How do I open up my Mac to remote sharing anywhere? I've been looking around and I can only find a way to access my iMac and it's files on a local network. But if I'm away or at school, this kinda puts a hold on my work and is mighty inconvenient. If anyone could tell me how or point me towards resources, that'd be great!

In specifics, I'd like to use my iPhone (jailbroken, iOS 12.1) to be able to ssh, scp, or sftp from school.

I would recommend the screens app and screens connect. The software is not only fast and works excellently, but it helps diagnose if your network conditions are not correct to accept incoming traffic past any firewalls or NAT borders.

https://edovia.com/en/

For ssh, I use prompt and recommend that as well.

https://www.panic.com/prompt/

Together they solve all issues like not knowing your IP address of your router or having to set up dynamic DNS.


Repeating Reminders on desktop won't stay in sync with iOS When I create a reminder that is set to repeat, for example:

"take out the garbage" repeat every 2 weeks.

it pops up on my phone and on my desktop.

When I check it off on my phone, my computer never gets the message that it was checked off. If I check it off on my computer, my phone never gets the message that it was checked off.

I'm running OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and iOS 6.0.1 on an iPhone 4S.

This has never worked for me and I've been through several versions of each OS.

Any suggestions?

I fixed this.

On iOS I went to SETTINGS > ICLOUD > Turned Reminders OFF, then ON. It warned me that it would delete my reminders.. No big deal as they are still stored on iCloud.

On OSX I went to System Preferences... > iCloud > unchecked Calendars & Reminders ( it again warned me that it would delete them from computer which is okay because they are stored on iCloud) > Checked Calendars & Reminders (to turn them back on.)

It is now working as expected. Weird...


Dictionary app for ipod touch Is there a dictionary app that I can just click on a word anywhere (in any app) and it will automatically define it for me?

With the release of iOS 5, this is now very simple. Dictionary functionality is available in any app that allows you to select text. Just highlight the text as if you were going to do a Copy and you will see a "Define" option next to "Copy". Tap "Define" and you get a pop-up window with the definition from the same dictionary built in to iBooks.


Most programs don't use proxy To get internet in my school I have to use the schools http proxy server. So I configured my network preferences to use the proxy. But nearly no program seems to accept that configuration and use the proxy. In Firefox I can help myself with setting FF itself to a proxy connection. But what do I do with all my other programs? Why don't they use the proxy I already set up?
I set the following proxy configuration:

FTP, Web, Secure Web, Streaming, SOCKS, Gopher are all set to proxy.domain.td with port 8080 and Automatic is not set. The proxy doesn't need a user or password and I didn't set one.

What did I forget to set up?

Answer is right here:

  To get internet in my school I have to use the schools http proxy server

If the proxy supports only HTTP, it does only support HTTP.

I don't think you forgot anything. Contact your school's IT if they have different addresses/logins for other protocols. If they don't — file a feature request.


What are ways of installing Python 3? In short I'm looking to install Python 3 (have a programme that on one of it's recent updates no longer ran with 2.7) I have Homebrew installed (but am not sure how I did it e.g. by Sudo I think?) and am looking to upgrade 2.7 to 3?

For full clarity apparently it's the OpenSSL module which needs upgrading specifically.

What are the ways of doing it?

As you already seem to have Homebrew installed, a simple

brew install python

should do. It will put python3 into /usr/local/bin so it shouldn't lead to any conflicts with the default installation.

PS: This is just for installing Python 3 though, not sure it solves your OpenSSL error.


Automatically play Spotify when headphones are plugged in On my iPod I have activator to automatically open Spotify when I plug in my headphones and I would like to know if I can do a similar thing on OS X.

What I would like is to automatically play Spotify if the application is already open, otherwise, I would like Spotify to open automatically then play the music. I would also like it to stop the music when my headphones are unplugged.

Does anyone know if there is a Application that allows this to happen?

Breakaway is no longer maintained on its website, but it can still be downloaded from Sourceforge.  I've associated it with the following two AppleScripts to mute the speaker and pause Spotify when the jack is disconnected, and to play Spotify when the jack is connected.  Follow the instructions on makeuseof to see how to author AppleScript and connect it to Breakaway.

jack-disconnected.scpt

set volume output volume 0
tell application "System Events"
    set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
    tell application "Spotify" to pause
end if

jack-connected.scpt

tell application "System Events"
    set MyList to (name of every process)
end tell
if (MyList contains "Spotify") is true then
    tell application "Spotify"
        if player state is paused then play
    end tell
end if


How to delete Matlab drive connector I installed an app, called Matlab drive connector, however, I cannot uninstall it.

I tried to uninstall in the Applications, however, I even did not find this app.

I also read this tutorial: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlabdrive/ug/install-matlab-drive.html  however, I did not find "Mathworks" in the path mentioned in the tutorial, so I failed to delete it.

This App just pops out every time I restart the Mac, it is really annoying.

I would check your Login items:

Go to Apple > System Preferences > Users & Groups
Make sure your User Account is selected at top left
Click on the Login Items tab
Look for an item called Matlab drive connector (or something similar that could be triggering this) in the list of login items
Now remove this item by clicking on its name (so it's highlighted) and then clicking on the minus - button
Once it's removed, exit System Preferences
Restart your Mac to test to see if the problem still persists


Why can't I see my hard drive? I'm running El Capitan on Mac OS X.

MacBook would not boot (would hang on the Apple logo progress bar screen during start up).

I brought it to Apple Store genius bar, guy said the hard drive is still functional but there was a warning on it so I should buy a new hard drive.

I bought a new hard drive, installed it, installed El Capitan on it.  Everything works.

Then I put the original Mac HD into an external HD USB enclosure.  I plugged it in, and the light flashes on the hard drive enclose, but the Mac (and Disk Utility) cannot see the hard drive.

Anyone know what's wrong with the drive?  I'd like to copy some file off of it.

If it's just "dead" and there's no way to make it work normally again, is there another way to copy the files off the hard drive?

Thanks!

Turns out I had a hard drive failure which is why my Mac couldn't see the drive and why Disk Utility couldn't see the files on the drive.

After trying many things, I found a utility called Data Rescue 4 for Mac and it scanned the drive, found all the files and I was able to recover everything.


Is there a replacement glass panel for iPad that is "matte"? I had broken my Unibody MacBook screen and took the opportunity to replace it with a matte screen, via TechRestore.  I loved the improvement, as I dislike glossiness in almost every context.  Even my car is painted matte!

Anyways, I stupidly broke the glass on my 3G iPad1 today and want to replace the glass with a "matte" version...  Is there anything like this anywhere?
I know I can get a film or what not, but it's just not as satisfying.  So far, I've found a steady stream of probably-good-enough faux-OEM glass panels on eBay starting at $50 each (with the hilariously name spooge tool, included!)
But they're all glossy!!  I hate the gloss!!

Does anyone know where I can get some matte replacement glass for my iPad?

If I were you I would:

repair screen at local apple authorized service provider
cover new new screen with a new matte screen protector for ipad 1

1 Please read reviews before buying one, because some people complain about different issues like a little blurred screen, grain etc.


Some keyboard keys are not working on login to Yosemite The problem is that every time I start my MacBook Pro 15" Early 2011, some of the (native) keyboard keys stop working. However, if I click a restart button - it is all fine.

It is definitely not a hardware issue and this did not happen on Mavericks ever.

On the Yosemite login screen, you should see the current Input Method (keyboard) icon in the upper right corner.

If you click on the current input method, a drop-down menu will let you choose which alternate keyboard you can use. That should let you enter it in.

If your keyboard isn't listed, the dropdown menu also has an exhaustive list of other input methods, so you can select one that should let it work.

Note: I haven't tried to change my password to use an alternate keyboard just to see if it works. Maybe for 1000+ rep... ;)

Also, it took about 5 seconds for the input method menu to drop down, so just keep at it until it drops.


Visualize character glyph in Pages application Is it possible to visualize a particular character (even if it's a special one) in a Pages document ? (I need it for a third-party doc I'm using, to know if certains spaces are just spaces, tabs or something else, and also to get the Unicode value of some exotic characters). All I see in the right bar or the Show Fonts  windows is the "style" info but not the glyph itself.

You should be able to use the app UnicodeChecker for this


What different non-bluetooth keyboards exist for the iPad 2? I am in the navy, and am restricted in the use of RF emissions such as WiFi and Bluetooth.  Is there a keyboard I can use with my iPad 2 that will plug into the 30-pin connector?

You'd want a wired keyboard such as this from DealExtreme. They ship to the US without any problems


How to tell if your key hinge (retainer clip) is broken? I own a MacBook Air 2013 and I recently broke my "comma" key.

I had to pull it out to clean underneath and I think I was a bit rough, so one of the hooks in the key cap broke. I put it back on and it seems to work but the key pops out often. My concern is not with the key cap, I'm worried about the hinge. How can I tell the hinge is not broken? How can I know if I didn't break it either?

In researching your question, I discovered that you can purchase individual replacement MacBook Air keyboard keys, specified as manufactured by Apple.
Hope this helps.

But to answer your question, I would acquire a known good key hinge to examine and compare to the key hinge in question. This should allow you to determine if your key hinge is broken.


How to configure Ctrl+backspace Linux behavior in macOS terminal? I was using Windows and Ubuntu previously and in their terminal, when I used to press Ctrl + Backspace it used to delete the last word till any punctuation. For example, if I had typed:

ls -l /usr/local/foo

on the terminal and pressed Ctrl + Backspace, then the result would be ls -l /usr/local/.

I am very new to the Mac world and searched a lot of places but I could not find this behaviour. I did find that Ctrl+W deletes the entire word till whitespace and the result would be ls -l.

I would like to keep this Ctrl+W behaviour as well as get back the Ctrl + Backspace behaviour that I had on Windows and Ubuntu.

How can I achieve this?

