Does OS X continue to copy files when my laptop goes to sleep? I am currently backing up a large amount of files to a portable hard drive on my Macbook Pro running High Sierra.

It should take a few hours, and generally in around 15 minutes my laptop screen goes dark, and when I wake it, it asks me for my password again.

Does my computer continue to copy files when this occurs?

If so, does it do so at the same rate, or a reduced rate due to the computers state?

There are various modes of sleep a Mac can go into. At this point your question only describes the fact your laptop screen goes to sleep, but this is different from your computer actually going to sleep.

Regardless of your settings and assuming your MacBook Pro has a continuous power source, then a system event such as copying a large amount of data will continue to occur even if various parts of your Mac go to sleep.1 This is because if your Mac is in the middle of an action such as copying files, it will not go entirely into sleep mode (e.g. your display may go to sleep, but your drives are still fully powered up for read/write purposes).

In terms of the speed at which data is transferred, this can be affected by a number of factors, but in your scenario the transfer rate should not be impacted.

Of course, if you're copying a large amount of data, it is recommended you have your MacBook Pro plugged into an AC power source.

For more information on your Mac's sleep capabilities, you may want to refer to the following content:

Use the Energy Saver settings on your Mac
macOS Sierra: Optimize energy settings for portable computers
About Wake on Demand and Bonjour Sleep Proxy

1 This answer assumes we're talking about a Mac scheduled to go to sleep as a result of its Energy Saver settings, and not because it's been manually put to sleep by the user (e.g. by closing the lid, etc).


Will the "cracked" wire of a MacBook charger eletrocute me The rubber wrap around the charger's wire is cracked, I can see the little wires inside. Will it electrocute me if I accidentally touch those little wires inside the rubber wrap?

Can you get electrocuted?

It depends on which side of the adapter.

If it's on the "mains" side (below left image) you could potentially be hit with a 110V or 220V (AC) electrical charge (US, Canada and the rest of the world respectively).  There is enough voltage and amperes here to electrocute you.

If it's on the cable on the MagSafe side (above right image), then you are only dealing with voltage of no more than 18V (DC).  You will get a shock, but it won't be dangerous except in three cases:

If you have a a pacemaker or other medical device or heart condition - any electricity could in rare circumstances cause you problems - check with your doctor on this.
Fire risk - the frayed cord and current levels are enough to start a fire in the right circumstances.
If the transformer section that separates the high and low voltage size is compromised or broken then the high voltage could get past into the low voltage side. On Apple products this is basically unheard of due to multiple failsafe, monitoring and the design and manufacture of the adapter. Third party knock off adapters - some of these fail and are criminal negligence-level bad and unsafe.

The bottom line - An Apple genuine power adapter with a damaged and exposed wire should be fixed but isn't a safety hazard.  Get it fixed  to prevent serious damage to electronic components or starting a fire as opposed to getting electrocuted.


Mac OSX Mail Closes main window after hitting send Recently every time I compose an email, when I hit send not only does the mail compose window disappear (as expected) so does the main mail window... and then I have to click the dock icon to bring it back!  Ideas on why this has just started happening?

When you check the logs in Console, you may find it convenient and more informative if you first select All Messages in the left column, then use the Filter blank/box in the upper right of that window and enter "Mail".

This should produce a list of all log entries relating to Mail only.  It may not pick up everything that is involved in creating the actions you see in Mail, but it will find most of them, and could help in giving a clue to the problem.  It does get rid of all the entries that are unrelated to the problem.

When looking at these filtered messages, try to remember the last changes you made to the system.  Don't limit your thinking to changes in Mail, but think about all apps and add ons you installed. It's the unintended (and unknown) consequences that often cause such problems.  They sometimes don't reveal themselves until days later.

A couple of other things to do that can often correct weird behavior, especially in apps native to the OS:

Safe Boot, then immediately reboot normally without logging in.

Reinstall the OS Combo update.

Neither of these is a sure cure, but used in the above order, will often fix this kind of problem.  About the only thing you learn from the exercise is that it can often cure the problem, and you still don't know what was wrong.

Whatever you do, be methodical in your approach.  Try only one "fix" at a time, and then test for problems.  This is the easiest way to learn and improved your problem-solving skills.


Can I set Hide Sidebar as default in Preview Preview has become rather annoying. I found a post to Hide Sidebar https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/213395/19086

Even worse, if I select Full Screen mode I get Sidebar plus 2 pages side by side (which actually makes the document smaller and harder to read). Can I stop this?

In Full Screen you can hide the sidebar by unselecting View>Always Show Sidebar (shortcut optioncommand1):

To get rid of the side by side view you need to select View>Single Page (shortcut commmand2) instead of View>Two Pages:


Why is it that after moving my cursor around really fast for half a second, my cursor becomes huge? If I move my cursor around really fast, half a second after I start moving it the cursor becomes huge. Why does it do that? Can I disable it somewhere in settings?

Note: I noticed it works with a few mice I have tried, and my built-in trackpad. I didn't change any of the default settings that should change this, so you might be able to do it to. If you need proof, I'd be happy to make a video.

Go to System Preferences -> Accessibility and uncheck 'Shake mouse pointer to locate'


MobileMe iDisk Folders What are the following (default) iDisk folders used for:

Backup
Groups
Library
Sites
Software
Web

If you delete them and wait a few minutes they will re-appear, but I do not know what they are used for. There is a document in them explaining their use, but it is still not clear.

Backup is used by the MobileMe Backup application. I don't recommend using it.
Groups is for a now defunct Groups feature that they used to have.
Library is used for MobileMe's syncing feature - primarily for Preferences and Bookmarks.
Sites is used for webpages or anything you want shared at http://homepage.mac.com/username/. Note: PHP files, CGI files, etc. don't work. It only works with static content.
Software contains free software provided by Apple to MobileMe customers (eg. the Backup application) - this doesn't affect your disk usage.
Web is a folder used by iWeb - otherwise it's nearly identical to the Sites folder but is available at http://web.me.com/username


Putting display to sleep using windows keyboard Is there some key combination to put the display on a mac to sleep using a windows keyboard, or somewhere where I can change the default key combinations?

function-win-shift-f12 (if you have hotkeys turned off where function keys act as normal function keys)
otherwise,
win-shift-f12


Thunderbolt Displays' ethernet adapter breaks MacBook DHCP/MAC Address reservations We have deployed Thunderbolt Displays in my organization, which is almost entirely Mac-based. As you may already know, Thunderbolt Displays have internal Ethernet adapters which is very convenient in that a user can now connect their wired network connection to their display rather than their MacBook, and when they come in to work in the morning, the only thing they need to connect to their MacBook is the MagSafe adapter and Thunderbolt cable, both which come from their display. Essentially, the display is now acting as a docking station with all of the most commonly used ports on the display sent over the Thunderbolt connection to their MacBook.

However, this convenience presents a problem on more heavily managed networks like my own (e.g. enterprise) that use DHCP reservations.

Traditionally, when a new Macintosh comes in, a system administrator would add the MAC address of the wired ethernet port on the Mac to our DHCP server, and associate it with an IP address. That MAC address will now always get the same IP address assigned to it via DHCP. This is a tried and true method employed on most enterprise networks, regardless of operating system/platform (this all happens at the network level). When that MacBook connects to my network via the wired connection, it will now always get the same IP address – the one that I've designated in DHCP.

Apple has set a new expectation of using the Thunderbolt display as a docking station. This is convenient, but it introduces a problem. Now that Thunderbolt displays have on-board ethernet with a MAC address on the display itself they are the connection point to the network. It would be easy to start adding reservations for displays to our DHCP server, but ultimately foolish because it wouldn't gain us anything in manageability and would only serve to confuse us or slow us down as systems administrators when we're trying to access client workstations for remote support and administration.

I want DHCP reservations to still get honored for the Macs on my network, even if they are behind a Thunderbolt display. This way users can move around and plug their MacBooks into any of our Thunderbolt displays and still get the same hostname and IP address from DNS and DHCP, giving them consistency, and making administration as straightforward as it once was.

So I ask you, fellow Mac administrators. How would you handle this situation?

This depends a lot on your DHCP server, but I would look into using the client id to assign static IPs. It's not tied to the individual hardware (although you'd have to set it at least once when they first use a TB Display), so it avoids the switching displays problem. It can be set via the networksetup tool.


How do you add a book to multiple iBook collections? I'd like to organize my books into different collections and have a "completed" collection for books to be entered into upon their completion.

The problem is that it seems iBooks will allow a book to exist in only one collection, meaning putting it into "completed" takes it out of the other collection.

It also doesn't seem to allow users to add duplicate books. All of my books are DRM-free .epubs -- I could potentially put PDF versions of them into "completed".

What's your advice on achieving this workflow with iBooks and iCloud syncing?

There is simply no way to do this tagging on iOS 8 or lower. You are correct about the inability to have a book in more than one collection.

I don't see forking a second copy of a book to have it in the completed category as well as a second one.

My best advice would to be use a spreadsheet (numbers) to track completed status or some other third party note app or list manager.

Perhaps look into Things by Cultured Code which is free this week in the US store. It makes lists amazingly powerful to manage and curate.


Disable boot chime on late 2009 MacBook without macOS installed I would like to disable the boot/power-on chime on a late 2009 MacBook. However, my system does not have macOS installed at all. Is there a way to do this without reinstalling macOS?

The machine has Linux installed, though it often runs FreeBSD as well.

The Start up chime resides in the NVRAM.

To disable it in OS X  run sudo nvram BootAudio=%00

I found this for Linux:

# efivar -l | grep SystemAudioVolume
 7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82-SystemAudioVolume
 7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82-SystemAudioVolumeDB

# efivar -n 7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82-SystemAudioVolume -p
GUID: 7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82
Name: "SystemAudioVolume"
Attributes:
    Non-Volatile
    Boot Service Access
    Runtime Service Access
Value:
00000000  00                                                |.               |

# efivar -n 7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82-SystemAudioVolumeDB -p
GUID: 7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82
Name: "SystemAudioVolumeDB"
Attributes:
    Non-Volatile
    Boot Service Access
    Runtime Service Access
Value:
00000000  00
#

SOURCE


Disk space disappearing The kernel_task process is at 567MB of RAM, and my hard disk space keeps disappearing. I just synced an iPhone 4S with iTunes like ~2 days ago, and now every couple hours I get the message that the startup disk is low on space. I've tried using Grand Perspective to no avail, as well as Disk Doctor.

