Mail: Select SMTP server automatically on addressee I have two SMTP servers configured in Mail. One for school, and one for my private email. I would like that Mail automatically picks the one for school if I'm sending an email to someone of my school. This means: any email address of someone of my university ends in @ugent.be. So if I write an email to xyz@ugent.be, I want mail to pick my UGent SMTP server. In all other cases, I want to use my gmail SMTP server configuration.

Is this possible? If not, are there any applications that support this feature?

(Some people on the university are very strict and won't reply unless you sent the email from your university email address. And I like it separated nicely as well.)

The automatic domain selection in Mail based on the address is not possible but....

There is a setting in Mail, send from the account of the selected mail box.

Means, if you create or reply to emails while in the Mailbox of the University it will use that account.

However, if you create reply from your other account it will use that one.

So all you have to do with your 2 accounts is to make sure to use the right account when creating or replying.

Additionally you can use the "Mark addresses not ending with ....@ugent.be

Show email addresses that don’t end in a specified domain in red, to help prevent you from sending messages to unintended recipients.


Fix virtualenv after installing python 3 with brew Previously I had the default Python 2.7, and I have a lot of virtualenvs created under python 2, using virtualenvwrapper. Recently, I wanted to be able to use python 3 as well as python 2.

brew install python3 no longer works, so after some research, I ran brew upgrade python followed by brew install python2 to get back Python 2. However, I discovered that the python 3 installation process changed the default "python" to python 3, and that this broke all of my virtualenvs.

For example, if I execute workon test in the console, I get the errors

  /usr/local/opt/python/bin/python3.6: Error while finding module
  specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader'
  (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')
  /usr/local/opt/python/bin/python3.6: Error while finding module
  specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader'
  (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')
  /usr/local/opt/python/bin/python3.6: Error while finding module
  specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader'
  (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')
  /usr/local/opt/python/bin/python3.6: Error while finding module
  specification for 'virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader'
  (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'virtualenvwrapper')

How can I unscrew-up my system? I need to be able to get back all my old work, even if it means obliterating python 3, although the ideal solution would be to find a way to have python 3 installed along side without interfering with the existing python 2 setup.

I eventually solved the issue by running

brew switch python 2.7.14
brew link --overwrite python

I'm not sure if that was the correct solution, but at least it seems to be working now.


How does using GMail via IMAP or Exchange affect battery life? What are the differences with respect to battery life between using the regular Gmail setup as opposed to the Exchange setup?

I know that the Exchange allows for push, but is battery life affected much?

I have an IMAP and an Exchange email account on my iPhone 4S and when I only use Exchange my battery drains faster than when only using IMAP.
While I have configured IMAP to check for new email every 30 min, I must say I get lots of email in my Exchange account, that probably worsens the drainage.
Apple recommends here to "Turn off push mail", so it is a known fact.
How much is battery affected? I can't give you a number, it depens on many factors (how often data is fetched, number of emails you get, size of the emails you get) so just test it: disable Gmail IMAP, configure Gmail ActiveSync and compare.
--EDIT--
After reading Michiel's answer below I was curious and googled "push vs. fetch iphone" and have seen quite a few debates. The outcome tended to be that using push conserves battery life, but some opinions just said "it depends".
My configuration is probably unbalanced and that's why Exchange uses more battery than IMAP (which is fetched every 30 min and not the 15 min as I posted in my original answer, now corrected). Please take this answer as my personal (non representative) experience.
In the link above Apple also recommends to "Fetch new data less frequently".
So again, test it and find out for yourself.
--/EDIT--


Missing HDD space after removing Boot Camp partition This is probably not the first case, but I have tried various methods to recover the lost 50 GB of space from different threads, but neither one of them work. (After removing Boot Camp partition, took a little effort to finally remove all the partitions, but the space used went missing.)

Tried Internet Recovery to go into Disk Utility app didn't work.

Tried using Terminal (not very good at it), so basically copied & pasted some of the commands others have shared, and changed the necessary disk numbers, didn't work for me.

So I figured, might be good that I just post & hopefully someone could give me some advise.

This is what I got:

This is a very common question. Generally, the commands below should work.

sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s4
sudo diskutil resizevolume disk0s2 R


Do the “Print to PDF” / “Save to PDF” options embed fonts in the PDF file? Specifically:

When doing this within the MS Office suite (Powerpoint, Word etc.), does the font get embedded within the PDF?
Does Preview.app embed fonts when “Saving as PDF”?
If I’m generating the PDF on a Mac, when I view it on other Macs and PCs, would the fonts be embedded?

Yes to all your questions. OS X’ Quartz PDFContext generator embeds fonts (unless the font forbids it, it seems). I couldn’t find any document that expressly states this (it’s implied in this bit of Pages help, for instance) but I have been sending out PDF proofs with fonts not installed on the recipient’s computer long enough to know it does.

As long as you use the OS X routines for PDF generation, i.e. go through either the “Save as PDF” dialog or an option upstream of that, like Pages’ “Export” dialog, your fonts will be embedded – Microsoft’s Office suite is no exception. Anything that uses its own PDF generation routines (like OpenOffice/LibreOffice/NeoOffice do with their “Export” option), however, might or might not embed fonts, depending on its settings.

Finally, as already stated, “embedded” means “contained in the file”, which in turn means “viewable on other computers without the font installed”.


Can't remember my passcode I can't remember my passcode and I have Find my phone app turned on my phone is disabled and says connect to itunes but it wont let me restart my phone as i have find my phone app turned on i have deleted my find my phone account in hope it would fix it but it didnt and  now i cant get it working at all what should I do? :( and it also wont let me connect to the wifi or data as it is disabled.(IPhone 4s)

You should put your device into DFU Mode.
Here are the steps:

Plug your device into the computer

Press and hold both the power and home buttons until the screen goes black then release the power button still holding down the home button.

The screen should stay black and your device should popup in iTunes saying it needs to be restored.

Click restore and confirm any prompts that popup.

Let iTunes restore your device and do not unplug your device.

Once you're finished it should take you to setup and when activating enter your iCloud details when asked.


Great iPod Click Wheel Games for Kids My niece has got a used iPod nano (not the newest model); in the App Store are about 50 games for iPods with Click Wheel. What game can you recommend?

Vortex and Pacman are quite good as well. They're listed in iTunes as 5th generation compatible (Sonic... is for 3rd, 4th and 5th generation devices). I've got a 30GB video capable iPod and they all work fine...


Force apps to be opened everytime in a new desktop Is it possible to force an app that is being opened to be actually opened every time in a different desktop, so that the current desktop is not polluted with layered or stacked windows?

You can set any app to launch in a specific Space.
It will open in the same one every time after that.

To get it there the first time

Switch to that Space then launch it,

or if it's already running

Right click it in the Dock > Options.
Set to 'All Desktops'.
Switch to your preferred Space - it will move with you.

Right click it in the Dock > Options. Set the Option to 'This Desktop'.

This method, of course, is not an automatic process & requires setting up by hand. One advantage is that you quickly learn which Space belongs to which app & can then use shortcut keys -  Ctrl ⌃   [number]  by default.

Setting System Prefs > Mission Control to disable 'Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use' will make the assigned Space numbers stick.

This method will only work correctly if you don't manually move any app window to a different Space. Spaces cannot correctly handle apps split over more than one Space.


How to transfer the live photos to Mac via AirDrop? Before the update to High Sierra, when I received live photos via AirDrop, the system always asked I want to save them to the downloads folder or import it into the Photos app. When I choosing the second option, the imported live photos could then be exported as files to a disc, where for each live photo there were two files — an image and a short video.

After the update to High Sierra, the system immediately, without asking, saves the photos received through AirDrop into the downloads folder, with only JPG/HEIF files, without the live component video files.

How can I fix it?

This is not the fix but a workaround.

I exactly have the same issue with you. The interesting thing is that if someone send me Live Photos via AirDrop, (he is using iPhone 6), my laptop running High Sierra would give me the option to import via Photos app. But if I try to send live photos via AirDrop from my iPhone 7, I have no way of importing them directly into Photo app, and all I get is JPGs in download folder. I have been googling to see if anyone can offer solutions but so far, nothing except people are guessing as it is a bug...

But I really wanted to transfer my Live Photos wireless. And my solution was to use "Shared Albums" in iCloud. (I'm not sharing the album necessarily. Simply this is for me only.) I tested a few times and I see that Live Photos are intact under Shared Albums in Photo app on my laptop. Then I select them and import into Photo app. I can also add Live Photos from my laptop in the Shared Album, and I can grab them in my iPhone as well.

Another cool thing about this is "A shared album can hold up to 5000 photos and videos. The photos and videos in your shared albums are kept in iCloud, but they don't count against your iCloud storage limit." Although for me, I'll keep the album empty after importing photos.

Here is more info on Shared Album from Apple website:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202786

Till Apple can fix the bug, this is my workaround to import live photos on my iPhone without USB cable.


Font Awesome displayed as question marks ion macOS I downloaded font-awesome-4.6.3.zip from fontawesome.io. Double click fontawesome-webfont.ttf (under font-awesome-4.6.3/fonts/) to install the font, but I got this,

The preview probably won't show anything because this font doesn't appear to have any normal Latin characters but consists of graphics located in the Private Use Area of Unicode.  See

http://fontawesome.io/cheatsheet/

You should certainly be able to install it.  To use it probably requires the Character Viewer. Others will never see it in your pages unless you set it up as a webfont which gets downloaded automatically when they view your page.


Delete all iPad mail emails Can you delete all the emails on iPad in one shot using the mail app. I can only seem to delete them 1 by 1 by pressing the trash can. Or I can go edit and select each one and then delete. Is there a faster way?

If your goal is to delete it just from the iPad, then remove the account in Settings > Mail, Contacts, & Calendars.

You can use the Edit button to select several messages and push the Delete/Archive button to affect everything that is selected.

If you have access to a desktop machine, removing everything from the server should be much faster.


