How can I prevent a recording from being inadvertently stopped? After I hit Record on my iPhone for video or audio recordings, the Stop button is too easily triggered accidentally, e.g. by the wind or physical matter (dust, paper) that manages to touch the phone screen. How can I force the phone to require more than a touch (e.g. a password) to stop or pause a recording?

To prevent touch, turn on guided access and set it a password for removing it and block the entire screen using this tutorial.
Disable the internet and set it to airplane mode to prevent incoming calls from stopping the video.
Plug it into power and set the screen timeout time to never, so it prevents it from shutdown and autosleep(which is by default disabled when recording).


How do I determine which application launched automator service? Is there a way to determine which application launched a Automator Service?

The idea is to check the app that launched the service, with a shell/apple script and react differently depending which app it was.

EDIT:

So when I do something like this...

the service, created in Automator, can tell which application was that it was launched from.

EDIT2:

The solution suggested, to query for the front most app using Applescript, while a possible solution is far from ideal. It seems to me that if the system is busy or there are delays in the launching of the workflow, it could return the wrong app and confuse the workflow.

Buscar's comment made me check the process hierarchy and it turns out, a service is a sub-sub-sub process of the application that launched it.

So, even though in many cases, a query for the frontmost application may be ok, I think looking at the process tree is better.

Here is some sample code from a test Service Workflow that for me appears to work every time...

on run {input, parameters}

    set arpid to (do shell script "echo $PPID")
    display dialog "Automator Runner PID is: " & arpid

    set srpid to (do shell script "ps -o ppid -p " & arpid & " | tail -1")
    display dialog "Service Runner PID is: " & srpid

    set appid to (do shell script "ps -o ppid -p " & srpid & " | tail -1")
    display dialog "Application PID is: '" & first word of appid & "'"

    tell application "System Events"
        set activeApp to (name of first process whose unix id is (appid as integer))
    end tell

    display dialog activeApp

    return input
end run


Is it possible to save to my disk from the photos app? In the past, If I've ever wanted to take a photo on my iPhone and move it to my mac, I'd have to use the files iOS app or google drive. I recently had an idea, instead of uploading the photos to somewhere, I could just save them from the macOS photos app to my disk after they were backed up.

The problem is, there doesn't seem to be an option anywhere that lets me save the photo from the app to my disk. Is this even possible?

I'm using macOS High Sierra.

The other way, which takes a (very) few more steps, is to click on the photo you want to save to your disk. Then, in Photos, go to File > Export, and choose to export the edited photo (shift - command - E), or the original unmodified file. You will then be presented with some options as in the picture below, and when you click "Export," you can even choose where to save the picture. Works great.


Dock doesn't start after restarting from Bootcamp Whenever I am on my Bootcamp installation in Windows and restart to boot back into macOS the dock is no longer there. I can fix this by restarting in macOS. Is there any fix for this? Or does anybody know the reason for this behaviour.

macOS Sierra Version 10.12.5
Windows 7 in Bootcamp
iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB

Have you tried trashing the Dock plist? Maybe a corrupted file.

sudo rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

Run that in terminal it will remove the file and a new one will generate on next log in. Only downside to trying is it will reset your dock so you will have to put yours apps back to it any other setting you may have changed on it.


VLC 2.2.2 and OS X El Capitan Issue I have been using VLC Player for 7 years and after update to 2.2.2 It is really painful to use it with El Capitan.

It is very slow to forward or backward, It constantly freezes and lots of time the display gone, color changes in display. It happens with the same mkv files which I used to watch without any problem 1 month ago before 2.2.2.

Is there a solution for this?

I run into similar issues with VLC and it's not limited to OS X.  Fortunately you have a couple of options...

Roll back VLC

Uninstall VLC completely and install an "archived" version.  Go to ftp://ftp.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/ and select the version you want to download.  If you need a good reliable app to cleanly remove applications, check out AppCleaner

When you find the version you want, navigate into the macosx directory (I am using the 2.1.1 directory for this example)

Get something else

Have a look at Elmedia Player.  It's free on the Apple App Store.  I personally went this route because I started "falling out of like" with VLC.  There's a bunch of features on it that just don't work and I needed to go with other solutions.


How do I suppress the address bar in mobile Safari? When I add the Nibbble web app to my iPhone home page, it not only installs an icon, but when run, also hides all of the mobile Safari chrome.
How does it achieve this?

You only need the first part of this code to do what you ask, but the rest may also be helpful.

// hide the browser chrome
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" />

//set the phone status bar style; can be grey, black, or black translucent
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black" />

// set the viewport for iOS
<meta content="minimum-scale=1.0, width=device-width, maximum-scale=0.6667, user-scalable=no" name="viewport" />

// set a custom icon for when a user bookmarks the app to the home screen
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/path/to/icon.png" />


Other than size, what's the difference between the iPad Air and the Retina iPad mini? They both have an A7 processor, the new MIMO wifi, etc.

What, if anything, are the technical or spec differences other than screen size?

Here's a modified screenshot of Apple's iPad comparison page, differences are highlighted.

The only differences are the prices, height, width, weight, screen size, and density. Everything else, including the battery life and thickness surprisingly, is exactly the same:


Mac OS X, install another keyboard layout? I'm a developer and I'm just so used to using Spanish (Argentina) as my keyboard layout on my PC both at home and at work. Now I want to develop on my Macbook Pro too, but the only Spanish layouts available are "regular" and ISO, both of which are basically the same as the one I use, except I have to press the alt key to input characters that are very common for me, like {}[].

How can I set my keyboard layout to Spanish (Argentina)? Thanks a lot!

Would the Windows Latin American layout mentioned in this article meet your needs?

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-ways-to-type-spanish.html


How do I do a diagonal-arrow keyboard shortcut? Occasionally, you see a keyboard shortcut for something in an app's menus that shows a diagonal-pointing arrow (one that points 45, 135, 225, or 315 degrees) rather than your standard up, right, down, or left arrow keys. Here's a screenshot of what I'm talking about:

How do I accomplish that key chord?

I suggest you to open your keyboard visualizer (by clicking on the flag that is near the clock in the menu bar).

This will make appear a window with a keyboard representation.

If you press the fn key, you'll see that the ← will become a ↖ (Home key) in this window while → will become ↘ (End key).

That's it: just press the fn+← or fn+→ to obtain the diagonal-arrow.


How can I embed a linked local image in an Apple Mail signature? I think my question says it all (and yes, I've googled and searched StackExchange already) - but to clarify:

I want to embed an image, which I have locally, in my html email signature (i.e. my logo, linked to my website). I create a html file (and made a web archive of it) with referencing to my local image like  src="file:///Users/myuser/path/to/image/jpg".

Opening the web archive/html page in Safari displays the logo fine.

Now, when I use this html signature, Thunderbird is smart enough to embed the local image properly with a binary mime type of image/jpeg, however, Mail just doesn't do anything with it and just leaves the html code untouched, still referencing to the local file (and even that doesn't work/display when I receive my own mail on my Mac where I actually have the file at that local place; probably sandboxed?!).

I've already googled and all of below are not working:

How can I embed an image in an Apple Mail signature?

How can I add some html to my Mail.app signature?

(and their respective linked articles on the web).

The only way I could get the local image to display in the received email is to drag & drop the image from the Finder into the Mail signature preferences window, but then, I still have the problem that the image is not linked to my website, and I see now way to edit the html source of it in any way.

I've already tried to drag & drop the image, then open the web archive file under /Users/myuser/Library/Mail/Signatures in Safari, fetch the html code (which holds code for an embedded object), modify the source code (adding a link around the image), save it as web archive and overwrite the old file. However, after doing that and restarting Mail, the image doesn't show, but instead shows a place holder saying "Missing Plug-in".

(I don't want to use remote images on the web, since many clients mostly ask users to display remote images firstly, before actually displaying them - embedded images therefore work better, as they will be displayed instantly in most cases/email clients' default configuration.)

Here is my solution:

Open the picture in Preview (or open the html in a browser)
Cmd-A to select all, Cmd-C to copy
Create a new signature and paste in the contents

I have verified that this solution works for local pictures and simple html snippets.


What is AXVisualSupportAgent, and why does it eat my RAM? Since I fresh-installed macOS Catalina on my MacBook Pro, I've noticed a strange process called AXVisualSupportAgent slowly eating up my RAM little by little. Upon a fresh reboot it doesn't seem to be consuming too many resources. However, as time goes on its memory usage starts creeping up. My machine has been on for a week and it's already using half of my available 16GB RAM, which is probably being swapped quite a lot. Any ideas about why this may be the case, and how I can prevent this from happening? I don't want to reboot my laptop every few weeks to give it "proper maintenance" as I would need to with a Windows laptop.

I don't know what the process does but this reference has a description of a way to prevent it from using a lot of cpu time. The process is related to the accessibility settings on your computer. To reduce the time taken open system preferences and click on accessibility. Turn off the zoom function and turn off image smoothing. There are other things listed in the link. The link is originally in Japanese but the googletranslation was pretty good I think. It was also mentioned that the problem really started with Catalina.


A new ExFAT partition prevents bootcamp from starting windows I'm trying to create a shared partition that I can use from both Windows and OS X. I made a new partition, but if I make it FAT or ExFAT Windows does not start. I get Error code: 0xc000000e. I assume this is because it tries to boot from the empty partition instead of the bootcamp partition.

If I make the partition use Apple's filesystem, I can boot to Windows again but then the partition becomes read-only.

Any suggestions how to solve this? All partitions are on the same hard drive - I don't have any external drives. I created my Bootcamp installation using Yosemite and later updated. Today I used El Capitan to create the new shared partition. It is a MacBook Pro from mid 2014 and I run Windows 10.

