Deleting files on sparse bundle disk images doesn't actually free the space I used Disk Utility to create an empty encrypted sparsebundle on a FAT volume A. It contains an HFS volume B. I am running on Snow Leopard.

The DMG now pretty much fills A, and I'm fine with that. This is not about space on A.

When I delete files from B, the free space Finder shows for B does not change, and it refuses to copy new files onto B. Emptying the trash doesn't help. Ejecting doesn't help. But verifying (not repairing) B in Disk Utility does, even though no errors are found.

This is a bit of a chore. How do I get better behaviour?

Both sparse disk images and the newer sparse bundle disk images intentionality do not reap/reclaim space until they need to. This is especially so for a sparse bundle - which is designed to reduce the network transfers when the image is stored on a network share. It certainly speeds up normal read/write operations since the system can assume compact won't happen when the files are changing. When you check things in disk utility, it perhaps sees that space could be reclaimed and does that for you. You are correct, that in normal use, it ends up with you using more space than if you simply put things on the normal file system.

You could convert your storage to a normal sparse image to get more traditional freeing of space when you delete files stored within the disk image.

Certainly read the first two paragraphs of the man page for hdiutil.

You can of course kick off a manual compact operation with:

hdiutil compact /path/to/sparsebundle.dmg


Route the Audio Output to Input (not creating loop) Can we have whatever music we are playing whether from spotify, logic, itunes, instead of coming out of the main output, be a part of what goes in to the input on e.g. logic or skype.  This would allow people to listen to music together without going through speakers and mics, and to record to logic without having to upload a song file, e.g. the main output would be one track and the mic would be another, for a little two track action.  But on the skype side, you could turn the music vs. mic volume up or down to hear more of one vs the other.  It seems like this should be possible, but execution is way out of my league.  Anybody think it's doable?

Use either Audio Hijack, SoundFlower, or Loopback.


Downgrade after failed Catalina install? I am trying to upgrade an iMac to Catalina and the upgrade process keeps failing. macOS is not booting back into Mojave either.

I have already tried the following:

Disk utility first-aid
SMC reset
NVRAM reset

Is there a way to get back into Mojave or get the Catalina upgrade going again?

I couldn't find an answer to the issue. At the last stage of the installation process the installer informed that it couldn't remove the previous version of macOS and rebooted.

After that, macOS enter in an infinite loop of kernel panic upon every boot. Gave up, erased the disk and installed from USB.

Perhaps the solution under Un-Assigned Kernel Misfiring on this link could have solved my issue, but I only found it after reinstalling macOS from scratch.


MacOS Unable to use “(free space)” in BigSur I have used disk Utility to delete a volume and then used command line, diskutil to remove the container using,
diskutil removeContainer

Now when i type diskutil list all i see is (free space) which i cannot use anymore.
I've tried doing,
diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

But it says, Error: -69743: The new size must be different than the existing size
Please help me on how to use that free space, i want to extend my disk0s2 to full size, thanks in advance.
The output of diskutil list is,
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme             *500.3 GB   disk0
1:      EFI EFI                            209.7 MB   disk0s1
        (free space)                       201.5 GB   -
2:      Apple_APFS Container disk1         298.6 GB  disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      APFS Container Scheme -              +298.6 GB   disk1

Physical Store disk0s2
1:        APFS Volume Vaats - Data            221.0 GB   disk1s1
2:        APFS Volume Preboot                 284.7 MB   disk1s2
3:        APFS Volume Recovery                652.6 MB   disk1s3
4:        APFS Volume VM                      1.1 MB     disk1s4
5:        APFS Volume Vaats                   14.9 GB    disk1s5
6:        APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 14.9 GB    disk1s5s1

You can not add free space that resides above a APFS container. An alternative, outlined in this answer, will not work because the APFS container is to large to be cloned to the free space you wished to add. You would need to first reduce the size of the Vaats - Data volume before applying the answer.
You could try shrinking the current APFS container and to create a new temporary partition. Move files from the APFS volume Vaats - Data to a volume in this new temporary partition. The idea would be to reduce space occupied by data in the APFS container so the APFS container could be cloned to a new APFS container you would create in the (free space). After cloning, the original APFS container be removed and the new APFS container could be expanded to reclaim the space. Next, copy the files stored in the temporary partition to the cloned APFS volume Vaats - Data. Finally, remove the temporary partition and expand the new APFS container to reclaim the space.


How to enable/disable OS X beta participation from Terminal? Does anyone know how to enable/disable OS X beta participation from the Terminal?

Typically one could opt-out of the Beta program by choosing the following option found in the App Store preferences pane. However once you opt out, the option to opt-in disappears and one has to use a utility found online to opt in again. This is tedious for me. Since most settings in OS X are managed using defaults, I wonder if anyone has a set of commands to enable/disable this option in the preference pane?

If not then perhaps a process where I can discover the relevant defaults read/write statements to enable this feature?

Ultimately, I would like to simply be able to opt-in during certain periods and opt-out during other times.

If there is a simpler approach than using the Terminal, I am open to learning about that as well.

  Nota Bene - Please let me know in the comments if anything is unclear
  or if more information is necessary to improve this question.

System:
I am running Yosemite and El Capitan on different machines.

As mentioned by SeanCLT, you/your system needs to be enrolled in one of the programs and you need to have the right utilities installed The statement about the utilities is an assumption, I have not tried it without. After that you can use the softwareupdate command to enable and disable the beta/pre-release source.

You can disable it via:

  softwareupdate --clear-catalog

Enabling is a bit more tricky, because you need to choose your channel/source. The options are:

OS X Public Beta

  sudo softwareupdate --set-catalog
  https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.12beta-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz

OS X Developer Beta catalog

  sudo softwareupdate --set-catalog
  https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.12seed-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz

OS X Gold Master catalog

  sudo softwareupdate --set-catalog
  https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.gz


Is it the Mac or the Headphones that Have the Weak Signal? Recently bought just released Bang-Olufsen H8 headphones (wireless, BT 4.0, atpX A2DP). These paired perfectly with iPhone 5 and my MacBook Pro 15" early 2011, however, sound drops out on the MBP with little to no "provocation" of head turn; forget about range/direct line of sight distance--can't get more than 2' away without sound drop occurring. Avg raw RSSI is approx -72.  At first it was thought that b/c MBP was BT 2.1 and the phones were 4.0 they were incompatible. After I modified the MB appropriately with new Broadcom Airport/Bluetooth card to enable BT 4.0 connectivity and found no change at all in sound drops/range, I discovered through conversation with Bluetooth expert that BT is backwards compatible so he wasn't surprised at all with continued sound drops despite modification to MBP.  If the sound drops for more than a second or two, the audio somehow speeds up to sync with the place where the sound should be.

B&O's "stellar" customer service told me:  "I received feedback from Denmark, In principle a Bluetooth 4.0 enabled product with A2DP Bluetooth profile should be able to send music to the BeoPlay H8. Practical tests have shown a very differentiated market picture. Most newer computers with updated software and adequate hardware should be able to connect to BeoPlay H8, but we are not able to recommend or support this setup."  I'm sure I can get them to regret that statement, but I'm much more interested in getting the BT headphones to work with my MBP. In my research so far I've found that these phones behave similarly with both iOS devices as well as OS X.  There appears to be no rhyme or reason why this is. For me, I have no problem using them with my iPhone 5; not so for others around the globe.

Question is:  Is it the MBP antennae or is it the B&O H8 antenna?  Which begs the second question:  why is the performance so random--worldwide even--for wireless phones, these H8s in particular?

Thanks so much for your help.

I have a Macbook Pro 15" 2011 and an IPhone 6 plus.

These headphones worked perfectly with the iphone 6 but would stutter with the macbook which has an older bluetooth adapter.

I had a spare usb bluetooth 4.0 adapter lying around the house which I bought for very little money off amazon and with that connected the headphones work flawlessly again.

Some have said that its either the mac or headphones and it may be a combination of both but in my case it was the mac.

Hope that helps.


Can I run an SQLite operation from Terminal? When I download transactions in Quicken Essentials for Mac, my bank adds "DEBIT PURCHASE" and other junk to the Payee info.

Quicken has no ability to find and replace globally.

But I dug into the Quicken data file and it turns out all the transactions are stored in a SQLite file.

I was able to open this file with Liya and then run a query, e.g.,

UPDATE ZFIPAYEE SET ZNAME = replace(ZNAME,'DEBIT PURCHASE - ','');

which cleaned up my transactions.

Is there some way I can run this kind of query directly from Terminal without having to open up Liya and then opening the file?

Yes. You can use the /usr/bin/sqlite3 command line tool to modify the database. It ships, default, with OS X so you don't need to do anything other than open a Terminal window and then run:

cd path/to/quicken/storage/directory
sqlite3 <quicken database file>

SQLite version 3.7.13 2012-07-17 17:46:21
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite> UPDATE ZFIPAYEE SET ZNAME = replace(ZNAME,'DEBIT PURCHASE - ','');
sqlite> .quit

You can do it all from one command line like this if you like:

sqlite3 <quicken database file> 'UPDATE ZFIPAYEE SET ZNAME = replace(ZNAME,\'DEBIT PURCHASE - \',\'\');'

That will open, modify and close your database file and return the prompt.

For more information on using the SQLite command line too see: http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite.html


No Applications after Backup recovery I used to backup my data via Airport Time Capsule and configured my backup, so that no Applications are part of the backup. In case of a broken HDD etc. I would prefer to install only those applications I really need and not all the other legacy crap which comes with the time...

Now the time has come and I've got a "new" (late 2012) Macbook Pro. I powered it on and set it up just as usual. After the first boot I opened the Migration Assistent in order to recover my backup from the time capsule. Somehow nothing happened after entering the APT credentials for my Account, so I tried it with the CMD+R mode during the boot process.

