Clear out Chrome history from command line? Is it possible to clear out Chrome's history from the command line? I know that this history is also cached online, ideally it would be good to do this from the command line as well.

The Google Chrome history files live in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default. If you really, really want to delete browsing history from the command line (why?), I think removing the history files in this directory with a command line command/script would be the only way to go like this guy is doing. , as Google Chrome does not provide any ready-made commands or command switches for deleting history according to this list.

However, please consider this excerpt from the README-file:

  Google Chrome settings and storage represent user-selected
  preferences and information and MUST not be extracted, overwritten or
  modified except through Google Chrome defined APIs.

So, do it at your own risk. I would experiment with deleting the history files of a test installation of Google Chrome and see what happens.


Does Mavericks have a GUI for NFS mounts as in previous OS X versions? On previous OS X releases, I could open Disk Utility and choose file->NFS Mounts. I cannot find anything similar in Mavericks. Is there any GUI for mounting NFS, or must it all be done via the command line?

A late answer, for posterity and the desperate searcher.

The GUI has been moved more or less to Directory Utility, which can be found in /Volumes/[name of your harddrive]/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications. Use -shift-G if you are lost to find your way.

Open Directory Utility and click on the Directory Editor (third) icon.
Select "Mounts" from the dropdown menu Viewing (Node dropdown menu set to "/Local/Default") - if editing is locked, click the lock and enter an admin password.
Click the + icon in the lower left corner of the pane to start a new entry. Set "record name" to the server directory that you want connect to: [IP of server]:/[level1]/[level2] ….

Click "Save"

Click the + icon in the right half of the pane, to add (and save) the values for
VFSLinkDir (full path to the mountpoint, that is, where the remote directory should be inserted), VFSOpts (I am using resvport,nolocks,locallocks,intr,soft,wsize=32768,rsize=32768,nosuid) and VFSType (nfs). The values for AppleMetaNodeLocation and GeneratedUID are generated automatically.

Restart your computer.

Note added: After changing the NAS system I noticed that the above instructions worked with a Seagate BlackArmor NAS, but not with a WD MyCloud Mirror NAS. The WD NAS can be mounted as a NFS share under OS X 10.6.8 without problem. For a working connection with the WD NAS I used the following options: resvport,nolocks,locallocks,nosuid,rw,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,soft,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=900,retrans=3,proto=tcp,all_squash (I copied these from another site, maybe not all of them are required).


Xcode Install problem After installing Xcode and I try to open it I get blocked with a message "Scanning for Plug-in failed" and that I may not have appropriate permission..I was logged-in as an administrator. Do I need "root" privileges?

If you are logged in to the admin account Xcode should open up without issues.

The only reason I can think of for this error would be that the plugin affected was corrupted or failed to install correctly.

You sould remove all xcode files, redownload it and start fresh.


Trackpad stopped working on mac book pro 2019 For testing purpose, I created a new user profile and the trackpad is working as usual !. However, It is still not working on my main user profile. I did the following with no success so far:

Re-install the macOS from the macOS recovery
Delete the com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad plist file from the ~/Library/Preferences through two ways: file system and Default command
Reset the SMC
Reset the NVRAM

macOS Catalina 10.15.5

Removing a preference list is not so good on macOS. First step is to let the database that tracks preferences to clear those entries.
defaults delete -/Library/Preferences/whatever

Since the system may not read those settings, shut down after the above. Good news is you know the hardware and OS are fine. Worst case no one can help figure out how your account is corrupt and you back up your files and restore them to the new account with the working settings.


iPad PDF Reader with annotation support? I have to read lots of PDF books on my iPad but I also need to make notes (annotations), notes that I want to be able to transfer to the Mac later.

What solutions do I have for this?

Please do not not provide more than one suggestion per answer. Also include link and pricing information in the first line.

Example: ## [SomeApp](http://...) 4$

GoodReader $4.99

I can't compare it to any other PDF reader for the iPad, but I've been very happy with GoodReader.  From the marketing spiel on iTunes:

  Annotation is a feature long sought after by users who want to add their own mark-ups to PDFs, especially those collaborating as a team on shared documents. The types of annotations that can be created and edited in GoodReader include typewriter text boxes, popup comments ("sticky notes"), text highlights, freehand drawings, lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, cloudy shapes, text underlines, strikeouts, text insertion marks.


Do Macs store a serial number on the disk? About a year ago, I sold my old MacBook Pro. Last week I got a call from the buyer who said that it had been stolen and he didn't have the serial number — and did I have it?

I haven't been able to find it anywhere. It's not registered under my Apple ID (not sure it ever was). It was originally purchased from Amazon, and they don't put serial numbers on their receipts. I'm still looking for the original box.

OTOH, I do still have a disk image that I made of the drive immediately before I reformatted it, prior to the sale.

Is the serial number stored anywhere on that disk image?

What I've tried:

Searching my current MBP for my current serial number
I figured that if I could find a file with the current serial number, the old disk image might have that same file with the old number.
Searching for old system profiler reports
Sadly, I couldn't find one.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Apparently the only ways to find out a Mac's serial number (if you don't have the Mac physically present) are:

When you had the Mac, you:

Registered it with Apple (check your support profile at apple.com)
Ran and saved a copy of System Profiler's output

Without the Mac:

Have a sales receipt from a retailer that puts the serial number on their receipts
Purchased it from a retailer that keeps track of serial numbers
Find the box the Mac came in

Thankfully, after I posted this question, the buyer was able to find the original box, which gave him the serial number.

But the actual answer to the question is: No, Macs do not normally store their serial number in a disk file.


No colour dots to tag folders. Macbook Pro, OSX 10.10.3 I have just recently bought a used Macbook Pro with Yosemite installed. So far everything seemed to work ok, except today I tried to tag a folder with the coloured dot and found it not possible. The dots are there, but they have no colour. This doesn't look right and I haven't seen anything like this before.
Has anyone encountered anything like that? I would greatly appreciate your help?

Please check the screenshot attached below.

Probably the color tags have been disabled previously or some non-color tags are enabled instead. Just open Finder -> Preferences -> Tags and enable all color tags and all non-color tags you need.


No AirPlay on 6 Plus My new iPhone 6 Plus (iOS 8) doesn't show an option for AirPlay in the control centre, and on the few occasions that it does, it only shows itself as a target.... Not my Airport Express. I can't see the airport in airport utility either.

My iPhone 4S (iOS 7) and iPad Air (iOS 8) both consistently see the Airport without problem. So does my MacBook (Mountain Lion).

Have I configured something wrongly on the new phone? Is there anything I can change?

All are on the same (fairly simple) WiFi. Even more bizarrely, the iPhone can't see the Airport as an AirPlay... Even while connected to it directly via the Airport's own wifi.

To answer my own question: my time was set to manual, not automatic, and a day in the past.

This was preventing Airplay from working, along with iMessage and Facetime.


Are there any other dynamic iOS icons besides the calendar app? The iOS Calendar app dynamically changes every day, showing the current date and weekday. Are there any other dynamic icons, either provided by Apple or 3rd parties?

I'm not talking about the little red circle in the corner letting you know how many updates there are, but rather the entire icon. Jail-broken examples would be interesting, but I'm more interested in jailed examples.


Stop Console.app from auto-scrolling while I'm reading a log When using Apple’s Console.app to read logs, the window automatically scrolls to the bottom when a new entry is posted to the log. But I'm trying to read something in the middle of the log.

Is there some way to shutoff this auto-scroll-to-bottom feature?

Does disabling the Now button in the bottom right of Console help? It should stop the log from scrolling with new updates.


How can I create a default dock for all users (Mavericks)? I am new to managing Macs. We currently have a lab, and probably plan to create more labs in an enterprise style solution. In the lab, we would like to have a "default profile" created for users who log in.

The users are AD users, and the Macs are bound (binded?) to AD; users can log in fine.

I would now like to modify the dock to display specific installed applications. I then want this dock to be the default dock for any users that log in.

Ideally, I would also like to use this default dock on other machines in the lab, so if there are some files I can transfer to the other machines and a command to run to apply the settings, that would be perfect. Ideally I will be Apple or Bash scripting the entire process (currently Bash scripting the AD bind, default background, apple ID sign-in removal, etc).

We have no management servers. We will be using Deep Freeze for the time being, so there is no problem with users modifying their dock; users will have permissions to mess around.

I have found answers for pre-Mavericks, where it seems to be a case of copying a couple of files which would have been perfect, but it seems Mavericks does it a little differently and I can't find a straightforward answer.

Your Question should be answered here :

OSX 10.8 - How to keep a custom dock for all users that login

Basically, you create your dock in your account, copy the .plist from ~/Library to the System Template Lib and your're done.


Merging Time Machine Backups to a Single External Drive? I currently have two Time Machine external drives, but I want to move to using just one (I'd still have more than one backup, as I also use Backblaze).  Is it possible to merge the two different backup folders from the individual drives into a single backup folder on one of the drives (or possibly to an entirely new drive)?

You mean you have two disks for TimeMachine backups?
If yes: when they have started on the same date, they are fully the same, so you can just format one and use it for something else.
If one started later than the other, I would take the newer one to reformat.
assuming both are ending at the same time: now.


2015 MBP shutdown/boot problems - "X86PlatformPlugin Result 0" messages I have a 2015 15" MacBook Pro (full specs- i7, GPU, 1 TB) running latest Mojave. I have verbose mode enabled for shutdown/boot.

Basically, shutdown and boot sometimes take minutes (occasionally five or more) - during that time the console just displays X86PlatformPlugin Result 0 messages over and over (and over).

Resetting the SMC tends to reduce the time, but it eventually starts to happen again.

I'm trying to avoid having to do a complete wipe and install.

Anyone have insight on what this message means and what is causing it?

I've had this problem for 2 years across 3 different Macbook Pros. I think it has something to do with the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock.
If I unplug the dock during boot or shutdown, all those X86PlatformPlugin Result 0 messages go away and everything speeds up.

[edit]

I found the problem!

I have a collection of OWC USB3-to-eSATA adapters. One (older Western Digital) drive enclosure is very fussy and apparently had a particular issue with one of the adapter-cable combinations. I swapped out the eSATA cable & adapter for a different set, rebooted the enclosure and viola, everything is happy again.
My theory is that this error at boot/shutdown is indicating an external hardware fault.

