Certain Calendars do not trigger iPhone Notifications I've got three calendars set up on my iPhone:

Microsoft Exchange
outlook.com (Windows Live)
icloud

I've got entries in the first two calendars. However, I only get notifications from the Exchange Events as set up into them (like 15 minutes before, and so on). On the other hands, I won't get notifications on outlook.com-Events.

Both calendars are synchronized exactly the same, notifications for calendar at all are set, I can see all the events with different colours in my Calendar App, but I won't get any notice at the outlook.com Events...

Anyone knows what I forgot?

In your Calendars app, press the "Calendars" button on the bottom, and press the (i) that shows up next to each calendar in the list of calendars. Scroll to the bottom of the settings there, and there should be a toggle for Event Alerts. Turn this on for each individual calendar.


Red dot showing in the software update icon but already updated I just updated my Macbook to the latest version of Mac OS: Catalina 10.15.4.

However, I noticed that in the system preferences, there is a red dot on the software update icon, but after clicking it, it says it is already up to date...

So I want to know why it is here and how can I get rid of the red dot?

Thanks in advance!

  Fortunately, after upgrading to 10.15.5, the red dot disappears...

defaults delete com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs; killall Dock

This can get rid of it but it will return.


In bash, how to open .png file in a Mac app which only has “import” in the app menu I'm using 'engauge Digitizer' to digitize the charts (.png file). When to automate the process, I wish to write bash script or to use Python Subprocess library to control it. The first step is to import .png file to the app.

However, 'engauge Digitizer' doesn't work like other Mac apps, which can use bash "open".

$ open -a Preview '/path_to_file/picture.png' # This works.
$ open -a 'engauge Digitizer' '/path_to_file/picture.png' # This does not work.

Could you give some help?

engauge Digitizer indeed provides a CLI at least using the pkg installer available at github to install the app.

In theory you can simply enter a command in Terminal to either open a *.dig file (the native engauge Digitizer file format) or import one of the supported image formats (jpg/bmp/png etc.):

/Applications/Engauge\ Digitizer.app/Contents/MacOS/Engauge\ Digitizer -help
/Applications/Engauge\ Digitizer.app/Contents/MacOS/Engauge\ Digitizer ~/Data/test.jpg
/Applications/Engauge\ Digitizer.app/Contents/MacOS/Engauge\ Digitizer ~/Data/test.dig

The app (I've tested v.12.1 in 10.15.2 Catalina) has some serious sandbox issue though and even after enabling full disk access/Development/... for any app or exec involved, I get a deny-read warning in the Console in my whole user folder and all relevant subfolders:

  Sandbox:     Engauge Digitize(1981) deny(1) file-read-data /Users/user/Data
  Violation:     deny(1) file-read-data /Users/user/Data
  Process:      Engauge Digitize [1981]
  Path:           /Applications/Engauge Digitizer.app/Contents/MacOS/Engauge Digitizer
  ...

It works if you move the files directly to the container folder ~/Library/Containers/Digitizer/Data/ and open or import the files from there.

Importing files invokes some additional modal windows. I doubt that you can handle this with a shell script.

My advice: file an issue at the developer's github page.


Possible to have WinKey + Number equivalent in Mac for faster app switching In windows we can easily switch/open an app in the taskbar by doing WinKey + <order of the app in the taskbar> (e.g. WinKey+1 will open/switch the 1st app)

Just to provide more context. I'm looking for a way to quickly switch to an app in the dock. Let's say I have the following apps in order:

1 - Finder
2 - Calendar
3 - Notes

I'm looking for a way to easily switch to Notes just by doing WinKey + 3 but in Mac equivalent.

Cause right now, the available options that I'm aware of are:

Command + Tab
By using the mouse to navigate to the app which takes a hand of the keyboard.

I use command with tab.

Brings up a bar with the icons of running apps and you tab through to the one you want. Command Q and command W also work to close apps or windows.


What file comparison tool can I use under OS X? My favorite file comparison tool was Beyond Compare but since I recently switched to OS X, i'm no longer able to use it and I'm looking for an alternative, preferably a free one.

Update: I made the mistake not to specify that I am also looking for a tool that does directory comparison, not only files. Because this could make the already answers invalid I made another question for this What directory comparison tools can I use on OS X?

This is an aggregation of the answers posted on SO's deleted clone, Graphical diff for Mac OS X. It includes links to each product, and the current price since last edit in USD.

Note that any links to SO will only be visible to users who can view deleted content, which requires either moderator privileges or 10k reputation on that site.

Sourcegear's DiffMerge, shareware
Joachim Eibl's KDiff3, free
Black Pixel's Kaleidoscope, $69.99
Bare Bones Software's TextWrangler, free
Araxis's Merge, $129 + $29/year
Deltopia's DeltaWalker, $39.95/$75.95
Kai Willadsen's Meld, free
Weipin Xia's DiffFork, $26
Biscade's RoaringDiff, free
tkdiff, free

There were some other suggestions, which were not diff tools in their own right, which I will list below:

It (Beyond Compare) runs well in Wine, but I miss the shell integration. - Danyal Aytekin, May 11 '12, 13:01
Eclipse also has a fairly decent comparison mechanism. - JeeBee, Oct 9 '08, 12:45
P4Merge that comes with Perforce is pretty good and comes for free with perforce client. Both terminal and GUI version. - amok, Jul 7 '10, 23:19
I had to use Vim because most of diffs mentioned here do not understand UTF-8. - user184880, Oct 6 '09, 9:56

That about wraps up that thread's merge into this one, as covered here.


Do linked files located on FileVault partition make the encrypted file readable? Question
Does a link, symlink, or macOS finder aliases to a file/directory located on a version 1 FileVault partition/container/volume to a partition not under the FileVault coverage allow unencrypted access?
 # Example
/Volumes/UnEncryptedVolume/Reference-To-Unlocked-FileVault-File     ->   ~/THE_FILEVAULT_FILE

Constraints

APFS formatted SSD
Permissions are not restrictive permissions on Database volume. All Users & Staff grouped Users can access it.
User is logged in, unlocking the FileVault volume
Link is either soft or hard, has standard permissions
Finder created alias has default permissions
Original file is again, standard permissions even if under $HOME (Change those UMASKS newcomers! :))
Original file is on the FileVault container
Database is on the same Disk, but a different container.
Disk is APFS formatted (composed of containers, not volumes or partitions, apfs is friggin' confusing IMO)

File System Structure
My Internal SSD partition structure (not a OEM SSD for those curious)
+-- Container disk1
|   ====================================================
|   APFS Container Reference:     disk1
|   Size (Capacity Ceiling):      999995129856 B (1000.0 GB)
|   Capacity In Use By Volumes:   314911416320 B (314.9 GB) (31.5% used)
|   Capacity Not Allocated:       685083713536 B (685.1 GB) (68.5% free)
|   |
|   +-< Physical Store disk0s2
|   |   -----------------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk0s2
|   |   Size:                       999995129856 B (1000.0 GB)
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s1
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s1 (Data)
|   |   Name:                      MacOS - Data (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               /System/Volumes/Data
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         138089828352 B (138.1 GB)
|   |   FileVault:                 Yes (Unlocked)
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s2
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s2 (Preboot)
|   |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         80568320 B (80.6 MB)
|   |   FileVault:                 No
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s3
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s3 (Recovery)
|   |   Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               /Volumes/Recovery
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         525770752 B (525.8 MB)
|   |   FileVault:                 No
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s4
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s4 (VM)
|   |   Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               /private/var/vm
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         3222294528 B (3.2 GB)
|   |   FileVault:                 No
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s5
|   |   ---------------------------------------------------
|   |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s5 (System)
|   |   Name:                      MacOS (Case-insensitive)
|   |   Mount Point:               /
|   |   Capacity Consumed:         11236782080 B (11.2 GB)
|   |   FileVault:                 Yes (Unlocked)
|   |
|   +-> Volume disk1s6
|       ---------------------------------------------------
|       APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk1s6 (No specific role)
|       Name:                      Database (Case-insensitive)
|       Mount Point:               /Volumes/Database
|       Capacity Consumed:         161548357632 B (161.5 GB)
|       FileVault:                 No
|

The answer is no. Symlinks do not somehow "circumvent" FileVault encryption.
Symlinks are always "soft" by the way.


Where is iDVD on Lion? At school we heavily rely on using iDVD for our video projects. Upon receiving our 2011 iMac's preloaded with OS X Lion, we found it doesn't seem to exist anymore. Videos have been edited in iMovie, and there is the option to Share > iDVD, but once the video renders nothing happens.

Is it possible to download iDVD still? If not, what are the other options?

iDVD is only available through physycal media copies of the latest iLife package.  Preloaded iLife suites no longer include it, and I do not believe you can download it, either from Apple or as a paid product via the Mac App Store.  But if you have the media from an old machine, you should be able to install it happily enough though, it's not changed since iLife '08, so almost any media will do...

Bear in mind that if you are using for example the bundled media from an old Mac on a different Mac, chances are that the installer package is tied to the original Mac. But it's trivial to work around. Right click on the installer, click Show Contents. It will show you the contents of the installer program, which is just a wrapper around the actual packages. Somewhere there is an ilife.pkg for installing everything, but also individual ones for each app including iDVD - I don't have anything to hand to check the exact names or locations, but hunt around. Then run the individual packages for iDVD (same goes for iWeb which is also deprecated in the same way).


Removing or transferring iOS app license Simple question:

I have a TomTom application that was on 5 devices (maximum allowed)
One of the devices (let's call it D-Vice) breaks/gets lost
How do I transfer the license from D-Vice to a new device?

Thanks.

You may be confusing the limit of 5 devices that can automatically download new purchases with the ability to sign in and download a past purchase.

You can simply sign in to the App Store on the new device, navigate to purchases and re-download TomTom.

The current terms of service do not limit personal use of apps on multiple devices. You should read the license if you are using the software commercially where the terms specify one license per device or one license per person, but the enforcement is social and not technical. The store doesn't ask when you sign in whether you are licensing something personally or professionally.