What might be consuming my space or causing these results?

My guess is you have a stuck process that is impairing the ability of the OS to tell you what amount of space is actually used from Applications, audio-movies-photo rather than categorizing everything as "other".

Make a back up of the Mac in case it's corruption or a serious problem.
Power off the Mac.
Boot to safe mode - hold the shift key as soon as you hear the startup chime and release it 20 seconds after the grey screen is drawn.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

That should free up a stuck process and also repair any disk corruption at is easily fixable. Please let us know if you continue to get bad information from the space allocation image. Surely Applications take up more than zero K.


Target Display Mode using 2019 MBP and 2012 iMAC I currently have:

2019 MBP on MacOS 10.14.6
2012 iMAC on MacOS 10.14.6 (thunderbolt 2)

I am connecting them to each other using a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter, both of which are brand new.

I was able to trigger target display mode ONCE. Then cmd + F2 stopped responding entirely.
Things I've tried:

reset the PRAM/NVRAM on both devices
cmd + F2 + fn
every combination of the ports on each end
booted the iMAC in safe mode (can't do it on the MBP; it's a work laptop)
tried initiating TDM by connecting iMAC to MBP 2014, still no dice on cmd + F2

I've perused all the Apple support pages and similar stackexchange questions to no avail and now I'm at my wit's end. Did anybody face something similar and was able to resolve?

Did you use a 'Thunderbolt' or 'Thunderbolt 2' cable to connect the two macs?
Also judging by your description the iMac has Mojave installed whereas TDM would work only on an iMac with High Sierra or below.
For reference please follow this official Apple article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204592


Mavericks - Remove GUI Does anyone know if there's a way to get rid of the GUI in Mavericks? (Or at least disable it?)

Yes - you can simply log in to a console on OS X.

Set log in preferences to show username and password field.
Enter >console as the user and press return.


How to reinstall Java 6, for development for Android, on Mountain Lion? Requirement

Java 6 for Android development on Mountain Lion.

Question

Is it possible? What can I do?

I've looked everywhere for a way to do this and am unable to find any solution.

Background

I recently installed Oracle's Java 7 for OS X on my Mac running Mountain Lion (10.8.2). I was happy with this until I started doing Android development, which throws errors relating to Java 7.

I downloaded Apple's Java for OS X Lion Update 1, but when I try to install it I get only this message before Installer closes:

  A newer version of this package is already installed.

I followed Oracle's instructions (Mac FAQ), but they seem to not work for me. Afterwards if I do java -version it still says Java 7.

I even tried restarting my computer, to no avail.

Before I tried to reinstall Java 6, Apple's Java Preferences utility (described by Oracle) was present, but after trying all these things I am also without Java Preferences.

From my understanding the actual components that need to be removed first are in /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/*.jdk

So if you get rid of those:

$ sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/*

Also, as you mentioned, you're supposed to remove this:

$ sudo rm -rf /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

At this point it should simply be a matter of downloading 1.6 and installing it.  If you do $ whereis java you will see that the java binaries are stored in /usr/bin/{java,javac,etc}.  But $ java -version apparently gets its information from the first folder I mentioned you should delete.

After you remove those, try running $ java -version again.  You should be prompted to install it.

Hope this helps!


Problems with temperature and Mac fan My Mac is showing lots of errors and running weirdly. The battery only lasts for a short time, there is a fan noise when I use it and I feel the temperature is high.

In the report it says the following:

  *** Panic Report ***
  panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801db6ac55): "zalloc: zone map exhausted while allocating from zone semaphores, likely due to memory leak in zone ipc ports (3957835360 total bytes, 24736458 elements allocated)"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-2782.50.9/osfmk/kern/zalloc.c:2521

Have you tried resetting your SMC (System Management Controller)?
I had a similar problem with an old MacBook Pro 15" that I solved with this:

You might check this link where Apple support indicates what you need to check before resetting your SMC.

Steps are:

Reset the SMC on Mac notebook computers

If the battery is nonremovable:

Shut down your Mac.
Unplug the MagSafe or USB-C power adapter from your computer.
Using the built-in keyboard, press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the power button at the same time. Hold these keys and the power button for 10 seconds.
If you have a 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch ID, the Touch ID button is also the power button.
Release all keys.
Reconnect the power adapter.
Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

Reset the SMC on Mac desktop computers

Follow these steps for iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, and Xserve.

Shut down your Mac.
Unplug the power cord.
Wait 15 seconds.
Plug the power cord back in.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on your Mac.

Then I would recommend using tools like SMC Fan Control or iStat Menus to control your fans and check memory and power usage.

Sorry if I don't answer your question in Spanish (I'm Latin American), but I think that we can't write answers in anything but English.


How do you exit guided access when it freezes? I accidentally entered guided access by clicking the home button on my phone 3 time while I was on the app "Snapchat" and now I can not leave the app. I have tried clicking the home button three times but nothing happened I also tried holding down on the power button on the side of my iphone and then I tried holding down both the home button and side power button but nothing happened. I can use the app snapchat and send people things but that is all.

A triple-press of the side button should prompt to exit Guided Access using a passcode.

A double-press of the side button should use Face ID to authenticate exiting Guided Access.

Force restart iPhone:

Press and quickly release the volume up button, press and quickly release the volume down button, then press and hold the side button. When the Apple logo appears, release the button.


Group by email instead of section For a long time I had only one email account in my Mail.app and had all my sections (inbox, sent, junk, trash, ...) nicely organised in the Mailboxes sidebar. But recently I added another account and now I've all my accounts separated by section instead of by email.
Is there a way to have it like:

email1@example.com
    inbox
    sent
    junk
    trash
    archive
email2@example2.com
    inbox
    sent
    junk
    trash
    archive

instead of:

inbox
    email1@example.com
    email2@example2.com
sent
    email1@example.com
    email2@example2.com
junk
    email1@example.com
    email2@example2.com
trash
    email1@example.com
    email2@example2.com

I understand why apple did this, to have a practical way of viewing all my emails inbox at once but I don't need it and always check my accounts separately.

The answer, unfortunately in your case, is "no". Apple's Mail.app does not have the ability to group maiboxes by account rather than by function.

Any mailboxes other than these "special" ones stored on IMAP servers do get sorted by account, down in the sidebar section where mailboxes that are stored "On My Mac" are listed.

Thus, if you set up IMAP accounts so that Mail.app does not store "Sent", "Drafts", "Junk" and "Trash" mailboxes on the server but rather stores them "On My Mac", you could sort of simiulate some of the look that you want and those IMAP mailboxes would get listed down with any other IMAP mailboxes that are on the server. However, set up in this way, the functionality of the various menu commands and automatic things that Mail.app does with those folders would not work (well they would "work" but just not using the IMAP mailboxes), and you would have two sets of all these "special" mailboxes listed in the sidebar - those on the servers below and those stored locallay listed above all grouped together in the manner you don't like.


Sierra: Security Update 2017-001 Sierra broke my WiFi Today, I installed Security Update 2017-001 for Sierra 10.12.6 and my WiFi is unable to get a DHCP IP address off anything any more. I trashed the usual suspects in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
com.apple.network.eapolclient.configuration
com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist

I rebooted to find nothing had changed. I tried setting up a new network location and connecting to a local WiFi access point but DHCP can't get an IP. I also reset SMC and NVRAM.

I like to remove the network interfaces entirely if someone manually delete plist files or changes things in the library directly and then restart to give the system a chance to recreate the files if it can. Especially on Sierra and later since the preference files aren’t canonical in most cases and the settings persist in a database and get flushed back to disk periodically when the defaults system commits a change.

Remove WiFi interface from all locations (if you have network locations)
Restart
Add in the wirelesss network connection in system preferences

If that doesn’t work, next is two items. You may want to check the network with another device or two - the Mac update could be coincidence and not causal. If the network is working, then you’ll want to look at things other than the core os.

Firewall (little snitch), anti virus (eset or Kaspersky), vpn software and anything that adds extensions or network modifications.


iCloud & Work + Personal Account I'm curious to see how others are managing iCloud between their work computers and iOS devices (especially in the WFH world).  There are some things like AirPod Pro Connection, Notes, Apple Watch Unlocking, HomeKit, Sidecar, possibly some iMessage - that makes me want to connect my work laptop to my personal iCloud account (I have two accounts currently and share some Notes folders, etc.).
I'm not under the impression that my employer is poking around my laptop but, I do think it seems best to keep personal information off of my work laptop.
How are other people doing this?

I do not connect my iCloud account to my work-assigned MacBook Pro. It is against company policy for starters (although not actually blocked) and risks intermingling my work and personal lives.
Sidecar is the only thing that is a non-starter without it, the rest are things that would simply be more convenient if you were signed in. If I needed Sidecar–or really wanted one of the other services, I probably would sign in, but turn off all services–especially iCloud Drive and Find my Mac.


Sync Google Keep to Apple Notes I have an Android phone with a lot of notes in Google Keep. Is there an easy way to sync all my notes to my Mac so I can add, delete, and modify notes on both devices? (I've seen some paid apps, but I'd prefer to try something free if there's a way.) Thanks in advance.

Google provides a simple way to get Google Keep on desktop—keep.google.com. It has all of the functionality of the Android and iOS mobile versions of Google Keep, just on Mac.

Here's a simple guide to Google Keep on all of your devices:

iPhone/iPad: Download the iOS app.

Android phones and tablets: Download the Android app.

Mac/Windows: Use keep.google.com or the Google Keep Chrome Web Store app for easy offline access.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions.


Macbook pro 2013 disable trackpad input completely I want to completely disable my trackpad, from startup if possible.

