time machine runs very slowly, then stops I've been using Time Machine with my MacBook Pro without issues for some time, however, I’m now having a problem that I haven’t had before: when connecting the external hard drive on which backups are stored, the “Preparing Backup” stage takes an inordinately long time, and when the actual backup starts, it proceeds really slowly (a couple of MB every minute or so) and then it completely stops. I don’t get an error code. This has happened with both Time Machine backup external hard disks that I use.

Could this problem be related to the fact that I’m using two external hard disks for Time Machine backups? I’ve only run backups on two hdd once before.

I’ve run First Aid on one of the external drives but Disk Utility returned an error unmounting the disk. I then ran First Aid on the Macintosh internal ssd drive but Disk Utility returned error: snap_metadata_val objet (oid ox75d3F): invalid externalref_tree_oid (0x0). Snapshot metadata tree is invalid. The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 could not be verified completely.

Any thoughts why this might be happening and how to resolve the issue? I’m running High Sierra on a early 2015 MacBook Pro (upgraded from Yosemite). The two external hdds are formatted as HFS+. I've also swapped usb cables to make sure it's not a faulty cable causing the issue, but the same thing happens.

I've just dealt with a similar issue, and hope I can help someone. I did a completely clean install of High Sierra, then Time Machine stopped working after four days.

Your error message indicates that this is a problem with the drive you're backing up, or perhaps Time Machine's index of it.

Here are the steps to take:

Check your local snapshots, and delete anything fishy - see the empty one from the day that TM stopped working:

You would do this: sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2018-09-27-003128

Try using disk utility to repair all the volumes and drives again. If it's an APFS drive you're backing up, check all of the volumes, as well as the container volume and the disk. You can try deleting all the local snapshots too, and again try repairing the volumes and disks.
If that doesn't work, I would turn disable Time Machine - go into System Preferences and uncheck automatic backups. Unmount (restart if you have to) the drive with the most recent full backup on it - we don't want to touch that. Then, remove it by clicking "Select Disk" and "Remove Disk." Try a backup then, with just the one drive. If that doesn't work, try repairing that drive again in Disk Utility.
The next thing to try would be to remove the drive that's still associated, rename it "Time Machine Backups," and then add it back. You shouldn't lose the backups that are already there.
If all else fails, I would start over - reformat this drive in Disk Utility, but not as HFS+ Journaled - that was a mistake I made numerous times. We want Time Machine to format the drive. That should at least get you going again...

My problem was that it mysteriously wouldn't copy files.

For a week, no matter what I did, the same thing would happen - Time Machine would start, go very slowly, and then stop and give me this message:

It wouldn't complete an initial backup even. I had reformatted over and over (as HFS+ Journaled), deleted local snapshots, tried repairing the backup drive and the system drive.

The infuriating fix to my problem was simply to remove my encrypted APFS volume. fsck/First Aid kept returning a problem with the container and system volumes - "mount apfs exit status 73" and "System check exit code is 78." All that was happening was that it couldn't mount the encrypted volume. After I deleted that, I was finally able to fix Time Machine.

I still had trouble though, even after zeroing out the first 300MB of the backup drive to totally nuke the partition map and EFI. Eventually I formatted it as exFAT, let Time Machine format it, which it failed to do:

And then I went back to Disk Utility and formatted it as HFS+ Journaled Case Sensitive. That's when it started working.


Problem with my iPhone 6 calendar After doing the last iOS update, I can't enter an event in my calendar. I checked iCloud and calendar is activated.

First thing to check would be that you have at least one Calendar selected in prefs…

Edit your question to add further information if this does not fix your issue.


iPhone and iPad lock while playing videos over Airplay It seems like this started happening relatively recently, but I am not sure what changed - when I am playing any kind of video (YouTube, Safari, etc.) over Airplay to my Apple TV, the default screen lock will activate and the video stops playing.

Any idea why this is happening, or how to stop it? It doesn't seem to happen when playing a video on the device, only when playing over Airplay.

I have the hdmi adapter and I think iOS handles that the same way as air play does.
Some apps like Amazon Video or the movies app have a good support for AirPlay. I can lock my iPhone and it will go on. But the last time I checked YouTube it didn't had the good support, it only mirrored the screen.
I think this is a problem of the app you are using.


Added SSD to mid 2011 27" iMac. How do I keep user accounts on HDD and only use SSD for OS and Apps I've added a 240GB SSD to my mid 2011 27" iMac.

I installed macOS Sierra to SSD and then migrated apps and settings to SSD but left users data on HDD.

After booting into the SSD, I opened:

system prefs > user accounts > advanced options

Then I pointed the SSD user account to my home directory on the HDD and restarted.

Now when I log into my user account (SSD) none of my files or preferences are working or updating and I keep getting an error about keychain missing.

Did I miss a crucial step? How do I fix this?

BTW, I can't migrate my users over to the SSD as there isn't nearly enough space.

Also, I have been using iCloud drive for my documents and desktop in macOS sierra, perhaps that's part of the problem?

Turns out it was just a permissions problem. Since macOS Sierra doesn't give you the ability to fix permissions, I'll just post this here in case anyone else needs it:

To reset permissions from the terminal:

diskutil resetUserPermissions / $(id -u)


The messages app isn't on my Mac (Yosemite) Recently, I've been wanting to send and receive texts on my MacBook air, just like I do on my pro, but when I spotlight 'messages,' nothing shows up except for java and json files.

Is there any way to download the messages app off of the app store (I've looked and haven't found it. Is it called something else there?)
How could I get the messages app on my computer?Thanks-A
Edit: I have checked to make sure my spotlight works properly, and looked through my applications folder. It is not present.

Since Messages.app comes bundled with OS X, it seems that it got deleted somehow.

To get the Messages app again (or any other pre-installed OS X app that is not available on the App Store), you will have to re-install OS X. The process does not erase any data.

Alternatively, if you know someone who has the same OS X, you could copy Messages.app from their machine and paste it in your Applications folder.


How does data get "imported" into ML's new features? I'm a little concerned about upgrading to Mountain Lion right now because I'm not sure how some of the data I have on my machine will get shoehorned into Mountain Lion's new apps and features.

Does "Notes" start out clean? Does it import your To-Dos from Mail (the way Notes would sync before iOS 6/ML)? Or does it import notes from Stickies?
What happens to all of my Reminders in iCal? Do they automatically get imported into the Reminders app? Will I end up with duplicate Reminders resultant from iCloud issues?
I have the iChat setting turned on that saves all your chat logs. Will I still be able to open them in Messages? Will my iMessage conversations start to get saved in the same logs? (Is chat logging even still in the Messages app?)
I know Gatekeeper is enabled automatically, so what happens to always-running processes that I have set to start when my Mac turns on? I don't know if apps like Dropbox, LogMeIn, f.lux, or any of the others that start up as soon as I boot my machine, are signed with an Apple Developer ID, so will this cause big issues when I update and all of these unsigned apps try to run at once? (I plan to disable Gatekeeper minutes after upgrading, but I don't want it to cause issues that might keep my machine from booting up at all.)

Notes will import from the Notes folder in Mail. They no longer appear in Mail, but are still an IMAP folder.
Reminders will import from the task calendars in iCal. They no longer appear in Calendar, but are still ical files.
Messages pretty much is iChat, with a different UI and an extra protocol (i.e., iMessage, which is really just XMPP). You can still save logs. You can still read your iChat logs. If you have iChat set to load old conversations when a window opens, the iChat conversations will appear in Messages when you open it the first time.
For Gatekeeper, most apps are signed already so you won't have to worry about it.


How to quickly set year only in iOS 7 Can someone please explain how you can quickly set the YEAR within the date and time settings?

If the battery has been removed then the iPhone is reset back to Jan 1st 1970. This means that the network will not sync and you won't get a signal. Therefore the automatic date setting will not work either.

The only way I have managed so far is to literally scroll through everyday of every month of every year up to the present day until it is correct. This is naturally tiresome and also impractical as often in swiping you drag up the quick menu from the bottom.

Try connecting to iTunes, it automatically syncs to the current date.


What the hold-over arrows on icons in Finder do? What exactly do these hold-over arrows in OS X 10.9 do?

When I mistakenly press on the right arrow, it just starts flashing/blinking, and the other arrow — the left one — appears to indicate that it's now available, too.  Yet nothing at all happens, not even any kind of title or annotation is provided.

The right arrow stops blinking and the left stops being bold if you navigate away from the folder, and then go back.

These arrows are really annoying; more worryingly, I'm afraid they're doing something bad behind my back.  How do I turn all of this nonsense off for good?

Also, if mistakenly pressing them may have caused any damage I haven't noticed yet, how do I undo any such damage?

It just changes pages on the icon preview for multi-page documents.

Not spectacularly useful with small icons like that, but if you have huge icons set or are in column or cover-flow view, it's a quick way to see what's actually in the document without opening them.

If you click away from the icon, it goes back to the first page, so it doesn't actually change anything.


iOS cracking scripts I am jailbroken running iOS 8.1 and was wondering if there are any working app cracking scripts similar to clutch or rasticrac. So far, the ones I have tried do not fully work on iOS 8.1. I do have experience so I do not mind advanced methods. I also do not want an illegal App Store that allows you to download IPAs. Also, are there any free tools for Macs that I could use? Thank you

Edit:
I am not going to use this for piracy

If you're not using it for piracy (I assume you're maybe trying to access class method names to make a jailbreak tweak?) use dumpdecrypted.

It allows you to decrypt a code-signed application, but due to the decryption method it wont allow the binary to run on iOS.