The troublesome device tree in my case is Mac > TB3 Dock > USB3 Hub > eSATA Adapter > WD Drive bay

This discovery was after I removed all the 3rd party extensions from my system on a brand new (1 day old) 2019 MBP to no avail.

It should be noted that the WD drive bay was powered down while all this trouble was happening, which suggests that there's still a keep-alive charge running for active sensing to detect plug-replug behaviour


Reminders app showing wrong day, or may be its confused between 1985 and 2085 Please check attached image

Anyone faced similar problem? any reason for odd behavior?

If you look at the date-entering form, you'll see that Reminders gives you space to write a 4-digit year, so it assumes the number you enter is the complete year. You didn't send it to 2085 – you sent it to 0085! (And because I have no life, I actually scrolled through iOS Calendar to check. 2/1/85 was, in fact, a Thursday!)

I don't know if a solution exists. You may just have to get used to writing the full year, or just clicking the date on the dropdown calendar.


USB 3.0 (Type A) to USB-C on Early 2015 MacBook Pro for HDMI I have an early 2015 MacBook Pro with Retina Screen and USB type A ports. I'm trying to declutter (and come up with a way of easily switching my peripherals between my windows laptop and my Mac) and there are a plethora of USB-C hubs with HDMI out. Is it possible to use a USB-A Male to USB-C female adaptor to use this port for HDMI out on my machine?

I have a USB 3 type A docking station at work that outputs DVI and Display Port that I use with my Mac, so I'm aware that my laptop will output video over USB, but I've tried the above configuration and the laptop sees the hub as USB 2.0 and no display is detected.

TLDR;

Can I use a USB-C hub with a Type-A to Type-C adaptor to get HDMI from my Early 2015 MacBook Pro with no USB-C port?

It may be my flawed understanding, but I am under the impression that USB-C was just the type of connector and independent from the spec, so I don't know why this wouldn't work.

USB-C is indeed just a connector, and so a number of different standards can use it. HDMI output needs the Thunderbolt 3 standard to be delivered over the USB-C connectors, but your 2015 MacBook Pro doesn't and can't use that standard on its USB-A ports. A USB-A to USB-C adaptor will simply pass on the USB data.


iPhone's hold button causes skipping in currently playing song Yesterday, pressing the hold button (to both lock or unlock the phone) while music was playing on my iPhone 4 caused a few-second skip in all songs.*

Luckily, it's not happening any more — what could have caused it?

Apple's EarPods headphones?
Something in the headphone jack?
The hold button itself?

* Not sure if the songs skipped a few seconds backwards or forwards.

I have seen failures of the digitizer think that a finger was depressed when it was not. Usually it's some odd noise or interference and shutting down the device and then restarting it clears things up.

You might also be able to detect that by tapping a calculator or other app that shows when a finger down event happens on pretty much all the screen.

Of course, if you have a hardware issue, this won't fix itself and it will typically get worse over time rather than better.

Additionally, on the iOS 6 - there are some times when I've seen the system get really busy with background tasks such that music player doesn't get the CPU it needs - especially when iTunes Match is enabled and the device might need to go out to the internet to get a song or an update to the catalog, etc…

You can diagnose software issues by putting the device in Airplane mode and powering it down (hold the sleep wake button and slide to turn off). When it starts in Airplane mode, all running processes are only local ones and you can then test the music player and the screen to isolate the device from the internet before re-enabling Wi-Fi and/or cellular data until you've gotten a feel for whether the issue is software, hardware or something that was corrupt on the running software and a reboot cleaned that up.


Moving files in Finder with drag and drop opens a new window I'm trying to move files around in Finder by using my trackpad to drag and drop files. The problem is that I'm using tap to click with dragging enabled. So, when I decide to drop the files onto a folder, there is a brief delay between when I release the trackpad and when the files actually get dropped. (This delay is in place in case the user wants to temporarily lift their finger and tap-and-hold again to move the dragged items again.) During this brief delay, what often happens is that the folder I am hovering over is automatically opened up into a new window, and the file is not necessarily dropped where I originally wanted it to be dropped.

This automatic window opening can easily be seen by doing the following:

Launch Finder
Drag a file onto a folder and don't let go until a new window pops up.

I never need to use this auto window popup feature, so the simplest solution seems to be disabling this feature. Is there any way to do that? If not, do you have any recommendations as to the best way to resolve this issue?

You can disable this in Finder's preferences by unchecking "Spring-loaded folders and windows":


iPhone lock time not showing showing all options On my iPhone running iOS 7, I can only set auto-lock times of up to one hour. My son's can have an auto-lock time of up to three hours, and there's no obvious difference between our two phones.

Simple guides such as eHow don't make any mention of any advanced option. How do I enable longer auto-lock times?

As described by Apple, they fixed a security flaw in iOS 3.0.1:

  An administrator of an Exchange server has the ability to specify a "Maximum inactivity time lock" setting. This requires the user to reenter their passcode after the expiration of the inactivity time in order to use the Exchange services.

Long story short, it's because of your Exchange email account. If you have administrator access to your exchange server, you can change the mentioned "Maximum inactivity time lock" setting. As described by this page it's changed by

  In the console tree, navigate to Organization Configuration > Client Access.
  In the work pane, click the Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies tab, select an existing mailbox policy, and then click Properties in the action pane.
  Click the Password tab.
  Select the Require password check box.
  Select the Time without user input before password must be entered (in minutes) check box.
  Enter the inactivity time-out value in minutes.
  Click OK.


Why does iBooks Author refuse to open .epub? I have an epub for a hundred-year-old book with the illustrations from the original missing, and no links from TOC to the appropriate places.  Wanting to correct that, I tried to open it from iBooks Author 2.2.  The pub is grayed out in the Open dialogue.  If I select "all files," it is un-grayed, but either way, it cannot be selected.

I don't think the problem is DRM, because the file came from project Gutenberg.  Also, Calibre allows me to convert to PDF and back, but the result still cannot be loaded.  Talking New Media claims that this version of iBooks Author adds the ability to open these files.

The "advanced" option to "add to ibooks as proof" also won't open it.  Experimenting, I created new epubs from several PDF originals with calibre, and it won't open those either.

iBooks Author only opens iBooks Author projects (.ibooks). You need to create a new iBooks Author file and import the ePub into it. Go to New → New from ePub file….


Apple support requesting an id to activate the Apple Developer Enrolment I accidentally wrote the name that’s on my Apple ID on the billing info which is different from the one on my credit card.

I don’t know how to proceed since if they reject my payment it’s not clear i could re-purchase again.
I don’t get why these organisations keep asking for identifications as if we should trust them and give our private information away.

Why did Apple support request my identification after purchasing an Apple Developer Program enrolment and was it legitimate?

This is 100% normal and expected since enrolling in an Apple Developer is a legally binding - super high stakes event. You are about to be approved to sign code and push code to the App Store that will be ready to run on 1 billion devices world wide. You also will have banking and legal documents signed that could run into 10,000 dollars a month or even higher.

I would call Apple Developer Support if you don’t understand why that organization is asking for legally binding information.

https://developer.apple.com/support/
https://developer.apple.com/contact/phone/

Also, if you haven’t completed the sign up or payment, dev support can’t help you (yet). In that case you need to call Apple online sales support to determine if they can cancel the purchase - let you purchase again since you have money on the line or about to have $100 on the line to pay for a year of service, privilege and access to software and Apple’s marketing and development pre-release documentation. Much of that is covered by non-disclosure agreements that will get you sued if you steal and banned if you abuse the access.

Apple needs to know who you are and the details have to match to get to be a developer as the stakes are quite high for both parties. This could be your job or the careers of 10 people that can’t get paid if you publish apps as part of a company. Same for you, you could get sued if you publish apps with content you don’t own or license.

I’ve moved twice in 2 years and had to send them my driver’s license each time and other documentation just to get my address changed. Being asked for photo ID / banking information / and being called back and checked is par for the course for a developer.

I would recommend you get legal advice if you aren’t comfortable with signing these documents that are about to come your way once your purchase is set. Also, you don’t need to be a paid developer to run Xcode and install code on your personal devices. As a student - you can do almost all the learning you need without even paying to be a developer. Good luck whether or not you join as a paid developer this month.


How can I change the private relay email used in Sign In With Apple? I am developing an app and implementing Sign In With Apple, logging in/out removing Apple ID and signing in again. I noticed that the relay email is always the same.
Is there a way to reset the relay email?

You can’t change their email addresses short of issuing a new app with a new developer ID. This is documented by Apple.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sign_in_with_apple/sign_in_with_apple_js/communicating_using_the_private_email_relay_service

Private relay email addresses have the following characteristics:

They end in @privaterelay.appleid.com.
They route emails to one of the Apple ID’s verified email addresses.
They’re the same for a user across all apps written by a single development team, and different for the same user across apps written
by different development teams.
They’re active whether or not the user is signed into a device, and whether or not your app is installed on the device. You may send and
receive email to the private email address at any time.

After the user has shared a private relay email address with your app,
they can find, view, and manage it in their account settings at
Settings > Apple ID > Password & Security > Apps Using Your Apple ID.


Parallels 8 - will iPhone sync with OS X side and VM side? I've just purchased a 2012 13" MacBook Air. I hope to run Windows 7 in Parallels 8 to access Office 2010, including Outlook 2010.

Currently, my iPhone syncs to Outlook via a hosted Exchange for mail (and the other stuff it supports), and the sync is seamless. I also sync my iPhone with the Windows version of iTunes (either wired or wirelessly) for music and, again, it syncs well.

My question - will my iPhone continue to sync to Outlook running in the VM and be able to sync to iTunes running on the native OS X side? I'd prefer not to have to install iTunes on the Windows side if I don't have to.

The answer to my question is yes. My mail syncs with my MS Outlook running in the VM as well as my iPhone and my music syncs via the native iTunes program in my 13 MBA.


How can I get my iPhone to sync with a new computer without being erased? For some reason, Apple has imposed a most absurd restriction where the only way to get an iPhone (or other iDevice) to sync with a different computer is by erasing it first. I haven't verified first-hand that this process actually erases the entire iPhone, because, naturally, I'm too afraid to try it.

So I spent a long time scouring the web trying to find a way around this ridiculous (and artificial) limitation. I spent literally hours over the course of several days and eventually found a combination of web pages that finally allowed me to do what I needed. I'll summarize the steps here for others who have banged their heads over this one.