To get this to work the way you want, you have to set the option key to be used as a Meta key. To do this:

Launch Terminal
Go to Terminal > Preferences...
Select the Profiles icon at top
Select the profile you're using from the lefthand side
Click on the Keyboard tab on the righthand side
Now tick the Use Option as Meta key checkbox at bottom of the screen
Exit preferences

Now to achieve what you want, do as follows:

Press option + delete to delete back one word


How to enable "Repair disk button"? Here what happened with me today. TimeMachine asked me whether I want to set a backup disk, I've answered yes, but then, when I've realized that in order to backup anything TimeMachine will clean the disk, I've changed my mind and canceled everything. And my disk suddenly became read only.

What I've tried before Googling:

$ sudo chflags -R nouchg Elements/
$ sudo chmod -R a+w Elements/

But I've failed with both of this, getting "read-only file system" messages.

What I've tried after Googling:

Open Disk Utilities
Click Repair Disk Permissions

But this button is disabled, and I have no idea what exactly should be done to enable it.

I have been using this disk for a quite a long time, and never had any permission issues with it. (Disk is formatted as NTFS, if that helps. Capacity is 2TB, of which 1.92TB are available.)

I'd really appreciate if someone will give me a hint how this can be resolved.

You are getting the read-only file system error because on OS X NTFS is natively read-only. It was read-only before your Time Machine run in, and will stay that way unless you install a third-party driver, such as Tuxera NTFS.

Disk Utility's built-in repair commands are merely a GUI front-end for fsck and fsck_hfs. They are not meant to be used on an NTFS-formatted disk.


How can I disable rounded window corners in OS X Is there any way that the rounded window corners can be disabled in OS X Lion (10.7.3) ?

Update: It's the bottom two corners that I have problem with as they show up even in full screen mode.

Tested on 10.7.3 & 10.7.4

To turn rounded corners off for all windows use the following command in Terminal.

defaults write -g AppleUseCoreUI -bool false ; killall Finder

To restore the rounded corners for all windows use the following command in Terminal.

defaults write -g AppleUseCoreUI -bool true ; killall Finder

NOTE: For this to take effect on already open applications those applications must be closed and reopened (this is why the commands above include killall Finder). Some Applications may interact differently once CoreUI is turned off.

ALSO: This does not affect the corners at the bottom of the window. They will still appear rounded. (As noted in comments by Daniel Lawson)

If you are not comfortable with the killall Finder being used in your command the steps can be taken to ensure the same result.

Step 1. (Turn off rounded corners)

Run the following Command

defaults write -g AppleUseCoreUI -bool false

Remember to close and reopen any Applications that were open when prior to this command being run.

Step 2. (Turn off rounded corners)

Refresh Finder

Key combo command + option + esc... Choose Finder and click Relaunch
Remember to close and reopen any Applications that were open when prior to this command being run.

To restore the original rounded corners, simply use the same 2 Steps and replace the  false found at the end of the command with true as shown in the following command.

defaults write -g AppleUseCoreUI -bool true

Remember: It is very likely that as you update your OS the rounded corners will reappear. However, even after your next OS update, the same steps listed above are likely to function the same. :–)


How to run iPython Notebook as a service What would be the best "standard" way to create a launchd script to run python notebook?

I would like the service to start at login and an easy to start-stop-restart the server from a terminal.

In the end I created the following .plist file. It is autoloaded on startup and it will start a jupiter notebook and keep it alive.

<?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>KeepAlive</key>
          <true/>
          <key>Label</key>
          <string>cern.chernals.ipython</string>
          <key>ProgramArguments</key>
          <array>
              <string>/usr/local/bin/jupyter-notebook</string>
          </array>
          <key>RunAtLoad</key>
          <true/>
          <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
          <string>/Users/chernals/Library/LaunchAgents/jupyter-notebook.stderr</string>
          <key>StandardOutPath</key>
          <string>/Users/chernals/Library/LaunchAgents/jupyter-notebook.stdout</string>
              <key>KeepAlive</key>
              <true/>
      </dict>
      </plist>


Getting Latest Version of Swift I’m starting to learn Swift, and have tried the Swift shell. I notice that it is Apple Swift version 5.1.3 . I though it was up to 5.2 by now.
How do I get the latest version of Swift on my MacOS? Is that affected by the XCode version?
I am running MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 and XCode 11.7.

Latest Swift comes with Xcode 11.5 which should run on Catalina. So go to the app store and download the latest version of Xcode.


Is there a free, actively developed IRC client for Snow Leopard? So far I've been able to find only outdated clients, which are either abandoned years ago or they are currently developed but only for newer systems, or commercial.

Is there a free1 client actively developed for Snow Leopard?

1 Free "as in beer", though, of course, I'd prefer if it was also "as in speech".

Try Adium, which has IRC support and a lot more all free and its still under active development. Also it supports Snow Leopard on the current 1.5.3 version, as long as your up to at least OS X 10.6.8.

  Supported services

  XMPP ("Jabber"), including

  Google Talk
  LJ (LiveJournal) Talk
  Facebook Chat
  Gizmo5

  MSN Messenger
  AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), including

  MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac)

  Yahoo! Messenger, including

  Yahoo! Japan Messenger

  ICQ
  Bonjour, compatible with iChat
  Twitter
  IRC
  MySpaceIM
  Gadu-Gadu
  IBM Lotus Sametime
  Novell GroupWise


Comparing GPU capabilities of Mac models? I'm considering replacing my four year old MacBook Pro non-unibody with an Air, possibly when the line refreshes. My one consideration was GPU output, though. I know my old GeForce 8600M GT isn't much nowadays, but is it better than the onboard 320Ms in the current Air line?

My main question, though: is there a reliable benchmark for graphics output, like Geekbench but for GPU?

You could give OpenMark a try.

  OpenMark is an OpenGL benchmark for
  Mac OS X. OpenMark tests the raw speed
  of the video card drawing a variable
  (automatic or user-defined) number of
  triangles and generates a screenshot
  and a text report of the results.


What is "secd" process? I wonder what secd process does under OSX Yosemite. I am pretty sure I have seen this process running in earlier MacOS versions, but I don't remember it gobbling up all the available memory so boldly...

I have three computers running Yosemite, each with a different config. All three have been up for a duration of three days to one week. Here is a run down of what secd has achieved:

On MacBookAir 2011 with 4GB of memory, 700MB allocated to secd
On iMac 2008 with 6GB of memory, 2GB allocated to secd
On iMac 2011 with 12GB of memory, 4GB allocated to secd

On all three computers secd is the largest process in memory (larger than kernel task) and I suspect it plays a role in the slowdown I have recently experienced with the arrival of Yosemite. I know for sure that the process expands in memory to inordinate sizes and frees up memory when I need it somewhere else. The only issue is that it is not as quick in freeing up memory and most of the time performance suffers before the process realizes it has to retreat.

My search around the web didn't come to a solid conclusion as for what the process is, and why it should be so huge. I guess I am not the only one experiencing this. Any tip is appreciated.

As suggested below secd has to do with Apple Keychain. Here are the files and ports that the process keeps open when active (on MacBookAir):

/
/usr/libexec/secd
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db-shm
/usr/share/icu/icudt53l.dat
/usr/lib/dyld
/private/var/run/diagnosticd/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64
/dev/null
/dev/null
/dev/null
count=2, state=0x2
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db-wal
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db-shm
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db-wal
/dev/random
/dev/random
/private/var/folders/z_/806bzc396cxgp4s0q17tpfwc0000gn/T/etilqs_y5BDgkbGkBV9ybF
/private/var/folders/z_/806bzc396cxgp4s0q17tpfwc0000gn/T/etilqs_Aw6Q7JhPlil3QNX
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db
/Users/.../Library/Keychains/7285EFCF-9AF6-53DD-BE44-DA1F59F96620/keychain-2.db-wal

What is not clear is what the process does to all the memory it occupies, and why it inflates so much.

If it's not apparent, this is just a guess. But hopefully it gives you some leads.

First, here's what you can figure out just from the program name. If you run the command /bin/ls /usr/libexec | sort -f | egrep '.*d$' (this print all files in /usr/libexec ending in d), you'll find ftpd, hidd, networkd, systemstatsd, and a lot of programs ending in d. The "d" stands for "daemon", which basically means a helper process that always runs in the background. The sec very likely stands for "security". So secd is the "security daemon". Which makes sense because you said it looks like it works with keychain stuff.

What's the point of daemons? Some daemons stay running to either do some ongoing task. hidd ("human interface device daemon"), for example, is the process responsible for handling mouse/keyboard/trackpad input. Some other daemons do some common tasks that many other programs need. Apps can simply tell the daemon to do something instead of having code to do it themselves. So secd probably does something like this, but related to the keychain.

But what exactly? It looks like it doesn't actually handle normal use of the keychain, since I was still able to use the keychain after I disabled the secd LaunchAgent.

Inspecting the LaunchAgent gives us a clue:

It looks like secd is responsible for syncing the keychain with iCloud?

So what should you do? Try one or more of these:

If you don't need iCloud keychain syncing, turn it off in iCloud preferences.
Use launchctl to disable secd if it doesn't seem to adversely affect anything.
If you need iCloud keychain syncing, see if you have a ton of keychain items, and remove the ones you don't need.
Perhaps rebuild your keychain (make a new keychain, move items you need into it, and move it over the older one), in case there are unnecessary artifacts left over in the old keychain.


How do I update Ruby from the default version to 2.1.6 via terminal? I don't want to update my pre-installed Ruby to the latest version.

My question is: how can I upgrade the version of Ruby to version 2.1.6 on Mac via terminal?

Since homebrew has moved on to ruby version 2.4.2 you might not have luck installing that far back a version.

I've not used RVM lately, since I'm happy with keeping up with the ruby version that's stable (and let home brew update things since I have no legacy projects needing 2.1), but give the following steps a shot. This will side load another version that's older than what Apple ships.

https://rvm.io

Once that's installed:

 rvm install 2.1.6
 rvm --default use 2.1.6


Can't delete files from iCloud/Desktop I've recently started having issues with my Mac. I'd create a screenshot on my Macbook, which would land in my iCloud/Desktop folder (I don't know why this changed, but right now instead of saving on my Desktop only it saves in iCloud/Desktop only). The files are saved as "Screenshot 2020-01-14 at 11.08.14.png".

