How does shareware store its usage? Most shareware (free trial) allows only for limited use e.g. one week or 10 uses. This shareware must have a way of storing the times it was used or for how long you have been using this.

Yet when I trash a shareware app, along with all it's preference files etc (using apptrap) and redownload it, it seems to remember the times used/usage time, even when I delete all of its pref files.

I am alarmed that an application is storing data that persists on my computer even after I deleted what I thought were all traces of the application. If it can store usage data even after I thought I deleted it, there's no limit to the other data about me this software could be storing. I realize that different applications might use different techniques, but a great answer could outline some of the most common mechanisms.

How does an app know how many times it has been used? Where does it store this so that it persists even after I delete the application's preference file?

(this is a question out of pure interest, I don't intend to use this info for malicious purposes)

OSX Applications come in a .bundle file which is basically like a ZIP or other archive file in that it's actually a sort of folder. In that way all of your program files and dependencies are in one, neat package. Sometimes, though, other information like preferences will be stored throughout the system. Typical places to look are /Library and /Users/(user)/Library. Warning - do NOT delete anything unless you really, really want to mess something important up. If you have a legitimate concern I would suggest contacting the developer and asking for assistance.


What product is used in OSX to edit word or openoffice documents and also works with PDF? I want to be able to copy portions of PDF file and paste into another document like MS Word format document. The important thing is that any portion that is copied must preserver original formatting fonts etc. when it is pasted into my document. So what product is out there on the writing side and what product is out there on the PDF side?

Preserving the layout and appearance from text in a PDF when copying it to anther text processing tool is almost an impossible task, both on OSX and Windows.

I'd suggest two things:

Export to .rtf. In Windows using Acrobat Professional you can export as .rtf, which can be opened by Microsoft Word (among others) and is (sometimes) a close approximation of the layout and still allows for editing the text.
On OSX there appears to be tools that allows exporting to .rtf as well, like this one: File Juicer (never actually tried or used it). You can then open the .rtf file using Word, OpenOffice, etc.
screenshot - However, if post-editing text is not of your concerns, I'd go for a screenshot from the PDF that you paste into whatever editor you are using.


Macbook Pro (late 2011 15") is stuck in a boot loop It boots up until the progress bar is at about 80%, then it flashes to an empty grey screen, no login window shown, no Apple logo. 30 seconds later it reboots on its own.

Things I tried:

reset the PRAM/NVRAM
reset SMC
booted with d+shift: no indication of any kind of different boot, same as normal boot
booted with cmd+r: it doesn't boot to the recovery window, but switches to "Internet Recovery". Internet Recovery runs to 100% before switching to the grey screen
ran Apple Hardware Test (quick and extended): no failures
tried to boot from an "Install Sierra" USB pendrive: it recognizes the pendrive, but boots with the same behavior as a normal boot
booted to single user mode: I can boot to Single User mode and run fsck on the different partitions. I cannot repair user permissions (thanks, Apple, for removing that functionality).
booted with a live Linux USB-stick: it works, although I have to enter the boot option "nodmraid". However, I cannot start Xorg. I can ssh into the MacBook when booting with Linux. I also ran testdisk and recovered (at least I think so) the partition table. Both, the normal Mac partition, as well as the Recovery Partition are there.
booting to verbose mode.

Some errors occur:

task_exceeded_footprint: failed to warn the current task...

AppleKeyStore: operation failed (pid: 45 sel: 7 ret: e00002c2....

configureInterests - nElements <= 0!Failed to configure interests
I080211Controller:addSubscriptionForThisReporterFetchedOnTimer() Failed to addSubcription

I080211InterfaceMonitor::configureSubscriptions() failed to add subscription

and it finally stops at

IOConsoleusers: gIOScreenLockState 3, hs 0, bs 0, now 0, sm 0x0

Any help is appreciated. Does this mean it has a dead GPU? I just found out that Apple's repair program ended in December 2016...

Does this mean it has a dead GPU?

Yes. Absolutely. This means it is one of thousands GPUs killed by inadequate thermal design that finally bit the bullet. As all MBPs from that era are defective by design it is impossible to keep them around for the amount of time you would expect from a quality product.
If this machine is still around then it can be partially resurrected with a procedure like this:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/295805/251859
This bypasses the AMD GPU through a forced EFI variable. No amount of SMC reset voodoo or the like will restore a GPU dead MBP.
You might want to bake the chip for a flaky temporary fix like with the iBake procedure.
The only real fix though is to either sue Apple like they deserve for lying on this to us all or to replace only the AMD chip in question. That is way cheaper than to go the now defunct Apple road of replacing a faulty board with another faulty board.
Converting it over into a Linux machine makes the GPU bypass on a defective machine easier, but will not do much good for keeping it around long enough.


iphone Audio Book Reader I am using my iPhone to listen to audio books. When the iPhone stays on, I can stop listenting and when I restart it remembers which file I was last listening to, and where in that file I was. However, whenever I turn off the iPhone, it forgets where in an audio file I stopped listening; I have to manually fast forward to where I was.

Is there a way to get the media player to remember where in a file I was when turning off the iphone, or is there a different player software that could do that for me?

There's a setting in iTunes to remember position…

Select all chapters, or books etc.
Get Info  Cmd ⌘   i   > Options tab.


Apple Sierra deleted GarageBand still taking up 1.76G of space! I have followed all of the other thread suggestions to remove the majority of GarageBand files from my MacBook Air (How to completely remove Garage Band from macOS?), short of reinstalling the app and using a third-party app uninstaller to do a sweep. I'm at a loss as to where this +1G of space is being hogged.

I never "bought" the app, it was already installed when I bought my laptop. I do not use GarageBand or any related app (Logic).

I have emptied the /Audio and /Audio Loop folders. I have deleted all Receipts. I have even used Terminal to find any mention of GarageBand, which only came up with 4 very small files stored in the /PrivateFrameworks folder which cannot be deleted.

What else can I do to get my 1.76G of space back? I couldn't care less if it was on my desktop Mac, but my portable workspace needs all the storage space I can give it, and I hate having it wasted on something I do not nor never will use!

Thanks for any additional input you can give on this.

OK so.... after posting this, on a whim I decided restarting my laptop to see if that purged anything extra, even though it was still showing the 1.76G being used. I didn't think it would make any difference, but I suddenly remembered that was always worth a try when dealing with things like this.

Gonna answer my own question by saying, once you've actually followed the above linked-thread, restart your computer!

Storage Management now shows Zero KB of space being used for "Music Creation". GarageBand is no longer the space hog it was. Huzzah!


Application Exposé with fullscreen window? Application Exposé (sometimes known as Application Windows) is a wonderful feature. One that I have wished for very hard! However, it seems it isn't available when an using an application window in fullscreen. Is there a way to enable it there too?

It isn't available in full screen because a full screen app has its own space therefore there can't be any app "behind" it i.e. no need for Application Expose'


Dynamically change the default browser? Chrome absolutely kills battery life on my MBA.

So I would like to switch my default browser to Safari when I am unplugged. When plugged in, I would like Chrome to be the default browser.

Any ideas how to do this?

I've seen tools like Hammerspoon but couldn't find a use case for what I need.

ControlPlane would be a good option for you. It has the ability to define contexts based on specific criteria (if plugged in to power or not), and perform many different actions based on those criteria (including switching your default browser).

Here's a screenshot of ControlPlane's Evidence Sources window and DefaulBrowser Action settings:

I use ControlPlane for a lot of things, like switching my Network Location based on the wifi network I'm connected to, and switching my default browser based on my Network Location. It's a really powerful little utility.


Selective Time Machine copy My Time Machine backup has 100+ dated backups.  What I'd like to be able to do is extract the backups for a particular folder to another location, with the result being like TM's archive (where multiple references to unchanged files are just links to 1 copy).  Effectively, this would be a copy of the original TM archive, but only for the selected folder (and it's subfolders).  Is there any utility which can do this?

ditto didn't cut it, but rsync did.  It has a --link-dest option, that uses files in that folder as the base to link to for duplicates.  It's important that the source path for rsync end in /.

To prepare, in the location I'm going to store my copy, I create a symlink to the 1st archived folder I want to copy: ln -s -h -f /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/Backups.backupdb/Mini/2012-08-02-003832/Macintosh\ HD/Users/jerrybarrington/pathtothefolder/ /Volumes/MyBook\ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/Last.

Then to copy: sudo rsync -a --delete --link-dest=/Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/Last/ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/Backups.backupdb/Mini/2012-08-02-003832/Macintosh\ HD/Users/jerrybarrington/pathtothefolder/ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/2012-08-02-003832/.

Lastly, update the symlink to point to the new copy: ln -s -h -f /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/2012-08-02-003832/ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/Last.

For each subsequent copy, repeat step 2, changing both instances of 2012-08-02-003832 to the next date I want, and then repeat step 3.

see http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ for my inspiration.


how to i add/remove photos in the ios 10 movie feature not sure how iOS 10 chooses the images for its People movies, but i'd like to add/subtract some.  anyone know how to do this?

How to edit your title, music, duration, and photos in a Memories slideshow

Launch the Photos app from your home screen.

Tap Memories in the menu bar at the bottom of the screen. It looks
like a triangle with an arrow circling it.
Tap the memory you would like to see.
Launch the photos app from your home screen, tap Memories and the
select the memory you would like to see.

Tap the play button on the large photo at the top of the screen.
Tap the screen anywhere.
Tap the pause button that appears at the bottom of the screen.

Tap the editing menu in the lower right corner.
Tap on title, music, duration, or photos & videos to adjust your
settings.
Tap Done when you are happy with your settings.


Upgrade Mac Pro 5.2 2012 I have a Mac Pro 5.2 2012 which currently has both the GeForce and Radeon, 16 GB memory and 1TB normal HDD. I want to upgrade this Mac Pro to its max without over doing something, for example I read in some articles that upgrading it to 96GB memory will give the same result if having 128GB meaning the extra memory is kinda useless. I also read that the bluetooth needs to be changed to support things. So can anyone advise me with the best configurations for Harddrive, memory, GPUs, bluetooth and USB ports?

"to its max" is extremely vague, especially as you didn't really tell us much about your existing configuration.

