How do i find a printer which supports wireless printing from the iPhone? I am looking to purchase a printer, but more fundamentally, I don't know what features or technology translate into easy printing from my iPhone. How can I determine which printers do or do not work well with an iPhone?

Here is my question: I would like to have a printer that I can print to directly from my iPhone. When I google "air print" (based off of what the iPhone says) I see HP Wireless Printers.

That leads me to the question can I use the iPhone to print on any printer with wireless capabilities or does it have to be one of these HP Printers with "ePrint"?

Does it have to be one of those HP printers?  No.  It can be a Brother, or an Epson, or others.
First, did you read the page at Apple, regarding printing from your iPhone?
Second, after reading that page, at the bottom, did you follow the link to AirPrint-Enabled printers that was provided?

Printers not listed in this article are not supported by AirPrint.
Note: Some printers listed in this article will require a firmware update out of the box to become AirPrint-enabed. See the manufacture's documentation or website for details.
The AirPrint-enabled printer must be connected to the same home Wi-Fi network as the iOS device. This is the default configuration in most home Wi-Fi networks.

Now, assuming that you DID both of these things, and you did see the model printers that were being offered by all those different manufacturers... what is your actual question.  Are you asking if one of those printers listed there actually works to allow printing from your iPhone?
If you really want to stick with an HP, it can be any one of these...
HP Deskjet 3050A J611
HP Deskjet 3054A J611
HP Deskjet 3070A
HP Envy 100 e-All-In-One D410
HP Envy 110 e-All-In-One D411a
HP Envy 114 e-All-In-One D411a
HP LaserJet P1102w Printer
HP LaserJet P1606dn Printer
HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw
HP LaserJet Pro 300 Color MFP M375nw
HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color M451nw-M451dn-M451dw
HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color MFP M475dn-M475dw
HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fn Color MFP
HP LaserJet Pro CM1415fnw Color MFP
HP LaserJet Pro CP1025nw Color Printer
HP LaserJet Pro CP1525nw Color Printer
HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf MFP
HP LaserJet Pro M1213nf MFP
HP LaserJet Pro M1214nf MFP
HP LaserJet Pro M1216nf MFP
HP LaserJet Pro M1217nfw MFP
HP LaserJet Pro M1536dnf MFP
HP Officejet 4620 e-All-In-One
HP Officejet 6100 e-Printer H611a
HP Officejet 6500A e-All-In-One E710a
HP Officejet 6500A Plus e-All-In-One E710n
HP Officejet 6600 e-All-In-One H711a
HP Officejet 6700 e-All-In-One H711n
HP Officejet 7500A Wide Format e-All-In-One E910a
HP Officejet Pro 8100 e-Printer N811a
HP Officejet Pro 8500A e-All-In-One A910a
HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus e-All-In-One A910g
HP Officejet Pro 8500A Premium e-All-In-One A910g
HP Officejet Pro 8600A e-All-in-One Printer N911a
HP Officejet Pro 8600A Plus e-All-in-One N911g
HP Officejet Pro 8600A Premium e-All-in-One N911g
HP Photosmart 5510 e-AiO B111a
HP Photosmart 5514 e-AiO B111h
HP Photosmart 6510 e-AiO B211a
HP Photosmart 7510 e-AiO C311a
HP Photosmart e-All-in-One D110a
HP Photosmart eStation C510
HP Photosmart Plus e-All-In-One B210a
HP Photosmart Premium e-All-In-One C310
HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-In-One C410a
HP Photosmart Wireless e-All-In-One B110—Europe and Asia-Pacific
HP TopShot LaserJet Pro M275


How do I stop my iPhone auto-deleting my files? I am using Notability on my iPhone (iOS 12).

The files (about 5Gb) in the app are backed up on my iCloud. My iPhone often deletes the files stored on my iPhone without notifying me, which causes me serious troubles. There is no shortage of storage on my iPhone (44Gb of 64Gb used).

How do I stop this behaviour?

Can you try disabling iCloud syncing for the said app, if it doesn't trouble you  much ?

iBooks for iPhone showed the same behaviour, automatically deleting books despite available storage. I had to turn off iCloud for iBooks .


Gather information via Terminal Looking for a couple of terminal commands that i can use to get the following -

View domain name of current Windows AD a Mac is connected to
Network link speed of en0
Bios/EFI firmware date
OSX Software GUID (or some such identifier)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!


Can apps identify me after I reinstall an app, such as by my Apple ID? I'm trying to make this app "forget" me and not be able to identify me when I install it again. I'm on my iPad Air 2 with iOS 10.1.1.

I read on another question that they cannot see your unique device identifier anymore. Are they able to persist data in any way (I have iCloud turned off), or can they view my Apple ID? Do I need to perform a full reset?

Since you haven't identified the app in question we can only provide fairly generic advice. One thing apps can do is view identifiers such as the media access control (MAC) address. This is not to be confused with Mac as in Apple Mac.

The MAC address of a device is a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for the purpose of communications. Most IEEE 802 network technologies, including Ethernet and Wi-Fi, use MAC addresses. Devices that have MAC addresses are not just computers, smartphones and tablets. They can include anything that connects to a network (e.g. printers, smart TVs, weather stations, etc).

If you're concerned about a particular app, you should take the time to read its privacy policy.

If your question is really about something else, such as wanting to change accounts used for the app, you may be best to contact the developer directly or use their support pages.

[EDIT]

As suggested by bmike in comments, I'm updating this answer to include info on changes that Apple are enforcing as of the soon-to-be-released iOS 10.3 update.

Up until now, keychain data in iOS remained on the device even after the app was deleted from the device. After upgrading to iOS 10.3 deleting an app will also delete all associated keychain contents for that app unless its keychain item is shared with other apps. In that event, the keychain data won't be deleted until those other apps are also deleted.

Apple's intention with this is to further protect user privacy by ensuring that any information that can identify a user is not left on the device after the app that saved it is removed from the device.

In a nutshell - anyone concerned about their personal data should upgrade to iOS 10.3 if their device supports it.


What's the best way to remotely access an iPad mini? This summer I purchased an iPad mini for my Grandmother. I would like to be able to somehow connect to the iPad to do things like update software, apps, and walk her through questions she may have. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to do this? She does have her own Apple ID.

Without a jailbreak : Not possible.

For the software update, since iOS 7 there done automatically by the system when connected to a wifi network.


Can I snooze notifications from the browser on High Sierra? Calendar notifications shows a Snooze button. But notifications from browsers do not.

Is there any way to enable snooze on Browser's notifications too?

Safari doesn't give you the option to exactly "snooze" website notifications (because the snooze feature is Siri suggested with that notification), but you can manage them:

Stop receiving notifications from a website: Choose Safari > Preferences, click Websites, then click Notifications. Find the website in the list, then select Deny.
Change how website notifications appear: Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Notifications, select the website on the left, then change the notification alert style and other settings on the right.
Stop seeing notification permission requests in Safari: Choose Safari > Preferences, click Websites, then click Notifications. Deselect “Allow websites to ask for permission to send push notifications.” From now on, when you visit a website that can send you notifications, you aren’t asked.

Perhaps when MacOS Mojave goes public we will see that as an option. If not, feel free to join the beta/development team and petition your request for that feature.

In the mean time these options work best.


How can I rename multiple pictures simultaneously? For example,I have 20 pictures downloaded from the Internet. They have some crazy names like "XFGHDHR345" or "SDEREWQ230", and I want to name them:

"Picture 1"
"Picture 2"
"Picture 3"
"Picture 4"
"Picture 5"
.....
"Picture 20"

I don't want to type them one by one. I want to change their names at once.

Is there a way to do this?

Using the built-in tool "Automator", you can define a workflow to batch rename files.

To do that, you will have to:

Open Automator find it using Spotlight or in /Applications
Create a new Workflow
Type get into the search field
Scroll to the bottom of the list of items and drag Get Specified Item from the Files & Folders actions list on the left panel and drop it into the right panel
Click the Add button and find your files
Add the Sort Finder Items action followed by Rename Finder Items
It the "Rename Finder Items" panel, select "Make Sequential" and "Add number to" Picture
Hit the play button and you should be done

Have a look here or here for an example tutorials on your specific renaming task at hand. An excellent overview of what Automator does and how powerful (and simple) it can be as a personal assistant - see the web page http://macosxautomation.com/automator/index.html


QuickLook is not working with mac OS High Sierra 10.13.3 I installed quick look plugin  StringsFile.qlgenerator and I moved it the the following path /Library/QuickLook as illustrated in https://blog.timac.org/2014/0325-quicklook-plugin-to-preview-strings-files/
Yet, it is not working. The files that I am trying to use show are txt files .bib.
Any idea how to fix that.
Thanks

Assuming your .bib file is like my simple example from https://www.latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/bibtex/#bib-file I'd say you rather want a general plain text QuickLook-plugin (aka qlgenerator), or a specific .bib one.

There might be others but I don't mind suggesting QLStephen that has been around and working fine for a long time and nicely previewed both my .bib example file and a .strings one i found; not trying to install the QL-plugin you linked; though, to verify how it works, I did download the linked plugin's source and saw its package Contents/Info.plist (showable by context menu click in Finder) having CFBundleDocumentTypes UTI com.apple.xcode.strings-text whereas QLStephen uses an extremely general fallback UTI of public.data to preview anything not picked up by any other plugin.

One could try to just modify the linked .qlgenerator's Contents/Info.plist to include something about .bib extension or UTI but that would require extending the scope to referencing
developer documentation.


Where does skype store downloads? After downloading an attachment in skype, which is saved to my ~/Downloads folder, the attachment won't show up in de Downloads-folder until I click the 'eye' or 'magnifying glass' icons overlaying the download in the skype-message window.

Even when listing the files in the Downloads-folder in terminal, the skype downloads won't show up.