All decryption is handled on the device (you perform it over SSH by copying the dylib and running the binary), which means the app you wish to decrypt must also be installed to your device (or extracted and copied to /var/mobile/Applications or wherever iOS 8 changed it to)


Selecting a dropdown menu in Safari I need to create an Applescript to open a certain website and export it as PDF using the menu "Save as PDF…" under the File menu. Then, I need to save that PDF on a certain location on my hard drive. I am encountering trouble trying to activate the dropdown menu in the first place.
I am trying this code but I get an error:
tell application "Safari" to open location "http://www.webiste.com/"
delay 1
    click menu item "Save as PDF..." of menu bar item "File"
    end tell
end tell

I am adding a delay 1 to make sure all elements are loaded before firing the "Save as PDF..." menu.
I haven't yet reached the point of determining the specific location where I want that PDF to be stored.
I will use Automator to create a recurring event based on this apple script.
Any ideas?

Tested under macOS High Sierra, here is how I do it:
set saveToLocation to "~/Documents"
set myURL to "http://www.webiste.com/"

tell application "Safari"
    make new document with properties {URL:myURL}
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    repeat until exists (buttons of ¬
        UI elements of ¬
        groups of ¬
        toolbar 1 of ¬
        window 1 of ¬
        process "Safari" whose ¬
        name = "Reload this page")
        delay 0.5
    end repeat
    tell application process "Safari"
        click menu item "Export as PDF…" of ¬
            menu "File" of ¬
            menu bar item "File" of ¬
            menu bar 1
        repeat until exists sheet 1 of window 1
            delay 0.05
        end repeat
        keystroke "g" using {shift down, command down}
        repeat until exists sheet 1 of sheet 1 of window 1
            delay 0.05
        end repeat
        set value of ¬
            combo box 1 of ¬
            sheet 1 of ¬
            sheet 1 of ¬
            window 1 to ¬
            saveToLocation
        click button "Go" of sheet 1 of sheet 1 of window 1
        click button "Save" of sheet 1 of window 1
    end tell
end tell

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


How do I delete something only on my device and still preserve it in cloud? I still have a very vague understadning of how iCloud Library and the new 'Photos' app operate. How do I distinguish between photos on my device and what is stored in cloud. How do I delete something only on my device and still preserve it in cloud?

Right now I have 2215 photos and 6 videos in iCloud they say. Ok, so where are my all other videos that I was forced to delete due to insufficient space?

I guess I can always use something different like Google Drive, Dropbox or Picasa to back it all up manually and have complete access to it all the time, but I just want to understand if Apple's new solution is completely useless.

To strictly answer your question, it is not possible to delete something from your device and have it remain and accessible from iCloud Photo Library.

Here's more details:

The idea behind iCloud Photos Library is to have all your photos on all your devices. Picture a parent of a small family in California who takes, on average, several photos a week and has a Mac, iPad, and iPhone. When they take a photo on their iPhone, it syncs to their other two devices automatically so that when they arrive home, they can open their computer and view the photos or videos they took. Pretty cool? Yes, for some situations it's ideal.

But there's a problem, if you don't have enough storage on your phone to hold all of the photos, iCloud Library is stuck until you open settings and allow it to optimize your device storage. It then saves low resolution photos to your device and will download the high resolution version when you view the photo. This too is convenient in some situations.

The problem comes in when you want to control what photos go where. I've taken thousands of photos and videos on my iPhone and I don't want all of those on my phone even if I could have that. But with iCloud Library enabled, all of your photos will be on your device as there is no way to control what images are in the cloud versus on your device. So, it seems that Apple's solution to your problem of having too many photos and videos on your phone would be to enable the option to optimize device storage.

However, here is, by far, the biggest problem with iCloud Photo Library and the "optimize device storage" option. If you enable that setting, and then go to disable it at some point, it will attempt to download the full resolution version of all your images (not just the device-optimized high-resolution one). This makes sense, but causes a problem as your device likely wouldn't have near enough storage by then to handle that. Consequently, that's probably not the approach you would want to take.

To summarize: use iCloud Photo Library if you don't take (or keep) a lot of photos and if you have more than one Apple device. Otherwise, it's probably better to avoid it.


Reading through an array I'm trying to systematically remove profiles on some systems that were manually installed from github.
I'm going to do so with a policy from my MDM that runs a script, however, I can't get the script to read into an array properly.
So far I have:
profilesToRemove=$(profiles list | grep com.github.erikberglund | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $4 }') for i in ${(f)profilesToRemove}; do
    profiles remove  "$i" done

The problem is I continue to get a bad substitution error with ${(f) and I don't know how to proceed

You're not iterating through an array. $profilesToRemove is not an array, it's just some lines of text.
${(f)profilesToRemove} is very strange. Perhaps you meant $profilesToRemove?
for needs to begin on a new line (or ; separated from the previous statement).


Details of the proxy address which is being used by Mac Is it possible to get the proxy address that my system is currently using in order to populate HTTP_PROXY variable from command line ?

I would like a command so that I could set it in my .bashrc file.

complete solution for me was to update my .bashrc file with this

function http_proxy {
    export http_proxy=`networksetup -getwebproxy Wi-Fi  | head -3 | tail -2  | cut -f2 -d' ' | sed 'N;s/\n/:/'|grep -v ':0'`
}
alias homen="networksetup -setwebproxy Wi-Fi '' ;http_proxy"
alias ofcn="networksetup -setwebproxy Wi-Fi proxy.examp.com 8080;http_proxy"
http_proxy

Either get ProxyConf, which does exactly this.

Or retrieve the web proxy with networksetup -getwebproxy Ethernet (replace Ethernet with the one you're using from networksetup -listallnetworkservices), then format the output into HTTP_PROXY format:

$ networksetup -getwebproxy Ethernet | awk '/Server:/ {host=$2} /Port: / {port=$2} END { printf "http://%s:%s", host, port}'
http://127.0.0.1:8228

If your network services (Ethernet, Wifi, etc.) vary or you use multiple at the same time, you may need to get a little more elaborate to figure out which one is being used. man networksetup and man ifconfig should have everything you need if you want to go there.

Formerly there was also scselect, but networksetup incorporates all of it's functionality.


Yosemite upgrade causing Mail to crash I upgraded to Yosemite on my 2011-12 iMac, from system 10.6.8.
It worked to a point, but with major problems with the mail - crashing and not working, basically.My Mac tech said it "should work"...but we tried reinstalling 3 times to the same result.
Given Mavericks is no longer available, does anybody have a suggestion other than a clean install of Yosemite? Or is that the only option?

Yosemite mail is horrible, if you have a large inbox it just kills an older machine.  I have a 3ghz mini with 16gb of ram and it STILL crawls.  I am on day 3 of it saying "incoming messages" and slowly the count grows larger and larger. Two apps is all I ask for, Safari and Mail, really people FIX IT.

On my 2009 27" imac I had to restore from time machine back to mavericks.  If you start a restore it will show you what os version was backed up.  Just know it erases your drive so save all of your newer files elsewhere.


iCloud running out of space, but it's not I keep getting messages from iCloud saying my drive is out of room. It is not, it is about half full:

Any ideas here?

Open System Preferences and inspect your iCloud Storage there. What you are looking at in Finder is only the size of your iCloud Drive files.
After opening System Preferences, select "Apple ID" in the top row, or "iCloud" in the bottom row if you are running an older version of macOS. On this screen, you will see a meter indicating your storage usage. Hover over different segments to see information about them, and click "Manage" to see more detail.


Are album ratings gone in iTunes? I frequently used album ratings in iTunes in the past, but it seems in iTunes 12.2, these ratings have been replaced by the heart for Apple Music.  In list view an option for 'Album Rating' is still available but uneditable, while in grid view, which I prefer there is no visible rating for either the songs or albums.  Is there any way to bring the ratings back??

Yes. Open iTunes. Click on "iTunes" in the upper left and go down to Preferences. Under the "General" tab, you can choose ratings to be "Loves," "Stars," or "Loves and Stars."


How can I pair an Apple Watch with a jailbroken iPhone 5c running iOS 8.4? When I attempt to do so, a prompt appears telling me to update my phone's iOS. I am wondering whether there is a workaround; I do not want to lose my jailbreak. Thank you in advance.

WatchOS 2 is supported only on devices running iOS 9 and higher.

The only way to run an Apple Watch using an iPhone running iOS 8.4 is to have an Apple Watch with watchOS 1.x.


How to install a second Win10 on a Macbook Pro 2019 with Catalina and Windows 10 already installed? Since there is no real answer to this really specific case i hope someone here will be able to answer with detailed instructions on how to achieve this.
I have a MacbookPRO (2019) and here is what i did so far :

Clean Install of Catalina (10.5.3) (Size is 700GB)
Use Bootcamp assistant to Install Windows 10 (Size is 120GB)

Now i would like to install one more Windows 10 on the same disc and being able to choose amongst the THREE operating system at boot time while using the ALT key and being presented with something like this :

The only thing i managed to do so far was to successfully install the second Windows 10 but only being able to choose between them like this (screenshot is from internet) :

So my question is (from a fresh install of Catalina on a 1TB internal ssd) how to install two Win10 and be able to choose amognst the 3 operating system directly from the Apple Startup Manager ?
(WITOUTH using rEFInd or other 3rd party boot loader)
Thanks to those who have read me this far, and sorry about my english this isn't my native language..

Steps to a Create USB Windows 10 Installer

Use the Boot Camp Assistant application to download the Windows Support Software.
Download the latest Windows 10 iso file.
Use to Disk Utility application to erase a 16 GB or larger USB flash drive. Use the setting shown below.

Use the Finder application to mount the Windows 10 iso file.
Use the Finder application to copy all the files from the mounted Windows 10 iso file to the USB flash drive.
Use the Finder application to copy the downloaded Windows Support Software to the USB flash drive.

Below is the results from a Windows 10 (1909) download and the Window Support Software for a 2018 mac mini.

Procedure to Install a Second Windows 10 Operating System

  The first Windows 10 installation should not be encrypted through the use of Bitlocker.

Boot from the USB Windows installation flash drive. Proceed until you reach the same screen as shown in the image below. Click on Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).

The next screen should be similar to the one shown below. At this point, press the shift+F10 key combination to open a Command Prompt window.