But here are some 'max' specs you can run on a 2012 Pro

Max RAM - 128GB in dual channel or 96GB in triple channel.  ~$400 (but only if you have a dual CPU) - [OWC]
Max Graphics - Nvidia GTX Titan X or AMD RX 5700 - [macvidcards] $675 - $800
Max OS - generally High Sierra with NVidia or Mojave with AMD.
Max Drives - 7. Four in the regular bays, one above the optical & two on a PCI card - [Mac Pro PCIe SSD Hardware Options]
Max CPUs - dual 6-core Xeon 3.46GHz - [OWC] $1,379
Max Bluetooth/WiFi - [macvidcards] $175
Max USB - 4-port PCI USB 3 card - [innatek] $30 (but many of these type of card are incompatible with newer OSes 10.10+))


How to copy and paste styles with Keynote? I am using Keynote'09 and have to change a lot of text to specific styles. Since I can't define text styles I have to work around this missing function.
Here is a simple example with a style I would have named Important if I could. But I can't.

To use this style on another location I use the Copy Style (⌥⌘C) and Paste Style (⌥⌘V) of the Format menu.

Here is a starting document where word1 is using the style Important:

I select word1 and copy its style (⌥⌘C). Then I select word2 and paste the style just copied
(⌥⌘V). word2 is correctly modified, but the style of the whole line is also changed:
.
The bullet was eaten!

Since this is something I would like to do about a hundred times on a normal presentation this is a real nightmare.

My question is 3 (but they are highly related):

Did I made an error in my use of this function: copy & paste style?

Is this a known bug?

Is this bug fixed in more recent versions of Keynote?

Yes its there Copy design
Command + Alt (Option) + C (Copy only Styles)
Command + Alt (Option) + V   (Only paste styles)
Above works absolutely as format painter works in Windows Office.


An iPod, iPhone, and an iPad on 2 Apple IDs I have one iPod touch and my dad has a iPhone and a iPad. I use my dad's Apple ID. My dad has many apps and if I want a game/app that normally costs money he mostly has it, so I can install it for free. Now I want to make a new account but my dad says that I can't install his apps anymore so that I have to pay the apps again. E.g: My dad has cut the rope and I want it too, can I just switch accounts and install it or do I have to buy it myself on my own account? And when I make a new ID, do I lose my apps than?

You can install and use apps bought via different Apple IDs on the same device. In case of application updates you have to be logged in with the matching ID to load the update though.


How do I circumvent the versioning system to run an outdated MacOSX application? I have iMovie HD 6.03. I want it to run on Yosemite. The application icon itself has a "circle-slash-do-not-run" icon superimposed on the iMovie icon. When I double click the icon a dialog pops up saying that it can't run.

I can dig into the application package itself and run the actual compiled executable; this tells me that the application itself can run but something in the packaging is preventing iMovie from running.

How do I tweak the application packaging so that iMovie 6.0.3 can run on Yosemite? I expect to edit a plist or something.

If the actual executable indeed runs without problems
then it looks like it is just an enforced blacklisting for whatever reason.

In the .app-bundle there is a file

/Applications/iMovie.app/Contents/Info.plist

In there you find the variable (below corresponds to v10.1.6 of iMovie):

<key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key>
<string>10.11.2</string>

Edit this to your liking.

For the other way around, this is reported to be working:

Look in the same file for
    CFBundleVersion

<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>6.0.4</string>

Change 6.0.3 or 6.0.4 to any other (higher) number.

Changing it to 6.0.5 seems to work fine.
You might change it to something higher than that in case Apple decides to disallow other 6.x.x numbers in the future. 10 (the current iMovie major version number, no .x.x needed) also worked just fine.


Does "reset network settings" on iPhone enable me to change mobile carriers? Say, for example, if I have the iPhone 4S, and I select "reset network settings" in "General", would that enable me to change mobile carriers from AT&T to T-mobile?

To change carriers you would need to talk to your carrier, if your phone is not locked all you need to do is change the sim card and then activate it.

I've just changed to AT&T in the US from an Australian carrier and the process was very simple.


Airdrop Cancels Transfers with no error message Although there's free space on the target device, when I attempt to transfer a folder of media from my MacBook to my iPad Air 2 (circa 2014) running IOS 14.2, this fails reporting (on the MacBook) that the Airdrop was Cancelled after I accepted it and choose to save it to files.
Now I know I didn't "cancel" the transfer. And the same transfer SUCCEEDS on my iPad Pro (2018).
Why/How is this failing?

I Googled this issue and found a question on Apple's forums, but sadly with no answers.
Comparative Analysis:
I was fortunate to have uploaded the same folder successfully on an iPad Pro (2018) running IOS 14.2. This proved it was certainly possible, just not on my iPad Air 2 running the same version of IOS 14.2
So same folder containing same files, both devices running the most current version of IOS- 14.2. Airdrop succeeds on the iPad Pro (1TB storage), but reports a "cancelled" error on the sending device, a Macbook Pro (2018) running OSX 10.15.7 despite the iPad Air 2 (128 GB) having the required free space.  Oh, and Bluetooth was doing nothing other than Airdrop at the time of the issue.
Testing:
The Airdrop was attempted again after rebooting the iPad Air 2.  I also tried disabling and re-enabling the Bluetooth on both the sending and receiving devices for the sake of completeness.
Did some testing to see if file size was a limiting factor by incrementally removing chunky files and retrying the transfer.
Solution:
That was it: only after I got the folder size down to 1.5 GB, did Airdrop succeed.
Then I had to airdrop the chunky files I removed to get the total folder size down to 1.5 GB and move them back into the folder on the receiving iPad Air 2. So the same volume of data was transferred in the end, proving that it wasn't down to insufficient local storage.
Conclusion:
Since Airdrop worked with my more modern iPad Pro 2018, may only be an issue for folks using Airdrop as target devices with older legacy iPhones/iPads. Anyhoo, at least I can tell you what worked for me; YMMV.  Hope this gets you out of a hole if you bump into the same problem-


Photo captions not showing up on photos when viewed slideshow mode in Photos.app The captions I added to my photos in iPhoto are not showing up when I play slideshows in Photo. I can still see that the information is there when I click on a photo's Info in the album view.

Is there a way to have the captions show up in slideshow mode in Photos.app?

There are no settings for this, and it does not appear to be possible.

This is further confirmed by MacWorld's article on "4 things iPhoto can do that Photos can't (yet)".


iOS Simulator - Safari forcing WWW on URLs When trying to use Safari on iOS Simulator (I'm running on the latest Yosemite build with about a 2011-ish iMac), WWW is automatically prepended to my urls. I'm trying to debug a site I'm working on through the ngrok tunnel service and I can only access the url without www...any ideas on how I can fix this?

www is only prepended in iOS if the URL without www fails without any response from the server. Double-check that everything is functioning correctly and you should be fine.


How to create Siri shortcut for Animojis I want a Siri shortcut to open the Messages app showing the thread with myself.
So I have to use the Open App action, and open Messages. But is it possible to pass variables to the action so that Messages is opening the correct thread? I tried passing my contact to the App, text with my name and telephone number, but it didn't work.

It is not possible to pass variables to an App opened by Siri.
Since there is no predefined action available that opens a specific thread in the Messages App, it is not possible to create a shortcut that fits your request.


iTerm2 shell integration isn't working I am using iTerm2 3.0.15 beta on Sierra. I have had shell integration installed since many months ago. At some point, shell integration stopped working. (I'm not very observant; I just noticed it at some point. I'd been away for a while, too.) What I mean when I say it stopped working is that command history, recent directories, etc. sections of the Toolbelt are empty. Also, there are no mark indicators before the bash prompt.

I've been looking for a solution off and on for some weeks. I've tried manually sourcing $HOME/.iterm2_shell_integration.bash to make sure it was sourced and that it wasn't getting clobbered by something else in my setup. Just today, I upgraded to 3.1.6 beta 2, but shell integration is still not working.

Nothing has worked and I'm at a loss for where else to look for problems.

Had the same problem. Running this command fixed the problem to me:

curl -L https://iterm2.com/misc/install_shell_integration.sh | bash

It will re-install shell integration. You can found more details on the following link.


Xcode 4: key binding for "Focus code blocks on hover" Xcode 4 has a Focus code blocks on hover setting in Preferences > Text Editing.

When you hover the mouse on a Code folding ribbon, the mentioned setting has the effect shown in image below.

Also, the effect stays put when you navigate with the keyboard (even when you move focus to Assistant editor, Navigator, Utilities, ... but not to, say, Organizer or Version editor).

How could you add a key binding for this?

Go to Settings > Keybindings and search for focus.
Then set your desired keybinding under Code Folding > Focus Follows Selection.


How to use remote Mac Mini without local monitor able to see? I want to use a Mac Mini remotely via the Finder, but my concern is that someone local to the machine could plug in a monitor and see what I was doing.

Is there a way either to:

(1) determine whether a local monitor is plugged in

(2) prevent a local monitor from seeing what a remote user is doing on the machine

You'll need to purchase Apple Remote Desktop from the Mac App Store.  Once you have it downloaded and installed you can click on the "Curtain" button and that will allow you to VNC or screen share to the system, but anyone physically there won't be able to see what you are doing.

Alternatively, you could click the "Control" button and you'll be asked if you want to login to a new screen sharing session where either you Share the screen with someone physically there OR you are logging in as that user, but to a new viewing session only you can see.


How to copy the "Local Items" Keychain to a new mac? I copied my whole HDD from MBPOld to MBPNew, but saw the "Local Objects" Keychain is empty.

I then saw there is a folder in ~/Library/Keychains named like the UUID of the Mac. (which can be retrieved with system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | grep 'Hardware UUID' | awk '{print $3}').

I restarted the Mac in recovery mode (by holding down Cmd + R) and opened up Terminal to rename the folder from OldMBP-UUID to NewMBP-UUID but still the local objects keychain is empty.

Is there any way to get this done?

FYI: I just managed to get my keys to my new mac (this only works if you still have access to the old Mac and can boot it up):

(on the old mac) Remove your current user's password
Create a new keychain (without a password)
Copy all keys in "Local Items" to your new keychain
Copy the keychain to the new mac
(on the new mac) Remove your current user's password
Add the new keychain file
Copy all keys in the new keychain to "Local Items"
Delete the new keychain
Don't forget to set a password again after that

It's a bit annoying as you have to click "Allow" for EACH item in the keychain but well, it's the only thing I found that works.


