How can I tell how long Photos in Big Sur will be syncing? I upgraded to Big Sur several weeks ago, and since realized that my Photos library was not set to sync with iCloud.
I've toggled it back on, but the library is a little over a month behind.
Unlike earlier versions of Photos there's no indication of where it is in the syncing process. Earlier versions had a progress bar in Preferences, and would show current progress at the bottom of the library.
My Library just says "Updating" - it's been 16+ hours now. I realize it's a pretty big library (~30K items), but some idea of how long it'll be would be nice.
Any way to see progress?

There is no progress bar since it isn't sure how long it will take. A progress bar will appear at times, depending on what it's doing, it hasn't been completely removed.
Unfortunately there is likely nothing you can do but wait.


Is disk version of iWork 08 compatible with El Capitan Opened a iWork 08 Pages file created in 2015 and very little appears.  All text is white and can’t be changed to black. This was not a problem on my previous OS.  IS this a El Capitan issue?

If you have installed iWork from disc you may be able to then upgrade to the latest version via the App Store. It's been a while since I tried it but it worked a few years ago.

That would then give you a compatible version that can open the older files.


iPhone 5 corrupt photos I have this issue with recently purchased iPhone 5, 16 GB, iOS 7.0.4. The original issue was with the battery dying a way too fast (would go down from a little over 90% to just under 70% while using the phone for about 10 minute navigation trip). After I brought it to the Apple Store, I was told it's not the battery, but rather to OS was corrupted and it causing the battery to drain. The fix is very simple, a restore to the factory default.

However, that's where I ran into issues. We have some photos on that iPhone we want to preserve, so I tried coping them over to my Windows 7 laptop using explorer (direct access to DCIM folder), using Windows picture export future as well as iexplorer software and Picasa to no real luck.

Now I should add that not all pictures are affected, just the ones that were transferred from the iPhone 4s. The pictures, taken by this phone, were copied with no issues.

Is there anything I can do to get those pictures off?

Update 4.II.2014 @ 9.50

I am sorry, I should have also mentioned what else, we have tried.  We tried installing both Dropbox and Google Drive apps in the hope we could copy pictures that way, it works on some, but both get stuck on a picture x and the app crashes.  When we go back into the app, it just keeps loading.

We also tried emailing the pictures, but that doesn't work (at least on the pictures pre-iPhone 5).

Update 5.II.2014 @ 11.30

Another, quick add to the description, any pre-iPhone 5 pictures (the ones that were transferred from iPhone 4s) crash upon opening in the iPhone (so we can't really view them in full screen).

Were you able to get your pictures? If not try Iexplorer. It shows all content on the phone and you can easily export the entire library.


Getting all versions of a file from a Time Machine backup I have 2 terabytes worth of TM backups on my external hard drive and I need all versions of a specific folder (more specifically, all the files from that folder).
Is it possible to extract all backups of a folder from my backup without going through all the days with backups and extracting them manually?

If you are a bit familiar with the terminal, it is quite easy.
Open the terminal and cd to the location of your backups on your backup hard drive.
Then, you copy all versions of the folder you are interested in into a new folder with rsync.

I'm making up an example where you want to copy all versions of the folder /Users/peter/Documents/thesis/ into a new folder ~/all_my_versions that is located in your home folder.

You will have to adapt the paths to your system, e.g. by replacing Macintosh\ HD with the name of your harddrive.

# create new folder
mkdir ~/all_my_versions/
# change directory to your backups
cd /Volumes/Backup_HD/Backups.backupdb/My_MacBook_Pro/
# run for loop to copy all folders into newly created directory
for F in *
 do
  rsync -avz $F/Macintosh\ HD/Users/peter/Documents/thesis ~/all_my_versions/$F
 done

In the end, the folder ~/all_my_versions will contain several subfolders, whose names are the backup dates and times:

2015-10-19-113849/
2015-10-28-111812/
2015-11-04-104802/


Is there any way to make a keyboard shortcut on an iPad to trigger a video screenshot? The iPad external hardware keyboard supports Shift-Command-3 and Shift-Command-4 for image screenshots. Is there any way to do a keyboard shortcut for video screen captures as well?

I can't find any keyboard shortcut that specifically does video capture.

I have an iPad Pro 11 with the new Magic Keyboard.  Doing Shift+Cmd+3 and Shift+Cmd+4 work as expected.

I tried Shift+Cmd+5 and it has no effect, at least not the same result as on a Mac.

I can't find any documentation from Apple or 3rd-party sites that indicate how to do this, as of now.


Cron job fails due to sleeping wifi? I wrote a cron job to do backups over wifi to another computer. It works perfectly when I'm using the machine, but I prefer to schedule it at night when I'm not using it. The first step is to ping the backup server once and fail the whole script if that step fails.

It consistently fails. :(

I've got Energy Saver set to never sleep (when plugged in).

Does OS X always put the wifi to sleep after a certain time or something? Does it not wake it up for cron jobs? Or maybe it does, but I just need to wait for it to connect?

Update: @bmike asked about my pmset -g log output. I use terminal-notifier to send a notification.

2015-05-13 16:05:23 -0700 Assertions            PID 56(powerd) TimedOut InternalPreventDisplaySleep "com.apple.powermanagement.delayDisplayOff" 00:09:22  id:0x100000032b [System: DeclUser IntPrevDisp kDisp]
2015-05-14 00:00:01 -0700 Assertions            PID 552(NotificationCen) Created DisplayWake "com.apple.notificationcenter.sleeping-note" 00:00:00  id:0xe00000bc1 [System: DeclUser DispWake kDisp]
2015-05-14 00:00:11 -0700 Assertions            PID 552(NotificationCen) Released DisplayWake "com.apple.notificationcenter.sleeping-note" 00:00:10  id:0xe00000bc1 [System: DeclUser kDisp]

I have solved this indirectly in the past several times like this:

One Mac (the one that is supposed to never sleep) has a Energy Saver schedule to wake up or power on every morning at 2:55 AM. It's set to not sleep, but it also has launchd jobs (cron is fine too if you want to maintain that older scheduling method) that SSH in to the client Macs.

The client Macs are set to allow wake for remote access, allow Power Nap (if supported) and set to allow SSH.

We have several AirPort and AppleTV that will proxy the ssh requests and send a wake packet to the client macs if they happen to be sleeping.

The clients then can have their cron tasks scheduled for when they wake.

If you spend too much time making this work, you can instead put a backup hook into the periodic tasks or convert them to launchd and have them run opportunistically even when the ideal scheduled time has passed.


AppleTV sees my Mac Mini but It can't access its information I have the latest version of the Mac Mini with the updated software on my Apple TV 2. It can see my Mac Mini but when it try to access it's information with iTunes open I says it is loading but eventually errors out. I can ping successfully from my Mac Mini to the Apple TV. I have the latest version of iTunes.

My MacBook Pro and Mac Pro can be accessed successfully on the Apple TV. All three are running Lion with the latest updates.

The Mac Mini did at one time work on the Apple TV. The firewall is off on the Mac Mini.

I went through the steps listed here without any success.

Any suggestions to get the Mac Mini and Apple TV to work again would be appreciated.

From the Apple Discussion forum:

In iTunes, Edit>Preferences>Sharing>Share my library on my local
network.
I saw this was unchecked, and checked it.

And maybe more meaningful:

"Once Home Sharing has been turned on, Apple TV will automatically
find iTunes libraries on your local network that have Home Sharing
turned on using the account name you entered. The shared libraries
will appear in Computers on the main menu of Apple TV."
The implication is that a "shared library" must exist on the computer
that has Home Sharing turned on in order to be found.

And to conclude:

First things first, unplug the ethernet cable from your apple TV and
check your settings under Setting > General > Network. Note the IP
address.
Secondly, plug the ethernet cable back in and check your
settings. Setting > General > Network - are they the same or totally
different? If they are different you most likely have an issue where
your iTunes Homeshared Library is running off of a different IP
Address than your Apple TV.

Also, make sure you have your ports right!


How to disable right-click pop-up menu in Pages Dock? How do I disable the app Pages from showing my most recent documents? In fact, I'd like to disable this little menu popup every time I right click on ALL of my apps.

Edit: I apologize for not clarifying. You see those documents (e.g. Purg2, Purgh), they are no longer on my desktop, I upload them into my computer with a scan disk and edit them using Pages. The problem here is that I don't want them visible every time I right click with my mouse or use two fingers on my trackpad when the Pages document isn't even on my computer.

In order for recent items not to show on an application's dock tile, you'll need to do at least two things, as also shown in the images below.

First in System Preferences > General, set e.g.: Recent items: 10 Documents, Apps, and Servers to : Recent items: None Documents, Apps, and Servers
Next, In Pages, as well as other apps that have an Open Recent menu item on the app's File menu, click Clear Menu in order for them not to show after taking the first step.


Upgrading to High Sierra or newer on 2013 MacBook Air with external SSD and missing OEM internal SSD Background: I have a mid-2013 MBA I was given a couple of years ago without its SSD. I used it with an external USB 3.0 HD and upgraded the OS each new version up to Sierra, but could never get High Sierra to install.
Now I've just bought a cheap external USB 3.0 SSD to get a speed boost and I've installed a fresh OS via the Internet Recovery. It only allowed me to install Mountain Lion, which I guess was the current OS when the MBA was new.
I've gone to the App store to update to Mojave, the only version they seem to offer. I download and ran the update and when it's time to choose the drive to install on, my new SSD, it told me "You may not install to this volume because the computer is missing a firmware partition."
One website said to install the firmware update from Apple's support site, but running it tells me I'm already up to date.
Some websites make it look like the only ways to solve similar problems requires the OEM SSD, which I have no access to.
I would prefer to have the latest OS but I'd settle for Sierra if it's utterly impossible to install anything newer. But I can only find Mojave on the App store.
(I do still have my external HD with Sierra installed but I thought a clean install would have some benefits.)

Output of diskutil list:
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *120.0 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Mac USB SSD             119.2 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3

There are reports of other computers with a similar problem, and a damaged or missing internal drive seems to be a factor.

From MacRumors:

"The EFI Firmware can only update using the EFI System Partition on the internal storage media. So even if you don't want to boot from it, you're still going to need a working drive in there to support firmware upgrades."