Does FileVault protect against ransomware? I've already asked a question about ransomware on OS X in general. But I failed to get a response regarding whether FileVault protects against it. That is what this question is about. I'm also interested to know whether encrypted Time Machine backups are safe from ransomware.

Ransomware here is defined as malicious software that encrypts the user's data against their will/knowledge and demands a ransom in exchange for the encryption key.

We'll look at three examples:

The malware is running without superuser privileges. The unwitting user may just have ran a compromised/malicious app that they believed was something else, and then let it run in the background for long enough to do damage.
The malware is running with superuser privileges. The user, believing the software to be something else, has granted it root access by giving the root password. The user may even have installed the software by giving the root password.
The user didn't run any app at all, the malware managed to run in some other way. (Is this even possible on OS X?)

In cases 1 and 2 the user would have turned off OS X's "trusted sources only" setting. (Side question: Is it at all possible to be affected by ransomware while this setting is on?)

Looking at 1., 2. and 3. separately, can the malware:

A: Access FileVault protected data?

B: Modify/Delete FileVault protected data?

C: (A combination of A and B) Encrypt FileVault protected data and overwrite (securely delete) the original FileVault data)?

Is there any difference between locally stored FileVault protected data, and encrypted Time Machine backups stored on another drive? I'm also interested in the answer regarding the latter.

Ransomware works by selecting certain files (normally by type - like docs, bitcoin wallets, etc), encrypting those individual files and forcing you to pay up for a key to decrypt them.

FileVault protects your data on your Mac by encrypting the whole disk. When you boot up your Mac, you put in a password that effectively "decrypts" the drive and allows it to run as-is. That said, once you've put the key in the lock, so to speak, FileVault wouldn't be protecting you from ransomware. You'd still be just as vulnerable as the ransomware would be running after FileVault had been unlocked.

As for the Time Machine backups, this is more complicated. Those backups are stored encrypted at rest, and only decrypted when they're accessed. This means the files inside the backups themselves would not be individually identifiable to ransomware that was running - however the entire backup could be. So the ransomware could encrypt the whole thing as a unit, instead of just the individual files.

As for OSX's "trusted sources" setting, there have been multiple exploits against this feature as of late and it's not as trustworthy as it seems. I couldn't say for certain it wouldn't protect you, but I wouldn't count on it.

I'd recommend some kind of cloud-based or off-computer backup if you really want to protect your data running through a third party application. In other words, don't connect to a network share and backup your data there, use an application to do it. It's unlikely that ransomware would be sophisticated and specific enough to know about specific backup applications, how they connect to their third party service, and how to encrypt the files on that service. Dropbox is a simple example here if you pay for their cloud backup service -- even if the ransomware did encrypt your files in Dropbox, they keep versions backed up so you'd have something to revert to.


booting up my Macbook using option key and power on results in white screen with mouse I have a Macbook Pro.
I installed Ubuntu and wiped all the partitions in the process (fit of rage and getting angry at OS X)

someone told me to "clear PVRAM by holding Option+command+R+P"
I did, this, now not even my ubuntu loads up.

when I turn on the computer i get a white screen with a flashing folder with a question mark in the middle.

when I boot by holding the option key, all I get is a white screen with a mouse pointer which i can move around.

I have created a bootable USB drive using instructions from the below, although unable to boot from USB.
http://pureinfotech.com/make-bootable-usb-mac-os-x-windows/

How do I go back to OS X (or even Ubuntu, so I can at least have a usable machine)

This question is close to my situation, but I exhausted the things that fix that issue:

My MacBook Pro has a flashing question mark in a folder against a grey background

Specifically:

My bootable USB doesn't work (so I need Mac OS to make a new one
I cannot get to the recovery tool or the Disk Utility. I've clearly deleted the recovery HD so Command + R fails to load a now missing recovery tool.

Ubuntu was working fine before i cleared PVRAM. Even with Ubuntu, when I started with Command+R, I get taken to a white screen with a mouse on the screen that I can move. This, I would say, rules out HDD issue (unless clearing PVRAM can destroy your HDD)

Once clearing PVRAM is when I get the folder with the question mark, and Ubuntu now doesn't even load.

Now that an external boot recovery or internal recovery is out of the question, you have two options.

Try Internet recovery. Boot with option + command + R held
Take this Mac to another Mac, use disk utility and run an installer over target disk mode
Find another Mac to make a recovery USB drive or bootable installer. Recovery is smaller and does less. Installer is larger and does everything the recovery does plus has the install package to reinstall the os.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372 - bootable installer
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202294 - recovery assistant

Internet recovery doesn't work on all older Mac hardware. Some protected wifi  / fire walled networks prevent internet recovery. It works in most home and public wifi situations quite well. Try that first.

Target disk  varies depending on what specific Mac you have. Some work over USB, some work over FireWire, some work over thunderbolt, some work over more than one of the above.

The option of just making a bootable installer or a bootable recovery USB drive will always work assuming you pick the right version of macOS for your specific Mac.


How can I swap the contents of my two MacBooks? I have two MacBooks (an old one mid 2009 with a 150 GB drive (128 GB used) and a newer from 2011 with a 300 GB drive (30 GB used)) and a 1 TB Hard Disk.

What is the easiest way to move the content of the 2009 MacBook to the 2011 model and the content of the 2011 model to the 2009 model (so that basically the content of the the two MacBooks is swapped afterwards)?

You could use Migration Assistant to move from the old to the newer, although OS X seems to have its own ideas about which OS are acceptable. Time Machine is also a good way to transfer files to a new installation. If these work this is probably the easiest.

The ultimate tool is to use the command line tool rsync which can transfer files and also (optionally) delete unmatched files. I use this to copy my user files to an external HD, for transfer to other Macs. I use a simpler rsync command to restore selected data to other Macs - e.g. I can selectively copy email data between a portable and other Mac.

NOTE rsync does not need an external disk, but I prefer the security this offers.

The following script is used to copy my user data to a mounted disk.

#!/bin/bash
# 2015-03-31
BACKUP_MOUNTED=$(mount | awk '/\/Volumes\/volname / {print $3}')
if [ $BACKUP_MOUNTED ]; then
    echo $BACKUP_MOUNTED
    echo "Commencing Backup"
    rsync -a --delete-excluded --exclude=Library/Caches ~ /Volumes/volname
    echo "Finished Backup"
else
    echo "Backup drive not available"
fi


How mac detects that personal hotspot is available without internet? I am curious about how mac automatically detects that iPhone is close without internet and suggest connecting to iphone's personal hotspot whats the tech behind it?
situation is iphone has hotspot OFF, mac has no internet but it still detects that iphone is nearby and suggest connect to personal hotspot it automatically switches the hotspot ON on iphone and connects to it.

Apple devices talk to each other and listen without needing the internet or a server or a network.
Look up Rendezvous and Bonjour and mDNS as they are the marketing and technical terms of the first iteration of this capability. More recent devices have enhanced capabilities including NFC and Bluetooth range estimation - look up Bluetooth Beacons for that iteration of this feature.
Lastly, the most advanced tech that Apple ships is ultra wide band radio chipsets that augment the previous technologies with time of flight measurements to answer hypothetical situations like “Is your watch closer to the HomePod than your phone?” for instance.
The hardware and software are capable of mapping out space and time to figure out where they are in the world as well as how close to other devices they may be moment to moment. Apple then synthesizes a reaction based on multiple signals to let you know a hotspot may be near. This can be as simple as hearing a WiFi beacon indicating a device provides this service or a cryptographically signed two way handshake to validate your AppleID signed in recently on two devices and they can trust the identity and validity of a handshake data exchange.


"The bless tool was unable to set the current boot disk" error in bootcamp macOS Sierra Problem:

I can no longer boot Boot Camp partition (BCP) running Windows 10 Pro 1703. I am also unable to start Parallels 12.2.0 Virtual Machine based on the same BCP macOS side. Problem occurred suddenly without warning. I cannot isolate any action from user side that could have led to this situation. I did not try to resize partition. I would like to boot from internal BCP as I was able to a few hours ago if possible. I do have a backup saved disc image (WinClone 6) from a few weeks back and a backup I made after the issue began. I would like to avoid a solution where I have to clone BCP to external SSD and transfer it back to notebook.

Mac Notebook Specs:

diskutil list Output:

diskutil cs list Output:

Disk Utility Report:

Virtual Machine Output:

BCP is Not Visible at Startup (was few hours back)
BCP is Visible in Startup Disk in Preferences without
Paragon NTFS for Mac 15.0.828 installed (but cannot restart from BCP disk)
BCP is Not Visible in Startup Disk in Preferences with
Paragon NTFS for Mac 15.0.828 installed (but cannot restart from BCP disk using NTFS for Mac)
BCP is mountable/visible on Desktop
Disk Utility not allowing me to verify/repair disk (grayed out/dimmed selection for applying First Aid to BCP)

Troubleshooting Steps:

HOLD ALT at Restart (x3) -> Only macOS partition visible
CMD+R (Recovery Mode) + Verify + BCP select restart -> "The bless tool was unable to set the
current boot disk"

ALT+CMD+R+P (Reset NVRAM) -> No resolution
Verify disk using Paragon NTFS for Mac 15.0.828 -> Success:

Repair disk using Paragon NTFS for Mac 15.0.828 -> Success:

ALT+CMD+R+P (Reset NVRAM) -> No resolution:

Google
Made post on stack exchange
Made appt for Genius Bar

07/05/17 Update:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0:

Started partition map verification on disk0
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking the partition map size
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition's size
Checking the EFI system partition's file system
Checking the EFI system partition's folder content
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking booter partitions
Checking booter partition disk0s3
Verifying file system
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume
Checking extents overflow file
Checking catalog file
Checking multi-linked files
Checking catalog hierarchy
Checking extended attributes file
Checking volume bitmap
Checking volume information
The volume Recovery HD appears to be OK
File system check exit code is 0
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Verifying storage system
Checking volume
disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
Logical Volume Group CAF0EF87-18B3-429E-B956-071C41913E1E on 1 device
disk0s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
Logical Volume Group has a 24 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
Load and verify Segment Headers
Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
Load and verify Transaction Segment
Incorporate 0 newer non-checkpoint transactions
Load and verify Virtual Address Table
Load and verify Segment Usage Table
Load and verify Metadata Superblock
Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
Load and verify ABA4E795-98B7-41CB-B45B-2A85180C8204
Load and verify C37D4F73-4CF7-4E22-BD12-732A22ECD7EA
Load and verify Freespace Summary
Load and verify Block Accounting
Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
Load and verify Segment Cleaning
The volume CAF0EF87-18B3-429E-B956-071C41913E1E appears to be OK
Storage system check exit code is 0
The partition map appears to be OK
Finished partition map verification on disk0

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0:

I was able to resolve macOS Sierra error about the bless tool by using the pictured setting on WinClone 6.0.3. I did not restore from winclone backup but rather just made my BCP bootable as an EFI instead of legacy BIOS drive. For some reason macOS started to view BCP as an unbootable legacy BIOS drive. My guess is installing Paragon suite of tools like NTFS, Hard Disk Manager, and ExtFS for Mac had this sudden and unintended result during the runtime environment.

