How can I open apps at a specific window size together? I found this one quite tough to Google.

I want to have a command (or an app) that opens these 2 applications just the way I want to. In this case I want to open them with these screen sizes -- more or less. If it has to be a terminal command, is it possible to create a shortcut for it? I will be creating more shortcuts for multiple app / screen size combinations.

Position your windows how you desire, then run the following AppleScript for each application.

tell application "Terminal" to tell window 1 to get bounds

This will return the bounds of the window, such as:

{200, 200, 700, 700}

Once you have your bounds of each window you wish to include in your specific window layout set, use the following to set the bounds:

tell application "Terminal" to tell window 1 to set bounds to {200, 200, 700, 700}

You can use multiple lines to set multiple window bounds at the same time.

Once you're happy with your layout, Script Editor can save the script as an application (File → Export and choose File Format: Application). This can then be added to your Dock for easy access.

If the application you're trying to manipulate is not scriptable, such as Sublime Text, you can use System Events to tell the application. This will require you to enable Accessibility control in System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → Accessibility.

To get the bounds of a window of a non-scriptable application, you can use:

tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Sublime Text" to ¬
    get {size, position} of window 1

This will return the size and position of the window, such as:

{{500, 500}, {200, 200}}

To set the bounds of a non-scriptable application, using the result of the previous code:

tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Sublime Text" to ¬
    tell window 1 to set {size, position} to {{500, 500}, {200, 200}}

If the application whose windows you are trying to manipulate are not open prior to running this script, use the following:

tell application "Terminal" to activate

This can be combined with setting the bounds using:

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    tell window 1 to set bounds to {200, 200, 700, 700}
end tell

No delay is necessary since AppleScript will wait for the application to open.


Screen artifacts that show up in screenshot My MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) running El Capitan (10.11.1) intermittently displays screen artifacts. I thought the issue might be with my screen connector, but the artifacts are captured when I take a screenshot. The artifacts are never the same and are always located in different parts of the screen.

Any ideas?

This is usually due to a GPU issue on the Mac. I have seen things online which say that this is due to graphic switching, which only occurs if you have two graphic cards which switch due to software (e.g say if you are using Photoshop which uses a much more powerful card and then you quit it and it returns to a normal card).

A MacBook Pro 2012 only has internal graphics and not a AMD Radeon R9 M370X, which only the MacBook Pro 15-inch has, meaning it is not software, but it is due to a hardware issue, in this case, the GPU.

If it is in warranty, take it in to Apple and see what happens there.

I hope you get something sorted out soon.

Cheers!


How to find IP address of my other Mac? I have two Macs on the same network, both plugged into my internet router.  I have screen-sharing set up on one of them, so I can connect to it using command-K in the Finder with a vnc:// URL, and that works great.

My router assigns IP addresses using DHCP, which in general is a good thing, but it means if a machine gets restarted or a DHCP lease gets renewed, I don't know what IP address to connect to (without walking over to the other machine to find out).

Surely my Mac already knows the IP address of my other Mac: in the Finder, I can see my other Mac's name and icon/type in the sidebar!  Unfortunately, Get Info doesn't display the IP address, or anything else useful about it.

How can I find out the IP address of my other Mac, perhaps using Zeroconf/Bonjour?  I'm fine with a command-line solution, if there's a simple one.

EDIT: I'm running Lion, and I think that OS X screen sharing broadcasts a Bonjour service announcement for it, but Lion's connect-to-server dialog box doesn't take advantage of it.  If this is something Mountain Lion does, knowing that would be helpful, too!

Your computers should be accessible as computer-name.local, e.g. Kens-Computer.local or something like that, so depending on what you're trying to do, you might be able to just use that name rather than the IP.

So you can just type vnc://Kens-Computer.local in the 'Connect to' window. You can see the computer's network name if you go to the Sharing preference pane in System Preferences. It's at the top of the page, with a message like "Computers on your local network can access your computer at: Kens-Computer.local"

Make sure you include the ".local" suffix to get the Bonjour IP, otherwise your DNS look-up might auto-append some other hostname suffix (depending on your network/DHCP configuration) or simply fail to find the right host.

If you really want to get the IP though, here's a couple of options:

Bonjour / dns-sd

You can use Bonjour directly via commands like the DNS Service Discovery tool (dns-sd). Try the following in the Terminal application:

% dns-sd -q computer-name
DATE: ---Tue 09 Oct 2012---
18:13:39.209  ...STARTING...
Timestamp     A/R Flags if Name                             T   C Rdata
18:13:39.210  Add     2  4 Computer-Name.local.             1   1 10.1.1.141

The dns-sd tool can do quite a bit, e.g. if you want to list all local VNC services (at least the ones advertised via Bonjour). VNC services are advertised as "_rfb" in mDNS/Bonjour:

% dns-sd -B _rfb local

Ping

Or you can just ping it, which will show the IP in the output (and is just using Bonjour/mDNS to find the IP).

% ping computer-name.local
PING computer-name.local (10.1.1.141): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.1.1.141: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.066 ms


Apple watch not syncing Health data As the title suggests, my apple watch is working perfectly in termos of fitness tracking, the problem is in saving the data, the activity app on the Apple watch shows the activity rings full but the activity app on the iPhone has absolutely no data, also, the week summary, probably because there is no data stored, says I didn't move the whole week.

Already tried unpair and repair, didn't work.

Thanks in advance,

Tiferrei

Solved it, jailbreak messed up the communication and file sharing with the Apple Watch, a DFU restore solved it.


Extract iTunes Config from iPod I recently had a hard drive failure on my laptop and I am in the middle of re-installing everything. I have hit a snag that I am at a loss how to fix.

Basically, I have been backing up my music to a NAS box on my network so I have not lost that I was pretty sure that I had been backing up the iTunes config as well but it appears not. I have an iPod classic that I regularly sync with iTunes and so I have a representation of playlists, star ratings, etc..

So my question is, can I reinstate my iTunes library from the information on my iPod?

Any help much appreciated.

There are a Bunch of iPod music recovery softwares you can search on Google, Some even give an option to export to iTunes library, hence maintaining the user ratings etc. I generally use iPod Access for recovery of music or video if I accidentally delete something.


retina macbook pro keyboard cleaning solution I'm curious what solution people use for cleaning off laptop keyboard keys.
I've been told that you shouldn't use isopropyl alcohol, because it can wear away at the plastic (I've seen evidence of this, although I'm not sure that it was due to alcohol).

Can anyone steer me in the right direction?
I know there are other threads for this, but none of them quite match the exact model of my computer, and I know that the keys have been composed of various materials throughout the years...

I have a rMBP. I use Clorox Disinfecting Wipes on the keys and a Q-tip soaked with 99% isopropyl alcohol to clean in between the keys. I would not use anything less than 91%. Here is a photo of my keyboard:


How can I disable the trackpad when my mouse is plugged in on Lion? For the last few hours my trackpad has been behaving terribly, jumping all over the place and sticking. I believe I remember there being an option to disable the trackpad when a mouse is plugged in in previous versions of OS X, but can't seem to find that option anymore.

Is such an option still available in Lion?

Thankfully, you can still disable the trackpad in OS X Lion.

Open System Preferences, click on Universal Access, select Mouse & Trackpad and click on Trackpad Options... at the bottom. Tick the checkbox "Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present".


Mac Sudden Motion Sensor: Obtaining activation state Very similar to this SuperUser question, I'd like to know if there's a way to know when the SMS is actually engaged.

Note that I do not want to know if the sensor is enabled (which can be done from the Terminal with sudo pmset -g). Specifically I want to know when the sensor trips and forces the hard drive's head to park, and when it senses the danger is clear and allows the head to move again. In an ideal case a Growl notification would be fantastic, but even a log would suffice.

I ask because as Apple notes on their support page, the SMS can be tripped in certain environments such as nightclubs when it would be undesirable. However the only way to know if you are in such an environment is by guessing since I haven't found a way to tell the frequency or length of time the SMS actually causes head parks. I understand the simple thing to do is disable the sensor outright, but the point of the question is how to gain visibility into the actual activity of the sensor.

The Sudden Motion Sensor state is available through IOKit.

An open source library, SMSLib, provides an Objective-C interface and sample command line tool for accessing the state of the Sudden Motion Sensor:

  SMSLib is the software library used by SeisMac and SeisMaCalibrate to access the Sudden Motion Sensors in recent Macintosh laptops. Written in Objective-C, it provides easy and stable access, abstracting hardware differences across eleven different models of laptop. For better accuracy, you can use SeisMaCalibrate to calibrate your laptop's Sudden Motion Sensors. SMSLib is open source, released under the University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License.

Additional sample code and tools are available on Amit Singh's Sudden Motion Sensor page.

A relevant technical question was asked on StackOverflow about this topic, Polling the accelerometer/motion sensor in a MacBook Pro.


Is my iPhone cheating me with data usage? How can I check it? I reset my data usage on my iPhone after asking this question, so at 28th of July. Since then I was using my phone all the time, watching YouTube, talking on Skype (both voice and text), downloading games from the App Store, using Facebook (including uploading videos and photos) and finally sending emails with attachments (photos, each photo around 1MB).

After 6 days of using my phone intensively, I checked data usage. It shows... 411KB sent and 2,3MB received.

I know it is not right - but how can I check real usage?

Were you on wifi? I think the usage only tracks 3G. If you are looking for your 3G only data, try ATT's account app. It will tell you exactly what your data usage is according to your ATT account.


Setup didn't migrate much from Time Machine. Should I run Migration Assistant now? I set up a new MacBook Air, asking it to migrate everything (or nearly everything) from a Time Machine backup on SSD of a 5-year old MacBook Air (both on Mojave).

After configuring lots of settings, I noticed that Migration Assistant didn't copy in user settings, documents, or applications after all. It did get the user name from Time Machine.