Where are the files downloaded in a skype message stored, until I click one of the two 'Reveal in finder'-icons (resolved in update 1)

Question: Is there a setting/possibility, to automatically make the attachements show up in the Downloads-folder without having to click on them aftet the download is completed?

UPDATE 1:
The files seem to be located in /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/com.skype.skype/fsCachedData

UPDATE 2:
I tried writing an automator script, which watches the above folder for new files, automatically renames them to their original names and moves them to ~/Downloads, but I don't know where the original names are stored.
I tried to just change the extension of the files which also failed, as automator only differentiates between file-types, but not different extensions

To answer the title of my question

The files are located in /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/com.skype.skype/fsCachedData

If someone knows how to get them out of there automatically, I would still like to know


How to "print" a PDF on a Mac so that is automatically sent by AirDrop to an iOS device? I heavily use my iPad Pro with pencil to go paperless. This works perfectly, but printing to paper from any Mac app is still much simpler than printing to the "paper-replacement", meaning to an iPad app. I am therefore looking for a mechanism to make this equally simple.

Currently, I open the "Print" dialog in any Mac program, click on "Open PDF in Preview", then in the Preview app "Share via AirDrop", wait a moment until my iPad appears, find it, click it and then select on the iPad into which application to copy the document.

Is there a way to automate this? Automator on Mac has no "share via AirDrop" action (even though it was announced on the WWDC a while ago).

If you actually use iCloud & iCloud Drive, Print to PDF and then save the PDF to iCloud and it will show on your iPad. Thats why iCloud Drive is there.

Or if you just have to use AirDrop, then:

Why not print to PDF then share the PDF via AirDrop?

It appears to be much easier using either method than to create an automation to get the same effects.


JavaVM.framework deleted and not anymore able to install Java /System/Library/Framework/JavaVM.framework and /System/Library/Java have been deleted from my disk. I thought of making things back to normal by running the last Apple Java update (Java for OS X Lion 2012-003 as of this writing) but unfortunately I'm facing the following error message:

A newer version of this package is already installed.

I still have java from oracle but I'd like to have the official one as well.

Any idea how I could get over this error message and proceed the install?

Ended up to reinstall Lion using Recovery. Data/Applications are kept even no need of a backup and then Java install prompted again on 1st usage.


Is it possible to replace battery in an old iPad? I have an old iPad 2.  The battery goes dead when it is unused for only one day. Should I change the battery and if yes, how should I do it?

Yes it's possible, but it's incredible hard for almost any average or advanced user, so I highly recommend against it, sorry.

Here is a nice step by step guide from the folks of iFixit, if you are (really) adventurous enough...

Best luck!


Apple Developer Apps & Services I recently enrolled into paid Apple Developer Program as an Individual.

I'd like to know what otherwise paid apps or services are available for free to members of paid Apple Developer Program?

For e.g., macOS Server.app, which is available as a paid app on the Mac App Store, is available for free via a redeem code to registered Apple developers. I am interested in knowing if there are other paid apps or services (Apple or 3rd party) which I am eligible to obtain for free.

Additionally, what are some of the benefits available only to registered developers, like the ability to contend for WWDC ticket lottery?

Note: What I am interested here in knowing, are the things similar to macOS Server.app which could be obtained by paying, even by non-registered developers, but offered to registered Apple developers for free. I am aware that the various services offered as a part of the paid developer program costs money (technical support incidents, signed certificates), but they cannot be otherwise obtained from Apple by paying and not enrolling into any of the official paid developer programs.

There are no other paid apps given away for free to members.

However, you should be aware that various services/features of the developer membership such as support requests and the ability to generate secure certificates, are things that would otherwise cost money.

https://developer.apple.com/programs/whats-included/

In terms of other perks: beta software releases (well, earlier than the public) and developer account tools. macOS Server would count as either/both of those depending on when you visit the member download page.


Locate spinning pinwheel in Mavericks The loading-icon also known as Spinning pinwheel was located in an old Mac version at the following location:

  /Library/Frameworks/OpenBaseManager.framework/Versions/A/Resources/gear.tif

In Mavericks, this location does not exist. Where (if not renamed by Apple to something weird) is this file located in Mavericks? I've checked ~/Library but it cannot find the gear.tif it used to be in the past.

Here is one

It is called the Wait Cursor :)

/System/Library/Frameworks/GLUT.framework/Versions/A/Resources

You can help looking for it, it does belong to the Cursor category.


MacBook Pro mid 2012 13.3 HDD cable performance I am helping a friend to fix her MacBook Pro 13.3 performance problems.

It was barely booting, and terribly slow for disk seeks. Then I replaced the HDD.

It was perfect with new SSD and El Capitan installation but in the third boot it become same bad as before.

It is so weird but I realized when I disconnect the HDD cable for a while then reconnect it, it works good for 3-4 boots then it become extremely slow again. I know that this model has a cable problem but I can't understand what kind of problem is this. I thought it could be a firmware problem and I don't want to waste money on buying a new expensive cable.

Any advises on that?

There have been HDD cable issues with every model of non-Retina MacBook Pro (13-inch). This includes the Mid-2009 model, all the way to the Mid-2012 (today's model).

The fix is to simply replace the cable. You can find them all over the place, and it just requires a small cross-head screwdriver.

The issue is thought to be related to the cable weakening and losing contact with the socket on the board. In fact, Apple recommends installing small rubber pads on the hard drive cable after replacement.

If an Apple technician replaces the cable for you, that should be included. If you order the part elsewhere, the pads may come with it. You can see that demonstrated in this picture.

I recommend following iFixit's guide and ordering the part there. It will save you a lot of headaches with intermittent hard drive issues if you leave the cable as-is.


How to restore OS X drive to factory defaults? I turned off the Core Storage volume manager on my OS X partition (i.e. diskutil cs revert). Now my Recovery HD displays in Disk Utility and in Startup Manager.

I don't like this and would like to undo this change. For example, I can no longer boot from the recovery disk by holding Command+R at power on, instead it boots into Internet Recovery Mode.

I tried diskutil cs convert to change it back but I still see the Recovery HD everywhere.

Is there a way to completely restore the disk (and the partition CoreStorage settings, really the entire disk) to factory defaults?

I booted into Internet Recovery Mode, erased the entire hard drive, and re-installed Mac OS X. This will reinstall the OS that came with the computer, recreate EFI and Recovery Mode partitions, and set CoreStorage volumes as if everything is set from factory defaults.

After this Recovery Mode works as expected.


Maximize windows just like Windows on OS X I have owned a MacBook Pro for a year, however at work I use a Windows laptop. Since I really like the functionality to maximize a windows by just pushing it to the top of the screen, I would like to have that on my Macbook too.

I am using Spectacle to assign shortcuts like "windows" to maximize a window, which works well and I recommend it.

However, is there any application to maximize a window like the way you can do it on a Windows laptop/pc, just by pushing the window to the top of the screen?

Note: I mean maximize window, not fullscreen.

Hold shift option ⌥ and click the green maximise button on the top left part of the window.

NOTE: not every OSX application is eligible for maximize (example: maximizing the Finder doesn't work)


How to display tagged files inside hidden directories? Keeping hidden files hidden, how can I see content inside hidden directories using Finder tags.

I can assign a tag to directory A, but it does not show in Finder when I list all tag-tagged content.

.hidden_directory/
├── A
│   ├── a
│   │   └── 1.0
│   │       ├── bin
│   │       │   └── abc
...

Is this possible?

EDIT: I was able to successfully retrieve any content inside directories like Documents, even if those directories have been deliberately hidden via chflags hidden <FILENAME>.

This is not too bad, but it would be useful if I could add tags to some of the contents inside .directories to quickly access them via the GUI, but without turning hidden files on.

EDIT2: This could help some people, but it's not quite exactly what I want to accomplish.

EDIT3: The first answer here also helps, but I was hoping I could use tags instead of dragging a directory to the sidebar.

Not exactly what I was looking for, but here is a neat trick that satisfies most of my needs.

Create a new directory, hide it via chflags hidden directory, deposit tagged content in it.

Finder will cooperate with us and display all tagged content.

file is tagged dev and exists in a directory hidden via chflags. I named the directory dev as well for convenience, but this is not strictly necessary.


Online Open Directory services? Can we install profiles before setting up Macs? So we're setting up a subsidiary company in another country, and we will be needing a bunch of Mac Minis that some part-time (hourly) employees will use. The employees will be rotating between the Macs, but do need the ability to create their own bookmarks etc in the browser. Our main employee under this subsidiary is capable of setting up the Macs, but ideally this should only be a few steps when he receives a new Mini.

So we will need:

Something like an Open Directory Server for the users (is there anything online that we can use?)
Some easy way to have these Macs connect to this Open Directory Server (ideally) without any need to create local accounts

So what would the best approach here be? And are there any cheap and reliable Open Directory Servers online that we could use for this? I looked a bit into jamf, but that seems to be more MDM, and I'm not even sure they offer OD or AD.

Can I use Apple Configurator perhaps to create profiles? Can I load these into the Macs before the default setup screen?

EDIT: Looking more into jamf, it seems like a nice way of managing these Macs.

At long last, yes you can set up management for zero touch deployment through a couple avenues.

Use an Apple Service called Device Enrollment Program which is now part of the Apple Business Manager service / web app. https://business.apple.com
Use a product to leverage the login process and install a tool like Jamf Connect which lets you run scripts and check in with a directory before any user logs in. https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-connect/

You can even combine both so that when you purchase a Mac and ship it, it will be enrolled in the management framework, have certificates and helper scripts loaded so that you can leverage cloud identity providers like Okta or Azure AD or roll your own LDAP/OD as the Jamf Connect is based on an open source NoMad project which was acquired and now is enhanced and has become Jamf Connect.

https://gitlab.com/Mactroll/NoMAD

The implementation of this is quite broad, but there are professional resources and communities to help. I would start with JAMF pre-sales support and consider joining the Mac Administrators Slack if you want guidance and mentoring more than a Q&A site like this (and I would recommend both, tbh)

https://macadmins.herokuapp.com/
https://scriptingosx.com/2018/06/macadmins-slack-a-highly-opinionated-guide/


Static IP address per wifi connection? Configuration in router doesn't seem to take, am I doing it wrong? I have a MacBook Pro, and a home WIFI setup that I'd like to assign a very specific IP address to the MBP on.

