Secure erase trashed files in El Capitan I accidentally emptied my trash (not secure emptied it) but there were some files in there that I should've properly erased. Is there a way I can bring them back to properly erase them?

You could try a tool like https://www.prosofteng.com/datarescue-mac-data-recovery/ which has some free tiers to recover limited files.

If your Mac OS supports the FileVault full disk encryption, doing that would be far better and let you never worry about secure erase since everything is cryptographically erased without your password. If that's not an option, use Disk Utility and securely wipe all free space on the drive one time.

I'm assuming you don't have an SSD which don't support secure erase - in that case, see here.

Secure delete an erased file using same file


Need to disable USB Mass Storage devices on macOS Sierra + All the way through El Capitan, the way this used to work, in the Terminal, was:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext ~/backup
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/
sudo reboot

In Sierra and High Sierra, it appears that the IOUSBMassStorageClass kernel extension is no longer loaded, and instead, the IOUSBMassStorageDriver is loaded. Running kextstat | grep USBMass reveals this. If I try to unload the IOUSBMassStorageClass kernel extension, I get the following error:

(kernel) Can't remove kext com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver; services failed to terminate - 0xdc008018.
Failed to unload com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver - (libkern/kext) kext is in use or retained (cannot unload).

Some additional pieces of information:

This workstation is a standalone machine, and is not part of a macOS Server-managed installation. As such, I do not have access to Profile Manager. However, if I can install server somewhere else, export a profile, and load it to this workstation in the Terminal, that is an acceptable solution.
Use of a third-party endpoint manager application is prohibited.
This workstation is remote, and so physical access to it is not an option. The preferred method of configuration is in Terminal through ssh. Remote Desktop is available, if need be.
I have verified that System Integrity Protection has been disabled on this workstation.

Thanks in advance!

According to this thread it seems like is an Apple problem since MacOS Sierra. Several users reported this problem and even a bug report has been generated.

Hope this can help you.


Paragon NTFS app version problem, how to update? I have a little problem (not me, a friend).

He bought a 1TB HDD with some service files, including Paragon NTFS 11.3.11 (he bought this HDD with his Mac, which shipped with Mac OS X version 10.10 or 10.11). He has updated his MacBook to 10.12 and Paragon stopped working, so I think this is a version problem.

The question is, how can I update this Paragon software for macOS 10.12? Do I need to buy a new version of this app???

Samsung's services files do not have a serial number, only some Windows apps and Macintosh NTFS Paragon driver (Paragon 11.3).

yes, you need to buy a new version of this ( paragon 15 ).


Can I charge an iPhone XS from my Macbook Pro 2015 when my MBP is running on battery? I'm certain I used to be able to charge my iPhone from my laptop's battery.
Yesterday when I plugged it in, the iPhone wouldn't charge from my laptop.
My question is: Can I charge an iPhone XS from my Macbook Pro 2015 when my MBP is running on battery?

Yes.
You can charge your iPhone via your MacBook irrespective of whether it is running on battery or power.

Yesterday when I plugged it in, the iPhone wouldn't charge from my laptop.

It could be possibly be due to a faulty cable or port. Try cleaning the port or any dust or other accumulation and/or switching to a different port. You can also try connecting a different peripheral or device to ensure that the port is in working condition.


Outgoing calls sometimes go straight to voicemail When I'm trying to call someone, sometimes it'll ring half a time then go straight to voicemail, the other times it'll just keep on ringing for 2 whole minutes before it just cuts off, no voicemail.

These things would be controlled by the person you are calling, not yourself. For example, one could turn on Do Not Disturb (whether manually or by schedule) which would mean your call would go to voicemail if they have that configured.


What does the undocumented switch, `-t`, do for the `mdutil` utility? In the process of troubleshooting why my Time Machine setup was not completing any backup operations and hadn't finished backing my machine up since 4PM today — it's now 11:49PM —, I saw two suspicious console log entries as follows (btw: after a re-boot, Time Machine completed, but I'd still like to clean up my console log messages and/or spotlight, as the case may be):

*9/24/13 11:36:57.053 PM sandboxd[485]: ([484]) mdworker32(484) deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control (import fstype:hfs fsflag:480D000 flags:200000056 diag:0 uti:org.openxmlformats.spreadsheetml.sheet plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Office.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t 9288141)*

and

*9/24/13 11:37:57.524 PM sandboxd[499]: ([498]) mdworker32(498) deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control (import fstype:hfs fsflag:480D000 flags:200000056 diag:0 uti:com.microsoft.excel.openxmlformats.spreadsheetml.sheet plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Office.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t 2795200)*

I did as suggested, and rather than bore you all with that content (and have to figure out how to make it not auto-wrap in this field), here's the question:
  What does the undocumented switch, -t, do for the mdutil utility?  I've looked in the man page and several man pages online, and none document this switch.

Well, maybe I can format one of them:

whmcclos@mbp ~
$ sudo mdutil -t 9288141
dyld: DYLD_ environment variables being ignored because main executable (/usr/bin/sudo) is setuid or setgid
Password:
/Users/whmcclos/Documents/Medical Expenses.xlsx
/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/William’s MacBook Pro/2013-09-24-160438/Macintosh HD/Applications/Adobe Fireworks CS6/Adobe Fireworks CS6.app/Contents/Frameworks/ICUData.framework/Versions/4.0

OK - that wasn't hard - here's the other (I'm gettin' tired!):

whmcclos@mbp ~
$ sudo mdutil -t 2795200
dyld: DYLD_ environment variables being ignored because main executable (/usr/bin/sudo) is setuid or setgid
/Users/whmcclos/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Excel Toolbars (12)

My educated guess is that mdutil -t /path/to returns the TRUE absolute path of a file or folder.
For example:

$ diskutil -t /this/is/a/real/path
/this/is/a/real/path

When creating a symlink

$ cd /this/is/a
$ ln -s /this/is/a/real/path /this/is/a/symlink
$ mdutil -t /this/is/a/symlink
/this/is/a/real/path

And when using a relative path

$ cd /this/is/a
$ mdutil -t real/path
/this/is/a/real/path

This behavior is almost identical without using the -t flag, except for the trailing : after the pathname.

$ mdutil /this/is/a/real/path
/this/is/a/real/path:

But when using a non existing path with -t, it gives a message and not an error.

$ mdutil -t /this/is/a/nonexisting/path
Unable to resolve path

$ mdutil /this/is/a/nonexisting/path
Error: invalid path `/this/is/a/nonexisting/path'.


How can I navigate any directory in Finder? The Finder shows several particular directories in the home folder.
It does not even show directory I made in the home folder.

But I do want to navigate any directory of the file system. How can I do that?

To access any folder in Finder, press Cmd + Shift + G and enter the directory you want to access.


Change color of desktop font (Yosemite) Tinkertool took care of most of the too-small fonts (are any Apple designers over 40?), but the white text on my preferred light desktop is bad. Linux GTX has a rather tricky file to hand-edit to fix a similar bad default. Does Yosemite have any well-hidden way of changing the desktop icon font color?

As far as I know, it is not possible to change the color of the system font. The system graphic interface files are under the license protection of Apple's user agreement and they are well guarded with encryptions. This also results in the lack of capacity of turning off full screen animation, and other unfortunate unique OSX graphic interface design features and behaviors.


iMessage deletion when not on Wi-Fi Someone sent me an embarrassing picture on my iPhone, which is synced to my iPad for iMessage.

My iPad was not connected to Wi-Fi at that point.

I then deleted the embarrassing picture from my iPhone, before the iPad was connected to Wi-Fi.

So, when the iPad is finally connected to Wi-Fi, will the picture come through onto that device, despite it having been previously deleted on my iPhone?

Your iPad will mirror your iPhone (because the iPhone picked-up the message first).

The pic should not display on the iPad as long as it's not in the message history on your iPhone.


After restore, Photos is uploading items Last week I backed up my phone on my local iTunes. I switched to "Optimise iPhone Storage" for Photos to keep the size of the backup small.

After I restored the phone, Photos says "Uploading 30,000 Items". There are no local photos, so I wonder what is uploaded and if this is messing up my iCloud Photo Library?

I am having the same issue because I restored from an iTunes backup which had all my pictures inside (I bought the 256GB to have all my photos on the device).
Doing so first created a 40GB extra iCloud backup for my iPhone from nowhere then added about 15GB of data to my iCloud Drive folder. No idea what is in there.
Have been in touch with two Apple advisors in these days:

the first told me that this is normal
the second one made me perform a turn off / on of the iCloud Photo library (which didn't help), then a log out/in of the iCloud account (which didn't help).

They said to wait 72hrs! I wonder how this is considered acceptable!
I hope those two steps they made me do can help you.


Why is my Macbook Air MagSafe Pin Becoming Extremely Hot? Why is my Macbook Air MagSafe Pin becoming extremely hot?

I fear that my laptop will burn out.
Can anyone help me on this?

This can happen when the MagSafe cable is failing, generally at the plug end. As the cable strands break down due to mechanical wear, the power being supplied has to be carried by fewer strands. These strands invariably begin to heat up and become oxidized, increasing resistance and therefore generate yet more heat. This is why your MagSafe is getting hot.

If you're handy with DIY, repairs to the MagSafe connector are possible (at least with the old white plastic MagSafe connectors). Another option is to crop off the old connector and splice on a replacement cable and connector - these can be found at the usual internet retailers. Finally, you could simply buy a replacement power supply.

Sadly, Apple show no sign of environmental responsibility with their designs and the MagSafe power supply is no exception. They can only be opened with brute force, invariably resulting in something that can no longer be regarded as "safe". You're lucky in that it looks like your cable has failed at the connector end, which can be replaced. It's just as common for Apple adapters to fail at the adapter end, which is almost always goodnight Vienna for the adapter.


'About this Mac' will not work anymore A'About this Mac' will not open anymore. How can I fix it. I have only had this computer a month and it was working before.

is there anything specific you can tell us about this problem?
For example, when you click 'about this mac' does the tab flash, confirming that you have in fact clicked it? and if so are you merely receiving a "rainbow spinning wheel of death" issue?

Either way, I have done some research into this and it appears that you are not alone in this problem. Most people have suggested simply bypassing the problem by launching the "System Information" application found under the "Utilities" folder inside "Applications", which will give you a far more in-depth insight into your mac than the "about this mac" tab ever will. However this is an unusual problem which should not be placated simply by bypassing it.

To solve this problem  i would suggest a few things, firstly: what was the last thing that you did before this error appeared, it could involve installing something odd or an unusual system crash (which may not have been your fault). If it was something unusual than it may be related to the error and could solve it through its reversal (if at all possible).

The second is to try and repair your disk permissions, by entering the Disk Utility application (Applications/Utilities folder again), and clicking verify and finally repair, which may well solve the problem. After this, i suggest a complete restart of the computer.
**

Suggestion source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2686259

**

If worse comes to worst, you can always completely reset the machine, however this is somewhat overkill for such a minor issue.

Hope that this helps.


How to transfer photos from OS X Tiger to iPad iOS 7 My mom got an iPad Air as a birthday present. She has been using an iBook G4 running 10.4.11 until now.

I am trying to migrate her photos from the iBook (iPhoto) to the iPad. Is there any easy  way to do so?

No easy way no.

G4 with 10.4 means a (very) old iTunes version (9.2.1). For iTunes 10 you need a least Leopard.

To sync with iOS7 (the default OS of the iPad Air) you'll need iTunes 11.1.

Other options :

Use a another (more recent) mac to do it
send the images with an app or mail (veeeeeery long)


Inserted SD-card not showing up on MacBook Pro, can't find or see it anywhere I inserted an SD card from a dashcam because it was full. The first time I inserted the card, it showed up and I deleted all the files on it. I went to plug it back in the dashcam and it still showed "storage full". I plugged it back into my Mac and it will not show up anymore. Not sure what's going on here.

This may vary by dash cam.  With my dash cam, you must not delete files on the SD card using Finder or some other operating system utility.
The dash cam is intended to manage its own storage and, by itself, will remove old video when full keeping just the most recent.
If there is a need to reinitialise the SD card, this has to be done with the utility provided for the dash cam.
In your case, I think you have corrupted the storage and need to reinitialise the SD card in the way required by the dash cam.


AppleScript broken in Lion? It seems like I cannot execute AppleScripts on my Mac.

I am running OS X 10.7.1 and when I try to compile an AppleScript, even a script as simple as display dialog "Hello World!", I get a syntax error.

In the preferences for the AppleScript editor there nothing in the Default Language drop down menu on the General preferences page.

Does anybody know what might be wrong? Is it possible to reinstall just AppleScript?

So actually the problem has been solved by restarting my Mac with "resume" feature turned off.


How to ignore specific MacOS software updates? There are some software updates I'm not interested in, either because I don't use the applications involved or because I don't care.
I uncheck them and click Not now
The annoying part is that they keep popping up every time there's a new update.
Can't you uncheck them forever so the updates-to-ignore list doesn't keep growing?

For example, I couldn't care less about stability when sending slideshows from iPhoto'11 to iDVD, something I don't do anyway.

Just go up to the menu bar and hit Update>Ignore Update (or the keyboard shortcut is apparently just the delete key).


Cannot Erase my old iPhone I upgraded my iPhone 4S to a 6.  They transferred the number and everything in the Verizon store.  However, they did not want the old phone on trade in.  I would like to trade / sell or give away the old phone but I want to reset it first.

However, it will not let me reset it because it will not connect to the WiFi at my house in order to accept the iTunes password.

I have confirmed with other devices the WiFi is working and I am typing the correct iTunes password.  This is really frustrating me.

Method 1:
Try resetting it via iTunes. To do this: Plug your iPhone into your computer and open iTunes. In iTunes, select your iPhone device and click on "Restore iPhone". Let the process finish and the phone restart. After the restart you can plug it out of your computer. Now should your iPhone be reseted to factory defaults.

Method 2:
You say that you can't connect it to your Wi-Fi network. Have you tried with forgetting the network? To forget the network: Go into the Settings application -> Wi-Fi -> Tap on the little "i" at the same row as the name (SSID) of your Wi-Fi network.
Now you can try to reconnect to the Wi-Fi network again and see if it works better. If you are able to connect to the Wi-Fi network, then you can reset it via the Settings application.


Will iCloud back it up? I recently installed iCloud into my iPod touch 4th generation. I'm thinking about resetting my iPod because of some problems I've been having lately. Will iCloud back up/save all my info, apps, etc? Thanks!

It will save your info and redownload your apps for you, but it will also bring back any software issues you were trying to get rid of. What info were you most concerned with?


Why does Back Up Now work from Time Machine Preferences but not from the status bar? I am backing up to a Western Digital network drive (via Ethernet LAN), but my Time Machine won't run automatically. Whenever I run it manually from the status bar, selecting Back Up Now it fails with the following error message:

  Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "DeviceName".
  The backup disk is not available.

However, if I open Time Machine Preferences, right click on the disk and select Back Up Now, the backup runs just fine.

I tried removing / adding the drive, ⌥ alt/option + ⌃ ctrl + Click on the drive and Verify Backups but I still get this error, and I don't understand why Back Up Now behaves differently depending on how it was executed?

Edit following @AllInOne comment: when I backup from the status bar, I get the following messages in the console:

  10/1/13 9:23:04.857 AM com.apple.backupd[36835]: Starting manual backup
  10/1/13 9:23:05.275 AM com.apple.backupd[36835]: Backup failed with error: 19

Backing up from Time Machine Preferences first mounts the disk:

  10/1/13 9:34:39.473 AM com.apple.backupd[36844]: Starting manual backup
  10/1/13 9:34:39.523 AM com.apple.backupd[36844]: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://wd_backup@DeviceName.local/WD_Backup
  10/1/13 9:34:45.000 AM kernel[0]: ASP_TCP CheckReqQueueSize: increasing req queue from 32 to 128 entries. so 0xffffff804ab26b80
  10/1/13 9:35:02.486 AM com.apple.backupd[36844]: Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://wd_backup@DeviceName.local/WD_Backup
  10/1/13 9:35:02.000 AM kernel[0]: AFP_VFS afpfs_mount: /Volumes/WD_Backup, pid 37105
  10/1/13 9:35:02.000 AM kernel[0]: AFP_VFS afpfs_mount : succeeded on volume 0xffffff8271491008 /Volumes/WD_Backup (error = 0, retval = 0)
  10/1/13 9:35:45.297 AM com.apple.backupd[36844]: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/lindinglab_XR_iMac.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups 1
  10/1/13 9:35:45.308 AM com.apple.backupd[36844]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups 1/Backups.backupdb

However even if I mount the disk beforehand (for instance from the Finder, Go, Connect to server and enter its address), Back Up Now in the status bar still fails with the same message (including in the console).

I think I may have found a workaround with the tmutil command line tool. If I say tmutil startbackup I get this The backup disk is not available error message, however if I add the destination it seems to work.

First I determined the destination of my backups:

xavier@imac-xavier:~$ tmutil destinationinfo
====================================================
Name          : WD_Backup
Kind          : Network
URL           : afp://wd_backup@DeviceName.local/WD_Backup
Mount Point   : /Volumes/WD_Backup
ID            : 11326F32-D5BA-4FE8-83FB-E9CBD8F6FF2D

I then used this ID to launch the backups with:

tmutil startbackup -d 11326F32-D5BA-4FE8-83FB-E9CBD8F6FF2D

I added it to my crontab so it runs hourly:

xavier@imac-xavier:~$ crontab -e
42 * * * * startbackup -d 11326F32-D5BA-4FE8-83FB-E9CBD8F6FF2D


What does "Enable Quick Website Search" do on OS X? I'm trying to find out what the "Quick Website Search" checkbox does technically. My guess is that it prefetches data or somehow sends my search terms to siri or another apple online processing engine, but I'm unable to locate specific documentation or files on the system that control/cache these search results.

The help page is vague about how this works in practice and I'd like to understand the mechanism a bit more finely grained than "lets Safari record information" and instead know where that information is stored and what "searches within a website" actually means in practice.

An answer for Safari on 10.10.2 would be ideal and a practical example of how it searches within apple.stackexchange.com (which is shown in my Manage Websites list of sites that are enabled).

If you develop a website you can add a file called an OpenSearch specification that identifies the site as having searchable content.

You can see the apple.stackexchange.com OpenSearch specification here. The important bit is the following line that tells browsers the format for submitting search queries to the site.

<Url type="text/html" method="get" template="https://apple.stackexchange.com/search?q={searchTerms}"/>

The first time you visit a site with an OpenSearch specification Safari adds it to that list you can find under "Manage Websites". So if you start typing into the search bar something like "apple chrome hanging", Safari will see that you have apple.stackexchange.com in your list of quick searches and offer Search apple.stackexchange.com for "chrome hanging".

Nothing to do with Siri or Apple's servers. It all happens on your own machine. It's just a way to submit searches directly to other websites instead of having to open the particular site, click in their search field and type your query there.

You can find Safari's store of Quick Website Search information in /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Safari/SearchDescriptions.plist.


How can I permanently dismiss Updates Available notifications? With the Notification Center in Mountain Lion, I get an alert when software updates are available. The problem is, my only options are 'Details' and 'Update'. I don't want to interrupt my work to install the update and I don't want to launch the App Store to see what the update it. I just want to dismiss the alert so that it doesn't come back again. I know about the tip that swiping the notification off the side of the screen to make it go away, but it seems to come back a few minutes later.

I've looked in the System Preferences to change it to a 'banner' instead of an 'alert' so that it would go away by itself after a few seconds, but there is no option to control software update notifications. I've also closely read these two related questions and can't seem to make the answers there work for me to suppress repetitive update notifications.

I can turn off software updates all together, but I'm not really against the update notifications -- as long as I can acknowledge it and not have it bother me again.

Is there a hidden configuration option that I can invoke to control these notifications from re-appearing?

I have just disabled checking for updates automatically from System Preferences:

I install updates manually from App Store or with sudo softwareupdate -ia.

I tried adding this command to the root's crontab (and not restarting after updates):

0 14 * * * /usr/sbin/softwareupdate -ia

I didn't have any issues at first, but after the 10.8.3 update, Safari started crashing on launch until I restarted. After that I changed -ia to -da so the command just downloads updates. softwareupdate does not include updates for App Store applications though.