From Ask Different (this site):

"I have spoken with OWC customer service, and they say I will need to reinstall the OEM SSD. Then upgrade to High Sierra, which will update the Mac's firmware. Then re-install the OWC drive, and upgrade that to High Sierra."

So any system update that includes an EFI Firmware update will throw this error if you do not have an internal drive.

It looks like you will need to get a replacement SSD module for this Mac, which ultimately, is a better solution than running from an external.


How do I put the cursor mid-word in iOS 13 phone? iOS 13.  iPhone X. Safari, working in text boxes such as on StackExchange.
Happens all the time where I miss a space bar and wind up with 2 words glued together. I don’t use Simple English, so  iOS auto-suggest usually fails to see it as 2 words.
Somehow I dodge the bullet of AutoCorrect changing it.
But now, I need to place the cursor in the middle of the mystery word, so I can add a space bar.  IOS can’t relate. It wants me to either change it to a different word altogether, or stubbornly selects the whole word.
I can drag the handles to the middle to where it selects 1-3 characters, sacrifice those, and retype them.  That sucks.
I want to know the right way to place the cursor mid-word.

You can use Trackpad mode.
Long-press the Space bar, than slide your finger on the keyboard to position the cursor.


Unable to open serial port using simply python script on macOS Catalina: [Errno 16] Resource is busy On a brand new MacBook16 running Catalina (10.15.1) I am getting the following error trying to connect to an FTDI FT232R USB UART device.

Python 2.7.17 (v2.7.17:c2f86d86e6, Oct 19 2019, 16:07:15)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 6.0 (clang-600.0.57)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import serial
>>> ser = serial.Serial('/dev/tty.usbserial-A106NU2I', 38400, timeout=1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Users/cbagwell/.virtualenvs/toolbelt/lib/python2.7/site-packages/serial/serialutil.py", line 240, in __init__
    self.open()
  File "/Users/cbagwell/.virtualenvs/toolbelt/lib/python2.7/site-packages/serial/serialposix.py", line 268, in open
    raise SerialException(msg.errno, "could not open port {}: {}".format(self._port, msg))
serial.serialutil.SerialException: [Errno 16] could not open port /dev/tty.usbserial-A106NU2I: [Errno 16] Resource busy: '/dev/tty.usbserial-A106NU2I'

I see the following events under the Console application:

006002.877344 python@(null): AppleUSBHostUserClient::openGated: could not open provider USB3.0 Hub             . provider already opened for exclusive access by a kernel client
006002.878136 python@(null): AppleUSBHostUserClient::openGated: could not open provider USB2.0 Hub             . provider already opened for exclusive access by a kernel client

So it appears that some kernel client already has the "/dev/tty.usbserial-A106NU2I" file opened with exclusive access.

My question is, how do I determine which kernel client (or kernel extension?) has this file opened?

I have tried using "sudo lsof | grep tty" and don't see anything there.

The device is visible and recognized under About this Mac -> System Report -> USB

Thanks!

This doesn't work with Catalina. It throws error as following when tried to install.
/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) not loadable (reason unspecified); check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8)

sudo dmesg
Notice - new kext com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostPlatformProperties, v1.2 matches prelinked kext but can't determine if executables are the same (no UUIDs).

UPDATE from FTDI
Apple are moving from what are called Kernel Extentions (.kexts) to what are called Driver Extensions (.dexts) for the implementation of drivers starting in macOS Catalina (10.15). Currently .kexts are still supported in macOS Catalina, however after the beta release they issued an update which stopped our driver from loading. This update required our driver (FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext) to be re-signed and notarized, we completed this process with an updated Apple Developer ID (as they lapse every two years). Unfortunately when Apple issued our new Developer ID to re-sign and notarize the driver package they did so without the .kext support option enabled (as .kexts are being deprecated it is no longer automatically included). This is why there is a code signature issue with our driver, currently we are waiting on Apple issuing us with the correct Developer ID to be able to sign .kexts for macOS Catalina.
As such our current VCP driver available on the website has a signature issue and wont load. However if the device you are using implements a default FTDI VID/PID combination it should be picked up by the inbuilt AppleUSBFTDI.dext driver and present accordingly in the ‘/dev’ folder on your system in the following form:
/dev/cu.usbserial-xxxxxxxx
/dev/tty.usbserial-xxxxxxxx
My FTDI module has default PID VID but still doesn't work. Apple needs to check.
UPDATE# FTDI 2.4.4 should work fine with Catalina now.


Shell command or series of commands similar to the Automator action "Get Link URLs from Webpages" I have a long list of URLs. Contained within each of these webpages, there are links I need to extract. The Automator action Get Link URLs from Webpages is a very useful action for this task. Unfortunately Automator itself does not handle heavy workloads very well and very often either crashes or hangs indefinitely. How might I go about this using Bash via the Mac OS X Terminal app?

Edit - this is the current script as it stands right now.

#!/bin/bash

echo "Enter up to 3 words"
read -p "" v1 v2 v3

web="$HOME/web.txt"
tmp="$HOME/tmp.txt"
err="$HOME/err.txt"
fin="$HOME/fin.txt"
arc="$HOME/arc.txt"

n="$(awk 'END {print NR}' "$web")"
echo "Processing $n URLs..."

grep 'http' "$web" | \
while read -r url; do
    lynx -nonumbers -hiddenlinks=merge -dump -listonly "$url" 2>>"$err" | awk '!a[$0]++' >> "$tmp"
    sleep 1
    n=$((n-1))
    [[ $n -gt 0 ]] &&  echo "$n URLs left to process..." || echo "Processing Completed!"
done

grep -e "$v1" -e "$v2" -e "$v3" "$tmp" | sort -u | cat > "$fin"
cat "$fin" >> "$arc"

for r in "Results This Session"; do echo "$(cat "$fin" | wc -l)" "$r"; done
for a in "URL's Archived"; do echo "$(cat "$arc" | wc -l)" "$a"; done

I added read -p to the beginning of the script. Are there limitations on the number of variables that can be used like this? I've successfully used up to 9 in testing. And is there a more practical way to write this? I tried read -p "" {v1..v9} which didn't work. I added a couple for loops at the end to indicate how much data was processed.

Current issues

sometimes I get an error

sort: string comparison failed: Illegal byte sequence
sort: Set LC_ALL='C' to work around the problem.

however when add LS_ALL=C to the script it doesn't seem correct this.

Here's a script to get you started:

#!/bin/bash

urls="/path/to/Input_URLs_List.txt"
output="/path/to/Output_Link_URLs.txt"

n="$(awk 'END {print NR}' "$urls")"
echo "Processing $n URLs..."

cat "$urls" | \
while read url; do
    lynx -dump -listonly "$url" >> "$output"
    sleep 5
    n=$((n-1))
    echo "$n URLs left to process..."
done

This will dump all of the links into a file that you can further process based on what you're looking for.  Additional code could be added to filter and process the output however without knowing what it is you need you'll have to work on it or ask some additional questions.

To clean up the output, use the following as an example:

Using "https://www.google.com" as one of the URLs the output would look like:

$ lynx -dump -listonly "https://www.google.com"

References

    1. https://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi
    2. https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
    3. https://play.google.com/?hl=en&tab=w8
    4. https://www.youtube.com/?tab=w1

I've truncated the output, there's actually 19 Link URLs.

To have the output just be a list of URLs, no numbers or whitespace, etc., use awk either in conjunction with lynx or afterwards.

$ lynx -dump -listonly "https://www.google.com" | awk '/:/{print $2}'
https://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
https://play.google.com/?hl=en&tab=w8
https://www.youtube.com/?tab=w1

So if you want the output file to be just the Link URLs, change the lynx command line to:

lynx -dump -listonly "$url" | awk '/:/{print $2}' >> "$output"

You can always process the contents of the output file later in the script or afterwards to get it down to the really wanted Link URLs and use a different search parameter in awk, e.g., I used ":" to both eliminate the blank lines in the lynx output and to show an example of how it can be filtered.  In this example only Link URLs get redirected into the output file because only lines containing a : get output by awk, as all URLs should have a colon in them. The {print $2}, simplified in this explanation, removes everything to the left of the actual Link URL.

Here's an updated script which sorts and removes duplicate Link URLs:

#!/bin/bash

urls="/path/to/Input_URLs_List.txt"
output="/path/to/Output_Link_URLs.txt"

n="$(awk 'END {print NR}' "$urls")"
echo "Processing $n URLs..."

cat "$urls" | \
while read url; do
    lynx -dump -listonly "$url" | awk '/:/{print $2}' | sort | uniq >> "$output"
    sleep 5
    n=$((n-1))
    [[ $n -gt 0 ]] &&  echo "$n URLs left to process..." || echo "Processing Completed!"
done

Update to capture stderr output from lynx to a file:

To capture stderr output from lynx to a file, redirect stderr to a disk file, e.g., 2>>"$file" added after "$url", e.g.:

lynx -dump -listonly "$url" 2>>"$file" >> "$output"

Add errlog="/path/to/Lynx_Errors.txt" under output="/path/to/Output_Link_URLs.txt" and then change the lynx command line to, e.g.:

lynx -dump -listonly "$url" 2>>"$errlog" >> "$output"

Or:

lynx -dump -listonly "$url" 2>>"$errlog" | awk '/:/{print $2}' | sort | uniq >> "$output"

Example:

#!/bin/bash

urls="/path/to/Input_URLs_List.txt"
output="/path/to/Output_Link_URLs.txt"
errlog="/path/to/Lynx_Errors.txt"

n="$(awk 'END {print NR}' "$urls")"
echo "Processing $n URLs..."

cat "$urls" | \
while read url; do
    lynx -dump -listonly "$url" 2>>"$errlog" | awk '/:/{print $2}' | sort | uniq >> "$output"
    sleep 5
    n=$((n-1))
    [[ $n -gt 0 ]] &&  echo "$n URLs left to process..." || echo "Processing Completed!"
done


On what basis does the Finder update the file copy progression bar? I want to know that the progression of the progress bar in OS X is based on which factors by the Finder?

Time (passing or estimated)
Number of files remaining
Size of files remaining

If possible, can we change the factor used in any way to match our choice?