The router is a Jensen Airlink AL59300, and it has the ability to assign static IP addresses of up 16 devices through their MAC address.

So I added my MBP's MAC address and assigned it an address.

However, how do I get my MBP to get that address now? If I simply enter the network preferences and click on the Renew Lease button, it gets the same, dynamic, address every time. Well, sometimes the router has assigned addresses differently, probably due to timing of reconnects, but my MBP never gets the address I set it up with, it always gets a new one from the dynamic pool.

If I set up the IP address manually on my Mac, is that per WIFI connection? Or is the IP address common for all the WIFI networks? Meaning, if I configure my MBP to have 192.168.0.199, and then connect to WIFI at work, will it then try to use that same address there, or can I use dynamic DHCP there, or even assign a different IP address on that network?

The airport settings go by location, not which of the possible SSID you join, so make a home (or Jensen) location and use manual IP or DHCP with manual address to get things going.

Check your firewall as it can block DHCP responses, but I'd guess the router has issues before the Mac, but something is broken for it not to just work.


Screenshot of a single window comes up blank I followed the instructions here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201361

  How to take a screenshot of a window Press Shift-Command-4. The
  pointer changes to a crosshair. Press the Space bar. The pointer
  changes to a camera. Move the camera over a window to highlight it.
  Click your mouse or trackpad. To cancel, press the Esc (Escape) key
  before you click. Find the screenshot as a .png file on your desktop.

But afterwards, I get a blank image (transparent everywhere).

Has anyone seen this issue, and if so, what am I doing wrong? I am on Sierra 10.12.6

This happens when a window has contents that are rendered outside the windowserver. Mostly 2d/3d, video and modelling software might do this. Some applications do it on purpose, like the Apple DVD player.


"Lost" 300 GB of disk while trying to install Windows via Bootcamp Had Windows installed with Bootcamp and for a couple of years it went fine, until I recently fired it up again and when it tried to update it went into a crash -> reset (only option that made it boot, it removed all the apps I had installed) -> auto-update -> crash again.

So I tried a clean install, but it failed.
So I tried to wipe out the Windows partition and re-install Windows via Bootcamp. FAILED !!!

Followed the advice here: Bootcamp Error: The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition (not a duplicate)
Still didn't work, so I kept trying to install it again and again, either via Bootcamp or by manually creating the partition and then booting from an USB mounted SD card.

And now I lost 300 GB.

They don't show up in diskutil list or when running the Disk Utility.

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         121.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         1.7 TB     disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.8 TB     disk2
                                 Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            665.4 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 43.2 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.8 MB   disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk2s4

The 1.7 TB should be 2.0 or 2.1 TB.

Is there anything I can do to fix this ?

Thanks.

You didn't lose any storage, the partitioning system simply forgot to put it back into usable form.

/dev/disk1 would be your physical disk.

/dev/disk2 is an APFS disk architecture, which, in laymen terms, is a fake virtual disk within a physical disk. This is where the macOS and your files on macOS are stored.

Bootcamp Assistant encountered an error which caused it to stop creating a Windows volume. After it stopped it didn't reallocate the free space to /dev/disk2.

Use Disk Utility to repartition your physical disk, it can be found in Launchpad > Utilities. Find the physical drive item on the tree view on the left, it should read something like the name of my physical drive, which is highlighted in the image below:

Press the Partition button seen on the top of the Disk Utility window while your physical drive is selected. It should ask you if you want to format the physical drive or the APFS Volume. Choose to format the physical volume. It should show you a pie chart of your volumes like this:

Drag the small white circle that is positioned outside the split between Macintosh HD and Free Space into a position where Macintosh HD completely covers Free Space. Press apply, and it should automatically format your physical drive to fill up the free space that Bootcamp Assistant un-allocated. After the operation completes successfully you can safely quit Disk Utility.


How to install Apple's Game Center app on iPad How do I get Game Center app on my iPad Wi-Fi?

I am unable to find the app on the device as well as the App Store.

The Game Center application has been removed from iOS 10, but you can still manage your Game Center settings from the Settings.app
On your iPad tap Settings > Game Center.


Got any tips or tricks for Terminal in Mac OS X? One tip or trick per answer.

My favorite is

open .

Opens the folder you're currently browsing in Finder. You can also pass URLs, images, documents or else to open.

If you specify a program name with -a you can pass the URL, image, document or folder to that program instead, e.g. open -a Preview image.png, overriding the default program set for the filetype.

Please don't post duplicates. Search in the question like this: inquestion:this ls -l

Mac OS X specific answers only.

You can hold option and click a position in the current line to move your cursor to that position.


iPhone battery life is awful even after replacing it I have an iPhone 3gs 32gb. As they do, my battery was noticeably depleting as well as conflicted with the device having been slightly water damaged (dropped in quickly but immediately turned off and dried out. Works "fine"). I decided to replace the internal battery with a factory OEM version but even after doing so my battery life is awful. I am talking about losing 10% during one 4 minute phone call or 30% in the first hour or less or simple standby.

Are there things I should look for or perhaps additional parts which could be causing the depletion?

For reference: I charged the phone to 100%, turned the phone off, then 3 days later (with phone off) the battery was completely dead. Something else seems to be constantly running or draining the battery.

It is a common issue for an iPhone to have premature battery life draining, I can't speak to the self replacement, but generally the fastest and best course of action is to follow the steps for syncing your information to a personal information management software(address book, ical, etc) and restoring the device as new.

The step by step instructions are listed in:
 How to back up your data and set up as a new device

Again just to reiterate, you do not want to restore from a backup in iTunes, but restore the device into a factory default state. If it isn't fixed by that, it's likely a permanent hardware problem.


Is there a way to use iCloud photos as mostly online (reduce local storage usage) I'm helping a friend switch from Google Photos to Apple Photos so they can use the tagging features and have a more seamless experience across phone, ipad, and macbook.  I am working on importing 200gb of photos into the Photos app (didn't realize there was a way on the icloud website to upload directly).  Their hard drive is getting full, and I can't seem to find a setting that tells the Photos app to delete local copies and only download as needed, similar to how FileStream works with Google, or using the google photos app.
Is there no way to do this with iCloud and the Photos app?  We both assumed they could continue having most items archived in cloud storage.

Goto Settings -> Apple ID and CHECK the "Optimize Mac Storage" option. This should force delete old pictures (they still exist in iCloud) to make space for new pictures.


Can I or can't I develop on a jailbreak iPhone? Does any one have a definitive answer?

I am reading so many answers that tell you both thing, one tells you that it is not a problem at all and the other one is very definite NO...Is there any developer over here that has a jailbreaked iPhone that is using it to test the application in development?

From what I heard from friends, Not over the web, Apple don't allow that and is checking for that, but over the web I've read that it is not a problem....

I will eventually remove the  jailbreak that was installed on my lovely iPhone, but I want to know if to do it now or can I wait with that because I want the person that installed it to remove it and give me the iPhone I asked for....never mind, if I can wait, I prefer to do it this way (might take weeks of month as we do not leave in the same place) but if I have to, I will do it by myself and that's all..

I've used my former lost jailbroken iPhone to develop, yes. But you'll need more than jailbreaking, though, granted, jailbreak is a must (except in very specific cases):

Actually the only very rare specific exception I know of is the Unity 3D's amazing Remote - but that does (currently) limit phone features that can be tested. No gyroscope for instance.
The regular way is hacking Xcode. Of course the limitation here is deploying: only with USB.
Another way could be something like TestFlight - while I'm not sure this can be done without a proper developer license, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way to do it Over the Air.


Hook up 3 monitors to Mac Mini Late 2014 I have the Mac Mini late 2014 and want to hook up 3 monitors in total.
It works great with 2 displays (1x Thunderbolt + 1x HDMI). Once I add a third monitor to the second Thunderbolt port, just nothing happens. What can I do to get my third monitor working?

Apple's specs show that the late-2014 (which is still being sold today, October 2015) Mac Mini can support up to two displays using its HDMI and thunderbolt ports.
I've confirmed this by trying to plug in 3 monitors directly into the ports on the Mac Mini (two via thunderbolt, 1 via HDMI), with the same results as the OP...one of the monitors is not driven.
The following 3-monitor setup worked for me:

Late 2014 Mac Mini with 8GB RAM (purchased Oct 2015)
3 monitors, each with 1920x1200 resolution
Monitor 1: driven by Mac mini HDMI port (HDMI-to-HDMI cable)
Monitor 2: driven by Mac Mini thunderbolt port (I used this thunderbolt-to-DVI cable)
Monitor 3: driven via USB 3.0 adapter (I used this one from CableMatters and have had zero issues with flicker/performance, although I am not trying to play games or watch video on it...I use it for work).

Some notes:

You can use a different USB adapter (there are several on the market) but make sure that it's Mac compatible.  I previously tried one that had "beta" Mac support and it was terrible.
Thunderbolt-to-HDMI and Thunderbolt-to-DVI cables are really mini-displayport to DVI/HDMI cables....the Thunderbolt ports accept mini-displayport connectors.
For the two natively driven monitors (#1 and #2 above) you can use any combination of HDMI<->HDMI/DVI or thunderbolt<->HDMI/DVI cables depending on what your monitor accepts.