The first thing to be aware of is that iTunes uses a unique "Library Persistent ID" to identify the pairing of an iDevice to an installation of iTunes. This 16-digit hexadecimal id is stored on both the device and the computer it is paired with. iTunes generates a new id when it is installed (or more accurately, when it builds its library). If you plug in an iPhone that has a different persistent id than the copy of iTunes installed on that computer, you will get the warning dialog shown above.

The only thing standing in your way, however, is that darn persistent id. To get things working smoothly, we need to hack the installation of iTunes so that it thinks its id is the same as the one on our iPhone.

To do that, we first need to figure out what our phone's persistent id is. There are a couple options here, depending on whether or not you have the original synced copy of iTunes still available.

Step 1: Getting the Persistent ID

If you still have the original installation of iTunes that your iDevice is synced with, you can grab the persistent id from the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file in your iTunes directory. Just search for the "Library Persistent ID" tag.

If you no longer have access to that previous installation (as was my case), you need to get the id from your iPhone itself. Luckily there is a sneaky way to do this without having to jailbreak your phone. [If your phone is already jailbroken, you can read it from one of the .plist files in your iTunes directory on the phone, I believe.]

The trick is that you need to do a backup of your phone using iTunes and then dig into the backup files to find the persistent id. Fortunately iTunes lets you perform backups without being synced, so you can backup an iPhone on any copy of iTunes.

Unfortunately, the id is not plainly visible in the backup files. You will need to use a free web script to determine your persistent id from an Info.plist file you upload.

Full instructions are on this page.

Now that you have your library persistent id, you need to trick your installations of iTunes into thinking that that id is actually the id it has.

Step 2: Changing iTunes' Persistent ID

iTunes stores the persistent id in two places, just to make it trickier for us to change: once in the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file already mentioned, and once more in the "iTunes Library.itl" file, which is a binary file and much trickier to edit.

Although it is (or at least was) supposedly possible to edit the binary file and get it to accept the change, I have not been able to get this to work, so I don't recommend bothering since there is an easier way that doesn't require it.

First, backup the two aforementioned files. Next, open the xml file and paste in your library persistent id obtained from step 1 over the existing id in the <Library Persistent ID> tag and save.

Now create an empty file and name it "iTunes Library.itl". It won't work if you just delete or rename the file. iTunes needs to think it's become corrupt, not just disappeared.

Now when you start iTunes, it will see the "corrupt" library file and will rebuild it for you, from the xml file which contains your new persistent id.

If all goes well, after a few minutes of rebuilding your library file (it can take quite a while if you have a large library, mind you), you should be able to plug in your iPhone and sync as if nothing were wrong in the world!

For more details (including how to find the iTunes directory on your computer), read this page.

Good luck!


What are your favorite menulets (or Menu Extras as Apple calls them)? Yes, I know, it's another list, but here goes:

What is your favorite menulet and what is it used for?

Please one post one menulet per answer.
Add a link to the developer's website, if possible.
Duplicate answers should be flagged for deletion, so do check or edit an existing entry rather than adding a second answer for the same software.

Caffeine

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click (or ⌘-click) the icon to show the menu.


How can I get Safari to reopen my last closed tab? I'm switching back to Safari from Chrome. Now that I figured out how to get Safari to let me navigate tabs the way I want, only one thing remains: I want to be able to reopen my last closed tab with cmd+shift+T.

Near as I can tell, it's not a matter of making a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences, since Safari does not have a menu item for opening the last closed tab. So how else can I go about this?

(I've got one slot left available in the free version of FastScripts, so it'd be handy if there were an AppleScript solution for this.)


Can I recover my Safari history after running CCleaner? I did a default delete of Safari data using CCleaner. Is there any way I can recover my browser history and more importantly the exact timing I viewed a website?

Safari History data lives in ~/Library/Safari/ so you could restore that from Time Machine - though it might be better to just restore the entire Safari folder, in case CCleaner did more damage.
If you sync Safari over iCloud, switch of any other devices as soon as possible to prevent them also syncing the lost data, then having to sync it all back again afterwards.


Have any organizations moved their work Apple ID to two-step authentication? We are writing the policy of a small company to create 100 Apple ID for their employees. Half will work primarily on iPads and the other half on Macs. We have decided to try to use two-step authentication rather than the traditional, pick three security questions and answers for the work Apple ID.

Many of our workers do not have iOS devices to carry with them, so we will rely on SMS for the pin notification part of the process and have each employee list a corporate SMS number as one of their options so that IT can assist them with resetting an account should the password need to be reset.

Employees with personal SMS and personal and/or work iOS devices will of course list those as additional trusted devices as part of the setup process, but we need to cover all employees wither they have a cell phone, iPod or not. If we ensure that the first SMS number is a work controlled cell phone, we can prevent losing control of these Apple ID by maintaining that service and also escrowing the recovery keys for each work account.

Has anyone run into problems with using Apple ID in this manner or is there a deployment guide that Apple has published to help us decide how to implement Apple ID in the workplace?

I will say that I have seen two small organizations do this, but the overhead of setting up the escrow of recovery keys took more effort than we are likely to save in three years of supporting the accounts.

the actual setup went smoothly
people seemed comfortable with mixing work and personal accounts despite the added confusion that it can cause
we didn't run into any roadblocks registering common trusted devices.

Also, now that Volume Purchase Plan redemptions can be reclaimed and they are not lost when issuing expensive apps to personal Apple ID, the need to more tightly control which Apple ID is used to redeem a purchase is not nearly as valuable as it would have been in the cases where we looked at implementing this.

The strategy we are now taking is to just establish a written policy that work apps are to be returned to work - just like work computers and work phones and have employees sign for the tools they are provided with an HR policy to deduct value for tools not properly returned at the end of employment.


How can I create a backup disk image of a MacBook before I start the first-run process? Is there any way to create an image of a brand new "unconfigured" MacBook?  I want to get an image of this box before the OS installs just in case I have any issues.

If you have access to another Mac and the necessary cable, you could boot your MacBook in Target Disk Mode (hold down the T key when powering up). Connect via Firewire or Thunderbolt to another Mac. The drive on the machine in Target Disk Mode can then be cloned.


Why can't I use `launchctl setenv` from `tmux`? If I'm running within tmux and I try to update an environment variable with launchctl, I see an error like this:

$ launchctl setenv GIT_SSH /opt/local/bin/ssh
Not privileged to set domain environment.

But it works fine from outside of tmux... any idea why that is, or if there's any sort of workaround?

Running tmux as root is probably not a good idea. Someone has created a solution and explanation:

https://github.com/ChrisJohnsen/tmux-MacOSX-pasteboard

After configuring tmux to use reattach-to-user-namespace you can use launchctl setenv as yourself within tmux.


New iTerm2 Window Here option open two tabs When I right-clicked a folder and choose the services -> New iTerm2 Window Here option in the menu, I am getting two iTerm2 windows like this.

But I don't need that root level terminal here (The right side terminal of the image), because I only need this folder path terminal only. How can I stop this behavior?

There is open issue iterm2 opens two window or two tabs when launched from services where possible workarounds are described (also root cause of the problem as well).
From productivity point (if you end in shell anyway) you could consider switching to console based file manager (like vifm, ranger, nnn, Midnight Commander etc). You will get productivity boost from relying on keyboard only. There is also command-line fuzzy-finder fzf which could be handy.


Is it possible to sync two iPhones with different service providers via iCloud? I have a personal AT&T iPhone and my company gave me a Verizon iPhone.  Both are running IOS 5. How can I get all of my contacts from my AT&T phone to my Verizon iPhone since I am required to carry that one 24/7.  Is there a way to do that through iCloud?

Thanks!

This is exactly what iCloud (and MobileMe did in the past) does for contacts.

Unless your company phone uses a company supplied directory (in which case just connect your personal phone to the company directory) you can sign up for a free iCloud account and store your contacts on both the devices in the cloud.

You could also sync from iCloud to a computer (PC or Mac) as well to an iPad, but you don't have to and can simply use it to sync the address book contents between the two iPhones.


How can I unpack .7z files via MacOS terminal? Looking to unpack a bunch of files.7z via terminal.

Is there a command-line tool built in, available or I shall install an application that comes with a graphical interface?

You can install p7zip with Homebrew. So

% brew install p7zip
% 7za x myfiles.7z

Installing Homebrew as @EraserPencil suggested makes sense as the OP might need more programs in the future, which would be at his fingertips then. You can install Homebrew with

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

It should be noted there is 7z e as well but as commented by @Qback, this does almost never do what you want if you have subdirectories in the archive.


iMessage and Facetime not working I have bought a new ipad 2 3G and at the present time I am using it without SIM card. I have managed to make it work barely. I can navigate the web, read emails and download apps, but I cannot use iMessages or Facetime. The device will not appear on Find my device either.

iCloud.com says NO DEVICE. I have followed all instructions to associate my device with my Apple ID. I have indeed registered it manually on
https://register.apple.com.... but the device is not showing associated with my AppleID even when I click to see my AppleID data.

What am I mssing? THanks.

Following on from previous answer (I can't seem to comment) it hooks to whichever one is available. For an iPad that has had a SIM card in it, it'll hook to your phone number. If you have the SIM, re-insert it and ensure it's all working, then head to iMessage and Facetime settings and add the email address to both of them. After that, you should be able to take the SIM back out and it continue functioning.


Connecting an external camera to iPhone XI, then using it for Skype and Zoom using a smart TV as a screen My boss asked me this question but I think that's entirely impossible.
He wants to replicate his iphone screen on a Samsung Smart TV, then, using his Skype / Zoom / Teams app in the Iphone, call people and put the iphone on the table and let people see him from an external webcam. connected to the iphone via bluetooth or wifi. What do you think about? Thank you

You should be able to do this with the Apple Digital AV Adapter as it allows you to connect an external monitor to your iPhone/iPad device.  That would be the most efficient method.
The second method to do this would be to utilize an AppleTV  connected to the external monitor/TV.  You would then AirPlay the Zoom meeting to AppleTV.  This would meet your requirements of being wireless, but keep in mind that in an office environment where there's lots of demand for WiFi, you may see a choppy video due to network latency and dropped packets.  If possible, create a dedicated VLAN with QoS (quality of service) configured to put priority on that traffic.
A third option would be to simply get an inexpensive Mac like a Mac mini and connect the screen along with a quality webcam like the Logitech Brio or if the room is large enough, one of their "pro grade" conference web cams.


