the executable jar though 'JarLauncher.app' - and it is the one installed from Oracle - and it is the last installed JDK.

So if you say you have JDK 9 from Oracle, as the only one from Oracle, then it will be JavaAppletPlugin.plugin of JDK 9 that should be used right now - which doesn't work together with JDK 8 (out of the box).

One thing you could try is to install all your JDKs from Oracle, and then one by one save the JavaAppletPlugin.plugin of each version you want to use in a folder of choice, from where you then copy/override the current plugin in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ - maybe create a small Terminal script, containing setting JAVA_HOME and copy/override of plugin - you will then execute this script just before you want to test your executable jar.

EDIT:

I think after some thinking, that you first need to do some clean up.

This means delete /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin and all JDKs under /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/.

Then download all needed JDKs from Oracle, and install them one by one - lowest version first, and remember to backup the installed /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin after each install to a folder of choice.

I have saved my plugins with the names:

JavaAppletPlugin-7.0.80.plugin
JavaAppletPlugin-8.0.162.plugin
JavaAppletPlugin-9.0.4.plugin

You should also be able to open the java control panel for each installed JDK - but only for the one you currently has installed.

Now you can create a script which updates the /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin - below is a quick script I did where it install the JRE 7_80 plugin (replace <PATH_TO_BACKUP_OF_PLUGINS> with you path) - which also is the java control panel, so you should be able to open it from Settings.

#!/bin/sh

sudo rm -rf "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin"
sudo cp -rf "<PATH_TO_BACKUP_OF_PLUGINS>/JavaAppletPlugin-7.0.80.plugin" "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin"

If you want one script for each plugin, or you'll create one script which takes a version input, is up to you.

JavaAppletPlugin.plugin and JAVA_HOME need to follow each other, maybe you already has a way for switching JAVA_HOME today.

The way I usually set my JAVA_HOME is like below, where I have added some functions to my .bash_profile

jdk7() {
   export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v '1.7.*'`
   export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
}

jdk8() {
   export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v '1.8.*'`
   export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
}

jdk9() {
   export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v '9.*'`
   export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
}


Yosemite Kernel panics involving com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCDC I have experienced 5 kernel panics over the last few months. Using a mid-2012 MacBook Pro running Yosemite 10.10.4.

I have reinstalled Yosemite and have erased, repartitioned and reinstalled. I have been on the phone to AppleCare and have had a Genius run diagnostic tests, nothing found. No one has yet looked at the logs.

The only thing I can find in the logs that is common to every kernel panic is that the last loaded and/or unloaded kext in every case has been:

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCDC    4.2.2b5

or

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCDC   4.3.3b1

Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem might be?

Thanks for reading.

Let me guess: the kernel panics appeared with the 10.10.3 update? Well, then I am 98% certain it is a bug in OS X Yosemite. Welcome aboard. The kernel panics are totally erratic, some users have also graphics glitches. The only common feature is having a Intel HD 4000 GPU.

On MacBook Pros with dual GPU you can avoid the problem by disabling Automatic Graphics Switching (System Preferences > Energy Saver).

After countless phone calls with Apple, I will take my Mac to the Apple Store tomorrow. I am sure they won't find a thing. Then they will keep my Mac for five days, replace the logic board and the issue will persist. Please proof me wrong Apple...

Please contribute to the thread in the apple discussion forum and file a bug report (with link to the thread).


Purchase Mid 2015 MacBook Pro 15" DG Since the new MacBook Pros have been released and the "old" ones happen to be cheaper now, I decided to upgrade to the 2015 model.
On everymac.com, however, I saw that there are two different models of the MacBook: the "IG" (integrated graphics) and the "DG" (dual graphics). Since I'd appreciate higher VRAM, I'd rather go with the "DG" model. However, when configuring the MacBook Pro on Apple's official website, it doesn't seem to offer the "DG" option.

Is there any way to buy the "DG" MacBook Pro directly from Apple?

No. Apple only sells the 2015 MBP with integrated graphics. (Source: Apple retail store employees)


Did I get Lion for free? I had downloaded the Lion beta when it was launched about a month ago. It asked me to enter credit card details and all such things, I did it.
When it was launched, I checked for the updates, there were few, it did. I didn't see what it did, I was out.

Now if I check in Software Purchases, it doesn't show anything. How do I check if I am running Lion for real? About page says I am running 10.7!!

What you can do is to check if you are running the right build. It's just to check that you are not still running the developer preview. Lion is free for developers anyway, so that might be the reason you got it for free.


Missing icons in Safari Favorites tab (OS X Yosemite) Some of the bookmarks in my Favorites screen are consistently defaulting to an ugly gray icon even though they do have icons elsewhere. I don't know what to do about this. For example, here's what my favorite screen looks like:

As you can see, there are proper icons coming up for the first two bookmarks (Stack Exchange and Facebook). But the remaining 3 are defaulting to the grayish pseudo-safari icons.

On the other hand, when I view my favorites in the edit mode, this is how they look:

At least in one example, you can see the bookmark titled "Alliance Login" does seem to have an icon in this view. And yet it refuses to show up in the main tab. What gives?

I was having this same issue. Try deleting the Library/Safari/Touch Icons/ folder

After that, relaunch Safari and it should download them all again. This worked for most of my icons with the exception of the websites that don't have any custom icons available.


Notification Center preferences shows duplicate apps I was running the Tweetbot for Mac Beta, and still had it installed when I installed the full release from the Mac App Store.

Now I have 2 entries in my preferences for Notification Center, and I don't know which is which.  I have removed the Beta application, and only have the real thing installed, but oddly whereas the Beta had the 'Egg" icon rather than the bird, both set of preferences use the bird icon.

Where does this preference pane get it's information about installed applications? How can I remove an app from the list?

Open terminal and run this command:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user && pkill Finder

Or, if you have OnyX utility app, go to "Maintenance" > "Rebuild" > check on "LaunchServices" (leave the other options unchecked) > execute


How to unlink Apple account from laptop? I'm going to have to trade in my work laptop and it's connected right now to my personal Apple account for things like the app store etc. How do I unlink the Apple account before I get a new computer?

What to do before selling or giving away your Mac

Learn how to back up and remove the data from your Mac before selling or giving the computer away.

When preparing to sell or give away your Mac, you may want to erase some or all files from its hard drive. But first determine whether you should back up your computer and disable certain features and services. These steps show the recommended sequence of actions:

Deauthorize your computer from iTunes, if applicable.
Back up your data using Time Machine or other backup methods for OS X Yosemite, Mavericks or Mountain Lion.
If you use Find My Mac or other iCloud features on this Mac, complete these steps:

Back up your iCloud content.
Choose Apple Menu () > System Preferences, then click iCloud.
Deselect the Find My Mac checkbox.
Sign out of iCloud. When you sign out of iCloud, you're asked whether you want to remove iCloud data from your Mac. Removing iCloud data in this way makes sure that the data isn't also removed from any of your other devices that are using the same iCloud account.

If you're using OS X Mountain Lion v10.8 or later, sign out of iMessage:

In the Messages app, choose Preferences > Accounts.
Select your iMessage account, then click Sign Out.

Reformat your hard drive and reinstall OS X. Follow the appropriate instructions:

OS X Yosemite
OS X Mavericks
OS X Mountain Lion
OS X Lion

After you reformat your hard drive and reinstall OS X, the computer restarts to a Welcome screen and asks you to choose a country or region. If you want to leave the Mac in an out-of-box state, don't continue with the setup of your system. Instead, press Command-Q to shut down the Mac. When the new owner turns on the Mac, the Setup Assistant will guide them through the setup process.


Macbook Air 6,2 High Sierra not detecting bootable USB stick I see this issue reported a lot but all the accepted solutions have not worked for me.

I have created a bootable USB stick using UNetbootin with a Debian image. The USB stick is FAT32 formatted with a GUID partition table.

When I reboot with the usb stick plugged in and hold down option I'm only presented with the MacOS hard drive to boot from.

I've successfully reset the PRAM using option+cmd+p+r keys but this has had no effect.

I've not found any other suggested solutions to the problem. What am I doing wrong?

If you have succesfully made a bootable linux USB stck before with your method, try a different USB stick or image. It sounds like you have done this before, which suggests perhaps that the image is not right in some way.

A GUID partition table and FAT format are correct.

Other things to try:

1. Try Etcher: It's simple and free. You can find a tutorial from Ubuntu regarding making a bootable Ubuntu drive with it, but all it really says is "use Etcher."

2. Try Mac Linux USB Loader. It costs ~ $5, and while it only supports certain OSes, Ubuntu is one, so Debian probably works.