Tasks needing admin password (Finder, Installer) hang with beachball for minutes Taks needing and admin password, like deleting certain files in the Finder or running an application installer, hang for minutes with a beachball. After a couple of minutes the dialog asking for an admin password appears finally.

Once the window finally appears it also takes a minute to be usable. After I entered the password everything works just fine.

The same also happens when trying to mount a disk image with a password. It takes minutes for the password window to show up.

I can't see anything happen in Activity Monitor. CPU usage is low and RAM is plentiful. Other applications continue to run quickly.

OS X 10.10.2

MacBookPro11,3 2.8 GHz i7 16 GB RAM

In order to eliminate the User profile problem, log in as different user and check.

I would also repair the System permissions (in disk Utility) and the User permissions (the ACLs)


How to set keep touch on Mac touchpad? I am rookie in Mac and I came from Ubuntu

On my previous Dell laptop if I needed to mark some part of text in order to copy or delete it I just made one short touch on touchpad and immediately second touch (not click) and second touch I keep my finger on touchpad and than I can just move mouse and mark text.

or for example how I deleted files:

I have a file on desktop I need to trash it. I put mouse on the file make one short touch and immediately second touch and keep touch on file and now I am able to move file to trash on somewhere on the desktop.

But with mac touchpad I need make click (not just touch) and keep click with one finger and another finger I can move the file somewhere I need. Just remember how you move you file on the desktop, you use two fingers for this.

I hope I describe my problem clearly but feel free to ask

Question is : if there is some settings how to change behavior of touch click?

It is a bit hidden, but it is possible:

Open System Preferences
Click on Accessibility
Scroll down a bit and click on Mouse & Trackpad
Click on Trackpad Options…
Enable dragging
Select "three finger drag"


Time Machine forgets old backups? I use a 2 TB drive for Time Machine and have used the disk for about a year or two.

Today I wanted to check on an old file (an old version of MonoDevelop) and found out that my oldest backup is from January this year.

I checked the disk itself and found that it really only contains folders for dates starting in January.

What did Time Machine do to my old backups???

(There was always enough room on the disk and there are 1.4 TB free now. I never deleted anything in the backups.backupdb folder.)

The system will delete old backups if it has an estimate that it will need the space for the impending backup. Normally the system over estimates a backup by 2 to 4 GB in routine use, but I have seen some cases where it had estimates of 250 GB or more due to some folder changes. Even without an error in estimation, you could have attached an external drive that increased this estimate drastically.

Only you have the logs and data to know how plausible this is. Check out BackupLoupe if you like to have better measurements on how each backup differs in size from the others.

For this reason, I periodically duplicate my Time Machine drives (or choose to rotate them monthly) so that if there is a bug, I can look when I swap in the new drive to make sure I don't lose some of my older history.


macbook air begining 2015 stuck after change SSD I have a macbook air from begining 2015 with 120Go. I bought a Transcend Jet Drive 250 SSD (480Go). I did a backup from time machine and placed it on an external hard drive. I installed the SSD and I restart the Mac with cmd+R. I selected the restore from time machine and connected to external hard drive. I found the new internal hard drive. I wait for 40 minutes and my mac restarted automatically. But it is stuck on the black screen with the apple and the loading bar at the end.
Do you have any idea about the problem ? Can you tell me what I have to do ?
Thanks

I had to reinstall macOs. I could reinstall Catalina after deleting the content of my new disk. Then, I did Application/Utility/migration assistant and reload the content of my external disk.


MacOS: Annoying lag when typing I have discovered an annoying lag when typing on my Mac. It’s a fraction of a second, but it’s enough that it can be as much as a word behind.

The lag occurs when I use Firefox, Notes or Atom, so it is clearly not related to a single application.

I have recently upgraded to 10.13 High Sierra, as well as the supplementary update. I am running on a current model iMac.

As far as I am aware, I’m not running anything in the background which affects the keyboard. I even have background spelling turned off. And, of course, I have restarted.

This is not apparent on my MacBook which is similarly configured.

The first thing I would try is starting your iMac in Safe Mode as follows:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. do you still notice the lag)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your iMac as normal
Test again to see if the lag still persists

Once you've tried the above let me know if the lag was still noticeable in Safe Mode and also when booted in normally again.


iPhone 5s forwarding automatically to another phone in the household after iOS 8 is installed My son updated his 5s to ios 8 and now for some reason when I call his phone if he doesn't answer it will ring to my daughter's phone and vice versa.   I have looked on both phones and cannot figure out why. The forward feature is not on.

The problem you are having is due to the Facetime feature "iPhone Cellular Calls" which allows you to "Use your iPhone cellular connection to make and receive calls on devices signed into your iCloud account when they are nearby and on Wi-Fi."  This is fine if all of the devices are your own so that you can answer the call on any of your iDevices but obviously not a good idea for multiple people.

Are all of the phones signed into the same [primary] iCloud account? Settings > iCloud

If so, you have 2 options.

Log them out of the primary account and sign in using their own personal AppleID accounts.

If you were using a single iCloud account so everyone has access to a shared account for Music/Movie/App purchases, you should switch over to the new iOS 8 Family Sharing feature.

If you haven't created their own AppleID accounts because they were under 13 or you didn't want to include your credit card on their account profile, with the Family Sharing feature, you can create accounts for each child that is automatically part of Family Sharing and all purchases must be approved by you first. See this Apple KB article for more details.

Turn off the iPhone Cellular Calls option in the Settings > Facetime screen.  This will stop the calls from going to multiple devices for now but in the long run, it would be best to set up multiple AppleIDs and start using the Family Sharing feature.

Tip: When you switch over to the Family Sharing, you can either use the old shared iCloud as your own (the Organizer) or create your own personal account.
 When setting up the Family Sharing, one of the screens will ask if you want to share your purchases or use a different account.  Choose the different account option and use the old shared account.  This 2nd method will share all the previous purchases made under the shared account out to all family members but gives you the option to NOT share your own purchases.  This is helpful for parents to purchase items that the rest of the family shouldn't have access to.

If you want to purchase something that should be shared, either sign into the App Store using the old shared account (just remember to sign out and back into your own account) or simply use one of your kids devices.

Hope this helps :)


How to confirm that a file has copied to a new disk without any errors? I'd like to copy files from one external drive to a network connected drive.
I want to make sure that there are no errors.

I know of MD5 hash files that I see for large single files that are download from the internet. I also know that I can use the terminal to 'diff' the two sets of files.

However, I'm looking for a piece of software that could confirm that all the files in the file structure have been copied by the finder completely, or a piece of software that would do the copying for me and confirm that all the bits are exactly the same.

The files are video related - and are often over a TB in size (not in one file - complex multi-folder nested files)

I'm fine if there is a terminal command that can do the copy and compare for me as well. (although being able to see the amount of time left on a copy is a very nice feature... additionally, I want to make sure I get ALL of the file - resource forks and all)

or a piece of software that would do the copying for me and confirm that all the bits are exactly the same.

This is what rsync does. It can copy one file, entire trees of files, just about anything really. And it does it with a reliable algorithm. At the end of an rsync you can be confident the sink got exactly what you sent it from the source.

There's a GUI for rsync called arRsync that can make working with it a little friendlier, though it doesn't work for rsync-over-ssh calls.

The other advantage to rsync is it can do resume-on-interrupt copying. Particularly nice if you're copying lots of files or even big files over networks that are less than reliable.

If you're copying a local drive and a network that are both available to the same Mac you can do:

rsync -avz /Volumes/LocallyAttachedDrive/path/to/big-movie.mov /Volumes/RemoteShare/path/

And you're all done.

If it's a directory (which bundles like .app are) you can do a complete, recursive copy with:

rsync -avz /Volumes/LocallyAttachedDrive/path/to/my-bundle.app /Volumes/RemoteShare/path/

If you don't have Finder/Bonjour-level access to the sink you can do rsync-over-ssh:

rsync -avz /Volumes/LocallyAttachedDrive/path/to/my-bundle.app remoteuser@remotehost:/Volumes/RemoteShare/path/

A shared key can be generated so you don't have to enter a password if you like.

Edit: you can use rsync to verify if two trees are the same with the --dry-run/-n option. If I have the source tree /Volumes/dir and I've copied it to /Volumes/ConnectedDrive/dir I can compare them with:

rsync -acvn /Volumes/dir /Volumes/ConnectedDrive/

The output will tell me if any files need to be copied to the sink in order to make the sink equal the source.

For example, if I sync'ed two trees:

> rsync -avz ./8779 ./a/
building file list ... done
8779/
8779/.DS_Store
8779/logs/
8779/logs/MasterLog.txt
8779/logs/StartLog.txt

sent 893980 bytes  received 98 bytes  596052.00 bytes/sec
total size is 10034671  speedup is 11.22

Comparing them for equality should yield no operations required:

> rsync -acvn ./8779 ./a/
building file list ... done

sent 213 bytes  received 20 bytes  155.33 bytes/sec
total size is 10034671  speedup is 43067.26

If sink was slightly different we'd see output like this:

> echo foo >> a/8779/logs/MasterLog.txt

> rsync -acvn ./8779 ./a/
building file list ... done
8779/logs/MasterLog.txt

sent 219 bytes  received 26 bytes  490.00 bytes/sec
total size is 10034671  speedup is 40957.84

Now we know the MasterLog.txt file isn't the same.


Choosing FreeBSD as Startup Disk on Intel Mac I partitioned a USB flash drive as GUID and used it to install FreeBSD 10 for x86_64 off a DVD on a MacPro1,1. I was able to select the installation DVD as my startup disk in Mac OS X just by going to System Preferences > Startup Disk and selecting it. But OS X (I tried SL, ML, and Mavericks) can't read FreeBSD startup partition on the flash drive because it's formatted as FreeBSD_UFS. As a result, I can't select the FreeBSD partition as my startup disk.

I also tried this: sudo bless --device /dev/disk4s2 --setBoot --legacy followed by a restart (disk4s2 is the FreeBSD partition of course). It just booted back into OS X.

