How to set up photo sync from iPhone to Mac without syncing Mac to iCloud Photo Library I am trying to set up my half's iPhone and Mac in a way that the photos are synced to the Mac automatically over the WiFi, at the same time free up space once it becomes full as it's only the 16GB model.
I thought iCloud Photo Library would do the trick but when I enable it on the Mac it wants to upload the entire existing photo library from the Mac first.
I just want it to go one way, iPhone -> iCloud -> Mac, is it possible to set it up this way?
If not possible can I create a second photo library that is blank on the Mac and contains just the iPhone photos? I would rather not but if this is the only way.

Could/should this be handled by iTunes instead? Can it be used, last time I owned an iPhone it handled this but it looks like it's shifted responsibility to iCloud/Photos, is that correct?

Backup is handled by Time Machine on the Mac and the Photo app is used for viewing/managing photos.

In general settings of your iPhone you can set Optimize iPhone storage and if your iPhone is low on space, full resolution photos and videos are automatically replaced with optimized versions. But all full resolution versions are stored in iCloud.


Long time ago I bound my right shift key to F3, how can I undo that? Basically, my shift key is being random. A long time ago, I set it to act like F3 (whatever that's called), and undid it. Now it's doing it again. How can I change it back to just shift? I can't seem to find the correct option in System Preferences>Keyboard>Keyboard shortcuts

I did exactly as you described recently and you are right that there seems to be no trace to go back to that function to undo it. After talking to several Mac users, including store staff, it got resolved by trial and error by an Apple Store senior support person;
he expressed himself that it was an odd solution to the problem and that the key mapping may be faulty but it worked.

None of the people I talked to are aware of this capability to alter the function of the right shift key; if it wasn't for your post, they would have convinced me that there was no such function. Anyway, this is what he did:

go to System Preferences, then Exposé/Spaces.
in Exposé, for the "Application Windows" setting, choose "-"


Wifi connected but can't access any Website When trying to connect to Wi-Fi it connects without a problem and it is showing that Wi-Fi has full signal strength. However when trying to access any website it shows that it is trying to load it and just hangs at that point. What is causing this?
What can be done to resolve this? The router in question is a Aruba Networks Router with WPA2 enterprise.

Hold alt and click the Wi-Fi symbol in the menu bar; in the extended menu does it list the Internet as reachable?
If not, it can be a external problem or perhaps there is a secondary login required on a splash website or something.


OSX does not recognize the Scroll Lock key on my external USB Keyboard I am trying to share my monitor and keyboard/mouse between my PC (Windows 7) and Macbook Pro (1,1 - 2006, Snow Leopard) using a basic KVM switch (Trendnet TK207).

By hitting Scroll Lock twice the KVM switches from one computer to another. The problem is this works on Windows but not in OS X. OS X does not recognize my Scroll Lock key at all (even the Scroll Lock light doesn't work).

Any ideas on how to debug/fix this problem?

I made a small command line utility to fix this for my Trendnet TK-204UK. The trick is to toggle the Scroll Lock LED state on the keyboard because it seems to be monitored by the switch. Mac does not normally toggle the LED when you press the Scroll Lock key. I found an Apple sample program (HID LED test tool) that does low level access to the keyboard and modified it to flash the Scroll Lock LED. I called it kvm, put it in my /usr/local/bin and bingo no need to reach under the desk to do what I bought this switch to do. Here is the modified main function of the main.c file of the HID_LED_test_tool project. Note that you will probably have to change a setting of the Xcode project to compile it with the 10.7 SDK because it is configured to use 10.5.

--- update ---

This solution works (thank you so much) but you are missing some of the code.  You need to go to http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/HID_LED_test_tool/Listings/main_c.html and grab the function declared at the top.

Also for anyone who doesn't know what to do with this, you need to create a new command line OS X application in Xcode and build this.  Then you can run it to switch your KVM.  You'll also need to add CoreFoundation.framework and IOKit.framework to the build.

--- end update ---

--- update 2 ---

Just realized that if instead of building a "Command line OS X application", you create a "Cocoa Application" and then delete everything except for main.m and dump the code below in that, you'll create a 'regular' application instead of a 'command line' application and that will launch quicker (without loading up terminal) and can be docked on the dock, etc.  If you do go with the "Cocoa App" you'll have to update some of the build settings to correspond to the files you delete.

--- end update 2 ---

//
//  main.m
//

// ****************************************************
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark * complation directives *
// ----------------------------------------------------

#ifndef FALSE
#define FALSE 0
#define TRUE !FALSE
#endif

// ****************************************************
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark * includes & imports *
// ----------------------------------------------------

#include <CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h>
#include <Carbon/Carbon.h>
#include <IOKit/hid/IOHIDLib.h>

// ****************************************************
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark * typedef's, struct's, enums, defines, etc. *
// ----------------------------------------------------
// function to create a matching dictionary for usage page & usage
static CFMutableDictionaryRef hu_CreateMatchingDictionaryUsagePageUsage(Boolean isDeviceNotElement,
                                                                    UInt32 inUsagePage,
                                                                    UInt32 inUsage )
{
    // create a dictionary to add usage page / usages to
    CFMutableDictionaryRef result = CFDictionaryCreateMutable(kCFAllocatorDefault,
                                                          0,
                                                          &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks,
                                                          &kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks );

    if ( result ) {
        if ( inUsagePage ) {
            // Add key for device type to refine the matching dictionary.
            CFNumberRef pageCFNumberRef = CFNumberCreate( kCFAllocatorDefault, kCFNumberIntType, &inUsagePage );

            if ( pageCFNumberRef ) {
                if ( isDeviceNotElement ) {
                    CFDictionarySetValue( result, CFSTR( kIOHIDDeviceUsagePageKey ), pageCFNumberRef );
                } else {
                    CFDictionarySetValue( result, CFSTR( kIOHIDElementUsagePageKey ), pageCFNumberRef );
                }
                CFRelease( pageCFNumberRef );

                // note: the usage is only valid if the usage page is also defined
                if ( inUsage ) {
                    CFNumberRef usageCFNumberRef = CFNumberCreate( kCFAllocatorDefault, kCFNumberIntType, &inUsage );

                    if ( usageCFNumberRef ) {
                        if ( isDeviceNotElement ) {
                            CFDictionarySetValue( result, CFSTR( kIOHIDDeviceUsageKey ), usageCFNumberRef );
                        } else {
                            CFDictionarySetValue( result, CFSTR( kIOHIDElementUsageKey ), usageCFNumberRef );
                        }
                        CFRelease( usageCFNumberRef );
                    } else {
                        fprintf( stderr, "%s: CFNumberCreate( usage ) failed.", __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ );
                    }
                }
            } else {
                fprintf( stderr, "%s: CFNumberCreate( usage page ) failed.", __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ );
            }
        }
    } else {
        fprintf( stderr, "%s: CFDictionaryCreateMutable failed.", __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ );
    }
    return result;
}    // hu_CreateMatchingDictionaryUsagePageUsage

int main( int argc, const char * argv[] )
{
#pragma unused ( argc, argv )

    // create a IO HID Manager reference
    IOHIDManagerRef tIOHIDManagerRef = IOHIDManagerCreate( kCFAllocatorDefault, kIOHIDOptionsTypeNone );
    require( tIOHIDManagerRef, Oops );

    // Create a device matching dictionary
    CFDictionaryRef matchingCFDictRef = hu_CreateMatchingDictionaryUsagePageUsage( TRUE,
                                                                                kHIDPage_GenericDesktop,
                                                                                kHIDUsage_GD_Keyboard );
    require( matchingCFDictRef, Oops );

    // set the HID device matching dictionary
    IOHIDManagerSetDeviceMatching( tIOHIDManagerRef, matchingCFDictRef );

    if ( matchingCFDictRef ) {
        CFRelease( matchingCFDictRef );
    }

    // Now open the IO HID Manager reference
    IOReturn tIOReturn = IOHIDManagerOpen( tIOHIDManagerRef, kIOHIDOptionsTypeNone );
    require_noerr( tIOReturn, Oops );

    // and copy out its devices
    CFSetRef deviceCFSetRef = IOHIDManagerCopyDevices( tIOHIDManagerRef );
    require( deviceCFSetRef, Oops );

    // how many devices in the set?
    CFIndex deviceIndex, deviceCount = CFSetGetCount( deviceCFSetRef );

    // allocate a block of memory to extact the device ref's from the set into
    IOHIDDeviceRef * tIOHIDDeviceRefs = malloc( sizeof( IOHIDDeviceRef ) * deviceCount );
    require( tIOHIDDeviceRefs, Oops );

    // now extract the device ref's from the set
    CFSetGetValues( deviceCFSetRef, (const void **) tIOHIDDeviceRefs );

    // before we get into the device loop we'll setup our element matching dictionary
    matchingCFDictRef = hu_CreateMatchingDictionaryUsagePageUsage( FALSE, kHIDPage_LEDs, 0 );
    require( matchingCFDictRef, Oops );

    int pass;   // do 3 passes
    for ( pass = 0; pass < 3; pass++ ) {
        Boolean delayFlag = FALSE;  // if we find an LED element we'll set this to TRUE

        //printf( "pass = %d.\n", pass );
        for ( deviceIndex = 0; deviceIndex < deviceCount; deviceIndex++ ) {

            // if this isn't a keyboard device...
            if ( !IOHIDDeviceConformsTo( tIOHIDDeviceRefs[deviceIndex], kHIDPage_GenericDesktop, kHIDUsage_GD_Keyboard ) ) {
                continue;   // ...skip it
            }

            //printf( "  device = %p.\n", tIOHIDDeviceRefs[deviceIndex] );

            // copy all the elements
            CFArrayRef elementCFArrayRef = IOHIDDeviceCopyMatchingElements( tIOHIDDeviceRefs[deviceIndex],
                                                                           matchingCFDictRef,
                                                                           kIOHIDOptionsTypeNone );
            require( elementCFArrayRef, next_device );

            // for each device on the system these values are divided by the value ranges of all LED elements found
            // for example, if the first four LED element have a range of 0-1 then the four least significant bits of
            // this value will be sent to these first four LED elements, etc.
            int device_value = pass;

            // iterate over all the elements
            CFIndex elementIndex, elementCount = CFArrayGetCount( elementCFArrayRef );
            for ( elementIndex = 0; elementIndex < elementCount; elementIndex++ ) {
                IOHIDElementRef tIOHIDElementRef = ( IOHIDElementRef ) CFArrayGetValueAtIndex( elementCFArrayRef, elementIndex );
                require( tIOHIDElementRef, next_element );

                uint32_t usagePage = IOHIDElementGetUsagePage( tIOHIDElementRef );
                uint32_t usage = IOHIDElementGetUsage( tIOHIDElementRef );