The trackpad on my 2013 macbook pro is not working properly anymore. Click/Tap does not register and neither alternate click. I believe the trackpad is in a "always clicking" state because hovering over elements that usually change their color is not triggered either.

Connecting a mouse, even with “Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present” option enabled, is not working either, the mouse click does not register, only right click works.

Only way I managed to make my mouse work properly was disabling some kexts ( I dont remember which ) and then restarting the computer with the mouse plugged in already. However, after removing the mouse and plugging it back again, it stopped working.

I don't have any possibility to go to a service due to the current situation, so I am looking for any temporary workaround that will allow me to use a mouse.

The track pad is a USB device so the only way to disconnect it is to physically disconnect it.  However, you may have to disconnect the entire top case rendering your keyboard disconnected as well.

If you're having issues with the track pad, your best option is to replace it.  Disabling it by deleting kexts only lasts until the subsequent update.  With Catalina, you'll need to disable security (SIP) to delete the kexts which is counterproductive.

MacBook Pro Trackpad Suddenly Stopped Working Completely
2015 13" MacBook Pro Trackpad and Keyboard stop working
Trackpad and keyboard of MacBook Pro unresponsive


Finding Music folder after updating with OS X EI Capitan We are having trouble locating iTunes music folder. Prior to updating with OS X EI Capitan, we could easily find the music folder in the Finder sidebar, but now we don't know how to get it back with all our music, media, etc.

All the iTunes content is inside the directory: ~/Music/iTunes more precisely: /Users/<your_user_name>/Music/iTunes.

You can use special application tool like DaisyDisk to locate some particular content inside your Mac computer.


Saving Terminal Color/Opacity Preferences My question is related to this question:
Transparent Background in Terminal?

I have successfully found the menu to change color/opacity. I used the "homebrew" profile. Then I attempted to change the opacity as shown in the answer. However, once I put the opacity at 100% and closed the window, it completely ignored my changes and went back to 90%. How do I actually ensure that my preferences are saved? There is no "OK" or "apply" button on the color menu.

Clicking once (and only once) on the "color and effects" icon and adjusting the opacity should properly save any adjustments. Double-clicking may have caused the issue.


MacMini crashing after changing memory? After I bought a new MacBook Pro 2011 with 4 GB or RAM at 1333 MHz I decided to switch the RAM with the one from the old MacMini 8 Gb at 1066 MHz.

Initially I was expecting to have problems with the MacBook Pro, but it seem to have no problems running with 8GB of RAM at 1066 MHz.

Still, the surprise came form MacMini which became unstable and unusable (crashes or stops randomly but very often). I am wondering if the RAM is the issue or something else, like cooling.

How can I easily detect the source of the problems with the macMini? I mention that the 1333 Mhz worked just fine in the MacBook Pro and I know that it should have no problem using it, theoretically.

The Mac mini (mid 2010) is extremely finicky accepting RAM with a faster clock-speed (some work, some don't). You must use 1066 MHz or buy a pair that is known to be free of issue. For some reason that particular model was extremely sensitive to any discrepancy in RAM (many posts on the internet regarding its inability to run under these conditions).

For what it's worth, the new Mac mini (mid 2011) do not suffer from the same problem, accepting higher clocked RAM without complaint.


Creating keyboard shortcut for converting a file (photo or document) to pdf I'd like to set up a simple keyboard shortcut that would save the currently selected file in the finder as a pdf, assuming it is a filetype that can be converted to pdf. I've already followed this nice shortcut for doing this when the document is open, but now I'm looking to take this one step further and have it work on the file from the finder.

Simple solution with Automator if you are just handling images

You can batch convert these files by:

Open Automator from /Applications
Create a new Service
Drag the Get Specified Finder Items to the workflow builder.
Drag the New Pdf From Image to the workflow builder
Save the service & bind it your keyboard shortcut preferences

If you're using other filetypes, you may you the Print finder items action. But it will use a popup if I'm not mistaken.


fsck_hfs keeps crashing when trying to repair my Time Machine volume I've got my Time Machine volume (direct attached, USB) corrupted by accidentally flicking the switch while it's running. Now neither Disk Utility nor fsck_hfs can repair the drive.

Investigating it further, apparently fsck_hfs keeps crashing mid-way of the repair process. Is there a way around this? An excerpt of the crash log is as follows:

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib          0x00007fff8c91bd46 __kill + 10
1   libsystem_c.dylib               0x00007fff8a141ec0 __abort + 193
2   libsystem_c.dylib               0x00007fff8a10377d __chk_fail + 35
3   libsystem_c.dylib               0x00007fff8a103886 __snprintf_chk + 150
4   fsck_hfs                        0x0000000109bfc186 0x109be4000 + 98694
5   fsck_hfs                        0x0000000109bfec74 0x109be4000 + 109684
6   fsck_hfs                        0x0000000109bf9f8a 0x109be4000 + 89994
7   fsck_hfs                        0x0000000109bf21e7 0x109be4000 + 57831
8   fsck_hfs                        0x0000000109bf133f 0x109be4000 + 54079
9   fsck_hfs                        0x0000000109c0b1bb 0x109be4000 + 160187
10  libdyld.dylib                   0x00007fff86c927e1 start + 1

Sorry to say it, but I think that Time Machine filesystem is broken beyond repair. You could try DiskWarrior, but it might not work either.

The fastest solution is to delete the USB volume from your Time Machine settings, then erase it and start a fresh Time Machine on it.


Password problems changing users in Terminal I'd like to switch between the default user in Terminal and the user 'postgres', created when I installed PostgreSQL 9.2.

If I type su postgres, I'm prompted for a password that I don't know and don't remember ever setting.  I try the root password and it doesn't work.

If I type sudo su postgres, I'm prompted for my root password, which I enter, and that works.

But now, if I try to switch back to the default user using sudo su user, I'm prompted for a password, and the root password does not work.  Neither does the password I use to log into that user in OSX.

I don't understand what's going on here--I've only ever set one password, but the only context in which it seems to work is when switching from the normal user to 'postgres'.  What's going on and how can I fix it?

To switch to user postgres, type in Terminal:

sudo su - postgres

If you are asked for a password, type yours.

(The - in sudo su - changes the environment to that of the new user, and it's probably what you want. See man su for details.)
Now, to switch back to your user, simply type:

exit

to exit the current bash session and go back to your original bash session.

Note that if you type sudo su <user> as user postgres you need to identify yourself to sudo and type postgres's password, but as you say, it hasn't any, so it won't work. It may even be the case that user postgres is not allowed to use sudo at all.


How to mount my MacBook's user folder as registered user using Automator? In an answer to this question, Ben Wyatt recommends the following to get Automator to mount a network volume:

  1) Get Specified Servers. This will let you build a list of shares to connect to. If you can map it from Finder -> Go -> Connect to server, you can use this.

  2) Connect to Servers. This will connect to any servers passed to it (either from get specified servers or from ask for servers).

In my case the network volume is my MacBook, and using Ben's method I'm only connected to the mounted volume as guest. But I need to be connected as a registered user.

I can of course specify a username and password in the server URL:

  afp://username:password@URLofMyMacBook

But then I get a window asking me to specify which volume I want to mount: Macintosh HD, my public folder, or my user folder?

How can I get Automator to automatically mount my user folder?

I know I can create an alias of the mounted volume and probably get automator to "click" this, but I'd prefer to do this without having an extra file lying around.

And I want to do this with automator, not as a startup item, since I don't want to mount the volume upon startup.

Okay, problem was I thought of my user folder as residing in /Users/userfolder and the URL to that folder being afp://URLofMyMacBook/Users/userfolder.

But to connect directly to my userfolder I need to tell Automator to open:

  afp://username:password@URLofMyMacBook/userfolder

without /Users/ in between. Now it works without asking me to specify the volume.

I found this out by mounting the volume manually and looking at the "Information" (Command+I).


Logitech keyboard case and iOS 6 I have this keyboard case for my 'new iPad' (which I had originally bought for an iPad 2): http://www.zagg.com/accessories/logitech-ipad-2-keyboard-case

(In fact, this was me: Will the Logitech Bluetooth Keyboard Case "for ipad2" work with the new ipad? )

Before I upgraded to iOS6, when I hit the "square" button on the keyboard (the same button as the single button on the front of the iPad), if the screen was off, it would bypass the lockscreen and take me straight to the homescreen (or whatever app had been running when the screen went to sleep).

After upgrading to iOS6, when I hit this button when the iPad screen is off, it dumps me at the lockscreen instead, where I have to "slide to unlock" to continue.

Is there any way to restore the previous functionality?

I just wanted to take the opportunity to answer my own question with a (slightly overdue) update.
After I upgraded to iOS 7, the behavior is actually a combination of the above. Now, hitting any key, including the square key, goes to the unlocked state.
So that's nice and corrected now...


Managing Metered Connections on OSX I'm being forced to use my Macbook more and more with my metered 4G connection. I really need to keep data usage limited. Windows has an metered connection mode which really helps with this.

What's the best way to handle this issue in the OSX world? Perhaps some use of the firewall? Is there any sort of logging happening as to what is using the network?

Thanks for your help :-)

TripMode

TripMode works on a whitelist system and blocks entire apps/processes from accessing the internet.

It is advertised with these relevant features:

  When TripMode is ON, it prevents all your Mac apps from accessing the Internet but those that have been whitelisted by yourself. It typically stops automatic updates, online backups, Photos syncs, and various obscure apps from consuming precious data. Both uploads and downloads are blocked.

  Track your data usage.
  See the data used per app,  session, day, and month. Spot the data hungry apps.

  New: You set the limit
  Set your data limit. All traffic stops when you reach it. Never go over your plan again!


Why does my Spotlight index get corrupted? Recently I have been having an issue where at least once a month my Spotlight index gets corrupted, and I can no longer search the content of mail in Mail.app. I can fix the problem by taking my HD out of Spotlight, and then putting it back in, but it then takes about 4 hours to re-index the drive.

Why is my Spotlight index getting munged? Do other applications besides Finder mess about with it?