Q. Is it a good idea to run Migration Assistant now to overwrite the user account? Is Migration Assistant likely to work after silently failing the first time?

I assume it will copy in settings like WiFi credentials and discard the work of fresh settings including Touch ID.

See: How to move your content to a new Mac.

I followed the recommendation from an Apple Support chat to run Migration Assistant. It succeeded in migrating the user account, apps, and docs.

I let it replace the user account that I had started setting up.

It required some follow-up steps like enabling the extensions for the anti-virus software and the network backup software.


What happens to iOS Apps when you turn OFF Family Sharing? I have Family Sharing turned on currently, but no longer wish all my family's purchases to come from the one credit card.

As some iOS apps have been bought for the benefit of the whole family, what happens to these apps if I were to turn off the Family Sharing feature?

I note that any In-App Purchases will not be shared (which is fine), but:

Will the apps continue to reside on all the other people's phones and be updatable etc?
Presuming 1. to be "Yes", what happens if in the future they remove it from their phone, but then want it back again?
Does it show as purchased on their accounts?
If the answer to 3 is "no", would turning Family Sharing back on temporarily solve this?

Thanks in advance.

Before Family Sharing, you could take someone else's iOS device and sign in to the app store with your account and download all/any apps you choose.

At that point, your password was needed to update, but signing out didn't delete the apps or in any other way prevent them from working. Let's set aside in-app purchases for the time being.

Family sharing changes this in that when someone joins the "family" - their Apple ID is used to download and update other family member apps. They do not show up in your purchases, they show up as the other named family member's purchase. All that changes is the password needed to install and update.

When you as a family member remove yourself from the plan - you get a warning that lists what will happen and basically, you immediately lose access to the purchases, photos, calendars and other items that were shared in the plan.

Rejoining the family would then let you re-download and re-sync the items.

You'll probably want to find a better way to use the family service than routinely joining and leaving or skip the family share and use the older method of signing in to multiple devices which doesn't immediately remove/revoke the items.


I have 2 iPads. Should they both have the same id? I got a new iPad and gave my daughter the old one. She is unable to get on it using the password and ID I gave her. So I changed the password on mine -she still can't use that password- is it different on all devices and I forgot it?

No, your Apple ID email/password combination will be the same everywhere - on your iOS devices, computers, and online. You can use it on as many devices as you would like and it will always work just fine - regardless of the device.

Unrelated to that though, I would consider setting up a new Apple ID for your daughter and then configuring Family Sharing to link the two. Apple IDs are very much designed for one user per Apple ID.

Aside from that, make sure you are entering the Apple ID username/password combination correctly and it will work.


Is there a searchable list of applications that support OS X's resume/autosave/iCloud features? I just upgraded to Lion and I'd like to know what applications support OS X's resume/autosave/iCloud features. Is there a searchable list of applications that support these features?

Update: This question also includes Mountain Lion.

I don't believe that there is a resource showing apps that support one specific Lion feature; but an excellent starter source is Roaring Apps: http://roaringapps.com.

Roaring apps is a group sourced site that analyses apps and how well they do or don't work on Lion. This site had a lot more traffic right after Lion's release and I expect it to get hit again as (Redacted) Lion hits the streets.

It might be worth submitting to that site to see if they'd expand to cover Lion-esque features for more details.


Mount .sparsebundle on a Time Capsule I'd like to access my Time Machine backup files using a little bash script. As I understand it, this requires a two-step process.

First, I have to mount the Time Capsule "Data" partition:

mount_afp afp://user:pass@10.0.1.1/Data ~/Data

Then, I have to mount the .sparsebundle on the Data partition that contains the backup files of my Mac. I'm not sure how to do this.

It also seems rather awkward that I have to do two mounts to access my backup files. Perhaps I can do it in one step?

I'd love to hear the best solution for this.

If you've configured a regular Time Machine backup onto your Time Capsule, mounting (or unmounting) the sparsebundle is not needed. It's already mounted or you wouldn't be able to backup your data regularly.

To mount the remote Time Machine sparsebundle and get the path to it simply enter:

tmutil latestbackup

(or tmutil latestbackup > /dev/null 2>&1 if you don't want any output)

The command triggers the mounting of the sparsebundle and the output is the path to your last backup.

Entering mount will show you the mount points of the Time Capsule and your sparsebundle.

Your result will be something like (example listing):

/dev/disk1s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
//%user%@%IP% on /Volumes/%TimeCapsule% (afpfs, nobrowse)
/dev/disk2s2 on /Volumes/%Time Machine-Backups% (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, nobrowse)

The second last line is the Time Capsule share, the last line (disk2s2) the mounted sparsebundle image. The mounted share/sparsebundle aren't visible in the Finder because they are flagged as nobrowse.

To access your backup you can simply enter something like:

cd "/Volumes/%Time Machine Backups%/Backups.backupdb/%LocalHostName%/

(All terms framed by percent signs depend on your environment and you have to replace them by proper names/addresses - get them by diving into the folders with cd and ls -la.)


Root user able to access FileVault 2 encrypted drive If you use FV2 to encrypt a disk, can the root user of the computer access the unencrypted contents of the disk or is it truly only accessible by the user that initially setup FV2.

We are trying to deploy FV2 across our company and trying to see if we should set a Firmware Password to restrict access to boot commands or if FV2 will be sufficient.

Once you've logged in using one of the users set up for FV2, the unencrypted data is available to all users on the computer. All of them: root, admins, regular users, and non-login users like _www or _spotlight.

If you make the disk available to another computer, either by physically moving it or using target disk mode, then no one on the other computer, not even root, can access the data.


Turn off auto-hiding dock and menu bar Recently I played a TV show on my TV using HDMI and used clamshell mode for my Macbook Pro. Now whenever I'm in Safari, both the menubar at the top and the Dock automatically hide. It only happens when I'm in Safari, though; whenever I'm in Mail, Textmate, or any other app, the menubar and Dock show normally. I can ask the Dock to not auto-hide, and it keep this setting until I switch to another app - if I right click on the Dock and select 'Turn Hiding Off' and switch to another app, it forgets and hides again.

Is there any setting that I can change to make this not happen?

Edit: I think this was a bug, since the suggestions from both @AaronEllington and @David Corbin weren't applicable; I wasn't currently in full screen mode and hitting the escape key didn't do anything. In any case I accidentally closed Safari and it was fine after reopening. I'm keeping this question open in case anyone else experiences the same issue or if it happens to me again.

It sounds like what you are describing is what happens when you go in full screen mode in any app, the menu bar and the dock hide regardless of the dock auto-hide settings. I would suggest just resizing the safari window instead of putting it in full screen mode. (If that is what is happening.)


Xcode Helper does not have the accessibility permissions needed to run tests I am getting this error when attempting to run some accessibility UTs on a project.  I was under the impression that a prompt such as this would appear:

However, I am not seeing this prompt.  I also tried to go to "Security & Privacy > Accessibility" to give the app "Xcode helper" the proper permissions, but I cannot find "Xcode helper" anywhere on my computer... only Xcode.  I added Xcode but am still hitting this error.  Ideas?  Where can I find "Xcode helper"?

Where can I find "Xcode helper"?

The Xcode Helper app is located inside the Xcode bundle:
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Agents/Xcode Helper

To get rid of the error message:

Open System Preferences.
Select Security & Privacy>Privacy>Accessibility. Unlock the panel, if necessary.
Press the "+" button, navigate to:
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Agents

add the Xcode Helper app and press Open:

Enable it:


How to use proxy in terminal Department of Telelcom (India) just blocked some sites in India.

But, only Government-based ISPs block access those sites. Other ISPs still have these sites working. One of those sites is Github and I want to use Github.

How can I apply proxy settings so they work for git sessions to Github in a Terminal?

(Note: I saw this link for doing this in Linux but I guess OS X is little different from Ubuntu?)

From the StackOverflow Q&A entitled "Getting git to work with a proxy server?":

  Command to use :

git config --global http.proxy http://proxyuser:proxypwd@proxy.server.com:8080
git config --global https.proxy https://proxyuser:proxypwd@proxy.server.com:8080

  change proxyuser by your proxy user
  change proxypwd by your prxy password
  change proxy.server.com by proxy server url
  change 8080 by proxy port

  If you decide at any time to reset this proxy and work without (no
  proxy):

  Commands to use:

git config --global --unset http.proxy
git config --global --unset https.proxy

Git also respects the http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables.


measuring data exchange over external network I am using Mac Air 2013, and I have a daily limit on the data I can exchange over internet that is 1GB.

I would like to measure how much data each application is exchanging over the network.

I was using Activity Monitor but then I noticed that this app is showing data exchange even when the internet connection is down (in particular, if I write in terminal the command find /|grep -i something this will show large data exchange from processes such as kernel_task and mtmfs). Hence, Activity monitor is showing some data transfer over some sort of internal network, and this is now what I am interested in.

I would like to use some tool (also from command line) that only shows the data exchanged by applications over the external network (either ethernet or wifi). Could you recommend such application?

You can see the total number of bytes transferred per network interface using:

netstat -ib

or for an individual network interface (e.g., en1) using:

netstat -b -I en1

You can monitor the amount of data per program using:

nettop -P -t external

The "-t external" includes only external traffic.

You may be interested in the amount of traffic per web page.  If you are using Safari, then select >Develop >Open Web Inspector, and select the "Network" tab.  This will show which files are transferred and the total size of the web site.  Unfortunately, it counts cached files in the page size, so it does not truly reflect the amount of data transferred.  Firefox and Chrome have similar tools.


Setting up new Mac with old Macbook data I have an old Mac(2010) and want to setup new MB Pro(2015). I want it the way I not only copy all settings but all installed applications(GUI based, command lines) as well as data. I found this tool, I wonder whether it's suffice? Also, new Macs don't have ethernet, will it be OK to transfer WiFi in multiple sessions?