To prevent BSOD sysprep appears to be necessary when restoring WinClone backups on external drives.


OS X Lion - arrange by application category breaks alpha sort? I just upgraded to OS X Lion (10.7.4) and one of the new features I read about was the ability to arrange the Applications folder by Application Category in the Finder.

I did this and the applications are properly broken out by category, but they are not sorted alphabetically within each category. For example, in the Utilities category, the apps are listed as "Font Book, Automator, Launchpad, Dashboard, Mission Control" etc...

Is there any way to use the "arrange by category" feature and sort alphabetically within each category?

In Icon view, try sorting alphabetically (without categories) and then sort by categories. The apps in each category should stay alphabetically ordered.

In List view, hit ⌘-J to see the view options. You can choose to "Arrange By" Application Category and to "Sort By" Name.


Setting up SSD with Catalina install I recently bought a used 2017 iMac which came with 2 physically separate drives it seems. One is the internal 32GB Apple PCI-Express Internal Physical Disk and the second one is a 256GB Samsung SSD (SATA Internal Physical Disk). It seems the previous owner had the latter swapped in for a HDD (so they were using it as a fusion drive).

Now when I am trying to erase both these drives and install Catalina from Disk Utility menu, If I chose the Apple 32GB, it doesn't allow me to install other software on the bigger 256GB because it is only allowed on the disk with MacOS installation.

How should I set up my system so that it can take more software installations [I am thinking of using the 256GB SATA to have the MacOS but it makes my 32GB drive redundant]?

I want to be able to use the entire 256GB +32GB regardless of which one has the operating system.

Suggestions?

I think I have what I needed (a combined drive) all of it available for use. It is now listed as a Fusion drive even though both its components are SSDs. Here are the steps I used to combine the 2 drives.

If you're using macOS Mojave or later

- Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold Command-R to start
   up from macOS Recovery. Release the keys when you see the Apple logo
   or spinning globe. When you see the macOS Utilities window, choose
   Utilities > Terminal from the menu bar.
 - Type diskutil resetFusion in the Terminal window, then press Return.
 - Type Yes (with a capital Y) when prompted, then press Return.
 - When Terminal indicates that the operation was successful, quit
   Terminal to return to the macOS Utilities window.
 - Choose Reinstall macOS, then follow the onscreen instructions to
   reinstall the Mac operating system. Your Mac restarts from your
   Fusion Drive when done.


Is it possible to install SSD with 6Gb/s in Mac pro Mid 2010? Is it possible to install Solid State Drive with 6Gb/s speed in Mac pro Mid 2010?

Yes it should be possible to install a SSD with SATA 6Gb/s.

The MacPro5,1 was offered with a 512 GB SSD by Apple actually. The internal interface is limited to 3 Gb/s (which roughly translates to 300 MByte/s max) though. As a consequence you will not benefit from the faster transfer rate of the SATA III SSD.

The same is valid for MacBookPro6,1 and MacBookPro6,2.

SATA 6Gb/s is backward compatible with SATA 3Gb/s. Some features recently implemented in SATA 6Gb/s won't work if a respective device is attached to a SATA 3Gb/s interface (e.g. Isochronous Native Command Queuing).


How to export photos from a folder in iPhoto, preserving the album structures in the folder? I have put several albums into a folder in iPhoto. Can I export the photos in this folder, so that the exported directory structure will be like

folder/
  album1/
  album2/
  ...

Thank you.

Go to File → Export, select File Export and choose a Subfolder Format. This lets you select what you want the directory structure to be.

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921


Unable to delete user in Preferences I've unlocked the Users & Groups preferences pane, nevertheless I'm unable to select the user "username" for deletion. How can I delete the account?

Was username the first account created? If so, that account has links to OS services that will prevent it from being deleted (though you could hide it). If this is the case and you really want it gone, you can reassign the GeneratedUID from that account to your preferred account and then delete the original. For detailed instructions on how to do this, see Ambrose Little's site.


Is there a way to get information from email using the Terminal and without external software? While I do not understand the Terminal or how email works well enough to know if this question is well-formulated, I am curious if there is a way to use the Terminal to access information from one's email account without using special software (such as Mutt: http://www.mutt.org). Can I tell the computer simply to go to that part of the internet and bring me back the information I want? If not, why not?

It depends :-)

The Terminal.app itself doesn't know anything about Mail or the Internet, all (well, practically all, it can do some additional stuff but let's keep things simple) it can do is handle keyboard input and text output between the user and a so-called command shell (which on macOS usually is an application/binary called bash or nowadays zsh). So strictly speaking the answer is "no, Terminal.app is not able to access your mail".

If we widen the scope a bit and read the question as "Can I access my mail with bash/zsh and any Unix-type utility which is part of macOS and doesn't require additional installations" the answer is Yes. Using GNU Netcat to access your POP3 mail account shows how netcat (which is called nc on macOS) can be used to access mail stored on a POP server. I didn't find anything for accessing mail on an IMAP server but this should be possible as well.


How to extract Software Update in macOS 10.14? I have 4 macs. Every time when there is an update it means I have to download 2-3GB of software update across all my macs. This seems inefficient at best. Is there a method to extract software updates and install to other macs offline?

It seems to me the main goal here is that you need to regularly update multiple Macs and you'd like to do that without having to download them each time for each machine.

I see two potential options here:

Use content caching
Download from Apple's website manually

Content caching

According to Apple:

  Content caching is a macOS service that helps reduce Internet data
  usage and speed up software installation on Mac computers, iOS devices
  and Apple TV. Content caching speeds up downloading of software
  distributed by Apple and data that users store in iCloud by saving
  content that local Mac computers, iOS devices and Apple TV devices
  have already downloaded. The saved content is stored in a content
  cache on a Mac, and is available for other devices to retrieve without
  going out over the Internet.

Source: Apple - About content caching on Mac

In essence, you can enable Content Caching via the Sharing preferences pane in System Preferences to manage content caching on your Mac and select the items you want cached. Once cached, other Macs on your network can use this to perform updates from.

Refer to About content caching on Mac and Manage content caching on Mac on Apple's website for more info.

Download updates manually

You can download all updates directly from Apple by pointing your browser to: https://support.apple.com/downloads

From there you'll see the most recent software updates available for download, and you can also use the buttons at top to browse downloads by product. There's also a search field you can use to conduct specific queries.

Downloads will be in the .dmg disk image format and you can then keep and use these as required on your multiple Macs.


How can I copy an email address from a text message? I got a text message, and I want to copy an email address from message context, but iOS comes to send email app, how can I copy it?

Thanks in advance.

Revised for clarification. Use IOS's copy functionality to copy an email message. Press on the desired message (with email) and hold for a few seconds to bring up the Copy dialog. Click on the Copy dialog to copy the message (including email address). The entire message is copied. At that point, paste the message for further modification if desired (if it contains more than the email address).

Note: This worked for me in iOS 5.


Update from ios 6 to ios 8 I have an iPad 4.  Still have ios 6.  Want apps I can't purchase since they require ios 7.  How much space am I losing to upgrade to current ios 8 version?

You can see below the free space available with iOS 8 for each kind of devices :

Edit :

Table from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/lawsuit-against-apple-for-ios-storage-misrepresentation-get-the-facts/


How can I track the progress of dd after I've already started it? I'm migrating my HDD to an external hard drive so that I can do a clean install of macOS Mojave.

I'm using dd if=/dev/disk02 of=/dev/disk15s2 to accomplish the task.

disk02 is the Macintosh HD (SATA-HDD), disk15s2 is the WD External HD

I didn't realize that it wouldn't show me any indication of progress (the HDD has ~750GB on it) - this is the first time I've done this through the terminal.app in recovery mode.

Is there a way for me to track the progress in another terminal window while it is in progress?

I'm on a Macbook Pro mid-2012 running El Capitan.

Yes, from a separate terminal you can issue this command:

kill -INFO 1234

where you need to replace 1234 with the pid of your dd process. You can look it up with the ps command.

Another simplification at a second terminal:

sudo kill -s siginfo $(pgrep ^dd)   # get dd info

Another simpler way is to request the progress information from the same terminal as dd by pressing Ctrl-T.


What does an exclamation point mean next to an e-mail address in an iCal invitation? I'm getting strange behavior with invitations I send from iCal to another .mac address. The invitations never show up (not in the invitee's inbox, nor in his iOS Calendar or iCal) and my iCal shows an exclamation point next to his address in the invitation:

What does this mean and how do I (or does he) fix it?

I'm using iCloud and he is using MobileMe, but I find it hard to be believe that should prevent me from inviting him (or even notifying him).

This means that the invite has not been sent.

You should check that the email address is correct, edit the event and try again. If the invite is sent and accepted a checkmark will appear here. If an invite has been sent but not yet responded to, a question mark will appear. This suggests that the invite has not been sent.

Make sure you are connected to the internet.