Is there a way to keep the index optimized or repair it, such as when I repair a MySQL table?

Just for reference, Spotlight index shouldn’t get corrupted, but when that’s the case see this question.

You have to remember that spotlight is a database and as such is prone to corruption; compared to relational databases for example, spotlight can only be deleted and rebuilt when that happens. There’s no “spotlight -repair” command (one can only wish).

All in all, it’s rare to see Spotlight failing in OS X 10.6, it has been very stable compared to the first Tiger version.

External applications, on the other hand, can make use of the APIs to store information in the metadata, and here’s where we lose control of what goes in there. If one external application is storing bad data, it could cause the whole index to go nuts.

Since you have a healthy working index now, try it for a few weeks and pay attention to any application or utility that claims to support Spotlight.

Good Luck!


Upgrading RAM with 2 different memory modules I have recently upgraded the RAM of my Macbook Pro mid 2012 which initially has 2GB & 2GB in the slots to 2GB & 8GB. Now, I have a 10GB RAM in it. After a day of upgrading, I noticed that the performance of the system has increased a bit. But will two different capacities in the slots bring a problem in the future?

DDR memory must be 'matched pairs' to get optimum performance.  That being said, any performance increase (which depends on the kinds of tasks you're running) from that pairing effect would be vastly outpaced by increasing your RAM from 4 to 10 GB, thus minimizing swaps to disk.  I would not worry about it especially on such an old machine.
More technical info here


How do I "flush" my DNS/web services so that it sees the updated website like everyone else? On all my roommates computers my website that I recently changed where the DNS points to actually points to the right location, and when you load it all is well.

However for myself, when I load the website in Safari or Chrome or what have you, it always presents an error from the old host (which was the whole reason I moved to a new host), which I assume is because of some cached DNS issue where it's still looking for the wrong location.

I tried: sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder; to no avail, it still loads the old site.

Any suggestions on how to get it to load the correct webpage?

if you go into a terminal window and type:

ping [DNS name of site]

What does it give you? Now do the same on your roommate's PCs from a command prompt.

if you do it with a hostname rather than IP address ping gives you the IP address and the FQDN of the site. They should be the same on both/all computers. If they are then Safari/Chrome has cached some data and is stubbornly holding onto it. So empty the caches on both and try again.

If it is different on your Mac then there is a cache somewhere that will not reset. You could try the command again, followed by a reboot and possibly even one of the cleaning utilities (like Onyx) followed by a reboot and see what that does.


Privacy issues: is someone watching me on my laptop? Is there any way I can tell if anyone has set up my laptop to where they can see what I'm doing remotely whether it be the camera or surfing? Maybe there is a way I can just look at what programs have been installed recently or what programs are set to run on startup, so I can make sure they all look legit?

I don't have a password set on my laptop.

Some back-story: a (very close but somewhat scary as I get to know him) friend watched my apartment while I was gone and I just want to make sure nothing was tinkered with. I believe he's technically savvy, and familiar enough to try to hide his tracks. It sat out in the open but didn't show signs of having been disturbed. He said nothing to make me think he had done something, but better safe than sorry.

The computer is a MacBook, of a couple years vintage, running OS X 10.6.8, and I don't have backups!

A possibly malicious user with physical access to your machine and practically unlimited time could have indeed done much damage and covered tracks very effectively; the only way to be sure your machine is "safe" is to erase the drive and reinstall the operating system. Should you choose to go this route, back up your data first, then wipe your computer, reinstall OS and software from their install discs, then restore your user files  from the backup as needed.

That said, there are indeed ways you can reassure yourself about your computer's safety.

I suppose you could physically look for fingerprints on the keyboard, but that falls outside anything I know how to do. Were you to attempt that, you probably would want to do it before any of these other methods so as not to disturb the evidence.

The program Little Snitch can monitor to see what programs on your computer are sending data to the internet. If someone wanted to spy on you somehow, it would not be enough for your computer to collect data for them; somehow, that data would have to leave your computer and get to them, which means some program would need to communicate with the internet. Little Snitch can find unexpected outbound traffic.

While it's fairly easy to alter this one, if you do find files whose "Last Modified" date was while you were away, that is a sure sign that someone was doing something on your machine during that time period.

If your iSight or FaceTime camera is in use, a green light will appear next to it. If that light unexpectedly appears, this is a sign that something is amiss.

If your machine was off, rather than merely sleeping, when you were away, you can see if it was booted when you were gone. Go to Terminal, and type last |grep console to see a list of the most recent user logins.


Keynote default style for graphic elements Every time I make a new line in Keynote, it is white and 1-point, so it can hard to find and reposition. I have tried looking for a contextual menu that says "Assign current style as default" but am not finding anything. Is there an easy way to do this?

Here is how you can get the default behavior :

Open the inspector > Text tab > Bullets > Select No Bullets


iphone 4s did not work after trying to upgrade from ios 5 to ios 6 unsuccessfully my iphone 4s was with ios 5.0 and already jailbreak when purchased,  I just tried to upgrade it to 6.13, on it own (which is I did not hook up my iphone with my computer nor iTunes at that time),

After a while, my iphone screen asks me to connect my iphone to iTunes, so I connect it to my computer, but then, the worst thing happened>>  ITunes says it detected my iphone is in recovery mode, and I must restore my iphone to its original setting before it can be used with iTunes.

It is a nightmare, I don't want to lose all my data, messages, pics.

Can anyone help?  Many thanks.

Have you already tried to kick off your iPhone from recovery mode? This could be done with programs such as Tiny Umbrella or ReiBoot.


Change American keyboard icon in menu bar to black and white How can I change the American keyboard icon my menu bar from a colored icon to black and white?

One way to do that would be to create a duplicate layout with a custom .icns file using an app like Ukelele.

http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele


Opt / Private Folder visible on HD? for some reason my /opt /private folders are not hidden anymore while the rest of my finder's hidden files are.  What would cause these to be visible again, and how do I change them back?  I know it has something to do with permissions, or fixing it might involve using "chflags"command.

update: so I fixed it after some searching around by using chflags

  sudo chflags hidden /opt /private

though Im still curious what caused these files to change.  Do you think it would have anything to do with developer tools or SDKs? I recently installed a bunch for mobile testing/development

This little ditty might help...

for ff in '/Network /Volumes /bin /cores  /etc
  /mach /mach_kernel /private /sbin /tmp /usr /var '
do
   sudo chflags hidden $ff
done

You'll want to add in /opt if you added that and any other non-standard directories in / you wish to hide from the GUI.

As to why - you might need to track that down using fs_usage, but typically it's an installer that brute forces permissions or otherwise removed the metadata flags from those files.


Does a 10W or 12W charger make an iPhone willing to boot up sooner? I cannot be entirely sure about this but it seemed to happen this way:
When the iPhone 5, 6, or 7 was out of power, I could plug it into my car's USB charger or a portable USB battery charger for 10, even 15 minutes, before the phone is willing to start up.  A 15 minute wait, can be a bit too much -- if it were 2, 3 minutes, it would be more tolerable, but a good 15 minute, is too much.
But I noticed sometimes when I plug in the lightning jack for a charge, the iPhone will start immediately.
Is it due to some charger are supplying 5W, while some are supplying 10 or 12W?
I suspect iPhone might be doing some calculation: if possible power consumption is less than power input (10W), then be worry free and power up immediately. However, if possible power consumption is more than the input (5W), then don't power up first, accumulate first before powering up (and it turned out to be 15 minutes usually).
Does someone know for sure how this works?
P.S. Decemeber 2016: So today, I tried out an iPhone 5S, and saw that it was 1%, but too late, about 1-2 seconds after I plugged it in, it turned itself off. And thinking that it was a 39W 2 port charger with QC 3.0 (an Anker charger used in the car), I thought it should start up almost immediately. Not so, it took close to 15 minutes before it turned itself on, and I didn't look what battery level it was when it started up, but 10 minutes or so after the start up, I looked, and it was at 21%. So it looked like it could have turned itself off sooner.

Many factors - dead phone/0% battery isn't an entirely fixed point, depending on battery age/health, power requirements, temperature (winter cold...), calibration state etc it can mean anything from a calculated shutdown by the device at a level before excessive wear starts to occur, to the phone just suddenly dying at a point where there's still supposed to be juice left and it's not so much protecting itself, more like a blackout.
During discharge the voltage continuously decreases, which is what the phone keeps tabs on and cuts off at a safe level, but as it loses charge the max amperage/wattage also gives way, leading to further (short) voltage drops when it overextends itself.

As an example, if you're running low on battery and decide to take a bunch of photos before your phone dies, the high power draw will likely mean the phone shuts off a lot sooner than if you kept it in your pocket on standby.
But that means that in the latter scenario... once it's dead, it'll be deader, and it will take longer to bring up to a healthy enough voltage to boot - turning on, mind you, is a lot more power intensive than just staying alive once on. If the phone tries to boot before enough power is available it will black out again.

Input power obviously plays a large role here, just as you say, but it's not so much the phone calculating anything fancy or being tactical. Plug an iPhone with a worn-out battery into a semi-glitchy cable and it will happily bootloop for weeks on end instead of waiting and building up enough charge to actually manage to power on and chill out.

You're on the right track, key thing being that the brick can't power the phone directly, it's feeding the battery which feeds the phone, again a battery at low charge is flaky so even plugged in there needs to be a buffer, and once you get going that where you get the non-linear response. Say the phone needs 2W and it's getting 4W effective from a 5W brick, so 2W left to build charge. Double it to 8W and the surplus triples.


automator fifa 19 web app I'm trying to click the reset button in Fifa 19 web app with automator.

codes I've tried.

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    tell current tab of window 1
        do JavaScript "document.getElementsByClassName('btn-standard')[0].click()"
    end tell
end tell

second one

to clickClassName(theClassName, elementnum)

  tell application "Safari"
      activate

      do JavaScript "document.getElementsByClassName('" & theClassName & "')[" & elementnum & "].click();" in current tab of first window

  end tell

end clickClassName
clickClassName("btn-standard", 0)

nothing works any idea why ? I know I can do it with watch me do, but I want to click this button with java script.

