Do the Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad support “middle click”? I'm currently using the old Apple Mighty Mouse and I configured clicking on the trackball as a "middle click" that's been very handy for opening links in new tabs, closing tabs, etc. However, the mouse is starting to show its age and I've been looking at Apple's Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, and I'm wondering - do either of these support the "middle click" operation? If not, is there a gesture or a multi-finger click that can be used for the same things (i.e. opening new tabs, etc)?

Our friends over at SuperUser have an answer for us:

Here are two utilities that will allow you to customize gestures on the Magic Mouse, including adding middle click:

MagicPrefs
Better Touch Tool


How do you stop a looping Keynote presentation on iPad? I made a presentation in Keynote, looped it so as to share locally. Now I want to send it to friends, but I cant figure out how to stop the looping to get the share button back?


Trackpad2 clicking feedback stops after 30 seconds from initial use of the day When I open my MBP at the morning, I can feel the clicks for around 30 seconds, and then it's still functioning but without the click feedback. kind of goes to silent clicking mode.
The built-in MBP trackpad works fine and I've another trackpad2 at the office that works great.
Tried:

Turn it on and off.
Connent with cable and without.
Removed from connected devices and re-add it.
Went through all the possible checkboxes on Trackpad + Accessibility settings.

This is a physical issue and not a software one meaning you’ll have to get it replaced.
The haptic feedback is basically created by a small electromagnet that creates a vibration. There’s really no “mechanical” device.  However, these components can fail from time to time.
The symptom that it works fine for a little while then quits after a few moments points to a bad connection somewhere (like a  dry solder joint) that when things “warm up,” it fails.
The fact that the trackpad on your MBP works fine pretty much guarantees it’s not a software issue. Unfortunately that means you’ve got to replace it, but I’ve got clients who simply ignored it and continued to use it without the haptic feedback. For them, it was the track pad built in to the MBP and they preferred to wait until something more “major” needed service like the keyboard or battery to replace it.


What's the best way to display (and print) rtf files My son gets his homework assignments online as rtf files. On his Macbook, they are automatically opened with textedit which won't display graphics and other elements correctly or at all. So, he will need to convert to pdf (or open with another app). What's the best and most MACcy way to do that?

I found some background to this - Why cannot Pages show pictures in .rtf files?
that Apple decided not to support pictures in rtf because of limitations in the format, but instead to opt to use rtfd format which supports them much better.

The 'fix' would appear to be [without investing in Microsoft Word] to use NeoOffice or OpenOffice, both of which support embedded pictures in rtf files.


Touch Bar has blank/void button after Catalina update After the Catalina update, the Touch Bar shows a void button on the left of the play button at all times as you can see from this screenshot.

As far as I know, the number of buttons that should appear on the minified control strip is 4... why do I have 5?

If I go into the Settings > Extensions > Touch Bar to customise the control strip, there, while I do the customisation the blank button disappears (see second screenshot).

Why does this happen?

[Edit] As I was looking at this post, with a Youtube tab opened along this, the void was replaced by this icon, that is usually what appears when you have media playing.... I don't know if this is correlated or not. (See screenshot below)

It could be several things.

Runtime corruption - one program (or several) gets things off course or the macOS code has bugs that will get fixed in an update
Data corruption if this persists across log out / log in and restarts.
Good code and faulty hardware - less likely but could be the cause if it’s intermittent and never able to resolve with updates over weeks or months.

I would triage this by setting up a brand new user account on the Mac, logging out from the one where the bar settings are suspect and then into the newly created empty account.

Should the bar be missing the default icons, you can conclude that the operating system and the bar software need to be reloaded / reset.

If the bar behaves, then it's going to be the settings in your user account that need resetting or fixing.

So to answer the main question - it's a corruption in the settings or the controller and the above steps will help you narrow down which path to remediating it you choose.


For 2.4GHz/5GHz wifi which is best for Apple devices: different SSIDs or same? My WiFi router, a Netgear Nighthawk, can do 2.4GHz and 5GHz; and it can have the same SSID or different for those ranges.

We run MacBooks, an iPad, an iPad Nano and an iPhone 4 on the network. Does it make sense to have both ranges on one SSID and let the devices pick the right frequency or keep them separate?

I have a similar set up (not same router).

While using the same SSID, I noticed instability, probably due to randomness  of who gets what.

So now I have separate SSID for 2.4 and 5 GHz and I decide who connects to what.


How do you type a character with its ASCII code? I need to type the form feed character 0x0C in ASCII on my Mac. Is there any way to do this? I've tried using "Emoji and Symbols" from the Edit menu, but it's not in there.

Add Unicode Hex Input as your Keyboard.  Hold the option key while typing.


How can I make sure that all songs sync to my iPod? I have a 160GB iPod and it only syncs old music to my iPod.

I buy new songs and it will not sync them. I have probably 150 songs that will not sync (purchased songs). I did run diagnostic and it says iTunes helper is not working. Not sure what that is and not sure if it has anything to do with it.

How can I fix so that all songs sync to my iPod?

Make sure that in iTunes that you have it set to sync your "Entire Music Library":

Open iTunes*
Connect your iPod
Select it in the iTunes sidebar
Click the "Music" tab
Ensure "Sync Music" is checked
Select "Entire Music Library"

*This assumes you are running a fairly recent version of iTunes.


Can I use Apple emoji in App Store icons? A weird question - I'm not a designer, but think a few of emoji provided with apple keyboard would very well describe the nature of my app. I would like to include them in my app icon design.

Can I use Apple emoji on app icon for submitting my app to iOS App Store?

I would say no.

Apple review guidelines state that you must own the rights for any images you display in, or on, your app. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

Guideline 2.3.9 states:

  2.3.9 You are responsible for securing the rights to use all materials in your app icons, screenshots, and previews, and you should display fictional account information instead of data from a real person.

Also, Apple gives violations of this guideline as one of the top reasons for rejection and/or removal from the App Store. If you include artwork that you don't own, you might get thru Review but they're getting stricter and might remove it.


How can I assign an image to a podcast in iTunes? In the podcasts list in iTunes, some podcasts don't show an image.  Is there a way to assign one?

Online help in iTunes suggests doing a Get Info and clicking the Artwork tab, but that tab is always dimmed, even for podcasts that do show an image.

Attempting to Google this mostly shows things about how the creator of a podcast can provide an image.  But I want to assign an image when the creator didn't.

It seems to me that unfortunately there is no way of assigning custom artwork to subscribed podcast trough iTunes.


iPhone 7 not turning on automatically while charging Sometimes when I put my iPhone to charge when its dead; it comes on automatically when it is charging, and sometimes I have to physically turned it on.

For example, last night I was on my iPhone, at it died. I plugged it in, then like 40 min after I went to check and I had to turn it back on and it was charged.

This doesn't happen all the time. Most times it comes back on automatically.

When it comes to physical problems you might have to go to an Apple Store. Be sure to book in advance to make your meeting as quick as possible!

In cases like this, it could be due to a hardware issue and you might be eligible for a free replacement if your device is defective.


Love DND -- Can It Be Applied to Individual Contacts? I think do not disturb is a great improvement in iOS 6. I have a super annoying persistent caller but I need to hear their voicemails. Is there any way to have calls from their phone number forward directly to voicemail?

Your service provider should be able to provide that service.  The number would be stopped at the call side, and redirected before it gets to your phone.

Give them a call.


How to Programmatically Find, Kill, and Restart a local DynamoDB Process I'm working with Amazon's DynamoDB and I can't figure out how to programmatically kill the process reliably by name or PID.

I need to restart it since I'm holding all data in memory and I can delete the entire thing by just easily restarting the process. Problem is I can't figure out how to kill it as easily as starting it.

ps -ax | grep "Dynamo" returns 19355 ttys001    0:28.31 /usr/bin/java -Djava.library.path=./DynamoDBLocal_lib -jar /Users/user/workspace/lib/DynamoDBLocal.jar -sharedDb -port 8000 -inMemory

But when I try killall DynamoDBLocal.jar I receive No matching processes belonging to you were found and the PID changes every time it's started up.

How can I programmatically find the PID to send to kill -9 PID or properly killall by name?

EDIT: Finished! Here's my work to share with others:

alias start_dynamo='java -Djava.library.path=./DynamoDBLocal_lib -jar /Users/user/workspace/lib/DynamoDBLocal.jar -sharedDb -port 8000 -inMemory &'

alias end_dynamo="kill `ps -ax | grep Dynamo | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'`"

alias restart_dynamo='end_dynamo; start_dynamo'

kill `ps -ax |grep Dynamo |awk '{print $1}'`

should do it. note, this will kill any proc that matches Dynamo


Automator: replace text input not working What I want to do

I want to create a simple Automator service that:

Takes text as input from any application,
Does some logic on given input
Replaces the selected input text with the calculated output

The problem

The return value in the JS script does not replace the selected input text. I have no clue why. Does anyone have experience with this?

I am running macOS Sierra 10.12, using Automator 2.7

The problem was related to the macOS version. After updating to 10.12.1 the text is now being correctly replaced!

Edit: for those interested in the alphabetic sorting, simply add a Run Shell Script block and fill in sort -f, like so:


How do I convert "3 days" to 3 in Microsoft Excel for OSX I have a column filled with values like 3 days, 12 days, etc

How can I strip out the text and force convert these to integers?

Select the column of data.
Choose Data → Text to Columns.
Excel should determine the data is delimited. Choose Next.
Tick Space as the delimiter. The preview should indicate the data is split correctly.

For the first column of numbers, leave General selected as the format. If you don't wish to keep the text in a column to the side, select the second column and choose Do not import column.

Choose Finish to complete.


How can I change banner notification time on a MacBook with OS X 10.10.5? How can I go about changing the time that a banner notification stays on the screen before disappearing?

I did some research and tried the suggestion found here, but am having no success on my MacBook Air. I restarted and logged in/out of my account a few times after re-entering the command with no luck. Does this command no longer work?

You cannot easily customize the time anymore on current os since the preference has been removed since MacOS 10.10 Yosemite.

If you want your notifications to stay on the screen until you dismiss them, you can do the following:

Go to
System Preferences > Notifications

Select the notifications you want not to be dismissed automatically. Change the "alert style" to "Alerts" instead of "Banners".


Lost Appleid and Password, work phone iphone 5, owner transferred but we need to keep all the data on it The owner of the business sold the business including the work mobile which has all client numbers, texts and WhatsApp communications. He did not give us the appleid or password nor do we have access to the email it was registered with and he is not in communication with us. Obviously, we can continue to use the phone but now cannot update any apps like WhatsApp so cannot now use the app.

