Problem with applications not resuming where left off after low-battery sleep/hibernate on Lion I am having problems with applications re-launching from scratch, rather than continuing where they left off, when resuming my Mac (alumimum MacBook, fall 2008) after its battery runs low. This results in losing any unsaved work and very slow resume times. How can I prevent this?

This problem only appeared during the past few months after I upgraded to Lion. I am now running Lion (10.7.3)

In the past (Snow Leopard), after the battery ran low/out, the computer would keep track of the state of all open applications and the computer was plugged in and resumed (power key). No data was lost and I was able to get right back to work.

But now, when the battery runs out, most/all of the previously running programs relaunch from scratch. For browsers (Chrome/Firefox) this means bringing up an error page and asking if I'd like to restore the session. Microsoft Office products splash screens re-appear and I am prompted to recover files from backups. Terminal starts a new session with old results greyed out. LyX attempts to load backup files. MATLAB splash screen re-appears and I lose all unsaved data. Etc.

Visually the resume process is also different: Rather than showing a greyed out version of the desktop as I left it with a progress bar, I now get a generic login screen with the grey tweed background. However, it does not behave as though I had manually forced a power off since a) rEFIt doesn't prompt for Mac vs Windows and b) All applications that were previously running start again, rather than only the default login set.

Additional information:

pmset -g custom shows that all power modes are using the default hibernatemode 3 where the system state is both written to disk and kept in memory as long as the battery power allows.
Battery is in the "Replace Soon condition"
Harddisk is fairly full 27/285GB free
4GB of RAM

My best guess is that my battery runs out before OS X has a chance to finish saving the full memory image to disk. I often run lots of memory intensive programs and use all of the system memory (4GB) plus ~8GB of swap. How can I tell if this is the problem? And if it is, what can I change so that OS X has enough time to save a full memory image before the battery runs out?

Any thoughts on how to enable a robust sleep when the battery runs out?

As you noted from the system profiler, your battery is close to getting ready to fail.

  Battery is in the "Replace Soon condition"

Your best guess is accurate in that the "battery runs out before OS X has a chance to finish saving the full memory image to disk" This memory image is used to enable Safe Sleep. Without it, applications start from scratch.

A thing to try before replacing the battery is to attempt to calibrate the battery.

Calibrating MacBook Battery

  PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD), MacBook (all models), and MacBook Pro (all models)

  The battery calibration for the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) and any model of MacBook or MacBook Pro has been updated because of a new battery released with this computer. With these computers, follow these steps to calibrate your battery:

  Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook's battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.
  Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.
  Disconnect the power adapter while the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, the low battery warning dialog appears on the screen.
  At this point, save your work.  Continue to use your computer; when the battery gets very low, the computer will automatically go to sleep.
  Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.
  Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

  Tip: When the battery reaches "empty", the computer is forced into sleep mode. The battery actually keeps back a reserve beyond "empty", to maintain the computer in sleep for a period of time. Once the battery is truly exhausted, the computer is forced to shut down. At this point, with the safe sleep function introduced in the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) computers, the computer's memory contents have been saved to the hard drive. When power is restored, the computer returns itself to its pre-sleep state using the safe sleep image on the hard drive.

If your computer continues powering off completely in-between steps 4 and 5 after a couple of trys, replacing your battery may be the only way to reliably get the safe sleep functionality back, other wise you may need to manually configure your MacBook to go into Safe Sleep when you put it to sleep manually well before the hard power-off occurs. A Utility such as SmartSleep might help greatly.


iOS turn off Fade-in effects? (Not talking about Settings ➙ Accessibility ➙ Reduce Motion ➙ Reduce Motion)

Is there a way, on iOS (10+) and specifically iPhone (6+), to suppress the Fade-in/Mixing effects?

Especially pressing the HOME button to go back from an app to home, there is a small delay to which is added the fade-in effect.

I don't mind a fade-in effect, as long as it's barely noticeable, but with newer iOSes, an iPhone gets slower and slower. The 6+ is not that bad, yet, but still, some effects are annoying.

Suppressing obtrusive effects to get a more responsive device would be great!

How to remove the animation when closing an app

Please note: I tested this with an iPhone 5s running iOS 10.2.1. It should work with the iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus as well, but not with newer devices (iPhone SE/6s/6s Plus/7/7 Plus). Also, the animations will be back as soon as you reboot your device.

Part 1/2: Prepare

Open this picture in Safari.
Press the "Share" button on the bottom and tap "Save Image".
Go to Settings > Wallpaper > Choose a New Wallpaper > All Photos.
Select the new image (black pixel).
Tap "Set" > "Set Both".
Tap "Choose" > "Wallpaper" to go back.

Part 2/2: Crash

Now you need to crash the process that's responsible for the smooth animations. You need to repeat the process below about 10-14 times.

Tap on the lock screen preview (on the left).
Tap "Set"
Tap on the home screen preview (on the right).
Tap "Set".

You can verify that animations were disabled by pressing the home button. There will be no animation at all.

If you still the usual animation, go back to the wallpaper settings and repeat part 2 a few more times.

.

Please let me know if this works for your iPhone 5s or iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus.


What jabber clients are there for iPhone? My girlfriend just got an iPhone, and we are wondering what are the available (and recommended) applications to chat using jabber.

There are a couple of apps, each one with their own unique features. If you're using the new iOS 4 on a multitasking-compatible iPhone (3Gs and 4), there's IM+ Lite, which provides multitasking support so that you can stay connected even when you're not running the app.


How to attach video from Photos app to Gmail message I'm using the new Photos app on OS X Yosemite. I've imported multiple photos and videos from my iPhone 5 and they are now in my Photos library.

I would like to attach one of the videos in my Photos app to a Gmail message. I've tried dragging the video from Photos to my Desktop, but I get the following error:

I've also tried searching for the filename in Finder (IMG_2671.MOV), but that yields no results. Does anyone know how to get this working?

The Apple Photos app keeps all photos, thumbnails, application settings and other image/video meta-data in it's own package file located at ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary. As such, you won't find the original images or videos in a normal Spotlight search.

Native OSX applications can present themselves to Photos as a compatible extension. You can see these when right-clicking on a photo or video and selecting share.

Exporting the video from Photos

As gmail is not a native application with this capability (and a quick google search suggested no alternatives), you'll need to export the video and attach it manually.

Select the video in Photos and choose File -> Export

You can choose to export the video unmodified. However, as you'll be attaching the video to an email, you may want to choose Export 1 Video and select a smaller Movie Quality so the video will fit within gmail's attachment size limit of 25mb.


Books on Mac won't download epubs from iCloud I use Books on Mac (Big Sur) to organize my non-Apple epub library. Books successfully syncs across devices, and when I want to read a book on my Mac, I often need to click the cloud download button in the top right corner of the book cover to download the book.
At some point recently, downloading stopped working on Mac (only). When I click the button, the title is added to the 'download manager' ("Show Downloads" next to the "All Books" link), however the progress indicator spins endlessly and the books are not downloaded.
I have 15GB free on my 512GB disk, running Big Sur 11.2.3 on a Macbook Pro 2017.
Any idea why this might be happening and what I can do about it?

Updating Mac OS fixed the issue for me. I'm a little confused because I thought I was on 11.2.3 and after update I'm still on 11.2.3, but alas—it now works.


Make a script/app run on logout We all know that Mac OS X has the very useful Login Items functionality which lets you, among other things, set up apps/scripts to run when you log in.

I'm looking for a way to setup a list of scripts/apps that run when I log out. A "Logout Items" list, if you will.
Basically, I want to write a few little cleanup scripts for myself that will run automatically when I log out or shut down.

So, I'm looking for a way to have a script (or, ideally, list of them) automatically triggered when I log out. The log out would wait for the scripts to finish (just like how the logout waits for you to click Save if an app requests it).

Is there a way to automatically trigger (a) script(s) when I log out of Mac OS X?

Logout hooks were deprecated in 10.4, but they still work as of 10.9.

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook ~/.logouthook
echo $'#!/bin/bash\nsay a' > ~/.logouthook
chmod +x ~/.logouthook

The value of the LogoutHook key can only be a path to an executable and not a shell command. The logout hook is run as root.

The defaults command modifies /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist. Adding a LogoutHook key to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist doesn't work.

If a logout hook takes long enough to run, a gray screen is shown until the logout hook terminates. There doesn't seem to be any time limit after which logout hooks are forced to terminate.

I haven't figured out any way to run programs on logout reliably with launchd. When I tried trapping signals like EXIT, the code in the trap was only run when I logged out to the login window and not when I shut down or restarted.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>test</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>trap 'echo a>/Users/username/Desktop/a;say a' EXIT;while :;do sleep 10;done</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>


User Made Videos on iPhone 4S When I sync my iPhone 4S to my PC, I'm able to transfer pictures to my PC drive to make more room on my iPhone.

Why can't I transfer user made videos to my PC? The user made videos take up more space than my pictures and so I would like to free up some space for other save data.

Is it possible to transfer user made videos to a PC? If so, how?

Apple has a walk-through for importing pictures and videos to Windows Vista and Windows 7, here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083.


Use of “iPhone”, “iPad”, etc. in iOS apps An iOS app we're making has features which will work only with certain Apple devices. Can we mention them specifically as “iPhone”, “iPad”, etc. or should we use generic terms, e.g. “compatible smartphone”, “compatible tablet”? This would be text in the app itself, e.g. a button labelled “Connect to Your iPad”.

The guidelines indicate separate rules for publications depending on the target, e.g. “iPhone®” within the US, but “iPhone” with a separate credit section outside of the US. But does an app count as a publication? We can't really guarantee someone outside the US will not download an app targeted to the US, or vice versa.

I guess precedence would help here. Is anyone familiar with an iOS app which uses “iPhone”, “iPad”, etc. liberally in the app itself?

You should be OK. Apple guideline 3.3 states

  Guideline 3.3: Apps with names, descriptions, screenshots, or previews not relevant to the content and functionality of the App will be rejected.

If your app requires a specific device to function be sure to mention that in the comments when you submit it for review.

The main thing you can't do is mention a different platform:

  Guideline 3.1: Apps or metadata that mentions the name of any other mobile platform will be rejected.

