Can I revert back to my macOS boot partition after creating dual-boot ubuntu partition Mac mini, 500GB, OSX.  I was halfway through making a dual boot Ubuntu system and quit before finishing.  It left my 500GB with one un-modifiable partition labeled "Linux Swap", and also a smaller Mac OSX Base System .

Can I undo whatever I did, and just get back to normal OSX disk and boot stuff?

Your question is a bit sparse with respect to how you created the Ubuntu installer and the current state of your drive.

Most users attempt to remove linux partitions using either the Disk Utility application or the diskutil command. Often this results in failure.

  Actually the result may be 100% failure, but I can not know that because those who succeed are not apt to post a question here at Ask Different.

An alternative would be to boot to a Live version of Ubuntu and use an application or command to remove the linux partitions. I usually use the command gdisk. Once the linux partitions are removed, the free space can be added back to the macOS partition. For example, if you are using APFS, then the usually command is shown below.

sudo diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0


Restore new iPhone from jailbreak backup In iTunes I have backups of my current jailbroken iPhone (iOS 7).

Can I setup new iPhone (from store, iOS 8, not jailbroken) from this backup?
I don't care about Cydia and Cydia apps.

Yes, but a backup of a jailbroken device will restore all jailbreak data such as preference files and other data which will take up storage space on the device.


Troubleshooting `InternalPreventSleep` My MBPr has been draining itself frequently overnight if not plugged in. I noticed today when I had the lid open, it would unlock itself with my Apple Watch - no input from me. I looked in Console and saw suspect InternalPreventSleep messages by searching for "Wake". This seems to be a log of when it happens. Are there any techniques to figure out what is causing this process to kick in?

As for the Wake up

Check your Bluetooth settings for Wake

also for the WiFi wake

both in your system preferences

then run the pmset -g cap in Terminal to see what is going on

followed by

You can inspect current settings using

pmset -g

Finally run log show --style syslog | fgrep "Wake reason"
to see specifically who woke it up.
let it finish loading last 4 weeks

Then do a simple test..
under Apple logo Select

  Sleep

, and wait 30 seconds to see if it wakes up.


Trying to increase the size of my hard drive, Error: -69771: The target disk is too small for this operation My MacBook keeps telling me I have to quit applications because there is not enough free memory.
I went into diskutil and this is how my hard drive(s) are broken down.

Can anyone help?
I also tried opening Terminal and using the following script
sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

But I got the following error message:

Error: -69519: The target disk is too small for this operation, or a gap is required in your partition map which is missing or too small, which is often caused by an attempt to grow a partition beyond the beginning of another partition or beyond the end of partition map usable space

I have to quit applications because there is not enough free memory

Free memory is not hard disk space, but rather RAM. You can resolve this by quitting apps that are using lots of memory. You can find which processes are using memory in Activity Monitor.

If you're still interested in making more disk space for other reasons…

a gap is required in your partition map which is missing or too small

This is the actual error. diskutil list shows an APFS container disk0s2 of 70 GB, and a HFS partition disk0s3 of 180 GB.
70 GB + 180 GB = 250 GB, which is the total size of your disk — there's no free space gap to resize your container into, it's as big as it can be.
You can remove your HFS partition disk0s3 (back up your data first), then expand your APFS container into the gap created by that operation.


How to delete protected folder? I'm using external NTFS HDD via Tuxera-NTFS.Suddenly some of my folders turn to be protected (I don't now how it has happen):

I'm trying to delete such folders but still without any luck.
I've tried to uncheck 'Protected' checkbox in folder properties pane, I've tried rebooting, I'm always logged as admin but still can't delete those folders.

Any ideas?

UPDATE 'rm -rf' says 'Operation not permitted'

Have you tried the hints in the article, posted in this answer? Otherwise, as NTFS-support is experimental on OSX, I'd delete then from a Windows machine.


How do I get to my Keynote 6.5 themes folder? I've created a theme using File > Save Theme and would now like to share it with others. Where in the world is it though? It's visible in the File > Change Theme area but I can't find the source folder.

Googling gives me reference to /Library/Application Support/Keynote/Themes or ~/Library/Application Support/iWork/Keynote/Themes/, both of which aren't right for Keynote 6.5.

I found the lack of answers on Google surprising, so I had to stumble around until I found it.

Themes are located in:

/Users/username/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Keynote/Data/Library/Application Support/User Templates/

If you're not as familiar with the command line, you can open up Terminal and simply run this to get all your themes copied to your Desktop:

cp /Users/$USER/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWork.Keynote/Data/Library/Application\ Support/User\ Templates/* ~/Desktop

Which says "copy all contents of the current users's Theme folder to that user's desktop."


How do I reset Storage App's Index? I deleted some games I played to free up hard drive space on my Mac and the Storage utility is still reporting the game taking up space even though I deleted it the other day (restarts don't help either).

I tried various guides to delete the index and it doesn't seem to affect the app index (only the files like Documents).

One guide I followed is: https://www.cnet.com/news/what-to-do-when-about-this-mac-lies-to-you/

This is what my storage app looks like:

The list of available applications on the system is cached by LaunchServices. You can reset LaunchServices by running the following, which will take some time.

/System/Library/\
Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/\
Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister \
  -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user


iPhone 6 stolen iCloud accessed My daughter's phone was stolen. We reported it stolen to the police and the carrier. We told the carrier to discontinue the service to the phone. Then we received an email informing us that our iCloud had been accessed. What info can a hacker get from  her iCloud?

Depending on the configuration, an attacker with access to iCloud may get:

Contacts.
Calendar.
Notes
Safari bookmarks, navigation history, reading list.
Reminders
Passbook contents.
Location of other Apple devices associated with the same account, with Find my iPhone on.
Photos taken with any Apple device associated to the same iCloud account, or shared with that account (if iCloud Photo Sharing or iCloud Photo Library was on).
Access to any document stored on iCloud (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, others).
A full backup of any iOS device stored on iCloud (including all information on any app installed up to the last backup made).

Change your password immediately if you haven't done so yet.

Having your iOS device stolen and having your iCloud credentials compromised are two unrelated events, unless you happen to have your device unlocked, without password or pin, and have your iCloud password written in plain text somewhere inside of it.


How can I diagnose my MacBook Pro Start-up problem? I have a MacBook Pro 8,1 (Early 2011) / 8GB (2x4GB RAM) /256 SSD  and was running El Captain. One morning I couldn't boot it up.

After doing the Apple Hardware Test which showed faulty RAM I put back my old 4GB (2x2GB) RAM sticks, retested and had no errors. I had all my data on an external drive so I did a complete restore back to Lion 10.7.5. After installing the system, the Spinning wheel of death appears very frequently, but I put that down the indexing which had a remaining time of 5 days. After rebooting the system once, I couldn't boot it again.

I have done the hardware test multiple times since then and everything checks out fine. I have installed Lion twice since then also, but if I do a restart it never boots further than the grey Apple logo and spinning wheel  like the very first time. I have tried all start-up options. Safe-mode never boots. At the moment I am trying the "Choose Startup Disk" option and choose the partition but I only see the wheel of death.

After doing a verbose boot, the system did infact reboot after approximately 3 hours. However, even just entering my login password brings back the spinning wheel of death which runs for a couple of minutes so that the mac is effectively useless and then "kernel panic".

How can I diagnose what is going on here? Processor, Permissions? Other problems?

Solution to my problem was to buy a new internal Sata
cable. I could have spared myself a whole lot of trouble if I had done that at the start.


How should I submit bug reports and feature requests? Inspired by Marco Ceppi's DS_store question I became curious about what is the current preferred mechanism for submitting bug reports and feature requests to Apple. I'm aware that they have the internal RDAR bug tracking system, and that there is an Open RDAR project to crowdsource the tracking of issues, but I'm at a loss as to the preferred channel to submit something.

Is there a public-facing portal for submitting issues?

Apple offers a feedback site where both bug reports and feature requests can be submitted by anyone. Be sure to describe the issue or feature as clearly and concisely as possible.

Developers should use Apple Bug Reporter. If you carefully describe the issue including step by step instructions for reproducing the problem, they tend to get attention and fixed. You'll need an ADC (Apple Developer Connection) login to use the bug reporting system. Be sure to upload the System Profiler report, as well as any crash logs which may be relevant.


Screen Burn (Yosemite) When moving some dock icons around, I noticed screen burn, basically my old dock icons were burnt into the screen, is there a way of fixing this issue? I'm running on a MacBook Pro and Yosemite. Is the burning the type of thing that's going to disappear after a while?

Something like this might help

  Create an all-white screen in a graphics application such as
  AppleWorks or Photoshop, and save it as a JPEG file.

  Use this as the image displayed by the screen saver.

  Turn the display brightness down (but not off) to preserve backlight
  bulb life.

Leave the white screen saver on for a while.

or more simple, use the build in "Flurry" screen saver and let it run overnight.


How to access locked notes with forgotten password? I've forgotten my Notes.app password and the hint I left myself is no help. I have the ability to reset the password in Settings, but all my old notes that used the old password would remain locked. Is there any way that I can access these locked notes? I'm thinking of the sort of program that tries different different combinations of characters until it figures out the password like you would see in a hacking movie if that's real.

Hollywood does not have a great track record in accurately portraying technology.
The whole point of passwords and encryption is to make it as difficult as possible (if not impossible) to get in without the password.
Let's say your password was 8 letters long. Using 26 lower-case letters only, the number of combinations is over 200 billion, so trying each password in turn at 1 second each would take 6,500 years.
Your best bet is to think long and hard about the hint, and what you might have meant.


Home Directory to NAS How can I store my home directory to a NAS device? I go to System Preferences
->Accounts ->CTRL Click "My Account" -> Advanced Options... What do I enter in the Home Directory field to accomplish this? Is this possible? I can store my home directory on a USB or Firewire drive.

Thanks in advance for the assistance.

First you'll need to make sure that the network volume you want to use is mounted first. Then you should be able to just navigate to whatever folder you're planning on using as your new home directory and select it. Network volumes in the OS X Finder can typically be found in the "Network" item under the main directory of your computer (in the Finder, you can hit ⇧⌘K to go there directly). The absolute path if you're using the terminal is typically /Volumes/Share Name.

