See all my photos on my iphone without having the files on there I have an imac at home and it has all of my photos on it. As it stands I also have these photos sitting on my iphone as well. My iphone has limited storage so I wanted to know if there was a way to do the following:

Have all my photos physically stored on my imac
Have all these photos backed up to icloud
Have all my imac photos viewable in my photos app on my iphone - but without these photos taking up physical storage space on my iphone (as it's only 16gb).

Is this possible?! It seems that is what photo stream might be on the iphone but I'm not sure, apple doesn't make it very clear.

If it doesn't work there is always the google phptos app which does exactly what I need but i would rather keep it apple if possible for consistency. Thank you.

Apple's designated cloud photos solution is iCloud Photo Library using the Photos app on iOS and OS X. It stores and syncs your photos and videos in iCloud with one or multiple devices. It sounds like this should satisfy your requirements quite well (see the note below on iPhone storage).

Requirements:

iOS 8.3 or later on your iPhone
10.10.3 (Yosemite ) or later on your Mac
Sufficient iCloud storage to hold your entire photo library

Things to Note:

iCloud Photo Library is not the same as Photo Stream. (What Photo Stream does exactly, is indeed not very clear. I would recommend just ignoring it or turning it off completely after you setup iCloud Photo Library.)
iCloud Photo Library syncs both ways. Photos you take on your iPhone will also appear on your Mac (and all other devices that use it). Edits to photos are also synced.
For each device you can choose whether to download the entire library or whether to optimize the device storage. On the devices where you choose the latter (your iPhone in this case), iCloud Photo Library will still take up some space. The space is managed internally and optimized for your device. It might keep things like thumbnails, favorite photos, photos you frequently or most recently accessed etc. Other photos are downloaded on demand. But the space used should be significantly less than keeping the entire library on the phone. Depending on how hard your "no space" requirement is, this might be a deal-breaker for you. I suggest you just try it out.

Setup iCloud Photo Library:

(Just to be safe, you might want to backup your photo library before proceeding.)

Make sure you are signed in to the same iCloud account on both your iPhone and Mac.
On your iPhone: Go to Settings > iCloud > Photos, then turn on iCloud Photo Library.
In the same menu choose Optimize iPhone Storage.
On your Mac: Open Photos (not iPhoto).
Open the app's preferences (menu Photos > Preferences...) and under the iCloud tab select iCloud Photo Library.
In the same menu choose Download Originals to this Mac. This will keep your entire photo library on that Mac.

Import your photos into Photos:

This step depends on your current setup. If you currently use iPhoto on your Mac, the photo library should migrate automatically. In general though, you can just drag and drop all of your photos and videos into Photos on your Mac.

Finally, let iCloud Photo Library upload and sync the library. This might take a while.


Big Sur confirm alert button keyboard shortcut In Catalina and earlier versions of macOS, certain keyboard shortcuts worked for dismissing alerts, but these same shortcuts no longer work for me in Big Sur.
You could and you can still cancel alert dialogs via esc and alerts with a recommended action (highlighted in blue) you can dismiss them with enter.
But you could also trigger an alert's action with, for example, ⌘ command + D, based on the title of the button (presumably).
No such keyboard shortcut I try works on the new Big Sur alerts so far. Is there a working keyboard shortcut here?

The new destructive action doesn't have a keyboard shortcut by default. This is likely by design:

[it] allows the system to guard a destructive-action button against accidental presses

You can enable keyboard navigation for controls (previously called Full Keyboard Access) in System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → ‘Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls’. With this option enabled, the Cancel button is focused for activation with Space, and you can Tab to the Delete button and activate that with Space too.


How to find wifi passwords in Yosemite or iOS8 I can still connect to this foreign network using this new computer -- my old computer had access. I want to share the password with my wife's system.

I can't figure out how to do this, either in Yosemite or iOS8.

I've looked at this question among others. Keychain Access doesn't seem to hold wifi passwords any longer. (I've used this method in the past).

Has anyone else seen this? Am I looking incorrectly or is there a new location/method?

Thanks

Keychain Access still stores the passwords:

Go to Applications > Utilities and open the Keychain Access app. On the left side field, click "System," and in the left field "Category" click "Passwords". From here, you can double-click on each network in the "Name" column, and click the "Show password" box to show the network password. You may have to enter your Mac's Username/Password to view each Network Password.

I'm not aware of any way to do this direct from iOS 8, but your iOS passwords will be stored here as well. If you don't see them, on your iOS device, go to Settings > iCloud > Keychain, and turn on "iCloud Keychain" if it isn't already. Apple may text you a security code to verify this: Enter the code on your iOS device. Your saved Wi-Fi passwords should show up shortly, but you may have to close and re-open Keychain Access.


vi shortcuts on bash on mac not working e.g. CTRL + E, CTRL + A I have used vi as my main text editor for years now on Linux (and a few years back Mac too) and on my brand new Mac (running 10.8.4) I find when trying to edit a file using vi in Terminal I can not use the standard vi shortcuts e.g. using 'CTRL + E' to navigate to the end of a line. Instead the shortcut is set to the vim shortcut which is '$' to navigate to the end of a line. I a using bash. How can I get the standard vi shortcuts?

Ctrl-a for beginning of line and Ctrl-E for end of line are Emacs shortcuts, not vi. As such, they will not work in vi.


In Preview, what properties are the top three level sliders? What am I actually adjusting when I move around these three sliders in the "Adjust Color" setting?

The control is a histogram, also called "levels". When you adjust the sliders, you are adjusting the exposure of the image.
Photo editing technique is probably out of scope of Ask Different, but you can read more about it in Apple's documentation for Photos: https://support.apple.com/guide/photos/apply-levels-adjustments-pht362f9034f/6.0/mac/11.5


How to forward iPhone SMS with original received/sent date stamps attached on iOS 6.1 I receive text messages on my iPhone.
When I forward them, the original sender's contact info and date time stamp do not forward with it.

Is there a way to include this information when forwarding to my email?

sms will always have the time stamp from the time and sender of the message.  not the message you're quoting.

if you want some evidence of timing etc, take a screen cap of original message and send that as an mms to the next person.  clunky, but might help


Leave Apple Magic Trackpad 2 plugged in charging? Is it okay to leave the Apple Magic Trackpad 2 (late 2015) plugged in via the Lightning cable?

Is the battery-charging smart about not over-charging/over-heating?
Are there any other pros or cons to leaving it connected to my Mac via the cable? Does it run faster/better or slower/worse? Does it use the cable for communication rather than Bluetooth?

The manual merely mentions that you can use it wirelessly after charging via the Lightning cable.

You should discharge your battery about once a month to recalibrate it. Other than that there should be no downside to keeping it plugged in. The battery charging mechanism is smart about not overcharging it.

See this page by Apple: Why Lithium-Ion?


Strange ACLs on OS X System I have a folder on a HFS+ volume I can't delete. I already tried to get rid of the ACLs but somehow this doesn't worked out.

The folder is calles CrashPlan.app.

Here is what the terminal says:

    sh-3.2# ls -ahel@
    total 0
    drwxrwxr-x@ 3 root  admin   102B 23 Okt 22:58 .
        com.apple.backupdelta.MoveChecked      3B
        com.apple.s stem.Security     68B
    drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root  wheel   102B 30 Okt 13:21 ..
        com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeFSEventStoreUUID      36B
        com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeLastFSEventID     20B
        com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID      36B
    drwxrwxr-x  2 jan   staff    68B 13 Nov  2012 CrashPlan.app

    sh-3.2# cd CrashPlan.app/
    sh-3.2# ls -ahel@
    total 0
    drwxrwxr-x  2 jan   staff    68B 13 Nov  2012 .
    drwxrwxr-x@ 3 root  admin   102B 23 Okt 22:58 ..
        com.apple.backupdelta.MoveChecked      3B
        com.apple.s stem.Security     68B

Strange thing here is, if you look from the outer folder there are no ACL for the folder. But if you look from the inside there are.

How can that be and how I can get rid of it?

The CrashPlan.app does not have an ACL. The output of ls is consistent, you must have misread it.

When you run ls -a in the parent directory, it tells you that . (i.e. the parent of CrashPlan.app) has extended attributes, and that CrashPlan.app has no ACL (mode string rwxrwxr-x).
When you run ls -a inside CrashPlan.app, it tells you that . (i.e. the CrashPlan.app directory) has no ACL (mode string rwxrwxr-x), and that .. (i.e. the parent directory) has extended attributes.

The parent directory does not have an ACL, but it has extended attributes com.apple.backupdelta.MoveChecked and com.apple.s stem.Security. This second attribute is odd: it should be com.apple.system.Security. This is a sign that your filesystem may be corrupted.


change proxy settings for Chrome and not for entire operating system How can I change proxy settings for Google Chrome without changing the proxy settings for entire operating system? I know that I can go to Network in System preferences, but that changes proxy settings globally.

Is is possible to do it just for Chrome? Firefox for example doesn't require changing global proxy settings.

EDIT: I am open for dirty hacks too :D

You have to pass the proxy argument to Chrome on the command line. Run something like:

open -a "Google Chrome" --args --proxy-server=http://my-proxy.com


Access permissions for command file created with bash I wrote myself a simple bash script which is a wrapper for compass create function, plus it creates a command file in the directory for compass watch (so that instead of manually typing out the directory and watch every time, I just double click on an icon in the project folder). The problem is that I get the following error when opening the command file:

  The file “watch.command” could not be executed because you do not have appropriate access privileges. To view or change access privileges, select the file in the Finder and choose File > Get Info.

I can run it from the terminal with bash watch.command (assuming I'm in the appropriate directory). I tried changing the permissions in finder for the file as well as the folder (read and write for everyone), but I still get the same error (plus I don't want to change permissions manually every time).

Also, if I open text mate and make exactly the same file and save it to my project directory, it runs as expected.