MacBook Pro 2014 not booting after El Capitan 10.11 update I seem to be having this weird issue where my MacBook won't boot up after installing the OS X 10.11, El Capitan, update.

It goes to the login screen and once I login the bar freezes and I can't go further.

I have tried doing an over the top reinstall and that seems to have done nothing.

I have repaired permission (first aid) in disk utility and that seems to have done nothing.

I am more than happy to do a clean restore. But is there ANY WAY for me to get my data out?

Please. If anybody could help me id appreciate it.

Yes - you have many options to back up a Mac that won't start.

you can start the Mac in Target Disk mode and connect it to another Mac to do the backup.
you can bring a USB drive and use internet recovery to install a working OS on to the new drive. Boot to that and then perform the backup.
you can get help at https//locate.apple.com
you can even try reinstalling the OS on top of your current OS. That might fail and might make things worse if the problem is a hardware issue (failing hardware) so I've listed this last.

Which you choose depends on your expertise, amount of time you care to invest, speed of your network and whether you can isolate why the Mac isn't starting. Knowing that might allow a more surgical repair instead of starting over. I'd say get a backup and then decide how to fix things as a follow on step.


AppleScript for Excel to select/copy all cells? Applescript can tell Excel to select a specific range of cells, e.g.

select (range "A1:B20")

and you can copy cells:

copy (range "A1:B20")

However, how can you tell Excel to select all the cells in a worksheet, or to copy all the cells in a worksheet? It seems to require a specific range. However, of course, when you are working with Excel directly you can just press cmd+A to select all.

found this on Macscripter.net I think it is what you are looking for:

tell application "Microsoft Excel"
   tell active sheet
       select used range
   end tell
end tell


Precise search inside a pdf I wanted to search inside a PDF with Adobe Acrobat Reader for MacOS (or the one built in with MacOS). I want to search, for example, for the capital letter "U".

Is it possible and, if yes, how?

A tutorial online here for Adobe Acrobat Reader indicates in step 4 how to do a case-sensitive search, which is what you're looking for.

Press Ctrl-F to start a search in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Enter the letter U and then tick (select) the check-box next to "Case-Sensitive" search. Press the Search button to start the search.


How can I find what is using the rest of my drive? I am using a Macbook air.  64GB.

My user directory has used 20.47GB

Disk Utility shows 'Other' is 41.33GB and I only have 2.9GB free.

What tools or command line commands can I use to find out what is taking up large amounts of this.

I can use finder with all files and sort by size but that is already about my directory and the space taken seems outside of my directory.

I use Daisy Disk to keep tabs on what's using up space on my disks. Like @Hoshts and @Joonas have mentioned in their comments on another answer it's not free, but gorgeous and easy to understand. Money well spent, in my opinion, unless you're just looking for a one-time solution.

One thing to keep in mind - the Mac App Store version of Daisy Disk is sandboxed - which means only the files your user can read will be counted.

If you use the direct download version of the app (which will assume the license from the MAS version if you install both and run the direct version after launching the MAS version one time and quitting it.) - it can run as Administrator and show all the files for all users on your Mac.


Is there any command I can use to disable brightness adjustments? Is there any terminal command or script I can use to disable brightness adjustment system wide? I currently manage a large network of computers for a school district and we are looking for an easy solution to disable access to that functionality.

You might also run

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serverhorror/brightness/master/brightness.c>brightness.c;gcc -std=c99 -o /usr/local/bin/brightness brightness.c -framework IOKit -framework ApplicationServices

and then add

* * * * * /usr/local/bin/brightness -v 0.5

to crontab to reset the brightness to 50% every minute.

You can disable the brightness keys with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>custom</name>
    <identifier>custom</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_DOWN, KeyCode::VK_NONE</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_UP, KeyCode::VK_NONE</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


How to use Wake On Demand? I want to setup wake-on-demand as described here so I can remote wake up my computer and ssh into it while I am oversea.

My iMac did not have ethernet connection and I want to wake-up it using Wifi.

Thats what I have:

iMac 27-inch, Mid 2011, Software  OS X 10.9.1 (13B42)

AirPortExpress, version 7.6.4

Raspberry-pi

ISP-provided router (Technicolor TG582n)

My Raspberry-pi is always on so it is fine if I need to ssh into it first to wake up my iMac.

I have follow the instructions provided in the article for iMac. But I don't know how to actually wake up my computer.

From Bonjour Browser, I can see that my AirPortExpress is publishing _sleep-proxy._udp so I think it have Bonjour-Sleep-Proxy on.

For some reason, I found this line in the log

  mDNSResponder[47]: BeginSleepProcessing: en1    not capable of magic packet wakeup

whereas en1 is my wifi interface. But from System Information

en1:
  Card Type:    AirPort Extreme  (0x168C, 0x9A)
  Firmware Version: Atheros 9380: 4.0.74.0-P2P
  MAC Address:  04:54:53:0f:c9:b1
  Locale:   APAC
  Country Code: ES
  Supported PHY Modes:  802.11 a/b/g/n
  Supported Channels:   1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140
  Wake On Wireless: Supported <--- is this lying to me?
  AirDrop:  Supported
  Status:   Connected

Both lines are correct. You WiFi card supports Wake-On-Lan (WOL) but the link across it does not.

It's almost impossible to get WOL working across a net of any size as it relies on sending and receiving broadcast UDP packets on port 7 or 9 and broadcast packets are rarely routed.

To get it working you would need to reconfigure your home router and set up a VPN between the router and the device you want to send the WOL packet.


iPad showing wrong storage usage I am not able to upload the latest software update as it requires 3.8Gb (iSO 8.4.1). I have deleted all mail in my in, out, sent and deleted items folders and it is still showing that mail is 1.9GB!? How can I clear this to do the upgrade?

I've run into this before. IOS hangs on to some files even though it should purge them. Often times it will also show up as the "other" part of usage in the space used graph being much bigger than it should. It's easy enough to fix though.

Back up your phone with iTunes. I would encrypt the backup so it saves your passwords.
Now we wipe the phone: settings > general > reset and erase all contents and settings.
Once that is done restore the IOS device. Plug it back into your computer and use iTunes to restore from the backup you just made.

Nine times out of ten that will get rid of all the cruft sitting around on your iPad (or iPhone).

Why this is necessary... well ask Apple.


iPhone 6 status bar, what is this symbol? See pic What is this symbol? On my iPhone 6, it's on the top by the Bluetooth symbol.phone with keyboard?

That indicates that "iPhone is set to work with a TTY machine."  See the official iPhone manual for additional information (page 13, 165).

http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1565/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf


Is there a way to adjust the touch sensitivity of the touch bar on my M1 MacBook Pro? I've got a MacBook Pro M1 and the touch bar is too sensitive if my finger even comes close to it, it acts like I pressed it.  This causes me to change pages and do all kinds of stuff I don't want to do.  Drives me bonkers.  Never want a touch bar again....

Right now there isn't an option like that on the new macbook m1 . But I think this solution might help you from touching touchbar unintentionally .
Here's one idea:
Set "Touch Bar shows" to "Expanded Control Strip" and remove all buttons on the Control Strip using "Customize Touch Bar...". Then set "Press Fn key to" to "Show App Controls".
Now your Touch Bar will be empty unless you press fn to show the App Controls.


Is it possible to share a keyboard physically connected to a Windows 7 PC with an iPad 2? I have an iPad 2 and a Windows 7 notebook.

Is it possible to, without jailbreaking, share the notebook keyboard with the iPad?

Maybe some application installed on Windows could expose keyboard through Bluetooth?

The JUC400 Wormhole switch will do this.  There are a number of other solutions mentioned at How can a keyboard be shared with an iPad?.


Any way to recover photos from a restored iPhone? I accidentally restored my new iPhone 6+ (iOS 9), which didn't have iCloud enabled, from an old backup (iOS 8), with iCloud.

My important photos seem to be gone now. Is there any way to recover photos from a restored iPhone?

Since you didn't link your photos to anything online, you may be able to go to a data recovery specialist and ask them to try to recover the photos, but it probably won't work (Depends on how large your backup is).

If you don't do that or that doesn't work, then you can't get your photos back anymore.


Keyboard shortcut to sleep a Mac's touchbar I am looking for a quick way to make the touchbar go to sleep, without having to wait.

When I use my computer in a dark environment I don’t know how to disable the bright touchbar. I just want to see what’s on the screen, no extraneous information is needed.

tl;dr: You can get a shortcut/script/service to revert Touch Bar to work as normal F keys. This is very close to a normal keyboard, with backlight on, in the night.

I used this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/18752770/10063119 to get the code from the Automator’s “watch me do“.

Open Automator, choose a new “workflow” and keep System Preferences in the dock. Hit the red record button and use System Preferences to disable the fancy Touch Bar and set it to the normal F keys.

Select all steps in the workflow and paste in Script Editor app. Then you can edit it to your need, bind it to keyboard shortcut in System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts. You can also do some modifications to see which mode is active and then decide what action to take. Set the scope of shortcut to “all apps“.

How do I assign a keyboard shortcut to an AppleScript I wrote?

The (unverified, I don't have that model) code is given. You can check and modify as required.

http://osxdaily.com/2018/08/30/disable-touch-bar-macbook-pro/

-- Click “System Preferences” in the Dock.
delay 1
set timeoutSeconds to 2.0
set uiScript to "click UI Element \"System Preferences\" of list 1 of application process \"Dock\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

-- Click the “Keyboard” button.
delay 1
set timeoutSeconds to 2.0
set uiScript to "click UI Element \"Keyboard\" of scroll area 1 of window \"System Preferences\" of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

-- Click the “Keyboard” tab.
delay 1
set timeoutSeconds to 2.0
set uiScript to "click radio button \"Keyboard\" of tab group 1 of window \"Keyboard\" of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

-- Make a selection from the popupbutton.
delay 1
set timeoutSeconds to 2.0
set uiScript to "click pop up button 1 of tab group 1 of window \"Keyboard\" of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

-- 10 secs
delay 1
set timeoutSeconds to 2.0
set uiScript to "click menu item \"Expanded Control Strip\" of menu 1 of pop up button 2 of tab group 1 of window \"Keyboard\" of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

- Click the “System Preferences” menu.
delay 1
set timeoutSeconds to 2.000000
set uiScript to "click menu bar item \"System Preferences\" of menu bar 1 of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout( uiScript, timeoutSeconds )

-- Quit System Preferences
delay 1
set timeoutSeconds to 2.000000
set uiScript to "click menu item \"Quit System Preferences\" of menu 1 of menu bar item \"System Preferences\" of menu bar 1 of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout( uiScript, timeoutSeconds )

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


Direct USB-to-USB networking? Is there an existent method, a driver, or some software that facilitates direct USB-to-USB networking in macOS similar to FireWire-to-Firewire ethernet or the new Thunderbolt-to-Thunderbolt ethernet networking?

