OS X 10.11.6 can not update iTunes 12.5.1, app store problem As shown in picture, app store tell me to update iTunes 12.5.1, but in updates installed list, you can see I have already installed iTunes 12.5.1. But actually, my iTunes version is still 12.4.3 Now, I click the update button of iTunes, then after download completed, nothing will install, and return this page to wait update. My mac os x system is 10.11.6

How can I fix it? Thanks

I had the same issue. I ran Disk Utility -> First Aid and it found a buch of issues. After that I was able to download iTune 12.5.1 properly.

If that doesn't work, you can always download it directly from: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/


Windows on Parallels 10 with 2 out of 3 monitors only I've MacBook Pro with 2 external monitors connected. Is there a way to configure Parallels so that it allows you to use 2 monitors for Windows and the main one for Mac? I only found option to make it all or just 1. Also I don't want to expand Windows across the 2 monitors (i guess there's an option to do that). I want them treated as separate spaces so i can easily move things around between 2 monitors (for example Outlook on one, chrome on the other).

Using UltraMon seems to work fine for me, I've found it in a post on the Parallels Forum:

  I will start the VM with 3 screens, then I use a 3rd party software (UltraMon) and disable the one display so that my VM uses two screens running Windows 7 and my MacOS uses the one.


Found mail message in Outlook for Mac, but want to find the source folder Because I find that Outlook's internal search is sometimes unreliable, I occasionally use the Mac's spotlight search to find a particular mail message. This allows me to locate the message, which I can open, but I cannot find a way to determine the folder in which the message is stored. (I think my question is different from "Outlook for Mac 2011: How to find the folder where a message is stored?" because the user there was using Outlook's internal search and getting a list of emails in an Outlook table of messages. My problem is that my external search only goes into Outlook once I have opened the single message I am looking for, and so there is no table listing all messages found according to the search criteria, with columns that allow a "folder" column to be displayed)

The internal search for Outlook:Mac 2011 is Spotlight search.

When you search from Spotlight outside of Outlook:Mac, and you select a result, that email is opened in a new window.  The title of that window is "subject - folder".  This isn't perfect, since it only tells you the name of the parent folder.  If you have a deep folder structure, or if you reuse folder names, you'll have to figure out where that particular folder lives.


Radeon 560 vs Radeon 555 Planning to buy Macbook Pro 15 2017 model. Is there a big difference between Radeon 560 and Radeon 555. Which should I go with? To give you background, what I shall be mostly using my MBP for:

Lot of editing in Photoshop/Photos
Quite a lot of Applications being opened (nothing graphical though - Skype with Screen Sharing, Chrome with 100s of tabs)
Playing and editing Videos
Virtual Machine for Windows running in parallel
Dockers shall be running
Vagrant shall be running
Sublime Text with 8 or 9 projects being opened
Xcode
Android Emulator
Multiple external monitors

What should I choose?

Looks like the 560 massively outperforms the 555 in benchmark testing:

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-RX-560-vs-Radeon-Pro-555
And looks like it has twice the VRAM (4 Gb vs 2 Gb) which to me makes it a pretty easy decision.
FWIW - I'm a graphically-intensive applications user, and having a GPU with more VRAM means better performance from apps which target GPU processing, so I'm not a typical use-case.


Why does Google Chrome replace "fl" with blocks on all PDFs it shows, but Adobe Reader works fine? When I open PDFs in Chrome that contain words like "files", the "fi" is replaced by a square block. Opening the same PDF in Adobe Reader or Preview works fine.  Anyway to fix this?

Looks like this is a bug with Chrome's PDF Viewer, which is fixed in Chrome Milestone 25: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=80996


How can I hide a partition (or prevent it from mounting)? How can I hide a partition (or prevent it from mounting)? I want an effect similar to the recovery partition: it's completely undetectable outside of Disk Utility/the boot menu.

Partitions that are mounted in Mac OSX are generally present in the file /etc/fstab that is read upon boot. If you just comment out (i.e. put a # in front of it, and save the file) the line that referes to the drive you do not want to mount, it will not mount upon next boot.

edit
FYI. I am not sure which OSX you are on, but since OSX Lion the implementation of /etc/fstab has changed:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3582968?start=0&tstart=0


Finder crashes and cannot be relaunched (El Capitan, 2010 Macbook Air) Model: Macbook Air (11", Late 2010, 1.6 GHz)

OS: El Capitan 10.11.6

Problem: Whenever I try to shut down or restart my Mac, Finder crashes and then nothing else happens. The computer continues to function, except without Finder. The menu bar disappears until I start another app (from the dock). I've tried relaunching Finder from the dock but nothing happens. I've also tried relaunching it via command + option + esc but that doesn't work either. The only way I can bring Finder back is to force restart the computer by holding down the power button.

There are some other odd symptoms, too, like that whenever I get a notification for an update I'll click update and then nothing will happen. I've found that when I restart and get to the login screen I can shut down and restart normally from there.

Besides these things the computer functions normally. I just can't get it to shut down or restart normally.

Any ideas of what might be going on? I can paste an EtreCheck if that would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

Note: What I'm experiencing seems to be identical to the problem described in this unanswered question. As recommended by a commenter, I've tried creating a new account but it has the same problems I've described above.

Okay, I figure you have two options.

OPTION 1 - Delete Finder preferences

Let's delete Finder preferences first and see if that solves your problem. Since you can't launch the Finder, you will have to do this using the Terminal. Follow these instructions:

Open Terminal (it's in the Applications > Utilities folder).
Delete the primary Finder preferences file by typing this at the Terminal prompt exactly as I've typed it: rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
Press Return
Since you're running El Capitan you will also need to delete the preferences for the Finder Sidebar by typing this at the Terminal prompt exactly as I've typed it: rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
Press Return
Log out, then in again.
Empty the Trash.

Hopefully this solves the problem. If not, proceed to Option 2.

OPTION 2 - Replace the Finder app

Manually go to your Time Machine backup drive.
Select a backup date you know was after you updated to El Capitan 10.11.6 and before you started having problems.
Within your backup drive, navigate to the Finder app. This should be located at: Backups.backupdb > 'your computer' > 'backup date' > Macintosh HD > System > Library > CoreServices > Finder (Note: Your HD may be a different name to Macintosh HD).
Double-check that the version of Finder is actually 10.11.4 (that's the version for El Capitan 10.11.6).
Select and Copy the Finder app.
Now, navigate to the CoreServices folder on your main HD. This should be located at: Macintosh HD > System > Library > CoreServices (Note: Your HD may be a different name to Macintosh HD).
Paste the Finder app into this location.

Hopefully this solves the problem. If not, you could try Option 1 again now that you've replaced the Finder.

Let us know how you go.

[EDIT]

Option 3 - Test Startup/Login items

Okay, I'm adding this option based on the fact that the Finder seems to operate normally when your computer starts in Safe Mode.

This tells me it's likely to be something that's getting loaded during normal startup (e.g. a Startup/Login item, a font you've installed) that's causing the problem.

So I would now startup normally and go to System Preferences > Users & Groups. Take a note of your Login Items and then remove all of them and restart your computer (Finder should still crash) so that it starts again without those login items loading. Test this and see if the problem persists.

If the problem does persist, I'd then remove any fonts you've installed yourself.

Let me know how you go.


How can one use /etc/paths.d to add a path with spaces in it to $PATH? I recently installed VMware Fusion 10 on a Mac running macOS 10.12.6. After doing so, my bash PATH is broken.  I traced the problem to a /etc/paths.d path file that Fusion installed; it contains the following entry (with no newline):

/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Public

Note the space in the pathname.  With this present, on starting a shell I get an error:

-bash: export: `Fusion.app/Contents/Public:/Library/TeX/texbin': not a valid identifier

And my resulting PATH is corrupted.  I tried adding a newline, putting the path in double-quotes, and putting a backslash before the space; all of these produce an error (sometimes different errors).  For example, adding the backslash or wrapping with double-quotes gives the same error.  Both changes together gives:

-bash: test: /Users/loredo/Library/Commands:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Applications/VMware: binary operator expected
-bash: test: /Users/loredo/Library/Commands:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Applications/VMware: binary operator expected
-bash: test: /usr/local/var/rbenv/shims:/Users/loredo/Library/Commands:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Applications/VMware: binary operator expected
-bash: export: `Fusion.app/Contents/Public:/Library/TeX/texbin:.:/usr/texbin:/usr/local/cuda/bin': not a valid identifier

I'm beginning to wonder if path_helper may be unable to handle such a use case.  Is there a way to handle this?

So I'll try and give this one the ol college attempt.  So after messing around with this for about an hour I came to the conclusion that path_helper - the native app that constructs a PATH environment variable from /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d doesn't play well with paths that have spaces in them, ie. thus why you're experiencing your current situation.

So my hacky solution to get this working, is to create a symlink from,

/Applications/VMware Fusion.app

to

/Applications/VMwareFusion.app

using the below command,

ln -sf /Applications/Vmware Fusion.app /Applications/VmwareFusion.app

Then edit /etc/paths.d/com.vmware.fusion.public and change the one line in that file to look like the below,

/Applications/VMwareFusion.app/Contents/Public/

Then obviously start a new shell session or reinit.

This solution works great for me using the fish shell.


Can I add actions to control automator to automator? Is there any way that I can add automator itself to the list of services I can automate? For example right now I can go and add a launch application action to the workflow and within that action launch automator. Effectively this creates a level of control over automator but only by routing it through the utilities action item. I know that you can add new application action libraries to automator to control any app that releases a library for it. So is there one for automator? Where is it if there is?

Automator itself does not ship with self referencing Automator actions.

GUI Scripting

Alternative approaches include using GUI Scripting to automate interactions with the Automator application. See Accessibility Preferences and GUI Scripting for an example of how to set this up on recent versions of Mac OS X.

automator Command Line Tool

OS X includes an automator command line tool. You can use this tool to incorporate your Automator workflows into other scripts. Through this tool you can pass in variables and thus manipulate the workflow's behaviour.