If all this fails, check that you have set up a card for yourself in the Address Book, as iCal uses this info to send to the invitee.


iOS 9 Public Beta: Diagnostic & Usage Data not being cleared Normally, syncing an iPhone to iTunes should clear on-device diagnostic and usage data.

However, I'm currently running the latest iOS 9 Public Beta, and diagnostic and usage data is not being cleared (my on-device logs now date back to 07/31/2015). Now it takes a horribly long time just to sync my iPhone because most of the syncing time is wasted on "copying diagnostic information", which is really annoying.

All of the on-device logs takes one the following two forms:

awdd-yyyy-mm-dd-xxxxxx-int.consolidated.metriclog[.anon]
log-sessions-yyyy-mm-dd-xxxxxx.session

I've also tried to clear crash reports from Xcode, to no avail.

Is there any way to force a flush without resetting the phone?

P.S. As I mentioned above, my on-device logs date back to 07/31/2015, which happens to be the day I got my Apple Watch. Is this, by any chance, related to the watch? (I read the logs but can't seem to find info about the watch, so I assume not. Anyway, it's still worth pointing out.)

There's a program called phone clean by imobie. You only need the free version. Use quick clean on it and it'll go through and delete all crash logs and diagnostic logs from your phone. I use this method all the time to free up a lot of space. https://www.imobie.com/phoneclean/


Left Ctrl key stopped working totally I have been using this keyboard for the last 2 and a half years.

Eventually I noticed that Left Ctrl key stopped working at all. Means, when I push it down in some combination, like Ctrl-T, only T is recognized. Right Ctrl Key works just fine as well as other keys.

Another thing, is sometimes keyboard pushes Alt (Option) down and doesn't release it until I push it multiple times. It event keeps it pushed on reboot so Boot options screen appears on the reboot as if I held Alt key.

I tried it on another Mac and Windows computer, everything seems to be the same.

I am afraid it's hardware is broken, not software. Is there a way to make these keys work, do services repair them or should I rather buy a new one?

I'd be surprised if normal wear & tear would be able to do that in just 30 months or so. I only retired my similar keyboard after about 7 years, when I could no longer read the letters, I'd worn them off.

I'd try tapping the offending keys with greater than usual force, see if something crispy is stuck underneath. After that, I've heard of people having success actually running keyboards under the tap - so long as they are given plenty of time to thoroughly dry out afterwards, though I've never done it myself.
Wouldn't try it with a wireless keyboard, but wired might just be fine.


How to find out which photos were made by my iPhone and which were sent via WhatsApp? After a nice holiday I've often taken around 200 photos and 80% was made by myself, 10% was incoming WhatsApp pictures and 10% was some other pictures that ended up on my iPhone.

I don't even want the WhatsApp pictures automatically backed up by Carousel on my iPhone 6, but unfortunately there is no way to disable that.

Is there an easy way from my MacBook to filter out the pictures I made myself from the other pictures?

Good picture: http://i.imgur.com/lucv1DD.png
WhatsApp picture: http://i.imgur.com/GmPHn0Y.png

This makes use of the Exif info stored within the JPEG image file, some of which is indexed by Spotlight, however see the Notes: section below.

Here is a simple sample bash script to preform an action on any JPEG image files found in the working directory that was taken on a iPhone.

Copy and paste the code below into a plan text file, without an extension, and from a Terminal, make it executable using chmod +x filename where "filename" is the name you gave to the script file.  Then place it in a directory that's in your $PATH, e.g /usr/local/bin, otherwise you'll have to provide the fully qualified pathname to the script file on the command line to execute it.

Now in a Terminal use the cd command to change to the target directory containing the JPEG image files you want to act upon, this becomes the target working directory, and type the name you gave to the script, then press Enter.  It will echo the name of each JPEG image file that was taken on an iPhone.

Hint: To more easily navigate to the target working directory from within the Terminal, type cd followed by a space then drag and drop from Finder the target folder onto the Terminal window.  This populates the fully qualified pathname for you and then you can just press Enter.  You're now in the target working directory containing the JPEG image files.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

for f in *.jpg *.JPG; do
    x="$(mdls "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')"
    if [[ ! -z "$x" ]]; then
        echo "$f was taken on an iPhone."
    fi
done

Now obviously you'll want it to do something other then just echo the name of a JPEG image file that was taken on an iPhone, so you'll have to add additional command(s) within the for ... done loop.

In this example I want all JPEG image files that were taken on an iPhone to be moved into a directory name "iPhone" within the working directory.  So I modified the script accordingly.

Edited Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [[ ! -d "iPhone" ]]; then
    mkdir "iPhone"
fi

for f in *.jpg *.JPG; do
    x="$(mdls "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')"
    if [[ ! -z "$x" ]]; then
        echo "$f was taken on an iPhone."
        mv -v "$f" "./iPhone/"
    fi
done

In Summary:

In the first if ... fi block [[ ! -d "iPhone" ]] tests for the existence of the "iPhone" directory within the current working directory and if it doesn't already exist, it's created by the mkdir command.

In the for ... done loop it only looks at files with extensions .jpg and .JPG. (I have both on my system.)

The $x variable will either be empty containing nothing "" or "iPhone" upon completion of the commands within the "$(...)" command substitution.

The output of the mdls command for the JPEG image file gets piped | to the grep command looking for iPhone and because of the -o option it's either going to be an empty string or the word "iPhone" that's returned, which becomes the content of the $x variable.

Therefore in the second if ... fi block [[ ! -z "$x" ]] tests to see that the "$x" variable is not an empty string and when it holds something, in this case being "iPhone", it's going to act upon that .jpg or .JPG file.  In the case of $x not being an empty string, as it can only contain nothing or "iPhone", it moves that file into the "iPhone" directory within the working directory.

Notes:

Having tested this in several locations on both internal and external storage medium I noticed that in some places the files were stored and that while they did actually contain the model of the camera that created them nonetheless it was not reflected in the output of the mdls command as those locations were excluded from indexing by Spotlight. So using the, third-party supplied, exiftool command insured reading the information directly from the file itself and not relying on indexed information (or lack of indexed information) that the mdls command accesses.

So if you want to download and install ExifTool and use it, then change mdls to exiftool in the x="$(mdls "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')" line of the script so it would look like x="$(exiftool "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')".

In comparison on the same JPEG image file the exiftool command showed the values of 23 additional Tags that were not displayed by the mdls command.  This may provide additional info to programmatically make the decision how to absolutely differentiate the source of the files by adding additional code to the script that would use info in the additional Tags, if necessary.


Is it possible to change the default duration for a new event in Calendar from 60 min to 30 min I know I can adjust it while I'm creating the event, and I can always change it afterwards, but I'd like the default to be 30 min, as that works best for me.

Hi and welcome to Ask Different.

Yep you can change the Mac's Calendar default duration for a new event using a terminal command.

Go to Applications>Utilities>Terminal and enter the following command in terminal:

defaults write com.apple.iCal 'Default duration in minutes for new event' 30

The default duration should then be 30 minutes. You can change it to another value by changing the number 30 to whatever you wish.

If you wish to revert back the default 60 minutes, you can enter the following command in terminal:

defaults delete com.apple.iCal 'Default duration in minutes for new event'

This works on macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and suspect it does for macOS Catalina too.

Hope this helps!


iMac tripping breaker just by plugging it to electricity, without even pushing the power button! iMac 21” (EMC: 2638)

The iMac was connected to a UPS but through an extension cable, so not directly.

So the iMac was running as usual when suddenly it went off, with all the other devices that are connected to the UPS. And I have no electricity in the room, the electricity breaker tripped, and the UPS is making that loud beep.

After unplugging everything from UPS, and turning back electricity and etc... I found out that it was caused by the iMac.

(UPS and all other devices are working fine now without the iMac there).

I try to plug the iMac to a different socket, but it immediately trips the breaker even before clicking the power button, just by plugging the cable to the socket, trips breaker!!

I tried different sockets in different rooms that are connected to a different electricity breaker, but the same thing happen.

I tried a different cable, but same thing happen.

I unplugged cable from the back of the iMac and tried the 10-sec hold power button thing, but didn’t help, same thing happened.

TL;DR - iMac is tripping breaker just by plugging it to electricity, without even pushing the power button!!!

Any one has any idea what happened here??

the closest Apple service center is hours far from me and I would really want to try everything before going there.

Thank you!

DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Don't try to plug it in. That sounds like a hard short. Get it to an Apple Store or an authorized repair center. Hopefully, it's under AppleCare or some type of warranty. Each time you try to plug it in you risk doing irreparable damage to the iMac or, worse, possibly causing a fire or life-threatening shock hazard.


How to copy all files with extension/filetype in terminal? I want to copy all files in ~/Desktop with the extension .jpeg to my flash drive.

How can I do this in the terminal?

cp ~/Desktop/*.jpeg /Volumes/flashdrive/

will copy all of the files on the current user's desktop with extension ".jpeg" to the drive named "flashdrive".

If the above command produces an Argument list too long error, then the safest most efficient way to handle it is to use a for loop like this:

for f in ~/Desktop/*.jpeg; do cp "$f" /Volumes/flashdrive/; done


CoreStorage logic volume failed to mount I have an encrypted hfs+ external SSD. When I plug it into my mac and, it prompts for my password, but after I enter it nothing happens.

I tried this in terminal:

I ran into this. In my case it seems the problem was the mac wanted to run a filesystem check on it. After finding the fsck process and killing it, I could then mount the drive properly.

$ ps -ef | grep fsck
$ kill [pid from above]


27" iMac with mini display port and Windows 10 - use in target display mode? I have a 27" iMac, with a mini-display port. I do not have MacOS installed on it. Instead I have Windows 10 installed on it. Can I enable target display mode using this configuration?

If not, how could I get into target display mode without removing Windows 10 from the internal hard disk?

