Can't see "My Music" albums on iPad after resubscribing to Apple Music I haven't been subscribed to Apple Music for one month. Today I have subscribed back. I used iTunes on Mac to do that.

Immediately all my "Apple Music" albums on a Mac returned. They also showed on an iPhone. But not on iPad.

Apple Music is working on iPad, but I just don't see any of the albums I saved for later in "My Music" section. I tried signing out and in and restarting the device. Still none of the albums are visible.

Turning on 'iCloud Music Library' in Settings solved the problem.


What's the maximum power delivery in Macbook Pro 2016, 2017 Thunderbolt 3 ports? I now this interface is capable of 100 watt, but I couldn't find what's the voltage/current capability for these machines through the USB-C ports (neither for the Macbook 12-inch 2015/16/17).

USB-C alone allows 4.5 Watts ( 900 mA @ 5 V ) and thunderbolt 3 improves on that greatly.

According to Apple:

  MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016) and MacBook (13-inch, Late 2016, Four
  Thunderbolt 3 Ports) can power two devices that use up to 15 watts,
  and two more devices that use up to 7.5 watts. It doesn't matter which
  side of your MacBook Pro that they're connected to—power is delivered
  on a first-come, first-served basis.

  MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports) can power one
  device that uses up to 15 watts and one device that uses up to 7.5
  watts.

Thunderbolt Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256

USB Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201163

NOTE: The above pages no longer contain the information I’m quoting, but you can view archived versions of them at: http://web.archive.org

The above specs are the same for the 2017 MacBook Pro models. The MacBook models only have USB levels of power and data available.


Are the apps opened in CarPlay still running after disconnecting phone from the car? I use CarPlay a lot. For navigation I use either Google Maps or Waze (or both). Because they are both from Google I used to close them (swipe them up from the open app list) after I disconnect my phone from the car to reduce their spying activities.

I recently installed iOS 13 and it introduced a concept of using different app on the phone screen and different app on the car screen. So now after getting out of the car I don't see them in the open app list even if I used them when driving.

And here's the question: are they not running anymore? Is there a different way to force-quit them? And does quitting them actually change anything?

You don't ever need to to force quit apps when you're done with them.
Evidence provided by Apple themselves a few years ago

If you don't tell a SatNav you've finished your journey*, then it will keep actively navigating.

Otherwise, just unplug your phone & off you go.

*Some of them insist on continuing to navigate to some pre-determined spot 50m from where you actually wanted, so until you pass through its destination point it will still keep on trying.

Incidentally, apps can be told from settings not to be allowed to use your location &/or track anything whilst not active, & Google apps can also be told from your Google account not to track you.


Do I need to buy Mac OS X again? I am running 10.6.8 on my Mac Pro 1,1 and I want to reset it. I don't have the install disk anymore, so do I need to buy it again? Or can I copy the files from my system, and put them on a disk and boot from that? (I would prefer not to reinstall the OS, I just want to delete files, as it is getting pretty full, is there a way to only do that without completely reinstalling the OS?)

I would say the best option might be to get software like Carbon Copy Cloner or use Disk Utility to clone the existing drive to another drive / external drive.

Then you could clean off the files on that OS and test that booting to it still works. Once you have something that works - you can re-clone or repeat the deletions on the main drive.


My iPhone thinks it's always docked -- Volume slider disappeared with no audio output EDIT3*

I managed to fix this problem in a risky way, but it worked for me. Read below.

Pin 11 apparently carries out the following function :

11   GND
If connected to GND the iPhone sends audio signals through pin 3-4
otherwise it uses onboard speaker.

Source

My iPhone is stuck at the function of using an onboard speaker (dock), and only produces sound when connected to a dock or a charging connector. Whenever I take it out, the phone mutes itself except for ringtones.

I am guessing that some switching mechanism is stuck at that setting. Does anyone know if there is a specific pin-like switch that needs to be adjusted to fix this ?

EDIT

I noticed that sound only plays when connected to the charging dock and powered on. Using the cable with no power OR without the dock mutes the phone. If I remove the iPhone from the dock while it's playing music, it continues for a few seconds and then mutes, the music player is still running on play, but with no audio output.

EDIT2

When trying to connect the AppleTV, I found the following evidence that shows how the iPhone thinks the dock is connected.

The iPhone was NOT docked at this time.

I found a method that worked for me. If you're having a problem similar to mine and cleaning the dock did NOT work for you, try this at your own risk.
Disclaimer : This method might permanently damage your iPhone, mine is out of warranty so it wasn't a big deal if I damaged it, I would still need to pay for replacement.

I don't know what may have caused the phone to lock at the docked state, but my first thought is that there is a switch mechanism inside the dock connector. All I did was get a key and jam it there, and rotate it a bit until it got fixed.
Note: If I inserted the key there and did not rotate it, the problem is fixed temporarily until the key is removed. The only way I got rid of the problem completely is to rotate the key and push the pins downward.

If you try to insert the key and remove it, the problem still persists. I had to jam the key in deep and rotate it a few times (gently) to permanently fix this issue.

Make sure you insert the key in the middle - left part of the dock connector, that's where  pin 11 is located (I think).

After placing my phone on a dock again, I lost control over the sound. I did the same method with a bit more rotations using the key and now the problem is gone 100%. Not sure how, not sure why, but it worked.

If using a Key seems too risky for you, read below

Use cotton wool from the end of a qtip (but not the qtip it's too wide to go in) use a nail file or a very thin screw driver to put the cotton wool inside the docking part and gently move back and forth. If you use alcohol even better.

(PS i tried a lot of compressed air and a toothbrush and it didn't work - the iPhone was about 3 years old so it was filthy inside. The cotton wool came out surprisingly dirty - ie the tooth brush and the compressed air will work if it's a little dirty or there is a little bit of lint - but not if its very dirty.)

Good luck.


iPhone Calender Getting Event Correct I used to live in Arizona.  I now live in Virginia.
When entering an event on the iPhone, I enter the time, say 9:00 AM.  My iPhone calender is sync'd with the Outlook calender on my PC.  When the alert for the event entered on the iPhone, appears, it is two hours early.  9:00 AM is now 7:00 AM. This happens on both calenders.

The time difference between VA & AZ is two hours.  Is this the cause of the problem?
When I enter an event on the Outlook calender, when the alert arrives, the time is correct on both devices.

The time on the iPhone is set to New York, the default.

Make sure that inside Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars the timezone for the calendar is correct. It may still be on your old Arizona timezone.


OS X Maps app, seek with longitude and lattude possible? Is there some way to get the Maps app in OS X Mavericks to show a specific known latitude/longitude expressed in numbers only? If so, what's the syntax?

It works for me with the following syntax:

51.10N,17.02E


Why would an internal DVD reader eject a burned DVD? I've sent DVD+R DL to a bunch of PowerPC G4/G5 users and some said the disk was ejected after few seconds.

I noticed on some MacBooks and MacBook Pro(s), that the internal "media/super-drives" are very picky, especially when it comes to DVDs and other problems, which in this case are not much relevant. (Individual user experience maybe?)

You can always try to use a different DVD brand/producer. That might do the trick, at least in my experience.
It sometimes is a good idea to use "low burn speed rates", depending on the contents you are going to burn and also to use buffer settings within the application itself, to prevent faulty sectors/errors.
Though it shouldn't be a problem at all, it is a good idea to use common applications, like "Disk Utility.app" or "Toast.app", which are common on the other users system too.


Clocks due to change and sleep prompt goes into infinite loop Tonight the clocks change in the UK from BST to GMT. Officially at 2am BST going back to 1am GMT.

At 00:00 my Mountain Lion macbook pro asks me if I want it to sleep.  Usually there's never a problem. Coincidently tonight, all the "cancel" button does is reset the timer back to 10 minutes?!

I decided to press sleep.. thinking it'd get rid of the message. No, it's now worse. I'm guessing the sleep prompt is still loading on the desktop even though I'm on the login screen. I can't type into any input field.

Powering down or restarting doesn't resolve the issue.

Is it stuck like this until 2am?? Any ideas on a fix?

go to guest user
bring up 'monitor' app; I stopped a number of processes, although I can't remember which ones, including finder
bring up 'preferences' > 'energy saver' > 'power adapter' > 'schedule' and turn off sleep schedule


Need advice: should I open the back of a 2013 Retina MacBook Pro as a means to recover data? A Late-2013 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina (MBPr) of mine was fried by a water spill and some very important data is on the hard drive. My most recent back up doesn't include this data. I know the computer is fried but I'm not sure if the hard drive is recoverable or not. Sparing the details, recovery of this data is very time sensitive.

Attempted solutions so far:

I took off the back of my computer to check if the hard drive was recoverable. Unfortunately I need a SSD adapter for an A1502 MBPr drive to find out, so this is not an immediate solution. I looked into purchasing a connector but everyone I found online won't arrive for at least a couple weeks. I can't wait that long.
The company Apple recommends you take your computer to for data recovery wants ~$1000 as an estimate, and the turnaround time is not guaranteed. This is the "standard priority" price, meaning I might spend money that I don't have and not even get the data recovered in time.

My thoughts on my next attempt at a solution:

I've ordered a new MBPr to replace my old one. It arrives in a couple days. My thought is to take off the back of my new MBP and plug in my old drive. From what I've read Apple hasn't updated their hard drive since 2013, so my old drive should be compatible with the new MBPr. If the old drive is okay then I should be able to restore my data before the weekend.

I'm asking for opinions on this solution. I recognize that this would void my warranty, but it is also my understanding from a friend's friend that works at the Genius Bar that there's no way for Apple to ever know I did this should I need to use my warranty for something in the future. For what it's worth, I would do this with the assistance of a very computer-savvy friend.

In particular, I am wondering if anyone can answer the following:

Can anyone confirm that my 2013 A1502 MBPr drive is compatible with the current MBPr model?
Will opening up my computer and temporarily swapping the hard drives compromise my new MBPr in any way?
Am I misinformed about Apple being unable to know I opened the back of my new MBPr should something go wrong?

