Search all archived mails in the server in Apple Mail for OSX Mavericks I'm using Apple Mail on OSX Mavericks, with an IMAP account configured (Google).
Since all my mails are archived on the server (I'm using Apple Mail just from a few months), when I search emails, I need to retrieve all the emails stored on Google servers.
Instead, I can only retrieve recent emails, while on my iPhone (Mail app) the search is distributed on the server.

How can I apply a distributed search also on my Mac? Is it possible?

I also tried to enable the (translated to english) "Do not limit the number of messages in IMAP folders" option on Gmail, but after some time Mail on OSX shows me an empty inbox and only a few mails in my folders.

I can confirm that the IOS 8 Mail app (and on IOS 7) searches all IMAP mailboxes on all 5 of my mail accounts on different servers when I use the search box via the "All Mailboxes" list item in IOS Mail. It can take a little while sometimes but it always works for me.

In Mavericks Mac Mail I leave the Inbox selected when I search otherwise it seems to search only the selected mailbox.

In the case of Gmail Archived mail it must depend upon how Google has implemented their Archive mailbox. But if it is a regular IMAP mailbox, your search will include its contents.


Reduce opacity of existing image Can Apple's Preview app be used to reduce the opacity of an existing image?

I might be asking this wrong. To be clear, I've Googled it extensively but Google seems to think what I want is to remove a solid background from around my image, for example making a the black background/backdrop transparent in an image that's of a car. However, my background is already transparent and what I want is for the car to be at about 90% Opacity.

Preview can't do this.

ImageMagick can, and nearly anything you can imagine.

You can easily install it with MacPorts (see MacPorts Home):

port install imagemagick

Let's say your original image is porsche-911.png:

Enter in Terminal the following command:

convert porsche-911.png -alpha set -channel A -evaluate set 50% porsche-911-50%.png

which will compute from your original input porsche-911.png the output
porsche-911-50%.png:

If you want to learn more about this great free tool, read:

ImageMagick home.


Will a sata3 SSD work properly on a Mac mini (Mid 2010) with 2.4 GHz CPU? I have a Mac mini (Mid 2010) with 2.4 GHz CPU and willing to upgrade its HDD to SSD.

Can I use a sata3 SSD for it?

Yes, you can.

Here are the theoretical bus speeds

SATAI   - 150 MB/sec - 1.5 Gb/sec
SATAII  - 300 MB/sec -  3 Gb/sec
SATAIII - 600 MB/sec -  6 Gb/sec

In theory, a very fast drive could saturate a SATA2 bus, but if it does, it will still send the data, just slower than it's capable of.  If that bothers you, just buy a slower SATA2 SSD drive.

Regardless, you'll be very happy with the performance upgrade over a slower drive.  It's the best upgrade investment you can make.


Sound always comes from Apple Thunderbolt Display even with headphones connected I have an issue using the Apple Thunderbolt Display. I have a Dell XPS laptop with Windows 8 where I connect to the display over Thunderbolt, but every time I try to listen to some music or video, the sound comes from the screen, not from my laptop, even if I plug headphones into the laptop. How can I solve this problem? I want to work using my laptop and the screen but I want to redirect the sound to my headphones. Is this possible?

In Windows, you can typically choose a different output-source using this approach:

  For switching outputs, try this:
  Right click on the speaker icon in the tray. Choose "playback
  devices". Select from the list of playback devices (speakers, hdmi,
  usb headset,) (the device you want) Choose "Set Default" Your audio
  output will instantly switch Source

For quick access to this, you can download this application.

Applicable to OS X users:
You should be able to see the earphones in the music menu. Hold down Alt while clicking the Audio-icon in the menubar. There you can switch between the different audio devices, like the external screen and the earphones.

This can also be done from System Prefrences -> Sound and the tab Output.


Macbook Pro Really slow after time machine recovery I've a 2012 MBP. I recently upgraded to mojave and everything was fine and dandy in terms of speed and everything. However, my hard drive failed. Luckily I had just done a time machine backup a few hours prior to HDD failing. After getting a new SSD and starting to recover I hit some issues:

it took several days to do the time machine recovery of 500GB
now my machine runs really really slow. As in it takes 30s to register one keyboard press etc.

any pointers/help would be much appreciated.

It may be a bad drive. Having this exact same problem, system extremely slow after Time Machine restore, all vitals check out fine, but I'm using a late 2015 iMac. Seems to be a pretty specific problem. It's important to note this is an APFS volume, as this seems to be somewhat common. I upgraded to Mojave about 3 months ago.

Opened console, and saw invalid btree errors constantly happening as files were trying to be accessed, I'm assuming that's the cause of the slowness. Disk Utility found errors but couldn't repair, booting in single user mode using fsck couldn't repair.

Decided to wipe the volume, and re-install the OS. 2 minutes before finishing the first step of the install, an error appeared saying there was a problem with the install, and to "try again." This was enough evidence to tell me this physical disk is bad.

One more thing to note about this, my Time Machine drive (external 3TB WD drive) went bad at the same time, cannot be repaired, doesn't show up when doing a recovery from a backup. Not sure what to make of that, as that's obviously too coincidental.


How do I recover a MacBook Pro with a nonfunctioning screen? I have a MacBook Pro with a screen that is not functioning (always black). I have tried the following:
Turn on normally: Touch Bar above keyboard shows escape key, brightness buttons, volume control, and nothing else.
Shift-Control-Option-Power: turns computer off; no change in status when it turns back on.
Reset PRAM using Command-Option-P-R: Also no effect. I'm not even sure I'm doing this correctly, because it says you're supposed to do it when there is a startup sound, and I am not hearing any startup sounds.
Try to startup in safe mode by holding shift: Touch Bar above keyboard shows only escape key.
Turn on normally and enter password: Touch Bar shows what it normally shows after logging in.
Plug smartphone into USB port on computer: Smartphone charges normally when computer is on.
Because of the last two items, I suspect that the rest of the computer is working correctly and it is only the screen that has failed. Ideally I would like to get the computer working again but even if that is not possible, there is data on there that I would like to get off. What should I do now? I'm wondering if connecting an external monitor might help. Or if there's some way to see what's happening on the computer, of access the hard drive, through an external device?
(As far as I know, nothing happened to the computer, such as a drop or spill, immediately between the last time it successfully turned on and when it started failing. But prior to the failures, I did notice a series of brighter-than-normal and darker-than-normal patches across the bottom of the display,  creating a visual effect similar to a theater curtain.)

You could either get the screen repaired or connect it to an external monitor.
Repairing it could cost a lot, but that would be the best solution as your Mac would be fully functional again.  Take it to an apple store or call apple and they will know what to do.
If you are simply looking to get your data off of it or need a temporary solution, I would highly recommend connecting it to an external monitor.  That would be the easiest way to see if the computer is fried, or if it's just the screen.  Based on what you told me, it seems like your computer is fine just the screen is broken.


How to reformat a USB to not be a bootable operating system I recently created a bootable USB from a .img file, here's what the USB looks like:

And this is what it looks like in Disk Utility:

Is there a way to reformat this USB to just store files?

If you insert the USB drive, launch Disk utility and select the USB drive on the left side of the Disk Utility window you should now be able to operate on it.

Personally I would select Partition and then the number of partitions you want. Then apply it.

That should do it


Way to load an old windows hard drive in boot camp? I had a windows laptop that bit the dust, but the hard drive works fine (booted up in another pc that wasn't mine as an external disk with my SATA to USB 3 adapter).

I'd like to use this drive on my iMac (2011 27 inch) without reformatting it and without having to go out and buy a new windows license key. Is there a way I could use the existing and functional license in boot camp, or better yet boot the OS from the drive?

Windows licenses, unlike Mac, do not belong to the person but to the machine. They are not transferrable between machines.

Sometimes just changing a hard drive or graphics card would be enough to trigger the 'you appear to be using a different computer' warning, needing you to ring Microsoft to re-authorise.

So, aside from any actual surmountable issues of persuading Windows to run from an external drive [which only Windows 10 will do, iirc] or setting up a fresh Boot Camp partition then making a bare-metal backup/restore to it using Acronis [the only software I know of that can move a Windows install between different physical hardware & still have it arrive in a bootable state] - once it arrives it will not be licensed.

You could, I suppose, at that point buy a new license.


Like Windows, allow user to manually select if Sound is routed through Headphones or Internal Speakers In the System Preferences -> Sound -> Output tab in my MBPr running Mavericks, I see the following 3 options:

1) Headphones/Internal Speakers (currently only ONE of these appears)

2) BoomDevice (from the Boom Application I use)

3) JBL Flip (Bluetooth Speakers)

Is there a way to make it so that it lists options for both Headphones AND Internal Speakers separately, so that I can manually select the one I want sound routed to?

I ask this because there is some issue in my Mac (MBPr, Mavericks) due to which plugging in headphones into doesn't have any effect -- neither in the actual sound output, nor in the change from Internal Speakers to Headphones in the Sound->Output pane mentioned above. (And one time it got stuck the other way round: It continued to show Headphones irrespective of whether the headphones were plugged in or not; and sound would only come from the headphones when they were plugged in, otherwise nothing).

It's not a hardware issue though. Because everything works fine after the Mac is restarted (That is, inserting and removing headphones has the expected effect, which is also reflected by the first item in the Sound -> Output tab changing from Headphones to Internal Speakers and vice versa.) However, the problem reappears after a while or after the Mac sleeps and wakes.

EDIT:
I just booted into the Windows partition on my Mac (bootcamp) and found that Windows actually allows the user to manually select if Sound is routed through Headphones or Internal Speakers. If Windows has it, I want that feature in Mac too!! :D

[I had asked another question for the same issue here:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/142927/macbook-pro-plugging-headphones-into-audio-jack-has-no-effect ]

Headphones and the Internal speakers are only OR option.

You can not have AND.

If your headset sometimes does not switch, check the plug for dirt stuck in it.

If it is not the hardware, reset your SMC.


How can I use the TrackPad's force touch as copy paste function in terminal? Since MacBook Pro 2015, Apple introduced the "Force Touch" in the Track Pad. When you click it in the Terminal, by default it gives you dictionary/Wikipedia search results.