To make a somewhat educated guess

The bar shows "time spent" vs. "overall time expected"
"overall time expected" is somewhat dynamic, depending on current throughput. So if you start of with a lot of small files (which usually take longer than a large one) transfer seems to speed up later (and vice versa)
I'm not aware of any way to change this

PS: And no, I don't have a reference for that, just years of observation


Can't Access Previous Purchases under Family Sharing I recently switched to Family Sharing. Previously, we all had our separate iCloud accounts for contact syncing, calendaring, reminders, etc. and shared a single account for out store purchases.

Now that we've family sharing setup, besides still using separate iCloud accounts for the above purposes, everyone started using their own iCloud accounts for their store purchases as well.

When I go to Settings > Apple ID > Family Sharing > Share Purchases, I see that the old account we used to share for our store purchases is listed as to be shared among family members but when I recently tried to download a past purchase with that account, I repurchased it(I was logged in to the store with my own iCloud account).

What should I do if I want to be able to access my previous purchases?

Finally got around this pesky problem. And actually it was pretty straightforward!

All I had to do was add that old shared account as a separate family member. Hence now everybody only uses their respective iCloud ID for their personal stuff and purchases while sharing their old/new purchases.

This might not be a solution for you since family sharing only accepts 6 family members at the most as of now although there isn't any other solution currently.


Windows virtual machine for Mac students to share I am a teacher in a Windows-supported college university, where we use a lot of software that only runs on Windows computers. We would like to help our Mac students by providing them with an easy-to-use and easy-to-transfer way to run Windows as a virtual machine, preferably without to need to install or configure a lot of software for the student.

Does somebody have an idea of a way in which we can create and configure a virtual machine and provide it to the students for simple use?

You can do it using transfer of virtual machines,

First create one virtual machine on Your computer and install necessary os and softwares into it,

Then transfer this virtual machine backup to your students Macs (Ask them to use same VM player that you used to make that VM) Also provide the login credentials of VM os.

Here is detailed description for VirtualBox but you are free to use any VM Player, Hope this helped you.


Numbers: how to search only within a selected range? I have a very big table, and searching for a string can take a few seconds. However, I only want to search in a particular column. Even when a column is selected, Numbers searches the entire table. How can I constrain the search to the selected column?

You can filter data in numbers using filtering data , in that you can select the row/column set the rule , keyword to be searched can be set there itself. For more details Link


Clear multiple entries form "Open With" context menu How do I clear multiple entries of the same application from the "Open With" context menu?

You need to reset the Launch Services Database

Use the following command in the terminal:

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

Wait until the terminal returns you to a prompt.  You should now be all set.

My understanding is that this will work in anything from 10.5 and up.


iTunes Match and iOS device storage When I enabled iTunes Match (which is generally brilliant), it wiped my iPhone's music library as I expected it to, but it didn't wipe my iPad library.

Now that I've got iTunes Match working so nicely, I want to reclaim the space from the music I was carrying around in case I wanted it. But I can't find a way to bulk-delete music either on the device or from iTunes. Now that it's Match-managed, iTunes shows my music listing greyed out and uneditable. On the iPad I can delete songs one by one, but that's not what I want.

How can I wipe clean an iTunes Match-driven music library on an iOS device?

Settings>General>Usage>
Wait for the storage amounts to load then click on Music and swipe left or right.  It will delete all the music on the iDevise in on fell swoop.


how do I create a signature on yosemite? preview does not offer that option how do I create a signature on yosemite?  preview does not offer that option as shown in the youtube of how to create a signature.

Go to the Tools menu > Annotate > Signature > Manage Signatures and use the "Create Signature" button at the bottom.


Automatically share new photos with photo stream? Is it possible to make every new photo taken automatically appear in a photo stream that is shared with other users?

Either by some how share the default photo stream or make another photo stream as default. Note that I don't want to jailbreak and I wont use any other application then those that are built in.

No - I'd suggest dropbox as an alternative. It's still not flawless since you need to open the app to start pushing new pictures after taking them.

Here is some discussion surrounding the dropbox implementation:

Two Photo Streams, one iPhoto library
Can photos taken with my iPhone (and Apple ID) stream to my husband's iPad (and Apple ID)?

Alternatively, you could use a specialized app that includes automatic upload, for those are dime a dozen.


Is it big deal to use some icons borrowed from other app in the App Store? I found some icons that would be a good fit to my iPhone app based on the features/scenarios that the app will provide, but noticed that an app in the App Store already use those icons. So question is, is it ok to use those icons again? Or in another way, are the icons from the App Store apps allowed to be copied and used in other apps that are owned by different organizations?

Icons are definitely not freely copy-able. Apps in the App Store still enjoy the copyright protections afforded under intellectual property laws in your region.

If you've found an app with icons that you're smitten with try contacting the developer about it. Often developers will purchase icon sets from icon factories like iconarchive.com (link omitted on purpose). These icon sets are licensed to you, for use in your applications, and come with the necessary license to allow you to redistribute and profit off any product that includes them. You can find free and paid-for icon sets out there. The developer might be forthcoming if they purchased their icons from a factory.

If the developer has designed the icons on their own they may choose to license them to you or they may say no. In which case: respect their wishes or you may find yourself on the receiving end of a cease-and-desist letter that prevents you from selling or giving away your app to the masses.


Trackpad cursor moving around on its own and clicking anywhere I own a Macbook Pro Late 2011 model and recently the trackpad's cursor is behaving weirdly - it moves around on its own and it clicks anywhere.

I am guessing I need to change my trackpad ?

link
Will the trackpad on above link help me ? Do I need to check model number A1278 ?

or just 'Mid-2009--Mid-2012' is good enough to assume it will work with my laptop.

To answer your question, the part you linked should work with your MacBook Pro. Before purchasing a new trackpad, I would suggest you try a few troubleshooting steps.

Reset the SMC

Resetting the SMC can resolve some problems on a Mac, particularly hardware issues.

Possibly using an external mouse, shut down your Mac.  Then hold the shift, control and option keys along with the power button. After holding these keys for 10 seconds, let go of them and power on your Mac normally. If this does not help, try using Safe Boot.

You can find out more about resetting the SMC here: How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac

Safe Boot

In this case, you wouldn't want to stay booted into Safe Mode, but you can still benefit from what Safe Mode does to narrow down the source of the issue. According to Apple, Safe Boot does the following things:

  Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues,    if needed
  Loads only required kernel extensions
  Prevents startup items and login items from opening automatically
  Disables user-installed fonts
  Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

To boot into Safe Mode, first shut down your Mac. Then press the power button to power on your device while holding the left shift key on the internal keyboard. Once you see either the login window or your desktop, you can reboot the Mac normally

Just verifying the startup disk and clearing caches can be helpful. I had a very similar case, even with a similar model Mac, where this resolved the issue. If the issue only occurs outside of Safe Mode, then that is also helpful to know.

If that doesn't work

If neither of these things resolve the issue, then I would suggest you take your Mac to an Apple store for a repair estimate. If you would rather perform the repair yourself, the linked part should be compatible with your Mac.


How do you list clients connected to OS X Server 10.8's VPN? The 10.6 Server manual says this:

but it doesn't work on 10.8.

Even a Terminal command would be great.

I put this command together to list connected IP address:

ps -ef | awk '/[p]ppd/ {print substr($NF,2);}'


Album added to iTunes library but not listed in Albums and Songs section I added a new album to my iTunes (version 11). It has been copied to my Media folder and it plays fine. But it's not listed in my Albums, Artists and Songs sections. I would like to see the artwork in my Albums or list of songs.

I'm able to find the album by searching. What to do? Any ideas?

I believe that adding it again might help, but how do I remove it from my library when it is not present anywhere except search results?

Try pressing command+ L while the song is playing, this will take you to the song/album in your library.
Then right click and choose "Get Info" to verify the metadata for the song & album.

It may not be displaying as expected if the metadata for the song doesn't match the filenames.


Networking between 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) and 10.12 (Sierra) For work I have to solve an issue involving very old and new systems. Because of legacy software required for the business, I need to sync folders between Mac A (MBP running 10.6.8) and Mac's B and C, both are iMac's running 10.12 Sierra.

I had been using AeroFS before they shut it down and it worked great. Simple folder mirroring. *I want to mirror folders so there are fewer points of failure, and all files are on each system.

Bittorent Sync (Resilio Sync) would work PERFECT except 10.6.8 is too told to run the client.

What is the best way to mirror folders between these systems? I've considered Dropbox, but due to file sizes and slow internet has been ruled out.

Would a NAS be ideal in this situation? How can I best mirror folders between all 3?

EDIT - Mirroring folders is needed as the MacBook Pro is mobile and will need file access away from the internet.

ChronoSync should be able to do what you want.  While they offer an older version that will run on 10.6.8, I would suggest that, instead, you run the latest version on your 10.12 system and use it to sync the files amongst all your systems.


Loose light up apple logo on unibody macbook case The light-up Apple logo inset into on the back of my 13" Unibody MacBook (this thing) has come loose and is recessed into the lid. Is there a way to get inside the lid to reattach that piece? Thanks for any help!

iFixit has directions on opening the lid: Installing Front Display Bezel.It requires their $3 Spudger tool.


VPN Changes Hostname When I connect to various VPN servers (Windows PPTP, Cisco IPSEC) the hostname of my laptop gets updated.

Is there a setting somewhere that will stop this from happening?

The VPN's DHCP server probably assigns hostname together with the IP address and the computer uses it instead of what you've set during setup and what appears in System Preferences -> Sharing -> Computer name.

To set a permanent hostname do
sudo scutil --set HostName DesiredHostname in Terminal.app (there are also ComputerName and LocalHostName that can be changed there).
Restart may be required.


Does macOS come with (the ruby framework) rails? This question seems to imply OS X/macOS comes with the ruby framework rails. Is this correct? (I always thought OS X/macOS comes with ruby, but not rails)

No, macOS does not come with rails preinstalled.

On a default clean install of macOS Catalinia, if you run the following command in Terminal, you'll see that rails is not installed by default.

% rails -v
Rails is not currently installed on this system. To get the latest version, simply type:

    $ sudo gem install rails

You can then rerun your "rails" command.
%

I also tested this on some earlier versions of macOS and the result was the same.

If rails -v returns version info, then it's installed, but was done after macOS was originally installed.


iPad to view LAN local domains? I have multiple local domains (i.e. localtest.local) that my iPad cannot see.  My machine name, alpha.local, has Apache directives to a "site" I have on the box.  All are in /Library/WebServer/Documents/, and I have other directives to many local domains.