I have around 250GB of data.

Update:

I was suggested to use firewire or Thunderbolt. Here is the image of ports on my existing old 2010 Macbook. Which of them is the one mentioned?

You could do it through WiFi, but a faster option is targeted mode.

You will need a FireWire cable to do this.

Migration assistant copies your home folder (documents, email, pictures, music, etc.) and preferences to the new computer.

However, it does not copy third party applications by default to the new computer. For that, you will have to make a list of your desired applications and copy each of them from the old computer to the new one. You can use Homebrew and Cask to do this but it is probably more involved than just copying in targeted mode or just re-installing. Homebrew can be used to easily re-install command line apps on the new computer. Migration Assistant does not copy command line apps.

Even if you did copy the GUI apps to the new computer there will probably be a few that no longer work on Yosemite and you will need a newer version.

Good luck!


How can I track application bandwidth usage? I would like to be able to summarize daily network bandwidth usage for running applications. Additional details, such as a sorted list of addresses by traffic usage, would be nice to have as well but not essential. For the most part I just want to know which apps are using the most bandwidth.

All of the solutions seem far too detailed or complicated. These include:

Terminal applications like nettop
Commercial applications like LittleSnitch

The closest I've come is use nettop and export its results to CSV. I'm hoping there is something much simpler.

Use Activity Monitor

Just open Activity Monitor (Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor) and navigate to the Network tab. You'll be able to see which apps are sending/receiving data and how much per app/process.


How to access iCloud-disk from Windows Is there a client software (similar to DropBox) or any way to mount a disk to get access to the content of one's iCloud?

I'm talking iTunes-backups and other files synced to iCloud.

Not currently. The 'disk' space in iCloud is not like the iDisk option in MobileMe. Since iOS doesn't really expose its file system, they don't map this to the Mac in a 'mountable' way.

So currently, the only way to access iCloud data would be through APIs.


Receiving iMessages from a deleted contact I've recently deleted contact details of a friend. Will this stop them from sending me an iMessage on my Mac? My iMessage is set up with my email address, not a phone number.

In short, no. If you want someone to stop sending you iMessages, you have to explicitly block them.

To block someone, open the Messages app, Go to Preferences, Accounts, and click on the Blocked tab. Hit the plus sign to add someone to the list.

This only blocks iMessages and won't block normal text messages (if you have an iPhone and it's set up to do handoff to your Mac).


Newsstand magazine downloads very slow and halting My newsstand has two subscriptions: New Yorker and Economist.

When a new issue is available for either one of those, the period required to download the issue is super slow, and unreliable - it will seem to spin along well, showing the download numbers increase, but then simply halt. The iPad will then go to its lock screen, and when I go back, zero additional downloading will have progressed in the meantime. In fact, sometimes it pops back to the previous downloaded amount prior to the last little progress session.
I have "download automatically" set in the preferences for Newsstand for these subscriptions. It doesn't do it on its own (and, as above, barely does it when I ask it to specifically).

Note:

Yes, I have done the "show the currently running apps and then fully close down the NYer and Newssstand apps all the way" method - does not help… and I've shut down the iPad all the way and restarted, also.
I live in Thailand, but I'm on a pretty fast DSL and the Wi-Fi is fine… jeez, in these times, overseas location doesn't matter, right?

Anyone have these problems or have a guess?

The iPad is the iPad 3, has the newest iOS as of today (Nov 2012), etc…

Your location doesn't matter, what matters is having a connection to the Apple service. Somewhere down the line something is getting messed up, below are the steps that I'll take to troubleshoot.

Reset networking settings on the iPad
Within the iPad try pinging a few domain names that Apple controls: "itunes.apple.com" is one of them.
Reset modem and reconfigure everything.


Use Bluetooth access point and Wi-Fi at the same time My Samsung phone has a setting that allows it to use 4g + Wi-Fi to increase speed in some cases. Can the same be done on a MacBook with Bluetooth network + Wi-Fi?

If I understand your question correctly, the example you're using about your Samsung phone having a setting that allows it to use 4g + Wi-Fi to increase speed in certain circumstance is the same option iPhone users have (Settings > Mobile > Wi-Fi Assist). It's primarily to allow the use of mobile data when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor.

The key thing about this option is that in both cases (Samsung / iPhone) we're talking about a data connection to the internet (i.e. 4g and WiFi). What I mean is that both 4g and Wi-Fi can connect independently to the internet.

With regard to your question though, you're talking about Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The thing is that Bluetooth in and of itself does not have a data connection to the internet - so it's not like it can assist to increase speed because it isn't connected in the first place.

Devices (Macs and iPhones included) can share their already connected internet connection via Bluetooth to other devices, but no you can't use both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to increase an existing internet connection.

If I've misunderstood your question, please let me know.


SD Cards "forgets" written data I have an SD Card I bought from ebay. It works, sort of.
Recently, it somehow acquired the weird habit of "forgetting" things I copy to it.
For example;

I would normally place my music folder to the left taking half of the screen, and the window with the sd card to the right taking the rest of screen.
I would then copy a folder to the sd card
safely remove the sd card (or not, tried it both ways)
Pull it out
Place it into my phone (or back into the mac)
Can't find the copied folder, like I've never copied it.

This is weird, and only happens sometimes. I think it happens more when I pull out the card up to 5 minutes after I copied something.

Is this a cache problem? What's the course of action to find the root of this?

It sounds like that SD card has a faulty controller chip. From your description, I'm guessing that you bought it second-hand through ebay, so you might have been "burned" there.

Something you can try is to open Disk Utility, choose the SD card, and then click Verify Disk.

Something else you can try (crossing fingers) is to reformat the SD card and hope for the best. However, if the SD card is acting flakey, then it might be best to scrap it for a new one.

Question: In Disk Utility, select the SD card and choose Info. What File System is the card formatted for?


remove time date information from file I saw the post on how to change time and date using touch or setfile. Is there a way to remove time and date entirely from a file? I tried xattr -c which did not work.

No, that is not possible. The creation/modification date/time is a fixed field within the file system, and not a user-specified attribute that you can remove.


How to see  data in iOS logs? Looking at iOS 11 logs using Console.app in High Sierra, I see that many important bits of information are masked like this:

nsurlsessiond   Triggering periodic update to powerlog for client <private>
dasd    Trigger: <private> is now [<private>]
Yelp Reservations Map Extension [19 <private> <private>] start

which makes it hard to see what's really happening.  This happens on macOS too, and it can be changed with this command sudo log config --mode 'private_data:on', as described here.  How can I enable logging private data on iOS?

There is no single setting that you can change for iOS logging as there is for macOS.

If you are running a beta version of iOS, the private log information seems to be collected, so that is one option.

The other option is to see if there is a profile on this page that covers the logging you need.

Once you install the relevant profile you will see the previously <private> information appearing in the iOS console log.

In my case I was able to use the "Baseband" profile to enable caller id logging while working on a CallKit extension.

To disable the private logging you simply remove the profile from general settings on the device.


Cloning an image from MacBook Air to MacBook Pro I am getting a mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro. I currently have a mid-2011 11" MacBook Air.

I will be purchasing a Crucial M4 512GB SSD for the Pro and I want to clone my existing Air's HDD before I give it away. Can I use Carbon Copy Cloner to make an exact image from the current Air SSD running 10.8.2 to the Crucial and then pop in in the Pro or will there be driver issues?

I know I can use Time Machine, but it's a little more of a round-about way if CCC (or SuperDuper or plain old dd) is capable of doing the job in one swoop.

There won't be a driver issue as long as the OS version on your Macbook Air is newer than the pre-installed OS version number on the Macbook Pro.


activating screen sharing remotely There is a computer I don't have immediate access to that I cannot screenshare with it. I have an account on the computer and have screenshared before with it.

I believe some setting has been changed to deactivate screensharing.

Is there a way to activate screensharing through ssh?

My computer is OS 10.6.8. I'm not sure what the other one is but probably the same.

To enable remote management (including screensharing), issue the following command over ssh:

Note: This command sets your vnc password to 'mypasswd' as set by the -vncpw flag in the command, you should change this.

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on -clientopts -setvnclegacy -vnclegacy yes -clientopts -setvncpw -vncpw mypasswd -restart -agent -privs -all

To disable the remote management, issue the following command over ssh:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -deactivate -configure -access -off


Will SCPlugin work on Mac OS Yosemite (10.10)? I'm looking for a svn client for Mac Yosemite (10.10) which is similar to TortoiseSVN on Windows and RabbitSVN on Ubuntu.

I came across SCPlugin, when I could see that its latest version is dated as Feb-2010.

Would like to know if it works fine on Yosemite?
(Or)
Are there any other substitute svn clients for the same?

Thanks in advance.

SCPlugin is not working on recent OSX / macOS because the finder does no longer support plugins.
Try free svnx or xversion


Front facing camera stopped working on the iPhone 4s Attempted to use the Camera App today and was presented with a closed shutter screen in the Camera app as pictured below. No tramma or anything happend to the phone no recent OS update, just not working out of the blue.

If I open the FaceBook app and go to the "Take Picture" section, the camera opens successfully, but when I attempt to switch to the front camer, it goes back and gets stuck at the shut shutter screen.

What I have tried:

Quitting the "Camera" app and re-opening it
Shutting down and restarting the iPhone.
The force shutdown method, hold power + home button until it turns off.
The Restore in iTunes

Still the same rear camera works, and when attempting to switch to the front camera boom closed shutter screen.

Any other ideas, it looks like I have a hardware problem...

This is a hardware problem. This comes up when the ribbon connector from the camera to the main circuit board comes loose or gets disconnected altogether. If you have the right tools and enough DIY skills to open up your iPhone, it's a very simple fix that should be fairly obvious to see. Otherwise, the Apple Store should be able to repair it for you (I would think free of charge, but who knows).

