How can I make my Mac partition bootable again? I am running macOS High Sierra on a 2011 iMac. I was also running Windows 10 via BootCamp. In order to prepare for a 3rd OS, I installed reFind and resized the BootCamp partition to make space.

Unfortunately, this rendered the Windows partition unable to boot, I got the message "Missing Operating System" on a black screen.

Instead of accepting my limitations and sticking with Mac OS, I decided to remove the BootCamp partition, and proceed with reinstalling Windows into the free space. Initially this didn't work in legacy mode, so I (foolishly) decided to use EFI instead. I have successfully reinstalled Windows but the Mac partition  now doesn't show up on the "ALT" menu, reFind has disappeared and the machine now only boots into Windows.

If I boot Mac OS from a USB, the mac partition is not shown and it is shown as "Unallocated Space" when I use Aomei in Windows 10.

Unfortunately, there are important un-backed up family photos etc on the Mac partition. My bad!

I do not believe that the mac partition has been erased, Windows is on the correct BootCamp partition.

My question is how to get the Mac partition booting again if possible, or at least get the data off. I am not bothered about losing Windows as it is a fresh install.

Many thanks in advance for any advice. Obviously the best advice was to take more care and avoid this situation!

Here is the result of the requested information based on this Readout:

gpt -r show disk0
     start       size index contents
         0          1       PMBR
         i          1       Pri GPT header
         2         32       Pri GPT table
        34          6
        40     409600     1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640 2542739416
2543149056      32768     2 GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-ADB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
2543181824  636884926     3 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4A33-87C0-68B6B72699C7
3180066750  726962385
3907029135         32       Sec GPT table
3907029167          1       Sec GPT header

Your iMac contains a 2 TB non-4k disk (I suppose it's an HDD) and macOS High Sierra is (was) installed.

2542739416 blocks of your disk starting at block 409640 are not allocated to partitions.

Your lost partition(s) can be expected to be found & restored in the unallocated disk space.

The default Apple partition layout for an HDD is 1. EFI 2. main system and 3. Recovery HD (and 4. additional partitions created by the user e.g. Boot Camp). EFI and Recovery HD have a default size on 512-disks:

EFI: 409600 blocks(512)
Recovery HD: 1269536 blocks(512)

The eligible partition types for an HDD are either standard HFS+ or CoreStorage (usually if the main system volume was encrypted or the Mac contains a Fusion Drive). APFS is also possible but not recommended by Apple. Re-formatting an HDD to APFS would have been done by the user.

On an SSD the default partition type would be APFS with no recovery partition.

To detect the former partition type boot to Internet Recovery Mode:

Get the partition details (below I assume the internal disk has the device identifier disk0):

diskutil list
gpt -r show disk0

Unmount disk0 with diskutil umountDisk disk0
vis the first 3 blocks starting with block409640 of disk0:

dd if=/dev/disk0 skip=409640 count=3 | vis -c

If you had a standard partition previously the first 1024 Bytes only contain non-printable (zeros): \0\0\0\0\0\0...
After ~Byte 1030 you will see the following sequence: \0HFSJ\0

If you had a CoreStorage partition some non-zeros in the first 512 Bytes and the string CS (...\0CS\^A...) are shown:

\^U\^D\^A\M-s\M^?\M^?\M^?\M^?\^A\0\^P\0\0\0\M-W\^A\a\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^B\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\M^Pu\M-\7\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0CS\^A\0\0\0\^D\0\0\^P\0\0\0\0@\0X\M-7}\^C\0\0\0\0X\M-;}\^C\0\0\0\0X\M-?}\^C\0\0\0\0X\M-C}\^C\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^P\0\0\0\^B\0\0\0006j v\^R\M-+\^U\M^[\f\M^CdG\M-y\^]...

If you had a APFS partition the string NXSB (...\0NXSB\0\^P...) is shown in the first few bytes:

??[?\M^T\M^VD\^A\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^X\f\0\0\0\0\0\0\^A\0\0\M^@\0\0\0\0NXSB\0\^P\0\0?7?\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^B\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^Q?^@1\^PL ?GSf~\M^KBչ?\0\0\0\0\0\0\^Y\f\0\0\0\0\0\0\^X\^A\0\0\^Xl\0\0\^A\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^Y\^A\0\0\0\0\0\0!\0\0\0\M^@Z\0\0\^_\0\0\0\^B\0\0\0zZ\0\0\^F\0\0\0\0\^D\0\0\0\0\0\0007?\^C\0\0\0\0\0\^A\^D\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0d\0\0\0\^B\^D\0\0\0\0\0\0\^F\^D\0\0\0\0\0\0\b\^D\0\0\0\0\0\0f?\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\

If you have a second full-fledged macOS boot drive you can use hexdump instead:

Unmount disk0 with diskutil umountDisk disk0
hexdump the first 3 blocks starting with block409640 of disk0:

sudo dd if=/dev/disk0 skip=409640 count=3 | hexdump

The following result identfies it as a normal OS X partition:

0000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000400 48 2b 00 04 80 00 21 00 48 46 53 4a 00 00 01 ff
0000410 d3 8c 77 d3 d4 33 3c b0 00 00 00 00 d3 8c 5b b3
0000420 00 00 02 a8 00 00 00 25 00 00 10 00 00 fe b7 f6
0000430 00 fe 1e fa 00 ed 80 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00
0000440 00 00 10 f2 00 00 5a 9d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01
0000450 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000460 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 7d 9d b0 3a 02 31 62 f0
0000470 00 00 00 00 00 1f e0 00 00 1f e0 00 00 00 01 fe
0000480 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000490 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00004c0 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 06 00
00004d0 00 00 0a 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00004e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000510 00 00 00 00 03 10 00 00 03 10 00 00 00 00 31 00
0000520 00 03 ac 00 00 00 31 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000530 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000560 00 00 00 00 05 40 00 00 05 40 00 00 00 00 54 00
0000570 00 00 10 00 00 00 54 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000580 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000600

The first number is the byte count in hex: 0000000: 0; 0000600: 1536. The * denotes identical lines. This means: the first two blocks (0x000-0x3ff) are all zeros.

A CoreStorage partition shows some non-zeros in the first block (0x000-0x1ff):

0000000 0c 73 a1 a9 ff ff ff ff 01 00 10 00 07 14 d7 01
0000010 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000030 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000040 00 20 c1 cc 0f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000050 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 43 53 01 00 00 00 04 00
0000060 00 10 00 00 00 00 40 00 11 bc fc 00 00 00 00 00
0000070 11 c0 fc 00 00 00 00 00 11 c4 fc 00 00 00 00 00
0000080 11 c8 fc 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000090 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000a0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 02 00 00 00
00000b0 62 02 98 59 ee a9 ab 51 9b 49 23 90 2e f8 8b 43
00000c0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000130 e4 6e f8 f2 63 99 45 c1 b2 13 86 28 a5 18 46 6d
0000140 c4 51 c0 f6 32 f9 43 ab 8e 59 42 d2 1a ef f6 50
0000150 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000400 48 2b 00 04 80 00 21 00 48 46 53 4a 00 00 01 ff
0000410 d1 98 a4 93 d4 33 8b d5 00 00 00 00 d1 98 88 73
0000420 00 06 07 53 00 01 82 39 00 00 10 00 00 fb 6a 00
0000430 00 c5 1c 55 00 25 73 c7 00 01 00 00 00 01 00 00
0000440 00 0d e2 65 00 3e a2 fb 00 00 00 00 02 20 00 fb
0000450 00 00 00 31 00 06 b9 ef 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000460 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 31 fb 48 1e a0 6c 47 a2 9f
0000470 00 00 00 00 00 1f e0 00 00 1f e0 00 00 00 01 fe
0000480 00 00 00 01 00 00 01 fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000490 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00004c0 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 60 00 00 00 00 06 00
00004d0 00 00 0a 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00004e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000510 00 00 00 00 0e 40 00 00 01 30 00 00 00 00 e4 00
0000520 00 00 10 00 00 00 e4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000530 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000560 00 00 00 00 11 d0 00 00 01 30 00 00 00 01 1d 00
0000570 00 02 80 00 00 00 72 00 00 13 30 97 00 00 13 00
0000580 00 15 c5 aa 00 00 13 00 00 18 2d 23 00 00 13 00
0000590 00 19 d8 fb 00 00 13 00 00 1b 76 cb 00 00 13 00
00005a0 00 1c 34 70 00 00 13 00 00 1d 0e 4d 00 00 13 00
00005b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000600

The line starting with byte 0x130 shows the UUID of the Physical Volume, the line starting with byte 0x140 shows the UUID of the Logical Volume Group.

The string 48 46 53 4a (= "HFSJ") in the first 16 bytes of the third blocks identifies a Journaled HFS+ volume on both partition types.

An APFS container looks like this:

0000000 e7 ec ab 5b a2 94 96 44 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000010 18 0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 80 00 00 00 00
0000020 4e 58 53 42 00 10 00 00 f6 37 ff 00 00 00 00 00
0000030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000040 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 11 f1 5e 40 31 10 4c 20
0000050 bb 47 53 66 7e 8b 42 d5 b9 c4 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000060 19 0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 01 00 00 18 6c 00 00
0000070 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 19 01 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000080 21 00 00 00 80 5a 00 00 1f 00 00 00 02 00 00 00
0000090 7a 5a 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000a0 37 fd 03 00 00 00 00 00 01 04 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000b0 00 00 00 00 64 00 00 00 02 04 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000c0 06 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 04 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000d0 66 a4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00000e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00003d0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 16 21 06 00 00 00 00 00
00003e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
00004f0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 91 3d 0f 00 00 00 00 00
0000500 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000510 78 f4 09 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000520 01 00 04 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000530 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

The string 4e 58 53 42 (= "NXSB") starting with byte 0x020 in the first block is the magic string of an APFS container superblock and identifies it as APFS container. The UUID of the container starts at 0x48 (here: 11 f1 5e 40 ...)