3. Try dd - note it is /dev/diskx not /dev/diskxs3 (partition 3 or other on disk x). Another tutorial also has you convert the image; I haven't used that method but it seems to work for people:

dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/diskx bs=512k && sync

I like to know what dd's progress is, so I use pv, which you can get using Homebrew or Macports:

dd if=/path/to/image | pv | dd of=/dev/diskx bs=512k && sync

You'll probably have to put sudo before each dd command.

I hope that helps - you'll definitely get something to work eventually, whether it's the image, method, or USB stick.


Automator or AppleScript to Remove Multiple Strings from File Names? I deal with a lot of files (mostly images and video) with quite a few different words and phrases that I want to remove from the filenames. I keep finding Automator tutorials or AppleScripts to completely rename or replace X with Y in filenames, but what I really need is an action or script I can run from Hazel that just deletes X, Y, Z, A, B, C, and whatever else I might later add to the list of words and phrases to remove.

For instance, I want to say something like search for "X", "Y", "Z", "A", "B", "C", "this phrase", "-)"

and delete it or replace it with "".

Could anyone provide me such a script or instruction on what Automator might need to do it?

Thank you.

You could use a script like this:

--Select some files in the Finder first. Then run this script.

set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set the_strings_to_strip to {"ee", "shot", "Z", "at"}

tell application "Finder"
    set the_files to the selection
    --
    repeat with a_file in the_files
        set the_name to name of a_file
        repeat with I from 1 to count of the_strings_to_strip
            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to item I of the_strings_to_strip
            set the_text_items to text items of the_name
            set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
            set the_name to the_text_items as string
        end repeat
        set the name of a_file to the_name
    end repeat
    --
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
end tell

The idea is, you have your set of characters or phrases that you want to strip. Then, you use them as "text item delimiters." Normally text item delimiters are "". So, when you have a word like "cat" the text items are "c", "a", and "t". But, if you SET AppleScript's text item delimiters to "a" instead of "" you will only have TWO text items in the word "cat": "c", and "t".  Then, when you set the text item delimiters back to "", and then you concatenate the text items, you've essentially done a search and replace: replacing your string with "".

I tried this on a bunch of screen shot files and it worked fine.

Notice that at the end, I set AppleScript's text item delimiters back to whatever they were when the script started. It would be a good bet that they were "" but just in case, I record what they were, and restore them at the end, in case they are/were something other than "". No point guessing when you can know for sure.


What does serverperfmode=1 actually do on macOS? Turning it on is described here but there are no details.

There is a vague description:

  Performance mode changes the system parameters of your Mac. These
  changes take better advantage of your hardware for demanding server
  applications.

What is actually changing inside the system/kernel?

Turning on Server Performance Mode essentially increases some kernel/net parameters related to the max number of possible/allowed processes and connections and modifies some memory/timer settings:

...
kern.maxvnodes: 66560 > 300000
kern.maxproc: 1064 > 5000
...
kern.maxfilesperproc: 10240 > 150000
kern.maxprocperuid: 709 > 3750
kern.ipc.maxsockbuf: 4194304 > 8388608
...
kern.ipc.somaxconn: 128 > 1024
...
kern.ipc.nmbclusters: 32768 > 65536
...
kern.ipc.sbmb_cnt_peak: 1120 > 1170
...
kern.ipc.njcl: 10920 > 21840
...
kern.timer.longterm.qlen: 100 > 0
kern.timer.longterm.threshold: 1000 > 0
...
net.inet.ip.maxfragpackets: 1024 > 2048
...
net.inet.tcp.tcbhashsize: 4096 > 8192
...
net.inet.tcp.fastopen_backlog: 10 > 200
...
net.inet6.ip6.maxfragpackets: 1024 > 2048
...
net.inet6.ip6.maxfrags: 2048 > 4096
#and some very special vm page-outs/compressor and and memory/cache settings

The goal is to allow more open files (especially needed for web servers) and connections to serve more clients at the same time and discarding single server threads faster from memory/virtual memory (if I interpret certain modifications correctly).

In the past, Apple released a different OS and now that server loads on top of the consumer OS some basic tuning can help the operating system run processes for 25 users that connect to a server instead of being tuned for one person using the OS. These tunings are just a starting point - anyone that wants their server to perform under high load needs to customize and monitor things at a far more detailed level than having performance mode on or off.

Also, these limits are mostly for preventing bad software from bringing down a server by exhausting limited resources like inter process communications signaling channels (ipc). On a system where one user is running, you want to halt a runaway process sooner than if there are dozens of processes running for dozens of users. The "performance" can be seen as raising some hard limits as opposed to "serve one file or one web page faster".


Filtering duplicates from iCloud Photos Library while migrating from google photos I recently painstakingly migrated my photo library of 15+ years (over 100gb) from google photos to iCloud. I suspect many more will be doing this in the future as google recently announced they will no longer be doing unlimited storage for photos. The problem here is that the library exports originals as well as an -edited version for those files you have changed in google photos. I've tried multiple automatic tools and had some luck with photosweeper but am sure that i still have a few gb of undetected duplicates hiding in there. In some cases Photosweeper just doesn't seem to be sophisticated enough to find them - For example photos from a scanning service that all have the same date, or edited versions where i have rotated and changed the aspect ratio.
Complicating this is the way Mac OS automatically manages photo storage on the machine, so i'm hesitant to attempt to run any scripts on underlying files that might corrupt the library. In a perfect world I would just do something like

find all files matching (.+)-edited.{jpg,png,heic}$

where there is a matching file without the -edited

select and delete/trash the non-edited version

in a way that is safe for my photos library

An alternative might be to start over completely and use the google drive app on my desktop to download and copy all pictures that way, but i'm worried i would lose files that way too.

I use PowerPhotos for this and am super happy. Dump everything into one library, clone it and then try out various passes until you’re happy, then do the culling on your main library is my advice.

https://fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/

It lets me make rules once the pre-built ones take a first pass at cleaning the easy and obvious duplicates. You can prefer HEIC and edited or any other sort of metadata for automating which of the duplicates to select to keep and which to trash. It is updated very often, super easy to use and extremely powerful. I’m a decent “shell scripter” but in the end, this tool saved me many days of trying to “yolo” it with scripts. It’s got the goods on parsing photo metadata and wrangling libraries into shape in a safe manner.
Unless you’re willing to eschew Photos and syncing entirely, there aren’t better options. If you could exist entirely on filesystem and folders and a tool like Photo Mechanic to store photo metadata in the filesystem, I would go all in on Photos and iCloud and hire a tool if you can’t script it yourself.


How to get Verizon WiFi Calling to work on new iPhone X I just activated an iPhone X on Verizon Wireless. My previous iPhone was able to do WiFi Calling on my home network.

Now when I try to turn WiFi Calling on (Settings -> Cellular -> Wi-Fi Calling), I get an error message telling me to contact Verizon.

I restarted my iPhone and was able to activate WiFi Calling with no issues.

Settings -> Cellular -> Wi-Fi Calling


Grain of sand in apple watch circular side hole - effect / removal option? I have a grain of sand in the endmost of the two tiny circular holes on the side of the apple watch due to imprudent behaviour at the beach.

Does this matter? If so, is there a way to remove it? I am hesitant to stick a pin in the hole to try to remove it as my feeling is this probably won't work and also may make it worse.

I am not aware of any effect on function at this point.

I don't know if it affects your watch but you can hold that area in front of a vacuum cleaner hose to suck out the sand. Hold the watch securely if you try his.


Windows installed on 17" MacBook shows bad resolution. I installed Windows 7 using BootCamp but I can only choose the 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution. Can I get any other resolutions? Is there any driver I need to install. These resolutions don't look good on my screen, in fact, they look very bad.

It sounds like the BootCamp drivers haven't been installed within Windows as those are the default software resolutions for graphics cards without drivers.

The BootCamp drivers can be found on the original set of DVDs that came with the machine, which will be updated to the latest versions once installed in Windows.

You can download BootCamp 3.2 for Windows, and the 3.3 update here, although 3.2 should update once you're online anyway. http://support.apple.com/downloads/#macoscomponents


AppleScript: How to write to text file in specific location (signaled by specific character)? I have a .txt file saved on my computer. I want my Automator application to add a bit of text to the .txt file (the text will be entered by the user). I already know how to append text or prepend text in AppleScript. However, I want the text to be inserted into a specific location.

For example, this is the contents of my .txt file entitled My Fruit Log.txt. This is what the .txt file looks like before the text is written to the file:

You can see where exactly I want the text to be saved in the file in this image:

Is what I want to do clear? I want the text to be written on the line directly above the first blank line found in the file. Note: It is not necessarily the second line from the top where I want the text to be written. Depending on what text has already been written to the file, the text might be saved on a lower line. For example:

The location where I want the text to be written must be at least the second line from the top, but it may also be as further down as the seventh line from the top. So, the most reliable way to articulate where I want to write the text is "on the line before the first instance of a blank line in the document."