This worked just fine. I entered my credentials and the recovery process began. After completion the MBP restarted and I had a normal desktop with all my files. My backup recovered.

Unfortunately now there is no "Applications" directory in my User dir. There are also no applications like "Safari.app" or even "System Preferences.app". When I try to change the Desktop Background (which I thought would open the System Preferences) nothing happens. All Dock-Items are represented by an "?" - except Finder which seems to be the only app which is still there.

I booted the system via CMD+S in order to search for those applications. find . -name "Safari.app" had no results. As a proof that find works I searched for a file I know that exists in my backup: find . -name "certain_file.jpg" and I had a correct result. I don't even have a terminal (except the CMD+S shell).

The MBP was shipped with OS X Yosemite and apparently the system recovered without any Applications.
Edit: it's Mavericks, not Yosemite.
-> there is still a Recovery HD.

What now? How can I get at least all my standard applications?

Not everything makes perfect sense, but I believe this set of instructions will help you along.

Review the entire articles below:

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18872 - for the erase and reinstall
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250 - for setting up backups once the restore is complete

Outline of the process:

make sure the backup is safe and doesn't get erased. Also, be sure to not back up to this volume until your new OS has all the data you need since a new backup could cause older backups to be erased.
boot to recovery mode and open disk utility
erase the hard drive on your Mac
install a clean copy of Yosemite
make a test account (user name test-admin or something that isn't the name you used on the backup Mac)
update all software on the Mac
then connect the backup and use the Migration Assistant to move users and data. (you could move apps here too if you have any backed up)
reboot and log in to your "old account" instead of the test-admin account
verify the apps and data are there
then, connect and make a back up of the fixed Mac
delete the test-admin account and remove the home folder
enjoy your success


Syncing iPhone 4 for the first time and it's restoring it from another backup My grandma wanted music on her iPhone 4, so I connected it to a PC. I chose the new iPhone option, but it looks like it is restoring it from my dad's phone. Is there any way to get it back to setting it up like a new phone?

You can restore the device by cancelling the restore of the backup, then selecting Restore iPhone in iTunes. This will reset it to the original state and allow you to set it up without the backup.


Extended an encrypted partition, why the disk space is unused? My primary partition is encrypted with FileVault2, and the other one is not. When I extend the primary partition, it succeed, but the space is actually not in use.

I have 250GB

But only 229 GB is used,

EDIT

 %> gpt -r show disk0

    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2         32         Pri GPT table
       34          6
       40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640  448053928      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
448463568   41509000      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
489972568     262151
490234719         32         Sec GPT table
490234751          1         Sec GPT header

%> diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 82137BFD-8113-495B-9400-51D7232F9AD7
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         229403611136 B (229.4 GB)
    Free Space:   0 B (0 B)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 01C5097D-2D17-4D71-AFAF-CD3D215F04A7
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     229403611136 B (229.4 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 7851B866-EF98-4DE7-A428-A5F2C1893D63
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Conversion Status:       Complete
        High Level Queries:      Fully Secure
        |                        Passphrase Required
        |                        Accepts New Users
        |                        Has Visible Users
        |                        Has Volume Key
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 0AC1C7E8-62B4-405E-9826-4B8C3D1B804A
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk1
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          229068066816 B (229.1 GB)
            Revertible:            Yes (unlock and decryption required)
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Immediately (no reboot!) backup your main volume with Time Machine to an external volume.

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode, erase your disk and restore the backup.

Your Recovery Partition (size: 41509000 blocks/21.25 GB, index 3) seems to be hosed but holds some invisible intermediate encryption/decryption keys for your encrypted  main volume. Usually this partition is much smaller (size: 1269536 blocks/650 MB) and has a different ending block. So the boundaries of the Recovery Partition may have been moved without moving the content of it. Consequently it's saver to backup and restore!

Unless you don't reboot this is no problem.


Split a large PDF into thirds on a Mac I have been looking for a way to take a 412 page PDF on my Mac and split it roughly into thirds.  The googling that I have done suggests that you copy individual pages onto your desktop, and then combine them all using Preview, but doing this with 136 pages seems like a terrible idea.

The alternate method I have seen is to "Print to PDF" but print selected page ranges.  This seems like a doable method, but many of the pages in the front of the PDF do not have page numbers, also, the "Save to PDF" in the print dialog does not have the option to select a page range on Sierra!

What am I missing?  How does one split a large PDF into chunks on a Mac?

in Preview show side thumbnails - select - shift select your range - cut or copy - file - new from clipboard -save - done


How can I change x11 window size programatically? How can I change the size of an x11 window with a script, be it AppleScript or otherwise. I have a process running using wine which is using XQuartz as the windowing system and I want to force the x11 window to a particular size.

You can install Homebrew and use it to install wmctrl using the following command:

  brew install wmctrl

Then run wmctrl like this:

wmctrl -l

It should give you a list of all the available windows on screen. Take the ID for the game window and run:

wmctrl -i -r windowid -e 0,0,0,1600,1200

where windowid should be replaced with the ID of that window.

Note: I don't think your mission is likely to succeed, as most programs that do not offer resize handles are not able to handle resizing their windows at all. You'll probably end up with the contents being the same size as always, and then just a white/black color for the rest of the enlarged window. But it is worth a try!


MacBook Pro 2017 keyboard and Parrot OS I'm currently studying and taking courses to be a penetration tester. I've downloaded parrot OS onto a USB drive and done all the necessary requirements to dual boot it onto the Mac.

Once I get it booted, I have the option to choose a username and password.  For some reason, my laptop keyboard doesn't register what I type.

Im using an external mouse because even the trackpad won't work on Parrot.  What should I do to fix this?

Parrot OS does not come with all the drivers necessary to run on a MacBook Pro 2017. You will have to use an external mouse and keyboard to manually install the drivers.

First some extra packages:

sudo apt install git kernel-devel dkms

Next we need to prepare for the modules to be included in the ramdisk (so they are loaded early during boot):

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/dracut.conf.d/keyboard.conf
# load all drivers needed for the keyboard+touchpad
add_drivers+="applespi intel_lpss_pci spi_pxa2xx_platform apple-ib-tb"
EOF

Now get and build the drivers:

git clone https://github.com/roadrunner2/macbook12-spi-driver.git
pushd macbook12-spi-driver
git checkout touchbar-driver-hid-driver
sudo ln -s `pwd` /usr/src/applespi-0.1
sudo dkms install applespi/0.1
popd

Next we need to set the proper dpi for the touchpad and adjust the sensitivity (download the 61-evdev-local.hwdb, 61-libinput-local.hwdb, and local-overrides.quirks from this gist - the 61-evdev-local.hwdb is only needed for udev < 242, the 61-libinput-local.hwdb is needed for libinput versions < 1.12, the local-overrides.quirks for libinput versions >= 1.12):

# if 'udevadm --version' less than 242:
sudo cp ...the-downloaded-61-evdev-local.hwdb... /etc/udev/hwdb.d/61-evdev-local.hwdb
# if 'libinput --version' less than 1.12:
sudo cp ...the-downloaded-61-libinput-local.hwdb... /etc/udev/hwdb.d/61-libinput-local.hwdb
# if 'libinput --version' 1.12 or later:
sudo cp ...the-downloaded-local-overrides.quirks... /etc/libinput/local-overrides.quirks
sudo systemd-hwdb update

You can test the drivers by loading them and their dependencies:

sudo modprobe intel_lpss_pci spi_pxa2xx_platform applespi apple-ib-tb

Finally, reboot to make sure it all works correctly:

sudo reboot

Link for reference and tutorials on installing other drivers (screen brightness control, camera, etc..)


Mail.app: open messages in tabs instead of windows? Is it possible to have Mail.app open and manage messages using tabs instead of windows? Google tells me a plug-in called MailTabs was created for this back in 2011, but it's now defunct, and I can't seem to find any other options. Thanks!

MailTabs previously would only install up to Lion.
I just confirmed MailTabs can now install on Yosemite, since it seems to be detecting 10.10.1 as 10.1. Messages that are opened as separate windows will fill the window as if taking up a tab. The Shift-Command-LeftSquareBracket and Shift-Command-RightSquareBracket keys work in that you can navigate between the messages and the normal app view, but there are no actual tabs present. The messages do not stay open between closing the app and re-opening the app. The full-screen view is very broken, and it even got stuck for me, leaving me only with the option to Force-Quit.

This plugin would be extremely useful if it was revived, as it can give you the tab functionality available in Thunderbird. The MailTabs page on the site has not worked for a while and now the parent website itself for http://simplicity.fm now seems to be down as well. My hope that this plugin will be available again is slowly dwindling because of this.


Prevent iPhone from trying to send text message after leaving airplane mode I accidentally sent a text and before it could fully send, I put my phone into airplane mode. The text is "stuck" and is neither sent NOR saying failed to deliver. What do I do? How do I not send it? If I block the person while still in airplane mode, will it send the text?

There's a hack that I've used to stop a message from being sent.  I presume it worked because I didn't get any blow back from the excoritating message I sent to the wrong person (sent to client, not to tech who went the extra mile to find ways to pad billable hours)

Enable Airplane Mode as quickly as you can
Settings →  Messages → Turn off "Send as SMS"
Return to your messages and delete the message (hold the message, select "more", then select the message and then "Delete All" at the top
Disable Airplane Mode

The key here is to enable Airplane Mode before your message hits the Apple servers.  Once it's there, it's out of your hands.  As for blocking the person, that's for incoming calls/texts, not outgoing.
Now, Apple is supposedly testing new iMessage features including retracting messages, but we'll have to wait and see.


