Can i download the new iOS without computer internet connection? My super old desktop is currently having problems connecting to the Internet.

Is there a way that I can update my iPhone to the new operating system without my computer connecting to the internet?

I'm afraid that if I connect my iPhone to my newish laptop to do the upload that it will delete all of the files and songs from my phone since they are not on the laptop's harddrive. I have not updated my phone in almost a year due to this problem.

If your iOS device is on version 5.0 or higher, then yes, you can do it directly from the handset by going to Settings/General/Software Update.

If you're on iOS 4.x then no, you will need a computer to do this.

To upgrade in your situation, I would recommend the following steps:
1) On your new laptop, open iTunes, and in the preferences on the devices tab, make sure Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically
2) Plug your iPhone in to the new laptop, and in iTunes, select the iPhone on the left pane.
3) Click Check for update.

It should find a newer version, and start to download the file. You can now disconnect your iPhone from your new laptop.

Once it has downloaded this file, you should be able to find it on an OSX system in your home folder/library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates. On Windows it should be in your user profile folder\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates.

You can copy this file to your old computer, and then plug your iPhone in to that.

On a Mac, hold the Option key (alt on modern keyboards) (shift on Windows) and click Check for update. You should now be able to manually navigate to the ipsw file you just copied over.

It should now start the update process on your iPhone.


Where are TextEdit files that are not moved to iCloud Drive stored? After upgrading to Yosemite I did not migrate to iCloud Drive and iCloud text files were in a local folder which was very difficult to locate.

I can't find these files now. They were in a folder that had a long "com.open" or similar name.

If you haven't migrated to iCloud Documents then they are still stored in the iCloud Documents folder in

~/Library/Mobile Documents/com.apple.textedit/


Create Keynote presentation automatically At the introduction of Keynote in 2003 they said that Keynote presentations would be a XML-based open file format and so, keynote presentations could be created programmatically by 3rd party applications.
Is this still possible in Keynote 6.2?

Until Keynote 6, this was true. However, Keynote 6 uses packages for storing keynotes:

test.key
├── Data
├── Index.zip
├── Metadata
│   ├── BuildVersionHistory.plist
│   ├── DocumentIdentifier
│   └── Properties.plist
├── preview-micro.jpg
├── preview-web.jpg
└── preview.jpg

This doesn't stop you from creating older-style XML keynotes, since Keynote 6 is backwards compatible.


iPod Touch stuck in Recovery mode I am using iPod Touch 5G and I've recently jailbroken it.

First, all my apps disappeared from the springboard.
But now the iPod is stuck in recovery mode. I get a 9006 error when I try to restore it via iTunes.

I've searched online and found a few answers, but none of them work.

go on the internet and type in find my ipod but then once you have done that type in your apple ID then take it out of recovery mode hopefully that should work


Write in English using a foreign keyboard layout on iPad As a bilingual user, this is something that have frustrated me for a while now.

The OS defaults to changing the keyboard layout along with the input language. However, physical keys don’t move around just because you decide to write in a different language.

When using a physical keyboard on my iPad or iOS devices, I really would like to be able to type Norwegian, English (US) and English (UK) text without changing the keyboard layout at all.

Can it be done, or will I just have to either disable spell checking or live with key placements changing with every input language?

With the keyboard connected, Go to settings/general/keyboard/hardware keyboard and for English tap over at the right edge.  You will get a list of layouts to choose from.  Instead of “automatic”, select Norwegian or whatever layout you prefer.  Do the same for other languages you need to spellcheck.


Unified Inbox in Mail does not display all emails I have 4 different email accounts in Mail; therefore, there are 4 different inboxes.

When I select the unified Inbox, I should see all emails listed from all accounts. But I don't.

What could be preventing seeing all email in unified inbox? 3 email accounts are POP; 1 is MobileMe IMAP. When I control-click on unified Inbox, all email accounts are in the drop-down list. One of the POP accounts shows nothing in large box below that.

(Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with Mail version equivalent for Snow Leopard.)

My guess is that one of your clients is removing emails from the server - last time I used POP this was the default, and it was one of the best reasons for switching to IMAP. If any of your clients is doing this then those emails will not be appearing on your other clients. Have you checked this on each client that you access those servers with?

I know you didn't say you access those emails from multiple places but it's a common thing to do.


Why DND automatically turns itself on and off in macOS High Sierra? I am noticing for quite a few days that after upgrading to high sierra though DND doesn't has any custom timeline for auto on and off in system preferences it automatically turns itself on every-day at 12:00 am and turns itself off at 12:00 pm, I don't know why is this happening

DND acts buggy in High Sierra when you set the time to midnight. I'm not sure if this applies to you but DND does not like 12:00 AM. Use any time except 12:00 AM such as 12:01 AM or 11:59 PM if you are setting DND time values.

If you set DND to turn on at 12:00 AM and off at any other time, it will show as disabled the next time you look at it and the start/end times will have been changed to 10:00 PM/7:00 AM.

I spoke with Apple and they confirmed this behavior in High Sierra.


Why do chrome pages appear without styling? The Reddit homepage appears like the below screenshot sometimes.

It happens across all different pages and at different times eg Facebook/Google etc - can anyone shed some light on why?

My unproven theory is that some of the resources involved in the content have timed out while trying to load.

I just loaded www.reddit.com in Safari and viewed the source, and I see that the style sheet is indeed a separate file: http://www.redditstatic.com/reddit.sgQ89UZYDrA.css. So the browser first has to load the main URL (index.html or perhaps a program that generates the content), then the browser locates the stylesheet attribute, and tries to fetch the URL so the style can be applied.


OSX: how to determine USB current draw? I connected a device to my USB port, but it's unclear how much current it is drawing. Is there a way from the command line, or otherwise, to determine how much current that device is drawing?

It's not likely that Apple would invest in ammeter circuitry in the usb power lines and connect it to the computer motherboard.

It's likely there is some form of current overload prevention (I wouldn't even know what. A polyfuse maybe?), but it wouldn't be something accessible to the operating system.

Current draw information will more likely than not require additional hardware to obtain.


What free software can I use to read any PDF file I want on my iPad? I have some PDF files on my computer that I'd like to read on my iPad on the go.

What free software can I use to read any PDF file I want? I would obviously need to transfer these PDF documents somehow to the iPad device, correct?

I prefer something with nice turn pages effects, if possible, but free is a must.

Personally, I use iBooks for my PDF storage and viewing. It's already on my iPad to view iBooks I have bought, and you can send a PDF from any other application to it.

Having said that, Mobile Safari will also display PDFs if you follow a link to them.

I also use DropBox, which will display PDFs, amongst other file types. The bonus there is that you can then use DropBox on your Mac/PC/Linux to put the PDFs where you will be able to access them.


Copying files from a failing drive I have a 2008 iMac in which the drive is failing. SMART status seems ok although AHT reported 4hdd/11/40000000 SATA (0,0) which is the code for disk failure AFAIK. Normal boot fails, Firewire target disk mode works, however after a certain amount of disk access the drive stops responding - for example in the middle of a large file transfer it never get beyond a certain point.  After this folder listing stops working and all I can do is reboot the iMac.

I have read similar questions that suggest using Ddrescue. However the behaviour of my drive is that it doesn't report failure, it just never finishes. Will Ddrescue cope with this?

Update: I've made the question title less specific so hopefully more people find this thread - be sure to check all comments below for some useful tips.

Since you're having problems with the drive after using it for a while, no tool may be of help completely. Depending on what's actually failing on the drive, trying to re-read the same sections for a long time could possibly aggravate and expand the problem to other areas. So I would not recommend ddrescue as the first option.

Since there may not be a single solution that is guaranteed to work for this case, I would suggest a combination of different approaches:

Try to copy small sections at a time (starting with the most valuable data, leaving aside OS, Applications and Application Preferences that can be redone later with some time on hand) and give it some rest in between.
Try the freezer trick to see if it helps

  Remove the hard drive from the computer.
  Place the hard drive inside of a zip top freezer bag. (don't buy a
  cheap bag.)
  Place the wrapped hard drive inside of ANOTHER zip top freezer bag.
  (yes, you need to do this)
  Place the double wrapped hard drive in the coldest part of your
  freezer.
  Leave the hard drive in the freezer for 12 hours at least. You want
  it good and cold! (see figure 2 below)
  Once very chilled, install the hard drive in your computer and
  start pulling off data. Begin with the most valuable data.
  At some point, the hard drive will fail again. When it does, mark
  the last successfully copied data, pull out the hard drive, double wrap
  it again and stick it in the Chill Chest for another 12 hours.
  You may need to do this a number of times to get all the data you
  want, or until the hard drive stops working completely.

For any data that you are able to copy out, do a quick verification and back it up elsewhere. You can never have too many backups!
Depending on the drive's manufacturer, download the hard drive test tool from the manufacturer's site, install it on a USB thumb drive and run it. This may help in detecting the actual issue better while at the same time marking bad sectors so that they're hidden (the latter is possible without these tools as well).
As a final measure, use ddrescue to see what you can recover before throwing or recycling the drive.

In the future, ensure you regularly use Time Machine in conjunction with a disk cloning utility (Clonezilla, Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!)


Battery status in menu bar was red having charged my laptop for one hour The red battery status color stayed there for about 40 seconds, then went back to black.

Sometimes the menubar took some seconds to refresh after the computer was sleeping especially after the computer runs out of charge.
If you have doubts about the health of your battery you could use this amazing app to check it https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/


Disable second monitor The problem

I have a 2008 iMac running OS X 10.7 with its mini-DVI output port connected to an second monitor via a DVI-D adapter.

It's nice having a second monitor, but it's sometimes superfluous and I would like to turn it off to conserve power.

Ideally, I would like the iMac to detect when I turn off the second monitor and then stop extending the display onto it. But that's not what happens; I need to unplug the DVI cable before the iMac recognizes it as removed.

Explored solutions

Mirroring the display: The second monitor is in portrait orientation, so mirroring turns the display into rather comically cropped square.

Moving the display arrangement to eliminate common borders: The display is still there, so applications sometimes still open up windows on it.

A hardware solution like a KVM switch or the product described here: I'd rather not.

