Reverting back to 10.6 from 10.8 , but did not back up my machine while on 10.6 I need to know how I can revert back to 10.6 while not losing my documents.

I upgraded to 10.8 ML and I did not do a back up prior to upgrading.

I do have a current 10.8 Time Machine backup.

Can I do a clean install from 10.6 CD and then restore my iphoto and other documents? Is there perhaps an easier way to rectify my problem?

The method you mention first is your best hope for going backwards. It will not work well and many programs may have changed - if so, you will get an error message if the older program were programmed to detect this backwards migration of data.

The system stores data in databases scattered in some non-obvious locations:

Contacts (Address Book)
Calendar (iCal)

So, you can also export the data from these programs or check that the data is in iCloud or some other sync service. Then you can see if those programs work back on 10.6 - iCloud won't since it's 10.7.2 or later and Mobile Me is no longer working so for that sort of data, you need to export everything you need to move back to 10.6 (Bookmarks, People, Events) to your desktop and make one last backup using Time Machine.

Now, you mentioned iPhoto - that too could be problematic, but the good news is the OS update doesn't include iPhoto. As long as you run the same version of the app from before the downgrade (from 10.8) to after the downgrade (to 10.6) - your iPhoto library file should work just fine.

Apple's Migration Assistant won't move the program and it's support files and settings backwards from 10.8 to 10.6, so you will need the original iPhoto install and have to reinstall all third party apps that are more than a simple program you can copy from /Applications.

So to make this long explanation short:

Apple's migration assistant will not help you move files or programs
Time Machine stores backups in a plain folder so you can use Finder to connect any TM backup drive to a cleanly installed Mac and copy any and all files by hand - you just have to know which files to move and how to work through any errors when a file or database is too new for an older program to use.


How can I upgrade MacBook Pro disk space? I have a fairly new MBP with a 256 GB SSD. I am running out of disk space now. Most of it is being used by Pictures and Music and I have done all the cleaning I could.

What's the best way to upgrade the space on the MBP?

Go to Apple Store and ask them to upgrade to 512 GB?
I was wondering if I could hook up a 1 TB NAS to the network and mount it and try to move some folders to that drive?

You could probably go with your 1st option from an Apple Service provider or DIY, but Apple doesn't upgrade storage on any shipping Mac. The last one to offer that was the Mac Pro which had no-tool, user swappable hard drive bays.

Your 2nd option will tie your laptop to the network providing the NAS for full operation. You would want an iSCSI initiator for the fastest storage, but NAS would be just fine for large files and folders you access infrequently.

I propose a third option: external storage.

I taped a 1TB SSD to the lid of my MBP. Not that attractive but very effective. Thunderbolt is the fastest DAS (direct attached storage vs network attached storage) but USB 3 is no slouch either.

Be sure to tape the connector and cables as well to prevent jiggle disconnects.

I didn't care about the looks. Consider this a proof of concept (tape is enduring nearly one year :-) So there is enough room for improvement. But I'm very happy with this solution. I travel daily with this setup with all my music and stuff.

Pictures of opened lid


Can automatic numbered list formatting be turned off in notes? I'm running notes Version 4.7 (1111.23) on macOS Catalina (10.15.6) and I have a couple documents I want to disable bullets and number formatting.
In TextEdit, the number formatting isn't as aggressive as in Pages or Notes and I wonder if I'm missing a way to disable that either all together in Notes app or better to disable it on the few notes where I just want to type and not get assistance in numbering.
To be clear - I understand that after I type the following, it corrects my typing and prompts for another dash list entry:
-spacetestspacereturn
Similarly, when I type:
1.spacetestspacereturn
... the number and period and space engage the automatic numbered list and return makes 2. show up automagically.
I know I can change the text later among bulleted, list and number. The change I wish is to not have the app change my text at all on a document where I type numbers and period and then a space.
Can automatic numbered list / number formatting be turned off in Notes?

The option is Edit - Substitution - Smart Lists. Turn it off and it won't auto-format lists anymore. This option seems only available on macOS though.


How to unlock an iPhone 5C? My brother-in-law works at a bar. He has had an iPhone 5C there for months, so he took it and tried to find the owner's phone number so he could contact them about their phone, but iCloud didn't let him get far.

Months went by without anyone coming back to claim it. Now he has given it to me. I have tried my hardest to find at least a number to call but nothing.

Any suggestions how to get the phone unlocked or extract the owner's phone number?

Though this is in effect a duplicate of How can I bypass Activation Lock? as it's a nice clean question, looking for a legitimate solution - to which only the police or perhaps network provider might be able to assist.

It does, however give an opportunity for a lesson in "be prepared".

In this circumstance, or indeed if you were in an accident - if the authorities can't get in your phone they may not even know who you are..

Solution - 5 minutes in Photoshop or Gimp…

Put your ICE on your lock screen.

The picture needs to be 200px larger than your screen resolution in both directions, because of the parallax/motion effect, & it might need a couple of attempts to get the text out of the way of the Slide to Unlock, but it's well worth it for peace of mind.


"Other storage" taking up most of hard drive I am having an issue on my wife's MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10.5 (late 2012 13-inch retina). The hard drive is only 120 GB, but the "other" category in the About this Mac storage option is taking up over 81 GB. I've tried following a number of turorials online including cleaning up mail cache, downloads, browser cache, etc. to little avail.

My question is, is this expected? I feel like 81 GB for other storage is a bit excessive, but I can't find any files large enough to indicate this should be an issue (including browsing almost her entire user directory and looking at folder sizes).

Anything you could offer would help.

Other storage could refer to anything that OS X doesn't recognize as one of the storage categories (music, videos...) In order to find the source of the files, I would recommend checking the size of folders to determine where large files are. In order to see the size of a folder, right click it and click "get info". You should be able to use this to locate the source of the problem.


Stop Finder/OSX From creating TemporaryItems and .apdisk on Network shares I'm looking for some way to configure OSX to prevent it creating .apdisk files and .TemporaryItems folders on network shares.

These are created any time OSX accesses a shared folder on the network.

In searching, some possible solutions I've found include:

Stop using the Application (Finder)
Mark the share(s) as read-only
Ignore them
Use 3rd party software (such as BlueHarvest) to remove the files.
Schedule a cron script to delete these files.

Unfortunately the first three options are not workable for me, and I'd rather not have to buy licences or schedule clean-ups on the file servers.

Is there a way to configure OSX not to create these in the first place?

(Finder is connecting via AFP to the network shares, for what it's worth)

Edit, approx 1 year later: Please note that I'm not looking for a cleanup solution.

BlueHarvest (if you have a mac to run it on), and scheduled cleanup scripts are fine - but less than ideal. I really need a solution which prevents OSX from creating these files in the first place.
At this point in time, it appears Apple don't provide such a configuration option which is disappointing.

Open Terminal.
Execute this command: defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
Either restart the computer or log out and back in to the user account.

Reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629


Change the icon of all the folders on mac I want to change the default folder icon to something nicer.
please help

Most standard system wide icons for the macOS are stored here:
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

The folder icon in which you're interested is named GenericFolderIcon.icns.

If you're running Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11) or later, due to System Integrity Protection, you won't be able to modify these files.

However, if you turn off System Integrity Protection, you'll gain the ability to edit the icon files. Here're instructions:

Boot into recovery mode (boot while holding down ⌘R)
Open the terminal
Type csrutil disable.
Reboot normally.
Now edit the icon file(s).
Repeat steps 1–4 to re-enable System Integrity protection, except that the Terminal command you'll use is csrutil enable.

Needless to say, be very careful when turning off System Integrity Protection and editing system files. There's a lot of potential to royally screw things up when doing so.

For step 5, you'll need some sort of program that can edit or generate ICNS files. Your best bet is probably to search around this site or with Google to find recommendations. You may have to try several options before you find something that fits your needs.


Network disconnect causes leftover directory under /Volumes I have the following issue on Snow Leopard (10.6.8) after mounting a network drive (⌘+K in Finder. When I disconnect the laptop from the network without dismounting the drive, I get the Finder notification that the drive is no longer available, where I usually click "Disconnect All". This still leaves a leftover directory in /Volumes, which doesn't get deleted.

So if I mount the drive foo, a directory /Volumes/foo is created for the mount. This directory is still there after disconnecting the network cable and confirming to disconnect the drive. The next time I mount the same foo share, a new directory /Volumes/foo-1 is created etc.

This is causing some trouble with scripts (or Unison, which I point to /Volumes/foo), since the expected mount point is not the same (/Volumes/foo is empty in this case).

Is there any way to automatically remove this directory after the disconnect I described above?

This happens to me on a regular basis when I put the MacBook to sleep, remove the network cable and then want to work e.g. on the train without being connected to the network.

Update
After observing this issue for a couple of months now (I'm still on Snow Leopard), I've noticed the following: The folder /Volumes/foo is not removed even with the network cable in when removing the mount through Finder. To clarify:

Open Finder, press ⌘+K
Select a Samba drive to mount, e.g. smb://server/foo
This will be mounted in /Volumes/foo, make sure you can browse it through Finder
Click the Eject button next to the share in Finder
The directory /Volumes/foo is not removed

As a consequence, when I try to mount the same share again, another directory /Volumes/foo-1 is created, etc.

Not an answer, just to let you know that I cannot emulate your problem in a similar setup, and that you might have a problem.

I have an iMac with 10.6.8 and a MacBook with 10.8.1. Sometimes I forget to eject the connected volume on the iMac before I shut down the MacBook, and then the mounted volume remains as an image on the Desktop and in the sidebar of any open folder. I then simply click the eject-symbol in the folder sidebar or right-click on the desktop symbol and tell finder to eject the volume. It disappears. Now, looking in my /Volumes (in Finder as well as in Terminal), there is no remaining network volume. Maybe ejecting it did the trick.

Now, if I do NOT eject the remaining volume after I shut down the MacBook (or put it to sleep) and then boot (or wake) it and connect it again, the remaining volume icon on the desktop disappears and a new one appears. If I check under /Volumes (in Finder and Terminal), there is only one connected volume. (I did not shut down the iMac or do anything, except shut down the MacBook and start it (or put it to sleep and wake it) and connect it again.)

I do not get a Finder notification, that the drive is no longer available, either. If I try and access the disconnected drive by double clicking on the icon on the desktop, I can even browse its contents, until it automatically disappears when I reach I point where I have not been during this connection (open a subfolder that has not yet been opened).


Dotted underlines in Word for Macbook users 2011 I am doing an editorial job and need to underline some words with red dotted underlines. How do you do this using Word for Mac users? The version I have is 2011, on a MacBook with Snow Leopard software.

Select the text you want to underline, right click and select 'font'.

Now you can set the underline style and color.


Any way to prevent a notification from appearing in Notification Center? I'm writing a simple AppleScript to create periodic notifications, but I don't want those notifications to accumulate in Notification Center. Is there any way to keep them from appearing there, or to expire them, or to delete them?

Open the notification centre
Press the little cog icon on the bottom right
Find your application in the list
Select your application and unselect "Show in notification center".


How can I pair my Apple keyboard and mouse to multiple Macbooks Pro? I would like to use my Apple wireless keyboard and mouse with my work and personal Macbook without having to pair them every time. Is there a simple way to pair with multiple Macbooks and switch between them?

You can pair several but they tend to auto pair with the first beacon and not the computer you want.

Usually you can force a pair from the current machine but I’d recommend getting a device that has a button to have the keyboard choose which Bluetooth module to pair or get a KVM.


What is an quick way to create a new blank file in Lion? In Windows, one can create a new file using Right Click -> Add New -> Type of File. Is there an analogous action in Lion?

I just want to create a new blank file on my Desktop.

A simple drag-and-drop solution works for me.

Create a folder called "New documents". In this folder, save a blank document of each type you want. In my case, I have a blank TextEdit document (.rtf) and a blank TextMate document (.txt).

Lock this folder (select, cmd-I, click 'Locked').

Put the folder in the Dock.

Now, whenever you want a new document, you simply drag it from this Dock folder to wherever you want it. Because the "New documents" folder is locked, the original won't be deleted; rather, the Mac will make a copy for you.


How to calculate a date field in Numbers I'm using a date field as a conditional element. If cell A1 which is date field is empty (no date has been entered yet), then leave the cell A2 blank. If there is a date entered into A1, run a calculation (which I already have).

Thanks

There is an IsEmpty() function in Numbers for this, so the formula probably will look something like

=if(IsEmpty(CELL-REFERENCE),"",YOUR-FORMULA)


Remove item from Context Menu I noticed extra options pop up in my context menus, I'm not sure how I managed to get it (or how long ago I installed this item), but does anyone know how I can remove it? Particularly the iconStiX item, which doesn't work.
I've tried looking in /Library/Context Menu Items, but there's nothing there

+1 if you can tell me where it came from.

I've just installed and then uninstalled iconStiX again - just to see where the stuff was placed.

The uninstall is like this (see Readme.pdf in iconStiX.dmg):

  Throw away the following 4 items into the Trash:

the iconStiX program in your Applications folder (or any other place of your choice)
in your ~/Library/Preferences:

li.loos.trollin.iconStiX.plist
li.loos.trollin.iconStiX.LSSharedFileList.plist (if any)

a folder named iconStiX in your ~/Library/Application Support folder

  Empty the Trash.

BUT this doesn't remove the Contextual Menu Items - unless you reboot your Mac (I did that, and the items was gone).


Is there an 802.11ac Airport Extreme card available for older Mac Pro machines? When I built my Mac Pro 3,1 machine (Early 2008) back in the day, I chose not to get an Airport Extreme card since I only intended to connect it via an Ethernet cable. However, I've noticed that the new Yosemite Handoff feature apparently requires not only Bluetooth 4.0 but also 802.11ac. There is some debate on the web as to whether just getting USB dongles will work, but I figure it is worth seeing if any official products exist seeing how the mini-PCI port used for the Airport Extreme seems to have been used across several models of Macs.

Is there an 802.11ac Airport Extreme adapter on the market that would work in an old Mac Pro like the macpro3,1? The purpose is to enable Handoff, nothing more.

The Apple Broadcom BCM94331CD adapter will add 802.11 a/b/g/n with Bluetooth 4.0 to an older Mac Pro, while the Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD adapter will enable 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac support (the primary difference between the two adapters being 802.11 ac).

You can easily DIY by finding suitable parts on eBay or Amazon and following instructions on forum sites such as MacRumors and elsewhere.

If you're running Yosemite and want to take advantage of Continuity, you'd then just need to buy a third-party Bluetooth 4.0 USB dongle that utilizes the Broadcom BCM20702 chipset (e.g. Asus BT400, IOGEAR GBU521, GMYLE 3340).

A far easier — albeit more expensive option — is to install an aftermarket Wi-Fi + Bluetooth "upgrade kit" from either OS X WiFi or MacVidCards, which will add 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and enable Bluetooth 4.0 LE.

With the necessary hardware requirements met for Continuity, you could then use the Continuity Activation Tool to enable support for your particular Mac model.

You'll then get full native support for all of the new features in OS X 10.10 Yosemite that are part of Continuity, including Handoff, Instant Hotspot and the new AirDrop.


Problem with mounting NTFS USB HDD via Tuxera in Lion I've just updated to Lion and noticed that I cannot mount my NTFS USB HDD. I'm using Tuxera and it gives me the error listed below.

Has anybody encountered this error? Any working solution will be appreciated, thanks in regards.

Tuxera NTFS could not mount /dev/disk1s1
at /Volumes/MYHDD because the following problem occurred:

CBCIO activated with:
  cp.fildes=3
  cp.blockSize=524288
  cp.items=32
  cp.mode=1
  cp.flushInterval=1000
/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) link error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).
the MacFUSE file system is not available (71)
__ntfs_volume_release(): Inode 9 still have 1 references.

I had the same problem, and after a search over the web, I found the following updated package of macfuse that worked for me: http://www.tuxera.com/mac/macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.dmg


Is this an iCloud sync/backup or do I have a data leak? What are these pictures showing my iPhone's screen is doing? I had no open video apps and was no streaming anything in Safari nor was Safari or Tv app open but it says data:video - Why data if a video?

Is this is just iCloud and if it is, then it’s occurring across my WiFi not my cellular data, correct?

I’m trying to figure out what sporadically spikes data usage on several iPhones around the same time. (Yes we have family share but this began way before that).

Every few months, the data on every cell phone under my account seems to spike 3X it’s normal usage or more - even though we use WiFi at home religiously.

Because of this, I can’t reduce my cellular plan since the overage charges in months with high data usage would negate any cost savings. I’d like to chalk it up to cellular carrier conspiracy but joking aside.

Any tips how to check what’s eating data beyond looking in my settings (inconclusive) are much appreciated.

P.S.: Probably unrelated but a long time ago, my son thought he’d isolated it to some iOS games (talking animal head apps or some such) and after deleting the games on phones installed issue resolved for about a year and a half but it’s back.

The picture displays the playback controls on the device. The name listed that you point out (the "data:video/..." part) is actually a description of the last thing you've played back.

In case of internet content on a web site for example, this would typically be a URL for a video file.

In this case it is actually a URL starting with "data:". This is a special URL that is constructed so that the actual contents of the video is actually embedded in the URL.

This is becoming a more popular technique on web page to embed content (icons, graphics, small "gifs" or similar) on web pages without having to refer to external resources. I.e. this content appears instantly with the rest of the page as it is actually loaded with the source of the web page itself.

To sum it up: What you're seeing is perfectly normal. It is not a data leak, nor does it have anything to do with an iCloud Sync or backup. It is just an indication that you have recently visited a web page (or similar) that featured a piece of embedded content.


FCPX: Select all stills in timeline I have a twenty minute project containing hundreds of clips and stills. I'd like to apply a Ken Burns effect to all the stills without affecting the clips. Is there an easy way to select only the stills in the timeline?

The fastest way I was able to find by fiddling with the UI is as follows:

Create a new role called "Stills" in the menu bar under Modify > Edit Rolls...

Select everything (both clips and stills) in the main timeline.
Open the index, click the roles tab and uncheck "Video". That way all the stills turn gray and only the videos remain blue (since they contain audio with a role of "Dialogue").

That makes it easy to then manually deselect all the videos by holding command and clicking on them in the timeline.

Now, with only the stills selected, right click the selection and choose Assign Video Roles to assign the newly created "Stills" role.
Finally head back to the clips tab of the index, right click in the column header and make sure Video Roles is displayed. Then type "stills" in the search box. You can then cmd + a the resulting list to repeatedly select only the stills in the timeline.


Mac HDD still losing space after deleting files I'm working on videos. I'm capturing them with a software and I save them as MP4. Then I compress them as MOV. After that I upload them to YouTube. However I lose about 1.5 GB from my hard disk while I'm doing this. (I delete these videos after I upload.)

How can I fix this situation?

it could be just used a swap space that should be cleared up by a reboot (probably some terminal command too).

Could also be you are on a laptop with time machine and have mobile backups enabled (aka local snapshots).


Setting Color Tags in iCloud Drive for iOS I am currently using iCloud Drive with my Mac and iPad. On the Mac, I am able to add color labels to documents and folders to better organize my files.

I am wondering if it is possible to add these kinds of labels and colors to documents and folders in iCloud from my iPad?

As far as I have found this is not possible using the iCloud Drive app for iOS.


Debugging Server connection interrupted messages I'm suffering at irregular intervals on my network with:

Does anyone have some practical advice how to limit this? I don't understand what the problem is. The new Macbook Air with Mountain Lion has no problem pinging 192.168.1.2 (the Time Capsule) on my home network.

I had the same problem and wrote this post with the answer:
The fix is to remove/disable /System/Library/LoginPlugins/FSDisconnect.loginPlugin
The following steps should sort you out:

Click on the spotlight icon (magnifying glass) in the upper right of your screen

Type in ‘terminal’

Click the ‘Terminal’ icon (black with white border) under applications

Type in the following command (and hit enter):
sudo mv /System/Library/LoginPlugins/FSDisconnect.loginPlugin /System/

It will prompt you for your user password. Type it and hit enter again

Reboot

This just moves the plugin to /System so you can restore it again if needed by replacing step #4 with sudo mv /System/FSDisconnect.loginPlugin /System/Library/LoginPlugins/.


Backing up external hard drive shared by two macs to network share without duplication In my household, there is a MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, both of which backup to a NAS via Time Machine. There is also a portable external hard drive that we use for storing large media files. I would like the external hard drive to backup to the NAS when it's connected to either laptop, without duplicating files on the backup. Is this possible?

The only solution I can think of would be to have one machine exclude half the contents of the external drive from backups and have the other machine exclude the other half, so each machine's backup sparsebundle would include half the contents of the external drive, but that's a terribly inelegant solution.

Another solution is don't use time machine for this type of backup.

I use Chronosync (a GUI for sync) and in this case the scheduler would just skip the sync if the volume is not available. If it is available it would sync the drive to the NAS. You could also use Carbon Copy Cloner for this function.

If you feel comfortable with the terminal and you don't want to pay the money for Chronosync or its ilk, then rsync and chron could also be used.

Good luck!


Could Not Activate Cellular Data Network This is not the first time I’ve had this problem, nor is it the least frustrating time I’ve had this problem, as the first time this happened to me I fixed it within twenty minutes. I’ve read countless articles and forums with people who have had the same problem, and I have at no point found a solution that works this time, and the people at Tracfone are no help either.
Here are the facts:
I use Tracfone.
I just bought a new factory unlocked iPhone 6s off of Ebay from a well known and reviewed seller.
Last night I transferred my service from my old iPhone 6 to this new phone; new sim card, called tracfone, etc. The works.
Today I once again ran into the dreaded “could not activate cellular data” message, even though last night I made a successful call on my phone and my number and service have transferred.
The message says “you are not subscribed to a cellular data service”, which is a message I haven’t gotten before.
Upon calling Tracfone and sitting on the phone with a rep for over two hours, I was told this was not something Tracfone could fix, and I would need to call Apple instead.
He had me try to configure my APN settings to no avail, as even though my phone tells me I have no profiles downloaded, trying to configure the APN just gives me a message saying something about not being able to have more than one config at once.

If anyone has any solution at all I’m willing to give it a try. Honestly, anything to not have to sit on the phone with a Tracfone rep for another two hours. Please. Spare me.

Your carrier is passing the buck. Apple has nothing to do with cellular activation unless you buy the phone directly from Apple. The carrier should know that and treat you to correct explanations.

Try reviewing the swappa article on IMEI / MEID / ESN

https://swappa.com/faq/answer/share_esn_numbers

You are likely buying blocked devices and should contact the seller if possible to arrange return and refund unless the listing says clearly these are for parts and not operational. Ebay might be of help if you can’t get the seller to assist or explain the device isn’t blocked if your research shows the issue is a blocked device.


Display all current OS & 3rd party keyboard bindings Is there any way to:

display all native and 3rd party keyboard bindings in one place, similar to how Atom or Visual Studio Code IDEs can?
OR...allow me to type a keyboard shortcut and tell me the recipient app of the command (to find out what app gets triggered by a shortcut?)

My situation:

I have a "rogue" app somewhere on my system that owns a keyboard shortcut I want to use for other purposes (CMD + Shift + 5)
CMD + Shift + 5 on my Mac currently triggers some sort of screenshot app
The mysterious screen-shot app works in a modal view, so I can't find the app name. It does not appear in the menubar
I've looked in Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts and other places but no luck.

I did not find a solution that could show the info I needed.

I ended up just deleting all the screenshot apps on my Mac until the keyboard conflict went away. Turns out it was an app called "Annotate", but that isn't really relevant.

Unfortunately I didn't find any solution for showing all currently mapped keyboard shortcuts on the Mac across ALL apps.


Shortcut for switching contents of monitors I have a three monitor setup: my MacBook screen and two external displays. The first external display is my primary monitor, in the sense that it is directly in front of me; and the other display is secondary. (The laptop screen is used for less important things.)

I often have a full screen terminal on one external display and a maximised web browser open on the other. However, because I prefer the display in front of me, rather than turning my head, I find myself regularly swapping the contents of one display with the other. I do this by swiping up for Mission Control, then dragging the maximised browser to the other screen, then dragging the full-screen terminal over to replace it.

This isn't a difficult or particularly slow process, but it feels suboptimal, given how often I do this (many times a day). Is there a better way?

This shortcut might help

fn ⌘ ↓ - combines the contents of both screens into one


How to copy data from non starting MBA? My old MBA (2008) is not booting anymore from hdd. I tried to repair it with disk repair and with a DiskWarrior CD-ROM, but nothing. I need to copy some data from the hdd, before replacing it.

Any ideas on how to do that?

I would started with getting that drive out of MBA with the instruction from iFixit for example.

Then I would buy one of these IDE to 40 pin ZIF adapters and find yourself old PC or Mac with IDE connection.

Fire up DiskWarrior or R-Studio (on Windows) or better and cheaper with DDRescue.
If you want to check if HDD is physically sound you might also try MHDD or Victoria tools (they are DOS and Windows only though).

And if you want to replace that HDD better go with SSD. At least 64GB SSD will do big boost to this old bugger. Provided you have Nvidia in yours. If it is intel I would just replace HDD and sell it.


Re-installing iTunes 12.2 I am not happy with iTunes 12.3 (it constantly asks for my Apple ID) and I would like to re-install iTunes 12.2.

Where can I find the 12.2 version?
Will replacing 12.3 by 12.2 lose my music files and other personal data like rankings, subscribed podcasts, playlists, etc?

This would appear to be the epitome of an XY Problem…

Rather than go to all that effort, would it not be simpler to just set your password requirement to 'Never' ?


Is there a way to create a polar plot in Numbers? I am trying to do a polar plot, or radar chart as excel calls them, for a report. I don't have excel, only Numbers, is there a way to do that type of plot with Numbers? I can't seem to find a way. The closest thing to a polar plot that I was able to create was a point cluster with the data transformed from polar to cartesian coordinates, but this doesn't center the axis at 0,0.

An app called Radars on the Apple App Store generates polar plots for you to import to your Numbers documents. That's what it says in the description, I however have not tried it yet.


Open new Numbers document in older Numbers I have a Numbers (v3.5) file from a Yosemite install. I have since abandoned Yosemite (here is why WindowServer high CPU on Yosemite).

Now I cannot open this file in Mavericks' Numbers (v2.3) app. I do not want to upgrade my whole OS X to open a single file.

Is there a way around this other than upgrading to Yosemite or finding a machine with Yosemite on it?

This is a hack, but assuming that your document won't be damaged by undergoing some slight changes, here is what I would do.

Logon to www.iCloud.com, and open Numbers. If it isn't there, go to beta.iCloud.com.
Upload the new Numbers document to iCloud and then open the document in your browser.
Select Download a Copy from the settings menu (as seen in the screenshot below) and choose to save it as a Word document.
Open the Word document in Numbers and save/export in whatever format you wish.

Alternate Approach:

You could, depending on the nature of the document, send it to a friend who has Yosemite and ask them to export it to the Numbers '09 format.

Other Options:

If I were you, and did want to mess with importing/export I'd probably try CloudConvert.com.
This article claims you may be able to revert the document, although the fact that you can't open it in the first place would seem to negate that option.


Black bars on external display I am connecting my 2015 MacBook Air 13" to an external display via the Thunderbolt-to-VGA adapter.  There are black bars on each side of the external display screen.  How can I remove the bars?

Macbook Air 13" (Early 2015)
LG Flatron E2360
Dell Thunderbolt to VGA Adapter.

The vertical black bars appear when the MacBook screen resolution and the external display screen resolution is not in the same ratio.

To fix that, when you connect to the screen, there is a prompt to choose which screen resolution you want to use. It’s either MacBook or the external display. This is how vanilla MacOS works.

Or, go Apple Menu --> System Preferences -->  "Displays" pane  set your preferred monitor resolutions there.


Icons remains the same after I have changed the default program for opening the file I have just uninstalled a program from my new mac. The program was making itself default to open all .r files. I installed a new program, and I maked it default for opening .r files, but the old icon of the files remains. The icon of the old program is stil at every .r-files.

How can I update the icons of the .r-files, so they view the icons of the new program? And why do this icon still exist at my mac, can I remove the icon of the old program?

You can try to rebuild LaunchServices database from Terminal:

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

Path to lsregister on Mavericks is:

  /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister


USB Drive Will Not Mount, Not Listed in Disk Utilities, but Found In System Profiler I have a Seagate FreeAgent Go drive with the optional docking station.  I use it to keep files that I don't access on a regular basis and as a place to do "quick backups" of things like my Paperless library or my Lightroom Catalog.  This morning, I saw a message on my desktop (I didn't shut down) that I failed to eject it properly.

Now it will not mount.

If I run

diskutil list

it dosen't show up at all.  It's not there.  Period.

However, in system profiler, it shows up under the USB, but not under the storage.

Ok.  So I thought my drive is dying.  If I plug it into another computer, it works perfectly.  In fact, I plugged it into a Surface RT of all things and I was able to read and write with no problem.  It also works on another Mac (MBP 10.10.3) I go back to my iMac with 10.10.3 and nothing—it's like it dosen't exist.

Here's the kicker: I have another FreeAgent Go drive, exact same model and size as the one that dosen't work, and if I plug it in to the exact same dock, it works.

I have checked my console logs and the only thing that comes up when plug in the failed drive is the error message

  USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 0x00000000 0xbc2 0x2100 0x0, 2

I have removed all USB drives, did a warm reboot, a cold reboot and even a reboot in safe mode: no joy.

Everything I have searched for has something about not being able to boot and the fix is repairing the disk via recovery console.  That's not my issue.  I can boot just fine.  I just can't read this USB HDD.

Anyone else run into this?

I just started having this exact same problem with my FreeAgent Go drive which has always been working perfectly.  Like the original poster I cannot see the drive in Disk Utility but it does show up in System Information.  After a little more digging I found that the OS is trying to repair the volume BEFORE letting Disk Utility see it via an process named "fsck_hfs".  When I force quit that process in Activity Monitor (it's owned by Root so you'll need to give it permission), the volume immediately appeared in Disk Utility.  I'm running a repair on it now - fingers crossed.  My guess is that since this is formatted HFS+ Journaled something about the journal consistency got flagged and the OS is attempting to repair it from the journal.  I'm shocked that they hide it from Disk Utility while it's happening though - much better would have been to display the drive there without mounting the partition, and display a message that this is being done.  Oh well at least I can see why Windows would mount it but OSX won't now (any OSX machine would start performing the same repair process).


How to stop some devices from receiving my iMessages? I want to receive iMessages with my iPhone and iPad. I have one small issue being that my iCloud account is shared with my family.

How do I make sure my relatives don't see all of my iMessages appearing on their devices? Is there a way I can select only my iPhone and iPad to receive the messages?

The only way you can do what you want is to turn off iMessage in each device that uses the same AppleID, where you do not wish it to receive iMessages associated with the AppleID.

I too share my AppleID  with my family, but I share it so that there is a singular iTunes account where all devices can access the apps and music purchased on the shared account. (Family share does not work well).

The trick is have multiple AppleIDs.  Dedicate one to iTunes, but then provide one for each user for iCloud.  I don't want messages, photos, and other iCloud connected items to be shared, so the shared AppleID is used ONLY for iTunes. For iCloud uses, each person has their own AppleID, that they use for iCloud purposes.  These family members do not use their own iCloud accounts for iTunes.

iTunes AppleID: all devices log into iTunes using this AppleID
Personal AppleID: each device is logged into iCloud using a personal AppleID.


Is there any way to sort "Faces" alphabetically in the new Photos App for OSX? In the new Photos app, you can still use face detection (or manual face tagging) to label faces, so you can easily pull up all pictures with a certain person in them, etc.
Faces now lives in the "Albums" tab, where there's essentially a "faces" folder.  But when you open it...

...there seem to be two categories:

A few "featured" faces on top, which are larger (I'm not sure if these are "most recent" or "most photos"
All the other (smaller) faces.

How can I sort the full list of (smaller) faces in some way that lets me find a specific one.  Like, alphabetically, say?
I have ~300 tagged faces, so browsing by face is simply not efficient when I'm looking for a specific person.

There's now a sort by name feature! In Photos version 1.2, you can go to the Faces view and then do View > Sort > Keep Sorted By Name. Ridiculously, this is apparently turned off by default if you upgraded from a previous version.

Anyway, this will make my use of Photos way way easier. (I have 1400+ faces.)


Self-updating textfield in Pages 6.2 I'm new with using Pages, and testing it for writing a spec for a small software project.

As the spec should be a frequently kept up-to-date document, I would like to have a textfield on the front page that says "Last edited dd.mm". If this text could be made to auto-update, for example on every save or just generally, this would be a major boon.

What I've found so far is that I can insert the current date from the menu - but that does not update the text without selecting it and clicking "Set to today" afaik. An option is to show the revision number, if that is somehow more possible.

The closest thing I could find was this post, which said it wasn't possible after 2014, with the latest update in 2016, v.5.6. Is there a way to accomplish this in Pages 6.2?

This solution requires Numbers but the date changes on opening.

In Numbers create a single cell table
Then enter the following formula: "Last edited: "& DAY(TODAY()) & " : " & MONTH(TODAY())
select the table and copy
in Pages, paste the table in the desired location setting wrap etc.
format as desired

The day and month will update each time the document is opened.  To see the last time it was opened will not be possible unless you use Quicklook or get info on macOS.

Be sure to format the data as you wish it to be displayed.

Formulas pasted from Numbers are preserved when pasted into Pages or Keynote. This work-around may be what you need until Apple re-introduces this missing feature.

The example below was made in iOS, but the same applies to macOS.


Apple keyboard remap keypad comma to dot? Is there any way to change the key mapping of the apple keyboard?

As programmer I find annoying there's a comma instead a dot in numeric keypad. I would remap this key to have dot ...

The simplest solution is to create the file  DefaultKeyBinding.dict in /Users/[user]/Library/KeyBindings if it does not already exist, and add the remapping:
{
   "#," = ("insertText:", ".");
}

Then logout or restart the mac.
The # indicates the remapping is for the keypad only. More reference for that file: https://gist.github.com/trusktr/1e5e516df4e8032cbc3d


Xbox driver for PS4 for mac? I have a Dualshock 4 controller and can't play certain games like portal because there is no PS4 support. I heard on windows are drivers that trick the computer into thinking that the PS4 input is an xbox input but can't find ANY for apple. Is there a workaround or are there drivers for mac that allow me to do the same?

It might be a button mapping issue. I haven't tested it so I'm not sure it answers your question but here's what I stumbled upon today:

  I used an app from the Mac App Store called, Joystick Mapper, although other apps are also available. This allows you to manually map each input from the DS4 to keyboard buttons on your Mac, effectively using the keyboard settings in games as your controls. For this example I mapped the inputs from my DS4 to the keyboard settings in Max Payne 3. If you look at the pictures below, you can see how I used the keyboard settings in the game to help me map the controller (click on the pictures to enlarge them).

http://www.backwardscompatible.co.uk/using-your-dual-shock-4-controller-on-a-macbook.html

The app is here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/joystick-mapper/id528183797?mt=12


Series 1 watch display pops off but still works! Can I just glue it? I have a series 1 watch and part of the screen just popped off and open and closes like a hinge. Display still works though. Can I just for glue it, if I only plan to use it for sleep tracking? Or is there some danger?

I do not recommend fixing the display of the Apple Watch with an adhesive. There are tons of certified tools out there that can fix your Apple Watch as if it were new. If you glue it you run the risk of damaging components or not liking the end result, and it's hard to undo it if you've used glue.


How to prove this is a 42mm or 38mm Apple Watch? I want to convince someone that this image belongs to the 42mm Apple Watch.

However I couldn't distinguish between them yet.

While that is just a rendering of the Apple Watch, not an image of an actual Apple Watch, the band is a Modern Buckle, which is only available for 38mm Apple Watches. So the Watch in the rendering is definitely a 38mm.


how to trace which request creates ping spike? I have a ping spike problem and according to some topics, I write on Terminal:

ping 8.8.8.8 -i 0.1

And I see some spikes on this screen like this:

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5283 ttl=52 time=18.724 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5284 ttl=52 time=120.788 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5285 ttl=52 time=43.184 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5286 ttl=52 time=48.199 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5287 ttl=52 time=25.121 ms

My question is, how can I trace icmp_seq=5284? How can I know which request does that?

There's a couple of problems here...

how can I trace icmp_seq=5284

That's not how it works.  That seq or sequence number is just a two byte field (16 bits) that's used the match the packet that you sent out with the reply.  Your request doesn't create a spike.  However, technically, it's already been traced - that packet went out, was replied to and the time it took to return was x milliseconds.

I have ping spike problem and according to some topics, I write on terminal:
ping 8.8.8.8 -i 0.1

The problem here is that your pinging a public (in this case Google's) DNS server.  For me, there's 11 separate hops between my personal network and that DNS server; there's probably a similar amount for you.  The point is, anything on any of those points can contribute to a latency and a ping spike.
If you're trying to gauge your bandwidth from your ISP, you need something like http://speedtest.net (there's a CLI version available).  If you looking to check the speed transfer between two different services across ISPs, then you need iperf3.
Finally, pinging Google is an excellent way to check to see if your Internet is up.  It's not a good site to check for latency and/or bandwidth throughput.  These are heavily taxed servers subject to varying traffic at any point during the day.


iPhone sends messages by itself after sim swapping I have an iPhone 6 running iOS 10.3.1. I use two sim cards and when I swap them, I noticed that the balance gets lower, every single time.

This looked fishy, so I contacted telecommunications company, and they sent me the last 5 deals and I discovered that they all were messages sent from the phone to an international number 447786205094, and I checked it many times, and every time I swapped the sim card the phone always sent a message to the previous number.

I made sure that iMessage and Facetime are disabled.

What is happening here?

This is one of the phone numbers used by iOS for Apple to activate a new SIM card. iOS chooses a number within the same region as the device to avoid international charges. In this case, the number is a UK number, so if you are not in the UK double-check the region of your device and SIM card.

Carriers should not charge for this message, but if you have been charged, contact the carrier and ask that they resolve the situation. A warning is displayed the very first time activation is performed, warning that ‘your carrier may charge for SMS messages used to activate iMessage’.


Unable to remove item from dock in Yosemite Apple says to remove an item from the dock in Yosemite, drag it from the dock until you see a puff of smoke.  I drag it from the dock, it has a tag called "remove" but it never goes up in smoke.It just returns to the dock.

Even though the items appeared not to be open, they were open.  By holding down the right click on the icon, a drop down menu appeared with the option to "quit." Select that item, and the icon is removed.


How to contact a user who wrote a review to my app? I have published an app in the App Store. Now one of the customers/buyer wrote a review regarding a technical issue.

How can I contact that person? In the review I can only see the author's pseudonym.

Since a few days, you now have the ability to answer to reviews, right from iTunes Connect.

Go to My Apps > YourApp > Activity > Reviews and you will be able to click on Answer for each review.

Your answers will be available directly from the App Store for people running on iOS 10.3, and I think the reviewer also receive a mail or notification that you answered.

It a huge step from Apple to finally offer this !


How to change system "Hide All" keyboard shortcut? I've looked through the list of all keyboard shortcuts in Settings app -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts but I can't find the one for "Hide all (other) windows".

The default is CMD-OPT-H but it conflicts with another application. I'm also looking for a way to change it's shortcut, as an alternative. But in the meantime, does anyone know how/where to change this default shortcut?

I've googled it, looked in the OS X system help, and searched through the Settings app, but I can't seem to find it. Thanks!

Note:
I'm using OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)

You have to add it manually in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts


How do I turn of all notifications at once on my iPhone 4S on 5.0.1 How do I turn off all notifications at once and then turn them back on later (like if friend is playing game?)

If you just want to disable sounds, then you can flip the mute switch above the volume buttons. If you want to disable notifications that are based on an Internet connection (e.g. NYTimes, ESPN), you can put your iPhone in airplane mode which turns off wifi, 3G, and Bluetooth so you don't have an Internet connection. For apps that send notifications at a certain time (e.g. iCal reminders), there's no easy way to turn those off all at once other than turning them off individually in settings>notifications.


macOS How do I install and use this program? I downloaded a command line utility from this github webpage . I clicked on the green Clone or Download button to download the zip file. Although, there are also files that can be downloaded from the releases tab. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to download those files instead. After downloading and unzipping the zip file, I double-clicked on the file entitled displayplacer, which opened a terminal window that ran a bunch of commands.

Now what? How do I use this program?

I tried opening a new terminal window and running displayplacer list which, according to the github page, is supposed to Show current screen info and possible resolutions. However, the terminal window returned zsh: command not found: displayplacer after I entered the command. Did I not install the code properly?

Ultimately, what I want to do is set up a keyboard shortcut that switches the primary display between my macbook's internal display and my external display. How do I do this?

(macOS catalina)

Installation:

Download the zip to your Downloads folder
Unzip displayplacer-master.zip
Enter in Terminal: sudo mv ~/Downloads/displayplacer-master/displayplacer /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/displayplacer
displayplacer
Depending on your Security & Privacy settings you have to allow execution of the file in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General

All other files included in the zip won't be required to run the exec.

Usage:

Get the properties of all your displays: displayplacer list
With the properties and the various possible switches create an arrangement. One example with four monitors is listed:

displayplacer "id:18173D22-3EC6-E735-EEB4-B003BF681F30+F466F621-B5FA-04A0-0800-CFA6C258DECD res:1440x900 scaling:on origin:(0,0) degree:0" "id:4C405A05-8798-553B-3550-F93E7A7722BB res:768x1360 hz:60 color_depth:8 scaling:off origin:(1440,0) degree:90" "id:A46D2F5E-487B-CC69-C588-ECFD519016E5 mode:3 origin:(-1440,0) degree:270"

I have no 2nd screen in my virtual machine so I partly have to guess what it means:

The first two monitors (1440x900) are mirrored and contain the menubar. The third is on the right and rotated by 90 degrees (clockwise?). The fourth is on the left and rotated by 90 degrees (counterclockwise?).

Automator:

After finding appropriate settings (at least two if you want to switch the primary display between [your] macbook's internal display and [your] external display: back and forth) you have to create two different services/quick actions/etc. each containing one shell script ("Run Shell Script") with the proper displayplacer "id:.... line.

Depending on your Mac hardware and your system version you can apply a shortcut or even add it to the Touch Bar.


Time Machine error - The backup disk is not available - Using internal disk for TM I have an old Mac Pro that I would like to use as a Time Machine server for my small company. I just put in some spare hard drives in the unused bays, and set up a mirrored RAID set to use for Time Machine. I am able to use that RAID set as a Time Machine disk locally for that particular computer, but when I try to use it as a Time Machine disk for a networked computer, I get the error:

Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "COMPUTER NAME"
The backup disk is not available.

However, I am able to connect to the disk using Cmd + K, or even just by browsing to it from Finder. Is this problem being caused by the fact that I'm using an "internal" disk as my backup disk?

The Time Machine computer is running a newly installed version of Lion (10.7.5) and the computers trying to back up to it are either running 10.7.5 or 10.8.3

Thanks

If you are using the volume directly on the Mac and you are likewise sharing that root folder of that volume, then correct. The hidden time machine files would be problematic.

If you exported a sub-folder on that volume, and placed the necessary Time Machine control files in place, then you should be able to use the exported volume as a time machine volume over the network.


How many monitors can the new retina MacBook Pro handle and at which pixels resolutions? How many monitors can the new retina MacBook Pro handle and at which pixels resolutions?

e. g. Does it support three cinema displays?

The Other World Computing Blog shows that the new MacBook Pro 15" with Retina Display Can Run 3 External Displays:

  image source: http://blog.macsales.com/

These resolutions were used:

Retina on laptop @ “best for Retina”
iMac used as a display @ 2560 x 1440 via Thunderbolt
iMac used as a display @ 2560 x 1440 via Thunderbolt/DisplayPort
LG monitor @ 1920 x 1200  via HDMI

Quote from the MacRumors news article on that:

  This makes the Retina MacBook Pro the first Mac -- other than a tower-based workstation like the Mac Pro -- to natively power four displays simultaneously.


Any free software for writing HTML? I've written some Objective-C in Xcode before, but I can't find any free software for writing HTML! I need to create a small website for an online course I'm taking, and figured that HTML is the way to go. Thank you for your help!

HTML is a simple markup language and doesn't, arguably, require an IDE like Xcode. I'd recommend anyone starting to learn HTML (and related web tools like CSS and JavaScript) to start with a simple text editor. Learn your skills manually before relying on an app to speed up the process. Most of the time you'll find you can do a lot faster with a really good text editor than an all-in-one IDE. For something free on Mac try TextWrangler.

To be honest there aren't that many amazing and free editors/IDEs for websites on Mac OS. For some money there are a lot of amazing tools such as Sublime Text, Coda and Espresso to name a few. If you just need it for a short time it's not likely worth it however all of them currently provide some form of trial period.

Edit: Changed scripting language to markup language. Not sure what I was thinking.


OSX Mail reply with highlighted text as quote In Mail app 7.0 on OSX 10.9, If I highlight a piece of text and then choose Message → Forward it creates a new email with the relevant text as a quote. How do I replicate this behaviour with Message → Reply?

I believe this functionality was present in an earlier version of Mail.

Edit: unchecking Preferences → Composing → Quote the text of the original message causes this behaviour. With it checked (the default setting), any highlighted text becomes the quote. However with no highlighted text the entire message I am replying to is quoted, behaviour I don't want so this is frustrating.

I was googling for the same problem and bumped into here. For people who don't know how to mark a piece of text as a quote in OSX Mail 10.1 I accidently found the way to do it.

You should:

Highlight the text you want to mark as a quote
Hit Command + '

The whole line will be converted into a quote.


Why is the time always wrong on my ipad? On my ipad (gen1, 3g, iOS4.3.3) the time is constantly 5-15 mins fast (depending on whether I set it manually or automatically). I don't have the same issue on my iphone 4 and don't recall having it on my iphone 3G either.

Anyone know why this happens and what the fix for it is?

Note: I've tried changing the settings from automatic to manual, and synching with my Mac (which has the right time). Also, setting to automatic actually results in the time being 15 mins fast instead of 5!

I had this problem all the time on my original iPad 3G (with sim but without data plan) running iOS 4. Once I updated the iPad to iOS 5, the problem was fixed.


Can I transfer a call from the iPhone to Facetime on the mac? Using Yosemite, can I transfer a call from the iPhone to Facetime on the mac?  I know it is possible to go from FaceTime on the mac to the iPhone.  I want to go the other direction.

This is currently not possible (iOS 8, OS X 10.10.3).

A similar question has been asked on the Apple Communities forum, and the consensus there was that it's not possible: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6649250

It's possible that Apple will add this functionality in a later version of their software/OS.


Disable Mail's "Image Size" from remembering last used setting I almost always want mail to send a "Actual Size" image. However sometimes having mail automatically resize an image to "small/medium/large" is handy. However, after doing so Mail remembers the last selected option and sets any future image attachments at that smaller size - which at times, I forget to switch back "to Actual Size". I would like mail to ALWAYS default to "Actual Size" for attached images. — I doubt there is a known workaround but if so, I'd love to know it.

You can select image size below the subject line. There you can find a selection bar for small, middle, large and original size which sends the image without compression.


How to back-up a hard drive without power cable connected? I am using a 2019 13-inch MacBook Pro with two thunderbolt ports. I have a WD My Passport external hard drive with a USB connection. In order to plug the USB into the Mac, I have a USB-to-thunderbolt adapter. However, the two thunderbolt ports on my Mac are so close together that I cannot use the power cable and the USB-to-thunderbolt adapter simultaneously.
When I try to back-up my Mac with the external hard drive using Time Machine, it says that "Time Machine can not back up because the computer is running on battery power. Connect the computer to a power outlet while your backup disk is available."
Am I missing something obvious here or is this a silly design flaw?
(1) How can I plug the Mac into a power outlet while simultaneously plugging in the external hard drive?
(2) Is there a way to override the Time Machine error so that I can just back up while on battery power?
Any help is appreciated.

This answer offers to possibly solutions.
Solution #1
One solution would be to purchase a different cable. One end should have a USB Type C plug. The plug on the other end depends on the drive you purchased. Below is an image of plug and port types.

You can distinguish USB Type A from USB 3.0 by color. If the port or plug is blue, then you have USB 3.0. If the HDD's existing cable has a USB Type A plug, then the new cable needs to be rated for a transfer speed of at least 480 Mb/s. Otherwise, the HDD's existing cable has a USB 3.0 plug. In this case, the new cable needs to be rated for a transfer speed of at least 5 Gb/s.
Solution #2
Use an adaptor cable instead of an adaptor. In this case, I would recommend a cable which is USB Type C male on one end and USB 3.0 female on the other end. This cable would be placed between the existing HDD cable and the Mac. This type of cable would be compatible regardless of whether the existing cable has a USB Type A or USB 3.0 plug. An example of such a cable is the Tripp Lite USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) Adapter Cable, USB Type-C (USB-C) to USB Type-A M/F, 6-in. Length,


iPhone 4s update from iOS 6 to iOS 7 I have an iPhone 4s still running on some version of iOS 6. Is it possible to upgrade to only iOS 7.1.2 without going to iOS 8? Apple stopped signing iOS 7.1.2, which makes me wonder if I can do this.

Thanks!

Apple will only sign the latest version of iOS on any device that can accept the update, so your choices are stay on iOS 6 or update to iOS 8.1

There is usually a brief period of grace during which they will still sign the last iOS, but that is long over for iOS 8.


What is the maximum RAM size for MacBook Pro Mid 2012? To improve the performance of my mid-2012 MacBook Pro, I upgraded to a 256 GB SSD. But, I also want to upgrade my RAM. What is the limit that this computer supports?

The Mid 2012 MacBook Pro can support up to 16GB of RAM by using 2 8GB kits. Both the Retina and non-Retina models (mid 2012) support 16GB of RAM.

Per EveryMac.com, you can have

I have personally used the Kingston KVR16LS/8 modules many times with great results.

Since, you said that you already upgraded your drive to an SSD, I assume you know how to remove the bottom cover to access the memory.


My macbook pro stopped detecting my wireless router (NetGear DG834G) My macbook pro has just stopped detecting my wireless router!
The model of the router is NetGear DG834G.
The problem is that everyone else in the house has no problem connecting with the network with his laptop or mobile device!
Any ideas on how to solve that?
My operating system is mountain lion.
Thank you.

The first step would be to open the folder /System/Library/CoreServices and run Wireless Diagnostics to get to the Utilities window (⌘+2) and run a wireless scan to check on your base station and whether the antenna on the Mac is picking up signals similar to your other devices.

You'll want to inspect your base station (match the BSSID with the Mac address for your wireless router) and ensure that your signal to noise ratio is better than all of the ones I have shown. Ideally, your RSSI should be greater than -80 dBm: -90 dBm is bad, -60 dBm is OK, and your channel not within 2 of a neighboring station).

From there, you could select performance or run the actual diagnostics or see if perhaps you need to select a channel with less interference.

As you can see in this view, even with no wireless network connected, you can run the tool. Once you join your network, this performance view will help you getting connected. Once you are connected, you can monitor things here and lastly, use the Info button to see what alternate channels you might try to let your Mac work with your exact router and the competing devices that also interfere with each other.


Macbook Webcam light turns on for a second when computer is waked Most of the time when I login or open the lid my macbook bro mid 2012, the webcam light turns on for about a second and then turns off. Is there anything I should be worried about like a virus using my webcam to take photos of me from my computer or something?

It's possible you have installed, or someone else has installed, a system utility to capture the image from the iSight when opened. This is often something an anti-theft application might do, in order to track down the user of a stolen laptop.

One combination of utilities that can do this sort of thing is "sleepwatcher"

You might check to see if there is a file at

/etc/rc.awake

or an invisible file in your home directory called

.sleep

If so, sleepwatcher is installed.


Where are Core Storage instructions stored? Where are the Core Storage instructions stored?

In Kevin White's macOS Support Essentials 10.12, White says

  The second partition, occupying the final ~650 MB of the disk is an "Apple_Boot" formatted volume that contains the Recovery HD system. Aside from providing macOS Recovery functionality, this second partition is intentionally not managed by Core Storage, since it provides the software necessary for a Mac computer's ... firmware to understand Core Storage volumes.

If a Mac doesn't have a Recovery HD volume, is it not eligible for Core Storage?

Will FileVault work? and if so, how does it support encryption during use?

Without a recovery partition you can't enable FileVault 2:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837

  "Without a Recovery System, FileVault won't encrypt your startup drive."

I'll bet CoreStorage volumes will work, just probably not encrypted ones.


How to get 'favorites' to display in finder...? I used to have several favorites in the sidebar of the finder window, but today they are gone.

I cannot drag folders into the sidebar, and I can't display the ones available to choose from in Finder > Preferences.  WTF?

Here's a little screen capture of it misbehaving:

The first thing to try is to make a new user account and then see if the finder sidebar functions there.

If so, you can log out and delete that user account and then make a backup of the system. You'll want to delete the user preferences for Finder.

defaults delete com.apple.Finder

Then log out and back it to see if the finder sidebar is working.


Can Virtual PC use the Boot Camp Windows Partition? Both Parallels and VMWare allow you to set up a virtual machine using your existing Boot Camp partition. Does Virtual PC for mac have a similar feature?

No as Virtual PC is form PowerPC macs and not Intel ones.
You will need an intel virtualization product e.g. VirtualBox which is free or Parallels or VMWare


How to kill the voicemail facility on an iPhone XR? On an iPhone XR running iOS 13.2.3 and connecting to the mobile phone
network using a number supplied by Three, how do I disable voicemail?

I have never actually configured voicemail, but whenever someone calls my
number and the phone is switched off (which is most of the time), they hear
a message giving them the option to leave a voicemail. I want the number to
keep on ringing without being answered, or if they must hear a message then
for the message to tell them the phone is switched off and that's it.

Recently I got a text message from Three itself saying they'd left me a
voicemail, and I would like to delete that voicemail without setting up
voicemail in the first place.

In short, I would like to kill the voicemail facility, deleting whatever
may be in the box, without even listening to it and without setting up
voicemail in the first place. How can I do this? If to kill it properly I need to set it up first and then kill it, how do I achieve that?

Step 1: Go to your home screen and tap on the keypad icon at the bottom.

Step 2: Once the keypad is launched, type ##002# and then click on the Call button. There is no cause for worry since the iPhone will not actually make the call, but will display the settings of your voicemail.

Step 3: You will be presented with three different messages

Voice Call Forwarding
Data Call Forwarding
Fax Call forwarding.

Do not do anything, but simply tap on the “Dismiss” tab at the bottom of the screen. You will have successfully disabled your voicemail for all types of calls.


Wipe all WiFi settings from MacBook My old MacBook has come out of retirement after about two years turned off. It connected to my WiFi but the browsers complain it's insecure and might be connected to servers pretending to be the ones I'm entering. And my ISP's security features are warning me I'm not using their DNS (which explains the browser warnings too I guess).

I've tried forgetting the network and logging back in, and deleting any DNS settings I can see in system settings, and re-setting DHCP->manual and back, and nothing works.

Do I need to wipe all WiFi settings or is there something else? On ethernet it works fine (it's one of those antique MacBooks before Apple improved them by removing such things).

IIRC, there is a pretty simple way to do this! The first set of instructions in this link explains it pretty well, but in case the link breaks, here is the text from the site. The idea is to delete the network configuration related plist files.

  Turn off Wi-Fi from the menu bar.
  Navigate to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ in Finder by pressing ⌘ + Shift + G.
  Select the following files:

  com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
  com.apple.network.identification.plist
  com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist
  NetworkInterfaces.plist
  preferences.plist

  Copy these files in a safe location so that if anything gets messed up, you can easily restore them.
  Delete the files (from the original location).
  Reboot your Mac and enable Wi-Fi again.

Let me know how this goes!

Via the command line:

cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/
sudo zip backup.zip \
         com.apple.airport.preferences.plist       \
         com.apple.network.identification.plist    \
         com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist       \
         NetworkInterfaces.plist preferences.plist
sudo rm  com.apple.airport.preferences.plist       \
         com.apple.network.identification.plist    \
         com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist       \
         NetworkInterfaces.plist preferences.plist

Note: In macOS Mojave 10.14.4, the file com.apple.network.identification.plist didn't exist on atleast 1 machine where this was tested. The file not found errors can be ignored.


Seeking good quality DVD ripping software for PPC G5, 10.4.11 Subject says it all, but here are the requirements in full:

Power Macintosh G5 Dual 2.5 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, 2 TB HDD (destined to become a media and file server for v1 Apple TV and home network)
Mac OS 10.4.11, but will be upgrading to Mac 10.5 at a later date
Surround sound support (Dolby 5.1, DTS)
Movies are intended for use with an v1 Apple TV, so no disk images or VIDEO_TS folders.

Web searches reveal a lot of software out there but it all seems fairly random, so I'd like to see if anyone has had any experience with a particular application on older hardware and OS. Please note the Handbrake PPC build will not run on this particular machine (quits without error before loading is complete) and RipIt does not support anything before Mac OS 10.5.

I know I can go the route of Mac the Ripper to Handbrake, but that's doubles the process in time, space, and computers needed. I'm looking to avoid that if at all possible.

Use the RipIt App. Choose the Compress option and within the Applications preferences you can specify the output file format. I have to say they made the process simple and worry free. I am using it on Snow Leopard so my experience may not be the same as yours.


script copy sender(s) email address only to the clipboard I am a blind voiceover user of mac.

The new Mail.app makes it difficult to copy the sender's email. I would like to have a script which copies the sender email only, of one or more selected messages.

Is it possibile ?

Yes, AppleScript makes it easily possible !

Here is an AppleScript which can do that :

tell application "Mail"
    set theSenderList to {}
    set theMessages to the selected messages of message viewer 0
    repeat with aMessage in theMessages
        set end of theSenderList to sender of aMessage
    end repeat
    set the clipboard to (theSenderList as rich text)
    beep
end tell

It will cop the mail senders to the clipboard as following: John Doe <John.Doe@gmail.com>

The same script without the names :

tell application "Mail"
    set theSenderList to {}
    set theMessages to the selected messages of message viewer 0
    repeat with aMessage in theMessages
        set end of theSenderList to (extract address from sender of aMessage)
    end repeat
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
    set the clipboard to (theSenderList as string)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    beep
end tell

It outputs only the addresses with a space delimiter : john.doe@gmail.com jane.doe@gmail.com

For the beep, just add beep before the end tell (as I already did above).


WhatsApp iCloud backup stuck at 0% and just won't move Last successful backup of WhatsApp to iCloud was on 10th April 2019, since then the process keeps hanging.

My iCloud is as good as unused, it has 4.5 GB/5 GB available, so I doubt space is the issue.

Status is "Backing up..." and its hung at "Uploading: 0%"

What did I try:

Updated iOS to 12.3.1.
Updated WhatsApp to version 2.19.61.
Deleted WhatsApp data from iCloud Drive and tried to backup again. Instead of getting stuck at 0% it then got stuck at 3%.
In iCloud Drive, turned WhatsApp "Off" and "On"
Hard reset on iPhone

Nothing works! Anyone tips or the same problem?

I had this issue on iOS 13 and Whatsapp support magically got back to me.

Whatsapp needs 2.05x the backup size available on your iPhone, and in its infinite wisdom also in iCloud.  So if your backup is past 2.4ish GB, you are essentially forced to start paying Apple for additional iCloud storage.

I can personally verify this worked.  I tried everything (other troubleshooting steps include turning off iCloud Drive and deleting anything Whatsapp already put in iCloud).  After getting stuck randomly between 0%, 4% and 10% I moved to 50GB, flipped back to Whatsapp and it immediately continued progressing.

Maybe one day Whatsapp will let us manually backup to Google Drive or otherwise just spit out a file we can restore from...


I can no longer use my Kingston DTSE9 flash drive because it is 'write-protected'. How can I remove the write-protection? Disk Utility won't allow me to Erase or Repair the drive, it will only let me verify it.

Clicking on Disk Partition, I get the following message:
This partition cannot be modified. This disk is not writable and can not be partitioned.

I used this thumb drive to transfer files from my mac to a PC, and it became write protected after a transfer from one to the other.

Before you do anything serious...

Rarely some memory cards/Pen Drives are having physical button/switch (yes a miniature mechanical switch) to make it write protect..

Check your pendrive to make sure you did not accidentally activate it by puling/pushing the USB.


Is there a way to display the date in power reserve mode on the Apple Watch Series 2? I constantly forget to charge my watch on time so 25% of the time I use it in power reserve mode.  It kind of bothers me that there's only the time shown.

I searched around in the watch and iPhone settings and also in other communities but didn't found an answer.

I have the latest watchOS running in Series 2.

Does anyone know if the watch can show the date in power reserve mode?

Power Reserve mode disables all the 'smart' features of the Apple Watch and only displays the time.  This is by design and can't be changed

If you're in Power Reserve mode, that means you don't want to display anything that could possibly increase the power usage.  The date is one of those fields.


key combo to toggle showing hidden items Is there a key combination I can use to show/hide hidden items in Finder?

I don't think you can do this by default.

I myself use Hidden Files widget. it's so easy to use.


DNS problems with Wireguard VPN I am using wireguard Application to establish a VPN between my Mac running (Catalina 10.15.6) and my home.
At home I run two RPi:

one with wireguard in docker
one with Pihole in docker (IP 192.168.178.120)

The wireguard configuration i am using specifies the use of the Pihole as DNS):
[Interface]
PrivateKey = [private_key]
ListenPort = [public_port]
Address = 10.13.14.3/32
DNS = 192.168.178.120

[Peer]
PublicKey = [public_key]
AllowedIPs = 192.168.178.0/24
Endpoint = [endpoint hostname]

The same configuration is in use on all my devices (iOS, Windows 10 etc) and I can always use the specified DNS to resolve all the domains.
Under OSX instead using that DNS is hit or miss:

I can ping correctly the IP of the DNS and any other internal IP without any packet loss
I can use nslookup to specify 192.168.178.120 as a server and correctly query for both external and internal names
Safari might be able to resolve one internal name, but after some time tries to use the router-defined DNS (192.168.1.1) thus not resolving internal names anymore (I notice this from the presence of Ads that would normally be blocked by PiHole)
Network utility shows the same hit/miss scenario: sometimes it is resolving internal names,sometimes it is not
adding the 192.168.178.120 in the network settings of the Wifi in OSX might help for a while but is not 100% reliable

So I am asking for help on what to do to diagnose the problem further.
DNS resolution on Mac seems really strange to me to be honest.

This is a known problem in WireGuard / OSX:

matchDomains=[“”] doesn’t do what the documentation says.
Specifically, DNS servers are not used if allowed IPs isn’t 0.0.0.0/0.

For now, I am just manually setting DNS from a script:
sudo /usr/sbin/networksetup -setdnsservers Wi-Fi 1.1.1.1

Looks like Tunnelblick is doing scutil manipulations for openvpn (https://github.com/Tunnelblick/Tunnelblick/blob/master/tunnelblick/client.2.up.tunnelblick.sh) -- which is working on my mac


How do I know if I have purchased an iphone app already? How can I tell if I have purchased an app before I try to download it?

(I so wish iOS5 would hurry up already)

On iOS

Load up the App Store. Go to the Updates section, then click on the Purchased listing at the top.

On iTunes

Go to the iTunes Store home screen. At the top right you'll see a list of "Quick Links." Click on the Purchased listing.

Note: Additionally, all listings in iOS will be shown as "install" rather than feature the price, indicating that you have already purchased the app. In iTunes, that is also true, where the price will be replaced by "download."


My friend installed something called Jamf on my MacBook I have a MacBook Air 7,2. My friend installed something called Jamf on it. Now I can't access most of my applications. My son said he couldn't force quit it so I'm thinking it must be some kind of virus.

The IT man managed to get it up on Activity Monitor, but when he tried to force quit it, it just reopened and when he tried to uninstall it with terminal it just blocked terminal.

Any help that could be offered would be appreciated because otherwise, I may need to just throw out the MacBook and buy a new one.

Jamf is a device management/mobile device management solution. It enables remote control and management of the configured device.

Due to the nature of the software, it can restrict users of the machine (even the admin users) from performing certain administrative operations (depending on the applied configuration). It is thus obvious that the end-users cannot uninstall and/or quit the Jamf app.

Jamf is one of the well-known among many remote/mobile device management solutions, generally used in enterprise/school environment to centrally manage a large number of mobile devices (laptops/tablets/phones). Jamf is absolutely not a virus, nor is it a ransomware.

You can learn more about Jamf product offerings here:

https://www.jamf.com/products/

There is absolutely no reason to throw away your MacBook. I'd advise you to get in touch with your friend and ask him for the reason why it was installed in first place. You can also ask to remove it, if it was installed in accident, or just out of curiosity.

A mobile device management solution is generally not required for personal devices.


What is the most accurate method of testing batteries for A1278 MacBook Pro? I have about 20 batteries I want to test. I'm trying to find out if they will read "replace" or "service" in the OS. Usually, I'll stick the battery in long enough to collect a cycle count and condition. However, it seems that a lot of the batteries shortly after show "service" or "replace". Maybe,  once booted for the first time in a while, the computer assigns a new battery condition to the battery. If so, I should install the battery turn on and then restart a second time before collecting the battery info. I'm curious if maybe it takes macOS a while to assess the condition of a battery and, if so, how long it takes. What do you recommend for quickly assessing the condition of a battery? Thanks.

Battery SOC is always time dependent.

  Determining the state of charge (SOC) in lithium-ion batteries is
  essential yet challenging due to the great variability in capacity not
  only across different cells, but also in the same cell. As a Li-ion
  cell ages, it loses its ability to store charge. Consequently, even if
  fully charged, an older cell would deliver usable voltage for a
  shorter period of time than a newer cell.

While in the first moments it might look OK, soon after it shows the true State of Charge.

That is because it measures Voltage and Current variations over time to determine the SOC.

I recommend at least 10 minutes of testing of allowing the Mac to collect the information.

The State of Cycle count is only a indicator for us humans, but not accurate to determine the true state.

Probably the best indicator is the

  Full Charge Capacity (mAh):   6705

Found in About this Mac > System Report > Power

It basically says how much charge the battery can hold.

It is not a linear scale thus when it reaches half a way of new battery (4000) Mac will say service the Battery.

New battery has values of >8000.

  What is the most accurate method of testing batteries for A1278
  MacBook Pro?

it is TIME allowing it to collect the information time related.


1920x1080 resolution not in the options after connecting external monitor on 2015 Macbook air running El Captain I connected MacBook Air 2015 to my 1920x1080 AOC 22' monitor using mini display to VGA converter. It does not still show me the 1920x1080 option. Tt shows a maximum of 1280x768 only. Can someone help?

You need HDMI connection, VGA is analog, it doesn't allow higher resolutions.


How can I use an app I bought for my iPhone also on my iPad? I have a IPhone 4S with TOM TOM installed (bought from Google Play), I now need the app to be copied to my IPad. Is there anyway to do this with out buying another TOM TOM app.

Apps bought in the iOS App Store can be installed in several iOS devices. Just make sure that you are logged into the App Store with the same Apple ID on both devices, then open the Store app, select the "Purchased" tab and search for the app.


Viewing pictures on iPad from Mac server gallery-style I have a Mac Mini server hosting a few folders of photos. I have an iPad on which I would like to view these photos. So far I have not found an elegant way to do so.

I'm open to using any combination of client / server solution but I do have some requirements:

The pictures should be accessed directly from the server. No manual downloading or syncing back and forth.
The client app on the iPad should be designed to work well with pictures. There are literally thousands of File browser / file manager / file viewer apps on the iPad supporting every protocol under the sun, however I haven't seen a single one that delivers a consistently good user experience when it comes to viewing photos, specifically:

Photos should be displayed in a thumbnail grid with reasonable speed
Going to the next and previous photos at a reasonable speed should not trigger a loading screen (ie. needs to be prefetched)
Large photos should not crash the app

Client should be a native iPad app or webapp with touch support

These don't seem like unreasonable requirements for a photo viewing app, in fact they pretty much seem like pre-requisites for anything displaying photos but maddeningly nothing I've come across seems to do the job. Many great apps exist for online services like Picasa, Flickr, and the now defunct MobileMe gallery, however I'm not interested in hosting these photos in the cloud due to privacy, cost, speed, and storage space concerns. It also seems silly: Why do I have to put my pictures on the internet just to see them on my iPad?

In order to meet the points in requirement 2. above, I'm thinking I can't simply share these over FTP/SMB/WebDAV/etc. I would need something intelligent running server-side that can on-the-fly send over thumbnail-size and iPad resolution images.

To that, end DLNA seems like a good fit. I have found a pretty decent DLNA server for the Mac, but I've yet to come across a well-made DLNA client for iPad. I've tried so many, but they all seem more focused on video not photos. Every iPad DLNA client I've tested has failed the 3 points under requirement 2. :(

See comments below on which apps I have already tried.

I have tried several apps/servers but most of them are either not user friendly or have limited functionality.
AirPics (yellowbek.com/airpics-app/) is limited to stream iPhoto and Aperture. Not user folders.
AirPhotoServer (www.airphotohd.com) too much bugs in server app, just poorly written piece of code.
PhotoStreamr (http://www.photostreamr.com) is working, it does fulfill the requirements, server app has some nice custom settings like user folders, password protected private folders, internet access (from outside of home network). iPad app is ok, just ok, you can feel here and there that user interface it is not polished to perfection, but functional part is perfect.
Unfortunately these apps are not updated often.


How to show my name, but not my call back number when call out on Iphone 11 I want to make calls so that people can see my name, but not have my cell number sent to avoid callbacks.

What does your cell phone carrier say when you ask them? The carrier is what determines this function, not Apple.


Update my jailbroken iPhone 4 iOS 4.2.1 to iOS 7.1.2 I'm new to this but I had my phone jailbroken years ago and they told me I had to stay under Apple's radar so I never tried to get it updated. Now I can barely use any of my apps, for instance I can't FaceTime at all any more. Can someone provide step by step instructions on how to update my phone?

Back up your iPhone with iTunes.
Restore your iPhone with iTunes.

If you want your phone jailbroken with iOS 7.1.2, jailbreak it at this point.
Restore your iPhone from backup.


Why does my Mac accumulate too many processes? I am starting to accumulate too many processes on my Mac. No clue why this is happening, but it is causing a lot of problems such as:

programs fail to start or hang on launch
in the terminal I get a lot of messages such as "unable to fork", for example I got this error in iTerm2: https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/issues/5027
also get some errors saying "too many files open" but I dont know what files these could be, I do not have any more programs running than usual and don't have much open myself.
cannot open any new terminal windows, and any current terminal windows cannot use pipes
at the lock screen, I try to enter my password but the entire UI becomes unresponsive; I type the password and hit 'Enter' but nothing happens for several minutes, I can click on buttons but they do not do anything

This just happened again, and I checked ps -aef and had 1,000+ proccesses. However most of them were anonymous and looked like this:

Most of these anonymous processes are labelled things like (pmset) and (networksetup); no clue what that means, Google did not reveal anything useful.

Also while trying to run ps -aef | grep '(' | wc -l the entire terminal window crashed; when I brought up a new one and ran it again it returned 753, meaning there were about 753 of these anonymous processes running.

Rebooting solves the problem but only temporarily, eventually it creeps back up. Randomly it goes away on its own. Right now the number of total processes (ps -aef | wc -l) is back down to 350.

Total memory and CPU usage during all this is very low, so they do not seem to be culprits.

Any idea what is going on? How am I accumulating all these processes in the first place?

For reference, I am running macOS 10.12.6 High Sierra on an iMac.

Update:

Another clue, I managed to catch this happening before my terminal completely locked up, and I can actually see from the ps output (ps -aef | less) that these processes seem to start spawning about ~30min after I arrived at work this morning, immediately following the start of a process called PwrMgrDaemon. It then proceeded to spawn 2 new threads per minute for the entire day. I caught it around 3:50pm when I started getting errors and again there were a total of 1056 processes running, including a massive amount of these pmset processes. Strangely, while I was taking screenshots and typing up this update, all of these processes vanished and things went back to normal.

Some of the errors I caught in my terminal that indicated this was occurring again:

fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
Interrupted system call

You have the program Surveyor Power Management from Aptean installed. This is usually installed as part of a corporate setup, and is used to manage power saving settings across all the company's computers.

Unfortunately it seems that the program has a bug where it is not compatible with High Sierra right now. The effect you see is that it spawns processes intended to set power saving settings, but due to a bug it spawns them over and over again because it "thinks" that they failed. This severely limits performance of the computer and eventually halts it completely.

The only thing to do is to report this to your IT department and/or directly to Aptean to ensure that the software is fixed and updated.


How to use `tmutil compare snapshot_path`? man tmutil shows

compare [-@acdefglmnstuEUX] [-D depth] [-I name] [snapshot_path | path1 path2]

If a snapshot path is provided as the sole argument,
tmutil will compare the computer to the specified snapshot.

Does the 'snapshot' mean the result of tmutil listlocalsnapshots / (APFS snapshot)?

I tried several ways but I could not make it work.

From man tmutil:

snapshot
  A directory inside a machine directory that represents a single initial or
  incremental backup of one computer. The word "snapshot", in most contexts, is a
  generic term and is not to be confused with a "local Time Machine snapshot",
  which is simply a snapshot stored locally on the computer. E.g.,

    /Volumes/Chronoton/Backups.backupdb/thermopylae/2011-07-03-123456

I read this as "a local snapshot is not the same as a snapshot", with tmutil compare only able to handle the second.


Downloads and Updates still ask for old AppleID password I signed out from my old AppleID and it was removed from my iPhone.  However, the iPhone still asks for the old AppleID and password when downloading and updating apps.

How can I solve this?

If an item is purchased with an Apple ID (even if it is a free item) it can only be updated using that same Apple ID.

For example, if you downloaded the Facebook app using the Apple ID "foo@example.com" and you now use the Apple ID "bar@example.com" then you must either update the app using "foo@example.com" or delete and re-download the app using "bar@example.com".


MacBook Air frequent shutdown with shutdown with shutdown cause -128 I have an early 2015 13inch MacBook Air.

Initially, One day after putting my computer to sleep, the display didn't turn on and there was no sign of computer working. Pressing power button also didn't work but it was charging when I attached the magsafe connector.

So I left it alone for a few hours and started it again, it turned on.

After this incident Im having frequent shutdowns with the shutdown cause -128. Sometimes while working on it and sometimes while waking up from sleep.

I have reset the SMC, ran Apple Hardware check, EtreCheck app. No issues found.

How can I troubleshoot this?

From our own George Garside's blog

  -128 --  Possibly linked to memory issue. If the issue is persistent, try replacing the RAM with known-good if your hardware has removable
  RAM.


Workaround for YouTube to appear in Apple TV My elderly father enjoys watching movies through YouTube through Apple TV, which we purchased in 2012.

Last night, I was woke up because the icon of YouTube has disappeared from Apple TV.

I tried searching Google, and performed the following

changed my location to my current location
reset Apple TV
reboot the Wi-Fi

Others suggest seeing a movie on iPhone and iPad and then clicking the triangle in box to make it play in Apple TV.

No matter how many times I tried explaining this process to my father, he couldn't understand, and was very frustrated and irritated (he suffers from lot of chronic pain, so seeing serials from YouTube's Apple TV gives relief, it takes his mind away from things)

What other workaround can I try so that the YouTube icon will appear on Apple TV?

UPDATE:

We purchased Apple TV 3rd generation and my father absolutely HATES the new layout. He says he is not able to view a history of search terms he entered for movies and serials. It's just not user friendly. He says he will pay $20 a month just to get the YouTUBE from the old Apple TV back, because the interface was suitable to him ..... we're keeping the old Apple TV in case there is a workaround to get YouTUBE back ......

YouTube has changed their API from version 2 to version 3, and on May 1st they shut down access to any program/web page or service that accessed the YouTube v2 API. This included older Apple TVs. In order to actually get a working YouTube program on his Apple TV, he will need a new one, which has an updated YouTube program using the new API.

Other than that, AirPlay is your only option. Which he doesn't seem to like.

Update: AirPlay may no longer works as a fix for this on older Apple TV's. It thinks it is playing an audio file and no picture appears on screen.


Script iTunes to prepend Season and Episode number (padded) to episode title I'm not knowledgeable about scripting, so I'll be upfront about that. I've been doing management with Doug's Scripts for over a decade, but the one that would be most useful (Append to Selected Tag) doesn't offer the correct fields to adjust the information I want to change.

I would like to prepend the season number and the (padded 2 digit) episode number to the beginning of episode names in my library (not the file name!), so I get something like 101 Pilot, 102 Deep Throat, 103 Squeeze, etc., in my smart playlists for using on AppleTV (because the newer AppleTVs running tvOS do not show that additional information in the playlist view, and it's easy to lose your place in long running series).

I have used Subler and iFlicks, and both can handle prepending the information and adding to iTunes going forward, but if I drop my older library files to those apps, some of my comments, groupings, etc., get erased using their update metadata options (in iFlicks 2, the artwork also gets changed, and I have to handle each season separately to change it back), and neither handle extended episodes or DVD vs Aired orderings well when starting from a clean slate.

I'm looking for a script that I can use to select entire playlists or shows and only changes the one tag (the episode name) using info from other tags that I already have populated (the original episode name, season number, and episode number) and that can pad the episode number 0-9 to 2 digits. Can someone point me in the right direction?

I think this will do it for you:

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
--
-- Start by selecting the shows in a playlist.
-- Don't select the playlist. Select the Shows.

tell application "iTunes"
    set theShowList to the selection
    repeat with aShow in theShowList
        -- get the information we need
        set theSeasonNumber to season number of aShow
        set theEpisodeNumber to episode number of aShow
        set theName to name of aShow
        --
        -- pad the episode number to two digits
        set thePaddedEpisodeNumber to "0" & theEpisodeNumber as string
        set theTwoDigitEpisodeNumber to characters -2 thru -1 of thePaddedEpisodeNumber as string
        --
        -- assemble the new name
        set theNewName to theSeasonNumber & theTwoDigitEpisodeNumber & " " & theName as string
        --
        -- set the new name
        set the name of aShow to theNewName
    end repeat
end tell

The script could be cleaned up and made more efficient but I wrote it this way so it was easier to follow.

Be sure to select the shows, not the playlist. It doesn't work otherwise.

While experimenting with this I noticed that some TV shows have episode numbers that are three digits already. That would be a problem for this script. FYI.

This was done with iTunes 12.9.5.5, macOS Mojave 10.14.6.

Here are before and after pictures. You're going to have to zoom in.


Sending SMS through iPad Air's iMessages How do I send text messages to non apple devices with my iPad Air with cellular? I have the iMessage worked out but can't figure out SMS.

SMS's can only be sent through an iPhone, as it requires a carrier's plan and a phone number associated to it, which iPad's lacks of.
As stated by Apple:

Which Apple products support Messages using SMS and MMS?
To use Messages with SMS and MMS, you need an iPhone.