Unfortunately I can't delete these files. Trying to delete them gives me the same sound as if the action was successful, but they still remain. I've had to manually log in to my iCloud account and delete them from there. I tried clicking on "Remove Download" but it doesn't do anything.

I'm on MacOS Catalina 10.15.1 (19B88)

I don't know why this changed, but right now instead of saving on my Desktop only it saves in iCloud/Desktop only

Hit cmd + shift + 5 > Options and change the screenshot save location. I cannot take a screenshot of a screenshot window, but it's easy.

  .. my iCloud/Desktop folder ..

You might have turned on iCloud for Desktop and Documents. Check in the System Preferences → iCloud options.  Turn it off, and all your documents will get downloaded to an iCloud Archive folder directly under Users/me/. Then you can move all those content to the original, local Desktop folder.

If you don't like it, just change the screenshot save folder to a non-iCloud synced folder.


Keynote, numbers and pages not available on El Capitan after reinstalling I had installed Windows on my MacBook Air after wiping its HDD and then decided to have OS X reinstalled. One thing I noticed is that the office software that had previously showed up in the dock wasn't installed. When I look up Pages on the Appstore it shows a 20€ price tag. How can that be?

If it was associated with your Apple ID before the OS X reinstallation the reason is that you are haven't logged into the Mac App Store with your Apple ID.

Go to 'Store > Sign In…' and enter your Apple ID credentials. After that you will see "Download" instead of the price for Pages.


Create new (.url) file with url address as variable input I am looking for a way to create a new .url file in the current folder, but have an input field that allows me to enter the desired webaddress the file should link to. The whole process should be similar as to how windows handles the creation of a new shortcut, meaning it should as for the link address and then create the shortcut in the active folder.

Is there any way to realize this with Apple Script and / or Keyboard Maestro? This would be useful as I often find myself wanting to add .url files to folders.

Thanks!
A2k

EDIT:

So I managed to get the above somewhat working with the code below, but still face a couple of problems:
* the filename is hardcoded as "Shortcut.url". The script breaks though if the filename "shortcut.url" already exists
* the script breaks when pressing the "Cancel" button of the file dialog window. How can I address this scenario and add error handling?

tell application "Finder"
    try
        display dialog "Enter URL / IP Address below:" default answer ""
        set urlName to the text returned of result
        if length of urlName = 0 then
            return 0
        end if
        set fileExt to ".url"
        set thisFolder to the target of the front window as alias
        set newFile to "Shortcut" & fileExt

        make new file at thisFolder with properties {name:newFile, file type:"TEXT", creator type:"ttxt"}

        set tFile to open for access (thisFolder as text) & newFile with write permission
        try
            write ("
[InternetShortcut]
URL=" & urlName & "
IconIndex=0
            ") to tFile
            close access tFile
        on error
            close access tFile
        end try

    on error errMsg
        display dialog (errMsg)
    end try
end tell

Appreciate any help,
A2k

I wrote this thinking that you were looking to create the the Mac Version of a .URL file, which would be a .webloc file...  But after reading your code, it seems my assumption was wrong.  I put too much effort into my solution to just scrap it, so in the event that you need to automate the creation of .webloc files, in the future... Here you go

This AppleScript code works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave.

set theURL to text returned of (display dialog "Enter Desired URL" default answer ¬
    "https://stackexchange.com" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} ¬
    default button "OK" cancel button "Cancel" with title "Enter Desired URL")

try
    tell application "Finder" to tell its window 1
        set theFolder to POSIX path of (target as alias)
    end tell
on error errMsg number errNum
    set theFolder to POSIX path of (choose folder)
end try

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    set theName to text returned of (display dialog "Enter Desired Name" default answer ¬
        "File Name" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} ¬
        default button "OK" cancel button "Cancel" with title "Enter Desired Webloc File Name")
    set fileExists to exists of alias ((theFolder & theName) as POSIX file as text)
    repeat while fileExists is true
        activate
        set theName to text returned of (display dialog "A File With That Name Already Exixts. Please Choose A Different Name" default answer ¬
            "File Name" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} ¬
            default button "OK" cancel button "Cancel" with title "Enter Desired Webloc File Name")
        set fileExists to exists of alias ((theFolder & theName) as POSIX file as text)
    end repeat
end tell

tell application "Finder" to make new internet location file at POSIX file theFolder to theURL with properties {name:theName}


Can I remove BootCamp HFS+ driver So, I have an iMac 27" Late 2012, and I have just installed Windows 10 Home 64Bit through BootCamp. BootCamp comes along with several "support software", useful drivers made for Windows and Apple hardware. I have recently noticed that one of the drivers mounts and makes read-and-writeable drives that are formatted in HFS+, including my Mac drive (which appears read-only) and an external HDD I make backups to. Since I'm afraid of Windows Ransomware, I'd like to remove any access to HFS+ drivers from Windows side of things. Is there any way to remove (or at least disable) the driver that enables HFS+?

AFAIK the Apple HFS+ drivers are read-only. You may have installed another read/write driver like Paragon.

To remove Apple HFS+ Driver:

Browse to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\
Move AppleHFS.sys & AppleMNT.sys to the Recycle Bin
Create a Remove_AppleHFS.reg file with a text editor like NotePad and the following content:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\AppleHFS]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\AppleMNT]

You may have to add a trailing empty line.

Merging a reg file with the registry should work as following:

Click on Start and then Run...
Type in regedit, and then press OK
In regedit, click on File, and then Import
Enter the filename or otherwise locate the ".reg" file you want to enter, and press OK
The contents of that ".reg" file will be entered into the registry.

Restart


Delete picture prompt in Keynote I am creating Keynote masters and every time I insert a picture it puts an icon on it, helpfully to allow you to insert a photo from your file. It doesn't show up in the final keynote but it is a pain in the neck. How do I delete it?

Uncheck ‘Define as Media Placeholder’ in the Style tab of the Format inspector,
or Format → Advanced → Define as Media Placeholder in the menus.


Is there a way to switch Mac OS boot partitions without going through System Preferences? I have just viewed a YouTube video on how to set up my Mac as a Mojave/Catalina dual-boot, using two APFS volumes on the internal drive, instead of using a bootable external drive.

But is there a way to select the boot OS without having to go into System Preferences every time I want to switch? And is there a way that's compatible with the bootable APFS volumes being encrypted?

So far, everything I've seen online about Boot Camp seems to indicate that it's strictly for setting up a Mac/WinDoze dual-boot. Am I mistaken? Can it do what I want here?

By comparison, my DOS/Linux dual boot at home boots to a GRUB menu, that allows me to select the desired OS (PC-DOS 2000 or Ubuntu Hardy Heron), defaulting to whatever OS I used last.

You can hold down the ⌥ Option key (also known as Alt) at startup, and that will show you all the available boot volumes.


How can I skip the Trash when deleting a file? I frequently connect different external USB hard drives and flash drives to my computer and I would like to facilitate deleting files and regaining disk space from them.

If I simply delete the file, it will be kept in a hidden trash folder on the external drive until I empty the Trash. This also forces me to empty my local trash simultaneously while the external disk is still connected to regain the disk space, which is undesirable.

At the moment, the only other "solution" I've found is moving the file to the internal hard drive and then trash it. This is not optimal because I waste time moving files from one drive to another (I regularly deal with 20GB+ VMs).

How can I permanently delete a file from an external drive, bypassing the trash?

You can create an Automator service or application to facilitate executing the rm shell commando, which will permanently delete files or folders and skip the trash.

For example, start with creating a new Service in Automator.app.

Select files or folders as input, you probably also want to limit the availability of this service to the Finder app.

Optionally, but highly recommended, first add an Ask for Confirmation step to the workflow.

Finally, add the Run Shell Script step to the workflow. Make sure to pass input as arguments. Then you can put in the following script:

for f in "$@"
do
    rm -rf "$f"
done

As mentioned by @Thecafremo, you can also add a -P parameter to rm for additional security while deleting. For an extra nicety, you can add some audible feedback by adding the following command at the end of the shell script:

afplay "/System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/SharedSupport/SystemSounds/finder/empty trash.aif"

Save your service, and it should be ready to use in Finder from the Services menu in the menu bar. The service will also appear at the bottom of the menu you get by right clicking on files in Finder, although to make it appear there you may have to run it once from the Finder > Services menu first.  You can also configure a keyboard shortcut to your service in the Keyboard preference pane of System Preferences.

Instead of creating a service, you could similarly create an application in Automator, which you can pin in the Dock so you can drag files to it.


Keep dock, top menu, and the X-+ buttons always on in full screen mode Is there a way to keep the bottom dock, top menu (that currently has an Apple logo, Safari, File, etc.) as well as the three control buttons (exit, mini-, and maximize) on at all times when in full screen mode?

I would like to be looking at an application while not being distracted by other open windows and/or the desktop but I would also like to have the above listed commands available so that shifting between open apps is a one- (click the app in the dock) rather than a two-step (restore current app + click the app in the dock) process.

In other words, I would like the same behavior as in Microsoft and Linux KDE.  I consider my existing setup to be less ergonomic, at least to my taste, than the other two and also do not see why it couldn't be accommodated in Mac OS.  Is there a way to do it and how?

You might just use non-full screen windows and maximize them to fill the screen.

Take a look at applications like Slate, ShiftIt, or Moom, or see this question.


Increase horizontal speed scroll on Logitech Mouse I have a Logitech Mouse with a horizontal-scroll-enabled scroll wheel (it tilts left and right to scroll left and right) the only problem is that the scroll speed is very very slow to a point it is not worth using.

The normal mouse settings do not appear to alter the scroll speed at all.

Download the Logitech Control Center here. It will allow you to change the settings.


Early 90s Mac freeware anti-virus program I'm trying to find information about a popular early 90s Macintosh freeware anti-virus program. I can't remember its name.
As I recall it installed as an extension and the icon was a frilly black 'V' on a white background. I believe development stopped in the mid-90s in response to the threat of Word macro viruses.