This question is more in line with what I'm looking for, but they ultimately went in a different direction. Is there a viable solution using XRandR, though?

Finally, if there are no OS X native solutions for disabling a monitor, I suppose I must ask: is there an app for that?

One possible solution is SwitchResX, however, it costs money, and personally I would prefer an AppleScript or shell command for that purpose.


Total Terminal opens new tab separately in macOS High Sierra I've been using Total Terminal (former Visor) for a while now. With the new High Sierra update to osx when I try to open a new tab with CMD+T it ends up opening it like a new window, separately from the sticky tab I already have opened. I have to mention that it worked great on Sierra.

I've checked the settings and I have "open with same profile" and "open in same working directory" checked. Also I've entered Recovery Mode and set the csrutil enable --without debug which Total Terminal needs starting from El Capitan.

The Total Terminal web page says it's not currently under development and High Sierra is not listed under Compatibility.

If anyone managed to find a fix around this, it'll be highly appreciated. If not, I'm thinking about switching to iTerm2. Apparently the developer of Total Terminal recommends doing so too.

It's time to move over to iTerm2.  It's highly unlikely a fix will be found in the wild because it doesn't make sense to do so.

It's no longer under active development.  From the About page on their website

SIP must be disabled to use.  (IMO), disabling SIP to get a non-critical app to function is not a wise path to pursue.  SIP adds a layer of protection to your system that isn't worth disabling for a terminal app.  From their web page specifically on SIP

  System Integrity Protection (SIP) is a new security feature introduced
  by Apple. That's good, but unfortunately it prevents TotalTerminal
  from augmenting Terminal. This article will tell you how to configure
  your machine, so that you can use TotalTerminal. Before you do this,
  it is important to get informed about what System Integrity Protection
  is, and what it means to turn it off. Technical details are well
  covered in SIP review on Ars Technica. Apple also provided some
  information here.

And finally, the note from the developer himself:

  Do you really depend on TotalTerminal workflows so much that you want
  to possibly lower your system security? Frankly, I'm going to stop
  TotalTerminal development because I have personally switched to iTerm
  2. It offers similar functionality to Visor and comparable features to build-in Terminal.app.

TL;DR

Total Terminal requires you to disable  security.  It would be counter productive to find/create/bodge a workaround when ultimately you would end up with an insecure system when there are already excellent alternatives (like iTerm2) that don't have this vulnerability/flaw/drawback.


El Capitan (or newer OS) on a MBA late 2010 I've an "old" MacbookAir 11" (late 2010, 4GB of RAM, 180GB SSD), which I've loaned to a friend.
Now he gave it back to me, and I'm planning to use it as a "mobility" machine.
My problem is that the applications I use (Mathematica 11, Office 2016, etc) require at least El Capitan.

What I want to ask is if someone is in a similar condition - same generation of MBAs, same (or newer) OS - and what are his feelings. Is the system fast enough? Does it have annoying lags?

PS: my "typical" working session is made by Chrome (~40 opened tabs) + Acrobat or Word (2 files open) + OneNote.

Late 10 Macbook Airs can run Sierra - so your difficulty may be in obtaining El Capitan if that's what you would prefer, which you can only get if it's already in your Purchase History on the App Store.

Everything else in your question is really too opinion-based to garner useful answers.

Ref - EveryMac


Is 128kbps too low-quality a file size for the iPhone 5? I've got a music collection of lossy M4A files at assorted bitrates that I want to transfer to my iPhone, and in order to conserve space I want to make each track as small as possible while keeping the quality of it indistinguishable from the original on my computer. I took a small portion of the collection (30 files) and re-encoded each one to two different bitrates to test: 128kbps and 192kbps (what I've been using up till now without any noticeable lack of quality from the originals).

As far as I can make out, the 128kbps files sound exactly the same on my computer as the 192kbps files do, so I'm considering making all of the music on my iPhone 128kbps, but I'm worried about whether these files will sound the same when I transfer them to my iPhone 5.

Is it at all possible that my 128kbps M4A files will play at lower quality on the iPhone? Is the iPhone's playback quality a common bottleneck when it comes to music playback, or will it be able to play 128k files - or any other bitrate, for that matter - the exact same as on my computer? Just wondering whether others have similar experiences on this that could help me make a decision here.

Thanks!

Qualification: I'm a professional sound engineer.

Opinion: By the time you're listening on the move, in the car etc, it's not going to make any difference.

Fact: You can keep your high bit-rate files on the computer & re-encode them on the fly when you sync your iTunes playlists to the phone.
Best of both worlds.

Connect your phone to iTunes, click its icon at the top [not in the sidebar]

Select Summary from the sidebar on the left & scroll the main area to the bottom > Options
Select 'Convert higher bit rate songs to... 128kbps AAC'

The first sync after this will be slower, as it does the conversions. After that, you'll not notice the difference.


How to mount ext4 partition on OS X 10.8.2? I'm  new to OS X, I was using Ubuntu till now. All my data are stored on an external drive formated as ext4 system file. Is there any other way to acces this data than installing Virtual Box? I'm using OS X 10.8.2.

I was trying solution form How can I mount an ext4 file system on OS X?

Terminal output:

MacBook-Pro-Marek:Downloads user$ ./ext4fuse-24810919 /dev/disk1 Linux
dyld: Library not loaded: /opt/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib
Referenced from: /Users/user/Downloads/./ext4fuse-24810919
Reason: image not found
Trace/BPT trap: 5

I was trying also this, with the same result (dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib)

I found also this, where it's said that most of available solutions don't work for Lion, but this solution says how to mount ext2 or ext3 file system, and not ext4.

I don't know how should I load this library and if the problem is in the library or the solutions which don't work for my OS X distribution.

Thanks

Instead of installing ext4fuse yourself, try using homebrew to install it. (This is the method recommended by the developer.)
Read the developer's install page here.

Incidentally, if you're from Linux you're probably used to using apt-get to install things. Homebrew describes itself as "The missing package manager for OS X", and makes it a lot easier to install a lot of linux ports. (For example, brew install ext4fuse will install ext4fuse. The advantage of homebrew is that it will automatically download and install dependencies for you.


Downgrade a new Mac from OSX 10.14 to 10.11? Ive got a Macbook Pro which i think is life expired. This Macbook Pro is running OSX 10.11 which is the highest OSX version i can go, as i need to run some specific software which only works on 10.11

Im looking at buying a new Macbook Pro, but presume they will come pre installed with OSX 10.14 is there anyway i can downgrade the new Macbook Pro to 10.11 ?

Short of running it a VM, no.

The general rule is no Mac will run an OS older than itself - there can be no drivers for hardware that wasn't yet invented, so Apple make sure that doesn't happen.


How can I remove the Siri icon from the touch bar? Version: 2018 running 10.14.4.

I have the new Macbook Pro with the touchbar and I actually don't mind it. However, Siri always has an icon on the far right, no matter what app I'm in. And because it's right next to the volume buttons, I accidentally press it often.

Problem is, I've already disabled it via System Preferences. So now when I accidentally press it, I get this which is somehow even more annoying than Siri just activating normally:

How can I get rid of the Siri button in the touch bar? Is it even possible?

It is possible using the steps in this article:

  Go to the  Apple menu and choose “System Preferences” and then go to “Keyboard”
  Under the Keyboard tab, choose “Customize Control Strip” (note it is not called Touch Bar here)
  Now tap on the Siri button and drag it into the Trash on the touch bar, or use the mouse to drag the Siri icon onto the screen and out of the Touch Bar to remove it

  4. Choose “Done” when finished and close out of System Preferences


RAM Disk gets unmounted when coming out of sleep I have a script set up to create a RAM Disk at login. But I have now noticed that the RAM Disk (And sometimes other networked disks) get unmounted when I put the laptop to sleep and wake it up again.

Is there any way to stop this?

Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.7
8GB RAM
128GB SSD
2010 13" MacBook Pro

Edit: This may be a known issue with Apple, but it is unknown if it was ever filed with them and if they ever plan on fixing it:
http://openradar.appspot.com/8426423

I was using the RAM Disk as a temporary cache for my browsers, whom tend to use upwards of 500MB of space after a few days since cache on an SSD is mostly useless and doesn't boost the speed at all. It just ends up being writes and reads wearing on the SSD that don't need to be. So I wrote a script to create the SSD and required folders and placed symlinks in my Cache folder for my browsers.

It works 100% perfectly until I put the machine to sleep. Then when it wakes up the disk disappears, but somehow the browsers continue working without problems, but there is no indication that they are still writing to RAM or the SSD because no files seem to appear where they should be. If I recreate the RAM Disk, it is blank of course, but Chrome/Firefox/Safari won't start using it until I restart them.

So alternatively, is there a way to run a shell script after the computer wakes up? Maybe I could just recreate the RAM Disk when it wakes up again and hope for the best.

Or maybe I should just scrap the whole thing.

I've similar workflows around a ramdisk so I notice the same issue. I check and re-check the Energy preferences to no avail, so I started messing with the hibernatemode in pmset.

Its default is 3 in Snow Leopard & Lion, and it's not a problem until Lion. Now I've change it to 0. The difference is that no system image is written on disk, so that while sleeping, if my MBP ran out of juice, all will be gone but this drawback is negated by Lion's Resume feature.

Now, it seems my ramdisk stays around during/after sleep... See if you notice similar.


How to find where files reside on a partition I'm trying to use Bootcamp to install a Windows partition. But it gives this error message.

I remember there was a program that let you see where all the files are on the partition and how much space they took up. I figure that this can help me in this situation, but I forgot what the name of the program was.

What are some programs that can help me see where files are located on the partition?

A disk defragmenter might do what you want for this. Possibly.

OS X since 10.3 automatically defragments files, but doesn't do anything to move them all to the 'top' of your volume. A 3rd party defragmenter might do this, which theoretically would clear out all the cruft that's preventing non-destructive repartitioning from taking place.

The other option is what Apple recommends in that dialog: clone the volume at the filesystem level, reformat, and then clone it back--when it rewrites, all of the files will be written one by one at the 'top' of the volume. Of course, if you need to do that, you might as well repartition while you're in the process of reformatting the disk.