You can really help yourself by clearly indicating why you used the device name in the comments. I always add comments during app submissions and I believe it's helped prevent a few rejections for more info.


How do I record the iPad screen with a Netflix video playback in progress? I am looking for a way to video record my iPad's screen while a Netflix video playback is in progress.

Is it possible to do while using the Netflix iPadOS app? Or do I have to use Chrome browser?

How do I record the iPad screen with a Netflix video playback in progress?

This is generally not a possible thing to do.

Capturing contents of the device screen by taking a screenshot or video recording is restricted programmatically in the iOS/iPadOS subsystem to curb on abusing the system.

You can neither do it while using a streaming app which provides access to protected content, nor by using a Web browser.

Consider going through these links which should give you some idea:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46319665/ios-11-prevent-screen-record-like-netflix
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/qa/qa1970/_index.html

Netflix app has been programmed (using the help of iOS/iPadOS subsystem APIs) to curtail users from taking screenshot or record screen to keep a tab on potential gaming of the system. A screenshot or video recording would simply produce a black screen to discourage users from doing so.


Can I charge my MacBook Pro 2015 without using MagSafe 2 power port? I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015). Now after three years of use, the charger isn't responding to being plugged in. I tried to reset the SMC by holding down the left side shift control option and the power key but no luck.

Is it possible to charge my MacBook using Thunderbolt 2 ports or USB 3 ports? I have seen some videos on Youtube people charging their device using these but I am not sure.

It is neither possible nor advisable to charge your MacBook Pro using Thunderbolt or USB ports.

It is possible that either your MagSafe 2 port or the charging adapter is damaged. Please stop plugging in the charger if you spot burnt marks on either one of them. It’s recommended that you get your MacBook Pro inspected by an authorized Apple technician. You may be eligible for free service and replacement if you are covered under AppleCare.


iPhone weather app - when does each "day" begin/end for high/low temperature? I know the two temperatures for each day on the weather app indicate the high and low. My question is, what time does each "day" begin/end? At midnight or some other time? The highs and lows often don't seem to "fit" with a midnight begin/end for each day, but I'm not sure.

If measured midnight to midnight, then I'm confused. Right now the weather app predicts (for Durham, NC) that it will be 19 degrees tomorrow morning at 6AM according to the HOURLY prediction, but the DAILY low for tomorrow is listed as 26 degrees. This doesn't jive. Anyone know the reason?

If is believed thy the iPhone weather.app uses a Meteorological Day.
This is rightly sunrise to sunrise.

This is roughly sunrise to sunrise and meant to be more useful for people who are looking ahead and thinking "what's the high today and the low tonight?"
Check the low for the following morning (around 4 or 5am), that's probably where you'll find it.

(Source)


Why does my desktop picture not change correctly? If I go into the Desktop & Screensaver preference pane to change my desktop background.

The result is that my normal desktop has the old picture I wanted to change:

If, however, I go into Mission Control to change to another virtual desktop, both thumbnails show the correct wallpaper.

How can I correct this issue?

Open Finder and press the keyboard combination: ShiftCommandG
From the "Go To Folder" popup window that appears, enter the following bolded path (just copy and paste it):

~/Library/Application Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db

Move the file to your Trash.
Log out of the account and log back in.

Explanation:
There's no property list for Desktop settings in Mavericks, as there was in previous OSXs. Instead, the Desktop values are stored in the database file mentioned above, which I assumed (correctly, here) was corrupted. Deleting it is non-destructive, as it automatically regenerates once you log out and log back in.


Risks of publishing the computer serial number on the Internet I'm searching used Macs to buy in eBay. Some of the offered items show the computer's serial numbers in screenshots and/or plain text.

Reading the Q&A Where to find factory list in apple serial number, we see this snippet from EveryMac.com (emphasis on the original):

Why not? What are the risks of buying a Mac whose serial number has been shared on the Internet?

If you have AppleCare phone support, one could, in theory, use your serial number to contact AppleCare for free support.  Otherwise, there's no risk to sharing a serial number when selling your Mac.


Shell scripting: Why does only the "-" hyphen throw an error? Goal: Cleaning up

Selectively truncate filenames in my nvALT notes folder. I tried using a productivity blogger's suggestion (which eludes me after a thorough search) to prepend ^ > - + to filenames, but it's not working for me. It's time to clean house! However, I need to make sure I don't lop off any alpha characters on filenames that do not use those prefixes. Plus I'm learning scripting and think it's fun!

Shell script

Here's what I've got:

#!/bin/bash

cd ~/dropbox/notes_test

for f in *; do
  FILENAME=$(basename "$f")
  DIRNAME=$(dirname "$f")
  if [[ "$f" == \^\ * ]]; then
    mv "$f" "${DIRNAME}/${FILENAME:2}"
  fi
  if [[ "$f" == \+\ * ]]; then
    mv "$f" "${DIRNAME}/${FILENAME:2}"
  fi
  if [[ "$f" == \>\ * ]]; then
    mv "$f" "${DIRNAME}/${FILENAME:2}"
  fi
  if [[ "$f" == \-\ * ]]; then
    mv "$f" "${DIRNAME}/${FILENAME:2}"
  fi
done

Problem: The hyphen

Here's the command line input and error message. I get one of these for each filename beginning with "- ".

DEV0041:scripts n$ ./truncate.sh
basename: illegal option --
usage: basename string [suffix]
       basename [-a] [-s suffix] string [...]
dirname: illegal option --
usage: dirname path
mv: illegal option --
usage: mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source target
       mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source ... directory

Question: Why does the hyphen—and only the hyphen—throw an error?

And how to work around this issue?

From the man page for mv, the first (and possibly second) argument on the command line, if it begins with a -, is an option and not a file. Only -f | -i | -n are allowed options.

Simplest way is not to use - in a file name—it will confuse other command line programs—given that prepending - is a workaround for something else I would just not use that character.

If this is not an option, you can rewrite the mv commands like this

mv ./"$f" "${DIRNAME}/${FILENAME:2}"

or (a bit more generic because it then also works for absolute paths)

mv -- "$f" "${DIRNAME}/${FILENAME:2}"

Another option (and is what I would do for any bash script longer than a few lines) is write in a scripting language like perl or python - in this case they solve the problem by their move functions not passing the filenames to mv


Choose which Airport to connect to I have an Airport Extreme on one floor and another one on the second floor as an extender. For some reason my device keeps connecting to the first floor Extreme - I know this because I can see it in the Airport Utility. How can I change this?

What you could do, is give them the same name, but dial down the transmit power for each.

The current AirPort Utility (the 6.x version) doesn't support this, but the old 5.6.x version can still be downloaded here:
http://coreyjmahler.com/2013/10/24/airport-utility-5-6-1-on-os-x-10-9-mavericks/


iPhone 5s blur when closing app I have an iPhone 5s. If I have apps open and try to close them (double press the home button, then swipe up), the desktop "blurs" before returning to its normal state. For example, I can see the carrier name moving and merging with the carrier name on the regular home screen. Is this normal behavior, and does anyone know how to fix this? I close apps all the time, so I find this a little annoying.

The "blur" would be considered "Normal" behavior!

The "blur" is used as an optical indication of application switching (and it is for your information).

The operating system would not need it, but the designers have decided to use it as information.

Changing that would require knowledge of operating system programing, and it is not recommended for general public users.


How to purchase a gift certificate in iTunes store? My iTunes version is 11.1.3.8 (downloaded and installed today) and this is on Windows 7 x64. Locale is Iceland, recipient locale is Germany. The gift certificate is intended to be used for in-app purchases.

The question is really as simple as in the title: how can I purchase a gift certificate (not a gift card) via the iTunes store? See here and here.

Whenever I follow the link to buy a gift certificate, I am being redirected to the download for iTunes. However, iTunes - latest version - is installed. This is Windows and I have tried Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera to follow the link. Apparently some magic is supposed to happen (iTunes is to start or to point to the correct URL or whatever), but doesn't.

All support/FAQ entries only explain how to redeem a gift certificate, but I have found none that explains how to purchase it in the first place.

So how can I do it, if the search for gift certificate in the iTunes store doesn't yield the item from Apple I am looking for?

What "magic" search term do I have to use to complete this seemingly trivial task?

Progress with the one answer from bmike. This KB article describes the process and has screenshots. However, my quick links look like this (included the top bar so it's visible that I am in the Home "tab"):

In many countries, you can easily do this from iTunes when signed in to a valid account with a credit card entered. I've never gifted to an account foreign to the US, so these steps are only proofed for the US store.

On a computer:

open iTunes and connect the computer to the internet.
from the Store menu - select Home (Command-Shift-H on OS X)
scroll down a bit on the right hand side and click "Send iTunes Gifts"
fill out the gift form to email a gift

You can also send gifts from iOS iTunes Store:

open the App
tap any of the icons at the bottom (except Genius, Purchased or Downloads)
swipe the content up to see the bottom of the page
tap on Send Gift at the bottom right
fill out the gift form to email a gift

Fill out the form or at the bottom of the page is a link to a FAQ on gifting. It has links to the web store for gifting if you wish to check out in a web browser or from a computer without iTunes installed. Here is that link for the US store (but looking at it, it might be fragile and change from time to time):

http://store.apple.com/us/personalize/itunes?aid=AOS-US-iTunestile-GC&product=ITUNES_GIFT_CARDS-101703

As you have discovered, the web store only sends physical gift cards for iTunes and physical gift cards for the Apple Stores (retail, online) and not certificates that can be emailed. Only iTunes will email certificates directly to your chosen recipients.


Error: "couldn't unmount disk" keeps coming up when formatting external HD to eXFat I have a WD "my Passport" external HD that is currently formatted for a PC and I would like to format it to eXFAT. Every time I hit "erase" in disk util it just comes up with the error "couldn't unmount disk". Btw, I am running on Maverick. Can anyone help me with this please?

I had the same problem with the same drive. I finally got it to work by rebooting from the recovery partition and formatting it using the disk utility option.


Consistent Console error message: invalid signature for com.cisco.kext.acsock I have Console open on my Mac (latest OS X El Capitan) and this error keeps reappearing a few times every second.