The next image shows an opened Command Prompt window.

You need to shrink the Windows partition to make room for the second Windows installation. This can be down by entering the following commands in the Command Prompt window. In this case, commands will shrink the Windows partition (number 3) by 70000 MB (which is 70 GB). You may wish to use a different value.

diskpart
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3
shrink desired=70000
exit
exit

Below is an example output from entering the above commands.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.418]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

X:\Sources>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.18362.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MINWINPC

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             315 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Unknown            722 GB   316 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            277 GB   722 GB

DISKPART> select partition 3

Partition 3 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> shrink desired=70000

DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by:   68 GB

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

X:\Sources>exit

After the Command Prompt window closes, you will need to click on the Refresh button. The result should be similar to the image shown below.

  Your earlier question indicated your desire to have the two Windows installation not share the same boot files. To accomplish this, each installation will need an unique EFI partition for the boot files. Unfortunately, the Windows installation will not proceed correctly, if the second EFI partition is created at this point. So instead, the space will be reserved for the second EFI partition by creating an unformatted primary partition. My answer posted in the earlier question showns how and when to convert this primary partition to a EFI partition.

Next, highlight the Drive 0 Unallocated Space, then click on the New button. Enter 315 for Size and then click on the Apply button. The result should be similar to the image shown below. Here, a new unformatted primary partition (number 4) was created for future use as an EFI partition.

Again, highlight the Drive 0 Unallocated Space, then click on the New button. Without changing the Size, click on the Apply button. When the popup shown below appears, click on the OK button.

The image below shows a 16 MB Microsoft Reserved partition (number 5) was create along with a new primary partition (number 6).

With the new primary partition (number 6) highlighted, click on the Next button. When the popup shown below appears, click on the OK button. The Windows installation should proceed. This new primary partition will be automatically NTFS formatted before being using as the location for the second Windows installation.


How to remove username@hostname from terminal bar? currently this is how my terminal bar looks like, it's showing my full name and the hostname. I'd like to configure it so that this is removed  and it only shows the directory, but I don't know how.

If you go into Terminal and press Cmd + ,, it will open up the preferences. Click the Profiles tab on the top.

Then click the Window tab.

Then you can set a title and uncheck the "Working directory", "Active Process", and everything else under the Title section.

This will make it look like this:


How to set relative directory to PATH variable, and run scripts in relative directory globally I have some some scripts in a git project I wan to access globally, so I add the relative path to the scripts folder like so

vim ~/.bash_profile
export PATH="~/git/scripts/:$PATH"
source ~/.bash_profile

and there is a file ~/git/scripts/ called echoHelloWorld.sh, so how I can I run echoHelloWorld.sh if I am for example in the ~/Downloads folder? Do I do

cd ~/Downloads
./echoHelloWorld

because I have tried that, but it does not work, and I have also tried chmod +x echoHelloWorld.sh with no results.

If you have added the path of the file to run to your PATH variable you can run your command directly with

 echoHelloWorld.sh

independent of the directory you are in. Running it as ./echoHelloWorld.sh actually explicitly tells the shell to ignore PATH and run the script from the current directory (where it is not available).


How to put a application in fullscreen using shell command in Mavericks? I would like to ensure a application is running in fullscreen using a shell command (or script). I've seen some approaches that tell the application to execute a keyboard shortcut (cmd+ctrl+f) but that will toogle the fullscreen mode, not ensure.

Here's an AppleScript that can do it. Pass true or false to switch mode. The script uses the value of AXFullScreen to determine whether the app is currently in full screen and will only switch if necessary.

Toggle an application from full screen to non full screen (or the reverse).
Parameters:
  1: application name(ie, Chrome)
  2: boolean (true/false).
     When true ensure that the application is in full screen mode (if not, make it so)
     When false ensure that the application is NOT in full screen mode (if not, make it so)

on run argv
  set theapp to item 1 of argv
    if item 2 of argv is "false"
    set toggleOnFull to true
    else
    set toggleOnFull to false
    end if

  tell application theapp
    activate
    delay 2
    (*
      Initially from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8215501/applescript-use-lion-fullscreen
    *)
    set isfullscreen to false
    tell application "System Events" to tell process theapp
      set isfullscreen to value of attribute "AXFullScreen" of window 1
    end tell
    --display dialog "var " & isfullscreen

    if isfullscreen is toggleOnFull then
      tell application "System Events" to keystroke "f" using { command down, control down }
      delay 2
    end if
  end tell
end run

Source: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/dsummersl/4175461/raw/36811eab78ca5e1a25fbd547a44b3d9c8d0d424d/makeFullScreen.applescript


pkgbuild open URL using default browser I use pkgbuild to create an Apple installer .pkg.

In my preinstall script, I have the following, which opens in Chrome if I invoke it myself, however when run by pkgbuild script, always opens the above link using Safari:

open "https://apple.stackexchange.com/"

I tried to force it to run as the current user:

sudo -u "$(logname || echo "$SUDO_USER")" open "https://apple.stackexchange.com/"

... but it still uses Safari.

My system default is currently Chrome.  I changed it to Firefox, and the same thing occurs.

How do I open this URL using the default browser within a pkgbuild script?

After echoing some values of preinstall to a temp file and some advice from comments in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35619036/, I found the following:

$SUDO_USER is empty
logname is root
✅$USER has the correct value

So adopting the script as follows fixes it.  The link is opened in the default browser.

sudo -u "$USER" open "https://apple.stackexchange.com/"

As an aside, the following I had expected to work but it DID NOT work.  This technique still opens in Safari, unfortunately.

su "$USER" -c "open https://apple.stackexchange.com"

So, use sudo -u "$USER" and it should work.


Installing Mavericks 10.9.4 I have a 2011 MBP that I use as a studio computer, with it I use an archaic Mbox2 Pro soundcard with Firewire.
The drivers for the soundcard are compatible with Mavericks 10.9.4 (the one in App store is version 10.9.5, which produce some irregular behavior). The OSX version I've used until now is the latest version of Mountain Lion, so I'd like to upgrade.

Is there any way of downloading an older version of Mavericks (for example 10.9.1) and then use the combo update packages available at the developer site?

You can only download it at all if you have it in your Purchase History on the App Store, & even then you'd get 10.9.5

Other than that, you'd need to find a friend who archives OS versions meticulously.
If you can get hold of 10.9.anything, you can then use the combo updater to 10.9.4 from Apple.


How to upload my iMovie project to iCloud drive? I would like to get my iMovie project on my iPad. My iCloud Drive is turned on on every device. I mean the project, not the result from the theater. Video from theater is there on my device. But what about project? In my iMovie preferences my checkbox Automatically upload... is checked...

Find the project file, then copy it and paste it into iCloud Drive in finder.

Hope this helps.


How to read ePubs on a first generation iPad My father has a 1st generation iPad. I can't seem to find a single eBook reader that is compatible. iBooks should have a compatible version, but it won't install it.

I have read about using iTunes to sync older versions, but his Mac mini is so old it won't even 'see' the iPad on iTunes.

Any ideas?

BeyondPrint Reader
iTunes Store link: https://itunes.apple.com/br/app/beyondprint-reader/id464926033?mt=8

Installed and working!


Can you trick Apple Music/iCloud Music Library by labeling music files as audiobooks? I have about 40,000 tracks in my iTunes library.

As I understand it, in order to add Apple Music tracks to custom playlists, I have to enable the iCloud Music Library, which I can't do with more than 25,000 tracks in my library.

I know that I can work around the problem by splitting my library up into two. But I wonder if there's a simpler solution?

I don't listen to audiobooks very often, and so I'm not using the "Audiobooks" media type in iTunes. If I relabel a music file as an audiobook in iTunes, it no longer shows up in the Music track count, but I can play it just like normal from iTunes on my desktop.

Before I go culling my whole library for tracks to label as books, though, I wondered if anyone had already tried this, and whether it works? It seems a lot easier than breaking everything into two separate libraries, but I haven't seen it suggested in any of the many threads on this issue.

Finally got around to trying it, and it works. Once I'd marked enough files as "Audiobook" to get the remaining music files under 25k, Apple synced the remaining files with no problem.

This seems like a much easier solution than the "two libraries" solution that other people are recommending...although it would make actual audiobooks more of a pain to deal with for people who use audiobooks.


Solution for Airprint with a router that is not Bonjour compatible I'm trying to troubleshoot remotely for my mother and her iPad. I sent her a Canon Airprint-compatible printer which is visible/usable on her wireless network by a desktop PC and a netbook, but not visible by the iPad. After trying software updates and power cycling without success, we finally determined that her Actiontec router is not Bonjour compatible. We're about to replace her router, but I thought I'd check to see if there might be a cheaper solution to be found here.

I don't know if it will work, mostly because the product hasn't been released yet but xPrintServer might work. It is a bit pricey for this usage though.


Can I use my iPhone's 18W adapter on my MacBook Pro? And vice versa? Are the new 18W power adapters for the iPhone 11's compatible with the MacBook Pro 13-inch (2019)?

Is it safe? Anything to watch out for?

What about using my MacBook's adapter (with the correct cable) on my iPhone 11 Pro? Is that safe

Yes, it is safe to connect the 18W USB-C power adapter to a MacBook Pro. However, I wouldn't expect it to actually be useful for charging the laptop. The charger supports 5V (max 15W) and 9V (max 18W), but with the MacBook Pro you really want a 15V or 20V charger to be able to get some energy transferred in a timely manner.

And yes, it is also safe to use the MacBook Pro's USB-C charger with the iPhone 11 Pro using the correct cable. It should be able to charge your phone just fine.


How can I get notifications on my iPhone of Twitter hashtag mentions? I must be missing something simple here. I'm not a big Twitter user, but this seems like something that should be obvious and simple.

I can get notifications on my iPhone (iOS 8) whenever certain people tweet. I want to get a notification when anyone ever tweets certain hashtags. Is this possible with the default Twitter app or perhaps some third-party offering?

