Backup and restore application preferences I already have a backup of my system on Time Machine, but will it restore my application preferences too when I migrate to a new system? Even if it is Lion? (I come from Snow Leopard)
And what about those apps that have their data in Library>Application Support?

Do I have to manually copy and restore .plist files or is there a Backup app smart enough to copy them together with the .app file?

Your preferences will be copied if you allow Migration Assistant to copy your data from a Time Machine backup (one of the options at the beginning of the installation).

Time Machine backs up just about everything except Mac OS X and other system resource files. So, your preferences will be saved.

I've tested this migrating from 10.6 to 10.6, and I've migrated from another Mac directly from 10.6 to 10.7. That process is, in practice, the same.
So, your preferences will be copied from your Time Machine backup to your new system.


Access Application Menu Item with AppleScript I am trying to create a global hotkey for a function of an app by building an AppleScript in Automator.app and then assign a hotkey to it in Service. But the AppleScript doesn't work.
Specifically, I'm trying to click the Set as system proxy item of ClashX.app.

and the item path is showed as below:

My AppleScript (sorry IDK the corr. syntax highlight):
on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "ClashX"
        tell process "ClashX"
            click menu item "Set as system proxy" of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
        end tell
    end tell
end run

and it comes out
Syntax Error: Expected end of line but found “"”.

Note: the process name seems to be "ClashX", but I'm newbie to OS, so I post it here FYI.

The following example AppleScript code is how you'd click that target menu item:
tell application "System Events" to tell application process "ClashX"
    click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
    click menu item "Set as system proxy" of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
end tell

That said though, sometimes there can be a delay of several seconds, or more, between the first click and the second click. If you find that to be the case, then try the following example AppleScript code instead:
ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Events"
        click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2 of application process "ClashX"
    end tell
end ignoring
do shell script "killall 'System Events'"
ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Events"
        click menu item "Set as system proxy" of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2 of application process "ClashX"
    end tell
end ignoring

However, assigning a global keyboard shortcut for an Automator Service/Quick Action can be difficult at best because finding a keyboard shortcut that will not step on an already assigned keyboard shortcut in every application that you could trigger the Automator Service/Quick Action in will not be easy.
Additionally, every application you do successfully trigger the keyboard shortcut in will have to be added to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility, and that can be such a pain. Also, you actually may not want a given application to have accessibility privileges for security reasons.
To work around the accessibility privileges issues in a use case such as this I avoid Automator and just use an AppleScript script triggered by a keyboard shortcut using e.g. FastScripts, or a similar type of application. Using FastScripts I find that I typically only have to give it accessibility privileges and not the application that was frontmost when the keyboard shortcut was triggered.
This still leaves the global keyboard shortcut issue though and you may end up having to use four or five keys and the non-modifier key will most likely have to be a symbol.

Note: I am not affiliated with the developer of FastScripts, just a satisfied user of the product.


All default 'Apple' icons disappeared on iPhone 7 I restarted my iPhone 7 today and all stock Apple apps have disappeared like Safari and Settings.  If I search for them they do not appear either.

I tried connecting my phone to iTunes and backing up and then doing a restore. But when I do this it tells me to turn off Find My iPhone.. Which I cannot do without the Settings app.

My phone is up to date with is 10.

How can I get them back?

As long as you know the AppleID and password for the device, you can restore without needing to get to the settings app:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263

This option is needed for service and if you sell a device and forget to unlock it before it leaves your possession. When multiple apps are broken, a restore is almost always the fix and something you should try once you back up the device as best you can before the erase.


Apps still in Activity Monitor after being closed? Everytime I open up Firefox and Photoshop CS on my macbook and close them up via the X button at the top left corner of their windows, their windows close but my macbook still lags and shows my memory unchanged.  I open Activity Monitor and the applications are still open using up to 1GB of RAM each.  I have to click on each app and Quit (not Force Quit) them in order for the RAM to open up and be freed up.  Why aren't these apps closing out automatically each time instead of being closed via Activity Monitor?  These two apps take up a lot of RAM on my macbook.

Closing the last window of an application doesn't necessarily close the application.

For example, opening two TextEdit windows and then closing them both (kbd>Cmd-W or click the red close button top-left of window) will not close TextEdit. This allows one to click File>New (or Cmd-N) to open and work on a new TextEdit document.

You may be familiar with how Microsoft Windows manages applications. It actually opens a new instance of Firefox, for example, for each window that you open. On the Mac, that's not necessarily the case.

People who learn to use Microsoft Windows before learning the Mac are often confused at first because the Mac uses a different conceptual model. This is how Macs have always been, more or less.

Mac users get used to typing Cmd-Q if they want to completely quit an application. Often, this is not necessary. But if your machine doesn't have much RAM, you may notice memory hogs like browsers slowing things down.


SHA1 hash for OSX 10.10 Yosemite public release? I have a less-than-reliable internet connection, so my download of Yosemite over the App Store has been broken over several tries. I would like to know if my download is intact. If you can run this command in Terminal:

shasum /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

and share your result. This way we can agree on what a clean copy looks like.

I run your request and here is the result.

eebf02a20ac27665a966957eec6f5e6fe3228a19  /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

And for Yosemite 10.10.1 the shasum is:

a673c2c6d967f4da2934b7d6cf3736936970b194

Please wait about a minute or two for Terminal to get the number.


macOS Calendar List Mysterious Number My computer's Calendar.app displays two calendars: mine (DB) and my wife's (MM), shared via iCloud; both computers run High Sierra. The sharing works just fine.

But now there's a number appearing next to her calendar's name:

What's the meaning of this number "1"? And now that it's a day or two later, the number has increased to "12." I could imagine it represents new entries in her calendar, but then it should go away when I look at it...and it doesn't.

The arrow-into-a-tray symbol above also shows the number. When the symbol is clicked, a list appears, showing new entries on her calendar. When I click on an entry in the list, apparently to acknowledge it, the numbers decrease by one. So the numbers are notifications that a new entry or entries have been made on her calendar.


2008 MacBook (A1181) won't boot from battery I have a 2008 13" (2.4GHz) white MacBook that will only boot from mains power.  If you attempt to boot from the battery it's as if it's not even connected.  Once you get even past the initial startup chime, you can pull the mains and it's fine.
Things I've tried so far

Replaced the top case (as I had to replace it anyway)
Removed the top case and used the power jumper.
Checked battery status (4/5 lights)
Checked magsafe light status (Orange initially, green after a short wait)
Ran diagnostics (which only reported 4SNS/1/4000000 Th1H-128.000... - a temperature sensor error)

I'd appreciate ideas on what's causing this when the battery clearly has (and can supply) power and more importantly how can I resolve it?

So the fan doesn't even spin up when attempting to boot from battery?

First thing to try is resetting the SMC:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

Any chance you can try with another battery? Although from what you've described it sounds fine. You might be looking at the logic board as the fault.


Recovering a deleted photo on iPhone I have a 32GB iPhone 4 version 4.0.1. I have many photos on my phone, but I have deleted an important photo from my iPhone. How can I get this photo back from my iPhone?

Unless you have synced your iPhone and thus have your photo somewhere in your computer, or uploaded it to some service you can't recover it easily.

Most likely you don't have any copies of it and you'll have to find some professional to recover it from the iPhone memory. Maybe, and I say really just maybe, apple care support would be able to do it.

Here's one thing you could try, though: manage to get access to iPhone file system somehow (jailbreak, iPhone Explorer, anything you want) and get some file recovery software. Keep in mind recovering deleted files are complicated and expensive business. You'll only be able to do it this way if you get lucky.


How to disable "new network interfaces have been detected" prompt on Mac OS X Lion? I get this uber annoying prompt every single time I plug my Macbook Air into my Thunderbolt display. Does anyone please know of a way to disable this?

Thanks a lot!

Go to System Preferences/Network and accept said interface as you own.


Prevent certain APFS volumes from being deleted in Disk Utility.app I can open Disk Utility and permanently erase any highlighted, internal APFS disk volume not being used to boot the currently running operating system, just by clicking the delete or - (minus) button, and without getting any prompts for an administrator password.

The same goes even when Disk Utility observes and warns me that the volume contains another installation of macOS and macOS user data and any user can carry out the operation.

Is it possible to lock down these actions for certain APFS volumes?

That is, how can I disable / grey out the delete button for those volumes, so the button can't be pressed? Or, how can I make Disk Utility prompt for an administrator password when performing these operations, either globally or on certain volumes?

Is it possible to achieve one or the other possibly using Terminal, diskutil and/or APFS verbs or otherwise?

The answer is Parental Controls.

Below users axj and rpj both have Standard accounts. However, rpj has parental control turned on, therefore the account is labeled as Managed.

By default under Parental Controls, the Disk Utility is not an allowed App, as shown below.

The same is true for the Terminal application.

This does not prevent user rpj from using the Disk Utility, but user rpj would first have to enter the username and password of the Admin user dma. For example, if user rpj tried to open the Disk Utility application, then the following popups would appear.

If the buttons Always Allow... or Allow Once... are pressed, then the following popup appears.

If the proper username and password are entered, then the Disk Utility application will open. If Always Allow... was pressed, then the Disk Utility will be checked off in Parental Controls, as shown below.


Switching between tabs within the same Window in an app I am trying to switch between tabs within the same window in apps running on my MacBook Air.

What keyboard shortcut can I use to perform the switch conveniently?

Use Command + Shift + ← to go to the left tab and Command + Shift + → to go the to right tab.

This works in both Finder and Safari. It could be other combinations for other programs.


How do I uninstall Wine? I installed Wine through a .pkg file, and I want to completely remove all traces of Wine.

I've searched around the internet, but I cannot find any way to uninstall wine if you've installed through a .pkg file.
I installed this one:

Can I just search Wine in Finder with show hidden files on, and delete all of the results that have to do with wine?

An uninstaller doesn't exist for this app (Wine Staging 2.0-rc3).

The pkg file itself only installs Wine Staging.app to /Applications, which is self-contained and you can simply delete it.

Almost anything else like user installed apps or libraries reside in the folder $USER/.wine and you can simply delete it. Some files are also added in $USER/.local/*/ or $USER/.config/*/. The .local and .config folders may also be used by other apps like X11 or Wireshark. Here are some directories you may find preferences and other cruft.

~/.config/menus/applications-merged/wine-*
~/.local/share/applications/wine/
~/.local/share/desktop-directories/wine-*
~/Library/Application\ Support/Wine


dnsmasq not working oh Mac OS High Sierra I have a service running on localhost on MacOS High Sierra.

curl foo.test

does not work, but

curl localhost

does.

To get to my setup, I installed dns using homebrew,

brew install dnsmasq

added my configuration to /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf,

address=/test/127.0.0.1

and added a resolver file /etc/resolver/test:

nameserver 127.0.0.1

I've spent a day trying

dig foo.test
scutil --dns
dscacheutil -q host -a name foo.test

and nothing worked.

My eventual issue was not covered anywhere else, so I'm answering it here for someone else.

tl;dr make sure you start dnsmasq as root.

To diagnose this problem, I used Console.app, and searched for dnsmasq.

My first problem revealed in the logs:

failed to create listening socket for 127.0.0.1: Address already in use
FAILED to start up

To fix this, make sure dnsmasq is stopped:

brew services stop dnsmasq

then use Activity Monitor.app to kill any old dnsmasq processes.

After the socket conflict was removed, I attempted to start dnsmasq again:

brew services start dnsmasq # does not work

and now the logs in Console.app show

failed to create listening socket for 127.0.0.1: Permission denied
FAILED to start up

To fix this, I restarted the service as root:

brew services stop dnsmasq
sudo brew services start dnsmasq

Now

curl foo.test

works!

After this journey, I revisited all those dnsmasq help articles I read. The sudo was there all along and I skimmed over it.  I'm posting this for the next person that forgets to start dnsmasq as root.


Can't import m4a files to Audacity I have installed the latest version of ffmpeg (3.1.2) through homebrew, and I have gone to Preferences -> Libraries and located the ffmpeg library in Audacity (/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/3.0.2/lib/libavutil.55.17.103.dylib).

Nothing happens when I load an m4a. If I import it through ⌘ + I it says "FFmpeg not found".

Audacity (as of v2.4.1) is not looking for libavutil.*.dylib, it needs ffmpeg.*.dylib. That is not installed by homebrew.
You will need to download ffmpeg.*.dylib by following the instructions at https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_ffmpeg_for_mac.html
It should automatically install the ffmpeg library and configure the Audacity Preferences > Library to:
/Library/Application Support/audacity/libs/ffmpeg.55.64bit.dylib
Then you will be able to import m4a audio files.


iPhone stuck at "No SIM card installed" I "retired" my old iPhone 3GS when I got my shiny new iPhone 4 and I was happily using it as an iPod touch with camera and compass.

However, I made the mistake of throwing away the SIM inside the 3GS, because I wanted to permanently disable any phone functions, and make sure I didn't have to turn on airplane mode or anything silly like that.

Well, that seemingly worked fine until iTunes upgraded the 3GS to iOS 4.0.2. Now the sim-less iPhone 3GS is stuck at ...

  No SIM card installed
  Insert an unlocked and valid SIM to activate iPhone

What sucks is that I can't figure out any way to get around this!

Apparently, based on the (excellent) How to Activate a Used iPhone the only way around it is to either

Jailbreak
Get an AT&T sim, somehow

I tried to Jailbreak but I was nowhere near smart enough to navigate the maze of twisty passages involved in jailbreaking this 3gs. iBoot too new? ipsw not recognized? ... what?

I feel like an idiot now because apparently an AT&T sim is REQUIRED to make an iPhone work even if you have no intention of ever using it as a phone? Is that true? How can you get around this "No SIM card" issue?

This is, unfortunately, expected behavior. Whenever you activate an iPhone (which you do as part of an OS install) it talks to Apple's servers and does various things like exchange crypto certs for APNS, etc. It also checks the IMEI of the phone to see what carrier Apple sold it to, and validates the SIM is valid for that carrier (if you buy an unlocked iPhone in a country where you can buy either locked or unlocked phones the vendor will actually copy down the IMEI number of a normal locked phone, and then enter in their system where it gets pushed to Apple's servers as an unlocked phone, there is no physical or configuration difference on the phones).

The easiest way to get it activated is (as you surmised) to use an AT&T SIM. You mentioned you have an iPhone 4, you can activate it with that SIM. There are plenty of companies that sell microSIM to SIM adapters, but if you want to do it right now you can just place the micro SIM directly in the iPhones 3GS's SIM try with tape. I would not recommend doing this on a device you intend to keep the SIM in for a an extended period because the SIM is likely to come loose (and jam the SIM tray), but if you are just inserting it, activating it, and removing it you should be fine so long as you are pretty careful with how you apply the tape and not shaking the phone too much.


How to play videos in HD on youtube.com in Safari on iPhone 6 I just got my first iPhone. There’s an issue with connecting to the App Store, so I’m watching videos on youtube.com in Safari. I’ve noticed that the videos are low-res. I don’t see the setting to turn on HD video sources. (I’m connected to my WLAN.)

Is it not possible to view HD videos on YouTube in Safari?

Workaround: Use the desktop site, here is how:

In mobile Safari, find the clip that you want to watch, it will
initially start in low resolution.
Tap the address bar.
Swipe down in the page and you should see Request Desktop Site,
tap it. Sometimes this may open the clip in the YouTube app on the first attempt, try again!
On the second attempt it may ask you to open in YouTube app, don't
allow!
On the third attempt you should see the Desktop version of YouTube.
Tap inside the video to start playing in HD, sometimes you need to tap a second time.

Note: on my iPhone 4s iOS 8.1.2 the Desktop version of YouTube is much slower, unresponsive and harder to use. But since YouTube app can't play any videos over AirPlay, I had to find alternatives.


Can I use my iPhone internationally? I have an Apple iPhone 4 (model A1349) with Virgin Mobile service.  It works fine in the US but Virgin told me that it won't work internationally (i.e., calling within other countries or calling US from abroad).

Is there anything that I can do with this phone or do I need a new phone and/or carrier?

The iPhone 4 came in two flavors: CDMA (Verizon, Virgin, etc.) and GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.).

The GSM phone will work, however it will incur international roaming charges. Your CDMA version on the other hand will not work in most countries outside of the US.

I would recommend upgrading to the 4S or 5 as changing carriers will not change the radio in your phone.


Strange Pop-up appldnld.apple.com:80 I received a strange Pop Up message. The unsettling part is password will be sent in clear text.

Is my phone affected with any malware or app virus ?

This is the device trying to connect to the Apple updating server, but due to a network reason at your end, you are being prompted for your password, either for your network, proxy, or other reason. This is not asking for your Apple ID but rather whatever network connection authentication details you usually use to connect to your network.


Two Applications folders, one empty I just noticed on my Mavericks' Finder today that there are two different Applications folders. One located under Main HD:

And the other one at Main HD -> Users -> Amit:

What's the difference between the two and why is one full while the other empty? Also, I did notice that my Main HD no longer shows the Users folder even though it's there. The Users folder wasn't always invisible. While it's no big deal, I am really curious as to why it would suddenly go undercover without me doing anything to it!

The Application folder inside your home folder is for apps which are restricted to your user. So some applications choose to "install"
  or copy their application in this folder. It's based on the decision
  of the app creator. But most of the apps are installed in the
  /Applications folder.
  Apple decided to hide the /Users folder. That's it.

With this command:

sudo chflags nohidden /Users

unhides it.


How to properly setup a reliable roaming WiFi with Airport Base Stations and an existing router What are the steps to properly setup a WiFi network with 4 or 5 Airport base stations? I have a mix of Airport Extreme and Airport Express base stations, a switch and a modem/router with VoIP and other features which require to keep the modem configured as a router.

Of course the modem/router is connected to the switch and so should be all the base stations.

Can I get a reliable roaming going between the base stations? What are the things I should configure to make the roaming as seamless and speedy as possible?

X1 Airport Express

X4 Airport Extreme

X1 24 ports switch (with some Gbps ports)

X1 modem router

First, you will not receive adequate routing performance on network by way of the ISP's embedded router.

How to build WiFi 101

Log in to the AirPort devices and configure:

Internet set to DHCP
the Network to Bridge mode
the Wireless to create a wireless network
Enable an alternate name on the 5 GHz network (you could simply append "(5 GHz)" to the wireless network name)
leave the wireless channels set to automatic
Change Radio mode to 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g
Change the country to your own to avoid interconnection problems on 5GHz

Place the first AP at centrally in one extremity of the building. Join the AP on the 5 GHz network. Option-Click the WiFi menu to read the RSSI value. Determine the next AP location by by measuring where the signal dips below 65-70.

Once you've placed all the APs join all 5 GHz capable WiFI devices to the 5 GHz WiFi. Join all remaining devices to the non-5 GHz (2.4 GHz) network.

Protip: There's a great tool called WiFi Diagnostics in /System/Library/CoreServices. Check it out.


What are good warranty coverage options for a pre-owned Mac? I am really looking at getting a used Mac Pro, and there are a lot of good used machines out there that will meet my needs that are around $1500. I was wondering what options I can get to help cover the repair / replacement of a used Mac Pro in the rare event that something goes wrong with it? A lot of the machines I am looking at are used and not refurbished and are not eligible for AppleCare any more. What do you use to cover your pre-owned and somewhat pricey used Macs?

Your best bet is probably to look for a third party insurance company that offers policies for used computers. I ran a Google search for "third party insurance for used computers" and come up with one example insurance company, Safeware.

Whether such a warranty or insurance policy is worth the cost depends on how much you acquired your used Mac for and how much you value "peace of mind", since these policies are likely to be expensive and come with fairly strict limitations in coverage.


How can I move my iPod music to an iPad? How can I get the songs out of my iPod and move them to an iPad?

I thought I could just copy the music to my computer and then transfer it to the iPad, but didn't work (I couldn't see any music file on my iPod). Any other methods?

Check this out: How-to: get music, videos, and photos off your iPod or iPhone.