Output from diskutil list

    /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            69.7 GB    disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Shared                  99.4 GB    disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                80.8 GB    disk0s5
/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +69.4 GB    disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 6AA15FCB-EEFC-4182-8382-EC890574DBDA
                                 Unencrypted

I finally solved this

I used the Disk Management tool in Windows to delete the shared partition and then created a new partition with NTFS file system.


What are the risks with low disk space on a Mac? I've seen some suggestions about not allowing free disk space to go critically low or

  ... to have no less than about 15% of your drive's capacity free ...

Currently, I've been silencing the "disk full" notification for  a day now, but haven't observed any performance degradation.

"The risks involved with low disk space" is the theme of the question. More specific questions are:

What processes will see a problem in low storage space (except spotlight, assuming I don't use it.)?
Is there an official backing for the claim?

MacBook Air 2017, Mojave.

There are a number of issues you could have with low disk space, but I wouldn't consider them high-risk. On a SuperUser post, the accepted answer cites a lot of information that is very old. The 10%-15% free space adage may even be out of date with APFS and modern SSDs. There is an older post on AskDifferent regarding the 10% free space limit with answer mentioning certain system process impacted by low disk space.

Typically, these are the main factors I've heard mentioned concerning having not enough free space:

macOS uses virtual memory. When more space is needed in RAM, macOS will swap some data from RAM to the hard disk. This is explained in an older Apple developer guide. If RAM is full and the disk is full, applications can crash.
Data that normally stays in purgeable storage, like caches and local Time Machine backups, will be unavailable for use. If you use the Store in iCloud feature, you could see many files unavailable locally that you would have to download again.

Anecdotally, I've run into these issues:

Large projects in Photoshop or Premiere couldn't be saved because there's not enough free space. This is risky since a crash could lead to losing data, even if I'm diligent at saving.
System updates unable to be installed due to lack of space.


Upgrade os snow leopard to mountain lion without time machine My OSX is 10.6.8 and i want to upgrade to the last lion mountain version but i dont have any external disc drives, so i am not able to do a backup with the time machine.
Is it very risky to do the upgrade without the time machine backup?
Tanks,

Rule: Always back up at least your own document, photos etc — or your whole User Directory, if you've got the space - before any big changes.

You don't necessarily need to backup the OS — though a disk clone onto an external USB, made with SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner, is an instant rescue, right at hand, in the event of a crash or data loss, as well as another Startup Disk from which to repair your hard disk.

If you've got access to an OS install image, download or disks, in the event the upgrade doesn't go well and you need to downgrade, you don't need a clone (though it's easier) but just a copy of whatever you don't want to lose.

Related Rule: Always routinely back up / copy to somewhere else anything you don't want to lose.

You don't need Time Machine. It's just one method, one kind of external drive.

I use Arc, for example, which backs up what I tell it to (to very cheap storage using A3) every night, silently, from the menubar. I also clone every few weeks to a small USB external.

Another inexpensive way is to copy / backup to a flash stick - mine holds 16GB, which is enough for my work. A photographer or video person would of course would need much larger backup and storage.

It's a broad subject — but just don't mess with big changes "unprotected." Data loss happens.

Save your data to DropBox, that's one easy step.


define local keyword globally in a macports config My main target is to globally enable all ports to compile with macports-clang-3.4 and use libc++ instead of libstdc++.

For example when working with one port I need to set configure.compiler=macports-clang-3.4 and configure.cxx_stdlib=c++11 to the command line. But how I can set this variables via macports configuration globally so that any invocation of port would automatically use my defaults? variants.conf accepts only variants and no keywords and macports.conf only includes global keywords.

I'm assuming you're on a system < Mavericks because otherwise libc++ and a recent clang would already be your default and forcing it wouldn't make a lot of sense.

Use MacPorts trunk (or wait for the 2.3 release) and set the following options in $prefix/etc/macports.conf:

cxx_stdlib libc++
buildfromsource always
delete_la_files yes

If you use Xcode >= 4.2 I wouldn't bother changing the default compiler, since system clang is already the preferred MacPorts compiler and some ports specifically change that if that doesn't work (which might break if you force it to be a different compiler). If a port doesn't work with your version of system clang, but will work with a newer clang, ports will usually automatically choose a macports-clang instead.

If you use Xcode < 4.2, add default_compilers macports-clang-3.4 macports-clang-3.3 macports-llvm-gcc-4.2 apple-gcc-4.2 to your macports.conf. Note that doing this is entirely unsupported, deliberately undocumented, and if it breaks you get to keep the pieces.

You need to reinstall all your ports after doing that.


Mac getting very hot while watching flash I'm running OSX 10.7.5 on my Mac computer (desktop, not laptop).

I have just been watching some Starcraft 2 stream from Dreamhack (in flash) when I noticed my computer was getting pretty hot. I installed some temp. monitor which showed the GPU was reaching nearly 70 degree celcius. This seems like a lot.

I was viewing flash using chrome. I normally use linux and I know there are different versions of flash there, some better than other. Are there any wellknown problems with chrome and the stock flash plugin? Should I be using Safari? Should I install some other flash plugin? Or should I just totally avoid using flash on my Apple devices?

Thanks.

Flash has many problems, including making your computer run hot.  I have an older dual quad core i7 iMac, and Flash does that to my computer too.  It's also a large security hole.

I'd recommend removing flash completely, and when you need to run it, do so using Google Chrome.  Chrome has a sandboxed, often updated version of Flash. It won't solve the issue with it taxing your system, but it is a bit more secure.

To answer your questions at the end:
1 - Chrome works fine - Flash is the problem.
2 - For Flash, I'd say use Chrome only, and leave Safari out of this.
3 - Chrome provided Flash is probably your best bet
4 - I avoid Flash as much as possible, but I do love me some Google Street View.  Gotta use Flash for it.

Good luck.


Upgrading from sudo 1.7.4p6 to 1.8.6p7 on OS X 10.7.5 I downloaded sudo for os x 10.7 from the following link, I followed the readme instructions, but when I call sudo -V I still get the old version number.  I can see the folders related claim to have been changed at the time I ran the suggested command.

Any ideas?

http://archive.hmug.org/BSD/Administration/System/sudo/1.8.6p7/

The command sudo tar -C / -zxf sudo-1.8.6p7-1-osx7.tar.gz should be working, assuming you are in the same working dir as the downloaded file.

You could add --overwrite to the command, but this may have unintended effects...

I don't quite understand your desire to replace the stock sudo with this seeming random, and unsupported 'update'. If this goes wrong, you may be left without sudo; or you could break more than sudo.

You could uncompress without the -C /, and manually move the files into position.


Nothing downloads on my iPhone So, I'm an iPhone 5c user, who was on iOS 8 for quite a while. I recently was convinced to update to the newest update (which I believe is 10.3.3), and ever since then, my phone has been bedeviled with issues.

It started with my phone constantly deleting my tabs after leaving Safari, then the Camera Roll being wiped (the photos eventually got restored, but this keeps happening multiple times), as well as my music, podcasts, and contacts being deleted off my phone.

The most recent issue, and the main one I'm asking about, is that my phone is absolutely refusing to download anything, which includes the previously-mentioned podcasts and music, but mainly any apps or updates. If I try, after a short while, an error message will come up saying 'Unable to Download'.

I've done a lot of research, and tried basically everything recommended, including:

restarting the phone
force rebooting the phone
force closing the App Store itself
signing in and out of my Apple ID
clearing-the-cache thing on the App Store

None of these actions fix the problem. Any suggestions on how else I can try to resolve this?

I think your best course of action would be to commit to a factory reset after backing up your data.

According to this support doc you can do so by plugging your device into a machine with iTunes installed, unlocking the device if it has a passcode and then clicking on it in iTunes.

In the device summary there should be a button that reads "Restore iPhone..." or something of the like. Click on that and then click Restore on the resulting new window to confirm your decision.

Your device will then be erased and re-installed with a brand new factory image corresponding to the latest version of iOS available for your device.


How to access the "Deleted Photos" Album on an XR running iOS 13.3? I would like to delete the photos in my "Deleted Photos" album right now. I have found several websites advising how to do this, but they all say to open Photos and then to click on the Albums tab, and my problem is that when I click on Photos I don't get an Albums tab! When I open up Photos, I can see thumbnails and then at the bottom of the screen there is an icon that enables things to be done to a selected photo (greyed out because no photo is selected), the words "Select Items", and on the right there is the bin icon. There is no "Albums" tab.

I am able to see the names of some albums by selecting a photo and then clicking on "Add to Album", because that gives me a list of albums in which I can save the photo, but the list doesn't include the "Deleted Photos" album.

How do I get to this Album tab that people talk about? And if it no longer exists in iOS 13.3, how else can I delete the "Deleted Photos" album?

Note: I do not use the iCloud.

Flip the phone so that it's in the vertical orientation. The tabs will appear at the bottom.


Can't see video files on memory card I have an Extreme PRO 64GB SanDisk memory card for my Canon camera. In macOS I can view the pictures I took, but not the videos. They just don't show up in the Finder window but I can watch them on the camera.
How can I access the videos?

Make sure they are not stored in the Camera internal memory (if has one).
Videos are usually much bigger files. What you can try is to open the mounted memory card, switch to List view and select “Calculate sizes” in CMD + J dialog. Sort files by size and dig deeper in the biggest folders until you find the biggest files.
Or try to identify approximate average size of photos and based on that you can try to search for files in the most top folder level of the memory card by pressing CMD + F and with small plus sign button you can add “File Size” criteria with “is greater than” option and put there value you identified or just something like 20 MB.
You may find files that are big but not playable by Quicktime or any video player currently installed on your Mac which means the camera uses its own format that you may need to convert.


How do I share a chrome tab via AirDrop? I'd like to share my current Chrome page on macOS via AirDrop to an iOS device so that I can open it up in mobile Safari.

If I use Safari on a desktop, this is easily done via: Share > AirDrop.

Is there an equally easy way to do this on Chrome?