At first, I thought there would be a straight-forward, albeit hidden, solution. However, after doing some digging, it seems that something that should be a simple swipe or click to do is more complicated than that. This is going to be a little long, but hopefully will be incredibly helpful. I was going to post this earlier today, but did not get the chance to make this whole post until tonight.

Boxcar

From what I've seen, Boxcar.io is one of the best ways to get push notifications for tracking hashtag mentions. Both the iOS app and the web client allow a user to add a varying amount of sources to get information from. Twitter, email, RSS feeds, etc. can all be collected into Boxcar and keep track of all of your updates. Boxcar is not made specifically for what you are trying to do but the iOS app has the option of adding filters, where a group of sources can be viewed as one folder and have a key phrase that is picked out from all the sources to create a push alert.
What I did in Boxcar that worked was create an RSS feed using Queryfeed.net to generate an RSS feed for the term #hashtag. Queryfeed is extremely useful for this because Queryfeed can create an RSS feed for Twitter, Google+, and Facebook using specific search terms.

After adding all the sources that you may want (Twitter accounts, RSS feeds, etc.)  you can create a filter in the iOS app where you can select which sources you want in the feed, as well as other settings for updates.
There is a lot of customization that a Boxcar user can do, especially in tracking certain hashtags or trends. It is a little more work than some may want to put in and it is not problem free (in my experiments with Boxcar today there was definitely a lag in getting RSS updates at first, and the web client and iOS app are not exactly intuitive in their own unique ways) but it definitely does allow someone to track and receive alerts for specific hashtags.
IFTTT
There is another option that I won't delve into as much as I did Boxcar simply because in my experience, it is a little more finicky.
IFTTT is an app that operates in If-Then statements. An example they use on their about page is as follows: if I post a picture to Instagram, then save that photo to Dropbox. "If"s are called triggers (in this case, the mention of #hashtag on Twitter), and "then"s are called actions (getting an iOS push notification when a tweet is made using #hashtag).
Combined, triggers and actions make Recipes. A Recipe connects Channels (the channels you would want to use are Twitter and iOS Notifications). In essence, IFTTT links one application's actions to get a reaction from another.
While the user interface is a bit easier than Boxcar, IFTTT Recipes are one trigger, one action. You cannot, for example, have a feed like in Boxcar that searches for a specific term across multiple platforms, like finding the use of #hashtag in Facebook as well as Twitter. My (limited) personal experience with IFTTT is that occasionally Recipes don't want to work and I did not have the patience to figure out why. However, IFTTT is supported in Boxcar, so trying both and seeing which works best for you won't be much of a hassle.


Most efficient way to 'export' iTunes protected aac to FLAC (for personal use)? What's the most efficient way to export tunes bought with iTunes that are protected aac to FLAC for playing on other music hardware (still for personal use)?

2 methods I can think of so far are:

make a playlist of all the purchased songs in the library, rip to CD, then rip the CD to FLAC. Disadvantage: with 80+ tunes, this would require multiple CDs. But I'm assuming that titles of the tunes are recorded as CD-text, is this true?
same as above but instead of ripping to CD, use SoundFlower to record the output. Disadvantage: no CDs required but will have to manually split the recording into each track and name it.

Any better ideas? Thanks.

Try uploading all your music to itunes match. In my experience, when you re-download it all of the protection has been removed.


Where is the manual for the Apple iPhone Podcasts app? I have the recently released Apple iPhone app "Podcasts", released June 2012. Is there somewhere that gives more than just a cursory explanation of how to use it?

For example, when does it chose to download podcasts? Can you force it to update the podcasts without going one by one and clicking on the download link? Will it download over cellular? (I don't want it to do that). Can it download the podcasts but play through the normal music app?

Is there somewhere that gives more than just a cursory explanation of how to use it?

Probably not - Apple's not big on providing manuals when they don't think they're necessary.

  For example, when does it chose to download podcasts?

Probably hourly. There's no option to change this that I can find.

  Can you force it to update the podcasts without going one by one and clicking on the download link?

It downloads new episodes for subscribed podcasts automatically.

  Will it download over cellular?

Yep, it does. It also streams over cellular, and well enough that I didn't notice that that was what it was doing at first. (I'm on Verizon 3G.)

  Can it download the podcasts but play through the normal music app?

Nope. It's totally separate. (There's rumor/suspicion that the Music app won't even have a Podcasts section in iOS 6.)


Remove account from Family Sharing and access purchased apps I would like to gain more insight into Family Sharing.

Suppose I add Person X to my Family and let X buy apps from it. If later I remove X from my Family account, would I still be able to download apps later from iTunes purchases that X had purchased? Or will it be only available to X who brought the app in the first place?

Also, if I add X to my Family account, would I be able to download the apps that X has purchased while X is still in Family Sharing?

I feel Apple has some corporate greed issues with their Family Sharing feature that they designed.  The system locks your credit card in, you can't remove it, which negatively impacts families budgets.  I will detail below.
First let me answer your questions:
In your first question, the latter part is true: purchases by person X will only be available to person X.  This is according to the Leave Family Sharing article on the Apple Support site.
Under the section:  What happens to your content when you stop sharing? it says

Any content that your family shared with you isn't automatically removed from your device. You can purchase it again or remove it to free up space on your device. If you downloaded an app from a family member’s purchase history and made In-App Purchases, you'll need to purchase the app yourself to access your In-App Purchases.
Any DRM-protected music, movies, TV shows, books, or apps that you previously downloaded from other family member's collections will no longer be usable, and other family members won't be able to use content downloaded from your collection.

In your second question - the answer is Yes - apps are shared within the Family.
However, I recommend you do not turn on Family Sharing for 2 reasons:

You have to enter a credit card to turn on Family Sharing.  Once you do this, your payment method cannot later be switched to None (i.e - you can't remove your credit card!) without turning off Family Sharing...oh how nice....

So lets turn off Family Sharing, should be easy enough.  Well, not if you have a child on your Family Sharing that is under 13.  You can't turn off Family Sharing if there is a child on your account under 13.  So now you are stuck verifying your credit card all the time, because you can't ever remove it.

The Family Sharing hurts families budgets because, kids are kids and get the password and make purchases and rack up the bill.  So you want to remove the credit card, but you are restricted by Apple, because a credit card is a requirement for Family Sharing.  And you can't turn off family sharing if you have a child under 13. So you are stuck.
It shouldn't be this hard to remove the credit card, yet it is.  Shame on Apple - it feels like they have you and your credit card trapped in their system.


Spotlight/Finder will not index after Yosemite update I'm currently working in OS X 10.10.3. I made a bit of a jump from 10.6.9 as our system was falling behind from the person who previously held my position. All of my customer files are stored on an external HD and up until my Yosemite update, indexing has worked fine. I've reviewed several other posts and gone into Terminal and disabled/reenabled all volumes to index and still nothing. It is getting very difficult to find files that I didn't file when I cannot search my drive!

Old school way of trying to solve it but can you get a second HD? Format that using Yosemite with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and copy the files over to the new drive. The new format might make it be recognized and indexed by Finder at that point.


How to uninstall a program through the App Store? I want to uninstall some recently installed software which I installed using the Mac App Store. Is is possible to uninstall those programs from inside the App Store?

No.

You cannot uninstall apps from within the App Store.

How can I delete an application?

You can delete them like in iOS:

Open Launchpad.
Click and hold the app you want to delete (or hold ⌥)
Delete by clicking on the X.

Note: The X appears only for apps which have been installed using the Mac App Store.
Locate the Applications folder where the app is located:

/Applications or /Users/my_name/Applications
Drag the application to the Trash.

Note: This will only remove the application - this will not remove some other files which may be related to the app (e.g. preferences). If you want to remove such files as well, you can use tools like AppCleaner which @james.garriss has mentioned.

Besides this, applications which have not been installed via the Mac App Store sometimes provide their own uninstaller in the installer .dmg image. I usually keep them in a folder Applications/Uninstaller which I created.


How do I make multiple screen recordings with the exact same portion of the screen I can only select the portion of the screen to record manually. I want them all exactly the same so that when the videos are played sequentially, it all lines up.

I'm using quicktime and would ideally like to just stick with that if possible.

UPDATE: Answer by @Andre LaBranche is better, go read that

Save this script as caperture.swift:
#!/usr/bin/env xcrun swift
import Foundation

// Start QuickTime Player using AppleScript
func startQT() {
    var scriptToPerform: NSAppleScript?
    let asCommand = "tell application \"QuickTime Player\" \n" +
            " activate \n" +
            " new screen recording \n" +
            " delay 1 \n" +
            " tell application \"System Events\" to key code 49 \n" +
            " delay 1\n" +
            " end tell"

    scriptToPerform = NSAppleScript(source:asCommand)
    var possibleError: NSDictionary?

    if let script = scriptToPerform {
        script.executeAndReturnError(&possibleError)
        if let error = possibleError {
            print("ERROR: \(error)")
        }
    }
}

// Click and drag the mouse as defined by the supplied commandline arguments
func dragMouse() {
    let args = UserDefaults.standard

    let x = CGFloat(args.integer(forKey: "x"))
    let y = CGFloat(args.integer(forKey: "y"))
    let w = CGFloat(args.integer(forKey: "w"))
    let h = CGFloat(args.integer(forKey: "h"))

    let p0 = NSPointToCGPoint(NSMakePoint(x, y))
    let p1 = NSPointToCGPoint(NSMakePoint(x + w, y + h))

    let mouseDown = CGEvent(mouseEventSource: nil, mouseType: CGEventType.leftMouseDown, mouseCursorPosition: p0, mouseButton: CGMouseButton.left)!
    let mouseDrag = CGEvent(mouseEventSource: nil, mouseType: CGEventType.leftMouseDragged, mouseCursorPosition: p1, mouseButton: CGMouseButton.left)!
    let mouseUp = CGEvent(mouseEventSource: nil, mouseType: CGEventType.leftMouseUp, mouseCursorPosition: p1, mouseButton: CGMouseButton.left)!

