Spam SMS on iPhone - any chance of stopping it? Possibly due to some in-app purchase done by a kid before the in-app purchasing was disabled, an iPhone 5S user receives this type of link weekly

http://wowza1.mobibase.com:8080/apple/definst/channel/431/57/57_rtsp.sdp/playlist.m3u8?ticket=.....

Contents:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=250000
chunklist_w2079735267.m3u8?ticket=same as in url

It gos to iTunes but does not does anything further on an iMac so I assume it might only do something on an iPhone.

No-one wishes to click it and I cannot find the url or parts of it mentioned on the net.

I know I can sms STOP to a number if I knew if the number who sent the spam would react and not just be happy I sent a reply and double their effort

Any suggestions as to my next step?

I've never had to block a number but this might work:
Open up the Settings app and go to Messages -> Blocked -> Add new, this should block all calls and text messages from that number (you have to add it in your Contacts before you can block it, unfortunately)


How to Enable Spotlight Search Files And Directories Is it possible to let Spotlight find files and directories from all over?

Though I'm not entirely sure about Spotlight, Alfred (http://www.alfredapp.com/) is an incredible app I've come to wonder how I ever lived without. You can bind it to Spotlight's default keybind (Command-Space) and set it to search your entire system.


How to install Windows 8 on a MacBook Pro with OS X Yosemite, using Boot Camp, without a USB drive or DVD The title covers most of my question. I am relatively new to the Mac world, and came across Boot Camp, which can dual-boot Windows, which seems pretty cool. I have read through many Boot Camp guides, and know that a USB drive must be used (my new Mac does not have a CD/DVD drive). I do not have any USB drives at the moment that I want to format, and I would like to know if there is a way to do it without a USB drive. I know that it may be harder or impossible to do it without a USB drive, and I can back up my USB, but I would like to be able to install Windows without a USB drive. Alternate question: if I do format my flash drive (64 gb), will I be able to store other files on it, or will it only work with my Windows OS?

Installing Windows on a Mac via Boot Camp you only have two choices, DVD or USB.  You also need a Windows DVD (Full Install Media not Upgrade Media) or an ISO Image of the Windows DVD to create the USB Installer via the Boot Camp Assistant.

Yes, you'll be able to use the USB drive to store other files after the Boot Camp Assistant has written the files necessary to install Windows via USB.  However you need to first backup what you have on the USB drive as it will be removed in the process of creating the USB Windows Installer.

Note: For use in installing Windows the USB drive will be formatted FAT32 and as such you'll not be able to store files over 4GB in size for use with the "other files" you want to have on the USB drive.


How to disconnect MacBook Pro 15 2017 battery? I'm struggling to figure out how to "unplug" or disconnect the battery of my retina MacBook Pro 15' 2017 from its logic board, to reset the SMC.

What cable(s) do I need to disconnect exactly?

Those?

Thanks in advance!

Sometimes it helps to look at the replacement part to see what connectors it has.

From this picture, we can see that there is a PCB and a small connector cable at the top of the assembly.
This would correspond to this part in your photo

Disconnect that, and your SMC should reset.


Xcode odd behaiviour and bad rendering code Recently I'm experiencing some odd behavior from Xcode. It jump up and down on its own, it does not render codes correctly.
Like this screenshot ↓

It's driving me crazy. Have this ever occurred to anybody else?
Is there a solution?
P.S. this problem happens with both Objective-C and Objective-C++ and with every theme I use. (Currently I'm using xcode 6.3)

Turn off the Show live issues checkbox in Xcode > Preferences > General (found near the top of the panel).

I was experiencing the same issue. I found this answer through Editor glitch when editing near end of long file in Apple's Developer Forums.

It worked for me running Xcode 7.3 with a 2706 line file. The glitch happened around line 2250.


Can I get the source code from an IPA? How do I get source code or classes .m and .h files for .ipa files?

No - since the IPA file only contains the compiled project, the source code can't be obtained from this.

Certain iOS apps are open source - you can obtain the source code for those apps separately.


Browser issues - gets redirected to adware When I open web pages, the page automatically redirects to "youradexchange.com" or some other ad web site. Not been able to resolve the issue.

Does this happen on all websites?

Some sites do this. For example, The Pirate Bay or EZTV - when you click to scroll, they will open a new tab to show you ads.


Is there a File explorer/Finder like tool for mac os, which can sort folders by name? I couldn't figure it out how to sort folders by "name" in Finder. Now I know, that it's not possible. At least, according to what I think of, when I say sort by name. So I guess I need another tool.

  Substrings of digits are sorted according to their numeric value, as
  opposed to sorting the actual characters in the number.

Documentation

My task is, to go trough hundreds of folders alphabetically, and look at an image within each folder, and check for errors.

My workflow currently is:

Copy the output of ls -la into excel
get the folder names
copy each row one by one into finder's search box
check the contents of the folder
I have a "notes" column in excel, where I can write my results

This is very tedious.

I would like to get the same sorting logic, as within in terminal.

Here are some sample folder names:

ls -la

...

0629e7bc-8110-4db9-aaa9-b67b0b73743d
06a409e1-98c6-4bf4-afa4-c814f7899d82
0a3a5c12-e459-4aa0-b9cb-30b544013215
0c14581f-31d8-4961-a14f-11afc40e47f9
0fe8970c-6338-46ca-bc16-f7867b271480
129855c4-7dbe-4a9f-a100-28b1d3d02340
1522e288-8a81-4298-aefc-f334cb088a53
180d430b-76f9-401f-845a-cb395bc1eba0
1a01a936-bedf-4758-971a-d4886ee8d281

Could you recommend a tool, which can sort folders by name, alphabetically?
I've tried Commander One, but sadly, it's using the same logic as Finder.

I hope running this python script works. TEST would have all the folders you mentioned. I have modified the workflow slightly to avoid messing with  Finder and AppleScript. The final file can be opened in Excel.

import os
import fnmatch

import time
directory = "your/dirname/Desktop/TEST"
y = [x[0] for x in os.walk(directory)]
y = y[1:]

#%%
thedict = {}
for one in y:
    thedict[one] = ""
#makes dictionary with all the folder names
for direc in thedict:
    matches = []
    for root, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(direc):
        for filename in fnmatch.filter(filenames, '*.jpg'):
            matches.append(os.path.join(root, filename))
    for photo in matches:
        stri = "open " + photo
        os.system(stri)
        error = raw_input("error?")
        thedict[direc] = error
#Photo opens, you see it, close it, type the error in terminal and hit #enter.
#Then the next one comes up.
import csv
with open('outputf.csv', 'w') as f:
    for key in thedict.keys():
        f.write("%s,%s\n"%(key,thedict[key]))


How to import a spreadsheet into Numbers from an email attachment? I want to know how to open a spreadheet email attachement in the Numbers app on the iPad.

Here are the steps I have taken with no luck:

On the iPad I open my email.
I see a spreadsheet attachment.
I click it and it previews.

Now how do I get the spreadhseet into Numbers?

The Apple directions say the following:

'OpenReceive as an email attachment. Preview the spreadsheet and tap the “Open in” button to open Numbers.'

My problem is I cant find the "Open in" option on the iPad??

This screen shot is from Keynote for iPad, but Numbers for iPad is pretty much the same:

When you view the file in Preview mode, the title bar of the document should look pretty similar to the above. Over there on the right is the Open in… button.

There might be a  button that you have to click first before you see the Open in… button.

Other ways to transfer files to your iPad:

Use iTunes file sharing to import iWork documents
Use the iWork.com public beta
Use MobileMe iDisk or a WebDAV server


How to change power savings settings on iPad 2, iOS 4.3.3 After a few minutes, if I haven't touched the iPad 2's screen, it goes dim and then turns off. I suppose this is a power savings behavior; however, when it is connected to my computer I don't want it to power down. How can I change the power savings settings?

Go to settings>general>auto lock>never .

or

If you have the smartcover you can also set that as the on/off trigger.


Where does the Messages beta pull my buddy picture/user icon from? I'm using the new Messages beta with my Gmail account and my iMessage account (which is linked to the same Gmail address). It's using a photo for my buddy picture that I've used before on various things, but I can't figure out why it's showing up here. It's not the picture associated with my Gmail account or my user account on this computer. I can't find the setting in Preferences where I can select a buddy picture, so it must be pulling it from somewhere in some account.

So: where does Messages get its user picture from?

Gmail may be set to synchronise with your Address Book.  Go to your address book, and select the "me" card that you will previously have chosen as your own identify within Address Book.  Whatever picture is being used by your "me" card (or potentially by whatever card has a matching email address as the one your messages app is linked to) should be the one Messages uses.


How can I download plain .txt files in Safari/Chrome? Some data formats will not be automatically downloaded by Safari/Chrome. Usually there are other options:

.jpg → right-click will show a dialog with an option download
.pdf → when you hover over the PDF an option to download appears

How can I download a plain .txt file? (example URL)

Safari

Highlight URL in the address bar
Press ⌥ and then ↩ to download.

Chrome

File -> Save As

No options appear as to what the downloaded format is. For a plain .txt file it will be a simple text file.


Parallels taking up over 300GB but Parallels disk is only 128GB. Why? In Parallels Desktop 12.2.0 on MacOS 10.12.4, a Windows 10 VM is taking up over 170GB of mystery space. Windows only sees a 128GB drive. But Parallels claims to be using 300GB on hard disks.

It's not snapshots-- Parallels reports only 22GB for snapshots. It's not multiple disks-- Parallels reports only one hard disk. It's not unpartitioned space on the Windows side-- Windows reports no significant unpartitioned space. It's not multiple VMs because Parallels reports only one VM, which I've confirmed by seeing only one 346GB VM file in Finder.

But the space is definitely getting chewed up, because my Mac is low on disk space. WTF?  Anyone know where that mystery 170GB is being used, and how to free it up?