The data is still relevant to us and we are the owners of the data.

Can we change the appleid, or do something else to allow us to update apps without losing all the data?
I hope someone can suggest something. Many thanks

Not only does the data, but all the apps & the device itself still belong to the original Apple ID.
Apple's policy isn't that anything belongs to the human holding the device, it belongs to the owner of the ID.

Without that ID/password & no way to obtain it or contact the previous owner, yet with access to the phone itself & presumably its passcode, the only option will be to transfer what data you can off it, then throw the phone away.

There are methods to gain full access to the device itself if you can prove ownership - see How can I bypass Activation Lock? - but none of these will gain you access to the existing data, merely allow you to re-purpose the phone under new credentials.

EaseUS web site has How to Transfer Contacts from iPhone to Android in 4 Easy Ways. They are, of course, trying to persuade you in the end to consider their own software, though they show a method to transfer contact data to Google, which will then give you access to the contacts as .vcf files.

I'm not certain that you can really get right through any of those methods without at some point needing the Apple ID & password.
If you hit that at any point, then your method will be reduced to typing it out by hand into another computer.

For WhatsApp, I don't know of any method that doesn't involve paid [& often quite dodgily-marketed] software, which I've never tried [& am never likely to.] You'd have to do some further research... & caveat emptor, read reviews on sites not connected to any of the software makers.


How to change the default font and size in Notes on El Capitan? Editing DefaultFonts.plist doesn't seem working anymore on the pre-release build 15A279b of El Capitan:

sudo vim /Applications/Notes.app/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/DefaultFonts.plist

It still shows that the file is readonly. I guess it's because the new System Integrity Protection feature.

Is there another way to change the default font in Notes app?

And the keyboard's plists of PressAll also can no longer be modified to add the new accents.

Tip: You do not need to modify the default font and size in Notes.

To change the font, you can select all or one sentence and press Cmd + T.

To change the font size, you can press Cmd, Shift and + at the same time to increase or Cmd + - to decrease the size.

Another tip: If you want to use the user font in Notes in OS X, please, install and use AnyFont in iOS to install your favourite font in iOS.


I can't convert from HFS+ to APFS an external SSD volume I created for testing I created an external volume with macOS High Sierra.  When I try to convert it to APFS with Disk Utility, the "convert to APFS" is greyed out.  I tried unmounting the volume first, then it's not greyed out, but when I try to convert, I get this error: The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.DiskManagement error -69546.).

I heard that having "cloned" a volume may prevent it from being converted to APFS.  I don't remember if I cloned it or not.  I created it with El Capitan, then upgraded it to High Sierra.  Now it won't convert to APFS.

Any way to do the conversion? such as terminal command or something?

According to this and this article the post-install conversion to APFS should work in Recovery Mode:

  Boot the Mac into Recovery Mode by holding down the Command and R keys until you see the macOS Utilities screen.
  Open Disk utility.
  Choose your boot volume [the external boot drive].1
  Click on the Edit menu
  Click on Convert to APFS
  When prompted with “Would you like to convert  to APFS?”
  click on the Convert button.
  When the process is finished, click on the Done button.

1: According to Redarm's comment you have to unmount the volume additionally!

I can't test this myself - your mileage may vary.


Can I use a Thunderbolt 2 device with my 2011-era MacBook Pro? I'm asking for a friend who has a 2011-era MacBook Pro. She needs extra USB ports, and it looks like what she needs is a Thunderbolt device. The 2011 MacBook Pro has Thunderbolt 1, of course.

If she buys a Thunderbolt 2 device, will it work with her 2011-era MacBook Pro? She's going to upgrade her laptop at some point, and it would be nice for her to have the Thunderbolt 2 device so that it works at a higher speed out of the box once her laptop is newer.

Thunderbolt 2 is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 1. So it should work no problem unless the product manufacturer says otherwise. Thought you only gets half the speed since the port on the computer only have Thunderbolt 1.


How to access Pages document when I forgot the password for it? Sometimes I set up a password for my Pages document, and I forget it. Is there a way to access the document without a password or recover password back anyway?

No. What would be the purpose of a password if you didn't need it to open the document.

Next time, write down the password if you forget easily.


Where are CUPS backend scripts and filters stored on Mac OS X? Where are CUPS backend scripts and filters stored on Mac OS X?

On linux they are in /usr/lib/cups/backend, but I can't find them on Mac OS x

/usr/libexec/cups/backend
/usr/libexec/cups/filter
... etc

Source: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/man8/cups-deviced.8.html (mirror)


Opening Randomized Images From Multiple Folders With Preview Application Basically what I am trying to achieve is the following:

Create an alias list of any amount of folders with the Finder's selection.
Get all images from those folders with a shell script.
Randomize those images.
Open the randomized images in the Preview application.

The script I created is partially working with two selected folders that each contain three images (6 total). But it is only opening 3 images with the preview app instead of all 6.

I am also trying it out with more than 100 images in two separate folders and it gives me an error:

"Can’t make file \":43\" into type alias." number -1700 from file ":43" to alias

Also, the images are not being randomized every time I execute the script.

Please note that I prefer using the shell script to fetch the images because it is much faster than using the Finder. If it is possible to also use a shell script to randomize the images, I will like to know how this can be achieved in the script I created.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

tell application "Finder"
    if selection is {} then
    else
        set theFolders to selection as alias list

        set theImages to {}
        repeat with aFolder in theFolders
            set getImages to "find " & aFolder's POSIX path's quoted form & " -iname '*.jpg'"
            set end of theImages to paragraphs of (do shell script getImages)
        end repeat

        -- Randomize selected images

        set randomImages to {}
        repeat with thisImage in some item in theImages
            set end of randomImages to thisImage
        end repeat

        -- Get aliases

        set filePaths to {}
        repeat with thisFile in randomImages
            set end of filePaths to (thisFile as POSIX file as alias)
        end repeat

        -- Open random images with Preview

        open filePaths using application file id "com.apple.Preview"

    end if
end tell

Fixing and rewriting the code, particularly in the repeat with aFolder in theFolders loop, and using a handler from the accepted answer by Lri in Is there a simple way to shuffle a List in AppleScript? to randomize the list over your method, this now works.

I tested it on several different folders individually as well as multiple folders together, with as many as 500 JPG files in a test run.

tell application "Finder"
    if not selection is {} then
        set theFolders to selection as alias list
    else
        return
    end if
end tell

set theImages to {}
repeat with aFolder in theFolders
    set getImages to "find " & aFolder's POSIX path's quoted form & " -iname '*.jpg'"
    set tempList to paragraphs of (do shell script getImages)
    repeat with aItem in tempList
        copy aItem to end of theImages
    end repeat
end repeat

set randomImages to shuffle(theImages)

set filePaths to {}
repeat with thisFile in randomImages
    copy (thisFile as POSIX file as alias) to the end of filePaths
end repeat

tell application "Finder" to ¬
    open filePaths using application file id "com.apple.Preview"

### Handlers ###

on shuffle(input)
    script s
        property L : input
    end script
    set i to count of L of s
    repeat while i ≥ 2
        set j to random number from 1 to i
        set {item i of L of s, item j of L of s} to {item j of L of s, item i of L of s}
        set i to i - 1
    end repeat
    L of s
end shuffle


MacBook Pro creates soft hissing sound through headphones Recently I got a quite nice pair of in-ear headphones which block noise very well (with a very tight seal, not noise cancellation). Before that, I used Apple earbuds.

With these better headphones, I'm now often hearing a hissing noise. This happens constantly while a sound is being played (music, alerts, etc.) and for several seconds after. I assume this was happening with my previous headphones but there wasn't a good enough seal for me to hear it.

This doesn't happen with my iPod or iPad. How can I stop it from happening?

Tough to know for certain, but my money is on an impedance mismatch between the output of the Macbook and your new headset. Or, perhaps more accurately stated, excessively sensitive (low impedance) headphones are revealing flaws in the MacBook audio output circuit.

Care to share the model of headphones you're now using? My guess is it's a low-impedance model intended for use with portable audio devices.  You can boost the impedance by adding an in-line volume control adaptor like the Shure EA650. You will find other suggestions for solving this problem, including some DIY answers, by searching the forums at Head-Fi.org

For more information/background see: Impedance, and how it affects audio equipment by Rod Elliot and Sound On Sound: Understanding Impedance.

Another possible solution:
I have M-Audio powered monitors plugged into my MacBook Pro, and plug my Etymotic earplugs into the headphone jack on the monitors for private listening. I haven't noticed any noise problems with this set-up.


How to use latex2rtf without root installation This is a very basic question, as I am a newbie on Unix systems. I have installed latex2rtf following the OS X specific instructions. As I do not have root rights (university computer), I installed Xcode to modify the Makefile:

#Base directory - adapt as needed
# Unix:
DESTDIR?=/Users/.../latex2rtf

Where ... is my home folder. Then I run the commands make; make check; make install (could not use sudo) and latex2rtf was installed to latex2rtf folder in my home directory. If I try to open latex2rtf file in bin folder, I get a new terminal window, where I can write anything without any kind of response. If I write latex2rtf in terminal I get a message: -bash: latex2rtf: command not found

So a simple question: how do I use latex2rtf on OS X in this case?

Thanks to Mark for the solution, which was pretty basic, indeed:

Open your .bash_profile file in Home directory (you can use terminal to open it, or tick "Show Hidden Items" in Finder on OS X 10.9.4). Add following to it:

export PATH=$PATH:/Users/.../latex2rtf/bin

Where the part after ":" specifies the location of latex2rtf file. In this case "..." is the home directory.

Save the file and exit. Run following in terminal:

source $HOME/.bash_profile

latex2rtf command should work now in terminal. The code is from here.


Can I keep apple music when switching apple IDs My son currently uses my apple ID on his phone with my credit card, and we have an apple music memebership, if he starts his own apple ID, can he still keep all the apple music and just use it under my account on his phone, i.e when he opens apple music he needs to type in the password for my account?

You should check out Family Sharing, which is designed to share "family's" purchases and credit card. This way, you don't need to transfer content, instead you share the content.

Some restrictions as fine print from aforementioned site:

  Family Sharing requires a personal Apple ID signed in to iCloud and
  iTunes. Music, movies, TV shows, and books can be downloaded on up to
  10 devices per account, five of which can be computers. iOS 8 or later
  and OS X Yosemite or later are required to set up or join a Family
  Sharing group and are recommended for full functionality. Not all
  content is eligible for Family Sharing. Content can be hidden by
  family members; hidden content is not available for download. Content
  downloaded from family members or acquired via redemption codes is not
  subject to Ask to Buy.