4/19/16 1:15:18.021 AM com.apple.kextd[47]: ERROR: invalid signature for com.cisco.kext.acsock, will not load

Does anyone know what exactly this means, and is it a bad thing? It keeps appearing at least a couple of times every second, so it's very persistent. I couldn't find much on this error.

Is it something that can be fixed easily?

I had the same issue. kextd was consistently using around 14% CPU and tailing of /var/log/system.log showed that it was trying and failing to load com.cisco.kext.acsock over and over again.

I uninstalled the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client using its installer caused the problem to end immediately.

I suspect I had an old version of AnyConnect installed that was from the pre-El Capitan days, and hence it didn't have a valid the signature. Luckily I don't need the AnyConnect client (I had installed it a while back briefly for some troubleshooting) since I use the built-in client.


Can I "fix" Xserves' IP addresses on a local network? Home/office environment:

27" iMac with dual cores running Mac OS X 10.6.8 and
2 Xserves each with 2 quad cores running Mac OS X Server 10.6.8
Time capsule.
Networking by ethernet

Can I "fix" the IP address of the Xserves on this network so that even if the servers get turned off and on they will always have the same IP address?

This would seem to simplify some SSH it looks like I need to do to run scripts remotely.

Yes - set up a DHCP reservation on your TimeCapsule using the Airport Utility of your choice. I prefer using a client ID so you can easily change things when you get a new server, but typing the MAC address in also works.


UTF8 filenames and shell utilities Try the next commands from the terminal:

touch á.txt
$ ls
á.txt

find .  -name á.txt -print

prints nothing.

My Terminal.app settings are utf8 - see here:

The question: How to achieve to work transprarently (Finder + command line) with UNICODE filenames?

I understand than behind the scene is the different unicode normalization, so:

$ echo á.txt | od -bc
0000000   303 241 056 164 170 164 012
           á  **   .   t   x   t  \n

and when

$touch á.txt
$ ls *.txt
á.txt

$ ls *.txt | od -bc
0000000   141 314 201 056 164 170 164 012
           a   ́     **   .   t   x   t  \n

but WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

As you mentioned, characters like á are stored or shown in decomposed form (LATIN SMALL LETTER A + COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT) even though most keyboard layouts insert characters in composed form (LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE).

The format is a variant of NFD where some ranges of characters are not decomposed. See Text Encodings in VFS:

  Important: The terms used in this Q&A, precomposed and decomposed, roughly correspond to Unicode Normal Forms C and D, respectively. However, most volume formats do not follow the exact specification for these normal forms. For example, HFS Plus (Mac OS Extended) uses a variant of Normal Form D in which U+2000 through U+2FFF, U+F900 through U+FAFF, and U+2F800 through U+2FAFF are not decomposed (this avoids problems with round trip conversions from old Mac text encodings).

You can convert text to the decomposed format with iconv -t utf-8-mac:

$ touch á
$ ls | tr -d '\n' | xxd -p
61cc81
$ printf á | xxd -p
c3a1
$ find . -name á
$ find . -name $(iconv -f utf-8 -t utf-8-mac <<< á)
./á


Simple video management and processing tool for Mac? I'm looking for a non-professional tool (open-source or commercial) to manage video collection and perform simple processing:

import videos and photos (from an SD-card) and parse date from file names
browse videos and photos by date and manually assigned names or tags
make video from photos ("slide show" produced by my camera)
rotate, cut, and trim videos
probably perform other simple manipulations like changing brightness

Single tool is preferred.

What I've tried so far:

bash + ffmpeg

This works of course but is a bit of pain.
iPhoto + iMovie + QuickTime player

iPhoto is ok, except that I need separate tool for video processing.
iMovie is almost ok for video processing, but it sometimes hangs when rotating video, so I'm using QuickTime player for rotating. Also, I was unable to set high fps when making video from photos, but maybe I'm missing something.
QuickTime player is also almost ok for video processing, but free version doesn't support making video from photos, and I didn't try Pro version yet.

So iPhoto + QuickTime player Pro is likely to be a solution, but I'd like to look at the alternatives before buying anything.

One option is DaVinci Resolve, it is free, but requires 16 GB of RAM and the largest GPU available for the machine.

Requirements:

if you're looking for something on the simpler side, and free I may add, GoPro Studio is also available for free, but with some limitations, such as with filters and effects that must be rendered in another software before being imported into the software itself.


"open with" and Spotlight cluttered with different versions of files/apps The app versions are not even in my Applications directory anymore. Is there something wrong or can I edit settings for that somewhere? It seems as if my backup drive is indexed as well. How to avoid that?

See screenshots:

To disable indexing of the back up drive

Open Spotlight in System preferences

click on Privacy Tab,

drag the drive in question in to here

or use the +


Copy and paste a chain of items on Mac OS X? Is there a way to copy a set of different items and then paste them in? The items have to go in separate boxes during a timed registration.
For example, Is there a way to copy the numbers:
20102
21568
20975
27965
and continuously hit control-v to paste them in subsequently (as a chain)?

While I don't know a way of doing it without an app I use [Pastebot][1] which is a free clipboard manager. I highly recommend it, it's "Sequential Paste Mode" does exactly what you want and it's free.


Dock preferences not saved Ive been rattled out of my mind for the past few days. What started the issue was a random kernel panic that rest all my dock settings. initially i thought it would be due fixed on restart, however no preferences are saved at all.

Steps i have tried

I ran Killall Dock but it just resets it to default.
Tried to locate com.apple.Dock.plist and delete it but initially there was no file which is strange. So i copied the sc from the apple website and recreated the file and placed it in ./library/application support/dock
Still no solution

another thing to note was that my VsCode was giving me a write error to the same folder which i fixed by deleting the old code folder

Specs: MBA 2015 on High Sierra

Since no one found an answer im gonna post my solution

The initial error that affected a bunch of other applications was a mismatch in the write permissions on the ~/Library/Application Support/ folder I deleted the said folder and restarted the application as the write permissions were not an issue in the get info section

Afterward my terminal froze . so i set it to bash/sh to fix it
KillAll dock and it worked. I cant exaclty explain what the issue was but i suggest that the system couldnt read the com.apple.Dock.plist


Free firewall and network monitor Application like the LittleSnitch? I am searching for a good free firewall and network monitor as the littlesnitch but I can't pay for this app.
I want a firewall that will protect me but more of that to monitor any connection in or out of my mac so that to check if any malicious connections are establishing from or to my mac.

Thank you.

That would be the TCPblock.

Almost like Little snitch but no fancy UI.

TCPBlock is a lightweight and fast application firewall for Mac OS X 10.6 or later developed by delantis.com.
The Mac OS X firewall protects you from connections that come from outside of your computer. But what about the software from your computer that opens new connections to the internet? With TCPBlock you can prevent selected applications on your computer from opening connections to the network.


AppleScript "can't get menu item" error I am looking for some help on correcting this error:

  error "System Events got an error: Can’t get menu item \"Clear History...\" of menu \"Safari\" of menu bar 1 of process \"Safari\"." number -1728 from menu item "Clear History..." of menu "Safari" of menu bar 1 of process "Safari"

My code is:

tell application "Safari"
    launch
    activate
    if not (exists document 1) then
        make new document at front
    end if
end tell
delay 1
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "e" using {option down, command down}
    tell process "Safari"
        tell menu bar 1
            tell menu "Safari"
                tell menu item "Clear History..."
                    click
                    every UI element
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
        tell window 1
            tell sheet 1
                tell button "Clear History"
                    click
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
        tell menu bar 1
            tell menu bar item "Develop"
                tell menu 1
                    click menu item "Empty Caches"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

I think you need to make the menu item "Clear History and Website Data…", not "Clear History and Website Data..." (a single ellipses character: "…" vs. three periods: "..."

I didn't test the whole script, but this change brought the menu item up in Safari for me via AppleScript.


osx 10.11.6: SDcard reader SDcard from Raspberry pi 0 has several text files (and python scripts) which do not show up when mounting on internal mac SD reader.  How can I recover those files?

The Pi likely formatted the filesystem as a Linux ext4 filesystem.

Type cat /etc/fstab and check the filesystem type of your / partition (look to see if it says ext4).

You can enable ssh on the Pi and use scp to copy the files across to your mac.  You can use sudo raspi-config on the Pi, go into the "Interfacing Options" menu and enable ssh.

You could install ext4 filesystem support on the Mac to make it possible to mount the sdcard.  To do this, you would install FUSE for macOS and make sure you install the ext4fuse filesystem handler.

There are numerous articles that walk through the steps required.  Here is just one example:  https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2017/mount-raspberry-pi-sd-card-on-mac-read-only-osxfuse-and-ext4fuse


Shortcuts of split view I just learned the feature of split view, does anyone know if there are shortcuts for that (moving a window to the left/right half of the screen)? If not, is there anyway to set up shortcuts?

macOS Catalina 10.15 onwards

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts
Click on the '+' icon
Set the fields to tile a window to the left or right. For eg:

Application: All Applications
Menu Title: Tile Window to Left of Screen
Keyboard Shortcut: Shift + ⌘ + L

Your newly created shortcut is now visible in the dropdown menu over the full screen button!

Note: You need to exit fullscreen to be able to use the split screen shortcut.


Change width of a column in a table in Notes.app on a Mac I discovered the nifty table feature (rows and columns) available in Notes.app on macOS Mojave.

How does one stretch or narrow the width of a column?

The rows and columns of Apple Notes's tables should automatically adjust to fit content. There is no control to explicitly set a width or height, apart from adding whitespace to increase text length (not recommended).