After you get the music off of your ipod and into your computer/itunes you can just sync it normally to your ipad, or any other idevice for that matter.


Can I text from iPad with only an email address? My wife has a wifi-only iPad. She'd like to be able to send and receive texts from it, but it has no phone number, and she has no other Apple device to send/receive texts through. She's configured iMessage to know her email address and she's logged in to Apple using her Apple ID, but texting from my iPhone to her email address (using iMessage) results in the message showing up in her email, not in iMessage.

Is there a way to configure things so that she can send and receive texts on the iPad, even though there's no phone number for it? I already have iMessage on the iPad set up to send and receive messages at her email address, but that doesn't seem to be enough.

Off the top of my head, here are the settings that could affect that:

In Messages preferences, make sure that her email address is not only listed for both Send and Receive, but is also checked.
Make sure the checked email address is her iCloud address that was created when you/she set up iCloud (her_name@icloud.com).
At the top of the Messages prefs, make sure Messages is turned on.

On your side, if you're using a contact card to Message her, make sure you're using the "message" button, and not "mail". (Less likely, I know, but worth mentioning.)

Also, keep in mind that she can only send iCloud Messages with this setup. She'll need an iPhone if she wants to also use SMS.  (Apple uses the phone as the SMS gateway for other iDevices and Macs.)  So if you're sending SMS messages to her from a non-Apple phone (or if you've set your iPhone to only send SMS), she won't see it in Messages.

That may not be comprehensive, but that's the stuff I can think of that I've seen muck up Messages before.  The "off switch" for Messages is probably the most common one.


How does one delete the error messages from XCode's Devices & Simulators window? I have a long list of error in my devices window.
How do I get rid of them?
The errors persist even after removing derived data, restarting xcode, restarting the mac, or a combination of these....

These errors don't persist beyond the session. Quit Xcode and relaunch, or unpair and reconnect the device.
If you resolve the error (e.g. unlock the device), the error should disappear, but if the error has appeared multiple times, it may only clear the last error. It's safe to ignore the older errors.


Reset or Uninstall Yosemite Server I installed Yosemite Server and I had previously configured the Apache for web development. Now, It seems that the configuration and everything is messed up.

How can I reset my web server configuration to factory settings, like after installing a fresh Yosemite?

Does an uninstall of Yosemite Server affects my current web server configuration?

You can reset just the Websites service in OS X Server with the following command:

sudo serveradmin command web:command=restoreFactorySettings

Make sure the Websites and Wiki services are off when you run this command.

Uninstalling OS X Server will, by default, retain all configuration files so that reinstallation keeps all data, however you can delete the Server folder to reset all the data.


Background colors in Chrome and Atom are no longer uniform Ever since upgrading to macOS Sierra, previously solid background colors in Atom and on certain websites in Chrome are now not uniform. It almost looks like I highlighted stuff with my cursor or something.

It only happens when I plug my mac into an external monitor. If I am working on just my macbook pro screen, everything is normal. When I plug my HDMI into an external monitor, the non-uniform backgrounds start again — including on my macbook pro screen, if mirrored. The HDMI and monitor were checked with other laptops of mine, and the problem never came up. I also tried a different HDMI with the mac, and same problem.

Certain apps like Safari, do not display this problem at all. I've included a screenshot for example:

Try disabling hardware acceleration on Chrome settings. Turn off filevault, check for icc color profiles. In utilities > ColorSync and verify to see errors. It's the GPU i guess, Chrome will active the discrete GPU. Atom is a Chrome App (not shure?). Hope it helps. Looking for a better solution too.


Two little computer icon on my menu bar There are two little computer icons on my menu bar and it keeps blinking. When I click on it, it disappear but again come back in a second. Can anyone please tell me what it is and why is it blinking? Thanks!

Unless I am mistaken, this double screen icon is the screen-sharing indicator. This is what it looks like for me in Sierra.

I can't tell you why its blinking or disappearing, but if you can click on it, you should have the option to see which IP address is connected, and an option to disconnect them. If your computer is managed by someone/some entity (work or school), I would go to their IT office and ask them why this is appearing or if they know anything about it.

If you own and are the only person in control of your computer, then I would suggest you change your User password immediately. Then log out, log back in with the new password. If the icon reappears, then comment below this answer as it might be a virus.


250GB of hidden space on macbook pro 13" I have 250 GB of hidden space which I cannot track down. I've tried deleting it on Daisy Disk as an admin but I couldn't delete it. I don't know why it's happening but all I remember is using rEFIt and creating a partition a couple of months ago. I do remember deleting the partition and it was alright until now.

My guess is the software did subtraction to show you the value of "hidden space" and the only thing going on is that the operating system user that ran the tool doesn't have read permission in some directories where files are stored and cannot show you a breakdown of those files. Basically, it added up all the files it could count, totaled their size (161.5 GB), noticed that the disk says there is only 86.85 GB free and told you that the balance of 250.8 GB was hidden space.

You can test this by opening terminal and pasting this one command:

du -sg /Users/*

This tells the system to calculate the disk usage in gigabytes of each user folder (and the shared folder). This is part of the way that the system protects one users files from being read by another user. Watch for errors showing places you do not have read permission.

You can also see this effect in finder by turning on View -> Show View Options and clicking "Calculate all sizes"

I have three users on this computer and when I use Finder or the program What Size (it shares some common functionality with Daisy Disk and also has a version on the app store as well as a more powerful version that ships separately) the normal measurement cannot see in folders where my "user" has no permission to go.

When I toggle the measurement as a user or as the admin / you can see in the second screen that the accounts starting with a and r have at least 250 folders and about 1000 files each. In this case, they don't occupy much space, but in your case, 250 GB of files are stored in locations where your tool cannot measure them.

Hopefully this helps explain why the tool is showing you hidden files. If you have multiple users on that Mac, perhaps running the tool once for each and looking in the /Users folder, you can locate where the space is being used. If you do not have multiple user accounts, you will have to see if Daisy Disk has the ability to run in admin mode or use the terminal to calculate disk usage where you can run the command as the "root user" by adding a sudo and typing your account's password to let the system grant access to those normally non-readable files.

Mac:~ me$ sudo du -sg /Users/*
Password:
39  /Users/Shared
1   /Users/aaa
132 /Users/mmm
1   /Users/rrr


caffeinate under lion 10.7.4 today i'm trying to use the typical 'caffeinate -t 1000' on terminal and get this output:

Gabrieles-MacBook:~ black$ caffeinate -t 1000

-bash: caffeinate: command not found

So i read the man page and i saw the path was /usr/bin/ and no binary of caffeinate there.
What can i do? I tried caffeine and owly from the appstore with no results. I don't understand.
I used it every day when i had mountain lion or el captain. Now i did a downgrade on macbook because el cap is too slow and now i have lion 10.7.4

Thanks, Gabriele.

"To use the caffeinate command you’ll need to be running a fairly modern version of OS X, as the feature was introduced in 10.8 Mountain Lion and persists through 10.9 Mavericks, and into 10.10 Yosemite.
Heads up to MacWorld for the tip."
Source: http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/03/disable-sleep-mac-caffeinate-command/

Alternative to caffeinate:
http://lifehacker.com/5767991/how-to-force-your-mac-to-stay-awake-indefinitely-via-the-command-line
Thus work for me!


iMac Crashes kernel Panic I have an iMac, and always crashing almost everyday. Can you please point me out to the right direction? Below is the Report after it had crashed.
I Have already reverted to factory settings. no software installed, still the same. Upgraded or not to the lasest OS ,same issue.
Does anyone know what is the problem? I'm new to iMac, mercy. Thanks in Advance

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801b720bae): "a freed zone element has been modified in zone ipc ports: expected 0xffffff8031e9f5a0 but found 0xffffff8031e9f580, bits changed 0x20, at offset 0 of 160 in element 0xffffff802f46b900, cookies 0x3f0011f8906d50c2 0x5352102bf3b1c29"@/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-3248.50.21/osf mk/kern/zalloc.c:503
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff9127333b50 : 0xffffff801b6dab12
0xffffff9127333bd0 : 0xffffff801b720bae
0xffffff9127333c40 : 0xffffff801b720656
0xffffff9127333c80 : 0xffffff801b71f2e2
0xffffff9127333db0 : 0xffffff801b6c784e
0xffffff9127333e20 : 0xffffff801b6c8ce3
0xffffff9127333e70 : 0xffffff801b6d463b
0xffffff9127333ec0 : 0xffffff801b6d1c84
0xffffff9127333f10 : 0xffffff801b7b8dca
0xffffff9127333fb0 : 0xffffff801b7ecc86

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: watchdogd

Mac OS ver

System Profile:
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x111), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.95.175.1a6)
Bluetooth: Version 4.4.5f3 17904, 3 services, 27 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Thunderbolt Bus: iMac, Apple Inc., 23.10
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3430554738454655352D474E4C2D46
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x802C, 0x384B54463531323634485A2D314736453220
USB Device: USB 3.0 Bus
USB Device: BRCM20702 Hub
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
USB Device: FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
Serial ATA Device: APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662, 1 TB
Model: iMac14,1, BootROM IM141.0118.B13, 4 processors, Intel Core i5, 2.7 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.14f24
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en1
Graphics: Intel Iris Pro, Intel Iris Pro, Built-In
Model: iMac14,1, BootROM IM141.0118.B13, 4 processors, Intel Core i5, 2.7 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.14f24
Graphics: Intel Iris Pro, Intel Iris Pro, Built-In
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3430554738454655352D474E4C2D46
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x802C, 0x384B54463531323634485A2D314736453220
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x111), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.95.175.1a6)
Bluetooth: Version 4.4.5f3 17904, 3 services, 27 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en1
Serial ATA Device: APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662, 1 TB
USB Device: USB 3.0 Bus
USB Device: BRCM20702 Hub
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller
USB Device: FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
Thunderbolt Bus: iMac, Apple Inc., 23.10

It's a problem with the system files – try booting into Recovery Mode by restarting the computer and holding down Command + R.

After that, follow the steps to reinstall OS X. This article might help you.


Changing the default screenshot filename Is there a way to change the default screenshot filename prefix (the Cmd-Shift-4 type screenshot) to something other than the default? The default name looks like this:

Screen Shot 2011-08-30 at 10.01.36 AM.png

But I'd prefer to use something like:

screenshot_2011-08-30_100136.png

Basically so I can remove the spaces and junk, since it's annoying to browse dig through files in Terminal. Any easy way to change this prefix with one of the defaults write com.apple.screencapture style commands?

You can change 'Screen shot' to 'screenshot' with the following commands

defaults write com.apple.screencapture name screenshot
killall SystemUIServer

If you want to go digging a bit deeper in Terminal, you can achieve what you want by doing the following:

NOTE: Make a backup of any files you change in case you make a mistake.

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj
Make a copy of the existing file:
sudo cp ScreenCapture.strings ScreenCapture.strings.old
Enter Admin password if prompted
Convert to an editable format:
sudo plutil -convert xml1 ScreenCapture.strings
sudo vi ScreenCapture.strings

Locate the following lines:

<key>%@ %@ at %@</key>
<string>%@ %@ at %@</string>

and replace with the following lines:

<key>%@ %@ at %@</key>
<string>%@_%@_%@</string>

Convert back to binary:
sudo plutil -convert binary1 ScreenCapture.strings
killall SystemUIServer

which combined with the first change should get you something like this:

screenshot_2011-08-30_10.01.36.png which is very close to what you need I think


Is there a way to force Mac OS X to close all the applications when restarting? I sometimes shut down my Mac, and I cannot wait it shuts down because I am urgently requested to do something in another office that would require some hours. In some cases, an application that opens a dialog box asking if I really want to close the application blocks the shut down, and when I return I find the Mac still on.
Is there a way to force the Mac to close any applications, instead of blocking the shut down?

All you need is to open Terminal.app and type:

sudo shutdown now

That way the system will be forced to terminate all open programs, ignoring any unsaved file changes.

So, in order to be able to launch it via the desktop, you need to open Applescript editor, and type:

do shell script "shutdown now" with administrator privileges

Save the script as an Application, and drag it in your Dock, or somewhere where you'll find it instantly.


How do I view .wtv files in OS X? I have a Windows 7 Media Center machine for our family's DVR.  It creates recorded TV files in a .wtv format (used to be .ms-dvr in the Vista days).  We have a laptop running Lion that I'd like to watch TV shows on occasionally.  Obviously it has no idea what .wtv files are.  I checked out Adapter, but it doesn't look like .ms-drv or .wtv are supported for conversion.  What's the easiest approach to getting these files to play on my Mac?  I'd prefer to run a converter on the Mac if possible rather than the DVR just because it's not often that I'd want to watch a show that way.

How to watch a wtv file on a Mac without using VLC

Install WtvWatcher on the PC - this will convert all of your wtv files into dv-rms by changing the packaging, not be re-encoding, so it is really quick and deletes the useless wtv file.
Share your recorded folder with your Mac. I simple turned on sharing on my PC and then connected to it over SMB://192.168.x.x
Use Handbrake to convert the file to m4v, then add it to iTunes, or watch in in quicktime player or whatever takes your fancy.

How to watch a wtv file on the iPad/iPhone.

On the PC install WtvWatcher as above.
Share your recorded folder with your mac as above.
Install "Air Video Server" on your Mac and tell it to share the shared folder from the networked PC
Install Air Video player on your iPad, iPhone etc.
Enjoy.

iPad/iPhone alternative solution

Just use Handbrake to convert the video file into a iPad/iPhone version.


AppleScript with list selection and Cancel button suppressed or disabled Is there any way to suppress/disable the Cancel button in a list selection dialog - in other words, force a response? Here's what I came up with (I'm forcing a response by displaying an error message and taking the user back):

try
    with timeout of 3600 seconds -- Wait up to an hour before timing out.
        tell application "Finder"
            activate
            repeat
                set theChoice to choose from list {"yes", "no", "maybe"} with title "Choose from list" with prompt "Pick one" OK button name "Select" cancel button name "Quit"
                if theChoice is false then
                    beep
                    display alert "Noo!"
                else
                    exit repeat
                end if
            end repeat
            theChoice
        end tell
    end timeout
end try

, but I'd rather do right by the user, instead of hinting the selection to be optional.

I had the same problem today and found this way out:

set theChoice to choose from list

is returning the list's choice or "false" when the user clicks "Cancel"

So I used it for a loop – honestly quite a bit dirty, but it works.

repeat until endloop is true
    set theChoice to choose from list
    if goTo is not false then
        beep
        display alert "Noo!"
    else
        set endloop to true
    end if
end repeat

I hope I was helpful with my first post in here.


Is it possible to regress to previous versions of an app? (iBird Pro) I have iBird Pro on my old iPad and it has stopped working because I "updated" it and the new version requires an internet connection. Even with a connection it does not work and I just get Flickr ads, no pictures of birds.

Before it did not require an internet connection at all. So, basically my app has been ruined.

Is there any way for me to go back to a previous version so I can see bird pictures again?

Yes, assuming you have backups of your Mac/PC, the right version of iTunes (or some other software capable of syncing apps) and that the old version of iBird Pro still runs on the version of iOS you have on your iPad.

Essentially what you would need to do is check what version of iBird Pro is stored with your iTunes Library on your Mac/PC (or within your Time Machine or other backups)? Basically you need to go back far enough in your backups to see whether you still have the old version:

If so: you can select and sync the iBird Pro app from your iTunes library to your iPad.
If not, and you have a Mac: Your Time Machine backup should have backups of all the apps previously downloaded/synced with your iPad. These will be located within your iTunes Library. So you could go back far enough to find a version of the iBird Pro app that will work with your iPad and restore that version to your iTunes Library. Then select and sync that version to your iPad from within iTunes.
If not, and you have a PC: Assuming you have past backups of your iTunes Library, you can do the same as above (i.e. copy back a version of the iBird Pro app that will work with your iPad to your iTunes Library. Then select and sync that version to your iPad from within iTunes.

IMPORTANT:

You should read the following before proceeding, as Apple has recently changed whether iTunes can still do the above. In a nutshell you will need iTunes 12.6.3 or earlier if you're on a Mac, or you'll need to use 3rd party software such as iMazing.
You should delete the current version of the app from your iPad prior to syncing an old version across.


Migrating to iCloud when I sync with an Exchange account in Outlook What happens to Microsoft Exchange accounts accessed in Outlook on a Windows machine when one migrates to iCloud? Will I lose that anything when I go to iCloud?

iCloud has nothing to do with existing Exchange accounts. The only way one "migrates" to iCloud is if you have a MobileMe account. So you can enable iCloud without any impact on your Exchange account.


Can I invite to share my screen with iOS user? I have noticed Messages App in macOS has the option to share screen, I was just wondering if could use this to share my mac screen with user watching this on iPad/iPhone?
I have tried this, within Messages I clicked Buddies > Invite to Share My Screen and it started loading, but the user hasnt received anything. Any thoughts?

I understood you wanted to show something on your screen to a lot of people that are using iOS devices correct?

You also don't want them to have to install another app.

The solution I've in mind is recording your screen with QuickTime. Save it as a small movie and send that movie by iMessage.


How can I force default DNS query to work in TCP mode? In China, the so-called GFW often contaminates DNS results like

$ dig @8.8.8.8 archive.org

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;archive.org.           IN  A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
archive.org.        2662    IN  A   159.106.121.75

Here 159.106.121.75 is a fake IP. We have to use the TCP mode for DNS query:

$ dig @8.8.8.8 +tcp archive.org

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;archive.org.           IN  A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
archive.org.        237 IN  A   207.241.224.2

Now we get the real IP 207.241.224.2.

In System Preferences -> Network, the Advanced... button can open a tab for setting DNS. However, I can only add the IP addresses of DNS servers but cannot do anything else. So my question is: how can I force the default DNS query working in the TCP mode?

PS: I don't want to modify the /etc/hosts file to circumvent this problem as it's inconvenient. If there's any elegant method that can solve this problem, it will save me much time :) Thanks.

AFAIK it's not possible to force the mDNSResponder to use TCP instead of UDP.

I've found a workaround though. The method outlined below uses a local DNS-proxy (dnschef) forced to use TCP for outgoing DNS-requests.

Download and unzip dnschef-0.3.
Download and unzip dnslib
Download and unarchive IPy-0.76
cd to the dnslib folder:

cd ~/Downloads/paulc-dnslib-04713cc4a9df

install dnslib:

sudo python ./setup.py install

cd to the IPy folder:

cd ~/Downloads/IPy-0.76

install IPy:

sudo python ./setup.py install

Open System Preferences -> Network, replace your current DNS-server(s) (e.g. 8.8.8.8/8.8.8.4) by a local one with the IP 127.0.0.1 and apply the changes.
cd to the dnschef folder and start it:

cd ~/Downloads/dnschef-0.3
sudo ./dnschef.py --nameservers 8.8.8.8#53#tcp

If the last command is too troublesome or ugly (well, it is ugly because you have to open Terminal.app and start the DNS-proxy), you can move the dnschef.py and .ini to another path and create a launch daemon to start the DNS-proxy while booting.

Example:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/python
sudo cp ~/Downloads/dnschef-0.3/dns* /usr/local/python/
sudo rm /usr/local/python/dnschef.exe
sudo touch /Library/LaunchDaemon/local.dnschef.plist
copy and paste the following content into the newly created file with an appropriate editor
(e.g sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemon/local.dnschef.plist):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>local.dnschef</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/python/dnschef.py</string>
        <string>--nameservers</string>
        <string>8.8.8.8#53#tcp</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Load the file with sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.dnschef.plist

All files and folders created must be owned by root:wheel.


Activity Monitor, my system always runs in the red for CPU load - how to fix? According to Activity Monitor my system is always running too high for CPU load. It’s always in the red in the CPU load graph and nothing I do corrects this.

I’ve tried resetting NVRAM, SMC and rebooting, so is this a problem with some sort of extension?

How do I fix this?!?!

Your confusion is the result of a bad UX design decision on behalf of Apple.

Basically, the red colour in the CPU Load graph within Activity Monitor signifies the level of CPU usage by the System. The blue colour signifies the level of usage by User processes.

In other words, red isn’t being used to signify danger, or to try to alert users to a problem, it’s simply the colour chosen to signify system usage. So, if the system is using 1% or 99% of the CPU, it will always be displayed in red.


Looking for workflow or script for saving Kindle documents I'm using a Kindle DX (3G, no WiFi) for reading documents saved from the web with Readability.  Because Amazon charges a conversion cost for these documents I'm forwarding the documents to my foo.baz@free.kindle.com account.

Amazon then forwards these as emails to me where I use Gmail or Mail.app to click on the link inside each message and laboriously save the corresponding foo.azw download to my Kindle.

I'm wondering if anyone has created an automator workflow or an Applescript that can visit a group of unread Amazon emails and use the links in each to download the corresponding .azw files?

If there's a better way to go about this I'd also be delighted to hear about it.

My solution requires you to have an ifttt and Dropbox accounts :

Sign in to http://ifthisthenthat.com/
create a Dump Kindle doc recipe as follow :

Gmail trigger : New email from
Enter your foo.baz@free.kindle.com email adress
Dropbox action : Add file from url
File URL : {{Body plain}} (use the + Addins listbox)
Dropbox folder path : whatever...

Then url of the .azw file will be automatically extracted from the mail (I tested it because was not clear for me) and corresponding file will be downloaded to your Dropbox folder!


Why does Settings.app make reference to requiring a SIM card for the Auto Call setting of Emergency SOS, and not for the entire feature altogether? When navigating to Settings/Emergency SOS on my iPhone 11 Pro, below the "Auto Call" control the hint states that "Auto Call requires a SIM card". I'm trying to establish why this text wouldn't be displayed when referencing the entire Emergency SOS feature; surely a SIM is also required if simply sliding the Emergency SOS slider to call the Emergency Services too?

Emergency numbers can be called without a SIM card in may countries & many phones, including iPhones are designed to allow this, even from a locked screen.
All other numbers need a valid SIM, active account etc etc.


Tracking slow login items with OSX I recently installed OSX Mojave beta and noticed that the login process is slower as the apps load.

I was wondering if there was a way to track the amount of time each app/process takes to load at startup to identify where the bottleneck is? Checking the console log doesn't really help.

I have no doubt that some of the apps loading at startup are not fully compatible with the new OS, but this issue could easily be happening on any version of OSX.

What is the best way to track apps that are loading slowly / creating a bottleneck in the bootup process?

Have a look at your syslog with:

tail -f /var/log/system.log

You should see your login item process starting with a linked timestamp.
Console.app is more user-friendly if you don't like the terminal.

Other option, disable all your login items and then enable them one-by-one and you will see who is the bottleneck.


Log out other user w/o first switching to that user My wife use separate accounts and quick user switching on a MBP running 10.6. Sometimes I want to log her out to free up some RAM, but I'd like to avoid logging in as her, logging out, then logging back in as me.

I have seen a terminal solution... is there a better way? Thanks!

Using the Terminal, you can kill her loginwindow process and any programs she has open will be closed... but this will cause her to lose any unsaved work she has! In fact, this is the very reason you need to log in as her to log out: When you log in as her, all her programs again have access to the GUI, so they can prompt you to confirm closure, save changes or take other action before logging out.

If you're sure that she only has things like a web browser, iTunes, etc open, not Pages, Word, Photoshop, or anything else with documents, then you could try from the terminal:

kill `ps awwwwux | grep her_short_username | grep loginwindow | grep -v grep | awk "{ print \$2 }"`

On OSX 10.10.4: (slight edit from last comment):

export pn=`ps awwwwux | awk '/her_short_username/ && /loginwind[o]w/ { print $2 }'`
sudo kill -9 $pn


Do all Macbooks have a Thunderbolt port? I'm helping out with organizing a local conference, and I want all the speakers to be able to plug in their computers. While most laptops have an HDMI port, it's notably absent from a lot of Macbook models.

I'm wondering: If I guarantee that there's a Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapter in every room, will that cover all Macbooks? Or are there Macbooks that don't have a Thunderbolt port?

Even MacBook Pro have different adapter ports and needs. The new MacBook only has USB-C. All MacBook Pro have some form of thunderbolt but not the same connectors.

AirPlay might be the most common way to get video out, so consider that an an AppleTV if you can't be sure which adapters are needed.

These articles explain and have great photos:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207443
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201736

Newer Models have Thunderbolt 3 which is also called USB-C

This website has good cables/adapters for very good price.

https://www.monoprice.com/search/index?keyword=Apple%20&v_Product_Type_uFilter=Apple%20Cables


Minimum volume is too loud when using Plantronics Bluetooth headphone I have this problem using an iPhone 6 or iPhone 5s with either of two sets of wireless headphones - Plantronics Backbeat Pro and Plantronics Backbeat Sense.

The volume over bluetooth is much higher for the same number of volume bars compared to wired, to the point where I'm severely lacking accuracy at the low volume end. 1 bar is muted, 2 bars is too loud for when listening in quiet environments. When wired the volume range is perfect.

Volume cap doesn't fix this. Analog control of the volume in the popup control center is not enough.

Within iOS, EQ is off, volume limit is on (EU limit) Sound check off.

How can I fix this?

Further info:

I've tried various manoeuvres with pairing, un-pairing, updating firmware, pairing to different devices, and back again. I don't have a non-apple device to compare with, but the same behaviour occurs with two different iPhones and the two different headsets as described. Plantronics support struggled to see how this was a problem, but acknowledged the discrepancy between wired and wireless volume ranges. I had a similar problem with a pair of V-moda crossfade wireless headphones.

I'm not sure if this is a apple or bluetooth issue (i.e. 'profile' problem) or a hardware issue i.e. the gain is just too high.

I've found that this issue is head-phone specific, perhaps brand-specific or in all likelihood, bluetooth implementation specific. Of the few others I've since tried I found that Bose wireless headphones to not have this issue. However, other problems with distortion sometimes occurred instead!

The music settings don't seem to work for Spotify or other streaming apps. Many of them have built in equalizers to perform essentially the same function. Within Spotify, navigate to the settings menu. Under Playback, you can set up a custom equalizer. Lower all of the settings equally to decrease the base volume.


Macbook Pro external monitor maxes out at 1360x768 I have a 13" MBP with a mini DP to VGA. I have it hooked up to my new Samsung 23" display that has a max resolution of 1920x1080, but it seems that I can't pick a resolution higher than 1360x768. The adapter is from CablesToGo and states that the max resolution supported is 1920x1200 so I should be fine.
Note: I've tried on 2 MBP's and the resolution is the same on both.

Turns out a reboot was necessary for it to display correctly.  Once that was done all is good in the world again.

NOTE:
Was never able to get this to work properly with a VGA adapter - a reboot is always required.  The only solution was going to HDMI.


Possible to make desktop icons bigger than max? I have my desktop icons set as big as they'll go... but would like them even bigger if possible!
Is there a way to do this?

Go to Macintosh in the Finder. Once there be sure to display contents in icon view. Now while in Finder go to the View Menu and near the bottom select "Show view options". This brings up the panel shown below.

Move the top slider to the right for larger icons.  You may have to move the grid slider to increase spacing as well. You can experiment with these two sliders to get the default view you want.


Can't see install disc for Linux Mint in VirtualBox Trying to install Mint 17 Cinnamon via VirtualBox on my MBP OSX10.9.4, with  3 different discs (various makes) made on several machines (Win and Linux). I was able to deploy vm with CentOS 6.4 with a similarly made disc without problems. Mint discs get rejected with error "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." Any ideas?

From your question it sounds like you are downloading the ISO file and burning it to a CD or DVD. This isn't necessary.

Download the ISO file from the Mint website.

Then within VirtualBox create a new VM entering the various properties like memory size,  hard drive, etc.

Once the VM is created, open up the Settings for the VM, go to the Storage tab and select the Empty CD drive. Click the light CD image on the right hand side and select "Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file...". Then locate and select the ISO image you downloaded from the Mint website.

Close the Settings dialog and Start the VM. The installer should load and run to start your install.


macOS Sierra 10.12.6 not saving Screenshots I bought a new macbook pro and everything was running smoothly but some days ago I noticed that the screenshots (command+shift+3) are not saving to the Desktop (it was working before), only saving to the clipboard.

It is not a wrong shortcut since I can hear the screenshot sound.
I have already tried to Force Quit Finder or restart the Mac and none
of these worked.
I have already tried this terminal command  defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop/ and killall
SystemUIServer but they didnt work as well.
I do not have DropBox Installed

I am a developer so I install new dependencies every day, it may have changed some default configurations?

I figured it out. I have the latest mac, that comes with the Touch Bar. So I noticed that when a press command+shift+4 (without the control, so it should save directly to the desktop) my Touch Bar shows this:

So, as you can see, it was saving to the Clipboard, instead of the Desktop (I probably did this by touching the Touch Bar unintentionally). Then, if you did everything that I wrote at my question and nothing happened, probably this is your problem too.

How to solve this:

Press command+shift+4, so your Touch Bar will look like the image above.
So, all you got to do is change the option that is selected at the Save to: section to Desktop.

Doing this, both command+shift+3 and command+shift+4 will now save your Screen Shots to the Desktop.


Apple Mail to Windows Outlook Migration I am stuck in a situation here. I am migrating my email database from Apple Mail to Windows Outlook. Plenty of my emails were on the online web mail that were automatically downloaded when I signed in Outlook for windows but there are many emails that are offline and stored in apple mail. How can I migrate those emails from Apple mail to Windows Outlook?

First you need to understand that every email client used different email formats while saving/archiving their email database. For example Apple Mail archives its email database in .mbox format.

On the other hand Outlook for windows can imports or archives its email database in .pst file.

So, in order to migrate your email database from Apple Mail to Windows Outlook you will need to convert .mbox email database files into .pst.

Unfortunately there is no free solution to this problem. There are paid application available online for such conversion. I am mentioning one that appeared on top ranks for my search of "Apple Mail to PST" on google.

http://applemailtopst.com/
(I haven't used this application)


Alternative for RealVNC? I'm searching for a free alternative of RealVNC for Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11).

I have one "special need" for the program. I need to be able to change the port of the Mac I am currently using.

I couldn't find anything yet, at least nothing that works with El Capitan...
Any recommendations?

Chicken

If you are looking for a VNC client, the open source Chicken client supports connecting to specific ports.

Tiger VNC

You can install Tiger VNC via the brew project with:

brew install tiger-vnc

macOS Built-in Screen Sharing

Alternatively, you can use macOS's built in Screen Sharing application to connect to specific ports via a well formed URL, such as vnc://192.168.1.34:5901.

VNC Servers

For VNC servers, other than the built-in macOS VNC server, take a look at OSXvnc.

Tunneling

You could take a different approach and tunnel the existing VNC service through ssh or another tool. This would expose the VNC service through any port you desire without needing a special VNC server.


Moving an iMovie-11 'work in progress' moving from one system to another I just discovered that 'system a' has no DvD burner. System B has one. I can drop ilife onto system B, but ... which of the collection of 'import/export' mechanisms makes sense here to use the B drive if the movie is under construction on A? Heck, can I just somewhow share the 'media browser' and just do the DVD part of the process on System B?

Accessing DVD drives

Under System Preferences > Sharing you can share the DVD drive of B with A.

This should allow you to use the DVD burner on B as though it were a part of A, so you can just keep working on A.

Import / Export

You mention iLife, but not what program in iLife you are using, nor what you are doing with that program, so it is difficult to suggest an export/import method.

Moving 'Work in Progress'

Your question is about accessing a DVD drive, but your title is more generic.

If you want to move work in progress between two computers, you can use a variety of techniques, including, for example, DropBox, USB drives, shared folders over wireless or wired intranet or internet, etc.


Is there a way to stick a window? Is it possible to choose a window and force it to be sticky (stay in front) if I switch to another application?

There's no built-in functionality like this, but you could try something like Afloat, which adds this and some other window management options. However it does require SIMBL, which is a bit hacky, and can result in bugginess, especially on newly released OSes, where the developers may not have had as much time to test.


How do I display the speed limit on Google Maps in iOS? Is there a way to display the speed limit of an area in Google Maps on iOS?

I know speed limit overlays for Google Maps are possible on Android through third party apps, but I haven't been able to find an equivalent option for iOS.

According to Google's Product Forums, they're doing limited speed limit display tests in very specific areas.  I've seen San Francisco and Brazil being listed as the only places it's available right now.

They're also A/B testing in other locations.  No official release date has been given by Google for when this will be available on iOS.

To do a feature request:

Open Google Maps and make sure you’re signed in.
In the top left, click the Menu .
Tap 'Help & Feedback'.
Select 'Send Feedback'
Tap 'Send app feedback'
Click Send.


WARNING: The version of Tcl/Tk (8.5.9) in use may be unstable I'm running macOS Sierra 10.12.2 and am trying to get Python's IDLE to work properly with Tcl/Tk. This is the error message I'm getting when I open IDLE:

Python 2.7.13 (default, Dec 18 2016, 07:03:39)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.42.1)] on darwin
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.
>>> WARNING: The version of Tcl/Tk (8.5.9) in use may be unstable.
Visit http://www.python.org/download/mac/tcltk/ for current information.

Visiting the link in the error message, I read the documentation and installed Tcl/Tk version 8.5.18.0 from this source. Perhaps it is important to note that I'm running a brew install of Python 2.7.13. After I installed the DMG for 8.5.18.0, the bash terminal and Python are not recognizing the Tcl/Tk upgrade (Note that it is recognizing Tcl/Tk (8.5.9) instead of 8.5.18.0. How can I get IDLE and the upgraded python install from homebrew to recognize the upgraded Tcl/Tk 8.5.18.0? In other words, how can I resolve the warning message?

According to this Python Software Foundation page:

The Python for Mac OS X installers downloaded from this website dynamically link at runtime to Tcl/Tk macOS frameworks. The Tcl/Tk major version is determined when the installer is created and cannot be overridden. The Python 64-bit/32-bit Mac OS X installers for Python 3.6.x, 3.5.x, and 2.7.x dynamically link to Tcl/Tk 8.5 frameworks. 32-bit-only Python installers for Mac OS X dynamically link to Tcl/Tk 8.4 frameworks.
In either case, the dynamically linking occurs when tkinter (Python 3) or Tkinter (Python 2) is first imported (specifically, the internal _tkinter C extension module). By default, the macOS dynamic linker looks first in /Library/Frameworks for Tcl and Tk frameworks with the proper major version. This is the standard location for third-party or built from source frameworks, including the ActiveTcl releases. If frameworks of the proper major version are not found there, the dynamic linker looks for the same version in /System/Library/Frameworks, the location for Apple-supplied frameworks shipped with macOS. (Note, you should normally not modify or delete files in /System/Library.)

Source: Look for the How Python Chooses Which Tk Library To Use subheading on https://www.python.org/download/mac/tcltk/#activetcl-8-5-18-0
Because of this, I am 99.9% certain that now you have updated to Tcl/Tk 8.5.18.0, what you need to do is to re-install Python 2.7.13.
The reason I believe this will resolve your issue is that upon reading the info I quoted, it's clear the Tcl/Tk version used by Python is chosen during the installation process and cannot be changed without installing Python again.


Cannot reinstall OS X on a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009) My hard drive crashed, so I purchased a new one on Amazon. I have installed it and located an OS X Disk to install from.

I don't want to restore from any backups as this is just a computer with no saved files.

I am in the startup and it asked me to choose a location to install OS X but there is nothing to choose.

How can I install OS X on this machine?

You'll want to load the computer into what's known as Network Recovery (or Internet Recovery) by holding down the following buttons while turning the computer on: Command, Option, and R. You will need to know the password for your Wifi network.

When you're loaded into the right menu, you'll look for Disk Utility. Once Disk Utility, look for the name of the disc on the left hand side. You should see the name of the hard drive (i.e. Apple HDD 512GB etc).

Select the Partition button if you're using the native 10.11 Disk Utility or the Partition tab in the middle if you're using the lower systems.

If you're using the newer system, it should by default auto-adjust the partition to the right size and format. If you're using the old one, follow these steps:

Go to Partition type and change the drop down from "Current" to "1 Partition."
Change the format to "Mac OS X Extended Journaled."
Give the disk a name in the field on the right. Macintosh HD is the default name for Macs out of the box.
Click on "Options" and choose GUID Partition Table. Click Ok.
Click Apply, then Partition.

Once this partition is created, you sh[ould be able to install OS X on your new hard drive.]

This will allow the disk to be formatted into the proper format and should allow it to install on the new HDD.


Understanding directory permissions in UNIX I've been trying to learn Unix and Terminal a bit better, and I've come across some behavior I don't understand. Hoping someone can explain to me what I'm missing.

Lately I've been experimenting with permissions on directories. From what I (thought) I understood, read permission means you can view the contents of a directory (i.e., ls directory should list the contents of the directory); write permission means you can create, modify, or delete files in the directory (i.e., touch directory/newfile, or vi directory/fileimade, or rm directory/fileihate, all should work); and execute permission means you can make the directory your working directory (i.e., cd directory should work)

But that isn't what I'm finding.

If I have r-- on a directory, I receive errors on attempting cd directory or touch directory/newfile, as expected. But if I run ls directory -- well, I don't get an error, but no files are listed, even if I know there are files that I own and/or have rights to within the directory. So, ls has run successfully but with no data to standard output. Why not?

If I have -w- on a directory, I receive errors on cd and ls, as expected. But if I try to create a new file - touch directory/newfile - I also get an error. Why?

All of the x categories work exactly as expected; I can cd into directories with --x, but nothing else. I can cd into directories with -wx, create and delete files, but ls returns an error. And I can cd into r-x directories, list their contents, and work on files for which I have existing permissions, but cannot create or delete files. All these make sense to me.

So what am I not understanding correctly about r-- and -w-?

If I have r-- on a directory, I receive errors on attempting cd directory or touch directory/newfile, as expected. But if I run ls directory -- well, I don't get an error, but no files are listed, even if I know there are files that I own and/or have rights to within the directory. So, ls has run successfully but with no data to standard output. Why not?

If you just ls directory then the "files" inside directory should list but if you use ls -l which calls stat(2) the operation will silently fail as stat requires a full searchable path to the filesystem object.

  If I have -w- on a directory, I receive errors on cd and ls, as expected. But if I try to create a new file - touch directory/newfile - I also get an error. Why?

Once again touch calls open(2) system call which requires a full searchable path (all directories in the path are executable/searchable) or the operation will fail.


What is this Vertical bar of Inverted Colours on my Screen? I was cleaning my Macbook Air at the weekend and think I might have damaged the screen. A vertical bar of inverted colours appeared on the left-hand side (the right was fine initially) but then both sides of the screen displayed as shown in the image.

After about an hour of doing nothing, the bar on the left-hand side returned to normal but the right-hand side bar has been there since.

I’ve tried:

Pressing around the screen (does nothing)
Cleaning it again (gently
and with no cleaning fluid)
Connecting it to an external monitor
(output is fine which suggests the GPU is fine)

Any ideas what has happened? It’s a 6-year-old machine but I’ve never had any issues with it until the weekend.

Does the screen need to be replaced?

Edit: Spontaneously started working again :)

Personally, I would tell you that the screen was broken.  However, the bar on the left-hand side turn to normal, which confuses me.

Still, if the problem persists, consider getting the computer fixed.

I'm no tech genius here, though.  I've just seen plenty of screens this way (usually smaller strips), and they never really fix themselves.


Can I develop iPhone apps in Windows? I would like to develop iPhone apps without using Mac OS X.
Is it possible to do this on Windows OS?

Nope, you have to use a Mac. All the tools are on the Mac, as is the simulator program you'll need to test in.

Even if you could somehow finagle the whole thing running in Windows you still need a Mac to submit to Apple to get it on the App Store.

Cheapest scenario you're looking $699 for a Mac Mini and $99 for the iOS Developer Program (which you won't need until you want to run the thing on a real phone). You can go cheaper on the hardware if you buy it used but something to keep in mind is that it must be an Intel-based Mac running Leopard (10.5) or higher.


How to keep all my passwords, browsing data, e-mails, content etc. only for myself, and away from Apple? I just bought my first Apple product (iPhone) a few days ago and from the moment I switched on I have been asked to use the Apple ID and iCloud for pretty much everything.

I have a concern, i.e. if I have an Apple ID registered with my real name, address, etc. will Apple and/or iCloud always know all my browsing data, my emails, email passwords, etc.?

If yes, is there a way to be completely "cut off from the cloud"?

I am not feeling completely secure enough to check my normal e-mail from the iphone until I am 100% sure nobody (at least at Apple) can read it.

What steps can I take to ensure that my data is least exposed to the world/Apple?

e.g. would using fake personal data help?

If you ask why, well, there's nothing much I want to hide except some nighttime activities I don't want anybody to know about - for obvious reasons :-)

Apple is generally good about privacy and security, and risks their reputation if they were to violate user expectations by secretly looking at private data they say they don't look at. However, for the more cautious (including me), some default settings do need to be changed. Keep in mind also that iOS devices access a number of non-Apple "cloud" services in their default state, not just Apple services. A few general points, and a few specific default settings changes:

You do not need an AppleID to use an iOS device, unless you want to take advantage of web-based services such as iTunes Store, App Store, and iCloud.
You can supply fake data to create an AppleID, and use a gift card to fund any purchases. Just remember to keep track of exactly what info you provided.
You can actually use multiple AppleIDs for many of the the different services, e.g., iTunes, iCloud, Home Sharing (the older system, not to be confused with Family Sharing), etc.
There are clearly trade-offs between the usability and convenience of a smartphone, and the degree to which you prioritize privacy and security.
Assuming you are using a non-Apple secure email provider, there is little concern about Apple being able to access your email. Secure POP/IMAP/SMTP is encrypted directly between your device and your email provider. Similar for web browsing to secure (https) sites.
Take a long look at all available Settings, in the context of the threats you are most concerned about. There are privacy-related settings in areas other than Settings>Privacy.
I'd suggest considering keeping all three radios off unless explicitly needed (cellular, wi-fi, bluetooth) to protect against carrier and local physical tracking. I'd also suggest keeping Location Services turned off at all times. But before you do, especially if you will use it from time to time, tweak the detailed Location Services settings to restrict what kinds of accesses apps and Apple can have. If you have Location Services on at the same time as Wi-Fi, Apple will, like Google and others do, catalog the GPS Location of wi-fi access points the device can "see" - this includes yours and those belonging to others. Bonus to keeping radios and/or Location Services off: improved battery life.
Make sure your passcode is strong (more than just four digits), and make sure your AppleID account(s) are strongly secured. If you are concerned about people seeing activity happening on your phone, set the Settings>Passcode>RequirePasscode appropriately and restrict what notifications and info appear in your lock screen.
Never associate your device with an "integrated" Facebook or Twitter account. There is some evidence that "integrated" apps have privileged access to private APIs.
In Settings>Privacy>Advertising, turn on Limit Ad Tracking and frequently Reset Advertising Identifier. VendorID is another unique ID apps can access. To reset VendorID, you must delete every app from that vendor. Then you may re-install them.
Don't use HealthKit apps. The legal protections are very unclear at this point, but are likely nowhere near as good as traditional channels such as doctors.
Don't use Siri if you don't want your Contacts sent to Apple. There are reasonable privacy protections built around Siri's access to your Contacts, but they will be sent to Apple when you turn Siri on. Apple says they are deleted every time you turn Siri off.
Restrict Spotlight Search and Safari from pinging external servers for outside data. See: Settings>General>Spotlight Search & Settings>Safari.
Turn off Background App Refresh Settings>General>Background App Refresh, or at least only allow apps that support it to use Background App Refresh only when they are the active app. This is especially important if you use Location Services or allow apps access to other unique patterns such as Motion, Microphone, Camera, etc. Bonus: improved battery life.
Set Settings>Privacy>Diagnostics & Usage to "Don't Send".
If you do use Location Services and have weather in your Notification Center, your location will be periodically sent to weather.com.
Name your phone something common/generic, in Settings>General>About>Name. Apps have access to your device name.

More here:
https://www.apple.com/br/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_Oct12.pdf
and here:
https://www.apple.com/privacy/manage-your-privacy/


Turn on Location Services for an app via command line (macOS) I am trying to enable Location Services for an individual app such as Weather.app etc via command line for High Sierra and Mojave macOS computers.

I was able to enable Location Services at the top level by using these two commands.

For High Sierra:

sudo -u _locationd defaults -currentHost write com.apple.locationd LocationServicesEnabled -int 1

For Mojave:

sudo defaults write /var/db/locationd/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.locationd LocationServicesEnabled -int 1

However, I haven't figured out how to enable Location Services for an individual app yet and hope the community here can help me figure out. :)

You should Click The Lock to Make Changes..enter your root passcode. Then you will see all the features (including apps) unlock & ready to accept changes. Klick to the app you’re interested to.


Turning Off Notifications While Presenting On Yosemite how can I turn off notifications on Yosemite while presenting or showing the screen to someone?

I know I can set the do not disturb for a time period but I was wondering if there is just an on off switch without having to set a time.

Simplest way is Option (⌥) + Click Notification Centre button; top right corner. It should make the NC dim.  ⟶
Open NC then go to Today tab scroll up, it should show Do Not Disturb button, just turn it on.

@Buscar웃 said you can also turn on the keyboard shortcut in System Prefs -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts.


How to prevent iPhone SE from always uploading burst photos? I have turned OFF the "Upload Burst Photos" option in both Camera and iCloud settings, but they are still always uploaded to my Photo Stream.  I absolutely do not want such photos to upload automatically, I want to always have to manually upload anything that was originally captured in burst mode.

Why is my phone always uploading burst photos regardless of having the setting disabled?  How can I stop this?

Well after an hour on the phone with Apple support, 2 phone restores and 1 iOS upgrade, we finally got to the bottom of this.  Turns out the feature (to disable uploading of burst photos to PhotoStream) DOES work as intended.  It's the wording of the feature description that is more than a little confusing.

The text below the feature states:

  Only favorite Burst Photos will be uploaded to your Photo Stream

The trouble is, to me (and to the techs at Apple that I spoke to), that sounds like no part of a burst photo will be uploaded until you have chosen one of the photos in the burst, as a favorite.  This is not so.  What it actually means is that the entire burst will not be uploaded.  But if you have Photo Stream turned on, a single photo from the burst WILL be uploaded.  And unfortunately, it's not the first frame.  I'm actually not sure what criteria iOS uses to decide which photo to upload, but it seems to be the first photo that it thinks is "the best" somehow.

So, the bottom line is that Photo Stream is an all-or-nothing proposition.  Either every photo you take (including a single frame from any burst photos) will be uploaded, or nothing will be uploaded.  There is no way to selectively upload photos on a case-by-case basis, unless you either leave Photo Stream off and manually share photos you want in your stream every time, or turn Photo Stream off & on between each photo you don't want to upload... but then you lose and have to re-download all your photostream content each time.  Not a real great solution either way.

I feel Apple should re-word the description of this feature to make it more clear what the expected behavior actually is, but I won't hold my breath on that.


Terminal not working after Yosemite installation I installed Yosemite now and after the installation the terminal is not working. It used to work before, but after installation of the new OS X on Mavericks it is no longer working. How can I resolve this?

If I open the terminal this message is shown:

Last login: Sun Dec 28 00:42:15 on ttys000
login: /usr/local/bin/bash: No such file or directory

[Process completed]

You installed another version of bash,right? The default login shell is /bin/bash. you can change it following these steps,

go to "System Preferences" > "Users & Groups"
click the "padlock" icon and authenticate
right-click the icon for your user and select "Advanced Options..."
change the value for "Login shell" to "/bin/bash"


How can I transfer photos from the Camera Roll to Photo Stream? Not all of my photos go to Photo Stream, some still go to my Camera Roll.  I'm trying to get them on my Photo Stream so they will be on iCloud.
With 30 photos on my camera, 10 in stream, I took 6 photos.  2 appeared in stream, 4 did not.  Some of my subsequent photos also appeared in the stream, but not all.  This is arbitrary behavior by the program.  How to fix?  Assume ios 7.0.

Any photos that exist in the Camera Roll that didn't come from the device itself had to come from another device. The primary method for getting these pictures into iCloud's 1000 picture buffer is to enroll that other device into iCloud.

You have one case of a picture that was taken either more than 30 days ago or 1000 pictures ago or you deleted your entire Photo Stream and want to start over. In this case, you may need to sync those photos to a computer or another device using the Camera Connecton Kit to inject them into your current Photo Stream.


Why does a Time Machine backup not complete when destination is a Shared Volume? I have six Macs in my house, all running the latest, greatest version of Snow Leopard. I also have an eMac (PPC) running Leopard 10.5.8. I use the eMac as a file and print server. The eMac has two external FireWire drives, 1 TB each. I partitioned each one so that there is a separate partition for each. I've shared each of the partitions.

On each of the six Snow Leopard Macs, I set up Time Machine to use the individual shared volume from the eMac. This seems to work fine, but when several clients try to back up at the same time I get the following error:

  The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk. The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.

What can I do to troubleshoot this further and make the system more reliable?

This question requires additional troubleshooting to pinpoint the problem. But there is probably a bottleneck somewhere.

There are a few things you don't tell us in your question. How are the different computers connected?

WiFi or Ethernet?
What speed is the link to the eMac 11/54/100/360/1000 Mbps
what are the network devices used to interconnect the devices (hubs, switches, routers...)

Make sure all devices have their own sparse bundles on the hard drives.

You should then try to test the different features used during the time-machine backups.

Test the speed of your hard drives and then during backup monitor the disk usage
monitor the memory and processor usage on your eMac
monitor the connection usage (bandwidth)

During the monitoring process try to add more and more macs until you get the errors.

If you see any of these components saturating during the backup you will pinpoint the bottleneck(s).


Is it possible to restore from Time Machine backup if there is no OS installed on main drive The question title says it all, really. I upgraded my SSD and now I don't have a disk to boot from except OS X Recovery. I have both Internet connection and a USB drive from which I can install a clean copy but I would prefer not doing so unless it is necessary because that usually takes a lot of time. When I try restoring from a Time Machine backup it says "Searching for Time Machine backups..." although my backup drive is connected.

Yes, it's possible via recovery (Hold during startup ⌘ Command R). If you can't find a Time Machine backup in recovery, try holding ⌥ Option during startup and after that choose Time Machine drive.


Logitech C615 on Macbook Air (Mac OSX 10.8.2) I have been looking into buying a web cam to serve as a document camera.  I have read a lot of conflicting reviews on the Logitech C615. Does anyone know if the webcam is compatible with my OS?

The simple answer is "yes". I have Mountain Lion and just received my C615. I'm able to record photos and movies, using the provided LWS software, and play them back via QuickTime. Cannot speak for other apps. Be aware that many of the features (e.g., zoom) that are available on Windows are not (currently) available on the Mac.


imessages and read receipts In what situations will a message just say delivered but not read? Like if they blocked you number or deleted all messages before opening it. things along those lines?

Other than they didn't actually open it yet - reading on the lock screen doesn't tag it as read - most likely is they switched off Read Receipts for some paranoid reason.

Either that or you're blocked - there's no way to tell that, unless you ring them & get bounced straight to voicemail every time… though their phone could be off.

Blocked messages are sent & arrive at the receiver's phone, but are just never shown to them, so as far as the system & carrier is concerned, everything went as planned.
Voice calls might ring once, then go to voicemail; depends how quickly the phone reacts to the block. Again, as far as the system & carrier is concerned, everything happened as it should.

Last option, they sold their iPhone, bought a droid, & forgot to switch off iMessage. [long shot]


What is the best way to report a bug/feature request discussed here to Apple? If a question asked on this forum does not get an answer because the feature requested does not exist (e.g. [1]), or it is agreed that there is a bug, ... what is the best way to report this to Apple?

This forum does I have found help in phrasing the question and problem, and if enough time has elapsed helps to reveal the limits of the understanding of a knowledgeable community on a topic. A question posed and edited here should therfore be very valuable to Apple.

So can one link to a description here and send it to Apple? And where would one send it? Or do they follow what is going on here so that there is no need to do that?

PS. I think it may be useful to have a tag for issues relating to how to submit issues to apple. Eg. bug-reports or something like that.

[1] For example: Does Preview.app's freehand tool allow one to select multiple shapes easily?

Apple offers a Feedback Page for that: https://www.apple.com/feedback/


How can I get iTunes not to consider "Various Artists" an artist in the artist view? When I type "monkees" into the "Search Library" box in iTunes, it offers me three things: (A) "The Monkees" as artists, and (B and C) the two songs I have by The Monkees. The search dropdown shows, right below the artist name listed on (A), that I have 439 songs by The Monkees. This is wrong: I just have the two. But those two songs both come from compilations, which have the following tags, among others:

Artist: The Monkees
Album Artist: Various Artists
Part of a compilation: True

The number 439 appears to be the total number of tracks with Album Artist = "Various Artists" that I have. And sure enough, when I select choose the Monkees artist hit from the search boxes, it shows me not just Monkees tracks, but every Various Artists track, split up by album, and with the two Monkees tracks being nowhere near each other. I'd much rather see just the two Monkees tracks.

What is the preferred way to handle this issue? I believe I have my music collection set up right (say, as described by this page and in a variety of other conversations I've found online), but the current behavior seems silly to me.

Here are some things I've tried:

Going to View -> View Options under the Artists view and toggling the Group Compliations box
Switching to the Songs view and playing with the settings under View -> Column Browser.
Erasing Various Artists from the Album Artist field and leaving it blank instead.

Item #3 seems to work, but it's clearly not standard and so I would expect adopting it as a solution would cause other stuff to break, either now or at some point down the road.

Is there a clean way to handle this?

I only really see two options here.

1) Get rid of the Album Artists field altogether, select all tracks and Get Info. Set the Album Artist field to blank, meaning song are grouped solely by their Artist and not Album Artists. The songs in the various artists albums will still be linked by the album name if you just want that album.

2) Create a smart playlist with the filter being Artist is (or contains) "The Monkees". This will, of course, filter all Monkees songs into the playlist regardless of the Album Artist.

Beyond this, there doesn't seem to be much room for configuring various artist albums better.


Connect 3 External Displays to iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) Is it possible to connect 3 external displays (for a total of 4, including the built-in 5K display) to an iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017? I have the Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB of VRAM.

I do not need the external displays to be high resolution. In fact, all three of them need to connect via VGA using the following resolutions:

External displays 1 & 2: 1920x1080
External display 3: 1280x720

If necessary the 3rd display could be a different connection type (e.g. DVI) and/or resolution. The specs for external displays 1 & 2 are not negotiable.

I've reviewed this iMac's specs which seem to say only 2 external displays are supported via the two ThunderBolt 3 (USB-C) ports. However in my research about ThunderBolt it seems like it should be possible to run two simple displays off of one port.

I have attached 3 external displays to my MacBook circa late 2011. I stumbled across this nifty product:
Diamond USB Multi-Display Adapter

1 monitor is via the MiniDisplay port and 2 are attached to a USB hub (at USB 2.0 speed).

However, on some forum (that I can't even find anymore) someone mentioned this could possibly cause my CPU to overheat. I have used this 3 monitor config for a few days with no problems and I just started monitoring CPU temp.

I suspect that the performance on those USB monitors is awful? I've no idea. I know so little about graphics, I don't even know how to test them for performance...


How do I remove my email address book from my iPhone 7 contact list? I just got an iPhone 7. But my email address book has merged with my phone number contact list. How do I remove the email addresses?

iCloud for Web can be used to restore the contact list before merging. Go to iCloud Settings and under Advanced click Restore Contacts.


How to delete user Downloads folder I want to delete the Downloads folder on my Mac as I just save everything on my background so that way I have to sort it right away. I'm wondering if you can help me by telling me if there is a way to put in some terminal code to delete the downloads folder ? I never use it and apparently you can't just delete it.

First of all, you need to change the default location for downloads to your Desktop folder, if that's what you want.
In Safari > Preferences > General, there's a setting for the downloads location. This sets the preference for all applications, not just Safari.
If you don't do this, then any app that wants to save a file there will likely recreate the folder in the process of saving.
As of Catalina, the Downloads folder has a com.apple.macl extended attribute, which is protected by SIP. You may therefore need to disable System Integrity Protection before deleting this folder.
How do I disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) AKA "rootless" on macOs [OS X]
Don't forget to enable it afterwards, otherwise, you'll be 'leaving the front door open'.
Apple has hardwired some folders to ensure that they will always be present. It's possible that the folder might even get recreated. The alternative is just to hide it from view in the Finder.
Sometimes, MacOS can be inflexible about the way things are done, and it's often easiest to reprogram the more flexible computer on the other side of the keyboard. ;-)


Use 3.5mm jack as line in for a musical instrument My iMac and Macbook Air have only got one 3.5 mm jack each. I would like to use this jack as an audio input source to record an electronic drumkit.

I realize the proper way of doing this would be to get an audio interface, but I don't want to invest in one just yet. For now, I would like to plug in a 3.5 mm cable to the output jack of the electronic drumset and connect the other end to my computer to record the drumset's sound.

This was possible with my very old 2009 white MacBook. Can this be done in the newer models?

I found this thread and tried using a cable with three rings. This cable has a built-in mic, so the computer is picking up on its mic, rather than the drumset's output.

I would like to plug in a 3.5 mm cable to the output jack of the electronic drumset and connect the other end to my computer to record the drumset's sound.... This was possible with my very old 2009 white MacBook. Can this be done in the newer models?

You can’t.  The audio jacks on all Macs are microphone inputs and not line inputs. Your 2009 MacBook had only a microphone input and not a line input.

Microphone versus Line Inputs

The key differentiation between mic and line signals is the voltage.  Microphone voltage is extremely tiny (millivolts) where line level input is about 1 1/4 volts.  Macs aren’t recording/pre-amp devices and do not contain the necessary components to raise the voltage to line level.

The thread you referenced is about the TRRS jack or Tip, Ring, Ring, Sleeve and these are typically used in telco, not pro audio (yes, you can get very good quality sound from them, but they’re never found in even the smallest recording studio).  The cable, was just a "breakout" that separated the headphone (out) from the microphone (in) connectors.  It never converted a signal to line level.

  I realize the proper way of doing this would be to get an audio
  interface, but I don't want to invest in one just yet.

Yes.  However a simple audio mixer that handles mic, line, and instrument (what you need for your drum kit) that also includes a monitor port can be had quite inexpensively.


Why doesn't the screen saver delay that I set persist after restarting my Mac? I have a problem with a screen saver, I set it to 20 minutes and when I lock the computer and unlock it, the settings are unchanged. However, when I restart my mac, then the screen saver is set to default 5 minutes again.

Try repairing permissions with Disk Utility.


MacPorts can't recognize Xcode version properly I've tried to run the following command to install "automake" package on my Mac:

MacBook:~ administrator$ sudo port install automake
Password:
Error: The installed version of Xcode (5.1.1) is too old to use on the installed OS version. Version 6.1 or later is recommended on Mac OS X 10.10.
To report a bug, follow the instructions in the guide:
    http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets
Error: Processing of port automake failed

The problem is shown in the line:

  Error: The installed version of Xcode (5.1.1) is too old to use on the
  installed OS version. Version 6.1 or later is recommended on Mac OS X
  10.10.

But there is Xcode 6.1 installed on my Mac. I'm using OS X 10.10 Yosemite (MacPorts for 10.10 already installed).

You need to run xcode-select --switch [path] as descriped here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9600615/xcode-stops-working-after-set-xcode-select-switch

And here is Apples documentation: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/xcode-select.1.html