If you do want to take apart your iPhone and attempt the repair yourself, PowerBook Medic has some really nice instructions for taking apart all versions of iPhones from 3GS and above. They also sell replacement parts and will repair it for you as well if you want. (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation nor prior experience with this company, so use at your own risk.)

This is what the front camera of an iPhone 4 looks like:

That little white/silver part is what's probably come loose; just pushing down on it gently should allow it to snap right back in.


QuickTime Player won't save edited file: The operation could not be completed I've edited an MP4 movie file in Quicktime Player Version 10.5.

When I try to save the edited file, I get: The operation could not be completed.

Does anyone know what causes this and/or how it can be solved?

macOS Mojave 10.14.2 / Quicktime Player 10.5 / MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

I had a similar problem when I downloaded a youtube video, opened in Quicktime to "trim" the video and quick time would not complete the operation.
I ran the youtube video through Vlc Crunch (free video converter)as mp4 again and then Quicktime worked fine.


Do external web cams work with MacBook Pro? I don't like using the built-in iSight camera as I want to adjust the angle etc.  Do external web cams still work with MacBooks with built-in camers?

I have a MacBook Pro 13" with Snow Leopard

Yes, most external webcams will work fine with a MacBook Pro with a built-in camera.  Just check the box for the camera before you purchase to ensure it's compatible.  Some webcams may come with bundled software which only works on Windows which is why you should check before you buy in case the software features are important to you.


Using PRIMARY clipboard in macOS I use Linux (CentOS) at work and quite like the PRIMARY clipboard. This adds highlighted text to a clipboard automatically and pastes the contents of that clipboard on center-button mouse click. Importantly, this clipboard does not overwrite the CLIPBOARD clipboard.

I would love to get this functionality on my macOS home machine. I have tried MacPaste, but this overwrites the CLIPBOARD clipboard. Does there exist any utility (graphical or command-line, free or paid) that unlocks this functionality?

According to OSX Daily, there is an alternative clipboard with the Mac that will not overwrite the standard clipboard. The commands are Control-k, which does a cut on selected text (not copy) and Control-y which then pastes that data. The article is here: http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/01/use-a-secondary-cut-and-paste-function-to-avoid-overwriting-clipboard-contents/

The article also mentions a 3rd part app, ClipMenu which also might address your desires.


Migrate from El Capitan (10.11) to Catalina (10.15) I have a mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro still working, running 10.11 El Capitan. I would like to move it to a newer 2015 13" MacBook Pro currently running Catalina 10.15.

Of course, making sure the new MacBook Pro has an equal or larger hard drive;
Taking into account the old mid-2009 cannot be updated beyond 10.11;
Not knowing if the newer 2015 MacBook Pro could run El Capitan.

My best option seems to be the following:

Using the Migration Assistant (working with OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.8 or later): make a TimeMachine backup of the mid-2009 MacBook Pro, connect the TM backup to the newer 2015 MacBook Pro, launch Migration Assistant (within the utilities folder) and select the Time Machine backup. I assume that 32-bit app will be quarantined, but everything else would work (i.e. Mail, preferences for all working apps, etc.). Would that work?

I don’t actually know if the newer 2015 MacBook Pro could run El Capitan. If it could, another option would be to clone the older MacBook Pro to the newer one and then slowly update through all version of macOS, all the way to Catalina.

I ended up not migrating the whole machine. Since Catalina supports only 64-bit apps, it makes more sense to re-install one by one. Since most of my files (data) are synced online, no need to move them over either: I can find them back using a cloud storage solution (iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive or pCloud).

The most important thing I needed to migrate over though that was not synced online was my mail archive: multiple mailboxes sitting on the machine itself (i.e. not on any active account such as Exchange or Gmail). The solution for this turned out to be simple:

1) El Capitan was cloned on an external harddrive
2) External HD was connected to the new machine running Catalina
3) On Catalina, within the Mail App > Import Mailboxes... > choose “Apple Mail” continue > navigate to the external HD and find user/library/mail
4) Import

To improve management of archived email, I’d recommend using a third-party software such as MailSteward or EagleFiler.


MBP trackpad not working, but Apple (store) got it to work during reinstallation of macOS MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014, macOS Sierra 10.12.6).

My built-in trackpad can click (sometimes) but not point, scroll, zoom, or perform gestures, so I have to use a USB Logitech mouse.

I took it to Apple and after they checked some settings they were not able to get it to work. I decided to have them erase everything and reinstall macOS. During the process of them installing the OS again the Apple guy was able to use my trackpad just fine! I said Oh you fixed it. Then after it was installed it did not work again! So it must not be that it is broken inside.

I asked him how can that be?? He said when it was working it was because it was being accessed through Apple's side and it must be something in the OS preventing it from working.

I do not know if reinstalling the OS still keeps disk image checksums, folders or system preferences accessibility settings.

What settings should I check or what Terminal commands could I use to try and get my trackpad working again?

Reinstalling OS X will keep your previous system preferences set up.

Trackpad could be disabled in the System Preferences Accessibility.
Since in your case you had the Logitech plugged in, the system just did what it was asked and disabled the trackpad.

  USB Receiver: Product ID: 0xc52f Vendor ID: 0x046d (Logitech Inc.)
  Version: 30.00 Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec Manufacturer: Logitech Location
  ID: 0x14200000 / 14 Current Available (mA): 500 Current Required (mA):
  98 Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

Solution: Disable the check mark in the system preferences Accessibility.


Can the iPod Nano 5th generation take screenshots? I own a small iPod nano 5th gen that I really like.

In order to try and troubleshoot a small, non-blocking bug that it seems to have, I would like to take screenshots on it - I would assume that storing them and transferring them to a computer wouldn't be a problem, since it shoots videos and has a camera roll.

I couldn't find this info anywhere and I'm wondering if that's even possible, but if it is, I'd like to know how!

I also accepts answers that offer to recopy the screen of the iPod on a Mac computer, since if I recopy I could easily screenshot there.
(Maybe with Terminal?)

Do what my grandpa would do and record the screen with another camera. :^)

The iPod Nano 5g does not run iOS. I'm not aware if it has any kind of undocumented screengrabbing or debugging-over-USB capability. It does have a video output, but only the audio or video content being played is output--it does not mirror the screen; so using an AV cable with capture card to record it would only be useful if the issue you have has to do with video/audio playback.

You're probably already aware that it's unlikely for whatever issue you've encountered to be addressed by Apple. The iPod Nano 5g was released in Sept. 2009, its last software update was in Nov. 2009 (version 1.0.2), and discontinued in Sept. 2010 (so all units would be out of warranty by now).


I cannot log in due to changed keyboard layout My (Danish) keyboard on my 2016 MacBook Pro has changed layout after crashing. My password contains a pipe charecter but this cannot be accessed via the normal way (alt + i) or the US Way (alt + 7).

How can I determine the keyboard layout or change it without logging in? It would also help if I could type in a non password input field to test. Is this possible?

Method 1: Go into the Guest User(if it is there) and change the language.

Method 2: See Mac os X - locked outside my account (language!).

Method 3: Try booting into recovey mode(holding cmd+R at boot). Then you should be able to change the keyboard layout(in the menu bar).

Method 4: See https://superuser.com/q/871277.


How does iCloud Photo Library's "Optimize iPhone Storage" setting work in relation to other photo apps on iOS? If I have Optimize iPhone Storage enabled on my iPhone and my phone storage is completely full, I understand that iOS will only store a low-res thumbnail of many of my photos on the device. (The full high-res version of the image will only exist in iCloud and on devices with Download and Keep Originals enabled.)

But when only thumbnails exist on the device, how does that work in relation to other photo apps on iOS? For example, do third-party cloud-based photo apps (like Google Photos, Dropbox's Carousel, or Amazon Prime Photos) have access to the full high-res images from the iCloud Photo Library? Or will they only see the low-res thumbnails in some cases?

It depends on where the app is pulling images from. If you have selected "Optimize iPhone storage" then these apps will only have access to the lower-resolution thumbnails, as bmike pointed out (they use Camera Roll).

Unless the app is specifically coded to pull photos from iCloud Photo Libary (which Apple currently supports), they will just have access to the low-resolution photos stored locally on the device.

All the apps you have mentioned access your Camera Roll, therefore the low-resolution images.


Apple store apps won't download but have a iCloud symbol I have downloaded the app before and then deleted by accedent but now it won't download at all and has a little cloud symbol instead of an install symbol

I know my answer might be late for you, but maybe it can help somebody else. I had the SAME frustrating problem with the GOOGLE CHROME APP and I solved it this way:

Go to Settings --> Storage & iCloud Usage
Go to the section that says ICLOUD
Click on Manage Storage
Click on Joana's (Your name) iPhone
At the Backup Options turn off Chrome
Go to the App Store and try to download the app again. Hopefully, it will start downloading! For me this solved the problem.


How much free space do I need to install an app update? For very large apps, such a GPS apps, the app store will decline updating an app if you don't have enough free space.

How much free space is needed?

For instance, I have a GPS navigation app that is currently using 1.8GB on my iPad.  The update is 1.43GB.  I have 1.9GB free.

The update would fit into the free space, but it still doesn't allow it.  Perhaps it downloads it, then installs it before deleting the old one, meaning you'd need twice as much space in order to install it.  It might even require more space if it then copies user data from the old app into the new one before deleting the old one and the installation file.

Having as much free space as the app takes isn't enough - so how much is required?  Is 2*update enough, or will I need more free space?

Apps are submitted as .ipa files which is really just a zipped container of a .app file. In fact, you can simply unzip a .ipa file to see its true size.

Apps in the App Store are listed by their compressed size, and will need to be uncompressed after installing.