App Previews for iPhone 6+, using an other iOS device I'm trying to create an App Preview Video for a game we did.
I recorded using QuickTime, plus iMovie to create it. I recorded the videos with iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPad.

But I don't have an iPhone 6 Plus to record on 1920x1080. So my question is, will users who are on an iPhone 6 Plus see the video or only the screenshots?

I read some similar topics, but the answers were contradicted.

You will need to create one specifically for iPhone 6Plus according to this: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Appendices/Properties.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011225-CH26-SW10


Is it possible to reorder spaces in Lion? I would expect 'Mission Control' to allow me to drag spaces in a certain order (with the exception of the 'Dashboard' space), but this does not seem like an option.

This would be especially useful when re-ordering full-screen apps: for example, opening iCal and then opening Mail fullscreen would result in Mail being 'spaced' after iCal. But what if I'd want Mail to have a higher 'priority', thus wanting it spaced before iCal?

Is there an option to re-order spaces without recreating them entirely?

OS X 10.7.2 Update

Since OS X 10.7.2 Desktops (or Spaces) and full screen apps can be reordered, i.e. spaces can be mixed with full screen apps in any order a user may fancy, but with one exception - Dashboard and Desktop 1 (1st Space) cannot be moved.

Pre OS X 1.7.2 answer:
Based on several reviews and reports you cannot.

Seems like an oversight to me as I consider it as a must-have feature.

Be aware there's also something called automatic-ordering (System Preferences > Mission Control > Automatically rearrange Spaces), which apparently orders them based on usage.


How can I tell if my computer is on? I've got a late 2015 iMac with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.  As part of the minimalist design, Apple appears to have eliminated all the indicator lights.  If the screen is black and the computer doesn't respond to either the keyboard or the mouse, how can I tell (a) a computer that's been turned off from (b) a computer where the batteries on the keyboard and mouse have run down?

If the computer is off, I don't want to turn it on, so pressing the power switch is out.

(This question came up in the context of unplugging the computer from a malfunctioning UPS, where I couldn't tell if the UPS had shut the computer off or not.  If the computer was off, I didn't want to turn it on and risk having the UPS shut it off again halfway through the startup routine; if it was on, I wanted to shut it down properly before unplugging it.)

As you have the iMac on a UPS, you could use the power consumption readout that is usually available on a UPS. I.e. if the power draw is above a few watts, the computer is on - if it's not, the computer is off.

Another option is simply to connect a cabled, USB mouse/keyboard instead of the Bluetooth. As having a malfunctioning UPS at the exact same time your mouse runs out of battery, whilst also being the exact same time your keyboard runs out of battery, is quite rare. Therefore it shouldn't be a problem to spend a little extra time plugging it in USB.

A third option is using a cabled network or WiFi connection to check if the Mac is powered on. You could do that by for example pinging the Mac from another computer, smartphone or tablet. If it responds to pings, it is powered up - otherwise it is powered down. Obviously the computer needs to be connected to the same network in advance for this to work.

A fourth option is to use another computer or specialized hardware to check for Bluetooth/WiFi signals being emitted from the computer. This only happens when the Mac is powered.

A fifth option is to use temperature-sensing equipment (depending on your scenario, it could be your hands) - to sense/feel if the iMac is warmer than room temperature or not. If it is warm, it is powered (or was recently powered).

And finally, if your Bluetooth keyboard is actually an Apple keyboard, then you can press the caps-lock key to detect if the keyboard battery is dead. If the keyboard is not dead, then you can use it to check if the iMac is powered on. If the keyboard battery is dead, you can recharge it.


iPhone 7 not letting me update to ios11 My iPhone still isn't offering me the option to update to iOS 11. Why is this? What can I do to let me update?
I have no clue what to try next any sugustions?

I would take the device to a computer that runs iTunes and update off the air. Check your backups too in case you need to restore instead of upgrade.


Fastest way to enabling screen mirroring on Sierra with the touch strip People,

The classical Command + F1 does not work to do screen mirroring macs with the touch bar running Sierra.

Also, although in the System Preferences I have "Show mirroring options..." enabled, the option still does not appear in the menu when I'm connected to an external screen with VGA.

Thus I have to every time go through: Open System Preferences -> Select Display -> Select Arrangement -> Click on Checkbox. This is horrible.

In the absence of the old shortcut, what's the fastest way to enable mirroring?

Just for reference here.

Another thing that I tried, and which (depending on your touch-bar configuration) could be even faster than the Command-Decrease Brightness shortcut is a menu-bar app called Display Menu:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/display-menu/id549083868?mt=12


ios9 updated iPad now wants passcode already tried restore I recently updated to ios9 and it now wants a passcode.  I've tried to restore via DFU mode, however iTunes no longer lets you JUST "restore" - you now have to "Restore & Update" which puts me right back to needing a passcode.  I either never set one up, or it was 10 years ago when I first go the iPad.  My apple ID and other "usual" passcodes I might have used don't work.  I tried a second time doing restore and now just get an error message.  Ideas??

Looks like I got it...I noticed my iTunes would say there was no updated version available, but the latest version to download (new) from the website was a higher version number.  So I re-installed iTunes on my computer and it seemed to work!  Yay!


macOS Mojave: Command + Shift + 4, screenshot not getting saved anymore When I press Command + Shift + 4 and take a screenshot, the screenshot shows as a thumbnail at bottom right of the screen.

If I continue working, the screenshot is not saved. I have to double-click on the thumbnail, open it in Preview & save it.

How do I save the screenshot immediately like it used to?

The answer here doesn't really apply as I don't see a Touch Bar.

Use the keyboard shortcut Command + Shift + 5 to invoke the screen capture app. Click on Options and check if the Save to location is set correctly.


Why does unplugging a drive lead to data loss when moving files? I did a cut and paste (Comd+C then Comd+Opt+V) on my Mac 10.14’s Finder to move some .mov files from my internal SSD to my WD My Passport External Harddrive.

Alas, after a while, I move my Macbook and the connected got unstable, and was eventually lost. To my horror, when I tried to do a transfer again, I see that some files are greyed out on my external WD harddrive (see screenshot), and these files are no more on the original folder on my internal SSD!

I tried to recover the files with several recovery applications but this only recovered some files originally from Trash.

Is moving data by Cut&Paste different from copying and deleting? Or what could be the explanation that these files seem to be lost between the drives?

Moving by cut & paste is not really that different from copying and deleting, no.

The explanation for the data loss is buffering. When you ask Finder to cut & paste (or copy and delete - doesn't matter) - all that Finder does it ask the operating system to copy data to the external drive and delete the file from the internal drive.

The operating system then asks the external data to write data to disk. Unfortunately that is quite slow - so if this was done naively, you would have to be sitting waiting for a long time not being able to use your computer for other stuff.

This is why operating systems for decades have implemented buffering and asynchronous I/O. This means that the data from your SSD is really moved into memory (RAM), and then slowly transferred to the external drive as its speed allows. From the user interface perspective, the operation has completed and you're free to do other stuff.

The problem is that if you then disconnect the disk without unmounting, the data wasn't really saved to the disk yet. In practical what happens is that the data is simply lost.

To make matters worse this can also happen at other levels - i.e. the external disk itself might also have buffers and caches - and if power is unexpectedly cut before things are saved to permanent storage - it is lost.

This is why you always need to unmount disks from the Finder before unplugging them from the computer. Unmounting takes as long as it takes to write everything out to permanent storage and be certain that it is really stored as it should. So when the disk is unmounted, you're free to disconnect it.

There's really no way of recovering the data that was lost this way from the external drive - as it really never touched that drive. If you need to do recovery, you'll need to do it on the internal SSD.

The chances of recovery here are much better as usually when you delete a file, you're not overwriting or "deleting" the actual data - instead you're just "marking" it as deleted in the file system. However, if you kept using the SSD for other stuff, eventually your files will be overwritten and the data permanently lost.


Can't delete music from iOS device in iTunes When I connect my iPod or iPhone to iTunes on a MacBook Pro, it will look like this picture attached. When I right-click on a song to delete it, there is no delete option. What am I doing wrong? This new iTunes has been so confusing.

This is likely because iTunes is automatically syncing your music.

When you automatically sync music, you manage what songs you have on your device by going to the music tab, and selecting which playlists/artists/genres/albums to sync or not sync.
The fix:
To manually manage music, click the Summary tab, scroll to close to the bottom, and in the Options area, there will be an option to Manually manage music and videos. Select this option, and you should be able to delete songs and such from the "On this iPhone" tab.


Sidecar shows blank screen. Unless I reboot My iPad shows this blank screen after it disconnects due to poor connection and I start sidecar back up. After rebooting the computer, and connecting with Sidecar, the problem is resolved.
I don't want to keep rebooting, however, every time this happens. So far, everything I've read refers to toggling 'Mirror Displays' as a potential solution. This doesn't work for me.

Go to display preferences > arrangement > tick and then remove the tick from mirror display option. For more info see here


Simple way to see a list of installed iOS apps with their storage space size? The storage on my iPhone is nearly full. Most of the space is used by apps. I'd like to see which apps consume the most space on my device.

Is there a way to get a list of the apps with their corresponding used space? By "used space I mean the installation size (bonus for added user data).

iOS 5 has now introduced a new feature under Settings > General > Usage that perfectly displays the amount of data taken up by every app on the device, sorted by top offenders.


Listing RealNames of all the users of an Open Directory group in MAC OS X I was looking an older post (https://superuser.com/questions/279891/list-all-members-of-a-group-mac-os-x/395738#395738) and I tried the code that the user Arne Stenström posted.

members () { dscl . -list /Users | while read user; do printf "$user "; dsmemberutil checkmembership -U "$user" -G "$*"; done | grep "is a member" | cut -d " " -f 1; };

It works perfectly but the output is a list of the users uid. I'm trying to get the RealNames too in order to have a list with the uid and the RealName at the output.

I tried infinite things and options but I'm not able to get it. I know that I can list the RealName of an user with this code:

dscl . -list /Users/username RealName

I can't find the way to join both ideas to reach the wanted result.

Could you please help me?

Thank you very much.