How to tell if PCIe card is supported in my MacPro? I have a mid-2010 MacPro Tower. Bays are full, including 2nd optical drive slot.
I've seen PCIe cards that will hold 4 M.2 SSD blades, but the specs listed don't list MacOS as supported, although in some cases, a comment from a buyer says it works in a Mac.

Is there a way to tell if a given card will work? Item shows "Chipset: Marvell 88SE9230 support HyoperDuo" in case this makes a difference.

There is no comprehensive and easy place to check. Whatever pci card you place in will get power and send data to the rest of the system, but each OS has different drivers included.

The safest bet is for the card vendor to list or provide drivers or compatibility notices for you to know if it works natively without adding a driver on some or all versions of macOS / OS X.

That being said, storage is one of the safer bets since the API/interfaces there are stable for quite some time and PCI is not bleeding edge or likely to be something the vendor didn’t anticipate.

The next safe bet is to buy from a vendor that has clear sales and return policies or can support you before you buy. This usually means paying for that service (or them charging a slightly higher price across the board) since the vendors with the lowest price can just list things and not care if you get what you need since they have to pay someone to know and test things or at least follow up on returns and learn by trial and error what works and what gets returned.


How do I add an audio book to my iPhone? I tried to add a mp4 and m4a and mp3 file to iTunes while viewing Audiobooks tab but it would not add the file. How do I add an audio book to my iPhone?

iTunes Version 12.10.1.4

I think your issue is your file type, audiobooks are usually MP3 files. MP3 files can only be used for audio, whereas MP4 files can store audio, video, still images, subtitles, and text. In technical terms, MP3 is an “audio coding” format while MP4 is a “digital multimedia container” format.

After changing file format, try importing into iTunes again and syncing the files to your iPhone via USB.


Creating a Mac app bundle I'm trying to create a Mac app bundle,

So I did this,

mkdir -p android.app/Contents/MacOS/
cp /path/to/myscript.sh android.app/Contents/MacOS/android
chmod +x android.app/Contents/MacOS/android
SetFile -t APPL android.app/Contents/MacOS/android

But when I do open android.app, it prompts me The application cannot be opened because its executable is missing.

That's totally weird. Anyone know how to fix that?

Running Mac OS 10.11.4

App bundles must contain certain files as documented in Apple's Bundle Programming Guide

The required files are

Info.plist file - The information property list file is a structured file that contains configuration information for the application. The system relies on the presence of this file to identify relevant information about your application and any related files.
Executable

So you need an Info.plist


Port Forwarding an SSH Connection on macOS I have been trying to use SSH over the internet to connect to a few different computer on my network. Unfortunately, it only seems to work on the computer that is set to the forwarded port of 22 (ssh port). Here is what I have done:
Router:
Port forward 70 -> computer IP address
macOS Terminal:
ssh -L 22(ssh port) : my_external_ip : 70(forwarded port) username@my_external_ip

It connects and then asks me for the password for the account "username".
Even though I type in the correct password, it gives me "Permission denied (publicly, password)
I have been trying this all day and cannot figure it out. I can access my router non-locally and change the computer I am trying to access to forward to port 22, but I would really like a better solution.
I am not very familiar with bash commands (I think these are bash?) and am at a loss. Fortunately I have been able to connect to my storage server via SAMBA, but I would really like to be able to ssh into each computer independently.

Create multiple forwarding rules in the router, one for each machine behind it that you want to SSH into. Use different high ports as the input for each.


Looking for a way to set the MacBook screen dimming delay What I need is to extend the delay before the display dims. I will often read a page full of text and the screen will dim, and I have to touch the trackpad. It gets annoying when trying to take notes or do homework.

This is for a 13" 2008 MacBook Aluminum.

I am aware of the pmset halfdim switch. That switch corresponds to the automatically reduce the brightness of the display before sleep in the Energy Saver preferences pane. But it's not what I need. I do like the feature, but I'd just like to extend it 15-20 seconds.

Thanks.

I'm not aware of a way to set the dimming time directly. You could always just increase the Display Sleep time in the Energy Saver preferences and then manually put the display to sleep when you're walking away from the machine. That's done with the combination ctrl - shift - eject


Slow Internet on Lion, but only for some sites and some browsers I've upgraded to Lion today and since then I am facing a very strange problem.

Gmail, Facebook, discussions.apple.com do not load at all, and IF they loaded, I get only text with no CSS or images.
support.apple.com, Google, apple.stackexchange.com work fine and astonishingly fast, as usual
The sites which do not load, do not load in Chrome and Safari, but if I used wget I do get immediately the HTML of the page.

This may suggest (if anything at all) that the mechanism wget is using works fine but the mechanism Chrome and Safari are using is not fine. Does this make any sense to you ?

I've tried searching Google.com (since it loads fast enough), and I get to see the results only through Google cache (because accessing them directly won't work!), and what I found is that lots of people are having this speed problem (and other problems as well).

  However, apart from Apple, I am curios to to know why could wget access sites which Chrome and Safari can't ?

Edit: I confirm that Facebook works from Lynx (a terminal-based browser) but doesn't work on Chrome nor Safari.

Edit2: I can even load facebook quickly through a proxy, though I can't load it directly!

Edit3: apple.se loads on Chrome but doesn't load on Safari.

Try renaming /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration_Backup and restart your computer. I've had some really strange issues where the network .plists that are stored in SystemConfiguration have caused problems.

If it doesn't resolve the issue just delete the folder and set the SystemConfiguration_Backup back to its original name.

The folder houses config files for some system services, but when you restart it will create new copies of these files.


Will my other partitions be wiped when doing a clean install of Mavericks? Situation

I have two partitions: Mac OS X, and Windows Bootcamp. Will the Windows partition get caught in the wiping process when attempting a Mavericks clean install? I think people call it spring cleaning. The clean install is due to the program clutter I have (python, mysql, apache2, etc).

I'm using a Macbook Pro (Early 2011).

The windows partition wont be touched if your just re-installing on
  the Mac partition. unless you format the entire disk then you have a
  problem

*"More in depth explanation

Partition Map or Table  - is instructions written at the beginning of the drive that tell the hardware it's running from: what, how many, and where the partitions are on the drive. There is only one partition map on the drive. It can be MBR or GUID.

Partition  - is a space on the drive that appears as another volume, but still resides on the same piece of physical hardware.

Formatting - is how a entire drive or partition is structured to hold data, one drive can be partitioned into many separate partitions each with their own formatting. The Partition Map holds all the information of what is what.

Changing the partition map/table scheme will erase all data on the entire drive, it's like burning a treasure map, no directions anymore.

Changing the format of a single partition on a multi-partitioned drive only erases the data on the partition being formatted."*

SOURCE : https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3044


How to allow the user to choose from a pricing package yet be compatible with volume purchase and family sharing I want to allow the user to pick the subscription package that is most convenient for their situation similar to how SAAS do it, eg.:

I want it to have 3 tiers: Free, Standard, Pro

As I want to distribute it exclusively in the app store (to avoid setting up my own payment framework, backend, etc) I am limited on the payment options.

I was thinking of creating 2 in-app purchases (Standard & Pro) but that will mean that users will not be able to use family sharing or do volume purchase.

The only solution I can think of is to create 2 extra versions:

MyApp (free to download and with IAP available for upgrades)
MyApp Standard ($X to download, no IAP)
MyApp Pro ($Y to download, no IAP)

Besides the extra work of managing and maintaining 3 apps (despite any automation I might do), there's still the issue of cannibalization of ratings and downloads number that affect the ranking of the main app.

Is there another way to do this?

Apologies for the confusing title, not sure how to make it simpler.

Thank you

You are correct that there are challenges with subscriptions and I would set aside VPP for now and focus on the tiers. Too many options will confuse everyone and complicate your efforts to track.

The Omni group does excellent work here - they offer a free app with read only functionality and a free trial subscription and two tiers. You could emulate their Mac App Store model quite immediately for either full purchase (and then annually release a new version)

https://support.omnigroup.com/omni-store-or-mas/

I would then look at VPP - you can push your app to specific clients at pricing points you agree upon, or let them know you'll refund / rebate / discount them post purchase if it's too much work to negotiate one off SKU in the B2B / VPP store.

The benefit of this approach is you still get your free/basic/pro functions through IAP and can toggle the family share feature with one build and one review. You can even roll in a discount for IAP based on previous purchases - so everything I can see you need has already been done (and works for years already).


Can a factory unlocked iPhone 5 be used with Sprint? If I were to buy a brand new factory unlocked iPhone off eBay would I then be able to use that phone on sprint?

Sure, if the device is UNLOCKED it can be used with any carrier in the world.


How to get keychain to leave me alone? I've tried everything with keychain, and I can't get it to just leave me alone. It pops up and says it can't find a keychain to store something, giving me choices like "cancel" or "reset to defaults".

If I try "cancel", the same dialogue box pops up immediately. If I try "reset to defaults" it asks for my login password. I enter it, it tells me that it wants to use the "Local Items" keychain, asking for a password.

At this point I can enter a password (which it tells me is wrong) or click cancel which starts the loop over again.

Is there a way to get keychain to just leave me alone, always? Chrome does fine with my passwords, I don't think I need Apple to be involved in this at all.

This problem was with the "local items keychain". I found the following here and it worked for me:

Follow these steps to prevent prompts to unlock the Local Items keychain.

In Finder Select Go > Go to folder (⇧⌘G)
In the window that appears, type the following:
~/Library/Keychains/
Click OK.
Look for a folder with a name similar to this "A8F5E7B8-CEC1-4479-A7DF-F23CB076C8B8".
Note: Each folder has a unique number.
Move this folder to the Trash.
Immediately choose Apple Menu () > Restart… to restart your Mac.

