How can I force a Photo Stream sync on the iPhone? The Settings page says that Photos will automatically by sent to Photo Stream when I am connected to Wi-Fi, however I've waited several minutes and don't see them in iPhoto. I believe they haven't been sent to iCloud yet. Is there any way to force them to be synced to iCloud from the iPhone?

Fastest solution (iPhone restart NOT needed!): I've found that if I open Photos on my iDevice after taking a photo, and then (after the spinning icon goes away) open Photos* on my Mac, the photo appears in my photo stream.

Notes:

This is way easier and faster than rebooting or resetting Wi-Fi.

It's also faster and more likely to work than just killing Photos Agent and restarting Photos.

(Further evidence showing WHY this works: When I open Photos on my iDevice, I see the spinning icon on my iDevice - IFF  I've just taken a photo.  If I access my photo stream on my Mac‡ without having opened Photos, the new photo is not there.)

*(or iPhoto if you haven't switched to Photos)

‡(such as by clicking Photo Stream under Media in the standard File..Open dialog box in recent versions of MacOS)

Note: Photo Stream only syncs the last 30 days of your photos.

2020 UPDATE: Recently, Photos was changed; when you open it you may need to take an additional step to cause the upload - but if so, you’ll see a prompt about it.


AppleScript Numbers Retreiving Cell Value I have a script which loads a Numbers document in order to retrieve a specific cell value to use in creating a reminder.

My code is below. I believe I'm using correct syntax to load the value into a variable, but I'm just getting a 0 in the reminder and the dialog doesn't show.

set transferValue to 0

tell application "Numbers"
    activate
    try
        open filePath
        tell sheet "Monthy Expected"
            tell table "Account Budget Share"
                set transferValue to value of cell "B4"
                display dialog value of cell "B4"
                display dialog transferValue
            end tell
        end tell
    on error

    end try
end tell

Is there something wrong with what I have done? The correct file is opened when I run the script, but none of the subsequent commands seem to execute. It just opens the document and then continues on to the reminders.

Here is a simplified example, showing minimal code, to replicate what's shown in your OP, and as you can see in the Replies pane of Script Editor in the image further below there are no errors and both display dialog commands returned the expected value.

Numbers Document

Example AppleScript code:

set transferValue to 0

tell application "Numbers" to ¬
    tell table 1 of sheet 1 of document 1
        set transferValue to value of cell "B4"
        display dialog (get value of cell "B4")
        display dialog transferValue
    end tell

Script Editor showing the results of running the code:


iOS - Recovering data from device after reset I would like to give away my 1st Generation iPad. If I reset it by selecting Reset All Content and Settings, would it be possible for someone to restore the data (passwords, photos, etc.) which are currently on it?

Would it be possible to install some kind of restore or data rescue application and restore the data?

If the new User do not have to password for your appleID or an iTunes Backup, he'll not be able to restore any of your data after the iPad have been wiped.


fsck_msdos keep blocking external HD MacOS Sierra 10.12.5 early 2015 MacBook pro 13inch
Transcend 1TB

Keep doing this since 2015 when I bought both. Every time it is disconnected improperly it hangs a long time upon trying to remount it because the system keeps checking the fs:

$ sudo lsof | grep disk2
fsck_msdo 2084             root    3u      CHR               1,6 0xcf04928000     1153 /dev/rdisk2s1

Tried force mounting, unmounting, eject, OS restarting, killing fs_check process, but every time it restarts the filesystem check.

Is it necessary? How can I disable it?

$ diskutil list

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:             Windows_FAT_32 Transcend               1.0 TB     disk2s1

It is necessary.

It is independent of Mac or macOS involved. As you wrote "improperly": this is the key here.

To prevent damage from the filesystem the OS checks "is the filesystem dirty?", i.e. not cleanly unmounted. "Dirty" filesystems then get a run of filesystem check (fsck_msdos). Successful fsck marks the filesystem as clean. (And usually tries to correct some inconsistencies, if it finds some of those it could rectify.)
Killing that process before it does the same as a proper unmount, i.e. "marking the filesystem as clean", will send you into a loop. Finding a way around that may be possible, but is certainly not recommendable.

Two 'solutions':

Try to eject/unmount the filesystem cleanly every time. That is the best way to avoid the fsck run. There may be some applications available to make even that even more convenient, depending on what kind of disks on what type of connection they are to be used.
Let it run its fsck course the first time around. That is the shortest way to start using it again.

Possible Preventive Measures:

Mechanical unplugging the drives involuntarily while awake or in use could be mitigated with a better cable. No joke. I have one quite expensive cable that sits much tighter than all the others in that port.
If the problem occurs mainly with sleeping or after not using the external drive you might want to look into an app like Mountain. It's commercial and there might be others out there (Jettison, CleanMyDrive).

Also, true: this fsck_msdos is mainly to notify you of any and prevent further damage, so you can take it to a system whose fsck or chkdsk actually can repair it.


Where does Transmit 4 store temporary downloaded files? If you have two remote locations in Transmit 4, say an S3 and an FTP location, and you move a file between these two locations, Transmit will automatically download that file, and then upload it.

Where does Transmit 4 store these temporary files?

The opensnoop program is remarkably useful, but to answer the actual question in case somebody is in a quick bind, for Transmit 4 the location of the temporary files is:

/Volumes/<Macintosh HD>/Users/<current user>/Library/Caches/Cleanup At Startup/Transmit/server-to-server-B18AC7A9-81C6-4AAD-8F2C-6CD70E65D7FD/data-file-being-transferred

Transmit appears to clean up after itself within a second or two of the upload completing. The name and path of the folder implies to me that the system might clean it up if Transmit doesn't get the chance.

Update 26th July 2018:
Latest version (5.1.5) appears to store a file at a time in:

/Volumes/<Macintosh HD>/Users/<current user>/Library/Caches/Transmit/[UUID]/<host server>/path/to/file

The files are cleaned up more or less immediately after uploading to the destination server (afaict) but the subdirectories seem to stick around for some period of time (such that I now have ~600 files in the Caches/Transmit directory. Perhaps this is used for some logging or history, etc.


AppleScript runs twice? This script should say a b just once but many times it says a b a b.

I think this has something to do with Saved application stage. I emptied Saved application stage folder for this script then locked it. Then script works for a while but then after few runs it starts to say a b a b again.

How i can fix this?

--stay open

on run
    say "a"
    say "b"
end run

on my_stuff()
    say "my stuff"
end my_stuff

on idle
    my_stuff()
    return 30
end idle

on quit
    say "quit"
    continue quit
end quit

Try to put a delay before such as:

on run
    delay 5
    say "a"
    say "b"
end run


How do the sleep sensors in latest Mac laptops work? On older Mac laptops, placing a magnet near the steep sensors sleeps the Mac.  However, on newer Macs, putting magnets on the sleep sensors won't sleep Mac, such as closing the lid does.

How do sleep sensors work then? I did many tests with different laptops (12", 13" 2016/2017) etc.. I know where the sensors are, but they won't sleep the Mac, not even putting a magnet on each sensor.

Sleep sensors are typically Hall Effect sensors. You can consult this PDF that Apple produces for case manufacturers which illustrates where the sensors are located per device. The PDF is titled: Accessory Design
Guidelines for Apple Devices.

Make sure you're using the correct polarity when orienting the magnet(s) over the sensors, this is likely why they're not working as you're expecting.

References

Trick reveals all 102 hidden magnets in the 2018 iPad Pro


Exporting or Viewing Apple Watch heart rate info I have found the corresponding Activity app on the iPhone, which shows exercise history, but is there a way you can see the history of each heart rate measurement in bpm? Maybe through a HealthKit application?

EDIT: Thanks to bmike's suggestion, I found the export function of the Health app on the iPhone. The button in the upper right lets you send the raw data as an XML file.

On the main screen for health data there is an icon in the upper right (mine is a red silhouette of a person). If you press this icon the next screen gives an option to export data. It is easy to import data into Excel as an XML file. From there you can use normal Excel commands to filter, create charts etc.....


Is there a way to show Spotlight indexing status/progress in Yosemite? In previous versions of OS X, you could click the Spotlight icon in the menu bar to show the status of the Spotlight indexing, and it would show an estimate ("6 hours left"), along with a progress bar.

I've updated to Yosemite yesterday, and I noticed that Spotlight is not showing some expected results, i.e. files I know to be there, but it just doesn't find them if I type in their name and file type ("kind:excel vacation").

When I start typing in the Yosemite Spotlight window, it shows a small progress bar under the search box, but there's no estimate.

Is there another way to show the progress or an estimation on how long the indexing is going to take?

From this page

Show the status of Spotlight indexing for a volume

mdutil -s /Volumes/volumename

↪

/Volumes/volumename:
    Indexing enabled.

Here are some other Spotlight terminal commands

This comment thread suggests that there is not a great way to get an estimated time to completion.


To solve this extra window bug in Yosemite? I have got this kind of glossy window on top of other windows regularly in OSX Yosemite 10.10.2, two times per month approximately.
You cannot press anything there.
It blocks the user interface completely.
To restart the system fixes the problem temporarily.
The window stays there although you switch a program.

I do not understand the cause of it, but I have produced it in Macbook Air 2013-mid and the newest Macbook Air so probably the problem is in the software.

I do not know if some programs can interact for this bug.
Used applications at the time of appearance of such a bug

Preview
Texpad
Microsoft Outlook 2013
Google Chrome
Finder
sometimes Terminal
Mail passively open sometimes
Dropbox (in continuous overflow, never managing perfect syncing)
BitTorrent Sync (however, this bug appeared much before this program so not causing the problem)

How can you solve this bug in Yosemite?

I filled a bug report to Apple to solve this buffer corruption problem, made here. The only workaround is to log out of the Mac and then log back in. That typically clears the graphics frame buffers. If not, a reboot will recover from the failure, but not prevent it from happening again.


Gmail messages seen on iPhone do not appear in Mail App I am a heavy user of Google Apps email.

After the upgrade (?) to Mavericks, I find that any mail that I have already first seen on my iPhone does NOT appear in my Mail app on the MacBook Air.