    let kDelayUSec : useconds_t = 500_000

    mouseDown.post(tap: CGEventTapLocation.cghidEventTap)
    usleep(kDelayUSec)
    mouseDrag.post(tap: CGEventTapLocation.cghidEventTap)
    usleep(kDelayUSec)
    mouseUp.post(tap: CGEventTapLocation.cghidEventTap)
}

if (CommandLine.arguments.count != 9) {
    print("usage:")
    print("    ./caperture.swift -x 100 -y 100 -w 400 -h 300")
} else {
    startQT()
    dragMouse()
}

Once the caperture.swift file is saved. You will need to make sure that it can be executed.
In Terminal.app run the command:
chmod +x caperture.swift

Then you execute it with:
./caperture.swift -x 100 -y 100 -w 400 -h 300

This will start up QuickTime player ready to start recording like this:

It relies on AppleScript and swift so you'll also need xcode installed.
This was really useful for me so I've put it up on github as caperture in case anyone wants to improve it.


can't boot into windows 10 bootcamp but partition is still good I have a Macbook Pro 15" 2018 running High Sierra and I installed Windows 10 using bootcamp. I had duet display installed on both HS and Win10, and I installed Parallels Desktop 14 on the MacOS side and had it run the bootcamp partition instead of installing a new instance of win10. I think duet display caused some problems because the MacOS version was trying to mirror with the ipad at the same as the Win10 duet display running duet display (that was dumb, I know. it was a careless accident). It crashed/stalled and I couldn't shut down or suspend win10 in Parallels. I ended up force quitting Parallels using activity monitor. Now I can't boot into windows by holding option on bootup. However, I do have the Paragon NTFS for Mac that allows me to view NTFS partitions and all my data is on there and now backed up. I'd rather not have to reinstall everything if all it takes is fiddling with the EFI partition. Any ideas?

OK, since I can read the bootcamp partition, I guess I'll just back it up and reinstall Windows. I'll first have to manually delete the bootcamp partition and resize the MacOS partition manually, since Bootcamp assistant doesn't know what to do now (fairly useless app, in my opinion!).

Thanks for everyone's input.


Custom keyboard layout not showing in System Preferences in 10.13.6 I have a custom keyboard layout which I would like to use and I've tried moving the .keylayout file to the /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ and the corresponding directory in home folder, but it doesn't show up in System Preferences app.
I've also tried having it only in home/Library/Keyboard Layouts/ or only in /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ and both but to no avail.

I would've tried installing it with Ukelele or creating the bundle but Ukelele won't open it saying only that it isn't valid XML. To me it seems to be correct and it was working at one point, but then after restart it disappeared from the System Preferences.

I have tried this already: Apple Support

You can see the .keylayout file here: Drive DAS Layout

Any help getting this to work is greatly appreciated!

A recent discussion in the Ukelele Group indicates that this problem can be caused by having references to certain illegal characters in the XML file, in particular U+0000 and Unicode surrogates.


How to get the smaller tabs back in Safari 6? In Safari 6, tabs became very wide. I don’t like this new behavior.

Is there a way to get the old, smaller tabs back?

The glims tool - available from http://www.machangout.com - should do the trick to re-slice the tab width to something fixed if you prefer the old look.


Notes - iCloud.com vs me.com I am having a problem seeing all of my notes between my devices. Unfortunately, my primary iCloud account is @me.com. When my newer computer was set up, it was set up with @iCloud.com since @me.com is no longer around. I have the iCloud account as an alias and it works for everything but Notes. I can't figure out how to change my Notes on the Mac to integrate into my mobile devices. If I could just Airdrop, I could at least have the critical ones come through. Any advice?

As @Tetsujin said, iCloud.com, me.com and mac.com are all the same, the latter two are alias' of iCloud.

In Notes on the mac select View > Show Folders. You should now see where your notes are being saved and will have a heading for "iCloud" and "On my Mac". If you don't see "On my Mac". Select from the menubar Notes > Preferences and check the box "Enable the On My Mac Account".

You can now drag notes from the list in the middle to the groups on the left.


Enable Web Inspector in Safari v 8.0 in Yosemite OS I'm trying to show/hide the web inspector tool in mac os "Yosemite" using bash script, I used the following command in terminal but it didn't work even after I restarted Safari, so am I doing something wrong?

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras –Boolean

defaults write NSGlobalDomain WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true

adds Inspect Element to the right-click menu

However, opening the Develop menu will do it too

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDevelopMenu -bool true

One additional note about toggling the Develop menu this way is that it isn't interactive with the Safari prefs pane, & can result in reversed behaviour if later toggled from there by the user.


Ruby -e does not execute the code in the argument I am running Mac OS High Sierra v10.13.2 on a MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012). My Ruby version (output from >ruby -v) is ruby 2.3.3p222 (2016-11-21 revision 56859) [universal.x86_64-darwin17].
When I am trying to install Homebrew using the following command:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install")

the command returns a prompt ">", and nothing happens. When I try running the curl command, it executes properly and displays the Homebrew install scipt.

How do I get the entire "ruby -e ..." command to execute properly and install Homebrew?

The " around the link are unnecessary, but there is one " missing at the end. Try

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

or just copy/paste from Homebrew.


Why does Finder use 59GB of swap space? My new retina MacBook Pro(with 16GB RAM) keeps receiving this "Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory" message. I have 300 GB of free space on my hard drive, and 16 GB of RAM. This shouldn't be happening.

But it keeps happening, even when I'm not actively using my Mac. I went to lunch, came back, and saw this:  59 GB of swap used.

What is going on?

I believe this is a bug in OS X 10.7. I also have a retina MacBook Pro. Mine is 2.6/16/512, and I noticed that there were 0 page outs but a very large swap file being created (mine was about 8 GB). Closing applications actively reduced the swap space being used. Again there were no page outs being recorded.

I believe this has to do with the sleep image file that also gets housed alongside the virtual memory files in /private/var/vm. When pmset hibernatemode is set to 3 (default for laptops, suspend to RAM and disk), sleepimage gets written upon sleep. This is why it takes a few moments for these laptops to go to sleep: it's writing up to 16 GB of RAM to the sleepimage.

However, changing this setting so that the RAM gets powered on sleep and NO sleepimage is written has resulted in no abnormal increases in swap file size. My suspicion is that the sleepimage is in some cases being preserved post-sleep and prompting the creation of swap files. Perhaps it is this incorrect behavior that is also resulting in the unusually large swap file sizes you are seeing.

From the manpage for pmset, to change to NO suspend to disk you would run in a Terminal:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

To delete the sleepimage (and reclaim 16 GB on your computer with 16 GB of RAM), run:

sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

I restart after these operations just to ensure there's no weirdness. On each power source, you can check the status with:

pmset -g

You should be aware that, in the event of a total power loss (battery dies and not plugged in) the contents of the RAM will not have been saved to the hard drive, and you will lose your work. For me, this is a small but calculated risk because the speed of sleep/wake, coupled with the great battery life and reclaimed storage space. Additionally, for me it seems to have mitigated this issue, which I have not seen on any other Mac laptop I've owned. I wish we had those battery indicator lights, though.


Can you use Catleap display with MacBook Pro? I've read several people doing this, but the ebay description page warns against using with a Mac.

For ex. -> http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-YAMAKASI-CATLEAP-Q270-SE-27-LED-2560X1440-WQHD-DVI-D-Dual-Computer-Monitor-/140738200221?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item20c4a6829d

It is contradictory and confusing to say the least. Have others used Catleap with success? ( any warnings ) ?

Ok, days of reading later; the answer is 'Yes' with following requirements

Need to output a native dual link DVI signal at 2560x1440
Need a mini Display port to Dual Link DVI ( Apple or Monoprice)


Safari opens on drive dismount For some reason, sometimes when I dismount/eject a physical drive, Safari launches in the background. This behavior has occurred even in safe mode, in a guest account, with nothing else running. I've experienced it happening with SD cards, USB hard drives, and thumb drives.

I've spent an hour on the phone with an Apple tech to no avail, and I've spent quite a bit of time on my own trying to narrow it down. What could be causing this, and how can I stop it?

I'm running Sierra on a 2015 rMBP.

Only thing I can think of a system-level daemon -- fire up Terminal and try:

$ sudo fs_usage -w > ~/Desktop/eject_log.txt

Then dismount and let Safari open up.  Back to terminal, ^C (ctrl-c).
Open up the log file and see what you find.


Why have I lost the ability to play my cloud music with Apple Music? I previously asked this question about what I might lose if I were to switch from iTunes Match to Apple Music.  The basic consensus was that for my needs, I really wouldn't lose anything.  I also found this question/answer which says as I understand it, that any songs I import to my library should be available on "all devices".  Unfortunately now that I've lived with Apple Music for a while, I've come to a rather unpleasant conclusion.  I believe I have now completely lost the ability to add new items to my iTunes library and play them from my phone.

My library is maintained on my home desktop computer, and also now partially on the cloud via Apple Music.  I don't store songs locally on my phone due to limited storage space.  Previously with iTunes Match, I was able to play anything in my home library from my iPhone 4s which is running iOS 8.1.2 (and I'm not willing to upgrade to iOS9 and suffer possible performance hits as well as application compatibility issues, nor am I willing to upgrade to a newer phone because they are too stupidly big).  Now however, it looks like anything that was added to my library prior to my Apple Music subscription, is still playable remotely.  But anything I add to my library now, is not.

So am I right that since I now subscribe to Apple Music and not iTunes Match (and paying a whole lot more now, I might add), that my iOS8 phone can no longer stream any newly-added songs even though I've made them "available for download"?  They do appear on my phone but are greyed out and cannot be played.

OMG I figured out what's happening, and I'm horrified.