Equations in Keynote in a browser I am trying to see if I can add equations in Keynote in iCloud via browser (I don't have a Mac/Iphone). I searched but couldn't find a way other than copy-pasting an image from somewhere.
(I'm using Chrome, and I couldn't do it neither in Linux nor in Windows)

A similar question is about sub/super-scripts. I could not find a way to insert them either in a browser.

This reference may help.

For sub/superscripts, it says there is a keyboard shortcut for windows:  Control-Alt-Minus/Plus.

(Can't test this myself)


How to go to boot options? I have a MacBookPro Retina 13" early 2015 and I can not enter the boot options.
The Device is running OS X El Capitan.

I have tried the following things with no luck:

Attempt 1 - Hold the Option

Restart
press and hold left option right after hearing the chime

Result: Black Screen, I need to press and hold the power key to make the device boot.

I have also tried this with an external keyboard with the same result.

Attempt 2 - SMC Reset

Restart
Reset the System Management Controller by pressing and holding option+command+R+P right after the chime, until the next chime.
Retry Attempt 1

Result: Same as Attempt 1.

Any ideas what I could do?

⌥ alt/option should be held right after pressing the power button including during the boot chime until Startup Manager is shown (https://support.apple.com/kb/HT202796). Holding the key only once the chime has happened may be too late.


Modify terminal .command file to run on multiple files I have the arduous task of restoring an old fcp project and I hit a roadblock with a whole bunch of .mov files that were moved to a NAS which altered the resource map of the files (the resource fork apparently broke?!). I have to use FCP7 on a mac running OSX 10.10 and unfortunately this computer can't play the .mov files (VLC can play them fine.) I found online an old blog written by Florian Bogner in which he wrote a great terminal script that fixes the extended attributes of one file at a time. Can anyone suggest the best way to run this script on a folder of hundreds of .mov files?

Here is the script:

#!/bin/bash

clear
echo '   ____ _______ ______   ______            ______ _______   __'
echo '  / __ \__   __|____  | |  ____|   /\     |  ____|_   _\ \ / /'
echo ' | |  | | | |      / /  | |__     /  \    | |__    | |  \ V / '
echo ' | |  | | | |     / /   |  __|   / /\ \   |  __|   | |   > <  '
echo ' | |__| | | |    / /    | |____ / ____ \  | |     _| |_ / . \ '
echo '  \___\_\ |_|   /_/     |______/_/    \_\ |_|    |_____/_/ \_\'
echo ''
echo ''
echo 'This tool tries to fix the error message'
echo '  "Resource map is incorrect"'
echo 'as reported by Quicktime 7 based Applications.'
echo ''
echo 'Please drop the broken QT7 file into this window and press return:'

while read; do
    # trim the filename
    FILE=$(echo "$REPLY"| sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/ *$//')

    # check if the file exists
    if [ -f "$FILE" ]; then
        break
    else
        echo "Can't read this file. Please drop a valid one."
        echo "'$FILE'"
    fi
done

# check if there are EAs
echo ""
LINES=$(xattr -l "$FILE"|wc -l)

if [ "$LINES" -eq "0" ]; then
    echo "Can't fix this file"
    echo "There are no extended attributes associated."
    exit 1
fi

# now remove the EAs
echo ""
xattr -c "$FILE" &>/dev/null
echo "You can now open this file in QT7."

# create space
echo ""

Thanks to anyone that can assist me in this matter.
Cheers

The only line that does work in that script is

xattr -c "$FILE"

To run a command on all files in a folder, use find:

find /path/to/folder -type f -exec xattr -c "{}" \;

xattr also provides the -r flag to run recursively, so you can avoid find given that this functionality is part of xattr:

xattr -rc /path/to/folder


New user owns old apps in Mac I just created a second user in my computer so guests can use my Mac without the need of using my account. I did this through the GUI (Settings → Users → New User).

While trying to set up permissions and restrictions. I can see that this new user is shown as owner of some of the Applications in my Mac.

Why is this happening?
Should it be happening at all?
Is this Unix related, or macOS related?

Apps that are dragged into the /Applications folder by a user will be owned by that user - e.g. the Unix owner attribute will be that of the user that did the dragging. Apps from the Mac App Store and apps that were delivered via an installer package tend to have root as their owner.

drwxrwxr-x@  13 root  admin    416 28 Nov  2012 Adobe Photoshop CS6
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  wheel     96  8 Oct 12:31 Affinity Designer.app
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  wheel     96  8 Oct 12:31 Affinity Photo.app
drwxr-xr-x    3 Ben   admin     96 31 Oct 13:03 Affinity Publisher.app
drwxr-xr-x@   3 root  wheel     96 23 Jul  2019 App Store.app
drwxr-xr-x    3 Ben   staff     96  3 Oct  2012 Art Directors Toolkit 5i.app

The apps here with owner "Ben" were downloaded and dragged into the /Applications folder. The root-owned apps are OS-bundled, from the Mac App Store, or installed via a .pkg.

The group varies, but is largely irrelevant.

Should it be happening at all?

No. Creating a new user account should not change the ownership of these apps.

Is this Unix related, or macOS related?

MacOS is Unix™. But yes, it's happening at the Unix/POSIX level of file attributes.

Why is this happening?

Without more information, this is unknown.
The only reason I can think of relates to User ID numbers. Every user has a unique ID number. The first user created is number 501. Subsequent accounts will be numbered 502, 503, etc.

It may be that the original account used to move these apps to the /Applications folder was deleted, and the new user account has been given the same user ID number, thus inheriting its ownerships.

You can determine the UID of a user with id -u <username>.

As long as the app has the read and execute flags set for all users, then everyone can launch the app. The ownership only matters for deleting the app.


Why doesn't my iPad support Low Battery Mode? As advertised with the release of iOS 9, Low Battery Mode can be activated on most modern iPhones to conserve power.

My question is, why doesn't the iPad support Low Battery Mode? It would seem to have the capability to – is there an official or proven answer as to why not?

(I am using an iPad Air 2)

'Why' is always difficult to answer.

That it doesn't appear to work on iPads would seem to be of concern to many people, but there doesn't appear to be any answer as to why.

See Where’s The Low Power Mode in iPad, iOS 9 Users Want To Know or
Low Power Mode Not Available on iPad in iOS 9: No Solution Till Now & others on Google. No-one seems to have any answers.


Making A USB Drive Bootable in Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion I own copies of all three operating systems and would like to have a single drive that enable me to boot from and use Disk Warrior etc under each OS. Is this possible?

Use Disk Utility to partition your external drive into three volumes. This kbase article can help you (use instructions for a startup disk). Name the volumes something that will help you identify them when you option-boot into them later (something like "Tech 10.6", "Tech 10.7", "Tech 10.8"). I recommend at least 8-16GB for each partition to allow the OS to install and room for additional software.

Then follow your normal procedure for creating your bootable Disk Warrior environment. If you are installing OS X 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 respectively onto each volume, just use the typical OS X installation instructions specific to each OS. Ensure that you are on a Mac capable of installing each OS and ensure you select the correct volume from the external drive.

When all is said and done you will be able to option-boot into each environment as long as the machine hardware/firmware is capable of booting into the respective OS you select.


Developing an app with an automatically renewable consumable in-app purchase I'm developing a new tvOS app that has in-app purchases. I can't get the in-app purchases to show up in the simulator. What is the proper procedure when introducing in-app purchases to apps that are not yet in the App Store? Should I go ahead and upload a build but NOT release it? Will this get the in-app purchases showing in dev so I can continue building the in-app purchase workflow? Or is there another way to get the in-app purchases approved? They are currently in the "Ready to submit" state.

SKProductRequest only returns the right data when running on a device. My solution was to run my app on an actual Apple TV.


Macbook and iPhone not discoverable on bluetooth or airdrop I am unable to use the AirDrop feature between my iPhone6s (iOS 9) and my 2014 MBP running OSX 10.11.1 (Mavericks). The jPhone won't show up in the MBP's AirDrop window (accessed from Finder>Go>AirDrop) and vice versa.

I was able to use my phone with another MBP with Mavericks flawlessly. I also tried to directly link them using Bluetooth (since AirDrop works via Bluetooth) and they were still unable to discover each other. I'm not sure whether this worked on Yosemite.

How can I fix this problem?

Not sure what was wrong with the Bluetooth discoverability, but I found a fix. It also fixes AirDrop since Bluetooth is its underlying technology.

You just need to delete a certain file, in my case I chose to rename it so I still had the original. You can do that using Finder or in the Terminal with the following command:

sudo mv /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist.orig

Do this then restart Bluetooth and your devices should now be discoverable.


Will Catalina users be able to stubbornly cling to iTunes? iTunes won't be bundled with Catalina.  A user of the beta has identified some serious deficiencies in the replacement.  I don’t argue with the consensus that iTunes is a mess, but some of the disappearing features are valuable.

The “announcement” (aka “marketing”) says that iTunes 12.8 can be used with “OS X version 10.10.5 or later” which technically implies it will continue to be usable.  But I’m skeptical.

The page you've linked specially states that 12.8 is available for "previous versions of macOS". I think it is clear that iTunes on Catalina is not an intended configuration, nor is it probably officially supported by Apple.

Indeed if you try to install iTunes 12 on the Catalina GM, you'll be informed that it is incompatible software - and won't install.

If you really, really want to run iTunes on Catalina, you can use this script to allow installation.


Applescript giving error 1728 when checking if file exists I'm trying to make compressing a video file using HandBrake easier through applescript and have been basing most of the code off of templates I've found.
At this point in the code, the user has specified the source file and the destination folder.
Instead of HandBrakeCLI just blindly overwriting a file with the same name in the destination folder, I wanted Finder to do a check and, if a file with the same does already exist in the destination folder, then I wanted to have the filename appended with the current date and time before the extension.
Everything worked fine until I started adding the "if exists" code.