I have an Airport Extreme router, which I think the iPad should get some answers from, but it doesn't have anything where I can shove this reference to.

Kind of stuck.  Any ideas how I can get my iPad to see localtest.local?

Truth is you should have a local DNS Server that you share out using DHCP to all your clients.  This way you can manage local DNS records on your local network.  I will confess there might be a better way, but this is what came to mind off the top of my head


How can I open a text file with TextWrangler from the Terminal (command line)? Often when I work in the Terminal (the command line) I need to edit some text files. I prefer to edit text files using TextWrangler.

How can I open a text file with TextWrangler from the Terminal?

I tried with /Applications/TextWrangler.app/ my_text_file.txt but it doesn't work since TextWrangler.app/ is a directory.

As a one-time thing,

open -a /Applications/TextWrangler.app myfile.txt
open -b com.barebones.textwrangler myfile.txt # same thing by ID

You can also create an alias for opening TextWrangler, that you would put on the .bash_profile file, which is an hidden file by default that is usually in your home directory.

This is the command that you could insert:

# Type 'tw' on the terminal to open TextWrangler
alias tw='open -a /Applications/TextWrangler.app'

To make TextWrangler the default:

"Get Info" on a text file in the Finder.
Change the "Open with:" program to TextWrangler, in the fifth information pane.
Click the "Change All..." button at the bottom of the pane.


Assigning icons system-wide based on filename without extension I'd like Finder to display a particular icon for files based purely on its filename, not its extension. For instance, for a web project I have a Makefile sitting amidst PHP files, which all display the Atom logo:

The file already opens with Atom when double-clicked, even though TextEdit is technically my system's default text editor (which I never use, because Atom rules).

Is it possible to automatically assign an icon to makefiles system-wide, without manually copy+pasting an icon into it through the properties pane? Preferably without installing any third-party software, as this is really a cosmetic thing that's not worth having system bloat over.

I'm hoping there's some defaults-related thing I could tweak, or an entry in a plist file somewhere.

Setting Atom icon via command line for Makefile
There is no direct way to set icons based on filename only, but one can set them via command line and then apply to all makefiles on the Mac.
Here are the steps to set Atom's icon to a specific Makefile via command line (assuming you Developer Tools are installed).

Get the Atom icon file from /Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/file.icns
Convert the image to icon
sips -i file.icns
Extract the icon to its own resource file
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/DeRez -only icns file.icns > tmpicns.rsrc
Append this resource to the file you want to icon-ize
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/Rez -append tmpicns.rsrc -o Makefile
Use the resource to set the icon
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/SetFile -a C Makefile
Restart your Mac

you can run mdfind -name makefile to get all the makefiles in your system and write a script to do the above on them.


Buying iPhone 4S under another family member's name I would like to buy an iPhone 4S under a different family member's name as their eligibility to purchase the phone is available and furthermore, they're on a different bill.

If I purchase the 4S under my family member's name and activate it under my name... will the "required" text messaging plan, etc. still hold on the purchaser's bill even though the iPhone was not activated under that name?

Note:  This isn't to unlock the phone to use it on a different network -- it would remain on AT&T.

Yes - not only is this allowed, Apple and AT&T have systems in place to effect this purchase. Note - this is only for plans where you are billed together. If you can get on the same plan, just ask them about using a cross upgrade so that you can burn the upgrade eligibility of a different number on your family plan to get a new phone for a line that currently isn't eligible for upgrade pricing.

In your case, where you are not billed together it gets messy. If they don't buy the phone off contract - then the carrier could hold them to pay for the data plan if the contract has that provision. This situation is analagous to them buying a new phone and then selling it on the open market. I haven't heard of AT&T cracking down on this, but you could easily see how they intend the subsidy to generate 2 years of revenue from the buyer.

As you are not eligible for an upgrade, it goes to sense that you haven't yet paid off your last "loan". Have you asked how much it would cost for you to end your contract? Unless you also are on a family plan, you might shop around and then go to AT&T and not threaten to leave, but explain your budget and your options and ask them how long you have to wait or how much you might need to pay to get back to a more budget friendly place for you to upgrade your handset. I've seen times when they'll budge a few months, but keep in mind if you haven't honored your last contract with them, you've got to be reasonable when asking for further accomodations.


Completely Removing Mac OSX from MBP I have a 2009 MBP that runs Linux Arch and OSX on a dual boot. I have no use for OSX on this machine. I installed it 12 months ago, and straight after installation I set up Arch via BootCamp and have never logged into OSX.

It's using 20GB of my HDD space doing nothing. When I installed from BootCamp and partitioned I remember that BootCamp reserved 20GB space of OSX and wouldn't let me go beyond that.

Is it possible to totally remove OSX and just have Arch running on this MBP? I don't mind reinstalling Arch again as everything I need on Arch is all backed up anyway.

Piece of cake, boot the Mac in target mode, connect it to a computer and repartition / erase the drive. You also can remove drives from portables easily and connect tem to an inexpensive ($5) USB to sata adapter and format things.


Completely clean reset of Mac—does Internet Recovery reset Recovery partition I want to completely reset my Mac by wiping the entire SSD.
I plan to start up from Internet recovery and then use Disk Utility's Erase option to erase APPLE SSD AP0512M Media (my computer has a 512 GB SSD).
If I do this, will I be able to reinstall MacOS from Internet Recovery (if my entire SSD is wiped)?

The whole point of Internet Recovery is to allow reinstallation of the OS when all data on the internal storage is lost, including the Recovery partition.
However, some people have had trouble with some models of Macs not connecting to Apple servers. It's certainly worthwhile making sure you've got an external bootable install media for emergencies.
Also, there's not really any point in 'resetting' the Recovery partition and the entire disk itself: erasing the system/user volume and reinstalling using the Recovery partition will suffice to put the Mac back to a 'brand new' state.


I'm getting a connection timed out error with SVN after installing OS X Yosemite Yesterday I updated OS X to Yosemite from Mavericks.  Today, any time I try to execute commands in SVN (no matter which client I use, including command-line), I get the following error:

svn: E175012: Unable to connect to a repository at URL '<correct path>'
svn: E175012: Connection timed out

This happens with all of my repos.  There is no delay that would indicate a time out, the error returns immediately.

If I browse to the repo path in Chrome it loads successfully.

I've updated Xcode to 6.0.1 and the command line tools as well.

When I call which svn I get: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/svn

The problem was the client I normally use (Versions) has a crash bug in Yosemite.  The fix for that, which I carried out yesterday, is here: Versions crashing in OS X Yosemite

That fix has the side effect of breaking SVN (but it stops the Versions crashes!).

Reverting the change gets rid of the error message I was seeing.


Prevent mobile Safari from loading the last page when started Whenever I open Safari on both my iPhone and iPad, it starts loading the last webpage that I visited in the past, which is not very convenient.

Is there a way to stop it from doing this?

You could save a bookmark to about:blank (or your desired home page) as an icon in your home screen. Then click that to launch Safari rather than the Safari icon.

To do this:

open Safari.
Type the url about:blank into the URL area and go to that page. The page will, unsurprisingly, be empty.
Press the share button, and select "Add to Home Screen"
Assign a name to this blank page. In your case, you might want to call it Safari.

(Dan Frakes of MacWorld spells out these steps at http://www.macworld.com/article/159303/2011/04/ios_safari_blank_page.html; thanks to Heng-Cheong Leong for point this out).

Alternately, you could close any pages you had open in Safari before exiting the program.


Can OS X access files in my Dropbox account without using space on my local hard drive? Question in title. Is there any way for such configuration?
OR at least that files are stored only on one computer.
Of course I am aware that I can use internet browser version of dropbox, but I would like to use the desktop one, but exactly in the way a browser version works, i.e. without losing hard drive space.

Update: See nassimhddd's answer below about ExpanDrive allowing you to mount your DropBox account as (external) drive - since
  its Mac version 3.0.3021 May 2013.

The short answer to this is: No. As far as I'm aware, you can't mount your Dropbox account as some sort of remote file share - its synced files are always written to your local disk.

That said, you can change the location of the Dropbox folder away from its default of ~/Dropbox, so if you have a separate internal or external disk you could put the Dropbox folder there.

You may encounter problems if Dropbox occasionally can't access the detached volume holding its folder, however. See here:

  Your Dropbox folder must be available when your computer boots and
  before the Dropbox desktop application starts. Some USB drives, for
  example, take some time to mount before your computer recognizes them.
  The Dropbox desktop application could start before such a drive is
  ready and get confused. You will receive an error and Dropbox will
  give you the opportunity to relink your Dropbox account or exit if it
  is unable to find your Dropbox folder.


iCloud storage showing data for Pages but no documents are saved - what is it? In my iCloud storage it says that just over 100kb are being used by Pages. I used to use Pages a while back but never saved anything to iCloud drive. On checking iCloud drive there were no documents in there. I'm confused about what data Pages is saving to my iCloud - I know it is a very small amount of memory taken up but just wanted to know if anyone knows what might be saved in there and if it safe to delete it.

There is also around 20kb taken up by iCloud drive - other documents, no idea what this is either.

As seen in the screenshots below there are no documents in either section - just 'data' - whatever that is.

There’s no harm in cleaning up iCloud Documents. I go to the web interface since then I’m 100% sure I see what’s actually in iCloud and not what’s temporarily synced to a device - sometimes a device can lag or get stuck. Cleaning the source is my best advice.

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/

Before you delete - review recently deleted items and purge them if you want. Then delete all the files you don’t want. Once that’s done on the server side, review that each Mac and iOS device sees the delete or clean out local copies they have that didn’t sync up correctly.

In your images - you can safely clear the data, but if you do the math 101 KB divided by 5.0 GB is 20 parts per million (25 ppm if you include all the other documents as well). It’s not even a rounding error.


Something has been wrong with my finder and Mac. How to fix? Finder is often unresponsive.

Also in many software, like xcode or any project. I used to be able to right click and select open in Finder. Now if I do that nothing happen.

Zip utility is much slower. Takes minutes to solve.

I think this happen since I used ccleaner or something.

How to fix?

Finder seems to be the one affected. I wonder if there is other apps with option to "open in Finder" like xcode.

There is a bug in 10.8.2 where occasionally revealing files in Finder stops working and Archive Utilility stops responding whenever you try to extract an archive.

