jailbreak gone bad - how to fix? (running ios 7.0.3 and used evasion) I've tried jailbreaking my 4S running 7.0.3 using evasi0n, but this resulted in a bootloop (i.e. stuck at apple logo) which seems to be quite common! :/

Anyway, I've searched the net for solutions and it seems the only way to get this fix is to restore using IPSW.

But since I'm running on iOS7, I wanna keep it that way.

Is there a way to restore my phone running iOS 7.0.3 to the same version? I've always seen replies where people says they can't downgrade to an earlier version because Apple has stopped signing. So I'm not really sure how this works when it comes to staying on the same but old version.

Thanks! :)

Apple doesn't sign iOS 7 for the iPhone 4s any more which means that you can't install it, regardless of what your current version of iOS is.

However, you may be able to do a semi-restore using semirestore7.


Can I load an iPad with content without using an Apple ID (prize for conference)? Here's the scenario:

A client is having a conference and wants to give away a brand new iPad (not yet purchased).

They also want to pre-load the iPad with a bunch of their content (audio and video) and give the iPad away to one lucky attendee.

The Content:

As far as I'm aware, the content (audio / video) does not exist in any app on the iTunes store, but rather I'd take the audio and video files the client wants to pre-load and load them via my computer.

The problem:

I haven't owned an iPad in a long time, but I remember that in order to put content on the iPad you need an Apple ID, or you have to tie the iPad to approved computers and sync via iTunes.

Since we won't know who the winner will be, and won't be able to tie the device to their Apple ID / Computer, is it even possible?

Before asking this question here, I went down to an Apple Store and talked to a Genius, and the suggestion was to just use iTunes because you can set an iPad up without an Apple ID...but that still poses the problem with the approved computer thing...if I use iTunes, then it's tied to my machine...which I don't want.

I also don't want to de-authorize the iPad and lose content if I do get it loaded.

I know that iOS 11 has Files now, so I was curious about that route -- but it seems again that it has to be tied to a specific pre-existing account to use -- even if it's not an Apple ID.

The Question:

Assuming it is possible, how can I pre-load an iPad with content to be given away at a conference in such a way that neither the content, nor the iPad itself is tied to my accounts/computer?

I'd like to, if possible determine if it's possible the iPad gets purchased.

If I had an iPad, I'd just try these options out, but since I don't (and the iPad hasn't been purchased), I'm hoping that someone else has come across this specific use-case and has figured out a solution.

Make it a great day!

There is no way to load apps/content onto an iDevice without using an AppleID. You should give the prize iPad away untouched and give the winner an Apple gift card to allow let them purchase the apps and content they want. After all, the iPad belongs to the prize-winner.

This is what we've done at my place of employment in similar situations.


iCloud without the Internet I know this is a long shot, but is there any way of using icloud or parts of it for syncing between two devices in physical proximity (using Bluetooth or ad hoc wifi) but without a connection to the Internet?

Or maybe a better question is: are there any apps (jailbreak or otherwise) that enable similar features to icloud without an Internet connection?

Syncing devices without iCloud won't work, because the data flow is like that: device1 -> iCloud server -> device2. The device sends data to the iCloud server, and the second device grabs this data from the same. The iCloud server is also responsible to keep the version history straight.

So if you want to sync data between an iOS and Mac OS device, you can do everything over Wifi in iTunes (Apps, in-App data, music, videos, calendar ...). You might also want to take a look at Files App for iOS. This app is a Mac OS Finder-like data management program that allows easy sync between iOS and Mac OS: it temporarily opens a network port and you can push data to the iOS device from your web browser without internet connection.

And if you want to sync Data between two Mac OS devices (MacBooks or iMacs), you could simply use Dropbox's LAN Sync, which does not require a internet connection as long as both computers are connected to the same network. Depending on what you want to sync, you could simply but you data there, e.g., to sync you calendar, simply write and write the .ical file to Dropbox.


How to get to know which app causes the "would you like to install java?" dialog in Mavericks to appear? I have apparently had Java installed at some point and Mavericks removed it, which is fine by me. The problem is that some unknown app is constantly trying to run Java, causing this dialog to appear every few minutes:

How do I find out what app is causing this? I know it's not a website, as no browser needs to be running in order for the dialog to pop up.

Since your screenshot references java where the app name usually is written, it suggests that it's the command-line version of Java that a given app is trying to run.

If it appears at specific intervals, it either an app that you have open or a periodical job running automatically in the background (Which, ironically, could be the Java Updater itself).

A quick way to check out which of your installed applications use Java is to run this command in Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app):

find /Applications -type f -name *.jar

This isn't 100 % accurate but it can give you a rough idea. Dreamweaver and Flash from Adobe, for instance, uses Java.

To get a list of currently running automated background scripts use this command in Terminal — You should run in as close as possible to the moment when the Java popup appears:

launchctl list

(Credit to this thread on Apple Support, it's also useful in understanding launchd)

This will, sadly, only give you a list of processes running and not why or what they're running.

Finally, you might want to take a look at the files in ~/Library/LaunchAgents (In Finder use Cmd+Shift+G and paste in the path. This directory shows the periodical jobs that you've setup as a user (sometimes indirectly through an install). Maybe one of these use Java.


"lsof -i" Command output explanation i am attempting to maintain a closer eye on my Apple-Mac's outgoing and incoming connections; in collaboration with other processes such as tcpdump and netstat, i have been using the command: lsof -i, which allegedly displays all processes using the internet.

The output of this command is fairly simple, however does return some confusing results, including multiple instances of the process com.apple which has little to no explanation online. Whilst listing Spotify and its various related processes such as SpotifyWE, the command declines to list other applications which i happen to know are using the network, such as Safari and Mail.

To simplify things, my questions are:

What is the purpose of the process com.apple?
Why are there multiple listings of the same process?
Why are some processes/applications which are definitely using the internet omitted from the command (lsof -i)`s result.

lsof's output is truncated. Paste the following command into Terminal:

ps -Ac|grep com.apple

This'll show you all the processes it could be referring to. You'll have to look at their PID to know which is which (second column in lsof, first column in ps).

A process will only be listed if it is has an active connection to somewhere. Not all applications maintain an active connection at all times.


How can I create a custom behavior for a URL scheme? I would like a specific URL scheme, magnet:, to run a command in Terminal.

For example:

magnet:?xt=urn:bKKH

Would execute:

myCommand "magnet:?xt=urn:bKKH"

I found my answer using AppleScript:

https://support.shotgunsoftware.com/entries/127152-Launching-External-Applications-using-Custom-Protocols-under-OSX

Create an AppleScript that uses on open location this_URL
Save as Application
Edit the Info.plist of the Application with:

<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
<array>
  <dict>
    <key>CFBundleURLName</key>
    <string>Magnet</string>
    <key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
    <array>
      <string>magnet</string>
    </array>
  </dict>
</array>


Where is documentation for CJK input methods (Its)? How the Chinese Pinyin IM & Japanese Kana IM work is obvious (at least to me) but I have been experimenting unsuccessfully for a while with one of the Korean ones.  Keyboard viewer helps, but using it is proctalgia (at least for me).  Plus, understanding how it works is probably much easier than memorizing several dozen keystroke sequences.

Trying to find documentation by web search (with "Mac" or "OS X" in the search input) gives me:

Many hits for Windows and Linux
Many hits for how to select the IM
One hit for System 8.5
One page about a free KoreanIM "from Apple" (NOT!) that is actually malware.

Are any of the CJK input methods documented anywhere in English or Spanish?

Years ago (for OS 9 I think) Apple produced manuals for these IM's, which you can sometimes still find online, but I don't know how useful they are now.

For OS X, for each IM, when it is active, you should find a Help item further down in the "Flag" menu.  Below is what comes up for Korean.  Otherwise you have to rely on google to find explanations provided by individuals, such as

http://www.koreanfromzero.com/install_korean/mac_osx/

for the 2-Set IM.  Below are also cheat sheets for the two Romaja IM's I found (first Gongjincheong and then HNC).


All iPhone 4s pics not showing on Windows 7 PC I have an Iphone 4s and a Windows 7 PC.
When I plug in my phone it is recognized, but when I open the pictures folder (DCIM) there are only 2 folders showing.
One shows about 30 pictures, 1 video, the other shows about 70 pictures, 3videos. I have just over 1500 pictures on my actual phone, I'm looking to back them up onto the PC but why are they not all showing?
I've tried unlocking the phone first.
Please help!
Thank you.

Have you enabled iCloud Photo Library? If you have, go to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Photos to see whether you tick on "Optimise iPhone Storage". If you've ticked on this item, then that will explain your situation. If you enable this feature, it's normal for you to see just a few photos showing on the picture folder, because the rest of your photos is optimised to thumbnail and won't be shown on computer.
In this case, you should check your iCloud. All photos in your iPhone 4s will be stored there.


Is there a way to get Spotlight to search for xattr? I like to tag files with xattr, e.g. xattr -w user.foo bar myfile.

Is there a way that I can then use Spotlight to search for a given xattr key (or key-value pair)? For example, if I put foo or foo:bar in the Spotlight search bar, I'd like it to return myfile in the result list.

I realize you can do this by writing the com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags attribute - but this is not very portable, so I'm curious if this can be extended to all xattr tags.

Based on this, yes but you are limited to using com.apple attributes. As for extending Spotlight to any xattrib tags, you could but you will need to develop an importer for Spotlight. There are plenty of metadata tags available, I would pick one to be used as a personal tag.

If committed to searching by custom xattrib, I would give up on Spotlight and use:

find . -xattrname foo


Changed Office365 password, cannot change in mail.app: account already exists mac os 10.11.4
mail app 9.3

Had a working exchange/office365 account. Did not work anymore, used safari to go to office365.com and it appeared that I was required to change my password. So I changed it and can login on www.office365.com
So the mail.app tells me to change the password, but when I hit save I get: account already exists.

So I removed the account from the settings --> internet accounts. closed mail.app, rebooted the mac and tried to add a new exchange account. But again "account already exists"

This seems similar to Mac Mail - Account already exists error when adding gmail
but iCloud is on a totally different mail account and even a different domain.
Before I removed the exchange account, I manually updated all office365 passwords in the keychain. But that did not work either. Mail.app kept complaining.