I would like to change it to a "middle button"-like function as in Ubuntu: copy the selected text into the prompt, without passing via the clipboard and without the need to use the annoying ⌘C ⌘V sequence. Any ideas?

edit: shift  ⌘  V   does the part of copying without passing via the clipboard. now I need to have force touch doing this.

Check out BetterTouchTool. This application will let you customize  actions based on trackpad gestures (including Force Touch).

Here is the action I have defined:

With this setting, I can select text in an application (this works well in Terminal and iTerm), and without explicitly copy/pasting, paste with a 3-finger force-click.


How do I charge my iPhone 6 without it being on the whole time? I've tried shutting off my iPhone 6 AFTER plugging it in to charge, and it will turn back on.  How can I make sure it stays off while charging so that it charges more quickly?

Plug the phone in to power
Then turn it off

If your charger is overloaded, faulty or your cable has issues, there could be an interruption of charge and the device will start up then. There's no way to prevent this necessary feature - it's a fail safe to turn on the device after replacing the battery or other system events that could cause the power to be low.


Mac Won't Remember Hostname in Terminal After Reboot, gives 'unknown...' I'm trying to set my hostname for my mac.  Currently it's unknown002374e31ebd.

I've tried setting it with

sudo hostname -s Steve-Mac

Which will work for all future terminal sessions.  However, if I restart, it goes back to unknown

How can I get it to keep this setting?

Setting the hostname via the Terminal is not permanent.

From the hostname manpage:

  DESCRIPTION
  The hostname utility prints the name of the current host. The super-user can set the hostname by supplying an argument. To keep the hostname between reboots, run `scutil --set HostName name-of-host'.

Alternatively, set the hostname in your System Preferences, under the Sharing section.


Importing images from internet to new albums in iTunes I just had an update for iTunes to version 12.0.1.26. The old way to import images to new albums in iTunes has changed. How do I import in the latest version?

Save your image cover -> Go to the album -> Right click on the empty cover -> Get Info -> Artwork -> click on add Artwork

Or simply right click on the empty cover -> Get album artwork


KeePass 2.17 fails to start I installed the newest Mono framework on Lion. After that I tried installing KeePass 2.17 from http://keepass2.openix.be/. When I try to start the application it probably fails, silently (it looks as if nothing happened). How can I check what happened?

Does anybody know how to use KeePass 2.x on MacOS Lion?

I found the problem and have a workaround until the developer publishes a fix.

In your Applications folder, right click on the app and choose Show Package Contents.
Navigate to the Contents/MacOS folder and open startkeepass.sh in TextEdit.

Change this line:

path="/Applications/KeePass2.16.app/Contents/MacOS"

to this:

path="/Applications/KeePass2.17.app/Contents/MacOS"

(Replace the 6 with a 7).
Save and close.

Now the application should start up.


SSD or upgrade RAM (slow hard drive) I have a late 2012 MacBook Pro (13" baseline model), and it has served me well, but in the last few months it has been very slow. I'm pretty sure it's the hard drive that's slow, because I have tried to reinstall OS X, but booting, loading applications, etc. is still slow.

The first thing I thought of was getting an SSD (probably using one of those optical drive replacement kits) and I figured this would help to speed up booting and loading applications.

But the other problem is, since it only has 4GB of RAM, I often use a lot of it. I like to have safari open a lot of the time and it uses a lot of memory. However, the "memory pressure" in activity monitor is usually OK. Also, my thinking is that with an SSD, the RAM might not matter so much since the swap would be faster.

Would the speed of the SSD make up for the lack of RAM? What would you suggest?

I had installed on my MBP mid 2010 a Samsung SSS 830 250GB.
With SSD you will solve all the problems caused by HD latency and speed (in my case speed up is around 10x).

Of course you also take advantages on speed when you use swap memory with an SSD. It's like when you write and read something from a disk.

In summary, if you want a huge speed up go for an SSD.
I think the best SSD) now is the Samsung 850 Pro 256GB  (storage / price.
RAM upgrade is required only if you do intensive computation / gaming / image or video editing.


Any reason to turn off wifi when connected by cable to network on A/C power for MBPr Any reason to turn off wifi when connected by thunderbolt adapter to cat-5 1 gig ethernet cable to network on A/C power for MBPr? Does turning wifi off help with anything? Does keeping wifi on help anything?

Turning Wi-Fi off ensures traffic isn't accidentally sent over Wi-Fi instead of Ethernet. You can set the network priority in System Preferences, but I've had OS X send traffic over Wi-Fi even though it should have been sent over Ethernet. That being said, if you don't particularly care which network your traffic goes over, there's no harm in leaving Wi-Fi on.


How to set default page size for Pages '09? I'm not sure how I can set the default page size for Pages '09. For some reason, every time I set the page size as A4, it defaults back to US Letter.

I've tried setting these settings:

Settings: Save as default
Format For: Any Printer
Paper Size: A4

But the settings won't let me choose the 'save as default' option and goes back to Page Attributes.

change the region under System Preferences > International > Formats.
I believe that most of the region settings will cause Pages to default to ISO paper sizes (such as A4).
The only ones I know of which result in US Letter are United States, United States (Computer), and Canada.

If all you care about is the paper size for new blank documents, you can always save a custom template with your preferred page setup, use that, and not touch your system settings.


PPTP VPN won't connect after updating to El Capitan This is a 2015 rMBP and after I updated to El Capitan (have not installed any betas) my PPTP VPN connection just hangs on "Connecting". If I then click "Disconnect" it hangs similarly until I kill pppd.

Anyone have this problem and found a solution?

Edit: system.log after clicking "Connect":

Oct 15 19:03:56 nspassov nesessionmanager[5803]: NESMLegacySession[VA:0CABA80E-F475-40F9-B087-AF2C698ADB71]: Received a start command from com.apple.preference.network.re[23190]
Oct 15 19:03:56 nspassov nesessionmanager[5803]: NESMLegacySession[VA:0CABA80E-F475-40F9-B087-AF2C698ADB71]: status changed to connecting
Oct 15 19:03:56 nspassov pppd[23225]: NetworkExtension is the controller
Oct 15 19:03:56 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Oct 15 19:03:56 nspassov pppd[23225]: password not found in the system keychain
Oct 15 19:03:56 nspassov pppd[23225]: publish_entry SCDSet() failed: Success!
Oct 15 19:03:56 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Oct 15 19:03:56 nspassov pppd[23225]: pppd 2.4.2 (Apple version 809) started by nick, uid 501
Oct 15 19:04:13 nspassov pppd[23225]: assertion failed: 15A284: libxpc.dylib + 27218 [3E09C275-A33B-357A-B0AB-A2DDF88EC9D5]: 0x13
Oct 15 19:04:13 nspassov pppd[23225]: assertion failed: 15A284: libxpc.dylib + 23599 [3E09C275-A33B-357A-B0AB-A2DDF88EC9D5]: 0x13
Oct 15 19:04:14 --- last message repeated 909 times ---
Oct 15 19:04:14 nspassov com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.screensharing[23227]): Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.screensharing.server
Oct 15 19:04:14 nspassov pppd[23225]: assertion failed: 15A284: libxpc.dylib + 23599 [3E09C275-A33B-357A-B0AB-A2DDF88EC9D5]: 0x13


Is there a way to figure out when was my ipad / iphone disconnected from charge cable? Ok, it may sounds weird but I just found my iPad in the trash (yeah you've read it right haha). So the last thing I remember that I connected it to the charge cable. After I arrived home I've found it in the trash disconnected from the cable. I thought I may can find more information from some history of logs or something.

It's a mystery.

Was it my girlfriend?
Or our cats?

Can you help me figure this out?

In my professional experience I say it was definitely the cats.


Normal websites use large amounts of RAM Lately, on my MacBook Pro, visiting webpages has started to consume large amounts of RAM. Visiting websites like Stack Overflow, golang.org, golang playground, or gnu website causes my computer to perform very poorly since it runs out of RAM.

This occurs on both Safari or Chrome. Some of those websites are and most of them use no flash or any other plug in as far as I can detect.

What can be the reason for such a behaviour?

I have found out that the reason was some adware, malware infected my web browsers. They were making network requests initiated without my permission.

I have installed AdwareMedic and it completely solved my problem.


Spotlight for Safari tabs Is there a way to commandspace (i.e. bring up Spotlight), type the name of an already open tab and bring it to the foreground?

Or an app that does it outside of spotlight?

I spend far too long looking for tabs, only to give up and make another the same.

I do have "Recent Tab List" http://nickvdp.com/tablist/ but I don't see a way to invoke it from the keyboard or integrate it with Spotlight, as what I'm wanting to do is access this from anywhere (not just when I'm in Safari).

I don't want to have to create an app for every website (Use spotlight (or Alfred) to open an existing chrome tab)

Safari "Search Tabs" Keyboard Shortcuts leads to http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/OSX/safari-tabs.html which again isn't integrated into Spotlight.

You can search in Safari's open tabs: Two-finger pinch on the track pad, then start writing any word in the tab you’re looking for.


Silica Gel stuck in headphone jack I have an unusual problem: I have a small ball of silica gel stuck on my Macbook Air headphone jack.

Any ideas how I might get it out of my headphone jack?

Had two silica beads stuck in my iPad earphone jack at the same time. What a pain! Took a paperclip end and scraped the beads up and down, taking care not to touch the earphone contacts. The sides turned to powder within 2-3 minutes allowing for each one to fall out. Wrapped the paperclip with paper towel and wiped the inside.


Force the resolution on a headless mac mini server I have a Mac Mini server running Mavericks.  It has no monitor connected.  I use Remote Desktop on my laptop (also running Mavericks) for I/O to my server.

When I use Remote Desktop and go Full Screen I get a 1280x1024 screen sitting in my 1680x1050 screen.  Is there any way to force the client (Mac Mini) to use a setting of 1680x1050 so I get a real full screen?

I tried holding down the option key while clicking on Scaled in Display -> System preferences.  All I see is a new button in the bottom right that says detect displays.  Clicking on it does nothing.  The only resolution shown is 1280x1024.

My Mac Mini Server is a late 2009 with an Nvidia GeForce 9400 graphics card.

