/etc/hosts gets over written What is the correct way of editing /etc/hosts? I want to add some IP addresses and host names to it. It works for a while (a few hours) and then it gets reverted back to the original version. Is there any process checking the status of /etc/hosts and reverting it back?

I'm on my MBA with Mountain Lion.

For me it's in the file

/etc/pulse-hosts.bak

You have to edit this file to customize your hosts directives

When you are going to reconnect/connect using the Pulse Secure VPN, it's going to merge the directives from the

/etc/pulse-hosts.bak

with the content from Pulse directives and creates the

/etc/hosts

2018 Update

With the newer version of Pulse Secure you have to exit the program first (check your active process).

Modify your host (/etc/hosts) and then restart Pulse Secure.


Device name on router is different than OS X hostname There are tons of questions about changing a Mac hostname, and while I went through most of them, I could never find this nuanced answer:

Why do routers always seems to receive the first hostname that was ever set to a machine? Let me show you with these screenshots how this Mac is supposedly correctly setup according to various answers on this site:

Now, when i set up this computer years ago, I think I chose the hostname david-MBP, and this seems to be what various routers get to this day and sometimes return to the Mac for localhost operations. Later I changed it with the various Terminal commands, and the Mac knows it, but it seems to stick around when communicating with routers.

So now my question is where do OS X keep this old value? Because since I connected with this router in the screenshot above, I never had that hostname, so it's no DHCP cache or anything like that.

There are three different hostnames that macOS/OS X uses:

ComputerName
HostName
LocalHostName

Each of these values can be found in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

ComputerName

scutil --get ComputerName

This is Apple "friendly" name for the computer and can be found in System Preferences >> Sharing >> Computer Name.  According to the man page for scutil, it is described as "The user-friendly name for the system."

According to Apple, the ComputerName is The AppleTalk name and the default name used for SLP/DA1.  It's a zero-configuraiton protocol that allows you to set up a simple network without a DNS/DHCP server but allow you to reach the different resources via a host name.

HostName

scutil --get HostName

According to the scutil man page, the HostName is "the name associated with hostname(1) and gethostname(3)". This name can come from any of the following sources:

The name provided by the DHCP or BootP server for the primary IP address
The first name returned by a reverse DNS (address-to-name) query for the primary IP address
The local hostname
The name “localhost”

(In my virgin install of El Capitan, the HostName defaulted to LocalHostName)

LocalHostName

scutil --get LocalHostName

This is for Bonjour2 services on the LAN.  This is how, on a small LAN without DNS/DHCP, Apple computers can discover and interact with resources such as file sharing on other machines, printers, etc.  This name gets set when you initially configure your Mac.

TL;DR

It is using "the first name you ever set" because during initial setup, it set the LocalHostName which it assumed would forever be.  When you re-configured using the GUI, you changed the ComputerName which did not modify the LocalHostName.

If you wish to fix this in your router, simply set your LocalHostName using the command:

scutil --set LocalHostName MyNewComputerName.domain

1 SLP/DA Service Location Protocol/Directory Agent. The Service Location Protocol is a service discovery protocol that allows computers and other devices to find services in a local area network without prior configuration.

2 Bonjour is Apple's implementation of zero-configuration networking, a group of technologies that includes service discovery, address assignment, and hostname resolution.


Is there any way to view iOS device logs on the Terminal? Is there any way to view iOS device logs on the Terminal?

i believe libimobiledevice is what you're looking for. github repo can be found here

it's a cross-platform lib talking to iDevices with no jailbrake needed. just use console command

  $ idevicesyslog

you can install it via homebrew or compile from sources

macOS install via homebrew

  $ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

  $ brew install -v --devel --fresh automake autoconf libtool wget libimobiledevice

  $ brew install -v --HEAD --fresh --build-from-source ideviceinstaller

linux

  sudo apt-get update

  sudo apt-get install libimobiledevice ideviceinstaller


iPhone 4S 64GB not charging unless switched off My iPhone is simply not charging unless I switch it off while it is already plugged in. I suspect it to be a software problem, as when its off it charges. Windows does not seem to recognize the device but still charges when it is switched off.

I have tried cables that work on my friends phones and original cables, still no luck.

Any ideas?

Users complained that iPhone won't charge when it turns on. This is really strange. You can check by following methods:

Check the USB cable
Check the charging accessories
Clean the charging port
Hard-reset your iPhone
Using iPhone Recovery Mode, restore the iPhone to factory settings


How to arrange two windows easily to left and right side? v2 This question was asked in 2012. I know that the solution is in upcoming version of OS X (fall 2015), but until then... is there any similar internal function to arrange windows in Windows-OS-like way? It is hard to believe there are not...

Thanks.

This will be a new feature for the next OS X release: El Capitan

So I would suggest: wait for El Capitan :)


Make Hard Drive appear as Bootcamp for Parallels Parallels Dekstop 13.0.1 BE won't let me add a Physical Internal HDD to the VM system.

There is a SATA HardDrive in my system with a GPT partition table and a big (2TB) NTFS partition. I use it when normally booted in a Microsoft Windows installation located in another drive. The disk contains some user files and a few apps. There is no OS installed on it. The hard drive is recognized and works as expected under macOS too.

Please note: macOS (10.12.6) is installed on a third disk. I also cannot update: I had to downgrade because High Sierra breaks compatibility with some stuff I have and I don't like the root login without password thingie.

My VM is actually a proper Windows 10 installation on an SSD which Parallels sees as Bootcamp and it works fine both natively and in the VM. In the VM settings though if I try to add a HDD it asks me what kind of drive I wish to attach. I can either create a new/use an existing virtual drive or use a "real" Hard Drive (Bootcamp). Problem is, only the SSD is seen as an available disk (the one with Windows installed on it) while my 2TB data disk does not appear.

I guess that is because it's not a Bootcamp/Windows hard drive, only a common disk with some files on it. I tried moving my pre-owned license and installing Paragon NTFS on this machine. Again, the Drive works as expected, I can view/move/edit/create/delete/rename files on it but Parallels still won't let me select the drive as an additional disk for my VM?

TL;DR and core question

What can I do to make my internal disk appear as a Bootcamp hard drive (preferably without actually installing Windows on it)?

Or, if impossible, how can I at least convince Parallels that my HDD is eligible for use as a VM drive?

A late reply to this, hopefully you have already found a solution.
Just because I was having a similar issue getting my Windows install on an external SSD to recognise the internal SATA drive in the iMac. For me it was because the AHCI/SATA controller would fail with an error 10 and after much testing with driver updates etc I believe I found a solution.

The problem for seems to be do with how the drive is formatted / partition table as whenever I do so with Disk Utility then Windows fails to load it. However this was not the case when the bootcamp partition was on the internal drive or even when Windows booted from the external drive but still had a Windows partition on the internal one.

As Windows setup can see the internal drive during installation then you could use this format a partition created as FAT32 in OS X, which is pretty much what Bootcamp creates. That or just use the Bootcamp Assistant to create the partition and instead of going through with installing Windows stop after the part where you format the destination as NTFS.


Error restoring encrypted disk using Disk Utility I am trying to replace the hard drive in an old MBP-15 mid 2010 with a new SSD. The old disk is encrypted. I did that on my own two MBPs successfully, but both disks were not encrypted. The Mac is running OS X v10.10.5.

I reboot the friends MBP with CMD+R into Recovery Mode and run Disk Utility -> Restore with the old drive set as "source" and the new SSD set as "backup"

It runs for a few minutes, but then it fails with

RESTORE FAILURE
Could not restore - Device not configured

The SSD is brand new and connected to the Mac via USB.
Does anyone have an idea what is going on?

---------- Solution -----------

Thanks for the answers. The simple solution was to exchange the original HD with the still empty SSD and run restore in that combination. I believe it may have been some kind of USB problem, maybe related to the different read / write speeds (slow reading, encrypted disk vs super fast SSD write). Not sure, but it worked. Cheers!

The outcome you're seeing is probably a (security) feature, not a bug. I would think that Disk Utility would prompt for a password to enable access to the encrypted drive before allowing it to be read in order to perform the restore. Before attempting the restore use the Terminal command string "diskutil corestorage unlockVolume UUID -stdinpassphrase" followed by the password to unlock the drive then see if your restore runs to completion.


How to transfer mouse and keyboard after migration So, both magic mouse and apple wireless keyboard left connected to my old MB Air and I transferred everything with migration assistant. Currently, both mouse and keyboard are paired to old Air and they aren't visible when I try to find them with new MB.

How can I transfer them? Should I contact Apple support?

I'm assuming you have a old Magic Mouse and Keyboard.
You need to unpair them from your old MacBook Air first.   Then you can pair to your new MacBook.
From the Apple Support site

Make sure your device is powered on.

If the LED is blinking, your device is in Discoverable Mode. If the LED is steady, your device is paired with another item. Unpair the device, turn it off, and start again.

In the menu bar of your Mac, choose the Bluetooth icon, then
choose Open Bluetooth Preferences.

Your Mac scans for available Bluetooth devices.

When your device appears in the Bluetooth Preference Pane, click Pair.

In fact, you don't have to unpair it per se - so long as the old MBA isn't in range (off,  works) you should be able to pair it with no problems.


Does Automator keep a log of all changed files? I ran a batch rename of all files named index.html to index.php with Automator - I meant to run it on a specific folder and instead ran it on my whole computer. I can't undo the changes as far as I know (no time machine backup either). Does automator have a log of the files that were changed?

Automator doesn't keep a log file, if you didn't include some logging routine in the action itself.

You should be able to find all falsely renamed index.html files by checking the modify date of superior folders: search for all files with the name index.php and check if the modify date of the superior folder is the same as the execution date of the Automator action. If the modify date is the same, the file (not located at the "specific" folder) was renamed unintentionally. If the modify date of the superior folder is earlier than the Automator action execution date the file wasn't renamed.

To get all folders containing a file index.php quickly, enter:

sudo find / -type f -name 'index.php' |sed 's#\(.*\)/.*#\1#' |sort -u

To get a list of folders sorted by modify date with ls use something like this:

ls -dl $(find / -type f -name 'index.php' |sed 's#\(.*\)/.*#\1#')

The last command doesn't work for paths containing spaces!