What is the best way to open an 80GB iPod classic? I'm looking for the best way to open an iPod classic, meaning taking it apart. Mine got wet and now doesn't work and I would like to open it up and check that everythin's in place. I would like to do so in the safest way, so as not to dent the iPod. Any suggestions?

All you need is the plastic opening tools and follow this iFixit guide.


Can i delete .DS_Store? ~251 MB Once i type the code into terminal to find out what is taking up 250 MB on my desktop, the hidden files are shown, i find a file called ".DS_Store"

I'm a very cleany person, so I want to ask if I can delete this file, or is it safe?

The file is 251.66 Megabytes.

OS : Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.2

Mac Pro, new design by apple. 3.7 GHz, quad core - 6 core.

.DS_Store is a metadata file: it contains data about the files present in the folder.

You can delete the file without any worries, it will only delete some settings like icon position, file previews etc. But Finder recreates the file instantly.

Since 250MB seems to be way too much to me, even if Finder will recreate the file, it will most likely be way much lighter (<1MB).


How do I import only some of my data from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion? I just did a clean install of Mountain Lion on a new drive, and I would like to import some, but not all, of my files from my Snow Leopard system installed on another drive.

For example, all my Safari Bookmarks, some installed software, but not everything because something there was an issue with my profile under Snow Leopard and I did not whant those issues to to be copied over with my profile.

Is there a way to do this ?

Thanks a lot for some help

This is definitely possible. For starters you may want to look at Migration Assistant, which will allow you to migrate only certain items.

If you want finer grained control, you can manually copy just about anything if you know where it lives. Most programs can be copied over without any trouble, and most apps have a folder in ~/Library/Application Support/ to store their settings and data.

Safari bookmarks can be transferred by either copying the ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist file, or using the Import/Export Bookmarks commands in the Safari File menu.

This blog post by Matt Gemmell has a good walkthrough of some items that may be useful to migrate manually.

If you need advice on transferring specific items, try searching for them directly on here or Google, or post a question specific to them if you can't find an answer already.


Where are / are the "counting hand" cursors used in macOS I was looking around inside the system folders in MacOS and where the cursors are there are 3 cursors I've never seen before called countinguphand, countingdownhand and countingupandownhand. You can find them in /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/cursors(I'm on mojave so it may be different), Or go to System/Library/ and search for PDFs. I haven't found any info about these cursors online, it doesn't look like css supports them... So are they just leftover or is there any use for them I can't think of? Thanks in advance for any info!

They're probably leftover
Origins and Classic Mac OS
The gloved hand icon, designed by Susan Kare, has been with us since the first version of Mac OS. However, it looks like the counting version didn't appear until System 6.0.4. System 6.0.4 introduced a new installer version—3.0—designed to support customizable multi-disk installations. As part of this, we get a few new loading icons! This includes the hand in question, which plays a counting-up animation during installation.

Fun fact: if you type "ski" on the setup screen, you get a little Easter egg: an alert box which allows you to choose from one of five different idle cursors!

You'll notice that (among others, including what looks to be the precursor to the current idle "busy but clickable" icon) is the classic watch. However, notice the hands; this isn't quite the same version. System 6.0.4 didn't include an animated watch—only a static one—but the one in this installer includes an animated one. We can confirm this by using ResEdit to inspect the installer.

Even after installation, the animated icons aren't copied over to the system.

This means that there's no way for other programs (or even the system) to use it, short of manually copying the icon from the installer and using it themselves. Different icons came and went between installer versions (7.0 and 7.1's installers do away with the Easter egg and cut the icons down to the animated wristwatch and hand), but they remain exclusive to the installer. I would say this was an intentional decision to have exclusive icons to the installer, but the animated icons (including the famous animated wristwatch) were later added to the System installation (I'm not sure by exactly which version, but sometime between System 7.1 and Mac OS 9.)

So if they were added intentionally, surely something must have been using them. The watch certainly gets used plenty; however, I haven't been able to find anything that uses the hand outside of the installer. Further, there's no option I could find in the Control Panels (Appearance, General Controls, Mouse, Screen, Text, etc.)  to switch to use the hand over the wristwatch, so it's not an optional extra.
OS X
The wristwatch was replaced by the blue waiting animation during the jump to Mac OS X (though it wasn't respected in all conditions, such as the standard cursor displaying in response to the CSS cursor: wait; as recently as macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra), but stuck around regardless and all the way until macOS 10.15 Catalina with the deprecated Carbon interface (and occasionally some other apps for no clear reason, though it may have something to do with system resources or other GUI frameworks). Just like with Classic Mac OS though, there's no way to swap out either the old wristwatch or the current blue-spinny-ball for the counting hand through any "normal" settings. The hand, including the counting version, has also received updated artwork throughout the years, so it's not just like they've been left unattended.
So, if it's not being used as an alternative to the waiting cursor, could it be used for something else?
Digging a bit deeper, we find that the cursor is represented using an NSCursor object under macOS. Here we can see all the different types of static cursors available to developers—including the hand, in three of the six positions: closed, open, and pointing. No animated cursors though, and we're still missing two of the positions.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find Apple's source code for the NSCursor. However, GNUstep, an open source GUI framework that tracks pretty closely to the official Apple Cocoa framework has an NSCursor class. Unfortunately, still no direct mention of the other hand positions. There is a count method, but there's no clear documentation for it nor code usages I could find, let alone anything to tie it to the hand. The only macOS application I was able to think of that  features a regular countdown is the Screenshot application; however, it doesn't use the hand, and neither does its older counterpart, Grab (despite the name.)
So, my guess? They needed three of the six positions, someone ported all of them for sake of completeness, and no one has seen any reason to remove them. As far as I can tell, without manually including the assets or work by the end user, they're pretty much inaccessible to developers since macOS's sole remaining native GUI framework provides no clean way to access them.


Pages - multiple paragraph styles in a single paragraph I'm trying to write code snippets inline with prose text, much like the back ticks (``) in markdown in Pages (version 5.6.1). I have a "code" paragraph style, and a "body" paragraph style. Is there a way to intermix the two on the same line/paragraph?

You need to use a character style for code, and then perhaps use a "code block" paragraph style for code blocks that are, well, paragraphs. Think about this: if the code paragraph style is double spaced and your prose paragraph style is 1.5 spaced, which one "wins" when the break is mid-line?
To add a new Character Style in pages
(from https://help.apple.com/pages/mac/5.6/index.html?localePath=en.lproj#/tan7aaef6765)

Select the character with the formatting you want to save as a style.
Click the Style button near the top of the sidebar on the right.
If you don’t see a sidebar, or the sidebar doesn’t have a Style button, click Format button in the toolbar. If the text is in a text box, table, or shape, first click the Text tab at the top of the sidebar, then click the Style button.
In the Font section, click the pop-up menu next to Character Styles, then do one of the following:

Create a new style with a new name: Click New style button in the top-right corner of the Character Styles menu, then type a name for the style.

Create a new style based on an existing style: Move the pointer over the style name in the list, click the arrow that appears, then choose Redefine from Selection (characters that used the original style aren’t changed).

Type a name for the style.


Difference between 'Home sharing' and 'Network sharing' When I like to share my iTunes library, I have to options to do so.

Home sharing via my Apple ID
Network sharing.

What is the difference between these to? Are there any advantages or disadvantages or missing features comparing these two methods?

While both options offer the possibility of streaming the content of up to five iTunes libraries through a home network, it's only through Home Sharing when you are able to actually import the content into your own iTunes Library.

Even more, when you use a computer on your Home Sharing network to download an item from the iTunes Store, you can have the item download automatically to other computers on your Home Sharing network.

Other big difference is that Home Sharing lets you stream content from your iTunes library into your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV (2nd and 3rd generation), whilst Network sharing don't.


Disable automatic rearrange ios Is it possible to disable automatic rearrange of background apps in iOS 8?

For example if I open ibooks notepad and skype, when i answer to skype message app stands in first place, after switching to ibooks skype will be on second place, but it's not comfortable because I want go with swype to notepad and write note. it is become more complicated if open more apps.

So is it possible to lock background app positions (or pin like in browsers)?

This is not possible on an un-jailbroken iOS device.

The apps in the app-switcher are sorted by how recently they were last open (most recent on the left). You can not modify this behaviour.

The app-switcher is designed to let the user open apps that they used recently. It isn't designed to open a user's favourite apps - that's the home screen's job.

Try to organise your most-used/favourite apps together on one page on the home screen for quick access.


Finder closes after emptying trash or ejecting a disk Is it possible to change some Finder settings so that it doesn't automatically close the window when the Trash is emptied or a usb disk/hard drive is ejected?

You could probably write a script with grep and diskutility that opens finder whenever the count of disks changes?


Mac won't let me type certain words I keep on getting misspelt words in emails, Google searches, etc. because my Mac won't let me type certain words. No matter how carefully I spell them, it changes them to something else.

How can I stop my Mac from typing things for me?

Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Text

disable the Automatic correction


How do I run an OS X command script on remote Xserves from a desktop OS X script? The answer to an earlier question, Access and control home office network, iMacs, and Xserves, left me with a new problem. To review, I have a computing environment comprised of:

27" iMac with dual cores running Mac OS X 10.6.8
2 Xserves each with 2 quad cores running Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
All networked over Ethernet to a Time Capsule.

As this question has more general application than the earlier one, I thought it merited its own post.

I need to launch and shut down a service (in my case Wolfram Lightweight Grid Manager but this really applies to any service, program, or application) which needs to run on a server (or more generally, any other machine) attached to my network (or again more generally, any network to which one has authorized access).

I need to have that script:

Access and log on to 2 Xserves on my local network and there
Launch a script on the Xserves that will in turn launch Wolfram Lightweight Grid Manager

Note: I have this script. It currently runs from launchd when I turn on the Xserves. I just need to control its running and ensure it is not running more frequently than needed so the Xserves can sleep (the grid manager appears to keep the Xserves from sleeping).