What settings do I have wrong in my Mail app set up? Or Google Apps set up?

Double check to make sure you are using IMAP as your incoming mail server request on both your device and your computer.

If those are set correctly, make sure you have the latest OS X updates... I had some issues with missing mail or just mail that took forever to sync down to my computer when I first got Mavericks. I am currently receiving all of my mail now.

Lastly, I know this is stupid, because a lot of people say to do this for everything. But go ahead and restart your computer, some applications will "clog up" with system processes or they will just stop doing some processes all together. A reboot will allow for all caches to be cleared and processes to start from the beginning as normal.


Time period PowerBook G4 made and sold What time period was PowerBook G4 Model M8407 manufactured and sold?

October 2001 - April 2002

(via Mactracker app)


Alexa App on iPhone 4 / iOS 7.1.2 - Can't find “alexa” button I have an old iPhone 4 that I want to use via WiFi in my car to use Alexa to play Spotify. I installed the Alexa app from the App Store. Because the last version of iOS for the iPhone 4 is version 7.1.2, the App Store prompted me to download the last version of the app that worked with my version of iOS (1.24.202645.0). It installed fine, and I was able to connect it to my Alexa account with no problems.

The challenge now is, I can't find the Alexa button in the app. There is a home screen and a hamburger menu button at the top that brings up what looks like the setup menu, but no Alexa button to tell Alexa to do things. Is the screen too short? Has anyone else successfully used Alexa on an iPhone 4? Can you give me the pointers I need to make it work?

The app for the iPhone prior to iOS 9 is for practice as per:


iphone 3g jailbreak: from 4.2.1 to 4.3.x. Is it possible? Is it possible to jailbreak to 4.3.x a jailbreaked iphone 3g 4.2.1 (with a foreign locked sim)?

No. 4.2.1 was the last version of iOS supported by the 3G.


Can I use my iPad to organize photos that are stored externally? I would like to organize my photos with iPad (remove, edit, create albums etc).

I have the synology NAS and I can run the Photo app on the NAS (server) and I can use the DS Photo+ app on iPad (client) but this app can be used only as a viewer (I can't organize photos).

I also have the Aperture on the Mac and I can use the iTunes to sync the photos to the iPad but it is the same problem as with the NAS. I can't delete the photos or organize them in any way - it is only a viewer.

I have around 100k photos and I have to keep them externally. Thus, I have to use the iPad only as a remote viewer (client). I don't want to use any web related service for that like flickr, picasa etc.
It is not a problem for me to download photos from the camera to the iPad and then organize them and finally move them to the NAS.

Any ideas how can I do that?

Have you looked at Cinq Photo? Not sure it has everything you are looking for but thought it might be a good start


What does it mean if I see "security recommendation" next to a wifi network? I recently went to a restaurant and found that their wifi network has "security recommendation" next to its name. I've never seen it before, and wonder if it might be a new thing introduced in iOS 10.

What does this mean?

It's new with iOS 10.  Here's an overview of the feature by Engadget:

  After connecting to an open network, iOS 10 will display a "Security Recommendation" notification beneath the network's name in the WiFi menu settings. When a user opens up the Security Recommendation, they're greeted with a notification that "open networks provide no security and expose all network traffic." There's also a recommendation to configure your router to use AES encryption for the network.


Time Machine backup time Time machine keeps daily snapshot for past month and hourly for the last 24 hours.

My question - I am only seeing backups at the rate of anywhere from 3-6 per day. Looking at the TM folder I see this -

3 backups yesterday, 6 the day before. We are 8 hours into the new day, and no backup has completed yet.

I am running 10.6.8 on a 12 core MacPro. The only BU is for the main drive, a 512GB SSD with only 52GB of capacity used.

Is it normal for the backs to take so long?
Is there anything I can do to speed this up?

For what it's worth, I rebooted after posting (6 hours ago) and told time machine to start a backup. It still shows "indexing" after 6 hours.

New Edit - After posting the above, backups continued to take a few hours, so I still saw a few per day. As of now, no backup has completed in 48 hours. Still hoping for a way to troubleshoot this. Even wiping the backup and starting fresh would be ok, but I'm not confident the problem won't reappear.

After searching, I've found that generally, even though this is the stated timing

the best you are likely to see is every 2-3 hours for this size drive. Sometimes a backup will stall, and the software will restart, so I have a few daily backups remaining that time stamp as late as 6 am, showing there was at least a 6 hour gap.

That said, I have a second MacPro, running Yosemite, same 50GB used, and its backups are every hour, like clockwork.


How to sync ForkLift Favourites and settings across computers? is there any 'easy' way to sync my ForkLift so I don't have to keep updating my three computers every time I add an FTP for example..

I thought about doing a symlink via dropbox but I don't have idea of which folders contain this information.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Luis.

At the risk of resurrecting this old thread, I've just had the exact same problem.

According to the developers the next major version will allow syncing of password-protected favorites via Dropbox. As of this writing no release date has been set.

In the meantime you could try this.

ForkLift preferences – including Favorites – are stored in

/Users/your-user-name/Library/Preferences/com.binarynights.ForkLift2.plist

Move – not copy – this file to your Dropbox. I placed mine in a folder named ForkLift.

Next, you need to create a symlink using the ln command in Terminal with the -s switch. This is important as simply dragging the file in the Finder to create an alias will not work.

ln -s /Users/your-user-name/Dropbox/ForkLift/com.binarynights.ForkLift2.plist /Users/your-user-name/Library/Preferences/com.binarynights.ForkLift2.plist

The downside is that passwords are not copied. Also, having ForkLift open at the same time on different machines will likely cause a file conflict with the preference file. But this solution works for me.


How to change Google Chrome's address-bar-text font size (the 'https://...')? How does one change the text for Chrome's address bar font size? I need to make it larger, more readable, especially for high-resolution monitor displays.

This font size is NOT for the displayed web-page content(s).

I'm running macOS 10.12.6, Chrome Version 67.0.3396.99 (Official Build) (64-bit). I want to do it for macOS 10.13, too.

Use TinkerTool to change the System font.

Problem is, making larger System fonts can do wonky things not only in Chrome but other apps/windows. Other than trying diff font sizes, how can I adjust for this in Chrome? Maybe I can increase the address-bar height somehow - possibly by making larger extension icon sizes, or some other customization settings I've not yet found? Suggestions welcome.

The following shows an example of problems with System = 24:

(I'm the question author. Default System font size for my MacBook = 13.)


Downgrading from "Java for OS X Lion Update 1" I recently ran Software Update and installed "Update 1" for Java for Lion. Unfortunately this broke about the only thing I use Java for - a webcam applet to check conditions at a ski area. The applet hangs Safari until I close the tab and force quit the process, and in Chrome it simply displays the Java Applet loading screen with no progress.

So, the questions:

How can I remove this update?
Where can I get the original version? The only download link I can find now leads to the updated version.

I don't know where to find original version of Java for Mac OS Lion.

At least you can download Java Developer Package for Mac OS X 10.7 with your AppleID or try Java Developer Package for Mac OS X 10.7 Update 1 package to be sure if this bug is here.

Tutorials how to downgrade your Java you can find here and here.


Monitoring a file in real time I need a text file monitored in a way that the contents stay updated in a window on my screen - the contents of the text file will keep changing periodically and I want the display to update the changes ASAP.

Are there any programs out there (like tail for win32) that can help me achieve this? If not, could I perhaps write a script to that end?

Use

  tail -f

on the file. That will constantly update in the current window.


Mountain Lion Time Machine can't reliably connect to LaCie 2big NAS I've been using a LaCie 2big NAS to back up my Macs for a year or two now, and it's generally worked fine. Now, however, we've got a couple of Mountain Lion Macs in the house, and it's stopped working. It takes forever to show up in the list of shares, and when it does, sometimes I can get my MacBook to back up to it, but often Time Machine just sits there for half an hour with a spinning barber pole and "Looking for backup disk". Sometimes this eventually results in a backup, but other times it doesn't.

I've seen some chatter on less reliable forums about AFP authentication changes in Lion and various system default settings you can change to get your Mac to accept older authentication methods, or whatever it is it doesn't like about the third-party NAS, but nothing I really trust. Can anyone help me out?

FWIW, one of our Mountain Lion Macs is running FileVault and the other one isn't, but they both seem unhappy with the NAS.

I have a LaCie drive running my Time Machine disk as well (Firewire connection). when I upgraded to Mountain Lion, I had similar issues as you are explaining.

Go to System Preferences, and click on Energy Saver (lightbulb icon under "Hardware"). On all Macs running Mountain Lion, especially the one connected to the LaCie NAS drive, make sure to uncheck "Put hard disks to sleep when possible".

This should fix your issue.


WindowServer high CPU on Yosemite This is a follow up to So my Yosemite install is slow - what to do?

Since installing Yosemite a week or so ago my machine is very sluggish. I am a web developer so I change windows/apps a lot. Changing apps makes my machine hang for 2 or more seconds.

After observing the Activity Monitor I can see that WindowServer is taking up a lot of CPU when I move windows and also when I am just using one app.  I have tried closing apps to determine which, if any, is causing the issue but haven't come up with anything useful yet.

Here is an example.

Even right now as I type is flips between 10% and 20% usage. I am only typing!

How can I fix this?

I had a similar issue with high cpu usage in WindowServer which I managed to get back to something more normal by removing any items in my menu bar that were making high frequency drawing updates.

In my case it was the Network Monitor from Little Snitch that seemed to be the biggest culprit.


How to restore user account from different boot? So I did something dumb and now I'm locked out of my Mavericks partition on my MacBook. The dumb thing I did, specifically, was trying to change the user folder using the Directory Utility app, which should have worked but it didn't for some reason, and now I can't log in. Still have a Yosemite partition on the same computer though.

What I want to know is, is there a way, from outside the Mavericks boot, to change the home folder info? I know this info must be in some config file somewhere, however deeply hidden. Failing that, can I create a guest account, or enable root user, or any of that magic from outside the boot?