I'd like to offer an improved answer, that the author may consider for the question. The previous answer's AirDisplay drivers actually messed up my remote client, and left me with 16 virtual displays, all with the same information, where I couldn't click anything. Luckily I know how to navigate Activity Monitor with the Keyboard :-) .

I found the following to work perfectly, assuming that you are using Apple Remote Desktop:

Download Display Menu (Free on Mac App Store)
Install the app, and for my use cases, 1680x1050 was the proper resolution.
Your screen will go black and you will be 'locked out', despite the resolution properly switching.
Your screen will black out. Many recommend something similar to the following Terminal commands. I DO NOT recommend the following:

  sudo ps auxwww | grep loginwindow | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' |
  xargs sudo kill -9

The reason the last line does not work is because it actually terminates your login session. That forces the screen resolution to revert (in my case, back to 1280x1020), and you'll be back where you started.
Instead, use the following command over Apple Remote Desktop or via SSH:

  killall ScreensharingAgent

NOTE - if using Apple Remote Desktop's Send Unix Command, instead of using sudo, click the radio button to 'Run as User', and just enter root.

This command terminates the Screen Sharing session, which at its core is what Apple Remote Desktop uses. It retains the logged in session, which retains the screen resolution you set with Display Menu in earlier steps.

2nd Note - if your dock is screwed up, simply send killall dock

I have yet to log out of my current session on my client machine, so this may only be a temporary fix. However, its the only way I have found that satisfies my OCD with proper screen real estate consumption.

Some things that helped me find this answer:

Alternative to this answer on SuperUser, doesn't accomplish what I wanted, but good to have for reference material
MacWorld Hints, which held the elusive answer!

Some alternatives that others have presented below, in case this answer does not work for your system:

QuickRes App
SwitchRexX
Resolutionator


Energy saver: do the battery settings apply during charging? I have my Macbook pro 17 (early 2011, OSX 10.6.8) set to turn off the display at 30 minutes on AC, and 10 minutes on battery.

I've noticed recently that if the battery is charging (the little battery icon shows a lightning bolt and has a countdown timer to full charge) then the display goes to sleep at 10 minutes, even though it's plugged in.

Is this normal behavior?  Is it configurable, aside from changing the battery settings to match the plugged in settings?

This sounds like a bug in the power management software and I cannot reproduce the issue with my current MacBook Air.

Have you been watching the power settings with the pmset command?

The -g log command might show you something to help debug why this is happening. Worst case, you can have a few tabs open in terminal and watch -g pslog and -g assertionslog to see if some program is somehow overriding the defaults that you have set.

These logs and the timings would also make for a good bug report if you determined that it was simply an error in programming on Apple's part.


Donations and a webstore in an app. Does it attract a 30% cut still? 2021 We've had an app for many years, and when we developed it, we made all links to donations and our online webstore to be an external link, so that there was no money being transacted in the app.
This was to avoid the (let's call it the) 30% Apple tax.
My question is, does this still exist, and do we still have to send a user outside of the app to overcome this, or can we now have an in-app browser that allows for a user to be directed to a website which has a store (to buy physical goods), or collects monetary donations?
I understand there are provisions for not-for-profits, but most of the reference material I've found is related to using their in-app purchasing system.
I have found these rules here:
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
This rule suggests that you shouldn't be using in-app purchasing, but it doesn't mention if you take payments via in in-app browser whether you'll cop the 30% penalty:

3.1.3(e) Goods and Services Outside of the App: If your app enables people to purchase physical goods or services that will be consumed
outside of the app, you must use purchase methods other than in-app
purchase to collect those payments, such as Apple Pay or traditional
credit card entry.

Can anyone clarify about taking payments inside of an app, and if my suspicions are still valid?

You totally can get approved as a non-profit and have direct payments via in-app browser and avoid all fees on the transactions.

Approved nonprofits may fundraise directly within their own apps or third-party apps, provided those fundraising campaigns adhere to all App Review Guidelines and offer Apple Pay support.

Also, the small business program offers significant relief for discount to IAP fees if you want to go IAP or the review / approval doesn’t go your way.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/

To reach the equivalent of 30% fee you have to be a whale (tens of millions of dollars in IAP) on the store now, not that you start out at that level.
I would not mix goods and services with charity unless you’re sure of how you’ll represent it to the review board and have assistance from a financial professional and a lawyer on retainer so you have contract advice and are not just doing this on a whim as a sole developer. Having official recognition of your charity will go a long way, but you also need guidance on Apple’s contracts to know what they mean specifically to you in many cases.


OS X application start/stop hook How can I have a script automatically ran when I start or stop an app without using 3rd party tools?

I'm not developing the application myself, it's a general question that applies to any installed apps.

Clarifications: The application is started/quit be any means possible. The script and the application should be ran serially.

Assuming answers to my clarification questions above are that you want:

the script to run anytime a specific application is run, regardless of how or by what process or user, and
the script to run in an asynchronous, non-blocking way (e.g. for logging purposes)

...there may be a few ways to do it.  None I can think of are terribly elegant or turnkey and all require some sort of demonized process running as root which act to monitor the system for launch events.

Monitoring exec calls via fs_usage

One possible way is to create a daemon (LaunchDaemon) which runs continuously, monitoring a running fs_usage command for exec events.  You can see the kind of information you get by running the following command:

sudo fs_usage -f exec

Here's the relevant line when I opened Safari:

17:30:14.465075  posix_spawn    /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari    0.000352   launchd.51630812

Here's the output when I opened ran open /Applications/Maps.app from the command line:

17:35:51.594849  execve       /usr/bin/open                                 0.003680 W bash.51635318
17:35:51.642212  posix_spawn  /Applications/Maps.app/Contents/MacOS/Maps    0.003158 W launchd.51635324

Note that nearly all "Applications" (/Applications/*.app) are launched via posix_spawn by launchd and the file used to launch them is /Applications/FOO.app/Contents/MacOS/FOO (where FOO is the application's name). So, theoretically, you could have your LaunchDaemon monitoring this command and triggering your script whenever it outputs the path to the app you're monitoring:

sudo fs_usage -w -f exec | perl -lne 'm/.*posix_spawn +(.*?) +[0-9.]+ . launchd.\d+/sm && print $1'

Monitoring launchservicesd via lsappinfo

I wasn't terribly happy with the above because it's kinda hacky, watching for filesystem events instead of the launching event that triggered them. And then I realized, "launchd"!  Enter Launch Services:

launchservicesd(1) manpage
lsappinfo(8) manpage

Leading to:

lsappinfo listen +all forever

And Voilà, you not only have launching, but also get notified when an app quits. The keys you care about are the following:

kLSNotifyApplicationLaunch
kLSNotifyApplicationBirth
kLSNotifyLaunchFinished
kLSNotifyApplicationDeath


C++11 on Snow Leopard 10.6.8 I'm trying to install C++11 on 10.6.8, following this macports guide

Unfortunatley the guide fails when I get to step 7: Rebuild cctools and ld64 to use the newer version of llvm:

sudo port -v -n upgrade --force --enforce-variants cctools -llvm34 +llvm40

fails with the error messsage:

In file included from /usr/include/limits.h:64:

/usr/include/machine/limits.h:10:2: error: architecture not supported

#error architecture not supported

/usr/include/machine/limits.h is:

/* This is the `system' limits.h, independent of any particular
   compiler.  GCC provides its own limits.h which can be found in
   /usr/lib/gcc, although it is not very informative.
   This file is public domain.  */
#if defined (__i386__) || defined(__x86_64__)
#include <i386/limits.h>
#elif defined (__arm__)
#include <arm/limits.h>
#else
#error architecture not supported
#endif

/opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf contains:

# CPU architecture to target. Supported values are "ppc", "ppc64",
# "i386", and "x86_64". Defaults to:
# - OS X 10.5 and earlier: "ppc" on PowerPC, otherwise "i386".
# - OS X 10.6 and later: "x86_64" on Intel 64, otherwise "i386".
#build_arch             i386

and

# Space-delimited list of CPU architectures to target when building
# universal. Defaults to "i386 ppc" on Mac OS X 10.5 and earlier,
# "x86_64 i386" on Mac OS X 10.6 through macOS 10.13, and "x86_64" on
# macOS 10.14 and later (the 10.14 SDK is not universal).
#universal_archs        x86_64 i386

Does anyone have a working method to install C++11 on 10.6.8?

The process to install c++11 on 10.6.8 on MacPorts has recently been automated, and for the majority of users, now happens automatically. The previous instructions you were following are no longer necessary.

The installation process leads to MacOSX 10.6.8 running with a reasonably current libc++, clang-8.0 (at present -- clang-9.0 is available as well), and the required underpinnings in cctools (assembler, ranlib, etc) and ld64 (linker) to install software requiring the currently available c++17 standards, and newer as clang/llvm progress.


Change default contact picture for iphone This is most likely a jailbreak-related question...

Is there a known application to mass/bulk change the default picture for contacts without a picture?

Ie: I just added John Doe and I have no picture for him, so he has a silhouette when you look at his contact information.

How can I change all contacts with that same silhouette to, say, a deer?

for themes there is PBcontact Photo, which makes contact photos a playboy icon

so it can be done, but there is no app that can help you customize this easily without building your own theme to make default contact photo set to what you want


iPhone 6: Mobile data activation when on international roaming I am travelling to a different country. I'll be turning on my iPhone only after landing in the visiting country.

I'll be turning off my iPhone before I leave my country and will be turning it on after landing at the destination airport.

I have disabled mobile data and background app refresh in Setting app, as I am concerned about Mobile data consumption and charges when on international roaming.

My SIM card service provider says that the roaming will get activated automatically when I turn on the phone in the destination country.

My question is, will this also automatically enable the mobile data and/or background app refresh?

No, the mobile data won't turn on automatically (without your manual intervention) when you turn on the mobile.


Add bottom margin or scroll past last line in Mac OS Terminal If I have a full terminal history then the cursor will line up at the very bottom of the window.  I generally prefer working more toward the middle of the page.  Especially since I usually keep the terminal in the bottom right quadrant, it feels like I'm falling off the page to type in the terminal.