Yes and no. Because of the host-slave relationship USB is built around this requires specific hardware, namely an active cable with electronics. They're cheap enough though, you can get them on Amazon or similar for ~$10 and up.

Just search for "usb bridge cable".


How to create a video recording of a background window I'm looking for some solution for creating a video recording limited to a single window, which continues to work even if that window gets partially or fully covered by other windows.

All of the screencasting/recording solutions I found seem to, at most, allow limiting the recording by a sub-region of the screen, and can't record covered/hidden windows.

No applications yet exist for recording movies from the content of obscured windows.

Screen recorders like QuickTime, ScreenFlow, and Snapz Pro X grab from the graphics hardware after composition. The process is focused on speed and low impact on the operating system.

On OS X, processes only get limited access to window content from other processes.

Hidden or obscured windows can be captured but doing so is relatively slow, computationally expensive, and not suitable for recording moving content. This is why tools that do offer individual window capture limit themselves to grabbing still images.


Strange DNS entries on a macbook pro I was trying to add an entry in /etc/hosts on a MacBook Pro 2018 (macOS 10.14.1) that has been installed transferring data from another MacBook Pro (2013 running macOS 10.13.6) when I found the following entries (beside the normal ones):

54.170.1.113 pgvmb
54.217.124.67 pgvmc
54.170.13.116 pgvma

I can't remember edited /etc/hosts on the old MacBook Pro, but sure I did not edit on the new MacBook Pro.

The ip addresses seems to be pointing to Dublin addresses (and I never accessed a Dublin address) and they are not present on a Mac mini that I was able to access (I can't access the previous MacBook Pro to check /etc/hosts)

Does anyone know something about these entries?

I would save a copy and delete those entries or the entire hosts file. You are correct to try and trace the IP address, but there is no good reason to maintain undesired overrides. You can watch for these changes to come back if you think some software is performing the edits.


Will iCloud sync interfere with Gmail Contacts/Calendars sync? I'm looking to setup with iCloud, and I'm concerned with their desire to sync my contacts, calendars, and bookmarks.  While I'm fine with the bookmarks, I am legitimately concerned about contacts and calendars since I consider that the domain of Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar, which I've had synced via Gmail Sync for some time now.

Will iCloud sync interfere with Gmail sync?  Or does iCloud simply offer me another layer of redundancy?

With iCloud, you can choose which areas to sync and which not to.  However, if you do choose to sync contacts and/or calendar, I believe you will simply end up with some double events on your phone, which can easily be cleared up by disabling view of the extra calendars.

In short, syncing contacts, calendar, music, and photos are all separate and can be enabled/disabled as such.

And yes, it does, in some way offer you additional redundancy as the Apple cloud and Google cloud are likely housed in different data centers...but this would require you to keep both calendars in sync, which I don't think will be easy to do without being annoyed absurdly.


\Trace/BPT trap: 5 when using open from terminal After upgrading to Maverick, I can't use the open command anymore from the terminal. Whenever I do, I get:

$ open http://google.de
Trace/BPT trap: 5

This is independent on the document chosen.

$ open -a Safari
Trace/BPT trap: 5

I use homebrew as well, if this helps.

My .profile is as follow:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH
# Finished homebrew

# export PATH=~/bin:xs$PATH

export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

and my .bash_profile is

alias emacs="/usr/local/Cellar/emacs/24.3/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs -nw"

export PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/texbin:$PATH

## Homebrew
export HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN=6fb92887ac7d8317656501ec1193e05e0f360d01
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH
source `brew --repository`/Library/Contributions/brew_bash_completion.sh

##
# Your previous /Users/rainerkrug/.bash_profile file was backed up as /Users/rainerkrug/.bash_profile.macports-saved_2013-09-06_at_11:34:21
##

# Finally add ~/bin at first location in PATH
export PATH=~/bin:$PATH

# define EDITOR
export EDITOR="emacs -Q"

# define infopath to get correct info manual of org-mode
# export INFOPATH=$HOME/.emacs.d/org-mode/doc:$HOME/.emacs.d/ess/doc:$INFOPATH/

The open command is the correct one:

$ which open
/usr/bin/open

Any suggestions?

Rainer

there.  I had this problem and so I cleared out some old launchd plists, some of which dated back to Leopard (I restore via Time Machine when I get a new Mac.)  So far, that seems to have worked.  If you check out "man launchd" and scroll to the bottom, there's a list of folders where such files may be found.  Leave anything by Apple, and clear out the questionable ones.  I no longer have any Adobe software on my Mac, ditto for MS Office, and I'm trying ClamAV instead of Avast, so I cleared out all the Adobe, Microsoft, and Avast plists.  Haven't even rebooted yet and suddenly I can use "open" reliably again.


What are the consequences of changing my Apple ID password? If I change my Apple ID password, will that disconnect or block all devices from accessing my FaceTime through my Apple ID?

Yes, if you change your password you will have to change the password on all your devices in order to have FaceTime working correctly.

The same for iCloud and the other services which are linked to your Apple ID.


How to move all photos from iPhone to iPad? I would like to move all photos from iPhone 5s to iPad Pro 10.5. I want to move them, not copy or sync. Photos in result should be stored on iPad and deleted from iPhone.
I've read this article - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201313 -

iCloud Photo Library - looks like it will use my iCloud storage. I don't want to upload my photos there and the storage there is relatively small.
Manual approach with iTunes - it will require to have a copy of all photos on my Macbook (which I don't want to do - I hate how Apple store/structure photos).

Is there any other way to achieve what I want?
Surely, it should be exactly the same file as shoot on iPhone - the same file size, the same exif data (no recompression!).

use xender to send photos and if you not have xender open recovery and backup user data  and on ipad open recovery and select the backup in restore user data


Mail signature doesn't get added above quoted text I don't use my .signature by default, but often add it to a message after generating the reply. In these cases, is there any way to get the signature to appear above the quoted text? I have the option selected in Mail preferences, but it still always puts it at the bottom of the message anyway.

I am running Mavericks now, but it has always [mis]behaved this way.

It is correct that you can not choose signature after you started the reply using the "None" for Signatures and if you only have one signature on file.

It will Automatically use NONE if that is your original setting in signatures.

Here is my work around that:

First the solution will allow you to normally start replies without Signature.

If you now decide to Sign, you will have the option to choose a Signature.

To do that you just make a empty Signature in the Mail Preferences Signatures, using the + to add and name it something other than none (I called it test)

Now you should have 2 signatures to choose from.

Your original and the new one containing nothing.

In Signatures window choose the new one as default.

Now in replay to email, you will have no signature by default, but you can switch to the actual signature and it will be on the top of the Quoted message.


Mac doesn’t go to sleep after inactivity Before updating to Mavericks, my Mac would go to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity, which is usually 10 minutes after I turn the screens off using Shift+Ctrl+Eject. However, since the update, the Mac no longer goes into standby. I know this as the status light no longer pulses.

I have checked the energy saver settings, and the Mac is set to sleep after 15 minutes so I'm not sure why it is not going to sleep.

Any ideas? Could it be an application that’s still running in the background?

You can get a list of power assertions by running pmset -g assertions:

$ pmset -g assertions
10/27/13, 8:48:55 AM GMT
Assertion status system-wide:
   BackgroundTask                 1
   PreventDiskIdle                0
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   UserIsActive                   0
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    0
   InteractivePushServiceTask     0
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   ExternalMedia                  1
   InternalPreventDisplaySleep    1
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     1
   NetworkClientActive            0
Listed by owning process:
   pid 189(coreaudiod): [0x0000000100000617] 00:00:19 NoIdleSleepAssertion named: "com.apple.audio.'AppleHDAEngineOutput:1B,0,1,2:0'.noidlesleep"
   pid 9879(backupd): [0x00000001000005f1] 00:13:17 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "Time Machine backup"
   pid 9879(backupd): [0x0000000c000005f0] 00:13:17 BackgroundTask named: "Time Machine backup"
   pid 18(powerd): [0x00000009000005e1] 00:13:47 ExternalMedia named: "com.apple.powermanagement.externalmediamounted"
   pid 18(powerd): [0x00000011000002e1] 00:00:00 InternalPreventDisplaySleep named: "com.apple.powermanagement.delayDisplayOff"
    Timeout will fire in 299 secs Action=TimeoutActionTurnOff
Kernel Assertions: 0x4=USB
   id=500  level=255 0x4=USB mod=10/26/13, 6:38 PM description=XHC1 owner=AppleUSBXHCI
   id=501  level=255 0x4=USB mod=10/26/13, 6:45 PM description=EHC2 owner=AppleUSBEHCI
   id=502  level=255 0x4=USB mod=10/27/13, 8:48 AM description=EHC1 owner=AppleUSBEHCI

In the output above, Time Machine is preventing idle sleep.


Display a pixel-for-pixel copy of a Mac-created Keynote presentation on iPad Is there a way to get a pixel for pixel copy of a Mac-created Keynote presentation onto an iPad to present on an external display? The iOS Keynote app often has great trouble in importing Mac-Keynote documents (lacks 16x9 resolution, fonts, etc). I don't want to convert the presentation to a PDF, as this removes animations/videos/etc. Converting to a Quicktime file also does not work, as there isn't any way to manually advance a Quicktime "slide" on the iPad.

It's quite probable that there is no solution, but I'm eager to hear suggestions I may have overlooked.

