Does an iPhone Photo Stream upload store a duplicate of the photo locally? That is to say, does a photo uploaded to Photo Stream and/or a Shared Photo Space take up twice or thrice the space on my phone, or does each instance point to the same single data store?

Yes one copy is stored for each "service" (for lack of a better word). So if it exists in your Camera Roll, Photo Stream, and a shared Photo Stream, there are three physical files on your phone.


Force Click to preview items in Safari doesn't work I tried to change to tap with three finger and it works on all Safari, Mail, Note,...

When I changed to Force Click to Lookup data and defectors, it doesn't work on Safari, but every other apps go well.

What should I do to fix this?

I'm using macOS 10.12.4, MacBook Pro 15inch Late 2015

Well I restarted my Mac and everything works perfectly...


Switch Between Windows of the Same Application Again I'm new to Mac.
I searched and found Command + ` does what I want. But I'm wondering how would I do it with a mouse? I tried hovering over the icon in the dock, but nothing happens.

You have multiple possibilities :

Right-clic or Long-left-click on the dock. It will open a contextual menu with at the top the list of all open windows for the given app
Use a mission control shortcut for the action "Application Windows". You can set this in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcut > Mission Control.


How to convert multiple .caf audio files to .wav? I have downloaded an iPad app called LaunchPad in which you put sounds into buttons aligned in squares so they can be easily played. The problem is that this LaunchPad app only accepts .wav audio files and all my audio effects are in the .caf format and they are like a hundred sounds. Is there a program to convert multiple files (a whole folder of files) into another format?

You can use ffmpeg (binary or install with Homebrew):

ffmpeg -i sound.caf sound.wav

This can be run on an entire folder using find:

find /path/to/folder/ -name "*.caf" -exec ffmpeg -i {} {}.wav \;


Are kernel extensions also stored elsewhere? I discovered a kernel extension earlier in this path "/Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/VBoxDrv.kext".
What confuses me a bit, are extensions not saved in /Library/Extension?

KEXT files can reside in 3 locations:

Within an application bundle (XXX.app)
Within an application's sub-directory inside /Library/Application Support
And inside /Library/Extensions

Generally where the app developer chooses to place the kext files depends on the app itself and what makes sense for it (eg. how it stores local data, how frequently a kext might need to be updated, etc).
Kext files related to system functions, like network adapter or mouse drivers, will almost always be inside /Library/Extensions as those are loaded on startup. While app specific kext files like what VirtualBox has, can be located elsewhere as they only need to be loaded when the app is in use.
Here's a source: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2459/_index.html


Restore Send icon in Apple Mail I have lost the "send" icon on my Apple mail, top right corner
How do I restore it?

Start a new message  Command ⌘ / n   , then with that message front-most [this gives different choices than if the main window is at the front]

View menu > Customise Toolbar...
Drag the default set at the bottom into the toolbar, or just drag the Send icon back to where you'd like it.


Always Asked to Configure Firewall for iTunes Whenever I open iTunes, I get the standard OS X dialog, Do you want the application "iTunes.app" to accept incoming network connections?
Every time I click allow, but I am asked the same thing without fail the next time I open iTunes.

In the Advanced section of the Firewall tab of the Security System Preferences pane, I see that iTunes is in fact set to allow. Changing the firewall settings makes no difference.

Any ideas for how to get this setting to stick?

I looked at Am1rr3za's article, and eventually it just said to reinstall iTunes, which I did.
That worked.
Am1rr3za, post as an answer if you want the points. Otherwise, I'll accept this one.


Non-Apple-provided files in SIP-protected directories On my macOS Catalina 10.15.1 system, I think I have some files in SIP-protected directories that were installed by third-party (i.e. non-Apple) software prior to SIP being added to macOS.

Is there any way to determine which files in SIP-protected directories weren't provided by Apple?

I use the excellent software Pacifist to tell which files are installed from which source.

https://www.charlessoft.com/

You can also just make a new Volume and install a clean version of macOS to see which files result from a clean install with no migration.


How can I turn off encrypted iPhone backup without a password? I forgot my password for iPhone backup. How can I recover the password so I can turn off the backups?

If you have a password encrypted backup you can't restore it without the password. If you could it would be no use of encrypting the backup.


How applications behave with Matrox Dualhead2go? Matrox Dualhead2go makes it possible to have 2 external screens for a Macbook Pro. It performs that by splitting a very large screen in two smaller screens.

I am very worried as to how will the applications behave with that:

will the dock be displayed in the center? (i.e. between the 2 screens)
will all modal dialogs be centered also?
Are Expose and Spaces working good? Isn't their display broken?
Is watching a video full screen on one display possible? (VLC, youtube, DVD...)
Will fullscreen apps work? (aperture for example)
Is that possible to maximize a window on one display easily?

Note: I have tested an external USB graphic card as an alternative solution, it is way to laggy to be used IMO.

I have this product.  All your concerns are valid.  Modal dialogs and prompts are split by the program's bezel.  The dock can be positioned across only one monitor, but that is the only configuration option.  Fullscreen video on one monitor is not possible.  Fullscreen apps span both screens, which doesn't work well. Calendar is OK.  Mail is impossible, especially when composing a message.  It is easy to maximize to just one window using built in hotkeys.  However "true" fullscreen is usually complicated by monitor bezels.


Cannot rearrange Launchpad Icons I just installed Lion over Snow Leopard.  I was trying to rearrange the icons in Launchpad into folders/groups.  It worked for a while, but sometime in the middle of rearranging I could no longer take previously foldered/grouped icons out of the group I had previously put them.

I performed the killall tutorial to reset Launchpad, only to have to start over again.  I tried restarting, etc., but I ran into the same problem again after a while of rearranging.

I cannot find anything online regarding being locked out of rearranging in Launchpad.  Has anyone else had this problem?  How can I fix it?

You can either...

nuke the Launchpad data and start clean or
refresh the Launchpad database to get all apps loaded and movable.

Let me know which one works.


Lost Mail when removed pop account to re-add as imap account I removed an mail account from the mail application because it was configured as pop and had to be imap. Now I have lost my mail which was stored locally. I have read about iskysoft data recovery, but that tool has a folder structure which is huge. So I am clicking around in folders to see if there is any mail from 2011 etc.

I am not so familiar with Mac OS X and the mail application. These are times when you would want to have an up-to-date timecapsule backup, but that one is from november 2013 :S

Can you suggest a better mail recovery tool or a manual recovery? Or tell me that this is the right tool and that this will solve all my problems and will put back the lost e-mails in the Mail application.

I have just read about disk drill. but that is no option for me (I think) because I should have used 'recovery vault' first. before removing the pop3 account. http://help.cleverfiles.com/mailbox-recovery-2/

You're going to have a hard time recovering the files and should power off the machine / only mount that drive in read-only mode until you have given up on the idea of data recovery.

I like Data Rescue 3 - but your tool will probably be mostly equivalent.

Look to recover ~/Library/Mail and ~/Library/Mail Downloads files if possible. Ideally you can get the computer friendly - human hostile directory structure back and recover all files with these extensions intact:

emlx
plist


How to find out why OS X is requesting privilege elevation for an app? I occasionally see the standard OS dialog stating something like "Application-so-and-so wants to make changes to your system.  Enter Administrator credentials to authorize."

How would I find out exactly what resources the application wants to gain elevated write access to?

Related to that, which process opens that dialog?

It is not possible to know at the time the credentials are requested. The security mechanisms in OS X do not require pre-authorization of specific actions.

Applications and other processes are asking for one or more authorization rights. Each right grants the application specific capabilities:

  Authorisation Rights

  Authorisation rights are a core part of Mac OS X's security. Rights determine who can and can not access specific functionality. Administrators of Macs often need to change the defaults that ship with Mac OS X.

Use Console.app to view the /var/log/authd.log. This log file contains every successful and unsuccessful attempt to gain these rights.

If granted, the application is then free to perform actions with this new raised level of authorisation. Occasionally the actions are also logged in the authd.log file.

User Interface

The process responsible for showing the security user interface is part of OS X and not part of the requesting application. The application is likely in /System/Library/CoreServices.

The requesting application does not and can not access the credentials interface.

Limits of Time, Use, or Both

OS X's rights are often limited by time or use. As an example, the authenticate-admin-30 right is limited to 30 minutes. Other actions are limited to a single use; such as launching an assisting process just once.

As OS X has been developed, Apple have tended towards restricting initial rights. With OS X 10.11, even root the once super user has been limited by default. All with the aim of better layering security.


Trapped: MacBook always shuts down during EFI SMC Update 1.8. Can't boot. How to remove updater from boot routine? MacBook Pro i7 Mid-2012 (MacBookPro9,2) running Mac OS X 10.8.5: Downloaded the "offered" EFI SMC Update 1.8 through the AppStore Updates. MacBook restarted, grey progress bar appears w/ spinning wheel, progress bar disappears at 20%, wheel spins a few more seconds, then display turns black and Mac shuts down.

When I hit the power switch, same routine again: progress bar & spinning wheel until Mac shuts down w/ incomplete update. Tried SMC reset and Parameter RAM reset. Nothing helps. Can boot from recovery partition, but otherwise I'm suddenly trapped, which really sucks.

Don't know what to do next. My idea would be to boot in Single User Mode (CMD-S at restart) and remove the SMC EFI Updater from the boot routine via command line. The question is: How?

EFI firmware updates are 'staged' in the normally hidden EFI partition on your disk, which typically resides at device /dev/disk0s1.

Once in single-user mode, you can create a folder in which to mount this partition, then mount it like so:

mkdir /Volumes/efi
mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/efi

From here, navigate into the /EFI/APPLE/FIRMWARE/ sub-folder of the EFI partition.

If you find some files here, probably these are what your MacBook is trying to process and getting stuck on. You can safely delete them and reboot.


iPhone 6 recognizing my External lavalier mic as an headphone not microphone My iPhone 6 is recognizing my external microphone plugged into the headphone jack as an headphone rather than a microphone, resulting in no audio output from iPhone speakers.

How do I make my iPhone 6 recognize that my external mic is a microphone rather than a headphone?

Lavaliere Mic https://amzn.to/2KDW73w

My Mic uses TRRS on the main cable and a TRS on the adapter. Mic can be used on both Iphone and Laptops

It would be helpful for you to include the make and model of the mic that you are using, as anything we say will be nothing more than a guess.

That said, if you compare a pair of generic earbuds with Apple's earbuds you will find that there are more "rings" around the shaft of the Apple earbuds than the generic ones you get elsewhere.

One of the "extra" rings is for the mic. And to match up with the iPhone the microphone "ring" needs to be in the exact same place the iPhone's jack expects it.

Which leads me to what I think might be your problem:

Unless your mic specifically says "iPhone compatible" it is likely that the plug on the end of your mic does not have the connectors in the right place for the phone to recognize your mic as a microphone.

And when you get down to it a microphone can be thought of as a specialized speaker, which it is. Hence the reason you can play sound out of it now.

So what do you do about this?

There are options. You could return it and get a mic that specifically says it works with an iPhone. You could contact the manufacturer and see if they have an adapter that would do the same thing with your current mic.

Also if it IS specifically compatible with your iPhone then it is not working and should be returned for replacement, if possible.

If you edit your original question and add the make and model of the microphone we might have better guesses.


How to refresh random wallpapers on non-active spaces? I've got 5-6 desktops going in mission control and I have a random wallpapers on each that change every 30 minutes. I've become very annoyed with the fact that OS X doesn't change the desktop on a space I'm not using until I switch to that space. I'm getting tired of seeing fading wallpapers every time I switch to a desktop.

The only thing I've come up with is running killall Dock but that's pretty brutal and I don't want to run it all the time.

Is there a way to get OS X to refresh all the desktops at once? Are there any defaults write tricks for this in Lion or Mountain Lion?

I did find another answer which provides two applescripts. One answer gives an apple script to trigger the image change on the current desktop. Another example shows how to do this iterating all desktops.

Maybe you could create a hybrid script mixing both (the solution that works and the solution for all desktops). Then, set your system preferences to random wallpapers changing every X seconds. This will work for the current desktop as you experience now, so maybe you could thrown in a cron which at X seconds - 5 calls this new applescript which forces a switch on all desktops?


Maximize safari window I have a problem, my Dock have enabled autohidding option. And when I set for example safari maximize window, and after it open new tab or run something from Dock, my Safari window become minus few pixels at bottom (red arrow on screenshot), how can I fix it?

You can't overlap a window over the Dock. The Dock, even when hidden, will consume space on the side it is set on. A workaround is to move the window down such that the bottom of the window is where you desire (you may need to hold alt to disable sticky window edges), then pull up the top of the window. If you wish an app to consume the entire screen, you will need to use Full Screen.


How to deal with phone dropped in water I have an iPhone 6s and this is the second time I have dropped my phone into water. I managed to get it replaced the first time (this was only a few weeks ago) but it happened again. It initially didn't seem to be as bad as it was before so I'm hoping this can somehow be fixed.

I dropped it in the sink and there wasn't much water in there so I didn't think it would be that damaged. I was relieved to hear the music working on it, as this was not the case before, but it was quiet and muffled. So I placed it in some rice for a day but it seems to just be getting worse. The phone keeps putting down the volume by itself now and I cannot hear any music at all as when I keep putting the volume up it just goes back down. Should I just keep it there for a couple of more days or go back to the shop and buy a new one?

You can try to take it to a 3rd-party repair store to get it cleaned, there's a chance that they can repair corrosion caused by water damage.


How do I fix an app that's stuck in application switcher? I'm running OS X 10.7.5 "Lion". Three times now, Preview.app has gotten in a state where its icon is visible in the application switcher (⌘+Tab) but it isn't running (doesn't show up in ps ax in the Terminal) and will not start (e.g. double-clicking a PDF document).

I've tried killall Dock, killall SystemUIServer, and killall Finder and those do restart but the stuck Preview icon is still in the application switcher. I've also tried removing the saved state under Library > Containers > com.apple.Preview but that doesn't work either. The only thing that solves it is logging out and back in again.

Is there some way to get this unstuck without having to log out?

In Terminal.app, find the process ID for Dock with the ps aux | grep Dock command and kill it with the kill -9 PID command. An example:

$ ps aux | grep Dock
username              290   0.0  0.4  2730344  34500   ??  S    Fri08PM   0:22.48 /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock
username             3633   0.0  0.0  2432784    612 s000  S+    8:06PM   0:00.00 grep Dock
$ kill -9 290


Can I use outlook web access with mail app on iphone 4? My company runs an exchange server which also provides outlook web access.
The thing is that I cannot connect using activesync from the iphone because the exchange server is only reachable through a VPN. But OWA is not, so I can use it with safari.

Is there any way to configure the mail app to connect using OWA instead of activesync/exchange somehow?

I don't believe the mail app can work with OWA. If you cannot build the exchange account in the normal fashion do to the vpn being required then the server that hosts the exchange mail app on the iPhone is likely out of the picture.

Can you not use the safari browser to access the web location for your companies mail service? The company I work for has the Outlook web access page available mail.company.edu for example. When I go to the page it loads up and allows access. Sadly this is the only way I can think of.

Maybe someone else will have a work around for you but in the IT field I deal with Exchange accounts a lot and the best option would be to have a mail service that can be reached without a vpn required. Perhaps your companies IT can provide more information on accessing the exchange mail server.


Is there an app that will let me drag/drop and copy/paste across two Macs? I've got two Macs sitting right next to each other and I'm logged on to both of them. Is there some app that will allow me to drag and drop across the two of them? Specifically, I'm trying to share snippets of text. I could upload the text to a website or put it into a file and sync it via AirDrop or DropBox, but if there's an app that would "combine" the desktops while allowing me to remain logged in to both machines, that would be phenomenal. Is there such an app?

Edit:

To clarify, I'd like my two desktops to behave as though they were two "spaces" next to each other on one computer, despite that their both logged in from separate user accounts on different machines. I'm not looking for a file-sharing solution.

The app can do that can do what you want is Apple Remote Desktop. You can drag&Drop files from desktop to desktop and get and push clipboards from and to other computer.

The best set is to have 2 monitors (having the remote desktop fullscreen-ed), so that you can stare at the two computers at the same time. If you don't, you will have a window with the desktop of your second mac.

Another advantage of this solution is to you only have one keyboard and one mouse in front of you. And you can also put the second computer away from your desk. You just need to have it connected to you network.


Regain access to Apple ID traded away and 'returned' I was playing CoM (A game on the App Store that saves progress by Game Center), when this guy comes along and asks for an account trade. I agree because his account is awesome. So I trade, and he eventually gives me my Apple ID back and says that he takes the trade back. I try to log on but it said disabled for security reasons. I then panick because I put in a fake birthday for every thing that requires a birthday. I then make a new Apple ID with the same email and find that everything is gone including apps, progress and most importantly, iCloud.

If you do not know your security questions to reset your Apple ID, try the following.

If you have 3 different security questions and a rescue email address set up with your Apple ID

Sign in to My Apple ID and select the "Password and Security" tab to send an email to your rescue email that you set up.

If you have only 1 security question that you set up, but don't know your password

Contact apple support and hopefully someone can assist you farther.

Knowledge base related article: http://support.apple.com/HT201363


Deleting photo in text message conversion (iPhone 5s, iOS 9.1) If I receive a photo via text message and I delete the text message conversation before saving the photo to my Camera Roll will the photo be saved in my iCloud Photo Library?

Only photos in your camera roll are uploaded to iCloud, if your iCloud settings are set to sync photos.

You would have to select to save the photo from the MMS message to your camera roll first.


TrueCrypt mount fails with cryptic error I am trying to mount a TrueCrypt file on my Mac (OS X 10.8).
When I do so I get the following error:

hdiutil: attach failed - no mountable file system

That is all there is. I tried running from the command line, but it switches to the GUI and then gives the same error.

The password is correct. It gives a different error, if I mistype it.
The file is mountable and readable on Linux (Kubuntu 12.08 and 13.04)
I have two files were this happens (one is 470 Gb, the other is 300 Gb). One file where this is not the problem and at least reading works fine (haven't tested writing). That file is only 90 Gb.
The external disk where these files are on is formatted as ext4, which I mount through ext4fuse.

Please help me, I am in the process of copying the data onto a Mac compatible external disk. At the moment I am rsyncing over Wifi and it requires two computers running and takes ages.
UPDATE

Yesterday night, I copied the 300 Gb file to my Mac formatted external disk. The same problem happened, thus I'd conclude that it is not an ext4fuse issue.

The TrueCrypt volume is internally formatted as ext4.

It does not contain a hidden volume.

Try mounting the volume as “read-only”:

TrueCrypt → Preferences → Mount Options → Mount Volumes as read-only

If that doesn't do the trick then it's possible TrueCrypt could be having some issue with file system implementation mechanism (ext4fuse) not detecting that an ext4 volume is mounted. I've used FUSE for OS X with TrueCrypt and it works without any issues, so giving that a try instead of your current mechanism might help as well.


Shouldn't Apple consider allowing use of Apple Pencil while it's charging? I have an iPad 2018 with 1st generation Apple Pencil. I am trying to use it for taking notes while it is connected to USB-cable charging, but surprisingly it doesn't work even though it is recognized by the iPad already! (I can see its charging status on notification page)

So I am wondering shouldn't Apple consider the issue and fix the problem?

Is it worth it contacting them for that?

Apparently Apple disables drawing functionality while Apple Pencil is charging for performance reasons. So, the behavior is by design.

Cannot use Apple Pencil while charging

  No, we disable the drawing functionality while it is charging (performance reasons). Although you can charge with a Lightning cable, it will charge much faster when connected directly to the iPad Pro.

In case you find a product feature concerning, you can always share feedback with Apple using the Product Feedback webpage:

Product Feedback - Apple


Apple Watch screen not turning off anymore Usually my Apple Watch's screen turns on when I raise my arm, and then it turns off either when I put my arm down, or if I leave my arm in that position for 15 seconds. This has always been the case

For some reason this isn't happening anymore, since around yesterday. When I raise my arm, the screen remains on even when I put my arm down, and also doesn't seem to turn off even when I wait for it to.

What can I do in this circumstance?

I fixed this by restarting both my watch and my paired phone simultaneously (restarting only the watch potentially would have solved the problem). Right now it is turning off as expected.


Can I undo 'softwareupdate'? Recently I was persuaded by a message from my Homebrew update process to (unthinkingly) run

softwareupdate --all --install --force

forgetting that among the pending updates I had was the problematic 10.15.4 update. I literally (used correctly) cannot afford to have a bricked or compromised Mac, and so far I've had no problems, but I'd rather be sure.

Is there a way to undo softwareupdate (I haven't yet rebooted)?

To undo the effect of software updates, restore to a point in time before the update from backup. TimeMachine makes this rather simple, other backup methods (e.g. if you only run weekly backups) may require that you first offload any documents changed since the last backup.


Connecting 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro to Dell U2715H? What would be the 'best' way to connect the 2015 Retina MacBook Pro to a Dell U2715H monitor? If I wanted to use the monitors USB 3.0 ports and also output sound to a Dell soundbar, how many cables would I need?

I was previously considering getting a Thunderbolt Display, but the reasons against are:

Bigger and heavier than the Dell
Ugly wide bezels
Twice as expensive as the Dell
Uses more power than the Dell

I do wonder what functionality I'll lose though. Will I end up having to (dis)connect HDMI, USB and audio each time I (un)dock the laptop?

Would I connect the MacBook to the display using some sort of adapter, or just the HDMI port? UPDATE: The U2715H doesn't support 2560x1440 over HDMI, only using the MiniDP connection.

Do NOT use the HDMI video output!

Please buy a Mini DisplayPort cable connect your MacBook and U2715H.


iOS 7 iPhone how can I close my running applications? I have an iPhone 4 and just updated the software to i OS 7. Before I updated the software I had been able to close my running apps to keep from running down the battery. I can't figure out now how to close them. Is there a way or do theft close themselves or what?

Double clic on the home button then slide the apps to the top to quit them.


Time machine backup to a .sparsebundle on USB drive? I noticed that when I migrated from backing up over USB to SMB that Time Machine started using sparse bundles for backup. I was unsuccessful in using this bundle as a backup drive when connecting to the hard drive directly via USB.

I tried mounting the bundle, but macOS complained about insufficient permissions. I then took ownership of the bundle and successfully mounted it manually — still not listed in the Time Machine settings.

Is it possible to back up to a local sparsebundle? I would like to default to SMB backups, but have the choice to use USB3 for speed.

Time Machine should automatically mount the .sparsebundle if you set the drive that contains it as the backup location.
Failing that, you can double click the .sparsebundle to mount it, then tell Time Machine to backup to the mounted volume (something like /Volumes/Time Machine Backup). This might be an acceptable workaround if you only infrequently use it over USB3.
If you don't see the mounted .sparsebundle as an option in time machine you can set it manually via the terminal like so:
sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backup

Just change the Time\ Machine\ Backup part to whatever your drive is called. Include -a after setdestination to add another backup disk, keep it left out to replace your current backup disks with the new one.


Which formats does Apple Newsstand accept? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Newsstand content can be published in PDF format.  Via a Newsstand iOS app of course.

What other formats does a Newsstand app work with?  Is epub ok?

Does Apple provide any information on content formats (I haven't found any)?

The Newsstand is just a special "Store" where you can download a 'magazine' app and the Newsstand itself which tracks the "issues" that your magazines have available

So your Newsstand app can display anything it wants in any format it can decode and display - an issue is just a big bundle of data and the magazine app is just an app that decodes and displays that data.

Apple don't give you any information about content formats as they don't care and don't specify.

PDF is a popular format as you can easily display PDFs on iOS using WebKit, indeed most magazines seem to use Webkit for displaying their data since it allows you to show a bunch of formats and it works well with embedded links.


Trouble with Adobe Creative Cloud I am having issues with Adobe Creative Cloud.  This started about 3 months ago.  I get a timed out message whenever I attempt to connect to CC. I have uninstalled CC and every attempt I have made at a new install gives me the same answer:  That the server has timed out and I need to check my internet connection or my firewall. Error code 207.  I have a hardwired internet connection and have checked my firewall settings (from what I can tell, I have added exclusion for adobe.com and creativecloud.com).

Can anyone help me here??? I have my computer specs listed below.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)
Processor: 3.4 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory:  16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Startup Disk: Macintosh HD
Graphics:  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2048 MB
OS X Yosemite Version 10.10.5
(also, I have Bitedefender Antivirus for Mac.  I have turned OFF the Continuous Scan... just in case this was causing the problem.)

A couple of side suggestions:

You are paying for cloud service, so you should have paid support from Adobe if you can't solve this quickly. They should have an article explaining exactly what ports need to be open for your firewall.
You could disable the firewall for a short test to rule that in/out as cause of your issues.

If you want to go this alone, enable logging in the firewall and make a new user account. Open the CC Desktop app in the new user and attempt to sign in with your Adobe ID.

This will test system settings and the app. It will check your ID is active and get you firewall data if you are blocking a needed port. It will also separate the system from your main user settings so you can narrow the cause.


How can I stop or pause spoken text playback with Siri? While listening to a book or article using the Speak Screen function, there is no handsfree way to make it stop. If you take out the AirPods, Siri keeps reading the content out loud from the phone.
Is there anything I can tell Siri to cease the spoken playback so that I am not required to dig my phone out of my pocket in order to listen to the outside world?
I've tried telling Siri things like "stop reading" and even "shut up", but right after Siri stops listening, the spoken text continues and can be distracting/disruptive when listening to the outside world matters.
My best "solution" so far is just pressing the volume button down all the way, but of course I will lose my spot in the book.

A partial solution is to tell Siri to "mute everything."
This will mute, but not stop the spoken playback, so you'll have to find your place again.


searching an nfs-mounted volume Does anyone know of a GUI way to search  mounted network volume without using Spotlight? We use a cluster roughly 80TB and need a client-side way of searching for files without indexing the entire thing every two seconds...

I'd recommend checking out EasyFind to see if it solves your problem. My shop has been using it to search SMB network volumes.


What was the first MacBook that people were able to install Windows on? What was the first MacBook that people were able to install Windows on?
How about 2007, 2008 versions of Macbook?

It was when Apple started to sell MacBooks with Intel processors instead of PowerPC?

Apple introduced Bootcamp in 2006 as a beta for OSX Tiger. (source)

So it's since 2006 that the Macbooks are able to install Windows. However a support note specify that the oldest Macbooks aren't compatible with Windows 7.

NB: Notice that laptops powered by PPC processors were called iBooks & PowerBooks. Macbooks (Pro) are only powered by Intel processors.


Google Assistant Notification Settings for iOS I installed the Google Assistant app on my iPhone 6. I tried to set a reminder with Assistant but it said I had to enable notifications in the Assistant settings. There are no notification settings there but all the settings that are there are on. I looked in the Notification section of Settings and there is no entry for Assistant. What do I need to do to enable reminders on my iPhone?

I had a similar issue.. I resolved it by uninstalling and reinstalling the assistant app. After installation when you open the app, it asks your permission for allowing notifications and accessing microphone.


My MacBook shows the screensaver seemingly forever! How do I tell it to just go blank after an hour or two without suspending the laptop? For security reasons I have the screen on my MacBook set to lock after 1 minute of inactivity, at which point it displays the photos I've downloaded to it, but when I get up in the morning the screen is still on, still showing the photos.  This seems stupid, and is definitely not the behaviour I'm used to on my previous OS.
How can I set it to lock the screen after 5 minutes, and then turn the screen off after an hour.
I don't want it to suspend, since some things (containers and such) continue to run which don't need the screen.

Go into System Preferences and search for Energy Saver and (after you enter administrator privileges) you can change the settings to stop the display after some period of time.
Thanks @Steve Chambers for the detail - the Energy Saver settings aren't visible until you search for it.


Xcode Beta "Verifying Xcode.app" I just installed Xcode beta, and when trying to open it, it stays on "Verifying Xcode.app" and does not proceed. Why is that? I have the latest OS X mavericks.

Open terminal and run below commands

cd /Applications
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Xcode.app

This will bypass Gatekeeper in OS X and launch Xcode quickly.


Applescript - Unable to find resource when inside application I have a regular Applescript application bundle that executes an applescript file when it's run. I'm trying to run a shell file that is located at "/Contents/Resources/Data/df.sh", however with the code I'm using, it keeps giving me "resource not found" errors.

set bashFile to path to resource "df.sh"
do shell script "bash " & bashFile

I'm really new to Applescript, so there's the chance I'm doing something obvious wrong.

There are a few reasons it didn't work.

path to resource basically takes the bundle path and finds files in there, so you need to actually put the subdirectory, in this case "Data."
Applescript uses its own (stupid) file path syntax, so you need the POSIX version.
It breaks on spaces because appending the POSIX path ~/Desktop/test folder shows up as 2 arguments to bash. To fix this just put quotes around it, as you would any other time, with quoted form of.

Here's the fixed script:

set bashFile to path to resource "Data/df.sh"
do shell script "bash " & quoted form of (POSIX path of bashFile)


How does Time Machine works across upgrades? I have created my Time Machine backup in El Capitan (and updated the backup few hours later). Then I decided to enroll in Sierra Beta. At the moment I'm writing this, TM is backing up my content to my ubuntu server via AFP (in Sierra PB1).

Does Time Machine modify the backup by OS version on it's own or does it remove the old OS backup?

Basically, an upgrade just makes a lot of the files that are included in a backup write a newer copy. There isn't any major change to the storage format and hasn't been since Time Machine was implemented.

All the changes have been in the code that runs the backup or changes to the rules about what files are excluded, but those changes revert when you install a clean OS before you go to restore files from any of the intervals stored in the backup.

Time Machine backups are not bootable and they don't include all files - so you might not even end up restoring the files that change when you go from one OS update to the next.

Specifically - here are files that get excluded by rule:

On OS X, what files are excluded by rule from a Time Machine backup?

Time machine just backs up all files that aren't on a list to be skipped. It goes forward, time interval by time interval - writing any new files and updating any changed files. Assuming you aren't running low on space in the backup destination - you won't have any older files deleted from the backup and could restore files from before you made the upgrade.


Changing iPhone backup location When I try to follow the procedure laid out in Backup iPhone to external drive on Mac and run

ln -s /Volumes/DriveName/Backup/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

to change the backup location for my iPad and iPhone terminal tells me that the file directory doesn't exist... what am I missing?

You need to replace the DriveName part with the name of your external drive. One way to find the name is to run

ls -l /Volumes

in Terminal.


Should I have my Mac on until "external" hard drive encryption process is done? I have a MBP 2012 and replaced the internal hard drive with an SSD and the SuperDrive with a 1TB HDD. I'm encrypting my 1TB HDD.

Should I leave my Mac on until it's done?

Does OS X pause the encryption process if I turn my Mac off (or put to sleep) or does it start over every time I turn it back on?

I'm running El Capitan 10.11.5.

Not necessarily.

OS X seems to handle well pausing and restarting where the encrypting process left off.

However, there is no way I can recommend doing this. I had backups of my data and decided to try it. :) I just wish there was more official information regarding this process.


Stop full screen alerts on my Apple Watch I would like to know how I can still be alerted to a notification (eg. Getting a tap when a message arrives) but it not necessarily being what I see when I look at my Apple Watch.

I'd prefer to see the watch face with a red dot above it.

It's very disconcerting to look at your watch to see the time, but get a full screen alert instead.

Is this possible?

Thanks!

The closest feature to what you're describing is called Notification Privacy, and it lets you get a quick summary when you twist your wrist instead of the full notification. From the Apple Watch user guide:

  When you raise your wrist to see a notification, you get a quick summary,
  then full details a few seconds later. For example, when a message arrives, you see who it’s from first, then the message appears. To stop the full notification from appearing unless you tap it, open the Apple Watch app on iPhone, tap My Watch, tap Notifications, then turn on Notification Privacy.

Otherwise, you can turn off Apple Watch notifications for specific apps in the Apple Watch app.


Key to boot from USB on Ubuntu Macbook 2007 I recently installed Ubuntu 14.10 on my 2007 Macbook. I need OS X back. I burned OS X Lion (10.7) to a USB, now what?

First step is to discover if the OS on the USB stick is properly formatted and built for a boot device.

For this you will need a Mac running OS X. Insert the stick and go to System Preferences → Startup Disk. If your stick is ready to boot a Mac it will appear in the selection pane :-

If it is there then your USB stick is bootable. Just insert it into your MacBook and hold down the Option key when it starts up and it will let you choose the boot device. Use the arrow keys to select your stick and then hit return.

If it doesn't show up the most likely reason is a badly formatted stick. Your stick must use a GUID partition table and the boot partition must be formatted Mac OS X Extended (Journalled).


Firefox vs Chrome: how to open new tabs in foreground or background with same meta keys? The Request

How can I make the same meta keys between Firefox and Chrome do the same thing?

In my macOS, currently in my environment (<click> = "mouse left click on weblink"), the following "open new weblink in new tab" keyboard behavior is inconsistent between Firefox and Chrome.

Chrome

open new-web-page tab in foreground: cmd-shift-<click>
open new-web-page tab in background: cmd-<click>

Firefox

open new-web-page tab in foreground: cmd-<click>
open new-web-page tab in background: cmd-shift-<click>

It matters less which keyboard-shorcut-plus-click does which thing (although I'd prefer the cmd-<click> opens in _background); I at least want the behavior to be consistent between these 2 web-browsing apps.

My current versions

macos: 10.14.6
firefox: 76.0.1 (64-bit)
chrome: Version 81.0.4044.92 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Failed (thus far) solutions

I've thus far been unable to get the following solutions to help/work:

https://github.com/mikecrittenden/shortkeys/wiki/How-To-Use-Shortkeys
https://superuser.com/a/1260437/98033

Employing the following Firefox preferences settings achieved what I wanted. In particular: the annotation highlights the setting I unchecked that made things work on my system.


How do I find the windowid to pass to screencapture -l? The command line utility screencapture claims to be able to capture a single window without requiring interaction, but I can't figure out what to pass it.

-l<windowid> capture this windowsid

It's not the process id of the the application.

For some applications you can use AppleScript:

screencapture -l$(osascript -e 'tell app "Safari" to id of window 1') test.png

It doesn't work with Chrome though.

The IDs are also shown in Quartz Debug (available from developer.apple.com/downloads) if you run defaults write com.apple.QuartzDebug QuartzDebugPrivateInterface -bool true.


Any solution to bootcamp windows 8.1 with macbook pro 15" 2010? This question may at first glance seem to be a duplicate but I am asking for an update and clarification to an unsolved problem.

After extensively scanning the web, it seems that the consensus is that even if one were to force bootcamp in a macbook pro 2010 model (with optical dvd drive removed) to recognize usb, there remains the problem with EFI vs GPT booting. See the previous AskDifferent thread: Mac Mini 2010: DualBoot (BootCamp) OSX Mavericks + Windows 8.1

Has this community come up with a solution?

Apple iMac and MacBook Pro models did not have UEFI firmware and the ability to boot Windows installers from USB flash drives until at least the 2012 model year.
Your firmware does not have the ability to boot from a USB flash drive Windows installer. You should install Windows using your DVD drive. If you no longer have a DVD drive, you may still be able to install using the Windows 8 iso file. This have been done successfully using Windows 7 on a 2010 15" macbook pro (MBP6,1). If you wish, I could update the procedure for Windows 8. (Or are you installing 8.1?). Anyway, go here for more information.
To install directly using the GPT partitioning table is only recommended if your computer has a UEFI. Your model does not. Most people who succeeded usually have a problems with one or more drives not working properly. There is no advantage in trying. Installing using the MBR partitioning table will work without any problems.
You don't have to use BootCamp. Most who don,'t, want something different than the default; such as an extra NTFS or ExFat partition. The procedure depends on what you have in mind.
Updated Procedure for Installing Windows 8.1 Using VirtualBox
The original steps are posted here.
Steps 1-14. No change
Steps 15-17. Substitute Windows 8.1 for Windows 7.
Step 18. No change
Step 19. Images slightly different, but not worth updating.
Step 20. The rest the virtual machine installation will be repeated again after booting Windows on the physical machine. For most questions, you can use the default answers. Use the provided answers below when the following windows first appear. When asked a second time, you can provide your own answers.
(Hint: For a better view, click on the image or open in a new window.)
When the following window appears, enter a name for the computer. You will enter this same name later. I used the name Shark. Choose any name you like.

When the window below appears, choose Customize.

VirtualBox creates a virtual Public network for your virtual machine. Therefore I would click on "No" in the window shown below.

To be safe, I would not let any updates download or install until after the Boot Camp Support Software (the drivers) is installed. Therefore, when the window below appears, I would choose "Don't set up Windows Update (not recommended)".

When the window below appears, choose "Create a new account".

Select "Sign in without a Microsoft account", when the window below appears.

Enter a temporary user name, password and password hint, in the window shown below. You can delete or disable this account later.

Step 21. Replace

From the Start Menu, select "Computer" to open a window containing the hard disk drives and devices with removable storage.

with

Right click on the Start Menu and select "File Explorer" to open a window containing the devices and drives.

The first image will be slightly different. Replace

Select "Start Menu→All Programs→Accessories", then right click on "Command Prompt" and select "Run as administrator", as shown in the image below.

with

Right click on the Start Menu and select "Command Prompt (Admin)".

Disregard the second image. The Desktop shown in the third image will be different.
Step 22. Replace Windows Explorer with File Explorer.
Step 23. Same instructions. Replace image with the following. This step takes a long time to complete.

Step 24-26. No changes.


Can I change the location of the iTunes iPod Photo Cache folder? I want to sync photos on my Windows desktop with my iPad but when I set iTunes to Sync Photos from the My Pictures folder, iTunes creates an iPod Photo Cache folder (which is about the size of My Pictures folder which is 6 GB).  Letting iTunes create the folder is not the issue but I am syncing the "My Pictures" folder with my laptop and other computers and I do not want to have the iPod Photo Cache folder to also sync across my other computers.  Is there a way to change the location of where iTunes will put the iPod Photo Cache folder?  I did not see a setting in iTunes for it.

Purpose of this folder:

  When iTunes synchronizes photos to your iPod, it actually converts and resizes them into 16-bit bitmaps in resolutions appropriate for the iPod. It stores the converted photos in the iPod Photo Cache folder before transferring them to the iPod. This basically allows iTunes to quickly add/remove photos from your iPod without having to reconvert them every time. If you remove a photo album/folder from your iPod (by unchecking the box in iTunes preferences), it will still leave the pictures in the cache in case you want to add them again in the future.

Possible workaround:

  Move the iPod Photo Cache folder to the location of your choice, and make an alias (shortcut) to the folder in its new location. Place the alias in the folder where the iPod Photo Cache originally was (usually in the Pictures folder) and make sure the alias is named "iPod Photo Cache". When iTunes looks for the iPod Photo Cache folder in the Pictures folder, it will instead find the alias, directing it to the new location.

You didn't specify the OS of the computer but on Windows that would be a junction point.


Why does Apache want to use xcode for installation resources? When I try to run ./configure When building Apache with no unusual options this is part of the output:

checking for APR... yes
  setting CC to "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/OSX10.9.xctoolchain/usr/bin/cc"
  setting CPP to "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/OSX10.9.xctoolchain/usr/bin/cc -E"
  setting CFLAGS to " "
  setting CPPFLAGS to " -DDARWIN -DSIGPROCMASK_SETS_THREAD_MASK"
  setting LDFLAGS to " "
configure:
configure: Configuring Apache Portable Runtime Utility library...
configure:
checking for APR-util... yes
checking for gcc... /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/OSX10.9.xctoolchain/usr/bin/cc
checking whether the C compiler works... no

I don't have xcode installed, so why does it assume I do?  I tried running the configure like this after installing apple command line tools which includes gcc, etc. into /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CPP=/usr/bin/cpp LTFLAGS=--tag=cc ./configure --prefix=/Users/<me>/it/apps/apache2/ --with-pcre=/usr/local/bin/pcre-config

And the configure works (although I'm running into issues running make that I think are related).  Why, when which gcc returns /usr/bin/gcc, would Apache insist on looking in Applications/Xcode...?

It's hard to really know why the authors of the tool made a specific choice without tracking them down in many cases, but this one shouldn't be hard to guess.

Xcode is how Apple distributes a working C compiler to each version of OS X. therefore checking in Xcode for gcc makes good sense to me.

As you correctly have demonstrated, if you prefer to install another compiler or store is elsewhere, the configure tool is happy to use another path to the compiler.


Transfer app iPhone to iPad with WiFi but no internet connection? So I’m at the airport and the WiFi has no internet connection. I installed an app on my phone using my data connection, but I would like to use/install it on my iPad. I was able to air drop a link to the app on the App Store to the iPad, but of course that didn’t work because the link wouldn’t load. Is there a way to air drop the app somehow? Can I like, zip up the app and air drop that file? How is airdrop connecting? Bluetooth?

The only way to install any iOS app is from the App Store. [in this situation Configurator isn't an option.]

I'm afraid there's no way out of your situation, short of finding a working connection... which your phone could perhaps provide, using its built-in hot-spot.


MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) computer dies at 40+% Within the last few months computer has been dying at 40+%

After dying the computer will show the low battery icon on the screen, but once charger is plugged in it shows the battery has well over the % at which the laptop should be shutting off.

This usually happens after a restart or opening the computer.  It will turn on, I sign in then it dies shortly thereafter.

Any thoughts?  From what I have read battery re-calibration should not be needed on this particular model.  Have read some bits about it being possible software issues but not sure the real cause.

Sure.  The battery has a bad cell.  Have it replaced.


Disable Escape key in Safari for getting out of full screen mode I use Safari in Full Screen mode on OS X Mavericks all the time.  I also use the escape key in web pages fairly frequently for various things (depends on the webpage).

One unfortunate side effect of these two facts is that I will occasionally turn off Full Screen mode inadvertently by hitting the escape key on a page that doesn't intercept the escape key.

Is there a way to disable the "Escape turns off full screen mode" behavior in Safari?

Now, you could go ahead and brute-force disable the Escape key in
  Safari. But that'd defeat the purpose of still allowing Escape to work
  as a shortcut in the aforementioned places, which I'd rather avoid.

See here for an example to remap Escape to ⌥Escape with a Keyboard Maestro macro:


When saving files to Desktop on Mac OS X (Lion), why are they placed in an erratic order? This is really bugging me on Mac OS X (Lion):

When I save files to the Desktop (for example downloads from Web browsers, etc. -- which in my workflow happens a lot), they are placed in a seemingly erratic order: sometimes at the bottom left of existing icons, sometimes in between existing icons, etc.

I'm often having a really hard time finding the files I just saved. Seems to be the behavior in Windows is more consistent and predictable.

Is there any way to improve this behavior, more precisely, to specify that the files be placed in e.g. a left-to-right, top-to-bottom order?

This is normal behavior when the desktop has no particular order or arrangement specified.

Try going to the Finder and setting a "Sort By" option.

Go to the Finder and click on the desktop.
Click View > Sort By from the menu bar
Then try selecting an option other than "None" with in the "Sort By" Menu.


⌘ Command+ C doesnt work and I cant do an "E" by holding ⇧ Shift I already tried:

Force quit Finder
sudo launchctl start/stop com.apple.pboard
System Preferences> Keyboard> Modifier Keys > Restore Defaults
System Preferences> Shortcuts> App Shortcuts> + (when I tried to write the shortcut in "Keyboard Shortcut" Command C doesnt work)

When I try to paste it's  ok, it works. The problem is to copy, the shortcut doesnt work and the edit flash doesnt work too. Its the same with Shift + e
The keys Command, Shift, C and e work separately. They dont work like shortcuts
Model: Macmini6,1

Go to System Preferences and click on the keyboard. A panel opens with 5 tabs at the top.  Click on the Keyboard Tab and a new panel appears.

In this panel click on the button at the bottom which says "Modifier Keys". This brings up a menu on the previous panel. See image below.

you can define what the command key actually is. Make sure the command key is defined as the Command key.


l2tp over ipsec on mac osx 10.13.4 I want to find l2tp over ipsec in macOS 10.13.4 but only get l2tp/ipsec.
Is l2tp over ipsec canceled ?

I tried to select the option and connect VPN. But it is not working and I get the connection log:

Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : publish_entry SCDSet() failed: Success!
Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : publish_entry SCDSet() failed: Success!
Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : l2tp_get_router_address
Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : l2tp_get_router_address 192.168.12.1 from dict 1
Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : L2TP connecting to server 'xx.xx.xx.xx' (xx.xx.xx.xx)...
Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : IPSec connection started
Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : IPSec phase 1 client started
Sat Sep 15 13:18:12 2018 : IPSec phase 1 server replied
Sat Sep 15 13:18:13 2018 : IPSec phase 2 started
Sat Sep 15 13:18:13 2018 : IPSec phase 2 established
Sat Sep 15 13:18:13 2018 : IPSec connection established
Sat Sep 15 13:18:13 2018 : L2TP sent SCCRQ
Sat Sep 15 13:18:14 2018 : L2TP received Auth Challenge AVP - not supported
Sat Sep 15 13:18:14 2018 : L2TP received SCCRP
Sat Sep 15 13:18:14 2018 : L2TP sent SCCCN
Sat Sep 15 13:18:14 2018 : L2TP sent ICRQ`

l2tp/ipsec is equivalent to l2tp over ipsec. The / in technical English is often spoken as the word over.

You can find L2TP over IPSec in the Network System Preference settings:

Launch System Preferences
Select Network
Select +
Select Interface VPN
Select VPN Type L2TP over IPSec


How do I create a secondary X axis in numbers? So I have a set of data such that:

"Months A/B/C" represent X values, and Cost represents the associated Y value. Combined, there is the data there to plot three different data series on this one scatter graph.

However for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to add X axis for each series, they all seem to use the "Months A" X values, rather than their own.

If I attempt to edit the "X Value" in the "Series" panel on the right (with one of the Cost columns selected, it changes them ALL to use that column as the X values. :/

Turn off Share X Values from the bottom-left.


Is there any way to delete the Personal (Web) notebook and create new notebooks from OneNote for iOS? I've tried deleting from the web interface, but it only recreates it immediately. I'd love to be able to click the new note icon in the middle of the taskbar but it defaults to this Unfiled Notes section. I'd prefer to be able to choose which notebook it goes into it. Any advice on this workflow?

Also, is there a way to create a new notebook in the iOS app or am I relegated t the web app?

Yeah I have had the same issue and for the same reason.

I think the OneNote app is pretty limited in that area and you are dependent on the web interface alot.

I am not sure if you also use Windows desktop app - but they seem to sync together.

There is an app called MobileNoter that also syncs with OneNote, only the PC version though.

In Short there are and you will need to think of some work arounds unless you are able to live with the limitations of the app.

Guess MS really wants you to buy the software on the PC:-)


In karabiner, how do I set left option to \? I want to map left_option to \, left command to / and right command to | when used alone. When used in combination with other keys I want the left_option, left command and right command to retain their functions. How do I do that?

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>L⌥→\&L⌘→/&R⌘→|</name>
    <identifier>alttobackslashcmdtoslashandpipe</identifier>
    <autogen>
      __KeyToKey__
      KeyCode::OPTION_L | ModifierFlag::NONE,
      KeyCode::BACKSLASH
    </autogen>
    <autogen>
      __KeyToKey__
      KeyCode::COMMAND_L | ModifierFlag::NONE,
      KeyCode::SLASH
    </autogen>
    <autogen>
      __KeyToKey__
      KeyCode::COMMAND_R | ModifierFlag::NONE,
      KeyCode::BACKSLASH | ModifierFlag::SHIFT
    </autogen>
  </item>
</root>

This might not have quite the effect you want, but it's as close as I know how to do.


Meaning of "./" in Mac terminal I am a new user of the Mac terminal.  What is the meaning of "./"?  What is the difference between the commands

rm image.png
rm ./image.png
rm *./image.png

./ is part of the path to a directory/file.

If used as part of a parameter to a command

rm image.png and rm ./image.png are exactly the same and identify a file in the current directory
rm *./image.png is a pattern which looks for files named image.png in all subdirectories of the current directory which end with a dot

The key use for ./ usually is to call a script/executable in the current directory. When you execute a command without specifiying it's directory (e.g. cp instead of /bin/cp), the shell searches for this in all directories listed in the $PATH variable. The current directory is usually not part of that variable (for security reasons) so you can use ./command-name to tell the shell to look for the command in the current directory.


iPhone 4s change Apple id A friend has given me his old iPhone but it still has his Apple id on iTunes and the cloud and won't allow me access. How do I erase this and input my details instead

Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store, click on the Apple ID at the top and you will be presented with the option to sign out of the currently logged-in account. Sign in with your account and you will then be able to add your own apps, music etc.


Cloning a directory in terminal, using ZSH I'm trying to clone a directory which holds a git repo.
i.e., I have /Users/me/someFolder - someFolder has ALOT of files, like over 250k.
It's also a git repo, with a .git directory, and many other hidden files.
Additionally it contains a number of other sub-directories (folders).
So, to clone this, preserving all permissions, copying recursively, and including ALL files/directories in ZSH on Big Sur, do I simply do:
cp -a /Users/me/someFolder /Users/me/otherFolder?
I ask as I've seen other syntax such as:
cp -a /Users/me/someFolder/. /Users/me/otherFolder? (note the .).
Thanks,

The second method also works if otherFolder already exists. Other than that, there is no difference (assuming that /Users/me/someFolder is an existing folder). In more detail:

cp -a /Users/me/someFolder /Users/me/otherFolder

If someFolder is a folder (i.e. a directory — and not a symbolic link to a directory) and otherFolder already exists (and is a directory or a symbolic link to one), this copies /Users/me/someFolder/some/file to /Users/me/otherFolder/someFolder/some/file. If someFolder is a directory but otherFolder doesn't exist, this copies /Users/me/someFolder/some/file to /Users/me/otherFolder/some/file.
If someFolder exists but is not a directory (it's a regular file, a symbolic link, etc.), it is copied to either /Users/me/otherFolder/someFolder if otherFolder is an existing directory or a symbolic link to one, or to /Users/me/someFolder otherwise (regular file, other special file, or non-existent).

cp -a /Users/me/someFolder/. /Users/me/otherFolder

If someFolder is a directory or a symbolic link to one, this always copies /Users/me/someFolder/some/file to /Users/me/otherFolder/some/file, regardless of whether otherFolder existed or not. (Except if otherFolder is an existing file that isn't a symbolic link or a file, in which case the command will fail.)
In all cases, if the thing to copy is a directory, all of its contents are copied recursively, preserving permissions and modification times. (Access times are also preserved, but they're updated in the source.) That comes from the -a option.
An equivalent command is
rsync -a /Users/me/someFolder/ /Users/me/otherFolder

Note the trailing / on the source so that /Users/me/someFolder/some/file is copied to /Users/me/otherFolder/some/file. If the source was /Users/me/someFolder, it would be copied to /Users/me/otherFolder/someFolder.
rsync is equivalent to cp -R in simple cases, but it's cleverer about not copying files that are already present in the destination folder, so it's good for resuming an interrupted copy or for doing incremental backups. Rsync also has a lot of options to do things like select which files to copy.


How do I view negative reviews for a podcast in the iTunes store? How do I read negative reviews for a podcast in the iTunes store? It looks like they are censoring reviews. I myself wrote a negative review but I don't see it showing up.

Not all reviews get posted and sometimes the delay is days or weeks for some reviews to show. I believe the stars get updates much more rapidly as a human doesn't need to review those ratings like Apple does for the word portions of reviews.

This is similar to app reviews:

Is there a standard delay for consumer ratings of apps on the App Store?
Why do iPhone App Store ratings and reviews seem to get processed so slowly?

I believe if you put star ratings in and feel they aren't updating, a request to the iTunes store support team might help unstick a podcast with problems updating. https://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/ and choose Store Support.


Freetype Code Signing Error (Xcode 7.1) App Upload Issue I'm wondering if anyone can fix my problem? I'm trying to upload a project to the App Store. I'm using Xcode 7.1. I'm getting the following error related to code-signing freetype.

CodeSign /Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app
cd /Users/me/Documents/cplusplus/sfml/SFML_App
export CODESIGN_ALLOCATE=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/codesign_allocate

Signing Identity:     "Mac Developer: me (xxxxxxxxxx)"

/usr/bin/codesign --force --sign xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --timestamp=none /Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app

/Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app: code object is not signed at all
In subcomponent: /Users/me/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/SFML_App-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Build/Products/Debug/SFML_App.app/Contents/Frameworks/freetype.framework
Command /usr/bin/codesign failed with exit code 1

Any Ideas on how to fix this?

The error suggests a subcomponent is not signed. Use the --deep flag with codesign:

  --deep

  When signing a bundle, specifies that nested code content such as helpers, frameworks, and
  plug-ins, should be recursively signed in turn. Beware that all signing options you specify
  will apply, in turn, to such nested content.
  When verifying a bundle, specifies that any nested code content will be recursively verified as
  to its full content. By default, verification of nested content is limited to a shallow inves-tigation investigation
  tigation that may not detect changes to the nested code.
  When displaying a signature, specifies that a list of directly nested code should be written to
  the display output. This lists only code directly nested within the subject; anything nested
  indirectly will require recursive application of the codesign command.

Apple's Technical Note 2206: OS X Code Signing in Depth provides more insight.


If I erase all content and settings will I lose my contacts? If I erase all content and settings will I lose my contacts?

The answer depends on where the contacts are stored.

If the contacts are stored in iCloud, you will not lose the contacts. Log in to iCloud and the contacts will be restored.
If the contacts are on your SIM card, you will not lose the contacts. You can re-import the contacts from your SIM card.
If the contacts are stored on your device, you will lose the contacts.


Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server cannot be reached So yesterday I went to sleep and I saw an update. I didn't update since I couldn't be bothered, but when I woke up and turned on my iPhone it said update completed. But when I tried to activate it I get that message. I have an iPhone 7 plus and I've been using it for around 3.3 years. P.S the update I downloaded was IOS 13.3.1

Since you have an iPhone 7/Plus i immidiately suspect one of the many chip problems plauging those two models (actually the problem is with the motherboard substrate itself, I think).

If it is this one problem, you can find out by jumping to the initial "Hello" screen after the update, if you have that, and selecting the info i in a small circle in the bottom right corner. It will show you various hardware parameters of your phone, such as the serial number. It should also show the IMEI and a few others it gets from the mobile network chip (as far as I understand).

If it is unable to retrieve one or more of these parameters from the hardware, which is a common affliction of the iPhone 7 series, you will not see them in that info screen and it will not be able to activate, and you might get the error you are reporting, despite it managing to reach the activation server. The problem is rather that it doesn't manage to give the activation server the info it is requesting.

If you find that this is indeed the case, nobody is able to fix your phone but Apple, but you might be able to get a free service if you can convince them that it is the same problem essentially (which it is), as the one they have a free program for: https://support.apple.com/iphone-7-no-service


How can I get music in other languages from the iTunes Store on my iPhone? So, I have English iTunes and I wanted to get a Spanish song. Is there a way I could change the iTunes store I am using to get it and then change it back or something?

There is an option in iTunes to choose Latino music.

See the picture below (I'm on iTunes 11).


What should I do after I lost my MacBook data? I lost my data on my Mac and now I don't know how to recover it. Do I have to go to a recover shop and pay for the costly recovery?

It depends on what condition the hard drive is in, if the drive is still at least partially working and can be connected and recognized by a computer, your in luck and you should be able to do your own recovery. Note that the drive does not have to be mountable it has to be able to show up in Disk Utility. If there was a mechanical or electrical controller failure with the storage drive then a recovery shop is the answer.

A Do it yourself solution if the drive is not dead

If you are using the drive to boot from, stop. Don't use the drive anymore until you have performed a recovery of the data.
If you don't have a external hard drive that you can boot from to do the recovery I recommend getting one, you can use it as your backup drive later. For now install SnowLeopard or Lion onto it, then boot up from it. Make sure it will be big enough to hold all the files you may want to recover including the size of OS X on the drive you are recovering data too.
Obtain a software recovery tool, I have used Data Rescue with great success several times in the past year. Additionally it is available at a great price Data Rescue at the Mac App Store, its cheaper since you can't recover from a hard drive you are booted from. This is not a problem, since besides one should not really recover onto a potentially failing drive or a drive where one accidentally deleted stuff.
Perform the recovery and save the recovered files onto your clean external drive you are booted from.
Recover and salvage whatever lost files you want to keep.


External Disk Capacity for Time Machine I have a 500 GB hard drive in my iMac, and I am planning to buy a new external hard drive to use for Time Machine. I don't know if Time Machine synchronizes, or something else.

What size external drive should I get for Time Machine?

The Time Machine drive should be equal to or larger than the drive that it backs up. TM images the drive completely, then saves incremental changes. Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month.

If your internal is 500GB with 100GB free (using 400GB), and your TM is 500GB, then you will get a full image, and then some amount of history (filling up the remaining 100GB of the TM disk). The history length depends on your use habits.

Change a few small files occasionally? Lots of history.
Change lots of big files a lot? Then the 100GB free will save a few hours or days.

If you have a bigger TM, you will have a longer history to browse.

I personally have a mostly full internal, an equal sized TM, and change files quite often, and find that I usually have a few months of history. Plenty of time to restore a file I accidentally delete.


Perpetual Reboot / Kernel Panic MacBook Pro5,3 (mid '09), with 1TB 7200 HD, OS 10.10.2 at first had an unresponsive display upon opening lid / waking. Only holding power down for 10sec to reboot snapped it out. Day later it started going into a constant reboot cycle, either with a 6-language message on a gray screen, or simply a Mac boot chord, followed by black apple on gray screen, and a progress bar that seems to only get to a third, before kernel panic occurs. It just reboots itself. Every 10th or so cycle, the OS actually boots up. It has booted in Safe Boot more frequently. Reinstalled OS. Same problem. Ran Geekbench - awful results on read / write, and other HD related functions. Graphics and memory - average. After frequently getting to Safe Boot, decided to zero-write and clean install. Same problem. Problem seems to be tied in with "sleep" function. No Mac repair person has been able to isolate the issue, they are all puzzled and just say "get logic board replaced". In verbose mode, it most often hangs during the "fsck_hfs" or just after "Previous Shutdown Cause: 3", "DSMOS has arrived" and "Sandbox: denying permissions, but not always, it's a different line almost every time. It says "removed 5 orphaned files", but sometimes 4 or 1 file.

Thermal Sensor? Fans do blast like crazy. Makes no sense to do a costly Logic Board swap on a 6 year old machine, does it?

Thanks!

If it most often hangs during fsck then I would lean pretty hard towards it being a drive failure. Also, resetting the PMU could be worth a shot. Does the battery hold a charge?

If so, shut down, unplug from charger, wait 5 minutes, seriously wait 5 minutes, then boot from the battery. shut down after boot, reconnect your power adapter. Boot. Notice I wrote shut down specifically and not re-boot. Give that a try.

As far as the fans going full blast- this is normal for safe mode boot.


Fantastical: how to add alerts/reminders in text I'm a big Fantastical fan, but I can't work out the syntax to add a reminder/alert to a new event:
For example:

  Lunch with John at 12:00, alert 15 min before

should give an event with the title "Lunch with John", at 12 o'clock today, and add an alert 15 min before. But it doesn't :)
I tried a lot of different combinations to no avail.

According to some blog post this should be working:
http://flexibits.com/blog/2012/05/1-3-add-reminders-to-fantastical/

Any clue anyone?

Thanks!

From the same blog post:

  If you’d like to force Fantastical to create a reminder regardless of what you enter, you can start a sentence with “reminder”, “todo”, “task”, or “√” (⌥ option + V).

Also…

  You can quickly set the priority of a new reminder by adding exclamation points to the end of your reminder. More exclamation points will increase the priority of the reminder.


How can I turn on the Intel HD manually? For some weeks my MacBook 6.2 does not switch to the integrated graphics adapter (Intel HD). This is especially crucial when I work on battery (which happens quite often). I guess the runtime could be enhanced when it would take the HD adapter for display.

I checked that it automatically changes the graphics mode. I am running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

I recently installed 8GiB RAM (not from Apple). Could this probably related to this issue? Actually I do not want to downgrade or use the expensive Apple RAM.

So, how can I manually turn on the internal graphics adapter?

gfxCardStatus will let you choose which Graphic Card to use. It has three modes:

Dynamic Switching: An alias for the built-in automatic graphics switching feature in OS X.
Integrated Only: Forces the more battery-friendly graphics on and disallows automatic switching.
Discrete Only: Forces the more power-hungry graphics on and disallows automatic switching.


Can I leave Family sharing on one device while staying on the other? I'd like my MacBook to stay on the family plan while removing my iPhone from the family plan. Both of these devices are under the same Apple ID. Can this be done?

Family sharing membership is attached with Apple ID not with individual device(s). If you remove an Apple ID from family sharing, it is applicable everywhere that Apple ID is being used.


U.S. vs. Canadian English keyboard What is the difference between an US and a Canadian English keyboard layout? Could you give a visual comparison?

There's no difference except for the flag icon.  It is presumably there so that Canadians don't have to be looking at the US flag all the time to type their language.  The same holds for ABC, which is the same as US but no flag at all, for the rest of the world.

Unfortunately Apple does not document anywhere the dozens of different software keyboards/input sources which it provides.


Mac Infection via Website Visiting? Is it possible for a mac to get infected by just visiting a URL?

I was searching for someone's profile when suddenly the URL browser showed a couple of re-directions and then my macbook started beeping.

Ever since, the ActivityMonitor is also showing high cpu activity...

I do not wish to download any mac cleaners or other software, but I wonder if I could check my mac myself to see if there is malicious software or something like that?

Are there any folders I should look at to see if there is something in them that is not supposed to be there?

Yes it’s possible, no it’s not likely.

You should do one of three things:

get malware anti bytes for Mac and scan for malware
make your user non administrator if you might be browsing places you don’t trust
reinstall the os if you feel you are very compromised and possibly get help from someone on cleaning

Chances are, a reboot is all you need to do unless beeping and high cpu persist.


Which MacBook Air models use an SSD compatible with my mid-2013 11" A1465? I got a damaged MacBook Air for free a few years ago with the screen not working and the SSD missing. I got it fixed and working with a USB3 external drive and it's been great for years.
Now I'm shopping for a secondhand internal SSD replacement. I know these machines used proprietary SSDs and they varied a lot from model to model.
Most people that sell these privately just list what model the part is from. So I need to know which other models used the same part as mine.
The specs of my MacBook:

Mid-2013
11" non-Retina
Core i5
model A1465

I've found some sites that let me identify my machine and tell me which original or which 3rd party SSDs will fit. But I can't seem to find which other MacBook Air models used the same SSDs.
Armed with this knowledge I'll be able to hunt in my local equivalent of Craigslist.

This web article gives everything you every wanted to know about Apple SSDs.
https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-guide-to-specs-and-upgrades
Your model came with an Apple "Generation 3" SSD, used in Mid-2013 to Late 2014 models*, with a 12+16 pin connector; but it can take the faster 'Generation 4' modules found in 2015 Macs. Gen 4 modules are identifiable by the code SSUBX.
( * The Mid-2015 iMac is a Gen 3 outlier.)
Note that there are now third-party modules, made by companies like OWC, which claim to be faster than the OEM parts.


Mail opens a window randomly in split screen with my fullscreen window I haven't been interacting with Mail for half an hour, but suddenly it opens its main window in split screen with the fullscreen video player that I'm watching. This happens every other day.

I can't really say if this only happens when Mail is running, since it's hard to check that after the fact. Assuming it only happens when Mail is running, can something be done other than making the habit of always quitting Mail as soon as possible? Is there some hidden feature triggering this?

I've been having the exact same problem for a while - particularly interesting while I'm trying to watch netflix!

I found a checkbox option in the Mail->Preferences tab which says "Prefer opening messages in split view when in full screen" (see screenshot). I've unchecked that so here's hoping it solves the problem!

If it doesn't, I've seen a few other posts about this suggesting that the fact that it pops up at all is something to do with Google Calendar if you have any Google accounts assigned to your mailboxes. See if this link helps you if so!

.


Clicking bookmarks in Google Chrome will blink twice before the website opens I have a problem with my 2016 MBP. The problem is, when I click bookmarks in Google Chrome, the bookmark will quickly blink twice before opening the website.

I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.3 and Google Chrome version 56 (although it doesn't seem to matter).

What's the problem? Should I go to fix my MBP, or is this normal for MacOS?

That's just a normal visual indication that your click was registered. Same thing happens for standard macOS menu entries when clicked, although they will only blink once.


I am not able to delete single text messages in a conversation since updating to iOS 8 Before iOS 8 I could click on a text, get the More option and see a trash can on the bottom of the screen. This would allow me to delete a single text from a conversation.

Now there is only a camera in the place the trash can used to be. I have reset my phone and the trash can comes back, but only briefly. Today I totally erased my phone and the ability to delete single text messages from a conversation still does not last more than a few texts.

Is there a way to make this feature persist?

If you double-tap on a message rather than single-tap, up pops a "Copy/More..." selector, and hitting "More..." gives you the trash and forwarding arrow icons (along with the ability to select other messages to delete at the same time.)

If the icons do not apear, or if they stop apearing, there is something not working the way it does for me. Some people find that the icons re-appear after a restart (if only for a short time). Perhaps completely "quitting" the application would help? If you double-click on the home button, and then "upswipe" the Messages window does that have any effect when Messages is re-started?


Figure out used swap from command line? When looking at the Activity Monitor it says that I am using 459.5MB of swap.
I would like to figure this number out from the command line.
I have been able to duplicate all the other memory numbers presented by the Activity Monitor using vm_stat, but now I want swap usage as well.
Help?

You can get the current swap usage on the command line by running the following command:
sysctl vm.swapusage

It will output something similar to:
vm.swapusage: total = 4096.00M  used = 2743.50M  free = 1352.50M  (encrypted)

The number in "used" should correspond with the number you've circled in Activity Monitor.


iPad 2 downloaded iOS 6 trouble with downloading apps I have upgraded to iOS 6 now every time I try to download a new app it asks my password and then asks me to set up security questions when I finish and hit one it tells me it timed out. I have tried the reset in Settings > General. This did not resolve the problem!

Set up your Security Questions and answers online at https://appleid.apple.com . Applies to the App Store too - it's all one.


Hide the clock on the iPhone 6+ lockscreen Is there no way to hide the clock on the iPhone 6+ lock screen?

This is not possible without jailbreaking.


Virtualization of OSX: Read-only main VM, delta stored separately? I would like to have a (Mountain) Lion VM that I configure in a specific way, and store that in a particular place on the the system hard drive. This is simple enough.

However, I would also like VMWare Fusion to not write to that VM disk (making it essentially read-only), but only store the delta of the changes in a particular file that I specify. I would be ok using Fusion's snapping functionality if it can provide this feature. I'd also be willing to look into other virtualization solution, but already own Fusion.

My ultimate goal for this is: I'd like to have the delta stored on a mounted ramdisk (tmpfs).

Is this possible?

Regarding the mounted ramdisk (tmpfs), it is possible, see some example:

$ hdid -nomount ram://256000  # 256000 (sector) * 512 (bytes/sector)
/dev/disk1
$ newfs_hfs /dev/disk1
Initialized /dev/rdisk1 as a 125 MB HFS Plus volume
$ mkdir /tmp/space
$ mount -t hfs /dev/disk1 /tmp/space
...
...
$ umount /tmp/space/
$ hdiutil detach /dev/disk1
"disk1" unmounted.
"disk1" ejected.


Terminal Errors When Using 'defaults' I am trying to use

  defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

in my terminal but when I do I get the following error:

  -bash: defaults: command not found

Any ideas as to what may be causing this issue and how to resolve it?

Turns out my .bash_profile got corrupted. I went in via text edit and modified it to revert it to the default settings and all is well again


How to "print" a web page to a PDF in Safari on iOS (iPad)? In Google Chrome it is possible to Print... > Google Cloud Print > Save to Google Drive > ... This seems to work like a charm.

I would like to do the same thing in Safari. "Printing" a website to a PDF on some cloud service (e.g., Dropbox). Is this possible? For example, is it possible to add a cloud server to the Print > Select Printer list?

(I have tried a bookmarklet approach before, but I don't fancy that.)

This is now possible on iOS 10 (and possibly earlier). It works for anything that can be printed

Tap the Share button (in Mail, this is in the Reply button)
Then Print
Now, pinch to zoom the preview (or with 3D touch, pop) to get a full-screen view of the print preview. This is actually a PDF of the view and has its own share pane, so you can, for example, email the PDF.


Mac not bootable, save files with other mac I am looking for a way to recover files from a Mac. Following facts:

The files I want to recover are on Mac #2.
I have another Mac if I need it.
Mac #2 no longer turns on. It no longer boots up. It powers up, but it won't come to the login.
On the Mac that works, I can't enable FileVault. I can't because it's a company laptop and without the admin password that goes through the Apple ID, I can't turn on FileVault. However, I think FileVault should actually be enabled on the broken MacBook? It probably isn't.
It's really just about a file that is in the home directory.
the Macbook is already a bit older. It should be around 2015.

Now the following questions:

Would it be possible for me to take the hard drive out of the broken Macbook and connect it externally to the working Mac and have access that way? And if so, can I then access the files at all? It is possible that they are encrypted.
When I turn on the mac in recovery mode and do "reinstall macos", will the personal files be deleted?

Or in general, what can I do? Time Machine is probably not an option.

Edit
The file is extremely important and of high value. Also, I have a lot of knowledge in Linux. So I can practically handle very well the shell of the laptop and then drag files to a USB if this were possible.

The more valuable the files, the slower you should be and refrain from trying command line tools on your only copy of the drive. Test with a rented Mac first to be sure you have control of the system and tools you’re using. That being said, here is general advice for anyone needing data recovery:

You can take a Mac to Apple for repair and ask they transfer the data to a drive you supply. (Pay the pros - get data maybe and a working Mac back)
You can destroy data by mounting a drive in Target Disk mode if you don’t prevent the second system from running a filesystem check. (The filesystem assumes you have a backup and restores consistency, rolling back changes and orphaning files if needed to provide a sane filesystem that accounts for space. It doesn’t set out to destroy data, but it can in some cases make things worse - why risk it?)
You can get a file recovery specialist to get your data, and save the repair expense (Pay the pros to get the data - fix the Mac later)
Reputable vendors like OWC will help you determine how feasible a storage swap is. Figure out precisely what storage costs and what surgery entails and you could be $20 of parts to remove the storage and safely try to recover files. (Pay for software and support once you run the free trial. Spend time learning)

If care to preserve the data, try booting your old Mac in target disk mode but use a write block tool like Data Rescue to safely scan the old Mac and see what is retrievable rather than letting the OS “repair” the drive.

https://www.prosofteng.com/
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/transfer-files-mac-computers-target-disk-mode-mchlp1443/mac

I would exhaust all options before working on an Apple portable or try a DIY recovery effort using non-paid tools if you care about getting valuable data off. If you just want to learn and the data is low value, dive right in with https://ifxit.com and disk drill or dd - both of those are amazing tools at a low price to obtain, but in skilled or unskilled hands alike are also known as the data destroyers.


Mac OS X Lion to mountain lion upgrade failed "NO Recovery" I'm trying to upgrade from OS X Lion 10.7.5 to Mountain Lion. The installation failed with a message stated something about "no recovery" and a link to Apple site with Recovery update. I downloaded the update, but it could not run.  Currently, my system is not at the state it was before I started the whole thing.  For example, Safari, Disk Utilities, Startup Disk, Security (firewall setting tool), etc. could not start.  Also, I used to connect to a NAS smb drive, but it does not show up now. Some other third party apps still work fine, Firefox, etc.

Apparently the upgrade process did not do a rollback when it failed.

So, what are my options?

Edit:  I found this article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718 that shows you how to fix this.  But it requires the use of Disk Utilities to create an external recovery partition but my Disk Utilities currently would not run.

Have you attempted to boot into safe mode and run the recovery update in safe mode?

You can boot into safe mode by holding down the left shift key.

Full details here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455


Reset iPhone 5s (iOS 8.4) WITHOUT updating iOS I own an old iPhone 5s. It hasn't been hooked up with a carrier for a year and a half. I wish to reset it to get all my personal data, contacts, etc. off and then give it to a new user. I want the phone to continue using iOS 8.4. I DO NOT want ios to update to a newer version when the new user connects the phone to a carrier.

Q: If I reset the phone via Settings, will iOS 8.4 remain on the phone after reset? And, if so, will it remain on the phone after a new carrier is set upfor the device?

Yes, if you reset from settings you’ll stay in your current version. You’re also fine to connect to a carrier, you will not be automatically updated. You may be prompted to perform a carrier settings update but that will not change your iOS version.


How to fix corrupt keychain permissions I have change permission of /var location by mistake with 777 and  now my Keychain Access not working  fine (i have stop chmod but some file and folder's permission  are  change  )

folder in var location  with permission

drwxr-xr-x   26 root       wheel       884 Jul  8 22:02 .
drwxr-xr-x@   6 root       wheel       204 Jan 23  2015 ..
drwxrwxrwt    3 root       wheel       102 Mar 24  2015 Keychains
drwxrwxrwx    2 root       wheel        68 Sep 10  2014 agentx
drwxrwxrwx    8 daemon     wheel       272 Jan 23  2015 at
drwxrwxrwx  101 root       wheel      3434 Jul  8 20:49 audit
drwxrwxrwx    2 root       wheel        68 Sep 10  2014 backups
drwx------   72 root       wheel      2448 Jul  9 09:19 db
drwxrwxrwx    3 root       sys         102 Jul  9 01:57 empty
drwx------    5 root       wheel       170 Jul  2  2015 folders
drwxrwxrwx    2 _jabber    _jabber      68 Sep 10  2014 jabberd
drwxrwxrwx    3 root       wheel       102 Sep 10  2014 lib
drwxrwxrwx   65 root       wheel      2210 Jul  9 10:46 log
drwxrwxrwx    4 root       wheel       136 Dec 18  2015 logs
drwxrwxrwx    3 root       mail        102 Jul  9 10:50 mail
drwxrwxrwx    3 root       wheel       102 Jan 23  2015 msgs
drwxrwxrwx    2 root       wheel        68 Sep 10  2014 netboot
drwxrwxrwx    2 _networkd  _networkd    68 Sep 10  2014 networkd
drwxrwxrwx   14 root       wheel       476 Jul  8 23:32 root
drwxrwxrwx    4 root       wheel       136 Sep 10  2014 rpc
drwxrwxrwx   30 root       daemon     1020 Jul  9 10:37 run
drwxrwxrwx    2 daemon     wheel        68 Sep 10  2014 rwho
drwxrwxrwx    7 root       wheel       238 Jan 23  2015 spool
drwxrwxrwt   31 root       wheel      1054 Jul  9 10:54 tmp
drwxrwxrwx    3 root       wheel       102 Jul  9 01:36 vm
drwxrwxrwx    3 root       wheel       102 Sep 10  2014 yp

login and system Keychain are in  read-only with not item display

when i try to first ads then

Repair started
Checking keychain configuration for patel (user ID=501)
Home directory is /Users/patel
Checked login keychain
Unable to open ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain (-25312)
Renamed /Users/patel/Library/Keychains/login.keychain to /Users/patel/Library/Keychains/login_renamed.keychain
Repair terminated unexpectedly

when try to reset then

A Module Directory Service error has occurred.

when try to create new keychain  then

An error occurred while creating a new keychain.

and some time i have got

"Unapproved Caller", "SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple Software".

any help to restore var folder permission

Make sure /Library/Keychains/System.keychain has correct permissions set.

Here is default permissions for /Library/Keychains folder on my Mac:

drwxr-xr-x    9 root  wheel   306 10 Jul 20:03 Keychains

and default permissions for /Library/Keychains/System.keychain

-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  124000  7 Jul 05:38 System.keychain

Also check permissions for your user keychain folder, mine are for the folder ~/Library/Keychains/:

drwxr-xr-x    9 username  staff    306 10 Jul 21:49 Keychains

and the user keychains itself:

drwx------  7 username  staff      238 25 Mar 13:36 A2676C22-A84E-5B3D-8711-0264BC3C8B96
-rw-r--r--  1 username  staff      277 21 Mar 07:28 E41FE5C0-3020-48C9-8829-344FF3E86407

Here is the default permission for /var on my Mac.

lrwxr-xr-x@   1 root  wheel    11 14 Jan 15:39 var -> private/var

Here are the default permissions for everything inside of my /var folder.

drwx------     2 root       wheel          68 24 Oct  2015 agentx
drwxr-xr-x     8 daemon     wheel         272 14 Jan 13:00 at
drwx------  7107 root       wheel      241638 10 Jul 20:03 audit
drwx------     2 root       wheel          68 16 Sep  2015 backups
drwxr-xr-x    77 root       wheel        2618 10 Jul 20:03 db
drwxr-x---     3 _dovecot   mail          102  9 Mar 12:12 dovecot
drwxr-xr-x     2 root       sys            68 16 Sep  2015 empty
drwxr-xr-x     7 root       wheel         238  4 Jun 10:47 folders
drwxr-x---     3 _jabber    _jabber       102  9 Mar 12:12 jabberd
drwxr-xr-x     3 root       wheel         102  1 Aug  2015 lib
drwxr-xr-x   106 root       wheel        3604 10 Jul 20:03 log
drwxrwxr-x     2 root       mail           68 16 Sep  2015 mail
drwxr-xr-x     3 root       wheel         102 16 Sep  2015 msgs
drwxr-xr-x     2 root       wheel          68 16 Sep  2015 netboot
drwxr-xr-x     5 _networkd  _networkd     170 25 Mar 18:36 networkd
drwxrwxr-x     2 _postgres  _postgres      68 27 May 09:22 pgsql_socket
drwxr-x---     6 root       wheel         204 27 May 09:22 root
drwxr-xr-x     4 root       wheel         136 24 Oct  2015 rpc
drwxrwxr-x    49 root       daemon       1666 10 Jul 21:29 run
drwxr-xr-x     2 daemon     wheel          68 16 Sep  2015 rwho
drwxr-xr-x    37 root       wheel        1258 10 Jul 21:29 servermgrd
drwxr-xr-x     7 root       wheel         238 14 Jan 13:01 spool
drwxrwxrwt    16 root       wheel         544 10 Jul 21:29 tmp
drwxr-xr-x     4 root       wheel         136 10 Jul 20:32 vm
drwxr-xr-x     3 root       wheel         102 16 Sep  2015 yp


What happens to MY music if I join a new Family Sharing account My wife already has an iTunes account with her own music library.  She also wants access to my music library.  If I set up Family Sharing and invite her, will she lose her music or will the iPhone display both music from her personal account library AND my account library?  Thanks!

Family Sharing allows all members to access Apps, Books, Tunes etc purchased by all members [though not the 'data content' of any App, so for instance each member's level on Angry Birds, or whatever would not cross-pollinate]. It will also add a shared calendar for which usage is optional.

It doesn't share anything else. It also doesn't delete anything, only adds.

If your iTunes Library contains CD rips or music not purchased directly via your iTunes account, that would not be available to other family members, you would have to copy it to their Mac/PC/iTunes manually.


0:00 appears in my message bar on a grey shadow How do I get rid of a symbol that keeps appearing in my message box. It is on a grey base with 0:00 so when you type your message you can't see what you typing

I got rid of mine by restarting my iPhone.

To add more description to the problem, It looks as if the area where I enter text has a voice memo with a duration of 0:00 where the text field should be. If I want to send a text I can still get a keyboard and I can still type a message, but the message I type is obscured by the grey, voice memo "box" until I hit "send." The text sends but the voice memo box remains.

Go to settings.  go to messages.  Toggle "show subject field".  Go back out to the main screen.  Go to settings again.  Go to messages.  Toggle "show subject field" again.  Go back out to the main screen.  It should be fixed.

Furthermore, the voice memo shows up in the text field of all of my text conversations.


Make OS X El Capitan announce time only when screen is unlocked or during night time I use the incredibly useful feature on OS X to announce time on the hour for my time management by checking the option in Date & Time preferences.

However, the time announcements keep going on during the night unless I shutdown my iMac (which I don't want to). Is there a way to silence it during night time or to make it not announce time when the screen is locked?

I know there was a related question for OS X Lion but posting this to see if there is a better/different solution for El Capitan.

Do you have 'Do Not Distrub' mode set on?
Go to System Preferences -> Notifications and set up as needed.


Arranging an external monitor for Macbook Air I connected an external monitor to my Macbook Air, and arranged it above the MBA display. See this screen arrangement.

In the above screenshot, the up-display is the external display, and the down-display is the MBA display.

I want to use the MBA display for my main working display, and occasionally put some reference windows in the external display. So, I want the menubar stay in the MBA display.

The problem is that dragging a window from the MBA display to the external display does not move it. If a windows is somehow placed in the external display, I can drag it down to the MBA display.

How can I move a window from the MBA display to the external display?

I tried to arrange the displays physically up and down, but in the OS side by side. It is so confusing. So, I would opt out such an option.

When dragging the window upward towards the top display, it will appear to be blocked by the menu bar.

The solution is to keep dragging upward through the menu bar, and after a slight delay, the window will appear in the top display.