Please do not suggest to move to outlook. I have outlook installed, but my boss (owner of the macbook) want to stick to the default mail.app

I had the same thing happen to me this evening after updating my Office365 password.

What worked for me was to open my desktop Outlook App and send myself a test email. Outlook was then prompted to ask me to put in the password. After adding the password to Outlook and sending the test email, I then went back to my Mac Mail and received my test email there. I also checked the Outbox in Mac Mail, which had three emails waiting to send. I double-clicked on the first one and then all three emails sent.


How does my iPhone change time zones automatically? I'm curious how my iPhone knows what time zone I am in and change automatically. Does the phone use GPS to figure out where I am in the world? Or is there some other technology in play here.

It uses a combination of GPS and the date/time sent to the iPhone from the cell towers.

There's several questions here about this same topic (different carriers and different iPhones) and they all have very similar responses to what I've said.  If you search for this topic, you can see all the different questions and answers; I just combined them all.


sleep display on imac in console mode I'm attempting to run a flaky imac (running 10.8.5) as just an ssh server, headless and without the GUI running.

I've made this work by disabling the com.apple.loginwindow.plist and com.apple.WindowServer.plist and enabled com.apple.getty.plist and adjusting /etc/ttys to run a console with

console         "/usr/libexec/getty std.57600"  vt100   on secure

This is fine. No GUI, I can ssh in just fine and if I have a keyboard attached I can log in on the console.

However, even with a pmset -a displaysleep 1 the display never goes to sleep. I'd like it to be asleep all the time, as I've got the iMac under a desk and only intend to use it over ssh.

Is this possible and I'm just missing a step or am I out of luck?

Update: My notes on how I got it almost working.

Mac OS X's idle time measurements require a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to provide the "user inactivity" measure.

Without this measure, the operating system can not determine if the Mac is unused long enough to sleep the display.

Disabling the WindowServer will restrict most of OS X's unique features. Have you considered booting to a headless Linux or other operating system?


iPod 4th gen screen does not work after replacement I cracked the screen of my iPod 4th gen, and bought a replacement kit to replace it. I replaced it, and before applying adhesive, I checked to see it work. It worked fine, it was responsive, etc. But I couldn't close the case because the digitizer extended to the top part of the screen, and needed to be put into place. While doing that, the screen attachment came off -- while the screen was still on, and it went pitch black. Now it does not respond to anything. It's not recognized by the computer and iTunes either. What could have happened? Could it be fixed after this point?

Edit: connecting to power does not turn it on either.

The technical term you are looking for is "it's busted"

If I read the sequence correctly, you disconnected a major component while the device was operating and now it is unresponsive. Some electronic components can be disconnected without damage, others don't like it and express their displeasure by declining to work again.

Bare minimum, you will need another, known-working screen to see if the screen or the main board is damaged. The cracked screen is fine, IF it was actually working before replacement (cracked glass is fine, cracked glass + no display is not fine). Repair centers keep various components handy for exactly this reason.

if the known-good screen doesn't work, then you have fried the logic board. At $250 for a new iPod we have to seriously consider how much more effort we want to put into more repairs.


Media keys behaving like function keys I'm experiencing some frustrating keyboard issues on my new 2014 Macbook Air (OS X 10.9.3)

When using the laptop keyboard, the F1–12 keys take the behavior of "function" as opposed to the "media key" behavior they should have by default (brightness, volume, etc).

I've unchecked the "Use all F1-F12 keys as standard function keys" setting in System Preferences. I've also tried a few things in the terminal:

defaults write "Apple Global Domain" "com.apple.keyboard.fnState" "0" (referenced here)
defaults write -g com.apple.keyboard.fnState -bool true (referenced here)

I restart after each of these and still nothing.

-

A couple things to note:

When I connect an Apple Keyboard, the keys on the Apple Keyboard work as normal.
I recently connected a Kinesis Freestyle 2 keyboard to the laptop. I have a feeling this may have caused the issue, possibly because it was a Windows version of the keyboard as opposed to a Mac version (Oh Windows, always causing trouble...)

Any ideas? Thanks.

Ugh. I hate when the solution is "it just stopped happening all of a sudden"... but a firmware update came out and I installed it, and now my keys back! Yay =D

If I learn anything about what exactly happened here I'll post my findings.


What do ._Desktop and ._Library do? In my home directory, there are two files called ._Desktop and ._Library. They have read and write permissions, but cannot be read, even with root.

What do these files do? Is there any way to modify them?

._ Desktop and ._Library contain extended attributes for these directories. This StackOverflow question describes roughly what generic ._ files are.

  if for file foo you have another ._foo, and you're on a Mac, the dot-underscore file is where the file resource fork / metadata is kept.

As to why directories like Desktop or Library would need extended attributes is beyond me, though I would guess it has something to do with appearance and special files.

If these ._ files are appearing on a mounted network filesystem (i.e. NFS) that doesn't use HFS+ on the host server, that is because HFS+ would usually store the information found inside these ._ files along with the file itself. However, since other filesystems do not handle these extended attributes nicely, OS X creates a resource fork that allows your client-side HFS+ filesystem to see extended attributes as if they were part of the file itself.

These files are used in the AppleDouble format which cause the file itself and its pesky counterpart to be merged once the file is taken off the networked filesystem and placed onto a HFS+ filesystem. Deleting these ._file metadata counterparts would usually result in their regeneration the next time OS X processes the file itself.

credit to Tetsujin's comment


Apple Watch 2/FaceTime is possibly hacked? I received what appears to be a malicious message on my Apple Watch 2.  It did not arrive via any known messaging app.  There was no banner, only the words.  The words were threatening. I had recently been using FaceTime.  I checked my iPad and iPhone but theres no message there.  Then I went on my MacBook Air and a box popped up: "Your Apple ID and phone number are now being used for FaceTime on a new Apple Watch".  My Apple Watch is not a new Apple Watch. so I'm a bit alarmed.  Any advice?

That is not any threat. I think you signed into FaceTime on your Apple Watch using your Apple ID. So all your other apple devices will notify you. But your device doesn't know whether your Apple Watch is new or old. Even I got that message on my MacBook after signing in into FaceTime on my iPad. It is not a threatening message!


Blocking animated gifs in Safari I am trying to block animated gifts in Safari.

I installed Deanimator, but it is dated and it does not always work.

I also searched for Saft, but it seems this extension was abandoned.

Does anyone knows an alternative way of doing it?

If you are willing to install and use a local filtering proxy:

The venerable Privoxy will allow you to deanimate GIFs.

While a fine grained setup can be quite involved, that deanimated GIF-thing is quite easy to configure with the preset "medium" already. (Or via one radio button in the settings page.)

Playing those GIFs in a website you do want to see is then quite a hassle, though. That would require a trip to System Preferences, change proxy settings and then reloading the page. Depending on how often you need that feature, it's easiest to use another browser for that that does not get filtered.

As two examples: Firefox comes to mind, since it has proxy settings differing from the system preferences, or OmniWeb, which ignores the system settings.


For Mac OS X, what is required for HDCP (video copy-protection) on an external monitor with HDMI? I have a (non-Retina) MacBook Pro (mid-2012) and I have just purchased an Asus VN248H-P external monitor with HDMI input, connected to the MacBook Pro with a Monoprice Mini-DisplayPort to HDMI cable. This is not a television set; it is a peripheral computer monitor.
For the first time, I tried to play a movie purchased and downloaded from iTunes on the external monitor, and I got an error message in iTunes saying that this is not supported because the Mac cannot verify HDCP support for my configuration. (This refers to the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection encryption scheme).

The selected movie won't play on one of your connected displays.
This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection).
Try moving the iTunes window to a different display. Make sure the entire window is on the supported display.

iTunes will only let me play the movie on the built-in screen on my (non-Retina) MacBook Pro, which is smaller and lower-resolution.
Is my Monoprice cable incompatible, and do I need to replace it with a different cable or adapter? Is there such a thing as a cable or adapter that works with HDCP and will enable this? Or is playing HDCP-encrypted content simply not possible on my configuration?
Please don't give me an answer that involves using software to break the HDCP encryption or to transcode to a different video format; I'd like to know if there is a hardware solution for full compatibility so that I don't lose any video resolution by transcoding.

The answer is that I seem to have encountered a bug in the implementation of dual displays in Mac OS X 10.9.1 Mavericks.

If I am using both the internal display and the external display at the same time, without using "Mirror" mode, then iTunes will not permit playback of the iTunes HDCP-encrypted movie on the external HDMI screen.

However, there is a workaround: if I close the MacBook Pro's lid, disconnecting the internal display, so that the MacBook Pro is only driving the external display, then iTunes will play the HDCP-encrypted movie on the external display over HDMI, in full-screen mode -- although iTunes still displays the same error message saying that it can't play back!

This is quite inconvenient, because I want to use both displays at once, without Mirror mode, at all times, so, for example, I can have Apple Mail and Microsoft Word up and running on the internal display while I'm watching the iTunes HDCP movie on the external display.

It looks as if I can further work around this bug, by first starting iTunes, then closing the lid, then starting the movie in iTunes on the external monitor, then raising the lid on the laptop again to activate the internal screen, then continuing to use other applications on the internal screen while the movie continues to play in iTunes on the external screen.


iOS developer mode differences I want to use network link conditioning to slow my bandwidth consumption when streaming msnbc on my iPhone.  I'm wondering what differences occur on my phone when it's in developer mode.  Other than the fact that there are additional settings available, does the act of just putting it into developer mode affect any of its operations?  Basically, is there any down side to putting it into developer mode?

No, enabling the hidden Developer settings by connecting to Xcode doesn't change anything on your device.  The default for all of the settings is "off," in which case your device will behave identically as one where the settings are still hidden.


NTP not updating back to system time in macOS In macOS 10.12.6 , I am trying to forward the clock using the date command.