After restarting the computer, a new folder is created in the Keychains folder with a name similar to "4B29A0BB-599D-47FC-A2D1-42B5592B130B". There is no need to repeat the steps in this article, or to delete this folder. The new folder is expected and corrects the symptom described in this article.


Change characters in press and hold popup? Seems changed in Yosemite? Does anyone know where the pressandhold.app file is in Yosemite? I used this answer (How to add characters to the press and hold character picker in OS X Lion?) to customize mine, but lost the customizations upon upgrade. Now the System/Library/Input Methods folder is empty.

Thanks!

Pressandhold.app should be in exactly the same place in Yosemite that it was in Mavericks.

I just checked on both my Macs that I upgraded to Yosemite.

/System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app exists exactly where it should.

And to try to confirm whether this is a holdover from Mavericks (since both my Macs were upgraded from Mavericks to Yosemite) I checked the Info.plist with the PressAndHold.app bundle. It lists "10.10" as the LSMinimumSystemVersion and "macosx10.10internal" as the DTSDKName both of which indicate Yosemite.

So please check that folder on your Mac again. I'd be very surprised if that folder was empty.


External Drive With Every Version of OS X/macOS Is it possible to install every version of OS X / macOS to a bootable thumb drive/external hard drive so you can boot off of it?

edit: so I'm ignoring PowerPC stuff because it is rather old now.  Also my main question wonders if the max number of partitions could be an issue.

No. Newer os want GUID partition scheme. Others want apple partition map.

You can surely put all the images on one drive, just the bootable aspect is problematic.


Downgrading from 4.2.1 to 3.1.3 I have an iPhone 3g and I'm trying to downgrade it from 4.2.1 to 3.1.3.

I downgraded it successfully and use redsn0w to boot it.  It is factory unlocked by itunes, but it seems like it's not getting any signal though.  Is it because that I have a baseband of 06.15.00?  But how do I downgrade it if that's the issue?

Thanks guys!

I used Cydia to fix the no signal issue with my phone but i dont know if its possible without jailbreaking the phone.


Migration Assistant fails on Ethernet Mavericks-to-Mavericks migration I have the following setup and am attempting the use Migration Assistant over Ethernet:

Source machine: Early 2009 24-inch iMac running OS X 10.9
Destination
machine: Latest MacBook Pro Retina running OS X 10.9
Connection: direct Ethernet cable between machines

When I use Migration assistant following Apple's documentation I pass through the confirmation code step on both machines, and then get as far as the "Checking Source Machine" screen on the destination, and am stuck there for about 10 minutes, at which point the destination machine jumps back to the language selection setup page, and the source machine says "This machine is attempting to reconnect to your other Mac".

At this point I'm at a dead end: Attempting to proceed through the setup again on the destination gets me nowhere, and the only option on the source machine is "Cancel Transfer", which quits Migration Assistant there and ends the whole process.

On the source machine I've turned off LittleSnitch, which I normally have running, turned off Apple's firewall, and enabled file sharing.

What am I missing? Are there other settings somewhere that I need to check? I've also tried using FireWire to connect my machines, but have a different set of issues there.

I have the same setup except my iMac sports Thunderbolt. I had the same problem and never solved it, but I did find the following work-around helpful:

Place the iMac in Target Mode by going to Apple|System Preferences|Startup Disk, make sure your startup disk is highlighted, select Target Disk Mode and confirm. Connect the computers by Firewire or Thunderbolt (TDM does not support Ethernet). Start Migration Assistant on the MacBook Pro, allow it to change your system, and select the iMac's startup disk.

From there it is easy sailing - choose what you want and how to handle the user accounts and you are home and dry! Don't forget to eject all connected iMac drives before unplugging the cables.


What is the easiest way to run SW that requires Classis Mac OS 9? I see a few games that only run on Mac OS 9 and I'd like to try them.
However, I run macOS 10.12.2. What could be the easiest way to do it?

Specifically, I'd like to play Bonkheads ;-)

I have my Macbook Pro Retina available

I agree with @TomShen - SheepSaver is a good option.

Just keep in mind that it only works with Mac OS 9 up to 9.0.4 (so don't fall into the trap of trying to use Mac OS 9.2 - the most popular version of that release).

Also, if you're wanting to find a secondhand Mac that can run Mac OS 9, you also have the option of Macs that could run what was called the Classic Environment. This was a compatibility layer for running older Mac applications and was included with PowerPC versions of Mac OS X up to and including Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. In other words, if you want a dedicated Mac you're not necessarily limited to much older ones that could run Mac OS 9, but also have the option using the last models of the following series:

Power Mac G5
Mac mini G4
iMac G5
eMac
iBook
PowerBook G4

NOTE: These systems cannot run MacOS 9/Classic applications if running MacOS X Leopard or above!


Why do httpd and mysqld processes not show up in Activity Monitor? I'm running Mountain Lions built in Apache2 server. I have started the server and I can see the web pages but I can't see any httpd process in the Activity Monitor. Same goes for MySQL. I can't see mysqld process in it either.

I used MAMP before and those processes where shown in the Activity Monitor.

I can run the following command in terminal to list all processes in a text file. httpd and mysqld processes are showing up there.

ps -A > process.txt

Why the Activity Monitor is not showing these processes?

In Activity Monitor there is a dropdown menu in the top of the window. My Processes was selected. Changing it to All Processes solved the issue.


Where are my server credentials stored? I have a TrueNAS server with two afp shares and an smb share on it.  In the keychain of my mac system I can see the saved credentials for one of the afp shares, and for the smb share.  But I can't see any saved credentials for the second afp share.
However from Finder when I do a "Go => Connect to Server" and enter the details of the second afp share, my mac connects to this share without asking me for that share's credentials.  But this share does have credentials on the server side so I believe that the credentials for it are being cached somewhere on my mac.
So if the credentials are not being cached in my keychain, where else could they be cached?
The reason I ask is that I believe that the cached credentials for this second afp share are wrong and I want to try and reset them.
Edit
I just changed the password on the server side and now I cannot connect to that second afp share.  OS X reports "There was a problem connecting to the server", but doesn't prompt me for any new credentials.  This says to me that the credentials are being cached somewhere.

Things are way weirder than I thought!  The way that I access my three shares is:

afp://192.168.1.100/Share1
afp://192.168.1.100/Share2
smb://192.168.1.100/share3

With all the entries deleted from the keychain and I do a "Connect to server", I am prompted for the server side credentials.  If I enter them and do not check "Remember this password in my keychain", then all is well and I can correctly log into any of the shares.
The issue seems to be when I do check "Remember this password in my keychain".  From experimenting, the keychain only remembers the credentials per IP address and per protocol.  So that there was always only ever 2 different entries in my keychain: one for afp://192.168.1.100 and one for smb://192.168.1.100 and that the keychain would ignore the share name itself for a single protocol/IP pair when retrieving the server credentials.
So the sequence of events seems to be:

(no credentials in keychain)
Access afp Share1
Prompted for credentials for Share1
Check "Remember.." and the correct credentials are saved for share1 in my keychain.
Access afp Share2
The keychain gets excited and says "Hey I've got credentials for that IP address and that protocol - here they are!!!!!" and totally ignores the share name itself.
Somehow the system then connects to afp Share2, but with the wrong password.
With the wrong credentials applied, I end up with a read only access to the share.

I only noticed this because previously I hadn't saved the password for either of the afp shares.  Over the weekend I updated the server and as a part of checking that I could access the shares I finally checked the "remember .. " check box.  But I didn't get an error or notice that the second share was read only until today when I was trying to use the system.
I did check the smb share and this was connecting as read/write.
Note that I tried to fix things in my Keychain by renaming the afp share entry in order to disambiguate the two afp shares.  However this didn't solve anything.  It seems the keychain only cares about protocol/IP pairs


External drive for Time Machine cannot be mounted, formatted or repaired I just upgraded my MacBook Air to 11.1.
I used to run regular backups on a WD 1TB disk using Time Machine. But for a couple of days, the backup has not completed, issuing a "cannot find disk" error. It just managed to complete a backup two days ago after the upgrade to 11.1.
I have erased the disk through Disk Utility, but I encounter the following errors when trying to further format or mount it. The disk's name is disk2s2.
Mounting on Disk Utility
Could not mount “disk2s2”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868.)

diskutil eraseVolume ExFAT MyName disk2s2
The target disk is in use by APFS as a Physical Store; use diskutil apfs deleteContainer

sudo diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ backupMac /dev/disk2s2
A volume was specified instead of a whole disk: /dev/disk2s2
Specify a whole disk, or instead use diskutil eraseVolume to erase a volume on a specific partition

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.8 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.8 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintoch HD - Data     142.2 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 293.3 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                613.6 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      5.4 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume Macintoch HD            22.7 GB    disk1s5
   6:              APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 22.7 GB    disk1s5s1

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS                         999.8 GB   disk2s2

sudo diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk2s2
Started file system repair on disk2s2
Error: -69564: Unable to find an APFS Container Reference

sudo diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s2
Password:
Started file system verification on disk2s2
Error: -69564: Unable to find an APFS Container Reference

I feel out of ideas.

This solution eventually worked for me,
I erased again the disk through Disk Utility, but giving it a different name.
I also erased the disk in the Time Machine preferences, and then assigned the "new disk". It could then be found and a backup is currently on-going.


How to download legally OSX if you don't have formatted Mac I've seen lot of guides how to install Yosemite etc which are "free to download" that start with "download OSX from Apple Store".