As of iOS 6, updates to apps only include files that have been changed. As of iOS 7, updates to apps only include changes to changed files.

So, I guess to answer the question directly, for any given app you would need: Free space to store the compressed app update file, free space to store the uncompressed app update file, and space currently being used by the app and all its data/caches.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/qa/qa1779/_index.html


Why doesn't mobile Safari have a JavaScript console? My question is fairly simple, seeing as iPod has full support for executing JavaScript (proven my bookmarklets (See below) why doesn't it have a "dev tools" option, or at least a JS console? Is there a specific reason for this feature not to exist standalone mobile?

Or am I blind and that it's actually there?*

As for the bookmarklets it's fairly simple, navigate to blank.org (or any site really), bookmark it, edit the bookmark and replace it with something like this;

  javascript:void(document.bgColor=prompt('Color?%20Hex%20or%20name%20will%20do.%20May%20I%20suggest%20red?','red'))

Or any JS code after javascript:

Not my code, you can find code where I got this from at http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-bookmarklets-the-right-way--net-18154*

You mention "standalone" so you may be aware of this already and have discounted it, but I thought I'd mention it anyway just in case.

It is possible to use the development tools within Safari on a Mac (including the JavaScript console) to diagnose faults and develop sites for iOS devices.

Connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac using a USB cable.
On your iOS device, go into the Settings, select Safari then Advanced. You should see a switch for "Web Inspector". Switch it on.
On your Mac, go into the Preferences within Safari and on the Advanced tab you should see a tick box for "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Tick it.
Now if you open the Develop menu within Safari on your Mac you should now see a submenu for your iOS device listing the available "inspectable applications". I've only seen Safari on this list, but I assume other applications that use UIWebViews are inspectable too.

Arguably more useful than having web development tools built into the devices themselves.


Two custom keyboard layouts, both ALMOST working in different ways I have been using the Programmer Dvorak keyboard layout for a while, but ran into problems after a poorly-executed tweak of mine which lead to me re-installing version. However, the latest package (marked as beta) does not support KeyBindings that use the control modifier. If I try to modify the Programmer Dovarak bundle with Ukelele, it seems Mac OS X then ceases to recognize it, even after restarts.

I then settled for remaking the Programmer Dvorak layout from Ukelele's built-in Dvorak template. This keyboard layout lets me use the Cocoa text shortcuts (^A ^E ^F etc), but I can't do things like dealing with system dialogs (e.g., do a Software Update and press spacebar. In general, outlined button : spacebar :: solid shaded button : enter). In addition, some apps won't let me use Command- shortcuts. For example, I can't use Command-C, -X, or -N in Mental Case while I'm using my remade Dvorak, but I can't use KeyBindings like ^D if I'm using the official Dvorak. BUT if I use the normal US keyboard, I get no problems; both control- and command- stuff work fine.

So, my main question is: how do I merge the functionalities of these two layouts? Phrased a different way: Why is it that, given the below XML, I run into the phenomena described above?

a GitHub gist for my recreated Programmer Dvorak layout
another gist, posted to save you time from downloading the whole package

Note that the official layout (2nd link above) actually installs itself with a .bundle directory in /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ whereas I have my recreated layout simply at $HOME/Library/Keyboard Layouts/name.layout.

If there's any other information that would be helpful, please let me know; I'd be happy to take screenshots or something if necessary.

There is now a new version of Programmer Dvorak that works with key combinations like ⌃A.

  ◊  Option modifier is currently non-functional. Also, you cannot replace a default Roman layout with this one. Control keys should now be functional.

Option worked everywhere I tested, so non-functional could just mean that states under option don't output non-ASCII characters. If you want to disable all default input sources, you can edit the HIToolBox plist.

In previous versions you could have added a keymap where all keys output a control character like &#0000;. See Control not working in iTerm 2 when using Programmer Dvorak keyboard layout.


How can I send email through a Terminal window? I'm trying to figure out some basic Terminal commands, so I thought I'd try out 'mail.'

I opened a Terminal window and entered the following:
mail (my email address)
(The Terminal then said "Subject:" without quotes) so I entered "test" without quotes.

"This is a test message"  without quotes

I then ended the message by typing . and enter, but nothing has send to my inbox.

You did not specify which inbox you checked, but if you use mail <your mac userid>, you can then read that mail by running the mail command without any arguments.  I am not sure how useful this might be, but it does work.

man mail from a shell prompt will give you more background info into the mail command.

If you are looking to send email to an external (SMTP) mail server from a shell prompt (like the one in the Terminal window), you will need to use a message transfer agent or MTA.  This is something far more useful, although it requires much more setup overhead.

Alternatively, you might be able to use Applescript and/or Automator to automate sending messages through Mail.app through a previously configured email account.


Mount combo (USB/COM) device I've bought this simple navigator that works fine on PC using the software released by the company but there is no mac version for it. Under mac the navigator was supposed to be mounted as an external drive. But this doesn't happen.

I've left a question for the company support team, but it seems to be unlikely to get a proper answer. Is there any way to force it to mount as an external drive?

I'm using macbook pro running OS X Yosemite 10.10.2. When I plug in the device on USB, I can see this controller is up 'CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller' in the system details, but i have no idea what to do next.

Please try install this driver:
https://www.pololu.com/file/download/48014_SiLabsUSBDriverDisk.zip?file_id=0J547

I have a amateur radio which uses a similar driver (CP210x USB to UART Bridge Controller) and I had to install it too...

EDIT:

Actually the driver is the same for CP210x and CP2102...


Connect 2 earbuds iPhone 6s Need ability for 2 people to listen to my iPhone 6S at the same time. Visiting museum while traveling. Tried finding spliters online. Only find ones the have charging and listening, not 2 sets of listening.

The 6S has a 3.5mm audio jack. There are many splitters available for that on any site that sells them.

E.g. https://www.walmart.com/search/?cat_id=0&query=3.5mm+audio+splitter


MacOS 10.10 on 4 GB memory bloat: which launch daemons/agents/services can I disable? And how to discover the names of the culprits? I recently did a Yosemite (10.10) clean install on my 4 GB 2010 MBP, but it now has so much memory bloat due to unnecessary launch daemons/agents /services that it causes frequent beachballing; excessive memory pressure.

This is not a duplicate; I did research manpage/docs on launchctl, launchd, Yosemite/Sierra whatsnew guides, AskDifferent, SO, Apple.com, many Mac enthusiast blogs/forums and many other sites for over a month now; see comments below for examples of the many Google keywords searches I tried; also, the answer is very MacOS-version-specific. This is driving me nuts.

I'm looking for a minimal configuration: no crap like iCloud, iTunes etc. Just the absolute minimum set needed to run the OS. Clearly stuff like 'CloudPhotosConfiguration' is unnecessary bloat. (For reasons we will not go into here it doesn't make much economical sense to upgrade 8 GB RAM + SSD).

Question: How do I find out which launch daemons/agents/services I can safely disable on my mid-2010 MBP with 4 GB running Yosemite 10.10?

Activity Monitor doesn't show any obvious whales, although system memory usage when running Safari > when running Chrome. Below is a dump of which launchctl items had Status -44 (killed due to inadequate memory). Based on reading blogs, some are notorious (e.g. com.apple.bird), some are believed to be unnecessary, some cannot safely be stopped:

clear; launchctl list | awk '($2 == "-44") { print $3 }' | sed -e 's/com.apple.//g' | sort -f

com.apple.
accountsd, AirPlayUIAgent, bird, CalendarAgent,
CallHistoryPluginHelper, CallHistorySyncHelper, cfprefsd.xpc.agent,
cloudd, CloudPhotosConfiguration, cloudphotosd,
coreservices.appleid.authentication, coreservices.uiagent,
DataDetectorsDynamicData, icloud.fmfd, iconservices.iconservicesagent,
imdpersistence.IMDPersistenceAgent, InputMethodKit.UserDictionary,
internetaccounts, MailServiceAgent, Maps.mapspushd, nsurlsessiond,
nsurlstoraged, pbs, photolibraryd, pluginkit.pkd, printtool.agent,
recentsd, secd, secinitd, security.cloudkeychainproxy3, soagent,
spindump_agent, tccd, telephonyutilities.callservicesd

In the hope that the following is enabling to disable.
Apple-Bloat is such a common concern, it should have its own trademark registered. Especially in circumstances or environments that require a maximum of CPU power, minimal latency or where users have to make do with what hardware they have. Audio related scenarios being the most common.

Not nearly enough can be disabled through the GUI-tools available. So this is an excellent question for a start. But these circumstances have to be clearly defined. Disabling almost everything can also disable the entire system. Prepare your bootable backups! Do not change anything before you know how to reverse it. Some of the following advice can be uncomfortable to deal with in its consequences.

It is of course the very first step to uninstall everything you do not need that is not from Apple – first. Every kext, every LaunchDaemon, every App, and every program not strictly needed has to go. Clean out the corresponding folders in /Library/ and ~/Library/. This also implies that Migration Assistant is now your enemy, and a clean install is your ally.

In very memory constrained circumstances it is also advised that you limit your use of the Desktop as a storage space. And your use of the Finder.app.
Having many icons on the Finder Desktop leads to increased memory consumption.
That means also the Finder has to go:
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool true
Do not worry. This is just adding a regular quit menu to your beloved file manager. When not needed, Finder can now be quit, stays quit, and releases memory. When needed for file related operations, you bring it back with simple click on the first Dock icon.

You have to make a complete list of things you know 'that are there' but you are sure you do not want.
You have to make a list of things and functions/services you really care for. Both lists have to be tested against later.

You will spend quite a time in Activity Monitor and Console. This is a tedious process.
After you went through the list of running processes you should investigate everything you either do not recognise or recognise as most probably unwanted. Look them up and net-search the process name.