Staying with the keynote format, no. I you export to a QuickTime movie, you will have the best chance to preserve the slide deck as it was on the Mac when saving it alone doesn't work.

You can only work around this by getting the mac pixels on the iPad since this appears to be an inherent limitation of the iOS app as written today.

Have you tried using Air Display to add the iPad as a second monitor and tell Keynote to present on the iPad? The company does awesome work and like any screen sharing over a network, there is latency and/or slight rendering artifacts, but it's better than other apps in that space as any I've seen.


Is there a utility that copies the pictures I have in my digital still camera in a directory? I sometimes need to copy the pictures I have in my digital camera in a directory of my Mac.
Is there a simple utility that copies the pictures automatically, once I plugged in the digital camera in the USB port?

I'm not sure if you can make it automatic, but "Image Capture" is probably the way to get them imported with the least amount of fooling with bigger programs that are trying to do more organization-type stuff than you want.

Barring that, you might be able to do something with AppleScript or folder actions, depending on how your camera manages the


AppleScript: Get Image Location Data I am trying to write an Automator Script which involves, among other things, getting the GPS location data from an image. This will be a Finder Service.

From what I have been able to discover so far, it involves running some AppleScript and talking to the Image Events headless application.

From here, how do I actually get the Latitude & Longitude of the image?

I know there are applications which can read this data, including on the command line, but I wondered whether it was available to MacOS without adding anything.

I do not believe Image Events is able to get that type of meta data from the photo however mdls can do it, e.g. mdls -name kMDItemLatitude -name kMDItemLongitude /path/to/photo however it all depends what exactly your trying to do with this info. I personally prefer using exiftool however you'd have to install it.

To answer the question in your comment:

If you query an attributeName when using -raw and the attributeName doesn't exist the output is literally (null) and if you want it to be something else then use −nullMarker markerString, e.g.: −nullMarker "Does Not Exist"

mdls -name kMDItemFake -raw -nullMarker "Does Not Exist" /path/to/photo

In the example command above kMDItemFake is a fake kMDItem item, so that command will output: Does Not Exist instead of (null).

In other words, if as example the photo doesn't have kMDItemLatitude info and you query for it the output will be (null) when using mdls -name kMDItemLatitude -raw. To change that, use −nullMarker markerString.

If a kMDItem doesn't exist and you want no output when using mdls -name attar -raw then use mdls -name attar -raw −nullMarker '' /path/to/photo.


How to tell if my iPad is connected to WiFi using WPA3, WPA2, or no security at all? In Settings > Wi-Fi, I tapped the i-in-circle info icon to get details on a network connection. But I did not notice any mention of what encryption might be in use.

If a Wi-Fi network has a lock next to its name, it's a password-protected network.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204070
This is the only information given by iOS by the Settings app.
iOS APIs don’t provide this information to third party apps. NEHotspotNetwork provides various network information as described in that Apple documentation page (accessible if the app has the entitlement) but not the network security.
If your iOS device is jailbroken, you can install GoodWifi. This shows the network security in the list of networks in the Settings app.


Can't login because of kernel panic When I restart my computer I usually type my password to log me in. However, when I try to do this now it shows me the following message:

  "Your computer restarted because of a problem"

So I restart my laptop and enter my password again but I still get the same error message. This happens repeatedly if I reboot, so I can't login anymore.

After researching this problem I found out that my computer is suffering a kernel panic. I tried the following 3 possible solutions I found to fix this problem:

I used the cmd + option + P + R shortcut during startup to reset the NVRAM.
I booted into Safe Mode by holding the shift key down while rebooting.
I booted into Recovery with the cmd + R keys to get me into OS X Utilities to run First Aid on the Startup Disk.

None of the above resolved the issue.

Can anyone help me fix this problem?

This answer assumes:

your internal drive is full and this is why you can't log in
you do not have access to another Mac
you do not have another drive you can boot from.

The following steps will allow you to delete what we call a sleepimage file. These are usually quite large and should free up enough space for you to be able to log back in.

Note that while this can be done in much fewer steps (steps 4 to 10 could be removed and step 11 could contain a much longer file path), I've deliberately split this up to reduce the risk of making a typo and to make it easier to understand.

Deleting your sleepimage file via Single User Mode

Boot into Single User Mode by restarting your Mac and pressing and holding ⌘ + S as soon as you hear the startup chime
Keep these keys down until you see a black screen with white text
Mount your drive by typing in exactly: /sbin/mount -uw / (note there is a space after the 't' and again after the 'w') and then pressing the enter key
Now list what's there by typing in ls and pressing the enter key
You should see a list of files and directories
Now type in cd private (note there is a space after 'cd') and press the enter key
Now type in cd var (note there is a space after 'cd') and press the enter key
Now type in cd vm (note there is a space after 'cd') and press the enter key
Now type in ls and press the enter key
Hopefully you will see that you have a sleepimage file located here (this is what we're going to remove)
Now type in rm sleepimage (note there is a space after 'rm') and press the enter key
Now reboot your Mac by typing in reboot and then pressing the enter key

Hopefully this will free enough space for you to be able to login. If so, then take the time to remove any other data you don't need. If not, message me and we'll go from there.

NOTE: If your Mac doesn't reboot after Step 12, feel free to switch it off with the power button.

IMPORTANT: - You really should have a backup regime in place! Buy yourself an external USB hard drive and start using Time Machine for backups!

Deleting downloads via Single User Mode

Since you know you have items in your Downloads you can delete, these steps will help you do that from Single User Mode.

Follow Steps 1 to 5 from Deleting your sleepimage file via Single User Mode above
Now type in cd users (note there is a space after 'cd') and press the enter key
Now type in ls and press the enter key
You should see a list of users for your Mac.
Now, if we assume your username is Marvin, type in cd marvin (note there is a space after 'cd'). Obviously, if your username is something else, then use that instead of marvin!
Press the enter key
Now type in ls and press the enter key
You should see a number of folders listed. Type in cd downloads (note there is a space after 'cd') and press the enter key
Now type in ls and press the enter key
You should see a list of files and folders. Now use the rm command to remove items you don't want.
For example, if you have an item called Installer.dmg, you would remove it by typing in rm Installer.dmg (note there is a space after 'rm') and pressing the enter key
Once you've removed enough items to free up space, reboot your Mac by typing in reboot and then pressing the enter key

Note: If an item has a space in its name (e.g. Install XYZ.dmg), then the command you would need to enter is rm Install\ XYZ.app. That is, I have used a backslash \ before the space!

Deleting Applications via Single User Mode

If you want to remove applications, then follow these steps:

Follow Steps 1 to 5 from Deleting your sleepimage file via Single User Mode above
Now type in cd applications (note there is a space after 'cd') and press the enter key
Now type in ls and press the enter key
You should see a list of applications and folders. Now use the rm command to remove items you don't want.
For example, if you have an item called XYZ.app, you would remove it by typing in rm XYZ.app (note there is a space after 'rm') and pressing the enter key
Once you've removed enough items to free up space, reboot your Mac by typing in reboot and then pressing the enter key

Note: If an item has a space in its name (e.g. Microsoft Word.app), then the command you would need to enter is rm Microsoft\ Word.app. That is, I have used a backslash \ before the space!


How do I restore a jailbroken iOS 6.1/iPhone 5? My iPhone 5 is running iOS 6.1, jailbroken.  I've managed to lock myself out of the phone and don't know the passcode.  Device is disabled for longer and longer periods of time in between incorrect passcode entries.

I've been backing up to iCloud and periodically locally to iTunes.

My objective: Ideally I would like to get back to my most recent iCloud (or local iTunes) backup, and stay jailbroken.  My second most preferred choice is to get back to my most recent backup and then re-jailbreak.  Worst case is bring the device to 6.1.2 (which is the latest version that there is a jailbreak for) and re-jailbreak and reinstall everything.

I am reading lots of conflicting and confusing things about how to do this, so I am not sure about the procedure.

My first attempt went like follows:

Attach iPhone to PC, iTunes sees it.
Download 6.1 firmware ipsw (because the latest version of iOS, 6.1.4, which iTunes tries to use, can't be jailbroken)
In iTunes, hold shift then click Restore iPhone, then I pick the 6.1 file

and I get the following much-mentioned but not much solved error:

  The iPhone [device name] could not be restored because the firmware file is not compatible.

Doing this while the phone is in DFU or Recovery modes doesn't change the result.

I then tried the same steps, but this time selecting the 6.1.2 ipsw file.  I get past the error above but after the file extracted and after talking to Apple's servers I get error 3194:

  The iPhone [device name] could not be restored.  An unknown error occurred (3194).

Lots of Internet activity for error 3194, all unsuccessful, eg. changing hosts file.

Recommendations?  To reiterate, I want to accomplish what I wrote after "My objective" above; perhaps I'm going down the wrong road and this error message I am getting is irrelevant because this might not be the right path anyway.

This YouTube video on Semi-Restore iOS 6.1.2, 6.1.1, 6.1, 6.0.1, 6.0 iPhone 5, 4S, 4 definitely works. It worked for me.


HiDPI Mode not respected by iOS Simulator I turned on HiDPI mode in my OS X El Capitan and now facing the issue: iOS Simulator screen shows only part of its contents. Please see the picture below.

If I turn HiDPI mode off then everything gets back to normal.

What can I do to have both HiDPI mode on and proper iOS Simulator screen?

I am using Xcode 7.3.1 and iOS 9.3 simulator.

The issue is gone after installing Xcode 8.


Full restore from backup, /Applications not backed up I recently had my hard drive replaced. I made sure my Time Machine backup was up-to-date prior to the handing it over to the Apple Store so I could simply restore, but I made one mistake: /Applications was not being backed up with Time Machine.

I got my computer back today, and I now have a fully restored iMac less /Applications. This means the Dock is full of question marks... I have nothing. I'm typing this from the restore partition where I don't see any way to replace /Applications.

All I can think to do from here is start with a fresh install and work from there. Any ideas before I go down that route?

If you hadn't backed up Applications, you're stuck there. But you should be able to just go and reinstall the applications. When you do, the dock will be normal again and you'll have the benefit of keeping your settings and everything else. No need to wipe the whole thing and restart.