If the song in question is available in Apple Music, then that song will be automatically treated AS an Apple Music item and therefore will NOT be able to stream even after being added to the iCloud Music Library, on any device running an OS older than 8.4.

So to be clear... music that I created myself that is 100% original (say something out of Ableton Live, Logic Audio, etc.) will be able to be streamed to my phone running iOS 8.1.2.  BUT (and I just did this myself so I am 100% positive it is correct), say I rip a song myself from a CD (or download the song from any other website, etc.).  If I add that song to my library, it will appear as an MPEG Audio File (or aac or m4a etc.) and be able to be added to the iCloud Music Library, but if that song  is also available in Apple Music, then it will NOT stream to my phone!

Additionally, (and this is the really horrible part)... if I remove the download from iTunes, and download it again from the cloud, it downloads an Apple Music DRM-encoded file instead!

The old MP3 (or whatever) version is still on my hard drive, but the iTunes reference now points to their DRM-encoded Apple Music version, and it will not be playable in anything but iTunes.

I'd like to believe this is a bug, but I have a feeling it's intentional.  iTunes never used to do this, and in my opinion this is pretty nasty... if I hadn't caught what was going on, I could have ended up with a substantial portion of my library all being converted into Apple Music files instead of the MP3s, AACs, etc. that I already have.

UPDATE:  I'm on the phone with Apple now and it's confirmed.  Apple Music without iTunes Match will not allow streaming of any newly-added and matched content, to any iOS device using iOS prior to 8.4.  Also Apple Music will always replace any matched songs (even if you ripped them yourself from a CD) with DRM-encrypted versions, should you ever download them from iTunes Cloud (paying for iTunes Match would prevent this).  So basically it's $25/year to remove DRM for good from non-Apple Music files.

I'm amazed I didn't run into this when I investigated using Apple Music in the first place.  I understood that music I actually download through Apple Music (as an Apple Music AAC file) would be DRM, but to lock down my own CD rips if I ever need to download them again!?!?  Brass balls Apple.  Brass balls.


How do I password-protect access to specific apps in iOS? currently, I have a 4 digit lock on my phone.

I know this isn't really secure - and can be broken through if neccessary. It just kind of stops the situation if someone picks up my phone, they won't be able to dial people or write and read my emails straight away.

What I find is that most of the apps I have aren't really worth securing. Like I don't care if someone plays a game or plays a song or checks the weather. And it's really annoying having to unlock the phone every time I want to do anything with it.

Essentially, it's just the stuff like phone, messages, email that I would like a code for.

So I was wondering, are there any features on the phone or any apps that'll allow me to only ask for a keycode when I want to open certain icons or apps?

The only way to passcode protect individual applications, including built in system ones is to jailbreak the phone and install a jailbreak tweak like Locktopus or Lockdown Pro. Both of these tweaks let you set a text passcode as well as a numerical one. The reason an AppStore application cannot provide this functionality is because AppStore apps are Sandboxed. This means they are limited in how they can interact with other applications, and the iPhone itself.
Alternatively, replace the application you are currently using with an AppStore alternative that has a passcode lock built into the application. This wont protect the data in the original app, but if you want to secure data behind a passcode you could move the data into the passcode protected application and delete it from the original application. This obviously wont work for contacts, but could work for photos and notes.
See the iOS application "MyPics" for an example of a photo app where you can set a passcode to protect access. Another example is the My Secret Folder application which lets you import data into it and set a passcode to prevent people from accessing that data within the app.


Can't load data from the Apple Software Update server I can't seem to access software updates on my Mac.  When I go to 'App Store' on my Mac and check the Updates tab, it spins for a long time, then a dialog box pops up saying

  An error has occurred

  Can't load data from the Apple Software Update server.

Things I've already checked:

This doesn't seem to be a network problem or transient fault.  It has been happening for the past week or more.  I do have network connectivity (ping 8.8.8.8 succeeds, and I can load web pages in the browser).
I can view the other tabs of App Store without problems.
I've tried signing out from App Store, quitting it, re-launching it, and signing in again, but that doesn't help.
I've tried running softwareupdate -i -a from the command line, but that doesn't seem to help: it prints "Finding available software", hangs for a long time, and then quits without printing anything.  Adding the --verbose flag doesn't help provide any additional information.
I am using MacOS Sierra version 10.12.4, if that's relevant.

How do I troubleshoot this?

Please try this guide. At least it was useful for me.

By default, the built-in application firewall for macOS automatically allows applications signed by Apple to receive incoming connections. If you've adjusted the settings for your application firewall, you might need to allow incoming connections. If the issue persists, reset the cache of accepted certificates:

Click your desktop to make sure that you're in Finder.
From the menu at the top of your computer screen, choose Go > Go to Folder.
In the box, enter /var/db/crls/.
Click Go.
Drag the files labeled crlcache.db and ocspcache.db to the Trash.
If prompted, enter your administrator password.
Restart your computer, then try to connect to the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, or App Store.


WhatsApp on iPhone: how to switch to a new phone number without losing anything? I have a long history of chats, several groups and multiple contacts (who have me in their address books) on Whatsapp for iPhone.

How can I preserve them all if I switch for a week to a new SIM card (which I buy for travel, from a different cell operator)? Is it possible to make the switch seamless for my friends, so they don't have even to add my new number (and of course, I'd like that their history of chats with me doesn't break on this switch)? After a week, I would like to switch back to my original SIM card -- and again don't want to loose anything. My iPhone device will remain the same all the time, and I'm not going to reset it during that period.

Whatsapp FAQ is quite unclear on this...

It proved trivial:

power down iPhone
change SIM card
turn iPhone on
launch Whatsapp
Whatsapp asks something like "Mobile network changed. Switch to new phone number?". Tap "No"

That's it. All groups, chat history and contacts preserved. My friends see me (and chat history with me) as I never changed SIM card or number.

Later switch back to the original number works exactly the same.

Mind the warning from Whatsapp FAQ: "Please do not swap SIM cards ... frequently, or you will create problems in the verification process." But with two changes "to new and back to the old" in half an hour, I of course didn't experience any problems.


Dual booting Mid 2012 MacBook Pro running Catalina with Deepin After the Catalina upgrade Macintosh HD is listed twice in Disk Utility.  One only has about 10gb used and the other looks like that's where everything is.  It has the label data in the name.  I read somewhere that this is normal.  I want to dual boot linux, thinking about Deepin, and need to create the install partition.  How exactly should I proceed?

It's quite straightforward, but when playing with partitions and dual boot systems, things can go wrong so:

First use CarbonCopyCloner to make a clone of your Mac in case anything goes awry.
Next, reboot the mac and hold down Command-R as it's restarting (when you here the gong usually) to boot into recovery mode.
Once recovery mode boots up, select Disk Utility and repartition the main disk (select the top disk (usually) and click the partition icon)
It will ask if you want to add a volume (which is what the 'data' volume is) or Partition, choose Partition.
Change the existing partition size to make room for the new one and Apply.

Now you have room for the Linux Boot Partition, simply follow the instructions at:

https://www.techonia.com/6156/install-manjaro-deepin-on-macbook-pro


Calligraphic Asian fonts in macOS What fonts does macOS have that give major Asian scripts an artistic, calligraphic look, as if painted by a scholar with a brush? (As opposed to a formal, computer characters.)

I'll update the list as suggestions come. (Let me know if some important/beautiful script are left out.)

China: Xingkai
Japan: Xingkai (?)
Korea: Nanum
Burma
Tibet
Thailand
Cambodia
India

India has many scripts, so I'll leave it to a knowledgable person to suggest the major (or most artistic looking) scripts and corresponding calligraphic fonts for them.

Arabian scripts seem to look very hand-written by default, so suggestions are not necessary.

(This question was initially posted about Chinese fonts, but I soon realised this question is relevant for other scripts too such as Japanese, Indian, Korean, etc. so I've generalised the question.)

macOS has dozens of "greyed out" fonts in Font Book that can be downloaded on demand, but there's no guide to help you navigate these, except downloading all of them and trying them in turn.

I'm primarily looking for fonts that are available from Font Book. External font downloads only if macOS doesn't offer good enough scripts out of the box.

Some examples of the "artistic" look I'm looking for:

Chinese

Indian

(India doesn't have the same history of calligraphy as China, but in return there's no shortage of western yoga chicks who henna paint beautifully flowing Indian characters on their persons.)

PS! I don't know Asian scripts so I hope none of the pasted images contain insults of any kind.

On my El Capitan I have Xingkai SC:

This font can probably also be used for Japanese.

For Korean, MacOS has a calligraphic font called Nanum Brush.

For other Asian scripts, you would have to download something from a 3rd party.


How to run remote applications on OS X like X11 does? Is there any application that can be installed in OS X (Lion) that will allow a person to run applications from the host system on a guest system, displaying only the windows for the application? In other words, can Cocoa applications display their windows on another OS X Desktop than the machine on which they are running?

X11 allows you to run an application remotely without sharing the whole Desktop.

I am currently using VNC (Screen Sharing), but because of screen resolution differences, it isn't ideal.

Short answer is no.

Cocoa is not designed as a remote procedure call (RPC)-esque protocol, while X is. You cannot tunnel the interfaces of Cocoa applications like you know it from X11 natively, only using protocols like VNC that transfer the actual bitmap rather than the rendering instructions.

On the other hand, you are able to use remotely running X applications via SSH.


macOS/OS X Numbers 3.2 inserting date / time I want a cell to take on the date and time of "this moment", and then leave it.

Contrary to some experiences I've read about, the Insert menu does have Date & Time, but it doesn't seem to respect the format I've specified for the cell.  I used the Cell formatting inspector to declare the cell as Date & Time, 1/5/14, 7:08 PM. I entered text-insertion mode on the cell, and selected Insert > Date & Time.  It inserted Friday, July 4, 2014 (and no time). When I then selected the cell (you know, one click, which outlines the cell, as opposed to two clicks which puts you into text insertion mode), the inspector said the cell's format had reverted to Automatic. I switched it back to Date & Time but now it reads 7/4/14 12:00 (it's really more like 1:50).