Oh, and please don't take this opportunity to lecture me about backup drives. The one I was using failed and I'm a student who can't afford another one right now. Life is hard.

Boot to your Recovery HD or the Yosemite volume. Then open from the menubar Utilities -> Terminal (Recovery HD) or Go To -> Utilities -> Terminal (Yosemite)

Enter cd /Volumes/name_of_your_Mavericks_volume/private/var/db.
List the content of the folder with ls -laO. A file with the name .AppleSetupDone should be listed amongst other files and folders.
Then enter rm .AppleSetupDone booted to Recovery HD (or sudo rm .AppleSetupDone booted to Yosemite) and then exit.

After rebooting to your Mavericks volume you will be asked to configure your OS X. Create a new temporary admin user. Log-in with the temporary admin user and repair your main admin user with Directory Utility.


Where to target when doing a Brute Force attack on an extended mac OS drive? I forgot the new password to my external hard drive (Mac OS Extended Journal Encrypted). I know. Stupid.

I got my hands on John the Ripper and I know some parameters that will help narrow down the possible passwords. I just have no idea what file I'm supposed to tell john the ripper (or any brute force program) to attack.

My question: What location do I ask my brute force password cracker to target?

John the Ripper is for finding the logon password for user accounts, it doesn't decrypt encrypted drives.

There ae tools to decrypt the encrypted drive but they requie the password to be in memory on the host mac system. They are also very expensive.Passware http://www.lostpassword.com apparently have products that can do this.

http://www.esecurityplanet.com/mac-os-security/passware-cracks-apples-filevault-encryption.html


OS X Lion Mail.app sound effects bug This is one of the weirdest bug that I've observed:
It seems that Mail.app's audio notifications for new mail and sending mail accumulate and play in order of occurrence when I unplug external speakers. Just now it played a series of more than 100 notifications (mostly new mail notification).

It's not big enough that I want to fix it but I just wanted to know if anyone experienced something similar.

It happened on an iMac that was upgraded to OS X Lion from Snow Leopard.

I don't have an answer, but here is how to reproduce the error. Open mail.app then call someone on FaceTime.


Google Chrome activating Mac webcam When I open Google Chrome app, my webcam seemingly starts recording, i.e. green light next to iSight lightens. What is happening?

Edit: I went to System Preferences -> Sharing and saw that everything is turned off. Then I went to Activity Monitor and searched for "camera" saw some process which I killed then and the light turned off.

After restarting Google Chrome app, camera again turns on.

There are two most likely reasons for this:

One of the installed Chrome extensions is accessing the camera.
You have tabs to websites opening automatically which access the camera

In both cases, a bit trial and error is required to identify the cause.


Speak text doesn’t work in Messages app on iOS On most apps on my iPhone (running iOS 13) when I select some text there’s an option to “Speak” the selected text which works fine. However in the Messages app when I long press on a message and choose “Speak” nothing happens. I’ve noticed this issue with two of my friend's phones as well. Any idea how to fix this?

I went into the accessibility settings within the settings in iOS. Under speak selection, I turned the feature off and then turned it back on. And now it works. You might give that a try:

Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > ...

Turn off “Speak Selection”, and turn it back on.

That seemed to do the trick.


How can i change Terminal Settings to automatically close terminal after Execution using shell script when i execute some command file or shell file after execution terminal remains open and its not look appropriate i want to close the terminal by script without changing settings manually in MAC
please help..

You can exit the terminal by calling to two commands after each other, execute script and then exit

$> myScript.sh && exit


No secure ad-hoc network with Yosemite? iMac (late 2009) OSX 10.10.3
iPads (a 1 and a 2) iOS 8.?

I am a retired IT engineer playing at being a DJ/VJ. That means I'm often in a room with lots of folks with cells and iPads. Before Yosemite, I was creating ad-hoc nets at my gigs and connecting my iPads to my iMac. It was relatively comfortable that I wouldn't have to worry about anyone screwing around with my systems, audio/video/DMX lighting.

I am getting ready to do some gigs and while checking my system, I realized there is no longer a Create Network option on my Wi-Fi menu. And from what I'm reading here, it doesn't appear I can even create one. Is this correct?

A possible solution would be to use the Imac to share a network conenction over wifi which in effect also creates a hotspot.

In preferences go to sharing. Pick network sharing in the list. It has options to set a wifi password and you can then choose to share internet from something to wifi.

Unforetuntely apple "fixed" it in mountain lion or lion that you can no longer share if you arent actually connected to another device.
Before I could make a hotspot using ethernet as my share choice even if ethernet wasnt plugged in. Now it no longer will create the hotspot if not actually connected.

EDIT: I recently found away around this issue and the answer is listed here


Is there a way to add all of the recipients of an email to a group/folder in contacts from Mail? In mail, I'll get email to a list of about 50 people, all of whom need to be in my address book. Is there a way to add them all at once? I can tell it to add one at a time, but I can't seem to get it to do more than that.

Perhaps an AppleScript like this one can help. Note that I'm not really proficient in AppleScript, so I'm sure this can be improved, but no one has answered so far.

  tell application "Mail"
    set theSelection to selection
    set theMessage to item 1 of theSelection
    set theSubject to subject of theMessage
    tell application "Address Book"
        set theGroup to make new group with properties {name:theSubject}
    end tell
    set theRecipients to to recipients of item 1 of theMessage
    repeat with a from 1 to count theRecipients
        set theRecipient to item a of theRecipients
        tell application "Address Book"
            set theName to name of theRecipient
            tell application "Mail" to set theAddress to address of theRecipient
            set thePerson to make new person with properties {first name:name of theRecipient}
            make new email at end of emails of thePerson with properties {value:theAddress}
            add thePerson to theGroup
        end tell
    end repeat
    set theRecipients to cc recipients of item 1 of theMessage
    repeat with a from 1 to count theRecipients
        set theRecipient to item a of theRecipients
        tell application "Address Book"
            set theName to name of theRecipient
            tell application "Mail" to set theAddress to address of theRecipient
            set thePerson to make new person with properties {first name:name of theRecipient}
            make new email at end of emails of thePerson with properties {value:theAddress}
            add thePerson to theGroup
        end tell
    end repeat
    tell application "Address Book" to save
  end tell


How to find songs on iPod I recently downloaded a YouTube playlist, ripped the audio, and added it to my iPod/iTunes library. Currently the songs are in my "Recently Added" playlist, but once they disappear from there, I don't know I'll find them.

I've checked if the name of the playlist (also the name of the directory the files are stored in) is being used as either the album name or artist name, and it's not.

Choose the track in iTunes and choose get info (cmd-I)

The summary tab gives a description of the track including album, artist etc and the full path in the filesystem

The info tab gives the details of the album, artist, album artist ie what artist appears in the iTunes listing

The sorting tab might also be of interest for this issue

These artist and albums will also be the ones used on the iPod

Also you can change the recently added playlist to include more tracks by changing the number in the definition of the smart playlist


Is there a shortcut to get to the bottom of a long email on iPad or iPhone? I get some long emails in which the important stuff is at the bottom after many pages. It is tedious to scroll down.  Is there a way to get to the bottom quickly? Either for iPhone iPad or both.

iOS does not provide a shortcut for skipping directly to the bottom of documents, but there is a reasonable alternative, if you're not already aware of it: scrolling views in iOS respond to swipe frequency, scrolling more quickly the more quickly and frequently you swipe the screen.

While swiping a long document, email, or webpage, try several long, quick swipes in rapid succession: you should notice the scrolling speed accelerate accordingly. This isn't nearly as elegant as a tap shortcut, but does let you quickly skip to the bottom of a long view.


No sound through USB-C to HDMI adaptor on MacBook Air 2019 MacBook Air, Retina, 13-inch, 2019
Running Catalina 10.15.2
Using USB-C to HDMI adaptors, MacBook Air sound preference center cannot recognize the device it is plugged to (HDMI cable connects the adaptor to the TV monitor; sound on TV monitors has been tested; older MacBook Pro with HDMI output can output sound just fine);
Video is fine
Tried with three different USB-C to HDMI adptors: two StarTech and one CLDAY. All are supposed to support audio output
Troubleshoot this on two different screens, and two different projectors (hooked to speakers)
Troubleshoot while being powered on (i.e. with AC plugged in)

No sound nor device detected (in the sound panel) in every case.

In each case, the sound is being played through the MacBook Air internal speakers.

After trying yet another adaptor (the Anker mentioned in the comment by IconDaemon) without success, I restarted the machine to reset NVRAM. It fixed the issue. In System Preference, the Sound panel now recognizes external devices, and sound goes through HDMI regardless of the adaptor I’m using (StarTech, CLDAY or Anker).


Keep Safari from hijacking the media buttons from controlling iTunes I'm on a Mac with no TouchBar (so I don't think this answer will help) running 10.13. I had YouTube open and my media buttons weren't useful for stopping iTunes so that I could start a video. Is there a setting that will stop Safari from being able to use those buttons?

I would prefer not having to install 3rd party software to do this.

This is still going on in macOS 10.14

This was driving me crazy, so I wrote a little menu bar app to make the media keys only affect iTunes:

http://stuntsoftware.com/reflex/


Why does macOS Catalina install and/or update fail with "OSStatus error -37"? Both after updating from macOS Mojave 10.14.6 to macOS Catalina 10.15.5 and again when updating from 10.15.5 to 10.15.6, the installation failed with OSStatus error -37. This failure leaves the computer in an endless update loop where it tries to perform the software installation, fails, reboots, and tries again. Forcing the computer to boot from the main internal drive fails: the computer is no longer bootable.
A clean install does work successfully. But, installing macOS Catalina (or a Catalina update) in-place fails.
How can I resolve the installation failure without wiping my computer clean and reinstalling from scratch?