Since this is not a wiki with unlimited space I cannot list every process judged by one or many as "bloat" or "can safely disabled if unwanted". That also depends too much on what else above "iCloud" should go.

Apple is really bad in documenting these things for the average end user just sitting at his system. It looks like macOS favours the "no user serviceable parts inside" approach. So you have to evaluate carefully what you find on the net. Try to spot glib analyses (or at least glib summaries / writeups) that contain little detail other than Apple-knows-best handwaving.

What's funny about this? Apple indeed knows best. They just choose to hide that knowledge away. It is in parts on their website instead of giving you tooltips and installed documentation. Those parts that are accessible there are further in a format that needs some processing by the end user. Try your luck at Apple at for example: Daemons and Services Programming Guide.
 You can and should of course double check at their user forums (prepare a large salt shaker to have an adequate supply of grains ready). Or this very site or the others. Just keep the presumed quality level of each source in mind.

Most of the processes running and displayed in Activity Monitor can be (force) quit. This is generally quite safe to do in a testing setting when no important work is open in the background or things like that. (Caveats apply!) That way you can test one by one and empirically see what happens:

do they respawn immediately or after some time or not until after a reboot?
is something unexpected not working after you disabled the process?

If nothing unexpected happens, you can then go the next step.

There was an excellent list of known processes and a brief explanation of them
called “Know your Mac OS X processes”. This is very sadly gone but still visible at archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20170222052540/http://triviaware.com/macprocess/all
That means of course that it is a bit outdated to begin with, but still more up-to-date than most of the top search engine hits today. Since you are on Yosemite this is less of a concern for the current situation.

Now make yourself familiar with launchd and launchctl.
The first is the daemon that loads all "this crap" (your words) and with the second you can interact with launchd and control it.

Seeing that killing a process is without ill effect for your needs means you can instruct the system to disable that 'service'. You might use launchctl to do that or any of the programs available to accomplish this with a gui, like

Lingon https://www.peterborgapps.com/lingon/ or
LaunchControl http://www.soma-zone.com/LaunchControl/

Look at the job and try to understand what it does.
Stop a job and see what happens. Then disable the job and see what happens. Make pauses in between and reboot often to see you didn't mess up too much that might be needed at boot time or only once.

Dealing with completely unexpected consequences can be hard, since sometimes there are really weird connections to be made. No need for Airplay? Uncheck all the boxes in the GUI. Disable everything that has airplay in its name. Easy. Everything works as expected afterwards. Except after a while you notice that iTunes keeps crashing on launch. No need for iTunes also? Good. Still want to use iTunes? Bad, bad. Too bad. Go back to your list of deliberately disabled services, re-eanable them one by one; to finally find out that iTunes insists on a SystemDaemon called com.apple.AirPlayXPCHelper. Expect the unexpected.

To give you a head start for things considered bloat: There are many collections on the net that try to accomplish what you want. The following is meant as a source to be read and analysed for inspiration. Do not just apply them! Read the docs for them! Pick what seems needed one by one. (Since you should be documenting your own findings anyway—why not publish them?)

They are not completely applicable to every version of OS X or macOS, some of them have differing revisions still online. But it seems that only removed or newly introduced daemons are to be watched for.

Minimal systems, optimized for audio:

http://www.co-bw.com/Audio_OS_X_Shell_Script.rtf
http://www.computeraudiodesign.com/computer-setup/

"Disable bunch of #$!@ in Sierra (Version 2.1):"
https://gist.github.com/pwnsdx/d87b034c4c0210b988040ad2f85a68d3

A practical guide to securing macOS:
https://github.com/drduh/macOS-Security-and-Privacy-Guide

Up to date successor to osxlockdown:
https://github.com/kristovatlas/osx-config-check

"Simple shell script to fix macOS privacy issues and remove mostly useless macOS calls to cupertino":
https://github.com/karek314/macOS-home-call-drop

Only small portions really applicable here but still some unique items:
https://gist.github.com/brandonb927/3195465

Also of note, "Unload and Disable unwanted Agents and Daemons on OSX":
http://tech.masterofsql.com/os-x/unload-disable-unwanted-agents-daemons-os-x.html

Now let the downvotes come. Hope this helps.


Accidentally deleted /usr/share directory... what can I do to fix it? A botched terminal command left me without a /usr/share folder. Most things seem to be running ok (although I haven't restarted since, so it's not clear if I'd have errors on reboot). There are already a few things wrong though, such as not being able to backspace in zshell, and emacs refusing to start up (giving me a Cannot open terminfo database file message). I'm not sure what in all is stored there, so I don't know what if anything I can do to reinstall necessary files, etc. Alternatively, is there a repair utility built in to OS X that might be able to restore at least some of the most essential things?

Note: I unfortunately don't have any backup software installed. Live and learn.

Tough break.  If you have never backed up with Time Machine, then you should look at this link for a post on free undelete utilities.  Or you can ask a colleague to compress their /usr/share folder if you're desperate.  Last suggestion would be setting up a VM with your OSX version and copying it from there, but if you don't have Fusion or Parallels already installed, they'll ask for a reboot.

Good luck.


How to install specific version of python on OS X I need to install python3.4 on my OS X.
Tried to do it with brew install python3 and now I have python 3.5.1. But I need py3.4.

How can I install python3.4 on my Mac?

For Python in macOS, use pyenv:
brew install pyenv

To install a specific Python version, run:
pyenv install <version>

To select a version:
pyenv local 3.5.0

Note that you must update PATH to override the default Python version:
PATH="~/.pyenv/versions/3.5.0/bin:${PATH}"

To list available versions:
pyenv versions

See https://gist.github.com/Bouke/11261620 for more information.


How to change carrier on iPad 2nd generation? I have a 2nd generation iPad which has both WiFi and Cellular connection. It is an iPad that I was using during a few years that I was living in Japan and has a Japanese phone company cellular connection.

Even when the iPad was reset, this specific connection would show up in settings. How can I set up the iPad to use in United States, with a US cellular connection?

If you check the Apple Sim page for iPad here (Use Apple SIM with Wi-Fi + Cellular models of iPad), it says that you can use a nano-SIM card in the SIM tray to set up a cellular data plan with a different carrier.

  Japan:

  AU, DoCoMo, Softbank (purchased in a carrier retail location): The    embedded Apple SIM and nano-SIM tray are locked to the carrier that
  sold you your iPad. Outside Japan, you can use the embedded Apple SIM
  or a nano-SIM card in the SIM tray to set up a cellular data plan
  with a different carrier if you are outside Japan..
  KDDI (KDDI retail locations): The embedded Apple SIM is locked to    KDDI in Japan. The nano-SIM tray is locked to the carrier that sold
  you your iPad. Outside Japan, you can use the embedded Apple SIM or a
  nano-SIM card in the SIM tray to set up a cellular data plan with a
  different carrier.


Having archived applications on MacOS. How to tell OS to ignore them? So I have a folder of applications that I don't use but I might need in the future.

However, these applications, even on a secondary or external disk, in any folder, will prompt MacOS to scan and offer all kinds of services for one, and two open them if there are files that could be associated with them.

I just want them to stand aside. I currently have them in a hidden folder and they seem to still popup.

Spotlight index has been set to ignore them several time. Still occurs.

The easiest way is to zip each one. Right-click and select "Compress Name.app" (where Name is the name of the app).

Then delete the app. If you want to restore it, just double click on the zip file, and the app will get re-created.

Other possibilities include putting them inside a disk image, and then unmounting it.

Any method in which the app is no longer available to the OS will work. Otherwise, if the OS can 'see' the app, then it will be considered as viable and integral.


How to access DNS server on non-standard port on macOS? I need to use a DNS server that serves on port 5353, how do I specify the port in the system DNS settings?

[Edited]
You cannot. Most all DNS clients expect that the DNS server will be listening on port 53.  All DNS servers run on port 53, period, end of discussion. Yet you can run them on alternate ports but the only operating system that allows a DNS client to connect directly to a custom DNS server on a non-standard port is OpenBSD. That means every other OS will have difficulty connecting directly to your DNS server running on port 5353 and will fail.
You may be doing something unusual such as dnsmasq or unbound, etc. Or you are on a network that restricts port 53 which breaks Internet standards. You must then setup a router or perhaps a proxy redirect to be the IP address that receives the DNS client connections on port 53 and forwards / redirects to the actual DNS server running on port 5353. You may be able to get around restrictions via VPN or SSH port forwarding.
Would need much more detail to answer the question any further.


Which standalone player or system plugin works well for WMV media on Mac OS X? I want to be able to play a WMV file on my Mac, but can't decide which plugin/software to install.  In particular, I need something that will interface with Adobe Acrobat reader, as Adobe currently do not have a media player plug-in that supports the file format.  Essentially, I have created a beamer presentation using LaTeX that contains an embedded WMV file.

In the original post, I mentioned that my options were Flip4Mac, Xvid or VLC.  Since then, perian has also been suggested.  Having decided on Flip4Mac, I discovered that while it does function according to specification, it does not interface with Adobe Acrobat reader.  Adobe, however, do suggest visiting the Apple web site for QuickTime....hence my reason for installing Flip4Mac!!!!

One caveat of Flip4Mac is that it cannot play WMV videos that use Windows Media digital rights management, so some videos may not be viewable even though Flip4Mac is installed.

An Xvid quicktime plugin available for Mac but is not well maintained at the moment, according to the Xvid FAQ. The developers, however, are currently working on improved Quicktime support, which will become part of the Xvid core code base.  How good/bad is it?

VLC seems to be the popular choice, however, does it include a plugin to Quicktime, or is this a stand-alone product?

Perian, on the other hand, can be used with all QuickTime supporting apps like QuickTime Player, NicePlayer and QTAmateur, however, it does not support all formats.

