Audio book just becomes silent on iPhone after a few hours, no issue with desktop player I built an Audio Book (an M4B) file from a set of MP3 files. The result lasts 18h30, and was encoded using Free MP3 to Audio Book Converter. The resulting file uses AAC version 4 - LC - SBR.

When reading this file with Windows Media Player, I encounter no issue.  But on the iPhone (a 3GS running iOS 4.0.1), the sound just abruptly stops at after a few hours (approx. 5 hours), always at the same place: the player still plays the file, but it emits no sound. Another file, encoded the same way, gave me the same problem: at some point, the sound just stops.

Previous audio books that I had built had no such issue. They last around 10 hours, which is still more than the time at which the two problematic files stop.

Any idea about what could be going on?  Is it not possible to reliably build large audio books for the iPhone?

[EDIT] I just tried to delete the book from the iPhone, and download it again.  Noticed two things: while the length displayed on the book library is 26h36m43, the length displayed in the player itself is only 13h15m21 (one half)...  Other thing is that now, it stops after only a few minutes...

[EDIT] An audio book I converted with the same program is available here (290MB). On my iPhone, all sounds disappear at 30m57s.  I uploaded it twice, with the same result.

It may have been an issue with that iOS version, or the conversion program itself.

Ultimately, however, now that iOS 14 will be released this year, this question is largely unnecessary in 2020 and beyond.


Reset iPhone without iTunes or iCloud? I need to reset an iPhone. My grandmother somehow locked her iPhone with a pin and no one knows the code. I have a backup of her phone in my iTunes but I need to reset the phone before I can restore that backup.

When I attempt to restore the phone it tells me it has a problem downloading the software. I've tried on multiple computers. There isn't an iCloud account for this phone so I cannot reset it using that method.

How do I reset the phone so I can restore it and get it working again?

It's an iPhone SE running the latest iOS.

If, as you say, there is no iCloud account associated with that phone then restoring it using the DFU method should work. (This method applies when iPhone is on and plugged into a Mac with iTunes open)

Hold down the Power and Home buttons on the iPhone until the screen goes black
Continue holding Power and Home for two seconds after the screen goes black and then release the Power button, while still holding Home
iTunes will display a message saying it has detected a device in DFU mode (or recovery mode) and will give you an option to restore it. Release the buttons.

If you're having issues with the actual download of the IPSW file itself then that'll be either your internet having issues with the download or Apple's software server having issues with delivering it.


Command works when run from alias but not when typed? I use to type this command a lot :

sshfs 10.xxx.xx.4:/Users/username/code mountpoint

So one day i put it as an alias on my .bash_profile as

alias sshfs='sshfs 10.xxx.xx.4:/Users/username/code mountpoint'

and started to use the alias all the time

i have noticed that now after a few months if i copy/type the command directly into the terminal i get "Fuse: invalid argument" error but if i continue to use the alias it works fine.

What's going on here?

Always use a different name for your alias. For example (one of mine):

alias ipex='curl -s http://ipecho.net/plain'

Or, in your case:

alias s4='sshfs 10.xxx.xx.4:/Users/username/code mountpoint'
alias s8='sshfs 10.xxx.xx.8:/Users/username/code mountpoint'

and so on.

You may use more complex aliases, or even personal functions used inside aliases, for example when you need to pass a parameter inside the command, not at the end (as to provide a changing IP address to your alias), but it is probably a bit too much depending on your question.

Anyway, this is one of mine, again:

# Delete an existing alias, but only if it exists in order to avoid an error:
dont_alias() {
    alias $1 >/dev/null 2>&1 && unalias $1
    return $?
} # dont_alias

Then I use dont_alias as an alias, for example:

dont_alias s4 # Will unalias the existing s4
dont_alias s7 # Will do nothing

The only difference with aliases is that functions do not appear in the list of (existing) aliases.

I have a few more complex samples (that I use daily), if some people are interested. Please feel free to ask for — I do my best to come here every few days :^)


Is it possible to compose Mac OS Mail in an external editor? For Thunderbird there is the External Editor extension a very very classical piece of software that, when called via a shortcut, pops up your external editor (emacs in my case) and let's you edit your mail there.  While editing the compose window of Thunderbird is blocked.  When the external editor closes, the compose window is populated with the updated text of the mail.  Very convenient to have your mail as one buffer in your emacs, for instance to edit tables, copy computational results, use power editing features like regexp-search-and-replace, etc.

My question: Is it possible to implement the same thing using Mac OS Mail + AppleScript or other tricks?

I recently got my first Mac and was facing the same situation concerning my mail-writing habbits (using Thunderbird with external editor and vi on Linux). So far, I could not find an appropriate answer. Thus I started to look into Applescript.
I would like to enter mail addresses or add attachments in Apple Mail's composer window, while editing the message body in vi. So, I start with a composer window (either for a new mail or with a reply to another email) and when finished with addresses, I close the composer window and save the message as draft.
With the following Applescript script I can then extract addresses, subject, and message body into a textfile and open it with vi:
tell application "Mail"
        # Set global variables.
        set msgfilename to "/Users/me/Documents/message"
        set msgheaderdelimiter to linefeed & "#+#+#+#+#+#This line serves as delimiter for applescript.#+#+#+#+#+#" & linefeed
        set msgdraft to first item of messages of drafts mailbox

        # Open file to edit message.
        try
                set msgfile to open for access msgfilename with write permission
        on error number -49
                say "Error, file already open."
                close access msgfilename
                set msgfile to open for access msgfilename with write permission
        end try
        set eof msgfile to 0

        # Extract information from the message and write it to the file
        set msgrecipients to to recipients of msgdraft
        write "To: " to msgfile as «class utf8»
        repeat with rcp in msgrecipients
                set addr to address of rcp
                write addr to msgfile as «class utf8»
                write "," to msgfile as «class utf8»
        end repeat
        write linefeed & "CC: " to msgfile starting at -1 as «class utf8»
        set msgrecipients to cc recipients of msgdraft
        repeat with rcp in msgrecipients
                set addr to address of rcp
                write addr to msgfile as «class utf8»
                write "," to msgfile as «class utf8»
        end repeat
        write linefeed & "Subject: " to msgfile starting at -1 as «class utf8»
        set msgsubject to subject of msgdraft
        write msgsubject to msgfile starting at eof as «class utf8»
        set msgcontent to content of msgdraft
        write msgheaderdelimiter to msgfile as «class utf8»
        write msgcontent to msgfile starting at eof as «class utf8»
        close access msgfile
        delete msgdraft
end tell

# Start gvim with the prepared message file
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/gvim /Users/me/Documents/message"

After editing the message body, I save the textfile and close vi. With the following script, I can then open a new message composer window with the information from the textfile:
tell application "Mail"
        # Set global variables.
        set fillinToAddresses to false
        set fillinCCAddresses to false
        set defaultDelimiters to AppleScript's text item delimiters
        set msgfilename to "/Users/me/Documents/message"
        set msgheaderdelimiter to linefeed & "#+#+#+#+#+#This line serves as delimiter for applescript.#+#+#+#+#+#" & linefeed

        # Open file to create outgoing message.
        set msgfile to open for access msgfilename
        set fields to read msgfile from 1 for 10000 using delimiter linefeed as «class utf8»
        # Extract To addresses
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
        set bufferarray to every text item of item 1 of fields
        if (count of bufferarray) = 2 then
                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ","
                set msgtoaddresses to every text item of item 2 of bufferarray
                set fillinToAddresses to true
        end if
        # Extract CC addresses
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
        set bufferarray to every text item of item 2 of fields
        if (count of bufferarray) = 2 then
                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ","
                set msgccaddresses to every text item of item 2 of bufferarray
                set fillinCCAddresses to true
        end if
        # Extract subject
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "Subject: "
        set bufferarray to every text item of item 3 of fields
        set msgsubject to item 2 of bufferarray as «class utf8»
        # Extract mail body
        set buffer1 to read msgfile from 1 for 10000 as «class utf8»
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to msgheaderdelimiter
        set buffer2 to every text item of buffer1
        set msgbody to item 2 of buffer2

        # Create outgoing message object
        set newmsg to make new outgoing message
        tell newmsg
                if fillinToAddresses then
                        repeat with addr in msgtoaddresses
                                make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:addr}
                        end repeat
                end if
                if fillinCCAddresses then
                        repeat with addr in msgccaddresses
                                make new cc recipient at end of cc recipients with properties {address:addr}
                        end repeat
                end if
                set the subject to msgsubject
                set the content to msgbody
        end tell

        # Close file
        close access msgfile
end tell

Now, I would add attachments and send the mail.
There are obviously still some weaknesses: The BCC and reply-to fields are still missing, but can easily be added. A bit worse, attachments are lost, when switching from the message composer to vi and back. It would be desired, that the new message composer window is opened automatically as vi is closed, without a manual script start as above. So, I am not completely happy with it yet, but maybe it's a starting point where some more advanced users can add improvements.


Is there a way to see which contacts are "VIPs" outside of Mail.app? Obviously, with Mountain Lion, users may define VIPs in Apple’s Mail.app. I would like to see which contacts are marked as VIPs outside of Mail – for example in Contacts.app (smart list??), or in Terminal. Is there a way to do so?

Seems to be listed here.

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/VIPSenders.plist

defaults read ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/VIPSenders.plist Senders

I only know how to narrow it down to the nested names in applescript. But you can use the applescript from terminal.

/usr/bin/osascript -e "tell app \"System Events\" to (get value of property list item \"Name\" of property list items of property list item \"Senders\" of property list file  \"~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/VIPSenders.plist\") "


Mac Mail has very slow to send/receive mail (plus other bugs too) It's been worse since Yosemite.

From the same exchange account (office365) I will send and receive emails instantly on my phone, but they will take several minutes through the app.

Loading existing conversations also often takes a long time.

Conversations often get jumbled up and emails that don't belong will be added to a conversation.