After some research it seems that they are more btn-standard tags so is there any way to first select the class="button-container and then the class  btn-standard ? Maybe I'm not selecting the button correctly

This should work for you

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    do JavaScript "document.getElementsByClassName('btn-standard')[0].click();" in document 1
end tell

When in doubt, You can always use APPLESCRIPT MAKER  Which will create the correct JavaScript for you

I'm not really sure because I never use Safari but maybe enabling "Allow JavaScript from Apple Events" Needs to be enabled?


Open terminal via AppleScript I'm tring to write a shortcut script in spark for opening the terminal.

on run {input, parameters}

  tell application "Utilities/Terminal" // tried Utilities:Terminal and Terminal too
    reopen
    activate
  end tell

end run

how can make this work? I'm using 10.10.2 as OSX version.

This is the correct method:

tell application "Terminal"
    if not (exists window 1) then reopen
    activate
    -- insert your code here
end tell

EDIT
You can open new windows with do script

tell application "Terminal"
    do script ""
end tell


Use whereis can not find the file in the Mac In the Mac I installed the mysqlclient, use whereis can not find the mysql_config, but use which I can find, why use the whereis can not find it?

aircraftdeMacBook-Pro:bin ldl$ whereis mysql_config
aircraftdeMacBook-Pro:bin ldl$ which mysql_config
/usr/local/mysql/bin//mysql_config

whereis uses a hardcoded list of paths to search. which uses your PATH.

/usr/local/mysql/bin isn't a standard location for binaries, so whereis doesn't search there. Presumably you've added that folder to your path (or the installer did), which means when which searches through your path folders, it finds it.

You can print the list of paths whereis searches by running the following:

$ sysctl user.cs_path
user.cs_path: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

Whereas your $PATH will generally have many more components. You can print your PATH with:

$ echo $PATH


Turning off ambient light control? I have a mid-2011 27" iMac. I have realized that the screen brightness adjusts depending on the ambient light. When the sun hides behind the clouds, and the room gets darker, the brightness decreases. I have located the sensor to be the camera. When putting a finger over the camera on top of the screen I can reproduce the sun hiding.

How do I turn this magic feature off?

System Preferences → Displays → Automatically adjust brightness


Install older OS X on latest Mac Mini I need Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) in order to work with some legacy software and I want to buy new Mac Mini computer.

Is it possible to install this OS on a new Mac Mini or it's not compatible with it?

If so, what is the latest model of Mac Mini that I can use in this scenario?

You can not install older OS X versions on newer models, the old OS X version are missing the required drivers for hardware not even available when the OS X version was released.

I see several options:

You may (legally) install 10.6.8 Server in a VM (Parallels or VMware) though.
The latest MacMini supporting 10.6.8 is the MacMini4,1: Apple Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.4, Apple Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.66 & Apple Mac mini "Core 2 Duo" 2.66 (Server)
With some workarounds and hazzle you will get 10.6.8 working on MacMini5,1 and MacMini5,2. In the comments there (March 12, 2013 Gregg Tomlinson) even a working MacMini6,1 is mentioned:

  I believe it does – I am using this on a 2012 MacMini that came with Snow Leopard [sic!], and reverse-engineered it to use 10.6 with this methodology.


How to login into Gamecenter without my password How do I login to Gamecenter without my password

Connor, you can't access Game Center without your iCloud password. Otherwise I could access your Game Center account without your permission using only your email address.

If you've forgotten your iCloud/Game Center password, as Tetsujin suspects you have, visit iforgot.apple.com where you can reset it.


Mountain Lion auto closing apps When do some apps (like preview) auto close when I stop giving them focus? Whats the difference between those and others that don't close?

thanks

Quoting from this typically comprehensive Ars Technica article:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/8/

  Lion will quit your running applications behind your back if it decides it needs the resources, and if you don't appear to be using them. The heuristic for determining whether an application is "in use" is very conservative: it must not be the active application, it must have no visible, non-minimized windows—and, of course, it must explicitly support Automatic Termination.

  Automatic Termination works hand-in-hand with autosave. Any
  application that supports Automatic Termination should also support
  autosave and document restore. Since only applications with no visible
  windows are eligible for Automatic Termination, and since by default
  the Dock does not indicate whether or not an application is running,
  the user might not even notice when an application is automatically
  terminated by the system. No dialog boxes will ask about unsaved
  changes, and when the user clicks on the application in the Dock to
  reactivate it, it should relaunch and appear exactly as it did before
  it was terminated.


How to determine if my 2015 MacBook Pro can still handle current workloads? I work in a company since 2015 and when I joined I was handed over a new MacBook which was the latest at that time i.e 2015 Mid model i7 16GB Ram. This company does not have a rotation policy for the hardware allocated to employees at all. So they will end up repairing and replacing parts till its no longer viable.
My profession is mobile development so I would require the latest versions of macOS and Xcode all the time. Of late it has become difficult to work on the said MacBook and its sluggish all the time. I had put in a request to replace the Mac with the system team and it was simply shot down saying that the current config is good enough. I replied politely indicating the Geekbench scores for the 2015 model and the latest Intel MacBook. But again I was shot down just saying that 16GB Ram and i7 is more than enough. I understand that the current MacBook configs are not bad, but it is indeed slower than the latest ones and also 5 years old.
If not for geek bench scores how can I put a case to compare older Mac with newer ones ?

EDIT: My current macbook has been repaired a lot already and it still has issues w.r.t battery, heating issues etc ... Display,
Logic Board & Battery were already replaced last year. All those
repairs are pretty expensive, and yet for some reason this is the
route which they might want to take still.

I would look at three things

Time is money
List specific measurable benchmarks ( e.g. launch 4 specific apps each day and time them till usable, script a clean build of a representative app )
List specific app and OS requirements ( e.g. need N-2 and N+1 beta compatibility for Xcode SDK)

In the end, you’re appealing to your manager for funding and reasonableness of the “requirements” and not IT for a “blessing” of the age or benchmarks.
Consider that people are expensive to recruit and train and hardware is cheap. But it’s easy to measure hardware expenses, so that tends to get scrutinized over process (erase and install) or training.
Do some quick math on “Is it worth it?” and good luck!

In your case we would send you an identical Mac to your 2017 one that is erased and have you run your chosen tests. Most of our managed Macs need an erase every 2 years and developers tend to need erases much more often since they alter the system so heavily. They understandably complain bitterly when asked to clean (just like system admin do), which is why we send them a second kit to run tests so they aren’t forced to migrate but can do a good test on a clean system. It’s rarely the hardware slowing them down in my experience, but when it is it’s nice to have good data on a clean build so that the budget person doesn’t think the “spec” was made up or not backed by data and testing.


Xcode storyboard vibration with the new Trackpad When I drag views around in the storyboard, the trackpad vibrates every time the view snaps to something else. As a result, it vibrates all the time. Is this a normal behavior or is my trackpad broken?

(How do I turn it off?)

You can switch off Force Click & haptic feedback.

System Prefs > Trackpad > Point & Click

See Apple KB - Using a Force Touch trackpad


How to simulate location on Safari on OS X I am developer and I'm trying to simulate a different location other than my own on Safari on OS X (El Capitan). How do I do that?

EDIT: This is not a duplicate of how might one spoof geographic location on a desktop Mac. That question is about spoofing the location system-wide. I am not trying to (and actually don't want to) spoof my location system-wide, I just want to change it for Safari only.

It seems that this still not possible in Safari.

For Firefox, there is a browser extension called Geolocater which does exactly what you want, but the latest reviews seem to indicate it is not compatible with the current version of Firefox.

Chrome has this functionality built-in in the Developer Console. Press ⌥ + ⌘ + I, go to the Console tab and inside the Console tab to the Sensors tab. There you can enable location simulation and specify the coordinates.


Which Macs are compatible with macOS Sierra? Is there a list of officially-supported Mac models on to which macOS Sierra can be installed?

I presume it is the same as OS X El Capitan as there does not appear to be many changes which would warrant removing some models of Mac from the supported list, but I can't seem to be able to confirm this.

The Keynote announced the following supported hardware:

Late 2009: MacBook (MacBook6,1)
Late 2009: iMac (21.5" iMac10,1, 27" iMac10,1 and iMac 10,2)
Mid 2010: MacBook Pro (13" MacBookPro7,1, 15" MacBookPro6,2, 17" MacBookPro6,1)
Mid 2010: Mac mini (Macmini4,1)
Mid 2010 : Mac Pro (MacPro5,1)
Late 2010: MacBook Air (11" MacBookAir3,1, 13" MacBookAir3,2)

All later models are unquestionably compatible. A public list (on Apple's website) is not available yet, but a list may be available in the Release Notes (Developer Only).

For the Developer Preview: Registered Developers can access InstallableMachines.plist in InstallESD.dmg for a full list of officially supported Mac board-ids.

It may be possible to install on some unsupported hardware through modifying firmware, the installer, or other methods.


Is there a way to show a badge icon for Reminders app on iPhone? Maybe it is possible but I'm doing something wrong.

I want to know the total number of reminders for the day by just glancing at the icon. Do you have any suggestion?

Badges now show for reminders as of iOS 6, released September 2012.


Yosemite Messages: Support for a separate speaker for notifications? I'm using a jabber account with Messages for voice and video calling, as well as chat. I also use a headset most of the time, and have it set as my primary audio device, but want to hear if someone tries to call or send me a message.

Does Messages support the ability to set different speakers for conversations and notifications a la Skype?

I have poked around in the preferences and done a bit of Googling, with no luck.

Looks like this is not possible after all.


Mojave OS Stealth mode: Is it compatible with Norton Security package? Is Norton Security Firewall compatible with stealth mode on Mojave OS??

What is the advantage of stealth mode?

RK

Yes, enabling stealth mode on Mojave will not wreak havoc with Norton Security.

However note that enabling security features such as Stealth Mode or indeed the Norton Security Firewall itself does not magically give you "more security" or "better security". You'll need an understanding of what these features do or do not do in order to reason about enabling them. It might harm more than it helps in some cases.