That is nice, but works only if you already have a working Mac that supports that target OS you want to get, otherwise you can't download them. In case you have a formatted Mac, some older model (I have mac mini from 2008), where online recover doesn't work - how would you download it?

There are torrents that contain .dmg file, but I don't think that is OK to use.

You can download any Apple software directly from the Developer portal: https://developer.apple.com/downloads/index.action

Not sure if the site is accessible to non-developers.


Application to Brainstorm in Corkboard mode I'm looking for an application similar to a mind mapping piece of software but that lets me view the notes as cards on a corkboard, being able to connect between them. The feature is shown here on Scrivener but I don't want to be using Scrivener for everything since not all of these things are writing projects. Any suggestions?

I've not used it properly, but there's a free piece of software called MindNode on the Mac App store. It doesn't have the corkboard & card graphics that Scrivener does, but, if I understand you correctly, I think it has the required functionality.


Hard drive boots over USB but not when install internally I am trying to upgrade from a 500GB HD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314) to a 1TB HD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152291). The only spec difference (other than capacity) as far as I can tell between the two is that the 1TB HD is SATA 3 (6Gb/s) while the 500GB HD is SATA 2 (3Gb/s).

I installed OSX Lion to the 1TB drive while it was connected to my laptop via a USB to SATA cable. I can then boot from that drive while it is connected via the USB. However, if I install it in the HD bay in the laptop (13" Pro, late 2011) then the screen shows a blinking folder icon with a question mark on it.

Booting a GParted Live USB while the drive is internally mounted (i.e. hooked up directly to the motherboard) shows it as being marked "unallocated" as if there were no partition. However, if I boot into the GParted Live USB while it is hooked up via USB it recognizes the partitions (though it does flag them, saying it can't read them). The 500GB drive shows up whether mounted internally or via USB without any flags.

The common suggested fix is that the internal SATA cable is faulty. However, I am not experiencing any problems with booting from my current HD, so I think that is not the problem. The new HD also seems in good working condition since it boots from USB just fine. My suspicion is that the backwards compatibility from SATA 3 to SATA 2 is not working as it should, but I'm not sure how to force it to work.

Make sure your Mac is off (not just standby) and turn your Mac on like you always do, but hold the Option key at startup until you hear the boot chime. You'll see a bunch of images of HDs in a row, use the arrow keys to select the drive you wish to boot from and then press Enter. Your Mac should now startup using the selected drive this time, but to make it the default drive, go into System Preferences->Startup Disk and then select your drive again. Click Restart to restart your Mac and save the changes.


Finder does not update I have an issue in a folder were some files, that was recently put there by an installer, does not show in Finder. Files are not hidden (ls -Ol), they show in Terminal, and has the same file permissions as other files in the same folder.
The only difference between the files are that they were recently put there by a .pkg installer.

To refresh the state of files in the folder, I need to use the search-function in Finder. After being searched for, the files become visible.

I looked through AD to check if there were others that has the same issue, but the only question I found was this -  Finder does not show files in folders and this What would cause normal files to be hidden from the Finder but not the terminal? - and the answers there did not solve my issue.

Did anyone see the same problem as I did and know how to solve it permanently without needing to use the search-function?

I use Yosemite 10.10.5.

I've heard of this happening before, but can't put my hands on a link right now.

Try this applescript, save it as an App
It refreshes the contents of all open Finder windows by switching them to another view then back again.

tell application "Finder"
    set theWindows to every window
    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in theWindows
        set this_item to item i of theWindows
        set theView to current view of this_item
        if theView is list view then
            set current view of this_item to icon view
        else
            set current view of this_item to list view
        end if
        set current view of this_item to theView
    end repeat
end tell


Cannot sync ringtone I have iTunes 11, I'm trying to sync a ringtone to my iPhone, but the ringtone is not added to my ringtones folder (settings->sounds->ringtone) in iOS. The file has a m4r format, and it's currently shown in the "tones" tab in Itunes:

I tried to sync my iPhone many times, and also selected the "tones" option in iTunes preferences under the "general" tab. But I still can't find my song to my ringtones folder !

Try to

move the ringtones from iTunes to the Desktop (or any other "safe" place)
delete them from iTunes and sync
copy them back into iTunes and sync again

It worked for me this way.


WhatsApp chat history transfer different Apple ID I lost my WhatsApp chat history from my phone, but discovered that it was backed up on another device. Both iPhones have different Apple IDs for iCloud, so I am unable to just restore it in-app.

Is there a way to move all of the chat history without changing the Apple IDs on both phones to be the same? How would I go about this?

Nope, the easiest and only way to transfer WhatsApp data from one iPhone to another is if you have the same Apple ID's.


iLife doesn't appear in "Purchased" after installing ML on a registered MacBook Pro I bought an open-item, unregistered MacBook Pro from Best Buy and they told me that they had installed Mountain Lion just like a clean setup. But the iLife bundle doesn't appear in the laptop or in the App Store (the "Purchased" section is empty). Does anyone know if I need to buy it?

I just went through this same problem. Originally I called Apple and they said that iLife was linked to someone else's account so I could not download it. Upon further research I found the above mentioned method.

1) In Finder, click on the Go menu.

2) Click Go to Folder.

3) Enter ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore/

4) Drag adoption.plist to the Trash.

5) Restart and see if they appear in purchased items.

I actually chatted with apple first and had them reset the account.  They did this, and I should have been able to get the purchases within 24 hours using this method.

It did not work, I chatted with Apple again (chat session). They took me through the above step, with still no result. After not being able to access it, Apple gave me a redemption code through the app store. All in all it was not too big of a problem and I now have all of the factory standards.


Can you use Apple Care+ without any checks (bringing just MacBook)? My MacBook Pro 15-inch 2017 is purchased in USA by a friend of mine.

I think there is hardware issue because sometimes screen becomes black and I have to restart it.

I have checked coverage by serial number at checkcoverage.apple.com and it says MacBook is covered by Apple Care Plus.

I don't have any papers like a check but I have original box.

I am going to USA soon. So my question is: Can I have a service from Apple by bringing them only MacBook without any papers?

Yes, they confirm AppleCare status in their system, and you don’t need to provide anything else.

At least, that has been my experience.


Hot to make the fn key work like Ctrl EXCEPT when using f keys (f1, f2, f3, f4) After looking it up I discover I can permanently change the behavior of the fn key - How do you make the fn keyboard button work like a Ctrl button?

But I’d like this to be a conditional change. Specifically, I want the fn key on my macbook keyboard to behave exactly like control except for the fn keys that appear in the touchbar, I want it to still show the fn keys (f1, f2, f3, etc)

Is this possible on macOS?

Consider this tool, perhaps it can solve your problem

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/


Jailbreak a iPhone 3gs running 4.2.1 preserving BaseBand? Is there a untethered way to jailbreak an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.2.1?

The phone has never been jailbroken before.

I need to be able to reverse it, so I am hoping that there is a way to do this without upping the baseband.

It looks like you are lucky. First of all you should get a utility called TinyUmbrella (http://thefirmwareumbrella.blogspot.com) and save your SHSHs which will allow you to install older firmware on the device, in case you manage to save them before Apple stops signing the SHSHs. Next, see http://jailbrea.kr to tell wether you can jailbreak or not. Lastly, find an apropriate guide to jailbreaking your device via http://iclarified.com


Can't start Time Machine backups on Catalina Running OS X Catalina, I am unable to initiate backups of any sort from Time Machine. The target disk is an external drive with plenty of space (multiples of the space on the internal drive I'm trying to back up). Here's the UI error I get:

Digging in under the hood, I find console errors from backupd that look consistently like this:

Failed to create APFS snapshot with name
  'com.apple.TimeMachine.2019-11-17-174139.local' on volume
  '/System/Volumes/Data',
  error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=28 "No space left on device"

However, there is space on this drive:

In case the cause was a file system error, I rebooted via Internet recovery and ran:

fsck_apfs /dev/disk1

and found no errors.

I tried to re-enable local snapshots, but it appears that command is no longer available in Catalina:

Any idea how to get Time Machine backups running again?

note: This question seems similar to this question, which also does not appear to have a satisfactory answer.

As @Tetsujin suggested, the problem was indeed lack of space on the startup drive that I was trying to back up.

With 30Gb free, Time Machine was able to initiate a backup and stopped returning errors. (That is not likely the minimum limit; I just found something large and deleted it.)


How to set it up to switch between tabs using TAB key on Macbook? On the image below this is what I want to do. I want to be able to switch tab options with TAB key.

save dialog specific shortcuts:

To save, simply press return

To cancel, hit esc or cmd+.

If you do not want so save, hit cmd+D or cmd+backpace

using tab:

If you want to use the tab key, you should enable keyboard access by hitting ctrl+F7 Note: Depending on your setup, you might need to additionally press fn to use the function keys.

Once you've enabled keyboard access, you should see an additional blue glow around the currently selected button. You can then cycle with tab (holding shift to go backwards) and select your option by pressing space.


Set availabily of application in App Store using an API Is it possible to make an uploaded iOS application unavailable to download using an API just like Play Store ?

Unfortunately no, Apple does not offer an API similar to the Google Play EMM API.

However, you might be able to use web-scraping to obtain a similar effect, if you really need this functionality. It's not going to be as neat as the Google API, as you would probably need to change your scraping program whenever Apple changes their layouts and functionality.


pwSafe on the Mac now giving error when trying to use iCloud based safe (version 4.8) Since version 4.8 of pwSafe was updated on the 8th (Mac OSx El Capitan), whenever I try to use one of my existing safes stored in iCloud, I get the following error:

The document "(null)" could not be opened.

I can easily open any of the safes stored in iCloud on my iPhone or Windows (yes, completely different apps/OS's, but mentioned as its obviously not the safes themselves).