And finally accepting event invitations is a little messed up. I click accept and nothing happens. Then a few minutes later the email will dissapear and the event will appear in the calendar.

I am having these issues on both my laptops.

I've tried offlining and enabling the account. Also tried reindexing.

Does anyone know if these are just Yosemite bugs? Or is there somethinng I can do to fix it?

Thanks!

I also had extremely slow mail using Yosemite until I did this:

From the Mail menu, click Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors

Drafts:

Store draft messages on the server > leave unchecked

Sent:

Store sent messages on the server > leave unchecked

Junk:

Store junk messages on the server > checked
Delete junk messages when > Never

Trash:

Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox > leave unchecked
Store deleted messages on the server > leave unchecked


Why Time Machine can't make first copy if lid is closed? The Situation: MacBook (Pro or Air, no difference) can't makes first copy to Time Capsule disk if:

Power Nap is switched on.
Power cord is plugged on.
Disk on Mac is SSD.
I start copy via Time Machine, it starts normally.
I close the lid, wait 10 minutes, open the lid and see that copy process fails.

If lid is open, copy process run normally.

The situation is true for number of laptops, 2015, 2016, Pro or Air. Always all software are updated.

Apple tech support (via phone and chat) told that it is recommended to not close the lid. If I ask "why, what prevents Power Nap to make the copy" no certain answers. Only, "we advise you". There are no certain article about this process.

Question: Why should the first copy be done with lid opened (not put to sleep)?

When you perform an initial Time Machine backup, it is making a backup of everything which may (read that as more than likely) take a long time.  Subsequent backups are only files that have changed and these are, most often, very small changes.

Your first backup
The first time you back up your Mac with Time Machine, it might take a
long time to complete. This is because Time Machine copies most or
all of the data on your Mac to your first backup. You can keep using
your Mac while Time Machine works in the background to back up your
data.
After the first backup is complete, Time Machine works in the
background to back up only files that have changed since your last
backup. This means your next backup is usually faster.

When your Mac is sleeping with Power Nap enabled, Time Machine backups are attempted at 1 hour intervals.

Time Machine backups are attempted hourly until a successful backup
has been completed.

This interval based backup is designed to backup the minor changes.  The first backup is much, much larger and requires more resources. This also tells you why after 10 minutes it "failed" - it's an hourly process.  Remember, you're putting it to sleep, meaning it's not going to run at full speed until it finishes something; it's going to going to attempt things at regular intervals until it either done or it wakes up.
If Apple is advising you that you don't put your Mac to sleep during your first backup, you should heed their advice.


Start/Stop Internet Sharing via Terminal in Yosemite without AppleScript Okay, I see this question has been asked a few times before (here, here, here and here), but none of those really answer the question for me.

I don't want to use the AppleScript suggestions provided to enable/disable Internet Sharing since future updates to the System Preferences GUI may break the AppleScript, as was the case in the linked posts above, and the solution seems a little clumsy, to be honest.

On Yosemite, sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.InternetSharing.plist no longer works as there's no longer a .plist called InternetSharing.

I tried
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.nat NAT -dict-add Enabled -int 1
which I saw somewhere else, but that only toggles the actual checkbox in System Preferences and doesn't actually enable IS.

So ultimately, my question is this. What processes do I have to call from the command line to enable Internet Sharing, or conversely, what processes do I have to kill to disable Internet Sharing?

I stumbled across a seemingly stupidly easy way to enable/disable Internet Sharing the other day. There's just a bit of prep work to be done first.

Open System Preferences > Network
Highlight the interface you want to share your connection FROM and click the gear below the interface list
Select 'Duplicate Service...'
Give the duplicated service a name and save it
Set the service to 'DHCP with manual address' (because some DHCP servers will not assign an additional address to a MAC) and input a valid IP

That's the prep work done. Now you just need to change your IS settings to share from the new service instead of the existing one. Then, you can use
networksetup -setnetworkserviceenabled <networkservice> <on off> to toggle the network service you just created on or off. Doing so disables IS as there is no service to receive internet access from, and you still retain access on your machine because there is still an active interface connected to your network!


Does OS X store my complete install history? I'm running 10.6.8 and wondering where my Mac stores my install history -- I'm thinking everything from Ruby gems to full blown web apps. Does such a general file exist?

Look in /var/log for install.log and install.log.[something].bz2.  install.log contains the most current logs; the other files are archives of successively older log files, made whenever each one reached a maximum size.


Where are Photo Booth image files stored in Lion? On Snow Leopard, photos taken with Photo Booth were stored in ~/Pictures/Photo Booth. They were individual image files that could be opened with any image editor. After updating to Lion, when I go to ~/Pictures, I see an icon for Photo Booth Library. When I double-click to open, it just opens Photo Booth with the thumbnail strip along the bottom.

Where are those image files stored now? The whole point of them is to be able to use them for avatars, etc. which I can't do if I can't get at the individual files.

They're stored in ~/Pictures/Photo Booth Library on Lion. This is a package though and you can't just double-click in to the package to see the sub-folders. Double clicking on it will, instead, open Photo Booth.

If you just want to get at the pictures, right-click (or control-click) on the Photo Booth Library package under ~/Pictures and select Show Package Contents from the menu.

Under the package directory you'll see a sub-directory called Pictures -- that's where Photo Booth is keeping your snaps. Change in to there to access the images directly.  Movies are also stored in there (regardless of whether they had any effects applied) as *.mov files.

From within Photo Booth you can also right-click (or control-click) on any image in the bottom bar and select 'Export...' or 'Reveal in Finder' from the pop-up menu to access the image. The former gives you a Save dialog that lets you place the image file in some easily accessible location. The latter opens up that Pictures directory in the package I mentioned above directly in a Finder window.


Is Night Mode in iOS really sight-friendly? I am pretty used right know to reading things on dark backgrounds and I feel that my eyes get less tired than with regular white backgrounds, especially while programming or basically any activity that involves hours looking at the screen.

My question is, on iPad and iPhone, how does Night Mode really work?
I mean, does it iluminate the black pixels on the screen, or does the OS keep them off so that your eyes receive the less amount of light possible?

It could seem to be a little silly, but for me is very important as I use this device for reading a considerable amount of time.

While the display's backlight is always illuminated, a black pixel is blocking nearly all the light from behind it so that in effect your eye does receive much less light. In this case, if you find reading with dark backgrounds easier then Night Mode will be helpful. What you don't get is any energy savings.


Dtrace script newproc.d stopped working after upgrade, because of missing proc:::exec-success probe I'm trying to run:

$ sudo /usr/bin/newproc.d

which suppose to snoop new processes as they are executed, but it fails with the error:

  dtrace: failed to compile script /usr/bin/newproc.d: line 22: probe description proc:::exec-success does not match any probes

This is on OS X 10.11.2 and as far as I remember, this was working before the upgrade.

It seems new OS X doesn't have anymore proc:::exec-success probe as I've checked by:

$ sudo dtrace -l | grep proc:::exec-success

Failing code of that script (note: this was provided by the system, I haven't changed it):

proc:::exec-success
{
  print_pid[pid] = 1; /* This pid emerged from an exec, make a note of that. */
}

Is that probe was removed or renamed to different probe? Maybe I could activate it somehow? Otherwise what I can use instead?

This is probably because of the "Rootless" feature in El Capitan.

You can disable this feature by rebooting into recovery mode and running the command csrutil disable (and you can similarly reenable it with csrutil enable).

There is a great explanation over at this Ask Different question: What is the “rootless” feature in El Capitan, really? The second answer addresses Dtrace directly.


Help! After signing up for Apple Music, 'Media Services' on iPhone is gobbling up all my cellular data despite my settings to not use it I just signed up for the Apple Music service.  I have a fairly large iTunes library.  It did its thing overnight on wifi (or so I thought) and uploaded my library to the cloud from my mac.  Fine.  But today as soon as I left the house my iPhone immediately chewed through 1.5Gigs of data before my carrier luckily shut it down (I have a 1 gig plan).
The usage is all from the 'Media Services' item in system services, but I don't know what that actually is (cellular->System Services->Media Services)

All of the following settings are off and were already off before the data use, what else do I need to do to stop this?

Settings->Music->Use Cellular Data  (off)
Settings->iCloud->iCloud
Drive->Use Cellular Data (off)
Settings->iTunes & App Stores->Use Cellular
Data (off)

Could this have anything todo with iCloud Music Library setting, which I think was turned on for me as part of Apple Music?

After some extensive testing and looking at the data usage time period, I have concluded that I was bitten by the 'wifi assist' feature (which is now set to off).   The massive sync of songs to my device from the cloud was actually when I was or should have been connected to my wifi, and was 'assisted' by my cellular connection, even though that sync would not have been allowed given my settings if just on cellular and not wifi.


How To Give Each User Separate Applications Folder I just got a used Mac mini and am currently setting it up for me and my family to use. Before this, the only Mac in the house was my MacBook Pro and very rarely did anyone else use it, so I had the only account. Now, with the Mac mini, I'm giving all four of us user accounts and come across an annoying issue: we all share the same Applications folder. This is probably to save space on the hard drive, but I hate it.

What I'm looking to accomplish is to give everyone their own Applications folder, completely independent of each other (I can delete an app from my folder, but it will remain in everyone else's). Also, I need any new apps downloaded from the Mac App Store to go to the user's Applications folder, as well, but only to that user's folder. Also, I need each user's Launchpad to only show the apps from their folder.

Terminal commands are fine.

It is easy.

If you download an app from the AppStore, the app will be installed in the /Applications folder by default, if you want to hide it from others, just move it to /Users/someone/Applications/ (which is your own or another users' application folder).

If the app is from a DMG file, just put it into your own (or other user's)
 Applications folder, and do not put it into /Applications folder.

The application would then appear only in someone's Launchpad.