Getting Music NOT purchased from iTunes, from an old computer to new computer I am trying to get my music NOT purchased from itunes into a new itunes/computer (the music I purchased from iTunes is on the new computer). i authorized it but keep getting an error message that says "authorization is needed to access "insert song name here".

i tried previously posted settings to get the autofill there to see if that works, and when i hit "apply" i get a message saying "The iPhone “Denise's iPhone” is synced with another iTunes library. Do you want to erase this iPhone and sync with this iTunes library? An iPhone can be synced with only one iTunes library at a time. Erasing and syncing replaces the contents of this iPhone with the contents of this iTunes library."

I do not want to "Erase and sync". In fact I want just the opposite. how can i get this music off an older phone/computer, onto an new computer (not just shared), then on to my new iphone?

There are (at least) two simple ways of achieving this:

Select the songs in iTunes and drag them to a folder in the Finder. Copy said folder to the other computer (via WiFi, external drive, Disk Target Mode, whatever). Drag files out of folder and drop on iTunes.
iTunes Match. For a cost of $25 per year, you can store all your music in iCloud. Whether you bought said music from iTunes, or ripped it from CD, or got it from anywhere. Then you can access it from all your devices - iPhones, iPads, Macs, iPod Touches, AppleTVs - anything that can see iCloud.


Display toggle on/off Sleep mode seems to cause problems with my MacPro.  Is there a way to turn the monitor off and on?  In "System preferences/Display/options" I can select "Display Power Button" "turns the display on and off" but that does not work.  If there is a key board toggle, that might help.

You can set up a hot corner to turn the display off without going to sleep. Go to System Preferences → Mission Control → Hot Corners and set one of the corners to Put Display To Sleep. Wake the display by pressing any key.


Terminal "history" command brings back different results In OSX's terminal, I run the history command to find my recent commands. Often I notice recent commands will not show up, seemingly randomly. For example, I will log on one-day and notice my commands from the previous day are not showing in history (though they did they day before) but rather last week's commands are there.
How do you troubleshoot this? Is it an error or I am understanding something incorrectly?

In other words, Terminal.app connects you to a certain shell, allowing you to access all sorts of them concurrently.
Run cat /etc/shells to see what shells are on your system.
I’m sure you’ve got Bash, ZSH, and a few others.
Then read up on configuring the history for your chosen shell, and try to make it a habit to always know which shell you’re using.
The fish shell, for instance, has an extensive and user friendly history browser, allowing you to see all commands you’ve run using fish.
With bash it’s a bit different.
Also Mac specific:
If you have apps that run maintenance and require administrative privileges, they likely run some of their tasks as simple shell scripts, and almost always using sh.
Think: Catalina Cache Cleaner, Cocktail and Onyx, to name a few.


Wifi: not configured I was removing a wifi network and after removing it, my wifi icon is blank, showing a cross over it, while i hover over it which says Not Configured, I googled the problem but didn't find any solution to the problem, I tried reinstalling mavericks, while everything (user, setting and everything remain same) the problem remain same too. What can be the problem? How can I fix it?
  and

Rather than removing a Wi-Fi network, it appears you've removed the Wi-Fi service. In OS X prior to 10.10, this means the AirPort shows Not Configured.

To allow configuration of AirPort, you need to add the Wi-Fi service back to the list of services:

Go to System Preferences → Network and click the + button to add a service.
Select Wi-Fi as the Interface and provide a service name.

This will allow configuration through the menu bar item.


SSH remote using XQuartz dosent work in Lion I was using previous version of Mac and used to connected to a server with SSH console.It used to run X 11 after loading my requested programs(Mathematica) on remote server and was working properly.Recently I upgraded my Mac to the latest version(Mountain Lion 10.8.4) and this SSH is not loading the "X" and I can not use remote access to my requested program from remote server.How can I fix the problem.Please in a easy way because I am not in using Mac commands at all.

Thanks

As per this page, X11/XQuartz is deprecated from OS X now, and you will need to install it seperately in order to get any X-Windows display manager type stuff working:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5293

There seems to be another X11 download here which may also be useful.

http://support.apple.com/downloads/X11_for_Mac_OS_X_1_0


identify if Filevault is enabled on remote Mac I need to do remote checks to verify OSX has filevault enabled.  When you enable filevault, does it create / change something on the HDD that I can check for on VPN login using my posture assessment tools?

Can you run a command line tool, such as fdesetup?

$ sudo fdesetup status
FileVault is On.

fdesetup also accepts the verb isactive, which returns 0 if FileVault is enabled (checking a return value is arguably more reliable than reading the text):

$ sudo fdesetup isactive
$ echo $?
0

fdesetup does require root access, which might be a problem.

You could also run diskutil cs list and check for the encryption status. The exact wording you're looking for is a bit complicated because of all the different possible combinations, this script might be a good start.


Android Studio for Mac download error I want to download Android Studio for Mac.
I go to https://developer.android.com/studio#downloads and click android-studio-ide-193.6626763-mac.dmg which takes me to:
https://r1---sn-xmxuxa-ntqe.gvt1.com/edgedl/android/studio/install/4.0.1.0/android-studio-ide-193.6626763-mac.dmg?cms_redirect=yes&mh=OW&mip=2406:3400:614:32d0:bcf1:859d:5e30:4b5&mm=28&mn=sn-xmxuxa-ntqe&ms=nvh&mt=1595231897&mv=m&mvi=1&pl=44&shardbypass=yes
On this page I receive the error:

The connection has timed out
The server at r1---sn-xmxuxa-ntqe.gvt1.com is taking too long to
respond.

Help appreciated.

As others have suggested in comments, it could possibly a network/Internet configuration issue. You can try the following in addition to tweaking network settings or switching to a different one.
If you have Homebrew installed on your Mac, try downloading and installing it using the following command:
brew cask install android-studio

If you do not have it installed, you can follow the instructions on Homebrew homepage to install and set it up and then you can run the above command.
If you do not wish to install Homebrew, you can use the following link to download the Android Studio DMG:

https://dl.google.com/dl/android/studio/install/4.0.1.0/android-studio-ide-193.6626763-mac.dmg

You can either download the link using a web browser or a download manager of your choice. You can also use the macOS built in curl command to download the DMG by running the following in Terminal:
curl -O https://dl.google.com/dl/android/studio/install/4.0.1.0/android-studio-ide-193.6626763-mac.dmg

P.S.: The hyperlink in this answer is different from the one used when downloading directly from the website. Both the links are from official source and should lead you to download the exact same version of Android Studio at any given point of time.


find my iPhone is 'offline' I lost my iPhone after I checked it in find my phone it shows that the device is offline.

I want to know it means that the phone is 100% switched off or find my iPhone was not kept on in my iPhone [because I don't remeber correctly it was on or not]

Does find my iPhone works on International Mobile Equipment identity number or Subscriber Identity Module?

You can not find out if the phone is 100% turned off.  The issue is that the phone may not have any network connectivity which would cause it to show as off line in find my phone.

The phone needs to communicate with Apple's servers and let them know that it is on and the GPS provides the location information.  If a person were to keep the phone on, but turn on Airplane mode, then the phone will show as offline in find my phone.

Sorry about you losing your phone...hope this answers your question.


How does finder show a pc computer name but I can't ping it? I have a MBP running 10.6.  This is my first mac.

In finder, it sees the windows 7 machines and windows home server just find.  I can click on those computers and see their shares.  If I open up terminal and try to ping the computer name, it doesn't resolve.  I have had to add the computers to the host file.  I don't understand why finder appears to associate the name with the correct server from the terminal doesn't.  Can somebody explain it or explain how I can get the same behavior from terminal?

If a machine is found via Bonjour/multicast DNS, you may need to add a .local suffix to use the hostname in Terminal.  If it was found via NetBIOS (either broadcast or WINS), you may need to use nmblookup to get an IP address:

rushlight:10120 Z$ nmblookup mress
querying mress on 10.0.204.255
10.0.204.14 mress<00>
10.0.204.14 mress<00>


Are all USB numeric keypads OSX comatible? My office uses the small Apple bluetooth keyboards.  I have a user who is requesting a numeric keypad.  Apple sells a Belkin wireless keypad on their website, but it has terrible reviews and it isnt cheap.

There are countless USB numeric keypads that are a fraction of the price, all designed for Windows.

If I buy one of the USB ones, it should work on a Mac, right?  It is just a USB keyboard...

Yes, if it's just a normal keyboard input device, which it should be.
I have one which doesn't say it's specifically for OS X, but works fine—it's just a keyboard.


iMac late 2009 new ssd install So I’ve read through a lot of “new install” threads and all are pretty much the same...use internet recovery or cmd+r on boot up.

But here’s my issue.

My old hdd crashed so I don’t have anything to recover from. The new ssd is installed and boots to the flashing folder ? Question mark. I can’t seem to cmd r because it doesn’t see the Bluetooth keyboard. I’ve tried a pc keyboard with no luck. So here I am trying to figure out how to format this new ssd.

Any suggestions?

The Windows key is the command key by default. Unless you have a fancy programmable keyboard and have changed things, try holding the alt key which boots to the boot chooser just to be sure the keyboard and USB are functioning.

If you had a newer Mac, then you can try again with recovery or internet recovery:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314
What keyboards can reliably be used to start up recovery or diagnostics mode on a Mac mini?

In your case the 2009 iMac needs bootable media so you probably need to bring another Mac and target disk mode or create a bootable installer. The PC keyboard will work now that you know Windows key is Command and Alt is Option, but you’ll need bootable media to continue.


Software Update badge won't go away After upgrading to 11.1.1 both the Settings->General menu item and the sub-menu for Software Update have a (1) badge which will not go away. Selecting the Software Update menu shows the phone software is up to date.

Is there some update I'm missing, or way to clear this badge?

This was fixed simply by upgrading to 11.1.2. The badge doesn’t return after re-checking for updates. It was only released in the last 24-48 hours and I upgraded to 11.1.1 pretty fast too, so pretty sure the badge was not originally showing for 11.1.2 availability.


Source of grinding sound from MBA I have a 2014 Macbook Air.  I dropped it and now it occasionally makes a grinding sound from the left rear of the machine: it sounds like something physically grinding against something else.  Oddly, if I squeeze the case when it is making the grinding sound, the sound stops.  There's no apparent correlation between when the sound starts and what activities I'm performing.  Looking at a teardown of the 2014 MBA, it looks like the fan might be located there, but I can't tell if anything else is in that area.