E.g.: today's date is 25-09-2017 and I am setting it to 27-09-2017. But using ntp I am unable to revert my system time back to 25-09-2017.

I have "time.asia.apple.com" set in /etc/ntp.conf.

When I try to issue the command

sudo killall -9 ntpd; sudo ntpdate "time.asia.apple.com"

I am getting the following output:

  27 Sep 20:25:36 ntpdate[5085]: no server suitable for synchronization found

I am not sure why my system time is not moving back to 25th of Sep.

I even tried it with "time1.google.com" . The clock is still not returning back to today's date.

"no server suitable for synchronization found" indicates that the time server time.asia.apple.com can't be found or in-bound ntp traffic is not allowed at some perimeter.

Your host either has no proper Internet connection or DNS resolution is wonky.

However, you can try to check your Internet connection (e.g. ping 8.8.8.8), repair the Internet if necessary (e.g. repair Internet local|global all) and repeat your ntpdate command or use one of the various IP addresses of time.asia.apple.com (17.253.52.125, 17.253.54.253, 17.253.54.125) directly:

sudo ntpdate 17.253.54.125

If the last command works DNS resolution is broken.

repair Internet local|global all shouldn't be taken literally.


The Apple light on my Macbook is damaged, could this damage the screen? My Macbook was hit  by my keys and crack the apple light on the back.

If I don't repair it, could this damage the sceen? The cover of Macbook is so thin that I really worry about this, but repair could be troublesome and expensive so I'd rather not have to fix it.

Essentially it is not a light but is simply a hole covered with a piece of plastic. LED which are used as your screen backlight serve as the actual light for the apple mark, so the apple mark is not lit on when the screen is not lit on.

In short, a crack in Apple mark will is not going to influence your Macbook in any way.


Saving screenshots with name of title bar On Windows I use GreenShots, which by default saves each screenshot with a timestamp followed by the name on the title bar.

I'd like to replace the "Screen Shot DATE at TIME" with "YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS Whatever on Title Bar".

This would make my screenshots easier to:

order by date, just ordering them by name
find out with a simple search (looking at the title)

Is some way achieve this?

Here is the appleScript that would achieve what you are looking for:

do shell script "screencapture -W ~/tmp"
delay 3
tell application "System Events"
    set frontApp to name of first application process whose frontmost is true
end tell
tell application frontApp
    if the (count of windows) is not 0 then
        set window_name to name of front window
    end if
end tell
set screenShotName to do shell script "date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S_"
set screenShotName to screenShotName & window_name
do shell script "mv ~/tmp ~/\"" & screenShotName & "\".png"

Copy and paste the above into appleScript editor then save it as an app, you can name it whatever you want.

Double click the app icon select the window you want screenshoted and then make sure that you click that window to ensure it is the front one.


telnet shell-script in Automator I'm partly new to Automator and since there is no application for Mac to control my Pioneer AVR I use some commands in the Terminal. But I'd like to automate some of my commands with the terminal.
I have to say that I don't know much about the Terminal and Networking. But I know that it's not so easy in Automator or in Xcode (with swift) like in the Terminal.
In the Terminal I use this code:

telnet vsx-923.fritz.box.

Response:

Trying 123.456.789.10...
Connected to vsx-923.fritz.box.
Escape character is '^]'.
BridgeCo AG Telnet server

vd //which means Volume down

Response:

FL004D2E564F4C20202D33302E356442
VOL100

In Automator in the Shell-Script I typed

telnet vsx-923.fritz.box.
vd

Where I got the error "Connection closed by foreign host."
In a forum I found out that I had to use echo
why I get a response now.
But If I type in

telnet vsx-923.fritz.box.
echo 'vd'

I only get the response that the avr is connected but for the Volume I don't get a response.

In the future hopefully I am able to build an application, but for now It'll be enough to make it this way.
I hope you can help me with the solution.
Here you get the PDF of the pioneer commands if you'd like to have them. http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/StaticFiles/PUSA/Files/Home%20Custom%20Install/VSX-1120-K-RS232.PDF

Thanks in advance.

Jonas

Incorporating Automator might be unnecessary for what you're trying to achieve. Perhaps it would be more suitable to just write a bash shell script. If you've never written a bash shell script before, it's easy to get started. You can simply type out the commands exactly how you've already demonstrated, but into some kind of text editor or notepad software, and save it with an .sh extension on the end.

When I first started learning about this stuff years ago I found nano to be a quick and easy text editor for learning and writing new material. If you want to give it a try you can start by just typing nano in the terminal.

If necessary, you can grant executive permission with:

chmod +x ./example.sh

Let me know if this helps put you on the right track or not. If not, we can just try something else. Also, if you want/need you can reply here or contact me privately via chat.


Limit the scope of tag search in Finder on Mavericks I have a fairly extensive file system with a large collection of images and a duplicate disc of those images and, additionally, some folders with images that are in process of some workflow.

I have tagged some of these files. If I click a tag in the Finder's sidebar, ALL the files with that tag are shown throughout the file system.

Is there a way to limit the search by tag to a certain folder (and it's contained folders) in the Finder?

Here is what I have tried so far:

Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced does not limit the scope when tags are used.
If click a tag and then try and add limiting information in the search box, the tag is lost.
If I click to the parent folder, then type tag:Red in the search folder, the files with that specific tag are not shown

I can use mdfind at the command line, but that does not give a Finder window with the results.

You can't get there from the tag view accessed from the sidebar, but if you navigate to the directory you want to search, and type the tag you're looking for, it will find files in that directory.


Text substitutions for superscript and subscript There is a way to individually create text substitutions on Mac for most applications, by going to System Preferences→Keyboard→Text and then creating text substitutions. For example, I've made the following ones for ₂, ₃, × and ²³.
If I wanted to, I could create more and more shortcuts like this, but that takes a lot of time. Is there a way to use Automator and/or Applescript and/or Terminal to make such substitutions for all such cases? For example, if I type _5002, it should come out looking like ₅₀₀₂.

Here is one solution using the command line:

Converting numbers to super/subscript

The sed utility allows you to use a translation table to convert characters to other characters:
$ echo "abc513" | sed -e 'y|0123456789|⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹|'
abc⁵¹³

$ echo "abc513" | sed -e 'y|0123456789|₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉|'
abc₅₁₃

From there, we can write a tsubst script:
$ cat ./tsubst
#!/bin/bash

function superscript { echo "$1" | sed -e 'y|0123456789|⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹|'; }
function subscript   { echo "$1" | sed -e 'y|0123456789|₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉|'; }

function phrase_from_shortcut_pattern {
  if [[ "$1" =~ ^\^(.+)$ ]]
  then
    # ^ -> superscript
    echo "$(superscript "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}")"
  elif [[ "$1" =~ ^_(.+)$ ]]
  then
    # _ -> subscript
    echo "$(subscript "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}")"
  else
    echo "$1"
  fi
}

phrase_from_shortcut_pattern "${@}"

That script takes one argument, a Text Replacement shortcut pattern with a ^ or _ prefix to indicate a super or subscript transformation, and returns the corresponding phrase:
$ ./tsubst _answer42
answer₄₂

$ ./tsubst ^answer42
answer⁴²

Generate phrases from lists or ranges of shortcut patterns

With that script, we can use bash loops and substitutions to generate phrases from a list of shortcut patterns:
$ for p in _42 ^42; do echo "${p} -> $(./tsubst "${p}")"; done
_42 -> ₄₂
^42 -> ⁴²

Or a range of shortcut patterns:
$ for p in _{6..8} ^{9..11}; do echo "${p} -> $(./tsubst "${p}")"; done
_6 -> ₆
_7 -> ₇
_8 -> ₈
^9 -> ⁹
^10 -> ¹⁰
^11 -> ¹¹

Adding text substitutions from the command line

This is the tricky part... I found one command-line utility that does its job well: shortcuts.
$ shortcuts read
0: "jrv" —> "J’arrive !"
1: "omw" —> "On my way!"

$ shortcuts create "xyz" "XYZ"

$ shortcuts read
0: "xyz" —> "XYZ"
1: "jrv" —> "J’arrive !"
2: "omw" —> "On my way!"

$ shortcuts delete xyz

$ shortcuts read
0: "jrv" —> "J’arrive !"
1: "omw" —> "On my way!"

Automatically adding Text Replacement entries...

Now we can compose the two utilities to add entries to the Text Replacements preferences:
$ for p in _42 ^42 _{6..8} ^{9..11}; do
>   ./shortcuts create "${p}" "$(./tsubst "${p}")"
> done

$ ./shortcuts read
0: "^11" —> "¹¹"
1: "^10" —> "¹⁰"
2: "^9" —> "⁹"
3: "_8" —> "₈"
4: "_7" —> "₇"
5: "_6" —> "₆"
6: "^42" —> "⁴²"
7: "_42" —> "₄₂"
8: "jrv" —> "J’arrive !"
9: "omw" —> "On my way!"

And the result in the Text Replacements preferences:


How to copy pages/sections from one Pages document to another? I have read here that you can simply copy/paste pages between documents. When I highlight a page, there is no option to copy and nothing happens (except the typical warning sound) when I hit cmd-c. Drag and drop doesn't work either.
I have the newest OSX and pages versions.
Is there any solution?

I think this used to be an option in the old version of pages - where you could just highlight a page copy it and past it over to a new doc.

Now you would need to select all content on a page copy that and past it over to a new already existing page on a new document.

To select content: if you open the pages window up (larger than the white page) you can drag a selection box over the content you want, starting from off the page.


Keyboard shortcut for jumping directly to a specific input method I'm leaning Japanese, and so I have my Mac set up for three different input methods: English, and two different Japanese character sets. I can change between the three input methods using ctrl-alt-option-space.

However, because there are three input methods I have to press this key combination a different number of times depending on what the current state is. For example, if I want to switch back to English then I have to press it twice if it's currently set to hiragana, but only once if it's set to katakana. Because of this, I keep pressing it the wrong number of times, which results in typing unwanted characters and then having to cycle back through the three input methods to get to the one I want.