Why is the audio of my MacBook is becoming scratchy? Okay, this is very weird. I've a MacBook Pro Retina 2014 model. It's all going very well. Sadly I've to use it in a dusty area most of the time. I've noticed the quality of the audio (any sound, iTunes, YouTube, etc) is getting really really worse gradually. Lots of buzzing and screeching and it's not as loud anymore!

I usually clean it by vacuuming around the keys and under the screen. I did look up some results online and couldn't find anything useful!
Any help?

A vacuum cleaner can damage the small cones attached to the magnetic cone of a dynamic speaker, like in your MacBook Pro.  Similarly, a can of compressed air can damage the diaphragm.  One reason for buzzy, distorted sound is damage to these speaker components.

https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro-15%22-Retina-Mid-2014

The above iFixit website (with whom I have no affiliation) describes how to tear down your Macbook Pro to see if your speakers are damaged.  They also sell replacement speakers.


Mac mini 2018 hdmi white noise I have 2018 mac mini, just bought it a few days ago, running OS X Mojave. And I have 2 monitors connected to it, 1 through usb-c and 1 through HDMI.

Whenever I wake my computer up from sleep, the monitor connected through usb-c wakes up instantly, but the other one takes a while to wake up. Like I could already be using the left screen and the right one is still black.

I tried plugging a different display to this HDMI port and it's the same story, the monitor takes like 1 minute to start displaying the picture, after I wake my computer from sleep, but, this other monitor instead of just being a black screen displays white noise and then wakes up.

What could be the problem?

There are lots of reports of monitor problems with the 2018 Mini: so many that it seems unlikely to be anything other than a problem with the hardware itself (or specific firmware/software to that model).

I myself see the same problem: white noise on the HDMI-connected monitor after Sleep.

Using 2 TB/USB-c ports rather than one TB/USB-C and one HDMI may be a factor, rather than the cable itself.

It's unknown at this stage whether Apple may be able to fix it (with enough bug reports) in a software update, or whether it's a permanent hardware issue.


iTunes Match and Library on NAS I just got a new MacBookAir for my home. It will primarily be used at home with some occasional use out of the house. I would like to use the iTunes server on my Synology NAS to store a downloaded copy of my iTunes libray for use a time. My understanding is that I can do this by pointing iTunes to the iTunes server directory on my NAS. Here's the issue, I believe that when I am out of the house, it will search for that library and not find it. Will iTunes know to automatically revert to iTunes Match streaming if it can't find the library?

It will not be able to automatically switch. What you'll have to do is create a new iTunes library that is used for streaming only. To do this, open iTunes while holding the Option key. Then selected "Create new library" and name it something different, I used "iTunes Streaming". Then, simply turn on iTunes Match and you'll see all your playlists populate. Once you do this, you'll be able to stream all your music directly from Apple. When you're back home, open iTunes again while holding the Option key and select your original library.


How to use Character Viewer with only keyboard and no mouse? I'm looking for a mouseless/mouse-free solution. And I want to use the whole Character Viewer-- not just certain characters.

I can open the Character Viewer with CTRL+CMD+SPACE, but it doesn't have focus, so it seems I have to use my mouse to select anything inside it.

How can I give that window keyboard focus without using my mouse?

And then how can I copy characters from that window without using my mouse?

The Character Viewer has two states, as seen below.

The complex state, that needs to be clicked first and doesn't seem to allow keyboard-only activation:

The simple state, that gets automatically activated when invoked and is a joy to work with using only the keyboard. Tab key is used to switch between emoji categories:

You can switch between the states by clicking the friendly but almost invisible icon in the top-right corner (don't know what it's called, doesn't have any tooltip).

To summarize, click the friendly icon, activate the Character Viewer, stay with the keyboard.


How can I make Safari show the URL when I hover over a link? Safari 5.0.1 on OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) doesn't seem to have any status bar in which the URL of a link shows when the user moves the cursor over a link (without clicking)   All other browsers I've ever used do this.

Is there a user preference checkbox somewhere for this?

There are two options. One is a setting, and the other is a workaround.

Here are instructions on how to toggle the setting using the Menu Bar:

Go into the View menu.
Select "Show status bar".
Now, there will be a URL that pops up when you hover over a link, and also tells you if it's going to be in a new tab:

You can also press ⌘ + / to toggle this setting at ease.

The second option is a workaround for when you drag links. Here's how to get this feature to appear:

Click and drag the link out of where it will originally appear.
At your mouse will be a small box telling you the title of the new window and its URL, although it may be shortened.
You can also drag the link to the plus sign in your tab list, out of the window, or in a folder/the desktop to open that URL in a new tab, new window or save it to your computer, respectively.


Turn off iCloud Music library on iPhone? I have recently got rid of my Apple Music subscription (and moved to Spotify), as part of my sub I used to use iCloud Music Library. Now with Apple Music gone I want to just sync my library the old way using iTunes however I am shown this screen:

There is no option in Settings > Music to turn off my iCloud Music library on my phone. How can I resolve this?

On your phone, navigate to Settings > Music.  There you will see "Show Apple Music" and "Sync Library".  Make sure both of those are off.  I believe that you will not see iCloud Music Library any longer.


Weather Forecast Doesn't Work The system is Big Sur (11.0.1) and weather forecast widget doesn't work time to time. When it is out of order it says something like "weather forecast is unsuccesful". Here is a screenshot.

How can I fix it and the widget starts to work as in Catalina?

Since the failure is time to time, it’s likely you do not have a configuration issue. If it never worked, then a call to Apple support would likely get to the bottom of a persistent failure.
Do you have any support from your network provider?
I often tether to a smart phone when troubleshooting an internet connection if I can’t move my Mac easily.


Control System 4 with just a keyboard? Is there a reference of keyboard shortcuts for System 4, so I can use a Macintosh SE with a keyboard and no mouse?

I found a Macintosh SE and a keyboard on the street several years ago. It didn't have any cables, so the only thing I could do with the Mac was use another power cable and turn it on. Yesterday, my ADB cable arrived, so I can use the keyboard, but I still don't have a compatible mouse. According to my Googling, the Macintosh SE runs System 4 and Finder 5.2.

Is there a reference of keyboard shortcuts for System 4, so I can play around with the system?

While it is reasonably possible to use a classic Mac without a keyboard, using one without a mouse requires a System software disk with the Easy Access control panel installed.

With Easy Access installed, you can press Command-Shift-Clear to toggle Mouse Keys at which point your numeric keypad can be used to control the mouse cursor and the computer will be frustrating, but functional.

A limited number of shortcuts are still documented on Apple's site in Archived Technical Note 28141. Also, you can select icons in open windows by typing the first letters of the icon's name (for example, 'sys' will select "System Folder"), followed by Command-O to open.


macOS Big Sur Startup Error - "Backup and Restore has Encountered a Fatal Error" I have been getting this error message constantly upon startup:

From some quick research, I found out that this might be related to permission issues for Google directory in Application Support. So I went in and typed the following:
 sudo chmod -R 755 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google

Upon restart, it still creeped in. I am not sure what this problem is anymore. Could anyone help me?

OK solved it! I wish Google named the application a little differently e.g. "Google Backup" instead of "Backup and Sync from Google" - compact naming.

Identify where the application is i.e. Applications folder

Delete the application and restart Mac - SUCCESS, no more error!

Now, google for Google Drive application and download the individual version. It's smart enough to know that your OS is Mac and will push the correct installer for you.

Run it, install it, and check from Finder that Google Drive is visible.

All done and working in Big Sur now!


Numbers has stopped showing up in Launchpad Numbers has stopped showing up in Launchpad. How can I add it back?

Just type your application name in Launchpad's search box found near the top of every Launchpad screen. The icon for the desired App should be displayed on a new screen by itself - click and drag it to the desired location in Launchpad.

A commandline call may help as well - but be warned that it'll rebuild the Launchpad from scratch and will remove  any customizations you've added:

 rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db; killall Dock


Add free space in Disk Utility I want to take the free space of 200 GB and add it equally to the MacOS partition and the Windows-Bootcamp Partition that is currently 34.3 GB.
Can someone please help me through this process? Thanks.

Honestly... that's messed up to the point where you should just start from scratch.
Apple is part way through a several year process to transition from HFS+ to APFS (and other related technologies like Core Storage), which has added a whole bunch of complexity to the low level filesystem layer of the operating system. Some things have been removed from the GUI and can only be done by command line for now, and if I'm honest, you just can't trust either the GUI or the command line to do anything without data loss.
I assume you already have a backup? Make a separate backup from your main backup, erase the hard drive, and start over. Use APFS and if you don't need boot camp, get rid of it (I prefer virtual machines personally). It's time to format the entire disk, remove all partitions, and do a clean install - restoring from your backup.
Get rid of the "data" partition for your home directory. It's not the best practice anymore especially on APFS. Some new features that work better if you give it the whole disk. And the last thing you want during a multi-year filesystem transition is to do anything "out of the ordinary".
If you can, I would hold off on this until the current beta release of macOS is available as a stable build (in a few months maybe?). That includes yet another new approach to splitting the disk into "containers" (which are similar to partitions). I haven't verified this personally, but I've heard it's something like one for recovery, one for the core operating system, another for user data (including stuff outside the home folder). Of course, how it works on the beta might not be how it works on the stable release.
If you really don't want to use a virtual machine for windows, I strongly encourage buying a Mac with two physical SSD drives and run Windows on the second. Or if you're on a laptop, get a good external SSD for bootcamp (this is a bit tricky to setup, but it can be done).


For Mountain Lion, how does Apple define the Transparent App Lifecycle (TAL)? Definition

Apple's talagent(8) OS X Manual Page (2010-09-01, long before Lion was released) mentions but does not define the Transparent App Lifecycle feature.

Some time before Lion was released, I understood that the TAL comprised:

auto save
versions
resume.

Now, I'm not so sure. (Suspect that versions are not strictly speaking within the TAL, because not all apps that support the cycle also support versions.)

Please, can anyone give a better answer than the one below?

Something shorter and more definite – maybe with reference to a single e-mail or page from Apple – will be ideal. Thanks.

Side note, an issue with 10.8

macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.8
BuildVersion:   12A269
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ man talagent
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ which talagent
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$ talagent
-bash: talagent: command not found
macbookpro08-centrim:~ gjp22$

– the command can not be run manually as described in the manual. I'll feed a bug report to Apple. Instead, for example:

/System/Library/CoreServices/talagent -dump Finder

Lion

Carbon Framework Release Notes (2011-04-11, three months before the OS was released) placed three things under Transparent App Lifecycle in relation to a seed of the OS:

persistent state
sudden termination
automatic termination.

Mountain Lion

In Mac App Programming Guide: The Core App Design (2012-07-23, two days before the OS was released) the app life cycle is:

  … the progress of an app from its launch through its termination. …

then automatic and sudden termination are:

  … techniques that make the termination of an app transparent …

(Unsurprisingly, no mention of Carbon in that guide.)

Summary

Maybe the 2010 man page for talagent, in both Lion and Mountain Lion, uses an expression (Transparent App Lifecycle) that was outdated before Lion was released.


Can I block incoming calls using wildcard patterns? Recently I have been getting a few unwanted telemarketing calls, all coming from the same source. Each number though is different at the end.

For instance, if the numbers to be blocked are:

123-4567
123-7642
123-8643

It would be convenient for the future to simply block with a wildcard, such as:

123-*

Is this at all possible?

WideProtect is a pretty simple app for exactly this purpose
https://itunes.apple.com/app/wideprotect/id1171024059

It allows for specifying a wildcard pattern to block numbers, like 609-***-****. At the minimum it requires the first three digits so you should be able to block entire states with this.


Adding a "Fax Number" when adding a new contact in my iPhone 5, ios6 When adding a new contact, I"m confused when I get to the "phone contact numbers".

I only see Mobile and Home.  I want to add a fax number, but it isn't available and it isn't offered in Add another field.

On your contact, click on the label type :

And it will give you access to the label types.

These are iOS 7 screens, but it's the same on older versions !


Deleted hidden files and now Mac won't boot, how do I fix this? My friend deleted some hidden files on his Mac (OS X 10.9.4) laptop.

After restarting his laptop the Mac just shows loading progress bar and nothing else.

How can we restore the hidden files and get the computer working again?

They're hidden for a reason, & that reason is because you shouldn't go anywhere near them if you don't know what you're doing.

To repair the installation…
At Boot, hold  Cmd ⌘    R  & go to Recovery, or Internet Recovery if that doesn't work.

See About OS X Recovery
Extract:
OS X Recovery includes a built in set of utilities as part of the Recovery System.
You can use OS X Recovery to do the following:

Restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup.
Verify and repair connected drives using Disk Utility.
Check your Internet connection or get help online using Safari.
Install or reinstall OS X.

I would suggest you should attempt in that order, probably ignoring 'verify & repair' as you know exactly why the files are no longer there.

To recover invisible files from Time Machine, you would first need to set the Finder to 'show invisibles' which can be done from Terminal or by Applescript - though I'm not certain how you would do that from the recovery startup.

Failing that, the only option would be to reinstall OS X, either from the Recovery partition or via Internet Recovery - this will replace only the System files, your data will not be affected.


How to open my external hard drive on MacOS? I have external hard drive Transcend.

Previously I could work with it without problems , but I did not use it for two month.

Today I tried to connect to my Mac and result :

I can see HD in Disc Utility , but I can't see it in Finder.

Is there a setting to change that would prevent or cause the vipooume to show in finder?

EDIT

Now I get new message when I connected HD to Mac

but anyway I tried to open DiskUtility and execute FirstAid, I got such message

Weird=( How I can check the reason of error and make it work?

There are many reasons why a volume won’t mount: How does Mac OS X decide which volumes to mount? One of my disks doesn't mount at boot

Since yours shows in disk utility, I would either run a verify or repair operation based on if the data is backed up elsewhere. This could be the first sign the filesystem or hardware are failing and when you “repair” a filesystem, sometimes that deletes bad files or causes other data loss.

It could also be that the filesystem check is taking hours and that given enough time, it will mount again rapidly once a full check is done. You can see those check details in the disk utility or possibly in /private/var/log while the checks run.


Boot Camp assistant "Needs more drive space" even though i have enough Trying to get dual boot for my mac and I ran into this issue.

And when I look at my drive status, this is what I see.

So maybe im doing something wrong but it doesn't seem right that I need "at least 39GB" when I have 46GB available
I do plan on upgrading the storage of this mac soon anyways if I cant get this figured out

The 46.1 GB may include what Apple calls "purgeable" space. This space can be made available but is not readily so. My suggestion is to clear off more space if possible and try again. I think purgeable space is space occupied by files and folders that haven't been accessed in some time.


2011 macbook pro blue screen I'm trying to determine whether I'm having a ram, drive, or board issue. I used to be able to log in and actually use my laptop but it would run slow and over little time the fan would kick on and freeze up or the screen would show multiple lines or have a blue screen. But Now it won't even go to the log in screen and right when I turn my laptop comes on it has lines running through the screen with the apple logo then it will hang there for a while and go to a blue screen with multiple lines running through it. I hope this is no expensive fix I was thinking it's a possible ram issue due to how slow it started runnin but could be a possible drive issue as well but when I hold down the option key and select either bootcamp or the backup it will blue screen. It wouldn't let me do anything after the latest update it started doing this. I hope someone answers this soon I'm lost without making music. Thankyou all for any future input

It looks like you a part of wide problem for your model as reported elsewhere.

2011 Macbook Pro Graphics Card Defect

In some cases Apple will replace your logic board free of charge even if it is out of warranty, but that you need to discuss with them.

Take Action


Daemons or other processes responsible for dictation in 10.8? Dictation in Mountain Lion is a nice little feature that works great for me. However I often need to switch between dictation languages, so going through the System Preferences is way too many clicks for me all the time. That's why I wrote a little utility that sits in the menu bar, which lets the user switch dictation languages. The problem is: it doesn't really work. At least not without logging out and back in.

My utility changes all the plist files that should be necessary to change, these are:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.recognition.AppleSpeechRecognition.prefs.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.support.plist

(the last one actually just contains a BOOL value to turn dictation on/off)

As far as I can tell (and trust me, I've looked into it thoroughly!) these are the only files that are changed when changing the dictation language in the dictation preference pane. However when I change the language setting in my utility, and then trigger dictation, it sticks with the previous setting. So I suppose the dictation daemon(s) are not loading the changed file. No big deal, right? Just need to find the right daemons. Well, there are three main processes that seem to belong to dictation:

com.apple.assistantd

(this seems to be the actual dictation daemon, which will also spam the console)

com.apple.assistant_service

(not sure what this one does)

DictationIM.app

(this one renders the GUI for the feature, the little grey popup with the microphone)

However, killing these (or, in case of assistant_service/assistantd, stopping and restarting them with launchctl), doesn't do anything.

The changes that I make to the plist files are valid and good, because when I restart the computer or simply log out/back in, the new setting is used when triggering dictation.

Is there anything I've overlooked? Any plist that saves the locale? Or some cache file that I didn't find? I don't think so, because I really turned the whole system upside down during the weekend looking for it.

Any idea which (other) daemons are responsible and should be (re)started after making a change to the plist files?

Thanks for any pointers in the right direction!

Oh, and if I can get this thing to work, I'll release the utility as freeware.

EDIT: As promised, I'm releasing the utility as freeware. Grab it here: http://fouquet.me/apps/dictationswitcher/

I open-sourced it, too: https://github.com/fouquet/DictationSwitcher

"kill -HUP" on DictationIM should reload the configuration ;)


Can I use the same Lion OS X license on a home and a work machine, or do I have to buy one for each? I bought a Lion OS X license for my home Mac. Can I use this same license to install Lion on my work computer?

The Can I use the new Lion OS X license on two machines, or do I have to buy one for each? question is similar, but that question is about installing on two home machines. My doubt is caused by this excerpt from the App Store license (emphasis mine):

  (i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use [...]

If the moderators feel it's more appropriate to complement that question instead of opening a new one, please say so.

Since you purchase it from the Mac app store the licensing is the same as other Mac App store purchases. I can't find the exact resource but I believe you can install it on up to 5 Macs.

Here is an article with some information about licensing in Lion. http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/07/single-purchase-of-lion-installs-on-all-macs/

Update: I found some clear language from Apple's Lion press release

  The Lion upgrade can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs


Java update via Control Panel error Was trying to run the Java update earlier. But it couldn't launch the installer after downloading. Here's the log:

21/4/15 12:35:58.498 am Java Updater[814]: Original euid:501
21/4/15 12:35:58.500 am Java Updater[814]: Host name is javadl-esd-secure.oracle.com
21/4/15 12:35:58.500 am Java Updater[814]: Feed URL: https
21/4/15 12:35:58.500 am Java Updater[814]: Hostname check passed. Valid Oracle hostname
21/4/15 12:35:59.387 am java[815]: objc[815]: Class JavaLaunchHelper is implemented in both /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/java and /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/lib/jli/./libjli.dylib. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.
21/4/15 12:36:17.015 am SonyAutoLauncher[436]: Enum Begin!
21/4/15 12:36:17.015 am SonyAutoLauncher[436]: Enum End!
21/4/15 12:36:17.015 am SonyAutoLauncher[436]: Enum Begin!
21/4/15 12:36:17.000 am kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Oracle Java 8 Update 45 on device disk4s1
21/4/15 12:36:17.064 am mds[56]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7f9543881000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:1 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/A6C41DEC-149E-4397-80AE-658431B73334
21/4/15 12:36:17.126 am SonyAutoLauncher[436]: Device path: /Volumes/A6C41DEC-149E-4397-80AE-658431B73334
21/4/15 12:36:17.126 am SonyAutoLauncher[436]: Enum End!
21/4/15 12:36:18.265 am Java Updater[814]: App found:/Users/roy/Library/Application Support/Java/Java 1.8.45.14/JavaAppletPlugin.pkg
21/4/15 12:36:18.282 am mdworker[797]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb
21/4/15 12:36:18.282 am mdworker[783]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb
21/4/15 12:36:18.000 am kernel[0]: hfs: unmount initiated on Oracle Java 8 Update 45 on device disk4s1

Does anyone knows what's going on and how to fix it?

I just encountered this same problem: I don't know why it's happening but I was able to install the update by launching the downloaded package manually:

open "~/Library/Application Support/Java/Java 1.8.45.14 3/JavaAppletPlugin.pkg"


Switching inputs from MacBook Pro Speakers to External Headphones When I have my headphone plugged into my Mac and open an application like YouTube, I can hear sound from the headphones. When I unplug the headphones, I then hear sound from the MacBook Pro speakers.

But when I plug the headphones in again, I still hear sound from the Mac speakers! Not from the headphones!

In Sound Setting I can see that the output Device is set as External Headphones, but the sound is coming from the Mac speakers!

I am so confused! Any idea how to get sound back to the headphones?

In my experiments so far:

It happens frequently in YouTube in Chrome but apparently not in YouTube in Safari or in iTunes.
I've seen it happen repeatedly on two Mac laptops and with multiple headphones. (Both Macs are on Mojave since they need to run 32-bit apps.)
Plugging in headphones does switch the Sound preference and the Sound menu bar menu to "External Headphones" even though it doesn't route the audio to the headphones.
When in this unfortunate state, the keyboard's Mute and Volume buttons don't work, that is, they don't alter the sound coming out the speakers.
Between all the above points, we can rule out hardware problems including flakey headphone jacks.
Resetting parameter RAM doesn't help.
Adjusting settings in Audio Devices in the Audio MIDI Setup utility app hasn't helped.
To get Audacity to switch to headphones, you have to ask it to rescan audio devices, then go into preferences to select the headphones. That usually works.

Funky workaround:

Pause YouTube in Chrome.
Start playback in iTunes (it will play through the headphones), then pause it.
Resume YouTube playback in Chrome.
If that didn't work, pause YouTube, wait a few seconds, then try again.

Hypothesis: Some apps don't respond as well as Apple's apps to macOS's complicated sound output switching.

In Zoom: It turns out the Zoom app has its own menu to pick the output device. If it's not doing what you want, open this menu (next to the microphone button) and pick the desired device or pick Same as System (which seems to me ought to be the default if not the only choice).


Mail.app AppleScript to process POP3 mails stopped working in Lion I have a Mail.app rule script that worked fine in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It is simply a script that allows for AND/OR boolean logic combined together to trigger one (rarely two) of the following actions:

Move message to archive folder
Delete email message (move to trash)
Forward the message to someone
Color the message (to signal importance)

You can review the script here. The bulk of the script is made of the boolean conditions I’m looking at (and yes, I know my multiple 'else if's' could have been combined into fewer if statements, but I just found it easier to have each ‘condition’ that I’m looking for in its own if statement).

In Snow Leopard, everything worked fine, but in Lion I get some strange behavior. My Inbox gets tricked/stuck thinking it has emails to download. Basically every message that would have been ‘moved/deleted’ somehow doesn’t get flagged as processed on my POP3 server. So every time I get mail, I see the following under Mail Activity: ‘Incoming Messages… X of Y’ (where Y is the growing number of emails affected by my script), yet nothing new is downloaded.

If I turn my Mail Rule off that runs the script, all emails are re-downloaded again into my Inbox. A few points of note:

I’m connecting to POP3 accounts
I used to use Growl 1.2.2, but I disabled that on a hunch that it wasn’t compatible with Lion. You’ll still see a sendGrowl function in the script, but you’ll notice that the entire function body is commented out.

Any suggestions or ideas on how to get this working again so I could tame my inbox would be EXTREMELY appreciated.

Judging from your description of the issue, it seems that Lion’s Mail.app has difficulties correctly executing a move AppleScript action on a PO3 server (or maybe just your POP3 server – not having a POP server to test myself, I cannot check). A solution could be to separate the two components of the move operation by replacing the line

move eachMessage to mailbox "Archived/BTR Monitoring Emails"

with

copy eachMessage to mailbox "Archived/BTR Monitoring Emails"
delete eachMessage

in the hope that an express deletion command will fare better. If that doesn’t alleviate the issue (because the deletions suffer from the same issue – I can’t say for sure from your question), you could also try setting the delete status of the message instead of sending it a delete command, i.e.

copy eachMessage to mailbox "Archived/BTR Monitoring Emails"
set deleted status of eachMessage to true

though I’m not entirely sure how that will go down within a POP server (it sounds like something designated for IMAP).

Finally, you could try commenting out the set read status of eachMessage to true lines in the filing and deletion blocks – this should, by rights, not affect the server, as POP3 has no notion of a “read status” (you need IMAP to store that server side), but it might conceivably be an issue if Mail’s AppleScript thinks otherwise. Setting the message status to read can also be achieved within a rule without resorting to AppleScript, so removing this from the script should be a non-issue.


De-Authorise iTunes account on my 3 stolen PC's I have had 3 PC's stolen during a break in. How can I de-authorise my account on these without access to them ?

Follow these instructions from Apples Knowledge Base:

  Click iTunes Store on the left side of iTunes.
  If you're not signed in to the store, click the Account button, then
  enter your account name and password.
  Click the Account button again (your Apple ID appears on the
  button), enter your password, and then click View Account.
  In the Account Information window, click Deauthorize All. *

  Note: You may only use this feature once per year. The Deauthorize All
  button will not appear if you have fewer than two authorized
  computers. If you need assistance on using this feature, please
  contact iTunes Store support via email
  (http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/).


Do downloads continue when lid is closed? Possible Duplicate:
  Is there any way to set a MacBook Pro to not sleep when you close the lid?

If I close the lid on my Macbook Air (OS X 10.5.8), will it continue downloading files - say from Firefox or Dropbox?  Is there any way to make it do this?

Nope. When you close the lid, your Mac goes to sleep and stops all current downloads. If you have a downloadmanager, it will pause the downloads, but it will not keep downloading the files.

If you would like to work with your lid closed, I suggest you connect an external screen or try software like InsomniX, which will keep your Mac awake when the lid is closed.

Also, it might be worth trying extention No Sleep.


Applescript enable-disable wifi Safari I figured out a command to enable/disable wifi.

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on
networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

Now, I was wondering how to combine it in AppleScript in a way that when Safari opens wifi is turned on and when Safari closes wifi is turned off?

Run EDITOR=nano crontab -e and add a line like this:

* * * * * pgrep -qx Safari&&networksetup -setairportpower en0 on||networksetup -setairportpower en0 off

The command is only run once every minute though.

You could also save this plist as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/safariwifi.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>safariwifi</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>while sleep 10;do pgrep -qx Safari&amp;&amp;mode=on||mode=off;[[ $last != $mode ]]&amp;&amp;networksetup -setairportpower en0 $mode;last=$mode;done</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Then run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/safariwifi.plist.


how to use Logitech Anywhere MX back/forward button on OSX Finder? is there a way to use Logitech Anywhere MX's back/forward button on OSX Finder? I can use these buttons on Chrome or any other browsers succesfully, but cannot find a way to do so on Finder?

In the Logitech Control Center, change the assigned action for Thumb Back Button and Thumb Forward Button to Keystrokes instead of Back and Forward.

For Thumb Back Button, set the keystroke to ⌘[ (Command-[) and for Thumb Forward Button, set it to ⌘] (Command-]).

(This keystroke combination can be seen in the Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts page (currently at Help > Keyboard Shortcuts), and in the Chrome Keyboard shortcuts page as well (Help > Keyboard shortcuts).


Chrome Mac gesture conflict with horizontal scrolling I am running Chrome 14 on OSX Lion.

I swipe 2 fingers horizontally to scroll a web page horizontally, for a page that is too wide.

When I swipe right, it works fine. When it swipe left it works for a second then I think it's trying to click on the browser's "back" button.

I'm not sure who's at fault, but there is some kind of conflict.

You can disable chromes gestures by going to System Preference > Mouse OR Trackpad > More Gestures > and uncheck Swipe between pages.

I still love gestures so I downloaded BetterTouchTools which allows me to make the gestures I want. I disabled all apples gestures then created my own. You can get very custom with gestures this way. Or if you prefer, leave some of apples gestures on and use BetterTouchTools for the more custom ones.

Oh, BetterTouchTools is free :)


Rename when copying from case-sensitive to case-insensitive I have a netatalk AFP share on a case-sensitive Linux system, which contains two files whose names differ only in case, test/a.txt and test/A.txt. Copying the folder containing these files in Finder to my case-insensitive drive only gives an error

  The operation can’t be completed because an item with the name “A.txt”
  already exists.

Is there a way to have Finder automatically rename the conflicting files?
Or is there maybe a built-in command line tool with such an option?

I could do it manually in a shell script like below, but I'm sure there must be an easier way on a system that supports both case styles.

find $1 -type f -print | while read s ; do
    t="$2/$s"
    while [ -e $t ] ; do t="$t.dup" ; done
    cp -v "$s" "$t"
done

Try using rsync -b or gcp -b. Both add a tilde to the end of the filename if a file with the same name exists in the target.


How to create a new partition for OS X, then remove the original one I want to clean install a new version of OS X, so I was thinking to create a separate partition, transfer all applications and settings from my old system and then remove the old partition and make a new one the only one.

But when I created a separate partition for El Capitan, I realized it is not possible to resize it or remove the original one. Here is a message I get from Disk Utility:
"You can only merge this partition with the one before it. To do it, click -"
When I click "-", all data will be erased and free space merged into the first partition.