Applescript array of applications I have a script that reload the active tab of an open browser, but I want it to do with all opened browsers. Is there a way to make a list/array and use it in this code?

This code works with one browser only:

if application "Safari" is running then
    tell application "Safari"
        activate
    end tell
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Safari"
            keystroke "r" using {command down}
        end tell
    end tell
end if

I've tried to create an array/list but I think this is no the way because it doesn't work:

set browsers to {"Google Chrome", "Firefox", "Opera", "Safari"}

You generally can't substitute a list for a string and have things work without some other changes.

A good way to get around this is to use a repeat with variable in list approach. This lets you go through each item in a list and run your code with each item in the list individually.
Here's how to apply that to your code:

set browsers to {"Google Chrome", "Firefox", "Opera", "Safari"}

repeat with browser in browsers
    if application browser is running then
        tell application browser
            activate
        end tell
        tell application "System Events"
            tell process browser
                keystroke "r" using {command down}
            end tell
        end tell
    end if
end repeat

Everything is the same except that your code is wrapped in a repeat with block and the "Safari" literal is replaced with browser, a reference to the current browser in the list of browsers (the code will be run once for each browser in the list).


Songs show up as individual albums in iOS Music app I manually manage my iPhone's music (iOS 11.1). I use music from my hard drive, not from my iTunes account. When I drag music to my iPhone, all metadata of my music shows up in iTunes (iTunes 12.7.1.14) correctly. But on my iPhone, an album is broken into individual albums. So a 12-song album is turned into 12 1-song albums. This is the case 100% of the time. Every time that I add any album to my iPhone, every song will show up as separate albums.

Also, the artist is missing from every song on my iPhone.

I am 100% sure that my metadata in iTunes is correct. Artist, Album, and Album Artist are all identical down to the capitalization and everything is correct on the Sorting tab. The Compilation box is not in play here. I have verified my song metadata with a 3rd-party ID3 editor.

The only thing that works is to delete the music from the iPhone and then re-add the music. When I re-add the music, the music now is grouped together and labeled correctly on my iPhone.

Can I fix this issue without having to delete and re-add the music onto my iPhone every time?

Have the same issue. I figured out that adding first song of albums and then rest of the songs works. But also looking for better resolution.


macOS switches to Bluetooth headphones automatically Presumably since the last update to macOS 10.2.2, the system started to switch to my Bluetooth headphones automatically every time they come in Bluetooth range. That means that my Macbook switches audio output every time I come home (I use them on my iPhone as well). Even if I explicitly set the audio output to "Internal Speakers" on the Macbook, it will still behave like this.

This is very annoying for several reasons, mostly because the Macbook does't seem to be very good at switching BT audio off when no audio is playing, which results in my headphone's battery being empty pretty much every day now.

Does anybody else have this problem? Any solutions?

You can consider setting your Mac not to auto-connect to Bluetooth headphones, using this command in Terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist DontPageAudioDevices 1

This will not interfere with Apple Magic Mouse, Keyboard or Trackpad. Only audio devices will not be auto-connected.


I have to turn off and on my WiFi every hour or so. What's wrong? In my home network, my Apple TV, iPad, and Macbook Air all have the same problem. The WiFi network works fine, but after about an hour or less, the Wifi stops working. Things just hang when I try to things like open a webpage or ping yahoo.com. The WiFi signal icon is still on, however. The fix for me is to turn off my wireless on my Apple device and turn it back on again.

But this is annoying. How can I fix this? I'm using a Zonet Wifi router with WPA2 on. My ASUS Ubuntu netbook has no problems staying on the WiFi network.

I agree that since your problem occurs over many devices it is unlikely to be a problem with the Apple devices. I appreciate your point about the Ubuntu device still appearing to work, but it still seems more likely to be a router problem (it could be for example the router is producing multiple errors that the Apple software is catching).

I'd suggest a hard reset of the router as Step 1 (before you do so however make sure you know ALL your current router settings, not just your name and password. I take a screenshot of each setting page)

Most routers have a Reset button you have to press with a paperclip.

Power off the router for several minutes, then apply power and do an immediate reset.


Only half of my contacts from iPhone 4 sync to iCloud I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 7.1.2 (latest available for my phone apparently). I have about 500 contacts on my iPhone, however only 203 of them appear on iCloud.com. I cannot get the rest to sync with iCloud and you can imagine that manually re-adding about 300 contacts, one by one, sounds rather terrifying. I tried all the tips I could find, i.e. turning off and on the "Contacts" in the iCloud settings on my phone, logging off iCloud on all devices, restarting my phone and Mac, etc. Nothing changed.

Contacts app have groups of contacts, ie. Google contacts, Hotmail contacts, Facebook contacts and then iCloud contacts. To see the different groups, go to Contacts, at the very top you will see Groups, just tick iCloud and untick the rest. Now scroll down to the bottom and see if you have 500 contacts or 203.

If you have 203, it means that all your contacts are there. If you still see 500, make a manual backup:

Put your phone on charge.
Make sure you are connected to the internet via WiFi.
Go to Settings -> iCloud. Turn on Contacts.
Now go to Backup -> iCloud Backup: ON
If your iCloud Backup is switched on, you get a Back Up Now button.
Tap the Back Up Now button to manually back up to iCloud.

  Automatically back up data such as your photo library, accounts,
  documents, Health data, Home configuration, and settings when this
  iPhone is plugged in, locked, and connected to WiFi.


Migrate local user account to network account If I have a user with a local profile on their mac and they want to migrate all the data to a network based account (OS X Lion server), what's the best way to do this?

Why wouldn't you use the Migration Assistant to move users?

It's wicked fast over gigabit ethernet, knows what preference files are needed and can handle special cases better than rsync or other simple file copy methods.

Once the user is there, you can delete it (preserving the home folder) and then re-create the user with the proper server UID / home folder location or just edit these in the directory service where user data is stored.

It really depends more on how you want your server set up than just getting the files. Some setups it's easier to move first and fix later - others you should just set up the new account and let users move their files by hand once they have logged into their new accounts.

I would probably set up the server account for the user and once you have created the Home records in Workgroup Manager you can copy the files from a backup or the old client machine (paying attention to ownership by moving the contents of the home folder directories and resetting permissions to match the server UID/GID) before binding the client machine to the server accounts.


How to hide preview of text contents from Messages.app notifications in Mountain lion? In Mountain Lion's Notification Centre, I don't like having a notification pop up with the contents of an iMessage text I just got, but I do want to have notifications about it happening.

Is there a way to make it just show a notification without the content, similar to the iOS setting to not "Show preview" that hides the text content from the iOS notification center?

There is an option to "show preview" that can be ticked off in the settings of the Messages app: Go to Settings> Notification> Messaging.

Stated another way:

1) Go to Settings = Click on the GEAR icon (System Preferences)

2) The top-most section of System Preferences on My Mac is labeled "Personal" at the far right is "Notifications" (a black square with a red dot in the center)

3) Click that square and the dialogue window will show a list on the left which should include "Messages" with a sub title "Badges and Sounds"

4) Click that item in the list on the left and you will notice on the right side, toward the top it has three options (the default is Banners).  Click the item to the left of Banners (should be None).

Now you can press CMD+Q on your keyboard to close System Prefs and the alerts will stop popping up in the upper right of your screen (you may want to test it)

This was an issue for me because I was allowing one of my staff to use my Macbook for some training and all my personal iMessages kept popping up in front of her -  NOT COOL.  This ended that problem


iMac 27" 14,2 late 2013 CPU upgrade I recently brought an iMac 27" 14,2 back to life after a CPU fault (which  in itself was odd since I never seen a PC or Mac with a fried Intel CPU) and it runs pretty nice ... but on a Intel Core i3 4130 which leaves a lot to desire in terms of performance.

i'm thinking of replacing it with an i5 or i7 - but then I've seen that Xeon 2013 Xeon's are quite cheap and was wondering if the iMac Mainboard can run with it.

Does anybody knows if such upgrade is possible?
E3 1150 Xeon's are basically i7s without the GPU but more cache and offer better per watt performance.

Update

I will test 3 different CPU's with the iMac 27 14,2 mainboard, despite the the answer below. The information I found is not conclusive and well... why not?

I was able to grab 3 CPU's for testing, however the 1285 is not something you can call cheap alternative to i7 ;-)

Xeon E3-1231v3
Xeon E3-1285v3
Core i7 4790K

Once tested I'll share the results here, incl. some pictures. The CPU cooling block CPU/GPU hybrid is quite difficult to mount and one need to be really careful with it -  something ifixit and others don't mention.

It will not work with a Xeon processor.

The CPU you should get is anything from the Haswell line of CPUs.  If I were doing the upgrade, I would install an Core i7 (4771).


Where are my photos stored? I am new to OS X. In my About this Mac -> Storage, I have 21GB of photos. However, I have checked the Photos application and there are nothing in it.

I am not sure where these photos are stored as I don't usually use this computer for storing photos. I guess they might have been imported when I plugged in my iPhone, somehow. What is the best way to track them down?

In the Finder, under the File menu, select "Find" (Command+F). In the window that opens, leave the first pulldown menu at "Kind", go to the next pulldown and select "Image" then hit enter. Assuming you set the search to "This Mac," the Finder will then list every image file on your computer, allowing you to see exactly where they are.


OS X 10.10.5 Preview App Highlight drop down menu is greyed out on OS X 10.10.5 in my preview.app.

I understand that's where the Alpha tool is? Suggestions please for gaining access to that menu command?

Are you looking for Instant Alpha?

Just go to View → Show Markup Toolbar (SHIFT + CMD + A) and select it.


Failure to reconnect to networks on iOS Since installing iOS 14.0 (now 14.2) my iPhone XS repeatedly fails to reconnect to my network after returning from being out of range (e.g., on a walk) and frequently loses the network connection after periods of inactivity (e.g. overnight). No other device on my network has this problem. In order to reconnect I need to do so manually from scratch each time.
What can I do to ensure that my iPhone reconnects? I've tried deleting the offending network connection, resetting network connections, rebooting (and power cutting), rebooting the router — but nothing has helped? Is this a known bug introduced in iOS 14? If so is a fix forthcoming?

