Search for emails within specific folders Presently, if I do a search in Apple Mail it searches everything. This is fine most of the time, but sometimes I want to just be able to select a folder and then search only the emails in that folder.

How can I search for emails only within a folder?

This is definitely possible, but there's a trick to it:

Firstly you need to ensure you have your Favourites Bar visible
Secondly you need to have the folder added to the Favourites Bar

See the screenshot below for what I mean by the Favourites Bar:

You can make this bar appear/disappear with the optionshiftcommandH keyboard shortcut.

Now, to add a folder (or smart folder) to the bar, just drag it into the bar. In the screenshot above you'll see I've added the Last Month, This Year and other Smart Folders to my bar.

Now, after entering a search term in your Search field, just select one of the folders in your Favourites Bar and it'll filter the search to those items located within the folder.


Do i need installing antivirus on Windows partition of Mac I have installed Windows 10 on MacBook Pro with Boot Camp. Now I would like to know if I should also install antivirus on Windows 10, or is all virus protection handled by the Mac?

Of course, installing an antivirus on your Windows is recommended, but it is not a necessity. Generally, if there was a virus, your mac would not be damaged, as the OS X file format is read only on Windows AFAIK (unless the virus was so well made, that it bypassed this).

  or is all virus protection handled by the Mac?

There is no way for that to happen as when you run Windows with BootCamp, then Mac is not even running, and only mounted as a read-only format on Windows. It is almost like running 2 different systems.


Could aluminium dust inside a Macbook Air create a short circuit? I have a Macbook Air and I'm very happy with it, except for the fact that it made a creaky noise. It turned out the bottom plate wasn't screwed on properly and I had to reseat it (I tried to let a Genius do this, but out of the three Geniuses I visited, no one of them had  the proper screwdriver and wanted to take my Macbook for repair or switch it for a new one, I refused this because I don't want to live for a week or more because of such a stupid problem).
So I bought a special pentalobe screwdriver and screwed the bottom plate off. I noticed there was some aluminium dust inside the Macbook Air because the plate has been moving a little and has been scraping onto the body.

Could this dust create a short circuit theoretically?

One little problem is that one screw (of the 10 screws) doesn't tighten anymore, because the bottom plate has been screwed on wrongly in the first place. What kind of glue is the best to use to attach the screw? Of course it must be possible to unscrew it at some point when I want to install a new/bigger SSD.

This might sound terrible to the Apple fans who don't want to mess with their machines, but I don't think getting it repaired by a Genius or switching it with a new one solves anything, because this creaking problem is very common and it might start all over again.

Loctite make a range of semi-permanent gunks for "gluing" screws in place.  A good hardware shop (on-line or in real life) would help.

There would have to be a lost of dust for it to be a problem.


Is there some special or secret way to get a "new document" in Preview on Mac? I am trying to compare Google Docs's Drawings with Mac's Preview, and if I can have a canvas, such as a white one with 1200 x 800 pixel, then I can start drawing rounded rectangles, lines, and text.

However, there is no way to get a new blank document of 1200 x 800 pixel wide to begin drawing. Somehow it seems I have to find such an image, make a "copy" (the copy in copy-and-paste), and then "Paste from Clipboard".

Is there some special or secret method or good method to create such a new document to draw on?

This is exactly what a document template on macOS is intended to do. You make one document then flag it. Next time you open it (from automation, script, recents, finder) it creates a new empty document with precisely the setup you want.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/create-document-templates-on-mac-mchlp1341/mac

Even though Apple documents this clearly and plainly, I suspect most people find it a “secret trick” or hidden gem once they have an itch like yours that needs scratching.


Is it possible to convert APFS to HFS+ I'm deciding to install MacOS High Sierra on my Mac this autumn.So if I find APFS not useful can I convert it back to HFS+ via terminal or using Disk utility?

This autumn of 2017 when High Sierra is released, there will be far more concrete details and evidence for you to make an educated decision. I can’t conceive Apple won’t make clear the risks and benefits on consumer, support, professional and technical levels for APFS. My guess is most people should make one backup and then jump. If you have old software that cannot be updated, you might wait three months for any odd bugs to get documented or worked out if you can’t easily recover from a bootable backup or reinstall your apps at the versions you require.

At worst, you can always wipe and reinstall High Sierra on HFS and then copy files from your backup (whether the backup is HFS or APFS or some other file system)

In July 2017, The migration scripts and functions are still being tested in beta - so today, there are no signs you could revert back from APFS to HFS on the beta macOS. Worse, you shouldn’t even trust the forward conversion yet for non-throwaway system test use.

Many programs will not work yet on APFS formatted volumes.

https://bombich.com/blog/2017/07/07/pondering-conversion-from-hfs-apfs

I would recommend keeping all your important data and all your system backups clean and untouched by beta versions of APFS scripts.

What seems to work well even now in the beta is copying files back from APFS to HFS if I work on a file or photo in beta and want to keep it on my main system. That’s a very different thing than reverting the entire file system structure, though.


How to copy message from pop-up window? Is there a way to copy text message in a pop-up window like this is possible on Windows machine by making pop-up window active and then pressing CTRL+C?

Not that I know of, but you can access most text elements from the accessibility API. For example this shows the prompt text in password dialogs:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "SecurityAgent" to value of UI elements of UI elements of window 1


Reclaiming hard drive space in iPad What is the easiest way to reclaim HD space on an ipad2 without having to sync? Ideally I'm looking for an app that would allow me to delete files directly from the iPad (I remember there was one for the Newton that did this quite well, yes I'm old).

I use the free iPhone Explorer to mount my iPod touch in the Finder, and I can find individual files and copy them to the Mac or delete them without using iTunes or syncing. It is supposed to work with iPad as well. Give it a try.


Rstudio Server in Mac Mojave I am trying to install Rstudio Server in Mac mini running on macOS Mojave. I followed this link to build Rstudio server from the source. I also looked at this link. I could successfully install it with no problems.
But I get this error:

$ cd /usr/local/lib/rstudio-server/bin
$ rserver --server-daemonize=0  --auth-minimum-user-id=500
rserver: command not found

I have the .plist and everything in the right place (needed to run rstudio server in the backend) but I don't get why does it say rserver command not found? I can provide any other detail if needed.

When any Unix/MacOS/BSD resides on the current directory and this directory is not in your environment variable PATH, you must prefix it with ./ to have it executed.

According to you, the binary IS on the current direcoty, so the command line has to be:

./rserver --server-daemonize=0  --auth-minimum-user-id=500


What data counts as "photos" or "movies" When looking up how much data is left on my tiny MacBooks SSD (under "about this mac"/"storage" 1.74 GB are marked as photos, and 429.9 MB as movies, which is odd, considering that I intentionally have deleted the photo library and the iMovie library.

This leaves me with two possible conclusions: either there are some "secret" photo and movie libraries containing above 2 GB of data, or this photo/movie data includes all image and movie files (ie. PNG, JPEG, MPEG, MOV, and similar) which are in use other places on my computer.

My question is, therefore, does this photo and movie data only include files saved in specific folders/libraries at specific locations associated with build in movie/imaging programs such as iMovie, photobooth or similar, or does it include a vast number of files with different purposes at different locations around the filesystem?

Spotlight is the system that classifies files, so if you use the command line tool in terminal.app to list the spotlight information of a file you can see how the classification is performed:

Open terminal
Type mdls and then drag any file from your desktop (or anywhere in finder) to the window and drop the icon.
Press return

The fields to focus on are kMDItemContentType and kMDItemContentTypeTree and a bit further down the list is kMDItemKind ;

kMDItemContentType             = "public.png"
kMDItemContentTypeTree         = (
    "public.png",
    "public.item",
    "public.png",
kMDItemKind                    = "Portable Network Graphics image"

In my example I used a screen shot png file - which is one of many image formats that will then be counted against the total. Under kind information, you can also see the logical (size of the bits) and physical size (how much space the file takes up on the drive with overhead for block sizes and accounting) which would get summed up for each "category"

So - to find out what might be categorized as an image - type this command out (or paste it if you trust me/it/whomever edits this last):

mdfind "kMDItemKind = '*image*'" | head -3

The pipe symbol | takes all the lines of text that mdfind produces and shows you the first three lines of text. Instead of piping to head -3 you could also pipe to more to page through the list one screen at a time. Press spacebar to move, q to quit and h for help in more.

To count all the files with the string image in the kMDItemKind field:

mdfind "kMDItemKind = '*image*'" | wc -l

For context, my two smaller Mac have between 85k image files and 110k image files. Note, on newer OS - some of the images will be marked "purgeable" so you might over count at the command line but you should have a better feeling of what images exist and if you need to uninstall apps or they are just part of the operating system to have images to show you for the controls in Safari, the default desktop backgrounds, etc...


Editing iPhone 7 Photos on sRGB iMac Photos taken on an iPhone 7 are encoded with the DCI-P3 color profile. Would editing those photos in the Photos app on a 2013 (non-Retina) iMac result in loss of quality?

From doing my own testing, it does appear to be the case. I edited a photo on my iPhone 7+ to soften some highlights. When viewed on my iMac, the highlights were still blown out. I further lowered the highlights on my iMac. Now the photo viewed on my iPhone had blown out highlights once again. Trying to edit it on my iPhone showed all the color controls at 0, even though it was clear it had been edited.


How do I let AppleScript choose any type of file? I'm making a script that makes encrypting files easier and at the beginning portion I have this:

display dialog "Choose where your file is located."
set directory to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop))
display dialog "Choose your file."
choose file with prompt "File Name:"
set filepath to result

When it asking for a file, is there any other way that I can make it be able to choose anything? (Folders, images...)

Can't be done

The following are different ways to prompt for files. There is no way, in pure Apple Script, to prompt for Files or Folders at the same time.

Select File:

set directory to POSIX path of (choose file with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop))

Select Files:

set directory to POSIX path of (choose file with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop) with multiple selections allowed)

Select Folder:

set directory to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop))

Select Folders:

set directory to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop) with multiple selections allowed)

Select Specific Types of Files:

  Prompting for a Specific Type of File

  If your script requires specific types of files for processing, you
  can use the choose file command’s optional of type parameter to
  provide a list of acceptable types. Types may be specified as
  extension strings without the leading period (such as "jpg" or "png")
  or as uniform type identifiers (such as "public.image" or
  "com.apple.iwork.pages.sffpages"). Listing 26-3 and Listing 26-4 show
  how to prompt for an image.