As a workaround, you can terminate appleeventsd from Activity Monitor or with sudo killall -kill appleeventsd. (Without -kill other processes stop responding.) The issue will probably return within a few days or hours though.


Reset mac -- can't reinstall macOS So after updating to Big Sur a lot of problems hit my mac all at once and I decided to roll it back. Since I didn't make a backup (dumb move I know) I had to basically start from scratch. Before I did so I backed up my current state to an external ssd and then erased the mac via recovery mode. Now its in recovery mode and the reinstall macOS keeps giving me an error and I can't restore from the Time Machine backup as it starts looking for the SSD but never finds it. I would like to try and get it running mojave or catalina or at least anything because in its current state it's useless
Macbook pro 2016
500GB SSD

Yes. Be sure you erased the entire drive from recovery. Some people erase only a volume and get stuck, the entire drive should be erased for your downgrade to work the fastest.
Which of these keys are you using?

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

For your case, you want Shift-Option-⌘-R

Reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.


Can I charge a different price for an iPhone app versus an iPad app? Is it possible to charge a different price for the two types?

Of course you can. Just release them as two separate apps.


Is there a way to set iCloud to keep enough SSD space on Macbook Air? I am using a Macbook Air 2020 with a 250 GB SSD running Catalina and I keep running out of hard drive space, despite having about 60 GB available on iCloud.
There's about a 35 GB difference, which I attribute to apps and system files which only stay on the laptop. Already running "Optimize my Mac" and old files and photo clearly go through a retrieval process when I try to open them.
Is there another setting that would keep 20-40 GB of headroom on the SSD drive vs. getting close to topping out?
I use Clean My Mac X to eliminate 3-6 GB of junk at a time. Can see the discrepancies below in my iCloud and Finder Storage totals. Thanks.

All you need to do is right click on a folder in icloud using finder, takes a second. Right click on the folder and select "remove download".
This is a simple control to manage  iCloud storage locally.


iMessage log in Problem This is the error I am getting at the moment when I try to log into iMessage. The same error occured when using FaceTime. I can use my appleID for the Appstore.
Do you know what I can do about this?

This is a commmon problem with Hackintosh'ed computers. Is the computer you are using with OSX genuine?

Wether it is a real Mac device or not, the steps to fix this should be very similar. Here is a very long thread describing each step to fix this in great detail.

To start off, I would make sure that your Apple ID is verified. You can check the 'Verified' status of your AppleID by logging into AppleID's online management.


Wifi disconnects frequently in Macbook Pro 13" I am new to Macbook Pro and Mac OS X. I am experiencing irritating problem. My internet wifi gets disconnected frequently.

Is this a problem with my internet provider or Mac book pro? I bought MBP just two weeks back. I am worried wether I got the defective laptop or what?

Thanks in advance.

If the network you're connecting to uses WEP encryption, try switching it to WPA. You might remember a similar issue around the launch of iPad 2.


iTunes 12.4.3 (on OS X 10.11.6) : podcasts : issues with HTTP/1.1 redirect 302? This problem is not specifically related to iTunes version 12.4.3, but has been appearing since 12.3.3 far as I can remember. I also had it on OS X 10.11.4 and 10.11.5.

All my podcasts from a particular site no longer download.
I have many other podcasts (from other sources) which have no download issues at all.

It seems iTunes on my Mac has problems dealing with HTTP/1.1 redirects (302) for podcasts; I get the little round circle with exclamation mark in front of the podcast, and when i click on it :

I decided to launch Wireshark to see what was happening, and came to the conclusion iTunes seems to have a issues with a redirect it gets from the website.

The HTTP/1.1 request from iTunes asks to

GET http://rf.proxycast.org/1153838588270485504/16256-18.04.2016-ITEMA_20963865-0.mp3

which yields an empty page. The server responds with a 302 redirect to

http://media.radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast09/16256-18.04.2016-ITEMA_20963865-0.mp3

which is the working podcast indeed. Moreover, when I open that URL in iTunes (File > Open Stream) it works also. Yet despite this working URL, iTunes does not seem to be able to download / play the podcast though the redirect.

Not even directly from iTunes Store:

https://itunes.apple.com/fr/podcast/continent-sciences/id115153984?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4#

It happens for all podcasts of that company, which seems to have redirected all its podcasts from rf.proxycast.org to media.radiofrance-podcast.net

So my guess is that my iTunes has trouble dealing with this redirect. Unless it is something else, but I don't know what.

I tried accessing the podcast from another device (PC) and the podcast is all fine.
Reinstalled iTunes, recreated the iTunes .xml file, no change.
Unsubscribe, delete, resubscribe. Tried many things. Nothing helps.

Any ideas about where to look?

Here is the Wireshark TCP stream:

GET /1179796318600568832/16256-27.06.2016-ITEMA_21019982-0.mp3 HTTP/1.1
Host: rf.proxycast.org
Connection: close
User-Agent: iTunes/12.4.3 (Macintosh; OS X 10.11.6) AppleWebKit/601.7.7

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2016 11:07:53 GMT
Server: Apache
Set-Cookie: e=V8qvCQqAhy4AAX6jDnMAAAGD; path=/; expires=Thu, 28-Sep-17 11:07:53 GMT; domain=.proxycast.org
p3p: policyref="/w3c/p3p.xml",CP="NON DSP COR CURa PSA PSD OUR BUS NAV STA"
Location: http://media.radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast09/16256-27.06.2016-ITEMA_21019982-0.mp3
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

EDIT : the podcast URL is http://radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast09/rss_16256.xml

The problems turns out to come from my ESET Endpoint Antivirus 6.3.85 (and earlier) on OSX 10.11.6 (and earlier). More particularly ESET's Web Access Protection.

When I disable it, everything works fine.
To recap, the problem appears with any software accessing URLs like

http://rf.proxycast.org/1181578500855832576/14489-02.07.2016-ITEMA_21024836-0.mp3 (1)

That URL redirects to

http://media.radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast09/14489-02.07.2016-ITEMA_21024836-0.mp3 (2)

URL (1) actually breaks in iTunes, Safari, Chrome, Firefox.

URL (2) works fine anywhere.

I tried excluding the domain "proxycast.org" from the URL scanning list, but that does not solve the problem completely.
iTunes still fails to handle correctly the redirect it seems, as does Safari. Chrome and Firefox do play the URL.

Right now the only, temporarily acceptable workaround I can find is to exclude the IP address of (1) scanning by ESET.
This will only work of course until that IP changes.

So to conclude:

There is an issue linking HTTP redirects, ESET Endpoint Antivirus for Mac OS X, and iTunes for OSX (or Safari).

PS: I don't have this issue with those podcasts on other machines, Mac and PC, that do not run ESET.


iPhone 3GS and iOS 5 don't sync After updating my iPhone 3GS to iOS 5.0.1 from 4.3 on Sunday Evening, and letting it finish syncing, I tried playing my music in the morning. I thought it was great that it held the last song I was playing, but it never actually played it. I hit Play, the play logo appears on the status bar. The Pause button switches back to Play on the iPod Controls screen. I can hit Next or Previous, and it does the same thing. One about 1 out of every 20 songs, it will play a song, although all the tags are matched up to a different song.

I tried Resyncing, with a cable and over Wifi for the past couple of nights, but the same thing keeps happening. I am running iTunes 10.5.1 on a MacBook Pro with OSX 10.6.8

Have you tried removing all the songs from the device and just allowing a handful to sync?

Sometimes the tracking database gets in a bad state and cleaning things out lets you know it's safe to sync the whole load again.


How can the default save format be changed for OS X Preview app? Is there a resource showing all the possible syntax for changing the preference file for the preview app in os x? I'm using Catalina if that matters. I frequently copy an image to the clipboard and then command N in preview and then want it to save in PDF format instead of the default PNG format.

defaults write com.apple.Preview

Unless you need to edit the image in Preview, I'd suggest leaving it out of the equation altogether.

I use the following python script which saves any image on the clipboard to a PDF file, using a save dialog. (If the file exists, it adds the image as a new page.)
You can embed it in an Automator workflow with a Run Shell Script action, or add it to the /Library/Scripts folder, and you can access it using the Scripts menulet. (Script Editor.app Preferences enable the menulet.)

#!/usr/bin/python

from AppKit import NSPasteboard, NSPasteboardTypePDF, NSPasteboardTypeTIFF, NSPasteboardTypePNG, NSTIFFPboardType, NSPICTPboardType, NSImage, NSSavePanel, NSApp
from Foundation import NSURL
import Quartz as Quartz
import os, syslog

def save_dialog(directory, filename):
    panel = NSSavePanel.savePanel()
    print (panel)
    panel.setTitle_("Save clipboard")
    myUrl = NSURL.fileURLWithPath_isDirectory_(directory, True)
    panel.setDirectoryURL_(myUrl)
    panel.setNameFieldStringValue_(filename)
    NSApp.activateIgnoringOtherApps_(True)
    ret_value = panel.runModal()
    if ret_value:
        return panel.filename()
    else:
        return ''

def main():
    destination = os.path.expanduser("~/Desktop/")
    outfile = save_dialog(destination, "Clipboard.pdf")

    myFavoriteTypes = [NSPasteboardTypePDF, NSPasteboardTypeTIFF, NSPasteboardTypePNG, NSTIFFPboardType, NSPICTPboardType, 'com.adobe.encapsulated-postscript']
    pb = NSPasteboard.generalPasteboard()
    best_type = pb.availableTypeFromArray_(myFavoriteTypes)
    if best_type:
        clipData = pb.dataForType_(best_type)
        if clipData:
            image = NSImage.alloc().initWithPasteboard_(pb)
            if image:
                page = Quartz.PDFPage.alloc().initWithImage_(image)
            if os.path.exists(outfile):
                pdfURL = NSURL.fileURLWithPath_(outfile)
                myFile = Quartz.PDFDocument.alloc().initWithURL_(pdfURL)
                if myFile:
                    pagenum = myFile.pageCount()
                    myFile.insertPage_atIndex_(page, pagenum)
                    print ("Image added to Clipboard file.")

            else:
                pageData = page.dataRepresentation()
                myFile = Quartz.PDFDocument.alloc().initWithData_(pageData)
            myFile.writeToFile_(outfile)
            print ("Clipboard file created.")

    else:
        print ("No clipboard image data was retrieved.")
        print ("These types were available:")
        print (pb.types())

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()


How can I just "skip" incoming mail notification? When I get an email, macos notification system shows a banner like image below and two options are available: reply or delete.