It's worth noting that if you login without the network drive mounted, things could easily break. For this reason you'll want to make sure that you've set up OSX to mount the share on boot (prior to login). This doesn't happen with SMB (Windows file sharing) or AFP automatically, but there may be a way to hack it, maybe others can chime in with this part. NFS shares set up through Disk Utility mount automatically, but I'm not certain when in the boot process they do, I believe it's pre-login, but I can't find any information to corroborate this.


Randomize ical event start times I have an event in ical that recurs every day.

I would like to randomize the start time of this event (which schedules an applescript) so that the start times are random but within 30 min of each other.

I've done google and duckduck searches for:

randomize ical event start time;
randomize ical events by 5 minutes,

and have gotten nothing relevant.

I've had a look at the applescript dictionary for iCal but cannot find a useful function.

I don't need the whole script just a hint in the right direction or a function that I could use to create the events instead of modifying them all by hand.

I found the answer googling for applescript make start time random.

I used the following code from this apple support community thread:

tell application "TextEdit"
launch
repeat
delay (random number from 2 to 8)
set textToType to "text" & some item of {"hello", "goodbye"} & text
end repeat
end tell

and for text:

some item of {"blue", "red"}

Here is the final script that worked for me:

tell application "iCal"

    set myCal to "Scheduled tasks"
    activate
    set allEvents to every event in calendar myCal
    repeat with anEvent in allEvents
        set modTime to (random number from 0 to 30)
        display dialog modTime with title start date of anEvent as text
        set newStartTime to (start date of anEvent) + modTime * minutes
        set start date of anEvent to newStartTime
        set (end date of anEvent) to ((end date of anEvent) + modTime * minutes)
    end repeat
end tell


Activation lock MacBook to Apple ID? Is it possible to lock my MacBook to my Apple ID so that if it gets stolen (macOS) is useless when someone tries to reinstall it?

New Mac hardware supports activation lock:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987

To use it, you need:

macOS Catalina
a mac with a T2 chip
activate two-factor authentication for your Apple ID
Make sure Secure Boot is enabled for your mac (it is enabled by default)

How to Activate it:
- turn on Find My Mac

How to check that Activation Lock is on:
- Choose Apple menu  > About this Mac.
- Click System Report.
- Click Activation Lock Status under Hardware.

Turn off Activation Lock:
Before you send your Mac in for service, sell it, or give it away, you should turn off Activation Lock.

If you have access to the device, turn off Find My Mac to disable Activation Lock, and then sign out of iCloud:
- Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences.
- Click Apple ID, then click iCloud.
- Turn off Find My Mac.
- Click the Sign Out button.

If you can't access your Mac and you need to turn off Activation Lock, follow these steps:
- Go to iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
- Click Find iPhone.
- Select All Devices, then click your Mac.
- Click Erase Mac. Select Next until the device is erased.
- Click the X next to your Mac.


How can I simulate the process of marking a text (SMS or iMessage) as unread on my iPhone? As far as I know, there is no way to mark a text message as unread (if there is, please share!).

I often receive text messages at inconvenient times, read them quickly, and then forget to reply to them when I'm free.  I'm looking for ways to simulate "mark as unread" (or "remind me about this text message") as easily as possible.

The best I have come up with it simply to not read the message in the messages app - then I can read the first sentence or so, get the gist of it, and I still have an unread notification on the app icon.  But this is not ideal of course.

One thing that's an obvious suggestion but is just too clunky is to add a todo-list item to respond (just like I'd add any other todo item).

There's technically no way to mark a message as unread, but there's sort of a hacky workaround way to simulate it.

Hold down on the message you want to mark as unread and click "copy". Then start a new message, address it to yourself, paste in the message and send.

Since there's a slight delay, you can back out of the conversation, and you will have 1 unread message from yourself.


3 finger tap on word to show spanish-english translation of word 3 finger tap triggers the English dictionary, but it only works to explain English words in English.

Is there any way to change a 3 finger tap to show the translation of an English word into Spanish, or a Spanish word into English?

You would have to add the necessary modules to Dictionary.app, e.g. see

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-dictionaries-for-dictionaryapp.html


Why is my MacBook falling asleep with "Clamshell Sleep" but lid is not closed I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15", Mid 2015) running El Capitan (10.11.6).

It will often run for days with no issue. I will be using the Mac at the time, then suddenly the screen shuts down black as if its gone to sleep (nothing that I've done knowingly has triggered this). There is nothing that I can do to then turn on the Mac - Power button does nothing and pressing the touchpad also does nothing. I have to close the lid and then open it again to wake it up.

When I then open up the Mac, it will stay awake and then repeat the above over and over, only staying awake for 5 - 15 seconds at a time before sleeping again.

I have run:

    pmset -g log

.. and i get (amongst all other lines)

    Entering DarkWake state due to 'Clamshell Sleep': Using AC (Charge:100%)

From all my Googling, this seems to indicate that the lid has been shut, but the lid is still open.

Any hints on how I can stop this from happening?

ALSO: This is the 2nd MacBook Pro this has happened to, so seems to be a user profile or software thing over a hardware thing. This issue has followed me moving from one machine to another with a Time Machine backup...

I don't know if this might be pertinent to your situation, but I once had a very similar problem with a 2009 MBP. The weird thing was when I picked it up and moved it, it would wake up. This went on for weeks until I finally figured it out; it would sometimes fall asleep when I put it on top of a (closed) white MacBook. It turns out both the MB and MBP sense the lid is closed via a magnet in the lid and a magnetic sensor near the front of the machine. When I laid it on top of the MB the MB's magnet triggered the sensor in the MBP making it think the lid was closed. So, it might be worth noticing if you've got any strongish magnets in the area around the front of the machine when it spontaneously takes a nap.


How To Delete A Large Video File From iOS Device Which Does Not Show Up in Photos? I have a large video (18GB) on my iPad that I deleted, but somehow did not actually get deleted off the device.  It is not visible on the iPad itself but I can see it through any iOS file browser (iMazing, IBrowse, IExplorer)... just can't seem to delete it with these.

It shows as 'Other' space being taken up, and I cannot update the device now, because is is full.  I could restore the device to factory, but I don't want to lose all my other apps.  Restoring from backup now would just give me the offending file back, I believe.

How to rid myself of this file?

In the Photos app, select the Albums view and you'll see a Recently Deleted album there. Deleting the video from there will free the space for you. If you're not hurting for space, you can leave them and they'll be cleared from the device after 30 days. Each photo/video in the album is shown with the remaining countdown before the media is permanently removed by the OS.


Which are the default settings of the key repeat rate? I tried adjusting my repeat rate for the keyboard, on Snow Leopard, by using the following:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 0
defaults write NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat -int 7

I wish to set the InitialKeyRepeat value to its default setting, how could I go about doing that? Could someone check and let me know the value of the InitialKeyRepeat they are using?

Thanks

defaults delete NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat
defaults delete NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat

and reboot.


Safari (10.0.3) memory leak Noticed today, Safari occasionally starts eating up memory until it reaches tens of gigabytes of memory used and freezes the whole system.

Both cases when this happened, the trigger was starting watching a video on youtube (using the HTML5 player). In Activity Monitor, no particular tab process shows high memory usage (not even the youtube ones), only the main Safari process. Closing tabs one by one does not stop the leak, even when all tabs are closed the main process continues gobbling up the memory. I have no extensions enabled (I disabled AdGuard after the first leak). I sampled the process during the second leak, but I'm not skilled enough to read the output (http://pastebin.com/MTxmEAQ4).

Any ideas how to fix this? I hate going back to Chrome, but this is unacceptable.

Thanks,
O

Time for the Standard Mac App Troubleshooting Steps™

0) Turn off all plugins/extensions

You did this already :)

1) Trash the preferences for the app

You said that you're using stock everything, so this shouldn't result in too much trouble.

Shut down Safari, then open a Finder window, hit cmd-shift-G, and enter ~/Library/Safari. Move the entire contents of this folder somewhere else, either into your trash can or a folder on the desktop.

This will probably solve the problem. Safari is probably choking on something like the history database or some other bit of nonessential stored data.

Start it back up. Problem still exist? Close it down, then:

2) Verify the disk

Sounds trite, but this can cause Weird Stuff to happen. Go to Applications → Utilities → Disk Utility, click on your main hard disk, and select First Aid on the menubar. Let the process run. Did it fix any errors? If not...

3) New user profile

Not quite the nuclear option - but in short, make a new user account and see if Safari behaves the same on that account. Everything should be clean here, and this shouldn't happen.

If it does, something on the system is very, very broken, and you'd need to look into:

4) Recovery install

We've now determined something on the system is trashed. Back up your data and programs, then reboot your machine holding r after the chime, and reinstall Mac OS.


"open" from the command line just hangs using iTerm2 The

open -a <AppName.app>

is not working on one of my Yosemite based macbooks. The other one - also with Yosemite - works fine.

open -a TextEdit.app ~/out

(just hangs )

I have also tried other apps - to make sure the problem were not specifically with TextEdit. Nothing works.  Also I am able to use Finder to open apps with TextEdit.

AFA the app's attempted:  let us look at a simple built-in one:

 $open -a TextEdit.app ~/out

Note that "open" has not been disturbed in any way: it is the one shipped with the MacBook

12:23:07/Applications $which open
/usr/bin/open

ls -lrta $(which open)
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  92912 Sep 12  2014 /usr/bin/open

It appears the issue were rather with iTerm2.   I tried the same commands on Terminal and it worked fine.  I do need some of the features of iTerm and am investigating which version(s) actually work. The one I am using (and does not work) is the one on the Download link.  So far I am having better luck with their iTerm 3.0 Alpha version.


How to make specifics apps password protected even after passcode in iPhone? I have passcode on iphone but sometimes i need to give my iphone to other to make calls. I want to make specific things password protected, things like mail, sms, contacts and some games.

Is it possible?