There's probably something wrong with this or an easier way to do the same thing, but could you just run dscl . -read /Search/Users/username RealName for all usernames?

g=admin; dscl . -list /Users | while read l; do printf %s "$l "; dsmemberutil checkmembership -U $l -G $g; done | grep 'is a member' | cut -d' ' -f1 | while read l; do echo "$l $(dscl . -read /Users/$l RealName | tail -n1 | cut -c2-)"; done


Keep my Apple ID, but delete individual iCloud services and data (for example the mailbox @icloud.com) When I type in DuckDuckGo something like How to permanently delete an Apple ID account I get lots of hits. But it will delete the complete Apple ID.

I wish only to delete the mailbox @icloud.com and @me.com. I no longer wish to have an Apple provided mail service.
I also wish to delete my account (and all data) on individual iCloud services (example iCloud Keychain).

This is impossible as clearly stated on Apple's website:

How to change your Apple ID if it ends with @icloud.com, @me.com or @mac.com
If you use an @icloud.com, @mac.com or @me.com email address as your Apple ID, you can’t change it to a third-party email address.

That is your Apple ID so you can't change it, the only real alternative is to create a new Apple ID.


Upgrade to macOS Sierra Will my data on the Macbook Pro be destroyed if I upgrade to macOS Sierra from OS X El Capitan?

It will most likely all be there. It will only update the operating system and leave your data untouched.
It is still a good idea to make a backup in case something goes wrong.


Why does Safari sometimes bookmark a different URL? I noticed this in Wikipedia redirect pages using iOS 12.1.1

For example, if you open this URL

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UK&redirect=no

Then use “Add bookmark” or “Add to Favorites”, iOS instead bookmarks this URL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK

(Wikipedia then automatically redirects it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom .)

“Add to Reading List” seemingly uses this amended URL too, while “Add to Home Screen” uses the unchanged https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UK&redirect=no .

Is there a technical explanation for how/why this happens?

Then use “Add bookmark” or “Add to Favorites”, iOS instead bookmarks this URL:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK

The rest of the title is telling it not to redirect as it is a redirect page as is removed.

  (Wikipedia then automatically redirects it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom .)

The page is a redirect page so it redirects it unless you put &redirect=no at the end of the title

  “Add to Reading List” seemingly uses this amended URL too, while “Add to Home Screen” uses the unchanged

Add to reading list is the same explanation while add to home screen just copies the link.


Open another terminal from the current one I am working on Terminal and attempt to create a New one with commands

$  open -a terminal

No feedbacks from the command

$ open -an terminal
The file ~/terminal does not exist.

How to accomplish it?

You have to separate the options and favor -n:

open -n -a terminal

This creates a 2nd Terminal instance!

If you add another option -F (fresh) you won't see any old/restored sessions:

open -n -F -a terminal


Kernel task takes about 500% CPU after connecting external monitor I work with macBook Pro (15 Inch 2019, Catalina OS). I can't work with external monitor. 3-5 minutes after pluging in I have kernel_task that takes something about 500-900% CPU. I know there are some similar topics - the main suspect is overheating in such case. I have some changes in temperature, but it's hard to say for me if temperatures are still in ok spot. I have highlighted the biggest changes.

I would suggest moving your charging plug from the left side of the MacBook Pro to the right side. Similarly you can experiment with plugging in the monitor on the other side.
The two sides have different reactions in terms of temperature, so on one side it might not make much difference - and on the other side it could be just above the threshold that triggers an attempt to lower the temperature by making kernel_task occupy the CPU (in idle mode) to save power.


How to selectively force Siri to send iMessage instead of SMS? In this question, I asked how to have Siri specifically send an SMS message to a person who does not have an SMS-capable iOS device registered with Apple, but does have iMessage on e.g. an iPad.

The answer was to say e.g. "Text Alice on mobile I'll be there soon," since "Text Alice" or even "SMS Alice" would not force Siri to use any specific mechanism.

However, we could not discover what magic word one could use in place of "mobile" to force the opposite effect: sending an iMessage instead of an SMS.  Words I've tried include:

email
iMessage
iOS
iPad

All of the above result in a message containing the magic word, e.g. "Text Alice on iMessage I'll be there soon" results simply in a message reading "On iMessage I'll be there soon."

Does anyone know what the magic word is for iMessage, if there is one?  Such a magic word would allow me to use Siri to send my choice of an SMS or an iMessage to Alice, since Alice carries both a non-Apple mobile phone and an iPad, though she does not necessarily have both on her or online at any given time.

I believe that the siri command for imessage is: Message Alice i'll be there soon. This will not prevent it from sending a text message. To prevent it from sending a text message, go into settings --> messages --> and turn off the "Send as SMS" switch.

In her contact it should look like this:

Alice Appleseed

Phone: (XXX) XXX-XXXX

Email: aliceappleseed@xxxxxxx.net

What you need to do is try to message her on one of these accounts.

Try saying: "message alice on her email...I'll see you later"

Then: "message alice on her mobile...I'll see you later"

The point is: you want to state where you want to send the message. If you just say "message Alice", then siri will ask you where you want the message to go.

Since the iPad doesn't have a phone number, you message it through its email address (this will have to send an iMessage). The non-iPhone uses its phone number (this will have to send a text message).

I hope this helps.

Update: Brought to my attention by the author of the original question, the method above: "message alice on her email...I'll see you later" is not fully effective.

Rather, saying it this way:

  "message alice on iCloud...I'll see you later"

will send the imessage to Alice's iCloud email address (which must be set up by her as an E-mail address which can contact her via imessage). Note: If I'm correct, the E-mail account used as a contact point does not have to be an iCloud account (although it may be better to use one anyway). For instance, you could use the E-mail account of johnny.appleseed@example.com, yet label it as an iCloud account in Contacts, and it SHOULD work the same.

Sadly, I have since stopped using Siri, simply because I have been too busy, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong about this all.

Glad I could help. (surprised that you remembered my answer, since it was written a good while ago.)


'Other Volumes' storage increases after deleting secondary volumes Long story short: ive noticed each time i create a secondary volume and removed it after some testing, the storage labeled 'Other Volumes' in the Disk Utility app has increased each time by half a gigabyte. I know for a fact that adding the new volume and removing it after the testing is what causes the 'Other Volumes' storage to increase by half a gigabyte each time, i just dont really understand why since im deleting the volume with all it's contents.

Originally the 'Other Volumes' was at 1.75GB before i did the first secondary volume, after removing the second volume it went up to 2.28GB; i just finished another test on another secondary volume and it went up again to 2.82GB for storage. I have a feeling that creating the new volumes and removing is what's causing the 'Other Volumes' to increase by half a gigabyte each time, but i want to know if there is some way to reduce it back down, preferably back to the 1.75 GB.

Is there a way to reduce the storage space of 'Other Volumes' without having to do something extreme?

Upgrades and deletions with subsequent recreation of volumes in a multi-volume container leave the container untouched and new (more) "file system UUID" specific folders are created for each volume in the shared "Recovery" volume.  Those folders each include a close to 500 MB BaseSystem.dmg

These older folders are not cleared by the system.

To remove the older unused folders, make sure you are booted into a volume outside the container with the Recovery in question.
1.) Then first run the following command in Terminal (to be found in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app, or search for it via Spotlight)

diskutil list

...and press enter. This will show your disk identifier for "Recovery" in the output, which in your case is disk1s3

2.) Now mount the "Recovery" volume with this command:

diskutil mount disk1s3

...and press enteragain, which will mount "Recovery" in /Volumes/Recovery (press cmdshift. to make the invisible directory visible in Finder, if necessary).

Navigate to it and you can inspect the various folders for their content (e.g. the SystemVersion.plist).  You can also delete them (I'd like to add that I do not suggest this though.  Instead some feedback to Apple to clean up those older folders is what I did).

Since you want to keep the currently in use ones, you will have to find your volumes' current "file system UUID".

I'm using "Disk Utility.app" for that (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app):
Select all your current volumes (one by one) and with one selected press cmdi to bring up the Info panel.  There look for "file system UUID" in the left column and note its value.

Do that for all other volumes.
If you've left the Finder window with the mounted Recovery open, you should now notice the ones you've found in Disk Utility also appear as folder names in the "Recovery" volume.  Leave those alone.

Only delete the ones that currently don't correspond to an existing volume, as shown in Disk Utility and empty the Trash, if you use Finder.

The mounted "Recovery" will get unmounted the next time you restart, or you can just right-click the volume icon in Finder and eject it.

If you don't have a volume outside the container to boot into

You can also delete those folders from "Recovery" itself.
Boot into the "Recovery" volume by holding cmdR at startup.
Launch "Terminal" from the "Utilities" menu.

Now follow the instructions, as above, running the two commands mentioned.
1.) The first one...
diskutil list ...to find your Recovery's disk identifier (which should be different from the one found, when not booted into Recovery above).
It (the container in question) will look similar to this:

/dev/disk5 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +62.5 GB    disk5
                                 Physical Store disk4s2
   1:                APFS Volume Installation1           23.8 GB    disk5s1
   2:                APFS Volume Installation2           12.2 GB    disk5s2
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 136.9 MB   disk5s3
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                3.1 GB     disk5s4
   5:                APFS Volume VM                      8.6 GB     disk5s5

As you can see, "Recovery" shows its identifier disk5s4 to the right.

2.) Now run the second command with the found identifier, e.g.
diskutil mount disk5s4

Knowing your current file system UUID(s) from the first part of this answer, you can now delete the folders in Terminal.