For Images:

set directory to POSIX path of (choose file of type {"public.image"} with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop) with multiple selections allowed)

Sources: Mac Automation Scripting Guide

Using AppleScriptObjC you can ask for either Files or Folders. See this answer (if the linked answer helped, please upvote the linked Q&A):

  No, you can't do it with "choose file" or "choose folder" verbs, but
  choosing a file or folder (or multiple files/folders) is supported
  by the underlying NSOpenPanel.  So you can do it with
  AppleScriptObjC. Here's an example using [ASObjCRunner][1] (derived
  from [here][2]):

script chooseFilesOrFolders
  tell current application's NSOpenPanel's openPanel()
      setTitle_("Choose Files or Folders") -- window title, default is "Open"
      setPrompt_("Choose") -- button name, default is "Open"

      setCanChooseFiles_(true)
      setCanChooseDirectories_(true)
      setAllowsMultipleSelection_(true) -- remove if you only want a single file/folder

      get its runModal() as integer -- show the panel
      if result is current application's NSFileHandlingPanelCancelButton then error number -128 -- cancelled
      return URLs() as list
  end tell
end script

tell application "ASObjC Runner"
  activate
  run the script {chooseFilesOrFolders} with response
end tell

  ASObjCRunner converts a NSArray of NSURL objects into an
  AppleScript list of files; the results can look something like:

{file "Macintosh HD:Users:nicholas:Desktop:fontconfig:", file "Macintosh HD:Users:nicholas:Desktop:form.pdf"}

  [1]: http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/apps/runner.html
  [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8125563/

You could use a dialog box prompting a user to select what they would like to encrypt.

display dialog "Select a type to Encrypt" buttons {"File(s)", "Folder(s)"}
set a to the button returned of the result
if a is "File(s)" then
    set directory to POSIX path of (choose file with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop) with multiple selections allowed)
else
    set directory to POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "File Location:" default location (path to desktop) with multiple selections allowed)
end if

Lastly, check out my answer here for a way to encrypt files with Apple Script and Automator.


How to move time-machine backups to a new external disk? My 4TB external hard drive has 2x2TB volumes. I use one of these for time-machine backups. I have ~6 months of backups on here. The drive is beginning to die so I want to transfer the data from each of the 2 volumes on the old drive to volumes on the new drive.

I was able to use rsync to move the data on the non-time-machine volume no problem.

 >rsync -avz /Volumes/data/dir1/ /Volumes/data2/dir1/

However, it gave me errors when I tried to use it on the time-machine volume:

 >rsync -avz /Volumes/time-machine/Backups.backupdb/ /Volumes/time-machine2/Backups.backupdb/
sending incremental file list
rsync: opendir "/Volumes/time-machine/Backups.backupdb/." failed: Operation not permitted (1)

sent 53 bytes  received 12 bytes  130.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00
rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1209) [sender=3.1.3]

I tried following apple's official instructions but finder got stuck "Preparing to copy" my 2 TB of data for hours. One frustrated user asked if there was a way to continue the finder copy that had been running for 5 days before failing.

P.S. I'm not sure why finder takes days to move data that rsync can move in hours?

It seems like rsync would be the right tool for this job. Perhaps using sudo? No luck:

 >sudo rsync -avz /Volumes/time-machine/Backups.backupdb/ /Volumes/time-machine2/Backups.backupdb/
Password:
sending incremental file list
rsync: opendir "/Volumes/time-machine/Backups.backupdb/." failed: Operation not permitted (1)

sent 55 bytes  received 12 bytes  134.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00
rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1209) [sender=3.1.3]

I found a suggestion on another post to actually run rsync as root. I enabled the root user, and tried running as root, but I still got errors.

b:~ root# rsync --version
rsync  version 3.1.3  protocol version 31

b:~ root# rsync -avz /Volumes/time-machine/Backups.backupdb/ /Volumes/time-machine2/Backups.backupdb/
sending incremental file list
rsync: opendir "/Volumes/time-machine/Backups.backupdb/." failed: Operation not permitted (1)
./

sent 62 bytes  received 19 bytes  162.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00
rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1209) [sender=3.1.3]
b:~ root#

It seems to be unusually complicated to so something that should be very simple. What am I missing?

It seems you're not using the standard rsync program that comes with macOS, but rather a different version from for example HomeBrew. In that case you'll probably want to use the --acls option to ensure that proper ACLs are being used.

The "operation not permitted" even as root seems to indicate that you're running Catalina, and haven't given the program the necessary permissions. In Catalina there's a seperate security layer that protects the user from malicious programs - even those running as root. You'll want to open System Preferences => Security & Privacy and give "Files and Folders" permissions and/or "Full Disk Access" permissions to the Terminal.app and rsync programs.


How to make OS X Server 3 accessible from the internet? I am trying to setup an OS X server so that I can see it from outside of my internal network.

I have OS X Mavericks with the Server app installed as a VM for testing purposes right now. It has access to the internet and I can browse it from my local Macs on the network.

I would like to be able to set it up as a basic web server to which I can set up a website or a small cloud backup etc.

I have various domain names which I use for my website and I could repurpose one of these or purchase a new one if needed.

I tried just turning on the Websites option which didn't work, I did have a play around with the DNS options adding in the IP of my domain etc but didn't get anywhere.

Do I need anything else besides a Mac with OS X Server and a domain name? Or am I missing something completely?

I am fairly technical but this is a bit out of my depths here I have done my google searching but everything I seem to find is always based to set up a local web host or within a corporate network.

If anyone can point me in the right directions I would appreciate it.

Essentially you have to make your server accessible behind a router  with a frequently changing IP-adress with a fixed fqdn for the router and forward all http/https requests from the WAN to the OS X VM in the LAN.

Set up dynamic DNS:

Get an arbitrary name from a dynamic DNS service provider (like Dyn (not free) or NO-IP (free))
or depending on your hosting service and the access level you have, set up your own DDNS service

Set up a DDNS client on your OS X Server
Set up your OS X Server VM with a fixed IP
Set up and check port-forwarding (default is 80/443) on your Airport Express (some firmware versions seem to be buggy) to the OS X Server VM.
Access your home web server  from the internet with the chosen fqdn (e.g. (www.)myserver.no-ip.com).
Consider setting up some countermeasures against evil attackers.


How to record iPhone/iPad screen on macOS? OS X Yosemite brought support for recording iPhone/iPad screen natively without having to using AirPlay applications like AirServer or Reflector.

How do I record the iPhone screen on macOS ?

Requirements

iPhone/ iPad running iOS8 (Lightning port ONLY)
Mac running OS X 10.10 Yosemite

How to Record iPhone/iPad Screen on OS X Yosemite

Connect the iPhone/iPad to Mac via USB
Open the QuickTime Player on the Mac
Select File > New Movie Recording

Quicktime will default select iSight camera, click on the arrow alongside the record button to select the iPhone/iPad.
Click on the record button to record the iPhone/iPad Screen


How to connect to wireless TV satellite receiver from Mac OS X How could I connect to my satellite receiver from Mac OS X and be able to watch TV and navigate through channel list? Is there any free software that could do this?

The closest thing to what you want would probably be the SlingBox.

It's not possible to do this with just software, unfortunately. Satellite and cable boxes are pretty locked down, so you need a hybrid hardware/software solution like the SlingBox.


Send message on iPhone 4S using PC Bluetooth keyboard? I have successfully paired a Bluetooth keyboard with my iPhone 4S, and it works great for composing messages.

However, I can't find a way to send a message from the Messages app using just the keyboard.
I've tried Enter, Alt+Enter, Ctrl+Enter, and Shift+Enter.

There's a thread on Apple's site that covers the same topic - one of the posts alluded to a "send" button on a full-featured iPhone keyboard.

Does anyone know what extended key code or combination the "official" keyboard is sending?  If not, is there a way to find out?

In Mail for the Mac you can send the current message using Shift + Cmd + D, so maybe try that?

On my PC keyboard, the Win key sends a Cmd in Mac OS X, yours is probably the same.


What does (10 hours)² mean? (specifications) I was looking at the specifications of the MacBooks (pro) on Apples website and I saw this. Built-in battery (10 hours)².

What does the '²' mean? Why (10 hours)² and not 10 hours?

There is an explanation in the footnotes:

  2 Testing conducted by Apple in February 2015 using pre-production 2.9GHz dual-      core Intel Core i5–based 13-inch MacBook Pro units. The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. The HD film playback test measures battery life by playing back HD 1080p content with display brightness set to 12 clicks from bottom or 75%. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See www.apple.com/uk/batteries for more information.


Keyboard ghosting on mac notebooks I recently bought a Retina Macbookpro and want to make sure I can keep it in good condition in the event I need to sell it in the future. Assuming the keyboard is not much different from the integrated keyboards of other computers in the product line; do you think I should buy a keyboard cover? It's not the type of thing I really want, but if it means avoiding wear on the keys' texture, I'll have to go for that. I know that the keyboards are back-lit, but do any of you with Macbooks or apple keyboards experience significant degradation of the keys into that oily look?

I own a late 2008 aluminum MacBook unibody machine, and I use it daily. There's no real "degradation" of the keys, though there's one smooth "polished" spot on the right of my spacebar, due to heavy use.

I don't think you have anything to worry about. It's a laptop, the keyboard is meant to be used.


Can't Delete Calendars I'm having a bad time trying to delete a subscribed calendar. I am running OSX 10.8.4 on my iMac and IOS 6 on iPhone and iPad. Whenever I delete this calendar it reappears, usually within a few seconds. I have tried deleting from each device and from iCloud, without success. Any thoughts or suggestions would be most welcome.

Assuming you use iCal (not specified in your question), then the Subscribed calender should appear under subscriptions.

UN-checking them will stop showing them.

If you trying to completely remove them then Right Click on the calender and Delete in the Pop up.