How to set up Mail so To: auto completes based on Contacts info? When I type "mom" into the "To:" field, Mail.app doesn't load my mom's email addy:

...but when I click the blue "circle/plus" button and type "mom" it does:

In Contacts.app I have my Mom's contact info set up so that her "title" is "Mom".

How do I get Mail.app's To: field to auto complete based on her Contacts.app title? Or, is there something I can do in Mail.app so that "mom" will autocomplete her email addy from the To: field?

macOS Sierra 10.12.4

Title is intended to be used within the scope of a company. If you want Mail to recognize names such as “Mom,” try using the Nickname field instead:

On the macOS version of Contacts, you can go into Contacts → Preferences → Template → Add Field and check Nickname. That field will then become available by default when editing any contact, without requiring you to add it through the + menu.


Is hibernation possible on a T2 iMac / Catalina? From time to time, I want to unplug my iMac from power in order to move it, but I also want it to restore the state back to where it was. I learned that I could enable a hibernation mode, which would save the contents of RAM to SSD before sleep:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25

Now, when I tell it to sleep, I can hear the fans turning off after 10 seconds. But when I wake it up, the screen turns on instantly, as if no sleep was happening. This is clearly wrong, because the documentation says the memory should be powered off:
hibernatemode = 25 is only settable via pmset. The system will store a
copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will remove power to
memory. The system will restore from disk image. If you want "hiberna-
tion" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery life, you should
use this setting.

Just to confirm, I powered off/on my iMac and it booted up from scratch without restoring any memory.
Looking at pmset -g, everything looks fine:
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
 autorestart          0
 Sleep On Power Button 1
 halfdim              1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 proximitywake        1
 powernap             1
 gpuswitch            2
 networkoversleep     0
 disksleep            10
 sleep                10
 hibernatemode        25
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         10
 tcpkeepalive         1
 womp                 1

I also checked that /var/vm/sleepimage does exist, occupying ~17 GB (total RAM is 32 GB).
Has anyone been able to enable hibernation on a desktop Mac recently, or is it just some issue with my machine?
I'm running an iMac Pro (2017) with T2 chip on Mac OS Catalina (10.15.7)

I suspect that some power is still required to maintain hibernation, as distinct from 'off'. So you may be able to hibernate an iMac, but only while it's still plugged in.
The 'Resume' feature of macOS is designed so that desktops can relaunch apps and open documents and windows that were up at shutdown, 'resuming' where the user left off.
sleepimage does exist on my 2018 Mini, over 2GB in size: though the Creation and Modification date are both 8 November 2018, which was probably when I first turned it on.


How do I get Chrome-like tab switching shortcuts in Safari [pre-version 9.0]? I much prefer the way Chrome allows me to use ⌘+# key to switch directly to an open tab. For example: ⌘+3 takes me directly to tab 3 in Chrome, but in Safari it loads the third bookmark from the bookmark bar in the current tab.

How can I make Safari behave like Chrome when I'm using ⌘+# key shortcuts and switch tabs instead of loading bookmarks?

Window > Show Next Tab

Should display the keyboard shortcut to switch between open tabs, I have mine custom set but I believe the default keyboard shortcut is :

Control+-->

However if you want a specific tab to be populated corresponding to the number you can set custom keyboard shortcuts within Automator or go Ian's route

I was able to reproduce your desired results with Automator in conjunction with the AppleScript you provided :

Automator Walkthrough :

Follow the link to my Discussion

The general parameters are the same and I'm sure you smart enough to figure it out.

Services Receive : NO INPUT
In : Select Safari so this service isn't available outside the application
Drag and Drop the 'Run AppleScript' action to the workflow
Include the AppleScript code you provided
Save the service - I saved mine in increments
System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services > General > Safari Tab 3 (whatever you named yours)
Create your shortcut : For some reason Apple has blocked CMD+#'s even though those shortcuts aren't used in the app as far as I diagnosed. I was able to successfully replicate your desired results with ⌥+⌘+3, but your computer, do what makes you happy
Enjoy for $0

EDIT If you use ⌥+⌘ + 1/2 they are already reserved for the History Menu (so you should change these in Keyboard > Shortcuts by altering the keyboard board shortcut for that menu title) and then ⌥+⌘ + 1/2 will be up for grabs again

RE-EDIT Apparently ⌘+#s are reserved for jumping to bookmarks. Since I don't have any it didn't prompt anything on my end. But again, all menu title keyboard short cuts can be altered with no work at all in the keyboard shortcut area in system preferences. So looks like you can use your Command + 1-9 buttons


"Show all" by default in Finder? My question is directly related to this question in LION version.

I use Icon view in Finder and I want to get rid of "Show all" behaviour, i.e. I want all files to be shown by default.

Now, I am on Mavs, but still have no way to expand all the items by default in icon view.

Can we view all files by default in icon view in OS X?

Go to the folder and press ⌘J, then set Arrange By to None. This will still sort using whatever you have chosen for Sort By. Click Use as Defaults to use this option as default and remove the .DS_Store from any folder that you wish to inherit these defaults.


Magsafe port coating worn away The plastic coating of my (mid 2010, 13 inch) Macbook Pro's Magsafe charging port has almost completely worn away over time, exposing some kind of shiny metal surface beneath.

How important is this coating?

Is this a fire hazard or a risk to my laptop?

The coating is just cosmetic and surface protection for the magnets (and they do rust since made of iron).

The insulation (plastic) around the pins is important and it still looks ok to me.

There is no fire or short danger, but you might want to re-coat the magnets surface to prevent corrosion, since you are obviously in some high air pollution (corrosion) area.


Is it possible to record a 4K time-lapse on iPhone? In iOS 8 Apple released a time-lapse feature for the camera app. It seems as though time-lapses are recorded in 1080p. I would like the time-lapse to be recorded instead in 4K. Is this possible?

No, the default camera app does not record time lapse in 4K unfortunately. I believe that there are third-party apps that will work. Alternatively you can just record a 4K video (set it to the lowest frame rate in settings) and then speed it up in iMovie on your phone. You might have to speed up>export>import>speed up a couple times to get it to be quick enough.


YouTube App streams much slower than YouTube mobile site on iPhone I noticed recently that the YouTube app for the iPhone (4s) streams movies significantly slower (or sometimes, not at all) compared to using Safari and the mobile YouTube website.

I have tested this using 3g and various Wi-Fi connections. There is inconsistencies between the App and the Mobile Website on the same device over the same connection.

What is the difference in technologies between these two interfaces that may be causing this, or is this just a localized problem to my device?

The same thing is happening to mine but looking at the difference in video quality the YouTube app videos are a lot better so that could be why..


Network Caller ID on iOS without a computer Network Caller ID (or NCID) allows incoming call information for a regular landline telephone to be sent over a local network to display on computers and other devices. There are programs for OS X that can handle this, and there's even one solution that broadcasts to iOS devices via a computer using the Prowl app.

Is there is a solution to show NCID details on iOS that doesn't involve a computer?

Since there didn't seem to be a stand-alone solution, I made a little app that connects to a NCID Server and gets the list of phone numbers:

http://erike.net/ncid/

Unfortunately Apple didn't allow me to keep the connection open in the background, but I may release a fix for this in Cydia.


Transferring an old iPhone after I upgrade? I'm about to upgrade from the iPhone 3G to the iPhone 4, and I'm not sure what will happen to my old device once my phone number is transferred.

Specifically, I want to give the old device to my girlfriend, who is on a AT&T non-smartphone. What will I have to do to move her to the iPhone 3G? Will she need to sign up for an iPhone specific data plan if I put the sim card in there? WIll it work like any old phone if I just put the simcard in there?

In short, I'm not sure what will happen, and what I need to do.

I just did this myself - I upgraded to an iPhone 4 and gave my sister my iPhone 3G. I put her AT&T SIM inside and she was instantly able to send & receive calls and texts. Since she doesn't want to pay for data (yet), she used the new iOS 4 network setting to turn off cellular data. I have heard that AT&T scans their network and automatically adds data plans to 'smartphones', but so far this hasn't been the case.

If she does want to use data, have her call up AT&T and let them know about the phone switch on the plan and they can sign her up for the iPhone data plan - it's $15/month for 200MB and $25/month for 2GB. You may be able to do this yourself online - I haven't tried - but contacting AT&T is quick and relatively painless and is guaranteed to work.

One other thing - if her SIM is ancient (pre-3G), then you may need to get a new one that supports 3G from an AT&T retailer or call AT&T and they can ship you a new one. They may charge a nominal fee (~$10) for this service.


Caps lock key to behave like non-toggle modifier Is it possible to make the caps lock key behave like a normal modifier, and not as a toggle switch?

I have a custom keyboard layout which allows me to use the caps lock key to type Greek symbols. (It‘s useful for STEM students.) Most of the time, I only want to type a single Greek symbol—in which case, it would be much easier to use the caps lock key like one uses the shift key. Caps lock down, press a key, then caps lock up—caps lock does not remain on.

Is this possible to accomplish? Perhaps with Karabiner or similar?

The easy method of using Apple system preferences only allows mapping the caps lock key to modifier keys and escape key.

Can't swap Caps Lock and Esc keys using Seil

Use caps-lock to lock fn key or other way to lock fn key?


How can I correct the screen going blank whenever I run nettop? I'm running the latest version of macOS and always just use Terminal. Not iTerm or anything like that.

Whenever I run nettop, the screen goes blank. Sometimes it happens immediately, and sometimes after I press an arrow key.

How do I keep this from happening?

I just tried r to redraw the screen, but that didn't help.

Try to make your terminal screen bigger. It fixed mine!


Why is my iPhone not enabled for iTunes Attempting to purchase iTunes for iPhone 6 from Apple Store. Download response indicates iPhone not enabled for iTunes. What does this mean?

Pre-existing Apple ID need to accept the store conditions before downloading. Only if you are creating a new Apple ID can you roll account creation/validation/download into one transaction.

Post an image of your specific error message if this general guidance isn't helpful.


How can I "delete" the last word, using iOS dictation feature? iOS dictation is a great feature, which mostly works both for Siri and for apps supporting an onscreen keyboard.

However: is there a voice command I can use to backspace or delete the last word?  I found a good guide here, but there is no delete command: http://www.siriuserguide.com/siri-dictation-guide/

It doesn't seem like it is possible.

The closest I have seen is to use 'shake to undo' which will then select your entire last phrase/sentence. It's then possible to adjust that selection & delete as required.

Not what you wanted, I'm aware.


iMac Aluminum Housing Not sure if these kinds of questions are allowed here, but I would like to know how Apple machines the little Apple logo cutout on the bottom of the front iMac panel /housing. It looks like it could be alien technology.

I'm a machinist and wonder how the black material inside the logo cutout is housed in the aluminum and whether that machining is EDM or laser cut.

EDM doesn't nearly give the same yield and precision compared to laser.

EDM skimming probably get the job done nice and accurately, but it will cost just too much time.

Obviously the internals of the iMac / Macbook unibody frame are being done by traditional mill-cut CNC.  It does take a while before a frame exits the machine, but Apple just has an awful lot of them in the factory. No rocket science here.

The Apple logos (front and back of the iMac, screen lid of the Macbooks) are probably done by laser cutting.  To get higher yield, they might use high pressure waterjets (possibly assisted with garnet and/or alox) for the middle, and laser for the outer edges.

Not your question but nonetheless interesting, the breathing light on MBP's, the LED non-hole next to the Macbook's iSight camera/external touchpad/keyboard are done by high precision laser technology (0.001" and below) with machinery sourced from an external company which owns the technology behind it.


Automatic export to .csv when saving .numbers For now my workflow is:

opening myfile.csv in numbers
applying changes to myfile.numbers
saving myfile.numbers
export myfile.numbers to myfile.csv (overwrite old)

Rinse - repeat when new changes come in.

So I wondered - is there a way to force numbers to automatically export to .csv when I hit "save"? (i.e. combining steps 3&4?)

(no computer science background, just curious)

I think you can just bypass using myfile.numbers all together. Instead of saving myfile.numbers (step 3), just export myfile.numbers as a csv, and quit Numbers without saving.

This way, your workflow is:

1) Open myfile.csv with Numbers

2) Edit myfile.csv in Numbers

3) Export the current file as myfile.csv, which overwrites myfile.csv with a new version.


MacBook Pro updated to EL Captain 10.11 but QuickTime Player didn't upgrade The ONLY reason I upgraded to EL Captain because the new QuickTime Player allows me to make a video of my app while I play on my device. However, I've upgraded to EL Captain 10.11 but the QuickTime Player is still version 10.4

The El Capitan upgrade went smoothly for my MacBook Pro. Everything works well. How do I update the QuickTime Player? I tried going through App store but in search, I couldn't find it.

QuickTime 10.4 is the newest version. It was already possible to record your iOS-device in Yosemite. Source.


Mac app shrinks when copied to USB I have a Mac app that is 443,245,675 bytes.

When I copy it to a flash drive, the copied version is only 443,239,527 bytes and the app package becomes invalid (spctl -a fails).

This difference (6148 bytes) is the size of a .DS_Store file exactly, but none seems to exist in the app package. My hidden files are visible and I've looked using ls -l — there's no .DS_Store file there.

What's going on here and how do I fix it so my app doesn't become invalidated every time it's copied? Note that the app still runs even though spctl fails. That said, should I even worry about this?

Your thumb drive is likely formatted as FAT32 (or just FAT if older).

Copying the app to something that isn't formatted as Mac OS Extended, probably resulted in the loss of things like file owner, permissions, etc, that may have been needed to run/validate it with the system.

Either consider

Packaging it as a .dmg, or
If this is something you might need often, you could reformat the thumb drive as HFS+ (after backing up anything important on it).  Consider copying the app file with the flag to preserve settings:

cp -p source_file target_thumb_drive


My iPad unable to view subtitles My iPad unable to open or view video online with subtitles. But when I open the same website with my lappy, the video and subtitles work well. There have something wrong with the website or my iPad?

Try this:

Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
Tap on General.
Tap on Accessibility.
Under the Hearing section, tap on Subtitles & Captioning.
Turn On the option for Closed Captions + SDH.
Tap on Style in order to customize how closed captions work if you'd like.

Also, what app/website are you viewing this in?

Source(s):

Google (googled "subtitles on iPad")
http://www.imore.com/how-enable-subtitles-and-captioning-auditory-accessibility-iphone-or-ipad


How to make an NTFS Shared Volume Writable I am on a Macbook Pro with OS X Yosemite. I have another Mac Mini running Windows 8 that I have connected to via a Router.

I am essentially trying to share files from an NTFS volume, but I need to make it writable. I open a Finder window and then do Go → Connect to Server and then enter the name of my Mac Mini Shared Folder.

Everything works great, but it's only read only. I've tried editing /etc/fstab using the following TutsPlus Tutorial, but that didn't work.

I'm looking into using 'mount_ntfs' on the command line but I just can't get my head around it just yet.

I'd appreciate a little assistance.

NTFS is a disk file system. Usually you may access NTFS only by directly attached devices (e.g. PATA, SATA, SCSI etc.)

If you connect to a share over the network you use a distributed file system or network file system. They do not share block level access to the same storage but use a network protocol (e.g. AFP, SMB, NFS etc.).

Since the NTFS volume is attached to the MacMini, you won't be able to mount it via fstab or mount_ntfs on your MacBook Pro.

Instead check the permissions / ACLs in the file sharing settings in Windows 8.


X11 Forwarding with my Entire Screen I am able to ssh to my Linux computer which is on the same network as my Mac. From the Linux machine, I can ssh to my Macbook.

I am currently at work and I want to forward my Mac's display to the Windows machine that I am currently on (using Putty and Xming). I am able to run "Xeyes &" so I know that the X11 forwarding is working correctly.

How can I forward my entire screen, preferably without having to setup VNC? And remember, I only have access to the command line.

This isn't how X11 works on the Mac currently (or at any time in the past).

The native Mac window manager uses Quartz 2D and Core Graphics to accomplish the rendering and composting of windows and icons on the Mac screen.

X11 writes into that space as a consumer - not as the end-all provider of drawing services so it can't forward things it doesn't get to see.

You will want to set up VNC sharing (which is the native Mac screen sharing technology) if you can't get by with just forwarding the X11 graphics.


Operation not permitted turning off airplay mirroring I'm running the command

sudo chmod 000 /System/Library/CoreServices/AirPlayUIAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/AirPlayUIAgent

Because AirPlay mirroring is messing with one of my programs, but it tells me "Operation is Not Permitted". I'm the owner of this Mac and should definitely be permitted, some help please?

You'll need to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP). It stops anything from modifying System files.

Disabling SIP: (more info in this article)

Enter Recovery HD
From the Utilities menu, select Terminal
Type in csrutil disable


How to scroll a table down to bottom I know that when you tap on the status bar on top, it will scroll the table all the way to the top.

Is there a similar way that can scroll it all the way to the bottom?

No, there is no built-in way to scroll to the bottom of a table.

It would be up to the developers to add that specific function to their table view.


Creating a Bootable USB Drive: unable to download Mavericks again I am following this guide to creating a Bootable USB Drive with Mavericks: How to Perform a Clean Install of OS X Mavericks

However, I cannot find the Install OS X Mavericks.app file in my Applications folder.

And when I go to the app store I am not able to download Mavericks again. Clicking on "Free" does nothing. I see no option to download anywhere.

Is there anywhere else that I can get a copy of this file so that I can create the bootable drive?

You can not download Maverics Installer if you already have mavericks.

Next time when you download a major new OS, DO NOT RUN after download.

First find the download and make copy the Installer file.

The reason is the Installer will delete it self after installation is complete.

How to make a Bootable USB for Mavericks has been discussed and answered here.

Last not least: There is a Recovery (hidden) partition on you drive.

When called upon that one will recover (repair) your mavericks from the Internet. The recovery can be also done from a USB. as explained here, it only needs a small USB with 1 gig size.


Bug with square screen capture in Lion OS X I have noticed an annoying bug in OS X Lion that happens if you try to take a screen cap with cmd+shift+4. It works fine with every rectangular selection, but if you take a square shot (for example 150x150 or 280x280...) it captures 1 pixel in excess only in width: so, a 150x150 will eventually become a 151x150, forcing me to crop it.

I was wondering if it's just me or if it's a known bug.

I tried it in Lion 10.7.1 and can't confirm that issue. Creating two screen shoots (150x150 and 637x637) and both did have the expected size. Checked it with the Preview application.

Do you use a mouse or a touch pad? I find it rather challenging creating a square selection by using the Magic Trackpad. Especially since the size of the selection disappears after a second or so and is replaced by the absolut coordinates.


Any alternative to iOS for an iPhone 3G? I have an iPhone 4, and I would like to recycle my “old” iPhone 3G.

Is there a good Android-for-iPhone?
A Linux distribution optimized for iPhone?
Another alternative OS, like a BSD or a BeOS-like?

What OS other than iOS can run on iPhone 3G hardware and how would I install the OS you recommend.

Well you can tried iDroid for iPhone 3g. I installed it to my friends iPhone 3G.
But you need to have jailbroken iPhone.
Click on the following link: www.idroidproject.org
They are having Bootlace application which will installed the iDroid on your phone.
the version I used on 3g, was not very impressive(but these guys are continuously working on it to make it better). Recently I got update from that new version is out.
I personally found it hard daily basis need. but If you are keeping it as experiment its really good.
Its hard for iPhone to have another software as it need complete reverse engineering[Hard Job] to get some other OS work on it perfectly.
But still you can give iDroid a try. Its easy to install and remove if you don't like it.


Identify and tag music from iTunes library under OS X I'm looking for a tool, preferably free, that would help me identify and correctly tag my itunes music collection.

You have many choices, you can download one of these software and correct all of your ID3 Tags:

TuneUP
Musicbrainz
Jaikoz


How to do eternity-infinity sign? I couldn't make my infinity sign on my phone. Does anyone know how to make an infinity sign on iPhone phones?
infinity

If you don't want to rely on third-party solutions (keyboards) like the one mentioned by @TomGewecke, use the built-in functionality for Text Replacements, as mentioned in the article you already linked to.

First, copy the Unicode symbol, e.g. from here.
Go to the Settings app -> General -> Keyboards -> Text Replacement -> create a new one with the + button in the top right.
Paste the symbol in the Phrase field, and an appropriate term in the shortcut. I decided to go for the HTML entity &infin; since that works in Markdown as well: ∞, but you can definitely choose a shorter/easier one.

Save the text replacement, and now whenever you type &infin; the keyboard auto-complete suggestions will offer you to replace it with ∞:


Streaming from Apple TV to MacBook Can I stream to my computer to watch Netflix? Or, can I only stream from devices to computers? Seems quite limited, if so.

If you want to watch Netflix on your Mac, the best way to go is just use Netflix.com (you'll need the Silverlight plugin).

AppleTV doesn't have any capabilities to send streams (ala AirPlay), just receive them from other devices. The reason for this is effectively that the Apple TV doesn't really hold any content. It sources it all from other places, all of which can be accessed from your Mac (i.e. iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, etc.).


How do I know which process is causing my computer to hang? My computer is a 15" Macbook Pro with Retina display, and I'm on OS X version 10.8.2. I have had this my computer for several months.

In the past few days, the computer has been completely "hanging", where nothing moves on the screen except the mouse pointer. If I was on a Skype call, the call goes on like normal, but I can't do anything else on my computer. Gestures don't work, so I can't switch desktops. I can't use my keyboard to quit the current application. I can't click on anything. The entire screen is completely unresponsive. The only way out is to force the computer to shut down. Then it boots up normally. It's only been happening recently, and I haven't been able to identify the cause.

Could it just be a bug that Apple needs to fix? Is there a process/app that could cause this to happen? How do I determine what caused the computer to hang?

Edit: In the Console, I do see this message many times before the reboot:

1/12/13 7:03:46.000 PM kernel[0]: vtd[0] fault: device 1:0:0 reason 0x5 W:0x1130e000

I have no idea what this means, but I thought it might be related because it does happen immediately before the bootup entry.

Edit 2: On other freezes, I see this message before a boot:

1/12/13 9:06:51.000 PM kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! exception type = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error

Edit 3: The problem was a faulty graphics card. I sent my computer in to Apple a while ago and they replaced the logic board, and when I got it back everything was hunky dory.

If you can't launch or switch programs (I find Spotlight is a good way to do this if everything else is hanging, just hit ⌘Space, but it may not work in your case), you could enable SSH access ahead of time, and then use another device to log in and check what's hogging your CPU.

Open Sharing Preferences and enable Remote Login. Then you can connect via SSH from another Mac, PC or iOS device (you'll need PuTTY on Windows, and one of various SSH clients available on iOS). Once you're logged in, type top -o cpu to get an updating display of processes ranked by CPU usage. That should give you a hint as to what's causing the problems.


can't record app preview with qt - missing iPhone as an option I've upgraded to 10.10 on my iMac.  I've connected my iPhone6 running 8.1 with a lightning cable.  But when I go in to quicktime to record the iPhone screen the iPhone doesn't show as an option.

I can't think of anything else to try. It sees it as a microphone, so it is connected.  I can do other things with my phone connected like install development apps.  Any idea why it's not showing up here?

The answer is to choose New Movie Recording instead of New Screen Recording.  Thanks to someone in the apple dev forums for helping me find that.


How to "chroot" a terminal inside a DMG? I'm doing security research and for that purpose I use an SHA-2 encrypted DMG to store the tools and files I work with (containing confidential client info), to protect them from forensic examination of my hard drive.

Thinking further, I'd like to know how (if possible) I could open a shell environment    inside this mounted DMG, so my .bash_history, .ssh/config and keys and an ./sbin/ binaries folder are available from a shell but only when the DMG is mounted to protect the info they contain. I also hope to make it portable from mac to mac, with my tool and my key, on any mac on which I open the DMG.

Any idea on how to do that?

Indeed what I wanted to do is over complicated. A VM is a better option.


How can I add Trash icon to the sidebar in Mac OS X Lion? How can I add the Trash icon and empty Trash from the sidebar of Finder.app in Mac OS X Lion ?

I dont have a problem to add them in the list of favorites too, but the Trash icon is not draggable.

First, open the trash can by clicking on it in the Dock.
In the Finder, press Command-shift-G (go to folder) and go to ~/.Trash
In the Finder window for .Trash, click the proxy icon in the title bar of the window and drag it to the sidebar.
You then have a trash folder in your sidebar.

To empty the trash from the sidebar, open Automator and create an application.
As the sole action in the application, select "Run AppleScript" and use this AppleScript:

on run {}
  tell application "Finder"
    empty the trash
  end tell
end run

Save the application as "Empty Trash", and drag it to the sidebar.


How can I keep Java 7 up to date? As far as I understood Apple provides only Java 6 for Mountain Lion.

Here I found how to install and use Java 7.

However I suppose that by installing Oracle Java it will not be update by means of the Mac App Store. How can I be sure that Oracle Java is always up to date, even better automatically (at least with a notification of "ready to update")?

You may not have noticed it, but Oracle Java 7 installs a new item in System Preferences with a feature that automatically checks for updates by default, and prompts you to install them. Thus, this is taken care of.


How to get long movie clips from iCloud to Google Drive What is the easiest way of getting large movies (20 minutes) from my iPhone/iCloud to my Google Drive account for work?

You have to use your computer as an intermediate step.
If you open 2 windows, one open to iCloud Drive, the other to Google Drive, then you can drag from one to the other … but all the files will go via your computer to get from one to the other. Depending on available space you may have to do it in stages.
If you're working from web access for both, then you will have to download, then upload, as two separate steps for each file.


How to delete books from iBooks on iOS 10? I want to delete some iBooks from purchased off my iBooks app, but the previous solution of hovering above it and an "x" appearing over it isn't working. I have an iPhone 7 with iOS 10.3.2

To delete books in the iOS 10 iBooks app:

Tap "Select" in the top right.
Tap on the books you wish to delete (in the list view, you can also tap the checkboxes).
Tap the "Delete" button in the top left.

You can re-download deleted books from the "Purchased" tab.


Word 2016 - Can't save to AFP share (El Capitan) One of our macs running El Capitan mysteriously can't save Word 2016 documents to our AFP share anymore.

More specifically, when trying to save a Word 2016 document to our AFP share, the normal "Save" dialog pops up. After completing the dialog, Word dutifully closes it and then displays a "Save as..." dialog a short time later (with the file not having been saved to the share). Subsequent attempts to save via the "Save as..." dialog yield the same behavior.

This is exceedingly weird, as:

Other Office programs (Excel, etc.) on that very machine don't make any trouble when trying to save to the share.
The affected machine can use the share just fine otherwise (e.g. Finder).
Other users have no trouble saving to the share from Word 2016.

I updated Office without any luck. Then I reinstalled it, still no luck.
Finally, i mounted the share via SMB... no dice.

Any ideas as to what the problem could be?

In case anyone else stumbles over this:

It turned out that Word had saved state to a '.TemporaryItems' folder right at the root of the share.

Apparently its contents were corrupted, causing the described problem.

Deleting the folder resolved the issue.


What's the point of airplane mode on a wifi-only iPad? I know if I toggle Airplane Mode, it will turn wifi and bluetooth on and off-- but I can manually toggle them. On an iPhone or cellular-enabled iPad, airplane mode kills the cell radio. But there's no cell radio in my wifi-only iPad! So what does airplane mode do for me?

It's a feature kept on iOS so that you can quickly turn off both Wifi and Bluetooth.


Viewing preview of files in finder I have some .groovy files on my file system.  I would like to be able to preview them in Finder as I navigate around them.  How do I do this?

QLStephen displays files with no extension or with arbitrary extensions as plain text. You can install it by moving the qlgenerator bundle to ~/Library/QuickLook/ and running qlmanage -r.

If it doesn't display some file types, try adding their UTIs to CFBundleDocumentTypes:LSContentTypes in the Info.plist.


Bidirectional Sync of iPhone/iDevice Photos and Albums to Third Party Clouds It is a complete mystery to me why this challenge has not been dealt with and solved, and why not more people are complaining about it on the web:

I use my iPhone as my main camera. I use it to snap photos and subsequently sort them into albums on my phone. I also have an iPad and a PC laptop, but do not use the latter frequently to edit photos.

What I (and I assume many other people out there) would like, is a simple functionality on  your iDevice (iPhone/iPad/etc) that basically two-way syncs pictures and albums between all devices. So, when I take a picture on my iPhone or iPad it should automatically be sent to a cloud (SugarSync, Google Drive, Dropbox, a private cloud, or similar) and from there be reflected on all my devices. Similarly, if I delete or modify a photo on one of my devices, that change should be reflected automatically on all the other devices.

With most paid-for clouds (such as SugarSync and Dropbox), you have one-way synching functionality of pictures. So when you take a photo, it is backed up to the drive. Sadly, it is not bidirectional, so if I delete a photo on one device, it is not reflected on the other devices.

As for Photo Stream and iCloud the problems are as follows.

It does not sync the albums you create on your device.
You actually have to open iPhoto and make sure the images are imported to your computer, to avoid that they get deleted after the 30 day photo stream period is up.
You are stuck with iCloud, so if you decide to buy an Android phone, you will encounter a road block.

Anyone have any information or thoughts on how to tackle this challenge? One thought would be to just use an alternative Camera and Photo app on the iPhone, that works with other clouds than iCloud. If you know of any such tools, please shout out.

Try Unbound app. It uses dropbox to allow you to organize your photos on your ipad. So you can move, delete and rename photos on your iPad and the changes are synced back to your dropbox.

I tried it and liked it, but I don't use it, because all the managing functions (move, delete, rename) only work, when you are online.


Can a 2018 Mac mini support dual 4k monitors at 60 Hz? I guess I need more of a personal experience answer. The specications say that a Mac mini can support dual 4k monitors, but are there any caveats to this?

I am planning to get 2 x 4k monitors and run them both at 60hz, connected through DisplayPort (I will get Thunderbolt 3 to DisplayPort adapters).

Yes, the 2018 Mac Mini can support dual 4k monitors at 60 Hz connected the way you indicate. I have this setup myself. There are no caveats.

Note: You do not need an "adapter" as such. You just need ordinary, passive cables from Thunderbolt 3 to DisplayPort.


How to remove "Disabled Software" from MacOS System Report when a provided uninstall tool does not work? Is there a way to manually remove an item from the Disabled Software list or mark it as enabled when the version and date disabled are both listed as unknown?

The example below describes a situation where this happened. I am looking for a general approach to removing "Disabled Software" from the macOS System Report when a provided uninstall tool does not work. While this example references DisplayLink Driver, my goal is to solve this problem when other drivers produce this problem too.

For those who work for or with DisplayLink and have suggested DisplayLink-specific approaches (i.e. manually delete specific files and use the uninstall tool), I appreciate your suggestions. However, the provided solutions did not work for this scenario. I have also tried manually installing the driver using kext commands without success.

I have managed to get it working again. Here are the steps I had to go to:

Uninstall the DisplayLink drivers and restart the system.
Right after restarting the system, reinstall the drivers. Don't restart again yet.
Open System Preferences -> Security and Privacy. If you did that right after reinstalling the drivers, you should see a message saying that an extension was blocked. You should know what to do now.

The message on step 3 only was displayed to me immediately after starting the system.


Gatekeeper passing strange arguments on first launch after download? I maintain a macOS application. Some users (but not all) report an issue (I suspect, those running Catalina), where the first time the app is launched, it crashes. All future launches work okay.

I've managed to reproduce this, and it's crashing in the argument parsing code. My suspicion is that Gatekeeper is passing some unusual argument on the first launch (the one where it shows the 'this is an application downloaded from foo.com' dialog).

The argument-parsing code is pretty robust : it already rejects bogus arguments, so there must be something very unusual being passed. The problem is my local builds don't show the problem, and I don't know to reset the quarantine flag to trigger the fault again.
 (Also of course the crashes are in release builds, so the crash trace doesn't give me an exact location)

If I could trigger the quarantine warning artificially, by marking a local debug build as 'newly downloaded', I suspect this would be trivial to debug.

Okay, found a way to test this on a debug build, and figured it out. My solution was to copy the com.apple.quarantine xattr onto the debug binary which XCode creates, and then test this via 'open'. (Launching via Terminal never showed the issue)

This reveals that when launched with the quarantine flag set, the command line contains a 'NULL' as the second arg; i.e argc=2, argv[0]=, argv[1]=0


Modifier key settings not sticking I just purchased a MacBook Air with OSX v10.8.4. When I edit the modifier keys (I want to change Caps Lock to Ctrl), it works for a while, but then reverts back to defaults some time later. I'm making the changes here

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys...

I just tested making the change, closing the lid, then opening it. The change stuck past that. So I'm not exactly sure when the settings revert, but they do eventually revert back to the defaults.

Any idea how to make this change stick?

Try uninstalling any keyboard or pointing device drivers. Or delete ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/.GlobalPreferences.*.plist and restart.

You can also use PCKeyboardHack to remap caps lock. Other modifier keys can be remapped with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <!-- <devicevendordef>
    <vendorname>KINESIS</vendorname>
    <vendorid>0x05f3</vendorid>
  </devicevendordef>
  <deviceproductdef>
    <productname>ADVANTAGE</productname>
    <productid>0x0007</productid>
  </deviceproductdef> -->
  <item>
    <name>swap_command_and_control</name>
    <identifier>swap_command_and_control</identifier>
    <!-- <device_only>DeviceVendor::KINESIS, DeviceProduct::ADVANTAGE</device_only> -->
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::COMMAND_L, KeyCode::CONTROL_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::CONTROL_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CONTROL_L, KeyCode::COMMAND_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Related questions:

Logging out and in resets modifier keys to defaults
Permanently swapping option and command keys on a non-Apple keyboard
How do I make Mac OS X remember "Modifier Keys" remappings for my external keyboard?


Application level volume control in OS X? I recently switched from PC to Mac and one thing I miss is Windows' application-level volume control (i.e. mute Firefox, turn up iTunes, turn down Skype etc). How can I achieve the same on a Mac? Or better yet, I want volume settings based on location (using HTTP location API or WiFi network name) and time of day or day of week etc.

A free and open-source solution is BackgroundMusic.
A nicer and paid solution is Rogue Amoeba's SoundSource


Debug AirDrop between MacBook Pro and iPhone 6s Plus I am running iOS 9.1 (13B143) on an iPhone 6s Plus and OS X 10.11.1 (15B42) on a MacBook Pro.

Both devices have Airdrop settings of "Allow me to be discovered by: Everyone"

How can this be debugged?

The best tool for visualizing AirDrop networking and peer counts is Apple's Wireless Diagnostic on OS X. Open it and don't click the window that is presented. Instead, open the Monitor Window (Command+7) and look at the bottom where AWDL shows up:

The top half is the classic WiFi we all know where you join a base station for internet access. The bottom half shows AirDrop status. Channels that are negotiated (149++ in my case), whether the connection is idle, in low power mode, or data transfer is happening over AirDrop. As you change your iPhone AirDrop - the Mac should change the display in the monitor window in near real time.

The rest of this short article has some poor long term strategies, but they help me corner the culprit in many cases and then I go back and adjust the thing that was blocking me.

Turn off your AirPort/WiFi network so that none of the devices have to juggle or choose between the ad-hoc network that gets created for AirDrop and the actually WiFi network of choice. This helps prevent interference between the two Apple devices - I believe that AirDrop uses 5 GHz channel 149 but can't find that in writing in the moment - but avoiding any strong WiFi signal helps immensely in debugging AirDrop)
Cycle BlueTooth on both devices in the settings - having it on helps me connect devices for AirDrop
On the Mac - disable the firewall entirely temporarily
On iOS - reset the network settings

Check that the airdrop wireless network interface exists on the Mac OS:

mac:~ me$ netstat -nr | grep awdl0
fe80::%awdl0/64                         link#6                          UCI           awdl0
fe80::5ce6:2cff:fe85:f703%awdl0         5e:e6:2c:85:f7:3                UHLI            lo0
fe80::aced:abff:fe2f:814e%awdl0         ae:ed:ab:2f:81:4e               UHLWIi        awdl0
ff01::%awdl0/32                         link#6                          UmCI          awdl0
ff02::%awdl0/32                         link#6                          UmCI          awdl0

The IPv6 addresses you have will be different as will the MAC addresses ( like the 5e:e6:2c:85:f7:3 in my example output above)

At this point, you should be set for success. If you don't have the airdrop interfaces, a reboot of the Mac might help, but the problem might be deeper than a restart in that case.

Let's dump the actual AirDrop partners in real time from the Mac:

dns-sd -B _airdrop._tcp

This runs and should show other Macs as you come in range and open their AirDrop finder windows. iOS devices similarly should register and un-register from the dns-sd listings as they come and go.

mac:~ me$ dns-sd -B _airdrop._tcp
Browsing for _airdrop._tcp
DATE: ---Wed 21 Oct 2015---
17:15:05.628  ...STARTING...
Timestamp     A/R    Flags  if Domain               Service Type         Instance Name
17:15:05.630  Add        2   4 local.               _airdrop._tcp.       f7954d04c333
17:15:05.843  Add        2   4 local.               _airdrop._tcp.       aac40572c2f3
17:15:53.055  Add        2   4 local.               _airdrop._tcp.       8dde35896ba3
17:16:46.685  Rmv        0   4 local.               _airdrop._tcp.       8dde35896ba3
17:17:52.062  Rmv        0   4 local.               _airdrop._tcp.       f7954d04c333

Next on the inconvenience scale, but useful for debugging is a raw TCP packet dump of the actual traffic arriving over the AirDrop network. You won't necessarily need to know that the hex information is, but you can see some of the traffic as the iPhone negotiates with the Mac or the absence of negotiation:

sudo tcpdump -i awdl0

To exit the tcpdump, press Control-C and also expect a 15 second delay or more for packets to show in the terminal window. This tcpdump would be my next to the last resort, and I'd possibly capture the output to send to AppleCare/Engineering if I couldn't make progress with trying to add a third device to the AirDrop party.  You should see lots of "mdns" traffic in the dump if AirDrop has any chance of working. Also - adding other devices to the AirDrop party is good - open photos on iOS and try to share the image with your Mac(s).

The last resort would be to use a tool like WiFi Explorer to inspect the channel utilization in your location if you find that AirDrop works in the absence of other WiFi interference but not in the locations where you prefer to share files. Also Apple's Wireless Diagnostic can help with channel recommendations and capturing raw packets from WiFi over the AWDL frequencies.

Some 2.4 GHz devices are notorious for spamming the multiple WiFi channels with noise, and without survey tools, you won't know that issue.


Keyboard shortcut to exit the print dialogue in safari When I press cmd-p in safari the print page shows up.

Escape doesn't work because I've remapped my escape key to ⌥esc

How do I exit this without using the mouse or escape?

Normally, use the esc key.

This will dismiss the dialog without using the mouse.

This shortcut work with most dialog boxes in macOS.  See this answer for more details.

If one has remapped the esc key, using command+. should dismiss the dialog as well.  (Thanks to Steve Chambers' comment.)


Find out apple email id from iphone activation lock Is there anyway to find out the email address attached to iphone, when iphone is currently locked to activation mode ?

I just needed to know the email address so I can reset the password.
The person who attached the Apple ID forgot which account she was using

How to find the AppleID

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5625

If you can't remember your Apple ID, follow these steps to look for it:

  Go to My Apple ID (appleid.apple.com) and click “Find your Apple ID”.

  Enter the first name, last name, current email address, and any prior
  email addresses that you might have used to create an Apple ID. Apple
  uses this information to search for Apple IDs.

  If no Apple IDs are found, follow the onscreen instructions to create
  an Apple ID.