Example:

Mount Recovery with diskutil mount and your own found disk identifier
(bash-3.2# is just the command prompt Terminal displays):

-bash-3.2# diskutil mount disk5s4
Volume Recovery on disk5s4 mounted

Listing of all Volumes mounted under /Volumes with ls -al /Volumes:

-bash-3.2# ls -al /Volumes
total 8
drwxr-xr-x   8 root  wheel   340 Jul 22 14:17 .
drwxrwxr-t  16 root  admin   612 Jul  4 08:34 ..
drwxr-xr-x@ 31 root  wheel   992 Jul 16 22:09 AnotherVolume
drwxr-xr-x@ 30 root  wheel   960 Jul 21 10:59 Installation1
drwxr-xr-x@ 28 root  wheel   896 Jul  6 13:13 Installation2
drwxr-xr-x@ 42 root  wheel  1496 Jul 16 23:27 Macintosh HD
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     1 Jul 22 14:15 OS X Base System -> /
drwxr-xr-x  11 root  wheel   352 Jul 17 13:53 Recovery

Changing the directory to /Volumes/Recovery with cd /Volumes/Recovery and listing its contents with ls -al.  Those are two commands:

-bash-3.2# cd /Volumes/Recovery
-bash-3.2# ls -al
total 16
drwxr-xr-x  11 root      wheel      352 Jul 17 13:53 .
drwxr-xr-x   8 root      wheel      340 Jul 22 14:17 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 _unknown  _unknown  6148 Jul 17 13:54 .DS_Store
d-wx-wx-wt   2 root      wheel       64 Jul 22 14:13 .Trashes
drwx------   5 _unknown  _unknown   160 Feb 24 14:22 .fseventsd
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Feb  8 17:36 05971D12-C9A5-46FB-A70E-2BC0295FAE74
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Jun  4 11:07 23379897-F07E-43A4-A993-03308663CD1B
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Jun 24 10:40 59283231-6D51-412A-B100-D9E205805732
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Jul 21 10:29 AA624F58-E5E8-425C-9698-C1B78C3B0992
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Feb 25 17:06 ADDF591A-10FB-42C4-BDC5-C1C24E6D9217
drwxr-xr-x  11 root      wheel      352 Mar  1 14:19 C9D33FAC-742B-4F16-9DB3-6FFCB5E29DA9

Removing the first folder, named 05971D12-C9A5-46FB-A70E-2BC0295FAE74 (as found in the listing above), which I know to be unrelated to the currently in use ones with rm -r UUID and answering with "y" (yes) to the question to override:

-bash-3.2# rm -r 05971D12-C9A5-46FB-A70E-2BC0295FAE74
override rw-r--r--  root/wheel uchg for 05971D12-C9A5-46FB-A70E-2BC0295FAE74/boot.efi? y

Checking that it has been removed:

-bash-3.2# ls -al
total 16
drwxr-xr-x  10 root      wheel      320 Jul 22 14:18 .
drwxr-xr-x   8 root      wheel      340 Jul 22 14:17 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 _unknown  _unknown  6148 Jul 17 13:54 .DS_Store
d-wx-wx-wt   2 root      wheel       64 Jul 22 14:13 .Trashes
drwx------   5 _unknown  _unknown   160 Feb 24 14:22 .fseventsd
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Jun  4 11:07 23379897-F07E-43A4-A993-03308663CD1B
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Jun 24 10:40 59283231-6D51-412A-B100-D9E205805732
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Jul 21 10:29 AA624F58-E5E8-425C-9698-C1B78C3B0992
drwxr-xr-x  13 root      wheel      416 Feb 25 17:06 ADDF591A-10FB-42C4-BDC5-C1C24E6D9217
drwxr-xr-x  11 root      wheel      352 Mar  1 14:19 C9D33FAC-742B-4F16-9DB3-6FFCB5E29DA9

The Recovery does not have to be unmounted, as the reboot will unmount it anyway.  Or, if you want to run First Aid in Disk Utility, unmount it with...   diskutil umount disk5s4 Again using your own disk identifier instead of disk5s4

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.


Spotlight button doesn't work (on click displays a sound instead) It's a totally newbie question, but I started using Mac computers like a month ago and this is something I can't find on the internet. Sometimes (yeah not always and I can't even find out when it happens) when I want to click the spotlight button it displays sound and doesn't work (I use cmd + f instead, but it's pretty confusing). Could you tell me why is it like this?

P.S. The sound sounds like it was disabled or something.

Ok So I have the same problem since a while and I still haven't found any proper solution.

However there is one trick to open it anyway :

Trick

 + space this while able it too.


iTerm: How to make options (e.g. -r) after filenames work? How can I make iTerm accept options (e.g. -r) after filenames?
For example, I often delete folders and forget the -r option.
iTerm will accept rm -r folder but not rm folder -r. Any way to make this work?

I think I have seen this work on ubuntu.

I am on macos 10.15.3 with iTerm 3.3.9 and zsh 5.7.1.

It's not up to iTerm, it's up to each individual command program (like rm, ls, etc) how to parse its arguments. The traditional convention in unix commands is to require options to come first (before positional parameters), but the GNU project has adopted a convention where they can come in any order (except that -- indicates the end of options). macOS avoids GNU software as much as possible (for licensing reasons), and uses mostly bsd versions of commands... which (mostly) follow the traditional options-first convention.

You can install GNU versions of commands if you want (e.g. with homebrew). But there's a problem: because the GNU versions are different, you risk breaking scripts that assume the macOS-standard commands. To avoid this conflict, GNU versions are usually prefixed with "g" (e.g. gawk instead of awk), so you'd have to get used to that instead.

So, my advice is to get used to putting options first. It's the way most of the commands on macOS work, and if you try to change it you're just going to create other problems.


Installing ruby to specific directory/usb I am trying to install ruby to a specific directory, a USB stick, so I can move the usb back and forth without having to install ruby on each machine I get to (I need ruby 2.0+). How can I do this?

I have been looking after stuff like setting RVM install directory and so forth, with no luck. The closest I found was this description telling me how to move the entire RVM install, which I don't want. I just want a simple ruby version on a usb stick.

On windows this was very easy: Run RubyInstaller, and point it to the USB. On OSx, well, that's another story.

How can I achieve this?

So I figured this out:

What you must do is download the ruby source, and extract it wherever. Then you have a folder named ruby-2.1.2, or something reflecting your ruby version.

Then, in terminal, cd to that directory. Then run:

./configure --prefix=/Volumes/USB_STICK_NAME/folder/to/install/into/osx_ruby
make
sudo make install

Protip: drag-n-drop the ubs-folder you want into the terminal to get the desired folder path. Much easier than writing it

That will install ruby into your usb-stick named "USB_STICK_NAME" under the folders folder/to/install/into/osx_ruby. Feel free to name it differently, but remember; The folder you select as install directory is where all the internal ruby stuff ends up,  like bin, lib. I would recommend naming that folder "osx_ruby" or something similar.

Hope someone finds this useful.


Why can't I create a .ssh directory on macOS 10.15.4? I'm running into a strange problem trying to set up ssh. I'm more used to Linux than macOS. Can someone explain to me what's going on here?

user@nothing ~ % mkdir ~/.ssh
mkdir: /Users/user: No such file or directory
user@nothing ~ % ls -ld ~
drwxr-xr-x+ 27 user  staff  864 Apr  1 13:49 /Users/user
user@nothing ~ % ls -ld ~/.ssh
ls: /Users/user/.ssh: No such file or directory

The ACLs are defined as:

nnyby@nothing ~ % ls -ael ~
total 96
drwxr-xr-x+ 26 nnyby  staff    832 Apr  2 09:47 .
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwxr-xr-x   6 root   admin    192 Oct 23 20:37 ..
-r--------   1 nnyby  staff      7 Mar 28 11:24 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rw-r--r--@  1 nnyby  staff   6148 Apr  1 13:44 .DS_Store
drwx------  10 nnyby  staff    320 Apr  1 13:44 .Trash
-rw-------   1 nnyby  staff    751 Apr  1 13:43 .bash_history
drwx------  41 nnyby  staff   1312 Nov  7 14:29 .bash_sessions
drwx------   3 nnyby  staff     96 Nov 15 11:40 .config
drwxr-xr-x   4 nnyby  staff    128 Nov  1 11:27 .emacs.d
-rw-r--r--   1 nnyby  staff     53 Nov 13 12:28 .gitconfig
drwx------   3 nnyby  staff     96 Nov 15 11:40 .local
-rw-------   1 nnyby  staff    118 Mar 22 09:59 .python_history
-rw-------   1 nnyby  staff  12554 Apr  1 19:37 .viminfo
-rw-------   1 nnyby  staff   5271 Apr  2 09:21 .zsh_history
drwx------@  3 nnyby  staff     96 Apr  1 09:53 Applications
drwx------+ 14 nnyby  staff    448 Apr  1 22:56 Desktop
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 10 nnyby  staff    320 Apr  2 09:47 Documents
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------@ 25 nnyby  staff    800 Apr  1 22:39 Downloads
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------@ 66 nnyby  staff   2112 Apr  1 09:52 Library
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+  4 nnyby  staff    128 Nov 25 14:23 Movies
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+  4 nnyby  staff    128 Mar 17 20:50 Music
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 30 nnyby  staff    960 Apr  1 22:39 Pictures
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwxr-xr-x+  4 nnyby  staff    128 Oct 24 14:34 Public
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwxr-xr-x   4 nnyby  staff    128 Mar 20 10:40 dist
drwxr-xr-x   9 nnyby  staff    288 Apr  1 14:12 src
nnyby@nothing ~ % ls -ael ~/..
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   6 root      admin  192 Oct 23 20:37 .
drwxr-xr-x  22 root      admin  704 Mar 28 11:54 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root      wheel    0 Oct 17 18:40 .localized
drwxrwxrwt   5 root      wheel  160 Oct 17 18:40 Shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 11 ctladmin  staff  352 Oct 24 14:34 ctladmin
 0: group:everyone deny delete
drwxr-xr-x+ 26 nnyby     staff  832 Apr  2 09:47 nnyby
 0: group:everyone deny delete

Similarly, I can't generate public and private keys:

user@nothing ~ % ssh-keygen
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa):
Could not create directory '/Users/user/.ssh': No such file or directory
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Saving key "/Users/user/.ssh/id_rsa" failed: No such file or directory

I can create a dot-prefixed directory with another name, no problem:

user@nothing ~ % mkdir ~/.abc
user@nothing ~ %

If I do mkdir /tmp/.ssh; mv /tmp/.ssh ~/, the mv process hangs, and uses all my CPU until I restart!

So, how do I make my .ssh directory?

I booted into recovery mode, and ran First Aid on my disk. First the Macintosh HD volume, which returned without error.

Then, when I ran First Aid on the "Macintosh HD - Data" volume, the operation failed, with these errors:

I ran this operation twice, with the same errors. I didn't know what else to do, so I just restarted back into the normal environment.

When I log in, I see that there is a .ssh directory after all, created last October 25!

nnyby@nothing ~ % ls -lae .ssh
total 24
drwx------   5 nnyby  staff   160 Oct 25 11:36 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 26 nnyby  staff   832 Apr  2 12:43 ..
 0: group:everyone deny delete
-rw-------   1 nnyby  staff  1856 Oct 25 11:36 id_rsa
-rw-r--r--   1 nnyby  staff   423 Oct 25 11:36 id_rsa.pub
-rw-r--r--   1 nnyby  staff  3192 Apr  2 12:46 known_hosts

I had restarted this laptop plenty of times over the past few weeks, always with this .ssh problem, so maybe the disk repair did something to fix it? Either way, thank you macOS for being completely not frustrating at all to work with! I can't imagine why anyone would prefer to use Linux!