The network in question is hidden and MAC filtered, running on an AirPort Extreme. The connection is always configured to disable private addressing and to auto join.

Things to try... is the same behavior observed if you:

borrow an iDevice (running iOS 14) from someone else and connect it to your network
temporarily disable MAC filtering and/or the hidden attribute of your wireless network

(I’ve made the assumption that you’ve already re-booted both your iOS device and the Airport Extreme, and that they both have the most current software.)
As a last resort (that won’t cause you to lose any data, but that will delete any saved WiFi passwords not saved to iCloud - maybe turn off iCloud first just to be safe):

Use the “Reset Network Settings” option under Settings > General > Reset

While not the issue in your case, others may encounter a similar issue with the ‘private address’ feature in iOS 14, on a network has MAC filtering enabled.

When connected to your network, does “Privacy Warning” appear under the network name on the Wi-Fi settings?
If not, click the info circle to the right of the network name, then toggle off the “Private Address” option, which by default in iOS 14 assigns a new MAC address to your device on a regular basis (each time? every day?)


Is there a way to have an interactive / editable desktop background (E.g.: A spreadsheet) on a Macbook? The title basically gives the gist of what I am curious about, but to explain more: I wanted to set up a system where I track various things, such as my habits, mood, and tasks every day. I was planning to keep all of this in an Excel spreadsheet. I thought that it would be great if I could make the document where I keep track of this easily visible, so I will remember to edit it every day, and also because it would be easier to access and edit.

Through Googling, I found that at one point in time it was possible to embed an interactive spreadsheet as your desktop wallpaper in Windows. It involved saving the Excel spreadsheet as a webpage (.htm or .html), checking an option called "Add Interactivity", and the document could be set as the desktop background, and it would be editable from there (allegedly). The feature(s) that allowed this in Excel back then don't seem to be available in the 2016 version of Excel for Mac. So, is there a different way to do this now? Or is there some type of desktop Widget I could use as a Spreadsheet? I'm flexible about solutions, so any ideas would be appreciated!

Check out desktopr and add a link to a Google sheet.

The service allows you to set any website as your wallpaper. Heard about it on Product Hunt.


What is the difference between the variant language dictionaries in OS X? How can I see some or all of the individual word differences between the built-in dictionaries. I'm curious and inspired by this question where the UK typically adds the suffix -ise and USA typically spells it -ize.

It would be nice to to see the differences between these variants from the list of languages/dictionaries available in Mac OS X.

Australian English
British English
Canadian English
U.S. English

In originally asking this question, I thought that the spelling was controlled by the Language tab in the Language & Text preference pane, but have since learned that there is a Spelling option under the Text tab of the same preference pane (is that new in Snow Leopard?). From here it appears that other dictionaries can be easily imported (in aff or dic file format) which would lead me to believe that the spelling dictionaries are a standard format that may be read by other tools. However, the /Library/Spelling folder doesn't have any files.

As a bonus, it would be great to know how the language variants under the Language tab are used and why the variants there don't match up to the spelling dictionary.

Many people have tried to find the files for Apple's spell check dictionaries but I don't recall any successes.

As for the Language tab in Language & Text, it really doesn't have anything to do with spelling as such, although the top item on the list can set the default spell check dictionary in some circumstances.  The top item on the list also sets the OS and app language (for the 22 that are available), the default collation order, and the preferred language requested by Safari.  The order of the list can determine the app language used if a localization for the top item is not available.  The order can also determine whether a Japanese or Chinese font is used for text which is ambiguous in that regard. I think adding an item to the list can sometimes provide additional encodings in Mail app.


How well does the Samsung Gear S3 watch work with iPhone? I've read that Samsung announced compatibility with iOS for their Gear S3 watches.

As iOS is a peculiar closed system, what would be compatible? Will it be able to reply to Whatsapp or Telegram messages? Record voice?

I've searched for some information but found nothing.

According to what Samsung has announced to date, the Gear S3 will be able to pair with specific iOS devices:

  Compatible devices: iPhone 5, iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, iPhone 6, iPhone 6+, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S+, iPhone 7, iPhone 7+ and iPhone SE (iOS 9.0 and above).

Samsung will create iOS apps to take advantage of whatever the Gear S3 has to offer.  So it appears that 'compatibility with iOS' just means they'll use Bluetooth to communicate with the iPhone and also make apps for it.


Is it possible to set the default view in the iPhone music app to be “downloaded” only? On iOS 11, the music app has created a sub section for music actually stored on the device rather than in the cloud.

I never want to use cloud tracks, so I would like this to be the default view, but on my phone it always jumps back out to the top level menu. On my iPad, the menu setting seems to stick, though.

Is there a way to make it stick for the phone as well?

I'm guessing you must be quitting the Music app when you're not using it (or perhaps rebooting your iPhone or something similar).

Assuming you have the Music app on the Downloaded Music screen, or are playing music from within that section, then Apple Music should stay where it was last at. However, if you're in the habit of quitting the app or rebooting your iPhone, then it'll default back to the initial screen.

If the above fits your scenario, then there's really no need to quit the app. You can just leave it on in the background, even when you're not using it.

For more information you may want to refer to this question: Why is it better for an iPhone’s battery to NOT close down apps?


iPad messaging with multiple family iPads bought two iPads for kids and set up iCloud email accounts using my Apple ID from my iPad/iPhone. How do I let them text message friends etc without all the messages coming to my IM also? I'm not very knowledgable on tech stuff, they only have email addresses not phone numbers and all their messages are coming to my inbox also.

If all you care about is having your kids text message only people who have Apple devices signed into an Apple account using iCloud, then the process is pretty straightforward.  You go to the settings on the iPads and then head over to Messages -> Send & Receive.  On this page you can add whatever email addresses you've made up for your kids and then confirm with your Apple ID.  Their email will be sent a confirmation with a link that needs to be clicked.  Now you can set their Send & Receive to only have that address checked for "You can be reached by iMessage at" and for "Start new conversations from".

The actual texting to/from any number capable of text messaging is only going to function within the context of your iPhone's ability (i.e. your phone number).  You can either enable or disable that feature for each specific device(iPad), or if they are data capable devices (not the WIFI only version, but rather 4G/LTE) then maybe the provider will be able to set them up a phone number for texting (I'm not 100% sure on that so check with them first).

Basically, even though Apple devices can all be set up using specific addresses to send/receive messages from, they really can't send from one single data/texting package and route only between specific devices based on some other hidden meta data (meta data which is impossible to exist within a text message btw).

So let me try to make it simpler.  You can allow for the iPads (say WIFI-only) to send/receive text messages by way of the Text Message Forwarding feature, yet it will always appear on your iPhone because ultimately that's where messages are delivered from/to.  If your iPads message someone in the Apple ecosystem (i.e. has an Apple ID) then the individual address you set up on those iPads for Messages -> Send & Receive can be used.  This is strictly limited however to Apple IDs or addresses associated with one.


How iPad can run terminal as linux system? If I want to develop software on an iPad, how to start a terminal like linux and save the source local?

Without jailbreaking you can't really. iOS is designed not to allow executables to be created or even files to be moved between apps. Also there is no terminal.

If you want to build apps for iOS you generally use code on a mac.

However there are some apps that allow programming on the iPad but all run inside the app. Examples of this include Swift Playgrounds from Apple and various interpreters for Python, Javascript and Lua. (I have not provided links as I have not used them and my quick search found low rated or old apps) there are also interpreters that you can build on the Mac and install like Pharo ( a version of smalltalk).


How do I compile and install a Cydia app? I have downloaded iSwipe from Cydia and I really like it, but it lacks a dictionary of italian words. I have found the original github repository of iSwipe and it gives access to the code.

I would like to modify it to allow for the use of multiple languages, but I have never programmed any iPhone apps nor I know how to compile them and run them as Cydia apps.

Apart from forking the repository and modifying the code to my fit my needs, which I know how to do, could anybody kindly guide me through the process of compiling it and installing it on my phone to test it?

I am using Windows and don't have access to an OS X workstation, is it still possible?

P.S.: if this is the wrong site for this question, please move it. Thanks.

Install iFile for your iPhone/iPod/iPad/whatever(the free version will do) and navigate to /var/mobile/Wynd/Swype . There you can find the dictionary and you can edit however you want.

Now I have a question for you, where will you find the complete dictionary of words? :)


App Expose, show XCode project name Few versions of OSX ago, the project name was shown under the XCode window, when app expose was used... now just the open file name is shown, which totally useless

I cannot navigate to my open project and it's irritating as hell

How to show Xcode project name under the expose opened window

UPDATE: the solution below, sadly, no longer works after update to Xcode 8, because Apple shut down plugins support :( If anyone knows a working solution for Xcode 8 and above, please, write a comment below this answer to notify me, I'll be very grateful!

It can be done using the ProjectWindowName Xcode plugin. You can install it via Alcatraz. Alcatraz is not officially supported, so sometimes plugins stop working after Xcode updates (reinstallation usually helps). Or some plugins might deactivate after an update, because the compatibility UUID for the new Xcode version is not listed among compatibility UUIDs for the plugin.

I'm writing it here, because I'm unsure, whether the ProjectWindowName plugin was updated to support the latest Xcode. So if you installed Alcatraz, installed the plugin, relaunched Xcode two times (I don't know why, but Xcode can't seem to be able to show recent project after the first relaunch), and still project name is not shown in the expose mode, run the script from the accepted answer in this SO question.

Because I'm running the latest OS X 10.11.4 with the latest Xcode 7.3 (7D175) at the moment, and project name in expose works fine :)


Reinstall broken recovery partition on High Sierra macOS High Sierra (10.13) is the main OS on my Mac and it boots without issue. However, the recovery partition is corrupted and I cannot boot to it without seeing an error. How do I reinstall the recovery partition without having to disrupt my working main OS?

The machine I'm using was upgraded from Mavericks.