So instead of using one key combination to cycle through the three input methods, I'd like to set up a specific key press for each one. For example, I'd like to set up something like ctrl-alt-command-E that always switches back to English, no matter what the current input method is, so that I can always get to where I want to be without worrying about where I am. But I can't seem to find a way to do this. Is it possible?

One option would be to download changeInput and assign shortcuts to shell commands like changeInput U.S..

You could also use KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <vkchangeinputsourcedef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_HIRAGANA</name>
    <inputsourceid_equal>com.apple.inputmethod.Kotoeri.Japanese</inputsourceid_equal>
  </vkchangeinputsourcedef>
  <vkchangeinputsourcedef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_KATAKANA</name>
    <inputsourceid_equal>com.apple.inputmethod.Kotoeri.Japanese.Katakana</inputsourceid_equal>
  </vkchangeinputsourcedef>
  <item>
    <name>change_inputsources</name>
    <identifier>change_inputsources</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::E, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_ENGLISH</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::H, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_HIRAGANA</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::K, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_KATAKANA</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

See the private.xml documentation.

VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_ENGLISH is defined in vkchangeinputsourcedef.xml. You can see the IDs of input sources from EventViewer.app. Without | ModifierFlag::NONE for example the first setting would also apply to control-option-shift-command-E. See the source for the key code values and predefined settings.


Skip an OSX version with App Store upgrades? I have a MacBook running Snow Leopard and newer MacBook Air running Lion.  If I buy the Mountain Lion upgrade through the App Store on my Air, will I be able to use the same App Store purchase on my older MacBook?

Or are OS upgrades not multi-machine friendly (somehow different from other apps that are pay-once download-many)?

You can upgrade to Mountain Lion from both Lion and Snow Leopard (SL). With SL you will need to be running the latest version 10.6.8 and then you can just buy it through the app store.

check this link for more details:
Apple OSX Upgrade

You just need to make sure your machine can handle Mountain Lion which you can see with this app from the app store Mac Tracker - its a free app.

OS' are like normal apps - they can be installed on up to 5 machines.

Good Luck on the upgrade:-)


"this Emacs binary lacks sound support" I'm trying to get Aquamacs Emacs to play a sound.

I have this:

(add-hook 'org-after-todo-state-change-hook 'my-org-after-todo)
(defun my-org-after-todo ()
(play-sound-file "~/Library/Sounds/InkSoundStroke3.aif"))

But I get this error:

This Emacs binary lacks sound support

Any ideas?

I had the same problem in 2011 and fixed it with a little elisp package which I am now sharing in https://github.com/leoliu/play-sound-osx. Let me know if it works for you since I can't remember using it much :(


partition map check failed because no slices were found I own an early 2011 MacBook Pro running Mac OS X Mavericks. Recently, I tried to make 50 GB partition using Disk Utility but the whole process didn't complete, and I had to restart the system as it hanged (Even Force Quit wasn't working). Upon reboot, I saw that I was missing 50GB space. When I tried to verify the disk, it showed me the following error:

"Partition map check failed because no slices were found."

Can I fix it without using external drive? Please help.

Reboot into Single User Mode (hold cmd-S on boot)

Run /sbin/fsck -fy
fsck is File System Consistency checK. -f forces the process, and -y assumes yes.
This will basically run Disk Utility's Repair Disk, but outside of the OS so that is has full read/write to the disk.

Once complete, reboot


Assigning different ringtone for non-contacts I'm using iOS 9.1 and I want to assign one ringtone for all known contacts and a different one for non-contacts.

I also have another ringtone for a few specific contacts, but in general I want to know if the person who's calling is on my contact list.

How can this be achieved without any jailbreaks or the like ?

I'm also aware that I could just define a ringtone for my entire contacts list. But this is just inconvenient. Every time I add a contact on my Google Account I would have to assign the ringtone on the iPhone.

I have assigned the same ringtone to everyone in my contact list, and it took days. Then I selected a different default ringtone, and I know that when I hear this, the caller is not a contact. But I would suggest adding this feature for iPhone 7, because it's important.


Is signing a pdf file electronically with Preview safe? I would like to sign PDF forms using Preview but I am hesitant that the signature can be copied by the receiving party. Has it been ensured that it cannot be copied? Of course, I realise that it could be printed and scanned, however the more troublesome, the safer it is.

With photo editors being what they are, it would be trivially easy to cut a signature out of a scanned signed document and put it on any other scanned document in a way that would be nigh-impossible to detect as fraudulent.

Yes, PDF editors would probably be able to snip out your signature. This, of all things, should not concern you.


iPhone 4S chip overheating after replacing screen I just bought a used iPhone 4S with cracked screen, and installed a new lcd with gold frame. Just after putting the phone together it starts overheating. I have not installed any apps since recovery (fresh start). It seems as if the chip and the flash memory gets extremely hot. I almost burned myself touching it! The battery drains quickly from 20% to shutdown in a few minutes.

Does anyone know a solution to this?

This seems relevant: https://www.hcqs.com.cn/blog/how-to-fix-iphone-overheating-after-screen-replacement.  It indicates that while replacing the screen one could introduce a short that causes overheating.


How do I add a script to the Service menu? See "How do I automate this repetitive task?" I'm posting here so I can show some screenshots of the work in progress. I'm very new to both StackExchange and also Automator. Don't yet know my way around and am stuck.

I'm told to create it as a Service. I start a new Automator file and choose the "Service" option.

Save and close the file using the name "ConvertTiffForOCR.workflow. I reopen the file and am given the option of installing it in the Services menu. I say yes to the install.

I go to the Finder's Services menu, choose my new script and nothing happens. No error messages.

While bash is cool, doesn't the image manipulation module in Automator accomplish what you are trying to achieve?

Instead of your last stage in the Automator workflow add the Photo Format module twice ( Automator Library>Photos>Change Type Of Images), the only option is target image type, where you'd presumably select jpeg for the first one and then tiff for the second one.

This article in MacObserver explains how to use the module in general.


Alfred extension or equivalent that brings a single window to the forefront Right now, if I want to switch to a Sublime Text 2 window open to a "project" called foo, I can do option+space, type Sub hit enter and then hit cmd+` repeatedly until I arrive at the window I want.

Is there any way to manipulate this in Alfred, or using any other shortcut so that I can simply type the name of an open window to switch to?

I tried writing an AppleScript, but once I got part of the way done, I realized there is no way for me to communicate this list back to Alfred to make a selection:

on alfred_script(q)
    tell application "System Events"
        set procs to processes
        set windowTitles to {}
        repeat with proc in procs
            try
                if exists (window 1 of proc) then
                    repeat with w in windows of proc
                        if w's title is not "" then
                            set titlename to proc's name & " — " & w's title as Unicode text

                            if q is in titlename is not false
                                copy titlename to the end of windowTitles
                            end if
                        end if
                    end repeat
                end if
            end try -- ignore errors
        end repeat
    end tell
    return windowTitles
end alfred_script

If you have the full Alfred version, then you can map hotkeys to application launching and switching.

For example, as you see on the screen I've mapped option-1 for MacVim, option-2 for Chrome, etc.

If the app is not running it will launch it but more importantly if the app is running but not focused, then it will simply switch to that app.

I hope that helps!


MacbookPro bootable Windows USB not visible I have a MacBookPro retina (id MacBookPro10,1 mid 2012) with El Capitan installed and want to create a Windows partition through BootCamp. I already did that some time ago without that much trouble, but had to wipe out the entire harddrive and install both systems from scratch.
This time I did:

By "hacking" BootCamp made it install Windows 7 boot into a USB I have.
Downloaded and copied over BootCamp drivers for windows into this bootable stick.
Disabled FileVault, that prevented external devices (even recovery HD) from being seen on boot.
Turned off System Integrity Protection (had to do that already to make step 1 happen) with csrutil disable in recovery.

The problem I am having now is that the USB is not visible on (hold option key) boot even if it is plugged in and is lighting up. I tried installing reFit, but it also does not see the USB. Not only that, the interesting thing is that this USB is not even visible in reFit partition table you can see in the options.

UPD: another interesting thing, the USB is not visible in startup disk setting inside OSX, this may mean that for some reason even if the USB drive itself is visible, Mac does not recognize it as bootable. Or is it because startup disk is not able to see USBs at all?

How can I troubleshoot this on El Capitan?

I managed to install Windows 8 on the system, and would like to post my findings, since I am sure others will run into the same issues I faced.

The problem reported in this post had to do with the windows iso images themselves, not with Bootcamp or EFI. To make sure your system will even see the USB at all, make sure it has the file /efi/boot/bootx64.efi otherwise Mac will not even see the usb as a bootable device.
To anyone speaking Russian, this link will be very informative on how the entire process works http://geektimes.ru/post/213223/.
If you are installing Windows 8 (I would still like to know if anyone managed to install Windows 7) make sure you do everything through BootCamp, especially partitioning, since the first time I tried editing the partitions manually, I managed to screw up my recovery partition (repaired by downloading and installing El Capitan again without data loss). Not only that, I managed to stop seeing 'could not set up bootable device' errors only when I went through all three steps in Bootcamp on a single session. What I really dislike is that downloading fairly large amount of drivers during step 2 of BootCamp fails if there is a network problem, and I had to restart the entire process a lot of times.
I ran first aid on recovery partition as shown in this post:
Problem Installing Boot Camp Windows Partition on new Mac Pro
but judging from documentation of El Capitan this should not be necessary since the OS should repair write permissions automatically, therefore I am not sure whether the method shown here is necessary any longer. I did not reset my PRAM.
During the last part of Windows installation, the one after you create the user account and wait, the computer froze. However, after hard reset the system started normally and I could make the last step of installing BootCamp drivers from the USB.

To sum it up, make sure the Windows image is x64 and bootable by EFI and make sure to carry out USB creation, driver installation and partitioning of the system by BootCamp only and in a single clean swipe.


Volume too low using hdmi from mac air I tried connecting my Mac-Air to my TV using the HDMI adapter. The volume is very low. Even cranked all the way up, it is still not loud enough watching hulu, netflix etc.

Any suggestions?