At some later point, I'll need to do the same thing as above, but turn off the service on the remote servers.

  Q U E S T I O N S:

  How do I go about this?
  How do I get to a remote machine, especially as it does not likely have a fixed IP address?

I do have machine names and logon credentials.

I've very rarely done this sort of thing.

References or examples welcome.

My OS X server scripting never amounted to much, so any guidance welcome.

So there are a few components to this, which I'll tackle in chunks. The most important is how to execute a remote command/script. As IconDaemon points out, SSH is the best use for this. There's even a pretty good and secure means of doing this without requiring a password, for automated scripting purposes.

For clairity's sake, I'm going to refer to the Xserves as the server and your iMac or other machine accessing them as the client.

Execute a Shell Command on a Remote Server

On the server, open the Sharing panel in System Preferences, and check the Remote Login box

This enables the SSH server, allowing us get a remote command-line login.

On the client, open Terminal.app and type the following, then press enter: ssh-keygen -f examplekey

This creates two files in your home directory. examplekey (the private key) and examplekey.pub (the public key). These are cryptographic signatures that will allow anyone with examplekey to connect to your server, without any password. For this reason, we're going to restrict what commands can be executed, but you should also be careful to keep the private key file stored safely, only on devices that will need to execute your remote script.

On the server, open /Users/YOURUSERNAME/.ssh/authorized_keys in a text editor.

Make sure you're doing this with whichever user has permissions to run the script.

On a new line, enter command="/path/to/yourscript", followed by a space, then paste the contents of examplekey.pub

The command in the quotes should be whatever you want executed (presumably the script to activate/deactivate the Grid Manager).
If you have two scripts, one to turn it on, one to turn it off, you'll need to either combine them into a script that toggles it on/off, or repeat steps 2-4 to create a second key, so that you have one to turn it off, one to turn it on.
This command is the only thing that can or will be run; unlike a standard ssh session, the command= parameter doesn't give you an interactive prompt, it just executes the command and closes. We want this for security purposes.

Now with all the pieces in place, we can run the command. In Terminal on the client, type ssh -i /path/to/examplekey user@serveraddress and run it. If everything's been set up properly, it should run your script, then close the connection.

You can omit the user@ portion, if the usernames are the same between the client and server.
The server address can be an IP or hostname. The second part of my answer will address how to connect over the internet, when you don't have a static IP.
If you need to use a non-standard port (i.e. not 22), change the command to read ssh -i /path/to/examplekey -p PORT user@serveraddress. You may need this for the next section.

Now that you have SSH working, we need a way to run this from a remote computer.

Accessing a Computer Remotely without a Static IP

There are a few different ways to do this - you can access your iMac over the internet through VNC/Remote Desktop, then access your servers across the local network as above. Or you can directly access the servers over the internet.

Either way, you'll need two things:
- A way to access your local network remotely, without keeping track of your IP.
- Port forwarding to enable access for whatever protocol you want to use (SSH, VNC or Apple Remote Desktop).

Dynamic DNS

This is basically a simple way to give yourself remote access without having to worry about your ISP changing your IP. You sign up for a free service, which gives you domain name that points to your home network. To keep track of your IP changing, you run a client program that updates the service's records whenever you get a new public IP.

I use DynDNS, but it seems they've discontinued new signups for their service. No-IP seems to be the best alternative.

Make an account for their "No-IP Free" service.
Once you're signed up, follow the steps to add a new hostname. Make a note of the hostname you choose, it will be something like myhostexample.no-ip.info.
Download the Mac updater program here and install it on a computer that's going to be running often. It doesn't matter which one, since anything on your home network uses the same public IP, you just want it to be running often enough that it doesn't miss any updates to your public IP.

Now you've got an address to connect to your home network, we need to configure your router to allow remote access to the services you need. This depends on how you want to connect remotely (SSH, VNC or a combination). I'll give a general example.

Static DHCP and Port Forwarding

To access a computer inside your network from the internet, we need to allow certain traffic through your router's firewall, and have an address to send it to.

Most routers use DHCP to assign your local IP addresses (if you've manually configured your IP, you know this and can skip this part). However, they can be set to configure each machine with the same IP every time (called static DHCP).

There's a good guide on how to do this with an Airport Extreme here, but it should be nearly identical for your Time Capsule. Take note that the final portion of the guide is redundant, and possibly undesirable (the last three paragraphs and last screenshot). You'll want to do that for each computer you need remote access too (potentially both Xserves and your iMac).

Now that you've got static DHCP set up, we need to do some port forwarding. Which ports you forward depends on how you want to do your remote access, but I would suggest forwarding SSH to both Xserves. That way you can use the SSH setup in the first section from wherever you happen to be. This guide covers how to enable it on your Time Capsule.
- The basic concept is that you can forward any port accessed on your external address (the myhostexample.no-ip.info that we setup before) to any port on any of your external machines. So if you go to myhostexample.no-ip.info:1234, it can be redirected internally to 192.168.1.9:567.
- For SSH, you'll want to redirect some arbitrary public port to port 22 on each of your Xserves. So you can set up (for example) public port 9022 to go to port 22 on one Xserve, and use public port 9122 to go to port 22 on the other Xserve. The public ports don't matter (you just have to change the ssh command to match), but using port 22 internally eliminates extra configuration.

You can use the same principles to allow other access to your iMac or Xserves (like VNC or Apple Remote Desktop), you just need to make note of which ports you need to forward. http://www.portforward.com is a good resource for this. Also note that if you're using VNC, it's not encrypted, so you'll be sending your password in the clear. If you have to use VNC, google "VNC SSH tunnelling", which should give you some good guides on how to secure it.

Wrap-up

Once you have all this in place, you should be able to ssh from anywhere to your Xserves and activate your scripts. Assuming you set up myhostexample.no-ip.info as your dynamic DNS and 9022 as your port forward, you just need to run ssh -i /path/to/examplekey -p 9022 user@myhostexample.no-ip.info.

Hope that works for you, sorry it's a bit long, but I think I covered most of the bases. Please ask if something's not clear!


Is it safe to use a device or disconnect it while syncing in iOS 5? Prior to iOS 5, iOS devices that were in the process of syncing with iTunes turned on their displays, locked the screen, presented a prominent warning that a sync was in progress, and offered an unlock slider to cancel the sync:

In iOS 5, all this is gone and there is simply a tiny sync indicator in the status bar (the screen remains off too):

Does this dramatic user interface change correspond to a major change in functionality? Is it safe to use an iOS 5 device while a sync is in progress; is it now safe to interrupt the sync?

If you mean 'can I unplug my cable', then sure. It'll kill the process for that specific sync and you'll pick it back up next time. If you want to use your phone whilst syncing then you certainly can.

If you've gone wifi sync it'll just continue until either the network connection doesn't work, or the machine is stopped, or the sync finishes.


MacBook Pro Screen Flickering when using HDMI to VGA adapter to connect to external monitor My MacBook Pro 2014 keeps flickering when I plug in a HDMI to VGA converter to it. I am using HDMI to plug in the HDMI to VGA converter (which is plugged in to my monitor). The screen is just black and then the Mac starts flashing. The external monitor does not have any effect. I tried out the wiring and monitor on another windows computer and it worked smoothly.

The MacBook Pro's HDMI port has a DVI-D implementation. This means it has no analog signal, which is what VGA relies on to connect. More information here: apple support forums . Apple supplies an HDMI to DVI adapter, which could solve your problem if your monitor has a DVI port. If not, then I would suggest getting a Thunderbolt (Mini DisplayPort) to VGA cable, then using the Thunderbolt port on your Mac to link to your monitor instead.


What is the upper limit of Spaces in Lion? 10.5 and 10.6 limited users to a maximum of 16 spaces. Since Lion's space interface is a single (presumably scrollable) row, is there an upper limit on the number of Spaces?

Yes, I find myself needing more than 16 Spaces, frequently.

16 spaces is still the maximum. (Tested on 10.7)


Bootcamp Removal: Boots back into windows I had installed a bootcamp partition to try out windows 10 on my 15" 2017 MBP, and removed it. After removing it, the system boots onto the windows partition, revealing the "Windows is Broken press F1, F8, or F11 for boot options.

When this happens, if I hold down the TouchID sensor, there is a temporary workaround where I can hold the option key on boot to change it back to macOS.

How do I stop this tedious behaviour?

To stop the tedious behaviour, you must open System Preferences in the macOS partition, then go to Startup Disk, then unlock the panel and select "Macintosh HD" instead of the non-existent partition that it has been booting to. Now lock the preference pane, and it will load back into macOS without fail.


MacBook Pro crash recovery I have problem with my MacBook Pro 2015 (i7, 16 GB RAM). It crashes when I open my session or enter in recovery mode. I did a SMC and NPRAM reset but no improvement.

Internet recovery by Apple doesn't work either, after downloading the recovery from Internet and loading the progress bar stops at 1/10.

Have you idea? RAM issue? I never opened it.

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and can require some patience.

The first thing I would do is try running Apple Diagnostics to test your hardware.

Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your Mac
Ensure you have no external hardware (e.g. keyboard, mouse, display, printer, portable hard drive, etc) connected
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

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

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

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 4 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went. Then we can proceed with further troubleshooting.


Repeated "Safari wants to use the 'Local Items' keychain" alert I am getting this alert repeatedly. Sometimes but not always, it shows when I start Safari. Sometimes it shows when I quit Safari. It also comes up periodically in the Preview app. I'm not entirely sure how to reproduce it, but it happens a few times per day:

Whenever I see the alert, I enter my keychain password, which it seems to accept, but then the same alert will come up again some time later.