Model: Mid 2010 (2.8GHZ QUAD-CORE INTEL CORE I5, ATI RADEON HD 5750)

So for anyone with the same issues. Indeed you need a working copy of MacOS in order to enable Target Display Mode. So using the internet recovery option (Command+R while booting up) I installed MacOS on an external 32GB usb stick attached to my iMac. Then after about an hour of installation the iMac booted into High Sierra and using Command+F2 it switched into Target Display Mode and I was able to use it as a second monitor for my Windows 10 PC.


Keeping battery charged at certain level I keep my MBA 2013 plugged in most of the time. AFAIK for a long term it is better to keep modern battery around 40%. I have seen that some other laptop manufacturers added feature to their drivers to prevent battery charging over certain level. Is there anything similar available for mac?

The 40% charged state is applicable for Lithium-Ion batteries only if you're going to remove the battery and put it in long term storage without using it. Refer How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries. In the case of MacBook models, Apple recommends storing the batteries at 50% charge if you do not plan to use it for more than six months.

For normal usage, Apple recommends that you run the laptop on battery once in a while and also do a full discharge and recharge to calibrate the battery (full discharge/recharge means running it down till the computer automatically goes to sleep or shuts down due to low battery and then recharging it completely to 100% in one go).

Apple laptop batteries - Standard Maintenance

  For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her notebook on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing. If on the other hand, you use a desktop computer at work, and save a notebook for infrequent travel, Apple recommends charging and discharging its battery at least once per month.

See Apple's guide on Notebook batteries for detailed information.


XQuartz: xterm command slow since last update I often use the following command to get a new terminal on XQuartz.

xterm -sh 1.01 -u8 -fa 12 -fg LightBlue -bg black &

However, since the last update of XQuartz, it takes about 1 min for the new terminal to open, whereas a simple xterm command without any options is immediate.

Could someone help me out with this?

The last update of XQuartz ( 2.7.11_rc2 (xorg-server 1.18.4) ) seems to have corrected the problem.


AppleScript: Open a new window in current space without switching to active window in another space I want to have an application open a new window in the current space without switching to a space in which a window is already open, but I want to keep the

  When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows
  for the application

setting in System Preferences > Mission Control.

In other words, I want to tell an application to open a new window directly, without first telling it to activate.

How can I do this with AppleScript (if possible)?

Mission Control is not scriptable as far as I am aware. Its actually one of things that Apple needs to correct in hindsight. I've been wanting to make a app that sets up my workspace and gets it ready for work for a week now.


How can I restore the legacy metadata editor in iTunes 12? Question: How can I restore the legacy metadata editor in iTunes 12?

Press and hold the  ⌥  (option) key while clicking on Get Info for a given item.


Cant delete Time Machine .inProgress file After over a month of not running Time Machine, I tried to run it again, and it was stuck on "Preparing Backup" for ages (more than 10 hours).
A Google search has led me to try trashing the .inProgress file.

Now that file is in the trash, and I cannot empty the trash. It is stuck on "Preparing to empty the Trash..." for ages (again, we're talking hours).
The .inProgress file in question is 290GB, and is the only file in the trash.

Is there a way to force empty the trash in this situation?

I'm running MacOS Sierra (10.12.6) on a mid-2015 MBP. The hard disk I'm backing up is 1TB, of which 746GB are in use.

I've been through this one and as I recall patience is a virtue, the length of time is linked to the size of the file. I wouldn't recommend forcing it.


Use mac display separate from the computer? I have a Mac with a relatively nice display. Is there some way to hook an external device (PS4 in this case) and use the monitor as the display for the PS4?

If it's an iMac 21"/27", yes you can use it as a display with the so called Target Display mode.

You can enable it using the Cmd+F2 keyboard shortcut !


What is an efficient way for developers / power users to use OSX window management and Spaces on a single screen? This may be a strange question.

Background: I usually work in a multiple monitor setup, where I can plaster the screen with all my windows so nothing I might need to switch to is ever hidden from view.

On a laptop, that's obviously not possible.

A while ago I wrote scripts that give me keyboard shortcuts to move windows around into half/quarter/other convenient arrangements for essentially gridding the display. In researching this question I learned that these are essentially duplicated by some open source apps, but I found nothing that solves the greater problem of switching between these windows easily and painlessly.

In particular, I use spaces as a substitute for multiple monitors, plastering each one with a grid of windows. But I often find myself frustratedly trying to switch between applications in different spaces with no quick way to do it.

E.g. cmd-tabbing to the application makes me go linearly through a bunch of open applications and doesn't pick up applications open only in other spaces.

Using mission control only shows me the windows open in the present space; I have to switch spaces first to use it to get at another window open in another space.

I've considered using only one space and switching via mission control, but having only one space can lead to serious window clutter, with windows hiding behind each other and ending up in the "wrong order" so when I need to drag things between windows, etc., they're not activated at the right time. (In separate spaces I can leave paired windows side by side with nothing in front of them.)

I'm wondering whether someone else who has faced these frustrations has come up with a clever solution or workflow. I'd prefer something open source but am willing to learn a new workflow even with a steep learning curve if it means faster performance eventually--where performance is defined, I think, as reliably and quickly switching between many open windows, though I may end up editing this question as answers reveal that I'm actually looking for something more detailed. E.g. if a multiple-window-using guru of window-management best-practices can explain something like "I faced this problem, and I realized after many years that the right way to do it is work in a single monitor, and always follow steps A B C, and use tool D" then I am all ears.

I'm a Spaces user of long-time habit, even though I've always had 2 screens.

I find the best way to get around is to pin specific apps to specific Spaces [then remember where they live, which is the only difficult bit]
If no apps are yet assigned this way, then switch to the chosen Space before launching the app, then right click the app in the Dock & pin to "This Desktop". You can do this without needing to launch first, if it already appears in the Dock, otherwise launch then pin.

Mission Control, as you've discovered, is fine for finding where an app is if you forgot, but not great as a quick way of getting there.
I really tend to use it if I did forget which Space I put an app in, as you can click directly on any of the app's windows in the window 'overview' at the top of the screen & it will switch & bring it to the front…

But… in my ideal world of remembering where each app is, my method of choice is to use
 Ctrl ⌃   num  to switch directly to my required Space. This is set in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control [You can only see as many 'Switch' shortcuts as you have Spaces.]
It will remember which app you last had frontmost when you switch Spaces in this way.

Note - if you have an extended keyboard with a 10-key, by default the Ctrl/num shortcuts are set to the 'qwerty' numbers, not the 10-key numbers & you will have to change the shortcuts manually if you prefer the 10-key.

I specifically never use apps in Full-Screen, as they add themselves to a new, random, unnumbered Space & break that key-switching.

Pro Tips
If I ever need, for instance, to add an email attachment from Finder (Space 1) to an email (Space 4) then simply grabbing the header bar of the email & hitting  Ctrl ⌃   1  will move that single email to Space 1, where I can drop in the attachment from Finder.

If you ever need an app to 'follow' you around - sometimes I keep Activity Monitor tucked in a convenient corner - then assigning to All Desktops will make it always appear, whichever Space you're in.


How can I create video loopback devices on OS X? Is there a Mac equivalent of v4l2loopback? In Linux, I can use v4l2loopback to create virtual devices and use them as video inputs/outputs. Is there an equivalent toolset for OS X? How does one create multiple streams of videos on MacBook?

Audio Loopback

For audio loopback devices I'm familiar with Soundflower. From the looks of it there appears to be an alternative called Loopback which is a paid-for application.

Soundflower GitHub Repo
[Loopback](https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/(

NOTE: Soundflower is available as a binary build from the Github repo.

Video Loopback

For video loopback devices you have a couple of options. Searching led me to this page on Stackoverflow - gstreamer create virtual device on OSX
.

That Q&A mentions that you can use gstreamer which provides a DMG file to use on OSX.

$ ./gst-launch-1.0 -v videotestsrc pattern=snow ! video/x-raw,width=1280,height=720 ! osxvideosink

There's also another option which mentions the framework CoreMediaIO. As part of that framework is sample code and documentation which covers creating a custom solution to construct a loopback device for video.

References

Rogue Amoeba info page about Soundflower
Record your computer's screen with audio on a Mac
How can I send my computer's audio to multiple outputs?
If we use SoundFlower to record the system's audio output, then we can't hear it at the same time?


Email "from" is not using Default account My email replies default to my Gmail account even though the "from" line and the "default account" in the Settings are my main (preferred) account address. How do I fix this?

It's a known bug introduced in Mountain Lion and was submitted to Apple by several people.
Mail ignores the Send new messages from: Account of selected mailbox setting.

See for example:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4148125?start=0&tstart=0
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1414206
http://mjtsai.com/blog/2012/08/03/mail-mountain-lion-reply-account/

I submitted the bug and is now marked as duplicate (but Apple's reporting tool does not allow you to see the duplicated entry).


Restore delted messages from macbook to phone I deleted all my texts from my GF by a mistake on my iPhone and i dont have it backed up by ICloud (Im dumb i know). I have all the texts on my MacBook under Messages. Is there any way i can get them down to my Phone again? Thank you for you help (I'm desperate)

Set up iCloud messages to sync them from your Mac or restore your phone from a backup. If you set up iCloud messages then if you delete by accident them in the future, they will be gone on all of your devices.


iPhone 5s connection priority (Wi-Fi / 4G) My iPhone 5s always (since I bought it 14 months ago) connected to my Wi-Fi at home in priority over the 3G or 4G connection. Recently (for about 2 weeks now) it gives preference to 4G for some reason and my mobile internet service limit (200 MB) goes over in a few minutes if I'm watching a video, for example.

Why would this happen?

I don't remember changing anything in the definitions/options, only thing I did was an update to a new version of iOS, but then it only started to happen about 3 weeks after I did that update, so it seems like it's not related with that.

Can I do anything to stop this from happening?

Is it possible that I'm getting cuts in my wifi service and while the phone does not get connection with the Wi-Fi it starts to get it from the 4G connection without asking or even letting me know?

You should check on the WiFi Assist feature of iOS 9 here. It's on by default, and many have complained about it.