Make sure you select the correct HDMI Output in System Preferences | Sound. You are probably still listening to the sound through the mac speakers.

sheepish


Subtitle settings in iTunes content on iOS are wrong I am watching Quantum of Solace on my iPhone 5 (iOS 6.0.1), purchased from iTunes.

I noticed that the subtitles were in Spanish. I thought maybe the setting was wrong, but it was set to "Off". I then tried to switch the setting from "Off" to "US English", and now the subtitles disappeared.

So, "Subtitles: Off" gives me Spanish, "Subtitles: US English" gives me nothing.

Is it possible that the movie itself is messed up? All my other movies seem to be working fine, it's just this one, so I'm thinking it's not my phone.

Edit: A little further into the movie now, and the settings are back to normal. English is English, and Off is Off. But the first few minutes are still screwed up. I'm thinking it's a problem with iTunes.

It's possible that the Spanish subs are hardcoded into the movie (i.e. part of the video track, not a separate track). This is often the case for English language films with small portions of foreign languages. My copy of Quantum of Solace (not from iTunes) has some hardcoded subs for Spanish parts around the 28 minute mark (haven't watched the full movie in some time, there may be others).

I'm not sure that would explain why the English subtitle selection doesn't display anything however.


Are apsd, ntpd, mDNSResponder, trustd, netbiosd necessary for macOS functioning? I'm seeing 5 processes with network activity ( sending/receiving bytes ). I'm not sure whether these are normal occurrences?

List of processes

apsd
ntpd
mDNSResponder
trustd
netbiosd

I researched a few of those and some were associated to file sharing via windows or bonjour, however I don't have any other PCs on my network to even begin sharing files with.

apsd - Used for FaceTime push notifications

ntpd - Used to synchronize clock

mDNSResponder - Part of the Bonjour protocol, used to scan your network for other Bonjour-enabled devices (printers, computers, etc...)

trustd - Used for validating SSL certificates

netbiosd - Used when interacting with Microsoft shared drives

This is all normal activity. However, if you are worried about security, you can disable the services you don't plan on using.

Edit: You might not want to disable ntpd and trustd as they are necessary for basic functionality such as browsing websites.


Is Apple slowing down older iPads too? Is Apple slowing down older iPads too?

Apple said it's slowing down older iPhones which you can disable under battery health, but I think Apple is slowing down iPads too. I watched this  https://youtu.be/Mpq6Ib1IVdA?t=7m49s YouTube video today in which the reviewer said that Apple has slowed down his 2 years old iPad Pro 12.9 inch.

If this is true then how can I find out if Apple has slowed my iPad pro too?

According to Apples Information the iPads should not be affected.

Apple Support Document:

  With a low battery state of charge, a higher chemical age, or colder
  temperatures, users are more likely to experience unexpected
  shutdowns. In extreme cases, shutdowns can occur more frequently,
  thereby rendering the device unreliable or unusable. iOS 10.2.1
  (Released January 2017) includes updates for previous models of iPhone
  to prevent them from unexpectedly shutting down. This includes a
  feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and
  iPhone SE to dynamically manage the instantaneous performance peaks,
  only when needed, to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting
  down. This capability was also extended to iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus
  with iOS 11.2, and we will continue improving our power management
  feature in the future. This feature's only intent is to prevent
  unexpected shutdowns so that the iPhone can still be used.

So the feature (or issue as some see it) is not present on the iPad.
The iPad under the circumstances that the battery can't deliver the necessary power would shut down and not try to throttle performance.


App behavior with spaces and minimized window I would like to change the behavior when I click on an app that's not open on the current space. Right now, it goes to whichever space has that app. Instead, I'd like it to favor the current space, including minimized windows.

example: I have two open Chrome windows. One is minimized on space 1, and the second is open on space 2. The currently active space is 1.

What happens by default: I click the Chrome icon in the dock, and I am switched to space 2 to the open Chrome window there.

What I want to happen: The minimized window on space 1 is restored and made active.

What doesn't work: disabling switching spaces to an app to make it active. If I don't have a minimized window on the current space, then I do want it to switch spaces.
I tried this, it still doesn't restore the minimized windows. It just makes the app active on the current space. Then when I click the app again, it switches spaces, instead of restoring the minimized window. It only seems to restore the window when all the windows are minimized. How frustrating.

Basically I just want to swap the priorities of the two actions: unminimize and switch spaces.

Anyone know how to do this?

I am not sure that this is possible, however you could use ctrl+click on the dock icon or long click anbd use the sub menu system to show windows / switch to windows.


Keeping synced keychains on same Mac Apparently Chrome will never support iCloud keychain and will use the default keychain because Apple only allows access to the former if the app is distributed through the App Store (see https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=312105)

So I was wondering whether there's an app or script that automatically syncs between different local keychains (thereby working around the limitation imposed by Apple.)

Although I don't actually suggest an app to sync the local keychains, I provide you with an alternative solution: you can sync the passwords between the different users in your Mac if you sync Chrome with the same Google account in both users:

Why sign in to Chrome - Chrome Help


How to automount SSHFS volumes with FUSE OS X on Mavericks Iv'e managed to get my ssh volumes mounted with SSHFS via the command line but would really like is to have them auto mount on login. So far, I've set up a launchAgent to run a shell script that contains the commands I would use in the terminal. That contains:

mkdir /Volumes/mysshfsvolume
sshfs blah blah blah

This works via the terminal but when the launchAgent loads, It seems momentarily mount the volumes and then they disappear.

I have seen other older solutions that include editing the /etc/fstab, AppleSrcipt and automator but I am looking for a Mavericks related solution. I have actually found a way around it using ControlPlane but just wondering if anybody has more extensive knowledge of how automount works on Mavericks. TIA.

Just to add some information, I'm not too familiar with the systems that I'm logging into but one is a SUN Solaris and the other is a RHE linux server.

I also tried just adding the script to my login items and it works for the linux connection but not the SUN server.

I have using Homebrew and its sshfs bundle to mount SSH filesystems on my Mavericks Mac for a while now, it has been solid.

So if you run Homebrew go ahead and try the following to install sshfs: brew install sshfs. Then maybe reboot (?) and once you're back sshfs <username>@<hostname/IP>:<remote-path> <local-path>. You will get a password prompt at this point if you're using that kind of authentication. If you're using SSH keys then probably no prompt.

Update: maybe you should modify your bash script to use nohup. it sounds almost like the process dies after it runs your bash script. checkout nohup on wiki or man nohup.


What does a hard link do? This has been mentioned in this question here:
What's the difference between alias and link?

But I am not even sure what I am looking for. I wish to create a hard link of the type where if a program 'uses' it in the specified directory, it will actually use it from the other central location.

Does something like that exist? For example, would I create ln /path/from/file /path/from/file?

The above command does something like it I believe.

Both hard links and symbolic links link a path to a destination, however there is a substantial difference you should be aware of:

Hard links link a path to a file. This means that if you rename/move the destination file, the hard link follows.
Symbolic links link a path to a path. This means if you rename/move the destination file, the link is broken. However, later replacing the file with a different one will make the link work again.

Links of both types are made with the ln tool. Hard links are made without any options, whereas symlinks are made with the -s option.

For more information on constructing the command, see:

How can I create a symbolic link in Terminal?


How to enable display on Dell monitor connected to MacBook Pro when not charging? I've just purchased a Dell P2415Q monitor which I've connected up to my MacBook Pro (running OS X El Capitan). Everything works great in terms of the display, however I've noticed that it goes into power-saving mode (i.e. shuts off the display) as soon as I disconnect my MacBook Pro from its power source.

Given the battery is already charged up I don't want to keep it plugged in as I suspect it will damage the battery life if I keep it that way for a long time (and I do intend to take my MacBook Pro out and about for other uses).

Does anybody know how I can make the display work irrespective of whether my MacBook Pro is connected to it's power source or not?

I am happy to tell you that keeping it charging will not damage your MacBook in any way! There is also a way to do your requested way of streaming data to the monitor. You can use the amazing Apple TV. This is not only for TV's because you can stream to monitors, and your own TV! (which personally is amazing if you have a large flatscreen!) However I am not 100% sure this is compatible with all types of monitors or TV's so i would recommend just keeping it plugged in because like I said earlier that will not damage your computer. I hope this helped! The reason your having this problem is because monitors aren't computers. They don't have wifi, you can't connect them to anything wirelessly. Monitors don't have any form of computational power except for converting computer code to images which still requires being connected to a computer to work.


Mac Pro fan makes constant noise. Why? I have a 2009 octocore Mac Pro. A few weeks ago it started making a constant noise. It sounds like a fan. The computer is not particularly hot. I checked with Temperature Monitor and CPUs/disks/etc. are around 40C. Only the Northbridge chip and sink are at 73C and 65C.

Is there anything obvious that my Mac needs or that might have caused the fan to get so loud?

In this Apple support article, Apple says that resetting the SMC can fix fans that are constantly spinning for no reason.

  After performing normal
  troubleshooting, these symptoms may
  indicate that an SMC reset may be
  necessary:

  Fans The computer's fans run at high speed although the computer is
  not experiencing heavy usage and is
  properly ventilated....

Here's what it says about how to reset the SMC on a Mac Pro:

  Shut down the computer.Unplug the
  computer's power cord. Wait fifteen
  seconds. Attach the computer's power
  cord. Press the power button to turn
  on the computer.


How can I add an Automator application to the Dock? I followed the directions in How to put a custom launcher in the Dock (Mavericks) but my case has a different twist. I have an Automator application which runs a shell script that (1) changes the stack size with ulimit and (2) runs an application. I would like to add this to the Dock. I can run it from the Launchpad and everything works correctly. It shows up in my Dock, but only as the application, not the Automator version. As a result, if I right click and enable 'Keep in Dock', then close and run again, the stack limit change of (1) is ignored. How do I put an icon in the Dock which runs the Automator application and not just the application?

Just drag and drop the app_name.app bundle created in Automator onto the Dock where you want it.


