The maximum number of apps for free development profiles has been reached My question is an updated version of this one and I can't seem to find the way forward in this new version of XCode. I am new to Unity and XCode and had no idea there were a limited number of apps allotted to a personal development profile. Every time I screwed up a project trying to do this tutorial I often struggled to fix it or made it worse (version and platform clash issues) so I started a new project without any idea it would count against some app count on my profile. I had no idea these unfinished doodles were considered apps. As I said, I'm a total newb in this realm! Now I've used all my apps and still don't have anything that works. How do I fix this? Thanks for your help.

This is the error I get from Xcode:
The maximum number of apps for free development profiles has been reached.

Xcode version 11.4 (11E146)

The easiest way to solve this is delete these unfinished apps from your devices. Just delete them like you would any other app - directly on the phone.

You can also use the "Devices & Simulators" window in Xcode to delete them. If you have a lot, it is perhaps a bit faster.

If you have deleted the apps, but still get the error, then you need to remove the profiles themselves also. You can do that from the same "Devices & Simulators" window by right-clicking on the name of your iOS device, selecting "View Provisioning Profiles" and then removing them.

You can also do that on the device in Settings > General > Profile. Choose each no longer used profile and then "Remove".


Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2014 Heat and fan confusion I bought a mid-2014 15inch retina Macbook pro last week. I didn't have much time to work with it as my main machine, but today I had more free time so I did and noticed that after a few hours of work it really gets warm on the bottom and fans don't go on higher RPM to cool it down. (It's almost impossible to hear the fans working without pushing my ears against the back of it)
Wanted to ask people who own this laptop or similar models that is this normal? Is your macbook almost quiet all day?
I installed the smFanControll app and it shows the temperature between 50-55 and fan speed at ~2600RPM, is this normal temperature and fan speed?

Yes, this perfectly normal behaviour, 55 is a very reasonable temperature as well. If you start using your device more heavily, like encoding video, playing games, or installing certain software, you should start to notice the fans picking up.


Missing songs don't add from iCloud Music How can I download some staff, that has add link, which don't work properly? I'm trying to redownload, testing on different albums - not help (but not every album has such problem, frequently all tracks are on there places). Not working in mac iTunes, iPhone & iPad.

Today I suddenly understand... I cannot add these missing files because I have already them in other albums. Maybe it's a big problem for someone, but I just delete albums that are "no so good" and keep "that really rock". So problem solved! Thanks for watching!


iPod classic hard drive upgrade I was reading online that you can replace an iPod classic hard drive, my question is how do you manage to duplicate the iPod OS onto the new hard drive?

How do you mount the iPod classic hard drive to take a backup? What kind of connectors do you use? Is there any way to mount the iPod hard drive onto a Mac, so that I can use the Disk Utility and make DMG's of the software and EFI?

Yes, you can replace the hard drive in an iPod Classic. There is no need to replicate anything on to the drive as all the OS is stored in firmware separate to the drive. Once there is a blank drive in the iPod the firmware will take over. Instructions are here at iFixIt.

Mounting the Classic to take a backup is another question entirely. Since you can't actually get to the OS to back it up the only thing you need to backup is the music and I assume you have a copy of that already. If you don't then I recommend Senuti to recover a copy of your music and playlists to your Mac.


Where are the photos in Contacts stored on my MacBook (High Sierra)? Pretty much what the title says. I'm trying to find a photo I have as a contact photo to use in another app. Any ideas?

Thanks!

First use Finder and Go > Go to Folder... > (enter the following path)

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/

From there navigate to the only subfolder (it should be a string of numbers and letters) and lastly, enter a folder called 'Images'. You'll see your contact image files in .jpeg format in this folder.

For reference the end path should be:

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/#######-###-###-########/Images/

I hope this helped!


How do I force a folder to be opened in column view in Finder? I'll try to give a general example.

I have the following folder structure somewhere on my local user directory:

Root_Folder
├── Icon_Folder
│   ├── file1
│   └── file6
└── Column_Folder
    ├── file10
    ├── file11
    └── file12

How can I force Finder to open the Column_Folder/ in column view while forcing the Icon_Folder/ (and other possible folders) to be viewed in icon view?

Sounds trivial, yes, but here's where I have problems:

I open Icon_Folder/, change its view to icon view, press ⌘ cmd + J and tick "Always open in icon view" — presto! it works.
Then I open Column_Folder/, change its view to column view, double–check the Finder window's title bar reads "Column_Folder", open view options again — but wait! Finder wants to change the view settings for ~/Desktop/, not Column_Folder/!

NB: I know it specifically wants to change Desktop's view settings because that is where the Root_Folder/ is. If I move the Root_Folder/ to ~/, Finder would like to change, while in column view, the view settings for my home directory and so on…

I'd rather like to know a GUI answer, but if it is much easier via command line, it's OK by me.

All in all, the question boils down to: How do I open the active folder's view settings in Finder while browsing in column view?

Workaround

While in Finder (in any view) drag the Column_Folder/ to the Finder's sidebar.
Select the Column_Folder/ from the sidebar
Switch to column view
Show view settings

You can see the view settings will now affect the intended folder

Tick "Always open in column view"; click OK
Remove Column_Folder/ from the sidebar

Now Column_Folder/ will open in column view!


How can I install a non-notarized application that is not in the App Store and not from a verified developer? Is there a possibility to install software that was not "notarized" for macOS Catalina? I have an application that worked on macOS Mojave but cannot be installed anymore on macOS Catalina. I think the developers must "notarize" this software. Checking with spctl -a -vv my.app confirmed that it is rejected.

What can an end user do about it to install it anyway until this process is finished?

In macOS 10.14 and 10.15, when an app fails to install because it hasn’t been notarized or is from an unidentified developer, it will appear in System Preferences > Security & Privacy, under the General tab. Click Open Anyway to confirm your intent to open or install the app.

See Safely open apps on your Mac from Apple Support.


Remove 'CMD+i' shortcut from Terminal I am hoping to use CMD+i to replace esc in vim but found that CMD+i is mapped to Show Inspector. How do I remove this so that I can free up this shortcut in vim?

[I just realised, this won't work for Esc, as it's not considered a valid modifier, but I'm posting it just in case it may help someone, somewhere...
Best guess is something like BetterTouchTool might be able to do it]]

You can do it in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts...

The trick is to first replace the command you don't want with junk, then add the one you do want..
...however, this method will only work if the function you require also has a menu entry.

example, using Terminal as I don't have vim...

first, replace your 'bad' command with junk

Then you're free to add your new command - if it exists as a menu item.


iPad - type pinyin-ized Chinese with diacritics? I want to type romanized Mandarin Chinese in Pinyin spelling system, attached to Chinese character texts.
Are there any direct input method to type roman characters with full diacritics (without converting to Chinese characters, and not deviating to symbol-insertion methods using ctrl and alt keys)?
E.g.
明月千里寄相思
míng yuè qiān lii jì xiāng sī
tone 3 on "i" should be "i" ripped off with its upper dot and replaced by a hacek, but I don't know how to get that single pre-composed letter from the usual English keyboard.
My second best compromises are:
1. using doubled vowel letter to show its being in the third tone as shown above (orthographically a odd-ball)  ; or
2. shifting to Gwoyeu Romatzyh, like MING YUEH CHIAN-LII JIH SHIANGSY.
When I was using GlobalWriter on windows machines, I used to switch the keyboard to IPA input layout and type directly macron/acute/hacek/grave + vowel letter to get appropriate tone-marked vowel letters.  All the needed diacritics were allocated the top row of keyboard, as "dead keys" to be followed by vowel letters on which they are added to.

Any similar shortcuts in iPad circumstances?
Thank you.

On the standard Chinese Simplified - Pinyin keyboard on the iPad, if you hold down a letter key for about 1 second, it will popup a panel with the 4 diacritics for that letter, letting you pick between them.

If you type pinyin with diacritic marks, it will not transform the pinyin into actual Chinese characters.


Can I set a sleep timer with Podcasts? I listen to a lot of podcasts and would like to be able to set a timer so that they automatically stop playing after a set period of time. I guess a 'sleep 'timer' function is what I’m looking for but I can’t find anything like this option in the podcasts app.

I’ve tapped and 3D Touched everywhere that I can think of and see lots of other options, like download, delete, save, play next, share episode, skip 15s, playback speed, subscribe, unsubscribe, settings. If I tap in Settings it’s all about subscriptions and how to deal with episodes. No sleep settings or timers to be found anywhere.

My questions are:

Does the Podcasts app support some sort of sleep timer function?
If yes, how do I use it?

I’m on an iPhone running iOS 11.4.1.

Actually, the Podcasts app does have a sleep timer function.

The easiest way to access this is to:

Open an actual episode (i.e. by double-tapping on it) so that it pops up the main episode screen (the pop-up with the episode artwork at top centre and the play/pause button below it with the skip buttons and volume slider)
Now swipe up from the bottom near the play/pause button (so that you're scrolling the page up, not bringing up the Control Centre)
Below the 1x button you’ll now see a Sleep Timer button (it has a moon icon on it)
Tap on the Sleep Timer button to access a number of options, including one to stop playback when the current episode ends

Below are some screenshots for reference:

Finally, there’s also an iOS-wide way to use a sleep timer. Not only does this work with the Podcasts app, but also any apps that play audio (incl. 3rd party apps). If you’re interested, see my answer here for details:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/289108/300323 . The gist of the solution is to use the "stop playing" option under "when timer ends".


In terminal, running top, info extends past the view of the window I assume this occurs in more terminal functions than just top. Is there a way to view the information without resizing the console window? I currently have my console window set to open at 80x24, which is far too short in both columns and rows to display all the information.

You can select the columns you want to display with -stats:

top -stats pid,cpu,command

See man top for a full list of available columns (listed under -o), the most interesting ones probably are

pid: Process ID
command: The name of the command
cpu: CPU usage
time: Execution time
vsize: Total memory size
state: Process state
uid: User ID (or user for user name)


My iPhone 5s won't make any sound at all My iPhone has recently stopped making any sound, it will only vibrate when something happens, and I can only hear anything when I'm calling someone or have headphones in.  I know that there isn't a blown out speaker, I've checked to see that it isn't on silent or on do not disturb, what do I do?