  Turn Wi-Fi Assist on or off

  Wi-Fi Assist is on by default. If you don't want your iOS device to
  stay connected to the Internet when you have a poor Wi-Fi connection,
  you can disable Wi-Fi Assist. Go to Settings > Cellular. Then scroll
  down and tap Wi-Fi Assist.


Is there a way to disable a disk or disk controller before OSX boots? Context:

I use a mac for data recovery forensic operations, and for compliance with my users' requirements, I need to guarantee that no disk writes will be performed on a physical hard disk attached to a mac until a user enables the disk.

Question:

Is it possible to disable all access to a disk, SATA port, or disk controller entirely outside of the OS, before the system boots?

Disabling only read access is acceptable, but tends to be harder to verify compared to "make the computer act like the disk itself isn't plugged in".

When we were doing data recovery with a Linux homemade tower, we would go into the BIOS and disable the SATA port with the sensitive disks on it.

It's OK to disable the entire disk controller as part of a solution; these systems are externally booted from USB devices, and internal hard disks will not be used until they are re-enabled.

The physical port to which the disks in question are connected will not change.

What I've Tried:

I've seen the solutions to this question. Those solutions all disable disks right after boot, which is not sufficient: disabling automount of the disk or hiding it from OSX's disk management does not satisfy the users' (admittedly silly) audit requirements.

Other Ideas:

Is it possible to do this from an EFI shell? I'm happy to install rEFInd or similar on the bootable USBs.

Are there nvram settings that can be changed to achieve this?

Are there kernel boot parameters that instruct OSX not to initialize or use a PCI device, tree, or disk?

Are there kernel modules that I could install that would achieve this? If so, they'd probably need to be open source so the users could audit them and make sure they're loaded early enough to not let any writes through.

Since the recovery OS is USB, are there kexts that I could uninstall in order to disable access to all disks/SATA devices?

A simple solution since you are booting off a USB/Recovery disk, you could mount the drive in "read only" via diskutil:

diskutil mountDisk readOnly /dev/diskX

Now, if your USB/Recovery disk has already mounted it when it loads, you will have to unmount it first:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX

diskX is the drive identifier of the disk you are attempting to (un)mount.  You can find it by issuing the command diskutil list and finding the drive you are interested in.

From the manpage:

  Mount a single volume.  If readOnly is specified, then the file system
  is mounted read-only, even if the volume's underlying file system
  and/or device and/or media supports writing; even the super-user may
  not write to it; this is the same as the rdonly option to mount (8).
  If a -mountPoint is specified, then that path, rather than the
  standard path of /Volumes/VolumeName, will be used as the view into
  the volume file content; a directory at that path must already exist.


using chrome os as client in vmware fusion I've been wracking the net for several days on this topic. i want to run Chrome OS virtualized in VMWare Fusion on my mac. While it seems Parallels Desktop has a quick and easy method for running Chrome, the same can't be said for VMWare.

the most common resource for Chrome OS builds is http://chromeos.hexxeh.net, but it hasn't been updated in years. Meanwhile a new source — http://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/chromium-os/ — provides images for VirtualBox and as .img, neither of which I've had any luck getting to work. despite attempts to dd the images to USB disks, or convert the .vdi files to .vmdk, the results are always the same: "no operating system found" when VMWare tries to boot.

it would seem there ought to be a community resource for providing containers, or appliances, that VMWare can run with the latest builds of ChromeOS. if anyone knows of such a source, I'm all ears.

The system administration is hard stuff. Don't worry. The best you can do is ask here or even elsewhere -because the problem is about the configuration, not Mac-. Download the iso / img from the official repository. Then create a new virtual machine. Configure the settings as you wish (RAM, disk size) and then when disk image requested, select the downloaded one. If it also asks you what OS are you trying to run, try (because Chrome OS may not be displayed) to select it.

This process is universal. The thing is that since the iso contains the boot and kernel, the virtual machine should at least know which files correspond to each function. It may be impossible to boot it if VMW doesnt recognize them. In that case, if you still wanna run VMW -which would be hardcore- I can just tell you to surf the net.

The easiest EVER is in that case using parallels. Download a cracked copy or buy it if you are a legal guy 😉.

Hope it helps

Edit: And the link you provided is vanilla, not chrome OS. So thats kind of help to install it, which is fine, but in that case you should also take a look at the docs. Did you download the file for vmw? It should work


Does the Apple Watch really identify "you"? In several places in the iOS Apple Watch settings app, important functionality depends on "you" wearing the watch. Critically under the settings for unlocking the watch without requiring a passcode (Security > Unlock with iPhone):

  When this is on, unlocking your iPhone will automatically unlock Apple
  Watch — as long as you're wearing it.

Does the Apple Watch really form a signature for recognizing a specific user (analogous to fingerprint recognition), or should the above read "as long as someone is wearing it (in BT range of your iPhone)"?

As far as I can tell its just means as long as it's connected via bluetooth and in range. There isn't a Touch ID scanner on the watch or anything like that so I don't think that it forms an knid of "signature" to you.


Is it possible to get the app icon of a built-in app on iOS? I would like to get an iOS app icon from a built in app, like Settings, ideally not including the app icon mask.
On macOS you can select the app in Finder, choose Get Info, click the icon, copy it to the clipboard, then paste it into Preview for example to get a 1024x1024 png. Is there a way to achieve the same thing but for iOS apps even ones that are built in?

In a word, no.
Not on iOS as there is no way to get to that particular icon without jailbreaking the device.
However there are 3rd-party tools (iMazing is one of them) that allow you to copy apps from the phone to the Mac and explore the filesystem on the phone.
Not sure if they will give you what you want but I do believe that the apps that do this have demo modes that will let you find out.


Check log files for file transfer I would like if there is a way to capture in a log file all the transfer file activities in a given time period. Let me give you an example. Let's say that on 16 Aug 2017 13:35 I copy/move a file/folder from my Mac to a usb device without giving any special arguments when using the cp/mv commands (in any case copying/moving files/folders can be achieved through GUI).

Is there any text file on the Mac which records the activity history (such as copying/moving files/folders)? I would like this text file to include information in a way like:

16 Aug 2017 13:35 path/to/folderA was copied to /path/to/usb/stick/ or something similar.

You can manually use the Terminal command cp (copy) or mv (move) with the -v (for verbose) qualifier to keep a log of what is being copied. Verbose only shows file names, no dates.

You should look at man cp and man mv for more details.

Ex:

If you're looking for capturing log data for Finder drags, or disk activity from within apps, I'm not sure how that would be done.


Keynote: table cell align right with padding I am using Keynote 7.x on Mac OS High Sierra. I created a table of numbers, and for a particular column, I want to align right with some padding on the right.

As shown in the figure below, I applied "align right" to the column foo. Now I want to add some padding between the number and the margin of the cell.

Below are the controls for the cell, but I don't see any options. I tried the "indent" control, but it didn't do anything.

Increase the Text Inset option shown in your screenshot to add padding to the cell.

This adds padding to all sides (including the right), which may increase row height. It looks like you've already got some spare height to work with, so it shouldn't affect the height if you limit how much you increment it by.

Alternatively if the additional spacing on the top/bottom is an issue and you have numerical data in your cells, you can add fake spacing to the end of numerical data with a custom number format:

Select your cells/column and in the inspector choose Cell → Data Format → Create Custom Format….
Add spaces to the end of the format string. Add multiple spaces and customise their width if necessary.


Where's iOS 4.2 image file? On Apple Developers portal, under downloads I get this:

Where are the iPhone 3G / 4 / iPad versions of the OS?

As I had beta 2 on my iPad (I'm have a iOS developer account), and I want to update to the new one, iTunes says iPad has version 4.2 (witch is right, 4.2b) and mentions, that there is no newer version.

got it here

http://tipsneeded.com/download-ios-42-ipsw/

weird that is not available in the Portal itself :(


Need help creating Global Daemon for EyeFi Server I have been trying to come up with a headless solution for transferring images from an eyefi card to my mac.  The software from the vendor is decent, but it will only transfer images if there is a user logged into the computer.  I want to use eye-fi cards in an office environment and want to configure it so that the images always are transferred from the card to my mac mini server running Mavericks Server.

So, I found this reference to a python application that does this and runs on synology devices.  http://thijs.elenbaas.net/2013/03/installing-an-eye-fi-server-on-a-synology-nas/

I don't know anything about python except that OSX has it build in.  So I downloaded the software from thijs.elenbaas.net/files/eyefiserver.tar.gz

and configured it on my mac.  It appears to basically be a script called S99EyeFiServer.sh that runs a python app called eyefiserver.py

I had to make a few changes to the S99EyeFiServer.sh script to point it to the correct directories, primarily based on where the whole thing is installed on my mac AND the default pythonpath which on mac is different than on synology.

Bottom line, is I put the eyefi server files into a shared folder and modified the script with the file locations as such:
PIDFILE=/Users/Shared/eyefi/eyefiserver/eyefiserver.pid
DSTPATH=/Users/Shared/eyefi/eyefiserver
PYTHONPATH=/usr/bin

Now, If i go to terminal and do S99EyeFiServer.sh restart or S99EyeFiServer.sh start.  In process viewer, I can see a new process start called "Python" and voila the card will start transferring images.  So, I at least know that this thing can work on the mac.

Great.

However, this still doesn't solve my problem.  I need this thing to always run. It does not have any gui or require any interaction, so you ought to be able to run it as a global daemon, right?

So, I fire up launchcontrol and make a .plist for this global daemon

    Label
    com.eyefi.load
    ProgramArguments

        /Users/Shared/eyefi/eyefiserver/rc.d/S99EyeFiServer.sh
        restart

    RunAtLoad

I load this, goto job, click start.  nothing.  no errors.  python app doesn't start.  no images.

Is it because I'm trying to run it in a shared folder?  So i copied everything into usr/local/eyefiserver, reconfigure the paths and try again.  Again, I can start it from the command line and it will work.  I reconfigure the launch daemon to point it to the script again.  Nothing.

I then tried playing with user:group settings in launchcontrol, trying to run it as one of my users, either either the setup in the usr/local folder or in the shared folder.  Still nothing.  tried a variety of other user:group settings.  still nothing.

