How does one activate a square bracket on a Spanish Magic keyboard? I have problem on macOS Big Sur with an my square bracket on my Spanish magic keyboard
I need this to configure shortcuts for my Wacomb tablet and Photoshop.
I've tried changing keyboard language settings, pressing command + option together, option + button but so far to no avail. Can't copy or paste either.
Is there a guide or step for international keyboards to make code characters easier to type?

It depends on which sort of Apple Spanish keyboard you have and the input source setting which matches the printing on the keys
.
You can check this in system preferences -> keyboard -> Input sources.
An Apple Spanish Magic Keyboard normally follows the Spanish ISO input source mapping. With this square brackets are at option plus and option backtick.
On a laptop you could also have a Spanish Latin America hardware keyboard.  With this mapping square brackets are at shift curly brackets.
Here are some screenshots from the Spanish ISO keyboard layout (second one  is the modification by pressing the option key). You can look them up yourself if you activate the "show menu in menu bar" (located in bottom of the keyboard settings in system preferences) and then go in the dropdown menu in your menu bar and select "Show Keyboard Viewer".


Why is Mavericks forcing a password reset on every lock screen? I just upgraded to Mavericks. Now, every time I wake it up from the lock screen or standby and proceed to type in my password it rejects it.

To get back in I have to select "switch user", then type in my username and the (same) password. Afterwards it requires me to set a new password and only then it lets me in.

This is, as you might imagine, very annoying. How can I get rid of this new security requirement?

I figured it out. Somewhere during the upgrade process the password policy maxMinutesUntilChangePassword was set to 100. So every 100 minutes I had to reset the password...

To solve it I used the pwpolicy command:

pwpolicy -u "MyUserName" -setglobalpolicy "maxMinutesUntilChangePassword=86400"


Macbook Pro left (primary) click not working Two days ago, I noticed that my left clicking was acting off. When I would click something, it wouldn't register and I'd have to click repeatedly for it to actually work. Additionally, when I'm highlighting text, I'll still be holding onto the left click, but it'll cut out and I'll have to press down harder for it to continue registering.

The left clicking I use is the physical pressing down of the track pad. I prefer this method to the magic clicking because my hand can accidentally touch my track pad without it clicking on something eslse while I'm typing.

I thought my problem might be a minor fluke so I restarted my computer multiple times in an attempt to fix it, but nothing happened. I went through forums and only found problems vaguely similar to mine. None seem to have the problem of left clicking just cutting out randomly. Some forum posts suggested running an Apple Hardware Test and mine came back clear. Others have said to make sure there's no external mouse on bluetooth, but I don't have one.

I plugged a USB mouse in to make sure that left clicking as a whole wasn't a problem and it worked fine. I just want to know if anyone's had a similar problem and if there were any solutions to it before I take my computer in to the Geek Squad. I have a plan with them already, so there's no additional money being spent on taking my computer in, but I'd hate to have to waste their time and be away from my computer when I have school work to do on it.

It was my Magic Mouse. I turned it off and the problem was resolved. I had my mouse in a box with some other things that must have accidentally shifted and was pressing on the button. Once I found it and turned the mouse off, everything was fine.


Is it possible to prevent specific backups from getting deleted? This question was asked three times, as far as I know, but none of these has an answer that I'm looking for:

1 – This unfortunately doesn't seem like a method to preserve specific backups

2 – This was marked as a duplicate of the above but I feel like it better suits the question. However, there aren't any answers for it

3 – This probably is my question best stated but there are no answers

So my question is, is it possible at all to prevent specific backups from being deleted from my Time Machine drive? Would it be possible to copy and paste specific backup to another location to preserve it and then restore from them later on? (I don't particularly think that it would copy a bootable backup, though)

Based on how Time Machine consolidates it backups, unless there is an unpublished method to modify how Time Machine is coded to do this (and I don't think there is), I'd say no, you cannot prevent specific backups from getting deleted.

That said, why are you trying to preserve specific backups, to what end and do you only need files from your Home Folder or the entire Macintosh HD?

Additionally, Time Machine backups are not bootable and if what you're looking for is a full bootable backup of the systems at a given point in time, you need to make a bootable clone of the drive at that time. You can use SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner or from the Recovery HD, use Disk Utility or in Terminal from the Recovery HD use hdiutil, etc.


Wifi speed: Desktop/laptop > iPad > iPhone? I've been stationed in Japan for the next three years, and they've got some ludicrous speeds on their fiber Internet over here.

That being said, speed tests (using the SpeedTest.net app) are noticeably slower on the iPhone 4S than they are on the iPad (third generation, if it matters) than they are on my MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or iMac.

Is this just the app not reporting the speeds correctly, or are there physical limitations to just how quickly data can be transferred?

I'm more computer literate than most, but the exact science of these things eludes me.

Thank you!

iPhone 4S has a smaller antenna and slower processor (A5 vs. A5X) than iPad 3rd generation. More importantly, the iPhone 4S wi-fi is (802.11 b/g/n) 2.4 GHz only, while the third generation iPad has two channels — 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz.)

I don't think the iPad uses both channels at once, but I think if the second channel is more clear or faster to your router, it would not be surprising the iPad gets faster speeds over Wi-Fi. I think a faster processor alone would allow for faster Wi-Fi speeds.

Similarly, the faster CPUs in MacBooks and iMacs would allow for faster Wi-Fi speeds, even if the networking architecture is the same. (I suspect it isn't, and that there are larger antennas in Macs than iPads, which is another factor…)


Can't sign up for Apple Music When trying to set up Apple Music on my daughters iPhone we get a message saying "Sorry, we've found a problem that prevents us signing you up for Apple Music at this time. We expect to have it fixed in a few days..."

Two other family members have set it up with no problems.

IPhone 5 is the "faulty one" (others that work are iP5 and 6). All are running iOS 8.4

We have family sharing set up, each of us have separate Apple IDs (all linked to the same credit card).
Does anyone have any suggestions of how we may get this to work now (rather than just waiting?)

One clue may be that my daughter is the only one of us that has ever had an iTunes Match account (2 years ago, now lapsed)

I don't think contacting Apple Support is going to help much, but you can always give that a shot.

Clearly the error message acknowledges a known (to them) issue and a response saying you need to wait days for them to have a fix.

Initially I heard mostly from UK and other EU users so I guessed perhaps Apple needs to cleaning up those accounts. I don't think this anymore since it looks like some portion of people across the globe are being delayed.

Each user that signs up for Apple Music causes server load:

CPU and network bandwidth is needed to communicate with their devices
Each user uses storage and has to have their preferences recorded and playlists generated for each user (or at least linked to their accounts)
Each user's iTunes library needs to be ingested and stored online

If Apple has a temporary capacity issue, code scaling issue, or their model for how many people would sign up were too conservative then it might take days to spin up more servers or test and deploy the code change.

I've heard one person try to make a new Apple ID. I'd strongly recommend to not make a new Apple ID unless you are prepared for even more confusion or clean up later. If you're desperate to try the new hotness this weekend,  you can always open a support ticket with Apple or if you feel this error message shouldn't apply to your account.

My guess is this is an evolution of this error with an explanation that you don't need to do anything other than wait a day or so...

iCloud Music Library can't be enabled

You may have to pay for support if AppleCare don't see this as something that's in their scope of free support (recent purchase, paid AppleCare or just free to ask for anyone):

https://www.apple.com/support/music/

Look for an updated FAQ and articles or use the "Contact Us" link on the left if this drags on past your patience in the matter. I hope the delay is short for anyone wanting in on the service.


If I use Apple Tv as a separate display on Mavericks will it transfer sound I want to get an apple tv, so I can wirelessly use my tv as a separate monitor, now with mavericks I know this is supported. I was wondering if this means I can also transfer any sounds from my computer to my tv, otherwise it's sorta not worth getting.

AirPlay mirroring sends video and sound to the connected device.

You can over-ride the sound if needed by selecting an alternate output as well as just send sound to any AirPlay receiver as well.

This is how AirPlay has worked since it started with sound and the video mirroring support keeps adding features as time goes by.


Does loading a bootcamp partition in VMWare fusion affect Time Machine? Recently I upgraded the RAM on my MacBook Pro and did a fresh install of Windows 7 using BootCamp. I partitioned 200MB out of my 500MB drive to be for Windows 7. I then had VMWare Fusion setup the partition to be used from within it.

Since I've done this, I've noticed that Time Machine is running a lot more frequently. When I click in the taskbar to view it's status, it often says it is backing up approximately 5GB of information at a time, or processing about 2000 files at a time.

Sometimes I let the process finish, sometimes I tell it to stop because it starts to slow down the machine a little (since I'm doing heavy development work both on the Virtual and the Physical machine).

This leads me to believe that Time Machine is backing up my Virtual Machine in addition to my Physical Machine. Is this correct? Is there a way to prevent it? I plan on using Windows 7's own backup tool for the virtual machine.

After a little more digging, I found a KB article on the VMWare site that indicates that BootCamp partitions sometimes are added to the backup scheme in Time Machine.

This article indicates how to exclude the Virtual Machines from the backup, which is recommended by VMWare since they have their own best practice document for backing up virtual machines.

After updating the settings, the next time Time Machine ran it ignored my BootCamp partition entirely, avoiding the 4.3 GB backup every single hour. Sanity restored!


Is there an app that will make my (jailbroken) iPhone vibrate when a call is answered? I have an jailbroken iPhone and I want it to make a little vibration when the other participant answer the call so I don't have to hold it near to my ear while the phone is dialing.
I found this feature in MCleaner app from Cydia but it costs too much and have a lot of other features that I don't need. Is there a better way to do that?

As someone who is involved in some iPhone developing, I can tell you that you can’t do that with the official SDK, so unless you find another Jailbroken app, there’s no “official” way to do it.