Stealth mode works by blocking responses to ICMP ping packets as well as incoming requests for non-open ports. This means that you cannot ping the computer to get an immediate response, and if you attempt to connect to a service on the computer that is not offered, you'll not get a "closed" response, but instead nothing will happen.

The advantage is that if you have a scenario where you do not want others on your local area network to know that the computer is there or which services it provides, they could be "fooled" by not responding to these packages.

On a normal home user scenario the feature does not give you any additional advantage against probing from the Internet at large. It is only a protection on your local network. So if someone comes to your home and plugs in a computer into your local network, it will take them longer to map out which IP-addresses your computers have and which services they offer. In general, this is not a problem for home users at all.

In a mobile scenario where you take your laptop out in the world and connect to insecure (often WiFi) networks without forcing everything on a VPN, the feature does have some merit. Evil users on the same network cannot ping to discover your computers - although on wireless and especially wired networks, it is quite easy to discover your computer simply from the fact that it is itself sending out information onto the network. Similarly evil users will need more time to discover which services your computer offer.

The advantages of the feature are very limited for most users in most cases.

The disadvantages are mostly concerning "debugging" i.e. when "finding errors". If you for example try to connect yourself to the computer via a network service that isn't working for some reasons, you might find yourself waiting for timeouts, non-responsive programs, etc. - instead of having a quick error message popping up stating the cause of the interruption of service.


Macbook Pro won't mount external hard drive I have been having this problem with a Macbook Pro late 2006 and a Macbook Pro early 2011.

Macbook Pro refuses to mount an specific external hard drive or USB stick, after being able to do so with no problem before, and usually after the operating system disconnects it suddenly.

That particular external hard drive or USB stick is perfectly good since it works OK under linux.

MBP would mount the drive month later when tried again.

It have happen with two external Western Digital Hardrives (myPassport) as well as with a Kingston USB stick.

Disk Utility sees the drive but cannot mount it because it's "incompatible".

Many people seem to be having this problem and no solution has been found.

I cannot format the disk because that's where my backups are.

Again: a Linux box uses the drive with no problem. I don't have another mac at hand to try.

Now I'm going to buy another external hard drive from Amazon.

Which brand and model should I buy in order not ti have this problem again?

This seems like an issue with the chosen file system.

What file system did you choose when formatting the hard drive? If it's not HFS(+), FAT in any fashion or NTFS you cannot read it on OS X without additional software. If it's Ext, you could go with Paragon's Ext for Mac (but it costs some bucks).

In future, best choose exFAT when formatting an external hard drive if you need to use it on different operating systems. It both allows rather large files (which is heavily limited in FAT32), but can be both read and written in all important operating systems.


transfer iTunes from Windows 7 to OSX I store my music on a network location \192.168.1.6\music   I added that folder to iTunes on Windows 7.  I want to use a new Mac and I'm wondering what's the easiest/fastest way to transfer all the iTunes settings, metadata, playlists, etc from Windows to OSX?

Just copy over the "iTunes" folder which should be located under your user's music/my music folder. If you can't find a folder there named "iTunes", you must have moved it to another location. To check, go to iTunes preferences and read the location under the "Advanced" tab.

Using any means wether it be network file transfer or using a USB Drive, move the "iTunes" folder to the "Music" folder in your mac's user account


Turning Power Chime Off On new Macbook Pro, Power Chime runs. Whenever I delete from core services it comes right back. It makes a sound when plugging in your power cord even when the volume is at 0%.

The solution I have now to disable this annoying sound is an AppleScript application that runs on login to kill the process via terminal. Is there a better way?

The solution is to set ChimeOnNoHardware to true instead of setting ChimeOnAllHardware to false (note, No instead of All):

defaults write com.apple.PowerChime ChimeOnNoHardware -bool true
killall PowerChime


iPhone apps won't update I try to update apps, and it asks for a password.  I enter the password, and then it asks for a password again.  How do I get it to accept my password?

You might then need to log out of your account on your phone by tapping on your id in Settings > iTunes & App Store and then log back in so as to 'refresh' the account on it.

If that doesn't fix it (if the account was disabled by iTunes Support then it might not) then contact iTunes Support : http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/ - click on Contact iTunes Store Support on the right-hand side of the page


Read/Edit Textedit icloud files on an iPad Does any one of you know a solution to either read or edit on an iPad files stored with Textedit on iCloud ?

As @patrix said there is no way.

However you can use iA Writer. It's an application available for Mac, iPad and iPhone, which allows you to read and write txt files, which are the same produced by Textedit. It as a native iCloud and Dropbox support.

Unfortunately it is not free.

Alternatively Brett Terpstra has an amazingly comprehensive review of iOS editors where you can find a replacement or be alerted when a program does in fact cooperate with TextEdit for document storage in iCloud.


macOS Catalina: execute bash script on boot with launchctl Before updating to Catalina (10.15.1) my agent based on a bash script was working perfectly.

I had set the agent in order to execute the bash script on boot.
Here is the plist file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>mark.battery.info</string>
        <key>Program</key>
        <string>/Users/mark/Dropbox/Exec/BatteryInfoOnBoot.sh</string>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</plist>

After the last update I noticed that the script (BatteryInfoOnBoot.sh) was no longer loaded at boot and if I execute the command:

launchctl list | grep mark
-   1   mark.battery.info

I read that the status 1 means:

  PID - Status 1 means that the process doesn't have enough privileges
  to access some files

ref

The script BatteryInfoOnBoot is very simple:

#!/bin/bash

echo "~~~~~~~~~"  >> /Users/mark/Documents/battery-log.txt
date  >> /Users/mark/Documents/battery-log.txt
/Users/mark/Dropbox/Exec/BatteryInfo.sh >> /Users/mark/Documents/battery-log.txt

instead BatteryInfo.sh is used only to get some useful info:

#!/bin/bash

echo "Current battery percentage:"
pmset -g batt | grep -Eo "\d+%" | cut -d% -f1
echo ""

echo "Cycle count:"
system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep "Cycle Count"
echo ""

echo "Capacity stats:"
ioreg -brc AppleSmartBattery | grep -i capacity | grep -v Legacy | grep -v BatteryData | grep -v AppleRaw
echo ""

PS: the script is still working if I exec it manually:

/Users/mark/Dropbox/Exec/BatteryInfoOnBoot.sh

Any suggestions?

/Users/mark/Documents/ is a protected user folder (as Downloads and Desktop).

Usually you can add applications to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access to enable access to these folders. Terminal is already added probably - the reason why no error is shown executing the script manually.

Change the destination of the log file in the shell script BatteryInfoOnBoot.sh to /Users/mark/Library/Logs/ and it will work.

Proof (Virtual machine - no battery inside ;-)):

user@host ~ % cat Library/Logs/battery-log.txt
~~~~~~~~~
Tue Dec  3 01:23:55 CET 2019
Current battery percentage:

Cycle count:

Capacity stats:

As an unwanted alternative (because even a-typical log files belong to ~/Library/Logs/ or /Library/Logs/) you can keep your original file as it is but you have to add /bin/launchctl to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access then.

Proof (still no battery inside):

user@host ~ % cat Documents/battery-log.txt
~~~~~~~~~
Tue Dec  3 01:32:30 CET 2019
Current battery percentage:

Cycle count:

Capacity stats:


Does Mac OS X load average reporting (via top) include processes waiting on IO? I'm looking at the output of top to view my system's load average.  I want to understand whether the load average is reporting processes just waiting for CPU, or whether it's reporting processes that are waiting for either CPU or IO.

This article suggests that most unix systems report only CPU in their load, but that linux in particular reports both CPU and IO.

I'm guessing that OS X probably does not include IO in its load reporting, but I'd like to know for sure.

On OS X, the kernel task accumulates IO wait time and the process accumulates CPU time managing the IO call setup and results but not the actual IO wait.

Put another way, in top or Activity Monitor, IO waiting is time when the CPU is idle. The system/kernel would take any core storage / filevault processing time needed to accomplish the IO but for the general case with a normal drive there isn't CPU overhead on IO past the normal virtual memory overhead.


Remapping the way that I switch betweens spaces I'm a former Linux user who just switched to a new mbp and I've got a spaces question.

On my linux box I could remap the keys that would move left and right between virtual desktops (spaces).

Is there a way to remap the keyboard in OSX?  Specificlly I'd like to be able to move to the space on the left of the current one with  CMD + H and move to the space to the right of me with CMD + L.

How can I do this?

Thank you,

Joe

Apple > System Preferences > Expose&Spaces / Spaces Bottom half of the window
Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts

While it IS possible, it's not suggested. You might be a lil hard pressed to find a solution. Go for a 3 finger combo?


Fixing Night Shift incompatibility with external monitors If you use an external monitor for your Mac of any shape or size and recently updated to macOS Sierra 10.12.4, chances are you've had some trouble with Night Shift.

Common issues include:

the inability to configure Night Shift from your external monitor
Night Shift being impossible to disable (as a result of the former)
a substantial loss of colour quality (as a result of both of the former happening at once on some connection or screen types, most commonly DVI-D to VGA, DisplayPort, and LCD screens of all kinds.)

How do you get past these issues? Is there a way to enable access to the Night Shift pane on any display?

Unplug the cable and insert it again.

It works for me.

Update for Catalina (macOS 10.15): For secondary monitors, you may have to unplug primary monitor, so that the secondary monitor is the primary monitor. (Doing this once should be enough)

by @Michael_Scharf


Factory unlocking an iPhone? I'm interested in factory unlocking my iPhone 5 so I can use it world wide when I travel. I've found a few websites like: http://www.unlockaniphone.org/

but I'm very cautious of the few blog posts that I have found and not sure if they are fake.

You should be cautious and skeptical of most services that offer a "factory unlock" in my opinion.

The cellular carriers all maintain a database of phones that when iTunes asks - gets told to factory unlock the devices. Since that database is under their control and they have a business relationship with Apple, any entries that are placed in that database in a fraudulent manner could easily be found and reversed.

Your money spent for the "factory unlock" might work if the sellers have a legitimate business relationship with the carriers and it's more trouble for the carrier to allow some people to bypass their paywall and policies, but my guess is most of these unlocks are shady to illegal and I'm surprised that the carriers don't periodically sweep the database for all active phones that should be carrier locked and are not and send a nasty letter to the owners and re-instate the factory locks.

I'm not one to defend the carriers in general, but I can't see how they would continue to charge $500 or more for an unlocked phone only to allow people to spend $10 to accomplish the same feat. If they're going to roll over for $10 then you'd expect all unlocked phones to sell for that in a short period of time.

So - I'd say - pay the money if you are willing to risk it failing, but going into that transaction with your eyes open might be prudent.


Can I get Mavericks QuickLook to display Finder images scaled up to full screen like before? In Lion if I used QuickLook to display an image, and then clicked the double arrows to make it full screen, it would scale the image to the size of my monitor (up too, not just down). Then when I used the arrow keys to navigate in the Finder, all subsequent small images would also display scaled up. That no longer happens. In Mavericks, small images are now displayed at 100% with a black border around all four sides. You can scale individual images up by tapping the Option key, but that only applies one image at a time, not the whole series.

Is there any way to get that setting back? I used that feature a lot, and it's rather disconcerting that it's gone.

I finally figured out how to do this (sort of).

Again, easier to do with more than one monitor - I don't know how it would work on a single monitor.

In the Finder, sort the images as you like then right click (ctrl-click) on the first image in a Finder window you wish to see. A pop-up menu will appear with an item about half way down called Quick Look "name-of-image.xtn" (where "name-of-image.xtn" is the name of the image you clicked on). Now, before doing anything else, hold down the Option key. The menu item will change to Slideshow "name-of-image.xtn".

NOTE: You must do it in that order - if you hold down Option before you right click on the image, you get a completely different menu pop up.

When you release the mouse, the image will open up full screen but not full size. When you release the Option key, the image will go full size. However, the image will have focus and arrow navigation won't work, so you have to bring focus back to the Finder window, easiest done by clicking on the Finder window (which is why I don't know how to do this with only one monitor).

Now: if you hold down the Option key while tapping the right arrow key, each image will open up fullscreen and full height/width, regardless of whether it is smaller than your monitor resolution or not.

Problems:

Navigation doesn't work in List view.
In Columns view only Opt-RightArrow is of any use. If you type Opt-UpArrow or Opt-DownArrow you will go to the first or last image in the Finder window. If you type Opt-LeftArrow you will exit out of the folder you're in. Additionally, if you have your window sorted by tags, the cursor gets stuck on the virtual folders separating different tag groups.
Opt-Navigation works fine in Icons view. No problems there, but having to remember to hold down the Option key becomes annoying pretty quickly.

All things considered, this is pretty awkward. It's a real kludge for something that "just worked" in Lion. I hope it's something they fix for Yosemite, or at least give us a preference somewhere to toggle fullscreen behaviour.


How can a user detect that a iOS device has been Jailbroken? To expand on the title question...

There are numerous in-code methods, with varying reliability, to detect if an iOS device has been jailbroken.  However, is there any method that a device user can detect this?

I am putting together a security information pack for users of our iOS applications. I would like to include guidance on detecting if their device is jailbroken.  Bear in mind that these users are not "power users", so imagine you are advising your grandma :)

One way to do this is to see if an app called "Cydia" exists. If it does, the phone is jailbroken. You can search for Cydia using the search bar (Spotlight), or you can just look for it by searching through the iPhone manually. There are ways to jailbreak iPhones without including Cydia, but the likelihood that a jailbroken phone has Cydia is very high. This would be the easiest way for a casual user to detect if their iPhone has been jailbroken.

Cydia can be hidden however, as is pointed out in the comment below, so the method above isn't fool proof. The best way to PREVENT a device from being jailbroken is to keep it updated. The latest jailbreaks can be found on www.redmondpie.com and on www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/, so you'll know whether or not it is possible to jailbreak your phone. You'll find the latest jailbreaks tied to certain iOS firmwares, so if your phone is always up to date, the chance of your phone being jailbroken is almost zero.

If a device has been jailbroken, its complete file system can be accessed. There are file explorers that work on jailbroken devices but not on non-jailbroken devices and can be used to determine if your device is jailbroken or not. If you can explore the files on your phone with one of these file explorers, then it's jailbroken. iFunBox is one of these file explorers. Download iFunBox, which is free, plug your phone into the computer, and see if you can access the file system. If you can't, it's not jailbroken.


what is "translate" and why does it want access to my keychain? I use Entourage for my email accounts but I keep getting a pop up saying
"translate wants to use your confidential information stored in "[my email account]" in your keychain. Do you want to allow access to this item?"

By always allowing I found the location through keychain - /usr/libexec/oah/translate but I can't locate it through finder.

I am worried that this might be malware, does anyone know what it is?

It looks like /usr/libexec/oah/translate is Rosetta, an Apple program to allow programs developed for PowerPC architecture to run on the newest Intel Mac.

So I don't think it's a malware, just Mac OS using Rosetta to run Entourage.


No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/mongod I am trying to install MongoDB on Mac OSx El Capitan.
here is what the terminal gives me:

$ brew install mongodb --with-openssl
  ...
  Warning: mongodb-3.2.9 already installed, it's just not linked
  ...

$brew link mongod
Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/mongod

$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/mongod
lrwxr-xr-x  1 fred  admin  37 13 Sep 09:05 /usr/local/bin/mongod -> ../Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongod

Here is what I got during the mongod installation:

$ brew install mongodb --with-openssl
...
Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
Could not symlink bin/bsondump
Target /usr/local/bin/bsondump
is a symlink belonging to mongodb30. You can unlink it:
  brew unlink mongodb30

To force the link and overwrite all conflicting files:
  brew link --overwrite mongodb

To list all files that would be deleted:
  brew link --overwrite --dry-run mongodb

Possible conflicting files are:
/usr/local/bin/bsondump -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/bsondump
/usr/local/bin/mongo -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongo
/usr/local/bin/mongod -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongod
/usr/local/bin/mongodump -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongodump
/usr/local/bin/mongoexport -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongoexport
/usr/local/bin/mongofiles -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongofiles
/usr/local/bin/mongoimport -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongoimport
/usr/local/bin/mongooplog -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongooplog
/usr/local/bin/mongoperf -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongoperf
/usr/local/bin/mongorestore -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongorestore
/usr/local/bin/mongos -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongos
/usr/local/bin/mongosniff -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongosniff
/usr/local/bin/mongostat -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongostat
/usr/local/bin/mongotop -> /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb30/3.0.12/bin/mongotop
==> Caveats
To have launchd start mongodb now and restart at login:
  brew services start mongodb
Or, if you don't want/need a background service you can just run:
  mongod --config /usr/local/etc/mongod.conf
==> Summary
  /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/3.2.9: 17 files, 241.2M

How do I make the link? Thanks

You have a typo in your command. You're typing:

brew link mongod

You should be typing:

brew link mongodb

Missing a d on the end there. The link command takes a keg name, not a file name.


OSX Open Atom from terminal I am trying to implement my own dotfiles. I am using zsh as my default shell. When I try to launch Atom from terminal I get this error

  FSPathMakeRef(/Users/agusgambina/Applications/Atom.app) failed with error -43.

To start the application I am executing in the terminal

$ atom .

I am not sure what I have changed that broke this, but everything else that is similar seems to be working.

Thank you

This exact question has been answered on SO.

With Atom open, select from the Menu Bar:

Atom > Install Shell Commands

https://stackoverflow.com/a/23666354/4581844


Crash/restore renamed SSD system disk and emptied I had what I think was a "system crash" of my 500 GB SSD that was my system disk. I now think it was because a keyboard malfunction was preventing proper boot operations. I have a 2008 MacPro running 10.11(El-Cap). I needed to boot in Recovery Mode and restore from Time Machine. Then the Applications folder was completely empty, leaving me with a rather useless machine. I found the Time Machine files (in the Backups.backupdb folder of an external drive) and one by one have partially repopulated the Applications folder with Finder and a few other apps (including Chrome with which I am doing this) from a older TM section of the backups, since the recent backups appeared empty in /Applicatiosn and /Library/Frameworks. The system disk used to be named SSD_1 and that's how it appears on my backup displayed in Time Machine, but it currently appears as "Macintosh HD2" in Finder. This which used to be the location of my Time Machine image before installing the SSD. There's also the old Macintosh HD displayed in the Devices side panel, which when you look at it with Get Info appears as "Macintosh HD 1". I'm a bit worried that a clean system install will trash all my applications. I'm also concerned that my "past end of life" machine won't get the right OS files from the Apple servers.

Ideas: 1) Use Get Info on the SSD to rename the startup SSD as "SSD_1" so that it matches the entry in the Time Machine backup files. Then <somehow> "bless" that drive to use archaic Mac terminology.

2) Or should I clean reinstall. Not even sure I can. Would need to do it over the network and this box is past Apple's end of life rules. This was originally a Lion machine IIRC. I'm not sure what the latest physical medium that holds a DVD image and my DVD door is stuck in the closed position anyway.

Update: As I use Time Machine more to see what's missing, I'm now seeing my old applications and contents of the Frameworks folder at least in the TimeMachine folders (but not on the "real" disk) . So apparently I was not waiting long enough to see the folder display get updated? Can I now use Finder and right-click/GetInfo to rename the SSD to it's old name and then restore from Time Machine? And how does MacOS determine the boot drive?

Eventually, I ended up buying a new Apple-branded keyboard and the system all came back as it used to be, except for renaming the SSD device. The answer below is correct in suggesting I make a recovery disk.

Both the directories you lost indicate you should pretty much immediately boot to recovery and re-apply the OS version you had.

You can't trust any tools if frameworks are damaged and you can't trust the apps to fix things if they're compromised.