Any advice on making this work?

Don't point launchd to the init.d script but to the program the script executes. It is important that the program does not 'daemonize' (makes itself a background process) itself. This is launchd's job.

Put this in your ProgramArguments key and you should be fine:

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/Users/Shared/eyefi/eyefiserver/bin/eyefiserver.py</string>
    <string>/Users/Shared/eyefi/eyefiserver/etc/eyefiserver.conf</string>
    <string>/Users/Shared/eyefi/eyefiserver/var/eyefiserver.log</string>
</array>


Optimise use of hardware under Mac + Windows in virtual machine I use a macbook pro with OS X El Capitan 10.11.4, 2,5 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3.

I need to code in Visual Studio and use Microsoft Excel for Windows, thus I installed Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac Business Edition Vestion 11.2.0, installed Windows 10 and Visual Studio 2015. Here is the setting of Parallels Desktop:

So now i am working on the 2 operation systems, i feel the CPU is quite occupied; from time to time the fan has to work, the laptop surface is hot, and the whole systems do not feel very fast.

Does anyone have any idea to improve the situation? Is there a way to diagnostic which software is costly? Or do i have to buy another machine for coding under Windows?

Compiling takes CPU even if pure OSX so in a VM will take all the CPU. Fan working and hot is not an issue - it will happen (try compiling gcc under OSX on an i7 CPU all 8 threads will be running for several minutes) I would although give more memory to the VM

To see what is taking CPU you need to look at Activity Monitor in OSX (which will show Parallels taking up a lot of CPU) and Task Manager(I might have forgotten the correct name) in Windows to show what the VM is spending its time on


How to find the real path of a file I am trying to access a file on my MacBook Pro via a web app running on Tomcat in Eclipse (localhost).  Whenever I try to access the file I receive the following IO Exception:

Exception:  /private/var/appname/app_config.txt (No such file or directory)

This file does exist and when I use Apple+I the file info window gives this location:

/private/var/appname

So why does the web app get the (No such file or directory) exception?  How do I get the real path if the file info window isn't valid via web app?

EDIT

The permissions on the file in questions are:

-rw-r--r--

where the owner is the user context the web app is running under, which is determined by entering the following into the shell:

ps axu -w

Permissions on the directory appname are as such:

drwxr-x---

where again, the owner is the user context the web app is running under.

And finally, the directory var has permissions:

drwxr-xr-x

with root as owner.

Furthermore, removing private from the path results in the exact same exception, sans the private in the path:

Exception:  /var/appname/app_config.txt (No such file or directory)

What user identity is the Tomcat / Apache application running as? While you can read the file with your account, if the application server is running as a limited rights user or in a chroot'd environment, you'll not be able to see the file. Find out the user account it is running as and try suing to that account then see if you can read the file.


iPad mini and MacBook Pro 2011 Remote control over Keynote? I'm just wondering if there is a solution to run Keynote on my MacBook Pro which is connected to a projector and see in the same time the presenter notes or the presenter screen on my iPad mini?

I have the IR remote control for navigate between the slides but is not so helpfull because the Macbook screen is so far away, near projector and I can't see the notes on its screen even if I make them with very big fonts :)

Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions !
Any idea is fine for me

P.S.
The projector does not support AirPlay.

Connect your iPad and your MacBook to the same Network and install iDisplay. iDisplay is a software especially designed for your needs. with this software your iPad turns into a external monitor for your MacBook. I use this software since good 2 years and it never failed me!


Is it possible to tell if an iPhone had ever been jailbroken? I have heard that updating iPhone iOS versions will eliminate jailbreaks. Is it possible to tell if an iPhone updated in such a fashion had been jailbroken at one point?

This depends if a backup created when a device was jailbroken was restored on to the device.

If a device has been jailbroken, then was subsequently restored and no backup was restored, then there is no way to tell.
If a device has been jailbroken, then was subsequently restored along with a backup created prior to jailbreaking the device, then there is no way to tell.
If a device has been jailbroken, then was subsequently restored along with a backup created after the device was jailbroken, then it is possible to tell, but the device would need to be jailbroken again so that the relevant files can be found on the filesystem.


Problem with cmd + tab now that I've loaded macOS Sierra Loaded macOS Sierra this morning. Now, once VMWare is running, cmd+tab switches me back to the mac environment but system immediately and automatically switches me back to vm. Result? Can't access mac environment when vm is running. Help?

Force quit Dock from Activity Monitor. Dock automatically restarts, and Cmnd+Tab should now work. Some glitch with Dock, it seems. Worked for me.


How to delete info from a connected device on mac even system information? I connected today my Book studio for the 1st time and my mac crashed when creating a backup with Time machine.

As a consequence I would like to delete the info that this external hard drive ever connected to the Mac. For instance, I see it in Time Machine preferences as a backup destination.

I can see that I connect My WD Book studio in the system information under hardware /firewire/firewire800/Book 1

Is there a way to do that? System information gave you the info about the device but not any way to edit it, or in my case delete it.

Thanks for your help. Problem resolved.

By any chance do you mean delete everything on the MyBook Studio drive?

If so open Disk Utility, select the drive in the left-hand pane and then click the "Erase" tab, select the format you want (best bet: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) and click erase.

Everything (and I mean everything) on that drive will vanish in a cloud of unseen bytes.


Full screen app on one monitor, Desktop on other I want to use Terminal in full screen on one monitor while having the desktop accessable on the other. pressing the green button in terminal fills screen 1 with terminal (good), but the other is blank (bad). It would be nice if the other were the desktop or another app.

To sum it up, this is how is is for me now:

Screen 1 | Screen 2
-------------------
Terminal |  Blank

When Terminal is fullscreen, the other monitor becomes blank i.e. nothing on it.

Screen 1 | Screen 2
-------------------
 Blank   | Terminal

The same rule applies regardless of what monitor Terminal is on.

This happens to any and all apps, not just Terminal.

I want it to look like this:

Screen 1 | Screen 2
-------------------
Terminal | Desktop

or:

Screen 1 | Screen 2
-------------------
Desktop  | Terminal

or another example:

Screen 1 | Screen 2
-------------------
 Safari  |  Pages

Ideas?

High Sierra 10.13.6

Ensure that "Displays have separate Spaces" is checked:

System Preferences > Mission Control > Displays have separate Spaces

This should fix the blank screen issue.


Time Machine and File Storage on 1 External Drive Security If I partition an external drive to use one partition for file storage and another for time machine, will the partition for time machine be as safe from malware as if it were on a separate drive?

As in if I get a virus on my Mac or on the file storage partition, the will the time machine partition of my external drive be more vulnerable because it on a partition of the same drive?

Both partitions would be setup with the encrypted format.

Short answer

Yes. The partition for time machine will be as safe from malware as if it were on a separate drive. However, you still should not use a partition for your Time Machine backup drive.

Long answer

At the risk of oversimplifying things, partitioning a drive basically means you're splitting your disk so that your operating system sees them as separate drives. So, if you partition the drive into two and use one for your macOS installation and one for your Time Machine backup, then they're both being seen as two totally distinct drives and in this sense the drive is being dealt with as if it were an external drive.

In fact, doing this can actually offer an additional level of protection against malware because malware will usually infect your boot volume, rather than other drives/partitions. Of course, there is no guarantee against malware, and this does not offer full prevention or provide a cure.

However, you should not partition your drive for Time Machine purposes!

By partitioning a drive so that one partition is being used for Time Machine you're effectively providing yourself a false sense of security. The idea of a fully working and  current backup is to ensure you have a way to restore your data in the event of data loss, and the best way to do this is to have a backup on a totally separate physical drive.

Below is a list of some reasons why using a partition is a bad idea:

Your Mac is stolen and therefore your backup is also gone - i.e. you have no way of restoring your data now!
Your main drive starts to fail and since the Time Machine partition is also on the same physical drive, your backup is also at risk - i.e. some or all of your backup data may become unreadable
Your Mac is damaged and with it your backup is most likely impacted as well.

As a minimum you should be using at least one external drive for Time Machine, preferably one that is 3x the size of your internal drive. External drives do not cost a lot of money and they also provide the added benefit of being able to be stored away from your Mac at times you will not be using it for a while. For example, if you go away for a week you can take your external drive with you, or store it somewhere else, so that if your house burns down or your Mac gets stolen, you have still have your backup.

My recommendation for individual users

Whenever I setup a backup regime I recommend the following approach:

Purchase two external drives of equal size and at least 3x the capacity of the computer being backed up
Label these drives differently (e.g. TM Backup HD 1 and TM Backup HD 2)
Set both of these external drives as Time Machine backup drives
As both drives are set up with TM they are alternated whenever both drives are available
Once the initial backups are done, physically remove one of the external drives and take it 'offsite'*
On the same day each week, swap the drives over
The net result is that both hard drives will have backups in the order of one week on, one week off (but between them there is a full set of backups).

* By offsite I mean your workplace, a shed in the back yard, a family member's/friend's place (assuming you trust them!). You could even store it in your car (but this would depend on your climate and where you 'garage' your car).

Basically, the idea is that your offsite drive is somewhere that protects your data in the event your house burns down or you get robbed. My strong suggestion would be in a locked drawer at your workplace (unless you work at home). Most people's workplaces are air-conditioned, secure, and convenient.

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT STORAGE

Regardless of the 'offsite' location you choose to keep your hard drive, there are some key factors to keep in mind:

Always keep the drive safe from large magnetic fields!
Ensure the location has a temperature range between 10 degrees celsius (50 degrees fahrenheit) and 43 degrees celsius (110 degrees fahrenheit). So, keeping it in a car would usually not be a good idea.


Re-formatting a external Western Digital My Book drive My new Western Digital My Book external drive will not erase to re format for my iMac.

That is to say it starts but then goes no where. No green in the bar. What's up?