Mac Book 12" (early 2016) kernel panic IONVMeController.cpp:4949 My Problem:

Mac Book 12" (early 2016) in use for 1 year without any problem suddenly stopped while working and now cannot be started again / shows this panic report on startup:

panic(cpu0 caller 0ffffff7f90224e1): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. ID=0x95 ARG1=0x221 ARG2=0x4 ARG3=0x5 EDD0=0x0 EDD1=0x0 EDD2=0x0 EDD3=0x0 EDD4=0x0 EDD5=0x0 EDD6=0x0 EDD7=0x0. NAND Vendor=0x1. DRAM Vendor=0x2. SSD Capacity=512GB, FW Revision=9.135.01\n"@BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-234.60.2/IONVMeController.cpp:4949
Debugger called: <panic>
Backtrace (CPU 0). Frame : Return Adress
0xffffff81198c3cc0 : 0xffffff800ece850c
0xffffff81198c3d40 : 0xffffff7f902242e1
0xffffff81198c3e90 : 0xffffff800f2c15f0
0xffffff81198c3f00 : 0xffffff800ed2116a
0xffffff81198c3fb0 : 0xffffff800ec988f7

Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.lokit.IONMEFamily(2.1)[12D4270E-AFFC-34DC-9714-44D1FE33333F]@0xffffff7f90214000->0xffffff7f90247fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity(1.0.5)[9F6C41BF-4941-3A44-A292-4DF95ECBBE981@0xffffff8fa6a000
dependency: com.apple.lokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[A2EC4168-207E-3423-B948-EEB22E66F9C7]@0xffffff7f8f531000
dependency: com.apple.driver.AplleEFINVRAM(2.1)[10231892-A5CC-3F54-8780-67D38435875A]@0xffffff7f98209000
dependency: com.apple.lokit.IOStorageFamily(2.1)[F908D7F5-4F54-3889-8657-57F86350F4D8]@0xffffff7f8f44f000
dependency: com.apple.lokit.IOReportFamily(31)[B13DC3D3-7250-3DA3-BF50-C666EBEDAF4C100xffffff7f9018c000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
Not yet set

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 16.7.0 Fri Apr 27 17:59:46 PDI 2018: root:xnu-3789.73-1/RELEASEX86_64
Kernel UUID: 27E91059-1364-37A5-B944-çC39CB9864DF
Kernel slide: 0x000000000ea00000
Kernel text base: 0ffffff800ec00000
__HIB text base: 0xffffff800eb00000
System model name: MacBook 9.1 (Mac-9AEB2516C7C6B903)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 66088844367

Things I've already tried:

Ran Apple Hardware Test (Hold R on startup)

This showed a passing "No issues found" ADP000 reference code.

Reset NVRAM (Hold CMD+,OPT+P+R)
Reset System Management Controller (Shift+Control+Option+Powerbutton)
Ran safe mode (Hold Shift key on startup)
Ran verbose mode (Hold CMD+V on startup)

None of them worked, panic still appears

Ran Startup Manager (Hold Option on startup)

MACINTOSH HD appears for 2-3 sec, then it disappears and a black screen with the wifi selection remains. If I plug in a bootable USB Thumb Drive it appears.

Ran Recovery mode (Hold CMD+R on startup)

This got me to the typical 4 option boot up menu when installing OSX. When I go into Disk Utility to try and repair, my internal drive is not listed at all. The only drive that is listed is the drive for the Internet Recovery OS install.

Booted Ubuntu from a Thumb Drive (Create a bootable installer for
macOS - Apple Support) using the Apple USB C AV Multipart Adapter

Works, but does not show an internal drive.

What I think:

The SSD could be the problem. I wanted to remove it and test it on another computer, however, this is not easily achievable (https://blog.macsales.com/29795-owc-tear-down-of-new-12-macbook-reveals-ssd-not-user-upgradeable) and I do not want to endanger the warranty.

Any ideas whats going on and how to fix?

Depending on where you are the guarantee period is 1 year or two years from the acquisition date. However, even if you are over the date I expect that it will be repaired by Apple. The "SSD" is soldered on the board, you can do nothing yourself.


How can I log into an azure VM via my Mac? Recently switched to Macs.

I have some Azure VMs. In Windows, I just need to boot up the remote connections dialog, put in the server and credentials and it should log me in.

Is there a similar sort of thing for OSX as well?

You just need a Remote Desktop Client.

Microsoft has an official one called Microsoft Remote Desktop, that is free. It's available on the App Store.

There are other alternatives as well, such as CoRD.


Where can I find free WMA Conversion Software? I have a huge collection of WMA files (from my Zune days). And of course, my iPhones can't do anything with them. Does anyone know of TRULY free (preferably open-source) WMA conversion software? Is that even legal? If it exists, someone please let me know where to find it. I've been searching, and only came up with AVS Audio Converter...which is "free..." They give you a free trial, but each encode has a voice logo over your file. I could just use Audacity to edit that out, but who wants to go through that?

Anyway, please let me know if free WMA conversion software exists anywhere on this world wide internetz.

If these are unprotected files (non-DRM), you should be able to drop them directly into iTunes on a Mac and convert them to MP3 or AAC. I've never owned or used a Windows PC so I don't know if the same thing will work on Windows iTunes, but you could give it a try.

On a Mac, you can also install Flip4Mac, which enables you to load WMA files in QuickTime and convert them to MP3 or AAC. If you have a bunch of files, you could set up an Autmomator action to automatically do this on a folder full of files.


Can the list section shown in Day view in Calendar removed? Now I've upgraded to Mountain Lion, when I look at Calendar in Day view, there's a ruddy great list in the middle of the window. I have 30 subscribed calendars that I need to be able to see and the list is not at all helpful.

As it only shows in Day view, can I change Week view to be a week of one day?

Anyone have any other ideas?

Sadly I think you are out of luck when it comes to this. Like most Apps that comes with OS X there isn't much space for customizing the UI.


Does Apple keep track of iOS app opening? We would like to know if Apple keeps track of iOS App opening by users.

For example, Facebook keeps track of Facebook app opening to collect data of Facebook Insight.

Does Apple keep track of user behaviours like iOS app opening by users? Thanks.

I just tested this using Apple’s built-in “Music” app on an iPhone 4 running iOS 5.1, using ngrep and tcpdump to monitor network activity. No connections to Apple servers are being made when opening an app on any iOS device.

As you mentioned, individual apps (e.g. Facebook) may keep track of data like this by pinging a server every time you open their app — but Apple does not do anything like this globally.


Delete all files of a resolution Apple Photos I have recently, imported various photos from both iCloud Shared Album downloads and directly from my iPhone. The problem is that some of these photos are duplicates, however the iCloud Shared Album duplicates are exactly half the resolution.

Duplicate scanners I have tried fail detecting these duplicates because of their different resolution. Additionally, I want to make sure I delete the low-res versions.

Is it possible to batch-delete photos by resolution in Photos.app?

You can identify low-resolution photos in Photos.app using AppleScript and collate them into a single album that would then allow you to select them all in one go for deletion.
Ordinarily, this code snippet (run from inside Script Editor) would find the low-resolution photos (and videos) and put them into a new album called "Low Res":
    tell application "Photos" to add ¬
        (every media item whose ¬
            (height > width and height ≤ 480) or ¬
            (width > height and width ≤ 480)) to ¬
        make new album named "Low Res"

However, on MacOS 10.13 with the latest updates installed, it throws an error, reporting that it can't retrieve the specified album.  This is probably a bug in Photos.app.
So, I decided to assign a description to all of these media items instead:
    tell application "Photos" to ¬
        set the description of ¬
            (every media item whose ¬
                (height > width and height ≤ 480) or ¬
                (width > height and width ≤ 480)) to ¬
            "Low Resolution"

    display alert "Done."

Then, within Photos.app, I created a Smart Album with the following search criterion:

After clicking OK, the album was populated by the photos (and videos) that were marked as being of low-resolution.
Now, assuming there's nothing in there you'd like to keep, you would simply press Cmd+A to select all of the items, then Cmd+⌫ to delete them all from the library (it actually moves them to the library's Recently Deleted folder, meaning you can retrieve any items you didn't intend to delete).
A couple of notes:
If you don't want video files to be included in the cull, then use these criteria for the smart album instead:

Note the match selection is set to all.  This excludes videos and gives you an album populated only by photos of low resolution.
Finally, bear in mind that the AppleScript has to search through your entire library and compare the height and width of every item it comes across.  Depending on your library size, it can take a few minutes.
My Photos.app library has 8000 photos in it and it took about three minutes to on a MacBook 1.2GHz m5 to complete.
If Script Editor times out, wrap the code inside a timeout block and specify a length of time in seconds to allow the code to run to completion:
    with timeout of 300 seconds
        tell application "Photos" to...
        ...etc...
    end timeout

    display alert "Done."


Used to be possible in Snow Leopard to move an app between `desktops` with a keyboard shortcut? You could assign a keyboard shortcut to move the app with focus to a specific desktop.  Can't find this in Lion.  Anyone know if it's still possible?

I figured out how to do this.

Open System Prefs > keyboard
On Keyboard Shortcuts tab choose Mission Control
Enable the "Switch to Desktop..." shortcuts
Now when you click on a window and perform the Switch to Desktop keyboard shortcut it'll move that window to the desktop

Guess there is a mouse component to this, so it's not pure keyboard.  But I find it way easier than dragging windows around in mission control.


Can not use "pathping" command in macOS In the Windows I can use the pathping command to tail after the network path, but I can not find this command on macOS.

Is it has another name, such as ipconfig to ifconfig?

In macOS Terminal, you can use traceroute for similar functionality.

There's also a nice GUI tool called Network Utility that you can use to trace a path of your network traffic (in this example I've traced www.apple.com):

In OS X Mavericks (10.9) and later, Network Utility is in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications.

In OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), Lion (10.7), and Snow Leopard (10.6), Network Utility is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.


How do I stop my Mac OS X from going to sleep? In settings, I don't see a way to stop the PC from going to sleep.

Go to sys pref -Energy

Slide the Computer and display sliders all the way to the right (to the never position)

If you prefer you can use the build in (by Apple) Terminal command "Caffeinate" to set specific non sleep modes.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/Manpages/man8/caffeinate.8.html


Trouble installing Yosemite on new SSD I have a problem where the Yosemite install does not see 240GB Mercury 6G Electra SSD during an install from the USB drive.

I'm using a USB thumb drive installer. It boots up fine. Except that when I get to the page where it asks you what drive to install to, all I see is the USB drive itself, and no SSD.

I triple checked that the SSD is installed correctly. I put it into the machine straight of the box, brand new.