Have you checked the position of the mute switch on the upper left edge of the iPhone itself? If you see a red indication, this switch has been enabled:


Third party Skydrive client for Mac Are there any third-party programs for Microsoft Skydrive (but for Mac)?

Skydrive offers 25GB of free cloud storage.

There is a third-party app for windows that can access Skydrive.

Looks like Microsoft just released an official SkyDrive App for Mac according the the MacObserver's article. So there may be less of a need for a third party one, check it out.

  Users looking for online storage and syncing that don’t want to go the Dropbox route can now check out Microsoft’s SkyDrive app, released Monday for Windows and OS X Lion (via The Verge). The app ties into Microsoft’s existing SkyDrive service and offers Dropbox-like file management and syncing with 7GB of free storage and the option to add 20, 50, or 100GB of additional storage for US$10, $25, or $50 per year, respectively.


Home wifi wastage for nothing My internet broadband package at home is limited to a volume of 40GB. Ever since I bought my iphone 6s, 40GB finishes within half the month. I have disable all auto downloads, auto update, iCloud backup over wifi; but yet my iPhone wastes about 3,5 gigabytes per day for nothong. I can't understand why. Longer I keep the phone connected to my home wifi connection the more my wifi internet volume drops. It doesn't happen over cellular data anyway, only when my phone is connected to home wifi. Please help me to solve this problem.

This article should help you greatly: http://www.wired.com/2015/10/a-new-ios-9-feature-is-eating-your-cellular-data/

There is also a list in settings that lists how much data various apps use.  It's most likely Mail or Messages using so much data for push notifications.  If you switch to a 5-minutely update rather than push, then you might have better results.


OmniDazzle alternative for modern Macs? Is there any tool that runs on current Macs providing a flashlight effect to highlight a portion on the screen?

In the past I've used OmniDazzle to create screen casts using this effect.
On recent OS X versions it doesn't work any more, though..

Any hint appreciated!

Yes, I'd recommend Mouseposé. It's very similar in spirit to OmniDazzle but works with recent versions of Mac OS X.

One nice feature is that if you pause for a little bit, Mouseposé will expand the highlight from the pointer to the whole window.


Did Mail.app once allow messages to be annotated with notes? I thought I remembered being able to add notes to a message in a pane over the main message (as well as todos). In Lion, I don't see how to do that. I can create individual notes but not annotate a message.

Am I remembering correctly? Is there some way to get that feature back in Lion (without using MailTags, which won't sync across machines with my Gmail accounts)?

I never really cared about the feature but found a use for it just this week.

yes and no
yes: it was possible to "annotate" mails with a todo - that function is gone in Lion

no: afaik it was not possible to "annotate" mails with a note as well


How do I configure Gmail in Mail.app to sync the mail messages with multiple clients? I want all my mails to stay on Google server (as I read them from multiple clients and from the web), being able to delete then from the client (deleting them on the server as well) and do not retrieve all 3GB of them when first configuring the program.

When trying to add a new Gmail account, Mail doesn't ask how to configure it, so it’s not the Exchange configuration I'm after.

How do I configure Mac Mail app so that it works with Gmail like iOS's mail application does when configured with Exchange server?

You can configure Gmail as IMAP account type. That will sync your mail messages between multiple mail clients.

That leaves open your request to not retrieve all 3Gb of mail when first configuring the program. There I haven't got an answer only a possible workaround. Many mail clients limit their download sizes when they are on low bandwidth connections. You could try to limit your bandwidth, for exmample to 8 kbps, with these terminal commands when having Gmail configured to use secure imap:

$ sudo ipfw pipe 1 config bw 8kbit/s #create reduced bandwidth pipe
$ sudo ipfw add pipe 1 src-port imaps #sent traffic from imaps thru pipe

As Gmail is not offering an Exchange server, only ActiveSync compatible, you will never get an exact similar experience with Gmail.


Safari 14: how to view cookies' content In Safari 14 for Mac, how can I view the contents of the cookies set by a given site? I know how to delete them, but I would like to see exactly what's in them.
I have tried loading the site with Safari's Developer Tools, but the "Cookies" section in the inspector didn't have anything.

The Cookies section is what you're looking for in the Developer Tools. Inspect it for this site, Stack Exchange, and you'll see a number of cookies and their values.
Inspect Element > Storage > Cookies


MBP occasionally doesn't wake up until after forced reboot showing a message of an unknown problem Last 4 days, I encountered this problem twice. I'm using my Retina Macbook Pro 13" (OS X : El-Capitan) with a Thunderbolt Display (+ third party mouse and keyboard plugged into the TBD) since about two weeks now.

I tried waking it up by opening the lid, no display (absolutely, not even a black screen), unresponsive keyboard, I tried turning it on using the power button, I had to press it (and hold it) many times before it responded (finally), showing a message in multiple languages in the likes of Your computer was shut down because of a problem, and when I logged on this dialog box appeared:

("shut down" instead of "restarted", this picture was found on web)

Everything works just fine after the occurence of this SCARY problem.

I use two (famous) software that that require disabled SIP: SwitchResX and Karabiner.

EDIT 1:

what  syslog | grep shutdown  had to say about the issue :

Sep 29 17:54:40 localhost kernel[0] <Notice>: Previous shutdown cause: 3
Sep 29 17:54:40 localhost locationd[89] <Error>: locationd was started after an unclean shutdown

[This answer not complete until this sentence removed]

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and can take a while to identify the root cause of a problem.

Here are some steps to get you started.

Resetting the SMC

The steps for resetting the SMC on your particular MacBook are:

Shut down your computer.
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button.
Let go.
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

Since this problem seems to be intermittent, it may take a while to know whether the reset has resolved it or not.

Test your hardware

Another thing you can also do is test your hardware. Depending on the year of your Retina 13" MacBook, this can be done by using either Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test.

One you've checked out the links, follow the steps for the one suited to your model and share your results.


Is there a maximum number of remote connections that can be setup on mac mini? We have a mac mini running OSx 10.9.4 with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8 GB. We use this as a "server" so people within the company can remotely place files that need to be uploaded onto our DAM system. We are now getting a message that says "No more connections can be made to this remote computer at this time because there are already as many connections as the computer can accept". Can you tell me if the number of connections can be changed or is there a set limit? Thanks in advance.

Not sure if it will help, but I would update 10.9.4 to 10.9.5 as I found 10.9.4 to have a few issues on the servers and Mac I service for clients.

Note: I can't think of any compatibility issues that would be an issues with that update, but assess the software used before you update of course.


How do I vary the playback speed in VLC using keyboard shortcuts? How do I vary the playback speed of media in VLC Media Player using keyboard shortcuts?

I used to be able to do this by holding down Cmd-Alt-[Forward Arrow or Back Arrow] but this doesn't seem to be working any more. Instead it's jumping the video forward and backwards by 19 seconds when I use this key combination.

Is there a way to restore the variable speed shortcut behaviour?

VLC has a wonderful short cuts menu where you can see or even set the shortcuts.

Open the VLC preferences and the Hotkeys tab.

Restart VLC after making the hotkey change.

The following was tested by me on VLC Version 2.0.9 Twoflower (Intel 64bit).

Ranting:
I wish every app would have such easy access and feature, rather them me searching the Google to find out what Hotkeys they use and how to set them.
End of Rant.


Amplifying the WiFi signal I am writing to find out the best option to amplify the existing WiFi signal in my house in order to be able to be online in my backyard with my MacBook Air. Would purchasing an AirPort Express be a good solution, or a simple extender/repeater would do the job?

An Access Point would be sufficient - & cheapest.

[just some examples from Amazon, no recommendations specifically. Note, the filter on Amazon isn't great, there are other device types in there, as well as simple Access Points]

An Access Point needs no additional functionality other than being able to push a signal further.
You wire it via your existing Ethernet to where the signal will reach the garden. All routing/DHCP functionality is then still provided by your existing router.

If you can't, for any reason, get an Ethernet cable far enough to reach, then you would need a Range Extender, which is in essence the same thing, but wireless throughout. I'd still go for an AP as first choice, if at all possible.


Two iPhones receiving same SMS when sent or received I have a work iPhone 6 that I just updated the latest software, and didn't realize that entering my personal iCloud information would result in receiving SMS's being sent to both personal iPhone 5S and work iPhone 6. I removed the iCloud and created a new iCloud account, and now get some SMS's from other people, and not all SMS's sent or receieved are showing up on the work iPhone 6. How do I remove my work iPhone 6 from the iCloud so it doesn't continue to show sent and received messages from my personal iPhone 5S? (Maybe the SMS's still appearing on both are from other iPhone users?)

To remove your work iPhone 6 from your personal iCloud account, go to Settings, select iCloud, scroll down to the very bottom, then tap Sign Out.

To disable iMessage on the work iPhone without removing it from iCloud, go to Settings, select Messages, and uncheck the iMessage option.

If you're receiving weird, spammy iMessages, scroll down to the Send & Receive option of the Messages section, select that option, and check/uncheck the addresses you'd like to receive iMessages from.  iMessages can be sent to email addresses, so if you have a public-facing email or one that's shared often, you might want to uncheck that address.

If you're not receiving text messages even after disabling iMessages, you may wish to use Apple's Deregister iMessage page; it's intended for people who are switching from an iOS device to a non-iOS device, and thus wish to disable iMessages.

Another tip: Make sure that the people whose messages you're not receiving aren't attempting to send iMessages to your personal iMessage account!  Make sure to give them your work phone number, and text them from your work phone; otherwise, they may have created a contact with your personal iCloud account as the iMessage address.


How can I BATCH CONVERT Live iPhone images that have been imported to iPhoto as .m4v files to still .jpg images in MacBook OSX? I had Live photo enabled on my iPhone 6 and have taken over a thousand photos. When I attempted to import them to my MacBook, they all showed up as 3 second .m4v files.

Converting over a thousand live photos one by one in iPhone was just too tedious...SO...I downloaded the Lean application to batch convert all the live photos to .jpgs.

BECAUSE it was such a large batch, somehow, Lean was choking on the conversion so it asked me more than once if I wanted to delete the 1000+ extra duplicate images that it extracted from the 3 second .m4v files.