Thanks

Disinfectant was a popular freeware antivirus program on the Mac from the 80's until its official retirement at version 3.7.1 in 1998:

  Announcement and Press Release May 6, 1998
  Updated: October 11, 1998
  I regret to announce that I am officially retiring Disinfectant, our free
  anti-viral utility for the Macintosh. The current version 3.7.1 is the last
  version. Disinfectant will not be updated for the new Autostart 9805 worm or for
  any future viruses, worms, or other Macintosh malware.

It's the last antivirus I've used on my Macs. There hasn't been much need.


Apple Remote Desktop Admin blocked by OS X Yosemite Firewall I'm experiencing an issue where the Firewall in OS X Yosemite is repeatedly preventing me from launching ARD Admin.

Symptoms: Launch ARD and no window appears. I am forced to force-quit the application.

Troubleshooting: I open up System Preferences > Security > Firewall and ensured that both ARDAgent and ScreenSharing are in the allowed list. They are. Added Remote Desktop.app for good measure, though this shouldn't be necessary.

Upon reboot and login of the computer, I am prompted to allow ARDAgent.app through the firewall. I accept. ARD Admin then launches correctly for the duration of my session. In this environment I am forced to log out at the end of the day (there's a 60 minute inactivity timer enforced to this effect as well). Upon my next login I cannot launch ARD Admin again (its still listed in the firewall as allowed) and I am forced to repeat this troubleshooting process every day.

Inconsistencies:

Sometimes the reboot and login triggers the prompt to allow ARDAgent. Sometimes it does not. I cannot consistently reproduce the behavior that allows me to use ARD Admin. I just keep rebooting until it eventually prompts me and lets me in.
Today I got the prompt to allow ARDAgent and I STILL couldn't launch ARD Admin after accepting the prompt.

Environment:
iMac15,1 (Retina 5K Late 2014) running OS X Yosemite 10.10.1
OS X Firewall Enabled
ARDAgent 3.8
Remote Desktop (ARD Admin) 3.7.2

Quit ARD if running, and go to [your home]/Library/Containers. Move the folder com.apple.RemoteDesktop to your desktop and see if ARD Admin still has startup issues. If it starts working properly you can trash the com.apple.RemoteDesktop folder. Note this will reset ARD and lose any custom UNIX commands you may have set up, back those commands up first before trashing the folder permanently.


PC as Bluetooth Airplay receiver Well, the title pretty much speaks for itself. I would like to stream my Mac's music to my PC over Bluetooth.
It appears this isn't supported by default (or at least my devices are reporting it's not).

Is there some way to do this? Does it require an extra application perhaps? There are a lot of solutions to do so over wifi but i would prefer bluetooth...

Found the solution myself.

For some reason, after pairing, you still need to manually connect.

This functionality however is completely unavailable in the preferences window and can only be accessed using the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.
Once there you simply have to select the paired device to stream your music to and choose connect.

After doing so the mac will automatically open iTunes so you can test your newly made connection.

Note: this can only be done on the mac, there is no way to request this type of connection from the PC.


Forcing the wifi password entry dialogue to display When the administrator of a wifi network changes the network password to something new, previously associated devices that have the old password saved will no longer be able to connect until they re-enter their wifi passwords.

Unfortunately OSX handles this situation in quite an unpredictable way:

Whatever happens seems to have to do with the network security protocol in use and also differ between vendors. Sometimes it will just fail silently, sometimes it pops up a "connection timed out" alert box, sometimes it seems to get stuck, forever animating the

Is it possible to force my MacBook to forget and/or bring back the network password entry dialogue?

Open System Preferences (in your Applications folder).

Select the Network pane, and in the left-hand list of sources, select Wi-Fi or AirPort (this differs in different versions of OS X).

In the lower-right hand corner, click Advanced…. A pane will pop out, and in the list of tabs at the top, either Wi-Fi or AirPort will be selected (depending on OS X). This is the leftmost tab; if it isn’t, then click on it.

You should see a list of Preferred Networks. This is a list of all the wireless networks that your Mac knows about, and thinks that it knows passwords for. Select the network which has a changed password in the list, and press the little - button which is to the lower-left hand corner of the list.

Then press OK in the lower-right hand corner of the pane, and then Apply in the lower-right hand corner of the System Preferences window.

This “forgets” the network. The next time you ask your Mac to connect to that network, it will see it as a new network and throw up a password prompt for you. Once you enter the new password, OS X will treat it as before (logging in and connecting automatically for you).


Macbook Air i7 vs Macbook Pro Retina i5 I'm thinking of buying either a high-end 13'' Air (i7 and 8GB RAM $1,549.00) or 13'' rMBP with an i5 ($1,699.00).

Setting aside portability, display and other differences which I'm still pondering, how does the 1.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 compare to the 2.6GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5 in terms of performance?

I do some photo editing and programming.

The Air is little slower than the retina,
I suggest you to have a look here http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks


SIMBL Plugins not launching properly under OS X Lion I have OS X Lion installed on my 2011 MacBook Pro. I also have SIMBL with two plugins: Colorful Sidebar and Safari Omnibar. I (obviously) have Finder launch when I login, and I also have Safari launch at login.

My issue is that when I first use either application, the desired effect of the application does not kick in. i.e. the icons in Finder's sidebar are still gray, and the google search box can still be found as a separate entity in safari.

Restarting either application causes the SIMBL plugin to kick in for that application.

My question is why are these plugins not activating and doing what they are supposed to do until after I relaunch their respective application?

Unfortunately, this is the behaviour of the SIMBL plugin.

  One oddity about this solution is that you may need to kill the Finder
  again to bring the color icons back after a full system reboot

Source


What's a recommended setup of accounts on Mac OS X? In Lion - on a one person per install setup - the user is admin by default.

  Would you recommended this setup?

I thought that the default user should never be admin but have a restricted standard account instead.

If I change my account for the everyday use to standard and keep an extra admin account for maintenaince, what restrictions take place?

  e.g. Can I still install software as easily?

All actions taken on a non admin account that would need admin privileges require the user to enter the name of an admin account and the password before continuing.

So if you download software on a standard user account, when you come to install it you will be asked to enter the admin user name and password.

I use the admin account and my girlfriend has a standard user account. She can import music, photos download apps from the app store, she can change system preferences in the settings panel but not alter the status of my admin account, create accounts, etc, etc.

I have not heard of this procedure of using a non admin account as to do anything that will change the system as you are required to enter the password anyway.


How do you make the dock more sensitive to being shown? The amount that you have to move the mouse downwards to get the dock to trigger is too high in my opinion.  I've only found the following settings:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0

This set the speed of the transition to 0, but does not make it easier to trigger.

defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0

This sets the delay to 0 once triggered, but does not make it easier to trigger.

I want it to launch the moment the mouse touches the edge of my screen.

Thanks

Edit: the suggested duplicate has no answers that answer this question as addressed in the text above.

Not sure why but with that setup, it feels pretty easy to trigger dock show/hide for me. I found 0.4 suits me most.

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -int 0
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.4
killall Dock


Automatically mark Junk mail as read I've enabled the builtin Mail rules to move junk mail directly to the junk folder. But the messages do not get marked as read, so they are shown/counted as unread in the Mail sidebar.

How can I mark mail that goes to Junk and Trash folders as read automatically?

For Junk Mail, you can create a Rule. From the menu bar item “Mail”, select > Preferences > Rules > Add Rule. Make a rule with the following conditions:

For Trash, you can simply bypass Mail’s Trash and rely on the server settings of the email account. To do so, from the “Mail” menu bar item (again) > Preferences > Accounts > [select account] > Mailbox Behaviors > uncheck “Move Deleted Messages To the Trash Mailbox”


iOS Developer Program: I misspelled my address, and now I cannot cancel my enrolment and try again I tried to enrol to the iOS Developer program a few months ago, but was unable to do so because my card wasn't acceptable due to some reasons.

I now have a new card which can be used with Apple. But I changed my address in the mean time. My account is still stuck at the previous enrolment, with the previous address.  I cannot seem to cancel this enrolment, or start a new one. I cannot edit my information either, which shows up fine at My Apple ID.

How do I get out of this situation?

I would call Developer Support directly to get them to look at the specifics for your account:

https://developer.apple.com/contact/

Choose the Enrollment and Account link and sign in to get your options. It your AppleID doesn't work to sign in, then you need to contact the online store in your country and ask them to connect you with the developer support team. In the US it's 1-800-MY-APPLE.


iTunes Media Folder Location seems to act oddly I have a separate partition setup for my Media.

If I set it to F:\ the structure for music is:

F:\{Artist}\{Album}...

If I set it to F:\Music the structure for music is:

F:\Music\Music\{Artist}\{Album}

How can I set it up so that the media is stored F:\Music\{Artist}\{Album}?

In iTunes, go to the File menu, then select "Organize Library" and tick the box next to "Reorganize files in the folder 'music'".


How to download embroidery design files to iPad When I try to download embroidery design files from a website to iPad, the download fails. I would like to know if there's a way we can force Safari (or Google Chrome) to save such files (formats such as .ART, .EXP, .FES etc) to iPad. Thanks.

The .ART extension files are most likely in a vector graphics format, which might be openable in Adobe Illustrator. Within Adobe Illustrator, you can then save the file as in PDF format, which can then be opened on the iPad.

Failing that, the companies which make these files available need to design an iOS app specifically for this purpose.


Access Time Capsule from Android phone Can I access the contents of the "Data" folder on computers other than Macs? For instance, can I access the Time Capsule from my Android phone?

What do you mean by "access"? If you mean editing files and/or copying files to and from Time Capsule, you might not be able to do that since the hard drive in Time Capsule is formatted using Mac Journaled file system. If all you want is to view files, some Android apps might be able to access the device over network.


External microphone audio recording on MacBook Pro Mid-2015 I'm trying to use a RØDE smartLav+ Lavalier microphone with my MacBook Pro.

The MBP is a Retina Mid-2015 (running macOS 10.14.6) and has a single port for both audio output (headphones) and input (microphone).

The microphone has a TRRS connector (audio jack) identical to the iPhone's headphones with microphone.

If I plug the iPhone's headphones into the mac it recognizes a microphone is present; I can see that in System Preferences > Sound: sound input is "External Microphone".