How can I completely uninstall DisplayLink? Once upon a time, I installed DisplayLink but have since uninstalled it. I have another program on my computer that keeps crashing and upon looking at the logs, it seems to be an issue with the DisplayLinkManager.

Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.displaylink.displaylinkmanager[24073]): Service exited due to signal: Trace/BPT trap: 5
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.displaylink.displaylinkmanager): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 5 seconds.
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Up on awdl0
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook ReportCrash[24057]: Attempt to read info_array in pid 24073 failed, address was 7fff611746e8
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook ReportCrash[24057]: Attempt to read info_array in pid -1 failed, address was 7fff611746e8
Nov 12 00:28:31 --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook ReportCrash[24057]: Attempt to read info_array in pid 24073 failed, address was 7fff611746e8
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook ReportCrash[24057]: Attempt to read info_array in pid -1 failed, address was 7fff611746e8
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook ReportCrash[24057]: Saved crash report for DisplayLinkManager[24073] version ??? to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/DisplayLinkManager_2015-11-12-002831_MoonBook.crash
Nov 12 00:28:31 MoonBook ReportCrash[24057]: Removing excessive log: file:///Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/DisplayLinkManager_2015-11-11-221429_MoonBook.crash

So there appear to be some remnants left, but when I search for DisplayLink in Spotlight, I get no results (just links to Wikipedia, etc). So how can I completely remove com.displaylink.displaylinkmanager?

Just download app again from this link, open the installer file, then select uninstall from there :)
http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/osx


How to recover lost partition after diskutil erasevolume? I have the same problem as How to recover lost partition after diskutil erasevolume noformat

The op in that post solved by going into Internet Recovery. I did that but problem remains. Reinstall of MacOS didn't work either.

Here's my output for relevant commands:

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         96.2 GB    disk0s2
   3:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +96.2 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            74.5 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 43.7 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.1 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

$ diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

$ sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  187824088      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  188233728      32768      3  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
  188266496   48711647
  236978143         32         Sec GPT table
  236978175          1         Sec GPT header

$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 14751/255/63 [236978176 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  236978175] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

I think there's about 20-24gb in that lost partition

additional info:
- macOS Mojave v10.14.2
- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

I'd really like to recover it and join into my main partition (I think is disk0s2)

You can not recover the free space because the small 16 MB "Microsoft Reserved" partition is between the APFS container and this free space. The command below will remove the "Microsoft Reserved" partition and add the 16 MB to the 24.9 GB of free space that already exists.

diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s3

The next command will expand the APFS container to occupy the free space.

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


MacOS 10.15.3 Update Can't Be Installed I tried to install the last update of macOS but it gives me this error,
Can anyone help me with that?
Note: I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2014

You can't update an alpha or beta macOS with a final updater!

Simply visit the App Store and download the latest macOS installer and install it.

You might have to unenroll from the Beta Program or remove a configuration profile in macOS before you can install the current 10.15.3 (Catalina) successfully.


Is there a way to make the alarm clock much much louder? I'm trying to treat my iPhone as an alarm clock. But, it's not working. I'm not a light sleeper and the iPhone "alarm clock" does not have that kind of explosive power my traditional alarm clock has.

Is there a way to make the alarm clock much much louder?

Why yes - there is an accessory for just that purpose.

Several musical instrument recyclers/artists - notably Christopher Locke - make and sell a selection of iPhone, iPad and other amplifiers that will make your iOS alarm clock much louder.


Temporarily disable autocorrect (in Lion) Occasionally, when chatting, it is fun to deliberately misspell words, dyaknowadImean?

OS X Lion is autocorrecting my misspellings into completely random words! Does anyone know how I can temporarily, (e.g. by holding down a key as i type the deliberately misspelled word?) disable autocorrect?

Go to System Preferences, Keyboard, Shortcuts. Add a shortcut for All Applications. Give it the keystroke you like. The name should be: "Correct Spelling Automatically".


npm install -g react-native-cli does not work: EACCES: permission denied I'm trying install react-native-cli in My MacBook. Executing this command in my terminal

npm install -g react-native-cli

Getting this error

npm WARN checkPermissions Missing write access to /usr/local/lib/node_modules
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! syscall access
npm ERR! path /usr/local/lib/node_modules
npm ERR! errno -13
npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'
npm ERR!  [Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'] {
npm ERR!   stack: "Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'",
npm ERR!   errno: -13,
npm ERR!   code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR!   syscall: 'access',
npm ERR!   path: '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'
npm ERR! }
npm ERR!
npm ERR! The operation was rejected by your operating system.
npm ERR! It is likely you do not have the permissions to access this file as the current user
npm ERR!
npm ERR! If you believe this might be a permissions issue, please double-check the
npm ERR! permissions of the file and its containing directories, or try running
npm ERR! the command again as root/Administrator.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/kishore/.npm/_logs/2020-01-16T01_34_30_715Z-debug.log

in my which node

/usr/local/bin/node

My npm get prefix

/usr/local

Help me out fix the issues.

Finally found the solution after many tries

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/bin

After that running working fine without any issues.

npm install -g react-native-cli

Now it's working fine.


Sound not working on MacBook Air mute box is checked and greyed out My audio on my MacBook Air is not working. When I go into System Preferences and go to Sound, the mute box is checked and greyed out. My Mac can't play anything including iTunes and YouTube, even system sounds such as the sound when you send an email.

I have reset the NVRAM and repaired the disk using Disk Utility. I also went into Terminal and ran sudo killall coreaudiod but that didn't work either.

When I turn on the laptop it doesn't make a startup chime like it normally would. My headphone jack does not have a red light in it and it shows I have no audio output or input.

Devon, I did some investigating on the apple support site and found this.

1) Delete both files in YourHardDrive->Library->Preferences->Audio -> (both .plist files in this folder)
com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist
com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist

2) Make sure to empty your trash.

3) Reboot

Let us know if this works!

Apple Support Reference: https://discussions.apple.com/message/23538716#23538716


Apple Mail - extra notification on specific mailbox I'm using Apple Mail on my MAC, switched notifications on (working). Connected account is hosted by Google so I'm using labels feature very offten (Mailbox in Apple Mail). However, if I move incomming message into specific label (without getting into Inbox), I'm receiving no notification.

Point is that as developer, I'm using extra label (mailbox) for server errors and would be really fine to have any notification on it, or better, special (more annoying) one.

Any clue? Thanks.

This should work for you :)
In Mail Preferences, General settings ....
New message Notification...All mail boxes :) or pick one !


View MAC addresses of local bluetooth devices I have never connected to I want to view the MAC address of a Bluetooth device I haven't paired. Like a WiFI scanner can put the wireless radio in listen / scan mode (which on ethernet is sometimes called promiscuous mode), I’d like to operate my Mac bluetooth radio to list and log nearby transmissions.

https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/bluetooth-core-specification/

I’m much more familiar with windows and Linux than macOS and am running Catalina (10.15.6) on a 2019 MBP. I'm looking for some equivalent to "bluetoothctl" or "hcitool."
Is this something Apple provides or do I need third party software to log or collect identifying information from nearby bluetooth transmissions and identify devices that have not yet been paired?

I've been spoiled by the Apple Developer tools, so I haven't needed to use any command line tools.

https://developer.apple.com/download/more/?=bluetooth

In the additional tools download for your Xcode version (get Xcode from the App Store even if you have a developer account). The link above probably requires a paid account, but might work for free developers.

Bluetooth explorer and PacketLogger are two tools suited for your task. The former would be the best tool for scanning Bluetooth radio and deconstructing the advertised devices that are in range.

It's got a ton of other tricks and tools like dashboards, RSSI sweepers, throughout testers, but if you need professional level first party tools, I'd recommend this.


The disk Macintosh HD can't be unlocked I am getting "the disk Macintosh HD can't be unlocked" popup error after reinstalling Catalina.

I checked Disk Utility, there are 3 partitions named, "Macintosh HD", "Macintosh HD - Data", "Macintosh HD - Data Data".

How can I fix this?

If you can still boot into the Recovery or Internet Recovery please open the Terminal app from the Utilities folder and copy the result of

  du -f

and

  diskutil apfs list

It is likely there was an issue with the install/migration and depending of free space you might have to erase and reinstall the OS (for that please follow the Apple guide at https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/reinstall-macos-mchlp1599/mac)

Editing the name of the drives so they are unique will help you know which is which.


Why can't I send my files to the Trash? When I try to delete some items, whether from the keyboard (Command+Delete) or by dragging to the Trash on the dock, I get a message informing me that I can only permanently delete the item.

Why is that? How can I change that? (Is it a permissions issue?)

The Finder can't create or manage trashbins over network shares, and will tell you that.


MacBook Pro Slow local network SMB upload speed I am manually transferring some files using SMB over my local network to a new MacBook Pro from an old one (mid-2012) via WiFi, and the old MBP appears to be the bottleneck, with its Data sent/sec rate averaging ~3 MB/sec.

The WiFi router is rated AC3200, and I ran a download test to each laptop from a Gigabit Ethernet-connected NAS (isolating WiFi download), and they could both achieve 20-30 MB/sec download. On the sending computer, I copied a large file to Dropbox, and the total Data Sent rate jumped from ~3 MB/sec to ~18 MB/sec, so it appears the problem is specific to the SMB transfer, not that computer's WiFi connection.

Why wouldn't an SMB transfer go faster, since there is clearly headroom for upload in the sending computer and similarly download headroom of the receiving one?

Looks like the issue is with SMB client signing. Try disabling it and see if your transfer speeds improve.
To do this open Terminal.app (search with Spotlight or go to Applications/Utilities)
Enter this command: sudo nano /etc/nsmb.conf
Add these lines to that file:
[default]
signing_required=no
Ctrl + X to exit the editor, Y to save the file name, Enter to confirm.
Unmount and remount the SMB share and test the transfer speed.