If above fails lets do the "brutal" method:

First make an iCal backup:  Click on each calendar on the left hand side of iCal one at a time highlighting it's name and then going to File Export > Export and saving the resulting calendar file to a logical location for safekeeping.
Go to iCal > Quit iCal
Remove the following to the trash and restart your computer:

  Home > Library > Caches > com.apple.ical

  Home > Library > Calendars > Calendar Cache, Cache, Cache 1, 2, 3,
  etc. (Do not remove Sync Cache or Theme Cache if present)

Launch iCal and test.

If the issue still persists at this point:

Remove the following to the trash and restart your computer:

  Home > Library > Caches > com.apple.ical

  Home > Library > Calendars > Calendar Cache, Cache, Cache 1, 2, 3,
  etc. (Do not remove Sync Cache or Theme Cache if present)

  Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.ical (There may be more than
  one of these. Remove them all.)

---NOTE: Removing these files may remove any shared (CalDAV) calendars you may have access to. You will have to re-add those calendars to iCal > Preferences > Accounts.


Is it possible for each of my iDevices to have its own iCloud backup? But I would still like for all the devices to share a single iTunes account, so that

I only buy an app once
I want to be able to log into Find my iPhone with my main iTunes account and still see all my other devices.

One iCloud account is the primary account and only that account can use Find My Phone and Backup services, so to have one account with multiple devices implies that that same account also gets the iCloud backups.

However, iCloud doesn't co-mingle a backup from one iPhone 5 and another iPhone 5 (although you may want to choose different names for each to avoid confusion when restoring if you happen to have two of the same device).

Unless you are OK switching up accounts manually to push a backup to an alternate account and then switch right back, there currently isn't a way to do this with stock / unjailbroken iOS.


Can't shuffle playlists and then sync that shuffled playlist to my iPod Can't shuffle playlists and then sync that shuffled playlist to my iPod. I was able to do this in the previous versions of itunes just by clicking a button. That button is not there anymore. How can I shuffle specific playlists and have that shuffled list transfer to my iPod in the shuffled order?

I'm having the same problem and I've looked at other websites and it seems that no one can a figure out a way to do it. I think the only option we have is to write to Apple and ask that they bring the feature back.

http://apple.com/feedback/

I already did that and I hope you will too.


Any way to turn on the reduced power mode a macbook uses under battery power, but while plugged into a power adapter? I have an external battery rigged up for my MBP.  It goes through the magsafe adapter.   The battery is about twice the capacity of the internal battery.

The problem is, the macbook thinks it is plugged into AC, so undoubtedly the CPU is in full power mode.   It will gobble this big battery in under an hour.

I do have graphics set to integrated mode.

Unfortunately, there is no direct way to force OS X to use battery-power mode (here, here and here). OS X uses Intel Speedstep which changes the P-state of the processor depending on the computer's power status (AC/battery).

AFAIK, the only thing you can do is set your AC mode power management settings to the same as battery mode. Using pmset, you can see and set the power settings that your Mac uses for AC and battery scenarios. Below is an example:

$ pmset -g custom
Battery Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 displaysleep         40
 sleep                40
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 lessbright           0
 disksleep            10
AC Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 womp                 1
 displaysleep         180
 networkoversleep     0
 sleep                0
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 disksleep            10

A brief run-through of the command:

pmset: pmset
-g: get settings
custom: displays custom settings for all power sources

To equalise your AC power settings with your battery consumption settings, you can use the following command:

pmset -g custom | xargs | cut -f1 -d'A' | cut -f2 -d':' | xargs sudo pmset -c

A brief run-through of the command:

pmset -g custom: see above
xargs: converts entire output to one line
cut -f1 -d'A': removes output following "A" of "AC Power:"
cut -f2 -d':': removes output preceding ":" of "Battery Power"
(example output as of this stage)

 lidwake 1 autopoweroff 1 autopoweroffdelay 14400 standbydelay 10800 standby 1 ttyskeepawake 1 hibernatemode 3 powernap 1 hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage displaysleep 40 sleep 40 acwake 0 halfdim 1 lessbright 0 disksleep 10

xargs pmset -c: passes the above argument line one by one to pmset

Now, the output of pmset -g custom looks like this:

$ pmset -g custom
Battery Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 displaysleep         40
 sleep                40
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 lessbright           0
 disksleep            10
AC Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 womp                 1
 displaysleep         40
 networkoversleep     0
 sleep                40
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 disksleep            10

Note that for similar properties that had different properties (i.e. displaysleep, which had 40 on battery and 180 on AC), they are now the same.

It is advisable to keep a backup of the original AC power settings in case you would like to revert. As follows, you can generate a string that you can use to reset your AC power settings with the following command:

pmset -g custom | xargs | cut -f2 -d'A' | cut -f2 -d':'

The difference between this command and the one above is that with this command, we are taking the value after AC power (aka original AC power settings). To reset your settings to your original settings, take the string generated by the above command and pipe it through xargs to pmset -a:

echo "[string generated by above command]" | xargs pmset -a

I would also advise following @gentmatt's tips in this answer to decrease power consumption.


The @ sign has swapped places with the " sign on my Macbook Pro keyboard The @ sign has swapped places with the " sign on my Macbook Pro keyboard.  How to I swap them back?

Go to the Apple Menu (top left of your screen)
Click on "System Preferences"
Click on "Keyboard"
Choose "Input Sources"
Click on the "+" icon
Select layout name eg. British, US, or ABC  (NOT British PC, which has @ in the wrong place).
Click "Add"
Drag the desired input to the top of the list (drag and drop)

these steps may vary slightly depending on macOS version you have. Should it not be the same please tell us what macOS you have (eg. 10.13 or Mavericks...)


Display problem after installing Win 7 on Macbook Pro 15 (2011) After installing Win 7 on my macbook via BootCamp I get a black screen on booting my macbook. And the brightness is very low  on Win 7 I cannot see any thing on Windows. But On mac all thing is fine and I have no problem. How can I solve this problem.
I really appreciate any suggestion.

Refer to this question:MacBook Pro 15" 2011 display problem at loading


Home folder different than account name I have to edit this question after spending a frustrating (frightening?) afternoon looking at this friend's computer.

He is older and quite vulnerable (he just lost his wife), but he is mac-literate, having used them for years. He relies on his photo albums - he is a well known architect.

Anyway, he bought a new machine some months ago, and hired a local consultant to set up the machine and migrate his files from his old system.

The user accounts are set up so that "consultant" is the account name.

The user part of the file system looks something like this:

/Users/consultant/files

/Users/friend/files/files

All files (documents, images, etc) are owned by consultant.

(The frightening part is that the consultant (who has skipped town), left an open login so he can connect anytime, without any kind of password control).

So, my question is this: I need a reality check on how to proceed. Copy the user files to an external drive? Script? What about the accounts?

Is there something else to check?

I want the files to end up in:

/Users/friend/

i would welcome any more advice (shell scripts, methods, etc).

A friend has a iMac which has been recently set up by a consultant. I found that the home folder doesn't match the name of the user account name—rather, it's the name of the consultant (grrrh).

Is this a problem? Should I rebuild the system? Add a new user account?

The Apple Support Knowledgebase is your friend.

There are a few steps needed to change the homefolder name, requiring logging in as the root user, which requires that the root user be enabled and then disabled when the task completed.

The process is much simpler in 10.5 or greater and is a bit more cumbersome in 10.4 and earlier.


Remove silence from end of GarageBand track I have just edited a song in GarageBand on OS X. At the end of the music I discovered that I have almost 5 minutes of silence at the end of the track after the music stops.

I know how that track initially got extended: I brought in other tracks that initially were long but extracted just short clips to insert into my project.  Now I have extra silence on the end of the track—i.e when the music ends the CD doesn't stop until it gets through that extra 5 minutes of silence.  In my situation I need to burn the CD directly from GarageBand and not iTunes.

Can anyone tell me how to delete the 5 minutes of extra silence on the end after my music track ends?

Define a loop region at the top of the timeline in the yellow bar. When exporting from GarageBand, preference will go to this region for the bounds of the track.


Does Apple make a modem? I just bought a Time Capsule, and the lack of modem is irritating, as this means I have to buy a seperate one which is another box, won't be as easy to set up and I have to choose one.

Does Apple make a modem themselves, that can be used with a Time Capsule simply and easily? If they don't is there a suggested one for a Time Capsule?

EDIT: I live in the UK, my ISP is TalkTalk and it is ADSL.

Apple don't make a modem, but depending on your internet/cable/fiber provider, you may be able to encourage them to give you one for free.

I have Virgin Media in the UK and new customers receive a new Super Hub free (which can easily be configured to be a slave modem, you just turn the wireless off). The same is true of most of the free 'hubs' provided by networks these days.


Removing "Word" page numbers in Pages 5 I have a document that was imported from Word into Pages a while back, it auto imported page numbers that are somehow magically not selectable.  They are not in the main body and not in the footer.  I have found an article on how to remove them in Pages 4 here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5513360?start=0&tstart=0 how do I do the same thing in Pages 5?

I have not come across that problem; however, if you are unable select the page numbers, you could do a select-all and copy/paste the text into a new document.


macOS Sierra downloaded, but then disappears I tried downloading macOS Sierra in the App Store. The download seems to be successful, but then the installation never happens. One solution I saw is to look for "Install macOS Sierra" in Applications, but it is not there. It's in Applications while it's downloading, so it should be there when it's done. I tried searching with Spotlight just to be sure and got no hits. The macOS Sierra App Store page says "Download" instead of "Downloaded". It's like the download never happened. Restarting and repeating did not solve the issue. Any idea what might be wrong?

What's really strange is if I go to System Information > Software > Installations, it's there, so it really was downloaded:

Start up with safe mode and then try to download and install. Here is how to enter into Safe Mode.

I have same problem and succeed to upgrade to Sierra in Safe Mode.

Good luck!


The iPhone could not be restored because the firmware file was corrupt I am trying to Factory Restore iPhone 6S "A1633" on my Mac Running Big Sur 11.1 / Intel.
I am in recovery mode on the phone and plug it in it starts the update OR restore downloads the file, installs then produces this error. It seems that the firmware file from apple is corrupt in some way.

The iPhone “iPhone” could not be restored because the firmware file was corrupt.

Disconnect and reconnect, then try again.

Throw the file out & try again.
It's stored in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates/


BF2 via CrossOver "@" problem I've installed BF2 with CrossOver, and so far it's working.
Now I like to play online but I can't login with my e-mail because of the "@"

Does anyone know how to type the "@"?
Can't find it...

Thanks

It usually depends on your keyboard. It's ⇧ Shift+2 on US keyboards, and I suspect you might have to use that in Crossover as well.

Also keep in mind that Crossover has the ability to configure your modifier keys, so you might want to try some other modifiers with L if that's what you normally do.


Mapping ⌘→ to ^Q→ in iTerm2 doesn't work I'm trying to make iTerm2 and tmux play nicer with eachother (without using the builtin tmux functions; I'd like my windows and panes managed by myself).

Therefore, I want to map ⌘+→ to a key sequence starting with ^Q (my tmux prefix), followed by →.

^Q is 0x11, and → is ^[[C, i.e. 0x1b 0x5b 0x43. However, if I try to make this mapping in the iTerm Preferences (Keys→Key Mappings, with the "Send Hex Codes" setting), it doesn't work, i.e. it doesn't switch my panes as I would expect.

If, shortly after pressing ⌘+→ I press → again, the active pane to the right is selected, so the ^Q must be coming through. If I just map it to 0x1b 0x5b 0x43 (→), it works, too.

Is this a limitation of iTerm2 itself; can I not send longer key sequences? Is it sending the keys too fast for tmux?

I also tried using the "Send with vim special keys" setting, but it doesn't seem to work at all; if I enter "<C-Q><Right>" it sends that text literally.

iTerm2 Build 3.0.8 on macOS Sierra.

I found this on iTerm2's FAQ page. I'm not sure if it answers your question. Let us know.


How do I get the iTunes column browser shown by default on Shared device? I'm running iTunes 10.6.3 on a macbook. All my music is held on a remote synology NAS and appears as a shared device.

I'd like the music Column Browser and Album columns visible by default at startup, but I have to manually select them every time.

I copied one track to the local itunes library, and that seems to preserve the view settings - bue even when that is set to show Column Browser the shared device still defaults to a plain list.

(Note: It seems the problem only exists on the NAS music. Question has been tweaked to reflect this)

If you upgrade to iTunes version 10.7 your problem may be solved...
In 10.7 you can right- or control click at the top of the column browser (first column) which will show all the options that can be visible by default -- genres, albums, composers, groupings-- in the first column. You can check those that you want. Upon restart those checked options will be visible by default.


Unable to delete file from Downloads folder I have a file (4alJRTP_.gif.part) in my downloads folder that won't seem to delete.

Every time I drag it to the trash, nothing shows up in the trash and the file icon remains in the downloads folder.

I also tried opening the file and a pop-up window shows up saying "'file_name.gif.part' can't be found".

How can I get rid of the file icon in my downloads folder? Any help will be greatly appreciated!

First of all BE INCREDIBLY CAREFUL WHEN USING RECURSIVE DELETE FROM TERMINAL
Next, just make sure that the applications that might have used these are closed.
That warning out of the way, here is how you can do it.

First open Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities).
Type cd ~/Downloads and press Return.
Then type sudo srm -f followed by a Space (don’t leave out the spacel). Try this first if it doesn't work then use sudo srm -Rf which is the recursive form of this command
Don’t press Return yet.
Next, in Finder open a window displaying the contents of the Downloads folder.
Select ONLY the files in that window that you want deleted and drag them into the Terminal window; this adds the paths of all the files to the rm(remove) command.
Now, press Return
Enter your administrator password when prompted

In a moment or two the files should be gone.
The same premise works with the Trash folder as well, with a few modifications and you may want to do this as the file may actually be there but hidden.

First open Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities).
Type cd ~/.Trash and press Return.
Then type sudo srm -Rf followed by a Space (don’t leave out the space). You will need the recursive for to handle subdirectories, etc.
Don’t press Return yet.
Next, click the Trash icon in your Dock to open a window displaying the contents of the Trash.
Select everything in that window and drag it into the Terminal window; this action adds the paths of all those files and folders to the rm(remove) command.
Now, press Return
Enter your administrator password when prompted

In a moment or two (depending on how much was in your Trash), the Trash icon should return to its empty state.
To check to see if there are hidden files you can do this.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true

killall Finder

and then to hide them again you can do:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles false

killall Finder

I hope that helps, and I really hope that you don't delete things you don't want to... These are powerful tools, and With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.
Update
The file that you are looking to delete, the one that says *.part is a file extension indicating that a file was downloaded partially.
This likely occured when Firefox, Skype, or another app able to download from the internet stopped a download mid-download.
Take a look Downloads on your browser, command-J on Firefox, shift-command-J on Chrome, and alt-command-L in Safari, and see if any of the files there has a partial download. You should be able to cancel the download there and then that file should clear up, or stop reappearing after you download it.
-- The answer I provided is based on the technique that I obtained from Joe Kissell's article on MacWorld and have used during the times I have not been able to empty my trash bin.


How to hide specific shares in the sidebar from Finder? I want to hide some specific shares in the sidebar from Finder because I never access them and it get's confusing if everyone in my local network is online.

Is there a way to hide for example only the shares marked with the red arrow?

Just drag the icon outside of the sidebar.


select a menu item of a window instead of a process using Applescript I'm quite new to applescript (and a beginner programmer) and I've hit a dead end. I figured out how to access a menu item of a process but I do not know how to do it once I have multiple windows. Thanks for any help you can give!

background:
I'm trying to use Applescript with Fiji Is Just ImageJ (FIJI) to process a couple hundred image files at a time. I need to use the "Plugins>Segmentation>Simple Neurite Tracer " plugin but it's not working well with FIJI's native macro language so I am trying applescript.

What I've tried:
I've already set up something that will loop through the images one by one and lunch the plugin but after that I can't figure out how to access the new menus on the windows that pop up.

tell application "Fiji" to activate
delay 3
menu_click({"Fiji", "Image", "Type", "8-bit"})

-- `menu_click`, by Jacob Rus, September 2006
--
-- Accepts a list of form: `{"Finder", "View", "Arrange By", "Date"}`
-- Execute the specified menu item.  In this case, assuming the Finder
-- is the active application, arranging the frontmost folder by date.

on menu_click(mList)
local appName, topMenu, r

-- Validate our input
if mList's length < 3 then error "Menu list is not long enough"

-- Set these variables for clarity and brevity later on
set {appName, topMenu} to (items 1 through 2 of mList)
set r to (items 3 through (mList's length) of mList)

-- This overly-long line calls the menu_recurse function with
-- two arguments: r, and a reference to the top-level menu
tell application "System Events" to my menu_click_recurse(r, ((process appName)'s ¬
    (menu bar 1)'s (menu bar item topMenu)'s (menu topMenu)))
end menu_click

on menu_click_recurse(mList, parentObject)
local f, r

-- `f` = first item, `r` = rest of items
set f to item 1 of mList
if mList's length > 1 then set r to (items 2 through (mList's length) of mList)

-- either actually click the menu item, or recurse again
tell application "System Events"
    if mList's length is 1 then
        click parentObject's menu item f
    else
        my menu_click_recurse(r, (parentObject's (menu item f)'s (menu f)))
    end if
end tell
end menu_click_recurse

I used accessibility inspector to try and figure out the names of the windows so I can use the same process i did to launch the plugin but I wasn't able to comprehend it. The name of the window itself is predictable so I can take the name of the file I open and add "Tracing for:" before it.

I was at another page which was similar but I couldn't adapt it either sadly - no button but still clicking a menu item in a window instead of a process: How do I click a button using AppleScript?

activate application "Fiji"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Fiji"
click menu item "Quit" of menu "File" of menu bar 1 of window 1
--click button "Quit" of window 1 of window 1
end tell

I then tried to use MouseTools but it does not seem to work consistently. The first mouse click registers perfectly but the second works sometimes and sometimes not.

-- move the mouse to the x/y coordinates (as measured from the top-left part of the screen) and perform a mouse left-click
set mouseToolsPath to (path to home folder as text) & "MouseTools"
set x to 60
set y to 44

do shell script quoted form of POSIX path of mouseToolsPath & " -x " & (x as text) & " -y " & (y as text) & " -doubleLeftClick"

set x to 219
set y to 598

do shell script quoted form of POSIX path of mouseToolsPath & " -x " & (x as text) & " -y " & (y as text) & " -doubleLeftClick"

I must say that your question is rather elaborate and takes quite some reading and thinking ...

But here is a version of your last but one applescript that just MIGHT work a little better for you:

activate application "Fiji"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Fiji"
    click menu item "Quit" of menu of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
end tell

1) What you called "menu finder" actually is menu bar item
"File"

2) Menu bars with Apple (normally) don't belong to "window 1" (but to applications). You'd have to get a specific window to the front in order to process just that one.
But anyway, "Quitting" will close all of your windows ...


How to remove an Adobe 'upgrade'? I accidentally installed an upgrade of Adobe Acrobat Pro 7 to Adobe Acrobat Pro 11.

(I had the Adobe Pro 7 for Windows and was sold the upgrade without being told that I had to separately buy the base version for Mac)

To be clear : I don't have Adobe 7 on my Mac but ran the upgrade to Adobe Acrobat Pro 11.

I get the error

  The serial number you provided is valid, but a qualifying product could not be found on this computer.

This of course makes sense.

I then tried to install the Trial version of Mac Adobe Acrobat Pro 11, but when I go to start that program, I get the same message.

I want to remove the 'upgrade' info on the Mac so that when I run the trial version, I don't get that error message.

How do I do that?

I solved it.

I moved the /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Slcache and Slstore into a backups folder.

Then I ran the installer again.

Running the uninstaller did not remove these files before - that's why we kept getting the error.


How to find a good replacement iPhone e-reader app? Now that Amazon has sunk the usability flagship among e-readers, Stanza, I am looking for a replacement.  I am not asking for an app recommendation, but I am asking how to find a good replacement?