I tried holding the option key at startup. The FreeBSD partition was not an option. On a PPC Mac, it is an option, but of course I need the PPC version of FreeBSD to actually boot from it. On a PC with a BIOS, I can easily set the boot device to the flash drive in the BIOS settings. Unfortunately, it's not that simple on a Mac to change EFI settings.

I'd like a solution that doesn't involve permanent modification of the host machine. Maybe I can install a boot manager that can boot into FreeBSD that OS X will recognize as a startup disk on another partition on the flash drive. I don't know the best way to do that.

It appears to be quite complicated to boot an OS other than Mac OS from USB. See this thread on Ask Ubuntu for discussion on someone trying to do similar.

I know you don't want to install anything on the host system, but installing rEFInd or the older rEFIt may get you there. In that aforementioned thread a few people mentioned that once they had it installed a non-Mac OS USB drive would be listed as bootable from the bootloader menu.


Does Mac Pro late 2013 support HiDPI? I know for sure that Mac Pro late 2013 supports 4k screens flawlessly, but is HiDPI supported?

My understanding is that when Apple is saying that a high DPI display is officially supported, they are implying that HiDPI mode  is supported.   See, for example, that in the article officially stating support for certain 4K displays for your Mac, they show a screenshot and state that you should be able to adjust scaling:

E.g., the Dell monitor cited in the article is quite a high pixel density since it shows 4K in a 24 inch diagonal.  Running it without HiDPI would be quite challenging for most users.


iTunes 11 - List Format I upgraded to iTunes 11 and am really upset that they took away the standard list format. Does anyone know how to get it back?

Short answer is not you can't get it all back.

However you get some of it back by choosing songs under the insert showing the current song and progress. You also need to choose View->Column Browser->Show Column Browser


Is it possible to restart Mac into OS X once switched over to Windows but logged out? Sorry if my question title seems confusing. I have a very specific situation here. My brother died and I have inherited his Mac. I don't know any of his passwords and can't access anything. His Mac itself is not password protected (I can use his computer) but to make any administrative changes/install programs/etc, I am prompted for a password. I don't know it, so I am unable to do anything admin-wise.

I recently tried switching over to the Windows HD side to see if there were documents or any important info he saved over there. However, the Windows side is password protected and I am unable to login.

So now, I am pretty much in a deadlock. When I restart the computer, it restarts in Windows of course. I am wondering if there is a way to restart into OS X with keyboard shortcuts or something?

I tried loading in a pw reset disk to do the windows pw recovery, but for some reason the computer is not identifying the disk.

I am totally stuck.

My brother was an engineer/programmer/developer. I am trying my best without him to be the family's IT person now.

I know he used this site a lot, so I figured if anyone could help, it's you guys. Thank you.

To boot back to OS X, press the option key and hold it down. You should get the choice to boot OS X, Windows or recovery.

Screw the disk out and put it on an usb-reader.
You don't need any password if the disk is not encrypted to obtain its data from it.


How to Change Hyperlink Color in macOS Notes The hyperlinks in Notes on macOS are essentially yellow on white, as shown in the screenshot below.

I would like to change the color to any darker color to improve the contrast, but how? I have tried to highlight hyperlinks to change their color, but the color remains the same even after selecting a color for them.

As someone who's done a lot of UX (user experience) work over the years, I have to admit I was very surprised when I first saw the hyperlink colour in Apple's Notes app. Not so surprised that someone would actually propose it, but very surprised it passed through all the review processes at Apple.

Anyway, I do have a couple of workaround options that may help you until Apple addresses this, as I fully expect they will at some point. These options are far from perfect, but if the default hyperlink colour is enough of an issue, they are worth considering.

Hyperlinks displaying the actual URL

If your hyperlink text displays the actual URL (e.g. "apple.stackexchange.com" instead of "Ask Different") you can do this:

Right-click on the yellow link
From the context menu, select Remove Link

You will notice that the link text now changes to black* and the actual link no longer activates by just clicking on it. However, you can still use it as a hyperlink by selecting it (just double-click) and then right-clicking to select the Open URL option from the context menu. If you prefer, you can also change the text colour to something you prefer.

*If the URL is a full URL (i.e. it starts with http: etc), then you will need to manually change the text colour from the default yellow after removing the link.

Hyperlinks displaying words

If your hyperlink text displays words instead of an actual URL (e.g. "Ask Different" instead of "apple.stackexchange.com") you can do this:

Right-click on the yellow link
From the context menu, select Edit Link...
This will open up the Link Destination window with the full URL already selected. Copy (commandC) or cut (commandX) the link and click on the OK button.
In your note, Paste (commandV) the URL over the original hyperlink text
Right-click on what is still a yellow link
From the context menu, select Remove Link

Once again you will notice that the link text now changes to black* and the actual link no longer activates by just clicking on it. However, you can still use it as a hyperlink by selecting it (just double-click) and then right-clicking to select the Open URL option from the context menu. If you prefer, you can also change the text colour to something you prefer.

*If the URL is a full URL (i.e. it starts with http: etc), then you will need to manually change the text colour from the default yellow after removing the link.


Lion can't see other iOS and OSX devices on the network Context

At my house I have one network, and have my iOS 5 iPad and Lion Mac connected to it.

At my house, these two devices can see each other on the network.

At my girlfriend's house, she has a Snow Leopard Mac, and an Apple Tv 2 with the latest software updates. Both devices are connected to her network.

The Apple Tv 2 is very clunky with home sharing and can't always see the Snow Leopard Mac. However her Mac can always see the Apple Tv and AirPlay is available in iTunes.

The Issue

The Issue is that when I take my iPad and Lion mac to hers, I can connect to the network just fine, but it's like my iPad and Mac are on a different network or "silo" because I can't see any other devices.

The main problem is that I can't AirPlay to her apple tv from my mac nor my ipad. That's the main issue. But also my mac can't see my ipad, and vice verse, and even with file sharing enabled on both macs (lion and snow leopard) I can't see her mac in finder, and she can't see mine.

Any ideas?

thanks

Update

Just did a reboot on my girlfriend's mac, and now she can't see the Apple Tv either...?? Just did a "find all devices ping" using

  ping 192.168.xxx.255 (where 255 is the subnet mask value)

The results were that my mac only returned my ip, and her mac only returned her ip...?

whats going on?

Turns out I had to just had to reboot the router... That fixed everything.

Still, the question remains, why?


(new) Compiler for (old) XCode My OS X does not allow me to update to current XCode software.

With the new XCode and iOS SDK, the sourcecode is compiled with a newer compiler which has some new syntax options which are missing on my old platform.

That's why I need your help to get the new compiler to run with my XCode if possible.? Any idea or tip?

OS X 10.6.8
XCode: 3.2.6
I tried any XCode 4 setup, but it worries about the OS X version and does not allow me to upgrade :-(

The feature of the "new" compiler: ARC

XCode 4.2 will run on Snow Leopard and it has ARC support.

Go to Apple Developer Downloads and search for XCode 4.2 for Snow Leopard, it will show up there, at least if you're a registered iOS developer.

Any newer XCode version than 4.2 is not supported by Apple on Snow Leopard, so I suspect you may have problems even if you'd manage to install it.


How difficult is it to manually replace an Early 2015 Macbook Pro's battery? I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015). My battery health has deteriorated, and I may replace the battery some time this year. A full charge still gets me about 3-4 hours of use time, and I keep it plugged in most days, so getting a new battery is not an urgent need at the moment.

I think Apple told me that it would cost about $200 for them to replace the battery (battery + labor fee). If I do it myself, I think I can do it for under $100. How difficult is it to change the battery manually assuming no prior experience? Also, how easy is it to screw something up during the process that will make the macbook permanently unusable?

So it can be done, but the battery is glued in. ifixit do sell a kit to remove this, but it is still a bit tricky.

Be very careful not to puncture the battery!


Disabling Voice Control, or at least muting it (iOS 10) I have an iPhone 6S recently updated to iOS 10.0.1.

Holding the Home button for about 1 second activates Voice Control, with a characteristic loud double beep.  This is very easy to activate accidentally, which is especially undesirable if I am trying to discreetly check my phone during a meeting or something.  It's also easy to accidentally push the button when the phone is in my pocket (and locked).

I have no interest in actually using Voice Control at all, and it's very important to me that my phone not make unwanted noise.

Is it possible to:

Disable Voice Control entirely?
Stop it from beeping when activated?  (It doesn't respect the hardware Mute switch.)
Reduce the volume of the beep?  (It doesn't seem to respect the ringer volume.)
Prevent Voice Control from activating when the phone is locked?  (I would also prefer that unauthorized people not be able to use its features.)

I saw Disable voice control on iPhone 4s, ios7.1 which suggests turning on Siri.  Indeed, Siri has options to disable access on lock screen, and to turn off "voice feedback", making it silent.  But for privacy reasons I do not want to enable Siri.

Since that question relates to much older versions of hardware and software, I am hoping that something has changed since then.  (Also, unlike in that question, my Home button works fine physically.)

As of iOS 10.2.1 (maybe as early as 10.2), it is possible to disable Voice Control.

Settings > General > Accessibility > Home Button

There is a setting PRESS AND HOLD TO SPEAK.  Set this to Off.  The descriptive text is "There will be no response when you press and hold the Home button."

I would like to thank Bob Briscoe for providing this answer, which he received from Apple Support. Since the question is protected, he cannot post an answer himself, so I am posting on his behalf.


iPhone 6 charging best practices Should I charge every night? (Assuming that I consume more than 50% during the day, but sometimes not much more.)
Should I turn off the device during the charge? (Assuming that I don’t need the device as an alarm clock.)

Any other tips are also welcome.

Yes, the ideal time to charge your phone is around 50% depletion. Ars Technica explains why:

  Full discharges put a lot of strain on the battery, and it's much better practice to do shallow discharges to no lower than 20 percent. In a way, this is like people running for exercise— running a few miles a day is fine, but running a marathon every day is generally not sustainable.

Turning off the device may assist slightly in lowering heat, which in turn may extend the life of the battery by a minuscule amount, but it is not really enough to worry about.