Re-download purchased film on iPad without iTunes I'm having real difficulty finding an answer to this problem and since the device is out of warranty, Apple want to charge £25 for me to even report the problem.

We have ONE film that we've purchased on the iPad mini but it was accidentally deleted. Everyone tells me I can simply download it from the store again for free, however the "cloud" icon is greyed-out. We decided to bite-the-bullet and buy it again, but that won't work either, it says we already own it.

I've been told that I need to fix this by connecting to a PC, but this iPad has always been stand-alone and I don't have iTunes (or anything else) loaded on a PC.

I've got to the bottom of this now and there is the potential that some of the information may be useful to others so thought I'd submit the entire thing as an answer.

The reason why the "cloud" icon is greyed-out (and the root of the entire problem) is that the movie in question is No Longer Available from iTunes. I find this bizarre in itself, the movie is 800Mb but for some reason they need to remove that from their servers to save space...?!?

When the movie was first deleted and we tried to re-download it, it definitely still showed as being available in the store. I guess the metadata was still there but the movie itself was deleted.

This movie cost £10 around a year ago, you can buy it on DVD for less then £5. The lesson here is to have your OWN backups of material from iTunes because they take no responsibility for allowing you to re-download it later. I thought we OWNED this movie and Apple would guarantee our ability to download it onto any device at any time, but apparently I misunderstood that I was paying more money for a product substantially inferior to a DVD.

I found this out by phoning Applecare using the number from Jules' link below.

When going through the "Select an option" stuff, if I selected "iPad", they still wanted £25 to talk to me. By selecting "iTunes", I spoke to them for free. I spoke to a very knowledgeable person who was able to explain the problem and offer - if not a solution, then, at least, a form of compensation.

The offered me 2 movie-rentals by way of compensation, pretty useless for us but better than having nothing for our lost £10.


Failed OSX update and how to fix it I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2012. Until yesterday it had High Sierra. I tried to update to Catalina with an installer I found online, but the installation brakes up every time and starts again, once the computer is restarted. I get the Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed.
Luckily, I have an older copy of the system on an USB stick, so I was a able to boot the MacBook and access the drive. It is locked, so I can´t write it, but at least I can still backup and save my data.
The question however is, is there something I can do to save the old installation or is it corrupt now, because the update to Catalina overrode some files and there is just nothing I can do to fix that?

You may need two USB drives at this point. Your goal is to make a bootable installer for Catalina.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Assuming you don’t have another Mac handy or can’t convince someone you trust to make a drive and deliver/ship it, from the one you can boot to recovery, open the terminal app in utilities and see if you can run the guide above.
On older OS and some firmware, you could also format a USB as FAT (MS-DOS) and just drop the installer app but I don’t think that works for Catalina and you need the script to prepare things.
Even if your Mac can run internet recovery, since your network couldn’t successfully download the installer app from the App Store, something isn’t reliable in the setup so that might be more hassle than help. Also, you won’t know if hardware is the issue since failing to install is generally one of three things. 1) bad network 2) not the correct steps to erase and install 3) hardware.


How to connect four monitors to a 15-inch MacBook Pro? Considering the latest 15-inch MacBook Pro that has four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, I'm wondering if it's possible to connect four 1080p monitors to it.

I'm assuming I could connect three monitors to the three Thunderbolt ports , since one is reserved for power, but how would i connect the forth?

I'm not planing to game or do video editing of this machine, but otherwise, how will the performance be with four monitors (assuming this is possible)

Any ideas?

Yes, the 15” MacBook Pro supports “Up to four displays with 3840x2160 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colours” in addition to the built-in display. You don’t have to reserve a port for power, you can run off battery, or find a display that will deliver power to the MacBook Pro. Or you can daisy-chain the displays, and run one of them by connecting it to another display and not directly to the MacBook Pro.


Apple Mail send only account I have two accounts, a gmail one and a school email address. I want to be able to send emails from my school address and gmail, but receive only from the gmail one (the gmail and school email accounts are synced together so I don't want to get duplicates). is there any way to make only the receive section of an account offline in Mail.app? I'm using OS X 10.9 Mavericks, if that helps. I already turned off automatic receiving for my school email, but if I hit "get mail" all the email from that account gets fetched anyway.

Set up a new empty email box (perhaps with server side quota or rules to delete all mail immediately upon receipt).

Enter those credentials as a new account in Mail.app and end the sending credentials and server for this shell account.

Now you can send from the account you want and have no emails coming in.


Is there a way to show all open windows in OSX 10.9+? In OSx 10.5, there was a way to show all open windows in a given space using expose. I always had my bottom left hotcorner set to "show all windows" and my top right hotcorner set to "show desktop", and I found this perfect. Now, with mission-control, there is only "show all application windows", which is much less useful. Is there a way I can restore the hotcorner "show all windows" functionality on my mac running OSX 10.9.5?

It's a while since I used Mavericks but on OS X 10.11.5 El Capitan in the system preferences for Mission Control there's a Hot Corners button in the bottom left corner.

Opening this I was able to assign the bottom left hot corner to 'Mission Control'. This is about as close to what I recall Expose doing as I can get.

The resulting Mission Control view makes sense to me as it shows the applications open in the desktop space and identifies the other applications occupying their own spaces.

I'm not sure I find the 'Show all Applications' option much use at all either.

Thanks for asking the question - I've gotten used to using the 3 finger 'push' to bring up Mission Control on my MacBookPro. I like the hot corner option being there.


How can I disable Photos Agent on High Sierra (10.13.4)? Looks like Photos Agent is running in the background. I'd like to dedicate this machine to file services and not run unnecessary processes. How can I disable "Photos Agent" at boot time. I'm hoping to free up resources like RAM and CPU.

From personal experience, I can say that letting it finish once (it processes photos in the Photos app) makes it end forever.

But you can speed up that process by removing iCloud photos syncing.


Switching Apple ID on iPad (without losing progress) My family has shared an iPad for many years using my mom's Apple ID.  Recently my mom got an iPhone for herself.  She needs to now keep her Apple ID for personal use.  We would like to create a new Apple ID for the iPad now and continue to use the iPad shared among the entire family.  The concern is over losing app progress when the switch is made.

How will app ownership be affected by this change?  Will apps disappear because the original purchaser is no longer logged in on the iPad?
Will saved progress disappear when a new Apple ID takes over the iPad?  Or does progress remain saved on the iPad hard drive?
What will happen to achievements in Gamecenter?  Will they update to where they were when the new Apple ID launches a game that has already been there for years?

Thanks!

I think most people worry about this when they stop sharing an iPad. I used to hear these concerns all the time at the AASP I worked at. Let's address each issue in turn.

Apps will still remain associated to your mom's Apple ID, but they won't disappear. If you sign out of your mom's account and sign in with the new one, the apps stay exactly where they are. The only snag is, when it comes time to update, you will be asked for your mom's Apple ID and password to update them.
None of the data saved in apps will disappear when you switch an Apple ID as it is all saved locally on the device (except in the case of online games such as Clash of Clans etc, but they usually require you to log in with a 3rd Party service such as Facebook which then stores your save data instead).
Unfortunately, the Game Centre achievements are linked to your mom's Apple ID and if you sign out of hers and in with another, those achievements will disappear. Often, games feature a local achievement board which will remain on the device, and there is a chance it would sync to the new Apple ID, but in most cases I'm afraid you'll have to get those achievements again. But hey, look at it this way, that old game you haven't played in months? You can have some more fun with it again trying to set your old high score! ;)

You can have a look at another post of mine here where I talk about backing up and restoring save games on an iPad when switching users. You can use the information in there to backup your saves, then delete the games and re-download them with the new Apple ID to circumvent the annoying need for your mom's Apple ID whenever they need to be updated.

Obviously, any purchased apps and games would need to be re-purchased if you do this, so I would recommend your mom enable Family Sharing on her Apple ID and add the new Apple ID to the family so you can access her purchases without paying for them again.


How can I solve a mathplotlib error on BigSur? My build and version of Big Sur is undetermined. I’m using homebrew which says submit a pull request rather tan ask them for support on prerelease macOS.
I get this:
> pip3 install matplotlib
Collecting matplotlib
  Using cached matplotlib-3.3.2.tar.gz (37.9 MB)
    ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
     command: /usr/local/opt/python@3.9/bin/python3.9 -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/private/var/folders/1y/2wcx2c056m9d591zqdyv50mw0000gn/T/pip-install-zly4xiti/matplotlib/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/private/var/folders/1y/2wcx2c056m9d591zqdyv50mw0000gn/T/pip-install-zly4xiti/matplotlib/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' egg_info --egg-base /private/var/folders/1y/2wcx2c056m9d591zqdyv50mw0000gn/T/pip-pip-egg-info-mafx0kq9
         cwd: /private/var/folders/1y/2wcx2c056m9d591zqdyv50mw0000gn/T/pip-install-zly4xiti/matplotlib/
    Complete output (62 lines):

    Edit setup.cfg to change the build options; suppress output with --quiet.

    BUILDING MATPLOTLIB
      matplotlib: yes [3.3.2]
          python: yes [3.9.0 (default, Oct  6 2020, 04:17:54)  [Clang 12.0.0
                      (clang-1200.0.32.2)]]
        platform: yes [darwin]
     sample_data: yes [installing]
           tests: no  [skipping due to configuration]
          macosx: yes [installing]

    running egg_info
    creating /private/var/folders/1y/2wcx2c056m9d591zqdyv50mw0000gn/T/pip-pip-egg-info-mafx0kq9/matplotlib.egg-info
    writing /private/var/folders/1y/2wcx2c056m9d591zqdyv50mw0000gn/T/pip-pip-egg-info-mafx0kq9/matplotlib.egg-info/PKG-INFO

 ....