Can I force external microphone detection after mic is plugged in Background: I use a Henge Dock for my MBPr with a headset for things like Skype. Because the Henge Dock uses an extension cable to make the audio 'Combination Output' (TRRS) port accessible, the microphone is only detected if it's plugged into the extension BEFORE the MacBook is docked. This is a very common issue and well documented.

Problem / Question: I leave my MacBook docked most of the time, but I use my headset on multiple devices each day. This means that to get the headset mic to work each time, I either have to un-dock/dock, or restart... not ideal! I would like a way of toggling the headset detection. It must be a software related function that can probably be accessed through a script.

Any ideas? Thanks!

I've been struggling with the same issue as you and I've come up with two solutions.

Dedicated headset that stays connected to the system (not really an option for you).
Connecting my headset and briefly putting the system to sleep via the Apple menu. I literally wait for the screen of my Thunderbolt display to turn off and immediately wake it back up. If you require a password to wake the system and have it set to immediate, changing it to 5 seconds allows you to immediately sleep/wake the system without having the reenter your password.

That's the best I've come up with so far. For what it's worth I think the issue we're seeing is how headphone jacks work at an electrical level and how the system itself handles enabling and disabling the port when a cable is detected. My understanding is that headphones work on a closed loop system so when we disconnect the mic from the extension we're breaking that loop and the only way to fix it is by having the port disabled and reenabled (and only the system can do that when it detects there's no cable inserted).


Connecting MacBook Pro to multiple monitors, one in portrait (vertical) mode I‘ve got a 2015 13“ MacBook Pro and want to connect 2 external monitors. One LG ultrawide (resolution 2160x1080) and a Full HD Monitor rotated to be vertically upright (resolution would be 1080x1920).

My question is: will the Mac render a 1080x1920 image if I select resolution: 1920x1080 and set the rotation to 90 degrees?

Yes, simply go into System Preferences->Display.  A new window will pop up on your primary monitors, as well as your external monitors.  The external monitors should have a "Rotation" drop down menu, in which you can select "Standard", "90º", "180º", and "720º".  If you select "90º" and hit "Scaled" under the resolution option, you'll see that the standard width and height are all swapped, and that 1080x1920 will be the default option (but you shouldn't have to set it to scaled. Default for Display is probably the best option).


How do I regain all unallocated disk space to add it to macOS after removing Linux partitions? I originally came across this post with a possible answer but, I do not understand how to go about the process, especially when 2 drives are both not showing there full size. This originally happened when I had Ubuntu Gnome installed alongside OS X (one drive (SSD)).
  I have dedicated the SSD to my OSes and the other HDD to my home folders.

When I attempted to delete the Linux partitons (one on each drive) they are now completely gone out of sight. I am unable to regain that space to add it to my system and home partiton on the drives.

Both are 500 GB drives but only 250 GB are used. I have a mid 2012 MacPro

(Incase your wondering how I have 2 drives in this mac I replaced my optical drive with a hard drive caddy)

When trying to read the gtp/pmbr scheme this is what it spits out
disk0 is osx disk1 is home.

  zackerys-MacBook-Pro:~ gefiltefish1478$ sudo gpt show disk1
Password:
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  488050672      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  488460312       2024
  488462336     260096      3  GPT part - 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
  488722432  487790592
  976513024     260096      4  GPT part - 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
  976773120         15
  976773135         32         Sec GPT table
  976773167          1         Sec GPT header
zackerys-MacBook-Pro:~ gefiltefish1478$ sudo gpt show disk0
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640   499902768      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   500312408     1269536      3  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
   501581944   498372488
   999954432      260096      4  GPT part - 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
  1000214528         655
  1000215183          32         Sec GPT table
  1000215215           1         Sec GPT header

This is the output when I run df.

df
Filesystem                       512-blocks      Used Available Capacity iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                      499902768 130185800 369204968    27% 1249077 4293718202    0%   /
devfs                                   375       375         0   100%     651          0  100%   /dev
/dev/disk1s2                      488050672 465813600  22237072    96%   89020 4294878259    0%   /Volumes/HOME
map -hosts                                0         0         0   100%       0          0  100%   /net
map auto_home                             0         0         0   100%       0          0  100%   /home
localhost:/KJdZJAu-3rlfljye4LGYtx 499902768 499902768         0   100%       0          0  100%   /Volumes/MobileBackups
/dev/disk1s1                         403266        15    403251     1%       0          0  100%   /private/var/tmp/MP4XJX8Y

I'm extremely wary about rewriting any GPT without someone else's input.
Needing help; I know @klanomath was able to fix this issue hopefully he can have some input on my situation.  Possibly someone can make a bash command line to automate the process for other users who may encounter the issue.

Possible future GitHub project if I figure out how to do this on my own.

Your disk contains some blocking Linux swap partitions: disk1s3, disk1s4 and disk0s4 (all partitions with the type 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F). Additionally your probable Recovery HD disk0s3 has the wrong type: it should be 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC.

Depending on your Mac model either use Internet Recovery Mode or a bootable OS X installer thumb drive to "repair" your disks.

Since your user folder resides on a different partition create a safety net admin user first on your boot disk. Log-in as second admin user to be sure that the account works independently from your main admin user.

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode (or the thumb drive)
Open Terminal in the menubar > Utilities
Enter diskutil list to get an overview.
Use the disk identifiers of your SSD and the HDD (e.g disk0 and disk1) enter gpt -r show disk$.

Below I assume disk0 is your system disk and disk1 is your HOME disk.
Unmount both disks with diskutil umountDisk disk0and  diskutil umountDisk disk1.
remove the two swap partitions on disk1:

gpt remove -i 3 disk1
diskutil umountDisk disk1
gpt remove -i 4 disk1

remove the Recovery HD and the swap partitions on disk1:

gpt remove -i 3 disk0
diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt remove -i 4 disk0
diskutil umountDisk disk0

re-add the Recovery HD with the proper type:

gpt add -i 3 -b 500312408 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

resize both main volumes with:

diskutil resizeVolume /dev/disk0s2 100%
diskutil resizeVolume /dev/disk1s2 100%

Verify both volumes with diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2 and  diskutil verifyVolume disk1s2. If necessary repair the volumes.
Reboot


How do I erase old user and become the new user on a iBook G4 I just got from a friend? My friend gave me his iBook G4.

I could not login because I did not know his password.

I have the 2 DVD Mac OS Install disks of the laptop.

After I installed these OS X Install discs, once again I was asked for the old user's password.

How do I do a complete wipe out and then reinstall the OS so I can become the new user?

Dont hit 'continue' after putting in the Install OS disk, instead go to top-left screen where there is a menu with an option to change login password.


Is it possible to change the font and button size of the format bar in numbers '09 I need to increase the size of buttons and front on the format bar in numbers '9

Depending on your hardware, you can change the Display preference to alter the resolution which indirectly controls how large the graphical elements on screen are drawn. This doesn't target just the numbers format bar, but affects all text and elements on the screen.

With a retina Mac, you have more control over this with the text and items being drawn with retina precision, yet the overall scaling of the graphical elements can be made larger or smaller to your liking. This is basically an implementation of resolution independence for those hardware displays.

If you need to target just the format bar, you can only choose to display or not display text and choose the default or the smaller icons using this control in the preferences for the toolbar.


Detect if user hits Stop I have a program where the user may hit Stop and stop the program while running at any given time.

I'm looking for a way to detect if the user hits the Stop button in Script Editor (producing the -128 "User canceled" error), so I can do a little cleanup before the program closes.

Is there a way to do this?

You can use a try block like this:

repeat -- your loop
    try
        --
        -- your code in the loop
        --
    on error err number n
        if n = -128 then -- User canceled
            --
            -- code to  cleanup before the program closes
            --
            return -- exit this script
        end if
    end try
end repeat


Where do Safari or Chrome store the flash media data Where do Safari and Chrome store the flash media files? For example, I use Safari/Chrome to listen Pandora during work time, and all my work is done through ssh to other computers. However, in such scenario, my time machine still needs to backup several hundred MB data for every hour.

Btw, I've already exclude ~/Library/Caches directory from Time Machine.

Poke around in the invisible folders /private/var/folders.


Hide Dropbox icons from the Finder menu is it possible to remove Dropbox's icons from the Finder context menu ?

I just want to be able to see the text and not the icons. I can't find anywhere in the settings to do this. Any other possible ways?

If you go into the dropbox settings there is an option to enable finder integration(the third checkbox from the top). Just uncheck it, no restart needed. I haven't checked it by myself, but you could give it a try.


What is a reasonable workflow to copy Android photos to Photos? My workflow from an SLR and a small camera is simple. Once a month, I take the SD card out, insert it in my Macbook, and Photos can (usually) correctly detect the new photos. I copy them to the Macbook, back up to Time Machine. Once every three or so months, I wipe out the SD card.

It's seamless enough.

I am having trouble finding a reasonable workflow for my Android phone. The photos are synced with both Google Drive and with Dropbox. I'd like a workflow that uses either of the two, ideally one that wipes out my cloud-based photos as well as my Android-based photos, and detects and copies the new photos only.

Can you suggest such a workflow?

Update

In theory I could 1. copy the file from Google Drive to my Macbook and 2. then figure out how to convince Photos to copy the new pictures from a folder rather than from an SD card.

The first step can in theory be done by selecting the photos since my last copy (to be figured manually), then select the download option from the context menu.

Unfortunately this complains that

"zip failed: no files to include"

It's simpler and faster if one uses neither Dropbox nor Google Drive.

Photos \ File \ Import does it. The catch is that when you connect your Android phone to your Mac(Book), Android's filesystem will not be mounted.

The solution is to first use Android File Transfer to copy the directory DCIM \ Camera to the Mac. Then you can import it.


iTunes Match wont match a song in the store that i already own, recorded from vinyl I have a rather large vinyl collection, some of which i have recorded to mp3 and added to my iTunes collection over the years.

I have noticed that some of them are not being matched, and i am wondering what the cause is.  I have updated the track and album info, but it still doesnt match.

For example...

In my collection (notice it says uploaded, not matched) -

and in the store -

It located and downloaded the artwork, yet it still wont match.