Macbook Pro 8,1. Yosemite 10.10 installer.

Any ideas?

Thanks

When installing to a new drive, you first need to go into Disk Utility and partition the drive before it will be found as an installation target. Once you've created the partition, exit Disk Utility and restart the installation process. It should proceed as normal.

You'll want to use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as your format type.


Moving mail to folder removes it from mail account I have two aliases set up in my Gmail account and on my Mac Mail.app I set up a rule for each alias that if an email is "to 'Alias A'", move it to folder "Alias A Folder" - respectively for "Alias B".

The issue is that by creating this rule, it works perfectly on the Mail.app on my Mac and it sorts them well, but they are moved out of my Gmail account, so I cannot read those emails on my phone nor on the gmail.com interface.

I understand that I could just create a rule to "copy" the mails to "Alias X Folder", but then my personal Gmail account would get cluttered with mail from the aliases.

Is there any workaround or scenario for which I can organize my mails in a better way across my devices?

Thanks a lot!

It seems you created a local folder (On your Mac). If you create a folder in your Gmail account and point your rule to that folder. Every message will stay in your Gmail account.

You can also make rules in the Gmail interface. Then those rules will be followed on the server. If your Mac is turned off it will also move those emails to the right folder.


Can I upgrade to Yosemite without a credit card? I just bought a used iMac, and updated to 10.6.8 from 10.5.8.
I created my first Apple ID, and verified it. Now I am trying to update to Yosemite, so that I can install Xcode.  When I try to give my Apple ID it ends up telling me I need to give it credit card info. I do not own a credit card, for religious reasons, and I can't figure out how to update to Yosemite without it.

maybe the information in this link will help?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034


AppleScript URL from open safari window I have a Safari window displaying a webpage. I want to be able to retrieve the open URL into AppleScript. However when I do this:

if URL of window 1 is "www.google.com" then
    --do something
end if

It returns an error of nothing being returned. And I'm pretty sure window 1 exists because in another part of the program I created the window.

Can someone tell me the mistake I made?

URL is a property of a document or a property of a tab in a window, so use this:

if URL of document 1 is "www.google.com" then

or this:

if URL of current tab of window 1 is "www.google.com" then

Update, example of how to use the exists command:

tell application "Safari"
    set b to exists URL of document 1 -- this put false or true into the variable
    if b and URL of document 1 is "www.google.com" then
        -- do something
    end if
end tell


TouchID requires your Password after 48 hours "TouchID requires your Password after 48 hours"

  Update July 2016
  Since posting this question, the message has changed to
  Your passcode is required to enable Touch ID
  & now
  has a documented answer at
  https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/245796/85275

I just spotted the above message for the first time today. I've had the phone 3 weeks [new 6s] & never spotted it before.

It's not something I need to 'fix' but I wonder if anyone knows what may trigger it; & why it took 3 weeks to ask me for the first time.

.. or, incidentally & totally opinion-based - why it thinks a 6-digit code is more secure than my fingerprint.

Late thought:
Does it do it 2 days after a reboot or OS update?
It's done it just one more time, which was perhaps 48h+ after the 9.1 update.

Current guess is it's "new to iOS 9" which is why people have been seeing it on older devices too.
I'm still convinced I get it once after every update - but it's something I just dismiss without thinking until later, when I've lost the train of thought that would allow me to 'accurately guesstimate' when it was last rebooted.

The first part of your question has to be a glitch. The iPhone 6S is still a little buggy; mine doesn't always play system sounds, like the Siri chime and the lock "click" sound. But I can explain the second part of your questing:

Apple thinks that a passcode is more secure than TouchID is due to the fact that the odds of TouchID giving a false-positive are 1 in 50,000 (stated by Apple). However, the article hasn't been updated after the 2nd-Generation TouchID in the iPhone 6S came out, and given its great speed improvements, I would assume that the 2nd-Gen has a lower chance of giving a false-positive than the 1st-Gen. The odds of guessing a 6-digit passcode, would be literally 1 in 1,000,000. Even the odds of guessing right with 5 guesses, 1 in approximately 200,000 is still higher than TouchID. I like the convenience of TouchID and will still use it everyday, but from a purely statistical standpoint, a passcode is much more secure.


SMS Relay – Hardware requirements? I am unable to activate SMS Relay (aka Text Message Forwarding) between my iPhone 5s running iOS 8.1 and (a) my iMac running Yosemite and (b) my iPad Air running iOS 8.1. Neither the iMac nor the iPad displays the activation code which is supposed to appear when Text Message Forwarding is activated on the iPhone.

The iMac is shown as "iMac (24-inch, Early 2009)" on the About This Mac summary, so is no doubt too early to support SMS Relay (elsewhere I've seen references to 2011 models being the earliest supported). So my first question is: [1] Am I out of luck even trying for SMS Relay on my iMac?

My iPad Air is only a few months old, which I would expect to meet the requirements for SMS relay. However, it is a Wi-Fi only model, so my second question is: [2] Is it necessary to have a cellular iPad for SMS relay to work?

I think you are confusing this with the requirement for Bluetooth LE to be able to do Handoff.

SMS Relay uses Wi-Fi or, if available, your phone's 3G/4G connection.

From How to Enable SMS Relay on Your Mac, iPad and iPhone - point 3 might be the salient one...

  Make sure your Mac, iPad and iPhone are all connected to the same Wi-Fi connection.
  Make sure all of the devices are logged-in to the same iCloud account.
  You don’t want to be receiving your father’s phone calls, do you?
  Starting with your iPhone first – and this is important, because I did it backwards and messed everything up – open Settings > Messages and tap “Text Message Forwarding.”
  Choose the devices on your home network that you’d like to receive SMS messages on – in this case, I chose my MacBook Air and my iPad.
  You should receive a code on your iMac and iPad.
  Enter that code into the prompt on your iPhone.

This might also be useful - FYI...SMS Forwarding does not require WiFi to work


How to keep Mac alive during internet connection/download Since OS X version 10.8.1, my Mac cancels the wifi connection and switches to standby mode, despite having an active download.

I can remember that the one advantage of the Mac was that I didn't have to do anything for that. The Mac stayed awake during downloads, so I could leave the house and if the download is finished, it would switch to standby mode.

But now, it activates standby despite downloading.

Here are my energy save options:

Is this a bug? How can I keep my Mac from going into standby mode while downloading?

I have Mountain Lion installed (10.8.3).

Caffeine is a nice tool that prevents your mac from sleeping / going to stand-by.


When Terminal forks process, current app loses focus While I'm running some program in Terminal (or iTerm2), when the program forks the process, the OS X desktop switches focus from the current application to the forked process. When this happens, the forked process name shows in OS X menu bar.

This is especially annoying while using full screen mode as it causes the  workspace to change when the forked process receives focus.

How can I stop this focus switch from happening? These terminal programs are interrupting the work I'm doing in other applications while they run.

In my case it was the Maven Failsafe Plugin that caused the annoying window focus stealing of ForkedBooter, and setting the JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS variable in .bashrc didn't help.

This fix applies to both Failsafe and Surefire (although in my case, Surefire wasn't stealing focus).

In your pom.xml, add a <argLine>-Djava.awt.headless=true</argLine> line inside the <configuration> for the failsafe (and/or) surefire plugin.

It will look like this:

<!-- this is inside your <project><build><plugins> block -->
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${maven.surefire.plugin.version}</version>
    <configuration>
      <includes>
        <include>**/unit/**/*Test*.java</include>
      </includes>
      <!-- prevent the annoying ForkedBooter process from stealing window
        focus on Mac OS -->
      <argLine>-Djava.awt.headless=true</argLine>
    </configuration>
  </plugin>
  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${maven.failsafe.plugin.version}</version>
    <configuration>
      <!-- prevent the annoying ForkedBooter process from stealing window
        focus on Mac OS -->
      <argLine>-Djava.awt.headless=true</argLine>
      <includes>
        <include>**/integration/**/*Test*</include>
      </includes>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <goals>
          <goal>integration-test</goal>
          <goal>verify</goal>
        </goals>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>


My iMac makes no sound at all My iMac abruptly stopped making any sounds while I was using Garageband. I think I had a microphone and headphones plugged in at the time.

I have tried everything that is written online: Safe mode, rebooting, fiddling with the output port trying to find the "switch", even launching, creating and saving projects in Garageband (because somebody said that worked). But the problem remains. The computer makes no sound, not even when I plug headphones in. When I go to System Preferences > Sound > Output, the only option available is "Headphones", although I don't have headphones plugged in.

Any suggestions?

In order to try to localise the problem, try adding an additional user to your iMac, and see if this new user also has no sound.

If the new user has sound, then you can be sure it's not a hardware problem. If the new user has no sound, then it looks like it's a hardware problem.


I'm looking for an iphone alarm app with both programmable days and gradual alarm sound It has to have days of the week to repeat alarms, i forget to set them otherwise. the default clock app has it.
Alarms should get gradually louder, i'm sick of scrambling to silence the phone as soon as it starts screaming at me. It's not a very nice start to every day.

There are two apps that I've investigated:

Sleep Cycle
Rise

Sleep Cycle has an alarm that gets louder, whilst also waking you during a "window" of the most opportune time, so you feel brighter and fresher.

Both have a setting for weekends and days of the week so you can set the alarm for whatever days you want.

I recommend both. At the moment I'm using Rise, but you have to pay for it.


Recover deleted .SKETCH files I recently deleted some sketch files that I would like to try to get back if I can. I trashed them over a month ago, I used stellar phoenix to attempt to recover them, and it found the files. It did ask file size when creating a .sketch header, unlike the pre-configured headers (which have an exact file size set). The files are around 5.0 mb, so thats what I set for the max file size. When the files appear after recovery, the finder shows they're all (but one file) 5.0 mb. I try to open one, but then I receive "The document "filename.SKETCH" could not be opened." message. Am I approaching this all wrong, or are they just gone?

Thanks everyone

All file recovery software does the same thing: searches the disk for places where files are but the catalog says are free.

The single most important thing to do to ensure that you can recover an accidentally deleted file is recoverable is to do nothing to the HD. If it is the OS disk then just using the computer runs the risk of the OS writing to some or all of the space that the deleted file occupies.