I clicked yes each time, and discover it deleted entire sets of images completely.

Fortunately, I had imported all the Live photos to iPhoto, so they all exist on my Macbook as .m4v.

Video conversion software that converts .m4v to .mp4 abounds, however...

Is there ANY WAY to batch export all the .m4v 3 second videos to still .jpgs in MacBook?

Ideally without having to buy 3rd party software?

iPhoto export does not seem to let me export the .m4v files to .jpg, it wants to export them as video files.

Can someone help me out? Thanks in advance!

I see two possible options for you: Using the Photos app or Image Capture.

Photos app

The newer Photos app (that replaces iPhoto) was released as part of the OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 update. As you seem to be running Mac OS X Yosemite, presumably you have it installed on your system (by default in the Applications folder).

If you import your live photos into the Photos app and then select them (not sure I would select all 1000+ at once), you can go to File > Export and it will export the JPEG versions of the selected photos.

As an aside, if you Option-drag an image into the Finder or go to File > Export > Export Unmodified Original, then both the unmodified JPEG and the associated MOV files are exported.

Image Capture

Another possibility is to just use Image Capture (also by default in the Applications folder):

Launch Image Capture
Connect your iPhone via USB
Select your iPhone
Choose Live Photos images
Import the images

Both the JPEG and MOV files for each image should copy across to your MacBook.


Macbook late-2008 and Samsung SSD 830: what happened I'm trying to install a Samsung SSD 830 256 Gb disk as main disk on my macbook late-2008. I had several problems with my disk due to a couple of wrong choices (you can read the story here).
I booted the machine from a Lion disk and I didn't succeed in formatting the disk in HFS due to a cryptic "Wiping volume data to prevent future accidental probing failed" error from the disk utility (both from GUI and terminal).
Then I tried booting with a Snow Leopard disk and the disk utility refused to format the disk with another cryptic message "POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memory". From terminal wasn't better "Error: 12: POSIX reports: cannot allocate memory".
My conclusion is that Samsung SSD 830 is not supported.

That's the story.

Of course, there is a question: any suggestions?

UPDATE: I've spent other three hours trying to fix this situation with no luck. I created an USB Lion boot (with a lot of problems due to Mac OS X bugs and lacks of documentation) and when after I started the installation on the SSD disk I obtain another magnificent error message "Can't download the additional components to install Mac OS X". After that moment the disk became invisible for the installer and I stopped trying.

Since I cannot directly comment on your question (too little reputation) I'll do it this way by answering it (I know that this is not a real answer, so please forgive me). I'll just cover the supplement of your question.

I'm using a Samsung SSD 840 PRO in my MacBook Pro (Late 2011 model) without any problems. When installing the SSD I had the same problems as you described, namely "Can't download the additional components to install Mac OS X" during the installation process. For me it helped to download the Mountain Lion installer (or use a copy on another mac) and build the USB disk with the DMG file that is contained in the Mountain Lion installer (this should also work with the Lion installer I guess). Here it is described how it works.

The reason why this is working is that the USB stick  contains all of the necessary data to install (Mountain) Lion whereas the solution given by Apple misses a lot of files that have to be downloaded from the web at the time of installation and the the download failed for me somehow. I'm not sure how you build your USB stick but if you used the way suggested by Apple you should give the other way of doing it a try.


Macbook Pro can only startup with external hard drive connected Here are the facts:

13 inch, mid 2012

It gave me the grey screen with the flashing question mark folder one day, and I got an external hard to install the MAC OS X operating system like the apple support pages said.

My MacBook Pro now works....until I take out the external hard drive, then it's back to square one with the same problem. I determined that in Disk Utility, the external hard drive I used to reinstall Mac OS X is being used AS the startup disk needed to get my computer working. My MacBook no longer has an INTERNAL hard drive listed, and it is not the kind where the battery can be removed from the back. I need to know if there is any way to make one before I take it to the shop.

If disk utility does not show your internal disk anymore it is a Hardware, not a Software fault. Unless you are savvy enough to troubleshoot the hardware issue yourself you will have to take it to a repair center.

Most likely it is actually not the Hard Drive but the Hard Drive cable that is failing. It is a common issue with your model and you might be eligible for a free replacement (cable). Be sure to either contact Apple Care or go to an Authorized Repair Center and have them check the issue for you.


how to permanently enable night shift in Mac OSX Sierra? I'm using Mac OS Sierra on an 11 inch Macbook Air, using an external Acer 24 inch monitor. I would like Night Shift to be always on.

In system preferences -> displays -> Acer G236HL -> the Night Shift tab, here's a picture of the settings:

The closest way to getting what I want is to check "Turn on until tomorrow", which works as expected. However, I have to do this every morning.

I thought I could get an essentially permanent Night shift by using the "schedule" option (with Manual checked off, which I'm reasonably assuming) to set a range beginning 5 min from now, ending 4 min from now, and then waiting 5 minutes. For example, if the time is currently 12:15 PM, I would set the scheduled Night shift to begin at 12:20 PM and end at 12:19 PM, e.g. running for 23 hours and 59 minutes. However, this doesn't seem to work; Night shift simply remains off, and the scheduling option seems to do nothing.

How can I permanently enable Night shift without having to recheck the "Turn on until Tomorrow" box every single morning?

I just use the schedule with the following custom schedule:

From: 04 AM

To: 03:59 AM

This way it's always on (apart from that minute between).

Note: I don't know if this will work with all external monitors; in which case as suggested you will have to adjust colour profile.


Desktop icon for mounted NAS volume changes location and it annoys me Question relates to the desktop icon for a mounted networked drive.
MacOS 10.14.6 - Seagate NAS SMB - Computer stays on and is set to never sleep.  Airport Extreme.
I mount the drive/volume and I get an icon.  I put the icon in a specific location and then at some point it moves to first available location on desktop.  How can I make it stay where I put it?  It's not a huge thing but it is annoying.
Every other icon on my desktop stays where I put it (Time Capsule drives, Time Machine USB drive, internal drive, files, folders, etc.)
My hunch is that the connection to the drive times out and then automatically reconnects, during this process the icon goes away (connection to drive ends) and then comes back and goes to first open location (connection to drive is re-established).
Any ideas on how to keep my NAS drive/volume icon where I put it?

Deleting the .DS_Store file on the desktop could help. Keep in mind that all icon positions are getting lost:

Open the Terminal.app in /Applications/Utilities
enter "rm ~/Desktop/.DS_Store" without quotes and hit enter
Relaunch the Finder

Press and hold the opt key
Right-Click or Control-Click on Finder in the Dock (while still holding down the Option key)
Select Relaunch

Also make sure there is some empty space around your wished position (2-3 icons wide).


Full expression friendly calculator app? One of the apps I miss most from Linux when using a Mac is the Gnome calculator (gcalctool). I like that I can type out a full expression before evaluating it:

Is there a good free calculator app that works similarly or is there a way to install gcalctool?

gcalctool is available in MacPorts

Download and install MacPorts
Perform the following action to install gcalctool from within a Terminal:

sudo port install gcalctool


iOS 7: How can I disable ringer for all phone numbers but one? I have a work cell phone that only rings when a server crashes. How would you disable the ringtone and text messages for every phone number except for one on iOS 7?

Try Do Not Disturb settings.   Only allow calls from Favorites and set the number you want to allow as Favorite.   Have not checked how that works with text, but will probably be handled.


How does an iPhone stream HD content to an Apple TV over AirPlay? Even 720p content is almost 1 million pixels per frame; 24 bits per pixel at 60fps is 180Mbps, which is clearly impossible. So how is the data transferred?

Some guesses:

Heavy compression.
Apple video playing APIs, which send the compressed stream is sent to the Apple TV, for the Apple TV to decode itself
Apple video playing APIs, which send a URL of the data location to the Apple TV.

The video is not sent pixel by pixel, but is encoded with a suitable video compression algorithm specifically designed to use much less bandwith while still being able to reproduce the original video faithfully to the human eye.

Without having investigated a suitable guess would be that the h264 encoding is used.


What to do with single-picture events in iPhoto? I use iPhoto to manage my pictures.  I have, therefore, over several years gained quite a set of Events as iPhoto calls them.

I also have lots of one-off pictures that people send me that I want to keep.  Not sure they deserve their own event, though, as the Events page is becoming pretty large.

What is a reasonable way to manage these pictures (and I hope that this questions meets the subjectivity benchmark)?  Make a "Single Picture" event?  Do pictures even have to be part of events, but if not, how do I find them again?

Photos need to be part of events; deleting a photo from an event deletes the photo from your Photo Library (unlike albums where deleting the photo just removes it from the album). If I was you I'd create a 'One-Off' or 'Photos I like' event.

You could create a big event for everything you don't want to be in its own event folder. This should let the Events feature be used for what it's designed for - organising your photos by significant dates. If Events seems like too much hassle then you can just ignore them all together, make your own albums and organise them manually.

Personally I just use events to find photos from 'the picnic' or 'that time we went to the airport', I don't bother organising or sorting my events.


How can I regain the Instant Hotspot feature in Yosemite after noticeable errors? While normal hotspot interaction functions perfectly between an iPhone 6 (iOS 8.4) and my MBPr '14 with Yosemite 10.10.4, the Instant Hotspot feature does not. This feature used to work, but after some time this feature stopped working.
I found the source of the issue, but can't determine how to resolve it.

My Yosemite logs reveal some errors.

com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice[749]: [-[CastlePlugin appleIDNeedsFixing]]
accountsd[270]: Deleting com.apple.gs.appleid.auth service token
AppleIDAuthAgent[286] SERVER AppleIDAuth: Forgetting account "<my-apple-id>@?????.???"

SDHotspotBrowser::appendHashToData:withType: No apple ID hash
SDHotspotBrowser::restartAdvertisingTetheringRequest Did not start advertising request

Steps I've tried that have not worked:

Signing out and back in to AppleID on both devices
Clean restore of iOS to iPhone
Ensuring wifi and bluetooth enabled on both devices, neither with an active wifi connection
All the above steps with full LTE coverage and 12 inch proximity between devices

While other answers here may help troubleshooting other causes of instant hotpsot failure, mine was caused by having two iCloud accounts used for keeping some syncing features separate.

