Is it safe to charge my iPhone using my lightning cable and someone else’s adapter at the Airport? The airport has USB ports that say they are for charging and I don’t know how to tell if this situation is safe.

Is it safe to charge my iPhone by using USB connections that are behind a wall plate in public?

Being that its the airport, you're most likely safe, but good rule of thumb is try to avoid free charging stations and use wall outlets wherever possible. Your iPhone can have malicious data transferred in and out of it if one of the ports has been tampered with.


Bootcamp the startup disk cannot be partiitoned I cannot install Bootcamp because it gives me an error message of "The startup disk cannot be partitioned".
This is the result of diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         121.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         1.9 TB     disk1s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data OSXRESERVED             8.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                1.1 TB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +2.0 TB     disk2
                                 Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            913.9 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 42.2 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.0 MB   disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      24.6 KB    disk2s4

/dev/disk3 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US... +4.7 GB     disk3

/dev/disk4 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                            Boot Camp              +1.2 GB     disk4

and diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

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

The next two commands will remove the disk1s4 partition labeled BOOTCAMP and the disk1s3 partition labeled OSXRESERVED

sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk1s4
sudo diskutil eraseVolume free none disk1s3

The next command return the free space back to the disk1s2 APFS container partition.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk1s2 0


iTunes U showing up in song list I’ve just started using iTunes U on my iPhone 3G running iOS 3. For some reason, they are all mixed up in my songs on my iPhone, rather than another section such as podcasts which would be far more logical.

In iTunes, they appear in the iTunes U section. Is this meant to happen? If not, how can I fix it?

Changing the "Media Kind" to "iTunes U" under the Options tab of the "Get Info" dialog will move them from the Music section of your library to the "iTunes U" section.

This tends to happen when you import/rip audio files (audiobooks, podcasts, iTunes U, etc.) to iTunes rather than subscribing to them or buying them through the iTunes interface.


Can I programmatically install a specific version of JDK (i.e. using command-line tools only) on OS X? I know you can apt-get JDK on Ubuntu. Is there anything similar on OS X?

It looks like Oracle requires you accept a license agreement on http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html before you can download the image, so maybe not?

curl -L -b "oraclelicense=a" http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/7u79-b15/jdk-7u79-macosx-x64.dmg -O


Can't run brew install wine This is part of brew output

==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/sane-backends/1.0.23 --localstatedir=

==> make

==> make install

Warning: Could not link sane-backends. Unlinking...

Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully

The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
You can try again using `brew link sane-backends'

Possible conflicting files are:

Warning: Could not link sane-backends. Unlinking...

Error: File exists - /usr/local/share/man/man8

Can anybody tell me what is going on and how to proceed?

Maybe you have a /usr/local/share/man/man8 that is a regular file.  If so, delete that and try again.


Does Photos make its own copy of the photos that are imported to it? I have just migrated to OS X and have a lot of photos to import from my previous machine. The photos are already organised in a directory structure that I'm very happy with (i.e. 2016-05-04 Glasgow Trip).

Is Photos making a copy of the photos in my existing directories, or is it copying them elsewhere?

I'm thinking of disk space use (are the photos stored twice?), and depending on that answer, will the originals and the Photos versions get out of sync?

There is a way to tell Photos to make a copy when importing or not.  In Photos --> Preferences check Copy items to the photo library.

Photos' default behavior is not to include original images in imports. It keeps links to them, so you can use Photos to edit or catalog them but still keep them where they are.

It reduce the size of Photos' library but if your goal is to clean up folders and disks with lots of photos on them, it can get confusing. To put everything actually in your Photos library, make sure to modify Photos' preferences to copy imported files to your Photos library. There's another important reason to do this if you plan to share those imported images on other devices: Only items copied to Photos' library will be uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. link


Do I have to reinstall XQuartz every time I upgrade MacOS? I use a slightly weird setup where I will connect from my Mac laptop to a linux machine, using ssh -X, and from there connect to a Windows machine using rdesktop. This works just fine, but whenever I update Mac OS (even minor upgrades), I find I have to re-install XQuartz. If I don't, rdesktop fails with the message ERROR: Failed to open display:. After I re-install XQuartz, it works as expected (no reboot or log out or anything, just opening a new connection with ssh -X).

Is there a way I can avoid having to reinstall XQuartz all the time? It gets a little annoying.

Not really - the tool is one that's very command line - run and bind against the specific OS that it's installed in.

I realize this may not be the answer you like, but I'm actually floored it keeps working as long as it has. Here's to hoping this is our main complaint on this tool.


Where is load presets option in Terminal preferences? I have El Captain installed. I want use external color scheme and for that I am following this video but I don't find Color Presets option in terminal. My El Captain's terminal looks very different from Yosemite's.

The person in that video is using iTerm2, a free third party terminal replacement. You can get it here:

http://iterm2.com/


Am I supposed to format when upgrading my mac? I'm on a macbook aluminium late 2008 10.5.8. I'm planning to upgrade it a little bit since many applications doesn't support my system anymore.

At the beginning I was tempted to upgrade to 10.8 but after I read some reviews saying that it's not that good (crushes/need reboot etc) maybe it's better if I just upgrade to 10.6 then reconsider further upgrades in the future.

I just wanted to ask if it's possible to keep all my files and applications while upgrading or if it's mandatory to format and install the new system from scratch.

I'm sure that a clean installation will be better but it would require me much more time in order to backup everything and/or re-install everything I need.

An upgrade in place should be absolutely fine.  I'm sure you can find anecdotal evidence of it crashing for some people, but it's not something that crops on on here more than occasionally.

Note that you cannot jump direct to 10.8 though, sadly (unless you can borrow the install media from someone with a copy) because 10.7 and 10.8 are both sold via the Mac App store, and I think (someone will correct me on this) that this is only available on 10.6.8 systems and later...

If you know someone else with a Mac that has access to the Mac App Store, you can use their to log in and purchase it so that you are properly licensed, but there is no official way to actually download and upgrade from a 10.5 system (although it is relatively trivial if you can get the media).

If you wanted to stage via 10.6 first, that would ease your upgrade to 10.8 (or 10.9 which is due very soon), but you may conversely struggle to find original media for 10.6 (grabbing an original CD from eBay would work so long as the disc is undamaged, but technically it's almost certain that you would not be officially licensed to install it if it was used by the original purchaser to upgrade from 10.5 already, or if it was subsequently used to upgrade to 10.7 or 10.8 - however this is very much a problem for your morals and honesty, because there are no license keys or other media checks in place for Apple to spot this)


How to restore wrongly edited + wrongly saved TextEdit file? Have an important text file, but I accidentally edited its content and accidentally closed it (auto saving it).

Now I have a text file containing gibberish.

How do I restore the previous version?

I tried looking into

Saved Application State

com.apple.TextEdit.savedState

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.TextEdit/Data/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.TextEdit.savedState

but is there a way?

TextEdit (and other apps that use the autosave system) will automatically save snapshots of documents at various times (e.g. when they're opened but before they're changed). Reopen the document in TextEdit, then from the File menu choose Revert To. It'll have a submenu that might have a relevant snapshot listed that you can choose directly. If not, choose Browse All Versions. You'll get a Time-Machine-like history on the right side of the screen, and you can look for the latest good version, then when you find what you want click Restore.

See this OWC/MacSales article, this one at OS X Daily, and this Apple support guide for more details and options.


Why isn't my apple id letting me download songs? I pre-ordered an album, but I haven't been able to download the singles released because when I type in my apple ID it asks for verification, and every time I try to answer one of the verification questions it says I'm answering it wrong. I'm not though. I really need to download more songs because the album comes out tomorrow. What should I do?

You can use the email to get your password reset.

Go to Apple ID website

Use email authentication

  Select “Email authentication,” then select Next. Apple will send the
  email to your primary or rescue email address.


How do I tell if my Apple hardware is covered by AppleCare? My iPhone's lock screen button isn't behaving well and I'd like to take it to the Apple Store to get it replaced. I'm fairly certain I bought AppleCare on it, but the receipt and anything that might indicate I made that purchase are locked away in a storage locker and far from convenient to find.

Is there a way to determine if any piece of Apple hardware is currently under warranty or covered by an AppleCare plan without having the original purchase receipt?

Apple's self-solve web portal can tell you whether any Apple product is currently under warranty or covered by an AppleCare plan. It can also tell you when the coverage ends and help you setup an appointment to get your problem looked in to.

You'll need to know the serial number for your Apple product to look up the coverage. There's an Apple support article on how to find this identifier for all the different bits of hardware Apple makes.


Scheduled startup/wake while on battery power I would like to automatically turn my Macbook Pro on at a certain time in the future (preferably with Terminal). However, I found out that this does not work when the computer is not connected to a power source. Is it possible to be able to do this on battery power?

I tried to use pmset schedule wakeorpoweron but that also only works on AC power.

(I need to be able to do this so I can run a program at a certain time of day. And I do not want to use caffeinate because it would drain the battery significantly more)

No, you can not schedule your Mac to power on when it is battery powered.

Design Choice & Deliberate Limitation

A scheduled power on event requires the Mac be connected to mains power. This is a deliberate limitation enforced by Apple's engineers. This is to protect your Mac from powering on while in confined or poorly ventilated spaces such as in luggage. In these situations your Mac risks overheating and being damaged.

Being able to power on while on battery is a common feature request to my Power Manager software. Sadly it is not possible without risking damage.


How can I triage a MacBook Pro that won't charge with the LED dimly lit green? I have an early-2011 MacBook Pro that will not charge. The green light on the MagSafe connector is barely green.

Besides the fact that the system info tells me the battery is not charging, the battery is stuck at 39%. If I unplug the charger, the battery begins to get low and I soon as I plug the charge back in the battery stops dropping.