If you have found a standard partition (which usually is accompanied by a Recovery HD), you can add them with the following commands:

diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt add -i 5 -b 2541879520 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0
diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt add -i 4 -b 409640 -s 2541469880 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

If you have found a CoreStorage partition (which usually is accompanied by a Recovery HD), you can add them with the following commands:

diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt add -i 5 -b 2541879520 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0
diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt add -i 4 -b 409640 -s 2541469880 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

If you have found an APFS partition (no Recovery HD - it's included in the APFS container!), you can add it with the following commands:

diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt add -i 4 -b 409640 -s 2542739416 -t 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

Booted to a normal system you have to prepend sudoto the gpt ... commands. Under certain circumstances you have to disable SIP.

Finally check the partitions/volumes:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s3

Your previous partition layout may have contained a gap between the "former" Recovery HD and the Microsoft Reserved partition (size: 32768 blocks type: E3C9E316-0B5C-ADB8-817D-F92DF00215AE). Then the verifyVolume commands will fail and bigger guns have to be brought up. Don't try to repair or initialize anything if asked!

If you run into unexpected problems, add a comment!


Screenshot file much larger dimensionally than original So I take a screenshot of an area with Command+Shift+4 but when I open the screenshot file in Paint X, the image's dimensions are far larger than the original area.

Is there any way to take a screenshot that looks exactly like the taken part of the screen?

Screenshots taken on a Retina display will be twice the size as screenshots taken on a non-Retina display.

Most software such as Preview will compensate for this, however I'm unfamiliar with Paint X and doubt it is correctly showing the image rather than the image being 'wrong'. Try using software optimised for a Retina display.

If you want take screenshots for non-Retina displays, you can use RetinaCapture. Note that these screenshots at 100% on Retina displays in software optimised for Retina will be smaller than real size.


How can I access the remote clipboard when Screen Sharing into a Linux system I am using Screen Sharing to do vnc to my work computer running Linux,
however the Edit -> Cut,Copy, Paste,Delete commands are all greyed out.
Is there some way to enable these options ?

On a related question, I could get text from one vnc window to the clipboard when highlighted with the mouse, and can paste to the same vnc window, but I can't paste the same text to another vnc window... as if the clipboard isn't updating. Seems each vnc window remembers its own clipboard updates only,
which is not what I want. Would prefer clipboard info to be available to
all vnc windows, is this possible ?

There's a program called vncconfig that makes clipboard integration work. Just run it in your sever like:

vncconfig &

And now it works. Kind of a miserably named program though. Another tip is to add vncconfig & to your ~/.vnc/xstartup script so you always have it.


How do I copy global text substitution settings into iWork '09 (Keynote, Pages)? Amazingly, a year after Lion has been released, iWork still does not support Lion / ML's global text substitution settings.

I use these widely for special technical symbols.

Although global text substitution is not supported in iWork, Keynote and Pages do have their own local text substitution function, which performs the same as the global one, but doesn't use the global settings.

My problem? I have about 100 text substitutions set up in Lion, so entering them in each iWork application would take an age.

Does anyone know a way (e.g. by editing preference files etc.) to transfer all the settings from Lion's text substitution feature into Keynote and Pages?

This would be a huge time saver for me.

The substitutions for Pages.app are stored in:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist

Specifically they are in Root/kSFWPAutoSubstitutionArrayProperty. The format is a an array containing dictionaries with the keys replace, with and on.

The Global Substitutions are located at ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist.
Specifically, they are in Root/NSUserReplacementItems. The format, conveniently, is identical.

It's probably possible just to open ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist as plain text and copy across what you want into ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork.Pages.plist.


OS X Server behind an ADSL router I have a Mac Mini with OS X Server installed on my LAN that I use as a Git server and Continuous Integration server. I would like to be able to use these services from outside my LAN but I'm not sure what to do to make it work.

My network goes all through an ADSL router and its IP is not static. From what I've read so far I need a DDNS service to provide me a static address to my server. I subscribed to one and configured a their client on my server to hourly update the IP.

Now I have a host address that I don't know what to do with it, it does not provide me any of the services my server provides when I try to access it… Do I have to open some ports?

I've been doing exactly what you describe for 8 years, it works just fine.

I assume you set up Server with your internal IP address, and that it is a fixed IP on the local network? Server does NOT like having it's IP address changed.

The external address can change 10 times a day. You say you already have a domain and a dynamic update service - I assume it's one that updates your domain A record when your external address changes? All good.

Yes, you will have to forward a ton of ports. This is another reason you need a fixed ip address on your LAN. Either forward the ports you need or just DMZ the server ( expose it to the internet ) but mind that the router does not also assign the server the global IP address.

To get an idea of which ports are needed for each service, take a look at TCP and UDP ports used by apple products.


What is best after a clean install, copying Application Folder or reinstalling all the applications? I have done a clean install but I was wondering if it would make any difference if I just reinstall all my old applications or if I just move my backup applications folder.

It really depends on the application, so there is no correct a) or b) solution that would encompass all your apps.

Many Mac apps are 'installed' by the simple expedient of copying the app from a disk image to the Applications folder.
So long as your new install uses the same Apple ID as your old &/or you have any required activation keys, all is good.

The issue arises with apps that needed to run as an Installer, asking permissions to modify System items, install background processes etc. For those you will need to correctly re-install.

I guess empirically, the 'suck it & see' method might be the simplest...
...copy the Applications folder across, see which ones work... [avoid copying any default Apple Apps]


OS X stopped auto mounting external drivers My MacBook stopped auto-mounting external hard drives this week.  I have to mount them in Disk Utility, which works fine.

This has happened with three different drives (which all had Time Machine volumes). Flash drives still auto-mount, as did an SSD.

I think this may or may not have coincided with installing Parallels Desktop, but I haven't been running it, even in the background.

This is a 2016 USB-C MacBook Pro running 10.14.4.

Encrypted Core Storage and macOS 10.14.4

macOS 10.14.4 changed the behaviour of auto-mounting Core Storage/HFS+ formatted encrypted drives. These drives appear to no longer be automatically mounted.

Please let Apple know this change of behaviour in a minor macOS update is causing you problems. The more people who provide feedback, the better and the better the chance of it being assigned engineering time.

See Automatically Mount Encrypted Core Storage Volume (10.14.4+).


Netflix interferes with Safari custom tab change shortcut? I used this method to set the tab-changing shortcut in Safari to Cmd+Opt+Left/Right (same as in Chrome). It works, except that when I'm watching Netflix and try changing tabs while the video is playing, it registers only as left/right and makes the video jump backward/forward by 10 seconds, instead of changing tabs as intended.
Is there a way to fix this? I would like Cmd+Opt+Left/Right to always change tabs, even if the webpage I'm on has specific behavior for the left/right keys on their own.
Strangely, Youtube does not have this issue, even though the left/right keys have similar behavior for the Youtube video player.

Using hammerspoon. After installing hammerspoon (I used brew cask install hammerspoon), just edit/create the file ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua to include:
left = hs.hotkey.new({"cmd", "alt"}, "left", function()
  hs.eventtap.keyStroke({"cmd", "shift"}, "[")
end)

right = hs.hotkey.new({"cmd", "alt"}, "right", function()
  hs.eventtap.keyStroke({"cmd", "shift"}, "]")
end)

hs.application.watcher.new(function(appName, eventType, appObject)
  if appName == "Safari" then
    if eventType == hs.application.watcher.activated then
      left:enable()
      right:enable()
    elseif eventType == hs.application.watcher.deactivated then
      left:disable()
      right:disable()
    end
  end
end):start()

Then start Hammerspoon.app.
Then enable Hammerspoon control in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility. (Maybe you will need to Reload Config from Hammerspoon's menu bar item after this).


Do the Mojave or Catalina patchers support AMD PC GPUs or do you need a flashed card for this? In the past, I had used dosdude1's High Sierra patcher to get macOS 10.13 on an older Mac Pro. However, the GPU in this machine is a non-flashed AMD R9 270X, so I couldn't get a boot screen and had to rely on setting the boot drive either before rebooting or setting it from command line.
Recently I tried to see if I could experiment with Mojave and the newer patcher, but I don't seem to get the video card to wake up like it did with the High Sierra patcher. Of course, being a non-flashed card I can't see the boot screen so I can't tell if the USB gets recognized or not, but after letting it sit for several minutes I don't get anything and I wonder if it is going to even work with this graphics card. With the High Sierra patcher, it would eventually come to life so I could install the AMD 5xxx/6xxx patch (though my card is a 7xxx).
Anyone know? I think Mojave or Catalina might be pushing it for the old beast at this point, but any last drops of life I can squeeze out of it before I drop money on an M1 :-)

'older Mac Pro'… specifics would be good.
However, the R9 270X in its HD 7950 guise works fine on a 4,1 with firmware upgrade & a standard 5,1. With an unflashed card you must not use anything which needs the bootscreen - filevault or EFI/firmware lock of any sort.
The smart money was always on keeping the original video card for situations such as these, though neither the GT120 nor the HD5700 can actually run Mojave.
Anecdotally, Mojave is better than High Sierra imho, but personally I wouldn't push any cheesegrater to Catalina.
You'd be wise in any case to very carefully read dosdude's page on Mojave, as it contains a lot of caveats dependent on the precise Mac Pro model.


how to access Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) via VNC-over-SSH? I've done a bit of research and it seems ARD is somewhat based on VNC technology. It even has the option to allow access via VNC viewers using a password.

I want to enable this option so I can interact with my mac pro when needed. But I'm wary of the security.

I've use VNC-over-SSH in the past but with other OSes like FreeBSD and Linux. I'm wondering if something like this is feasible on OSX using built-in features.

I've searched the net but didn't find what I'm looking for.

Thanks a lot :)

So you can.  If you open System Preferences > Sharing, and check both remote management (to start the vnc server) and remote login (to start the ssh server); you should be able to login remotely using vnc over ssh.

Note: You must have all needed ports forwarded correctly, and an android client capable of connecting over ssh.


MacBook Air + iMac + external display I have a setup of a MacBook Air (2013), an iMac (2009), and a regular external monitor. I’m able to connect either the iMac or the monitor to the MacBook and use them as an additional screen. Is there way though to connect both of them at once, so that I have two external monitors managed by the MacBook? Obviously, the MacBook only has one Thunderbolt port, but there’s an extra one available on the iMac. Any way to utilise it in this case?

Short Answer

Yes, but you need a USB display adapter (any DisplayLink adapter, like this one should do) for your MacBook Air, the iMac can’t do passthrough.

Longer Answer

The 2009 iMacs don’t have Thunderbolt, only mini-Displayport. Even the later iMacs with Thunderbolt can’t do passthrough with their second Thunderbolt ports. Therefore you need a second display connection on the source Mac. Since the MBA only has one, you’ll need to use a USB-based adapter. There are many options, pretty much all of them using the DisplayLink technology. It works well for 2D stuff, but don’t expect to do any gaming or other 3D work on it.


Can I extend my MacBook Air 13.3 A1369 SSD to 512GB? So the question in the title “Can I extend my MacBook Air 13.3 A1369 SSD to 512GB?”

Yes http://eshop.macsales.com/search/MBA2011.480

You will need to reinstall the OS onto that drive or clone your current drive to it.


Find a specific file with automator The basic question is:

  How can I pass a filename to the Spotlight search module in Automator?

The essential problem:

I have hundreds of broken aliases scattered throughout a particular directory on my HD. The original files DO STILL EXIST, but for some reason the aliases have lost their connection.  I would like to replace them all with symlinks, so that they can be backed up by Rsync.

Here is a scaled-down example of a folder with broken aliases in it:

Now here is an example of a sub-directory that contains both the originals of some of the broken aliases, as well as additional copies of the SAME alias, that still point to another location for their originals:

And lastly, here is an image of a directory that contains the master files to some of the aliases that were located in both of the previous 2 locations:

So what I need to do is:

Identify all aliases in a user-defined directory
Use the filenames of those aliases to locate their original files, in a second user-defined directory (recursively and ensuring not to identify a second alias as an original)
remove the alias
create a symlink to the original file, in the former location of the alias

I'm using Automator wherever I can, and Applescript wherever I must.  Prior to the response that prompted these edits, my workflow did the following:

Prompt for the location to look for original files
Prompt for location to look for aliases
Get POSIX paths to all aliases
Get text filenames of all the aliases

Now, it gets a bit further but with some problems:

I had an alias titled "3dfx & ambience.rfl" (changed already in the screenshots to "3dfx and ambience.rfl").  The applescript provided would fail on that file due to the ampersand.
After fixing #1, the script ran and did indeed remove broken aliases and replace them with symlinks.  But the symlinks pointed to the parent folder that contained the originals, not the originals themselves.  So I ended up with 2 symlinks, "Luftrum 1 - Thor Ambient.rfl" and "Luftrum 2 - Thor Ambient II.rfl", that in reality pointed to the "Luftrum" folder shown in my third screenshot above.

Hopefully this will be enough detail to ultimately arrive at a working solution.  I can tell it's very close.

Usually "broken alias" refers to an alias where the original file no longer exists. I have used this script to find aliases like that:

set l to {}
tell application "Finder"
    try
        alias files of entire contents of (POSIX file "/Users/username" as alias)
        result as list
    on error
        return
    end try
    repeat with f in result
        try
            original item of contents of f
        on error
            --move contents of f to trash
            set end of l to POSIX path of (f as text)
        end try
    end repeat
end tell
set text item delimiters to linefeed
l as text

If the script finds the aliases you want to replace symlinks, save the relevant lines of the output to a text file. Then try running a shell script like this:

cat /tmp/aliases.txt | while IFS= read -r f; do
  original=$(find ~/directory/with/original/files -name "${f##*/}" | head -n1)
  echo "$f:$original"
  # rm "$f"; ln -s "$original" "$f"
done


iCloud Notes not syncing I have been using the Notes app to take notes on my iPhone 5s for years now but recently I'd like to make those notes accessible on my iMac and Nexus 7  Tablet.

To sync them to the cloud I added Notes syncing on my phone and moved all my local notes over the iCloud account. Everything appears to work and if I login to my iCloud account through the web browser the notes appear online. But the notes will not sync to the Notes app on either my iMac or Nexus 7 (running the Notepad app).

I have attempted enabling/disabling the Notes app on iMac and Notepad app on the Nexus 7. Closing/opening the app. Restarting the both devices. Nothing seems to work.

Is there some workaround for this I'm missing or is iCloud Notes sync somehow broken.

I'm running the latest OSX (10.10.5) and lates IOS (9.0.1).

Aside: I've attempted to use Google Notes sync as an alternative but the OSX version of Notes doesn't play nice with Google's 2-factor auth.

Update: I have a note that was created before the update that did successfully sync to my iMac and Nexus 7 prior to updating Notes on my iPhone. As a test I just made a change to it on the Nexus 7 and it successfully synced the note on my iMac but didn't update the note on my iPhone.

It looks like the iPhone is successfully using the latest version that links with my iCloud account but my iMac and Nexus 7 are working with an old version that doesn't reflect on my iCloud account. WTF.

Updating OSX to El Capitan resolved the issue.

Update:

Just to clarify. The issue started when I updated my iPhone to the latest version (ie IOS9). A notification popped up saying my iMac's would also need to be updated to IOS9 to remain compatible which is likely a bug as my iMac doesn't run IOS (Ie should have said OSX 10.11 El Capitan).

At the time I wrote this question I wasn't aware that OSX had just released a new version.

From what I can tell, Notes.app has received a big overhaul in the latest IOS/OSX. Looks like they're on the warpath to kill and replace Evernote. Either way, the new features aren't available in older versions.

Looks like their syncing strategy is to continue syncing the old version of notes between devices but (eventually) cut iCloud.com support.


Mac and Windows backup I have a Mac and a PC at home, and I am thinking of getting a NAS like (GoFlex Home Network Storage System or Western Digital My Book Live) to back up both machines.

If I were to use Time Machine to backup on the NAS system, would the Windows be able to backup to the same NAS? If you know of any good ways to backup both PC and Mac, do let me know as well.

One easy way to do this would have separate shares: one for Time Machine to back up your Macs and another for another program to back up your PCs.

(The shares could be separate partitions or separate folders on a single partition; it depends on how your NAS is set up.)


Is /usr/bin/etags severely out of date in Yosemite? Is /usr/bin/etags severely out of date in Yosemite?  If so, what is the easiest way to get an up-to-date version of etags, to use with Emacs from http://emacsformacosx.com/?

I am using:

GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0, NS apple-appkit-1265.21) of 2014-10-20 on builder10-9.porkrind.org.
Yosemite 10.10.1

Emacs from http://emacsformacosx.com/ comes with a recent etags:

$find /Applications/Emacs.app -name etags\*
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-i386-10_5/etags
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-powerpc-10_4/etags
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_5/etags
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_7/etags
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_9/etags
[...]

It's the corresponding version to emacs:

$ /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin-x86_64-10_9/etags --version
etags (GNU Emacs 24.4)
Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.


Minecraft Immediately Crashes On Launchup I'm running Mavericks 10.9.5.
This is my java version:

Whenever I started Minecraft up, it would immediately crash.

I tried:

Reinstalling Minecraft
Deleting the minecraft folder in Application Support
Reinstalling Java

Hints for the problem:

Downloaded the most recent Java. Version 8 Update 45.
Ran this command in terminal:

sudo mv /usr/bin/java /usr/bin/java-1.6

Ran this command in terminal:

sudo ln -s '/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/java' /usr/bin/java

I was having troubles with running a plugin, so I thought it was my java. After I did all of that, java wouldn't work at all. I tried to enter "java -version" in terminal, and it would say "unknown command".

After that happened, I went to Apple Java, and installed the most recent build, found here: https://support.apple.com/downloads/java

I installed "Java for OS X 2015-001 Beta.

After that, I could type in "java -version" with no problem. After I restarted my computer, Minecraft wouldn't launch. When I try to run my own server, it starts up, and then it fails and crashes.

Note: Java Control Panel also crashes on launch.

Do you have mods? Delete those first then try. To delete them go into application support then minecraft then mods and delete them.


Make backup of Time Machine volume on Time Capsule I have two laptops that back up via Time Machine to a Time Capsule. The shared volume on the Time Capsule contains two .sparsebundle files.

Can I copy those .sparsebundle files to an external hard disk and expect them to work as Time Machine backup resources again?

I usually send my Time Machine hard disks to a remote location every few months. With the Time Capsule I don't want to do that. That's whyt I want to copy the data and need to know whether I can still restore from it if I do.

Can I copy those .sparsebundle files to an external hard disk and expect them to work as Time Machine backup resources again?

Almost certainly yes.

Modes and ownership

Ideally, use chmod(1) and chown(8) to have the mode and ownership, of the copy of the disk image, consistent with how Mountain Lion normally creates a local disk image for Time Machine.

Example

GPES3E-gjp4-1:~ gjp22$ sudo ls -al /Volumes/tall/com.apple.backupd/GPES3E-gjp4-1.sparsebundle/
Password:
total 16672
drwx------@ 3 root   staff     10  7 Jun 19:07 .
drwxr-xr-x  8 gjp22  staff     10  6 Jun 18:57 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    500  7 Jun 18:03 Info.bckup
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    500  7 Jun 18:03 Info.plist
drwx------  2 root   staff  78855  7 Jun 19:07 bands
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    444  7 Jun 18:02 com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.bckup
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    444  7 Jun 18:02 com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff   1473  6 Jun 21:28 com.apple.TimeMachine.Results.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff  10698  6 Jun 22:24 com.apple.TimeMachine.SnapshotHistory.plist
-rwx------  1 root   staff      0 19 Mar 19:36 token

– and for each band, you should have:

-rw-------  1 root  staff

Attaching the copy of the disk image

With Terminal, for the example above:

sudo hdiutil attach -readonly /Volumes/tall/com.apple.backupd/GPES3E-gjp4-1.sparsebundle/

If you use Terminal from within Recovery OS: you'll probably not need the sudo prefix to the command.

Additional detail

  … whether I can still restore …

You require:

a copy of a Time Machine destination, a copy that will be good for restoration
not an additional Time Machine destination.

Assumption

You wish the copy to be usable, for restoration only, in the event of loss or failure of the Time Capsule.

If the disk is attached from a local image where modes and ownership vary from the norm for a local image:

OS X or Recovery OS might use that disk without difficulty; I can't be certain.

Thoughts

If you're preparing for the possibility of loss or failure of a Time Capsule – and restoration from a copy of what was there – then think a step further, to backing up without the original Time Capsule. (If you wish the copy to be writeable by Time Machine, that could be a separate question.)

All things considered

It's probably quicker and simpler to use the external hard disk, or a part, as a Time Machine destination.


How to replace iPhone 4 front glass? My iPhone 4 front glass broke. Screen is OK, I only want to replace the glass. Assuming I get a new glass, is it hard to replace it myself? Can anyone provide some step by step tutorial on how to replace it?

As with every "do it yourself" and "Apple", you have to be careful and know that it will possibly void your warranty. In any case, if you still decide to proceed with this, it is certainly possible to replace your iPhone 4's glass. There's a very nice tutorial with pictures at iFixit.

Installing iPhone 4 Front Panel Assembly

  "Replacing the display assembly will
  give you a new front glass panel,
  digitizer, and LCD. The LCD is adhered
  to the glass at the factory and the
  two parts are not separable without
  damage."


Apps disappearing from launchpad? Looking at this image:

You will see a blank space at the bottom. That's actually a disappearing app. Next to it you can see a folder that is missing the icon. Next to that you will notice a folder called PgAdmin.

Now, the missing app in the empty space is totally inaccessible. The folder with the name but missing icon might as well be. Clicking anywhere in those spots just acts the same as clicking in any empty space and closes Launchpad.

The PgAdmin folder I mentioned shows there are apps inside (the PgAdmin app and another folder.) When you open the folder, it displays as empty.

This happened while just trying to rearrange and organize launchpad. I'm using the most current (updated tonight) Yosemite.

First try to restart in Safe mode that sometimes fixes minor problems.

If not, then open the terminal application and past following

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true; killall Dock

This should reset your launchpad.


Is Apple eSim on Watch 3 / iPhone XS proprietary standard? Is it a proprietary standard? I know GSMA has a standard by the same name but if it is not proprietary, then why does Apple list all the supported carriers on their website? They wouldn't know what carriers do and don't support the standard in let's say Germany?

Is there some way Apple has control over what carrier they will allow to be used on the phone / watch?

eSIM is an open JEDEC standard for the interface to the hardware component of a SIM card designed to replace the UICC (smart-card) interface that is in common usage, the third-generation Apple Watch just happened to be the first major device to use it commercially.  There is actually no special support required for the hardware itself.

What is required for carrier support though is the ability to remotely provision the SIM.  Because an eSIM is not removable from the device, it has to be provisioned (configured for authentication to the carrier) in the device.  This particular aspect is what Apple's list is about, some carriers support it, some don't.  It's also really easy for them to find out which of the major ones do (they can literally just ask them, because Apple really is that big that they can do stuff like that).


How to entirely burn all 700MB of a CD while data is smaller? I want the whole surface of the CD to be burned, is there a way to do this with a image disk for example or do I have to add junk ?

Create the disk image first..  As a sparseimage or a dmg, etc…  Just make sure it is the final size of your desired media…  (presets are available in the "New" panel.
Mount it.. Put what you want on it…
Burn it.  If it's a 700MB image… It'll get burned on all 700 MB.

Peace.


MacBook multi-touch trackpad support Why is 3-4 finger multitouch support not available (not even listed as trackpad preference options) on my late 2008 white plastic Mac book?

The trackpad in the 2008 white plastic MacBook isn't capable of supporting multitouch gestures. As it's a hardware limitation -- meaning the trackpad hardware can't sense input from 3-4 separate fingers at once -- there aren't any hacks to get around the limitation.

One way to get full multitouch support would be to get a Magic Trackpad. They'll work with any bluetooth-enabled Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.4 or later.


Quick Shortcut to skim through web search results I wish to utilize all the shortcuts I can, but I'm not sure how it is called in the first place. (that must be why I cannot find the shortcut for it by searching..)

I've seen a friend use it to speed up going through search results instead of using the mouse key to scroll and click, but it is too long ago. I've tried several combinations to no avail. [Keyboard preference] on the menu was not quite informative.

How do you go through search items on the same tab just using shortcut on Mac? (Safari or Chrome, if different)

For instance, you will see an arrow next to the search result (lets say I am to see the 2nd return result) you have stopped at. At which point you can just press Enter to view.

In Safari ⌥ + Tab appears to select every link through google. Tried it in DuckDuckGo and I don't get the same behavior but if you search and just use the up and down arrow keys without clicking anything it selects the various links.

Chrome it appears you may need an extension such as Google Search Keyboard Shortcuts


Stuck with Safari 6 beta I installed the Safari 6 beta a few weeks ago. Now that Safari 6 has been released for Lion, I can't seem to find anywhere to get it.

The Safari download page redirects to the main Safari page with no download link.
Apple's developer site, Apple's downloads and even the download for Safari 5.1.5 all link to the Safari download page (which as I mentioned doesn't have a download link).
It is not listed in Software Update.

Here's my Software Update history showing that it hasn't been installed without me noticing:

Here's the Safari build I currently have:

Am I missing something?

I have run into the same issue.

I have the developer preview of Safari 6 (Beta) installed on Lion and now that ML is out, I can no longer get the uninstaller from Apple's Developer Connection Website.  Like you said, all the links are stale and point me in the direction of the Safari Website with no download links.

All direct links to the Safari 6 Beta Uninstaller, like this one:

Uninstaller

Do not work and say that your session has expired.

Unfortunately, at the moment, I have not been able to find a copy of that uninstaller or any older version of Safari to reinstall.  Usually though, the beta version is just superseded by newer versions that will be coming out eventually or they will release an update for beta users, or reissue links for the uninstaller.  Unless you can find the uninstaller somewhere, I would suggest doing nothing. Do not uninstall safari yourself or delete things, this might cause issues that could just as easily be fixed with patience. It suck to mess things up and make things worse when technically the Safari 6 Beta works just like Safari 6 for Lion.

I know it isn't the solution you were looking for, but everything will work itself out, either with Apple fixing things, or an update that just installs the newer version for you.

I hope that it helps.


Magic Mouse disconnects macOS Mojave (MacBook Pro 2018) I bought a new 2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. I am experiencing Bluetooth issues such as my Magic Mouse disconnecting randomly and lagging. These are the steps I have taken (not in the order as listed here) though I am still experiencing the dropouts. Any other suggestions?

Removed Bluetooth devices from existing connections.
Turn off and on Bluetooth and Wifi.
Remove Bluetooth PAN from network interface.
Have fresh batteries.
Remove the cover from the mouse.
Put a piece of paper between the batteries and the cover.
Clean connectors from mouse.
Debug Bluetooth.
Remove and reconnect Bluetooth devices.
Disable Handoff.
Reset NVRAM.
Restarted in safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac.
A combination of disconnecting, resetting NVRAM, safe mode, and pairing.
Unplugged USB-C hub to avoid interference.
Checked for metal objects and 2.4GHz interference.
Renamed my Bluetooth devices.
Removed com.apple.Bluetooth.plist (whenever the Bluetooth is about to cut out a copy of com.apple.Bluetooth.plist is created, not sure if this means something).

[Edit: I have had my Bluetooth antenna in my MacBook replaced and it is somewhat better, though, still not fully solved]

Updating Xcode has limited the disconnects from the keyboard and Magic Mouse (still not perfect but much better).

To update Xcode, open your Terminal and enter xcode-select --install.
You may have to delete the old version of Xcode before installing the latest Xcode. Make sure to also install the command line developer tools.


Can print graphics, but no text to Canon printer This has stumped me. Printing was working normally before.
I wrote a document in Pages with text, and one horizontal divider line. I printed it, and only the line printed. After that point, I could only print graphics to the printer, not text.
Printer is a Canon imageCLASS MF8080Cw over a network. Printing the same PDF document from Windows works.
I tried:

Print to PDF, then print PDF. Only the line printed.
Save to RTF and open in Textedit, then print. Line was not exported to RTF, printed a blank page. Also printed from Libre Office, blank page.
In Pages, changed text colour and font. No change.
Printed a text chat. Emojis and bubbles printed, no text.
Did a screen capture and printed that from preview. Image printed fine.
Rebooted and tried again. Removed printer from settings, re-added, and tried again. No change.
Printed a printer test page from the Canon print queue. Graphics part printed fine, no text.
Tried to print text from Keynote, no text printed.

This baffles me. It as if a bug in Pages just made fonts disappear somewhere before the document gets sent out the network. It seems like there should be some way to reset that, but I don't know enough to know where or how. Any suggestions?

In the end, I uninstalled and reinstalled the printer driver software, which fixed the problem.


Find All MP4 Files With DTS or AC3/A52 Audio? Okay, so after spending a lot of time encoding (or re-encoding) files to mp4's hoping they'd be compatible with iTunes, it turns out that iTunes won't play files with DTS or AC3/A52 audio, so I'm going to have to re-encode the audio on such files to AAC (where before I simply passed it through).

Anyway, I need a way to find all files with these audio types or, if it's easier, all MP4 files without AAC audio.

What is the best way to do this? Ideally I'd like to use Spotlight if I can, though I've tried several search criteria without much luck, but I'll also accept answers that use Terminal-based solutions, as I'll probably use ffmpeg to convert the audio anyway.

I made a shell script. This will print any file that has a different codec.
Set the directory and extension to look for.

#!/bin/zsh
directory=~/Music
extension=m4a
codec=aac

find $directory -type f -name "*.$extension" -print0 | while read -d $'\0' file
do
    file_codec="$(ffprobe -v quiet -show_streams -print_format json $file | jq '.streams[0].codec_name')"
    [[ "${file_codec//\"}" != $codec ]] && echo $file
done

You need ffmpeg and jq. You can install both of them from homebrew.


AppleScript used to download subtitle files I'm trying to download over 1000 subtitle files for a list of films. I have the list in Microsoft Excel. I found an application called FlixTools that lets you search for a film and then download the subtitles for that film. So far, I have written the following AppleScript:

activate application "Microsoft Excel"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft Excel"
    keystroke "c" using command down
    key code 125
end tell
activate application "FlixTools"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "FlixTools" to keystroke "v" using command down
tell application "System Events" to tell process "FlixTools" to click button "Save Subtitle"

Running this code returns an error saying: "Can't get button "Save Subtitle" of process "FlixTools"".

The FlixTools window looks like this:

After clicking on the "Save Subtitle" button on the bottom right, a window appears to save the file:

I'm new to AppleScript, so any help on how to format achieve this would be appreciated.

Use the following example to click the "Save Subtitle" button:

tell application "System Events" to click UI element "Save Subtitle" of group 1 of window 1 of application process "FlixTools"


How to search for evidence of Camfecting (webcam hacking) on MB? I'm worried about camfecting (webcam hacking). The built-in camera light on my macbook (running OSX) is not on, but it isn't hard wired so that doesn't say a lot.

Can I watch outbound traffic in activity monitor to detect data egress (live streaming seems most likely when camfecting is in progress)?

Objective See has an application that continuously monitors webcam and microphone activity called OverSight. It throws up a notification if either become active and has worked well for me.

Note: the developers rightly warn that this software may not catch all malicious use of the webcam or microphone.

https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html


Apache "Client denied by server configuration" When I am running my localsite/~user.name/ on OS X 10.7.5 it is loading the the correct page but in the log /var/log/apache2/error_log it's recording this message.

[Fri Mar 14 00:17:07 2014] [error] [client ::1] client denied by server configuration: /usr/~

Here is my httpd-vhost configuration for localhost

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName localhost
  DocumentRoot "~/Sites"
  <Directory  "~/Sites">
    Options Indexes Multiviews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

A check of apachectl -t shows no unexpected errors since I'm using localhost and don't need fully qualified DNS:

  httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using MacBookPro.local for ServerName
  Syntax OK

I am serving plain text files with basic html in them. What could be the reason for this?

access to the directory on the hard disk was denied by an Apache... that can be an explicit deny directive, or if the dir is outside of document root.

I suspect you don't have (and don't want!) /usr as part of your documentroot.


Is there any app to make/receive calls on iphone from another non-apple device? I have an iPhone that I use mainly to connect to internet and another device that simply makes calls and not have much features. It becomes frustrating using two devices when answering calls. There is a feature called "Call Divert" which charges for each call diverted, and using a Bluetooth headset is inevitable especially when you are having much less call frequency. So is there any app, without the need to be JAILBROKEN to connect the iPhone with other Bluetooth enabled device and simply act as a sound pathway so that calls and music on the other phone can be heard on this iPhone. More like using an iPhone as Bluetooth headset.

Yes, on your iPad or iPhone go to settings > facetime > choose the caller id option for your phone number, then an option will appear to allow iphone cellular calls.


Move some free space to Macintosh HD (Startup Disk) On my mac hard disk, Macintosh HD (Startup Disk) is almost full, I need to increase the size of Macintosh merging some free space from my another partition. But I tried all possible ways, free space always merged to same partition, not to Macintosh HD.

This requires the three partitions between the selected one and the intended one to be moved. Disk Utility can't do this without destructively destroying and recreating the partitions in the intended location, removing all data from the partitions. You will need third-party software such as iPartition. For more information, see Partitioning Software.


Is spam filtering on-device possible on the new iPad? Is there any way to enable spam filtering on iPad mail?

Unfortunately, no. The filtering happens on your mail server, if the one that you are using supports spam filter (like Gmail).


Disable File System Cache for USB Devices? Possible Duplicate:
  Disable “the disk was not ejected properly” message

When I have a USB Device like a SD Card, USB Drive or external hard drive, I always need to unmount it, otherwise OS X complains about the device not being ejected properly.

On Windows, the solution to this is trivial: Disable the File System Cache for USB Drives, so that they can be immediately and safely removed.

Does OS X have a way to disable the cache?

On SuperUser Q&A another user asked a similar question. The solution is a little bit tricky/efforty:

This should be possible by manually mounting the drive via the terminal. You'll have to eject the drive when you plug it in and then remount it in the terminal using the noasync option.
The best way to go about this would be to run mount in the terminal and take down the device so you know what to remount. Then umount /dev/disk1s1 (where disk1s1 is the device name) then mount -o noasync /dev/disk1s1. This method would also apply to most linux distros.
As you can see, it's easier to just remember to eject.


Problem with Monitor, flickering green I have the MacBookPro 15'' mid 2009 (10.9.3) , and from today I have green flickering on my monitor.

I did try with Reset PRAM, Repair Disk, also TechToolPro but i have the same problem.

It seem that the problem is with "black Color"

If I change the "total Black" I can "fix" the problem...

If i connect my Macbook with second Monitor, in Second monitor I haven't the problem but in "main monitor" the problem remains

What can I try ?

It is not clear it is the hardware (your screen) but the Safe mode indicates that.

things you can try

Disable Automatic Graphics Switching
run Apple Hardware test.. Press D during startup
disable any graphics controllers (external software) like the TechToolPro
Reset PRAM/NVRAM..press Option-Command-P-R until you hear startup sound a second time.
reinstall OS
NONE of the above worked..lets get to the final step..Hardware.. it might be the Cable..see instructions here how to get to it, just pull it out and back in, while you are at it vacuum clean the interior.

This is considered a Very difficult surgery, so if you are not of a steady hand and very handy with tools, skip the step and go to professional place.


How much faster is an external SSD than external HDD if internal drive is SSD? I'm running intensive animation software and am having speed issues.
At the moment I'm just working from an internal SSD.
How much faster should it run if I put the project files on an external HDD?
How much faster should an external SSD be than an external HDD?
Is it worth investing in external SSDs in this situation?

My computer is a 2011 MacBook Pro running on Mavericks - 8GB memory and Samsung 840 EVO 750GB 2.5-inch Basic SATA Solid State Drive with AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB graphics. I'm running After Effects (3D animation software).

I just did a speed test on my internal drive and it's at approximately 390-460 MB/s write speed and 500 MB/s read speed.

My main question is whether there would be a significant increase in performance if I put the after effects project on an external SSD thunderbolt. And whether there's much in a Transcend 256GB StoreJet and a 256GB Lacie SSD Rugged Thunderbolt. My mac doesn't have USB 3.0

Thanks
Steve

In your case probably a upgrade to SATA 3 SSD (internal) would do the most.

AFIK your model supports it, and you will get up to 6 Gb/s R/W speeds and combined with RAM upgrade would get you what you want.

Adding a external drive to expand the storage if needed, the one would use the Thunderbolt SSD.

Find out if your Model supports the SATA 3 SSD before spending the money:

Open About this mac- more info- system report - SATA..

then you will see something like I have

My little MacBook Air rocks, it can run up to 6 Gb/s


Macbook Pro mid-2014 (High Sierra) runs very hot My 5-ish year old Macbook Pro Retina running High Sierra runs very hot. I know the battery needs replacing, but I'm trying to work out if it makes sense to do this or if my Macbook is on the way out and I need a new laptop. The EtreCheck report is here: https://pastebin.com/VRaKknrF

The CPU temperature routinely runs above 65, and goes up to 75-80.

I'd be so grateful for any advice.

80 Celsius is well within normal CPU temperature for an MBP.

If it is working too hard, then I would look at all those third-party software listed in the EtreCheck report, and make sure they are necessary and up-to-date. If not, uninstall them.

I would definitely get rid of the Western Digital helper software. Some versions caused major problems with some OS versions.
Do you need VideoGuard? Flash? Silverlight? (MS killed that years ago.)
Some versions of Chrome have been known to install Google software update agents that run wild with CPU resources.
You're also running some fan control program: might that be limiting the cooling? Try it without.
You've got Monolingual from 2014. Loads of other stuff that I have no idea what it is. 'Freedom' doesn't seem to have been updated by the developer since 2014.

Your Mac might also be slow because you're running out of disk storage.

I have a 2014 MBP, and just got a new battery from Apple, and it runs like a charm.


Install OS 10.13 without iTunes 12.7 I need ability to manage my apps but not the app Store. Can OS 10.13 be installed without installing iTunes 12.7. Where can I download OS 10.13 that does not include iTunes?. I will be installing on a Mac Book Pro - Mid 2014.

You can install install iTunes 12.6.3 on top of / over iTunes 12.7 for all OS that support iTunes 12.7 and both are compatible with iOS 11.

Apple KB: Deploy apps in a business environment with iTunes

You need the direct link, it apparently does not appear as an update.
Mac link.
Windows 32 bit link.
Windows 64-bit Link.

If you've already been using 12.7 you may have luck importing your 12.7 lib  to a clean 12.6.3 Library, as outlined on MacRumors, but I had no joy.

I ended up restoring a backup of my Library [just the catalog not all the tunes] from a time before i updated to 12.7.


Is there a way to force photoanalysisd to work harder than it does by default? I migrated my rather large Photos library from El Capitan to High Sierra probably around 2-3 months ago. To this day, the Photos app still reports that it hasn't completed its analysis of all the faces.

I am aware that leaving the Photos.app open will pause its analysis so I have left it closed most of the time. As well, I have tracked the CPU time that the process is consuming so I do know that it is doing something.

Is there a way to kick the process into a more aggressive mode? I mean, why does it have to do everything so tenderly in background mode? It is almost like it is trying not to use my disk or CPU at all and quite frankly I've got a desktop with 8 cores, plenty of RAM and such and I wouldn't mind if it burned my CPU for 2-3 days to just get it all done.

To clarify: this is not a matter of a low priority or lack of CPU/RAM as the machine has plenty to spare and is left alone most of the time not doing anything. It is a question of if there is a config/setting that can tell the process to work hard on the problem rather than VERY passively?

Any ideas?

I had the same problem when I migrated all my photo library and here's the way I've found to make Photos analyze my gallery faster:

Open Photos.app preferences
Open the iCloud tab > click on Download Originals to this Mac
Wait for all the photos to download

The scan should be faster after this, it should scan ~50 000 pictures per day. Unfortunately, if you don't use iCloud or the "Download Originals" option was already clicked I don't think there's any other way to make it go faster.


My pictures are gone from my photo stream on my ipad My photos from Photo Stream on my iPad were here one minute, and gone next. I charged it, but it didn't show up still.

I checked Apple support and find that the photos you upload to My Photo Stream are stored in iCloud for 30 days to give your devices plenty of time to connect and download them. If you pass the time, your photo may be deleted.


How to disable swipe down for Notification Center in apps on iOS? When I’m playing games on my iPhone and I try to do some action on the upper end of the screen I often accidentally open Notification Center, cancelling my action. In Settings I found a Setting to disable the Control Panel in Apps, but I couldn’t find a similar Setting for the Notification Center.

How can I disable Notification Center in Apps in iOS?

I have iPhone 6s with iOS 13.1.3.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3419084 has a person saying

  For apps which are running in full-screen (includes games, but also built in apps such as YouTube and Photos when they are in full-screen mode), the gesture which normally brings down the full notification center just brings down a little gray tab at the top middle of the screen. You can then slide that tab down, if you really want the notification center.

iOS 7 Make Control Center hard to open like fullscreen mode while still showing status bar

shows an example of control centre pullup gesture where a small arrow appears which forces us to swipe twice to get control centre in full screen apps. An answer says that

  The system will only show this tab when the status bar is hidden.

So most likely it is upto the developer to make appropriate changes to use this feature, instead of covering the screen in one go.


Run Python Script on any Mac computer Is there a way to create an executable Python script that will be able to run on any Mac via terminal, similar to a Bash script. I need any user to be able to just double click the file, and it should run. I want it to be able to run without the user having Python installed, but it has to be a Python script as it has to interact with an HTML button.

You can use PyInstaller, which is a free program that does the exact thing you want. As the official website says:

  PyInstaller is a program that freezes (packages) Python programs into stand-alone executables, under Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris and AIX. Its main advantages over similar tools are that PyInstaller works with Python 2.7 and 3.3—3.5, it builds smaller executables thanks to transparent compression, it is fully multi-platform, and use the OS support to load the dynamic libraries, thus ensuring full compatibility.

I should also mention that you can make a .py file executable just like other Linux(Unix) executable file, like this:

This command lets the file to be executed(see this)

user@linux~>chmod 0755 myProg.py

and then run it like this:

 user@linux~>./myProg.py


There is a thread on the Apple forum, with a possible solution:

  Go to "Activity Monitor" - you should see launchd using lots of CPU resources - and I think this is why it's crashing intermittently.  The Mac is going nuts trying to launch something which it can't and it finally resets itself.
  Go to "Console" and look up System Log Queries - All Messages - it's going to be pretty obvious what launchd is trying to er, launch.  On my computer it was trying to launch this: /Library/eBookLibrary/eBook Library Launcher.app/Contents/MacOS/eBook Library Launcher
  Go to /Library/LaunchAgents - you will see the plist file that the launchd is trying to launch - in my case it was the Sony ebook reader plist.  I deleted it without any problems.
  Restart the system.
  Go back to "Activity Monitor" - you should no longer see launchd hogging the resources.

Source


What kind of servers does Apple have in their NC datacenter? Siri telling me more often than not that it is having trouble connecting got me wondering what kind of servers Apple is filling its datacenters with. At some point in the past, I'd have assumed Xserves running OSX Server, but given that they are no longer making Xserves (or at least they are not commercially available), I can't help picturing pallets of Dell servers being unloaded and racked at the North Carolina datacenter.

Is Apple running its datacenter on Linux or Windows? Are they using standard PC hardware from Dell or IBM or HP? Or have they continued to manufacture Xserves for their own use and have everything running Lion Server?

I have read that Apple uses Microsoft Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services as at least part of their software platform for iCloud. Sounds like heresy, but there appears to be some evidence to support this.


Fusion Drive - Lost space when resizing I'm having trouble with my Fusion Drive. I was trying to reclaim a 100gb partition that I used BootCamp for. I was unable to delete the BootCamp partition using the Assistant, so I used the Utility Disk to reclaim some of the partitions. I'm now left with 2, but I'm also missing some space from my main Macintosh HD drive (about 200gb) Somehow, it went from 909GB (previous allocated amount) to 700+.

I was following this guide, although I didn't get to any of the resizing section yet. I'm not sure what happened, and was hoping someone could help.

Here's my logs from diskutil list and diskutil cs list:

UPDATE: I tried I following the instructions and below and ran across a couple errors.

First, when I tried to mount the physical drives, it said: disk0s2/disk1s2 is a FileVault or Fusion Drive physical volume; use 'disk utility coreStorage list' to find its logical volume, which you can then unlock and mount.

I tried the resizing, and it seems to have started the process, but I left it overnight (roughly 8 hours of run time) and it still wasn't finished with the process. I restarted my computer, and tried running the resizeStack command, and it now says "the target disk is too small for this operation".

When I look up diskutil list, my Macintosh HD drive is still at 773gb, but the deleteme and NO NAME EFI drives are all deleted. I'm just not sure how to reclaim that space.

Any thoughts?

To remove the useless second EFI (104.9 MB) and the deleteme partition (104.3 GB) and expand the CoreStorage volume to the full size you have to boot to Internet Recovery Mode.

Preparation:

Backup your Mac
Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup. Booting to Recovery Mode is not conducive because the Recovery HD will be moved in one of the steps below. And you can't move a partition used as a boot volume.

The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan). If you boot to a full system and login as admin you have to prepend sudo to execute special commands like gpt ...!

Remove the partitions 2nd EFI/deleteme and shrink the CoreStorage Volume Group

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:  diskutil list to get the disk identifiers and diskutil cs list to get a CoreStorage listing. Below I assume that your main disks have the disk identifiers disk0 (here the HDD)/disk1 (here the SSD) and the CoreStorage Logical Volume disk3. Please modify the commands below according to your environment/findings.
First you have to remove the 2nd EFI/deleteme partitions:

gpt -r show /dev/disk0 #to get an overview

To remove a partition with gpt the disks (and all related disks like the inherent CoreStorage volume) have to be unmounted - first the CoreStorage Logical Volume and then the physical disks (SSD and HDD):

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk3
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 5 /dev/disk0 #remove the *deleteme* partition
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk3
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0 #remove the *2nd EFI* partition

Then you have to first mount and then resize the Logical Volume Group:

diskutil mount lvUUID #lvUUID: the logical volume UUID

in your case:

diskutil mount E6FCA8F6-D6FF-4C0E-976C-1AD2ED107824

Sometimes you have to mount the PVs first:

diskutil mount /dev/disk0s2 #mount the physical volume of the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group
diskutil mount /dev/disk1s2 #mount the physical volume of the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group

Then resize the whole CoreStorage stack with:

diskutil cs resizeStack lvUUID size

in your case (assuming you want to "resize" Macintosh HD to 1024 GB):

diskutil cs resizeStack E6FCA8F6-D6FF-4C0E-976C-1AD2ED107824 1024g

If you get Error: -69720: There is not enough free space... use a slightly smaller size like 1023g or 1023500m.

Now the CoreStorage stack should be expanded to the full size of your Fusion Drive.

After failing to remove a Windows partition with the Boot Camp Assistant parts of the CoreStorage logical structures may be corrupted and the resizeStack command fails with an error. The only possible solution then is to rebuild the Fusion Drive from scratch and restore your system with your current Time Machine backup.


Can't download Apps from the Appstore I can't download Apps from the Appstore to my iPod touch 5.
If I want to download an App, I select "get" then "install", it asks for my password which I fill in. After that, it reads "get", but doesn't download anything.

You could try:

Sign out of the appstore, then sign back in again.
Backup and restore the iPod Touch


How to delete a locked app using superuser privileges? Recently, I was trying to get software that re-maps my mouse's buttons. I stumbled upon a software named Karabiner-Elements, which has the ability to do many things relation to keybindings. After downloading I learned that it was not the software for me, and decided to manually delete it.
However, the application was "Locked", and I was unable to remove this lock, either from the inspector or the command line using chflags nouchg file, which I found linked to another  post

how to delete a locked app

I even tried the sacred sudo rm -rf, and was unable to remove it.  The answer on that post was using the uninstaller that I stupidly ignored, and this worked.
However, I am still curious as to how an installed software was able to embedded itself so deeply into my computer that I was unable to delete it. I tried ls -lO which returned drwxr-xr-x  7 root  wheel. I am not sure what this means, other than the only way to delete this folder is through root. This leads me to my questions.

How was this software able to lock itself?
How would I go about deleting this software without using the uninstaller?
Is this a potential security risk on UNIX devices?

Thank you for your time.

Read the shell script:
/Library/Application Support/org.pqrs/Karabiner-Elements/uninstall_core.sh

or

https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/blob/master/src/scripts/uninstall_core.sh

In summary:

Unload the kernel extensions.
Clear immutable flags nouchg,noschg from the apps.
Remove the files from /Library and /Applications. Remember we used sudo with the script.
Refresh kernel extension cache: kextcache.
https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/blob/master/src/scripts/uninstall.sh
Kill all orphan/ background processes if any.
Prompt you to restart the computer.


Startup Disk is full but can't do Dropbox My Mac says that the Startup Disk is full. I know I have way too many pictures in Photos so I got a huge Dropbox subscription to add pics before deleting from my hard drive to free up space. However, now it won't let me download pics since there is not enough free space on the hard drive to do it, so I'm caught in a Catch 22. My ultimate goal is to put pics in Dropbox and external hard drive and delete from computer so that I can have a place to access them when I need them.

Are you syncing your Photos app using iCloud? Using that in conjunction with the setting "Optimize Mac Storage" should solve your problem (provided you have enough iCloud storage space). When set up this way, Photos stores your entire library on Apple's servers, and only downloads full-resolution photos and videos onto your local hard drive as you view them. If you have a lot of empty space, it'll cache more of them locally, but if you start to run out, it will get purge the high-res versions to make room. The thumbnails remain for browsing.