Steps I took to get it working:

Turn on bluetooth and wifi on both devices
Connect both devices to same home wifi connection
Sign out of all icloud accounts on both devices
Restart both devices
Sign into both icloud accounts on iphone
Sign into both icloud accounts on OS X
Restart both devices
Sign out of main icloud account on mac
Restart mac
Sign into main icloud account on mac
Restart mac
Sign out of main icloud account on iphone
Restart iphone
Sign into main icloud account on iphone
Restart iphone
Check wifi on mac, profit

In my OS X console, See confirmation of Handoff:

AppleIDAuthAgent[285]: SERVER AppleIDAuth: Adding certificate for "<my-apple-id>@?????.???", "<certificate number>" to keychain, serial#="<iOS device serial number>" (updateAccountWithCertificateResult()/AppleIDAuthenticationImpl.cpp #225) accountCheckDispatch

Note that correct Instant Hotspot functionality is as follows

Instant hotspot should show up even if "Personal Hotspot" is turned off on the iPhone
Instant hotspot should show up even if Mac and iPhone are connected to other Wifi networks
Instant hotspot should show up even if phone is locked and in your pocket
Instant hotspot should show up even if iPhone has never been paired to the mac before
Instant hotspot will not show up if bluetooth is turned off on either device


How loud a noise can MacBook Air speakers produce? I can find official documentation about how loud the operating noise on a MacBook Air is

and information about the speakers

but no official documentation about how loud the speakers can be. Is there any official report from Apple about the maximum amount of decibels the speakers on any of its computers can produce? If not, what would be the best way to answer this question?

Output statistics such are usually reported as Watts. This sounds like what you are looking for. This is, unfortunately, a totally worthless data point, and the reasons why are beyond the scope of an answer on this forum.
Your best bet for measuring output, such as decibels/watt/meter, is an SPL (sound pressure level) meter. This would give you the best data set of output at different volumes and distances with different types of audio. You can actually get one for iOS right here that can measure the output of your speakers.


Is there a clever way import my Mail.app rules to iCloud? I have a lot of rules in my Mail.app but when my computer is off my inbox fills up with junk and it's hard to read from the phone. I want to set up the rules on iCloud but don't see a way of uploading/importing them into iCloud. Am I missing something or do I need to set them up again manually?

Try this. Go to iCloud.com and log in.

Select mail.

On the bottom left of the window, there is a cog:

Select that, and then Rules:

Finally, a window opens, and you can choose to sync Rules, or add specific rules just for iCloud.com (I think that's right.. not totally sure).

The help page is also useful.


Folders in trash won't get deleted? Says they are "in use" Ok, I have tried even doing in terminal ~/Trash then rm -rf to clear it manually, and in my Finder preferences I have deselected the "give warning" when emptying trash icon.

My issue is I have these folders which I don't think actually contain anything, however when I was backing up another computer that I had connected I accidentally dragged all the important folders copied to the trash on this main computer - Applications, History, etc. Now they just sit in trash and when I put new things in trash, EVEN THOUGH I have the warnings off I get these dialogues from finder saying:

The operation can’t be completed because the item “folder's name” is in use.

or

Some items in the Trash cannot be deleted because of System Integrity Protection.

I just hit Continue and everything in Trash EXCEPT the folders gets deleted. How can I remove these folders? I need them off my computer - any other CLI commands to try?

EDIT: ls -l ~/.Trash returns nothing in terminal.

There can be multiple trash folders.  There is a trash folder on your startup drive.  This is the one you are referencing.  There are other trash folder.  There is a trash folder in each of your other partitions.  When you drag something to the trash folder on another partition, it gets placed in the other partition's trash folder.

You look only on the startup drives trash folder. Since you have seen nothing in the startup drives trash folder, the folders to be deleted must be on some other partition.

You should look on your other computer. Notice the name of the trash on your startup drive is .Trash  .  Notice the name of the folder on your external drive is .Trashes  .

https://discussions.apple.com/message/29843847#29843847

Sorting through these commands may provide clues. Notice that the files are placed in the 501 folder which is you uid.

mac $ cd .Trashes/
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/hps+/.Trashes
mac $ ls -l
ls: .: Permission denied
mac RC=1 $ sudo ls -l
total 0
drwx------@ 4 _unknown  _unknown  136 Dec 23 14:31 501
mac $ sudo ls -la
total 0
d-wx-wx-wt@ 3 _unknown  _unknown  102 Dec 23 14:31 .
drwxrwxr-x  9 root      wheel     374 Dec 23 14:31 ..
drwx------@ 4 _unknown  _unknown  136 Dec 23 14:31 501
mac $ cd 501
/Volumes/hps+/.Trashes/501
mac $ ls -la
total 16
drwx------@ 4 mac  staff   136B Dec 23 14:31 ./
d-wx-wx-wt  3 mac  staff   102B Dec 23 14:31 ../
-rw-r--r--@ 1 mac  staff   6.0K Dec 23 14:31 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--  1 mac  staff     0B Dec 23 14:30 hi
mac $ pwd
/Volumes/hps+/.Trashes/501
mac $ ls -la
total 16
drwx------@ 4 mac  staff   136B Dec 23 14:31 ./
d-wx-wx-wt  3 mac  staff   102B Dec 23 14:31 ../
-rw-r--r--@ 1 mac  staff   6.0K Dec 23 14:31 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--  1 mac  staff     0B Dec 23 14:30 hi
mac $


Horrible Sound in Bootcamp The sound on my Windows 10 bootcamp installation on my 2019 13-inch Touch Bar MBP is HORRIBLE! It sounds muted and has no bass at all volume levels. I've tried reinstalling the drivers, but it didn't help at all.

If you haven't done it yet, first check the system on the Mac side to make sure sound is normal. (great point bmike) You also don't have extra software on the Mac side modifying the default sound, do you? Like in iTunes how you can adjust the EQ settings?
Others have commented how Apple is not spending much effort adding Equalization optimizations to BootCamp. Apparently there were issues with speakers blowing out so they also adjusted the volume levels.
My recommendation is if it sounds like the issue is only occurring in Bootcamp, then you may want to provide Apple some feedback:
https://www.apple.com/feedback/bootcamp.html
Here were additional
Comments regarding Windows 10 BootCamp sound differences on Reddit


How can I share Photos across multiple users on Apple Photos, without paying for iCloud? Me and my wife have separate Itunes accounts and have separate users on our Mac computer.  Once we upload our photos to our computer to our own accounts we delete them from our devices.

Is there a way that we can view each other's photos without having to switch between accounts?  Since I have tons of photos I wouldn't want to pay for ICloud to have them sync. For example I have tons of pictures of our son and she wants to print some of them.

FYI I am using the new Apple Photos App and we have tons of pictures.

I guess this is what you're looking for:

Enable iCloud's Family Sharing and iCloud Photo Sharing

If you have iCloud's Family Sharing and  iCloud Photo Sharing enabled, you'll see a special album called "Family" in the Shared tab of the Photos for OS X app, as well as the Shared section of the Photos app on iPhone and iPad. This album will automatically sync with all members within your Family Sharing group.
Share your photos

To add photos to the shared stream, select them and click the Share
button. From there, choose iCloud Photo Library, and select the
Family album. The images will then sync over to your family member's
device.

If you need a deeper explanation: http://www.imore.com/how-use-iclouds-family-sharing-photos-os-x


print user's crontab How can I print out my crontab?  Under Linux this can be done using crontab -l, however, running crontab -l under Mac OS X produces no output whatsoever and exits cleanly.

Here's my crontab:

0 9,10,11,12 * * 1-6 /Users/alexej.magura/scripts/vimmaid.sh
0 9,10,11,12 1,28 1,3,5,7,9,11 * /Users/alexej.magura/scripts/yankmaid.sh
0 9,10,11,12 1,2,*0,*1 * * /Users/alexej.magura/scripts/cronman.sh
0 *1,*3,*5,*7,*9 * * * /Users/alexej.magura/scripts/syl.sh

The command for Mac OS X and Linux are the same: crontab -l
This seems to indicate that the crontab is empty. Maybe edit the crontab with crontab -e and afterwards print out the crontab. Your changes should now be printed to console.


iPhone 5S gets very hot and drains battery My iPhone 5S is getting very hot and the battery drains like 5 % in 30 seconds. I've tried it all, restoring and stuff and I've read that the problem is with iCloud. So I've deleted my iCloud account from my iPhone and now it is cool.

But still I really need to use my iCloud.. Some say that you need to make a new iCloud email. But that doesn't seems to be a solution because I use that iCloud email with all my devices.

How can I find the problem in iCloud?

I would connect to a fast WiFi and re-enable iCloud. The WiFi will drain the battery far less than the cellular modem for transferring 1 GB of data since it will finish much faster in most cases. Also, you might need to plug into power to let however much data you have sync.

Some big items you can turn off temporarily are:

iCloud Photo Stream
iCloud Backup
Any other large users of data from the settings app, iCloud and settings app, usage

Another thing you could try is to disable all iCloud settings, and enable them one by one.

Once the device is caught up, you can test the device on LTE/3G data without the power cord and WiFi to see that the battery usage isn't due to downloading a lot of data from the cloud or putting that data up in the cloud.


MBP 13" 2015 + high sierra with external monitor : wifi being spotty and dropping service irregularly I have a MPB 2015 13" MBP with High Sierra.
I bought a ViewSonic VP3881 monitor.
Monitor works flawless. (Except for a documented feature of sound control access from keyboard not working.)

But for some reason the wifi is being VERY spotty. I've had the monitor for 2 weeks now and I can't find an obvious pattern, except that it looses connection with the wifi on an irregular basis, while at the same time I have an older MacMini 2014 (El Capitain) on the same wifi, that does NOT drop the connection. Sometimes when rebooting it picks up the wifi, sometimes not even after reboot. Unplugging the monitor seem to make the wifi came back every time though.

Why would an external monitor interject with wifi?

This seem like a hardware problem, so I'm more or less forced to accept the situation, but hoping that there might be a checkbox somewhere I need to set to fix it?

External monitors can emit signals that interfere with WiFi signals. This is commonly due to insufficient shielding within the monitor. I would complain to ViewSonic - they might know about a design deficiency for this particular monitor, and have a solution or rebate at hand.