  If one Apple ID is found, choose whether to receive an email from
  Apple or answer security questions. Both options will conclude by
  asking you to reset your Apple ID password. Follow the instructions
  provided.

  If multiple Apple IDs are found, select the one that matches your
  current email address. Then choose whether to receive an email from
  Apple or answer security questions. Both options will conclude by
  asking you to reset your Apple ID password. Follow the instructions
  provided.


How do I create a complete iPhone backup without iTunes? How do I create a complete iPhone backup without iTunes and which I can later restore?

The only other option to back up your device is to use iCloud which is encrypted and backs up Health data and other privileged information.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977


Does macOS phone home to Apple's servers before running an app for the first time? I'm running macOS Catalina 10.15.4 on a 2018 MacBook Pro 15", which has the T2 chip (if anything else is relevant, let me know and I'll update the question.)

I'm a developer and I'm in the process of writing and debugging a C command-line utility that's supposed to take a few miliseconds to run and exit.

My internet connection went down while I was coding (WiFi was still connected, but my ISP was down), and afterwards I noticed that, after compiling the app, the first time I ran it, it took a few seconds to run rather than the expected fraction of a second.

I turned off WiFi (so there was no active network connection), compiled my app again, and ran it -- this time it ran as quick as I would expect.

Turn on WiFi, compile and run again, first run of the app takes longer than expected.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but it sure sounds like macOS is trying to ask Apple's servers for blessing to run my app. Is this the case, or could there be another explanation? If it's indeed the case, can anyone link to an article explaining what's going on under the hood?

UPDATE: as requested, here are timings for an average of three runs of the following command, under different conditions:

touch file.c && make && time ./file && time ./file

The first measurement is the average time for running file for the first time after compilation (the third command in the chain). The second measurement is the average time for running file for the second time after compilation (the fourth command in the chain).

WiFi on, with internet: 347 ms/3 ms.

WiFi on, without internet: 5024 ms/3 ms.

All network connections offline: 24 ms/2 ms.

Yes, Catalina and Mojave gatekeeper can and will phone home now as part of a layered defense model against malware and privacy protection system violations.
Everyone expects (or tolerates) this on the first run, but ongoing checks for certificate revocation can and will block apps when any trusted Certificate Authority revokes a signing certificate before their expiration dates. When this happens repeatedly, it can be highly frustrating.

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.html
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a

If you (or anyoneelse fails to) sign or notarize installers/packages/apps and don’t staple the notarization, this is how gatekeeper and related checks are supposed to work. We would need to know your gatekeeper settings and more about your app to know if this is in play. Also, when the systems online and locally to check revocations change or fail, this may be challenging to troubleshoot.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_macos_software_before_distribution

Notarization specifically is a Catalina-era feature and not anything to do with specific hardware.

Apple recommends that you notarize all of the software that you’ve distributed, including older releases, and even software that doesn’t meet all of these requirements or that is unsigned. Apple’s notary service uses a variety of methods, including telemetry, to determine which of the above rules to relax for preexisting software.

Stapling the ticket generated by your successful notarization should restore the behavior and performance you expect as Gatekeeper can find the ticket while offline in most cases.


Finder window, exit search options When using Command-F to search in a Finder window, what is the shortcut to disable the search and return to the standard finder window?

For example:

1) Navigate to specific folder
2) Command-F to search
3) Finder window is now search specific

How can I exit from having a search specific finder window and simply see what is in the current folder?

Thanks!

The Back arrow, top left, or  Cmd ⌘   [

You can also return to your search with the forward arrow or  Cmd ⌘   ]


sudo killall coreaudiod made it so I don't have any sound at all I ran into an issue where my volume buttons on my mac weren't able to adjust the volume of my computer. I sought a solution and someone suggested using sudo killall coreaudiod. Now I have no volume on my computer at all. How do I fix this?

This command will do it:
sudo launchctl stop com.apple.audio.coreaudiod && sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod

Details
Martin Strouhal's answer doesn't work for OS X/macOS ≥ 10.12.4 due to removal of com.apple.audio.coreaudiod from system integrity protection's RemovableServices whitelist in /System/Library/Sandbox/com.apple.xpc.launchd.rootless.plist [1].

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod.plist
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod.plist: _
   Operation not permitted while System Integrity Protection is engaged

So instead of unloading the service, we instead just restart it.
Also, the latter command (sudo launchctl start com.apple.audio.coreaudiod) worked to restart the service after I had killed coreaudiod using killall coreaudiod.


Move an old Time Machine folder (NOT volume!) to a different disk I have an old Time Machine backup that I moved from its volume to a folder on a different disk. Now I want to move it to yet another volume. The problem is that the volume where the backup folder is now shows about 90 GB of used space, while the folder itself shows a size of about 240 GB and I don't have that space available at the moment.

My question is: how can I move this folder?

You're probably seeing the result of hard links in the file system, which can result in counting the same file(s) more than once.

This is common in UNIX-like backup solutions, including Time Machine. The actual data usage is only 90GB, so a hard-link-friendly tool like rsync should handle the move correctly.

Per Wikipedia's article on hard links:

  The term is used in file systems which allow multiple hard links to be
  created for the same file.


OSX El Capitan - cannot make bootable usb stick with boot camp I meticulously followed this tutorial, and this worked for me in 2014. I have a 4GB usb stick plugged into the computer. It should be enough for windows 7, a partition which no longer boots and I am hoping to run startup repair on it from the install USB so I don't have to start over clean.

tutorial: http://tsentas.net/create-a-windows-7-or-later-version-install-disk-missing-on-el-capitan/

This is the screen I get after following this tutorial where the Info.plist file of bootcamp is modified to let the USB creation happen (same screen as before):

Has anyone encountered this issue?

If you find no option to select your external USB drive as an ISO target - are instead directed to install on your repartitioned hard drive immediately - open the info.plist and add your model identifier to the following:

<key>ExternalInstallOnlyModels</key>
<array>
    <string>MacBook8,1</string>
    <string>MacBook9,1</string>
    <string>MacBookAir7,1</string>
    <string>MacBookPro11,5</string>
</array>


Question on calendar and ICS file I receive emails with ICS files.

When I double click on them, the event is created successfully in my calendar but many times it chooses things like "family room" as the calendar.

I don't want this. I have integrated google calendar into my calendar and I want that everytime I double click an ics file the event is always created in my google calendar which is integrated into my calendar application.

does this question make sense? is it possible?

I don't even know what is "family room" and why do events go there.

On your Mac, if you open Calendar>Preferences>General at the bottom there is an option to change your default calendar.

If you have Family Sharing turned on through your iCloud account, your shared family calendar may be the default calendar.


How to use new Macbook Air's power adapter with previous generation MacBook Pro? I have a MacBook Air (Late 2012), which has the new Magsafe 2 power connector.

I would like to use the power adapter with my 15" MacBook Pro (Mid 2010).

Is there an adapter for it? A quick search on Google didn't yield anything.

Apple only produces an adapter to connect the original Magsafe to Macs with Magsafe 2. It doesn't provide one to go the other way around. At the moment I'm unaware of any third party product that does this (and given the lack of third party Magsafe accessories in general, I wouldn't expect one any time soon).


Create a partition on SD card for ext4 filesystem I've got an SD card and want to create a partition on it for the ext4 fs.
The partition must start after 1MB. This 1MB will be used for a bootloader (u-boot).
I'm doing this on OS X Yosemite.

Here's what I do and get:

macbook@terminalx:cubie $ diskutil partitionDisk disk3 2 "Free Space" "%noformat%" 1M "Free Space" "%noformat%" R
Started partitioning on disk3
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for the disks to reappear
Finished partitioning on disk3
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 GB     disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1

The result is not what I expect at all. In my mind it must be something like two partitions with no format. First is 1MB and the second is all left free space on the SD card.

How can I achieve this?

Thank you.

OS X cannot see ext partitions. You would be better to do this on Linux.

You can install support e.g OS X Fuse as outlined in http://osxdaily.com/2014/03/20/mount-ext-linux-file-system-mac/

You will also need FUSE-Ext2 as https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/Ext

I am not sure if this will allow you to create ext4 partitions, but you can certainly mount them.


Custom Finder "go to" shortcuts I am struggling with the new Lion finder features. There are some subtle differences that are putting me off.

I used to have custom "go to" shortcuts in Snow Leopard. For example, I used to have a folder called "Tools," and I had assigned a custom keyboard shortcut from the preference panel. Now I am not able to find those options.

Does Mac OS X Lions still have those options? If it does have them, where can I find them?

As long as the folder appears under the "recent" sub-menu, it will respond to a custom shortcut.


How to tune the iTunes and App Store to remember the password for a very long time? By default iTunes and App Store are remembering your password only for 15 minutes and this is really annoying for someone that keeps the access to his computer safe anyway.

I am almost sure that these could me change by tuning a plist files from the command line. What is the secret command to make it -1 instead of 15? ;)

Enabling automatic downloads can help, but it's highly unlikely that this is simply a preference on the client. I would presume (but haven't reverse engineered) that the server is signaling the purchases that require a password either by signing a certificate with a short expiration time or upon each "purchase."


How can I move files to different Dropbox folders on my iPad? My specific need came from using a plaintext editor (Plaintext, although the issue is similar in IA Writer, Byword, etc.) where I can create new folders to organize my .txt docs, and I create new docs in them, but I can't move existing ones into or out of folders.

So I thought, surely I can switch over to the Dropbox app, move the files to the desired folders there, then come back, but that's not the case.   There's not even a move function in the Dropbox app.

Is there some way on an iPad to move a file in Dropbox to a different folder in Dropbox (that doesn't involve logmein or some other VPN app that lets me access my Mac)?

There is a move function within the dropbox app.
Go to the folder that contains the file(s) you want to move and click on the check icon.

Select the file(s) you want to move and click on move on the lower right corner. Now a new window will appear. Choose the location where you want to move the file and tab the choose button.

That's it.