If I plug the RØDE microphone it is not detected: sound input remains "Integrated Microphone"

Interesting enought if plug the RØDE microphone into an iPhone it  does record audio.

Finally this microphone is detected by Mid-2012 MacBook Pro (by plugging it in the headphones port, not the microphone port; the 2012 has both)

Is there anything I can do to let my Mid-2015 MPB recognize the RØDE microphone and let me record from it?

I got in touch with RØDE support that replied

  SmartLav+ is not compatible with the newer (2015 - onwards) models of
  the Macbook as it has a different threshold for it's input recognition
  compared to a smartphone or tablet device

Actually compatibility with MacBook Pro (or laptops) is not mentioned in their product's specification sheet, it's designed for smarphones and tablets.

It turns out that the MacBook Pro 2015 audio port is not compatible with many microphones despite the TRRS audio jack.

For anyone that experience this issue I suggest doing the recording with a iPhone (put it in Airplane Mode during the session) then sending the audio file to the mac via iCloud drive.


What programs exist to find and delete "orphan files" left after deleting an Application? I have transferred my system from Mac to Mac for over 15 years. I have preference files and other plists lurking around in my system for programs I tested years ago.

Is there a smart program that could point me to these orphan files knowing that the application that created them is not on my system?

If you are willing to use Terminal.app you can use find to identify files/folders which haven't been accessed for a long time.

find ~/Library/Preferences -atime +52w will list all prefences which haven't been accessed in the last 52 weeks.
find -d ~/Library/Preferences -atime +52w -ok rm '{}' \; will ask whether you want to delete it file by file

and if you don't want to get asked for each file, run

find -d ~/Library/Preferences -atime +52w -delete


iOS 8.1.1 update on iPhone 4S, calendar not working now I cannot view my daily appointments or view pending calendar invites since I updated my iOS software to 8.1.1.

After almost 2 months I figured it out.  I set up the Gmail/Google Calendar/Google Contacts on my iPhone as an Exchange Account many years ago.  Google discontinued this in 2013 for all new users, though it still worked for me (until Nov 17th).  Google now uses CardDAV for Contacts and CaIDAV for Calendar (since 2013).  They recommend using the Gmail app for their mail.  Here is a link on how to set up Gmail/Contacts/Google Calendar: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/3008051?hl=en
I did this yesterday and now everything works.  I was surprised that there weren't more complaints about the issue (I thought there must be hundreds of thousands of people affected) but most people probably have it set up using the newer method, which obviously wasn't affected by iOS 8.1.1


How to set default scroll option for full-screen mode in Mac Preview? Mac Preview always opens in single page or double page view when going to full-screen mode while I prefer continuous scroll. I know I could press CMD+1 every time but is there a way to set this scroll option by default on PDF file open?

Edit: I also tried the Preferences -> Opening for the first time, Show as: Continuous scroll. It still always opens files in single page view when going to full-screen mode. Is this some sort of bug?

Version: OS X 10.9.4 MacBook Air

Preview Preferences → Opening for the first time:


iPhoto freezes when iPhone is connected The Title says it all. If I start iPhoto while my iPhone is connected via USB, iPhoto simply freezes, showing the beach ball all time. The only way to revive it is to kill the iPhoto process via the task manager and then to launch it again. iPhoto works ok when the phone is not connected.

I run Mavericks 10.9.3 on a 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 13" and the phone is an iPhone 5 with IOS 7.1.1.

Edit 1: iPhoto is version 9.5.1

Edit 2: The behavior is the same when I connect my iPad

Edit 3: Deleting the iPhoto library does not change the behavior in any way

Edit 4: Deleting iPhoto, the photo-library and everything under ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iPhoto/ does not solve the issue

Edit 5: Reinstallation of iTunes has no effect

Edit 6: Loading the photos works perfectly from the Image Capture app

How many photos are on your camera roll?

iPhoto is dynamically loading all the photos on you iPhone/iPad into your MacBook's memory. This is more-or-less the same thing as loading lots of very big picture files off a USB flash drive, so don't be surprised if it takes a (some times very) long time for large camera rolls. To be sure it hasn't choked on the huge number of files you have, open activity monitor or type top in a terminal window. You'll see a list of (almost) all the tasks currently running on your system. So long as iPhoto is taking a semi-significant amount of CPU time (it takes about 10% at idle on my 15-inch MBP), the process isn't hung and you're fine.


Convert read-only sparseimage to read-write I have a big sparseimage on an external harddrive (HFS+) which I use as a backup place for some special files. After re-installing my laptop, the image is mounted as read-only. How can I convert this back to a read-write?

/dev/disk5 on /Volumes/foo (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners, mounted by me)

I'd like to avoid copying the files over to a new sparseimage, as moving hundreds of gigabytes over usb2 is not much fun.

I'll post this as an answer instead of deleting this question.

The culprit was a read-only foo.sparseimage file on the external harddrive. Changing the owner back to me (with read and write permission for me), everything is back to normal.


How do Wi-Fi networks persist between installs? I've just done a reinstall from the recovery partition and have found that all the previously known Wi-Fi networks have persisted, even though I formatted the main partition during the reinstall.

How are they still here?

They are synchronised over iCloud, so if you log in to iCloud the list of networks and their associated passwords are added to macOS.


Is lion upgrade compatible with parallels 6? I just upgraded my one month old osx desktop computer to lion. I had parallels desktop 6 on it and now I cannot access parallels. Do I have to reload windows? Have I lost everything in windows?
I must have to it for  my business. Please help!

You should contact the technical support at the Parallels company.

They state that you must update to Parallels Desktop for Mac build 6.0.12094 for compatibility with Lion, and they list more information at this link.

Here are support documents from Parallels concerning Lion compatibility.


Maintaining Aspect Ratio while Image Cropping using Preview I like the convenience of being able to crop jpg/png images with Preview, but I would also like to be able occasionally to restrict the aspect ratio of the cropped image. This is useful, for instance, if I want to prepare images for printing in 4x6 or 5x7, while avoiding any surprise cropping made by the photo lab.

I am hoping there is a quick and easy way to do this (i.e., without needing to invoke the behemoth of image editing for this elementary task). Are you aware of one?

In Photo (not iPhoto) click Edit

then Crop

then Aspect, and finally Original

.

As of this writing (August 2016), there is no way to do this using Preview or any other stock program in El Capitan. Photo is nearly stock though, and it's easy enough using Photo.


Reliable way to downgrade iPad 2 to iOS 6 without SHSH Recently I upgraded my iPad 2 from iOS 7 to iOS 9 which made it slower and buggy (apps frequently crashing). I have regretted ever upgrading to iOS 7 let alone iOS 9. Recently I found some sites (eg this one) which offer ways to do exactly what I want: get my iPad 2 back to iOS 6.

(I'm not sure what sites / instructions to trust but I do generally trust StackExhange advice. I am concerned what the effect would be downloading software from some of these sites.)

A few parameters:

I don't have backups (eg SHSH)
I would prefer to keep some data (eg saved games)
Idiot proof instructions would be a huge plus
I am prepared to jail break as part of the procedure but want to be left with an unbroken iPad

Can anyone tell me a fool-proof and trustworthy way to downgrade?

Edit, why I don't think this is a dupe: I don't think that is a duplicate because there the answer to that general question is that it is no longer possible. But this specific case does appear to be possible in light of recent developments. Plus one answer mentions many devices but not the iPad 2. Finally, that same answer has SHSH as a pre-requisite, my question excludes that.

Apple is currently signing iOS 6.1.3 for the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. Simply download the appropriate IPSW and Shift+Restore (Option+Restore on MacOS) in iTunes. The signing status of iOS 6.1.3 for these two devices is unlikely to change because they are installed with iOS 5 out of the box. iOS 5 on these devices cannot update over-the-air to any iOS above 6.1.3 due to some technical limitation. So the update path for an out-of-the-box device over-the-air is iOS 5 -> iOS 6.1.3 -> latest iOS.

Note: At the time I answered, only the OTA for 6.1.3 was signed (because the limitation doesn't exist when updating through IPSWs). For some unknown reason, Apple now signs the IPSW for 6.1.3 (perhaps to be consistent). I don't know when this changed and I cannot find any information about it. The whole reason OdysseusOTA exists is because only the OTA used to be signed. Below you can find my original answer according to the circumstances of early 2016.

The lowest version you can go with an iPad 2 and without SHSH blobs is iOS 6.1.3. This is because Apple still signs OTA (over-the-air) iOS firmware for this version. You can use OdysseusOTA to downgrade to this version, but only if you're jailbroken. If you're not, then you can't. And only iOS <= 9.0.2 can be jailbroken currently. Read my answer on this question for more information about OdysseusOTA.

All tools that claim to be able to downgrade are simply forks of Odysseus and/or its process. Odysseus is the only tool that can do such things at this time.

For a video explaining how to use OdysseusOTA, watch this YouTube video from its author.


What is the difference between "App Store" and "App Store Connect" I keep reading documentation on the process of creating an app for the 'app store' where it references app store connect and app store seemingly interchangeably. Apple is normally very deliberate and specific in documentation, are they the same or is there a difference I haven't picked up on?
example [> Upload your app binary files with the Transporter app]:
"The Transporter app for macOS is a simple and easy way to upload an app to App Store Connect for distribution on the App Store." (https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/devb1c185036)

App Store Connect is the developer only service, native and web app suite that connects you to the App Store and your customers.
On iOS and iPadOS each has its own app to help you keep things straight.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/app-store-connect/id1234793120


iTerm2 highlighting pasted text I recently switched to a new machine, and I'm noticing a behavior in iTerm2 I haven't seen before. Whenever I paste text into iTerm2, the text is highlighted:

Here, I pasted "err". Why is this, and what is it signifying?

There is nothing to worry about. If you just click the space and then delete button. The highlight disappears as soon as you do this and whatever has been pasted will run.
Let me know if it is ok.
Thank You!