I have a small internal drive in my 2018 Mac mini. So, I keep most of my data on a large external SSD. For ease-of-use, I replace most directories in the user home directories with symlinks. That way, for example, the ~/Documents dir points right over to a dir on the external SSD.
Well, I also use this symlink method for the /Users/Shared directory. It looks like:
> cd /Users
> ls -l | grep Shared
lrwxr-xr-x  1 admin    wheel  34 Jul 19 13:42 Shared -> /Volumes/ExtSSD/shared

Restoring the /Users/Shared directory back to an actual directory — the way it looks as laid down by the macOS Installer — resolves the issue. Now /Users/Shared looks like:
> cd /Users
> ls -l | grep Shared
drwxrwxrwt  25 root      wheel  800 Apr 17 14:17 Shared

With /Users/Shared no longer a symlink, the macOS Catalina install/update process works fully and successfully.


How can I modify an existing FAT partition without losing its data? I have a 1tb hard drive. Long a go I split it it into two partitions.

One I left as a Mac OS extended (journaled) with 990GB and one as FAT with 10GB. Now I would like to add about 100GB to the FAT partition.

I am using the Disk Utility but now it says "this partition can't be modified" (for both partitions). Is there a way to shrink one and expand the other?

Disk Utility doesn't resize FAT or ExFAT partitions on the fly, so you will need to take that drive to a Windows or UNIX computer or use another tool to resize FAT.

If you only have Disk Utility, I would create a dmg of the FAT partition and save it to the main partition.

Then you could delete the FAT partition, resize the HFS partition and recreate the new FAT section to your preference.

At that point you would choose the restore tab to place the contents from the disk image (.dmg file) onto the properly sized, but empty FAT volume.


El Capitan: After upgrade Mac won't connect to CardDAV-server I run my own CalDAV/CardDAV-server to synchronize all my calendar events and contacts across my devices. Everything was working fine until I upgraded to El Capitan a few days ago.

Now Addressbook can't connect to the CardDAV-server anymore. After I checked the logfiles on my server, I figured out what the problem is: The setup assistant in System Preferences asks for the server address but actually saves a completely different (maybe standard) address, which then of course won't work.

Does someone know how to fix this? Maybe I can change the values via Terminal and change the settings there.

It also seems that these accounts don't sync properly via iCloud, which makes the account working fine on one machine and not working on the other machine. Of course I can't delete the synced account there and make a new one because then it will just move the problem between the machines.

Something is clearly broken with El Capitan and CardDAV, but I could make it work by:

properly set up the standard /.well-known/carddav and /.well-known/caldav redirects (see your CardDAV server documentation to see the destination URL)
use the Manuel settings type - there are now 3 types of CardDAV configurations in El Capitan: Automatic, Manual and Advanced. In my experience Advanced is really broken in 11.11.0, but Manual can work with a server configured as described in #1


Terminal Closes Immediately I accidentally deleted some files from my Applications directory. I don't recall exactly what but some of them included the Cellar directory.

Now, each time I try to open the terminal, it opens the terminal window but it immediately closes (i.e., less than one second).
Since, I have no operational terminal, I don't know how to solve the problem of re-installing the terminal or applying any fix.
I tried downloading iTerm and installing it but the exact same thing happens to it: the moment I open it, it closes.

Any ideas?

===Update===
Actually tried again, and this was the message that I got. When I click Ok button, the terminal closes immediately.

Your default shell is the brew-installed zsh. You probably removed the folder containing zsh and some other important files/folders/libraries.

In the preferences of Terminal (or System Preferences > Users & Groups > ctrl-click user_name > Advanced Options... > login shell | as far as I remember you have to reboot to make this work) set the default shell back to /bin/bash. Then relaunch Terminal and uninstall brew and reinstall it afterwards. You may have to uninstall brew manually by deleting some folders in /usr/local/ if you deleted too many files and folders previously ("I accidentally deleted some files from my Applications directory. I don't recall exactly what but some of them included the Cellar directory.").

In a second step reinstall brew and brew installed execs.


Does OS X have a builtin DHCPv6 client? Upon testing a within a standalone network with just a DHCPv6 server on it and several client computers with different operating systems, OS X 10.7.4 fails to automatically obtain an IPv6 address from the DHCPv6 server.

Settings are set as the following for IPv6
System Preferences > Network > Ethernet > Advanced... >

Configure IPv6: "Automatically"

Is there a way to make OS X Lion work as a DHCPv6 client for a full IPv6 network with a DHCPv6 server?

Or a way to add a 3rd party DHCPv6 client?

As of now each Macs has to be manually set to a static IPv6 address to get them on the network, which is not ideal.

Actually yes it does have a DHCPv6 client. I have verified in 10.8.4 but the email thread referenced above talks about it working with Lion too.

To get it to work, you need to set the IPv6 configuration to "automatic" and then on your router, you also need to configure the routing announcements to indicate that hosts should use DHCP to obtain an address. I believe that's what they're referring to in those emails where they say they've got it working with Lion.

Relevant extract from that email (since links may die eventually):

  Quick testing shows that when "Automatic" is used for the IPv6
  setting, OS X will correctly look at the A, M, and O flags of an IPv6
  RA and make use of DHCPv6 when instructed to.

As an example, on a Cisco ASA 5505 running software version 9.1, you'd need something like this:

interface Vlan1
 nameif inside
 security-level 100
 ipv6 address 2001:db8:1234:1::1/64
 ipv6 nd managed-config-flag
 ipv6 nd other-config-flag

The managed-config-flag is the "m" flag and the other-config-flag is the "o" flag from that email. You might or might not need both, depending on what you want to do.

Don't forget that if your DHCP server is on another interface you'll also need something like:

ipv6 dhcprelay server 2001:db8:1234:2::2 dhcpinterfacename
ipv6 dhcprelay enable inside

So yes, DHCPv6 client, but needs a little help from routers on the network. I can't help feeling it's a bit of a mess, but it works.

Note that you'll also get the EUI-64 address and the privacy extension address in addition to the DHCPv6 assigned address. I don't know how to turn them off I'm afraid. In particular, at the moment, I don't know how the OS decides which one to use for outbound connections, which could present some problems.


Symbol/Special Character use in OS X and iOS I am looking to insert a special character or symbol into my documents, which are intended to be markdown formatted text files.  The symbol is intended to be used to represent a tick box or other tick/cross visual symbol (either empty, or actually ticked).  Examples provided below (inserted using Edit > Special Characters in Safari)

☐☑☒✓✕❏

Once I have used it in a file, I want the symbol to be readable regardless of whether I view the file through an app in either OS X or iOS, as well as capable of being inserted from any source including the iPhone keyboard

What is the best method of ensuring consistent input and viewing of such characters works across the board, is there a particular font family or Unicode code that will enable portability across my devices, and is there a simple way to insert them, possibly via text expander or autocorrect if they are not on the main keyboard?

Viewing Special Characters
The good news is that this part should almost always 'just work' on OS X and iOS devices. Encodings are usually handled intelligently, Unicode fonts are installed, and font substitution does its job.
If you do encounter problems, be sure to specify the encoding as Unicode (UTF-8) when saving. If your text editor doesn't allow you to specify an encoding, it's a fairly safe bet that this is what it's using.
Since Markdown files are plaintext, you don't have to worry about fonts. If you are using rich formatting, though, Lucida Grande, Arial Unicode, and Apple Symbol are all good options. But, again, OS X and iOS generally switch to another font seamlessly when the main font doesn't support a character.
Entering Special Characters
Both OS X and iOS include built-in text replacement tools that will let you insert your symbols easily.
OS X
Open System Preferences-> Language and Text-> Text and click the [+] button. Choose a keyword to be expanded and paste in the special character. You'll have to create snippets with unique keywords for each character.

iOS
Copy a special character. Open Settings-> General-> Keyboard-> Shortcuts and tap the [+] button. Paste the character under Phrase and enter a unique keyword under Shortcut. Tap save. Again, you'll have to create snippets with unique keywords for each character.

If you like, you can use the excellent TextExpander to do the same thing, but it isn't necessary in this case.


Can I backup iTunes 9 before upgrading to iTunes 10? I am happy with iTunes 9 and am a bit leery of upgrading to iTunes 10 on my Mac based on some feedback I've heard from others. Can I duplicate iTunes.app in my Applications folder prior to running Software Update to update to iTunes 10, and use the backup iTunes to run iTunes 9 if I am not happy with iTunes 10? I know this works with some applications like Final Cut Pro but not with others like Safari.

Don't see why not.  If you're paranoid, you may also want to backup the iTunes prefs (~/Library/com.apple.itunes*), and/or any config files you find in your iTunes music folder (~/Music/iTunes/ in my case).


What's the difference between "loving" a song and clicking a song's heart in iTunes? I'm finally experimenting with an iTunes Music subscription, hoping to find music I like based on what I already like.

iTunes seems to have two ways to express my opinion on a song I'm listening to in iTunes Music:

I can select a song and, two-finger click on is and select either "Love" or "Disklike".

Separately, I can hover to the left of the song and a heart outline heart will appear, and I can click this, which fills the heart in with red. Clicking again toggles it back.

These two actions seem to be independent. "Loving" a song doesn't turn the heart on, turning the heart on doesn't "love" a song.

What do these two things indicate? Which one, if either, will make it more likely that iTunes Music will suggest songs that I might like?

It's the same thing. Unfortunately there appears to be a bug where the UI doesn't update one when you select the other, but it's stored the same and will appear the same next time iTunes refreshes that playlist/etc.


Target Display Mode troubles, can't disconnect anymore I used to run my 15" MBP with 21.5" iMac in Target Display Mode and everything was fine for a while. But as of a couple recent macOS upgrades, every time I disconnect, the iMac never restores to it's previous state. The screen is black. Once in a while, after 10 minutes or longer, it would come back. But more often than not, I have to power-cycle my iMac.

I have tried every way possible to connect/disconnect. Different port combos, Apple genuine cable, unplugging Thunderbolt physically, Cmd+F2. All of this used to work, but not anymore.

It's really annoying because even if I let my MBP go to hibernate/sleep/screen-off, I end up having to power-cycle my iMac.

Any suggestions would really be appreciated. Is anyone having this experience, as it doesn't seem common?

I have not found anyone complaining about this exact problem.