How to Send Web Pages from Chrome to Your Phone and others recommend using a 3rd party tool called Pushbullet. This is cumbersome because it requires an extension to be installed on desktop Chrome, a 3rd party app installed on an iOS device, and will probably not open the page in mobile Safari (i.e. I'm guessing it'll open it up in mobile Chrome).

Handoff can apparently solve this problem, but that requires you to  be logged in to the same Apple account on both devices. Is there a way that this can work without being logged in to the same device, just as AirDrop via Safari works?

Open the 'File' menu in Chrome, choose 'Share', then 'AirDrop'.


Restore from iCloud Backup lost ALL my photos — Ideas? On Saturday I got a new iPhone X 256. Previously I had an iPhone 7 128, which I backed up in the AM, and again at the store just for good measure. Everything in iCloud was set to "On." Both backups took under 5 minutes.

As expected, we chose Restore from Backup, and once my apps and whatnot started populating on the iPhone X, ATT wiped my iPhone 7 and sent me home.

The next morning I opened Photos and now they only go back to May 25, less than a month. On my old phone, they went back to 2010, and there were thousands. All photos on my new phone appear to be in photostream, the Camera Roll is showing 0. None of my Albums loaded (except Photostream). Everything else on my phone appears to have restored perfectly, Chrome even has the same tabs open that I had on my old phone.

I called Apple Care, and though they "escalated" my issue to the engineers, I've been told they were unable to recover any photos from my backup files.

When I wipe my phone and go to Restore from Backup, I have 3 options available: the one I used, one from 2 days earlier, and one from the day before that. I was told by Apple Care that all of these backup files are around 2 GB (i.e. they don't contain photos). They said they were "Snapshot" backups, which means that they are new files created since the large backup. When I asked if I could backup from the large backup file, they gave some very vague answers and said that they do not see that file. When I look on my computer at iCloud > Devices > Choose iPhone 7 > Backups, there is an additional backup of 22 GB that has no date and has (incomplete) next to it. Presumably this too has no photos, since there should have been about 80 GB worth of pics. But maybe there are some?

I haven't backed up to a computer since May 2016. I'm going to try restoring to that file to see if I can recover some photos that way, and maybe "only" lose 2 years of memories.

What else can I try to recover these missing photos?

I recommend restoring those backups.
iCloud Backups are compressed to save memory. Just because they show lesser GB than the full amount of your photos and videos may have, doesnt mean that they arent there. Also backups are done over time, so the photos and videos are also saved over time, never all at once.

I would restore from a backup and see what you have. Also when the latest backup was installed, did you have iCloud library turned on in iCloud settings? If so did you have optimize storage turned on? You'll want that off if your iPhone has enough storage for your photos.

And lastly make sure you go to www.iCloud.com since all photos that iCloud can send to your iPhone will come directly from there as well as your backup. See if you can verify that before giving up on the backups.


How to take screenshot in Boot Camp? I have MacBook Pro Retina running Windows 8.1. I do not have a PrtScr key. Also, shift+fn+f11 key combination doesn't work. What is the shortcut to take screenshots?

Use the Snipping Tool that ships with Windows, it's made for that exact purpose. The Windows help page is here, info found using this search tool ;-)


How do I disable the redirect to Skype when I click "call via iPhone" in safari? I installed Skype because I need it and it auto-routes the click to call function to Skype now on my MacBook (Catalina 10.15.6).
How do I disable the routing to Skype?

Go to FaceTime -> Preferences. There, change "default for calls" (or something like it, my Mac is in dutch) to FaceTime.


Removing personal data from OSX without deleting user or reinstalling OS I will be returning my work machine to my employer soon and I would like to leave little or no personal trace on the machine.

I am not able to create a new user, delete my user, access the administration account, or reinstall the OS, but otherwise I do have full administration rights to my user name.

What options do I have for removing as much personal data as possible?

I would remove all files from the the obvious:

Desktop
Downloads
Movies
Music
Pictures
Public
Sites

Then inside your Library Folder you could send  everything inside the following folders to the trash:

Application Support (this will remove all settings and data from any application you used)
Autosave Information
Caches
Calendars
Cookies
Favourites
Fonts
Google
Images (iChat stores images here)
Keychains (all your passwords that are encrypted into your keychain)
Logs
Mail (all your email)
Mail Downloads (all your attachments from mail)
Preferences
Preference Panes
PubSub
Safari

Once you've sent all relevant files to the trash. Secure Empty Trash from the Finder menu.

Finally, you can over-write any left-over file data on the hard drive by doing the following:

Create a large file that takes up all remaining disk space. Let's say that it's called '~/bigfile'. You can do the following using the Terminal.app or X11.app to consume all remaining free space on your hard drive:
yes "Foo Bar Baz" > ~/bigfile
Secure-erase the file:
srm -m ~/bigfile

This in effect simulates the Disk Utility's "Erase Free Space" feature without needing admin access. More on this method can be found here.

Finally, you might want to cover your tracks a bit by deleting your shell history. Assuming that you are using the default Bash shell, you can delete your ~/.bash_history file.


Is antivirus software a necessity with the "rise" of MacDefender and others? I have heard broadly about the so-called "rise" of the Mac viruses. Apparently, there is a "whole new deluge" of Mac viruses. So far, I have gotten nothing that I can see.

But I'm beginning to wonder if this is a real danger and if I should take steps to protect my computer. I know that the Mac OS is very secure - that's part of why I use it - but is antivirus needed? I'd prefer not to have to use it - I've seen many PCs with antivirus that are slow because of it - and also because of the cost. Maybe I've just gotten lucky.

So: Is antivirus software a necessity with the "rise" of mac viruses?

I'd count Apple/security experts as good sources.

I say no, and while MacDefender is not something I would ever install, it is an app you must install to be "infected" by it. Malware, crapware, bloatware or any other name it is not a virus which replicates itself without your knowledge or permission.

In a corporate environment you may be required to install some kind of email scanner because you will undoubtedly receive PC viruses in email from time to time - sometimes I have seen them arrive in hotmail etc. Having one may help stamp out the problem in the office but I have never encountered and never even read a reliable report of a Mac virus.

If you did want to install antivirus software, there's a good list in this AskDifferent answer - you might want to make an IT Manager happy, for instance.

Update April 2: This is also not a virus but a trojan - but it is worth knowing about.
Ars Technica report on a new Trojan targeting Mac OS X


Apple TV stops playing the video from movies at 10 minutes My 2nd gen Apple TV pretty consistently freezes the video but not the audio of purchased content (movies or TV shows Edit from iTunes-see comment below) at exactly 10 minutes in.  It doesn't happen 100% of the time, but it does probably 75% or more.  My work around is to hit the menu button to exit the movie and then play it again resuming where I left off.  Usually it'll only happen once, but rarely it will continue to freeze at random or at 10  minute intervals.  I have fast internet and a good WiFi connection.  This has been happening consistently for over a year.  Has anyone seen this problem?  Any idea how to fix it?

Update: My old TV (2008 Samsung) died so I replaced it with a 2015 Sony which unfortunately didn't solve the problem.  Nobody else seems to have this problem, so I'm pretty sure that my Apple TV is slightly broken.  I'll probably just replace it when Apple releases a new model (hopefully next month).

Try restarting your Apple TV.

Hold down the Home and Play buttons on the Siri remote, or hold down the 'down' button and the menu buttons.

Images below

The light will flash quickly, then let go of the buttons.
You will see the apple logo.

Try watching your movies now!

I hope this works for you!


Change background colour of Quick Look / VIew? Selecting an image in finder and pressing space to bring up Quick Look / View is something I use all the time.

However I'd prefer a med grey background colour as I work allot with transparent png's with white borders - so currently its hard to so see the edges.

Anyone know of a setting / app / method for setting this?

osx 10.9.2

Switch to Fullscreen mode, there you have a black background color.

And then your background is black:


"Helper" processes using up insane RAM amounts I have observed many apps that show HTML such as Chrome and Steam have these 'helper' processes. These processes have been taking up insane amounts of RAM on my Mac. Applications such as Steam and Chrome will take up gigabytes of RAM. Most third party applications that have a helper process tied to it will render the computer unusable, and I'll have to reboot.  The Unity Asset Store alone, when it's window is opened, takes up almost a gigabyte of RAM.

My Mac is running macOS Sierra, which you would think is the problem since it's a Beta, but the problem was present in earlier versions of OS X since Yosemite.

With many of these 'multi-page' applications like web browsers, each open tab or window gets its own 'helper' app, which supports that open web page.

The only way to clear them is to close unused tabs.

For such as Steam or Unity, the helper app will be the one actually supporting & running the loaded game etc. The 'face' app/portal will just be running itself.

Example of 'greedy' web browser in action... The 'total' figure shown for Safari itself does not include the other sub-process below, they are in addition to Safari's own memory usage.


My mac is starting slow. I know login items, CleanMyMac. What else? My MAC has a slow start-up time (at times, 5s or more before initial black screen with Apple logo).
I am aware of login items. I have used CleanMyMac. Is there anything else I should check for?

Thank you :)

CleanMyMac should be used with caution, or not at all. It is not recommended as a general trouble-shooting step. I would recommend EtreCheck , which provides you with a useful report about problems, incompatible software, and other concerns. You could edit your question to include any items that it flags. (Don't just copy and paste the whole thing, as it's quite long.)

Firstly: What's your storage like? Mechanical hard drive? How old? How full? What model of Mac, e.g. "Late 2012 13" MacBook Pro". What MacOS version?

Are you seeing slowness at any other stage? Problems that early are unlikely to be caused by user software.


How can I make the draggable titlebar file icon always appear at the top of files in Big Sur? I don't know the nomenclature for this, but there used to be always a little file icon at the top of say, a pdf or jpeg which could be dragged to put the file somewhere else (eg paste it into an email).  It looked like this (I'm talking about the little icon to the left of the word 'gray's' in this screenshot):

However, on Big Sur, the default behaviour for this little icon is hidden until I hover my mouse.  So, by default, I see this (sans icon):

I would like this little  icon to always be present at the top of all files, like it used to be.  Is there a way to do this?
(My apologies for not knowing the name for this little icon!)