Using postgres with launchd without constant issues I have postgres and passenger installed from homebrew, and use the os x built in apache. I have several rails apps that use postgres which are managed by passenger which in turn is managed by apache.

Currently apache is started by launchd at boot from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist, apache starts passenger via /etc/apache2/other/passenger.conf and once I've logged in postgres is started via ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist.

Everything starts fine and works great until I need to shut down or reboot my mac; then I run into a problem with how launchd tears down everything. Basically Launchd sends SIGTERM to every user process and then 20 seconds later (http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/launchd/launchd-842.92.1/src/core.c) sends SIGKILL, but postgres treats SIGTERM as a "smart shutdown" signal (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.5/static/server-shutdown.html) and waits for all it's existing sessions to close themselves before quitting. The problem is that the sessions are owned by the rails apps running under passenger and therefore won't shut down until apache shuts down. And apache doesn't shutdown until the system is shutting down. Which means postgres gets SIGKILLed and leaves it's postmaster.pid file lying around which prevents postgres from starting up the next boot until I rm that file.

Would moving postgres's launchd plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons/ be a better idea? It would potentially make postgres and apache be shut down at the same time, which given 20 seconds to stop should be enough time for postgres to exit cleanly. But I could be missing an easier solution.

I wound up moving the postgres launchd plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons and adding a UserName key/value pair (postgres won't run as root).


OS X Leopard profile hangs on load ON a current project, and really need help. Re-install would be a painful option right now.

Running OS X 10.5.8 and just downloaded and reinstalled compbo update.

Yesterday installed latest version of evernote and now having all types of problems. Don't think it was evernote, but actually GROWL.

If I login in with my creds, it takes over 20 min to load my profile. If I login with dummy acct, it loads in less than 2 min. Applications launch but every couple of mins hangs for @ 4-5 min.

Ran permmisstions repair and disk repair twice. Some problems where found but fixed.

Disabled all startup apps from Accounts. What else can I do?

EDIT -
Just started in verbose mode again and ran /sbin/fsck -fy again.  the same error came out.  After Checing Catalog file, it said Incorrect block count for file 2011.04.18.U501.asl (It should be 734 instead of 367).

In addition to what you've already done, temporarily move any system wide startup items from /MacintoshHD/Library/StartupItems using Finder.

If you have done this, and removed startup items from your own account, repaired the disk, then there is really nothing else that should be slowing down the startup.

If you cannot log in to your profile, you may need to start in safe mode (hold down shift whilst booting).


How do I change desktop background with a terminal command? I trying to add to my OS X configuration script a command which sets the background to the plain dark grey, however, when applied, it only sets it to the main monitor and any additional monitors currently connected keep their current background and any added thereafter still receive the default space background. What I have so far is as follows:

# Change Desktop default BackgroundColor to grey
defaults write com.apple.desktop '{ Background = { default = {BackgroundColor = ( "0.2549019753932953", "0.4117647111415863", "0.6666666865348816" ); Change = Never; ChangePath = "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Solid Colors"; ChangeTime = 1800; DrawBackgroundColor = 1; ImageFileAlias = <00000000 00ce0003 00000000 c73804cd 0000482b 00000000 000c2624 000c2633 0000ca1c 0a310000 00000920 fffe0000 00000000 0000ffff ffff0001 000c000c 2624000c 25fc000a 0789000e 00280013 0053006f 006c0069 00640020 00470072 00610079 00200044 00610072 006b002e 0070006e 0067000f 000c0005 006f0073 00780038 00360012 00394c69 62726172 792f4465 736b746f 70205069 63747572 65732f53 6f6c6964 20436f6c 6f72732f 536f6c69 64204772 61792044 61726b2e 706e6700 00130001 2f00ffff 0000>; ImageFilePath = "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Solid Colors/Solid Gray Dark.png"; NewChangePath = "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Solid Colors"; NewImageFilePath = "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Solid Colors/Solid Gray Dark.png"; NoImage = 0; Placement = Crop; Random = 0; }; }; }'

How do I set the default the the dark grey background via a terminal command?
How do I change all monitors already configured to grey via a terminal command?

None of these other solutions work on Mavericks anymore because Apple moved the settings to a sqlite DB. But that's ok because now it's easier, the png can be anywhere in the filesystem, and all desktops (even virtual) are updated.

 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db "update data set value = '/path/to/any/picture.png'";
 killall Dock;

Or, add it as a function to your ~/.bash_profile and call it as a terminal command with any non-relative path.

#   Update all Wallpapers
function wallpaper() {
    sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db "update data set value = '$1'" && killall Dock
}

wallpaper ~/path/to/any/picture.png


How do I find my purchased OS X 10.9.2 which was accidentally deleted from App Store? I have accidentally deleted my copy of OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 from the App Store in the  purchased section under my account.

Is there any way I can get it back again without paying for a second time?

You can´t really delete your purchases - but you could hide purchases.

Apple has a Support file for this case.

You have to:

Open the Mac App Store.
Choose Store > Sign In, then enter your Apple ID and password.
Choose Store > View My Account.
Click on View Hidden Purchases from the Account Information page.
From the Hidden Purchases page, locate the app you would like to unhide.
Click the Unhide button.


How can I make my iPhone 5S go back to charging from my Dell Windows laptop USB port? My iPhone 5s, when connected to my Windows 10 Dell laptop, has recently started connecting & charging then immediately disconnecting and ending charging. I get the "double buzz" of connection, immediately followed by a single buzz indicating it has stopped charging, and the "charging" lightning-bolt symbol disappears.

How can I fix this (asking and answering for future generations)?

I solved this problem by disabling the non-USB 3.0 device in the Windows device manager. For some reason, iPhone is not happy when a non-USB 3.0 device is active. I'll leave it to someone else to explain exactly why.

Anyhow, the fix is:
1) Open Device Manager
2) Find the "Universal Serial Bus controllers" section
3) Find the USB device that does NOT seems like it's a 3.0 device (in my case it was called "USB Composite Device")
4) Right click on that device, and click "disable".

Voila, my iPhone charges and connects again.

See below what my Device Manager window looked like after I disabled the non-USB 3.0 device.

Hope this helps someone.


WhatsApp integration on iOS 10 does not work: "You'll need to continue in the app" I am using an iPhone 5S and I just updated to iOS 10.
I enabled the Siri support towards WhatsApp in Settings > Siri > App Support.

However, when I use Siri and ask, for example "Send a message to XXX using WhatsApp saying Hello", Siri tells me "Sorry, you'll need to continue in the app".

It seems like the integration has not been enabled yet. Does someone know how to solve this issue?

Uninstalling and reinstalling WhatsApp helped in my case.


Macbook Pro can only boot into EFI, how can I transfer files to my Macbook Air? I have recently upgraded Disk Utility on my Macbook Pro. Now my device only boots into Recovery Mode and when I hold alt/option I can only see EFI. When I try to get into safe mode, I see a "No Symbol".

How can I transfer files from my Macbook Pro that will only boot into EFI to my Macbook Air that is fully functioning.

Your question is unclear, perhaps the terminology you are using is not accurate. Like calling "Recovery Mode" "EFI" which it most certainly is not.

If all you need from the MacBook Pro is the data off the drive, you can remove the SSD or HD from the unit, put it in a USB enclosure and get you data and apps off it that way, possibly even using the Migration Assistant app which will work on an external drive that used to be internal.

Ifixit.com is a good source for take-apart instructions for most current and many older Macs, if you need help dissembling...


How to launch Twitter app from Tweet URL in Reminders in iOS 11 I am using 6th gen iPod touch.
When I was using iOS 10.3, Tweet URLs in Reminders showed with Twitter icons, and I could open Twitter app from Reminders by tapping Tweet URLs.
From when I updated to iOS 11, Tweet URLs in Reminders showed without icons, and I could not open neither Twitter app nor Safari from Reminders by tapping Tweet URLs.

How can I launch Twitter app with tap Tweet URL in Reminders in iOS 11 ?

Universal link from Reminder app is now re-activated on iOS 11.2 and Twitter 7.12.1.


Google Drive File Stream folders are missing I am using Google Drive File Stream and have a problem where some of the folders are missing from a team drive/shared drive. The folders appear in the web interface, but not in the Mac Finder. There doesn't seem to be any option to refresh.
This problem has come up intermittently in the last few months, and also is reported by other members of my team. I'm on Google Drive File Stream version 41.0.2.0 and macOS Catalina 10.15.6.

I received the following procedure from Google Cloud Support and it seems to have fixed the problem for me.

Go to Drive File Stream icon on the menu bar > gear icon > Pause Syncing
Then, Drive File Stream > gear icon > Preferences > Disconnect Account
Next, Drive File Stream > gear icon > Quit
Fine the cache folder: Finder > Go menu > Go to Folder > paste ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS
Delete the folder DriveFS
Drag the app Drive File Stream to the trash
Restart the Mac
Reinstall Drive File Stream
Go to Drive File Stream > gear icon > About, and verify that Version: 41.0.2.0

This worked for me but seems very elaborate. Hopefully they will come up with a better way in the future.


How do I change the region on an Airport Express? I purchased two of the current model Airport Expresses while I was in the US a few months ago. Now that I'm back in Australia, the only options I have when setting the country in Wireless Options are in the Americas. How can I get the Airport Express to allow me to change the region to Asia-Pacific, which would allow me to select Australia as the Country?

Note: The reason I want to set the Country is that I've been having reception problems, so I want to be able to ensure that my WiFi setup is running on the right channels for other "Australian-configured" WiFi gear.

You need to do a firmware reset (factory default) – see http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3728

Beforehand, ensure:

the mac through which you will be setting up the Airport Express (ie by use of Airport Utility) is set to Australia in its preferences (e.g. on MacOS these are System Preferences/International/Format and System Preferences/Date & Time/Time Zone).
the Airport Express can connect to the internet within Australia, at the time of first set up after resetting the firmware back to factory defaults.

I believe the firmware attempts to determine its location on first setup (either via the IP address it sees on initial connection, or off the computer), which it then writes into its firmware.


Fullscreen on multiple displays and swiping moves all screens This worked up until May 16th.
Before and after updating to macOS Sierra 10.12.5 did not solve problem.

Config / Specs:

MacBook Pro
Dell monitor
iPad using Duet app

Previous functionality

I could expand fullscreen any app/program in Mac (the green button top right) and use 3 fingers on the trackpad to toggle between 'screens' on that individual physical screen.

Current bug

When I fullscreen an app on one display and swipe with three fingers, swiping controls all 3 physical displays. The display in question swipes to the app, but the other two displays also swipe to the right showing blank black or white backgrounds and are mouseover-able.

Desired functionality -- the Previous Functionality

Swiping on a screen only controls that display.

System Preferences → Mission Control and enable Displays have separate Spaces.


App Store not launching I have a Mac 2009 mid-model running OS X 10.9.4. When i click the App Store icon in the dock nothing  happens. And I am not able to download or update my applications.
My firewall is off.

Since it is not clear what is not working I recommend following steps:

Trash that Dock Icon, then go to Finder applications and start it from there.

Or use iTunes to access it.

Once running right click and keep in Dock.

Possibly just use Disk Utility and restore/Repair preferences settings.

If it still not working, try with new preferences files.

Find them in  ~/Library/Preferences/

com.apple.storeagent.plist
com.apple.appstore.plist

Quit all applications on your Mac, delete the two files above, and reboot your Mac.

If still not working use cmd+r to restore your OS installation..


Does using albums to combine events keep the events intact? If I use albums in iPhoto to combine events for a slideshow will the album keep each event intact and in order rather than combining pictures by date or some other hierarchy?

Albums don't affect the contents of an event in any way, so your events will remain exactly how you left them.


If I have family-sharing do I have to buy everything through it? If my family has family sharing, do I have to use the family credit card for every purchase, or can I buy some things on my own for my personal use and other things through the family sharing?

Once you have family sharing turned on all purchases that aren't covered by a store-credit get billed through the shared payment method which is one charge card entered by the "Family Organizer" Apple ID.

Quote from the Apple Support article:

  After you set up your family, any time a family member initiates a new purchase it will be billed directly to your account unless that family member has gift or store credit.

As a workaround @bmike recommends purchasing a gift card and/or refilling your iTunes balance so that no purchase ever is made on anything but store credit.

Discounted gift cards can be found at Costco and you can also store your iTunes account in iOS wallet app and recharge it at Apple Retail Stores.


iPhone: Is it possible to rename the extension of a file? I have an iPhone 5. I am new to this world.

Example file:

MyFile.zip.jpg

... must be renamed to:

MyFile.zip

... or, if not possible or feasible, this file :

MyFile.jpg

... must be renamed to:

MyFile.zip

Sumarizing: I would like to acquire some control of the extension (the characters after the last dot .) in the name of the files.

Methods easy to perform for unexperienced users are preferred.

What could this be used for?
Example:
Privacy is something of the past, we must admit it. But some people (like me) still would like to be able to send, say, a private email that only the receiver will read.

Sending encrypted files is becoming forbidden for some email providers, like GMail (read their terms), so .zip or .rar encrypted are returned to the sender as failed. And installing cryptographic programs is a nightmare for common (and even experienced) users of something like an iPhone.
A simple workaround: send your files (a document if you just want to send text) inside an encrypted file (say .rar) like:

MyPrivateFile.rar

... but rename it to:

MyPrivateFile.jpg

The receiver must rename just the extension, and voila! : you both have succeeded in sending encrypted info via email.
But, as you know, the email program's interface in the iPhone is too simple. I am not very experienced in using it, but I think it does not allow... well, it does not allow many things, even file saving inside the phone, so renaming file extensions must be even more difficult.

Tho I have never had to do this before but I just checked and it seems that Dropbox allows you to rename files. So if you have a file attachment in email you can save an "image" file in an email to Dropbox and once there you can rename it.

A bit of a kludge but Dropbox accounts are free...


Repartition my existing hard disk First time Mac user here.

I'm quite aware with all the posts here about repartitioning hard disk but I'm quite confused if repartitioning would erase all my data on my hard disk.

I recently bought my Mac and it was pre-installed with Lion, and my hard disk size is 750GB, and under in one partition only.  I would like to divide the disk into at least 2 partitions where I can put my music files so that it would be easier to backup with any backup/imaging software.

With my current setup, it means that I have a recovery partition on my disk that would allow me to reinstall Lion if problems would occur.

If it would erase all existing data on the disk if I repartition it, then my only choice is to do this:

1) Backup first my data using Time Machine
2) Boot from the recovery partition and erase and partition (3) the hard disk
3) Restore the image to the disk to the desire partition

What do you guys think?

Make sure to back up all of your data first, just in case.

Next, create a USB Recovery HD (at least 1GB) with these Apple forum instructions:

  Create a USB thumb drive Recovery HD using the Lion Recovery Disk
  Assistant. Download this and install it. Then, insert a thumb drive
  and create your bootable Recovery HD. Last, boot from the USB thumb
  drive and from inside the Recovery HD on that, try the resize.

You should be able to resize your main partition after booting from the USB Recovery HD.

Another option is to use the Recovery HD on your Mac, as noted in the solution that @bmike suggested in another question - boot to your Recovery HD and use Disk Utility there to resize.

The solution that you've mentioned will work, but is a bit more work.


How to backup photos app on Mac? I used to use iPhoto but then Apple scrapped it and introduced Photos app. Earlier to backup my library I would copy the iphoto library to external hard disk, but after this new introduction I have iPhoto migrated library (More than 50GB) and also a Photos library (around 70GB).

Can anyone let me know which library/libraries to copy on my external disk?

Photos has migrated the iPhoto library to the Photos library. Photos no longer reads from or writes to the iPhoto library. You only need to back up the Photos library.

Providing you have no referenced masters in the iPhoto library, it's fine to delete. Keep a backup of it for a while in case anything doesn't work. You can copy all your referenced masters into your Photos library by opening your Photos library, navigating to All Photos, selecting all the photos and choosing File → Consolidate…. If you have any referenced masters, this will copy them into the Photos library, such that all the data is contained within the Photos library.


Is there a faster way or keyboard shortcut to close files without saving in Preview? When closing an unsaved file in Preview, you're presented with the "Do you want to keep this new document" modal:

There doesn't seem to be a quick way to access the Delete button besides tabbing or using the mouse. I work with a lot of quick throwaway screenshots throughout the day and this step slows me down.

Is there a keyboard shortcut for this button, or another way to close files that will not show this dialog?

In a "Save As" window, press ⌘Delete to close the window and delete the unsaved file.

This essentially selects the "Delete" option from that "Save As" window.

Pressing Escape selects the "Cancel" option. Enter selects "Save".


How can I have Windows keymapping on my Macbook, CTRL+C, CTRL+V I have a Macbook pro 2016, I am a Linux user at home and I am used to CTRL+C, CTRL+X, CTRL+V kind of key mapping for my copy, cut and paste actions. I have set up keyboard modifier as below

I also have added additional keyboard shortcut overrides

But still some controls like copy paste does not work correctly from firefox or specifically from text fields.
Is there any thing I can do to make it streamlined ?
There are apps I have issues with. Visual Studio Code, Browser input fields, etc.

If you got at least MacOS Sierra on your MacBook you might use Karabiner Elements. If there is no suitable set of "Complex Modifications" importable for your case on their site, you'd have to manually edit
~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json

with e.g. BBEdit (better make a backup copy before you start!).
Doing so you'd have to go to:
"rules": [ /*...*/ ]

Here is an example from another question asked here:
{
  "Description": "Ctrl-C to Cmd-C, next and last re-mapping",
  "manipulators": [
    {
      "from": {
        "key_code": "c",
        "modifiers": {
          "mandatory": ["left_control"]
        }
      },
      "to": [{
        "key_code": "c",
        "modifiers": ["left_command"]
      }],
      "type": "basic"
    }
  ]
}

I suppose this should work with any app as the key code is altered low level.


MacBook Pro OS X El Capitan clone to my MacBook air? I use my MacBook pro late 2011 with SSD, 8gb ram etc at home with an extra monitor as an almost desktop PC, however I just purchased a MacBook air 2012 128gb SSD which is running Yosemite to use when I'm out of the house etc.

By any chance would I be able to carbon copy the MacBook pro stuff (has things like office documents etc.) And flash them onto the air ? Really don't wanna go through the hassle of setting everything up again .

Hard drive space not an issue since I only used like 60 on the mac pro.

Any help would be appreciated thanks:)

I maintain a similar setup, with a mid-2010 MBP on the home desk (using an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse) and a mid-2013 MBA for travel. To maintain a consistent user environment, both machines run the same macOS, currently Sierra 10.12.6.

Contacts, Safari bookmarks, Calendar, Keychain, and Find My Mac are synced using iCloud; I use no other iCloud service. My email is IMAP, and thus synched by my ISP's server.

The two computers are synched over an Ethernet connection using ChronoSync (on the MBP) and ChronoAgent (on the MBA). This synchs the computer's Desktop folders, my Documents folder, and Photos. I do this just before travel, and just after return. After the first synch, synching usually takes about two minutes.

I found ChronoSync clumsy to setup, but it does the job. I also use CS to each night create a bootable backup of my MBP's SSD boot drive.


I updated to 10.9.2 and now SSL is broken. How do I fix this? As per the title, I upgraded my Mac to Mavericks 10.9.2, and now a bunch of websites which use SSL (aka https) don't work!

What do I do?

Open Keychain Access and delete the DigiCert certificates, but only the ones in the login keychain - not the ones in System or System Roots.

Afterward, you may need to restart your browser and/or network service (switch Airport off and on again, or disable and re-enable Ethernet. If you want to be sure, just restart your computer.

If you're a dummy (like I was) and deleted all the DigiCert entries, you can restore them by manually downloading and installing the 10.9.2 update from Apple.


What are alternatives to EyeTV for watching live TV I have an old Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick (800e) that I would like to use to record and watch TV using an over-the-air antenna. I know that some people love EyeTV, but it's a bit expensive and not very configurable as far as I can tell.

The ideal software would have some or all of the below features:

Inexpensive (price of software and price of program guide (EPG) subscription)
Configurable recordings ("record every new episode of this show")
Automated commercial removal from recordings
Automated and configurable export of recordings (location, video format, file name based on program data)
Live TV or recordings streamed to other devices (Roku, iOS, web browser)

I'm in the US and am looking to watch OTA HD TV stations (ATSC).

Does this unicorn exist?

