launchd notification on abnormal exit I have a launchd job plist that runs a simple shell script that invokes rdiff-backup to backup a remote directory over SSH to my computer. The job runs every hour and it works well.

Except the other day there was a power failure* and the rdiff-backup job was interrupted. The next time launchd ran the script, rdiff-backup failed and logged it's failure to the path specified in the plist. launchd, noticing the abnormal exit code, stopped trying to run the script.

And I had no idea for six days.

Obviously I don't want a notification of the exit code every time the script finishes. What can I do to be notified only of abnormal exits?

(*) turns out my UPS battery was passing the self-test when invoked, but didn't actually have the ability to power even a minimal load for more than 3 seconds.

The traditional approach, e.g. with cron jobs, is to pipe standard error to a program like mail that's smart enough not to send you empty mail. The difference with launchd, as you've discovered, is that the mechanism for redirecting standard error is giving a StandardErrorPath for it to be written to, which isn't as convenient for this purpose as ending your crontab entry with | mail ….

My usual solution is to have a wrapper script check the StandardErrorPath and notify me if there's a problem. This can either be part of the same launchd job, so the checking happens before the next scheduled run, or you can have a separate job that just manages the error logs (maybe using a QueueDirectories key).

I think you could also, for example, use a named pipe as your job's StandardErrorPath, but I've never actually tried that.


Wi-Fi slow on iPhone, fast on computer or tablet At our home, we pay for 20 Mbps Internet connection to operator. On computers and tablets we get full speed via Wi-Fi, while on iPhone 7 and iPhone XR we gat max 2.7 Mbps. We live in apartment with maybe 20 different wireless networks.

We tried different channels - no change in behaviour on our iPhones.
We tried phones at our company Wi-Fi networks - we got around 17 Mbps there, so phone hardware is capable of receiving more data.
We bought new modem/router Asus DSL-AC55U which can stream also on 5 Ghz - still same behaviour.
We called with provider on the phone trying to change settings - no effect, still same behaviour.
we have tried on phones change DNS server to manual, we tried googles and others - still same behaviour.

I believe that there is problem with Wi-Fi settings. Anyone has idea how to resolve this issue?

The following observation indicates to a problem specifically for iPhones in contrast to e.g. iPad and maybe related to your problem.

I had problems to convince my iPhone 6s to use the 5GHz band. iPad and iMac did it at once after I switched off the 2.4 GHz in the router. The iPhone would not connect, even after resetting the network settings. The trick I used (not my own idea) was to use two different SSIDs for 5GHz and 2.4Ghz. Even then it took two or three attempts, but now the iPhone connects to the 5GHz.


How do you activate an iPhone with broken home button iOS 10 My iPhone 5s had recently been cleaned of all files and data, including iCloud so I need to activate it. It prompts me to press the home button to activate but the home button on my iPhone doesn't work. Is there a way I can activate this phone without pressing the home button?

You need to activate the accessibility function, Voice Over, on your phone.

Connect your iPhone, to a computer with iTunes installed.
In iTunes, select your device.
From the Summary pane, click Configure
Accessibility in the Options section at the bottom.
Select the Voice Over and click OK.
Double tap on the Press home to
    open text.

Once you’re pass the activation, you can disable Voice Over. More details on the fix.


Disable SIP with third-party GPU I'm running Mojave on a MacPro5,1 (previously 4,1), which requires using an upgraded GPU, and I'm using the Radeon RX580 (which is listed by Apple as supported). I need to disable SIP to enable continuity on the upgraded Bluetooth module I've installed. Holding Command+R when booting to go to recovery mode doesn't show anything on either of the displays I have connected. Is there a way to disable SIP without being able to see a display, or a route that would be able to display via a third-party GPU?

Thanks

You should be able to use the keyboard in order to boot into recovery mode and execute the command while "blind". Do the following:

Boot your Mac while holding down the ⌘+R keys.
Wait 3-5 minutes for your computer to boot up. It will likely boot more quickly than this, but better to be safe.
Press the following sequence of keys:

fn+ctrl+f2 (leave out fn if it's not on your keyboard)
→ x4 (press the right arrow key four times)
↓ x4 (press the down arrow key four times)
enter

Wait around ten seconds to give the terminal time to open. Then, type csrutil disable and press ENTER.
Wait another ten seconds, then type reboot and press ENTER again. Once your computer boots back up, SIP should be disabled.

This was tested on a 2015 Macbook Air running macOS 10.14.1.


Move Purchased App from Windows Phone to iPhone My Windows Phone got stolen and I decided to get an iPhone 4s as a replacement.
I bought the Threema-App for WP 8.1.
Is there any possibility to get Threema for iOS 9.2.1 without having to buy it again?

I assume you know that the application on the Windows phone can't, itself, be installed on your new iPhone.

As to whether or not the manufacturer will allow you to "sidegrade" or not is a question only they can answer


Why does my 13" MacBook Pro have trouble running Adobe Bridge on a 27" Apple Monitor? Configuration:
13" MacBook Pro
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
8GB RAM
running Lion
Video: NVIDIA GeForce9400M 256MB.
Apple 27" LED Cinema Display

It is a nice little computer but I am having trouble running Adobe CS5 Bridge. If I have even a few applications open, Bridge will flake out and I can't navigate to new folders or I get partial display.

If I close Bridge and disconnect the monitor I can open Bridge fine on the laptop. I then plug in the monitor and can continue to work.

This seems to be rather archaic, so I am wondering if there is something wrong with the video card or is there another reason I am having trouble running Bridge? What is the solution?

I would appreciate some expert insights.

Thanks.

First off, make sure you've run AAM to update all components to latest:

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE/PDApp/core/Adobe Application Manager.app

What happens when you set your displays to mirror (command-F1), launch Bridge, then revert back to extended?


Does trimmed SIM card affect iPhone 4S's signal strength? I have just received my iPhone 4S ordered online. I don't have a microsim card that iPhone 4S would need to me to. I don't wish to pay extra to buy a micro sim card since it doesn't give much improvement. I did a search and found out that I could cut my ordinary 3G sim card to the size of a micro sim card. And I did this.

So now, I put that trimmed micro sim card into my iPhone 4S and it worked. But, the reception meter has only 2 bars all the time! The phone may be able to access the web and send sms through the cellular network but having only 2 out of 5 bars at the reception meter makes me feel totally unsafe; I am doing all of these at my home, where the reception signals are usually very strong.

When I put the same trimmed sim card into another iPhone 3GS, the reception also has only 2 bars. But when I put the trimmed sim card into an iPhone 2G, it has 5 bars.

What's wrong? Is it my iPhone 4S or the sim card that is having the problem? What problem am I having and what else can I do?

Update

So the 5 signal bars on iPhone 2G is merely the 2G network. When the 2-bars 3G signal on my iPhone 4S drops to only the 2G network, it also has 4-5 bars of signal strength but that's 2G. Does trimmed SIM card has problems with 3G networks?

No - the sim card only provides an ICCID number to the phone. That number is read once per boot as the phone just uses the sim to identify what account to bill for service when registering with the nearby cell towers (IMEI and ICCID together let the system know what number to assign your phone and who to bill).

Something else must be causing your observed behavior.

Keep in mind, there is no guarantee two phones in the same location are not on distinct cell towers. Especially if one tower is overloaded or doesn't have high speed data so the phone /carrier might pick a faster connection that happens to have less bars of signal.

What does your carrier say if you call them for a site survey / diagnostic?


Video darker than photo on iPhone 5S I had this iPhone for one year but this is the first time I noticed this issue.
These are my specs: iPhone 5S 32GB - iOS 8.4 - ME435CS/A.

This is a photo made w/out flash:

This is a screenshot from a video:

Is this even a bug or I'm missing something?

While it may be true that the 5S has lower quality low-light video recording than other iPhones, there is a fundamental physics fact that you have to keep in mind: To get more light in a picture –controlling for other factors such as ISO and aperture– you need more time for each picture, more exposure.
I just did a test on my iPhone 6, and the "problem" persists.

The thing is, it is impossible for an image to look brighter with less exposure.
In the case of my pictures, the first picture is taken at 1/15 of a second, with an ISO of 500.
I can't find the ISO information on the video but I know the exposure: it has to be at the most 1/60 because I've setup video to have 60 frames per second. So it is 4 times faster -or 4 times less exposure- which explains the darkness.
Remember a video is just a series of pictures.
From the comments one of the links provided by Doc G.(emphasis mine):

When taking a digital image, there are 3 main factors - aperture (or f-stop), shutter speed and ISO (sensitivity). In manual mode on a 'proper' camera you can experiment with all of these to achieve a desired result. In automatic mode, the camera makes all the decisions hoping to manage a decent (fast) shutter speed to combat camera shake or motion blur, a low value ISO to reduce noise, and an appropriate aperture to get the best exposure.
Unfortunately, when shooting video one of these factors is set in stone. At 30fps your shutter speed will be set to 1/30th of a second, and at 120fps this will be 1/120th of a second. If you are talking about low light conditions, then you are required to open the aperture or increase the ISO to compensate. The iPhone 5s has an aperture of f/2.2, so that becomes another limiting factor. The only place left to go is an increase in ISO - meaning more noise.
Therefore the iPhone 5s is either hitting it's (reported) ISO 2500 maximum, or deciding on a compromise value to avoid excessive noise. In other words, if there isn't enough light to be shooting video, you shouldn't be trying to shoot video. At least not until sensor technology improves, which will happen eventually.


Find My Friends shows my old phone I traded in my 4S recently to upgrade to a 5S, and restored the 5S from the last 4S backup, so they both share the same phone name ("Adam's iPhone"). However, when I use the "Find My Friends" app, it displays "Share my location from:" and shows "Adam's iPhone" twice.

I visited this Apple Support page, which suggested to log into iCloud and disable the second phone from there, but only one phone is listed on that page (along with my iPad and iMac). Is there another link that explains how to remove the old phone from "Find My Friends"?

I found the way to do it on iOS 8:
Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Share My Location > From

Then is will show the list of current and old phones.  It has instructions:  "If you're no longer using a device, swipe left on the device name, then tap Delete."

It worked for me!


macOS not allowing me to restore media files from one external drive to another I am trying to restore media from an external drive to another
  external drive now both the partitions have been formatted with the
  same partition map GUID partition map (I am also getting an APFS
  partition message on clicking the partition map option available under
  disk utility)). Now whenever I am trying to restore the partitions, I am coming across several errors.

This was the first attempt: I selected the main volume (as the source volume from which the media files are to be restored) which is at the top of the volume tree (Sandisk Ultramedia)

I am facing this error! (I have attached some screenshots to further explain my problem)

Error No.1

Error No.2

This time I selected the volume within the container APFS volume (as the source disk from where the media files are to be restored) which is the Sandisk USB External Drive/MacOS USB. But, again I got the same error.

This seems to be a bug with macOS Mojave. Even I tried to do the same. I came across the same errors you are facing. Luckily, I was able to clone the disks  which is same as restoring.

There are several ways to clone a disk. You can use some utility tools available on and off the macOS App Store.

I tried this https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html cloning utility to clone my main drive to an external SSD both having the same partition map - APFS. This should solve the problem.


Any way to put Mac mini to sleep remotely? I use a Mac mini as a music centre connected to my stereo system (among other things). I control it remotely using apps such as Remote by Apple, Rowmote, and Remoteless (for Spotify), both on my iPhone and iPad.

Now, when getting to sleep myself, I often want to stop music playback with the device closest to hand, usually iPhone. One more thing I'd like to do remotely is put the Mac mini to sleep. Any idea whether this is possible?

To clarify, I'm looking for an app or other solution that works on iPhone / iPad (with latest iOS, not jailbroken).

I'm pretty sure you can do this with a hot-corner and the built-in VNC server. (You would need a VNC viewer for iOS, there are LOTS of them.

You could also create an applescript:
tell application "System Events" to sleep
and run it using the VNC connection.

Alternatively, you can turn on ssh, ssh in, and issue the command:
pmset sleepnow (See the pmset man page)
to put the mac to sleep.

This would require a ssh client for iOS. Again, there are a LOT of them. Personally, I have used iSSH, and it works fine.

As @mankoff stated in a comment, RowMote states in it's store description:

  SLEEP AND WAKE: Put your Mac to sleep by holding the Play button for 3 seconds while controlling any Apple application, just like the
  hardware remote. Rowmote automatically wakes up sleeping machines
  which are connected via Ethernet!


Where are the commercials coming from in itunes and how to remove them? I updated iTunes to v.11.0.1, and now when I play my music from my hard drive, randomly in between songs, there are commercials from 1.FM. This is very annoying!

How can I get rid of this?

Re-install the iTunes because it's not a normal thing to be happening


Mail gone after clean install of El Capitan After a few days of using El Capitan I decided to do a clean install today.
As always I backed up ~/Library/Mail and put it back after the clean install.

When I opened Mail after that, there were no accounts, no local mailboxes, no mail!

Since the I tried to restore every file that could be associated with Mail I could find from a TimeMachine backup:

~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail-shared.plist

Nothing has changed from that.

My Mails and Mailboxes are located in:

~/Library/Mail/V3

My Accounts are stored in the only file left in V2:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Accounts.plist

But Mail seems to ignore the whole ~/Library/Mail folder. Any ideas what I could do?

I decided to restore my mails by hand. That took me a few hours, but now I am back to normal.

Here is what I did:

Import every local mailbox from the backup
Clean up the mail boxes (Cryptic folders were generated inside every mailbox)
Add the POP accounts.
Write mails from there to get a dedicated "send" folder for each account.
Put the imported mails in the appropriate location (inbox, drafts, sent)
Add the IMAP accounts.

What I realized after going through all those steps, is that the accounts inside of ~/Library/Mail/V3 are not named by there account names anymore. Instead the consist of a cryptic combination of numbers and characters. Maybe that was the cause why Mail did not import anything.

My guess is, that accounts are now referenced by a number/character-code out of security reasons. However, that leaves me wondering how to do a proper backup of mail for a clean install.


How is iPhone Storage automatically cleared up? I'm using an iPhone 6s with iOS 10. I have a few apps, but most of my space is taken up by photos and videos. Now I do run low on memory, sometimes I have just 500MB left, but I just let it be. If I get too low, about 100MB, I free up some space (upto 1GB).

I've noticed this a few times now: Sometimes I get a low storage warning, and I see that I have around 100MB left, but I wait till I have time to free up some storage. But after few hours, when I get time to free up, I see that my phone now has cleared up some storage on its own. Means I now have around 1GB free (for example).

My question is how was the storage cleared? What was deleted "automatically" by the phone to create space?

UPDATE: When I said my phone cleared up space from 100MB to 1GB, that was an example of sort, it usually clears up around 300MB on its own. grgarside's answer(regarding clearing of cache) is the most applicable to my case and hence I'm marking it as accepted.

App containers include a folder called Caches. This folder can be emptied by iOS when storage becomes low.

iOS chooses apps which you use rarely and apps which have large quantities of cache stored to be cleaned first. iOS shows the app name as "Cleaning…" briefly on the home screen when this process takes place.

There are other system caches which can be cleared too, but caches within containers are usually the largest and first to go.


Converting HTML to PDF using convert utility in Mac OS X I'm trying to convert a bunch of HTML files into PDF files. I'm looking for an automated solution so that i don't have to open each HTML file individually and convert it to PDF. In Mac OSX, convert utility can be used to convert HTML files to PDF. I'm facing two problems.

convert utility is not applying CSS style to generated PDF content.
My AppleScript for batch convert is not working.

Here's my AppleScript:

on open input_documents
    repeat with this_document in input_documents

        if this_document is not document file then
            set this_document_path to POSIX path of this_document
            do shell script "/System/Library/Printers/Libraries/convert -f " & quoted form of this_document_path & " -o " & quoted form of this_document_path & ".pdf"
        end if
    end repeat
end open

I use this script to create a .app and then drag the documents folder onto the generated .app file. Note that all images associated with images are placed in a subdirectory/subfolder. My document structure looks like this:

/HTML
/HTML/Images/
/HTML/a.html
/HTML/b.html

Any suggestions?

Have a look at wkhtmltopdf— a command-line utility that uses the WebKit rendering engine to produce PDFs from HTML. I've found that it produces a nicer result. You shouldn't have any trouble integrating it with your current script.


Enable Finder "Calculate all sizes" checkbox by default Finder > Show View Options > Calculate all sizes

This option causes Finder to calculate the sizes of all files and folders and display their sizes in the Finder list view columns, rather than a useless --.

"Calculate all sizes" is OFF by default. I seem to need to enable it on a per-folder basis for every directory in Finder.
How can I enable "Calculate all sizes" as ON by default for all Finder folders?
Are there any performance considerations for this option on a modern Mac and APFS file system? Sizes are listed instantaneously and I have noticed no downside to enabling the option.

On macOS Big Sur, in Finder, when you 'Show View Options' you get the following window where you can see there is a button at the bottom to use the settings as default. After adjusting the settings, press that button and see if it solves your problem.


Can't use VSCode integrated terminal while on Team Viewer My development team recently rented a Mac machine through MacInCloud.
I've prepared my development environment in this machine, but it seems like Visual Studio Code does not register certain keystrokes correctly like ENTER and BACKSPACE from my local machine (I'm using linux). Ex. When I open the terminal and I enter BACKSPACE for deleting a character an 'a' in inserted, the same goes for the ENTER key.

Is there a hidden setting in team viewer for fixing this behavior or a general way to bedbug keyboard mapping or shortcut functions when they fail to work as expected?

Apparently there is a known bug with Team Viewer's Keyboard mapping on Linux, read more here. This is a Team Viewer error only and can be fixed by using another Remote Access software, I am using Chrome Remote Desktop (as suggested by user206904) though performance is not great.


Merging folders when copying & pasting in Finder I've recently switched from Windows 7. One Windows feature that I'm missing is the possibility to merge folders (the German version of Windows is calling this "integrate") when copying & pasting them.

The merge feature works like this: if you paste a folder into a location that already contains a folder of that name, you get the option to merge the content of both folders. The files from the new folder will be pasted into the existing one; on conflicts, you get a choice what to do.

Finder doesn't seem to support this: the only choice I get is to overwrite the older folder with the new one (with no explanation of what exactly this does), or stop the process.

Is there a way to merge folders in Finder? Am I overlooking something?

Because of a lot of complaints of people used to the Windows way, merging folders is now a feature in OSX Lion :

This merge dialog will only show up if:

destination folder isn't empty
destination folder contents are different from to be copied one

So the way to merge folders in an officially supported way is to upgrade to Lion :-)


How do I enable automatic capitalization in OS X? Can I turn on automatic capitalization on my iMac running OS X 10.9, Mavericks? It is selectable in iOS on my iPad but I can't find a similar switch in Mavericks.

You can use a third party such as TextExpander ($35) for this. Paired with the right third party dictionary (TidBITS Autocorrect Dictionary), which is downloadable from within TextExpander, it corrects most of my typos that Mac OS X misses, as well as providing shortcuts for frequently typed snippets.

Using TextExpander just for sentence capitalization is a bit of overkill, but if you embrace it, you wind up with an excellent tool that you can easily adapt to your needs.


Why can't I change the normal template for microsoft word 2016 for mac? I did a clean install of Microsoft Office for Mac 2016 from installers from my campus bookstore. I customized the install to include only Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. I have not had the previews, and I just updated to 15.14.0 (150911). I am running a brand new Macbook Pro 9,2 with Yosemite 10.10.5. Although I did a clean install, I did not uninstall MS Office 2011 apps. I have no issues running them concurrently.

It seems some others have found problems with altering the Normal template and found no joy from MS forums. It seems there is confusion about the directory location of saved templates. So, I have located my Word 2016 templates at:

/Users/<username>/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Templates/

This folder currently has Normal.dotm and Normal.dotx. Following official MS advice to save-as templates does not work for me. Other user advice to save in the above location returns this dialog:

  Word cannot give a document the same name as an open document.
  Type a different name for the document you want to save.
  (Normal.dotm)

I click OK, and then this dialog:

  The document “Document1” could not be saved as “Normal.dotm”.

Should I not be trying to save Word Macro-Enabled Template (.dotm)? OK, fine. I try saving differently, via Normal.dotx, which is where the Normal.dotx got into the folder in the first place. There's no problem with that. But when I relaunch Word 2016, none of the template saves are present. Every time I start Word 2016, I get the same Draft view with fonts Calibri, etc. etc. This is not the case with Word 2011. Seems I can't beat it, so what gives?

This worked for me:

You may wish to update your Normal template as well.  To do so:

Open the Normal.dotm template (Note: You MUST navigate to the Normal template using the File menu in Word, and choose "Open".  Don't try it from the Finder or you will make a copy of Normal each time.)
Close all other documents (this is important...if you don't, Word holds a hidden instance of the old version open).
Change the paper size.
Add and remove a space from the text (to force Word to save the document)
Save the Normal template.  (If Word prompts you for a file name, you did not open the file correctly and you now have a copy that is not a template.  Cancel out and start again...)
Close Word.

Should be good when you re-open.


How to get rid of the “Do Not Disturb” Menu Bar icon? My macOS menu bar contains a dim crescent moon shaped icon.

When selected, this menu drops down.

How do I get rid of this visual affordance?

Uncheck the Show in Menu Bar option located in System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar > Do Not Disturb

Note that you can also show the icon only when Do Not Disturb is active by checking the option and select when active option.


Import to Photos app/MacOs is disabled/greyed-out even though the iPhone is connected My iphone (stephenb) is successfully connected to the Macbook pro.

I have imported into Photos.app from this phone a couple of dozen times already. There are a few new photos that I want to import but the buttons are grayed out:

The Photos app has been restarted and the iPhone as well - but the buttons are still grayed out.  Any thoughts?

It seems that my iPhone were full in some way:  after removing gobs of photos and videos it is working to sync.  I did not see/notice any indicator of the memory being full and the Settings|General|Storage had said 8.7GB out of 16GB before deleting anything (now says 6.6 out of 16GB).  That is strange behavior.


Why is it better for an iPhone’s battery to NOT close down apps? I know apparently it’s not a good idea to close apps on your iPhone to save on battery. I’ve read questions and answers like Does force closing apps have any benefit on iOS devices? but it still doesn’t quite gel with me. Sometimes I have found over 50 apps running, so not closing them makes no sense.

Maybe I’m a bit of an old chook and you just can’t teach old dogs new tricks, but can someone here explain WHY it’s better to just keep all these apps running? And when I say “explain” I mean in layman’s terms so I can understand.

You’re not alone. People are just used to their desktop computer habits, and it’s understandable they carry these habits over to their iPhones and iPads.

However, let me try and explain this using an analogy:

Imagine it’s a hot day and you’re outside gardening. You get thirsty, so you go inside to the kitchen, grab a large glass, put some ice in it, and fill it with water. You then drink half of it and empty the rest in the sink before going back outside. Not long later, you get thirsty again, so you go back inside to the kitchen, grab the same glass, put some ice in it, and fill it with water. Again you only drink half of it and empty the rest in the sink!

The above workflow just doesn’t really make sense. Why wouldn’t you take the glass outside with you? And, you’re not only wasting water by emptying it, but you’re spending more time and energy getting that water again.

Likewise, when you quit an app you’re actually using some battery power in the process of doing so (e.g. clearing it from RAM, etc) and then again later when you have to launch it again and load it back into RAM.

So, for a great majority of the time it’s best to leave apps open. Even though they’re open, they’re really just sitting in a type of suspended mode that isn’t using any battery power whatsoever. Yes, the app is still loaded in RAM and taking space, but it’s not actually doing anything - it’s just lying there dormant. And, because it’s not using any battery power in this state, there’s no advantage to quitting it from a battery conservation point of view - especially if it’s an app you know you’re going to be using again and again throughout the day.

There’s also really no advantage to force quitting an app because iOS itself will do this for you if/when it needs to in order to free up RAM. So if you have 50 apps open and they stay open, then iOS hasn’t been pushed to the extent of needing to close any of them to free up memory.

Now, like anything, there are always exceptions to the rule (such as apps that have to perform background tasks). An example of this is one that plays music while you’re doing other things with your phone, or one that’s downloading content in the background, or one that’s counting how many steps you walk in a day, etc. However, iOS has an extremely efficient process for managing background apps/tasks and if you choose to quit these you’re basically saying you don’t trust the operating system to do its job properly.

So, feel free to quit your apps when you have to (e.g. because it’s frozen, etc), but don’t do it to conserve battery power. In fact, if you do, you’ll be achieving the opposite and using more battery power throughout the day!

Summary

You only need to quit apps if they're not working properly (e.g. an app has frozen, it isn't displaying properly, etc).
Apps listed in the App Switcher are not necessarily running - in fact most of them are not running at all.
Most apps in the App Switcher will be in a suspended state - this means they're not: visible on screen, executing code, using the CPU or GPU, or using the battery. However, they are still resident in memory until they are purged (if necessary) by the system to free up memory:

  Suspended - The app is in the background but is not executing code. The system moves apps to this state automatically and does not notify them before doing so. While suspended, an app remains in memory but does not execute any code. When a low-memory condition occurs, the system may purge suspended apps without notice to make more space for the foreground app.

Source: See Table 2-3 within the first reference link at end of this answer.
The only apps actually running on your iPhone at any given point in time are the active app (i.e. the one visible on screen) and any others working in the background. (Note: There are some temporary exceptions to this in the case of apps that still need time to complete executing code they already started while they were active - typically this is only in the order of seconds but could theoretically extend to over a minute.).
In terms of apps running in the background, you can control which apps are permitted to do so (if they're open) by going to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. (Note: Just because you see an app listed here doesn't mean it will run in the background, but disabling it here means it definitely won't!)
If your iPhone is locked, then the app that was active (i.e. it was visible on screen) when you locked your device is now inactive. However, unless you've only just locked your iPhone and it's still finishing executing code or it's running in the background (e.g. playing music, etc) then it's not using the CPU, GPU or battery.

References

For more info about the various states an app can be in, refer to Apple's App Programming Guide for iOS: Execution States for Apps.
For more info about apps running in the background, refer to Apple's App Programming Guide for iOS: Background Execution.


How to view previous inputted MAC Address for WiFi network I have a Belkin Router and accidentally changed the MAC Address for the Wireless Area Network. Is there a way to retrieve previous inputted MAC Address using Terminal?

I'm looking around system and network logs but I can't find previous records of MAC Address for my WiFi network.

I think by restarting your machine its MAC address will restore to its original value. If not you can get your hardcoded MAC address by executing this command in the terminal:

networksetup -getmacaddress [your network interface, e.g. en1]


How do I forward iMessages from my computer to my Android phone? Last week, I had an iPhone 4s, an iPad mini, and a Macbook Pro. My cell phone plan was connected to my iPhone, and I set up text forwarding so that text messages from my phone would also load on my iPad and my Macbook Pro.

Three days ago, I lost my iPhone. To fill the gaping hole in my life, I swapped my cell phone plan to work with my dad's old Samsung Galaxy S2.

Now I can send texts from my phone, and iMessages from my iPad and laptop.

Two questions:

How can I get iMessage to forward messages as texts to my Galaxy S2?
Is it possible to get my iPad and my laptop to synchronize with texts sent from my Galaxy S2?

All I want is to have my iMessages and my texts in the same place.

There are a number of third party solutions to this problem which the first party (Apple) has never resolved. Most of them involve forwarding your messages to a server somewhere, where they'll use a cell phone gateway to forward them as SMS to a phone you choose. Obviously, this represents a significant security vulnerability, as whoever owns the server has full access to your messages which could contain sensitive information.

The only way around this vulnerability is to own the server yourself, which is basically what PieMessage does. It's an open source project hosted on Github, also available on the App Store somewhere. I haven't actually tried it out yet -- I don't have an iMac that stays at home all day to use as the server -- but it seems to have trusted reviews.


Where does OSX store the Desktop layout configuration info? Since early Mac versions, I have been able to rearrange the icons on my desktop. Until I use one of the "Cleanup" options, they can be in pretty much random positions, even overlapping each other. The same layout of of file, directory, and app icons appears on all Desktop/Workspaces.
Where is that information on icon position stored?
What I would like to try doing is having the Desktop folder actually be a symlink that can be set to point to folders Desktop1, Desktop2, etc. I want to use the Current Key app (free) and it's use of AppleScript functions (https://currentkey.com/room-change-alerts/) to change that symlink on the fly, whenever I change desktops, so that I get a different set of icons for each desktop space that I'm in.
I would also like to preserve the layout of each set of desktop icons by also swapping the layout file.
Where can I find that layout file? (If it's a hiddent file in the Desktop directory then I might be home free.)
Thanks.

Mac OS X/macOS stores Finder layout information (including desktop icon placement) within the .DS_Store file that's located inside the current directory.


Lock screen on mac? w/o enabling "require password after sleep" Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a quick way to lock my Mac?

I want to be able to lock my screen on Mac, much the way Windows+l does on windows. I do not want to have to put in a password each time my computer sleeps/screen saver turns on. I want a keyboard shortcut to lock the screen while still allowing the computer to wake from sleep without a password. I don't want my session logged out or suspended in any way.

Note* I would like a keyboard shortcut for this.

You can do this with Keychain Access, if you enable its menu bar icon. Directions here.
I'm not aware of a keyboard shortcut, sorry.


iPhone 6s storage usage I want to ask you why in the usage section of iPhone 6s on iOS 9.2 it says I have 2.6 GB in Mail. However, I have deleted all inbox, sent, trash, etc. There is nothing in Mail.

How do I get the storage in the usage section to empty this Mail?

This issue might be graphical 'bug'. If you are sure that mail is empty, you can always try to reboot/hard reset device and if the issue is still there, then take a iTunes backup and restore device. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204184 should be good article for this troubleshooting step.


Can you run the latest MySQL security update on macOS 10.12 Sierra? We're still running MySQL (community server) on macOS 10.12 Sierra (because Apple has gutted later versions of macOS and macOS Server and we don't want to go there just yet). It appears the latest MySQL security updates (October 2018) no longer support macOS with the 5.6.x track. The 5.7.x and 8.x tracks now only list installers for 10.13 High Sierra and 10.14 Mojave.

So, the question is: can you install the latest MySQL 5.7.24 on macOS 10.12 Sierra and will it run without problems?

I'm okay if it's simply "unsupported" and will install but if it specifically won't install/will cause problems I would like to know before upgrading. I've searched the MySQL web site for information on this but there is nothing.

I asked this question on the MySQL forums and got no response. I asked the question on StackOverflow but they recommended to post it here. Hope someone here can help.

No one bothered to reply (except for the idiot that suggested "why not just try it out?" for an in service, online, production server) but for those of you who may come across my original post I can now confirm, after extensive in-house testing, that MySQL 5.7.24 does NOT work on macOS 10.12 Sierra. It will spawn too many files for its process and eventually die requiring a full restart of the whole computer - you can't just kill and restart MySQL. With no security updates available for older versions of MySQL, this now makes MySQL useless on anything but macOS 10.13 High Sierra or later. Thus, given the awful state of macOS Server, your days of running a decent macOS Server with MySQL are now numbered. Time to start testing alternate operating systems and switch…


"Allow Deletion of Running Applications" Option I needed to delete/uninstall an application that was running. It was screen saver app that ran over the regular screen saver, and I hated it. I downloaded it from the App Store, and do not suspect malware. It was just an awful, inexpensive app. When I tried to delete/uninstall it, I got a warning message that said I could not delete a running program. But it also gave me a link to where I could over-ride that, I think, within System Preferences. I clicked a checkbox that would "allow deletion of running applications." After checking that box, I was able to delete the offending application.

I would like to go back to that setting and uncheck "allow deletion of running applications," but I can't find it in any of the System Preferences or other Utilities. A quick internet search revealed nothing. Maybe I'm using the wrong terms?

Is anyone aware of this setting and where it might be located?

Macbook Pro, OSX 10.11.5

The answer turned out to be something silly. I was using an app called "AppCleaner" to uninstall the application in question. The option to "Protect Running Apps" was actually in AppCleaner, not in the Mac OS itself. In order to delete the running application, I had to uncheck "Protect Running Apps." I was able to locate the Preferences within AppCleaner and re-check "Protect Running Apps."


Merging Multiple CSV Files without merging the header I need to merge multiple .CSV files (using the cat command) but without copying the header for each file.

What's the best way to accomplish this task?

You'll need more than the cat command, as described here:

Say you have 3 CSV-files: file1.csv, file2.csv, and file3.csv and want to join them to bigfile.csv and your header is always (only) the first line, then use

either (keep header from first file "file1.csv"):

cat file1.csv <(tail +2 file2.csv) <(tail +2 file3.csv) > bigfile.csv

or (remove header from all files who's names begin with "file"):

awk 'FNR > 1' file*.csv > bigfile.csv


Can I listen to music from my iPhone with a Plantronics Discovery 665 Headset? The headset supports the "Headset" and "Hands-Free" profiles.

I can make phone calls with it, but when I play music, it doesn't work.

No.  In order to do music, your Bluetooth headset must support A2DP Streaming Audio (it must support the A2DP profile).


Is there a setting for black and white printing from iOS? I have a color printer that supports airprint but I don't want to waste the color toner on random docs.  Is there a setting in iOS (iPhone, iPod, iPad) that would allow me to override and print black and white?

There doesn't seem to be a way to do this natively.

Your options seem to be:

Get a black-and-white airprint printer.
Use a black-and-white, non-airprint printer with AirPrint Activator.
Use Epson's app which seems to let you print black-and-white photos.
Use HP's app which seems to let you choose these kind of settings.
Tell Apple you want this feature.


Distribute in App Store from a country without Online App Store? I just received an email from Apple to continue the Apple Developer Program enrollment process, but before I do, I want to know some important details.  I'm a developer for a company in Morocco and we want to distribute apps in the App Store, I know that there is no Online App Store for Morocco, but can we distribute in the App Store of another country even though our Apple ID, D&B and Credit Card information are located in Morocco?

If Apple accept your enrolment as a Moroccan based developer, you can then distribute your software worldwide through Apple's App Store.


Tool to sort Activity Monitor: legit or suspicious I was wondering whether there was a tool similar to Hijackthis on Windows for Mac. I know Mac doesn't have a registry, but malware could similarly run as a background process, service or helper tool. Since permissions on the Mac have become stricter over the years, admin passwords need to be provided today to install virtually any app. So, virtually all apps have admin privileges for some things during the install process.
I'm not sure how it looks for everyone else, but I have over 500 processes running most of the time in Activity Monitor. For most of them, I do not understand what they do or if they are really necessary. I worry on the one hand that they might slow my system down. In the worst case, I worry that I may have malicious software running in the background (e.g., Zoom's hidden web server).
Hence, I was wondering whether there was a software similar to Hijackthis that scans processes and gives some info about them, possibly with an assessment of their quality, risk. What I am looking to gain is more control over what is running on my Mac, like Hijackthis provides on Windows.

At https://objective-see.com/products.html there are (free) tools available to see security related process information (persistent processes, process hierarchy etc.)
There is a suite of security features (like GateKeeper), including malware removal tools (xProtect and – appropriately named – MRT) built into macOS.
These are updated silently and regularly in the background independent of "regular" macOS updates.
If you want to see more information/the current status of all these built-in tools, have a  look at the applications available at: https://eclecticlight.co/downloads/.


Multiple Displays Crashes with El Capitan My dad has a Mac Pro (2009 era) and runs 3 monitors hooked up with DisplayPort. They are not high-res and only about 24". Nothing that a Mac Pro should have any issues with. Everything worked well until he upgraded to El Capitan last week. Almost immediately, it crashed to the login screen. I spent a while troubleshooting the problem and all of the crash reports point to graphics problems (which seems apparent). Right now, he is down to one monitor to mostly rule out the crashes. I found that disabling "each display on it's own space" helped, but if he is working with one display and a notification comes in on the other one, it will consistently crash.

I'm not sure what else to try. Is there a way that we could get him back up to the three monitors? I understand that these problems could point a potential graphics card problem, but I don't think that is the problem considering the direct correlation to the OS upgrade and the crashing. I also haven't been able to find others with similar problems.

I have tried:

Multiple Reboots
Disable: "Preferences -> Mission Control -> Displays have separate Spaces"
Disable: "Preferences -> Mission Control -> Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use"
Confirm that "Automatic Graphics Switching" didn't exist on his machine
More reboots

This problem is well documented on the Apple forums. For the moment, until the next release of El Capitan, you can only run two monitors. The monitors must be connected to one video card. You do not have to remove the other card.

Please search the Apple forums for more details.


What happens if I create a file while Time Machine is backing up? Will the file be saved onto my backup drive? Is there a possibility that I might corrupt my backup?

The file will be saved if the containing folder has not yet been backed up, otherwise it will be backed up next time Time Machine makes a backup. The backup will not be corrupted.


iPhone iOS7 apps stay open in App Store after install How does one remove a downloaded and installed app from the App Store Purchases page?

Deleting and re-installing does not seem to work. There is a very long discussion stream on the Apple forums about this particularly minor seeming but very annoying phenomena. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be any applicable, actionable solutions except to wait several days for the apps to go away. The "OPEN" just sits there.

To remove from my updates page I merely went to Settings, under Date and Time and toggled off Set automatically and changed the date and time a few weeks ahead. You can change the settings back after checking your app page to see that they're gone. It works!


How do I setup access codes for shared printers? We've got a RICOH Aficio MP C4501 in our office that supports holding print jobs pending having a code input at the keypad (so sensitive documents don't print until you're able to be present to pick them up).  I'm not finding a way to set that code in the Apple print dialog, not even the setup dialog.  How do I go about using this codes feature on my Mac?

Finally got a call back from RICOH.  It's under the "Job Log" drop-down menu in the print dialog.  User ID, password, codes, and controls (hold vs. locked), etc can all be set there!


how do I "un-partition" my MACINTOSH HD into one big hard drive? So I was derping around on my computer (it has a 250 gigabyte hard drive) and thought,"hmm I wonder what happens if I partition off 75 gigs of this". believe it or not, it partitioned off 75 gigabytes on my hard drive, so what's the problem? well I have no idea how to make it one big single 250 gigabyte partition again. I tried everything, I did the minus on the partition, I did the slide, I repaired with disk utility, same thing with disk utility from the restart CMD+R, and spent hours on the internet looking for a solution. Is there anyone who can help me here?

You could create another partition that's the size of the other half of the disk. Then, because you can't merge your boot disk, you could make a GParted live USB, boot from it, and merge it.


How to make and alias list from multiples results of a shell script? So this is the shell script that I have in my Applescript editor which brings up all of the videos that have been added to my computer today.

do shell script "mdfind 'kMDItemDateAdded >= $time.today && kMDItemKind = *movie'"

I see four videos show up in the results section of the Appliscript editor. But I am having difficultly changing those results into an alias list and sending them into a folder called "New Videos".

Can anybody show me how this is done?

Let’s assume that your new videos folder is located on your desktop.  This AppleScript code does not create an alias list.  The list created will be Posix paths.

property moveToFolder : POSIX path of ((path to desktop as text) & "New Videos" as alias)

set fileList to do shell script "mdfind 'kMDItemDateAdded >= $time.today && kMDItemKind = *movie'"

set fileList2 to paragraphs of fileList

repeat with thisMovie in fileList2
    tell application "System Events"
        move disk item thisMovie to folder moveToFolder
    end tell
end repeat


How to install default/stock Terminal app? I uninstalled the default/stock Terminal app via AppCleaner. How to get the default/stock Terminal back without reinstalling Mojave?

You can restore it from your backup. Because you wouldn't start deleting bits of the system with a third-party app without making sure you had a backup.

Failing that, you can reinstall the OS over the top of your existing installation, and all your files, apps and settings will still be in place. This will make sure that anything else important that ApplCleaner has deleted will be restored.

Some people do this from time to time, just to make sure nothing's got corrupted or missing.


Connect a Mac as an external drive to another Mac I run a 2008 Mac Pro and an old G5 Power Mac. Would it be possible to hook them together and use the G5 as an external drive mounted on the Mac Pro?

Macs can boot into a “Target Disk Mode” that causes them to function like an external hard drive. Connect one Mac to another Mac and you can access its files in the Finder.

Before entering Target Disk Mode, you’ll need a few things:

Two Macs: Target Disk Mode works with Macs, so you’ll need two Macs for this. Each Mac needs either a Thunderbolt port or a Firewire port.
A Firewire or Thunderbolt Cable: You’ll need either a Firewire cable or a Thunderbolt cable for this. You can’t do this via a USB cable. If one Mac has a Thunderbolt port and the other Mac has a Firewire port, you’ll need a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter cable.
FileVault Disabled: Macs now enable FileVault encryption by default, which will prevent you from accessing FileVault-encrypted home directories over Target Disk Mode.
No Firmware Password: If you’ve set a firmware password in the recovery environment, you’ll need to disable that first.

How to Enter Target Disk Mode

Connect your Macs via a Firewire or Thunderbolt cable.
Click the Apple menu and select System Preferences.
Click the “Startup Disk” icon and click the Target Disk Mode button to restart your Mac in Target Disk Mode.
You can also enter Target Disk Mode by rebooting your Mac and holding down the T key as it boots.


Does Apple have a distribution platform for web apps? I have built a web app that I want to distribute to Mac users (using Safari on OS X). What's the best way to do that?

Google, for example, has Chrome Hosted Apps and Chrome Packaged Apps (for web apps, not mobile) that can be distributed through the Google Play.

Best I can tell, (Apple) App Store only contains mobile apps for iOS. And all the OS X apps seem to be developed by Apple only? And not by any third party developers.

Chrome Hosted Apps, as an example in contrast, makes the process simple. All you have to do is create a JSON file with some meta data about the app and upload the app to Google Play. Then the download is just a simple link to the URL of your web app. Done. I'm looking for something similar from Apple. Or are they just out of the web app game?

Apple does not have a dedicated web app store or platform. Apple's iOS App Store and the Mac App Store both require an app bundle be submitted.

It is possible to wrap up a locally hosted web site as an application. A minimal amount of code is required for this approach. This can then be submitted to Apple for review and possible inclusion.

See results for the search wrap web site in ios app webview for possible implementation approaches.


How do I compose email first and then add a group to the bcc line? I like to compose my email messages first and then add recipients.  I created a smart group that I would like to add to the BCC line after composing a message, however I can't seem to find a way to do this.  I am using the default Mail application.

If I understand your problem well enough, in the Apple Mail program, once you have written your email you can click on View->BCC Address Field and that should open the BCC space to add your group.


Cloud Backup Options for HD Attached to Time Capsule I connected an external HD to my Time Capsule and I've relocated my iPhoto and iTunes libraries to this HD.  Time Machine is only backing up my computer's HD and I'd like an offsite backup of the external HD.  I'm looking for recommendations on software services that would work for me.

For cloud/online based backups here are a few to consider:

Backblaze
Mozy
Carbonite
Crashplan

They are all mostly the same - you install their software, pay an annual or monthly fee and your data is constantly backed up to their servers. A few offer more advanced features like mirroring to their servers and another machine.

I've put Backblaze at the top because thats what I use at home to backup my photos and music. Its cheap @ $50 per year for unlimited storage. I set it up once and never had to look at it again. Last week I recovered a folder of files through their web-interface, though you can (like most cloud backup companies) order a hard-drive with the contents.

Another more DIY solution is using AmazonS3 combined with a backup program like GoodSync. You use S3 for the storage and then setup your backup/sync options in Goodsync. We use this at work to backup important project files. The advantage of this method is you have the same level of control you get when using backup software (timed backups/backups when files are changed/email notifications/advanced file comarison etc)

Here is a good starter article for AmazonS3 backups. Its also worth noting that AmazonS3 might end up being more expansive than a regular cloud backup service. You can calculate how much S3 would cost using their Simple Monthly Calculator


Deploy Software On Macs Connected to Active Directory? We have about 50 Macs connected to our Windows Active Directory server and they work ok, they are bound up just fine using the built in functionality.

However, the time has come, we need to install a piece of software across all of them and going around each individually would take forever. What software/route should I take to achieve this?

Also, if there is an easy way to run scripts or automate that would help as well.

Thanks.

Munki is great, I use it as well as Puppet. But for only 50 Macs? I can't see setting up that for a smaller setup unless you are really planning for scale.

Apple Remote Desktop might be a little more adhoc. It's only about $80 on the AppStore. Once your Macs are setup to allow ARD to administrate them, installing software across 50 Macs is as simple as selecting them all, clicking "Install Package", and dragging in a .pkg or .mpkg file.

It also does remote control, send UNIX script, copy files, etc. A useful tool (albeit somewhat buggy at times) for small Mac shops.

If you want a free alternative to JAMF's Composer (which used to be free), you can try Absolute's InstallEase: http://www.absolute.com/products/InstallEase


Unable to find in App Store, able to redownload using iCloud? I obtained an app from the App Store that I can't find now or was it simply taken down, but I still have the app on my iPod. I'd like to install it on my other iPod.

I don't know that if I backup my iPod (iCloud backup) it'll still be there.

Can I install the app from my backup to my other iPod and still be sure to keep it on my original device?

Connect each phone to iTunes over USB - choose to transfer all purchases to the computer. When all the apps are on iTunes, you can install them on devices that them even when the store online is "out of stock"


Is it safe to wipe off iPhone screen with a wet wipe? I am wondering if cleaning an iPhone screen with a wet wipe could have any negative impact on the touch-sensitivity of the screen.

I would not use a wet one, but damp.

With wet you might crate drops that can sneek in in places they should not.


Why does combining a PDF cause its size to be significantly larger? I have 3 files about 40 KB each. When I combine them using Preview and save them as a single PDF file, instead of having a size close to 120 KB, the size is closer to 500 KB.

Why does this happen, and is there any way to retain a small file size when the files are combined?

PDFs are funny creatures because Postscript is a very "fat" language; the same PDF can be written multiple ways. I would say that the extra code is probably glue code to put those three documents together and extra bits placed there by whatever utility was used to combine the three.

The best way to get rid of this would be to open the PDF in Acrobat Professional (not Reader) and run it through the "Reduce File Size..." command. This strips out any dead or unnecessary code, optimizes fonts (if two instances of the same font exist, the PDF is rewritten so that only one instance exists), and the like.

Ghostscript probably has a function that does something similar, but off-hand I'm not sure which one that would be.


Siri freezes on screen when opening This issue occurred when i said launch finder, 2 seconds later it froze permanently on the screen. I tried to reboot the macbook 2012, but when i launched siri again it froze, stuck on the screen. Tried safe mode, but still nothing. I really need help.
Version of macos is macos high sierra.

You can reinstall macOS by booting with commandR on boot up. Then press 'Reinstall macOS' and follow the instructions.
See this Apple support article for more information: https://support.apple.com/T204904


How do I tell Siri to show me pictures I took at a state park rather than pictures of the state park from the Web? I took some pictures up at a state park where I was camping. When I tell Siri, "Show me pictures from XYZ State Park", Siri performs a Bing image search. When I say "Show me pictures I took at XYZ State Park", the Photos app pulls up and displays nothing.

However, the photos come up when I ask for photos I took within the state.

I just tested on my iPhone when I tried searching for photos that I snapped at the Brooklyn Bridge Park by asking Siri "Search photos for Brooklyn Bridge Park" and it opened the photos app and filtered out showing me only those photos.


Screenshots getting piled up in the folder on Sierra When using Yosemite and El Capitan, I set up a folder where screenshots are sent by default. Once screenshots were taken, they'd be added to the bottom of the folder, all in a grid and such.

Ever since I upgraded to Sierra, however, the screenshots, even though sent to the right folder, are put in some random position in it. As a result, they get piled up on top of other screenshots that were already there. Is there anyway of fixing this? What could be causing it?

I realized this is happening on all of my folders, not just the screenshots one. Whenever I used to add new stuff to a folder, it'd get sent to the bottom on that folder, and now it gets piled up on top of the item on the left side of the fifth row (the bottom-most row on the window before I resize or maximize it).

You need to set your folder to Arrange by some criterion - name, date etc

Select the open window, then View Menu > Arrange by >

Alternatively, use Clean Up By to sort them once, then  Cmd ⌘   J  to get the Folder Options, select elect Arrange By None & Sort by > Snap to Grid.


Stop making iPhone constantly change sound volume on its own? I regularly get interrupted in watching and listening to video by the volume randomly getting lowered without me asking for it. I get a system notification telling me "the volume was lowered", telling me it's protecting my hearing based on the last 7 days of use. I've never been asked about enabling such a feature.
I have already disabled what relevant items I can find under Sound & Haptics, which is given as the source of the notification. It apparently doesn't matter though because it's not being respected.
How can I make this stop?
iPhone 8, iOS 14.2

Update: See @Andreas' answer below - iOS 14.4 addresses this issue by allowing the user to specify what kind of device are they listening to. The loud volume notification features still cannot be turned off, but with the right settings, the notification will no longer lower volume automatically. I am currently on iOS 14.4 with iPhone 8 Plus in EU region and I can confirm that I can set my BT devices as external speakers or car stereos, so that they do not have their volume lowered.
-- Original answer:
In addition to @grg's response it is worth noting that this feature doesn't work properly at least in following circumstances:

You are using your phone in a car, where bluetooth car radio is registering itself to the iPhone as bluetooth headphones.
You are using non-Apple headphones.
You are using home appliances, such as external bluetooth speakers, which register to the iPhone as bluetooth headphones.
You have a hearing disability and need to set high listening volume in order to hear anything. You currently have no way to listen to music (or anything, actually), since iPhone will automatically lower the volume.

In these cases, iPhone will determine you are listening to music too loud and will turn the volume down. This cannot be turned off. The screen in your Sound & Haptics setting screen explicitly states these notifications cannot be turned off. This feature was introduced as part of iOS 14, but the inability to turn it off was introduced in iOS 14.2.
I can confirm the above scenarios from my own experience with JBL external speaker and bluetooth receiver I use in my car.
Some users and articles claim that this feature is based on legal requirement in EU and elsewhere. I reside in EU and I was only able to find EU recommendation on hearing protection in mobile devices. I couldn't, however, find any regulation that would make it mandatory for phones to have mandatory automatic volume controllers that can't be turned off. Follow-up discussion is available at Apple forums. This change has arguably created massive amounts of e-waste, since every BT gadget from AliExpress that allows you to use bluetooth in your car has been rendered useless, as well as many, if not most, external speakers and sound appliances on the market currently.
I have no idea why anyone is defending this or why anyone would think I am too incompetent do decide for myself how loud I should listen to music. It's totally broken, not mandatory and dumb idea to begin with even if it worked flawlessly.
Other helpful opinions on how this broken feature affects people's lives:

User with experience in concert industry explains how this affects ability to reproduce music with DAC converters and provides evidence that it is not the loud music but screaming people that damage people's hearing at concerts.
User that drives motor bike explains how iPhone automatically lowers his volume when listening to traffic information and navigation, which introduces hazardous situations with potentially fatal accidents when people need to stop focusing on the road and start fiddling with their phones while driving.


Set IP adress for the wifi hotspot on OSX If I share my ethernet over WiFi I would like to specify the IP address of the hotspot (for now it defaults to 10.0.2.1). Can this be set somewhere in system settings?

Note: the ethernet is not connected. I just run a local web server that should be accessible by some clients connection to my hotspot (and therefore I should have a fix IP address).

AFAICT, this is managed by the process com.apple.InternetSharing. When it is enabled, the file /etc/bootpd.plist is created. Here it has your IP address 10.0.2.1

However, this file is deleted and recreated when Internet Sharing restarts, so modifying it is pointless. I bet that the defaults command can be used to set a new IP address, however defaults read and sudo defaults read do not cite anything related to "com.apple.InternetSharing".

I know this isn't a complete answer, but if you find whatever is creating /etc/bootpd.plist you'll probably accomplish your goal. You may want to read this earlier question about Internet Sharing.


can't scale for external monitor I got a 4K display for my MacBook (late 2013) but I'm unable to scale everything after this monitor plugged. (Browser content is scaled, but the system app is not.)

Can I still scale everything with external display?

When opening the Display preference pane in MacBook/MacBook Pro, additional floating window is displayed for the connected external display. The scaling and resolution settings for the external display can be adjusted in that window.

For additional instructions, refer to the Apple Support Document, macOS Sierra: Adjust your display’s resolution.

  Set the resolution for a connected display
  If you have more than one display, additional resolution options are available.

  After the display is connected, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Displays, then click Display.

  Press the Option key while you click Scaled to see additional resolutions for the second display. Then select a scaled resolution option for the second display.


iCloud photos gone forever or still there? So my friend shared an album and photos with me on ICloud but they disapeared from my iCloud photos stream on my phone 2 weeks later.By the way she just told me she deleted the album today but does that means can't get it back and it's gone forever or are the pictures still on iCloud somewhere

If you didn't make copies to your library, no; they are not available to you anymore, since she unshared the folder and you no longer have access to them.


Why does OS X delete files directly without moving them into the trash? On an external HD, when I delete a file, OS X prompts me that the file will be deleted without putting it into the trash folder.
What is the reasons for that?
How can I move it in trash folder before permanently delete it?

The OS X finder maintains a few hidden directories to handle Mac specific filesystem functions like:

Spotlight = /Volumes/X/.Spotlight-V100
file version history = /Volumes/X/.DocumentRevisions-V100
trash = /Volumes/X/.Trashes
Time Machine (and other) filesystem changes = /Volumes/X/.fseventsd

These are suppressed on many network and "foreign" filesystems by design and/or if the filesystem is read-only. You can use the command line tool (or the get information menu command in Disk Utility) to inspect the format of your volume:

diskutil list /Volumes/X/

Hopefully this is the cause - if your volume is of type Apple_HFS or similar and you don't see the hidden directories, you might need to dig deeper and repair that filesystem or look at some other cause. The simple reason would be that the hidden directories are suppressed by design in your case.


Disable storage of invisible files "._" on my cfs or smb network storage I use OS X Mavericks and have some company storage drives mounted (using smb or cfs).
(smb://username@address.path.toserver.com/directory/data).
When I work with files on the drive or copy files to the drive, some hidden files are created. Most of these files start with dot-dash ._ and then the filename of the original file, like:

._test001.png
._test002.png
._test003.png

And most of the times, the famous ._.DS_Store and .DS_Store are also there.

On my Mac, these . dot items are invisible, but my windows colleagues do see these files. How can I prevent OS X from making these strange invisible files?

On support.apple.com (and other internet sources) you can find a 'defaults write' to disable the creation of .DS_Store files on your network drives. But this does not work in Mavericks:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

For now I use this oneliner, but doing a rm -rf does feel wrong in this case.

find . -type f -name "._*" -exec rm "{}" \;

Edit: I don't want to delete the files or exclude them from copying. I want them not to be created in the first place.

Edit: I prefer a 'native' OS X solution over third party apps.

Edit: This questions has two answers, one for the ._ files and one for the .DS_Store files. The bounty is rewarded for dot_clean, this native command line app cleans all ._ files. Unfortunately is does not clear the .DS_Store files, this can effectively be done with Asepsis. Asepsis stores .DS_Stores in a fixed location, and not in the folder itself.

I will admit, I hadn't noticed that the defaults write command stopped working in Mavericks.
However, when I DO clean network mounts, instead of your one liner find and rm, I use this:

dot_clean .

The manfile explains:

dot_clean -- Merge ._* files with corresponding native files.

I don't use the -m flag, but you may find it helpful in your situation.

-m      Always delete dot underbar files.

Here is another person actively trying to stop .DS_Store files from being created:
http://www.aorensoftware.com/blog/2011/12/24/death-to-ds_store/ - looks like he doesn't want them on drives as much as he doesn't want them on the network!


Can I use two 27" Cinema Displays from a 15" MacBook Pro? I am interested in purchasing a MacBook Pro and running multiple monitors when I am at my desk. Ideally, I'd like to run two 27" Cinema Displays when I am working at my desk, but would be okay with two smaller monitors.

Is this configuration possible? Does it require a combination of both Thunderbolt and DVI connectors?

I am aware that there is a similar question about utilizing multiple monitors when using the MacBook Air, but didn't feel like it gave enough detail about MacBook Pros.

If you are talking about a Thunderbolt equipped 15-inch MacBook Pro then yes according to this:

Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch): Connection options for Thunderbolt Macs

Interestingly you can also drive two from a 13-inch MacBook Pro, it will disable the built in display.


What does Mail do when it sends Windows friendly attachments? What does Mail do to the file or files differently when it sends attachments that are Windows friendly?

According to http://www.ncmug.org/tips/mail_attachments.html:

  By default, Mail assumes your recipient is also a Mac user and therefore includes the resource forks (if any) of attached files. Normally a Mac user sees such attachments as a single file, whereas a Windows user sees two individual files - one containing the data fork of the file and the other containing the resource fork.

  When you choose "Windows Friendly" attachments, Mail strips the resource fork so that Windows users receive just one file, not two (one of which would be unusable anyway). In most cases - at least for files created with modern applications - all the crucial parts of files are in the data fork; as long as the filename has the correct extension and they have an appropriate application, Windows users can open the file.


What are my options for full system (or at least home directory) encryption? I own a MacBook Pro, which is obviously a Laptop, so I want to protect myself in case it ever gets stolen.

On Windows I can use TrueCrypt to do a full system encryption, but would that also be a choice on Mac OS X?

I think that OS X contains a built-in encryption, but when it was released (10.2? 10.3?) I heard it had some really bad flaws that made it unusable.

Is that still the case? What are my options to encrypt either the full drive or at least my home directory?

Mac OS X comes with FileVault for encrypting your home directory. There isn't a whole lot of customization for it, but it does its job. There are a few downsides, though:

FileVault does not play well with Time Machine backups. Time Machine can only back up the FileVault encrypted disk image when the user is logged out.
As FileVault runs it tends to slowly consume disk space. This space is reclaimed at logout, but it can cause problems if your drive is nearly full.

These downsides are the result of FileVault being implemented as an encrypted disk image that is then mounted at login. However, as long as you make sure you regularly log out of your machine they shouldn't present that much of an issue.

It does appear that TrueCrypt is available for Mac OS X, but I've never used it and don't know how well it works.


Can I suppress the visual/audible bell in Mail when I press ⌥ (option) plus a symbol? I've configured BetterTouchTool to allow me to toggle read/unread status of an email when I press ⌥/ (option slash, a convenient shortcut near the arrow keys), using the "Trigger menu bar menu item" action.  (See below screenshot.)

The shortcut works—when I trigger it, the read/unread status changes.  (BTT is smooth as glass, I LOVE it.)

However, Mail.app also makes an audible and visual bell (screen flash and a sound) when I trigger the shortcut.  It does this whether or not BTT is running or configured.

Is there some way I can suppress this bell sound and flash for this particular keyboard shortcut for Mail?

(I'm running Mail 9.3 on macOS 10.11.6, and BetterTouchTool 1.912 (523).)

P.S.: I tried several other unbound keyboard shortcuts, without configuring them in BTT but just pressing them in Mail, and all made the same flash and sound.  I have no reason to think they will not make the same annoying sound if configured to actually do something through BTT.

Have you turned off Sound EffectsSystem Preferences>SoundUntick the box play user interface sounds effects


Where are the user applications located on iOS 10? I want to make a launch daemon that automatically launches yalu on boot, but I cannot find the app executable. Does anybody know where iOS 10 stores apps?

Applications have been moved in iOS 10. They're now in

/private/var/containers/Bundle/Application/

See Andrew's answer for why you can't do what you're asking though.


Multiple Macs and the OS X Lion Hardware Up-to-Date Program? Possible Duplicate:
  Which new Mac purchasers get free upgrades to 10.7?

I'm due for a free update to Mac OS X Lion, as I bought an iMac in July after the cut-off date for free updates.

When I go to claim the free update on the apple web site, it asks me to enter the serial numbers of all "qualifying macs". If I just enter the number of the Mac that I bought most recently, will I be able to install Lion on the other ones manually? I assume so, but I don't want to accidentally short myself $30 :)

The download of Lion, like any other App on the Mac App Store is subject to the same licensing counts as any other app. You are able to have 5 simultaneous copies of the App just like you can authorize 5 machines to hold your iTunes purchased content.


How to erase DVD-RW in Disk Utility I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2012 with built-in SuperDrive. MacBook Pro is running OS X 10.11. I am trying to erase a DVD-RW disc that is filled with some images. But the erase option is greyed out:

Note that I do can select a disk image and press Burn "Disk Image.dmg" to disc and erase the disc and write new things to it. But creating a disk image is very slow in my case and I would just like it to simply erase my rewritable DVD disc. Is there a way to use Disk Utility or a 3rd party app to erase my disc? Thanks.

Go into Finder and right click on the DVD, there should be an option "Erase rewritable disk". Apparently that's how to erase disks in El Capitan.


iCloud sign into new device triggers notification or email? If I sign into someone else's icloud from a device that they have never signed into it from,  will they get a notification or a email?

Yes.

They will get an email with the details which Device is used to login with their iCloud account.

If that iCloud account uses Two Factor Authentication they also get a notification including the location where the request is made.


How can I access the same account (and files) from either of two Macs? I have two Macs in two rooms. Both have just macOS (High Sierra).

I would like to log into either one from my user account, and find my files the way I last edited them on either Mac.

Accessing one's account from any one of multiple linux machines is a common arrangement on that OS. All CS departments do this with hundreds of linux PCs.

Is the same possible with Macs, perhaps through a RAID attached to a dedicated Airport Extreme?

The term "Server" in macOS Server seems to point to the ability to host a web server. I don't understand why that is an additional feature when one can run a server on vanilla macOS just fine. Does the term "server" here refer to the ability to access one (or multiple) account(s) from any one of multiple Macs in the same LAN?

Context + comparison with Linux/Windows solutions

On Linux machines (in CS labs) the speed to access one's files is formidable. It's all but impossible to tell that the files are not local but on an NFS. MS Windows has something similar, but the speed is pathetic. So much so that all users always end up storing a lot of files on their local machines (even in 2017) just for the file read/write operations to be good; it's extremely slow to access files on Windows servers.

Ironically, a Samba server running on Linux and serving Windows machines is a far superior solution. Have you tried a Mac-only solution (with either of the two scenarios you suggest: dedicated NFS or one Mac dedicated to be a server)? Is the file read/write speed in roughly the same league as files local to a Mac?

Update

The question is becoming too broad. I'm forking the two sequel questions:

Direct Attached Storage
Network Attached Storage

Yes, the same is possible with Macs.

Usually you would create such a setup using macOS Server, which includes these features. macOS Server costs $19.99 on the App Store.

This will require you to have either a seperate dedicated server, or assign one of your existing computers to also be a server. The server must be running in order for you to be able to login with such a "shared" account on other computers.

You can also setup this manually, similar to a Linux setup:

This would require you to have some sort of directory setup in order to share the account itself across computers (i.e. typically OpenDirectory or Active Directory - that is variations of LDAP). In your very limited setup you could also manually setup your account on each Mac.

In addition to this you would need a NFS file server to store the actual contents of your home directory (i.e. all your files) on.

The performance of either solution in terms of read/write speed is comparable to the Linux solution, as it is really the exact same type of setup.


Does IOS Dictation Database Contain “UGH” I recently had someone reply to me over text and they claim “speech” to text wrote “ugh” instead of “huh”. It was part of a text that offended me by how it was written and I believe they intentionally wrote “ugh”, even though they claim otherwise. This person uses “ugh” quite often to portray or describe displeasure.
I’ve tried multiple times to get speech to text to produce “ugh” and I don’t think its in IOS natural database to do so.
I know you can manually make IOS learn words, but it’s not in their accessibility database as an entry.

Ugh / huh / aah is easily produced by dictation from similar sounds even in an exceptionally quiet environment with clear diction. (i.e. Works on iPad and Apple Watch and iPhone for me.)
How Apple engineered the system is probably a lot more complicated than you’ve written, but there’s no technical gotcha I can see that would reinforce any mistrust of said person.
In my experience, Siri is extremely flexible with accents and has to juggle many inputs / guess contextually what a sound actually means to produce text that in the end looks identical to a very intentionally typed statement.
For decades to come I think we all will continue to be part of experiments to help Apple wreck a nice beach.


Backup and Restore Single App After Upgrade When I update iOS over the air, the process seems to include all apps being automatically updated.

However, I have one single app from the App Store (Overdrive) that I would like to keep stable and not updated.

After the update, I would like to still have the same version of this app, with the same data, as before the update.

Is there a way to do this?

If it's a built-in Apple app, then no.
Otherwise, just don't update that app when asked.
Eventually, though, you will get to a point where the old version may no longer work on the new OS.

Check that you don't have automatic downloads set in Settings > iTunes & App Store, then non-Apple apps will not update until you tell them to, from App Store app itself.


How make Safari 7 open PDF files in Preview instead of opening them in-page? Since Safari 7.0 which was introduced yesterday with OS X Mavericks the little terminal hack

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

doesn't work anymore (at least not for me).

Once you use the Terminal hack, the PDF is shown in binary/ascii-format in a new tab of Safari (like if you would open the file with TextEdit instead of an arbitrary PDF reader):

Any suggestions how to achieve the desired behavior anyway?

Just adding support to find an answer to this issue. I suppose in the meantime do this:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool NO


marking iCal events as private and sync it with exchange, windows mobile I am using Outlook/Exchange at work and iCal at home. I have one Outlook/iCal calender for all my appointments (both home and work). I sync between outlook and iCal using my windows mobile 6.5 phone, currently testing The Missing Sync.

I need my colleagues to see my private events in the (shared) outlook/exchange calender at work. They have to see when I am not available but for private events they must not see WHY I am not available and what kind of private event that is.

How can I

create a private event in iCal that
when synched with my phone an later
also with outlook is still marked as
private,
see in iCal whether something is marked as private?

Has anyone figured out a workflow for this scenario? Maybe using something else than The Missing Sync or some plugin (preferably without pushing anything to the cloud)?

This is a limitation of the iPhone. Events can be marked a private from OS X only.


Applescript just to 'Report Now' Spamcop My purpose is to write a script to automate Spamcop Reports. There are some tries in forums, but as mac os changes along the years, scripts lose its functionality. I'm newcomer with Applescript.

Spamcop is an email blacklist. Submit spams has steps, for example, in Gmail junk folder, we should separate true spam, send them as attach-mime (full headers), wait analysis, receive an email with links to confirm each spam report.

This script works:

     tell application "Mail" activate

  end tell

 tell application "System Events"
  tell process "Mail"
    delay 0.5
    keystroke "4" using command down
    delay 0.5
    keystroke "a" using command down
    delay 0.5
    click menu item "Forward as Attachment" of menu "Message" of menu bar 1
    delay 5
    keystroke "Spamcop <submit._______@spam.spamcop.net>"
    keystroke tab
    delay 0.5
    keystroke tab
    keystroke "Spam"
    delay 0.5
    keystroke tab
    keystroke "Spam are here!"
    keystroke "d" using {shift down, command down}
end tell

tell application "Mail" activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Mail"
        delay 0.5
        keystroke "4" using command down
        delay 0.5
        keystroke "a" using command down
        delay 0.5
        keystroke "j" using {option down, command down}
        delay 1
        key code 36
    end tell
end tell

** where keystroke "4" using command down is the 4th favorite folder, my junk

The next step is receiving the answer of Spamcop with links to confirm reporting. I tried this, but it didn't work: https://www.webveteran.com/blog/mac/mac-os-x/automate-reporting-spam-to-spamcop-net/

So, any suggestions? How to receive an email in a separate Mail folder from Spamcop, read "http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=" link, open each one in Safari, click at "Send Report(s) Now" button (in fact ""), and close this Tab.

If you have a Spamcop account, you can use this perl script to submit pending reports:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use WWW::Mechanize;

my $spamcop_url = 'http://www.spamcop.net';

my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
$mech->get( $spamcop_url );

$mech->submit_form(
        form_number => 1,
        fields      => {
            username    => 'ENTER YOUR SPAMCOP USER NAME HERE',
            password    => 'ENTER YOUR SPAMCOP PASSWORD HERE',
        }
    ) ."\n";

my $stop = 0;
while(not $stop) {

    $mech->follow_link( text => 'Report Now' ) ."\n";

    my $form = $mech->form_name( 'sendreport' );
    if ($form) {
        print "Send Report form found: ".$mech->value('reports')."\n";
        $mech->click_button( 'value' => 'Send Spam Report(s) Now' ) ."\n";
    } else {
        print "No report form button found.\n";
        $stop = 1;
    }
}

I wrote this script and talk about it at Automating SpamCop.


My iPad is being held for ransom I was able to restore my iPhone and iPod but my iPad is "offline" preventing me from getting out of lost mode.  I also have a call in to Apple.

I've changed my Apple ID password and had to cancel my credit cards.

Any help out there?

Take the device into an Apple Store and explain the situation to them. Under certain circumstances they may be able to fix such an issue (for example, they are able to remove an iCloud lock from a MacBook, but it takes several days and several checks are done to ensure you own the device)


Sound output set to headphones and most comes through them, but some sounds (e.g. alert sounds) come from internal speakers I have bluetooth headphones I use on my macbook pro (2017 13", 10.15.6).  I don't recall this problem happening before, but over the course of the past couple of weeks (very rough approx - clould be less, could be more) I've noticed that I often hear the system alert sounds through the internal speakers.  For instance, right now, if I play music, it comes out of my headphones properly.  But if I send an email, the email sent alert sound comes out of my internal speakers.
For what it is worth, if I manually switch the sound to internal speakers (while the bluetooth headphones are connected), all the sounds comes from internal speakers.  And then if I switch it back to the bluetooth headphones, I am back where I started (with music coming from headphones, but email sent and calendar alert sounds coming from internal speakers).
Is this a configuration option (i.e. allowing special sounds to bypass the sound output settings), or is something wrong?

In System Preferences > Sound you can control the sound output from the "Output" tab. This is the same setting you can change from the speaker icon in the menu bar. This sets the audio device to be used for ordinary sound output such as music, games, etc.
However, in System Preferences > Sound you'll also find a tab named "Sound Effects". Here you can set a separate audio device to be used for sound effects such as email alerts, etc.
Note the setting "Play sound effects through:" - usually you will find it set to "Selected sound output device", but if you set it explicitly to the internal audio device, you'll get the experience you're describing.


Two different locations for Homebrew I had a 3-year old installation of Homebrew in /usr/local/Library/Homebrew. It didn't update properly, so I reinstalled it (without, unfortunately, uninstalling first). This time, Homebrew installed in /usr/local/Homebrew.

Not only are the folder locations different, but the subfolders also are different. Is the old installation deprecated and can I delete it? Or does the new installation depend on the old installation? This is under Mac OS Sierra.

I'm sure new installations of Homebrew are installed under /usr/local/Homebrew/, so I see no harm in deleting the old installation. I also noticed I have no /usr/local/Library/ in my Sierra file structure.

To keep things tidy you might still be able to delete the old installation using the script which has more uninstall options.


iMovie will not recognise my 60fps video? I've read many posts about this and I have pretty much tried everything and iMovie 10.1.11 (all updated) will not recognise my 60fps video.

I've tried everything I can think of:

Deleted, moved clips, reimported clips, reinstalled iMovie etc etc
Used handbrake to export to 60fps constant
Used handbrake to export to 60fps variable
Used handbrake to export to 59.94fps constant
Used handbrake to export to 59.94fps variable

My movie is .mp4, I've also tried encoding to .mkv, also doesn't work,

Viewing the movie in my clips in iMovie shows it as 60fps, as soon as its moved to my timeline it goes to 30fps.

Settings on the top right just shows "1080p" and exporting to file, there is no 60fps option, just 720p, 1080p etc.

Here are a couple of captures of the media meta:

I just feel iMovie is broken, I cannot think what else to try.

Any help will be appreciated!

Ok I think i have worked it out. I was using ShadowPlay with my Nvidia card to record and this was the file that didn't work.

So I installed OBS, and tried the same using Software x264 to record and it works fine in iMovie, will export to 60FPS. I then tried changing it to record with hardware NVENC (which I'm guessing ShadowPlay uses) and with all the other settings the same this doesn't work, refuses to save at 60fps.

So I think its nvidia hardware recording... not 100% sure, but it seems pretty damning evidence.


iTerm unresponsive as xcode attempts (and fails) compiling every startup Very recently, iTerm has become unresponsive for me when I open new instances of it. Whenever I open a new window or tab of iTerm, Xcode seems to be attempting to recompile a slightly older version of the operating system on boot. I believe this because if I open another terminal and cancel whatever is causing the window to hang, and run ps, I see the following:

 1117 ttys000    0:00.01 /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/as
 1118 ttys000    0:00.22 /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/clang -x assembler - -o a.out -integrated-as -c
 1121 ttys000    0:00.01 /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/clang -cc1as -triple x86_64-apple-macosx10.15.0 -filetype obj -main-file-name - -target-cpu penryn -fdebug-compilation-dir /Users/me -dwarf-debug-producer Apple clang version 11.0.3 (clang-1103.0.32.59) -dwarf-version=4 -mrelocation-model pic -o a.out -

This is concerning, because:

I'm on catalina (10.15.4), so it doesn't seem like Xcode should be doing anything with 10.15.0
I did not accept any system prompt asking me to update. I've also run Xcode to see if I should install anything that may be out of date and it seems happy enough, so there shouldn't be anything there.
It hangs indefinitely and does not ever finish. It's preventing my shell from loading (zsh) which is annoying.

Has anyone run into this or have ideas about what's going on?

It turns out I added a small typo in my .zshrc of as that was attempting to translate assembly code to object code every time I started a new shell and the .zshrc file was evaluated. Oof.


How to manually input data into a python script while running in Atom or VScode? I have an iMac running High Sierra. I've been learning python and I use Atom or VScode.

One problem I've experienced in both of these is that if I run a python script with an input statement like: num = int(input("Enter a number: ")) it doesn't work.

It works fine running from a terminal, but not if I'm using Atom or VScode. There seems to be no way to input data into a python script while it is running unless you code it in.

Can anyone tell me how to interactively input data into my python script while it is running?

I figured out my answer for my question.

Atom
Load the Hydrogen package for Atom. this will print output to bottom of editor window. From the Hydrogen package, ude the Run Cell or Run All options. A blank screen appears for your input.

VScode
This problem only seems to appear when using the "Code Runner" extension. Running the code using other methods appears to work fine. If running the "Code Runner" extension using a method like num = int(input("Enter a number: ")) appears to work but when you try entering your input to get an error message popup that says "Cannot edit in read-only editor" It halts waiting for input which can't be entered. I have to kill the app to try another method. So best option is to avoid Code Runner for python scripts if input is required.


Can you hide hidden files in specific folders (like the desktop) while keeping them shown everywhere else? I work with hidden files all the time, but I like an uncluttered desktop. It would be nice to make files like .DS_Store, and .localized invisible just on the Desktop.

Please note I am already aware of this trusty old terminal standby:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Setting that flag to FALSE applies to everything in the system. My goal is to make an exception for the Desktop. Any suggestions?

Although i'm unsure how to fulfill your exact request, I use this tiny widget which gives 1 button access to hide/show hidden files.


How to replace or delete entire iCloud photos library? My iCloud Photos library is corrupt. Photos are missing, the structure is broken.
I have a backup of the local photos library with all full res images.
I'd like to replace the entire content on iCloud with my local data but am unable to.

My library has more than 40,000 photos and is 200GB large.

I tried:

Create a new local, empty library -> it will download all from the cloud instead of replacing the cloud
Delete all from iCloud.com -> returns a server error during deletion
Delete in chunks of 1000 images -> "succeeds" but photos are not deleted
Of course I turned off iCloud photos on all of my devices

All I'd really like to have is a fresh start...possible? If yes, how?

Since deleting directly in the browser did not work (I guess Apple never tested it with a library that large...), I ended up using this workaround: create a new Photos library (start Photos app with option key pressed). Make it the system library and sync with iCloud (only download previews). Then delete all photos and albums once the download has been completed. The changes will take about 15 minutes to be reflected in the browser.
Then I switched back to my original library and enabled iCloud sync. Now it's uploading all of the >40,000 images back to iCloud.


'iCloud Drive' missing from Finder (link broken?) in OS X El Cap I'm using Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11.6) on a Mid 2011 Mac Mini.

My 'link' to iCloud Drive in Finder is missing or broken. I know there is a physical location for the iCloud cache on the local SSD, but I cannot find it. If I could I think I could just add a Favorite to the sidebar. Much thanks.

Looks like I found my answer here: http://usabilityetc.com/2015/07/access-icloud-drive-folder-in-terminal/

The location is:
~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs

Now I just need a way to add it back to the sidebar as a favorite...


How do I uninstall old SDKs? I recently upgraded to Apple OS X 10.8 but I observed the following folders in /Developer/SDKs:

MacOSX10.5.sdk
MacOSX10.6.sdk

I googled and found out that I should run sudo /Developer/Library/uninstall-devtools --mode=all.

However I forgot the --mode=all and now I still have the SDK folders but the uninstall-devtools script has gone. I have also installed Xcode 4.5.2 but it seems that it does not come with the command line tool called uninstall-devtools.

How can I get rid of the old SDKs?

The installer for Xcode 4.3 had an option for removing older versions of Xcode which removed /Developer/.

You can probably just delete the folder completely. It was possible to delete single developer folders even before Xcode 4.3. From an answer by Chris Espinosa on Stack Overflow:

  If you have multiple Developer folders, you can drag any of them to the trash without damaging the others. Developer folders are completely standalone.


How to paste graphics image data to folders in finder If you right click and copy an image from Safari, Mail, etc. (or command-control-shift-4 to save screenshot to clipboard), certain apps support pasting (e.g., Mail, MS Word, etc.), but I can't paste the image to a folder in finder.
Is there some way to override the default behavior, allowing me to paste to a folder, the aforementioned image data as a file using command-V? I don't really care what the file type is.

REVERTED EDITS TO QUESTION: See accepted answer to original question below.

As a workaround, you can open Preview and use File → New from Clipboard (cmd-N). Preview opens the clipboard data and you can save this as a file to the location you desire.


Remote volume control on iPad? We have an iPad in office, which we use to play music when not being used for mobile app testing (etc.).

Is there a way to remote control volume from desktop (OS X)?


How do I prevent spam from appearing in Messages on iOS? The Messages app on iOS has a feature that seems intended to prevent spam messages from appearing in the list of messages I see by default: choosing to filter on "Known" senders only. I'd have thought that this would filter out spam messages from unknown numbers, but that's not what it does, so I constantly get such messages appearing as "Known":

What does "Known" actually mean? How do I use it or some other feature to prevent spam from unknown addresses from appearing in Messages?

It’s too late for iOS to reclassify previous contacts once they are in Known. For those, make one contact called Telemarket Spam and block that contact.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/345784/5472

As more trickle in, take manual action on them if you don’t want to engage your carrier to block them.
So far, my Known hasn’t been breached, so I’m crossing my fingers I can avoid SMS spam for 38 days. I’ve got about 125 numbers I needed to block since they got through when I had filter unknown callers off (like when I need to accept a return call from AppleCare and spam leaks in) (My email accounts x RIP, spam city due to the election funding and drama llamas and sharing lists I presume). T-Mobile USA is doing an excellent job once I enabled their free block service for spam.