After a long chat with Parallels support followed by my own investigation, it turns out that the mystery disk space is taken up by snapshots. But Parallels apparently has a bug where it's not correctly reporting the full disk space cost of snapshots.  By deleting some snapshots I was able to reclaim much of the mystery disk space.

Here's more details. Apparently Parallels stores snapshots in two places: inside your VM's .pvm file (go to /Users/YourName/Documents/Parallels, find the .pvm file, right click on it, and choose "Show Package Contents") :

in a Snapshots folder, which is what's measured by the green Snapshots area in the General tab of Parallels VM configuration.
inside the .hdd file  that contains the actual hard disk data. If you right-click on this file and choose Show Package Contents, you'll see one .hds file for each snapshot that you have stored. These files are not included in the green Snapshots area in the General tab of Parallels VM configuration.

I deleted several old snapshots using the Snapshot manager, and that freed up 100GB in just a few minutes. Removing each snapshot removed one 10GB+ .hds file from inside the .hdd file.

I did see cases in the Parallels forums where old snapshots didn't show up in Snapshot Manager but were still using up disk space. Apparently there's a Terminal-based way to fix that problem. I'm pasting links here in case others run across that variant of the problem:

https://forum.parallels.com/threads/what-are-multiple-hds-files-in-huge-pvm-file.327942/
https://forum.parallels.com/threads/problems-with-freeing-disc-space-after-deleted-snapshots.328099/

both linking to:

http://kb.parallels.com/9165

I was disappointed in Parallels for not accurately measuring the true disk cost of snapshots.  Had Parallels correctly noted that snapshots were taking up 200GB vs. 128GB for real disk space, the solution (delete some snapshots, dummy!) would have been obvious.  Instead I wasted hours trying to troubleshoot what could have been a simple problem to resolve.

The support engineer I worked with claimed that this incorrect measurement is not a Parallels bug. I'll leave it up to you to decide if you agree with him. ;-)


Mix two video tracks with iMovie on OS X I have two video tracks and one audio track of a bass player testing his instrument.

I've been able to put in sync the main video track with audio and now I'd like to add the second video track just in some phases.

I'll try to explain better:
the main video track is from a static cam that has the better stability and colour quality.
the secondary video track was shoot from my hands and it's more cinetic.

How can I mix the 1st video track with the 2nd without losing the audio sync easily?

This type of alignment/syncing is why the clapboard was invented! Without one, you'll have to be a little more meticulous when you manually align the clips.

This post on the Apple Support forums suggests a few helpful features to use:

The basic feature you want to use is cutaways.
Audio waveforms can be used for visual alignment.
Playing audio from both tracks simultaneously lets you hear when the tracks are in sync.
Changing the time scale and showing the frame count allows you to make fine-scale adjustments to the clip positions. You can use the arrow keys to nudge the clips.

Read the aforementioned post for some more tips.


Macbook Pro detects the screen, but external screen stays black (mini dp to hdmi) I am trying to connect my MacBook Pro (OSX 10.9.3, 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB DDR3) to Panasonic Viera TH55AS670D LED TV through Mini DP to HDMI connector. When I connect the wire my laptop screen blinks (which means it detects external screen) but the TV stays black. When I go to System Preferences and open the Displays tab - it shows the exact model of my screen, but nothing shows up on my screen.

When connecting an external display to a MacBook Pro (MBP), sometimes you'll get lucky, and both electronic devices will recognize each other and adjust their own settings properly, and the laptop will be displayed on the TV.  However, this doesn't always happen.  When it doesn't...

First, always check and make sure the external display (TV in your case) is powered on and all its cables and connections are properly seated.  In order for the TV to sync, a few things need to happen, the MBP has to recognize that a TV is connected (which you say is happening), the TV has to recognize that a video source is present (unclear if this is happening), the TV has to be set to the proper Input or Source (Input numbers on the back and sides of TV don't always correlate to the Input number in the TV Menu), and the format of the video coming from the laptop must be supported by the television.

It sounds like the laptop is doing everything it should, so focus your attention on the TV.  Cycle through all the different inputs in the TV.  Try different HDMI ports.   If that doesn't work, it could actually be the Mini DP to HDMI adapter.  Try and connect the laptop and adapter to another HDMI device.  If it still doesn't work the another device, then the adapter may be bad.  If it does work with another device, then either the TV has an issue with HDMI inputs, or the settings in the TV are preventing it from working properly.  Possibly try and reset the TV back to its default settings.


How to bypass country restrictions on App Store? I want to download an iPhone app which is not accessible from my country (India). How can I bypass the country restrictions?

You need an iTunes account for the country-specific store in order to download apps restricted to certain countries. If the app is not free, you also will need either a credit card issued in that country or some iTunes gift cards (also from that country).


Keyboard shortcut for cascading multiple windows of same application in macOs Need to know,

Is there any app, which gives a keyboard shortcut Or any inbuilt keyboard shortcut
to cascade windows(attached pic for reference) of same in application in macOs

Note that I'm not asking about Expose shortcut

Apparently if you hold the "Option" key wile selecting "Arrange In Front" from the Window menu of your application, that should do what you want. To make a shortcut for that, you should be able to add a shortcut in the keyboard preferences.

You might also look into Better Touch Tool


iPhone turns off wifi when Lock Screen Active is a bug or a feature? I'm using iPhone 7, iOS 12.1.4.
Recently I notice that people can't call me via FaceTime me when I lock my iPhone, so it turns out the Wifi is only connected when the screen is on. I googled it a bit:

WiFi Disconnects when Lock Screen active

Wifi drops when phone is locked after 10.3.3 update

Some says it's a "feature" designed by Apple (to save battery, even when iPhone isn't in Low Power Mode), thus it can't be fixed, but some suggest solutions to fix (which doesn't work for me).

So if it is a feature, how can iPhone's users receive FaceTime/Facebook messenger calls, do they have to play with their iPhone all day long to make sure they don't miss any call, is there any official word from Apple?

Problem: VPN app disconnects wifi when the iPhone goes to sleep mode.
         (even when the VPN isn't used)

Solution: remove the VPN.

I think another solution is to use a VPN app that uses IKEv2 (Apple's native VPN framework):

For example, ProtonVPN can do this https://protonvpn.com/support/protonvpn-ios-manual-ikev2-vpn-setup/


Upgrading Mac OS X pre Leopard I want to upgrade Xcode but it tells me I first need to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6.6 (I have 10.5.8).

However, the links I find online all seem to expect me to use Leopard or Lion.

How to I get there (without buying something)?

Unfortunately, you cannot. Due to the requirement of a 64-bit processor, a 64-bit OS, and the general evolution of requirements, much of Apple's software (and really, new software in general) simply reaches a point where you can't run newer versions without upgrading the OS, and occasionally your hardware, as a whole.


Setup proxy in Mac OS X Lion Installer I have "restored" one usb stick with the BaseSystem.dmg of the InstallESD.dmg of my Lion installation and it boots. However it wants to connect to the internet to check the system requirements blablabla. Due to the fact, that i am currently at university where we use a proxy the network tool tells me that i have no connection. How can i set up the right proxy? Via the Terminal?

(Btw. the screen that opens is the Mac OS X Service Tools (don't know how to translate) which offers me to restore from Time Machine or to install Lion or to search online help. The Tools i can use are Firmware Password, Network tool and Terminal.)

Open the Terminal and enter your proxy configuration using "networksetup".
For example

networksetup -setautoproxyurl Ethernet http://your.proxy.url/proxy.pac

"Ethernet" is the name of the network service, use

networksetup -listallnetworkservices

to see which name to use. If you don't use automatic proxy configuration, see "man networksetup" to see how to set up a manual configuration.

Then quit the Terminal and start the installation.


Why do empty "Icon\r" or "Icon^M" files appear in directories? There's an empty file called Icon^M occasionally in my directories. I guess this stuff predates OSX, and it's a file that gets created by the finder to be backward compatible with OS 9. Yet, this is my guess. I tried to google, but given the name, I had some trouble finding something meaningful (in the sense that it explain what the file is and where it comes from, historically).

If you have any reference at hand I would enjoy learning this bit of lore.

Do you have by any chance a custom icon you set up for that folder?

I believe this is what this file is there for.

This Super User answer has the answer.


Can you tell if your phone has been wiped via Find My iPhone? I lost my phone 5/think it was stolen.

I had "Find My iPhone" on it. The thing is it was very low on battery and by the time I realised it was gone I think the battery was done - it just showed "device offline".

So my question is, if somebody has taken the phone and has wiped it and is using it instead, would the Find My Iphone screen show anything different? Would there be some way to know that it can't be found again, or will I still be notified when they connect it to iTunes?

With Find My iPhone activated this disables an activation when the phone is wiped from a different computer. The person would have to know your AppleID and password in order for the phone to be activated again (meaning use a SIM card and get reception). If they erase it, you should still be able to see the phone on your map. I would recommend not wiping the phone rather track it.

The commands become active the next time the device is powered on and gets a connection either via open WiFi or cell tower.

You won't get much in the way of information in regards to what they are doing with it. Tracking really is your best bet since it records the routes and allows you to follow the device, wiping it could make it easier for them to break into the phone and use it without your permission.


Transferring iPhone message history to new Mac? My filesystem was corrupted when updating to High Sierra so I wiped it and restored my files from a dropbox backup. However, I didn't back up my iMessages because I thought I could easily restore them through iCloud. Since Apple removed the iCloud message history synchronization feature after the iOS 11 and High Sierra beta period, is there currently a way to transfer my past messages from my iPhone to my laptop and view them within the Messages app?

All of the third-party solutions I've found so far export iPhone iMessages to pdf or csv files rather than the archive format used by Messages on MacOS.

did you make backups of the iPhone on the mac (with iTunes or iMazing):
if so you can easily restore the messages from the backup.


Use MacBook Air as standalone Display Is it possible to use MacBook Air as a display by connecting the peripheral via Thunderbolt 2 port ? I can get an adaptor if required. I would like to use my MacBook air as a display for Play Station 4.