How to Open .dist extension as folder on Mac OS X? I'am currently developing Java application with Eclipse IDE and having this folder named "workspace.dist". This contains the deployed portlet to be deployed to a framework. Now my problem is, Mac OS recognizes workspace.dist as TextMate extension (a text editor). For the mean time, I had to "Show Package Content" thru context menu to open this file.

So my question is if there a way to associate .dist extension as Finder?

Thank you!

Quit TextMate and open /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/Info.plist in a text editor.
Remove the highlighted content from line 531 per the screenshot below:

Log out and back in.


Where are my finder windows after a reboot I have a late 2011 MBP, running Mac OS X 10.7.5, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, with 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3.

When I reboot and I try to open a Finder window with command + n or from the menu

File > New Finder Window

I see the window open and then disappear somewhere off to the left or right off the screen.

If I open multiple windows the same thing happens.

When I invoke App Expose I can see all the Finder windows I opened but as soon as I close App Expose they disappear again.

I cannot drag or select the windows in any way.

When a second monitor is connected I tried dragging them onto the second monitor but that does not help either.

The only thing I found works is:

Press: command + alt+esc ;
Select Finder;
Click Relaunch.

Normal behaviour resumes.

Is there any way to troubleshoot this behaviour and stop it?

Update:

This has just happened again, and this time I took a video.

When the finder windows appear in this video, that is when I am changing desktops with command+ right.  As you can see I cannot get the finder windows to show up at all.

When I have a badly placed window I usually zoom it.
Finder Menu->Window->Zoom.
Works for other programs as well. Not sure if that works for your case, but worth a try.


Using old iMac, missing parts, as monitor for a PC I have found a lot of answers for this, which say Target Display Mode. Problem is, the iMac in question here runs Snow Leopard and predates Target Display Mode.

Furthermore, this iMac was just replaced. I am attempting to salvage parts from the iMac, including its display and hard drive, to use in a PC build.

Is there any way a very old iMac can be used just as a passive monitor?

27" iMac as old as the late 2009 will support TDM (Target Display Mode), and TDM is available on Snow Leopard, as long as the iMac supports TDM. If your iMac is 27" model, it is more likely to support TDM.

If it doesn't support TDM, there is a DIY method, which requires a lot of hardware modification, including soldering and acquiring appropriate LCD controller so that its built-in monitor can be used as a normal external monitor.  The work involved, the time required, and the cost of parts required for the procedure are often too prohibitive and not worth the effort.  For all that, it's probably better to buy a brand new monitor for less.  I've once tried to convert the beloved iMac G4 for such use, but ultimately failed, although few people have tried and succeeded through extreme measures.  See The 17" iMac G4 to DVI - The Easiest Method Ever (So Far).

Finally, if the iMac is still running, I recommend the software solution. It allows the old iMac to be used as a secondary display to an existing PC or Mac (through VNC and the like).  I've had success with Screen Recycler , which cost around $30, but is well-worth the price.  If it is an older PPC-based iMac and it runs Tiger, I recommend ScreenSpanningDoctor.  Newer software, such as AirDisplay works as well, but it requires Mountain Lion.


Macbook always at lowest brightness I have a Early 2011 Macbook pro. A few days ago, I turned on my computer and it was on the lowest brightness setting (almost pitch black).

FYI, about a year ago I spilled beer on my keyboard and a few keys stopped working, including F2. Therefore, to fix it, I plugged it into my external monitor and readjusted the brightness from the System preferences. Nothing changed!

If I look closely at the screen, I can see that it's still working. I'm thinking (hoping?) it's just a bug. Any ideas on how to fix it?

I agree with IconDaemon's comment, so don't think there's much help you're going to find here.

However, one thing you could try is resetting your System Management Controller (SMC). Now, before doing this I should add that while resetting the SMC is usually a totally safe thing to do, you may get unwanted results in the case of liquid damage. So, if you have the option of using your MBP with an external display and keyboard, you may want to just opt for that.

Another thing you should do is ensure you have a good backup of your data. Not just because you should have a backup anyway, but also because of the liquid damage. Your MBP is at a much higher risk now of just one day not working anymore.

If you'd like to try the SMC reset, follow these steps for doing so on your model of MBP:

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

I'm assuming, of course, that the left shiftoption and control keys still work.


How to change application run command when started from Dock? In Windows, you can edit an application shortcut and change the shortcut's target. How do you do this in Mac OS?

For example, I want to change my Chrome application to do verbose logging, by appending this to the run command: --enable-logging --v=1.

You can use Automator or AppleScript to make an app that launches the app with specific arguments:

-- Applescript version
do shell script "open -a 'Google Chrome' --args --enable-logging --v=1"

Or you can go into the app bundle and modify the Info.plist, changing CFBundleExecutable from (for example) "Google Chrome" to the name of a new wrapper script that you put in MacOS. Here's a Python script that automates that for you (It actually makes a new app with symlinks). Run it with python linkapp.py<path to actual app> <where to put new app> in Terminal. When it asks you whether to create a wrapper script, answer y.

(the script is now on GitHub, but I'll try to keep this one updated)

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import os
import shutil
import subprocess
import re

WRAPPER_SCRIPT = '''\
#!/usr/bin/env bash
executable="$(dirname "$0")/%s"

# add flags here.
"$executable"
'''

def printerr(message):
    sys.stderr.write("\033[1;31m" + message + "\033[0m")

def link_item(item):
    os.symlink(os.path.join(bundle_contents_path, item),
               os.path.join('.', item))

def replace_executable(filename, new_executable):
    old_executable = subprocess.check_output(['defaults', 'read', os.path.abspath(filename), 'CFBundleExecutable'])
    old_executable = old_executable.rstrip()
    subprocess.call(['defaults', 'write', os.path.abspath(filename), 'CFBundleExecutable', new_executable])
    return old_executable

if len(sys.argv) <= 2:
    printerr("Usage: linkapp.py <app-bundle> <new-place>\n")
    exit(1)

bundle_path = os.path.abspath(sys.argv[1])
bundle_contents_path = os.path.join(bundle_path, 'Contents')
new_contents_path = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(sys.argv[2], 'Contents'))
os.makedirs(new_contents_path)

# loop through the app bundle and symlink everything
#                                        (except Resources, MacOS & Info.plist)
os.chdir(new_contents_path)
for i in os.listdir(bundle_contents_path):
    if i.lower() != 'info.plist':
        if i.lower() in ['resources', 'macos']:
            os.makedirs(i)
            for j in os.listdir(os.path.join(bundle_contents_path, i)):
                link_item(os.path.join(i, j))
        else:
            link_item(i)

# just copy Info.plist for easy editing
shutil.copy(os.path.join(bundle_contents_path, 'Info.plist'), new_contents_path)
subprocess.call(['plutil', '-convert', 'xml1', 'Info.plist'])

printerr("Create wrapper script [y/n]? ")
ans = sys.stdin.read(1)
if ans.lower() == 'y':
    os.chdir('MacOS')

    wrapper_script_file = 'run_with_specified_arguments.sh'

    original_executable = replace_executable('../Info.plist', wrapper_script_file)

    with open(wrapper_script_file, 'w') as f:
        f.write(WRAPPER_SCRIPT % original_executable)
    os.chmod(wrapper_script_file, 0755)

    subprocess.call(['open', '-R', wrapper_script_file])


How to start/join microsoft office live meeting on mac How can we join/start live meeting on my macbook pro.
I have microsoft office installed.
Do i need any other software also.

It seems you can use Live Meeting Web Access to join, but not host meetings.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2010/05/25/how-to-use-your-mac-with-sharepoint-online-and-live-meeting.aspx


`display notification` works from AppleScript Editor but not when exported as Application I've got some short AppleScript code designed to display notifications at a specified interval. The code works perfectly from the Script Editor, but not when exported as an Application. Instead, notifications never show up in the top left though they do appear in Notification Center. However, instead of happening every interval (say once/minute) they just trigger continuously.

Here's the code:

set lasttime to current date
set min to 5 as number
set interval to 1 as number

repeat
    display notification "Notification" with title "Title"
    delay (interval * 60)
    if (((current date) - lasttime) / minutes) ≥ min then exit repeat
end repeat

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here?

When you check the notification center you will see that the messages still appear there but the center won't notify the user when the app sending the message is in the foreground.

Workaround:

Before firing the notification, activate Finder:

tell application "Finder" to activate

set lasttime to current date
set min to 5 as number
set interval to 1 as number

repeat
    display notification "Notification" with title "Title"
    delay (interval * 60)
    if (((current date) - lasttime) / minutes) ≥ min then exit repeat
end repeat

Additionally, we can do this: Run an apple script saved as run only so icon doesnt show in dock - but doing so, one must use Activity Monitor to terminate the application.  Still, we need to "de-frontmost" our application because when it launches it gets to be the active application.


Are there viable and cheaper alternatives to Photoshop? Is there any software like Photoshop that can also open .PSD files? I don't need an enterprise / extremely feature laden editor, but I do wish to have the following required features at a price point less than a Photoshop license:

Able to crop
JPG compression optimization
Work with layers
Able to open PSD format files
Save in PDF format

I think you'll find Pixelmator a good substitute for Adobe Photoshop. It will do everything on your list and it costs $14.99.


How do I give focus to the correct window when closing another application's window? On Lion, if I am in Chrome and click on an alert from Outlook that says I received an e-mail, I get a new window from Outlook with that e-mail on top of Chrome (I can still see Chrome immediately under my Outlook e-mail window). When I close the e-mail, I would expect the OS to re-focus on the Chrome window (since that's where I came from), but in fact it pulls the Outlook window out and gives it focus instead.

It appears that Lion tries to keep focus on a particular app rather than a particular window. Is there any way to change this behavior so that my interaction with the window "stack" makes sense?

This has been the behaviour in OS X's window system since at least the original OS X (10.0), and probably is consistent back to Classic Mac OS (if that's the case, it likely dates back to System 7 or System 6 with MultiFinder).

In any case, this is how it is: to my knowledge, there's no way to change it.

The best you can do is to not leave Outlook's window open all the time. The app won't quit when you close the main window like it does on Windows.


eye damage from iphone led flashlight How long can someone stare at the led flashlight of an iphone while being filmed before the eyes can get permanent damages of any kind?