      File "/private/var/folders/1y/2wcx2c056m9d591zqdyv50mw0000gn/T/pip-install-zly4xiti/matplotlib/.eggs/numpy-1.19.2-py3.9-macosx-10.15-x86_64.egg/numpy/__init__.py", line 286, in <module>
        raise RuntimeError(msg)
    RuntimeError: Polyfit sanity test emitted a warning, most likely due to using a buggy Accelerate backend. If you compiled yourself, see site.cfg.example for information. Otherwise report this to the vendor that provided NumPy.
    RankWarning: Polyfit may be poorly conditioned

    ----------------------------------------
ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1: python setup.py egg_info Check the logs for full command output.

I guess the Accelerate backend doesn't work on bigsur, but then how can I install it with another backend?

This issue is not related to Big Sur pre-release version but rather broken matplotlib after Python 3.9 update, the problem exists on Catalina (10.15.7), too:
https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/18678
Most likely missing wheels support in NumPy is causing the issue:
https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/17482
Installing older Python version should fix the problem until the problem is fixed on NumPy side. (The current 3.8.x version is 3.8.6).
To install specific Python version please see:
How to install specific version of python on OS X


Can't move files to trash Lately, my computer will not let me move my files to the trash. It doesn't give me an error or anything, it'll just give me the usual 'moving file to trash' message and it gets stuck right there. I can't stop the process and the process of moving the file into the trash never finishes. I have to force reload finder to get rid of that message and even then, the file is not in the trash. I'm honestly not sure why it's doing this.

I would suggest you reset your Finder by deleting its property file. As you can't delete it via Finder, you'll have to use Terminal for that

Open Terminal
type cd ~/Library/Preferences followed by Enter
type rm com.apple.finder.plist followed by Enter

Then restart your computer.


Displaying combined file size of selected files in Finder To find details about a files size, you can right click and select "Get Info":

When I select a large number of files, and want to get information about all if them together as a single selection, such as the combined total size, I get the same window for every individual selection, and not a single view for the selection as a whole.

How can I get total file sizes for file/folder selections?

Instead of ⌘+I use ⌘+⌥+I to see the info:

Cmd+Ctrl+I does something similar, but gives you a static Summary Info window which doesn't update as your selection changes, and you can open multiple windows for different selections, which is handy for comparing groups of synced folders for example.


How do I restore a Deja Dup backup (done in Ubuntu) in Mountain Lion? I have pretty much started from scratch on my new installation because I couldn't figure out how to restore the files I backed up on my Linux installation with Deja Dup. I have GPG Keychain access installed, so what do I need to do to restore the files I had and look at them and see what I want to keep?

I really appreciate any answer you can give :)

Deja dup uses duplicity for storage. You may want to use duplicity in the command line, which is available for macOS.

Install it with Homebrew like this (install Homebrew first if you don't have it yet):

brew install duplicity

Then restore with something like:

duplicity --file-to-restore the/file/you/want/to/restore file:///backup/location /where/you/want/to/restore

Not sure if this will help OP, but could help other people.


Why do certain apps fill the background of Mission Control in Mavericks? Certain apps (Skype, Office for Mac 2010 or something like that) fill the background of the screen when I open Mission Control. When Mission control is focused on the space the app is in, all is well. When I switch to a different space, however, this happens. It is consistent (i.e. the same apps always do this, every time), and annoying. I've tried to find workarounds, but I haven't came up with anything. Any help is much appreciated.

(Note that I rearranged the window to hide my contacts, but it has the same effect with the window maximized or in full screen.)

This appears to have been fixed in either Yosemite or the latest version of Office. I've been using this combination for some time now and have yet to encounter this. (I haven't tried Skype, though.)


Restrict Content in iTunes I'd like to know if it is possible to restrict playback of certain content in iTunes. I know it can be done when using Apple TV 2/3 but can't seem to find a way to do it in iTunes itself. I can tag the media files using MetaX or MetaZ, these tags show up in iTunes but I can't seem to limit playback of films to only 'U' for example. Anyone got any ideas?

This used to be possible, but with the latest iteration of iTunes, it doesn't work.

The method was always as described above, and the same thing happened on the last major release of iTunes.  Apple eventually seemed to put things right, but it's happened again this time round.

I have movies stored on my Mac and Home share them via iTunes.  When my daughter accessed movies on her Mac, which had parental controls set in iTunes, anything over 12 (UK rating) was greyed out and unable to be played.  Now they're all accessible.

Perhaps Apple will resolve this issue too, if enough of us report it.


Need help setting up a script to change date and time Mac OS Catalina hoping someone can help with this. I am trying to write an automator terminal script in Mac OS Catalina that will turn off WiFi, turn off automatic date and time settings, and set my mac to a specific system date and time. I have really no programming experience but what I have so far works to turn off wifi and change the system date and time...but the script will not exit in automator...it just keeps spinning. Not sure how to get the Sudo -S command to exit once it sets the system date and time. Here's what I have so far:

networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

echo "password" | sudo -S date 0101000120

So this will turn off wifi, and will pass my password (can also do it through a dialog but thats not my problem) and will set the system date...then the automator wheel just spins....

Any ideas how to get the terminal script to exit and move on to the next command...or should I just run it and then quit the script as its spinning which isn't ideal but also works
command to turn on and off auto updating of mac system date and time?

Thanks so much for reading and greatly appreciate any help.

EDIT: Currently re-wrote the automator task to run the terminal command, ask for a password then pass that on:

networksetup -setairportpower en0 off
pw="$(osascript -e 'Tell application "System Events" to display dialog "Password:" default answer "" with hidden answer' -e 'text returned of result' 2>/dev/null)" && / echo "$pw" | sudo -S date 0101000120

Still spins the wheel in an infinite loop at the end but I can click it and force stop. Anyone knows a way to just get it to stop appreciate it!

I could get this to work by piping the password to sudo from a file instead of using echo:

sudo -S date 0101000120 < ~/passwd.txt

I'm not sure what security implications this has though, but it feels wrong ...

If you're after a quick and dirty solution then this will do it, however as per nohillside's comment, here are some instructions to run sudo commands without requiring a password. These suggestions work for me on Mojave in iTerm2 and terminal.


Network problems after Jailbreakme on iPhone I recently jailbroke my iPhone 3gs with jailbreakme.

At the beginning everything was working well. But since yesterday I am having problems with the network. It would disconnect from wifi and there is no way that I can reconnect until I reboot my phone. It happened twice so far, but I am not able to reproduce the problem as it doesn't happen all the time.

Anyone here has any hint on what I should check?

Edit: I found out that this problem occurs if it changes wifi network.

Edit: Resetting the network settings was the right solution for me.
Does anyone know if this is a common problem? ( I was not able to find anything with google )

That happened to me too, and now my wifi doesn't work anymore so you should expect that. (not much an answer just a comment)

3 possible fixes you can try: (they did not work for me)

1) Reset network settings: Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings.
3) When connected to your network click more info (the little > icon) and check if DHCP is enabled.
2) The last thing Restore your device from Itunes or reset the device from Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings.


Can I play ARK: Survival Evolved on my MacBook Air? I bought my 13″ MacBook Air a couple months ago. I usually check the compatibility with Can You Run It before purchasing the game on Steam. In this case, I'm buying Ark: Survival Evolved. Unfortunately, that site doesn't support Mac.

Is there any other website where I can check game compatibility for Mac computers?

My system's specification:

Software: Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Memory: 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Processor: 1.7 GHz Intel Core i5

With these can I play any of these games on my system?

No, according to http://www.survival-evolved.com/ark-guides/survival-evolved-system-requirements.html

  Mac OS X
  MINIMUM:

  • OS: OSX 10.9 or Higher
  • Processor: 2 GHz Equivalent CPU
  • Memory: 4000 MB RAM
  • Graphics: OpenGL 3 Compatible GPU with 1GB Video RAM
  • Hard Drive: 20000 MB available space

Your machine is under-spec on CPU & GPU & OS requirement.


Are the 4 LCD screws to fix the LCD replacement in an iPad critical? I just successfully replaced the front glass of my 3th Gen iPad WiFi, but when I cleaned up my desk, I found out I forget to use the 4 LCD screws:

Is it worth it working another hour to open up the iPad again and place those screws in place? Or are the adhesives strong enough to keep the LCD in place?

Go back in unless you are worried you will break it the second entry.

Adhesives won't hold under vibration and shock like a screw will and the screw pressure is what helps set the adhesive in the first place.


/usr/bin/nice and Handbrake This is really two questions... If a process is run with nice (/usr/bin/nice in the default OS X Mountain Lion installation) will it run processes in equivalent time compared to that process being run without nice? Does the answer change if the system is heavily loaded vs. almost no other user processes?

What I am hoping is that I can keep Handbrake translating my large collection of videos to H.264/Universal preset for Apple TV, while incurring little to no performance penalty to my other tasks such as Xcode. So can Handbrake be started (can any GUI program be started) with nice?

If it matters (don't think it does) the machine is a MacBookPro6,1, 2.66GHz i7 with 8GB RAM. RAM is often fully used according to iStat Menus but that's the maximum for this machine.

Yes, you can run a GUI app with nice. For example, to run TextEdit with a niceness of 10:

nice /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit

It really depends on whether handbrake is using more CPU or more RAM. Xcode is a RAM hog, and nice won't help there, but if it's CPU, you're good.


Wrong Storage Space in El Capitan I am running OS X EL Capitan (10.11.3) on my MBP and I have been trying to use BootCamp.  Whenever I try to open the Boot Camp Assistant it says you need at least 50 GB free space.  I have deleted many files (emptied the Trash) but the free space remains the same (43 GB).  I have read many solutions,  re-indexed Spotlight search couple of times, and restarted the machine several times.  But the free space is still the same. Can anyone please help me?

File Clearing

As user2277872 mentioned it's probably a good idea to get a disk analysis application to find out what's eating up your disk space. A few good applications to start with are DaisyDisk, OmniDiskSweeper and Disk Inventory X, each available here, here and here respectively.

If you find no big files cluttering up your space, here's another link covering some things that might be using up your disk space that you may have overlooked: http://www.howtogeek.com/184091/5-ways-to-free-up-disk-space-on-a-mac/

Partition Resizing

However, if your 43 available GBs are on your Windows partition, no amount of file deletion on the Mac partition is going to help. What you need to do is resize the partitions.

Disclaimer: it's always a good idea to make a backup. In theory, no data should get deleted but things can always go wrong. Grab an external HDD and image your system onto it, or at least copy your important files over.

Boot into Recovery (Cmd-R on startup) and open Disk Utility.
Select your parent drive for both your Mac and Windows partitions (assuming they're on the same physical disk).
Click the Partition button in the toolbar and resize accordingly. You may want to allocate about 80GB to Windows or more depending on how much you intend to use it.
Click Apply and reboot. You should be able to boot into your Windows partition now.


How do I skip a music video on the Apple TV (4th gen)? When listening to my music on random on the Apple TV sometimes a music video pops up that I want to skip. Clicking on the right side of the Siri remote skips forwards a few seconds instead of the skipping the entire video. Is there an easy way to skip the entire video?

This is not supported on ATV4, although I thought it was on earlier versions.  I even tried a programmable remote (a Harmony), which offers more buttons/commands than the Apple remote, but none of them seem to offer a Skip/Next function during music videos.


How do I change settings in QuickTime 10? I'm trying to follow these instructions on configuring QuickTime so I can use a browser-based web app that uses QuickTime as a plugin in FireFox: http://tones.wolfram.com/tsfaqs/osx/configurequicktime.html

I'm using QuickTime Player version 10.4 (833.1). The instructions I'm reading clearly indicate that QuickTime Player should have a Preferences option in its menu bar, as shown in this picture:

However, my version of QuickTime Player does not seem to have any preferences whatsoever:

How do I change QuickTime settings using QuickTime Player 10.4?

For that website you need the legacy version of QuickTime player. It is called QuickTime player 7 and is located in your /Applications/Utility folder.

If it is not there get it from Apple.


Is there a way to disable "Top Hits" in the Safari 6 address bar? The Top Hits section of the suggested results list that appears when I type in the Safari address bar proposes sites that are way off base.

Is there a way to remove Top Hits from the address bar's suggested results, or at least "demote" the Top Hits section so that it is not the default?

The Top Hits section uses the top two sites from your history, so if there are certain sites you don't want showing up in Top Hits, just press option-command-2, and delete the offending sites. (I don't know how to remove it though.)

Edit:

As noted in the comments below, the keyboard shortcut to access History is now Command-Y.


What is the format of a .xip file As Xcode 8 beta is available to download, I see it's distributed with a .xip extension, Xcode_8_beta.xip.

What is the .xip format? What's the difference between previous .dmg format?

According to the xip manual page:

  A XIP file is an analog to zip(1), but allows for a digital signature to be applied and verified on the receiving system, before the archive is expanded. When a XIP file is opened (by double-clicking), Archive Utility will automatically expand it (but only if the digital signature is intact).

Essentially, an .xip file is just a .zip with a signature to verify that the file has not changed since its creator saved it. This protects from both damage from a disk error and from a third-party tampering with the file.


Any way to force command line terminal to control a Mac? I'm experimenting a little with Automator at the moment and often get stuck with some pre-recorded automation running very slowly while the whole Mac (an 2010 iMac in my case) doesn't respond to any input - either by keyboard or mouse.

For now I connect via SSH from another machine and issue a killall Automator to get controls back.

Is there any solution available which enables me to halt / freeze a Mac and issue commands using a terminal?

It seems like you want the ability to enter commands using the mouse and keyboard when the mouse and keyboard are unavailable, which is sorta odd.

Anyway, I can think of a few ways to prod your computer into doing something without the mouse and keyboard.

A Griffin PowerMate. Set it to open Terminal or run a script when you press the button.
Do Something When. Set it to run a script when a specific USB flash drive (or similar) is inserted.


Core Graphics on a 2013 Mac Mini My python script imports from quartz.coregraphics. Is core graphics included on 2013 Mac Minis? I ask because import works on macbook pros running snow leopard and mavericks, but fails on a mini from early 2007 running OS 10.5. I don't want to buy a new mini without being sure that the script will work.

Yes. You should be able to still use those packages on Mavericks (10.9) with the stock python (2.7.5)

I have not installed any python packages and both of the following commands work from the python interpreter:

import Quartz
import CoreGraphics

If your import statement is identical to what you listed in your question, then you may have to change the import statement, but those packages appear to still be there.


Can I use basic iPhone 5/5s/5c with Aio Wireless "Aio Basic" plan? I would like to buy an unlocked iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s, and use it with the Aio Basic plan from Aio Wireless, an AT&T prepaid subsidiary launched in mid-2013.

On their web-site, Aio Basic @ 40 USD/mo is described as including 250MB of unlimited data at 4G and 4G LTE speed (with throttling after you reach the limit), but is annotated to be "Basic phones only"; whereas Aio Smart @ 55 USD/mo is described as having 2GB of unlimited data, but it said to be "Basic or Smartphones".

Provided I don't mind being throttled after 250MB/mo for getting the savings, will Aio Basic work for my basic iPhone 5 or 5s?

Yes, it would appear that this is allowed, but only as long as you go the Bring-Your-Own-Device route.

In the Bring Your Own Device option of ordering the 40$/mo Aio Basic plan, you can search for Apple iPhone 5 and, subsequently, select the Nano SIM Card option (the only option available), where they will also ask you for your IMEI number.

This also has been confirmed by a service representative through the online chat function:  you cannot purchase an iPhone 5 together with the 40$/mo plan, but as long as you bring your own device, going with the 40$/mo plan is completely OK.  They also claim that the throttling past the allotment would be down to 256kbps, although this is not written anywhere on the web-site itself so far.

At 40$/mo, this plan would be more expensive and with less data that T-Mobile USA's online prepaid special 30$/mo 100 minutes + unlimited data with 5GB @ 4G plan (available only online and through Walmart), but it's still a great deal for what it is.


No new wallpapers in iOS 10? I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. I have upgraded my iPad Mini 2 from iOS 9 to iOS 10. Official release, not a beta, neither a GM.  I don't see any new wallpaper.

Are there any new wallpapers included in iOS 10?

There is one new wallpaper included in iOS 10, shown below. iOS 9.1 included new wallpapers so it's possible that 10.1 will as well.


Hard drive in external enclosure won't mount I'm trying to retrieve data from an old MacBook.

I've removed the hard drive, put it into an external enclosure, and connected it to my current MacBook.

This is the structure of the drive in Disk Utility:

I'm trying to access Macintosh HD, but when I turn the hard drive on only Recovery HD mounts. (Although I'm not able to eject it.)

I've tried mounting it manually and running First Aid.

Disk Utility sees how big the drive is, and how much of it is used, which gives me some confidence, but other than that I'm stumped.

I do a quick test before doing anything drastic. The app Mountain has a free trial. I'd load it and see if that will mount your drive. I had problems in the past with external drives not mounting. Mountain has been able to mount them.

Mountain is not a free app but they do offer a free trial. No subscriptions required.

Mountain is a menubar app. When you click on Mountain it should show you a list of all volumes connected to your mac. From there you can click on the Mount/Dismount button.


iPhone 5S storage filled with "Documents and Data" My phone's internal storage has been pretty full recently- so I plugged it into my computer and iTunes said that somewhere around 11GB of my 11.7GB was "Documents and Data". But according to Manage Storage, none of the apps come close to filling that much space, and I even clicked into each one to check that iOS didn't flub up and not add Docs&Data to the total storage. I've been googling this for a few hours now, and I'm starting to lose hope of any solution other than resetting it.

Other things I've tried include:

Deleting all the photos and then from Recently Deleted
Dialing back the time and checking Recently Deleted (nothing there)
Deleting other things (freed up space for a few minutes but Documents and Data expanded to take up the freed space)
Clearing caches for safari, etc (again, freed up a puny bit of space which was then instantly engulfed by Documents and Data)
I don't stream movies or tv shows or even youtube videos very often, if ever

Any help is appreciated

Short answer:
Restore to Factory Defaults
Long answer:
I had essentially this situation 3 weeks ago, although my capacity was "consumed" by Other.

iPhone 5S 32GB
iOS 9.3.2 (later updated to 9.3.3)
synced with iTunes 12.4.1.6
on Mac mini OS X 10.11.5

The iPhone Settings > General > About > Available showed 0.25GB.
When syncing with iTunes, it showed unstable capacity numbers on each sync -- occasionally over-capacity with Other consuming 4.6GB, but settled down to 5.5GB available.  The 5GB discrepancy was concerning.
I tried:

rebooting => nothing
hard reset (Lock + Home, past Apple logo, to plug-in-to-iTunes image) & update (re-install iOS) => freed 60MB
iOS update to 9.3.3 => nothing

The final option was what prior searching had said all along -- Restore to Factory Defaults.
I just followed Apple's procedure and it freed 9.5GB!
(Not sure where it came from, but I'm glad to have it back...  and disappointed that it was missing in the first place...)

Make sure your backup is current and you know the password, if encrypted.
Disable Find My iPhone.
Restore to factory (10-15min).
Went through the basic setup tweaks (it defaults to 6 digit passcode, now).
Restore backup (I enabled encrypted backups long ago and it took 4 tries to get the right password... oops!) (15min).
Authorize (iCloud?) from another device (my iPad).
Restore iCloud (It asked for iCloud security code or another authorized device.  I used the security code, which generated an iCloud Keychain verification code that was sent to the iPhone, which was in the middle of setting it up, so it showed momentarily and moved on.  Fortunately, it was mirrored to the Mac mini.  Then I never had to enter it...  perhaps a race condition with the previous step?)
Strangely, a few apps appeared to be installed, but a big sync with iTunes put everything where I expected it to be.
Finally, iTunes said 10.1GB free & iPhone said 9.9GB free.  Not too bad.  So, yay?

Good luck.


How do I restore autoconf after Mountain Lion update? I upgraded my macbook to Mountain Lion today and found that I no longer have autoconf installed, is there a specific way to restore that or will I need to manually compile it etc? I have XCode 4.4 installed with Command Line Utilities downloaded and installed as well. Thanks for the information!

It sounds like you're a developer. You should install Mac Ports. It's REALLY helpful and useful to have. You can use it to get command line tools such as autoconf. It's always useful to have if you work with command line a lot.

Just install the .pkg from http://www.macports.org/install.php to install MacPorts.

After so, in terminal, run:
sudo port install autoconf

More info:
http://www.macports.org/ports.php?by=library&substr=autoconf


MacBook Pro sleeps unexpectedly and runs fans at high speed, even after SMC reset My MacBook Pro (15 in Retina, early 2013, macOS 10.14.5) sleeps unexpectedly, although there is enough charge in the battery. To wake it up, I must connect the power supply. Furthermore, the fans run at high speed every now and then, even though the MacBook isn't under heavy usage and is properly ventilated.

I reset the SMC according to these instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295, but the problems went on. I checked the computer with EtreCheck (core version) and coconutBattery; both detected no issues.

What else could I try?

Run diagnostics on the Mac as follows:

Disconnect all external devices
Go to Apple Menu —> Restart
Immediately press and hold down the D key while your Mac restarts
Keep holding the D key until you see the screen listing different languages appears
Click English.  Apple Diagnostics starts automatically.

Common results could be:

Wi-Fi — a failure of the AirPort wireless card (4AIR)
Hard disk and SSD (4HDD)
Logic board (4IRP)
Memory — RAM (4MEM)
External disk (4MHD)
Fans (4MOT)
Processor (4PRC)
Video/graphics card (4YDC)

I'd recommend you see if you have a fan issue: 4MOT


Help! Maybe hacked..? So after five years I finally got a new Mac..
As I was surfing the web my safari page froze up with a pop up saying to contact custermer support my computer has been compromised.. With out thinking I called the number and let the person take control of my computer, after realizing that this is a scam I closed out, hung up and deleted the support help program.
My question is, is there a way to tell if the lady had a chance to Instal any kind of bug on my computer ? Like the kind that looks threw my camera or copies my key strokes?
I looked threw my terminal for lsof files but I'm not sure what I'm looking for or If there was anything suspicious..
Any suggestions ?

Unplug the Mac, cover up the camera, and avoid using it. I'd also change all my passwords, especially iCloud ASAP. Change them immediately! Next I'd give Apple a call tomorrow or, better yet, take it in to an Apple store. You could try a regular computer repair place, but they typically specialize in Windows, not Mac.


What would happen if I plug in two USB-C power supplies into the same Mac? Would it charge faster? I have a bunch of USB-C power supplies (some at different wattages).

Would my Mac charge faster (or blow up) if I plug two power supplies into the same computer (different USB-C slots)

No.

Your MacBook will charge from the one which provides higher power. Quoting from the Apple support document, Connect with Thunderbolt 3 on your new MacBook Pro:

  Notes on charging your MacBook Pro:

  Your MacBook Pro draws power from only one power supply, even if more than one is attached—so using multiple power supplies won't speed up charging.
  If you connect multiple power supplies to your MacBook Pro, the one that provides the most power will be used, regardless of the order in which you connected them.
  You shouldn't connect any power supply that exceeds 100W, as it might damage your MacBook Pro. Also, using a power supply that doesn't provide sufficient power can result in slow or delayed charging. It's best to use the power supply that came with your Mac.


Recovering emails from defunct IMAP account I have an IMAP account within Mail.app which was recently “killed” (moved to a different provider to be precise). Unfortunately, I was not able to do a backup beforehand, because I received the admin’s notification about the upcoming infrastructure change too late.

Actually, I didn't suspect any big issue moving the messages from the mailboxes from the old to the new server (after all, Mail.app seems to be caching all messages for offline reading anyways). But this assumption was probably too simple. I made the following attempts:

My old email mailboxes were still in Mail.app, but showing the 'warning' badge to indicate that the server was no longer working. So I simply set up the new email account in Mail.app and kept the old one in parallel. I tried dragging my emails from the old to the new mailboxes -- and just nothing happened.
I located the directory which contained my account’s mailboxes in the file system (~/Library/Mail/V4/SOME-UUID) and copied this as a backup. I then deleted the no-longer working email account. I used Mail.app’s import feature and was able to import all messages into a local mailbox. Yay. I then wanted to re-upload these messages to my new IMAP account and the following happened:
When dragging a mailbox’ messages (e.g. content of “Archive”) to my new IMAP account, seemingly all messages are moved to the server. But double-checking results shows: Only messages WITHOUT attachments are copied, and all my emails which had one or more files attached are simply lost (they no longer show up in the local mailbox either)

Is there any chance to clean up this mess and get my messages back on the server?

Observations about the backup so far:

emails without attachments seem to be saved as .emlx file
in contrast, email with attachments are saved as .partial.emlx

My solution at the end: I wrote a tool to convert the .emlx and .partial.emlx files to .eml files. I re-imported these .eml files into Mail.app and was able to upload them to my new IMAP mail account.

In case anyone should encounter the same challenge, here’s my converter (Node.js-based):

https://github.com/qqilihq/partial-emlx-converter


How does the technology behind iTunes Match work? As you probably already know, iTunes Match is a paid service provided by Apple.

  With iTunes Match, all your music — even songs you’ve imported from CDs — can be stored in iCloud. So you can access your music from all your devices and listen to your entire library, wherever you are.

I was wondering the technology behind iTunes Match works. How does it match the songs on your computer with the right ones on the iTunes Store?

In late 2009, Apple bought LaLa.com, a site that did pretty much what present day iTunes Match does.

It analyzed tracks you already owned, and allowed you to stream the ones you already had on your hard drive.

The way the technology works is by analyzing the waveform of the music file and matching it to an existing database of known song digital audio fingerprints.

Obviously, that's way oversimplifying, but the basic idea of why you don't have to upload a lot of your library, as iTunes Match and formerly LaLa.com have an existing db of song "fingerprints."


What tools are available to help organize iOS apps into folders? It used to be the case that we could organize iOS apps on iPhones and iPads by connecting them to a Mac and using some functionality in iTunes.  But with recent changes to iTunes, this is no longer possible.  If you have an iOS device with many apps on many home screens it is now more difficult to organize these apps into folders (by dragging the apps across many home screens).  Can anyone recommend an easier way to accomplish this, including, perhaps, some third-party software that runs on a Mac?

You can use Apple Configurator 2, available on the MAS. It's intended as an enterprise tool for those managing lots of iDevices, but works just as well for one. It's fairly self explanatory and graphical in use.

Select your device, then from the menu bar: Actions | Modify | Home Screen Layout. There you can drag Apps about. You can even select multiple apps (Cmd-Click) and move them together.


Macbook pro early 2013 throws contents RAM away I have a MacBook Pro early 2013, running OSX mavericks and filevault(encryption) is enabled.

After a (I suspect) update, the locking behavior has been different. When the screen gets locked (manually or automatically) all running programs die. Including but not limited to spotify(while playing music), Time Machine(while in the middle of a backup, getting interrupted), Transmission(while downloading torrents).

It is not suspend-to-disk either, because all programs reinitialize when I unlock the macbook. Some programs do not properly save state, so this is really annoying.

The previous behavior was regular lock screen with a screensaver, suspend to RAM after a certain time has passed. Which worked fine for me. I do realize that Apple probably tries to prevent DMA attacks this way, but for me it is really an overkill at the cost of usability. The main reason for enabling filevault is burglary. burglars do not have the expertise to extract the encryption key from RAM anyway.

Is there a way to re-enable the old behavior(suspend-to-ram) without disabling filevault?

ps: I am assuming this new behavior is because of filevault, I have not been able to test this, because disabling filevault is not an option for me.

I have been able to test and this new behavior is not due to file vault. What you can do is in System Preference>Energy Saver set the display sleep to whatever you had the computer sleep at before that way the screen will turn off but all programs will keep going. Next go to System Preference>Security & Privacy and set "Require Password" to Immediately. Other than changing any shortcuts you have to lock the screen to turning the screen off then your computer will basically go to sleep keeping all programs running but you still need a password to get back in. Hope this helps!


I dropped my iPhone Xs into a hot dishwasher, will that damage the data on the iPhone? I dropped my iPhone Xs into a hot, steaming dishwasher, and it seems to be working fine. However, the photos on it are very grainy and pixelated. Could hot steam damage the data on an iPhone X?

No.  It doesn't damage the data, per se.

Heat, steam, and water may damage the physical phone, but it won't go in and start corrupting data.  The ones and zeros stored on the chip(s) aren't perishable.  When data gets corrupted, the whole file gets "damaged" to the point of being unusable; it won't lower the resolution to the point of being grainy.  This is not a photo on paper.

However, if you damage the phone in such a way that the phone is inoperable or the storage is damaged then the data becomes inaccessible.  If you sync your data to the cloud (iCloud, OneDrive, etc.) then your data remains accessible.

If/when you go to the Apple store for service, they will first check to see when your last backup was; even if you have iCloud.  If you don't, you'll be read the riot act and given a disclaimer and acknowledgement that they're not responsible for data loss.

This is why backups are so important.

While data can be sync'd to the cloud, it should not be considered backup.  Changes you make on one device get sent to the cloud storage and every other connected device.  A quick trip through the dishwasher won't change your data but if it hasn't sync'd or it wasn't set up, you could lose your data.

Grainy Photos

This is likey from your LCD being damaged.  If you want to confirm this, open the same photo on your computer or send it to a friend.  If it's clear there, your phone is damaged.


Play music across multiple devices at once I'm pretty well invested into the Apple ecosystem. I'm home sharing music between two Apple TVs & my MBP. Is it possible to play the same song through all the Apple TVs in sync? I'm basically trying to make the most expensive redneck housewide sound system.

Edit: I am aware I can setup a playlist and hit play on all of the individual devices. I'm looking for a central control platform.

Bonus: if it is possible, can I get the iPads and iPhones in on the shenanigans?

The Airfoil apps from Rogue Amoeba will almost certainly do everything you want, including sending the audio to iOS devices, AppleTVs, Macs and even Bluetooth speakers and Google Chromecast devices, all at the same time and in sync. Airfoil Satellite lets Macs, Windows, and iOS devices act as speakers for the Airfoil and Airplay sources.


How can I recover deleted iWeb and iDVD? When I got my MacBook Pro (1st version) last week on OS X Yosemite, it came with iWeb and iDVD but I deleted them and now I want them back. I haven't backed up using Time Machine.

iWeb and iDVD does not work in Yosemite anyway—crashes immediately on launch.


Opened iPhone SE wrong - screen with lines and no video I just yanked my phone screen a little when opening my SE. Now the display turns on but has lines and looks very broken. I am pretty sure it's the ribbon cables but I don't know where to get replacements and can't find any guides on the obvious sites like iFixit.

What I need to know is if it's definitely a problem with the ribbon cables. Where can I get parts and guides to fix it?

Unfortunately you have damaged the LCD screen which wont allow you to see any visual output until replaced with a new/working screen.

I'm not sure about your location but iPhone repair shops/stalls are common place all over UK (hopefully USA too).

If you feel confident simply a replacement via  ebay or amazon following a step by step video guide like ' Jerry RIG ' on Youtube who has excellent tutorials.

Alternatively you can opt for a local vendor to fit a new screen, inadvertently checking everything else is ok and not damaged without you having to pay for a potentially unusable LCD screen!


If I were to set/reset the root account password on osx 10.8, will I be increasing or decreasing the security of my system? Are OS X systems with manually set, complex (128 character), root passwords more, or less, secure than the vanilla system freshly installed?

Enabling the root user decreases security.

Apple turns it off by default which means that someone trying to perform a remote log in both has to guess an admin user name and the password. It's not a huge decrease in security, since all admin users can become root knowing an admin password, but by enabling root, you have either doubled the exposure (the first account on a Mac has to be an Admin account and the root doubles the exposure) or if you have several Admin accounts, it increases the number by one.

Since it only takes one password to be guessed or "stolen" - having fewer openings is a more secure stance from a numbers and chance standpoint.


Inbox empty using OS X Mail with outlook.com account (IMAP) I set up my outlook.com account with the OS X (10.9.1) Mail app using IMAP, pretty much as suggested in this link except that the latest mail app has no option to keep the account offline before it is created.

The connection to outlook.com appears to be fine, as my sent items, junk, etc. folders are all populated with up-to-date mail, and I can send mails from the account, but my inbox is completely empty.

I've tried a bunch of suggestions such as deleting the pertinent mailbox folder from ~/Library/Mail/V2 and also the EnvelopeIndex files from MailData to try and force a rebuild of the mailbox, but it seems these are to no avail.

Not sure if this info will be of help, but in the menu items the Get New Mail and Rebuild commands are greyed out for this account too.

It seems like this is a common enough problem, but none of the solutions I've seen work for me. Anybody got any ideas?

I've faced the same problem trying to set up my wife's Hotmail account in Mail.app. After much fiddling I eventually gave up and used POP3 instead.

About the only suggestion out there that I didn't try was trimming down the inbox (she had, I believe, 3k+ emails in her inbox), since some people reported solving the problem by getting their inboxes down to, say, 100 emails or so. I didn't even bother trying that solution since it seems so fragile -- what happens when she receives new email above the magic threshold that breaks IMAP? Is it just going to break again?

Much as it pains me to say this, it appears POP3 is the way to go for Hotmail/outlook.com/etc. accounts. IMAP appears to be simply broken.


How can I sort a Finder search by size on OS 10.6.8? I'm using OSX 10.6.8, and when searching on finder, it doesn't let me sort files by size, is there a way to do this?

This should do it:
Add columns to Spotlight search results
Quote:

Using Property List Editor
If you are using Property List Editor, start by going to your user folder and then navigate to Library/Preferences. In the Preferences folder find the file named “com.apple.finder.plist.” Double-clicking on this file should open it up in Property List Editor. If not, just right-click on it and choose “Open With - Property List Editor.”
Once the file is open, scroll down the list to “SearchViewSettings.” Click the disclosure triangle next to it, and then do the same for “ListViewSettings” and then “columns.” Now you should see a list of all the available columns. Click the triangle next to the column you want to add, i.e. size, and then check the box next to “visible.”

Once you are done, save the file by pressing Command-S. Finally, you will need to restart the Finder for the changes to take effect. The easiest way to do this is top hold down the Control and Option keys, click on the Finder icon in the Dock and choose “Relaunch.”
Now just press Command-F to bring up a search window and you should have your extra columns enabled.


Setting hostname via scutil When following various guides on using scutil the following would seem to be correct for setting the hostname:

$sudo scutil –-set HostName doriath
>

But as you can see instead of setting the hostname a prompt > is shown: and the hostname is not set.  What is wrong here?  I am on El Capitan.

The prompt is the interactive mode of scutil which usually is invoked by the single command scutil without options. To quit the interactive mode enter quit at the prompt.

In your case you are simply using the wrong dash: probably the en-dash (UTF-8: U+2013 - e2 80 93) and a normal dash and your whole command is interpreted as scutil only.

Instead of sudo scutil –-set HostName doriath use sudo scutil --set HostName doriath!


How to run tests showing code coverage in Visual Studio for Mac Community 8.3.4 I'm new in C# after a brief use of it in 2010.

I'm asking an Internet search engine - one claiming not to track me - how to "visual studio for mac show tests coverage".

That would link me to Use code coverage to determine how much code is being tested.

I think that's no use to me, because they command to:

  On the Test menu, select Analyze Code Coverage for All Tests.

I don't have such a menu to begin with.

This is Visual Studio for Mac Community 8.3.4.

How to?

I don't follow VS release cycles, but

  A fix for this issue has been released! Install the most recent release from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/. Thank you for providing valuable feedback which has helped improve the product.

from
https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/623728/vs-2019-test-explorer-menu-disappeared-from-the-pr.html

And

  Edit: Found the culprit, it was Microsoft Intune Endpoint Protection that was installed on my pc. It basically scanned everything and when visual studio got updated and files were written to the disk, something went wrong and corrupted my install. I turned it off by excluding C:* from being scanned and ran VS2013.5 update and clicked repair. Everything is fine now.

From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31604119/visual-studio-test-missing-from-the-main-menu


Right click selected text on a link, but only copy raw text I select the text of a hyperlink, but when I right click on it, there's no option to simply copy the text. It only allows to copy the link itself. How can I achieve what I desire?

right click, but instead of clicking copy link, click copy

EDIT:
open automator. Choose new document. choose quick action. change the top settings to:

Add a copy to clipboard action. Save it.

When you want to copy something, select, then right click it. Select services>whatever you saved that quick action as (eg. "copy")

This is probably not the most efficient way to do this, but it works


Terminal.app equivalent of `xterm -e 'cmd'` With xterm (and gnome-terminal, terminator, etc), you can run the following command:

$ xterm -e 'vim somefile.txt'

xterm will open and run the specified program (in this case, Vim). When the program exits, the terminal window closes as well. Running the above command, if you were to quit Vim, the terminal would go away as well.

Is there any way to get this (or similar) functionality through Terminal.app (on OSX)? The solution can be in AppleScript, Bash or anything else really, as long as it's achievable via commands I could run in a Bash script.

With AppleScript, you can do:

on run argv
    set command to item 1 of argv --you can customize this to be constant
    tell application "Terminal"
        activate
        do script (command & "; exit")
    end tell
end run

This will open Terminal and tell it to run a command (Your default settings need to close the window when the shell exits).
To run this, just use osascript filename.scpt "$command_to_run"


Reading a Mac IICi and SE hard drive on another computer I have a Macintosh IICi and SE hard drive. My understanding is both are SCSI. I know one of the two is a Quantum P40S (the one from the mac IICi) I also have a PowerMac G4 that works very nicely and has an airport card in it.

The G4 has a PCI SCSI card. It is an adaptec 2930CU scsi card. I believe it came with the G4.

Now I also have a third hard drive. This drive is an old mac SCSI Hard drive, 50 MB I believe. I am not sure what machine it originally came from. I have gotten it to play nice with my PCI scsi card. I connect it using some ribbon cable and the four large pin internal power cable and everything is fine. That is, the SCSI hard drive is not being put external to the computer. Hence, I am confident my SCSI pci card works.

Now when I remove this third, working SCSI hard drive and attach either the IICi hard drive or the SE hard drive, I get nothing. Interestingly, both of these hard drives have a small LED that attaches to the front of the drive. At no point during my testing does this light show any activity. I also do not feel the drives ever spin.

I would guess that there is some power issue.

Would anyone know if there is anything in particular I should be doing to work with IICi or SE SCSI internal hard drives? Are there jumpers, perhaps, that I need to assign somewhere? What about SCSI terminators? Did internal SCSI hard drives require some internal SCSI terminator. I am left confused on this matter because the third, working hard drive, required no special treatment.

Update 1

I have found that internal mac SCSI HDs have a built in terminator ( I guess you can't put more than one on the bus).