Here's the chunk of code:

tell application "Finder"
    set newFilepathPOSIX to POSIX path of dest_folder
    set newFilepathPOSIX to newFilepathPOSIX & "video.mp4"
    -- Check if file with same name exists
    if exists file newFilepathPOSIX then
        display dialog "There is already a file named \"video.mp4\". Do you want to replace the file?" buttons {"Quit", "No", "Yes"} cancel button 1
        if result = {button returned:"No"} then
            set newFilepathPOSIX to POSIX path of dest_folder
            set newFilepathPOSIX to newFilepathPOSIX & "video" & getDateAsString & ".mp4"
        end if
    end if
    set newFilepathPOSIX to quoted form of newFilepathPOSIX
    set shellCommand to "/Volumes/Flash Drive/HandBrakeCLI -i " & origFilepathPOSIX & " -o " & newFilepathPOSIX & " --preset=\"Classic\""
end tell

to getDateAsString from t
    set creationDateString to year of t as string
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & getMonthNum(t) as string)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & day of t as string)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & hours of t as string)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & minutes of t as string)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & seconds of t as string)
    return creationDateString
end getDateAsString

Here's what it returns:

exists file "/Users/me/Box Documents/My Folder/video.mp4"
    --> false

If I add "as POSIX file" to the "if exists" line, this is what it returns:

get file "/Users/me/Box Documents/My Folder/video.mp4"
    --> error number -1728 from file "/Users/me/Box Documents/My Folder/video.mp4"
exists file "My HD:Users:me:Box Documents:My Folder:video.mp4"
    --> true
display dialog "There is already a file named \"video.mp4\". Do you want to replace the file?" buttons {"Quit", "No", "Yes"} cancel button 1
    --> {button returned:"No"}

After this, it errored out.
Totally new at this so hopefully I've given enough detail without giving away way too much detail.

Try:

set dest_folder to POSIX path of dest_folder
set newFilepathPOSIX to dest_folder & "video.mp4"

tell application "System Events" to exists file newFilepathPOSIX
if the result then
    display dialog "There is already a file named \"video.mp4\". Do you want to replace the file?" buttons {"Quit", "No", "Yes"} cancel button 1
    if button returned of the result = "No" then
        beep
        --Insert your code here
    end if
end if

EDIT

 set handPath to "/Volumes/Flash Drive/HandBrakeCLI"
set dest_folder to POSIX path of dest_folder
if text -1 of dest_folder ≠ "/" then set dest_folder to dest_folder & "/"
set newFilepathPOSIX to dest_folder & "video.mp4"

tell application "System Events" to exists newFilepathPOSIX
if the result then
    display dialog "There is already a file named \"video.mp4\". Do you want to replace the file?" buttons {"Quit", "No", "Yes"} cancel button 1
    if button returned of the result = "No" then set newFilepathPOSIX to dest_folder & "video" & getDateAsString(current date) & ".mp4"
end if

set shellCommand to quoted form of handPath & " -i " & quoted form of origFilepathPOSIX & " -o " & quoted form of newFilepathPOSIX & " --preset=\"Classic\""
do shell script shellCommand

on getDateAsString(myDate)
    set creationDateString to year of myDate as string
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & (month of myDate as integer) as text)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & day of myDate as text)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & hours of myDate as text)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & minutes of myDate as text)
    set creationDateString to creationDateString & text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & seconds of myDate as text)
end getDateAsString


How do I disable screen dimming *only during sunset*? Screen dimming is a great feature when moving to differently lit rooms. However, if the MacBook is facing a bright window, and the user is thus backlit, then the sensor goes haywire.

I need to create some of script to disable auto-dim during sunset hours.  How can I access the dimmer feature from bash, AppleScript, or any other language?

This AppleScript may or may not work on your system.  On my Mac book Pro running the latest version of Sierra, this following code enables the "Automatically adjust brightness" checkbox If your current time is between 6 am and 6 pm, Otherwise it disables that checkbox If it is already selected.

if hours of (current date) is greater than 6 then
    if hours of (current date) is less than 18 then
        tell application "System Preferences"
            reveal anchor "displaysDisplayTab" of pane "com.apple.preference.displays"
        end tell
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences" to tell window "Built-in Retina Display"
            tell checkbox "Automatically adjust brightness" of group 2 of tab group 1 to if value is 0 then click
        end tell
    else
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences" to tell window "Built-in Retina Display"
            tell checkbox "Automatically adjust brightness" of group 2 of tab group 1 to if value is 1 then click
        end tell
    end if
end if
tell application "System Preferences"
    quit
end tell

You can adjust the hours values at the top of the script to suit your needs

If your display preferences looks like this picture... This script should work for you.


How to avoid á é í ó ? I would like my [a,o,i,e] to appear correctly if I type the letter after an '.
Right now, I get an accent character as shown in the subject. Is there any way to turn this off?

Go to system preferences/language & text/input sources and check the box for US and uncheck the box for US International PC.


Activity Monitor - How to view multiple panels at the same time I'm currently trying to view multiple metrics at the same time using Activity Monitor app (yes I have tried top, htop, etc but I was wondering if this is possible with Activity Monitor).
Fx. looking at the CPU and Memory panels without having to switch between them.

Thanks guys!

You can choose your own set of columns to be displayed on any particular tab by right-clicking on the column headers (or View → Columns) and checking columns to be displayed. For example, this lets you show the Memory column while on the GPU tab.

If you really want to display two different tabs using two windows, you can launch a second instance of Activity Monitor with open -na "Activity Monitor".


How to copy time stamp to iOS clipboard? Does anyone know of an easy way to get the current timestamp copied to the clipboard on iOS, either via built-in functionality or a small app?

I found an app that does exactly this.  Time Stamp Text by CA Smith
https://appsto.re/us/fPUO1.i

I don't have any connection with the developer, but needed the same thing and found it.


Mysterious second Ethernet stack on my Mac? What are Tun and Tap (ether tap stack) in the startup items folder? Are they legitimate ones used by services like Parallels or HPTrap monitor etc or are they installed to bypass services like Little Snitch? I found them while looking at space hogs on my computer.

TUN and TAP are software-based network devices. They're usually created by VPN or ssh-tunnelling applications to handle network address translation or bridge functions from one network to another. They're also used for virtual machine bridging and you'll find them created by VirtualBox if you happen to use it as a VM solution. Possibly Parallels or Fusion might create them as well (though I don't have them on my Fusion-enabled machines).

From this wikipedia entry:

  Packets sent by an operating system via a TUN/TAP device are delivered to a user-space program that attaches itself to the device. A user-space program may also pass packets into a TUN/TAP device. In this case TUN/TAP device delivers (or "injects") these packets to the operating system network stack thus emulating their reception from an external source.

If LittleSnitch resides between your ethernet interface and the OS, a TUN/TAP pair won't help route traffic around it. Though it may encrypt it beyond inspection.

That wikipedia lists a bunch of legitimate applications that might set up TUN/TAP pairs on your machine but that list by no means exhaustive. The pair might even be present for Little Snitch packet routing and inspection (though, truthfully, I thought Little Snitch just enhanced OS X's default Firewall service, not replaced it...I may be wrong about that though).

You can use netstat -nrl to try and ascertain what, if any, routes are being shuffled through the TUN/TAP pair. First do an ifconfig and get the ether value (the MAC address) for the pair, and then look up routes in the table that netstat -nrl returns to see if you can spot either MAC address.

If that doesn't work you can use Wireshark to listen on the interface(s) for traffic and see if you can figure out from where and to where it's headed. There's a homebrew recipe for Wireshark to install it:

brew install wireshark

It's a fairly complicated program to use so leave a comment if you need this expanded upon.


How can I display iPad content fullscreen with HDMI on a TV? I bought an iPad lately (10.5" 2017), and I want to connect it via HDMI to my HDTV. Now I know that because of the iPad screen size, I cannot get fullscreen on my TV (I have black borders right and left right now).

But, is there any way I can make it work?

I use this iPad for travelling and would love to plug it into a hotel TV and watch Netflix on it. But I would like to display the content fullscreen without the black borders!

There are apps that detect if your iPad is mirrored to an external device via HDMI and adjust to fit accordingly.  For example, the official Netflix app outputs the original aspect ratio to the external screen.  The device displays the message "Now playing on your TV" as noted in the attached screen shot.  The TV displays the show at the proper aspect ratio depending on its settings.

Keynote and other apps work similarly.  It would depend largely on the aspect ratio of the TV show or Movie being played.


How to select multiple cells on Mac when using Microsoft Remote Desktop? I need to select multiple cells, on Mac the usual shortcut is CMD + cursor. But when using Microsoft Remote Desktob CMD button is interpreted as Windows key, that is, when I pusch cmd, the startup menu pops up. How can I select multiple cells that are not adjacent to each other when on Microsoft Remote Desktop?

Windows uses Ctrl for operations of this type, not Command

Just Ctrl-Click to make non-contiguous selections.

Use Shift-Click to make contiguous selections.


How can I browse my pdfs? I have a great many directories where I've latex'd my notes on various topics, so many that I'm beginning to have trouble finding things.  Is there a way to display thumbnails of all the pdfs (under a given parent directory) in a single window so that I can browse my notes?

Also, I've noticed that Mountain Lion is not generating thumbnail icons from my latex pdfs.  Not sure why.

Finder's "All my files" section has pdf-documents category.


How to get client Mac to use caching facility from Mac OS X Server on Yosemite I have installed Mac OSX server onto one machine. Caching is enabled.

How do I now configure a client Mac on the same network to start using this cache for both web browsing and software updates?

I have tried System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced -> Proxies and enabled "Web Proxy (HTTP)" and entered the local IP of the machine running Mac OSX Server (192.168.1.24) and the port number 49524 but this doesn't work. I just see a blank white screen when I try and view any web page in Chrome.

Does anybody know the correct set up instructions for the clients? There appears to be very little to help me out on Google.

The Caching service is no web-proxy. It just provides software updates, purchased apps from the Mac App Store, iBooks and iTunes U content.

When you first enable the caching server, it registers its public IP and private IP with Apple.  If a client tries to download a software update or an app from the same public IP as the server, Apple “introduces” the client to the server automatically. Therefore client configuration is not required.

If you want a proxy server install Squid/Squidman


Command to find process and restart it I have an issue with my Logitech Mouse software always crashing when it switches between different power modes, this crashes their software on Mac OS X (Yosemite).

The app is used to control the pointer speed and shortcut keys on the mouse, which renders the mouse useless,  I need to restart it every time I switch power states to get it working again.

Is there a command I can use in terminal that can kill the logitech process and start it again?

If I do a Logitech Gaming Software.app on ps -ax I can find the process, how can I pipe this to kill the associated PID and then restart the app?

Running ps -ax | grep 'Logitech Gaming Software.app will return the following:

 2879 ??         0:02.96 /Applications/Logitech/Logitech Gaming Software.app/Contents/MacOS/LCore
 2891 ttys000    0:00.00 grep Logitech Gaming Software.app

Here is what I'd try...  Create a bash script using the code below and save it as a plain text file without an extension.  Place it in a directory that in your $PATH, e.g. /usr/local/bin and make it executable using: chmod +x filename where filename is the name you gave the bash script.