It seems every app praises itself beyond reason. Every forum peddles whatever app has their fancy. How can I find a good e-reader app without installing and testing them all? Many aren't free and it would be silly to pay for many of them, only to find them all lacking.

Given that there's no recommendation stack exchange (however useful that might be?), how can I provide my requirements and get a sorted list of choices?

This is the problem Apple is grappling with right now.  I'm hoping that they'll have some answer for us this year that helps us deal with the number of competing apps in the app store.
In the meantime, I have a few strategies for finding an app that meets my needs:
Use the app store search.
If you need your ebook reader to support epub, bookmarks, notes, and dropbox, simply type, "epub bookmarks notes dropbox" in the search field of the app store.  I like to sort first by rating and check out the highest rated apps, then by popularity and check out the most downloaded apps. Note that sorting by rating and popularity are only available on the iPad.
I read the reviews, both at the high rate end and low rate end to get an idea of the types of features people are excited about, and the types of problems people are experiencing.
I look at the most recent update notes, and see how long ago it was last updated to get an idea of whether the developer is taking an active role in maintaining the app and is responsive to complaints, or if it's an old app that works, but probably doesn't have new features.
At that point the only thing to do is to try out the ones that look most promising.  Many apps offer a trial or ad supported version, so the trial can be free in many cases.  For others, you'll have to pay a little to try them out, and if they don't fit your needs you've lost a little money and time, but remember that you're picking an app that should fit your needs for a long time - when you find it it will be worth the effort and money you've spent on other apps looking for the perfect one.
Use internet reviews/forums
Do a google search for "best ebook reader ipad" or similar, and you'll often get dozens of "top ten" style lists from people who have spent some time not just reviewing a few apps, but comparing and contrasting them.  You have to do a bit of wading, and you are going to have a hard time finding less popular subjects, "best lawn care app" isn't going to give you such collections because few people will have taken the time to check them out, even though many exist onthe app store.
Ask in appropriate forums
This site, Ask Different, does permit apple and iOS specific product recommendations, for instance, and there are many other forums that are fine with such questions.
You can check out the tag software-recommendation to get examples of the style of questions allowed here.  The tag has this note which might also give you tips on asking for a recommendation:

Recommendations can easily be subjective and local to one person or time. Please be specific about function and broad about timeframe so that your question, once answered objectively, is of use to the community.


Installing OS X Guest on OS X Host update: After upgrading to the latest version of VirtualBox and following the first answer at Install OS X in VirtualBox on iMac?, I am now getting the Still waiting for root device.  If I follow the answer about the extra data, I get an Apple logo and a spinning wheel, then I get a crossed-out circle and a spinning wheel.

original question: I have to do some testing with a few different versions of OS X.  I have a machine running 10.6, and I have a USB drive partitions with various OS X installers.  I made disk images (*.dmg) of each of the 10.7 and 10.8 partitions, but when I try to start up a VM, I get (with the 10.8 disk image) if I have EFI enabled

or

FATAL: No bootable medium found! System halted.

How can I install these various OS Xes on an OS X host?

Thanks!

that only works with Vmware Fusion (since Version 5 i think not really sure about that, so maybe just go for the latest Version) and only with the newer OS X (Snow Leopard and later) as Clients.
Sorry no Virtualbox now, maybe Oracle will also Support OS X in Future.


Can I force my iOS device to connect to 1 Wifi network over another We have 2 wifi networks quite close to each other in our workplace, but I need to connect my iphone or ipad to 1 over the other out of preference.  It's fine for myself as I can simply change wifi networks, but if my boss's device connects to the wrong one (which connects to a seperate subnet) he want's it to just work?

Is there a way I can simply order them, or get it to pick one over the other?

I don't know how I managed to miss this before, but it appears they are simply joined in alphabetical order

mywifinetwork
mywifinwk2

1 Will always be picked over 2

If you are able to persuade you're IT staff to change the name (SSID) of the network then you can do this

mywifinetwork
A_mywifinetwork

or

mywifinetwork02
mywifinetwork01

Should make sure 2 is always connected in preference to 1 when both are available

I've tested this a bit, but i'll come back and update if it stops working. So Far So Good Though.

If you can't get the SSID's changed then there is a much more complex solution here http://nootrix.com/2012/01/prioritize-wifi-on-iphone/


Deleting mails from Apple Mail Yosemite 10.10.5 In my previous iMac which was 8 years old, I had it set up to be able to automatically connect to my usual @outlook.com account whenever I clicked on the mail icon to forward a webpage to someone.

The way it was set-up, it would only be able to do this function and would not receive all my incoming @outlook.com emails. I have followed your instructions and the new Mac is now the same.

But now I want to know if I could delete all the mail that was downloaded into Mail before I disabled the incoming feature.

I hope you are able to follow all that I've typed here. If you understand what I'm trying to do, please instruct me what steps to take to delete all those downloaded email from Mail.  Also, advise me if this is not a good action to take. I just feel that it is sufficient to have my emails in the @outlook.com inbox rather than have a copy of the incoming mails in Mail, too.

Some of it depends on what type of account @outlook.com accounts are but I am quite sure that it would be IMAP. As such, if you delete your messages, it will delete them from your live email account to, which obviously could come with unintended consequences. To avoid that, I would recommend first confirming that messages are only set to download when you click Refresh. As I don't have Outlook I cannot confirm or guide you on how to do that.

After that is set, I would delete the account from Outlook and then re-configure it. Doing so will remove messages from your computer without deleting them from the cloud. You should then be able to send emails as desired.

The other thing to consider is that unless you are running low on disk space, there is no need to worry about having some unneeded messages sitting in your Outlook application. If it were me, I would turn sync to manual and leave them there, likely.

Edit:
It took me awhile to grasp your question, and it looks like I partly failed. It looks like you don't want your messages sitting around in Apple Mail.app. As such, the above would apply. However, OS X does allow you to set default Mail programs and you can likely set Outlook to that function. With that, you could use Outlook as your primary, and only, email client and delete the account from Apple Mail.


Is my Time Machine backup encrypted or not? As you can see, I use Time Machine to backup on drive "Data" on "ZRH" which is a Time Capsule. To the best of my knowledge, I selected "Encrypt backups" when I configured this backup a few weeks ago. But as I have a look into the configuration, the box "Encrypt backups" is not checked.

I wonder whether my backup is actually not encrypted or whether this is just sort of a "bug" in the configuration menu that the checkbox does not show the actual encryption state.

I have File Vault enabled.

(Trial and error is not an option in this case, since it's a 500 GB backup which would take forever to rebuild.)

It would already help if a few of you could just have a look into their backup configuration and check whether the checkbox is checked for encrypted backups.

I deleted the old backup and created a new one, with encryption on:

Yes, the checkbox in the above screenshot is displayed as checked if the backup is encrypted.


How to swipe up into Mission Control and then swipe back down again without lifting fingers? Okay, weird and sort of unnecessary question, but I'd love some help if you're able.

In Mountain Lion, you could swipe up with three fingers into Mission Control and then swipe back down to exit without lifting your fingers. Now in Yosemite (and I think Mavericks) you have to lift your fingers before you can do the exit gesture. Is there any way to fix this? I'd imagine there's some terminal code I can run to change this setting.

Basically, I want to be able to enter into Mission Control, see what's open, and then leave again all in one continuous gesture like you could in Mountain Lion.

There is an app called Better Touch Tool. You can download it at their homepage.

First, you hide preview if there is any, and then select Trackpad on the top screen. Before you start adding gestures, make sure to allow it to control computer in System Preferences > Accessibility

As you can see, I already set up the swipe up and down gestures. Below, you can select which gesture will it be (in this case, 3 finger swipe up and down). And under Predefined Action, you can search Mission control.


iPhone device ownership statistics Is there a website to check iPhone and iPad device ownership similar to the way we can check iOS's version ownership like this website:

https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/

Thanks...

The most recent data I've been able to find is for iPhones from 2015 and it's from Localytics.  The company states they...

  ...examined over 100 million iPhone devices. The data for this study
  represents iPhones that had active app sessions logged during August
  2015.

Here's the hightlights of the study, the details can be found here.

Here's some info from Unity3D based on their usage for March, 2016.  It inlcudes all Apple devices.

Top on 2016-03:

iPhone 5S: 21.0%
iPhone 6: 13.5%
iPad Mini: 9.5%
iPhone 6S: 6.7%
iPhone 5: 5.6%
iPhone 6 Plus: 5.5%
iPad Air: 5.2%
iPad Mini 2: 4.6%
iPhone 4S: 4.4%
iPad 2: 3.6%
iPad Air 2: 3.2%
iPad 4: 3.1%
iPhone 6S Plus: 2.9%
iPhone 4: 2.7%
iPhone 5C: 2.6%
iPad 3: 1.8%
iPod Touch 5th: 1.3%
iPod Touch 6th: 0.9%
iPad Mini 3: 0.8%
iPad Mini 4: 0.7%
iPad Pro: 0.2%
Apple TV 4: 0.0%
iPod Touch 3rd: 0.0%

As a developer, I just use AutoLayout and not worry about what device my users have.  That seems to work for me but each app is different.


Update application install by another appleID I use a mac install before by another user. This user install some application like Xcode with this appleID.

Now this user not use this computer and I want update application he install before. I have my own AppleID. when I ask to update application the system say me I can't do that because this application was install by another appleID.

How I can uninstall this application to install with my own AppleId or update this application with my own AppleID ?

Have you tried just moving the application bundles to trash in Finder? If that doesn't work or you want to remove the support files as well, removing applications from Launchpad (by clicking the cross icons shown while holding option) should remove other files as well.


App Store download disappear after the installation I'm trying to download a previously purchased item from the app store. The item download and install seems that works fine, but immediately after the installation the program just disappears.

The App Store app shows the Open button, but, of course do nothing. After restarting the App Store app, recognise aText as not installed and display the button Install.

What can I do to install it?

I took @Tetsujin comment and solved this by deleting all files related to the App I was trying to install. EasyFind is an easy way to find hidden files. Otherwise you can use the search in the finder, but that requires several steps.