I'd like to be able to scroll down past the last line or add a bottom margin for new commands

Here's a normal terminal window:

Here's what I'd like instead:

Note: I know I can clear history with Cmd + K, but that's more of a workaround.

I here what you're saying however the only thing I know of is to use the clear command.  It keep's the history intact while returning the prompt to the top of the Terminal window.

I added an alias for clear to my ~/.profile file. Or ~/.bash_profile file if using it instead.

alias c='clear'

Now I just press CEnter.  Then scroll back into the history as needed.


Free app which shows song name in menu bar There are a lot of apps that show which song iTunes playins in different fancy pop-ups (using Growl i guess) but I need only a song name in menu bar and nothing else.

There are NowPlaying and emcee but they are non-free. Then, there are free apps like CoverSutra but those don’t do what I want exactly.

Is there free app which shows name of the song that VLC or iTunes plays in menu bar?

Try the following freeware/open source tool: QuickTunes.

Elderly, but may work fine still.


Have Mail.app format the text when changing the default message font I've changed my default font for message to be Georgia 12 Normal. The trick is, to have the message formatted this way (Georgia 12 Normal), so when the recipient open the email it is also formatted as Georgia 12 Normal. Can anybody tell me how to have Mail format new messages to Georgia 12 Normal.

If you go to "Mail" and then to "Preferences" you can change the default font and other font related items.  I will post a screenshot soon, if you would like clarification.


Mac Mini has loud fan, won't power up My intel-based mac mini (Model A1283, EMC 2336) refuses to boot. When I plug it in, the fan spins up very loudly, but then nothing happens when I hit the power button. I don't get a boot chime, and the power light on the front doesn't turn on.

I've followed the directions here for resetting the SMC, but that doesn't seem to make any difference.

What are my options? Do I need to schlep it in for some applecare attention?

The best option would be to systematically go through the manufacturer steps for troubleshooting a mac mini that won't boot. Even if you don't see the power light - do run through the no video steps as well - it might save you a trip or a call with a tech.

Best of luck!


iPad Messages and FaceTime I recently got a new phone and made a new Apple ID (which had my new phone number connected to it). I then logged into this new account onto my iPad, but then when I went to ‘send and receive’ in messages, it only showed my e-mail as an option; same with FaceTime. How do I add my new number?

Make sure you are signed into FaceTime with your AppleID by going to FaceTime in the settings. Also make sure your contacts are syncing from iCloud to your phone if you have contacts stored in iCloud.


Account password in keychain Is it safe to store password from macOS account inside of any keychain?

I think that if someone can access my keychain, then this someone can access anything on my macOS. Therefore it's safe to store account password there.

You don't say what account, however the Mac Keychain.app is designed as a place to safely and securely store usernames and passwords.

It is important to note that the master password for your keychain is the password you use to log into your Mac. So pick a good one and set reasonable timeouts on the screen saver that then automatically locks your Mac. Because if someone has physical access to your Mac and it is unlocked they will have access to everything stored in the keychain.


iPad Air 2 restored now i need to activate it I had restored my iPad Air 2 but now it says I need to activate it with the Apple ID used to set it up but I have forgotten my ID and password. The only way I can use it is to use the previous Apple ID and password. Is there any way I can change the Apple ID to a different new account?

I have forgotten my ID and password

We are well into the 21st century - your ID and password are as essential to modern life as your date of birth and Social Insurance Number. "I forgot my ____" is no longer acceptable.

If you are the original purchaser of the iPad, go to any Apple store with the device and the receipt. They can remove the activation locks. If you did not set it up originally, contact the person who did. If that isn't possible, go to any retailer with your credit card and get a new one.


Alternative to CTRL + C of macOS Terminal in Sublime Text 3 On macOS terminal ctrl+C terminates the program running. In Sublime Text, cmd+B runs a program such as Python, Ruby or such.

If I want to terminate a running code, what is the shortcut key in Sublime Text 3 equivalent of ctrl+C?

Open Key Bindings from Preferences of Sublime Text or short cut is (cmd ⌘ + ,) and add like:

[
    { "keys": ["ctrl+c"], "command": "cancel_build" },
]


Can I use a Time Machine backup to recover deleted Notes that were stored in iCloud? I removed the Notes app from my iPhone and thereby lost all the notes that had been stored in iCloud. (Stupid, I know.) I have a Time Machine backup from shortly before I lost the notes. I've tried restoring the contents of ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/ and ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/ but that hasn't worked.

From opening the NoteStore.sqlite file under Group Containers I can tell that at least some of the lost content is in there, but it's hard to make much sense of. I tried opening the same file in an SQLite app but I don't really know what I'm doing and can't find the content that way.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

What is possibly happening is iCloud is overwriting your restore. Be sure sync is turned off before you attempt to restore the database files. Then, manually update Notes and turn sync on so your local copy is the newest one. I believe it will attempt to merge.


How can I get admin access to a Mac without knowing the current password? My Father died last year and I inherited his Mac Mini. My wife has retired and we are trying to set up the mini for her use but the changes we want to make require admin access and we do not have the information my father used to set up the machine.

Is it possible to reset the admin information without having the old information? If so, how would I go about it?

I am not a Mac user usually so any guidance will have to be pretty simple!

With macOS Catalina and many recent macOS - the built in tools guide everyone how to reset admin permissions without needing any of the single user mode boot tricks of old (left at the bottom for posterity and people running OS that were shipped before 2015)

Now - follow the official Apple triage steps: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202860

Instead of single user mode, boot to recovery and use the Terminal Utility. Then you can remove the .AppleSetupDone file from:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ -\ Data/private/var/db

There are many ways to reset the login password without installation media, here are three:

Change the password in single user mode

Hold ⌘+S on startup
mount -uw / (fsck -fy is not needed)
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist (or /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist in 10.6)
dscl . passwd /Users/username (without a trailing slash) and enter a new password. You can ignore the error about com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist.
reboot

Create a new admin account

Hold ⌘+S on startup
mount -uw / (fsck -fy is not needed)
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot
Go through the steps of creating a new account. You can leave all fields in the personal information step blank.
After logging in to the new account, go to the Users & Groups preference pane
Select the old account, press the Reset Password... button, and enter a new password

Restart and enter Recovery mode (for 10.7 Lion and newer OS only)

Hold ⌘+R on startup
Open Terminal from the Utilities menu
Type resetpassword and follow the instructions

Using iCloud Recovery Mode (10.9.x & newer)

After incorrectly entering a user password three times at the Mac login screen, a message appears saying "If you forgot your password, you can reset it using your  Apple ID"
Click the arrow button to bring up a "Reset Password" dialog
Enter the Apple ID login information that is tied to the OS X user account and click “Reset Password”
Click “OK” to confirm the new keychain creation
Enter and verify a new password, fill out the password hint field, and again click on “Reset Password”
Click “Continue Log In” to login as the user account with the reset password


Image quality of various Apple cinema displays I have concluded that my office is in sore need of a new display and have decided to take the hit for one of apple's refurbished displays.  The most important thing for me is similar pixels/square inch (so that the same size font shows up the same size on each monitor).  Is there a screen-definition difference between the most recent MacBook Pros and any of the currently available cinema displays on Apple's site?  I could not find any such specs in the product descriptions.

Using this calculator, I discovered that the following:

24" cinema display has 94 PPI
27" cinema display has 109 PPI
30" cinema display has 100 PPI
15.4" MacBook Pro has 110 PPI

Thus the 27" is going to be the closest PPI to my current display.


DIY Fusion drive with 3 drives Is it possible to build a DIY Fusion drive using 3 drives - 2 HD's and 1 SSD?

Will the Fusion machinery optimise on three levels i.e. SSD, then fast HD, then slow HD?

I have a mid 2011 27" iMac, with a 1 terabyte internal HD.  I also have a spare 1TB HD and a 256GB SSD recovered from another dead Mac.  I'm going to put one of these in using the iFixit installation kit, and the other in a caddy in place of the DVD drive.  Once I've done that, can I set all three up as a fusion drive?

It is possible to create a Logical Volume Group spanning over more than two disks. I doubt that it will differentiate between fast and slow HDD. The SSD part should work though.

To accomplish this put all drives in your iMac and boot to a Mavericks or Yosemite bootable installer thumb drive.

Partition all drives as simple volumes with Disk Utility.

Then open Terminal and enter diskutil list to get an overview. The result is similar to this one:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS SSD                     255.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1000.0 GB  disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HDD1                    999.6 GB   disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1000.0 GB  disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HDD2                    999.6 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk2s3
/dev/disk3-disk15 with sizes between 1 GB and 512 KB are part of the boot disk as well as the thumb drive.

Now create the Logical Volume Group with:

diskutil cs create Fusion /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk1s2 /dev/disk2s2

Choose the proper disk identifiers found in the diskutil list.

The output will be similar to this one:

Started CoreStorage operation
Unmounting disk0s2
Touching partition type on disk0s2
Adding disk0s2 to Logical Volume Group
Unmounting disk1s2
Touching partition type on disk1s2
Adding disk1s2 to Logical Volume Group
Unmounting disk2s2
Touching partition type on disk2s2
Adding disk2s2 to Logical Volume Group
Creating Core Storage Logical Volume Group
Switching disk0s2 to Core Storage
Switching disk1s2 to Core Storage
Switching disk2s2 to Core Storage
Waiting for Logical Volume Group to appear
Discovered new Logical Volume Group "0AD5A644-34A7-4B44-A9BC-CD37411B8910"
Core Storage LVG UUID: 0AD5A644-34A7-4B44-A9BC-CD37411B8910

Now create a new Logical Volume with:

diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID jhfs+ Fusion 100%

with the example above this is

diskutil cs createVolume 0AD5A644-34A7-4B44-A9BC-CD37411B8910 jhfs+ Fusion 100%

This will yield the following:

The Core Storage Logical Volume Group UUID is 0AD5A644-34A7-4B44-A9BC-CD37411B8910
Started CoreStorage operation
Waiting for Logical Volume to appear
Formatting file system for Logical Volume
Initialized /dev/rdisk16 as a 2 TB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 172032k journal
Mounting disk
Core Storage LV UUID: 34345C6A-421B-4F03-A6D1-4C5A144FA610
Core Storage disk: disk16
Finished CoreStorage operation

The 2 TB is erroneous: in fact a ~2,25 TB volume will be built:

...
/dev/disk16
    #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
    0:                  Apple_HFS Fusion                 *2.3 TB     disk16
                             Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2, ...
                             34345C6A-421B-4F03-A6D1-4C5A144FA610
                             Unencrypted
...