#!/bin/bash
kill $(pgrep LCore)
sleep 1
open -a  "/Applications/Logitech/Logitech Gaming Software.app"

Now in a Terminal type the name you gave to filename and press Enter...

The $(pgrep LCore) portion of kill $(pgrep LCore) should pass the appropriate PID of /Applications/Logitech/Logitech Gaming Software.app/Contents/MacOS/LCore to kill and terminate its process, wait a second and then open the Logitech Gaming Software.app application bundle.


Every time I boot up my iMac "... is an app downloaded from Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?" I get this popup every time I boot up my mac.

It's some adobe after effects script. I uninstalled after effects.
I typed in com.aescripts.ZXP-Installer.helper in finder and deleted anything that matched.
I've done a terminal find / -name com.aescripts.ZXP-Installer.helper with no luck.
Don't know what else to do.

First place I'd check is System Preferences:
Users & Groups - Login Items.
Scroll through the list of items there, these will open upon log in (which may be part of your boot process), and delete com.aescripts.ZXP-Installer.helper if it is there.
If not there, try looking in the the following directories:
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems


Headphone audio with Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable I'm thinking of buying a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable so I can connect my MacBook Air to my PC monitor for watching iTunes movies.

However, the monitor has no audio capabilities so I wondered if anyone could tell me if I would still be able to listen to the audio via the headphone jack on the MacBook?

Yes you can, by going into the system preferences -> Sound.
Then select the tab: Output and select your output there.

As a shortcut you can ALT-click the volume icon in your top bar to quickly switch between outputs.


Stolen iPhone 4 not synced with my PC: are my videos backed up? Last week my iPhone was stolen when on holiday in New York. I have precious photos and more importantly videos of my son on there.  I went to an Apple store in NYC and they advised that my photos would probably have been backed up on iCloud but he wasn't sure about videos as I hadn't synced my phone with my PC apart from when I first purchased it.

Is there any possible way I still have access to these videos?

If you did have iCloud backup enabled it should have backed up the camera roll by default. The camera roll includes both photos and videos taken on your device.

See support.apple.com/kb/HT4859 for more info about what is included in iCloud backups.

If there was no iCloud backup made, then it's unlikely that your data is recoverable since it was never synced with iTunes.


How do you add labels to your icloud/iphone calendar? I see how to add a label (i.e. home, work, etc.) for iCal events on a Mac, but how do you add labels via your iCloud account or on iPhone?

These aren't labels, they're separate calendars.

In the Calendar app on iPhone, choose Calendars at the bottom, then choose Add Calendar.
Enter a calendar name and choose a colour, then tap Done.
Move events to this calendar by selecting an event, choosing Calendar and setting it.


Why is mds using so much Real Memory? I notice that mds is almost always on top for use of Real Memory.  I wouldn't mind if this wouldn't be also the case when Free Memory runs out.

Usually mds uses over 600MB on a system with 4GB (I know I need a new Mac) and no Free Memory.

I notice that it might be somehow connected to Time Machine running (mds memory goes up when/after a Time Machine backup is done).

I kill mds from time to time but pretty soon it is again using over 600MB.

Googling this brings some workaround tips but nothing which is really on any foundation or analysis.

I'm having this problem on Leopard (still stuck on a Q G5) but have seen reports on the net that the same problem also exists on Snow Leopard.

Don't know about Lion though.

Update:

After the question in the comments if my Time-Machine is also indexed by Spotlight, I did some more research and found Setting Spotlight preferences in Apples MAC OSX 10.6 Help:

  Note:If you add a Time Machine backup disk to the list, you will
  continue to see messages that Spotlight is indexing your backup disk.
  This indexing is necessary for Time Machine to function properly and
  can’t be disabled. Spotlight will exclude from searches any items you
  store on your backup disk that are not part of a Time Machine backup.

So the Time-Machine partition is always indexed no matter what you set.

The obvious thing to try is eject the Time Machine volume (or otherwise make it unavailable - turned off) and reboot the mac. mds will only use RAM when a program is asking it to supply spotlight answers. The files you have are using a large amount of space and being called upon. A clean boot should get your mds with little or no RSS until you start to launch apps or TM starts.

Whether this is normal is harder to tell - even if it's caused by your files, it's likely made worse a direct result of the PPC architecture not having as optimized a time of indexing than the Intel architecture. The mds program likely is coded with parts of the code for PPC and part for Intel as part of the normal performance optimizations Apple or any large corporation will do before releasing a daemon that runs all the time. Furthermore, the frameworks it uses will be native to the processor - so it's not really the same program running when you have a different CPU.

The comments to the question show that you have really down your homework and played around a bit with excluding volumes to see if the large memory is happening in response to many drives being indexed.

Sadly, you don't have any real control over how large the process gets. It simply runs based on the spotlight importers that are present on your system and in response to all the filesystems you expose the spotlight subsystem to.

If the obvious step of isolating Time Machine doesn't reduce the RAM usage, You can also try:

cleaning out third party spotlight extensions
add more RAM and live with it
permanently disable the folders that are causing RAM usage to spike (and forego the usefulness of spotlight)
temporarily disabling all volumes by putting them on the privacy exclusion list and then slowly adding folders to be indexed and hope to determine which sort of data is causing the worst spike in
use Shark and their kind (part of Xcode and the CHUD tools) to sample the running mds process and map out the memory allocation as it is happening. This is fairly high on the skill level and won't change your end solution either way - you'll just know why - and maybe still not have a cure.

Also sadly for you - most people are not running 10.5 on PPC chips, so the number of people that can run some tests or have seen this and poked around the issue it to find out what sort of file or importer might be likely to  take more memory once mds gets it's hands on the metadata store.

It does sound odd - so you have a very valid point with more than usual RAM usage. But, it's not necessarily something that is wrong - you just might have data that needs that large amount of RAM. Only by taking your data to a similar mac or doing the process of elimination can you know for sure.


Error when parsing my .bashrc -- sytax error: operand expected (error token is " ") I have the following snippet in my .bashrc:

# Returns system load as percentage, i.e., '40' rather than '0.40)'.
function load()
{
    local SYSLOAD=$(cut -d " " -f1 /proc/loadavg | tr -d '.')
    # System load of the current host.
    echo $((10#$SYSLOAD))       # Convert to decimal.
}

When it's parsed, I get this error:
bash: 100* : syntax error: operand expected (error token is " ") but I'm not sure why?

There is no /proc/loadavg on macOS, so SYSLOAD is most probably empty (or at least not numeric).


reorganize mail folders (not in V4 on Sierra) A while ago, after filling my MacBookPro disk, I (stupidly!) moved my Mail (all IMAP or Gmail) folders to an external disk (using Terminal). After cleaning up my disk, I did

  Mailbox > Rebuild

on each of my Mail folders, but on my work IMAP account my files has mostly disappeared, so I had to recover them from a backup performed by the IT dept. at work. However, several problems arose:

the folders are no longer in ~/Library/Mail/V4 (Sierra)
the Message List is often incomplete (but using Spotlight helps locate the missing messages)
the Rules and Signatures have disappeared.

What should I do?

Copy the mailbox contents from another Mac (desktop, High Sierra)? What precise files (and Preference files) should I copy?
Upgrade my laptop MacOS to Mojave (hoping for the Mail folders to magically appear in ~/Library/Mail/V5)?

I just solved my problem by:

turning off all Internet accounts (keeping them on other iCloud machines)
updating to Mojave
following the steps in https://appletoolbox.com/mail-not-working-after-macos-mojave-upgrade-how-to-fix/, which basically deletes several Mail-related files in ~/Library/Containers and ~/Library/Mail.

This allowed me to recover my mailboxes and also recover a lost synchronization in Notes between my Mac and iPhone.


Complete documentation of the iOS Settings app's URL scheme The iOS Settings app provides an URL scheme (prefs:) which can be used to open the app directly on a particular page from other apps, in particular, shortcut apps such as Launch Center.

There are various pages on the web that have a list of some of the URLs, but these pages all seem to provide the same subset, and I know there is at least one shortcut that's not included. In fact, I'd imagine that every page in Settings will have it's own URL.

Can anyone provide the complete list of URLs for the Settings app?

As of iOS 13.1, these URLs are back, and have been exhaustively documented on the MacStories website by Federico Viticci. Please note that the linked page is being actively updated, and contains other useful background and tips such as how to link to the settings for third party apps, so probably a good idea to follow the linke through to that site for the full info:

Settings URLs
iCloud

iCloud: prefs:root=CASTLE
iCloud Backup: prefs:root=CASTLE&path=BACKUP

Wireless Radios

Wi-Fi: prefs:root=WIFI
Bluetooth: prefs:root=Bluetooth
Cellular: prefs:root=MOBILE_DATA_SETTINGS_ID

Personal Hotspot

Personal Hotspot: prefs:root=INTERNET_TETHERING
Personal Hotspot ⇾ Family Sharing: prefs:root=INTERNET_TETHERING&path=Family%20Sharing
Personal Hotspot ⇾ Wi-Fi Password: prefs:root=INTERNET_TETHERING&path=Wi-Fi%20Password

VPN

VPN: prefs:root=General&path=VPN

Notifications

Notifications: prefs:root=NOTIFICATIONS_ID
Notifications ⇾ Siri Suggestions: prefs:root=NOTIFICATIONS_ID&path=Siri%20Suggestions

Sounds

Sounds: prefs:root=Sounds
Ringtone: prefs:root=Sounds&path=Ringtone

Do Not Disturb

Do Not Disturb: prefs:root=DO_NOT_DISTURB
Do Not Disturb ⇾ Allow Calls From: prefs:root=DO_NOT_DISTURB&path=Allow%20Calls%20From

Screen Time

Screen Time: prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME
Screen Time ⇾ Downtime: prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME&path=DOWNTIME
Screen Time ⇾ App Limits: prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME&path=APP_LIMITS
Screen Time ⇾ Always Allowed: prefs:root=SCREEN_TIME&path=ALWAYS_ALLOWED