In order to try and fix this yourself, the most common way to solve this is simply to move your WiFi to a different set of frequencies, and hope that the monitor is not producing interference with that set of frequencies. It is usually hard for home users to shield the monitor properly without it being an ugly hack.

In essence you would need to access the settings on your WiFi access point and move it to a different channel. For example if you're using channel 11 now, try using channel 6 instead. You might need a few tries to find a sweet spot.

You can also switch from 2.4 Ghz WiFi to 5 Ghz WiFi if you have that available.


Allow Dashboard access to Calendar I clicked a date on the Calendar Dashboard widget and was prompted whether I wanted to allow Dashboard access to my Calendar. Not realising what this meant, I did not grant access. Now, I would like to allow the widget access to my Calendar. How do I enable this?

Go to the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences:

You should be able to check/uncheck Dashboard for access. You will have to quit and restart the widget in order to accept the new setting.


Orphaned inodes in SSD in MacBook Pro Early 2011 I have a Macbook Pro 15″ Early 2011.
Last year I changed the disk to put a new Samsung SSD (Evo).
Recently my computer was really slow. I rebooted on the recovery partition, and tested my disk with Disk Utility. It showed a lot of "orphaned inodes".

After a clean install and a few weeks, I had the same problem. So I started thinking the SSD was failing. After another few weeks, I couldn't even boot (prohibitory sign at bootup).

I sent it to Samsung as it was still under warranty. They apparently tested it, and saw no problem at all. They formatted it again and flashed it with the last firmware.

I received it two days ago, did a clean install, and today if I run Disk Utility, I still have these orphaned inodes.

What can I do? Is the SSD failing, or can it be some other part of my computer?

Orphaned inodes, are common, but they do normally get cleaned, latest after a restart.

  This is not a bug, it's the journaling clearing up a normal situation.
  An "orphaned" inode in this context is one which has been explicitly
  deleted, but which was still open by some process when it was deleted.
  The file vanishes completely from the directory structure, but normal
  Unix semantics require it to remain present on disk until the last
  user of that file closes it. At that point, the inode itself (as
  opposed to the directory entries pointing to it) is deleted, and the
  disk space used by the file is cleaned up.

In you case you use a application that does not release them (even if marked as deleted).

You could close apps to check, or use a terminal

sudo iosnoop

Type Password and wait and observe.

Look for who is still writing to the SSD.


Scrolling to top while on a call? Normally when you press the top status bar on the iPhone, it will scroll the main list component all the to the top. When you are on a call, though, the status bar becomes a bit bigger and when you click it, it goes to the phone app. Is there any way to scroll all the way up on whatever page you are looking at without having to manually drag the page while you are on a phone call?

No - the functionality replaces the tap for scrolling with a tap to resume the call.

You might instead need to use spotlight to search for the contact rather than scrolling in the case you mention. Worst case is you can use the paging / "scrubbing" gesture to tap and then scroll vertically along the side of the contact application to rapidly scroll to the desired letter. For apps without this added functionalities, you must scroll or end the call and then obtain the information you need before resuming the conversation.


What causes an iMessage to be delivered as a text message? Sometimes when I text other iPhone users, messages don't deliver as iMessages and say "Sent as text message". What causes this to happen?

When the receiving end did not set up iMessage on the iPhone, or when there is no internet connection available (for both receiver and sender), it will fall back to plain SMS messages.

You can disable this option in Settings > Messages > Send As SMS.


Added a 128GB SSD to 27" iMac I've added a 128GB SSD to my mid 2011 27" iMac and replaced the defective original HDD with a new one (1TB). Used Time Machine as back-up.
How do I transfer ALL my data (about 620GB) to the two new drives (from TM)
 using the SSD for the OS (Sierra) and the HDD for everything else.
What´s the simplest way to do this?

You can use a HDD enclosure to connect it via USB.


MirrorDisplays error every 30 seconds in system.log I'm seeing an error every 30 seconds in the system log, using the Console app, complaining about MirrorDisplays service only running for 0 seconds.
Nov  5 22:45:22 computer com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.preference.displays.MirrorDisplays): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Nov  5 22:45:52 --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Nov  5 22:45:52 computer com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.preference.displays.MirrorDisplays): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Nov  5 22:46:22 --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Nov  5 22:46:22 computer com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.preference.displays.MirrorDisplays): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Nov  5 22:46:52 --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Nov  5 22:46:52 computer com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.preference.displays.MirrorDisplays): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

It doesn't matter if I have no external display or use an external display at the same time.  How do I turn off this repeated error in the logs?

I had the same log complaints.
They are the result of macOS detecting the secondary HDMI display and some code quality issue.

Uncheck "System Preference > Display > Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available." After reboot the log output will be gone.


Lost Permissions Can't Delete Folder I accidentally ran a PHP script that creates a directory with permissions 0777 and I am now unable to delete this directory. Any help to delete it would be appreciated, I have inserted a picture of the directory info below.

If you're on an admin account, you should be able to click the lock, supply password, then click the + sign & add yourself as read/write.
If it won't let you do that, then try on the next folder up the hierarchy, setting permissions to at least add yourself as read & write, then click the 'gearbox' icon & 'apply to all enclosed items'.


Using security keys similar to the use of TouchID for removing need of passwords With the new MacBooks getting TouchIDs, password authentication is becoming an old school way to do things. Since TouchIDs work in the same way as Security keys (both having public-private keypair), and As written here, we can use touchID without passwords as long as we're logged in: Is there a way to use security keys for the same purpose in older Macbooks as the touchIDs in new Macs?

It is not currently possible to get the system dialogs for TouchID to also work with a security key, such as for example the popular Yubikey product. Third party applications can however provide support for products such as the Yubikey through similar popups windows.

One method of using security keys in a manner that resembles TouchID is to set your system up to them as a kind of "virtual smart card". This allows you to use for example a Yubikey as a means of logging in to your Mac, and for authenticating with Keychain, etc.

The specific method of achieving that depends on the type of security key you have. In general you need to configure the system and/or install drivers to let the security key function as a "smart card".

For the Yubikey product you can follow this guide from the manufacturer:

https://support.yubico.com/support/solutions/articles/15000006468-using-your-yubikey-as-a-smart-card-in-macos


VoiceOver keeps turning on My Macbook Pro (Touchpad, MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) turns VoiceOver on intermittently. It's annoying.

It seems to happen at random, every few weeks. It happened today when the machine started up and I wasn't touching the keyboard. It had happened before whilst I was using the machine.

It's disabled in the system preferences. It's not in my user's startup items. The chances of me triggering it by "pressing command and pressing the touch id three times" is zero. So I'm not sure what could be triggering it.

I fear it may be faulty hardware or buggy software. That wouldn't surprise me, but I can't see many other posts out there, so I don't think it's a systematic problem. It's too intermittent that I feel like I could get anything useful from an Apple service.

Any ideas what else could be causing it to activate or, failing that, how to prevent it or debug the trigger?

You can also turn on VoiceOver with the keyboard command cmd + F5 or cmd + function + 5. Might you be pressing those keys?

You can also tell Siri to turn on VoiceOver. I don't think this is your problem though.


iPad won't send messages on IMessage My iPad will not send messages or receive I'm connected to wifi I can send them but the send bar at the top will go almost all the way then stop and say about thirty seconds later not delivered

Internet traffic moves through a firewall based on service-identification numbers that are referred to as ports. Certain ports must be open for FaceTime and iMessage to work.
Here is a link where you can find the ports to open.


macOS annoyingly puts fullscreen videos in a new "space" When watching a video on YouTube (or any other streaming service) – I use mainly Safari, sometimes Chrome, with the same result – when I switch to fullscreen, the video goes fullscreen in a new "Space" (virtual screen).

I'm not interested in virtual spaces in general, I've always found it to be a very un-Mac-y way to work. But in the case of videos, it's pretty annoying. Let's say I get a notification (mail, IM, anything) and want to quickly check it. I command-tab to the app that sent me the notification and instead of just superimposing to window on top of the video (as it does on Windows and as it did in earlier versions of Mac OS X), the sound continues playing, the video vanishes and I get that useless screen:

I then have to click to exit full screen and double click again to get the full screen back (I'm sure there are other ways, with gestures and all, but it's just annoying).

Is there a way to revert to a sensible (à la Windows, or previous OS X versions) on recent macOS versions? I know VLC can do it, so it is theoretically possible, but did Apple hide a system setting somewhere to change that behaviour? If not, is there an app that does it?

Have you tried adjusting the settings related to this in System Preferences > Mission Control?

The first checkbox there lets you disable automatic grouping of windows and there are other related options there too. You can also totally disable having multiple screens there.

I'm not sure if you're using macOS mojave and this is no longer a feature. Also this is the one gesture that I use..dragging from one side of the trackpad to the other with 3 fingers.


Google Chrome for macOS: How to bypass "This type of file may harm your computer" and save file automatically Every time I download a .DMG file using Google Chrome, I have to open the Downloads tab and manually keep it which is super annoying. It shows This type of file may harm your computer message. Is there any way to always keep them?

Previously it can be configured in the settings but it seems there is no such setting in the latest version of Google Chrome.

Google Chrome uses heuristics to determine if a file could be harmful and alerts you likewise. In such cases, user has to click on the keep button shown alongside the active download in the bottom toolbar, or navigate to the Downloads tab and click on keep button. This may have to be done for one or more active downloads.

Keeping security in mind, Google Chrome doesn't provide a setting which completely turn-off this behavior. One workaround this is to enable Chrome to ask you for the location to save the file.

Access Google Chrome Settings, via the Customise and control Google Chrome button located at the end of the address bar, or use the keyboard shortcut Command + ,. Scroll to the end and click on Advanced. Now under Downloads section, enable Ask where to save each file before downloading.

If you generally choose to save all the downloaded files to a particular location, this will necessitate an extra step where you'll have to confirm the download location.

However, this will benefit by you as browser will bring to your attention any download activity. You can choose to discard any unintended file and can choose to save them to a custom location directly.

Also, it's a good idea to always keep your browser up-to-date from security standpoint.


Is Pinch To Zoom in TextEdit feature available in Lion? In Mountain Lion it is now possible Pinch To Zoom in files within TextEdit. I think this is a new feature in Mountain Lion.