I have the same issue and here’s why it’s a software bug.

On my 2013 21.5" iMac (base model with the only upgrade being a factory installed 256GB SSD). I've never had any work done on it.

I attached an external drive running 10.11 El Capitan and booted from it. Activated target display mode, then deactivated it. NO ISSUE, IT WORKED! So I thought maybe there's something corrupted in my install and I have to erase and start from scratch. Before I did that, I clean installed Mac OS High Sierra on my external drive. ISSUE REOCCURED on a fresh install! Then I installed the Mojave Beta to see if Apple fixed it. NOPE it still cannot deactivated Target Display mode without screwing up the internal monitor!

I've discovered though that plugging in an external DisplayPort display to the iMac "re-wakes" the internal display as it activates the external one. It's only slightly better than having to restart, as you still need to reach behind and plug in and out cables. Frustrating. I have an open ticket with Apple Support.

Basically, the problem isn't our computers or our installs. It's Mac OS High Sierra and Mojave (and maybe regular Sierra, I can't tell). El Capitan doesn't have this problem.


How can I check which SMC version I am using? I formatted my hard driver and reinstalled ML. I'd like to know whether I need to reinstall the latest SMC update or that once I install it is saved forever on the system.

I think that I don't need to reinstall it, because power sleep is enabled, and if I'm not mistaken it updates this feature, am I wrong?

In other words: Can I check which SMC I'm using?

Yes. To check which SMC you're using just:

From the Apple () menu, choose About This Mac.
Click More Info.
Click System Report.
Open the Hardware section to reveal Model Identifier, Boot ROM version, and SMC version numbers.

Just so that you know, if you are unsure whether your computer needs a particular update, simply download and open the update installer. The installer will alert you if the firmware update is already installed or not needed.


Disable Screen Sleep AppleScript Is there a way to turn screen sleeping on and off temporarily through AppleScript? I'm making a script at the moment that will run for a few minutes when I'm away, so I don't want it to sleep, but don't want to manually do it every time.

Certainly the easiest way to accomplish this is by using do shell script. pmset is definitely a viable option, though I am personally partial to the caffeinate command, which doesn't modify any preferences and doesn't require administrator privileges. You could use the following AppleScript to keep your screen awake indefinitely:

do shell script "caffeinate -di"

Alternatively, you can run caffeinate for a specified amount of time, after which your display will be free to go to sleep:

do shell script "caffeinate -dit [time in seconds]"


Run a script on Outlook 2016 startup I'd like to run a script on startup of Outlook 2016, so it runs as one of the first actions once Outlook is open.

One example of this would be to automatically switch to a certain view on every start, something that isn't possible using Outlook's preferences.

I don't see an "app startup" trigger in Automator, but maybe I've missed something. Is there a way to do this generally?

One approach would be to write an applescript to load Outlook and then execute the script.

Copy the following to a new script using Script Editor in Applications/Utilities

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions

on run
    tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
        activate

        -- now tell Outlook to do other stuff
    end tell

    -- if you have another script already written that you want to run, then
    set theScript to ("path:to:script.scpt") as alias
    run script theScript

    -- or if your script takes arguments like the this:
    --on MsgBox(Msg)
    --  display dialog Msg
    --end
    set theScript to load script file ("path:to:script.scpt")
    tell theScript
        MsgBox("Hello World!")
    end tell
end run

You can save the applescript as a applet (Save As -> select "Application" for type), rename it to Outlook 2016 and change its icon to match the Outlook 2016 icon and leave it on your dock in place of Outlook itself.
The downside is that, when Outlook is running, you'll have both the Outlook dock item and the applet on your dock, but that's a small price to pay.

Another approach is to make a silent program that checks to see if Outlook is running or not.

When the running status of Outlook changes from false to true, it will run a script.
This involves making an applescript applet that will run at startup, stay open all the time, and be hidden from the dock.
It will consume very little resources, but it's still a price to have it running all the time.

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
--  Need to save with "Stay Open" option

property CheckTimeSeconds : 60 --   controls the number of seconds between each check to see fi Outlook is running

property WasRunning
property IsRunning

on run
    set WasRunning to false
    set IsRunning to false
    return
end run

on idle
    set IsRunning to appisrunning("Microsoft Outlook")

    if IsRunning and not WasRunning then -- Outlook has been opened in the last CheckTimeSeconds seconds.
        --run script here
    end if

    set WasRunning to IsRunning

    return CheckTimeSeconds
end idle

on appisrunning(appName)
    tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end appisrunning

Save as an application with the "Stay open after run handler" option selected
Set the program to have no dock icon
Load the program at login for your user (drag your application into the list at System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Login Items)

If you want to close this program, you'll have to do so manually from Activity Monitor.


Is there a way to automatically save Pages documents copies as PDF on every save? Is there a way to enable Pages (version 10.1 (6913)) to automatically save a copy of the current document as PDF every time I save it to avoid a manual export?

You might be able to use Folder Actions to trigger an AppleScript that creates the  PDF whenever the contents of the folder are changed. The problem may be the fact that the document is still open.
But realistically, you don't have to manually press Save in Pages anyway, so just assign a key command to Export to PDF. You could even use Command S.


Restore Things to iPhone from iTunes I ended AT&T service with my iPhone, but would still like for it to be useful. When the service was ended, Things was in the process of being updated, and I deleted it from my iPhone (not iTunes) in the hope of restoring it. I've tried a few things, but while Things is still visible in iTunes, it hasn't shown up in my iPhone.

Is there any way that I can restore Things from iTunes to my iPhone?

If you're absolutely sure that you have SYnced the phone and the app is still not there, you can try to remove it from iTunes too. Then you go to the App Store (make sure you are logged with the SAME account you were when you bought it for the first time) and buy it again, the store will inform you that it's "a free upgrade" and will re-download it. It will not charge you again.


Are there any native tools for SVG conversion on OS X? How can I convert SVG image to something raster? Are there any native [command-line] tools on OS X that can do that? I am able to open them in Safari or Firefox, but doing "Save as..." only proposes original (.svg) or web-archive formats and no rasterized image format.

Try Gapplin. It works for me and creates PNG and JPG files from SVG. Simple and effective.

If you have a lot of SVG files to convert, ImageMagick is probably your best bet (available directly from imagemagick.org or via Homebrew).


Can't execute binary on macOS catalina I am trying to run a binary that I have downloaded (it's part of flutter). Whenever I'm trying to run it, I get the error:

I have already disabled gatekeeper checks globally with sudo spctl --master-disable. What else can I do to get this to run?

The solution is to remove the quarantine attribute from the file(s) in question:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/file


What is the easiest way to install emacs-ess on OSX? I am interested in installing Emacs ESS mode. I can follow the instructions here but I would like to know if there is an easier way (without installing a completely new instance of Emacs like the one provided here).

For example, the instructions say that I can use the Linux version, but then I don't know if I should use the Debian, OpenSUSE, or Fedora package listed on the Downloads page.

This is a specific example of a situation alluded to in my previous question that was closed because it was too general to be constructive.

Use the latest .tgz package:

Here is the installation version from the documentation (the -12.09-2 part of the file name is current-release specific and will change):

wget http://ess.r-project.org/downloads/ess/ess-12.09-2.tgz
tar -xvf ess-12.09-2.tgz
mv ess-12.09-2 /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/
echo "(require 'ess-site)" >> ~/.emacs


New Battery for my Vintage MacBook I need a new Battery for my late 2008 MacBook but Apple consider it as Vintage so stopped producing it.

I searched my new battery on eBay and I've found two alternatives at, more or less, the same price:

Original battery, never used but more than a year old (so it remained more than a year in his box).
Compatible Battery, so produced by who knew with who what but most recent.

So my question is: Is better a brand new compatible battery or an original but old one?

Lithium cells degrade over time so getting a new cell is always better three years shelf life or worse. Worse, if the part falls into deep discharge, it will be ruined. I have no issue with old batteries but I charge them up to 50% every 6 months to avoid deep discharge.

When you can get a cell that you know was put into long term storage properly, then buy from the vendor that you trust most. In this case, you're rolling the dice that the Apple part was made towards the end of the production run and not the beginning. You always have to do extra work with aftermarket parts, since some manufacturers cut corners and are even unsafe.

Here's Apple's take on this: http://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

Store it half-charged when you store it long term.

If you want to store your device long term, two key factors will affect the overall health of your battery: the environmental temperature and the percentage of charge on the battery when it’s powered down for storage. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Do not fully charge or fully discharge your device’s battery — charge it to around 50%. If you store a device when its battery is fully discharged, the battery could fall into a deep discharge state, which renders it incapable of holding a charge. Conversely, if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may lose some capacity, leading to shorter battery life.

Power down the device to avoid additional battery use.
Place your device in a cool, moisture-free environment that’s less than 90° F (32° C).
If you plan to store your device for longer than six months, charge it to 50% every six months.
Depending on how long you store your device, it may be in a low-battery state when you remove it from long-term storage. After it’s removed from storage, it may require 20 minutes of charging with the original adapter before you can use it.


Close active windows from the Terminal I usually have multiple windows requiring to close before sleeping.
(all the contents are saved already)

I attempt to accomplish it in terminal so I can encapsulate commands to some script.

I tried:

$ close -a atom
-bash: close: command not found
$ close -a Opera
-bash: close: command not found

How to solve the problem?

Use osascript to call an AppleScript from the command line.

Save the following script or one like it somewhere, then run osacript [path to file]:

tell application "Numbers"
    activate
    close every document without saving
end tell


Where do I update Google account details in iOS13? I always changed email account passwords in Settings > Passwords & Accounts > (choose an account).

Now I can't see any password field there.  Same on two iPhone 7.
How can I update the password for an email account such as google?

Has this changed in the latest iOS?

I think you're mistaking work accounts with Google ones. This is my work mail setup and my Gmail and Outlook look the way yours do. They don't offer explicit password fields in settings AFAIK. They use web interfaces as overlays, at the time of login.

As in macOS Mojave's mail too, there is no password field, Google is now using Safari.