This is useful, but sometimes I want to just skip the banner because it takes top right corner for some seconds and I just want to clear it away. (I know 'alert' has options for close but I do not like it)

How can I just skip the incoming mail banner by mouse or keyboard?

I think you can drag to the right to dismiss it without taking any action.


How do I run an app using launchd at regular intervals? I have an app which is written in AppleScripting language which checks if the S.M.A.R.T. status is 'Verified' if it is not then it will automatically show me a dialog alert. But I need it to run every 30 minutes. I used cron before but it never works with .app extension. So how can I accomplish running the app at regular intervals using launchd?

Use oascript to call your ApplesScript.

$ oascript foobar.applescript

In your plist your ProgramArguments definition to launch the app would be as follows:

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>osascript</string>
        <string>foobar.applescript</string>
    </array>

To get your item to run, you need a StartInterval definition which takes an integer for the number of seconds (1800 for 30 mins) between runs.

<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>1800</integer>

A simple but functional plist would look as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.foobar.app</string>
   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>osascript</string>
        <string>foobar.applescript</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>1800</integer>

</dict>
</plist>


Is there a fast way to switch System time zone from the command line? I usually do it through the System Preference panel for Date & Time, but I'd like a quicker way to do this if there is one.

Use the following Terminal command:

sudo systemsetup -settimezone timezone

For a list of valid timezone values, use sudo systemsetup -listtimezones.

To get the current timezone, use:

sudo systemsetup -gettimezone


In Sierra, is there a setting to keep the dock from jumping to external displays? I am working on a MacBook Pro 2016 with 2 monitors attached. Often I look up, and the dock is now on one of the other monitors, not remaining on the MacBook, which is where I want it to be and stay. Is there a setting to make that happen? I have looked in SYS PREF for DOCK and DISPLAYS and don't see anything. Thx.

System Prefs > Mission control > Displays have separate Spaces ...disable

Though that may impact the rest of your workflow.


Searching for apps that will run on an original iPhone – excluding apps that will not run on iOS 3.1.3 Apps for an old iPhone

I'd like to seek and find apps that will work on iOS 3.1.3 – without wasting time browsing apps that will not. And without a jailbreak.

Apple's App Store appears to lack this capability – no filtering out of incompatible apps, even when using the Store on the handset.

I found one answer … additional answers will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Background

VintApps 3.1.3 might have been ideal. I never tried it.

There's an iOS category at MacUpdate but the filters are nothing like what's required.

Note

I'll use my first generation iPhone for as long as it continues to work as well as it does. So please, no answers that suggest an alternative iPhone.

Seeking an alternative to VintApps 3.1.3 led me to older Apps – MacRumors Forums (2013-11-05), there's a link to an Apple Club article:

Finding iOS Apps Compatible with Older Devices

First impressions: useful, US-oriented.

Adapted from what's there: I could use a Google UK search, such as the one below, as a basis for finding compatible apps in the UK App Store:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Aitunes.apple.com%2Fgb%2F%20%22requires%20ios%202.0%7C2.1%7C2.2%7C3.0%7C3.1%22

… for example, a search for carshare-related apps.

Still, I'd prefer an app – ideally for OS X – with a smart user interface.


How can I browse offline my already visited websites? OK, I am online half of the day and offline the other half using a MacBook Pro. As I am coding primarily on this Mac, I am interested in caching all the websites I visit: especially forums, blogs, technical websites and Apple Documentation.

I would like to browse my cache in an easy and smart way when I am offline.

I would like Safari or another browser to keep trace of my browsing without explicitly having to ask. Is this possible, or do I need another tool for this job?

Safari has a reading list function to save articles for later reading while offline. Have you investigated that option for some of the easier pages that are static and amenable to reading offline.

Xcode has an option to cache various reference libraries for offline viewing and I personally much prefer that interface over a web browser due to search ability and performance. That clearly isn't a good general solution for other developer documentation, though.


Can I repartition my primary hard drive without removing the Lion recovery partition? Scenario:
I boot into Recovery mode and open Disk Utility. Then I select the primary hard drive and choose 1 partition. Will that destroy the recovery partition as well?

No destruction will happen - This repartitioning you propose is possible to safely do.

The recovery partition won't modify itself (since it's in use) and will survive attempts to erase itself when it's in charge.

You also can resize things in general when booted from the main OS as long as files that are stored in the area being trimmed are mobile and not in-use or locked.

You have to enable a debug mode for Disk Utility to see and work on the Recovery HD so it's planned to be something you have to know a trick and go out of your way to tamper with. (Note: Debug mode is removed in 10.11 with the redesigned Disk Utility app)


ugly math in preview of Wikipedia pdfs When I "download as PDF" a Wikipedia article with math, such as
Septic_equation,
and open it in preview 8.0 on macos 10.10, the math formulas are ugly / munged:

instead of like in the browser (firefox) page

Before starting down the rocky road "what's wrong: fonts, preview, versionitis ..."
let me ask

does anyone else have the same problem
are there print-ready .pdf or maybe .tex (not .html) for Wikipedia pages somewhere ?

Wikipedia:Rendering_math --

This page in a nutshell: There exist at least three different forms of math formulae on Wikipedia pages, with at least seven ways to present them. None is completely satisfactory.

However I have no idea which ones are used in which articles,
so which ones survive math -- pdf -- preview -- print.
(Test cases for the 3 or 7 ways would be useful.)

Fonts might be a red herring, but here's pdfinfo, pdffonts anyway --
pdfinfo Septic_equation.pdf  # http://www.xpdfreader.com

Creator:        Chromium
Producer:       Skia/PDF m83
Tagged:         no
Form:           none
Pages:          3
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      594.96 x 841.92 pts (A4) (rotated 0 degrees)
File size:      673156 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.4

pdffonts Septic_equation.pdf  # all embedded ?
name                                           type              emb sub uni prob object ID
---------------------------------------------- ----------------- --- --- --- ---- ---------
LiberationSans                                 CID TrueType      yes no  yes           7  0
LiberationSerif-Italic                         CID TrueType      yes no  yes           8  0
LiberationSerif-Bold                           CID TrueType      yes no  yes           9  0
LiberationSerif                                CID TrueType      yes no  yes          10  0
LiberationSans-Bold                            CID TrueType      yes no  yes          11  0
LiberationSans-Italic                          CID TrueType      yes no  yes          85  0

When I export this in preview, the export.pdf is bigger ??
Creator:        Preview
Producer:       Mac OS X 10.10.5 Quartz PDFContext
Tagged:         no
Form:           none
Pages:          3
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      595.276 x 841.89 pts (A4) (rotated 0 degrees)
File size:      888908 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.3

name                                           type              emb sub uni prob object ID
---------------------------------------------- ----------------- --- --- --- ---- ---------
ZWJFYX+LiberationSans-Bold                     CID TrueType      yes yes yes          14  0
VOJIYC+LiberationSans                          CID TrueType      yes yes yes          10  0
VBAANE+LiberationSerif-Bold                    CID TrueType      yes yes yes          12  0
ESNUES+LiberationSerif-Italic                  CID TrueType      yes yes yes          11  0
CQEMAV+LiberationSerif                         CID TrueType      yes yes yes          13  0
POYZKZ+LiberationSans-Italic                   CID TrueType      yes yes yes          31  0

I have preview 11.0 and MacOS 10.15.6.  I see no such issues.  I would recommend upgrading.


Cannot update apps from AppStore I've searched and tried everything suggested in other posts: getting ride of .plist files, rebooting, using the terminal with specific commands. Nothing worked. I can open the AppStore and see the apps that need to be updated. However, when I click on the update, after a few seconds the update button comes back on with no download. I have an iMac, using Mojave 10.14.6.

If in case you are the new iMac user, I hope you need to review your Account details (it takes some time for loading this page) where it will ask for the payment details and then confirm to proceed.


Merging two email accounts in El Capitan After the upgrade, El Capitan duplicated my Gmail account, which is now both as POP and IMAP (that is because I set up my Google Internet account in Yosemite, but I never set up the IMAP account in Mail.  El Capitan did it without asking...).  Because POP is a terrible protocol, some of the emails that were received or sent in the POP version of the account have not made it to the GMail server, and thus are just local to my computer.  What I want is to

move all the emails in the POP 'Inbox' to the IMAP 'Inbox'
move all the emails in the POP 'Sent' to the IMAP 'Sent'

without duplication (If I drag stuff around I would duplicate thousands of emails).  Is there a smart way of doing this?  Also pretty important is that my flagged emails are kept (some, annoyingly, are still stuck in the POP account).

Well I did nothing aside from waiting and 'synchronising' the account regularly, and thanks to the magic of IMAP the messages that had been in the POP account reappeared (I had chosen the option to save all the incoming and outgoing mail on the server).


Do the three iPad personal hotspot tethering options differ in terms of speed? I am delighted with LTE tethering on the new iPad with personal hotspot.

What are the speed ramifications of selecting Wi-Fi over Bluetooth or connecting via USB and the dock connector?

USB is probably the fastest, with a theoretical peak transfer rate of 480 Mbit/s, and will also charge the device (or, at least, prevent it from discharging as quickly). The downside is that only one device can be connected via this method.

Bluetooth is probably the slowest (Bluetooth v3.0 + HS is rated for 24 Mbit/s), but I'd expect it to use less power than WiFi tethering. Bluetooth is also limited to connecting to one device at a time.

WiFi tethering will support more than one device (usually three or five or more) and can be faster than Bluetooth, but uses more power. 802.11g is rated for 54 Mbit/s and 802.11n is supposed to reach 150 Mbit/s, but this is usually shared between all connected devices.

Despite the single-device limit, USB and Bluetooth connections can, if made with a PC or Mac, "forward" the connection over WiFi (as an ad-hoc hotspot), FireWire, Ethernet, or any other connection protocol the machine supports, allowing a theoretically infinite number of devices to use the cellular connection. Of course, you can also use the USB cable to charge the device while using wireless tethering, and you can use multiple (or all three) tethering modes at the same time.

In any case, the limiting factor for speed is likely to be your cellular connection, particularly if you are limited to 3G. Remember, the cell connection is a single pipe that all your connected devices go through, including the iPad itself.


