Automate removing the last page of a bunch of PDFs I have a folder containing hundreds of PDFs, and I would like to remove the last page of each one in a quick way. How can I let my Mac automate this task? Do I need additional software to do this?

I've done this using the Coherent PDF Command Line Tools Community Release.

You can download either the pre-built tools or the source code to compile the later on your own, however the latter requires OCaml be installed when compiling. So the pre-built tools are the easiest way to go. The downloaded distribution file, e.g. cpdf-binaries-master.zip, contains binaries for Linux, OS X/macOS and Windows and is ~5 MB in size.

Once downloaded and extracted (double-clicking the .zip file) you'd copy the, e.g. ~/Downloads/cpdf-binaries-master/OSX-Intel/cpdf, file to a location that is defined in the PATH environment variable, e.g. /usr/local/bin/ to make it globally available on the command line in Terminal. If it's not in the PATH then you'll have to use the fully qualified pathname to the cpdf executable or ./cpdf if it's in the present working directory (pwd). In Terminal, type echo $PATHso show the PATH.

The syntax for removing the last page when the PDF file has 3 or more pages is:

cpdf in.pdf 1-~2 -o out.pdf

The syntax for removing the last page when the PDF file has 2 pages is:

cpdf in.pdf 1 -o out.pdf

Because cpdf reads the original file (in.pdf) and writes to a new file (out.pdf) the out.pdf filename needs to be different if saved to the same location as the in.pdf file, or save it to a different location with the same in.pdf filename as the out.pdf filename, or whatever out.pdf filename you want.

Below, I'll show two examples of automation using cpdf to remove the last page of a PDF file, assuming it has two or more pages. One using an Automator workflow as a Service available in Finder on the Services Context Menu and the other as a bash script, to use in Terminal.

As an Automator Service Workflow available in Finder on the Services Context Menu:

In Automator create a new service workflow using the settings as shown in the image below and copy and paste the code below the image into the Run Shell Script action and save as e.g.: Remove Last Page from PDF

To use Remove Last Page from PDF, in Finder select the PDF files you want to remove the last page from and then select Remove Last Page from PDF from the Context Menu via right-click or control-click, or from Finder > Services > Remove Last Page from PDF

for f in "$@"; do
        # Get Page Count.
    p="$(/usr/local/bin/cpdf -info "$f" | awk '/Pages:/{print $2}')"
        # Get file extension.
    ext="${f##*.}"
        # Get filename without extension.
    fn="${f%.*}"
        # Rename original file to "filename (original).pdf".
        # Use '-n' to not overwrite an existing file.
    mv -n "$f" "${fn} (original).${ext}"
        # If page count is greater than 2, set 'p' to '3' as any
        # PDF with more than 2 pages the command will be the same.
    if [[ $p -gt 2 ]]; then
        p="3"
    fi
    case "$p" in
        3)
                # PDF file has 3 or more pages.
            /usr/local/bin/cpdf "${fn} (original).${ext}" 1-~2 -o "$f"
            ;;
        2)
                # PDF file has 2 pages.
            /usr/local/bin/cpdf "${fn} (original).${ext}" 1 -o "$f"
            ;;
        1)
                # PDF file has 1 page. Make a copy to the
                # original name for consistency of output.
                # Use '-n' to not overwrite an existing file.
            cp -n "${fn} (original).${ext}" "$f"
            ;;
    esac
        # If you don't want to keep the original
        # file, remove '#' from the next line.
    # rm "${fn} (original).${ext}"
done

Note that the PATH passed a Run Shell Script action in Automator is, /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin. So the code above is using the fully qualified pathname to the cpdf executable, /usr/local/bin/cpdf as that is where I placed it so as to be available in Terminal by way of using its name cpdf, only.

Also note that if you do not want to keep the original files, then uncomment (remove the # from in front of) the # rm "${fn} (original).${ext}" command, just above the last line of code done.

As a bash script to use in Terminal:

Create the bash script in the following manner:

In Terminal:

touch rlpfpdf
open rlpfpdf

Copy the code block, starting with #!/bin/bash, below into the opened rlpfpdf document and then save it.

Back in Terminal:

Make the script executable:

chmod u+x rlpfpdf

Now move the rlpfpdf script to, e.g.: /usr/local/bin/

sudo mv rlpfpdf /usr/local/bin/

You can then change directory cd ... to a directory that has the PDF files that you want to remove the last page from and then simply type rlpfpdf and press enter.

The original files will be moved to "filename (original).pdf" and the newly create PDF file sans the last page, if 2 or more pages, will have the original filename.pdf name.

#!/bin/bash

for f in *.pdf *.PDF; do
    if [[ -f $f ]]; then
            # Get Page Count.
        p="$(cpdf -info "$f" | awk '/Pages:/{print $2}')"
            # Get file extension.
        ext="${f##*.}"
            # Get filename without extension.
        fn="${f%.*}"
            # Rename original file to "filename (original).pdf".
            # Use '-n' to not overwrite an existing file.
        mv -n "$f" "${fn} (original).${ext}"
            # If page count is greater than 2, set 'p' to '3' as any
            # PDF with more than 2 pages the command will be the same.
        if [[ $p -gt 2 ]]; then
            p="3"
        fi
        case "$p" in
            3)
                    # PDF file has 3 or more pages.
                cpdf "${fn} (original).${ext}" 1-~2 -o "$f"
                ;;
            2)
                    # PDF file has 2 pages.
                cpdf "${fn} (original).${ext}" 1 -o "$f"
                ;;
            1)
                    # PDF file has 1 page. Make a copy to the
                    # original name for consistency of output.
                    # Use '-n' to not overwrite an existing file.
                cp -n "${fn} (original).${ext}" "$f"
                ;;
        esac
            # If you don't want to keep the original
            #  file, remove '#' from the next line.
        # rm "${fn} (original).${ext}"
    fi
done

Note that the code above assumes the cpdf executable is in a directory that is within the PATH environment variable, e.g.: /usr/local/bin/

Also note that if you do not want to keep the original files, then uncomment (remove the # from in front of) the # rm "${fn} (original).${ext}" command, just above the last line of code done.


Applescript to change subject line I have been looking up for the last two days and found a few applescripts that claimed to change the subject lines. But none of them seem to be able to change/set the subject line. What do you guys think the mistake is here?

tell application "Mail"
    set theSubjectList to {}
    set themessages to selection as list
    repeat with msg in themessages
        set thisSubject to (subject of msg as string)
        if thisSubject is not in theSubjectList then
            set theSubjectList to theSubjectList & {thisSubject}
        end if
    end repeat

    set theNewSubject to ¬
        (choose from list theSubjectList with prompt ¬
            "Choose the subject of the merged thread…") as string

    if theNewSubject is in theSubjectList then
        repeat with msg in themessages
            set subject of msg to (theNewSubject)
        end repeat
    else
        display dialog "Action cancelled"
    end if
end tell

I get the following error

error "Mail got an error: Can’t set subject of message to \"CHANGED SUBJECT LINE\"." number -10006 from subject of message

The simple answer is that "subject" is read-only. Mail's Applescript dictionary shows:

subject (text, r/o) : The subject of the message

I would love to be able to combine messages into a thread, but I can't see how to change the subject without perhaps exporting and re-importing messages.


Why does powerpoint go to different page when I don't touch my mac? On my Mac (specs below) MS Powerpoint (specs below) behaves very strange:
It goes to a different page (page-up or page-down) on its own.

Even when my Mac is not connected to power source (so no static electricity), and even when I do not touch the computer in any way.
And there are no bluetooth mice or other devices connected.

It does this in edit mode, and annoyingly also in presentation mode.

I have no idea if this is a powerpoint or a Mac issue. This strange behavior  happens only in powerpoint. It does not happen in keynote, or other MS Office apps. I have no idea even where to look for possible causes of this problem, let alone solutions.

EDIT: Additional info after useful comments:

Behavior happens in edit mode as well as presentation mode.
Happens in different presentations (created in powerpoint on Mac).
The presentations have no transitions, animations or timings.
Behavior happens sometimes, so it is hard to check. I can go for days without problems, then all of a sudden (this afternoon) in the middle of presenting for a group, powerpoint becomes recalcitrant and randomly does autonomous  page-up or page-down in the middle of my story. And a couple of hours later, no problem (different wifi-network, maybe that has something to do with it..)

What could be the cause? Where to look for source of problems or solutions to this strange (but very annoying) issue?

PS: Mac = MB Pro 2017 - without touchbar - running 10.14 Mojave (but issue was already happening in High Sierra)
Powerpoint = MS Powerpoint for Mac version 16.17 (180909)

At the school where I work, those who have the oddest problems sometimes can't remember when they last restarted their MacBooks; have many apps open perpetually with some apps having many documents open within, etc. Purists scoff at the need to restart macOS, but I think it is the first, best step to resolving odd behavior.

In addition, if you do use a BT device at your desk, (or where you do most of your work,) and leave it behind, disable BT when you are presenting elsewhere.


Is there a way to reduce the swappiness of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard? I have 6GB on my old Macbook, with an SSD.  I would like to avoid writing to the swap file as much as possible.  Ever since my upgrade, I have always had at least 1 to 1.5GB memory "free".  Yet, I have always had 2 to 25MB of used swap space.  (Out of 128MB total)  How do I get this to be 0MB swap used unless I run out of "free" memory?

On Linux, there is now a "swappiness" parameter that controls the tendency to use swap.  I'd like to crank OS X's "swappiness" down very very low, but not deactivate swap entirely.  I'd like to know that my machine will just run slower if it ever runs out of memory instead of having a kernel panic.  I'm pretty close to where I want to be, but I'd like to get rid of these writes to a large file that (slightly) shorten the life of my SSD while doing me no benefit whatsoever.

I'm not sure that a swap file of 2MB to 25MB is really something to worry about. It might be more useful to look at the values for Page In and Page Out to determine how often data is being written to the swap. The number of page events can be found using the System Memory tab of the Activity Monitor application.

There are a couple of other options that you could try but I think you're probably way out of warranty if you try:

Disabling dynamic pager
Creating a new paging system

I would just suggest putting up with the existing system since the wear on your SSD is probably minimal especially since SSD wear is a bit of a myth anyway or maybe it's not.


Why it's not possible to save a PNG image from Preview when a mask is added? While adding some annotations to a PNG image, using the Preview App, I added a mask to highlight part of the image -- Shapes » Highlight. After doing that I couldn't save the image anymore. I got the following error message:

  The document "[FILE_NAME]" could not be saved.

No detail about what is wrong was given. I tried different file names and directories. Also tried to use "Export" instead of "Save". Nothing worked.

Looking at Apple's support page I couldn't find anything about a specific format or something special about that tool.

I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong.

This is a bug with Preview.

Preview -[CIImage initWithCGImage:options:] failed because the CGImage is nil.
Preview Error: CGImageForSavingWithFlattenedEXIF:depth: failed
Preview finalize:2403: image destination must have at least one image

You can report bugs to Apple at https://bugreport.apple.com.


maspushagent using CPU [retina MacBook Pro 15", Late 2013, OS X 10.11.4]

I always keep Activity Monitor running, and just noticed that CPU usage was up significantly. The process maspushagent (owned by me) has now been running at ~123% CPU for close to an hour now. The requisite googling doesn't turn up anything useful. What does this do, and will it quit any time soon, or should I kill/reboot/?

The maspushagent is the "push agent" for the "Mac App Store". Being a "push agent" means that it used for receiving/processing notifications from Apple's servers. It could for example be notifications about an update.

The program is automatically started by launchd when a notification is received by the Mac destined for the Mac App Store.

Therefore it should be safe to simply kill the mapushagent if it is behaving like you describe. Hopefully that fixes the issue for you.


"An unknown error occurred" when signing into iMessage account with Apple ID on macOS The Messages app wasn't longer able to send messages saying Not Delivered, so I signed out. When signing back in I see this:

Note that Apple does see the login: I get an email saying so

The information in that email is correct, so then why the error message?  Any ideas on this?

I used to have the same error on my device once.

In my case it helped resetting the NVRAM, which is one of the recommendations in Apple's documentation.

  Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

  ⌥ + ⌘ + P + R

  Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. You can release the keys after about 20 seconds, during which your Mac might appear to restart.

  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063


Why does OSX no longer allow to save screenshots in the clipboard? Since recently the shortcut CMD +  SHFT + 4  does no loger create a screenshot in the clipboard but puts it into the downloads folder. I could not figure out how to change that. Did the recent update to 11.4 bring this "improvement" or is a setting wrong?

Cmd-Shift-4 saves a screenshot to file, Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-4 puts it into the clipboard. This has been the default for ages, it did not change with macOS 11.4.


If I buy a Mac that was shipped before Mavericks was released, will it have Mavericks preinstalled? What should I expect if I purchase a Mac soon after the new OS was released?

I'm looking to know what will be pre-installed and how that might affect me as a consumer.

Update: The info below is still valid for past practices but Apple yesterday released Mavericks and announced that it is free to download through the Mac App Store.  New Macs shipping today will still more than likely have Mavericks pre-installed, but if you do end up in a situation where a Mac you ordered a few days ago ships with Mountain Lion installed you can simply upgrade by installing Mavericks from the Mac App Store at no charge.

In the past Apple has included "drop in" upgrade DVDs with new Macs that shipped prior to the official release of the new OS.  This means that for a month or so after Snow Leopard was released you were likely to buy a new Mac that booted to Leopard but had a Snow Leopard disc tucked away in the box.
Once the new OS' went to a download only method Apple switched to an "up to date" program, where you could submit the Mac's serial number to a webpage and receive a redemption code to download the new OS from the Mac App Store.  The same time frame of "about a month" seemed to hold true with this last new release.
Obviously I can't say with 100% certainty that this will be the case with Mavericks but I would be surprised if any significant changes were made.
The up to date webpage is no longer active but this MacRumors article has a screenshot from when around the time it launched.

Source - I worked at Apple, at an Apple Authorized Reseller and have received Macs in bulk for my current job, all at times when Apple launched new operating systems.


Overcast Podcast App: How to Play from Oldest to Newest? With the Overcast podcast app (from Marco Arment), is there a way to play episodes within a single podcast from oldest to newest?  The default iOS podcast app does this, but I prefer the other features of Overcast.  I just don't see any way to do this.

I was looking for this also and stumbled on a solution. In the podcast playlist, tap on the UNPLAYED or ALL toggle to reverse the sort order of the feed. So you would tap it once to sort episodes from oldest to newest, then episodes will play from the top of the feed i.e. Oldest to newest


How do I whitelist hosts when using 3G? When I'm on the move I want to tether to my phone to access a few essentials (telnet, ssh, IM, a few low bandwidth websites).  What I don't want is for a load of background processes like Software Update or Google Software Updater to start downloading gigs of patches over the phone's 3G connection.

Is there a way to set up a temporary white list of hosts to which my machine can connect and deny access to anything else?  NOTE: This must be temporary only, I obviously want full internet access when connected via a wifi/wired connection.

Little Snitch could help you out here. It's very configurable outbound firewall for Macs. The rule set it supports is comprehensive and you can block based on interface as well as IP ranges. You could set it up with everything blocked, tether, let through just the apps you want, and then enable/disable Little Snitch with this ruleset based on how you're using your Mac at any particular point in time.


MacBook Pro to external 24" HP Compaq at 1920x1200 using Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter I just upgraded OS X from 10.7 to 10.8.
While using 10.7 with an HP Compaq LA2405wg external monitor connected via Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter, I was unable to set this monitor's native resolution of 1920x1200, because it was not listed in OS X's System Preferences > Displays.
After scouring forums and SE sites, I found the application SwitchResX. With this application I was able to install a custom resolution, and then I was able to use this external display at 1920x1200 without issue for almost a year until I upgraded OS X.
After upgrading to 10.8, my custom resolution was lost. Again, the 1920x1200 resolution is not listed in OS X's System Preferences > Displays. The highest resolution I can use (with correct ratio) is now 1440x900, which is the same as the LCD screen on the MBP.
So I fired up SwitchResX to re-install the resolution, but I am now being nagged about my trial time expiring. When I select my display on the left hand side of SwitchResX, and open the Custom Resolutions tab, I see my resolution listed, but it always says Not installed under the Status column.
Since this exact same hardware configuration worked under 10.7 (with the help of non-free third-party software), it seems like I should be able to get 1920x1200 from 10.8 as well. The only software workaround I knew (SwitchResX) has expired.
Is there anything I can do with OS X to reclaim my monitor's native resolution? Or do I really have to resort to purchasing third-party software to support this seemingly common resolution?

System specs:
OS X 10.8.4, Intel Core i7, 4GB DDR3 RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256MB

Edit - Bounty Details:
I have Apple's Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter. Their knowledge base entry about supported resolutions and refresh rates here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3382#16
And the native resolution and refresh rate for my monitor is 1920x1200 @ 60Hz. You can view the manufacturer's product page here:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&contentType=SupportManual&prodTypeId=382087&prodSeriesId=3955381
For detailed diagrams covering various methods of shoelacing, please refer to the following site:
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/shoelaces.php

I've had the same problems.

I think youre leaving the lid to your mac open.

If you are using an external keyboard, external mouse, and an external display, while your mac is powered, you can close the lid, hit the shift key a couple times to wake it up and I think you will see the desired resolution listed.

There is a command line solution

Get this

After you compile it by running:

./configure

make

sudo make install

you can do

$ screenresolution get
Display 0: 1280x800x32
$ screenresolution list
Available Modes on Display 0
  1280x800x8    1280x800x16     1280x800x32     1280x800x30
  1152x720x8    1152x720x16     1152x720x32     1152x720x30
  1024x768x8    1024x768x16     1024x768x32     1024x768x30
  1024x768x8    1024x768x16     1024x768x32     1024x768x30
  1024x640x8    1024x640x16     1024x640x32     1024x640x30
  800x600x8     800x600x16  800x600x32  800x600x30
  800x600x8     800x600x16  800x600x32  800x600x30
  800x500x8     800x500x16  800x500x32  800x500x30
  640x480x8     640x480x16  640x480x32  640x480x30
  640x480x8     640x480x16  640x480x32  640x480x30
  720x480x8     720x480x16  720x480x32  720x480x30
  720x480x8     720x480x16  720x480x32  720x480x30

$ screenresolution set 1280x800x32
Setting mode on display 0 to 1280x800x32


Troubleshooting AirPrint on HP m201dw I just bought an HP m201dw printer, and while I can print wirelessly from my desktop wired to the router, I can't use AirPrint even though it is advertised as supporting it.

When I try to print a document from my iPad, I get an error message saying, "No Printers Found."

Hardware:

HP m201dw printer, initially configured to a Windows 10 PC through USB to select wifi network, but now running wirelessly only on the main network on a dhcp-given ipv4. All default protocols enabled, including AirPrint, Bonjour and IPP. Tried enabled IPPS, disabling ipv6, switching ePrint (web services) on and off, but none of those made the printer show up in AirPrint.
Windows 10 PC connected to router on ethernet. Prints to the wireless printer just fine. No issues accessing printer config wirelessly using either HP toolbox or web browser on DCHP-given IP. Also, the Bonjour Browser utility can see printer services (screeenshot below).
iPad Air running iOS 9.3.4. Cannot see printer when connected on the main wifi network. However, I can see and print using AirPrint when connected to the printer's own wifi network when "Wireless direct" is enabled on the printer, however that's not very useful - AirPrint is supposed to be available from the main wifi network on which all devices are connected.
ASUS RT-N16 router running TomatoUSB firmware v1.28.9054. All relevant devices (PC, iPad, printer) are visible in the list of connected devices, along with their 192.168.0.1xx IP addresses.

I don't really understand how AirPrint works and what it wants. Any insights on how I can start using AirPrint from my iPad?

The Windows PC isn't likely using AirPrint, at least not by default, so it's probably using another protocol such as IPP. Looking around I see there's a Bonjour Print Services for Windows utility from Apple. If you install that are you able to use Bonjour to print?

Have you checked for any firmware updates on the printer? Can you browse to the printer's web configuration page to confirm that AirPrint is enabled? Perhaps disable it, restart the printer, re-enable and then restart again?


Bought iPad from eBay locked to iCloud I've a just bought a iPad from eBay. The iPad came today and I found it to be locked to somebody else's iCloud account. Is there any way I can sort this situation out or not? Thanks in advance.

You may have purchased a stolen iPad.  eBay has policies regarding the purchase of stolen goods and what you can do to report it to the authorities.  You may also be able to get you money back, but that is beyond the scope of Ask Different answers.


Is there an iMessage client for Windows? My wife's iPhone has iOS 5 and hence iMessage installed.  I would like to be able to chat with her using my Windows computer.  What options are available for this?  Is there a Windows client or any web site that can provide a bridge?

As of May 2016 the only official iMessage clients are for iOS and OS X. Unfortunately you're out of luck using it on Windows.

It's very unlikely that any iMessage clients for non-Apple platforms will be released in the future. It's a major selling point for Apple's platforms, and therefore not in Apple's interest to make a Windows (or Android, Linux, etc.) version. Additionally, it has some fairly complex encryption and security protocols, which likely make it very difficult if not impossible for an unofficial client to be developed.


Is there command to grant Full Disk Access for specific application? You can allow an application to access data if you change settings in
Security & Privacy → Privacy → Full Disk Access.

Is there command to accomplish the same in terminal?

No, this must be performed by the user through the System Preferences page. Any method to do this via the command line would likely be considered a bug and should be reported.


Apache goes to sleep on new OS X 10.9 I am running the built-in apache server on an iMac to serve my personal website, just some static page. I have been using this machine for a couple of years. I just start it with

sudo apachectl start

But, after the upgrade to 10.9 a problem has surfaced (I'm not sure if these are related). Sometimes the httpd daemon stops answering requests. That is, I try to telnet mymachine 80 and it just hangs there.

But, I still can ssh my machine and that works. Immediately after I connect via ssh the httpd daemon starts responding. So, I am guessing it was sleeping? But then, right after I disconnect from ssh the httpd also stops responding (sometimes, other times it runs fine).

I have already checked under System Preferences → Energy Saver. I have it set to Computer "Never go to sleep".

This is also true when using the $20 "OS X Server" app to run the web server.

I think the answer is "Stop pressing the Power Button".

I had read that tapping the power button in Mavericks would turn off the monitor. In fact this is wrong, it puts the machine to sleep.

It is a very light sleep because the machine will still respond to 'ssh' requests, and the moment one tries to ssh into the machine the httpd will magically wake up. But, if no one tries to ssh, the httpd daemon will stop responding a minute or so after one taps the power button.

I was sometimes tapping the power button to turn of the monitor. I have stopped doing that. So far so good.

More updates if this turns out to be the wrong answer.


Photos app - when I share a video to iCloud Photo Sharing - why does it get reduced from 1080 to 720? I have a video in the Photos library of the Photos app on my Mac.

If I right-click it and select "Get Info" - it shows that the video is 1920x1080.

Next, I share it to iCloud Photo Sharing.

Then - if I right-click the resulting video in the Shared album - it shows that the video is now 1280x720.

So - how can I share videos without reducing the quality?

As a random aside... does anyone have any tips for how to search Google for help for an app as generically named as "Photos"?

It's a limitation of iCloud Photo Sharing itself:

  iCloud Photo Sharing supports HEVC, MP4, and QuickTime video file types, and H.264 and MPEG-4 Video file formats. Videos can be up to five minutes in length and are delivered at up to 720p resolution.

Unfortunately, there really isn't any way around this right now.

source:  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202786


What GPU can i put in my Mac Pro 5,1? I have Mac Pro 5,1 (Mid 2010) and I want to upgrade it's GPU to increase the performance of Windows under Bootcamp. I do not care about GPU power in OSX.

Which GPUs are supported in OS X / macOS ? ( I also do not care about boot screen)

Thanks in advance

Apple has an "official" list of graphics cards that are compatible with the Mac Pros  (Mid 2010).
The ones specific to the 5,1 are:

Mac Pro (Mid 2010) and Mac Pro (Mid 2012)

ATI Radeon HD 5770
ATI Radeon HD 5870

Now, according to EveryMac.com, there are several more adapters that are compatible:

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800

NVIDIA Quadro 4000

AMD Sapphire Radeon HD 7950*

EVGA GeForce GTX 680

PNY NVIDIA Quadro K5000

Please note that the Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 only is compatible with
the "Mid-2010" and "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models. The other four video
cards above are compatible with the "Early 2008" and "Early 2009" as
well as the "Mid-2010" and "Mid-2012" Mac Pro models.

Personally, I have used the  AMD Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 because it wasn't just compatible with OS X (10.7+), but Windows Vista (which meant it worked in 7 and should work in Windows 10)  and FreeBSD as well.
I am currently refurbing a Mid-2012 Mac Pro (side project) and I fully intend to put this exact card in the mix.


Yosemite Mission Control does not show desktop bar or add button On a new Mac Mini with Yosemite, I cannot figure out how to add desktops to Spaces. As far as I can see, the preferences are the same on this new Mac Mini as on my MacBook Pro, but on the MBP, when I go to Mission Control, I see the desktop bar with an add button that appears when I move the mouse pointer to the top right of the screen.

On this Mac Mini, when I go into Mission Control, the windows open on my one desktop shrink and show on the screen, and the dock shows at the bottom, but no desktop bar at the top.

EDIT: I have added a whole screen (Cmd Shift 3) screen shot of what happens when I activate Mission Control. As you can see, the browser window goes much higher on the screen than it does on my MBP, where the desktop bar is. Also, no button appears when I move the pointer to the top right. One thing I did not notice before is that it does not show me all of the app windows I have open when activating Mission Control, like it does on my MBP. On that machine, all of the app windows I have open on a particular Space do spread out and show up in Mission Control.

I was just being an idiot. As it turns out, I had the keyboard shortcut from my MBP for "Mission Control" assigned to "Application windows" on the Mini, and because Application windows looks a lot like Mission Control, I was confusing them. After putting in the correct keyboard shortcut for Mission Control, now I am able to get my desktop spaces created correctly.


transfer data from phone to icloud I recently purchased 200 gigabytes of storage in icloud for $2.99 a month.
I want to transfer stored data from my iphone 6 plus to the cloud but don't know how. I bought the expanded icloud for music and phone data. many thanks for your feedback..

iCloud stores data in many different ways so to explain about just transferring stored data would need more input on what you'd like to store.

There's nice instructions from Apple that you could read on the iCloud help page but just to break it down to you first of all what you write about the music which I believe you're referring to iTunes Match which has nothing to do with your iCloud subscription plan and has a limit of 100,000 songs and some other minor limitations.

Now about the iCloud subscription, you could setup in the iCloud settings under Backup that your phone should backup your phones content to iCloud at regular intervals which is explained here and you just need to make sure that you check on or off those apps you'd like to include or exclude getting your backup and that could be achieved by tapping into Storage within your iCloud settings then select the Manage Storage and under BACKUPS select your iPhone which should say underneath its name "This iPhone" there you'll be able to toggle them on and off.

The next thing is iCloud photo library where your device automatically uploads all photos and videos to your iCloud account which is all explained here, I personality love it knowing that my captured moments are always safe which is somewhat safer than having it only backed up at your regular iCloud backup intervals since this happens constantly while you're connected to WiFi.

And finally there's iCloud Drive where app developers could choose to save some of your data there and you could choose to disallow certain apps from accessing them (they could only access these data known to developers as iCloud Container) and if you have a Mac this comes in useful since you could save your files on your iCloud Drive on your Mac and access them on your iOS devices and vice versa.


Extend wireless network with Airport Express or Extreme? I know (or think I know) that both devices can do this.

Basically I have the ISP provided router, which has wifi, but it doesn't work well. That gives wifi to most of the house, and then on the other side, I have an airport extreme that then hooks up to an xbox, ps3, etc, and provides wireless to the other side of house.

I want to replace the ISP wifi (well, turn off the wifi on the ISP router) with an Apple Base Station, to better extend the network. I would purchase either an extreme or express, and plug it into the router, and disable wifi on the router.

Is there a benefit to using one or the other? Can an Express have a Hard Drive attached to it for TimeMachine? Can an Extreme extend a dual band network from another extreme?

Update: I already have one extreme, and very use to the software. Just wondering if it would be better to get another extreme to extend the network, or just an express. The extreme runs dual band, has a HDD connected. Its mostly in a bridge mode, the ISP router still handles DHCP, etc. Just want to disable wifi on the router, and add a second base station.

TimeMachine isn't supported and doesn't like to work with drives connected to non-TimeCapsule or non-Servers.
The express USB only works for printers, not drives. (no file server included)
Turning off WiFi on the ISP router and letting Airport run either in bridge mode (letting the ISP router handle everything) is the easiest option. I prefer to have my ISP router be a bridge and let the AirPort run the network to take advantage of it's software and logging / graphing tools. Some ISP don't like that and you need them to modify their upstream device - but most just work fine.

The benefits I see on AirPort are having one strong signal (turning off the ISP WiFi) and less interference as well as simplicity of managing the AirPort software.


Is it possible to crossfade songs on an iPhone? Is it possible to crossfade songs on an iPhone that are played through the iPod app?

If there is no native way to do this, are there any apps that can do this?

I'm sorry, I don't think it is possible (yet). If you had an old iPod Nano/Classic then I might have suggested 'Rockbox' (give it a google). Send Apple a feature request about it, they never know, if enough people bombard them with requests then maybe it will become a native feature.

Sorry I can't be of more help.


Open a Mac installation disk as if it were on a Windows computer EDIT: I have found a solution, I'll post it here, as I can't answer my own question yet. Not enough reputation, I have to wait 8 hours.

I found a workaround, by using VirtuaBox and Windows. I asked VirtuaBox to host the disc drive, and I could access the file just fine from the virtual machine. I hope this helped!

I have received a disc with a program I have to install.
The problem lies in the fact that I have to access a .txt file which contains the program's serial it – it's a personal back-up copy – and I do remember that this file is inside the disc.
The problem is that the serial can be seen and opened from Windows, but not from the Mac, which shows its own "version" of the disc: that is, the readme file, and the applications to install the software. And nothing more.
My question is, is there any way to access this disc as if I were reading it from Windows? That is, displaying the actual file system, without those Mac-only options?

This old hint might work but I don't have a CD reader to test.

It requires using the Terminal which is not that hard.


How do I disable images in Safari 6.0? In Safari 6.0 the 'Appearance' tab from 'Preferences' was omitted.
How can I now switch “Display images when the page opens” on/off ?

Open Safari and go to Preferences, then click on the Advanced tab.  There's a checkbox at the bottom titled "Show Develop menu in menu bar".  Check that then close the Preferences window.

You'll notice that in your menu bar between Bookmarks and Window you have a menu called Develop.  Near the bottom of that menu list is Disable Images — click it.  Now your browsing experience is image free!


How do I change my DNS settings for 3G? I want to use GoogleDNS while I'm on the bus. But there is no settings page to change as far as I can see.

You cannot change the dns while on cellular.  You may be able to do so if jailbroken--i do not know if you can or can't--but you cannot while on cellular.


How to mirror my iPhone 6s on and iPad Pro I have developed an iPhone app and would like to present it to a small group of people using the larger screen on my iPad Pro.  The app does not run on iPad, so I would like to mirror my iPhone screen on the iPad.

Can this be done?  If not, any suggestions.

Note that the iPad contains a (1X/2X) emulator for all iPhone apps (except those that specifically require telephony).  So just run the iPhone app on your iPad.  No iPad code, storyboards, or iPad specific or Universal settings in Xcode are required to do this.


Slow internet connection on my Mac Mini Starting yesterday I'm dealing with low internet speed on my Mac; my download rate is 40 KB/S at the max. while my default download rate is 100 KB/S. I shut down my mac and tried another two PCs; the speed is my default and browsing is normal and I didn't encounter any slowness in my connection. So, I figured that the problem is on my Mac whether there's an application running update in the background or the App store updating (but the app store contains no update).

I need your help to find a way to track my internet usage so I may be able to terminate the problem.

Access Spotlight - either with cmd + spacebar or by clicking the magnifying icon on the right top corner of your screen
Search for Activity Monitor.
Select the far-right tab titled Network and you will find a description of all the network processes going on on your machine.

If there's a high network consumption process, you'll be able to spot it.


Shell Script for Yesterday's Date I'm trying to execute the following shellscript with hazel app on any file in the folder.  It works, but the only thing thats causing a problem is the date for yesterday.

#! /bin/bash

saveDir="TJ"
dd=$(date --date='yesterday' +'%m-%d-%Y')
for file in *.csv ; do
    saveName="${saveDir}/TJ ${dd}.csv"
    cut -d',' -f2,14 "$file" > "$saveName"
done

Any ideas why it isn't working?

Try using date like this:

dd=$(date -v -1d '+%m-%d-%y')

as mentioned yesterday is part of GNU Date, but using an offset of -1d should be equivalent for OS X use.


How to restore default folders for Desktop, Downloads and Documents? I deleted the "Desktop", "Documents" and "Downloads" folders and emptied the Trash.
I don't need to restore the contents of these folders because everything is already backed up on my external drive, but now the folder themselves are not appearing or able to be added/restored. Nothing can be added to the Desktop, nothing can be downloaded because I've deleted these folders.
How can I restore or create these deleted folders?

If they don't exist, Documents and Downloads - just create a folder with those names in your home directory. I think you can do the same for the Desktop directory. Make a Desktop folder in your home directory.


What language is used in equations in Pages and Keynote? e.g. \texttt{}, \mathtt{}, \tt{} and \text{} This answer to How to include equations in-line with text within the cell of a table in Keynote? is quite helpful. I noticed that \text{} is interpreted as boldface, and I had to find something else to get "normal" looking text within an equation, whereas in MathJax that we use here in Stack Exchange \text{} produces "normal" text within an equation.
It seems that \mathtt{} and \tt{} produce "normal" looking text while \texttt{} and \text{}produce boldface font.
Question: When we start a recent version of Keynote or Pages, exactly what language is used to generate equations? Is it MathJax or Tex or LaTex or MathML or some mix? Is there a documentation page where I can find reliable information on how to format complicated equations with various features like matrices, aligned equal signs for several equations appearing in multiple lines, and other goodies?
Secondary question: Are there options for changing which language is used, or is it hard-coded?
Right now I only know Mathematics SE Meta's MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference and so far I've simply been lucky that most of what I do in MathJax seems to work in Notes and Pages.

Pages supports equations written with both LaTeX commands and MathML elements. However, it doesn't support all of each language providing only a subset of available features.
In regards MathJax, it is actually also the case that MathJax supports LaTeX and MathML markup, so that's why you'll find that commands used with MathJax also work with Pages. The environments, configurations, installed packages, and so on, are not the same however, and that's why you'll find inconsistencies in how the same lines of code are displayed in the two systems.
You'll find Apple's documentation for the feature here:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202501
There are no options to change which languages are supported by equations in Pages.


iChat: Very slow transfer speeds/Port Restricted I have a 12mbps connection, so I know that my ichat transfers should be super fast.  When I receive files from some people, my transfer rate is about 1k/sec, which is horrible.  Why would this be happening?  Do I need to do something with my router?

In the Connection Doctor it says Router Type: Port Restricted.

You'll want to use these two documents to forward the appropriate ports on your router:

Using iChat with a firewall or NAT router (apple.com)
ZyXEL Q1000Z: How to create a custom Application Rule (qwest.com)

If you have specific questions about port forwarding on your router, you could try asking over at Super User.


Apple TV can't stream video; no problem on iPad/iPhone on same network I have a 4th gen Apple TV using tvOS 11.2 I believe.  The last week or so I've been unable to watch Netflix/Hulu/other streaming video sources on it; I can open the app for whichever service, but if I try to watch a show it either doesn't load or does load but is unable to play past a few seconds/minute at most.

I'm able to play the same video on my iPad or iPhone with no problem, as fast as I would expect it to play (no buffering), and my speed test app shows 70 MbPS, which seems fast enough.  The iPad and Apple TV are connected to the same WiFi router, as far as I can tell (it's an Eero, of which I have two in the house, but Eero at least thinks they're both connected to the lower floor one as they ought to be).

I've tried the basics - restarting the Apple TV, primarily - but that doesn't seem to help at all.  I also re-created the WiFi network.

Is there a likely potential cause for this?  Any additional troubleshooting steps I should try before considering it's possibly hardware?  I considered a factory reset and reinstall the OS from scratch, but it's not clear to me what that would necessarily accomplish unless the networking itself is faulty (as it's not isolated to just one app).

It also fails if I AirPlay streams to the AppleTV from the iPad, though as far as I can tell that doesn't seem to actually stream from the iPad directly when I'm AirPlaying Netflix/etc.

The solution ended up in this case being unplugging/replugging in, which worked while a soft reset (in Settings->Restart) did not.


Can Quicksilver be configured to open folders in new Finder tabs? Is there a way to configure Quicksilver so it will open folders in new Finder tabs? Right now, when I use QS to navigate to a folder location and select the "Open" option from the actions pane QS opens a new Finder window at that folder location.

Now that there are tabs in the Finder, I'd like it to bring an existing Finder window to the front and open the selected file in a new tab. Is that even possible, since tabs are a new feature of Mavericks?

For folders, as with any other type of file, Quicksilver just asks OS X to open the file. The OS decides what to do from there.

It’s the same as typing open /path/to/folder in Terminal. So, if you can get that to open folders in a new tab, Quicksilver should start doing it too.

(I think Finder would need a preference to control this behavior, and I don’t see one.)


How can I back up the phone numbers on my iPhone? I've just synchronized my iPhone and backed up contacts in both Outlook and GMail. However, it has saved the email addresses only. How can I back up the phone numbers on my phone?

If your whole contacts (Name, Cel, Email) are stored on Gmail, you can use it to sync over the air directly to your phone.

First, create a backup of your contacts and delete the ones you have in your iPhone (this will prevent any merging issues).

Go to Preferences > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account

Add your Gmail account and when prompted, turn on the "Contacts" option. This will import all your contacts from Gmail directly to your phone.

You're done! your Gmail contacts should be now in sync with your phone, if you use Outlook as your main application to edit your contacts, remember to sync it with Gmail first.


USB keyboard acting strange with MacBook Pro I have a Cooler Master Storm USB keyboard.  I have plugged it in to my new MacBook Pro.  The OS took me through the keyboard setup screen, and 'recognized' the keyboard as a standard US one.  Some keys work, other keys do strange things.  When I press c, it types a c after the cursor, instead of before.  When I type e, it types an e along with a space after it.  Is it possible that this particular keyboard will not work with Mac OS X?

For anyone else with this issue...

Referring to the user manual for the Cooler Master Storm USB keyboard, check the N-Key Roll Over mode (NKRO) as OS X doesn't support NKRO.


Dual boot versus VM storage use? Which requires the least total storage to run Windows 7, configuring an MBA for dual-boot with Bootcamp, or using a VM (Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox)?

For the smallest solution, how many free GB would be required for a standard minimal system Windows 7 install?  (such as just for testing web pages on MSIE, and such.)

Can a VM boot and run Windows off of a USB connected HD or SSD well enough to be "usable"?

Using a virtual disk in VMware you can avoid dedicating space to Windows 7 that is just free space, unlike a dual-boot where you'd have to allocate a partition that has all the free space you will ever need.  (Probably true with other VM solutions, but I don't know.)  While a VMware virtual disk does not auto-shrink, it starts out small (on the host disk) and only grows as needed.  So that would be the smallest storage solution.

I would not expect USB 2.0 to perform well enough to run a Windows VM off of it, but I never tried.  Firewire would be OK.


How do I create a new iCloud account for my daughter's iPad? Two middle school daughters with new iPads (had to purchase for school). I will keep my AppleID on them for apps and music but want to create their own iCloud accounts for their photos, school work etc. How do I create a new account?

Here is the official Apple guide:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2731?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

If you get stuck somewhere in between just ask.


Reinstall Google Chrome on iPod Touch 4th generation Is there any way to completely reinstall Google Chrome on a 4th generation iPod Touch? I want to restore Google Chrome back to its default settings, because it started crashing after I started syncing it with my Google account.

Yes, you can do this by:

Tapping and holding on an app icon on the home screen until the icons start to wiggle.
Tap the "x" icon on the Google Chrome app.
Open the App store.
Go the the farthest right tab - "Updates"
At the top will be "Purchased"
Scroll to Google Chrome and tap "Install".

After deleted the Chrome app, you can also just search the app store for "Google Chrome". When the Chrome app is displayed in the results, there will be an "Install" button. You can install it from there as well.


Syncing with multi Mac household Our household has several iOS devices, a soon-to-be-upgraded MacBook and a new Mac Mini Server. Since we're not working with many users (yet), I'd like to get things organized and working before time becomes an issue. The Mini has a local-only account that has the master iPhoto and iTunes libraries (for sharing with Apple TV's, iPhones, iPads, etc) - with iTunes I have a few options:

Everyone shares the same iTunes library
Master library is shared, users have their own smaller libraries
Master library is shared using home sharing, users have their own smaller libraries

The other accounts are networked (with portable home directories). Since mobile accounts will be in the near future, I'd like to avoid number 1 (and I need some sort of sharing to serve to Apple TV's, iPhones, iPads, etc anyway). Number 3 could be an issue since home sharing is limited to 5 devices, and I'd like a solution that could handle around 10. This brings me to three questions:

Can home sharing work with iPhones/iPads that are connected through a VPN to the Mini Server?
Is there an elegant way to update the master library whenever a user adds content to their own iTunes library?
Does anyone with a similar setup have any tips?

Have you considered iTunes Match for music & iCloud Photo Stream for the photos?

There is a total of 4 people in our family and between us we have 5 iOS devices, an Apple TV, a few laptops and an iMac. The iMac is setup as our main digital hub. It contains our master iTunes and iPhoto libraries. Here is our setup:

Music Setup:

We have one Apple ID that all iTunes & App Store purchases are made from.
The iMac contains a local copy of all our music and is set to sync with iTunes Match.
All other devices* (OS X and iOS) have iTunes Match turned and do not have local copies of the music files (this has cleared up over 40 GBs form my Air!).
All devices have access to all the songs and can play them either by streaming or by downloading from the cloud and playing them locally.
Any added music syncs back up with iTunes Match and is available from all devices (this also works for correcting meta tags).

*One exception is our kids' iOS devices, we have iTunes Match turned off on them and sync songs via direct connection to the iMac and manually selecting the songs via a playlist as we don't necessarily want them to be able to listen to all our music. This also makes it simpler for them to find what they want to listen to (they're 6 and 3 years old).

Photo Setup:

iMac contains our main photo library and has Photo Stream turned on.
All other devices** (OS X and iOS) have their own photo library and have Photo Stream turned on.
The iMac automatically downloads all photos taken from all devices with Photo Stream turned on.
All devices have access to all photos that are in the Photo Stream and can add to their libraries if desired (this can also be an issue, as all will see everyone's photos).

** One exception here is that I use a different iCloud account from the others as I use my devices for work and therefore keep a separate photo library. All my devices sync to my iCloud account. When I do take family photos on my devices I need to manually add them to the family iMac.


Time Machine in the "Cleaning Up..." state forever My Time Machine is in the cleanup state for a long time (several days). The backup is to an external drive and the disk on the mac laptop is less than 500 GB. It usaually takes much less time to clean up.
Is there a way to inspect what the Time Machine actually is doing during the cleanup?
The following log is not helpful.
$ log show --debug --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 4h
Filtering the log data using "subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine""
Timestamp                       Thread     Type        Activity             PID    TTL
2020-02-21 13:36:41.329729-0600 0xb4acfa   Info        0x0                  98     0    backupd-helper: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup: Backup already running
2020-02-21 14:36:55.424274-0600 0xb60241   Info        0x0                  98     0    backupd-helper: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup: Backup already running
2020-02-21 15:42:20.848345-0600 0xb64cb9   Info        0x0                  98     0    backupd-helper: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup: Backup already running
2020-02-21 16:36:27.614466-0600 0xb8060d   Info        0x0                  98     0    backupd-helper: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup: Backup already running
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Log      - Default:          0, Info:                4, Debug:             0, Error:          0, Fault:          0
Activity - Create:           0, Transition:          0, Actions:           0

I noticed that cleaning up old backups can be very slow. In my case, I can hear my external backup drive rattling along, so I know it's doing something.
You can check on progress by opening the latest backup log. Look for the directory with a name ending in .inProgress on your backup drive. Within it, open the log file with the most recent timestamp:
$ sudo less +F "/Volumes/MacBackup/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro/2020-08-05-163227.inProgress/.Backup.618330747.626060.log"

Substitute MacBackup, MacBook Pro and the backup/log path. If you're not familiar with less, press Ctrl-C, followed by q to exit.
The log file will tell you how much space needs to be cleared and which of the backups it's (very slowly) deleting. Looking at the amount of free space on your backup disk should give you an idea of how far along it is.


Your Apple ID or password was entered incorrectly - Eror while login I tried to login with my apple id to develper.apple.com and application loader

But is giving the error -Your Apple ID or password was entered incorrectly

I know my login credentials are right.

Please help..

Click the "forgot you password?" link and request a new password.


Double-clicking on a song in Finder launches Music.app but doesn't play it Back in the day of iTunes, when double-clicking on a song in Finder it oppened iTunes and started playing it.
Now, using Music, the same action only open Music and copies the song into it. Then I have to it play from the app (and search for that new song I just added).
How can I get back the open & play feature ? I checked in Music's preferences and searched same issue on the web but nothing came up.
I'm using a 2017 Macbook Pro on Big Sur 11.3.1 and Music 1.1.4.110

Maybe there is a setting in Preferences that causes the song to play. Here is an image of my Preferences Panel for the General settings.

And the panel for Playback.


Really confused about how to reset SMC and PRAM and NVRAM on my Macs and iPad and iPhone? Sometimes I find from searching Google that I can reset the SMC, PRAM and NVRAM. But different sources provide different instructions on how to do this.  I have a MacBook Pro and iMac. I also have an iPad Mini and an iPhone 5c and wonder how these can also be reset if needed.

Can someone please clear this up for me, or send me links to some info I can trust.

Sorry to hear you’re having problems. I hope the following clarifies things for you, but if these instructions do not help, you can always post specific questions about any problems you’re having.

SMC

The reason for your confusion is that the instructions for resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) will differ depending on whether your device:

runs from a built-in battery?
runs from a removable battery?
can only run from power off a wall socket?

Below I will provide the instructions for all three possibilities.

For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

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

For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button

For iMacs, Mac Pros, Mac Minis, etc that only run from a power point in the wall

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from power
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
Plug it back in and turn it on.

PRAM/NVRAM

Now, the reason for your confusion about PRAM and NVRAM is that older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM).

Until recently, the instructions for resetting this were the same regardless of your Mac model. However, the Late-2016 MacBook Pro models use a different process. Below are the steps for both scenarios.

Resetting the PRAM/NVRAM on all models EXCEPT for Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

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

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

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

For all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

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

iPods, iPhones, iPads

Devices running iOS do not have an SMC or PRAM/NVRAM that you can reset like you do on Apple Macs.

However, most random issues can be resolved by rebooting your device. To do this, hold down the Power button and Home button simultaneously for about 10 seconds until you see the Apple logo appear. After your device reboots you may need to enter your passcode.

In more serious cases, you can also access a range of reset options from Settings > General > Reset. Be careful though when deciding if/which option to select.


Can I set OS X to automatically open ICS files in iCal? Can I configure OS X so that the default open action on an ICS files is to open it in iCal?

If you highlight the file in the finder, press command-i to open the file info dialog. Change the entry "Open with" to "iCal" (select "other" and browse for iCal if it is not listed). Press the button "change all" to make "open in iCal" the default action.


cmd-tab behavior on Mavericks with multiple displays I have a MacBook with Cinema Display, I have my dock on the MacBook screen side and my menubar is set to Cinema Display. In 10.8 this worked well, when I pressed cmd-tab to switch apps the task switcher would come up on the "main" Cinema Display.

In 10.9, however, it's always on the MacBook's screen, very annoying. Is there a setting I've missed?

I believe this coincides with the Dock's location.  Just tested it on my MacBook Air, connected to a non-Apple external display, and whenever I moved the Dock from screen to screen the Application Switcher would follow.

You can summon the Dock on your big display by dragging the cursor to the bottom of it's display, essentially dragging down at the bottom.  After a second the Dock should pop up.  Once the Dock is on the desired display press commandtab to summon the Application Switcher.


Is JMicronATA.kext part of Yosemite? And others There is a file JMicronATA.kext in my GF's iMac in /System/Library/Extensions ... is this an official part of OS X? Or can it be deleted? I ask because its modification date is 2012 and in System Report it shows that it's Not Signed and not loaded.

As well there are these kexts in /Library/Extensions which do not show to be from Apple, are not loaded, and many are from 2013:

ACS6x.kext
AcrMSR.kext
ATTOCelerityFC8.kext
ATTOExpressSASHBA2.kext
ATTOExpressSASRAID2.kext
CalDigitHDProDrv.kext
HighPointIOP.kext
HighPointRR.kext
PromiseSTEX.kext
SoftRAID.kext

What are all these and why are they in /Library/Extensions instead of /System/Library/Extensions if they are officially part of OS X Yosemite? If they're not, how can I identify where they came from? Why would they still be there after I just reinstalled Yosemite yesterday?

How can you tell what's an official part of the system, and what isn't? How can you uninstall 3rd party crap, short of rooting out individual files from within alllll of the folders in the three different Library folders, not to mention anything hidden in the /private directory??

Thanks.

It's the kernel extension for JMicron SATA controllers, and yes it's official, as are the others. It's up to you if you want to delete them, I wouldn't bother as they take up minimal space. Check System Profiler before doing anything silly just to make sure your iMac doesn't require any of the listed extensions.

Example:

  JMicronATA:

  Version:    1.1.6

  Last Modified:  5/22/12, 8:19 AM

  Loaded: No

  Get Info String:    1.1.6, Copyright JMicron Technology Corporation

  Obtained from:  Not Signed

  Kind:   Intel

  Architectures:  x86_64

  64-Bit (Intel): Yes

  Location:   /System/Library/Extensions/JMicronATA.kext

  Kext Version:   1.1.6

  Valid:  Yes

  Authentic:  Yes

  Dependencies:   Satisfied

  Signed by:  Not Signed


Change the location of an icon in the menu bar? Every time I start up Radium the menu bar icon for the application shows up in the same place: dead smack in the middle of all my other menu bar icons. Doesn't matter if it's the last menu bar occupying application I've started.

I'd like to have it appear as the icon furthest to left on account of it displaying song information in the menu bar area once I start streaming a station with it.

Is this possible?

I tried a few key + click combinations to see if that would let me drag it around but no luck. It seems stuck in this position.

Edit: I did try a Command+click to move it -- no luck. Same for Option and Control click combinations.

The image below show the current location of the icon. I'd like it to appear to the left of the Sparrow icon.

If a menu icon is allowed to move, command + mouse select will work.

You might have to patch the program (or System Ui Server). Have you asked the developer if they can implement this as a feature?

Only the Apple icons are movable on my 10.6.7 systems so it certainly isn't easy for a developer to get this working and may be impossible in practice.

The only workaround would be to have a script that delays the radium start as the leftmost item is the last to load. If you had a launch script that slept for 3 minutes and then killed, relaunched that app - it would be leftmost until another started... If it was really important, you could kill and relaunch it periodically every X minutes to ensure that over time it's the leftmost icon without you taking manual action.


How to pick a recovery partition to boot into when there are multiple? I have a Mac Mini with a Fusion Drive. There are two instances of macOS installed on it.

One (just upgarded to 10.13) is installed on an encrypted CoreStorage logical volume that spans the SSD and part of the HDD, and the other one (10.11) is installed on the rest of the HDD:

~> diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            121.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            396.9 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk1s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            601.8 GB   disk1s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s5

/dev/disk2 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS XYZ                    +512.0 GB   disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2
                                 Unlocked Encrypted Fusion Drive

As you can there are also two recovery partitions. One holds a 10.11 recovery and the other one holds a 10.13 recovery:

~> diskutil mount disk1s3
Volume Recovery HD on disk1s3 mounted

~> grep ProductVersion -a2 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/SystemVersion.plist
    <key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
    <string>10.13</string>
    <key>ProductVersion</key>
    <string>10.13</string>
</dict>

~> hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg
...
/dev/disk3              GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk3s1            Apple_HFS                       /Volumes/OS X Base System

~> grep ProductVersion -a2 /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
    <key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
    <string>10.13</string>
    <key>ProductVersion</key>
    <string>10.13</string>
</dict>

~> diskutil mount disk1s5
Volume Recovery HD on disk1s5 mounted

~> grep ProductVersion -a2 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ 1/com.apple.recovery.boot/SystemVersion.plist
    <key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
    <string>10.11</string>
    <key>ProductVersion</key>
    <string>10.11</string>
</dict>

~> hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ 1/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg
C...
/dev/disk4              GUID_partition_scheme
/dev/disk4s1            Apple_HFS                       /Volumes/OS X Base System 1

~> grep ProductVersion -a2 /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System\ 1/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
    <key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
    <string>10.11</string>
    <key>ProductVersion</key>
    <string>10.11</string>
</dict>

Now the thing is that I want to boot into the 10.13 recovery, but when I hold the Option key during boot I get only 3 options: XYZ, Macintosh HD and Recovery 10.11.

Is it even possible?

I have noticed when macOS 10.13 is installed in a APFS volume, the recovery partition does not appear on the Startup Manager menu. I happened to have rEFInd installed on my Mac and I found the the missing recovery partition appeared on the rEFInd menu. Although, I do not know for certain, I assume the same would work for Core Storage.

So if you have rEFInd properly installed in a EFI partition, you may be able to use the steps given below to boot your missing recovery partition.

Boot to the Startup Manager. Basically, hold down the option key at startup.
From the Startup Manger, select to boot rEFInd.
From rEFInd, select to boot macOS 10.13 recovery.

What I would do is create a USB flash drive bootable version of rEFInd. Boot from the flash drive and see if your missing recovery partition is accessible. If so, let me know and I will add a how to properly setup rEFInd on your internal drive to appear in the Startup Manager.

Here are the current steps to create the flash drive. I assume downloads go to the ~/Downloads folder. Also, I assume the the USB flash drive is /dev/disk1.

Click here to download the the files.
Execute the following commands in a Terminal application window.

cd  ~/Downloads/refind-flashdrive-0.11.2
diskutil  unmountdisk  disk1
sudo  dd  if=refind-flashdrive-0.11.2.img  of=/dev/disk1


MacBook Air 2018 typing wrong letter My Mac is typing wrong letters when I press button W it's typing WE , when I press E it's typing WE Likewise 2 =23, 3=23, C=XC, X=XC,  D=SD, S=SD,

I am using a MacBook Air (2018).

When I'm using a USB Keyboard I don't have this problem

I would suggest you check your keyboard with OnScreenKeyboard. You can hit one letter C and see whether it is pressing on correctly or not.

To enable the onscreen keyboard in case you don't see it:

Open System Preferences and go to “Keyboard”, and look under the “Keyboard” tab

Check the box next to “Show Keyboard & emoji viewers in menu bar”

Pull down the newly visible Keyboard menu and choose “Show Keyboard Viewer”

After you conclude with this, you can try the following solution, it is a bit weird but have seen working for few people.

Weird solution

Let me know how it goes.


Don't charge iphone when plugged into macbook? Is it possible to temporarily keep your iPhone from draining the macbook battery? When I'm out and about I sometimes want to connect my [nearly empty] macbook to my [not so empty] iphone so I can tether without using WiFi (saving battery), but then my poor macbook starts charging my iPhone and is drained even faster.

Not possible, you would have to physically alter the USB cord and remove the pins related to power and leave the data ones intact.


update rsync in high sierra I want to update rsync in high sierra.

After I installed it using homebrew, it is installed in

/usr/local/Cellar/rsync/3.1.3_1

rsync --version still shows 2.6.9. how can I fix that?

Try closing terminal window and opening it again. Rsync changes only take place after closing terminal session. Helped in my case.


Show text in large type on the screen via terminal I can put large text on the center of my screen with certain apps, such as Address Book (click on a phone number and choose "Show in Large Type") or using Quicksilver (type some text and choose the "Large Type" action).

Is there any way I can invoke this functionality from the terminal, to show arbitrary large text by writing, say, Applescript or a bash script?

Since you already have QuickSilver installed:

osascript -e 'tell application "Quicksilver" to show large type "your text here"'

You can use this to define a bash function (and put somewhere like ~/.profile):

function big {
        osascript -e "tell application \"Quicksilver\" to show large type \"$1\""
}

Then you can invoke it with arbitrary strings by doing

$ big "This will cause large text to appear"


Can I delete text messages with one swipe like mail messages on iPhone? I would like to be able to swipe completely to left and get my text messages deleted similarly to email messages.
I can swipe left and the "delete" option appears, but it's another click.
Is this possible?
Thanks

Currently on the iOS 8 app, this is not an available feature.


'Now Playing' button not working, bad ipod? Here's the situation.

Inside the music player, on the playlists tab, I touch the 'Now Playing' button on the top right, it goes to the current song that's playing, no problem.

But when i go to the 'More' tab on the bottom of the screen - where it shows Artists, Audiobooks, Songs, etc... and click the black 'Now Playing' button, nothing happens, it does not go to the current song playing, like it should.

Do I have a defective unit? Or am I missing something here? Just got it last month, brand new from amazon.

Latest generation 32gb iPod Touch running iOS 5

I just tried this on my iOS 5 iPhone, and I had no issue.  I would try restoring your device at Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings and see if that fixes some glitch or something with your iPod.  But, this is a software issue, so returning your device for a new one shouldn't be the only solution.


Number showing on photos in iPad days view for photos iOS 13.4.1 on iPad photo app, days view. There are some photo that have a number on them, I.e., +3, +12, etc...  What do these numbers mean?  I can’t find an explanation anywhere.  I was thing that maybe it might be additional number of photos taken the same  day or place but I can’t figure it out.  If I click on a photo with a number and count additional photos on same day it doesn’t add up.  Attached is 1 ex of 1 picture with a number that I’m talking about. Tks

so after contacting apple, they said the number showing is the number of additional photos for that time period.  However, in my case its not - the number of total photos do not match up when I count all photos for a selected time period.  Additionally, I sync the same photos to each device - iPad and iPhone - yet my iPad is taking up twice the amount of space when compared to the same photos on my phone.  Also, I continue to have some photos that don't sync when they are suppose to and duplicates of others.  What a messed up ecosystem!


Find my iPhone app won't install on iPhone 6s The "Find my iPhone" app won't install on my iPhone 6s. I tried several times directly from the App Store and I am unsuccessful

I'm using iOS 10 Developer Beta 7. Find my iPhone is already installed. Just out of curiosity, I went to the App Store, and did a search for the app. Interestingly, the little "cloud" icon would seem to indicate that, although I have downloaded it in the past, it is NOT installed. This is not actually the case - it IS installed.

Try going to your main page and swiping down - this will enable the search feature. Then search for "Find iPhone." Just in case it's hidden in a folder, this will tell you if it is already installed.


Growl notifications in Fullscreen Apps I've just re-installed Growl and noticed it's version 2.0 and for some reason cannot get growl notifications whilst in fullscreen applications like Chrome, Safari or iTunes.
The notification is displayed on the first desktop space though.
Has this always been the case and I only just noticed?

Using growl 2.0 and ML 10.8.2
Thanks!

If you are using Spaces as well as FullScreen (which it sounds like you are) Yes, this has always been the case.  However, with OS X the default is Desktop #1.  You can set your growl Notifications for a different desktop and they won't appear when not on that desktop.

I hope this answers your question.


MacBook shuts down at login screen I have an early 2015 MacBook Pro. I’ve had the service battery warning for over a year now. The battery lasts like 5min nowadays but I’ve been using it like desktop so it’s always plugged in.
I just moved to a new location and haven’t touched my Mac for 2 days. I just logging in as usual and it immediately shuts down. I’ve tried this 10 times now and every time I click on my user icon to type in my password, the MacBook shuts down. This has never happened before.
Does anyone have any advice? I don’t think this is a battery related issue since This is occurring while the MacBook is plugged in.
I have tried resetting the SMC, and it did not work. However after about 20 attempts, I was finally able to log in, but I still want to dig into this problem in case it occurs again.

Did you check by doing PRAM and SMC Reset.It may be hardware issue.Please follow the below steps.
Reset the SMC on computers that have the T2 chip
If your Mac has the Apple T2 Security Chip, follow these steps. If you need help, contact Apple Support.
Notebook computers with the T2 chip
Before resetting the SMC, try these steps:
Shut down your Mac.
Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds, then release the button.
Wait a few seconds, then press the power button to turn on your Mac.
If the issue persists, follow these steps to reset the SMC:
Shut down your Mac.
On your built-in keyboard, press and hold all of the following keys. Your Mac might turn on.
Control  on the left side of your keyboard
Option (Alt)  on the left side of your keyboard
Shift  on the right side of your keyboard
Keep holding all three keys for 7 seconds, then press and hold the power button as well. If your Mac is on, it will turn off as you hold the keys.
do the following to reset PRAM on Mac:
1.Turn off your Mac.
2.Press the power button.
Immediately press the Command+Option+P+R keys.
Hold the keys until your Mac restarts and you hear the startup sound 3 times .
Release the keys.
Reference : https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204063


How do I create a symlink to MacVim configuration files? I want to store my configuration files in source control and symlink them so they will be used by MacVim.  Looking at :scriptnames I see vimrc and gvimrc being used in:

/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim/vimrc

My source controlled vim files are located in:

~/Programming/Personal (both gvim and vimrc are here)

How do I setup the symlink?  Is

ln -nfs ~/Programming/Personal/vimrc /Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim

and

ln -nfs ~/Programming/Personal/gvimrc /Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim

the right way to do it?

You are misunderstanding the way (Mac)Vim processes its configuration. Simplifying slightly, there are three layers to it on OS X:

the vimrc and gvirmc files in $VIMRUNTIME are the runtime defaults for the Vim install. For MacVim, this is set to point inside the application bundle – the files you found. These will be overwritten each time you update MacVim.
the vimrc and gvimrc files in $VIM are the system wide settings. This is meant to provide a system administrator with a way to set defaults. When not expressly set, $VIM is equal to $VIMRUNTIME.
finally, the ~/.vimrc and ~/.gvirmc files are your personal configuration. These are the files you, as the individual Vim user, are meant to customise.

These configuration files are sourced in the above order, from top to bottom. To use your personal configuration from another directory (e.g. for version control), just symlink their location to the canonical personal configuration files, i.e.

ln -s /your/configuration/dir/vimrc ~/.vimrc
ln -s /your/configuration/dir/gvimrc ~/.gvimrc


MacBook Air turns off whenever lid is closed after High Sierra update Ever since I updated my MacBook Air to High Sierra, it turns off almost every time I close it. Sometimes when it is closed it'll actually restart - I can tell because it makes the Mac "ding" startup sound while the lid is still closed. Do you have any suggestions for how to fix this?

Here are the full specs of the machine:

MacBook Air Mid 2012

4GB of Ram

13" Display

After more investigating, here are some further details:

When I press "Sleep" from the Apple menu and when I close the MacBook Air, either way the computer goes into a sleep state from which it cannot be woken. The only way to wake the computer when this happens is to do a long press on the power button (to turn off the computer) and then to do a short press on the power button (to turn it back on). When the computer comes back on it shows the "You shut down your computer because of a problem" error dialog. If I am using the computer and then I shut it and do not open it for awhile, I will sometimes hear the computer make the startup sound and the Apple logo on the back of the screen will light up while the laptop is closed.

The first thing I would try is resetting the System Management Controller.

Reset the SMC

On your particular Mac, the steps to follow are:

Shut down your MacBook Air
Unplug the power cable from your MacBook Air
For 10 seconds, press and hold at the same time the shiftcontroloption keys (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
After 10 seconds let go of all keys and the power button
Plug in the power cable
Turn your MacBook Air back on with the power button.

Once you've done this, test your MBA by using it as normal to see whether this was enough to rectify it.


Keynote Master Slide Text Box Placeholder Relative Position I have a Keynote Master Slide set, where I have two text box placeholders with two different text styles, see picture, "Name" and "Date" (a date span).

The Name textbox could have content wrapping to multiple lines. In that case, I would like the Date to continue to stay 8 pixels below the Name textbox. Right now, the Name box will overflow the Date box.

How can I achieve the Date textbox stay n pixels below Name?

This is not possible.
You can achieve a similar result by putting both text elements into a single text (placeholder) box, then define different paragraph styles for "Name" and "date range" with the desired spacing before or after the paragraph in the "Format > Text > Spacing" sidebar.


Headphone play/pause button controls iTunes only Finally upgraded my MacBook Pro (Unibody late 2008) from leopard to snow leopard, with a view to go to Lion when it finishes downloading. I've now noticed that hitting the single button on my Etymotic HF-2's no longer play/pauses the media in the active player but launches iTunes if it's not running, and play/pauses iTunes content if iTunes is running. Historically on Leopard, pressing this button would cause the active player to play/pause, be it Spotify, VLC or any other media player (Though spotify and VLC are my most used players)

Anyone know how to return to this behavior?

You can do this with ControllerMate:

And a little little AppleScript (each line for each function):

tell application "Spotify" to playpause
tell application "Spotify" to next track
tell application "Spotify" to previous track

If you open QuickTime Player it will silently ignore the play/pause button and prevent iTunes from being opened, if you don't iTunes will still try to play something.
Another solution to prevent iTunes from starting is to disable the 'Remote Control Daemon', how to do this is explained in detail on superuser.


Does rebooting an iOS device always unpair connected Bluetooth peripherals? I am writing an iPad app that connects to wireless Bluetooth printers. We've discovered that when the iPad is rebooted, the printers that were paired and connected when the iPad was on do not automatically reconnect when the iPad reboots.

I'm just trying to determine if this is normal behavior for all devices, or if there is something specific to these devices that is causing them to not reconnect.

Does anyone happen to have a counter-example (Bluetooth headset, keyboard, etc.) that when the iPad is rebooted reconnect automatically?

To answer my own question, no, this isn't OS-wide behavior. It turns out one of the Bluetooth printer models we are supporting does in fact re-pair when the iPad is turned off and back on, so it looks like it's just a limitation of one printer's hardware.


How can I create a shortcut to open Safari PDF in Preview? If I open a PDF file in Safari (say, from a website), it is shown in a browser window or tab, and from there I can hover over the bottom of the page and from there click on this overlay to open the PDF in Preview:

How can I make a shortcut (or alternatively, write an AppleScript), so that I can open the PDF in Preview directly, without hunting around for the overlay and clicking the pointer on the appropriate icon in the overlay?

General tab in Safari preferences.

  Open “safe” files after downloading

  In Safari, automatically open the listed types of files but not software.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/safari/ibrw1072/12.0/mac/10.14.5
I don't know if you count right click as "hunting around", but you can right click on an empty part of the PDF and select "open with preview". Note that the point of click shouldn't be surrounded by content of the PDF.
You can always use Automator with or without AppleScript to do the same and then bind a shortcut with that Service/ Quick Action.


iPod touch overheats and won't turn on The other day, I was mad so I took my anger out on my blanket and come to think of it, my iPod touch 5 was inside of it and I didn't realise it until I took it out. It was overheated so much, so I put it in a case so I wouldn't burn myself. When I put my usb port in, it showed a black screen and it says its charging with low battery, but when i take it out, none of the buttons work and it wont turn on, what can I do?

I had all my photos on it and now it wont do anything at all! theres a hole in the back of my iPod touch back case and I'm worried it cant be fixed.

Sounds like you've shorted or actually damaged the battery.

Take it to an Apple Store to be checked out immediately. Li-ion batteries can catch fire or explode if damaged.

Yes, this one's a Samsung... they're just far easier to find pictures of ;-)


OS X 10.5.8 - can I upgrade the OS? I have an iMac from 2007-2009 and I want to upgrade the software to improve performance.

It's running Mac OS X 10.5.8 on an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (2.66 GHz). It displays 4 GB of memory and 451.6 available GB on the harddrive.

Should I try to upgrade to Snow Leopard and then to Yosemite? Snow Leopard requires 5 GB of free hard drive disk space and 1 GB of RAM.  (I don't know how much RAM I have.) Yosemite requires 5.64 GB.

Every iMac from the mid-2007 release onwards can run Yosemite, and the last model that couldn't could also only address 3GB of RAM. So it's almost certain that your iMac will be able to run Yosemite.


How may I quit iPhoto without saving modifications? I am working with a huge photo library and from time to time I experiment quick editing on some pictures. Sometimes I also make uncontrolled changes which apply on a set of pictures I can't correctly see.

In these situations I would like to be able to exit iPhoto without saving these unwanted modifications.

I didn't find any preference permetting to achieve this wanted behaviour. Hopefully I have this basic function on most applications which can modify files or libraries beyond what the user can see.

Is there any hidden defaults of iPhoto which would give access to such a simple function?

I am actually running iPhoto '11, but I'm interested by this function for any version running on Lion, Mountain Lion & Mavericks.

From the menu at the top select "Photos > Revert to Original".

This also works if you select multiple photos/events.


Looking for an alternative browser that doesn't leak memory nor my data, and is secure lately I have been using Firefox. It works rather well, but given my browsing habits (I never close down Firefox, I rarely reboot my macbook) I end up with an instance of Firefox that eats up 2/3 GB of RAM.

This is obviously unacceptable, and Firefox is well known to have memory leaks here and there. On the long run, "here and there" bogs down my machine and I need to close it down (when it doesn't crash) and restart it, and since I don't save things in the browsers (password, forms ecc) I need to re-login everywhere. :(

On the other hand I am concerned with Chrome and Safari, since I don't want history on my browser, nor want to provide data about a person (me) to third parties (via cookies, history, habits, tracking, whatever). So no Safari, no Chrome.

I don't know about Opera, but I never used it: I have always been curious, and I will download it today.

So here's the question: given all of the previous information, which is the browser safe, not-leaking-memory and that respects my privacy that you would advise me to use?

Thanks!

Use Safari or Chrome in Private Browsing or Incognito mode, and set Do Not Track.


iCloud showing different sets of files to OS X users using same iCloud login I have two accounts on my MAcbook Pro. One for work and one for home. I recently wanted to share a Keynote presentation between both accounts and the iPad. I logged both accounts into iCloud using the same iCloud account as well as the iPad.

But each account sees a different set of files. I don't understand why as they are both logged into the same iCloud account. I've also tried logging in via Safari and checked with Numbers and Pages as well. In all cases I could not get all files available to the applications.

Any ideas?

I eventually worked around this by turning of iCloud in both accounts, clearing the iCloud directories and then turning everything back on. Still no idea why it was happening in the first place.


Stopping Dell P2715Q monitor flickers with MacBook Retina 12" (2015) I have recently purchased both a Dell 4K display (P2715Q) and a new Macbook (Retina, 12", 2015).  According to Apple's website, the MacBook should be capable of driving the display at full resolution at 30 Hz, when connected over HDMI (via Apple's own USB-C to HDMI adapter), https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202856.  While the display is detected correctly and I can select up to the full 3840 x 2160 (though it defaults to 1920 x 1080) pixel settings, the Dell display continually flickers, going blank for a fraction of second every few seconds.  This behavior persists regardless of the choice of scaling.

Has anyone else encountered this issue (or not) with this setup (or other 4K display)?  Any strategy to resolve this issue?

Things I've tried:

Doing an NVRAM reset on the Mac (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063, as suggested by Apple's help desk) and
a Factory Reset in the Dell monitor menu options (the only suggestion from Dell's help desk)

both of these appear to reduce or sometimes stop the flickering for a few hours, but it returns by the end of the day (or if the Mac is left on over night).  Having to reset NVRAM every day isn't a great experience...

Edit the problem persists both while the laptop is in Clamshell mode (with the lid closed) or open as an additional monitor.

This may be good or bad news deepening on how you look at it, but it’s the Dell 4K display, not your Mac. Both Dell model numbers 2715Q and 2815Q are notorious for this kind of flickering when used with MacBooks. If you search around on Amazon and other sites you will find similar complaints.

We purchased 4 of the Dell 4K P2715Q monitors where I work, and we returned ALL of them in the end because they exhibited this exact flickering behavior (as well as the inability to properly run at 60Hz).

It didn’t matter if we connected different types of Macs, or used different connectors. If we tried to drive these monitors at full resolution we saw this problem.

Dell told us the same thing when we called support (and we have the good support where I work), and we still never succeeded in making them work.

If you do find a solution with your Mac that makes this monitor work properly I will be happy to learn about it.

EDIT: For the benefit of anyone coming to this answer and wondering about other’s who’ve seen the same problem. Check out Apple’s forum posts reporting the same problems with the P2715Q.


Can I retrieve Apple TV purchases made on my spouse's account? Can I retrieve Apple TV purchases made on my wife's iTunes-store account?

Using Family Sharing in iOS8; otherwise only by signing in to her account.

Sharing purchased content with Family Sharing


How to run .exe files on Mac without virtual machine? I do have one software(.exe) file which I need to run on my macbook pro. For that I need cross platform application just like wine in Ubuntu.

Can anyone suggest me the application?

There is a wine port for OS X: http://wiki.winehq.org/MacOSX

From the project page:

  Current Status (x86)

  Wine works well on OSX for Intel based Macs minus a proper
  distribution package (Mac Application Bundle) to fully integrate with
  "drag and drop" and "open" or "open with" functionality. Wine also has
  shortcomings with desktop icon integration and execution of certain
  types of DOS or blended Windows/DOS programs.

(Notice that Darwine, the original effort to port Wine to OS X, was primarily written for PowerPC Macs. Some work was done to support Intel Macs, but it is no longer actively developed, so you are better off avoiding it.)

There are no official Wine packages available for Intel Macs as of this writing, so you'll have to use a third-party application like WineBottler (http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/), PlayOnMac (http://www.playonmac.com/en/download.html, for Snow Leopard and Lion). or Wineskin (http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-index.php, for Lion and Mountain Lion).

daviewales has mentioned in a comment below a package manager I didn't know of called Homebrew (http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/). You may want to give it a try.

Otherwise you can try the commercial product CrossOver, which is basically Wine with, as Wikipedia puts it, various compatibility patches added, more user-friendly configuration tools, and commercial support.

You can download a free trial here: http://www.codeweavers.com/products/


Where is the DMG saved when the hard disk is erased? Assuming you would go into recovery and format the data carrier on which macOS is installed, where would the DMG be located from which you booted with "CMD + R", because as far as I know it is also on the hard drive and would be like that can be deleted with.
I guess this DMG is loaded into the main memory for a short time, I don't know if it's true. What next?

First of all, the process has evolved as newer versions of OS X and macOS have been released. Basically, you have the right idea. When booting to macOS Recovery, one or more ramdisks are created. The operating system then executes from these ramdisks. The drive (data carrier) where one wishes to install macOS can then be erased and formatted as an APFS container with a single volume. (This step is more complex when two drives are used in a fusion arrangement.) The installation files (which can consist of nested PKG and DMG files) are then downloaded from the internet. Recently, Apple published an article which gives some insight on how this may be accomplished. Here a private/tmp folder is created in the installation volume. The curl command is used to download installation files to this folder. The installation proceeds until the Mac boots to the newly installed Big Sur. Since the the installation files exist in private/tmp, these installation files are automatically erased at this point. The article refers to an installation on Macs with the M1 chip, however the downloaded software is also compatible with Macs with Intel processors.
The use of ramdisks, when either installing or booting to recovery, is not unique to macOS. When installing Linux, Grub executes an initrd command which loads a ramdisk file to memory. Windows loads a ramdisk file which is assigned the drive letter X:.


What are the home and net folders I see within finder? While a similar question was raised here, it doesn't seem to be a solid answer but more of a theory. In addition my case is a bit different as you will see below.

You will note that I have two home drives, one being a mount to a share on my NAS and the other in question being the one within localhost.

What value do the home and net drives within localhost serve other than being part of default *nix folder structure? Is this anything more than a local representation that exists by *nix default? Is it safe to eject these drives or is the OS using them in some fashion which may not be readily apparent?

The whole "root" directory you picture, and finder shows actually does not exist at all. It's kind of a "meta" directory. The unix root directory (e.g. /) points to the folder OS X calls "Macintosh HD". Everything is a sub-directory of that, even other drives.

Basically, when you connect a external drive, insert a CD, mount a DMG, or map a network drive, the resources contained within the new drive are actually made available (called "mounting") as a subdirectory of /Volumes/[Drive name here].
Finder (and finder only) has a facility that shows a fake-directory that contains all the mounted drives.

In other words, the reason you can have two home directories is because they're not actually in the same folder. One is actually located at /Volumes/home and the other is /home.

Anyways...

The home and net directories actually exist as folders on your main drive. If you open the root directory of your drive (IN your picture, its labeled "Macintosh HD"), you'll see where they are actually located.

The home directory seems to be related to enterprise environments, where various network drives can be defined using a directory service. I believe that, in such a situation, the automounted drives appear in /home/[Network drive name], rather then the OS X traditional /Volumes/[Drive name]. In any event, it's part of the autofs underpinnings of OS X. More here.

The /net directory also seems to be related to the automounter. There is a thread about it on the apple support forums here.

  /net is built into the automounter in OS X and uses the special map
  -hosts. This built in map will consist of the exports from the named server, when that server is accessed via the /net path. For example,
  if I have an NFS server at the IP address 192.168.1.10 and it exports
  a directory /exports, then if I do this from my Mac:

  prompt$ cd /net/192.168.1.10/exports

  the Mac automounter will contact the server, mount the export, and put
  me in that directory. All without me having to issue any "mount"
  command.

As such, it may be possible to use the /net directory as a shortcut to access network drives, assuming you're working from the command line. It doesn't seem to work for SMB (i.e. windows) shares (at least for me), though.

Incidentally, if you want to look at what's mounted where, all you have to do is open a command-prompt, and type mount. It will return a list of all the drives your computer has, and where they are mounted.