Alternative solutions welcome. Please help.

First, some (semi) good news. Your data is most likely fine. The $1000 option is for severely damaged and / or corrupted drives.

The SSD adapter is the best choice - it will turn the SSD into an external drive and you can copy stuff off in the usual manner. 2 weeks is unreasonable - do you live somewhere not serviced by FedEx overnight?

Putting the old drive in a new MBP is possible - it will either fit or not fit, at which point you wait for FedEx to deliver the SSD adapter. However, the new MBP will require the most recent OS. If you kept the old one up to date it should run just like the old one. If you were still running Yosemite or Mavericks it will probably not boot - the old software doesn't know about the newer hardware.

A quick look at teardowns (you didn't specify 13 inch or 15 inch) show the drives are somewhat different - when I say "fit" above I mean the connector goes in the slot far enough to work. Not that it sits in it's space and you can put the backplate on again.

If you can find a 2013 MBP from any of the used computer dealers you definitely will be able to drop the old drive in and carry on as before. Updating your backups (and backup process) first of course.


Why does Microsoft Messenger 8.0 crash when I open a new chat window? Microsoft Messenger For Mac 8.0 crashes sometimes when I try to open a new chat window.
Moreover there is no any error logged in Console.

My system is Mac OS X 10.6.5 at a Mac Book Pro.
Find the screenshot showing the problem here:

Any suggestions?

It’s a typical BAD_EXEC. This could be related to two main things:

A bug in the program. The Mac programming framework (Called Cocoa) and the programming language used to develop most Mac programs (Objective-C) are very tricky with memory handling. A simple mistake could lead to unpredictable and unexpected crashes that seem to follow no “pattern”. It’s very common, it happens in the best software shops and until the vendor fixes the memory leak, there is nothing you can do (other than send them the bug report and pray).
If this behavior is exhibited by more software, there might be a problem with your hardware memory (RAM). Faulty RAM sticks are know to have caused this type of errors in a more or less unpredictable way. Programs start crashing and with time, new ‘problems’ arise, until the machine might eventually become almost unusable.

What can you do?

A simple test may be conducted by creating a new blank user in your computer, restarting your computer and using Messenger from the new user. This will rule any possible software problem with your user. If Messenger works fine under the new account, then further analysis of yours will lead us to try to find what’s interfering with MSN.

If it fails to work under the new account too, then the problem lies either in the MSN, Your OS X in general (weird but possible, usually a new user fixes 90% of the problems), or, worst case scenario, in your Hardware.

I suggest you try to above and take an action course. As a last resort, don’t hesitate taking the machine to an Apple Store/Genius Bar for further analysis. They will be able to provide you with much more information that what we could from here.


Show speed in Finder Copy progress window Is there a way to show more details in the Finder copy window? I'm mainly interested in the speed.

AFAIK here isn't any "builtin/hidden solution".

You can get (probably rough) numbers:

open Applications -> Utilities -> Monitor Activity
Select Disk Activity and you get actual IO/Data speed.


Internet Sharing stuck on after 10.7.3 update I use Internet Sharing at work to create a local WiFi network (sharing the GigE connection) for my various iOS and tablet devices to connect through. After the 10.7.3 update, I cannot turn sharing off after I unplug the Ethernet cable. All the checkboxes in the system pref pane are cleared, but I am unable to join a WiFi network.

After I plug the Ethernet back in, I can then disable sharing, but only while it's plugged in.

As best I can guess, there might be some xinetd cruft laying around, but I haven't the slightest clue as to how to look for it or fix it. Any ideas?

I found a relatively simple solution not involving a system restart - just bring the WiFi interface down and then back up:

$ sudo ifconfig en0 down
$ sudo ifconfig en0 up

In my case en0 is the AirPort interface of my MacBook Air.

Note that turning the AirPort off and on again doesn't work, but bringing the interface down does the job.


Weird iCloud Drive view How do I get to see all of the folders shown in the folder in this question.
When I go to iCloud Drive all I see is:

(Parts of image containing personal information whited-out)

Based on the window icons, it appears you are using OS X Yosemite or later. The directories you see with icons (TextEdit) are equivalent to the Mountain Lion directories com~apple~Textedit. The additional directories belong to non-Apple software. What version of OS X/macOS are you using?


How to fix iBooks "Two pages" mode I have a number of books in iBooks on my MacBook. All of them were showing nicely in "Two Pages" mode, until I clicked the "Show Notes" button, on two of them. Those books changed to "Single Page" mode and the "Two Pages" option under "View" is now disabled, even after disabling "Show Notes Panel" under "View".

I've already tried deleting everything under the /Users/jonasmatser/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks directory and adding the books back to the emptied iBooks application, but that didn't help.

Any suggestions what other preferences or files I could try to delete or other things I could do to get those books back in "Two Pages" mode?

I've experienced this problem before, and I managed to get back two-page functionality by switching iBooks to full screen mode.  You also might be able to get it back by adjusting the iBooks window size -- the bug appears to be triggered when iBooks assumes there isn't enough space in the window to display both pages.


How do I retrieve photos from an iphone backup? I have an iphone backup with screenshots I'd like to extract. They aren't on icloud/iphoto.

Is it possible to retrieve them? I no longer have the phone.

Thanks.

Software like PhoneView is able to extract information from backup files.
There might be free alternatives, PhoneView is just the one I am familiar with.


Image annotations that remain changeable I want to edit images with annotations (text, arrows, ...). Preview does offer a nice set of tools but after saving they get embedded in the image and are not clickable/modifiable anymore. Using Time Machine to reset changes is much too cumbersome.

Do you know of any similar tools where i can easily alter annotations after saving (like Skim for PDFs).

Skitch

Skitch is a very useful app for making annotations on images, and whilst by default it saves the files using the format that they are imported as, it can save it as a Skitch PNG which keeps the ability to modify the annotations, or the files can be kept inside its own library.


How can I connect to ftp server in terminal? How can I connect to ftp server in terminal? What is the command?
For example for the ssh server:

ssh admin@ip.of.the.site

ftp hostname

or

ftp://username:password@hostname

Now, once connected the 5 most common options are:

cd foldername      #e.g. cd /downloads/recent
get filename       #e.g. get thisisthefileiwant.text
put filename       #e.g. put sendthistotheserver.txt
mget filenameregex #e.g mget * to get every file in a directory
mput filemameregex #e.g. mput *.txt to upload every txt file to the server

The only trickery is sometimes you might need to put it into binary mode by typing binary

To exit, type bye

The difference between mine and @grgarside 's solution is his forks it to the Finder using open, while mine uses Terminal


How to 'custom install' with brew? So I have to edit the install of wine, and apply a custom patch. The patch I want is here...

https://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=38156

and when I add these lines with brew edit wine

patch do
  url "https://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=38156"
  sha256 "f1c4537f38e258c810ca33455e0947e3b2be1087bf9445fadac00424f294c004"
end

and then try to install, it does not actually add the patch. It seems to be downloading it from a prepackaged and compiled source because this is the terminal output...

==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/wine-1.8.1.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring wine-1.8.1.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
You may want to get winetricks:
  brew install winetricks

 By default Wine uses a native Mac driver. To switch to the X11 driver, use
regedit to set the "graphics" key under "HKCUSoftwareWineDrivers" to
"x11" (or use winetricks).

For best results with X11, install the latest version of XQuartz:
  https://xquartz.macosforge.org/
==> Summary
  /usr/local/Cellar/wine/1.8.1: 2,504 files, 260.8M

and not downloading from where it says to in the brew edit wine file...

stable do
url "https://dl.winehq.org/wine/source/1.8/wine-1.8.1.tar.bz2"
mirror "https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/wine/Source/wine-1.8.1.tar.bz2"
sha256 "149ad3daaf8593b36c5c061285df0ec2a25e20ea48c61323be91088c4d22ca97"

To install something by building from the source, you can use -s.
For your case:

brew install wine -s

Without -s, brew attempts to download binary package ("bottle") and install it.


Random letters and touch input on iPad A couple of days ago, my iPad started inserting random letters into what I was typing. For instance, I would try to type a C and a V would be typed. This would be the same for many letters. When I pressed Backspace to delete it would either delete multiple letters or insert various random letters. I reset the iPad and it worked better for a couple of days, but now symptoms have arisen again.  This has been happening when using Facebook, Messenger and Mail so it's not restricted to one app. What can I do?

I've seen a couple variations of this problem before, and its usually one of 3 problems:

your touch screen is starting to malfunction. This is uncommon, but things happen with electronics. Seek repair from Apple.
Poorly conditioned electricity. Does this only happen when your iPad is plugged in? I had a generic plug that induced symptoms like you describe. Unplug the ipad and see if it still happens.
Liquid damage. This is probably the most frequent cause of electrical anomalies like this. Did anyone spill anything on the ipad, even if not recently?


Why does "Open With" display so many instances of an app? When I select a file and right click on it to use the "Open With" option I see a list of the most likely applications for opening that file, but in my case, running 10.9.5, I see three and sometimes four instances of each recommended application for opening that particular file - see attached screenshot. Why is this? Is there a way to reduce that to one instance per app? If so, how?

Rebuild LaunchServices to Fix Duplicate Entries in OS X’s ‘Open With’ Menu

  To fix this, we need to reset OS X’s LaunchServices database. As is the case with most actions in OS X, there are multiple ways to accomplish this task, but the fastest is to simply use a Terminal command.

From that article- Copy following in to your Terminal

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


AppleCare Status On My Mac: Ways to Check? I am aware that one can check the AppleCare Status of their Mac by going to Apple Support.

What other ways exist (that maybe inbuilt within OS X) to clarify this, and possibly even schedule a repair ?

With Mountain Lion, it's possible to check from the machine itself. From the Apple Menu, select About this Mac, then More Info.... On the next screen, select Service and then Check my service and support coverage status and you should find all the information you need.