I read in this answer that deleting all files and folders in ~/Library/Keychains/ and rebooting might resolve it. I tried this, but I am still getting the prompt repeatedly. I also get it in Preview sometimes. Not sure why. I have entered my Keychain Access password successfully several times.

I contacted Apple Support about this by phone, and they guided me through "Resetting my default keychain" as per this button:

I did that, shut down my computer, turned it back on again, and I am still seeing the alert.

Apple support also guided me through changing my user password under users & groups.

I clicked "change password" and entered a new password.

This had no effect - I am still seeing the alert. I had to enter the new password in order to dismiss the alerts, but they kept coming back again as they did before.

Also, separately, when I go to Keychain Access to view a stored wi-fi password and click on the name of a network in the list from this screen:

And then check "show password":

I am prompted to enter my Mac OS User password as I expect:

I enter the password successfully, and then it shows the same prompt a second time. I enter the same password again, and then it shows another prompt saying that Mac OS wants to make changes to the System keychain and asks me for an administrator username and password with the username and password fields both blank:

I thought this was strange because the username "Mike Eng" from the earlier prompts is an administrator username. Not sure if that issue is related.

Mac OS 10.12.6

Mike,
It sound like you've got login data for at least one web site stored in Safari, and the browser is having a hard time accessing it.  Open up Safari Preferences and click on the "Passwords" icon, then delete everything in there, if that's what you want to do. That should keep Safari from accessing your keychain, but it also means you've lost all your stored passwords.


How to disable "always on" USB power on Macbook Pro I am operating my MacBook Pro early 2015 within a Henge dock (HD03VA13MBPR) , connected to two external displays and external speakers. Both displays and speakers get power from a power distributer that offers a switch via USB. Whenever the USB has power, the monitors stay on. Take off USB power, and the displays shut down.

Now, that setup worked perfectly on my other computer, where USB Power could be configured. On my new powerbook the displays stay on. The USB Port seems to be "always on" during sleep mode.

How can I disable the "always on" function of the USB port while the MacBook is in sleep mode?

This seems not to be possible. I solved the situation now with the help of my dell external displyay. The USB-Hub there can be configured to shut down as soon as the display ist switched off. So the second display and the active speakers are connected to the power plug that can be switched off/on by USB power. This will allow with the klick of one button to switch all other devices off/on.


Does the new AppleTV need to be connected to the internet to access content on my Mac? Does the new AppleTV need to be connected to the internet to access content on my Mac?

Turns out it needs to be on the internet initially, in order to set up Home Sharing.

But once Home Sharing is set up, it can access content on your Mac as long as your Mac is on the same local network, and has iTunes running.


Official Unlock after Jailbroken Unlock? I jailbroke and unlocked my 3GS (4.1, baseband 06.15.00) a few months ago to use it in another country. However, my 2-year German contract is up and I could ask my former carrier to ask Apple for the official unlock. Would this work on a jailbroken/unlocked phone? I want to upgrade to IOS 5 without needed to jailbreak to unlock the phone again (I don't use jailbroken apps, really, just used it for the unlock).

Return your phone to its standard state, so ios4.1 and then yes, you can ask the carrier to request unlock from Apple.

The unlock works by changing a database entry for your UDID on Apple servers and therefore whether or not it's jailbroken should make little difference. With that said, to be sure it's all worked ( and because you are planning to) taking it back to a standard OS install would make sense.

Hope this helps.


iPhone 7 can't hear caller and caller can't hear me I tried to do the new update (iOS 11.2 I believe) on my iPhone 7. that was when it basically went kaput. it first wouldn't go to "sleep" when I would hold it to my ear to talk. so I did a hard reset on it. wouldn't come back on until it died and I plugged it in the next day. made a call to my husband, he couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear him, even when it was on speaker. so I did a hare reset again; same thing. it wouldn't come back on for a few hours. I've connected it to iTunes but it won't do anything that I haven't already tried.
NOW I can't hear any phone calls and they can't hear me even when it's on speaker. the volume works fine and music plays just fine as well. I tried to voice memo app but it won't even say its recording.
I don't want to have to do another hard reset on my phone and risk having it not come back on permanently.
what do I do from here?

Hello everyone that has IPhones7 and you can’t hear people calling you just went to T-Mobile got fixed it’s your SIM card needs be replaced and you keep you same phone number


Clean Install with Exceptions My current OS X install is getting long in the tooth. It's been ported over through multiple OS upgrades and system changes (started with an iMac G4, then a PowerMac G5, and now a iMac i7).

I think it's about time to do a clean install to get rid of all the crap that's been accumulated. Is there a way to do a clean install with exceptions? I'd love to keep my applications and application preferences intact, but pretty much start anew with everything else.

I've got Time Machine backups, and would do a SuperDuper copy to an external drive before starting fresh.

AFAIK Migration Assistant will let you do just what you've asked. Here is an article on this but it's pretty straightforward.


Restoring User from Compressed Disk Image Is it possible to restore a user's account and home folder from a compressed disk image of the Macintosh HD? The image was created using Disk Utility.

Yes if the compressed disk image looks like a whole mac with enough of /System and /Applications as well as /Users/foo then Migration Assistant will treat that mounted image as a viable source and you can pull just the  user account and data even if the rest of the information is incomplete.

You can also finder copy the folder into /Users once the image is mounted. D on't overwrite an existing short name, just drop the files in a new folder and don't worry about ownership as long as you can copy all the files from the image. Once the files are copied, create a new account to match the short name of the user folder and the OS will correct the permissions/ACL on the folder and enable that user as specified.

You may have issues if ACL are deeply embedded or you have non-standard permissions set, but generally I have not had any issues doing this for some time over many releases of Mac OS. Finder seems to drop the files as readable enough or warn you that some files on the image are unreadable so you can take further action if needed.


Sharing files and folders on Mac Sharing files and folders on Mac somehow confuses me. There are Public Folder, Drop Boxes and Shared Folder. What confuses me is the following:

Which one of the above to use when sharing folders between multiple users on the same Mac?
Is sharing folders using any of the above makes it available to whoever on the same network?
How to share folders and files between users and not network?

There's an Apple support page that explains these three folders. These folders are for sharing files with users of the same Mac, and by default are not used for transferring files through the network.

The Shared folder is located in /Users.
Your Public folder is in your home folder. Each user has one by default.
Your Drop Box folder is in your Public folder.

The Shared and Public folders can be read by anyone, regardless of administrator access. However, only the owner of a file (i.e. the user who put it there) can modify or remove it.

The Drop Box folder is used to share items with another user, and not every user on the Mac. Anyone can put items in the folder by dragging and dropping it into the user's Drop Box. However, only the user that owns the folder can open and read what's inside the folder.

If you want to allow any user on the Mac to have access to these files, use the Shared folder or your Public folder. If you want to share a file with a limited amount of user(s), put the file in their Drop Box folder(s) located in their Public folder(s).


MacBook Air Hard drive crashed (2013 Model) Is it possible to replace the hard drive for a 2013 MacBook Air? Where can I purchase a new hard drive?

If not, is it possible to run it with a portable hard drive?

I purchased it in 2014 (refurbished). So, it's probably 2013 model and not under Apple Care. Apple customer service told me that my hard drive has crashed.

Does Apple sells hard drives?

You can replace the SSD (Solid State Drive, it is not a hard drive with spinning disk)!

.... with a model from OWC yourself if you know your way around embedded hardware.

Apple does not sell parts to individuals, but an AASP or APSP (Apple Service Providers) can replace it for you with an Apple part.

The SSDs are not compatible with m.2 or mSATA, you have to use the specific MacBook Air SSD for your model. Major MacBook Air releases also have different SSDs due to incompatible upgrades (protocol upgrades and electrical upgrades).

Sites like iFixit have guides that can assist you with this.

See some instructions here https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/macbook-air-faq/macbook-air-mid-2013-how-to-replace-upgrade-ssd-storage.html


Can anyone make an iOS todo app recommendation I am looking for a todo app that does the following:

reoccurring daily tasks
reminders via push notifications, if they aren't completed
sync lists between multiple devices, and preferably multiple users
some sort of log that shows when and who completed a task

Thanks!


Filevault Stuck Optimizing When I enabled filevault on Yosemite 10.10.5, it went through the whole process of encrypting, and then it changed to "Optimizing." It progressed to 86% and seems to be stuck there.

For about 24 hours now, it's been saying "X hours remaining." It varies from like 1 hour to 12 hours. About 12 hours into it, I rebooted just to see if that would help, but it didn't. When I run diskutil cs list, it says:

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         999345127424 B (999.3 GB)
    Free Space:   5495873536 B (5.5 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     999345127424 B (999.3 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
        Conversion Status:       Converting
        Conversion Direction:    forward
        Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     Yes
        |
        +-> Logical Volume XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk2
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          993513701376 B (993.5 GB)
            Conversion Progress:   Optimizing 86%
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

What could the problem be? Is there anything I can do to fix it?

Well, how about that.

A few minutes after posting this question, it started making progress again. It zipped straight from 87% to 99% in a few minutes, and now it's done.

Apparently the answer is just "wait more hours."


Itunes put random photos on my iphone I cant delete Itunes put some photos from my laptop onto my  phone and now i cannot delete them please help! How do I delete them?

Connect the phone to iTunes and then deselect photo sync and then sync the phone. iTunes will remove all those photos


iPhone 7 won't charge consistently from MacBookAir 2015 I've had my MacBook 11' 2015 Air since July 2016 and my iPhone 7 since April 2017, and my phone never had any issues charging on my Mac. I'm not sure when it started, but at some point both USB ports in my MacBook won't charge my iPhone 7, it just keeps going from charging to not charging very rapidly which only makes it even more annoying and frustrating.

I've tried multiple different cords, reset my iPhone, shut down and reset the NVRAM on my Mac, force quit USBD, deleted (and later reinstalled) the Thunderbridge network.