I understand from reading this question that it uses gracenote for matching, which may read parts of the waveform.  Surely the waveform of my vinyl recording is the same, regardless of gain level?

One thing i have noticed is that my recording is 16 seconds longer - maybe this could be the issue?

Surely the waveform of my vinyl recording is the same, regardless of gain level?

Unfortunately it does not appear to be that simple. Many factors can affect the quality of a digitised vinyl recording such that it will not match the digital fingerprint Gracenote is comparing against.

There is an interesting discussion on Apple Support Communities with suggestions on how to improve the digitised vinyl version so that it better matches such comparison services where possible:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3507807


How to recover older iTunes backups for iPhone? I have an iPhone 5. I made a backup copy last week with my iTunes. I discovered that I had erased some notes so I wanted to restore the backup from iTunes. When I plugged the phone to the PC, iTunes asked me to update the iOS software in order to proceed with the restore process. I did the update but also a new backup over the old one was made.

When I look for the backups available to restore it only shows the one from yesterday but not the one from last week. Is it possible to recover older backups from iTunes even if they have been overwritten by the latest backups?

iTunes uses an incremental process to save the iPhone backup, If you're lucky enough you can check the directory %AppData%\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup (Windows 7) to see if your old backup is there (check the dates on the files). If you find any, you can move the newest one to another location and try another restore from iTunes.


Trim first 6 characters from Folder Names [AppleScript] I've found an AppleScript online which trims the first characters from a FILENAME, however, it does not seem to work on FOLDERS.

How could this be modified to rename folder names?

set whichFile to choose file with multiple selections allowed
repeat with aFile in whichFile
    tell application "Finder"
        set filename to name of aFile
        set name of aFile to ((characters 7 thru -1 of filename) as string)
    end tell
end repeat

Thank You!

It's easy to trim the first six characters using Namechanger.

I apologize if you specifically need to use AppleScript, but Namechanger is a useful app for renaming files & folders. It has treated me well.

I hope this helps!


If a buy a mac from another retailer, do I get the same warranty that I would get from Apple? On this page, it shows that without the Apple Care package, you get 1 year limited warranty, and 90 days of complimentary telephone technical support on a mac.

If I buy the mac from another retailer (e.g. Amazon), would I still get these same benefits?

You'll get the same warranty from an authorized Apple retailer as you would from Apple directly. I don't know how prevalent it is today, but for a while you could buy refurbished Macs from non-authorized retailers and you ended up with little or no warranty. (Note that Apple sometimes sells refurbished machines that do have full warranties; the warranty's existence is dependent upon the authorization status of the retailer.)

Apple provides a way to determine which retailers are authorized on the Solution Professionals portion of their website. Be sure to check that list before making a purchase.


Cleaning iTunes Artwork Cache, Please Wait I pressed some keys accidentally on my Mac and then this showed up. No idea what this is. It also doesn't disappear after it finished cleaning the cache.

I have macOS 10.14.6 Mojave.

It is a shortcut from Alfred 3 I was using by accident. It is used for playing music from iTunes.

I also couldn't use Alfred anymore, so I just killed the Alfred process and started it again.


How to create several partitions on an external hard, recognizable by both windows and mac? I have an external hard drive, which already has a bootable partition for a Snow Leopard installation disk, and a bootable partition for Mavericks, both created with Mac OS X and working fine in Windows and Mac.

I want to create one NTFS partition and one FAT32 partition on this external hard as well but cannot.

If I create it in GUID, for the sum of sizes of FAT32 and NTFS partition I get one unallocated partition in Windows. If I do it in Windows, it shows on the Mac but the content are not there.

Inspecting the hard in a partitioning tool in Windows shows that there is a 200MB hidden partition on the hard drive as well (type: primary), so I guess the problem is with the maximum 4 primary partitions limitation of MBR.

Any suggestions?

It might be difficult to re-partition your disk from outside the Mavericks boot without destroying it. So I would use the Mavericks' Disk Utility to do this. And make sure you have everything backup because this looks like a difficult task.

This 200Mb partition you're seeing is probably the EFI boot partition, Mac OS X needs it to boot. Since you're booting Mac OS X, you cannot use a MBR partition scheme, I doubt Disk Utility will even let you change it. You'll have to stay in GUID

In Disk Utility, you can create as many partitions as you want, except for NTFS partitions which are not natively supported by Mac OS X (you can read, but not write). You can create FAT32 or exFAT, which have the advantage of being readable and writable by windows, mac and linux. FAT32 technically has a limit of 2TB partition, but I've managed to make it work on one of my hard-drive anyway.
You can read up on different filesystems on here.

Any reasons you're keeping the Snow Leopard installation disk? That sounds like more trouble and wasted hard-drive space, unless you actively need it.


Reset iPhone and can’t get it to unlock So for christmas one year my younger sister got an iPhone 5s. But currently she had to replace the battery and she had to reset her iPhone to do so.
She doesn't remember who set up all her iCloud and Apple ID information, so now we are stuck with a reset iPhone on the activation lock page. Someone please tell me how to fix this or if it even is fixable.

You can try to recover your Apple ID here . It’s the only one legal way.


How to limit the traffic generated by mDNSResponder? Using the activity monitor, I can observe that mDNSResponder has sent, after a while, 595 KB and received 313.8 MB.

Some details about my network topology: I connect with WiFi to an Android phone and a Windows 8 computer was on the same local network.  I’d like to know if an any situation this would use tethering data which can be costly in some countries per MB sent/received.

I know that mDNSResponder is a legitimate macOS process.

My question is how can I limit the traffic generated by mDNSResponder in order to avoid it running up a data bill.

Is this possible?

Despite its name, mDNSResponder handles both local multicast DNS ("mDNS", which will not be adding to your cell bill), and regular unicast DNS (which is not generally local, and will be adding to your cell bill). The figures in Activity Monitor don't distinguish between the two. My guess is that most of the traffic is local (mDNS is a bit chatty), but you'd have to run some tests to be sure.

There is a way to cut down on actual DNS traffic: a lot of the DNS lookups your computer is doing are probably from web ads, and some forms of ad blocking will prevent those lookups. Unfortunately, I haven't looked at this in a while, and don't know which types of blockers work early enough to prevent the DNS lookup. Essentially, there are three levels at which a blocker can work:

Detect and block ad content very early, and block fetching the ad content before the DNS lookup is done (leading to minimal network traffic).
Detect and block ad content after the lookup is done, but before the ad content is fetched (leading to slightly more network traffic).
Detect and block ad content after it is fetched (leading to full network traffic, ads just aren't displayed).

One ad-blocking method that's guaranteed to work at the first level is installing an alternate /etc/hosts file with faked entries for known advertising server domains. There are a variety of these available, for instance at Steven Black's github (which has a bunch of them with different groups of servers, also has scripts for building your own). If you want to do this, there are installation instructions here, although I'll add one step: make a backup copy of the original /etc/hosts file first!


Applescript-how can I expand a list view window's contents so everything shows hierarchically and expanded Given a root directory upon selection, I need to traverse the directory and all other subdirectories, expanding all subfolders, so that everything shows hierarchically in the finder's list view.

This answer select-all-non-folders-in-an-expanded-list-view-window acts to select all items in an expanded view.

I need to expand all subfolders, until all subfolders from the root directory have been expanded, showing the contents of the root folder and all subfolders hierarchically.

You can expand all sub-directories with an alt-click on the arrow left of your directory.


Slow Transfer Between External Drives I have two external USB drives connected to my 2012 Mac mini, and am finding transfer speeds between the two to be really slow. I need to transfer 38GB of stuff. With rsync, I was getting ~60MBps. Canceled that and moved to Finder and am getting an estimate of ~9 hours to complete the operation.
I did restart the Mac mini hoping it would improve things, but no change. Thoughts on how to improve this?

A method I use to move large numbers of files is the Terminal mv or cp commands. The first command actually moves directories/files from one location to the other, the other just copies the directories/files. This is much quicker than Finder, which adds a tremendous amount of overhead to the process.
Secondly I strongly suggest you go to System Preferences > Spotlight, and add both external drives into the Privacy pane. This stops Spotlight from indexing the files. The drives can be removed from the pane when you're done if you want these drives indexed.


Bootable usb won't install windows 7 I have MacBook 4,1 early 2008 and i've made usb bootable (in bootcamp created with iso) and once i reboot, i get "No bootable device -- insert boot disk". After some search, i installed "rEFIt", and when i reboot, and selected my usb, i get the same message. I found answers that says i need disk, not the usb, but i belive there is a way to install windows from usb. Currently i'm running windows 7 on virtualbox and it's very slow because i have 2gb of ram.

You will not be able to install Windows 7 on a 2008 Mac by using a USB flash drive containing files from the ISO.

The solution would be to burn the ISO file to a DVD, then install using the DVD.

If you do not have a working optical (DVD) drive, the you can use the solution given here.


I want to update my iPhone 5s from iOS 9 to iOS 10, not iOS 11. Is it possible? My iphone currently runs on ios 9.2. I want to update it to ios 10 so that I can use an app I need for school. I dont want to update to ios 11 yet though. Is it possible to update to an earlier version of ios or do i just have to update to ios 11? Thank you!

No, this is no longer possible. While you may have previously downloaded iOS 10, or may be able to download it through other online sources, installing it is no longer possible as Apple has stopped signing installations of iOS 10.

Typically, when a new version of iOS launches, the window for installing the previous version of iOS is about two weeks.


USB Mouse Jerky Tracking - Software Issue? I have two Logitech MX510 mice, and two macs - an iMac and MBP. Recently, the former has started responding to mouse input jerkily and without any precision - to the point that it is almost unusable. Switching out the mouse, rebooting, etc make no difference.

Similarly, both mice function fine over a long period of time attached to the MBP. The only change I have made to the iMac (2012 gen, OSX10.8) is to install Crashplan - but I did this on the other computer too and that made no difference.

Is there anything I can do to flush out the settings for the mouse, and so return it to usability? The problem does not occur with the wireless magic mouse, or the wireless trackpad.

Thanks!§

Could you have different mouse drivers on the iMac than the MBP?