Then I deleted all library files and the App itself was sitting in some ApplicationSupport directory, together with a Zip file. I deleted the whole App folder (Kaleidoscope in my case) which resided inside of the ApplicationSupport directory.


How to move "section"/change "section" margin in Pages I've been a full-time Mac user for 5 or so years now, but sometimes the Apple way still confuses my Microsoft-conditioned mind.  This is especially true of iWork.  In the screenshot below, can someone tell me how to move the big, main text area up to that red line?

I've tried every setting I can find - I wouldn't be asking if I hadn't - and came up completely empty.  FYI this is one of Apple's stock resume templates.

Thanks.

I found it!

This "section" is no section, but rather the document-proper!  The other elements are in fixed positions and that margin is set on the document.

Not entirely unexpected, I suppose.


Upgrading OSX/Xcode - linking failure ALL,

I started my project on OSX 10.8 with the Xcode 5.1 (latest available for that OSX). Everything was building and running fine and it still is. The project consist of a binary executable and couple of dylib sub-projects.

Recently I bought myself a new Mac laptop. I installed Xcode on it (version 9), pull my sources from git hub and tried to re-compile/run it.

After fixing some minor directories issuers for compilation (some header search path were wrong), I received a warning about -L directory not found. However linking succeeded.

Trying to run the program obviously failed because the dylib files were not at the place were Xcode would look for it.

Looking further I tried to see if there would be any differences on where both machines store the build results. I opened the "Xcode->Project Properties..." menu, but turns out that those settings are the same on both laptops.

Next I checked the "Fie->Project Properties..." on both machines, but those 2 are also turns out to be the same.

Now I'm at the loss - where else should I look? The old laptop build everything without warnings and the program executes successfully.

On the old laptop the subprojects are stored inside ~///build/Debug.

On the new laptop the folder ~///build does not exist.

Now I can create the directory manually and copy over the files, but the program is still under development and the code is changing.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

TIA!

P.S.: Sorry for the long post.

Solving in somewhat unusual way:

a) You claim "However linking succeeded.", so in project properties pane, go to Products folder, then click on product name. On the right-side pane, under Identity and Type, you will find out the name of the product and the full path location. For one of my projects now i can find out:

  ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/prodname fnihcmsxnrxlstcumyviklyuofum/Build/Products/Debug/prodname

and a location attribute: Relative to Build Products - build folder was create by Xcode, you can find out "Build" also in Project Properties -> Build Settings -> Build Locations. (you can modify also according to your needs...)

b) Now for your missing library: also in Build Settings -> Linking you have the possibility to add your library at Prelink libraries, just click at the left of this item, two lines open below, Debug/Release, click on one line and a small + appears and add your library there.

EDIT: adding some pictures, as requested:

Selecting the Product:

Click on product name (rectangle on the picture) and the full path is to be found  on the right pane as in this picture:

Now, in the first picture: click on application name icon, will open building info. Building path(s) are to be found as shown here:

And scrolling down further, the linking options as revealed here:


How can I avoid data mangling in filenames when copying files between Linux and macOS? When we transported a CMS filesystem and mysql dump via rsync from one Linux server to another Linux server, we used a MacOS in the middle to store the data temporarily. After the CMS was up on the other Linux server, all static image files where available. But all filenames with German umlauts where not to be found by the CMS, although they where visible and accessible. We quickly found out, that exactly this happens:

When I create a filename with German umlauts on Linux like this:

linux$ mkdir umlauttest
linux$ touch umlauttest/äöü

And then go to a Mac and issue there an rsync to copy the directory to my Mac...

mac$ rsync -a user@linux:umlauttest .

And then copy it back from my Mac to Linux:

mac$ rsync -a umlauttest/. user@linux:umlauttest2

Then I have really a problem on my Linux, because the filename is kind of broken.

linux$ diff umlauttest umlauttest2
Only in umlauttest2: äöü
Only in umlauttest: äöü

That is, because MacOS is in fact converting the filename characters to composite Unicode characters, which is really something I call mangling meta data. This behaviour also arises by using scp to copy files.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

Use the --iconv option for rsync to specify how filenames are encoded on the local and remote hosts - this might help you in keeping the filenames intact.

When you copy from the Linux server to the Mac add the following to the rsync command:

--iconv=utf-8,utf-8-mac

When copying from the Mac to the Linux server use the following:

--iconv=utf-8-mac,utf-8

Note that you need a relatively new version of rsync (>3.0) to have the --iconv option. Apple supplies only an old version so you need to go to another site e.g. a package manager like Macports or Homebrew


Can I use iCloud Photos on an iPhone without every new photo being uploaded to the cloud? I will be switching to an iPhone soon. At the moment, my best photos reside in a nice folder structure in iCloud Photos. When getting the iPhone, i still want to be able to view those images but not clutter my iCloud Photos library with every single trivial image I take on the phone camera.
Is it possible to keep the iPhone's Photos app connected to my iCloud photo storage and not have every image I make with the iPhone's camera end up in iCloud as well?

No, iCloud Photo is an all-or-nothing type of thing.  You can't selectively decide what photos are synced to your devices are what are not.
The only way that I know you can keep trivial photos off iCloud is to disconnect iCloud Photos from that iPhone.  You'd still be able to keep the existing photos in iCloud but you'd have to manually add any new photos from that device.  You said in the comments that's not what you want to do but I'm adding that info here in case the comments get deleted.


Early 2011 MBP has odd dots on external monitor I have this Mac:

And it's attached to an Acer P191w. It will show an odd grid of dots on the external monitor like so:

When I move the application the dots will get 'refreshed' and go away (they're not stuck pixels) but will quickly 'refill' themselves in 5-10 seconds. The app they're on there is Sublime Text 2, but it occurs on any app. I just put it up for contrast. I don't appear to get the dots on my laptop display, just the external.

I have checked the wire connecting the two, it appears tight and secure.

Occasionally this will prelude a full lockup of the machine forcing a hard reboot.

I'd appreciate any insight into this matter.

A discussion thread on forums.macrumors.com says this can be fixed by unplugging and replugging all of the video connections.


Unable to run Office with same product key I'd bought MS Office which was allowed to use on 3 Mac OSX with same product key. It was/is working fine when I'd installed it on 1st Macbook Pro. When I'd installed it on my iMac then MS Word, PowerPoint and Excel are working fine with same product key but MS Office is not working and getting alert for buy it.

Is there anything I am doing incorrect?

The problem here is during install the installer pre installed all of the office apps, but your serial does not "unlock" Outlook which is used only in the business edition.

The only way to fix this is to pay for the upgrade through mactopia.com or calling microsoft, or to remove outlook.


How do I recover free space from my logical volume group? This question comes from this question: Cannot install bootcamp because of disk error, but disk utility says it's fine?

I was advised to ask about the 296.6 GB of free space, but tbh I don't understand what that means, it doesn't seem to appear in disk utility?

Is this normal and can I recover this space? Thanks.

iMac:~ aaa$ diskutil cs list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group AB41694E-348C-45DE-95E8-E64914D40975
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         2120423165952 B (2.1 TB)
    Free Space:   296568467456 B (296.6 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 9066D3CD-9CBE-456C-B34E-D70E61FC73E0
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     120883990528 B (120.9 GB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume F9A29CF9-E84F-4FBA-93DF-83878D387D95
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     1999539175424 B (2.0 TB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family F9AB59F1-0C5B-4FE4-837F-96D40DCB94A6
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         None
        |
        +-> Logical Volume C4D9F5AA-BA5F-4286-A630-FE8CAF4C913F
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk2
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          1817999966208 B (1.8 TB)
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS
            LVG Type:              Fusion, Sparse

CoreStorage is a Logical Volume Manager. It's based on Physical Volume(s) on the physical side and assigns Logical Volume(s) on the "logical side", which can be formatted with a file system.

Your Physical Volumes are disk0s2 and disk1s2 (which itself are slices of the physical disks disk0 and disk1).

The total size of your Logical Volume Group is 2120 GB. Only 1818 GB are assigned to a Logical Volume (disk2/Macintosh HD/JHFS+). So 302 GB of the Logical Volume Group are "free space". Some of this free space is reserved for management purposes. The net free space in the LVG is 296.6 GB or less.

You now can either expand the existing Logical Volume disk2 to fill the LVG or add a 2nd Logical Volume.

Check the disks first:

diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

To resize a Logical Volume you have to execute the following command in Terminal.app:

diskutil cs resizeVolume lvUUID size

with lvUUID: the UUID of the Logical Volume (in your case C4D9F5AA-BA5F-4286-A630-FE8CAF4C913F)
and size: a size in (t|g|m|k|b)  e.g. 2114g or magic sizes like R or 0 (which should resize the logical volume to the possible max).

In my opinion you already tried to resize the LV or LVG in the past and Boot Camp Assistant cannot cope with it or some error occurred while the BC Assistant was trying to shrink the LVG by 300 GB to free up space for the Boot Camp partition.

Usually this can't be fixed and you have to recreate the Fusion Drive from scratch and restore your whole system from a backup.


Is there such thing as a 3rd generation 8GB iPod touch? They are advertised all over Kijiji and Craigslist - just wanted to make sure that the 3rd generation only came in 32 and 64GB.

Here is the kb entry for the technical specification of the 3rd gen ipod touch. There are only 32 and 64 GB Models.


Does anybody know what the ARP cache timeout is for macOS Sierra? Does anyone know deafult ARP cache timeout for macOS Sierra?

There's no standard time out value for routes stored in an arp table.  For instance, on Cisco gear, it's 4 hours.

The arp utility that macOS uses is the one from BSD and it's time out is 20 minutes if the host has been validated. Static entries don't time out, but can be over written by network traffic.  Permanent entries also do not time out and cannot be over written.


How can adding a new user bypass full Disk Encryption? I've opted for disk encryption during install of El Capitan (v10.11.6) on my Macbook Air.

Logged in from my admin account (not root), I added a new user to manage a second iTunes account (which I thoughtlessly created and tremendously complicated my iPhone-Macbook activities).

Amazingly, this user has been added to the first login screen after restart (see image). Logging in from this screen, I can bypass the disk encryption password, view the System and User directories, and run apps installed at the root level.