Thunderbird mail folders in sidebar I would like to re-order my 15 accounts with folders that appear in the sidebar in Thunderbird.  You can drop and drop folders, but you can't re-arrange accounts.  Does anybody know how to do that?  Thank you.

One possibility to re-arrange accounts and folders in the sidebar of Thunderbird is provided by a Thunderbird extension: Manually sort folders 1.1

Screenshot (sorry for the German interface here, it also has an English interface):


Stop the message 'A software update is required to connect to your iPad' without doing a software update I'm not interested in updating any software at this point. I would like this message to stop being displayed. Is there way to stop it from being displayed? I would prefer a System Preferences solution, but I'm also comfortable at the command line.
I'm currently running MacOS 10.15.5 and IPadOS 14.4.

You can't. Usually this is a very small update which allows your more recent iPad running iOS 14, to connect to your Mac running a macOS version pre-Big Sur.


What is the HD proximity sensor in a 2009 iMac? iStat Menus 5 is displaying a dash after this sensor - HD proximity sensor.

I'm getting a temp reading from the HD.

I've opened this iMac several times and have never seen a connection for the HD proximity sensor.  Is it part of the HD temp sensor?

I'm not 100% sure I'm understanding your question exactly, but the 2009 iMac has six temperature sensors. The HD proximity sensor refers to a sensor that's not physically connected to the HD itself, but is near the HD.

Some software (typically utilities that control fan speeds or provide monitoring data) will use proximity sensors to get a pretty good guesstimate of the actual temperature of certain hardware components. There are various reasons why a proximity sensor may be used in addition to (or instead of) a directly connected sensor.

The aforementioned utilities will use these readings for various reasons (e.g. to determine fan speeds where the user has chosen to override the default System Management Controller (SMC) for this purpose). In most cases it's just to display the data to the end user for monitoring purposes.

In your case iStat Menus 5 is simply showing you the temperature reading of this particular sensor. I suspect the dash "-" next to it indicates that your iMac does not have a HD proximity sensor.


Kill all internet connections with one button on Mac I'm looking for something that I can use to kill all internet connections on my mac. Something that turns the wifi off, turns off the ethernet connections. Maybe an apple script or something. I tried using automator and using the Watch me Do, turning off the wifi and then making some changes to it's apple scipt, but that only works sometimes. I need something that will work every time, and good. Here's what I had in apple script, maybe someone smart can have a look and maybe remove the delay time altogether (I tried that, wouldnt' "compile")
on run {input, parameters}
-- Click the “Apple” menu.
delay 0.01
set timeoutSeconds to 0.0
set uiScript to "click menu bar item \"Apple\" of menu bar 1 of application process \"Finder\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

-- System Preferences…
delay 0.01
set timeoutSeconds to 0.01
set uiScript to "click menu item 4 of menu 1 of menu bar item \"Apple\" of menu bar 1 of application process \"Finder\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

-- Click the “Network” button.
delay 0.01
set timeoutSeconds to 0.01
set uiScript to "click UI Element \"Network\" of scroll area 1 of window \"System Preferences\" of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)

-- Click the “Turn Wi-Fi Off” button.
delay 0.01
set timeoutSeconds to 0.01
set uiScript to "click UI Element \"Turn Wi-Fi Off\" of group 1 of window \"Network\" of application process \"System Preferences\""
my doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)
return input

end run

on doWithTimeout(uiScript, timeoutSeconds)
    set endDate to (current date) + timeoutSeconds
    repeat
        try
            run script "tell application \"System Events\"
" & uiScript & "
end tell"
            exit repeat
        on error errorMessage
            if ((current date) > endDate) then
                error "Can not " & uiScript
            end if
        end try
    end repeat
end doWithTimeout

Thanks for your help!

Launch System Preferences

Go to "Network" pane and click on "Location" dropdown:

Choose "Edit Locations…" from the dropdown, and then the + in the small window which appears. This will create an "Untitled" location. I recommend renaming it to "Offline" or something similar. Click "Done"

With the "Offline" location now active, select each connection/service in the left column (WiFi, Ethernet, etc). Then click the circle icon at the bottom of the left column and choose "Make Service Inactive" as shown below:

After you have repeated that for each action, click "Apply" at the bottom-right of the window.

Once that is done, you can "kill" all of your network connections by switching to the "Offline" location, and re-enable them by switching back the "Automatic" location (or equivalent).
You can switch to that location by any number of methods. My preferred way would be to use a Keyboard Maestro macro, as Keyboard Maestro has a built-in feature to switch locations, and you can easily bind such a macro to a keyboard shortcut.
You could also do it with a shell script which ran
/usr/sbin/networksetup -switchtolocation 'Offline'
(Replace Offline with whatever you named your location.)
Note that many of /usr/sbin/networksetup's features require sudo but -switchtolocation does not.
To get back online, you would need to run /usr/sbin/networksetup -switchtolocation 'Automatic'
Or whatever your default location is called.
You can also quickly switch locations via "the  menu" which will add a "Locations" sub-menu once there is more than one location defined.


Different scales (or resolutions) for different apps in the same screen? Today my cat stepped on my keyboard and somehow changed the scale of one app. The problem is that scale of the display is globally the same what changed was the overall resolution of my app.

In the image above, there's the corner of chrome in the usual resolution, on the right is the corner for Discord, much much scaled.

I also added a photo of a widget within Chrome scaled.
Anyone knows how can I correct this?
Thank you in advance.

If I am understanding you correctly one app seems larger than another app?

Unfortunately it is not possible to adjust the resolution for an individual app. On macOS (and Windows too) the resolution of the screen is set on a screen by screen basis and can't be set for a specific app.

In System preferences > Displays

You can adjust those parameters.

If you have more than one display you could adjust the resolution on each display and keep those particular apps on the screen they look best on.


Macos Big Sur port 80 permission denied with root im facing this problem where im trying to start a server on port 80 of a Macbook Pro with MacOS Big Sur and im getting permission denied.
I tried running with sudo and also doing "sudo su" and then running the server.
I'm trying running a Nuxt (node js) server
$ sudo npm run dev
Error: listen EACCES: permission denied 127.0.0.1:80

Should i unlock something?

No, everything is working as intended. You need sudo to have a command line process listen on low ports. There’s nothing you want to unlock here as this is a protective feature.
I usually just test on ports higher than 1024 to avoid this risk entirely until it’s time to write a proper wrapper script, but all three options are just as suitable. (Use sudo, use setuid permissions, change the port listen number)
To use sudo - run a shell first, then the npm command
sudo -s
npm run dev
exit


Where can I find/unbind control shift space? (^⇧ + space) I read through all of the system-wide keyboard shortcuts in "System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts" and I could not find nor unbind the Control+Shift+Space macro for use by SkipTune's pause/play keybinding. I know how to bind it in SkipTunes, but it just shows me this:

Macs containing a trackpad (i.e. MacBooks) or with a trackpad attached allow Chinese Trackpad Handwriting. The shortcut ctrlshiftspace shows and hides this trackpad.

I have no clue what I have written.

To disable it enable Chinese Trackpad Handwriting and then disable/remove the shortcut for Show/Hide Trackpad Handwriting in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Keyboard.


Git missing after OSX migration Possible Duplicate:
  Why is Git not found after installing OS X Lion?

I've recently migrated from an old mac pro with leopard to a new mac pro with snow leopard, everything seems to have gone right so far during the migration process, however I cannot initialize git anymore, my git repos still exist and I can seem the .git folder for my projects but in terminal git init doesn't work anymore and I get a not found error when trying git --version

How do I fix this, do i need to reinstall git, would this effect my existing repos?

Best Guess - your path variable got re-written.

From the the terminal enter: sudo find / -name git

You should see every instance of git on your system. Assuming the git binary is located, make sure its directory is in your path, or instead of typing git init you could type /path/to/git (assumes git binary is ia /path/to).

Alternatively, you could re-install git. Should not affect your repositories. Just make sure the resultant binaries are in your path.


Apple Numbers using AND in formula to find dupes I don't get it how to use multiple conditions in the following case...

IF(COUNTIF(name,name)>1 AND(ISBLANK(meaning)),"x", "")

What this should do is compare the cells in column A (name) for duplicates and also check if column G (meaning) is blank. But it tells me syntax error. Where and how do I use the AND?

Figured it out! AND cannot be used since it's a function itself, instead IF needs to be nested, like this...

IF(COUNTIF(name,name)>1,IF(ISBLANK(meaning),"X",""),"")


Why does MacBook not respond to keyboard? Every now and then, when my MacBook has been left alone for quite awhile and somebody goes and closes the screen or folds the laptop up, when I go to get back into my work, my MacBook will not respond to any of the keyboard taps. I have to hold the power button and it starts all over again, meaning it powers back up. I don't like that because it inappropriately shuts down my system and reboots everything.

Apple Support explained this to me once, but can anyone explain it in a way that is easy to understand? Why does my MacBook Pro not respond to keyboard taps if I allow it to go dormant without actively putting it to sleep myself and folding up the laptop?

I never got this behavior with a company issued MacBook Pro.

Thanks in advance.

Actually, I can't explain this to you because what you describe is not typical behaviour.

I know it's not what your actually asking, but we could try and resolve the issue instead.

You don't actually specify the version of macOS or the exact model of MacBook, but you could try resetting the NVRAM and SMC (in that order) to see if that will resolve this issue.

Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and that you're using the built-in keyboard.

Reset the NVRAM

Reset the NVRAM on your MacBook as follows:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your MacBook reboots again (i.e. you hear the startup chime a second time).
Let go of the keys and let your MacBook reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Reset the SMC

These steps assume you have a Macbook with a non-removable battery. If you have one with a removable battery, then let me know and I'll change these instructions!

To reset the SMC on your MacBook, follow these steps:

Shut down your MacBook
Keep the power cable plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

After resetting both the NVRAM and SMC check to see what happens now with your keyboard after sleep. If the problem persists, then let me know and we'll try a couple of other things as well.