Also, would downloading them from the MacPorts Project suit my purpose, or would downloading the latest versions from their respective home pages be better?  Note that this is more a question of compatibility than anything else.  Also note that I am running Mac OS X Version 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).

Any advice/suggestions/feedback would be appreciated.

Just to let you know that I posted a similar question to the Adobe forum.  This is the reply that I received:

Putting it bluntly, you shouldn't be embedding WMVs in PDF files anymore -
it's called "legacy media" and it's been discontinued for security reasons.
You can't author it in Acrobat X, and playback is disabled in all current
versions of Acrobat and Adobe Reader unless the user changes their security
options. Authors should be using Rich Media annotations, which embed FLV or
H.264 video and play cross-platform via an internal copy of Flash Player.

The weblink fired by Reader when it encounters legacy media for which the OS has
no registered handler understands that you're on a Mac - and as there are no
primary players for WMV files on OS X, that's what it tells you. Adobe does not
link to third-party add-ons for other software, and even with those installed it
will continue to complain unless the add-on has changed the file type
associations, so that WMV files +automatically+ open in Quicktime.

In view of this reply, it's clear that I cannot view WMV files embedded in PDF files, no matter what third party software I have installed under Mac OS.  Nevertheless, I appreciate the feedback that I received from each of you.  While VLC seems like the most attractive alternative, the reason I chose flip4mac is because I do not wish to clutter my system with duplicate/redundant media players.  While this solves my problem of being able to play WMV files under Mac OS, it does not solve my original problem concerning Adobe Acrobat Reader.  It seems like I will have to use Rich Media annotations to do this.

Problem solved!  I ended up converting the WMV file to MP4 (a format that Adobe Flash Player and QuickTime understands).  This allowed me to play the media file embedded in the PDF document.  For the complete story, have a look at the TeX-LaTeX.SE group.

I've tried them all flip4mac, perian... trust me, VLC is your simplest and most efficient solution. It handles almost every single video type known, including WMV. Perian with Quicktime would come a good second, but still doesn't beat VLC as it doesn't have VLC's codec coverage. So that would most definitely be the best solution.

But is there any specific reason you're looking for a quicktime based solution? If only "playing" a video, is your primary requirement, VLC takes care of that (and pretty darn well i might add).

Cheers.

(I've written a post on my blog covering most of the "good" software that I use. You're welcome to check it out. VLC was my final vote there. Excuse the shameless self promotion. Ignore if offended)


How to change the frame color in Keynote In Keynote, when adding a frame stroke, it is possible to change the background color.
However I am not seeing any way to change the actual color of the frame border (which always stays white).

Any advice for doing so?

As far as I can see, the answer would have to be no.

The options for changing the colours of picture frames are greyed out, and in all the many keynotes I have seen, green frames have never been included.

That is not to say it is impossible.

It may be possible to make one, like this.

Create a rectangle of a shade of colour 50% brighter than the desired shade.
Create two identically sized photos the first with a frame.
Set the framed photo to 50% opacity, and position it over the rectangle.
Finally, place the good photo over the frame, and hope it was worth the effort.

I hope this helps, somehow.


How to resume interrupted download in i.files app I have installed i.files app version 1.6 for iphone. In description of this app in app store has been written it can resume download from broken point, now i have tried to download 2 or 3 files with this app, when download was interrupted and we click start , it start download from first start point.
Please help how this app works?

No one can really answer this question except the developer, it will just be opinion based. So here is my opinion:

This is a developer issue, you can review the app and tell them about this bug. This app doesn't have a support page in English so I doubt you will get support from them directly.

Here is an alternative app that can resume downloads:

Downloads Free | Downloads

Please note that this app can not save video files any more, that's why the current version has 1 star rating. But other than that, it's perfect! :)


Big binary file in all OSX/Linux? I need to find test binary data for the command xxd -ps file which is some GB or at least several MBs.
I am using at the moment /usr/bin/telnet but it is not big and heterogenous between different OS.

Which file is big and sufficient homogenous between different operating systems?

Answer from Patrix's link here.

dd

To create binary file of 1GB by

dd if=/dev/urandom of=sample.bin bs=64m count=16

giving

which is preferred by the linked answer but is slow with records in my Macbook Air mid-2013 on Yosemite 10.10.3 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 116.436 s, 9.2 MB/s.

openssl

The following command is faster but does not create a binary file

openssl rand -out sample.txt -base64 $(( 2**30 * 3/4 ))

giving

head sample.txt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or

xxd sample.txt | head -10
0000000: 3357 7164 6659 4442 3858 656a 496b 3256  3WqdfYDB8XejIk2V
0000010: 7a64 734c 4a38 5375 784e 6848 2f6f 434a  zdsLJ8SuxNhH/oCJ
0000020: 386d 4b58 6272 7356 6d54 3575 5a61 4347  8mKXbrsVmT5uZaCG
0000030: 6d57 3759 5a4e 3350 4162 5939 6c56 7163  mW7YZN3PAbY9lVqc
0000040: 0a30 5472 3273 5834 5258 6c4a 3550 557a  .0Tr2sX4RXlJ5PUz
0000050: 756a 4a32 5355 662f 786a 4933 7065 546c  ujJ2SUf/xjI3peTl
0000060: 7045 5954 6e78 4a4b 6944 5334 4344 6f2b  pEYTnxJKiDS4CDo+
0000070: 5442 736b 5642 6769 4532 2f4a 382b 3943  TBskVBgiE2/J8+9C
0000080: 790a 4363 536e 6b6b 7548 4c4a 6754 4378  y.CcSnkkuHLJgTCx
0000090: 716a 3974 5942 3365 3362 6b7a 494d 7536  qj9tYB3e3bkzIMu6

Or you run

openssl rand -out sample.bin $(( 2**30 * 3/4 ))

which does create a file using the full byte range

xxd sample.bin | head -10
0000000: 9084 48bf dc6c 21d3 579f 6153 6b3d e62f  ..H..l!.W.aSk=./
0000010: 9460 0228 5e1e b531 3bb4 223a 120b 0273  .`.(^..1;.":...s
0000020: 27e2 de7c b9e8 63b8 6333 9702 05cc 2fe1  '..|..c.c3..../.
0000030: 5aab fed9 1732 246d 59c8 de14 6b04 907d  Z....2$mY...k..}
0000040: f164 81c4 7065 9798 71b7 891b dbe1 f06b  .d..pe..q......k
0000050: 24ad 9749 b596 4dad a4a9 b415 64a7 6ccb  $..I..M.....d.l.
0000060: 8463 a125 9abe 9a7b 7f70 f3ea 9acf 1eb0  .c.%...{.p......
0000070: ebe0 9f0d 87dd ffce 4e20 9793 eda8 1872  ........N .....r
0000080: f08a 3aa3 d3e7 5bca 6b84 b44d 1650 4b9e  ..:...[.k..M.PK.
0000090: 282f c9c3 1e8c b423 472e 857c 134e 18ca  (/.....#G..|.N..


macOS High Sierra, Messages won't search at all I just got a new 2018 Macbook Pro, so I'm in the process of migrating from my 2013 MBP to the new one.  I don't trust the Migration Assistant due to numerous bad past experiences, so I do this kind of thing manually.

To move my Messages content over, I copied the entire ~/Library/Messages/ directory over to the new machine, and Messages generally seems to work fine - all my messages are there, Text Forwarding from my phone works, etc.  The one thing that doesn't work, is search.  I can't search for anything at all, no matter what it is.  100% of attempted searches results in "No Results Found".

Is this a Spotlight issue?  Is there some trick to make Messages' content searchable?

I finally got a solution for this in the Apple forums.  Still not sure why it worked but, here's what was suggested:

  In Sys Prefs>Spotlight>Search Results, uncheck "Mail & Messages" (and leave it unchecked), then
  add your drive to Spotlight's exclusion pane, wait, then remove the
  drive from the exclusion pane, wait for Spotlight to rebuild it's
  index.

I had to leave the machine overnight but this morning, Messages search works again.


Macbook Pro with Bootcamp and shared partition? I just got a Macbook and want to install Bootcamp to have access to some Windows only VST plugins. I want to use both platforms to continue making music. As I have tons of GB of audio project files I thought that I could setup Windows via Bootcamp but also create a separate partition for those files. That way I would avoid having the audio files duplicated and redundant.

Now my questions are:

1) Is it possible to make this happen? One exFat for shared files, one regular mac parition and one NTFS for windows (its been a while when I was dealing with partitioning, and that was back on pure windows times)

2) If 1) is possible, how should I proceed. First bootcamp? First the exFat partition? And how do I do a pure data exfat partition on mac

Here, I assume you will be using the Boot Camp Assistant to install an UEFI booting Windows 10. The computer I am using to test this answer is an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) with macOS 11.13.6 (High Sierra) and macOS 10.15.3 (Catalina) installed. The output from diskutil list, after installing Windows 10 Pro Version 1909, is shown below. Here the Mac is running Catalina.

