steps to get a Mac to report CPU and memory load via SNMP? My group runs a bunch of Mac Pros and xServes of various flavors, and being a fairly recent hire, I am getting up to speed on how to monitor them properly. We use SolarWinds NPM and SAM, and monitor those Macs via SNMP.

Problem: some of them do not report CPU and memory load, and one - volumes.

snmp configurations on these are identical.

Is this about MIBs? What's the easiest way to get all of our Macs to report CPU and memory load?

Say, I have two xServes (OSX 10.6.8 but it doesn't really matter); one is reporting CPU/mem, the other one isn't. snmpd.conf files are identical. What do I need to do to enable CPU/mem polling on the handicapped machine? Is this about copying certain MIBs in /usr/share/snmp from one machine to another?

Thanks!

Typically, you can use laLoadInt to get processor load, and hrMemorySize and related MIBS to get memory metrics.  However, my experience is that on Mac OS (at least, on 10.8.5), snmpd was compiled without kmem, because apparently apple doesn't support the calls.  I am amazed that Apple would simply remove this feature, but it appears that they decided we could live without it.

Anyway, even on my 10.8.5 system, I can get 1, 5, and 15-minute processor load averages with the OID laLoadInt.<1 2 or 3>


How to disable Clamshell mode in Yosemite? I have my Late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro attached to an external display. I use both displays. At night, when I leave my computer, I want to close the lid to put the Mac to sleep.

Since Lion, there is the famous 'Clamshell mode', which is for a lot of people, but not for me. This causes OS X to switch to single-display mode, using only the external display, if I close it.

Until Mavericks I could prevent this by the famous: sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0" kernel parameter, but since Yosemite, this does not work. Is there any solution? I don't want to plug off my computer for the night or put it to sleep by selecting a menu command. Both solutions are really lame.

Unplug or detach the power adapter before you close the lid. "Closed clamshell mode" requires the MacBook to be plugged into an outlet to activate.

I actually discovered this through trial and error but here's proof! :)

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201834


Which adapter is best on last Macbook Pro 2016 for Thunderbolt 2 dual monitors? My typical setup is to plugin in my MBP with lid closed into dual monitors. I typically bring back and forth to work in backpack, where I also have dual monitors. All of my monitors go from DVI port into a Thunderbolt 2 like so:

Now I just got the new Macbook Pro delivered and the lack of ports is really frustrating. Looks like this:

The ports on my old MBP is really nicely set. All are on one side and work nicely with my desk setup so that the wires all run behind my desk. On my new MBP each side only has 2 ports (except for the headphone jack). I am not able to find a way to get both displays into one USB-C where I can use the other for my USB hub for example.

My question is, is there any sort of adapters that I can use to get to a similiar setup? All I've been able to find is the Thunderbolt 2 -> 3 converter adapters, but since there is only 2 ports on each side, I'd still have to pull in more stuff into the other side of the MBP (USB, power, headphones).

Feels like Apple went all in for the pretty minimalistic approach in expense of convienence.

Is there no USB-C hubs that support dual monitors?

You can do that with for example a Thunderbolt 3 dock (or Thunderbolt 2 dock if you have an older one). Models from Belkin, OWC, etc. allow you to plugin the two monitors, your USB device, charger and audio into the dock and only have a single cable going into the new MacBook Pro.


Help Removing Last Traces of Genieo Some of that darned Genieo got on my computer. I've deleted all the files that the various places online suggest.

I can find NO trace of Genieo anywhere in my files or libraries, but with Safari and Chrome, those Genieo style ad underlines and bubbles keep appearing.

Any ideas?

Thank you; but I figured it out. I created a Test account on the computer to see if it was a system thing or user thing; turned out to be a system thing.

I then went poking around but limited my searching to the system library, and found the offending file: it was in the LaunchAgents folder, and it was

com.vsearch.agent.plist

Put that in the Trash, rebooted, emptied the Trash, and the problem went away.


Which text editor has better OSX support, TextMate, or Sublime Text 2 I've been using Sublime Text 2 for Windows and Linux because it's simply the best for those platforms.  However, when using OSX I have the option to use TextMake, which is where Sublime Text 2 seems to get its inspiration from.

Which editor works more seamlessly with OSX as far as speed, ease of use, OSX integration, and naturally intuitive keybindings?

Go with what you're familiar with and don't worry about whether you're missing something or not.

Familiarity will trump any additional features you might likely discover in TextMate and the ability to sit in a familiar coding environment no matter what OS you're working is a really big productivity boost.

Overall Sublime Text 2 is a move forward from TextMate at the time I'm writing this. It has better undo semantics. It can load in most TextMate bundles so you can extend it in the same ways TextMate can be extended. Though, truthfully, after switching from TextMate this year I haven't found a need to install any TextMate bundles because anything I had been using in TextMate was available as a better implemented, more feature rich bundle in native Sublime Text 2 format so far.

This being said, TextMate 2 is in alpha and can be downloaded, so an update is on the distant horizon. But my advice still stands: familiarity on multiple OSes is a fantastic thing for your development environment.


How can I find a list of games that are playable on my Mac? I'm a casual gamer with a MacBook Air (fall 2010 13" model), I'd like to find some games that are playable on my Mac. Is there any software or website that makes it easy to find games with compatible system requirements?

What I have in mind is something like the (now defunct) Aspyr Game Agent application, which at a glance showed whether a game's system requirements were compatible with a specific Mac; see the screenshots for one game, for a list of games, or read Softonic's review.

Steam has a dedicated Mac section and also lets you filter by OS when searching. And it lists system requirements.


Is it possible to use a Mac Mini with a laptop monitor? I want to buy a Mac Mini and I want to use it with my laptop monitor. My laptop is Lenovo Y510P. I searched some documents for using Mac Mini with laptop monitor and I only found a solution to using with an Apple laptop unfortunately.

My laptop doesn't have a video input but can I use the Mac Mini via an external video capture devices etc? Or is there a way to use Mac Mini with laptop monitor?

VNC

You can use VNC on your Mac Mini to show the screen on your Windows or Linux laptop:

  VNC is an abbreviation of Virtual Network Computing. VNC is a common protocol that allows computers to both share and to offer control over the network. Using VNC you can connect to and see your computer remotely; great for remote working or helping a relative perform tricky tasks without needing to be in the same location.

  Mac OS X includes a built-in free VNC server. You can set up and use VNC on your Mac without needing additional or third party software.

There are numerous Windows and Linux VNC clients you can use on your Lenovo laptop.

Also see answers to these related questions:

Is it possible to use a Mac Mini with a laptop monitor?
Use Dell Inspiron laptop monitor as only monitor for mac mini


Terminal opens new tab instead of new window with Command-N I dont know why but both Command-N and manually clicking open new window in the file menu of Terminal.app opens a new tab. Anyone encountered this before?

How can I make Terminal.app open new windows instead of a new tab?

Yes, and this was very frustrating when I noticed it since I only ever use tabs in a browser, not to mention opening the tab bar resizes the window >:O

Go into System Preferences -> Dock, then make sure that "Prefer tabs when opening documents" is NOT set to "Always".


On OS 9.2.1, how can you access shared files from windows computers? I'm a total newbie Mac user. I got a Powerbook 3 Pismo off of ebay, got OS 9.2.1 installed, and enabled file sharing. Web browsing is working and I have an IP address.

How do I access the shared folder from my windows 8 machines?

Mac OS 9 has no built-in support for Windows file sharing. There were third-party file sharing applications for Mac OS to allow access to Windows networks, and there were also Windows server tools which could allow Mac access to Windows servers. One tool I remember using was DAVE, from Thursby software. It used to be a Windows networking kit for Mac, but has morphed into something else now. If you found an older version it might work, but I doubt it would be compatible with the latest Windows.

I'd recommend looking for an FTP server for your Windows machine and a FTP client for your Mac.


MBP system reports 2 disks while About this Mac->Storage shows one HD? MacBook Pro mid 2010 system reports 2 disks (320G and SSD) while About this Mac-> Storage only shows one disk. This Mac -> Storage shows only one disk: 320G. I have tried to use diskutil list, it shows two disks as well.

Wonder what causes the different disk configurations?  MBP runs normally. Should I care about the difference?

Furthermore occasionally the Storage shows two disks, (not sure when), including 320G and the SSD, then the MacBook Pro crashed very often, say, every 15 minutes.

Please help and thanks a million.

You clearly have two separate devices: one a 5400rpm rotational hard drive, and the other an 'after-market' Intel SSD of 160 Gb.

There's limited space in an MBP, so is it possible that your optical (DVD) drive has been replaced with a housing for an SSD?

If you set Finder preferences to show hard disks on the Desktop, does the SSD show up?

Crashes could be caused by a defective SATA connector, either to the SSD or to your hard drive. These parts are known to fail: you can buy replacements very cheaply. If the connector to the SSD is failing, that might also explain why it's missing.

With a 10-year-old mechanical drive and a possibly failing connector to a third-party SSD installed in the optical drive bay, you might want to open it up, replace the hard drive with a new, large-capacity SSD, and investigate any physical problems with the existing SSD and housing.


How To Fresh Install ML I'm having some problems with entering sleep and wakening, so I'm considering making a fresh installation of Mountain Lion. How can I make a fresh install of ML? I have Bootcamp partition which I'd like to remove also.

Also, what is the procedure for fresh Lion install?(maybe I'll try installing this OS because in Lion I didn't have this problem).

BTW - I have ML downloaded through Apple Store because I bought the new laptop and I'm entitled for upgrading.

Thanks

A clean reinstall of Mountain Lion involves creating a bootable USB stick from the installer downloaded from the App Store. You would then boot from it by holding ALT (Option) while rebooting.  When you boot into the USB stick, use Disk Utility to delete both the Lion and Windows partitions from your drive.

As for clean reinstalling Lion, since it came pre-installed, you would have to backup your hard drive and 'erase' it which would then prompt you to reinstall the OS.


How to uninstall Git from the command shell? I currently have installed

git --version
git version 2.7.4 (Apple Git-66)

At this path

which git
/usr/bin/git

In a previous answer
How to uninstall Git?
it was suggested to run the uninstall.sh, but if I run cd /usr/bin/git I get -bash: cd: /usr/bin/git: Not a directory.

Below I copied the output of ls -l on the directory usr/bin (only the files that look to me as related to git for reasons of space).

    -rwxr-xr-x   1 root   wheel     18176 Mar 12 09:08 git
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 root   wheel     18208 Mar 12 09:08 git-cvsserver
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 root   wheel     18208 Mar 12 09:08 git-receive-pack
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 root   wheel     18192 Mar 12 09:08 git-shell
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 root   wheel     18208 Mar 12 09:08 git-upload-archive
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 root   wheel     18208 Mar 12 09:08 git-upload-pack

How do I uninstall git? I am trying to update to a newer version, the installer runs successfully, but when I run git --version I still get the older version. Thus I was thinking to uninstall git and reinstall from scratch, not sure if this is the right approach tho.

Do not uninstall Apple-distributed Git. You can leave it as it is and run another version by having it in a directory earlier in PATH environment variable.

The easiest way to install another version on OS X would be to use Homebrew packet manager.

After installing it, you can run:

brew install git

Homebrew (brew) will take care of all dependencies and configure the latest Git version, however there is still a chance it will find a setting it cannot resolve automatically, so read what Homebrew says at the end.

Packages installed with brew do not interfere with system-preinstalled packages.
It installs packages under /usr/local/Cellar directory and puts executables in /usr/local/bin, so you just have to keep it in PATH variable in before /usr/bin.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to clear the search box in Lion's Mail? I am running 10.7.2 and would like to be able to clear the search box in Mail with a shortcut. How do I do this?

If the focus is on the search box press "esc" key.
If not, the fastest way I've found is by first pressing Option+Command+F to set the focus on the search box and then press esc to clear it.

This is a link to apple standard shorcuts: Mac OS X Shorcuts


Xcode Keyboard Shortcuts Conflicted Xcode has a preferences window that allows you to set keyboard shortcuts
but many of my shortcuts are conflicted.

I've looked through all of system preferences for anything using these key combinations and came up with nothing and I closed down all third party apps like Alfred and still no luck.

Any ideas?

I had this problem too, and nothing in Keyboard Shortcuts in System Preferences was showing "^-6" as bound to anything.  But I figured it out...

Activate Mission Control
Add a bunch of spaces (I added 5, so I had 6 total [not counting Dashboard])
Go back to Keyboard Shortcuts. You should now see the "Switch to Desktop n" options there under the Mission Control heading
Uncheck them
Reactivate Mission Control and remove the added spaces


How to limit log file size in /var/log/DiagnosticMessages? Every so often my Mac mini will fill up the hard drive with log messages in /var/log/DiagnosticMessages. It will be fine for weeks, then suddenly spew 30GB to a log file in a single day. I'd like to be able to limit the size of the log files so that it doesn't fill up my drive when this happens.

I have found /etc/asl.conf that appears to at least somewhat configure the logging. Is there an option to cap the log file size?

One could argue that the real solution is to fix the problem that is causing all of the logging so bonus points to anyone that can answer that, but it seems a much harder task. It appears to be airport related with a 'com.apple.airport.autojoin.scan - failure' message and then recording hundreds of thousands of lines of CFString in a CFArray from airportd. Oddly enough I keep the airport disabled on this Mac.

While I suspect that this is not what you want to do, you could always do something like schedule a maintenance task to run to limit the size of the file.

Something like this in a shell script that you schedule:

tail -n 10000 /var/log/DiagnosticMessages > /var/log/DiagnosticMessages

Or if you want to keep a history of the contents, something like this:

mv /var/log/DiagnosticMessages /var/log/DiagnosticMessages_$(date +%y%m%d)

If you want to get fancy, you could:

cat /var/log/DiagnosticMessages | wc -l

and then only rename the file if > 10K.  As usual it all depends on how much effort you want to put into it, and whether or not you want a history of this file.

And as you said....this doesn't actually resolve the root cause.


Is it possible to install Swift Playgrounds in iOS Simulator? My iPad is not capable of running Swift Playgrounds. I am wondering if I installed Xcode on my Mac and used the iOS Simulator, would it be possible to access the iOS App Store and install Swift Playgrounds on that so I could take a look at the app?

I don't need to extensively use the app, I just want to have a look at it.

It's not possible to access the App Store from an Xcode simulator.  Apple doesn't install the App Store on the simulator and there's no way to add the app.

You can only access Swift Playgrounds from a real iPad running iOS 10 or later.


App for Blocking Website in Safari (For Productivity Purposes) Are there any apps on OS X that can block certain websites ('time-wasting ones') for a certain interval?

Preferably works for Safari.

SelfControl is a free app that will let you enter the websites you want blocked and for how long you want them blocked for.


Accessing Exchange from OS X - what restrictions are respected? I have just set up my own OS X machine to access my work mail (using Exchange).

To my understanding there are several restrictions requested by Exchange that clients needs to obey.  For instance, when using an iPhone the user configured lock time is overridden with what Exchange requires.  It may also be that using too many attempts to unlock the phone may cause it to erase itself (at least that is what Exchange asks for).

What restrictions are obeyed by OS X?   Will my machine require password when opening the lid?  Will it erase itself if I mistype my password three times?

Outlook cannot enforce computer locking, that would require your Mac to be joined to the (Active Directory) domain and only AD logins permitted. There may be Outlook specific settings that are specified but there is no way to enforce computer locking (on a Mac) just by setting up an Exchange account in Outlook. Setting it up in Mail.app, well there is very little that can be done other than forcing a password change.


iOS5 split keyboard not playing well with some apps, including Apple ones I have noticed some issues with the new split keyboard feature of iOS 5.

First, the when in split-keyboard mode, the screen content is not moved up despite the keyboard covering the content.

As you can see below, in iMessage, it's difficult to read the most-recent messages without moving the keyboard up higher.

Secondly, it doesn't seem to play well with some apps, in this case, the new Facebook iPad app.

In split-keyboard mode, the "Send" button is removed and the return key adds a new line instead of sending a message, making it impossible to send a new message without changing the keyboard mode.

The "Send" button is present with the standard keyboard:

I realize that the latter issue is no doubt an bug on part of the Facebook, but the iMessage bug seems like a pretty big oversight.

Are there some configuration options I'm just not seeing?

The new keyboard abilities in iOS 5 could cause quite a few problems for applications which haven't been updated to detect their use. In order to move content out from under the keyboard when it is shown, the application receives a notification whenever it is shown or hidden. However, if the keyboard isn't in the default position, the notification that it is about to be shown is not sent. Instead, there is a new notification which indicates that the keyboard is about to move. If you go back and forth between the default position and split/undocked, the application receives notifications that the keyboard moved, as well as notifications that it is shown and hidden. My guess is that Apple chose to have the status be "hidden" if the keyboard is not in the default position because it might not be necessary to move content in this case, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

What you are seeing with iMessages is that the keyboard is "hidden", so the app doesn't move its content. If your keyboard was undocked but not split, you wouldn't be able to read whatever was under it at all. Since it is split, the system adds a partially transparent box in the middle so that the entry field isn't floating on nothing, so the message is only mostly blocked.

The situation for Facebook is similar. It automatically hides the send button when the keyboard is hidden. Since the system doesn't send the "shown" notification if it is split, Facebook doesn't show the button if it's split either.

The only thing you can do is file a bug with Facebook and Apple. For Facebook, load the page for it in the App Store and click the "Send Feedback" button. For Apple, go to https://bugreport.apple.com/ (free developer account required). It is possible that Apple meant to send "shown" notifications for the split keyboard, in which case that is the real bug, but they should figure that out when they investigate the hidden messages.


How to list files of any installed app in the MAC programmetically? I am making MAC app in which I want to list of files / folders related to any installed app in the mac.

For example;

I want to get list of all the files and folders of Skype app installed in my MAC programmatically.

How can I do this?

Can I get list of files or folder related to installed mac programatically?

There are three ways to do this:

pay for or find people to install every possible app in a controlled environment and create a database of files and app versions
make code to patrol the file system and catalog changes and try to piece apart which changes resulted from which app install
pray all app developers use either the App Store distribution method or write an installation package receipt with a .bom file

Practically, none of these options is easy. The penalty of bad patrol code is worse than whatever problem you may be trusting to solve. The rest have miserable coverage or onerous errors and costs.


How to remove an app stuck in "waiting" mode from the Mac App Store? I've got 2 applications that I installed via the Mac App Store that are still in the "waiting" mode. How do I get these applications to finish installing? Or how do I remove them and try again?

By "waiting" mode I mean they are showing a download progress bar and have the word "waiting" overlaid their icons inside of the launchpad app. (I would take a picture but it doesn't seem to let me while showing the launchpad)

I had a problem with not being able to stop an old OS from downloading. In order to delete it and stop the download, once opening launchpad, I held down the 'option' on my keyboard which caused the apps to wiggle just like on the iphone. I could then click the 'x' and delete them/stop the download.


Podcasts App Crashing On Startup I have been using the podcasts app for a while now amd recently(Around a month ago) It started to crash on startup.

Things i've tried:
Deleted all downloaded episodes.
Turned every "automatically" things in settings.
Cleared Cache.
Restarted IPhone.

Phone Specs:
iOS 9.3.3
Iphone 6s

Thanks in advance for the help :)

Sure you have solved your problem since August but maybe the solution is going to Settings - Podcasts and turn off Podcasts Sync. Then open the app, check all is ok, and go to Settings to turn on again Podcasts Sync.


How to migrate iPhone (particularly Calendar) to a new Lion Mac from Snow Leopard My main computer is running Snow Leopard, so I am not using any iCloud syncing. It needs to stay on Snow Leopard because of several apps I'm still using that do not work under Lion.

My iPhone and iPad sync to this main computer.

I also have a laptop running Lion, and it does not have my iCal, Notes, Mail, or Address Book entries on it.

I'm not going to have access to my main Mac for about a month.  I don't care a lot about the music in my iTunes library as I plan to leave it on the SL Mac because it has much more disk space, and I can live without it for a month.

However, I need my calendar, notes, and contacts.  In particular, my calendar on my main computer has reminders and to-dos years into the future for legal and regulatory deadlines as well as historical records of when I made such filings, so I have to preserve that. Plus I want day-to-day usage of the calendar to still work.

The change is now I want calendar, contacts, notes, and iTunes all to be hosted on my Lion laptop.  So what's the best way to move the data from my SL Mac to my Lion laptop and get the iPhone and iPad to sync to the laptop?  Particularly since I'm going to want to move them back to the Snow Leopard Mac later.

I've read a lot of articles on how to move the iTunes library over, but because it is so big, I'd prefer not to move over the music.  In any case, just moving the iTunes library is not sufficient.  How do I move the other data over without wiping my laptop or my iPhone?

I understand you want your iTunes library to be hosted on your main machine but not on your Lion machine. Bit of confused there.

FIRST OF ALL. Back-up all of your calendar, address book, etc. data before you proceed for any inconveniences that may happen.

Anyway. For migrating your calendar, contacts, notes & etc. :

use the export features of those apps storing them on Snow Leopard machine and then import them to your Lion machine,
reset address book & calendar on your iOS devices by connecting them to your Snow Leopard machine and un-checking syncing of those data and finally syncing them for changes to take effect,
setup iCloud on Lion and also on your iPhone and iPad so that you can sync those information with your iPhone and iPad.

NOTE: don't sync them through iTunes when you are on Lion because if you do so your iPhone and iPad will be wiped and then re-synced as you've said because those devices can be synced with only one iTunes library at a time. Since you won't be taking your musics with you, those will be gone if you sync through iTunes. Just use iCloud. But this also means that you won't be able to sync music and any other kind of media to your iPhone and iPad until you return to your Snow Leopard machine.

After your return then you should:
 - export those up-to-date calendar, address book, etc. info. on Lion,
 - import them to your SL,
 - remove iCloud on everything,
 - return back to old fashioned iTunes syncing.

I know it's a bit of a hassle but it's your only option as far as I can see right now if you don't want to move your iTunes library to your Lion machine.

BUT if you choose to move your iTunes Library as well then you may follow Apple's guides here to do so. And be careful when you're migrating. Don't just copy&paste since iTunes' structure is complicated.

If you migrate then you can sync your calendar, address book, etc. through iTunes. But you gonna have to export&import those to your Lion machine as well. So the first option stands out.

If you've any other questions, just let me know.


connect to relative remote iMac via finder hanging I want to connect to my Mother's mac mini computer (who lives in another state) via the "Connect to server" so that we can transfer files over the network. This is the first attempt so forgive me for my basic knowledge on this. When I enter in the server address I click connect and it just hangs. Is there any other configurations that need to happen in order for this to work?  I have tried using the address that is displayed in System preferences and as well as her apple ID. She has Remote Login turned on and remote management and file sharing but for some reason it hangs as if it is trying to connect but nothing happens. Is there any other configurations that need to happen in order for this to work?

Since Apple removed 'Back to my Mac' from the system, it's been harder to get structures like this to work for the average home user.

The primary issue is that you need to use port forwarding on the remote router - not insurmountable, unless it's your 80-year-old technically-challenged granny who needs to set this up, 2,000 miles away. [Been there, done that].
Even if you are able to set up port forwarding, because you are setting up  commonly-used ports & protocols, you will then find you get a constant stream of random remote requests coming through it, from chancers trying to find a weak spot. You can't lock it down to requests from a specific IP address, because consumer IP addresses can change at any time.

So… forget that idea.

Instead, look at something whereby each user connects outbound to a remote server, which can then allow them to perform a secure handshake, then hook up directly to each other, without your firewall getting in the way.
It is far easier to see out through a firewall than try to punch a hole in. It requires no technical expertise from the user. Your browser does it every day.

There are many solutions to this problem, & the first one that always springs to mind is TeamViewer. I've used it, many years ago, it worked just fine. However, if they ever think you're using this for corporate purposes, they lock you out, rather unforgivingly. I eventually gave up trying to persuade them that one set of parents lived 200 miles in one direction & the other set 2,000 miles in the opposite direction, in a different country.

So, you could try TeamViewer, or one of the many alternatives that have sprung up over the past 10 years.

I normally don't like posting links to online comparisons as they often seem to be only trying to sell you their own solution rather than being fair & even-handed, but this one does appear to be un-biased. Ionos - Alternatives to TeamViewer
Most of those have free versions for home users, so pick one by feature-set; which looks the most useful to you. I'd probably go for AnyDesk these days, partly because it's supported on most platforms but also because it's made by a splinter from TeamViewer & aims to be faster, but I've not yet tried it so I can't honestly say which would be best these days.


Should I make my primary user an Administrator or not? For a long time, I have had two accounts on my Mac : an administrator account that I normally don't use, and a "normal user" that I use for day-to-day work. I did this because it should be more secure to work in an account with fewer privileges.

The drawback is that I get more security popups. And I believe Apple's standard practice is still to give you administrator rights when you do a standard install.

I will be installing a clean system soon, so my question is: should I continue using two accounts or just have one account for everything? Is having two accounts more secure in practice? or am I just annoying myself for no real reason?

Let's differentiate a user being one individual from a user being a single UNIX user account.

As for the purpose of limiting privileges to the computer account and not for the individual operating it, creating two separate user accounts in Mac OS X is overkill and if you ask me rather impractical. Even an administrator account lacks the privileges to modify anything system critical without authenticating as the root user, which requires manually re-entering your password.

The only significant extra privilege an administrator account has is the ability to switch to the root (privileged) account. If you are familiar with the sudo command in the shell, this is very much the same thing.

You would create a regular user account as opposed to an administrator account if you want to limit privileges of the individual operating the computer, for example with kids or employees.


How can I tell if a MacOS App is notarized or sandboxed? I'm running MacOS Catalina.  How can I tell if a particular MacOS App downloaded from the Internet is notarized and/or sandboxed?

I'm not sure if this helps but if you open System Information and in the side bar, go down to Software > Applications, you should see all the applications installed on your Mac. Clicking on any app will show you their certificates, version, and where you obtained these applications (i.e. from Mac App Store, Apple, identified developer or unknown).

To access System Information you can open it from a Spotlight Search, or click on the About this Mac in the Apple Menubar, and click on System Report.

Hope this helps.


iPhone Boot loop stuck The phone has never been jailbroken. Never got wet, anything.
But after one night it reboot, and got stuck. The battery overheat and even after a few attempts to solve the issue through iTunes, Recovery and DFU mode, it continues stuck at the same part of the boot.
I really don't know what to do anymore.
It is an iPhone 7 Plus 256, 2 months without warranty! Thats the worst!!
I'm running iTunes 12.7.2.58 on a MacBook Pro

Many things can cause a boot-looping device.

Try these things (if you haven't already) to see if anything helps:

Try a hard reset (Home & Power button for 10 secs)
Use a genuine Apple Lightning connector
Use a genuine Apple charging brick and let it charge overnight
Try to connect it to different computers (mac/pc if possible) with an updated iTunes
Put the phone in recovery mode (search DFU Mode). Careful, this can reset your data
Use 3uTools for putting it in and out of Recovery Mode
Use 3uTools to flash the firmware (you can't downgrade)

If you are comfortable opening your device (now that it's out of warranty) then consider the following:

Disconnect the Front Camera Ribbon from the logic board and reboot
your phone
Disconnect the screen assembly completely and see if iTunes will recognize the phone.

Otherwise, you may have a logic board issue. If you are uncomfortable doing these steps, consider either doing an OOW replacement at Apple or finding a reputable, independent repair shop to do the troubleshooting. A shop that also does micro-soldering can go deeper if the problem is not modular in nature.


OS X - List all active sockets I'm looking for a simple command that will list ALL currently active and/or otherwise bound TCP & UDP sockets, corresponding port numbers and their respective states (i.e. ESTABLISHED, LISTEN, WAIT, etc.)

Sort of like a reverse nmap scan is what I'm going for here.

From netstat's manual page:

  The netstat command symbolically displays the contents of various network-related data structures.  There are a
       number of output formats, depending on the options for the information presented.  The first form of the command
       displays a list of active sockets for each protocol.

pse@Mithos:~$ netstat
Active Internet connections
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q  Local Address          Foreign Address        (state)
tcp4       0      0  localhost.8228         localhost.52662        ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  localhost.52662        localhost.8228         ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  192.168.1.30.52661     stackoverflow.co.https ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  localhost.8228         localhost.52656        ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  localhost.52656        localhost.8228         ESTABLISHED
tcp4       0      0  localhost.8228         localhost.52651        ESTABLISHED
...


MacBook not recognising internal drives (HD and SSD) A week ago my MacBook crashed. When booting, a folder with a question mark showed up on my screen indicating severe trouble. I tried holding the Opt key while booting, but the Mac would not recognize any drives. I removed the HDD physically and enclosed it in a external USB enclosure. I could read/write and hence backup the data that way.

I tried:

erasing the disk and making a new recovery disk. The MacBook could not recognize the disk.
swapping the HDD with a Kingston HyperX SSD 120 GB. The Mac can find the disk, but won’t install either Lion, Mountain Lion or Snow Leopard on the disk. The installation reports problems with missing elements. I tried both Boot USB (L+ML), Recovery USB (L+ML) and the installation disk (SL). No luck.

Note: I can read/write on the SSD in the external HD enclosure - so it should not be a SATA controller related problem ...

Stats: late 2009 MacBook 13", all stuff in it is stock from Apple.

Suggestions as to cause and solutions for this issue would be much appreciated!

It's very likely that some internal hardware is down.

Since you said it yourself, the drive works using other interfaces and using another drive inside it doesn't.

Since on a MacBook there is just one mainboard I don't thing you can do something.


How do I change the Services sub component to not use Safari web browser When I right click and use the "Search Google for" different things happen. For one, if I am in Chrome it opens a new tab in Chrome and searches as I want. However, if I use this menu anywhere else in macOS, it uses Safari.

The system itself has the Services sub-component listed under Keyboard preferences or under the Finder menus. The Services sub-component lists lots of right-click menu items but does not let me change them. It lists "Search Google for", but it does not allow any customization.

How can I change this menu? I don't want Safari to open when I search.

This appears to have been answered on stackoverflow already and on SuperUser even earlier.

The "search with google" entry is added by safari and therefore cannot be edited.  So the solution is to disable that one, create your own service using automator, and then assign the appropriate shortcut key that will take precedence over the built-in disabled one.  This is actually what I was going to suggest until I found that someone else had already gone through it.

I've copied/pasted answer from SO here.

Instructions:

Open Automator and choose Service as the type
Add a "Run Shell Script" action by dragging it to the right pane

Add script

open "http://www.google.com/search?q=$(ruby -rcgi -e 'print CGI.escape $<.read.chomp')"

Adjust the TLD as needed for your country specific Google page. ex: http://www.google.co.in/search?q=

A comment to the SO answer suggests - instead of "Run shell script" you can also use "Run javascript", use script function run(input, parameters) { return "google.com/search?q=" + encodeURI(input) }, and stack additional action "Internet > Open webpages" underneath. It could work faster. Also see SU answer
Save the service as "Search Google"
Activate the service in System Preferences and optionally assign a keyboard shortcut. Once activated, "Search Google" will appear in the context menu


How to disable inline volume controls on headphones connected to mac? The inline volume up button on my Apple headphones randomly engages sometimes, which raises my mid-2013 Macbook Air's volume to the max. This is bad for my hearing and can be quite startling. Is there a way to disable the volume controls?

(I wanted to answer this question, but I didn't have enough reputation.)
Please note that loading and unloading kernel extensions can have unintended consequences. This solution worked for me without causing any issues on my mid-2013 Macbook Air, but that may not be the case for your setup. Understand what you're doing and perform at your own risk.

Open Terminal
With headphones plugged in, enter this command to ensure that AppleMikeyHIDDriver is controlling your headphones hidutil list | grep AppleMikeyHIDDriver. DO NOT CONTINUE IF THE OUTPUT IS BLANK. My output looked like this:

0x0      0x0       0x0        12        1     0x100000975 (null)    AppleMikeyHIDDriver Apple Mikey HID Driver             (null)    (null)

Run this command to ensure that the com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver kernel extension is running kextstat | grep com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver. DO NOT CONTINUE IF THE OUTPUT IS BLANK. My output looked like this:

179    0 0xffffff7f83cf9000 0x2000     0x2000     com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver (131) DE4003F6-F4F3-3C84-AB83-6CCDE6CF5DFC <49 8 5 3 1>

Unplug your headphones from your mac. The next step failed for me if they were plugged in with the following error:

(kernel) Can't remove kext com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver; services failed to terminate - 0xe00002c7.
Failed to unload com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver - (iokit/common) unsupported function.

Run this command to disable the inline volume and mic control sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver. You may need to enter your password.

If you ever want to enable it in the future just run sudo kextload -b com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver or reboot your mac and everything should go back to normal.


Event based on battery charge level I haven't found anything yet so I was hoping maybe someone here had an idea.

I want to kick off an even based on battery on an Apple laptop reaching a certain charge level, or when the battery is fully charged.

I know I can have something run periodically, check the battery level, and decide what to do, but I prefer event driven if possible.

I want this to be OS based, so I don't need an internet connection or a browser open etc. Just something that can happen in the background

The easiest way to do it would be with an application, but here's how to do it with built-in OS commands only. I know you want it to be event driven, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that, so here's one way of checking the battery level, then doing something else if it's above/below a threshold.

You may consider a launchd process, this is basically a scheduled task which runs every x minutes. They are often used by advanced users, but aren't too difficult to set up. You configure a launchd scheduled task with a .plist file which you put into this directory: Macintosh HD\Library\LaunchDaemons and this is how you structure the .plist file;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Debug</key>
<true/>
<key>ExitTimeOut</key>
<integer>120</integer>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.me.BatteryInfo</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/Users/yourusername/batt.sh</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>1800</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

If you were to save that file as com.me.BatteryInfo in the LaunchDaemons folder mentioned above, it would create a scheduled task which runs every 30 minutes. The number, 1800, directly above </dict> is the time in seconds of how often you want the task to run. Where it says <string>/Users/yourusername/batt.sh</string> is where you specify which script runs on schedule. You must leave <string> and </sting> intact.

The line <string>com.me.BatteryInfo</string> is the unique name of the scheduled task. If you are going to make more than one, make sure each .plist has a unique name here.

The next thing you need to do is change the ownership of the .plist to root. This is required as a security feature (to stop software/users creating scheduled malicious tasks, I assume). To change the ownership of the file, do sudo chown root \Library\LaunchDaemons\yourtask.plist (replace yourtask.plist with the actual file name of the .plist you created). This task will prompt you for a password.

Now you need to create the script which will run periodically. You need to make a .sh file (a bash script) to tell the computer what to do. To make a .sh file, open up a programmers text editor, such as Sublime Text or Komodo Edit. DO NOT use Text Edit, as it often adds text to your files which would interfere with your script. Text Edit shouldn't really be used for code.

Make a script (.sh file) with the following code;

#!/bin/sh

percent=$(ioreg -l | awk '$3~/Capacity/{c[$3]=$5}END{OFMT="%.3f";max=c["\"MaxCapacity\""];print(max>0?100*c["\"CurrentCapacity\""]/max:"?")}')

if [ $percent > 95 ]
    then
        echo 'charged.'
fi
exit 0

Replace echo 'charged.' with the terminal command(s) you would like to run when the battery is charged. open /Applications/Notes.app will open the Notes application; you can change the directory to open a different application.

$percent > 95 This tells the next line to only run when the battery is more than 95 charged. You can change this to whatever you want. The battery level here will often be slightly different to what is displayed in the menu bar at the top. If you want to 'run when battery is fully charged' I recommend leaving this as > 95.
If you want the task to run when your battery goes below 20% for example, change it to $percent < 20

NOTE: Because this is a scheduled task, your script will run every x number of minutes. This means if you put open \Applications\Notes.app inside your script, the Notes application will start every x minutes (if your battery is charged)

This task will run even if nobody is logged in.

I know you asked this question a while ago, but hopefully this will help someone.


Local WiFi sync in Mavericks 10.9.3 iTunes With iTunes contact and calendar sync over USB reinstated in 10.9.3, does this change also reinstate the ability to locally synchronize over WiFi (i.e. not cloud sync) as is available in Mountain Lion?

In ML there is the ability to use WiFi as an alternative to USB to synchronize contacts and calendar locally (not using iCloud).

Both USB and local WiFi sync were removed and replaced by iCloud sync in Mavericks.

The question is whether or not both functionalities are back with 10.9.3 or only the USB part.

Only the ability to sync via USB has been restored.


How do I delete files on a bootable osx Catalina disk from another bootup disk? My friend's 2016 iMac keeps crashing on restart after trying to install the latest Catalina update. The problem seems to be not enough disk space, he only has about 16 GB free on his internal Mac HD.

I had him boot up in recovery mode and install a fresh system on an external HD. Now I am trying to get into the MacHD drive to clean up some space but I can't get in to his files. Under 'Users' I just see 'Shared'. Nothing shows up in his application folder either. I am able to see some system files but not the personalised ones.

I tried changing permissions for the Mac HD to read & write but still no lock. I had him do it first over the phone but he is a total novice so ending up using Anydesk to access his computer remotely. Any suggestions of how I can clean up some space? Or can I cancel and ongoing update on restart with a key command?

Is your Mac running a beta version of macOS? There is a known bug where the system crashes with lower amounts of space in Catalina. You should try resetting the NVRAM first. Then, you can also try a reset of the SMC for power related issues. To delete files off of the Internal Drive, boot up on the bootable drive and go to Finder and click on the Internal Drive. If FileVault was enabled, then macOS will prompt for the login password of one of the users on the problem instance of macOS. This will unlock and mount the drive. Then, you can use Finder and Terminal to navigate the files and delete.


Applescript transform date format I'm using this to transform my date from a DD/MM/YYYY to MM/DD/YYYY

set today to short date string of (current date)
set t to (time string of (current date))
set [_day, _month, _year] to [day, month, year] of date today

set _month to _month * 1 --> 3
set _month to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _month) --> "03"
set the text item delimiters to "/"
set today to {_month, _day, _year} as string
set fullDateToday to today & " " & t as string

  e.g 04/20/2019  >  11/15/18

Although how can I transform the year in YY instead of YYYY ?

NOTE: I took what was described in a comment and converted it to an answer for completeness on this Q&A.

To convert the date so that the year is in YY format vs. YYYY format you could use this line to set _year.

set _year to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _year)

Example

Here's a full example of the your AppleScript snippet:

$ cat showdate.sh
#!/bin/bash

osascript <<END
set today to short date string of (current date)
set t to (time string of (current date))
set [_day, _month, _year] to [day, month, year] of date today

set _month to _month * 1 --> 3
set _month to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _month) --> "03"
set _year to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _year)
set the text item delimiters to "/"
set today to {_month, _day, _year} as string
set fullDateToday to today & " " & t as string
END

And when it's executed we get the following.

Today's date

$ date
Sun Apr 21 00:21:08 EDT 2019

via AppleScript

$ ./showdate.sh
04/21/19 00:20:45

How it works

This AppleScript line:

set _year to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _year)

When executed, will set the variable _year to the last 2 digits of the contents of _year prior vale. So if the value was 2019, the above line would result in _year being 19.

("0" & _year) - converts _year's contents to a string by prefixing a 0 to the beginning
-1 thru -2 of ... - will slice the last 2 digits from _year, and remove everything else from _year
-1 starts indexing from the right instead of the left

References

Index » unScripted » Dates & Times in AppleScripts


In AppleScript, what is the easiest way to remove all punctuation from a string? I have an Automator Service that is comprised of a single "Run AppleScript" action. The Service receives selected text in any application.

The Service incorporates this selected text into a pre-determined URL format. The Service then opens the newly-assembled URL in a new tab in a web browser window.

Here is a string that the Service might receive:

  My Plant's Dead! (But, Who Cares? I Have 12 Plants.)

I want to use AppleScript to remove every and any punctuation symbol that exists in the string, including spaces. I also need the string to be converted to all lowercase characters. Numbers should not be removed from the string.

So, the desired string is:

myplantsdeadbutwhocaresihave12plants

I understand that I can accomplish the desired effect by writing an individual text item delimiters statement for every possible punctuation symbol and for 26 uppercase letters. I could use a replace_characters sub-routine to make this method a bit neater.

Is there an easier or shorter way to accomplish this effect in AppleScript, as opposed to using dozens of text item delimiters blocks? Such as, one line of code that reduces a string to letters?

I know that other programming languages have a "strip punctuation" shortcut, which is why I ask.

This is, essentially, an AppleScript-specific "Code Golf" question.

Try the following:

set stringToConvert to "My Plant's Dead! (But, Who Cares? I Have 12 Plants.)"
set returnedString to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of stringToConvert & " | tr -dc '[:alnum:]' | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'"

It returns: myplantsdeadbutwhocaresihave12plants

tr commands explained:

tr -dc '[:alnum:]' deletes all non alphanumeric characters (including white space).
tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' converts all upper-case characters to lower-case characters.

See the man page for tr.


Recover SSH private key passphrase from keychain After performing a macOS upgrade ssh asked for my ssh passphrase. I have completely forgotten the passphrase since keychain has been managing it.

This answer shows how to configure keychain to reconnect and remove my need to enter the passphrase when connecting to a host. After following those steps I can ssh successfully without knowing the private key passphrase, which suggests that the passphrase is stored in keychain.

However, I can't find the ssh passphrase in keychain. Is there a way to recover the ssh key passphrase from keychain?

This question/answer says that keychain keeps passphrases as regular keychain items, but I can only find one item after searching for ssh and that is an older item for my original id_rsa key which is no longer is use.

Open Keychain Access and enable the option View > Show Invisible Items.

Than you must search for id_rsa or ‘ssh’.


Will a MacBook7,1's SuperDrive work in a MacBook2,1? A friend of mine has a MacBook2,1 mid 2007 with a dead Combo Drive (long story short, someone at the Apple Store put the wrong drive in), and I have a MacBook7,1 (mid 2010) that I tore down for parts.

Normally I'd just try this myself but the drive is at my parents house an hour away and gas is $3.49 a gallon. Does anyone know if they're interchangeable?

Unfortunately, this isn't possible. The MacBook7,1 has a SATA connection for the optical drive, whereas the MacBook2,1 has an ATA connection for the optical drive.


Updating iTunes Match metadata/tags? I recently turned Match on in iTunes, and it did its thing and matched/uploaded songs. I then turned it on in my iPhone and to my horror, the tags that I thought I had meticulously organized weren't quite so perfect... mostly due to the "Album Artist" tag.

For example, the artist list in my iPhone now displays both “Smashing Pumpkins” and “The Smashing Pumpkins”.  I went back to iTunes, corrected all the issues I could find, and hit “Update iTunes Match”, thinking this would send in my corrected tags.

Once it finished, I checked my phone to find that nothing had changed.  I then checked back in iTunes to find that it had actually uncorrected the tags I just fixed. They're now back to the way they were when I sent them into Match.

Is there a way to get Match to recognize changes to ID3 tags, or am I forever stuck with what I've got?

I had a similar issue, it seems as once the song is uploaded to iCloud via iTunes match it becomes the "Master" copy.  Install iTunes 10.5.1 or later on another PC and connect it to iTunes Match but DO NOT download anything!  Then you can delete songs from iCloud, don't worry this won't delete them from your main iTunes library. Once deleted go back to your main iTunes machine and change the metadata, then choose add to iCloud for the song. The new metadata will now be ULd to iCloud.


Resurrection of my MacBook Pro My MacBook Pro was pronounced "dead on arrival" by the Apple Genius after sustaining injuries from liquid that had been spilled in my brief case. Despite the purchase of a new MacBook Pro Retina I find myself unable to completely detach from the MacBook that drowned in a pool of sweetened iced tea while under my watch. Is there a financially practical solution for resurrecting my MacBook Pro with the 17 inch display and solid state hard drive? It's been stored in my closet and has never started since the fatal accident.


iPad: Why missing photos when sync photos and video using iTunes with my Mac I have photos around 3021 and 91 videos on my Mac but once I sync with my iPad. The photo collection in iPad only have 2938 photos and 91 photos. My Mac still have 3021, how to I sync all the rest of the photos?

At the moment, if I tried to sync, It has nothing to sync.

This worked for me using iTunes sync.

From iTunes menu bar, click View, References, Advanced, Reset warnings, Reset cache
Restart iTunes
Sync


Is it possible to force macOS to play audio only on the active app? Is there a way to make sound come pro only one app.
Example: I have VLC and safari (YouTube). Both are playing a video but I want my speakers to only play the sound from the active app.
So if I selected safari to be active, VLC is muted and safari plays a sound.

I just came across an answer that mentions an app called Sound Control ($19) that should do what you want, but I haven't tried it yet.


An ipad app or setting that helps turn off wifi or turn on airplane mode on schedule? i hope to conserve battery at night. is there an ipad app or setting that helps turn off wifi or turn on airplane mode at certain time? or would it even be better to have an app that turns off the device completely on schedule?

No. Not unless you jailbreak your device.

There is obviously Do-Not-Disturb which disables alerts, but does not put the phone on Airplane mode or disable wifi.

Keep in mind that if you turn off wifi, or enable Airplane mode, that iCloud backups or iTunes backups won't work at that point.

So, in order to conserve battery overnight, you will need to manually enable Airplane mode, disable wifi, or, you could power the device off completely. Again, keep in mind, iCloud backups will not perform during this time.


List of Apple Watch Workouts and Metrics According to Apple, there are 12 different workouts:

The screenshot only shows 4. What are all 12 workouts?

Also, Apple says you can select up to 5 metrics.
What are all the different metrics?

The 12 workout types are:

Cycling (Indoor & Outdoor)
Run (Indoor & Outdoor)
Walk (Indoor & Outdoor)
Swim (Pool & Open Water)
Elliptical
Rower
Stair-Stepper
Other (these can be labeled as various activities like Strength Training, but the label is purely cosmetic—it has no incidence on calorie computations)

The various metrics are:

Duration
Current Pace & Speed
Average Pace & Speed
Distance
Laps
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate

They are not all available for every workout type. For instance, Pace is available for Run/Walk, while Cycling may show your Speed.

Swims cannot display Current Pace, only Average Pace.

Laps are only available during Pool Swims, whereas stationary machine workouts (such as Elliptical and Indoor Cycling) cannot display Distance-related metrics (eg. Speed).

Pace and Distance calculations for Indoor Walks/Runs are dependent on how well you’ve calibrated your WATCH, and require that you swing your arms throughout the workout. Holding onto the handlebars will cause WATCH to think you are not exercising.

Duration, Active/Total Calories and Heart Rate are available for all workout types.

Calorie computations are calibrated over time, as you wear and use your WATCH. They factor in both your heart rate and the weight you’ve recorded in the Health app.


Change carrier text without jailbreak I was wondering if there was any relatively easy way to change the carrier text on my iPod touch 3g (running ios 4.3.3). I've tried editing the com.apple.springboard.plist and adding the SBFakeCarrier key, but it appears that has been removed as of ios 4.2.1. Is there any similar solution?

Here's a relatively simple method that does involve jailbreak but ends up with a non-jailbroken iPod and a fake carrier setting.

Jailbreak your iPhone (stay with me)
Download Cydia App: 'MakeItMine' by Erika Sadun
Change the carrier name
Connect your iPod and create a backup on iTunes
Restore your iPod to factory settings
Restore your backup

Your iPod touch should now display your fake carrier and be non-jailbroken.


How can I reinstall Mac OS 10.5.8 without erasing data? macbook OS will not load finder function want to reinstall but don't want to lose data thanx for any/all help!

You should be able to reinstall the OS without it deleting any of your personal files (those in your User folder); it's one of the install options available from the OS installer. This option only changes System and other files that belong to the OS).

(Of course, be careful not to select a full erase/reinstall option. And a full time machine backup is still highly recommended. If things go wrong, you can then do a full erase/install, and the installer will prompt you to restore personal files via your time machine backup.)


Automaticly file screenshots in folder on desktop I take lots of screenshots that fill up my desktop very quickly, what im trying to do is set a system where all screenshots will automatically get saved to a screenshots folder on my desktop.

Ive tried to set an automator action to do this, but couldn't figure out exactly how to do this, any ideas / guidance much appreciated

You can change the default screenshot location via the Terminal running the following commands:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/yourpathhere
killall SystemUIServer

In your case to save the screenshots in a folder on the desktop the path would be /Users/userName/Desktop/yourfoldername


macOS Maps - any way to change the default starting point for navigation? Is there a hidden setting to change the default starting point for Maps navigation away from "My Location"?

The Problem: When I'm traveling, I frequently want to check the distance between two locations in a distant place (hotel to attraction or restaurant). Every time I find the destination and click on "Directions", Maps immediately starts getting Navigation directions from my "Current Location" which wastes time and data usage because the map zooms out and away, starts looking for multiple routes, and runs into a dead end if there is an ocean in-between. Tedious to click in the Start box and delete "My  Location" each time.

I could find nothing obvious in the output of:
defaults read "com.apple.Maps"

You could disable "Your Location " for Map

Then you would get this in Map ..

And have to enter the Starting and the End points


How do I listen to sample/preview in the iOS Music app? The iTunes desktop application has a feature where you can listen to a 90-second sample, or preview, of a song before purchasing it. However I can't find this feature on my iPhone. I'm looking in the "Music" app on iOS 9.2. Is there a different place that I should be looking? Is the feature hiding behind some sort of touch gesture that I just don't know about?

That would be part of the iTunes app that comes bundled (pre-installed) on your iPhone.


How to change tap to click using "defaults write" from command line? I want to change the trackpad tap-to-click property from the command line. Graphically, I can do it by clicking System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Tap to Click. How can I do it from  the command line?

I have tried:

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -int 0
defaults write GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0

but these didn't work (with int as 1 and 0, with reboot). Am I missing some step? I have Macbook 5,1 Snow Leopard.

Got it to work. The correct format (for me) is:

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0

Change 0 to 1 if you want to enable the tap-to-click. This seems to be really sensitive to which version you are using. The commands in the question have worked for others.

Logout - login is required for this to work.


How can I open a port (not application) in the macOS Sierra firewall? I am trying to follow up on this thread and to update it for macOS Sierra (and probably all versions since Yosemite).

In that thread, a way to open a single port in the OS's firewall was suggested:

sudo ipfw add 40000 allow tcp from any to any dst-port portnum

However, since Yosemite, ipfw was replaced with pf and, unless I am mistaken, pfctl should therefore be used.

What would the above command translate to?

To open a port you would use the following line(s):

pass in proto tcp from any to any port 40000
pass in proto tcp from any to any port 80
pass in proto {tcp, udp} from any to any port 53
pass in from any to any port 3601

To quick-start pf and open a port with one of the lines above use e.g.:

echo "pass in proto tcp from any to any port 40000" | sudo pfctl -ef -

To test the rule(s) use: sudo pfctl -s rules

After a reboot you would have to enter the command again, because pf is not started automatically.

By default the pf.conf file has no blocking all rule. So even after starting pf with sudo pfctl -e nothing is blocked.

If you don't want to dive deeply into pf/pf.conf/pfctl, I recommend to use a pfctl GUI like the free Murus Lite to configure pf.


Is it possible to write to the Boot Camp disk in OS X? I have a MacBook Pro with Boot Camp and sometimes I want to update information on the Windows partition but currently I have to boot in Windows and read from the Mac partition.  I don't want to leave OS X to organize files.

It is possible.

You will first need MacFUSE and then NTFS-3G.

The User's Guide for NTFS-3G can be found here (PDF).


Can I add app folders to dock from launchpad? I want to add folder from launchpad, is it possible? I tried but coulndt put anyway. Is there an app or anything for this?

Folders can be added to dock but they must be added to the right of the separator bar. Apps go to the left of the bar and files/folders to the right. The separator bar is the small verticle line on the dock. Dragging a folder onto the dock, to the right of separator bar, will attach an alias of that folder to the dock.


I Accidentally Deleted a Stock Terminal Theme I accidentally deleted a stock Apple terminal theme that I'd like to get back.  The one I accidentally deleted is called "Pro" (under the Profiles tab in the Terminal settings).  Is there a way to get this back without having to go through an entire installation?

Click the gear icon in the "Profiles" tab and select the option "Restore Default Profiles."


How can I convert an AI file to a CDR file? Assume I have an AI file, Adobe Illustrator CS 5 and no CorelDraw. How can I convert this AI file to CDR file? What is the fastest and cheapiest way?

What version of CorelDRAW? What's the workflow?

.CDR is a proprietary format, so I'm not aware of any proper supported exporters. The sK1 project reverse-engineered the format, and claims to have the best support. But since recent versions of CorelDRAW can import Adobe Illustrator CS4 files, I think you would get the best results to just save it as .ai and import it into CorelDRAW.


Extremely High DNS Data Usage (GBs per Month) My iPhone was using > 2GB a month in data, and 99% of it was due to DNS.  Consistently I was chewing up 50-100MB in data per day.  I would go to Cellular->System Services->DNS and see very little usage elsewhere, but high GB usage for DNS.

What could possibly cause this?  A DNS query is an ipv4 packet or two...

All the other data usage clearly correlated to my actual usage but I could not understand DNS.

This is on an iPhone 8+ that is always updated to the latest iOS within a few days.

Turns out my ad blocker (1Blocker) was the cause.  Once I disabled it, DNS usage flatlined to near zero.  I was chewing up 50-100MB a day in DNS and now it's been a single MB in a week.

Strangely, I have Safari blocked from using cellular.  I often tether another phone's hot spot for use, but that should burn data on that phone and not this one.  Still, 1Blocker burned a ton of data use on this phone.  I don't know if that means it's poorly designed or it was doing something shifty under the covers.


Why does installing applications require Volume and mount on Mac? I am new to Mac.  In the Windows world, installers basically would be msi files.  These msi files are typically a compressed database telling the msiexec where the files should get copied.  These files would get copied to the appropriate directories. There would also be registry entries indicating that the files should get copied to Program files etc.

Based on this, I have following questions:

In Mac/Unix since there is no control panel, I could be installing same dmg again and again. I would never get repair option.
Why are Volume and mount required?  Isn't the installation on Unix like copying files to a target system ?.

Note that there are usually two ways of installing applications on Mac OS X:

A simple and common way is to send the user an application bundle. The user can copy it to whichever directory (s)he feels like it. Typically, applications are copied/moved to the /Applications directory and can be moved around the filesystem (or to other filesystems).
Another way is to provide an installer. Installers are helpful in case there’s need for pre-/post-flight scripts or specific directories.

So, answering your questions:

In Mac/Unix since there is no control panel, I could be installing same dmg again and again. I would never get repair option ?

Although there is something similar to Control Panel, namely System Preferences.app, there is no stock application to manage applications (list, install, remove). Since most users install applications to the /Applications directory, listing applications is done via inspecting the directory, installing applications is done via copying/moving application bundles to that directory, and removing applications is done via removing application bundles from that directory.

Yes, it is possible for a user to install the same application repeatedly — but I can’t really imagine a use case for that. Maybe you’re asking this because of a ‘repair option’? What would that do? If you’re considering the case where an application bundle gets corrupted by some reason then it could be just a matter of copying the application bundle again.

Why are Volume and mount required ?. Isn't the installation on unix like copying files to a target system ?

.dmg volumes are not required to install applications. A developer/distributor can ship an application bundle in a .zip file, or a .tar file, or a compressed .tar file. Many developers prefer to ship applications via a .dmg volume because it is possible to customise the appearance of the volume when it is mounted — custom background, custom icons, custom icon sizes, or a link to the /Applications directory to make it easier for the user to copy the application bundle to that location.


Is there anything like OneTab available for Safari? I am looking for a "tabs decluttering" app for Safari like OneTab Chrome Extension

How OneTab Works
Whenever you find yourself with too many tabs, click the OneTab icon
to convert all of your tabs into a list. When you need to access the
tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once.
When your tabs are in the OneTab list, you will save up to 95% of
memory because you will have reduced the number of tabs open in Google
Chrome.

Here is a native way of doing it without the use of any extensions.

In Safari, under the "Bookmarks" menu, there is an option for you to "Add Bookmarks for These X Tabs...". If you click on it, you will be prompted to save these tabs in the current windows as bookmarks. You can assign them to a Folder and give it a Session Name.

When you do want to resume the session, you simply go to the bookmark folder, right click on it and select "Open in New Tabs".

The beauty of this methods is that, if you have iCloud sync enabled, you will be able to resume your saved sessions across all your Apple devices.


Do Apple products have different networking / wifi standards? I've been having some trouble with network handling using MacBooks and MacBooks only.

At home I'm using really old NetGear WGR614V9 router, everything works fine but every single one of my Apple laptops (full list at the end of the post) was dropping wi-fi signal every 5-60 minutes for a few seconds, especially under heavy network usage (imagine you're trying to get Linux using Torrent, it takes a good while to find peers then the transfer gets better and better and bam, it drops completely, repeat).

At my friend's place once any of my MacBooks joined his network - the whole network became unstable, to the point it was required to reset the router, because it won't accept any new devices.

At my parent's flat if I use my MacBook next to any other laptop using wi-fi - Mac is stealing signal REALLY bad, the internet on the laptop next to it is usually unusable.

Countless times I had problems with wi-fi at hotels and airbnbs (weak signal mostly), while my girlfriend had no issues at all (using cheapest Acer laptop you could imagine). Also often my Android based phones had better wifi strength than MacBooks.

I've NEVER ever encountered anything close to these issues on any of my Windows/Linux based laptops.

So I'm wondering is Apple doing something differently? Are there any Apple-certified routers I could buy so I will be 100% sure they will work like expected (and won't act strange against other non-apple devices)?

If it makes any difference I live in Europe and I've been using local MacBooks but my last one is from US distribution and I'm wondering if it might be causing some additional trouble.

The Macs I had all of the above problems were these:

Apple MacBook Air 13" 2010
Apple MacBook Air 13" 2011
Apple MacBook Pro 13" 2013
Apple MacBook Pro 13" 2014

I think it might be software-related because often after updates the described problems were getting better and then worse and then better again. Also I'm pretty much sure MacBooks perform much worse than anything with networks that use crowded channels, a few times I could easily connect any device to given wi-fi network excepting MacBooks.

What's going on here? Any hints?

In general, no. Apple wifi works very well in my experience and we use it for analysis and measurement and production use.

Have you done a wire shark dump when a specific computer has specific issues?

https://www.adriangranados.com/apps/airtool

This developer makes awesome tools to support and manage wifi. You can start for free and then get the paid apps if you need to work out why you are seeing poor performance. Other than running software updates, you don’t need to worry about Apple hardware or drivers in general. Of course hardware can fail and os can need to be wiped and reinstalled, but categorical bad performance isn’t something I’ve seen reportedly professionally or documented anecdotally across the board.


Xcode, Command Line Tools, GCC, and HomeBrew I was following a Vuforia & Unity tutorial when I realized that (upon building for iOS) Xcode would not launch.

So, I issued the following commands at the Terminal to find out if I had Xcode installed:

$ xcode-select --version
xcode-select version 2343.

$ xcode-select -p
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

$ xcode-select --install
xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, use "Software Update" to install updates.

$ gcc --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.42.1)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin

This all means that the full Xcode package is not installed on my Mac. Right?

If correct, do I necessarily have to download it from the App Store or can I also do it via HomeBrew?

Judging from the following command line output:

xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, use "Software Update" to install updates.

it appears that you only have Xcode's command line tools installed. They are a requirement for running homebrew.

To build iOS apps you will have to download the full xcode package with the IDE and all the necessary tools. You can get Xcode from the AppStore: Link


Download folder from iCloud Drive web I want to download a folder from iCloud Drive using the web interface (iCloud.com). The only problem is, since it is not zipped, I cannot download the folder. Is there a way to download the folder without having to sync the entire content of my iCloud Drive with my computer?

No proper solution
Up today (2021-03-13), there is no immediate way to download a specified folder from iCloud.
The download button is grayed/disable for folders in iCloud.com.
Below there are only hacks.
The evident (and painfully) approach
You can select all the files inside the desired folder and click the download button, but since it does not include subfolders, you must patiently repeat the process for each folder in the tree.
Request Apple a copy of your data
Go to https://privacy.apple.com/ and request to Apple a copy of your iCloud files.
Unfortunately, you cannot select which folder you want to include; you will receive a link to download the whole drive.
They say it could take a few days to receive the link. However, in my experience, it only takes a day.
You can also use this trick to download other data that Apple makes it difficult to obtain in a standard format, such as the Health App data.
The iPhone solution (the best approach)
So, the original question request a solution "without having to sync the entire content of my iCloud Drive with my computer".
I had the same problem. I was not using iCloud Drive in my Mac, but it was active (probably by default) on my iPhone.
Then, I could use the File app (the built-in App) to copy the whole folder to the internal storage of my iPhone or to other cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.).

Ensure your other cloud is active within the File App.
Select (...) > Edit in the upper right corner of the File application initial view to activate the available cloud accounts.

Browse to the folder you want to copy from iCloud.

Long press on the folder name to activate further option, then select Compress to create a zip file of the folder.
(You can skip this step, but I recommend it if you are planning to copy to another cloud and not for the internal iPhone storage)

Long press on the zipped folder, then select Copy or Share.

Select a destination for your zipped folder.

Wait. It could take longer to copy from one cloud to the other.

Use the other cloud to download your files.

Complaint to Apple!

Complaint to Apple
Meanwhile, complain to Apple about this unbelievable omission
https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html


How do I create terminal session independent env vars on OS 10.10? I read Mortimer's answer here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25385934/setting-environment-variables-via-launchd-conf-no-longer-works-in-os-x-yosemite and added this file in /Users/MyName/Library/LaunchAgents called environment.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>my.startup</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>sh</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>
    launchctl setenv GRADLE_HOME /Applications/gradle-2.0
    launchctl setenv JAVA_HOME
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_71.jdk/Contents/Home
    </string>

  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Restarted my laptop, opened a terminal, and ran echo $GRADLE_HOME but it is still blank.  How do I set an env var that is persistent throughout terminal sessions in Mac OS 10.10?

shut down and start the computer again.  open the terminal and type echo $ENV_VAR and you should see the value you defined.


Smart Mailbox no longer working The Smart Mailbox I have set up for Wells Fargo emails has stopped populating since January 2016. Previously it had populated properly since I made it in 2010.

I have since received many Wells Fargo Bill Pay emails - but they don't populate into the Smart Mailbox.

I have created another Smart Mailbox with the same name but with a number one (1) after. It shows exactly the same emails.

What fixed it for me was this procedure, i.e.:

  Go to the Applications > Utilities folder.
  Open Activity Monitor.
  Select “All Processes” from the View menu.
  Search for “mds”.
  Select and quit each instance of “mds” and/or “mdserver” separately (force-quit if you have to).

I had only one instance of “mds”. Force-quitting it was enough to instantly solve the problem. Kudos to MacIssues!


How do I access Windows PCs on the network? How can I access Windows PCs from my Mac, and vice-versa, on the same network. I need to transfer files back and forth, and I can't seem to figure out how to do it. I poked around the settings, added the MacBook to the workgroup and all, but the computers still can't see each other. Right now I'm using a USB HDD to shuffle files, but that is far from ideal...

Sharing must be enabled.  To see the Mac from your PC's, enable File Sharing (System Preferences/Sharing/File Sharing).  You will need to take the additional step of enabling Samba sharing, since PC's don't use Apple's File sharing Protocol (AFP).  Do this by then clicking on options, and make sure "Share files and folders using SMB (Windows)" is checked.  Turn it on for whichever accounts you wish to authorize.

In order to see PC shares from your Mac, the PC's must be on the same network, with sharing enabled.  Share a folder or something.  Is it XP, Vista, 7?  If it's XP, disable Simple File Sharing.  Do so by opening a folder, going to Tools->Options, and find it at the bottom of View.  Then right-click a folder, go to Sharing and Security, and enable sharing.

If it still doesn't show up, you may have a network/firewall issue, and it warrants further help.. but try that to get you started.


Are there any preventative measures I should employ after my MacBook was seemingly bricked? Yesterday while working on my 12" 2017 MacBook I got a warning from system preferences that I couldn't shut down because it wasn't responding.

I force shut down the laptop and it would no longer turn on.
After trying to reset the SMC with no success and not finding other resources to solve the issue, I set up an appointment with the Apple store for the next day and went to sleep. When I got up, the laptop just turned on.

Now I'm worried that I just got lucky and will have the problem come back. Besides backing up data, what are other procedures, updates, or other precautionary steps I can take to give me the best chance of preventing this happening again?

Proceed to take it to an apple store for checking
Run Apple Diagnostics on your Mac:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731
Run "/applications/utilities/disk utility" to check out the drive.

You will need to answer two prompts.

Run ends with:

This picture is from High Sierra.  user3439894 has provided additional links.

Should you find a problem, you can boot in recovery mode ( hold down command + r then power on your machine ). Look for Disk Utility under Utilities. Run "repair disk".


Are there any iPhone cases compatible with full-body iPhone films (i.e. films on the sides)? I am a kind of person who likes to keep their phone out without a case most of the time (except for outdoor sporting trips), so I have a full body invisible shield which does NOT work well with any cases I try because of the added size on the antenna sides. The best solution I found was the Defender OtterBox, but that renders the invisible shield ruined after applying the case. Does anyone know of cases designed with full body shields in mind?

Most people I know of that appreciate the invisible shield type skins go for a sleeve as their secondary protection method.

I have seen very nice ones made DIY style from all manner of foam - the more risky a sport, the more padding you can include. It's cheap, light and only as bulky as you need. A simple strap will keep your phone in the sleeve and you can waterproof with a bag as needed.

The nature of the soft sticky films is that they grip most hard cases and result in the damage you are seeing to the skin when a hard plastic case gets fitted over the phone.

If foam isn't your preference, sleeves from felt and leather are also widely available from reputable retail and internet sellers, etsy, ebay. Don't overlook the potential to have your local craftsmen or craftswomen make a sleeve to your exact specifications for a reasonable cost.


Can you prevent the iPhone browser from reloading pages? I commute using the subway so this means 20 minute stretches of no internet.

To give me something to do, I often open a bunch of web pages, say 3 or 4 before I'm offline so I can read them while I'm without a signal.

If I check my pages just before losing a signal, they show up perfectly and the internet icon doesn't show, hence my thinking that it's not reloading when I check.

After loosing internet, sometimes my web pages will display fine, other times they try to reload.

Is there a way to have them not reload so I can read them?

Any other alternatives?

The behavior that you've described appears to be a limitation of the Safari mobile browser. Other users have complained about the Safari Mobile auto refresh behavior on several Apple community forum posts.

This iFans post offers some explanations and potential solutions:

  This is not a feature... It's a limitation.

  MobileSafari keeps website cache only in RAM, and therefore, once it
  runs out of RAM, it'll automatically destroy an entire page, forcing
  the refresh, disguising itself as an auto-refresh feature. You can
  only keep at most 3 pages open at any time... Even the iPhone 4 with
  double the amount of RAM can only keep 5 pages.

  You can try a third-party browser that has offline caching, and it'll
  remedy the situation. Or alternatively, use the swap file mod I posted
  in the jailbreak forums and it should work, too.

  These third-party browsers have offline page caching as far as I know:

  iCab Mobile (also supports concurrent tab, which means you can browse
  websites while listening to music on youtube, this is my personal
  favourite)
  Atomic Web Browser (many useful features, but the interface
  is a bit strange)
  Mercury (cool browser that looks like a shrunk
  version of desktop Safari)

Your choices appear to be:

Use a jailbreak mod to increase the swap file size (hopefully will increase number of pages that can be stored)
Use a third party browser that supports offline caching


iPhotos > Shared Photo Albums: Protect from Remote Deletion Several iPhoto Shared Albums disappeared after the person who shared the albums with me deleted them.

Is there anyway I can safeguard pictures in Shared Albums even if the Album they were shared from is deleted at some point in the future?

If the person who shared the Albums either deletes them, or their account is otherwise deleted, your access to the shared albums will also cease. However, if you want to ensure future access to the shared pictures, you must copy the pictures locally to your own iPhotos account.

In iPhotos:

Click on Shared Album
Click "Select"
Choose all the photos you want to protect from the sharer deleting the Shared Album (even or losing their account completely)
Click "Share" button
Choose "Save Image"

Now if the person who shared the album deletes it, you've copied the images into your own iPhotos account.  In the age of this global pandemic, I suspect a lot of cherished family photos will be lost forever as the virus claims loved ones who obviously won't be paying the monthly iCloud storage subscription fees.

Hope this helps folks safeguard their cherished memories from inadvertent loss-


Can the iPhone play Quicktime VR files? Couldn't find anything anywhere. Does the iPhone support Quicktime VR files?

The iPhone does not have any support for Quicktime VR files.


Some photos in iPhoto showing as grey triangle with exclamation mark I am unable to view/access some photos - I get a grey triangle with an exclamation mark in it.

Try repairing the library. Hold ⌘⌥ and open iPhoto, then choose Repair Database.

If that doesn't fix it, hold ⌘⌥ and open iPhoto again, and select Rebuild Database.


How to prevent password reset using OS X installation disc? I want to set a master password for the whole machine, but it appears this can be easily bypassed.

It is possible to reset the Mac OS X Password using the OS X installation disk and Password Reset utility.

Isn't this a security flaw?
Can this be stopped by other than encrypting the whole hard disk?

Mac OS X (and now OS X) has always allowed the installation tools to reset administrator passwords.

Rather than locking the OS which can always be modified, you can either encrypt the OS image using File Vault or use a Firmware password to prevent other OS from booting. Many people use both tactics together for enhanced security.

Setting a Firmware password is straightforward, documented in the system help and can be done via the installation disk or Recovery Partition.


Options on a Mac for a writable, compressed file system? I have a SSD drive on my MacBook Pro and I'm constantly running on out of disk space because I need to install and run multiple virtual machines (Linux, Windows etc) on my Mac. Is there a way to mount a writable disk image that is also compressed? I'm hoping to use the disk image to store the VMs on. I don't mind taking the speed hit.

I ended up going with MacZFS.

Created a sparse-image disk via Disk Utility for about 100GB.
Formatted it as a ZFS file system by following the instructions in the MacZFS - Getting Started section.
Turned compression 'on' in ZFS via zfs compression=on [mypoolname]

I tried booting a Windows XP VM off the ZFS file system and it worked. ZFS reports that it achieved a compression ratio of about 1.32x (which means my 10GB VM takes up about 6.6GB on disk). Not sure how well VMWare will play with ZFS's compression under high load, but it seems to working well so far.


There is a non removable, outward protruding speck on my MacBook screen, Apple is denying warranty coverage A few days ago I noticed a black speck inside my screen, someone suggested it is a thunderfly, others to use a microscope. I took pics using microscope, please help me to classify what the speck is, Apple is denying warranty :(

Hard to tell without the benefit of 3D vision, but to me that looks like the screen has been punctured from the outside [the small bubbles would seem to confirm it's a puncture].
Bear in mind that anything sharp enough to penetrate through to the actual screen may leave a partially raised 'wound' on the protective layer, which you could mistake for damage coming from within. I'm pretty sure a thunderfly wouldn't be tough enough to be a cause.. they also have legs you'd see under a microscope, even if squished.


How to create shortcut to insert specific special character I'm using some special characters like mathematical symbols in different programs like Mail or Adobe Illustrator. Of course I can open the Symbols Table, search for the needed symbol and copy&paste it. Is there a way to define a shortcut to insert a specific special character?

Two possibilities are through creating a modified keyboard layout (which can be done manually, but is made much simpler using a program like Ukulele) or through a shortcut program like TextExpander

I use TextExpander, myself, so that c== is a shortcut on my system for ⌘, o== for ⌥, and several others, in part because I do not want to lose the symbols already mapped to the option (⌥) key combinations on my keyboard.

On the other hand, remapping the ⌥ keys to symbols different than the ones they are original configured for can be helpful and convenient for some people also, which is where Ukulele shines.


Debian won't book on MacBook Pro I erased the entire content of my MacBook Pro when installing debian. Now, the laptop will not boot into Linux.

When I insert USB again it will start installation again. I even selected bootable flag on the partition but still will not boot.

The issue is that I do not have Mac OS either to go back...

Do you have suggestions what to do?


Oracle VirtualBox installation failed on BigSur M1 Apple laptop I am trying to install Oracle VirtualBox on Big Sur M1 Apple laptop. Installation failed both on full security and semi-security. Does anyone know of a solution?

I believe the VirtualBox documentation states the Mac must be Intel based.
VMware Fusion also has a free Player, but does not yet run on M1, Apple Silicon, ARM  Macs.
Parallels has a Technical Preview which requires an ARM version of Windows 10.


New Macbook Pro - remove "high sierra", install "sierra" How do I get past the "do not enter" traffic sign that stops me from installing "Sierra" instead of "High Sierra"?

I booted into rescue mode and deleted the original "High Sierra" installation, but booting from the USB stick with the "Sierra" installer on it still gives me the "no".

If your MacBook Pro came preinstalled with macOS High Sierra, then you cannot downgrade to older OS as Apple restricted it. You have no other choice. You have to live with it.


Internal RAID drive not searchable I am having some problems searching and sorting data on my internal RAID drive. I have a Mac Pro tower (10.12.4) with five internal drives. One is a SATA SSD connected via PCIe as my boot disk (name: Server OS). The other four drives are in a software RAID 10 (name: Server RAID, set up by disk utility). Some time recently (within the last month, I believe, but I am not positive), I lost the ability to search for files on the Server RAID disk.

Basically, whenever I search within folders in the disk, I get this searching icon:  But the window looks like this forever, and the search never turns up a single match. Something else I noticed is that anything that is on this disk and is tagged (using the color labels built in to macOS) does NOT turn up when I sort by the tagged colors in Finder. When I run this task in automator: I get this error:

Other tidbits: I am the only user and administrator of this computer. I have tried rebooting it and reinstalling macOS. I HAVE tried getting spotlight to reindex* (see note at bottom) but without success. Recently, I have (relatively recently) made the following changes to my system:

Updated macOS from 10.12.3
Added website hosting using macOS Server (it's currently only hosting a test website, so it's only accessible via IP, not domain, so it should not be receiving any traffic).

*Note regarding reindexing of Spotlight: To reindex Spotlight, I went to System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy. I added the Server RAID disk to the list of things for spotlight to ignore, then quit System Preferences. I reopened System Preferences, and did the same thing in reverse. I monitored my CPU usage for about 3 minutes afterwards, and it didn't increase, making me think that spotlight actually DIDN'T reindex.

QUESTION:
Can someone please explain why this might be happening and how to fix it?

Finally, an answer! I contacted Apple Support with the problem soon after I made this post. Two weeks and many hours of phone and chat support later, we seem to have found an answer. The problem appears to have been with the indexing at the root level (which is why reindexing from System Preferences didn't work), likely caused by the macOS 10.12.4 software update. The solution was simple:

Disable all backups (Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, or similar)
Open the terminal app and execute these three commands in this order:

sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/Server\ RAID/
 sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/Server\ RAID/
 sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Server\ RAID/

Following this, the mds and mdworker processes get right to work reindexing (spotlight shows reindexing progress).


How to search for documents on OSX that are NOT contained within a given folder using Finder, Spotlight or some other native tool? I have a bunch of formatted spreadsheets scattered all across my computer. There are literally thousands of them. I want to get them all into a centralized folder and have mostly done that, i.e. most of these documents are located inside of a single folder (recursively anyway, there are some within subfolders of that single folder), there are a few stragglers however, maybe 5% of them. Currently in my Finder/Spotlight search results, I have to sift through thousands of files located in the correct location to find them. (note: I wasn't able to find a way to sort the documents by their locations/parent-folders...that would be a potential solution here, but I'd have to change the title of the question)

So I'd like to search for documents NOT contained within a given folder. I've tried this so far without success:

I'm guessing I could use Automator but feel like that's a little hardcore given the strength of Apple's native tools, terminal commands being even more-so.

You can use HoudahSpot to search for spreadsheets that are outside your centralized folder. Full disclosure: I am the developer of HoudahSpot.

In HoudahSpot you can create a search for spreadsheet files. Specify that you want to search your home folder, but want to exclude the folder you set aside for spreadsheets. Start the search and then drag the search results to the folder where you want to centralize your spreadsheets.

You can also customize the search results list to show additional columns, including the file path.


Entering superscript text (exponents) in TextEdit? I am writing math problems on my iMac and I am using TextEdit. I need to add exponents to one of my problems. How can I do that?

You can superscript style any text by highlighting the text and then selecting Format -> Font -> Baseline -> Superscript from the menu in TextEdit.

It's not assigned to a keyboard shortcut by default. To assign it to a keyboard shortcut go to System Preferences -> Keyboard and click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. Select Application Shortcuts from the left hand list and press the + button button below the right hand list to add a new application-specific shortcut:

From the menu that pops up select TextEdit as the application (otherwise the shortcut will be made for all applications). For Menu Title enter Format->Font->Baseline->Superscript and for Keyboard Shortcut (assuming OS X 10.8 or higher). Put your cursor in the box and press the combination of keys you want to use for the shortcut (I used Cmd+Shift+= in my screen capture example):

Press Add button to store the shortcut. You might have to restart TextEdit for the shortcut to appear.


How to execute app DVD through Terminal of recovery flash drive? I have a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion recovery usb flash drive.  It still boots but won't install Lion anymore (an error occurred during installation). I don't have a install DVD, however the MacBookPro's were able to install El Capitan directly.

I have a Lion install dmg so there are two options: to make a bootable DVD or simply execute the dmg burned into a DVD - trying right now.

I was trying to learn some command line tasks but there are some issues.  The root is read only so I could not create a new directory and mount the DVD.  Also, I remembered there is an app to easily create a bootable DVD.

Any suggestions?

OS X installers downloaded from the MacAppStore before February 14, 2016 are no longer functional due to Apple's Worldwide Developer Certificate expiration.

during installation you have to set your system's clock prior to that date, with the date command, for example:

date 1111111115

and then install normally your OS X lion version on a freshly erased HD

-

to get a functional lion usb installer, just restore (with Disk Utility) InstallESD.dmg on a usb stick or burn it on a dvd

the file is inside the app bundle "Install Mac OS X Lion.app" -> Content -> SharedSupport


Is there a way to disable Facetime from starting? I don't use facetime. I'd like to disable it so it doesn't automatically start following system startup. Is there a way to do this? (MacBook Pro, High Sierra)

Navigate to: System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Login Items.

On this screen you can choose which programs will open automatically upon startup. You can remove FaceTime from this list to disable it opening on startup.

You can also add any programs you would actually like to start when you boot up.