No this unicorn doesn't exist.  I was looking to revamp my MacMini/EyeTv setup earlier this year and looked around quite a bit at alternatives. What I found was that cable and dish DVR's have pretty much destroyed the computer hobby market for TV along with DRM licensing costs.

I think the closest you're going to get are the boxes from SiliconDust or Hauppage. Both have DVR and sharing abilities, but their software is a bit more high maintenance than EyeTV's to achieve most of your programming goals.

I finally decided to stick with EyeTV for my DVR and live viewing. Fingers crossed that they will keep the software updated. I use the TitanTV program guide to manually schedule recordings. EyeTV still does an excellent job of exporting programs for archiving. Good luck finding auto commercial removal, the last company to try that, Replay, was sued out of existence.


How do I change the login screen background in Lion? I want to change the login screen background in Lion, but I can't seem to figure out how. I've followed instructions for changing it, but even after restarting, the changes don't show up. I've also tried Loginox, but that didn't work either. Any suggestions?

The easiest solution is to use "Deeper". You can download the beta version which works with Lion 10.7.4 (assuming your using Lion of course).

You can download it here. (Initiates download)

Authors website:

  Deeper is a personalization utility for Mac OS X which allows you to
  enable and disable the hidden functions of the Finder, Dock,
  QuickTime, Safari, iTunes, Login window, Spotlight, and many of
  Apple’s applications...

Example of option to modify login screen:

You can also revert your login screen back to it's default settings if you so choose.


How can I set the screen refresh rate for a CRT VGA monitor in Leopard? I need to operate a CRT monitor in 100 Hz (1280 x 1024) on a Leopard Machine.
The same monitor was working fine on a Tiger machine in the mentioned range but I switched to Leopard and it does not show the 100 Hz option in the list any more (but I am sure the monitor can support it).
Is there a way to manually modify the list?

This handy utility SwitchResX can give you the option to adjust your monitor settings.

There is also this utility (which I haven't tried/tested)


Using @me.com email when @icloud.com is also available On iCloud Mail I can see that I have two email adresses:

myname@me.com
myname@icloud.com

I would like to use the @me.com as my primary email address. However, on Apple Mail (on macOS and iOS), it only lists my @icloud.com email as an option when composing mails.

How do I change that behaviour to @me.com?

Go to Mail, Preferences and click on the account tab. You should iCloud in the column on the left. Click on that and a panel appears with your email adress. See image below.

Now if you click on the blue arrow at the end of your email address you should be able to choose the one you want.


Does anyone know why I've been getting thin rectangular outlines all over my desktop? These lines have been appearing and increasing in number.

Sounds like an OSX Failure. You should try to reinstall the operating system.


Locating AirPods using "Find My iPhone" I saw this advertisement online:

How does this work, technically?

From my understanding, AirPods are only Bluetooth compatible. If I lost my AirPods, would I need to be within Bluetooth range to be able to detect them on my iPhone?

How this feature works is detailed in the Apple Support document, If your AirPods are lost:

  With iOS 10.3 or later, Find My iPhone can help you locate your missing AirPods. If you already set up Find My iPhone with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that you’re using with your AirPods, it's automatically enabled for your AirPods too. So if your AirPods are lost, out of their case, and somewhere close by, you can use Find My iPhone to find them again. If your AirPods are out of range of all of your devices, need to charge, or are in the AirPod Case, Find My iPhone can still help by showing the time and location where they were last connected.

So yes, your AirPods need to be in the Bluetooth range and connected to one of your devices for them to be found. If they are out of range, Find My iPhone shows the the time and location of last connection, helping you to drill down to potential location.

Basically this means

If the AirPods are within range of any your devices you see the location of that device
If the AirPods are out of range, you see the location of the most recently connected device, at the time of the last connection


How to enable “Siri Knowledge” suggestion in Safari? This reddit post shows a new suggestion in Safari called “Siri Knowledge”, located above “Google Search”:

However, it seems the post talks about beta version of iOS 11, and some commenters didn’t have this feature. On my iOS 11.0.1 on iPhone 6, I don’t see it too.

Was this feature included in iOS 11 final release version, and, if yes, then how to enable it?

On iOS11.1 you can control the display of “Siri Knowledge” in Safari by toggling:

Settings->Safari->Safari Suggestions


Deleted iTunes app on iPhone with no backup When I was loading the new iOS 7 to my iPhone, it glitched during the process. I had tapped the screen several times and I sat and watched it catch up, shake, confirm and deleted my iTunes app.

I have the App Store but can't get to the iTunes application. Nothing is letting me restore. I do not have a computer with the iTunes app synced/backed up. My computer is down since I set up iTunes and I'm using a spare on which I'm unable to download iTunes.

iTunes app cannot be deleted from the iPhone. In any case, you probably don't need the iTunes app but what you are trying to access is the Music app instead - which lists all your iPhone songs and playlists. Simply search for Music and open the app. You should see your music intact.


OS X Server DNS, on local network redirect external IP to internal IP I want it to be so that, when I attempt to visit my server at 94.xx.xx.xx, it will automatically redirect me to the internal address 192.xx.xx.xx, when doing so from the local network. Can this be done with OS X DNS and if so how?

No, it cannot be done by OS X DNS or any DNS, because you aren't interacting with DNS in your situation (according to your comment). Domain Name Service translates domain names into IP addresses and you aren't using any domain names to access the server.

If however, you set up DNS and used one name on external DNS and the same name on internal DNS - the same name could resolve to different addresses.

name.pretendco.com 94.2.3.4
name.pretendco.com 192.168.3.4

It doesn't matter if the numbers are at all similar, but you might find it easier to map things or check that the servers are correct. Setting up an internal DNS is worth the effort if you have several dozen hosts - otherwise it's easier to overload the local hosts file on the machines that need to resolve the name "internally" as opposed to externally.

(If you were using fully qualified domain names, there are ways to do this…I don't how "accepted" they are and I'm not enough of an expert to tell you all the possible side effects, but it can work.)

The issue you're having is a routing issue, from what I understand. Your public IP address is on a router that is not your server. Your server uses port forwarding on the router to receive traffic. You'd like to be able to connect to the public IP but from inside the local network. You need to enable/configure Hairpin NAT on your router, if it's supported. I can't think of any other solutions.


Can't find "Find my iPhone" app on OS X I have attempted all the suggestions listed in Apps on my MacBook Pro but I still can't  find the app I am looking for: Find my iPhone.

I have checked Applications, Downloads, Spotlight, Finder, and Launchpad.

I went to download it, iTunes says I have already downloaded it, have tried everything to find it on my computer. I can't find it and I cannot apparently download it again. I am completely stumped with this one and desperately need to find my phone.

There is no native Find my iPhone OS X app.

You mention that you have downloaded the app using iTunes, in which case you have downloaded the iOS app. The app will show in iTunes and will only be available on iOS devices.

To access Find my iPhone on OS X, you need to go to iCloud.com.


Is it possible to disable (or reduce the volume of) of the AirPods connection sound? When I put my AirPods in my ears, I can hear a ping sound, indicating a successful connection to my iPhone. My friend who also has AirPods is sensitive to moderately loud sounds, and this sound is too loud for them. Is there a way to reduce the volume of this sound, or disable it?

Try skipping the connect sound by playing something on the phone music or youtube video first before connecting your AirPods to the bluetooth.  I also find the connect sound a bit too loud in my ears. Hope this helps before Apple introduce the feature to adjust the volume of the connect sound. :)


Macbook 2010 13 inch keyboard not working untill after boot into os but no os installed So basically i got this macbook used and when i got it it had windows 7 and no mac os x at all. I tried to install Mac os x from usb but it wouldent boot because the keyboard was not working... then i tried to use transmac to install the mac os x installer onto the internal hdd from a windows 7 desktop and now it says no bootable drive whenever i turn it on. Help me please!

If you hold the Option key while booting does anything appear? If not you may have damaged the partition. Since your computer is a 2010 model it is not capable of using Internet Recovery. Your only option would be 1) Call Apple support and ask them to ship you an OS X install DVD (you will have to pay for it) or 2) if the install DVD fails you may have messed up your HDD and may need to buy a new one.

All in all, you will NEED to call Apple to buy an OS X Install DVD (unless you have it)


See resolutions and supported refresh rate of connected screen Is it possible to select a specific resolution and refresh rate on os x el capitan? I attached a screenshot of paying software which gives you the possibility to do this

Yes.

For your main display you would:

Click on the Apple menu
Select System Preferences
Select Displays
Click on Display
Select Scaled to select your resolution

Notes:

If you have more than one display, you can select from additional resolution options by also pressing the Option key at Step 5.
You'll also see the refresh rate option after Step 4.

If I've misunderstood your question please let me know.


New Mac Pro: Setup/Migration Assistant never finishes I am trying to transfer my existing (Early 2008) Mac Pro to a new (refurb) 2013 Mac Pro.  I'm still in "setup assistant" mode.

The amount of information being transferred is about 120Gb.  I've tried transferring over a direct-connected Ethernet from Mac-to-Mac, as well as a brand new Time Machine backup to an external SSD connected via a Thunderbolt 1 breakout box.

Every time I try to transfer, the transfer makes it to the applications stage in a reasonable amount of time.  The progress bar is almost full. Then it starts doing the applications.  At first, the screen shows "Transferring Applications"/"Transferring files to support applications" pretty fast.  Then it starts getting slower.  And slower.  All the while, the completion time (which was "about a minute" starts creeping up.)  The first time I let it run all night.  By morning it was saying there would be over 250 hours to completion.

I've tried it 4 times since then (including a complete system reinstall), and the same thing happens every time.

I feel like I'm down to 2 scenarios:

The Mac Pro has a hardware issue.  I've already run the hardware diagnostics, but nothing shows up.  That being said, this is a refurb, it's possible something is wrong that only affects the new machine during long transfers.
There's something in the backup or my applications setup that's causing the migration to get stuck in a loop.  I've looked on the system drive for a log, but I haven't found one.

Here's where it gets really, really bizarre: I can't find any sign of the files transferred on the new Mac after I've stopped it.  Not a single file appears on "Macintosh HD" on the new Mac.

Any ideas? Apple can't help me in the store until Monday, so I thought I'd ask here.

Also not really an answer but more a practical approach.

Another idea that requires manual work. I did this with a Macbook Pro and a MacPro 2006:

Boot your old MacPro into Firewire Target Mode (yes this works with "T" on power on).
Connect it to you new MacPro with a FireWire cable.
Mount all harddiscs
Copy over all data you need, but leave out the Library folder in your old homedirectory.
Do a fresh install of your favourite software, that is quicker and safer that copying them from the old MacPro or a TimeMachine Backup. You will definitely miss important files. (just my experience with MS Office)

Positive effect of this: you trashed all old things you really do not need. :-)

I even go a step further - On my old MacPro I set all files and directories I want to copy on a red label in the finder. When mounting the harddiscs, I immediately see what is important and needs to be copied. :-) And as a reminder of which software I will need on the new machine, I set the finder label "green" to all applications I will need on my new machine.


How do I change an Application Icon in the Applications Folder? I just installed an application and drag/dropped the file into the Applications folder. The application (or folder) icon is showing as some grayed out icon with a crossed-out circle over it in the Applications folder's stack in the Dock. This is not the application icon obviously. When I go to the Application Folder it displays correctly.

How do I make it display correctly in the Application Folder stack in the Dock? Is there a way to refresh it somehow?

Is is a normal behavior for downloaded applications.

After having started the application one time and accepted to open it - log out and back in.


USB Ethernet adapter not populating in settings To say that it isn't being detected seems incorrect.

$ ioreg -p IOUSB -l -w 0
...
+-o USB 10/100 LAN@14200000  <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x10000ee80, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (13 ms), retain 11>
  |     {
  |       "sessionID" = 176409708174141
  |       "iManufacturer" = 1
  |       "bNumConfigurations" = 2
  |       "idProduct" = 33106
  |       "bcdDevice" = 8192
  |       "Bus Power Available" = 500
  |       "USB Address" = 11
  |       "bMaxPacketSize0" = 64
  |       "iProduct" = 2
  |       "iSerialNumber" = 3
  |       "bDeviceClass" = 0
  |       "Built-In" = No
  |       "locationID" = 337641472
  |       "bDeviceSubClass" = 0
  |       "bcdUSB" = 528
  |       "USB Product Name" = "USB 10/100 LAN"
  |       "PortNum" = 2
  |       "non-removable" = "no"
  |       "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}
  |       "bDeviceProtocol" = 0
  |       "IOUserClientClass" = "IOUSBDeviceUserClientV2"
  |       "IOPowerManagement" = {"DevicePowerState"=0,"CurrentPowerState"=3,"CapabilityFlags"=65536,"MaxPowerState"=4,"DriverPowerState"=3}
  |       "Device Speed" = 2
  |       "USB Vendor Name" = "Realtek"
  |       "idVendor" = 3034
  |       "IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
  |       "USB Serial Number" = "84E714001EAD"
  |       "IOClassNameOverride" = "IOUSBDevice"
  |     }

But, see screenshots below:

I have no options to configure/use the device.
It is made by c2g

c2g.com/uk/product/81672/usb-2.0-to-fast-ethernet-adapter

You are probably missing a driver for the device. One is available here: USB 2.0 To Fast Ethernet Adapter -> Support. I don't know if it works though because the driver is very old (2008)!


Steps to be done before selling your iPhone I was curious about the things that we need to do before selling your iPhone or even before giving it back to Apple (Apple has a program where they will refund you some money if you want to get a new iPhone).

Quick googling show: 6 Steps to Prepare an iPhone for Sale the Right Way
.

I'm interested in all aspects. What to do in the iPhone itself, the associated Mac/iTunes and your account at Apple/iCloud.

Settings > General > Erase > Erase all content and settings

That will wipe it to factory


Apple TV AirPlay other than WiFi? In the Apple TV, when enabling AirPlay it shows "step 1: connect to a wifi network".

What if I have Ethernet? Bluetooth?

Will only WiFi work?

To switch back to a wired connection, connect the Ethernet cable.
  Apple TV will switch to the wired connection automatically. Apple TV
  prioritizes a wired Ethernet connection.

According to Apple


How to batch convert word documents to pdf? Is there a scriptable way that I can convert several MS Word documents to PDF? I thought this might be possible using python, but I am unable to find any advice online on how best to do this.

NOTE : the below instructions are for Macs running 10.4 or earlier, no longer works on 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion), 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

Open Automator.

Create a new custom workflow.

From the Actions panel library, select Files & Folders then double-click Get Specified Finder Items.

Add the items you wish to convert.

Next, from the library, select Documents, then double click Convert Format of Word Documents.

From the dropdown menu, select the format you wish to convert the files to. In our case we select Portable Document Format (PDF)

Now we are ready to run the action.

Click the run button in the top right of the automator window.

Open up your destination folder and verify your files have been successfully converted.

Source: http://aseriesoftubes.com/articles/how-to-batch-convert-doc-files-to-pdf-format-using-mac-osx-automator/


iMac Pro running 2 LG Ultrafine 5k, blurry Just plugged in two LG 5K Ultrafine displays on either side of my iMac Pro 8 core. Everything on each display is slightly blurry. When I unplug one of the displays, the other returns to razor sharp clarity as I expect.

Each monitor is plugged directly into the iMac - no daisy chaining.

How can I get both monitors to show clearly?

Most likely, you are plugging the displays into the same Thunderbolt controller (ports adjacent to each other).  To ensure you're using the other controller, use the ports on the "opposite side" of the bus

According to Apple:

  Note: The Thunderbolt 3 ports on your iMac Pro are managed by two
  controllers, one for the two left ports, the other for the two right
  ports. Each controller can support two 4K displays or one 5K display.
  So you can connect up to four 4K displays or two 5K displays to your
  iMac Pro. To connect two 5K external displays, for example, connect
  the first 5K display to either of the first two Thunderbolt 3 ports,
  and the second 5K display to either of the last two Thunderbolt 3
  ports.


iPod Nano 7th generation (w/ lightning connector) - will video work with a treadmill? The treadmills at my gym have 30-pin iPod connectors so you can control it and watch video on the treadmill screen. However, the new iPods don't have the old 30-pin connection, but have the smaller lightning connector.

Converter cables are pretty cheap, but I'm concerned that the video playback won't work through the converted cable. Some googling doesn't see to give a clear answer, and I'm not sure if anybody has actually tried it, but I'd like to clear it up before I order the converter cable and try it myself.

Has anybody connected an iPod Nano to a treadmill and been able to successfully play back video?

I picked up an official Apple Lightning -> 30 pin adapter (that set me back $40), and I couldn't get the treadmill to play video from my iPod Nano. The treadmill recognizes that I've plugged in an iPod, but then when I try to browse, it doesn't show any of the video that's loaded on the device, and I can't play anything on the monitor. I've confirmed with an iPad that the treadmill works and plays video just fine from older devices, but it doesn't work with Lightning and an adapter.


Boot Camp requiring disk on High Sierra I'm running High Sierra on my late-2009 iMac.

In the past, I've not had trouble installing Windows 7 with Boot Camp on older versions of Mac OS

But this time, I'm getting the following error before I reach the partition page:

  The installer disc could not be found.

  Insert your Windows installer disc and wait a few seconds for the disc
  to be recognized.

Things is, I don't have a Windows installer disk... I downloaded an ISO for Windows 8.1 from the Microsoft website.

It might be worth also pointing out that the optical disk drive on my iMac no longer works, I'm not sure if this is related to me using High Sierra or whether the drive itself has just died.

Does the Boot Camp Assistant require me to install Windows from a DVD? I just want to install it from the .ISO file like everyone else.

I could possibly purchase an external DVD drive and then figure out how to create a bootable Windows disk using that... but that seems like a lot of effort for something that might not even work.

Below are answers to the questions in your post.

I did a quick check with the internet and it would appears 64 bit Windows 7 is the last version of Windows that Apple officially supports on your model Mac. Therefore, installing a Windows 8, 8.1 or 10 usually requires more than the Boot Camp Assistant.

I have a 2011 iMac with a working optical and High Sierra, so I doubt High Sierra is the reason the optical drive fails to work.

The Boot Camp Assistant does require installing Windows from a DVD on your model Mac. Although, many users here at Ask Different have modified the Boot Camp Assistant in a attempt to install Windows using a flash drive.

Officially, installing from an ISO file did not start with Macs until the 2015 model year. Apple does not support installing from an ISO with any 2009 model year Macs.

Using an external DVD drive may or may not work. There is no actual way to tell other than trying.

Personally, I would try installing the current version of Windows 10. It has been reported that a Windows 7 or 8.1 product key will work with the current Windows 10 download. I tested this earlier this year and was successful using a 2018 Mac mini.

When I installed High Sierra on my 2011 iMac, firmware upgrades were installed that allowed the Mac to EFI boot the Windows 10 installer from an ExFAT formatted internal or USB drive. Originally, I was required to use an optical drive to install Windows, but now I can also use a flash drive or install directly from the ISO file. I do not know if the same would be true for your 2009 iMac.

The answer that closest matches your question can be found at Any solution to bootcamp windows 8.1 with macbook pro 15" 2010?. This is closely related to the two questions given below.

No bootable device USB 2.0 MacBook Pro mid 2014

Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices

After High Sierra was released, the use of a virtual optical drive could be eliminated on certain model Macs. This led to the following.

How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?

However, the above answer involved using the graphical user interface (GUI) which was reported to cause problems. The latest answer is below, but has not been tested on an actual Mac.

When trying to install Windows 10 on 2011 iMac keep getting error 0x8007000D windows cannot open the required file D:\sources\install.wim

The problem, with the newer answers, is that you want Windows 8.1 and the instructions are for Windows 10. The solution may simply require substituting 8.1 or 10 in the instructions. Otherwise, the instructions could be modified where you would EFI boot from Window 10, but install Windows 8.1 to BIOS boot. This would be similar to the question Dual Boot Win 7 on MBR with Win 10 on GPT.


What Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 cables/adapters exist for OS X and Mac hardware? I have the Late 2013 Macbook Pro, which has two USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt 2 ports. I currently use both USB 3.0 ports and one TB2 port. I want to connect a third USB 3.0 device to the machine, but I don't want to use a USB splitter on one USB port as I'm concerned the devices would draw too much power from the bus. I have no current use for the second TB2 port and I would love to be able to use it for this purpose.

Browsing extensively online, I've found numerous docks, such as Belkin's Thunderbolt Express, that connect via a Thunderbolt cable. This would work, but it's an expensive, 'bulkier' solution (and not the one I'm looking for).

I'm aware that a USB 3.0 device wouldn't be able to take advantage of Thunderbolt's I/O speeds, but it's certainly compatible, which is all I'd need. After all, Apple even sells a Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter. I also know that Thunderbolt is not only used for digital video purposes (along with the TB > Firewire option, there exists Thunderbolt External Hard Drives).

There are almost no Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 cables/adapters on the market. I'd think this hardware would be more prevalent given the prominence of USB devices out there. What adapters are available for OS X?

As a matter of fact "Kanex" the only company I know of that offers "true" adapters put their Thunderbolt to eSATA + USB 3.0 adapter on the market 18 hours ago, at a price point of 69.95$


Password protect folder without disk images? Is this possible?
I know you can protect a .dmg file, but is there a more convenient solution, by using a third party application?

The only way I can think of to do this would be to create a new user with the password you want to use for the folder, then use chmod to set rights on the folder to 700, then you'll use that new user's username and password to access the file.


Apple not recognizing my id and password Just purchased a software update (OSX Snow Leopard) but cannot download it because my apple ID and password will not be recognized.
I reset them yesterday, still not recognized.
I checked to make sure I am not logged in to any other apps.
I have received a confirmation on my id. I have written down the password Apple still won't recognize it.
I don't think I am eligible for apple care as my Mac Book Pro (purchased in 2008) is so old.

If you go to a web browser and try logging in to the Apple ID website, can you go in and make a change to a phone number or address and have it be effective?

That will test that Apple's servers are operational much better than trusting the status page at http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

Next, you'll need to verify that the date and time are set properly on the computer/device. You might enable automatic time setting and power down, restart that device to ensure it starts cleanly and connects to the network and gets the correct time.

The steps above cover all the major items that cause software update errors - the Apple side being down and the device being out of time and not having a clean start and some pending requests stuck in the queue (or other temporary resource constraint issues that a restart will clear up).


Using 2 displays on late 2011 Macbook Pro I am running a late 2011 MacBook Pro (Processor  2.4 GHz Intel Core i5).
I have 2 external monitors that I would like to use with my music production software (ableton live).

I know that I can connect one monitor via thunderbolt to VGA or DVI and a second via USB. However I am conserving my USB slots and already like to run a multi HUB from one of my two USB slots, with my external sound card running from the second slot. My question therefore is:

Would the power draw/data be too much to power a monitor as well as say, a MIDI keyboard and a mouse from an active USB hub. (All three devices are plugged into the hub and therefore into the same USB port on the laptop itself).

Officially your MacBook Pro is only capable of simultaneously outputting a video feed to the internal display and a single external monitor.

However, there are a number of USB display adapters that will allow you to support a second external display.

USB Display Adapters

These are USB to VGA or USB to DVI adapters. Some of these support up to a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 or 2048x1152.

These three are guaranteed to work on Apple Macs and support a maximum resolution up to 2048x1152:

Kensington Multi Display Adapter USB 3.0
IOGear USB 3.0 to DVI External Video Card
OWC USB to DVI/HDMI/VGA Adapter

These adapters work in by compressing and decompressing the video signal in order to utilise the limited bandwidth provided by USB 2.0 or USB 3.0.

However, you should be aware that there are limitations to USB Display Adapters. Namely they do not support OpenGL 3D hardware acceleration and you are likely to notice a lag.

If you're intention was to use these for gaming or animation/video editing, I'd say forget about it.  But with your music production software it may be fine as the emphasis will be on the audio side of things, especially if you keep your graphics intensive work limited to the other display connected via the Thunderbolt port.

As far as how well a hub will go trying to connect to another display as well as your MIDI keyboard and a mouse, your success will depend on the quality of the hub and ensuring that it's also got its own power source.

A better option may be to also get a hub that connects to your Thunderbolt port that connects the display and also provides an additional USB port for example.


Macports force-activate all ports When trying to install SciTE

sudo port install scite

port stops at

  Error: org.macports.activate for port gettext returned: Image error: /opt/local/bin/autopoint already exists and does not belong to a registered port.  Unable to activate port gettext. Use 'port -f activate gettext' to force the activation.

but if I run sudo port -f activate gettext and re-try installing scite, I end up with the same error message, this time with /opt/local/lib/libffi.6.dylib and libffi and so on and so on...

How can I tell Macports to force activate all ports that stand in it's way from completing installing SciTE, without having to manually re-run the installation of the package I actually want and without having to copy-paste each activation command?

I was able to install the desired port by automating the activation process. The app fails to run due to some library version issues and I seem to be unable to fix those but that's a story for another answer or another question.

Create a script that continuously tries to install the port and automatically forcefully activates the discovered port that is blocking it. Copy paste the following into a file and call it port-instact.sh

if [ "$EUID" -ne 0 ]
  then echo "Please run as root"
  exit
fi
target="$1"
while [ 1 ]
do
    echo trying to install "$target"
    if [[ $(port installed "$target" | grep "$target") ]]; then echo "$target" present; break; fi
    line=`port install "$target" 2>&1 > /dev/tty | grep "port -f activate"`
    package=$(echo $line | sed -e "s/^.*port -f activate //" -e "s/. .*//")
    if [ "$package" = "$oldpackage" ]; then echo double \""$package"\"; break; fi
    oldpackage="$package"
    echo activating "$package"
    port -f activate "$package"
done

Make the file executable via chmod +x port-instact.sh
Run it as root sudo ./port-instact.sh scite and wait


What differences are there between using the Server.app Time Machine server and simply sharing the attached backup HDD? I'll get a Mac mini next week and apart from other things, I'd like to use it as a backup server via Time Machine and an external HDD.

As I want to be able to access the HDD from remote anyway, I thought about simply sharing it and selecting it as a backup drive on my Macs. Then I found about about the Time Machine server included in OS X Server. What differences and advantages are there in using either one?

The  Time Machine functionality that OS X Server provides is to allow an remote OS X machine to use the server as a Time Machine backup disk. The server will create a sparsebundle for each remote machine it is backing up.

OS X Server includes a way of controlling and administrating services that can be implemented on normal OS X. In this case you can create a sparse bundle and share it in plain OSX (or as is done in many Network Attached Servers in Linux/BSD)

For your case as you are not using the server as a remote TM backup then OS X Server does not provide much here. With normal OSX you can share the external disk via AFP, samba but these are better not to expose across the internet for security reasons or better use ssh to remotely access the Mac.


Bad load balancing of network traffic between processes I just switched from Linux to OS X by getting a MacBook Pro. A very annoying problem with OS X is that if I download something from e.g. my ISP's CDN, which can max out the connection, I will loose connectivity from all other applications.

On Linux if I was downloading a large file from a server that maxed out my line, I was still able to send e-mail and browse the web. It looks like on OS X a download hogs the connection so completely that DNS queries will fail while the download is going on, which prevents other applications from working properly.

Are there any kernel parameters or similar that can be tuned that will improve this behavior?

You can use pfctl to limit bandwidth (up or down independently) based on IP address.  Alternatively, you can use it to do some mild QoS so that DNS requests & responses are given top priority, which I think should help much of your pain.


Safe to kill spindump? (Older/slower machines) I have an old Mac, where if an App take some time to load (slow HD), the spindump kicks in, completely disabling the machine for close to 10 minutes.

There is one post on the web warning that killing spindump can cause some corruption, so, better safe then sorry.

Would be great if there was a way to not run spindump on specific Apps, or give them more time before declaring them as 'unresponsive', but I doubt there is.

Is it safe to just kill the process? Is there a safer way (like asking its parent to to so)?

Minor update:
Seems that the same App that triggered the spindump, no longer does so. It still takes the same time to load, but that no longer triggers spindump.
If you're in a similar situation, it does quiet down eventually (as apposed to launch on every stall). It has happened about 3-4 times (one for each spinning ball), each time it took around 3-8 minutes to calm down and release the RAM.

It's probably safe to even disable them if you are not interested in the generated system analytics. Full procedure to do so is documented on Disable tailspind and spindump to Speed Up your Mac. In a nutshell:

Disable SIP
Unload/rename LaunchDaemon for spindump

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.spindump.plist
sudo mv /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.spindump.plist{,.bak}

Do the same for com.apple.tailspind.plist
Enable SIP

You probably need to redo this with each macOS update.


Download epub that's on iCloud I have an epub that I unfortunatley deleted from my pc. It is however, still on iCloud and available to me on iBooks (when it's synced with icloud). I would like to download that epub again to my pc, but have found no method of doing so. Does anybody have a clue how to do this and is it even possible?

Thanks in advance,
Mark.

Apple is famous for making things proprietary.

Since iBooks doesn’t actually use space on the hard drive there is no way to access the books from outside of iBooks.

I don’t see any way to share a file from iBooks on iOS.
I don’t have my Mac available at the moment, but I am going to bet you can’t share it from there either.

I guess you are stuck reading the file on iBooks.


Where does the cool air come from? I found this gif/video on a blog post about the Macbook Pro 2019. It shows its cooling system.

I am curious about how this works, because in the animation, cool air comes from the side, but there is no vent on the sides nor the bottom of this device chassis.

Anything I'm missing here? How does this work?

There are ventilation slots on the sides of that Macbook Pro 16 model. Here's the 3D model view:


How to move a file to another drive via drag & drop without pressing Cmd How can I configure macOS' Finder in a way that I can move (not copy) files via drag & drop to another drive without pressing Cmd?

I'm transferring files to a network storage on a regular basis and pressing Cmd all the time is a bit tedious.

This is not possible when using drag and drop between drives as of macOS 10.12.x Sierra.

There is also no known method to change this behavior.

Alternative

Instead you may use these keyboard shortcuts:

CommandC to copy the items in Finder
CommandOptionV to move the items without copying.


Mountain Lion, Tap to Click and Two Finger Scroll Problems I'm using a macbook air with mountain lion 10.8.2. An interesting problem has recently started occurring with using the built in trackpad.

If I use two finger scrolls 9/10 times it sees this as a right-click and bring up the context menu, occasionally when I have just one finger resting on the trackpad it treats this as a single left-click. Tap to click is disabled within the System Preferences.

Has anyone encountered this problem before or knows of a solution?

Thank

This seems to be an issue with your trackpad not registering everything correctly, or a very slow computer. A way to fix this, but you would have to change the way you bring up the context menu, is to open System Preferences, navigate to Trackpad > Point & Click. Next, you can either disable it by clicking the checkbox next to it, which means you would then have to Control+Click for the context menu. You can also click on the down arrow next to "Click or tap with two fingers" and select one of the other options. Sorry there's no real solution to your problem.


My purchased ringtones are gone from my 5s after updating to 8.1.1? I updated my iPhone to iOS 8.1.1 last week. All data got restored correctly (i.e. I could access my apps, documents, etc) after the update with the exception of my ringtones.
However, I no longer see my purchased ringtones in the list under Settings > Sounds > Ringtones.

I saw a similar thread whose solution mentioned running iTunes and syncing the iPhone, so I made sure to sync iTunes with the iPhone - still nothing.

EDIT: I could not recover anything under the Purchased tab in iTunes.

I just updated to iOS 8.1.2 which was released last evening and the issue is fixed.

Apple listed this as one bug that the update is intended to fix, so it's pretty clear this bug was recently introduced and not something anyone did incorrectly.


forgot Apple ID after restoring iphone I reset my phone. then when it finally turned back on after restoring itself, it asked for my Apple ID and the password. I forget both of them . it will not let me into the phone without imputing that information, which I don't have.
is there a way to get into my phone so I can use it again without knowing it ?

No.  If you did not remove your AppleID from the phone before resetting it, then it is still bound to that ID for security reasons.

You can try and use this site from Apple to help figure out what your Apple ID was and reset the password...

https://iforgot.apple.com/appleid#!&section=appleid


Difference between unlocked iPhone and carrier iPhone I want to buy an iPhone 5S and I think it's not directly from apple but it's from a carrier. what I want to know is the difference between the official version and this version, besides the fact that carriers' phones may only use one carrier SIM... I'm asking about software "or" hardware differences

An unlocked phone is sometimes called a SIM-Free or contract-free phone. Unlocking means that you can use your phone with a different carrier. Hope this will help you.


Are messages included in iCloud System backup if iCloud Messages is disabled? With iCloud Backup, there are two ways data is stored: Apps Using iCloud and Backups.
The Backups portion is the equivalent of a full backup performed iTunes.
Apps Using iCloud is app data written to the cloud storage, but accessible by apps and services outside of restoring your phone from a backup.
On iOS, it is possible to have your Photo Library backed up with the system backup while keeping iCloud Photo Library feature turned off.
When browsing the system backup options, Photo Library appears as an option but Messages does not. This leads me to believe that Messages could be excluded from the system backup.
If iCloud Messages as a service is turned off, are Messages data still included in the iCloud full system backup of the phone?

I don't believe so - if you back up to a computer, everything is backed up as a full system image. When you back up to iCloud, it doesn't actually take a full system image (which in some cases could be hundreds of gigabytes in size), it establises what is backed up in iCloud, what you've selected as an option, and backs up your settings and app data, but not the whole system.
Which is why when you restore from an iCloud backup, you have to wait for your apps to download again, unlike if you restore from a computer backup where it's all immediately there.
If you want your iMessages backed up, you need to select the option.


How can I start a Hangouts phone call with Applescript/Terminal? I want to initiate a Google Hangouts phone call with Applescript.

Hangouts has an AS dictionary, but with only the default suites.

I want to emulate opening the Hangouts popup, typing in a phone number, and starting the call.

I looked at Hangouts API, but it is beyond me. But I think it could be done by calling python or ruby scripts from Terminal.

(I would like to integrate this into Butler's action-on-phone-number feature.)

This script I wrote works for me.  You may need to adjust a few of the delay values, depending on the speed in which your computer launches your browser etc.

I actually wrote this script and saved it as an application and then I enabled it as a dictation command

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    set URL of document 1 to "https://hangouts.google.com/"
    delay 8 --adjust this value if needed
    set the clipboard to "1-234-567-8910" -- enter the real phone number
    tell application "System Events"
        click button 5 of UI element 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of group 1 of tab group 1 of splitter group 1 of window "Google Hangouts" of application process "Safari"
        delay 1
        click button "New conversation" of UI element 1 of scroll area 1 of group 11 of UI element 1 of scroll area 1 of group 1 of group 1 of tab group 1 of splitter group 1 of window "Google Hangouts" of application process "Safari"
        keystroke (the clipboard)
        delay 2
        key code 36
    end tell
end tell


Can’t restore MacOS from recovery I messed up my Macbook pro 16 inches in the following way:

it came installed with Catalina
I upgraded to Big Sur Beta
Wanted a fresh install, tried to reinstall from recovery but didn’t install fresh OS
Went to recovery and deleted all volumes
Created one APFS volume
Went to internet recovery, tried to install Catalina, it gives me "Downloading installer information to the target volume failed" (tried multiple networks/hotspot with google dns, but same)

What can I do to un-mess this situation ?
Edit: downloaded Catalina dmg and restored it to flash disk, booted into recovery but says security settings do not allow booting from external devices, when I try to change the settings it tells me no administrator account found to log in !

This is pretty easy if you have a network that works or a second Mac.
I’m not sure you have either based on the initial version of your question. You may have both based on the edit.
The erase install process works great for us on the hardware you have. I wouldn't mess with bootable media if you can download from Internet Recovery.
Instead - erase the disk, which returns you to the Catalina installer. While it's running - look for Command-L and Command-3 to show the log file and show all logs.

Since you’re between versions: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904 -  use Shift - Option - Command - R.
This is the most reliable erase process: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496
This is the most reliable recovery process: - https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-mac-firmware-apdebea5be51/mac

It's unlikely you need Apple Configurator, but know you can bypass everything and start by restoring the T2 chip and then write a new BridgeOS if needed on T2 Macs.


Share iPhone internet connection with entire network through router I want to share my iPhone's cellular internet connection over wifi to a router, and have clients be able to connect to the router using either wifi or ethernet and get internet access transparently.

The network also has to work reliably when the phone isn't present.

I'm no network engineer, but I found that this could most easily be accomplished with two routers. One that can be configured as a repeater, which will connect to the iPhone's wifi access point, and another that will just treat the first router as "the internet":
Internet --(3G/4G)--> iPhone --(Wifi)--> Router 1 in repeater mode --(Ethernet)-->[WAN socket] Router 2 ==(Ethernet, Wifi)==> Additional devices

Connect to your iPhone's wifi as usual with your computer, and write down the gateway address and subnet mask that your computer's wifi connection gets assigned (e.g. in advanced wifi settings on macOS). In my case it was 172.20.10.1/255.255.255.240 -- the iPhone's own address.

Configure router 1 as a repeater, which includes providing it the iPhone's wifi name and password that it should use to connect, as well as the IP address and subnetmask it should use on the iPhone's own wifi network. My subnet mask ends in 240 meaning I can choose from addresses 172.20.10.0-172.20.10.15. After excluding the special case 15 I chose 172.20.10.14 so as to minimize the chance of a collision with addresses that the iPhone might assign to new devices on the network.
The iPhone's shared network should now be extended to router 1's ethernet ports, with the iPhone acting as the DHCP server and gateway.

Since the network on router 1 now depends on the iPhone for dynamic assignment of addresses, I needed another router in order to create a stable LAN if I want to avoid having to manually configure the address of every single device in the network when the iPhone is not connected. Router 2 just operates as usual, creating its own LAN and providing DHCP on it.
The iPhone will act as the ISP and assign router 2 an "external" IP (in my case 172.20.10.10) as soon as router 1 connects to the WAN socket of router 2.


My Apple Watch is getting notifications but my phone is not alerting with any notifications This is really frustrating.  I get the alerts on my watch but not on my phone.  This is especially frustrating when I'm driving.  When I get an alert, its easier to view it on my mounted phone versus reading my arm.  Is there a way to get notifications at both places?

Nope. AFAIK, at least as an Apple Watch owner, if you have an Apple Watch paired then you will receive all notifications on it. I don't believe that there is a way to change so that you receive notifications on the Watch and in Notification Center on your iPhone at the same time.


Keyboard shortcut for switching between buttons in a dialog I was wondering if there is a way, like using the Tab key, to switch with the keyboard between buttons on a dialog box, where a program asks for a decision? (Example below)

Tab is supposed to work (and does), but Yosemite seems to have a bug in regard to highlighting which button is selected. The entire button being blue means the button is the default, but there should also be a visual indicator of which button is selected.

You can test that Tab does in fact work. Press Cmd+S to save the page you are looking at right now. Then, in the Save sheet, press Shift+Tab twice, and press Spacebar. The Save sheet will disappear because you selected the Cancel button and executed it (with the Spacebar).

Because of the lack of a visual indicator, unfortunately this is going to be difficult to use until the visual bug is fixed.


Boot from external USB3 I've recently bought an usb3 flash drive where I've put a live kali linux distribution. When I try to boot my early 2015 mac book pro (with Yosemite) from this usb3 drive I have two options: windows or efi. If I select the efi option everything freeze and I need to hold down the power button to force a shutdown. If I select windows option instead everything works well.
With an usb2 flash drive, instead, the efi option can load the live kali linux distribution.

Why this behavior? What the differences between windows and efi options?

Thanks.

When you refer to the two options: windows or efi, I assume each is a label given to separate icons that can appear when you hold down the alt/option key at startup. In this context, the label windows is a legacy term. It means you will be doing a BIOS boot of an operating system or operating system installer.

EFI is obviously an EFI boot. The version of EFI is uncertain. I had an interesting discussion with Rod Smith (of rEFInd fame) over at Ask Ubuntu and he was able to convince me that no Mac's have a UEFI. This includes your early 2015 mac book pro. So if you do an EFI boot and everything works, this just means the kali linux distribution was designed to work with your Mac.

As for the USB2 verses USB3 issue, I suppose kali does have USB3 support for a BIOS boot but, does not for an EFI boot. When using a USB2 flash drive, your Mac's USB3 ports operate in legacy USB2 mode.

Funny thing, I have read here at Ask Different where others claim 2015 Mac's can not do Microsoft Windows operating system BIOS boots. I find it interesting that you can with linux.