The whole thing is anti-intuitive and zany to me. Can someone tell me what's the right way to command Numbers to insert the current date and time into a cell, and then leave it?  (=NOW continues to update)

UPDATE 1

The three methods I've tried for entering the current date and time into a cell are:

Enter text-insertion mode in a cell, Insert > Date & Time (which enters just the Date, as Friday, July 4, 2014), enter cell-selection mode on the cell, and change the format to Date & Time (which changes it to Friday, July 4, 2014 12:00 AM).  So, not that one.
Enter text-insertion mode in a cell, type =NOW (which enters 7/4/14 1:31 PM and changes all other instances of cells with =NOW to 7/4/14 1:31 PM !!).  So, definitely not that one.
Enter text-insertion mode in a cell, type 7/4/14 1:34 pm which gets changed to 7/4/14 1:34 PM (i.e. 'pm' got capitalized), indicating that Numbers did recognize it as a date/time.  This works. But it's less than satisfactory, to put it mildly.

I can't imagine this is working as Apple intended.

I believe Insert > Date & Time (and its two companions) are intended for use in headers and footers. These are available after choosing File > Print. When used there, the inserted date can be clicked for a little popup formatter and button to manually reset the time to now.

The feature you want, an auto-generated NOW cell that does not change, is apparently not available.

Option A: Put the NOW function into a cell somewhere.  It shows the current time. Copy the cell, then Edit > Paste Formula Results into the cell you want to have the unchanging time.

Option B: Use a general macro app (like the amazingly capable Keyboard Maestro) to generate your date/time text and paste it into a cell.

In both cases, choose the date and time formats you want on the final cell.

(Numbers 3.5.3 used for this answer)


How can I control sound from different applications? I have a radio app that I listen to all the time. Then I want to visit a website which has sound (or a game).

Is there a way to mute sound from an application?

There's a nice open source app, BackgroundMusic, that provides for per app volume control in OSX10.10+:


2015 Macbook Pro El Capitan - wifi drops when CPU active When the CPU/GPU of my early 2015 13" Retina MBP running El Capitan 10.11.6 is under strain, the wifi drops.

I first noticed this whilst playing the web browser game diep.io in Chrome. When the game is running fairly CPU-intensively the wifi menu bar symbol turns to 'off' for a few seconds and then reconnects, hence booting me from the game. This happens intermittently - perhaps every 15 minutes. I thought it was related to the fan activating but I've observed it without fan too.

I've tested on 2 different wifi routers, both 2.4ghz, and with/without power cable - same results.

This is the only situation I've noticed the wifi dropping in - it doesn't drop randomly or suffer any other connectivity issues AFAIK.

Are there further tests I can run or solutions to try?

Update: some more tests

Chrome with hardware acceleration off: no wifi drops, but game doesn't run hot enough to activate the fan
Safari:  Game doesn't work
Firefox with hardware acceleration: same as Chrome (no drops but no fan)

I'm thinking this may be simply a Chrome bug with hardware acceleration, but I'm worried the MBP hardware could be defective. Would testing with a non-browser-based CPU-intensive networked game or app be a good way to prove this?

In addition to the tests you've already run, and since your mainly concerned about your MBP's hardware, I'd also run Apple Diagnostics.

Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.


Which iPhone 5 models are compatible with cellular carriers around the globe? On this page Apple lists 3 different models of iPhone with different LTE support.  My question is, if I buy an iPhone in one area (e.g. Canada), and take it back to another area (e.g. the UK), what network compatibility can I expect on my device? (both LTE coverage as well as just working for voice and data at any speeds)

The tech specs page lists the available network features per model in more detail.

GSM model A1428: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 4 and 17)
CDMA model A1429: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5, 13, 25)
GSM model A1429: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5)

In short, the two biggest differences are the CDMA vs. the GSM models. Depending on what you get, you won't even be able to do voice calls on the other type of network.
Across the two different models with GSM antennas, it appears that the same frequencies for everything but LTE are supported, so you are likely to get 3G and GPRS support across all GSM networks if the carrier supports it.


Deleted GarageBand but taking up space I deleted GarageBand by dragging the app to the trash, but in the system information it says it is still taking up over 20gb, where are these files located?

If you installed loops - you'll have to clean them out: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201503

If you made projects, they could be stored anywhere on the disk - probably in a /Users folder.


Why can't some Macs upgrade to Mountain Lion? This is an extension of this question. As noted by that question, Apple discontinued support for many of their older computers, notably the plastic MacBooks. What is the reasoning for leaving out this hardware? Is it due to hardware restrictions or is it just a push for owners of older hardware to upgrade?

The limitation is because Mountain Lion dropped support for 32 bit kernel and extensions. There are work arounds that work on some old computers (like the first gen Intel Mac Pro), leading me to believe it's simply an artificial limitation, much like the exclusion of Intel Core Solo support that came with Lion.


How do I do a clean install of Yosemite? I'd like to start from scratch with Yosemite. I have Mavericks running on my iMac now but I'd like to just wipe the system and start with a clean Yosemite install.

How do I do a clean install of Yosemite on my machine, not an upgrade install?

I downloaded the OS X Yosemite GM from the App Store.  Quit the installer that pops up with out installing and made a bootable flash drive with it on it.  Used the following command below just change the paths to fit your need.

sudo /Applications/Path to *Yosemite Installer*.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/*FlashDrive* --applicationpath /Applications/Path to *Yosemite Installer*.app --nointeraction

Then booted the computer to the usb flash drive and wiped the previous partitions using Disk Utility.app and installed a fresh copy.


Directing specific apps to use different network connections than other apps Let's say that I have an iMac with a wired Ethernet connection and a WiFi connection at same time, on two separated LAN. Is this possible to ask Firefox to use the WiFi and Safari to use the Ethernet wire card ?

No, this is not possible at the application level.


What happened to my books in iPad update? My books got uploaded to iCloud and then disappeared. Can't find my 1000+ PDFs and epubs anywhere. I turned on an off, syncing, but to no avail. I updated iOS to 13.3, and the Apple Books automatically started uploading all my books to iCloud. The books were more than 15GB, and I had only 4 GB left in iCloud. I had the syncing turned off. But with the update to 13.3 iOS, it turned the syncing on, and now I have no way to find or retrieve my books. Walla! Magic. Great 'Jobs', Apple.

Can someone help me get my books back? Thank you.

I had a similar problem since iOS 13, but only on my iPad not my iPhone.

I have about 500 books and I like the bookshelf view. After the iOS 13 update, several of the books disappeared. The rectangle for the cover view was still there, but it was blank. When I clicked on it, nothing happened except that the app froze.

The problem seemed to be with books on iCloud, not those stored locally.

I tried various things:

Switching off syncing for Reading now brought them back - for a short time
I deleted the app and reinstalled it. The books displayed correctly as the books downloaded from iCloud but when downloading was complete, they disappeared again.

In the end, changing to the list view seems to be a workaround! The icons are still blank, but the details are shown in the list and the books will download if I click on them.


How to export annotations in iBooks for Mac? I've been using iBooks to read .epubs that I've downloaded from the Internet, and made many annotations in them.

How can I export the annotations to another Mac, or share them all at once?

I think there are two options.

This app is still not yet released http://www.compendiumsapp.com/

The other technique involves an app called Digested. I took the hint from here http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/beyond-highlighting-how-to-get-the-most-from-your-annotations--cms-20013 and should work for your other Macs.

  ...sync your iBooks with your iOS device, and use the Digested app to
  copy the annotations back to your Mac. It's a roundabout way, but it
  does work.


What is macOS Server Good For? Apple have removed a number of services from macOS Server and moved other services, such as content caching, to the “normal” macOS.

That doesn’t leave much. So, what do I get for my purchase? What are the added features/benefits of macOS Server versus regular macOS?  Am I missing something important?

Edit

I have accepted an answer which basically says it’s no longer the same product.

A few years ago I actually paid for the product for the features they removed. It’s not a hardship as my main server runs Linux.

However, when I saw MacOS server in use in an office I thought it was an ideal alternative Linux to manage internal DNS, mail, file server, etc.

macOS Server is now basically an MDM server, powerful in its own right, but all the traditional things we used to associate with Server, like network services, Open Directory, file serving, caching update server, i.e. the good old days, is gone.

Server is geared now for education and business customers to maintain, administer and provision macOS and iOS devices. It scales down to providing much finer control of provisioning and administering iDevices and macOS machines for a large Apple-centric family with kids of several ages, for example.


Transfering Lion preinstalled license to new owner My MacBook came with Lion preinstalled, now I am selling the machine and I've read that it is possible to transfer the OS license once if the OS came preinstalled on the computer. Is there something specific that I need to do or will the license transfer complete when the new user logs in with their Apple ID?

Nothing needs to be done since the Mac's serial number is used to re-download Lion so no Apple ID is tied to that installation package for the OS.

This differs from purchasing a Lion upgrade from the App Store - that isn't intended to be sold, so you'd have to adjust the sale price or gift them a card if the deal was for them to get other software included with the sale.

I've seen people trip up over iLife since it does get tied to an Apple ID rather than tied to the CPU when selling a used Mac, so caveat venditor and caveat emptor is in order.


Can I use one Apple ID for Apple Music and another for iTunes & App Store? Let us suppose I want to use a shared Apple ID for logging into iTunes & App Store, in order to share music and app purchases with a friend.

But let us also suppose that, despite this, my friend and I have very different tastes in music, so I don't want to share Apple Music playlists and "like" assertions with my friend. In other words, I don't want Apple Music to think I like the music my friend likes, and vice versa.

Is there a way that my friend and I can share an Apple ID for logging into iTunes & App Store, but use different Apple IDs for Apple Music?

I suspect the answer is no, but I just wanted to ask.