No, it is not natively possible to use your MacBook Air as a standalone display.


Why I can't get out of EFI firmware update 2.7 on my MacBook Pro? Performing the EFI firmware update to version 2.7 these days, I noticed that my 15" MacBook Pro (bought March 25, 2012) resets for five times before booting effectively.

Even then, I can notice that EFI firmware 2.7 is still available in Software Update.

I tried to repeat the update operation, but still no joy. It seems like the update couldn't take place for some reason.

I can't figure out why.

Sometimes 'Software Update' fails and you are stuck with an incomplete update if this happens you can try to download the update as package direct from Apple (MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.7)

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1499

Install the package, maybe this will fix the problem.


Will it work to turn off iCloud photos on 1 mac to allow pruning library on another mac I recently turned off iCloud in order to change Apple ID.  I turned it back on before the photos were deleted from my Mac #1.  Now it wants to reupload, but has to compare the photos to what is in the cloud.  I have a huge photos library of about 700GB.  I want to turn off iCloud for photos on Mac #1, let the photos be deleted from the mac, and then cull photos from the photos library on another mac which has iCloud turned on, before turning the cloud back on for the original mac.  My hope is to decrease the ultimate size of the library and I don't want to wait for it finish comparing the photos it thinks it needs to re-upload.  Is there any reason this won't work, or is a bad idea?  Thank you for any input.

It did eventually work.  Mac #1 finally realized that there was nothing to upload and started downloading from iCloud. Now both macs are in sync with the pruned library.


When launching `screen`, "normal" bash environment isn't setup My typical login looks like this:

But when I start screen, I get just a bare bash environment - no environment variables, aliases, etc:

Why is that happening, and what can I do to fix it?

screen opens a new, independent shell.

If you want your prompts, aliases, environment variables and such, you will need to copy them over the .screenrc file from your .bashrc or .bash_profile

For more info, you can refer to the man page (man screen) or the documentation


How to use f11 on a Mac I'm playing a game called fishing planet and I need to use f11 to change the pitch but it's the volume so I can't use it

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Locate "F11" and uncheck it for Show Desktop (or whatever its set as)


VPN verbose logging on High Sierra I'm having problems connecting over VPN on certain networks and I'd like to look at the VPN log.

According to https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/mac-help/set-advanced-vpn-options-mh11941 I can set the "Use verbose logging" setting via Network Preferences > VPN > Advanced. However the only options I get under Advanced are the ones for DNS and Proxies; there's nothing specific to VPN in there.

How can I enable VPN verbose logging on High Sierra?

Verbose logging option is only available for an L2TP over IPSEC connection type.  If you selected CISCO IPSEC when configuring your VPN connection in the network preference the Verbose logging option will not be available.


Does a Boot Camped Windows alongside a Mac OS X partition profit from a Fusion drive like Mac OS X does? While writing an answer to this question Should I defrag my SSD before creating a partition for Boot Camp? i wondered if a Boot Camped Windows profits from a Fusion drive like OS X on the same drive in the sense of faster read/write access does.

The condition are clear for a pure SSD as well as for a common spinning HD.
In the first case a Windows installation profits like Mac OS X, in the second case the performance is slightly degraded because the Windows partition is almost always situated at the innermost "slower" parts of the disk.

But what's the case with a Fusion drive?

Fusion Drive is an OS X specific way of caching data.

If you use Bootcamp on a Fusion Drive you will get Windows on the hard drive only. Some information  from this Apple note


Why can´t I transfer app scores from an iPod to an iPhone? I have an iPod running on iOS 5 and and iPhone running on iOS10. I backed up my iPhone to my computer (Mac OS) using iTunes. I made sure that the apps were on the Mobile Applications folder. I then connected the iPhone to the computer, opened iTunes and found the apps I wanted to install. A "Will Install" notice appeared next to the apps and I synced the iPhone. When the syncing was finished, the apps were installed on the iPhone, but the game progress was lost. Why are the games scored not transfered to the iPhone? Can they be transfered though iCloud?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Edit - In response to @fsb: This happens with all the games on the iPhone (Bravesmart, Cut the Rope, Where´s My Water, Angry Birds, etc.).  As for contacting the developers, I have not done so thus far.

Scores are not stored into the app, so the apps backed up into your iTunes doesn't have your scores.

In order to share scores between different devices, I think that developers are usually using iCloud Drive (only available since iOS 8) https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204230

But older games was using Game Center to share scores, so you will probably be able to share them through this one.
https://www.imore.com/game-center


How many items are stored in an iPad clipboard? In iPad how many items can be stored in the clipboard?

How does one select from one of the past entries?

Where does it get stored and how to access it?

One item (independent of the type, can be text, can be an image) can be stored at a time in the clipboard and it is not possible to access past entries. The clipboard is stored in memory.


How do I "blacklist" a wireless network on my Mac? My home wifi network is password protected, as it should be. My neighbor's is not. Because I have password protected my network, my computer continually joins my neighbors instead of mine. I have moved my network to the top of the list of the "preferred" wireless networks, but if my network is down for whatever reason my computer just re-joins the neighbor's network. I don't want to join my neighbor's network, ever. Is there a way to make it so that my computer will never join a particular network, i.e. "blacklist" it?

Remove it from the list of "Preferred Networks" and it will stop auto-connecting.

Go to "System Preferences" > "Networks" prefpane.
Choose "AirPort" (or "WiFi" on Lion) on the left.
Click the "Advanced" button.
In the resulting sheet, choose the "AirPort" (or "WiFi") tab. (It should be the leftmost.)
Select your neighbor's wifi network in the list and hit the "-" (minus) button.
Live with joy at never [auto-]connecting there again!


Removing the 'Computers' menu item from the ATV 2 menu How can you remove the 'Computers' menu item from the Apple TV menu? I do not plan to use Home Sharing, and would like to remove this menu item altogether from the main screen. ATV can be jailbroken or not.

What steps can be taken to achieve this?

You must be jailbroken to do this.  SSH into the ATV2 and then:

cd /Applications/AppleTV.app/
mkdir Appliances_Disabled
mv Appliances/Computers.frappliance Appliances_Disabled

Reboot.

You can move the Computers.frappliance directory back into /Applications/AppleTV.app/Appliances if you ever want to see it again.


Can Mac Preview be set to default to save image as JPEG Preview defaults to saving as PNG.  I can change PNG to JPEG, but I have to do it every time.

Is there a way to change the default behaviour?

Is there a way to change the default save/export format in Preview? basically doesn't answer the question, but says that Preview saves it in the form it came in.  Well, sort of.  If I'm browsing google images, and right-click copy image, even though it's a jpeg image originally, when you past as new selection, it will default to save as PNG.

How can the default save format be changed for OS X Preview app? gives two solutions for someone who wants to save as PDF -- one using a python script, and two using a shortcut key mapped to export as PDF.

Neither of these solutions is workable.

A:  In many cases I have a bunch of intermediate steps, editing the image in Preview.  Most images will have a crop, a resize, and an annotate.  I suppose in principle the python script could be modified to save the current buffer in preview as a jpeg after I've done the others, but I don't yet speak python.

B:  The command shortcut doesn't work, as there is no menu command for "Save as JPEG"  Instead the Save menu item opens a modal dialog that requires the input of a name (since New->From Clipboard makes a file with the name "untitled-N") and every time a click on the ribbon control at the bottom of the dialog box to move to JPEG

No easy preference or key is known to change the defaults. Barring a new discovery, plan to use a different app or script image conversion with automation.

You probably already know you could make a keyboard shortcut if an Apple menu to save as JPEG existed, but that’s the crux here. Other questions here have useful details on automation and using python to process the clipboard instead of preview.

Is there a way to change the default save/export format in Preview?
How can the default save format be changed for OS X Preview app?


Is there ANY disadvantages of charging MBP 13" with a powerbank that outputs 10W? Device is Macbook Pro 2015 13". It has 74.9 Wh battery. Its original adapter is 60W. While charging the device will stay turned off.

If its allowed, I'll link an example powerbank. Its 25000mAh / 92.5Wh. Output (Max): USB 5V/2.1 A.

I suppose from 0% to 100% would take 8-12 hours.

Is there ANY disadvantages of charging MBP 13" with a powerbank that outputs 10W?  (Besides slow charging time :)

PS. I don't even know if this is possible.

For adapter, I'll use this and maybe this

No. Slower charging is always healthier for the battery and the chemistry since it reduces heat.

Lithium chemistry service life is severely degraded at high charging temperatures (hotter than any device would charge, but the higher the temp the fewer cycles you will get on average).

As long as you can abide by slower charging, there is no other downside to your scenario.


Stop Calendar from alerting me of reoccurring task? I have a meeting every day at 10 am.  At some point I clicked a link to add a reoccurring task to my calendar.
Now every single day 10 minutes prior, Mail opens and I see an alert about the meeting.

This is annoying for 2 reasons.  First, I always know the meeting is happening.  Second, I am not using Mail for my email client, which means it then tries to make me run through the New Account setup every day.

How can I remove this task from my Calendar?  All I can find is a way to Decline a specific day, but not delete the reoccurring task.

Deleting the task doesn't prompt you to delete all the other events?

Can't you just remove the mail reminder? Set it from Email to None.

iCal should then just prompt you if you want to update all the recurring tasks.


Monitoring network usage of individual applications? I want to monitor each application's network/internet usage on my Mac.

Sort of like how Activity Indicator shows total upload/download usage -- but I also want to know particular application usages.

Is this possible?

The app Little Snitch can do this. Among many other things, it shows traffic by app.

It costs $29, but there is a free trial available.


Sharing OS X iTunes Library with Bootcamp? I run Bootcamp on my Macbook and want to be able to run iTunes in both OS X and Windows 7 with the same library. I don't just mean having access to my mp3 files on both OSes, I mean things like ratings, play counts, playlists, etc. will be the same. Can I do this?

