Source .profile and .bashrc on ssh login without tty How do I make sure ssh sources .profile and .bashrc on login without tty?

I have a Mac (10.6.8) that I'm using for various UNIX-y tasks like hosting git repositories.  I have remote login enabled via the System Preferences "Sharing" pane.  When I ssh into the machine, bash sources ~/.profile, which I have set up to source my ~/.bashrc file and set up my MacPorts path.  The problem is that when I run ssh without a tty, like this:

ssh myhost echo \$PATH

Or run a git command that essentially uses ssh in the same way:

git clone ssh://myhost/~/code/myrepo.git

My ~/.profile file is never sourced, so my $PATH variable is missing /opt/local (where MacPorts has installed git).  I am aware that:

I can configure git on my local machine to use /opt/local/bin/git-* on my remote machine
I wouldn't have this problem if I was forcing a tty with ssh -t

But I don't want to do either of those.  I want my remote machine to source my ~/.profile file regardless of whether or not I'm logging in w/ a tty.

How do I make that dream a reality?

Also: I checked the behavior on a couple Linux machines (Debian and Fedora), and both systems seem to source the ~/.bashrc file on login regardless of whether it is a tty.  I was under the impression that BSD and Linux both use the same OpenSSH and bash implementations, so it seems like the difference in behavior might come from differences in /etc config files?

Here's a method to have bash source .bashrc on non-interactive sessions so that you don't have to hard code environment variables in multiple places:

Set PermitUserEnvironment to yes in /etc/sshd_config (man sshd)
Set BASH_ENV to ~/.bashrc in ~/.ssh/environment (man bash)
Add this line to the top of your ~/.bashrc, which sources /etc/profile for non-interactive sessions:

This essentially duplicates the interactive login environment for non-interactive logins, without having to hard code environment values (e.g., $PATH) in multiple places.

if [[ ! $- == *i* ]]; then
        . /etc/profile
fi

Step 3. is needed only if you have the Macports path(s) set in /etc/paths like I do. But if you're setting those paths (e.g., /opt/local/bin) in ~/.bashrc, then I suppose you wouldn't need Step 3.

For your situation, you should be able to change ~/.bashrc to ~/.profile.

I have ~/.bash_profile source ~/.bashrc, and I do not use ~/.profile. With this configuration (and the above changes), bash environment variables (e.g., $PATH) should look identical for interactive login, interactive non-login, and non-interactive sessions.


How to edit "kMDItemXxx" file metadata on macOS? Today I tried to edit the metadata of a picture file. I used mdls to display them, then looked for a command to edit one. But I couldn't find any.
For vanilla metadata, like basic timestamps, touch is good enough. And for these things called "extended attributes" (quarantine, etc.), macOS gives you xattr -d.
But is there a CLI way to edit, say, "kMDItemBitsPerSample" or "kMDItemFSName", or the key/value pairs used by Spotlight?

The Spotlight system collects a variety of types of metadata about files. Some kinds of metadata are what I'd call "superficial", and can be easily changed by changing the file properties; but some "deeper" ones depend on the contents of the file, and cannot be changed without significant changes to the file itself.
kMDItemFSName is an example of a "superficial" attribute -- it's just the filename, so renaming the file will change it. kMDItemBitsPerSample, on the other hand, is a property of the data in the file (it's the bit depth of an image or audio file). Changing kMDItemBitsPerSample would involve some sort of recoding of the image or audio file.
Mind you, there are some attributes that are in-between in superficiality. For example, mp3 files include metadata like the album name (kMDItemAlbum) and track number (kMDItemAudioTrackNumber) that are part of the file's contents, but can be edited (by some apps, like the old iTunes) without touching the audio content of the file.


com.apple.IconServices is causing high CPU usage and Finder problems in Mavericks. How to fix this? In OS X Mavericks, com.apple.IconServices seems to be causing almost 100% CPU usage and is causing Finder to become unresponsive (the "beach ball"). This happens periodically, usually when accessing a directory in Finder for the first time in a while. Restarting Finder stops IconServices from eating all the CPU, but revisiting the problem directory makes the problem happen again. How do I solve this?

Apple user Kieran Healy has apparently solved the root problem and come up with a fix, described on his blog here. The short of it is to open Terminal and then enter the following command:

mkdir ${TMPDIR}/com.apple.IconServices

Apparently, IconServices was seeking a directory and, failing to find it, began thrashing. Kieran's fix creates that directory.

When I tried this solution, the fix was immediate -- that is, no restarting, relaunching, or even re-visiting of directories was required.

All credit goes to Kieran Healy for this fix. I suggest visiting his website and giving him a "like".


What tools allow for creation and editing of a PDF document on OS X? I would like to create a PDF document with images, text and table of contents.
I have also other PDF documents that I would like to merge in this new PDF.

Do you know some tools/software for creating PDFs?

You can actually merge multiple PDFs right from Preview.app. Just open two PDFs in two separate windows, turn on the sidebars, and drag pages from one sidebar to the other. This won't provide you with a table of contents, but you can always just make something in TextEdit, export it as a PDF, then add it to the beginning of the document.


Virtualbox - Can't install guest additions (Big Sur) I'm trying to install guest additions on my macOS Big Sur VM, but the installation never has been successful. I always get a triggering "The installation failed" screen. Since Command+R can't be used to enter recovery mode on Virtualbox for some reason, I used the installation disk and I disabled Csrutil from there. I restarted to the "Normal mode" and guess what? It failed again! I double-checked using csrutil status and SIP is off, but why can't the guest additions be installed?

You can not install guest additions when using Big Sur. I have seen some hacks posted that are suppose to work, but I have never found one that works with a Big Sur guest.
Here are some ideas of how to substitute the functionality that guest additions may have offered.

Screen Size: The command given below can be used to change the video resolution of the Big Sur guest. For more information, see section 3.14.1. Video Modes in EFI of the online Oracle® VM VirtualBox® User Manual. You can also download a PDF version from here.
 VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" VBoxInternal2/EfiGraphicsResolution HxV

You should enter this command with the guest is powered off.

Transfer Files by Network: You can use SMB to connect to the guest by the host or any other computer on the LAN. You should make sure the Attached to: for the network is set to Bridged Adaptor.

Transfer Files by USB: You can attach a physical USB flash drive to the guest. To do so, you must first eject the flash drive on the host. When the guest powers off or ejects the flash drive, the host will automatically attempt to mount any volumes on the flash drive. If the host has USB 3 ports, then USB 3.0 (xHCI) Controller should be selected under setting for ports.

Note: VirtualBox defaults to SATA HDD for the guest. You can change this to to SATA SSD or NVMe SDD. Only NVMe SSD has trim capabilities, which I have found to increase boot times. (Booting is when trim operations are performed.)

Perhaps, a better solution would be to avoid VirtualBox all together. VMware now offers the use of Fusion Player for free. You do need to create an account to get a license key. VMware Fusion Player is both Big Sur host and guest compatible with Intel based Macs. Also, installing is simplified. You only need to drag and drop the Install macOS Big Sur application into a Fusion Player window and the installer drive is automatically created. In other words, you do not need an ISO or flash drive to install.

Note: You can have both VirtualBox and Fusion Player installed at the same time. Although, I am not sure if using both to run virtual machines at the same time is wise.

IMO, the fact that I can not install Big Sur on my 2013 iMac, but can install Big Sur in a virtual machine on the same Mac, just seems wrong (or unfair).


hoow can I make and receive calls With USA and Canada by using a PBX account, Acrobits softphone, and Google chat? I have an iPhone 4s running iOS 8, I an recently using it in the Middle East, but I would like to make and receive calls to people living in Canada and USA. I have a gmail that has an American mobile number connected to its Google voice. Is their an app that would enable me to make and receive phone calls by using this American phone number to my iPhone. But I don't have the sim for this American phone number, and my iPhone has a sim with a local number from the Middle East installed to it.

I've had good luck with Acrobits Softphone... it's a SIP soft phone for iOS.  Once you have an appropriate VoIP/PBX account that supports SIP clients, you can use google chat to get your calls into the PBX.

It definitely has some noticeable lag, but it is certainly better than nothing.

You can get a free VoIP/PBX account at pbxes.com (I have no affiliation).


HomeKit "Apple TV not responding" I had a 4th Gen Apple TV setup as my HomeKit hub and was working fine. Lately I've noticed the Home App on iPod/iPhone says "Apple TV not responding". I've done all the tier-one support obvious things: Updated iOS and tvOS, cycled power on and off, signed out/in on Apple TV cloud login, etc.

About at wits end, the Apple TV hub seems to be necessary for any newly added devices to show up on other home users (that I invited) iPhones. There will be unrest among the natives soon if I can't make this work.

Quick summary: log in to https://appleid.apple.com/ and change your Apple Id from @me.com to @icloud.com

I recently had the same issue (including homekit invites getting stuck as described in this issue HomeKit invitation stuck).
Yesterday I was finally able to resolve this problem after having tried all the obvious things as well (resetting devices, logging out/in of iCloud etc).

Turns out the root cause was some kind of conflict between my Apple Id and iMessage. After taking the following steps everything started working properly again:

Change my Apple Id from @me.com to @icloud.com. You can do this by logging in to https://appleid.apple.com/
Delete my home from the home app on all devices (including family).
Log out of iCloud on all my devices.
Log back into iCloud on my iPhone.
Create a new home and add my homekit accessoiries.
Log back into iCloud on my Apple TV.
Invite my family to the home.


can't update my macbook to any version later than 10.7.5 My Macbook is 1.8 GHZ Intel core 2 DUO with 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM, version 10.7.5.  I'm not sure what year I got it but it's old.

I'm not able to perform an update to the most current version and I don't know why.

The reason I want to upgrade is that apps will not let me do an install on this OS version.  I tried installing a different OS, like Linux or Windows, but it did not go well.

It runs really well so I'm wondering if it has reached its end.

There are several resources for determining if your system will take 10.8 or newer. I did a search for "minimum system requirements for 10.8" and found plenty of sources stating that your 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo powered MacBook missed the mark. So did my MacPro1,1.
This does not mean your system has reached its end. It'll still run fine with 10.6 or 10.7.


How to mirror a first screen on the second and keep the highest resolution on the first screen? I've linked a second screen (1920x1080) to my iMac 27" (2560x1440) via HDMI (using a minidisplayport to HDMI adapter).
I want to mirror the first on the second but when I do this the first takes the resolution of the second which is lower. If instead I choose to extend the first on the second then the first keeps it resolution, but I can't access Mac OS X's interface from the second, only the windows I move to it.
The solution needs to work for 2 external screens.

In order to access Mac OS interface from another screen, go to System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement and take a look at the blue rectangles that represent the screens you currently have connected. One of them should have a white bar at the top, drag this bar to the screen that you want to access the OS interface from. That way you can keep the higher resolution, and access the interface. Unfortunately, if you mirror a display, it will take the lowest resolution because it cannot "create" the pixels required on the lower resolution screen in order to show a Mirrored display. If you want to keep the higher resolution, you have to extend the displays.


Apple Mail not to include attachments? When I send an email from gmail.com, the attachments I add aren't included in the (rich text/html) email. However, if I attach images to an email via Mail all the images (videos as well) are included in the message.

I would like to disable this behavior, how can I do that?

One is sent from gmail.com another is from Apple Mail (mail.app):

Both (gmail and apple) treat attachments differently.
If you right click the PDF or Word document you should be able to choose from the menu, show as icon.

If you want to permanently show the attachments as icons in Apple Mail, close Apple Mail, open Terminal and issue the following command

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes

If you want to undo what you just did-
Close Apple Mail, open Terminal, copy and paste the following command

defaults delete com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing


Adding macros to Touch Bar in Terminal.app Whenever you type in a command, there is a macro on the touch bar that displays the manpage for whatever command you are currently typing.

Is it possible to add (e.g.) a macro to compile a project or refresh a python webserver?

BetterTouchTool has the ability to create widgets on the Touch Bar. BTT cannot add widgets to the existing app controls, but can provide a secondary Touch Bar layout which can be switched to using your own defined shortcut or other trigger.

BTT provides normal buttons which can perform any action when tapped (whether standard actions provided by BTT or custom shell or AppleScript). BTT provides widgets which can run AppleScript or shell scripts, displaying the result on the bar in the button and colouring the button appropriately, or taking other action.


Video playback app for iOS 6 that's like iOS 7's Videos.app? Is there an iOS 6-compatible app that's just like the iOS 7 Videos.app? I have tried VLC but I want an app that displays the contents of my video library as both text and thumbnails the way the the Videos.app does.

VLC for iPhone works from iOS 6.1?

If that's fine, heres the link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vlc-for-ios/id650377962?mt=8

Movie Player works from iOS 5.1, here's the link:

https://itunes.apple.com/ae/app/movie-player-plays-any-video!/id406779775?mt=8


Wifi Keeps Dropping Macbook Pro 13in Retina Early 2015 I've tried everything I can think of. Resetting the router, changing the channel number and band.

The internet connection is fine, and then just hangs for a minute or 2, then returns to normal.

The wifi icon remains connected, and I have the latest 10.10.4 update installed. At first I thought it was a DNS bug with Yosemite, and have played with the settings such as changing DNS provider, changing the IPV6 to IPV4 only etc.

Driving me nuts. Has anyone had a similar problem? I've checked the surroundings with wifi scanners and have chosen the best channel available.

One thing I have noticed, it seems a lot more reliable on 5GHz as opposed to 2.4Ghz
It seems to affect my Macbook Pro Retina 13in Early 2015 a lot more than the other devices on the network.
I'm using a Virginmedia Superhub 1.

I was having a similiar issue with 10.10.3 which was not corrected when I updated to 10.10.4. Many, many things were tried before I got it to stay connected to WiFi reliably, however deleting the networking PLIST files seems to be what finally did it.

The Fix:

Disable WiFi
Open Finder
Press Cmd+Shft+G to go to the folder /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/
Delete (or move) the following files:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

Restart your computer
Re-enable WiFi

The Other Things I Tried:

Reset PRAM
Reset SMC
Used Onyx to clear caches, run update scripts, etc.
Disabled AirDrop by using Terminal to run sudo ifconfig awdl0 down
Kext Utility to reset kext permissions, followed by...
Disk Utility to verify/correct permissions.

In my case errors were found, and I had to...
Reboot in Recovery Mode (press Cmd+R as boot sound, hold until you see the Apple logo), use Disk Utility, however no errors were detected
Disabled FileVault, waited for decryption to complete
Reboot in Recovery Mode, use Disk Utility, some errors corrected then return value 8 and was told I had to backup, format, and restore to the drive.
Ran Disk Utility repair again and no errors were detected (then I ran it again for good measure)
Rebooted and Disk Utility found no errors.
Still had WiFi disconnects...

Deleted the AirPort plist files (fix above) and WiFi has been stable.


Using Webcam as Remote Security Cam I've seen products out there that let you view a security camera in your home remotely via an iPhone app.

But I was wondering if I could build a cheaper solution. I would like to use my built in webcam on my MacBook as a remote security cam (really, I'd just like to be able to check in on our dog at home while we are away, security being a secondary concern) and be able to view it on my iPhone and potentially on my work PC as well. Although, if it was just working for the iPhone that would be plenty enough.

Is there any software/apps out there that will do that currently?

Sure, there are lots of applications that allow you to remotely view a feed from any camera connected to a Mac, including the built-in camera: EvoCam, RemoteSight, SecuritySpy, or if you're handy with command-line tools, iSightCapture.

Most of these products stream the feed from the camera to a web server, which you can then view on your iPhone or work computer.


Applications in the Menu Bar & The Ability to choose which are Active upon startup? Are the applications located towards the right side of the menu bar next to system icons automatically active upon boot up of an apple mac. What decides which apps sit there & is there a way to choose which apps are active and sit in the menu bar by default at startup ?

Indeed if one is using a 13" Macbook Pro (like myself) or even an 11" Macbook Air, what happens when the number of apps gets to the extent where they begin to close the gap towards what I believe is usually help located towards the left of the menu bar. If your using a 27" display I guess this scenario doesnt occur.

Is there a way to minimise those apps in the menu bar whilst keeping them active if required ?

Thankyou

You can use Bartender to hide status menu items and menu extras.

Many applications have options to disable opening them at login or to hide the status menu items. You can also remove login items from System Preferences.


How to debug an OS X crash? I have a 15-inch, mid 2010, MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9. It crashes very often (about 0-3 times a day). I have installed all available updates. Where do I start searching for the root cause of the problem? It could be some 3rd party product. Should I start uninstalling the 3rd party programs till the problem disappears? My suspicion is that it has something to do with the video driver, as the crashes happen when I maximize a photo in Facebook, for example, or do some other things related to changing something in the display. However, I updated the video driver and the problem persists. I also have the stack trace from the crash, but I can't read it. If anyone can point me to a tutorial about reading such a trace, it would be nice. Any advices about the problem are welcome. Thank you.

P.S. The problem was caused by a faulty motherboard.

Start with log files.  You have a program in your Applications > Utilities folder called Console; Fire that up, and it will show you a collection of log files - you should inspect these to see if there is anything obvious showing up at the time of your crashes.  Once you have discovered something that looks odd, or consistent across your crashes, you can google it or ask again here.


Time Machine: "Enter Time Machine" menu command does not do anything I have Time Machine running on an external hard drive and it reports happily that it is doing backups and I have no reason to doubt it.

But when I try to look at the backups by clicking "Enter Time Machine" nothing at all happens. No noises from the disk as far as I can tell. Nothing. And when I locate the "Time Machine" app in the Applications folder and run that, again, nothing happens...

Do you have any idea what is up or what I need to do?

I just had the same issue in 10.11 El Capitan: "Enter Time Machine" did nothing, and nothing relevant showed in Console.app.

I relaunched Finder (Apple menu > Force Quit > scroll to Finder and choose Relaunch) and the issue was then resolved.

This surprised me, given that the relevant app is /Applications/Time Machine.app, not Finder.  But it seems likely that Finder is actually responsible for the Time Machine display of the historic files: if I "Enter Time Machine", then check with ps or Activity Monitor via remote log in, I see no Time Machine process.  So perhaps /Applications/Time Machine.app simply tells Finder to start the display, then exits.


Why is screentime and app usage reporting different numbers? I have screentime set up for managing apps and usage and am having a hard time making sense of the numbers.
In this instance I have set all apps to be limited to 2 hours, and you can see that the time used is around that amount (I changed the limit to 30 minutes just before this screenshot because I was experimenting). However, the used time is nearly 5 hours.
Why does my screentime report 4:42 and usage continues without hindrance. Changing it down to 30 minutes hinders usage but to allow later usage, I have to allow > 4:42. This is inconsistent with the app usage and makes management difficult. What’s being counted and why does it vary so wildly?

If you click the blue "SHOW CATEGORIES" button, you'll see the categories listed in the list at the bottom of the screen. You can see what usage is labelled as Social, Education and Creativity - the rest of your usage is shown as the grey bar.
This can include for example having the phone displaying the lock screen or the home screen. It does not count as time for any particular app, and thus do not interfere with your app limits - but it is still counted as time the phone is displaying something.


MacBook Pro icons damaged after Sierra Update Some icons in Launchpad are damaged since I've updated to macOS Sierra, like DVD Player, Mail, Image Capture, Contacts. How can I fix this?

I fixed this and any other errors with a simple (yeah, riggghhhttt....) reinstall!


Strange behavior of keyboard shortcuts On my imac I have system Preferences -> hardware -> keyboard -> keyboard & text input set with a checkmark for move focus to menu bar with ^F2.  It works.

On my (pretty new) macbook air, I set the same thing, and it doesn't work.

I have (Text boxes and lists only ) checked on both machines, but I seem to get the same result with all controls checked..