UPDATE for follow-up question from OP

You can Authorize each other's computers on your Apple Account. There is a limit to doing this as you can only authorize 5 accounts on any one Apple ID.

Then in iTunes on you computers, you can log into one account, download all of the apps associated with that account.

Then log out, and log into the other Apple ID and repeat the download. This gets around the shared drive, but doubles the amount of data you need to store.

When an app updates, you need to be logged into the account that "purchased" it for DRM reasons to update. If it is one of the apps on you account, then you can update on your iPhone through the App Store. Your friend will have to log into your Apple ID an update in iTunes, then sync their iPhone to iTunes.

When an app updates on your friend's account, they can update however they want to, but you will need to go into iTunes, log on to their Apple ID and update that way, then sync your iPhone with iTunes.

As iPhone is pretty boxed in, I don't think it takes to kindly to switching back and forth between Apple ID's. I am not even sure if you can do that without it resetting the iPhone, and I am almost certain there isn't an option to have two Apple ID's logged into one iOS device at the same time.

So once you have done all that, you have probably violated 42 conditions in the TOS. Just don't let Taylor Swift find out.

Prior Answer:

The short answer is yes, but it is a bit of a hassle.

Each person can authorize the other's devices on your Apple ID, though there is a limit of five devices that can be authorized. So if you have computer, iPhone, iPad, IPod, then there isn't much room for your friend's devices. If you live in the same location, you can put the media on a shared drive and bring it into each others iTunes catalog.

Here, the only catch is that the apps will only update for the person who bought the app, so you either need to have their Apple ID and password to log in as them to update on your devices, or with some maintenance on a regular basis, you can manually delete from your catalog and re add the updated app on your iTunes. I did this with my girlfriend long before Apple set up Family Sharing, which leads to...

How much do you trust this friend? You could set up a Family Sharing under iCloud that allows you to share everything, including media from iTunes and the App Store, plus photos, calendars, etc.

The catch is that the person who sets up the account is responsible for all of the purchases on that account. Only one credit card can be set up per family share, so basically if you set it up you pay. It is designed for a head of household situation with a spouse and three kids, so it is a little dicey if you don't trust your friend financially.


iPhone takes a long time to turn on while charging When my iPhone 5s dies, it usually turns on after 5-7 minutes of charging. Now, it sometimes takes 45 mins to over an hour to turn on while it's plugged in.

It also dies very easily. It can be at 100% battery, then within 10 minutes it's at 60%. Sometimes my phone even turns off at 100 or 50%.

Can somebody explain why this happens or what I should do? Is my battery broken?

This makes great sense if your battery is aging in the normal way for a lithium cell. The automatic turn on happens when the voltage level from the battery raises above a set limit and when the battery is new, it won't discharge as deeply or take as long to rebound when you re-apply charging current.

A simple battery exchange would remedy the situation if you care to remedy this. Just knowing it's normal and expected might let you decide to just be more patient and not drain the battery past 15% so you don't have to wait when you plug it in.

The shutting off is another sign of aging - that won't get better and you can't wait that out - so replace the battery or have the phone serviced if you need that part of the operation more stable.


macOS (Catalina 10.15.7) - Save dialog - no way to filter/search In macOS, the Save dialog window has a search box, seemingly to allow for users to search/filter the output in order to use an existing file/folder name as a template to then modify for the new file/folder, however when you enter anything into that search box, the output window shows nothing. Contrast this to the Open dialog, where the same search box behaves as it should, and filters the output window accordingly.
The behavior with the Save dialog is recreatable in any app, including the Apple-provided native apps.
Just to clarify what exactly I do (on other OS'es without a problem), here's an example:
Let's say I have an existing file named "File blah blah blah 12341242.txt" and I want a new file named similar but with different numbers in it. On Windows and Linux, there are no issues with clicking an existing file in a Save dialog to have it fill in the file name of the new file with the name of the existing file so you can then either save it as that name or modify it as needed.
In macOS, however, the only way to do this is to manually scroll through the output window to find the existing file. But, let's say there are thousands of files there and you don't remember exactly what the existing file's name is. You go to the search box to search for a word or number of the file that you DO remember, only to find that the search box doesn't work (effectively), so you're out of luck.
Is there some way to remove this restriction or modify it to allow the search box to function as a way to filter the output in order to use the output as a template for new files/folders?
Edit 1:
Here are 2 screenshots to show what I mean.  These are from the Preview app, for the record, so you know it's a default app and not third-party.
Screenshot 1 - Showing an existing file name in the Test folder:

Screenshot 2 - Showing empty search results even though the existing filename matches the typed text:

Edit 2: Here is a short screen recording of the problem in action, if it helps better than still images
Screen Recording

I think the crux is searching for a folder vs searching for a file.
Search in open and save works as well as Finder for me - just a different interface and limited space, less affordances are present, but as a long time user of search, perhaps I just have gotten used to the limitations and don’t even see clearly how it’s failing you.
When I need more space to search, I open a second Finder window and use spotlight search (sidebar search, tag search, Smart Folders, complex searches) to my hearts content and then drag the file I find into the save box.
It really helps you can drag and drop folders and files and they instantly update the file open and file save dialogs.
Any time this doesn’t work, I find one of two things.

The app isn’t using a standard dialog. You need to patch that app or select a new app so things are easy again
Spotlight itself is failing - this is easier to detect in Finder for me, but you can also detect this in app file dialogs if you are keen and know the results should show and do not.

The key win for me is having second display and drag/drop of files from outside the save box. You also might love a tool like DefaultFolderX - I used it heavily years ago but have gotten used to working with the OS and not needing extensions.

https://www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/

The author is a long time supporter of Apple users and has superb value / customer support in my experience. The tool does amazing things - I just work on so many macs, that in stalling a bunch of tools doesn’t work for me unless I can’t live without that tool. Don’t take my not using it to mean it’s not awesome - it is absolutely amazing and well worth a trial.


What is the difference between backing up and syncing an iPad/iPod/iPhone? What is the difference between synchronizing an iPad/iPod/iPhone compared to backing it up? Is it not the same thing?

A backup it part of a sync.  Synchronizing your iPhone:

Saves a backup of the installed apps and all personal data (contacts, saved games, documents, etc.)
Adds or removes music, podcasts, etc.
Copies the latest version of apps to or from your iPhone.
(I don't remember the rest of the steps off the top of my head...)

The backup is useful if your iPhone has to be reset to factory settings or is lost.  You can restore your backup to your fresh iPhone and it will reinstall the apps along with all of their data.  Without a backup, you would have to manually type in all of contacts, reproduce your documents, and start your games from scratch.  You'll still have to restore your music manually, but that's a minor issue.


How to add Canon printer that works on Windows machines? I'm trying to add a Canon MF8050cn to print from OS X Yosemite that works fine from Windows 7 machines.  I installed the Canon 8000 driver Mac_MF_Ver1040_00.dmg for Macintosh.  I can ping the printer successfully at 10.1.10.18 from my Macintosh.  In the Add Printer dialog on the Macintosh, I enter the static IP address of the printer and Internet Printing Protocol and use Canon MF8000 Series, however, when I click Add on the dialog, it gives the error:

Unable to verify the printer on your network.
Unable to connect to '10.1.10.18' due to an error.
Would you still like to create the printer?

Choosing Continue gives a printer that when you print to it gets the error Printing - The printer is not responding.

How can I configure this printer for access from my Macintosh?

Yo have to download and install the Canon Drivers.

You can find the drivers for your printer here.

From the printer manual:

Installing the software:

Bonjour connection:

TCP/IP connection:


how to move contacts en mass from one iCloud account to another I need to have two iCloud accounts, one for work and one for play/personal. Is there an easy way to move all contacts from one iCloud account to another via iCloud.com. For example, if I have 400 contacts in my personal iCloud account and none in my work iCloud account, how would I lift them from the personal account to the work account?

From Mac Contacts..

File menu > Export > Contacts Archive

then

File Menu > Import

Or from iCloud…

Prefs 'cog'
Select All
Export vCard - which will save a 'batch' vCard to your default DL location [then, irritatingly, immediately try to import it to your Mac Contacts list, so hit Cancel]

Swap iCloud accounts, then import vCard


Lion and Boot Camp Windows 7 cannot agree on a system time. What did I do wrong? I run Lion and Windows 7 on a MacBook, using Boot Camp and Parallels. Both operating systems are set to the same time zone and, presumably, use the same clock.

For some reason Windows 7 insists on being one hour wrong when running on the iron. Running as a VM under Lion Windows displays the same time as Lion.

Is this an issue of checking whether one of the OS thinks that it the hardware clock is set to GMT (I am one hour away from GMT)? Where would I find the setting?

The OSes interpret the system's clock data differently - this has been an issue as long as Boot Camp has been available.

You might want to add a crontab to use ntpdate to update (-u) from your preferred NTP server, such as time.apple.com.


Application displaying "The last time you opened_____, it unexpectedly closed..." error A while ago, I bought a GOG game titled "Enter the Gungeon". One day, while I was playing it, the game suddenly crashed. Now, the game had crashed before and I had opened it up again without any worries, but this time was different. Whenever I tried to open the game, I always received the same error message:

The last time you opened Enter the Gungeon, it unexpectedly quit while reopening windows. Do you want to try to reopen its windows again?

It doesn't matter which option I choose, the program always crashes. Whenever I open the game on any other user, it works. I have tried messing with the .plist file of the game, restarting my computer, updating my OS, and reinstalling the game (even with updated versions). I have a MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017), and I am one macOS Mojave (version 10.14). I have 8 GB of RAM.

What could be done to fix this error?

You might try deleting any Saved Application State for the app.

You might need to scroll through to find the correct one, as they tend to be named with the convention com.companyname.productname

From the Finder, hit  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   G  for Go to Folder... & copy/paste ~/Library/Saved Application State/

You can safely delete the entire com.companyname.productname folder, it will be recreated at next launch/quit cycle.