Now install a new system and enjoy your DIY SuperFusion Drive.

One fact cannot be concealed: the SuperFusion Drive is even more vulnerable to drive failure than a normal Fusion drive. The failure probability is comparable to a RAID0.

Here is a comparison for 1, 2 or 3 disks:

Survival probability (for new disks and being optimistic):

Nr of disks  1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year
          1       98%      90%      83%      78%      73%
          2       97%      82%      69%      61%      54%
          3       95%      74%      57%      47%      40%

Considering that at least one drive is already 5 years old the survival probability is even worse. So better get a reliable backup drive!

A deleted question invisible for some or most users asks for a speed test. A (Super)Fusion Drive is no RAID0/5/6, so r/w speed directly depends on the physical disk written to/read from. Usually at least 4 GB of the SSD are kept free. One can expect that the first ~4 GB written to the DYI SuperFusion Drive are transferred with SSD speed (150-550 MB/s) and the rest with HDD speed (20-120 MB/s). The read speed depends on the location of the files (i.e. SSD or HDD) and is similar to the write speed.


Entire folder missing from home screen A baby, playing with my iphone 5, made a folder disappear.  I don't know if she deleted it or not but if I spotlight one of the apps, it is still on the phone and shows the old folder name.  However, none of the apps that were/are in that folder have icons on the screen and I have to spotlight each of them to start it.  Any ideas for restoring the folder or the individual icons so I can make the folder again?

I had the same issue, and finally figured out a way to fix it!

There are 2 ways to fix this issue, either via iTunes or on the iPhone.  The iTunes route is quicker and if you have a lot of apps in that missing folder you might not remember all of them and iTunes gives you the full list.

Go to iTunes with your iPhone plugged in and click on your phone.
Go to the apps tab
locate all the apps that where in that folder and remove them.

I actually removed all the apps except 2 that I didn't want to remove just yet because they had data on them that I didn't want to lose. Interestingly enough after removing all the other apps the 2 apps I didn't remove resurfaced on my phone without the folder.  So quite possibly maybe just try to remove 1 or 2 apps from that folder only and see if the other resurface, which makes this process all that quicker and better.
Now reinstall all the apps you removed and they should all reappear back on your phone with out the folder.
Make a new folder and put all the apps back in.

Voilà, there you have it!


Which adapters serve video out from a first generation MacBook Air? It is not a mini DisplayPort. I tried that and it doesn't fit.

As far as I can tell, Apple don't make them any more.

The first generation MacBook Airs were Micro-DVI

(According to Kyle Cronin.)


How to get Mail files from Mountain Lion Time Machine backup in Mavericks? I have upgraded my MBP to Mavericks and got the system to how I like etc. Tt has since backed up using Time Machine onto an external HD. Now it slipped my mind that I would like to have my e-mails on my new system from Mountain Lion.

I thought that a simple Enter Time Machine and then restoring the selected files that I need to make this happen would work, but upon entering time machine I cannot get into my ML backups on Mavericks.

Is there any way that I can get to my Mail files?

Sorted it after a long trawl through the internet. For any one else with a similar problem...

Thanks to this post by Alberto Ravasio here

  Last but not least, navigate the TM disk within the Finder, (do not enter TM).
  When you are on the date you are looking for, navigate the directory structure until you reach the Users folder.

  Open Terminal and type

cd

  and a space, drag and drop your user name folder inside the Terminal window. That completes the cd command for you. Hit return.

  You are now into your user folder inside the TM disk. Type

cd Library
open .

  please note the dot after open. Last command opens a Finder window of the Library folder inside TM disk.

  Now you are ready to get what you need.


How do I delete all Terminal mail? I set up a cronjob a long time ago that now doesn't exist. Whenever I open up Terminal, it now says "You have mail". I have something like 100 messages that all say the same thing. How do I mass delete all of the messages?

Launch the UNIX mail utility by running the following at the command prompt (in e.g. Terminal.app):
$ mail

You'll see a list of all your messages. From the mail prompt, do
? delete *
? q

And that should be it. Make sure do to the q after the delete * command, that saves the changes to disk.


How to merge pictures using adobe acrobat? I want to add 20 pictures onto one page (like a collage) using Adobe Acrobat.

What am I am going to do with this one page is print it so that it consists of all pictures (on a paper like the Polaroids) and hang it on the wall as a big one.

Someone did this before and I asked for the software and he told me it was done using Adobe Acrobat. But I've now opened it and don't know how to combine them all onto one page. If I did the using a collage app instead, it will certainly lose quality.

So if someone understands and knows how to do this, please help. Or if there are any other ways to do the same on a Mac (Photoshop, something else) please explain how as I have no idea where to start.

Open Paint on windows, click "paste from" and choose a picture from your pictures or documents to load onto paint, where you can resize it,or crop it, (if you know how),
Do the same for each picture you want , it drops on top of your last picture and you just drag it alongside where you can resize to match other pictures or not..
Once you have left a picture and started another you cant go back and change the previous one...
When done close "paint" and it will ask to save,and name, it creates a new collage and all original pictures still remain as they were..


Set iPhone photo resolution default I need to take photos and upload them in a web page. A resolution of 800x600 would be enough for me.

I go to Settings > Photos & Camera, but I can only find a configuration for the resolution of the video recording, but not the Photos.

Anyone know if there is any way to take photo with the camera in low resolution?

I'm looking to avoid having to use an external app

Unfortunately, there is no way to define the resolution of the photos in the camera settings.


How to stop syncing apps with iTunes without wiping them from my iPhone? Is there a way I can stop syncing apps with iTunes without first obliterating the apps from the iPhone and re-downloading them?

Now that iOS 5 and iCloud are released, I want to stop storing all my apps on my computer, and instead just let them be downloaded directly to each of my devices. Music, podcasts, etc. should still sync with my computer.

However, when I deselect "Sync Apps" in iTunes, I get the message:

  Are you sure you do not want to sync apps? All existing apps and their data on the iPhone "myPhone 4" will be removed.

It seems like an awful waste of time and bandwidth to force the phone to redownload all my apps just to tell iTunes to stop syncing them.

What worked for me was to setup my device for wifi sync first. Make sure under the edit menu and preferences / devices (this is important) that you have it set to prevent automatic sync. Right click on the device in the left pane of itunes and reset all warnings. Have the cable disconnected but the device still visible via wifi. Uncheck sync apps, then ok the warning about removing the apps from the device. Then click "summary" and uncheck sync over wifi then apply in the lower right.

Now reconnect via cable turn wifi sync back on and sync your device via wifi or cable doesn't matter which. Now disconnect the cable, goto apps in iTunes and delete all apps. Ok the warning about removing the apps from the device. Goto summary and uncheck sync via wifi and click apply in the lower right. Then you can reconnect with your usb cable and turn on sync via wifi again.

At this point a popup will tell you that there are apps that you need to transfer to iTunes or they will be removed from your device. Check don't show this again and then click don't transfer. Now you can go into edit and preferences under General and uncheck apps altogether if you want the iTunes apps folder to go away as well.

I did this with both my iPhone and iPad2 and I still have my apps on them.

Good Luck.


Why does Microsoft Office 2011 open automatically upon start up? Why do Microsoft Office Word, Excel, et cetera open automatically upon login although I've disabled the 'Open at login' feature?

It sounds like you had these apps open at last shutdown or logout. If you don't clear the check mark in the popup that states "Reopen windows when logging back in" all of your previously running apps will restart. I say this because in Lion sometimes that checkmark would not "stick" and default to on, and you would have to check it off at every shutdown/login, and you might have missed it.

Investigate this as well: Go to the "Users and Groups" System Preference pane. Click your account on the left (should already be highlighted and on top as current user). Make sure that under the tab "login items" that no Office apps reside there and are checked.

There are some other things to try but I believe these answers will cast light on your issue.


MacBook Pro randomly discharges from 100% to ~90% when plugged My 15 inch 2018 Mac Book Pro with Mojave 10.14 randomly starts draining battery when plugged in. When I try to move the cable, change the power cable to a different USB slot nothing helps. The battery indicator is in charging state, but when pressed, it says "Not charging". After some time, when it gets to 88-92% it suddenly starts charging again.
I noticed that this happens independently of loads. Once or twice a day. This can happen when 2 IDE, browsers windows, media player are running simultaneously, and when it is in idle state showing only desktop. I'm using native 85Watt charging block and cable.
Additional info:
In System Report -> Power, the Condition is displayed as Normal. With cycles count equal to 52. This used to happen even when the condition used to be better, with fewer cycles count. But less frequently.

This is normal behavior.
The key to your question is your estimation:

After some time, when it gets to 88-92%

That is right at the line (93%) where Apple estimates that charging will appear to stop.  A couple of percentage points is well within the margin of error and it's safe to say it wasn't a scientific observation you were making.
From Apple Support: About Mac notebook batteries

My battery won't charge to 100%
Occasionally, the battery might not show a full charge (100%) in macOS, even after the power adapter has been connected for an extended period of time. The battery might appear to stop charging between 93 percent and 99 percent. This behavior is normal and will help to prolong the overall life of the battery.

The thing is, depending on use, it may go a little lower than 93%.  Most things done with battery is done based on calculation of what's measured so 93% is a calculation.  The point is, a hard 93% would not be that the demarcation of when to start charging.  Like everything else, it is based on the measurement; and in this case, most likely the measurement of the remaining charge and max charge values read directly from the battery itself and not a calculation displayed by the OS.
Regarding Catalina
Catalina introduced a Battery Health Management feature  and released it to the public June 1st 2020 in the 10.15.5 Update.  The Support article I sourced the info from above is from May 26th, 2020 (Pre-Catalina, see image below).