So far I've tried uninstalling (both with and without app cleaner's assistance) and reinstalling, but with no success.

Anybody else had this problem and know of a solution, other than to wait for App77 to update their application?

In case anybody else was wondering - it ended up being that I had the safe in question open in a different user session, which created a lock on the safe file causing the weird error message in the user session I was currently in.

A safe can only be opened in one user session by the looks of it. Problem as such solved.


No password required after Power Nap I have enabled the setting Require password 1 minute after sleep or screen saver begins. However, I sometimes noticed that my password is not asked after I open my laptop in the morning. This seems to coincide with Power Nap runs: if you open the laptop during that period, or probably in the minute after it goes back to sleep (checked using the Console: RTC: Maintenance), the password is not asked.

Is this a bug/feature, or is there another setting I'm missing? Can others confirm this? (There is a simple test to find out when your computer is in Power Nap.)

I tried asking a similar question on the Apple discussion forum but wasn't allowed. It seems to be a bug. If you log out and log in the settings work as they should, at least they did in my case.
I could put my MBP (2010, running Yosemite) to sleep via the menu, close the lid or simply let it go to screen saver and then sleep, let it stand over night and still not be asked for my password, so I don't think its only a Power Nap issue.


How do I read this Activity Monitor report? I was trying to figure out why my Mountain Lion server was running slow, and I when I opened Activity Monitor this is what I saw:

Question 1: how am I getting >400% of CPU on the summed CPU column, when I only have 4 cores available?

Question 2: given that I have all this CPU activity, how am I getting these usage reports in the lower-left corner, esp. the 38% idle one?

Check this out for a previous post. But, adding a bit to that answer...

First - while you have 4 physical cores, you have hyperthreading active, which allows each core to serve as 2 virtual cores. This will give you a theoretical maximum CPU usage of 100% x 8, or 800%.

Second - the % reported in the activity monitor is showing total CPU% (so it won't exceed 100%). Looking at the CPU numbers in your table, you're using a bit more than 485% out of the maximum of 800%. 485/800 is about 60%, which is your total usage reflected here...


The trackpad click is unresponsive after screen unlock on MacOS Catalina on MacBook Pro 2018 I upgraded my MacOS from High Sierra to Catalina and now I find that after screen unlock, the trackpad click becomes unresponsive. I have to go to desktop (dragging three fingers up) and select a window (of any app) to make the trackpad click responsive again. I didn't have this issue on MacOS High Sierra. Please help in resolving this.

ajay.

Do you already have the latest version (10.15.4)? If not, try to update, if yes, try the following:

1) Reset your Mac's NVRAM or PRAM.

2) If you continuing experiences issues, try to reset the SMC of your Mac.

I hope that works.


MacBook Pro 2009 OS X install problems Just bought a MacBook Pro from a friend but he told me the HD drive was corrupted and the battery is messed up so I replaced the HD drive with a Samsung 1 TB SSD, new 8 GB RAM and a new battery but I'm having problems installing OS X.

I made a bootable USB drive with OS X 10.11 but when I try to install the OS it says:

  there is not enough free space on os x base system to install

I've tried restoring from the internet with Opt+Cmd+r but it takes me nowhere and it shows me a grey folder with and ? mark. For some reason it won't let me access the disk utilities.

EDIT: it's basically this image pops up

Coincidentally I had this exact problem on the same type of macbook yesterday.
As Tetsujin correctly states the mac is too old for internet recovery, and since the drive is probably empty, there is no recovery partition aswell
If you have the original grey install discs that came with the mac, you can boot from those by holding the "c" key during startup.
If you don't have them, you'll need an other mac and an external hdd case.
You can than connect the ssd via usb to the working mac, and then use internet recovery on that mac to install osx on the usb connected ssd.
Sources: did it myself yesterday


Text substitution and change cell background colour. Numbers & AppleScript I am working with Numbers spreadsheet files whose final output must be in German. The source of the data is the Apple Configurator app (via Automator), which produces everything in English despite the German regional settings applied to the user account... that's just a tiny bit of background.

I have found some AppleScript to help with this already.

tell application "Numbers"
    tell front document's active sheet
        tell (first table whose selection range's class is range)
            repeat with c in column "B"'s cells
                tell c to if its value contains "TRUE" then ¬
                    set its value to my SUBSTITUTE(its value, "TRUE", "RICHTIG")
            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

to SUBSTITUTE(str, f, r)
     set text item delimiters to f
     set temp to str's text items
     set text item delimiters to r
     return temp as string
end SUBSTITUTE

This can be easily reapplied to deal with other words in the column that I am interested in.

Can somebody though help me with modifying this so that it can also change the background colour of the cell? So for example, if "TRUE" is in a given cell (in a particular column) it will get changed to "RICHTIG" and the background will then change to light green?

Likewise for "FALSE" to be changed to "FALSCH" and a light-red background colour.

I"ve tried already with "set its background colour to "green" for example, on a new line right after set its value to my SUBSTITUTE(its value, "TRUE", "RICHTIG") but it throws the error "A identifier can’t go after this identifier"

I shoudl also stress that the all the columns have their "data type" already set to "text"

Thanks.

WL

I offer this with the disclaimer that I am unable to test this, as I do not use Numbers. However, with the help of this page, I am proposing this code as an example of what might help you achieve your objective:

        repeat with c in cells of column "B"
            if value of c contains "TRUE" then
                set value of c to my SUBSTITUTE(value of c, "TRUE", "RICHTIG")
                set background color of c to {0,65535,0}
            else if value of c contains "FALSE" then
                set value of c to my SUBSTITUTE(value of c, "FALSE", "FALSCH")
                set background color of c to {65535,0,0}
            end if
        end repeat


macOS Inconsistent Printing macOS 10.13.4
Printer: Samsung ML-2510

After I print one document, if I try to print another document within the next few minutes my printer does not print. On the Mac, the document briefly goes into the queue before being sent to the printer. Neither the Mac nor the printer report any errors, the document simply does not print. On the Mac, everything appears identical to when a document successfully prints (i.e. the queue is not paused, the status shows as available and the document queue clears once the printer is sent the document). The issue resolves itself if I wait a little while (~5-10 minutes) before printing the next document or by unplugging the USB cable from the Mac and plugging it back in. After that, I can again print one more document before the issue repeats itself.

This issue is not present when this same printer is connected to either Windows XP or Windows 7, but exists on the two different Macbook Pros (13-inch, one is 2012 and the other is 2014) both running the latest version of macOS. It was also present under OS X Yosemite. Therefore I believe the issue is Mac specific and not a fault of the printer. There is no driver from Apple for this printer so I downloaded the Mac driver directly from Samsung for this specific model number.

Any suggestions? I've had no luck Googling the issue, although it's a difficult issue to try to search.

As far as I can tell there is no macOS driver available for this printer, so it's unclear from your question what driver you're actually using.

However, the first thing to try is to totally reset the printing system on your Mac and then to use the driver for the Samsung ML-2240 printer instead.

Before commencing, download and install the version 2.6 Samsung drivers directly from Apple.

Then follow this process:

Go to Apple > System Preferences
Click on the Printers & Scanners preference pane
Right-click on the list of printers on the left-hand side and select Reset printing system...
At the next prompt, click on the Reset button
Now go through the process of adding your printer - feel free to choose “Samsung ML-2510 Series” but then use the following steps to add the Samsung ML-2240 printer driver

Click on the “Choose a Driver” dropdown list and choose the Select Software option
Go through the list to select the ML-2240 option

Complete your setup and test to see if this rectifies the problem

Hopefully this will solve the issue for you. However, if it doesn't, you can also repeat the first four steps above and then try setting up the printer using the CUPS option.


How can I see which macOS version is installed on an external disk, without booting into it? Is there a file somewhere in the System folder or in the Library that shows me which OS is installed on the disk?

You can read the SystemVersion.plist on that particular volume-
/Volumes/<volume_name>/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist


Do I need to re-index my Volume? I recently installed a brand new HD in my macbook pro.

I did this by cloning the original drive.

Everything (almost) is working fine, but I did give the Volume a different name, it used to be Macintosh HD and now it's Hybrid HD (not sure if this matters).

Ever since using the new drive (two weeks now) spolight doesn't seem to be working properly. It just doesn't find things that are there. Although something's indexed because it does return results (usually mail.app stuff).

Anyone know the reason for this, or how I can fix it?

cheers

Open terminal and type:

sudo mdutil -E /

You will be asked for your password, provide it, as this command
requires administrator privileges to run.
After confirming your Spotlight index will be re-built and your files
should appear in the search. ( Depending on the size of your HDD it
can take a while )

To turn Spotlight on/off use:

sudo mdutil -i on /
sudo mdutil -i off /

To fine tune your Spotlight settings open System Preferences > Spotlight

Exclude certain folders from getting indexed:


Dual screens with different resolutions I have my MBP connected to another screen with a smaller resolution. Thus when I want to move a window on the other screen, I have to resize it first to that it fits, then I can make it full screen again.

Is there a more convenient way to do that ?

I recommend that you use a window manager. I use Divvy ($14), which lets me press a one keyboard shortcut to move a window to the other monitor and resize it to full-screen.


How do I exit/cancel Mac recovery mode password page? I had some problems with my work MacBook Air that runs MacOS 10.14.6. I read that it is easy to fix this problem in recovery mode, so I tried to get into recovery mode for the first time.
I restarted my computer, and held down command+R. Now I see that it's asking for a password that I don't have.
I'd like to cancel and go into the normal log in screen. How do I do that? Is it safe to hold down the power button in this state? The only things visible on the screen are a lock icon, password bar, an enter button, and the mouse cursor.
This is a related question: Forgotten recovery mode password. I think that one is focused on getting in to recovery mode without the password, and it doesn't have an accepted answer.