Both are os x version 10.8.4

--

On the other hand, Under mission control, when switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application WORKS for macbook air, but not for the iMac.

What am I missing?  Anyone else have these kinds of problems?

Do you have this setting enabled?

If you don't, you can still use fn-control-F2 to move focus to the menu bar.


Trick Macbook to not recognize HDMI connection with external monitor but still mirror the screen to it I am not even sure if my question is achievable or completely dumb.

I connect my macbook air (macos High Sierra) to an external display via HDMI. As you know whenever you plug the cable in the laptop the new external monitor/ TV is recognized in System Preferences.

Is there a way to send image to the external display and at the same time not recognize the HDMI connection? I have software that stops running whenever an HDMI connection is established and am wondering whether there is a way to trick it?

No, it does not technically make sense to send an image to the external display while at the same  time not recognizing the HDMI connection.

However what can be done is presenting an environment to the specific app where it is not told about the HDMI connection:

An easy and practical way of doing this is to run the app inside a virtual machine (using software such as VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop).

An better, but more involved, approach is to override the specific library functions that the app uses to inform itself of the HDMI connection. The overriden functions would simply hide the fact that an external HDMI connection is made. Creating such an override usually requires programming experience in order to create what is essentially a shared library. The library could then be loaded using the environment variable DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES when launching the specific app.


Help registering iMovie I just transferred iMovie '08 from an older Mac to a fully updated newer one. Unfortunately, I am not the one that purchased it, so it isn't in my App purchases. Now I have a problem - or two.

I would like to get iMovie to show a timeline as opposed to what it shows right now - which is something chunkier than a timeline. So, I would either like to find a way to update iMovie or just take the existing one and change the way it displays the chosen clips.

In summary, my question is; how do I either change the view of my current iMovie, or register it to my user and then update it.

I can't comment so I'll post in question format.

What version of mac osx do you have installed currently? How to find out in case you do not know:
Top left corner of screen with apple icon > about this mac You should see the name of your OS and version number in there.
What version of mac osx did you just upgrade from. Is this the same machine or a different one? What backup software or method did you use if any.

Realistically you should probably be talking to whoever bought the application and Apple if you want to transfer ownership.

Worst case scenario, iMovie is $15… also, there are other options out there that are pretty good and cheap, some even free. A post on slant.co suggested Lightworks a hollywood approved film editor, Hitfilm 3 Express a video editor + compositor in one package, Kdenlive a GNU Linux initiative which could potentially be built using macports. I found a recommendation for Davinci Resolve on lifehacker on a random article about Superior Alternatives to Boring Stock Mac Apps. Their other pick as a replacement for imovie Screenflow 5 got terrible reviews (screencaster software, not dedicated video editor)


macports mod_proxy configuration gives error AH01144 No protocol handler was valid for the URL .. scheme http I am trying to a reverse proxy to get Apache Jena Fuseki which will only work on localhost:3030 visible from my intranet. I get the error message shown below although the proxy modules seem to be enabled.
The hints in

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23931987/apache-proxy-no-protocol-handler-was-valid

did not help me e.g. activating mod_ssl did not make a difference and there seem to be too many modules to choose from so that try and error might get very tedious.
The webserver runs properly and serves index.html o.k. The /jena proxy redirect leads to the error.
How could this problem be fixed?
etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@bitplan.com
    ServerName jena.zeus.bitplan.com
    ServerAlias wikdata.zeus.bitplan.com
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyRequests Off
    # allow queries to run up to two hours
    ProxyPass /jena http://localhost:3030/ connectiontimeout=10 timeout=7200
    ProxyPassReverse /jena http://localhost:3030/
    ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/jena-error_log"
    CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/jena-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>

error message:
/var/log/apache2/jena-error.log
[Fri Sep 11 09:11:41.660860 2020] [proxy:warn] [pid 61446] [client ...:59602] AH01144: No protocol handler was valid for the URL /jena (scheme 'http'). If you are using a DSO version of mod_proxy, make sure the proxy submodules are included in the configuration using LoadModule.