Tuxera NTFS and High Sierra I just installed High Sierra Developer Beta 8 on my 2015 Macbook Pro and I haven't been able to make Tuxera NTFS work with it. A few searches on Google seem to indicate that it does work with High Sierra, but all I get is an error when trying to mount my external HDD:

I read somewhere that Gatekeeper could be the source of the problem, but even after allowing it there, nothing changed.
So, does anyone have any clues about what may be happening in my case?

Check the System Preferences > Security & Privacy, under General tab you may need to Allow the Tuxera system component (forgot its name/details).

The Tuxera 2016.1 seems to be working for me on High Sierra/10.13.0 after allowing its system component to run under Security & Privacy, it gave error something similar, and Allowing it made it to work.

This is explained as opt in for running the kernel extension:

https://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/#Tuxera_NTFS_for_Mac_features_block

  (*) Our 2016.1 version is compatible with High Sierra. Note that High Sierra prevents extensions from loading automatically, which means that if you use version 2016.1 you’ll need to allow the extension to run from Security preferences pane. The upcoming version of Tuxera NTFS for Mac will help you breeze through this setup. Want to be part of our beta? Email us at macsupport@tuxera.com for more info.

Since you're on a beta OS - you might want to join Tuxera's beta as well in case they'll work with you on debugging any issues before their tool and the macOS version you run are released.


Copying music from iPod to OneDrive for accessing via iTunes I have an old iPod that has plenty of music on it.  My iTunes on my Wintel laptop has all my songs on it, but when I click on a song, iTunes can't find it.  So, I'm wondering if I can take my iPod, copy it to OneDrive and then direct iTunes to that location for playing.  Has anyone done such a thing?

There is really no reason why this would not work. Directing the iTunes music library to another location.

On macOS in iTunes Preferences under advanced there is a button to select the iTunes library (music and related files) location, which can be, pretty much, anywhere. I believe that it works the same way in Windows.

You'll want to copy the iTunes folder that held your music to your OneDrive folder and place the music from the iPod in the appropriate folder within. Depending on how careful you are and/or how lost iTunes is you may have to find a number of the missing songs manually. But iTunes should recognize at least some of the missing music and ask you if you want to re-add it to the library automatically.


Trouble restoring hard drive space after deleting bootcamp partition I have a problem with my Fusion Drive. I created partition for Bootcamp, then deleted it, then something went wrong. I lost 200 GB of space and I have a trouble restoring it, Fusion Drive capacity should be 1.1 TB not 800 GB. Here is my Mac's diskutil list:

iMac-Lukasz:~ lukasz$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         121.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         678.4 GB   disk1s2
   3:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk1s3

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +799.6 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume MAC OSX                 309.8 GB   disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 49.0 MB    disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.4 MB   disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      6.4 GB     disk2s4
iMac-Lukasz:~ lukasz$ diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

Any ideas how to restore it to the full size?

The HDD part of your Fusion Drive contains an alien EFI partition:

3:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk1s3

This second EFI blocks restoring a full sized container:

Get the details: diskutil list
Remove the NO NAME EFI:

diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" %noformat% /dev/diskXsY #replace with the device node of the NO NAME EFI (in your example disk1s3)

Get the APFS container reference of the APFS container spanning the two physical drives: diskutil ap list. (In your example disk2)
Resize the container:

diskutil ap resizeContainer containerReferenceDevice 0

with containerReferenceDevice = disk2 this is:

diskutil ap resizeContainer disk2 0


How to prevent apps on one iPad from being loaded automatically on the other? Could you please tell me how I can keep whatever apps I download to one of my iPads from downloading to the other iPad? Thank you very much for your help. NOTE: I am disabled, so the easiest answer, the better. Again, thank you.

iPad 1, 64 GB, WiFi-only
iPad 2, 64 GB, 3G and WiFi

On your iPad device tap on Settings > Store. Under where it says Automatic Downloads, make sure that Apps is set to Off. This setting keeps apps from automatically downloading new purchases made on other devices.


How to stop OS X Lion automatically asking me to join a network I'm on a school network so I have to sign in before I can use the internet. Before in OS X 10.6 it would just connect me to the network and let me signin on my own. Which I made a script to login for me.) However, now with this new join dialog that pops up asking with the login window, I can't have my script automatically log me in.

So how can I prevent OS X Lion from attempting to join the network? I looked into this and it works like on the iPhone. The computer will try to access http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html and when that fails it will show a pop up window asking for my login.

In System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi you can check or uncheck the "Ask to join new networks". Under "Advanced" you'll also need to uncheck the box next to "Remember networks this computer has joined".


Yosemite keyboard shortcut for "keep both" "stop" or "replace" when moving files in Finder? When you copy or move files in the Finder in Yosemite and there is a conflict, a small dialog box pops up proposing:

keep both    stop    replace

(or "skip" if you press option).

However, I can't find any way to choose one of the options with the keyboard.

There's no default option. Cmd-R doesn't work for replace. Escape does nothing.

I've tried every combination I can think of and nothing works.

Are there keyboard shortcuts to choose these options?

You can enable keyboard control in Preferences

With this, You can switch between buttons with ⇥ TAB and select it with Space. Active button will have blue border.

NOTE: default buttons (all blue) are still clickable with ⏎ RETURN.


Change file kind / kMDItemContentType I have two text files with no extension and made them executable. Both are set to open with Terminal app. However one file is shown as kind "Text" and the other one as "executeable unix file".

if I display the metadata attributes with

  mdls < filename >

I can see the the Content Type is different:

file 1 shows:

...
kMDItemContentType                  = "public.unix-executable"
...

file 2 shows:

...
kMDItemContentType                  = "com.apple.traditional-mac-plain-text"
...

How can I set the kMDItemContentType of file 2 also to "public.unix-executable"? Is there a command line to to change it?

Explicitly set it within the file itself.

Right click (or option + click) the file > Open With > Other... > TextEdit.

Alternatively, you can use a text editor such as nano or vi within Terminal.

Set the attribute below the shebang line

#! /bin/bash

kMDItemContentType = "public.unix-executable"

#Rest of your shell script

I just tested this on a script in my bin:

njboot$ mdls /Users/njboot/bin/jpgrm
kMDItemContentCreationDate     = 2014-06-10 06:06:53 +0000
kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2014-06-11 19:58:23 +0000
kMDItemContentType             = "public.unix-executable"
kMDItemContentTypeTree         = (
    "public.unix-executable",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.executable"
)


Unexpected Apple ID password prompt - Which App is causing this? I am getting unexpected prompts for my Apple ID on my iPhone SE at random times, including on the lock screen. Here are a couple of examples:

On the lock screen

In the EMail app

These started appearing a couple of weeks ago.  The prompt dialogs have no identifying information to tell me who's asking, so I'm not about to enter my Apple password until I know who's asking and why.

I have correlated these to having one specific app either running or configured for background refresh.  If the app is closed and background refresh is disabled, I do not seem to get the prompts.

The app is Appigo ToDo, which has a cloud-based component that does require sign-in.  However,

I am already signed in correctly to ToDo Cloud, and if I just dismiss the prompt (Cancel) without entering anything I get no error, and ToDo Cloud proceeds with no issues;
If I enter my password for ToDo Cloud, the error message is

So, something, possibly related to Appigo ToDo Cloud, is asking for my APPLE password.

Question(s): Given a password prompt dialog, is there any way to determine the source of the request, and the reason for the request?  What else could be causing iOS to be prompting for my Apple password at random times?

Perhaps this snippet from this help page at Appigo will provide a clue:

  iCloud is different from the other synchronization services supported by Todo in that Todo does not actively control when synchronization takes place. When you make changes to your tasks Todo flags its data as having changed; iCloud watches for this flag and synchronizes as needed. In short, while Todo can inform iCloud that it needs to be synchronized, it cannot start or control an active synchronization.

I think that ToDo needs you to manually login to iCloud, which uses your Apple ID for authentication, to sync because the saved password is incorrect. Perhaps you need to reconfirm the login credentials within the ToDo app so it syncs correctly.


Adjust the opacity/transparency of an image on Mac OS Big Sur I thought i'd be able to do this with the built-in Preview app, but I can't find a way to do that.
I have an image i'd like to reduce the opacity to 50%.
Can anyone advise if there's a way to do this with built-in applications that come with MacOS or if this needs GIMP or another image editing tool? I'd rather not install GIMP (if I can avoid it) just for this.

Yes, you're going to need a graphic image editor, be it GIMP, or Pixelmator, or Affinity Photo, or Adobe Photoshop, or other.
Having some sort of program of this type is bound to come in useful again. Preview has its uses, but it's not a general-purpose image editor.


Can I lower the minimum display brightness? How? When working late, I'd like to lower the screen brightness further than the OS X allows in using the brightness keys.

While you can use ⌥+⇧+F1/F21 to change the brightness in smaller quaterish increments, this does not have an effect between 0 and 1 bars.

i.e. The values 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.00 have the same brightness. The brightness only incrementally increases for quaters above 1.

In Ubuntu I've accomplished very low brightness settings by manually changing integers in the configuration files. Is there something similar that I could do in OS X?

1 - This works for the volume the same way.

My recommendation is a hitherto-little known gem, called ScreenShade.

There are several decent Mac software screen dimmers out there, of which I've found the ones whose dimming method is to apply an increasingly opaque black 'overlay' over the screen to be the most superior in appearance (providing much higher quality 'low blacks' than Shades which does its dimming via color profile/gamma level tweaking) and in doing so, also playing nice with famous color temperature regulating app, f.lux.

The best examples in this group, are Shady (whose development has been abandoned by its dev and has a no better rogue clone in the Mac App Store), ScreenDimmer, Screen Shade, and Work at Night. (N.b. these last two, confusingly appear to be clones, by the same dev on the Mac App Store.)

But if you're looking to more fully emulate the Mac's in-built hardware dimming in software, you're looking for an app that can have the dimming triggered via hotkeys, system-wide.

Annoyingly, none of the just-listed quality 'overlay method' apps actually provide keyboard shortcuts (at present).

So for all the above criteria AND having keyboard shortcuts, the only one I have found is the humble Softonic-hosted ScreenShade, est. 2008!