How to replace a folder that's name is a date i.e. YYYYMMDD with folder hierarchy of year, month, date? I have a list of folders which have dates for names. The dates are in the format YYYYMMDD (e.g. 20150129). Within these folders are text documents which are related to that specific date.

I would like to restructure them in a folder hierarchy going from year to month to date, and to move the text documents into the corresponding 'date' folder lower down in the hierarchy.

In other words I would like the 'root' folder to be named after the year like 2015, and then create sub-folders named with months like 01, and then create further sub-folders named with dates like 29 which hold the corresponding text documents.

So the path would look like 2015/01/29/file.txt or 2015>01>29>file.txt.

I have taken a look at Automator and it seems that something like this is not possible although I could be wrong, so I would like to know...

Is there some easy solution to this problem that any layman can understand, for example an Automator workflow, or does this require some understanding of terminal commands and regular expressions?
How would one solve this problem provided there is in fact a solution?

You can use the following in Terminal. cd to the containing folder, then run the following:

find . -type f -exec bash -c \
  'F=$(sed -E "s#^\./([0-9]{4})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})#\1/\2/\3#" <<< $1);\
  mkdir -p -- $(dirname "$F");\
  mv -- "$1" "$F"' - {} \;

find . -type f obtains every file in the current directory recursively.
-exec bash -c opens a shell to run the following commands.
F=$(…) opens a subshell and uses sed on the file path to manipulate the path into the folders.
^\./([0-9]{4})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2}) is a regex with three capture groups, as follows:

\1/\2/\3 is replacement, where each capture group (\1, etc) are separated by /.
mkdir -p -- $(dirname "$F") creates the directories to move the files into.
mv -- "$1" "$F" moves each file into its corresponding folder.

This takes the hierarchy on the left and converts it to the hierarchy on the right:

├── 20170201               └── 2017
│   └── abcdefghij             ├── 02
└── 20170302                   │   └── 01
    └── abcdefghij 2           │       └── abcdefghij
                               └── 03
                                   └── 02
                                       └── abcdefghij 2

If there are other files in the containing folder with a date as a name, they will be moved as if they are a folder. To prevent this, replace the second line with:

  'F=$(sed -E "s#^\./([0-9]{4})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})(?:/.+)#\1/\2/\3#" <<< $1);\

The (?:/.+) ensures that the path has a subsequent component, therefore ignoring anything without a child in the parent directory which are files.


How to reload app preferences and documents on iPhone? So I updated my iphone to new iOS and then my backup became corrupted.

I was then able to get ALL the information out of the backup unto my computer.

I now have for each app its corresponding Library and Documents.
These  contain additional folders that the apps use and the Preferences folder, which contains the .plist files.

I would like to put all this information back on my iPhone. But how?

Is there a program for this? Can this be done through iTunes?

I am quite desperate, as I would love to know how to get this done.

Once you've installed the relevant apps back on the device, open iExplorer or similar app and copy the files back on to the device in the app's data container.


Adjust numbers (iWork app) formula to add if 2 cells are 0, leave blank I need help adding another rule to my formula, I need it to also say IF U17 and X17 both have 0 in them, then leave blank

Formula Y17
IF(OR(U17="",X17=""),"",IF(X17+V17=U17,"Push", IF(X17+V17>U17,W17,T17)))

If two cells have 0, then leave blank and also if two cells are blank to leave blank

If I understand what you are trying to accomplish, the formula can be simplified to this:

IFERROR(IF(OR(A2,B2),A2+B2,""),"")

Since 0 resolves to false and OR takes Boolean values, just check for 0 in both cells and return the empty string.  (If both are false then the true event is not evaluated.)  Otherwise, if both are empty, the IFERROR will return the empty string as, for some reason, an empty string in Numbers is not treated as a Boolean false like in programming languages such as JavaScript.

See the example below.  This will work in Numbers on macOS or iOS.


How to play a video at 200% zoom on Mac? Is there a way to play a video at 200% zoom on Mac with builtin programs like Preview or Quicktime?

Or do you need to install a third party video player like VLC?

While there isn't any option to set a precise zoom value for a video playing in QuickTime, you can still zoom the video using various means:

Increase Size command under View menu. Invoking this zooms the video in fixed increments.

Fit to Screen command under View menu. Invoking this fits the video to match with screen width/height.

Zoom command under Window menu. This command works similar to Fit to Screen command.

In addition to above, a QuickTime or quick look preview window can be freely resized with the help of resizing handles to manually adjust zoom.


How do I stop my iPhone messages from appearing on my Mac? We have multiple iPhone and Mac products, but I need to correct one specific problem.  I only use Messages on my iPhone; but for some reason when I am near one of our Macs with my iPhone, my notification sounds for messages incoming to my phone do not play and the messages are appearing on my Mac.  If I delete the messages app from my Mac, will it screw things up on my messages in general?

No. Opting out of message delivery on one device (Mac or iPad) doesn't change delivery to the iPhone.

Go ahead and disable handoff if you don't want that enabled.
go ahead and sign out of messages on the Mac if you don't want that enabled.


Setting Safari preferences from script on Big Sur I have a Mac mini 2020 with an M1 processor and running macOS Big Sur.
On older macs I had this script to set Safari preferences
# Show status bar
defaults write com.apple.Safari ShowStatusBar -bool true
defaults write com.apple.Safari ShowOverlayStatusBar -bool true
# Show the full URL in the address bar (note: this still hides the scheme)
defaults write com.apple.Safari ShowFullURLInSmartSearchField -bool true
# Safari opens with: last session
defaults write com.apple.Safari AlwaysRestoreSessionAtLaunch -bool true
# Set Safari’s home page to `about:blank` for faster loading
defaults write com.apple.Safari HomePage -string "about:blank"
# Enable the Develop menu and the Web Inspector in Safari
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDevelopMenu -bool true
# Enable Safari’s debug menu
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu -bool true
# Update extensions automatically
defaults write com.apple.Safari InstallExtensionUpdatesAutomatically -bool true
# Make Safari’s search banners default to Contains instead of Starts With
defaults write com.apple.Safari FindOnPageMatchesWordStartsOnly -bool false
# Website use of location services
# 0 = Deny without prompting
# 1 = Prompt for each website once each day
# 2 = Prompt for each website one time only
defaults write com.apple.Safari SafariGeolocationPermissionPolicy -int 2

However, none of them seem to work anymore. Is there a new way to set similar preferences?

The one for "Show Status Bar" is

defaults write com.apple.Safari ShowOverlayStatusBar -bool true

Found here along with others.
https://gist.github.com/alanzeino/42b6d983c7aa2f29d64ea2749621f7cf


MacBook Pro Retina and 4k monitor (Samsung U28D590D) now showing "scaling options" in display I have a MacBook Pro Retina mid 2014 running OSX Yosemite (10.10.1). I have connected an external 4k monitor (Samsung U28D590D), but I'm struggling to set the correct resolution. When I open "display" I don't get the same scaling-options on the 4k monitor as I do on the Mac internal display.

Here is what I see on my Mac Retina display:

And this is what I see on my Samsung 4k monitor:

As you can see, it's not showing the scaling options on the 4k monitor (Larger Text, More Space, etc...)

When I use 1920x1080 the icons and text is very crisp (hidpi), but everything is to large. The 3840x2160 resolutions is pretty crisp, but everything is way to small. The 3200x1800 (low resolution) is not crisp at all.

What I want is to use the "More Space" option as I do on my Mac display.

Is there any way to achieve this? The display is connected through displayport.

@jorgen.ringen, I am facing the same issue with a 13" 3Ghz Macbook Pro 11,1 (mid-2014). The reviewer in 9to5mac from the link you posted states that the HDMI input ports will only do 4k at 30hz, so the only solution (as he also states) is to purchase a miniDisplayPort to DisplayPort 1.2 adapter or cable. I went for the cable and am currently awaiting its delivery.

I played with SwitchResX lots. Several threads on the internets suggest overriding the EDID in an attempt to fix the Television=yes in System Report problem, using Picture in Picture mode and running the display off of two cables. Neither of which is very satisfying to me, as its either a) PIP is not for every day use or b) requires plugging two cables, making it further more difficult to mount my machine on a desk and take it off.

The DisplayPort cable will hopefully do the trick when it arrives. Meanwhile, I noticed there is some kind of firmware update on the product page of the monitor. It requires a Windows machine, so I have not yet tried it. I can't find a way to see the current firmware version in the display menu either, but Samsung state that its a "compatibility improvement update" or some such. There is no changelog as to what changed since the previous version, or any explanation as to how that potential update might occur. To my knowledge, HDMI 1.4 supports Ethernet and maybe thats how the update takes place. If you have a Windows machine around, give it a try and report back please.

P.S. Unfortunately, the stupid SE comment policy will not allow me to post this as a comment. Whatevs.


Backups using Mac Mini Server & Time Machine I'm currently trying to set up a fool-proof plan to secure backups of all of our files all the time.

What I'm generally thinking is using our Mac Mini Server I can backup our files (3 - 6 iMac's worth) locally to the internal storage. I would also like to be able to use a Time Capsule attached to the Mac Mini Server to make a further copy of all the backups that I can then offline regularly.

I would love direction and critique on this idea. We haven't set it up, so this might not even be possible. But I would love some direction.

Will the above scenario work? If not, does anyone have suggestions?

We also have an Airport Extreme if that helps in any way..

I'm not sure what you're exactly asking… but let's try.

If you have a Mac Mini Server and want to backup 3-6 machine's data, I'm assuming those machines save that data in the Mini's storage. (If not they should).

Then You can use a combination (or all) of the following:

1) The "Data" is stored on a mirrored drive (RAID-1 or more). For redundancy in case of hardware failure. Doesn't count as backup but counts as immediate hardware failure protection measure. Keep working even if the drive fails.

2) The "Data" Drive is part of a Time Machine to an external drive(s) (those drives can also be mirrored for an extra layer of protection). If your time machine drive fails, you have the mirror to keep working until you're able to restore the offending hardware.

3) A final, good idea, is to clone the drive (internal) into yet another external drive to have a copy-cat of the data in case everything goes to hell (You can use tools like SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner for that.