Boot to recovery and verify you have a good recovery (internet or otherwise) and have internet while in recovery.
Run Disk Utility (from recovery) to repair the drive until there are no errors.
Confirm your backup mounts while in recovery so you know you have a good backup before proceeding. Back anything up that's not good before proceeding.
Run the OS installer to write known good new /Applications and /Library - that will run migration after the blank /Application is run to copy over all the apps / users / settings you have.
Consider checking the install.log for errors and then test the machine to be sure you don't need to recover things from the backup.

Pretty clear case where you'll have to do this eventually - so I wouldn't waste time on not verifying your backup and not reinstalling a known good system. Trying to figure what happened will just delay getting a known good set of apps and frameworks re-installed - then you can look over what failed if you care to.

You can also make your Recovery HD on another computer if needed. 2008 MacPro likely can't internet recovery and any recovery will let you reinstall 10.11 but you may have to choose that if you can't just install the latest OS your hardware supports.


How to migrate 'local notes' or 'on my mac' notes to iCloud? I've seen so many questions asked about it, and I found a proper solution today while working. See below. I searched around, and everyone's answer has been either 'copy all of your notes manually' or use a '3rd party solution'. This requires neither.

On Mac #1, I just transferred all my "Local Notes" into iCloud and can see them in Mac #2:

Click on "Local Notes" on left side of Notes window.
Hit Command+A to Select All notes.
With mouse, drag all selected notes into "Notes" under "iCloud" on left side of Notes window.


Old version not transferring I installed a new hard drive in my MacBook and when plugging in old hard drive to transfer files & apps/progs over, some apple software such as Mail, iCal and safari have a cross through them stating that it's an old version and can't be transferred. How could a newer OS (mavericks) not accept and transfer older versions across?? How can I fix this? My calendar is now blank with no birthdays and I can't access any emails over a few days old. Any ideas?

Even if you could copy the application bundle, it wouldn't copy data like emails or calendar events. The data for Mail is stored in ~/Library/Mail/ and ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/. The data for Calendar is stored in ~/Library/Calendars/ and ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iCal/.

If you didn't already try it, try using Migration Assistant to copy the files from the old installation.


How to completely stop "Disk Not Ejected Properly" message? I use my MBP to charge my iPod and regularly unplug it without ejecting first - perhaps my laptop is asleep or I changed nothing...

How can I stop this message?

I'm aware of the reason for the message and I've seen many questions here relating to stopping it appearing multiple times which is not my issue.

My question is can I turn it off completely?

I would be happy if the answer applied to all disks - not just iPod.

It bugs me as even if I have accepted the risk of just unplugging a disk, it is too late for the specific instance but will tell you every time you do so until the end of time. Afterwards.

Eject the device properly to avoid any chance of errors.

I have seen several devices trashed by just disconnecting... Reformatting made them useable again.


Understanding copying package files I am seeing some unexpected results while copying package files in a shell script. There are two interrelated issues.

I have commands similar to the following in a shell script:

cp -rp path/to/package/file destination/directory

The problem that I am seeing is that sometimes the package is copied as a whole, which is what I want. Other times the package "goes away" and just the contents of the package ends up in the destination/directory. I don't see the pattern which is causing this to happen differently. Specifically, in the shell script, the package is copied as a whole. But when I try the exact command from the terminal, I get only the contents.

In the shell script, while the package seems to be copied as a whole, it takes a very long time. Like 20 minutes to copy a 17MB file to a USB drive. When I copy the same package via Finder, it copies in about a minute. Then during testing when I rerun the script, it does not take 20 minutes, but just the minute.

These two results are unexpected. I would expect the same result each time, not varying results with the package verses package contents, and the time to run the script.

Any ideas?

I'm not sure about #2, but I suspect #1 is due to trailing slashes in the file path. cp -Rp /path/to/Application.app /path/to/destination will copy the entire package, while cp -Rp /path/to/Application.app/ /path/to/destination (note the trailing slash after the source) will copy just the contents.
BTW, you should use cp -R instead of cp -r -- in some implementations of cp they're the same, but in some versions the lowercase option has ... oddities. According to the man page on OS X:

COMPATIBILITY
Historic versions of the cp utility had a -r option.  This implementation
supports that option; however, its use is strongly discouraged, as it
does not correctly copy special files, symbolic links, or fifo's.


How to fix Time Machine claiming not being encrypted anymore? My MacBook (10.13.6) is backing up via Time Machine to two separate NAS (Synology). This has worked fine for almost a year now, having Time Machine selecting one destination after the other.

Since yesterday however I have the problem, that the backup to one NAS can't be finished. The message is:

  Time Machine did not back up because the backup disk was previously encrypted but is no longer encrypted.

The backups have always been encrypted and I didn't change this. Only thing I can imagine is that it has something to do with an update from 10.13.5 to 10.13.6. I think I did this after the last successful backup (as it's stated in the Time Machine dialog).

Peaking into the MyMac.sparsebundle folder on the NAS I see a difference here:

The folder with still working backup has a file token of size 119.5 KB while the one from the broken backup has 0 size.

How to fix this?

I deleted something equivalent to "2019-08-04-xxxxxx.inProgress" but that didn't work. Then I found another suggestion that did work for me:

Select Disk in Time Machine settings,
Remove the disk,
Re-add it


How can I get iMessage to verify my phone number? iMessage won't verify my phone number. When I try to select my number for messages to be sent, it's greyed out. So I receive my iMessages over email which I don't want to do.

I've tried: turning iMessage on and off, resetting network settings, rebooting my phone and nothing's worked.

Any ideas?

Looks like you tried all the basic troubleshooting steps.  Heres the next step:

Make sure your data is backed up, either iTunes or iCloud.
Turn iMessage off (make sure to do this).
Erase all contents and settings (this will wipe your device.)   Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Contents and Settings.
Set the phone up as New (make sure to do this)
Turn on iMessage, wait for it to activate.  Once it's activated erase the phone again and restore from your backup.


Where did the MacPro 6,1 "Computer Sleep" setting go? Anybody got a clue where the MacPro6,1 power / sleep setting went?

The only thing I can set is the "Turn display off after" slider.

On my old MacPro2,1 there were two settings:

Computer sleep
Display sleep

New MacPro6,1 Energy Saver Dialog:

MacPro2,1 / MacPro4,1 Energy Saver Dialog:

edit 1:

More frustrating, my PC goes into sleep/standby even when im running something like Terminal with SSH session.  On the old system you could set a different sleep for the computer (i'm fine my screen goes to sleep in 5 minutes).

$ pmset -g

Active Profiles:
AC Power        -1*
Currently in use:
 standby              1
 Sleep On Power Button 1
 womp                 1
 autorestart          0
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 darkwakes            0
 gpuswitch            2
 networkoversleep     0
 disksleep            10
 sleep                1
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 hibernatemode        0
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         10
 standbydelay         10800

It is probable that Apple no longer feels the Computer sleep and Display sleep options are required.

The new Mac Pro has no spinning hard disk drives and has a modern power management system that can manage itself.

I suspect you can change settings using low level tools like pmset, but that those settings will be ignored.

Staying Awake

To keep your Mac awake during long running processes, use the Terminal.app command caffeinate:

caffeinate


Sending ctrl+function key on iTerm2 Byobu has some keybindings that require a modifier key and a function key, like Shift+f2 or Ctrl+f7. Unfortunately macOS picks these up instead and does god knows what with them. How do I send these key combinations to iTerm2?

I had exactly the same issue and it seems to have been solved in the latest iTerm2. But if your profile was created before the fix like mine, a little configuration is needed:

Go to Preferences -> Profiles -> <Your Profile> -> Terminal, make sure 'Report terminal type' is set to xterm-256color (or xterm)
Go to Preferences -> Profiles -> <Your Profile> -> Keys, click Presets -> xterm Defaults

And then you can see ^F1 ... ^F12 being correctly mapped:


Chances Migration Assistant will improve performance of Air-2011? I need to improve performance of my Macbook Air mid-2011.

I'm considering to re-install MacOS from the scratch using Migration Assistant for that purpose. I recently migrated from original 256GB SSD to a third-party 2TB (formatted and restored from Time Machine, which only marginally affected the performance, if at all); originally have max 4GB of RAM.

How likely this way will result in substantial improvement?

Is there any way to estimate whether MA will help in my situation before actually performing a migration, maybe with some checks / analysis tools / stats of eg. Activity Monitor over an extended period of time?

One thing you don't mention is how much RAM and how much storage you have.

The two things that effect the speed of a particular computer to a noticible extent are faster storage (moving from a rotational HD to an SSD, or to a faster SSD) and more RAM. The latter depends on how you use your Mac. If you keep lots of applications open and run applications that use lots of RAM (graphics, video and sound editing spring to mind) then more RAM will likely help.

Your Mac, however is configured from Apple and not upgradeable so those avenues are closed to you. That severely limits your ability to enhance the performance of your Mac via hardware solutions.

You can certainly try other ways of reinstalling the o/s and migrating the settings and doing so MIGHT have a small impact on the speed of your Mac, but it is unlikely you will gain much from those exercises.

I note that this Mac has either 2GB or 4GB of RAM. 4GB might be barely enough (depending on your use)  but if you have a 2GB model... well I'd probably sell it and get a newer one with 8GB of RAM. Again, a personal opinion, it might work for you but that is not a lot by today's standards.

Personally, I would recommend a couple of things.

A system cleaner app. I use Onyx that basically cleans out all the caches and runs all the maintenance scripts. It can help with system slowness, depending on where the slowness is coming from. I run Onyx every few months just to keep my bits and bytes sparkly clean!
Check your startup items (System Preferences > users & Groups > Login Items) and remove them. You'll lose their functionality but gain back some RAM and CPU cycles.

There may also be things that start up with the system that are not there in login items. A/V apps, do this as do VPN apps and also MS Office. These apps have things running in the background at all times. Some you may want to remove. You'll have to look at the developer's website for instructions how.

But regardless of all of this and even if you try the alternative clean reinstall you mentioned I doubt that any of them will result in a substantial improvement.