So when you recover a file you should always recover it to another volume. As recovering to the same volume can be overwriting other files you may need to recover.

After a month I am surprised there was even 5MB left that was recoverable. If that was all the recovery software found and the files are not openable it is unlikely they ever will be.

The first time this happened to me I went out and bought a backup drive and software. It's a lot easier than file recovery.


Finder drops connection to server / network attached storage I am trying to transfer data that takes days to complete and would like to have a permanent connection to my Network Attached Storage device. I can open finder, then go--> connect to server in order to connect to my network attached storage. However, if I return to my computer and there is a login screen, the connection has been dropped. I would like for the data transfer to continue even while I am logged out, and for the disk to be remounted even if the network connection is temporarily dropped.

I have enabled the connection as a login item as described in https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/20667/1942, but it still doesn't automatically mount the device. An answer to another question, https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/210960/1942, suggests writing an AppleScript to automate this, referencing a blog post from 2008 (>10y ago).

What are my options for automating the mounting in 2019?

I have a MacBook Pro + macOS Mojave 10.14.3

I resolved the issue of keeping the disk mounted by using the caffeinate command. Caffeinate keeps the system from sleeping as described in the man page.


How to re-enable sounds for calendar notifications? I have my work Exchange account syncing with the default Mac OS Calendar app. Until recently, this worked very well and I would get notifications (with sound) for forthcoming events.

For the last week or so, the notification sound has vanished. I still get pop-up notifications at the right time, but no sound.

My exchange account presents three calendars: "Calendar", "Birthdays" and "United Kingdom holidays". Interestingly, the holidays calendar showed an alert today and there was a sound! So the problem is limited to my 'Calendar' Exchange calendar.

Here's what I've tried so far:

I've looked in Notifications in System Preferences and ensured Calendar has "Play sound for notifications" enabled. I've also tried disabling and re-enabling this, to no avail.
I've looked in Sound in System Preferences and ensured alert volume is set appropriately. I've also got "Play sound effects through" set to MacBook Speakers.
Based on an answer below, I've tried removing the Exchange account from my Mac and re-adding it. No change.
I'm running Catalina 10.15.13 on a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports).

Here are the alert settings within Calendar:

Any suggestions for how to resolve this?

I've been dealing with Exchange/mail.app on iOS issues at my company for years and the only reliable way to deal with this problem is one of two ways.

Delete the Exchange account from your iOS device and re-add it. Since everything on Exchange is kept on the server you will lose nothing but the time it takes to do this.
Move your Exchange-based email account(s) to (the free) MS Outlook app for iOS.

Both of these seem like unfortunate choices, but both work. The Outlook email client is actually pretty good and (for me) allows me to keep my work and personal emails completely separate.

The issue with Exchange and mail.app not syncing up properly from time to time (and other, ahem..., issues) is an ongoing issue that (I have heard but cant find the source to cite) MS Blames on Apple and vice-versa. So there is no actual fix for the problem. Deleting the Exchange account for mail.app forces it to re-sync everything and (9 times out of 10) will fix the issue. Until it happens again, which is one of the reasons I migrated my work email to the outlook.app from MS.

If someone has discovered a permanent fix for this I would love to hear about it as it would save me that in-person interaction with (yet another) user and a lot of wasted time fiddling with it. So far it still exists on iOS 13.


Cannot boot (Question Mark folder) While my MacBook was connected via HDMI to a external screen it froze and I had to hard-reboot.
Now I have the question-mark-folder-issue-of-the-death.

I reset PRAM and SMC but nothing changed.

When I boot with the alt I have only access to the internet recovery, I can not get the disk util... And I cannot connect to my wifi.

Last, I have a Crucial SSD (2 years old)

Is there a way to know exactly what is going on ? I tried to boot in verbose mode (CMD + V) but it did not work neither.

One would say it is your Disk, it got damaged.

Surprisingly the Verbose does not work at all?

  the "s" key for single-user mode. (Command-S) the "v" key for verbose
  mode. (Command-V)

If you try the Single user, it should open the terminal.

Alternatively you can use the Internet Recovery mode that already shows as option. Read this from Apple about Internet Recovery mode

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

If you have a bootable OS X - USB you could use it to try to fix problems as well.


Mac shows desktop without menu bar or Dock after updating Snow Leopard During a system update on my MacBook (Mac OS X 10.6.8) it restarted and during the restart I have got a screen where it looks like the homepage but doesn't have the menu bar at the top or the Dock at the bottom and it would make a noise when I pressed the screen. Apple Support had me verifying stuff on the Disk Utility then it cut off. Can anyone help me? I can't download anything till this is sorted.

A few of things for you to try...

First, try starting in Safe Boot by holding the Shift key when you hear the startup chime. If you manage to successfully boot in this way and you can access the internet, download and install OS X 10.6.8 Combo Update V1.1. Restart and see what happens...

If that doesn't work - and you have the original discs that shipped with your Mac - start your Mac from disc 1, OS X Install Disc. Once it has started up find Disk Utility from the menu bar and select Repair Disk. When that has done select Repair Permissions. Finally, restart and see what happens...

If you installed from a retail copy of 10.6, follow the same steps above.

If you don't have the original discs, start your Mac and hold command + S to boot into single user mode. When it has booted you will see a command prompt, type in /sbin/fsck –fy, press the Enter key when done. A disk check will then be performed. When that's finished, type shutdown -r now at the command prompt. Wait for it to restart and see what happens...


How to reset default shell for root from user space I've switched my bash to zsh in root using
chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh root

After when I change back to bash, I type the wrong path:
chsh -s /usr/bin/bash root

Now I cannot enter root and I get this prompt, how can I reset it?

user@ip:~$ sudo su
Cannot execute /usr/bin/bash: No such file or directory

Type the following->

sudo -s

Enter your admin password. The prompt should now end in #.
Enter->

chsh -s /bin/sh root

and exit the "root" shell and test.


Clean 5.1.1 to 6 with backup? I have a 3rd gen retina ipad with 5.1.1 and no jailbreak.  I want to try ios 6, but with the option to go back if I don't like it.  From what I have read Apple gives no way to go back.

I don't mind if I have to jailbreak, but would prefer if I did not have to.

What is the best method for me to go 5.1.1 no jailbreak -> 6 with possibility of going back?

From what I have read on sites like iJailBreak, it is not possible to downgrade a device more recent than those using the A4 system-on-a-chip. (iPad 3 uses the A5X.) This is regardless of jailbreak status. The link above gives more technical details about the current situation.


What causes the pop-up "To view this web content, you need to install the Java Runtime Environment" On OSX Yosemite an annoying pop-up comes up quite often saying:

  To view this web content, you need to install the Java Runtime Environment

I know the solution is to install java; however I'm wondering what's the cause for that.

A quick ps -axww tells me:

13218   ??  S      0:00.29 /System/Library/Java/Support/CoreDeploy.bundle/Contents/Download Java Components.app/Contents/MacOS/Download Java Components

I dug around and I found that there is a LaunchDaemon that references this in /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.java.InstallOnDemand.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.apple.java.InstallOnDemandAgent</string>
    <key>MachServices</key>
    <dict>
        <key>com.apple.java.installondemand</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/System/Library/Java/Support/CoreDeploy.bundle/Contents/Download Java Components.app/Contents/MacOS/Download Java Components</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

Does anyone know what is the purpose of all this? The pop-up appears at random times, which makes me think there's a background daemon that demands Java to run but I could not find any source for this behaviour.

For my sister this was caused by Facebook videochat. We debugged quite randomly, and could not find a way to tell what triggered this dialog; like indeed ps did not show what started it. But the following Apple Support Communities post explained how to find it by trial and error:

  Here are the steps I used to correct, as even after removal from Launch control it kept returning on reboot:

  Open a Terminal Prompt
  Show non Apple startup Agents. At $ execute

launchctl list | grep -v apple

  This will look something like the following.

PID Status Label
-   0      org.openbsd.ssh-agent
282 0      com.symantec.symsecondarylaunch.application
274 0      com.symantec.quickmenu.application
-   0      com.google.keystone.system.agent
-   0      com.valvesoftware.steamclean
-   0      com.oracle.java.Java-Updater
276 0      com.Logitech.Control Center.Daemon
302 0      com.google.Chrome.62228
-   1      com.facebook.videochat.USERNAME.updater
295 0      com.symantec.scannotification.application
-   0      net.tunnelblick.tunnelblick.LaunchAtLogin
275 0      com.symantec.savdiskmountnotify.application
317 0      net.tunnelblick.tunnelblick.119880

  One of the returned items is likely your issue, mine was also com.facebook.videochat.USERNAME.updater
  Change to the Agents directory, cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
  I also had to remove the actual agent files, as it kept re-appearing on reboot. You can view those on your system and remove. List out the items in directory: ls

SharedServices.Agent.plist
com.facebook.videochat.USERNAME.plist
com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist
net.tunnelblick.tunnelblick.LaunchAtLogin.plist
org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist

  From ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ execute

rm com.facebook.videochat.USERNAME.plist

  Also remove from Launch control with

launchctl remove com.facebook.videochat.USERNAME.updater

  Exit and reboot

If I recall correctly then this videochat thing might also have been a plugin in her browser, which we then already removed earlier.


TimeMachine with multiple disks (one at a time) I have backed up my Mac to an external disk using TimeMachine. When I plug in a different external disk the Mac still expects to backup to the first disk. Is it possible to backup to two external disks, one at a time?

You just have to select both disks as backup disks from Time Machine Pref pane, one at a time.
Edit:

Attach your first drive, open the Time Machine system preference, click the Select Disk button, and choose the attached drive as the backup destination. Initiate a backup and wait until it’s done.
Now attach the other drive, open the Time Machine system preference yet again, click Select Disk, and choose the new drive as the backup destination. Again, wait for the backup to complete. You now have two identical backups.

Taken from Macworld Article


High memory utilisation iPhone6: how to identify greedy apps/processes My iPhone 6 is constantly at around 98% memory utilisation, even when it is running a bare minimum two or three apps (these figures were obtained from the Lirum Info app).  The phone runs noticeably sluggishly, and it is not uncommon for apps to crash when attempting processor-intensive tasks.