Mac Mini with Dell UltraSharp U2713H - Not Sharp I have bought myself a 2012 Mac mini and have it hooked up to my Dell Ultrasharp U2713H via HDMI. Everything works, but the text and everything else looks fuzzy and not sharp.

Plus from what I can tell everything is blown up to be 2560 x 1440, and that makes stuff look large in size.

Why is this? and how can I fix it?

Over HDMI that machine can only do 1920x1200.
Need Thunderbolt or MiniDP->DP or DVI to get 2560x1440 according to EveryMac

& those screens have more input options than you could ever need; I'd go miniDP to miniDP [or DP] as simplest solution.
That's what I use here on 2 of the same monitors - but I also double up with DVI-DVI on one screen, to toggle between 2 computers.


iPhone X Activity and Health app: Doesn't work - shows spinning wheel instead I just switched from iPhone 7 Plus to iPhone X.  I have Apple Watch Series 3.  Everything worked great until I switched to iPhone X.  Now the Activity app on the phone (not the one on the watch) just gives a black screen with a spinner in the center and never does anything.  Things I've tried/verified:

I went to iCloud > Devices and verified that the old iPhone 7 Plus is no longer tied to my account.
Before I shipped the iPhone 7 Plus back I erased all content and settings.
I've tried resetting the watch and setting it up as a brand new watch with the iPhone X.
Everything is turned on under Settings > Privacy > Motion and Fitness.

Running iOS 11.1.1 and watchOS 4.1.  I'm stumped.

What else can I try to resolve this?

UPDATE: It appears the Health app on the iPhone X has the same spinning wheel that never goes away:

Another thing, not sure if it matters but want to give as much info as possible.  This iPhone X was restored from my iCloud backup of a iPhone 7 Plus that was part of the beta program.  It was at version 11.2.(something).  But I could not put backups from that version on my new iPhone X.  So I had to downgrade my iPhone 7 Plus back to 11.1, then do an iCloud backup, then I was able to activate/restore my new iPhone X from that.

It really sounds to me like a connection issue, especially since we've established multiple apps being unable to read data from the Watch.

I would go through the process of unpairing and then restoring your Apple Watch to see if that resolves the issue. See: How to unpair and restore the Apple Watch.

If that fails you can call Apple Support as they can actually run diagnostics on your Apple Watch remotely (you will need to have your iPhone with you as well in order for them to do this). It doesn't take long to do and will help identify if there are any hardware issues.


Spotlight does not show contents from internet! Spotlight does not show contents from the internet. It only searches my mac HD.
What should I do?

I am using MacBookPro Retina 13" with Yosemite 10.10.3

For 10.13 only sixteen countries have this feature -
http://www.apple.com/osx/feature-availability/#spotlight-suggestions

I mean your country might not be in the list yet, I'm facing the same issue

For macOS High Sierra, here is the feature list page documenting what works where.

https://www.apple.com/macos/feature-availability/


Is OpenGL deprecated or removed in macOS Catalina 10.15? I've read that OpenGL was deprecated in macOS Mojave 10.14 in the favour of Metal, Apple's proprietary low-level graphics API. Has it been completely removed in macOS Catalina? glxinfo appears to be not installed.

OpenGL is still supported in the latest iMac - supported versions

If it has been removed, is there a way to install it?

OpenGL is officially deprecated by Apple starting with macOS Mojave 10.14. However, Apple is still maintaining the standard.

macOS 10.15 Catalina: The Ars Technica review

OpenGL and OpenCL
OpenGL and OpenCL were officially deprecated in Mojave last year, though that's a little misleading since it implies that Apple had been actively maintaining and updating its support for those standards. In Catalina, as in every macOS version going all the way back to Mavericks, the macOS OpenGL implementation is stuck at version 4.1 (2010), and the OpenCL version is stuck at 1.2 (2011). This means that apps that still rely on those APIs on macOS will continue to run, provided they've been updated to meet the 64-bit-only requirement. But you shouldn't be developing new Mac apps that rely on OpenGL or CL for anything important.

The situation can be misleading for OpenGL developers. But Apple is clearly hinting they will not support the technology moving forward in the future.


Octave: Can't start GUI after installing from homebrew I installed octave using homebrew.

When I call

octave --force-gui

I get error:

  octave: GUI features missing or disabled in this build

Q: How to make it work in GUI mode?

I also tried

brew reinstall octave --with-qt --with-fltk --with-gui

like it was suggested in this post, but it didn't help.

Here is some debug information:

$brew info octave
octave: stable 4.4.0 (bottled), HEAD
High-level interpreted language for numerical computing
https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/index.html
/usr/local/Cellar/octave/4.4.0 (2,173 files, 45.4MB) *
  Poured from bottle on 2018-05-10 at 18:11:38
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/octave.rb
==> Dependencies
Build: gnu-sed ✘, pkg-config ✘
Required: arpack ✔, epstool ✔, fftw ✔, fig2dev ✔, fltk ✔, fontconfig ✔, freetype ✔, gcc ✔, ghostscript ✔, gl2ps ✔, glpk ✔, gnuplot ✔, graphicsmagick ✔, hdf5 ✔, libsndfile ✔, libtool ✔, pcre ✔, portaudio ✔, pstoedit ✔, qhull ✔, qrupdate ✔, readline ✔, suite-sparse ✔, veclibfort ✔
==> Requirements
Build: java >= 1.6 ✔
==> Options
--HEAD
    Install HEAD version

I had same problem and asked same question. I answered it myself. Remove homebrew version of Octave. Install MacPorts version of Octave. MacPorts is a package manager like Homebrew. Their version of Octave works fine. Instructions for installing MacPorts and Octave are given at MacPorts home page.


How exactly does a VPN work for iPad? How exactly does a VPN work for iPad? I mean are all VPN connections (specially the Cisco VPN client) designed to work the same way..i.e. they always require 3 inputs; Host, UserId, Pwd
OR that depends from one connection to the other?

The VPN is a function of the specific version of iOS and not very well documented in the user guide. The information needed to establish a connection is more a function of the configuration on the VPN server and less about how the iPad data gets entered (except the details must match for the VPN to work)

A better resource is the iPhone configuration utility (more of a total iOS configuration tool) and enterprise deployment guide that goes into much more detail on what VPN protocols and settings can be used with iPad. They have step by step guides on setting up a VPN or having iOS devices join existing VPN.

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/


How to run an AppleScript when Safari starts up? To use uBlock Origin in Safari 12.1.1, I run it using Extension Builder 1. But I have to go by the builder tool at every Safari startup, so the blog suggested adding the script to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari. I made the necessary folders, and put the script in .scpt format there. I also locked the com.apple.Safari.Extensions.plist preferences file as said.

But restarting Safari didn't prompt me for the password which it did, when I ran the script in Script-Editor. So I think it is not running.

How can I run the script at Safari start-up? Should it be put in some different folder, or different extension?

1 https://georgegarside.com/blog/macos/install-any-safari-extension-macos-mojave/

Safari won't automatically run the script on launch. The easiest way to run the script is to place the script in ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.apple.Safari, then you can run the script from the Script menu when Safari is running.

You can enable the Script menu if you haven't used it before from Script Editor, then the menu appears and shows all appropriate scripts. Enable the Application Scripts menu in Script Editor → Preferences → General under ‘Show Script menu in menu bar’.

I've updated the instructions on the linked blog post: Bypass ‘Safari no longer supports the unsafe extension’ in macOS Mojave: Next steps


Can I screen-share with a computer that has no monitor? Can I screen share with a computer that has no monitor?

My computer is OS 10.6.8.

Yes you can. Enable Screen Sharing by connecting the computer to a display (and keyboard) once. Then you can easily unplug display/keyboard and access the computer via Screen Sharing.

As long as you do not mess with the network and screen sharing settings of the headless computer you also can turn it off and reboot it without loosing the ability to screen share again.


Canceling the last dictated words in dictation mode in iOS In Dragon NaturallySpeaking one can use the Scratch That command to delete recently dictated text. Is there any equivalent  in dictation mode in iOS?

I unsuccessfully tried:

Scratch That
undo
cancel

iOS Dictation does not have the same voice actions as OS X, and is missing quite a few 'commands' such as the one you mention. Generally iOS Dictation is purely meant to transcribe the words you say and there's even very limited input for punctuation compared to OS X.


getElementById not working with AppleScript I'm trying to automate a click on a radio button by id. Using syntax I've found online I've created this script but it's not selecting the radio button. Can anyone correct me?

# Launch a new private window
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Safari"
        tell menu bar 1
            click menu bar item "File"
            tell menu "File"
                click menu item "New Private Window"
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

tell application "Safari"
    open location "https://www.nngroup.com/articles/checkboxes-vs-radio-buttons/"
    delay 3
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke space
    do JavaScript "document.getElementById('two').click();"
end tell

Close you need to specify who to tell, in this case document 1

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Safari"
        tell menu bar 1
            click menu bar item "File"
            tell menu "File"
                click menu item "New Private Window"
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

tell application "Safari"
    open location "https://www.nngroup.com/articles/checkboxes-vs-radio-buttons/"
    delay 3
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke space
    tell document 1
        do JavaScript "document.getElementById('two').click();"
    end tell
end tell

Also when working with radio buttons, I would suggest:

document.getElementById('two').checked = true;

Also you can escape quotes (don't need to in this example, but good to know)

do JavaScript "document.getElementById(\"two\").checked = true;"


MacBook Pro experiencing ping spikes to local router I'm experiencing extreme ping spikes to my AirPort Extreme (local IP: 192.168.1.1), however I am not getting these ping spikes on another MacBook Pro right next to it.

Here are my ping results.

PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=24.703 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=145.378 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=975.540 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=577.900 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.802 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=5.377 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=5.922 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=3.854 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=3.522 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=4.593 ms

--- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.802/174.959/975.540/316.450 ms

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

I'm posting this reply on a few threads to make it easier to find.  I chased the same issue and finally found the cause.

Locationd.  Open the console app and watch while you do a continuous ping.  Every time you see latency spike, you'll see entries for locationd.  Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Location Services.  From there, you can disable and you'll likely see the problem disappear.  However, you lose the "find my mac" ability.