I'd like to know whether it is available in Lion?

No, not at the moment.  They decided to remove it in Mountain Lion for some reason...but they'll probably add it back due to complaints.


4k movie on 4k screen scaled to 1080 I have my first ever 4k screen - a new 55" TV - & I'm struggling with this paradigm.

I have to set it to show the desktop at an apparent 1080p otherwise I need to be within about 15" to be able to actually read it.

So, what happens if I want to watch a 4k movie on it?
This is a bit hypothetical at the moment, I don't yet have any 4k content to test this, & I've been holding back because I'm thinking it's just going to get down-sampled to display on my "1080p" output, thereby gaining nothing.

Is this actually going to be the case? Am I going to have to re-scale the screen in order to watch at 4k, or will it auto-magically display the desktop at 1080 but a fullscreen movie at 4k?

I'm currently using VLC as playback app, set to not use macOS native fullscreen, so it expands in the current Space rather than making a new one for itself.

Mac is an old Mac Pro 3,1 stuck on El Capitan, with an aftermarket 4k-capable GPU, connected over HDMI & working entirely as expected for 1080p & lower content.

To clarify, all scaling is being done on the Mac, as though it was a retina display [every other display I've ever used is non-retina, so this is all very new to me.]

Pic taken over ARD, too lazy to walk to it right now ;)

OK - asked, tested and answered…

With the screen set to 1080p, that's all it will play at, whatever the source.

To get 4k the screen must first be set to 4k.


Is it possible to use SteelSeries keyboards with MacBook Pro? Is it possible to use SteelSeries keyboards with MacBook Pro?

I'm thinking about SteelSeries Apex line.

I have a macbook pro and a SteelSeries m500. It works great. All you have to do is go into System Preferences -> Keyboards and remap the command, control, alt... keys to what you want. Super easy. I also use Better Touch Tool to remap the function keys at the top to what I want: https://folivora.ai/


During jailbreaking iPhone 4 shuts down and can't start again I have an iPhone 4 which I tried to install Cydia on, and everything worked well. However, when I tried to put it in DFU mode, it shuts down. I attempt to power it back up but nothing happens. What could be causing this problem?

Try plugging in to computer then press the home and power button, it usually worked for me.


How to disable USB Mass Storage Device in macOS Mojave I have been searching a solution on how to disable the USB ports on Mac mini to prevent data copy to external USB mass storage devices. Precisely, my purpose is not to let Mac mini read/write data from/into USB devices.

According to this post  ,kextunload command could be employed to accomplish this task in previous versions such as Sierra.

The problem that made me mad is there is only IOUSBMassStorageDriver.kext, but not IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext existing in /System/Library/Extensions/ directory.
In addition, after running sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver,
the below error keeps occurring.

(kernel) Can't remove kext com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver; services failed to terminate - 0xdc008018.
Failed to unload com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver - (libkern/kext) kext is in use or retained (cannot unload).

Anyone got any ideas? I really need help from this community.

Is it okay if the usb is recognized, but isn't mounted? When a drive is recognized but not mounted, and your SIP is enabled, system apps with the right entitlements might still be able to read/write directly to the disk, but most system and 3rd-party applications won't be able to write to the disk. If so, try disk arbitrator (download: https://github.com/aburgh/Disk-Arbitrator/releases). I'm sure most people know this already, but maybe someone will benefit from knowing this. I hope this helps.


Ethernet not working after installing Security Update 2020-002 10.14.6 Mac OS X showed that a new update was available on my MacBook Air (2019) which I connect to the internet with using a USB-C to ethernet connector. [ I don't use wi-fi at all for health reasons.] After installing the update, my Mac no longer recognises the ethernet connection - the connection does not show up on the switch. I purchased a new USB-C to ethernet adaptor, and it too does not work ... from which I have figured out that the problem appears to be Apple's update. I am running Mac OS Mojave 10.14.6.

Any suggestions as to how to get my MacBook Air running again with ethernet ... is it possible to just install a new (or old or backup version of) the ethernet driver? If so, does anyone know which file to switch. Many thanks

As follow up to this very frustrating problem ...

On further analysis, the problem is that ONE of the USB-C ports stopped working (for both ethernet adaptors, and also for standalone USB to USB-C adaptors). The other USB-C port remained working fine.
After shifting the power input to the 'dead' port, that appears to have reset it, and it is now working again. I am suprised that this helped when re-starting the computer etc made no difference.


Save an attachment to my iDisk Is it possible to save a file received by e-mail to a folder on iDisk ? Watch out : The context is : web browsing on my MobileMe account.

Doesn't look like it. It would be a good feature though. You should send them a feature request.


Cannot partition Macintosh HD Pre P.S. From what I read online, sharing your UUID is not really a security issue, but if I just basically shared my social security number, please do tell.

Before I ask this, I'm a PC person and got this computer for school use, so please excuse my lack of Mac knowledge. Also, I understand that this question has been asked 10+ times, so please read my question fully and refer to my posted pictures to see the difference before flagging.

My Dad has had his old Macbook Pro sitting in a cabinet for 1-2 years at work since he got his new one. I'm not sure exactly what year it is, but I know it's a 17" and one of the first Retina displays. The computer has not been charged or turned on for those years. That information is just for if it's helpful.

I'm trying to install OS X Yosemite off of a 64GB Lexar flash drive (which you'll see in Disk Utility), however roughly 99.9% of the hard drive space seems to go towards Apple Core Storage, which is in Macintosh HD, while the other .01% is in the Recovery HD. Due to this, I cannot partition the hard drive to install Yosemite.

Here is the terminal window when I type in 'diskutil cs list' (top), and then terminal when I type in 'diskutil list' (bottom).

When I take the Local Volume Group UUID, and insert it into the command to change the amount of storage that Apple Core Storage takes ('diskutil cs resizeStack [AppleCoreStorage UUID] 700g'), I get the following error:

Below are a few pictures of my Disk Utility. Please notice that 'Macintosh HD' is alone. There is no tab under it like I see in other people's questions. I feel like this has to do with why it will not let me partition the Hard Drive. Also, I think that it all goes back to not being able to resize the Apple Core Storage

When I verify the disks it all appears to be okay, as well.

Your CoreStorage Volume Group doesn't contain a complete stack which also includes a Logical Storage Family and Logical Volume(s) besides the existing Logical Volume Group and the Physical Volume(s).

Probably that's the reason why the command fails.

But there is no need to resize the stack since it's useless as it is configured now: it doesn't contain a valid volume to install to. You may now either create a Logical Volume in the existing LVG or completely delete the CoreStorage partition scheme and revert to a classical partition setup:

Create a Logical Volume:

Quit Disk Utility, open in the menu bar Utilities -> Terminal and enter

diskutil cs list #(and copy the Logical Volume Group UUID (=lvgUUID))
diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID type name size

In your case something like:

diskutil cs createVolume 49D3CD66-F48B-4DB8-97D0-A8A1C7C5434F jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%

Enter exit, quit Terminal
Erase the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group:

Quit Disk Utility, open in the menu bar Utilities -> Terminal and enter

diskutil cs delete lvgUUID

In your case:

diskutil cs delete 49D3CD66-F48B-4DB8-97D0-A8A1C7C5434F

Enter exit, quit Terminal and reopen Disk Utility

Partition the empty space as you need it and quit Disk Utility afterwards

Now continue installing Yosemite


What replacement SMS/MMS app for iPhone will allow me to change convo color, etc? My best friend and a client of mine have the same name, and it's way too easy to accidentally click on the client when I'm having a more adult or humorous conversation with my buddy at the same time as my client.

Is there a replacement iPhone texting app that uses the native SMS (I have unlimited texting plan so don't want to bother with giving all my contacts a new handle nor requiring them to download an app themselves), but allows a couple other features like choosing what color a contact's talking bubbles will be or choosing the messaging font?

I really don't want to jailbreak if at all possible.

There are loads of "messaging" apps on the App Store, however, none of them use SMS. And if they do, it's one-way, it's send only. All the rest of them are data calls using an external service that invariably requires registrations, and (in some cases) perhaps payment!

This is one of the infamous "duplicates Apple functionality" zones. There is one way in or out of SMS, and that's Messages.app built into the iPhone. It is unfortunate that messages can't be customized beyond how it works external to the app, and the minor details such as showing a subject field, counting characters, etc.

Without Jailbreaking, you will not find a full on frontend replacement for communicating via actual SMSes in the iOS App Store. Other, more "creative" solutions must be done here.

Per @mankoff's comment on your question itself, you could perhaps find a better way to have his name displayed, be it by Nickname or other ways.


Built-in display resolution resets when connecting to external monitor I have my Retina Macbook Pro's built-in display set to the scaled resolution "more space" in System Preferences. Whenever I connect to an external monitor (extended mode), the resolution resets to "default". I have to manually change it back to a larger resolution. Is there anyway to lock it on the correct resolution and prevent this behavior?

I have got the same problem. It is not that big of a deal to change it everytime, but it still is pretty annoying.

Sometimes it doesn't happen, but most of the times it does.

This morning when I turned on my macbook, it started in my "more space" resolution.
When I connected my second screen, display mirroring was turned on (something I never use and don't want). When I turned off display mirroring, my Macbook display went to the default resolution. I changed it back to "more space".
Then I unplugged the second monitor. After my Macbook's screen went black, it returned in the default resolution again. I changed it back to "more space".
Then I replugged my second monitor and this time it remembered my "more space" setting. I then unplugged the second monitor again and again it remembered by "more space" setting.

It seems as though it remembers the settings until I completely shut down my Macbook. Then, it reverts to the default settings (and sometimes randomly turns on display mirroring).
I have to test this thesis more to see if I am correct.


How can I move an icon to a different place on the dock? Using El Capitan (10.11.6) on a MacBook Pro. I want to move an app icon to a different location on the Dock. I can get it on the dock but can't figure out how to move it from the default location.

Click and drag: put the cursor on the icon you want to move, then click and hold while dragging the icon right or left to the position you want.


How can I set the Mac OS X screensaver when not logged in? When logged in to my user account, the screensaver selected in System Preferences is used. However, when on the login screen before logging in or using fast user switching a different screensaver is used. How do I set the screensaver used on the login screen?