Meta Note: While there are similar questions for previous MacOS versions, I think unique issues relating to the new APFS in High Sierra justify a new question.

Before doing anything related to partitions on your main Mac, it’s best to perform a Time Machine backup.

After doing that, run the latest macOS High Sierra installer from the App Store. This should update macOS and restore the Recovery partition.


Does the El Capitan upgrade save the downloaded upgrade files locally? I'm trying to upgrade my Mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro to El Capitan. Currently sitting on Yosemite (although both Yosemite and Mavericks are in my Purchased Apps, with Download next to them).

My connection is spotty at best, so I didn't expect to finish the download in a day. However, I noticed that the download doesn't progress very far at all. It says it downloaded say, 7.5 MB of 6.17 GB, then something happens and it says calculating, then it goes back to 2 MB of 6.17 GB. I can pause and resume downloads, but I've never gotten too far before it goes all "calculating" again, and starts back from zero.

It might have something to do with minute disconnections, but does it erase everything and start a new download every time I get disconnected?

On a side note, there's a blue dot on the bar now, where there previously wasn't yesterday, despite having gone back to zero at least five times now, so I'm not sure what exactly is happening.

4:29 PM:

4:33 PM:

In my experience with an old iMac with a flaky airport card on an otherwise excellent connection the download will pause and resume even over reboots. So, unless the download is damaged, it will pick up where it left off.


What is the best way to move Microsoft Office 2011 to a new Mac? I've purchased Microsoft Office for Mac Home & Office 2011 (single computer), and have installed and activated on my current Mac.

Given that I've already activated the software for my current Mac, what steps should I do to move the app to the new Mac, without having any problems re-activating the software? Would Apple's Migration Assistant automate the process completely?

There are no special steps. Install it using the installer just like you did on your old Mac. When prompted for the activation key, select "activate by phone" and input nothing, keep trying and it should provide a number to call.

Microsoft (unlike Adobe) does not have an automated system for licence deactivation. This has been a point of great angst among Mac users as it requires them to call Microsoft each and every time they move the Office application from one machine to another.

I believe the number in the US is: +1 (800) 936-5700. Your product support number may vary.

Here is a rundown on activation and product key information.


Is it possible to enable underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys? There is a very convenient feature in Windows that underlines keyboard shortcuts such as in the image below. If I want to select Action, I can just press Alt+a; Refresh Alt+f; and so forth. The underlines appear in Microsoft apps, installers so I can just press alt+n for next instead of using my cursor, etc. It is really wonderful and I miss it. Is it possible to get something like that in OSX because I hate using my mouse.

macOS does have keyboard shortcuts, but they do not display with underlined letters. Many menu items will display their shortcut to the right. Some menu items will not have a shortcut.

If the menu item doesn't have a shortcut, you can press Command + Shift + / to open a search bar that will let you type in the command. You can arrow down and hit return to activate that menubar item.

You can also arrow through the menu bar by pressing Control + F2 (or Control + Fn + F2). You may need to toggle this on with Control + F1.


Gathering information through Terminal commands Is there a way through bash/terminal commands to get the following -

Manufactured date
OS install date
Anti Virus installed

I have been doing some research and these three items seem to not exist just wondering if anyone has any ideas.

PS: If anyone is interested its is for an Audit program I am writing that requires these commands.

See How to check when Macbook was turned on first time? for details about the OS install date.

As for anti virus software, there are several products out there. One way to check for installation is to check whether the corresponding application is installed in /Applications.


QuickTime Player > Export Clips I've got an mp4 in QuickTime which has been split into several clips.

How do I export these separately as audio tracks?

File Menu > Duplicate [Cmd/Shift/s]
Delete extra clips.
File Menu > Export > Audio Only...  will save as .m4a

Repeat for each clip.

Tedious, but the best I can figure...


Does anyone know how to disable unicode text input in text fields? I absolutely love the Cocoa text engine. A few modifications to a little xml file - ~/Library/DefaultKeyBinding.dict - and you can get just about any key sequence to work in any standard Cocoa text field in any application.

For example, I've added a bunch of emacs key bindings like CtrlA for going to the beginning of a line, ⌥F for moving forward a word, ⌥B for moving back a word, etc.

Anyhow, I've noticed that a few applications - even though they seem to use the Cocoa text engine and use standard Cocoa text field widgets - have this annoying way of subverting my emacs key bindings. In some text fields, the Option key is used to type Unicode international characters.

Is there any way of disabling this globally? I don't ever want the Option key to do this - if I want to type a Unicode character, I'll use the character viewer.

Any ideas?

Some applications and text views just don't support DefaultKeyBinding.dict.

If you create a new keylayout with Ukelele, you can for example make ⌥A insert nothing instead of å. Or you can reassign key combinations that enter dead key states (like ⌥U on the U.S. layout) so that they can be in used in DefaultKeyBinding.dict.

Keyboard layouts in ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts/ can't be selected in password dialogs or the login screen, but ones in /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ can.
XML keylayout files don't work with the popovers shown when holding keys, but keylayout bundles do.
To apply changes to a keylayout, you currently have to for example run sudo touch /Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/ and log out and back in.
The default input sources can be removed by editing ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.HIToolbox.*.plist.

KeyRemap4MacBook can for example change ⌥B to ⌥← in all applications except iTerm and Emacs. See this question.


How do I navigate the ribbon in Office for Mac 2016 with the keyboard? In Office in Windows, if you tap "Alt", letters appear all over the ribbon that illuminate how to navigate through it, switching tabs and hitting buttons to do anything that's on there.

How can I do that in Office 2016 for Mac?

Related question about Office 2011, has anything changed?

As of Office 2016, Microsoft has not implemented the Alt-shortcuts for the ribbon.  However, there are several dozen other shortcuts that can be used on the Mac.

You didn't ask for any specific shortcut so I won't list any here.  Also, there are so many that it would be impracticle to list them out.  I know we try to avoid 'link-only' answers but in this case there's no way around it.  Here are a few very comprehensive lists of all the Office shortcuts for Mac, including where you can use the excellent Accessibility features on the Mac:

Alt key shortcuts on Office for Mac
Keyboard shortcuts in Excel for Mac.  These are very similar shortcuts for all Office apps, too.
Accessibility shortcuts in Excel for Mac
Select menu items, like Alt+letter for Word


Speed up sleep (disable com.apple.powermanagement.darkwakelinger) From terminal I see that PreventUserIdleSystemSleep assertion takes 15 second before actually sleep. Is there any way to eliminate it, or at least set delay to 0/1 sec?

2017-06-09 23:36:15 +0500 Notification          Display is turned off
2017-06-09 23:36:15 +0500 Assertions            PID 603(AddressBookSourceSync) Summary PreventUserIdleSystemSleep "Address Book Source Sync" 00:00:07  id:0x0x100000185 [System: PrevIdle]
2017-06-09 23:36:15 +0500 Assertions            Kernel Idle sleep preventers: -None-
2017-06-09 23:36:15 +0500 Assertions            PID 52(powerd) Created InternalPreventSleep "com.apple.powermanagement.darkwakelinger" 00:00:00  id:0x0xd0000018a [System: PrevIdle SRPrevSleep kCPU]
2017-06-09 23:36:20 +0500 Assertions            Kernel Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler
2017-06-09 23:36:20 +0500 Notification          Display is turned on
2017-06-09 23:36:30 +0500 Assertions            PID 52(powerd) TimedOut InternalPreventSleep "com.apple.powermanagement.darkwakelinger" 00:00:15  id:0x0xd0000018a [System: PrevIdle SRPrevSleep kCPU]

There's an (apparently undocumented) option in pmset to adjust the "dark wake linger" interval.

sudo pmset dwlinterval <seconds>

However, I would recommend against changing the default without a good reason.


Can I delete files and folders in /private/var/tmp folder? I ran into the situation where using simultaneously Google Drive File Stream (DFS) and Code42 Crashplan and some other Corporate SW like CrowdStrike's Falcon, Bitdefender, etc... which seems are not liking each other (see this article).
Anyway, there turned up two issues:

one which was manageable in user accessible space (DFS cache was ~60GB)
the other beyond standard user access, where in /private/var/tmp folder occupied 210+GB

Resolving issue #1 was relatively "trivial" still not sure how to go around it in the future.
Resolving issue #2 took me several days of investigation and trials.

The solution now, seems quite straight forward possible to achieve in 5 or 6 main steps.
Not to repeat myself here again, I'd rather post link to Apple forum where I post similar question: How to safely delete a content of /private/var/tmp


Aramaic view in Google Chrome I cannot see the characters of Aramaic in the page http://pes.scripturetext.com/matthew/1.htm How can I see them?
any help will be highly appreciated.

You need to download and install a Syriac font from someplace like

http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Syriac.html

In more detail the installation is documented here:

Download the Meltho Syriac fonts
Unzip the file, select all the OTF files and press Cmd-O to open/install them
You may get some warnings about small font errors, just proceed nevertheless
Go to Fontbook and Disable the Damascus font.  It has a bug which interferes with Syriac fonts.
Fonts should now display correctly in documents and browsers


Can I re-install OS X on an encrypted drive without the password? I don't know my password to my Mac OS X account and it has file encrypt enabled on drive. If I reinstall Mac OS X, will it require a password to do so?

No, you do not need your FileVault password to erase and re-install OS X.

Without your password you will not be able to recover the existing files, but you will be able to completely blank and reinstall OS X on the Mac.


Can't launch application as root: secinitd > registration request failed I just tried to launch an application as root with

sudo /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator

but it doesn't work anymore. It used to work because I had scripted my own workflow in Yosemite, and now in El Capitan it stopped working somewhere along the update line (currently on 10.11.6). In the Console I get the following:

26/08/16 13:44:04,508 sudo[3205]:    USER : TTY=ttys000 ; PWD=/Users/USER ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator

26/08/16 13:44:04,521 secinitd[352]: com.apple.secinitd.connection-from.3207: registration request failed: (0x13, 0xd) Incoming message euid does not match xpcd uid (0 != 501).

I tried to do it with the 3rd-party XtraFinder "Launch as Root" function, but that doesn't work either.