How would I go about diagnosing the cause of the sound?

In most cases your Mac will cool itself down by passive airflow, but when things get too hot, the fan will spin up to get the excessive heat out.

Chances are that the drop caused a minor bend in the casing.  While you might not see any damage with the naked eye,the MBA is engineered at micron level and there's little room for any "unnatural" dimension changes.

However you might be (arguably) lucky, and the drop might have damaged the fan closure or fan blades.  The fan is fairly easily replacable at Apple Service, the casing will be less replacable (or too expensive to do so).

I think it's time to get your Apple Care plan executed, or to give your insurance agent a call.


Why I can browse my Photo library (camera roll) in iOS 14.3 with Wish mobile app with no permission? I have an iPhone with iOS 14.3. According to Apple, I can control access by mobile apps to my Photo libraries. Apparently it works with WhatsApp, Skype Adobe and other apps. I have set the access of all apps to my photo gallery as NONE in Apple iOS Settings -> Privacy -> Photos.
I had installed Wish app version 4.33.2 (Dev Context Logic Inc.) to make online purchases. Recently I have had to contact Wish support and I need to upload an image from my mobile photos. When I click "Upload button", 3 options were available, i.e., "Photo Library", "Take Photo" and "Browse". I selected "Photo Library".
I was expecting a dialogue to ask permission to my photo library, but surprisingly, it didn't ask and I could view all my photo available to upload. I immediately checked list of apps that has requested access to Photos in my mobile privacy settings, but I cannot see the name of Wish mobile app listed there. I went to Apple settings and checked the Wish mobile app settings where I can only see Siri, Notifications, Mobile Data (in Allowed Wish to access area) and Language options.
I then checked the option to "Take Photo", so I got a pop up asking permission to Camera, which I had not given. I also checked the 3rd option, i.e. "Browse" and I was able to access browse with Files app into my phone storage, OneDrive and iCloud drive. Amazing!
I am unable to understand how the Wish mobile app accessed the mobile photos without first requesting the access.

Here is a short explanation. Wish uses the PhotoKit technology provided by Apple, and more specifically the PHPickerViewController class. It's the pop-up that allows the user to upload or take a picture.

Since iOS 14, this panel doesn't need any permission to display your pictures, since you have to select which one you send to Wish (or any other app); nothing is sent before you select them.
No need to worry, Wish can't access your pictures/camera or your cloud storages!
If you want to learn more about the Photo picker here is a WWDC 2020 video : https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10652/


Can Apple TV be used as a thin client? I have a MBP which half of the time is used via a (4K Dell monitor & bluetooth apple keyboard & mouse) and half of the time is used on its own. The main use case is software development.
I'm considering buying an apple tv iff the following setup is possible.
Use the (4K monitor & apple tv & keyboard & mouse) as a thin client through which I remote-connect to the MBP, so that

the MBP can lay anywhere in the flat (I have good wifi/ethernet infrastructure)
I don't have to plug-in the DP/HDMI cables every time I sit to the desk

Is this doable?

No, that is not possible - there's no mouse support on the AppleTV.
There are remote desktop apps for AppleTV, such as the "Remote Desktop for TV" app. However it does not support a Bluetooth mouse, and requires you to use the Apple Remote as a pointing device. That can be done in a pinch, but not for ongoing software development work.
Note that the "Remote Desktop for TV" app requires an RDP server, which you will typicak find on Windows. If you run macOS on your MacBook Pro, you'll typically want a VNC client instead.


Is it possible to attach a file to an email from the command line? I am often using the terminal, and I'd like to be able type a command that will attach a selected file to an email in mail.app.

:~ mailme myfile

Any idea on how to do that?

The command

open -a Mail.app [filename(s)]

opens a "New Message" window in Mail.app, with the filename(s) attached.


Open file from the Dock using a non-default app Is it possible to open a file from the Dock using a non-default app?

For example, I prefer most .pdf files to open in Preview (thus it is my default), but some need to be opened in Adobe Reader. Is there a key combination shortcut (for example) to bring up the "Open With" list when opening the file from the Dock?

I would prefer not to have to go to the folder in Finder...

In Yosemite, I can open a file with any application in the Dock by dragging the file's icon over the application while holding the command and option keys down.
This only works if the targeted application is indeed able to open the file, of course.

Another option, when the application is not currently in your Dock, is to click the file with the right mouse button and choose an application from the submenu Open with, which is the second item in the context menu. This submenu lists the applications that can open the file you clicked on, with the default one at the top.


Open arbitary file from Finder in TextMate In Finder, I see a file with the ".rel" extension.  I'd like top open it in TextMate.  I don't see TextMate in the list of choices, and, in fact, can't find it anywhere in the list of applications when I try to choose the application to open it with.

How can I tell Finder to open the file in TextMate, either now or always (by default)? How can I open an arbitrary file (i.e. even one with a known extension) from Finder in TextMate?

TextMate v2.0-beta.6
OS X Yosemite 10.10.1

Select the file in Finder.
Press ⌘I to Get Info.
Set None to Other… in the Open With section of the inspector:

Enable All Applications, then find and choose TextMate.
Select Change All… to change the association for all .rel files.


How to prevent a thief from using my iPhone ever? What if my iPhone was stolen and I do not want anyone else to use it?

Is it enough for the thief to restore my iPhone with iTunes using recovery mode to use it as their own new iPhone?
Is there a way to prevent this?
What can I do to make my iPhone totally useless for the thief?

These Articles HT201472 and HT201365 from Apple clearly explain what you can do to in case your phone is lost or stolen.

To Answer all of your questions:

Yes there is a way to prevent anybody from using your phone. When the phone gets stolen you put your device in lost mode as explained in the articles above. No one will be able to re-use / re-active your phone without your Apple ID and password because of the Activation Lock that is enabled when you put the device in lost mode.

With Activation Lock, your Apple ID and password is required before anyone can:

Turn off Find My iPhone on your device
Erase your device
Reactivate and use your device

To put your device in lost mode:

From any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, log into the Find My iPhone app using your Apple ID. You don’t have to log in Find My iPhone from a device that you own (ie. it could be a friend’s device), but you must login using the same Apple ID/password as the device you are trying to put into Lost Mode.
Once logged in, Find My iPhone will show a map and a list of devices that are linked to your Apple ID. Tap on the device you have lost or that was stolen to select it.
Tap on the “Actions” button at the bottom of the screen, then tap on “Lost Mode.”
You will be asked to confirm you want to turn Lost Mode on. Tap on “Turn On Lost Mode…” to continue.
If the device you are trying to put in Lost Mode doesn’t have a passcode, Find My iPhone will require you to set one up on the spot. Type in a passcode and type the new passcode again to confirm. If you already have a passcode enabled on the device, then you can go straight to the next step.
You will now have the option of entering a phone number where you can be reached. This phone number will be displayed on the Lock screen of your device. Although optional, it is highly recommended you add your phone number so people can reach you if they find your device. Tap “Next” when done.
Finally, you can enter a message to display on the Lock screen along with your phone number. By default, the message is “This iPhone has been lost. Please call me.” but you can customize it the way you want. Tap “Done” in the upper right corner to activate Lost Mode.
If someone tries to plug your iPhone in iTunes to restore it, they won’t be able to and they will see the following message, asking them to first turn off Find My iPhone.


chown/chmod/chgrp on Users/____/Library without disabling SIP? I know how to disable and enable SIP, but is there an easier way to remove ACLs from a user's library?  I want to move and/or copy some things from my admin account to my regular account and SIP prevents even sudo from doing it.

Four shutdown/reboot cycles just for this is a nuisance.

First, of all you do not need 4 cycles. To enable SIP, you can enter the command below, then restart the Mac.

csrutil clear

You should get the message shown below.

Successfully cleared System Integrity Protection. Please restart the machine for the changes to take effect.

You can disable SIP on a single restart, if you install rEFInd. If properly installed, you can select rEFInd from the Mac Startup Manager. From the rEFInd menu, you can disable SIP and then boot to macOS.

So to summarize, you can enable or disable SIP though a single restart. So the total number of cycles can be reduced from 4 to a  total of 2.

As for coping files from one users account to another, I do know were SIP is involved. If one of the accounts has administrator privileges, then you can enter the command below to become the root user.

sudo bash

Once you are the root user, you can enter the necessary commands to copy files between accounts.

Personally, I do not employ the root user. I just use the Finder application. I move (or copy) the files to the Public folder of one account, then switch users and copy the files from the Public folder to the other account.


What's the `darwin` in Mac? In my Mac I execute the code:

import sys

print(sys.platform)

then get darwin, why it is not OSX. I don't know where to look for documentation on python sys module.

What's the darwin ?

"Darwin is an open-source Unix-like operating system first released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, Mach, and other free software projects.

Darwin forms the core set of components upon which macOS (previously OS X and Mac OS X), iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and iPadOS are based. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)


How can I disable Skitch's "Discard Skitch Note" dialog when quitting? I recently installed Skitch Version 2.8 (264391) and it keeps prompting me with an annoying popup window asking if I'm sure I want to "Discard Skitch Note" prior to quitting.

How can I disable this?

This prompt has to do with Skitch's ability to upload/sync screenshots to Evernote. Because you don't have this configured, it's asking if you're sure you want to quit without having done this synchronization.

To disable this behavior you can go under Skitch → Preferences and select the Sync tab and change the preferences so that Skitch will only do manual syncing to Evernote.

Before

After


How do I get out of iPhone's Safe Mode (jailbroken)? I just did something REALLY stupid. I was following the instructions on how to get into Safe Mode (on YouTube). The guy in the video says to first shut down my iPhone, then press and hold Volume up button first and then press and hold Power button to boot it up. Once the Apple logo appears, I continue to hold it for 5 seconds and yes, my iPhone booted into Safe Mode. The video also says if you want to get out of Safe Mode, just do a reset (Press and hold Power button + Home button) But it did not work, my phone is blank now, no icons, no Cydia, no Settings, no Messages, nothing at all, except for Newsstand.

Please help me, I don't know what to do :(

PS: iTunes didn't detect any problem (until when I'm trying to back up, it says an error occured).