Here is the code for my new_project command:

#!/bin/bash
compass create "/Users/user_name/Desktop/$1" --bare --sass-dir "scss" --css-dir "css" --javascripts-dir "js" --images-dir "images";
echo "#!/bin/bash" >> "/Users/user_name/Desktop/$1/watch.command";
echo "cd /Users/user_name/Desktop/$1" >> "/Users/user_name/Desktop/$1/watch.command";
echo "compass watch" >> "/Users/user_name/Desktop/$1/watch.command";

(the $1 argument is the project name)

chmod 700 watch.command Now try double clicking the file.


How to disable all iOS notifications temporarily while actively using/mirroring the device? I use my iPad a lot as I teach, showing the students slides, videos, etc.

Having a words with friends, draw something, or email notification, especially with personal content in the first line, show up is always distracting.

I see that I can change notification settings per-app, but don't see  a way to disable all notifications system wide. Disabling apps individually works, but requires a bit of effort and time, and isn't something that can be done mid-lesson.

Is there a way to disable all notifications from appearing while you are actively using the device (e.g. while having your device mirrored on a screen during a lesson, presentation, demonstration, etc.), then re-enable all previously allowed notifications without fiddling with each one individually?

(Since the accepted answer for this question is outdated and the actual answer is buried as a comment, I’m providing a better answer for all future people with this question, in hopes that it will become more visible.)

The default behavior for the Do Not Disturb feature is stopping notifications while the screen is locked, so that your iPad/iPhone won’t keep buzzing in your pocket/backpack/desk while you’re trying to concentrate on something else.

That’s good, but not what we want. We want to stop notifications while we’re using the device.

Well, at least since iOS 12 there’s an additional setting within Settings > Do Not Disturb that you can turn on, here:

All you need to do is change the “Silence” option to “Always” in this screen. It will keep any and all notifications away from your screen as you write, read, present content to others, play a game, etc.


Add podcast-like chapters to audiobooks I have a number of audiobooks that are very long (10 or more CDs).  I don't like having them all in separate files because when you leave and come back, you're scrolling through hundreds of files to find the one you were on.  Instead, I used an audio editor to combine them in to 3-5 hour files.  However, if you are scrubbing through the file and accidentally slip (lift your finger, etc), you've now lost your place in such a large file.  I have seen in some podcasts that have chapters, allowing you to use |<< and >>| to skip around, and keeping the scrubbing to within the chapter.  Can these be applied to audiobooks?  If not, can I tell iTunes that my book is a podcast and set them there?  I tried that once but couldn't see how to set chapter markers anywhere.

You can do it with Garageband on a Mac, or using a separate utility on Windows.

Mac with Garageband

There's a detailed guide here, but the concise version is:

Create a new Podcast in Garageband.
Delete the placeholder tracks (the Podcast track can't be deleted), then drag in the audio file you want to add chapters to.
Select the Podcast track, make sure the editor is open (⌘E).
Move the playhead to the position you want a chapter at, and click Add Marker. Repeat for each chapter position you want. You can add titles if desired.
Export to disk or iTunes via the Share menu.

If you want the files to appear as audiobooks in iTunes, you may need to select them (in iTunes), and change the Media Kind (Get Info/⌘I, Options tab) to Audiobook.

Windows using Chapter and Verse

Download the free Chapter and Verse program. There are probably others out there, but this one seems to do the trick fairly simply and is free.
Click Add Files to import your audio track. If it's not in AAC format, it will prompt you to convert it.
Go to the Chapters tab and add your chapters as necessary.
Click the Build button to save the file, then import it to iTunes as desired.


Is Final Cut Pro's video stabilization any different and/or better than iMovie's? (both version X) I've tried out iMovie's stabilization and its not all that great. I was wondering if Final Cut's stabilization was any better or different than iMovie's. I haven't purchased Final Cut Pro which is why I'm asking.

I also couldn't find anyone directly asking this question after a Google search.

Yes, they are different, at least a little bit. I just did a quick test using a rocky beach scene I shot handheld. I tested Final Cut Pro X (v.10.0.6) and iMovie (v.9.0.9) and used their default stabilizer settings (which in iMovie are basically all you have). Looking at the results, FCPX does look a little bit better, but not by a significant amount in my opinion. Where FCPX really makes itself useful is in the ability to adjust parameters of the stabilization. With iMovie, if you don't like what the app did, you're pretty much stuck. With FCPX, you can do more tweaking and testing to help get things right.

Another, smaller note: iMovie seems to lock you out of using the app while it is calculating and applying the stabilization, whereas FCPX will do it in the background and will allow you to still work as it computes.


"Install Xcode.app" won't uninstall from my Mac I downloaded the new Xcode 4.2 update yesterday and installed it.  The installer shows up in Launchpad as an app, see screenshot below.

When I hold the mouse button and click the 'X' to delete, it asks me to confirm deletion which I do, then it just stays there.

I looked in Console.app and got the message below:

  14/10/2011 22:52:20.654 Dock: LaunchPad: Uninstall failed Error
  Domain=com.apple.uninstalld.request Code=2 "ErrorMissingBundle"
  UserInfo=0x7fa5ba2e65d0 {Missing bundle string=/Applications/Install
  Xcode.app} file://localhost/Applications/Install%20Xcode.app/

How do I remove this app?

Is there an "Install Xcode" app in /Applications (Specifically /Applications/Install Xcode.app) ?

It looks like the application was removed, and launchpad just has not noticed this fact yet.


Paralells Desktop changes default Application to play .mp4 files Even though I have selected the option "Always Open with" Quicktime Player for my .mp4 files. The changes never take effect and instead when I open a video, parallels desktop launches Windows Media Player.

Is anyone experiencing the same problem?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Have you tried same with Info (Cmd-I). This is better way to change default program. Also I've stopped sharing anything else than folders between Windows & Mac since upgraded to Parallels Desktop 7. It helps much also.


How to delete multiple podcast episodes from iOS 6 podcast app? I know how to delete a podcast subscription form the iOS 6 podcast app (How to delete a podcast from new iOS 6 Podcast app?) but I'm having trouble deleting multiple episodes within a subscription.

Even if I have it set to save only "unplayed" and I mark everything as played, I still see hundreds of episodes listed (but not downloaded).  I realize they're not taking up space, but I'd prefer the list to be clean and just show the most recent / unplayed episodes.

In iOS 6 in general, is there a way to do a multiple select before a "swipe to delete"?  Or is there any other way to delete multiple instances of something without having to do it one at a time?

The Podcasts app was updated for iOS 7 on October 22. I don’t think that this was a feature of iOS 6’s Podcast app, but if you are able to update to the latest version, there is an Edit button that can delete/mark-as-read multiple episodes or multiple subscriptions. (Assuming you’re not running an older device that isn’t compatible).

There isn’t a way to so multiple selects before a swipe to delete, though most apps have an “Edit” button to select multiple items before hitting the Delete button (as seen in Mail). In third-party apps, the interface depends on what the designer/developer built.


What is the difference between AppleScript version and AppleScript Studio version? Testing what can be done with System Events I noticed when pulling system info:

AppleScript Version:

tell application "System Events" to return AppleScript version of (get system info)

AppleScript Studio Version:

tell application "System Events" to return AppleScript Studio version of (get system info)

there was a difference returned.  When I researched the site I didn't see this asked and I haven't found an answer on Apple discussion.  So what is the difference between the two?

Your first line of code simply returns the version of the AppleScript language currently in use. You can also see it under Script Editor → Preferences → General → Default Language.

As for AppleScript Studio, this is what Wikipedia has to say about it:

  AppleScript Studio
  A framework for attaching Cocoa interfaces to
  AppleScript applications, part of the Xcode package in Mac OS X 10.4
  and 10.5, now deprecated in favor of AppleScriptObjC.

— From AppleScript: the definitive guide, 2nd edition

In essence, it was what you used for creating AppleScript applications in Xcode.


Iphone 5 suddenly stopped connecting to network I was sitting at work when my iphone 5 showed that it was not connected to the network anymore. I went into my settings, clicked on the network I wanted and it told me I was unable to join the network. I then tried to forget the network and try to reconnect but the same thing "unable to join network". I then went a step further and reset my network settings under general settings. Now I am not only unable to connect to the network but it is also now asking for a username. It has never asked for a username before.

I have reset the router 3 times, reset my phone several times and still same issue. I have watched every YouTube video, talked to apple support via chat and non of them seem to work. I have tried messing with WPA and WPA2 settings, etc... I know its not a problem with the connection because coworkers are able to connect with no problem. They are not being asked for a username when logging on. I am lost at this point what to do. I dont want to do a factory reset but may have to at this point.Trying this before I do so. Any help is appreciated.

Try this...

Put your iPhone in AirPlane Mode
Go to Settings > General > Reset
Reset Network Settings
Reboot your Router
Take you iPhone out of AirPlane mode..

You will be prompted to join your network again, and it should work this time...


How can I rebind keyboard keys in OS X? I need a custom keyboard shortcut for back slash \.

I have created ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict and put this in it:

{
    "@ö" = ("insertText:", "\\");
}

It is supposed to trigger back slash when pressing ⌘ + ö
(Yes, I have an "ö" character on my keyboard).

When trying to source the file, I get this error:

-bash: DefaultKeyBinding.dict: line 2: syntax error near unexpected token `('
-bash: DefaultKeyBinding.dict: line 2: `    "@ö" = ("insertText:", "\\");'

What's wrong with the syntax? Is there a better way?

To enable CmdÖ -> \ just remap the key combo with Karabiner. The shortcut you need isn't pre-defined so you have to write your own:

Download, install and open Karabiner
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences
Open the tab Misc & Uninstall
Hit the button Open private.xml
Open the file private.xml with an appropriate editor
Enter the customized keycode

Example 1 (cmdÖ -> \):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <item>
      <name>Command-Ö to Backslash</name>
      <appendix>(Change Command-Ö to \)</appendix>
      <identifier>remap.command_ö_to_backslash</identifier>
      <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::GERMAN_O_UMLAUT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_COMMAND, KeyCode::KEY_7, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::OPTION_L</autogen>
    </item>
</root>

Example 2 (cmd_RÖ -> \ cmd_R is the right command key only, cmd_LÖ doesn't have an output!):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <item>
      <name>Command_R-Ö to Backslash</name>
      <appendix>(Change Command_R-Ö to \)</appendix>
      <identifier>remap.command_r_ö_to_backslash</identifier>
      <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::GERMAN_O_UMLAUT, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::KEY_7, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::OPTION_L</autogen>
    </item>
</root>

Example 3 (cmd_R -> \ you can't use the right command key for any other purpose then):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <item>
      <name>Command_R to Backslash</name>
      <appendix>(Change Command_R to \)</appendix>
      <identifier>remap.command_r_to_backslash</identifier>
      <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::KEY_7, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::OPTION_L</autogen>
    </item>
</root>

Example 4 (cmd_R -> \ similar to example 3 but you can use the right command key as normal command key-> hitting cmd_R yields \ but cmd_RS saves files):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <item>
      <name>When you type Command_R only, send Backslash</name>
      <appendix>(Change Command_R lazy to \)</appendix>
      <identifier>remap.command_r_lazy_to_backslash</identifier>
      <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::VK_LAZY_COMMAND_R, KeyCode::KEY_7, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::OPTION_L</autogen>
    </item>
</root>

Save the file
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences the tab Change Key
Hit the ReloadXML button
Enable the remapping. It should be listed at the beginning.


Mount point for USB devices on Mac I'm familiar with Ubuntu where USB devices are mounted at /dev/bus/usb/xxx/yyy. Is there an equivalent for Mac, i.e. a file system location where all USB devices (not just drives in /Volumes) are mounted?

OSX is much simpler than Ubuntu, the only mount that will occur to USB devices' FSs is the one with mount point located at /Volumes. Even if every file system (which of course mounts as a folder) has some little differences from an actual folder. These differences make it appear as a directory transparently to the programs, but allow apps such as Finder to differentiate folders' and volumes' icons - for example.


How can I convert .CR2 to .jpg? Is there a simple tool that will convert .cr2 files (Canon RAW) to .jpg?

I know Preview does it well but I'm looking for something directly accessible from the contextual menu.

You can make a custom workflow to do this as a Finder (or even system wide) service using Automator.

Look for the Change Type of Images action under Photos and then you just need to decide on your workflow - whether you save this as a service that can be activated by the contextual menu or perhaps make it into a drop folder so you can automate the next step of the process as well.


Apple Script to Export from application I'm new to AppleScript and wanted to export my citations using AppleScript. I found the following but am not sure the structure to change the following to my path folders, can you please provide an example and is this executed in the Script editor?:

tell application "Papers"
set outFolder to ((path to desktop from user domain) as string) & "PDF Files"
export ((publication item of every primary file item) as list) as PDF Files to outFolder
end tell

Thanks

To better understand the AppleScript, try breaking it down.

Within Script Editor.app run the following:

set outFolder to ((path to desktop from user domain) as string) & "PDF Files"

After running, the Result panel will show the value outFolder is set to. This should be a path to a folder called PDF Files on your Desktop.

Does this folder exist on your Mac? If not, this is probably the cause of the problems you are seeing.

The next line in the AppleScript tells the application Papers to export to that folder. If you have problems with Paper's AppleScript behaviour, do contact the developers; they will be best placed to help you.

Add a Try Block

You can add a try block around your AppleScripts. These will provide better error messages and hopefully catch problems.

Changing the Folder

You can add an interactive folder selection by replacing the set outFolder… line to:

set outFolder to choose folder

Alternatively, change the "PDF Files" to the name of your preferred folder.


Keyboard shortcut to take me directly to Mission Control system preference pane I have an iMac (27", 2017, High Sierra) and for various reasons I find myself often having to change my mission control settings.

As I prefer keyboard navigation., is there a native macOS keyboard shortcut that can take me straight to the  mission control preferences, or do I need to create one myself?

Assuming you have an Apple keyboard there’s no need to create a custom keyboard shortcut. The keyboard shortcut to take you immediately to the Mission Control system preference pane is OptionMission Control.

Note: The Mission Control key on an Apple keyboard is the same key as the F3 key.


Difference in processor performance in base 13" Mid 2020 and upgraded 13" Mid 2020 MacBook Pro? Is there any difference in the efficiency of the processor between the two MacBook Pro:

Mid 2019, 13" MacBook Pro upgraded to 2,8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Mid 2020, 13" MacBook Pro (Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, base model)

I am fully satisfied with the 2019 version I have now. But is it at least the same, as the base model Mid 2020 13"?

Would public geekbench results for above macs be an effective comparison?

Sure, you can trust geekbnech for quite neutral results for CPU capabilities for macs in the last 5 years.

That being said, I’m never in a case where the CPU is what is actually holding me back. The things that chew CPU are never things I’m waiting on and I go have dinner or let it run to complete. The things that make me happy are good software, efficient software, not having memory leaks and fast storage.

I get that on a 2015 MacBook with a 1.2 GHz CPU and NVMe SSD with 8 GB of RAM. All of the machines you specify are overkill for what I need. The question is what benchmark and code do you run - can you profile it on your current mac and then decide if the investment in a new mac is worth the money in time you save.

No benchmark will tell you that.


Is replacing HDD by SSD worth it with Core 2 Duo and Filevault2 enabled Will I see some speed improvment by replacing the original 5400-rpm with a SSD on a MBP Core2Duo with Filevault2 enabled? Or it is a waste of money?

I ask this question because I know Filevault tend to kill performance of SSD on Core2Duo since this cpu doesnt have the AES-ni instructions as i5-i7 have...

I didnt find many benchmarks results...

My current HDD stats with Filevault2 enabled are (measured with XBench):

Sequential:
  Uncached Write: 46MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Write: 30MB/s (256K blocks)
  Uncached Read: 15MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Read: 42MB/s (256 blocks)
Random:
  Uncached Write: 0.95MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Write: 18MB/s (256 blocks)
  Uncached Read: 0.39MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Read: 15MB/s (256 blocks)

UPDATE:
I installed a Crucial M4 here is the new stats:

Sequential:
  Uncached Write: 153MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Write: 97MB/s (256K blocks)
  Uncached Read: 23MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Read: 130MB/s (256 blocks)
Random:
  Uncached Write: 93MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Write: 101MB/s (256 blocks)
  Uncached Read: 13MB/s (4K blocks)
  Uncached Read: 119MB/s (256 blocks)

As you see, a nice boost even if it's only a non-AES-NI Core Duo 2.26 with Filevault2 enabled

You will see a great improvement in performance. You will lose some performance due to the encryption but you will at least get two and half times the performance of your current drive.


How can i get Facebook back if the app won't re-download? iPhone Facebook app had a "bug fix" update so I clicked it and it wouldn't load. I deleted the app and reinstalled and now it keeps saying it can't be downloaded at this time. I've tried re-downloading it with both my Wi-Fi on and off and it still doesn't work!

The servers of Apple did not allow downloading the Facebook application for some (unknown) reason. It was probably a bug.

Downloading Facebook on the iPhone now works again (at least in France).


MacBook Air 2015 Shuts Down in Boot Camp Randomly My MacBook Air (2015) randomly shuts down (like, the power just cuts off) in Boot Camp. This doesn't happen if I have the charger plugged in.

While I vaguely recall it happening once or twice in OSX, I feel like it's a Boot Camp exclusive battery problem or something. Running Windows 10, so maybe the battery is overheating, cause Windows just makes the fan run louder, but I'm not sure.

What should I do?

The quick answer is that when a battery starts to fail (due to age or just failure), the voltage can fluctuate to the point where the system cannot log an error or go to sleep. Since you have some evidence that this happens on battery alone, you'll need to collect enough data to prove that hypothesis or replace the battery and see if it helps.

You might also ask a pointed/specific question on out partner site superuser.com to ask if your specific version of windows can log low voltage errors or how to diagnose a sudden shutdown cause from the windows side of things.

I have diagnosed these things and ruled out other causes on the OS X side, but I cannot begin to advise you on how to read the windows logs and nothing that I know of is saved to Apple's NVRAM if windows crashes while it's running - but I could be proven wrong on that point by someone with that knowledge if they decide to weigh in :-)


I currently have OS 10.6 want to upgrade OS I currently have OS 10.6 - Safari and other browsers are no longer supported.
My problem is I have Adobe CS4 Design and web software and I don't have a few thousand dollars hanging about to upgrade CS4
SO.....
Does Lion work with Adobe CS4 - or should I just start saving my pennies for more expensive software?
I had heard that OS 10.6 was the highest OS I could get with CS4.

It looks like you can use CS4 with Mavericks according to Adobe's site.

  Is Adobe aware of any major issues, bugs, or odd user experiences when
  using CS5, CS4, or CS3 products with Mac OS X Mavericks (10.9)?

  Yes, Adobe Drive could cause the opening or saving of files to take
  longer. See Files open, save slowly for more information.


How do I zoom without a trackpad in Xcode Instruments Time Profiler? When using Xcode Instruments Time Profiler on my MacBook, I'm able to pinch to zoom in on the CPU measurements in the Swim-lane. However I cannot figure out how to do the equivalent on my iMac with no trackpad.

How can I zoom in on a Swim-lane without a trackpad?

If your mouse has a wheel or touch - hold the option key and then use the scroll wheel / scroll gesture or control.

If you don't have that - you'll need to add a mouse with a wheel or add a trackpad to the iMac.


Can't locate App Store in iTunes for macOS Every time I launch iTunes on my Mac, there is no App Store item in it and I can't access the apps that I have launched on the App Store. .

Please check that the iTunes Store is not disabled in the Restrictions pane in iTunes preferences (see screenshot below).

App Store functionality has been removed in iTunes 12.7 and later.

Apple provides a version of iTunes which still contains the App section and App Store.
Please see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208079 for more info and download link.

This version (12.6.5) can be installed even if a newer version of iTunes exists on your machine (it replaces the newer version). It also stops iTunes from updating (e.g. after installing, iTunes stays at v12.6.5).
It does not work in macOS 10.14 Mojave, though.


How to make special French keyboard characters work in MS RDC? I'm on a Macbook Pro with a French Keyboard. Keyboard layout works fine when connecting to Windows XP Professional but I cannot get certain keys to work:

For example $, &, é, § and @ etc. work fine.

Forward slash / using ⇧ + : works.
Backslash \ using ⌥ + ⇧ + : does not work.
Pipe | using ⌥ + ⇧ + L does not work.

Is there any configuration that I can do to make my keyboard work?

I've had this issue on my Windows VM in Virtual Box but fixed it with a custom keyboard layout. However when connecting to servers and workstations over the network this is not a solution since I can not configure each machine I need to connect to.

Under preferences, if I disable the Alt key it still does not work and on-top of that working without an Alt Key in Windows is no fun.

In windows symbols can be inserted by pressing Shift + relevant number key to insert symbol.

When using a macbook on Microsoft Remote Desktop connection, you are required to Hold down Cmd + Shift + Number Key.

This is the hidden option for inserting symbols into Windows machines over Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection.


How to fix weird screen issues on Macbook Pro after appr. half an hour of activity? Recently my couple year old MacBook Pro has been acting up strangely. I generally use it for watching videos. After about half an hour or so of activity, the screen starts to look like this:

Usually it freezes and stops becoming responsive (mainly with full screen videos), but at times I am able to move a cursor around and so forth. The issue also appears if I restart it afterwards.

I'm thinking it might have something to do with overheating internally or something, but I'm not sure.

Does anyone know what is causing this problem, and how can I solve it?

If your MacBook Pro has NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, it's more likely to be an issue with the GPU.

Apple acknowledged this issue and is offering free replacement. I got mine replaced two months ago.

For more information http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377


iCal and Google Calendar creating double notifications I have a Google Calendar set up. I have set it up to send me E-Mail when an appointment is imminent.

I connected the calendar with my new MacBook Pro's iCal.

Now, both Google Calendar and iCal want to send me E-Mail notification. Google through their online service (which is what I want) and iCal through Mail.App (which I don't want).

I can't find any settings in iCal to turn E-Mail notification off. How do I prevent iCal from creating E-Mail reminders?

To avoid getting double email notifications for appointments, you can turn off the alerts for the Google Calendar on the Mac as described in the Calendar User Guide:

  Turn off alerts for a calendar

  In the Calendar app  on your Mac, Control-click the name of the calendar [your Google Account name] in the calendar list, then choose Get Info.

  If you don’t see the calendar list on the left, choose View > Show Calendar List.
  Select “Ignore alerts,” then click OK.

Note that this will turn off all alerts for Google Calendar that would be created on the Mac, that is, not only email notifications, but also notifications in the Notification Center.


Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird as default browser and mail client I use Firefox and Thunderbird for browsing and email. In the Safari Preferences, Firefox is set to be default browser. Each time I start Firefox, it asks if I want it to be the default browser. Same thing with Thunderbird. If I disable this check in Thunderbird, and click a mailto-link on a webpage, Apple Mail opens.

How can I set Firefox and Thunderbird to be the default clients, without having to confirm this each time I restart my computer?

You had 2 questions.

1- Go to your Firefox preferences and uncheck the Always check for default browser.

2- For Thunderbird do this:

  Set Thunderbird as the operating system default

Launch the default Mac OS X email application (called "Mail", located in the /Applications folder.)
Select Mail | Preferences from the menu.
On the General tab, select "Thunderbird" from the Default email reader drop-down list.
Close Mail.


Work Mac and home PC with same Apple ID causing problems I used my personal Apple ID on a new work computer and now am having issues.  Bookmarked Favorites set on the work Mac appear on my home PC and vice versa.  iCloud photos available on the work Mac aren't accessible at home.  Personal Messages received on my iPhone pop up on my work computer.  How can I change the work Mac's Apple ID to stop this intermarrying?

open iCloud preferences on the work Mac and sign out of iCloud
answer each question to delete all copies of that data locally
disco


Playlist ascending / descending resetting I'm using iTunes version 12.6.2.20 (latest) with a combination of local music, Apple Music, and iCloud Music Library.

In iTunes, all playlists are always sorted correctly except for "Current Favourites" which is supposed to be sorted ascending but always reverts to descending on restart of iTunes or the PC. This ascending / descending reversion affects all playlists.

On my iPhone, the playlists are always sorted correctly including "Current Favourites".

What could cause this?

It seems that upgrading to version 12.7.0.166 and/or using option View | Show View Options | Sort By has resolved the issue.


In Apple Pages, how can I disable italic swashes? I am laying out a long document in Pages '09 v4.1 (923), using the "Hoefler Text" typeface for the body text. On certain characters (k, e, and others) at the end of an italicized word, the advanced type features of Pages use the swash variation of the last character, though there is an otherwise "normal" italic of the letter. My client does not like the look of this, and I'm looking for a way to disable this behavior.

I have tried going to the Font panel, click on the gear to select Typography, and there are Smart Swash options shown in the window that appears. However, no matter which swash options I enable or disable, Pages seems to ignore them, and continues to add the swashes.

How can I disable these swashes?

Clarification: This happens at the end of an italic span, not for letters that may end a word inside the span; and the span is often in the middle of roman body text. For instance:

Note the swash on the end of the 't' in "not" and 'k' in "Trek." Not also how in the last line, the 'e' in "stare" gets no swash, but the 'e' at the end of the italic span, in "Trekkie," does.

You cannot disable these swashes using the Smart Swashes section in the Format » Font » Show Fonts » Typography… window, because they're not Word Final Swashes. Those are disabled by default anyway.

What you're seeing are Line Final Swashes, applied only to the end of a line or a text run with consistent formatting.

I found no option to disable them from the Typography window or any menu option.

What seems to work is to end a line by pressing Shift-Return instead of Return.

Note that this will not end the paragraph and allow you to apply a different paragraph style to the second line, so depending on your circumstances (e.g. use in Headings), this will not be an optimal solution.

You can, for example, make the next line font size 1 and only insert a single space character. In the following example, I entered a single A character of font size 1 to the next line so it's visible as a black dot:

It's an ugly hack, but it might work for you.


Are there any consumer style websites that offer WebDav support? iWork for iPad now has WebDav export/import options, DropBox doesn't support WebDav.

Where can I find a service that has WebDav support? Besides setting up my own server, is there any consumer (and ideally free) site that does this?

The Omni Group Forum thread, List of free webDAV sync providers, has links to a number of  possibilities.


Can I send and receive iMessage on Mac without buying an iPhone? I have an Apple ID.

Macbook Air has iMessage installed.

But I cannot figure why I cannot send and receive iMessage to friends.
I can only receive messages from myself.

Can you explain how iMessage will work on Mac?

Thanks.

I will answer my question myself.

This is easy to have a try. You can send an receive iMessage when you are online. To send a message, you only need to set the receiving address an Apple ID, or some phone numbers related to the ID. Of course, you network must be well enough to connect to apple.


Can I make an iPad external keyboard shortcut to delete a photo? If I am scrolling through photos in the Photos app on the iPad, deleting them, is there an external physical keyboard shortcut with which I can delete the photo, instead of pressing on the menus?

Yes, there is. Simply when looking at the photo, press Backspace to delete it.


Most of the time spotlight is showing nothing after upgrading to el capitan I use spotlight a lot but after upgrading to el capitan most of the time its showing empty window.

Its very annoying. How can i solve this problem?

I too see this behaviour. Typing an extra letter or even removing a letter from the search term tends to fix the problem.

This appears to be a bug in OS X 10.11. Please can you provide feedback to Apple. Every report helps!


iPhoto - find all photos that look like this photo? All, is there a way in iPhoto to find all the photos that look like a given photo? I suppose I could use Face, but it's actually not for a face, so that's a bit strange. For example, I'd like to tag my pet's photos with the pet's name. I also would like to find all the photos I took of plated food, etc.

There's actually no way to do that in iPhotos/Photos.

But you should take a look at Google Photos which add this feature recently.

As far as I know iPhotos/Photos can only identify human faces, geotagged photos, panoramic photos (Photos only), in addition to various metadata (such as date, description…).

Nevertheless you can add tag manually (at least in Photos.app) by opening information related to the photo (cmd+i).


Accessing a terminal when an interactive desktop session is unresponsive? On linux distributions one can simply press the following keys in order to access the shell:

Ctrl+Alt+F2
Ctrl+Alt+F7 to exit and return to the GUI.

Is there a similar capability in OS X that would let me access a terminal when my interactive desktop session is no longer responsive?

If anyone wants to know why, read below

I have a reason for needing this, and mainly because I killed the wrong process id, which in term ended the launchd daemon.  As now I couldn't run Terminal.app, or type in my existing shells I needed to gain access of the main shell (my session is running in) which was active because Spotify still worked!  In order to start-up that daemon again to rectify my problem - annoyingly I had to restart which for Unix operating system is ridiculous - ONLY time a linux/unix system need be rebooted is after kernel updates are installed, otherwise it doesn't need to be.

There hasn't been a console bypass on OSX since 10.0 days, so it's not so much Apple removed it as the feature never passed review for initial implementation. Having such a bypass is a security risk if anyone with physical access to the machine can simply open a shell with a key press or two.

Here's what you can do:

You can ssh into your OS since it runs sshd like all unix.
You can use a remote management tool like Apple Remote Desktop to issue remote commands as well.

I understand your take on it being a flaw or omission, but it's just not part of the OS X heritage to have a back door to a prompt like linux has implemented.


Apple Script - How do I check if a window with a specific title exists? I would like to create an apple script that checks if a window of an application with a specific name (not id or index) exists. I used the following code in a previous script, and it works:

tell application "Notes" to close (every window whose name is "Notes")

However, I can't figure out how to check if a window with this title exists. This should be incredibly simple. How do I do it?

You can do this with the System Events application - for example:

tell application "System Events"
    if exists (window "Terminal — -zsh" of process "Terminal") then
        display dialog "Found"
    else
        display dialog "Not found"
    end if
end tell

Note that process is case sensitive while window is not.  Therefore this will work

if exists (window "TeRmInAl — -ZsH" of process "Terminal")

but this will not

if exists (window "Terminal — -zsh" of process "terminal")

If you are running from Script Editor you must authorise it in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility


How to decrease the delay to drag and drop files into windows via Dock? The Dock (as of 10.7+) allows you to drag files over an application icon, invoking application exposé which allows you to drag the file over the window of choice and drop it in where you want.

The delays set for these actions are rather long for me.
I already checked the Secrets prefpane, no luck.

Is there a hidden preference to speed them up?

In the Finder's preferences, there is an option at the bottom of the General pane for “Spring-loaded folders and windows” that seems to control this. You can adjust the delay using the slider there, and also (as it notes) press the spacebar when dragging an item to invoke Exposé immediately.

It's not a hidden preference (in the sense that you need defaults to get at it) so much as a preference in a somewhat unexpected place. ;)


Cannot download picture from iCloud Photo Library Cannot Download Photo.
  There was an error downloading this photo from your iCloud Photo Library. Please try again later.

What does this mean?  It happens all the time.

I have experienced the 'error downloading try again later message' of my iCloud photos, it has been quite a while since I could access full resolution photos, I only get blurry photos.
Had no idea what was going on or how to fix the issue, by chance I have in my case.  I only had the 5GB storage option and I kept getting messages to upgrade the amount of storage,  I chose to $1.48 a month option 50GB.

Straight away the iCloud was uploading over 900 photos which made me realise why I was getting errors accessing my iCloud photos, they weren't there yet, only the low res thumbnails. All the issues I had are gone I just had to have larger storage and then allow the photos to upload. In all cases make sure and check you allow time for uploading.

The conclusion I come to is that if I get close to storage capacity iCloud stops uploading and all I see are the thumbnails photos which are not my full resolution iCloud photos.

All is good now.


CLI options do not work if passed at the end of command In brief: ls -a /tmp works but ls /tmp -a does not.

I recently started using Macbook Pro.
Coming from a Linux background, command like ls /tmp -a seems perfectly fine to me.

But for some reason these do not work in the same fashion in Mac. Argument flags are not recognised if they are specified at the end after the path.

Here is a demo:

/tmp/demo  ➜ ls -a ./
.           ..          .hidden-bar foo
/tmp/demo  ➜ ls ./ -a
ls: -a: No such file or directory
./:
foo
/tmp/demo  ➜

I am using latest zsh 5.0.5 (x86_64-apple-darwin14.0)

I can see similar behaviour of several other commands like du, rm etc. Almost all such are in /bin folder. I wonder if it has something to do with UNIX and Linux differences.

Does anybody know the reason behind the difference and if possible a fix for it?

This is because apple zsh shell version. To install zsh version with that behaviour, you have to install homebrew. You can easily to it by typing the following:

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

Once installed, install the zsh formulae:

brew install zsh

Then you have to replace your shell with zsh provided by homebrew:

chsh -s /usr/local/bin/zsh

After that you should be able to test your zsh version and use command arguments like you want.


Any difference between ~ and $HOME? It would appear that ~ and $HOME are equivalent in command line and shell scripts. Is that true?

It's true to a certain extent.

$HOME is an expression for expansion of the environment variable HOME
~ (tilde) is a separate shell expansion component
see footnote

When used as a command argument and in separation from other strings, $HOME and ~ are usually equivalent.

But there are cases where they differ:

if the string containing either is quoted, for example:

# echo "My home directory is $HOME"
My home directory is /Users/techraf
# echo "My home directory is ~"
My home directory is ~

if they are concatenated to a string, for example:

dd if=${HOME}/source_file of=${HOME}/destination_file will work.

Shell will pass arguments if=/Users/techraf/source_file and of=/Users/techraf/destination_file containing a valid path to the dd command.
dd if=~/source_file of=~/destination_file won't work

Shell will pass arguments if=~/source_file and of=~/destination_file to the dd command and it will report an error as it does not interpret ~.

footnote:

In fact ~ is by default replaced with the value of HOME, but if HOME is empty, it is resolved to a home directory:

# echo $HOME
/Users/techraf
# export HOME=/dummy
# echo $HOME
/dummy
# echo ~
/dummy

# unset HOME
# echo $HOME

# echo ~
/Users/techraf

From man bash:

  Tilde Expansion

  If a word begins with an unquoted tilde character (`~'), all of the characters preceding the first unquoted slash (or all  characters,  if  there  is  no unquoted  slash)  are  considered a tilde-prefix.  If none of the characters in the tilde-prefix are quoted, the characters in the tilde-prefix following the tilde are treated as a possible login name.  If this login name is the null string, the tilde is replaced with the value of the shell parameter HOME.

  If  HOME  is  unset,  the  home  directory of the user executing the shell is substituted instead.  Otherwise, the tilde-prefix is replaced with the home directory associated with the specified login name.


Why won't my new iMac El Capitan print from Word? I have a new iMac El Capitan (and I'm a new Mac user) attached to the Canon Pixma MX926 printer (about 4 years old) with a USB cable.  I can print from the Apple help menu, but can't print any Word documents. I'm sure I'm doing something very simple wrong, but can't figure out what.  Can anyone help?

Welcome to Stack.

Try reinstalling, or resetting up any drivers for your printer. You can do this using either built-in mac features, or using any drivers provided by Canon on their website (available here).

For the built-in Apple feature head over to System Preferences.
Then navigate to Printers and Scanners.
Click the - and remove your printer.
Click the + and add follow the steps to re-add your printer.

Hopefully this fixes your issue!


Mystery IP cache problem one macbook all accounts all browsers Sister has a macbook running 10.15.6 Catalina used to manage a Wordpress site on a virtual hosting service.  As of a few days ago, the macbook fails to access the site and gets a "this site's IP has been changed" message.  Phone and tablet on her same home network can access the site fine.  I (on a different continent) can access the site fine.  Nslookup for the site on her macbook gives the same result as it does for me. Hosting provider insists it's an IP cache issue on her machine.
Things she has already tried:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
DNS set to GoogleDNS
Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, all same issue
New user account on Macbook, Safari, same issue
Safari History->Clear History
Safari Preferences->Privacy->Manage Website Data->Clear All
Safari Develop->Empty Caches
Safari Develop->Page Resources->Network->Ignore Cache
Many restarts of Safari
Many reboots

Some more things tried since I originally posted:

accessing the site from daughter's Chromebook works fine
curl on her sitename also retrieves the same error page on her macbook

How Do I Fully Flush Cached Redirects From Safari? seems like it might be relevant?  But perhaps not quite the same for Catalina?
Are we missing something obvious?  All suggestions much appreciated.

Solved, and obvious in hindsight:  there was an entry for her site in /etc/hosts.  Sister knows nothing about hostfiles and has no memory of editing it, but provider not so helpfully advises people to edit /etc/hosts to preview Wordpress ahead of domain transfers, and doesn't bother to warn them to clean up after, so we assume that's what happened.


How can I get my AppleScript code to move files? Having used Automator to organise files by file extension successfully before, I decided to create an AppleScript application that will save me having to change parameters manually, as Automator doesn't allow me to set a variable for the "Filter Finder Items" action.

However, for some reason or another, my AppleScript code decides not to actually move .wad files. I've tested it with .jpg files and it works perfectly. I've tested it with .epub files, same thing. But it doesn't seem to be able to detect .wad files.

Below is my code. It creates the folder in the correct location with the name I put in the first dialog box, but it doesn't move .wad files into the new location. I end up just creating a blank folder. The Result AppleScript gives me when the script terminates is {}

display dialog "Set folder name" default answer ""
set foldername to (text returned of result)

display dialog "Set file type" default answer ""
set filetype to (text returned of result)

set newfolder to ((path to downloads folder as text) & foldername as text)

tell application "Finder"

    if not (exists folder ((path to downloads folder as text) & foldername as text)) then
        make new folder at (path to downloads folder) with properties {name:foldername}
    end if

    move (every file of folder (choose folder) whose name extension is filetype) to folder newfolder

end tell

It appears the following line is returning an empty list:

every file of folder (choose folder) whose name extension is filetype

As an experiment, try a different suffix matching approach:

every file of folder (choose folder) whose name ends with ".wad"

In the Finder, make sure the .wad files are in fact showing their complete name. Do this with Get Info on one wad file in the Finder. It is unlikely but possible that the true file suffix is being hidden and thus not being matched.


How can I automate recurrent steps in Yosemite? I have a set of URLs bookmarked in chrome and I do many times a day:

Open Chrome
Open bookmarks
Search a specific bookmark among my folders
Click on bookmark

Is there a way to do these actions automatically?

I see that if I press Command+Space the "Spotlight search" searches in my Mail but I can't see how can I create something like what I need.

Do I need to install some other application?

AppleScript and Automator

AppleScript and Automator are your best starting points for automating OS X. Both are included in OS X, so there is no immediate need to install third party software.

AppleScript and Automator are complementary approaches. An Automator workflow can include AppleScript snippets. An AppleScript can trigger Automator workflows.

See Introduction to AppleScript and AppleScript: The Language of Automation for an introduction to AppleScript. You can experiment with AppleScript using the included Script Editor.app utility included in your Applications > Utilities folder.

Searching the web for applescript chrome will return many useful web sites, such as:

Scripting Google Chrome for OSX using AppleScript
Google Chrome meets AppleScript
Use AppleScript to open current Safari URL in Google Chrome

When you reach the limits of AppleScript and Automator, third party automation software is available.


Pesky Google acting up Google installed something called

GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent

That will run endlessly in background every hour, consuming resources and battery life.

Here is a snippet from Console-system log.

Aug 16 03:40:58 myMBA GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent[18523]: 2017-08-16 03:40:58.581 GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent[18523/0x7fffe42623c0] [lvl=2] -[KSAgentApp(PrivateMethods) setupLoggerOutput] Agent default/global settings: <KSAgentSettings:0x100420620 bundleID=com.google.Keystone.Agent lastCheck=2017-08-16 05:11:24 +0000 lastServerCheck=2017-08-16 05:11:22 +0000 lastCheckStart=2017-08-16 00:35:06 +0000 checkInterval=604800.000000 uiDisplayInterval=604800.000000 sleepInterval=60480.000000 jitterInterval=900 maxRunInterval=0.000000 isConsoleUser=1 ticketStorePath=/Users/xxxyyy/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/TicketStore/Keystone.ticketstore runMode=3 daemonUpdateEngineBrokerServiceName=com.google.Keystone.Daemon.UpdateEngine daemonAdministrationServiceName=com.google.Keystone.Daemon.Administration logEverything=0 logBufferSize=2048 alwaysPromptForUpdates=0 productIDToUpdate=(null) lastUIDisplayed=2016-09-03 01:32:53 +0000 alwaysShowStatusItem=0 updateCheckTag=(null) printResults=NO userInitiated=NO>

Aug 16 04:41:21 myMBA GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent[18567]: 2017-08-16 04:41:21.560 GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent[18567/0x7fffe42623c0] [lvl=2] -[KSAgentApp(PrivateMethods) setupLoggerOutput] Agent default/global settings: <KSAgentSettings:0x100332590 bundleID=com.google.Keystone.Agent lastCheck=2017-08-16 05:11:24 +0000 lastServerCheck=2017-08-16 05:11:22 +0000 lastCheckStart=2017-08-16 00:35:06 +0000 checkInterval=604800.000000 uiDisplayInterval=604800.000000 sleepInterval=60480.000000 jitterInterval=900 maxRunInterval=0.000000 isConsoleUser=1 ticketStorePath=/Users/xxxyyy/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/TicketStore/Keystone.ticketstore runMode=3 daemonUpdateEngineBrokerServiceName=com.google.Keystone.Daemon.UpdateEngine daemonAdministrationServiceName=com.google.Keystone.Daemon.Administration logEverything=0 logBufferSize=2048 alwaysPromptForUpdates=0 productIDToUpdate=(null) lastUIDisplayed=2016-09-03 01:32:53 +0000 alwaysShowStatusItem=0 updateCheckTag=(null) printResults=NO userInitiated=NO>

It is seemingly trying to update Google software on my Mac.
I have changed its check interval from 18000 (5 hr) to 604800 (once per week) with

defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 604800

but it is ignoring that.

Macbook Air 2012 with Sierra.

How do I fix it, or kill it.

Since I'm by no means qualified to fix Google problems, I ended up using brute force.

First I renamed this folder :
/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/

Then I killed the GoogleSoftwareUpdate update Program with

sudo launchctl remove com.google.keystone.system.agent

First result is in: (Victory)

Aug 16 20:51:06 myMBA com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.google.keystone.system.agent[771]): Could not find and/or execute program specified by service: 2: No such file or directory: /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent

We will see tomorrow if it stays put over night and stops trying to update Google Software every hour.


Turning off text to speech in iMessage How can I turn off the "text to speech" feature in iMessage?  I don't mind iMessage bouncing in the dock when a message comes in, but I can't have iMessage speaking the message.  Not only is this feature distracting, but sometimes a message is private and I don't want anyone within earshot hearing my text "conversations"...I'm running OS X Version 10.8.4

Try this.

Uncheck "Speak an announcement".


Symlinked MobileSync folder but still "not enough free space" I have an external hard drive and I plan to put iPhone backups on it.

I did symlink to it this way:

ln -s /Volumes/external/Backup ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync

When I'm trying to do a backup of my iPhone normally from iTunes, I get an error:

However my drive has 1 TB of free space. What's wrong?

iTunes doesn't know you've symlinked the MobileSync folder, so still checks the normal disk for its free space. Make sure there's enough free space on the disk containing your home folder, even though that space won't be consumed because of the symlink.


OS X Safari Comodo SSL issue Strange issue on OS X Safari - visit Skiplex UK and you will receive an alert 'Safari can't verify the identity of the website "www.skiplex.co.uk".'.

I have been advised by Comodo and our hosting provider that SSL is setup correctly multiple times. The SSL is indeed working perfectly on all other browsers and operating systems including iOS.

It just seems to be an issue with the SSL on skiplex website. I can connect through to other websites using SSL, such as apple, google, etc.

Feel like I'm getting no where with this issue. Any ideas much appreciated.

Additional Info

I'm using Safari Version 9.0.2. I also know others experiencing same
issue (on various versions of Safari) so unfortunately issue not
local to my machine.
As far as I'm aware this issue does not occur on Safari for Windows.

I can't reproduce this issue with Safari 9. By visiting Skiplex UK everything loads correctly without a SSL cert error.

Here’s what you can do:

Ty clearing your Safari Cache and Cookie
Open Keychain Acccess and select Keychain First Aid > Select „Repair“ > Start
Reboot your Computer.

This sites covers your issue in more detail. http://osxdaily.com/2014/03/26/fix-safari-cant-verify-website-error/


Do I have to enroll an Apple Developer Program to access itunes connect as a team member? I have searched and the closest I came to an answer was this, Do I have to enroll an Apple Developer Program when working for a client?.

My problem is similar to his EXCEPT,
I can generate certificates, provisioning profiles e.t.c even though I DO NOT have a paid account (but the team which I am part of does).

However I CANNOT log in to itunes connect to create an app, when I log in to itunes using my credentials, I see the following screen,

Must I have a paid developer program account in order to see this screen instead?

As Apple states

  Important:  Although both systems may use the same Apple ID for account validation, the iTunes Connect users and roles are separate from the Apple Developer Program membership and roles. A member of the Apple Developer Program for your organization doesn’t automatically have access to iTunes Connect. A member with an Admin role in the Apple Developer Program doesn’t automatically have an Admin role in iTunes Connect.

A team admin in iTunes Connect can add you as an iTunes Connect user so you can access the site.

From the above link:

To add a new iTunes Connect user

As the team agent or other iTunes Connect user with an Admin role, sign in to iTunes Connect.
On the iTunes Connect homepage, click Users and Roles.
Click the plus sign. If it doesn’t appear, you don’t have access to create iTunes Connect users. The team agent, or an Admin user, needs to create the new user or update your roles to allow you to create new users.
Enter the individual’s user information (first name, last name, and email address), and click Next.

The email address specified must be valid to activate the account. The user receives an email as a confirmation.

Review the email address of a user with an existing Apple ID.
If the email address you entered is already associated with an Apple ID, a warning message appears asking you to confirm that you want to associate this Apple ID with iTunes Connect.
Click Next to continue creating the user account with the existing email address and associated Apple ID.
Select the roles to assign to this user, and click Next
Roles give access to iTunes Connect sections. For example, the Admin role gives a user access to create and update material in all sections except Agreements, Tax, and Banking. The available roles are listed in User Roles.

Only the initial iTunes Connect user (the team agent) has access to the Legal role.

Select the notification types assigned to this user by territory, and click Save.
A confirmation line appears stating that verification email has been sent.

The new user receives an email from the iTunes Store that includes a link to activate the account. (Make sure to have the user check spam and junk mail filters if the activation email doesn’t arrive.)

If the account was created with an existing Apple ID, the user is asked to sign in to iTunes Connect.


How can I effectively lock down an iOS device for multi-app use for children? I have two pre-teen children who would like to do the following things with an iOS device:

Control Sonos speakers
Spotify
iMessage

However, we don't want to sit behind them and supervise every moment of their tablet usage so we need a tablet that can't add apps from the app store and does not have a general purpose web browser capable of seeing any site on the Internet.

At first, "Guided Access" seems like a good solution.  However, it is trivially easy to break out of guided access and gain access to Safari, etc.  My children will most certainly, and quickly, figure this out.

"Single App Mode" is robust, and can't be broken out of, and behaves just like what we need - but it is, literally, single app mode.  You can't have sonos and spotify and imessage available - you can only pick one.

So I am at a loss ...

Assuming that I have smart kids that can look up things on their school computers and figure out how to break out of the jail and assuming that I would like an iOS device that has only a limited set of apps and no ability to add new ones, what is a good strategy ?

Is it possible to remove apps (like Safari) from an iOS device, then lock down the app store, and make it impossible to add new ones ?  In this instance, they could still factory reset the entire thing and get a fresh iOS device with Safari and Internet access, correct ?

Open to any suggestions ...

You can use "Apple Configurator 2" from the App Store to supervise the device. Note that supervising the iOS device will wipe its current content.

When you have supervised the device, you can setup restrictions such as for example disabling the Safari web browser, disabling app installation from the App Store, etc.

Another approach might be to make an agreement with your children so that they know what they're allowed and not allowed to do, and then trust them to not install other apps. If they do, you can have a productive conversation on that topic - perhaps they can convince you that the new app is actually a benefit to them...


Restoring data from iPad to new Mac after old Mac died My wife's Mac died.  We sent the hard drive to a data recovery service, but the platters are damaged beyond repair or recovery, nor do we have a usable backup.  Now she has a new Mac.

Her iPad 1 (iOS 5.1.1) still has important data on it, for example audio and video that she worked hard to create herself (as opposed to purchasing it from the iTunes store).  In many cases the only remaining copies of this audio or video are trapped on this iPad.

My vague understanding is that if we were to connect the iPad to the new Mac, iTunes would permanently delete all of this data.

Is there any safe, foolproof, credible way to copy non-purchased audio and video from the iPad to the new Mac, without accidentally destroying it in the process?

It would be nice to get purchased music and apps back too, ideally without having to locate and pay for everything again, but the irreplaceable original content is the more immediate concern here.

Although I consider myself to be fairly tech-savvy in general and I've used a Mac for years, unfortunately I'm not at all familiar with the iPad or even with iTunes -- basically I have zero experience or knowledge of either of those things.  We don't have access to another identical iPad to play with, and I'm extremely reluctant to experiment now and possibly destroy this important data.

Your personal, i.e. non-purchased, media can be copied from your iOS device using Macroplant's iExplorer.

If you could mount the iOS device's filesystem directly, you could find your media in Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes—if you had a Linux system handy, for example; I don't know of a way to do this directly on OS X.  The files stored in that area are renamed seemingly randomly, but should be able to be imported into iTunes since their media tags should be intact.


How to remove a partition with terminal? So basically I partitioned my HDD on my MacBook Pro so that I could install Linux and dual boot. But I realized I don't really need Linux anymore but it doesn't appear on my regular disk utilities, only my one MacBook HDD does.

I type diskutil list in my terminal and this shows up

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            91.0 GB    disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                        EFI                         29.3 GB    disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +90.6 GB    disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 B0DF20B2-B674-46B3-B337-57F6A89A500F
                                 Unlocked Encrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *248.4 GB   disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS 256 GB                  248.3 GB   disk2s3

I'm basically trying to remove 4 under disk0.
Any help would be appreciated.

The command
sudo  diskutil  eraseVolume  jhfs+  MyVolume  disk0s4

should make the partition visible in the Disk Utility application. This command will erase the contents partition 4. You should probably quit the Disk Utility application before entering this command.
Once disk0s4 becomes visible in the Disk Utility application, you can remove the partition and reclaim the space.


Why does my iPod Touch show Spotlight differently? I have an iPod Touch 5th gen (latest). After I upgraded to iOS 8.2, the Spotlight display looks like the following. Instead of the icons fading out to nearly invisible (as it does on my iPad and an iPhone 4S I tried), the icons are shown in chunky black and white.

What's going on here? Why does this happen on my iPod Touch, but it works correctly on both older and newer hardware? Is this simply a bug in iOS 8.2? Does this happen for anybody else?

I had this happen when I ran a beta version of iOS (8.0 beta 3 iirc). A reboot sometimes fixed it, but it kept coming back. The next beta fixed it for me.

Try rebooting, and check your accessibility options for greyscale (I have it in the triple-click home button menu, which I guessed was the culprit). Try disabling all accessibility options.

If you really want this gone and the above answers don't work, try a factory restore.


Why is the MS To-Do App adding things to my reminders, and how do I stop it? I have a corporate Office 365 account for work and have the Microsoft To-Do app installed to manage work related things.

When I add a task, it seems to be added to my iOS reminders:

I haven’t given (or has it asked) permissions to access my reminders:

I use the Reminders app for personal stuff so don’t want this to happen. There is nothing in the To-Do app settings to disable this “feature”.

Your Microsoft account may be syncing with your iOS device. To disable this, go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts > (might be called Exchange or Outlook) > Disable Reminders. If you want to disable all syncing with the account, you can also remove the account entirely from your device.


How do redemption codes work in Apple Business Manager when NOT using MDM The small dev company that I work for has been contracted to build an app for client.  This client is using Apple Business Manager and wants us to publish to it.

I have built the app and deployed it for review to the Apple Connect.  It passed and I see it is now in the client's Apple Business Manager account.

Here is where I am confused.  Our client DOES NOT have a MDM. How can I use Apple Business Manager in this case?

From the apple site (https://developer.apple.com/business/custom-apps/), it says "Alternatively, organizations can choose to provide redemption codes to authorized users to download the app on the App Store.".

How do redemption codes work?
How does our client use redemption codes to download our app from the app store?

Our client simply wants its employees (1000+ employees) to download the app that we built (whitelabelled to the client obviously).

Does the client have to add each of its users device UIDD's to its ABM? (which would be ridiculous)!

How do these VPP codes work then?

How do they redeem these codes on the Apple App Store, and therefore install the app on their device?

I am also using Apple Business Manager for my company but we have an MDM also with it. However, on your question, I think you have to go through the following steps:

Log in to your Apple Developer Account connect your App to the client’s Apple Business Manager account by adding their Organization ID and Company Name for distribution. See the highlighted blue area below.

This connection is immediate. Once your App is connected to the client’s Apple Business Manager Account, it will be visible under the Custom App section of the ABM account.
By selecting that custom app, you can generate 1-time use redemption codes and links for employees to download your app.

Once the codes are created, you can download the list.

You can use these codes and proprietary processes to enable your client’s employees to access your application.


Find emoji description on MacOS or iOS Someone sent me an emoji in a text on an iPhone. How can I lookup the "description" of what it represents using the native UI?

Ideally I want to lookup the unicode name / description, but a data point will do. I'm interested in an answer for current versions of iOS and MacOS.

On MacOS it's fairly easy to extract the data point from the emoji by looking at the hex codes of the character, but that doesn't work on iOS.

I know that I can find an emoji from a text description when sending a message. But I see no obvious way to "reverse map" the emoji when I receive one.

For reference I was sent this: ❤

and want to know how I could send that "left pointing finger" myself.

On iOS

On iOS (and watchOS) you can use the Workflow app (which incidentally Apple has just purchased). It's free and is a fantastic tool for many reasons.

Within the app, one of the included workflows is called Name That Emoji. This allows you to enter your emoji and it'll give you the system name for it.

On macOS

On macOS you can use the keyboard menu bar icon to view the names. More specifically:

Go to Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard
Ensure the Keyboard tab is selected
Ensure the checkbox for Show Keyboard, Emoji and Symbol Viewers in menu bar is ticked
This will add a Keyboard Menu icon to the macOS menu bar
Exit System Preferences
Click on the Keyboard Menu icon in the menu bar and select Show Emoji & Symbols
Once it opens, click on the Emoji option in the left-hand pane
Now select an Emoji
You'll notice that on the right-hand side you'll see the selected Emoji as well as its name/meaning

NOTE: Steps 1-5 are only required to add the keyboard icon to the menu bar. Once you have added it (or if it's already in your menu bar) these steps are not required.


Safari 6's show/reveal in Finder stopped working The other day Safari 6's "Show/Reveal in Finder" command in the downloads window suddenly stopped working. Whether right-clicking or clicking the magnifying glass/loupe button, I can't get the Finder to jump immediately to the file in question. Double-clicking to open the file works, but I don't want to do that immediately with all my downloads.

What can be done about this?

It's caused by the Apple Events bug in 10.8. It also affects other applications and makes Archive Utility stop responding when extracting archives.

As a workaround, you can terminate the appleeventsd process from Activity Monitor or by running sudo killall -kill appleeventsd (without -kill the process is sent a TERM signal, which makes other processes stop responding).


How to "Ctrl-F" in iPhone's Safari browser? Most browsers have a "search" or "find" function (accessible through CtrlF) which allows us to search the webpage for text.

Does iPhone's Safari browser have this functionality?

I don't have an iPhone anymore, but my memory tells me this:
iPhone
Search using the standard search bar.

The web search suggestions are at the top.
The website search results of the currently viewed website are at the bottom.

iPad
Search using the standard search bar.

The web search suggestions are at the top.
To search the website use the entry box which pops up right above the keyboard.

All of this may change with iOS 6 and Mountain Lion. The WWDC2012 announced that Safari for OSX will integrate a Chrome like omnisearch bar . Most likely we'll see something similar for iOS as well - at least i hope so :).


How does Versions work with iCloud? Just wondering how, if at all, Versions on Pages for Mountain Lion (10.8) works with iCloud, specifically in relation to iOS 5 devices.

My own testing seems to indicate that a Pages document created on the Mac saves versions in iCloud that you can revert to but only on the Mac (can't find an iOS interface for Versions). However, if I create a document on Pages for iOS (forcing an upload to iCloud after each edit) I can't revert to previous versions made on iOS, even on the Mac. One time, when I tried to do this, I saw a message saying the file is stored on a volume which doesn't support permanent version storage. However I have been unable to reproduce this message.

Can anyone enlighten me as to how Versions is supposed to work with iCloud? Is it a Mac-only feature, not available on iOS? If so, how best to guard against unwanted edits on iOS? Should I just prevent the doc from being uploaded to the cloud until I am happy with it, and use the undo / redo feature?

As I understand it, we only have Versions on the Mac because we also have Autosave. On iOS all saving (to the cloud) is done manually (the equivalent of the old command-s on Snow Leopard) thus eliminating the need for iOS versions. Have I got the correct picture here?

Sorry for the long post! I'd really appreciate any replies.

iCloud itself does support document revisions, and my understanding is that it does the same job OS X does for versions stored locally (keeps track of all the small changes, and is in charge of assembling all the chunks into different versions). So any OS X app that supports versioning and iCloud storage should handle both together seamlessly, the same as if it's stored locally. It sounds like you're seeing the expected results in this case.

On iOS it's a bit more complicated - apps have access to other revisions of the document, but because there's no standard way for a user to see different versions (as in OS X), it's up to the app developer to deal with this. I believe the recommended practice for iOS apps is to only keep versions as necessary (for example, dealing with two conflicting versions).

Based on my understanding, if you create a document on iOS, then edit it on OS X, you should be able to view the revisions on OS X, but iOS will only show the "current" one, and OS X will probably only include one iOS-edited version of the file, with whatever versions were edited on OS X. However, this all depends a lot on how the iOS developer implements iCloud storage, and based on my reading of the developer documentation, if an iOS app has what it can satisfactorily decide is the canonical up-to-date version of a document, it may discard all previous versions. That may be why you were running into issues with iOS-created Pages documents.

Ultimately, iCloud is a pretty complex thing, and while they go to great lengths to make it seem simple for the user, some of that complexity can get in the way.

TL;DR version: using OS X only, versions should sync fine. Bringing iOS into the mix can change things depending on the developer's implementation.


Bulk merge items sub-folders into new folder I have a main folder with about 80 folders in, each with about 10 items in. I want to be able to use a Terminal command or something to just move every item from each sub-folder into a new one (i.e the newly created folder would have around 800 items in, not separated by individual folders). Doing this by hand would be very tedious. Is there a way to do it easily and quickly? I have looked at ditto, but couldn't figure out how to use it for my use case. Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!

Assuming the structure is like

main-folder
    subfolder-1
        item-1
        item-2
    subfolder-2
        item-3
        item-4

and all the items are uniquely named, you can use

cd main-folder
mkdir ../target-folder
mv */* ../target-folder/

to move everything into a target folder on the same directory level as the main folder. If you just want to move everything into the main folder, just use

cd main-folder
mv */* .


Why iTunes music can not play without Wi-Fi? Previously, I was able to play music on iTunes without a Wi-Fi connection. Now, I get an error message and my music will not play. WHY?

How can I play my music through iTunes without a Wi-Fi connection?

I traced the problem down to a TLS handshake and a total of 63 packets between the host and 23.211.148.217, which is init.iTunes.apple.com - that is executed when the current version of iTunes is started. Once this handshake completes, all is fine. But you must tunnel traffic to this host on startup, otherwise you get the error with each and every song change.

You can play music without wifi if you have an internet connection when you start iTunes. So, connect your laptop to the internet and do not turn it off/close iTunes, just put it to sleep. Then, the error will not appear. Not a fix, but it works.


Will Apple Music 3 month trial carry over if changing plans? A Family linked account recently signed up to Apple Music for a 3 month free trial, but selected the Individual account option rather than Family, so only that single account has access to the trial.

I want to change the subscription to Family, but don't want it to see that as a purchase "now" and end the free trial.

Some Googling around this found me a Reddit question from 4 years ago (indicates it would carry over), but I'd rather not hang my hopes on old information.  Hopefully one of our members has a more recent experience with this.

I contacted Apple Support and they advised that the free trial would carry over.

I can confirm that having changed the subscription that this has worked as expected.


How to get photos/videos from my iphone into the cloud easily I make photos every day. I want them to be kept somewhere safe (online, not on my computer), without having to think about it.  Either over 3g, or whenever I'm near a wifi, I want my videos and photos to automatically upload.

Ideally to smugmug.com, so I don't need to take additional steps to share a subset of the photos, but something like dropbox or s3 would also do.

I find it hard to believe I'm the only one with this problem, but I haven't been able to find a good solution yet. (Best thing so far: PhotoSync with flickr sync)

Don't worry, Apple says it's coming in iCloud


Partition map rebuild I have an external hdd that doesn't mount anymore. I think I screw up with all the research I done and things I try. I have vital info on this hdd and I'm really afraid to lose it.

I tried this: Rebuild partition table on external HDD - not writable but run into a problem:

sudo pdisk /dev/rdisk1
pdisk: No valid block 1 on '/dev/rdisk2' Edit /dev/rdisk2 - Command (? for help):

I tried a scan with Disk Drill and it seems that the data is there but after I tried to recover a few files, I can't open them. They have the size but I can't open them.

I tried repairdisk:

diskutil repairdisk /dev/disk2
Repairing the partition map might erase disk2s1, proceed? (y/N) y
Started partition map repair on disk2
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map
Error: -69770: Partition map check failed because no slices were found

I've tried test disk and before the quick search I get his:

Bad MAC partition, invalid block0 signature read_part_mac: bad DPME signature

after the quick search this is my result

Also tried:

pdisk: No valid block 1 on '/dev/rdisk2' Edit /dev/rdisk2 - Command (? for help):

Update:

Instead of using pdisk I tried gpt. The result of sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk3 is:

       start       size  index  contents
           0          1         PMBR
           1          1         Pri GPT header
           2          4         Pri GPT table
           6         34
          40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640  243781000
   244190640          4         Sec GPT table
   244190644          1         Sec GPT header

I've changed the hdd to a firewire 800 enclosure

The result of sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk2 is:

       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1  1953525167

Update 2

Trying to find the EFI start block:

The disk lost its GUID partition table and the EFI volume was partly overwritten. The disk was mounted in an enclosure which doesn't properly report a logical block size of 512 bytes. Instead 4096 bytes are used. The disk itself has a physical block size of 4096 bytes.

After trying some known but actually unsuccessful methods (e.g. Disk Warrior or answers here at stackexchange: HFS+ invalid number of allocation blocks to recover the disk, we formatted an equally sized disk, dded the EFI volume to a temporary file and recovered the partition table (including the main volume) by using the same standard values we got by formatting the empty disk.

The EFI of the previously partitioned (empty) disk was saved to a file with:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
dd if=/dev/disk2s1 of=/Users/user/Desktop/disk2s1.raw

Repairing the corrupted disk:

The partly "repaired" but corrupted GUID partition table originally looked like this

sudo gpt -r show disk2
    start        size  index  contents
        0           1         PMBR
        1           1         Pri GPT header
        2           4         Pri GPT table
        6          34
       40      409600    1    GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640   243781000
244190640           4         Sec GPT table
244190644           1         Sec GPT header

After removing the EFI partition with:

sudo gpt remove -i 1 /dev/disk2

and rewriting the GUID partition table with

sudo gpt destroy /dev/disk2
sudo gpt create /dev/disk2

the EFI volume and the main volumes were added with:

sudo gpt add -b 6 -i 1 -s 76800 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk2
sudo dd if=/Users/user/Desktop/disk2s1.raw of=/dev/disk2s1
sudo gpt add -b 76806 -i 2 -s 244081066 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk2

The disk and the main volume were verified:

diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk2
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s2

Finally the disk looks like this:

sudo gpt -r show disk2
    start        size  index  contents
        0           1         PMBR
        1           1         Pri GPT header
        2           4         Pri GPT table
        6       76800      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    76806   244081066      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
244157872       32768
244190640           4         Sec  GPT  table
244190644           1         Sec  GPT header

All data was recovered.


Can a Macbook dual boot Snow Leopard and Lion? Possible Duplicate:
  Dual Boot Lion / SL

My Macbook currently has Snow Leopard on it.  I'd like to try Lion as well, but is there a way to make it dual boot either one, perhaps using BootCamp?

Yes, it can dual boot, and no, you don't need Boot Camp. Back up your system first, in case anything goes wrong. Create a second partition. When you download Lion, you'll need to download it without installing, then follow instructions on the web to create an install DVD or USB drive. Then, run the installer, and select the blank partition as the target for the install. When you boot, hold down option, and you can select which partition you want.


Show ALL files starting with a dot in Finder This answer from 2011 doesn't work for me:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true
killall Finder

I still can't see .DS_Store for example, .localized, ._. etc
cmd shift . also doesn't work.
I can see other dotfiles after I use cmd shift ., just not ._.*, .DS_Store, .localized so far.

Well, I don't know about showing files starting with "." in the finder, but you can just as easily do what you want in the terminal. Just open the terminal go to the directory you want ( you start from your home directory you can use the "cd" command followed by the directory name like this: cd desktop or cd download. Once you are in the desired directory you can type ls -la to see a list of all the files and folders included the hidden ones that start with a "." You can open the files using the open command followed by the file name. You can also go inside the hidden directory by using the same cd command from before followed by the directory name.


How do I launch an app at boot/startup on Sierra? I'm a techie but fairly new to macOS. I am using a Mac mini running macOS Sierra as a build machine running GoCD. I want the server (go-server) and the agent (go-agent) to start on boot, but I can't find an easy explanation anywhere for how to do this.

Things that worked on Mac OS X 10.6 don't work any more, and I don't want to have these apps start at login, because I don't want to remain logged into the console on this computer.

Service/app launch while booting is usually done with launchd and launch daemons controlled by launchctl. It depends on the app/executable and the environment if such a launch daemon is possible or not. A lot of GUI apps require a login session and the method doesn't work.

After inspecting GoCD you can either download a zip file or an "OS X/macOS app" version of the server. The server is started with a shell script in both cases: either explicitly in the zip version or implicitly with "Go Server.app/Contents/MacOS/go-server".

Go with the zip file, unzip it and move the resulting folder to /usr/local. Link the folder /usr/local/go-server-16.10.0 to /usr/local/:

ln -s /usr/local/go-server-16.10.0 /usr/local/go-server

Create a launch daemon with sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemon/org.goserver.start.plistand the content

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.goserver.start</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>/usr/local/go-server/server.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.goserver.start.stderr</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.goserver.start.stdout</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Change owner and permissions of the file if necessary:

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.goserver.start.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.goserver.start.plist

Modify /usr/local/go-server-16.10.0/server.sh to your needs. You should set a different log directory in line 85 or a log file will be created in the root directory. Check other variables and paths (like $JAVA_HOME, YOURKIT_PATH, $PID_FILE etc) in the shell script and modify them according to your needs/environment. Here it worked out-of-the-box - but I didn't test it thoroughly.

Then start the launch daemon with:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.goserver.start.plist

Check /tmp/org.goserver.start.stderr for launchd errors. If the launch daemon runs well you may remove the part:

    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.goserver.start.stderr</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.goserver.start.stdout</string>

from the plist.

The method should work accordingly with the GoAgent. The start of the agent is done with agent.sh. Use a second plist with a different plist and label name of course: org.goagent.start.plist/org.goagent.start.

You probably have to add a condition in the agent's plist so that the agent is started after the server is running.

I tried the same with the "OS X" app but I failed to eliminate all errors.


Disk Utility cannot detect a good portion of my storage space While trying to set up Boot Camp, I received an error shortly after the process finished. Checking Disk Utility on both the software and Terminal, I was left with the space I set for my Boot Camp partition as unusable. I tried to delete/unmount/format/erase that partition but after multiple failed attempts I ended up just losing access to that space entirely. This happened twice, going from 500GB of usuable space to 250GB to 112GB. Below are screenshots from Terminal and the Disk Utility.

Below is the output from the command gpt -r show /dev/disk0.

How do I salvage this situation?

If you want find the free space, there is a third party utility that will show you were it went. This utility does not require installation or your password to use. You can find more information on this utility from the driveinfo website.

Assume your downloads go to the default download folder. You and find the free space by downloading and entering the command given below.

~/Downloads/driveinfo-1.0.3/driveinfo -r disk0

An alternative to driveinfo command would be the macOS command given below.

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0

To use the gpt command, you would need to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP).

If you can post the output from either of these commands, then help could be provided on how to recover the missing space.