All of the other answers out there take for granted its about a photo flash (0.15 seconds), but what about a video? Im talking about the persons who take video of themselves, so quite close range.

In Europe, every electronics product marketed to consumers must pass a battery of tests, one of them for the photobiological safety of any included light source according to IEC/EN 62471:2008, a slight revision of IEC 62471:2006. This is mandatory since September 2011, so almost any iPhone in existence must have qualified in order to be marketable.

Since all major electronics manufacturers design their products for worldwide sales, Apple has to subject all iPhones to this standard. If any eye damage is to be expected, a warning label needs to be present (see below, source).

In the absence of such a warning, eye damage from exposure to the flashlight is extremely unlikely.


how do I change the F3 and F4 to copy and paste? Using the Magic Keyboard, how do I change the F3 and F4 back to copy and paste?  The Apple Magic Keyboard with High Sierra launches mission control or something else.

Open System Preferences->Keyboard. Disable F3 first:

Then add an application keyboard shortcut:

Make sure that the text matches the menu item exactly ("Copy" in your case).

PS: Repeat for Paste/F4


Are there any risk of bricking the macbook by cloning to a partition? I'm currently using a mac with 3 bootable partitions (multiboot). MacOS, Ubuntu and Arch-Linux.

I can switch between the operating systems using rEFInd

I mostly only use Arch-Linux but only gave it 30GB / 256GB when I created it. Now, I'm unable to update Arch because I don't have enough space left.

As far as I know, Mac stores the boot menu on the disk itself and has been afraid of messing with the disk too much because I don't want to end up bricking the macbook like I've done 2 times in the past. Changing the disk did not work, and I got a new one warranty.

Here is a screenshot from that (Question was removed)

https://i.imgur.com/ZSVnoL7.png
https://i.imgur.com/HzXrcPO.png

This is my plan

Clone the partition to a 32GB USB Flash drive using Clonezilla
Delete all partitions except MacOS
Create a new partition with 128 GB
Boot to Clonezilla again, and clone from USB to partition (This is the part I'm worried about)
I would imagine I would need to extend the partition aswell after the cloning.

Are there any risk of overwriting the boot or bricking the Macbook?

Certainly it is not safe (in my opinion) to resize without deleting the partition, which is the core part of your plan.

  Clone the partition to a 32GB USB Flash drive using Clonezilla

I personally would clone from OSX to a Sata external drive.

So your plan appears okay, alebit I would do it differently: if you are happy consigning an operating system to USB. I think you have omitted one important point: to make sure you have a full Timemachine backup before deleting all other partitions except your Mac OSX. If your accidentally trash you Mac compartment, it is easily restored.

Timemachine is essential for this operation. If you don't have a TM backup, simply click Apple icon->System Preferences->Timemachine, then assign your backup disk. The backup will take hours for the first time, but is quick thereafter. It will only backup your OSX.

Resizing without deleting a disk
iPartition could perform resizing without deleting a disk, but its unsafe (definitely not recommended). If anything goes wrong my experience was you lose your entire harddrive. So yes you can do a resize without "bricking" (deleting) your Linux, personally I wouldn't risk it. You definitely need all drives backedup to do this. Note the company that does iPartition is no longer trading but the app is available free from July. However it does not work with Mojave (10.13 and below).

I don't know Clonezilla, but have used CCC (Carbon Copy cloner) which is good, but I think you pay for it now. I presume Clonzilla is free.

I would do point 4. differently.

Once you have cloned the disk you can use Go->Utilities->DiskUtilities and  "Restore" option to clone the Linux versions back onto their respective disks.
DiskUtilities use to have a cloning option (as well as a Restore option), I assume its still there somewhere, perhaps when you login via Recovery mode it 'appears'.


Automatically login to Mac even when using Apple ID as Mac account password I use my Apple ID as my Mac's account password, so now I can't enable auto-login. Is there really no way to re-enable auto-login even if I'm using my Apple ID for my Mac account? Or is there something I can do to re-enable auto-login again so I don't have to type my password in every time I start up my Mac?

If you are on Mavericks then open syst pref users and select the log in options.

Now you can select the Auto log in off or User name.


MacBook keyboard repair program - India I am planning to buy a MacBook Pro (2018) from Singapore for use in India. I want to know if my MacBook will be eligible for the keyboard repair program in India. If yes, how will I have to register the notebook for the keyboard repair program? (i.e. registration to be done in India or Singapore?)

The keyboard repair program as announced by Apple is supposedly "global". However, I am still not sure about the coverage in India since there is no webpage for the keyboard repair program under the /in/ sub-website (while there is one on the /sg/ website).

You should be fine. The service is available globally and can be availed by walking into any of the nearest authorized service provider in your city/state. The /in/ subsection is not available on Apple's homepage because Apple doesn't yet have an online store/retail store in India.

Just search here:

Apple - Find Locations

Prefer visiting one of the Premium service providers. They generally maintain inventory or are able to procure parts in India. I am including an example search result from Bengaluru.

I do not have any document to link to, to support my claim. Speaking from personal experience.

Also, refer to this document from Apple:

Keyboard Service Program for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro - Apple Support - India


Would an app, featuring only a Webview component, get approved for the AppStore? I am not a mobile app developer, but we do feature responsive design in our website which works very well across all mobile browsers.

So if I were to make an app that only contains a fullscreen WebView component that loads the website, would that app be approved to get on the Appstore?

Apps which are just web views are specifically against the App Review Guidelines:

  2.12 Apps that are not very useful, unique, are simply web sites bundled as Apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected

Source: App Store Review Guidelines


How can I copy MP3s from PC to iPhone (which isn't currently synced with the PC)? I have an iPhone 4 (with iOS 6.x on it) that is not synced with any computer.

How can I copy MP3s from a PC to my iPhone? iTunes is not synced with the phone so I cannot put the MP3s into the library and sync.

The Music app needs to sync with iTunes on desktop. You can use any of the  file manager apps for iOS like Documents, transfer the MP3 files to your iPhone. The only limitation being that you'll be restricted to listening to them in the same (file manager) app and not with the Apple's Music app.


iPhone screen not responding to touch and can't swipe to unlock I can't figure out why my iPhone 4s isn't working. The screen isn't picking up on my touch, I can't swipe to unlock. I can't turn the phone off as I have to unlock it first which obviously I can't. My guess is to leave it wait for the battery to drain out to force shutdown.

My alarm is going off and will continue to snooze every 10 minutes until I swipe the phone to turn the alarm off, which as stated I can't. Any tips?

You can force the phone to restart by holding the lock and home buttons simultaneously for several seconds.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430


How to decline a game invitation from friend If I tap on the game invitation notification from a friend, the game is started.  It does not ask me to accept or decline. How do I decline a game invitation?

Open the Game Center app and Decline the invitation:


OS X 10.11 GM Candidate 1 left my Mac unable to boot I tried to install the OS X 10.11 GM to my 2012 Macbook Air, and it crashed during the install.  I tried to go into recovery mode to reinstall OS X, but once I put in my Wifi password and press the install button it crashes and reboots.

Is there some way to reinstall OS X short of taking it to an Apple Store?  The nearest store is about a 3 hour drive away, so if I can do this from home I'd prefer that.

The Macbook Air of course doesn't have a disc drive, but I know in the past with Lion you could get a USB stick from Apple to upgrade the OS.  I'm wondering if I could either get a USB from Apple or make my own?

As a last resort is it possible to ship my Macbook to Apple to be repaired?

You do have a recent backup? If not this procedure will be substantially different.

Backed Up? Use Recovery Mode

If you boot into recovery mode using  Command+R at startup can you proceed with an internet recovery by installing over top of the hosed OS already on the drive?

If that works I would try that first. It should leave your files and apps alone for the most part. If it fails then you may have to reformat the Mac OS partition and install clean using Internet recovery.

No Back Up? Use Target Disk Mode

If you do not have a backup you may have to put your system into target disk mode by holding T at startup and hooking it up to another Mac with a Thunderbolt cable to back up your files.


Recover partitions or data after partition map becomes corrupted (HFS+) So back story about my hard drive. I bought a USB 3.0 enclosure and a well rated and trusted brand WD 2tb hard drive to put in it. For many months now it had been running flawlessly on my iMac, formatted 100% as HFS+. After I decided to sell my iMac, I made a complete backup image of my iMac's hard drive as a single image file onto this external. It worked great and under Windows 7 with Macdrive installed, I could mount and access my old computer completely as if it was still running. (Note that the image file was 257gb in size, and I have about 1tb worth of self ripped movies, music, and my professional photography work.)

Now here's where I went wrong (as this is all my fault). My Windows machine has a vast library of games running on Steam's gaming platform. About 200gb worth. And I store those files on a separate hard drive than the boot drive of my Windows machine. The issue is that drive had some bad sectors and when Steam began to access files within, Windows would hard-lock on me and I'd have to cut the power. After it happened a couple times, I decided to make a backup of my files and try to fix the drive and reinstall Steam. Well I got as far as half the backup. You see, instead of trying to find what games would lock the system (by individually selecting a game and verifying the files in Steam to see which ones lock up the system) I just went ahead and ran the backup tool to place all the files onto my trusted external.

Halfway through the process the computer locked up and I had NO CHOICE but to cut the power and reboot. Upon entering Windows again, I'm greeted with a "you need to format this disc before you can use it" dialog. Great. Further inspection with Disk Management revealed the entire disc was not partitioned.

(Info about the working setup; I had one partition that spanned the whole disk but because it's a mac it had a small EFI labeled partition at the beginning. It is a 2tb drive partitioned at about 1.8tb. HFS+ filesystem of course, journaled.)

I attempted to run testdisk in Windows to find and restore the old partitions. First attempt found the correct partitions on quick analyses and the write function actually wrote it. Unfortunately no files appeared. So I rebooted with a gparted live cd to see what happened and decided to get rid of the partitions I just restored. I don't know what I was thinking...

Long story short, it was my fault and I'm desperate for getting my info back. Running testdisk from a Mac reveals HUNDREDS of found partitions in a deeper search.

My next thoughts are; would it be a better idea to format the entire disk from a Mac, to restore a standard disk layout of an EFI partition and the main partitions, and run a data recovery wizard? Or is my data long gone? I haven't written any information to any part of the disc except the partition map.