This solution may very well not be to your taste, but the simplest thing I can think of that doesn't involve the phrases "disk partitioning" or "file permissions" would be to sign up for iTunes Match and match / upload your music collection, thereby making your music available to both your Windows and OS X partitions as though they were simply different devices (which, for all normal intents and purposes, they are).

I recognize the downsides to this approach:

The service isn't free (~$25-$30/year, depending on location), or even necessarily available in all countries
If you have a large library, you'll be using a lot of disk space to keep what are essentially duplicate files in each partition

But the result is a fairly painless and reliable solution, which does indeed keep your playlists, rating, and play counts in sync.


macOS : stream a "false" prerecorded image/video to my webcam I want to feed my webcam with a "false" prerecorded image/video (as allowed camcamx soft on mac).

How to do ? Do you know a method or software? An alternative to camcamx ?

I use MacOS 10.11 Sierra on MacBook Pro 2014
Thank you for your help.

Open Broadcaster Software
Thanks to work by John Boiles, can use Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) and it's virtual camera feature on macOS.
OBS is free and open source.


How Many Resources Does GeekTool Use? Previously before, I didn't touch apps like GeekTool because I was afraid that it would slow down my system performance severely. (MacBook Pro 15" C2D 2.4ghz Late 2008) However, I have decided to use it as a clock on my wallpaper.

How much CPU % would GeekTool use? I only have the measly 2 hour battery for the MacBook Pro, so conserving as much CPU cycles as possible would be my aim.

I have the same machine as you do and have GeekTool running.

My GeekTool atm uses 0.0% CPU and 19.9MB of RAM.

I have several geeklet's running which poll different websites or system processes. (9 Geeklets)


In Mavericks, how can I make Paste and Match Style the default for Cmd-V? The instructions for Mountain Lion and other OSs do not seem to apply to Mavericks.

While it may not work in all applications there is a way of doing this for a large number. Certainly it works in Pages, Numbers and TextEdit but not Microsoft Word, where you have to do it within the application.

All you need to do is open System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts and select App Shortcuts in the left hand pane. Click on All Applications in the right hand pane and the + at the bottom.

In the Menu Title field enter Paste and Match Style then click in the Keyboard Shortcut field and press command-V. Then click on Add

You will now see that your shortcut is added. When you open Pages, for example, you will see that Paste no longer has a shortcut (you could add one using the same method) and right next to Paste and Match Style in the Edit menu is your new working shortcut,command-V. Oh, frabjous joy!


Why do I keep getting Recovered files in my trash after restarting? Whenever I restart my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.6.8, I see a Recovered files folder in the trash—most recent example shown below. This is after a regular restart and not after a crash.

Any ideas why this keeps happening?

I'm not sure if this happens on every restart or just regularly. I'll have to investigate more to determine that.

Any file that isn't closed when the program terminates (or the mac crashes or is rebooted) gets flagged as a recovered file.

Usually these are temporary files and never intended by the program to be seen by you. Here are some links from Apple on this behavior:

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7225
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4205

It is only a problem if you lose work or feel the program should be exiting cleanly and not crashing. Have you looked into the console app to see if the programs are crashing or it's just a matter of shutting things down before the apps have a chance to clean up and quit in an orderly fashion.


iPhone 5S suddenly turns off at 30-40% of battery life I have iPhone 5S with 10.1.1 iOS. I have experienced few situations where my battery life was about 30-40% and iPhone immediately turned off. When I tried to turn on it indicated low battery and kept doing this for about 2 hours everytime I tried to turn on. And then suddenly turned on and was back at around 30% battery life and I did not use charger in the meantime (I did not have it).
Then this situation happened to me again when I had my charger with me, so plugged in and after while iPhone turned on charging but already had about 40% of battery charged.
This happened to me like 5x in last 3 months. The scenario is always very similar, battery life about 30-40%.. (never happens when the battery is more than 50%) and then few hours idle until comes back. Does anyone has any suggestions? Many thanks for help

When I was a Genius at an Apple Store about two years ago, this issue was relatively common. Most likely this is a hardware issue with the battery itself, but there is a chance it could be a battery calibration issue. It's best to troubleshoot calibration first.

Calibration Issue

The battery itself keeps track of how much battery life it has, and reports this back to the phone, which it then displays on the screen for you. Sometimes, the battery may be fully charged, but the battery or phone instead reports a different charge percentage.

Fixing a calibration issue is relatively easy:

Use your phone until it completely runs out of battery power and shuts off.
Plug your phone into a charger, and leave it plugged in until it is fully charged. Ideally, do this overnight so you know to be sure it gets completely charged.

This process will tell the phone and battery where its lowest and highest charge points are.

Hardware Issue

If you continue having the issue, it is almost certainly an issue with the battery itself. If you have an Apple Store nearby, make a Genius Bar appointment there and bring your phone in. They can replace your battery there the same day, and it usually takes less than an hour.

If you don't have an Apple Store nearby, there may be an Apple Authorized Service Provider near you that can help. Go through the prompts at Apple's support site, and they will help you find a good option.


Include icon in manually created .app bundle From How to make a Mac OS X .app with a shell script? I recently learned of a hack for creating a .app file from a file folder which contains an application with resources.

The top folder is given the same name as a bash script in the top level of the folder system, except the folder name also includes .app.

What I'm wondering, though, is if it possible to set this .app to display an icon that I provide when the file is seen via the Finder? Or can this only be done by making my folder system a Bundle?

I believe you can change the icon by simply dragging and dropping the icns file onto the icon displayed in the upper left corner of the Get Info window. For example, if I right click on the test.app shown in the Finder on my Mac and select Get Info, I will get the following popup window.

Below is a folder with some icns files.

Dragging the os_centos.icns icon and dropping over the icon shown in the upper left corner of the Get Info window, will produce the following change.

You can convert files to .icns by visiting the website https://iconverticons.com/online/. Online conversion is free.


Apple TV 3rd generation. How to download to device I’m fed up of seeing this sort of thing. How can I download a purchase to the Apple TV and it not be in the cloud. Thanks

The Apple TV 3rd Gen has no true storage at all & only 512MB RAM - it was discovered it does actually have a 'hidden' 8GB, but presumably that will be caching content for immediate use rather than storing a movie you watched previously.
38 minutes to download a movie/TV show would indicate your internet connection is struggling.
From Everymac -

*Officially, the third generation Apple TV models have no internal storage. However, third-parties have determined that they actually have 8 GB of flash memory to cache content, just like the second generation Apple TV.


Copying text gets jumbled around I am doing a series of text correction for a game, and recieved the pdf of corrections from the customer. I use preview as a pdf reader.

On windows, I can freely copypaste the content back and forth, but for some reason, when I try on my mac, the sentences gets jumbled around.

As you can see from this screenshot, i copy the text from the right, and paste it in the tool on the left (Smultron) and the lines have changed order.

Does anyone know what might have caused this ? Happends repeatingly, and other

I have the exact same problem all of the time. The only solution I have found is to try different PDF readers such as Tom has suggested and use Adobe Reader. PDFPen, Wondershare PDF Editor, and Skim are other options.


How to add a location to photos in the new photos app? I have tried anything I could think of and also consulted the "photos" help as well as google but I could not find a way to geotag photos in "photos".

Is there a way to do this or is it really only possible to view photos on a map if they have been geotagged when imported to "photos"?

In OS X 10.10's Photos application, location information is read-only.

Photos reads GPS coordinates from image files during import and displays the location in the Info window. It can also show photos belonging to a collection or moment on a map. The "Photos Help" puts it this way: "If your camera has GPS capability (as iPhone does), or you’ve added GPS information to your photos, Photos can automatically display your photos on a map."

Unfortunately location information is also read-only by the way of Apple Script. I develop the photo geocoding software HoudahGeo. When used with iPhoto or Aperture, this allows for a very elegant workflow:

Import photos into iPhoto or Aperture
Geocode the photos using HoudahGeo or other free software.
Write geotags to the original image files
Have HoudahGeo notify iPhoto or Aperture of the newly added geotags

The last step of the workflow uses Apple Script to update the library to reflect the location information added to the files. This is not currently possible with the new Photos application.

Until Apple adds the option to change location information via Apple Script, we have to resort to a less elegant workflow.

Import photos using the Image Capture application
Geocode the photos using third party software like HoudahGeo or other free software.
Write EXIF/XMP geotags to the image files
Import the tagged files into your Photos library

This workflow does have its advantages. The process of updating the iPhoto or Aperture library for thousands of photos can be rather slow. Adding the GPS information before import is faster.

The above workflow also ensures that GPS information is stored as EXIF/XMP tags within the image files. Just the same as if you had used a GPS camera. The location information will thus always stay with the images.

Update for macOS Sierra:

With Apple Photos 2.0 and HoudahGeo 5.1 running on Sierra it again possible to notify Photos of changes made to location information. I.e. HoudahGeo will geotag orginal image files with EXIF/XMP tags and then pass on location information to the Photos app.


How to restore iTunes library from a backup My PC recently died, and I'm trying to transfer my iTunes library to my Mac. According to http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to-a-new-hard-drive, the iTunes database is keyed by filename, so even if I copy my old library and music files into the iTunes directory on my Mac, the database doesn't point to the right files anymore, because the directory structure is different on the Mac than on the PC. iTunes is able to partially recover by searching for matching files, but it still winds up with a lot of broken links - too many to repair by hand. Since the old computer is broken, I can't 'consolidate' the library in its old location before transferring it, as that website suggests. Do I have any options for restoring the library intact?

Do you know someone who has a working PC around you ?
Copy your files + iTunes database to this PC, launch iTunes and migrate your ratings to an id3 tag so you can restore them later. I explain the method in details here : http://tunecrux.com/resilient-id3-embedded-ratings


The Storage "Used" does not add up I have iPhone 6s 64GB. I got 64GB because 16GB just wasn't cutting it. I didn't want to worry about memory being full. However last night out of nowhere, I got the message saying my storage is almost full.