Go back into Safe Mode by holding both power and home until you get the Apple logo, then immediately hold volume up.
Open Cydia and reinstall Cydia Substrate and Substrate Safe Mode.
Reboot.


What's the aperture/sensor size for the mid-2011 27" iMac FaceTime HD camera? I'm working on a project where I need to convert from pixels to mm and need to find the aperture or sensor size on the FaceTime HD Camera.  Specifically, I have the mid-2011 27" iMac.  I can't seem to find any detailed technical specifications on the newer FaceTime camera.  Anyone privy to these details?

tl;dr - As a starting off point, eyeballing it I'd estimate around ƒ/2.2 - ƒ/2.8 aperture.

This isn't an exact answer, I put the iPhone 7+ front camera (which has a ƒ/2.2 aperture and a 'focal length in 35mm' of 32mm) next to the 720p FaceTime HD camera on a macbook. Eyeballing it, the image on the mac seems to be the same or maybe ~5% smaller in FOV. So I estimate around ƒ/2.2 - ƒ/2.8 , maybe ƒ/2.4 in aperture.


Can the Early 2016 MacBook (not Pro) Drive Two Thunderbolt Displays? This question is NOT about how to connect two Thunderbolt displays — there are plenty of questions asked here about that, but whether or not the graphics chip in the Early 2016 MacBook 1.3 GHz Core m7 (M7-6Y75) has the power to drive two external displays (Apple Thunderbolt Display) at 2560 x 1440 resolution?

Here's the backstory. I have a MacBook Pro connected to two Thunderbolt displays. I am considering replacing it, but I love my dual Thunderbolt displays. I would like to replace it with the newest 2016 MacBook, but concerned it won't have enough power to drive the two displays.

I should have looked closer to the tech specs on the Apple website:

  Dual display and video mirroring: simultaneously supports full native
  resolution on the built-in display and up to 3840 by 2160 pixels at
  30Hz on an external display, both at millions of colors.

Based on this I can only run my built-in display and one external display, and only at 30Hz.


Anyway to obtain list of Application that can open a file via Terminal? In the finder you can control click on a document to get the contextual menu, this has 'open with..' with a submenu of all apps that can open that document. Is there a way to get this list via Terminal? Many thanks.

Open will consult the same database as finder to match a file type to potential apps. The name for this database is the Launch Serices Database and it's quite large and unwieldy if you dump it all.

 lsregister -dump | wc -l

I have 533,000 lines of text in my database, so you might need to narrow down what you're seeking rather than just consuming the entire fire hose of data about every possible file type and every possible application. If you don't have lsregister in your path, find it here and optionally make a sym link to it in /usr/local/bin

mdfind -name lsregister
ln -s $(mdfind -name lsregister) /usr/local/bin

But, if you want the whole enchilada - you can dump the database and dig into the glorious technical details.

Let's go two more steps down the rabbit path. Say you have a movie file on your desktop. You would use the metadata listing tool to dump all the attributes of that file (61 entries for one movie I have) and then you have to parse out the content type to match that up with the database dump from launch services.

mdls ~/Desktop/video.mov | wc -l

And to pick out just the one most specific content type (since a file has a tree of potential content types - you may have to consider them as well in your search - but since we're keeping this simple - let's assume the final type is what's matched for your case)

mdls ~/Desktop/video.mov | grep -w kMDItemContentType

So for me, that movie is categorized by spotlight indexing as a com.apple.quicktime-movie type file and in the launch services dump - one of the apps that claims to open that file is /Applications/QuickTime Player.app

Scripting this is going to be quite an exercise, but the data is there for you to examine and play with. Enjoy!

This other question has some awesome more detail and a tool called http://duti.org that might be the tool you seek. Even better, it's open source so you can see how it works.

Programmatically/Script-atically changing the default Open-With setting


Strange Freeze on My MacBook Pro 15.4" 2.0GHZ (A1150 / MA600LL) & No Sound After Boot I have a MacBook Pro 15" A1150 (MA600LL) that will not boot except in safe mode.  It gets almost all of the way through the boot then freezes with two vertical checkerboard lines and the trackpad-controlled pinwheel for a cursor.

Also, the chime works at the beginning, but after boot in ANY mode the sound preference pane says there is no sound output device.

What should I do?

Regards,

Don

Schedule an appointment with the genius bar and bring it to them. At the very least they'll be able to run you the diagnostic tools and tell you what the problem is.

My experience is these sorts of problems usually result in a pretty expensive repair bill, unless you happen to be still covered under apple care support.

Logic board probably has some sort of damage.


Get ambient light sensor value from ioreg I'm using the ioreg command line tool to try and read sensor information available on my computer (iMac).  Particularly, I'd like to read the current value of the ambient light sensor.  So far, I have been able to retrieve some general information regarding the sensor via ioreg -f -b -r -c 'AppleLMUController'. But the value is not there:

+-o AppleLMUController  <class AppleLMUController, id 0x1000002d8, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 7>
{
  "IOProbeScore" = 0
  "CFBundleIdentifier" = "com.apple.driver.AppleSMCLMU"
  "IOProviderClass" = "IOService"
  "IOClass" = "AppleLMUController"
  "IOMatchCategory" = "IODefaultMatchCategory"
  "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"0516B563-B15B-11DA-96EB-0014519758EF"="AppleSMCLMU.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AmbientLightSensorHID.plugin"}
  "IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
  "IONameMatch" = "ACPI0008"
  "IOPowerManagement" = {"MaxPowerState"=1,"CurrentPowerState"=1}
  "HIDServiceSupport" = Yes
  "IONameMatched" = "ACPI0008"
}

I know that there are tools that can use IOKit to access this value using C, ObjC, etc - but I explicitly would like to use a bash one-liner to try and grab the value.

Has anyone been able to successfully do this via the command line and if so, how?

Read the current setting

  defaults read com.apple.BezelServices dAuto

Write

  defaults write com.apple.BezelServices dAuto -boolean true/false


How do I clean a 13” mid-2012 MacBook Pro motherboard My brother-in-law spilt coffee on his 13” mid-2012 Macbook Pro just before XMAS. He shutdown the Macbook Pro and a few days later removed the HD. He bought a new Macbook Pro for XMAS and the old HD works fine in an external case.

Last weekend he gave me his old MacBook Pro. What I would like is to give the motherboard and other components a clean to see if I can get this working. But I have no idea what to use and how to clean it?

Can someone share how I would go about this and what I would use to clean it?

Test it first!!

Okay, this may seem strange (and many would disagree with me) but based on your question it sounds like the MBP was immediately shutdown after the spill and hasn’t been used at all since for about five months. If that’s the case there’s a very real chance the MBP will be fine if there wasn’t too much coffee penetration and the spill wasn’t near the worst possible areas (you don’t say where the spill was, or how much of it there was). But, being human, I assume the first thing your brother-in-law did (besides shutting it down) was to remove the MBP from the coffee spill and soaking up any obvious external signs of coffee with paper towels. This may be wishful thinking on my behalf, but I figure if he had the sound mind to shut it down, unplug it, and not restart it again (plus the knowledge required to remove the hard drive), that he had some idea of what he was doing.

I guess what I’m saying is, if it was me I would connect it up to a bootable drive (you can just do this via USB) and power it up. You’ll know soon enough if it’s going to work. If so you’ve saved yourself a bit of effort without the risk associated with cleaning a logic board (i.e. motherboard) etc. If it doesn’t work, your chances drop significantly, but not totally. So below is how I’d proceed to clean the logic board/components.

WARNING!!!

Before you begin ensure the MBP is not connected to an AC power supply.

Removing the bottom cover

The bottom cover has 10 screws. To remove these you will need a Phillips #00 screwdriver. While you may get away with another method to remove them, don’t do this as you may thread/damage the screws in the process!

Also, I strongly suggest as you remove each screw you place them on a towel or similar material so they don’t move/roll away, and that you do this in the pattern that you removed them. This is because these 10 screws are not actually all the same - three of the rear ones are about 3x longer than the others, and the four front ones are shouldered screws - so make sure you don’t get them mixed up!

Recommended:  I strongly recommend you follow the first four steps of this iFixit guide - it shows you how to remove the cover and how to also remove the battery connector from its socket on the logic board.

If for whatever reason you don’t feel comfortable removing the battery connector, you can try to ensure the battery has no charge in it!! When you’re satisfied this is the case, press the Power Button for a while (say 15 or so seconds) and then let the MBP sit there for at least 20 minutes before doing anything else. It’s a good chance to grab a coffee - just make sure you don’t drink it anywhere near the MBP! :)

Tip: It’s also good to use a magnetic screwdriver to remove the screws (just so you don’t drop them on the floor - most are too small to find easily).

Once the cover and battery connector are removed, proceed below.

Cleaning dust and other dry substances

Anything dry, be it dust, the remains of an old insect, etc, should be removed by gently brushing it off with a totally clean brush. You can actually use a small clean paint brush (preferably an artist’s paint brush) or even a toothbrush - just remember to be gentle and not to use anything that’s wet or dirty!

In some cases the brush is just loosening these substances and if you can’t whisk them away with the brush, you can use a can of compressed air to gently blow them away.

Notes re: using a can of compressed air - Make sure you do not shake the can or spray it upside down. Before spraying anywhere near your logic board, spray the can elsewhere first to get used to controlling the air pressure.  When you do use it, try your best not to spray it at an angle.

Cleaning grime etc

In this case we know you’ll also need to clean a type of grime (after all, dried coffee is going to be somewhat sticky originally especially if it also had sugar and/or milk in it). Regardless, the process is largely the same for anything that’s a grimy sort of mixture, be it coffee, coke, juice, etc.

Because the inside of a MBP is extremely precise and everything fits in perfectly, even dust can have a hard time getting in there (quite unlike many desktops!). Obviously, cooling fans may collect dust etc, but I would give the logic board a really good looking over because the coffee spill may be limited to only a small portion of the interior, in which case you can limit the cleaning only to the affected area!

If you find that there’s coffee on any of the removable components, then remove those components (e.g. this MBP has two memory slots, so remove any RAM modules). If the RAM modules look like they’ve been affected by the coffee, then you can clean them separately later. Note: If you do remove any components, make a note of where you removed them from. Also take a photo beforehand!