What is the best way to do a transition in my situation? Is it possible to create a new partition "before" the original one?
Here is the info from Disk Utility:

And from the Terminal:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         427.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s5
   4:                  Apple_HFS El Capitan              72.2 GB    disk0s4
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *426.8 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 991EF790-B05D-45BB-B326-6CDC7D75A172
                                 Unencrypted

With Apple's OS X tools you can't expand the start sector of a partition to lower sector numbers. You have to choose another method.

You may accomplish your objective if less then one half of the net capacity of your hard drive ((~disk size - size of Recovery HD - size of EFI)/2) or less then one half of the main volume is occupied. If you miss the threshold narrowly you may remove swap files, sleepimage and clean the temp folders to lose further GBs.

In this particular case you may add a second volume with the same size as your then narrowed previous main volume, which is equivalent to splitting the available space in two equal volumes (with the first volume still containing your old OS X installation).

After installing your new OS X to the new volume ("El Capitan") you may transfer your apps, settings and data to the new volume.

After migrating your stuff you have to delete the old CoreStorage Logical Volume Group (the superior Macintosh HD) with:

diskutil cs delete lvgUUID

with lvgUUID: UUID of the Logical Volume Group. To get the lvgUUID use:

diskutil cs list

Deleting the Logical Volume Group will automatically create one new classical JHFS+ volume with the name "Untitled" occupying all available space on the disk.

Now clone your new volume "El Capitan" to the empty volume "Untitled" with an appropriate tool (Disk Utility/Carbon Copy CLoner). The former "Untitled" will be renamed to "El Capitan". So rename the former "El Capitan" to "El Capitan_Old"

After successfully booting from "El Capitan", delete "El Capitan_Old" with Disk Utility and expand "El Capitan" to the full available size of your disk.

If more than one half of your (old) main volume is occupied you need an external disk to migrate or you have to delete some data.


automount NFS when on specific wifi I'd like to be able to mount an nfs NAS mount point whenever I connect to my home network and initiate an rsync to it.
I saw the post for "How can I automount afp volumes at startup? ", although there are some similarities, my trigger is quite different.
Would appreciate any help figuring this one out with automator. Apologies if this is already answered elsewhere.

OK, what follows is an adapted version of a shell script that I have running on my local Macs to auto mount certain AFP volumes when I'm at home. You'll need to adjust the mount_nfs line, enter the MAC address for your home router, and adjust the volume name for the mount (if you want).

I have this script triggered to run every 5 minutes via a launchd file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents

Code on Pastebin


Why doesn't my headset microphone work? I got a SteelSeries headset for Christmas and I plugged it into my MacBook Pro. The audio output works fine, but I am having issues with the audio input.

I saw this post which talked about some power issues to the microphone on the Mac Mini… I did not quite get what they were discussing, though.

I also found this link which says:

  Some microphones require power on the stereo mini jack and may not work on Mac systems. Try to check for Mac compatibility when buying USB microphone sets. Unamplified PC microphones often won't work.

The SteelSeries FAQ says I need a USB sound card to use the microphone with a Mac.

Does this mean I can't use my headset because it needs power from the computer? If yes, is there a workaround?

Does anyone know of any VERY cheap sound cards?

Why doesn't my microphone work?

On new Macbook Pros, there is no microphone input. What you have is a line-level input. Microphones that do not have integrated power and amplification (all cheap computer microphones/handsets) will not work when connected to the line-level input.

The connectors are exactly the same, but on the line input there is stereo input and ground, and on the microphone input there is mono input, voltage reference and ground. The input level is also different, with line level at around 1V and microphone level at 10-100mV.

To resolve the problem, you need to get one of the following:

a USB sound card which has a proper microphone input circuitry,
a powered, amplified microphone that can be used with line-level input, or
a microphone preamplifier.

See also:

http://www.hobby-hour.com/electronics/computer_microphone.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_level


how to start a mysql server on login I currently use Valet to develop sites, and many of those sites need SQL databases.  To host SQL databases, I run a mariaDB server from the Terminal.  In order to start the MySQL server so that I can connect to the databases, I run the command:
sudo mysql.server start
I want the server to start on login, so normally I would just have this command execute on login, but it requires the sudo command.  What do I change and how do I change it so that I do not need the sudo part of the command and I can just start the server on login?

The best way to do this is to create a launchd .plist, copy it to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and let the system handle it for you.

Sample .plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.user.startMySQL</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
          <string>mysql.server</string>
          <string>start</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

I prefer to use the file naming convention com.user.<name of function>.plist when naming them so I can easily identify what is loaded and what is not.

Next, you need to load this .plist as root so it runs as root

$ sudo launchctl load com.user.startMySQL.plist

To verify that it has loaded you can issue the command sudo launchctl list and the command mysql to initiate a connection to the MySQL service.

Please note that this is just a simple example - you may wish to create a script to check to see if mysqld is already running before launching it.


Permanently allow apps downloaded from "anywhere" I want to trust unidentified developers' applications. I've gone to System Preferences > Security & Privacy and tried to enable "Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere", but OS X claims it will reset my "Anywhere" selection after 30 days of inactivity. Actually, I don't want OS X to make it unusually difficult for me to use my software, ever. Is it possible to make this selection permanent?

It took me some time to figure this out but you can disable it through a global preference using the terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security GKAutoRearm -bool NO

This will disable the auto rearming of the Gatekeeper in OS X. Tested on both Yosemite and Mavericks


Reset Admin password/ unauthorized password change My ex-wife managed to get on to my Mac (OS X 10.9.4) and change my password for log on.  Luckily, I am still able to access my Mac as she didn't set it to screen lock.  What do I need to do in order to get back to my old password so that I can set a new one. Can I simply restore from my Time Machine to get it back to my old password?  Or do I need more advanced help?

Resetting User Account Password (10.7 +)

Boot into your Recovery Partition holding down Command + R at the startup chime
Select "Terminal" from your "Utilities" Menu Bar
Type the following command in: resetpassword
From the window that appears, select your boot volume and the appropriate user account
Type in the new password and confirm the new password
Click "Save", close this pane and quit Utilities
Select boot volume again when presented with "Choose Startup Disk" and reboot your machine


Where are the config files for Pidgin via Homebrew? I installed Pidgin via Homebrew. I'm looking for config files such as accounts.xml and prefs.xml.

On Linux, I believe they're located in are in ~/.pidgin, and %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Pidgin on Windows.

I would expect them to be somewhere in /usr/local/Cellar/pidgin, but they're not, as far as I can tell.

All config files for pidgin reside in the (invisible) folder ~/.purple.


Sending All Traffic Over VPN Tunnel (IKEv2) in OS X 10.11.5 I recently setup VPN connections on my Macbook Pro running OS X 10.11.5 via the Apple Configurator. However, I am having trouble sending all traffic across the VPN Tunnel rather than through the regular Wi-Fi Connection.

Although the default route is created when the VPN is connected, no traffic is sent across the VPN (the VPN has been confirmed to be working in Windows and Linux).

Here is the output of:

  netstat -rn

    Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
default            10.0.0.1           UGSc           43        0     en1
default            link#8             UCSI            0        0  ipsec0
10/16              link#5             UCS             8        0     en1
10.0.0.1/32        link#5             UCS             1        0     en1
10.0.0.1           <EDGE ROUTER MAC>  UHLWIir        47      194     en1      1076
10.0.143.243/32    link#5             UCS             1        0     en1
10.0.143.243       <MBP MAC ADDRESS>  UHLWI           0        1     lo0
45.32.180.111      10.0.0.1           UGHS            0        0     en1
127                127.0.0.1          UCS             0        0     lo0
127.0.0.1          127.0.0.1          UH             18   781055     lo0
169.254            link#5             UCS             0        0     en1
172.11.22.1        172.11.22.1        UH              0        0  ipsec0
224.0.0            link#5             UmCS            1        0     en1
224.0.0            link#8             UmCSI           0        0  ipsec0
224.0.0.251        1:0:5e:0:0:fb      UHmLWI          0        0     en1
255.255.255.255/32 link#5             UCS             0        0     en1
255.255.255.255/32 link#8             UCSI            0        0  ipsec0

There is no option to enable/disable forwarding all traffic over the VPN like there is with PPTP.

How can I forward all traffic over the VPN when the VPN is active similar to how Windows and Linux already does this?

The more I dig into OS X and VPN Networking the more it seems like it would be easier to host a dual VPN of IPSec for the Windows and Linux clients and OpenVPN for OS X and iOS.

I met the same problem, but I found the checkbox exists in the "Apple Configurator2" VPN section.

By installing the profile with enabling that option, all my traffic seems to pass under VPN.


Outlook 2016 - show sent messages in conversation list on the left I use the conversation view so I can keep track of threads, but it's confusing not seeing my own replies in the list. Is there a way to get it to show my replies by default?

I can see my replies if I click a thread and then click the Conversation arrow shaped button. But what I want is to see my replies in the thread list on the left by default.

I have the same problem in Outlook 2011 for Mac; I think this configuration is not possible.

As shown in the following links from the MS documentation, it looks like the option exists for the Windows version, but it is not available in the Mac OS X version. As you alluded to, (your own) sent messages appear in in "reading pane" but do not render in the message list.

One workaround is to automatically BCC yourself on everything. Enable this by Outlook menu -> Preferences... -> Email section -> Composing -> Format and account section -> enable "When sending messages, automatically BCC myself." This will have the effect of putting a copy of messages you send into your Inbox, so they will render in the conversation view/pane. I'm not sure if this will result in duplicate messages rendering in the "reading pane" for conversations. I'm personally not willing to do this, but it should/does work.

Until or unless...

I'm missing something, or
I learn some fancy keyboard shortcut or other UI trick, or
Give up my convictions and BCC myself on everything (which does render properly),

this interface (and its inconsistency) is unusable. Back to Apple Mail for me.