Can this be accomplished in AppleScript?

Here's a shell script:

sed -i '' -e ':a' -e 'N' -e '$!ba' -e 's/\n\n/\
Write the new line you wish inserted in your file here\
\
/' ~/Desktop/file.txt

You can wrap this in a ‘do shell script’ if you really want AppleScript, but for an Automator script, you can use a Run Shell Script action and just use the shell script.

Here's an AppleScript wrapper for the script, where the TextToWrite variable and the Target_Filepath variable have been defined elsewhere per your comments:

set addline to "sed -i '' -e ':a' -e 'N' -e '$!ba' -e 's/\\n\\n/\\
" & TextToWrite & "\\
\\
/' \"" & Target_Filepath & "\""
do shell script addline


Is it okay to compress application files? (Especially licensed applications) I have attempted to research this but given the fact that applications exist to compress other files, I've found it difficult to learn about compressing applications themselves.

I presume its okay to compress applications in general – they are like any other file.

However, before compressing applications which require licenses (for example pre CC Adobe suite), I want to make sure the license will continue if I compress the application and delete the uncompressed file.

If I compress an application and delete the original will I lose my license?
(I understand this could be different for different applications; is there a generic answer?

Most macOS applications are not actually like 'any other file' - they just look like one - and are actually a folder of files called a package. Right-click on most apps, and you will see a Show Package Contents command. Click that to see the folder structure of the app.

That being said, applications will compress and expand just fine. I've compressed and expanded Adobe apps with no effect on licensing so long as they are expanded onto the same system.

Compressing an application and expanding it on a different system may break licensing if the licensing mechanism itself resides outside the app's package, or if some other licensing scheme is in effect. There is no generic licensing scheme for all circumstances.


My /User directory permissions always changes… should I be worried? I've noticed that my /Users directory on OSX always gets changed to "rwxrwxrwx"

I'm not sure how this is being changed? Only just started happening

Could it be malware or such?

Install iTunes 11.2.1

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6251

Description: Upon each reboot, the permissions for the /Users and /Users/Shared directories would be set to world-writable, allowing modification of these directories. This issue was addressed with improved permission handling. For information on the general content of iTunes 11.2.1, see http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5434.


USB 3 HDD on Apple Thunderbolt Display I have an Apple Thunderbolt display and really love it - only that the USB ports are only USB 2!

I have read this question, but is there any new development on connecting a USB 3 drive to a thunderbolt port on the Apple Thunderbolt monitor?

I could buy an external thunderbolt hdd instead, but the difference in price between USB 3 and thunderbolt drives is quite substantial. Also, I did not find any affordable thunderbolt housings.

Any suggestions?

I have a USB/eSATA 3 4-bay hard drive enclosure hooked up to my Mac mini (late 2012) via the Kanex KTU10 Thunderbolt to eSATA + USB 3.0 Adapter. It's currently connected to the eSATA port on the enclosure, but the KTU10 supports USB 3 as well. It's been hooked up since mid-March and I have had no problems with it.


Error messages in rsync When I run

rsync -avz --exclude-from=exc ~/ /Volumes/Backup/home/

I get the message

sending incremental file list
./
.DS_Store
...<snip>... (lots of files)....
End of list of files

sent 72,625,409 bytes  received 16,434 bytes  1,793,625.75 bytes/sec
total size is 28,049,731,319  speedup is 386.14
rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors)
(code 23) at main.c(1249) [sender=3.1.2]

What should I do to avoid this error message?

It seems that the only thing that was missing from my rsync run was to copy extended attributes. I ran the command again, but this time adding the option -E (which I think is specific to Macs) and the job ran with no error reported.


Shell script to boot OSX in recovery mode and execute another shellscript I'm working at a University and we are restoring our Macs using Apples ars which works great. The process is to manually go to the computer - reboot it in recovery mode and then run the ars command to sync the image from the server.

Is it possible to do this via shell script? I imagine the steps to be roughly:

Set a OSX flag that reboots into the recovery mode.
Execute a shell script that runs the asr (Maybe via LaunchDaemon?)
Reset the flag to boot from the normal boot volume
Reboot

Unfortunately I did not find information how to manually reboot into recovery mode or launch an automatic script from the recovery partition.

Do you have any idea how this could work?

Thanks for your help!

To set the flag to boot in safe mode is the easiest:
sudo nvram boot-args="-x"

The I guess we have to do something with;

rc.boot figures out the type of boot (Multi-User, Safe, CD-ROM, Network etc.). In case of a network boot (the sysctl variable kern.netboot will be set to 1 in which case), it runs /etc/rc.netboot with a start argument.

and this;

/etc/rc finally launches /sbin/SystemStarter to handle startup items from locations such as /System/Library/StartupItems and /Library/StartupItems. A StartupItem is a program, usually a shell script, whose name matches the folder name. The folder contains a property list file containing key-value pairs such as Description, Provides, Requires, OrderPreference, start/stop messages etc. You can run SystemStarter -n -D as root to have the program print debugging and dependency information (without actually running anything).

ref: http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_startup.html


Mavericks install icon Just back from Apple after they reloaded the entire system off my time machine backup due to "hard drive damaged" message and lock up during Mavericks install.  The hard drive was fine, by the way.  Everything seems fine now, except that I have the "Install OSX Mavericks" icon sitting in my dock and also, of course, on the application list on the finder.  I assume this icon can be trashed? I don't want to delete something that may be needed in the future.

Thanks for the assistance!


FrontRow or App like FrontRow on Lion Is FrontRow available for Mac OS X Lion or is there some third party app which does roughly the same?

I particular like about FrontRow being able to use it with my Mac Remote and I love to watch trailers / dvds. iTunes integration is not that much of importance to me, but would be a nice to have.

You can either try to get Front Row running on Lion, or try Plex.

Front Row was discontinued in OS X Lion; that’s probably why you can’t find it. That said, there’s nothing to stop you running it, if you don’t mind a few limitations. Ralph Perdomo has some instructions for Front Row on Lion (http://www.mac-hatter.com/blog/frontrowenablerforlion), although they require you to stay on iTunes 10.3, which doesn’t work with some iOS devices. If you’re really attached to Front Row, this probably works, but I haven’t tried it.
Plex (http://www.plexapp.com/mac.php) also seems pretty decent; I know a lot of people who use it and are very happy with it. Sort of like Front Row, but it pulls content from lots of other places, including iTunes. This support page suggests that they support the Apple Remote, as you wanted. You might like to check that one out.


How to transfer large files from Windows to OS X without SMB? A while ago I made a copy of my Aperture library on my Windows machine in case my Time Machine drive failed. My Time Machine drive failed last night and now I would like to restore this backup.

When I made the backup, I used a direct ethernet connection. A Cat 6 crossover cable between my Mac and my Windows. I transferred the files using SMB. However, that was slow and failed often.

Is there a better way of transferring this massive folder from my Windows to my Mac?

Honestly, if something fast like USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt are available to you, get yourself a small 64GB SSD and a USB 3.0 enclosure, or this (expensive, but a very good long-term investment if you have Thunderbolt. It's actually just a Thunderbolt to SATA adapter, with a fancy name. There are other options, this is just the only one I'm familiar with. ), and you should be able to make those transfers in no time. With such a small SSD, the price should be sub-$100 even for the fast ones.


Where are AirDrop temp files located? I started a transfer over AirDrop of a 4GB xcode dmg file. Something happened in the middle of the transfer (3.5GB) and I now have 3.5GB of space missing from my computer. I have restarted the computer and deleted the file in the downloads folder. I tried using grand perspective to find large files but I can't seem to find the location of the temporary airdrop file. Where are these temp files located so that I can delete them.

I guess it'd be quite outdated answer, but maybe it will save some time for others

AirDrop temp files hidden under this path /private/var/folders/, you need to look for folder called exactly like this "(A Document Being Saved By sharingd)" in subfolders.

In my case it was /private/var/folders/fq/51d9_5dn7hg445wwp5n7kyqm0000gn/T/TemporaryItems/(A Document Being Saved By sharingd)


HID Compliant TouchScreen for OS X 10.6 Does anyone know of an HID-compliant touch screen that will work straight out of the box with Max OS X 10.6 without requiring any drivers to be installed?

Google found a couple of possibilities; I haven't tried them myself:

NextWindow - Touchscreen 2700
Planar Touch - Touchscreen LCD Monitor - PT1710mx 17" Monitor

There's the Wacom Cintiq; while I believe they need drivers I'm sure they'd be available close to day & date.