From this old Apple support page:

  If the Macintosh in the SCSI
  chain DOES have an internal hard drive, terminate only the other end
  of the SCSI chain. (All Apple internal SCSI hard drives have built-in
  terminators).

So this answers the terminator issue. Thus I am still unsure as to why this isn't working.

Update 2

I have gotten a hold of an adaptec 2940UW and the requisite mac firmware. I've also obtained the Adaptec PowerDomain Control program and SCSIProbe 5.1.2.

The hard drive is indeed detected on the SCSI bus of my Adaptec 2940UW. The problem is mounting. I get the following error message from SCSIProbe 5.1.2 when attempting to mount:

Trying Device 1.0.0:
   FAILED: SCSI error: -7932 (2) Sense: 1 (0)

Trying Device 1.0.1:
   FAILED: Logical units not supported

Would anyone know how to interpret these messages?

Since the old drives aren't spinning up, don't worry about the SCSI card, data cable, or jumper settings; all they should need to spin up is power (i.e. that 4-pin connector). Since the 50MB drive is working off the G4's power connection, I'm pretty sure that's OK... Which leaves problems with the drives themselves.

Many of those older drives were prone to stiction and similar problems. Essentially, the main spindle and platters would get stuck in place, and the spindle motor wasn't strong enough to spin it up. There were a variety of tricks for breaking them free, most of which involved some risk of damaging the drive beyond repair (like tapping the drive juuuuust so, or opening the mechanism and forcing the spindle "by hand").

Probably the safest thing to try would be refrigerating the drives (be sure to keep them dry -- no condensation!), then spinning them up cold. I had the most luck with spinning the drive in my hand -- the trick here is that you want to spin it flat, that is, spin it around the axis of rotation of the platters. If you're having trouble picturing what I'm talking about, don't do it, because spinning it on the wrong axis could easily make things worse. Actually, even spinning it on the right axis could make things worse; I make no promises at all.

It might also help if you can figure out the manufacturer of the other drive. If it's a MiniScribe 8425SA, I recommend a stake through the heart.


Apple TV, 4th gen: Local storage of photos? I wonder if photos (stored in iCloud Photo Library) are stored locally until local space runs out. From what I have read there is no persistant storage, only caching. Kind of like on the iPhone with the most recent photos available offline (depending on the amount of local storage available).

Some background: I would like to have photos on my Apple TV and take the unit with me when I visit friends and parents. There hook it up to the TV and enjoy the photos together with everyone.
This would also affect my buying decision which version to get (32 or 64 GB). Having to download the photos (and videos!) on the spot would be quite the show-stopper.

I would be very grateful if any of the owners in here could check and verify if iCloud Library photos are stored locally on the Apple TV.

Thank you so much for any help in this matter and help me find the right model for me.

Nothing built into the system or available via the app store lets you have safe long-term purely local storage without a cloud backup.

Apps that pass the approval process have a few kinds of data, but for any significant data, they can be broken into two groups: data that's marked as "cached", and data that's marked as "backed by iCloud".

Both kinds of data can be deleted by the OS without any warning.

Data that's marked as "cached" is deleted when that happens.
Data that's marked as "backed by iCloud" will be re-loaded from iCloud (possibly from a local caching server on your network if you have one) the next time you need it -- but also takes up part of your iCloud storage quota (even if you have a local caching server).

If you want to load content for offline usage, and you're not expecting to be able to play it back again a week later after doing other stuff on the device, then the "cache" type data is probably fine work for you.

Otherwise, you need to either store the data on a server somewhere (possibly as simple as a thumb drive plugged into an off-the-shelf router), or you need to sideload an app that breaks Apple's appstore rules.


Redsn0w or PwnageTool? iClarified says that there's an untethered jailbreak for iPhone4 for iOS 4.3.1 which is the most up-to-date version of iOS as of writing this question.
Let's assume we are talking for unlocked phones. My question is which tool is better - RedSn0w or PwnageTool? My question is valid not only for 4.3.1.

Wikipedia says "redsn0w is a utility to jailbreak iOS devices" and "PwnageTool is an iPhone jailbreaking application for Mac OS X that creates custom iOS firmware images" (cannot post a third link, but that one is easy to find).

Reasoning for the question: I have read on several places that an irreversible thing could be made to a iDevice (iPhone for example) that mutilates it somehow and it cannot receive updates from iTunes with stock iOS and only custom iOSes can be installed. Wikipedia says redsn0w is a jailbreak utility while PwnageTool creates custom iOS.

Second question: does PwnageTool do the irreversible thing I have read about? Does redsn0w do that either?

The only irreversible thing you could do is to upgrade your baseband, eventually making it harder/impossible to unlock. In the past bricking the device was possible, because you were able to reflash the bootloader incorrectly (iPhone 2g) and thus bricking the device.

PwnageTool and Redsn0w are from the same developers team (dev-team) and they are using the same jailbreaking method (as of redsn0w 0.9.6rc9 and PwnageTool 4.3). IMHO both are safe, but PwnageTool gives you more power.


Can I Delete My save game for something like PlunderNauts? I want to start over on PlunderNauts because I bought something with in game money that really wasted my antimatter. I want a way to revert the purchase or reset game. I would much prefer reset game.

P.S I'm not a complete noob when it comes to technology.

The easiest way to reset an app if it does not support removal of user content is to remove and then re-install the app.

Any purchase through the App Store can be re-downloaded for free.

In case the download is huge and you do not want to re-download it from the Internet, or in the event that the app is no longer offered on the App Store, you can also transfer the purchases to the computer you use to sync the iPad with and then delete the app from the iPad.  Use iTunes thereafter to re-install it.


PRAM and NVRAM differences and overlap with eachother and UEFI firmware chip Is PRAM stored on the same NVRAM chip that non-PRAM variables are stored.  I always assumed that NVRAM was the UEFI firmware chip on the logic board. Are all of these one in the same (NVRAM - PRAM - UEFI firmware), basically are they all stored on the same chip?
How do you set the PRAM variables like you set the NVRAM variables with the nvram command.

Thanks :-)

Yes, PRAM is stored on the same NVRAM chip as the firmware variables, but it is managed separately.  It actually shows up as a device in the firmware device tree.

HT1242: What's stored in PRAM

When you reset one, you reset the other.

HT1379: Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM

AFAIK, Apple has never supported direct developer access to PRAM, so it is not documented well (or at all).  The functions readXPRAM and writeXPRAM can be used to access the raw bytes, although these days they are just wrappers around IOKIT functions which access the APL,MacOS75 partition in NVRAM.

The nvram command line program only manipulates the firmware variables stored in NVRAM, and so does not let you access the PRAM partition.


How to delete macOS Installer boot I tried to install a macOS High Sierra update, but I got the error "An error occurred installing macOS" and thus I decided to erase the Installer.app and dmg on my drive. Now every time I close my Mac it shuts down and tries to boot from the macOS Installer boot, but because I erased the update I get the "No Symbol sign". I restart my mac and use the power key + Option to boot into my actual boot, but I don't seem to find someone who knows how to erase that boot, is there a way you can help me out?

At the Startup Manager (accessed with holding alt/option at boot), with your macOS volume highlighted by the up arrow, hold down ctrl (which transforms the up arrow to a circular arrow) then choose the macOS volume. This will set this volume to be used as the startup disk in the future.


XML phonebook for iOS ? Ive got a online phonebook that our company voip phones connect to, which allows us to keep a centralised list of all contacts phone numbers which is available on all voip phones.

The online phonebook outputs an XML file with the contact phone numbers, which the voip phones read.

Is it possible to also get our mobiles (iOS 11) to read from the same XML phonebook and input the data into the iphone contacts ?

Out of the box, iOS supports CardDAV and LDAP.  There's no native way to import an XML file for contacts.

I have (in the past) set up an LDAP server (Solaris based) specifically for this scenario - I was connecting Nortel VoIP phones that supported a contact list with folks who needed access to this list but weren't on our Exchange Server (which had this list by default).

You may be able to set up some sort of synchronization between your phone system and the CardDAV or the LDAP server which will keep the contacts updated.  It may have this capability built in, but given that you can get an XML document of the list as output, creating a script to update a CardDAV/LDAP server would be pretty straight forward.


Can someone else see my WhatsApp contacts / chats if I downloaded app using his account? I am a new user of iPhone. I got this phone from a friend of mine. He already had WhatsApp installed. I just logged in using my WhatsApp password.

When I was trying to update WhatsApp, I found that this app was downloaded using his account (it asked for an update). I want to know if he can view my contacts and chats?

If yes, then how can I delete that?

He can only view your info if he's logged into WhatsApp using your ID and password.  It doesn't matter under which account the app was downloaded/updated from the App Store.

When you're done with the iPhone, and before you give it back to your friend, be sure to log out of WhatsApp.


How can I add custom items to the Apple menu? I would like to add shortcuts to open apps such as Terminal, Google Chrome, Launchpad etc., or to open a folder as a sub-menu.

Is it possible to do so? If yes, how do I do it?

I am running macOS Mojave.

The Apple menu is not designed to be customized by anyone. However, I would recommend XMenu (available on the Mac App Store, and also download from here).

This handy little app will give you menus in the menu bar that you can customize, either to include the entire Applications folder as a drop-down menu, or you can add aliases to 'Favorite' items.


/usr/bin/codesign from Mac 10.9 The /usr/bin/codesign file on our server was removed.  It is running version OS version 10.9.   Does anyone know where I can download the codesign file for OSX 10.9?  Or can anyone pull it off their computers for me?

From OS X 10.9.1: /usr/bin/codesign

Alternatively, grab it from your Recovery HD:

diskutil mount Recovery\ HD
hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg
sudo cp /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/usr/bin/codesign /usr/bin/codesign

I recommend you do a permissions repair after copying.