                // if this isn't an LED element or the Scroll Lock key...
                if ( kHIDPage_LEDs != usagePage || 3 != usage ) {
                    continue;   // ...skip it
                }

                //IOHIDElementType tIOHIDElementType = IOHIDElementGetType( tIOHIDElementRef );

                //printf( "      element = %p (page: %d, usage: %d, type: %d ).\n",                    tIOHIDElementRef, usagePage, usage, tIOHIDElementType );

                // get the logical mix/max for this LED element
                CFIndex minCFIndex = IOHIDElementGetLogicalMin( tIOHIDElementRef );
                CFIndex maxCFIndex = IOHIDElementGetLogicalMax( tIOHIDElementRef );

                // calculate the range
                CFIndex modCFIndex = maxCFIndex - minCFIndex + 1;

                // compute the value for this LED element
                CFIndex tCFIndex = minCFIndex + ( device_value % modCFIndex );
                device_value /= modCFIndex;

                //printf( "          value = 0x%08lX.\n", tCFIndex );

                uint64_t timestamp = 0; // create the IO HID Value to be sent to this LED element
                IOHIDValueRef tIOHIDValueRef = IOHIDValueCreateWithIntegerValue( kCFAllocatorDefault, tIOHIDElementRef, timestamp, tCFIndex );
                if ( tIOHIDValueRef ) {
                    // now set it on the device
                    tIOReturn = IOHIDDeviceSetValue( tIOHIDDeviceRefs[deviceIndex], tIOHIDElementRef, tIOHIDValueRef );
                    CFRelease( tIOHIDValueRef );
                    require_noerr( tIOReturn, next_element );
                    delayFlag = TRUE;   // set this TRUE so we'll delay before changing our LED values again
                }
            next_element:   ;
                continue;
            }
        next_device: ;
            CFRelease( elementCFArrayRef );
            continue;
        }

        // if we found an LED we'll delay before continuing
        if ( delayFlag ) {
            usleep( 250000 ); // sleep 0.25 second
        }
    }                         // next pass

    if ( tIOHIDManagerRef ) {
        CFRelease( tIOHIDManagerRef );
    }

    if ( matchingCFDictRef ) {
        CFRelease( matchingCFDictRef );
    }
Oops:   ;
    return 0;
} /* main */


Sync Apple Maps Favorites across personal devices I have a MacBook (running macOS Mojave 10.14.5) and an iPhone (running iOS 12.3.1). I want to share my Favorites in Maps app between both the devices. They doesn't appear to sync whether I add Maps to iCloud (I can only do this on the MacBook via the iCloud Drive option under System Preferences, not sure it's related at all) nor when I sync via iTunes.

Do I really have to exchange Maps links between devices to get it on the intended device?

Do I really have to exchange Maps links between devices to get it on the intended device?

No, you do not have to exchange Maps links for Favorites to and fro between your Mac and iOS devices. If you are logged in with same iCloud ID on both of your devices and have iCloud sync enabled, favorite created on one device automatically syncs on the other.

To verify if the settings are configured correctly, on your Mac, go to System Preferences → iCloud → iCloud Drive (Options...) and verify that Maps is checked:

On your iPhone, go to Settings app → Your Name → iCloud and check that Maps is enabled under Apps Using iCloud section:

If the above two verifies, you are all set. Mark a location as favorite in Maps macOS app by searching for it, clicking on the pin, clicking on the ⓘ button and clicking on the heart icon. The heart icon changes to solid fill when the location gets added to favorite.

Now, open Maps app on your iPhone, drag to pull the search view up from the bottom of the screen. You'll see a Favorites entry. Tapping on it will show you the recently added favorite. Tapping on the item name will locate it on the Map view.

Now do the reverse. Search for a location in Maps app on your iPhone, pull up the info sheet for the location and tap on the heart button to add it to Favorites. The heart icon changes to red color to indicate successful add.

Now open Maps macOS app, click within the search bar shown along the top and click on Favorites button to reveal the list of favorites. You'll find the newly added favorite item from your iPhone listed.

Make sure both your devices have an active Internet connection for the sync to happen.


Are Apple's AC Cords for MagSafe (1+2) always the same? I am getting a customised MacBook Pro Retina and it will have a AC Cord for Britain, but I need one for EU/Germany.

So can I easily switch the AC Cord of my MagSafe 2 to a German one?
Are these Cords somehow patented or normed, so I can use every cord on any adapter?

Also:
Where am I able to buy a Apple-original AC Cord (not the whole adapter)?

Absolutely no problem to change the cable!  Any Apple adaptor cable with a similar connector since the last decade will do fine.  Even the plugs from your iPad charger will work.

In fact, you also can use a standard radio cable (sometimes called an 8-shaped power cable).  You can find them anywhere, in shops for $2 but probably also attached to various household appliances.  Works fine.

As you can see, your Apple adaptor cable doesn't have a real 8-shape, but rather a B-shape.  This makes the cable useless to attach to your radio, but the radio one can be attached to the Apple adaptor.  There is no obvious reason for Apple to do that.

We regularly buy/replace Macbooks while traveling.  Therefore we end up with exotic power plugs without too much use.  Rather than using a travel adaptor or replacing the whole cord, we just cut off the plug-side and solder or screw on a EU plug bought at the local radio shack.

Cutting the cable and placing 3rd party plug will obviously void the warranty on that very cable, and might be illegal according to your local law.  In Germany this is allowed, as long as your new plug is DVE-certificated.  In any way, it's 220v and placement should be done with care.


How do I route internet through local PPP connection I have on PTY terminal? I'm doing this hack job where I have routed a cell phone's GPRS modem over to a local PTY. The proprietary debug software actually routes the modem over TCP, I then use socat to route it to a PTY (planning on using PPPD, which needs a serial terminal to connect to AFAIK).

I plan on establishing a PPP connection over that PTY (maybe PPPD, or any other solutions?)

However, even if I establish this PPP connection, I have no idea how to make it effective over the OS (so it doesn't use the WIFI or any other configured options such as Ethernet). This is the part I really have no idea how to setup. I took a look at possibly setting something up in System Preferences → Network but the remotely closest options are Bluetooth DUN, PPPoE, USB modem, but I don't know what I am doing at this point. I'll even have to learn to make this successful PPP connection. We will see.

Background
OS X Mavericks
T=Mobile Sidekick II phone with Enfora Enabler-II G modem

pppd automatically registers the PPP network interface upon successful registration!
From my experience performing this on OSX Mavericks 10.9.1, the /etc/ppp directory starts out empty.
Populate /etc/ppp
I had to populate it myself, and I did so from my Ubuntu installation which was already configured properly. These are the files I happened to import based on my needs:

/etc/ppp/options
/etc/ppp/pap-secrets
/etc/chatscripts (optional) - you only import this if you are using one of these chatscripts yourself.

Delete Default Route before running pppd
It might help to remove the default route before running pppd to assist in enforcing that the PPP connection becomes the default connection to the internet:
note: I found this more of an issue on my Ubuntu installation, but haven't had to this on OSX. Still here are the commands:
OSX command: sudo route delete default
Other Linux:     sudo route del default
When you disconnect pppd and reconnect your regular internet, the route will be restored.


Detect Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) client at server? Our company's security policy requires passwords to be 12 characters. Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) clients have a limit of 8 characters (I'm not sure why, but I think its due to historical reasons).

We want to block Apple Remote Desktop clients because they can't comply with the policy. Here, block means drop the network connection before the client attempts to provide credentials.

Is there a way to reliably detect Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) clients?

to block: you could have your switches filter ports.  though, you might also block vnc if you do 5900.

or to detect, i'd say use something like bonjour browser utility to find services, or nmap to find active ports.

3283    TCP/UDP     Net Assistant   -   net-assistant   Apple Remote Desktop 2.0 or later (Reporting feature)

5900    TCP     Virtual Network Computing (VNC)
(Unregistered Use)  -   vnc-server  Apple Remote Desktop 2.0 or later (Observe/Control feature)
Screen Sharing (Mac OS X 10.5 or later)


Force Spotlight to index a hidden directory Microsoft pwsh stores its artifacts (scripts and modules) in the ~/.local/share/powershell.
I've noticed that Spotlight doesn't index the content of this folder.
Is there a way to get Spotlight to index selected, hidden directories?
** edit **
I have a symlink on my desktop to the powershell directory:
$ ls  -al ~/Desktop

...
lrwxr-xr-x   1 me  staff      36 Sep 24 08:52 powershell -> /Users/me/.local/share/powershell

This does not appear to have any effect on the indexing.

Spotlight doesn't index dot files or folders. A workaround is to rename the folder and then symlink it back to its original name:
mv ~/.local/share/powershell ~/powershell && ln -s ~/powershell ~/.local/share/powershell

Make sure the destination of the move doesn't already exist.


Monitor Folder Contents with launchd - Including Subfolders? I want to make a shell script that runs any time the contents of a particular folder on my server are changed. Seems easy enough at first, because launchd has a directive called WatchPaths which triggers your script any time the contents of a folder change.

HOWEVER WatchPaths is not triggered by changes in subfolders. The folder I'm trying to watch is a few hundred MB of small web files, nested several levels deep in sub folders. Far too many folders to try to manually list each one.

Is there some other sane way to accomplish this?

WatchPaths doesn't appear to be able to watch a sub-directory recursively, so the best you can do with it is watch a single directory's activities. You might want to take a look at Folder Actions, they're discussed in detail in this blog post titled: Setup OS X Folder Actions to Know When a File is Added as well.

Another alternative is to use a CLI tool that's available in Homebrew via the brew install fswatch command. fswatch is a cross platform implementation that works on most flavors of *NIX includes macOS.

  The FSEvents monitor, available only on OS X, has no known
  limitations, and scales very well with the number of files being
  observed.

Example

Here I've created a sub-directory called ~/somedir. I then invoked `fswatch against  this directory:

$ mkdir ~/somedir
$ fswatch /some/dir

Now if we start adding files and sub-directories fswatch will notify:

$ touch ~/somedir/afile
fwatch msg>> /Users/joeuser/somedir/afile

$ mkdir ~/somedir/anotherdir
fswatch msg>> /Users/joeuser/somedir/anotherdir

$ touch ~/somedir/anotherdir/afile
fswatch msg>> /Users/joeuser/somedir/anotherdir/afile

The above can be adapted for use in a shell script which can take whatever other actions you require when any changes are detected against the directory tree that fswatch is monitoring.

Other Examples

To act on file system activity you can use one of these 2 patterns:

$ fswatch -0 path | while read -d "" event \
  do \
    // do something with ${event}
  done

Or this:

$ fswatch -o path | xargs -n1 -I{} program

References

fswatch
Is there a command like “watch” or “inotifywait” on the Mac?


Mac book pro charger came with twisted connector tip I just got my new macbook pro out of the box, and for my surprise i also noticed the sharp bent on the tip of the charger. Can i 'undo' this bent?

I already
had an 'incident' where my charger was 'decapitated' due to stress on this region. I mean...why they fold it like this? it's just too stupid.

Thanks for any advice!

You don't have to do anything. The cable is made of a couple layers of isolation warped around copper. Each material has its own elasticity and there is friction where the materials meet. The metal inside the cable is not irreversibly bent. It's the friction that's keeping it this way. Everything will move back in place.


Chromecast: maximize tab on TV while multitasking on Chrome? I'm trying to use Chromecast to watch an ESPN3 game in full-screen on my TV, while continuing to work in Chrome on my laptop (OS: Mavericks). The ESPN3 player doesn't have an option to stream directly through Chromecast (to my knowledge), so I've been casting the entire tab. This works fine, I can see the tab on my TV. If I want to view full-screen, I can maximize the viewer. This maximizes the viewer on the TV, and also my laptop screen. So far, so good.

The problem is, I want to keep using my laptop for other stuff. If I want a different application, I can cmd-tab to Finder, then right-click the Chrome icon and hide it, allowing me to see other stuff on my screen. However, if I want to use Chrome, as soon as I activate any Chrome window, the video pops up as full-screen an obscures my view.

I suppose I could use a different browser for internet stuff, but that's obnoxious! For example, I'm using Chrome's dev tools pane to debug a page I'm working on. I don't want to give up using Chrome for other purposes just because I'm watching something on TV.

How can I go about watching a full-screen tab on TV, while still being able to use Chrome for other purposes on my computer?

Update: I tried having the media window in a separate space, but when I go fullscreen it always takes up the laptop screen no matter which space I switch to.

Have you tried creating a new space, opening a new Chrome window in that space, opening ESPN in that new window, and cast that single tab on that isolated Chrome window to your TV? Then you should be able to work in your other space(s) and leave that one alone/aside to stream to your TV.

I do something similar when I want to work in Chrome but stream Hulu/Netflix/whatever to my TV via AirPlay (I set the AirPlay display as a separate display and drag over a totally separate Chrome window to that AirPlay display).


Is there a way to test whether an iPhone (5s) is failing to work on certain frequencies? A few weeks ago my iPhone (5s, T-Mobile) stopped roaming to AT&T "4G" towers.  It will still roam to older AT&T towers ("E", edge) and newer AT&T LTE towers.  I'm wondering whether there has been a hardware failure and my phone no longer works on the frequencies used by the AT&T 4G towers in question.

Is there a way to test whether my iPhone is still functioning properly on the frequencies used by the towers it is not connecting to?

The Genius bar may be able to help you by running diagnostics, but you can also try that yourself with this project that MITMs the diagnostics connection and dumps all data into an archive, you can try poking around in in and see if you can find anything relevant in it.

Another solution would require control of the mobile network but then you can definitely see why the phone isn't connecting to the desired networks (if the SIM allows it and the phone still doesn't connect then it's a phone failure).


Escape black screen on MacBook Pro after disconnecting external display Here's the scenario:

In my office, my MacBook Pro (Early 2011, running 10.10) is plugged into an external display over DisplayPort. I disconnect the laptop, close it (putting it to sleep), and take it with me. When I arrive to my destination I find that opening the laptop wakes it up to a black screen– however it is awake:

Backlight is visibly on
Volume controls work (I can hear it, no visuals)

The simplest way to solve this is to either restart or go back and plug it in to a monitor and retry the sequence of disconnecting to ensure this doesn't happen. Neither of these are feasible at the moment for various reasons. Session details:

Multiple users are logged in
Assume that some files are not saved or that progress may be lost by restarting (I think I'm safe here, but it's good for the exercise)
All users have a password protected lock screen upon awakening (though I am aware of the current user and password)
I have access to the shell which can be confirmed by opening iTerm (via shortcut) and entering "say hello"

Some of the suggestions I've seen for resolving this without a restart involve "Detect Displays" but unfortunately that's a bit too difficult to get to in the GUI without any visual feedback. All that being said, are there any creative ways to escape this using either the command line, AppleScript, or even guess-and-click if completely necessary?

I found this on Stack Overflow, to invoke 'Detect Displays' - which you could include in an Automator Service & then give a key command.

Of course… it would only be good for next time it happened, not this.

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    reveal pane "com.apple.preference.displays"
end tell

delay 0.5

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "System Preferences"
        try --don't even consider not using a try block!
            key down option
            delay 0.2
            click button "Detect Displays" of window 1
            delay 0.2
            key up option
        on error --logging out is the only other way to clear these
            key up option
        end try
    end tell
end tell


How to recover files "emptied" from trash I recently updated to macOS Mojave. I was experimenting with the new desktop stack feature. Long story short, I ended up creating a folder on the dock and putting all the files from my desktop into it. When I did this all the files stayed on the desktop, so I deleted them (moved them to trash). When I saw that the files were no longer on my desktop, but were still in the folder in the dock, I emptied my trash. That's when I found out that the files in the folder on the dock must have just been symlinks because once the trash was emptied, so was the folder on my dock.

Uh oh, I just mistakenly deleted all the files that I had on my desktop.

I searched google and see that there are programs (not produced by Apple) I can install to recover these files. I'm wondering if there is a simple (command line) way I can recover these files or if there is an official application produced by Apple that I can install to recover them.

How can I recover files that were emptied from the trash?

There is not an official Apple product or command-line tool to undelete / recover in place these files short of Time Machine having made a copy to another volume or to a snapshot.

I have used Data Rescue in the past and would recommend it. There are many questions here covering how that works and their free support is amazing.

The most important thing is to stop using that computer as soon as possible once you verify if Time Machine has you covered, because all disk activity risks over-writing deleted files, reducing your chance to recover intact data from the free space.

This doesn't help your situation now because the data is already lost, but in the future you can use Time Machine.

Time Machine will backup files, even when the drive is not connected, so be sure to check in case you have a local snapshot you can recover.


Cannot concatenate text in JXA I am trying to get on the Javascript for Automation bandwagon. I wrote a quick script that automates my travel request email, with a few dialog boxes.

Here is my code:

Mail = Application("Mail");

Mail.includeStandardAdditions = true

Origin = Mail.displayDialog(
                'Where is the trip starting from?',
                { defaultAnswer: 'Shanghai',
                  buttons:["Cancel", "Continue"],
                  defaultButton: "Continue"
            })

Destination = Mail.displayDialog(
                'Where is the trip to?',
                { defaultAnswer: "",
                  buttons:["Cancel", "Continue"],
                  defaultButton: "Continue"
            })

StartDate = Mail.displayDialog(
                'When are you leaving?',
                { title: "Onward Flight Date",
                  defaultAnswer: "",
                  buttons:["Cancel", "Continue"],
                  defaultButton: "Continue"
            })

RtnDate = Mail.displayDialog(
                'When are you returning?',
                { title: "Return Flight Date",
                  defaultAnswer: "",
                  buttons:["Cancel", "Continue"],
                  defaultButton: "Continue"
            })

content = 'Hi \n\n'

            + 'I am currently trying to arrange travel for an upcoming trip.\n\n'

            + 'Could you please help me in sorting out the flights, hotels and airport transfers?\n\n'

            + 'Please find below the details of the trip:\n\n'

            + 'FLIGHTS\n\n'

            + 'Onward Journey:\n'+ '\n'

            + '     From \t\t\t\t- ' + Origin.text +'\n'
            + '     To \t\t\t\t\t- ' + Destination + '\n'
            + '     Date of Departure \t- ' + StartDate + '\n' + '\n'

            + 'Return Journey:\n'+ '\n'

            + '     From \t\t\t\t- ' + Destination + '\n'
            + '     To \t\t\t\t\t- ' + Origin + '\n'
            + '     Date of Departure \t- ' +RtnDate+ '\n' + '\n'

            + 'Preferred Airline \t\t\t\t- Star Alliance \n'
            + 'Meal Preference \t\t\t\t- Vegetarian\n'+ '\n'
            + 'Loyalty Program\t\t\t\t- United:\n'

            + '\n ________________________________________ \n'+ '\n'

            + 'HOTEL\n\n'
            + '     CheckIn Date \t\t- ' + StartDate + '\n'
            + '     CheckOut Date \t\t- ' + RtnDate + '\n' + '\n'

            + 'Preferred Hotels \t\t\t\t- SPG\n'

            + 'Loyalty Program \t\t\t\t- SPG:\n'

            + '\n ________________________________________ \n'+ '\n'

            + 'Thank you\n'

msg = Mail.OutgoingMessage({
        subject: 'Itinerary Request - ',
        content: content,
        visible: true
        });

Mail.outgoingMessages.push(msg);

Mail.activate();

But when I run the script, the places where I have used the variables seem to come as [object Object]. (Shown below)

Can anyone please point out where I am going wrong?

displayDialog returns an object, not a string. When printing an object as a string, it is shown as [object Object]. The object returned from displayDialog is as follows:

{"buttonReturned":"Continue", "textReturned":"your text here"}

Therefore, you need to use the textReturned property of the object. You seemed to attempt this when you accessed the text property of Origin, but since the property is called ‘textReturned’, this didn't work either. For each of the variables where you are printing it in a string, replace

+ '     From \t\t\t\t- ' + Origin.text +'\n'
+ '     To \t\t\t\t\t- ' + Destination + '\n'

with

+ '     From \t\t\t\t- ' + Origin.textReturned +'\n'
+ '     To \t\t\t\t\t- ' + Destination.textReturned + '\n'

In the future when attempting to debug something like this, create a minimal, complete and verifiable example. In this case, just use one displayDialog and observe the value of the variable. (MCVE is something generally required in Stack Exchange questions, and I think this question was pushing that limit providing an entire script.)


Keynote: change the font of an equation I'm using the built-in equation tool in Keynote. Is there a way to change the font used by default in Keynote?

Also, I see that when I try to use text in the equation via \text{} the font is in bold mode. How can I change that?

Note that a relevant Keynote question has been asked here.

As an example for the font change see this picture

As an example for the bold text see the picture which was generated by \Gamma \text{ is fixed}

Note that this question is not a duplicate of this one. All of the options mentioned in the linked question are such that simply add a characteristic to the font (italics, bold, roman etc.) but they do not change the font.

There’s no way to change the default font output of the standard LaTeX editor in Keynote.
There might be a way through changing the editor itself, though of course strictly speaking it wouldn’t be Keynote anymore, more of a customized variant.
So practically, no.
Old Answer (for temporary changes):
Yes
\mathfrak{x=2y} clearly changes the font in Keynote, and Pages as mentioned in the question you linked.


What prevents iOS and iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch from having an official screen recorder? I have searched all over Apple's help and documentation I can't find any built in or app store apps that provide screen recording.

What prevents such an app to exist ? Are there any obvious technical reasons?

The technical reason no store app has screen recording is simply that no official API is provided from Apple to developers to perform screen recording.

The hardware is clearly capable of snapping still frames and storing / processing a video feed of the screen's size, so it's probably not a purely technical reason why it's currently not a feature of the OS.


Mac Pro 3.1 for Xcode, coding or programming? Could this machine support a more recent macOS and would that be necessary for development work?

I have a chance to buy a Mac Pro 3.1 (2008):

Intel Xeon Dual Quad-Core 2.8Ghz (8 cores total)
12GB RAM
Dual GPUs. ATI Radeon HD5770 1GB VRAM (1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, 2x DVI), and HD2800 XT (2x DVI)
Dual CD/DVD Optical Drives
1TB Storage over two HDD drives
2x Firewire 800, 2x Firewire 400, 2x 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 5x USB 2.0, Audio Toslink In/Out, Headphone & Speaker out
Running OS X Yosemite but can be upgraded.

I am beginner to coding but keen to get started.

Any comments on how this machine may cope (or not) with any programming tasks (mostly Xcode) are appreciated.

The machine itself is quite up to the task.

However, it is limited to El Capitan 10.11, so whilst you could use it for learning, to publish Apple usually require you have the very latest Xcode; which is incapable of being run on an older OS. For instance, Xcode 9 requires macOS 10.13.2 minimum.

If you can find the next model up - the 2009 4,1 can be upgraded by a Firmware hack to become a 5,1* & then be capable of running at least Mojave.

*It can be hard to tell the difference between a true 5,1 & upgraded 4,1 - but this is the giveaway...

A 'true' 5,1 would say 2010 or 2012. A non-upgraded 4,1 couldn't be running even Sierra, so this has to be an upgraded 4,1
I know this for sure - it's my machine ;-)

Additional note: Whichever you decide on, the first thing to do is add an SSD as boot drive. The difference in performance cannot be overstated. Recent versions of macOS expect you to be running from SSD.


How do I depend on a specific version of a homebrew formula I'm having a conflict with a formula and a particular version of Boost. Ideally, since this is really just a build conflict (it's not using a Boost shared library), I'd like to automatically use a specific version when building. I doubt this is possible, so I'd really just be happy with it as a conflict or as dependency, but I can't find documentation for that. What I found is the generic dependency example:

class Foo < Formula
  depends_on "boost" => "with-icu"
end

Is this even something I can do?

Homebrew is still improving their support for depending on old versions of a library, with some planned improvements in this issue. In the meantime, you can use the homebrew/versions tap, which has formulae for boost 1.55 and boost 1.59. To depend on these versioned formulae, you could use the following:

depends_on "homebrew/versions/boost155"

or

depends_on "homebrew/versions/boost159"

EDIT:

You mentioned lack of documentation about conflicts. There is a conflicts_with keyword, but that is more about conflicts with being installed side-by-side. There's also a fails_with keyword, but that is related to specific versions of compilers. I think using depends_on with a formula from homebrew/versions will work best for you.


Get error output from an double-clicked app How can I get the output written to stderr and stdout from an app that has been installed by .dmg, and is opened by double-clicking its app icon in the /Applications directory?

(I can see the output when I call the app in a terminal by using the path /Applications/MyAppName.app/Contents/MacOS/myappname, but this doesn't help since the the app behaves differently when I double-click the icon.)

This answer is from 2013 but is mostly still relevant.

  Prior to Mountain Lion, all processes managed by launchd, including
  regular applications, had their stdout and stderr file descriptors
  forwarded to the system log. In Mountain Lion and above, stdout and
  stderr go nowhere for launchd managed applications. Only messages
  explicitly sent to the system log will end up there.

  If you're writing an application and would like some output to show up
  in the console, then adopt an API built on syslog(3) or asl(3)
  instead. NSLog is one such API, and it has the advantage of logging to
  stderr too so you can easily see your output no matter how you've
  launched your application. If you'd like that functionality but want
  to use asl or syslog directly then you'll want to look in to the
  ASL_OPT_STDERR option to asl_open, and the LOG_PERROR option to
  openlog respectively.

Basically, when you double-click an app (same as /usr/bin/open /Applications/SomeApp.app) there is no stdout/stderr. The dev is expected to send any relevant output/errors to the available logging APIs such as NSLog.


Keynote : export slides to pdf with notes I would like to export my Keynote slides to pdf with the presenter notes. The layout of the resulting pdf is not good : the slides are scaled down on each page, and the text of the presenter note is not aligned with the slides (see screnshot)
Is there a way to change that layout ? I tried the option "print to pdf", but I can't get good result.

If it's impossible to get nice pdf from Keynote, do you know any other app that could handle this correctly?

This is a cosmetic bug you could report to Apple.

Here is my best approach I used to get a decent PDF.
In printing menu, select Keynote > Print: > Handout > Add Notes


Error message when copying files over to Mac Server I keep receiving the following error message when copying files, from my iMac and my Macbook, over to my Mac Mini Server.

  The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in
  “filename.pdf” can’t be read or written. (Error code -36)

But regardless of the error message, single files will still copy over. Multiple files however, will copy the first file, then kick the error message and stop.

Really a pain when I have a folder with 100's of images and I have to copy each image over individually!

However, when I copy files from a PC Desktop or Laptop to the Mac Server, no error message occurs.

I've been dealing with this issue for months and have not found a solution. I get the same message no matter what type of file it is.....PDF, JPG, DOC, Ai, etc.

Can anybody help??

use dot_clean, the directory which is being copied and throwing the Error Code 36, the basics look like this:

Launch the Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities/ or with Spotlight)
At the command prompt, type:

dot_clean /Path/To/Directory/With/Problem/

When dot_clean is finished, attempt the file copy again and it should succeed with no error code
For example, if copying ~/Documents/FileBackups/ is the problematic directory, use:

dot_clean ~/Documents/FileBackups/

For more info see http://osxdaily.com/2015/02/21/fix-error-code-36-finder-mac-os-x/


App for analyzing installers Is there an app which shows contents of a .pkg file and shows which files an installer copies to my mac, what scripts it runs and so on?

You can extract package files and sort through their contents without actually installing them. To do this, you can often just right-click on a .pkg file and select “Show Package Contents” – but that isn’t always displayed.

If that option is unavailable, you can extract .pkg files using a command line tool called pkgutil that is bundled with OS X. Launch Terminal.app and enter the following:

pkgutil --expand /path/to/package.pkg /output/destination/

Hint: you can drag & drop items into the Terminal to print their full path, making this tip easier by typing: pkgutil –expand [drop file here] /destination/path/.

After that, you can go to the output path in the Finder and check out the extracted files.

Source


Mac is not remembering specific network I keep the option to auto-join preferred networks on wake.

However, after I reconfigured my router at home, my home network simply ignores that option.

I have already tried fixing HD permissions on Disc Utility. Didn't work.
What else can I do?

P.S.: The config is still working at work.

I've had the same thing happen to me.  Just create a new location with appropriate preferred settings and have that one connect.  You can delete the old one if necessary.


Install and open KeePass on Mac OS X How to install and open KeePass on Mac OS X form the User Interface and not just open a terminal and type commands?

I use KeepassX on my macs so I don't have to use the terminal. It is free and you'll find it here:
http://www.keepassx.org


MacBook keyboard decals without letters I'm looking for one of these types of stylish MacBook keyboard skins:

But I don't want any of the keys marked. I just want blank keys, without letters/symbols.

Do any such products exist? I can't find any by looking myself.

Yes,
There is one such unlabeled keyboard available that I have found: the Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate. It is an external keyboard and not a cover, but I think it's what you're looking for.


Determine geolocation in shell / Terminal on OS X 10.5 Is there a way to determine geolocation in shell / Terminal on OS X 10.5?

There's another question, Is there a way to access a Mac's geolocation from terminal?, but it seems to only be concerned with the currently-latest OS X 10.8.

According to Apple Developer documentation, the feature is available from OS X 10.6 or later.

Alternative to hardware-based GPS, how about DNS-based geolocation option for OSX 10.5? May be worth your time to google those.


Accidentally activated firmware lockscreen, how do I go back? I logged out of my Macbook (pro 2019, Catalina) then after mistyping my password, accidentally hit the “recover password” button (or something along those lines, can’t remember). I do remember my password, so that’s not the issue.
My Macbook then rebooted and took me to a black screen with a grey lock and a password prompt (which I learned was the firmware password page). I don’t remember ever setting a firmware password.
I tried my regular login password, which didn’t work. I also tried any other password I could think of. None worked. I tried booting into recovery mode with command+r, but I still get the same screen.
I think the issue could be that my Macbook is trying to boot into recovery mode (because I accidentally clicked to recover my password), but recovery mode requires the firmware password. And now I can’t get it to boot normally, without recovery mode. I tried following these steps, but I always get the lockscreen.
Is there a way to go back to how it was before, with the normal login screen (with my known password)?

As you have already attempted the known ways of changing startup disk, it seems that the firmware password is necessary in order to proceed. However, there's no publically known way of bypassing the firmware password.
You can however take the device to an Apple Store along with proof of ownership, and they will unlock the firmware password for you. If you do not live near an Apple Store, call Apple and they can probably arrange mail-in repair or similar.
If it is a company device and you haven't got proof of ownership, you'll need to go through your employer. Most probably they will know the firmware password, and can proceed without having to contact Apple.
In some cases, managed devices (i.e. company issued laptops) can be set to require special access in order to do things that could circumvent managed device restrictions - such as for example trying to boot from a different partition. This could quite possibly be what you have run into. In this case you'll need to contact your employer to get it fixed.


Cannot kill process shown in parenthesis I started a rather long dd command that I would like to stop.

ps shows:

$ ps
  PID TTY           TIME CMD
 2006 ttys002    0:00.00 (dd)

The dd process is shown in parenthesis without the argument.

A kill produces no effect. Any idea on how to interrupt it?

The actual display of a process between (…) means this process was detached from its controlling terminal (here ttys002). This means that ^C, ^\, ^S, ^Z don't have anymore effect on it. It's behaving in daemon mode. This also means you can't send it a hangup either.

The correct way to deal with this case if unwanted, is to get
the number of its parent process with:

ps lw | egrep '[ ](2006|PID)'

and kill it with a hangup signal:

kill -HUP xxxx

where xxxx is the process ID of the parent process.


Folders created through "Save As..." dialog not immediately visible in Finder One my favorite OS X features is creating folders through the "Save As..." dialog. But recently I've run into an issue. When I try to browse to folders recently created using the "Save As..." dialog, they are not visible in the Finder. Mysteriously, they do appear in applications' "Open" and "Save As..." dialogs. I have to relaunch the Finder (I used killall Finder in the Terminal) to get the folders to show up. When they appear, they don't disappear again, and the contents I saved are there and are intact.

How can I restore the Finder's ability to see all newly created folders as soon as they appear in the file system?

One note: I've installed Hazel and Dropbox, which may have disturbed some Finder .plist file somewhere. Hazel is no longer installed, but Dropbox is.

I have that as well on my MBA with Mavericks, occasionally, even with things like screenshot that I have just taken not showing in finder. And the files can not be found with spotlight, nor are they hidden kind.

Have not found what causes it (still looking, since it is not reproducible event), but I use the keyboard shortcut to reset the finder after which it works again.

alt+cmd+esc then click on Finder Relaunch.

I know it is not a fix, but bit faster way then using terminal.


How are paths to files and folders constructed in OS X? I need to indicate a right file path to read a .csv file into R on OS X, but how can I find where the file is stored? Looking at Excel files, the file path starts at users/…, but there is no indication of a disk or something.

There's no disk letter in OS X unlike Windows.

The mount point for disks is usually /Volumes. For example, files on a flash drive with the name FLASHDRIVE will be located in /Volumes/FLASHDRIVE/.

The startup disk is the root, /. Therefore, the Users folder is /Users. No drive letter is prepended to this.


Suggestions to make a old Macbook Pro faster? I got a Macbook Pro I think the year 2010. How can I make it faster because,it starting to get slow. Are there Free or Inexpensive Apps or tricks to make it fast?

Thanks!

I put a 260 GB Intel 530 Series SSD into my mid-2009 MacBook Pro and it did wonders for it, cut the boot-up time in half. Just get a good brand, my Intel hasn't had any problems

You could also upgrade the RAM. Other World Computing is a great place to buy RAM for your specific model of Mac.

My Mid-2009 MacBook Pro runs El Capitan pretty well, so you may as well update to it, as El Capitan is supposed to make Macs (even older models) run faster. That's my experience with El Capitan, but YMMV.

An SSD, RAM, and El Capitan is where I would start if I wanted to upgrade any Mac.


Implement a large email archive on a Macbook Pro 13" I have a large email archive that I need to make accessible on my Macbook. The archive is currently in a Microsoft Outlook PST file from a Windows machine. I'm aware of tools like O2M to convert it to a file format suitable for a Mac client. The PST file is 14GB in size. My Macbook Pro is a 16GB model with the top-end CPU.

But my question is, what client is best suited to provide access to an archive of this size, and what file format is best used behind it? It's obviously a very large archive and I would not be surprised if Mail was not able to cope. I would prefer to avoid running a mail server on my machine to keep ongoing maintenance simple. Something that integrates with Spotlight would be a bonus.

It really depends on what you're looking to optimize for, effort to implement or $$$ spent:

1) You could spring for Outlook for Mac which will know how to import your PST and will also make its contents indexable for spotlight.  Downsides include the $$$ and the memory overhead involved in launching Outlook when you want to get into the details of an old email you were looking for.

2) Use some conversion tool to get those emails into Apple Mail.  It will handle the quantity just fine (at least it does for my slightly smaller ~10G archive).  Spotlight integration is obvious here, but you also get quick view support when you use spotlight from a finder window.


Relaunch Finder link missing I recently needed to show hidden files in my iMac 2011 and had to relaunch Finder to do so. Every tutorial I saw, said to ctrl+click on the Finder icon and then click "relaunch". The trouble is: I don't have this link.

In the end I went to the Apple menu in the top left, and Force quit Finder, which had the same effect.

Does anybody else not have the relaunch button? Is there a problem with my Mac?

The relaunch option is at the bottom of the pop-up menu you get when you alt right-click (or Control +alt left click) the Finder icon in the Dock.


Can I see Apple health data from over a year ago? It's nearing a year since I've been actively using the health app and I'm worried that all my logged runs and weight changes will be lost. Does anyone know if is data is saved somewhere (eventually, maybe, so I can visualize changes over e.g. five years, on the iPhone 15s).

If not, is there an alternative system where I can import my weight data to manage it over a longer course?

The health data is not deleted beyond one year, but Health.app doesn't show graphs beyond one year. You can view the raw data by selecting the metric and choosing Show All Data.


IOS 7 for non developers Can people without an Apple developers account try the beta versions of iOS 7?

Anyone can run the beta, provided they're a member of Apple's iOS developer program, which costs $99/year to join.


Passcode is required to enable Touch ID This morning I experienced the weirdest thing by my iPhone 6S requiring me to enter my passcode rather than allowing me to use my finger as Touch ID.

My phone was locked probably for like 4 hours while charging overnight and as far as my knowledge my phone did not restart during this time since my Stack Exchange app was left open and upon opening it the same content were still there.

I didn't attempt even once to use my Touch ID; if I would've had a faulty Touch ID sensor then I should've seen such similar behavior either prior to this morning or at least afterwards (I'm already on my phone for the past 3 hours plus).

I didn't register or delete any fingerprints for months.

And finally, I don't have any restrictions setup to require the input of my passcode under Settings > General > Restrictions.

I'm running on iOS Version 10.0 beta 3 (14A5309d)

Anyone out there that has also experienced such similar behavior or with any suggestion on what might've caused it?

With iOS 9, Apple updated the list of times when iPhones will require a passcode rather than Touch ID. The list is now:

Restarting the device
Five failed fingerprint recognition attempts
Receiving a remote lock command via Find My iPhone
Enrolling new fingerprints in Touch ID
Not having been unlocked in any fashion in 48 hours
NEW! When the iPhone or iPad hasn’t been unlocked with its passcode in the previous six days, and Touch ID hasn’t been used to unlock it within the last eight hours

You probably hit the brand new last condition without knowing it. I know you said your phone was charging for only 4 hours, but depending on how long it had been since you actually unlocked, it may still have happened.

Source


Kill ITunes Splash Screen After selecting "music" and listennig to an album, every time I wake my IPad3, there is a giant album-cover splash screen which remains until I unlock the IPad.  I really don't like that.  How do I convince the IPad to cease and desist with album-cover art when I'm waking it?

I don't mind looking at album-cover art, but only when I'm explicitly running the built-in music app.   Perhaps I just need to shut down the music app?  Is there a way to do this (to shut down an app)?

You can fully close an app double tapping HOME to get the recent apps list (note that unless you are at the home screen, the currently running app won't be listed) and then tap and holding on any App icon until you get the wiggles - at this point hit the minus sign against any app in your recent list.  This will either stop the app, if it is currently performing any background task, or remove the 'fast resume' saved state so that upon the next start it will not resume where it left off.


Why does AppleScript "exists" sometimes always return "false"? (part of question regarding checking documents in Pages) I'm new to AppleScript and I've reached this problem after several other problems and work arounds (see further down for more details). My current problem is that I'm telling Pages to check if any document is open with

tell application "Pages"
    exists front document
end tell

but sometimes even when Pages has a document open the "exists" is always "false". And in general, it seems that sometimes, any reference to "front document" returns errors that it can't get it when it is clearly there. When I quit Pages and try again, usually it works...until it doesn't.

Any ideas?

My original problem stems from wanting to make a QuickAction to open a file in Pages -> export to PDF -> close Pages -> repeat as necessary. But the script gets ahead of itself and tries to complete the export before the file is even open.

tell application "Finder"
    set theSelection to selection
    repeat with oneItem in theSelection
        set finderLocation to oneItem as text
        open oneItem
        tell application "Pages"
            set idx to 0
            repeat until (exists front document)
                set idx to idx + 1
                if idx > 2000 then quit
            end repeat
            set pagesLocation to file of front document as text
            repeat until finderLocation = pagesLocation
                set pagesLocation to file of front document as text
            end repeat
            set exportFile to file of front document as text
            set exportFile to text 1 thru -6 of exportFile
            set exportFile to exportFile & "pdf"
            export front document to file exportFile as PDF with properties {image quality:Best}
            close front document without saving
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell

So I've been trying to find a way to check if the document is open first before continuing. And I came up with this, to check if the front document file location in Pages matches the file locations opened by Finder. This worked until I tried from a fresh instance of Pages (quit Pages first then try). The problem there was that  Pages would flag an error for not being able to find "front document" at all (since it needed to read its file path but nothing was open yet).

So now I'm here trying to check if ANYTHING is open before checking if the target file is open. But now, as described above, it seems that references to "document" just breaks and causes either "exists" or "file of front document" to hang.

Am I even headed in the right direction here or is there a better way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:
now my script looks like this, and seems to be more consistent, at least so far

tell application "Finder"
set theSelection to selection
repeat with oneItem in theSelection
    set nameOfDocument to name of oneItem
    open oneItem
    tell application "Pages"
        repeat until (exists document nameOfDocument)
            delay 0.1
        end repeat
        set exportFile to oneItem as text
        set exportFile to text 1 thru -6 of exportFile
        set exportFile to exportFile & "pdf"
        export document nameOfDocument to file exportFile as PDF with properties {image quality:Best}
        close document nameOfDocument without saving
    end tell
end repeat
end tell

This following AppleScript code should work for you.  Ultimately, this code sets a variable for the count of open documents in Pages (openDocuments)  Then if the count of openDocuments is not 0, the names of the open documents are stored in this variable openDocumentNames

if application "Pages" is not running then
    tell application "Pages" to activate
    tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Pages"
        repeat until frontmost
            delay 0.1
        end repeat
    end tell
end if

tell application "Pages"
    set openDocumentsRef to a reference to documents
    set openDocuments to count of openDocumentsRef
    if openDocuments is not 0 then
        -- Gets The Name Of The Open Files
        set openDocumentNames to name of openDocumentsRef
        -- Gets The File Paths To The Open Files
        set openDocumentsPaths to file of openDocumentsRef
    end if
end tell

-- Shows & Selects The Files In A New Finder Window
tell application "Finder" to reveal openDocumentsPaths


Get password prompt in the terminal/shell When I am connecting a Mac through ssh, I don't have any GUI.

However, for some of the commands like security find-internet-password, there will be a GUI prompt for the admin's password. How can I have the prompt in the shell instead of GUI?

I use this in Terminal

sudo security find-internet-password -gs www.facebook.com

that asks me to confirm with my Admin Password

then it delivers.


Step to step guide how to use 32bit version of Java in Eclipse I have a Java project in Eclipse that requires Java 7 running in 32 bit mode. I tried to force running in 32 bit mode by adding the flag -d32 to the VM arguments.

However, I then get the following message:

Error: This Java instance does not support a 32-bit JVM.
Please install the desired version.

I tried the same with Java 6, and there the flag works. So I supposed that I don't have a 32 bit version of Java installed. I checked all installed versions of java with /usr/libexec/java_home -V and get the following list:

1.7.0_75, x86_64:   "Java SE 7" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_75.jdk/Contents/Home
1.7.0_67, x86_64:   "Java SE 7" /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_67.jdk/Contents/Home
1.6.0_65-b14-466.1, x86_64: "Java SE 6" /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
1.6.0_65-b14-466.1, i386:   "Java SE 6" /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

I then run the same command with the -d32 flag to check for 32 bit VMs and get the following list:

1.6.0_65-b14-466.1, i386:   "Java SE 6" /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

So it really seems that there is no Java 7 with is compatible to run in 32bit mode available on my system. I checked the Internet, but couldn't find a way how to install 32 bit Java on a Mac. It always is assumed that the -d32 switch is working. My Mac is running Yosemite (10.10.2).

So what am I doing wrong? Is there a step for step tutorial that I can follow to run my application in Eclipse in 32bit mode with Java 7.

There is no Oracle 32 bit Java 7 for OS X. The possible OSs are listed here and OS X just has the one entry

  Mac OS X x64  185.86 MB   jdk-7u75-macosx-x64.dmg

As Yosemite is a 64 bit OS what exactly needs to be 32 bit?


Problems with date and time I have this problem that I can't understand. I have osx 10.5.4. The time in the computer is 06 october 2012 at 23:59 hs. When the time runs to 00:00 hs on 07 oct 2012, then the hour change to 1:00. I tried to put the hour in 12.00, but the day change to 6 oct, then I tried to change the day to 07 oct, but the our change to 23.00 (11.00 pm). I have the zone at Buenos Aires, and I don't understand why I can't set the time at 07 oct 2012 at 12.00 hour. I see that the same situation is on 06 oct 2013, or 02 oct 2012.

Can anybody helpme?

Thanks. Eduardo

Sounds like Argentina does not follow DST, or does so on a very ad-hoc basis.  This is possibly a bug in OS X (try updating your system) or perhaps an inevitable side-effect of not having a predictable schedule to code against.


How can I see contact photos together with contacts? Hello everyone I have a quick question I just upgraded  from a my touch to iphone 4s...On my old phone when i looked through my contact list you were able to see a thumbnail image of the contacts photo while looking through your contacts but I noticed with the iphone as your looking through your contacts it doesnt have the thumbnail preview..It only shows picture if you select contact or when the person calls ...Is there a way to configure it? Or is this just the way the phone works..Any help would be greatly aprreciated

So far, on iOS 6.1.3, it is not possible to see your conacts’ photos while browsing them using only Apple’s iOS built-in features.

However, using jailbreak it is possible to change this behavior.

Going the easy way you could just download an application from the App Store. Just search for “photo contacs” or “photo pictures”. Here are some results:

Simple functionality, iOS integrated adress book only:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contact-pics/id305056548
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/visual-contacts/id303155355

Social media features, includes adress book of Facebook (and others):

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/address-it-contact-manager/id475394924
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brewster-address-book/id440979190
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contactsxl-+-facebook-sync/id364481787
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/richcontacts-facebook-linkedin/id435839864

(Apps sorted alphabetically, I have tested none of them.)


How can I obfuscate a small section of a image on macOS? How can I obfuscate a small section of an image on macOS? I would like to obfuscate private information in an image before I share it. Is there a way to do it on macOS?

Preview, built into macOS, has a few tools for doing this. First, open the image in Preview (the default app for images), then choose the Annotate button on the toolbar.

Options for obfuscating:

Use a selection tool to make a selection on the image, then press Backspace to delete that area. For filetypes which support transparency, the area will be removed, otherwise it will be saved as white.

Use a rectangle or other shape and set a fill colour.


How do I AirPlay mirror my iPhone screen to my MacBook Pro? I am using a 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro with Mavericks and a iPhone 5s with iOS 7.

I want to record game tutorials. Where the game is running on my iOS device and I'm recording the tutorial via a screen capture of an AirPlay on my MacBook Pro.

After searching apps from the App Store, I found that there is no apps to record your screen and the only way is through AirPlay on your Mac or Apple TV.

Is there any free and legal way to do do?

I have tried a trial of X mirage and it is just what I wanted, but it cost money. I want to record my iPhone.

Note that I do not have any other apple devices.

If your devices have OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 or anything newer, there's a built-in way to do this via a wired connection.

Quit QuickTime on your Mac if it is open.
Connect your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to your Mac via a Lightning or USB-C Cable.
Open QuickTime on your Mac, and select File > New Movie Recording.
A recording window will appear. Click the arrow next to the Record button, and select your iPhone from the dropdown menu that appears.
Click the Record button and go about your business on your iPhone.
Once you're done, click the Stop button and save the video.


Safest rsync command options? What are the safest commands to use with rsync to copy from one hard drive, all its content to a new hard drive, both external through my Mac.

The important thing is I want to be sure permissions and privileges won't risk denying me access in the future if I try to access files on a different computer with a different user account for ex.

Is rsync -a the answer ? Because I read it conserves permissions and privileges :/.

Thanks !

rsync -a preserves permissions as far as your current computer/account is concerned. Accessing files from a different user/different account is controlled by a lot of parameters outside of rsync's influence (mainly by the access protocoll and its options used when mounting the drive).


Why won't my macbook show the dashboard or fullscreen windows? I am "stuck" on the desktop. Clicking the dashboard icon does nothing, I cannot use the 4-finger swipe gestures to move to or view the dashboard or any application windows in fullscreen (yes, I have checked system preferences, it's on), and the function key that usually allows me to see fullscreen windows+the dashboard+other desktops does nothing. I have tried shutting my computer, quitting everything and restarting. If I open another fullscreen window, I am stuck there until I close or un-maximize it. This has happened before and it went away after a minute or two, but it's sticking around now. I have a MacBook Air running on Mac OS El Capitan.

How can I solve/prevent this problem?

UPDATE: It has started working again, but was stuck for much longer this time.

This problem is continuing off and on.

I think you have too many junk files
here is what to do:
1.Delete Files you no longer need.
2.Empty Trash. Having too much junk slows down your laptop
3.Install A program that cleans your laptop

Or maybe there is a virus installed in your computer
here is what you have to do:
1.Move the file you think may be causing the bug.
2.Install MacKeeper
3.Run MacKeeper and scan your pc for viruses
4.If the app found a virus delete it

so thats it thanks!


Beats 1 and Mountain Lion Why does Apple require an update to OS X 10.9 to access Beats 1? I have iTunes 12.2 installed, I can see Beats 1 in my iTunes app, I can even stream Beats 1 by manually opening its URL in iTunes. So why won't iTunes just let me listen to Beats 1 on Mountain Lion? As far as I can tell, there are zero technical reasons for why I'm having this problem. Anyone?

Due to the fact that Apple provides upgrades and fresh installations of their operating systems for free, they would (in most cases) only provide support for the latest operating system and (in many cases) the one before it (in today's case (as of the time of this answer), OS X Yosemite and OS X Mavericks respectfully). If there is something wrong with iTunes, Apple would usually recommend that you upgrade to the latest version of OS X.

In your case, iTunes requires OS X 10.7.5 (Lion) or later, but Apple Music requires OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks) or later (source: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/; under "Software"; look at the screenshot below) also, look at the ), so chances are it will not work unless you upgrade to at least OS X Mavericks.


Menu with categories like MATE/Cinnamon Desktop Enviroment I have a question about menu with categories.

You can see this menu here:

Does OS X Mountain Lion support somekind of this menu?

While it does not pop UP from the bottom of the screen (rather it sits in the menu bar, top-right side of the screen) XMenu works VERY well:

http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/freeware.html

(scroll down to the bottom of that screen to find the download link)

It's freeware and has been working great for me for a few years. It is completely customizable, quick and uses few system resources.


How to emulate mouse right-click in Microsoft Remote Desktop? I use the ctrl button to emulate the right-click in OS X on my MacBook with an integrated trackpad.

When I connect to a windows computer with Remote Desktop I do not get to use the ctrl button in the same way.

Is there a way to configure this to get right click from the trackpad?

Actually I use RDP from a Mac all the time to Windows servers. The right-click can be simulated with a two finger tap on a track pad. The same behaviour works from a magic mouse and magic track pad.


Log into Mac from Ubuntu over VNC I know there are so many tutorials and solutions are posted on internet regarding this, but I am unable to solve my issue.

I am using Ubuntu on my desktop and I also wanna access my MacBook (MacOS mojave 10.14.6) within local network. I followed “Sharing” preference panel and checked the box next to “Remote management” then “Computer Settings…” and made “VNC viewers may control screen with password” checked and set a simple password.

But I am having authentication issues while accessing from Ubuntu, It asks me username and password, I am putting same password which I set previously on mac configurations.

But IDK which username is needed to be put here, I tried so many like mac username, mac pc name, Ubuntu username even tried to keep it empty but it's not working, it's showing always authentication error, How do I solve this? Am I missing anything?

Finally I have solved my problem by simply installing VNC Viewer, before it I was using Remmina. Now it's working fine without prompting for user name. But it has very poor performance.

I also found another solution for my issue is TeamViewer on LAN, and it's much better than VNC Viewer in terms of speed.


What is the name of Network Setup Assistant's window? This is a somewhat common interface, and is generally used to move a user through a series of sequential operations. It can be found in Apple's Network Setup Assistant (System Preferences > Network > Assist Me > Assistance), in many third party .pkg installers, and in applications like VirtualBox.

It has a Low Opacity (light) image as a background, with a translucent Text Field on it, with a visually distinct bottom row with the next and previous buttons.

Here is an example:

These kind of windows are commonly called wizards, or specifically in the context of macOS, a term you already mentioned: setup assistants. That term actually describes the entire sequence, so you might want to call a single screen a wizard screen, wizard step or wizard dialog instead.

The transparent background image is something specific to macOS; most Windows installer screens show images as well but there, they're confined to either a column on the left or a row on top of the screen.


Keyboard shortcut to open context menu Does OS X have a Windows Shift + F10 equivalent? I need a keyboard shortcut to open the context menu without a mouse.

As far as I can see, you have two options.

Mouse Keys

When using Mouse Keys, you can use the keyboard to move the cursor. If you have a numerical keypad, the numbers around 5 are used to move it and 5 is used to click. Without a keypad, it's mapped to the nine keys surrounding I (789/UIO/JKL).

Just like with a mouse or trackpad, you can hold ⌃ control while pressing 5 or I to bring up the context menu.

You can turn on Mouse Keys in System Preferences > Accessibility > Mouse & Trackpad, or enable the press-shift-five-times toggle shortcut, or press ⌥+⌘+F5 to bring up a window of Accessibility toggles, including Mouse Keys. This is important to know, as Mouse Keys makes typing impossible, at least without a number pad.

Third party utility

There are many applications that let you customize keyboard shortcuts, etc. There's BetterTouchTool (free), or Keyboard Maestro ($36), or several others. Any of these should let you create a shortcut to “right-click”.


Cannot delete a .sparsebundle on / with permissions drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root wheel Even running commands as sudo I cannot change the permissions or delete the folder.

sh-3.2# xattr -l filename.sparsebundle/
com.apple.FinderInfo:
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........ .......|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|

OS version

sh-3.2# sw_vers -productVersion
10.15.1

Adding requested information.

sh-3.2# ls -al
total 11
drwxr-xr-x   24 root  admin   768 Oct 31 00:49 .
drwxr-xr-x   24 root  admin   768 Oct 31 00:49 ..
-rw-rw-r--    1 root  admin     0 Aug 25 00:20 .DS_Store
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  admin    36 Oct  8 13:23 .VolumeIcon.icns -> System/Volumes/Data/.VolumeIcon.icns
----------    1 root  admin     0 Aug 25 00:20 .file
drwx------  124 root  admin  3968 Oct 31 00:55 .fseventsd
drwxr-xr-x    2 root  wheel    64 Aug 25 00:20 .vol
drwxrwxr-x+  80 root  admin  2560 Dec 12 19:27 Applications
drwxr-xr-x   70 root  wheel  2240 Oct 31 00:51 Library
drwxrwxrwt    3 root  wheel    96 Dec 15  2018 Secomba
drwxr-xr-x@   8 root  wheel   256 Sep 29 22:23 System
drwxr-xr-x    5 root  admin   160 Sep 29 22:22 Users
drwxr-xr-x    5 root  wheel   160 Dec 12 22:04 Volumes
drwxr-xr-x@   6 root  wheel   192 Oct  8 08:27 filename.sparsebundle
drwxr-xr-x@  38 root  wheel  1216 Oct 31 00:49 bin
drwxr-xr-x    2 root  wheel    64 Aug 25 00:24 cores
dr-xr-xr-x    3 root  wheel  5579 Dec 12 21:39 dev
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 root  admin    11 Oct  8 13:18 etc -> private/etc
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  wheel    25 Dec 12 21:39 home -> /System/Volumes/Data/home
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  wheel    96 Oct  8 13:27 opt
drwxr-xr-x    6 root  wheel   192 Oct 31 00:49 private
drwxr-xr-x@  64 root  wheel  2048 Oct 31 00:49 sbin
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 root  admin    11 Oct  8 13:23 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x@  11 root  wheel   352 Oct  8 13:23 usr
lrwxr-xr-x@   1 root  admin    11 Oct  8 13:23 var -> private/var

Error when attempting to delete

sh-3.2# rm -rf filename.sparsebundle/
rm: filename.sparsebundle//token: Read-only file system
....

Checking extended attributes

sh-3.2# ls -laOe filename.sparsebundle
total 256
drwxr-xr-x@  6 root  wheel  -         192 Oct  8 08:27 .
drwxr-xr-x  24 root  admin  sunlnk    768 Oct 31 00:49 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel  -         499 Oct  8 08:27 Info.bckup
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel  -         499 Oct  8 08:27 Info.plist
drwxr-xr-x  85 root  wheel  -        2720 Oct  8 08:27 bands
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel  -      122368 Oct  8 08:27 token

sh-3.2# rm -rf filename.sparsebundle/
rm: filename.sparsebundle//token: Read-only file system

The sparsebundle probably resides on the read-only mounted system volume of a Catalina boot volume.

Boot to Recovery Mode.
(Unlock/mount your main Catalina boot volume with Disk Utility if it is encrypted)
Open Terminal in the menubar (Utilities > Terminal)
cd to the root of the main system volume (e.g. cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/)
List the content with ls -la to check whether filename.sparsebundle resides there.

Remove the sparsebundle with rm -dR filename.sparsebundle.
Reboot to your main volume.


iOS weather report on lock screen The other day I noticed a little weather report the minute I picked up my phone. It looked different from a notification. But I haven’t seen one since. It seems like there’s an app or a hidden feature that might have an option to do this but I don’t know which or how to enable or control it.

Do not Disturb mode + the 'Bedtime' feature show you a Good Morning message once you wake your phone for the first time on a given day. This Osxdaily article goes in-depth on how to enable it and how it works.


How do I find dual Screen iPad apps A feature of having an Apple TV is Dual Screen with an iPad. I would like to find games and apps that use this feature. How would I specify this within the app store? or is there a list online somewhere.

AppleNApps
This is a list of games which take full advantage of AirPlay Mirroring by offering special full screen 720P HD modes to show off the power of the A5 ship.
There are other apps that work with AirPlay Mirroring which are not in this list, but they’re either poor apps overall, or it’s not a smooth translation.
(last updated on 7th November 2011)


Can one still sort By Album By Year in any of the views in iTunes 11? In previous versions of iTunes, it was possible to sort songs by Artist, and then by Album By Year, so that albums would be shown in the order they were released, rather than alphabetical order.

I can't find a way to replicate this behaviour in any of the various views in iTunes 11: In the Songs view, I can only sort by a single column, and in the other views where songs are grouped by albums, the albums are always displayed in alphabetical order.

Is there an option I'm missing, or is sorting by Album By Year no longer an option?

While in the albums view go to the view menu and select viewing options (command+j) and choose sort by year.

Here is a screenshot (in german but I hope you get the important points).


Where does iMovie store movies before projects are finalized I have a current version of iMovie as well as an older version (9.0.9) installed on my MacBook.

Some while ago I have created project with the older version. I can still run the video in it, but when I select Finalize Project I receive an error message, apparently because I have deleted some of the video clips that comprise the project in the meantime.

Similarly, when I start the current project of iMovie, it load the project but then immediately warns me about missing files and is not able to play any video for that project at all.

I guess the situation is that the older version of iMovie has stored a preliminary version of the video somewhere. Could I copy it in order not to loose this content upgrading to the current version of iMovie for good, i.e. removing the old version of iMovie? If so, where could that movie be found on disk?

I would not expect to edit the legacy project any more, just retrieve the existing video.

I've found a copy in ./Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Home\ Videos\my_project.m4v, although I cannot tell whether iMovie at some point placed it there.


Copying all files of specific type to a specific folder using Mac's Terminal How can I copy all files of specific type to a specific folder using Mac's Terminal.

find . -name '*.STY' -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -I '{}' /usr/bin/rsync -avR "{}" "./styleFiles_chekad/"

Above shell script does the job and keeps the folders intact. What if I don't want the subfolders and want to have all the files right in the "styleFiles_chekad"? However, it is very complicated. Is there an easier way to do this? The following command does not work!

cp . -name '*.STY' styleFiles_chekad/

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

PS. Anyone can recommend a good resource for bash scripting?

You should be able to just run

t=${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/target
mkdir "$t"

find . -type f -name '*.STY' -exec cp {} "$t"/ \;

mv "$t"/* ./styleFiles_chekad/
rmdir "$t"

The idea behind using a temporary directory is to prevent find from also copying the files it already moved into ./styleFiles_chekad/.


Downgrading Aperture 3.4.3 library to 3.0 Is there a way to open an Aperture 3.4.3 library in Aperture 3.0?

Attempting to open the library repair tools by holding down ⌘⌥ while opening that library and then clicking Cancel results in Aperture correctly opening it and adjusting the version number in the library file so that it can be normally opened on future attempts.

Adjustments, including the updated Highlights & Shadows, seem to properly downgrade.

Video available at http://youtu.be/JYKSSJ4CQrQ


iPod Touch G4 disconnects from Belkin N+ Router at random intervals I have an iPod Touch G4 and a Belkin N+ Router F5D8235-4 v2, and for some reason the iPod Touch disconnects from the router at random intervals.

Checking the settings in the iPod, it will read that it is still connected to the router, but before I can access the internet again, I have to turn on Airplane mode and then turn it off again to get any program to work with the Internet again.

I've tried upgrading the firmware in the router, but that also doesn't seem to help.  I'm using the wiresless mode 802.11b&802.11g&802.11n in the 20/40MHz frequency.

Is there any way of fixing this issue?  It doesn't happen with any of the other devices that are connected to the router.

This post has been cross posted here

I have had this issue with the D-link router at home from time to time. My solution was to set a static IP and manually enter the device's IP, subnet mask, gateway IP, and DNS server IPs manually into the device.


I can't disable find a phone on my iphone 5 My iphone got wet and although it is switched off and the sim card is removed, it is still showing as online on icloud so I can't disable the find my phone to enable me to claim on the insurance.  If I erase the phone from icloud, (by clicking on the x next to the device) what does that mean to my data on my phone when I replace my phone?  Does this action of deleting the device from icloud just mean that I have only disabled the find my phone app?

When you are not able to remove the iPhone from Find my Iphone in iCloud, try turning on the device and then try to disable Find My iPhone with a mac or pc.

When you erase the iPhone via iCloud, all your settings will be deleted. To place all your data on a new iPhone, you need an iCloud backup or iTunes Backup.

Contacts, photo's, mail, ... Are synced to iCloud by default when logged in on an iDevice. Logging in to iCloud on a new device will fetch all data from iCloud and place it in your photo's, mail, agenda, contacts, ...


My Macbook Air 2014 is stuck in an infinite boot loop because the SSD is not registering I wiped my Macbook Air 2014 and reinstalled Catalina. I sold it to a guy on swappa who returned it saying it was in an infinite boot loop. I thought that I would be able to easily fix this. But when I got the MBA back, I immediately went into recovery mode and tried to reinstall macOS. A quick trip to the disk utility made me realise that the ssd is not registering. I would appreciate anyone's help with this.Could I potentially boot from a usb?

If the SSD is not showing up in Disk Utility then it is likely that the SSD has failed or the hardware that supports the SSD has failed. The failure is likely coincidental to the OS reinstall and sale, but it can't be ruled out that the purchaser did something to the Mac. What that might be I couldn't tell you.
Realistically the only way to diagnose this is to open it up, preferably by a certified Mac tech, and see what is going on.
You are probably looking at having to replace the SSD (I think this Mac has a removable SSD) in your Mac.


How to "drop a pin" for iPhone AND Android users? This past weekend I "dropped a pin" on restaurant X using Maps and then "Shared the location" via Message to a friend. I had no idea what kind of phone this friend had. I assumed she received the destination and I waited, and I waited, and I waited. Turns out she was waiting for me at a different restaurant X location -- the one across town. We cleared this up the old fashioned way (via voice), and when she finally arrived, I looked at our chat history on her Android. Where there should have been a map link, there was a blank sound or video file. Clearly, "dropping a pin" doesn't work when there is an Android on the receiving end.

But how to know if one's pin drop hasn't been received? Do I have to confirm a friend has an iPhone before I "drop a pin"?

Is there any way to text message a location via Maps to an Android?

If you use the iOS Maps Share Location feature via email, the recipient gets a message with a Google Maps link to the specific location, which is openable in anything with a browser (although mobile devices may open it in a Google Maps app). It also attaches
vCard containing the address of the pin and the Google Maps link.

You could also use the email feature to just get access to the link directly, and copy it into your medium of choice, discarding the email.


Bootcamp Assistant couldn’t roll back, How do I merge the volume back to Macintosh HD? I basically tried to partition my 500GB hard drive to 350GB/150 GB ratio to install windows 10. However since the Bootcamp assistant could not download the windows support files it had to roll back. However, it’s been an hour since the process started and so I quit the BCA. I’ve uploaded a picture of  the list of diskutil list and I have no idea what’s going on.

I’d highly appreciate it if one of you experts can show me how I can merge them back into Macintosh HD as a single 500GB volume.

Thanks in advance !

Basically, your question is a duplicate, which has be asked many times before. For example, see the question: The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition. Windows 10 and Mojave

I repeated my answer below. The answer was edited to more closely fit your question.

This is a very common question. Again, here is the commands you need to enter in a Terminal application window.

sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s5
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s4
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s3
sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

These commands will have removed the Windows partitions and expanded the macOS partition to recover the free space. However, there may still be Windows boot files stored in the hidden EFI partition (disk0s1). These files can be removed by entering the commands given below.

sudo diskutil mount disk0s1
cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI
rm -r Boot
rm -r Microsoft
cd ~
diskutil unmount disk0s1


Alfred command: switch finder directory in same window I am an avid user of the launch application Alfred. I already have key bindings to open specific directories but when initiated, they always open the directory in a new finder window.
Im looking for a method to change the directory of the existing finder window rather than opening a new one. Im open to native or workflow-based solutions.

Any help or ideas are appreciated.

You could do it installing this workflow: Open in Finder Tab.

Just type ot Directory and you will have it open on a new Finder tab.

If you want to open a directory in the same window without open a new tab, you could edit the workflow. Go to Alfred Preferences → Workflows → Open in Finder Tab.

You must right click on Run Script and select configure. It will appear the script source. Just delete the following line and will work.

tell application "System Events" to keystroke "t" using command down


Can i install the applications disc of my snow leopard on Mac OS X Lion? I had Snow Leopard running on my MBP, now I just installed Lion on a Clean Installation and I noticed iLife is not in the installer.

Can I insert my snow leopard's application disc and install them on Lion ?

Yes
I have verified that this works first hand.


iMessage keeps popping up How can I disable the iMessage pop up when I turn on my Mac? It keeps asking me to sign in with my Apple ID. I don't want to set it up because I don't want to use iMessage. But the box keeps opening every time I turn on my Mac and it is getting frustrating as I have to go through 3 pages before I can turn it off.

I had to contact apple support for this solution. The fact that it is not intuitive implies a usability bug. The reason for the prompt is a keychain entry under either login or local items. Basically after removing all entries with the text 'apple' in them I was able to restart and login with no facetime or imessage prompts to login. I hope this helps.


User accounts broken (in an odd state) since kernel panic in ML MBA 11" 2012 model, ML upgraded from Lion

User accounts:

admin
admin
normal user
guest

Working fine for a week or so. Was logged in as 3. (a regular user), and asleep.

When trying to resume the next day, it showed the desktop and just as it became interactive it crashed with a kernel panic - first one I've had.

At the login screen, where all four accounts used to be visible, now only 1. and 4. are available.

In the users & groups system config dialog all accounts are present and look fine. I can log into accounts 2 and 3, but only if I switch user whilst logged into account 1.

Any ideas? Very confused and I don't know enough about how user profiles are built in osx to know what to look for.

Your first triage step is to isolate software from hardware. You could install ML clean on an external drive and see how it works or just erase your Mac and reinstall. Once you've concluded the hardware and base OS is stable, you can try the migration / restore from backup again or start narrowing down software corruption as a cause.

Assuming you can make the kernel panics happen - once you have 4 or 5, the stack trace should point to a pattern of where the system is having problems. If you can't reproduce the panic, then you may just need to clean up from a hard landing by restoring from a time before the unlucky crash.


How to find all images in folder I'd like to list all images in a folder (and subfolders), but I get no results in Finder for any search unless I search 'This Mac'.

I select the folder I wish to search, select 'images' as the 'kind' in the search box, top right, but although it says 'Searching "foldername"' nothing ever gets returned, unless I select 'This Mac',  what am I doing wrong?

I get frustrated using the Finder application to find anything. I guess I don't have a mind that works like the authors of the Finder application. If you are used to using commands you can try the following.

Open a Terminal application window.
Use the cd command to change to the base folder where the files
are. The command pwd will give your current folder.
Enter to the command

find . -name "filesToFind" -print

and the current base folder and all subfolders will be searched.

For example to find all files ending the .txt on your desktop, open a Terminal window and type:

cd desktop
find . -name "*.txt" -print

Note: The instructions for the find command can be found by typing the command man find or at this link.


Accidentally formatted an exFAT partition to OS X journaled and lost data I accidentally formatted an exFAT partition to OS X journaled on MacBook Pro and lost data, how to recover?

If you haven't done anything else to the disk besides reformatting it, if you haven't copied any other data to the drive, then you will likely be able to get most if not all of the data back using a data recovery tool.

However, because the drive's original format was a PC format, you'll want to use a PC data recovery tool, not a Mac one. Something that can recover deleted files. You may get a messy jumble of pervious versions of saved files too, that's just the nature of recovering deleted files.

On the Mac, something like DataRescue works very well. But you need to do this on a PC to read the PC formatted drive.


Watch WWDC videos on Apple TV (4th gen) On the 4th generation of Apple TV, is there a way to watch the presentations delivered at the annual Apple World Wide Developer Conference?

The videos can be viewed on a Mac and on iOS devices. But for some geeks like me, lounging on the couch while watching WWDC vids on the big screen would be considered fun.

If you have a paid developer account for AppleTV you can download, compile and install WWDC-tvOS. You can also download the OSX version (via the same link) and use Airplay to show the videos on your AppleTV.


refresh mail.app inbox when returning from standby (IMAP) When returning from standby mail.app does not refresh my inbox. New mails (or changes to old mails, like move or delete) are not synchronized. I have to manually close mail.app and restart it to make the changes appear.

Is this working as intended or are there settings to change this?

Mail.app doesn't automatically check for mail every time focus is put on it's window or every time the computer wakes up. There are several ways for you to configure how, and how often Mail.app synchronizes with servers:

You can click the Send/Receive mail button

You can use the Command + Shift + N keyboard shortcut
You can configure your Mail.app to check for mail every minute by clicking the Mail menu and then selecting Preferences. Under General change the Check for new Messages configuration.

This way you never have to wait more then 1 minute for mail to be synced. Keep in mind, if you are on battery, this will impact battery life negatively.


What is the difference between Top Grossing and Top Paid in the App Store? In App Store, What is the different between Top Grossing and Top Paid?

There are three categories: Top Free, Top Paid, and Top Grossing.

In the Top Free category, the apps with the most downloads that have a price of $0 make the list.

In the Top Paid category, the apps with the most downloads that have a price greater than $0 make the list.

The Top Grossing category lists the apps with the highest total revenue (that is, price * quantity sold + revenue from in-app purchases). A $50 app is likely to have fewer downloads than at $0.99 app. The Top Paid list will likely include many inexpensive apps that get purchased often. The Top Grossing category is to indicate which apps have the highest total spent on them.


terminal command say produces error The "say" command in OSX Terminal works fine for me and I use it now end then.
However, since last week it produces the following error message on my Mac Mini (Late 2012, 10.8.4):

$ say test
> MTBEAudioUnitSoundOutput::PropagateProperty Error -10851
> MTBEAudioUnitSoundOutput::PropagateProperty Error -10851

The sound is produced as expected, so no big drama, but I'd like to know if somebody else suffers from the same problem or if that error has something to do with my specific setup here... and, of course, what this message means.

A little Googling suggests that  it's a new problem in 10.8.4. A couple people in this MacRumors forum thread have experienced the same, as has the author of this blog post. No indications as to how to get rid of it however.

I haven't seen any error when testing say, so it may be some combination of hardware that causes it, but if the sound output is as expected, I wouldn't worry too much about it, and it will probably be fixed eventually.

If you're using say in shell scripts and need the Terminal output cleaned up a bit, you could always pipe it through grep: say test | grep -v "MTBEAudioUnitSoundOutput::PropagateProperty Error -10851".