Now, I’ve seen a lot of different cleaning solutions used over the years to clean the insides of a computer, ranging from household detergents that do not contain phosphates to methylated spirits (once I saw it done with a paint thinner). However, my strong recommendation and the only liquid I ever use inside a computer is a rubbing alcohol (such as Isopropyl Alcohol). You can buy different grades of purity, but I prefer 100% Isopropyl Alcohol (or close to it). You should be able to buy this from a good electronics store or hardware store. Otherwise if you get stuck, check your local supermarket for what grade of Isopropyl Alcohol they sell. Even if you can’t get close to 100%, a lower grade of Isopropyl Alcohol is preferable to most other cleaners.

My personal preferences is to pour a little of it onto a lint free cloth or terry-cloth towel or lens cleaning cloth. If you haven’t got one of these, buy yourself a lint free or terry cloth - it will come in handy many times over. If you get really stuck, you can use coffee filters. Either way, use one of these to clean anywhere on the logic board that has signs of coffee on it.

Now, if you did have to remove any RAM modules because they showed signs of coffee, then start by using compressed air (remember my tips above on using these cans) to blow them clean, especially around the contacts. Now also do the same where the slots are on the logic board. Assuming you did get your hands on some strong Isopropyl Alcohol (say 95% +), use this to dampen the RAM module contacts and then insert the RAM in and out of the slots a few times before proceeding to clean the contacts.

Once you’re done, the Isopropyl Alcohol shouldn’t take long to dry - but just to be safe you may want to let things sit a while before putting it all back together.

Testing it

Once you’re satisfied everything is dry and put back together properly, try powering it up. If you have no joy, take note of any audible cues you get (e.g. startup tones) or whether there’s any sign of it powering up at all.

If you do get audible cues and/or hear signs of it powering up, then there’s things you can try (such as resetting the SMC, resetting the NVRAM, running Apple Hardware Test, alternating memory modules, replacing certain components, etc), but I’ll leave that for another question if it gets to that point.
If you get absolutely no signs of power you could decide to remove the logic board altogether and inspect it for other areas requiring cleaning. You can view this iFixit Guide to do so, but keep in mind that this is much more involved then the process above.

Notes

If you decide to insert a replacement drive, you can follow this iFixit procedure for replacing the drive.
Remember to keep a track of which screws go where!


Inbound video streaming over lightning port accessory I am exploring the feasibility of building an accessory (through MFI) that will feed streaming video that will be rendered by an app resident on the host device.

Looking at some similar products (for example EyeTV Mobile accessory by Elgato -- which is also MFI approved), I can see users reporting that the device does not work for iOS > 9. This is reportedly due to:

  "[...] latest iOS versions may deactivate Lightning devices depending
  on their use of electricity - this may affect the use of EyeTV Mobile
  despite its MFI certification"

...which looks odd - if anything this would cause termination of the stream due to inactivity rather than causing the app not to work.

Is there any reason why inbound video streaming over the lightning port would not be feasible using the latest iOS releases (11, 12)?

No, there's no such reason. The problem with the EyeTV Mobile has nothing to with the fact that it is streaming video as such. It simply means that limits are applied as to how much electrical power the accessory can consume (i.e. a limit on the numbers of mA that it can draw).


Disk format for HDD with both APFS and HFS+ volumes For a HDD which will have both HFS+ and APFS volumes, is it better to format the disk itself in Disk Utility (on High Sierra) as APFS or HFS+?

I have done this by starting with a whole disk APFS partition, I believe.  I gave the whole disk to APFS, and then I followed the directions in this article to shrink the APFS partition:

https://www.macobserver.com/tips/deep-dive/resize-your-apfs-container/

This freed up unused space on the disk, which I think I was able to assign to a new partition in HFS+ format using Disk Utility.  I needed to do this because I wanted to have a ZFS partition on the same disk with an APFS boot partition, and ZFS doesn't really interface with APFS (ZFS can replace an HFS+ partition, though).


Slow Mac mini (mid 2011) no hardware issues, no software issues Mac Mini mid 2011 (5,1) 2.3 GHz i5, 2 GB ram running 10.12.1 with 149/500 GB free.

In application monitor everything (memory, disk, network, cpu usage) is nominal.

Disk check (Cmd+R at boot) - Passed

Hardware test (opt+D at boot) - Passed.

On boot the screen goes white after 45 seconds (half of the boot loading bar) and the dock shows up after about 5 minutes. The top bar take lot longer.

Safe mode - still slow as molasses. 78 seconds to launch a new Finder window. Over 5 minutes for System Preferences. Over 5 more to launch any of said preferences (if they don't fail to open)

Already reset the SMC and PRAM. Turned off all spotlight indexing though that wouldn't affect safe mode. Nothing plugged in besides a keyboard, mouse, monitor and Ethernet cable. Tried single sticking each RAM module. Really banging my head against the wall here. Even ssh'ing in from another machine on the network is a drag. 'ls' of a directory with 12 files takes 4 seconds.

Oh and Console keeps crashing. Because of course.

Could anyone recommend a next step?

EDIT: output of vm_stat after a fresh boot into safe mode

Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 4096 bytes)
Pages free:                                3827.
Pages active:                            103786.
Pages inactive:                          100841.
Pages speculative:                         3730.
Pages throttled:                              0.
Pages wired down:                        118363.
Pages purgeable:                              0.
"Translation faults":                   4213483.
Pages copy-on-write:                    1353750.
Pages zero filled:                       779909.
Pages reactivated:                       566180.
Pages purged:                              9028.
File-backed pages:                        69729.
Anonymous pages:                         138628.
Pages stored in compressor:              526296.
Pages occupied by compressor:            193246.
Decompressions:                          310835.
Compressions:                           1264824.
Pageins:                                 837784.
Pageouts:                                  1602.
Swapins:                                   2409.
Swapouts:                                  3813.

It sounds like a lot of the speed problems you're having comes from running newer software, macOS 10.12, that usually requires more system resources on a computer that has insufficient RAM (2 GB just does not cut it practically) and a slower HDD. However I don't think that would normally cause quite the amount of speed reduction as you have reported.

Nevertheless, for a quick speed boost, I would definitely recommend upgrading to 8 GB of RAM. Apple has information on how to upgrade, just make sure that the RAM you get is compatible with Apple's specifications. For example an 8 GB RAM kit from Crucial should work.

Additionally, I do know that HDDs can be a speed bottle neck, especially as they get more full and are older. You can upgrade to an SSD (here's a guide by Crucial), however that is a far more complicated process, and you will also need to transfer all your software from the old HDD.

But your speeds are very slow, so there is probably some software problem. You can try to diagnose that by going to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items and see if you have programs loading at boot. Also if you can check Activity Monitor, that may show if something is using a lot of your CPU. In the end, you may need to do a backup, wipe your hard drive, reinstall macOS or an older version of OS X, and transfer your documents and settings.


How do I delete a phone number from iMessage or facetime on ipod 4th gen? My son has an iPod touch 4th gen. My mother in-law has a new iPhone. He logged into his iTunes account with his grandmother's phone so he could download a song for her. After that, she began receiving his facetime messages. I removed his email address from her iPhone and that stopped. But now, her phone number is displayed in his settings/message and setting/facetime under send & receive/you can be reached at. How do I delete her number?

Using the device attached to the phone number, make sure you're not on wifi and that you are using the network to which your number is registered. Turn off iMessage in the messages settings. That should do it.


Google Street View not working on the new iPad (3rd generation iPad) Trying to use the Google Street View in Safari is crashing in the new iPad. Here's a link for reference: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/mobile/gallery.html#!/id=258

The same thing works fine in iPad 2. Has anyone faced similar problems? Is there something I can do to fix this issue?

No need to bother Safari for this. Just use the "Maps"-app for it!
Open the app, navigate to your address and tap on the red pin.

To activate Street View, toggle the little red guy.


Is this app doing nasty things if an unrelated calendar certificate won't verify? I recently downloaded and used Stamp to import my Spotify playlists into Apple Music.  The app instructs me to favorite an iTunes track and press "OK", in order to give the app access to an iTunes cookie.  During this process, a notification popped up saying osascript wanted my password, which I then gave it.  Soon afterward, my calendar was unable to verify the certificate of one of its accounts, making me wonder if my Mac had been compromised.

Can I verify whether this app has compromised my Mac?

At first glance, the app seems well enough reputable that it's not malicious, but I would send a support request to the vendor to ask how the password was stored/transmitted and if your version of the app is the latest.

Also, you don't explain which specific password was asked for? Perhaps you could edit the post to show that dialog (is it the normal asking for admin permissions - if so, that's an OS request and your password is safe on the Mac and the Mac is only as safe as the changes that were made on your behalf). If you went and changed that password, in almost all cases, you're closed the chance that you are vulnerable going forward assuming they don't harvest email and try that password on other accounts they have the potential to identify.

You could also use the Keychain Access -> Certificate Assistant to verify several certificates you know to be good so that you are comfortable that your keychain is intact. Having something show bad (false positive) is far less worrying than having a bad cert show good. Lots of things can have the former happen and that doesn't really put much at risk when communications are stopped due to a security check.


Accidentally overwrote /usr/local/include, what's the damage? I ran this command accidentally when I was trying to give Homebrew access to write some symlinks:

sudo install -d -o $(whoami) -g admin /usr/local/include

and I realized by the -d flag would create a new include directory.

Now the /usr/local/include directory is empty and I can't seem to find any obvious damage done to my system.

Could someone please tell me what usually is in /usr/local/include and what I should do to rebuild its content?

In base MacOS /usr/local is empty so /usr/local/include just contains what you  have installed.

So either

The best way restore from a backup
Delete /usr/local/* and reinstall Homebrew and any other files you have installed there.


How to make NumLock/numpad cursor keys work on an external USB keyboard? I have a Genius USB "partial" keyboard - a numpad like this one.
It types digits and +-/*, but doesn't switch to cursor mode with NumLock off, and Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys were the reason I purchased it.
How do I make Home/End/other cursor keys work?