Some sites say that the problem may be in the logic board and some say that the problem may be in the battery itself. My notebook is always plugged and I never really had a chance to let the battery drain completely.

The system profile shows the battery condition as normal and that the ac adapter is not connected.

So, my question is: what should I try since my city does not have an Apple Store that I can take my notebook to? Is it possible that letting the battery die (forcing a cycle) could help in that case?  Is there any way of testing if the problem is in the battery (since it is more affordable to change the battery than a logic board)?

EDIT

What I have done so far:

I have already left it to charge for several hours.
I have tried SMC reset more than 10 times already.
I have already tested with another charger.
I have changed the DC-In MagSafe board myself.

The ac adapter shipped with my MacBook is 65w. Will it make any difference to try with a 85w adapter?

Please stop resetting your SMC. You can totally screw up your Mac by resetting it too many times in a row. But yes, it seems through what you tried, your logic board is likely the issue.


Is there a keyboard shortcut for sleeping a display? Possible Duplicate:
  Is it possible to put the display to sleep without putting the whole computer to sleep?

What is the keyboard command to sleep (or turn off) a display, but not actually put the computer to sleep?

The keyboard command for sleeping all displays is Control ^ + Shift ⇧
 + Eject ⏏
. This shortcut doesn't put the computer to sleep, but only shuts off the display.


Crackling/Popping Right Speaker on Mid 2015 15" Macbook Pro I've only began experiencing this issue this morning, I first noticed it at around 4 AM. Its 1 PM now.

What I've done so far:

Reset PRAM & SMC
Switched Left & Right Speakers. The right speaker was consistently the one that popped, which makes me wonder why both the macbook speaker and logitech speaker had the crackling.
Updated Audio MIDI setup
Changed the output device (used built in speakers before, & Logitech X-140 2 Piece Speaker Set now). Both had popping.
Switched format to 2 ch 32 bit Float 44.1 kHz

Usually it'll be 1-2 consecutive pops every 10 minutes or so. It's loud and high pitched - it's about the same pitch as white noise.

It doesn't seem to be related with volume. It doesn't crackle when the volume gets louder, and the crackling isn't at all synced with any peaks of the sound (in which there are barely any, the sound quality otherwise is good). In fact, most of the crackling happens when the volume is quiet, and even when nothing is playing.

I haven't dropped or damaged the MacBook in any way. What can I do to fix this, and if Apple Repair is necessary, how much would it cost? Also, is it still a hardware issue when both the built in speaker and plugged in speaker experienced the same popping?

Paste following in Terminal:
sudo launchctl stop com.apple.audio.coreaudiod && sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod

It helps me.


Closing folders in list view I'm looking for a way to close opened folders in the list view. I was thinking that applescript might have a way but I don't know what to look for.

Like here, I want to get the current selected folder and then go through each subfolder and close them. Is that possible or can anyone point me to the action that closes a folder?

Opt ⌥ -Click the reveal arrow next to foo.

Alternatively,  Opt ⌥   ←  will do the same thing.
 Opt ⌥   →  will re-open them all.

It appears Mojave closes them all by default now [though with no real consistency I can find], but previously opt/action was the way.


No window or view controller in Xcode 11.2.1 I am new to macOS programming, I have Xcode 11.2.1  and Catalina OS. What is strange is I look at tutorials online and they all have Window and view controller in main storyboard, I only have menu there.

Also tutorials have "Cocoa app" under templates for Mac OS, when I choose it, there is only "app" option. What am I missing here?

Tick "use storyboards" in new project window, not SwiftUI

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui


Unwanted programs at startup How do I turn off the background functions at startup (in my case, Creative Cloud, Evernote, Dropbox, et cetera) that cause my OSX hard drive to run hot, so that they don't cause this problem in the first place?

So far, I've been forced to let them load and then turn them off one by one afterward.

Go to System Preferences -> Users and Groups.

On the left sidebar click on your user name and then Login Items.

In that window you can configure which apps to run automatically at startup (click on + and - at the bottom to add or remove apps).

Please note: many of these apps (such as Creative Cloud or Dropbox) have their own switch. Just check their Preferences to activate/deactivate those apps at startup.

For Dropbox, see screenshot attached: as you can see i have the option "Start Dropbox on system startup" unmarked and (as you may expect) it does not run automatically every time i switch my Mac on.


Close all tabs in Safari except for one I spend an awful lot of time in Safari conducting research. As you can imagine this often results in me having lots of tabs open. So I find myself settling on one tab and wanting to close all the others except for the one I’m currently on.

Is there an easy way to do this?

Yes! You can do one of the following:

right-click on the tab you want to keep and select the Close Other Tabs option, or
make sure you’re on the tab you want and then use the optioncommandW keyboard shortcut (or, if you prefer using the mouse, hold down the option key and navigate to File > Close Other Tabs).

NOTE: - This closes all other tabs in the same window, not all tabs in all windows.

BONUS: You’ll find the above shortcuts are supported by most of the default macOS apps in macOS Mojave, including Finder, Terminal, etc. Some older macOS apps also support these, as do some 3rd party apps.


Access VirtualBox shared folders in Yosemite tl;dr: How to access folder shared in host system from within Yosemite run in VirtualBox (guest)?

I have added a shared folder in my VirtualBox (went to virtual machine's settings, then to Shared Folder and added a new shared folder path there). But since I'm a complete newbiew to MacOS (this is actually one of the first times, I see this system) I'm completely lost, where I can access this shared folder or how can I mount it in Finder.

I have tried everything, I could come with. Tried to browse all the folders (including Shared) in Finder or is some other open dialog, tried to browse my home (root) folder etc. No effect so far.

AFAIK the shared folder feature of VirtualBox only works with the VirtualBox guest additions. The additions can't be installed in a OS X/macOS guest. Thus you can't use this feature.

Instead share a folder in the OS X/macOS guest system by enabling "File Sharing" in System Preferences > Sharing > File Sharing.

If the default public user folder is not sufficient, add another folder and determine user permissions. The protocol can be chosen by hitting the "Options" button.

Depending on your host system you can also configure a shared folder there.

Visibility of the guest's shared folder:

Let's assume the host system's only physical network interface (e.g. an Ethernet adapter) has an IP in the network 192.168.0.0/24.

If you attach the guest's network adapter to the Bridged network > (Host's) Ethernet adapter and configure the guest's Ethernet adapter with a (unique) IP of the 192.168.0.0/24 network, the shared folder of the guest is visible for all hosts and virtual hosts in the 192.168.0.0/24 network. To access the folder your hosts have to talk afp, smb (or nfs - which has to be set up seperately) of course.

If you attach the guest's network adapter to the Host-only network > vboxnet0, the shared folder of the guest is visible for all guest hosts attached to the vboxnet0 network on the same machine and the host machine itself.

If you attach the guest's network adapter to a NAT network > vboxnatnet01, the shared folder of the guest is visible for all guest hosts attached to the vboxnatnet01 network on the same machine and the host machine itself. If you enable port forwarding properly the shared folder is also visible for other hosts or virtual hosts in the 192.168.0.0/24 network.


Quicktime won't play videos in Chrome So, I was just trying to watch some video online in Chrome, and when I get to the page I'm told I "need to install Quicktime to play the video". This is odd because I clearly have Quicktime in my applications on my Mac. It seems to be a Chrome problem, but I've read I should go to chrome:plugins and make sure it's on there; Quicktime does not appear on that list. It DOES appear under "Extensions", where it says it's enabled, but still nothing.

When I click the little dropdown box that says I need Quicktime to watch the video, I'm just taken to a page that tells me "Quicktime comes with Mac" with no apparent link to download it independently.

Does anyone know what the issue could be?

Since version 39 Chrome is now 64 bit only but there is only a 32 bit version of the QuickTime plug in. I do not think a workaround currently exists other than using another browser, Safari being your best bet for compatibility.

Source - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6510828


When using dual monitors, is it possible to get the screenshots to appear on the desktop of the screen it captured? I'm not using a mirrored display, I connect my monitor to my laptop to do my main work and use my laptop for keeping track of queues and emails. Throughout my day I take many snips/screenshots and I always have to slide over to a clear desktop on my laptop to grab and drag the new screenshot to the desktop on my monitor. The screenshots always stay afterwards on my monitor desktop.

Is there a way to there a way to change the screenshot default so that it appears on my external monitor desktop when I snap something on it?

Or maybe change the default "desktop" to be my monitor?

Files sent to Desktop will always land on the right side of the primary display - under your disk drives if you have them showing.

You can change which screen is primary, & though I can't test as I don't have a laptop, the primary is very likely to reset to internal every time the external is unplugged.

Change primary by dragging the white menu bar segment as shown below


Open url in new tab and paste the copied text I'm new to AppleScript. I want to use AppleScript with Sci-hub page. In my scenario, I highlight DOI address -> AppleScript will open "Sci-hub.tw" page in new tab on Safari -> paste DOI address to text box -> press Enter / Return.
I found in many sites and tried to code. It here but my code just open url in new tab, not paste the highligh address.

Please, help me!