Try to install the drivers from Logitech, or remove them completely, see if that makes a difference. You can also install a 3rd party driver like USB Overdrive.


I bought my Macbook Pro 15" 2016 and restored the Time Machine back-up of the MacBook 12" 2016 everything seems messed up iCloud notes are not syncing and something removed notes/folders reappear and every time I log out of iCloud with the MacBook Pro it forces me to change my iCloud password when I log back in.

Now my iPhone and icloud.com are not syncing anymore either most of the time, sometimes it still works.

Some screenshots, although this has improved. I think the Rocketchat-thing might be Rocketchat's fault, but not sure:

Everything worked perfectly on the MacBook 12" 2016 and the iPhone though. I was very happy, except it wasn't well suited for BYOB and high cpu requirements.

PS: I have no recovery partition either. Not sure that is important, but means I can't use "Find my Mac". The MacBook was sold to me as refurbished at a very reliable retailer. I don't think it's a hardware issue, I did the NVM and SMC reset. Even created a new "test" new administrator user account, that made notes sync well, until my iPhone got involved.

Since you have a backup, why not boot to Internet Recovery and reinstall a brand new OS and test things. If there is something wrong with the hardware, you surely can get a feeling of that with a clean install.

The reliable retailer would likely help you if you can show that a clean install causes issues. If the system is stable, you could run Migration Assistant to move things over more slowly than just restoring all the programs and user data. First do one, then the other to see if there was a problem with the migration or just a bad migration.


How to "type to search" in current folder Prior to owning Mac, I used Ubuntu with Nautilus (the default file-browser). With Nautilus, you could simply start typing something, and it would select the folder / file matching the characters you typed.

I'm a programmer who simply just needs to quickly navigate folders so you might understand why I would prefer this over the normal finder search which is slow, searches file contents, and the entire contents of your disc.

Is there a simple equivalent of this type-to-select functionality for finder?

Yes, if you start typing, it'll select files/folders with what you type. The only difference between this functionality and Ubuntu's is that OS X's equivalent of this feature doesn't show what you're typing.


Macbook Pro CPU throttling I'm new user of a brand new 15" Mid 2015 MacBook Pro (i7 processor), which I got about a month ago. I've been having problems with performance.

Every time I try to do anything more CPU consuming than browsing the internet (for example opening a project in IntelliJ or compiling a Java project), my Mac becomes extremely slow.

I noticed that CPU is working on 800 MHz frequency but CPU temperature is low. Fans stay quiet all the time (~2000 rpms). When I need power from my CPU it slows down, but I don't think it should.

I also tried live USB Ubuntu and I simulated some load and the result was the same, you can see it on the screen.

I also tried SMC reset but no result. Does it look like hardware failure?

Example of Activity monitor processes listing while throttling below. After longer build Idle is almost 0%, temperature is okay, frequency is 800MHz. Process kernel_task is sometimes using much more CPU

In my case opening MacBook and cleaning it from dust helped reduce throttling from 800Mhz to 1600MHz which is still not advertised speed , but at least twice as better :) Also I've noticed that in my case such throttling occured only with external monitor and external GPU. You can use gfxCardStatus to monitor which GPU and which processes require external GPU.


Safe way to get "rm dir -rf" working (place options after dir name like on linux) I don't know how many times I've done it. I'll type in rm dir and then have to move the cursor back and add in -rf to the command. Probably 10,000.

In linux, I can just add the options in after the dir name.

Is there any good bash magic that will let this safely happen? Here is a non-functional prototype of a simple bash rm function that I think would do the trick:

function rm() {
  if $2 eq "-rf" then run "builtin rm $2 $1"
}

But before I reinvent the wheel, I wanted to see if there were other options I'm missing. Thanks.

You can install the GNU version of rm with brew install coreutils. It will install into /usr/local/bin/grm to avoid conflicts with the standard version. But you can easily overcome this by aliasing it to rm for interactive shells.


Any Hard drive Mirroring or Software Raid or Sync tools on the Mac that are free? I am trying to mirror a hard drive that is 3TB on the PC using SyncToy from Microsoft's PowerToys  (as a backup method).  But Mac is usually better for indexing and content searching, but is there either something similar to SyncToy on the Mac, or any Software RAID or Sync tools on the Mac that are free?

I don't want to use a hardware RAID drive because (1) it is expensive and (2) if the RAID controller becomes bad, then I can't access either drive (unless if I remove the case and somehow connect the drive by itself, I think?  -- which is not as simple as two independent hard drives, because then if one drive fails, there is still another fully working drive right there to be used immediately)  thanks.

The Apple provided Disk Utility (and diskutil shell command) will allow you full RAID control over internal and external drives. You do have to erase the drives to add the RAID capability, but then you can join those drives into RAID. That is the only potential drawback to implementing RAID storage on the Mac.

Drive spanning, JBOD, striping and mirroring are all possible with Mac OS X software RAID.

Lion brings the concept of physical and logical volumes to the OS, but RAID on Snow Leopard is also very fully functional.

If you brake a mirrored RAID set - the drives are valid when connected to the same mac and portable to any other mac. You are not locked into a proprietary standard and don't need any additional software for any of this functionality.

rsync and ditto are free sync tools - very scriptable, powerful, and free.


How to stop messages appearing on phone but still on laptop So, I have a Macbook Air and I use it to talk to people through iMessage, but the messages appear on my iPhone 5c as well. How can I stop the messages coming through my iPhone temporarily but they can still go through my Macbook Air...
Is this possible...
Macbook Air, yes - iPhone, no please

thank you kindly :)

In case you do not want to see notifications for iMessage, go to Settings > Notification Center and move Messages app to Not in notification center. Also disable Banners or Alerts for it, and set it to None.

Now Messages will not be showing on iPhone, but you will have a notification sound and unread number showing as Badge app icon.
In case you dont want to be disturbed by a sound, temporary disable sound also.

PS. This will not showup normal SMS messages also, but you will get sound notification and badge.

Very fast temporary solution, is to enable Do not disturb mode on iPhone.
Settings > Do not disturb.
This will allow calls (if you set so), but disable all notifications until swithed off again.


Forget WiFi network without admin credentials Is there a way to forget a WiFi network on MacOS without knowing the admin credentials?

From within macOS, no you can't.

If you don't unlock System Preferences you can't add or delete a Wi-Fi access point.

As you can see you can't select a Preferred Network and the +/- is locked.

Neither can you do it from command line.

You can add a network with sudo networksetup -addpreferredwirelessnetworkatindex  en0 whateverNetwork 0 WPA2 whateverPassword but if you try to delete it without sudo - for example with networksetup -removepreferredwirelessnetwork en0 whateverNetwork then it will prompt you.

The reason is that the files updated are these - they are owned by root and can not be modified by a non-admin user.  :

A1398% ls -la /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/*preferences*
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   9323 Jan 15 15:42 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   6891 Dec 27 13:35 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root  admin   6891 Jan 15 15:42 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist.old

Also note as an aside that the data that is changed when you add/remove a preferred network is encrypted.

For example com.apple.airport.preferences.plist was updated with wifi.ssid.77686174657665724e6574776f726b when adding and removing access point called whateverNetwork.

This means that if you booted from external OS to edit these files you would have to guess which keys to delete although in my limited testing they do appear to be in the same order as shown in System Preferences.


Mavericks Hot Corners does not work I have set up a hot corner for my screensaver on system preferences but it does not activate when i move my cursor to the appropriate corner of the screen.

Usually this is a temporary glitch that a restart fixes. If you have this failing after that - you can test a new user account.

If that works, then your preference file needs to be cleared. See this post for details: Hot Corners for Mission Control stop working


Set up FTP server on macOS High Sierra (ProFTPD) I want to set up an FTP server on macOS High Sierra. (FTP is removed from macOS High Sierra, unlike previous versions.)

Since I have to use the other application connecting to the FTP server (my Mac), I cannot replace FTP with other protocols.

I know a way to connect to the FTP server. However, I cannot find the way to run my Mac as an FTP server, not FTP client.

I follow this page to use ProFTPD, but I failed to run the FTP server.

How can I set up the FTP server on macOS High Sierra?

I have used pure-ftpd instead of ProFTPD. It is simpler.

After I installed pure-ftpd using brew,

brew install pure-ftpd

I configured the FTP (username-password) setting referring to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pure-FTPd

And then start FTP server.

brew services start pure-ftpd


How to backup bookmarks on Safari Before reinstalling OS X, I want to know is it possible to use native capabilities to backup my bookmarks using iCloud, without install some plugins like a Xmarks?  I know manual way to export bookmarks via Safari menu, but this is inconvenient.

If you enabled iCloud for Safari in the iCloud settings, your bookmarks are already stored in the Cloud.


Run TeamViewer on demand, instead of at startup I installed TeamViewer Host (v. 10.0) for making remote connections back to my Mac. It loads on start up automatically, and there doesn’t seem to be a preference to disable that behavior*. TeamViewer also does not appear in the “Login Items” system preference pane. I only need TeamViewer periodically, so for performance and security, I’d rather run it manually.

I see three related processes in Activity Monitor: TeamViewer Host, TeamViewer_Desktop, and TeamViewer_Service. I don’t just want to stop the UI / menu item from showing on startup, I want to stop all of these from loading.

How can I disable them from running at login, and then how should I run them when I want them?

* The “Show Computers & Contacts on startup” preference under Advanced isn’t it.

It is in Preferences in V 10.0.43320 which I downloaded and installed yesterday.

Go to Preferences > General and there untick 'Start TeamViewer with System'.


Can the spacing of menu bar apps be modified in Big Sur? It's much too wide, which is a problem if you use a lot of menu bar apps.

Actually, there appears to be some way to do this, since the newest version of Bartender allows you to change or remove spacing in the menu bar. The app is free in beta (and, accordingly, still has a few wrinkles still to be ironed out) and will cost $15 once the final version is released.
To change the spacing with Bartender, install the app, open the preferences window, and under "General" change "Menu bar item spacing" to "Small Spacing." After logging out and back in (or, if that doesn’t work, rebooting), the changes should take effect.