And an entirely different approach to take might be the Axiotron Modbook.


How to access user installed menubar icons with the keyboard? I understand that Ctrl + F8 can be used to access the built-in Apple menu and Ctrl + F2 can be used to access program menus (e.g. this existing answer).

However, I have a bunch of user-installed items in the menu bar (e.g. Better Touch Tool, Caffeine, Alfred, Dropbox, etc.) and neither of the above key combinations allow access to these items.

How can I access the user-installed items in the menu bar using the keyboard?

Install Bartender. I'm a huge fan for many reasons; but amongst those, it allows Spotlight-like quick-filtering of menubar items:

⇧⌘␣ …

… drop …

↩!

Look, ma! No mouse.


VLC video doesn't play in main window After upgrading to 2.2.1, VLC videos plays in a separate window, but I want the controls to be in the same window as the video (just the way it was before I upgraded).

Am I missing something?

Yep they changed it.

Now there is no more within the Video screen popup controls, unless you are in full screen mode.

Option is to use the media keys on your keyboard, or right click to control it.

Not sure I like the change.


What media formats are playable/streamable on Apple TV? For both the new (tiny) generation, and the last generation, what media formats and codecs are supported for streaming to Apple TV?

How does that streaming work -- is it all iTunes-based, or are there other ways to go about doing it?

The original Apple TV (out of box) preferred to treat your Apple TV like an iPod. It wanted you to sync your video from iTunes and had the following limitation:

H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
iTunes Store purchased video: 320 by 240 pixels, 640 by 480 pixels, 720 by 480 pixels (anamorphic), or high-definition 720p
MPEG-4: Up to 3 Mbps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 720 by 432 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

The new Apple TV has identical requirements as that of the new iPod touch and iPhone 4:

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

As for how it works, while nothing hard has been released from the UI screenshots released items from the internet (iTunes store, YouTube, Netflix, etc.) will stream from their respective sources while your photos, music and video streams directly from iTunes or from an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch (via AirPlay coming in iOS 4.2)


Mac laptop cannot connect to disk on Mac desktop I have two Macs, both running Mac OS Sierra. I can ssh from the laptop to the desktop and use Apple's screen sharing to view the desktop's screen from the laptop. I cannot mount the desktop's disks on the laptop. I have Sharing turned on, both AFP and SMB, but I cannot connect via either. I've tried connecting to the desktop via smb://, smb://.local, and directly by its local IP address (and the same for afp://). ssh <hostname>.local works, so it's not a DNS resolution issue.

The specific error I get is:

  The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.

Edit: I should mention that when I try to connect by selecting the machine through the Finder sidebar, it doesn't connect, and clicking "Connect As" fails before getting to the password screen.

Make sure you have the user enabled in sharing (File sharing/options)
Then try ssh localusername@hostname.local


AppleScript check if Chrome Extension is installed Using AppleScript, I need to check if Adblock Plus (ABP) is installed in the Chrome Browser.
After numerous attempts at trying to figure out how, I have come to the conclusion that it would be relatively easy to check if the ABP "firstRun.html" exists.

Or is there a more reliable script to check if this specific extension is installed?

Here is my script, however it always returns true. Please Help.

if checkIfABPInstalled() is true then
    log "FOUND"
else
    log "NOT FOUND"
end if

on checkIfABPInstalled()
    try
        tell application "Google Chrome"
            if ("chrome-extension://cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb/firstRun.html") exists then
                return true
            else
                return false
            end if
        end tell
    on error
        return false
    end try
end checkIfABPInstalled

Google Chrome's AppleScript Dictionary doesn't have a direct method to check for extensions, so you need to test for the Adblock Plus extension in a different way.

If the Adblock Plus extension is installed, then the adblockplus.js file will exist within the "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Extensions/ directory structure. So I'd test for its existence and the example AppleScript code below does that.

set fileExists to do shell script "find \"$HOME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Extensions\" -iname adblockplus.js 2>/dev/null"

if fileExists is not "" then
    display dialog "Adblock Plus is installed." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
else
    display dialog "Adblock Plus is not installed." buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon caution
end if


Parallels Desktop: Run windows application with command line arguments I'm running on MacOS with Sierra and I have a Windows VM running on Parallels 12.

I want to run an application that is installed on the Windows VM and I want to run it with arguments, in the same way that I can do it on Windows with cmd.

An example: I have an app in Windows VM called bestApp.exe that need two arguments like "bestApp.exe -r "C:\PathFolder\"

Looking on internet I found something here. The answer is quite old and I'm interested on the second approach but seems that I need the Pro version of Parallels to try it.

My question is: how I can run my app, on Windows-Parallels, from Mac with arguments? That approach is valid and, also, it is the only one?

EDIT: I found that I can open a Windows app from Mac running the "open" command on terminal but if I use "--args" to pass arguments it doesn't work...

Example. "open myApp.exe --args -blabla" open my app on VM but without arguments

Install, configure and launch Bitvise SSH Server (Personal Edition is free but has some restrictions compared to the licensed server) in the Windows VM.

Launch Terminal on the OS X host, ssh to the ssh server and execute any command required.

I also tried PowerShell which allows Win2Win remote access after enabling it on the hosts, but the OS X version still lacks this feature.


Is it possible to order a replacement key? The large   0   on my Apple keyboard (came with my 2008 Mac Mini) has fallen out, and upon my attempt to put it back in, a small but extremely vital plastic piece snapped off. Can I order a new key from Apple?

I would try a local Apple Store or Mac repair shop. There's a good chance they have a few dead keyboards laying around that they'd be willing to give you a replacement key from.


Equivalent to CMD-clicking on a webpage title in Safari 8 on Yosemite In previous versions of Safari one could CMD-click on the webpage title at the top of Safari's window and get a menu with the website's folder hierarchy.

For example if you're at https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/ask, clicking on the title would give you a menu with the following items:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/ask
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/
https://apple.stackexchange.com/

allowing you to quickly navigate the website in question. Finder still has that feature if you want to see it in action. Just go to a folder, then CMD-click on that folder's name or icon in the title bar.

I liked that feature, however, it seems to have been removed in Safari 8. What I want to ask is, is there a way to restore it? A keyboard shortcut I've missed perhaps?

I could not find any thing to re enable this.

So I built a quick Safari Extension to give me something that would give me a list.

I am posting the link here Hierarchy List

And may repost with a how to make one when I get a little time.

update*
Update the download: The popover will now  close when the url clicked in the list is not the current one. This also allows it to refresh when you go to a new page using it.

update 2*

The extension can now use the update/auto update feature in Safari. This starts from version 1.0.2  so if you have version 1.  Please re download it from the link and then you do not need to keep checking back here for changes.

Update 3. Version 1.0.6

The Extension ui now has a Dark mode And Light Mode. You can change them in the Extensions preferences. ( images above have been changed to show this)

Note Although Safari extension can be set to Auto Update. I find that they only do when I actually click on the updates button in the Extensions preferences.

So if you have a version 1.0.2 upwards you can make sure the updates happen by doing this.

I also suggest you relaunch Safari. After any Extensions are updated.


Data Backup/Storage Using an NAS with Mac OS X and Windows It's probably not pertinent, but I'm a Mac user since the 1980's. I freely confess that as a middle-aged dog I find it increasingly harder to keep up with the latest and greatest in available Apple technology.

I also use Windows and for the last six years or so my main desktop was a Windows XP system. I have files spread over three different HDDs on this machine.

I now have a 2011 iMac running Lion and Windows 7 and I am gradually migrating to this machine. I'd like to be able to keep applications on the internal HDD and data-- documents, photos, and so forth-- on an external HDD. I have considered buying this drive and partitioning it (half for Windows, half for Mac), but before I throw any money at this I thought maybe I should ask the wise folks here what they think of this idea.

I also have a related question. I recently upgraded to a new router, and it has a USB port, so I was thinking to attach a separate external HDD to the router and use it for Time Machine. I'm also wondering about the wisdom of this.

Thanks in advance for any helpful replies.

In order to use the drive for both purposes, you would need to partition it into two. In my breakdown below, partition 1 is for moving data and partition 2 is for Time Machine, but this can be swapped around if you prefer.

I would recommend formatting the partition on which you access data on in ExFAT. It is newer than FAT and does not have the 4GB file size limit. It can be read and written to on both Mac (Snow Leopard and later) and Windows (Vista and later, XP with a supplementary download). This allows for easy transfer between both platforms.

I would read up on the formats that the router supports, as I cannot access an ExFAT drive connected to it. If that does not work, the best option for connecting from both platforms is FAT, but keep in mind that there is a 4GB file limit.

The other partition can then be formatted in the HFS+J format as Ethan mentioned in his comment.