Paste image from clipboard into Keynote I copied an image into the clipboard: but there is no paste option within Keynote. So.. how to do this basic operation?

The general answer is

  "just be sure to paste into an unoccupied area of the Keynote slide"

My issue was that I was trying to paste into an area already occupied by a textbox.  It may not be obvious due to a bunch of blank lines that make the box extend longer than immediately apparent.


What is the icon on the desktop after I install an application? I am very very new to Mac. Here is my question:

I have downloaded VLC player and then I clicked on the dmg file. I moved the VLC icon to Applications folder in the opening window.

Now when I start Spotlight and type VLC I can open the app which is great. But there is also an icon on the desktop. What is this?

It looks like a hard drive icon but I am not sure. When I right click on it I see:

Kind: Volume
Disk image: /Users/kt/Downloads/vlc-..dmg
Format: Mac OS Extended
Capacity: 134 MB
Available: 13 MB

Anyway what is this file?
Is it like a Windows shortcut?
Is it the file I downloaded in the first place? (But it was downloaded do "Downloads" folder)

This is the downloaded disk image. Many applications downloaded from the internet will come as an internet ready disk image, which means that it mounts and opens when the downloaded file is opened.

A disk image is a mountable image of any volume. Disk images can be images of physical volumes or virtual disks. Like a zip, dmg disk images can be compressed (and usuall are, especially internet ready disk images such as the disk images used to install software from the internet) or can be read/write like an actual disk. They are mounted in the same mount point as physical disks, but are virtual. When unmounting, the disk is ejected and the mount point deleted like a physical disk. As the disk image is a disk, it will be shown on the desktop if you have the relevant option selected in Finder preferences:

Copy the app to your /Applications folder (or wherever else you desire) then eject the disk image by right-clicking and selecting Eject (or through Finder). The mounted disk image is the .dmg that you downloaded, therefore can be deleted by deleting this disk image after unmounting.


Chrome glitching graphics on macbook pro I am running Sierra 10.12.4 on a 13 inch Macbook Pro, Early 2015. I recently purchased it.. In december. Anyways, I noticed this glitching when I was looking up sprites for a game that we had to make as an assignment. What I noticed was, the check pattern on png images (if they're transparent) is really glitching.

Here you can see that its displaying some sort of weird folder icon, idk. It can change too. It goes away if i zoom in or select / highlight the picture.
If i open up another image, it displays something like this. You can see that its some sort of camera icon that it picked up.

Sometimes, when I open up my facebook, it replaces all these tiny images with my profile picture! REALLY really weird. I also noticed that the loading bar on gmail [the blue one before you open your email] glitches too as it progresses. Also the scrolling is now really really sluggish on chrome.
I tested this on Chrome Canary, Same issue.
Everything else on the machine works fine. There are no glitches. I ran firewatch, it works fine. No glitches. I tested this on Safari, No issues. I did the same thing on firefox, works perfectly. I ran Cinebench, no issues, works okay..
So, what could be the issue here? Any ideas? Chrome is really my favorite browser and I really don't wanna ditch it.
EDIT / UPDATE 15/5/2017
Okay, I know I should've updated this earlier.. but switching back to 10.12.3 fixed EVERYTHING!

Since you're not experiencing this issue with Safari or Firefox, the first thing I'd try is turning off hardware acceleration in Google Chrome. To do this, follow these steps:

Launch Google Chrome
Go to Chrome > Preferences (or just press the command, keyboard shortcut
At the bottom of the page, click on Show advanced settings...
Look for the System subheading in the new settings that appear
Uncheck the Use hardware acceleration when available option
Restart Google Chrome

Let us know how you go.


Need old music transferred to new computer My computer crashed and actually caught on fire destroying everything that was in it. I purchased a new computer and a new ISP and email address. But, my new computer does not have my ITunes library in it, just 1 song. I have contacted Apple about this. They sent me a link to get me started but, it really doesn't help me because of the old email address is not the current new address. Because of the different ISP's. I am stuck. I have Windows 8.1.

Your old Apple ID is probably still valid and I imaging the old password will still work.

For example, if I have an email address blahblahblah@something.com and create an Apple ID it's just using that email address as my username. It is not actually using your email account's password to authenticate. Does that make sense? I'd just try logging in with your old Apple ID (email address) and your last known password.

If all else fails then I hope you had a rescue email address setup for your Apple ID!


How to create this static route on macos? I am trying to set up an xdebug inside a docker such as it communicates with PhpStorm. I have found steps for linux which sounds promising. However, the following command fails to run on macOS (sudo: ip: command not found). I failed to translate the following Linux command to a macOS command.

sudo ip addr add 10.254.254.254/24 brd + dev wlp4s0 label wlp4s0:1

How to run it on macOS?

How about

sudo route -n add -net -ifscope wlp4s0 10.254.254.254/24 10.254.254.1

Source: man route


Can't restore image to USB stick When I try to restore, I get message:

Could not validate source - Operation not supported

haven't seen anything like this on the web

As the message says, it can't validate the source, meaning that either you are poiting to a wrong file (such as an alias, por instance) or the image you are trying to restore is corrupted.


Close mission control by repeating gesture Currently I have mission control to activate on three fingers up as so

However once mission control is activated I would expect to be able to close mission control by repeating this three fingers up gesture. Or at least that's how I had it configured on a previous mac. How can I restore this functionality?

Apple officially responded this is no longer supported.


How should I fix keyboard problems on iOS? Since I started using custom keyboards on iOS (I'm using SwiftKey) I get an intermittent problem whereby Messages freezes. Also, other apps sometimes can't access the keyboard at all.

Is this a recognised bug for iOS 8? Is there a known solution?

Solution? Use the Apple default keyboard.

3rd party keyboards can always have issues and it is up to the vendor to release updates to fix them.

You can post your issue at http://vip.swiftkey.net/index.php?/forum/705-ios-user-to-user-community-support/ and see if someone can help but more than likely you will need to wait for an update.


Mail.app extension to avoid sending email from the wrong account? I have recently starting using Mail.app with two email accounts (work and home).  Every now and then I send email while having the wrong folder selected, and the default "from" account will be not what I expect.  Are there any extensions or tips to make the currently selected "from" jump out at me in the compose window if it's not the 'default' from address?  In other words, 99% of the time, I use my main account, but if I accidentally open a compose window with the alternate account, I'd like a different background color in the compose window, or some big flashing icon or something.  The problem case happens because I was reviewing a folder in the non-default account.  Any ideas?


How to have new email notification while Apple Mail.app is closed? In OS X when Calendar.app is closed I get notifications about events; how can I have this work in Mail.app? While Mail is closed I want to get new email notifications.

You cannot.

You need the Mail app running. Unlike Calendar events, checking for emails is not something that can run locally. A client application need to connect with your mail server and retrieve your e-mails.

Sure there could be some background process that does that without the need of the Mail app, but it would not make much sense; in the end you would still have a process doing the checking.

Something that may make the Mail app less intrusive to you desktops' organization etc is having it been launched automatically and hidden at startup.


Mail.app encounters recurring connection error (to Gmail IMAP server) after installing Mountain Lion I have a Gmail IMAP account in Mail, which up until installing Mountain Lion has always worked smoothly.

Now after the upgrade, I find that if I have Mail open for a while in the background or I put my computer to sleep while Mail is running, when I return to it, Mail shows the error:

"Unable to Connect

There may be a problem with the mail server or network. Verify the settings for account "Gmail" or try again.

The server returned the error: The server "imap.gmail.com" cannot be contacted on port 993."

Here is a screenshot.

I've verified my IMAP settings are correct. The only way to fix it at the moment is to quit and reopen Mail. Then it breaks after a while and the process repeats!

Do you have any ideas why it might be doing this? I'm on an early 2011 MBP.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

This happened to me while in Snow Leopard. It's a different situation, however I fixed it by removing the mail account, and re-adding it fresh. Worked forever after that.

-Z


How can I cut down on the size of iMovie Library.imovielibrary? I recently noticed that the file at ~/Movies/iMovie Library.imovielibrary is taking up an awful lot of space:

Is there a way to make it smaller? I don't have anything important in iMovie - what happens if I simply delete it?

Is there a way to make it smaller?

Sure — in iMovie, delete what you don't need and the size of the library will reduce.

If you're looking for more detail regarding what is taking up space in your library, you can browse the library with something such as DaisyDisk1 which will show what is using the most space.

  I don't have anything important in iMovie - what happens if I simply delete it?

You'll lose all your media from your iMovie library, including footage, projects and associated files such as render files (although if you don't have the media any more the render files are pretty useless).

Your iMovie settings aren't stored in the library, unless the settings are specific to the library or something in the library, such as project settings.

1 DaisyDisk needs a bit of prodding to look in packages — right-click the package and choose Show Package Contents.


Any way to get a Screenshot of entire webpage WITHOUT repeating elements? i use Snagit for Mac (Techsmith) to capture screenshots of entire web pages (they call it "scrolling capture") successfully.
    -BUT-
    on occasion, there are some webpages that do not wanna cooperate. from what i can tell, it's pages that have headers or sidebars that remain in place when the page is scrolled. these elements get captured repeatedly in the one shot - usually duplicating whole sections within the shot.

the only way i've been able to clean it up is to find the duplication & slice it out of the image. it's a pain in the ass for long pages.

at first, i thought it was a Snagit issue. but after downloading & trying multiple other full-page screenshot programs & browser extensions, it happens with all of them - on any browser.

so, i've attempted doing a developer inspection of the code & deleting those sections, or trying to find the scripts that make those areas stay static on the pages, but have been unsuccessful.
i've also tried using the QuickNuke extension - but still, no luck.

anybody got any other hacks, ideas, apps, extensions, that can workaround this?
thanx!

I use Paparazzi and it works fine taking full-length screenshots of webpages with fixed elements, as far as I can tell.


Info.plist is always readonly I want to edit Finder Info.plist file that is located here:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist

But when I try to edit the file by vi the file is readonly.

# vi /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist

When I try to chmod or chown the file nothing happens.

When I try to change file permission from Finder I get the error: "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission."

The Locked checkbox in Get Info is disabled.

I also tried:

sudo chflags nouchg Info.plist

But after all that, file is still readonly.

What is preventing root from editing this file on OS X El Capitan 10.11.2?