The big advantage to this over moving things manually onto Dropbox, external drives, etc etc is that your photos and videos stay right there in Photos, and are available on all your Apple devices without any real work on your end. Everything is backed up, and you aren't spending all this time manually shuffling things around. The one (and only, IMO) disadvantage is that you need to pay for whatever level of iCloud storage suits your Photos library size.


How to share and sync only selected Contact groups between iphones OK here goes. I apologise in in advance if questions is really stupid.
My husband and I run a charity. The charity doesn't have much money so we use our personal iPhone (with shared apple-id) to do personal stuff as well as charity work. The charity bought another iPhone for another charity worker to use. The three of us need to be able to share all the Charity contacts which I have in special contact groups. At the moment this other worker shares our apple-id. It makes me nervous though 'cause she can see all our personal photos and contacts not related to the Charity. How do I get around this? And how could it work for other charity workers? Also we need to send out a lot of large group texts (as our charity recipients don't use email). Is there an App you'd recommend? The GroupText one I use doesn't have much flexibility.

Don't keep the contacts you want to share in iCloud.  Use, for instance, a GMail user, and keep the contents there.  All three of you sync the GMail contacts list.


Where did Icon Composer go from Xcode? I can't seem to find Icon Composer on the Xcode versions at run on Mountain Lion.

Where is it? Has it been taken out? How to get it back?

It's been moved into one of the add-on packages for Xcode, and is now part of the Graphics Tools for Xcode package.

Apparently this is (at least partly?) because this is no longer the 'officially recommended' way to generate (high resolution) icons. See the OS X Human Interface Guidelines and the High Resolution Guidelines for more info.

I believe Icon Composer doesn't support the highest resolution icons required these days (1024x1024), and you're encouraged to use iconutil instead, which does, and allows you to convert between ICNS and "iconsets" (effectively just a folder containing a collection of PNG files of different resolutions).

If you still want it, you can get it as follows:

In Xcode, go to the Xcode > Open Developer Tool > More Developer tools....

You'll need to log in (or register) with your (free) Apple Developer account, and then you'll be shown a list of available packages for Xcode, including the Graphics Tools for Xcode. Grab the latest one and install.

This DMG of Graphics Tools contains:

CI Filter Browser
Icon Composer
OpenGL Driver Monitor
OpenGL Profiler
OpenGL Shader Builder
Pixie
Quartz Composer
Quartz Composer Visualizer
Quartz Debug


Automator Applescript - Use 1 Ask For Finder Item Selection for two different Actions I'm working on an Automator Application where the bit I'm up to has a finder selection window open within the App - Telestream Switch.
My Next steps would be:
1 Ask For Finder Item
2 Copy Path Name
3 Return to Telestream Switch App - cmd shift G and paste path name and enter - So that the file is selected.
4 Refer back to point 1 so that the finder item is selected again.
5 Run the following apple script to copy only the item name.
on run {input, parameters}
set fileName to first item of input

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    tell disk item (fileName as text) to ¬
        set {theName, theExtension} to ¬
            {name, name extension}

if theExtension is not "" then
    set theName to ¬
        text 1 thru -((count theExtension) + 2) ¬
            of theName
    set the clipboard to theName
else
    set the clipboard to theName
end if

return input

end run
Would this be possible?
Thanks

To refer back to the value of a previous action, you can use the Set Value of Variable action and the Get Value of Variable action as appropriate, e.g.:

Ask for Finder Items action
Set Value of Variable action
Some other action.
Some other action.
Get Value of Variable action
Run AppleScript action
Some other action.

You should also check [√] Ignore this action's input in the Options section of the Set/Get Value of Variable action as appropriate so its action is logically disconnected from the next action.
In the example Automator workflow below, there would be other actions between the Set Value of Variable action and the Get Value of Variable action as wanted.
Note: If the Run AppleScript action is the last action in the workflow, then you do not need to include the return input line of code.


Data recovery for another user? I'm attempting to recover data from an external drive used as a Time Machine backup for a now deceased user.  The Mac that it was attached to is now long gone.  My first attempt lets me generally read the disk, but I'm locked out of the individual user documents folders.  This is a business device and I do have administrator passwords, but I'm uncertain on the correct approach to gain access to those folders.

Is there a way to successfully gain access to this data and how do I do it?

Start by  clicking on the folder, select Get Info under Sharing & Permissions and grant yourself read permission.

Try to access the folder via Terminal. Use sudo if required.

If you can read the files this way, copy them over to your home directory and change the ownership to yourself using chown command.

You should be able to gain access to the files this way.


Internet Sharing to iPhone over USB not working I'm unable to share my macOS Ethernet connection with my iPhone over USB. I tried both the 'Internet Sharing' and the 'Content Caching' methods. I can see the iPhone in Finder but the iPhone does not connect to the internet. I can also see and select 'iPhone USB' inside 'Internet Sharing' when the iPhone is connected.
macOS: 10.15.7 - iOS: 14.1
I'm testing in an iMac 2020 with a built-in Ethernet adapter and the iPhone is directly connected to a USB port on the Mac. There is only one Ethernet port in System Preferences > Network
Should it suppose to appear as Ethernet on the iPhone?

Try this tutorial.  It will share your ethernet over Bluetooth instead of USB.


Command or Shift key modifiers always activated Regularly, when I am using Photoshop CC 2018 (mostly), suddenly I got a modifier key which always stays activated. Sometime it is the Command key, and sometimes Shift key, which make it impossible to work with these kind of applications using modifiers keys intensely the  for almost anything.

The only way is reboot, but even so, I suspect that when I have rebooted and relaunched Adobe Photoshop, the mean bad appends very quickly, so very hard/almost impossible to work.

Here's my configuration:

MacPro 4,1 (Nehalem) running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6
Adobe CC 2018 Suite

Also, I have a Wacom Intuos4 Tablet, (actually with driver 6.3.32-4), but I got the bug since several previous version of the Wacom Tablet driver, and (surprise) a mouse and a keyboard.

Worth mentioning: the keyboard is actually a Window keyboard, but it didn't need any driver to install. I just got few key not related to Mac function, but even the F1 to F15 key function work as intended by Apple when using it with the Fn key (Sound Up/Down/Mute and Mission Control etc...).

Let me know if you need a EtreCheck Report, (?)  if so I can quickly post a link of my current report.

I do experience the same issue. I have spent hours on debugging this issue. As I found it this issue exists for a long time. I don't sure about 6.3.32-4. Wacom support keeps recommending to reinstall the driver. I am also in contact for a RMA. I guess it is a driver issue. The shift click issue is reproducible using Wacom driver 6.3.35-2 and 6.3.36-2 on macOS 10.12 and MacOS 10.14.

Solution:
In my case I went back to Wacom driver 6.3.34-2, which resolves the issue.


How to fix RDC connection over VPN that is no longer working after network change? I VPN into my work Windows PC (Win7) and used to use MS RDC to access it, but a little while ago a network move at work led to RDC no longer working.

The RDP connection via CoRD still works fine. On attempting to connect with Microsoft RDC 2.1 or 2.0.1, I get 2 error dialogs now. The first complains "The certificate is not from a trusted certification authority", whilst the second says that "The remote computer is not allowing connections from the Mac". Eeven though I have set the remote computer in question up to allow RDP, as evidenced by my ability to access it via CoRD.

I can still access other PCs on the same work network using RDC, just not the one I want to use. I'd prefer to use RDC over CoRD simply because it is faster on my 10.6.8 MacBook Pro.

I had something similar happen to me once. What I did was to go into the Preferences for RDC, and in the Login tab, remove the value for the Domain parameter. That did the trick for me.


How do I erase partitions on a drive that's been protected with FileVault 2? I want to completely wipe a USB thumb drive, re-partition it, and reformat the partition as ExFAT, not JHFS+. Unfortunately, I used FileVault 2 on it when I made it and that seems to be preventing me from destroying the partition table on the drive now.

In the Disk Utility app I can't save and partition table changes to the drive and I can't format the existing partition as anything that isn't HFS+-based.

From the command line this is what I see:

> diskutil list
/dev/disk6
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS UntitlesHFS            *14.8 GB    disk6

And when I try to erase the disk:

> diskutil eraseDisk ExFAT Files disk6

Unable to begin erase operation: Placing a partition map on a Core Storage logical volume is not supported (-69671)

I can't erase the volume, obviously, because ExFAT wouldn't work with FileVault 2:

> diskutil eraseVolume ExFAT Files /Volumes/UntitlesHFS
The specified file system is not supported by Core Storage for use on a Logical Volume

I do know the password for the drive and can mount it just fine.

How can I wipe this USB drive, repartition and reformat it as ExFAT?

You can use diskutil cs list to show the core storage view of things.

Once you have the logical volume UUID for the disk in question, you can use diskutil cs deleteVolume to clean up the reserved space that was allocated to the encrypted data and filesystems. That would allow you to surgically remove the core storage.

You could also unmount the filesystems and nuke/pave the drive:

diskutil unmountDisk disk6
diskutil partitionDisk disk6 GPT ExFAT Files 16g


How to get around space limitations in iOS? Apple seems to take out a lot of profit-margin on Memory.  I don't like to pay that much "Just to be sure".   How easy is it to get around the limitations?

I am thinking of something like wireless disks, moving stuff to/from backup locations and silently pushing recorded photos and videos to somewhere else.

I know this can easily be done for different kinds of space hogs?
(I know it can easily be done for movies)

If you're asking if this can easily be done for different kinds of space hogs, the answer is yes.

For example you could be using iCloud to push photos, videos, etc. out in the cloud to limit the amount of space used on the device itself.

You can also purchase wireless disks, tethered disks, etc. to store files on there. They usually come with third party apps to manage the space and move files around.

Note however that you cannot keep apps anywhere but the local device if you want to be able to run them.


Privacy printing in Mac Does anybody know how to prevent filename and username to be revealed when printing to a network printer?
I would like to hide that information by default, specially the filename since it might reveal a lot of information. (Im using Yosemite although I doubt that matters at all)

Normally you can setup header and footer in the page setup or print setup (depend on which program you print from), so that the file name isn't shown.

If your network printer support "secure print" then use this feature, because then it will only be you that'll see the printed.