In order to get the drive working remotely, I first set mine up on my Mac and started a backup. I then cancelled this and deleted it. I then attached it to my Airport Extreme and then browsed to it through Finder. I needed to access the drive before Time Machine would pick it up (on both my iMac and Air). I cannot say whether the router you link to will work in the same way or not. Please be aware that the way I am doing it is not recommended or supported by Apple and if you do a similar approach, you do so at your own risk.


Safari browser support for offline web apps I've been doing research into what solutions are out there for using iOS Safari browsers in terms of offline capabilities with web apps. Many articles and sources I've come across don't seem to mention much in terms of offline support apart from AppCache which is now deprecated.

I'm wondering if there are any solutions out there for iOS Safari offline support apart from AppCache?

iOS Safari doesn't currently support offline browsing for web apps. However, Apple is currently working on improving support for progressive web apps, more importantly Service Workers.

Service Workers power offline functionality, push notifications, background content updating, content caching, and a whole lot more.

Here is a somewhat recent article on Service Workers
http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/08/05/apple-may-integrate-service-workers-into-webkit-support-next-gen-web-apps-in-safari


Removing a video from camera roll I want to delete a video from my camera roll. Will it still exist in some kind of backup? This video was not uploaded to the cloud or the photo stream.

No.

Videos deleted from the camera roll are permanently gone from your phone. Even if you had your phone backed up to iCloud, your storage profile would update, after the video was deleted, so that the video would be removed from the cloud as well.

You will have to manually backup the video onto your computer, or email it to yourself before deleting it if you want it saved.


I am on a MacBook Air and using a guest account. I am trying to access a USB, but I can't Ok, so here's the deal. I have a picture, from Google Images, that I am trying to put on a flashdrive or such so I can make it the profile picture to the account I am currently logged into. I have the latest OSX and everything is up to date. I am on a Safari only guest account. Whenever I try to download anthing to the computer directly, I only get a "Safari could not download the file “Just Another Day For Arceus.mp4” because there is not enough free disk space. Try deleting documents or downloading to another disk." This of course, was trying to download a video, not the said picture. That, and when I try to right click items, the usual white bar with several items does not appear. I can access the USB, however, when I go to Google's homepage and click "Change Image" and although I can access the files already on it, I cannot add any new files. Please help if you can, and let me know if I can do anything without logging into the Admin account. Also, I am not much of a tech person, so if you try to give me pathways, I won't know what to do with them, nor how to use them.

Thank you so much in advance,

Drena The Eliatrope

The reason this is happening is because "File Vault" is activated on your MacBook. File Vault is a program that comes with your Mac and encrypts your hard drive so only people with the password to do so can look at files on your Mac.
Apparently once File Vault is activated, you can only access Safari on a guest account, as stated here.

If you log in as that guest user, you don't get access to your hard
drive; you can only access the Safari web browser and a network
connection. Exiting Safari simply returns you to the FileVault 2
pre-boot login screen.

This means, you cannot save e.g. images to your computer and then put them on a external drive. This is (as far as I know) because files are not uploaded directly from an USB device to the Internet: your computer performs the task of moving the file from the USB device to the hard drive and from there to the Internet.
I'm afraid as long as you can't change the settings with the Admin Account (in this case you'd have to deactivate File Vault) you cannot save files to your computer or an external drive.
What you could do instead: access your e-mail client within Safari (if you have Gmail, just go to Gmail and then right-click on the picture you want to get and choose "Copy Image URL" and then paste the URL in your e-mail and have it send to yourself (just send an e-mail to your own e-mail address) With this way, you can download it on another computer, once you access the URL of the picture.
Google's instructions for this:

Computer
Do a search on images.google.com for the image you want to find.
In your browser’s address bar at the top of the page, click once
to select the entire URL.
(If you're looking for the URL of an image
result, you need to click on the image to open up a larger version
before selecting the URL.)
Right-click the image.
Depending on what system you’re using, select the image URL by clicking one of these:
Chrome: Copy image URL
Safari: Copy image address
Internet Explorer: Properties > Copy the URL address shown
Firefox: Copy image location

I hope this wasn't "too easy" for you and let me know if it works out!


How to hack into a deceased person's Mac that is still running? This is kind of an unusual question: a (non-technical) friend of mine (quite literally) on the other side of the world finds herself in the following situation:

A person died unexpectedly, their Mac is still running and displaying the Lock Screen, and nobody has the password nor any sort of technical expertise. They would like to get access to at least the data on the disk, maybe also the account. They are currently afraid to shut down the computer because it displays a warning about unsaved files.

Is there any chance they can get into the account from the Lock Screen? I guess not.

Failing that, what would be the easiest way to gain access to the data (after a forced reboot)? Single User Mode?

If your friend have something like family documents which can prove the relationship between him and his passed one, then try to contact Apple for solution. They do solve sort of situations like this :)


Jailbreak iOS 11.4 full version Is there any full jailbreak for iOS 11.4 except Electra (it's for 11.2 — I cannot downgrade cause Apple doesn't sign that firmware anymore)? Because, honestly I think that Pangu Anzuchang is not a full feature jailbreak as it's just a web clip application which does not inject a kernel exploit (as Electra does, that's why it restarts the device), so what will you suggest?

UPDATE

iOS 11.4 is a stable release now. Any jailbreak methods are available?

iOS 11.4 is currently in beta and isn't released publicly yet. It is not possible get Jailbreak for an unreleased iOS version.

iOS beta releases are highly susceptible to change, hence you can never find a Jailbreak for them.


What is the best way to guarantee that the person I send an image to from my iPhone 10 receives it in full quality? I have an iPhone X and I want to send high quality photos to someone using another device I don’t know.
I’m taking photos in HEIF 12 megapixel format.
To maximize the quality of the photo received by the other does it work best to send photos through text message Facebook Messenger or email?

Pending on sensitivity of photos and privacy preferences one can use iCloud link instead of attaching file to e-mail (or sending using messaging app). iCloud Mail will use iCloud link for files over 20 MB anyway.
iCloud links expire automatically after 30 days (you can stop sharing manually whenever you like) and anyone with the link can view them. More information in Apple support document: Share photos and videos on iCloud.com


How can I set up an email alert on my iPhone 6 or iPad How do I set up alerts on my iPhone 6 or iPad that are triggered for incoming emails from specific people?

Apple allows this with the VIP functionality

Set up notifications for the mail app (inside the settings app) to have whatever push alert you want for VIP email. You can get sounds, etc...
Then add the mail senders you want to VIP status.

Apple documents this second step here: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12515

You will want to be sure your email is set up to push email to the phone. Otherwise,  forward those emails to your iCloud address if that’s the only way to get VIP alerts.


Is it possible to program an iOS app using an iPad? As the title states, I am trying to ascertain whether or not it is possible to program (using XCode, I'm guessing) iOS apps for iPad and iPhone using an iPad.

I cannot find any related details using Google or by searching the Apple website. Apple's recent advertisements lead me to believe they are marketing iPad as more of a general purpose computer and less of a tablet-centric device. If the former is true, it should be possible to create apps written in Swift using the device, right?

Yes and no, but mainly no. Let me explain.

You can't use an iPad (at least not yet) to go through the entire process (i.e. design, test, and submit your app). You also can't use Xcode on an iPad (at least not directly, although you could do this remotely - but that is not a practical solution).

People can and do use iPads for:

learning how to code
editing code using various editors (but not Xcode)
designing some of the other resources/assets used in apps (e.g. images, icons, sounds, etc)

However, most development is done using an integrated development environment (IDE) such as Xcode. Most apps for iOS (and macOS, tvOS, and watchOS) are programmed and submitted via Xcode, although there are alternatives.


Folder Action for hiding files according to type Here's what I need. I need a folder action that hides files according to their extensions. (I do not need a folder action that hides extensions for visible files.) This action needs to apply to every file in the folder and to every file that is added to the folder in the future.

Assistance for a similar task was asked for here, but that was solved with a smart folders workaround that does not work for me because I cannot use a smart folder in this context. Another similar task was asked for here. In response, the moderator bmike said that pieces for this folder action I have described could be put together from other articles on this site. I have been unable to do so. My need for this folder action is also not unique to LaTeX and so the other solutions discussed there will not be of any use. So what I'm looking for has not been resolved elsewhere.

I have tried two things. Initially, I tried to model what was shown here. First, I created an .app through Automator that runs this shell script:

find /Users/USER/FOLDER/* -iname *.EXTENSION -execdir chflags hidden {} \;

Second, I created a script that run the following commands:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items tell application "Mac OS X:Users:USER:Library:Workflows:Applications:Folder Actions:FIRSTSTEP.app" open added_items end tell end adding folder items to

As I understand it, this runs the previous Automator app every time something is added to the folder with the action. Finally, I added this script as a folder action to the folder which needs to exhibit the behavior in question.

But this didn't work for me. Any idea what's going wrong?

I have also tried using Hazel to simply run the shell script on the folder. This works to hide the file when it is added to the folder the first time a file is added, but any later file added doesn't work. The error that is given is "Shellscript exited with non-successful status code: 1."

Here you go. It works just fine on Snow Leopard.


unwanted notification from email address I keep getting notification of missed facetime from an email address, they come 2 notfications at the time.  I've tried blocking the caller, but it's not a caller it's an email.  how can I stop this

Have a look at How to Block an Email Address on iPhone as the information might be helpful.


Cannot format SSD to OS X Extended (Journaled) in order to restore yesterday my computer stayed awake during all night, when I woke up it stopped working. I got many errors, one that says for example that I don't have enough space in my computer even though that when I checked it said I have more than 75 GB available.
So  after everything failed I booted in Recovery Mode (Cmd+R) and started playing with it. Currently my state is that my SSD is formatted to exFat because I can format to any kind of filesystem except OS X Extended (Journaled). Also, I can only boot up in Recovery Mode, no OS at the moment.
Every time I try to to erase and format to OS X Extended (Journaled) with GUID Partition Map I get this error:

input/output error:
newfs_hfs: write (sector 149512): Invalid Argument

Mounting Disk:
Could not mount disk0s2 with name(null) after erase.
File system formatter failed.
Operation failed.

Technical info

MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2010 with SSD 240GB Kingston (SATA).

If trying one more time to format HFS non journaled fails, you may want to use the erase and install steps from:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

Hopefully it's not a hardware error and you can just fix this with a clean erase. Installing to an external dive may also help you determine if it's an issue with procedure or your installer vs the ssd.


How do I stop the "Are you sure you want to open it?" dialog box from displaying when I open an app? Every time I open the "Amazon MP3 Downloader" app (by downloading a new MP3 from Amazon.com in Safari) I get this dialog box:

I'm used to seeing this the first time after I open a new app I've downloaded, but usually I don't see the dialog box after the first time I press the "Open" button.

Is there a setting somewhere I can use to indicate that yes, I am sure I want to open "Amazon MP3 Downloader" without this dialog box?

If you need to do this manually on a file (or files) you can run the following command to remove the Quarantine flag:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /PATH/TO/FILE(S)

So in your case since the quarantine flag is not being removed you will want to run the command with sudo as the primary cause for the flag not being removed after hitting "Open" is because you don't have permissions to do so.


Apple Configuration and invalid profile I am trying to configure Wi-Fi on an Apple TV 2 with WPA2 Enterprise.

The Apple TV asks for a profile so I am trying to configure one.

I set up the mandatory "General" settings

the certificate of the RADIUS server

And the Wi-Fi settings

When I install the profile or prepare the Apple TV via Apple Configurator (USB) I just get that the profile is invalid

How can I debug the problem? Is there a way to see a better error description or to validate the profile?

Edit 1

I tried as suggested with a minimal profile

The required general infos
WiFi with just the SSID (no security...)

I get the same error.

Edit 2

I enabled logging with

defaults write com.apple.configurator LogLevel ALL

after starting the "prepare" I get the error without any log entries. After clicking Stop I just get a single log entry

2016-02-18 15:47:53.177 com.apple.configurator.xpc.AirTrafficService[51010]: ERROR - 0ms - <ACUAirTrafficService: 0x7fca30d03420>: cannot call fetchOperationProgressForOperationID:reply: because: NSError: 0x7fca30d3eb60
Desc   : The operation is no longer available.
US Desc: The operation is no longer available.
Domain : ConfigurationUtilityKit.error
Code   : 0x65 (101)
 (ACUService.m:102)

Edit 3

I tried with "add profile" instead of prepare. In this case I am able to install a profile with the minimal Wi-Fi profile.

As soon as I enable WPA2 Enterprise it fails.

Most likely you are trying to apply a setting that isn't supported on the AppleTV 2.  I'd start with the typical troubleshooting of start simple and then add more.

So, create the profile with only the General section configured and apply it.  If that works, move on to another section.  Repeat until it stops working.

Some items to look into are

The encryption of the certificate.  If it is the wrong size or type, it might not be supported on the ATV2.  The device probably can't support the latest encryption methods.
Perhaps the PEAP authentication protocol you have selected in the WiFi section isn't supported, so try TLS.

Good luck.


How to do a case-sensitive search in Preview application? Is it possible to perform a case-sensitive search in Preview?

For example, I'd like to find all occurrences of the text

  LAST

but not

  last

or

  Last

I tried enclosing term in double quotes to no effect:

  "LAST"

In preview there is no option for case sensitive search , but you can use the mac third party apps from ADOBE where you can get more search options like case sensitive,stemming ..etc More reference use this


How can I download a newer Yosemite installer? I have an existing Yosemite installer app from the original release of 10.10 (e.g. Install OS X Yosemite.app) but can't seem to download a newer installer.  When I click Download, I'm presented with this dialog:

However, clicking Continue doesn't appear to do anything.  No update appears to be in progress, no network activity shows in Activity Monitor.

The same dialog appears if I click the Download button in Purchases, and the download never begins.

How can I get an updated installer?

The problem appears to have been my copy of the installer that I had stashed away in a folder in my home directory, even though I'd originally made it by keeping a copy of the installer in /Applications (it was even owned by my user account instead of root!).

Once I removed that installer, the Mac App Store was happy to start the download for a new one.


Creating bootable USB for OS X Leopard I need to re-install OS X Leopard on a computer that has broken DVD Drive. Also I don't have firewire cable.

So I created a .dmg file from the install disc and then copy that on a usb drive using SuperDuper. When I check my startup disks from preferences I can see the usb drive so I select it and click restart. When it restarts I just get a grey screen and nothing happens.

Also as soon as I open the computer (and desktop appears), the flash drive opens and I can click on "Install OSX", same window that pops from the DVD. It asks admin password then restart and again the same grey screen.

You think the problem is with making the bootable drive or with the .dmg file?
I had to convert the installation disk from .iso to .dmg using "convert" from disk util and then renamed the destination file to .dmg> convert.

I've done a bit of searching, and found these two articles:

How to Create a Bootable Mac OS X USB Disk
Make a Bootable Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installer from a USB Flash Drive

The first article was written with Leopard in mind and does advocate the use of SuperDuper, much as you've done.

With that said, one of the comments notes that you need to partition your USB thumbstick with a GUID partition table, and, while not stated, I would certainly use the HFS+ filesystem for your partition.  Did you do it that way?  It also appears that you need a flash drive that is at least 8 GB in size.

One more thing to try:

Shut down your mac.
Hold down the option key at bootup.
Do you see your USB flash disk an something to boot off of?

If so, you can select it to boot off of it.  (You can also hold down Command-V while doing so to boot in verbose mode; it should give you white text on a black background, logging details of what the computer is doing.  If you can get that far and it gets stuck, can you share some of what it says, especially anything near the end or anything that looks suspicious like it may have gotten stuck there?)
If not, it means that your computer doesn't recognize the drive as something it can boot off of.

Here are a couple of more thoughts:

if you have another Mac, buy yourself a firewire cable, boot the second Mac into target disk mode (hold down 'T' at bootup), insert the DVD into it, and you should be able to boot off of the DVD through the other computer.
borrow a USB DVD drive, and boot off of it.
just a wild thought that I'll throw out, but would be more trouble than it is worth for one computer, and it well beyond the scope of what you really want to do.  You could set up NetBooting to send an image file for the computer to boot up from over the network.  Buy Mac OS X Server from the App Store if you are using Lion (and download Apple's server admin tools so you can run Server Admin), or try out JAMF software's NetBoot Appliance (that will run as a virtual machine, under OS X, Windows, or Linux), and (hand waving here; you might be able to use "System Imaging Utility" in the server tools) set up a NetBoot image of your installer DVD to install the software.


Disable Safari in OS X How do I disable Safari in OS X?

The desired effect is the same as in iOS: in iOS, you can easily disable Safari through the Restrictions settings, and the app just hides but is not uninstalled. You cannot search for the app, see an icon, or open it in any way.

I do not want to disable all browsers. In fact, that's the problem. The Parental Controls control all web things. And that's great. But if I want the default browser to be Google Chrome and I want to use a whitelist, then I can't use Parental Controls (at least since Yosemite). The Parental Controls option for a whitelist has been blocking everything from Chrome. Firefox has similar problems, but not as bad as with Chrome. If I use Chrome and Chrome's parental controls, then a user can just open Safari with no restrictions.

You could change permissions for Safari.

Open the information window on Safari (from the Finder window, with the Safari application selected, push command+I or right-click), add the desired user, and set permissions to no access.


How to get `ts` program on the mac On linux there is a great command line program ts. It adds a timestamp to the beginning of each line of input.

Here is an example (on some linux machine):

root@227ee318bbc1:~# echo -e '1\n2\n3'
1
2
3
root@227ee318bbc1:~# echo -e '1\n2\n3' | ts
Apr 19 18:59:52 1
Apr 19 18:59:52 2
Apr 19 18:59:52 3
root@227ee318bbc1:~#

But there is no such program on my mac:

bessarabov@air:~$ echo -e '1\n2\n3' | ts
-bash: ts: command not found

And there is no program with such name in brew.

How can I get ts program on my mac?

Try brew install moreutils and then run the ts command. moreutils installs a bunch of things.

https://rentes.github.io/unix/utilities/2015/07/27/moreutils-package/


iMac Display Replacment I have a 2007 iMac 24inch, and I’m starting to notice the display is giving out (very opaque lines across a section of the screen, which sometimes do not appear.  It is the display though, as I confirmed this at the Apple store), and my warranty has expired (162 days past). The cost of a replacement is $500+, which would be insured up to two years if Apple replaced it.  I just don’t see the benefit, as the monitor is just starting to show this, and I’m not really sure how much more time I will get from the current display.

Does anybody have any good experienced with third-party vendors? Or, a good place to purchase a new display? I live in San Francisco.  I’m looking for a cheaper display, otherwise, I might just wait until this one dies completely, then hook another monitor up to it, and mirror the display.  I would rather buy a Mac Pro vs dishing out 500+ into my current iMac.  Any suggestions, ideas?

Note: This is not the glass in front of the display, it’s the display itself.

Edit: I had to make a small edit. My warranty has expired 162 past the orginal date, sorry for the confusion.

I would go back to the Apple store to speak with a technician again. Apple repair service has historically been warranted for 90 days or the remainder of the existing coverage (one year or three from original purchase if you have AppleCare) so if you are outside the first year the numbers don't add up. It should be written on the back of the quote they provided you. They might even give you some options for other local service providers that have passed the hardware repair tests to work on Macs but you can always look them up yourself.

The internal LCD panels for that model are integrated with a frame, and a driver board so you're not just buying a commodity 24" LCD panel. You are also buying expertise in case it's not the LCD panel but a video card or the cable. I don't know of many shops that can beat Apple's current labor rates of $39 so you would hope to get a good feeling about why the shop can beat apple's price so much on parts. I always feel better when a shop can explain to me why the parts they use are cheaper than the manufacturer's parts so I can make a good decision.

It's not as hard a repair as say the graphics card or the logic board in that model, but you'll find lower labor rates and better parts prices from shops that do a high volume of that model repair.

Once you've got some quotes you can make a better call in your situation - it might make sense to buy an external monitor even if it's more costly that the repair - especially if that investment will carry forward to an eventual new mac.


Yesterday I had 6.5GB free; today I have 4.3GB; what happened? I have a 256GB SSD in my 5,5 MacBook Pro running OSX 10.10.1.

It's mostly filled up, mostly with music. When I get close enough to "full" I usually delete the less-important stuff to free up a good 5-10GB, then slowly that free space disappears, even though I haven't downloaded anything (besides streaming Netflix, browsing the internet, etc).

What's going on here?

Sadly for you, lots goes on in storage.

Apple has several caching and thinning features that will proactively reclaim space when you run low. Unfortunately, you'll likely need to maintain more like 15 GB of free space if you wish to surf on the wave Apple has set for you.

To solve this, you'll need to be specific about how you are measuring free space and track that over time. You'll get different answers about "how much space" is free depending on which tool does the measuring.

So, if you can afford to relocate 30 GB of files temporarily, do that and see once things stabilize and Apple's cleaned things up. Then you can measure and rejigger things.

If you can't afford that - then you'll need to dive into things and not count on the "automatic transmission" to shift gears. I use Daisy Disk (and What Size in the past) as well as terminal and finder to help in cases like yours.

If you go down that manual management route, see:

MacBook Air: What taking up all my hard drive space
I have deleted a bunch of music from iTunes on my Macbook Pro, but am not gaining any free space
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136539/
Disk space disappears to 0, then after a while I have free space


How exactly does an App Store developer add support for earlier versions of iOS? I just recently published my first iOS app to the App Store, but I want it to support devices with older iOS versions, and would like to confirm how to add that support before I do something that might mess things up.

On testing downloading from the App Store, I discovered that having left the iOS Deployment Target setting to the latest iOS version (currently 13.2), seems to mean that only users with the latest version of iOS on their devices are allowed to actually download the app.

I have a version 1.0.1 targeting iOS 13.2 on the store.

I think what I need to do is:

Build another archive targeting iOS 12.0 with a higher version number (required to upload after the previous one) and post it to the store.
And if I also want to support iOS 11.0, add another archive built for that with a higher version number, and upload that too.
Then make sure they're all listed as available under App Store Connect -> my app -> Pricing and Availability -> Last-Compatible Version Settings.

Is that all I have to do? Is it going to mess something up that the older iOS targets will have higher version numbers of my App?

It doesn't mess something up that you have newer version numbers that support older iOS targets than older version numbers. That's perfectly alright.

Remember that the Deployment Target is the minimum version of iOS that user's need to have.

The optimal way to do what you want is to set the deployment target to iOS 11, and then in your app conditionally use features for iOS 12 and iOS 13 depending on their availability.

This means that you can compile one single archive that contains a single app that will install on iOS 11, iOS 12 and iOS 13, and will offer different functionality depending on the iOS version on the user's device.

If you're using Swift for example, it could look something like this:

if #available(iOS 13, *) {
  // new stuff
} else {
  // old stuff
}


What is your favorite word processor for the iPad? I'm hearing some information about Elements and Pages, but I wanted to ask what you're using as a word processing app on your iPad.

I'm currently using the Notes app, but I'd like to be able to work on a document (mostly just text documents) and be able to save my progress, and then optionally pick up where I left off the next time I'm in front of my office Mac.

Dropbox doesn't seem to let me edit from the iPad, and Google Docs, to my surprise, will let me view word processing documents, but not edit nor create them. (!)

I use:

Evernote: This is good if you want to edit a text document and sycn between computers.
Pages: So far, the best document creation tool I've used on the iPad.
Penultimate: Great for sketching ideas and mind-mapping.

For your situation, I would suggestion Evernote.

Good luck!


Run through terminal PYTHON Is there a way on a mac to make it so when you click on a python script it runs python filename.py through terminal?

Yes, this is possible with multiple methods. The easiest is simply right-clicking the script, opening the Get Info window and changing Open With to Python Launcher (x.x.x).


How can I find dictation commands in French? Apple has a list of dictation commands online here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6482 and here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6481.

Does anyone know where I can find the French versions?

You can find the list of the default voice commands here: http://support.apple.com/fr-fr/HT6482

You can find the list of the advanced voice commands here: System > Accessibility > Dictation:


If you see some movies in the Apple TV website, does that mean you can watch it if you join some program? For example, this page shows the movie Parasite on Apple TV.  Does that mean if you join some program, such as Apple TV+, then you can watch it as included in the program?

Apple TV+ is said to be included one year free if you buy some new Apple devices, so does that include the movies as listed on Apple TV?

Does that mean if you join some program, such as Apple TV+, then you can watch it as included in the program?

Nope.

  Apple TV+ is said to be included one year free if you buy some new Apple devices, so does that include the movies as listed on Apple TV?

Apple TV+ is Apple's original programming service. The Apple TV+ subscription only lets you watch the original Apple programming for free, which is made available under the service, and not any other media available on the Apple TV app. They have to be purchased/rented separately.

Apple TV app on macOS and iOS/iPadOS now consolidates the iTunes store movies selection, along with Apple TV+, Apple's original programming service.

Starting with macOS Catalina and iOS/iPadOS 13, the iTunes app on macOS which used to let users purchased or rent movies has now been discontinued, and replaced with independent Music, TV and Podcasts apps. Read this Apple Support article to learn more:

What happened to iTunes?

Apple's TV app for macOS is now one stop place to cater to all the visual media consumption available for sale/rent from Apple (which used to be previously made available via iTunes macOS app).

Apple TV+ is a subscription based, original programming service from Apple. A user's enrolment into the service doesn't mean they'll be able to watch any movie made available by Apple for sale/rent for free. So for your case, although the said movie is available on Apple TV, you'd need to pay for it to purchase/rent.