Beyond Automator

You may find GUI Scripting and the corresponding What Me Do action fragile or unpredictable. If so, consider tools such as Sikuli to help automate your Mac.


Disable confirmation dialog when changing File Extension in macOS Finder Every time I change a file type in Finder, I'm forced to confirm that I actually want to change the file extension.

Are you sure you want to change the extension from ".old" to ".new"?
If you make this change, your document may open in a different application.
Keep .old Use .new

How can I stop going through this confirmation step?

Finder > Preferences > Advanced

  Show warning before changing an extension

Uncheck this option to disable the warning confirmation dialog when changing or renaming a file extension in the macOS Finder.


Sync mail account settings in Mavericks I have several IMAP email accounts that I use in Mac Mail. I want to sync those "account settings" across to my iDevices (all on iOS 7). I don't want to enter these accounts manually on each device.  There use to be a panel in iTunes called 'info' that allowed this but is missing in iTunes 11.3.1. What is the new methodology?

I notice in Mac Mail that there is an option under the Mail menu to "Synchronize all accounts" which seems hopeful but even if it is pushing account settings to the iCloud then I am still not knowing how to get them to come down to my iDevices.

To sync accounts between devices and workstations, you should investigate iCloud Keychain Sync. In addition to syncing keychains (as expected) it will also sync any "Internet Accounts" across devices bound to the same iCloud account. This includes (in my case) two Macs, one Hac, an iPhone 5 and iPad 3rd Generation (WiFi).

The command to "Synchronize all accounts" actually is performing an IMAP folder sync operation across all active accounts, not synchronizing account settings.

Additionally, if you use MFA (multi-factor authentication) via an "application password" generated by your service provider, iCloud Keychain Sync will sync the same password credential between your devices. May be best to revoke them all and issue a new one, or pick one from the device you are starting with, and revoke the rest upon completion.

  Sidebar: I recommend doing this one device at a time because you may end up with duplicate accounts on some devices while it propagates. You cannot selectively sync account information to only some devices without also losing Keychain Sync, but you can enable/disable "Internet Accounts" selectively on a device after it arrives there.
  Bonus -- if you use MFA, you can use invalid passwords to help you identify which accounts are new and which accounts are old. e.g. once you expire test@test.com/iPad for your "Test.com IMAP" account, if you have two "Test.com IMAP" accounts, the one that isn't disabled from a failed login is the one that iCloud Keychain sync gave you.


How does one take complete control of the MacBook built-in webcam? Zoom is able to adjust the MacBook Pro's built-in camera (I think it raises the ISO) for low lighting, either automatically or manually (user-controlled). This is the only application I am aware of that can change any of the camera's settings.
I would like to be able to take full control of the video settings (i.e. brightness, contrast, color temperature, ISO, [digital] shutter speed, iris/aperture, etc.) on the MacBook's built-in webcam.
Are there any apps, utilities, terminal commands, plugins, frameworks, etc. that can allow me to customize said settings for all video outputs?

I have used Webcam Settings which you can get from the Apple App Store for US$8.  It directly adjusts the webcam (don't ask me how!) and so works with all webcam apps.  I have had no issues with Big Sur upgrade.
You will not be able to adjust everything in your list and what can be adjusted varies by webcam.  For example, it can adjust more on my Logitech webcam than the built-in webcam.
Here is the main settings panel for my built-in camera:

The Hue and White Balance settings will likely be enough to make a significant improvement.
But no app will magically make a relatively poor web cam into a great looking one. If you find the built-in FaceTime webcam is not good enough for your usage, you should invest in a better one.  I use a rather old Logitech C920 which is better than the built-in and you can easily find a webcam that is better again.


Is the MacBook Pro Retina (Old Version) meant to come with an extension cable? Is this Apple MacBook Pro ME665LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (Old version) meant to come with an extension cable to plug into this charger?

This is the cable I think is missing from my package, and the cable I got:

Correct - you are a missing that component. Assuming you purchased directly from Apple, You’re supposed to get the magsafe, as well as the extension AC adaptor. Contact Apple support or visit your local Apple store if applicable.


Can't run OpenJDK macOS Catalina "Can't verify it's not a Virus" I downloaded OpenJDK 13 from the official website and extracted it to my /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/ folder. If I now try to run it with java -version I get a prompt saying something around the lines of "macOS can't verify it is not a Virus" and asks me if I want to delete it or cancel.

The Tar's Checksum matches the one from the Website.
I used sudo in order to move the folder, otherwise I got access denied
Running java as sudo changes nothing

Any ideas on how I can get OpenJDK 13 to install on MacOS Catalina?

Go to System Settings -> Security & Privacy -> General -> click 'Allow' (below 'App-Downloads allowed from')

After that open a terminal and run java again (e.g. java -version).
A new Dialog should appear with the possibility to trust OpenJDK futurewise.


Using Time Capsule to extend over ethernet I'm trying to work out if the following is possible.

At the moment I have a Macbook Air connected to home Wi-Fi (802.11n) provided by a modem / router from the phone company which I'm more than happy with.

I also have an old iMac with 802.11g Airport Extreme card which is being revived to work on some old files.  This is in a separate room to the router.

Finally I have a 1TB Time Capsule with 802.11n.  Can I connect this to the existing network, then plug the iMac into its ethernet to share the connection?

(I would also like to use the ethernet to perform the first back of the Macbook Air, then switch to over-the-air)

Cheers

Yes, when you're setting up your Time Capsule, you're able to configure it so that it connects to an existing wireless access point, thus making use of any of the router's abilities (e.g., VPN, DMZ, etc.) while maintaining the backup capability of the Time Capsule itself.


Is there a way to restore contacts from data.syncdb? My friend's iPhone was stolen. I want to get her contacts back from iTunes. She didn't sync her contacts with Outlook or anything else. I found in her computer an data.syncdb file in

  C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\SyncServices\Local\TFSM\com.apple.Contacts

It's size is 64kb.

Is there a way to restore contacts from this file?

Does your friend have another iPhone? This would be astronomically easier if she did. I also think that you're looking in the wrong place - here's what I would suggest (assuming that she's got an iPhone, and thank you to some Googling for help with the following instructions):

Close iTunes.
Go to C:\Documents and Settings\[your name]\Application Data\Apple
Computer\SyncServices\Local\clientdata.
In that directory, you will find a set of directories with ridiculously long gibberishy names.
List those directories using 'Details', so you can see the modification dates on them, and make note of which of those is the most recent.
Copy the data.syncdb file that contains the contact info you want from whatever directory it's in to the most recent of the gibberish-named directories.
Open iTunes.
Click on Restore.
iTunes will restore your phone's data from that most-recent directory, and will pull the contacts data from whatever data.syncdb file is in that directory.

That said, if she doesn't have an iPhone, it'll be a lot harder to do this unless they migrated over to the Address Book or Mail or something. Do you have any iDevice lying around that you could plug in, and restore using the iPhone's original backup? That would fix that problem.


How do I take an iPad screenshot that includes a picture of the iPad border around it? I know how to take a normal screenshot with my iPad, but I'm looking to see how people on the internet are able to show content on the iPad in a picture that has the physical border of an iPad.

Do they just take a screenshot and superimpose the image?

Thanks, for mentioning my app, AutoScreenshot 3D!

I created it for myself, as well as other developers, who want to superimpose their screenshot onto an actual image of an iOS device, and have it displayed at an angle, with mirror effect.  Makes a nice screenshot for iTunes or web or print!

The PRO version, for $0.99, lets you provide your own background image.  By default, it ships with an iPhone 4.  You can also download images that you can use for free, from http://www.AutoScreenshot.com.  We will add iPad images in the future, but you can google for an acceptable one.

A free version is awaiting Apple's approval and it only uses the default background.


Finder file size easy way While showing items as icons (not in a list, in columns or wit cover flow).

In order to know file size I right-click the file then select Get info then a window opens full of info and I have to look around just to find file size.

Is there some way to make it easier? May be hold Command while hover over file..

There's no perfect built-in macOS solution for what you want, and that's why macOS offers different view options. They each have advantages and disadvantages.

However, the closest option to what you want would be to enable the Show item info option.

To do this:

Within Finder navigate to the folder you're wanting to view
Make sure it's in Icon view
Press commandJ (or just right lick on the window and select Show View Options)
Now you'll see the view options for icon view
Tick the Show item info checkbox

OPTIONAL: If you want this to apply to all windows with icon view, click on the Use as Defaults button at the bottom
Close the Show View Options window

Now you'll notice additional info is displayed below your icons

NOTES:

The reason this is not a perfect solution in your case is that the info displayed below the icon is not necessarily the file size. That is, while for many files it does display the file size, for others it will display different info (e.g. if it's a folder it'll display the number of items inside the folder, if it's an image it'll display the image dimensions, etc).
Not all file types will have additional info displayed.
I have found that sometimes you need to disable and then re-enable this option after copying items from another location across, otherwise the info isn't displayed immediately below the icon.

Despite the above limitations, enabling this will reduce the number of times you need to use Get Info to view the file size.


2012 iMac boots to prohibited sign after it attempted over night self update? HDD now cannot be mounted? My friend's 2012 iMac attempted to self update over night and it resulted in the prohibited sign on a gray screen this morning and so, the iMac does not boot anymore!

Here are all the things I've tried so far:

1) Holding down SHIFT on power up to go to safe mode, results in black progress bar followed by prohibited sign.

2) Holding down CMD-R on power up to go to the recovery console, results in black progress bar followed by prohibited sign.

3) Holding down CMD-OPT-R on power up to go to the online recovery console, this works, it connects to the WiFi and boots into the recovery console successfully.