Confused, because there was no way I used 55GB(actual storage) of space. So I headed over to my Manage Storage page, which had me even more confused.

As you can see, the apps that take up the most space are Photos, Spotify and Music. They don't even take up 10GB.. I added the Used storage by all the other apps and it does not even come close to 45GB. When I plug in my phone to my laptop, it says the storage is used by Documents & Data.

Before you answer my question, I am aware that Safari and Chrome take up cookies and cache. I am also aware that other apps can have similar data. Even considering all that, there is just no way I am using 52GB.

Just what is going on?

I had something like this on my iPad. It turned out that when I streamed (rather than download to watch later) movies and TV shows it stored the data on the device but didn't report it.

What I had to do what log out of iTunes/iCloud and log back in again, this cleared all these cached movies and released the data back to me.


Is there a shortcut to open a folder in a Open File dialog? In an Open File dialog, I can press Return or Cmd-Down to go into a folder. But is there a key sequence to actually select the folder as the item to open? It seems I can only just use the mouse to press the Open button while the folder is highlighted.

(BBEdit is an example of an application in which I often want to open a folder.)

Return (with the ↩ symbol) opens the folder for browsing its contents (unless you're in column view). You need to press Enter instead. It's a different key, and its symbol is ⌤.

If you don't have that key on your keyboard, you can press Fn-Return to achieve the same effect.


Erased both partitions of my hard drive and want to merge them. They show up as two different disks so I cant choose the partition option External hard drive partitions showing as 2 different disks, can't merge or repartition. I have erased both and want to merge into one.

EDIT: I have Reformatted both partitions to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but still have the same problem.

macOS Mojave Version 10.14.4

In Disk Utility go to the View menu and select

"Show all devices."

That should then show those two partitions under the "parent" physical drive mand allow you to repartition.


How to create an event for a specific calendar? I'm using Mountain Lion. My default calendar is "Personal". But I also have a "Work" calendar.

I'd like to be able to create a new event on the Work calendar by doing something like Cmd + click.

In Calendar, is there a way to create an event for a specific calendar rather than having it first get assigned to the default calendar, then clicking to edit the event and then changing the calendar?

The solution is actually simpler than that.  In Calendar preferences, click "Default Calendar" and scroll to the bottom and select "Selected Calendar."  Now, whichever calendar you have highlighted in the sidebar becomes the calendar in which you are working.


Excessive "Opening application for the first time" dialogs I often get the dialog box warning me that I'm opening an application for the first time.  But, it isn't the first time.  Some of these are applications that I use daily.

I seem to be getting more of these after an OS upgrade, almost as if some database got reset.  Can I do something to get these warnings to be generated properly?

This warning pops up every time an application wants to register a URI handler (a something:// protocol). Normally, your approval is saved by LaunchServices, but that database can become corrupted. Try resetting it by doing a

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -all local,system,user

in Terminal. The warnings should pop up once for each application again after that, then be gone for good. If they keep coming, something is resetting the database on its own (a clue would be that the default browser / mail app / RSS app / FTP app you set keep resetting to the Apple provided ones).


Why running Time Machine on OS X Server slows down my Mac? I have MacBook Pro (2.3GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD - late 2013?) and Time Machine backups data via network to our internal OS X Server. But when Time Machine is running backups, my computer is completely frozen. Webpages are not loaded, Apple Mail doesn't load/show messages at all, etc. But my colleague doesn't have such problems with his MacBook with the same HW configuration.

What could be wrong?

I found an article that suggests some troubleshooting steps, I'll summarize it here:

Test the drive: copy some files to find out if your read / write speeds are normal. This will help you rule out your internal or server drive.
Check the drive for errors: Again, you can check internal and server drives for errors (bad blocks, permission problems).
Run a general maintenance routine: you can follow the steps they propose here.
Back up in Safe Mode: reducing the system to a bare minimum may help in isolating the problem.
Uninstall or disable drive-monitoring or scanning utilities: Antivirus and other drive scanning software may get triggered by Time Machine activity.
Disable Spotlight: and check for other processes that may be scanning the disk permanently.

There are a couple of additional suggestions on the article, check it out if this steps do not solve your issue and for a full description of each step.

Also, your colleague may provide a good comparison for troubleshooting: you said your hardware is identical, so:

Is the software setup the same? Any differences may point out the culprit.
If software setup is similar, testing hardware on both machines can give you comparison points. For instance, what happens if they use the same Time Machine destination?

Finally, check the Activity Monitor prior to and while Time Machine is running, to single out resource hogs.


How to set up HP P3005x printer for double-sided printing OS X 10.9? My MacBook Pro having OS X 10.9 is connected to network printer HP LaserJet P3005x, but I can't print on both sides of the paper automatically, particularly the Word documents. Can someone guide me how to solve this problem?

Does the printer, as you've configured it in Mavericks, show "duplex printing" as a feature?


I have an iPhone 6 and forgot my passcode! I don't have a computer to use to reset it and when I hold the power and home buttons down it restarts and still asks for the passcode.

Will hard resetting my phone solve this? If not, what can I do?

If you have forgotten your passcode, the only option available to you is to erase your iPhone and start again. Unfortunately, if you haven't got a backup of your data, this will mean you will lose any data you haven't already got saved somewhere. However, on the positive side, any purchases (free and paid) using your Apple ID will still be intact as you can sign in again and redownload them.

While the only option is to erase your iPhone, you do have multiple methods of doing so. I recommend you read If you forgot the passcode for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or your device is disabled.

The above Apple support document will explain your options, including how to restore any data you do have backed up.


Is there a way of seeing what `brew cask zap` does before it does it? I'd like to see the results of

brew cask zap <something>

so I can decide whether I want it to do that before it does it.  Is there anything equivalent to a --dry-run option, that I'm somehow missing?  Or any other way of achieving the same results?

There doesn't appear to be a way of doing a dry run of a brew cask zap command.
You could look at the recipe and work out from that what the command will do. According to the man page the command will...

Implicitly performs all actions associated with uninstall, even if the Cask does not appear to be currently installed.
Removes all staged versions of the Cask distribution found under /opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/
If  the  Cask definition contains a zap stanza, performs additional zap actions as defined there, such as removing local preference files. zap actions are variable, depending on the level of detail defined by the Cask author.
zap may remove resources which are shared between applications.

So running brew cask cat <something> and examining the uninstall stanza (and the zap stanza if it is present) should give you a general idea of the files that zap will remove.
Longer term you could request a "dry run" feature.


Playing AVI file with XviD codec crashes my VLC and doesn't play on quick time I got a video file with an avi extension, and this is its technical description:

 VIDEO: 1300 kbps XviD
 RESOLUTiON: 720x304
 AUDIO: 256 CBR AC-3
 NOTES: Converted to XviD.
 AAC to AC3.

When I play it on itunes It gives me this error:

Clicking on the tell me more button I go to this link which states:

  QuickTime Player plays Motion JPEG-based AVIs created by many digital cameras. Other forms of AVI media may require third-party software for playback.

But it gives no further detail about this third-party software.

Playing this video file on my VLC.. it crashes with this crash log:

Process:         VLC [8312]
Path:            /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC
Identifier:      org.videolan.vlc
Version:         2.1.5 (2.1.5)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [249]
Responsible:     VLC [8312]
User ID:         501

Date/Time:       2014-12-30 07:30:32.794 +0200
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.9.5 (13F34)
Report Version:  11
Anonymous UUID:  BCE1BC39-7395-D7B0-6C33-652DF5D2E585

Crashed Thread:  18

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000

VM Regions Near 0:
-->
    __TEXT                 0000000100000000-0000000100003000 [   12K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC

Thread 0:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib          0x00007fff86366746 __psynch_mutexwait + 10
1   libsystem_pthread.dylib         0x00007fff90154779 _pthread_mutex_lock + 372
2   com.apple.opengl                0x00007fff86ebeb1d CGLSetSurface + 58
3   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f54444f -[NSOpenGLContext setView:] + 954
4   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f809999 -[NSOpenGLView lockFocusIfCanDraw] + 166
5   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3a183f -[NSView lockFocus] + 37
6   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3a55b5 -[NSView _recursiveDisplayAllDirtyWithLockFocus:visRect:] + 1016
7   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3a5ca0 -[NSView _recursiveDisplayAllDirtyWithLockFocus:visRect:] + 2787
8   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3a3706 -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 841
9   com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3a4bc4 -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 6151
10  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3a4bc4 -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 6151
11  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3a2eb1 -[NSThemeFrame _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 314
12  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f39fe9f -[NSView _displayRectIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:] + 2828
13  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f37f2da -[NSView displayIfNeeded] + 1680
14  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f3e474e _handleWindowNeedsDisplayOrLayoutOrUpdateConstraints + 884
15  com.apple.AppKit                0x00007fff8f9ba061 __83-[NSWindow _postWindowNeedsDisplayOrLayoutOrUpdateConstraintsUnlessPostingDisabled]_block_invoke1331 + 46
16  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff8b172d67 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ + 23
17  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff8b172cd7 __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 391
18  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff8b1643b8 __CFRunLoopRun + 776
19  com.apple.CoreFoundation        0x00007fff8b163e75 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 309

I also downloaded the divx installer for mac. when I click on it, it opens for a sec then disappears (I got osx mavericks).

Also I copied the same video file into my nexus 5 Android 5 device and it played just fine on the VLC app there.

Any ideas?

The problem had nothing to do with VLC or Xvid.. it was a problem with finder (I should have gotten a hint when I couldn't even install Xvid.. I finally found out there was something wrong with finder when I tried to install sublime text 2 and i got the same bogus behavior)

this problem is common with osx mavericks.. and the solution is to go to ~/Library/Preferences/ and delete com.apple.finder and com.apple.doc (the second one may or may not exist, but that's the instructions i got anyways).. then rebooting your computer..

after that everything works fine.


Do multiple AirPort Expresses keep iTunes audio synchronized? I have family members planning a party for next month, and they're looking to get a single audio track/playlist streaming across the house. Their current solution is to pick up another AirPort Express (we already have a couple), attach 2.1 speakers to each one, and use a single iTunes instance to stream to all of the speakers wirelessly.

I know iTunes already supports multiple speaker outputs, but I've never tried with multiple wireless speakers (it's always been one internal and one wireless). Will the various devices keep their audio outputs synchronized with each other? They'd very much like to avoid a sound jitter or lag, even slight, from becoming noticeable when walking from room to room.

If iTunes won't do this, will a third-party app (e.g. Airfoil) suffice? It'll all be iTunes audio, so I don't think we'd need Airfoil for anything but synchronization; even so, that may be reason enough, if iTunes won't handle audio sync on its own.

According to Wikipedia:

  The AirTunes part of the AirPlay protocol stack uses UDP for streaming
  audio and is based on the RTSP network control protocol.[12] The
  streams are encrypted with AES, requiring the receiver to have access
  to the appropriate private key to decrypt the streams.[13] The AirPort
  Express' streaming media capabilities use Apple's Remote Audio Output
  Protocol (RAOP), a proprietary variant of RTSP/RTP. Using
  WDS-bridging,[14] the AirPort Express can allow AirPlay functionality
  (as well as Internet access, file and print sharing, etc.) across a
  larger distance in a mixed environment of wired and up to 10 wireless
  clients.

See the page here.

Notice the part where it says that UDP is used for streaming audio.
UDP does no error correction.  When using TCP (most of the time), when I send a packet from A to B, I send it, I get confirmation, then I send the next packet.  When I get confirmation, part of that confirmation is an error check code.  If it doesn't match with the error check code that I generated when I first sent the packet, I know the data has been malformed in some way before reaching B, and therefore I send it again.

If I have to send that packet a bunch of times before it is successfully read on the other side, that would "sound like" something unexpected.  Lag is a bit different -- lag happens when there's a delay of some sort, or the line is saturated and it actually takes (some arbitrary amount of) time for the signal to get there.  That could happen under either model.

The difference is, with UDP, if packets get lost or corrupt, it doesn't matter.  iTunes will send whatever data is required to represent the song now.  And now, and now.  If you miss it or it gets malformed, oh well.  It will keep sending only what is pertinent now.

Long story short:  you should be fine.  Any glitches will probably be short and sweet.  And, out of sync?  Probably not discernible to any human.


Remove OSX shortcut to switch between spaces (ctrl + number shortcut) On MacOsX Lion (upgrade from Leopard).
Working with some 3d application, I would like to temporarily turn off the shortcut ctrl + [numberOfSpace].

I went to:

 Preferences > Keyboard > Mission Control

and unchecked every checkbox;
However, the shortcut is still active. I cannot find the place where it's defined.
I also tried

Preferences > Mission Control

and unchecked all checkboxes in the bottom section, but the shortcut still works.
Is there a way to set/unset those shortcuts ?

Please check and uncheck accordingly

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control


Can I run 533 MHz RAM in original Mac Pro? I have an original Mac Pro with 2 GB of RAM in it. Running Mountain Lion on it is a bit painful - lots of paging. I happen to have 4 GB of PC2-4200 ECC FB-DIMMs kicking about. What I wanted to know is will the Mac run with the slower memory, or will it throw a hissy fit?

The Apple tech specs at http://support.apple.com/kb/SP30 say 667 MHz, but nothing about slower.

You can't use slower RAM. In fact I've had trouble with some manufacture's RAM even though it met the spec. You need to go to a site that guarantees any new RAM will work in a Macintosh.

I didn't think that the original Mac Pro could run Mountain Lion. I've got a Mac Pro 2.1, from 2007, that refuses to allow Mountain Lion to be installed. Did you hack this?


Change name of program associated with file "kind" Is it possible in Sierra's Finder to change the name of a program associated with a file kind? For example, when in list view, a PDF lists the file kind as Adobe PDF Document, could this be changed to simply PDF?

It depends on the default application you are using to open PDF documents. To change it, right-click the file, click Get Info, click Expand on a section called "Open with", and there change the default app to Preview. After that, click the button "Change All...", and then click Continue. Keep in mind that this will change the default app used to open PDF documents.


What is the content of the unsubscribe message? Introduced in iOS 10, a standard message for unsubscribing can be sent in a couple of taps from any Mail message that was sent to a list.

Since this feature allows the Mail app to send an email on my behalf and from my e-mail address (I suppose), I would love to know what message the recipient receives.

It'll not send an e-mail, it'll just try to find an unsubscribe link and activate it.


Time Capsule stuck on makingbackup disk available I am an IT person, and i have set up two Time capsule and the backup is not working. It just stays stuck. I can use the TC as a file server, no problem. I have tried everything, fixing the backups, erasing the disk, creating the backups again, checking updates...

This ahappened on two separate locations. Same problems.

I can provide with some console but there is not much going on.

Many thanks

It had happened to me in the past and I fixed it by rebooting the Time Capsule.


iOS 11 crashing/freezing when apps launch This problem started immediately after updating to iOS 11 and has continued through all updates.

iPhone 6S - Presently running iOS 11.0.3

There are no third party parts in this iPhone. It was serviced once for a warranty battery replacement by an Apple Authorized Service Provider.

The Problem - Crashing/Freezing

Various apps (seems any app can be affected including Apple apps like Safari) are freezing up, usually on launch. Sometimes they crash and close down within seconds. Other times they freeze up for anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The phone is completely unresponsive during this time (no app switcher or sleep/wake), with the only exception being I can hold home & sleep/wake to reset. When things resume, any of the previous button presses will be processed, however. Sometimes it happens while an app is running, and sometimes the app or portions of the app become unresponsive while app switching works normally.

Additional Consequences

Regardless of the app, once this has happened once, audio playback starts to break down. The system starts to confuse iTunes and Podcasts. Control Centre or Apple Watch might not show the correct playback status. For example, while listening to a Podcast there might be a "Play" button. Pressing it will stop playback and play iTunes music. Occasionally (once), it started working again for a moment, then stopped again. Often Apple watch can't control playback volume at all. Removing AirPods from my ears and reinserting may cause a Podcast to stop playing and Music to start, or it may not pause playback at all.

Temporary Fix

The only way to fix this is to turn the phone off (hold sleep/wake and shut down) or hold home & sleep/wake. But within hours the problem returns. I am restarting my phone 5 times a day right now!

I tried "Reset All Settings". No change.

In my searches for solutions I heard about a similar problem but it seems it was associated with a third party display and was fixed in the current update? I have the same or similar problem but no third party display and the latest iOS update is installed. All of the apps I use are up to date also.

What else can I try?

I tried posting this question on discussions.apple.com but I keep getting the unhelpful error message "You are not allowed to create or update this content". Infuriating!

This is a bug that many ios 11.0 to 11.0.3 users are facing. On iOS 11.1 developer beta 5 however, it seems fixed. iOS 11.1 should be rolling out soon and it fixes this issue and many other battery issues. Until then, there isn't really any good solution. Hope this helps.

On iOS 11.1, if you still get the error, just back up and restore. That should work.


Summary of Apple Specfic terminal commands Where can i find such a good list? I tried googling, but they just cover the linux basics (cd, ls, rm, sed, etc.). What are the Apple specific tools for changing settings, volumes, bundles, plists etc?

Online References
Have you looked at this list? It seems to provide a pretty good library of OS X commands.
There is also an API Reference of the Mac OS X Man pages online here if you would like to see all possible commands.
On your computer
Although this is not a perfect list, you can grep (search) /usr/share/man with this line (first cd /usr/share/man):
find man* -type f -print | egrep -v '.gz$' | tr \\n \\0 | xargs -0 egrep -l 'Mac ?OS ?X'
(more verbose)
or
find man* -type f -print | egrep '.gz$' | tr \\n \\0 | xargs -0 zegrep -l 'Mac ?OS ?X'
(less verbose)


Configuring and running postfix (Mojave 10.14.4) I've gone through all the questions (and answers) about postfix on AskDifferent and come up empty so far.

(~) postconf -n
biff = no
command_directory = /usr/sbin
daemon_directory = /usr/libexec/postfix
data_directory = /var/lib/postfix
debug_peer_level = 2
debugger_command = PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin ddd $daemon_directory/$process_name $process_id & sleep 5
header_size_limit = 4096000
html_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix/html
inet_interfaces = loopback-only
inet_protocols = all
mail_owner = _postfix
mailbox_size_limit = 0
mailq_path = /usr/bin/mailq
manpage_directory = /usr/share/man
message_size_limit = 10485760
mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8, [::1]/128
newaliases_path = /usr/bin/newaliases
queue_directory = /private/var/spool/postfix
readme_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix
recipient_delimiter = +
relayhost = [smtp.sendgrid.net]:587
sample_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix/examples
sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail
setgid_group = _postdrop
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_mechanism_filter = AUTH LOGIN
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options = noplaintext,noanonymous
smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_tls_security_level = encrypt
smtp_use_tls = yes
smtpd_client_restrictions = permit_mynetworks permit_sasl_authenticated permit
smtpd_tls_ciphers = medium
tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom
unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550

The postconf output is in line with everything in response to similar questions on AskDifferent.

(~) sudo postfix start
postfix: Postfix is running with backwards-compatible default settings
postfix: See http://www.postfix.org/COMPATIBILITY_README.html for details
postfix: To disable backwards compatibility use "postconf compatibility_level=2" and "postfix reload"
postfix/postfix-script: starting the Postfix mail system
postfix/postfix-script: fatal: mail system startup failed

I don't know where to go from here, and am seeking references to docs or specific suggestions.