SIP is completely disabled; root user is enabled; trying this in my admin space (501).

Does anyone else have the same problem? What could be the reason? Thanks for your help.

Found a solution myself:

sudo /bin/launchctl asuser 0 /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator

Console:

26/08/16 15:12:25,946 sudo[34364]:    USER : TTY=ttys000 ; PWD=/Users/USER ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/launchctl asuser 0 /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator

26/08/16 15:12:27,891 secinitd[34367]: UID[0]: cache loaded: /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.app-sandbox-cache.plist

This will ensure that the request actually comes from 0, not from 501. It might not be the only possible solution, but it worked here. If you know any alternate methods, let us know. Thank you.


Create symlinks in time machine backup? I have a time machine backup /Volumes/MyTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/MyMachine. Exactly as Apple creates a Latest symlink pointing toward the latest snapshot, I would like to create symlinks toward other snapshots. But I get permission denied when I do, in terminal,

% cd /Volumes/MyTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/MyMachine
% ln -s 2018-06-11-xxxx my_link

where 2018-06-11-xxxx would be one of  the snapshot. I even get permission denied with sudo!! Is there something wrong with my Time Machine disk or is that normal on MacOS High Sierra?

There are access control lists in addition to the typical permissions that lock you out of the time machine destination and prevent this. You might succeed in disabling that when Time Machine isn't looking, but when it starts up, it will likely notice you messed with the files it wrote and mark that destination as read only and never back up again to that destination.

You'd then need to retire it to a shelf or erase the drive and let Time Machine exert total control over a blank folder and start over with backups.

That being said, you can do this by maintaining your folder where you create the links outside the /Backups.backupdb folder (my best suggestion) or changing ACL and removing the restrictions Apple puts there.

Here are a couple related articles on the chmod to mess with the ACL lists - you might need a general article as well if you've not listed / modified / added / removed ACL on macOS - that's quite an article in and of itself that I'll leave for another question to answer.

How to remove my local Backupdb.backupsdb?
How do I change the ownership of files backed up with Time Machine
Time Machine and the dreaded negative sign (this is what happens when Time Machine detects a modification of permissions or content - the prohibitory sign and the "you need to start over" message)
Can't chmod or chown a file in TimeMachine backup directory
Moving Time Machine backup between two local disks results in full backup instead of incremental (pain experienced even trying to move the whole folder "intact")


Trying to get iOS 4 iPod app on a jail broken iOS 5 iPad without totally downgrading I'm one of the many haters of the new music app because of its useabiliyt. I have an iPad 2 with iOS 5.1 installed on it. Is there any way to download the old iPod app from iOS 4 onto my current device?

Sorry to disappoint you, but there is no way of just getting the Music app from another version of the iOS. If you are so concerned then please try the App store for Music player apps, i have used iAlbums, it has a very nice and slick UI. It uses the default music player's backend to play music, so you won't lose on any features.

If you are ready to do some experiment, then you need to build a custom firmware (cooking a rom) with new iOS and old Music app, non-advisable since you risk bricking the device.

Hope i made some sense.


AppleScript to audio I want to save the following spoken text to an audiofile that I can play on my iPod (so .mp3 or something).

say "the company [[slnc 1200]]" using "Alex"
say "une entreprise [[slnc 1200]]" using "Thomas"
say "a farm [[slnc 1500]]" using "Alex"
say "une ferme [[slnc 1200]]" using "Thomas"

So everything that my mac says during the run of this AppleScript should be saved in one audiofile. I don't want 4 different audiofiles, instead, I would like to have one (big) audiofile with all the audio. Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.

You sure can! Try this:

say "the company [[slnc 1200]]" using "Alex" saving to ((path to home folder as string) & "TheCompany.aiff")

Note that you have to use the AIFF format, which iPods do support. This will save it in your home directory.

You have to install FFMPEG for the final part of this script. You may have to install the developer tools first. Run this command in Terminal to check:

xcode-select --install

Once that's completed, you should install a package manager for FFMPEG. I personally use MacPorts, so that's what these instructions are for. Install MacPorts from here, picking the correct version for your OS. Once it's installed, run sudo port selfupdate && sudo port install ffmpeg in the Terminal, and enter your password. Once that's complete, this AppleScript should now function:

global file_index
global temp_files
set file_index to 0
set temp_files to {}
set finished_filename to "result.aiff"

say "the company [[slnc 1200]]" using "Alex" saving to new_temp_file()
say "une entreprise [[slnc 1200]]" using "Thomas" saving to new_temp_file()
say "a farm [[slnc 1500]]" using "Alex" saving to new_temp_file()
say "une ferme [[slnc 1200]]" using "Thomas" saving to new_temp_file()

set final_command to "echo \""
repeat with filename in temp_files
    set final_command to final_command & "file " & POSIX path of filename & "
"
end repeat
set final_command to final_command & "\"|/opt/local/bin/ffmpeg -y -f concat -i - -c copy ~/" & finished_filename
do shell script final_command

#cleanup
repeat with current_file in temp_files
    do shell script "rm " & POSIX path of current_file
end repeat

on new_temp_file()
    set file_index to file_index + 1
    set current_temp_file to ((path to temporary items) as string) & "file" & file_index & ".aiff"
    set temp_files to temp_files & {current_temp_file}
    return current_temp_file
end new_temp_file

This will combine the says in the list to the file you specify in the finished_filename variable. You can add however many "say"s you want, just keep to the same syntax I used (saving to new_temp_file()) and you'll be good to go!


Convert a live photo to video on iPhone without using an external app? Is there any way to convert a live photo to a short video without moving the photo off the iPhone and without using any external app?

All I had to do is update my iOS.
From iOS 13 all that is required is to scroll to the live photo, press the icon of a square with an up arrow in it, and scroll down the 'Save as Video'. No need to pay for other apps.


When I try to use Animoji, I see "Tap to resume" When I try to use Animoji, I get the following message/error:

  Tap to resume

Additionally, when I tap on my Memoji, I get

  Face tracking failed. Tap to retry

However, tapping does not resolve the issue. I've also tried a hard reboot/force restart, resetting all settings, and erasing the phone and resetting all settings—and none of those fixed the problem.

Face ID seems completely unaffected.

What can I do to fix this?

Today, I went back to the Apple Store.

After running some tests, they were able to determine a problem with the telephoto lens and Face ID. (Curiously, they saw someone with the same problem earlier that day.)

Because my phone was still within its warranty period, they replaced it free of charge.

Your mileage may vary, but it's worth a shot!


Delete personal gmail from work iPad I don't have a delete button when I go to Settings, choose  Calendars, etc. then my gmail account I want to delete on my work iPad. I see only a sign-out option. Do I have to have my work delete my personal gmail account since they are the main account holder.

If you go into settings -> mail, Contacts, Calendars all of your accounts should be listed there. (Your question does not mention that specific location, did you go there?) Tap on the one you want to delete and scroll to the bottom of the screen. There should be an option to to remove the account.

Depending on how the iPad was set up at work they may have some sort of MDM installed that prevents you from doing a number of things, including adding or removing accounts and apps, changing certain settings and the like. If that is the case you may have to talk with your IT people to do what you want to do.


Bug with Spotlight Search. How to fix/restart? There's a bug with my Spotlight Search. For example, when I search for "script editor", normally the search result would show the script editor app in Applications, but now it doesn't:

Without restarting the computer, is there a way to simply restart or refresh Spotlight Search?
(I've tried Relaunching Finder multiple times but it doesn't work.)
Finder itself is working fine, other than the fact that Ctrl-F Search will not show any results while being stuck at Searching "foobar", and <Recents> (in the sidetab) shows a blank page and no results.
- I'm sure this bug can be fixed by restarting the computer, as it has happened several times before in the past.

Have you checked System Preferences > Spotlight, to see whether Applications are included in the results?

Otherwise, you may need to reindex your Spotlight database.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201716
Drag the disk "Macintosh HD" onto the Privacy panel of System Preference > Spotlight, and then click - to remove it from the window.


Read only access to app store on ios devices I restricted the iOS devices of my kids so they cannot install apps. This was necessary because it's not possible to revoke permissions given via family sharing.

Now the app store icon is fully gone. I'd like to get them some kind of read access to the app store.

Any ideas?

You can use Restrictions to disable the ability to purchase apps or to install any apps.  To turn on Restrictions:

Tap Settings > General.

Tap Restrictions.

Tap Enable Restrictions and create a passcode for Restrictions. Don’t forget this passcode. In the future, you'll need your Restrictions passcode to change your settings or to turn off Restrictions.
What you can restrict

If an app or feature is on or if there's a checkmark next to it, anyone using your device can use that app or feature. Otherwise, no one can use that app or feature.

Apps and features
Safari
Camera (also disables FaceTime)
FaceTime
iTunes Store
Apple Music
Apple Music Radio
Apple Music Connect (replaces Connect tab with Playlists)
iBooks Store
In-App Purchases
Siri
AirDrop
CarPlay (available only with iPhone 5 or later)
Installing apps
Deleting apps
Multiplayer games in Game Center
Adding Game Center friends
You can restrict access to YouTube in iOS 5 and earlier.

Types of content
 - Ratings
 - Music and podcasts
 - Movies
 - TV shows
 - Books
 - Apps
 - Siri
 - Websites

If you don’t use Touch ID for paid and in-app purchases, you can choose between two options for how often you need to enter your password for these purchases.


Why is permission denied on this folder? I'm trying to understand why I do not have access to a sub-folder in my "Downloads" folder. The folder in question has the following rights:

drw-r--r--   29 laurent  staff   986B Feb 20 14:06 Example

and whoami gives 'laurent'. So as I understand, anybody can view this folder and I am the owner.

However, when I do cd Example, I'm getting:

bash: cd: Example/: Permission denied

In fact it seems to be true of all the sub-folders in my "Downloads" folder, none of them can be accessed (without using sudo). Any idea what could be the reason?

To be able to list or enter a directory you need execute permission

e.g

drwxr-xr-x   2 mark  staff      68 18 Mar 14:00 example

Use chmod to change the permissions, also check the setting of umask to see the default