The above was taken from The Mac Observer


Is there a way to automatically format/delete my SSD after x failed login attempts? On iOS there is the option to have the device delete all data after 10 failed login attempts. How can I have the same option on macOS so that my SSD gets deleted/reformated after x failed attemps to log into my user account?

With on-board tools (and without using external services like "Find my Mac" & "Erase my Mac remotely" via iCloud) it's impossible to erase or reformat the boot volume with diskutil ... because the disk is busy.

You can remove your user folder though:

The method below uses a password policy and depending on the state of the user login capabilities, a launch daemon and a bash script invoked by the daemon will remove the user folder.

Create a password policy plist on your desktop:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>policyCategoryAuthentication</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>policyContent</key>
            <string>(policyAttributeFailedAuthentications &lt; policyAttributeMaximumFailedAuthentications) or (policyAttributeCurrentTime &gt; policyAttributeLastFailedAuthenticationTime + autoEnableInSeconds)</string>
            <key>policyIdentifier</key>
            <string>com.apple.maximumFailedLoginAttempts</string>
            <key>policyParameters</key>
            <dict>
                <key>autoEnableInSeconds</key>
                <integer>31536000</integer>
                <key>policyAttributeMaximumFailedAuthentications</key>
                <integer>10</integer>
            </dict>
        </dict>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

The user login capabilities will be disabled after 10 failed login attempts for 31536000 seconds (=one year).
Create a bash script rmuserdir.sh:

#!/bin/bash

PWPOL=$(pwpolicy -u username authentication-allowed)

if [[ $PWPOL == 'User <username> is not allowed to authenticate: Failed global policy "com.apple.maximumFailedLoginAttempts"'  ]]

then rm -fR /Users/username

fi

in /usr/local/bin/ and make it executable. Replace the string username with your user's name but keep the angle brackets in the if statement!
Create a launch daemon org.userdirrm.plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ with the content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.userdirrm</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/bash</string>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/rmuserdir.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.userdirrm.stderr</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.userdirrm.stdout</string>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>60</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

File owner and group has to be root:wheel and file permissions have to be 644. The daemon will run every 60 seconds. You can tweak this by changing the integer in the key StartInterval.
Import the password policy:

pwpolicy setaccountpolicies ~/Desktop/pwpolicy.plist

You have to enter your (authenticator=admin) password.
Launch the daemon:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.userdirrm.plist

You can test the set-up by creating a stub user, changing the username in the bash script temporarily and entering wrong passwords trying to login with this stub user. You can lower the number of failed login attempts to 3 in the password policy temporarily to shorten the test.

Tweaks:

adding the (rm) -P option in the shell script:

  Overwrite regular files before deleting them.  Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted.

trying to remove the root folder instead of your user folder:

rm -fR /

or

rm -fRP /

SIP protected files won't be removed/overwritten! To remove/delete/overwrite them also, you have to disable SIP.
try to get the binary srm from an older OS X install, add it to High Sierra and use it in the bash script instead of rm. The binary srm securely removes files or directories. Check man srm for further options (I haven't tested this).

In my opinion the method outlined above can be circumvented by booting to Single User Mode, launching the opendirectoryd with launchctl (after the obligatory file system check and mounting the boot volume to /) and removing all password policies with pwpolicy -clearaccountpolicies.

Therefore formatting or erasing disks or folders to "gain security" isn't recommended. Instead encrypt your main volume with FileVault2 and use good passwords for all users.


Magnet near 2020 Macbook Pro So I recently got a cool portable monitor, the travel case/stand of which as a magnet to hold the monitor upright and in place. I wasn't thinking and put my computer on top of the monitor while it was in it's case, kind of like a bookstand. I noticed a weird noise (like a 'computing' sound if you will) coming from the machine and assumed it was just the intensive processes I was running. It started to get quite annoying until I realized that the noise went away when I removed the laptop from off the case. I also regularly travel with the folded case and computer in close proximity. Am I endangering my computer by having this case anywhere around it? Is there anyway to check for damage? I seem to have all my files and the computer works fine.

No, a permanent magnet of any reasonable size would not damage your computer.
You are not endangering your computer by having the case near the computer.
The SSD in your computer is not affected by magnets of that type at all.


What methods are available to (re)install Lion on a Mac? With genuine Lion install media being a rarety (and only included on certain newer Macs), there are a lot of queries by users on how they are best able to re-install (or even simply install) Lion on their computers.

I think it would be very useful to have a single canonical answer that is able to present every sensible install option on a single page, from which machines include the USB install media to how to use Internet Recovery, and all the homebrew options of self burning an image to DVD etc inbetween.

So, what methods are you aware of, or have you used, to re-install Lion on your Mac?

Please try to include 1 answer per answer, and detail it as fully as possible in order to prevent duplicate answers, or answers that contain bits of the method etc.  Feel free to edit others answers to increase the detail level. Try not to link to existing guides or external webpages without summarising or paraphasing, it is far better to include the information directly on this site.

Create a bootable OS X Lion USB stick or DVD based on the Mac App Store download

Buy and download Lion from the Mac App Store. The installer should show up in your Applications folder.
Right-click on the installer and hit “Show Package Contents”. Navigate to Contents/SharedSupport and look for a file called InstallESD.dmg.
Open up Disk Utility and drag the DMG file into the left-hand sidebar. If you’re burning it to a DVD, insert your DVD, select the disk image in the sidebar, and hit the “Burn” button. Skip down to the last step to use it.
If you want to burn Lion to a USB flash drive, plug it in and click on it in the left-hand sidebar in Disk Utility. Go to the Partition tab and select “1 Partition” from the dropdown menu. Choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” on the left.
Hit the “Options” button under the partition table and choose “GUID Partition Table”. You’ll need this to make the drive bootable on a Mac. Hit the “Apply” button when you’re done to format your drive (note: it will erase everything on the drive).
Click on the “Restore” tab, choose the InstallESD.dmg file as the source and your flash drive as the destination. Hit the “Apply” button and it will create your bootable USB drive.

Reboot into OS X and hold the option key when you hear the startup chime. You can boot into your DVD or flash drive from there.


Does a Thunderbolt 3 to Ethernet male to male cable exist? I have a WD Passport external hard drive with ethernet and Firewire 800 ports only.  Having just purchased a new MacBook Pro (2019), I'd like to continue using this drive as my backup.  As ethernet is faster than FW800, I want to connect using the ethernet port, however it seems that I have to buy both a TB3 to ethernet adapter and a separate ethernet cable of some length.  (Actually, I may need a TB3 to TB2 dongle + a TB2 to ethernet dongle + the ethernet cable).  I'm looking for the simplest solution hopefully without a 6ft. ethernet cable coiled on my desk.
Is there not a single male to male adapter cable that can accomplish this connection?
I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks!

I doubt that such an adapter exists.
You can get TB3 to Ethernet dongles from many different companies - there's no need to buy a TB2 dongle and TB2 ethernet adapter.
You can also get very short ethernet cables. There's no need for a 6ft ethernet cable - you can get a 1ft one (or even shorter). They're available at a low price (few dollars).
Remember to take a close look at the specs of your drive before purchasing adapters (you did not include any identifying information). There's a good chance that the FW800 port is actually going to be faster in practice than connecting over Ethernet.
Also if the drive is already several years old (which I gather it is, as I do not think any current Passport product has the FW800/Ethernet combo) - then it is might be more economical to buy a new drive with USB-C. Remember that old drives will fail at some point.


Home sharing on iPhone: "You don't have permission to access the requested resource " I've configured Home sharing to work just fine on my iPad and Apple TV, however for some reason on my phone I get an error pop up saying "You don't have permission to access the requested resource" when trying to play a song.

I can view my library just fine, but I cannot play any songs.

I've set iTunes to share my entire library which seems fine on the other advices.

I've restarted both my phone and PC, and also signed out of home sharing on my phone and signed in again, and also disabled and re-enabled home sharing on my PC.

Running the latest version of both iOS and iTunes.

Thanks!

Fix:

Sign out of Home sharing:  iOS Settings > Music > Sign out of Home Sharing
Sign in to Home sharing again, with your Apple ID.
Terminate the Music app. Double-click the Home button to bring up the iOS app switcher. Swipe the Music app with an upwards motion, to terminate it.
Open the Music app again. Home Sharing should now be working again. You will have to reindex the contents.

I don't know why this problem exists, but Home Sharing seems to have become increasingly unreliable as Apple post-Jobs appears to divert resources elsewhere.


How do I partition my computer for Boot Camp? I want to create a BootCamp partition on my 13" MBP with a 250 Gb hard drive.

The DiskUtility shows the partition as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
.

When trying to perform a partitioning with BootCamp Assistant, after the progress bar gets to about 40% of partitioning, I get the alert stating:

The disk cannot be partitioned because some files cannot be moved.
Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again.

Here's what it looks like:

Now this gets me confused - what I really should do and what's the core reason of the problem?

Yep, that's kinda odd.  Might be because it needs to partition a contiguous chunk, for efficiency reasons, for Windows.  If that's the case, and it's got some immoveable files within that contiguous chunk, I could see it having issues.

I wonder if it would be possible to run boot camp assistant from the OS X disk instead.  If you can, those files could probably be shifted as you wouldn't be booted from the 1st partition anymore.

Alternately you could create a bootable partition on an external hard-drive and do the same from a fully functioning OS X installation.  Finally, the last resort would be to use a 3rd party utility to add that NTFS Bootcamp partition.  I don't recommend that route.


Do I have to repurchase Apple apps through the Mac App Store to get updates there? Back when Apple announced iLife '11 I bought a copy, but now I see that it's also available on the Mac App Store. If I want to be eligible to use the Mac App Store's built-in update mechanism to update it, do I have to repurchase it through the Mac App Store?