How can I find out which app or process is consuming so much memory?  I wonder if there is one or more rogue processes which are out of control and should be killed?  Something akin to macOS Activity Monitor is what I'm looking for.

In an attempt to improve performance, I've tried all of the suggestions listed here, except a full backup and restore.  I am beginning to wonder whether an Apple iPhone 6 battery replacement may be beneficial, but before I do so, I would like to do some diagnosis to find out what the performance hog is.

One thing missing from your question is the age of your iPhone 6 or, more specifically, the age of your battery. My guess is that a battery replacement is in order as the symptoms just fit.

Also, the high memory utilisation is not likely to explain the symptoms your iPhone is currently having. An ageing battery, on the other hand (and ageing could refer to its cycle count instead of its age in time), is certainly one possible explanation for your symptoms.

iPhone batteries are typically rated at having a maximum battery life of 500 cycles. However, this refers to the life of the battery and not to when you'll start noticing issues. In my experience, batteries can start showing signs of wear as early as when they reach about 65% of their cycle count and they start showing more serious signs at around 80% of their cycle count, so that's one figure you may want to investigate if you're still trying to make a decision.

It's not clear which version of the Lirum app you're using, but if you're only using the Lite version or aren't getting an indication of how many cycles your battery has had, you may want to consider coconutBattery (assuming you also have a Mac).

coconutBattery is an awesome app that you can install on your Mac (if you have one). You can then connect your iPhone to your Mac and this app will show you the battery's current charge, its full charge capacity, and its design capacity, its cycle count, and so on.

If you have a MacBook of some sort it'll give you a whole heap of info relating to your MacBook battery too.


Macbook Pro Retina 15.4" External Display wrong resolutions Before this machine I had a late 2008 MacBook Pro, 15.4" (Lion) with max resolution of 1440x900.

Through the mini to HDMI adapter I attached a second display (TV/Monitor model 19LG3000) and I was able to set a resolution for both displays at 1440x900, it looked very nice and sharp on the external.

One thing I caught is that this TV has two HDMI ports, and depending on where I connect the cable (coming from the old MacBook) I get a list of different resolutions in Mac OS X settings and one of them (the port labeled 1) presents the 1440x900 resolution, which does fit in general on this kind of display.

Now the monitor port (HDMI 1,2) doesn't matter at all if I connect the Retina, it will always display the very same resolutions:

1080p
1080i
720p
1600x900
1344x756
1024x576

which I recall being the same list when I connect the old MacBook Pro to HDMI display port 2.

I tried every combination of resolution/frequency (defaults to 60 Hertz NTSC, but 50 Hertz is also sometime selectable, depending on the resolution value), but everything doesn't look well. Especially for coding it's very bad to the eyes, even at 1344x756.

Also I noticed that there is now Underscan, and I had to use it for about 3 bars to let the image fit in the monitor.

Is this is happening to anyone else?

Found SwitchResX 4 but also the keyboard shortcut.

While on the Monitor section, press the Option key when you choose the scaling option, it will show all resolutions.

No need for SwitchResX.


Quartz filters in ColorSync Utility: what is "Image Sampling" and Quality? I have created a couple of quartz filters to reduce the size of PDFs. For this I use Image Compression - which is pretty straight forward (just use JPEG and the a suitable quality level) - but there is also a filter called Image Sampling that also offers a quality level (low, medium, high).

I have tried it but I don't notice any significant difference. On what quality of the PDF is this option supposed to apply?

The other alternatives (size, resolution, scaling) in the Image Sampling filter are straightforward but I don't understand why there is a quality option in both Image Sampling and Image Compression.

As Apple's documentation on Quartz Filters is almost non-existent, it's hard to be certain. However, given the nature of the component, the "Quality" of the re-sampling is likely to relate to what algorithm is used to re-resolve the image.

If you've ever re-sampled an image in Photoshop, different algorithms are used to perform the mathematical transformation, such as Bicubic, Bilinear, and Nearest Neighbour. The differences may be subtle, or not, depending on the nature of the image and the change in size.

Quality in Image Compression relates to how lossy the compression will be, i.e. how much data is thrown away to reduce file size.

(If the images in the PDF are already low-res and also JPEG, then you may not see much further reduction in file size or image quality.)


I have a 38mm apple watch and I put in on power reserve and no matter what I do it wont get out of it. I have held the side button, I have held both buttons down. Each for 6 seconds or even to a minute nothing is working. Please help!

To get out of Power Reserve, follow the instructions on Apple Support page.

To turn off Power Reserve:

1. Press and hold the side button until you see the Apple logo.
2. Wait for your Apple Watch to restart. You might need to charge your Apple Watch first.


In VPN setup, what is difference between IKEv2, L2TP and IPSec? When manually configuring VPN, the type can be set to either "IKEv2", "IPSec" or "L2TP".

However, as I understand it "L2TP" use "IPSec" for encryption and "IKEv1" for authentication, so it find the different terms used for type confusing.

The different options are shown in the Apple iOS version 12 page at Settings => General => VPN => Add VPN Configuration => Type, as shown in the image below.

What is difference between "IKEv2", "L2TP" and "IPSec" in VPN type?

They all are based on IPsec, but the protocol used to create the IPsec SAs and authenticate the peers is different (and there is an additional encapsulation layer for L2TP).

IKEv2: Uses the current version of the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol. Authentication can be done with certificates, EAP (for username/passsword authentication, but includes EAP-TLS, which uses certificates) or preshared keys (PSK). The actual traffic is transported via IPsec in tunnel mode, UDP encapsulated if there is a NAT between client and server. It's the most modern, stable and flexible of these options (among other reasons due to traffic selector narrowing, split-tunnling/DNS, MOBIKE and better rekeying behavior).
IPsec: Basically the same as above but uses the old version of the IKE protocol (IKEv1). It offers similar authentication options (certificates, username/password via XAuth, hybrid XAuth, PSK) including the unsafe XAuth/PSK in aggressive mode. Traffic is also transported via IPsec in tunnel mode.
L2TP: This is similar to IPsec in that it also uses IKEv1 to establish an IPsec connection, which is then used to create an L2TP tunnel. Traffic is encapsulated in L2TP and then IPsec, which is usually negotiated in transport mode to avoid additional overhead. For more on the difference between L2TP and plain IPsec see my response to a question on superuser.com.


Stop iCloud automatic download to harddrive How do I stop iCloud from downloading files to my hard drive? I opened up a folder and it immediately started downloading all contents

This is the answer, you just push undownload after the download is finished.
https://github.com/Obbut/iCloud-Control/releases


OSX El Capitan / Not Recognizing USB Hard Drive I updated to OSX El Capitan a few weeks ago, and ever since I did so, my computer is having some issues with my Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive.

In terminal, when I use the disk utility, the drive shows up, but it generally will not mount.  I say generally, because occasionally the drive will mount, but it is unusable (Time Machine and disk utility give me issues).

I have tried reformatting the drive with no luck - the disk utility says that it cannot unmount the drive.

Any thoughts?  Happy to take screen shots if needed.

I have a Seagate external drive and found that the NTFS for Mac OS X had to be removed and reinstalled. (Apple logo / Preferences / NTFS for Mac OS X - right click and remove)  This link will take you to the free update.  It worked for my Seagate drive but no my Octigen one.
http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/item/ntfs-driver-for-mac-os-master-dl/


Does the iPad 2 Support the iPad 1 Dock? I'm thinking about selling my first generation iPad, but was wondering if I should sell the dock with it. I know that they are coming out with a new iPad dock specifically for the second generation. Will it not fit on the first generation dock?

It's possible to use the first generation dock, but it's a bit difficult to get the iPad 2 connected, because of the tapered edge: See this link.


Is there a MacOS automation that can detect pixels on screen? I need to automate some keyboard and mouses actions depending on what is shown on the screen.
But because the applications don't have applescript hooks, there is no way to know of certain events except to 'read' the pixel values of certain position of the screen.
Is there a way to do this? I've looked into tools like keyboard masestro but was unable to do this.

Consider using a visual scripting tool like Eggplant or SikuliX.
SikuliX
SikuliX is an open source scripting tool that detects images and performs actions:

SikuliX automates anything you see on the screen of your desktop computer running Windows, Mac or some Linux/Unix. It uses image recognition powered by OpenCV to identify GUI components and can act on them with mouse and keyboard actions. This is handy in cases when there is no easy access to a GUI's internals or the source code of the application or web page you want to act on.


MacBook Pro built-in speakers not working The built-in speakers are not working. The output shows a digital device only and when you hit the up volume key it shows 0.

This has happened to me before, I fixed it by just plugging in headphones in audio jack, then removing them after few seconds. Think it is stuck on an output device that isn't there anymore, and inserting/removing the headphones helped to reset it.

If this does not help you, remove all audio/hdmi cables then restart your computer. After restart, hold down option key and click the Speaker icon in your menu bar. This will bring up a menu to select your audio input/output. If you don't see the built-in device, go to:

Launchpad > Other > Audio MIDI Setup

Here you should see Built-in Output. Make sure everything is working here, click on Configure speakers to configure them.


How to connect 2 external monitors to MacBook Pro 2015 I've an external monitor connected through HDMI and thinking about getting another external monitor for my MacBook Pro 2015.

How can I connect a second external display to my MacBook Pro?

With an MacBook Pro Early 2015 you can connect two display using Thunderbolt 2

  2x up to 3840x2160 on external displays via Thunderbolt 2

or one display using Thunderbolt 2 and a second one using HDMI

  1x single display up to 3840x2160 via Thunderbolt 2

  1x single 1080p
  display at up to 60 Hz, 3840x2160 at 30 Hz, or 4096x2160 at 24 Hz via
  HDMI

So in your case you need a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter for a second HDMI display. If you want to use display with a higher resolution you need to get another adapter (DVI, DisplayPort, etc.).


With Apple Watch 4, can I make phone calls without an iPhone? I'd like to use Apple Watch Series 4 as a standalone device to make phone calls.

On an Apple Watch Series 4 Cellular, can I make a phone call via cellular network without my iPhone, which I'd like to leave at home, connected to it via Bluetooth or WiFi?

And, can I additionally make phone calls via a Bluetooth headset which connects directly to the Apple Watch 4?

An Apple Watch Series 4 (along with Series 3) with support for Cellular can make a phone call without an iPhone but will need to be paired with it. Apple Watch Cellular comes with a build-in eSIM. It needs to be paired with the SIM card in your iPhone.

How to use your Apple Watch without your iPhone nearby

Apple Watch Series 4 is typically expected to support all the phone call/cellular features of Series 3.

Note: Having an iPhone is a prerequisite for using an(any) Apple Watch. Thus, it's not possible to use an Apple Watch (any generation), without owning an iPhone.


Swap iCloud account registered to an iPhone? I bought my son a new iPhone at Christmas so I now have his old one but it has his iCloud account on it.

If I delete the account on this phone can I make a new one for me and will his account still be active and ok on his new device?

Why not set up the new phone first. Once that's done and your son has verified all the games and apps and settings are correct. Erase all content and settings on the old phone (under general in the settings app - go to the bottom where it says reset).

That way, you can set up the "old" phone with only the accounts you care about.


iPhone 5 New iCloud address, but still have iMessage from previous iCloud I made a new iCloud address, but when I checked my iMessage, it had messages from my old iCloud. Do I have to manually delete these messages?
Also, would my content in my iMessage app then be connected to my new iCloud address? Since I have synced the new one to my current phone

I've done it myself. The only way to erase all messages was one by one.

The good part is that only new messages were synced!


MacOS port become blocked I have tried setting up Packet Filter on macOS 10.15.5.

I develop software.
I am hosting some services via supervisord.
It has a user interface on port 9001 running to reset/start/stop services.

For all time long it worked well and I was able to access that UI on the local network. I ran a nmap from my Windows PC targeting my development Mac. After this, on nmap my opened ports were displayed as tcpwraped, (i am not running any firewall on my dev mac). I am not able to access my dev machine from the windows pc anymore. It says Unable to connect, though those ports are visible from the nmap.

All ports are accessible from my other MacBook, but on my PC all ports are NOT accessible.

Is there any way to understand what happened?

The reason for me here was my VPN setup, I had to reinstall my Nord VPN, and reconnect in order to be able to access my Mac on local network.
Also, I would suggest using some PacketFilter firewall manager on the Mac machine. I use Murus and it seems to be pretty good for my requirements.
Thanks everyone who helped me to figure this out quickly.


iMac Late 2009 Target Display Mode to GTX 1080 I have the requisite model iMac -Late 2009 iMac, and a brand new PC build employing AMD Threadripper and a GTX1080. I would like to use the iMac as a display in target disk mode from the PC/

The GTX1080 outputs to three DP's(DisplayPorts) and an HDMI. I have tried TDM using a DP to MDP(MiniDisplayPort) cable but have not succeeded in getting past the floating Firewire logo that TDM shows on this iMac build.

I see on Apple's forums it is specifically mentioned that MDP to MDP cable is to be used, and yet, I can find no evidence on the web to suggest that there's any actual difference in the data transmission between DP & MDP.

Is this configuration supported?

Target Disk mode is booting with a T and the OS not running. You will see a FireWire / USB / Thunderbolt icon in this target mode on supported iMac.

Target Display mode has no icons and needs the Mac OS to be running and is entered with either Command - F2 or Command - Fn - F2 keys.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204592

The link above has all the steps to qualify / check your connections and requirements.


Why is my mac displaying a grey loading screen on wake up? Typically after being closed for a few hours, overnight, etc, I open the laptop and get this horrid grey screen for probably 5 minutes. When it does come back the UI is locked for another minute or so. Why would it decide to start doing this only recently?

I've checked hibernate mode, which was set to 3. I changed it to 0 and that made no difference. Still grey screens me every morning.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012)

2.5 GHz Intel Core i5

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

Disk space is about 50% used. Battery fully charged and still in good shape. Laptop is pretty much always plugged in. Full charge lasts all day, so I don't think it's a power issue.
I have clean my mac constantly profiling the machine, which reports not even half RAM usage at wake up, and across the board very low consumption.

Starting to get pretty annoying. It never did this until recently, about 4 months ago. I usually keep my OS a version behind on purpose, fyi. Anyone else know what this is and how to prevent, disable, or correct it?

What you're seeing is to be expected if your Mac is waking from what's called Safe Sleep.

Safe Sleep is a protective measure used by your Mac to ensure any data stored in memory isn't lost when your Mac shuts down due to a flat battery.

My guess is that the reason this only started about four months ago is that either:

the overall condition of your battery has changed
the power adapter has developed a fault
the way you leave your Mac at night has changed

In other words, for some reason, starting four months ago your battery is being drained to a level that data stored in your memory will be lost because your Mac is going to shutdown. So your Mac is going into Safe Mode to save all this data to your drive.

When it wakes up, you'll see the grey screen and progress bar that appears after Safe Sleep.

You can read more info from this Apple support article.

Now, in your question you state:

  Battery fully charged and still in good shape. Laptop is pretty much always plugged in. Full charge lasts all day, so I don't think it's a power issue.

If you're absolutely certain of this, and have no reason to suspect a faulty power adapter, then I would reset your System Management Controller.

Reset the SMC

Shut down your MacBook Pro
Unplug the power cable from your Mac
For 10 seconds, press and hold at the same time the shiftcontroloption keys (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
After 10 seconds let go of all keys and the power button
Plug in the power cable
Turn your Mac back on with the power button.


How may I see calendar all-day reminders on my iPhone? Like many people, I use Calendar on both my Mac and iPhone and sync events between both devices.
I use all-day events on the Mac extensively; but I am frustrated that I can not see the same all-day events on my iPhone. I am restricted to setting an alert on the event and relying on being able to address the event at the time of the alert.
I would much rather be able to see the list of all-day events on my iPhone as well as the Mac.
Is there any way to achieve this?

What view are you using?
If you turn the phone sideways it will flip from the standard 'month with dots & details of today' view into week view, where all-day events are at the top of each day.
It doesn't show them as a list; you can only do that with the Today view, which lists everything.


iTunes starting playlist in different order than view In iTunes 12 I am able to sort the songs using different filters and sort options. In my basic configuration my songs are sorted by artists and in the artists view, they are sorted by year (selection in upper right corner: artist, year).

However, if I just play all the songs or albums of a given artist using the play button next to the artist's name (at the top of the page) the playlist is started at the album showed in the upper "global" cover, but not in chronogical order:

Is there a way to combine view and playlist order? How can I update the album showed in the upper "summary" containing the artist's global play button?

Begin from Stopped rather than Paused.
Play, then Alt/click the play button to Stop. You'll see the currently-playing track then disappears from the header...

Paused
Stopped

Then Play by double-clicking your chosen first Song, or choose an artist & hit Spacebar. It should then play in the visible order, assuming you don't have shuffle on.

Though you're right... I hadn't ever tried playing by hitting that Play arrow by the Artist name - it always wants to start on Slow Night, So Long.
Both the other methods work, though.

Looks like you're missing Day Old Belgian Blues, btw - great Live EP, chronologically follows Aha Shake


Are there any "thin clients" that would allow me to run a Windows XP/7 app on an iPad with sound? There are a number of remote access apps (from Citrix, etc.) that allow you to run Windows apps remotely on an iPad.

I need one that would allow me to remotely run (on an iPad) a Windows app with sound, so that I'd hear (on the iPad) the audio of the Windows app. Ideally it would also allow recording of sound on the iPad into the Windows program.

The only rdp client I know of that records through the iPad onto the host is "iRDP AV".  The only problem is it doesn't have the functionality that many other RDP apps have such as two-finger scrolling, etc.  It's only 2.99 though and definitely worth it if you just need basic desktop control and mic functionality.


MacBook Air Running Yosemite - Merge Two User Accounts? I am brand new to Mac.  I very recently migrated all of my files from my Windows PC.

When setting up my MacBook Air initially, I was instructed to create a user account.  When I migrated my files from the Windows PC, it created an entirely separate account.

Is there a process to combine the two together or possibly migrate files from one to the other and delete one account?

Thank you very much.

From your main account open Finder and locate the user account for your pc files. (Macintosh HD/users/pcfiles)
Right or control click on that folder and select Get Info.
Under Sharing and Permissions click on the lock icon to unlock permissions.  Give admin password when asked.
Once unlocked, click on the + button and add your main ID to the user names
Set your permissions to Read & Write.
Click on the gear icon and make your main ID the "owner" of the folder.
Click on the gear again and apply to enclosed items.
Click on the lock icon to re-lock the folder.

Your main ID now owns the pc files.  You should be able to move files or folders to your main id file structure (no need to copy) or just access them as is.  You could import directly into iTunes or iPhoto etc.


crontab Operation not permitted - cron has full disk access I have seen here various issues about the crontab 'Operation not permitted' issue for Mac OS, but I seem to have a more complex situation on my hands.
I have a bash file on the desktop, which I wanna execute in crontab. Configurations I added:

Created the file untitled.sh on my Desktop (which has #!/bin/bash in the beginning of the file).
Ran 'chmod +x untitled.sh'.
Using crontab -e, added the cron 0 13 * * * /Users/michael/Desktop/untitled.sh.
In Security & Privacy > Privacy, gave Full Disk Permissions to iTerm, Terminal, bash & cron.

but I still get the error:
/bin/bash: /Users/michael/Desktop/untitled.sh: Operation not permitted

What can be done?

Posting here a partial answer to the question, from the comment section (courtesy to nohillside and scottmeup).
Seems the problem is related to the Extended Attribute com.apple.macl that was automatically assigned to the bash file on creation (discovered by running ls -la FILE_NAME, and the xattr itself from xattr FILE_NAME). This xattr was in fact attached to any file I created on the Desktop, Not sure why; I didn't manage to easily remove it by using xattr -d.
When I created the file in e.g. $HOME, it didn't have this xattr, and did run in the cron without any additional action. After moving the file from $HOME to Desktop, the cron worked as well.