Can't disable FaceTime auto-answering A couple months ago I took a trip out of town, so I set FaceTime on my Mac to auto-answer calls from a specific email address of mine.  I followed these directions:

http://osxdaily.com/2011/01/17/automatically-accept-facetime-calls-mac/

It worked like a charm, but now that I'm back I want to disable this ability, and can't!  I've tried to use:

defaults delete com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom

And though it reports to have done its job:

There is no (AutoAcceptInvitesFrom) default for the (com.apple.FaceTime) domain.
Defaults have not been changed.

Facetime is now actually auto-answering ANY incoming calls.  Not even just those from the email address I originally specified.

Obviously this is not a great thing as I'm getting facetime calls out of the blue while in the middle of a conference call with a client, talking to my family members, etc.

How on earth can I truly disable facetime from auto-answering any calls, ever?

UPDATE:  April 14 2014.  This is still happening in Mavericks when I turn Facetime back on.  I would really like to be able to use FT now that there are audio calls, but I can't have it auto-answering all incoming calls all the time.

How on earth can I disable this?  I again tried

defaults delete com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvitesFrom

But got

Domain (com.apple.FaceTime) not found.

in response.

UPDATE 2:  It gets weirder.  on a lark I decided to try this again too:

defaults write com.apple.FaceTime AutoAcceptInvites -bool false

And this time around, IT WORKED!  Sortof.  My iMac now no longer auto answers calls.  However this same command does absolutely nothing on my MacBook Pro, which is still auto answering every call.

So I'm halfway to a solution... anyone have any idea what's going on with the MBP?

It's a bit of a drastic move, but why not delete the preference files for FaceTime? This should put FaceTime in an uninitialized state (at least for preferences, perhaps not for configured accounts).

Close FaceTime, click on the Finder, then hit the Go menu and choose Go to Folder….

Enter ~/Library/Preferences into the box and press enter. Look for any files that start with "com.apple.facetime" and move them to another folder (for backup purposes).

Open FaceTime back up, check your preferences, and see if the Auto-Accept continues to occur.


What breaks if I delete the folders named Public and Sites? The default home folder on Mac OS X has folders named Public and Sites.

I never use them, so what will possibly break if I delete them?

As an alternative to deleting them, you could consider hiding them in the Finder instead. To do this, launch Terminal then enter this command:

chflags hidden ~/Public ~/Sites

If you ever want to make them visible again, you would use this command:

chflags nohidden ~/Public ~/Sites


How to free up space on Macbook Air for iOS update By keeping files only in iCloud? I have a Macbook Air with 121gb of storage on a SSD.  I use iCloud and have approx 1.5TB of data in the cloud.  I have clicked optimise storage and I now only have 8GB lefton my SSD, so not enough space to complete the latest iOS update.

I have read that optimise storage leaves a percentage of disk space free, however, it doesn't appear to have allowed enough!

If I un click optimise storage, it tries to download everything.

Is there anyway that I can keep all my files in the cloud and just use them there and not download any of them onto my HD?

Yes - when you untick the check mark for Photos or Documents (likely the two largest items of iCloud space) you are asked if you want to keep a local copy (which you _don’t want to do) or just let the items live in the cloud (which you want - at least temporarily).

Choose to delete the local copy and then you will have the files only in iCloud.

Keep in mind, that after you delete files, macOS will keep space allocated / file content around for a short time as local snapshots or local time machine backups, so you will want to either thin the local snapshots or wait a day for them to age out.

Why does my mac not have free space even after I delete files?

Worst case - you can get an application like Daisy Disk (paid on the App Store, but a free trial from their web site - which has the bonus feature of letting you run a scan as administrator) and it makes it very simple to purge these temporary files sooner if you need. The app also does an amazing job showing you other large uses of space if my guess is wrong about documents and photos being your major space allocations.


Merge partitions with Macintosh HD This is my diskutil list.

I wish to merge Misc (disk0s4) with Macintosh HD (disk0s2) leaving only Macintosh HD (disk0s2). Normally I would use this command to merge the two disks:

diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ Macintosh HD disk0s2 disk0s4

But, I am not sure whether this command will format my Macintosh HD which I do not want. Misc (disk0s4) is already formatted and thus empty. But Macintosh HD (disk0s2) can not get erased.

Can I securely use the command to merge the two disks?

System information:
OS X El Capitan, version 10.11.3

diskutil  erasevolume  "Free Space"  ""  /dev/disk0s4
diskutil  resizevolume  /dev/disk0s2  R

The first command will remove partition /dev/disk0s4.

The second command will move /dev/disk0s3 to the bottom of disk0 while resizing /dev/disk0s2 to maximum size.


extract Apple ID's password from mavericks keychain? First of all i need to know if mail's passwords stored in keychain or not ?
If yes .. how to extract passwords from keychain especially [APPLE ID] ?
That's it

Open up Keychain Access, located in /Applications/Utilities/.  A list of all your stored credentials are listed in categories on the left.  I typically search for a credential by either the application it is associated with, or by the username.

Double click on the credential you desire to obtain the password for.  A window pops up and there is a check box towards the bottom to Show the Password.  Check the box, you'll be required to type in admin credentials, and it'll show you the password it has saved.

These instructions can also be found here


How do I get iTunes to play nicer with external tagging applications? I have what I consider to be a large iTunes Library, ~38 days of music. Worse? I'm a stickler for tags to be correct. Worse still? I'm SUPER lazy, and like things to be done for me as automatically as possible.

Some time ago I used a piece of software that had a particularly nasty bug which corrupted the tags on all of my songs with non-latin characters. I've since updated and re-run the same piece of software, and as I play songs previously corrupted, I see their tags update and become correct and intact again. However, after some amount of time, it seems that the tags revert back to their corrupted state.

This seems to manifest itself in other songs where no corruption has occurred, but the comments and some other custom keys I encode into the files disappear, or revert, as well.

I think this is because there is the tag data in the files themselves, but also in the iTunes Library files (itdb, itl, and xml files). I think that the data in those files are taking precedence, or failing some sync, or in general just failing in mysterious ways causing the above stated issues to occur.

What is the best procedure for updating a large chunk of tags in my library, and ensuring iTunes sees them, respects them, and will not continue to muck with them any further?

This is what I have done:

I backed up all my files, and then deleted ALL my music from my iTunes Library. I could swear I said "delete from iCloud", but that obviously did not occur. Some of the aforementioned data stuck around, and I didn't lose playlists I was quite concerned I had neglected to back up.

I tagged my files externally, re-imported them into iTunes, and everything began to work fantastically (well, mostly, but the issues are better left for another question).

Fast forward to about two days later, certain songs started exhibiting the same corruption. I again have songs that are tagged as being on disc 1 of 128602 discs (note: completely wrong). iTunes Match is definitely at play here. But I assumed that already.

I've been looking into how other apps interact with iTunes, and stumbled across iTunes integration plugins for MusicBrainz Picard. The tagging app I prefer to use en massé.

I don't know if these plugins are still compatible with Picard, Picard has come a long way (especially as of the 1.0 release last week) since these plugins have been touched; But there is a lot of interesting notes. The author talks explicitly about notifying iTunes that there are changes, something the plugins will apparently do, but also points you BACK TO MusicBrainz, which lists some additional steps you can take to updating iTunes.

I have an AppleScript that will invoke the "refresh selection" suggestions per MusicBrainz, but I have not yet fixed my tags... again. And even after that, I don't know exactly how long it takes for tags to revert and become corrupted again.

This road is still worth investigating further, but it's a hard one. I'm not exactly sure how to dig into the iTunes Scripting Bridges or other internal facets of iTunes itself in order to reliably update tag data from external applications, but that's certainly what should be done. Update it, and tell iTunes you updated it. Especially when an external repository of metadata is at play.


Is there a way to stop inline video clips from playing on MacOS Safari? My question applies to the desktop version of Safari, either as proper content (for example, supporting a news story) or inline video ads. The iOS/iPadOS version of this question doesn’t work for desktop Safari.

Is there a way on macOS to disable auto play of video?

Found on Apple Communities : Stop auto play HTML5 in Safari?

  Open Terminal and enter this command:
  defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1

  That will unhide Safari's "Debug" menu.  Under that menu, go to Media
  Flags, and then select Disallow Inline Video.   This will stop videos
  from automatically playing when a page loads.

Just tested on Facebook - works.


How to make a simple app from an applescript! I've got an applescript that I use to open files such as test.txt in vim, using the terminal.

I usually open a file by right-clicking it an selecting the service open in vim (this service is created by me and basically runs the applescript).

How do I build an actual program, that can be set in the "open with" option for a file?

This way, when I double click test.txt, the applescript gets run and the file gets opened in my vim in terminal.app.

I would also like to create custom icons that will be applied to all files I open using this app (using the "Change All..." button).

Where would I begin? Is this easy, because I'm just a novice -although I love programming and would spend much to to get to know all that is needed to do this.

the code is:

on open this_item

    tell application "System Events"
        if (count (processes whose name is "Terminal")) is 0 then
            tell application "Terminal"
                activate
                do script with command "vim " & (POSIX path of this_item) in front window
            end tell
        else
            tell application "Terminal"
                activate
                tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down
                do script with command "vim " & (POSIX path of this_item) in selected tab of the front window
            end tell
        end if
    end tell

end open

Use the built-in AppleScript Editor located in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Then go File>Save As and select Application as the file format. Then, to select the type of file you want it to be opened with, select the file, right click on it and select Get Info. Expand the Open With: tab and choose your applescript application and click on change all.


Can't add invitation to calendar My girlfriend sent me an invitation from an Apple device to an alias that sends to both my work and home e-mail addresses.  I clicked on the Accept button and it says that I Accepted but I don't see the event on my iPhone or on www.icloud.com.  None of these e-mail addresses -- home, work, or alias -- match my Apple ID.  Is there a way I can get this into my calendar?  I tried forwarding the work e-mail to my home address and adding the event from the .ics file but I get This invitation data is out of date when I try and do this.

I got the "this information data is out of date" message on my iPhone, and the work-around for me (based on a different discussion thread) was to temporarily disable wifi. With wifi disabled, the "add to calendar" option re-appeared. Go figure.


Why do I not have sufficient permissions to restore my Library folder? My machine with Lion installed failed to wake from sleep the other day, and all sorts of nastiness was in evidence after a power-button shutdown and restart.

Not to worry, I thought, I'll use Time Machine (TM) to restore my Library folder to its pre-problem state and perhaps that will solve the problems. This seemed like a good idea, but TM refused to cooperate, informing me that the operation could not be completed because I did not have sufficient permissions to change my Library folder.

How could this be, since I operate with an Administrator account?

(As to restoring the machine to normality, it took two restarts into Safe mode to sort things out, at least to an acceptable extent — I've had to re-enter license details in several apps when they re-launched afterwards, and almost all my preferences had reverted to their default state.)

Library like many of the folders that exist in the root of your home folder have special permissions. I have better luck selecting all inside the folder, trashing them, then restoring all in place.

Working inside the folder is less error prone than trying to change the folder itself.


Default Output Device is always wrong Since updating to Yosemite, whenever I plug headphones into my MBP, it selects Soundflower as the default output device. I then have to manually change it everytime. Anyone know why this is happening, or how to fix it?
Also, I can't get rid of Soundflower for some reason.

First of all, I'll address the how to uninstall Soundflower problem:

A number of people have run into problems uninstalling it in the past. The main problem seems to be that you have to reboot your machine after running the uninstaller but if that doesn't work for you try removing it from the Audio MIDI setup.

Open Audio MIDI Setup in the utilities folder and look for Soundflower listed there, select it and click the minus near the bottom left to remove it.

Now that you've removed Soundflower, you need to set the headphones as your default output device:

Connect your headphones
Open System Preferences and Open the "Sound" panel
Go to the "Output" tab
Select your headphones here
Close system preferences

Your system should now default to the headphones whenever you plug them in.

If you run into further problems, you can try a couple of advanced steps:

Open Finder and in the "Go" menu, select "Go to Folder..."
Type ~/Library/Preferences and click Go
Locate two files called com.apple.systempreferences.plist and com.apple.audio.AudioMIDISetup.plist and move them both to the trash
Reboot your computer
If you're still having problems reset PRAM by rebooting again and holding command-option-p-r as soon as your computer boots up, keep holding until your computer restarts again and you hear the startup chime.

Follow all the above steps from the beginning of this post and one of them should solve your problem, make sure you check each time if your headphones are now working by default.


Why is it not possible to use the "cut" command to manipulate a file in the Finder? On OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), I don't seem to be able to us the "Cut" command on a file in the Finder, like you can do in Windows Explorer on Microsoft Windows. (In Windows, once you select a file and "cut" it, you can then move to a different directory and "paste" the file to that location.)

The only way I can move a file using keyboard or contextual menu commands is to copy the file to another drive or location and then delete the old version of the file.

In the Finder's 'Edit' menu, 'Cut' is in the list but if a file itself is selected, it is always greyed out. 'Copy' is not. Why is this?

Keyboard method: Cmd-C then Opt-Cmd-V does the cut&paste for files on Mac.

Mouse method: Drag the file from one folder to the parent of the target folder (ie, if moving to Documents:Financial, drag to Documents). Hover on the parent folder for a few seconds, and it will spring open. Then you can continue dragging the file to the target folder. (note, the mouse method may result in very long hover times, if you're dragging a huge number of files, eg 1,000 files)

Menu method: It's not part of the Apple menu system to 'cut' files.  The menu Cut option is grayed out, and becomes enabled when text is selected.  But not files. Here is an in-depth discussion on Apple's discussion forum.


How to stop Apple Watch from unlocking a Mac with lid closed I am using the Apple Watch to unlock my Macbook Pro Retina (Late 2013) and it works reasonably well, almost too well:  When I stop working with the Macbook and close the lid, but stay in proximity, I will very soon get a notification that the Mac was unlocked using the Apple Watch. Then a minute later I will get another one, and another one.  I have gotten up to 7, but most of the time it stops after two or three.  Opening the lid right after one of these notifications confirms that the computer is unlocked.  I suspect that this has something to do with Powernap.

I do not want to disable either Powernap or Unlock with Apple Watch.  Is this a bug I just have to live with?

How could I debug the issue?

This seems to be fixed in the current versions of MacOS and WatchOS.


Lion: Safari brings me to the Googlesearch window when I want to go to next tab via keyboard, what can I do? Safari (5.1.1-Lion) enervates me many times every day (= very often!):

Every time when I want to go to the next tab via keyboard command (command+tab/or command+tab+alt when going to the left) the Googlesearch input window is activated first.

That means I've always to type in the command a second time.
(I don't use a trackpad. I'm working with keyboard and mouse/trackball.)

Is there a solution/walkaround???

Jump to next tab:

⌘+Shift+[

Jump to previous tab:

⌘+Shift+]

Shortcuts tested on Mac OS 10.6.5 with Safari 5.0.3 on MacBook Pro.  Should still apply in Lion with 5.1


Finder does not open Clicking on the finder icon in the dock has no effect. To open the finder I have to open the context menu and choose "New Window".

I already stoped the finder process, without success.

How can I fix that?

Have you tried simply clicking on the Finder icon in the dock ?

That always works for me.

I would delete my Finder .plist

I would also "zap my PRAM"


Xcode 5.1.1 crashes on 10.9.5 Mavericks when run in User Account but runs in Guest Account Model Name: iMac
  Model Identifier: iMac9,1
  Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
  Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
  Number of Processors: 1
  Total Number of Cores: 2
  L2 Cache: 6 MB
  Memory: 4 GB
  Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
  Boot ROM Version: IM91.008D.B08
  SMC Version (system): 1.37f3

Xcode 5.1.1 does not load up on Mavericks 10.9.5 when logging in from my User Account. However it does run from my Guest Account. I have deleted Xcode preferences , reinstalled Xcode 5.1.1 from the App Store and still the same behaviour occurs. Have also tried if changing the security settings Mac App Store only, Mac App Store and Registered Developers and Anywhere ; regardless of the security setting chosen the Xcode application doesn't load. This is truly annoying and stymies my productivity. I am not currently registered on a Mac Developer program but am registered with an Apple ID and can log into the Developer centre.

I would really like to get this solved.

This would seem to be an answer, but as my situation was resolved when I updated to 10.10 I cannot test to prove it, but share just in case it proves to be useful

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22480382/xcode-5-1-doesnt-load-on-os-x-10-9-2-and-10-9-3/26704775#26704775


Software update hangs on OS X Snow Leopard - how can I fix it? Whenever I try to do a software update on OS X Snow Leopard, it gets to the point where it says it needs to restart, goes to the spacey background, and then sits there indefinitely.

I've tried booting from the OS install disk and doing permissions and file repairs (which did find and supposedly fix problems), but it still hangs.

Now I'm trying to update from the command line using sudo softwareupdate -i -a. For maybe 10 minutes, it's been stuck at "Writing files..."

In a different terminal window, I ran tail -f /var/log/install.log to see what it's doing. There it has hung at this:

Patching System/Library/CoreServices/BluetoothUIServer.app/Contents/MacOS/BluetoothUIServer

Is there anything I can do to fix this other than a full wipe and reinstall?

Update

With verbose output (the -v flag in sudo softwareupdate -i -a -v), I could see the program's progress in terms of percentages. The higher it got, the slower it went. It was repeating  99% when I left it for the night. In the morning I found it had been repeating 100% for hours. Time to try something else.

Fixed

I was able to fix this problem by downloading and running the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

After this ran and I restarted, I was able to successfully run Software Update, from the command line or the GUI; it now tells me that there is no new software to install.

Before doing this, I did check for I/O errors as @SethNoble suggested, then run the utilities that @Stephen suggested. I did not find any problems, although I had previously run Disk Utility from my OS X install disk and repaired both permissions and files.


How do I turn off the text tone swoosh when sending text messages? I can turn off all phone sounds, but is there any way I can specifically just turn off the send message sound?

Although it's not exactly what you might be looking for, if under Settings / Sounds / Sounds you set Text Tone to None, no sound will me made, neither when receiving nor when sending a Message.


Can I install Compass in Yosemite WITHOUT installing Xcode or Command Line Developer Tools? I'm trying to install several programming packages, but it turns out that I can't because I don't have Xcode or Command Line Developer Tools installed.

Some (e.g. git) were easy to install anyway.
But for others (e.g. compass) I'm not finding any solution.

Being OS X an unix based OS, it should be straightforward to install packages.

I know that the easy answer is install Command Line Developer Tools, but the problem is that I can't: I don't have access to a fast internet connection, and installing Command Line Developer Tools is practically impossible (I've been trying for some weeks, then I gave up). That's why I'm looking for an alternative.

Compass

Compass shouldn't require the Command Line Developer Tools, just a compatible ruby environment.

I suggest a ruby version tool instead of using the system ruby, so that you can control your ruby version/environment. I favor chruby, but any of these works well and can be installed without needing the Command Line Dev Tools:

chruby
rbenv
RVM

Once you have a ruby env with the version you want you should be able to install Compass from the command line (as detailed on the compass site):

$ gem install compass

Note: the "$" isn't part of the command, just an indicator of the terminal prompt

Command Line Developer Tools

While the above works for Compass, it sounds like you are asking about general package management with OS X as well. Homebrew is a very popular tool for this, but depends on the Command Line Dev Tools. MacPorts is an alternative but has the same dependency. I'm not aware of a package manager for OS X that doesn't depend on the Command Line Dev Tools.

In case you haven't tried one of these methods to install the tools I'm throwing them out there:

Download directly from https://developer.apple.com/downloads/ (you need to login with Apple ID). The URLs provided there may be resumable if the download is interrupted, and may be more reliable than installing without Xcode via the terminal.
Install without Xcode via the terminal:

$ xcode-select --install

Having the tools definitely makes things easier; I personally love Homebrew (and it's offspring Cask) for managing both CLI and GUI packages.