It's working on Yosemite 10.10 no problem, and has a decent little preferences window including even customisable support for multiple/secondary monitors! Its only drawback, is that the hotkeys' granularity in dimming up and down is a little less than one would ideally want (i.e. the jumps are fairly large), but this is a small concession given it at least provides hotkeys, and it does go down to very low levels (with fairly good clarity), all the same.

So until contenders like ScreenDimmer, Shady, or Screen Shade / Work at Night do anything about it, if you want something with hotkeys and simultaneous operation with f.lux (and to do it in software), this looks to be only app that can do it.


How to enable 3G for an Indian iPad on Airtel? So,

I have an iPad Air 2 64 GB LTE purchased in India. I'm using a network carrier called Airtel for the data. This device is running iOS 8.4 as of posting this question.

Here's my problem-

When I put in my SIM card, the 3G band doesn't work. I don't see an option to manually select a 3G band either. I can see LTE or 2G/Edge but not 3G.

Some of you may ask - Why not just use LTE? Because Airtel only allows LTE for users of post-paid phones. I don't want to use a post paid connection for a device which is seldom out of WiFi range. For the few occasions that I'm not near Wifi, I need the iPad to work with whatever sim card I have with me. Also, LTE coverage is spotty to poor in most Indian cities.

For readers from other countries - specifically from the US, cell phones and tablets are purchased directly from something like a Best Buy after paying full price. These devices are carrier unlocked. It is the norm to swap in whichever SIM card suits your fancy for that day. The expectation from the device is that it should work perfectly.

On Android/Windows Phone/Symbian/Blackberry devices, its a trivial matter to go to the device settings and have the device use a specific network band. This is useful when you have poor 4g/3g coverage and want the device to stick to lets say, 2G/Edge bands. A 2G/Edge band is still quite useful for IM, Emails, SMS and phone calls. Obviously, you can't use it for streaming media, but that's alright.

Recent iOS devices have the hardware capable of using the most popular 2G/3G/4G/LTE/WCDMA bands. However, for reasons best decided by the iOS engineers, the choice to allow this band selection is enabled by the network carrier through the use of some elusive settings and files called the IPCC or Carrier settings files.

For readers from developed countries - most networks in India don't bother providing IPCC files because all non-iOS devices work without these settings just fine. So, when I go to an Apple forum - I'm just asked to use a different network. (As if!)

Anyway, I've searched the Internet high and low for these mystical IPCC files. Most resources are out of date or suggest that you root the device. Rooting is not an option because that would void the warranty.

Every time I connect the iPad to iTunes, I see a popup saying that carrier updates are available...I tell it to go do the update, but then zilch.. nothing happens.

Then I go do the other thing all Internet resources tell me : Settings > General > About > Update... and again, zilch.

So, how do I go about solving this problem?

Thanks for any help.

ps: Any comment or suggestion which mentions that the network carrier should provide these files - I say to them : All other devices work perfectly on their networks, so why should there be special arrangements for an iOS device? In developing countries, iOS devices account for a minor fraction of the subscriber base.

I found the answer myself and I thought I should put it out there for another hapless (recent iOS) convert drawn like a moth to the flame that is these beautiful yet quite flawed iOS devices, so that they may continue make the most of their devices in good network coverage or poor.

So, how do you get an iPad Air 2 LTE (running iOS 8.x) to the ability to use 3G on Airtel India in Bangalore, Karnataka?

Without much further ado, I present to you the answer ....

... do a factory restore using an IPSW file.

Its really simple to do this. I'll give you the general outline.

Backup your iPad or iPhone using iTunes or iCloud. You should already know how to do this.
Download the IPSW file for your device onto your computer. This link is a good place to start. There are other websites which provide the same service.
Connect your iOS device to iTunes and select restore device. This link has more details.
Keep your device connected to the computer throughout the restore process.
When the device has booted up after the reset, iTunes will ask you to check for the carrier settings check. Allow it do so... and you will have 3G working on your iOS device.

I hope this helps someone else.


How do I delete items in my itunes download queue? Possible Duplicate:
  Delete a purchased file from ITunes Download Queue without downloading file

I have some episodes of a TV program in itunes (on my ipad) that I didn't download for a long time. If I try to download them now it says "download error. Tap to retry". A pop up says "Unable to download episode 13 - it could not be downloaded at this time". So I can't download them to delete them.

I also can't seem to remove these un-downloaded episodes from my itunes downloads queue. Nothing happens if I press the icon (like I would if I wanted to remove an app).

Does anyone know how I can remove them?

While an item is in the download queue, the user can't remove it.

You could contact the iTunes Store Customer Support department, which, apparently, deals with this kind of stuff, or try this wibbly wobbly solution:

Go to the Download page and find the small down-pointing arrow icon next to the Download Error. Tap to Retry.
Put your finger on the arrow icon and do a quick swipe to the left.
The arrow will be replaced with a Delete button.
Tap and confirm.


Skype on iPad won't stay online The Skype app requires me to constantly launch it if I want to receive any messages on my iPad. Switch away, and a couple of hours later it goes offline and stops receiving messages/calls. There is of course no indication whatsoever of whether it's still running in the background.

Is there a fix for this? Is this a bug in Skype that can only be fixed by Skype developers, or is there something I can do about this? Like some sort of a setting to allow Skype to stay open in the background.

Took me a lot of time to discover you have an option in iPhone (iPad) Settings app, you scroll down until you find Skype, and there you have the option to go offline automatically. Make sure this is set appropriately (e.g. to Never).

I'm running last version available today, 23rd of may 2012, both IOS and Skype.
Solved my problem few weeks ago.


How do I clear out "Recent Rooms" in Outlook 2011 when I am creating a Meeting or Appointment? How do I clear out "Recent Rooms" in Outlook 2011 for Mac when I am creating a Meeting or an Appointment? Deleting from the UI will not clear for the next time I try to schedule a meeting.

Just remove the item from the "Location" field cache:

Create a new Meeting
Start typing the meeting room on the Location field
Once the List options pop up, click on the "X" on the items you want to clear.


Deleting an update downloaded from App Store that is not installed I now run OS X 10.9.5 on my office laptop, which is monitored by my company. App Store alerted me about Yosemite, and I chose to download and install it. After download completed, I got a notification saying that my company does not support Yosemite and the installation was terminated.

Now Yosemite shows up in App Store as "DOWNLOADED" as shown below, and I get notification asking me to install it every day. How can I remove the downloaded file and/or stop receiving this notification?

You do not have to Install Yosemite.

In your case just open the Applications folder navigate to the "Install OS X Yosemite.app" and Delete it.


Import/Send Gmail and Work Email to iCloud Online? SO I am a brand new Apple user. I have multiple email IDs, namely:

gmail.com
my office email

I want to import my old and new emails (both office and gmail) to iCloud online. I plan to delete my gmail after that and I want to send my office emails from iCloud (preferably web interface) (as in myname@myoffice.com and not @iCloud.com).

My concern is I have way too much mail to clutter my Mac and I would just be happy to store the mails online and have access to them through the iCloud online mail interface (that is ultimately making iCloud my onestop goto for all my emails).

Is that possible? If not what are my options?

Thanks.

That's possible! The Mail app is great for keeping track of more than one email account and also has rule features, so if you're worried about clutter, you can set them to automatically get deleted. macOS also automatically clears space (if you allow it, Apple Logo up the top -> About This Mac -> Storage) after time.


How to get exact NTP drift in OS X I'm trying to get actual NTP drift on Macs connected to a local NTP server.

When reading /var/db/ntp.drift file I get -37.521 which according to PPM to milliseconds conversion gives -3241ms of drift.
When using ntpq -c lpeer I get something like this:

     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
*172-1-1-5.light 164.67.62.212    2 u   57   64  377  199.438   38.322  29.012

which gives me offset of 38.322ms

Finally, sntp 172.1.1.5 outpus this:

2016 Jan 21 18:41:45.248591 +0.019244 +/- 0.022507 secs

which says having about 19ms of drift.

I'm confused which one the approaches gives accurate NTP drift?

sntp gives the current offset. The ntp.drift file is updated only occasionally, I think when the daemon starts.


Solution to keep complete projects completely separate with same user and multiple displays on macOS? I'm trying to figure out a simple way one can work on multiple complex projects simultaneously and switch between them elegantly and quickly, without the need to close down applications from one project to work on another, or thoughtfully organise applications and windows beyond simply grouping them by project.
I assume a typical setup that this applies to has:

multiple displays (say, 3)
~10 applications open per project (that is, they're real, complex projects)

What I am trying to achieve is a way to switch between projects seamlessly and keep windows and instances of applications grouped together.
Example
Project 1: rails app

Display 1: browser windows
Display 2: Multiple instances of sublime text for code editing
Display 3: terminal (multiple instances)

Project 2: machine learning in R

Display 1: RStudio (4 instances)
Display 2: 3 x Browser (multiple tabs in each)
Display 3: terminal (multiple windows)

There could easily be one or more additional projects.
Partial Solutions

I have tried using different user logins to the MacBook. This works somewhat but is very clunky and slow to switch between environments
Using multiple desktops - this sounds like it would solve this problem but it requires management of desktops across each display. So, for example, just 2 projects on a setup with 3 displays would mean managing 6 separate desktops (and good luck if you have > 3 displays and > 2 projects to work on - very messy)

Desired result
Some way to easily switch between the collections of contents across all displays quickly and easily, preferably via a touchpad gesture, keyboard shortcut, or clicking somewhere convenient (but open to less ideal triggers). I have a preference for something build in to macOS (hacky or otherwise), but am open to other software too

If Apple’s native Mission Control doesn’t give you enough functionality, I can only suggest exploring professional apps.
Have a look at Workspaces. It groups your apps, folders, website links by project, is that close to what you’re looking for? Maybe you could use a combination of Workspaces (for grouping and easy access from Toolbar) and Mission Control (to separate into individual spaces)?
Workspaces is also also available to download through Setapp, which gives you access to multiple professional apps (it’s like Spotify of apps). I use it myself, sign up using my friends link and we both will get a free month! :)
On a personal note, I’m barely able to keep two apps open simultaneously (4GB CPU), so I’m slightly jealous of your situation ^^


How can I modify a PowerBook or iBook G4 to install Yosemite or Sierra? I own a PowerBook G4 A1104 with 512 mb of ram and 1.5 ghz and I also own an Ibook G4 1.33 Ghz 512 ram. I have seen videos on youtube of people turning their ibook g4 and imac g4 into  machines running from Yosemite to Sierra.