That file is explicitly protected by SIP.

ls -lO /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist

The "restricted" flag listed by the O (capital letter o) option to the ls command shows SIP status of the file.

To change that one file, you would need to disable System Integrity Protection. SIP is a security measure to prevent any User up to and including root (and thereby most malware) from modifying system files.

To disable:

Boot into Recovery Mode (Hold Command+R while turning on Mac).
Open Terminal (Click Utilities > Terminal).
Type: csrutil disable
Restart your computer, and SIP will be disabled.

You should now be able to modify Finder's info.plist file.


List Time Machine backups of a file If I have a file or directory path, how can I list all Time Machine backups of that path?

Here's my attempt:

#!/bin/bash
# list Time Machine backups of a file starting with most recent

if [ "$#" -ne 1 ]; then
    echo "Usage: list_backups.sh filename"
    exit
fi

filename=`realpath "$1"`

# find root volume path
for vol in /Volumes/*; do
    if [ "$(readlink "$vol")" = / ]; then
        root_vol=$vol
    fi
done

# prepend it to input path if necessary
if [[ "$filename" != /Volumes* ]]; then
    filename="$root_vol$filename"
fi

# remove /Volumes from input path
filename="${filename///Volumes}"

# loop over backups in reverse order
tmutil listbackups | tail -1000 -r |
while IFS= read -r line; do
    if [ -e "$line$filename" ]; then
        ls -ald "$line$filename"
    else
        echo "not in $line"
    fi
done


Why does my MacBook Pro suddenly die instead of remaining in sleep mode? I have a MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo (Pre-unibody) running Snow Leopard that fails to stay in sleep mode when the battery is run down to 0%.

This problem just started a month ago. The battery is new. It runs down fine and I get a warning when the reserve battery kicks in at 10%, but when it reaches 0, it goes into sleep mode for about 1 second and then dies.

When I boot back up, it tries to recover but fails and then just reboots as normal. I tried recalibrating the battery and I also tried resetting the PMU but to no avail.

If anyone has any ideas, I'm open to suggestions.

You may need to recalibrate for the new battery. Use the computer until you get the warning message. Then, shut down and plug it in. Let it charge fully before you turn it back on. Doing this will allow the system to calibrate for the new battery so that it can more accurately tell how much charge is remaining, which could help if it thinks the battery will last longer than it does.


Where on my Mac are my iPod Touch photos stored? I took some photos on my iPod Touch, and I want to use them on my Mac.  I've synced the devices, but I don't know where the photos are.

I looked in iTunes (since it seems to want to manage everything about my iPod, even the things which aren't "tunes"), but I don't see a photo section there.
I looked in ~/Pictures/ but they're obviously not there.
I looked in ~/Music/iTunes/ (since my mobile apps are stored their, strangely), but no luck.

Where are they hiding?

The photos aren't automatically transferred when you sync in iTunes - you have to use iPhoto or Image Capture to get the photos on your computer.


truecrypt 7.1a requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later on Yosemite 10.10 After reading articles about the state of Truecrypt in February 2015, I decided to download the last stable version of Truecrypt that allows full usage of Truecrypt: that is, version 7.1a

  7.2 version that can only be used to view, but no longer to create new, TrueCrypt volumes.

see https://www.grc.com/misc/truecrypt/truecrypt.htm

I then proceeded to install this on my Mac, running on Yosemite 10.10

But I got the error message "truecrypt 7.1a requires  Mac OS X 10.4 or later", see below.

I guess it's simply a schoolboy error from a developer of the Truecrypt team, as it considers 10.4 being above 10.10, or maybe it's rather Apple who messed up & should have consistantly used 2 digits after the dot (i.e. use 10.04 rather than 10.4).

In any case, I find myself unable to install Truecrypt. Anyone found a solution for this?

Copy the mpkg from inside the downloaded disk image onto your Desktop.
Right click the mpkg file and choose Show Package Contents, then open the Contents folder.
Open distribution.dist with a text editor.
Remove lines 13 to 18.

Save the file and open the mpkg normally.


Bluetooth Headphone constantly disconnecting Recently I bought a new pair of headphones, a JBL Everest Elite 150nc (with noise cancelling). I know it is a little older, but the price was a bargain (like 9 times cheaper that an AirPods Pro) and my previous one, a 3 year old Beats x, died on me.
It is working perfectly on my iPhone, iPad and my wife's windows pc, but when I connected to my MacBook Pro 13-inch (2016 - MacBookPro13,2) running macOS 10.15.5 (19F101) it disconnected when I tried to play anything. It is maddening.
I've tried a bunch of solutions in AskDifferent and none worked:

Bluetooth peripherals randomly disconnecting under Mavericks
Bluetooth headphones disconnect a few seconds after connecting on macOS
Bluetooth headphones not connecting with reason 0x16

Can some help me?

After going nuts for a couple of days, I found a somewhat solution that is working for me.
I reset the bluetooth module with Shift-Option click the BT menu bar item > Debug > Reset the Bluetooth module.
After that I ran the command to read the configuration for the Bluetooth audio daemon.
sudo defaults read bluetoothaudiod

Mine had 0 entries witch means that it is all defaulted to what Bluetooth audio daemon thinks its best.
Then I ran the command bellow.
sudo defaults write bluetoothaudiod "Apple Bitpool Max" 40
sudo defaults write bluetoothaudiod "Disable AAC codec" 1
sudo defaults write bluetoothaudiod "Disable AptX codec" 1

It disables AAC and AptX codec, I think because my BT headphone is a little older is getting some incompatibility with then, and set the max Bitpool to 40 (I think it defaults to 64).
Then I tried to connect my BT headphone again and it's working like a charm for a hole day.
Update
Well. I did find a evidence for my solution...
Using this site and Apple Packet Logger on the Additional Tools for Xcode I extracted
How to create btsnoop log on macOS?

Download Additional Tools for Xcode
Mount the DMG
Open PacketLogger in the Hardware folder
Stop the capture (Play icon on the top left)
Clear the list (Trash icon)
Turn off Bluetooth
Start the capture (Play icon on the top left)
Turn on Bluetooth, connect to your headset
Let it run for at least 30 seconds
Stop the capture again
Filter by the device you are trying to find the info (top middle)
Go to File > Export > BTsnoop...
Save it on your Desktop for easy reference
Use this file to upload on the site above

After upload you will be redirected to a page with the info bellow:
Connection:
  78:4f:43:78:2e:61 () → b0:91:22:bc:5d:4e (JBL Everest Elite 150NC)

Supported codecs:
  Audio SBC (48000 | Mono JointStereo | block: 4 8 12 16 | subbands: 8 | allocation: Loudness | bitpool: 2..40)
  Audio non-A2DP (aptX - 48000, Stereo)

Used for audio:
  Audio SBC (48000 | JointStereo | block: 16 | subbands: 8 | allocation: Loudness | bitpool: 2..40)

Latest SBC Bitpool value: 40

Update 2
Found other values that work
{
    "AAC Bitrate" = 255;
    "Apple Initial Bitpool" = 53;
    "Enable AAC codec" = 1;
}

I found that my headphone apear to have AAC codec compatibility and enabled it. And for my surprise setting the initial SBC Bitpool above de one it was auto discovering (48) it still works


Start stunnel service on bootup I have a service ran under homebrew. This service is simply started by running the command

sudo stunnel

I need this command to run on bootup, so I created a LaunchDaemon but it is not working. Here is the launchd file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple$
<plist version="1.0">
   <dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.stunnel.stunnelstartup.plist</string>
   <key>ProgramArguments</key>
   <array>
          <string>/bin/sh</string>
          <string>/usr/local/etc/stunnel/startup.sh</string>
   </array>
   <key>UserName</key>
   <string>ROOT</string>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
   <key>KeepAlive</key>
   <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

And here is the shell script:

#!/bin/bash
#stunnel startup
sleep 30 #Delay added for the system to boot properly
sudo stunnel

What am I doing wrong???

EDIT: I have done what all of the answers have suggested so far, with still no luck. Here is my new launchd file:

I also edited the stunnel configuration so it does not run in the background

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple$
<plist version="1.0">
   <dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.stunnel.stunnelstartup.plist</string>
   <key>Program</key>
   <string>/usr/local/bin/stunnel</string>
   <key>UserName</key>
   <string>root</string>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
   <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
   <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

It appears that stunnel backgrounds itself, i.e. it forks a subprocess to do the actual work in the background, then exits. When a launchd-managed process exits, launchd defaults to automatically killing off any leftover subprocesses... like the background stunnel process. I haven't tested these, but there are two simple ways to avoid this.

First, you can tell launchd not to kill leftover subprocesses by adding <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key><true/> to the .plist.

Second, you can tell stunnel to not background itself by adding foreground = yes to its config file. If you do the second option, you can probably also remove <key>KeepAlive</key><false/> from your .plist, and let launchd manage the stunnel daemon properly.

[Update] If that and Mark's suggestions don't get it working, I'd recommend adding some debugging output in the script, and sending that and stunnel's output to a log file. Something like this:

#!/bin/bash
#stunnel startup
exec >/tmp/stunnel.log 2>&1 # Send all output to a debug log
sleep 30 #Delay added for the system to boot properly
echo "$(date) - Starting stunnel"
sudo /path/to/stunnel
echo "$(date) - stunnel exited with status $?"
echo

You can do similar things by adding StandardOutPath and StandardErrorPath keys, but in this case it's easier to edit the script.


iPhone Application Name Already Taken I have developed an application for which I had registered a name on apple itunes portal. As my application is done now and I needed to upload the binary, I got invalid binary error many times. I thought I should start over the process to create the app again. I deleted the app and tried to create it again with the same name. Now it gives me error when I try to create the app with the same name.

You have to contact iTunes Connect, they'll have it already in their system that your app took the name first, but as you've tried to recreate it with the same name the system is assuming the other is valid (but with errors) and bouncing you. There's a support email address for them, they'll either be able to pull the old one and let you take the spot, or advise you on what you need to do.


Delete all data from MacBook except a certain folder? I can not find a clear step by step guide on how to completely remove all data, apps, cache from my Mac (to give it to another friend), but keep a certain folder that I can not backup otherwise (it is 40 GB and we are far from home).

I have a MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave. I have 1 folder on the Desktop, and I want to remove all the data from the Mac including all cache and apps, and leave this folder there.

We can and should keep the macOS Mojave as I just downloaded it.

I want to really remove everything since it has a lot of garbage, cache, and private keys, etc.