Yes, you do have to re-buy to get updates via the Mac App Store. Via Daring Fireball:

  The Mac App Store may show software
  bought from us previously as
  “Installed”, even though they’re two
  different licenses. You will not get
  Mac App Store auto-updates unless you
  purchase from the Mac App Store. To
  re-enable the “Purchase” button in the
  Mac App Store, just drag the app to
  the trash. Your preferences/sites will
  not be affected.

  In other words, for apps that use the
  same bundle ID for the both the Mac
  App Store and non-App Store versions,
  the Mac App Store will not install
  updates to already-installed non-App
  Store versions, but it will recognize
  them as being already installed. If
  you want to get updates via the Mac
  App Store, you’ll have to re-buy the
  app through the App Store.

Honestly, I'm really surprised by this.

UPDATE: I'd recommend reading Cabel Sasser's blog post over at Panic about this as it provides a more comprehensive picture of what's going on, and includes some developer-related information.


Temporary Folder Difference for Apple Script This seems to work as a temporary folder in Apple Script

path to temporary items

but

path to temporary items from user domain

is also recommended to use.

Which one is correct and safe to use? I am confused by the web references.

If you don't want or need those temporary files to be available to all users, then definitely using "from user domain" is ideal. If you require the files to be available to all users, then you should use the plain "path to temporary items".


Could an app keep a trail of selected iPhone actions in a journal type style? Would it be possible for an app to be able to automatically keep a trail/log of iPhone actions? E.g., I could see all phone calls, text messages, emails and other actions I had taken in a day (all in one timeline/journal type display)? Ideally being able to configure the app to choose which actions I wanted to take a trail of?

Is there an app that does this now?

iOS applications run inside an individual sandbox, which prevents applications from accessing data etc. from another application. This also prevents a general "Activity Log" type application from working, unless Apple would provide an API for things like this.

Things may look different in the jailbreak world but even there the applications to be monitored would need to "publish" their actions somewhere.


Tool to objectively test performance various external drives on my Mac via USB & Thunderbolt I would to test the relative performance of various external storage devices:

Thumb drive

Samsung MUF-256AB/AM FIT Plus 256GB - 300MB/s USB 3.1 Flash Drive (256 gigs)

Spinning metal drive

Toshiba Canvio Advance 1TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0, Blue (HDTC910XL3AA)

NVMe M.2 solid-state storage adapter

EXMTE M.2 NVME USB 3.1 Adapter M-Key M.2 NGFF NVME to USB Card High Performance 10 Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2 Bridge Chip
Samsung 970 EVO Plus Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V7S250B/AM)

I do not care about free-of-cost or not, I'd be okay with paying a fee.

I understand benchmarking tools are always biased and unrealistic as compared to real-world usage. Nevertheless, I would like to get an objective sense of the reading and writing throughput on these devices. In particular I would like to see if the NMMe M.2 can saturate the USB 3.0 port on my MacBook and the USB 3.1 port on my Mac mini.

Testing on:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
Mac mini 2018

I found a couple similar Questions (here & here), but they are 7-8 years old. I imagine things may have changed, now in 2019.

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

If you're interested in read and write speeds there is an app called Black Blackmagic Disk Speed Test available on the App Store. This doesn't have a database to compare with others but can give you actual speeds for your internal and external drive.


Can't use Wi-Fi and LAN at the same time I have a macbook and a belkin USB-C to Ethernet Adapter. I would like to use Wi-Fi to access the internet, and the LAN cable to connect to a local network. But it doesn't work. Whenever I plug in the LAN cable, I can't access the internet anymore, and no Wi-Fi networks are found. Why is that?

I set the LAN configuration manually:
IP address: 10.0.4.7
netmask: 255.255.255.0
The router field is empty.
I tried changing the network priorities, this doesn't seem to have an effect.

You can change the priority for Wi-Fi over LAN connection. By default machines have LAN connection at top priority. You choose Wi-Fi at top and try again.

Step to change the priority of connection;

Go to System Preference -> Network, in network section at left-below side you have three icons +,-,(icon for setting).
Click on setting icon and you will get multiple option.
Select "Set Service Order..."
Then you will be prompt to a new window with all network option.
Select Wi-Fi and drag it to top.

It should help you to get your internet connection back. Please let me know if it works.


cannot see log items for connected ipad in console I have attached an iPad to my MacBook and I made the iPad trust the MacBook.

I've opened up the Console application where I can see both my MacBook and the iPad, but I am only seeing messages come through for my MacBook - the iPad has a little triangle containing an exclamation mark next to it and an empty message log. I can't see anything in the UI to indicate what the problem is or how to diagnose it.

How can I get message logging working for the iPad?

And it turns out that clicking on the triangle containing the exclamation mark was the required step to make log messages start flowing.


My iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (4014) Error 4014 occurred when restoring my iPhone 6s I have restarted my iPhone, but it didn't help. I don't know what to do next.

Why did it happen?

The why is a quality check where the Apple software tests for a response from your phone and that response wasn’t measured.

If I can assume you want a process to narrow this down, here is a guide.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201252

At the end, errors have some general fixes like restart and update. I would do all of them, they really fix many errors.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201210

At the end of all updates is a list of more errors, but I would do all the easy items first before getting to the page that lists specific error codes. Yours is quite involved and wants you to choose update or restore based on previous steps and really wants updates and restarts of the device before contacting Apple if you can’t get past the check.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201444


External disk stalls iMac I have a weird problem with an external disk connected to my 27" iMac running OS X 10.6.5.

It is a 1TB LaCie d2 Quadra and it is connected through Firewire.

I use this disk primarily for Time Machine backups, which works well and fast.

The problem is that when this disk wakes up, it locks up the complete iMac. While I hear the disk spin up my iMac is unresponsive. Then when the disk is ready, the iMac comes back to life.

What is going on here?

What is going on is that OS X (actually it’s the Finder and the I/O subsystem) is “waiting” for the drive to be readable.

Truth is, is not the “whole mac” but the Finder (and any Finder application) what freezes. For example, a Save/Open dialog, Time Machine starting, a Finder window, etc. However you can always cmd-tab and perform other actions.

There isn’t much you can do, except to tell OS X not to sleep your hard drives (or wait for the drive to spin up):

. Beware with that option, because it will mean that your hard drives are on all the time, thus degrading their lifespan.

I’m not 100% sure if that option affects Firewire/USB external drives, but I think it does.


Is the hard disk of a late 2015 27" iMac 5k still replaceable? I'm getting different information from the web vs. Gravis. I'd like to know if the HDD of a late 2015 iMac 27" model can still be replaced.

According to Gravis it's soldered.

My idea was to get a cheap HDD based model and replace the HDD with a fast/large SSD, like I did in my 2012 model.

Yes - Apple provides an internal SATA drive with standard connectors but custom firmware.

According to iFixit if you take the screen off carefully you can replace it, you may have to buy a bracket to secure it SSD that don't match the existing 2.5 inch drive mounting screws.

Looking at the steps it doesn't seem to be to complicated to do but with the 5k iMac you need to be extremely careful since you have to remove the speakers.

I would paste in the step by step images however there a load of them and you would be better off going to the site and taking a look at the images.

Also make sure you have the right screw drivers since its a t20 screw you would need a T20 * 100m screw driver.


Can I encrypt an external hard disc that is used for backup and is also bootable? I have an external hard disk that serves two purposes:

It contains a fully functional bootable macOS installation for use should my main installation of macOS become corrupt in some way.
Since it's a 1TB disk and macOS takes only 20GB, I use the remaining space to back up folders by manually copying them over in Finder. I don't use Time Machine.

I'm thinking of encrypting this external disk, from Disk Utility (when booted from the main copy of macOS — on my internal drive).

If I do so, will both installations of macOS be able to decrypt it? Or should I leave it unencrypted if I want it to work in both the roles mentioned above?

I'm running Sierra, in case it matters.

Another "less work" idea:
Use CarboCopyCloner or SuperDuper! to clone your internal disk to the external disk from time to time: it will be an exact copy of the internal disk and bootable: the OS is up to date and configured as the internal disk, and your files ditto.


Play music from iPhone on MacBook using iPhone 4 dock? We have an iPhone 4 dock (the official apple one, and not the universal one) which I noticed has a headphone connection on the back. Is it possible to connect that to a Macbook (Pro) and play music from the iPhone through the laptop speakers?

While it's theoretically possible to take the sound output from the iPhone dock and run it through a 3.5" cable into the input jack in the computer, it's much easier (and better quality) to simply fire up iTunes 10 and play the media through the computer directly.


Boot Camp Assistance is stuck on create a partition? I have a MacBook Pro, Late 2013. I have done a clean install of High Sierra macOS 10.13.3. I am trying to install Windows 10, Fall Creators Update, on my Mac by following Boot Camp Assistant's procedure.

My Boot Camp always halts after creating this partition window. It has been 6 hours and still it's showing this window. What is the solution to this?

Below is the output from diskutil list. This output is from after terminating the Boot Camp Assistant and restarting my Mac.

Here is a list of the files in the root folder of the flash drive.

These are the basic steps needed to install Windows 10 for an EFI boot.

  Note: To get a better view of the images shown below, either click on an image or open an image in a new window.

The command below will create the 70 GB "BOOTCAMP" partition on your internal drive. The space occupied by this partition will be used for installing Windows.

sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  180.8G  FAT32  BOOTCAMP  70G

Insert the flash drive containing the Windows 10 installation files and the Boot Camp Support Software. These files were already copied to the flash drive by the Boot Camp Assistant application.
Use the command shown below to rename the AutoUnattend.xml file.

mv  /volumes/WINSTALL/AutoUnattend.xml  /volumes/WINSTALL/NoAutoUnattend.xml

Next, you need to boot from the volume where the Windows installation files reside. Hold down the option key immediately after restarting on your Mac. Release the option when the Startup Manager window appears. Select the icon labeled "EFI boot". Next, select the arrow below the "EFI boot" label.
Open a Windows Command Prompt window, by following the procedure outlined in this step. Below is an image of what is initially displayed by the Windows 10 installer. Select "Next".