Some recent updates; I have located the correct partition and restored it with TestDisk. Unfortunately the partition is unable to be accessed still even though I know it's the correct partition. Do I need to restore the small 200mb EFI partition that Mac formatting creates? If so, would it be a valid solution to format the whole drive on a Mac (quick) and remove the large partition it creates and restore the partition I know is correct using testdisk?

Essentially I'm looking to restore the partition as if nothing went wrong. Where all my data is just up and running again. I am not adverse to recovering the data however, I don't have a large enough secondary storage solution to transfer recovered files to.

DiskWarrior

It worked wonders for me, and so did it for many other people. However, for very serious cases like yours, it took about 3 months continuously to completely restore all my data back. However, this requires a Mac.


Choose Default Out CHANNEL for OS X Audio I need to get my default audio output to outputs 3/4 of my audio interface. What is the easiest way to do this? Do I need Soundflower (and will it even work)?

I'm not 100% sure if this will work, but have you tried the Audio MIDI Setup? Its located in Applications > Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup.app Your USB audio device should be listed in the left hand pane and from there you may be able to route the audio as you wish


How can I send rendered Markdown files to the printer from the command line? I wrote a Markdown file which I wish to print. The rendered version, not the raw version.
Printing in GUI works fine. I wish to format Mardown files with mdcat and send the result/output to printer.
lpc status
HP_ENVY_5540_series:
    printer is on device ‘dnssd’ speed -1
    queuing is enabled
    printing is enabled
    no entries
    daemon present

mdcat example.md | lp
request id is HP_ENVY_5540_series-47 (0 file(s))

mdcat example.md | lp -d HP_ENVY_5540_series
request id is HP_ENVY_5540_series-48 (0 file(s))

Those commands didn't work.
Edit, after first comment:
brew info mdcat
mdcat: stable 0.22.2 (bottled)
Show markdown documents on text terminals
https://github.com/lunaryorn/mdcat
/usr/local/Cellar/mdcat/0.22.2 (8 files, 5.4MB) *
  Poured from bottle on 2021-01-02 at 08:42:16
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/HEAD/Formula/mdcat.rb
License: MPL-2.0
==> Dependencies
Build: cmake ✔, rust ✘
==> Analytics
install: 336 (30 days), 1,518 (90 days), 10,040 (365 days)
install-on-request: 335 (30 days), 1,517 (90 days), 10,027 (365 days)
build-error: 0 (30 days)

Does the software need some kind of support? Maybe I don't remember correctly, but you can pipe any command to lp in Linux. There is not any kind of support needed for printers in the command before pipe.

TL;DR You need a markdown renderer which creates Postscript or PDF as output. How to convert from a Markdown file, to PDF may be a bit dated but lists some options on how to accomplish this.

Any output device (be it a Terminal, be it a Printer) uses control codes within the data to display in order to render it properly, usually these control codes are different for each device. Sometimes (e.g. for Postscript or PDF) they are even a whole language on its own.
Now lp relies on CUPS to talk to the printer, CUPS usually only understands how to handle plain text, PostScript, PDF, and image files directly. So you can do cat foo.md | lp/lp foo.md or cat foo.pdf | lp/lp foo.pdf to print the plain markdown file or any PDF. If you send text formatted for terminal output (as mdcat does) it will not lead to the expected result (neither does running man lp | lp usually).


Can spotlight locate/find files in a VM, specifically Outlook 2010? I run Windows 7 via Parallels 8 on my MBA running OS X10.8.4.

Is there a way to configure spotlight to locate/find contacts or emails in Outlook? Spotlight finds other VM created files such as Word, Excel or PPT, but doesn't register emails or contacts within Outlook.
Thoughts?

Thanks-

FH

It is definitely possible, but you will need to write your own Spotlight Metadata importer for Outlook database, because there is none.

Difficulty level: HARD

Here is documentation
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/MDImporters/MDImporters.html


How to identify if my Mac is running slow or is just over the hill? I have a 3 year old 15" 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MBP that I upgraded to 4 GB of RAM about a year ago.

Before I made the switch to Apple I used to feel the need to upgrade my Windows based laptops every 3 years, that's about when they started to feel sluggish.  After paying double what I would pay for a Windows machine, I'd hoped I might be able to squeeze a bit more life out of my Mac, maybe 4 years.  But it's coming up to its 3rd birthday and it's starting to feel a little sluggish at times.  In fairness, it is mainly when using apps like iPhone 11 and Final Cut Pro X.

I replaced the 250GB drive in it with a 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive about 18 months ago, so I sometimes wonder if that could have introduced a problem that might be causing it to run slow.

So my question is: is there a way to test the HD, RAM or other things to see if there's a problem with my setup that could be easily fixed, or am I just expecting to much of my machine?

Anthony

I can't say the drive would have caused issues, as MacBook Pro models form 3 years ago came with 5400rpm hard drives. What does your system say in Activity Monitor? Any additional overhead in CPU or Disk I/O? If it's just system strain, and you have the appropriate amount of RAM, a SSD is the only additional upgrade that comes to mind.


Alarm on iPhone through Apple Watch When I set an alarm on my Apple Watch, is it possible to copy this automatically to my iPhone so that both devices alert me?

Not using the built-in apps. There might be third party applications with this functionality.


iMac 2009 Mac OSX 10.7.5 Mem 16 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 The Window All My Files in Favorites stopped showing any files 2 days ago. for me it's the most helpful Library of all, and where I often go for my active files of all types.

Why would it just refuse to appear? How to entice it back into action??

Many thanks for any help

There are a couple of things to look at here.
The first thing is to ctrl+click on All My Files in the sidebar in Finder and select Show Search Criteria. Make sure that All My Files is selected and remove any bizarre criteria that may have gotten in there. The default selection criteria are:

Any of the following are true
-- Kind is Document

Some apps may install their own search criteria. For example, I also have "Kind is Other com.microsoft." due to running Microsoft Remote Desktop and how it stores RDP connection files.
If fixing your search criteria doesn't restore your results, you may want for reset your Finder preferences by deleting a couple of .plist files:

com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

You'll find those by choosing 'Go' from the Finder menu, pressing option and then selecting 'Library' and navigating into the Preferences folder. Delete these files and then 'Force Quit…' Finder from the Apple menu or restart your system. That should get things back to order for you.


How do I force-quit an individual app on Apple Watch? On my iPhone, I can force-quit the active app by double-clicking the home button and swiping the app to the top.

How can I force-quit / terminate the active app on the Apple Watch without restarting the entire device?

For watchOS 3 and newer:

Press and hold the Side Button
Press and hold the Digital Crown

For watchOS 2:

When the app that you would like to terminate is open:

Press and hold the Side Button and wait until the shut down screen appear. Then let go of the side button.
Press and hold the Side button again until the home screen appears.

Your formerly active app has now been terminated.

PS: The Side Button is the button below the Digital Crown.


Temporarily disabling the startup sound Is it possible to disable the startup sound on an iMac G5, or at least decrease its volume?

The obvious way to do this would be to put a script in the shutdown folder (OS X 10.4.11) that mutes the sound, then put one in the startup folder that reverses it. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find a "mute" script.

Edit: To clarify, how can you set the system to mute with a script?

There is a 3rd party StartupSound.PrefPane for this.


Secure iCloud storage for years in advance Apple are very quick to downgrade paid iCloud storage accounts when billing fails. Data are then deleted indiscriminately within 15 days of payment failure.

The monthly fees for upgraded iCloud accounts are nominal, yet Apple only accept payment one month at a time by credit card. I would gladly pay five hundred dollars right now to secure my data for the better part of a decade. However as far as I know, this is no way to prepay.

How can I hedge my bets against losing my iCloud data without relying upon recurring credit card payments?

If I understand your question correctly, you are worried that a rejected payment will cause you to lose all of your iCloud-stored data within 15 days.

Instead of prepaying for something whose price drops on a regular basis (which might not even be possible), I would advise you to purchase iTunes gift cards. If you search around, you can find some deals on them from time to time (eg. $5 off a $50 card). That way, you protect your iCloud data against rejected payments, while keeping the ability to take advantage of the occasional cloud-storage price drop.

Your iTunes balance will always be used before your credit card (at least in the US). Load up your account with $150, and you’ve got yourself a year of prepaid 1TB storage on iCloud, with enough leftover for an iTunes Match subscription.

The risk, of course, is you might start spending more on iTunes and apps since you’ve got a balance there, but that is entirely up to you.

Note: App Store cards are equivalent to iTunes cards, but NOT Apple Store cards. Apple Store cards can ONLY be used at an Apple Store or the Apple Online Store.

A good way to think about it is: iTunes/App Store cards = software & services, whereas Apple Store cards = physical goods.


MiniDP to VGA/HDMI or HDMI to HDMI I have external monitor with VGA and HDMI ports, i plan to connect my macbook pro (mid 2014) to connect it.

What's the best way of doing this: Direct HDMI to HDMI connection, or MiniDP to HDMI/VGA adapter?

The best way is to use the built-in HDMI port, but if for some reason you need to use the MiniDP, it's a better idea to use a MiniDP to HDMI cable instead of a MiniDP to VGA cable since VGA is analog, which means it's lower quality video and it has no audio.


How make Safari always download CSV files instead of opening them in-page? When you click on a link containing to a CSV file, Safari renders it by default.  Most other browsers will download them in this circumstance and I'd like to make Safari do the same.

What's the setting to make that happen?

I have the same issue and have done some web searching and have not found a good answer.  This does work consistently for me in Chrome so when I need to export a CSV, I just do it in Chrome.  I have been able to cut/paste the Safari text into TextEdit, switch it to "text only" formatting and then save the file as a CSV, but this is so clicky -- if I'm going to do it more than once or twice, I just switch to Chrome for that browser session.


"Could not activate cellular data network" - cellular data not working on iPhone I am getting an iOS system error:

  Could not activate cellular data network

  Turn on cellular data or use Wi-Fi to access data.

while I'm not connected to Wi-Fi and I'm trying to use any apps that need a data connection. Cellular data is turned on, and I'm not in airplane mode or anything. LTE was working just fine yesterday.