The screensaver for the login screen is the one set for the root (i.e. system) user account. To launch System Preferences as root, use sudo; a Terminal window run:

sudo /Applications/System\ Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System\ Preferences

Then you can change the screensaver settings as you normally would. Note that in order to use sudo, you needs to be an admin user.


Is there any way for me to view a webpage on my iphone in Safari offline? I need for the javascript and css to work (though naturally I understand anything that makes external requests will not work, this is fine). I am happy to download the html files and assorted assets if it helps though I suspect it will not.
'Reading List' does nothing for me. Safari is enabled to back up to my iCloud, I have safari set to automatically save offline. But every webpage (e.g. a wikipedia article) I have picked, if I add it to the reading list and then go offline, it tells me I can't view it.

Thanks Kevin Grabher for the answer.
For those who want to use this, to get to 'Send As' you should press 'options' after pressing the bottom middle button.
There are natural and understandable limitations, namely that you will need to make sure you arrange things such that you capture all the assets in doing this. There's several ways to do so. For me I just inlined the assets I needed, hosted locally on my computer, accessed my local server, did this webarchive thing and hey presto, it works!


Where are audio device files in OSX? Probably because OSX uses different naming conventions for devices files and because OSX uses Core Audio audio subsystem (not ALSA or OSS) there are no devices such as:

/dev/sdp
/dev/audio
/dev/mixer
/dev/snd/*

So, where are audio devices file in OSX?

Here are some suggestions.

If you are talking about Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) devices, then the path is

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/

By default there is one bundle there: on my Mac iSightAudio.driver, is the driver for the built-in webcam.

Other devices may use Kernel Extensions; bundles that end in .kext, are located in:

/System/Library/Extensions/


Connecting a MIDI piano keyboard to the iPad with a MIDI cable I have an iPad Pro and wanted to connect a keyboard with my iPad via a MIDI cable that I also have (https://www.amazon.es/gp/product/B00NH13DV2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).
And I don't know which adapter to buy to be able to do it.
Thank you very much

The cable you have is actually not a MIDI cable - it is however the correct cable for many keyboards/stage pianos today. The standard MIDI plug looks quite different (it is round), but in the end you'll be able to transfer the same data over the USB cable you have.
The adapter you need depends on which version of the iPad Pro you have. For the older ones with a Lightning port, you can use for example the Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter. For newer iPad Pros with a USB-C port, you can use for example the Apple USB-C to USB Adapter.


How do I show who created/owns a file in the Finder? I wish to see who created a file or who has ownership of a file within the list view of Finder.

Specifically I'm looking at a network Samba volume and can see the owner and group within Terminal.

UPDATE: Using the finder to show the permissions is not enough as it does not tell me who the owner is. Notice below two users have the "Read & Write" permission.

Inspecting the file with terminal shows that the file is owned by 'rpopp'.

Also note that I wish to show this property in finders list view for all files at once.

I appreciate this doesn't completely answer your question as its not a modification to Finder, but I've previously used Path Finder to do this - assuming you're willing to pay for and use a 3rd party application (though its does have a 30-day trial).


Default 'Authentication Required' dialog username I've got a 13" MBP running 10.8. I recently changed my full name of my account, but whenever I get an authentication dialog, it has pre-filled in my old full name. Is there anywhere to change this setting?

You're likely seeing the actual 'account name', or 'short name' on the dialogs you're referring to, which differs from the 'full name' you recently changed. In order for things to match up correctly you'll need to take these steps, carefully.

Before following these steps, you may wish to back up your important data.

Enable the root user.
Log in as root.
Navigate to the /Users folder.
Select the Home folder with the short name you want to change, and rename it just like you would rename any folder. Keep in mind that the shortname must be all lowercase, with no spaces, and only contain letters.
Use the Users & Groups pane (Accounts pane in Mac OS X v10.6.8 or earlier) in System Preferences to create a new user with the Account name or Short Name that you used in the previous step.
Click OK when "A folder in the Users folder already has the name 'account name'. Would you like to use that folder as the Home folder for this user account?" appears. Note: This will correct the ownership of all files in the Home folder, and avoid permissions issues with the contents.
Choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
Log in as the newly created user. You should be able to access all of your original files (on the desktop, in Documents, and in the other folders of this Home).
After verifying that your data is as expected, you can delete the original user account via the Users & Groups pane (Accounts pane in Mac OS X v10.6.8 or earlier).
Disable the root user.

More detailed information: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428


Retrieve the Apple ID used to download a given app (in iTunes) I have multiple devices, all handled with iTunes in the same PC.
Each device is associated with a different Apple ID.

I may want to install some apps in more than one device. As far as I know, an app downloaded in iTunes leaves a .ipa file that has embedded the information about the associated Apple ID (in directory C:\userdir\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications in my Win7).

Is that correct?

If so, is there any way to know the associated Apple ID, for each .ipa file?
Will I have more than one copy of an .ipa file in my PC, if the app is purchased with more than one ID?
Where will each one be stored?

And if not, where is the information about which Apple IDs were used to download each app stored? Can it be retrieved?

PS: This question has a title that describes well the present one. But the question itself asks something a little bit different, and the accepted answer is OK for that question, but it by no means answers this one.

PS2: This is a related question.

EDIT: There is a sign on top stating

This question may already have an answer here:
Retrieve the Apple ID used to download a given app (in iphone)

That is precisely the question referred to in PS2. I have posted that one too, and it is a different question (with no answers so far).

If you can copy something.ipa file to a temporary location and rename it to something.zip, then a standard unzip program will be able to show you the contents of the archive.  In the top folder is iTunesMetatdata.plist, which you should be able to open in a text editor.  Near the top would be a line for appleId, followed by the appleId which was used to download this version of this application.

If multiple IDs have purchased the same application, you would still only have one version on the computer.


Revert default finder I used this command to try out an alternative finder.

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow Finder /Full/Path/To/Path\ Finder.app

I prefer the standard finder - but do not know how to get it back.

Anybody know?

I don't know. But I bet you can do both

defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow Finder

or

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app


How do I download folders through FTP in Terminal? How do I download a whole folder through FTP in Terminal?

mget is the closest you can get with the included FTP binary. You have to mkdir and cd/lcd and then get all the files than match a pattern like *

The prompt toggle may come in handy.

FTP works within a directory, not on directories as containers of files. If you absolutely had to get the job done and ftp was the only tool you could use - you could cobble together an expect script to drive ftp for you.

Thankfully there are alternatives like scp|rsync|wget to get whole directories worth of files.


Unable to boot into 10.4 installation disc I'm attempting to fix my friends old iMac G5 running OSX 10.4. There are a bunch of updates she needs, but she doesn't know her admin password. I'm attempting to reset it with her 10.4 install disc, but when I attempt to boot into it, the machine just runs and runs and runs and never seems to make it to the installation screen. I thought maybe it was the disc, so I downloaded an ISO of 10.4 and tried to boot into that, but that didn't help either. OSX seems to recognize the discs when I view it's contents in the folders, but booting into them just don't seem to work. Should I try booting from a USB version?

I wanted to show her what Ubuntu might look like (so she doesn't have to pay $200 for Leopard, the last version of OSX her iMac will support), but booting into that LiveCD fails too.

Most PowerMacs can't boot off of USB drives natively. They can boot off of a FireWire drive, however. If you have an external FireWire hard disk handy, you could try using Disk Utility to clone the 10.4 boot disk onto the drive and booting off of that. There is also (supposedly) a way to make the system boot off of an external USB disk, but it involves editing an nvram variable. This article explains how to do that.


How to add new search engine options in Safari for Windows? Without resorting to editing the host file (as shown in this Apple.SE thread), is there any way to add a new search engine option to Safari for Windows? Glims works great on OS X, but unfortunately is not an option since my work machine is a Windows 7 box.

EDIT: I'd prefer a generic solution, similar to Glims, that would allow me to add any search engine to the search options.

There are a few Safari Extensions that will enable this:

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35036/popsearch-safari-extension

http://safariextensions.org/detail/Search_All/

http://safariextensions.org/detail/CustomSearch/

http://safariextensions.org/detail/OpenSearch_for_Safari/


Is there an easy way to switch desktops on the remote computer using "back to my mac" I have just setup "back to my mac" and the connection works fine. My only "complaint" so far is that I haven't found a convenient way to switch from one desktop to another on the remote computer (or to any other full-screen app). Clicking on the icon in the dock works. But I was wondering if I missed some other way.

The key command is control and left arrow or right arrow.

You can customize things further in Mission Control preferences as well.

Depending on which VNC/RDC client you are using - the command keys might act locally if you are browsing from OS X - so you might need to eliminate multiple screens to pass those through.

Alternatively, you can use/set a hot key for mission control and choose which screen you want from the top of the window. Changing the local shortcut will allow it to pass through to the remote OS X if that's blocking you.


is it possible to automate device enrollment process using Intune MDM? We are trying to give our staff an enterprise app using Intune MDM. Here are the steps we followed: https://www.robinhobo.com/how-to-enroll-an-apple-device-with-ios-13-user-enrollment-mode-in-microsoft-intune/
We have a requirement that we need to automate the Enrollment of iOS device so that end-users do not need to do all the steps like they will select the app and then install so from a mobile we have to do the remaining steps automatically.
Can we automate the steps below?

download management profile
install the management profile
update device settings

Apple can compel device enrollment automation that triggers no touch download and forced enrollment.

http://deploy.apple.com/

iOS devices require user approved enrollment unless the hardware was purchased under a business account. This subset of hardware can be automatically managed devices as part of an enterprise or business account. Your three steps would work for these iOS devices.
Since your three steps are three different processes, focus on them sequentially.
Figure how to update settings once a device is managed (by Intune in your case) as you likely have the most control over that initially.
Then you will have two paths for the other two steps. User assisted enrollment of a device and Apple DEP process that points to your specific MDM.

https://www.apple.com/business/docs/site/DEP_Guide.pdf
https://support.apple.com/guide/mdm/welcome/web

Read this PDF and site for some great tips, like manual supervision via Apple Configurator.