In the image shown below, select "Repair your computer".

In the image shown below, select "Troubleshoot".

In the image shown below, select "Command Prompt".

The result should be the image shown below.

Use the command diskpart to finish partitioning disk0. The commands you need to enter are given below.

  Note: Sometimes it can take a while for the diskpart command to produce the first prompt. Be patient.

diskpart
list  volume

From the output of the command list volume, determine the number for the volume with the label "BOOTCAMP". In this example, I will assume the number is 0. Your number could be different. The next command selects this partition.

select  volume  0

The next commands effect the "BOOTCAMP" volume. The format is changed to NTFS. Next, the size is shrunk by 600 MB.

format  fs=ntfs  label=BOOTCAMP  quick
shrink  desired=600

Create a Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) partition. The next commands create and initialize an empty 600 MB WinRE.

create  partition  primary
set  id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt  attributes=0x8000000000000001
format  fs=ntfs  label=Recovery  quick

The next command lists the current volumes. Take note of the drive letter (Ltr) for the volume with label "WINSTALL". In this example, I will assume the letter is D. Your letter could be different.

list  volume

The command below quits the command diskpart.

exit

Enter the command below to start the Windows installation. If the drive letter, for the "WINSTALL" volume, is not D, then make the appropriate substitute when entering the command below.

setup  /unattend:D:\NoAutoUnattend.xml

When a window similar to what is shown below appears, select the "BOOTCAMP" partition, then click on the "Next" button.

Continue with the installation of Windows 10. If the computer boots back to macOS, goto System Preferences and select Windows as your startup disk. Restart the computer to continue initializing Windows 10.
When finished, the Windows Support Software installer should automatically launch. If this does not occur, use the Windows File Explorer to open the Windows Support Software application named "Setup". This application can be found in the "BootCamp" folder on the "WINSTALL" drive. After the installer application completes, allow the computer to restart.

If asked, I can clarify any of the above steps.


IOS messages - contacts with both IOS and text messaging So my kids all have "dumb" phones and iOS devices (iPods, iPads). Currently, I only have one contact per person, with both their iOS device and regular phone number as part of their contact.

Unfortunately, I can't tell if I'm getting a message from their phone or iOS device. If they are on their iOS device, I can send them links, images, etc... but if their are on their phone, I can only send text messages.

Apart from creating 2 contacts for each person (one for their phone, one for their iOS device) is there any other way to tell these apart?

So long as your children have iMessage turned on Settings.app > Messages > Turn iMessage *on*, you can determine which device you are messaging based on the color of your message bubble backgrounds or, in your specific example, the "Send" button color (while typing):

Green = non-iOS dumb phones.

Blue = iOS devices.


Downloading the Current EFI for the 2015 MacBook8,1 Model? I checked the Mac product download pages and found no new firmware updates for the new 2015 MacBooks. I found many for the MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iMacs, and even the XServers, but the closest thing I found to "MacBook" firmware updates were for the older models. I looked at the release dates and they are relatively current. I would assume since Apple came out with the MacBook9,1 this year, they would have had EFI firmware download support for this newer model Mac.

Can someone give me a hand?

EFI updates are available from the command line:

softwareupdate -la

This is the same information as the App Store app shows. The tools check apple's entire catalog and then calculate locally if any updates are required. You likely are up to date, but this is how to check.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518


Delete my iCloud account Do I have to pay to have an iCloud account? I use iCloud mail but I don't want to pay storage for photos.  How can I cancel this arrangement

There is no charge for iCloud/AppleID. Just remove your credit card, end all subscriptions, cancel any paid storage upgrades and you’re set.

Set a very secure password and be sure you download everything you care to ever have and consider if you want that account back, it’s best to write down the security questions and answers and password just in case.

Once you sign out of all devices except one, you can delete everything at https://icloud.com and then Apple will delete all your files from their servers. Then remove the account from the last device and walk away from that account.


How to start SQL Developer with the correct Java Version? I've Java 1.8 installed on my Mac OS Yosemite... and Terminal shows the following:

mccoy:~ daniel$ which java
/usr/bin/java
mccoy:~ daniel$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_25"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_25-b17)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.25-b02, mixed mode)
mccoy:~ daniel$ env | grep JAVA
JAVA_OPTS=-Dnode.name=DANIEL -Xmx4g
JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_25.jdk/Contents/Home/jre
mccoy:~ daniel$

But SQL Developer still starts with some older Java 1.7 and complains... how can I fix this?

As @ruffin pointed out in the comment above I had to edit the package itself! It includes a sqldeveloper.sh script that changes my currently set JAVA_HOME. Just had to comment it out!


"Sign In to iMessage" popup randomly I get a random popup from an unknown program asking for my password. What is this? how do I stop it. It doesn't show in the doc. Macs don't even have iMessage so this makes zero sense. I don't have an iphone and the "Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices is off." I have no accounts in Messages or Internet Accounts. I don't have iCloud configured at all.

I tried rm -rf on Messenger.app, but it's a protected folder.

The only way to get rid of it is to disassociate your AppleID from Messages. Merely disabling won't do it. There is no graphical interface for completely removing the AppleID from messages this. You either have to create a new local computer account, or:

In High Sierra,

cd ~Library/Preferences/ByHost/

Now list the files with "idstatuscache" with the following command:

ls *idstatuscache*

delete it with:

rm com.apple.identityservices.idstatuscache.your unique string.plist

Now restart. You should no longer get that popup on boot. Now I get Facetime ones. I also deleted my chat history, I don't believe that helped.

To deal with the Facetime ones that will follow: http://osxdaily.com/2015/03/04/fix-mac-asking-icloud-password-randomly/

Sources:

https://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/975913

How do I remove an iMessage account from OS X (Yosemite) Messages app?


Partition MacBook Pro with Mac OS X Lion using Disk Utility I've just bought a new MacBook Pro with Mac OS X Lion.

The problem started when I tried to divide the hard disk into more than 3 partitions, so I erased the existing partition and tried to divide the hard disk using Disk Utility. So, I opened the "Partition" tab and chose "3 partitions" and when I hit "Apply" it says that "Couldn't unmount partition".

Can anyone please tell me how to fix that or how can I partition my hard disk?

ALERT: THIS WILL ERASE YOUR DATA WHEN YOU PARTITION. PLEASE BE SURE THAT ALL IMPORTANT INFORMATION IS BACKED UP VIA TIME MACHINE OR OTHER METHODS!

Load  OS X Lion from a USB Flash Drive or DVD from your post screen by holding option on your MacBook Pro's startup. Open Disk Utility from there, and repartition your hard drive to your desired specifications. Remember: this will erase your data (files and programs), and all of your data will need to be reloaded.


Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you since upgrading to El Capitan, every time my machine tries to make a backup to my Time Capsule, it prompts me with the aforementioned message.

after researching and finding not much, I decided to blow away my long history of backups and create a new one as suggested.  the backup succeeded but the second time it tried to do a backup it failed again.

so now I have to create a brand new backup (of the whole disk) every time I want to make a backup?

this worked fine on Yosemite!

help?

so the problem was Apple's after all.  they never admitted there was a problem but the latest firmware upgrade for the Time Capsule fixed the problem.  it hasn't failed to back up even once since the upgrade


How can I change the default alerts of Calendar (iCal)? I use Mavericks and want to change the default behaviour in Calendar when a new Event is created. In the preferences it is possible to change some of the settings. But I would like to get two default alerts and no "basso" sound (Only "Message" not "Message with sound"). I Already found that in ~/Library/Calendar/ are folders for each calendar and every calendar seems to have its own settings in its LocalDefaultAlarms folder: "EventAllDayAlarms.icsalarm" and "EventTimedAlarms.icsalarm".

But I'm not able to change these files. Or to say it more clearly, I can change them, but each time Calendar is restarted, they change back to the state before. Besides that, it is the same with the Info.plist file.

So, is it possible to prevent Calendar to update these files? Or is there a better method to change these settings?

As far as I know, these are the only two ways to change Calendar alert sounds. In both cases, unfortunately, they are universal changes—there is no way to override them for individual events.

Disable all Calendar alert sounds

Go to System Preferences > Notifications > Calendar and disable "Play sound for notifications."

Change all Calendar alert sounds (pre-El Capitan)

We'll be digging around in System a bit, so be prepared to enter your password a couple times. I'm on El Cap now (my only Mac), and this isn't working for me, but I know it worked in the past. My guess is System Integrity Protection. This should probably work if you're on an earlier version or have SIP disabled; let me know if it doesn't.

In the Finder, go to /System/Library/Sounds
Change the name of Basso.aiff to something like Basso-original.aiff
Add a new audio file of your choice named Basso.aiff


Do I have the latest firmware update for my Time Capsule? How can I force an upgrade of the firmware? I am running the latest Maverick. Does anyone know how can I force an upgrade of my firmware?

If AirPort Utility doesn't prompt you that an update is available, then you have the latest version installed on the Time Capsule.

  How do I know when an update is available?

  AirPort Utility automatically checks for updates once a week (even if it's not open), then notifies you if an update is available.
  When you open AirPort Utility, it will check for updates and display a badge by the name of any AirPort device in your network that has an available firmware update.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1218


iOS Ad-Tracker blockers. Who is your champion? Firefox Focus? BlockBear? Brave AdBlocker?
Another specialized browser? DuckDuckGo? Ghostery?

1Blocker is my favorite. It blocks most ads I come across.

Additionally it blocks many cookie notices, comments, anti-adblock notifications, twitter and facebook widgets, lets me whitelist sites I want to see ads on and also syncs seamlessly with my mac via iCloud.


Securing Lion user account directories from admin access FileVault allowed me to create encrypted user directories, so that if I handed my computer over to the Apple store for repairs I could give them a clean admin account to do the necessary repairs without worrying as much that they may be browsing my personal files. (Unless they had truly malicious intent and backdoors, etc.)

This is less trivial to accomplish in Lion since it uses full disk encryption. I know I could make an encrypted sparsebundle or truecrypt container and use that, but that would make things like dropbox syncing for access from a windows machine much more difficult. If it had to be something like that, I would prefer that it auto-mount at login.

Is there an easy to use way to achieve the same functionality I had in snow leopard?

Administrators don't have ready access to files in other users home directories. Browsing your files would require extraordinary (though admittedly not technically complex) measures and malicious intent.

I'm betting that most Apple store repair techs are a little too busy, and a little too fond of their jobs, to waste a lot of time unlocking and browsing through personal files. There's an old mail server admin adage about being able to read everyone's mail—and not caring. As a consultant I'm "inside" client computers all the time—seeing as little as I possibly can—and I have to tell you, most people's stuff is pretty boring.

I do protect truly confidential data, financial information, CC info, personal photos, inside secure containers such as encrypted disk images, Password Wallet, etc. (In my case this is all in addition to the Filevault 2 protected startup disk.) Having protected the good stuff, I don't lose a lot of sleep about bored repair techs, or interlopers who gain access to my computer, viewing the rest. Your own practice must suit your own position of comfort on the security<>usability continuum, but with a little thought you can get there using the tools the system provides.


Creating .DS_Store Files to Prevent Icon Previews I'm interested in knowing if there are any ways to intentionally create a .DS_Store for use in preventing the display of icon previews?

Basically I have a network volume with lots of images and movies on it, so naturally browsing it is a nightmare in the Finder due to how slow everything is, however I don't really want each user's Finder storing .DS_Store files all over the place.

Instead I'd like to be able to just create or copy a custom .DS_Store file of my own into image/movie heavy folders in order to disable icon previews.

I've tried using a .DS_Store file that I know has the correct settings, but copying it into a new location just doesn't seem to work, presumably the file contains some reference to the folder it belongs to, so the Finder is just ignoring it.

Are there any tools out there that can be used to create and manipulate .DS_Store files, preferably programmatically, and even better if they can be run by a shell script on other unix platforms.

I had a similar situation, I wanted all of my folders containing images to be set the same way under Show View Options. I used Automator: choose "Application" for document type, then select "Set Folder View".  Name the app, then you can drop any number of folders on top of it and it will set the view options to whatever you've selected.


How do I open Apple Maps from a Google Maps link in Safari? I would ideally like a bookmarklet since then I could use it on iOS as well. I tried this Safari extension but I would like an option in the toolbar to open Apple Maps when I'm already on a Google Maps page instead of directly opening Apple Maps form a Google maps link.

I'm assuming you're referring to the ReMap Safari extension? Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any existing bookmarklet solution that takes a location highlighted in maps.google.com and opens it in OS X/iOS Maps (nor were my attempts at finding something fruitful).

It's an interesting idea and I'm guessing possibly feasible given that a given location's coordinates are in the maps.google.com URL - if I was up on Javascript, I'd take a crack at it. I'll be interested to see if a solution does pop up!


Mainstage Korg M3 bank select I am using Mainstage 3 with my Korg M3. I would like to create patches in Mainstage that select a bank (I-A to I-G and U-A to U-G) on the M3. In Mainstage, you can send a bank select command by entering a MSB and LSB in decimal format. However, I only found the MIDI implementation chart for the M3, and I do not have the knowledge to translate that into the decimals for Mainstage.

I Googled a lot and tried some options, but no bank is selected. A program change does work, so I figured out the MIDI connection should be OK.

Could anyone help me out with this?

Bank select MSB/LSB are just standard Control Change messages.

MSB is CC 0 & LSB is CC32 - range is 0 - 127, like any other CC.

Very few devices have what you would consider a 'logical' array of bank numbers; 0, 1, 2, 3 etc, so unless you have a sheet with the banks in Hex or Dec, this is going to be your best method.

Which Bank transmits which Bank Select message?
The simplest way to find out is to just cheat ;-)

Make sure your M3 is set to transmit this data - from the M3 Midi Spec sheet...

  Notes *P, *A, *C, *E: Transmitted/received when Global P1: MIDI Filter (Program Change, Aftertouch, Control Change, Exclusive) is Enable, respectively

Make sure your DAW is set to record it - I've never used Mainstage, so you'd have to check the manual.

Set your DAW to Record, then hit a bank then program. Check for CC 0 & 32 messages.

Some devices will transmit the CCs only at the bank change, some will transmit with each program change.
Some will send values for MSB & LSB, some use only one & send 0 for the other.
Some require both MSB & LSB before they will change Bank, some only need one. Some don't change until the Program Change message is sent.

You'll have to experiment to see which your Korg uses.
I have a vague recollection Korg sends something on every button-press, so you might have a fair bit of data to wade through.


Unknown contacts appeared out of thin air My contact list op my iPhone 5s suddenly shows hundreds of contacts for people that I do not know with full contact info. I have synced with Facebook and have LinkedIn and Exchange installed, but these contacts are not part of my "friends". Has anyone experienced the same issue? What can I do?

There are many possibility:

1: Facebook sync with your contact info, as I know, Facebook will suggest people you may know to you.

2: Are you using a same Apple ID with your families or friends? Contacts will sync to your other device with same Apple ID.

3: Are you using other's SIM card? SIM card store contact inside the micro chip!!

4: Your Apple ID have been hacked.....change your password immediately and never tell others your ID and password.


Why does iTunes Connect say that the day isn't over yet in all regions when it is? I'm trying to look up Sales and Trends data for yesterday in iTunes Connect, but it says that the day isn't over yet in all regions:

But it is:

Is it just a lag in reflecting data in iTunes Connect, or are today's clicks being attributed to yesterday? :(

No, this is not due to a lag or bug. The fact is that as I write this, it is still 30 June 2017 in some regions.

For example, right now it is 10:27pm Friday night in New York.

[EDIT]

You may find it useful to refer to one of the many online time services, such as the World Clock to check what the time is at any given moment around thew world.


A bunch of seemingly random files disappeared from my Mac Summary: I just discovered that a lot of files were removed from my personal Mac two months ago. There is seemingly no pattern to which files are missing, except that no folders got deleted and only directories synched to iCloud Drive were affected. I suspect some software or misconfiguration to be at fault here, but I can't pin it down.

I first discovered this three weeks ago when some slides for a past lecture were gone. I was sceptical, since the empty folder was still there, but I let it go. A few days later I noticed more files missing and when I tell you my heart dropped. I sat down and went through all directories and sure enough, about 20% of my filesystem is gone.
Using my backups I was able to gather a lot of information about the affected files, and I can tell from the last modified date of affected folders that the files were removed on 10.01.2021 at around 2:00 am. Here is what I found out:

Affected Files:
There is no pattern regarding the file itself. Affected files are of every possible type (TXT, PDF, DOCX, PAGES, JPEG, MP4), file names are not related (no special characters etc.), creation and modification dates range from December to 4 years ago. Sizes range from >2 GB MP4's to 0 byte txt-files.
Affected Folders:
No folders were deleted. Files only went missing from random subfolders of Documents, which is synched to iCloud Drive.
Interesting Edge Cases:
In most cases all files in a specific folder are missing. But there are some edge cases which  highlight the randomness of the deletion. The following folder contains scans of my old school reports, where 6 of 11 files are gone. Notice how types, names, sizes and dates are almost identical (there is also 1 Schulnachricht missing):
Folder containing all files before deletion:

The same folder after 10.01.2021:

This is a similar case involving slides from a previous lecture, were 7 out of 9 PDFs were removed:
Folder containing all files before deletion:

The same folder after 10.01.2021:

My Setup:
I am using a 2018 13-inch MacBook Pro running Big Sur 11.2.1 (20D74). This machine is backed up to a Time Capsule using Time Machine. I also use a PC running Windows 10 (20H2) which is synched to iCloud Drive. I realise that the files also could have been deleted on my PC and my Mac synched the changes. I will go down that rabbit hole when I can rule out the Mac as the cause. I am the only user of those devices and nobody else has physical access to them.

Even though I can restore all the missing files I noticed through the backups, I definitely need to investigate the cause of this event. Please throw any ideas you have at me, I am happy to look into every one of them!

Update:
While restoring my file system from the backup today, a possible cause came to mind. I might have enabled and, after a few days, disabled optimise Mac storage. Maybe this operation screwed up massively and only left small files behind, which is how my Documents folder shrank from 39 to 2 GB.

You have identified the probable cause.  From Apple:

When space is needed, it keeps files, photos and videos, Apple TV
movies and shows, and email attachments in iCloud and makes them
available on demand. Files don’t take up space on your Mac, and you
can download the original files when you need them.


Can I boot my 2011 MacBook Air from an external SSD (OS X, Windows and/or Linux)? I have a mid-2011 MAcBook Air which I just upgraded the SSD in.  The old SSD had a windows install which I have been unable to clone onto the new SSD (perhaps that is the solution I am looking for ...).

Ideally, I would like to boot Win 10 from the external SSD - is this possible and if so can you point me to the right methods to get the current partition acting as a bootable drive?

If you have the old drive in an external drive case then connect it to your Mac and the hold down the option key at boot. The Mac will then give you the option to select the boot drive.


Script Editor.app: newlines are formatted as CR rather than LF I often use the builtin Script Editor.app to write, compile, and debug AppleScripts before I copy/paste the polished code into a shell script (with #!/usr/bin/osascript). That said, one really annoying thing is that the code I copied from Script Editor always uses CR as line delimiters, rather than the Unix (including OS X) standard LF. As a result I always have to tr '\r' '\n' before pasting into scripts, or they won't work (and won't even cat nicely).

I just want to know if others can confirm this issue? (I'm running OS X 10.10.1 now with Script Editor 2.7, but IIRC the same behavior was with 10.9 and earlier.)
Also, any guesses on why this is happening? Is it possible that Apple never rewrote the relevant code ever since classic Mac OS (that would be insane...)?

Below is a screenshot showing the raw clipboard data when copying three lines from Script Editor.app on OS X 10.10.1:

The lines in Script Editor appear as:

The outcome depends on your destination text editor when pasting. The copied lines are encoded in multiple formats on the clipboard. The destination of the paste determines which format is preferred.

For example, pasting from Script Editor to BBEdit results in LF line delimiters. However, that is the default line ending style I have set in BBEdit.


Network Access - SonicWALL VPN options Does the built-in VPN client connect to SonicWALL?

"The client side is set up in the usual fashion" - I've had different results due to Firewall Unique Identifier. At least on a Mac OS X 10.8 client.

The SonicWall configuration guide (Equinox document SonicOS_Standard-6-EN.pdf) clearly states a need for Firewall Unique Identifier. It's "Item 1" in things to write down and have users enter into the client software.

Firewall Unique Identifier appears to be a non-standard extension (its not discussed in RFC 2409). Fortunately, Equinox sells VPN Tracker Personal for $130. I believe that's known as Vendor Lock In.


Mac Numbers: How to identify cells that match a range of cells from another table? I have two sets of data on two sheets both including customer reference numbers, some of which match. I am trying to run a formula to identify every row in Sheet 2 where the customer reference number is also found on Sheet 1.

I can compare like for like cells but I can't seem to set a range for comparison i.e. Does Sheet 2 Cell B2 match any of Sheet 1 cells C2, C3, C4....C400.

Hope the above makes sense, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

You can use the Match() function to check if a value exists in at least one cell within a certain range of cells.

Pls let us know if the information provided at the Apple Support page for this function is not enough for you or if you have any other questions. In such a case, it might be better if you also provide screenshot(s) of your data and what you want to eventually achieve (you may just do it manually as an example if necessary).


AirPods won't switch to MacBook My AirPods (1st gen) won't switch over to my MacBook Air (early 2015 running the latest Mojave) from my iPhone 8. When I click 'connect' the indicator just spins and nothing happens. Restarting resolves this, and my AirPods are then able to connect to my MacBook. Any ideas as to the cause of this? Are my AirPods perhaps faulty?

Apple has always these kind of bugs with their wireless (or even wired) platforms. You just need to force it to connect.

So you can go to sound settings of system preferences and force connect there.

or if you already have the indicator in the status bar , you can option+click on that and force connect from there.

Note that it could either fail because it may be in-use or disconnect from the other source that already connected and using it (Randomly but second option most of the times depends on what device requested new connection and what device is using it right now).

It always helps me and hope it helps you as well.


What is the difference between using backup software and copying? I acquired a backup program - SuperDuper! - recently, and ran it, backing up Macintosh HD to another partition. It seems to me like it just copied everything. My question then is: What is the difference between using a backup program and just copying all the files with Finder?

There's a difference between backing up files, and making an image of a disk. Perhaps this is the difference you are getting at.
If I make a backup of my entire disk, by copying all the files on it, there are a few things that I am missing.
1) Filesystem metadata. If I copy files from an HFS volume to a FAT32 or NTFS volume, I lose the resource forks from the filesystem
2) Any boot information. Once I have copied the files from volume A to volume B, I do not have any of the boot information associated with the original volume. So, I cant take that disk, and use it to start up my computer, it just contains a copy of every file that was on the original disk when I made the copy.

If you need copies of your documents, then you need backup software. If you need a disk image that you can boot from then you need imaging software.

Some backup tools do both. The classic unix dd makes a bit-for-bit copy of a disk, and you can deal with the output from it in a number of ways, making it a disk archive swiss army knife.

dd is a tool that requires that you know all about the source and destination filesystems including things like block sizes and such. It is not for the faint of heart.

I've never tried, but you might be able to use th Mac OS Disk Utility to create a dmg image, which is something like what you are looking for. Another thing to look at is time machine. Time Machine creates a Sparse Image on volume, it then creates 'bands' (I think that is what they are called) that store the differences in each file from one run to the next.

You could use a SparseImage to create images of your disk, which you could then make boot disks from.

This is a whole lot of not very accurate technical detail crammed into a small answer. I hope it helps.


Can't quit app launched through launchd As it says in the title, "Can't quit app launched through launchd"—or more precisely, I can quit it, but it then automatically restarts again.

Background: I prefer to use BusyCal, not iCal, but there are some calendar-ish things that have to be done by iCal before BusyCal can get the results. I figured I'd create two launchd scripts: one to launch iCal every day at 5 am, and another to quit it a few minutes later.

Here's the plist to launch (in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dori.iCalLaunch.plist):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.dori.iCalLaunch</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <true/>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Applications/iCal.app/Contents/MacOS/iCal</string>
    </array>
    <key>ServiceDescription</key>
    <string>iCal Launcher</string>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

My understanding was that I didn't need the KeepAlive and OnDemand keys, but I put them in anyway to try to stop the relaunching.

Here's the plist to quit (in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dori.iCalQuit.plist):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.dori.iCalQuit</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>osascript</string>
        <string>-e</string>
        <string>tell application "iCal" to quit</string>
    </array>
    <key>ServiceDescription</key>
    <string>iCal Quitter</string>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>10</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Based on my log files, they both run just fine—but after the Quit runs, iCal relaunches.

Any ideas for things to try, or things that might be causing this?

If you don't specify <Minute> in the <StartCalendarInterval>, then (just like cron's *) it will run the job every minute.


Making iPhone/iPad the master when syncing with iTunes I am syncing my iPhone with my Mac using iTunes. How do I make the iPhone have priority over the Mac? I mean, I want to copy what is on the iPhone to iTunes, deleting from iTunes what is not anymore on the iPhone.

I hate when I clean my phone, do a sync, just to have iTunes copy everything back, because iTunes database regarding to that phone is not the same.

iTunes gives what is on iTunes a priority and I want the reverse.

thanks.

Essentially - you don't.

iTunes is the master, the iDevice is the slave. That's the way the system is designed.

It works on the assumption that you will always have plenty of room on your Mac to store data that there is no room for on the phone, so you can add it back to the phone at any time in future.

I suppose it's legacy behaviour from before iCloud existed.


Yellow pattern all over application windows I've been using my iMac (mid-2011, OS X Yosemite 10.10.1) without any problems since I purhaced it. However, today a distracting yellow square pattern started to appear. It only appears over application windows, ie. I can't see any pattern over my desktop, but my browser is covered with it. It doesn't appear on every window, but almost all of them. The pattern moves if I scroll and it does change if I refresh a webpage. It also appears on screenshots I take.

I've tried rebooting and updating my OS without any change.

Example screenshot:

What could cause this and is there anything I can do to fix it?

Update #1 All application windows (including OpenGL games) are either distorted or covered with yellow pattern. I said earlier that not all windows were affected, but I was wrong.

Update #2 Opening my computer using safe mode (pressing shift key right after the boot up sound) removes the yellow pattern, but introduces another screen bug. Now the windows are flashing. A white bar starts from the bottom of the window and moves to the top (at least 2-3 times per second).

It seems to be a GPU problem.

Apple introduced Repair Extension program for some iMacs sold between May 2011 and October 2012. It is not on main Repair programs site though.

The affected iMacs contain serial numbers with the last four characters of DHJQ, DHJW, DL8Q, DNGH, DNJ9, DMW8, DPM1, DPM2, DPNV, DNY0, DRVP, DY6F, or F610. Source

Check with this numbers and Apple to get a repair.


iPod tells me to log in to iTunes account on a computer. What next? But I am already loged in to my iTunes account and keep getting an error where my iPod tells me to log in to iTunes account on a computer

I had originally pluged my ipod in to the computer as it would give me this message and not let me update my apps.  Once pluged in it told me there was ipod updates so i installed them.  In that process it told me there was a problem with my ipod and that i had to set it to factory settings.  So needless to say, i was not happy about losing all that i had on my ipod!  But still now it gives me the same message.  I deauthorized and reauth computer and i thought that worked as it let me uppdate an app and add a new app.  But then as i started to build my app selection again it would still from time to time tell me i need to log in to my itunes on my computer before the app could be added (even though i am still loged in).  This is the same computer, and connection i have always used for this ipod.  Now that i am at work i am using my Wi-Fi here and i have been able to add apps with NO problems!  So what could be causing the problem at home all of the sudden??

You are doing everything right. Sometimes an error on the other end (apple's servers) can look like a local problem to iTunes. Most of the time, what you did would have fixed this.

Have you considered getting a hand from the billing / account people that work for Apple? Start with the Account & Billing section on the left...

Your computer needs the OK from Apple's on line servers to fix the errors. This is an account issue and you don't have to pay for this support (but may have to start by emailing apple if no one is free when you ask for help).

You could try authorizing your account on any iOS device or another computer to rule out problems with your online account as well.

If you get errors on your computer after you re-authorize, you might have to go through this article on iTunes repeatedly prompts to authorize computer to fix things. If the iPod is giving the error, be sure to restore the iPod (which will wipe everything that's not backed up) to get the new authorization to take on the iPod.


Which Python packages are installed on Mavericks? The title says it all: How can I find out which Python packages are pre-installed with Mavericks?

According to StackOverflow you just can type

python -c "help('modules')"

or

pip freeze


How can I email multiple camera roll images at once on an iPod Touch? When looking at my photos, I see that I can view a picture, click on the button the bottom left, and then click "Email Photo" but I now want to be able to email multiple photos into a single email.

Is this possible on the latest iPod Touch?

Assuming this works the same as on my iPhone 3Gs, you´ll want to go into the photo roll (not show an actual photo) and then tap the "share" button in the upper right corner (the one that looks like an arrow pointing out of a square) - you will then be able to select up to five images and tap on "send" to send them as an e-Mail.


Almost all files are locked in my Time Machine backups? For some reason my files are getting locked in my Time Machine backups. I mean, when you "Get Info" on one of them, the "Locked" box is checked. Folders are NOT locked, though.

Is this normal? This doesn't apply to just Apple files either (such as .pages). It's happening to .txt, .avi, .png, etc.

By now, almost all the files in my Time Machine backups are locked. So when I restore a folder, for instance, every single file in it is locked. This has definitely not been the case for me before.

Go to Disk Utility, select the partition of your drive with the Time Machine icon, and click Repair Disk to verify and fix any problems with permissions settings (see below image).

You may also want to repeat the process with Macintosh HD to be safe.

update Is this option checked for you? If not, it should be unchecked and Saved (from OSX Daily)


What is this process called? Apple Time Machine software seems to backup in increments.
So you do your first full TM backup and then after that the initial backup seems to be "built upon" with new data.
But, in data storage terms what is this called? Is it incremental backup?
And secondly, when doing a restore from TM. These "chunks" have to knitted together again. What is this process called?
From a user perspective Time Machine seems easy, but I think behinds the scenes its a lot more convoluted than people think. Can anybody shed some light on what goes on with Time Machine behind the scenes?

Yes, you can call this a form of incremental backup.
And no, contrary to an "traditional" incremental backup, there's no need to "knit together" chunks when restoring. So there's no process that needs to be named here. This is similar to what some vendors name "reverse incremental backups".
An traditional incremental backup system works by first taking a full backup, and then for the following backups storing the changed parts separately - requiring a recombination step when restoring.
Time Machine instead uses a system where you can always directly read out the total backup in its latest form. In rought terms this is done by having a folder for each backup, and in this folder you have every file as it was when this backup was taken. However most of the files share their data contents with files in older backup folders on the drive (via hard links). Some vendors call this a "synthetic full backup".


How to save contacts locally on iPhone Is it possible to save contacts (selectively, eventually) locally on an iPhone, without them being synced to iCloud? (A.k.a. the “All on My Mac” option present on the Mac.) And if yes, how can I do this?

Turn off iCloud for contacts in Settings → iCloud, Contacts. Select "Keep on my iPhone" when asked about previously synced contacts.


In Apple Mail, How can I delete a message without moving to the next one, causing the next one to be marked as read? I typically leave messages as unread if I need to remember to read them later.

Also I like to keep my inbox clean, so I delete mail I don't care about saving.

When I select a message and press delete, the selection jumps to the next item in the list. Many times, this is the item I just marked as unread for later.

How can I avoid this?

The easiest (albeit slightly lengthy) way to do this is to create a custom service, like so:

Create a new Automator Service. Have it take no input in Mail and put the following code into a "Run JavaScript" action:

mail = Application('Mail')
mail.includeStandardAdditions = true
for (i in mail.selection()) {
    mail.selection()[i].delete()
}

Save the service. Then go to System Preferences > Keyboard, select Shortcuts at the top, and select Services in the sidebar. Scroll to the bottom to where it says "General" and you should see your Service there. Assign it a keyboard shortcut. This shortcut (so long as it does not conflict with any existing shortcuts) will allow you to delete a selected Mail message without selecting the next conversation.


How can I export an iMessage conversation to .txt or .pdf from Mac? I need to export the chat history of an iMessage chat to either a text or PDF file.

I realize this is a common question, but I ask it again because preferably, each message should have beside it a record of:

The sender, and
a time/date-stamp for when the message was sent.

Is there a way to do this without having to download costly software? I am relatively experienced with Mac software and could potentially navigate scripting (I am most experienced with Python3, but have some limited experience with AppleScript), Terminal, and/or other techniques on the advanced side in this fix if walked through the steps.

First, make an iTunes backup, then find your iTunes backup folder:

macOS

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Windows

%appdata%/Roaming/Apple Computer/MobileSync/Backup

There will be one randomly named folder, except you have backed up more devices with iTunes. In that folder, there is database file with your messages.

You can open it using free SQLite database viewer and/or export the contents to CSV file format.

If you have a mac, you can simply

open Messages app
sign in (if you are not)
select the particular conversation
File > Print > Save (output will be in PDF)

The result doesn't look great, but it does contain all the images and the text is searchable.

Your messages database is stored in ~/Library/Messages/ under chat.db, so you can export it  using SQLite database viewer as stated above, but the pictures and other files are stored in ~/Library/Messages/Attachments.


iPad 2 update to iOS7 I have and iPad 2 with 5.1.1 installed. I didn't update to iOS 6 because I didn't want Apple Maps and have my VLC app deleted. Now since the majority of the apps don't get any updates I thought of updating to iOS 6 (thanks to Google releasing the maps as stand-alone), but that(thanks to Apple offering update to only iOS 7 and nothing in between) is not possible anymore.

My question is - is it worth it, for iPad 2, to download the iOS 7 update? The system now(5.1.1) is still very smooth, the only thing I miss are some updates to few apps and an update for the WebKit(browsers are constantly crashing when some websites have really rich JavaScript features...).

Have a read of this article , which conducts an analysis of iOS 7 on iPad 2, and see what you think. As noted in the link, enabling bold text will make a difference in iOS 7 on a non-retina display.


Connection protocols to enable external drives to connect to late 2015 27-inch iMac I need to connect two 4TB or, better, 5TB external drives to the free Thunderbolt 2 port on my late 2015 27-inch iMac, hopefully daisy-chaining these new external drives together so I can use just the one free Thunderbolt 2 port.

(The machine does have 2 free USB 3 ports as well, but I'm guessing that these would not be as amenable as the one free Thunderbolt 2 port for this proposed external drive expansion requirement.)

I'm not seeking brand recommendations here, just advice as to the possible connection protocols that will enable 2 5TB external drives to be connected to this single Thunderbolt 2 port - if they exist.

What would be the fastest drives/connections to do this, hopefully keeping the external drives bus-powered?

I’m a big fan of using a dock or enclosure to reliably connect drives rather than chaining them. Cable chains can be safe and secure and work well, but I prefer one cable and hard mounting the drives:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB2U3DKR2/

Most basic enclosures work in JBOD mode since you don’t usually want to RAID / mirror less than 5 drives or without a nice controller for most uses.


Cannot Uninstall Application for Desktop Wallpapers I installed an app for desktop wallpapers on a site called Kuvva.com.  It shows up as Purchased in the Application Store but has an option to install it, even though it shows up in System Preferences as already installed.  When I try to click on it, either in App Store to install or in System Preferences to send it to trash, it continues to say cannot delete because it's still open, but I do not see any options to allow me to close it.
I've tried to go over to Desktop/Screensavers where the picture keeps showing up every morning, but there's no way to get rid of it or close it there either.

You can close the Kuvva App via the menu icon.

After that you can drag the application to the trash - enter you user password. Your done!


Upgrading OS X from 10.5.8 to at least 10.6.8 to update my iTunes Recently purchased an iPhone 5c and was trying to upload my music and apps from iTunes. iTunes could not upload music because iTunes needs to be at least 10.6.8 to update. On my 2006 iMac I am currently running OS X 10.5.8, therefore I can not update my iPhone 5 with music and apps.

Reading your response from a similar case what would be the process of updating my OS in order to update my iTunes? And is it even feasible considering my iMac is pretty old?
Below is my Hardware Overview. The computer runs strong, but I hear from others (don't know if I can trust) that it's time to upgrade my iMac but I am trying to avoid buying a new iMac if I can.

Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM41.0055.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.1f5

According to Apple Support page your mac is capable of running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

General requirements

Mac computer with an Intel processor
1GB of memory
5GB of available disk space
DVD drive for installation
Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.

Also considering Apple policy in supplying security updates, I would recommend you to update (all the care in taking backup of your documents apply).
At this page there is a list of security updates, and the last one for 10.5 was in 2012.


MacBook Pro 2011 Unibody 10.7.5 fatally crashes even after recent repair, (lines across screen, graphics glitches, freeze up) Out of nowhere, my MacBook Pro 2011 unibody running 10.7.5 began to crash. After the crashes, in the boot sequence you could see very thin horizontal red lines. The red lines were so thin that I can't take a picture as the lines won't show up in photos. While you could see the red lines across the screen, the computer will not boot up, not even to recovery. After leaving the computer off for a few hours, it will boot-up like nothing happened.

After diagnosis of the whole comp, it turned out I had over 60 bad sectors and naturally I needed a new hard drive, although at first it was suspected that I had a bad graphics card. So a new hard drive was installed and the computer was working 100% ok again. However, as soon as I migrated my old user from the backups and logged into the migrated user, the computer began to crash in exactly the same way as before.

The waits between when the computer could finally boot up became longer and longer, up to 24hrs.

Now this is the interesting part, the computer works completely fine when I'm logged in into the default user that I have from installing the new hard drive, it's as soon as I log into the migrated user that the computer completely blocks up.

I thought maybe the ram has gone bad, so I checked it with memtest and it seems to be completely ok. I then checked the temperatures while running a stress test. and Although the CPU cores under max load reach up 95ºC, the heatsinks manage just fine staying at 50ºC. While playing HD videos the graphics processor is staying relatively cool without any spikes in temp.

I check the permissions of the disk and I did find a massive amount of errors which I repaired but apart from that there shouldn't be anything wrong since it's a new hard drive.

TL:DR

2011 MacBook Pro 10.7.5 crashed — shows very thin, horizontal red lines across screen.
Full diagnosis revealed bad sectors in HD. Graphics, RAM, CPU, and temps are ok.
After installing new HD everything worked fine.
After migration, when using the old user from the migration (backup), the computer crashes again.
Using default user results in no crashes.

I recently had this issue.  It turns out that Apple has a repair program for this issue at no cost that runs until Dec 31, 2016. Here is the link:
https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

I took my laptop in to the nearest Apple Store. The Genius Bar tech ran a diagnostic test to verify the issue.  They sent it to a repair location in Texas and in 3-5 days I had it back.  There is also a 90 warranty on the work.