Thanks and best regards!

on run {input, parameter}
   tell application "Safari"
        activate
        try
        tell window 1 to set current tab to make new tab with properties {URL:"http://www.sci-hub.tw"}
             on error
                open location theURL
        end try
        tell application "System Events"
            tell process "Safari"
                 activate
                 keystroke "v" using command down
                 delay 0.3
                 key code 36 #return
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end run

The example AppleScript code, shown below, may be helpful to you.
As coded, it does work from Script Editor in macOS High Sierra; however, for macOS Mojave, one minor edit it required to the tell application "System Events" command in the on waitForPageToFinishLoadingInSafari() handler, and it is shown in the comment --  # NOTE: within the code below.
Example AppleScript code:
set theURL to "http://www.sci-hub.tw"

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    try
        tell window 1 to set current tab to make new tab with properties {URL:theURL}
    on error
        open location theURL
    end try
end tell

my waitForPageToFinishLoadingInSafari()

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "v" using command down
    delay 0.3
    key code 36 #return
end tell

--  # Handlers:

on waitForPageToFinishLoadingInSafari()

    --  # NOTE: For macOS Mojave, change 'UI element 1' to 'UI element 2` in the code below.

    tell application "System Events"
        repeat until (accessibility description of ¬
            button 1 of UI element 1 of every group of toolbar 1 of window 1 of ¬
            process "Safari" whose name = "Reload this page") contains "Reload this page"
            delay 0.5
        end repeat
    end tell

end waitForPageToFinishLoadingInSafari

Note: As coded, it assumes you have the desired search string already on the Clipboard so when System Events does ⌘V, it is pasted into the text box on the page.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and sans error handling from your original code it does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.

Update:
This update is to address explicitly how the OP is using his Quick Action service in Automator as per his comment to this answer.
The example AppleScript code, shown below, has been tested in macOS Mojave and works on my system as is.
Replace the default code of the Run AppleScript action with the following example AppleScript code:
on run {input, parameters}

    set theURL to "http://www.sci-hub.tw"
    set theSearchString to (item 1 of input as text)

    tell application "Safari"
        activate
        try
            tell window 1 to set current tab to make new tab with properties {URL:theURL}
        on error
            open location theURL
        end try
    end tell

    my waitForPageToFinishLoadingInSafari()

    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke theSearchString
        delay 0.2
        key code 36 -- # Enter Key
    end tell

end run

--  # Other Handlers:

on waitForPageToFinishLoadingInSafari()

    -- # NOTE: For macOS High Sierra and earlier , change 'UI element 2' to 'UI element 1' in the code below.

    tell application "System Events"
        repeat until (accessibility description of ¬
            button 1 of UI element 2 of every group of toolbar 1 of window 1 of ¬
            process "Safari" whose name = "Reload this page") contains "Reload this page"
            delay 0.5
        end repeat
    end tell

end waitForPageToFinishLoadingInSafari

Note: In order to use the Quick Action service, each application you trigger it from will need to be added to two locations in:

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy

Accessibility
Automation

You should be prompted as necessary and you'll need to unlock the System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy tab as necessary and check the application as necessary. See the images below.

In the following two images, you'll see that Safari and TextEdit have been added and this is a direct result of using the Quick Action service from both of these applications. If I were to select something to be searched with Search With SCI-HUB from the Services menu in, e.g., Mail, then it too will need to be added, and again you should be prompted.


Block site from being on Safari Top Sites I have the following issue: some sites I use quite often, as facebook, appears at the top sites with several different urls, depending on the person I chat and so on. I remove them manually, which is quite boring. I would like to know if there is any way to block facebook and other sites from being add to Safari's Top Sites. Someone knows how to do that?

Thanks!

From Apple's support page: On the Top Sites page, click the Edit button. Then do any of the following:

To specify that a page be kept in Top Sites and not replaced by other pages visited more often, click the pin icon in the page’s upper-left corner.
To reverse this action, click the pin icon again.
To specify that a page never be included in Top Sites, click the X in the page’s upper-left corner.
To display 24, 12, or 6 webpage previews, click Small, Medium, or Large.
To rearrange the pages, drag them.

When you finish making changes, click Done.


Cursor navigation in Terminal I quite often find myself needing to move the cursor to the beginning or the end of the line.

Is there a keyboard shortcut or other magic trick to move the cursor apart from the arrow keys.

^ + A for the beginning of the line

^ + E for the end of the line.

Works with Cocoa control too.

^ = Ctrl


Installing Windows 7 in Boot Camp is Unavailable on Mojave On my MacBook Pro (Mid 2014), it seems that Apple has stopped support for installation of Windows 7 via Boot Camp on my Mac. I am currently trying to edit the info.plist to attempt to find a way to allow Boot Camp to run Windows 7, but I can't figure it out. Is there any way to get this to work?

What I would suggest is getting old bootcamp files and going the manual route, that is, without using Bootcamp assistant. You would create an exFat partition, get a bootable Win7 installer disk and boot into the disk to install Win7 on the exFat partition. Booting into Windows 7, you can then manually install the Bootcamp drivers.
The latest Bootcamp drivers, that is Bootcamp 6 don't support windows 7/8 installation as far as I know, so you'll have to get older drivers. Here's the link for Bootcamp 5.1.5722: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1836?locale=en_US
According to them:

  • The download file is a .zip file. Double click it to uncompress it,  if it is not automatically uncompressed.
  • Double-click the Boot Camp5 folder.
  • Copy the entire contents of the .zip file to the root level of a USB flash drive or hard drive that is formatted with the FAT file system
  • When running Windows, locate the Boot Camp folder on the USB media you created in Step 3 and double click to open it.
  • Double click on setup to start installing the Boot Camp Support Software.
  • When prompted to allow changes, click on Yes and follow the onscreen instructions.
  • Installation can take a few minutes. Don't interrupt the installation process. When installation is complete, click Finish in the dialog that appears.
  • A system restart dialog box appears.  Click Yes to complete the installation.


Hide Location Menubar icon I updated my Mac to macOS Sierra yesterday, and now the location icon (which shows that an app is using location services) is almost always present in the menubar. The app using location is Siri and Dictation (not using dictation so it's definitely Siri's fault). Short of disabling Siri or blocking it from using my location, how can I get that location icon to get off my menubar?

Edit: Now Weather, Calendar, and Siri are all using my location constantly.

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy. Under Location Services, scroll to the bottom of the list and click the Details button next to System Services. In there there's a checkbox for 'Show location icon in menu bar when System Services request your location'

Also: I tried pulling it off the menu bar by Command-Clicking and dragging away. That seemed to make it disappear but I'm not sure if it comes back.


How to use Jupyter Notebook with iCloud storage to read a data set? I am trying to work with a very large dataset in my Mac. The storage space on my Mac was not enough, so I bought 50 GB of iCloud storage. But I don't know how to use it. I still cannot download data on my Mac.
I am a data scientist and I am working in Jupyter notebook. I need to save my data in iCloud and then load it from there.

If you haven't already, first setup iCloud Drive on your macOS.
Once iCloud Drive is enabled on your macOS, you can access it using the Finder. You can now copy files to iCloud drive as you usually do with any other folder or drive.
The iCloud drive path on macOS is:
~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/

So if you create a folder called dataset in iCloud drive, it's path will be
~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/dataset

You need to use this as the startup folder for your Jupyter notebook as described here - Access iCloud Drive in Jupyter Notebook.


Trash log in Mac OS X? My friend accidentally deleted (moved to Trash) all the files listed in "All my files" in Finder. Instead of using the "put back" option, he moved these files from Trash to Desktop using Finder. Now he has lost the directory structure! Is there a way to put these files where they were deleted from originally? The problem is that "All my files" lists the files in one Finder window and when they were moved to the trash, the files appeared as if they were stored in one directory. So I was wondering if there is a way to figure out where these files once were. Any ideas?

PS Time machine is disabled and no other backups; Mac OS X 10.9.1

No - there is no general way to recover the original location of arbitrary files when you move them out of trash and place them on the desktop.

Gladly, they didn't get erased, but this is exactly the job for which Time Machine was created. Now, you can leverage some knowledge about what goes into All My Files to get things back in a reasonable shape:

Put obvious files in the correct location - Pictures, Documents, Movies, Music all have folders in the user home folder.
Create a new smart folder to search the files for "Where from" to contain http to locate any files downloaded from the internet (and perhaps placing them back in Downloads folder)

Also, since OS X doesn't really care where most user folders or applications are stored, you don't even need to do anything but file these away in a "clean later" folder and apps that need a file will automatically locate the files in their new spot.


Backup external hard drive to the cloud via Time Capsule I'd like to move my photo directory to an external hard drive, but still have that hard drive backed up both locally and to the cloud. This wouldn't be a problem if I was using a desktop machine of some sort. However, I have a laptop, and I'd like for the external drive to be able to backup to the cloud without needing my laptop as an intermediary to the cloud. Is it possible to have an external hard drive that's connected to a Time Capsule backup to a cloud backup service (like CrashPlan) using the Time Capsule's internet connection?

Yes - but the flow of the data isn't linked directly.

The external drive can be opted in to back up to any Time Machine destination as long as there's enough space on the destination drive.
You can configure CrashPlan to back up files from the external drive - directly to the cloud.

Note: These are independent - you could enable 1 and not 2 or 2 and not 1 or both 1 and 2 as you wish. Getting Crash Plan to see files from within the protected Time Machine storage isn't something I would recommend.


Why does macOS show 100% battery and fully charged when "Charge Remaining" is lower than "Full Charge Capacity" My Battery percentage shows 100% Mark. But I got this from the System Information section. Why does it say fully charged and shows 100% mark when the actual remaining charge is 95%?

This is completely normal.

The numbers you see here should not be treated exact values - it is impossible to get exact values for the battery. The full charge capacity varies slightly with various factors - including, for example, the ambient temperature in your room.

The battery will ofcourse report a specific number to the operating system, but it would be a bad idea to expect the numbers to match up exactly. I.e. if you just charged until "Charge Remaining" matched exactly with "Full Charge Capacity" that wouldn't be a good strategy. This is why you see that systems from all manufacturers charge to somewhere "near 100%" - for example 95%.


iOS Wi-Fi sync won't work in VirtualBox I am trying to set up Wi-Fi sync of my iPod Touch (iOS 5) with iTunes 10.5.0.142 running on Windows XP.

They sync fine over the USB cable. I've enabled Wi-Fi sync both on the iPod and in iTunes. The Wi-Fi is functioning and I can ping the Windows XP machine from the iPod. However, the Wi-Fi sync won't work (the sync app on the iPod doesn't see the computer).

How do I go about troubleshooting this?

Notes:

Windows XP is running inside VirtualBox on Ubuntu.
I've checked out other similar questions, and none of them are relevant here.

I seem to have been able to figure this one out. In VirtualBox, select Devices/Network Adapters, and change Attached to from NAT to Bridged Adapter:

Click OK. Finally, reboot Windows and cold-restart the iPod.

This has fixed it for me.


Demonstrating iOS in-development application I'm developing iOS application for my customer. At final point he asked me to share "preview" of an app via link before he could pay me for it. How do I do that?

How do I show my iOS app to someone, is there any other way aside from uploading it to AppStore and therefore making it public and needing developer account (I don't have at the moment)?
If I upload an app to AppStore, is it possible for my customer to "steal" and save it (through installing to jailbroken device for example and copying app with file manager), I suppose this is how users of jailbroken devices download and install paid apps for free using torrents?
What is the common practice of doing this, I mean demonstrating app in development to customer? On my own device? Bringing laptop with Xcode installed and using customer's device?

The most common way of doing this is through TestFlight, and you will need an Apple Developer Account.

Setup your customer as either an external or internal user.  Upload the app to TestFlight.  The customer will be able to download the app and test it but it will not be available for the general public.

Of course, there's a bit more to it than what I just listed but it's not very difficult and you can upload the app multiple times (after each bug fix or app change) and the customer will be automatically notified to download the new version.  When you're ready to push it out to the public, you can do that.

Go here for more info on how to use it.


60Gb missing after deleting Bootcamp partition I recently uninstalled Bootcamp on my MacbookPro 256gb.I had granted 60Gb to Windows but unfortunately, I can't recover those gigs in my main Apple container.
I tried to find solutions on the forum, but not having quite the same structure as me, I didn't want to make mistakes.
Here is a screenshot of my "diskutil list".I know I have to do a command to delete one of its partitions but which one ?
I know I have to do a command to delete one of its partitions but which one?
Many thanks for your help.

Apparently, you are using Big Sur. If so, then partition with the identifier disk0s3 is not needed. To remove this partition and recover the free space, enter the commands given below.
diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0


Setting up my family sharing : what will happen to the content previously purchased by the children? I'm currently setting up the family system for me and my two children. We were previously using the account of one of my children for us three, and having the usual problems with messages being delivered to the 3 Iphones and the Macbook, etc, etc. Thus, all the music / app / video purchases have been made with this account.

So I'm planning to create two more accounts (for me and my 2nd child), and use my (new) account as the family organizer. The previous account will be a "child" account.

My question is : what will happen to the content purchased on our previous account ? Will it be shared with the family ? Will it just remain account-specific ? I'm not really concerned by the pictures, music and the rest as I can save it and restore it later.

Thanks in advance.

Content from any member account is sharable, whether old or new - Apps, Books, Tunes etc.

Specific data points from those apps, though, will be lost if the account using them is not the same as previously.

For example, UserA was the original account. UserB & UserC are added as family members. UserA & UserB had previous purchases, different to each other. UserC is new & 'virgin' but is the new Family Organiser account.

UserC can regain any & all previous purchases made by Users A & B, but will lose account-specific data such as email [including the userA@icloud.com account entirely], iMessages, any game progress or reading bookmarks etc they had prior to the 'handover', as they all still belong to UserA.

Similarly for UserB, but they will retain their existing user-specific data on existing apps etc.


How can I flush /delete the Finder clipboard in OS X 10.8.3 ? I always see 2 items when I paste from the clipboard How can I flush /delete the Finder clipboard in OS X 10.8.3 ?  I always have 2 items when I paste from the clipboard.

Try execute command: pbcopy </dev/null.

pbcopy and pbpaste are two commands that provide access to clipboard.
pbcopy will copy a string to the clipboard (overwriting the original content).

In this case you are copying an empty file. Since you can't pass a file but a string only, this "<" (a redirection) will redirect the file content to the pbcopy arguments.


Find which RAR file is bad I have a RAR I downloaded made up of multiple files. When trying to extract it, it tells me the data is incomplete, something bad with one of the files.
Considering I had to download multiple large files, is there a way to find out exactly which of the files I should re-download?

Look at MacPar deluxe it checks each part - and if the parts include .par files it can recover from some errors


How to see Gmail labels on the actual emails, in Mail.app? Is there a way to view the labels from Gmail in Mail.app on an email, while the email is in the inbox, without opening the actual email (like in Gmail)?

The image shows the emails labeled as K, D, and S (on the right bottom corner of each email):

This image shows how there are no lables shown on the actual emails, while in the inbox, in Mail.app:

So, check the following in Gmail:

Open up Gmail
Click the gear in the top right to open settings
Goto 'Labels'
Ensure the 'Show in IMAP' checkbox is ticked next to any labels you wish to see as folders in Apple Mail.

I hope this answers your question, and that this is what you where looking for.


Out of variable memory alert in iPhone I am getting Out of variable memory error alert in iPhone 4S. I have tried resetting all settings. But this alert keeps on popping up with accept or cancel buttons. I was also not able to find anything from usage logs. There is also a badge in Setting icon but i am not able to find out from where this badge comes. Th version is 5.0.1. This alert comes frequently. Please Help.

To isolate the issue, you can place the device in Airplane Mode and perform a normal slide to shutdown.

When the device reboots, you will have a controlled platform to test. Third party apps will not run until you launch them and Apple's sync services will be  prevented from downloading new data and potentially triggering a memory error.

You will quickly see if it's the OS that is complaining or some app in the background as you run things offline.

This is a fairly obscure error, so you'll want to check that there's some space on the filesystem when you restart the phone. Feel free to edit your question with more details if this alone doesn't resolve the issue for you.

I'd recommend making 500 MB of free space by deleting un-needed apps with no data to back up or deleting some songs if you have no apps to space. Some programs need more room to run, and you might even have several gigs free so it's some other cause that results in the dialog message. In that case, you'll have to pay attention and start things one by one to track down the process that is placing that error on your device.

Also - review the backup article below to be sure you understand what is backed up and what might be lost when you restore things. The over the air update isn't intended to erase anything, but if your device isn't working properly there's no guarantee you will have everything after an update.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766


How to use drag and drop to move files instead of copying Drag and drop between drives defaults to copying the files not moving them. I know holding ⌘ along with the drag will move the files, but I'm looking for something more permanent like a defaults command, maybe?

I'm using Lion.

I assume there is no defaults switch for this situation, otherwise someone would have helped already. But using the keyboard, you could move the files like this: ⌘+C, then ⌘+alt+V to paste at the desired destination. It’s like cut & paste on Windows, only Mac style. Also, works across volumes!


Fix a sometimes happening prohibitory sign Well, I know there's an answer to a similar question here: Getting a 🚫 sometimes on boot, but this is slightly different.

My system is  running on external drive. Actually on an external drive partition. After I installed Waves plugins I encountered this error for the first time. So I booted in my main system on internal drive and used repair on that partition by sudo diskutil mountdisk force /dev/disk2 because partition didn't show up. That didn't help. So I used diskutil repairvolume /dev/disk2s4 and after repairing it helped and I was able to boot normally. It happened twice and each time at firsrt getiing  and after repairing a volume I was working fine (I'm running on this system now).

I tried reinstalling macOS – did nothing. I have an old backup that's lacking some files. So I guess, if I backup now it's going to backup the whole drive including system folders errors. Any ideas how to fix this without erasing/restoring onanism?

When you get a prohibitory sign when you attempt to boot, it means your Mac can't find any bootable media.

This is the EFI firmware searching for a device to boot from and not having any success.  It has nothing to do with the file system, so First Aid or even reinstalling will not fix the problem.

The most likely cause of this problem is a failing drive.  You have to get a new one.

  I have an old backup that's lacking some files. So I guess, if I
  backup now it's going to backup the whole drive including system
  folders errors.

That's no reason to not attempt a backup.  Your objective right now should be to backup your data and if it causes an error, so be it.  Losing a few files is far less damaging than losing all of your files.


Import Outlook mac archives in Windows Outlook 2010 How can one import Outlook mac archived files in Windows Outlook 2010? Given that the size of the archived files is 48GB, can it be done safely?? I mean NO LOSS of Data or any other files???

That is one big email database archive. Moving from outlook mac to outlook windows is not possible directly as windows outlook does not support olm files. However, it can be accomplished indirectly by using IMAP to synchronize emails to a free webserver domain like yahoo, gmail etc. However, in your case, this method might not work as database size is too large. In your case, it is adviseable to utilize a third party tool like OLM to PST Converter Pro for converting OLM files into PST format compatible with Windows Outlook and later importing it into Windows. I have personally tested this utility as I was in same kindof situation a few months back adn after extensive research I zeroed on this application.


Dealing with ads blocking application functionality on iPad I've noticed some applications on my iPad have advertisements. The problem is that the advertisement covers lower part of the screen where some applications place buttons and other UI elements, and the ad blocks there elements and prevents me from properly using the application. Is there any way to solve this - like move the ad somewhere or temporarily remove it? It's OK when the ads are just annoying but when they actually prevent me from using the application it's bad.

If this problem happens in an App than your only chance is tell the developer of the app that the ad placement was a really bad user interface choice and to please fix this issue.

If you can provide screenshots and a brief description of when this happens (if it only happens under certain circumstances) they will most probably be very grateful and fix this problem ASAP.

Just as a precaution: be polite in your email and try to be as objective as possible when telling about your problem.


Hide applications in contextual menu 'Open with' from an other OS X installation I just installed OS X 10.10 Yosemite (but this problem exists for any other OS with applications that run on your current Mac OS) and, because I have a Carbon Copy Clone of my old Mavericks installation on another hard drive installed on this Macbook, it shows applications from other installations mounted from the other hard drive.

Expecting the Terminal to work just as in Mavericks, how would I remove/exclude applications from a different installation from the 'open with' menu?

Does excluding the other Applications folder from Spotlight fix the problem?

In System Preference:

After you've added the folder in Spotlight, you'll can refresh the "Open with..." list by running this command in Terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user


Homebrew - Somehow it happened there is no executable openssl System Version OS X El Capitan, version 10.11.5

I installed homebrew and rvm. However, when I try to install anything with rvm (ie. rvm install 2.1.1), it says:

Somehow it happened there is no executable 'openssl',
run 'brew doctor' and make sure latest '' is installed properly.
RVM autolibs is now configured with mode '3' =>
  'Allow RVM to use package manager if found, install missing dependencies.',
please run `rvm autolibs enable` to let RVM do its job or run and read `rvm autolibs [help]`
or visit https://rvm.io/rvm/autolibs for more information.
Requirements installation failed with status: 12.

When I run brew doctor it says "Your system is ready to brew". I tried to change the path for Open SSL using export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH and then brew link --force openssl but it still gives me the same error message. When I do which openssl it still says it is located here: /usr/bin/openssl.

Any ideas on what I can do to get the openssl to work with Homebrew?

Full Terminal Below:

Last login: Sun Jan 15 20:36:34 on ttys000
Laurens-MacBook-Pro:~ laurensylvain$ rvm install 2.1.1
Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
Found remote file https://rvm_io.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/osx/10.11/x86_64/ruby-2.1.1.tar.bz2
Checking requirements for osx.
Installing requirements for osx.
Updating system....
Installing required packages: readline, openssl.
Somehow it happened there is no executable 'openssl',
run 'brew doctor' and make sure latest '' is installed properly.
RVM autolibs is now configured with mode '3' =>
  'Allow RVM to use package manager if found, install missing dependencies.',
please run `rvm autolibs enable` to let RVM do its job or run and read `rvm autolibs [help]`
or visit  for more information.
Requirements installation failed with status: 12.
Laurens-MacBook-Pro:~ laurensylvain$ brew doctor
Your system is ready to brew.
Laurens-MacBook-Pro:~ laurensylvain$ touch ~/.bash_profile; open ~/.bash_profile
Laurens-MacBook-Pro:~ laurensylvain$ source ~/.bash_profile
Laurens-MacBook-Pro:~ laurensylvain$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/laurensylvain/.rvm/bin:/Users/laurensylvain/.rvm/bin
Laurens-MacBook-Pro:~ laurensylvain$ brew link --force openssl
Warning: Refusing to link: openssl
Linking keg-only openssl means you may end up linking against the insecure,
deprecated system OpenSSL while using the headers from Homebrew's openssl.
Instead, pass the full include/library paths to your compiler e.g.:
  -I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include -L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib
Laurens-MacBook-Pro:~ laurensylvain$ which openssl
/usr/bin/openssl

I've absolutely no idea why this issue happened, but making sure I had the latest OpenSSL worked for me.

$ brew upgrade


Using Finder to copy files by value instead of the files' reference I want to copy a few files from one directory of a git repository branch to another branch that doesn't have the files. With Windows, you can copy the files and they are saved to the clipboard as they are, such as passing the actual files to some temporary directory. This allows you to delete the original files and still paste them elsewhere; basically a cut operation. I know Mac OS doesn't have the ability to cut files, so I assume that is why when I copy files from branch A, checkout branch B, and try to paste the files to the same directory for branch B, the paste option is grayed out; the files that were being referenced no longer exist to be copied.

Is there a way to enable a temporary directory where all copied items aren't simply references to the items that are being copied?

The git-checkout command is used to "checkout" files into your current branch from another branch. This would be safest since it would all remain in version control:

git checkout <branch_name> -- <paths>

Example,

git checkout develop
git checkout master
git checkout develop -- myfile.js

would checkout myfile.js from develop into master so you can commit it when ready.


Android Studio emulator not launching on macOS (Big Sur) macOS Big Sur 11.1, Android Studio 4.1.2
Based on some similar issues I found online, I attempted to uninstall and reinstall Intel x86 Emulator Accelerator (HAXM installer)from Android Studio itself. But also got an error:

Installation did not complete successfully. See the IDE log for details

Where can I find the IDE log and what is the possible solution that will fix the emulator issue?

You can find the logs from the option in the Help menu, which opens
~/Library/Logs/AndroidStudio/idea.log


Put Back from trash from Terminal I sent a lot of files and directories from an external hard drive into the trash by mistake. All those files and directories had the same grandfather directory but not the same father directory. I can put back each item individually but can't put back when I select several items that are not sister files/directory. Note that no path has been changed since I deleted all those files and directories. Anyway, I am thinking about using Bash.

Is there a putback command in bash?

This solution works on a single file in Trash or multiple files deleted from within the same directory:

If it's not essential for you to use Terminal, you can forget all those bash, zsh, and all other typealot ways to do this. Just navigate to Trash and CMD + Backspace the files you want to put back.

If the deleted files come from different folders, then you can't use this shortcut to put them all back at the same time.


Watch: Third-Party Email App that Renders HTML Since Gmail as a service does not support push on iOS Mail, I do not get notifications for emails as they come in unless I use a third-party email app. I have used Outlook for iOS for a long time now, and it has worked great. However, I recently got an Apple Watch, and I was disappointed to find that the Watch app for Outlook does not render HTML in emails. The emails are plain text only.

From what I have seen so far, the built-in Mail app on Apple Watch does a good job of rendering HTML emails. I have not had any luck finding a third-party app that can do this, though, so that I can get both HTML rendering and push notifications for email.

Do any Watch apps that render HTML emails exist, or does Apple not allow third-party email apps to render HTML for some reason?

The Apple Watch OS (watchOS) does permit rendering HTML email.  However, the Watch app must be built using watchOS 5 and use Webkit for the email.  It's also a poor experience to try to read html-formatted email on a small Watch screen.

Needless to say, most developers have not updated Watch apps specifically for this purpose and some might not ever do such an update.

Because watchOS 5 is so new, it might take a while for developer to create such an app.  Keep checking the Watch App Store and your favorite app review sites to see if any are available or featured.


FaceTime: Connect Mac to iPhone I just bought my first Mac, and I want to use FaceTime with someone who has an iPhone.
How can I do this?

FaceTime is a US $1 app on the App Store. You will need to enter an AppleID into the app to send or receive calls, but the software holds your hand through this process, making a new AppleID if needed for you.

Once you have that installed and running, make sure your contact's iPhone is in the address book and dial them up.

You can call out to AppleID that are used on the Mac and iPod/iPad and you call to a "phone number" to iPhones that are in WiFi.

The nice easy support page for FaceTime on the mac is http://www.apple.com/support/mac/facetime/

A short list of hardware requirements is here.


Remove iOS8 install file from iPad I have an iPad 3, running iOS7. Following some articles I read, alleging to degraded performance undr iOS8, I decided to not upgrade (if anyone can contribute any experience to the contrary - I'd be thanklful).

Recently, when I connected the iPad to my laptop to transfer some files, the iOS8 upgrade file was downloaded off the internet and onto my iPad. I now have a permanent notification asking me to upgrade, not to mention a 3.3GB file stuck on my iPad.

How do I get rid of it? Is there a way to delete it on the device, or do I need to do it through iTunes?

Go to Settings → General → Usage and delete the iOS 8 update package from the list.


What is the 'If Finder Window Open, Then...' AppleScript code? I am creating a 'Quit All' keyboard shortcut. I have the Quit All Applications system command and the AppleScript to close open Finder windows (without it, Finder windows stay open). However, if no Finder window is open, an error sound plays every time. I therefore need to code the script to check if there are any open Finder windows, and if this is the case, to then close them. Here is the code I have so far:

tell application "Finder" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "w" using {command down, option down}
end tell

Just missing the "if open Finder windows then" part at the beginning. Could someone help me for this line of code?

You can use the following AppleScript code to avoid an error if Finder doesn't have any windows open.

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    if exists window 1 then
        tell application "System Events"
            keystroke "w" using {command down, option down}
        end tell
    end if
end tell


Syncing OS X Notes with iCloud I can sync notes when I am connected directly to the internet but not via our corporate lan.

Our network has http/https open but most other ports are blocked.

Which ports does the OS X Notes app use for syncing so that I can request for them to be opened?

Notes in Mac OS and iOS are still based on IMAP email. When you try to set up iCloud notes sync for the first time without having an iCloud email address, you’re forced to create one. I had this experience at last in Mac OS 10.8.4.

Ask your IT staff to open ports for IMAP email which are usually 25, 143, 587, 993.
Hope that helps.


What services/apps can cause my iPod to be remotely wiped? I've learned that simply by adding an Exchange-based email account to my iPod's Mail app, I am implicitly allowing the administrator of the email system to remotely wipe all data from my iPod -- even though neither the (sparse) documentation nor the user interface seems to warn of this.

I don't find this acceptable, so I simply read my Exchange mail through the web interface.  No problem.

Are there other apps or services which implicitly allow other people to remotely wipe my iPod?  For example, if I add a Gmail account to the Mail app, am I granting the ability for a Google action (intentional or otherwise) to wipe my iPod?  If I use the Facebook app, does Facebook have the ability to wipe my iPod?

The remote wipe is part of Apple's own code - so any program that wants access to that API has to work with Apple to ensure it follows Apple's policies of not surprising end users.

This feature is well documented in the enterprise documentation as well as part of MobileMe Find My iPhone terms of service.

The things that currently will wipe an iOS4 device: (the first two depend on physical posession of the device - the second two require some sort of data connection to the Apple (or Exchange) servers.

Restore the device over USB (in recovery mode if a passcode prevents normal restore)
Turn on the failed passcode erase trigger and enter the code wrongly until the erase threshold is passed
Turn on Find My Phone and activate an erase through another device using Apple's push data servers.
Turn on Exchange remote wipe and activate it through the Exchange server's push data service.

I don't know of any apps that have hacked this interface. Ones in the App store would likely get caught before they shipped. Ones in cydia or jailbreak community might be more prevalent, but I'm not familiar enough to say if there are any in the wild so I'll leave that for someone else to answer here via an edit or in another answer.


How do you install the Facebook app on the first generation iPad? I tried to download and install the Facebook app on a first generation iPad and I get popup saying: "this application requires iOS 7.0 or later".

How do I get this app on to my iPad?

Unfortunately, you can't. The 1st gen iPad maxes out at iOS 5.1.1, and the Facebook app requires iOS 7 or better. Your only option is to go to the Facebook site through a web browser such as Safari.


MacBook Air shows battery as power source when plugged in I have a MacBook Air (mid 2011) that I only use from time to time. The battery no longer works but I don't mind since I really only use this machine when connected via the power adapter.

The problem is that for some reason it says "Power Source: Battery" when it's definitely not running off the battery (if I disconnect the adapter the computer immediately shuts off). I've been ignoring this for some time because it didn't really get in the way; however, I'm now trying to update the machine from Sierra to High Sierra and the installer won't allow me to continue unless I connect to a power source that isn't a battery.

Is there any way to either force the machine to only register as running off a power cable OR get the High Sierra installer to bypass the battery check?

I don't use this machine that much so I'm trying to avoid having to take it in just so I can update it.

Try an SMC reset. It's responsible for a lot of stuff, including battery and battery reporting.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201295


Can't seem to get into internet recovery mode I brought a Mac Mini (2009 I believe early as it had a 120GB HDD) of which I upgraded it to a 120GB SSD to begin with. Being my first mac I found I could re-install it using the internet recovery mode which I believe was how I installed the SSD.

I was running El Capitan on the machine perfectly fine.

However the SSD had to be taken out from it to be put into another machine as an emergency (The mac wasn't important) and recently replaced with a 250GB HDD and when trying to boot into internet recovery mode now get nothing but the folder with the question mark in.

I've tried multiple key combinations and have been searching around online for solutions but haven't found one.

The main thing is how can I re-install it? I don't have access to any other Macs but do to Linux & Windows machines.

Internet Recovery is not available on 2009 machines. In general, you need a Mac to create the install media for installing macOS when you don't have an existing macOS install or recovery disk. It may be possible to create the macOS install media using a Windows computer, however I have no experience with this.


AppleMail can not remove specific emails I'm trying to delete obvious (virus, spam, scam) email anyway from Apple's Mail.app.

Getting error: File 7936.emlx could not be opened, because the file doesn't exist.

That's rough translate from the Finnish error I get.
However, when I click that mail in trash I can see it warning from trashmail.

I'm using Avira but disabling it didn't help, also avira can not remove it because of the same error, however avira shows it as quarantined thread as well...

OSX El Capitan 10.11.6 and Apple Mail 9.3 (3124)

One big change since El Capitan - Mail is now in V3
Earlier OSes used the V2 folder.

Try clearing the saved state, rebuilding & reindexing the database...

Clear Saved State

Switch to Finder,  Cmd ⌘   N  for a new window, then  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   G  for Go To...
copy/paste ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState then  Enter ⌅
This is an alias to the real location, so Right-click & Show Original
Delete the entire com.apple.mail.savedState folder.

Rebuild; Re-index

Source: How to fix Apple Mail by rebuilding and reindexing the Mailbox

  Step 1: Rebuild
  Rebuilding a Mailbox in Mail sounds daunting but it really isn't.

  Launch Mail, select one of your mailboxes and click on the Mailbox menu. At the bottom of the pane choose the Rebuild option. If you have a large mailbox, you can expect the process to take a few hours.
  You must repeat this step for each one of your Mailboxes.
  While the process takes place, you may experience system performance lag, as it can consume a lot of system resources and memory.

  Another caveat, if you use IMAP or Exchange with any of the accounts, the process will redownload every message from the server, so you'll use a lot of bandwidth.

  Now that you've completed these steps, work with Mail a little longer. If you are still having issues, or Mail fails to launch, you should try a manual reindex.

  Step 2: Re-index

  Manual reindexing of Mail messages is the only way to go if the  application has become so unresponsive it barely works at all, search is not functioning correctly or the app won't launch.

  Mail will automatically attempt to reindex your messages if it detects problems with the mailboxes, but sometimes a manual reindex is the best option. If you are still having problems with Mail after following step one, try manual reindexing.

  Quit Mail if it’s open.
  To get to your home Library folder, hold down the Option key, then in the Finder choose Go > Library.
  In ~/Library/Mail/V3/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm. (Before you actually delete the files, it makes sense to copy them to a folder on your desktop.)
  Launch Mail and the app will build new Envelope Index files -- this can take a long time if there are numerous messages to go through.
  If everything seems to be working correctly, you can now delete the copies of the "Envelope Index" files from your desktop.

  In most cases, these two tips should solve most Mail problems

 My own answer copied from Mail.app crashes constantly, even after deleting mail profile and cache as they are not really duplicates


How to swap numbers row with symbols on US keyboard? As a programmer I’m typing the symbols on the number row more often on the keyboard than I type the numbers. Using the US keyboard layout, I have to press shift-7 for example to yield &. I’d like to permanently yield & without holding shift key and only type 7 when I hold the shift key. Effectively swapping numbers with symbols permanently. Is there a way?

You can make a custom keyboard layout that does this pretty easily with the Ukelele app.


How do I find which directories are taking up my inode count? I have a problem with my mac frequently having too many files open and programs starting to crash.

Running df -ih on my system reveals that I have used up all the inodes in / (this is after a fresh restart)

Is there an easy way of traversing my system and finding which directories are the culprit? I do have a lot of files, but I want to know which ones I should be focusing on.

A lot of commands I'm finding don't work well on OSX.

Any help will be appreciated.

df -ih
Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity   iused    ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   591Gi  526Gi   64Gi    90% 138068137 16799595   89%   /
devfs          202Ki  202Ki    0Bi   100%       698        0  100%   /dev
map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%         0        0  100%   /net
map auto_home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%         0        0  100%   /home
map -fstab       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%         0        0  100%   /Network/Servers
/dev/disk0s4   303Gi  226Gi   77Gi    75%    321408 80319544    0%   /Volumes/BOOTCAMP

HFS+ does not use i-nodes. New files can be created as long as there is free disk space.

The compatibility layer that emulates the i-node behaviour always reports a percentage of used i-nodes equal to or slightly less than the percentage of used space.


Duplicate the volume where macOS is installed and make it bootable I use my computer for work in software development. I have a new client that wants to install some special security software on my mac but I don't want to get that installed on my main operating system. To solve this problem I was thinking to install a second macOS system on a different volume.
The problem with that is that I need to spend a lot of time setting up all the software and configurations I use for development in the new volume. So I thought it would be great to just duplicate my main volume and be able to pick to which of the volumes to boot when I start.
I couldn't find how to "duplicate" the volumes to have an exact copy of my main fully configured operating system but completely isolated from the other operating system...
Any clue? Is this even possible?

The easiest way to do this is with a commercial tool like Carbon Copy Cloner, which, as you can guess from the name, will do this easily. It is primarily targeted at making backups, but it can definitely do what you want in one step if you have the empty volume ready.
The free way to do this is to make a complete Time Machine backup, install macOS on a new, empty partition, and when setting up the new OS installation, you will have the option to restore from a Time Machine backup, and you restore from the one you just made. This is a lot slower, as it involves making 2 copies of your current drive and the macOS install takes time, but it is free and leaves you with a Time Machine backup.
Note that you do not want to make an exact copy of your current drive the way a low-level utility like dd would. You want the new drive to have its own UUID, for example, so that tools can tell the 2 drives apart. Also, macOS now (Catalina) is actually 2 partitions, a read-only one with System files and a read-write one with User files, and you need to set that up properly. Plus the Recovery Partition is a third partition. You want to use specialized tools that know about and handle these kinds of special needs for creating a bootable macOS drive.


Will ejected internal HDD really stay ejected until I mount it again? I want to get 2TB HDD in addition to 512GB SDD I have.

I want to be able to "turn off" that drive so that it stays off even after sleep cycles and everything... I'm worried because now when I have an external HDD and I eject it, it wakes up sometimes - for example just by launching Finder which accesses it... not sure, maybe it happens only after I wake computer form sleep, but still... I really don't want such behaviour in an internal HDD. It should stay "dead" until I resurrect it only when needed. Is this possible?

I don't know why is this information so hard to find - nobody reported it, just guesses and partial solutions on forums... So anyone with such setup - can you try?

I suggest to test and use:
    Disk Arbitrator.

This is a small application interfacing the MacOS X disk access interface.
This application may be used in forensic investigation, to protect against unwanted connection of external disks, and to manage very straightforwardly any mounting and eject of internal or external disk
(through the Show Disks Window menu entry).

I wouldn't speak in place of the author, but I can ascertain this tool is working on: Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks & Yosemite.

I haven't found any bug in this application, and I would be glad to give the same nul result with many application I have to survive with :(.


Encrypting sensitive data on Mac + Windows I've been a long-time Windows user, using a utility called AxCrypt to encrypt sensitive documents which holded sensitive info (bank passwords, credit card numbers, etc).
I had an encrypted Excel spreadsheet, which was placed on a shared dropbox folder, where everyone who had the password could easily view the file, and if needed change the data and save (AxCrypt will automatically encrypt the file, which is saved to dropbox and synced to all users).
It worked perfectly for years, and then 2 of us switched to Mac.

AxCrypt port to Mac doesn't allow the simple opening of encrypted file, changing it, and having it automatically encrypted.

So we either use Windows emulation on Mac, or find another solution that has a good experience (easily view encrypted files, easily change and re-encrypt, save to dropbox).

Anyone know on a solution that can help? I tried TrueCrypt, but it seems to be more cumbersome than the existing AxCrypt solution.

Consider using Wuala instead of Dropbox. It's the same service as Dropbox but has integrated encryption. Then you don't have to worry about encrypting before upload and decrypting after download anymore.

Disadvantages of Wuala are (in my opinion): a worse user experience, and user interface (which may be due to the fact that there are less interface designers and more encryption engineers at Wuala); and a higher memory usage (which is due to the fact that Wuala is Java based, and the encryption algorithms come at a price).


Error 23 trying to restore original iPad from iTunes Pulled my original iPad out of my bag after returning from vacation and it had an alert on screen saying it required activation. It connected to my home wi-fi fine but failed when trying to activate. After a bunch of retries it went in to recovery mode.

I installed latest iTunes (I'm on Windows 8.1 Pro) and started the restore process. However at the stage where it states it's verifying the restore with Apple (or something to that effect) it fails with the following message:

  The iPad "iPad" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (23).

I'm stuck. Tried everything I can think of. Any ideas?

From Resolve iOS update and restore errors

Check for hardware issues
Related errors: 1, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 1000, 1002, 1004, 1011, 1012, 1014, 1667, or 1669.

These errors mean that your device or computer may have a hardware issue that's preventing the update or restore from completing.

Check that your security software and settings aren't preventing your device from communicating with the Apple update server.
Then try to restore your iOS device two more times while connected with a cable, computer, and network you know are good.
Confirm that your security software and settings are allowing communication between your device and update servers.
If you still see the error message when you update or restore, contact Apple support.


Why does Chrome need access to Bluetooth? Shortly after updating to macOS v11 (Big Sur), I see:

Why does Chrome need Bluetooth?

Modern Web APIs allow web sites to run code that communicates with your Bluetooth devices using the Web Bluetooth API - after you have given permission in each specific instance.
This particular prompt gives Chrome access to Bluetooth, which is necessary for Chrome to be able to offer that functionality to web sites.
You can find some technical examples of Bluetooth usage made possible by the Web Bluetooth API here:
Web Bluetooth Samples
In regards to actual use, it could be useful for controlling almost any kind of Bluetooth-enabled device. Imagine for example a new smart home device that you could setup by visiting a web site - instead of having to install an app or similar. Other examples could be RFID scanners, receipt printers, busy-lights, and so on.
Here's a GitHub repository with code examples for various fun demos:
Web Bluetooth Demos
For example, it includes controlling racing cars, a toy plane, a receipt printer and an LED pixel display.


What is the latest operating system that my 2006 MacBook Pro will support? I have a 2006 15-inch MacBook Pro. I have upgraded the RAM to 3GB, and I have 9GB of free hard drive space.

I'm looking to upgrade the OS since it's currently running Snow Leopard (10.6.8), and not much software is compatible with it anymore.

I'm confused about how Apple states the system requirements for their operating systems because they list both technical specs such as RAM, processor, etc., and they also list compatible Mac models by year released, e.g. "MacBook Pro (Mid 2007 or newer)". OSXDaily also lists specific models by year but says that

  A common thread is the Mac must have a 64-bit CPU, which is typically
  an Intel Core 2 Duo or newer processor. Beyond that, the requirements
  are pretty soft and forgiving.

Here is my output from the System Profiler:

  Hardware Overview:

  Model Name:   MacBook Pro
  Model Identifier: MacBookPro2,2
  Processor Name:   Intel Core 2 Duo
  Processor Speed:  2.33 GHz
  Number Of Processors: 1
  Total Number Of Cores:    2
  L2 Cache: 4 MB
  Memory:   3 GB
  Bus Speed:    667 MHz
  Boot ROM Version: MBP22.00A5.B07
  SMC Version (system): 1.12f5
  Serial Number (system):   W86432AEW0L
  Hardware UUID:    00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F2C54B21
  Sudden Motion Sensor:   State:    Enabled

So my computer meets the tech specs, but it is a year older than the oldest stated supported model. Practically speaking, what is the latest Mac OS version this computer will be able to run?

MacTracker says this version MacBookPro2,2 can have Mac OS X 10.7.5 as maximum OS.

As 10.7.5 needs at least 2GB memory and you have 3GB, I think you would have no problem upgrading to 10.7.5.


Is there a way to see or edit Reminder locations in iCal? With iCloud it is possible to associate a location trigger with Reminders generated on an iOS 5 device, but there seems to be no way to view or edit these locations in iCal. Is that true?

Is there a way to see or edit the locations associated with iCloud Reminders within iCal?

Is there a way to see or edit the locations associated with iCloud Reminders within iCal?

In a word, "no".

Even in Mountain Lion Developer Preview with access to a standalone Reminders app (Reminders, or "todos" were removed from iCal - hooray!) there is no ability to see these from OS X.  Note, all this could change, ML is Beta after all.  But certainly in Lion and iCal, it's a straight no, and always will be.


iPhoto: How to only set the year of a picture? I use iPhoto to manage my pictures. Unfortunately I have many pictures from the 80s. These pictures are actually slides that I have scanned in during 2008. So my problem is that the creation date of all these pictures is set to the date when I scanned it in. Now I want to set the real date of these pictures. Unfortunately I don't know the exact date, but at least the year.

So is there any function available to only set the year field of a date without a specific date?

Select the photos you want to set a date for. In the menu, select Photos > Batch Change, then select date from the dialog pop-up.


AirPort Extreme not accepting ISP cable modem DHCP I've just recently changed the ISP and now have a cable modem, which only has one LAN port. Connecting here requires to use DHCP to get an IP address. Connecting my laptop works just fine and I get an IP immediately.

When I connect my AirPort Extreme to this port instead (with the intension to get the IP address assigned to it), while configuring it to share this public IP, it will not get an IP from the cable modem. It stays on 169.xxx.xxx.xxx and nothing happens. I have tried many different settings to just see if the router can get an IP from the cable modem using DHCP. No success.

Internally over wireless I can connect all my devices and they get IPs assigned by the AirPort Extreme DHCP, so this works fine.

At this point I don't know what might be the problem, but my guess is that the AirPort Extreme has some problem. I googled a bit, but found nothing that would solve this, so I thought someone might know here.

Thanks in advance!

Many cable modems will only provide DHCP for a small number of hosts, possibly only one. Resetting the modem by unplugging its power supply should let it forget what hosts it has provided IP addresses for, so you can start over.


10.8.2 DNS in hosts lookup slow As a web developer, I need to make a domain redirect to localhost. I modified the hosts file to do that. But I don't know why it always took so long to do the lookup.

How can I solve this?

Try using something like mysite.dev in the hosts file.

Further details in stackoverflow.


Cannot Connect to local HTTP Servers - Synology I have a network including multiple machines - PCs, Android, iOS, Mac devices and a Synology. My mac is running Catalina 10.15.4.

Everything connects to the Synology fine except the Mac over http or https.

I have connected Finder to the Synology shared drives using afp://<servername>.local.

All my other devices connect to any Synology hosted web sites fine using this address:

https://<servername>:port

Using this on the Mac just times out. However if I add the local suffix, or I use the IP address, it works:

https://<servername>.local:port
https://<ipaddress>:port

It pops up the self-signed cert warning (for the Synology cert) and then proceeds to the web site hosted on the Synology, such as GitLab or DSM Control Panel.

But seeing that I have all manner of scripts and repositories of code I can't just have one machine throwing such a curve ball into my configuration. It seems many people have had issues with Catalina networking from reading this thread on the Synology forums. The problems and solutions described there are primarily about Finder connections, which work fine for me.

From all my reading online it seems the solution everyone quotes is to add search domains.

So I added local as a search domain to my Wi-Fi adapters Preferences -> Network -> Wi-Fi -> Advanced -> DNS tab. Rebooted (several times now) and I still cannot get the Mac to browse to the sites. I've also tried .local.

Nothing seems to work.

I've also checked and confirmed that my mac is using the same DNS server as my PC and all that checks out fine too.

I've no active proxies. Also there is a *.local listed in the proxy bypass settings but that seems a reasonable setting. I've tried removing it and rebooting anyway but that didn't help.

nslookup servername

Server: 194.168.4.100
Address:194.168.4.100#53

Non-Authoritative answer:
Name: <servername>
Address: 92.242.132.24

dig servername

This seems to return a sensible response as it gets an answer from the server.

What other settings or configuration might help?

Switch to another local domain, such as .lan, instead of the reserved .local. Bonjour/ZeroConf reserves the use of .local. If you are using DHCP, your server can handle this configuration.

Alternatively, hardcode the server's IP address in /etc/hosts with the line:

a.x.y.z      <servername>


Is there a dashboard widget that has extended Unicode characters? I've been looking for a decent Unicode widget that allows access to some of the weirder characters like ✓ and ✗.

Does such a beast exist? I've tried a few and all of them seem kind of limited... Also, Apple's built-in character viewer doesn't indicate anything like HTML escape code or even Unicode number, I'd use that otherwise.

These ones I've tried:

Characterpal
Entitiy lookup
Asciitable

I couldn't find one, unfortunately. If you know the codes (which you can easily find from the web) you can enable the Unicode Hex input from System Preferences>Language and Text>Input Sources (it's near the bottom). That way, when you hold ALT, you can enter a Unicode symbol number for that symbol to appear.

Example: ALT+270E enters a ✎ pencil.


How to make Automator insert "AW" into a Stickies Note I tried using "Watch Me Do" in Automator to insert text "AW" and "Return" in a Stickies note. It recorded the following (Events were "Type 'AW'" and "Press Return", the rest is the expansion into code):

-- Type 'AW'

    delay 0.315949
    set timeoutSeconds to 2.000000
    set uiScript to "keystroke \"AW\""
    my doWithTimeout( uiScript, timeoutSeconds )

-- Press Return

    delay 2.538645
    set timeoutSeconds to 2.000000
    set uiScript to "keystroke \"
    \" "
    my doWithTimeout( uiScript, timeoutSeconds )

    on doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)
        set endDate to (current date) + timeoutSeconds
        repeat
            try
                run script "tell application \"System Events\"
    " & uiScript & "
    end tell"
                exit repeat
            on error errorMessage
                if ((current date) > endDate) then
                    error "Can not " & uiScript
                end if
            end try
        end repeat
    end doWithTimeout

In System Preferences, Security & Privacy, Privacy I allowed Automator.app and Stickies.app to control my computer.

I saved the above example as a service and tried executing the service in an empty Stickies note.  Nothing happened.

I'm new at trying to use Automator.  This is such a simple action that I believe that I have misunderstood something.

If I add to the workflow an existing Automator action that launches the Stickies application, then "AW" does get inserted, followed by "Return".

Question How to create a simple keyboard macro with Automator? shows a much simpler Applescript that could be adapted to doing what I describe (I've done such) but I'm frustrated that my simple "Watch Me Do" doesn't work.  What am I overlooking or not understanding?

The Stickies app is not scriptable, meaning it does not directly support AppleScript via a Stickies AppleScript Dictionary, so most coding is going to use System Events and what's generally referred to as UI Scripting to manipulate the Stickies app.

The example code below, will do the following:

Open Stickies.app and, or if already open, bring it to the front.
Create a new Stickies note.
Move the new note to the top left corner of the screen and set its size to the default size.
Type "AW" and "return", with "return" simulating the Enter key being pressed.

tell application "Stickies"
    activate
    delay 1
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "n" using command down
    set properties of window 1 of application process "Stickies" to {position:{0, 23}, size:{300, 200}}
    keystroke "AW" & return
end tell

This AppleScript code can be placed in a Run AppleScript action in an Automator Service workflow.

Note: One of the drawbacks of UI Scripting, is at times the needed use of the delay command to ensure the targeted UI Element is available to be acted upon. You may/will need to either adjust the value of any delay command and or add/remove additional delay commands as needed/wanted through any given UI Scripting scenario. The example code above, as is, worked on my system. If need be, make use of the delay command and adjust its value as/where needed/wanted.

Also the above example code does not employ any form of absolute error handling and is meant only to show how the individual events can be coded to achieve the objective. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.


How can I stop brew prune and brew upgrade from fighting? I am running Homebrew on 10.13.6, with the prefix /usr/local.

When I run brew upgrade, two directories are created in /usr/local/share.  These are: /usr/local/share/man/man2, and /usr/local/share/man/man6.  There are no files in these directories.

Meanwhile, whenever I run brew prune --verbose, I get the output:

rmdir /usr/local/share/man/man6
rmdir /usr/local/share/man/man2
Pruned 0 symbolic links and 2 directories from /usr/local

Whenever brew upgrade, these two troublesome directories are then re-created! The cycle continues, on and on and on.  I have repeatedly run brew update, brew cleanup, and brew doctor.  I have even reinstalled Homebrew and all my packages.  Yet, the eternal battle between brew upgrade and brew prune continues.

How can I get them to stop fighting?

There is an inelegant solution to this bug/inconsistency in the two functions of the tools: put any file in the directories in question.

Then  brew prune will stop removing them because they will no longer be empty.  If brew prune is no longer removing them, brew upgrade won't create them.  If you're concerned about space, you could even put an alias file in the directories.

In the grand scheme of things, having these empty folders create and then removed is a harmless side effect and doesn’t really break anything functionally.


How to upload photos from iPhone to iCloud Storage without being "managed" by sync? I'm not sure why I can't seem to find a simple answer to this question online, but here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I have 9.5GB of photos and videos on my iPhone that I want to back up to cloud storage. I am interested in using iCloud Storage for the simple fact that I am already paying for extra storage for my iPhone backup. But none of the options available (iCloud Photo Library, Photo Stream, iCloud Photo Sharing) fit what I want to do.

All I want to do is upload image files as backup files to iCloud Storage. I don't care if they are synced with my Apple devices or not, though I do not want edits/deletions on those devices to remove that same file from iCloud. So basically, no sync, no restrictions on number of files, just a plain upload for backup purposes.

Is there a way to accomplish this kind of iPhone-to-iCloud Storage photo transfer? If not, what are other safe, reliable options?

Thanks for your help and suggestions, and hopefully making some sense out of something that should be pretty straightforward IMO.

Solution 1: Manual Uploading/Tracking to Files.app
If you want to stick to iCloud Drive and achieve the this, you'll need to manually upload your photos to iCloud using Photos -> Select -> (Select Photos) -> Share -> Save to Files
In this method you'll have to manually keep track of the photos you've uploaded and the new ones that haven't been uploaded yet.
Solution 2: Google Photos for iOS
Google photos app for iOS brings the same

Free Photo and Video Storage

feature for iOS, which were initially advertised with the Google Pixel.
Note: Google Photos will automatically reduce your photo quality if you use the free plan.
In this method, the app handles the sync history and keeps track of the backup metadata for you, so you won't have to worry about uploading new photos manually.
App Store: Google Photos


IMessage not activating and can't select number to receive I got a new SIM card and now I message is not working. Firstly I could only select my e-mail address as the means of being reached and my number is not in bold and can't be ticked. Also when I turn I message activation off and back on again it comes up with an error and just says waiting for activation. Any ideas?

Apple servers need time to verify your information and to Activate iMessage uses, that can be as fast as 1 hour, or up to 24 hours in rare cases.

Some patience is required since it is your privacy apple is working on to protect.


How can I add a property to the window object in Chrome using Applescript? In Chrome's JavaScript Console, I can type the following:

window.myVar = "myValue";

I can then access myVar from the window context, where it returns "myValue". Excellent.

However, if I do the following in Applescript:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    execute front window's active tab javascript "window.myVar = 'myValue';"
end tell

This execute statement appears to run when the script is called. No errors are thrown, and the Chrome window exists. But when I try to reference myVar from the window context, only undefined is ever returned. For testing purposes, I added in an alert statement after that declaration - the alert WILL fire, but myVar remains unset.

Now, in Safari, using do JavaScript with this same code works as if I'd typed the code directly into the console - myVar returns a value.

Why doesn't Chrome fire these statements when called by Applescript when it can be done manually?
(Chrome 51.0.2704.84, OS X 10.11.5)

I discovered a workaround. Might not be the best, but the following line executes the JavaScript I have in mind while also setting properties of window:

tell front window of application "Google Chrome"
    set URL of active tab to "javascript:" & window.myVar = "myValue"
end tell

Using this, myVar properly returns "myValue". Nice.


Using XQuartz for communicating to the Centos server using local graphical user interface I wonder how to use XQuartz to communicate with the Centos server through a local graphical user interface on my Mac? I did the following steps so far, and the result so far is just connect to the server through terminal.

Server side:

Installed gdm on the server.
Switched run level to 5.

Client side:

Installed XQuartz on my Mac OS 10.8.
On Terminal: ssh X root.website.com.

Update

After doing what @onik suggested (using the xterm instead of terminal, created a new user other than root, and entered the command gnome-session), I get the following warnings before xterm halts:

You don't need to switch to runlevel 5, this only means that the server boots into the GUI, not that it's useable. You can use runlevel 3 and launch remote X sessions.

Furthermore, you'll have to use xterm to start the SSH session, not Terminal.app. If you run XQuartz it should open it by default. Then run ssh -X root.website.com to open the session and from this session you can launch the needed applications. If you need the entire desktop, run gnome-session & or your desired VM.

Note that you need to have X11Forwarding yes in your /etc/ssh/sshd.conf.


Is there a newer version of Office for the MacOS anytime soon? I was wondering if Microsoft is planning to release Office 2012 anytime soon ? Shall I wait for it or purchase Office 2011 ?

Unlikely,

"traditionally" new Microsoft Office for Mac follow new releases of Microsoft Office for Windows:

MS Office 2007 (Win) → MS Office 2008 (Mac) (released January 15, 2008)
MS Office 2010 (Win) → MS Office 2011 (Mac) (released October 26, 2010)

The currently developed version of Microsoft Office for Windows is MS Office 2013. So you can expect the next version for Mac to be MS Office 2014 which should start shipping anywhere between late 2013 and 2014.


HTML videos not playing on Sierra 10.12.6 I'm using rMBP 13" mid-2014 and I'm NOT updating to High Sierra, but even good old Sierra is not as stable as older versions of MacOS.

Sometimes I can't play videos, I press play and nothing happens, YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, everything is down. Usually restarting browser(s) helped and normally it happened only in one browser at a time but a few minutes ago I had to restart my Mac, because every single browser I have (Chrome, Opera, Safari, Firefox) couldn't play a thing and restarting them did nothing.

Is it a known issue? How to fix that?

The first thing I'd probably do is start your Mac in Safe Mode and test to see if you can play videos fine?

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. can you play videos okay now?)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Again, take a note of what happens (i.e. can you play videos okay now?)

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, let me know how you went and we'll go from there. Primarily we need to establish if everything works okay in Safe Mode or not. If so, we need to then establish whether videos can play okay when booting normally afterwards.