So if you have changed the password of your Google account, it should automatically notify you and ask for password. But if you want to trigger it manually, try toggling off and on the mail  switch from the list.

For a drastic approach(if it's a big mailbox), Deleting it and adding it back will allow you to change the password.


If a photo is imported to Aperture via Photo Stream, is it safe to delete it from iCloud? Still using Aperture to automatically import iPhone photos via My Photo Stream. But my iCloud account is almost full because of too many photos there. Is it safe to delete photos from iCloud without losing them from Aperture? In other words, once downloaded to Aperture, deleting from iCloud will not delete them from Aperture, correct?

You can use Aperture information tools to check where an image is stored.
See the Info tab for a given picture and if needed add the "file path" field to your Info template (using metadata presentation personalization dialog, shortcut cmd+J on my Mac)
If it says iCloud, you're wrong.


Need help disabling imessage? I recently changed from iphone to android and i have been having trouble recieving messages from my iphone friends since my iphones screen is broken i cant do anything on it. Any way to fix this problem through icloud or something?

https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage

This will allow you to de register the old number from iMessage.


Sleep button broken. How do I find out which part is affected? The sleep/power button of my iPhone 4 is broken; it suddently didn't really "click" anymore and just hardly reacted on my actions. For some hours by clicking really firm it still worked, but then the button refused to do any job.

I found out about a way to lock the phone via the touchpad, but when my battery is empty or the device switches off by any other reasons, I will not be able to switch it on anymore. So I did some research as I want to repair it on my own. I found out that the button itself can be affected (and replaced), and there is the holder for this button, which can also be affected.

How can I find out, which one of the two are broken - ideally without opening the device?

You will most likely need to open the device to tell this. I used to work at an Apple Store and am familiar with the design of the iPhone 4 internals. Good luck. iPhones are not fun to repair.

Also an iPhone with a broken power button will still turn on after the battery dies. Simply plug into a wall charger and allow the battery to charge enough, and it will power back on.


Is Mavericks available to a 13-inch Late 2007 MacBook, despite everything? Apple makes it quite clear to which models Mavericks is available.

So, I have a 13-inch Late 2007 MacBook (not-Pro, running 10.7.5), which shouldn't be supported.

But when I open App Store, there it is: OS X Mavericks with a "FREE UPGRADE" button. That is somewhat surprising. I assume that App Store "knows" which model it is on. Now, I don't think I even want Mavericks on that MacBook, but I do wonder.

What would happen if I press that button?

You get the following alert box:

"We could not complete your purchase.

OS X Mavericks cannot be installed on this computer."

You then get two options. The first button is Learn More, which takes you to the system requirements page, and the other button simply says Ok.

Nothing gets downloaded.


How to search for pictures of two people in iPhoto? iPhoto has the ability to recognize faces. You can tag them with names, which I have done for my relatives. Now I want two find all pictures in which two specific people are. Just typing "A and B" in the search bar of iPhoto does not work. Is there any way for such a query?

You can create a smart album using the "Person includes [name]" multiple times with the "Match [all] of the following conditions" option selected.


MBP Retina 13", very contrast images stays on the screen I have a weird issue with my MBP, not that it causes any discomfort or troubles, just want to make sure it isn't something serious.

I don't even know how to exactly describe the problem, but only can say that when I open some white image and then switch to gray app, I can clearly see shadows of previous image.

I have MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)

I uploaded video on YouTube which shows the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBzi9Qzlxew

Sounds like the Ghosting-Effece, even though I can't watch the Video because it says it´s private.
This effect can happen, when your screen shows the same image over an longer period. It is visible, when you switch to a blank image.

This problem is covered by your warranty from apple. The will most likely change the display for a new one.


how to delete already imported pictures from iPhone in MacOS X Photos app? I can't find a way to delete previously imported photos from the iphone in the Photos app (Version 1.0 (209.52.0)). Note that there is a check box to delete picture right after import, but I am looking for a way to delete previously imported pictures without having to reimport them. Typically pictures are automatically imported via iCloud and so when I open the Photos app it does not make sense to reimport them. With iphoto it was possible but apparently not with the new photos app.
Someone earlier posted the same question and one solution was given: OS X - How do I remove photos from my iPhone using the Photos app after import?

Nonetheless this doesn't work for me, the delete button is not present in the import page. Most likely this feature disappeared with an upgrade. Moreover when I select images, the Image->Delete photo (translated from the french version) is grayed out.

Have you tried using Image Capture?

Plug in your phone.  Select it from Devices.  Select the photos, hit the little "no" icon (the circle with the line through it) near the bottom of the window, and delete the photo.  Also good to delete photos you don't even want in photos.


Will I need a Magic Trackpad to take advantage of OS X Lion? From what I have read and/or seen about OS X Lion, it sounds like many of its new features rely on gestures.  I have a Mac Pro and do not have a trackpad of any kind.  Will I need to get a Magic Trackpad to take advantage of many of the new features in OS X Lion?  What kind of user experience can I expect in Lion if I don't have one?  What will I be missing out on?

The only thing you wont be able to use, are the Multi-Touch Gestures.


MAC Filtering in Internet Sharing How can I enable MAC Filtering on my MAC OSX 10.9.4?
I tried adding

<key>allow</key> <array> <string>0:17:43:a3:2d:45</string> </array>

to my /etc/bootpd.plist, but every time I change it and start Internet Sharing again, it gets replaced again. How can I change this permanently?

Have a look at this method I used for many years on Lion and Mountain Lion: How to stop InternetSharing overwriting /etc/bootpd.plist

Since the culprit is still InternetSharing overwriting a standard
configuration file, the method should work.


iMessage comes from a different (unknown) phone number? Possible to change own number? I finally talked my mum into updating her iphone to iOS5, however now there is a hitch.
When she sends a message to me (also on iOS5) it does come through as an imessage, but from a totally different phone number.

It seems like the phone number is attached to the sim card in her phone even though she elected to keep her old number when she bought the phone. Does that make sense??

Is there a way to change the phone number associated with an iphone?
When I go to settings>messages> receive at the phone number box is greyed out.

Try these:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3401647?start=0&tstart=0

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1255571


Changing countries makes iTunes unable to locate music I have switched from country A to country B, however all of my music in my library is now unable to be located and comes up with those exclamation marks.

How do I fix this?

I assume you use iTunes Match (and haven’t downloaded the music to your library). If the problem is caused not downloading the music, switch back to your original country and download all the music before switching to your preferred country.

Side Notes: Everything you purchase on iTunes is tied to your Apple ID according to its active country. If you purchase music on Unites States iTunes Store, you won’t be able to download them when you switch to Japan iTunes Store.

You can certainly switch between country to download your past purchases, but I suggest to maintain one Apple ID to avoid this complicated process.


Why won't Time Machine restore my Contacts even though they're visible in a Time Machine backup? I recently upgraded to Catalina but after a few surprises I went back to Mojave using a Time Machine backup to restore data. I use Google to sync contacts on my Mac and iOS devices, and Gmail runs fine in the Mac mail app. I've done this for several years and its worked flawlessly ... until I went back to Mojave.

I’ve had no problems with contacts in Mail but after I restored Mojave I noticed contact names in Messages on the Mac weren't showing - just phone numbers and conversations. When I checked Contacts on the Mac all of my Contacts had disappeared (they're still on my iPhone, iPad and safely at Google).

In Mojave if I open Internet Accounts in System Preference the Gmail account has Contacts ticked. I’ve ticked and unticked. No difference.

When I try to add a CardDav account in Internet Accounts Google won’t verify my username and password even though they’re correct.

Strangely, when I open Contacts, and then Enter Time Machine, I can successfully go back to an earlier time and see all the Contacts. However, when I click Restore, and watch the animation bring them all back - the animation ends with a pause and all the Contacts disappear before my eyes leaving an empty Contacts app with the words "No cards".

Any advice on how to get my Google contacts back in the Contacts app on Mac Mojave would be most appreciated.

This fixed my problem Fix corrupted Contacts database


AirDrop doesnt work on Macbook Air 2012 and iPhone 6S I try to send content from iPhone to my Macbook Air via AirDrop. Everything seems to be correct. On both devices the bluetooth and same wifi is turned on. On both it is allowed from Everyone. But my mac is still invisible for my iPhone. Why?

Definitely sth is wrong with my macbook, because I can share between iOS devices, but cannot connect from and to my Macbook.

I know that AirDrop doesnt work with Macbook earlier than 2012, but my Macbook is 2012, so it should work. It is not duplicated question.

Thanks to the development of Bluetooth 4.0 and BLE, it is not possible to airdrop between newer iOS devices and older (pre-retina, I believe) MacBooks.

This is because the standards are incompatible, while 'legacy airdrop' is still an option for MacBook-to-MacBook communication, it appears iOS devices do not have this functionality. A more in depth discussion can be found on Apple's forums, and a lengthy discussion on whether an upgrade is possible or should be attempted here.


A particular picture copies by itself multiple times in camera roll every day I've been using iPhone for many years now but this is the first time I've this problem.

I received a picture from a friend, who is on Android. Since then that particular picture copies by itself multiple times during the day in my camera roll.

Any idea why this may be happening?
A virus, malware?

I am on iPhone 6 with iOS 8.3.

Porting this to a community wiki answer so it doesn't remain hanging, as I've seen similar questions asked a couple of times recently

Some third-party messaging applications copy photos to the Camera Roll after receiving them, such as WhatsApp. Assuming you received it in a third-party application, there may be a bug in that application causing it to be saved repeatedly.

Try removing the photo from any 3rd party app it may have originated in.


Use of iTunes gift card credit I have a $50 iTunes gift card credit. How can I use it for the App Store? When I try to purchase an app from the App Store, I am asked to enter a credit card number.  Can I transfer the $50 to the App Store account?

I think this will work...

Open iTunes

Just below the volume bar is your Apple ID.

Click on that and select Redeem. It will prompt for your Gift Card info..