Spotlight: Search flagged Mail Messages I'm looking for a way to have all mail messages flagged/labeled with "Red" show up in a saved search in the Finder, but Mail.app flags doesn't seem to be indexed by Spotlight.

Any ideas?

Mavericks (10.9)

You can search for tags in Spotlight using the following syntax:

tag:name

For example, to search for all messages with Stack Exchange that are tagged Red, do:

Stack Exchange tag:Red


How can I sleep my iMac's internal display when it's not in use, but not my attached tv (playing video) I've got a 2015 iMac running Yosemite, attached via HDMI to a 1080p TV, in extended desktop mode that I use simultaneously as a video server/media player and an occasional work machine.

In short, I'd like to sleep the internal display but not the external on demand.

More detail: I'd like to be able to run a video player (Plex) in full screen mode on the TV (Screen 2), but set the internal display (Screen 1) to automatically sleep if I'm not doing anything else on the computer but playing video on Screen 2.

Apps like Plex have an option to blank the other screen, but that doesn't work here, as I'd like to be able to use Screen 1 some of the time. I used to make this work on my old Mac Pro by simply turning the computer monitor off but leaving the TV on, but that's not an option with the iMac.

Something akin to an off switch (or hotkey) for the the internal display (that doesn't disable the desktop) would be perfect, as I often remotely control Screen 1 from another computer while video is playing on Screen 2.

Have tried SwitchResX, which is great, but it doesn't seem to have the right combination of settings/features to meet my goals (or I've failed to figure them out).

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

DisableMonitor

I found an open source project called DisableMonitor and it worked for me on macOS 10.12, Sierra, as well.

  Warning

  It has been reported that the software is able to cause irretrievable damages to your computer.
  Use at your own risk!

  The project development has been stopped and won't be continued, if you want to be a maintainer consider opening an issue.


Screen Shot or convert an ArtPro file using Automator I am attempting to turn an ArtPro (.ap) image into a pdf, but I can't find any existing or downloadable actions to do anything other than open a .ap file. Because of this I have resolved to Screen Print the picture, save, then convert, but now I can't find anything that will screen capture the image either D: Please help!!

You can use the Grab tool, or just a variery of keyboard shortcuts to screencapture any part of whole screen.  The best place to learn the basics is this entry on our very own Blog http://apple.blogoverflow.com/2012/02/taking-screenshots-is-a-snap/


Self-Renewing 'Automation' virus redirects Safari and Chrome through ads to bing. Renews through a memory alert Running macOS 10.14.2. Safari 12.0.1.

Symptoms:

Safari redirects searches through proxy to bing
Chrome redirects searches through proxy to bing
In Privacy Settings, under Automation "Finder" with no icon has access to Safari
When removing it, a preferences pop up shows up.
Immediately after a memory warning shows up and cancel the preferences pop up.
"Finder" reappears under "Automation" with safari checked.
When quitting Safari, it launches alone. (Can't close safari)

Attempts:
Used "tccutil reset AppleEvents", both pop ups appear once after execution.
Used Avira anti-virus with quick scan it found and eliminated 1 virus, ran a full scan and it found and removed 4. Did not run it again.

No clue how to remove this without disabling SIP which is not something I necessarily want to do, nor would I know how to exactly find "Finder".

It also seems to be using some exploit to grant itself Automation privileges even after you uncheck them via some memory issue that triggers the memory warning.

How can malware like this be cleaned?

I wouldn't disable SIP if you have active malware on your system. If you have another Mac you can use or borrow, I'd boot your Mac into Target Disk Mode, connect it to the other Mac with a Thunderbolt cable, and then run both Avira and Malwarebytes on it from the other Mac. This allows the antimalware software to ignore any SIP protection on the TDM'd Mac and perform a full clean.

If you can't use another Mac, then install a bootable copy of macOS onto an external drive, boot from that, and do the same.

If you can't do either, boot into Safe Mode, run Avira, and then if it finds something, let it clean it and then reboot again into Safe Mode. Now run Malwarebytes and do the same. Always reboot after a pass where it found something, because whatever it is that it found may be preventing you from finding anything further until you reboot with it gone.


Mirroring Issues with Apple TV My Apple TV is connected with Wifi and all my devices can connect using airplay but as soon as i plug in my network cable i cant mirror my MacBook Pro or the iPhone. On the apple tv it shows that cable is connected and internet works fine using the cable but airplay doesn't work.

Can someone please advise on how to set this up?

Your question doesn't explain why you're wanting to connect the Apple TV via Ethernet, but your Apple TV and the devices you want to be able to airplay to it need to be on the same network. It seems to me that the act of plugging in the Ethernet cable is changing the network it's connected to.

If the Wi-Fi network and Ethernet cable are all connected via the same router you should be okay, but that could depend on the actual router (but most modern routers should be fine).

You need to determine if in fact they are on the same network. So, the questions are:

where does the Ethernet cable go to?
is it plugged into the same Wi-Fi router or into something else?

Another potential issue is if you're using a VPN. For example, I've seen users with a Wi-Fi network that all devices are connected to except for an iMac and the Apple TV. Instead, the iMac is connected via Ethernet to an Ethernet Wireless adaptor (so they're connecting their Mac to the Wi-Fi network via an Ethernet cable) and then they use that connection to connect to a VPN. Once connected they share their Ethernet connection via the Mac's Wi-Fi and then connect their Apple TV to the iMac's Wi-Fi network.

While all devices in the above scenario actually connect to the internet via the same original Wi-Fi network, as far as the setup is concerned they're different connections. So for a device to airplay to an Apple TV in the above scenario they also need to connect to the Mac's Wi-Fi network, because that's the one the Apple TV is connected to.

Hopefully this info will shed some light on what's going on with your setup.

Let me know how you go. More than happy to help you troubleshoot this.


Want to switch the SIM card from my iPhone 4 to 6s plus I want to insert my existing SIM card from iPhone 4 to iPhone 6s Plus. I want to know if I remove the SIM card from my existing phone, will the data and photos and contacts and whatsApp chats will be deleted or will it remain in the phone? Please guide me on this.

If you used iCloud in your iPhone 4, it's most likely you will still have your contacts and photos in your 6S Plus if you'll use the same iCloud account. If purchased music from iTunes and apps from the App Store, you will still be able to have them on your new phone. However, chat message history depends on the app developer. Some have servers to save your messages in and make them available in case the app is installed in another phone/platform (like Skype), and some just save your messages locally (on your phone) which makes them unavailable to other installations of the app.


Mac security problems I'm having a problem installing an application (vuze). I've gone into the regular settings tab and I can't find anywhere to change any particular setting.

I looked online and I just randomly see the same security tabs I found myself so...not sure what I have to change.

Any ideas as to what I have to change in order to install this app?

I'm new to the Mac game so not sure where I have to go.

Thanks in advance.

Edit:
The message I get is

  Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the mac app store and identified developers.

A feature of OS X Mountain Lion is the ability to run only signed applications - that is, applications from Apple's app store - out of the box.  This is a configurable setting, however, and can be changed in the settings screen you seem to have already uncovered.  If you set the "Allow applications downloaded from" option to "Anywhere", your Mac should run applications downloaded from the internet as well.

Do be aware of the security implications of this, and consider changing it only when necessary (and reverting the setting after you've installed the downloaded application which you trust).

For more information, and screen shots, see:
http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_tweak_settings_gatekeeper_mountain_lion


Finder doesn't work since Yosemite Has anyone experienced any issues with using finder since updating to Yosemite?

Since updating, I can't open finder at all. I click on the icon and the pc just hangs up and in activity monitor, finder is just (not responding).

I've rebooted the machine, tried to open/locate a file in spotlight search and when I find a file, it won't open.

Any help/thoughts what to do would be appreciated.

This fix from Reddit worked perfectly for me!!

http://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/2jtikj/finder_not_responding_new_yosemite_install/

You can most likely fix the issue by clearing out Finder's saved state, caches, and/or settings.

Use Spotlight (the search icon in the far right of the menu bar) to find and open the "Terminal" application. Triple-click the following line in order to copy and paste it into Terminal's window:

rm -fR ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder; killall Finder

If it still doesn't work, try this one:

mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder{,.backup}.plist; killall Finder


Is it possible to make a style sheet for Safari's Top Site page? Mavericks : is it possible to use a style sheet for Safari's Top Sites page?

Are there style sheet examples to draw from?

Unlike Chrome, Safari doesn't seems to use a webpage for the top sites but rather another programmatic view.

As you might have seen, the webinspector doesn't work on this page.


When typing on Bluetooth keyboards, letter sometimes infinitely repeats while not holding it down For years, I've had no problem with using on a Microsoft Sculpt Mobile Keyboard as well as a Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 5000. I'm using a late 2011 MacBook Pro, OSX El Capitan v.10.11.3, (Bluetooth 4.0).

problem:
Starting about 3 weeks ago, sometimes I'd press a letter key, I'd let go of the pressed key, but OSX seemed to sense I was still holding the key down. This problem happened with both those keyboards. This problem never occurred while using the attached keyboard.

Once the letter started uncontrollably repeating, I switched to the MacBook's attached keyboard. After about 1 second of frantically pressing esc while also using the trackpad to place the cursor behind the repeating text, the last character typed stopped repeating. I could continue typing on the Bluetooth keyboard as if nothing had happened. The problem would not occur again for days.

ideas:

This problem has coincided with my El Capitan upgrade.
This problem definitely happens to me while doing Japanese character input. I'm not 100% sure that this has also happened to me while doing English input.
El Capitan has added new features with regard to Japanese character input.
Of course, the keymappings for the 2 MSFT Bluetooth keyboards are far apart from the unique / weird MacBook keyboard layout. They sure don't have fn, control, option, command, ... and the command key is used for Japanese input.

So far, it has happened when I am typing in MSFT Word, MSFT Excel, a Chrome browser, and the NetBeans IDE.  But not in any Apple apps.

But, it only happens infrequently. It is annoying, but not the end of the world. Maybe just buy an Apple keyboard.

Regarding the shortcut for changing input sources, in El Capitan it is Control plus Space (unless your upgrade process carried over Command plus Space from an earlier OS version).  Normally the MSFT Windows key = Apple's Command key.  Alt = Option.