With the limited information you have presented, formatting drives with Mac OS 10.0 (2001) to the newest version 10.13 (Dec 2017) has always been the same. I recommend you try mounting any partitions first. If there is data on the drive but your Mac device cannot read it even after attempting to manually mount the drive partitions, then I recommend plugging the drive into a computer with support for the file system being used on those partitions. Ext 1-2-3-4 are all read and writeable by the majority of Linux operating systems, FAT32-ExFAT-NTFS-ReFHS are all read and writeable by most Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Mounting

Open the Disk Utility app located in /EXAMPLE-HDD/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app or by pressing CMD+SpaceBar and typing "Disk Utility" or by manually clicking on the Spotlight Icon in the top right (magnifying glass icon) and typing "Disk Utility", or by opening your LaunchPad and locating Disk Utility.
Expand the Western Digital My Book drive on the left side and right click on the partition you wish to mount, select Mount. (Or Unmount and then try remounting it).

First Aid

Some logical volumes (partitions (file systems)) become corrupt during plug and play or electrostatic phenomena. However if there's enough data left the operating system can correct these errors.

Open Disk Utility (yes again, if you want other recovery software you may choose to use Disk Warrior or a deleted data recovery application).
Located your Western Digital My Book and right click it.
Select Run First Aid...
Click Run or press Enter.
Consider doing the same for any partitions you can access.

Formatting

Open Disk Utility, an application you can find by typing "Disk Utility" after pressing CMD+SpaceBar (or br clicking on your spotlight icon, a magnifying glass in the top right of the screen).
Right click on the drive or any of the partitions and select erase. Choose the appropriate file system format: If you only plan to use to drive on Mac Computers then select one of the Apple Journaling options, if you plan to read and write the drive using anything other than Mac OS devices, I suggest ExFAT.
Name the drive and erase it.

Please Note that there are GUI differences between Mac OS 10.0-10.10 and 10.11-Current (10.13 as of writing this).


Is it possible to query the current user's Apple ID from the command line? Is it possible to query the current user's Apple ID from the command line? I want to create an AppleScript (run-only) app that will run only for a specific user (or at least for a user signed in with a specific AppleID), but I can't find any command (or third-party utility) that will do this.

Does something like this exist?

The currently logged in Apple IDs for iCloud are stored in the MobileMeAccounts preferences. You can query the entire store with:

defaults read MobileMeAccounts Accounts

To return just the first account ID (an email address nowadays):

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print :Accounts:0:AccountID" ~/Library/Preferences/MobileMeAccounts.plist


Updated Apple Mail, now hung and cannot send or receive emails A couple of days ago I updated Apple Mail but after the update its hung up. Nothing seems to be working. After I launch it, I am not able to send or receive any emails. I am asked to reset it by some professional but before resetting it I want to backup all my data. I am not relying on Time Machine as well because it starts backing up everything on the Mac. Looking for a decent solution to backup apple mail but how can I do it if it's hung up like this.

You can go directly to the folder where Mail saves its data through the Finder and duplicate it to store a copy elsewhere.
Inside the Finder, menu Go > Go to Folder and then paste this path:

~/Library/Mail/V5

It is that V5 folder you'd want to back up before reseting Mail.
There is also some software solutions like mailbackupx but I never used it so I can't say what it's worth.


How do I check I know the password for an encrypted drive? I've got an encrypted USB drive and I want to check I know the password. At the moment everything is in my keychain, so it works, and I can see its contents, but I want to make sure I'm covered if I need to replace my computer.

I want to make sure I can keep the contents if it turns out I've forgotten the password, so I don't want to delete any data from the keychain. (If I've forgotten the password, I'll need to copy its contents off before reformatting it.)

How do I do this?

You might be interested in exporting all of the KeyChain in to Text file that you can save for later uses.

Be aware anyone with access to your computer can now plainly see that information.

Run this in Terminal

sudo security dump-keychain -d login.keychain > keychain.txt

You will have to click "Allow" till done, or use script that does that, but since it is usually one time action just do it manually.


macOS Sierra and (wired) keyboard broken I've updated my macbook pro to macOS Sierra and now my (apple) wired keyboard is completely broken.

I'm using a AZERTY wired keyboard (like the one on my macbook) but even if on my macbook every keys seems correct, on the wired keyboard two keys are reversed : @ and <

Also on both keyboards when I shift + click it doesn't select anymore on anything (text, file, spreadsheet, etc.)
Same for Ctrl + click

It was working before the update.

Also some really weird behaviour, for example on Steam. When I chat with someone from my desktop, there is no problem. But when I chat with him in-game I got these japanese or chinese characters whatever key I press :

Also Shift+tab don't work to access at Steam while in-game.

And here are just a few.... I keep discovering new ones every day.

Everything was working perfectly before the update.

I resolved all the issues. On the previous version (OS X) I was using Karabiner. On macOS Sierra since it was not working I've installed Karabiner-Elements.

I've deleted all of these, make sure to delete all the file. Rebooted. And now all is working properly.


iPad: Using iTunes to restore causes automatic sync? I had a iPad mini(miniA) several months ago, and I got a new iPad mini(miniB) recently. On miniB's first run, when I was asked whether to set it up as a new device or restore from a backup, I chose to restore from miniA's backup and have iTunes to do the restore. Some days later, I find a problem: When I assign miniB to use a different FaceTime email address, miniA's original FaceTime email address gets lost and be automatically set to miniB's! Also, changes to miniB will be sync-ed to miniA -- quite unexpected.

Is there any Apple official document describing this restore-and-sync behavior.

Yes, I really want miniA and miniB to use different FaceTime email addresses -- and I know of course they can, because my iPhone is using a different FaceTime email address than that on miniA . And the worst way I can imagine is factory reset my miniB then set it up as a new device. I'd like to know, is there other solution without wiping off miniB?

BTW: miniA, miniB and my iPhone all use the same Apple ID to access FaceTime service.

I think the only way you could do this is if, after you've synced all you want to miniB, change the iCloud account associated with the device (Settings > iCloud > Account > Enter new account info).

I have not tried this, but just at quick glance, I'm thinking it may work. Please let me know your results! If that doesn't work, we can try something else.


iOS cannot play "slow" or "veryslow" h.264 videos I have encoded a video that I want to transfer to my iPad.

Using FFmpeg, the settings are:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v libx264 -preset veryslow -crf 32 output.mp4"

When I have tried the presets veryslow and slow, I get this message when trying to sync the video via iTunes to the device:

  "[Your File] was not copied to the [Device Name] because it cannot be
  played on this iPad."

However, I have tried encoding the same video using the preset medium and sync and playback in iOS's Videos app works.

Is there a work-around to get the "slow" preset videos onto the iPad?

Use next parameters to ensure compatibility with apple devices.

-profile:v baseline -level 3.0

This disables some advanced features but provides for better compatibility. Typically you may not need this setting (and therefore avoid using -profile:v and -level), but if you do use this setting it may increase the bit rate quite a bit compared to what is needed to achieve the same quality in higher profiles.

Encoding video using H.264 compression:

H.264 Baseline 3.0: All devices
H.264 Baseline 3.1: iPhone 3G and later, and iPod touch 2nd generation and later.
H.264 Main profile 3.1: iPad (all versions), Apple TV 2 and later, and iPhone 4 and later.
H.264 Main Profile 4.0: Apple TV 3 and later, iPad 2 and later, and iPhone 4S and later
H.264 High Profile 4.0: Apple TV 3 and later, iPad 2 and later, and iPhone 4S and later.
H.264 High Profile 4.1: iPad 2 and later and iPhone 4S and later.

A frame rate of 10 fps is recommended for video streams under 200 kbps. For video streams under 300 kbps, a frame rate of 12 to 15 fps is recommended. For all other streams, a frame rate of 29.97 is recommended.

Encode audio as either of the following:

HE-AAC or AAC-LC, stereo
MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3), stereo


iOS app missing keyboard language selection I am having an issue with an iOS application which doesn't allow choosing between configured iOS keyboard languages except for English and Emoji

The very same app (in this case, Bolt) shows the language selection normally on my wife's device.

I've had the issue before with some other apps, but that happens rarely so I don't recall which apps they were. In either case, it doesn't seem a problem with an app, as on other devices the language selection looks fine.

Here is the screenshot from Bolt and Uber, running on the same device.

I have searched the internet but couldn't find other reports of the same issue, probably due to many other topics around the same keywords.

If I understand correctly, you are saying the keyboard languages show up properly in all Apps except a few. Is this right? Are you connected to the internet when the problem occurs? I ask because some language items (e.g., voice dictation) only work properly when an internet connection is available (sometimes you can't even see the mic, shown in your image). Like you, I have 4 languages installed (although I removed emojis). At times I've experienced problems (though different from yours) and I did something like the following to solve them:

1) remove each keyboard language (except native) via settings-->general-->keyboards
2) restarted the device
3) re-added each keyboard language via settings-->general-->keyboards

In your case, I suggest you delete the problem App(s) before step (3) and then re-add them after step (3)

If you are able to see the language keyboards in most Apps (Mail, Notes, etc...) but just not in some problem Apps, I would contact the developer, sending them a screenshot.


How do I access an SMB Share being hosted on a Mac running OS X? I'm very new to the world of Apple so pardon my ignorance & general lack of knowledge.

I only have Terminal access to a Mac which is being used for test purposes. I'm trying to share a folder that I created so I can access it from a Windows machine.

I logged in as "root" and created a folder with the following command:

mkdir /macshare1

I tried sharing with the following command:

sharing -s /macshare1 -S macshare1

Since the IP Address of the Mac is 172.16.26.193, I tried to access this machine from Windows Explorer with the following username:

172.16.26.193\root

But doing so I'm unable to view the share. I'm not sure why it fails to access the folder but can you please help me out if I've missed some command?
I'd prefer to give read access to all users.

This should be all you need to create an SMB share point:

root@host:~# sharing -a /path/directory

It will also be available via AFP & FTP by default.

Alternatively, you can specify SMB only instead, like so:

root@host:~# sharing -a /path/directory -s 010

Check for success by listing all share point records:

root@host:~# sharing -l

It should now be discoverable & accessible to your local network.