Here's a little pic:


Slow read/write speed (40MBps) with USB-C external SSD on Macbook Pro I had a Sandisk Extreme Pro 500Gb PCIe NVME M.2 SSD. I got an USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 Enclosure for it. I have tried it on 3 different 2017 and 2018 macbook pros and an iMac. The Max read/write speed that I can get is 40MBps. I thought the problem might be with the enclosure so I tried 4 different enclosures and still same result. I installed the SSD through PCIe to a desktop and read/write speed were astonishingly high.

I got a Samsung T5 External SSD and even with one I have the same problem. I have seen many reviews of T5 on youtube with Mac which all were satisfied. Am I missing something? Do I need some sort of Driver for it? I’m running a 2018 Macbook Pro with MacOS Mojave

I own multiple Samsung T3's and T5's. They are incredible.

The cable is important, and unfortunately, it's impossible to tell which cables are intended for which purposes.

Your 2018 MacBook Pro with Mojave (I have a 2017) does NOT need any kind of driver to use the drive. There's an encryption app on the drive that's worth installing so that you can secure the contents, but that's orthogonal to speed.

Be sure you're using the short cable with the velcro bits when connecting to your T3/T5. For some of my Samsung T3/T5's, the old-style USB-A connector cable is the best one for performance.

Download the (I think still free) Blackmagic Speed Test from the Mac App Store and check the actual performance. Then change cables and you'll see what I mean.

As a rule, if the cable is more than 6 inches long, it's NOT for best performance. If the cable has the Thunderbolt symbol on it, it MAY be for performance, regardless of whether it has a USB-A or USB-C connector on the business end (toward your Mac). Also, DO NOT connect your T3/T5 through any kind of cable extender or dock. There's a distance limitation that you will run into if there's any kind of middle man device.

Before you down-vote me, please do what I've suggested. I literally have a dozen of these things, each 2 TB/$500.


How can I automount afp volumes at startup? I bought a NAS to store my media files and I'd like to automount the volumes on startup. Currently I'm opening those volumes as a Login Item under System Preferences > Accounts.

This works, but it unfortunately also pops up each volume in a new Finder window on boot up. Checking the hide on the items only hides the processes, not the resulting Finder window from those processes. A solution that avoids those Finder popups would be great.

I'd like to avoid any 3rd party apps to accomplish this too.

I found this script from http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050215082247458, but I'll reproduce it below.

Open up Script Editor and paste in:

    set sfiles to "afp://user:pass@host/volume"
    tell application "Finder"
        mount volume sfiles
    end tell

Replace sfiles with the appropriate details of your AFP volume.
Add appropriate other lines for the other servers you have, both above and inside the tell
Save this script somewhere safe and add it to the login item pane (instead of the Volumes you have there now)


Is there a way to temporarily pause iCloud sync of photos? Is there a way to temporarily pause the syncing of photos over iCloud on an iOS device? Sometimes I'm on a 3G connection and don't want to waste my quota syncing photos or sometimes I want to speed up the download of other files by pausing iCloud. Is it possible?

There is no way to pause it, but you can disable it temporarily. The only downside is that you will have to redownload all the pictures when it is re-enabled. To disable cell data for photo stream, you can go into Settings>Cellular and find the Photos app. Simply turn it off.


What exactly is required for Apple's Find-my-car feature to work? My friends and I have noticed inconsistent results with Apple's feature to find your parked car. We've all seen it work sometimes, but not always.

The feature I'm talking about is described here: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/14/apple-maps-ios-10-parking/

As I understand it, you must have Car Play or Bluetooth in your car, you must have iOS 10.x or greater, and have Apple Maps installed. Beyond that, how does this work?

I've tried a couple of times lately to test this, making sure that Bluetooth is connected during the trip. After arriving, I can ask Siri: "Where's my car?" and I get:

Sorry, I don't see any saved parking locations.

It seemed to be working reliably for a user with Car Play.  Is that required?

Yes, you must have a CarPlay device & the iPhone must connect to it when you get in the car & disconnect as you leave.
That is the trigger to update your Parked Location.

It works over either direct connection on Lightning cable, or using Bluetooth, though if your CarPlay is set to Lightning, it will not update if you have Bluetooth on, but don't manually switch to it - CarPlay does not 'auto-swap' to Bluetooth if you don't plug it in.

Apple documents this here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207227

The location privacy can show you frequent locations as well as parked locations, so if you have disabled that location tracking, you could expect maps to not mark your Bluetooth disconnect locations. Also, not pairing to Bluetooth would likely prevent is feature from working

(Information source in addition to above is personal experience & wondering how the heck it sometimes worked & sometimes didn't ;)


Two Email Accounts in Mail.app / Can I disable notifications for one of them? Hopefully this is an easy one! :-) I am working in Mail.app these days in Mountain Lion and I have two mail accounts within. I'd like to disable all notifications for one of those accounts. This means no popups or items in Notification Center.

Is this possible?

You can try the following:

Create a smart mailbox.
Choose "Message is in Mailbox" as a condition.
Select the inbox of the account where you like to get notifications.
After creating the smart mailbox, visit Mail's preferences.
At the General tab, set "New message notifications" to your newly created smart mailbox.


Can you stream music from an iPhone to an iPad? I'm playing with the idea of installing an iPad in my car.

Ideally, I'd like to save the storage space for video and buy a smaller model, so I'm wondering if there is a way to play the music I have on my iPhone on an iPad via streaming or an app or other means?

If your iPad is a 3G/Wi-Fi model, then you could conceivably do this through the music app. The reason for the need for 3G is that in order to connect these devices there must be some sort of network present.

That being said, this seems like overkill. If you are using your iPad for music and only music in the car, and if you have the means and desire to pull this off, then I would strongly suggest you simply get a car stereo with a 1/8" input auxiliary jack.  This would allow you to plug the iPhone directly into your car stereo, without any other hassle.

Furthermore, streaming data like this is a good way to unnecessarily rack up data usage charges, as you would be transmitting data 100% of the time. Go with the plug-n-play solution: you stream no data at all.

Seriously think about this. Again, it seems a bit like overkill.


How to record my voice and output to speaker at the same time? When giving a speech, I want to record my voice and let people in the room hear clearly through a speaker. I have a macbook air, a bluetooth headset and a bluetooth speaker. Thanks.

You need a USB Audio Mixer like this one Presonus Audiobox USB

When you use audio software, if you CAN monitor the output, there will be a delay because it has to come in through the mic, record to disk, they play it back.

What this device does is take the live audio and send it into two different directions:

to your computer for recording
to an external device like a PA system or audio system

When you use this, you are not depending on your computer to play it back - it will go directly to the PA system while simultaneously recording it.

The best part is you can adjust the levels for your PA and recording independently so the quality is good on both - not on one and horrible on the other.

Using the Presonus as an example:

Your mic would go into 1 on the front and you would have your computer plugged into the USB (back) and the MAIN OUT (back) would go to the PA.  You just need the right plugs at this point.

I have used this setup many times and it works flawlessly.


Can two people play the Hay Day game on one iPad? Can two people with different Apple IDs play the same game on one iPad? I am already playing a game, and my son would like to play, but he wants his own game, is that possible if he has his own Apple ID or Facebook?

Game Center only allows one sign in at a time, so you could sign out and then sign in another account. Most games also keep a local save file, so this might mix the results, but you would need to ask the developer of each app how it handles a log out of one Game Center account and into another.


High quality USB microphone that works on the iPhone 4 Can you recommend a high quality USB microphone that works on the iPhone 4? (Apparently there are issues with the iPhone 4 and USB microphones)

By "there are issues with the iPhone 4 and USB microphones," are you referring to the fact that no one has ever gotten them to work together?

The iPad, yes—but not the iPhone 4.

(Which, I think, answers the question about which mic I recommend…)


Syntax error: No operation specified when trying to resize Ubuntu VM I'm trying to expand the hard drive of my Ubuntu VM in VirtualBox from my Macbook Air terminal. But when I type in

VBoxManage modifyhd <uuid>|~/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu.vdi --resize 20000

I get this output:

Usage:

VBoxManage modifyhd         <uuid|filename>
                            [--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable|
                                    readonly|multiattach]
                            [--autoreset on|off]
                            [--property <name=[value]>]
                            [--compact]
                            [--resize <megabytes>|--resizebyte <bytes>]

Syntax error: No operation specified

But I specified the operation though, so I'm a bit confused.

The | in such context always means use "either|or|else".

So use either:

VBoxManage modifyhd "/Users/user/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu.vdi" --resize 20000

You have to use the absolute path to the file or the relative path starting from the current directory.

or:

VBoxManage modifyhd <UUID> --resize 20000

The UUID of the medium has to be registered. Registered images can be listed by VBoxManage list hdds (see Section 8.4 of the VirtualBox manual, “VBoxManage list”)

Sidenotes:

Resizing does not work if the guest has snapshots (prior to version 4.3.*) nor will it work on 'fixed' drives. When doing anything that could prove as destructive as this should you make a mistake, backup the *.vdi file before you start.

After resizing the disk you have to extend the contained partition!

Download the Gparted live cd or what ever partition manager program you wish and mount it to the guests virtual CD and boot the guest.
From here you can expand the primary partition to use the new space.

You can download the Gparted Live CD from here.
If you have issues where Gparted fails, try with Parted Magic here.
Parted Magic is no longer free to download (at least from the source).


How do I open XLS files in Numbers? I've just bought Numbers and I'm trying to open some XLS files.  They're in Excel '97 format, not encrypted, and with no password set.  However, when I try to open them, I get this error message:

"The document is encrypted and can't be opened"

They open fine in openoffice.  How do I open them in Numbers?

Sometimes a xls file don't have password to open it, but it has it to avoid modifying certain fields, you can validate that.
Also, if you have access to a PC with Windows you can try to save your xls file in a newer format.

Another alternative is to use a program like parallels or VMware to install/emulate window on your Mac.


When you terminate multi display in OS X 10.9 Mavericks, what happens? Here's a question by a non-developer who cannot touch OS X 10.9 Mavericks, but I hope some developers help me in this issue -

I have one 27-inch display and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and when I'm out of home I use the Retina laptop, and when I'm at home I use Retina but also with 27-inch display in order to take advantage of larger desktop. However, in OS X 10.8, when I terminate the multi display functionality to get it out of home, then screen on laptop becomes messy, with apps being viewed on 27-inch display being scattered around on laptops. That's why I've been considering recently buying iMac and use it on home instead. That said, I hate using two Mac.

So here's a question: When you terminate multi display in Mavericks, then apps on 27-inch display return back to the location on which those apps were before connecting to another display, or are those still messy much like on Mountain Lion?

If hopefully it is the former, then I want to wait for Mavericks and new thunderbolt display… If the latter, then I have to buy iMac right now…

If you're using Mountain Lion there's an awesome app called Multimon.

Unfortunately it does not work as it should on Mavericks :(


Open text file in Numbers when it is space delimited, but some fields are strings in quotes with spaces I have a log file I'd like to open in Numbers to make sifting through it a lot easier.  The problem is that the format isn't CSV.  Each line has about a dozen fields, and the fields themselves are separated by spaces.  However, some of those fields are strings, which contain space, so I can't just do a find replace for spaces and put the comma in.  One field, the date, is actually formatted like this: [06/Feb/2018:03:27:37 +0000].  This appears to be the only spot where []s are used, so I could find/replace those with "s, but I'm still having trouble importing the document.  It places every row in a single column.

So, to summarize, my goal is to take an input file and break up each row so that the space is the delimiter, but it ignores spaces within quotes.

if you have an editor that can use regex (for example textwrangler or bbedit)
or you are willing to use sed (in this case remember the -E flag)
or you can write a small filter in any language you know (for example perl or python),
you can first change the brackets into "s and then use the regex:
    s/\ (?=(?:[^"]"[^"]")[^"]$)/\t/g
to convert any space not between quotes into tabs, so that Numbers will import it correctly (it's not that I am this good with regexes, it is explained here: regex101.com/r/sU3fA2/29)


17" mid-2009 MBP, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo: can it take 16GB RAM? Does anyone have this unibody from mid-2009? Has anyone upgraded it to 16GB RAM? If so, is it good news?

Thanks!

If you mean either the 'SD' or the 'Mid 2009' then no, it can take 8GB only.

EveryMac is a fabulous resource for that type of info, including in some cases, whether a machine can actually take more RAM than the Apple official original spec claims.


Apple Watch contact names missing after watchOS 3 update After updating my Apple Watch to watchOS 3 some of my contact names are missing in Messages and Phone etc. Some are showing name, others just show the phone number. The iPhone does show the contact names where the watch doesn't.

This answer's a bit late, but I finally figured out the issue.

Your Apple Watch's contact list is most likely out of sync with your iPhone.

Try checking your Apple Watch's contact list though the phone app. If it looks like some contacts are missing, it's likely that the contact list isn't synced properly.

The easiest way to manually re-sync your contact list is to create a dummy contact "AAAAA" on your iPhone. Once it's been resynced, all your contacts should start displaying properly again.


Mac Keyboard Shortcut to Bring Up Finder How can you create a keyboard shortcut to bring up the Finder, as if you had clicked on the Finder on the Dock?

Launch Automator (in Utilities)
Menu: File -> New Window
Choose: Quick Action*
Worflow receives: no input
In Utilities on left, double click: Run Shell Script
Shell: /bin/zsh
Enter for the shell command: open -a Finder
Save the service with whatever name you want
In System Preferences, click on Keyboard
Click on Shortcuts at the top and then on Services at the left
On the right part of the window, scroll down to General
Find the service that you just saved, make sure it is checked, and set a unique hotkey for it
Quit the System Preferences

Enjoy your new hotkey to bring up the Finder.

* In versions of macOS before macOS Mojave, the option was called Service.


Iphone 5s phone contact is an email Recently I bought the iphone 5s and I am under my boyfriends icloud account. today I shut my phone off and turned it back on and when he texted me is icloud email showed up. when I text his phone number he gets it but when he replies it comes back under the email.

How do I fix this problem?

On HIS iPhone go to Settings > Messages > Send and Receive > Start New Conversations From and change the default to the entry for his phone number.

Also you didn't ask, but for what it's worth, get your own appleID now.  It's free.  Don't share, you will run into many issues going forward.  appleID's are meant to be shared by more than one device, but with all being used by the same primary user.  That is... use the same one on YOUR iPhone and iPad or HIS iPhone and iPad, but don't mix devices for 2 people.  Go here to create an appleID.

You can still use "family Sharing" to share iTunes purchases.


iMovie '11 AVCHD videos I have an AVCHD camera that records 1080i clips. I want to retain this quality in resulting projects, but what is the best way to manage this raw footage in the long term, so that I do not fill my hard disk by importing Full quality Apple Intermediate Codec movies, but preserve the HD resolution by not importing 960x540 Large quality?

I found a hint that shows how to easily save both original content and Optimized Large content, but this still does not preserve HD quality in exports, only for archiving.

I also found ClipWrap, but without AIC the scrubbing is basically useless on my mid 2010 MacBook Pro - no audio and picture lags too.

Long story short - is it a viable solution to craft a script/tool that will allow:

wrap the footage in iMovie compatible container (MOV)
Manually import them into iMovie and optimize only when needed
Prior to exporting, use the tool to revert back to unoptimized HD footage.

This way I could get HD exports and cut back on disk usage.

Is there per haps such a script floating around? Can anyone see any dangers in this? Or is the best option still to shell out cash for bigger hard drive or Final Cut Express with MTS capabilty? (Can FCE scrub MTS files?)

You can import the raw video through whatever means you like, and utilize Handbrake ([enter link description here][1]) to transcode it to mp4 format, which iMovie can use. This way, you can make use of the H.264 codec to encode your 1080i videos, retaining full quality, and compressing them better than Apple's compression schemes. Personally, however, as one video guy to another, if you're going to deal with a lot of HD, just shell out the cash for a bigger drive, like an external or something. It'll save you headaches in the long run, trust me.

Good luck and happy transcoding!


Giving an app permissions to my documents folder without admin I have macOS Catalina and I wanted to see if there was a way for me to change the setting where you give apps access to files/folders. I have a game that wants access to documents and it isn't giving me the option to grant it. When I go to settings, the plus sign isn't clickable and I don't have administrator privileges so I can't turn it on. All I want to do is give it access to my Documents folder. This wasn't a problem until I updated to 10.15 and apps started prompting me to give them permissions, but this one never gave me a prompt. I was thinking maybe I could change it in the file where the mac keeps its preferences or if there is some command in terminal or maybe I'm just being an idiot and I can do it in System Preferences.
Thanks

You will not be able to make the change from the command line if you can’t make it from the GUI.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-access-files-folders-mac-mchld5a35146/mac

Look in settings for Profiles - if you see them, the people managing settings will need to grant your app permissions or let you become an admin or make the allowance for you.


Why do some calendar events shift in time when daylight saving time goes into effect? Recently the UK changed from winter time to summer time, I have noticed that the timing of some of my calendar appointments (Google Calendar via Google Sync) have also been shifted forwards by an hour, whereas some have not changed.

It could well be that the split is down to events created on the iPhone and those created on the Google Calendar web interface.

Does anyone know a work around for this, that will stop me turning up an hour early to things when the clocks change back in October?

You may be able to fix it by doing the following:

Open the Settings on your iPhone
Select "Mail, Contacts, Calendars"
Scroll down to the Calendars section
Select "Time Zone Support"
Turn on Time Zone support

Or maybe you want to turn time zone support off? It's a little confusing. Here's what Apple says:

  When Time Zone Support is on, Calendar displays event dates and times in the time zone set for your calendars. When Time Zone Support is off, Calendar displays events in the time zone of your current location.


URL for guest access to a Linux Samba server share from Finder What is the correct URL for connecting as Guest to a Linux Samba server share from OS X?

Example:

From Finder, press Cmd+K
Enter url: smb://192.168.1.100/shared_files

The answer seems to be to use username and password guest:

smb://guest:guest@192.168.1.100/shared_files


Buying iPhone from Amazon I live in Europe, and here I have to pay 850 Euros for a new iPhone 6s with 64GB of memory. I've checked that on German Amazon the very same model price is 700 Euros. The only concern I have is that previously I have only bought Apple products from Apple Stores, and I wonder whether it is safe to purchase iPhone from Amazon (or let's say, as safe as any other product sold on Amazon), or is it a 100% no?

It depends on the seller. If it is direct from Amazon you should be fine. The big difference would be the return policies.

If it is from a reseller you want to make sure to check for activation lock https://icloud.com/activationlock and it may not come with a full warranty. Also who knows if there are non-apple parts involved voiding any warranty, or if it is from a different region like Saudi Arabia that doesn't have FaceTime, or Japan that forces camera noise, or any other situations which could make warranty repair very difficult.


How to Create New File in Selected Folder Using LaunchBar? Using Launchbar, I'd like to be able to do the following:

Navigate around by normal means in Launchbar > Once I'm in desired folder, I'd like to be able to run a command/action that asks me to enter a filename and then the command proceeds to ´touch´ (filename) in that directory.

How can this be achieved, any existing solutions?

This can be done by using the "New Text Document Here" action

Select folder -> tab -> start typing "New" -> select "New Text Document Here" -> type name -> enter.

If you're looking for a more complete solution that can create any type of file (including ones without the .txt extension that the New Text Document action forces) try this Applescript. Just put it in a file named New File.applescript in the ~/Library/Application Support/LaunchBar/Actions/ directory:

on handle_string(dir)
    display dialog "Enter filename:" default answer ""
    set fname to text returned of result
    set fullpath to dir & fname
    try
        do shell script "touch '" & fullpath & "'"
        open location "x-launchbar:select?file=" & fullpath
    on error errMsg
        display dialog "Error: " & errMsg
        open location "x-launchbar:hide"
    end try
end handle_string

It'll touch the file, then select it in LaunchBar upon completion (you can comment out the line that does that by adding -- to the beginning of the line or just removing it).