I'm far from a computer person, so I am very frustrated and currently want to smash both devices :-). I've googled it plenty, but hopefully I can get some new results that actually work.

If you have any solutions, please help me out here and explain it clearly to someone who knows how to operate a computer, but has little knowledge of coding or most of the inner workings of a computer.

I'm not sure when it started, but at some point both USB ports in my
  MacBook won't charge my iPhone 7, it just keeps going from charging to
  not charging really rapidly

Given that you've tried different cables, you've ruled out the possibility of the cable failing.  However, there are a few more things to try to isolate the problem

Reset the SMC (this manages the power in your MacBook)
Try a different computer with the same cable and iPhone.  If the problem goes away, you've narrowed it to your MacBook.  If not, the problem is with your device.
Try a different device with your MacBook.  Same concept as the previous point; if the symptoms remain, it's probably your MacBook.

Now, given that it's happening on both ports, it's entirely possible that there is an issue with the power rail that supplies the 5V to the USB port, the USB controller itself (unlikely unless your keyboard, Bluetooth, camera also stopped working) or any of the related components.  If this is the case, you will need to take it in for repair.

This YouTube video from Louis Rossman on repairing the USB port is a good resource for what the problem might actually be (I've started the video at the point where he discusses the 5V power).


How do I make my 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 boot from a USB stick? I actually want to boot Linux but since that is not working I'm thinking some one might know on the Apple end.

If there's a way to boot Mac from a USB stick, then booting another operating system should not be impossible.

Do I need to use an Apple bootloader to trick my PowerBook into thinking it's booting Mac OS and then slip in the Linux disc or what?

I have done this many times since I posted this question.

Create usb stick like this:

sudo dd if=/<path to iso file>/<name of iso file> of=/<path to usb stick> bs=32768 conv=notrunc,noerror,sync

Put the USB stick into your Mac and press the power button while holding down Command ⌘+Option+O+F
At the prompt, type the following:

boot usb1/disk@1:,\\yaboot

Note: If you are booting linux then use ,\\yaboot, but if you are booting a Mac OS use ,\\tbxi.

Note 2: If your stick is in the right side of the machine, then you need to do this:

boot usb0/disk@1:,\\yaboot

Note 3: If these commands don't work, then there is most likely a problem with your media or iso file.

I have found that Ubuntu, Debian, and openSUSE work great. I cannot get Fedora or Gentoo to boot this way yet. My optical drive does not work anymore, so this is how I install OS X on my machine. I made a live USB stick of the OS X install disc this way.


sysmond using 100% CPU usage, but only while on the Memory tab I used to have no issues with this, but all of a sudden sysmond is using 100% CPU while I have Activity Monitor set to the Memory tab. sysmond runs normally while in any other tab (CPU, Energy, Disk, Network). The problem only occurs on the Memory tab. Turning down the update interval does nothing. I've already restarted and had no other apps open except AM but nothing changes. It still uses 100% while I'm on the memory page. I am using macOS 10.14.6, on a MacBook Pro.

I've fixed it. I had shared memory and private memory both checked. Enabling either one seems to cause sysmond to spike in CPU usage, and having neither checked returns sysmond back to its usual state. Odd.


How to Remove Default Web Browser Option I installed Private Internet Access VPN and then uninstalled it with CleanMyMac. As far as I can tell there is no PIA folders or files left on the computer (I could be wrong of course). I noticed that in the default web browser options under system preferences, Private Internet Access is listed as an option. How would I go about removing this? Do I have to edit a .plist file? Where would the available default web browser options be kept in MacOS Serra? Thank you.

Open system preferences and go to general (or search for default web browser).

Set Safari as the default.


Auto-launch Microsoft Teams by adding it to my "Login Items" I want Microsoft Teams to start automatically every time I turn on/log into my (company) MacBook (running Mojave 10.14.5.

I can add it to my login-items under System Preferences -> Users & Groups, but the next time I start up it doesn't launch, and when I go back into System Preference, it's no longer listed in my login-items.

What should I try next?

First, Enable Autostart in the app itself and then add in login items.

In Microsoft Teams > Click on your avatar > Settings > General > tick Auto-start application

This will allow you to Auto Launch the MS team from Login items.


Macbook air taking long to boot up (Over 4 minutes) My macbook air start up is acting weird.

I press start button,
I hear the apple sound and a blank grey screen appears
Then the apple logo shows on the grey screen with a loading circle below it.
Then a blue screen appears
and then the grey screen appears with the loading circle (the loading circle doesn't spin though.
Then the mouse appears on the grey screen
then the blue screen comes up
and then the login box with the desktop image.

A typical issue causing long boot times is a faulty or missing selection of the startup disk. Go to System preferences > Startup Disk and make sure your Startup Volume is selected there.

Another thing which definetly helps to improve startup times on my MBP is running Onyx from time to time and have it rebuilt system caches, etc. (see tab "Automation"). Make sure to backup first.


How do I block SMSs on an iPhone? A few months ago, I made a deal with the devil the worst and most obnoxious telecommunication company ever to get an iPhone, and I actually would not regret it if they did not bother me sending me spam SMSs when I am at work. This is so annoying and disturbing I would actually leave the phone at home, but I need it so my girlfriend who is pregnant can communicate with me. Here in Peru there is no such thing as regulation in the telecommunications market, so I actually cannot complain about being sent spam.

I am desperately in need of a mechanism (preferably one that does not require me to jailbreak my phone) to block SMSs from unapproved senders (or, at least, blacklisted senders). Unfortunately, the iPhone comes with no such functionality, and I have not found an app that does that (although I must admit I have not searched thoroughly). I would really pay money (up to, say, $5) for such an app. Does anybody know how to block SMSs from certain senders in an iPhone?

You can't do it natively, and you can't do it through an App Store app.

You'll have to jailbreak and search for a blacklist app on Cydia.

Of course you can disable SMS and/or MMS entirely on the device, but the iPhone and iOS is designed to have blocking enforced from the cell carrier and not the device. Until and unless your local carrier offers an iOS app so that you can self-block addresses, you'll need to modify iOS by jailbreaking to have SMS suppressed once they reach the iPhone hardware and software.


How do I tell other users/contacts my iMessage is turned off? How do I tell other users/contacts that my iMessage is turned off? I frequently turn my son's data plan off mid-month because he eats up most of our shared data.

When I do this, however, he no longer can receive iMessages until he is connected to WiFi.  The sender doesn't usually receive a message of "not delivered" for some reason or if they do it's hours later.  Non iPhone messages are not a problem which I understand why. It is just iPhone to iPhone  messages.  It appears both parties have to turn off I-message for it to be seamless.

Is there a feature that alerts a text sender that the recipients iMessage  is off; "please send as SMS"; besides the delayed "not delivered" notice?

As far as I know you can only do that manually.

There are few differences between a Text Message and an iMessage.

The most obvious an iMessage has a blue colored background and a regular Text Message has it's background green

The name of the contact/number you are sending to will turn blue or green respectively for iMessage and for a regular Text Message

After resolving the phone number of the receiver(described above), the text box will automatically say what kind of message will be send and the "Send" button will be colored blue or green respectively for iMessage and for a regular Text Message


Mac Numbers date functions Can I colour a cell red if todays date is on or after the date I have entered in the cell?

I have tried the IF function and conditional formatting but cannot make it work...

In Numbers 3

Select the cell (or group of cells), and from the format panel, choose Cell.
Click the conditional Highlighting and click Add a Rule...
Choose the date tab, then "after ..." from the popup. 0 as the value. This rule will appear in the popup as "date is after the date" once it is selected.
In the last box choose "Red Fill"

In Numbers '09

Select the cell (or group of cells), and from the inspector, choose Cell Format.
Under "Conditional Format" header, click the "Show Rules"
Select "With Dates", then choose "after", enter "0", choose "days", choose "from now"
Then click the edit button, click the fill square and choose the red colour.
Click "Done"


Creating a script that will execute a program and if it exits without crashing, will run it again I've already asked this question in the UNIx exchange but I was told to ask here also about AppleScripts if the standard shell does not work.

I require a script that will open an application. Wait for it to exit, if the application exited gracefully (I.E: did not crash) relaunch it. Otherwise, keep the crash report open and exit the script. I'd like this script to run until I quit it manually.

So far the following has been suggested:

while open -W /path/to/application.app
do
    :
done

But this opens the application and then either on crash or exit will automatically run it again. I assume this is because open regardless of waiting or not will terminate with a normal 0 exit code. Unless of course open crashes but in this case it will not.

Any assistance with this is appreciated.

Thanks.

To keep restarting the job on succesful exit You can use launchd on OSX. For this You have to prepare *.plist file in order to "tell" launchd how to behave.
To restart application on succesfull exit please look at KeepAlive -> SuccessfulExit key (more info: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man5/launchd.plist.5.html).
To start your job, You'll need to start it via launchctl command, for example:

launchctl load path/to/file.plist

To stop it:

launchctl unload path/to/file.plist

More informations about launchctl/launchd programming here:

http://alvinalexander.com/mac-os-x/launchd-examples-launchd-plist-file-examples-mac

http://launchd.info


Select text field that is not focused without losing selection Lets assume I selected text in a text field and focused another (in the same application, e.g. Xcode's assistant editor), so the first one is no longer the first responder. The selection will appear gray.

Is there a way to return focus to the first text field without losing the selection?

Either use Cmd/Tab to cycle round to the app, or simpler, click the window's title bar...


iPhone 5 always asks for username when connect to Wifi (I'm using wifi from a personal access point in my room, of which the security type is "WPA/WPA2 Personal" (it's what I see in network settings on my mac). Normally it just requires a password to login, no username is required.

My issue is that when I use my iPhone 5 (iOS 7.0.4) to connect to that wifi, it always asks for both username and password. I tried leaving the "username" field blank and fill in the "password" field only, but it says "Unable to connect to...".

This issue happens only on my iPhone and doesn't happen on any other devices such as Macbook, iMac or iPad.

The problem is that iOS is detecting your network as an Enterprise network that requires username and password.
The work-around:
Manually enter the network type into iOS. To do this with iOS 7.1:
Settings / Wi-Fi / Choose a network, and select "Other".
Put in the name (SSID) as it is advertised on the previous screen.
Under Security, choose WPA2 or WPA (try both). Do not choose the "Enterprise" network. Enter the password.
My experience is you have to try 3 or 4 times before it works; don't know why, maybe fat fingers.


When re-importing music in iTunes, is there a way to set "Replace Existing" as the default and skip the dialog? I lost a big chunk of my iTunes library due to a disk failure.  The database is fine, but the song files are missing. Luckily for me, iTunes will let me reimport the CDs and preserve my existing playlists, play counts, etc.  iTunes is set to import automatically on disc insertion, so when I stick a CD in I get this dialog:

  One or more of the songs you have selected to import have already been imported. Do you want to replace existing songs and import them again? [Replace Existing] [Cancel] [Don't Replace]

So far so good.  The trouble is that my library is hosted on a headless G4 Mini, and it's inconvenient to hit "Replace Existing" every time.  Even if I connect a monitor and keyboard, the dialog takes a little while to come up, and I'd like to just swap CDs in and out whenever I walk through the living room.  There's a few hundred CDs to re-import so I don't want to babysit the process.

I thought about writing an AppleScript to push "Replace Existing" for me, but there doesn't seem to be a way to wait on dialog events.  I looked around the iTunes prefs files, etc., for some "always replace existing" option, but no luck.

I figure this is a long shot, but does anyone have any ideas on how to skip the "Replace Existing" dialog or otherwise make this process go more smoothly?

If you have enough disk space, maybe you can import the CDs into a new iTunes library, and when it is all done, import again (in one go) from there into the real one?


CrashReporter itself keeps crashing I never get crash logs when an application crashes, and the reason is that CrashReporter itself crashes:

4/20/12 10:11:25 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[104]
(com.apple.ReportCrash.Self[133]) Job appears to have crashed: Trace/BPT trap

A google search shows that I'm not the only person to experience this. But I haven't found a definitive cure. A popular google hit suggests moving the LaunchAgents .plist file from the System LaunchAgents to the User LaunchAgents, but that made no difference for me. I'm wondering if anyone has actually solved this.

(This is on Snow Leopard. I have a Lion installation and another Snow Leopard computer; the problem doesn't occur there. It's just this one volume.)

try these two things:

boot to safe mode, and then reboot. (hold Shift at system chime)
boot to single user mode, delete /Systems/Library/Caches & subdirectories

fixed lots of crash reporter errors on my machine.


Error in Automator Open File I have a Service in Automator that works fine till I try to use the Open File action

In the New Reminder widow.

I can't comment because of reputation, but I had a lot of trouble with Automator until I allowed all the apps into Preferences/Security/Privacy/Accessibility. Maybe you didn't add Calendar?


Spotlight menu item on OS X 10.9 sometimes does not function (beeps instead) I'm running into a situation now and then when the Spotlight menu on OS X 10.9 can't be activated. When I click on its magnifying glass icon I receive only an error indication (beep tone) but get no chance to enter any search terms.

This can happen even if no programs have been launched and while the other menu items work as expected.

What causes this behavior and can it be overcome? (I have by now become reliant on Spotlight to open all kinds of documents, etc., so this seeming misbehavior is esp. unfortunate.)

Same thing was happening to me. Tried the keyboard shortcut (cmd+space, or option+cmd+space) and it worked and now seems to work fine even when I click.


Launchd script to mount volume on boot I have a script monta.sh to mount an external volume:

#!bin/sh
mkdir -p /Volumes/remvol
mount_smbfs //user:password@server/folder /Volumes/remvol

Then I have a com.jo.monta.plist to launch the script after system boot placed in /Library/LaunchDaemons:

<?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.jo.monta</string>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>admin</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/admin/scripts/monta.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <dict>
        <key>SuccessfulExit</key>
        <false/>
    </dict>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

I've tested the script from the command line and it works, however if I log in after boot the volume is not mounted.

It seems like the plist file doesn't load? what's wrong?

The script and the plist work perfectly well if you make following changes:

add a slash in /Users/admin/scripts/monta.sh:

#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p /Volumes/remvol
mount_smbfs //user:password@server/folder /Volumes/remvol

proper ownership of com.jo.monta.plist:

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.jo.monta.plist

proper file mode bits of /Users/admin/scripts/monta.sh:

chmod 755 /Users/admin/scripts/monta.sh

load the launch daemon:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.jo.monta.plist


Can I install a full copy of Snow Leopard on an Apple TV? I have both a legitimate, store-bought retail license for OS X Snow Leopard, and I own an Apple TV.
(Neither were stolen, copied, etc. ;-)

Is it possible to install OS X Snow Leopard on an Apple TV?

If so, how, or where can I find more information?

p.s. I don't care about my warranty; it's long gone.

Maybe if this is possible, an AppleTV do not have all the hardware requirement for Snow Leopard, as it needs 1G of RAM. The processor is also only 1 GHz (maybe a bit more, depends on your version) and the lowest Intel processor built on an iMac was a 1.83 GHz Core Duo.

So, even if you achieve to install Snow Leopard on your AppleTV (let say you remove the disk, install Mac OS X on it, then plug it in back), it will be really slow.


Set Computer to Sleep Mode for Specific Amount of Time from CLI This terminal command sets the computer to sleep mode:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to sleep'

How can I make the computer sleep for a specific amount of time, say 20 minutes? Do I need to issue a separate command to wake the computer up at a specific time?

Thanks

Here is a bash script that when run, without an argument, schedules the system to wake in 20 minutes and then puts it to sleep immediately. Or you can supply, as an argument, the number of minutes you want it to sleep before it wakes the system. Unfortunately the OS X command line utility pmset, which does the wake scheduling and sleeping, requires elevated privileges. Meaning the command must be run using sudo as shown in the example output below.

In the example below, the script was saved as sleepwake and then in Terminal made executable using chmod u+x sleepwake, then run just as sleepwake to show the internal help message. (Note: The current working directory I'm in is in my $PATH. See Examples Note:, further below, for additional information.)

$ sleepwake

  This script must be run as root using sudo.

  Syntax:  sudo sleepwake [n]
  Example: sudo sleepwake 10
  Wakes the system 10 minutes after going to sleep.

  Example: sudo sleepwake
  Wakes the system, using the default, 20 minutes after going to sleep.

$

Creating sleepwake:

In a Terminal, type the following, pressing Enter after each command:

touch sleepwake
open sleepwake

Copy and paste the code below into the opened, blank, document.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
   printf "\n  This script must be run as root using sudo.\n\n"
   printf "  Syntax:  sudo sleepwake [n]\n  Example: sudo sleepwake 10\n"
   printf "  Wakes the system 10 minutes after going to sleep.\n\n"
   printf "  Example: sudo sleepwake\n"
   printf "  Wakes the system, using the default, 20 minutes after going to sleep.\n\n"
   exit 1
else
            # If no argument (number of minutes) was passed.

    if [[ -z $1 ]]; then
            # Default number of minutes to sleep.
        m="20"
    else
            # Number of minutes to sleep given from command line.
        m="$1"
    fi
        # Do the math and set date time format to
        # what 'pmset schedule wake' requires.

    e="$(date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "$(date)" "+%s")"
    ((o=60*$m))
    ((e+=o))
    t="$(date -r $e "+%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S")"

        # Schedule the 'wake' date time and sleep the system.

    pmset schedule wake "$t"
    pmset sleepnow

        # Revoke elevated privileges from this Terminal session.

    sudo -k

fi

Now save the document, then close it.

In Terminal, make the bash script executable:

chmod u+x sleepwake

Execute the sleepwake command without using sudo, to see that the internal help displays.

Then test it for a minute with the following command:

sudo sleepwake 1

Type in your password when prompted, and press Enter.

The system will now sleep for one minute.

Examples Note: The examples assume that sleep wake is saved in a directory that is in the $PATH, otherwise if not and it's in the current directory then use sudo ./sleepwake, or not in the $PATH or current directory, then use sudo /path/to/sleepwake.

Additional Notes:

The # Do the math... comment in the script means the code block directly below it converts the current date time to seconds since Epoch, in order to add the number of seconds in minutes to sleep to the current date time, and then convert back in order to then have a date time in the format that pmset schedule wake requires and this will be the date time x number of minutes from now, being the date time of execution, incremented either the default 20 minutes or the number of minutes passed as an argument on the command line. Wow! :)

Once the date time to wake has been scheduled and the system put to sleep, it can be woken ahead of schedule if you need to access the system before the scheduled wake date time by the usual means, clicking the mouse or using the keyboard, etc.

For additional information about pmset, see it's man page.


Buy Mac OS X 10.7 and install on an empty drive I want to upgrade my old MacBook 3.1 late 2007 by replacing the hard drive with a SSD (Crucial MX100) and updating Mac OS X from 10.5 (Leopard) to 10.7 (Lion), which is the latest compatible version with it, as I know.

My question is about Mac OS X 10.7, I plan to buy it on the Apple website, and I was wondering if I will be able to install 10.7 on a new drive, after reading this:

  System Requirements
  Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)

It suggests that you can only install it as an update on an existing OS, and not on an empty drive.

Follow these steps

Create a USB key for setup with DiskMaker X.
Replace HD by SSD (keep HD safe)
Boot on USB key newly created.
Format SSD with Disk utility (already in the top menu on the USB key)
Clean Install on the new SSD!