4) If what you want is the minimum amount of downtime in case of hardware failure or total software failure, you might want to have backups of at least one of each of your Macs so you can boot from an external identical drive if one machine fails (while you reinstall the original). Assuming the data is never locally stored, of course. Otherwise, you'll need a TimeCapsule with a huge external storage to let each Mac backup over the air (or net) to the Time Capsule as well.

Think of backups and redundancy as layers. The more you have, the more protected you are against external factors.

All this would be useless if you don't take your backups offsite…


Mobile Account as Administrators Not Working While Mobile I had a user that was set up to administer an OS X machine. That user is an AD account, with mobile accounts enabled. The user's AD group is set to allow administration using the directory utility.

I was contacted by the user while he was on the road, saying that he couldn't install a program. It would ask for an administrative user and password, and give a dialog bounce when he entered his information.

When he got to one of our offices, he connected to their network and it let him install the application.

Does the settings for users in an AD group allowed to administer the machine only work when the machine is in communication to AD servers, even with mobile accounts set up to allow caching of user credentials? Is there a way to cache the fact that user Bob is able to administer the machine without creating a separate user account?

I have encountered the same issue with our Mountain Lion image for our Macbook Pro machines when they are connected to our (2008 R2) Domain. When connected they are able to Administer, but when disconnected the ability to Administer is removed. I even enabled administration by the Domain Users Security Group, but this did not help.

What I do to correct this issue is ensure the mobile account has been created on the machine, then log in with the hidden local admin account, disconnect all networking (turn wi-fi off and unplug from lan), then restart the machine. Log in once again with the local admin account, then set the "Allow user to administer this computer" flag for the user's mobile account. You have to then restart the Macbook once more (for the change to be embedded). You can then either log in yourself using the local admin account or allow the mobile user to log back into the machine and turn the networking (wi-fi) back on, or plug back into the network, depending on your architecture. Yes it is a manual process, but it is the only one I have found so far that works.

When the machine is connected to the domain it can validate the Domain security group the user is part of, and set the Administration option appropriately. I can only surmise that OSX does NOT store Domain security information, so that when disconnected from the Domain the security group cannot be determined, so it reverts to the "local" mobile account option (which we have now set to allow administration). I do not know if this same issue applies when using Open Directory.

I hope this helps.


I cannot get past an "unknown problem" error when trying to login to discussions.apple.com I have noticed that when I try to post to any forum threads on https://discussions.apple.com it fails.

I type my Apple ID details at the login page.
Then I am prompted to reconfirm the details for security.
I am then told there has been an unknown problem.
I am given the option to manage my Apple ID.
When I click the button to do this, I am prompted to type in my login details.
After I do this I have to delete the email address that is in the box and retype it otherwise I will go back to the unknown error.

Once I am at the manage page and have logged in, I load a seperate tab and try to visit the threads I visited earlier but I am prompted again to enter my username and password - which I can not get passed.

I would have assumed that there was a possible malware issue on my Mac but the same happens on both my iPad and iPhone. Is there any known issues with either Apple ID or with there website?

There are occasional timeouts when the service that validates an Apple ID and password combination fails to report back to the web server running any of Apple's services (like the discussions, stores, review process, bug reporter, etc...)

If this error persists over a day or more and there isn't a public outage, you will need to contact support for help with your Apple ID.


How can I import Apple Card statements into Quicken? This seems to be the best place for people to find this…I will supply an answer and others can comment or give their own answers...

Update: iOS now supports QFX export for Apple Card statements, replacing QIF export:

I'll delete this answer shortly, as no longer needed.

The Apple Card—Apple’s Apple-Pay-linked “titanium” credit card—doesn’t support Quicken on Mac. How can I import Apple Card statements into Quicken?

More detail: The card account doesn't support direct bank connection Quicken. Apple Card statements come as PDF files, and you can export several additional formats, including OFX, QIF, and CSV.

While QIF is an older Quicken format, it's not supported in Quicken Mac.

Although OFX and CSV are listed, they fail to import the Apple Card OFX and CSV files.

The CSV import fails because Quicken’s CSV import, “Mint.com (CSV)”, expects a particular format produced by the Mint financial application. We can solve this by reorganizing the CSV file data exported by the Wallet app.

To export an Apple Card statement as CSV, tap the Apple Wallet on you iPhone, tap the Apple Card, and tap Card Balance under the card image. Scroll and tap the statement you wish to export, and tap Export Transactions at the bottom of the page. Choose the first item, “Comma Separated Values (CSV)”. After a moment, you will see it, and you can save the file a number of ways using the icon in the upper right. You can save it as a file, you can send it as email, you can even Copy To Numbers. I’ll leave it up to you how you get the file to your Mac.

Once you have the CSV file, you need to edit it. You can do this manually in a spreadsheet like Numbers, or even in a text editor, though it’s more difficult to keep track of columns. Fortunately, the editing is simple enough that it can be automated, but I’ll show the steps required first:

Rename the "Transaction Date" column to "Date"
Delete column 2 (was "Clearing Date")
Swap the "Description" and "Merchant" columns
Rename "Description" to "Original Description"
Rename "Merchant" to "Description"
Rename "Amount (USD)" to "Amount"
Rename "Type" to "Transaction"
Swap the "Category" and "Amount" columns
In the Transaction column, change all "Payment" to "credit", and "Purchase" to "debit"

Save the file as CSV, and Use the import command in Quicken's File menu to import. This adds a manually managed account in Quicken, which can be renamed. When importing the next month, QUicken will make a new account. You can view that account, select all transactions, and drag them to the previously existing Apple Card account. You can delete the newly created account.

This can be done with this python script, which uses uses AppleScript to display a file dialog:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# coding: UTF8

import csv
import numpy as np

import sys
import os
import subprocess

default_path = os.path.expanduser('~')

def user_action(apath, cmd):
    ascript = '''
    -- apath - default path for dialogs to open too
    -- cmd   - "Select", "Save"
    on run argv
        set userCanceled to false
        if (count of argv) = 0 then
            tell application "System Events" to display dialog "argv is 0" ¬
                giving up after 10
        else
            set apath to POSIX file (item 1 of argv) as alias
            set action to (item 2 of argv) as text
        end if
        try
        if action contains "Select" then
            set fpath to POSIX path of (choose file default location apath ¬
                     without invisibles, multiple selections allowed and ¬
                     showing package contents)
            # return fpath as text
        else if action contains "Save" then
            set fpath to POSIX path of (choose file name default location apath)
        end if
        return fpath as text
        on error number -128
            set userCanceled to true
        end try
        if userCanceled then
            return "Cancel"
        else
            return fpath
        end if
    end run
    '''
    try:
        proc = subprocess.check_output(['osascript', '-e', ascript,
                                       apath, cmd])
        if 'Cancel' in proc.decode('utf-8'):  # User pressed Cancel button
            sys.exit('User Canceled')
        return proc.decode('utf-8')
    except subprocess.CalledProcessError as e:
            print('Python error: [%d]\n%s\n' % e.returncode, e.output)

def csvToMint(src, dest):
    # coverts apple Pay csv format to Mint csv format, for Quicken
    # if dest is empty, the src path is used, appending in " (Mint)"
    with open(src, 'rb') as csvfile:
        data = np.array(list(csv.reader(csvfile)))
        data = data[:,[0,2,3,6,5,4]]
        data[:,4] = np.core.defchararray.replace(data[:,4], 'Purchase', 'debit')
        data[:,4] = np.core.defchararray.replace(data[:,4], 'Payment', 'credit')
        data[0, :] = ['Date','Description','Original Description','Amount','Transaction','Category']

    if dest == '':
        dest = src
        if dest[-4:] == '.csv':
            dest = dest[0:-4]
        dest = dest + ' (Mint).csv'
    with open(dest, 'wb') as csvfile:
        writer = csv.writer(csvfile, quoting=csv.QUOTE_ALL)
        writer.writerows(data.tolist())

def main():
    src = user_action(default_path, "Select").strip()

    # could let user choose destination file
    #dest = user_action(default_path, "Save").strip()
    dest = ''

    csvToMint(src, dest)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(main())

The script supports separate open and save dialog, but I've disabled the save dialog, which causes the script to save with the same file name as the one you opened, but with " (Mint)" appended. To enable the save dialog instead, remove the "#" from "#dest..." line to uncomment, and remove or comment out the "dest = ''" line below it.

A convenient way to use this script is to built it into an application created with Automator. I've done that for this application, cvsToMint. Download, double-click to extract from the zip archive, and launch the application. Select your csv file, and it will save a Mint-format copy in the same directory.


How to "find and replace" in a PDF on OS X? I need to "find and replace" text in a PDF file on OS X Yosemite.

It would be better if there was a "replace all" feature. How can I do this on OS X?

As Tom Gewecke mentioned in a comment, Adobe Acrobat can do this.

I was also able to do this with PDFpen, as also suggested by Tom Gewecke.

Both apps seem great. Since both of them are quite pricey, though, I would also like to share a way to do this with the free and open source software LibreOffice.

Open the PDF with LibreOffice.
Click Edit in the panel, then Find & Replace.... Use the feature as desired.
Click File in the panel, then select Export as PDF.... Save the PDF.

I suspect LibreOffice probably decodes and re-encodes the document. But in my case the new document looked precisely identical to the original (except for the edits, of course.)


How do I delete useless Apple Apps on OSX? I tried using terminal with sudo or su, while I do rm -rf to Photos.app, Chess.app, Mail.app, DVD Player.app, iBooks.app, but it said Operation not permitted.

How can I delete these apps?

(OS X version is 10.11.1)

Being OS X El Capitan (10.11) has, from what I understand, the same System Integrity Protection as the current version, macOS High Sierra (10.13), I think the steps are the same. You can delete at least some of the applications. I haven't tried them all but I deleted Maps, Chess and DVD Player.

First, you need to boot into Recovery Mode. Hold CMD + R after the boot chime. From there you can go into the Terminal and type csrutil disable. Reboot. This disables System Integrity Protection and is not recommended to keep disabled. If you want to live on the edge though, go for it.