What made mine acceptable was going to system services (scroll down)->details->check show icon in menu bar when [...].  Then, take look at what is requesting location.  Disallowing Evernote helped a lot.  I pruned down to the minimum and the frequency of the spikes has gone down to an acceptable level for me.

edit: filed a bug with Apple because even when location services are disabled, locationd scans (verified in console), impacting latency. Apple marked it as a dupe, so hopefully fixed soon.


What causes all iWork apps to have blank, unusable documents after a reinstall? After deleting and re-installing the apps, I can't use iWork. Specifically, the document area is always empty, no matter if I create a new document or open an existing one. This applies to Pages, Numbers and Keynotes.

I can guess there's something in the document, because the mouse pointer changes when I move it over the empty area. So it seems like a display error. What can I do to resolve this?

I had a little trouble getting iWork '09 to work correctly on Mountain Lion.

When I tried to create a new document from template chooser, it was blank, and I could not do anything.

When I tried to open an existing file, it said it "file  could not be opened".

This applied for Numbers, Pages, and Keynote.

This is how I solved it,

Moved the iWork Folder in Applications to Trash.
Removed /Library/Application Support/iWork '09
Re-Installed iWork (I had installation Media).
Then installed the Mountain Lion iWork updates.

Hope that works for you.


How to setup two completely separate partitions on one SSD I have a MacBook with 1TB SSD.
I want to have two separate partitions with two independent macOS installations.
I want to make sure that none of the partitions have any kind of possibility to interact with the other, I want them to be as separated as if they were physically separate.
Is this achievable with, for example, FileVault for each of them?
Edit: My question is neither "how can I install two different macOS versions on two different partitions on one SDD", neither "how do I use FileVault", etc. I know how to do all of that.
I want to make sure that there is no interaction between the partitions possible. Can this be made sure with the above approach? Is it sufficient?

No, since Apple designs the OS to be able to erase itself and undo any logical partition you make - anyone with moderate amount of time or technical ability can access the drive.
Your only play with shared storage is to trust encryption and separation of secrets. But that is flimsy protection if system B can always read, erase and modify system A storage. You don’t gain any data or interaction protection with two OS, you only gain complexity and two code bases and less protection overall.
The OS is always aware of the entire storage chain for all attached drives. You need external drives, two of them, to guarantee your “there is no interaction between the partitions possible” clause.
But, as long as you are on Catalina or higher, there’s never been a better time to dual boot two macOS systems on the same SSD. You can try it out and see if you can live with two OS and experiment if spotlight will find files and apps on the other system based on how you set things up. But this won’t make things more secure, it makes things less secure in several ways.


Are "Favorites" and edits synced with Photos for Mac/iOS? I'm using the latest version of Photos on both of my iMacs, my iPhone, and two iPads.

I'm also using iCloud for storage and syncing.

So far - everything seems to work - when I take a photo on my iPhone, it shows up on all my Macs and devices.

However - what happens when I edit a photo in Photos on one of my iMacs? Does the edited photo show up on my other Mac and other devices? Also - if I "favorite" a photo in Photos - should that show up on my other devices?

According to this Support article from 2016 the answer depends on how you sync:

If you import photos from an iOS device to Photos over USB, the favorite status will not sync (!)
If you use iCloud Photo Library to sync across devices the favorite status will sync.

Source: Apple Support - Q: iOS Photos to OSX Photos favorites sync

FWIW this is totally offensive and horrible, I can hardly believe it. I just did an import of 3k images and apparently have lost all of my favorite statuses. What a mess.


How can I convert MKV files and burn them to DVD? I have a 5+1 theater system(can use USB or DVD) which doesn't support MKV play.

How can I use my Mac to burn the .mkv files into high quality dvds ?

You could convert the mkv file first with something like Handbrake or iSkysoft's iMedia Converter, then burn it to DVD. Handbrake and iMedia Converter will give you more options for converting than Toast.


Why does Mountain Lion ask me for my password when trying to SSH even though I have setup public/private keys? On Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) I have setup public/private keys for passwordless SSH to another Mountain Lion machine but when I try to SSH to the other machine it still asks for my password. I have verified permissions of the ~/.ssh directory and the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 file are correct. Verbose output from ssh -vvv my.server.com does not show any type of failure and there is nothing indicating a failure in the /var/log/system.log.

My keys work fine when connecting to Linux and Mac OS X Lion (10.7) machines.

In Mountain Lion the sshd configuration (/etc/sshd_config) was changed and sshd no longer looks at ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 for valid keys.

/etc/sshd_config on Lion (line 46):

#AuthorizedKeysFile     .ssh/authorized_keys

/etc/sshd_config on Mountain Lion (line 48):

# The default is to check both .ssh/authorized_keys and .ssh/authorized_keys2
# but this is overridden so installations will only check .ssh/authorized_keys
AuthorizedKeysFile      .ssh/authorized_keys

If you don’t wish to edit the /etc/sshd_config on the target machine you can either rename ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys or symlink it.

Symlink ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

ln -s ~/.ssh/authorized_keys ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

Rename ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

mv ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys


How to disable `Microsoft Outlook`'s keybindings in macOS I am using Microsoft Outlook in macOS. Is it possible to disable its keybindings such as command-a for select all, since I am using that binding for something else.
Basically, I just want Microsoft Outlook to see the default keybindings that macOS using.

Please note that I am using Emacs key bindings using Karabiner.
Key Bindings (control+keys)

control+bfnp    arrow keys
control+d   forward delete
control+h   delete
control+i   tab
control+[   escape
control+m   return
control+v   page down
control+a   (Microsoft Office)  home
control+e   (Microsoft Office)  end

Solution with Karabiner
Add this to the directory ~/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications as a .json file with whatever unique filename you would like.
{
    "title": "Microsoft Outlook rules",
    "rules": [
        {
            "description": "Microsoft Outlook Unmap command-A",
            "manipulators": [
                {
                    "type": "basic",
                    "from": {
                        "key_code": "a",
                        "modifiers": {
                            "mandatory": ["command"],
                            "optional": ["caps_lock"]
                        }
                    },
                    "to": [
                        {
                            "key_code": "home"
                        }
                    ],
                    "conditions": [
                        {
                            "type": "frontmost_application_if",
                            "bundle_identifiers": ["^com\\.microsoft\\.Outlook$"]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

After you do this you will need to enable the complex modification by going to Karabiner-Elements Preferences > Complex Modifications > Rules > Add and picking it from the list.
More Info and Tools
Here is a link to the documentation for writing your own complex modifications.
If you want to do this for another application you can add a regex for the bundle ID of the app to the "bundle_identifiers" JSON entry. An easy way to get the bundle ID for an app is to use my Alfred workflow. Just open Alfred and type bundle <application_name> and it will give you autocomplete results from the applications you have installed. It copies the bundle ID for the application to your clipboard.
You can also use defaults to get the bundle ID: \
defaults read <path_to_the_application>/Contents/Info CFBundleIdentifier

P.S. If you want to make your own complex modifications I would actually suggest using Goku.


Eject Windows 7 Installation DVD 1, during boot camp install on MacBook Pro (Intel Based) I have 2 DVD's for installing Windows. The 1st DVD contains part of the Windows 7 installation and then the DVD 2 has to be inserted. Now, when I try to install Win7 on my MacBook Pro using Boot Camp Assistant, it starts Windows and initiates the steps to copy the files (1st step in the installation).

After some time, it pops up a window asking for the 2nd DVD to be inserted. But I have not been able to find a way to eject the 1st DVD and insert the second without rebooting the system, which fails my Windows 7 installation.

Can anyone help out with the same?

In short, you can't eject a CD/DVD during Boot Camp install. You can only eject it:

during boot (holding down the trackpad button)
while running OS X or recovery
while running Windows with Boot Camp drivers installed

The workaround is to copy the contents of the second DVD to a flash stick, insert that into an USB port BEFORE installation begin and, when asked for the second DVD, provide the path to the flash stick.


If I turn off iCloud will it delete my photos I need to make room on my phone and while searching for things to delete I found that ICloud sharing and my photo stream take up much more space than I'd like them too, so I was wondering if I turn them off will it delete all the photos from camara roll?

If you turn off iCloud Photo stream on the device, Photo stream, and the images in the stream folder, are removed from the device, BUT NOT FROM iCloud. If you have any other devices using iCloud photo stream, they will not be impacted. You can also delete from photo stream, just like any folder.

If you have a Mac, I strongly suggest that you use iPhoto, and link iCloud to it. This will allow iPhoto to automatically download all photo stream images, and safely store them on your hard drive. Then no matter what, they will be saved.

If you only have the one device or you sign out of iCloud for images, then Apple holds your images in the cloud for 30 days, so you can simply reconnect and the images will still be there.  See this article: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317


deleted select photos previously synced to my phone but not the whole folder How can I delete select photos from my iphone 8 that were previously synced from my computer but I can't find the folder on my computer, a microsoft tech guy helped me get photos from the Microsoft photos opp onto my phone after I dropped my iphone 7 and couldn't get the pics off of it.

I would turn on iCloud sync of photos so you can use a computer to ohotos to be deleted or just delete them from a larger screen.

For me, using a computer via photos is even better, but you might not have a Mac but just about everyone can borrow a computer to organize things easier than tapping on an iPhone.


User account invisible on start up I've just purchased a built to order MacBook Pro 15" Late 2016. It has been showing faulty behaviour since the first bootup.

Firstly, right after the Apple logo on startup, the Mac gets extremely slow, like you'd need a minute or two just to move the cursor to click the user you want to login as.

Secondly, on my first bootup I created a second user account. So (User1, User2 and Guest). However when booting the Mac it only shows User1 and Guest. User1 his avatar is like a black version of the guest icon, very strange. Once I log into User1, it will show the option to switch to User2.

I've also had a couple kernel panics. (Sorry didn't save the output).

I've ran Apple Diagnostics several times and it shows no problems detected.

Any idea what could be the cause?

It's hard to know what slow means. If you have FileVault enabled - only accounts that are cleared to unlock e drive show up after the boot to the pre-start screen.

Once one of those users authenticates, the volume gets unlocked and then the OS boots. If you don't expect this layer and seeing the OS boot after user credentials are presented, that might explain everything. Without a stopwatch to time what is slow, it's hard to tell more what you are seeing.

Since all new hardware gets AppleCare for questions like this, I would get their help narrowing down your variables and perhaps ask a follow on question with some specifics if needed.