I have tried Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings with no success.

In case this is relevant, details from General > About:

iPhone 6 (Verizon; MG642LL/a)
Carrier: Verizon 25.1 (I'm subscribed with PagePlus MVNO on Verizon's network)
iOS: v10.0.2
Modem Firmware: 5.24.00

Is this likely a problem with my phone, or with PagePlus? How can I resolve it? Thanks!

ETA: Go to ivzwentp.tracfone.com and install the configuration profile. This fixed the problem for me. (That's what the text I got last week instructed me to do. I was able to find a copy of that text online, at a different site.)

Same problem here, also on PagePlus. I've tried to chat with PagePlus customer service but have been unable to get through. I did get a weird text message last week about iPhone data issues on PagePlus - maybe that was related? I thought it was spam so I deleted it...


Way to auto-group existing photos into events? I migrated from primarily a PC desktop to a Macbook Pro, and with that, brought along 10+ years of digital photos. On my PC, I had each 'event' grouped into sub-folder by date, so that worked out well importing into iPhoto-- but I also had iCloud setup on my PC, and it was syncing my Photostream (into just one big folder, with 1800+ photos). Bringing this over to iPhoto I now have "one event" named Photostream that has all these photos. Is there any way to have iPhoto just automatically group these by date into new events?

In iPhoto > Preferences > General there is an option "Autosplit into Events" that you can set.

If all you are seeing is the one Photostream event, I'd guess that it isn't finished importing and it will split the events when it is done.

I don't have a photostream event in my events in iPhoto, I just have an iCloud tab that is on the same level in the sidebar as Events.


How to disable iTunes from playing Voice memos? I have the latest iTunes 11.1.2, and is sync'ing the iPhone 5s with it.  However, one thing I found disturbing is that, I may record Voice Memos on my iPhone 5s, either as a personal diary or even for business summary.  The Voice Memos, however, will be sync'ed and added to Songs in iTunes.

That means, even if my Mac is locked by the screen saver, any person can press the Play button (the F8 key on the keyboard) and start playing my songs and be able to hear all my voice diary or business summary.

Is there a way to not let the Voice Memos be added to the "Songs"?  They are not songs by nature any way.

I believe this will help:

Select voice memos,
Right click,
Get Info,
Options tab,
Check "Skip when shuffling"


Can't create a Fluid App due to "Invalid Certificate" I am trying to create a Fluid App for a work intranet. It says the certificate is invalid, is there a way to get around that?

Developer of Fluid here. Yes, you can fix this now by:

Visit the page in Safari
Expand the "Invalid Certificate" Dialog
Select "Always Trust" option

Now you can it works in Fluid too


Create a custom terminal window is it possible to create (and put in the dock) a custom terminal window?

What I mean with "custom":

it should have a different name (eg. "myTerminal");
it should automatically start running a certain command (I'll ask if this is possible in another question);

Any help is appreciated.

Yes, create a .terminal or .command file with the settings you like. The contents can then be a normal shell script that sets up the terminal the way you like it. Classic .sh files work as well, but the icon is not as nice. Place you file in a directory of your choice and add it to the dock.

Once you have that part working, you can probably paste a custom icon of your choice over the file using Finder and these posts.


How to limit size of Gmail IMAP log files? I am fixing an acquaintance's computer that ran out of disk space. Space was so critical that the OS did not launch any apps. I booted in Safe Mode (holding Shift during startup), deleted 1.5 GB of applications, and was able to launch the OS in normal mode and inspect the file system.

A search with du -sh * by hand revealed log files in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail, in the format imagp.gmail.com-<UID>.txt that were 29 GB and 6 GB. I understood from this thread that these files are simply a log of all connections to the Gmail server:

  Gmail is having trouble with the mac Mail client for quite some time. ... The Mail logs keep a record of the connection process, they're useful to to diagnose problems, ... It's safe to delete those logs.

I inspected the files: they contain both the records of the connections (error codes, server names) and also the content of emails (headers, plain text bodies, and mime-type attachments).

To prevent these problems in the future, does the OS have a way to limit the size of those logs, e.g. keeping only the last 30 days of connection, or doing a first-in-first-out of lines up to a certain file size?

I use some gmail accounts & I also faced a 11 GB log file while analysing disk space one day. But it is not a behaviour of Gmail, rather of Window Menu → Connection Doctor.

Also, it's best to not ignore the low space warnings.


Does turning off wifi improve battery life? I have an iPhone 5 with an unlimited data plan. I usually have it at home where I only have a mediocre cell signal. I don't want to put it in airplane mode just in case I get a call or text so would turning off wifi help save battery life even when I could be on wifi? I mainly use it just for communication if that helps. Thanks

Yes, turning off WiFi will save power.
In case you are not using any data it will but if you still gonna use cellular data with Wi-Fi off then it might be that you actually get less of battery life since data on cellular uses more battery than on WiFi especially if signal is weak.

For example for iPhone 6 (for 5 it was about the same) specs for Power and Battery are:

Internet use: Up to 10 hours on 3G, up to 10 hours on LTE, up to 11 hours on Wi‑Fi


Mount folder as a volume (OSX) Is it possible to (auto) 'mount' folders as Volumes?
I have a large DAS Volume, 'Data', that contains all my data.
To make paths shorter and more future proof, I'd like to have Volumes like

/ContentTypeA/
/ContentTypeB/

Instead of using

/Data/ContentTypeA/
/Data/ContentTypeB/

etc, which is where the data actually resides.

Any ideas on how to do that? It's not a big problem. Just curious.

Sometimes symbolic links may not be suitable for your needs.

In that cases you can use bindfs - a FUSE filesystem for mounting a directory to another location.

Install it with homebrew:

brew install bindfs

And then bind one folder to another:

bindfs /Volumes/Data/ContentA ~/ContentA


Did Apple remove the "AppleScript handler" option in macOS High Sierra? I wanted to make a little script involving messages on my Mac and after some research I discovered it was indeed possible. The only problem is that the "AppleScript handler" option in Messages>Preferences>General is missing for me. This very option is listed right on the Apple website under the High Sierra heading.

This is what I'm expecting:

But this is all I see:

For what it's worth I'm running 10.13.4 Beta (17E160e). Is it possible that this feature has been removed?

Yes, Apple DID remove that feature in 10.13.4. I actually opened a case on this with Apple Support (I even referenced this page) and they got back to me today and informed me that it really has been removed from Messages.  The Apple representative suggested going to http://www.apple.com/feedback/ if I wanted to express my displeasure, but that was all he could do.


How to restore an account from a lost mac from time machine? I have 2 computers : an iMac and a MBP. My old MBP is dead. I've Time Machine backups from the accounts of this computer.

How can I restore those accounts on my iMac to have access to their data?

Use Migration Assistant! Should work just fine from a TM backup.


Custom short commands to open apps Is it possible to create custom short commands to run apps and open folders, to be called in Spotlight?

I mean, I'd like to create custom commands so I just open Spotlight (⌘ + space) then run things like:

cEnter to run /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome
sEnter to run /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
gEnter to run /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --app="https://mail.google.com"
wEnter to run /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --app="https://web.whatsapp.com"
workEnter to open the folder /Users/myusername/Documents/workspace/
servEnter to run something in the Terminal

And so on... I think you know what I mean!

Thanks!

PS: I am coming from Windows, where I would: add a folder to the %PATH% variable, throw shortcuts in this folder dragging and dropping icons with the right mouse button, then rename them shortcuts to the alias I want. Then it is just Win+R to run my stuff. Trying to figure out a equivalent on Mac. Adding a folder to $PATH and creating executable scripts in it didn't work.

Spotlight can't do this. You can probably hack something using AppleScript, Automator etc, but it might be easier to use Alfred which allows for this and a lot of other interesting things.

For your scenario it will actually learn which application you pick from the list and offer it as the default selection after a few times.


Delete specific Time Machine backup via GUI I would like to delete specific Time Machine backups, but not the oldest backup (which Time Machine will do automatically) but one in the middle. Simply dragging it (i.e., a folder such as for example /Backups.backupdb/computername/2018-06-20-041012) to the trash used to work, however, on recent systems it will result in one no longer being able to fully empty the Trash with the drive connected as you'll get the annoying "operation cannot be completed because Macintosh HD is in use" message, see here for discussion.

So, how to properly delete middle backups? This appears to be the correct method via the command line.

Yet, elsewhere (see answer by Glenn Leblanc) it is suggested that the correct method via user interface is by entering Time Machine, navigating to the Backups.backup/computername/ directory and using the context menu "Delete all backups of ..." to delete the backup.  Can anyone confirm if that is indeed the case?

Because the contextual "Delete all backups of ..."  menu item is usually used in Time Machine to delete all backups of a particular item (such as a particular large file), which I understand as deleting that item from all backups (which can be useful to free up space). Now if this is true then "Delete all backups of 2018-06-20-041012", for example, would mean "delete all versions of all files backed up on that day" ... which would remove all backups of that machine (except for newly changed/added files after that date.
Or is it that the same command behaves differently when applied to a particular file within a backup as opposed to a full backup folder? Could any of the Time Machine wizards here explain how this is supposed to be working?

To delete a specific backup enter Time Machine by selecting that option from the time machine icon in the menu bar. Once inside Time Machine, there will be a stack of windows. Click on the up arrow to the right of the window stack. This will start leafing thru the stack of backups with the dates shown in the top section of the windows. Run thru the stack until you get to the backup you want to remove. With the window for this backup at the front of the stack, click on the icon that looks like a gear located in the top part of the window below the date. One option that appears is to delete the backup. Choose that selection to delete that specific backup.


How feasibile is it to run a newer version of OSX on a used Mac? Thinking of buying a used Apple MacBook and wanted to know the best way to tell based on the hardware specs provided by Apple online by entering in the serial number for the MacBook here:

http://support.apple.com/specs/

After pulling up the specs for the hardware on Apple, how do I figure out what the feasibility of running a newer version of OS X on that used Mac is?

As long as it is a Core 2 Duo processor or better (read: 64-bit architecture), you can put Lion on it. The sole exception seems to be early 2006 model with an Intel Core Duo (32-bit); this one will only support Snow Leopard.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook