Is there a way to get a crash report (not a core dump) for a command line program? If a macOS application crashes, CrashReporter will (optionally) pop up a window with a human-readable set of stack traces and the "Send to Apple" button.
Is there a straightforward way to get the same results for a non-.app program which crashes when started from the command line? That is, the situation I want more information out of is
$ some-program
Segmentation fault: 11
$

I've only found instructions about how to enable core dumps, but not how to get something readable out of them. I know that Activity Monitor can "sample" running programs, but I'm looking for the crash event, not profiling.
I've thought of creating a dummy .app package that actually runs the command that's crashing, but that'll be a bit of work and probably run into some Gatekeeper trouble, though I haven't actually tried doing that since a few major versions ago. I'm currently on Catalina 10.15.7.

Looking back, past crashes are logged in the log system, and also individual dump files are saved for about a month in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports
Looking forward, to cause them is a bit harder and risky. You could try issuing a SIGABRT or SIGQUIT signal if you know the process:

How to crash an application to produce Crash Report

Something more generic would be the general system diagnostics will capture  much more. The main difference in these two options is a crash has an end point, system diagnosis grabs an arbitrary snapshot, so it isn’t necessarily as final as a crash. I don’t recommend forcing an app to crash and certainly don’t recommend forcing a kernel panic but you could try both. Why not start with a general diagnostic dump:
sudo sysdiagnose

You can pass a process ID or process name to sysdiagnose or also trigger it from the Activity Monitor app.

https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/welcome/mac

If you need to halt the program or process, try Instruments from Xcode.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12


Clear text formatting in Outlook 2016 I am looking for the ribbon button to clear text formatting in Outlook 2016 on Mac and it just doesn't appear to be there.  Am I somehow missing it?  Can I enable it?  Is there a shortcut?

There's no button to clear the text formatting. The fastest way is to cut the text, go to the correct formatting (either manually or by moving the insertion point such as by pressing backspace), then pasting using Edit → Paste and Match Style.


Forced switching between Spaces when opening Microsoft Office files Since time immemorial, opening a Microsoft Office file has had the side effect of restoring an already-open window in the same application before displaying the newly opened file's window.  This was mildly annoying for multitaskers who minimized windows associated with tasks other than their current one, forcing them to re-minimize a window not relevant to the task at hand.

I suspect that this same behavior is now to blame for a truly maddening side effect when using Spaces with a different space for each task:  Opening, say, a Word document still causes the most recently active Word document window to be brought to the front, so if that window is in a different space, Spaces switches to that space-- a context-blowing action.

For what it's worth, I'm using Office 2011 on Mountain Lion, though the behavior seems to be the same on Mavericks and previous versions.  I've already unchecked the Mission Control options, "Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use" and "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for that application."  This seems to work for most apps-- e.g., opening a PDF file in Adobe Reader when another PDF file is already open in a different space doesn't trigger a switch to that space-- just not MS Office.

Does anyone know of an Office setting or hack that would prevent this?

This question is probably related to Microsoft Word Forcing “Spaces” Switching.

I've long experienced this problem, too. Haven't found any 'good' solutions, so put together some Applescripts that partially address the problem.  It's very much a kludge and not a perfect solution, and deploying the scripts in a given user's workflow is a matter of individual taste.

Here's code to open an MS Word document in a space that doesn't have any Word windows without first triggering a shift to a space with a Word window open:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft Word" to tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item 3 to tell menu 1 to click menu item 1 --open
tell application "Microsoft Word" to activate

And this script will close an MS Word document without triggering a switch to another space (if it was the last Word window open in the current space):

--Is there another window of the app in this space? If so, don't need to shift to another app before closing
tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Microsoft Word" to set _theWindows to name of every window as list
set WinNum to number of strings of _theWindows --(Office puts weird other things in the list)
if WinNum = 1 then --i.e., it is the only window in the space
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke tab using command down --switch to another app
    delay 0.1
    tell application "System Events" to set visible of application process "Microsoft Word" to true --in case there is a close dialog I still need to see
    delay 0.1
end if
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft Word" to tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item 3 to tell menu 1 to click menu item "Close" --close


Trying to exit "recovery mode" I've inadvertently put my iPhone 4 in "recovery mode" and now it insists I restore without even a chance to backup. Is there a way to exit recovery mode?

You can do this with TinyUmbrella. Launch TinyUmbrella, connect your iPhone and give it some time until it's recognized by TinyUmbrella. Then click the “Exit Recovery” button.


Can't download apps on iTunes So I went on the App section on my Mac's iTunes, and clicked download... asked for my AppleID, and I typed it in. But then I get red text above it saying This action could not be completed. Try again. Help?

OSX 10.13
iTunes 12.6.2
Yes, I know it's not the latest iTunes, but the new one doesn't have apps.

Apple has released iTunes 12.6.3 with the App Store which can be installed alongside the latest version of iTunes.

Apple released this version specially for Volume Purchase Programs users who may need to use iTunes to install apps. However, you can get the App Store back if you install this.

  If you've already installed a newer version of iTunes, you can download this version of iTunes on your Mac, PC 32-bit or PC 64-bit* and run the installer. After installation is complete, you can continue to deploy apps with iTunes.

Also, this "special" version of iTunes includes compatibility with iOS 11, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X and supports both Windows and Mac.


Logged into 4 iPhones and 2 iPads - how can I remove my account or deactivate them all except one? Logged into 4 iPhones and 2 iPads - how can I remove my account or deactivate them all except one? I am not tech savvy at all and didn't realize they would have access to my info. I only want to keep my info on 1 iPhone & 1 iPad, which are the ones I use. Would this be able to be done without physically having access to the other devices? Or do I need to physically have them, if so, what do i do? I logged into my email account too.

If you have the devices simply go to Settings>iCloud turn off Find my iPhone, and sign out of iCloud, then tap on Settings>General>Reset>Erase All Content and Settings.

If you don't have th devices the only options you have is remote wipe, or change all passwords for your accounts.  Remote wipe is an iCloud feature.  Go to www.icloud.com from a computer and sign-in. Click on 'Find my iPhone' tap on the device name and you will see an option to 'remote wipe'.  This can be done on your iPad with the Find my iPhone app.

If your devices are not found in Find my iPhone then change your iCloud/AppleID password(s) at myappleid.com.  Change all your account passwords.

Lastly, don't forget to deauthorize those devices from iTunes.  From a computer go to the iTunes Store click on 'Account' then click on 'Deauthorize All'.


Sync an iDevice apps with two Apple IDs Possible Duplicate:
  2 Apple IDs on one device?

I was planning on getting a new iPhone and I want to give my old one to my younger brother, both of us have different Apple ID. The question is, can I retain my old apps on the old iPhone while syncing/installing my brother's purchased apps in it?

Yes, you can do that. I use two Apple IDs on my iPhone 4S.

It is not the most comfortable setup though: You must switch IDs in Settings>iTunes & App Stores. Just tap on your Apple ID and select Sign Out. Then log in with your brother's Apple ID.

I don't think the iPhone will pull the apps your brother bought when he signs in with his Apple ID. He will have to install them manually.


How do I watch the US presidential debates live via AppleTV? I have a 3rd generation Apple TV. Will it be possible to use it to watch the US presidential debates live? I would prefer to do so without using AirPlay, if possible.

I know that today's (Oct 3, 2012) debate will be streamed live via YouTube. Is the Apple TV's YouTube app capable of showing this? If so, how would I navigate to it?

If AirPlay is my only choice, how can I best go about it? I have:

an iPhone 4S running iOS 5 (capable of both AirPlay for videos and AirPlay Mirroring)
a Mac running OS X 10.7 (capable of AirPlay for videos, but not AirPlay mirroring)

As the link you posted has several Pre-event streams scheduled, you can try things out before hand. I haven't seen a public announcement by either Google or Apple saying to tune in on your Apple TV, so you might plan on a second manner of streaming.

I'll likely use AirPlay mirroring to get the content onto my large screen via Apple TV.


Why am I not able to expand my hard drive partition after deleting Windows? I'm a MacBook user and I had previously installed Windows on my laptop.

After deleting the Windows partition now, I'm facing difficulty in expanding my hard drive partition to the maximum. After I drag the the partition to Full and click Apply, it shows:

  Checking journaled HFS+ volume

Then, a message pops out:

  Partition failed with the error : couldn't modify partition map because file system verification failed.

What should I do?

Try this:

Reboot the Mac into Single User Mode by holding ⌘ (Command) + S when pressing the power button.
When the command prompt finally appears, type:
 /sbin/fsck - fy
After this is completed, type reboot or exit.
Wait for Mac to start up normally.
Back in Disk Utility, hit Verify Disk, then try and partition as normal.


macOS alternative to Meld The mojave upgrade from 10.14.5 to 10.14.6 broke my old VLC install (already fixed by upgrading the VLC install) and I think it has also broken my Meld 3.19.2.osx6 build provided through Homebrew.

I don't find any build more recent than mine.

What's the different thought way to meld in macOS? (What's the alternative free (and gratis) program?)

Have you seen this fork?  https://yousseb.github.io/meld/
Maybe that will work???

As for alternatives there is FileMerge that comes with Xcode.  To open it from the terminal, run opendiff.


How to remap 'Context Menu' key on external keyboard? I'm using a Cherry G80 (excellent 'clicky' keyboard btw.) on my Macbook Air. Everything works fine, I can use and remap all keys using Ukelele1 or directly in Emacs.

The only key behaving strange is the Context Menu2 Key.

It returns the same Unicode sequence as Control-P.

This is the output of Key Codes3 when pressing the Context Menu key:

Key Down
Characters:
Unicode:        16 / 0x10
Keys:
Key Code:   110 / 0x6e
Modifiers:  256 / 0x100

This is the output for Control-P:

Key Down
Characters:
Unicode:        16 / 0x10
Keys:       ⌃P
Key Code:   35 / 0x23
Modifiers:  262401 / 0x40101

(Notice the difference in 'Keys')

My goal is to use it directly in Emacs or be able to swap it to some other (modifier) key. Is there any way to do this? I can't find a way to bring Ukelele to do that.

Bad news. Apple's XML DTD format that Ukelele targets does not support modifiers outside of shift keys, option keys, control keys, and command keys.

As @Lri suggested KeyRemap4MacBook supports mapping the Context Menu Key, which it calls the Application Key. In KeyRemap4MacBook's preferences go to For PC Users -> Change PC Application Key to see all the supported options. Mappings that may be of use for Emacs: Fn Key;  Shift_L Key; Option_L Key; Control_L Key; and, Command_L Key.


Numbers SUMIF by dates within current week? I have a table like this:

Which basically contains jobs I've done, the dates I did those jobs and how much that job made me.

I'd like to find out how much money I've made this week (current date is 09/10/2015), with Monday being the first day of each week and Sunday the last. Monday of this week was on 05/10/2015.

Above you can see the values I'd like to sum, because they were all jobs completed within this week.

I can't get anything closer than this:

which only sums the money I've made today, but I want the whole week; how can I sum all the money I've made in this week?

Of course there may be other ways of doing this, but here is one.

To accomplish this dynamically (so that it changes when the current week changes), one can use the WEEKNUM( ) function.

Create a column (you can hide this later if you don't want it to show. See edit below) with the calculation of:

WEEKNUM( A1 ) -- Where A1 is the first cell with a date.

Drag this formula down the column.

Now you can use this formula in a cell to get the sum for the current week.

SUMIF(Table 1::B,WEEKNUM(TODAY()),Table 1::C)

This should give you the desired result.

See the screen shot.  The Function Inspector pane has more information on these functions.

EDIT

To hide a column:
 - Highlight the column
 - Click the disclosure arrow (or control click / right click)
 - Select Hide Column

To show again, right click in an adjacent column letter and select Unhide.


Manage OS X partition from Windows I have dual boot Mac with OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 and Windows 10 installed. If something goes wrong and the Mac is not able to boot, I required a software which will enable me to backup working the bootable OS X partition and restore the OS X exactly to its backup state. To backup and restore the OS X partition I am planning to use Windows 10.

Your Mac should have a recovery partition. If, for some reason, your Mac partition becomes unbootable, you can boot into recovery mode (hold down Cmd-R when you hear the startup chime) and follow the on-screen instructions to restore from your latest backup.

If, for some reason, your recovery partition is corrupted or missing altogether, you will end up in Internet Recovery mode instead, which will install a fresh copy of OS X from the internet first.


How to disable three-finger tap word lookup? Just upgraded to Mac OS X Mountain Lion, and I'm loving it so far.

One thing I don't care for though is that now, three-finger tapping links—or anything, for that matter—brings up popups with the definition of the word that was tapped.

This is less than convenient since I'm using MiddleClick to set that particular tap gesture to act as a middle-click.

Is there any way that I can disable this behavior?

In System Preferences under Trackpad then Point & Click, uncheck Look up.


iTunes automatically stops/starts music whenever I start/stop Skype call Couldn't find any similar questions.

So I like that my iTunes music automatically pauses when I accept a Skype call, but usually during a Skype call I turn up the volume. Then when my Skype call ends, my music comes back, but blasted in my ears. Is there a setting I should know of to prevent this?

I am on a Mac Air running Mountain Lion.

iTunes has a separate volume control that seems to run independently of the master volume control. It's in the top-left corner, press ⌘↑ or ⌘↓ in iTunes to adjust.

Yours may be too low relative to the master volume.

Skype too has a separate volume control. In the Skype app press ⌥⌘↑ and ⌥⌘↓ to adjust call output volume only.


Application asks to allow incoming communications but is already allowed in firewall preferences One of my login items is called FontAgent Activator.app

Each time I restart, I am prompted to accept incoming network communications for this app. However the app is already listed as allow incoming communications in the firewall preferences. This is the only app that has this issue.

Font Agent Pro support has not come up with a resolution. They said it might be a corrupt firewall. I deleted the firewall plist file completely and restarted, effectively resetting all the firewall preferences. I then have added apps to the list as needed, and that has not fixed it.

This dialog is getting annoying. Anyone know of a possible fix?

Thanks

example screen shot:

Without more details, it is difficult to guess what might be causing this.

The first step I would take in troubleshooting this is to create a new user account; log into that account and install the application; and see if the behavior is the same via the new account - if it is, then the problem lies in the application itself; if not, then the problem lies in your user account.


3 months old MacBook Pro crashed My MacBook Pro is just 3 months old. It is 13 inch running i5 processor. Today I was working on Eclipse and connected one end of USB cable to the MacBook. I was about to connect other end of USB cable to my Android phone when the MacBook crashed suddenly.

MacBook was running on battery at the time of crash, I tried pressing power buttons many times but it didn't help. Around 20 minutes before crashing I had checked battery and it said that 2 hours are remaining. I connected power adapter and it is showing very dim green light (as compared to bright green light that is shown when charging).

What can be the problem here?

Since your MacBook Pro is only 3 months old, it is under warranty. Take it to an Apple Store or other Apple authorized repair center immediately and let them diagnose and fix the problem.

You might have a faulty Mac motherboard, or you might have a faulty MagSafe power adapter, or, worse, the electrical current in the house where you plug in the power adapter may have substandard "dirty" power that is preventing the power adapter from properly powering the computer.

But since it is under warranty, the authorized Apple repair people will diagnose the problem for you. If it is the fault of Apple equipment, they should repair it for you at no charge.


Native HEIF support in macOS 10.13 High Sierra? I can't find any documentation regarding this. Will HEIF be a natively supported filetype in 10.13?

Per Apple's 10.13 Beta Release Notes:

HEVC and HEIF Images

macOS 10.13 adds HEVC and HEIF decode capability. In order to display HEIF image files or HEVC videos captured on iOS 11, your Mac needs to be updated to macOS 10.13.

The specific hardware and software requirements for HEVC and HEIF are detailed in the WWDC 2017 presentations covering these new technologies. Depending on the capabilities of your Mac and the needs of your content, AVFoundation may use a software-based HEVC encoder which typically has longer encoding times. Further fine-tuning of the encoding quality will occur in subsequent seeds.

Third-party apps that do not rely on the macOS-provided media frameworks may not properly handle these new formats.


How to tell the difference between a legitimate Apple request for my password, and an app phishing attempt? If an app pops up a modal that looks just like the Apple password request modal, how can I tell the difference?

https://krausefx.com/blog/ios-privacy-stealpassword-easily-get-the-users-apple-id-password-just-by-asking

Press on the Home button on your device - if the app quits, it is a fake popup. If the app persists, it is real.

The safest is to always assume that the popup is fake. Then access the Apple supplied program that supposedly gave the popup (for example Settings => iCloud) and enter your password there if indicated.


Should I use Automator or another program for repetitious tasks? I have 100s of images to save out in a different format for a project that I am working on. And the problem is I have to do them one at a time, so I am wondering if there is some way to record the actions of me saving one of them out and then having the program repeat it by looking in a specific directory and doing it with all of the images. I am not sure how else to explain what I am trying to do, but I just need some way to make the program that I am using automate the saving task for each image. P.S I don't know if it helps but the program that I am using is called (Texture Packer)

It looks like the TexturePacker program includes the ability to process images from the command-line, which you could then batch process with a script. You'll first want to install the utility by clicking Install Command Line Tool under the TexturePacker menu in the app.

Then I'd suggest having a look at the documentation, which includes the command-line parameters for most of the options in the app. Have a look at that, and see if you can get  the actions you need on the command-line. If you need help turning those into a batch processing script, I'd suggest coming back and amending your question with the specifics.


How to limit cpu frequency in OS X? The OS X kernel does control this directly since below 5% my CPU gets locked to 1.2GHz instead of the normal 3.7GHz so there has to be a way to control the CPU speed.

I am aware of this question (Limit processor speed like in Windows) which claimed it to be impossible but after noticing that OS X does control your cpu speed directly depending on battery power I find it hard to believe it's impossible.

So is there any hidden kext and/or kernel call to control the cpu speed? Forwarding me to kernel documentation so I can write my own app is an option as well.

I found this for your reading pleasure:

Mavericks: Native CPU/IGPU Power Management

  Native Mavericks power management delivers the best combination of
  processor and graphics performance and efficiency. The ingredients are
  an installed processor specific power management ssdt, a compatible
  system definition and the native power management kext. Native
  Mavericks power management does not require specific BIOS settings or
  anything more than one boot setting to load the power management ssdt.
  Credit for the technique described to PikeRAlpha.

  What changed between Mountain Lion and Mavericks power management? The
  existing processor frequency/power state reporting tools (i.e.,
  MSRDumper, HWMonitor) stopped reporting power states between idle and
  max non turbo. This led to an incorrect conclusion that native
  Mavericks power management was not working. A new tool, Intel Power
  Gadget, shows Mavericks power management is working as designed.

  To be clear, native Mavericks power management is not mandatory. The
  consequences are not severe. Performance is similar, however, higher
  temps (~10 C), more power (5-10 W) and sleep problems are likely.

  Change Log

  v1.1 - 4/4/14 - CPU PM/Core i3/5/7 xxx (1st Generation)/Core 2 and
  earlier (below) v1.0 - 4/2/14: Initial Release

  Requirements

OS X/10.9.2 or newer
    Desktop/Laptop only
    Server, see Guide: Asus X79 OS X Controlled SpeedStep

Stock Clock
    Verify
    OC, use ./ssdtPRGen.sh -f freq flag

  Supported CPU/IGPU

Haswell/HD4600+ (Core i3/5/7 4xxx, 4th Generation)
Ivy Bridge/HD4000 (Core i3/5/7 3xxx, 3rd Generation)
Sandy Bridge/HD3000 (Core i3/5/7 2xxx, 2nd Generation)

  Native Mavericks Power Management Recipe

System Definition - match processor generation/desktop or laptop
ssdt - custom to installed processor
kext - native IOPlatformPlugin.kext

  Not considered

NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
Safe Mode boot (-x)
Discrete graphics


iOS 5.0.1 (iPhone 4s) unable to synchronize with Internet Calendar File (ics) I make use of an ics file that is hosted on my own iron on the Internet for various reasons, most importantly that I make use of Tasks, which Google Calendar is unable to synchronize with any WebCal client.

As for WebCal clients, I make use of Mozilla Sunbird on my main Windows workstation, Mozilla Lightning in my eMail clients, and iCal on my Mac laptop. I am able to use that single ics file to keep them all updated with not only events but also tasks (which, as I said, Google Calendar cannot do).

I host on my own iron. I run and operate my own servers under my own static IP address. I have a number of domain names pointing toward it, so it hosts web sites. I have created a single WebDav account in a directory on the “catch-all” http account (which is used to display a generic message if there is no website set up for that domain name). Any web browser or device is free to download the ics file, but the directory itself is password protected so that WebDav updates cannot be done by anyone except me.

All my WebCal clients can connect to the file, and can update it without fail, except the Calendar app on iOS/iPhone. iCal on Mac OS X 10.6 is also able to synchronize (read AND write to the file), so I know it isn’t an Apple-specific problem.

I am running a brand-new iPhone 4s, which is updated to the latest iOS 5.0.1. It is NOT jailbroken.

If I bring up the url in Safari using a standard http:// connection, it asks to import the entries -- but this is NOT what I want. I want to be able to synchronize with the ics file, and NOT just have a one-way import. I want to make entries in my Calendar app, and have the changes come up on my workstation under Mozilla Sunbird -- and that requires synchronization, not importation.

If I replace the http:// in Safari with webcal://, I get a “Cannot Subscribe. Could not subscribe to the calendar X from Y”.

If I go into Settings, go into “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” and add a new Subscribed Calendar, this also fails. Putting in the full url causes an error message, “Calendar Subscription: Unable to verify account information”. This is particularly confusing because my ics file is freely downloadable by ANY internet-connected client, be it web browser, WebCal client or anything else that can make use of an http connection. My iPhone is the first ever client that has been unable to access the file.

If I select OK I can put in some more information, but adding the username and password does nothing to improve the situation (SSL does not exist on my server, and is turned off by default anyhow in these settings).

So I am very badly confused. I would like to have my iOS Calendar synchronize itself with my Internet-hosted ics file so that I can make both events as well as tasks on my iPhone and have these items show up on any other device that I have a WebCal client set up on. How do I go around doing this?

Same issue for me.

A workaround is to copy paste the http:....\file.ics to your Safari, then the process works. But it's not user-friendly; I also want to tap on the link in my email, and then have it automatically update my calendar.


Removing Files from iTunes Media? I noticed that I have well over 100 songs in the iTunes Media folder that are NOT in my actual iTunes. These would be songs that were loaded into iTunes then deleted because I didn't like them, want them, whatever. They are taking up hard drive space and I want to flush them out w/o having to go into each and every single folder and finding the songs that are not in my iTunes. I would have to sort through over 6,000 files to do that. There has to be an easier way! Thank you!

I wanted to add that I am using a PC (Windows 7) and not a MAC.

One of the many useful scripts in Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes is Music Folder Files Not Added, which will do exactly what you're looking for. Just download and run it, and it will give you a list of all files in your iTunes folders that aren't in the library.


Drifting mouse cursor I have a Mac Book Retrina Pro.
My mouse seems to drift to the right of screen all by itself. It doesn't matter if I am using the track pad, a bluetooth mouse or a USB external mouse (or no mouse at all).

It makes it very hard to scroll using the scroll bar arrows, because the mouse drifts while clicking.

How can I fix this?

I have searched on Google, but all the threads are from 2011. The consensus was then it was a software issue, but of course the OS is different now (I am using 10.11.2)

Did you try disabling the Trackpad? One of my colleagues had this exact problem, and found out that it's actually an issue with the trackpad.


How to create a simple keyboard macro with Automator? How can I use the built in tool, Automator (rather than a 3rd party app), to create a simple keyboard macro?

For example, I want it to press Cmd-Shift Left, then Cmd-U, then Right, etc.

I tried using the record feature to create this macro, but ran into several problems.

The first is that it's copying my mouse events after I press record and as I go into the application I want to run the macro on. For example, in this case I want to run it in Chrome. I ended up deleting the first few steps which involved launching chrome. The reason I deleted them is because I don't want it to be limited to a specific application, and I think that it just adds to the complexity if it tries activating an application. I want it to stick with running keyboard commands only.

The second problem is that I'm not sure how to initiate the keyboard macro. Do I save the recorded file? Where to? How do I invoke the macro once I am in Chrome? Is there a way to assign a keyboard shortcut to it?

If you don't want to use any third party apps you are really complicating your life. Although I think it's possible.

1) Open Automator and create a new Service. In your workflow you want to Run Applescript. In there you tell it to press the keys you want.

Once you save it as a Service you can then set up a keyboard shortcut for it in System Preferences. It should automatically show up under the General group. Make sure it's enabled and give it a keyboard shortcut.

I have gotten this to work by testing the Show history function Cmd-Y. Hopefully the above isn't too cryptic.

If you want to set global shortcuts and run scripts you might want to look at BetterTouchTool: http://blog.boastr.net/


Can all music and playlists/ratings be transferred back from an iPod Touch to a PC? How can I get my songs from my iPod Touch to my PC?

Some of the songs were purchased through iTunes, and others were ripped from CDs.

This is what happened:

The iPod Touch was set up to sync with my PC via iTunes, so my PC had all of the music on it.
The PC got infected with viruses and the computer needed to be formatted.
The music is now only on the iPod Touch and not on the PC.

Is there any way I can get my songs back to the PC from my iPod Touch (or iPad or iPhone since they all run iOS)?

Try SharePod:

  Change
  Add and remove music, videos, playlists and artwork on your
  iPod.

  Backup
  Backup all those tracks you just can't lose onto your computer.
  Import them automatically into your
  iTunes library.

  Share
  SharePod can run straight from the iPod itself, so you can use
  it at work, school, home - wherever
  you and your iPod are.


Purchasing Apple Mac Software: Options Available to the Consumer? With regards to purchasing Apple Mac Software:

Is the Majority of Software available for the Mac now available for purchase from the Mac App Store ? Are there Pros & Cons to Mac App Store purchasing ?
Do people still purchase directly from the company website that created the software as an electronic download - I understand most companies offer a free trial (usually 30 days)
Do people still buy "boxed software" from retail outlets and online retail stores ?

If the software is available via all these routes and maybe purchased in other ways, is there a recommended (instinctive) way or do people just go through the above options and see which turns out to be the cheapest ?

Thankyou

Is the Majority of Software available for the Mac now available for
  purchase from the Mac App Store ? Are there Pros & Cons to Mac App
  Store purchasing?

I don't know exactly how you would compile those numbers, or if Apple even releases numbers for the Mac App Store, so it's difficult to say how the "majority" is sold.

As for pros and cons, probably the biggest pro is Mac App Store purchases can be used on any number of Macs that you own (see Apple's FAQ); you don't need to buy additional licenses for each machine as long as it's for personal use. Also, updates are delivered through the store, so you get a notification when updates are available.

Installing from the Mac App Store is also presumably more secure because Apple has tested and approved all apps before making them available (and can revoke an app developer's certificate, which is a benefit assuming a rogue app sneaks through, but could also be a negative if they abuse that ability).

  Do people still purchase directly from the company website that
  created the software as an electronic download - I understand most
  companies offer a free trial (usually 30 days)

Well, sure, why not? There's no requirement that all apps have to go through the Mac App Store. However, the Mac App Store does not offer trials, so you'll need to purchase directly from the developer if you want a trial (assuming they offer one).

  Do people still buy "boxed software" from retail outlets and online
  retail stores ?

Again, sure, of course you can if you want.

  If the software is available via all these routes and maybe purchased
  in other ways, is there a recommended (instinctive) way or do people
  just go through the above options and see which turns out to be the
  cheapest?

I'd say the Mac App Store is the easiest and most straightforward option for most users, since it's integrated right into OS X and updates are delivered automatically.


Increase Activity monitor update frequency to less than a second I want to use the "CPU history" to monitor how some program uses the CPU, but the update frequency of "very often (1 sec)" is not fast enough for me. The changes I want to observe happen in less than a second (I am thinking of 0,1 second).

I would appreciate if someone can tell me if it is possible to go beyond 1 second. Or if there are any other tools that offer faster updates plus a graphical view of the cpu usage history.

I have found a few options:

Menumeters, says its incompatible with 10.11 due to code signing restrictions
XRG, an open source Mac resource monitor
Stater, $4.99, available on Mac App Store
Monity, $2.99, great if you want it in Notification Center
iStat Menus, $18, tends to be the most popular
System Monitor, $4.99, sits in menu bar.


dnsmasq not working on Mac OS Sierra I'm running dnsmasq on a 2016 MBP running Mac OS Sierra (10.12.1) but I'm unable to ping any .dev addresses despite having what I believe is the proper config. Running dig does return sane output.

/usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

resolv-file=/usr/local/etc/resolv-dnsmasq.conf
address=/.dev/127.0.0.1

/etc/resolver/dev

nameserver 127.0.0.1

/usr/local/etc/resolv-dnsmasq.conf

nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4

My DNS server list in System Preferences has only one entry pointing to 127.0.0.1.

When I run dig on a .dev address I get the following output:

; <<>> DiG 9.11.0-P1 <<>> test.dev
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 36126
;; flags: qr aa rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;test.dev.          IN  A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
test.dev.       0   IN  A   127.0.0.1

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Mon Dec 19 23:13:20 PST 2016
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 42

I'm able to load external sites like google.com perfectly but if I try accessing a local web server or even pinging a .dev address it fails.

Help would be appreciated!

Your dnsmasq daemon isn't properly configured.

Your external resolver is working: all queries to non-dev hosts/domains are forwarded to 3rd-party DNS servers with the resolv-file=/usr/local/etc/resolv-dnsmasq.conf line - in your case the configured file contains two public Google DNS servers.

Your internal resolver doesn't resolve internal names though.

The line address=/.dev/127.0.0.1 or better address=/dev/127.0.0.1 will redirect any *.dev query to the host 127.0.0.1. An internal resolver is not needed then and the internal name server defined in /etc/resolver/dev is useless.

Compare this with the example in the dnsmasq.conf file:

# Add domains which you want to force to an IP address here.
# The example below send any host in double-click.net to a local
# web-server.
#address=/double-click.net/127.0.0.1

Any query for *.double-click.net will be redirected to 127.0.0.1 and to an arbitrary website served at localhost.

I strongly recommend to define a hosts.config file and enter/define all necessary hosts there:

Add a line addn-hosts=/usr/local/etc/hosts/hosts.conf in dnsmasq.conf. Then add a folder with sudo mkdir /usr/local/etc/hosts and create a file hosts.conf

sudo nano /usr/local/etc/hosts/hosts.conf

with the following content:

127.0.0.1   localhost
127.0.0.1   test.dev
127.0.0.1   test2.dev
...

After saving the file reload your dnsmasq daemon.

If you want to use different IPs for your host names e.g.:

127.0.0.1   localhost
127.0.0.2   test.dev
127.0.0.3   test2.dev
...

you'd have to add additional IPs with:

sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.2 up
sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.3 up
...


Time machine : Using small SSD for frequent update + HDD for slower schedule I have a few SSDs of small capacities which I'd like to put to work, and imagined they could be useful for frequent backups.

At the same time my time capsule HDD stopped working after 5 years of duty.

Which leaves me wondering : Is there a way to indicate this kind of backup hierarchy where frequent change would be picked up by SSD, in order to :

be very fast
save strain on the HDD

in a way that, should one SSD fails, only the incremental changes would be lost, the weekly/slower moving backup would still be on HDD.

Yes, you can use multiple disks.  No, you can't specify a different set of backup targets by disk and they all get all data, so your smallest disk needs to accomodate all data.

Though, you might be able to backup a full Time Machine config, alter it to trim out big volume directories, back up to SSD, restore full backup configs, backup to HDD, repeat.  Seems more work than worth it.

And what happens if you run the small backup on your HDD by mistake?  Will Time Machine try to reclaim space on things that it doesn't see as needing backup?

A quick and dirty rsync script to copy critical stuff to SSDs might work better.


How to reset a Seagate FreeAgent Go Mac External Hard drive to use with a new Mac? I have a 500 GB external hard drive that I want to use with my new Mac (OS X Yosemite). I simply want to clear the external drive of everything that was on my old Mac (I don't want to transfer any files) and start from scratch. How would I go about doing this? Seagate doesn't address this question on their site and they have not responded to my inquiry.

When I attempt to erase using Disk Utility I get this error message:

  Disk Erase failed with the error:
  Couldn’t unmount disk.

Boot into the Recovery HD by holding ⌘R on boot and use Disk Utility on there. This way you can guarantee the disk is not being accessed and can be unmounted successfully.


Notational velocity on the Mac, notes.app in iOS With the introduction of the iPhone 4S and Siri I really want to stick with notes.app on the iPhone. However I greatly prefer notational velocity on my Mac to using mail.app.

Other recommendations I've seen thus far has suggested using notational velocity on the Mac in conjunction with a third-party application for ios such a simple note or plaintext. Because of the native notes apps system level integration with the iPhone 4S and Siri I want to stick with notes.app on my iPhone while still syncing back to my computer and being able to use notational velocity

Anybody know of a way to do this? If not, let's try and come up with one as I imagine it would be useful for many people with the new iPhone 4S.

UPDATE: I bit the bullet and started using Mail.app for notes on my computer. It sucks, but is worth the price to be able to quickly add to and create new notes using Siri. Hopefully some solution to this will come along.

I use Notational Velocity and Simplenote apps on iPhone and iPad and the Simplenote web site as well and while I see you want to stick with Apple's notes.app I think you'll find Simplenote excellent, maybe better. I've been using it as long as it's been out and it's stable, simple, and has always worked for me.

If Apple mated the Notes app with something on the Mac I might never have tried Simplenote but it's cumbersome as you say to have to use Mail to deal with notes. Notational Velocity's integration with Simplenote is probably what you're looking for.

Simplenote is free, give it a go.


How to render only first page in PDF as image and then resize? I've really stuck on how to do this, I thought it would be easy, but maybe not!

I want to create a small thumbnail image from the first page of a pdf in automator so I can batch convert a load of them at once. Is that possible? If so, what actions do I need to set up?

Since there is no way to extract a single page from a PDF in Automator, you can try with this Python script. It will extract the first page of each passed pdf in a temporary pdf file:

#! /usr/bin/python
#
import sys
import os
import tempfile
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import *
from os.path import splitext
from os.path import basename
from os.path import join

def createPDFDocumentWithPath(path):
    return CGPDFDocumentCreateWithURL(CFURLCreateFromFileSystemRepresentation(kCFAllocatorDefault, path, len(path), False))

def main(argv):

    for input_pdf_filename in argv:
        doc = createPDFDocumentWithPath(input_pdf_filename)
        page_one = CGPDFDocumentGetPage(doc, 1)
        mediaBox = CGPDFPageGetBoxRect(page_one, kCGPDFMediaBox)
        if CGRectIsEmpty(mediaBox):
            mediaBox = None

        file_name, extension = splitext(basename(input_pdf_filename))
        output_path = join(tempfile.gettempdir(), file_name + "_page1" + extension)
        writeContext = CGPDFContextCreateWithURL(CFURLCreateFromFileSystemRepresentation(kCFAllocatorDefault, output_path, len(output_path), False), None, None)
        CGContextBeginPage(writeContext, mediaBox)
        CGContextDrawPDFPage(writeContext, page_one)
        CGContextEndPage(writeContext)
        CGPDFContextClose(writeContext)
        del writeContext

        print output_path

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(sys.argv[1:])

You can put it as a Run Shell Script step in an Automator workflow, similar to what @Graham Miln suggested:

Be sure to set Pass Input to as arguments, not to to stdin in the Run Shell Script step.


In iPhone and iPad use, where does the space usage come from? iPhones and iPads come with varying amounts of space available; iPads offer powers of two from 16G to 128G and the price difference between them offers a substantial amount of other software and services one could afford by saving money on hardware.

What space usage motivates the usage? If there's a 90% full iPad at any amount of storage, what does the bulk of the usage come from? (I'd imagine media like music, photo and video shooting, etc but would rather hear from experts with some experience) Perhaps this is just careful developers at work, but you can get a lot of apps and still see very little space being used so I don't see why I would need anything more than 16 GB with my level of experience.

I'm looking for people with experience running an iOS device at more than 75% full for several months to explain what they've learned and perhaps explain whether they can live with the devices they initially bought or how they would take their current experience to select a new device.

My 64GB iPhone has several hundred apps on it, mostly games, about 9GB of photos/personal videos, 3GB of music, and ~5GB of free space right now. I do have to prune from time to time but it's not too bad.

My 32GB iPad on the other hand...I really wish I had bought the 64GB (the largest at the time). I am constantly having to juggle what games/apps are on there, and that's really what's taking the majority of the space. iPad-specific apps can get huge...even universal apps can. I've seen several 1GB+ games, and have a bunch that are in the 250MB to 500MB range. I have only a fraction of my photo library on there, and no music or videos to speak of.

I am excited by the idea of a 128GB iPhone possibly being introduced Tuesday, and when I have saved for a new iPad I will get at least the 64GB model.


How do I turn off App Store notifications in Mountain Lion The App Store on Mountain Lion pushes update notifications through Notification Center. Unfortunately, this also happens for users that are not system administrators (and so cannot run the App Store). How can I turn this off?

Notification Center has preferences, where applications can be vetted, but App Store does not appear in this list.

You can now simply go to System Preferences > App Store, and turn off "Automatically check for updates."

No messing with firewalls, and just works with App Store. So just remember to check every now and then manually to find out when you have updates!


How to use MacOS Notes "Note List Search..." to search non-deleted notes only? I use "Note List Search..." and it's great. However, it searches through deleted notes as well and I sometimes I get confused. Is there a way to search only non-deleted notes?

This applies both to MacOS and iOS.

Which of these is possible:

Disable indexing of deleted notes somehow.
Make notes disappear on delete instead of going to Deleted folder.
Have one command for searching through non-deleted notes and another for searching all notes (including deleted).
Clearly mark deleted notes from non-deleted in the results (with different colors perhaps).

It is not currently possible to search only undeleted notes without either emptying the Recently Deleted folder, or without locking all the notes you've deleted.

Recently Deleted folder

Deleted notes are placed in the Recently Deleted folder and, by default they will remain there for 30 days before they are automatically deleted. This applies to both macOS and iOS. So, if you manually delete them from there it will solve the problem, as they don't still exist to be searched.

However, if you don't want empty the Recently Deleted folder, another option is locking your notes.

Locking notes

By locking notes you will prevent them from being searchable. However, while the contents of these notes do not appear in search results, the titles of these notes will.

You can lock any notes so long as they're not already in the Recently Deleted folder. So one option would be to lock your notes prior to deleting them.

To lock notes:

Select the individual note you want to lock (you cannot lock more than one at a time)
Click on the padlock icon in the toolbar
Select the Lock This Note option
Enter your password (Note: If you've never used this feature before you will need to create a password. Once this is set, this will be the password you use to lock/unlock all notes in future.)
You will now see a padlock icon next to the title of your note. Initially it will be unlocked.
You can now lock the selected note by either clicking on the padlock icon in the toolbar or opening the note and clicking on the padlock icon in the notes toolbar.

Once locked, the contents of the note is unsearchable (although the title itself is still searched). This will be the case whether you now delete the note or not.

Below is more general info about searching notes.

Within macOS

In the Notes Help pages there's a page titled Search for notes.

From this page, is the following info:

  You can search for specific text in all your notes, notes in a specific account, or in a single note. Your search finds matching text in the body of notes and in the file names of attachments. Your search also finds matching text in text files (such as Pages documents and PDFs) that you’ve attached to your notes. If you’ve locked a note, only the title text appears in the results.

Also included are these tips:

Search: Enter text in the search field.
Search in a specific account: Click a folder in the account you want
to search, click in the search field, click the magnifying glass ,
then choose Current Account.
Search in all accounts: Click in the search field, click the
magnifying glass , then choose All Accounts.
Find text in a note: Click the body of a note to add an insertion
point, then choose Edit > Find > Find (or press Command-F). Enter text in the search field that appears.

If you're using macOS Sierra, you can also use Siri to search your notes.

Ask Siri something like: “Show me notes from today”, or “Show me notes about vacation plans”.

Source: Notes > Help > Notes Help and select the Search for notes page.

Within iOS

Assuming you're using iOS 10, its Note app introduced some major enhancements.

From the Use Notes on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch page on Apple's website:

  Search for a note or attachment

  Looking for that note you made last week, last month, or even last
  year? You can search for a specific note from the top of the Notes
  list. Scroll to the top of the Notes list to reveal the search field,
  then enter what you’re looking for. You can also search for
  attachments. Tap Attachments Browser icon in the lower-left corner to
  see sketches, photos, links, documents, and other attachments that
  you’ve added to your notes. To go to the note with the attachment,
  touch and hold the thumbnail of the attachment, then tap Show in Note.

And of course, you can use Siri (as I mentioned above) to search notes in iOS.


Archiving emails locally outside of Apple Mail/Server I'm migrating from two very old (the oldest from 2004) Gmail accounts to one iCloud Mail. Unfortunately both accounts have, together, around 30k uncategorised emails in their inbox, from which probably at least 70% could be deleted.
My goal is to have those email accounts completely empty and clean, and check them every once in a while in case something important (old acquaintance, etc.) pops up, or in case I use a service linked to that account (which I would change to my new email).
I gave up the idea of going through all 30k emails and picking up things that I might want to keep. I don't want to get rid of old emails of friends, family and other loved ones, so I'm looking for a solution to download the emails to my MacBook Pro (probably directly from Apple Mail) and store them in the hard disk in case I ever need to look for anything that might be of interest from the past, just feel nostalgic and want to go through old emails, or I happen to have the time and energy in the future to sort the emails out.
Is there any method you would recommend to export all emails and attachments and store them in a way that I can easily browse or search for keywords?
Thank you

You can add both Gmail accounts, wait for complete sync, and then

export each mailbox to your Desktop (or wherever you may want to on
your computer).
import the whole folder containing all the desired mailboxes to your Mail app.

You can then delete the synced accounts contents either on the Mail app or on the Gmail interface.
You'll end with a local backup of your accounts contents and two empty Gmail accounts synced to your Mail app.
You can skip step 2 if you DON'T want to have the contents of your old accounts available on your Mail app at the moment, and import them later on when you see fit. I'm afraid you won't be able to browse the contents of your backup (text or attachments) without first adding the whole mailbox to your Mail app.
You can also remove the old Gmail accounts from your Mail app if they start getting cluttered with spam (although you can teach Gmail what is spam by marking it as such on the Mail app interface or by dragging spam to the "Junk" folder.


Connecting non Apple monitor to Macbook Pro I'm planning to buy standard 13-inch MacBook Pro (2017) without Touch Bar or Touch ID features; I plan to use this for basic computing task and web development/programming.

Does connecting a monitor to MacBook Pro via display adapter lower the refresh rate, or should I just find a non apple monitor that has thunderbolt port? I don't want to have to deal with any performance issues while coding and compiling or render images/graphics in Adobe CC.

I'm very new to the whole Mac ecosystem, so all advice is appreciated.

Does connecting a monitor to MacBook Pro via display adapter lower the
  refresh rate,

Not necessarily.  It will only do so if you get an adapter/cable that doesn't conform to the latest specifications (i.e. it doesn't support 4K at 60Hz)

The best place to find what the MacBook Pro will support with respect to an external display is directly from Apple:

  Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display
  at millions of colors and:

  One display with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors
  Up to two displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz at millions of colors
  Up to two displays with 3840-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors

As for what monitor to get, the best advice is to get one that a) works with you and your workflow and b) has a DisplayPort/mini DisplayPort interface.  This way, you don't have to convert from the DisplayPort signal that is natively on your MacBook Pro.  All you will need is a USB-C to DisplayPort cable to connect


iPhone accidentally engages FaceTime during call This has happened to me twice recently: I have been on a call when all of a sudden I can hear the other person on loudspeaker, at which point I take the phone away from my face and observe that my face (assumably) has accidentally pressed the FaceTime button.

Is this a known issue and is there a way to prevent this from happening in the future?

This is a known issue. Apple addressed it in IOS 4.1 beta 2. Until it gets released, the simplest thing to do is talk using your headset and lock the screen (note that for some reason Apple removed the screen lock functionality without the headset).


MX Master continuously unpairing itself I have an issue with my Logitech MX Master mouse continuously fail to reconnect when I get back to my desk. I have to press the connect button on the bottom of the mouse and pair it. This is getting annoying as I have to do this on a daily basis. Is there any way to make the mouse pair once and not have to worry about it again?

Thanks!

EDIT:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
OS X 10.11.6 (Cannot update due to macOS issues with Airwatch)
Logitech Options 6.30.48 (shows no new options)
Mouse 11.00.0012

EDIT 2:
This is getting nuts

Without knowing what macOS version you're running, have you ensured that you have the latest version of the Logitech Control Centre installed?

The most recent update was only released a few weeks ago. You can read more or download it from here.

If the update and info doesn't help, report back with the version of macOS you're running and the model of your Mac.

[EDIT]

Since we've established your Mac supports Bluetooth Smart technology, which the MX Master needs if connecting via Bluetooth instead of USB, I see you have three options open to you:

contact Logitech Support directly;
connect the MX Master via USB cable instead; and,
resolve the issue preventing your upgrade to macOS Sierra.

On the 3rd point, according to this you should be fine to upgrade to macOS Sierra if using Airwatch. Perhaps it would be worth you asking a separate question about this? You may find resolving that also resolves your MX Master issue, since you'd be able to install the latest version of the Logitech Control Centre.


How can I open a specific port on OS X 10.11.13 I am currently working with msfvenom on OS X. But I wanted to know, the terminal commands to open a specific port say for example 4444. Can someone please help me out with this?

You can use the terminal command nc -l 4444 to create a server that listens on port 4444.  However, I think your question really is about opening a port on your router.  If someone else out on the internet somewhere is trying to connect to you on port 4444, the router you have acts as a boundary between you and them, and most often all incoming ports by default are closed.  So even if you run a server on your Mac and it's listening on port 4444, traffic on that port needs to be allowed through at the router level.

Please give us more info so we can help you.


Turn on iCloud Photo Library without creating duplicates or zombies I turned on Photo Library on my iPhone and uploaded everything, now I want to enable on my Mac. Is it going to duplicate all the photos that I've already uploaded from my iPhone to the Mac?

What about photos that I deleted on my iPhone because I don't want them anymore, but they were already saved on my Mac? Is there any way to make sure those are not uploaded to iCloud from my Mac?

More details: I have been using Photos on iOS and Mac for years, and now I want to use iCloud Photo Library to reduce iPhone storage space and still have access to my entire library

I had Photo Stream enabled, but since that doesn't support Live Photos or Videos I would periodically manually upload by plugging my iPhone in to my Mac.

So I have:

Photos on my Mac only, not taken on an iPhone
Photos and videos on both Mac and iPhone
Photos uploaded from iPhone to Mac that have since been deleted only from iPhone (don't want these)

Any ideas? Thanks.

In theory, it will detect all the duplicates on your Mac and not upload them. I suspect, but don’t actually know, that a photo on your Mac that you’ve previously deleted from iCloud Photo Library by deleting from your iPhone is going to get uploaded again. One thing you might want to do is create some albums on your iPhone and your Mac that you can use to look at what happened. For example, if one album has all your Mac photos in it while another has all your iPhone photos in it, after the upload completes, you can create an intelligent album of all the photos that were on the Mac but not on the iPhone during the time period that you took your iPhone photos. Those are likely to be the ones you deleted. Photos in Recently Deleted might get picked up as already deleted. Or maybe the engineers were super clever and have a checksum log of every deletion ever made.

Also, when you enable iPL on the Mac, iCloud is going to want you to have sufficienct space available to add every photo on the Mac (since it doesn’t know about dups yet) so you may need to increase the amount of space you are buying. You can reduce your plan after it’s completed if you don’t actually need the space.

The reconciliation can be a long process (days or even weeks) depending on the size of your library, the speed of your Mac, and the speed of your connection. It doesn’t actually upload duplicates, it just does some kind of a checksum comparison to detect them.


How to back up iPhone / iPad without PC or iCloud? Are there ways besides iCloud or using a computer with iTunes to back up data on your iPhone or iPad?
One way seems to be a USB flash drive with a lightning connector... But is that just for photos and not other data like internet bookmarks, notes, etc.?

I'd say… No.

The backup structure would require some kind of 'smart' object at the other end.
You cannot just connect a storage medium & push data to it. It is just not designed that way.


How to get rid of ‘Other’ in storage My iPhone does not have that much space left, so I went into storage and it seems this Other is taking up a lot of space and I’m wondering how I can minimise this. I know there is another question exactly like this, but from what I can tell it doesn’t seem relevant to iOS 11 (which is what I’m on).

Either offload apps, or just delete unused apps. "Other" is the internal storage from apps, so offloading apps technically removes them.

Unless you just want to free up space, then do that or delete photos. A lot of videos and pictures takes up lots of storage.


How to assign mouse button to Mission Control's 'Application windows' feature? I have a button on the side of my mouse that Mission Control sees as Mouse Button 4.

In Mission Control's preferences, I can assign this button to either 'Show Desktop', 'Mission Control' or 'Show Dashboard'.

All three of these works fine, but if I try to map it to 'Application windows' the mouse button doesn't respond.

I'm able to bring up 'Application windows' using the keyboard shortcuts though.

My new iMac is 2 days old, so it's on fresh and up to date macOS Sierra. Same problem on my brand new MacBook, again with macOS Sierra.

Is the mouse shortcut just broken for this? Can anyone else reproduce it?

[Updated] My mouse is a Logitech G400 Optical Gaming Mouse. I've since installed the Logitech driver software, which also allows you to assign a button to Mission Control (which I did, and then unassigned it from system prefs).

This doesn't work properly either, but rather than not responding, all windows move a couple of pixels and then revert back to their original position. Almost like its trying to invoke Mission Control but something is aborting it. I can map the buttons to any other feature and it works fine

I use a Logitech MX Master Mouse with my iMac and instead of using the included software, I use a product called ControllerMate.

In it, I created a workflow that

detects the lower mouse button to show all desktops
issues a CommandQ to quit
issues a CommandW to close

You can have it send any command/text that you want and I have found it much easier and more reliable than the Logitech software.

In your case, I would assign a keyboard shortcut to Mission Control, then have ControllerMate intercept the mouse button press and then send the keyboard shortcut.

ControllerMate is free for up to 5 building blocks and then $25 for a full license.  (I personally got the full license so I could program my buttons and a second Logitech keyboard for "quick macros"


How do I turn up the brightness on my MacBook without being able to see the screen or use shortcuts? The screen brightness keys stopped working on my MacBook. So I went to preferences to turn down the brightness. I accidentally turned down the brightness all the way and I can't see my screen.

I ended up using a flashlight to see enough of the screen to turn the slider up. After thinking about it I realized I could have plugged in an external monitor as well.


Do sideloaded iOS apps get permissions without asking? Apple allows anyone with the source code of an app to sideload it onto their iOS device using Xcode.

If I sideload an app onto my iOS device, will it have access to information that a normal app would ask for(ex:location, contacts, photos)? Will it still ask for permission to use my data?

Yes, it will still ask for permission. Just as if you had downloaded it from the store, it will fail to access your camera, contacts, notifications unless you grant permission.

This is important for developers, because it helps ensure that they catch any bugs where they don't ask when they are testing on their devices.  Apps loaded from Xcode follow the same rules in this regard as apps from the App Store.


Wifi much slower after security software download I recently downloaded a vpn and security software (Avast security and windscribe vpn), but my wifi dropped significantly from about 150 mb/s to ~50 mb/s, sometimes much slower.

Even after I deleted the two softwares, my wifi is still at about 50. What can I do to make it go back to normal speeds? I initially thought it had something to do with the mac firewall, but I'm not so sure.
Thanks

UPDATE

never mind, the problem seemed to fix itself somehow. wifi is now back to normal and full functioning

Uninstall both would be my recommendation.

a vpn can send all traffic elsewhere so that has to be slower than letting you unfettered access to sites by the fastest route.
Mac security software generally opens you up to more vulnerabilities then they patch and slow you down as well.


Stop high frequency noise from iPhone dock's line out in car adapter I am running an iPhone 4S through a Griffin TuneFlex 9865. After just discovering the line out jack I have helped uncovered another problem. Now, while then engine is on there is a high frequency buzz aka alternator whine, that varies pitch based on the engine RPM. Are there anyways to stop the high frequency noise, or at least reduce it. I  think my volume level is quite low from the line out, and is requiring me to turn the radio volume up much louder near maximum, which might be revealing the issue. How can I fix this? Do I need an amplifier?

You're discovering the joys of noisy electrical grids in cars.

  Do I need an amplifier?

Nope. You need a filter.

And filtering noisy car electricity is...tricky. You can't just create new, separate paths to ground because there aren't a lot of choices for where ground is in a car.

You can try putting a simple choke filter on the line between your player and the input to the stereo. That's the cheapest and easiest way to try and fix the problem. Something like this is sufficient.

If that doesn't cut the noisy you need to filter the power. Finding one of those car DC to AC inverters with a built-in USB port is likely your best bet. Something like this is what I'd suggest you try if the choke doesn't help.


Ipod touch 5 stuck on voice over when restarted I recently reset my ipod touch 5 and left it for the next day. When I turned it on the next day it somehow got on voice over mode and I can't swipe the screen without it speaking. What do I do?


Can't post via notification center I have integrated both twitter and facebook account to my macbook-pro. I am getting notifications perfectly. The only problem I have is that I can't post via notification center. There're 2 buttons Click to post, one each for twitter and facebook, which used to work fine previously. Now suddenly they stopped responding. When I click on them nothing happens. I can see click animation(pushing of button), but it does nothing, no edit area to post my updates, nothing at all.

How can I get the functionality back?

Solved following this guide. You simply have to kill the notification center process.

http://n8henrie.com/2012/08/fix-click-to-tweet-in-mountain-lion-notification-center/


SysAdmin account shows at login, but doesn't work and is not listed in Users & Groups When I start my MacBook Air (Mojave), I see the correct list of accounts from which to choose.

If I choose my SysAdmin account, it accepts the password correctly, the horizontal progress bar advances to the end and then it redisplays the login screen with the list of available accounts - but MINUS the SysAdmin account.

If I logon with another account which has admin privileges and look in Users & Groups, I see all the accounts listed, minus the non-functioning SysAdmin account. I see the same list of accounts in Users & Groups, with no SysAdmin account listed, if I don't try to logon to the SysAdmin account first.

I have created a new Administration account (with a slightly different name), which works fine.

How do I remove the non-working SysAdmin account from the account list that appears when I start my Mac, as I can't find a way to see it in the User & Groups list?

Many thanks !

YES !!!!
I got it. I used Directory Services.

Full details are here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203513

I summarise below, in the unlikely case the link disappears:

Log in with a user account you want to keep.
Press Command-Space to open Spotlight.
Type Directory Utility and press Return.
If the lock  in the lower-left corner of the Directory Utility window is closed, click it and enter an admin user's name and password.
Click Directory Editor in the Directory Utility window's toolbar.
Choose Users from the Viewing pop-up menu.
From the list on the left side of the Directory Utility window, select the user that you want to remove. The name you select should be identical to the name shown in the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences when that user is logged in.
Click “-“ in the lower-left corner of the Directory Utility window.
Verify that the selected user is the one that you want to be removed, then click the Delete button.

After you remove the user account, you can delete its folder:

In the menu bar, choose Go > Go to Folder, type /Users, and then press Return.
Drag the folder for the account you just removed into the Trash.
Choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the folder and its contents.

Problem solved.


Permissions on library files Since Migration Assistant blew up while moving to my new Mac, I've had continuing problems with permissions throughout the system.

I believe the problem is that the Apps can't save into my Library. I have only two permissions across my entire Home folder tree, me read-write and everyone read-only. I seem to be the owner for every file.

Can someone out there poke about in their Library and similar folders and see if this is the same? I suspect that either a group needs write permission, or that some of the files are not supposed to be owned by me.

Ok, just in case this comes up again, maybe I'll find my own answer :-)

The problem is that modern versions of OS X apply new permissions seemingly at random when problems are encountered. In this case, the OS added a third permission to everything below the home folder, and the permission was "everyone (custom)". Opening it, I found it disallowed writes by me to my own folder.

Suggestions for others; pick a file at random, maybe in your documents, and Get Info. Look at permissions - the first line should be "me", and is likely broken otherwise. Also check the enclosing folder for same.


What methods can be used to find hidden options in OSX softwares? I was wondering what methods can be used to find hidden options in OSX software.

I regularly stumble upon hidden options that can be added in the .plist preferences files (using defaults write), but do other methods exist to identify options?  Perhaps there is a way to get an App to display it's options other than manual digging around?

It involves a lot of trial and a lot of error, but you can be helped along in the process by running the strings command against the binary for application, directing the results to a file, and then reading that output looking for hyphenated or InnerCapitalizedWords that might suggest a  candidate for a hidden preference.

Rob Griffeths wrote an article at MacWorld that gives some helpful suggestions for finding hidden preferences.


How to use previous iTunes icon? I'm have a MacBook Pro (x86_64) with OS X 10.8.5 (fully patched). When I got the MBP, the iTunes icon was a cool blue icon.

Recently, Apple changed it to red. The psychologist tell us red indicates anger, defiance and hostility, and its a bad color. Its why USAir changed their color scheme from the shades of red to shades of grey. I did not like red, but I did not feel compelled to move.

I got updates this week (July, 2015), and Apple changed the icon again:

I despise that cartoony look, and now I am compelled to move. That cartoony look is one of the reason I have held back from OS X 10.9 upgrade for my personal equipment (and even one of the reasons to abstain from iOS upgrades). This is a personal preference, and I understand only a subset of folks feel the same way.

I've been through iTunes preferences, but I don't see a way to change the icons.

How do I change the iTunes icons? Or how do I use the previous, blue icon?

Related, other reasons to abstain from the upgrade includes all the untested features and broken features that got added to 10.9. Quod erat demonstrandum: iCloud Keychain and CVE-2015-1065. My keychain was never at risk through this vector, and it was a conscious decision to avoid the risk.

There are many ways to do this. Here are a few...

IMO The best way is to replace the actual AppName.icns file with the one from the older version, in this case it's: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/iTunes.icns

Select the application bundle and control-click (right-click) > Show Package Contents, then navigate to the AppName.icns file shown in the pathname above.  Note:  After replacing the AppName.icns file one may need to run killall Finder in a Terminal to force the updated AppName.icns file to show properly everywhere.  If it's not showing properly in the Dock afterwards run killall Dock in a Terminal.

Another way is to paste an image into the App's Info Sheet after selecting its icon at the top left of the Info Sheet.  Select the application bundle then control-click (right-click) > Get Info or  ⌘ -I.

Or use a third-party app that can assign an new image/icon to the application bundle.


Will my A1549 iPhone work in Japan & Philippines? I have an unlocked "T-mobile" iPhone 6, model A1549. Next month I'm visiting Japan and the Philippines, and I'm trying to figure out if I'll be able to get away with pre-paid SIM cards or if I'm going to have to lug around rented Wi-Fi hotspots.

According to Apple, it won't work in either places.

https://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

But according to this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks#Asia

It seems that at least some bands are supported, like au does bands 1 and 18, Docomo does 1 and 19, and Softbank does 1 as well. In the Phillipines things look a little better with all three of Smart's bands (5,3,1) showing up as supported.

If that's the case then I'm confused why Apple only lists the A1586 as being compatible with the Philippines. Can anyone with more experience chime in?

Even if LTE doesn't work where you are traveling, the iPhone 6 model A1549 will work on the following 2G/3G/4G network frequencies.

UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29)

Your phone is unlocked, so any carrier's SIM card will work and you can connect to WiFi to download the latest carrier settings that will properly configure the radio for all deployed cell towers and frequencies that the handset can communicate with.

So, your question basically boils down to picking a price point and picking a specific carrier with coverage where you actually will be traveling. The good news is you can get a cheap SIM or two and then pick the one that works best to reload data and minutes once you know more about the conditions on the ground when you arrive.

My experience is the specifications are very conservative and you end up getting better/faster/more LTE coverage than is advertised as every carrier that can support iPhones gets more revenue from travelers even if the handsets in that country are sold primarily the device that speaks all the frequencies of the A1549 as well as it's own. I would love to be in on the marketing and engineering talks that led up to choosing models, but can only guess being on the outside of Apple.


Does macOS show battery health for third-party replacement batteries? My late 2013 13" retina MacBook Pro's battery is on its last legs, and I need to replace it soon.  I'm thinking of buying a replacement battery kit from iFixit, and I'm wondering if macOS will be able to show battery health (as in the image below) for the new battery, considering that it'll be a third-party battery.  Can anyone let me know about this?

The batteries I have used from iFixit do show the battery health and work functionally the same as the apple battery.  I have yet to be disappointed in my purchases from iFixit.


Delete things from $PATH I fiddled with my $PATH and now it's not working correctly anymore. So I thought, well, just remove the last things I added. However, I can't seem to figure out how.
I added things like so

export MAGICK_HOME="/Library/ImageMagick-6.7.5/"
export PATH="$MAGICK_HOME/bin:$PATH"
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MAGICK_HOME/lib/"

I do not have the files ~/.bash_login or ~/.profile or /etc/environment. I can't find the mentioned strings in /etc/path or /etc/bashrc. I don't know a command except export, that manipulates the $PATH.

How do I get rid of these strings? (And, if it's obvious to you, what did I mess up?)

If you just typed in the  exports into the terminal as noted above then the variables in the environment will only last until you exit that terminal session. So simply typing exit and then reopening another terminal will remove any setting that you applied with the noted exports performed in your question.

export MAGICK_HOME="/Library/ImageMagick-6.7.5/"
export PATH="$MAGICK_HOME/bin:$PATH"
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$MAGICK_HOME/lib/"

Additionally you can un set variables from the environment by using the unset command.

For example:

unset MAGICK_HOME # will remove MAGICK_HOME from the environment.

You can do it for the others as well but if you do it for PATH you will lose your path setting until you close this terminal session and reopen a new window,etc.

As an experiment try typing:

env | grep MAGICK_HOME

You should see MAGICK_HOME=/Library/ImageMagick-6.7.5/ echoed back if its still in the environment. If its not then the settings have already been lost by a windows close. etc re-enter your export of MAGICK_HOME and try the above command again.

then

exit

and then finally re open a new terminal window and enter:

env | grep MAGICK_HOME

Your settings should be gone for MAGICK_HOME. The same is true for the modification done to all the other environment variables set with the export command right in a terminal session. They will just return to their default values if you have not set them in a start-up invocation file as required for your shell environment variables to have a more permanent place in your shell enviorment.


Creating a network larger than 200 IPs I'm using several AirPort Extremes to create a wireless network for a large amount of devices. One AirPort is advertised to support 50 devices, so I'm using 4 AirPorts currently for 200 devices.

My setup consists of 1 AirPort in DHCP and NAT mode, and the remaining AirPorts in Bridge mode.

Now, I'd like to extend the network capacity to 400-ish devices.

One issue I see is that AirPort Utility only supports setting DHCP ranges within a /24 subnet, meaning that there is a maximum of around 250 devices possible.

It is important that all devices share the same subnet, because the used application requires UDP broadcasts to communicate with other peers.

It is also important that roaming (i.e. moving around in the room and reconnecting to other base stations without disconnects) is possible. This works fine with my 4 AirPort setup so far.

What is the preferred way to create a larger than default subnet (e.g. /23) using Apple AirPort Extreme?

I would get an edge router and place your AirPort devices in bridge mode.

Ubiquiti makes a nice one - EdgeRouter X
TP Link makes a nice one - TL-R600VPN

AirPort does a lot of things right - it doesn't have enough horsepower to manage more than 256 addresses - so let it do the things it does well like manage Bonjour sleep proxy and get a router to do routing and DNS/DHCP. You get bonus QOS and VPN features on these edge routers that will help you manage access in and out. That many clients will kill your network connection upstream if you don't have visibility and controls.

In my opinion, Apple chose wisely to not enable more clients than its hardware can manage. There's no use case where I can see you being happy with 200+ clients being routed by Apple gear.


Why is my Mac slow after the OS X 10.10.3 update? I just installed OS X 10.10.3, and it is noticeably slower than 10.10.2. How can I figure out what's causing the slowness, and then how can I fix it?

Considering the limited information you provided, here are some generic steps.

Open the Activity Monitor (located in your Applications/Utilities Folder).

Sort by CPU and look who is the most active app in there.
Also take a look at your memory and your Disk activity.

Next open your Console log (also in your Applications/Utilities Folder) and look for repeating message.

Those two steps should give you some idea what is slowing it down.


Something very wrong with my macbook A few weeks ago I had a severe issue with my laptop, and posted a question here detailing my issue: Prohibition Sign and Can't Reinstall OS X

Today, a friend of mine was having very similar issues which prompted me to run First Aid using Disk Utility. The message I received was "First Aid found corruption that needs to be repaired" with instructions on how to do so. I then restarted my laptop, and lo and behold, it would load up partway and then just shut off. Restarting several times yielded the same results.

Booting into Recovery Mode once again didn't work -- no option to re-install & verify/repair disk on there was useless. Used Internet Recovery mode which proved just as useless. Booted into single user mode and ran "fsck -fy" like last time, except this time I kept receiving "The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely." along with Disk I/O errors.

Tried running several variations of fsck_hfs -r /dev/diskxsy to no avail -- kept getting Disk I/O errors & the messages "corruption was found and needs to be repaired."

By absolute dumb luck, I came across an obscure fix that worked: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23205771#23205771?ac_cid=tw123456%2323205771

I followed the instructions there and it finally worked. I immediately ran First Aid again, and received the exact same original error message. Obviously, I am terrified to restart my computer or try anything, so I'm at a loss at what to do, other than make a backup. My SMART status is Verified. Any help appreciated!

Based on your other question (which you seem to have posted from a different account) and the circumstances surrounding this one, I feel your hard drive is at very high risk of failure.

I would immediately make a full backup of your hard drive.

Once you've made the backup you should satisfy yourself that all of your most important files have been successfully backed up.

Then, as a minimum, I would do a full reformat of your internal hard drive. However, when you do so, don't pick the easy option. Instead click on Security Options and use the slider to choose how many times you want to write over the hard drive. No need to pick anything too high, just enough so it's not formatted in only seconds but instead writes over the entire hard drive.

I suspect that following this process will fail and you won't be able to securely erase the drive. If that's the case, it's time for you to replace the internal hard drive. This is not too difficult (I'd say about medium difficulty) and you can even choose to upgrade to a SSD if you want.

If, on the other hand, you can successfully securely erase the hard drive, then proceed to re-install your system from scratch. Afterwards you can restore your data from the backup you made (however, do not delete your backup).

Let us know how you go.


Add Spotlight Comments without tags on OS X Mavericks I would like to add comments to files or folders. On previous OS X versions, there would be a text field to add comments that become searchable via Spotlight.

Now, in OS X 10.9 Mavericks the text field now says 'Add Tags' instead of Comments. When I add text in there, it shows up system-wide. This is not ideal when I only want to tag a single folder with a unique phrase. Is there any way to get File Commenting back?

Turns out, commenting is still there, just hidden a little. Commenting is now a collapsible pane beneath the Name & Extension text field.


Screen sharing turned off, but appears as "enabled" I used this command to disable screen sharing:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

But when I try to confirm if it's disabled using the following, I get "enabled"

[[ -f /etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd ]] && echo 'enabled' || echo 'disabled'

Am I misunderstanding something? I would like to turn screen sharing off, and confirm that it is off.

Your shell script code is simply a check for the presence of the file /etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd.  If the file is present, it prints enabled, else it prints disabled.

However, this file is always present (in 10.13 and possibly under 10.12 as well) whether the screensharing agent is currently active or not.  Watchfiles in launchd are not necessarily checked for their presence or non-presence (unlike pidfiles in Linux, for example).  Changes and updates to the file can also trigger actions.

It's probably best to rely on launchctl's actual facilities for introspection, via sudo launchctl list or the newer launchctl print system commands, rather than checking for the presence of legacy files.


Transfer printers to other mac? I have a mac running 10.6 that has a dozen or so different printers set up on it. I am working on setting up a new machine to replace it, but would rather not have to set up all the printers again on the new machine. Is there any way to transfer the printer list from the old machine to the new one?

I would assume I would still need to re-install any drivers, as the ones on the old machine are doubtless hopelessly out-of-date, but that's relatively easy. Also note that I don't care about printer settings, I just need the printer definition.

Printer setup information is stored in /etc/cups, so simply copying that directory from the old machine to the new, and re-installing any needed print drivers successfully populates the printer list on the new machine.


View amount of time left when uploading files to iCloud I am currently moving some files to my iCloud drive with the total File Size of 42GB. At the moment I can only see the percentage completed by looking at the progress bar in the Finder. Since this is taking a long time (not surprising), is it possible to view the estimated time remaining?

Edit:

Think this will be useful for another time because 42GB uploading with 0.75Mb/s will take >2 months. Answers will still be useful though for another time.

The way to check all percentages is:
brctl monitor com.apple.CloudDocs | grep %

Possibly some other commands will help as well if the above has too much detail. Open terminal.app and issue the command:
brctl log -w

That will dump all sorts of iCloud sync data and debugging status - most of which won't be relevant, but you can watch it over time to see if any of the internal information allows you to calculate things or just know that something is happening or has had an error.
brctl status | grep foreground

The above command will show active containers and you might be able to monitor the specific container that has activity in a second window:
brctl monitor com.apple.CloudDocs | grep filename

The monitor command could slow things down as it dumps a lot of status to my screen as I have a lot of files in iCloud currently - but it does show periodic % estimates for the specific files being uploaded. Change filename to match a file or folder you want to check on.
All of the commands that run indefinitely above can be quit with Control + C


The Casing & Protective Layer for iPhone 4 is Free, or Is It? We all understand that the way to solve iPhone 4's antennagate problem is to use case and a protective layer. As far as I understand, Steve Jobs said that all these case and protective layer is available for free.

However today as I went to an iPhone reseller (I'm located in Malaysia), I was told that I would have to purchase the case and the protective layer – they would not be given for free.

Now I'm not sure what's wrong here – whether it's my understanding of Jobs' word, or if it's how the way the local Apple reseller works. I understand that when Jobs said that these casing would be given for free, it would be free regardless of which country you are in. It certainly doesn't mean that only US stores would give out the case for free, but  every single country in the world which sells iPhone 4 must give it out for free. But the sales representative told me that it's only in the US that the case would be given for free.

So I am confused: is the local Apple reseller running around like ancient Chinese warlords and take no directive command from the HQ?

The free case program is no longer automatic, and it was never done in-store. You had to download an app to request your free case. (That was their way to make sure only one case was requested per-phone.) I'm also not sure if it was ever valid outside the United States.

To get the free case now, you have to call Apple support and complain about phone signal issues. You also have to ask them directly for a free case.

I have no idea if the same deal applies in Malaysia, but this isn't a case of the store trying to cheat you. They never gave away cases in-store.


El Capitan Installer consistently corrups HFS+ superblock The standard, non-beta El Capitan installer corrupts the HFS+ superblock, and states that it cannot fix the hard drive and cannot continue with installation. (The repair tools won't fix the hard drive even in single user mode.)

What is confusing me is that the backup of the superblock remains valid, and upon writing the backup over the corrupted current superblock the drive appears on the boot options screen again. And I can boot into Yosemite with none of my apps/data are affected.

That said, if I run the installer again it munges the current superblock and leaves the backup still valid. So I can repair the drive again and boot normally. (And continue this process ad-nauseam)

A: Why doesn't disk utility check for the fact that the current and backup superblocks are different. And attempts to test with the backup if it can't otherwise repair the drive. (Even in single user mode)

B: Why does the OSX installer consistently  corrupt only the superblock, leaving nothing in the rest of the drive broken. I have done this, including re-downloading the installer, five times at this point. Mostly out of morbid fascination now.

I am testing from

Yosemite.
13 inch Mid 2013 Air.
Drive un-encrypted.
22GB of HD free.

SSD drive health is reported as excellent.

Any ideas on how I can get out of this cycle?
Thanks for any feedback.

PS Tempted to just try the Sierra beta and see if whatever this problem is is patched in the next installer.

Edit: I ended up trying the current Sierra beta, with the exact same results.

I would still suspect a problem with the superblock or GUID table.

Personally, I would copy the entire drive to an external drive then boot from the external and erase the internal drive. For this I usually use Carbon Copy Cloner

At that point you should be able to install El Capitan fine and then when asked by the installer you can transfer the applications, setting and users from the external drive into the new system.


How can I completely uninstall Xcode in macOS Mojave 10.14? After upgrading to macOS Mojave 10.14, Xcode was no longer updating correctly and my build process was reporting that stdlib.h was missing. Thus, I attempted to uninstall it so I could reinstall it after.

However, after removing it via the (x) button displayed on the Xcode app icon in Launchpad, the app was still in /Applications directory. So I deleted it from there as well.

However, the Mac App Store is still showing the option to update Xcode as if it were installed (and clicking the button resulted in a loading animation being displayed for half a second and then the update button again). I have also removed all the various folder listed here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/53575585/1824538

as well as followed the instructions to empty the Mac App Store cache provided here:

How to fix / Reset App Store app on Mac OSX - El Capitan

and here:

How to remove deleted app from OS X update list?

So far, nothing has changed the fact that the Mac App Store thinks I should update instead of install.

Is there anything else to do to get the Mac App Store to reinstall Xcode?

If it's easier, I'd be content with installing LLVM via Homebrew without messing things up. I don't really need Xcode itself, only the build tools.

xcode-select --install behaves similarly to the Mac App Store (namely claiming the tools are already installed or producing a non-working installation if I remove the CommandLineTools directories in the different Libraries).

EDIT: after some more back-and-forth I managed to get the Command Line Tools working via xcode-select --install. However, I'm still left with the update notification for Xcode in the Mac App Store.

What finally solved the problem for me was to download and install the Command Line Tools as well as Xcode (in that order) from the Apple developer site.
After the next reboot, the Mac App Store recognised Xcode as not installed and all standard libraries and compilers were available again (which was not quite the case with Command Line Tools only).


Second partition to keep data safe? I am new to Mac and I don't know very much about the operating system. I am used to Windows where I had a C partition for the OS and other partitions for data. When I wanted a fresh install I only formatted the C drive.

What is the best method to use this on Mac? I don't want to use an external HDD or a stick – I want to have them on my 256 GB SSD. I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose my photos and videos so please advice me.

It is rare to need to reformat the operating system only part of your Mac.

Recommended: Use one partition

I believe the overwhelming majority of Mac users have a single partition on their internal drive. This lone partition is used to store everything: operating system, applications, and documents.

The UNIX-like file layout does a good job of keeping all these files organised and separate. With OS X 10.11, new security measures have further isolated the core system files from your own files.

Back Up and Use Time Machine

In order to avoid loosing photos and documents, attach an external drive and turn on Time Machine for that drive. Time Machine is macOS's built-in back up mechanism. This will protect you from most problems.

In the worst case, you can wipe your Mac's drive, re-install macOS, and restore your documents with Time Machine.

Upgrades and Recovery

Upgrades of macOS only update the operating system part itself, leaving both your data and user-installed applications untouched. The same applies for reinstallation of macOS which can be done from the Recovery Partition without touching your data.

Optional: Isolating your documents

As a developer, I do separate my operating system and applications from my user documents. This is a habit from using earlier versions of macOS and before virtual machines made testing easier.

This approach is only a real benefit, if you use a separate physical device for the two partitions.

See Macworld's article Keeping Mac OS and data on separate drives for how to set this up.


How can I activate the text preview in Finder's column view for an arbitrary filetype or document type I really like the preview functionality that Finder offers in the last column of the column view. However, not all filetypes or document types are associated with a preview.

For example when I have a file INSTALL (without file extension), the document type of this file is just Document and the preview column only contains an icon.

How do I change the behavior of Finder in such a way that a text preview is displayed for the file INSTALL?

Column previews in Finder are in fact provided by QuickLook, not Preview – as are the icons displaying the file contents, the CoverFlow icons and the QuickLook preview proper you invoke by pressing Space or Cmd+Y on a selected file.

QuickLook uses plugins to display file contents – a piece of code rendering the file contents and telling the QuickLook server it can do so (see the QuickLook Programming Guide if you want the technical details). You need plugins because files can be binary data – without knowledge of its structure, no representation of the file is possible – or textual data that needs processing – HTML for instance, which you’ll probably prefer to preview rendered, not as raw source. They also must be limited to specific, known file types (to be precise: Uniform Type Identifiers, or UTIs for short) for this exact reason – a rendering plugin for HTML will not give you a usable preview for a JPEG. OS X provides quite an impressive default collection of these plugins (located in /System/Library/QuickLook), and applications you install add their own (located in the application package itself, /Library/QuickLook or ~/Library/QuickLook). You can also add some yourself to those two last locations.

In the case of text files without an extension, the problem is OS X’s built-in plain-text QuickLook plugin is not assigned to these as they do not correspond to a UTI it handles. However, there is a 3rd party QuickLook plugin adding that functionality: QLStephen. Just download it and install it according to its installation instructions on GitHub and you should be good to go.


Does a new computer require a new Time Machine drive? If I buy a new iMac to replace an old iMac do I need a new or different HD for Time Machine?

No - you don't need to get a new drive, but it's always nice to consider getting a new drive for reliability reasons. At some point, retire the old drive to the shelf or delete it and repurpose it. The backup should ideally be more reliable than the source in terms of longevity. Even an unreliable drive can be useful though since it will protect you from user errors and is unlikely to fail at the same time as the primary source if you are primarily concerned about having two copies of the current data.

One Time Machine drive can serve to hold files from many computers. Similarly, one computer can back up to multiple Time Machine drives.

In the case where you migrate data from one Mac to another, the system will usually detect this and offer to "migrate" the one time series of backups so that you get two benefits:

You don't lose the space savings where each file is only saved when it changes - saving space when a dozen backup intervals contain the same file version.
You don't lose history and have to wait for all the files to back up.