Last login: Sat Mar 21 18:14:10 on console
davidanderson@Snapper ~ % diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         898.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                102.0 GB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +898.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Muskie                  32.2 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 116.3 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      9.7 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Snapper - Data          339.7 GB   disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Snapper                 11.1 GB    disk1s6

Adding an ExFAT Formatted Partition after the APFS Container Partition

The command diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 800G ExFAT Fish1 0 was entered to create a ~100 GB ExFAT volume. The output is shown below. The value of 800G was chosen, because this is approximately 100 GB smaller that current partition size of 898 GB.

davidanderson@Snapper ~ % diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 800G ExFAT Fish1 0
Started APFS operation
Aligning shrink delta to 98,000,027,648 bytes and targeting a new physical store size of 800,000,000,000 bytes
Determined the minimum size for the targeted physical store of this APFS Container to be 408,089,001,984 bytes
Resizing APFS Container designated by APFS Container Reference disk1
The specific APFS Physical Store being resized is disk0s2
Verifying storage system
Using live mode
Performing fsck_apfs -n -x -l -S /dev/disk0s2
Checking the container superblock
Checking the EFI jumpstart record
Checking the space manager
Checking the space manager free queue trees
Checking the object map
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume Muskie was formatted by newfs_apfs (748.77.8) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.81.1)
Checking the object map
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the snapshot metadata
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the fsroot tree
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume Preboot was formatted by newfs_apfs (748.77.8) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.81.1)
Checking the object map
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the snapshot metadata
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the fsroot tree
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume Recovery was formatted by newfs_apfs (748.77.8) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.81.1)
Checking the object map
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the snapshot metadata
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the fsroot tree
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume VM was formatted by newfs_apfs (748.77.8) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.81.1)
Checking the object map
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the snapshot metadata
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the fsroot tree
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume Snapper - Data was formatted by newfs_apfs (748.77.8) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.81.1)
Checking the object map
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the snapshot metadata
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the fsroot tree
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume Snapper was formatted by diskmanagementd (1412.61.1) and last modified by apfs_kext (1412.81.1)
Checking the object map
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the snapshot metadata
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the fsroot tree
Verifying allocated space
The volume /dev/disk0s2 appears to be OK
Storage system check exit code is 0
Shrinking APFS Physical Store disk0s2 from 898,000,027,648 to 800,000,000,000 bytes
Shrinking APFS data structures
Shrinking partition
Modifying partition map
Volume name      : Fish1
Partition offset : 1562910720 sectors (800210288640 bytes)
Volume size      : 191406080 sectors (97999912960 bytes)
Bytes per sector : 512
Bytes per cluster: 131072
FAT offset       : 2048 sectors (1048576 bytes)
# FAT sectors    : 6144
Number of FATs   : 1
Cluster offset   : 8192 sectors (4194304 bytes)
# Clusters       : 747648
Volume Serial #  : 5e7b02c4
Bitmap start     : 2
Bitmap file size : 93456
Upcase start     : 3
Upcase file size : 5836
Root start       : 4
Mounting disk
1 new disk created or changed due to APFS operation
Disk from APFS operation: disk0s5
Finished APFS operation

The output from diskutil list is shown below. The new ExFAT formatted partition has the identifier of disk0s5.

davidanderson@Snapper ~ % diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         800.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Fish1                   98.0 GB    disk0s5
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                102.0 GB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +800.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Muskie                  32.2 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 116.3 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      9.7 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Snapper - Data          339.7 GB   disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Snapper                 11.1 GB    disk1s6

  Note: This change did not cause any problems booting Windows 10.

Adding an ExFAT Formatted Partition after the NTFS Formatted Partition

  Note: There exists a Golden Rule which can be loosely stated as “Never use Windows software to change the partitioning on Mac computers.” An exception to this rule is when Windows UEFI boots from the Windows installation files or the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE). Seeing a drive letter of X: is an indicator that this has occurred.

There are other exceptions to the Golden Rule. In this case, the Golden Rule rule does not apply due to the following reasons.

There are no Mac OS Extended volumes on the disk0.
Except for the Boot Camp software which appears on the system tray and control panel, the installation of the Window Support Software did not allow Windows read/write access to APFS volumes.
There are no third party software installed which would allow access to APFS volumes from Windows.

The steps to create an ExFAT volume are given below. The images are from the 2013 iMac.

Open Disk Management, as shown below.

Shrink the main Windows partition. Select Shrink Volume..., as shown below.

When the window below appears, enter the desired size for the new partition. When finished, click on the Shrink button.

The result is shown below.

Create new partition. Select New Simple Volume, as shown below.

Click on the Next button, when the window below appears.

Click on the Next button, when the window below appears.

Choose a drive letter, when the window below appears. Here, the default letter of E was used. When finished, click on the Next button.

When the window below appears, enter a volume label. Here, the name Fish2 was used. Since the ExFAT format is not available, let the format default to NTFS for now. This will be corrected later. When finished, click on the Next button.

Click on the Next button, when the window below appears.

The result is a new NTFS volume, as shown below.

Format as ExFAT. Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator and enter the command format e: /fs:exfat /v:Fish2 /q, as shown below. You may need to substitute a different drive letter and volume label.

The result is a new ExFAT volume, as shown below.

After booting back to Catalina, the output from diskutil list is shown below.

  Note: Rebooting macOS causes the identifiers to be assigned in ascending order.

Last login: Wed Mar 25 03:56:39 on console
davidanderson@Snapper ~ % diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         800.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Fish1                   98.0 GB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                91.5 GB    disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data Fish2                   10.5 GB    disk0s5

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +800.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Muskie                  32.2 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 116.3 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      8.6 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Snapper - Data          339.7 GB   disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Snapper                 11.1 GB    disk1s6


Why is my hostname set to a random number (228) in the bash prompt on OS X? Today I saw that when I open a terminal, the bash prompt displays username@228~:. When I type in pwd I get /Users/username so I was wondering where does this 228 come from? It wasn't like that couple of days ago and I am not sure what introduced this change.

My OS is OS X Yosemite 10.10.5.

In .bash_profile I have export PS1="\u@\h\w: ".

From the list of prompt strings (see PROMPTING in man bash):

\h     the hostname up to the first `.'

Usually, this gives a nice short hostname but in your case leads to the slightly confusing 228.


How can I delete pictures off Photo Stream to free up iCloud storage space? I have Photo Stream set up and my pictures show up in iPhoto on my Mac.  Do I have to import them to keep them permanently?  How can I free up iCloud space?

"My Photo Stream" does not consume space in your iCloud account storage quota so deleting photos from Photo Stream will not free up iCloud storage space.

If Photos.app has "My Photo Stream" turned on in the iCloud preferences, any photos that any device adds to "My Photo Stream" will get automatically imported into the Photos.app library on your Mac. They do not have to be manually imported.

In recent (2017) versions of Photos.app, individual images can be selected and deleted from "My Photo Stream", but be careful when deleting things. Photos deleted from "My Photo Stream" MAY also be removed from the local library on the device (depending on exactly how they were deleted: delete key; menu items; contextual menu; etc.), but they will not be removed from any other devices that have imported the images into their local library (which happens automatically with Photos.app on the Mac). Photos that were removed from the local library can be recovered from the "Recently Deleted" folder on the device, and are not added back to "My Photo Stream". Note that the photos visible in "My Photo Stream" can differ between different devices, perhaps due to time lag between local caches and server updates.

To reclaim iCloud storage space, remove data from other services such as Documents and Data, Mail, and iCloud backup. In particular, iOS device backups can consume a lot of iCloud space - you might consider having iOS devices backup to your Mac through iTunes rather than backing up to iCloud. This change can be made using iTunes when the iOS device is attached via a USB cable.


Apps are muted on my iPad I have a 1st generation iPad and it is doing a very strange thing. All the installed 3rd party apps are muted. Video and music playback works and audio is ok, but all other Apps are muted.

Why is this happening? What can I do about it?

I figured this out finally. It had to do with the hardware switch on the side of the iPad was set to rotation mode.

When I changed back this hardware switch to function as the mute switch then I could un-muted my iPad and all apps started to function normally. Then I could change back the hardware switch to become the rotation lock-unlock switch.


How to install vim8 without effecting the built-in vim? How can install vim8 without effecting the built-in vim that comes with a mac? Like with python2 that comes built-in with a mac, I have python3 separate. So, I can call it with vim8. I am using brew.

My OSX is 10.11.6.

Homebrew will not overwrite any Apple supplied executables. It installs everything in /usr/local which is empty by default.

I think Homebrew will install vin to /usr/local/vim

However if you installed python3 from python.org then that will conflict with Homebrew python as they are both installed in /usr/local


System clock reset to Jan 2001? I got an error message saying something like "System clock reset to Jan 2001" and then many things stopped working. I has my laptop in standby mode and the battery must have gone completely flat whilst on standby. How would you go about fixing this and generally perform hardware troubleshooting on a Mac? (on a PC I'd look for the CMOS clock and battery, among other things..)

Sounds like your PRAM/NVRAM battery is dead. The NVRAM (or PRAM for older Macs) is responsible for time and date settings, as well as other things (see About NVRAM and PRAM).

iFixit is the place to look for guides and parts. Here's a guide on replacing the battery on a MacBook Pro 15" Core Duo.


Reset Snow Leopard user accounts/preference My kids completely changed everything in their user account, what is the easiest way to reset everything to default (without reinstalling everything) including:

Name of hard drive
Menu items in Finder
Dock size and items
Size/appearance of things
Even some applications have been moved from their original location

Name of hard drive
Click enter, rename it
Menu items in Finder
What do you mean by that?
Dock size and items
Trashing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist will do the trick
Size/appearance of things
Trashing the .plist file under ~/Library/Preferences
Even some applications have been moved from their original location
You'll have to move them back to /Applications manually.

In order for that not to be reproduced, you could try Parental Controls under System Preferences > Account and limit what they can do on their account.


Signed iOS app "can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer" I am a registered iOS developer. I generated an IPA file using a signing identity that qualifies for App Store submission.

I sent my client this IPA file but macOS won't open it. It claims that this file comes from an unidentified developer. While there is a workaround by option-clicking the file, I want to know how a client can set Gatekeeper to trust all app files signed by a given identity.

It is likly that the client is running Mountain Lion or Sierra.

You've signed the IPA with an App Store distribution certificate, then not distributed through the App Store, so the certificate is invalid in the eyes of Gatekeeper and the file will be blocked. Use ad-hoc distribution if you wish to send the IPA file manually. Either way, macOS won't run IPAs as they're iOS app bundles.