Can't install Homebrew on Mac OS X Lion I followed the simple instructions on Homebrew's homepage:

Paste this at a terminal prompt:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"

But I get the following permission errors.  What is the proper way to install Homebrew on Mac OS X Lion?

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"
==> This script will install:
/usr/local/bin/brew
/usr/local/Library/Formula/...
/usr/local/Library/Homebrew/...

Press enter to continue
==> /usr/bin/sudo /bin/chmod o+w /usr/local
mkdir: /usr/local/Cellar: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/etc: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/include: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/lib: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/Library: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/sbin: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/share: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/var: Permission denied
mkdir: /usr/local/.git: Permission denied
Failed during: /bin/mkdir /usr/local/Cellar /usr/local/etc /usr/local/include /usr/local/lib /usr/local/Library /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/share /usr/local/var /usr/local/.git
$

Try this: sudo /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)".


What application can I use to increase fan speed of MacBook Pro under Windows 7? On OS X Lion I use smcFanControl to increase fan speed. What application can I use on Windows 7 on MacBook Pro?

I've used SpeedFan with Windows running in a Bootcamp partitions to access temperature data and control the fan speeds on an iMac. He's very quick to turn around unsupported chipsets and the software tells you if you should report your chipset to the author for addition.


Screen sharing suddenly stopped working For years, I've used screen sharing to connect my MacBook to my iMac. It has always worked like a charm. About a month ago, it stopped working. I can still see my iMac in Finder when I'm on the laptop. But when I try to connect, I get the "busy" bar for a minute or two, then a message telling me I needed to enable screen sharing on the iMac.

Screen sharing is enabled; I never changed the setting, and I've double checked that it is still clicked. I can screen share via my MacBook with my husband's iMac across our home network, so I think the problem rests with the iMac, not with my laptop. I have tried sharing via VNC. I have tried logging out of Mobile me on the laptop. I have tried a screen sharing app. Nothing works. Can anyone think of anything I haven't tried?

I'm running OS X 10.7.5 on the iMac.

Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Firewall -> Firewall Options and remove anything in the list box lower section that has to do with screen sharing. You can remove an item by highlighting it then clicking the minus button below the list. Click Ok.

Next go to System Preferences -> Sharing and uncheck Screen Sharing.

Reboot. I don't know why this is needed and I hate that it is, but it didn't work for me to do this without a reboot.

Then go back to System Preferences -> Sharing and recheck Screen Sharing.


Is there a reason an older Macbook won't run Mountain Lion? I needed Mountain Lion because some of the newer software of Apple, such as Xcode, requires Mountain Lion, but besides the iMac 27 I have, sometimes I need to go on trips and need to bring a white Macbook that I bought near end of 2007.

It is indeed a very decent Core 2 Duo notebook (besides the screen dimming a little after so many years because it is not LED type), with an Intel graphics card that is capable of playing all videos and Flash games I tried, but wonder, this Macbook can't install Mountain Lion and so I need to buy either a new Macbook Air for about $1200 or a Macbook Pro for $1800 to $2200 (depending on whether it is Retina).  Is there a reason why Mountain Lion can't be installed on this notebook?  Since it is to run Xcode mainly, graphics card performance is not needed if that may be a reason -- or for other reasons?

Apparently it has to do with 32-bit graphics cards drivers, as they do not support 64-bit EFI.

While Mountain Lion is compatible with any Mac capable of running a 64-bit kernel, the kernel does not support loading 32-bit kernel extensions. So, since the early 64-bit Macs use 32-bit drivers, Mountain Lion won't load them.

You can find out if your computer has a 32-bit or 64-bit EFI by running the command: ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

It will return either <"EFI64"> or <"EFI32">.


Mail is Unable to Open a URL Since upgrading to macOS 10.15, the mail app is no longer able to open a message by its URL.

For instance, the URL message:%3CCAEkAa-anCn=ZE21kpFw-oKaXEVsGE0SuuNtyUT8qyZndoPMuaQ@mail.gmail.com%3E which launched the corresponding message is now causing Mail app to show the following message:

The operation couldn’t be completed. (MCMailErrorDomain error 1030.)

Mail was unable to open the URL “message:%3CCAEkAa-anCn=ZE21kpFw-oKaXEVsGE0SuuNtyUT8qyZndoPMuaQ@mail.gmail.com%3E”.

According to your error message it looks like a Mail plugin incompatibility. One or more plugins are not fully compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina, yet. Did you install GPGMail.mailbundle or additional mail plugins? If so,

Completely shut down Mail.app
Navigate to ~/Library/Mail/Bundles
Move GPGMail.mailbundle to your desktop
Restart Mail  and try again


How to safely delete .inProgress Time Machine backup? I attempted to start a Time Machine backup but the backup failed due to insufficient space. I now have a useless 60 GB .inProgress file that's eating into my already limited storage space.
For a seemingly easily-achieved problem, there are few resources online for this. A pre-Catalina article from 2018 suggests using tmutil delete /path, as do these Ask Different answers. All of these answers are also pre-Catalina.*
With such consensus of answers I tried sudo tmutil /path/backup.inProgress but received a return message of "Invalid deletion target (error 22)" and "Total Deleted: 0B"
$ sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/XXXX/Backups.backupdb/XXXX/2020-09-30-004400.inProgress
Password:
/Volumes/XXXX/Backups.backupdb/XXXX/2020-09-30-004400.inProgress: Invalid deletion target (error 22)
Total deleted: 0B

Also, when I run tmutil listbackups Terminal only prints completed backups (as the manual indicates should be the case).
How can I safely delete the 60 GB .inProgress file?
*This answer suggests simply dragging the .inProgress file into the Trash – though from personal experience I know this is wrong and leads to problems – namely a perpetually stuck Time Machine and an impossible to empty Trash.

The next backup interval prunes and cleans this folder. If you have 24 hours of backups and still have a hung inProgress, I would open a case directly with Apple.
With hard links, it’s unlikely you are using any space on these files, since another interval already covers them or the next interval will reuse that space.

The risk of messing with the backups is you ruin that destination so unless you are willing to make that destination read-only and start backing up to a new destination, I would not mess with this manually - even to try to convince tmutil to delete that non-interval.
I have had great success using time machine utility to delete whole backups and letting the system run to pre-clean and post-clean these progress folders. When the progress folder remains for more than a day of successful backups, you usually have another problem and poking at a system with one failure isn’t likely to address the main problem. You could also try to bypass and clean up a large file if that helps you get space back if deleting intervals doesn’t prune enough space.


Yosemite VPN breaks internet connection over Wi-fi I have a basic PPTP VPN connection set up, but when I connect to it, my Mac immediately looses internet connection. Skype still routes and works, but internet connection dies.

I don't have "Send all traffic over VPN connection" enabled. Even it is enabled, the internet connection is still dead.

I have the following custom routing setup in /etc/ppp/ip-up:

#!/bin/sh
/sbin/route add -net 192.168.1.52 -interface ppp0

Any advice please?

I have the exactly same issue on both Wi-fi and Ethernet connections. It started after upgrading from Maverick to Yosemite and all my VPN connection were behaving the same.

I got in touch with Apple support regarding this problem and their procedure was as follows:

Create a new network location (which gives us fresh network settings to work with)
Create the VPN connection in this new location
Test

If the problem persists (my situation) then your old settings are not the problem.

Create a new user (administrator rights)
Log in with this new user
Test again

If your problem persists (my situation) then your user settings are not the problem.

At this stage they said the problem should be the VPN providers, but in my situation nothing was changed from their end and I am using their services for more than a year now.

Continuing my research I suspected the problem should be DNS related. I can ping external addresses by IP, but not by DNS, and my local network still works.

As a temporary solution I entered my router's address in the VPN DNS Servers.


How do I assign a Razer DeathAdder Black Edition key to Mission Control? I have purchased a Razer DeathAdder Black Edition mouse, and the latest Mac driver I can find for it is 1.00.  The possible assignments for the side buttons don't seem to have Mission Control buttons available for them (they only have various Expose keys available)

Is there a hack around this?  Or do I just have to do without?  Or exchange for a different Razer mouse with a more developed Mac driver?  Or just use the Mac driver for a different Razer mouse?

I've got my Razer Naga configured to work with Mission Control.

I've used the Razer drivers to set up the button I want to use to trigger Mission Control to trigger Mouse Button 3 (you can bind any button to this):

Then, I've set up System Preferences to use Mouse Button 3 to trigger Mission Control:

That's been working fine for me; no extra software required.


How to switch Preview's full screen default setting from "two-pages" to "continuous scroll"? Whenever I open a pdf, Preview.app opens it in "continuous scroll" mode. However, when going into fullscreen mode, it switches to "two-pages" when, really, I want it to use whatever view mode I had it, in this case: "continuous scroll".

Anyone know how to remedy this? Or perhaps suggest an alternative to Preview.app?

I'm on Mavericks OSX 10.9.2.

As you know, per your question, the preferences in the Preview app only apply to documents when first opened. It seems that OS X has a built in default view for full screen documents. I tried a couple things...

I opened a PDF to Full Screen and set the view to Continuous to see if this would stick and that view would be chosen next time I went full screen. Not the case.
I searched every preference file related to Preview (also using 10.9.2) and found no setting even indirectly related to a view setting specifically when in full screen.

I'd say, doing what you want is either not possible at all or at best it'd require getting into a preference setting somewhere you wouldn't want to poke around with. My guess would be it's a setting inside Preview.app's package contents. Fooling around in there can get hairy

As an alternative to setting a new default, the keyboard shortcut to switch to Continuous view is:

CMD+1

So you can just quickly hit that each time you go full screen and the view changes immediately. It's not exactly what you wanted, but it's a very fast alternative.

Hope that helps!


View PostScript documents in iOS? I am looking for a way to view PostScript files in iOS. It appears that there's no built-in mechanism in iOS for the same. Also, I'm unable to find any viewer app on the App Store.

While Safari for macOS supports viewing it, iOS version doesn't appear to do so. Is there any app that renders postscript as opposed to showing the text file?

Google Drive – online backup iOS apps supports viewing PostScript files. It is a universal app available for both iPad and iPhone.

Download Google Drive app from the App Store using the following link:

https://itunes.apple.com/app/google-drive-online-backup/id507874739