3a) From that online console, I can go to Disk Utility and I see the internal 1TB HDD, but I cannot mount it as it does nothing when selecting the MOUNT item.  Also, that HDD (disk0) information is very minimal like the drive was inaccessible or something.  However, from the Terminal > "diskutil list" command, I can see two partitions inside disk0, but nothing happens when I mount or force mount any of them: disk0s1 (150MB EFI) and disk0s2 (1000GB APFS)

3b) In Disk Utility, I tried to use the First Aid functionality on disk0 (not the actual partitions since Disk Utility does not show them, but rather the root disk element itself) and it's been sitting there in a popup window displaying "Running First Aid..." without any sort of progress for an hour now.  It does not list or show anything happening in that window and there is no cancel or close button either.  I forced a power down on this one as it was not seemingly working at all.

4) Holding down SHIFT-CMD-OPT-R on power up to go to the online factory reset console, this works, it connects to the WiFi and boots into the recovery console successfully.  In Disk Utility, I GUID partitioned an external 500GB USB HDD and formatted it as HFS+ then proceeded to install Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) which is what the factory reset console suggests and what my friend says the iMac came with in 2012.  It took 3.5 hours and it worked.

4a) I understand that APFS is only available since High Sierra and not Mountain Lion so installing Mountain Lion as per described in 4) is useless even tough it worked, because obviously, the HDD wasn't mountable using 10.8.  So I opened the iMac and replaced the internal hard drive with a brand new one.  I am now attempting the same as 4) with 10.15 Catalina instead, which is suggested when booting the iMac via the online recovery console (CMD-OPT-R) anyway. I am sure this will work (3 hours left to install) but since I want to get the DATA back from the old drive, I'm eager to see if connecting the older drive via USB will make it mountable after booting 10.15 Catalina via the brand new internal hard drive.

EDIT: So, this morning, Catalina has finished downloading/installing (4a, above) on the brand new internal HDD that I've installed yesterday evening.  So the iMac works flawlessly now, and thanks to iCloud syncs, almost every document is back in the computer, it's still downloading documents right now so I'll wait until it's all done (is there a way to know when an iCloud sync back is completely finished anyone?).  The old internal drive, which I've attached via USB DOES NOT MOUNT, still. And Disk First Aid still seems stuck on diagnosing the drive! So it may just be dead, like you mentioned. I'll leave Disk First Aid run for 2 hours and I'll report back afterwards.

I am aware of those 2 interesting ideas, however like I mentioned, we cannot access disk0s2 to browse/delete files.

System won't boot after attempting 10.13.4 update

OSX Prohibited symbol on Boot (High Sierra Update Caused)

Any more ideas? We do NOT have another Mac, this is the only Mac we can use.  However, I have some external drives that we could format and use.  Also, internet is very slow here (booting to online recovery console begins by downloading like 1GB of DATA and this takes almost half an hour!) so the most preferred method would not imply downloading gigabytes of install files, unless it's actually mandatory.

There are two possibilities. There have been reports of Catalina causing some corruption to the EFI firmware partition. However, if the iMac was running auto-updates, then it should have already updated to Catalina? In which case that's probably not the case.

The other possibility is that the 7-year-old internal hard drive has failed. The computer itself seems to be working as you've booted to an external.

Drive failure often happens to old drives after an OS upgrade ("The new OS broke my drive!") because writing several GB of files to the drive is the 'final straw that breaks the camel's back'.

It's possible that the drive may mount and be read once you've booted to a Catalina OS. You might need to run third-party disk recovery software like Data Rescue.

However, if the drive will not mount at all, then data recovery becomes much more difficult. And by difficult, I mean expensive.
This is where I ask you if you have a backup.


iPad connected to LG Ultrafine 4K Display The Apple support document for the LG Ultrafine 4K display states here that only newer Macs are supported.
https://support.apple.com/HT207447

I was wondering if it is possible to use a Lighting to USB 3.1 Type C cable to transfer video+audio to the LG display. This following entry for a specific cable on Amazon mentions:

also supports USB quick charging, and high performance video and audio transfer

https://www.amazon.com/USB-3-1-Type-JOTO-White/dp/B01540Q4FK

Has someone tested this and can someone confirm that this is (not) working?

No, it will only charge the iPad.

Lightning doesn't have anything to do with HDMI. It's just a serial bus that cannot send any HDMI data without some help.

With Apple's Lightning Digital AV Adapter (which, in fact, is just small computer itself) you can output to an HDMI display. The native resolution is only 1600x900, however.


Unable to access phone after update to iOS 12.1.4 I recently updated my iPhone 5S to iOS 12.1.4 and I can't access it anymore.  The phone says "Press Home to upgrade". My phone's home button is broken so I can't press the Home button. I have assistive touch, but the screen is not responsive to my touch.

I have also tried:

Trying to restart the phone. When I press the sleep/wake button for a long time, the Apple logo flickers before the phone shuts down. When I long press again, the Apple logo displays, then the white words "iPhone is disabled" and the smaller "please wait 1 minute" is displayed. Eventually, the same screen appears.
Trying to revert to a backup. After I tried 2 different cables which have been working previously, and making sure the USB input was working, the phone would not be detected by the computer itself.

Can somebody help me?

Connect your iPhone to iTunes

  If iPhone is locked, iTunes will not recognize that it's connected.

Therefore, you have to put your iPhone to DFU mode. Usually, a key combination is used to do that (requires home button).

Other way is to use third party software, which allows you to enter DFU mode with one click.

Recboot
Tiny Umbrella
Redsn0w

  I have not checked, whether second and third option works with your iOS and iPhone, but there are a few others worth trying.

When your iPhone enters DFU mode, you will be able to manually reinstall iOS using iTunes or recover from backup.


Issue with changing Apple ID My email address no longer active and valid and I need to change it.

Once I log in and access the "Change Apple ID" page and enter a valid email address, I get an error message "This email address is not available. Choose a different address."

Most likely the problem is is that that email is used as a recovery email for another Apple ID.

According to this Apple Support discussion:

  The issue was that I wanted to create an account with an address that
  was already listed as a secondary address for an another, older, Apple
  ID account.

  This situation blocks the Apple ID creation process (and because the
  email is not a primary address for any Apple ID yet, there is no
  birthdate associated with it and the recovery emails go nowhere)

  To solve the problem I went to id.apple.com, clicked "manage your ID"
  and logged in with my old account credentials.

  I then deleted the email address that I wanted to use to create an ID
  from the list of "alternate emails" associated with the old account
  and victory! After that the Apple ID creation process went fine.


Apple Watch won't send iMessages When I go to send a text message on my Apple Watch, whether it be through Siri or the messages app, it always tries to send a text message (green) rather than a iMessage (blue). I have tried turning on and off iMessage, restarting my iPhone and Watch, unpaired and re-paired my watch, and setting it up again as new. My watch will appear to try to send a regular (green) text message through my phone, but will get stuck on "Sending..." even though the text actually gets sent. I can send iMessages just fine on my iPhone. The people in my contacts who I am messaging do have iPhones and their contacts are set up as having an iPhone.

And a little while later, my watch will say that the message failed to send, even though they were sent:

As you can see below, texts from my Watch end up sent as regular text messages, while texts from my iPhone to the same person get sent as iMessages. In the end, how do I get my watch to send iMessages?

Update

I had an Apple Store Genius appointment a while back to try and resolve this. At the time I was running the iOS 8.4 public beta and I was told to wait for final release of iOS 8.4 to fix my problem, as the Apple employee was also experiencing the same problem and was also on the beta. Now with the final release of iOS 8.4 out, I've updated and it still doesn't work. I'm also updated to Watch OS 1.0.1.

My Watch will also occasionally tell me that my iCloud password is "incorrect" and that I need to sign into iMessage/FaceTime again (my password isn't wrong, I've done this multiple times). Although it seems to only ask me this when the Watch dies or is manually restarted.

Try toggling iMessage off and on again. I find that this fixes many iMessage problems especially after a system update.


Profile Manager on Lion and the Workgroup group The first few times I set up Lion server, we didn't plan on using the default group named Workgroup - but I now see that Profile Manager will create a workgroup with the name "Workgroup" and short name "workgroup".

What function does this group server on Lion Server?
Should I be adding everyone and everything to this group or should I leave it alone for Profile Manager to manage?

I'm tempted to just keep deleting it, but my gut tells me it's there to serve some purpose that I haven't seen documented anywhere. General advice for small servers where the environment has 10-25 users in LDAP - mostly employees and contractors. At present, I see a need for perhaps two actual groups to control access to files / wikis as well as a second for internal files for employees only.

AFAICS local accounts on the server belong to it


Video file location of dynamic wallpaper preview in system preferences i want to know the location of the little video that keeps on playing in a loop when we select a dynamic wallpaper ( Catalina for eg) and turn it to dynamic mode in system preferences.
Anyone knows where it is stored?

It's not a separate video.
The preference pane loads the different components of the HEIC and fades between them.
Evidence:

Creating your own dynamic wallpaper only requires the HEIC and the animation plays in the preference pane fine without needing to also create a video.

Watching file events shows the following file loads when changing desktop background selection from The Beach to The Lake; no video file is loaded.
  501   1528 com.apple.preference.desktopscre  15 /System/Library/Desktop Pictures/The Beach.heic
  501   1528 com.apple.preference.desktopscre  15 /System/Library/Desktop Pictures/.thumbnails/The Beach.heic
  501   1528 com.apple.preference.desktopscre  15 /System/Library/Desktop Pictures/The Lake.heic
  501   1530 VTDecoderXPCService   4 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleGVA.framework/Resources/Info.plist
  501    398 Dock          34 /System/Library/Desktop Pictures/The Lake.heic
  501   1528 com.apple.preference.desktopscre  16 /System/Library/Frameworks/VideoToolbox.framework/Resources/default.metallib
  501   1528 com.apple.preference.desktopscre  16 /System/Library/Frameworks/VideoToolbox.framework/Resources/default.metallib
  501    398 Dock          34 /System/Library/Desktop Pictures/The Lake.heic


My iPad mini 2 won't update. My iPad mini 2 won't update. It is stuck on 9.3.5 Is it because my iPad is too old? Also, when I look at my storage stuff, the update isn't even there.