Apple Support has some excellent documents on guidelines to follow before selling/giving away your Mac.

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac.

As per this document, the best way to restore the Mac to factory settings and remove everything and reinstall macOS. This should really get rid of all user data and any user installed apps.

However, you do not wish to re-download and re-install macOS Mojave. This is what I would do if I were in your place and had similar requirement.

Start by uninstalling all the unnecessary app installed from Mac App Store and other places.
First of all, go to Launchpad, press and hold Option key and uninstall apps installed from the Mac App Store. The ones installed from the Mac App Store shows an x button towards the top left of the app icon. Simply click on the x button to uninstall it.
Download and install an app called AppCleaner. Use AppCleaner to look for and uninstall any user installed apps.
Restart the computer to make sure any recently uninstalled app is completely removed.
Uninstall any package manager such as Homebrew, MacPorts that you may have installed by following the respective uninstall instructions from their website.
You are now done uninstalling the apps. I am assuming you are an Admin user. Now proceed to delete any (all) other user account(s) that you may have on system. Select the delete the user Home folder to delete any files/data saved by them.
Create a new Admin user account by going to System Preferences app → Users & Groups → (Unlocking preference by clicking on Lock icon) → Clicking on + button and creating a new Administrator account.
Copy the folder that you wish to backup from the Desktop to a folder named Shared which is present in /Users directory alongside your current users Home directory.
Make sure to also copy any files to Shared folder that you may wish to backup.
Now go to System Preferences app → iCloud and turn off Find My Mac (if enabled). This will require your Apple ID credentials to be entered.
Under iCloud system preference, click on the Sign Out button to disconnect from iCloud. Make sure to remove local copy of any data (Contacts, Reminders, Notes).
Log out of the current user, we are done cleaning up.
Log in with the newly created account and perform any preliminary configuration.
First of all, copy the directory that you backed up from your Desktop to Shared folder to a suitable location in the new users account Home directory.
Once successfully backed up, delete the directory and any other files from the Shared directory.
Now go to System Preferences app → Users & Groups, unlock the preference by clicking on the lock icon, select and delete your original user account. To delete it, click on the account name and click on the - button shown towards the bottom. When prompted, choose to delete all the user data.
This should take care of your specific requirement and should give you a usable factory condition like macOS installation. You can now give it away to your friend.


Why does my wifi internet access fail shortly after connecting to a LAN without internet access? I have a working wireless connection to an access point with an internet connection (where my IP is 172.17.30.137). Over this wireless connection I am able to ping internet addresses (e.g. 4.2.2.1) as well as other machines on the wifi network (e.g. 172.17.30.1). I leave those ping processes running in the background. Now I plug in an ethernet cable, which goes to a LAN on which there is a DHCP server but no internet access. That DHCP server assigns my ethernet adapter an IP (10.35.1.100) and I am now also able to ping addresses on that LAN (e.g. 10.35.1.1). All three pings run concurrently for a few seconds to a few minutes, when suddenly the ping to 4.2.2.1 does this:

64 bytes from 4.2.2.1: icmp_seq=1629 ttl=55 time=8.376 ms
64 bytes from 4.2.2.1: icmp_seq=1630 ttl=55 time=14.247 ms
64 bytes from 4.2.2.1: icmp_seq=1631 ttl=55 time=18.024 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1632
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1633
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1634
ping: sendto: No route to host
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1635
ping: sendto: No route to host

It stays that way, with me having no internet access, until I unplug the ethernet cable. While this is going on I still have access to 172.17.30.x and 10.35.1.x. When I unplug the ethernet cable the ping to 10.35.1.1 starts timing out and the ping to 4.2.2.1 starts working again within a couple of seconds.

What causes this? How can I fix it? Would it be helpful if I include copies of my routing table at various points in the process? How do I get that?

You can adjust the order of your network interfaces in the Network panel of System Preferences. This allows you to set the primary adaptor for your network location, which in your case should be the Wi-Fi adaptor, since that provides the actual correct default route to the Internet.

The re-ordering UI is accessible by clicking on the 'gear' icon below the list of Network Adaptors on the left side of the Network Panel, and choosing "Set Service Order...".

You'll probably want to make & use a new Network Location for this setup, because in general (where either Ethernet or Wi-Fi provide valid default routes to the Internet), the Ethernet will be the better preference.

The same re-ordering can be useful for slightly unusual network setups, or VPNs where you may actually want all traffic to go through the VPN route (ie it should be the first service in the list) or maybe you only want the local subnet traffic on the VPN (ie your standard ethernet/wi-fi connections should precede it).


How can I stop my screen from dimming while it's plugged in? Every once in a while my screen dims, I don't want that to happen. Just now it did it while I was moving the mouse.

Under displays in system preferences there is a checkbox (along with a brightness slider) to enable/disable automatic brightness.


Setting a automator action to run everyday I have an automator action that downloads file from our server. Easy enough to setup but can't quite sort out how to set it so it will operate automatically at a certain time everyday. Tried hooking it with iCal but that didn't seem to work. Any assistance or pointing in the right direction is appreciated

You can save an automator workflow as a Plugin, and it becomes an actual alarm action available in iCal.

Here's a doc for an older version of Automator.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Automator/1.0/en/ensm2063.html

In Snow Leopard/Lion, when you create a new Automator event you can choose "iCal Alarm"


Amending/deleting Notes or Calendar entries on iPad or in iCloud I am unfamiliar with iCloud and generally a bit dim. If I amend or delete a note or Calendar entry on my iPad will that change affect the note or Calendar entry in iCloud, and vice versa?

If so, is there a way to delete/amend notes on the iPad but preserving the original in the iCloud?

If you are signed into iCloud on your iPad, generally changes you make to iCloud-synced items will sync to your other devices through iCloud.

Particularly for Notes, you can have device-specific notes by doing the following on your iPad:

Go to Settings > Notes and go to the bottom where you should see an "On My iPad" Account option. Toggle that on and you will then have a place in Notes to store notes that stay just on your iPad. This will appear in the list of folders under "ON MY IPAD" and you can create new folders under that section, just as you would for iCloud.

For Calendars, there is no way to maintain a local-only calendar and still sync another calendar to iCloud. (You can do this if you use something other than iCloud to sync your calendar, such as Gmail, but not with iCloud.)


How do I move a USB Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule? Is there a safe way to move a Time Machine backup on an external USB hard drive to a Time Capsule?

Yes, it's straightforward to do it, even though it would take quite sometime to complete depending on the size of your current backups. Follow the detailed procedure at Copy  Local  backups to be used on a  NETWORK.

Here's a summary of what's required and the steps.

The backups go into a sparsebundle on a Time Capsule. So you need to create that sparsebundle on the Time Capsule, mount it in Finder and then copy over everything from your USB drive into the mounted volume.

Here are the basic steps with some additional information:

Configure Time Machine to back up to the Time Capsule and start a backup. This will make it create the sparsebundle.
Cancel the backup once the copying starts (as seen in the progress window).
Mount the Time Machine Backups sparsebundle in Finder by double-clicking it (or using Cmd+Down Arrow)
Delete the Backups.backupdb folder inside this volume (you'll be replacing it with the backup you already have).
Open your current Time Machine backup USB drive in Finder and copy the Backups.backupdb folder from it to the Time Machine Backups partition (mounted from the Time Capsule).
Enter your administrator password and accept the prompts (this may happen a couple of times).


Navionics mobile app for iPad 3 I am planning to buy the Navionics app for iPad: does it require a Wi-Fi or cellular connection to use the Navionics maps for navigation?

The iPad without cellular connection does not have GPS onboard, so you cannot use it reliably for navigation. It does have very limited location awareness when it comes in range of Wi-Fi hotspots that have been cataloged into the iOS location database and also falls in the subset of this database that gets loaded onto your device for offline use.

The maps themselves are designed to function fully without a data connection, so although you might not get updates or supplemental data while the iPad data connection is offline, an iPad models with cellular radios and GPS chips will work well for navigation apps such as Navionics even when you are out of range of all Wi-Fi and cellular towers due to the design of the software, the OS and the GPS chips embedded in the iPad.


What determines whether a drive can be converted to APFS? Now High Sierra is released and not in beta, I'm wondering what the rules are about covering drives to APFS.

The release version of High Sierra auto converts SSDs to APFS on installation. But we know that Apple pulled the conversion of Fusion drives during the beta. We also know that non-fusion spinning disks can be converted to APFS but are not auto-converted.

According to the developer advice and several internet sources, other drives can be converted by using Disk Utility (right click the disk and the option will be greyed out if not available).

So I thought I'd try this on an old (late 2009) 27" iMac and the option was not available (the internal disk is actually new this year so it isn't just age). My Macbook Pro (early 2015) internal SSD converted automatically. Then I have some external disks all of which are perfectly functional. So I tried some of them. My Time Machine external disk would convert (not sure whether it is worth it) and old spinning 500GB spinning disk (extracted from an old MacBook) will convert. But two other disks (a LaCie 2GB USB and the original 1GB from my iMac) will not.

So what are the rules? Which disks can be converted to APFS? It is clearly more complicated that Apple's guidance which implies any HFS+ drive can be converted. Is it a settings thing we can manually alter, or is it a hardware thing we can't fix?

There's an important distinction that needs to be made that's key to understanding the "rules."  There's:

Supporting APFS
Converting to APFS

Any drive, spinning (HDD) or solid state (SSD) will support APFS. You can wipe it clean and do a new partition with an APFS volume.
Apple File System Guide FAQ:

Can I use Apple File System with my existing hard disk drive?
Yes. Apple File System is optimized for Flash/SSD storage, but can also be used with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage.

Paraphrased from the FAQ:

Apple File System is a new, modern file system for...macOS....It is
optimized for Flash/SSD storage...
APFS replaces HFS+ as the default file system for...macOS High Sierra and later.

Converting (during install or otherwise) is another story.

Installs/Upgrades with an SSD will convert automatically.
Installs/Upgrades with an HDD will not.
You cannot convert non-Mac volumes at all. Though you can erase the drive and do a fresh install with APFS.

So as a use case, you install macOS High Sierra on a iMac with a single HDD. It will not convert, and it won't give you the option because you cannot convert a boot volume. You can't even erase a boot volume for that matter. However, if you boot into macOS Recovery, you will have the ability to convert your drive.
If you have a USB external formatted as HFS+, it will convert.  If it's formatted FAT32 (for example), it won't; you can, however  wipe it and format it with APFS.