Connect 2017 iMac to an HDMI tv? What cable do I need for that? I've seen different things in different places, never specifically for the 2017 iMac with the following specs:

2017 27" iMac Retina 5K
24GB RAM
Radeon Pro 580 8GB
macOS Catalina 10.15.4

You need a Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI converter.  Your iMac has two Thunderbolt 3 (with the USB-C form factor).  This converter is available from Apple.  Make sure to buy the Thunderbolt3 to HDMI converter, and not Thunderbolt-2 to HDMI, as Thunderbolt3 uses USB-C, and Thunderbolt2 uses miniDisplayPort

My source for the information about your iMac: EveryMac.com - Apple iMac 27-Inch "Core i5" 3.8 (5K, Mid-2017) Specs

You should be able to get 4k output if your television is capable of that resolution (3840x2160).  In other words, you will get no higher than your television's resolution.


diskutil shows Macintosh HD is missing (with Recovery HD occupying the entire space) So yesterday I managed to screw up my iMac 2012 (with Fusion Drive) by installing the Mac OS X 10.10.2 update... The installation stalled and when I tried to restore from an external drive using Time Machine I somehow managed to corrupt my hard drive... When I try to reinstall OS X it says I don't have any disks to install it to.

Anyways, now I'm running Disk utility on the command line at boot and I see the Macintosh HD volume has disappeared. Here is a screenshot of diskutil cs list and diskutil list:

It seems that the Recovery HD disk is occupying the entire disk space (3TB). How do I restore Macintosh HD with a new partition so I can finally reinstall OS X?

Update 1

After deleting 'Recovery HD' on the second disk erroneously here a second screenshot of diskutil list:

Update 2

So I delete the LVG and LG and went to Disk Utility... (See screenshot3) But my disks are in red and DiskUtility is forcing me to fix them... (Screenshot4) And when I do Im back to the same setup... (Screenshot5).

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Your Recovery HD doesn't occupy your whole 3 TB drive. It's disk1s3 in the diskutil listing with the common size of 650 MB.

Your Logical Volume Family and the Logical Volume vanished though.

To rebuild it start to your Recovery HD or to Internet Recovery Mode, open Terminal and enter diskutil cs list.
Copy the LVGUUID
To recreate the LV enter diskutil cs createVolume LVGUUID type name size

In your case probably diskutil cs createVolume 7ABC--i_can't_read_the_rest jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%.
Now reinstall Mac OS X or restore your system with the Time Machine backup.

Update 1:

Recovery HD doesn't exist anymore - it was deleted by accident. You have to rebuild your Fusion Drive from scratch now:

Preparation:

Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
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 Mavericks or Yosemite) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite).

Rebuild Fusion Drive

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:
diskutil cs list to get the CoreStorage listing.
Copy the Logical Volume Group UUID, it's the first listed in the listing of diskutil cs list.
Then delete the Logical Volume Group with diskutil cs delete LVGUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs delete 7ABC--i_can't_read_the_rest
Enter exit and quit 'Terminal'
Open 'Disk Utility'. Enter 'Ignore' if you are asked to fix the drives.
Choose your SSD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled),
hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~121 GB

Example:

Choose your HDD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled),
hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~3 TB

Example:

Quit Disk Utility and open Terminal
Enter diskutil list

Example (your disk identifiers and sizes are different of course: Your volume SSD probably has the Identifier disk0s2 and the size 121 GB and your volume HDD probably has the Identifier disk1s2 and the size 3.0 TB):

Enter diskutil cs create "Name" IdentifierSSD IdentifierHDD
In your case probably diskutil cs create "Macintosh HD" disk0s2 disk1s2.

Copy the resulting LVGUUID

Example:

Enter diskutil cs CreateVolume LVGUUID jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%.

Example:

Enter diskutil cs list
Check the size of your Logical Volume. It should have the size ~3.121 TB

Example:

Quit Terminal
Open 'Disk Utility' and check your newly created volume for errors
Quit 'Disk Utility'
Attach your external Time Machine backup drive or check this answer if you use NAS or another network share.
Open 'Restore from Time Machine Backup'
Choose the appropriate Time Machine backup and restore your system
Reboot to your restored system.
Unmount and detach your Time Machine backup drive
Open 'Terminal' and enter 'diskutil list'
Check if your 'Recovery HD' is listed.
If your 'Recovery HD' is missing, usually reinstalling your current system with the latest available system installer (e.g. 'Install OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)' if Mavericks is currently installed) will recreate it without loosing any data. AFAIK Recovery Partition Creator 3.8 will NOT create a Recovery HD on CoreStorage volumes.
After reinstalling the system with the latest available system installer open App Store and install the latest security fixes.


iMac can not see wifi home connection but it finds others I have an iMac whose wifi connection has always worked very well. Now that I moved in a shared house with a shared wifi internet, the iMac is not able to see our own wifi network, but it is able to see other wifi networks in the vicinity.

I have another laptop with ubuntu installed, and that is able to see the network and to connect, from the same room where the iMac is.

I have tried to make a new connection with the name and password of the network (which I know for sure because they are the same used on the ubuntu
connection) but it does not appear in the network list.

I have tried to read more on the internet, but all the thread are related to connections which can not be accessed, while in my case the iMac can not even see the network.

Any advice? I do not knwo what kind of details are needed to define this case, but I will be happy to furnish any necessary data.

After several trials, I "somehow" managed to fix the problem.

The important thing, I guess, is that you need to reboot the iMac.
What I know for sure that I have changed is:

Add a new position;
Link a new connection to the new position;
Add an additional DNS address to the list: 8.8.8.8

The source I was following is this website with troubleshooting solutions. Hope this is useful for future reference.


What does the amber light on the AirPods case mean when AirPods are not in the case? When I take the AirPods out of their case sometimes the case light changes color from orange to green or vice versa. I know the amber light means it is either charging or needs a charge. Is it associated with a particular battery percentage?

Apple's support article for AirPods doesn't point to an exact percentage but rather if the case can fully charge the AirPods.

  If your AirPods are in your case, then the light shows the charge
  status of your AirPods. If not, the light shows the status of your
  case. Green means charged, and amber means less than one full charge
  remains. If the light flashes white, your AirPods are ready to set up
  with one of your devices. If the light flashes amber, you might need
  to set up your AirPods again.


What does changing "my number" on the iPhone do? I noticed that there is a setting under Phone > My Number which displays my phone number. What does changing this setting do, and why would someone want to do that?

Is there any Apple documentation that explains the feature?

It changes your number everywhere on your iPhone (That is, it doesn't change your number on the SIM or the network).

An example where your number is used is under contacts in your phone app. If you scroll to the very top it displays the number you've set in the preferences. So really, it doesn't change much.


To measure the effectiveness of Finder's search I have noticed that the Finder's search misses many times matches from PDF documents even in strict Folder search.

It would be very nice to get information about possible skipped matches.
One skipped matched is like 100 minus points.
Adobe search seems to be the must use here otherwise.

Zhora's answer reminds me about the problem in hand.
The default search utilities of OSs are unstable because of variety of different filetypes.
I personally produce Tex files so no problem in indexing plain tex and searching fast.
However, my colleges produce WYSIWYG documents with PDF output.
This thing creates a demand for search programmatically.

One necessary approach in the effectiveness of search is to limit the search space.
I like chflags and .noindex extension in doing this.

How can you measure the effectiveness of Finder's search by Python or other language?

Over years of using OS X search tools (Spotlight, Find, Smart Folders), all of which, I believe, use the collected file metadata in various ways and having gotten a fairly good idea what various combinations of search terms might find I am still often unable to successfully retrieve every file I think my search should find.  At one point I began to systematically test various searches to try to determine some basic patterns so I could be certain that the resulting files contained every (or even "the specific") file I was looking for.  I found that there were so many things that could subtly affect a search (such as word order, capitalization, differences between the use of numeric and alphabetic characters, using partial words that matched the beginning of piece of metadata versus a substring that would match within a the same attribute, quotes and double quotes, unmatched quotes, the various logical operators [AND, OR, NOT or &, |, ^ or &&, ||, or some or all of these so I can never quite remember the right form to use], the various "names" for pieces of metadata such as "date:" or "kind:" or many others, the complete list hidden away from most users abilities to find)…well, basically I learned a few things I could count on but I wonder if there is anyone who could actually predict the exact results of all but the most basic search. And then I’ve run basic searches that produce lists of files that I’m sure are missing some files that should be found or missing others that should be there and yet I’m not sure why.  Sometimes after time spent staring at the results I can see what happened; sometimes I never do.

All that is to say I am also bothered by inconsistencies for certain types of searches that I want or want to depend on being complete (as I think you are looking for yourself).  On the other hand, these same search tools are so essential to the ease of use of my Mac that I’d truly miss them if they were unavailable (at times I’ve been amazed at what I could find such as older pieces of my writing that were in files which had lost their filenames due to accidental deletion yet with a few key words could be quickly located.)  I have also watched people I know looking for files on a PC running Windows and think, "why don’t you just search for it?"  Then I recall how I often avoided using the files searching facilities when Windows was my main OS.

I believe that Apple’s search facilities will probably not be satisfactory to what you want, at least when used "intuitively."  That said, there are different commands that can be run using terminal that may allow you to get better results in your case, but that can only be determined by trial and error.  Their value, though, can be in providing ways to see exactly what metadata exists for some file which you feel is left out of the results of a search and whether the desired type of data is missing or a particular matching type of data is missing or otherwise.  The various system commands are those like mdutil and mdls and possibly other related commands.  I usually run man for one of these, such as man mdls and then refer to the related commands at the end of the manual page under the SEE ALSO heading.  The difficulty is that the learning curve can be steep depending on how far you wish to delve into the various search techniques.  Often the hardest aspect is not in knowing how to run a type of search but more in being able to find out the various names of the search keys to search on, which may require running other md… commands to dump certain keys and/or values of the system metadata.

Along with all of the basic unknown factors there is always the possibility that the metadata store is corrupt or not complete and needs to be rebuilt.  And then, too, the metadata is extracted from files as they are created or changed by various "modules" each of which handles some particular type or types of metadata extraction.  Many of these modules are provided by Apple and many come from various vendors to allow different types of files to be processed and different attributes collected.  So problems my exist in the metadata collection just as they might in the search facilities.  That’s where some system commands can help one to see just what is wrong with the files metadata or a particular query string.

If you are basically interested in searching for PDF files and the Adobe search features meet your needs I’d probably suggest going with those (or perhaps other third party search tools that may have a more defined and predictable search methodology).  And use Apple’s search facilities for what they can help with (and in many cases, despite possibly not returning every desired file, can produce "fuzzier" results that can help to form a better query for use in an alternate search engine).

Sorry to go on without being able to give more useful ideas but I hope some of what I’ve said helps you to decide upon a method that works for you.  (I love my Mac…most likely will always use a Mac…but sometimes I think that Apple doesn’t document parts of OS X just so it’s never possible to point at something and say it doesn’t work right, since it might work exactly as it was intended. You never actually know for sure!)


external keyboard: cannot use f1,f2 etc. keys without pressing fn key I am using mba with high sierra and an external keyboard JETech 2156. The problem is I do not want to use fn key, for example F8 key has play or pause option. I have to press fn+f8 to pause or play. I simply want to press f8 rather than pressing fn key every time.
In the keyboard settings the box next to use f1, f2 as std function keys is unchecked. It does not matter if this box is checked or unchecked. In modifier keys I've selected the JETech 2156.

Unfortunately trying to fix this problem is as simple as checking a box on macOS. It is simply not something that macOS is capable of modifying—at least without third-party apps.
On a very simple level, keyboard work by sending "keystrokes" to the operating system that they are connected to. It is the job of the operating system to interpret the meaning of those keystrokes, which is generally does accurately.
The way the keyboard that you linked is designed is that it sends out the "special" keystrokes by default. For example, instead of sending out the F10 keystroke, it send out a "mute" keystroke. The OS interprets this keystoke and carries out the respective action.
If you wanted that button to send the actual F10 keystroke, the only way you can do it is by pressing Fn on the keyboard and then that button. Unless there is a specific setting that can be configured on the keyboard itself, there is no way of changing the keystroke that is sent out, and it looks like the keyboard does not support this useful feature.
So there is no way to change the actual keystrokes that are sent because the keyboard stubbornly doesn't want to send them. However, you can trick the keyboard. You can tell macOS to interpret the keystroke as something else—for example, you can tell macOS that, if it receives the "mute" command from that keyboard, it should interpret that as the F10 key. This is possible through the amazing little Karabiner Elements utility.
After installing Karabiner, open Karabiner EventViewer. Press the key that you want to change (for example the mute button). Click on the button that appears on the top right which says "Add mute to Karabiner-Elements." Then, change the action to F10. Ensure that the device at the top that is selected is your external keyboard and not "All Devices" because you don't want F10 to be triggered every time you use your Mac's keyboard to mute.
Note: one potential caveat: there are some keys that do not send a keystroke to the OS and thus can't be remapped. One example is the Fn key on external keyboards. Apart from those exceptions (to my knowledge only the Fn key), you should be able to remap just about any other key.


Where has iTunes "Summary" gone On iTunes 12.5.3 on my Mac there is an option to "Encrypt local backup".

My wife has just bought a new iPad, but when she tried to backup the old iPad there seemed to be no similar option (on iTunes 12.5.5). There doesn't even to seem to be a "Summary" item under the iPod.

How do you set "Encrypt local backup" and/or change passwords.

Yes, both the Summary and encrypt local backup options are available.

To view the Summary

Before you can view the summary of any device, you first need to connect it via cable to your Mac and have iTunes running. Once you've done this, if your Sidebar is visible, your device will appear in the list (which is probably where you've been looking). However, this is not where you can access the Summary from.

Instead, near the top left where the drop-down menu is to select from Music, Movies, etc you will now see on the right of it a device icon. Click on that to view the Summary for the connected device.

Encrypt backup

Once you've got the Summary up (as per above) you will see a Backups section in the centre of the screen. It is from there you can enable the encrypt backup option.


Wifi seems really unstable since getting new iMac Since I've had my iMac I've noticed that my wifi network locks up a few times a week, it is always fixed by turning off the wifi on the iMac, then turning it back on again.

The network shouldn't be over loaded, it's a Time Capsule with iMac, iPhone, Macbook and Apple TV connected, surely these should all play together nicely!

I've checked and the Time Capsule is at the latest firmware level (7.5.2), so not sure what the next step is.

[edit]
iMac is current model 21.5" i3, OSX is at 10.6.6 and software update says everything is up to date.

To clear up unstable the wifi connection always appears to be connected, but if I'm using the iMac I can't view websites, there have also been times where the Airplay streaming has just stopped, so it seems to be the whole network.

OK well if your problem affects internal traffic (streaming AirPlay) and external traffic (website access) then that points the finger at your Time Capsule.  The fact that you've only noticed this since you connected your new iMac might be a red herring but may also be a hint at the cause.  I'd start with pinging the time capsule and see if you have periods where you can't ping it.  So open Network Utility > Ping and enter the IP address of the time capsule (probably 192.168.1.1) and set it to ping an unlimited amount of times, you'll see output like that below:

Ping has started…

PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=1.197 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1.158 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.996 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.970 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=1.103 ms

This, in case you don't know, is just sending a packet to the IP address of your time capsule and the time=xxxx on the right is a measure of how long it took to get a response.  Now, if something is happening to slow down the network response time, you'll see it here.  As you can see there is very small fluctuations (the units are milliseconds) in the response time but you'll be looking for larger differences, such as 1000ms or even dropped packets.  Obviously this is only useful if you're seeing the issue every few minutes rather than once a day.  Once you prove that you have captured an issue, try the same thing while plugged directly into the time capsule by cable.  If you get similar symptoms then I'd point the finger at the router.  See how you get on with that and I'll update the answer when you come back if I can suggest some other steps.  Good luck!


How does Sublime open file with cmd+click on its path in Terminal? For example:

$ ls -lsa
4 -rw-r--r--    1 denis     404 Jul 16 18:36 pgadmin.log

cmd+click on pgadmin.log
Sublime opens pgadmin.log (if path is 'pgadmin.log:12', it opens it and sets cursor to 12th line).

How to change the App, which opens the file?

I've checked my suggestion and it worked: if you try to open a file in Finder, this file will be opened with default Application, assigned to its extension. So, if you change default App for this file, you'll get it while opening file from Terminal by click.


iCloud storage downgraded to 5GB for no reason Some months ago I had increased the iCloud storage from 5GB to 50GB, paying €0.99 monthly. This week I got an "iCloud storage full" message and noticed that storage got back to 5GB.

Any clues?

Just found out that my credit card expired!


iPad 2 Broken Screen! I dropped my iPad 2 and the LCD broke so I can't see what's happening. Is there a way I can see my iPad screen on my computer so I can make a backup of the files in specific apps. I know that you can mirror iOS 8 or higher devices using the lightning adapter but since this is the iPad 2, it's still using the 30 pin connector.

Bummer to hear!

Fortunately, Apple does a great job in allowing you transfer data between devices.

I'm not certain on your meaning of "backup of the files in specific apps"; however, I have two suggestions that may be of help.

Plug your iPad into a trusted computer. This refers to a computer which has been used to sync your iPad in the past. From here you can back up your device with iTunes
.
[PAID SOLUTION] Third party software is available which will allow you to backup a bit more data than iTunes allows, which is especially useful if you do not plan to purchase another iOS device. I've used a software like iSkySoft iTunes Recovery, which is expensive but does the job well. Search around, I'm sure there are cheapest (or free) solutions if you plan on going the third-party route.

Hope this is of some help to you.


How can I repair missing referenced photos in Photos.app on MacOS Catalina? A while ago I moved many photos from my Mac to external storage. However, I forgot to consolidate the library before performing this change. And now I can't remember the original folder structure I set up in the first place.

In my library I now have a set of photos which I can't repair the link to. No Finder window pops up, which means that the folder they were originally residing in, no longer exists.

Is there a way to reveal the file name and folder location of these "lost" referenced files so I can repair my Photos database?

Note: since the internal storage structure of the Photos Library changed dramatically in Catalina, I'm explicitly referring to Catalina in this question as I suppose it might affect the answer.

I couldn't find anything in Automator so I decided to explore a copy of the SQLite database stored in the Photos Library.photoslibrary bundle managed by Photos.

The instructions apply to macOS Catalina and may not work for earlier/later macOS versions.

⚠ Warning: Never edit this database as it is managed by Photos.app.

I used the DB Browser for SQLite app for the job.

First copy the database to a working directory (assuming ~/PhotosDBCopy/):

Open a Terminal and type:

$ mkdir ~/PhotosDBCopy/
$ cp -pr ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary/database/ ~/PhotosDBCopy/

Now launch the DB Browser for SQLite app and open the following database: ~/PhotosDBCopy/Photos.sqlite

The referenced images are listed in the ZFILESYSTEMBOOKMARK table. The original file paths are stored in the ZPATHRELATIVETOVOLUME column.

Close Photos.app.

Make sure you place the originals on your filesystem at the location given in the ZPATHRELATIVETOVOLUME column.

Once all photos have been placed in their initial folders (prior to moving them elsewhere), you can re-open Photos.app. The red line across the 'referenced' overlay icon will be gone for the referenced images, which means that Photos.app found the referenced originals on the filesystem.

You can now consolidate your Photos database. Upon completion, it is normally safe to delete again the recovered originals as they have now been copied into the Photos database (no more 'referenced" overlay icon on the photos).


Alternative way to change volume I have the volume + button broken, and if I click it, it may stuck itself and continuously increase the volume, so I avoid to use the + button. I tried the assistive touch, but it's incredibly annoying, sometimes I want to tap somewhere but I cannot because there is the icon in the middle, and I have to displace it all times.

I want an alternative way: is there a way to change the volume for example by changing it in options? I have iso 6, but also a solution for iso 7 is ok, I'll upgrade it.

In iOS 6:

Double-tap the home button.
Swipe left-to-right twice and a volume slider appears there.

In iOS 7 and iOS 8:

Drag up from the bottom of the screen until Control Center appears.
The volume slider appears under the media controls.