My IT department confirmed what I hoped was true. You can just hold down the power button to restart. Everything's been working fine for days.


FAT or exFAT or NTFS I recently brought Western Digital's Passport Essential, and will be using with my MacBook (running Snow Leopard), MacBook Air (running Lion) and Windows 7 Desktop. I should be able to read-write data using each machine/OS.

Moreover, I need to store and move files larger than 4GB.

So, what should be preferred file-system type: FAT, exFAT or NTFS? Will my portable drive support exFAT?

FAT
Fat is definitely off the table since it only supports files up to 4GB. So you won't be able to transfer files over 4GB like you stated in your question.
exFAT
exFAT won't have this limit since it's capable of supporting files up to 16 exabytes (16.000.000 terabytes). It's an excellent format for your flash drives and/or external (not internal!) hard drives.
NFTS
NFTS is an alternative, but your Mac (starting from 10.3) can only read it. It won't be able to write data on the drive, unless you use some extra software and hacks,
but some users have reported some instability and performance issues using NFTS on a Mac.
Windows/Mac
Windows 7 will read and write FAT, exFAT and NFTS without any problem. (It can even ReadyBoost from an exFat flash drive). Starting from Mac OS X 10.6.5, the OS supports reading from and writing to exFAT formatted drives.
Conslusion
I would go for the exFAT. It's fast, supports huge datafiles and both your Windows 7 and your Mac will be able to read/write to it.


Use old iPhone to send iMessages I want to use my old iPhone for iMessage but I am running into an issue setting up iMessage as it seems to be waiting for phone activation which wont happen because I have a new android phone.

How can I set up my iPhone to only send iMessages from my Apple ID?  Right now my old number is grayed out with a loading wheel to the left.

Assuming you still have a current Apple ID, you would set up your old iPhone to send/receive messages on your Apple ID email address, rather than your mobile number.

First you need to ensure you're logged into iCloud on your old iPhone.
Go to Settings > iCloud to do this.
Second you need to set what 'addresses' you want to have your iPhone send/receive iMessages with. Go to Settings > Messages and tap on the Send & Receive option. You will see two sets of addresses, one you can be reached at and one you start conversations from. You will need to ensure that the Apple ID you use for iCloud is added and ticked.

NOTE: Your old iPhone can only send/receive iMessages while connected to the internet. Also, it will only work with the email address (people won't be able to send an iMessage to your mobile number as it's now on an Android device).

Should you run into any problems, post back using the comments function below.


How can I ping a given host behind an Airport Extreme Base Station I have an Airport Extreme Base Station (7.6.1) which has a public ip address on the WAN side. I have many hosts on the LAN side. I would like to configure the AEBS such that pings sent from the Internet are returned by a specific host (or not if the host is down). I have a static ip set up on the LAN side (192.168.15.2), but since icmp ping does not use a specific port (tcp or udp) I do not know how to configure port mappings. Can anyone please direct me?

Put another way, when I ping public ip, say 64.99.80.29, I want the AEBS to pass the ping through to a given host on my LAN. Is there a way to do this?

You can make this host the default host in your AEBS settings, also known as the DMZ host.

Note however that everything that isn't mapped otherwise will be routed to that host, effectively making that host public from the internet. This might make this host more vulnerable for break-in attempts, be sure to lock all services down properly, and consider putting on a firewall.

Depending on your version of the Airport Utility client, you'll find the setting here:

AirPort Utility 6:

AirPort Utility 5.6:

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this approach because of the security risks on the one hand, on the other hand it doesn't look like a very reliable approach. If the host doesn't respond to pings there's no reason the host can't still be up, and if it does respond, are you sure it is the host responding, and not for example the router after a config reset?

I'd consider polling a dedicated service like httpd which you run on the host and you forward properly from the AEBS. You could run it on a non-standard port as well. With some scripting you could also return a whole lot more detailed information about the availability of the host and it's services.

Edit:

Since you mentioned the host in question is an ATM, I'd be even less inclined to make it the DMZ host. Consider polling it from another host on the local network and notifying you from there.


Connect two monitors using DVI and/or VGA to USB-C I have a new MacBook Pro 15'' and want to connect two older 1080p monitors. Each monitor has a VGA and a DVI port. Is it possible to connect both to a single USB-C port of the MacBook? If so, how do people do this?

It is possible to connect a VGA and a DVI display to one USB-C port on the MacBook, but you need two USB-C adapters in a daisy-chain fashion and a HDMI-DVI adapter.

First you connect the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (part number MJ1K2AM) to the MacBook USB-C port, then you connect the USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter (part number MJ1L2AM) to the USB-C port on the Digital AV adapter.

To get the DVI you also need to connect an Apple HDMI to DVI Adapter (part number MJVU2AM) to the HDMI port on the Digital AV adapter which provides you with the DVI port you need.

Now you have a DVI port and a VGA port available and only one USB-C port is used on the MacBook.

The setup (minus the HDMI-DVI adapter which I don't have) would look similar to this:


When I use Runtastic and track my run on my Apple Watch, do I double my distance in the Health app? When I use RunTastic to track my run on my iPhone and also use the Apple Watch health app to track my run (or not), is the resulting data which is sent to the Health app doubled?

For example, if I run 1 mile (and track it on Runtastic and my Apple Watch), would I see 2 miles in the Health app?

I've used several apps and you do need to pay attention to which apps read from health app and which write to it.

In practice, it's pretty easy to take a screen shot of the Show All Data screen from within the Health app for Walking and Running Distance for example. Then operate the apps and enter an exercise period and repeat the screen shot after the workout is complete.

You will want to examine the hour surrounding a 5k run, for example, to be sure that your phone and watch alone are not "double dipping" if you have both on you when you run. Adding a third party app in addition to the settings you may have enabled on iOS and watchOS could triple the data.

Also, be aware that code can change so even if your app isn't duplicating data now, you'll want to sanity check things periodically in case the developer of the app changes how it reads and writes to the health database.

It's easy to go in and clean up a day's worth of double counted data, but you'll likely need an automated tool if you find out weeks or months of data isn't counted the way you prefer.


MacBook Pro won't recognize USB keyboard any more I have a "MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)" running Mojave (v10.14.5).

I'm trying to use a Microsoft Natural 4000 v1.0 USB keyboard, because it's one of the few keyboards that fits my hands comfortably.

One of my quirks is that I'm a heavy user of the command line and Emacs, and my fingers know that the key to the left of the "A" is supposed to be a control key.

Up until last night, it was working fine. However, something broke when I had my laptop away from power and my USB hub and let the Mac drain so much that it shut down.

When I restarted it this morning after being plugged in all night, it wouldn't recognize my external USB keyboard as anything other than a generic keyboard; for example, this dialog box in System preferences used to show something like "Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000" but now shows just "Keyboard":

This wouldn't be so bad, except that now I can't get the Caps Lock key to behave as a Control key. When I choose in "Modifiers" to get it to behave as "Control", what happens is that it becomes a Control Lock key, not a Control key: that is, pressing the key to the left of "A" and then releasing it will make every key after that act as if Control is held down, until I hit that key again. I've double-checked and I don't have "Sticky Keys" set. (Besides, on the keyboard that's part of my laptop this works correctly: there, the key to the left of "A" behaves as a control key should. It's only a control lock on my USB keyboard)

Clearly some part of the system knows that it is not just a generic keyboard; here's a snippet from system_profiler SPUSBDataType:

    Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000:

      Product ID: 0x00db
      Vendor ID: 0x045e  (Microsoft Corporation)
      Version: 1.73
      Speed: Up to 1.5 Mb/sec
      Manufacturer: Microsoft
      Location ID: 0x14200000 / 6
      Current Available (mA): 500
      Current Required (mA): 100
      Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

I've tried deleting the com.apple.HIToolbox.plist file from both /Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Preferences and deleting the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist file. I've tried reseting the PRAM with Command-Option-P-R at boot. None of this has allowed the Mac to recognize my keyboard again.

Here's the output of kextstat | grep -v com.apple:

Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
  167    0 0xffffff7f838e9000 0x4000     0x4000     com.protech.NoSleep (1.5.0) CB8F75A7-9009-31D3-A758-8C157CFEA5EC <6 5 3>
  168    0 0xffffff7f838ed000 0x4000     0x4000     com.paloaltonetworks.kext.pangpd (1.0.0) 2EB7232F-AC35-3CB5-81B3-D81783A18EEF <6 5 3 1>
  169    1 0xffffff7f8222e000 0xf000     0xf000     com.microsoft.driver.MicrosoftKeyboard (8.2) F2145396-D787-803F-EA32-59BCD2024DDD <43 6 5 3>
  170    0 0xffffff7f8223d000 0x3000     0x3000     com.microsoft.driver.MicrosoftKeyboardUSB (8.2) 97C6123F-A83C-7B6E-5109-210C185B5AA1 <169 54 43 6 5 3>

Success!

After I posted this, I tried a few more keywords in my Googling and found this: How to map Caps Lock as a second Control Key on a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000?

And it turns out that uninstalling the Microsoft drivers (by running the programs in Applications/Utilities called "Intellitype Uninstaller" and "Intellipoint Uninstaller") did the trick.

I don't know why the Microsoft drivers worked fine for years and only broke last night, but my keyboard is now properly recognized as what it is and I didn't even need to adjust the setting in the "Modifier Keys" dialog in the Keyboard System Preferences: it remembered what it should be, and once again shows my keyboard as a "Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000" and not just a generic "Keyboard".


How to interact with programs when names read from a list I have a script which checks for loads of applications if they are open, and closes them if yes, and opens them if not.