General

General: prefs:root=General
General ⇾ About: prefs:root=General&path=About
General ⇾ Software Update: prefs:root=General&path=SOFTWARE_UPDATE_LINK
General ⇾ CarPlay: prefs:root=General&path=CARPLAY
General ⇾ Background App Refresh: prefs:root=General&path=AUTO_CONTENT_DOWNLOAD
General ⇾ Multitasking (iPad-only): prefs:root=General&path=MULTITASKING
General ⇾ Date & Time: prefs:root=General&path=DATE_AND_TIME
General ⇾ Keyboard: prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard
General ⇾ Keyboard ⇾ Keyboards: prefs:root=General&path=Keyboard/KEYBOARDS
General ⇾ Language & Region: prefs:root=General&path=INTERNATIONAL
General ⇾ Dictionary: prefs:root=General&path=DICTIONARY
General ⇾ Profiles: prefs:root=General&path=ManagedConfigurationList
General ⇾ Reset: prefs:root=General&path=Reset

Control Center

Control Center: prefs:root=ControlCenter
Control Center ⇾ Customize Controls: prefs:root=ControlCenter&path=CUSTOMIZE_CONTROLS

Display

Display: prefs:root=DISPLAY
Display ⇾ Auto Lock: prefs:root=DISPLAY&path=AUTOLOCK
Display ⇾ Text Size: prefs:root=DISPLAY&path=TEXT_SIZE

Accessibility

Accessibility: prefs:root=ACCESSIBILITY

Wallpaper

Wallpaper: prefs:root=Wallpaper

Siri

Siri: prefs:root=SIRI

Apple Pencil

Apple Pencil (iPad-only): prefs:root=Pencil

Face ID

Face ID: prefs:root=PASSCODE

Emergency SOS

Emergency SOS: prefs:root=EMERGENCY_SOS

Battery

Battery: prefs:root=BATTERY_USAGE
Battery ⇾ Battery Health (iPhone-only): prefs:root=BATTERY_USAGE&path=BATTERY_HEALTH

Privacy

Privacy: prefs:root=Privacy
Privacy ⇾ Location Services: prefs:root=Privacy&path=LOCATION
Privacy ⇾ Contacts: prefs:root=Privacy&path=CONTACTS
Privacy ⇾ Calendars: prefs:root=Privacy&path=CALENDARS
Privacy ⇾ Reminders: prefs:root=Privacy&path=REMINDERS
Privacy ⇾ Photos: prefs:root=Privacy&path=PHOTOS
Privacy ⇾ Microphone: prefs:root=Privacy&path=MICROPHONE
Privacy ⇾ Speech Recognition: prefs:root=Privacy&path=SPEECH_RECOGNITION
Privacy ⇾ Camera: prefs:root=Privacy&path=CAMERA
Privacy ⇾ Motion: prefs:root=Privacy&path=MOTION\

App Store

App Store: prefs:root=STORE
App Store ⇾ App Downloads: prefs:root=STORE&path=App%20Downloads
App Store ⇾ Video Autoplay: prefs:root=STORE&path=Video%20Autoplay

Wallet

Wallet: prefs:root=PASSBOOK

Passwords & Accounts

Passwords & Accounts: prefs:root=ACCOUNTS_AND_PASSWORDS
Passwords & Accounts ⇾ Fetch New Data: prefs:root=ACCOUNTS_AND_PASSWORDS&path=FETCH_NEW_DATA
Passwords & Accounts ⇾ Add Account: prefs:root=ACCOUNTS_AND_PASSWORDS&path=ADD_ACCOUNT

Mail

Mail: prefs:root=MAIL
Mail ⇾ Preview: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Preview
Mail ⇾ Swipe Options: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Swipe%20Options
Mail ⇾ Notifications: prefs:root=MAIL&path=NOTIFICATIONS
Mail ⇾ Blocked: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Blocked
Mail ⇾ Muted Thread Action: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Muted%20Thread%20Action
Mail ⇾ Blocked Sender Options: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Blocked%20Sender%20Options
Mail ⇾ Mark Addresses: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Mark%20Addresses
Mail ⇾ Increase Quote Level: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Increase%20Quote%20Level
Mail ⇾ Include Attachments with Replies: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Include%20Attachments%20with%20Replies
Mail ⇾ Signature: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Signature
Mail ⇾ Default Account: prefs:root=MAIL&path=Default%20Account

Contacts

Contacts: prefs:root=CONTACTS

Calendar

Calendar: prefs:root=CALENDAR
Calendar ⇾ Alternate Calendars: prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Alternate%20Calendars
Calendar ⇾ Sync: prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Sync
Calendar ⇾ Default Alert Times: prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Default%20Alert%20Times
Calendar ⇾ Default Calendar: prefs:root=CALENDAR&path=Default%20Calendar

Notes

Notes: prefs:root=NOTES
Notes ⇾ Default Account: prefs:root=NOTES&path=Default%20Account
Notes ⇾ Password: prefs:root=NOTES&path=Password
Notes ⇾ Sort Notes By: prefs:root=NOTES&path=Sort%20Notes%20By
Notes ⇾ New Notes Start With: prefs:root=NOTES&path=New%20Notes%20Start%20With
Notes ⇾ Sort Checked Items: prefs:root=NOTES&path=Sort%20Checked%20Items
Notes ⇾ Lines & Grids: prefs:root=NOTES&path=Lines%20%26%20Grids
Notes ⇾ Access Notes from Lock Screen: prefs:root=NOTES&path=Access%20Notes%20from%20Lock%20Screen

Reminders

Reminders: prefs:root=REMINDERS
Reminders ⇾ Default List: prefs:root=REMINDERS&path=DEFAULT_LIST

Voice Memos

Voice Memos: prefs:root=VOICE_MEMOS

Phone

Phone: prefs:root=Phone

Messages

Messages: prefs:root=MESSAGES

FaceTime

FaceTime: prefs:root=FACETIME

Maps

Maps: prefs:root=MAPS
Maps ⇾ Driving & Navigation: prefs:root=MAPS&path=Driving%20%26%20Navigation
Maps ⇾ Transit: prefs:root=MAPS&path=Transit

Compass

Compass: prefs:root=COMPASS

Measure

Measure: prefs:root=MEASURE

Safari

Safari: prefs:root=SAFARI
Safari ⇾ Content Blockers: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Content%20Blockers
Safari ⇾ Downloads: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=DOWNLOADS
Safari ⇾ Close Tabs: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Close%20Tabs
Safari ⇾ Page Zoom: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Page%20Zoom
Safari ⇾ Request Desktop Website: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Request%20Desktop%20Website
Safari ⇾ Reader: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Reader
Safari ⇾ Camera: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Camera
Safari ⇾ Microphone: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Microphone
Safari ⇾ Location: prefs:root=SAFARI&path=Location

News

News: prefs:root=NEWS

Health

Health: prefs:root=HEALTH

Shortcuts

Shortcuts: prefs:root=SHORTCUTS

Music

Music: prefs:root=MUSIC
Music ⇾ Cellular Data: prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:CellularData
Music ⇾ Optimize Storage: prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:OptimizeStorage
Music ⇾ EQ: prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:EQ
Music ⇾ Volume Limit: prefs:root=MUSIC&path=com.apple.Music:VolumeLimit

Photos

Photos: prefs:root=Photos

Camera

Camera: prefs:root=CAMERA
Camera ⇾ Record Video: prefs:root=CAMERA&path=Record%20Video
Camera ⇾ Record Slo-mo: prefs:root=CAMERA&path=Record%20Slo-mo

Books

Books: prefs:root=IBOOKS

Game Center

Game Center: prefs:root=GAMECENTER


Is it possible to approve a Family Sharing purchase on a Mac? I have family with iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) but I personally use Android.

I do however have a Mac Mini for development - is there any app or web site from where I can approve App purchases (Ask to buy)? The idea is that I won't need to confiscate an iOS device and log into App Store using my "organiser" account just to approve.

Yes. This is possible. The instructions for all the necessary steps can be found here, provided you have OS X 10.10 Yosemite or higher. When someone in your family requests to make a purchase, you will get a notification on your Mac. (You can find past notifications in the Notification Center). You can approve the request directly from the notification, and it will ask you to authenticate with your Apple ID credentials.


Can iTunes find all songs with no Album Art? I want to find all songs or tracks which don't have Album Art associated with them in my iTunes music library.  I want to do this so that I can fix Album Art problems in advance of a backup.  How can I have iTunes show me just these tracks?

My iTunes library is on a Windows 7 PC.

You can do this by creating a Smart Playlist:

(I'm using a Mac, but it will be similar for you)

Set the "Album Artwork" rule to "false":

This will update automatically as you add artwork to your albums. And you can simply delete this playlist when you're done.


Crop photo in circle form on an iPad Pro I would like to crop photos with a circle shape on an iPad Pro. However, I just can find the rectangular or square crop options in "markup".

Does anybody know how to crop photos in circle in iPad without using an app? If an app is necessary what would be the best free app?

A quick Web search reveals an app that offers exactly this feature:

Krop Circle

The app is a free download with In-App purchase. This is an iPhone only app, but can run on iPad in compatibility (letterbox) mode.

No affiliation whatsoever with the developer.


Can you install or downgrade to an older point release of macOS? I need to do some software testing against macOS. I know I can download the El Capitan and Sierra installers, but they seem to install the last version (i.e. 10.12.6) rather than the 10.12.0 release.

Is there a way to get ahold of the older installers, or some way to downgrade?

There is no way to downgrade to or download an older point release of macOS from any official source.


Can I be reached on FaceTime on Mac using my non-iPhone phone number? I have a Mac and an Android phone. I can use FaceTime and people can call me using my email address.

I want people to be able to place calls with me using my phone number.

So I've added my phone number to my Apple ID as explained in "Choose how people can call you in FaceTime on Mac". Got an SMS with validation code, validated the thing, and now the phone is associated there. So far so good.

Then I've signed off & on of FaceTime, restarted the Mac, to no avail: in FaceTime preferences, the number does not appear.

Is it simply because FaceTime requires an iPhone and there's no way around it? (The support page does not tell this)
Or am I missing something?

I'm on macOS 10.15 Catalina beta, as a developer I needed this to work with latest Xcode beta features.

Can I be reached on FaceTime on Mac using my non-iPhone phone number?

No. You need an iPhone to do that.

  I've added my phone number to my Apple ID

What you have done is associated your mobile number with your Apple ID. The mobile number can be used to receive verification code when logging in with your Apple ID (if you do not have an active trusted device).

Using FaceTime with your mobile number requires the mobile number to be registered with the FaceTime service. You are prompted to register the mobile number when you use your mobile number with an iPhone.

P.S.