How can adding a new user bypass full Disk Encryption?

Normally, when you set up full-disk encryption on the startup volume, you use FileVault, which integrates the disk encryption with the user accounts, so any (enabled) user can start the OS and unlock the disk. It appears that what you've done is encrypt the startup volume some other way, giving it a disk password rather than integrating with the user accounts. But when you create a new user account, it goes ahead and sets that account up FileVault-style, giving it the ability to unlock the disk at startup.

Not what you wanted? You can remove that user from the unlock list with the fdesetup command:

sudo fdesetup remove userToDisable

where userToDisable is the new user's account name (aka short name). Note that sudo will prompt for your admin password, and it won't echo as you type.


How to tell when time has been sync'ed with NTP server in Mac OS X Lion? I know that a similar question has been asked at superuser.

But I tried to grep for "time reset" in my /var/log/system.log and I can't find any instance of it. In fact, I even searched in the eight archived copies of system.log (system.log.0.bz2 through system.log.7.bz2). All I found when grep'ing for the word "ntpd" are lines like these:

Feb 20 10:17:16 caspar ntpd[44498]: proto: precision = 1.000 usec
Feb 20 12:27:21 caspar ntpd[44625]: proto: precision = 1.000 usec
Feb 20 18:31:53 caspar ntpd[44625]: bind(28) AF_INET6 > <censored IPv6> flags 0x11 failed: Can't assign requested address
Feb 20 18:31:53 caspar ntpd[44625]: unable to create socket on en0 (7) for <censored IPv6>

Update #1

Following @Raolin's suggestion, I now see lines like this in /tmp/ntpd.log:

21 Feb 19:30:52 ntpd[2328]: DNS time.asia.apple.com. ttl 1900
21 Feb 19:30:52 ntpd[2328]: DNS time.asia.apple.com. minpoll 9
21 Feb 19:30:52 ntpd[2328]: DNS time.asia.apple.com. maxpoll 12
21 Feb 19:30:52 ntpd[2328]: DNS time.asia.apple.com. +iburst
21 Feb 20:02:32 ntpd[2328]: DNS time.asia.apple.com. ttl 4013
21 Feb 21:09:24 ntpd[2328]: DNS time.asia.apple.com. ttl 3507

I'm not sure if the lines containing 'ttl' means it's trying to sync.

I'm not sure if there are any log messages by default—I couldn't find any either.

One possible solution is to just enable logging. You can edit:

/usr/libexec/ntpd-wrapper

And add this (or something similar):

-l /tmp/ntpd.log

To the exec /usr/sbin/ntpd line in the script (the last line). Then kill the ntpd process (it will automatically relaunch) or reboot.

The resulting log looks something like this:

ntpd[10728]: ntpd 4.2.8p6@1.3265 Fri Feb  5 17:38:17 UTC 2016 (124~824): Starting
ntpd[10728]: Command line: /usr/sbin/ntpd -c /private/etc/ntp-restrict.conf -n -g -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -f /var/db/ntp.drift -l /tmp/ntpd.log
ntpd[10728]: proto: precision = 1.000 usec (-20)
ntpd[10728]: proto: fuzz beneath 0.083 usec
ntpd[10728]: Listen and drop on 0 v6wildcard [::]:123
...
ntpd[10728]: drift PPM:0.000 -> -37.418
ntpd[10728]: peer time.asia.apple.com. @ 17.253.66.125
ntpd[10728]: sample offset +0.000000 s @ 17.253.66.125
ntpd[10728]: sample offset -0.000569 s @ 17.253.66.125
ntpd[10728]: sample offset -0.000518 s @ 17.253.66.125


Am I able to get Spotify on my Apple Watch? Is there a way to get offline Spotify playlists on an Apple Watch?

Spotify does offer an Apple Watch app. Link.

Check out this Apple Support article on how to add or remove apps from your Apple Watch.

  All you need for Spotify to show on your Apple Watch is the Spotify app installed on your iPhone and an account with us. Just open it on your watch and log in to start playing!

To get offline songs and playlists you will need a Premium Subscription:

  Apple Watch allows your to add up to 2GB of local music to it directly. So you can add downloaded Spotify to your Apple Watch to listen them offline without a iPhone nearby. However, Spotify music are protected by DRM, only Premium users can download and save Spotify songs offline.

The Spotify Premium page lists the pricing options and lets you purchase a subscription. Currently, it costs 9.99 EUR/month for a single subscription.

In the future to see if an app is available for an Apple Watch you can go to the App Store on your iPhone or iPad and on the app page you’ll see a note saying offers Apple Watch app.


2011 Mac Mini not working with included HDMI to DVI adapter I've got a brand new Mac Mini with a peculiar video issue.  It just won't show video using the included HDMI to DVI adapter.:

I've plugged this Mac Mini and adapter into three separate DVI monitors.  No video from any of them.
The HDMI port works, and shows beautiful 1080p on my TV.
The Thunderbolt port works on those aforementioned DVI monitors using a Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter.
I've tested the HDMI to DVI adapter alone (no Mac Mini involved) and it works great.

So the adapter works, the HDMI port works, the cable works, and the monitors work.  Just not together, for some reason.

Other voodoo attempted (unsuccessfully):

Ran a full Software Update.  All updates have been downloaded and installed as of the time of this question.
Put the Mac Mini to sleep, then woke it back up (using the Apple Remote).

Same problem here with a Specter x20G Naga III monitor. A few days ago I tried to set up a new Mac mini for my wife. There was no video from the HDMI to DVI converter. I plugged the old Mac mini (circa 2007 but updated to Snow Leopard) in and the video worked just fine. I called Apple Care, they made an appointment with me at the Genius Bar, I took the new mini in and, using the same display adapter, it worked fine with their monitor. While installing the software updates at the Genius Bar, that mini kenel panicked. So they issued me a new one.

I brought the new mini home, plugged it in, and I had no video just like the first one. I tried a different DVI cable. No love. I tried another monitor with the HDMI to DVI converter and the video came through just fine. So I went back to the Apple store to pick up a mini display port to DVI converter. It didn't work on the Mac mini. It also did not work on my Macbook air.

My conclusion is that some DVI monitors just don't work with Lion. (Lion being the one commonality between my Macbook Air and my wife's Mac mini.) I ended up buying a new monitor. It works fine with the new Mac mini. I took the old monitor and set it up as a second display on my daughter's Mac mini which is still running Snow Leopard. It works great.


VirtualBox or Parallels: Great Visualization I decide to choose two virtual machines. VirtualBox and Parallels.

Issue:
Which of them good enough for visualization tasks? (GPU, games)

I want to install on my Macbook Pro 2011 more RAM: 4gb -> 8gb.
After that I want to install on virtual machine Win7 or Win8 with 4-5gb RAM.

As GPU I have AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 МБ

So, which of (VirtualBox or Parallels) give me more visualization performance?

It depends on what kind of thing you want to do, but neither will be a good enough option.

If doing GPU-intensive work, your best and probably only option is BootCamp, and then Parallels.

VMWare Fusion would work, but it's slightly behind Parallels. VirtualBox is worst, but it's free.

As for whether you want Windows 7 or 8, it really depends, Windows 8 start up a lot faster, but consumes quite a lot more resource than Windows 7 until I turened off some useless services.

Here's a link you can check out if you like to see some benchmark result.

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/parallels-desktop-8-vs-vmware-fusion-5-benchmark-showdown

And here's a even better one that compares all three virtualization software against Boot Camp.

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/benchmarking-parallels-fusion-and-virtualbox-against-boot-camp


Duplex Scanning in OSX with non-duplex scanner with document feeder How can I scan a large double sided document with my scanner's document feeder? The scanner only can scan one side of the page. However, I am bulk scanning all my bills and tax forms and have several that are 10+ pages with text on both sides of the page.

Is there any stock software that will scan one side, prompt for you to flip the pages, scan the other side, and them output a single PDF file? Otherwise, I would need software to simply combine the two PDF files and properly order the pages.

There is also a free alternative with PDFSAM, that perfectly work on Sierra 10.12.4.

You can separately scan first odd pages (beginning with the first page) and then even pages (beginning from the last page). After that you can mix all together with the alternate mix option taking care of reverse the even page, as the following image:


iCloud backup from new iphone is lost when restoring old backup I bought a new iP7+ and started using it then i back up on iCloud. I also back up my old iphone 6s. To restore, i Back up my 7+ again and reset the phone. When i transferred old backup(6s) to 7+, the recent backup on 7+ is lost. On the iCloud backup in 7+ it says “Never backup” when i just did few minutes ago. How do i combine the backups?

Ps: Just before restoring, there were 3 options which i didnt really understand. I just chose the top one that says “Update the backup(i think)”

Apple has no merge feature in any iOS backup. The restore operation implies a blank slate, tabula rasa, wiped device for iOS and TVOS and iPadOS.

The solution is to store data in a cloud synced manner or otherwise import data but backup is purely for a clean restore.

Worst case you restore a backup and export or sync the data you need so you can wipe and restore and then Merge manually on the more current backup. Then layer on the loud synced data or imported files.


Do MP3's encoded by iTunes contain my email address, and how can I remove it? I heard that when you rip an Audio CD to MP3 with iTunes it hides your email address (or some other identifying information) in the MP3. Is this true?

Is there any way to remove this identifying information?

I've seen reference to various iTunes Data Anonymizer applications. This should be a reasonably comprehensive list of where you should and shouldn't be worried.

DRM Encumbered Files (protected AAC media) do not carry direct personal information such as your name. They do of course have personal information to the extent necessary to examine and validate your license, but this is information that should only be able to be understood by Apple.
So called "iTunes Plus" unprotected MP3 files do contain your personal information. A cursory search led me to Privatunes. Note that I am not vouching for this software. Your mileage may vary. Make a backup of any files you have before running them through this, or any other modification software.
Files encoded via the CD Ripper does not tag data into the encoded files, no matter what format or quality you choose. Nor will arbitrary media files you choose to import into iTunes.

Did I miss a means in which data may become "available" into iTunes?


Which microphone is used during FaceTime video call in iPhone SE? I have an issue with my iPhone SE running iOS 11.4.1. I already spoke with support, and they are saying that it is hardware issue.

Do you know which microphone it is used during video conversation in FaceTime? Because this microphone works pretty well, but when I record something in Camera app, I hear only noise. Whatsapp, Messenger, Siri can't hear me too.

I already did a fresh install of iOS using iTunes. If this is hardware issue, then microphone shouldn't also work during videocall on FaceTime, or FaceTime is using other (bottom) microphone. Can someone confirm?

After doing much research as I have similar problem on my daughters phone, it seems apps like WhatsApp when on speakerphone use the front top microphone where as FaceTime on speakerphone uses front bottom microphone. Easy check is to record a front face video and hear of sound is captured.


Make Launchpad Appear on screen with mouse If that's not possible, then a way to trigger the Dock on the screen with mouse without moving my cursor to the bottom of the screen is also an acceptable solution (I know that the launchpad appears on the screen with Dock)

Also i did see the Reddit post about this.

There are a couple of solutions to meet what you're looking for
Assign Mouse Button
If you mouse has more than the standard two buttons (left and right click), you can assign one of them to Launchpad.
For example, on the Logitech MX Master series, there's a "gesture" button that you can press with your thumb.  Using the included software/drivers from Logitech (Logitech Options), you can assign the buttons keystrokes like F4 to display the LaunchPad.

If your mouse doesn't have this type of software, there are a couple of 3rd party options you can use

USBOverdrive (Shareware; $20) - This will allow you to customize the buttons, wheels, switches and controls to custom program what they do - like assigning a keyboard shortcut to them.  You can use it for free but with the "annoyance" reminder. However, the product is good and worth the $20 for what it does.

ControllerMate (10 building blocks Free; $30 Commercial License).  This one is very powerful and you can control basically anything that has a switch - mouse, keyboard, switch box, MIDI device, etc.  You can create simple workflows like sending a keyboard sequence (if this is all you do, it will be free) or super complex workflows where the press of a button will do any number of steps (I personally use this)

Activate Dock
You can "move focus to the dock" (the technical term) with a keyboard shortcut.  Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts.  The predefined shortcut is ^ ControlF3


Text Replacements synchronisation between iOS and OS X does not work properly Note: As pointed out by Andreas Fischlin this entire QA is using incorrect terminology.
I have changed the main title to correctly reflect the discussion is about Text Replacements not Shortcuts. A shortcut is  Cmd ⌘   S  to save a document etc.
Rather than correct the terminology right the way through, I thought it easier to add this note.

I use keyboard shortcuts on my iPhone a lot. For example, @g which results in @gmail.com, or addr for my home address. I have got multiple OS X and iOS systems. I believe shortcuts in sync via iCloud.

On OS X some of my shortcuts are quite annoying because typing @g always results in @gmail.com without giving me a suggestion first (like it does on iOS) (btw, it took me quite some effort to type this sentence as it was continuously extending @g ...)

When I delete a keyboard shortcut on device A (OS X), just one day later, the removed shortcuts are back! Furthermore, created shortcuts on device B (iOS) appear on device A, but removed shortcuts from device B are not removed on device A.

I do not understand the logic of syncing keyboard shortcuts:

Is it possible to disable automatically completing my shortcuts on OS X?
Should the shortcuts be in sync between OS X and iOS?
Why are removed shortcuts keep coming back?
How can I fix the synchronisation between shortcuts on my machines?

On OS X, I have 'Correct spelling automatically' disabled.

iOS gives the keyboard shortcut as a suggestion.

On iOS go to: Settings > General > Keyboard > Shortcuts

On OS X go to: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Text

First, to answer your questions:

Keyboard shortcuts do sync between OS X and iOS. However, in my experience this has always been quite slow, with the Mac taking a long time to recognize keyboard shortcuts I added on the phone.
Turning the synchronization off would require disabling the syncing of documents and preferences, which would also disable quite a lot of things that should be synced, so this is not really an option.
It seems that shortcuts are stored in several locations on an iPhone. Some of these can be deleted (which is what happens when you delete a shortcut), but some of them can't. These not-really-deleted shortcuts then sync again to iCloud, causing your problems. There is an Apple Forum post detailing how to delete the shortcuts, that you might wanna try (on your own risk, though.)

Now, for some fixes:

You could change your shortcuts. E.g. having a prefix like ;; in front of your shortcuts would make sure you only expand what you really want to. Also, it's not that much effort for typing. Similarly, I use l@g for expanding my email-address, which doesn't make any problems since I never type l@ anywhere else. This could be called a workaround, but as it seems it's the only option that should work reliably.
Using TextExpander you should be able to configure the sync more easily. However, I don't have any experience with it, and I'd recommend the first solution.


trying to find preferences.plist file I am reading an old developer guide, that hasnt updated since 2007..

I want to access the file called preferences.plist located at /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist.

It should look like this:

However, at that location there is no such file. I only found com.apple.systempreferences.plist, but this is not the right one. My guess is that it was moved over the years. Where could I find it? It contains data about network configuration.

The location of the file has not moved. It is still located at /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist.

Please make sure you are not in your User's Library folder (~/Library/Preferences/).

The best way to go to the correct folder in Finder is to use the menu item Go > Go to Folder..., or press cmd+shift+G, and enter the folder you need to go to. In this case, /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/.


Is there a list of Google Drive compatibility issues? Is there a list of compatibility issues?

Has anyone any information on compatibility issues between Google Drive and other Mac software?

I would like to use Google Drive for Google Docs support, though I find it disappointing right now. Google Drive has been so troublesome that I had to abandon it and use Dropbox only instead.

My problems with Google Drive include:

regular crashes
losing all file and folder aliases (turned into blank files)
several formats where the file might get erased, i.e. turned into a 0 kb file (seems to affect resource forks for .webloc .textclipping .pictclipping)
long, buggy syncs that renamed several hundreds of files and folders (out of a 50GB folder) to WhateverName (1) – sometimes as a duplicate copy of the original, sometimes not.

Some of these crashes seem related to GitHub for Mac, perhaps because of swaps between visible and invisible files when switching branches.

Other crashes could relate to my use of TotalFinder, an application that modifies the Finder.

Do you have more information on such a problem?

My SE and Google searches were inconclusive.

I emailed Google and got a few clues from them:

Google does not track software incompatibilities, so there is no way to know if TotalFinder is responsible for the random " (1)" file duplications. I suspect it's not.
Google Drive does not support resource forks or aliases. Dropbox has the same limitation, but it does not destroy the files like Google Drive does.

I have briefly documented the issues here.

My final word is that Dropbox is safer to use than Google Drive, and that both are limited in such a way that they cannot act as perfect substitutes to external hard drive backups.


Time Machine backup of renamed computer fails After getting a new MacBook Pro recently, I decided to reuse my old MacBook Pro as a home server. I reformatted the disk and reinstalled OS X, giving the computer a different hostname (let's call it NewHostname) in the process.

Now I want to back up the computer to the same Time Capsule I was using before. However, there is already an encrypted backup of the computer on that Time Capsule from when it was still called OldHostname. When I try to set up Time Machine, it returns an error message saying "The disk "DiskName" already contains an encrypted backup for this computer." This appears to be referring to the old sparsebundle image.

The only options Time Machine offers are to continue using the old sparsebundle or to erase it and start a new encrypted backup. Is there any way I could keep the old sparsebundle and start a new backup? And how does it even know that this encrypted file happens to correspond to this computer when the hostnames don't even match?

Note: I've already tried renaming the file in Finder from OldHostname.sparsebundle to OldHostname-old.sparsebundle, but that didn't work.

Try to use tmutil inheritbackup:

sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/Data/OldHostname.sparsebundle

From man tmutil:

inheritbackup {machine_directory | sparsebundle}
        Claim a machine directory or sparsebundle for use by the current
        machine. Requires root privileges.

        Machine directories and sparsebundles are owned by one computer
        at a time, and are tracked by unique identifiers rather than com-
        puter name, host name, or ethernet address. The inheritbackup
        verb reassigns the identity of the specified item, reconfiguring
        it so the current host recognizes it during backups. When inher-
        iting a sparsebundle, the machine directory within will also be
        claimed.

        Inheriting is typically only one step in the process of configur-
        ing a backup for use by a machine. You may also need to use
        setdestination, associatedisk, or both, depending on the situa-
        tion.

        One machine can own multiple machine directories and sparsebun-
        dles, but it is ill-advised for them to reside in the same place.
        In such a situation, which will be chosen during a backup is
        undefined. As a result, inheritbackup will attempt to detect pos-
        sible identity collisions before making changes.

See also http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html.


Is it normal to still see what's on the screen when it's fully dimmed? I'm using an external monitor, so most of the time I've got the MacBook Air's internal screen dimmed to 0. But it doesn't switch off completely at 0 brightness as I can still see some graphical elements. They're hardly discernible but still there.

I was wondering if this is normal.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any other way to disable the built-in screen.

If you use only the second screen, you can safely close the lid of your MacBook Air and work only on the second screen, it will automatically switch it as the main and only screen.


How can I force Safari to Save As webpage? Sometimes, you can't save the page you want (actually I don't know why this happens).
How can I force the Safari to Save As?

URL:What features of Mavericks are beneficial to you?

Don't know the reason and don't reproduce the problem. But according to this question you should be able to override this by clicking on option at the same time.


Flipboard-like iOS app for "reading" the whole web I like reading stuff online, and I like flipping through "pages". There's some apps with great UIs like Flipboard, but they only work on pre-curated content.

Is there any app like Flipboard that will let me search Google and open any URL I find?

You could make a Fluid app of Feedly and subscribe to completely random feeds so you're surprised by what turns up and/or even subscribe to the Pocket, Readability, etc. feeds of completely random people and/or the front page of Reddit. If you set Fluid to use Safari you can "flip" through the pages using the regular OS gestures. And Feedly allows you to choose from a variety of presentation modes. You could, also, do this with any desktop feed reader like Reeder 2, NetNewsWire, etc., but as far as I know creating a Feedly app with Fluid with Safari set as the browser may be the only way to "flip through pages" of completely random content.