Until now I had a simple:

tell application "System Events"
if exists (process "Caffeine") then
    tell application "Caffeine" to quit
else
    tell application "Caffeine" to activate
end if
...
end tell

To go through the programs. Today I had to edit some programs and I figured "this could be so much simpler with an array and a for-loop"

So I tried this:

set theList to {"Caffeine", ...}
tell application "System Events"
repeat with prog in theList
    if exists (process prog) then
        tell application prog to quit
    else
        tell application prog to activate
    end if
end repeat
end tell

But now for some reason I get an error, each time I run the script:

  error "System Events got an error: Connection is invalid." number -609

The error pops-up always from a different point in the script.
I'm really confused why this doesn't work.

Can anybody assist me in getting this to work?

"Connection is invalid" means that the script cannot communicate with the application. Perhaps it has been quit during execution… perhaps there is a duplication in your list? My best guess is that there is more than one process spawned by an application.

Anyway, I think your methodology could be improved. One of your problems is that you're checking the process for each item in your list. You should compile a list of processes, and check that. This avoids the problem of duplicate processes for the same application. It also deals with the issue of the process list changing during script execution.

set appList to {"Caffeine", ...}

tell application "System Events"
    set procList to (name of every process)
end tell

repeat with appName in appList
    if (procList contains appName) is true then
        tell application appName to quit
    else
        tell application appName to activate
    end if
end repeat

If you still get errors, you might have to enclose the tell application statements in try blocks.

One more thing: the approach you're taking doesn't work well if only some of the applications are open, and some are not. You're checking each individually and quitting if it's open, launching if it's not. So your list of applications will still be split between open/shut down. It sounds like you want to open a "set" of applications and close a "set" of applications using the same script.

Therefore, you may want to consider splitting this into two scripts, "open set" and "quit set", and/or checking whether your "main" application is open and cascading the open/close of your application list depending on that one application's state.


Airplay over wired network? I intend to buy a MacBook Air.

I already own an AirPlay enabled receiver/player from Denon. It features both WiFi and Ethernet network interfaces.

Will AirPlay work over a wired (Ethernet) network (no WiFi at home).

Yes, it will work as long as both the MacBook Air and the Denon receiver are on the same network segment. Your Air will need either the USB or Thunderbolt adapter to connect to ethernet (the latter provides Gigabit speed as well as supports jumbo packets) directly.

You can have many iOS devices and the Air also connect over a wireless bridge and they will see the receiver that is connected via ethernet to the main network switch.


How to get a terminal general auto-complete function? I'm new in macOS and I'm using macOS Sierra,

In my Ubuntu and other Linux-based system, terminal has an auto-complete that helps to complete commands and their options.

For example for wget and other commands, in additional to command completion, after pressing Tab 2 times, it lists all command options (if any), or in sudo w it list all commands start with w

But on my Mac, it just complete first commands and don't help for options or second part of command like whoami in sudo whoami,

I mean it don't show a list of all command that start with who after pressing Tab 2 times in sudo who

[

I found some Scripts for git options at https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/contrib/completion/ , but I want something that do this for all commands and applications.

Is there any solution for that?

The completion function is neither coming from any Terminal application or the OS on which you work: MacOS X, Linux…

This function is provided by your shell. To check which one is providing you the completion function you like, just get which shell you are using on Linux with:

echo ${SHELL}

Then change your login shell on MacOS X with:

chsh -s /bin/my_preferred_shell

to use the one which is performing the completion function you want.

Check that this shell exists and is executable, and read the documentation of chsh:

ls -ld /bin/my_preferred_shell

man chsh

To test it without risk, don't restart your session, just open a new Terminal. In case of error, you will be able to run chsh once more.


iTunes Match "upgraded" one of my songs with a glitchy version. Now what? I signed up for iTunes Match. It matched most of my songs and uploaded the rest. I was playing one of my favorite songs and discovered it has a glitch at 21 seconds in. It is consistently there, even on multiple devices. Luckily I found I still had my copy in a backup, so I removed the song from the iTunes library and re-added it. Unfortunately it is one of the songs Apple "matched" so it keeps getting replaced with the glitchy version.

I guess I could try renaming the song so Apple doesn't keep replacing it, but that seems like a lot of work. What else can I do?

My understanding (although not precise science) so far with Match knows the song signature and uses this in conjunction with the track length to match against their database.

This would explain why some songs get replaced with explicit versions on Match while renaming one song to another (incorrect) does not trick Match into thinking it is a new song. You can test both quite easily

the former by deleting a non explicit matched song (remembering track length) and pulling it back from iCloud
the latter by ripping a CD without any info into Track01...02 etc and have it matched correctly.

all the above is somehow tied with Genius.

With the above assumption, to keep your proper version try padding out the length, add noise, or combine the track with the next (if it belongs to an album) and it should cause enough difference to be uploaded instead of being matched.


How to display Lyrics for the song in Apple Music on iOS? How to display lyrics on iOS device via Apple Music?

First you have to add the lyrics to your song in iTunes (tap on the song, then press cmd + I).

Go to your iOS device (since it is shared via iCloud), and then single tap on cover in following screen:

You see the lyrics, you can switch it back to cover by single tap on the lyrics.


Easy way to remap non-modifier keys on Mac? I want to remap § to ` and ± to ~ on my Mac keyboard because they are located in a place I am not used to.
Is there an easy way to do this?

The two apps most commonly used to do this are

Ukelele

and

Karabiner

There’s a lot of other options, but these are the easiest in practice for most people to just manage their layouts easily.


How to enable HiDPI mode on external display in OS X 10.9 Mavericks? The usual method of using Quartz Debug doesn't seem to work anymore.

Running

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true

nd restarting worked for me:

I only tested it with the internal display of an iMac though.


Can I sync my AirPods 24 hours? Sometimes I lose my AirPods and I can't find them. Is there a way to sync them constantly to avoid losing them, even while them aren't near the iPhone?

No, I don't think you can because AirPods are online only while them are connected to your iPhone, so inconvenient


Change the thumbnail/preview/top photo for albums in iOS 12 I would like to change the one photo you see for each album when you first open the Photos app.

The thumbnail is determined by the first photo in the album. To change the thumbnail simply drag and photo to the first photo in the album.


How to remove a book from iBooks I "bought" a free book on iBooks Store, the book is on my iCloud.
Now I would to remove it, but I cannot find a way to do it.

On a Mac, open the iBooks app.
Go to the iBooks Store (left of the toolbar, at the top).
On the right-hand-side, in the Quick Links list, click the Purchased link.
Books will appear; find the one you want to remove and hover your mouse over the cover.
A little 'x' will appear; click it to remove the book.

The book will no longer come up in iBooks (or any other locations), no matter whether you have set iBooks to show or hide iCloud items.


Big Sur Update wiped my /etc/apache2/extra I think the title is self explanatory, but to say it again, I updated to MacOS 11 and all my extra configs of Apache decided to go bye-bye.
To add insult to injury, there appeared a bunch of *.conf~previous files, who are also the default settings and not mine...
While it is just a  setback, and I can redo everything, does anyone have any idea of where and if I could find the old ones?
Edit: After finishing and recovering everything, only then did I realize that macOS kept all my changes neatly in the Relocated Items on my Desktop. For anyone looking into this in the future, be sure to check if it is there...

Just restore them from the backup you made before starting the upgrade. That's way quicker then searching for them on the upgraded system.
On APFS based systems, remember, your custom files and data are on the “data” filesystem and not on the system itself.
Also, look for a relocated items folder on your desktop in case Apple intentionally set aside your modifications.


Mac won't boot; get the Apple logo then it becomes a prohibitory symbol I start up my early 2011 MacBook Pro, and it gives me the login screen, I enter my password, and then booting starts as normal, but about halfway through the progress bar, it stops booting entirely and comes up with this symbol.

I'm really not sure what to do. In recovery mode I'm unable to access the partition that holds the Mac OS (it's grayed out) and when I try to mount the Mac OS partition through terminal, it instead tells me that it's a FileVault or Fusion Drive - it's neither, to the best of my knowledge - and that it must be unlocked prior to mounting. So, U found the logical volume and unlocked it using diskutil corestorage command that actually unlocked volumes, and then it ended up as /dev/disk16, and I was still unable to mount /dev/disk0s2, or disk16. Trying to remove the empty Windows partition through DiskUtility results in failure because it's locked. Any and all help is greatly appreciated, as I desperately need this computer for study, and losing files on it is a non-option.

This means that the Mac can't find a valid startup folder to boot from.

The solution to this is to reinstall OS X – power up your Mac while holding down Cmd-R, then select Reinstall OS X (or Utilities -> Reinstall OS X).
Depending on what version of Mac OS X, you will want to select "Archive and Install" if you want to preserve your files. Follow the onscreen prompts to reinstall Mac OS X.

If you have a backup disk for your Mac, that's a bonus just in case the installation goes wrong.


how do we organize our apps in itunes library is there anyway to arrange or organize our apps in the itunes library?

I mean i have well a ton of apps and it really helps if i could put them in folders / lists / or anything?

No - there is nothing in iTunes to make it easier. You can also use Xcode and the iPhone configuration utility to get a little more screen real estate, but managing apps is still fairly simplistic. The configuration utility does make it possible to automate installing several apps, so that's a step in the right direction for some.

I've filed bugs and sent feedback to Apple asking for more screen real-estate in iTunes to start making app management easier.

They have a 'Use Full Window for iTunes Store' view so it's not inconceivable they might do the same for iOS management at some point. Feel free to link to my picture in your bug report or feedback if you also want to ask Apple for this change.

http://skitch.com/mbrad/fgj28/itunes-managing-ios-apps