Try this command:

postconf compatibility_level=2

Followed by a reload:

postfix reload

I don't know why this fixed the problem, but it did. I'd love to understand why this was not default and why it matters.


QuickTime 7 pro on Mojave Is anyone here knowledgeable about whether QuickTime 7 (Pro) will still run on macOS Mojave?

QT7 is 32 bit and while Mojave still seems to allow 32 bit apps, I am wondering if the QT Media Framework on which the player is based is still included in Mojave (or at least still possible to install), not just for the player but also for third party apps that haven't moved on to AVFoundation yet.

Have any Mojave beta testers maybe tried?

QuickTime 7 Pro still works on Mojave ¹
/System/Library/Frameworks/QTKit.framework still exists

If you're looking for more information, I'll need something a little more specific.

I hope that helps.

¹ more specifically:

ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.14
BuildVersion:   18A347e

(aka “Mojave Public Beta 4”)


How can I move or replicate my Apple Music iTunes Cloud Library to Spotify? I have been using Apple Music from day 1, but I'm disappointed and want to move back to Spotify. Is there any way at all to easily replicate or move my entire library from Apple Music to Spotify?

All solutions I encountered by searching the internet only work the other way around.

Though I haven't used it personally, the online service Stamp claims that it will transfer your "tracks and playlists across various services," including Spotify and Apple Music in either direction.

It looks like, assuming you want to move more than a handful of songs, it costs €9 for a license. Reading through the iTunes and Play Store reviews for the mobile versions, it looks like most of the negative reviews are just people who didn't realize it's not free, though some people say that it's fairly slow or doesn't do a very good job of matching up the tracks between services.


How to reset a magsafe charger that doesn't charge macbook pro's battery? I have a Magsafe charger (original) that doesn't charge my MacBook Pro's battery. When it is connected, it will allow the machine to switch to power adapter mode (meaning no battery consumption) but the battery icon will show "Battery is not charged".

The green/orange light won't turn on. If I use another Magsafe charger, it works fine. Also if the battery goes down to 0 percent and the macbook is shutdown, this faulty charger will work (green/orange light turns on), and if I start the machine while the light is on, it will charge even if the machine is on. I already tried resetting SMC multiple times (to make sure I reset it correctly I tried using other chargers), but still cannot get it to work properly.

My question would be, can I reset the charger somehow to allow it to work again?

Sounds like you got a sticking ground pin.

Just plug it out when connecting to the laptop horizontally (with more force) and stick it back it horizontally as well. Usually this is due to you removing the plug by lifting it (feels gentle but actually bad) rather than yanking it.


What is the 'Mac OS X Base System' disk image on my 2011 MacBook AIr? On my 2011 MacBook Air with Mac OS X Lion, I boot into Recovery mode via holding the command-R key during startup, if I go into Terminal and do a diskutil list, I get a list of 12(!) logical disks.  disk0 is of course the disk holding the main HD and the Recovery HD partitions (along with the GUID partition and the EFI partition).  But there is also a disk1 with partitions including one titled Mac OS X Base System that is approximately 1.39 GB big.  There also are 10 other disks of varying but small sizes.

What are these other logical disks (and partitions) and is there any way to reclaim their space?

Update: Here is a copy of the diskutil list output:

[]

It's rather complicated, and actually a lot of the complexity is to avoid wasting space; I don't think you can "reclaim" anything without breaking it.

Let me start at the beginning: your hard drive (/dev/disk0) has two relevant partitions: Macintosh HD (your regular startup volume), and Recovery HD.

(Update: with newer versions of macOS running from an APFS volume, there'll instead be a single APFS "container" on the disk; the volumes under it will be listed separately under a "synthesized" device, probably /dev/disk2. And in addition to Macintosh HD and Recovery, there'll probably be Preboot and VM volumes, and starting in Catalina there'll be a separate "Macintosh HD - Data" volume holding the user-modifiable parts of the main filesystem. And some other details are different, but actually not that much.)

Recovery HD is marked in the partition table with the type Apple_Boot, but is actually in the normal HFS+ format. It contains minimal booter files and kernel, and at /com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg, a disk image with a stripped-down and tweaked copy of OS X. The booter mounts this volume (it attaches as /dev/disk1), and transfers to OS X running on it. This is the Mac OS X Base System.

Notice that the Recovery HD is only 650MB, but Mac OS X Base System is 1.4GB? That's because it's a compressed disk image (and I'm pretty sure that compression is the reason they bother with all this disk image trickery).  Actually, BaseSystem.dmg is compressed down to only 451MB (at least in OS X v10.7.0).

Also, the volume naming is somewhat inconsistent.  You've got /dev/disk1s3 named "Recovery HD", but for some reason it's mounted as "/Volumes/Image Volume" in recovery mode. BaseSystem.dmg has a volume named "Mac OS X Base System".

So that's disk0 and disk1; what about the rest? I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure they are RAM disks to save temporary data in folders OS X modifies as it runs (remember that in recovery mode, you're running from a read-only disk image). Running the mount command in recovery mode is informative:

$ mount
/dev/disk1s3 on / (hfs, local, read-only)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
/dev/disk2 on /Volumes (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk3 on /private/var/tmp (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk4 on /private/var/run (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk5 on /System/Installation (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk6 on /private/var/db (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk7 on /private/var/folders (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk8 on /private/var/root/Library (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk9 on /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk10 on /Library/Preferences (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk11 on /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk12 on /Library/Keychains (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk0s2 on /Volumes/Macintosh HD (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk0s3 on /Volumes/Image Volume (hfs, local, read-only, journaled)

Those "union" attributes mean that things in the relevant folder in the startup volume will be visible, but anything modified gets stored in what I'm pretty sure is a RAM disk.

If you want to look at this stuff yourself, you can mount the relevant volumes from the regular OS:

# Mount "Recovery HD":
$ diskutil mount /dev/disk0s3
# Mount "Mac OS X Base System":
$ hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg -noverify


How can I download a specific playlist from iTunes Match to an iOS 5 device? Is there a way to instruct an iOS 5 device to download from iTunes Match an entire playlist or an entire album, so that it will be available offline?

Use case:

There are 1022 songs in the SXSW 2010 Showcasing Artists collection and 1161 in the SXSW 2011 Showcasing Artists collection.  I expect there will be a similar number in the 2012 artist collection once it is ready.  I want to be able to listen to these wondrous collections of contemporary music when I am off the net.

At the moment the only way I see to urge my iPhone to download is to click on each individual song, and the results are flakey.

Scroll to the bottom of the playlist. There is a "Download All" button with the cloud download icon. Tap and wait.

Unfortunately, I don't believe there is a way to scroll to the bottom in one gesture, so if the playlist is long, you'll have to repeatedly swipe until you reach the bottom.


Can an iPhone act as an audio source to a Mac? Is there a way to pull the audio from an iphone phone call to a mac either via bluetooth or USB? In other words, use the mac and a cellular phone hybrid?  I'd like to be able to record a phone call or voice mail to the mac.

I realize i could do this many other ways including using an true phone hybrid, but I'd like to keep the amount of equipment i have to take when traveling.

I'm sure i could also use a TRRS Y cable from the headphone/mic jack into my mac, but i'd also like to keep it in the digital realm.

Yes, you can do it, but you would require some professional paid apps for it like blue phone elite or phone amego.


How can I send logs to the main screen of OSX Console? As an application developer, how can I send logs so that they appear on the main screen of Console, i.e. when I select the name of my computer under "Devices?"

So far, I have successfully sent logs to:

"Log Reports" under "Reports" by writing a log file within ~/Library/Logs/
"system.log" under "Reports" by sending logs with syslog using RFC 3164

I'm currently on MacOS Catalina 10.15.1 with Console 1.1 (4.0.15).

As I'm not actively coding under macOS, I would say with some reservation: This might be worth reading:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/os/logging


Finish current album and queue next album In iTunes 12 how do I finish the current album and then queue another album. I then want both albums to repeat (back to the start of the first album after the second one completes).

I have set "Repeat All" via the controls menu (can't see any other way to do that) but can't see how to queue the next album.

You would need to create a playlist with those two albums, then when you play it, it will loop the whole playlist.

(I tested using the Up Next feature but it will not loop tracks played through Up Next.)


Why are regular Folders in Smart Folders not showing up in Open File dialogs? I'd like to create Smart Folders in the Finder favorite bars that I can access from different applications. Those Smart Folders will mostly contain regular folders of current projects I'm working on.

The regular folders show up correctly in the Finder Favorites sidebar, and if using an application (say, Keynote), in the Save dialog. However if I want to open a keynote file that is located in

/Smart Folder/RegularFolder

/RegularFolder does not show up in the Smart Folder when accessed through the Open File dialog.

The same thing occurs if I tag a folder and then try to navigate to that folder from the open file dialog to the Tags sidebar.

Is this the expected behavior? Am I missing something?

This is indeed the expected behavior, as explained in this article by Howard Oakley. The article deals with tagged folders, but the behavior also applies to Smart Folders.


Is there any way to encrypt content in clipboard? Is there any way to encrypt content in clipboard to provide more security and protection from malicious software?

Once a keylogger/trojan/etc. managed to run on your system，encrypting the clipboard techniques don't protect your system.
Preventing evil code from running on your system in the first place is a much better approach.


Using USB ports for charging when MacBook Pro is not connected to power source and with lid closed I remember than on older MacBooks, it was possible to charge any USB device with the lid closed and without connecting to a power outlet.

However, at some point this has been disabled. I am currently using MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) with macOS High Sierra (10.3.6) and this option is not available by default.

Is it possible to change this default setting and bring back the old behaviour?

You'll need to keep your MacBook Pro awake while the lid is closed. There is no setting within macOS that lets you override the default behaviour (enter sleep mode when the lid is closed).

You can use a free 3rd party app called InsomniaX. It lets you disable the sleep mode while the lid is closed.

  It always has been a missing feature: disabling the sleep mode on a Apple Laptop. Who does not want to use it as a big juke-box or go warwalking. The best looking server ever, especially at about one inch height. This small utility is what you will want, this small utility acts as a wrapper to the Insomnia kernel extension.

Image source: http://semaja2.net/ye-ol-projects/insomniaxinfo/


How can I stop my retina display from taking 2x sized screenshots? I recently got a retina display MacBook, and all my screenshots (via ⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+3 or ⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+4) end up being twice the size compared to how they appear on-screen.
For example, here is a screenshot of the Ask Different logo taken via ⌘⇧4 on a retina MacBook Pro running macOS 10.15.7:

When the file is opened locally in Preview or Quick Look, it appears at the same size as the website's logo. But when uploaded to the web, it displays twice as big.
How can I stop this from happening?

Here is the most convenient solution
(Taken from http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-get-my-retina-Mac-to-not-take-screenshots-that-are-too-big and modified a bit)

Use OsX embedded Automator to downsize screenshots automatically after they taken.

Open /Applications/Automator
Create a "Folder Action"
At the top of the window, where it says "Folder Action receives file and folders added to", select "Desktop"
From the panel on the left, select "Files & Folders" and drag the item "Filter Finder Items" to the right panel.
Add the following conditions to the Filter Finder Items action: Name begins with "Screen Shot"; Kind is image.
(Optional step: if you want to keep copy of originals) - From the Actions list on the left, find "Copy Finder Items" and drag it to the panel on the right. Set the destination folder for the image copy (for example: "To: Pictures")
In the Actions library on the left, click on "Photos" and drag the "Scale Images" action to the right panel.
In the Scale Images action, select "By Percentage" from the drop-down and set the value to 50.
Select File > Save and give the Folder Action a snappy name like "Smaller Screenshot Copy"

Here is saved workflow file


Switching all open windows on 2 displays with one keystroke At the moment I'm using two displays for my MacBook. The larger screen is the one I primarily use because of its available space. The smaller one (MacBook) is used to glance on if I ever need to check something. In the case that I watch a class on the secondary while working on the primary and something important comes up, I would like to switch the applications displayed on both screens with one keystroke (so if I have TextEdit and Safari open on the big screen, and YouTube on the small, I want to move TextEdit/Safari to the small and YouTube to the big screen with a single keystroke).

Hopefully someone has an idea to accomplish this.

You can set a shortcut to move among your screens. In fact, the monitor you add is just considered as another Desktop space. So you can perform the following steps:

Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts tab;
On the left menu, select Mission Control;
There will appear some options. First of all, check that the Mission Control function is enabled. There will be consequently shown some other sub-options, such as "Switch to Desktop X", corresponding a certain shorcut. The default one is ctrl+X, where X is the number of Desktop to switch to. You can customize this shortcut as you prefer.

Then, you can just perform the shortcut corresponding in switching to the Desktop space you want and it's done.

If you don't know/remember the 'identification X' of your screen, just show your Mission Control (in my case pressing F9) and check for the Desktop number.


How can I get the expiration date of a certificate in a keychain from the command line? I'm looking for a way to get the expiration date of a certificate from the command line. The certificate is in the default 'login' keychain and I know its name. How can I do this?

GuyGizmo's answer doesn't seem to work with Xcode 10.1 tools on macOS 10.14.4. I pulled this way together after a few tries.

Since I was trying to find out when my developer code signing certificate expires from the command line, I could readily look at apps that I had signed:

codesign --display --verbose --extract-certificates /path/to/dir.app

That tells you a certain amount about the app, and extracts the embedded signing certificate (without its private key, so there's no need for passwords) to a file called codesign0 in the current directory, in DER format. The other certificates in the chain of trust are extracted to codesign1, codesign2 and so on, for as many as are needed. It's probably best to remove them once you've finished with them.

You can then use the OpenSSL command-line tool to get the expiry date:

openssl x509 -inform der -in codesign0 -enddate -noout

Which prints a result like:

notAfter=June 8 10:37:33 2020 GMT

Another way to get the same information from the codesign0 file, in a format that may be easier to parse with a programming language, is:

openssl asn1parse -in codesign0 -inform der | grep UTCTIME

That will show you the beginning and ending dates in ASN.1 UTC time format, which is usually YYMMDDhhmmssZ in an Apple code signing certificate. Yes, the two-digit year does mean an ASN.1 UTC time wraps around every century.


How to find all files that are larger than 1GB on the Mac HD? It seems that either one of these commands can be used:

sudo find / -size +1G
sudo find / -type f -size +1G

But when it gets to /Volumes, it actually look at all the back up files by Time Machine in the external hard drive. (and another hard drive for data).

I was going to cd to /Volumes/Macintosh HD and start the find there using find . instead of find /, but then I did an ls and there is a Volumes right there again.

Any option to use the Finder as well (the GUI)?

Another thing I found puzzling is that none of the manpage of find on Mac OS Lion or on the web mentioned the +1G... all they mentioned were the format 1G for exact match.

You can use the -x to avoid traversing mounted drives:

-x      Prevent find from descending into directories that have a device number different than that of the file from which the descent
        began.

You command should then be

$ sudo find -x / -type f -size +1G

Regarding the fact about the missing documentation: is not missing is just not easy to find. At the end of the PRIMARIES section of the man page

  All primaries which take a numeric argument allow the number to be preceded by a plus sign ("+") or a minus sign ("-").  A preceding plus sign means "more than n", a preceding minus sign means "less than n" and neither means "exactly n".


What is the keyboard short cut to cycle to a minimized window? For example, if I have 2 Safari windows open. One is minimized and I have focus on the other one, how do I open the minimized one with out using the mouse?

I found ⌘-` activates the next open window in the frontmost application, which will cycle through the open windows.

How do I get to a window that is minimized?

This may seem complicated, although after you've done it a few times and use it regularly you'll have it down. Depending on if you have other windows minimized you may have to tap the left or right arrow keys on the last step to pull up the window you're wanting un-minimized.

  While holding ⌘ tap tab followed by ←
  then ↓ twice, then press return

  ( keep ⌘ pressed the until after you've tapped the initial
  ↓ )


How to leave product feedback on macOS? I love how Microsoft products have built-in customer feedback (click the smiley face) and wish I could do the same with Apple products, especially macOS.

What is the fastest way to provide feedback on macOS features and bugs?

Apple hosts a dedicated webpage on its website to share product feedback:

Product Feedback - Apple

Use the above link to share general product feedback with Apple regarding various hardware and software products.

If that doesn't suffice your need, and you'd like to either report bug(s) or request new feature(s), you can do so via dedicated bug reporter here:

Apple Bug Reporter

You'll need to log in with an Apple ID to do so.

Bug Reporter is preferred, as the concern will be directed to the relevant  product team, and you'll most likely get a feedback regarding the status from them.

Also, a new feature request or a bug fix is most likely to happen, contingent to the number of unique bug reports filed. So, Bug Reporter is preferred over Product feedback page.

Filing a bug report is termed as filing a Radar in Apple.

P.S.: There's an official webpage outlining recommended best practises when sharing product feedback and bug reports with Apple. The same can be accessed here:

Bug Reporting - Apple Developer


PC Emulator for OSX with driver support So my workplace purchased a new Enduro 3E Card Printer and they asked me to install it--looking at the installation discs, I immediately realized that they were for Windows installations. So I went to the manufacturer's site and looked to see if they had Mac drivers, and I did find some. However, upon installing them, the printer still fails to even show up in the Add Printer window whether I connected it via USB or Ethernet. So I decided to use Wine to use the Printer Service Utility (only for Windows) to see if it's being detected at all, which it isn't. There isn't an available PC to use, so I've been trying to find a appropriate Windows emulator that has driver support. I should be able to get my hands on a Windows installation disc if I need to. Answers or links would be very much appreciated.

As far as getting PC emulator, why not take a look at VirtualBox?

With VBox, you can create a "workstation" that exists on your network (bridged connection) then load the native printer drivers.  If you are able to get it working there, you can do two thing:

verify that the printer is working
share the printer and allow your Mac to print to it
it's free

The best part is that everything will be native and not emulated.  Emulating things just adds another layer of complexity to the problem.

However, I am not quite convinced that you don't have a faulty printer. Just doing a quick search there does seem to be a Mac OS X Driver for this line of printers.  A Quick look at their website gave me this result:

If you are not seeing your printer either natively on OS X nor using the Windows drivers through an emulator whether it is connected via USB or Ethernet, I would connect it to a PC to verify compatibility.  VirtualBox is the next best thing to a native PC.

You you connect it to Ethernet, you should be able to ping the printer.  If not, then you have an issue with the printer itself.


Automatically convert a file whenever it is saved? Is it possible to automatically convert a file to another format every time it is saved?

Some context:  I have a Numbers file which needs to be converted to csv for processing by various shell scripts.  At the moment I have to manually "Export to CSV" each time I edit the file, which I don't always remember.

The ideal solution would be to automatically trigger the "Export.." action every time the file is saved.  Is there any way to do this?  I would prefer a folder action, because I have a few different Numbers files with same problem.

Just to be clear:  the problem is how to trigger the conversion.

I'm using Numbers 3.2.2 on Mac OS X 10.9.5

Yes, OS X has built in automation with Applescript and folder actions.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1167157/automate_tasks_with_folder_actions.html
http://apple.blogoverflow.com/2012/06/folder-actions-tutorial-automation-meet-the-filesystem/
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/reference/ASLR_folder_actions.html
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/releasenotes/InterapplicationCommunication/RN-JavaScriptForAutomation/index.html
http://macosxautomation.com

So, following the first link from MacWorld you can make a folder on your desktop that pops up an alert when you save your file. From there, you would make a different folder with a different script to attempt to convert the file. Lastly, make a script to clean up the file that's converted and move the processed file to the proper place.

I would instead make a service to just convert the file in place, but you can't trigger a service as easily as you can trigger a folder based workflow where actions initiate the processing.