Sometimes USB keyboards don't work if Mouse Keys in Mouse Settings is on. Mine is off.
Sometimes hitting Clear key on the keyboard helps. I don't have it.
Ukelele doesn't have the numpad keys to edit.
Karabiner (ex KeyRemap4MacBook) doesn't have a ready feature for this.

The solution according to this answer seems to be Karabiner. Though, it looks pretty advanced and I didn't find it in half an hour.

OS X does not understand 'Num lock'. There's no on-off state for Num lock in OS X and as such can be thought to be always on.

The Num lock button itself on a Windows keyboard is interpreted as Clear in OS X. You are able to bind this to actions in Keyboard Maestro, but a 'state switch' would essentially require saving a variable in Keyboard Maestro to be checked when a button is pressed, then intercepting the action and providing its own key press.


On Snow Leopard, the default unzip tool won't ask for password but just report it can't unzip? Yesterday, I zipped up something using 7-zip on the PC, using a password for the zip file.  So if I copy the file to another PC and unzip, it asks for the password and restore the file.  However, if I copy the file to a Mac with Snow Leopard and double click on that file, it will simply say, can't unzip the file.  (Archive Utility was the app).

For me, since I know UNIX, I tried to open up Terminal and typed in

unzip foo.zip

and it actually asked for the password and unzipped for me, but I just wonder, what about if I don't use Terminal, or for people who are not familiar with the command line, how can it be done?

I don't think the built-in decompression utility can unzip password protected files.  However, The Unarchiver is the way to go for all things compression related on OS X anyway.


Macbook Pro 13-inch stuck at Gray screen with apple logo and wheel I have a 13 inch Macbook Pro, early 2011 with its original OS.
I came to a point where its battery needs to be replaced, and I can't use it without using its charger/adapter. One time, I  accidentally  pulled out the charger and it turned off. It was not my first time so I just didn't worry. But when I plugged it back and turned on the laptop, it just got stuck at the gray screen with the Apple logo, the wheel, and a loading bar. At first I thought I should just wait, but later I realized it's still stuck for almost an hour!

I tried to Google and I read that something is corrupt.

I don't really have too important files, so it's okay if I would need to reinstall the OS. Or do I need to change the laptop's hard drive?

Well, seeing as the laptop is at least attempting to boot from the hard drive, I'd say that your hard drive is fine.

My recommendation is that you reinstall Mac OS X. An early 2011 MacBook Pro would've come with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, so you should have had some DVDs come with the MacBook Pro when you bought it. Use those to re-install Mac OS X 10.6.


iTunes 12.1 - Stuttering when playing music I've just upgraded to the latest version of iTunes (12.1) for Windows -- the first proper 64-bit edition of the software for Windows -- and now all my music has stutters, pops and clicks when playing music.

I have an extremely well-specced machine.

Intel Core i7
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
16GB RAM
Windows 8.1 64-bit

Latest drivers. I even ensured I reset my machine after the installation. It happens with all music files, from MP3 to AAC.

What's going on? Every other music player on my system plays the same files perfectly fine.

Many iTunes for Windows users had the same problem with the recent upgrade, myself included. To fix the problem (it worked for me), download and install the iTunes 12.1 for Windows that is supposed to be for older video cards. But don't let that last part fool you. I have a card less than 12 months old and this solution worked wonderfully. Here is the link to the download from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1784?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US.


How to restore calendar events from iCloud? We use a common iCloud Account. One of the users has deleted this account from her iPhone and this has caused all the shared events disappear across the iCloud account.
How can we restore this Events?

The only way is to have external backups.


iOS app submission - access to username/password Caveat - I am not the iOS developer but have been asked to research
  this

We submit our native iOS financial app to the Apple store for review and the person who previously managed the submission process insisted we had to provide Apple with a username and password to be able to login to our app to review the pages

The process to create and provide Apple with a username/password is very time consuming and alerts our security teams as our app holds sensitive data about people

Is it the case that Apple requires to be able to login to review? If so, how do people with financial/banking apps manage this? We cannot really create dummy users as this will skew our stats and as mentioned before, our security team do not like it

Many thanks

App Store Review Guidelines necessitates this. You will be rejected if the app requires login and you do not provide credentials.

Before you submit:

Provide an active demo account and login information, plus any other hardware or resources that might be needed to review your app (e.g. login credentials or a sample QR code).

2.1 App Completeness
… Make sure your app has been tested on-device for bugs and stability before you submit it, and include demo account info (and turn on your back-end service!) if your app includes a login. …

Also, how does your security team ensure that your first two users won’t see each other’s data? If adding a third account for Apple breaks your security, you’ve got your research can be concluded with the answer: the back end team is not ready to ship.


windows like (context menu) unzipper in mac? Is there an app that acts like windows-based unzipper?

I don't want my unarchiver unzip when I click a zipped file. I rather want to right click then click 'unzip' or something similar.

Update: I think people are getting confused. I know that I can unzip a file simply by double clicking it. I DON'T WANT THAT. I like to have a context menu like windows application. Is this possible?

Unarchiving is built into OS X. All you have to do to unarchive a file is to open it. You can do that by double clicking, pressing cmd+o (between i and p), or by right-clicking and choosing Open.

So, just right-click on the file and select Open to unarchive. Ta-da, no extra software required.


Ideal iMac For programming (and some photoshop) I am going to get a 21.5" iMac. It will primarily be used for Android, iOS, and web development, but may occasionally be used for some photoshop. Any other uses I have for it will be insignificant (such as web browsing or email)

Between the two 21.5" models on http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/imac, considering my primary uses for it

Would I likely notice any performance differences?
Should I expect the higher model to last me much longer than the lower model?
Will the lower graphics affect my ability to use Photoshop efficiently?

Basically every iMac shipping today has plenty of power to handle your developing and photo-editing needs. When it comes to lifespan, there is virtually little to no difference. Finally, unless you're working with intense 3D graphics, you should be absolutely fine with the base model.


Hotkey to show hidden files and folders in File Open dialog? This question is very similar to Is it possible to always show hidden/dotfiles in Open/Save dialogs?. How to show hidden files and folders in finder? is also related. However, I don't want to always show them, and that's what defaults write ... AppleShowAllFiles ... does.

Rather, I want to switch it on when needed. I'm trying to open .bash_profile, so I need it now:

Linux and Gnome allow us to CTRL+H to toggle between showing and hiding hidden files. But Gnome hotkeys don't work on OS X (which is expected).

For completeness, .bash_profile does exist in the home directory:

$ ls ~/.bash_profile
/Users/jww/.bash_profile

A related question... As can be seen above, typing the filename in Finder (or is it Spotlight) search did not work. I tried to right click to get a context menu in the File Open dialog in hopes of checking a box like "show all files". And I tried the View menu looking for a "show all files" with the File Open dialog open.

Why is this hidden away somewhere? What purpose does it serve to not allow a user to easily open a file?

⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+. reveals hidden files in Finder and Open/Save dialogs.

If you are using an AZERTY keyboard, you'll need to press fn too, so ⇧ SHIFT is taken into consideration as you already need it to make the ..

You can also press ⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+G and type the path to the hidden folder, just like in Terminal (⇥ TAB autocompletion also works).

Editing hidden files can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.


Installing Windows 7 without a SuperDrive in Boot Camp on 2010 MBP Just switched out my SuperDrive for an SSD on my 2010 MacBook Pro and am running into whale of a time trying to get Windows 7 installed onto the SSD for Boot Camp. Initially tried installing via an external DVD drive connected over USB, but that wouldn't let me boot into Windows 7 setup. Tried setting up a Windows 7 USB stick, and that wouldn't boot either.

I then tried following along here with the basic procedure of tricking VirtualBox into installing Windows 7 to your drive and going from there, but that created a non-bootable Windows partition.

There must be some way to get Windows 7 up and running WITHOUT having to reinstall the SuperDrive. Anyone have any success doing this?

BTW, I'm running 10.7.2, which means rEFIt is out, as it isn't Lion compatible.

Only way I was able to was by reinstalling the super drive I spent more time looking for a work around then the time it took to move the ssd to the hard drive location and reinstalling the super drive.

Sorry.


Small XCode Bug where No Output is Shown I've recently begun to learn how to program in C, and have been using the application XCode (ver 7.2) to do so. For the most part, it's been working very well, but I've recently come across a problem:

Whenever I run the main.c file, a popup showing me that the "Build Succeeded," but there is no output shown in the console. Even worse, when I activate the console and run it, the console just goes hides and does not show any output... I've tried looking, but it doesn't seem like this issue is too common... Any help is greatly appreciated.

In the top bar:
view->debug area->activate console


Can't find/run `configure` script on mac os 10.8 I'm trying to install a program called CSIM (neural micro circuit simulator) and one of the steps is as follows:

  Step 2. Run:
  configure; make; for Linux/Unix(/Mac OS)

But I can't run, not even find, the configure script.
I've already installed Xcode and command line tools.

Can anybody help me?

That's the typical sequence of build steps for many cross-platform Open Source projects.

The configure command should be part of your downloaded package, so assuming your package is called CsimOSS you should

open up your Terminal
change to the CsimOSS folder (e.g. cd + dropping the folder into the Terminal window)
enter ./configure

The ./ in front of configure tells the shell to look for the command in the current directory (which is usually not in the standard search PATHs for security reasons).


Macbook Pro late 2011 version won´t boot up Hi guys I have been searching the forum and haven´t seen a solution to my problem therefore i will start by explaining what happened. Last night all of a sudden my mac froze, the mouse would move but i couldnt work minimise or close any programme. Neither could i turn it off or restart it. Therefore I decided to press and hold the power button. There after my macbook won't turn on all I see is the grey screen with the apple logo with a little fan like thing spinning at the bottom. I tried entering in recovery mode and verify the Hard drive on disc utility i get the following message:
Invalid content in journal
Invalid record count
The volume could not be verified completely.
Error: The disk needs to be repaired. Click repair Disk.

So I clicked on repair disk and I get the following message:
Invalid content in journal
Invalid record cound
The volume could not be verified completely.
Invalid content in journal
Error: Disk Utility can´t repair this disk...disk, and restore your backed-up files

Also a pop up box with the following:
Disk utility cant repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed up files.

As a note I see on disc utility when my internal HD is selected:
Mount Point: Not mounted
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

I have very important documents and other stuff which I havent had a chance to back up yet so it is important for me to recover these.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks.

If you want to recover some data from you hard drive, I think that the best option is to start your Mac with CMD + R.
You'll need an external Hard Drive. From Utility choose "Disk Utility" and format the extenal HD in Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) with GUID Partition option.
After that, quit Disk Utility and Choose "Restore Mac OS X" from the main menu.
Complete the installation on the external HD and boot your Mac while pressing Option key.
Choose the External HD, and it will boot up with the new system where you can try to access to your data from Macintosh HD.

Otherwise unplug your internal HD and connect to your computer with a SATA-USB adapter.


Is it possible to view the CPU/GPU temperatures **from the command line**? When this question was asked in 2012, specifically mentioning the "command line" requirement, an answer suggested Temperature Monitor (a "legacy" product). Running all three, Temperature Monitor along with smcFanControl and iStat Menu, side-by-side shows the problem. I don't want this level of perpetual distraction.

I suspect the following answer: It is not possible to see the CPU&GPU temperatures from the command line. I suspect this because both iStat and Temperature Monitor install additional drivers. If that's the case, it would be nice to record that answer.

smcFanControl and iStat Menu are nice utilities to make you keep an eye on the temperature of your CPU. The former shows only the CPU temperature, and both are too distracting (the latter's precursor, iStat Nano, could sit silently in the Dashboard until one needed it, plus iStat Menu seems rather sticky: I haven't figured out how to delete it yet—just removing the program from /Applications is insufficient.)

It was nice to find that ioreg
will reveal the Maximum Capacity of a battery (in contrast to the static Design Capacity, the Maximum Capacity signals the health of the battery). Using a program (such as CoconutBattery) is not necessary.

A script (still using ioreg) will reveal the battery temperature

  AppleSmartBattery Temperature:
  30 °C
  62.0 °F

and so I'm hoping for a renewed answer in 2017 to the following question.

How can I view the CPU temperature from the command line? It would especially be nice to also see the GPU temperature. OS X just crashed and rebooted on its own, and the Console logs ("Event: GPU Reset" and "GPU HangState 0x00000000") suggest that the GPU might be the culprit. I'm trying to determine if it's time to reapply the thermal paste and reattach the heatsinks (never done this before; not even sure it's within my ability).

It looks like a suitable solution might be in one of the less-voted answers on the question you linked:

  This open source command line utility worked for me:
  https://github.com/lavoiesl/osx-cpu-temp.

  M. Lavoie is using code Apple released a while back: Apple System
  Management Control (SMC) Tool Copyright (C) 2006 but it works fine on
  my 2011 Mini.

If smcFanControl is functional for you, but you dislike the display format, then perhaps this little C program is a better fit for your use case.


My Macbook's headphone jack stopped working, how do I fix it? my headphone jack output stopped working a couple days ago. As in - when I jack a cable (or headphones) the sound comes via the built-in speakers.

On the installed Windows (Bootcamp) it works OK (sound coming out via headphones when jacked in).

Any ideas how I can troubleshoot this?

The OS is Lion, freshly updated (update after the problem first appeared).

(posted as an answer so you can accept it and mark this issue resolved)

Have you checked the Sound pref pane in System Preferences? There's a tab labeled "Output" where (I'd expect, as I don't have a portable in front of me just now) you can switch output between built-in speakers and the headphone jack. If the first toggle doesn't work, toggle it again.


Can the playlists and ratings be recovered from iOS devices when an iTunes library is lost? I recently had to do a complete reinstall of my C: drive due to a catastrophic hardware failure. Unfortunately, the iTunes database and play lists and play counts were lost with no backup.

Fortunately, my iTunes media files were on D:, so I can re-import those songs and movies, but my playlists and other sync settings were lost.

Both my iPad and iPhone still have their synced playlists, but if I try to resync them - iTunes wants to erase them. I want to keep the the ratings and play count of 4000+ songs. My ratings and play counts feed into smart playlists to determine what goes into the limited space on my mobile devices.

Is there a way to get iTunes to read and/or respect/not erase the ratings and play count from a device it has yet to sync to?

What's the least amount of work I can do to recover this data from my iOS devices?

On Windows I used SharePod for this some years ago

SharePod is easy to use and works! Heres some of the main features:

Add & remove music and videos from your iPod
Add, remove and edit playlists
Add & remove album art
View and backup photos
Copy music, videos and playlists from your iPod to PC
Import music/videos into your iTunes library, including playlists and ratings
Tag editing
Drag n' drop to and from Explorer
Simple, clean interface
Quick to load and use with no unnessary complicated features
Support for iPhone and iTouch

And whats more, SharePod is completely free! SharePod was designed from the start to be lightweight, quick and responsive, it has all (well hopefully most...!) of the features you need and none of the features you dont.


How can I disable Mac OS Lion asking if I really want to open a downloaded file? I already tried this:

cd ~/Downloads
find . -print0 | xargs -0 xattr -d com.apple.quarantine

But it doesn't seem to work under Mac OS X 10.7 (aka. Lion) anymore:

xattr: ./cabin/Cabin-Bold.otf: No such xattr: com.apple.quarantine

I haven't tested this under Lion but

defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO

and then restarting should totally disable this functionality.


Searching Gmail from Mail.app doesn't work The search in iPhone's Mail.app doesn't find anything. The same problem exists on OS X.

When I search a word I usually get no results. It only works if the word is included in a recent email, let's say 1 or 2 weeks old.

Also, there is an option called "Search on the server". It never worked in the last 2 years.

Why is my search broken when using an Apple client to search Gmail?

The most likely suspect for this behavior would be in how you have mail settings configured. The mail account will only search as many messages as you tell it to pull down from the server. Go to settings, and then select "Mail, Contacts, Calendars."Scrolling down will reveal the different settings that you can configure for mail. One of them will be an option to let you change the number of emails that are pulled from your server. If you get a large number of emails, but the settings are only configured to store the most recent 100, then it would be reasonable to expect search to find only those items from the last couple of days. Depending on how far back you think that you will need to go on a regular basis, the number of emails that you will want to hold onto will vary greatly. So, you can easily adjust the number of emails that will be kept and will be able to be searched, but it will be up to you to determine this based on what you think your needs will be.


How to view Terminal keybindings in macOS? How can I view a complete list of keybindings in macOS for the Terminal app?

E.g. Cmd+T to open a new Terminal tab.

I can only find incomplete tutorials on the web, but I'd like to know where to find this information on the system itself.

To see which key combinations are supported in Terminal, look through the menus or open the help page from the help menu.

A utility I find quite useful is CheatSheet which lists all key combinations currently available if you press and hold Command key for a few seconds.


How to use an Apple ID when using hdesetup? In setting up FileVault in System Preferences>Security & Privacy, there is an option to use your Apple ID as a method to de-crypt the HD, once its been encrypted. The command-line equivalent is fdesetup, and on consulting its man page, I could not see the equivalent in its switches/options. Maybe I'm not quite understanding the implications of the terminology used in the man page, but I could not see how to do it. Does anyone know if specifying Apple ID decryption can be done via fdesetup?

fdesetup doesn't support that feature. You can use other options such as creating or rotating a personal and/or institutional recovery keys but you can't store your recovery key with Apple using the command line.


How can I upgrade my 10.7.5 mac to a newer version when it can't even read the disk image InstallMacOSX? I have a 2006 Mac Pro (MacPro 1,1) with 4GB RAM running OS X Lion (10.7.5)

I've been using this link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210717,  to try and upgrade my computer. I've successfully downloaded the file (InstallMacOSX.dmg) from step 4, but whenever I try to open the file to install it onto my computer, my computer tells me that it can't read it due to it not being recognizable.

I've tried using disk utility to open it via Image>Verify, but it still didn't open it for the same reason. What can I do?

Your Mac is not compatible.

The Mac Pro 1,1 was released in 2006.  Yosemite requires the Mac Pro 3,1 (2008) or later.  Unfortunately, you are at the latest version of OS X that your Mac will support.  See EveryMac.com for full details:

  This system can run the last version of OS X 10.7 "Lion" if upgraded to at least 2 GB of RAM. However, although it has a 64-bit processor, it has a 32-bit EFI and cannot boot in 64-bit mode. It also does not support "OpenCL" running the default video card or the other build-to-order video cards that were offered via custom configuration. Please also note that OS X Lion is not capable of running Mac OS X apps originally written for the PowerPC processor as it does not support the "Rosetta" environment.


Where does Mac OS X store the ssh passwords? Some time ago Sourceforge forced everybody to change the Passwords. A real pain since I use a lot of automated scripts.

One of them uses ssh connection to upload the newest passwords. This one is not asking for the password for every operation. And there are quite a few of them: Start Session, copy files, close session.

Now my guess it that the system is trying to log in with the old password and is not storing the new one after I enter is. Correct me if I am wrong.

Now could anybody tell me where in the key chain Mac OS X is storing the passwords.

And yes, I have a public key set up as well. That is what I used when I was still using Linux. But that does not work either.

Mac OS X doesn't store passwords for the command-line ssh client. It can however remember the password to your private key in the Keychain if you are authenticating via keys.


Cannot find serial device I'm trying to connect to a development board using a serial-USB adapter, and can't find the serial port on my Mac.

I tried ls /dev/tty.* and ls /dev/cu.*, and nothing relevant shows up on my Mac. I tried on a friends Mac and it does show up!

This must be because I had installed VCP / FTDI drivers in the past on my Mac (can't remember which, but there were a few), which must be interfering. I tried deleting the serial drivers .kext files in /System/Library/Extensions/ and restarting, but that didn't work. I also tried reinstalling these drivers and restarting, but that didn't work. I've tried 3 other driver sources and that also didn't work.

Also, the device doesn't show up in setting > Network. Running Mac OS Mojave on both PCs.

Help would be much appreciated!

You can open System Report and check under USB to see if your USB device was found and initialized.

In terms of device files, you'll want to search for tty* and cu* - do not include the dot.

An easy way to spot the correct device is to run first:

find /dev > list1

then plug in the serial-USB adapter, and run:

find /dev > list2

and then finally:

diff list1 list

then the name of the new device for the serial-USB adapter should be shown.