Apple has a habit of not dating things or just showing you when things were updated so, took a screen grab for posterity
It's also been in the public beta for some time judging by the ample blogs/articles written about it.  Now, it wouldn't be uncommon for Apple to implement a portion of the the feature (like changing the max charging limit) into earlier versions of macOS.  The full "Battery Management" feature allows you the ability to control it.


Make Yosemite Installer USB drive that does not require internet access There are plenty of instructions on how to to make a Yosemite installer USB drive that work using either the createinstallmedia program or Diskmaker X. However, when I take that drive to a machine which cannot be connected to the internet or to wifi, the installer tells me the OS cannot be installed because an internet connection is required. For all previous versions of the OS, it was trivial to do this with Diskmaker X because the installer did not require internet access.

Assuming this is possible, how can I make an installer USB drive which will not require network access?

I just noticed that 10.10.3 was available and tried it again. I am guessing that others noticed this bug and reported the problem for 10.10.2. createinstallmedia works as expected.


Mail will not stay in trash I have an email that I keep moving to trash and my phone tells me after I've moved it some hours later it's unable to move the message.

How can I get rid of this email?

I had this issue and found quite a few solutions, from adjusting the settings in the mail app, reviewing the server settings up to deleting the email account altogether from my iphone. I tried and reviewed all (except for the removing of the email account) and came to a solution which worked for me:

1 - went to the account settings that was giving me the issue and changed the "Sync" period to 1 day.
(Settings / Mail / Accounts / <email account> / Sync Mail)

2 - get our of the settings and open the mail app. Wait for it to sync, once the account is synced, the emails you wished to be removed will still be there, but just delete them (again).

3 - you will still receive the "message could not be moved to the trash" notification, however, the messages will not return to your inbox (as they did previously).

4 - wait a couple of days to go back to your settings and change the sync period to whatever you like.

This worked for me and I believe it should work for anybody which the previous solutions did not work with.

For me I believe it was an issue when I deleted the emails both from the server and the iphone mail client when it (the iphone) was not connected to the internet.

Anyway I hope this helps!


pcscd does not exist in /usr/sbin I'm trying to install a USB certificate token on OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 (14B25) and the guides tell me to check that a certain daemon named pcscd is running and to start from /usr/sbin/pcscd if not.

Here a link to the guide: http://wiki.infonotary.com/wiki/Installation_of_smart_card_reader_and_smart_card_drivers_in_Mac_OS_X#Manually_running_and_stopping_pcscd

However it does not exist.
I execute:

sh-3.2# cd /usr/sbin
sh-3.2# ls -la |grep pcscd
sh-3.2#

and as visible there is no file named pcscd.

There is also no process called pcscd when running

ps -a -u root

Should I install some additional package for this one?

I managed to resolve this on my own.

Looks like the smartcard was actually working even if the pcscd executable is not present. Most probably the functionality was integrated into another service.


How can I mirror two macbooks I have two macbooks. I want them to be exact copies. They have different CPUs, RAM, but they have the exact same drives.

I work on both of them. I never work on them simultaneously.

Can I setup something that will update what is new on the one, to the other?

I start doing something on macbook1, I want macbook2 to receive it via somekind of wireless connection.

I have an Airport Extreme, I can setup FTPs and whatever. Both macs will have high speed internet almost all the time.

I don't think DropBox is a solution. I have a lot of data and I don't want it on dropbox. CCC doesn't work bothways it has a source and a destination. Probably there is something with rsync, but is there an automated solution? OSX Server?

You could setup a Mac OS X Server and boot from the network, however you will need to have a third Mac, which might be costly unless you have an old one.
You can purchase the Server from the AppStore for $20. However, booting your Mac from your server requires a moderate internet connection as well as a quick bandwidth (at the place where the server is and your location) in order to work well.
The server offers a service called NetInstall that will allow you to boot from the server. More information how to active it can be obtained in the server documents in Update client software -> Provide NetInstall service).


Boot Camp Partition Unavailable After Windows 10 Upgrade I have a simple problem for you today. I have been using Boot Camp with my Mac Mini for about two years and now, after upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, the Boot Camp partition doesn't seem to appear in the Finder anymore.

I can still boot Windows up by holding the alt/option key at the startup but OS X acts as if the partition didn't exist.

Here are the symptoms:

The partition has disappeared from the Finder.
Boot Camp tray icon has the 'Restart into Windows' option grayed out.

Disk Utility shows the partition under name disk0s4. Moreover, when I hit 'Mount', it immediately gets unmounted again.

What do you think could cause this situtation?

Thanks in advance,
Pete.

Reason for that is that windows doesn't fully shut down and goes into hibernating mode where the partition is read only...
Go into the system setting of windows and uncheck the "fast restart" in the energy settings. Then fully shut down and it shows up.


Do I have to replace both Airport base station and modem? I have an Airport base station and Network DG814 Modem Gateway both bought in 2002 and use over the years for wireless access at home to a family's worth macs and one work windows laptop.  Demon is our provider.

Although everything is working we are resetting the modem a few times a week and speeds seem a little slow. I expect the modem needs a replacement. I looked at Airport Express and Airport Extreme options, but they need the modem too. We don't need multiple networks or back up, or anything fancy.

Is there a reliable solution ?

As you mention Demon I am going to assume you are in the UK and therefore more likely looking at an ADSL connection, not Cable or other types etc.

Almost any ADSL Modem Router from Belkin/DLINK/Netgear etc will do the trick nicely, they should all be compatible with your Mac.

However, there are a few scenarios where continuing to use a (new) Airport Extreme could be of benefit depending on your usage and requirements.  First, the new Airports (to be fair, I believe others are starting to offer this also) will allow you to run up to 3 seperate wireless networks from a single device.  This may seem overkill, but for my set it's quite useful:

1) I run a Wireless N network operating at 5Ghz for all the stuff in the house that supports it, iMac, Macbook, iPad and Apple TV (I think) - this is faster and suffers less interference than...
2) A Wireless G network operating at 2.4Ghz for everything else that doesn't understand Wireless N and/or 5Ghz (PLaystation, Wii, Phones, PSP, work laptop, etc etc)
3) A "guest" network that has no WEp/WPA security, but is ringfenced from the other 2 to allow things my my sons Nintendo DS to connect easily (as it only supports WEP, which is next to useless) as well as let freinds use it when they visit.

To make the actual internet connection you can get a standalone ADSL modem, but they are quite rare, you would likely have to order online to get one, they won't stock them in PC World etc.  I actually use a full Dlink ADSL Modem Router which I turn off the wireless, and put into "bridge mode" to allow the Airport to control the connection.

Having the external "point of access" to be the Airport instead of a different Modem Router allows things like Back to My Mac to work far more easily without having to play around with port forwarding etc, which is another reason why I do it, also if your internet connection goes down for any reason and you need to reboot it etc, then it does not affect any of your local LAN traffic, i.e. Apple TV streaming, iTunes Homeshare, etc.


How to delete a word accidentally added to the Pages dictionary? I told Pages to learn the spelling of a character name I was writing about, without noticing there was a misspelling in the name.

Is there anyway to delete or correct the spelling of the name from the Dictionary now that I added it by mistake?

Right click on the misspelled word and select “Unlearn Spelling”.

As Pages uses OS X’ global spelling services,  you can use this method anywhere text input is spell checked by it (more or less any text area, with the notable exceptions of MS Office, OpenOffice / LibreOffice, Firefox and a few other apps ported from the non OS X world).

If a misspelled word is not underlined in red and the “Unlearn Spelling” option is missing from the context menu, it may be that you originally used “Ignore Spellin” rather than “Learn Spelling”. In that case, try opening a new document and pasting in the misspelled word – the red underline will appear in the new document if you ignored the spelling in the original document.


how stop google calendars repeating events on additional calendars This annoying behavior is that from time to time the additional calendars on my google account get repeated in the gmail account section and then in the Delegates section. I don't mind where they appear, at my account section or the Delegates,  but the problem is that they appear on both sections and the events get duplicated.

I uncheck the ones on the account section and check the ones on the Delegates and all look all right but then the calendars on the account section disappear and after a while they reappear and duplicate the events again. It's getting very annoying.

After extensive research, it seems google knows about this, and apologizes and is working to fix it.

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/AWJSWllOt9Y/discussion


Stock widget doesn't save list of stocks I am running Lion and I wanted to add certain stocks to the Stock widget. I was able to add them fine and remove the default ones but everytime I go back to Dashboard the Stock widget is reset and the default stocks appear. Does anyone now how this can be fixed?

If you haven't removed the widget from the widget screen, do try that. Press the circle with a plus on the lower left and then the x on the top left corner of all the stock widgets on your dashboard (you can add more than one). If it's still broken when you add it fresh to the dashboard, you'll have to poke it a bit harder.

The widget isn't going to like this - so you'll have to manually clear out the file where the stocks are recorded.

Get ready to log out so save all your work and quit all apps.
Go to the folder below in Finder using this command (or the Go menu) shift+command+G

~/Library/Preferences

Move these two files only to your desktop.

widget-com.apple.widget.stocks.plist
widget-com.apple.widget.stocks.plist.lockfile

Then log out shift+command+Q

When you log back in (or reboot), the widget will make a new container to store your stocks and things should be better. This little dance is called setting aside your preferences (plist files) and starting again with the defaults.

If it works, you can trash the two files on your desktop. If not - you can move them back or not however you prefer. For an app with lots of settings, it's nice to be able to move back the ones you prefer once you've ruled out that file as causing you some pain or other.


I can't get my iPod touch to show up in iTunes what am I doing wrong? I recently purchased a new iPod touch, when I set it up I used my user on my Mom's Windows 7 laptop (and a Wi-Fi network). But, right now that computer is not the one I am using, I am using a Windows XP computer (and DSL). Anyway, both have iTunes on them so I figured I would have no problem connecting to my home computer.

My iPod shows up on my computer but just as a camera and not under devices in iTunes. When  I tried to run diagnostics, it showed that I had a connection problem between my computer and iPod (well, I pretty much knew that already:). I tried running updates on iTunes but it then it said that I wasn't connected to the internet.

So, let me see if I can pull this all together! What is going wrong when I try to connect my 5th generation iPod touch to iTunes on a Windows XP computer?

After looking at Apple's forums, I discovered that others who had a similar problem had not recently updated their iTunes. So, after doing a bit of poking around I discovered my iTunes hadn't been updated in quite sometime!

I accessed the administrator account on my computer, clicked on the "Start" button (the button in the lower left corner in XP and 7), there I found an Apple software update button, clicked on that and it brought iTunes up to date. I disconnected my iPod and then reconnected. This time using iTunes version 11.2.2.3. Now everything is connected and is working just fine (although iTunes now looks much different and requires some getting used to!)!


Keyboard and Mouse freeze after deep sleep (Mountain Lion) I got a mid 2011 MacBook Air 13.6" and its keyboard and mouse freezes very often after I leave it in sleep mode for some time and it wakes up. Only the power key and the lid detector are still responsive. It’s also possible to connect to it via VNC or SSH.

I had a look into the error logs but I couldn’t find anything suspicious. I found out that the System Preferences app does not start anymore and all the OSX related menu bar icons seem to freeze too (Bluetooth, WiFi, Battery icons).

Freezes after sleep mode seem to be a common problem but I couldn’t find any case yet that is like mine (others have a grey screen, no WiFi connectivity, still mouse responsiveness or the keyboard responsiveness comes back after a while – issues I don’t have).

Edit:
 - Also the iSight Camera is not responsive anymore.
 - Notification Center and Hibernation mode do not seem to be the problem (I tested both).

I had the same issue on my Macbook Air and Mountain Lion.

The quickest way to solve this is to disable the login screen or the "ask for password" setting.

If you're worried about privacy, do the following:

Reset PRAM
Reset SMC

If it still doesn't work, disable deep sleep mode (hibernate) by doing this:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

Note that doing the above will only put your computer on battery sleep and this will affect battery life when you're not using your mac.


iPod Classic can't be seen by iTunes 12.7 on Windows 10 I have a used iPod Classic 5th Generation (A1136) that was purchased for a parent as it is compatible with all their 40-pin gear. One of the parents already has an identical model which was "working fine" (although hadn't been synced for over a year). By this I understand that syncing has worked on their family PC (running Windows 10) in the past, but updates may have been run / fiddling may have taken place since the last successful sync.

However, I plugged in this newly purchased iPod to the family PC (via USB) and strange things began to happen. The iPod appeared to connect, then disconnect and reconnect again in a loop until eventually Windows gave up and said the device had malfunctioned. iTunes doesn't detect the device at all, but once the connect/reconnect loop gives up the iPod appears as a mass storage device - but iTunes continues to ignore it.

Things I have tried

different computer - tried it on another Windows 10 machine with an identical version of iTunes (12.7.4.76) - works flawlessly (with the same sync cable)
different USB port on the same computer - all behave identically
uninstall iTunes, reboot, reinstall iTunes, reboot - same behaviour
reinstall Apple Mobile Device Support driver (usbaapl64.inf) - same behaviour

Honestly, I'm tearing my hair out. Short of a clean Windows 10 install I don't know what else to do. Any ideas?

I spoke with Apple Support. The iPod Classic is no longer supported by the software, period. Backwards compatibility is not considered and old versions of iTunes are not provided by Apple. In fact, the support personnel are forbidden to provide an older version. They suggest buying a new iPod.


Caps Lock button's green light not working after Mojave update I've updated to macOS Mojave from High Sierra recently. Since the update, the green light in Caps Lock button is no more working.

The button is working, but the green light is not.

MacBook Pro, 15-inch, 2017 model.

Is there any solution how can I fix this issue?

I would suggest your reset your NVRAM, following the procedure from Apple.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063


What does this icon showing corners of a rectangle with a star on some of my photos mean? I have an iPhone 11 Pro Max running the latest iOS, and some of my photos have this icon in the top right corner. I am assuming that it means that the photo has a face which has been recognised or something similar but it would be nice to know.

This icon means iPhone took an additional photo from the wider angle camera than the one you selected to give you the option to include more photograph beyond the edges of the original.
To include parts of this extra photograph beyond what’s visible, choose Edit, select Crop and drag the crop handles out to include this extra data in the picture.
If you don’t edit the picture within 30 days, the extra data is discarded to save space. You can disable this option in Settings → Camera → Photos Capture Outside the Frame.
For more information, see the Apple support article on this topic: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph8692d3298/ios


How to navigate iTunes with the Apple IR Remote With the death of Front Row, I need an alternative 10' interface to iTunes.  My IR Remote will let me pause/play the current media, and of course the volume.  But I can't seem to navigate the library with nothing but the IR remote.

I know I can use the Remote software on an Touch / iPad, but it 10x the price of an IR remote, you're kidding right?

You could try an app like Plex. It has a music component and is designed to be operated by a remote.


Can't log in until after reboot I have an iMac running OS X Mavericks and OS X Server. The OS X Server services running are Time Machine and Xcode.

A couple of times per week, the iMac gets into a state where I cannot log in. I can select my user account on the login screen, and I can enter my password, but the password field just shakes as if I have entered the wrong password. This happens for each of the three user accounts on the machine.

After rebooting, we can log in for a while (a day or two), and then the can't-login state recurs.

I don't know whether this is related, but sometimes this same iMac gets into a state where everything is really slow. Activity Monitor shows that CPU usage is low, memory pressure is low, disk is not full, but everything seems to be running at 5% normal speed. It's fine after a reboot.

When the iMac is in one of those bad states, I can still ssh to it from another Mac, and I can "sudo shutdown -r now" to restart it.

Any ideas about what is going wrong, or how to diagnose the problem?

Update:

After uninstalling an old version of VirtualBox about a week ago, the problem hasn't recurred.  Maybe its kexts were causing problems?

From your symptoms and the lack of any other any evidence within your
log files,
the origin of your problem is a keyboard mode switch.
This keyboard mode switch will only make your password wrongly typed through the login window and not through an ssh access.
This remapping of your keyboard might have been caused by command ⌘+space (select previous input source) or command ⌘+alt ⌥+space (select next input source).
The 1st one of these 2 key combinations may be easily entered by typing the spacebar on one of its left or right borders, thus pressing the command ⌘ at the same time.
This shortcut is defined in:

System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources

This keyboard remapping might also have been done by any other keyboard shortcut defined by Xcode or another application.

To avoid to be trapped by such an invisible keyboard remapping or misbehaviour, here are 2 personnal trick.

Within System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options,
for Display login windows as:
select Name and password.
Hence you will have a possibility to diagnose any wrong mapping or any other misbehaviour of your keyboard within the field Name:. You might try your password there and have a total feedback.
Within System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options,
activate the function Show Input menu in login window. This 2nd trick won't help you diagnose a dead key.


Are there any MKV video players that feature Picture in Picture? I'd like to find a modern MKV video player app that supports macOS's new Picture in Picture feature.

Note: I'm not interested in replicating PiP functionality, I'm only interested in the actual Picture in Picture feature.

IINA (https://iina.io/)

I found that IINA can use macOS's native Picture in Picture mode.

  For and only for modern macOS.

  IINA is born to be a modern macOS application, from its framework to
  the user interface. It adopts the post-Yosemite design language of
  macOS and keeps up the pace of new technologies like Force Touch,
  Touch Bar, and Picture-in-Picture.

Source: GitHub


Is there a fast way to export podcast URLs from iTunes? Is there an easy way to export all my subscribed podcast URLs in iTunes?

I am trying to subscribe to the same podcasts on a non-Apple device (Zune used instead of iPhone when running) but having to right click each one and copy and pasting the URL to another computer to add the podcast to it's software is tedious.  I am sure there is a better way.

Also would like to do it for backup purposes since iTunes seems to have to get reinstalled every 6 months or so :(

Right-click on the Podcasts entry in the side bar
Select "Export..."
Select OPML format

This gives you a short file listing all the subscribed podcasts including the URL.


iPad mini apps not fitting screen Sometimes, I install apps for iPhone on my iPad and they are too small and doesn't fit the screen. Is there any option to resize them so they have either no black space around or just on one side?

This a the behaviour defined by Apple for iPhone apps on iPad. There is nothing you can do.


Magic Mouse with iOS 12.X? Magic Mouse is supported under natively iOS 13, however, my iPad (iOS 12.4) does not meet the hardware requirement for iOS 13.  I would like to be able to use a magic mouse with my iPhone / iPad running 12.4.  Is this supported natively (preferable) in 12.X or is there a procedure to enable the magic mouse on iOS 12?

A 2018 iPhone video predates iOS 13 and shows mouse control: though the mouse hardware is not known: my goal is to use the Magic Mouse

The Magic Mouse does work with iOS 13, you'll need to use a PIN code of 0000 to pair it. If you have trouble getting the mouse into pairing mode, remove the batteries from the mouse and re-insert them after a short while. This forces it into discovery mode, where you can pair it.

The Magic Mouse 2 is slightly more complicated, as it did not work in the betas of iOS 13 at all. It is however supported in the final release of iOS 13 - however note that the iOS 13 support for Magic Mouse 2 so far includes only pointing support and clicks. There's no support for any gestures.

There's no way to enable the Magic Mouse on iOS 12.

The video you have linked to shows an iOS Simulator running on a Mac. Here the mouse is obviously supported. This doesn't make it possible to get it working with a real iPad with iOS 12.

A few apps exists with mouse support for iOS 12 and earlier. They do not support the Magic Mouse though. They only support special hardware, and it's not supported system wide - but only limited to a single app. For example you can get a Swiftpoint GT Mouse for use with the VMware Horizon Client for remote desktopping.


Will performance on my AirPort Extreme be hurt pushing AirPlay content over 2.4Ghz and the rest on 5Ghz? I already know individual answers to this but stick with me :) So, the latest AirPort Extreme (802.11ac) says it can do simultaneous dual-band, which is fine when you're using both frequencies together. But if you separate the two by SSID, giving you a dedicated 5Ghz and dedicated 2.4Ghz band, does it still transmit on both of those simultaneously to separate devices? To give you an idea of what I'm trying to do, I want to hook up AirPort Express units around my house to provide AirPlay to assorted speakers in the Kitchen, Dining Room, etc and was thinking, in theory I can have them all operate on say, the 2.4Ghz band while the rest of the house is on 5Ghz, and it should alleviate some network congestion when streaming to multiple units at one time. In my mind, it's like Sonos but a bit cheaper since I have most of the hardware already. This may be completely pointless, so I'm just curious if there's anyone familiar with this or if it's even necessary. I've had multiple people tell me to use the 5Ghz band exclusively since my house is relatively small and I can hit it from almost anywhere. Is my logic misguided?