There's a workaround that you can attempt. You can temporarily insert the SIM card in an iPhone. The iPhone will prompt you to register the number with FaceTime service (which it does by sending an MMS). Note that your service operator may charge for the MMS.

Once the number is registered with the FaceTime service, you can configure the FaceTime app on your Mac such that you can be reached on FaceTime via your mobile number. Do note that if the iPhone is set up with a different or someone else's Apple ID, make sure you ignore any alert to associate the mobile number with that Apple ID.

Once setup, you can remove the SIM card from the iPhone and continue to use it normally. Note that this isn't a full-proof, official or recommended approach. You are advised to proceed with caution.

Such workarounds aren't recommended and you can best experience all the service offerings by Apple if you stick to the platform.


OS X Startup Disk full, cannot login File storage is full, got spinning wait cursor when trying to access files to delete them, rebooted and now I can not get past the user login.  I enter password but cannot login.

Deleting files in this circumstance is relatively easy but you will need to be at least a little conversant with Unix/Linux command line operations.

Boot your Mac holding down Command ⌘-S, this will pop you into single-user mode. A black screen with white text scrolling by. Eventually you will get a prompt with some instructions on what to do directly above it. I don't remember exactly but the commands mount the filesystem so you can access it. Then enter this:

cd /Users/[USERNAME]/Movies

Where [USERNAME] is your short username that appears on your home folder. Once in the movies folder you can proceed to delete movies. remember a couple of things.

The command line is Case Sensitive. So MySpecialMovie.mov is a different file than myspecialmovie.mov. At least at the command line level. (The Mac preserves case but in Finder operations is not case sensitive)
The Tab key is your friend. Press Tab when typing a file name and it will autocomplete.

Start by listing the files in your ~/Movies folder like this:

ls

Or you could get a longer listing (which I prefer).

ls -al

That will give you a list of all the deletable files.

The second method will give you file size.

To remove one of the files:

rm MySpecialMovie.mov

Now it is a matter of going through the ~/Movies folder using ls and rm to view and remove un-needed files.

Note that pressing the Up Arrow will scroll back in command history allowing you to easily review what you have done and/or repeat previous commands. Down Arrow scrolls forward in command history.

One you are done you can issue the reboot (restart?) command and allow your Mac to boot normally.


Phantom email unable to delete I purchased a new iPad.  When I set up my Roadrunner email acct it downloaded over 300 from the main server to my inbox. I looked for a way to delete multiple email but there doesn't seem to be any method for that. As I was playing around with all the mailboxes, I did something because my inbox still says over 300 yet It only shows the current ones. ( I am keeping up to date deleting all incoming )
How do I find the phantom 300 ?  I've looked in every folder !

I feel your pain. I am also an RR client. Don't know if you are a native Apple person or if you are straddling the Windows-Apple barbed wire saddle. I wanted to share this with you, in case you ever look for an answer again (I see it was June when you posted). I found several "tips" about deleting lots of emails, but never like a "select all" and then deselecting a few you want to keep. [Ed: Duh. Why not build in a feature that consumers have led the market to KNOW is expected for maybe 2 decades now .... duh again, sorry for the redundancy)

Recently (viz. tonite) I deleted over 5000 emails from the iPad "mail" app. Took me almost 2 hours. It was much easier (and obviously successful) than following the exact steps in the online tips.

I open the native "mail" app. I select an inbox. I select "edit" so I can delete emails. I spend a lot of time [over and over] selecting one email at a time [this is where they could really help us out if they "allowed" some kind of a batch feature]. After selecting between 70-100 emails, I carefully select "move" - I say "carefully" because if you accidentally (I say this from repeated experience) get in a hurry, and select "move" as a single touch, nothing you do next will apply to all those dozens of hateful emails you want to delete.

So let's say you now have selected 86 emails, within the email app, in one inbox. Carefully SELECT-AND-HOLD-DOWN-FOR-SEVERAL-SECONDS "move" – you will see images of the group of emails layering on the right. You will next be taken to a screen listing WHERE to move these emails. Carefully select "trash". Boom - there they go, into the "trash", but they are not yet deleted. That is a separate step (see B below).

So, I did this repeatedly until I had about 300-400 emails in the trash. STEP B: Then you go back to the main menu for mail: select "trash". Select "edit" on the next page. At the bottom of the iPad screen, carefully select "delete" then VERY carefully select "delete all". I say again - carefully - because a hurried and careless "selection" (i.e., touch of the screen) will leave you nowhere you want to be - in short, undoing some aspect of all your efforts.

So - you delete individual emails by selecting them one at a time within the inbox [you will need to do this in the "sent" folder etc. if you want to remove other accumulations] - then you carefully move them to trash. Then after a little clutch of them are in the trash, open "trash" and select them and delete all of them.

Do this from 1 to 145,567 ... util all those dumb emails are gone.

What I want to know, is how to get rid of these 108 emails that “seem” to be in one inbox but they are nowhere to be found.

I have researched this for over a year, maybe close to 2 years now without success.

Good luck to us both.


How to delete iCloud storage Mail cache? I've deleted every E-Mail in my iCloud account. But the storage overview shows me 2,2GB used space for my Mails.

But there is no E-Mail left:

  How can I update the storage overview or delete the iCloud cache for
  my Mails?

I just have the free version and 2,2GB takes a lot of my space.

I found a solution to my problem. So for future readers:

Mail is caching (Bug?) the storage space in Mail. So after deleting a few thousands E-Mails, the space is still taken.

The solution:

  Insert a few E-Mails back in archive. After importing a few E-Mails
  again, Apple is updating the cache.

Guide:

  Deleting every E-Mail in archive
  Spotting that the space is still taken
  Insert 3-4 E-Mails back to archive
  Waiting until the space is updated (look at iCloud.com)
  Deleting the 3-4 E-Mails in archive


Link information between spreadsheets in iPad using Numbers Could you link to data in one spreadsheet from another using Numbers for iPad?

No - there isn't an URL scheme or addressing scheme to make that sort of link.

This isn't something that even works on the Mac version of Numbers so at least there is parity across the OS in this case.


Time capsule router performance Just bought latest generation 2Tb Time Capsule that replaced my old USB drive for Time Machine backups and my Belkin G router. Everything runs fine except when I start downloading torrents. With Belkin, I could run several downloads, work remotely on three machines, and my wife could be streaming Netflix over Apple TV. Now, with Transmission running a 2.1MB/s download and no Netflix streaming, my remote connections feel like I am on dial-up. This is really disappointing. Any suggestions on how to fix it? I know I can throttle the torrents but I also frequently download large files for work and I can't just sit there waiting for download to finish before I can continue working remotely.

The TC router really isn't as great as it could be, I would go back to using the belkin as your wireless network and have the TC running from it.

I have a 500gb TC used on a SKY router, I have used it as a router, but also found it was slow.


How can I get email to "me" to email to my email address? If I tell Siri "email me," the right thing happens: a new message is created with my email address as the recipient. But if I open the email app and type "me" as the recipient, I'm told "Invalid Address" when I try to send the message.

How can I get the email app to understand that "me" as a recipient means to use the email address corresponding to who I've told Siri is me?

You can't.
Because of the design of iOS, there is no native way to accomplish this. The reason for this is that the address field in mail and messages are almost exactly identical, not just in looks, but in function.
In messages, you can actually send a text to me, but it will send whatever you said straight to 63 (see number pad). This is because some companies hand out shortcodes, and say something like Text APP to WMART (96278) to download the Walmart app!. users can either punch in 96278 into messages, or they can punch in the much more memorable WMART into the address field and still have the message go back to the right place.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that mail will actually try to send an email to me if you hit send. This may be a planned feature for within organizations or something, or it could be an oversight. But due to the design of iOS, you are unable to accomplish what you wanted.


Is it possible to power a 4K display at 60 Hz with a DisplayPort/HDMI adapter connected to a USB-C hub? I have a LG display which supports 4K at 60 Hz. I wanted to buy an adapter for my Macbook Air(2018) to use it with my notebook. I am confused about one thing though. I have read that USB-C to USB-C hubs don't exist. So, am I limited to using the one free port left after using one for power to be either occupied by DisplayPort adapters or something else one at a time?

I have seen that Apple and some other manufacturers have a USB-C to multi AV adapter which has HDMI and USB-C both as output but can't find one for DisplayPort. Is this because of higher requirements of the DisplayPort 1.3+ standard which allows it to do 4K 60 Hz not leaving bandwidth for multiplexing the port?

The 2018 MacBook Air actually has 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports. I.e. they not just USB-C ports.

This mean that you can definitely connect all sorts of multiport adapters, docks, etc. to enable you to charge the Mac while connected to a DisplayPort monitor - and then even more.

Just as an example you can use the OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock and connect that to one of the two Thunderbolt 3 ports on your MacBook Air. It comes with a power brick that will charge your MacBook Air through that single cable. In addition it has a 4k at 60Hz DisplayPort output (you'll need a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable).

This leaves you with one of the two ports on your MacBook Air unused - as well as providing lots of extra ports on the dock itself (5 x USB 3, 1 x USB-C, 1 x daisy-chained Thunderbolt 3, ethernet, S/PDIF, audio-jack, SD-card and micro-SD).

In fact you could also use the daisy-chained Thunderbolt 3 port to hook up the monitor - then you would require a USB-C to DisplayPort cable instead.


How to reduce lag when scrolling in Preview? I have a large pdf file and I was wondering how I could decrease the lag when scrolling.

I tried breaking the file into smaller sections (roughly 20 page chunks) but that didn't help. I'm thinking scrolling is so slow because each page is some sort of image.

Are there any other steps I can take to reduce the choppiness when scrolling?

How is the PDF compressed? If it is black and white only, it may be using a compression method that leads to choppy behaviour.

I was recently dealing with a product manual that was a black and white only scan. It was compressed using JBIG2, and it stuttered enormously when scrolling, even on a top-of-the-line MacBook.

I opened the document in Adobe Acrobat, and recompressed it using ZIP, and the scrolling problem went away entirely.

If you have Acrobat Pro, the steps I took were: Open the file -> Save As -> "Optimised PDF" -> Change the "Monochrome Images" compression dropdown to "ZIP" -> Ok.

It does increase the size of the file (from 1.2 MB to 3 MB), but I can actually skim the document now.

I think it mostly boils down to the fact that JBIG2 is compute-intensive, and Most PDF applications don't render the document much ahead of the current page.

If you don't have Acrobat, and you can post the PDF, I can take a look at it for you.