After booting back into OS X/macOS I was able to sudo rm -rf <Application Path> without any errors.

You can always re-enable SIP after you make your changes.

Note 1: I deleted iTunes once but a system update later put it back on.

Note 2: You cannot easily get deleted applications back because you cannot download them, to my knowledge.

Note 3: If you are just sick of looking at them in Finder, you can hide them by adding a hidden flag to the folder. SIP has to be disabled for this too. I used sudo chflags hidden /Applications/App\ Store.app/ to hide the App Store from Finder.

Note 4: Certain OS features may depend on apps being present so be wary of what you delete.


Full Disk Encryption with Time Machine Backup I don't know the appropriate setup to encrypt whole disk drive using FileVault 2 and Automatically backup it without issues. Currently, I'm using a 2nd-gen Intel i7 MBP running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G5019), One Internal Crucial SSD, APFS volume, and using Time Machine for Backup on a G-technology External Drive, Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         499.9 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.9 GB   disk1
                             Physical Store disk0s2
1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            456.0 GB   disk1s1
2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 20.4 MB    disk1s2
3:                APFS Volume Recovery                512.0 MB   disk1s3
4:                APFS Volume VM                      10.7 GB    disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk2
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
2:                  Apple_HFS G-DRIVE USB             4.0 TB     disk2s2
3:       Microsoft Basic Data G-UTILITIES             4.1 GB     disk2s3

You can enable FileVault 2 from System Preferences > Security & Privacy > FileVault.  Just press "Turn on FileVault..." and full disk encryption will be setup.

Full Disk Encryption in this sense means that all your own data on the Macintosh HD file system will be encrypted. There is a preboot partition that isn't encrypted, as this is where the software necessary to decrypt the drive is stored. Without it, you wouldn't be able to boot the Mac.

When you plugin the USB drive, macOS will ask you if you want to use it for backups. If you confirm that, it will ask you whether or not you want the backups encrypted. Set the checkmark and encryption of the backup will automatically be setup for you.

If you have already started backing up to the external disk without encryption, you can enable encryption afterwards like this:

Open System Preferences > Time Machine. Click "Select Disk..." and remove the external disk.

Do it again and select the disk again, and it will ask again for encryption. Set the checkmark and you'll be asked to set a password. The disk will then be encrypted. The backups already stored on the drive will be preserved.


Unlocked iPhone 5 on Verizon I just bought an unlocked iPhone 5 and I already own an iPhone 5 on Verizon.

I am transferring the cellular service from my old iPhone 5 to the new iPhone 5 which, from my knowledge, just involves moving the SIM card from old to new. From my knowledge, 4G SIM cards are automatic and refresh every 30 seconds. I proceeded to transfer the card from old to new.

This DID NOT WORK and after talking with Verizon, they said they do not support an unlocked iPhone 5; yet, the Apple store told me I could use this phone perfectly fine with Verizon. Conflicting information much?

I'm not sure where else to ask this question because I feel like I should be able to activate the phone myself from what I've read, but it still is not activating. I don't really want to deal with Verizon or Apple at this point because of the conflict.

Can I use this phone? If so, what am I doing wrong? Or do I need to return it to Apple and get the right phone?

From the Apple web site:

  The unlocked iPhone includes all the features of iPhone but without a wireless contract commitment. You can activate and use iPhone on the supported GSM wireless network of your choice, such as AT&T in the United States. The unlocked iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 will not work with CDMA-based carriers such as Verizon Wireless or Sprint.

So the genius led you astray.


Force iCloud Drive to sync under Yosemite There are many questions of forcing iCloud to sync, but they are generally  old and unclear as to the details.

I changed the file structure at my Mac, but the iOS App (Pages) doesn't seem to take the new update.

When I look through the folder structure via another iOS App, there is still the old structure. So it seems that my changes on the Mac didn't update yet.

Is there a way in Yosemite to force the iCloud sync?

  There has to be a service which is triggered and runs in the background. Which service is it?

Yes. The sync process is kicked off when you disconnect from all networks and then reconnect. You can debug things using brctl log -w on the Mac and AppleCare can also help you with iOS cloud sync diag logs if you have an issue that needs that level of debugging.

The brctl man page has information on diagnostic files and you can also use sysdiagnose to assist with cloud sync diagnosis.

The actual sync daemon is bird but you don't run it directly.

Lastly, before digging into the logs, I often use https://iCloud.com to verify that the Mac and iOS devices are either in sync with the cloud version so I know which of the three is lagging.


FaceTime call log delete How do I delete facetime calls from my Mac?  Since the Sierra OS update I can not delete calls. I used to highlight then delete.

Go to Systems Preferences - Mouse and activate Secondary Click. This allows you to right click on your mouse.

After that, highlight the call you want to delete and right click your mouse. You will then be able to delete one or all calls.


How to debug an app that runs fine on iOS simulator, but crashes on iPhone X? I'm currently building an app with Cordova, and it appears that on the last alpha version, the app only works in the iOS Simulator. When ran on an iPhone X, the app is crashes immediately.

I'm not familiar at all with software development for Apple platform, so I was wondering:

What are my options to understand what is wrong?
Is there some kind of things that I should be aware of to avoid silent crash?

I know we can link an iPhone with the Safari debugger, but I assume this will only work for browser inspection, not app debugging.

You can debug the app by running it on device via Xcode.

First lets get the pre-requisites right. You'll need access to a Mac with recent version of macOS and Xcode installed (preferably latest for each, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 and Xcode 9.4.1).

After you have your Mac ready, get access to the source code for the app. Open the xcodepoject file for the project file with Xcode. The project file for a project named Sample looks like this in Finder:

Once you have the project open with Xcode, your next step will be to successfully build it. Do it by pressing Shift + Command + r or selecting Product → Build For → Running from the Xcode Menu bar. A successful build (no compilation errors) is indicated by this HUD shown on the desktop:

Next step would be to run on device. Connect your iPhone X to your Mac using the lightning cable. Verify that the device is connected and is recognized by Xcode as will be shown in the run destination selection dropdown in the Xcode toolbar:

Once the device and the app name is selected in the dropdown as shown above, to run the app, click on the play button in the toolbar, or select Product → Run from the Menu bar or use the keyboard shortcut Command + r.

Now the app should launch on your iPhone. Make sure your iPhone is unlocked and both the Mac and iPhone have trusted each other. You will need to add your registered Apple developer ID into Xcode to be able to debug app on device (if not done so already).

Assuming that everything mentioned above is setup correctly, you should be able to launch the app on your iPhone via Xcode and debug it.

Detecting Crash:

As you mentioned that your app is crashing on launch, I am assuming you are getting the build onto device and experiencing it. To pin-point the reason for crash in your apps code, you can take the following steps:

Navigate to the Breakpoint Navigator in Xcode by pressing Command + 8 or selecting View → Navigators → Show Breakpoint Navigator in the Menu bar.
Click on the Create a breakpoint button indicated by + shown in the bottom toolbar area.

Select Exception Breakpoint...

Click outside the popup to dismiss. Make sure that the breakpoint is enabled to be able to catch the reason for crash.

Good luck!


How do I make find fail if -exec fails? When I run this command in the shell (in a non-empty directory):

find . -exec invalid_command_here {} \;

I get this:

find: invalid_command_here: No such file or directory
find: invalid_command_here: No such file or directory
find: invalid_command_here: No such file or directory

(and so on for each file)

I need find to fail after the first error. Is there any way to get this to work? I can't use xargs, as I have spaces in my path, but I need the script calling this to return an error code.

This is a limitation of find. The POSIX standard specifies that the return status of find is 0 unless an error occurred while traversing the directories; the return status of executed commands doesn't enter into it.

You can make commands write their status to a file or to a descriptor:

find_status_file=$(mktemp findstatus)
: >"$find_status_file"
find … -exec sh -c 'trap "echo \$?" EXIT; invalid_command "$0"' {} \;
if [ -s "$find_status_file" ]; then
  echo 1>&2 "An error occurred"
fi
rm -f "$find_status_file"

Another method, as you discovered, is to use xargs. The xargs commands always processes all files, but returns the status 1 if any of the commands returns a nonzero status.

find … -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 invalid_command

Yet another method is to eschew find and use recursive globbing in the shell instead: **/ means any depth of subdirectories. This requires version 4 or above of bash; macOS is stuck at version 3.x so you'd have to install it from a port collection. Use set -e to halt the script on the first command returning a nonzero status.

shopt -s globstar
set -e
for x in **/*.xml; do invalid_command "$x"; done

Beware that in bash 4.0 through 4.2, this works but traverses symbolic links to directories, which is usually not desirable.

If you use zsh instead of bash, recursive globbing works out of the box with no gotchas. Zsh is available by default on OSX/macOS. In zsh, you can just write

set -e
for x in **/*.xml; do invalid_command "$x"; done


Does Touch Bar Predictive Text Work for Languages Other Than English? I don't have a Touch Bar, but am trying to find out whether, under High Sierra, the predictive text feature works for languages other than English, like French or Spanish,  after either a) changing the keyboard layout, b) changing the system language, or c) setting system preferences/keyboard/text/spelling to the other language.

Yes, predictive text displayed on the Touch Bar does indeed work for other languages other than English, although it won't work for all languages.

In theory the language used by predictive text is a function of the preferred (i.e. primary) language set in the Language & Region preference pane. While this defaults to a language based on the selected region, you can change it to another language manually (e.g. you live in the US but mainly work in French, so you still have the US set as your region but French set as your primary language). Note that by primary language I mean the one you have placed at the top of the Preferred languages list.

However, in practice (based on about 25 mins of testing using the Italian language), I had the following results:

YES, predictive text works with: system language, spellcheck and keyboard all set to Italian
YES, predictive text works with: spellcheck and keyboard set to Italian, while the system language is set to English
NO, predictive text does not work with: keyboard set to Italian, while both system language is set to English and spellcheck is set to Automatic.

NOTES:

1 Testing was conducted on 24 October 2017 using TextEdit on a 15" 2017 MBP with Touch Bar running macOS High Sierra 10.13 (Build 17A405).

2 By system language I mean the primary language set in the Preferred Languages list located at Apple > System Preferences > Language & Region. If you have more than one language listed, then the primary language is the one listed at top.

3 By spellcheck I mean the 'Spelling' language set in Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard > Text.

4 By keyboard I mean the 'input source' set in Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources. Note that you can have multiple keyboards added here and it does not matter in what order they appear (i.e. I had Italian listed below English).


Xquartz Catalina hangs I've had Xquartz working multiple times on different machines over the years but I just did a new install and have some strange behavior with no windows popping up.
My issue is, when I run an app like xclock, it just hangs acting like it's running but no window pops up.  And when I try to quit Xquartz it goes away initially but then comes back after a few seconds.  Even force quit doesn't kill it, it comes back after a few seconds.  Then trying to quite the terminal session, it says Xquartz is still running though killall X11 says:

"No matching processes belonging to you were found"

I installed Xquartz via homebrew and manually with the .dmg file and restarting my computer, still same issue. I saw someone said to delete the X11 .plist files in your User Library but that didn't work.
I can click on /Applications/Terminal and it works but the functionality I am used to in the terminal doesn't seem to be working.
I have added /opt/X11/bin: to my path so I can execute the xcommands anywhere.
Xquartz assigned my environment variable to DISPLAY=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.07dUzDaTi1/org.xquartz:0
Any suggestions to troubleshoot would be greatly appreciated!

I fixed my problem by downloading the latest beta version found here: https://www.xquartz.org/releases/index.html


Ctrl + Up/Down to scroll through Terminal.app window In the Ubuntu terminal, Shift + PgUp/PgDn scrolls the window up or down a page, and Ctrl + Shift + Up/Down scrolls the window up or down a line. On my Mac, Shift + PgUp/PgDn works the same as on Ubuntu, but Ctrl + Up/Down triggers Expose instead. Is there a key combination that I can use in the Mac Terminal.app to scroll up or down a single line at a time?

Check the "View" menu.

optioncommandPage Up and optioncommandPage Down scroll the window a single line.


Will messages delivered as SMS if I'm blocked in iMessage? I texted somebody on iMessage but I think the recipient blocked me. iMessage says it got sent as a normal text. Will that text go to the recipient's phone?

If she has blocked you, then the message will not be sent to her.

When you first send a message to another Apple device, it will look like an iMessage. It will then change to look like an SMS message, just like you experienced. To you, it will look like a regular message, and it will look like it sent, but she will not actually receive it.


Can I delete the Apple_KernelCoreDump partition in High Sierra? In MacOS High Sierra's Disk Utility, the partition is listed as Kernel Core Dump Storage (655MB). Its type is Apple_KernelCoreDump in the result of diskutil list. There is also a description, "You can not remove this volume because the previous volume can not be resized." However, if the partition is simply a collection of core dump files, it should be safe to remove the partition.

It does not take too much space but it is in between some free space and the partition I want to increase its size. There is no other easy ways to resize it unless I remove the Apple_KernelCoreDump partition.

I have finally taken the risk to delete Apple_KernelCoreDump partition. I did a full Time Machine backup in an external storage and then rebooted into recovery mode. From the Disk Utility there, I successfully deleted the Apple_KernelCoreDump partition in between two partitions. So far, there have been no problem.


Is it possible to use a serial terminal (e.g. VT420) with a modern Mac? I've found lots of tutorials for using a Mac to control a serial device, but not the other way around.  I've got a DEC VT520 terminal and a recent Mac Pro, is there a way (with a USB adapter) to get a shell on my Mac from a hardware serial console?  Basically I'm looking for an OS X version of the "Ubuntu Serial Console HowTo".  Or is this so ridiculous that no one has tried it?

I have not tried this, personally, but there are good instructions for doing so with a Tripp Lite (née Keyspan) USB-to-Serial adapter and an Apple IIc. Obviously, you can ignore the Apple II-specific parts of the instructions (the majority of the article) and focus on the adapter, the cable, and getting ttys to run getty.


MacOS Catalina PPTP.ppp is missing Latest macOS Catalina update has removed PPTP.ppp plugin, rendering PPTP VPN connections impossible. Has anybody found a solution to this? Can the PPTP.ppp plugin be manually installed?

I know PPTP VPN has been deprecated a long time ago, but my employer is unwilling to upgrade.

Thanks for any help.

It would appear that there is no solution at this point. PPTP is no longer supported by MacOS natively and is removed from the kernel. Some providers are popping up (https://www.vpntracker.com/us/download.html#vpnt365) but otherwise move to another protocol.


Is there a formulaic way to reverse the order of a list in Apple Numbers? For example I have a list of numbers in a column. I would like to have another column that takes whatever is in that list and reverses the order the list appears. Is there a way of doing this with a function in Apple Numbers?

One way to do this is to use the INDIRECT function. If you give that the string "A1", it'll give you the value currently in the cell A1.

Let's say the list of numbers is in column A, and we want the reversed list in column B. Let's say there are 10 rows.

So: we need to make these formulae:

B1 = INDIRECT("A10")
B2 = INDIRECT("A9")
B3 = INDIRECT("A8")
...
B10 = INDIRECT("A1")

Ok. The first character of the string we are giving to INDIRECT here is always "A", so we can just hard code that.

Now we need the reversed row number. See the formulae above: if there are 10 rows, the reverse of row 1 is 10. The reverse of 2 is 9, and so on. So: the reverse of row R is total number of rows - R + 1.

The function ROWS(column name) will give us the total number of rows currently in column name. The function ROW() will give us the row number R (if we used ROW() in a formula in cell B5, it would return the number 5).

So... putting the formula INDIRECT("A" & ROWS(A) - ROW() + 1) into each cell in column B works for me, using Numbers 3.6.1 on a Mac.


Mac is using 100% CPU while it is OFF I have a
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
MacOS High Sierra 10.13.2

Sometimes my mac using a lot of CPU power. The usage is 75% of the system. But this occurred when I was away and the mac was in the sleep mode (I went away at about 11 AM till 8 PM). Also, the "User" usage is used more power than even when it is on. Does my Mac has some problems or is this behavior normal? Can it be a Virus?

I checked the last 30 days. It happened more than ones. They are lasting for about 3 days...

I'm wondering if this is the "Power Nap" feature of macOS...

Check System Preferences > Energy Saver

Is Power Nap checked? That feature will let the Mac do some things in the background while sleeping. Things that use little actual battery power. That is shows 100% CPU usage is odd, so I am not certain this is Power Nap.


How to control iPad with a remote control? I have an extra pair of speakers. I can connect the speaker to my iPad and listen to music.

I would like to control my iPad with a remote control. Is there a product that I can use? I'm not talking about a software remote control.

There are Bluetooth remotes that can control the media playback functions of an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch—if you can do what you want with the remote on Apple's headphones, these devices should be able to perform the same function. Typically the functions available are play/pause, fast-forward/rewind and volume up/down.

If you're using the built-in music player or any app that responds to the iOS media controls (an easy way to check is by double clicking the home button, swipe left-to-right on the task bar and see if the play/pause button works for your app). Because it's based on Bluetooth, the range will be limited to approximately 30 feet.

The two such devices I've found are the Satechi Bluetooth Multi-Media Remote Control and the Targus Bluetooth iPad Media Remote (which can also work with an iPhone or iPod Touch). There may be other similar products out there however.


Old python script not working on mac - needs tkinter I'm running mojave 10.14.2
I typed this into terminal python -V
and got
Python 2.7.10

I use 3D software called poser, and I had some amazingly useful scripts for this that i bought.  There is one in particular made by D3D (Ralph) who sadly passed away.
The script he made calls for tkinter, but for recent OSs the script fails on my imac pro because there is no tkinter.

If I were to try to load in a more modern version of python eg like 3. something, do you think my scripts that need tkinter possibly work?
Esther (who knows nothing about programming)

Make sure that the script calls the system python: /usr/bin/python

Make sure that Tkinter is imported as Tkinter (with a Capital T). Using all lower case will fail with an error message.

Tkinter is included with the built-in version of python on MacOS, so there must be some other problem on your Mac if Tkinter is not 'there'.


Why can't I sign into the Mac App Store after updating to 10.6.6? Ever since I updated to 10.6.6 a week or so ago I've wanted to use the Mac App Store but I can't sign in.  The Sign in link and the sign in menu item neither seem to do anything.  I'm signed into iTunes just fine, I can use my account on my Mac and iPhone.

I've tried erasing the contents of ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore/ but that had no effect.

Got an answer from the apple forum.

Sign out of iTunes.  Log off, log back in.  Then sign into App Store, after that, sign into iTunes.

Looks like everything works now.


RAM upgrade MacBook pro 15 inch mid-2010 on "El capitan" I have a MacBook pro 15 inch mid-2010 i5 2,4 Ghz, which I already have upgraded to 8GB of RAM. I recently tried to upgrade my MacBook's RAM to 16GB on Yosemite and it gets a kernel panic, I know others Macbook Pros can do it. But now I have 16GB on my desk and I don't know if i should have a little of faith, wait until "el capitan" get released and the computer could support the 16GB or better to loose any hope and sell them.

Officially your Model only supports up to maximum of 8 GB RAM. So you are at maximum already.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i5-2.4-aluminum-15-mid-2010-unibody-specs.html

Your alternative is to upgrade from Hard Drive to SSD, that would speed things up.


Complete Time Machine restore is only partially recovering my files I recently renamed my home folder on my new MacBook Pro (Retina, 13"). I restarted my computer not realising that it would result in a complete wipe of my drive. Previously having backed it up with Time Machine, I wasn't too worried though.

Looking through the Time Machine backup files, I also did see everything I had had previously saved, and since I have the backup on an external, I restarted the computer and pressed command+R to perform a complete restore.

About 78% through it seemed as if my external drive had failed (not responding, no progress). However, after a few moments my MacBook said the restore had been successful and restarted. Upon logging in, however, I saw that two very important folders were messed up - both of these I had added to the sidebar and the dock. Now, one of them was missing completely (a question mark in its place on the dock) and the other only had one file in it from a day ago.