But if you separate the two by SSID, giving you a dedicated 5Ghz and dedicated 2.4Ghz band, does it still transmit on both of those simultaneously to separate devices?

Yes (non-issue if the Airport Express units connect on 5GHz).

  ...so I'm just curious if there's anyone familiar with this or if it's even necessary.

I've had various Airport routers since 2007 and I've always separated the 5GHz channel from the 2.4GHz both at my parents house and in my flat downtown. If you can obtain good coverage with 5GHz then that's preferable because no nearby networks, cordless phones or microwaves will interfere with your music playback.

The main problem is not network congestion, it's interference.


How to Force iPad / OneNote re-sync Does anyone know of a solution, from the iPad side of the equation, for this OneNote syncing problem?

Under the iPad's "Settings," there is a OneNote tab which offers a "Reset Application".  Using that seemed to have fixed the problem.


Can't put .mov file in iMovie I'm trying to drag a .mov file into iMovie from Finder, but nothing happens when I try to drop it into the videos/images section. How do I put it in iMovie so I can edit it?

You should be able to drag the .mov file into iMovie without any problems, so I'm wondering to where within iMovie you're actually trying to drag it?

Perhaps the best bet is to use the commandI shortcut to open the Import window. Once open, use that to navigate to your video file and import it.


Show only imported files in iTunes I'm new to iTunes and I don't like that it lists all files ever played in the categories "Songs" or "Albums" for example. I only have a few albums on my mac, but I have listened to a lot of stuff, mostly from external drives.

My problem:
Saying I want to listen to some music, it's pretty hard to find the music which is actually playable, because iTunes shows all files ever played. Is it possible to show only files which I have actually imported, without turning on copy files to iTunes Media?

You can delete items whose files have been removed by running this from AppleScript Editor:

tell application "iTunes"
    repeat 5 times
        repeat with t in file tracks of library playlist 1
            try
                if location of t is missing value then delete t
            end try
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell

I don't know why you have to run it multiple times, but it usually removes all items after about five times.


giving MBP priority for Siri when iPhone and iPad are close by This seems trivial but cant find answers for this. I have a MBP plus an iPhone and iPad. All on the same table. When i issue a hey siri, all 3 go off with mixed results on who is actually working..

i assume this is a common problem.

Other then flipping all the non MBP devices (very annoying and unrealistic as i use them in parallel), what options are available to Queue up the MBP so it always defaults to the main siri device?

Your Apple devices actually negotiate between them to decide which device is closest to the speaker, and there is no way to control which device gets priority.

As you suggest, if you flip over your iOS devices, they will not respond to 'Hey Siri' (this can be changed in Accessibility settings) which is the only control you have over the situation. The Mac has similar controls if the lid is closed. Also, if you have bluetooth off on any of the devices, they are not part of the negotiations, as they communicate with each other via Bluetooth.

For details refer to this Apple Support document:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208472


Deploy iOS app directly from Xcode to iPad Since Xcode 7 was released, a target device has now free provisioning. A developer doesn't have to sign up for Apple Developer Program in order to test his/her app on an iOS device.

When you uploaded your application on an iPad or iPhone, you'll also have to trust the developer. So, on a device go to Settings >> General >> Profile >> Developer Account Name >> Trust.

The problem is an app with free provisioning works on your device only 7 days.

Is there a way to make it work perpetually on iPad (without building an app in Xcode again)?

Yes, it is possible to make the app work "perpetually" without recompiling and rebuilding it in Xcode. This can be done by re-signing the finished binary using command line tools (i.e. essentially just replacing the developer signature instead of remaking the whole binary over and over). However, this is probably not what you want as you will need to transfer that new binary to the iPad every week.

If you want to make it work "perpetually" without having to reinstall the app, you will need to get it signed by someone with a real developer certificate (i.e. obtained from either the Apple Developer Program or the Enterprise Developer Program).


Stop SuperDrive from checking for disks after wake up I'd like to stop the SuperDrive from spinning up after coming out of sleep since the noise it makes is quite loud. The SuperDrive was 'fixed' at an authorized retailer a while back and it's made a lot of noise ever since. This is a 3 year old white MacBook, so it's out of warranty.

Is there a way to not have it check for disks after opening the lid?

You can disable the Superdrive if you set your account up under parental controls.

Under Preferences > Accounts (Users under Lion) > Enable parental controls > other > check limit cd and dvd burning

This should do the trick.


In Mountain Lion how do I set, in one place, the PATH environment variable for all newly launched applications? On Ask Different there are many questions regarding the PATH environment variable and how to set it for applications launched by a shell, by spotlight or via the finder (typical questions: How to set PATH for Finder-launched applications or How to change PATH environment variable...).

Answers range from sh startup scripts to /etc/paths to /etc/launchd.conf. Here I am after the answer for a unified setting of PATH for all apps under Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2.

After many trials with different options I conclude:

Is there a unified way to set the PATH for applications launched by different means (like shell script, Finder and Spotlight)? Well, yes and no:

No: Setting PATH in shell start up scripts (e.g. .bashrc) works only for apps launched by shells.
No: Setting PATH for the current launchd process via launchctl setenv PATH <...> does not work for me at all.
Yes: Setting PATH in /etc/launchd.conf (and restarting the system) will make the appropriate PATH visible in  applications launched by Spotlight, Dock and Finder and subsequently (local) shells.
No: Remotely invoked shells do not inherit the environment. (See ...why do remote shells via ssh do NOT inherit the environment..)

Notes for set-up of shells:

For correct functioning in local shells it is important to switch off the use of /usr/libexec/path_helper, because the default paths in /etc/paths might change the order of the paths in PATH.**
To accommodate remote shells you need to re-import the launchd environment into the shell. Use something like this in your .bashrc:

# the vexatious path stuff
eval $(launchctl export)

Unfortunate consequences of the whole issue are:

No way to have these unified settings on a per user basis. (~/.launchd.conf does not work.)
No easy way to construct the PATH from different sources using techniques like home directory expansion et al.


Does iCloud Calendar Backup Include Local (Non iCloud) Calendars? First, my basic question:

If I have an iPhone and it is using a local calendar ("On This Phone", I think), and my backup is to iCloud, does that backup include the local calendar?

Edit: to be clear, the backup I'm referring to is:

iCloud.com > Settings > (Advanced section) > Restore Calendars and Reminders

Second, and the reason for my question:

I've performed a series of steps that's left me in a mess with migrating a local calendar to an iCloud calendar whilst also (around the same time) sharing iCloud calendars between two users...

The sequence has been something close to this (unfortunately I didn't note them down 100% as I was going):

iPhone A and iPhone B, separate Apple IDs, both backing up to iCloud
iPhone A uses iCloud calendars, only
iPhone B uses a local calendar, but also has an iCloud calendar containing some events that were invites from iPhone A
iPhone A shares an iCloud calendar with iPhone B. It all works as expected. The calendar is name "Calendar"
iPhone B considers sharing a calendar with iPhone A, but realises they're using a local calendar, so goes through the process of merging/migrating that local data to be in an iCloud calendar
(I think, this was achieved by turning on the Calendar option in the iCloud settings, then answering "yes" to "do you want to keep local calendar data?")
iPhone B now has iCloud calendars only; the iPhone B user checks on their Mac and they now see the iCloud calendar on their, too. Yay!
iPhone B now shares their iCloud calendar with iPhone A. The calendar is named "Calendar"
This time, the sharing from iPhone B to iPhone A only kinda works. New events on iPhone B are immediately propagated to iPhone A. However, existing events on iPhone B are not seen on iPhone A (this was not the case when iPhone A was shared to iPhone B)
Upon seeing this, the users of iPhone A and iPhone B tried things like: un-sharing and re-sharing, re-naming calendars, re-synching... None of which worked.
Unfortunately, a side effect of the above was that (and I'm not sure at what point it happened) - the existing events on iPhone B became readonly on iPhone B. New events on iPhone B went into the re-named calendar. So, the calendar on iPhone B was renamed from "Calendar" to "Ciara". Existing events were listed as being under "Calender" and new events were listed as being in "Ciara"...
Further un-sharing and showing/hiding calendars resulted in the pre-existing events on iPhone B disappearing completely...

Note:

Unfortunately, I did not export any of the calendars before doing this (I know, I should have)

What I've tried:

I've tried un-sharing all calendars, then using iCloud.com for iPhone B's account to restore a calendar (only) from before any of the above was started
It did not work
However, at the time of that backup, the Calendar option in Settings -> iCloud was turned off. When trying to restore the calendar via iCloud.com, the Calendar option is still turned on

What I'd like to try:

Turn that setting off, so iPhone B is not using iCloud calendars
Restore a calendar backup from iCloud.com
If it works, and I see the pre-existing events, first do an export, and second try to migrate to iCloud calendars on iPhone B before doing any sharing

The reason for this question:

iPhone B belongs to my wife ;)
I've already lost a whole load of her events; I don't want to mess it up further ;)
I'll try the above, if I know that the older iCloud calendar backups will have contained the local, calendar data...

Thanks

Following some trial and error, and additional reasoning, I can partially answer my own question:

(1) The events from a local calendar, on an iPhone ("On This Phone", I think it is referred to), are not backed up to the calendar-specfic area in iCloud. Here:

iCloud.com > Settings > (Advanced section) > Restore Calendars and Reminders

Although it doesn't say so explicitly, it makes sense that these iCloud calendar backups cover a user's iCloud calendars. (Plus, my attempt to restore such backups with a hope to see pre-merged, local calendars, failed).

Screen shot from iCloud.com:

(2) The iPhone backup (the complete backup of the whole phone), which in my case was being backed up to iCloud (rather than iTunes), would, I presume, include the local calendars and their events.

However, by time I'd got to looking at this, my oldest 'complete' iCloud backup was just a day old... which was after I merged the local calendars into iCloud calendars.