How can I accomplish this?

Your Mac uses the PowerPC processor. Yosemite and Sierra require an Intel x64 compatible processor. So a software modification not practically possible. I can not directly answer the question regarding whether a hardware modification can be made. Although, I can say that usually such modifications require reusing the existing logical board, RAM and peripherals. The existing logic board, RAM and peripherals will be to slow for Yosemite and Sierra. Furthermore the video will not support the higher resolutions required by Yosemite and Sierra.

If you want to choose a current operating system, try Ubuntu (Lubuntu) or some other linux distro.


Is it possible to add inline links (rather than bare URLs) to a message using Apple Mail? I'd like to write messages using Apple Mail using inline links, as opposed to the "naked" URLs, so I can do something like this:

  Have you visited Ask Different?

Unfortunately, the best I seem to be able to accomplish is to add the "naked" link after the text, like this:

  Have you visited Ask Different: http://apple.stackexchange.com?

I've tried using ⌘ + K (or Edit → Add Link... from the menubar) to add a link, but it only gives you the option to add the "naked" link itself, and not the substituted inline text.

I'm aware that you can do this in Outlook for Mac, and the difference seems to be that Outlook formats it's messages as HTML whereas Apple Mail formats them as RTF.

Is there a simple way to accomplish this?

Yes you can. Simply select the text , right-click, select Link, Add Link and add the URL.


120GB SSD-Disk: More space "used" than the sum of all files When I open the info-window about my start volume (120GB SSD), it says that 108GB are used, 12GB available. But the sum of the sizes of all folders and files (hidden objects included) in the root directory / is only around 90GB. What are these 18GB which are "used", but not locatable?
Moreover, when I open the menu Apple > About This Mac, and click Storage, it says that 60GB is used for "Other Users" (I have one further user account on my computer), but Finder says that the whole /Users directory only consumes 57GB. The same window says that "System" consumes 27GB, but the sum of all files and folder under the root directory besides /Users and /Applications (that is /Library, /System, /privater, /user, /bin etc.) is only 21GB.
So the main issue is that there are 18GB of storage space not available to me, but I cannot locate where this space is used up. I have already tried to restart the computer in safe mode, and to delete NVRAM and PRAM, but nothing changed.
Where can I find these ominous 18GB? And is 27GB for "System" realistic?
(My system: macOS 10.14.3 Mojave, MacBook Pro, SSD 120GB APFS)

Yes 27 GB is realistic for Mojave and there may be no missing data, just delays in calculating and transient data being purged and accounted for.
I pay for a tool DaisyDisk to get me a second opinion on space, but all your numbers make sense to me.

https://daisydiskapp.com/

Unless you can’t free space following the guidelines and see things stack in a stable or good direction, I might do two things.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996

Be sure Time Machine is backing up everything to a local attached disk.
Boot to save mode next weekend one time and then again a month later.

See if the usage leaves out is my advice. I don’t use Clean My Mac, but you could try that for free for 7 days and also rent hundreds of utilities for a month for $10 - https://setapp.com/apps/cleanmymac
for me, the paid version of Daisy Disk and Apple’s cleanup do the trick very well for me on many Macs at home and work.


How to turn off click-to-rename feature in Finder There are two ways to rename a file in the Finder which is already selected - press return, or click on it again, then wait a second. I find that the second option leads to a lot of unintentionally renamed files. The problem is, I might click the file when it is already selected to get focus on that window, then hit spacebar to bring it up in quickview. Unbeknownst to me (since it is behind the quickview popup dialog), the Finder has switched to rename mode. When I hit the spacebar again (to close the quickview), nothing happens, because in the background the file is in the process of being renamed to " ". Any action I  take from here to get rid of the quickview dialog will commit the rename. I probably will not know for some time until I wonder either what happened to that file or why I have a file with named " .pdf".

So, is there a way to turn off this troublesome "feature" and stick with just the return key to rename?

I don't know how to turn this off, but one way to deal with this is by tweaking the speed (i.e., duration) for double click and making it slower (i.e., longer duration) than what you currently have so that a single click does not quickly result in a rename action. The faster the double click setting, the more the likelihood of the rename action being triggered quickly.

You would have to experiment a bit to find the optimal double click duration while trying to not make it too slow for your use. You can set the double click duration by going to System Preferences > Mouse and adjusting the Double-Click slider.

On 10.9 the Double-Click options for Mouse and a trackpad have moved to the System Preferences > Accessibility  > Mouse & Trackpad.


Can't restore iPhone in order to downgrade I just downloaded the iOS 11 beta from Apple's developer website, but I'm having such a headache downgrading back to iOS 10.3.2.

I installed their provisioning profile from their website, as instructed on their site.

To restore, I did the following:

I restarted my iPhone to recovery mode to restore it, only to be presented this message:

  the iPhone could not be updated. Declined to authorize this image on this device for this user

I rebooted it to find the provisioning profile in order to delete it, only to find that the management page in settings was not there and neither Xcode/Devices nor Apple Configurator 2 showed any profiles.

Now I'm stuck on iOS 11, and I can't figure out how to downgrade.

Do you have any ideas?

I might have idea but that’s risky - you need to JB your iphone, then use official JB uninstaller (this one in cydia) - it automatically makes factory reset and bypasses even configuration profiles (it just deletes all user’s files - settings, apps, etc. , same as factory reset) .


How do I disable the face2face plugin for Mail.app? I have recently installed and tried to use face2face plugin for mail and I have tried to delete it, however the plugin still seems to be active and I don't know how to disable it.

http://www.chungwasoft.com/face2face/ is the link for the plugin.

I have deleted the plugin from the ~/Library/Mail/Bundles folder and it hasn't stopped the plugin.

I would really like to revert mail back to the way it was before this.

Thanks in advance.

OK I found a way to do it. The plugin isn't that bad just not to my tastes. If you have this same issue the best way to solve the problem is to disable all the options in the View menu option and then delete the plugin file found in the directory above.


Will iOS backup include a paired Bluetooth keyboard? I have an iPad with a broken digitizer. This, of course, renders the iPad useless. Although I would still be able to use it for typing, etc, if only my Bluetooth keyboard was paired to it. But how to achieve that when the touch screen can't recieve input?

So I got an idea.

Can I pair the keyboard with another iOS device, backup that iOS device to my Mac, and then restore that backup to the iPad? Will that include the paired keyboard?

I am (barely) able to unlock the screen of the iPad, so I will be able to sync and restore it from the Mac.

Bluetooth pairing matches two hardware devices, so that pairing records are irrelevant if re-loaded on a different bluetooth adapter (on the new iOS device). Good thinking to get around a hardware repair - if you could somehow turn on assistive touch and try backing that up, you might be able to navigate - but I'm guessing that still needs some amount of digitizer functionality to restore the backup in the first place.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202658


Does downloading torrents to an AirDisk affect my internal SSD? I gathered that it's not recommended to download torrents using an SSD (due to the high number of write operations, the SSD will be worn out pretty fast).

I've changed to an AirDisk connected through my Airport Extreme for downloading torrents (uTorrent for Mac). Does this wear out the SSD on my MacBook Pro?

Thanks!

Most torrent software will buffer files to local storage so you might not get it off the SSD even if you specify writing to an external space. Adding lots of RAM will allow files to stay in RAM while mapped in virtual memory and reduce the IO to the SSD on a theoretical level.

In pracice, I'd say get the SSD you like - it should have a 3-4 year OEM warranty or you can buy up AppleCare if you feel you have any chance of wearing out the drive. You'll have maybe spend a few $$ in exchange for driving your hot new mac. If you feel it will wear out soon, get a service plan that you like. It would be like not buying a new hot rod since you might need a new clutch if you drive it hard. You might, you might not, there's only one way to find out.


Is there a way to detect caching servers? I need to find out if there are OSX/iOS caching servers on a bunch of different networks - and put in a caching server where needed. But since the caching service on a Mac server is pretty black box, there isn't much information available on how it works.

I know that if I have access to a server, it's trivial to check if caching is on in the server software. I'm looking for, say, a port to scan, or a flag that gets set on client devices' App Stores that can be checked, or something in firewall logs to look for. There is just so little information out there I can't say exactly where to start.

I have remote access to at least a headless Mac Mini on each network.

Not directly before Sierra on macOS.
On Sierra and later, run the AssetCacheLocatorUtil from any unix shell (in terminal or other app)
We have even found a way to tell after the fact whether an update came from the cache or from Apple on the client side by looking at the logs instead of sniffing network connections and traffic.

Here are the Sierra and later details.
Query Apple's update infrastructure and check if any local caching points for updates, app downloads, and/or iCloud data are present and it also checks for connectivity and service
AssetCacheLocatorUtil

The manual page is quite well written and covers a lot of the details. Below are some observations from before this tool was around to help.
The servers listen on somewhat randomized ports - my two caching servers are currently listening on ports 49558 and 51858
I suppose you could port scan all the servers and try to deduce which ones are using OS X server in general and then exhaustively probe all the higher ports on the presumption that a single higher port open might be a caching server.
You can request a server to tell you the port it's running:
sudo serveradmin fullstatus caching | grep Port

The clients check in with Apple directly, Apple notices the public IP address from which the requites came. It then makes two checks:

what servers have checked in and are running from that same public IP address
are there PRS records in public DNS for the public IP address the client has used and if another caching server could serve that IP address.

It then responds to the client to request the asset from the server(s) that are local to the IP. If that caching server doesn't have the asset, it requests it and passes it on to the client. If the client doesn't get it's assets, there is a retry mechanism to get the asset directly from Apple's CDN so you don't always get things from the caching servers in my experience.
You also might be able to make a list of servers that have remote access enabled - listening on port 311/asip-webadmin or by collecting the status of each server periodically:
sudo serveradmin settings info | grep enableRemoteAdministration