Alarmed, I tried restoring the computer again, with the same results. Now even the backup files on my external don't have intact versions of the two folders. Furthermore, none of the data for my apps or any of my settings seem to have carried over.

If there's any way I can recover the two files, I'd love to know.

Launch the Time Machine App, you may see the time line show you backup time, you can navigate the "important folders" at any backup time.

if you find the files you want, just restore it manually.


How can I use a 5" screen as a display for a Mac Mini? Is there a way to over-ride HDMI settings? I purchased this 5" screen with 800x480 resolution:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013JECYF2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The Elecrow screen is primarily designed for Raspberry pi, but I would also like to use it as a screen for my Mac Mini (running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.3) connected by HDMI.

I have programming experience and would be willing to experiment. An easy solution would be great (some driver to install?),  but some way to over-ride the settings of the HDMI  port to send a signal which the screen can understand also sounds like a potential solution.

Any ideas welcome, thank you for the help.

It's working.

My HDMI cord wasn't fully plugged into the Elecrow screen.

Anyone who encounters this, it's totally possible.

This screen is so great (cheap, works and portable).


How can I install Snow Leopard on my 2011 Mac Mini Server? Can I install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a 2011 Mac Mini Server? (I own the Server model because of its better CPU)

I tried, connecting my MacBook (running Snow Leopard natively) via FireWire (in Target Disk Mode) and thereby installing Snow Leopard on my Mac Mini. It worked, however, glitches in graphics as well as an overall bad performance really freak me out.

Is the 2011 Mac Mini really that different from the 2011 MacBook Pros? Might it be that Snow leopard just doesn't load the correct drivers since it does not know the 2011 mac Mini? If so, is there a way of manually adjusting this?

I don't like Lion on my Mac Mini since I run two monitors with it, and Mission control plain sucks in that regard compared to Spaces. I'm not interested in the Server Features.

Short answer: no.

The i7 in the new 2011 Server model doesn't support anything less than pretty much the original OS.

Sorry dude. I wanted to do the exact same thing.


formatting a toshiba external hard drive for mac and pc I tried to format my Toshiba external hard drive to accept Asus pc and MacBook air files. I removed everything from the hard drive, put it on my pc.  I used the format MS DOS (FAT} on the mac and erased the hard drive. All was well till I plugged it into the Asus and now I can not open the hard drive to put the files back on it.  It shows it is there but does not open.  Just want to add that I used time machine on the mac and I believe that is causing the problem. I would really just like my files from the pc back on the hard drive.  What should I do? Erase everything and start over? Is it possible to make the mac and pc compatible on the hard drive. I am not computer savvy and would appreciate any help! Thank you.

If you format is as "FAT" then you'll have lots of issues with the size of files you can write to it and other filesystem limitations. Best bet is to format it on the PC as Fat32 or even better exFAT on the Mac.

Both of those will give you read/write capability on both the Mac and PC. Just remember tho when you first plug it into the Mac wait for Time Machine to pop up the question about using the drive to do backups. Say no and it won't bother you again.


Suppress cookie warnings Cookie warnings (I think coming from EU directives) are becoming more common and more annoying. Cookies are not blocked in Safari (12.1.2) preferences. AdBockPlus (2.06) is also installed, which does a good job of suppressing unwanted ads. The iMac is running 12.14.6, and I'm located in the US.

A little searching indicates I might enable Prebake to suppress these warnings. The Prebake page contains a link to add Prebake's filter list to the Safari filter list, but Safari won't load the linked page, not surprising given the link's formatting. Deleting the characters before "https" doesn't help. Neither Safari preferences, the ABP icon in Safari, nor the ABP Control Panel (2.0.6) show or suggest how to access the Safari filter list.

I'm not a programmer, but only a dilletante amateur. Is there a way to add this filter to the Safari filter list? Alternatively, is there another way to suppress these repeated cookie warnings?

uBlock-Safari

You could replace AdBlockPlus with the open source Safari extension uBlock-Safari and import the filter list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin

See FilterLists for a good source of filters - including cookie notification specific lists.


I get "command not found" when running a new shell, (and none of my aliases, etc. are noticed). What's wrong with my .bash_profile? Terminal.app

Here are the my preferences settings:

!/Users/Parker/Desktop/0.png
!/Users/Parker/Desktop/0.5.png
!/Users/Parker/Desktop/1.png
!/Users/Parker/Desktop/2.png

Here is the contents of my .bash_profile:

alias unhide='chflags nohidden'
alias hide='chflags hidden'
alias lock='chflags uchg'
alias unlock='chflags nouchg'
alias la='ls -A'
alias phone='sshpass -p thisismypassword ssh root@myiphone.local'
alias vlc='/Applications/VLC\ 2.2.0.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC'
PATH=/usr/local/bin\:/usr/bin\:/bin\:/usr/local/sbin\:/usr/sbin\:/sbin
if [ -f $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion ]; then
. $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion
fi
alias up='cd ..'
alias install='sudo apt-get-install'
alias update='sudo apt-get-update'
alias lock='/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend'

When I launch Terminal.app, I get this:

!/Users/Parker/Desktop/Screen Shot 2015-02-15 at 10.25.50 AM.png

You shouldn't be escaping the colons in your PATH variable:

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin


Windows support software could not be saved to the selected drive I been installing Windows on my new MacBook Pro 13" 2017 Touchbar (MacOS Sierra) but I have been stuck because I get the error Windows support software could not be saved to the selected drive ... I tried installing it using a 16gb USB stick  (MSDOS fat32) and no USB since my MacBook can install Windows even without USB flash drive (as mentioned by apple in their website.) Can someone help me with these problems?

Cause

Apple allows Windows Installation, by first copying the entire ISO into a temporary storage area.  Most of the time it works, because there is enough space available.

When we use a larger ISO, like the 32-bit + 64-bit Windows ISO, it requires about 6.5 GB just for the storage, let alone uncompressed files usage.  Apple tried to download Windows support software onto that partition.  This is where the issue happens.  The package requires at least 1 GB, and it would not get it because of the ISO.

Solution

Use the 64-bit ISO (3.5GB) instead of the 32-bit + 64-bit Windows ISO for a x64 MacBook (all current generation ones)
Use the 32-bit ISO (3.5GB) instead of the 32-bit + 64-bit Windows ISO for a x86 MacBook (2011 etc.)


Search / filter by genre in iTunes Currently the only filters for search in iTunes are by song, album, artist and composer. Is there a way to search by genre in iTunes?

In the current version of iTunes, it works when you uncheck "Search entire iTunes library" in the search bar. (To get there you click the spotlight-type icon in the iTunes search bar.) I had the same problem, and that worked for me!


How long does it take to get used to the keyboard of the MacBook 12"? I'm thinking of getting the MacBook 12" but I'm really scared I won't be able to get used to the keyboard. I'm in The Netherlands, it's not possible to return the product.

How long does it take to get used to the keyboard for people here and is there a really big difference once you're typing on it?

If you can, go to your local Best Buy or Apple Store and check it out. I've only used one at Best Buy, but I think that I'd get used to it pretty quickly. Everyone is different, so YMMV. Just make sure you can return it if you just can't get used to it.


Mounting a "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)" drive formatted in Lion on either Mac OS X Leopard or CentOS 6 I formatted a Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive on a system running OS X Lion (10.7) as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)".  Everything works great on the Lion system.

However, when I try to mount the drive on a system running Mac OS X Leopard (10.5), it can't mount the drive; it complains that the drive cannot be read (I do not have the exact error message in front of me ATM).

I've also tried to mount the drive in my CentOS VM using the hfsplus module, but it can't find the HFS+ superblock.  I've mke2fs -n'd it to see if it can find an alternate superblock location, but none of the ones it found seem to work.

Is there a way to mount a drive formatted by an OS X Lion system as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)" on a system running either Mac OS X Leopard or CentOS 6?

Unfortunately, Apple introduced a new technology called Core Storage to handle the new full disk encryption.  You can read about it in John Siracusa's review of OS X Lion.  This new type of volume cannot be read yet by other OS versions, but I'm sure some third party will eventually create some software that will enable reading these volumes on other operating systems.


Fast CD ripping on old MacBook Pro, slow ripping on i5 PC? I'm ripping my entire music collection into ALAC, as it's the best solution for quality and compatibility across all devices in our household. In order to speed the ripping process up, I have iTunes installed on my PC and Apple laptop with the same ripping settings (ALAC, error correction enabled), with the aim to merge the two local libraries later. The issue I have is, the Windows PC is extremely slow compared to the laptop, despite having the power advantage.

Any ideas what could be causing this? I the DVD-RW drive in the PC (Samsung SH-224DB) is capable of reading at 40x but it's clearly not even close. From what I have read, the SuperDrive in my laptop is only 20x~.

I'm almost tempted to convert the computer into a temporary 'Hackintosh' to see if there is any difference.

Screenshots of ripping progress

Installed Mavericks on the same, slow ripping PC onto a USB external drive. After adjusting one or two kexts, I had a mostly functional OS X environment.

Updated and ran iTunes with the same settings. Ripping is now mostly at 20x on the same CD drive. Looks to be a limitation with iTunes for Windows, or Windows itself. Who knows!


How do you download games on a school iPad? This school iPad is not letting me get games or anything like that so I'm asking how can you transfer games from a mac computer onto a school iPad?

Your school iPad is being managed with some sort of Mobile Device Management (MDM) software.  Companies and (especially) schools use it with devices they distribute so they can effectively manage who uses and what gets used on the devices (like iPads) that they deploy throughout the organization.

This MDM software is the "teeth" in your school's Acceptable Use policy (AUP).  If you remember from the beginning of the school year when the devices were distributed, there was something that you and/or your parents signed indicating that you would abide by their rules/regulations for use of the device.

The MDM software is the technological component to ensure students abide by the policies/rules of the organization.

Unless your school policy changes in someway to allow the loading of unauthorized software, you simply can't.