Backup your plist first. ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.plist
Then run this command:
defaults write com.apple.Preview NSWindowSupportsAutomaticInlineTitle -bool false

It will change the look of the toolbar so the title name is now on its own row above the tool icons. You can revert back to default with this command:
defaults write com.apple.Preview NSWindowSupportsAutomaticInlineTitle -bool true

Alternatively you can change the delay setting from the default 0.5 seconds to 0 seconds with:
defaults write com.apple.Preview NSToolbarTitleViewRolloverDelay 0


How can I move spaces between external monitors in Mavericks? I have a new (late 2013) MBP that I use with an external monitor. Annoyingly, when I plug/unplug the monitor, arbitrary spaces end up being fixed to either the internal or external monitor. Going to mission control doesn't appear to let me move spaces from one monitor to another, so I have to manually shuffle around each window. Is there a keyboard shortcut (or something) I'm missing to move spaces between monitors?

Thanks!

You can only move spaces which are non-active.

For example, lets say you have spaces 1 and 2. If space 1 is active, you can not move it. You first have to select space 2 then you can move space 1 to a different monitor.


I have problem when I make Apple ID using iTunes I have problem when I make an Apple ID using iTunes.
The email with a code arrives, but I can not create the id.

What are the password complexity rules to get past this error?

Basically Apple is saying you need to choose a more complex password.
Currently, your Apple ID password must have eight or more characters and include upper and lowercase letters, and at least one number. Apple also uses other password rules to make sure your password isn't easy to guess (things like your name, common words, sequential numbers, etc can be rejected). See Security and your Apple ID for more information.
I use a password manager (1Password, there are others) that will generate VERY complex passwords, like this:
1xwEFO6^))hub%$s1
and all you have to do is unlock it and it generates the password and remembers it for you. So you only have to remember ONE password, the one that unlocks it. Other password managers work the same way.
So you will need to create a more complex password before Apple will let you create an account with them. And there is no way around this.
So my recommendation? Make a more complex password and get a password manager to help you remember the one's you create.


Is there a method to target an open Finder window from the "Save" dialog? In some ancient version of the Mac OS, I seem to recall that, while in a "Save" dialog, there was a way (or an extension which provided a way) to click on an open folder in the Finder in order to specify that directory as the save target. Does that functionality still exist?

Context: I needed to save a new AppleScript (using Script Editor) into the ~/Library/Scripts directory and could not find a way to do it without manually navigating to the directory through multiple clicks. The dropdown menu in the "Save" dialog did not list the directory because I had not saved to it recently. The directory was open right next to the editor. I know about the accelerators to navigate to the top level directories but those don't help in this case.

The specific software you are probably alluding to is Default Folder X - which even allows you to click through any intervening windows to return to a folder visibly open on the Finder desktop. It also has a pre-determined list of 'useful' places & a history list. I do consider it one of the indispensible utilities on Mac.

Alternatively, macOS itself allows you to drag any visible folder onto a file-picker dialog to send the dialog to that location.

Fullscreen apps may interrupt either of those efforts - but I have a particular set of reasons I absolutely never use fullscreen, so I'm not certain how it will respond.


How to do fresh install of Mountain Lion? My Mac is very slow.

My Mac is running OS X Mountain Lion after an upgrade from Lion.

How can I do a fresh install the OSX Mountain Lion, with a clean HDD (all of my documents deleted), so it feels like a new MacBook?

Back up your data.
Boot into the Recovery System by holding ⌘+R during early boot.
Select Disk Utility and format your drive where OS X and your files were stored on.
Quit Disk Utility and select "Install Mountain Lion".


sticky keys without lock in macOS Sierra In macOS el capitan I used karabiner to get sticky keys without lock feature, but after updating to macOS Sierra, karabiner does not work and it's successor karabiner elements does not have the feature of setting sticky keys without lock :(

Is there any other way of getting this to work? i really depend on sticky keys for using emacs and I find it annoying whenever I accidentally press a key modifier twice and it's locked in and i've to press it again to release the lock.

karabiner developer announced on karabiner website that macOS Sierra is not yet supported

  macOS Sierra support status

  Karabiner does not work on macOS Sierra at the moment.

  We are developing Karabiner-Elements which provides simple key
  modification for macOS Sierra at first. (Karabiner-Elements works well
  on macOS Sierra. We are working on fixing several remaining issues.)

  We'll start updating for the full featured Karabiner for Sierra after
  Karabiner-Elements is completed.

  https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements

You can download the latest Karabiner-Elements from https://pqrs.org/latest/karabiner-elements-latest.dmg


Is there a way to combine two fullscreen windows into a split view window with Automator/AppleScript? I'm currently making a workflow in which I need to combine two windows into a split view window (the feature from OS X El Capitan). I'd there any way to do that with AppleScript?

Do you need a real fullscreen or are you trying to achieve something like this?

There are dozens of apps to do this so one of them will have AppleScript or key shortcuts. See:

How to arrange two windows easily to left and right side?
What Window Management Options exist for OS X?


Remotely brick a stolen iPhone or iPad I asked a similar question on android.stackexchange.com and I'd like to see how the answer compares for iOS devices:

If my iPhone is stolen, can I remotely brick the thing, so resale value drops to zero?

For apps like Apple's Find My Phone, how feasible is it for a thief to remove the apps? The answer to this sort of motivates my asking the first question about bricking. The more possible it is to remove the remote tracking/data erasing apps, the higher incentive I might have to just brick the thing, cut my losses, and deprive the thief of any profit from his/her crime.

Before iOS 7 this was not possible or feasible since iTunes would restore an image of the OS that would be free from any locking. Now there is Activation Lock which neatly pre-empts any attempt to remove the Find My iPhone feature of iCloud. Effectively, with Find my iPhone, your device is effectively locked to your Apple ID.

For iOS 7 and later - enable Find My iPhone to prevent anyone else from erasing or using the device.

  If my iOS 6 or less iPhone is stolen, can I remotely brick the thing, so resale value drops to zero?

No.

The best you can do is to wipe the data from the device with an app like Find My iPhone from Apple or the open source Prey application. The device will no longer contain your applications or personal data, but it will still function normally and the thief could then initialize it for their own use.

  For apps like Apple's Find My Phone, how feasible is it for a thief to remove the apps?

Without wiping the device? Hard to impossible. And that's the whole point of these applications: to keep your data safe and the cost of losing the hardware. You're essentially cleaning it for them and getting it ready for their use or resale. But you're ensuring that they can't gain access to your personal data, your PayPal account, your bank accounts and anything else you might have your phone connected to.

In the UK, cell phone carriers will blacklist phones that are reported stolen so they can't be used on the network again. The bigger UK carriers do it. Not sure how common a practice it is in North America, or if carriers here are willing to do it all.


iTunes My Music - Allowing Explicit Content Disabled (personal library) After updating to iTunes 12.2, I am not able to play explicit content music (from my library). I get the following warning.

Further, when I saw the explicit content option under parental controls it was disabled.

Anyone have any idea how to uncheck that option and get access to Explicit Content?
I had also contacted the apple support regarding the same issue and I received following response from apple:
Dear Sahil,
Thank you for contacting iTunes Store Support, my name is Richard and I am a Senior Advisor here in the iTunes Store.
The previous advisor has transferred this case over to me so I can help you resolve this issue.
I understand you have been unable to download explicit content from the iTunes Store after your iTunes update. I appreciate that this must be quite an inconvenience!
I understand that you were able to access this content before and now you are unable to. I too would be angry if this happened to me !
I have spoken to our Investigation Team and I have been informed that unfortunately, this is expected behaviour as the laws in your country no longer permit us to distribute explicit content there.
I am very sorry for this inconvenience Sahil as i am sure that is not the answer you were looking for.
Thank you in advance for your patience with this.
Kind regards,
Richard
iTunes Store Senior Advisor
Update:
Updating to iTunes v12.2.1.16, seems to fix the issue... :)

It looks pretty clear to me.
Apple are obeying the laws of the country you live in, presumably India judging by the number of Google hits I see for this issue.

Your only possibility would be to try to change your iTunes Store Country - but that would be dependant on you being able to provide a credit card from that country.

See Apple KB - Change the country of your iTunes Store...


Using iCloud Mail account from Computers without Lion? If I understand correctly, MobileMe Mail will only work in the future under ICloud. For iCloud you need iOS 5 or Lion on an actual computer.

I have 4 Apple computers currently in use, I use mail on whatever computer I am on. Only one has Snow Leopard which can upgrade to Lion. One has Leopard and 2 have Tiger.

Does anyone know if at least one computer has the most updated OS that the information will show up on other computers?

I am not interested in an iPhone or iPad for email use since I require a full keyboard and tend to write lengthly emails.

The short answer is you get to keep MobileMe as it is until June 30, 2012.

Sometime between when iCloud launches (tomorrow?) and next June, you can choose to learn about and use iCloud (assuming it meets all your current and future needs) or find another email provider.

It is clear that Apple has said you will lose access to you me.com account if you don't move to iCloud by then so unless that changes, you should plan some action.

If things go as planned, we will all get a public look at things this week. Perhaps read some official documentation in the next month you. The future is unclear today before iCloud has launched, but you have 9+ months to worry about this...


Does Battery Usage/Percentage need to be calibrated again? I recently installed iOS 7 on an iPhone 4S. Does the Battery Usage/Percentage (as shown in the top-right corner of the screen of the phone) need to be calibrated again (by letting the battery fully discharge once, possibly to be followed by a full charge and a hard reboot)? Or is this nonsensical advice?

Discharging the battery once in a while (every few Months) is not a must but does help calibrating, for the system to be more accurate waring you on low levels.

Over time charging and discharging creates a more inaccuracy of the actual level. For example if you plug in at 40%, unplug at 80% and so on.

The reason is that the system uses the last known battery charge to produce the %, thus assumes the battery charge level.

However if the battery was not discharged for long time, the remaining charge could be wrong (due to batter aging).

Discharging to not less than 20% once in a while helps the accuracy.

Since there is a opposite effect (to frequent full discharge) will shorten the battery life, you should only do this every few months.


How do I mount a jailbroken iPhone as a volume in Lion? In Snow Leopard I was using this utility (it uses MacFuse) to mount my iPhone as a volume upon its connection. Worked very well, and I could browse my jailbroken iPhone's files easily and drag/drop over themes like on a normal HD.

Since OS X Lion, it doesn't appear to be working. Are there any un-obtrusive tweaks to achieve this again? Or does anyone know how to get the MacFuse filesystem working on OS X Lion?

Phone Disk ain't free, but would be a good choice: http://www.macroplant.com/phonedisk/


Delete key doesn't work in vim on iTerm2 Firstly, I typed some thing on insert mode, like

Hello

At this stage, if I didn't exit from insert mode, delete works and can delete the whole word if I want.

If I quit insert mode, and open insert mode again, this Hello can't be removed by delete. But the newly typed in content can be removed.

I've renamed my .vimrc, problem still exits.

And I did some test on remote server through iterm, didn't encounter the same issue.

What could be the cause of this problem? How to fix it?

This is a feature of vim, although IIRC it wouldn't be enabled by default.

backspace is a setting in vim, and you can set three different parameters: indent, eol, and start

If you run :help backspace, it will tell you:

Influences the working of `<BS>`, `<Del>`, `CTRL-W` and `CTRL-U` in Insert
mode.  This is a list of items, separated by commas.  Each item allows
a way to backspace over something:

value     effect
indent    allow backspacing over autoindent
eol       allow backspacing over line breaks (join lines)
start     allow backspacing over the start of insert; CTRL-W and CTRL-U
          stop once at the start of insert.

The one that isn't set for you is start.

If you add set backspace=indent,eol,start to your .vimrc, you'll be able to backspace over anything in insert mode.


What are the time machine snapshot files that are saved on my local volume instead of the time machine back-up volume I have many time machine snapshot files on my local volume. These are named com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-15-215252, for example, and a new one is created every 10 minutes even though I do backups weekly to a different volume. What are these files and is it ok to delete them with the tmutil command. I am running High Sierra on my iMac. Time Machine backups are saved to an external hard drive.

Those are APFS local snapshots that use copy on write, so they take no space overhead to a first approximation.

I wouldn’t even bother removing them unless you have measurable file extent fragmentation since you can roll back changes like software updates with these as well as the system cleans them automatically if you run into storage pressure and the external drive connects to get a second backup after a few days time.

If you want to force one backup and then force deletion of all the snapshots here are the commands. I would be sure the first one completes without error, though.

tmutil startbackup --block
tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates / | grep -v dates | xargs -I date tmutil deletelocalsnapshots date

Note: the tmutil startbackup reports success on the command line (exit 0) no matter what, so be sure you see actual data copies and not zero values and a pop up error in notifications if you are logged in to the Mac console.


Deleted Messages conversations inconsistent between devices OSX native messaging app is set to Sync via iCloud account. Messages sent on either device (iPhone/Macbook) DO sync without issue.

Deleting a conversation via Macbook will present the following message:

This insinuates that the deleted conversation will be removed from my iPhone, however, this is not the case! (The same is true when deleting from iPhone)

Comparing meessages on iPhone and Macbook, you can see many inconsistencies:

My desired outcome is to have conversations within Messages mirror on all devices.

If I delete a convo on iPhone I expect it to be deleted on Macbook.

If I delete a convo on Macbook I expect it to be deleted on iPhone.

I have tried logging in/out of my iCloud account on both devices to no avail.

iPhone > Settings > Name > iCloud > Messages was not set to sync.

Setting it to Sync has resolved the issue.


iCloud storage photos I have an iphone 4, with ios 7.1.2, and my phone tells me my software is up to date. When I log into iCloud photos, I can't view any of my photos. There is small print saying "iCloud photos requires ios 8.1 or later..." Does this mean I cannot use iCloud? I am paying for extra storage but where are my pictures?

You can use iCloud photos from a PC, Mac, iOS and web application. So it's conceivable you could use that service even though one of your devices is ineligible to participate due to it not running a supported iOS version.

From a supported web browser, your photos in iCloud are at:

https://www.icloud.com/#photos

You can review storage at - https://www.icloud.com/#settings


iTunes 12.5.5.5 can no longer delete subscribed podcasts I have used iTunes for years, and now suddenly after an update I can no longer delete a subscribed podcast.  I am used to simply right-clicking and selecting "Delete From Library on the picture of the podcast as in this picture:

But this no longer deletes the podcast subscription from my library.  It gives me a prompt to delete local files, which I select "yes, of course" to... and after it deletes the local mp3's... it does a big fat nothing, and the stupid smug podcast I want to get rid of just sits there staring me in the face, mocking me with it's existence.  I am able to unsubscribe, but still... the stupid, smug icon just sits there... mocking me.  Against all reasonable logic, optimistically waits for me to change my mind like an orphaned puppy that just will not get the hint.  I am not your new dad "reply all" podcast.  Go away.  You're messing up my house.  I'm allergic.  Please stop batting those cute eyes at me, we're not good for each other.  You know it.  I know it.  Now scram!  Get outta here.

Please, if possible, explain to me how I am the stupid party in this partnership, and not Apple.  All I did was update iTunes.  I cringe every time I do it, because of stuff like this.  Before the update, this worked just fine.

Just click the podcast and press, "delete" (backspace)

I experienced the same issue, removing the podcast from the menu did nothing.


trying to unlock iPhone 5c I'm trying to unlock an old iPhone 5c to access some pictures I have on there. Every time I try to unlock it, it takes me to the white screen with the "Hello" message, and then it tries to connect to a network (I have been able to connect it to my home Wifi) and I get the "Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server is currently unavailable" message. I have tried holding the home and power button at the same time, connecting it to iTunes, and none of that has worked. The phone has an old SIM card in it, but I just want to be able to unlock it to access photos. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Do you have it backed up to iCloud, Google Photos, or OneDrive? If not, then try activating the phone with a different Apple ID. This has helped me in the past. If this is not helping, then contact your carrier and see if they can help. Usually they are the best people to contact when there is an activation lock. Good luck!


How can I get back to my Mac side? Probably not the right/good title, I admit.

Accidentally quit bootcamp while it was deleting Windows partition to make new one or while it was making new one after deleting previous partition. Restarted comp manually for other reason and unexpectedly got restarted into WINSTALL usb drive. Unable to get back to Mac side since then. Is my only option to do a fresh OS X install? I obv don’t want to lose everything.

-No start up disks present

-Can’t install Win 10

-Tried NVRAM and PRAM reset

-Couldn’t remove/reformat Windows partition

-Windows partition named disk0s6 doesn’t appear on left side anymore

-Can’t mount the actual Mac partition which is disk0s1

-Tried verifying and repairing all

-Can’t use TimeMachine backups - get “No Time Machine backups were found” after selecting the
backup to use

are you able to see the mac disk via the terminal when you are in recovery mode?

it should be in /Volumes/ directory.


Connect to remote TeamViewer computer desktop via MacOS terminal command line How can I launch a TeamViewer remote desktop session to a remote computer from the MacOS command line, assuming that I know the Partner ID of the remote computer?

I already found documentation of command line parameters here, but there's no MacOS instructions for launching a remote session, only PC instructions.  Yes, I know the document says that command line arguments work for both PC and Mac, but there's obviously no TeamViewer.exe on a Mac so I think the main question is where is the Mac equivalent to TeamViewer.exe?

BTW, I want to do this so that I can set up dock icons for each remote computer so that I can connect to them with one click on the dock, without the hassle of opening up TeamViewer to pick the remote client.  After I figure out how to launch a remote desktop session from the command line, the next step will be to figure out how to launch a command line via a dock icon, but that's presumably well-documented via Google! ;-)

To connect to Teamviewer through the command line in MacOS, pass the arguments as follow (substitute xxxxxxxx with the target id, and yyyy with the target password:

/Applications/TeamViewer.app/Contents/MacOS/TeamViewer -i xxxxxxxx -P yyyy -ac 1

  -ac options:

  0: full access
  1: confirm all
  2: view and show
  3: custom
  9: undefined

The first time you run the command, you may be asked to allow the Terminal in your System Preferences > Security. (as well as TeamViewer itself). Just follow and enter the command again.


Setting up a web server with a domain name on an iPhone Is it possible to set up a proper web server with a domain name on an iPhone or on iOS?

Yes, it is indeed possible. You can use any web server software on the iPhone - and from there the configuration is exactly like having a web server with a domain name on any other computer/server:

You need to buy the domain name
You need to set up DNS service for the domain name
You need to set up an A-record in DNS for the static IP of the iphone, or alternatively setup DynDNS if your iPhone has a dynamic IP

However, in practice it is not worth while having a web server on an iPhone. You'll run into problems with the web server app being put in the background, the iPhone sleeping/turned off, the battery being worn out too quickly, possible connectivity problems with WiFi, too low throughput, etc. Some of these can be mitigated by using for example a cabled ethernet connection and having a charger permanently connected, but it is not going to be practical.

In addition to those problems, you'll find that the webserving software is limited in what kind of extensions/plugins you can install (usually none), and you'll usually only be able to host static content (i.e. no ASP/PHP scripts, etc.).

Take a look at for example DraftCode, if you want to run PHP scripts on the phone:

https://solesignal.com/draftcode/

If you just want to run a simple web server without dynamic content, you could take a look at for example "Easy File Sharing Web Server App":

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/easy-file-sharing-web-server-app/id554620332?mt=8

If you are a developer, you can make your own web server app using frameworks/libraries such as Criollo or GCDWebServer:

https://criollo.io

https://github.com/swisspol/GCDWebServer


How do I remove underlining of contact elements (address, telephone number, email, URL, etc.)? The excessive underlining ('underscore') disturbs the typographical look and
I don't need the very fancy linking to maps, email, phone etc.

Or better still: How do I select when and where to use these features?

UIDataDetectorTypes recognize phone numbers, links, and calendar events embedded within the contents of a UITextView. The dataDetectorTypes property can be set on your UITextView instance to selectively recognize all, non, or some of these data types. It can be set programatically or in InterfaceBuilder by clicking checkboxes for the data types you want to be recognized.


Why is my new battery behaving weirdly? Macbook Pro Early 2011
I am unable to understand why the battery is varying so much? It was just recently installed and is giving an excellent battery timing but this health difference is weird.
Any suggestions?

Nothing at all looks odd or out of place. Each of those measurements shows the battery is very good and reporting new cycles.

The circuitry that measures this is desiged to capture long time periods so I wouldn’t check back until the battery has 25, 50 and 100 charge cycles. The estimates are derived as time series of voltage measurements that are integrated, so external temperature, CPU / GPU have a large impact in adding noise to the measurements.

Averaging all of the measurements made so soon seems prudent. Unless and until you’re at 80% FCC - these won’t really tell any compelling story in my experience.

If you have a dramatic failure outside the normal aging process, that also is so clear and logged to different diagnostic logs - trying to read these tea leaves of 1% either way isn’t going to tell you anything about the condition of your device.


Can I make/receive calls on a MacBook if connected to same iPhone's personal hotspot My MacBook pro is connected to my iPhone's personal hotspot. I am not able to make/receive cellular calls on my MacBook, is that a limitation that I have to be on the same network applies to it should not be an hotspot of same iPhone?

Macbook Pro 13" 2020 - Big-Sur
iPhone 12 - IOS 14.4.2

No - the method by which your Mac connects to the internet doesn't affect whether it can hand off calls to your cellular service in general. I've tested this mostly in the US with US carriers, but it's possible you have different rules and would need to check with your carrier.
I suppose your network could be broken or firewall or traffic is preventing a properly set up set of devices from working, but the more common cause is the carrier setup didn't finish.
I would focus on undoing and re-doing the steps needed for the carrier to talk to the iPhone and then the settings on the iPhone to enable WiFi calling.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203032


MacBook Pro "clicking" while muted when showing a message dialog in Windows on Parallels - what's happening? I am experiencing odd "click" noises from my MBP, while sound is muted, it's unplugged from the power source (ie running only on battery), and Windows in Parallels shows a message dialog.

To reproduce:

Unplug the laptop (right now, 94% battery)
Ensure the volume is muted
In Windows on Parallels, do something that shows a message dialog
A loud "click" will be heard. It sounds plasticky or staticky, like the pop you get when plugging in a speaker to a powered amp, and I can't trace it to either speaker - it seems to come more from the back center or back right (maybe the right-side speaker) of the laptop. Two seconds later, a second, slightly quieter click will occur while the message dialog is still open.

The laptop is muted, absolutely.

Is there another sound source in a MBP, apart from the speakers? Why would this happen when showing a dialog - could it be a mechanical change in the laptop itself, caused by something to do with the video card?

Early 2011 model MBP
Yosemite, fully up to date
At the time, running Parallels 9 hosting Windows 7
Volume does not have to be muted for this to happen, but it does happen when the laptop volume is muted, making me think it may not be a sound from the speaker (?)

Edit: The original question was that this happened for a low battery warning. Since it's now happening with a nearly full battery, and it seems to be related to message dialogs, the fact the messages were about a low battery is a coincidence.

The pops you hear are due to the sound card turning on then turning off.  It is more obvious if you connect your laptop to an external sound system.  Unfortunately it isn't something you can control/change on your system.
I'm guessing that Apple does this so that the sound card doesn't play interference sounds (hums, whines, etc) from power sources, cell phones, etc.

Although it might be more obvious with the Windows dialog and alert sound, it is not just Parallels.  I have the same problem in Parallels, VMware Fusion, in every Mac application, and even the Finder.

For example, try pressing the volume up and down buttons on your keyboard and listen very carefully.  Just before the volume change sound plays, you will hear the pop as it turns on.  About 3 seconds later, you will hear another pop as it turns off.  (If the volume sound doesn't play when you press the volume buttons, hold down shift).

Another example is to play a movie in Quicktime Player where it is completely silent at the start.  When you press Play, you will get the pop.  The "off" pop will happen about 3 seconds after you close the movie window or quit Quicktime Player.

If it bothers you a lot, a total hack workaround I've found is to get Audio Hijack Pro.  Install and run it then from the Audio Hijack Pro menu, select Install Extras and install the Instant On option.  In the main window, select the System Audio entry and click the Hijack button.  You will hear the pop as AHP turns on the sound card.  Since the sound card is already on, other apps like Parallels won't cause the pops to happen. Simply hide or minimize the AHP application and it will keep the sound card active.

AHP is free but any recordings over 10 minutes will have noise added.  Since we are just hijacking and not actually recording anything, you shouldn't have any problems with the free version.


Scanning External Drives (USB keys in particular) before mounting them I need your help: it happens quite often to me that I have to mount drives coming from the most diverse sources and, sometimes, with quite a high risk of being infected with god knows what. As a consequence I deactivated auto mount and I usually format them before mounting them if I do not need to access their content, it is nonetheless quite common for me to need their content: I was wondering if there was any software able to scan them before mounting them; I remember that when I was on windows some antivirus were able to do so (probably mounting them to some sandbox I suppose) and I was wondering if there was any alternative software able to do so on MacOS.
Thanks

Under Unix, the user has to start the malware. The malware cannot start by itself when you open the USB stick.
Above all, only those programs start that can also be executed, so something like ".jpg" .mp4 "" .txt "falls out.
You should stay away from external software that says it is scanning the USB stick, because most software itself can contain malware and it also sees the contents of the removable media and can intrude on your privacy
In addition, a virus scanner is technically not feasible. See (Theoretical Computer Science)


Cancel Grab screenshot while taking screenshot with »selection« option« One of the standard mac-applications I use a lot in my work at school is Grab, which allows me to take screenshots on for instance graphs and figures displayed on my screen. A minor annoyance with this particular application is the inability to cancel the screenshot when using the »selection« option (ie. the one that allows you to mark a specific rectangular portion of the screen, to be saved as an image). When I click the selection option, a pop-up window appears, stating that I with my mouse can pick an area to be saved as screenshot; this pop-up window also includes a cancelletion button, which can be used to cancel the screenshot before I start marking the area I want to save – after I start marking the area of the screen I want to save, there does however not seem to be any way to cancel the process (since there is no way to click the cancellation-button without releasing the mouse, and thus saving the screenshot), which is problematic when I, for instance, try to take a screenshot of a graph, only to discover that I have chosen my place of origen, such that some of the labels can't be included in the screenshot.

I do acknowledge that it only takes a few seconds to delete a failed screenshot and try again, but this is still quite annoying the times when I need to get a graph or figure just right and end up trying to make the selection many times. In such situations, it would be very helpful if only there was some keyboard-shortcut to cancel the selection, but as far as I have found, there doesn't seem to be any.

My question is, therefore, does any way of canceling the selection screenshots exist.

Grab is only actually the 'face' of the Mac screen capture experience.

You never need to launch it unless you want a delayed shot, with a 10 second wait before the shot is taken. That's the only thing [afaik] it can do that the regular built-in screen capture hot-keys can't.

To do a regular capture, without launching Grab, just hit  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   4  & a crosshair cursor will appear. Just drag a rectangle, same as in Grab & a screenshot will appear on your desktop.

 this is a screen capture, put into a quote block so you can see it's not just regular text

You can do this from anywhere in the Mac - any app, any time [except in some games].

To cancel - at any time, even in the middle of a grab, just hit  Esc

Another very cool thing it can do...

After hitting  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   4  then tap the Spacebar & you can screen-grab any entire window, App or folder, complete with fancy drop-shadow, by just clicking the window...

Just for the sake of completeness, if you hit  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   3  instead, you will capture the entire content of your screen[s].


Refreshing the Dock without actually killing it? Is there a way to change Dock preferences and make the Dock app read the new one without using killall Dock command? Like to maybe force a refresh with some AppleScript or so?

You might try

sudo pkill -1 Dock

which sends a ‘HANG-UP’ signal, also known as a ‘HUP’, to the process whose name matches Dock.  The expected response is an internal ‘stop and re-evaluate’ in which a relevant configuration file normally gets re-read.

F.


iTunes Doesn't Won't Let Me Use An Alias Folder To Save iOS Backups in macOS Sierra? So in El Capitan (and probably earlier), I was able to go to Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup and copy that folder to an external hard drive, delete the old folder on my internal drive, and use terminal to create an alias folder of the one on my external hard drive to place where the folder went on my internal drive (ln -s /Volumes/INSERT HARD DRIVE NAME HERE/MobileSync/Backup ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup). The alias folder had the same name ("Backup") as the "real" one and so, as long as I had my external drive connected while I was trying to run iOS device backups, it worked. iOS device backups were saved to the external hard drive instead of internal SSD.

However, in Sierra, this doesn't work. Even if I do it the other way of highlighting the "Backup" folder on the external drive, pressing ⌘-L, and manually moving the alias folder to where it would go on my internal drive, it still doesn't work. Everything in Finder looks just like it did in El Capitan, however I get "iTunes could not backup the iPhone because an error occurred" when I try to backup my iPhone.

I am running the latest version of Sierra, the latest version of iTunes, and my iPhone is running the latest version of iOS. I've restarted both my Mac and iPhone and even tried backing-up a family member's iPhone, but to no avail.

A slight correction in terminology may help. Theres no such thing as an alias folder at the Unix level, but what you are actually creating is a soft-link to a folder.

Depending on how the target is specified ln may not complain if the folder still exists, but it will not overwrite it. I find it's safer if I am in the folder I wish to create the soft-link in.

I have setup the following on Sierra and High Sierra, and it works correctly:

$ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/
$ rm -rf Backup
$ mkdir -p /Volumes/EXTERNAL_DISK/iPhoneBackup/Backup
$ ln -s /Volumes/EXTERNAL_DISK/iPhoneBackup/Backup Backup
$ ls -l
total 0
lrwxr-xr-x  1 user   staff  35 10 Oct 21:16 Backup -> /Volumes/EXTERNAL_DISK/iPhoneBackup/Backup

Now start iTunes and try the backup.


How can I monitor an installer as it modifies the filesystem on Yosemite? fseventer does not support Yosemite until further notice and the suggestions here don't work for me so how can I monitor an installer as it writes files to the file system? I also tried Sloth but it only shows currently open files at a specific point in time.

This not application specific (it will show all) but you can find the one you are looking for.

iosnoop

This “traces” disk I/O execution live. Each time a disk I/O completes, a line of output is printed to summarize it, including process name and filename details:

Example:

sudo iosnoop

UID   PID D    BLOCK   SIZE       COMM PATHNAME

  503 54079 R 286522800   4096 Google Chrome ??/Cache/data_2


Lion Server WebDAV not working I setup a new lion server, with fully functional dns. Forward and reverse work without issue. I have a forward DNS entry for the server externally. OD is running, and there's 5 network users. Also, all the correct ports are forwarded on the firewall.

AFP works Flawlessly for all users internally and externally, and when the admin logs  into the server with WebDAV, it works fine. Using finder, we use this method: http://server.abc.com/webdav

However, the network users can NOT connect, but the local accounts can. Does anyone have any clue? Has this happened to anyone else?

I've written a blog post on how to do this.

From Server Admin, make new Web > Realm and set appropriate ACLs.
Create a folder in location/volume where data for Share is physically located.
Change permissions of folder to _www:admin (that’s what works for me)

$ sudo chown _www:admin /Library/Server/Web/Data/Sites/host.domain.tld
Create a symlink to the share folder in the folder where your web server looks to for the domain’s data.

$ sudo ln -s /path/to/data /Library/WebServer/Documents/site_web_folder

I know there probably a bit of information missing and if I showed images of the actual steps it might make things a bit clearer but I’m a little paranoid about my server and I don’t want to risk opening it up to further attack.

All this needs to be done before OS X will allow a "Connect to Server..." and mount your WebDAV share.


C++ application for iPad I came across an iPad2 application that allows a user to write Python programs on their iPad.

Though this framework was only limited to Python's maths functions I was wondering if there is a similar application that will let you write C++ applications on the iPad2?

Well, you can't compile and run apps from the iPad itself, but there are many text editors in the App Store that support what is called syntax highlighting.  You could then take these files and compile and run them on your Mac or PC.

The reason you won't find apps allowing you to compile code in the App Store is because Apple forbids apps that run external code (code that wasn't bundled with the app).  I'm not quite sure how this Python app got through, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was pulled from the store at some point.

Some text editors that support C++ highlighting are Textastic Code Editor and CodeToGo, but you can find many by searching for "code editor" or "syntax highlighting" (without the quotes) in the App Store.  The interesting thing about CodeToGo is it will let you run your code on a remote server for free if you have an internet connection.  So, if running your code on the iPad is important, CodeToGo might be a good choice for you.


Stock notifier for OSX I am looking for a stock notifier for osx (macbook pro). Is there anything available ? Perhaps, integrated with Growl or Osx notifications.

How about the iStock widget for your Mac's dashboard?

An other option is StockMeter which has Growl support indeed and you can install it in the menu-bar of your Mac, so you've got fast access to the data.


RStats particular key combination in Karabiner I'd like to edit this

<!-- change left command to control, send command+space when left command is pressed twice. -->
<autogen>
  __DoublePressModifier__
  KeyCode::COMMAND_L,
  KeyCode::CONTROL_L,
  KeyCode::SPACE, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L,
</autogen>

so that I can obtain %>% when pressing BACKQUOTE twice. I cannot succeed with that key.

Ideas?

Many thank thanks in advice !!

The following snippet will work:

<item>
<name>Double press Backquote to %>% in RStats</name>
<identifier>backquote2%>%</identifier>
<only>RSTATS</only>
  <autogen>
  __DoublePressModifier__
  KeyCode::BACKQUOTE,
  KeyCode::BACKQUOTE,
  KeyCode::DELETE, KeyCode::DELETE, KeyCode::KEY_5, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::DOT, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::KEY_5, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L
  </autogen>
</item>

You have to add RStats' app bundle identifier - available in Karabiner's Event Viewer > Apps - to /Applications/Karabiner.app/Contents/Resources/appdef.xml.

A single backquote gives a backquote, two backquotes entered fast enough %>%. I think a more elegant version exists - I haven't found it yet though.


Is there a way to pause iCloud Drive? I have nsurlsessiond eating all my bandwidth. That's because I have iCloud Drive enabled. But I wouldn't like to deactivate it for good, 'cause when I'm at home, where I have a fiber broadband, I like it to keep iCloud content in sync with my local drive. However, when I'm traveling I like to be able to stop this guy from eating all my paid LTE mobile service. I tried to uncheck iCloud but it pops-up a message saying that all my iCloud documents will be deleted from my local drive. If I press the button to keep a copy, it sais it need to finish synchronization before stoping the service.

I tried links like the one below, which recommends stopping the nsurlsessiond process, but it keeps coming back.

How to know what nsurlsessiond is downloading

Is there a way to just pause iCloud drive or to make it work only when I'm at home?

Thank you

I'm not sure how it exactly accomplishes it, but take a look at TripMode. It offers the functionality you're looking for, and even automatically switches based on the network you're on.


How to adjust the left margin in Pages' Business Resume template In the screenshot below, can someone tell me please how to shift the main text area to the left?

From the ruler, one can see the text begins at about 6.7 cm.

Changing Document Margins from the default 2.12 cm to 0 cm helps, but still a long way from 2 cm.

No adjustment of text columns, tabs and indents proved fruitful.

Similar in nature to How to move "section"/change "section" margin in Pages but this one is tougher — not even an Apple Support rep knew how to get around it other than to use "Convert to Page Layout" which removes body text altogether.

Thanks to anyone's efforts to solve the mystery.

As posted in the original question, I was not able to move the left margin for body. What I did was selected other resume type (modern resume) that had the body already in the left. Also there you can further reduce the margin all the way to the edge. Then I copied the bits that i needed from business resume over it. Kind of a hack but it works.


App Store App Name Change - how to leave old name for SEO / find-ability Recently I received an infringement notice regarding one of the words in my app name. I need to figure out how to change the name of an app, so that it won't confuse existing users.

Mainly, is there a way to change an app name so that it still searches under the old name (but, ideally, the old name does not appear)?

tldr I've received a trademark infringement notice for a for-fun app called Front Jacuzzi Back Corgi I made for my dog. It has a small loyal but unpaying following. Apparently one of those words is trademarked and can't be used, so I am considering renaming it to Front Jolly Back Corgi or Front Jetpool Back Corgi.

Just change it to new name and then mention the old name in brackets as well.

NEW NAME (PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS OLD NAME)


What keyboard command can be used to move the cursor to the end of the next word on the Mac? In Windows and Ubuntu one can move the cursor to the end of the next word in text by pressing ctrl+ left or ctrl+right.

What's the equivalent of this on the Mac?


Disable message autoselect in OS X Mail Is there a way to stop Mail from automatically selecting messages? For example when I delete a message, it will immediately select the next one and mark it read. Then if I don't want to read the message yet, I need to mark it as unread.

Press option+delete or option+← to delete an email and not select the next email.

If you use an international keyboard: United states option key may be labelled alt and/or ⌥.


How do you get notes to stay only on your iPhone and not sync to any other device on the Notes app? I logged out of the iCloud account on both my iPhone and my iPad so neither devices sync each others music or apps anymore, but whenever I make a note on my iPhone I always find it on my iPad and I do not want it there. Is there a way to make my notes stay only on my iPhone?

Notes may sync via other email services, like gmail.

You need to check the settings of EACH of your email accounts, and, if necessary, disable syncing notes.

It is also possible that notes sync to your Mac when you connect your iPhone to iTunes (via the USB cable or wireless). To avoid this, you might want to check iTunes sync settings (not 100% sure about the latter is still valid, it was definitely present in older versions of iTunes).


How can I disable gestures on a particular workspace? Is it possible to disable trackpad gestures I don't want to trigger on a particular workspace?

I have virtualbox fullscreen on one of my workspaces and I'd like for mouse gestures to not trigger when I am on that workspace.

This is not a feature provided by OS X.
You have to disable unwanted gestures in System Preferences → Trackpad and then use a third-party tool to enable customized gestures.
E.g. You can use BetterTouchTool to define gestures on a per-app basis. This will allow to simply not set set any gestures for virtualbox.


Clarification on 4k support for 60Hz Monitor I have an early 2015 Macbook pro retina 13'

I read this article

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587

It states that MBP will support

3840x2160 at 30 Hz refresh rate

So what happens If I try to use a 4K monitor which is 60Hz?

Monitors don't have their own refresh rates. They can SUPPORT higher refresh rates. So you always have to look at the weakest link between 1) what your computer can display, 2) what your cord can transfer, 3) what your monitor can display. For example, as is likely the case for you, if your monitor supports 4K at 60Hz and your cord supports 4K at 60Hz but your computer can only output 4K at 30Hz, then your monitor will only display 4K at 30Hz.

TL;DR: You'll only be able to see 4K at 30Hz.