(P.S.: It could be argued that Apple marketing may not have done a good job with making user aware with all the changes that have happened here. The new changes have the potential of leaving a lot of users confused. Here's an interesting take on the same by Daring Fireball, one of the most widely regarded Apple blogger).


How to go back to list view of songs in playlists on iTunes 12.6 How do I get the old Songs list view within playlists on iTunes 12.6? Some of my playlists (whether old or new) are now showing up in the stupid huge list that shows the album cover and all kinds of extra crap, and I only have about 8 songs per screen that I can see at once without scrolling. How do I go back to just the text-only list view within individual playlists (not just the main library) in iTunes 12.6?

View menu > View as.

Pick your favourite.
Playlist has 'mini covers' Songs is most minimal, text only.

Unfortunately, it's not a global setting, it's per playlist.


Can't move one folder from external HD to internal HD So there is one folder that can't move from my external HD to my internal HD. There are many other folders that I have successfully moved, but this one is stubborn.

Every time I try to move it, I get this error: The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in "Microsoft Windows XP.pvm" can't be read or written

I have tried using terminal to move the folder with no success. sudo cp -R /Volumes/320\ GO\ Backup/backup\ 2015/Parallels /Users/Max/Desktop gives me: cp /Volumes/320 GO Backup/backup 2015/Parallels/Microsoft Windows XP.pvm/winxp.hdd/winxp.hdd.0.{5fbaabe3-6958-40ff-92a7-860e329aab41}.hds: Input/output error

Other things I have tried with no success:

The dot_clean command in terminal.
Reparing with the disk utility
Used Carbon Copy Cloner
Did all those operations in Safe mode

I'm really stuck!! Any help is appreciated :).

This unfortunately indicates a disk error...
I suggest digging up snapshots of previous virtual machines and seeing if you can restore the .pvm to one of those previous, working, versions.  Back up the VM somewhere first and maybe even fire it up to back up the data inside.

I would also look through the Console (Applications/Utilities/Console.app) to see if more disk I/O errors are being logged, because this is typically in my experience the first sign of a failing hard-drive.


How to quickly scroll to top of long list in iOS? I've recently hooked my MS Exchange account into Mail.app in iOS, and consequently, the list of email in my inbox is extremely long. iOS has the unfortunate habit of scrolling the mail list to the middle of the list whenever I rotate the iPad, and it takes me a very long time to scroll back up.

I'm wondering if there's a way to quickly scroll back up to the top of the very long inbox list in iOS Mail.app, so that I can see my unread messages?

Tap the Status Bar at the top of the screen.

  In Safari, Mail, Contacts, and many other apps, tap the status bar at
  the top of the screen — which displays the network information, time,
  and battery level — to scroll quickly to the top.

  Source: http://www.apple.com/iphone/tips/


Is there any way to translate words in Safari on iOS and Mac? I am currently reading a few websites in European languages (Spanish, Italian, German and French), and I'd like to be able to quickly translate words that I don't know (not the entire articles, which is why I don't want to use Chrome's translation). I know there's a "define" feature, and it is nice, but it only gives definitions in the same languages as the word of interest, so it is not exactly useful for someone unfamiliar with the language.

So, maybe someone knows a feature or an extension similar to the "define" one, but that would allow me to quickly look up a translation for a word? I'm interested in solutions for both Mac OS X and iOS (latest versions). Maybe there are third-party Italian-, German-, and French-English dictionaries for Apple's "Dictionary" application?

For OS X you can add 3rd party dictionaries.  See

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2013/01/adding-dictionaries-to-dictionaryapp.html

Unfortunately it's not possible for iOS yet as far as I know.


Digitizer assembly replacement and Error 53 As you probably know, Error 53 is Apple intentionally bricking your iDevice due to a 3rd-party repairing it, or specifically changing the TouchID sensor.

If I merely change the screen (LCD, digitizer, and glass) and detach the TouchID sensor from the old screen and reattach the same sensor to the new screen, could this potentially cause Error 53?

Apple has released a fixed version of iOS 9.2 (specifically 9.2.1 and later) which will restore the device to operation.

It doesn't fix the touch sensor - but you can use the device.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205628

Also see:

Error 53 makes my sister's iPhone 6 brick

So - if you disturb/tamper with the touch sensor - you won't brick the device when updating from iTunes (as opposed to an OTA update which doesn't throw error 53 for iOS 9.2 and lower), but the sensor won't work going forward.


On a mac can I extend (not duplicate) my display to multiple external monitors? I've got a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) running Catalina 10.15.3 (cant upgrade OS since its a work laptop) and 3 external monitors. All 3 external monitors are connected and working fine.
All external monitors are connect via a HyperDrive GEN2 USB-C Hub 18-in-1. In particular the HyperDrive has 2 HDMI ports and 1 VGA port (all of which I am using). The HyperDrive is connected to my Mac via a USB-C port.
My MacBook has 4 x USB-C ports and seemingly no other ports.
I want to extend the display to all 3 monitors (like I can on Windows).
When I choose to extend the displays via ... System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement tab
and then uncheck "Mirror Displays" ... It extends the display on the laptop monitor to the 3 external monitors, however, the display on the 3 external monitors duplicates/mirrors the display on the other external monitors (but not the laptop monitor).
I don't want any of the displays to be duplicated! Is this possible on Mac out the box or is there any software to support this?
I read here ... https://hypershop.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044788432-Does-the-12-or-18-port-allow-me-to-display-multiple-monitors- ... that:

Mac OS only supports Single Stream Transport (SST) meaning it can only support one extended display over a single USB-C connection. The 2nd display will a mirror of the 1st display.

Windows OS supports Multi-Stream Transport (MST) on supported computers and can support 3 extended displays over a single USB-C connection.

So I'm starting to lose hope that I can achieve what I want on my Mac which is 4 extended displays (including the laptop monitor). Any thoughts or help on this?

No, second screens are addressed as separate windows and not spanned. You can run 6 plus displays on the macOS window manager even without external GPU, so it’s not about ports or cables or protocols. It’s the window manager design you’re fighting.
If you consider adding more pixels on a second or third display, then it’s trivial to add displays, just connect them. If you want a blended space where two displays extend into one logical contiguous space, that needs hardware or a different OS.  This came about in Mavericks and there’s no sign Apple is reversing decision on this.

https://www.imore.com/how-span-window-between-two-displays-mavericks

The best you can do is in mission control, enable displays have their own spaces.

how to make each display a separate space, yet have a keyboard shortcut to move both screens at the same time?

You also might be very happy with an external GPU since it simplifies cable management and unlocks performance far past the MacBook Pro / Intel chipset alone can deliver.


Disable "Return to previous app" button in iOS In iOS, when some action in an app causes another app to launch, a button appears in the status bar towards the left side of the screen, and when you press it, it returns you to the previous app (the app that caused the current app to launch). Here is what I mean:

Is it possible to disable it? If so, how?

This is the standard iOS behaviour and nothing can be done to change it.

For more info, read this answer and subsequent comments on StackOverflow.


Is there a free analogue clock that displays in the dock? I would like to have an analogue clock displaying right in my OS X dock.

The default clock in the menu bar is too small for me, and it is obviously impossible to drag it into the dock.

If possible, I prefer a free (as in beer) solution.

Andrew Choi's SimpleDockClock does this, although it is not straightforward to change the style.

It looks like this:

The source code and a binary are available.


LSUIPresentationMode no longer works in Yosemite I've always set LSUIPresentationMode to 4 in iTerm and Firefox to hide the annoying unnecessary menu bar taking up precious vertical space on my macbook.

If I needed the menu, I could just move my mouse to the top of the screen, and it would appear. The rest of the time that space was used by the terminal and the browser.

After an upgrade to Yosemite this features no longer works. Most of the time setting this option to 4 or 3 (hide completely) does nothing. Sometimes it crashes the app. Sometimes the menu is hidden but the empty space is not occupied, so there's a long line on top.

This is really annoying. I submitted a bug report to Apple during the beta test - no response.

Running apps full screen is not an option. Unlike Linux implementation, OS X's full screen is not usable for me. You have to switch between spaces, you can't open other windows on top, etc.

So does anyone have an idea on how to fix this?

You can run

lsappinfo setinfo -app Firefox ApplicationType=UIElement

but you have to run it every time you open Firefox, it removes the menu bar completely, and it removes Firefox from the Dock. Commands like lsappinfo setinfo -app Firefox PresentationMode=Suppressed or lsappinfo setinfo -app Firefox UIPresentationMode=4 didn't seem to work.

(You can make the full screen mode actually usable in iTerm 2 by unchecking "Use Lion-style Fullscreen windows" and setting "Profiles > Window > Style" to "Fullscreen". Skim, Sequential, Movist, and Emacs also have an option to use a custom implementation for full screen windows.)