No, the iPad Mini 2 is eligible for an upgrade to iOS 10.
Have you tried upgrading via iTunes? It could be that your device doesn't have enough storage and is failing to update because of it.
If that doesn't work, you can make a back-up (either by connecting your iPad to iTunes, or backing up to iCloud), and then restore the iPad. Just connect your iPad to iTunes, go to 'summary' and then click 'restore'.


What happens to an iOS app when a provisioning profile expires? Question.  What happens to an app when the provisioning profile used to build it expires?  Does the app still launch on the device? Dos the app ever "call home" every few days/weeks to Apple to see if it is still valid?

I would assume that it would not (once its installed, its there), but if the phone was ever lost, and needed to be restored from backup, I would assume that the app would no longer work in this case, as when it calls back to apple, it is deemed not valid.

Forgive my simple question, but is my assumption correct?

The Stack Overflow question "What happens when provision profile expires?" might be related this one.

The app will fail to launch due to the expired profile. The profile expires on its own, so I'd expect that the app does not "call home".

The same should be true when restoring from a backup.


Combine two bash find commands I have two similar find commands that I basically have the same code for both once the while loop begins. I want to combine them so I only need one find to search through files and directories, instead of one to search directories and one to search files. Here are the two that I want to combine into one line:

find "$ORIG_DIR" -name "*" -type d | while read dname

find "$ORIG_DIR" -name "*" -type f | while read fname

You can provide multiple -type options with -o, such as -type d -o -type f in a single command.

find "$ORIG_DIR" -name "*" -type d -o -name "*" -type f | while read file

-o matches all parameters, so the -name is provided twice in the above command.


Can't write to ~/Library, even though permissions look OK I'm totally stumped on this one — a Macbook Air, 10.9.2. As far as I can tell, I should be able to write to my Library directory. Everything I can see suggests I should be able to:

[njvack@zot Library]$ sw_vers | grep ProductVersion
ProductVersion: 10.9.2
[njvack@zot Library]$ id -a
uid=503(njvack) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),403(com.apple.sharepoint.group.3),12(everyone),61(localaccounts),402(com.apple.sharepoint.group.2),100(_lpoperator),401(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1)
[njvack@zot Library]$ pwd
/Users/njvack/Library
[njvack@zot Library]$ ls -ld@ .
drwx------@ 58 njvack  staff  1972 Apr 14 16:06 .
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot    50
    com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot    50
[njvack@zot Library]$ touch foo
touch: foo: Permission denied

And then for some reason I can work in ~/Library/iMovie, even though the permissions should be effectively identical:

njvack@zot Library]$ cd iMovie/
[njvack@zot iMovie]$ pwd
/Users/njvack/Library/iMovie
[njvack@zot iMovie]$ ls -ld@ .
drwx------+ 4 njvack  staff  136 Apr 16 08:41 .
[njvack@zot iMovie]$ touch foo

What else could be causing this? What can I check? FWIW, Disk Utility's Check Permissions doesn't complain about anything.

EDIT: As suggested, here's the ACL entries:

[njvack@zot Library]$ ls -led .
drwx------@ 58 njvack  staff  1972 Apr 14 16:06 .
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown

... and as ACLs override UNIX permissions, removing the ACLs was the trick:

[njvack@zot Library]$ pwd
/Users/njvack/Library
[njvack@zot Library]$ chmod -RN .
[njvack@zot Library]$ touch foo

How did I get such screwy ACLs on my ~/Library? I have no idea.

To see the rest of the permissions (ACLs and file flags), add -e and -O to the ls command. I habitually use ls -leO@ as a "tell me everything" version of ls.

In this case, the problem was a "deny" access control entry, which will override the regular POSIX permissions. I have no idea how that might've gotten added to your ~/Library folder, but you can remove it with chmod -N ~/Library.

It's a bit late, but I would not have recommended using -R (apply recursively to all contents) on that chmod command, since there are some items inside ~/Library that are supposed to have ACLs (mostly to prevent accidental renaming or deletion of important items). But I don't think removing everything will to any actual harm, and if you're worried about other spurious ACLs, the recursive reset makes sense.


How do I prevent Calendar from starting up when I log in to Mavericks? Calendar starts up every time I boot up Mavericks. I cannot find a related option in its Preferences or in the Users and Groups login items page. How do I prevent Calendar from starting up when I log in to Mavericks?

Right-click on the calendar in the dock, select Options, and de-select Open at Login


How do I get an old iOS 4.1 iPhone 3GS to sync with my iCloud contacts on my OS X 10.7.5 Mac? I have an iPhone 3GS that is unlocked and jailbroken. It is running iOS 4.1. I cannot update because that will undo the unlock mechanism.

I was originally on an iPhone 4S. It got bricked somehow, so I pulled out my old iPhone 3GS. I had already migrated completely to iCloud for my contacts; I run 10.7.5 on my Mac and was using iCloud to sync all of our Apple devices.

With iOS 4.1, it doesn't support iCloud, but I can't get it to sync my contacts manually. I was hoping that when I connected my iPhone to iTunes, that by clicking the 'Sync Contacts' under 'Info', it would just pick up all the iCloud contacts that are stored locally on my Mac and treat them as regular contacts.

Apparently it doesn't work this way. iTunes doesn't see iCloud contacts stored in the Address Book as normal contacts so those don't get synced.

Is there a way to get around this? I'm willing to do a manual sync (i.e. use some other app to copy, en masse, the contacts over), since my contact base doesn't change very frequently.

If you go into the contacts/address book app on you mac, select all the contacts (either cmd-a or select first, scroll to bottom, hold shift and select last) and you can either right click or click on the little cog wheel at the bottom of the app and export the contacts to a vCard.

You can then use another free cloud service such as google or yahoo and import the contacts into that account on their website.

Sign in to this account on your iPhone and choose to use it for contacts only and they should start to all sync down from the cloud.


Can I use an old TV as a monitor for Mac Mini? I have an old TV with following sockets:

Front:

Back:

Can I use this TV as a monitor for Mac Mini (2012) ? If so, do I need any adapters?

The Mac Mini sends out digital video through HDMI or the Thunderbolt port. Your old TV has Composite ports, which take analogue signals.

You could theoretically use something like this: ViewHD Universal HDMI to Composite / S-Video Converter, but I havent tested it myself. The picture quality would probably be really bad.


Is there a way to display more metadata fields in the Finder list view? If I view and sort files in a directory using Finder's list view I seem to be limited to a rather anaemic:

Name
Date Modified
Size
Kind

Now, take an .mp3 file for example. There is potentially a lot of metadata associated with that file, and this may be a useful basis to sort by.

Is there a way to make available more fields to sort by? Or do I need to resort to a Finder replacement? I realize that iTunes could do most, but not all, of what I want. (iTunes doesn't display some .mp3 metadata fields.)

I'm pretty sure you're (sadly) limited to the fields in the view options windows (cmd+j).


How to invoke navigation on Google maps using Siri? At the risk of getting a big NO,

Is there a way to use SIRI to invoke navigation on Google maps as opposed to the default Apple maps?

I have tried "Navigate to Chicago using Google maps", but Siri just treated "Chicago using Google maps" as the location itself.

Yes you can
Simply append "via transit" to your Siri query.
Ie: Directions to Miami Beach, Florida via Transit.
Siri will determine your target location, and will give you a choice of transit apps. Tap Google Maps and you'll be on your way.
It appears these words also work:

by transit
using transit
via transit


What is the macOS equivalent of Windows certificate store names? On Windows, when retrieving information about certificates, they come from named certificate stores, such as "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" or "Trusted Publishers" - what is the equivalent on macOS?
My best guess is types of keychains, e.g. "login" or "System", but those are sufficiently different that I'm not sure. The names also don't seem to come with the certificates (when using SecItemCopyMatching in Swift, for example).
The context of why I need this:  I've been asked to gather data about users' computers (so IT can see aggregate data), and most of the work was done for the Windows side of things before I got here. I'm trying to gather the same certificate data for macOS that is currently gathered for Windows. Most of it is easily obtained from both (e.g. the Subject, the Expiration), but the Windows code has a value called the Certificate Store that I don't readily see an analog for in macOS.

The equivalent on macOS is the Keychain name.
On Windows you have for example the "Current User Certificate Store". The corresponding on macOS would be the user's login keychain: ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db. There's one for each user on the system, and stores the certificates relevant to that user only.
On Windows you have the "Local Machine Certificate Store" that holds certificates added by users to be accessed by all users on the local computer. The corresponding on macOS would be the System keychain: /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
On Windows you have the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities Certificate Store" that holds CA certificates trusted by the operating system in general. The corresponding on macOS is the System Root Certificates keychain: /System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain
You can list the certificates in each of those keychains by using the built-in security command. For example to get an overview list:
security find-certificate -a ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db
security find-certificate -a /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
security find-certificate -a /System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain

or to export the actual certificates in PEM format:
security find-certificate -a -p ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db
security find-certificate -a -p /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
security find-certificate -a -p /System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain

The exception to the rule above is what is known as the "Trusted Publishers Certificate Store" in Windows - this is not stored in a Keychain on macOS, but instead in a system assessment rule database. The name of that is: /var/db/SystemPolicy
You can create a list of those with the following command:
sudo spctl --list --type execute

The output is a list of assessment rules, which besides a few generic, Apple specific rules, is basically a list of the hashes of the certificates of the trusted publishers.
The actual certificate information cannot be exported from the SystemPolicy database, as they're not contained there. You can however get to that data by traversing the installed applications (for example in /Applications) and running:
codesign -d -r- -vvvv /Applications/AnApp.app

This allows you to gather information such as the publisher's name, subject organisational unit, CA name (Apple Root CA) and timestamps.


If I move a window quickly to the right or left I often find myself in a different space. Is there a way to prevent this If I'm working on an app or in another window I will occasionally slide an idle window or app to the right or left to just get it out of the way temporarily. Often I go too far and find myself in a different space. Is there a way to prevent this?

You must hover with the mouse at the edge of the space for a certain, very brief, period of time before the space switches. To avoid this, you can increase the timed delay such that you never inadvertently trigger the behavior:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 9;
killall Dock;


Can I perform inverse trig functions in Spotlight? Is there a way to make Spotlight return the sin-1, cos-1, or tan-1 of a given number without opening Calculator.app?

asin(x), acos(x), and atan(x) work for me. Spotlight gives the results in radians and will not show any calculator results if you go out of the domains for these functions.

Edit: If you want the results in degrees instead of radians, use asind(x), acosd(x), and atand(x).


Where did the "favorites" tab go? Normally there is a "favorites" tab on the left side where I can easily navigate from folder to folder...where did it go? Not sure if this is just me being stupid and accidentally disabling it, or if it disappeared on me when I updated to El Capitan.

Check the Finder Preferences to see if you have anything selected under Favorites.

From the Finder Menu

Select Finder > Preferences...
Select the Sidebar tab
Tick the boxes under Favorites that you wish to see in the Sidebar.

The Sidebar is the area on the left side.


Are there any Hardware RAID Cards with Batteries that will work in a Mac Pro 3,1? I'm looking to install Proxmox on my MacPro3,1 and it's suggested that if you plan to use the system for 5 years that you install a Hardware RAID card with a battery in it, so that if the power goes out your "last writes" will be written before the machine runs out of juice.

Are there any Hardware RAID cards I can use in this machine? Also, how does one know when the battery on the card is dying?

As the 3,1 is essentially an unsupported machine [sadly] I'd go for a second-hand Apple card from eBay etc, to save any possible compatibility issues with a 3rd party new card that may never have been designed with the 08 Mac Pro in mind.

The official Mac Pro RAID cards themselves come in 2 flavours, pre & post 2009

Unless it's a refurb, I would also change the battery, new ones are still available.

UK prices, old RAID card for an Early 2008, approx £200, new battery £50

See Mac Pro (Mid 2012 and earlier): Frequently Asked Questions about the Mac Pro RAID Card and Xserve RAID Card


What version of Logic Pro X works on macOS Sierra? I noticed that the latest version of Logic Pro X requires macOS 10.13.6 (High Sierra) or newer. Does anyone know what the last version of Logic Pro X that can run on macOS 10.12.6 (Sierra) is?


HDMI/Displayport audio control for OS X I have a Macbook Pro Retina, running OS X 10.10.5, and a BenQ GW Series GW2765HT monitor, which does not allow audio adjustment via my computer. I've tried Soundflower, but find that it is buggy and crashes. Is there any other way to control volume from my computer?

You can't use your Mac's system volume control to manipulate the volume on an HDMI/DisplayPort interface.

Basically, the HDMI signal includes digital audio that was encoded in PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) format.  There are two main components to PCM and those are bit depth (how much of the audio signal is sampled) and the sampling rate (how many times per second the data is sampled).  There's nothing in there that handles volume.

To put it another way, does your HDMI source like an XBox, Playstation or Blu-Ray DVD player have a volume button or does your TV handle the volume for you?

In order for you to control the volume from your Mac, you would need to do one of two things:

Obtain or develop software specific to your television/display that would embed control signals onto the HDMI signal (similar to Sony's Bravia Theatre Sync
Use a [USB Infrared Transmitter][3] to send volume controls from your Mac to the TV/Display.  Note:  The only software I was able to find that works with USB IR transmitters is IR Control

However, based on the price alone, I would probably just stick to my universal remote and be done with it.


Firewall for outgoing connections Is there a firewall for OSX Lion, that allows controlling of outgoing connections? The built in firewall handles only incoming connections, apparently.

Please see the 2020 and 2021 edits below.
The original answer, unchanged:
What you are referring to as "the built-in" firewall is actually the built-in Application Firewall.
There two other built-in firewalls in OS X Lion, pf and ipfw (the latter is being replaced by pf, but still exist in Mountain Lion). These can handle both incoming and outgoing connections and are typically controlled through command line scripts and settings. However, there are third party GUIs for these firewalls, e.g. IceFloor (for pf); WaterRoof and NoobProof (for ipfw). All these GUIs are free.
There is also third party software that can work as firewall, but doesn't use the built-in OS X firewalls. Examples are Litte Snitch and Hands Off (both paid). These can handle both incoming and outgoing connections.
You should be aware that there is some learning curve for these pieces of software, as their settings are not as simplified as the built-in Application Firewall.  Little Snitch or Hands Off could be easier to use compared to pf or ipfw or their GUIs.
2020, first edit: ipfw is not being used in the current versions of MacOS. New (since the original answer from 2013) frontend of pf is Murus firewall (has free version with basic functionality, but the more advanced versions are paid). New application firewall is Vallum (paid). Some kind of light hybrid combination of Murus and Vallum is Scudo. Hands Off! is available at a new site. Free application firewall for outgoing connections is LuLu. And of course, Litte Snitch is still available.
2020, second edit: As of macOS Big Sur, Apple apps can bypass the third party firewalls. There are some workarounds available, but these include disabling SIP (not recommended) or  enabling kernel extensions that may be disabled during macOS updates.
2021 It seems that the firewall bypass in Big Sur will be removed in version 11.2 and third-party firewalls will be able to monitor and filter all of Apple's software.


Fix Better Touch Tool so that it doesn't prevent sleep? I noticed that the application Better Touch Tool is preventing my Mac from going to sleep. The screen will shut off, but the computer won't go to sleep. Is there a way to disable any of the settings to not cause this behavior, or do we need to wait for a fix from the developer?

I'm hoping to avoid a solution such as running Please Sleep.

(I reported this bug to the developer.)

After a year, you might need to publish the bug report and see if others are seeing similar problems. Has the developer responded to your bug report?

I can't reproduce this behavior, so perhaps it's related to your OS or something else on your setup that's interacting poorly with this software.


Mac Pro starts with folder icon and question mark, HD is empty. How to install Ubuntu? I have a Mac Pro with an empty (no existing partitions) 1TB HD connected to it.
I am using a windows USB keyboard and want to install Ubuntu on it.
There is no Mac OS installed or running on this computer. I have no access to another Apple device.
It is not a Macbook.
This is the exactly version: Mac Pro 3.00x/4x1/x1900xt/250/sd/ap
Questions:

how to boot the Mac Pro using a USB stick and install Ubuntu on it?
can I do it using a simple USB keyboard and Microsoft Wireless mouse?

I suggest you use the tutorial from Ubuntu.
This requires access to another running computer (Linux, Windows, Mac). If you don't have one, consider to reinstall macOS with macOS Recovery installer to prepare the stick. Press shift + opt + cmd + R during a restart to reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.


TrueCrypt fails with fusefs kext error After upgrading to Mountain Lion, I can't mount any volumes with TrueCrypt 7.1a anymore.  After typing in the password for the volume, an error message is shown, stating that the fusefs kext can't be loaded.

The system log file shows the following errors:

com.apple.kextd[12]: Failed to load /Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext - (libkern/kext) link error.
kernel[0]: kxld[com.google.filesystems.fusefs]: The following symbols are unresolved for this kext:
kernel[0]: kxld[com.google.filesystems.fusefs]:    _OSRuntimeFinalizeCPP
kernel[0]: kxld[com.google.filesystems.fusefs]:    _OSRuntimeInitializeCPP
kernel[0]: Can't load kext com.google.filesystems.fusefs - link failed.
kernel[0]: Failed to load executable for kext com.google.filesystems.fusefs.
kernel[0]: Kext com.google.filesystems.fusefs failed to load (0xdc008016).
kernel[0]: Failed to load kext com.google.filesystems.fusefs (error 0xdc008016).

Do I need to update MacFuse or TrueCrypt to make this work again?

It turned out that this was related to running a true 64-bit kernel instead of a 32/64-bit one.

Installing one of the following updates for the FuseFS system fixed the error:

Fuse for OSX: http://osxfuse.github.com/
MacFuse 2.2.2: http://mac.majorgeeks.com/files/details/macfuse.html

After installing this, I reopened TrueCrypt and was then able to mount the volume.


Mac Pro gets stuck in "safe mode" after Lion upgrade Late 2009 Mac Pro, 8GB RAM, 1TB disk.

I upgraded to Lion about a month ago. Running 10.7.1 now. Things started getting unbearably slow (windows slow to scroll), can't switch between programs without a long pause, etc.) Nothing obvious is running (checked ActivityMonitor, CPU is largely idle).

Some Googling suggested running Disk Utility to repair permissions. I did that, it finished quickly and without issue. For good measure I decided to reboot in safe mode and let it do a disk repair.

But it never gets past about the 10% mark in whatever it's doing when it enters safe mode (I just have the gray progress bar and spinner.) I let it run for about 4 hours and it didn't budge.  I powered it off, repeated, and same deal- always gets stuck in the same place in safe mode.

Any suggestions on what could be wrong? The disk is large (1TB), but only 357GB in use. Should I let it run overnight? I miss the good old days when Unix kernels would print gobs of messages to the console, so you could at least figure out what it's doing.

Update: so I re-ran Disk Utility and got the following:

http://i.imgur.com/aG66g.png

I don't have physical media for Lion, so I'm not sure what to do here. Can I do a disk repair from a Snow Leopard DVD?

Update 2: Booted into the recover partition with Cmd-R. Ran the recovery successfully, system boots, it's fine.

But if I try safe mode it still hangs. Booting Cmd-V shows a quick fsck, then it boots up normally, so I can't see any problems there. It just seems to hang in safe mode.

Update 3: Booted single-user, ran fsck -fy as suggested by bmike. I let it run overnight, and it found no problems. Interestingly, I do get:

E:[AppleUSBBluetoothHCIController][InterruptedReadHandler] Received kIOUSBHighSpeedSplitError error

on the console when I powered on my monitor. It repeats if I power-cycle the monitor. I have a USB Bluetooth wireless plugged into that monitor (which is in turn plugged into the Macpro's USB).

The USB-Bluetooth is there because my Macpro's internal Bluetooth arrived non-functional from the factory 2 years ago, and I gave up with Apple customer service on getting it repaired. I settled for the USB-Bluetooth plug to handle my bluetooth mouse.

I wonder if having this USB-Bluetooth is somehow causing the Safe Mode hang.

Boot to single user mode (Command-S) and see what fsck shows.

/sbin/fsck -fy
repeat the prior up to three times if needed

Assuming it boots, you can halt and then boot in verbose mode (Command-V) to restore all the console glory.

You can also peek at /private/var/log/system.log while on single user mode to see what was happening when the clock was passing faster than the gray progress bar.


iPhone Search does not find historic SMS messages On my iPhone 4, I have a large number of SMS messages (I don't delete them at all).

If I want to search for text in a particular message, it appears not to search historic SMSes. In other words, unless the text is visible in the latest messages, viewable on the screen without tapping "Load Earlier Messages", it will not match my string.

Am I doing it wrong? Is this a known issue?

Apple does not search for very old text messages as it makes the search much slower. There is no setting to modify the period of messages it should go through, but if you really need this then you can jailbreak and SSH into your iPhone. You can then edit the .plist file and make it search for messages that are even 2 years old.

Note: This will significantly make the searching slow.


Installing Windows 7 on Mac. A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing I'm installing Windows 7 on my Mac via Parallels.  During installation I'm getting. "A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing." message. Doesn't give me any option to proceed further.  What am I doing wrong?

p.s. I hit same message using bootcamp.

I'm using Macbook Pro OS X, Core i7. Trying to install Windows 7 Pro  64bit.

Everyone seemed to think that re-burning the disk would fix the issue. It did for a lot of people. But I had a purchased copy that I didn't burn.

The fix for me was to let Windows boot up. You'll see the black screen with a progress bar where the windows installer starts up. Start tapping F8. You might have to hold Alt/Option while tapping. I tried both just to be sure the menu would pop up. Then select: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement.

Doing that let me continue through the installer.


How to diagnose connection timeouts when connecting to a WiFi hotspot I am having difficulty troubleshooting this error message:

I don't get any indication any details about the failed connection attempt.

How can I diagnose such timeouts and resolve the connection issue?

I am aware of and have tried methods like rest your airport, reset the computer, delete profiles, down to install new operating system and rather than have people guess (and then vote for) specific causes like has happened on this thread, I'd like to know how to pick apart the connection process to know where the problem lies.

When I successfully connect, system information has excellent details:

However, without changing anything, at a later time, I will time out again when joining. Can I see the details of the process for the connection and find what is making it fail? What would it take to create or access a log file of the wifi connection process?

Don't have the solution but have interesting observation!!

My WiFi scan shows the SSID that I want to connect to

and in Terminal the Airport -s shows same SSID

I was monitoring the Console during the event.

The Associate event still shows the Correct SSID

<airportd[535]> associate: INFO: airportd associate: network=<CWNetwork: 0x7fec12802ce0> [ssid=Eurona900850808-81, bssid=02:0c:42:39:95:94, security=Open, rssi=-80, channel=<CWChannel: 0x7fec12802cf0> [channelNumber=7(2GHz), channelWidth={20MHz}], ibss=0], is8021X=0, remember=1

After few lines of other WiFi activity this comes up:

<kernel> Searching for networks with ssid Eurona900850808-8

WAIT: where did the last digit go, it supposed to be the Eurona900850808-81, but it shows Eurona900850808-8

Here is the rest from the Console:

Fri Sep 13 23:22:55.92  <kernel> Searching for networks with ssid Eurona900850808-8
Fri Sep 13 23:22:57.488 <kernel> No networks found. Please check if the network exists and is in range
Fri Sep 13 23:22:57.488 <airportd[535]> _WiFiMT_LogAssocTimeoutFail: MT** Assoc Timeout
Fri Sep 13 23:22:57.488 <airportd[535]> associate: Apple80211Associate2() failed with error -3905

Clearly the SSID lost the last digit somewhere in the process, and that leads to the Famous Timeout Error at least in my case.

While Apple provides great tools to analyze the WiFi, it is lacking bit more descriptive Error messages, like in my case saying there is no such network available since it clearly knows that in the Console report.


How can I switch dialog buttons using the keyboard? Whenever I'm trying to close a file that has been changed, I get the save file dialog

I remember that the Don't Save button used to have focus, so I could press it using Spacebar, while pressing Enter would click on Save. But now on Lion, I'm unable to find a way to press the Don't Save using keyboard only, since Tab doesn't change focus to anything, and space doesn't work either.

This is the same for all file save dialogs in the system. Is there any way I can press the Don't Save button using keyboard only?

Go to...

System Preferences→Keyboard→Keyboard Shortcuts
and select All controls under Full Keyboard Access

Now you can use ⇥ (tab) to switch between the dialog boxes.
Note: Unlike in Windows, you need to hit space to trigger a highlighted box that is not the default one! (If this is not natural to you, here's something that helps many to remember tab and space rather than just enter. The space bar is the keyboard version of a one button mouse with the tab moving the mouse's pointer for you.)


How can I keep file attachment windows (e.g. Gmail in Chrome) from going behind the Dock so I can't click OK or Cancel? When a file attachment window for Gmail in Chrome pops up, it goes behind the dock and it is really difficult to hit cancel - I can do it, but only the very top part of the button.

The window can't be moved because it is a pop-up. Is there a way to keep this from happening? My example is Gmail, but I think it has happened in other instances, too.

I am using OS X 10.9.2 on a 2012 MacBook Pro and Chrome Version 34.0.1847.131

Hide the Dock using ⌥⌘D, then drag the bottom of the pane upwards. Unhide the Dock with the same keyboard shortcut, then interact with the pane normally. The pane should remember its size for next time.


How to watch a movie I rented on my Macbook on my iPad? I rented the documentary movie Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine a few hours ago, and was able to watch it on iTunes on the Mac.  When I tried to watch it on iPad, I do not see a Rental tab in the Videos app.

According to this page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201611
this should be the way to do it:

But the 2nd line says: find the movie "on the device you used to rent it"... so does that mean if I use my Macbook to rent it, I can't view it on my iPad?

I can find it in iTunes store on the iPad, and if I tap rent, it will ask me if I want to pay $6.99 to rent it again.

From the same support document:

If you rented the movie on your computer, but want to watch it on an iOS device, connect the devices and sync using USB. When you move a rented movie from your computer, it will disappear from your computer’s iTunes library. You can move the movie between devices as often as you want, but you can only have it on one device at a time.
If you rented the movie on your iOS device or Apple TV, you can’t move it to any other device.
To watch an HD movie, you need to play it on a supported device: your computer, iPhone 4 or later, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation or later), or TV using Apple TV.


Expanding a Fusion Drive partition I created a partition on my Fusion Drive when I first purchased my iMac running Yosemite, and I would like to now resize that drive ("Data" in the screenshot below), but Disk Utility doesn't allow it (the "Partition" button is disabled).

diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
    1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
    2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            121.0 GB   disk0s2
    3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk1
    1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
    2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            2.7 TB     disk1s2
    3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk1s3
    4:                  Apple_HFS Data                    326.8 GB   disk1s4
/dev/disk2 (internal, virtual):
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +2.8 TB     disk2
                                  Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2
                                  03BC8817-F05E-4FC3-9A5C-50130CDAB3AB
                                  Unencrypted Fusion Drive

diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group DFD31523-36BE-47AB-A666-54B64038E46B
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         2793817645056 B (2.8 TB)
    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume FEC1934B-53F8-49A1-ABE6-5155689D9A68
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 4F985EA2-E22B-451F-BEB3-E5EF76D14A59
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     2672828792832 B (2.7 TB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 27D90160-503D-48B7-B434-798CEE738260
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         None
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 03BC8817-F05E-4FC3-9A5C-50130CDAB3AB
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk2
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          2787630755840 B (2.8 TB)
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS
            LVG Type:              Fusion, Sparse

Is there another way to expand the partition? Maybe a third party software solution?

The good message: you can resize both partitions with on-board tools. The bad message: you can't change the start block of a partition to a lower block number (i.e expand Data to lower block numbers). The partition Data has to be deleted first.

Preparation:

Backup your Mac
Safe all files and folders in Data to an external drive
If you don't have an external drive you can also save the files to Macintosh HD – if it contains enough free space for all files (~223 GB) and the expansion size of Data. Example: If you want to expand Data by 673 GB (to 1000 GB!) you need at least 926 GB (223 GB + 673 GB + ~30 GB some free space for the system) free space on Macintosh HD.
Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup. Booting to Recovery Mode is not conducive because the Recovery HD will be moved in one of the steps below. And you can't move a partition used as a boot volume.

The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan). If you boot to a full system and login as admin you have to prepend sudo to execute special commands like gpt ...!

Remove the partition Data and shrink the  CoreStorage Volume Group

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:  diskutil list to get the disk identifiers and diskutil cs list to get a CoreStorage listing. Below I assume that your main disks have the disk identifiers disk0 (usually the SSD)/disk1(usually the HDD) and the CoreStorage Logical Volume disk2.
First you have to remove the Data partition:

gpt -r show /dev/disk1 #to get an overview

To remove a partition with gpt the disks (and all related disks like the inherent CoreStorage volume) have to be unmounted - first the CoreStorage Logical Volume and then the physical disks (SSD and HDD):

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk1 #remove the *Data* partition

Then you have to resize the Logical Volume Group:

diskutil mount /dev/disk0s2 #mount the physical volume of the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group
diskutil mount /dev/disk1s2 #mount the physical volume of the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group
diskutil mount lvUUID #lvUUID: the logical volume UUID - in your case 03BC8817-F05E-4FC3-9A5C-50130CDAB3AB
diskutil cs resizeStack lvUUID size

in your case (assuming you want to "resize" Data to 1000 GB (3121 GB-1000=2121 GB):

diskutil cs resizeStack 03BC8817-F05E-4FC3-9A5C-50130CDAB3AB 2121g

Your Recovery HD should be moved automatically - regardless of whether shrinking or expanding the CS volume - to the very end of it.
Enter the following to get the new partition scheme:

gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk1

To add a partition with gpt the disks (and all related disks like the inherent CoreStorage volume) has to be unmounted

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2 #use the diskidentifier of the CS logical volume
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1 #use the diskidentifier of the HDD
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0 #use the diskidentifier of the SSD

Enter

gpt add -b StartBlock -s NumberOfBlocks -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk1

to create a new HFSJ+ partition on disk1. StartBlock is the number of the first block in the unallocated space and NumberOfBlocks is the number of free blocks or smaller. NumberOfBlocks has to be equally divisible through 8!

Example:

if the result of gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk1 is

gpt show: /dev/disk1: mediasize=68719476736; sectorsize=512; blocks=134217728
gpt show: /dev/disk1: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk1: Sec GPT at sector 134217727
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  104974016      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  105383656    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  106653192   27564503
  134217695         32         Sec GPT table
  134217727          1         Sec GPT header

then StartBlock would be 106653192 and the NumberOfBlocks  (27564503/8=3445562,875 -> 3445562*8) 27564496

The resulting gpt command to create a new JHFS+ partition occupying all available free space would be:

gpt add -b 106653192 -s 27564496 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk1

Enter exit and quit Terminal
Open Disk Utility and erase/initialize the newly created volume
Check the main volume Macintosh HD for errors
Quit Disk Utility and reboot to your main volume


Files on my desktop seem to set themselves as hidden files (macOS Catalina), greyed out, even though they don't begin with periods I have a strange and recurring problem on my recently upgraded Mac running macOS Catalina

First of all, Catalina has a new feature where you can Show/hide the hidden files on your machine using Cmd-Shift-Period. Press it once to show the hidden files press it again to hide them. AFAIK, this specific keystroke feature is new in Catalina (prior to Catalina, I always used the hack to set the finder defaults via the terminal to see my hidden files).

I normally keep my Finder windows showing the hidden files, because I want to see them.

Recently I noticed that all of  my files on the desktop were greyed out-- like hidden. They were just random files I happened to have left on my desktop.

And what's strange is that they don't begin with a period (.), the way normal hidden files do. They seem to behave as hidden files even though they don't begin with a period.

If I press Cmd-Shift-Period, they disappear from view like all of the other hidden files. But unlike the other hidden files, they aren't supposed to be hidden.

If I press Cmd-Shift-Period again, they appear along with the other hidden files in my finder windows

Just to be clear: these files were NOT hidden yesterday, and I didn't do anything that I know of to cause this. And as noted below, it doesn't happen right away when I put new files on the desktop. I noticed it last week too but now it seems to have done it to even more files that I put on the desktop more recently than when I first noticed it (The same behavior-- Finder seems like it took some visible files and turned them into these invisible files without changing the file names or adding pre-pending periods like you'd expect for invisible files.)

1) I'm not sure what is causing this. What could be causing these files to appear in this hidden state and to have been normal files and then somehow get morphed into this hidden state?

2) How can i fix them? I've never seen hidden files like these-- I've only ever seen hidden files that begin with periods (so with this, you can add or remove the period to change its visibility)— if I do "Get Info" on these hidden files I can see the normal Get Info window, which has options for many things like "Hide extension" but no option to set the file to visibile/hidden.

Was this a new feature introduced in Catalina?

When I create new files on the desktop, the new files are not hidden and behave normally:

We resolved it in the comments as following:

Give full disk access to Terminal in System Preferences > Privacy & Security.
Run

cd ~/Desktop
chflags -R nohidden ./
killall Finder

The -R flag will unhide recursively everything under the ./ (current directory).
To hide something back, for example:

chflags hidden ~/Desktop/project/.git

Don't use -R here since git only keeps the top level folder, .git hidden, rest all inside it is normal.


Backup and restore Keychain I want to reinstall my system so I would have fresh Mac OS X. Is there a way how can I export/backup all content of my Keychain Access (all certificates and other things) and then after reinstall to import it back? Thanks

Save the keychain folder(/Users/[UserName]/Library/Keychains) on an external drive or in the cloud.
After the reinstall, then replace the "/Users/[UserName]/Library/Keychains" with the data you saved in the step before.

(Some of your keys may already be saved in iCloud)


iPhone search function Is it possible to get the search function of iPhone (when you go at the first screen on left) to work as the spotlight works when you put in words and display a dictionary ?

If not , is the same dictionary app which is installed on OSX, available for iOS? Thanks !

The iPhone spotlight doesn't have the dictionary function built in.

The dictionary app isn't available for iOS as well. But you can try this free app from Dictionary.com. I use this a lot and find it quite useful.


Why won't OS X Mountain Lion remember smb password on login? After mounting an smb shared drive and putting in my username and password, OS X will ask me if I want to save password to keychain.  I can say yes but it will not save it.  The drive has also been added as a login item.

My username requires the domain, so it's like:
mydomain\firstname.lastname

On login, the window pops up and has forgotten the mydomain\ leaving firstname.lastname and the password field is, of course, blank.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

You can create a link file with the username and password, and put that in the login items.

In Finder select Connect to Server and enter:

smb://domain\username:password@serveraddress

Don't click connect or press enter, just highlight the whole address and drag to desktop (or anywhere else), and it will save as a file. You can rename it, if you like.

Then from System Preferences, Users and Groups, Login items, add the file you just created.


Lightning Cable in Washing Machine I accidentally put a USB to Lightning cable in the washer and dryer.  The cable is mostly ok, but the plastic at the lightning end got a little warped.  Am I risking anything by trying to connect a device with it?  I'm reluctant to damage an iPhone, but at the same time, those cables aren't cheap.

I would caution you to consider that all Lightning cables have small chips (basically a little computer inside them) to control charging as well as signaling. It's not as damaging as putting a phone through the wash, but depending on the age of the cable and if it's physically intact - water could easily compromise the electronics in the connector. Especially when it's warped by the heat of the dryer or otherwise compromised physically.

  We have confirmed that the Lightning cable does have four chips embedded in it, plus some passive devices. Two of these chips are very simple (only a couple of transistors), and the third is an NXP NX20P3. However, the fourth and arguably most interesting of these is the TI chip.

Details of the chips are from http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/inside-apple-lightning-cable

One trip on a new cable is probably low risk of damaging the phone if you use it, buy if the cable connector is cracked or that water damage causes corrosion, some time down the line that cable will fail. I'm sure it's designed to fail in a safe mode, but this isn't a situation where you have wires that can dry out harmlessly as you would expect if you had headphones that go through the wash or an older 30 pin cable design that was simply wire and plastic.


Can I use my early 2009 iMac as an external screen? I have an early 2009 iMac (24" version). It has a mini display port in the back. Is it possible to use it as an external screen? If so, how do I do it? And can I attach all kinds of devices, e.g. a Raspberry Pi (with an appropriate adapter cable)?

The specifications for the 24" Early 2009 iMacs according to eveymac.com and the Apple Manual for the Early 2009 series of iMacs does not mention target display mode as a feature.  That unfortunately means that the Early 2009 generation of iMacs did not offer a target display mode so you will not be able to use that displayport output as an input source.


Is there a way to turn on and off the Mouse Keys feature using AppleScript or a terminal command? I'm running Mac OS X 10.7.2. Is there a way to run an AppleScript or terminal command that quickly turns on or off the "mouse keys" feature under the Universal Access tab? Ideally I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve GUI scripting the System Preferences app, although that would be slightly better than nothing.

I've explored defaults write com.apple.universalaccess useMouseKeysShortcutKeys 1 and various other forms of that statement, but to no avail.

Here's the GUI scripting solution:

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal anchor "Mouse" of pane id "com.apple.preference.universalaccess"
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "System Preferences"
            tell first window
                tell first tab group
                    tell radio group 1
                        if value of radio button 1 is 1 then
                            # enabled, so disable
                            click radio button 2
                        else
                            # disabled, so enable
                            click radio button 1
                        end if
                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
    quit
end tell

It will launch System Preferences if required, but doesn't show the window and quits it afterwards, so from a UI POV, it at least doesn't show the window.

You can change the persistent setting on which the System Preferences configuration is based using the following commands:

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess mouseDriver -bool YES
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess mouseDriver -bool NO

Unfortunately, this only changes the configuration file and does not apply the changes to the running system.

While you can programmatically press Option keys using AppleScript, like the following:

tell application "System Events"
    key down option
    key up option
end tell

The press Option five times to toggle setting is at a higher level and doesn't get triggered by this. While all regular Option key presses are ignored after you only run key down option, you can still toggle Mouse Keys.

Debugging System Preferences while changing the setting shows calls to LaunchUAServerIfNeeded and UAMouseKeysSetEnabled in the private UniversalAccessCore framework. Unless we reverse engineer that framework and write our own binaries, I don't think we'll get a proper programmatic way to do this.


"Unable to verify macOS" when I try installing the OS on an external SSD Trying again multiple times didn't help. Any ideas? Filed in Feedback Assistant (FB7434412).

External drive is connected through USB-C.

The 2018 MacBook Air includes the T2 security chip which can make it so you can't install macOS on an external disk. According the Other World Computing's blog:

Unable to Install Catalina on an External Drive
This issue can occur because of the T2 Security Chip found in recent
vintage [sic] Macs. The T2 chip protects your Mac by default from being
booted from an external device. This prevents someone from walking up
to your Mac with a USB flash drive, booting your Mac, and accessing
your files.
The default settings will also prevent you from installing Catalina on
an external drive.

They go on to explain that you need to tweak some of the Startup Security Utility settings, explained on another blog post.

To open the Startup Security Utility, you must boot your Mac in
Recovery Mode. To do this:

Turn on your Mac, and immediately press and hold Command (⌘)+R
after you see the Apple logo.
Booting in Recovery Mode, the next thing you’ll see is the macOS
Utilities window. Select Utilities > Startup Security Utility from
the menu bar.
You’ll be asked to authenticate; click Enter macOS Password, then
enter the name and password for an administrator account.

You would then need to set Secure Boot to No Security and set External Boot to Allow booting from external media.
Reboot your Mac and try to install the macOS on your external drive. According to everything I've read, the install should progress as expected.
Be sure to set your Startup Security Utility settings back to Full Security and Disallow booting from external media when you are done.
See also https://support.apple.com/HT208198


What is the connector used by the MBA's SATA drive? I wonder what kind of connector is used in the latest MacBook Air for the SATA drive.

SATA Express?

When I first saw the gumstick SSD drive I thought it was using a SATA Express connector.

But when answering a question yesterday I decided to get a bit more documentation about it and appeared SATA Express along with µSSD is not a released standard yet.

What then?

After looking closely at pictures of the different drives I decided to find out. But my MBA is sealed with those pentalobe screws and none of my screwdrivers can get them to move.

I searched more on the net.

mSATA?

Then I saw on multiple websites references to mSATA in the MBA and decided to follow this lead when I found a source I trusted. Until I saw a side by side image of a standard mSATA SSD next to a MBA one :

Clearly, it's not a duck... They don't look similar. And if some pins were optional the fact that the other side of the SSD has no connectors clearly excludes any compatibility between the 2 connectors:

mini-PCIe?

Now if wee look at the motherboard of the Macbook Air we can clearly see the SSD slot next to PCIe slot and how similar they are, if not suspiciously identical:

(SSD on the left, the would be mini-PCIe on the right).

But as mini-PCIe is supposed to support mSATA and these are clearly not compatible, what is it?

Draft revision or unreleased port?

Now would it be possible Apple is already using an early SATA Express implementation? Knowing their habits of adding draft implementation of standards (Thunderbolt, 802.11n, OpenAL...) it wouldn't be surprising.

But maybe I'm looking too far, is it a custom connector? Ot are they simply using a native functionality of PCIe?

Does anyone knows what connector is used on the MacBook Air?

It is a variant of Mini PCI Express & mSATA:

  Some notebooks (notably the Asus Eee PC, the MacBook Air, and the Dell mini9 and mini10) use a variant of the PCI Express Mini Card as an SSD. This variant uses the reserved and several non-reserved pins to implement SATA and IDE interface passthrough, keeping only USB, ground lines, and sometimes the core PCIe 1x bus intact.[11] This makes the 'miniPCIe' flash and solid state drives sold for netbooks largely incompatible with true PCI Express Mini implementations.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#Mini_PCI_Express_.26_mSATA


Is there a way to limit the size of the Trash? I just ran out of disk space and I have like 15GB in my trash. Is there a way to not keep items older than say 7 days or limit the size of the Trash?

I need a way to automatically keep this managed.

The Trash is just a special folder (directory) that Apple creates and manages via the Finder so that you have some ability to easily "undelete" items (by removing them from the Trash) before you full-on delete (Empty Trash). Since this mechanism is just a directory on your startup disk, you technically have your entire startup disk's space to use up for Trash if you wanted to.

If you wanted some measure of "auto-magical" removal files older than 7 days, you can use a simple bash script:

find ~/.Trash -mtime +7 -exec /bin/rm -rf {} \;

Using your favorite text editor, paste the above line into a new file and then save the file as empty_trash_older_than_7_days.sh. In the terminal, be sure to use the chmod command to make it executable as such: chmod +x /path/to/empty_trash_older_than_7_days.sh

This command, when executed in the terminal, will find all the files in your Trash (files from your Startup volume only --more on this in a minute) that are older than 7 days (from the time you run this command) and pass each file to the rm -rf command. Since rm is a unix command and has no notion of the Trash, it just does a unix delete which for our purposes is real delete (like Emptying the Trash).

You could then use cron (if you are unfamiliar with Cron, check out the fine Cron entry on wikipedia) to setup a recurring execution of this script.

Personally, my vote is to just train yourself to use the Empty Trash menu item every few minutes, days, weeks?

P.S. if all this unix-ese is too frightening, I'd wager there are simple Mac Applications that people have written to do just this sort of thing. Hopefully someone with some knowledge of one ore more of these types of applications can offer up an answer or two as a counter balance.

Good luck!

P.S. I forgot to talk about the non-startup volume... If you delete a file from a volume OTHER than your startup volume, this file will go to the .Trash folder on that volume. For example, if you had a volume named Foo, there would be a .Trash folder at /Volumes/Foo/.Trash. What I have documented above will not delete those files. You'd have to setup something similar for each volume you have.


Transferring Emails saved on Mac to generic folder In my Mac Mail I have all my emails saved to my Mac, as opposed to on my mail server using iMap.

All the emails are organised with a large number of folders and sub folders, again all of which are saved straight to my Mac.

I wish to save all of the individual emails in a folder on an external hard drive as I am moving to a new Mac and want to have access to these emails, but not import them to Mac Mail on my new Mac.

If you select an individual email in Mac Mail, then drag and drop it to a desktop folder, for example, it saves it as an email which you can open from the desktop folder without it having to be stored in your Mac Mail. If you select multiple emails and drag and drop, only one email is transferred.

How can I do this drag and drop method for all the folders and all emails within those folders, to save them on an external hard drive.

I don't want to export all the emails from my current Mac, then reimport them to my new Mac Mail. I want to be able to access all the emails in their structure, but through my hard drive instead of having them show in Mac Mail.

Guidance appreciated

Email archiving is hard. I've used all of the solutions above and many more (see below).

In the end, I partially gave up after making several archives and decided to keep a structured master archive on my main work computer (we're talking about 20 GB of email) just to be sure that I have a single copy in a  very standard format Apple Mail 4.6 (Snow Leopard edition) with more or less attachments still attached for the last seven years (most Eudora attachments are listed and are findable but are not directly attached to the email). The other advantage of keeping all your mail in Apple Mail is that it's a single archive to search. Surprisingly often I do find that I want to find and review a conversation from 2003 or 2006.

Emailchemy does work although I used Eudora Mailbox Cleaner for my own migration from Eudora (read the notes there and at Tidbits to fully understand just how hard email migration/archiving is). The Weird Kid licenses are so expensive (imagine that if you are using at work, you should be paying about $300 for the privilege, even if you only have a few computers/accounts to migrate).

The simplest solution would be to migrate your Apple Mail account to Thunderbird and the use Thunderbird's built-in archiving tool which does offer unencrypted structured archiving:

  Beginning with version 3.x, Thunderbird has built-in support for archiving e-mail. The "archived" messages are moved to a dedicated folder (or hierarchy of folders) within the Thunderbird profile. These are ordinary mail folders (using either mbox or maildir files, depending upon how the account is configured), not compressed files.

Paid alternative options

EagleFiler with its fair $40 license let you do pretty much whatever you like. Great documentation and support available from Michael Tsai is personal and of high quality (I've had good answers myself as well as seeing much public praise for the support). There is an option for storing messages in mbox or eml files:

  EagleFiler can also store messages as individual .eml message files, one per message. This is less efficient (for EagleFiler, Spotlight, Time Machine, etc.) but is more flexible because you can drag and drop the messages to different folders to rearrange them. Message files can also be mixed in the same folder with other files of different types, e.g. PDF or Word documents that are related to those messages. You can double-click a message file to open it in Apple Mail.

Mailsteward Pro uses full MySQL (i.e. open source but a bit tricky to install) and costs $100. You can export and merge databases and automate archiving. John Seward's application is pretty geeky. While support is gruff, it is available and personal. As it's MySQL, you'll always be able to get your data out in the format you want.
MailSteward normal is $50 but uses MySQL Lite so is not suited for large archives.
Devonthink Professional is $150 and does a good job of providing an archive but foregoes opens source standard mail message or mailbox structure and loses attachments. That said, search is fast, fine grained. Devonthink looks great for a text application. I've owned Devonthink and have the opportunity to use the pro mail import but have chosen not to. With my large archive, I've not been happy with it and have never liked that Devonthink import is truly a one way street.

Conclusion

First I'd try Thunderbird and see if I like its archive format. Then I'd go to EagleFiler. If I was more persnickety and there were still issues bothering me about EagleFiler, I'd then consider full Mailsteward.

I would not fiddle with fragile Apple scripts or
Automator which would need regular renewal and maintenance and are subject to immediate Apple style deprecation.

I'm going to follow my own advice take another go myself with EagleFiler and consider removing any mail older than 5 years from Apple Mail.


How to iterate through multiple file extension without caring about case sensitivity? I've seen various topics on how to iterate through multiple file extensions, but in most cases the list is defined.

example:

for file in ${arg}/**/*.{txt,h,py}
do
    ....
done

As can be seen, .TXT files would be ignored. And sadly, the guy who answered it says it only works for bash4. Mavericks is using bash 3.x

Any ideas on how it can be done on OS X?

Use find:

find "$arg" -iname \*.txt -o -iname \*.h -o -iname \*.py|while read f;do :;done

Use IFS= read -r if the paths can end with spaces or contain backslashes.

Or install bash 4:

brew install bash;echo /usr/local/bin/bash|sudo tee -a /etc/shells;chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

Then:

 shopt -s globstar nocaseglob;for f in "$arg"/**/*.{txt,h,py};do :;done

shopt -s nocaseglob also works with bash 3.2.


Getting gnu screen to run on OS X El Capitan Is there a way to get screen to run on El Capitan? This link contains instructions that are 4 years ago.

Download and install Homebrew
Run brew install screen in a Terminal window

There is no step 3.