External hard drive seems to block applications randomly Since updating to OSX Lion on my late 2009 iMac, I have noticed some strange behaviour while using my computer.  Every hour or so (I'm not actually sure about this pattern), the application that I am using will suddenly freeze. I will then hear my external hard drive spin up, and eventually, the application will begin to work again.

As an example, simply right-clicking on something in Chrome or half-way through watching a video in Plex will cause the entire application to freeze until the disk is spinning again. I can't think how these applications could possibly rely on this external disk, as all I use it for is my Time Machine back-up.

I have disabled the "put hard disks to sleep when possible" option, but this doesn't appear to have fixed anything. One possible explanation could be that this external disk is being used as part of virtual memory; it would explain the OS's reliance on the disk, but I can't imagine why it would do that when I have plenty of disk space remaining on my system drive.

This isn't entirely fatal, it's more annoying than anything else, but I am concerned that this could indicate that something is wrong with my operating system or hardware. I would be grateful for any ideas.

It might be the Spotlight indexing. Do you see mdworker active in Activity Monitor when this happens? If you have not done this yet, you might try excluding the drive in the Spotlight Privacy settings in System Preferences and see if that helps.


Automator shell Script works, except inside dropbox I used Automator to create a service that runs pdf2svg from the context menu in Finder.

for f in "$@"
do
    /opt/local/bin/pdf2svg $f ${f%.*}".svg"
done

It works fine, except it does not work on files stored in my dropbox folders.

How can I fix this?

If any of your files or folders in Dropbox happen to have spaces, your script will not behave as you expect.  You can fix that by adding quotes to the appropriate places like so:

for f in "$@"
do
    /opt/local/bin/pdf2svg "$f" "${f%.*}.svg"
done

If that isn't the source of the problem, please update your question with more specifics as to what the behavior is that you see when you run this script manually from the command line.


Can I completely turn off the fans on a MacBook Pro (0 RPM) I would like to know if there is a utility to completely turn off the fans.

Currently, when completely idle, fans are showing 2000 and 2100 RPM.
Although this is probably not recommended, I would like to have the option to completely shut them down.

Software such as 1 enable fan control but only lets you lower the RPM to the minimum set by Apple (which is 2000 and 2100 for each fan respectively),but I’m looking for an off switch.

When the CPU is idling, this should help preserve some battery life, and prevent dust from accumulating.

I am fully aware that this can damage the system and am not recommending this to anyone.

The question is whether this could be done and not whether this should be done.

Disabling the fans is not recommended but appears possible through the software below:

  smc-command

  This tool will allow you to write values to the SMC which could irreversably damage your computer.

  ...

  This program will allow you to read and write values to the SMC using the AppleSMC kernel
  extension.  The purpose of this is to show how to talk to the controller.

smcFanControl is a graphical interface for sic-command with additional safely limits:

  smcFanControl

  smcFanControl lets the user set a minimum speed for built-in fans. It allows you to increase your minimum fan speed to make your Intel Mac run cooler. In order to not damage your machine, smcFanControl does not let you set a minimum speed to a value below Apple's defaults.

Being open source, you could remove the minimum limits imposed by smcFanControl.


Change emoji font to the Windows style Is it possible to change the way Mac OS Mojave renders emoji from the Mac versions to the Windows versions? I prefer the darker, more vibrant Windows emoji.

I think not, because Apple, MS, and Google all use different incompatible formats for color emoji fonts.


Can I frequently switch Apple IDs on my iPad? I had thought one couldn't upon reading the text on Apple's website, "Once a device or computer is associated with your Apple ID, you cannot associate that device or computer with another Apple ID for 90 days." Recently, though, someone has told me that is is indeed possible to switch as often as you want.

Which is the case? I'd prefer someone with firsthand experience.

Yes - you can switch accounts on one device many many many times. Once you have associated that account with that device, it uses one of your 10 slots for the next 90 days. After then, that device doesn't count as a "new device" for your limited slots.

The text "You may switch an Associated Device to a different Account only once every 90 days" appears twice in the current iTunes, Mac App, App Store and iBookstore T&C under two subsections:

AUTOMATIC DELIVERY AND DOWNLOADING PREVIOUS PURCHASES - under the iTunes store
AUTOMATIC DELIVERY AND DOWNLOADING PREVIOUS PURCHASES - under the Mac App, App Store and iBookstore

So - if you take one of the many accounts that can exist on one device - only one account gets the "automatic" pushing of content purchases prior or elsewhere until the 90 day timeout expires.

Other than that one restriction, think more about your account rather than the specific device. Accounts are intended for one person, so when you create it, you can't go and use it on 11 devices after the tenth new device your account hits, you need to wait 90 days from the first device to account pairing.

It doesn't matter what other accounts are on a specific device - its about your ID being used in the app store on multiple devices.

For questions like this here are some nice references:

Apple Legal Index Page


Terminal opens with "-bash: /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh: No such file or directory" I tried to install OpenCV through Homebrew by following the steps given in http://www.pyimagesearch.com/2016/12/05/macos-install-opencv-3-and-python-3-5/ but after installing virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper I updated the path as given. When I source it I get the following

-bash: /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh: No such file or directory

I have macOS Sierra 10.12.6, Xcode 8.3.3.

Then I closed the Terminal and reopened it. Since then whenever I open the Terminal I see the same line in the second line of the terminal. I made a small change and installed virtualenv using

pip --user install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper

This is a common stumbling block when editing shell files.

I would remove any .bashrc and .bash_profile entries you know you don't need and then get a package manager to help you with managing the bash requirements. There is step by step help and many questions here on how to get homebrew set up.

Where can I download OpenCV for macOS?
https://docs.brew.sh/Installation.html

The benefits of homebrew is it makes some decisions about where alternative versions of python and packages live and you can not have to manage those as the software changes.


Show/emphasize only certain types of files in finder I use TeX a lot and it generates lots of auxiliary files that I am generally not interested in opening, and they clutter up my folders.  Is there any way to make Finder automatically hide/gray-out files with certain extensions in Compact List or Column views, either for a specific folder or for all folders?

Alternatively, if this is not possible, can I customize the "view by file type" option to separate into my own categories based on file extension (e.g., category 1 would contain .tex and .pdf files, category 2 would contain .sty and .bib, and so on) and have them listed alphabetized by category?

One option would entail examining latexmk and rubber with their cleanup options.

But since cleaning up the .aux and related files is only recommended after the final compilation run anyway, the following seems to present a very neat solution for macOS users. One way to cleanup afterwards when you use TeXShop with its default settings is adding this flexible AppleScript to the program:

[quote]
A TeXShop solution

As others have mentioned, deleting auxiliary files as a matter of course is not usually a good idea, especially for complex documents. However, it is useful to be able to delete them manually when needed.

I use the following Applescript (written by Claus Gerhardt) saved as a macro in TeXShop. The script could also be adapted to other Mac editors. What I like about this script is that I can add new aux file extensions when needed, and it is able to deal with multiple part aux extensions such as -blx.bib, etc.

--AppleScript
-- Apply only to an already saved file
-- Claus Gerhardt, September 2006
(*This script gets the path of the frontmost (tex) document in TeXShop and removes the corresponding auxilary files the suffixes of which are listed in the list L. Beware of the quotation marks. The list L may contain suffixes to which no corresponding files exist.*)

my remove_auxiliaries()
on remove_auxiliaries()
    set L to {".aux", ".synctex.gz", ".fdb_latexmk", ".out", ".toc", ".bbl", ".blg", ".ind", ".sind", ".run.xml","-blx.bib",".log", ".end", ".1"} as list

    tell application "TeXShop"
        get path of document of window 1
        set fileName to result
    end tell

    set {baseName, texName, pdfName, namePath, dirName, dirNameunquoted, logName, logPath, rtfName, docName} to my setnamebbedit_rootn(fileName)

(*
tell application "TeXShop"
    close document docName
end tell
*)

repeat with x in L
    try
        set shellScript to "cd " & dirName & ";"
        set shellScript to shellScript & "rm -f  " & baseName &  x
        do shell script shellScript
    end try
end repeat

end remove_auxiliaries

on setnamebbedit_rootn(x)
    set n to (number of characters of contents of x)
    set fileNamequoted to quoted form of x
    set windowName to do shell script "basename " & fileNamequoted
    set m to (number of characters of contents of windowName)
    set dirName to quoted form of (characters 1 thru (n - m - 1) of x as string)
    set dirNameunquoted to (characters 1 thru (n - m - 1) of x as string)
    set theText to contents of windowName as string

    set n to (number of characters of contents of theText)
    set i to n as number

    repeat while i > 0
        if character i of theText is equal to "." then
            set m to i
            exit repeat
        else
            set i to (i - 1)
        end if
    end repeat

    set baseName to (characters 1 thru (m - 1) of theText as string)
    set texName to baseName & ".tex"
    set namePath to dirNameunquoted & "/" & baseName as string
    set pdfName to namePath & ".pdf" as string
    set rtfName to namePath & ".rtf" as string
    set logPath to namePath & ".log" as string
    set logName to baseName & ".log" as string

    set theFile to POSIX file x as string
    tell application "Finder"
        get displayed name of the file theFile
    end tell
    set docName to result

    return {baseName, texName, pdfName, namePath, dirName, dirNameunquoted, logName, logPath, rtfName, docName} as list
end setnamebbedit_rootn

[/endquote]

copied from here (also take a look at the other suggestions)


How to make macOS cmd+tab switch desktops when app is on a different desktop Say I have ProgramA running in desktop space 1, and ProgramB running in desktop 2.
If I am currently on space 1, and cmd+tab to select ProgramB, then I still stay on space 1 even though there is no window for ProgramB on this space.

Is there a way (or an external program I can download) to make the desktop space automatically switch to one with an active window of the program I selected?

I am on MacOS Mojave.

System Prefs > Mission Control > When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows...