Calendar auto-increment name of event If I set an event to repeat every day, is it possible to auto-increment a number at the end of its name?

E.g. every day at 21:00 I'd like an alert which says "Day #" where # is the number of days since the event started.

An AppleScript is one approach to doing this.
See MacScripter / Calendar: Incrementing Name property for recurring events which has a script making each year an event that says "John Doe's #th Anniversary". The script is also below, for your convenience.

main()

on main()
   set calendar_name to "Anniversaries"
   set number_of_anniversaries to 75

   -- Get the required info from Contacts in iCalendar or intermediate form.
   set seed_data to get_seed_data()
   if (seed_data is {}) then
       display dialog "None of your contacts have anniversaries!" buttons {"!"} default button 1 with icon stop
   else
       -- Compose an iCalendar spec for a calendar containing the required events and save it to an .ics file on the desktop.
       set iCalendar_text to compose_ics(seed_data, number_of_anniversaries)
       write_ics_file(iCalendar_text, (path to desktop as text) & (calendar_name & ".ics"))

       -- Import the file into Calendar as a new calendar.
       import_calendar(calendar_name)
   end if
end main

-- Identify "anniversary" custom dates in Contacts and return the corresponding names, ids, and dates adapted for use in the construction of an iCalendar spec. Monogamous and once-only marriages assumed!
on get_seed_data()
   tell application "System Events" to set Contacts_open to (application process "Contacts") exists

   -- Get the name, id, and custom-date data for every person in Contacts.
   tell application "Contacts"
       launch
       set {names, ids, {date_labels, date_values}} to {name, id, {label, value} of custom dates} of people
       if (not Contacts_open) then quit
   end tell

   -- Find any "anniversary" date labels and store the associated person/date data converted as follows:
   -- name: as the start of an iCalendar SUMMARY entry, with the name in the genitive and a trailing space.
   -- id: as a complete iCalendar URL entry, the id being part of an "addressbook"-protocol URL.
   -- "anniversary" date value: as event start and end dates in zoneless ISO format, but stored as integers instead of text for ease and speed of manipulation.
   set seed_data to {}
   repeat with person from 1 to (count names)
       set these_labels to item person of date_labels
       if (these_labels contains "anniversary") then
           repeat with custom_date from 1 to (count these_labels)
               if (item custom_date of these_labels is "anniversary") then
                   set start_date to item custom_date of item person of date_values
                   set end of seed_data to {|SUMMARY start|:"SUMMARY:" & (item person of names) & "'s ", |URL entry|:"URL;VALUE=URI:addressbook://" & item person of ids, |start date|:ISOT_integer(start_date), |end date|:ISOT_integer(start_date + days)}
                   exit repeat
               end if
           end repeat
       end if
   end repeat

   return seed_data
end get_seed_data

-- Put together an iCalendar specification for a calendar containing recurring events whose initial summaries indicate weddings and recurrence summaries indicate the inividual anniversaries.
on compose_ics(seed_data, number_of_anniversaries)
   -- The list of iCalendar components could get very long, so it'll be referenced via a script object for speed of access.
   script iCalendar
       property components : {}
   end script

   -- Initialise a VEVENT template. It'll serve for both main events and recurrence instances.
   set VEVENT_template to {"BEGIN:VEVENT", missing value, missing value, missing value, missing value, missing value, missing value, missing value, missing value, missing value, "END:VEVENT"}
   -- Get process and host data for use in the UIDs.
   set my_Name to name of current application
   tell application "System Events" to set unix_id to unix id of first application process whose displayed name is my_Name
   set host_name to host name of (system info)
   -- Prepare to use CRLF line endings.
   set CRLF to return & linefeed
   set astid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to CRLF

   -- Create and store the opening VCALENDAR spiel.
   set beginning of iCalendar's components to {"BEGIN:VCALENDAR", "VERSION:2.0", "PRODID:-//Apple Inc.//iCal 4.0.4//EN", "CALSCALE:GREGORIAN"} as text

   -- Create and store the VEVENT sections for each main event.
   repeat with event_number from 1 to (count seed_data)
       set {|SUMMARY start|:SUMMARY_start, |URL entry|:URL_entry, |start date|:start_date, |end date|:end_date} to item event_number of seed_data
       -- Load the VEVENT template with the data for the main, recurring event.
       set item 2 of VEVENT_template to "CREATED:" & ISOT_GMT(current date)
       set item 3 of VEVENT_template to "UID:" & new_UID(unix_id, host_name, event_number)
       set item 4 of VEVENT_template to "DTEND;VALUE=" & end_date
       set leap_wedding to (start_date mod 10000 is 229) -- Did these idiots get married on 29th February?
       if (leap_wedding) then
           set using_Mar1 to (button returned of (display dialog (text 9 thru -1 of SUMMARY_start & "wedding is/was on 29th February! Are the non-leap anniversaries celebrated on 28th February or 1st March?") buttons {"28th February", "1st March"} default button 2 with icon note) is "1st March")
           if (using_Mar1) then -- The anniversaries have to recur on the 60th day of every year …
               set item 5 of VEVENT_template to "RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYYEARDAY=60;COUNT=" & (number_of_anniversaries + 1)
           else -- … or else on the last day of every February.
               set item 5 of VEVENT_template to "RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYMONTH=2;BYMONTHDAY=-1;COUNT=" & (number_of_anniversaries + 1)
           end if
       else -- Normal anniversaries simply recur on the same date every year.
           set item 5 of VEVENT_template to "RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;COUNT=" & (number_of_anniversaries + 1)
       end if
       set item 6 of VEVENT_template to SUMMARY_start & "wedding"
       set item 7 of VEVENT_template to "DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:" & start_date
       set item 8 of VEVENT_template to "DTSTAMP:" & ISOT_GMT(current date)
       set item 9 of VEVENT_template to "SEQUENCE:7" -- Cheating with the sequence number!
       set item 10 of VEVENT_template to URL_entry

       -- Coerce the template to text and append the resulting VEVENT entry to the component list.
       set end of iCalendar's components to VEVENT_template as text

       -- Now create the required number of linked VEVENTS for the anniversaries, inserting the relevant dates and summaries into the template and coercing it to text each time.
       repeat with anniversary_number from 1 to number_of_anniversaries
           set start_date to start_date + 10000 -- Add 1 to the year.
           set end_date to end_date + 10000 -- Ditto.
           if (leap_wedding) then
               -- Use months and days pertinent to the anniverary-date convention.
               set y to start_date div 10000
               if (isLeapYear(y)) then
                   set start_date to y * 10000 + 229
                   set end_date to y * 10000 + 301
               else if (using_Mar1) then
                   set start_date to y * 10000 + 301
                   set end_date to y * 10000 + 302
               else
                   set start_date to y * 10000 + 228
               end if
           end if
           set item 4 of VEVENT_template to "DTEND;VALUE=DATE:" & end_date
           -- This entry links this VEVENT to an expression date of the original event's recurrence.
           set item 5 of VEVENT_template to "RECURRENCE-ID;VALUE=DATE:" & start_date
           set item 6 of VEVENT_template to SUMMARY_start & anniversary_number & ordinal(anniversary_number) & " anniversary"
           set item 7 of VEVENT_template to "DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:" & start_date
           set item 8 of VEVENT_template to "DTSTAMP:" & ISOT_GMT(current date)
           set item 9 of VEVENT_template to "SEQUENCE:8" -- Cheating with the sequence number!

           -- Append this linked-VEVENT text to the output components.
           set end of iCalendar's components to VEVENT_template as text
       end repeat
   end repeat

   -- Lastly, append the END:VCALENDAR line.
   set end of iCalendar's components to "END:VCALENDAR" & CRLF
   -- When all the components are gathered, coerce the lot into one text.
   set iCalendar_text to iCalendar's components as text

   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid

   return iCalendar_text
end compose_ics

on write_ics_file(iCalendar_text, hfs_path)
   set fRef to (open for access file hfs_path with write permission)
   try
       set eof fRef to 0
       write iCalendar_text as «class utf8» to fRef
   end try
   close access fRef
end write_ics_file

-- Delete any current calendar with the given name and import an .ics file to a replacement.
on import_calendar(calendar_name)
   tell application "Calendar"
       activate
       if (calendar calendar_name exists) then delete calendar calendar_name
       -- This assumes there'll be at most one calendar with the name, but it's easy to modify.
   end tell

   -- "Double-click" the ics file. Calendar will offer to import the new events.
   tell application "Finder" to open file (calendar_name & ".ics") of desktop

   -- In the Add Events dialog, select the bottom item ("New Calendar") in the pop-up menu and hit return. The calendar should be created automatically with the name of the ics file.
   tell application "System Events"
       tell application process "Calendar" -- GUI Scripting.
           repeat until (window 2 exists)
               delay 0.2
           end repeat
           tell pop up button 1 of window 1
               perform action "AXPress" -- Click the pop-up menu button.
               perform action "AXPress" of menu item -1 of menu 1 -- Click the "New Calendar" item.
           end tell
       end tell
       keystroke return -- "Click" the dialog's "OK" button.
   end tell
end import_calendar

-- Return the "yyyymmdd" representation of a date as an integer.
on ISOT_integer(theDate)
   set {year:y, month:m, day:d} to theDate
   return y * 10000 + m * 100 + d
end ISOT_integer

-- Return the GMT equivalent of a date in ISOT format.
on ISOT_GMT(theDate)
   set {year:y, month:m, day:d, time:t} to theDate - (time to GMT)
   return ((y * 10000 + m * 100 + d) as text) & "T" & text 2 thru -1 of ((1000000 + t div hours * 10000 + t mod hours div minutes * 100 + t mod minutes) as text) & "Z"
end ISOT_GMT

-- Construct an "@"-style UID from the current date and time and the given data.
on new_UID(unix_id, host_name, iteration)
   return ISOT_GMT(current date) & "-" & unix_id & "-" & iteration & "@" & host_name
end new_UID

on isLeapYear(y)
   return ((y mod 4 is 0) and (y mod 400 is not in {100, 200, 300}))
end isLeapYear

on ordinal(n)
   set units to n mod 10
   if ((units > 3) or ((n - units) mod 100 is 10) or (units < 1)) then
       return "th"
   else
       return item units of {"st", "nd", "rd"}
   end if
end ordinal


Does using multiple monitors cause the iMac to run hotter? I have noticed my iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, Late 2015) tends to run hot & noisy when watching some simple videos. I have tried whatever light duty diagnostics I can manage, such as activity monitor and the built in diagnostic tool, but nothing seems to be apparent.
The only thing I can think of is that my iMac is connected to two external monitors: one is a semi-retired older iMac in target display mode, and the other is a Phillips monitor.
Is it possible that supporting external monitors causes the iMac to run hotter?

It could...  I would suggest getting a can of compressed air and blowing out the fans.  If you haven't done this recently, it could be the cause of the extra heat.  When blowing out the fans DO NOT LET THE FANS SPIN!!!  I have killed a laptop while doing that so be very careful when blowing out the fans.


Mail app sends my IP in email headers I just sent my first email using the Mail app through a fully functional email Postfix+Dovecot server.

I am worried by the fact that it also sends my IP address and hostname along with it.

The header that is causing this is Received:

Received: from mycomp-mbp.domain_not_set.invalid (cpe-IP-HERE.dynamic.ISPHERE.net [IPHERE]) by mydomain.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 70F1D1B459 for <recipient.of.email@gmail.com>; Fri, 1 Feb 2019 11:17:45 +0100 (CET)

How can I instruct Mail app to not send this information along the way?

That line is added by the machine that received the mail from your Mac, so you don't get to control that from Mail.app or macOS.

This is very intentional, so unless your mail company wants to be taking responsibility for all the mails you send them, they might not be willing to "own" the mails you ask them to forward.

The machine that received the mail already knows the IP address and what it thinks is your host name so you would open a ticket with the team that manages that server if you needed to change the source of your mails or alter that header content in any way.


Catalina import Library.xml into music app? I have two itunes libraries. One is on Catalina and has a bunch of music. One is on Windows and has a bunch of different music. On the Windows machine I exported the Library xml file and copied the whole iTunes folder to my usb disk. I then went to the mac and opened the Library.xml file in a text editor and fixed up the paths to point to the correct location (e.g. file:///Volumes/120GB SSD/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Music/...) and then when I go into Music and import the Library.xml file, nothing happens.... no feedback on screen, no error messages, no items appearing in my library. I had console up to look at the logs but not really sure what I am looking for and nothing notable appeared. Music doesn't seem to even try to deal with importing.

How can I copy my whole iTunes library from windows into my EXISTING mac library?

According to turingtest2 on Apple Support forums, you might be able to import the XML using the 'Import Playlist' function.

The XML file is for third party support. The active iTunes library
would normally have been called iTunes Library.itl though in some
legacy systems the .itl extension might be omitted. You can hold down
option while starting Music (or TV) and then use the Choose Library
option to access an existing .itl file. You will be prompted for the
path to store a new music (or TV) library converted from the old one.
Alternatively you can use File > Library > Import Playlist... to
import an XML file, but that will lose date added information that
would be preserved by working with the .itl file. Either method should
bring in ratings and playlists.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250869304


How do you switch dictionaries used for the "Tap with three fingers" lookup? Using Mountain Lion, I want to add or change the dictionary used when I tap with three fingers to define a word. The goal is to use a spanish-english dictionary in place of the english dictionary.

You select the dictionary in Dictionary.app > Preferences.

For info about adding dictionaries, see

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-dictionaries-for-dictionaryapp.html


Could microsoft remote desktop connection be used to spy? I found a Program called Microsoft remote desktop connection on my mac but did not install it myself. Could somebody have been using it to spy on my computer use without my knowledge?
Would I be able to tell if my computer was being remotely accessed through that program while i was using my computer?

I'm pretty sure it can get installed as part of Office, as well as separately.

One app not to worry about, in fact - as it can only be used to 'dial out' to a Windows machine, not another Mac.


Mac reboots after some minutes of inactivity I have this strange problem of my Mac rebooting. Everything was normal until I started syncing photos from iCloud (this could be coincidental, maybe not). First time I noticed a problem after 1-2 days as my system fan started going crazy, with CPU utilization at a max, several minutes later followed by system shut down. I traced the 100% CPU to Spotlight reindexing constantly; I temporarily disabled indexing:

sudo mdutil -a -i off

Problems with fans went away, but now photos service was going at very high CPU, accelerating fans again. I disabled Photos app (as much as I knew how) to avoid performing any analysis. This solved the fans and CPU going crazy problem. I could live without Photos on this Mac, no problems here.

Photos/Spotlight searching might just be coincidental, this part I'm not sure. Just so my system was more or less stable for at least several month before this addition.

But, here's the problem:

As soon as I leave my computer alone, after several minutes of inactivity, something happens that my computer goes into sudden reboot. I can't even leave it for 5 min for bathroom break. For information: putting computer to sleep was always disabled on my Mac, only screen saver and later on monitors were to trigger. Now I disabled it all, with no difference. I tried: 'caffeinate' with no difference as well.

Also, working on my Mac, performing various tasks has no effect whatsoever, but leaving it idle, goes to reboot soon.

Please help. What I was trying to find is if there's some kind of log that I could dump of a system on freeze, some entry to trace of what was the final activity before my Mac reboots. Any idea?

Go to System Preferences | Security & Privacy | Click on "Advanced" on bottom right (unlock padlock first) | Uncheck "Logout after 10 minutes of inactivity"


How can I tell the difference between display sleep vs. computer sleep on my MacBook Air (Late 2010)? How can I tell the difference between the entire computer sleeping and only the display sleeping?

I'm trying to diagnose sleep problems, and one of the basic things I need to know is the difference between these two kinds of sleep modes. I can't rely on the times I set in the settings since that is what I'm trying to debug.

I have a 13" Macbook Air late 2010, if that makes any difference.

Things I thought might help:

Trackpad move vs. trackpad click. I've noticed that when I force the computer to sleep via the Apple menu, it's not enough to move around the mouse via the trackpad... I must press down on the trackpad or another key.
Caps Lock light: If I leave caps lock on for testing purposes, sometimes I will see the light turn off, while other times it stays on. I thought that perhaps this could tell me the difference between the two.
The Apple logo on the back side of the laptop, although its light seems to go off in both cases, so that doesn't help
Plugging in a USB device which has a light, which indicates when the computer is supplying it power. The light seems to shut off when in sleep mode, but stays on when the display is sleeping. I'm not sure if this is a reliable method, though

The problem with the first two methods is that I was able to recreate a situation where the caps lock key remains on, but the trackpad mouse move does not wake the computer.

Are there any reliable ways to know if the entire computer has gone to sleep or not?

There's a really simple way to test this if you have another Mac, or any other machine really.

Turn on one of the Sharing features on the Mac in question (File Sharing, Remote Login etc.) and try to connect to it from something else. If the entire machine is asleep it won't work. If just the screen is asleep it will.

I assume you're connecting to some kind of wireless network with the MacBookAir, so you could also check the list of connected wireless clients on your router. If the entire machine is asleep it should not be connected. It may still show up in the list of DHCP clients (clients that have requested an address from the router recently), but it should not be connected.


Use old Macbook as NAS/Fileserver? My wife's 2007 Macbook has a busted screen and a screwed up keyboard.  I have a work PC and she can use my Macbook Pro but I was wondering if I could use her Macbook sitting on my network as a NAS for Time Machine and an iTunes music storage.
I have a 320gig USB hard drive that I can plug in to it.
Is there some way that I can use the USB Hard Drive plugged in to her Macbook as a network drive?  Without reinstalling OS X would be the nicest thing.

You can use the USB drive plugged into the busted computer as a network drive with OS X's file sharing.

Mount the drive with USB. Go to System Preferences-> Sharing -> File Sharing. Turn it on and click the plus button. Click on your USB drive and click Add. Add your user account on the right.

Now, go to another computer on the network. The busted MacBook should appear in the Finder sidebar. Click it and click Connect As. Type in your username and password (the one you use on the busted MacBook). Let it log in. Click on the USB drive and let it load the list of files. You should now see your USB drive mounted on your desktop.

Now, to configuring Time Machine.
By default, TM doesn't let you use a network drive unless its a Time Capsule. But, you can allow it do so by changing a hidden preference.
Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities). Type this in and press enter:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Now, open System Preferences -> Time Machine. Turn it on and set it to use your network drive.
Backups will be slowish, but they should work.

If you want to use iTunes and Time Machine, you'll need to use Disk Utility to partition the drive into two partitions. Time Machine needs a whole partition to run...

If you do that, just make sure that you select both partitions on the busted MacBook's Sharing System Preferences pane. Set up Time Machine to use one partition, and add your iTunes folder on the other one.

Notes: The MacBook will have to be turned on for you to get at its files.
320GB is kinda small for a Time Machine disk, especially if you're partitioning to keep media on it. Just be careful...

Hope this helps.


Install macOS High Sierra as VirtualBox guest (on macOS High Sierra)? I would like to install a VirtualBox guest of macOS High Sierra on my MacBook Pro that is also running macOS High Sierra so that I can experiment with MDMs, etc. without rendering my primary laptop unusable.  I've created an ISO of High Sierra by downloading the installer from the Mac AppStore and running the following commands:

hdiutil create -o /tmp/HighSierra.cdr -size 7316m -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J

hdiutil attach /tmp/HighSierra.cdr.dmg -noverify -nobrowse -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build

asr restore -source /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/BaseSystem.dmg -target /Volumes/install_build -noprompt -noverify -erase

hdiutil detach /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System

hdiutil convert /tmp/HighSierra.cdr.dmg -format UDTO -o /tmp/HighSierra.iso

mv /tmp/HighSierra.iso.cdr ~/Desktop/HighSierra.iso

I've also created my VirtualBox guest on VirtualBox 5.2.0 r118431 with 8GB RAM and 2 processors.  However, when I attempt to boot from the ISO to start the install process, I'm met with a blank, black screen.

Is there something else I need to do in order to create my virtual macOS instance?

Your final HighSierra.iso is missing the complete InstallESD content (AKA the real High Sierra installer). You just copy a probably defunct and thus non-bootable base macOS system to the image.

I use the following shell script to create a working macOS installer iso file. Basically it's the same method as Apple's recommended way to create a bootable macOS installer thumb drive. The destination is a sparse dmg though.

#!/bin/bash

hdiutil create -o /tmp/HighSierra -size 5600m -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J -type SPARSE
hdiutil attach /tmp/HighSierra.sparseimage -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/install_build
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/install_build
hdiutil detach /Volumes/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra/
hdiutil convert /tmp/HighSierra.sparseimage -format UDTO -o /tmp/HighSierra.iso
mv /tmp/HighSierra.iso.cdr ~/Desktop/HighSierra.iso
rm /tmp/HighSierra.sparseimage

The script assumes the default location of the High Sierra installer in /Applications.

If you don't want to create a script, copy & paste & execute the commands in the script line by line in Terminal.

Before booting apply some mods to the VM:

VBoxManage modifyvm "name_of_vm" --cpuidset 00000001 000306a9 00020800 80000201 178bfbff

Remove the Floppy in System > Mainboard > Boot devices
enable USB3 in Ports > USB
set video memory in Display > Screen > Video Memory 128 MB
Set RAM and number of CPUs in System > Motherboard: 4GB; Processors: 2 CPUs


Can FileVault protected data be accessed if the hard drive has been NON securely wiped? I had my hard drive protected by FileVault before I started having major software issues.  I have plenty of Time Machine backups so I wiped the hard drive using the disk utility in recovery mode.  However, I never overwrote the whole hard drive or used any kind of "secure" wipe program.  When I set up my new accounts over the wiped drive, I did not use FileVault either.  I gave Apple the password to my new account which barely had any new data on it (and changed my password to "hello" before doing so).  I'm just wondering if the information that is technically still "there" when the drive was wiped insecurely can be accessed despite having been protected with FileVault prior to being wiped?

The information is there in a cryptographically erased format until you over write the data with a new file or re-encrypt the space with a new key. In some narrow way, the data is there, but no one can reconstitute it.

Specifically, each individual block on the storage was uniquely encrypted so you would need mathematically impossible amounts of processing to crack each block and then start the normal data recovery process.

The moment the large cryptographic key that was derived from your pass phrase was erased, you lost all practical and most impractical methods to recover any data from the still encrypted storage.


Trackpad secondary click requires more pressure than usual in Mojave beta I've just updated my MacBook Pro Retina Early 2015 to Mojave via Apple Beta Software Program.

Everything works smoothly except the Trackpad.

Tap with one or tap with two or three fingers work as usual, but click with two fingers became extremely hard. I need to push my two fingers with more than usual pressure to make it work.

My trackpad settings are shown below.

How can I make click with two fingers as soft as before? Thanks.

Version: 10.14 Beta (18A314k)

Not sure if this would solve the issue but you could try and pass by the Apple store or certified repair center and see if they could help you recalibrate the trackpad.

Service centers have tools to calibrate trackpads. I've been an Apple Certified Mac Technician for 6 years and we do this every time a machine has been opened.


I have an original iPhone. How do I get it to work? I have an original iPhone and an iPhone 4.

Both phones are mine that I have owned since their respective launch days. That said I have not used my iPhone since I switched to the 4 and after I did that switch I forgot my passcode to unlock the screen. Since I couldn't get into it and I wanted to get my iPhone ready to just be a wifi remote around my apartment I went to iTunes and reset it back to factory defaults.

Now it just shows that 'connect to iTunes' screen and nothing else. Is there anyway to use it?  Or is my old iPhone bricked?

Put a valid AT&T sim (or the SIM from when you last activated this phone) in the slot.
Charge it for at least 15 minutes.
Restore again and post the specific error message from iTunes logs you are getting.


Invitees not getting email notification of the meeting (event) I created an event on iPhone (6.x) by tapping the plus sign on my icloud calender with two users having gmail email addresses. The email invitation has not gone out even after 15 mins now. Am I doing something wrong here? How can I resend the notification emails if there is such a way.

Try this:

Change your notification settings

Open the Google Calendar app Google Calendar app icon.
In the top left, touch Menu > Settings.
Choose one of your calendars, like Events.
To change or remove a notification, touch it or touch Add another notification.


What is "Safari services" listed in iOS cellular data usage? When determining what's eating up my cellular data I look at data usage in the settings app. There the biggest consumer by far is "system services" and inside that item "safari services" is responsible for 95% of all usage.
This doesn't really tell me anything useful. What is Safari services? Who is it providing services for? Safari? 3rd party apps? Me? I assume it's not to me or Safari since then I don't see why the data isn't just listed under the Safari app directly, and the same thing if it's to 3rd party apps. If neither then I don't see why it's such a big consumer of data to begin with.
How do I cut down on its data consumption?
iOS 14.4 on iPhone 8

According to Apple, Safari Services is a framework that application developers can utilize to integrate Safari behaviors and features into their applications. For example, when you open a link in Discord (a messaging app), it opens in a mini version of Safari, from which you can quickly return to your chat, or open the link in the 'full version' of Safari.

You might be seeing excessive data usage if you frequently open data-heavy websites like YouTube through other apps like Twitter, for example. I should note, however, that I tested this on my phone, running iOS 14.5 (18E5199a) and could not find the mentioned "Safari Services" category; instead, I see the relevant data usage attributed to Safari itself. It's possible that there has been a recent change regarding this behavior.


I have an IMac with 1 firewire and 1 mini DVI port, can I connect two additional monitors? I would like to connect two external monitors to my IMac (Mid 2010 with ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024 MB) I have one connected at the moment to the mini-dvi port, my question is: can I utilise the Firewire port to add a further monitor?

Unfortunately, not with what is built into the system. You would have to purchase an external adapter (usually USB) which can split the signal and act as a videocard/accelerator for a second display.


Need a bootable OS X installer iso I removed the OS X partition off my HDD and installed Ubuntu. Now I want OS X back but I can't install it considering I have no access to Mac OS X. I need either an OS X Snow Leopard or OS X Lion .iso so I can put it on an installer USB.

Since OS X Lion was around $30 USD on release you definitely, definitely wouldn't want to torrent the .iso. I would image you could find the torrent fairly easily if you were to look. But you wouldn't do that, would you, because that would be immoral and possibly illegal in your area.


iPhone locked when calling with headphones When calling I use my iPhone 5S with headphones on and it always gets locked during the call. This doesnt happen when calling phone to ear. Is there a way how to prevent iPhone to lock when having a call with headphones?

When you're on a call whilst wearing earphones the iPhone is designed to AutoLock, this happens with all iPhones not just yours.

You can disable that feature from Settings➜Display&Brightness and set it to never.


Is it safe to upgrade to Yosemite when using VMWare Fusion 6? I'm currently running OS X 10.9.5. Within that I have Windows 8 running in VMWare Fusion 6.0.4 for some critical (but Windows only unfortunately) applications that I use daily.

Is it safe to upgrade to Yosemite and still run Fusion 6? Will my Windows 8 VM continue to function as normal?

My reason for asking is that I've seen a few threads elsewhere where people have had issues with beta versions of Yosemite and Fusion 6. I'm hoping that these issues have been ironed out by now?

There is now VMWare Fusion 7 which is supposedly "Ready for Yosemite" and I'm happy to upgrade but wondered if anyone has had any negative experiences that I should be wary of e.g. losing data, not being able to start the VM etc.

If not, should I upgrade the OS first and then Fusion or vice versa? Or should I just stop worrying because it'll probably all be fine?!

I can't afford to lose half a day restoring from backup because upgrading has messed my VM up so thought best to check.

The latest version of VMWare 6 is now OK with Yosemite.

Previous versions would not even run if the system was upgraded to Yosemite.

I would recommend upgrading VMWare to the latest version of v6 (currently 6.0.5) first, then upgrading the system to Yosemite. That way, when you boot into the new system, you should not have any problems with VMWare not running.


How do I uninstall an app from my Mac? I know I'm a bit silly here, and I've just recently switched from Windows to Mac. All I would do on a PC is press Win+X and then the F key to get to "Programs and Features" window, and search for the app from the list and then uninstall them. So I was wondering if there is anything similar on Mac as well.

For most apps, it's easy as navigating to your Applications folder in the Finder, then dragging the application to the Trash icon in your Dock. You can also right-click and select 'Move to Trash', or hit ⌘-delete.

I should also add, many apps store your settings and data in a different directory which doesn't get deleted simply by deleting the app in the Applications folder. This is both good and bad. If you ever reinstall the app, all your settings and data will still be in place. Keeping these extra files around doesn't really do macOS any harm. Although if you're concerned about removing EVERYTHING for a particular app, it can be tough to make sure you get everything. There are various utilities that make this a bit easier, one I've used in the past is AppZapper.

If you're curious, these files are usually in ~/Library/Application Support and ~/Library/Preferences.


I am not able to open a .tgz file on a Mac I am not able to open a .tgz file on a Mac. I tried unarchiver, stock software, commander, stuffit. What can I do?

Open Terminal
mkdir ~/Downloads/unpacked
cd ~/Downloads/unpacked
Type tar -xf  (notice the trailing space), drag & drop the file into the Terminal window and then press Return


How to erase data from Macintosh HD - Data - Data? I just realised that there're over 400gb usage of data and I think there's that much data in my computer.
I need to an upgrade and I want to erase that from my Mac.
But I Cann't. Does anyone know how to?

Apple shows how to completely erase the disk here.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496

You have to boot to internet recovery since the system can’t erase itself while running, but you can sometimes script a reboot that then performs the erase...

https://github.com/grahampugh/erase-install

Or connect to a different Mac over target disk mode (or even a PC could format the disk and you would need internet recovery or external installer to reinstall the OS).


Is the command line executable "quartzfilter" gone forever in Sierra? I'd like to use the pdf size reduction filters I've found, but from a script. Opening Preview and doing it manually is driving me nuts. The filters work very well, but I'd rather invoke the from the terminal.

In 2010, someone wrote a post on another site about an executable located at:

/System/Library/Printers/Libraries/quartzfilter

It is no longer at that location, or at any that I can figure out (though, I don't discount that it may be hidden in a bundle). It may be renamed.

Does anyone have any idea where to find this?

I've used "find" on the command line, with sudo... still nada.

It is gone forever, or hidden so well that you might as well give up.

A suitable substitute can be found at the following location:

https://gist.github.com/jrk/7eb26c9a868039c70bb9

This implements a short 24-line script that you can mark executable and use with the same argument set.


What is quickest, least number of taps possible on Apple Watch to “check-in” with somebody? I am looking for a way to contact my spouse when I am at work and too busy to text. I want to use my Apple Watch in the quickest way possible, ideally just 1 or two taps, to send an automated text or whatever, just so that my spouse gets some sort of signal that I am busy but "checking-in". I have dangerous job that sometimes goes 12+ hours later than expected, so being able to very briefly "check-in" with a few watch taps would be very helpful.

Take a look at the Do Button by ifttt

https://ifttt.com/products/do/button

You can create a button/recipe that sends an e-mail or sms to your significant other saying 'I'm Alive' or something.

Then all you ever have to do it just tap the button and the program will do the rest :) So at most it should be 2 taps,

Open App
Click button to start recipe

I do not have an Apple Watch but it might be possible to do it in 1 if it allows you to add a shortcut in glances or something.


Does the iAd App Network shutdown mean my app will no longer display ads? I'm very unclear about the iAd shutdown announcement. To clarify, I have an app that displays ads. Is the announcement that:

iAds is shutting down entirely and I need to find another third party ad provider?
something else about which I'm unclear?

I'm confused because of statements like this on engadget : http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/15/apple-iad-shutdown-june-30th/

  the iAd program as a whole is not shutting down. What is happening, is that the similarly-named iAd App Network, which allows developers to advertise their own apps through iAds, is going away

Yes, you need to move to a different provider.  With iAds shutting down, and assuming you don't have any other third-party provider, such as AdMob, serving you ads, your app will not display any ads after the shutdown on June 30.

The iAd shutdown was announced almost a year ago, giving developers ample time to find other providers and other ways to serve ads.


Changed Apple ID but Apple TV keeps showing old email I changed my Apple ID a few months ago - and I think I updated it everywhere I need to. Everything seems to be fine (on iPhone, ipad and MacBook Pro) except when I use Apple TV it keeps showing my old Apple ID and I need to delete it and enter the new ID and password every time I want to watch something. Can anyone help?

Probably the easiest thing to do is to just reset your Apple TV back to its factory settings.

You don't specify the exact model, so below are instructions for multiple models of Apple TV.

Apple TV 4 and Apple TV 4K

On your Apple TV go to Settings > System > Reset
You'll see two options:

Reset: This reset your Apple TV to its factory settings and won't update the software. This can be done without an internet connection.
Reset and Update: As above, this resets your Apple TV to its factory settings, but also installs any available software updates. Obviously you will need an internet connection for this to complete.

Once your Apple TV is reset, reconfigure it by adding your new Apple ID, etc.

Apple TV models up to Apple TV 3

On your Apple TV go to Settings > General > Reset
Choose one of these options:

Reset All Settings: This option resets all settings, including your accounts.
Restore: This option resets your Apple TV to its factory settings, but also installs any available software updates. Obviously you will need an internet connection for this to complete.

Once your Apple TV is reset, reconfigure it by adding your new Apple ID, etc.


How to sync contacts between MacBook and iPhone without iCloud My iPhone and iPad are failing to sync to the Contacts on my Macbook pro.
iTunes shows a menu to allow syncing, but no information is exchanged.

I'm not using iCloud for my contacts on my iPhone or MacBook Pro but I do want to sync them between both devices. All devices are updated to the latest supported versions of iOS and MacOS as of June 26th, 2018.

This is not my question:
Is there an alternative to using iCloud for managing contacts?

I have been using iTunes without iCloud for years to sync my phone and the contact list on my computer.

I now believe the problem is between iTunes and the Contacts application on the Macbook Pro.
- Changes to groups (add, delete, rename) are not reflected in the iTunes menu for syncing contacts.
- Changes to contacts made on my computer do NOT propagate to either my iPad or iPhone.
- Changes to contacts made on either my iPad or iPhone propagate to the other device when both have been synced.
- Changes to contacts made on either my iPad or iPhone do NOT propagate to the Macbook Pro.

With the help of Apple support I have determined that one of the contact records was responsible. When that contact was removed syncing between the computer and the phone was successful. When that contact was included, syncing failed.

I compared hex dumps of the bad record  and good records and I could find no significant differences.


Using Time Machine with Virtualization (Parallels, VirtualBox, VMWare, etc...) Since a single small change to a VM file should (I think) cause the entire multi-gigabyte file to be backed up again, are there any ideas I can use to more effectively backup my machine?

Assume that I only need one copy of a VM, and changes made to the VM don't matter.

For example:

Backup the VM using time machine once, then exclude the folder that contains all the VMs
Exclude the VM's altogether and manually back up the VMs
Let Apple's software do it's thing, it will be effective at managing the disk space

Parallels has a specific setting to optimize its VMs for backup by Time Machine and prevent backing up unchanged data.

  To enable improved integration with Time Machine, please go to Virtual Machine Configuration, choose Options and hit Backup.

  Select "Optimize for Time Machine" in SmartGuard menu.

Similarly, VMWare Fusion has some support for Time Machine, which appears to involve turning on snapshots.


MS Office always slower on Mac? I have been using Microsoft Office Mac since the 2004 version. Right now, I have Office 2011 running on my trusty 2010 MacBook Pro with a Core i7 2.66 gHz CPU and 8 GB of memory.

Starting with Mac Office 2004, I noticed that it is always slower than its Windows counterparts. For instance, Word opens in a few seconds on a Windows system, but takes ~10 seconds on a Mac.

Is this generally true for everyone? Or is it just a fluke that Office has always been very slow for me on a Mac?

Since the Windows version pre-loads some of the apps at boot time, here's how to do a comparison.

Start with your Mac turned off.
Press the power button and start your timer.
Wait for the Mac to boot, then open Word. When Word is open, stop your timer.
Then repeat the test for a Windows PC, starting with the PC turned off.

Also note that Office 2004 was written for PowerPC chips, but you're running it on an Intel Mac. That slows things down because Intel Macs have to translate all that PowerPC code into Intel code. If you upgrade to Office 2008 or 2011, you'll have an Intel version of Office for Mac, and it should run faster.


What is the best way to automatically create a movie from my iPhoto videos? When I first started using a Mac almost 6 years ago iMovie had a mode (automovie?) where I could just throw a folder at it and it would create a movie from all the photos and videos. This was a great way for someone with no time to create a family video.

Now I'm trying to do basically the same thing with iMovie '09 and iPhoto and can't figure out the best way.

I want an all-Apple or free solution to just taking all the videos from my iPhoto library and putting them into a movie in chronological order. I really won't want to spend hours dragging and dropping clips into a movie (either on my Mac or on the iPad in iMovie or Avid Studio).

What is the best way to do this?

EDIT: I realized I have iMovie '09 not '11 as first reported so that might change the technique. In the bottom left of iMovie I do see an entry labeled iPhoto Videos but it is always empty.

Open the iPhoto Library.

Click Create → Movie and select No Theme.
Select the photos/videos.
Press E.

All the photos and videos will be added sequentially to the timeline.
Export your timeline normally.


My External hard drive fell and not showing up on Mac 1 week back my 1TB Seagate Expansion external hard drive which I used for Time Machine backup fell on ground. I freaked out and immediately connected it back to Mac. and to my horror the drive didn’t showed up neither desktop nor on Disk utility. I checked it again and found that the light was still on. There were no sounds which indicate physical damage I mean clicking, buzzing, tickling or damaged component sound. I looked on the web to scan this hard drive with some software and found this link http://www.stellarinfo.com/support/kb/index.php/article/recover-mac-time-machine-drive but again the drive isn’t getting recognized by the software. Thisa drive is no longer in warranty. Could someone let me know how should I open the hard drive safely? What tools I might require? Will changing the enclosure bring back this drive? I still believe the hard drive might be OK since there is no signs of physical damaged and its light is still on. Please help ….

The drive enclosure may be broken, but it could also be the drive itself, being the logic board or head. It's more likely the drive is broken if it was powered on when it fell. Since it's your backup drive, you hopefully haven't lost anything critical. I'd start thinking about getting a second backup drive to reduce your exposure to loss.

Most USB externals are fairly easy to take apart with a screwdriver, and just have a standard SATA drive inside of them. If you have a SATA to USB adapter you can test it, or even better is to connect to an internal SATA to verify S.M.A.R.T. etc. However a 1TB drive is pretty cheap now, so you might just replace instead of trying to repair.


finder menu "Services>>New Terminal at Folder" doesn't work It opens a terminal at the user directory, just like clicking on the terminal icon does. I'm popping up a menu in Finder, on the folder, and the folder is outlined to indicate it is the subject of the menu, but the terminal doesn't open on that folder.

Running Yosemite 10.10.5. In Preferences>>Keyboard>>Shortcuts>>Services "New Terminal at Folder" is checked.

Any clues/pointers how to fix this?

(I just discovered this "New Terminal at Folder" feature, so I don't know if it was ever working or when it stopped working.)

I tried it and it does work but on directories (folders) only. I know that you said you selected a folder and it refuses to work but I don't have enough knowledge to understand the files in the System responsible for the correct activity.
I might recommend turning the option off and back on again. Create a new folder and immediately right click.

To those of you who said you are still not able to achieve the goal of adding the final step, a keyboard shortcut, this second screenshot should do it.


British Mac Keyboard - § and ` key the wrong way around I'm running High Sierra 10.13 on a Macbook Pro Touchbar 2017 with British keyboard.

When at the desk I use a Corsair K70 mechanical keyboard set as British Mac layout. I don't look at the keys to type and prefer mac layout so no problem.

Seemingly randomly though, my `/~ key which is usually left of z started producing §/±, which is usually left of 1, and vice versa. I've checked Keyboard preferences and its set as British Mac keyboard, but the layout image is wrong, this is what I get:

Whilst this is what my friend gets, and what I would expect (this one also matches a UK Mac keyboard layout whilst mine does not):

The keyboard on the Macbook itself works fine with the correct keys.

I think this may have gone wrong when I installed the latest macos update.

The options panel offers very little flexibility, I've tried swapping to a US keyboard and deleting the British layout then adding it again but no luck. Anyone know how to correct this?

Your machine thinks your keyboard is of the ANSI type when it is actually of the ISO type.  See this note for some possible help.


Enable mouse back button action inside citrix workspace window I have a MacBook Pro(macOS 10.15.3) and am logged into a Windows 10 system through Citrix Viewer. I have a Logitech MX Master 3 connected to MacBook through bluetooth. The back navigation button works fine in chrome when I am on my macOS but it doesn't work in the Windows desktop through Citrix. Is there any setting which I can enable to make this work?
Sorry for tagging virtualbox, citrix tag wasn't available.

Made this working using steps from parallel's website (https://kb.parallels.com/114322)
Basically you assign the correct Hotkey combination as a "Keystroke Assignment" within the Logi Options app.
I would improve the KB though - they assign the key for "All Applications" - effectively breaking backward/forward button for native/other apps. So to avoid that I set these keystrokes for the "Citrix Viewer" App specifically


How to permanently unhide the Users Library folder in Catalina I would like to permanently unhide the /Users/<myname>/Library folder so that it is always viewable in a new Finder window. Please note, I am NOT referring to the Option+Go menu method. MacOS version is 10.15.2

I have tried:

chflags nohidden ~/Library
killall Finder

This does not have the desired effect. I would prefer not to resort to:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

There's a visible pref for it, no need to dig in defaults

This is simplest if you use Icon or List view*

Open to your User's Home folder - /users/[yourname]/ -  then either View Menu > Show View Options or  Cmd ⌘   J
Check the box for Show Library Folder.

*This is just because in Column view you're less certain exactly which folder you are affecting. The Show Library option only appears when you're in exactly the right folder.


Why is downloaded online recovery data deleted after reboot? I recently got a MacBook Pro. Its hard drive is completely empty. So every time I hit cmdR it goes to the internet recovery mode and takes hours to download data recovery. However, when I restart my system, every downloaded data seems to disappear, and it re-downloads recovery mode data. Does anybody know how can I make recovery drive permanent?

Booting to Internet Recovery Mode boots directly to a netboot image provided by Apple/Akamai servers. The netboot image is a stripped down OS X version which only provides some diagnostic tools and a tool to either restore OS X or a Time Machine backup. The downloaded OS is completely loaded to RAM and nothing is written to hard disks.

After shutting down/rebooting the Mac the RAM is wiped and everything has to be downloaded again if you want to start to Recovery Mode a second time.

To create a Recovery HD on your Mac you have to install OS X (Restore OS X). While downloading and installing OS X a recovery partition will be built also.

Another option is to set up a Mac running Server.app and enable caching services. That will keep a copy of the recovery image locally in cache and speed up the download - perhaps 100x as fast if you have a gigabit speed network locally.


WiFi Performance via Terminal Is it possible to test the performance of a WiFi via the terminal?

Basically, I want to check how good WiFi is in some spaces of my home to figure out where to place a access points.

Can the terminal help me with that in any way?

You can use the built in airport utility to measure SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio).  It's found in

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport

What I do is make a symlink to a directory in my path so I can call it without having to remember that long path:

ln -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport /usr/local/bin/airport

Assuming that you are connected to a WiFi network, issue the command:

airport -I

to print out information of your current connection.

$ airport -I
     agrCtlRSSI: -65
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -90
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 243
        maxRate: 300
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: wpa2-psk
          BSSID: 82:2a:a9:45:f3:25
           SSID: StackExchange WiFi Demo
            MCS: 14
        channel: 157,1

To calculate SNR, you take the RSSI value and subtract the Noise value.  In this case, I have an RSSI of -65dB and a Noise value of -90dB.  Calculated, that gives me 25dB.   Which is a very good signal (just barely but I am behind a reinforced concrete wall away from my AP; not bad actually considering.

SNR Guidelines

40dB+ SNR = Excellent signal
25dB to 40dB SNR = Very good signal
15dB to 25dB SNR = Low signal
10dB to 15dB SNR = Very low signal
5dB to 10dB SNR = No signal

That said..it's not all down to what your SNR is in a given location, you should also consider things like:

WiFi Saturation - excessive number of WiFi signals in the same area
Client Load - number of clients attached to a given AP
Bandwidth utilization - how much bandwidth is consumed by the clients.

If you have too many WiFi networks competing for the same bandwidth or a combination of too many users or too many bandwidth hogs (everyone watching Netflix 4K on their tablets), this will greatly affect performance beyond what your SNR can tell you.

What I prefer to do is to deploy multiple APs around the house and turn down the transmit power so they don't go very far outside the room I am trying to cover.  I personally use these PoE Access Points from Ubiquiti to cover several areas of my home with great success.


2 Safari.app's exist in the system on macOS 10.15.5 19F101 After upgrading my system to 10.15.5 19F101 (late May update, 2020), I found that there are 2 Safari.app's in the system - one is /Applications/Safari.app, and the other one is /System/Volumes/Data/Previous System/Applications/Safari.app.

I want to remove the latter one (sudo rm -rf won't work) as I don't use it and it also shows up in Alfred search results which is annoying. How do I do that?

Edit: ACL / Permissions for the 2nd Safari.app

/bin/ls -led '/System/Volumes/Data/Previous System/Applications/Safari.app'
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root  wheel  96 May 29 00:42 /System/Volumes/Data/Previous System/Applications/Safari.app
 0: group:everyone deny delete

And for it's parent directory:

/bin/ls -led '/System/Volumes/Data/Previous System/Applications'
drwxrwxr-x+ 4 root  admin  128 Jun 14 23:46 /System/Volumes/Data/Previous System/Applications
 0: group:everyone deny delete

For the parent-parent directory:

/bin/ls -led '/System/Volumes/Data/Previous System/'
drwxr-xr-x  7 root  wheel  224 Jun  3 16:12 /System/Volumes/Data/Previous System/

In the Finder, navigate to the Safari you don't want, drag it to the Trash, and empty the Trash. During the process, you'll probably be asked to authenticate yourself as an administrator.


How do I clear All OS X notifications with 1 click? I have notifications in the OSX Notification Center, as for most of my apps I am using the setting, "Show in Notification Centre: 10 Recent Items"
This is a good setting but rather than have a very full Notification Center, I would still like to clear it from time to time with 1 click.

I am using Yosemite 10.10.3

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "NotificationCenter"
        set numwins to (count windows)
        repeat with i from numwins to 1 by -1
            click button "Close" of window i
        end repeat
    end tell
end tell

Copy and Paste the above code into AppleScript Editor
Enable Script Editor in Accessibility


I phone 4 start up not loading (previously jailbroken) I have an old IPhone 4, jailbroken. When I was in cydia I deleted some elements to run the Iphone (I was young and naive, didn't have a clue what I was doing)

From this the Iphone wont turn on, tried putting it in back up mode, manually resetting, and tried to get it back to I Tunes to update it to a newer version of IOS to get the program files back, but was unable to access itunes with the device. The screen just has a low battery symbol and will not move from that.

Anyone have any help, would be much obliged.

James

You won't have bricked the phone. At most, the software will be corrupt. You'll be able to fix this. Do the following:

Leave the phone to charge overnight, to try and get off the low battery symbol. Try to use a wall adapter rather than the USB port on your computer, as the wall will provide more power.
Connect the phone to your computer.
Enter DFU mode: Hold the power button for three seconds. Then, hold the home and power buttons for ten seconds. Then, release the power button and keep holding the home button until the device appears in iTunes. In DFU mode, the screen will be completely black.
Restore the iPhone as usual.


Mousing over to external display When I have my external monitor hooked up, I access it by mousing off the left hand side of my Macbook display. Can I switch this so that I can access the external by mousing off to the right of My Macbook display?

The reason I ask, is my monitor is on the right side of my macbook, and it's unintuitive to mouse left to get to a screen on the right.

You can drag the screens into the arrangement you wish in the Displays Control Panel, just click, hold, drag. The screen you are moving will show a red surround on both the panel & the display itself, so you know which is which.

The secondary display must, of course, be connected at this time. It will only appear in the panel when active.


How do I import music from a CD into iTunes on OS X when the dialogue does not appear? I am using iTunes on OS X El Capitan. I have a CD with songs on it and I would like to import these into the iTunes library (the local one, not the cloud). For the option in preferences, I have it set to "Ask to import CD", but the dialogue for that does not show up. Is there some way to MAKE it import the songs without having to wait for a dialogue to pop up? Like maybe something in the menu bar that says "Import songs from CD"?

Update: And now, when iTunes is running, the CD/DVD is being ejected right after being inserted.

Assuming that the CD shows up fine on your computer, you should be able to manually start the import process by opening iTunes and going to: File > Add to Library

In the file dialog that opens, you should see your CD listed on the left side under "Devices". Click this, select all songs, and click "Open" to import the songs.

Also:
To try and clarify what the other answer says, when a CD is inserted, a CD icon usually appears in the upper left hand corner of the main iTunes window. Clicking or right-clicking on this should give some import options.


how to boot a from a DVD? On a friends older MacBook, I'm holding the ⌥ Option key with a bootable DVD inserted but am not seeing a boot menu.  I've tried rEFIt as well as some Linux DVD's I have lying about.  I've checked the DVD's on another system and they are bootable on non-Mac hardware fine.

In excruciating detail, what's the process for booting from a DVD for the Mac?  I've tried holding the ⌥ Option key, tapping, holding until I see an Apple logo -- and everything in between.

I've previously gotten this particular machine to boot live Linux DVD's.  As I recall, that was with the option key -- and, I don't recall having to hold and release at specific junctures.  It has since had a Mac OS 10.x clean install.
I installed Bodhi Linux, and then Lubuntu.  I don't recall jumping through any particular hoops, beyond, as best I recall, holding the option key until getting boot options.  It's like a firmware update, or perhaps newer OS, somehow made it harder to boot Linux or Linux type discs...?

As Allan suggests, the Genius Bar likely restored back to factory.  Which doesn't explain why option worked to boot to DVD before but doesn't anymore.

Press and hold the C key on boot to attempt booting from the optical drive.

If that doesn't work I'd recommend trying the boot CD in another machine, and a different boot CD in the mac.


Select whole words using single finger tap gesture If you double click a word to select it, and keep the mouse held down, you go it starts word selection mode, meaning it will select whole words as you move the mouse over them.

This only works when using the physical click on the trackpad. The problem is that I want the same behavior using a tap (i.e. the One Finger Tap to Click feature is enabled). When I try to use a tap, though, it goes into character selection mode rather than word selection.

Is there ant way to perform word selection using tap gestures on a trackpad?

Yep!
You double-tap and lift off to select the word.  Then double-tap the selected word and start dragging immediately keeping your finger down.  It's actually kind of tricky to get to work without dragging the word but once you get it a couple of times it gets easier.
Here's an explanation on how to do it also from macworld.com, same as above:

To select text (and this works in nearly any program that involves
text) on a word-by-word basis, do a double-click-and-hold before you
start dragging, instead of a single click. As you move the mouse along
now, you’ll see that entire words are added to your selection as soon
as the cursor touches their first character. So if you’ve got a fair
bit of text to select, but still need precision, this is a pretty
quick way to get it done.

Here are my trackpad settings


Macbook pro latest retina: Output to monitor with VGA I bought a new latest Mac book pro Retina. I see in my mac book, there are two ports: one for thunderbolt and one for HDMI (or HDMI, I don't know).

I want to output to monitor with VGA display, so I need a converter. As I know, there are two type of converters as I research: HDMI to VGA and Mini DisplayPort to VGA. So I have many questions because I don't sure about those port:

Does my mac have Mini DisplayPort ? I see in this link: Apple Support says that Mini DisplayPort and thunderbolt is comparable, right? So I can use Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter for thunderbolt port ?
Which adapter should I use for output to monitor. HDMI to VGA or Mini DisplayPort to VGA. If I can use both, which is better ?
Macbook pro ships with HDMI or mini HDMI. I guess HDMI but I'm not sure.

I'm sorry for those questions because my lack of hardware knowledge. Thanks :)

You can connect the Thunderbolt port to a VGA adapter for your VGA monitor.
I'm pretty sure it does not matter. I'm not sure if a simple HDMI-to-VGA adapter even exists.
The Macbook Retina that I have has 2 thunderbolt ports and one normal-size HDMI port.

This MacRumors topic contains some useful info as well:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1426993


iphone app now is Pending Contract will it be removed from the itunes store? I've developed an iPhone app for the company I work for. At the moment there is no need to update or bring out any new apps.
So I thought I could let my apple developer license expire and extend the license when we need it again.

But now I've got a message from apple saying "The status for the following app has changed to Pending Contract." while it was perviously "approved" or something like that.

Is my app gonna be removed from the store with this status?

From this Apple FAQ :

  What happens if I do not renew my iOS Developer Program membership?

  Once your membership expires, your apps will no longer be available on
  the App Store and you will lose the ability to submit new apps. You
  will lose access to pre-release software, the Apple Developer Forums,
  Developer Technical Support, and the Certificate Utility. In addition,
  your existing iOS Distribution certificates will be revoked and
  invalidated. Finally, if you enrolled in the program as a company, you
  will lose the ability to manage your development team.

  You will, however, retain your status as a Registered Apple Developer
  and will have access to free development resources.

In order to conserve your app on the AppStore, you must renew your iOS Developer Program.

Hope this helps !


Does Spotlight index dotfiles (OS X Yosemite)? I want to create an Alfred workflow with some dotfiles (i.e. zsh config files).

Long story short, in Alfred, I only can play with files indexed by Spotlight.
Apparently, Spotlight doesn't index dotfiles as I can't get any dotfile in my Alfred results.

Any of my Spotlight setting that would force Spotlight to index dotfiles index is checked.

So, my question is there a way to force Spotlight to index dotfiles, dotfiles of a specific directory, a specific dotfile?

Using the mdfind command which queries the Spotlight Database I have to say no because the tests I performed would indicate so.  In a Terminal using mdfind -name .bash_history as well as subsequent commands changing the .filename portion of the command, mdfind did not return the specific file names while only returning filenames that contained the .filename portion within where applicable.


How do I use a Mac as a wireless speaker for an iOS device? I know it’s possible to do this  when the device is wired to the Mac (using Quicktime’s record audio), but I haven’t found a way to do it wirelessly.

I found that this question solves my use case; It doesn't work for apps not supporting AirPlay, unfortunately.


How to unfreeze terminal when SSH connection dies? I"m using Mac 10.9.5 with bash shell.  Occasionally when I ssh into another machine and then the connection dies (e.g. the Internet goes down or I move to a new location), the terminal window with the open SSH session is frozen and the only way I seem to be able to move ahead is to close it and start a new session.

Is there some way to configure things such that if the SSH session's connection dies, I will be returned back to my normal bash shell, as it was before I executed my SSH command?

You can suspend and then kill the ssh process that's hung up. To do this you have to issue the escape sequence, suspend the ssh process, and then use kill -9 to kill that process.

The default escape key for the ssh that ships with OS X the ~ character. You have to enter it immediately after a new line for ssh to respect it. And then the key sequence Control-z is used to suspend and background a task in bash.

So try this key sequence:

Return

~

Control-z

If it works you'll see something like:

myhost.local:~ |ruby-2.2.0|
> ssh someremotehost
Last login: Fri Mar  6 14:15:28 2015 from myhost

someremotehost:~ |ruby-2.2.0|
> ~^Z [suspend ssh]

[1]  + 48895 suspended  ssh myremotehost

This line of output:

[1]  + 48895 suspended  ssh myremotehost

tell you the process ID of the ssh process on your machine. It's 48895 in this example. That process is still running, it's just been suspended and backgrounded. You need to kill it.

You can do that with the kill command. You want to kill it with prejudice so use the -9 option when you call kill like so:

myhost.local:~ |ruby-2.2.0|
> kill -9 48895
[1]  + 48895 killed     ssh someremotehost

Just use the PID of your ssh process when you call that command in place of the 48895 PID I used above.

And you'll have your prompt back.

Alternatively, you can open a second Terminal window and use ps to find the ssh process in the process list and issue the kill -9 call against the PID. Though, that kind of defeats the process of getting your prompt back in the original Terminal window, doesn't it?


iTunes freezes when syncing with iPhone I have a problem with iTunes (latest version) freezing when connected to my iPhone 5 (iOs 7.1.2) via USB. It connects with my elder MacBookPro, with that iTunes, but not on my iMac. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the cable since it connects very well with iPhoto so I guess something has been messed up in iTunes itself. What can I do to fix this, reinstall ITunes or is there any more easier fixes? I have reset the SyncServices but that didn't help and I have tried different cables too but the beach ball keeps coming back after each tryout (and freezes, not continues to work).

I would suggest you download and install a fresh copy of iTunes and report back.

Before doing that, though, I suggest you create new user account on the iMac and see if iTunes hangs up when you plug in the phone. If there is no problem, then perhaps something is wrong with the iTunes preference files for your account.

Lastly, you might want to sign out of the iTunes Store (if you are currently logged in) and sign in again.


Internet from personal iphone hotspot not working on macbook air multiple user accounts I'm using an Iphone SE to create a personal hotspot from my (unlimited) mobile data.

The issue occurs when connecting to this hotspot with my macbook air running High Sierra 10.13.4

When I connect to the hotspot, it works very well on my own user account either by wifi or through usb.

However, when my wife logs in with her personal user account instead (on the same macbook), web pages don't seem to load. She has connected using wifi and usb. In the network setting everything looks to be working properly, however there just doesn't seem to be any data coming in.

Does anybody has any knowledge why this is happening and how to fix it? thanks!

I actually was able to solve this issue by rebooting a couple of times.

Is not the first and will not be the last time an OS issue is resolved by a couple of reboots!


Does "Disable and Delete" delete photos from your Apple devices after 30 days? or will they only be deleted in iCloud.com? Does "Disable and Delete" delete photos from your Apple devices after 30 days?. I mean, if iCloud Photos remains turned on in iPhone, for example after the 30 days, will the photos be deleted?

I learnt that they won't be deleted.  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250261013


How can I view the original (or "master") version of a photo in Photos without reverting all edits? Most photo applications provides some way to toggle between the original (unedited) version of a photo and the current (edited) one.

In Aperture, "M" toggles between the two, many iOS photo apps let you touch the screen to compare the edited or filtered version to the original, etc.

I can't find any way to show the original in the new Photos app other than "reverting," which removes all the edits.

I don't want to remove them, I just want to compare the two.

I realize that I can "revert" then undo, but it's hacky, slow, and worse, dangerous - counting on undo to preserve work in any app is iffy, at best.

Note: The fact that Aperture edits are saved "less destructively" than Photos shouldn't be relevant here.  Both applications DO retain the original, in edition to the edited version.

While in Edit mode, hold down the Control and M keys.

This will show you the original version of your photo, with no edits applied. If you want to temporarily undo the effect of the color adjustments but keep the cropping and rotation the same, hold down M by itself.

Unlike Aperture:

It doesn’t work in “view mode”; you have to be in edit mode. (To get into edit mode via the keyboard, press Return.)
It’s a hold, not a toggle, so you only see the original photo for as long as you have the keys held down.


Mac App Store allows downloading macOS 10.12, Sierra, on unsupported Mac Does the Mac App Store check for macOS 10.12 hardware compatibility before downloading?

According to what I've been reading on the web, my MacBookPro 5,5 (mid 2009) should not support macOS 10.12, Sierra. However the Mac App Store allows downloading it.

I would like to prevent downloading 5GB of files and finally discover that the installer says "your mac is not supported".

Officially your MacBook Pro (13" Mid-2009) is not supported by macOS Sierra. However, for whatever reason, the option to upgrade to macOS Sierra is appearing in the App Store for a whole range of unsupported Macs. In fact, today I saw this occur on a MacBook Pro (15" Late-2008) model that was running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, even though Apple doesn't officially support upgrading from this hardware or OS.

As to whether you can install it, the answer is yes, even though this isn't officially supported by Apple. If the App Store allows you to download the upgrade, then you could just download it (without installing it) and then make a copy of the installer. Once you've got a copy you could try installing from the original downloaded location to see what happens. If this doesn't work you can download the macOS Sierra Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs. Make sure you read all the information on this page as it contains important information you should weigh up before proceeding. If it was me I would not proceed without a full backup ready so you could recover your system if all goes bad.

In the end, whether you should download the upgrade is up to you. Do you want macOS Sierra? Many of its new features are not supported even on Macs that are officially supported by the upgrade - so the answer to this will depend on what appeals to you in upgrading to macOS Sierra? To help you decide, go to Upgrade to macOS Sierra and scroll down to the Feature Requirements section.

If what appeals to you isn't likely to work because it's only supported on much newer Mac models, then I wouldn't bother.


Is there an alternative to Find my iPhone to track a lost/stolen iPhone with SMS support? I bought an iPhone 4 recently. I've been using Find my iPhone but I find it a little limited.

First, you need to have Wi-Fi or 3G to be able to deactivate or send a message. That consumes a lot of battery. Second, if you have only 3G enabled (which seems to be a more viable solution), the accuracy isn't that good. I've done some tests and it has detected my phone 100m away from where I am. And finally, if none of those are on, you can't lock your phone with a password, otherwise whoever has it won't be able to turn Wi-Fi or 3G on.

A friend who uses Android told me about LostPhone, which is capable of doing all the lock and alert functions by SMS too. I dug a bit and found FoneHome and TapTrace, but none of them seem to be SMS capable.

Does anyone know a solution to this?

If you lose your phone or it is stolen, it is likely to be miles away from your home and just knowing this allows you to use the 'Find My iPhone' feature on www.me.com to remotely wipe (and/or kill) the phone, or to make it bleep and put up a message if you realise you've left it at your friend/family-members' house.

An SMS-based app would require you to have another phone to find/lock/wipe your iPhone, plus there's always the chance that you forgot to run the app following a reboot, or that it crashed.

"Find My iPhone" is built into iOS, so you don't have to remember to run it.

Although 3G does use up more battery than 2.5G or 2G, this is not the primary cause of battery drain in a smart phone - try quitting some your apps to find out which one is draining the battery.

Also, read through the comments on the link you posted - there are some real unhappy users there who post about the problems. I wonder how many Android phones are out there that somebody could SMS-spam with the magic command to remotely-kill their phone....


Send file:// links to team members through browser, have them open in Finder Scenario: A 10 person creative team works on PSD and InDesign files. The files are on a local server on the office. The people are in the office, too, and access the server through the Finder. They regularly make changes to the files on the server and need to tell somebody else about it. The other person wants to navigate to the files quickly without traversing the deep folder hierarchy in finder.

I created a OSX service a while ago that let you select a file in finder, press a shortcut and paste a file:// link (or was ist smb://? I can't remember right now) in iChat. The receiving person could click that link, a Finder window opened with the correct file selected. Very convenient!

Now the team abandoned iChat and uses Slack. So the browser is the place the link is clicked. How can I implement something like this in a browser? I want people to be able to click a link and have a finder window open in the correct location on the server.

My initial research says that it can't be done because file:// links don't really work from browsers. Or Firefox tries to open the file directly instead of showing it in Finder.

Ideas:

Browser extension (FF, Chrome, Safari)? I don't know enough about their APIs and how they relate to the OS file system.
A droplet that you can drag a link on to? That is less convenient than clicking though.

Do you have other ideas?

Either of these should work and launch right into the Finder without launching a browser. You can test it in Slack by directly messaging Slackbot and clicking the link in the feed.

smb://servername/shared/folder/to/the/destination/

afp://servername/folder/path/to/the/directory/


I have a MacBook Air and I lost (forgot) my Admin (root) password I have lost or forgotten the root password.  is there a way to recover it or reset it?

There are two ways. If you account is in the sudoers list, you can use this command:

sudo passwd root

Otherwise, boot into Recovery Mode

Restart the Mac.
Right after you hear the chime, press and hold the Command and the R keys for a few seconds, then release. Soon, you'll see the Apple logo and spinning gear.
This will force the Mac to boot into OS X on the recovery partition that was created when you installed OS X 10.7 or later.
When booting is complete, you'll see a window of "OS X Utilities." You won't do anything there. Instead, you'll go to the Menu bar at the top and select Utilities > Terminal.
In the terminal window, type the following and press the Return key.

resetpassword
A new window will open and click on the volume of interest and select the desired user account in the popup. Then enter the new password twice. A password hint is optional. Click "Save."
Go back to the Apple Menu at the top. Select OS X Utilities > Quit OS X Utilities. That will prompt you to restart the Mac.

You can find the guide here to reset the root password here.


Who creates utun0 adapter? Today I looked at the interfaces on my Mac and so I saw the adapter "utun0" on the Mac, this is just for VPN Connections or "Back to my Mac" thought. I have never VPN enabled and "Back to my Mac" is not enabled. Is the adapter creates by default or what program creates it?
Something is afraid of malware / adware / viruses, etc.

I use Sierra.
It's a FE80 also a local address ... I mainly installed Firefox and Photoshop

Best regards

utun0 is created by macOS for VPN and Back to My Mac, regardless of whether these features are enabled. This is not indicative of any unwanted application being installed; utun0 is expected on macOS Sierra and later.


Font Book: Smart Collections: User fonts only Is it possible to filter out all but user-installed fonts
or all but system-installed fonts in smart collections?

For example, filter down to all user-installed monospace fonts.

When I open Font Book, there is a sideboard on the left side of the window. It is shown below.

You can see on the left that User is highlighted. Selecting User will display only the User installed fonts.


How to export all projects from Aperture? I would like to export all of the projects from Aperture to a directory in my computer. Since I have many projects (100+), I don't want to export them one by one. Is there a way to batch export them to a directory? For example, my projects might look like this:

2011-11-23 Thanksgiving
2011-12-24 Christmas
2012-07-07 John Wedding

I would like to export them to:

~/Pictures/Exports/2011-11-23 Thanksgiving
~/Pictures/Exports/2011-12-24 Christmas
~/Pictures/Exports/2012-07-07 John Wedding

I appreciate your helps. Thank you.

Select the material you want to export and File -> Export -> Version.

This will give you the Export dialogue. Look at it closely as it has a lot of options.

Somethings are quite obvious: Where to export to, for instance. But note the others:

Export Preset: This determines the size (length x breadth), file format and compression applied to the image on export. (So, full-size, tiff/jpeg and so on). Note the option at the bottom of the dropdown to Edit - that allows you to create your own Export preset depending you your requirements.

Next note the SubFolder Format. That's what allows you to design a naming scheme for the exported projects. There are presets there, and again, using the Edit option you can devise your own.

I note that you then plan to delete the projects from Aperture. Why? Not sure you've grasped the point and purpose of the app if that's what you're doing...


How can I automatically upload files to remote server when I make changes I want to automatically upload files to a remote server when I make any changes in them using some editor. Is there some app which I can use for this purpose?

I know that this kind of thing is available in Panic Coda, but I want to continue using my favorite editor instead of switching to Coda.

It may depend on what type of files and what type of connection to the server you're using, but a good starting point would probably be Cyberduck, an FTP/SFTP client. You can open files directly off the server with any program on your Mac you choose, edit them as you would a local file (I believe they're actually stored in temporary local storage), and uploaded whenever your changes are saved.

Most other FTP programs should have this functionality built in as well.


Can the 3rd party apps be mirrored on Apple Tv? Can Apple TV mirroring be used with all the apps on iOS device? If mirroring is turned on,
Can all the apps, including 3rd party apps be projected on the TV screen ?

Yes...   Works with my Iphone 4s and latest Apple TV


OS X 10.9 blue screen on startup I installed the last version of VMware Fusion on my MBP 15″ 2011 and had 2 kernel panics. It restarted well and did it again a few hours later. Now it won't boot.

I tried to repair disk via SU mode using fsck -yf. It succeeded, but still not able to boot. I also try to boot on Recovery partition but it failed, blue screen too.

I don't know what to do, I unmounted the SSD and tested it on another machine — I can see all my files.

The Boot Camp partition doesn't work either.

The system was good, the motherboard over, Apple changed it.


Can't format an external HDD :Error: -9944: File system formatter failed I have MacOs 10.6.6 and a Western Digital external 2.5'' HDD USB 3.0 pre-formatted to NTFS. I try to format the drive do HSF+ with DiskUtility program, but it says:
Error: -9944: File system formatter failed

I think I've tried almost all combinations; I tried to set up 1 or 2 partitions with different sizes; journaled or not, but nothing works.

I don't care about the data; I just need the drive to be HFS.

maybe you can try using gparted on a linux livecd?


Does iOS now delete text messages on iPhone without warning? It appears that my iPhone 4s have silently and completely by itself deleted a number of messages from the beginning of this 2012. In the place of a longer messaging thread, there's now a load more messages button in the affected text conversations, but it doesn't actually load the previous message history.

I am nowhere near any sort of limits storagewise, so I don't see why the iPhone would perform any housekeeping on its own. Digging into this, it appears that only the conversations using iMessage have been cleared out but not the ones that only transfer via SMS.

Is this a known behavior that is either documented officially by Apple or currently an undocumented feature?

Have you changed any of your iMessage details in that time frame?

As I understand it, if anything changes in your iMessage settings (for instance, removing a 'receive at' or changing the account you use, your phone will purge all of the messages it no longer thinks belong to it (as, I suppose, you would expect). However, I added an email address to mine fairly recently and all my iMessage history with my mum vanished.

I would check with the other party and see if they still have the record - if so, then your phone has elected to purge it and probably thinks you don't need it. If not, is there a time limit on iMessage storage on Apple servers? (seems unlikely and that shouldn't cause it to purge from the phone).


configure ssh launchctl I would like to configure sshd.

My ssh.plist

<?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>Disabled</key>
<true/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.openssh.sshd</string>
<key>Program</key>
<string>/usr/libexec/sshd-keygen-wrapper</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/usr/sbin/ssd</string>
    <string>-i</string>
    <string>-p 2222</string>
    <string>-f /etc/sshd_config</string>
</array>
<key>Sockets</key>
<dict>
    <key>Listeners</key>
    <dict>
        <key>SockServiceName</key>
        <string>ssh</string>
        <key>Bonjour</key>
        <array>
            <string>ssh</string>
            <string>sftp-ssh</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</dict>
<key>inetdCompatibility</key>
<dict>
    <key>Wait</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
<string>/dev/null</string>
<key>SHAuthorizationRight</key>
<string>system.preferences</string>

And the problem is with program arguments. When I reload configuration by running:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist

ssh is still listening on port 22.

What Am I doing wrong?

I have not tried this but I can see two possible issues

the arguments with spaces should be two arguments e.g. <string>-p 2222</string> should be <string>-p</string><string>2222</string>
From a the launchd.plist man page

  This key maps to the second argument of execvp(3). ... Please note: many people are confused by this key. Please read execvp(3) very carefully!

the execvp(3) man page says that there arguments are filename, arg0, arg1,... and that arg0 is the name of the file so your first argument should be /usr/libexec/sshd-keygen-wrapper repeating Program.

A simpler way might be to remove Program altogether and only have ProgramArguments or just use Program and give the command as if typed into command line.

Another way of making this easy is use a GUI program like Lingon or LaunchControl


iMessage Problems with Computer When I updated iOS7 to my iphone, it somehow changed my settings on my computer. So now, whenever I text someone off my Macbook Pro, it sends the message from my email address. How do I change that back to send iMessages from my phone number?

iOS Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > ...Reached at... / Start from...

OSX Messages > Preferences > Accounts > iMessage Account > ...Reached at... / Start from...


Where is the documentation on /tmp? I've read that /tmp will automatically have files deleted that are older than 7 days or upon restart, but I can't seem to find where this is documented. Can anyone point me to a man or web page from Apple?

There is a little documentation here on the background tasks that do things like clear up the /tmp folder, but it is marked as archived now and Apple don't seem to have released an updated version.

There should be a log at /var/log/daily.log for the daily script that (amongst other things) clears out the /tmp folder.


Remove iPad Mini 4 from Find My iPhone without Wi-Fi I want to turn off Find My iPhone on my iPad Mini 4 before sending it in for repair since Apple states:

  If you're unable to turn off Find My iPhone, Apple may not be able to
  service your device. This policy is in force to prevent unauthorized
  persons from servicing your device without your knowledge. If you
  don't remember your Apple ID and Password, please go to iForgot.

However, the Wi-Fi keeps turning on / off by itself before I can turn off Find my iPhone.

Can I do this remotely perhaps?

You can remove the iPad from your account by visiting iCloud website using a web browser. Follow the below mentioned steps:

Visit iCloud website on your computer and login with your Apple ID.
Click on Find My iPhone.
Select your iPad.
Click on Remove from Account and follow any further steps.

Update: As of this writing, the aforementioned steps to remove a linked Apple device by visiting iCloud website has been revamped. To remove a linked device, follow these steps:

Visit iCloud website on your computer and login with your Apple ID.
Click on Settings.
Under My Devices section, click on your device (iPad in your case).
An overlay view will open, listing all your linked devices. Click on the blue circle with a cross to remove your device and confirm your intent.

Here's what the new UI looks like:


How can I export PDFs from a PC to a new iPad? I want to load some of the PDFs I bought from the internet to my iPad from my PC (Windows 7). How can I do this?

I've never bothered about tablets before, but somehow I got an iPad. I did some research in Stack Exchange, but all I could find was information regarding the sending of PDFs from an iPad to a PC; not the other way.

To copy pdfs to your device you should use iTunes like in this video  (just use iTunes for Windows).
You can use iBooks to read pdfs on your device.

Here is related question here.


View desktop of *very remote* Ubuntu box from my MacBook Pro So, I’ve searched for literally hours on this subject.  Seen various solutions.  But practically all of them are for people who want to see their Ubuntu desktop on their Mac, with both machines on the local network.

I want to log into an Ubuntu server that lives across the continent.  I can easily log in over SSH, and I managed to get X11 configured such that I can SSH in, run sudo synaptic, and get the Synaptic window to come up on my machine to manage packages.

However, what I would really love is to be able to log in to the remote machine and see the desktop as if I were physically standing there.

Remote machine is running Ubuntu 10.4, I’m on OS X 10.6.8.  I have admin rights on both machines.  I also updated the bundled X11 on OS X to the latest version of XQuartz.

Anyone know if (and how) this is possible?

You can do it easily using ssh port forwarding. Open terminal and enter

ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 remote_ip

with any other applicable settings you need. This will forward port 5900 on your local machine to port 5900 on the remote machine. If you need to change to a different local port (say, if you're already running a VNC server on your local machine), change the first 5900 to something else.

Then once the ssh connection is running, just VNC to localhost:5900, and you should get a connection to your remote machine.

If you don't have a VNC client already, there's one built in to Mac OS X. Open Finder, press ⌘K and enter vnc://localhost:5900 as shown below, and hit connect.


MacBook Pro with Retina display to Apple TV using Airplay is glitchy I have a 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display running Mavericks and a brand new Apple TV (I've updated the software on it). When I use AirPlay to connect to my TV, one of two things happen.

It connects, then immediately disconnects, or
It connects, plays a video for 5-10 minutes, then disconnects. When it disconnects, it continues playing audio from the TV, but the video freezes on the TV. It still continues to play the video on my Mac.

How can I fix this? I haven't seen wireless connectivity issues, but would it help if I put an AirPort Express to extend the network in my bedroom (I have a new AirPort Time Capsule)?

Try this: open "Wireless Diagnostics" via Spotlight → Search/open Wireless Diagnostics → Window → Utilities and perform a wi-fi scan. Make sure that your router use a wireless channel with no/minimal other networks (you can change the channel via airport utility). If problem persists, try using the other wireless frequency (2.4ghz vs. 5ghz) via airport utility.

Next try streaming with Beamer app - much better video quality than airplay mirroring. Its a lovely app, and free to try. Solved all my airplay problems (have almost same setup; macbook retina + apple tv + airport extreme ac).

If problem persist, I guess I would try extending with an Airport Express (you can check the signal quality in wireless diagnostics).


macOS Big Sur updates - location of files? We run a small office with approx 10 Macs all running Big Sur. Whenever a new version of macOS comes out we can download the installer once and then reuse it on every machine, but now I'm trying to simplify the update process since, e.g., 11.3.1 which came out recently is 5.7gb and I would like to avoid downloading it 10 times as we have a slow and also metered Internet connection.
I have used softwareupdate -d -a to download the update:
Software Update Tool

Finding available software
Downloading macOS Big Sur 11.3.1
Downloading: 100.00%
Downloaded: macOS Big Sur 11.3.1

I assume I'm looking for a .pkg file (or similar) that can be retrieved before installing, however I cannot find it. I have seen suggestions elsewhere for /Library/Updates but when I use Go To Folder, this only has an index.plist and ProductMetadata.plist in it. (It is also empty if I disable SIP using the csrutil in recovery mode.)
I found this link (https://www.labnol.org/software/upgrade-mac-os-apps/28704/) which talks about enabling a debug menu for the App Store - which will then open up the downloads folder, however that seems to have been removed.
I've had a bit of a sniff around in other places but cannot find anything. I wonder if at this point they're a package contents or similar of an app.
Does anyone know where the update packages are saved and how to retrieve them?

Welcome to the site.
First of all, I can very much empathize with this situation. For years we lived behind a slow satellite connection which had a quota of 20GB per month.
Unfortunately, the bad news is that softwareupdate is no longer supported by Apple for system updates in Big Sur. I am not even sure that it is possible to do what you are trying to do. Apple used to post ‘combo updaters’ to their website, but they have also ceased to do that.
One of Apple’s perpetual blindspots is that not everyone has access to fast and unlimited Internet access.
Your best bet is to set up “Content Caching” on your local network:
What is content caching on Mac? - Apple Support
Set up content cache clients, peers, or parents on Mac - Apple Support
(Note: I have had some trouble loading some pages on Apple’s support page in Safari. It works sometimes and other times says that the page does not exist. If that happens, try another browser. Yeah, I know, absurd.)
Content Caching is not as easy or as precise as combo updaters were (for one thing, I don’t know of any way to force a Mac to only use a content cache… it’s just supposed to happen “automagically” and we know how that goes.
I wish I had a better answer for you. Unfortunately, Apple has chosen to deprecate softwareupdate and discontinue Combo Updaters, which makes this situation extremely difficult to manage, especially with bandwidth restrictions.


Any way to have iPhone microphone only active if sound level is above a certain threshold? I'm not sure what the proper terminology is, but I've used online gaming apps years ago where sound through microphone can be set such that it doesn't go through unless it's above a certain noise threshold.

Is this possible to do with calling from an iPhone? This would be really useful if you're calling in a noisy area because all the background noise would be filtered out .

I have an iPhone 11.

You're describing VOX (Voice Activated Transmit), which iOS does not have as a feature.

Unfortunately there's no way to get this ability for calls.


How to indent a Table in a List in iWork Pages 09? I want insert a Table in a List, but couldn't figure out how to indent the Table to the rest of the content in the List. The Table keeps stretching across the width of the document. Anyone knows how?

For that particular case you could select the table and then open the inspector where in the "Object Placement" check the "Inline" and further down in the same preference "Object causes wrap" should be greyed. Select the rightest case where you get adjustment to the right. Now go back to your table and drag the edge from the left side to suit your text indent.


iSight cable for mid 2009 macbook pro 13" help If my iSight camera no longer works and neither does my bluetooth, should my wifi still technically be working? Aren't they all co-dependent(if that makes sense) or can the fact that my wifi is still functional mean that the iSight camera still works and it's a software problem.

As you can see in step 20 of the take apart guide from iFixit, the camera cable and wireless card are one and the same cable.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Replacing+MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2009+AirPort+Card/6019/3#s26379

Getting the clutch cover off the display assembly is a bit tricky even for trained technicians and the cable routing is something you will want to be nimble and intentional when removing the connectors from the logic board and especially when repairing parts in the display.

I would say you could rule out software quite easily without taking your Mac apart by just installing a clean OS onto an external drive or USB storage device (be patient if your USB is slow). You could also reseat the cables on the logic board and inspect for damage there without too much harm of breaking things further if you are properly grounded when you open the Mac.

I believe bluetooth is controlled by the airport card and shares the airport antenna, but don't have access to definitive hardware manuals to know for sure. It's hard to guess if your issue is hardware or software just from the symptom.


OSX Mail how to mark message as not junk I have some mail messages that OSX Mail puts in my junk folder but does not show the header saying  "Mail thinks this message is Junk Mail" and so does not show the button allowing me to mark the mail as not junk.

How do I get Mail to allow me to mark the mail as not junk.

These emails are put in the junk folder by me.com/iCloud so I would hope Apple would allow control via their apps.

It seems iCloud is marking the message as junk using its algorithm. I don't believe you can adjust this from within the Mail.app. You will need to log into iCloud.com, enter Mail, find the particular message in your Junk Mail folder and then with the message selected, select the gear menu and you should be able to Mark as Not Junk.

To recap, as iCloud is flagging message as junk you must unflag message within iCloud.