apachectl -S
apachectl -S
VirtualHost configuration:
*:80                   jena.zeus.bitplan.com (/opt/local/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:11)
ServerRoot: "/opt/local"
Main DocumentRoot: "/opt/local/www/apache2/html"
Main ErrorLog: "/var/log/apache2/error_log"
Mutex default: dir="/opt/local/var/run/apache2/" mechanism=default
Mutex mpm-accept: using_defaults
Mutex proxy: using_defaults
PidFile: "/opt/local/var/run/apache2/httpd.pid"
Define: DUMP_VHOSTS
Define: DUMP_RUN_CFG
User: name="_www" id=70
Group: name="_www" id=70

apachectl -M
apachectl -M
Loaded Modules:
 core_module (static)
 so_module (static)
 http_module (static)
 mpm_prefork_module (static)
 authn_file_module (shared)
 authn_core_module (shared)
 authz_host_module (shared)
 authz_groupfile_module (shared)
 authz_user_module (shared)
 authz_core_module (shared)
 access_compat_module (shared)
 auth_basic_module (shared)
 reqtimeout_module (shared)
 filter_module (shared)
 xml2enc_module (shared)
 proxy_html_module (shared)
 mime_module (shared)
 log_config_module (shared)
 env_module (shared)
 headers_module (shared)
 setenvif_module (shared)
 version_module (shared)
 proxy_module (shared)
 proxy_connect_module (shared)
 slotmem_shm_module (shared)
 unixd_module (shared)
 status_module (shared)
 autoindex_module (shared)
 dir_module (shared)
 alias_module (shared)

relevant httpd.conf changes
rcsdiff httpd.conf
===================================================================
RCS file: RCS/httpd.conf,v
retrieving revision 1.1
diff -r1.1 httpd.conf
109,110c109,110
< #LoadModule xml2enc_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_xml2enc.so
< #LoadModule proxy_html_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_html.so
---
> LoadModule xml2enc_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_xml2enc.so
> LoadModule proxy_html_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_html.so
125,126c125,126
< #LoadModule proxy_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy.so
< #LoadModule proxy_connect_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
---
> LoadModule proxy_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy.so
> LoadModule proxy_connect_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
291c291
< ErrorLog "var/log/apache2/error_log"
---
> ErrorLog "/var/log/apache2/error_log"
320c320
<     CustomLog "var/log/apache2/access_log" common
---
>     CustomLog "/var/log/apache2/access_log" common

After try and error i found the relevant set:
   rcsdiff httpd.conf
===================================================================
RCS file: RCS/httpd.conf,v
retrieving revision 1.1
diff -r1.1 httpd.conf
109,110c109,110
< #LoadModule xml2enc_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_xml2enc.so
< #LoadModule proxy_html_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_html.so
---
> LoadModule xml2enc_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_xml2enc.so
> LoadModule proxy_html_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_html.so
125c125
< #LoadModule proxy_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy.so
---
> LoadModule proxy_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy.so
128c128
< #LoadModule proxy_http_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_http.so
---
> LoadModule proxy_http_module lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_http.so


USB Bootcamp: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE i'm on a late 2012 iMac (15C50) and created a Windows 10 Bootcamp installation which worked fine. I transferred it to a external USB SSD with Winclone 5 which basically worked. I can still select it as a boot target in system settings and it starts to boot. While booting i get a blue screen with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE Error.

Does anyone know of a chance to get that fixed? I can boot into recovery mode sometimes (Recovery with network works most of the time). But normal boot definitely fails every time with the same error.

Is this probably a general incompatibility from my external drive case (I tried two from Inateck) with EFI Boot procedure or am i just missing some Windows drivers?

Any hint is appreciated.

You need to go into regedit and change the registry hardware config / boot driver flag to a 14 hex value before you clone the drive to the external usb drive.  Watch this video it will show you how to do it live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHjVAQHb3E


Is an app on Mac able to know my serial number Two days ago I installed and compared 3 iPhone cache-cleaning apps on my Mac. Yes these are apps on Mac, so they have the ability to manage and control your iPhone.

Here comes my first concern: since iOS is using the sandbox structure, we can't see folders when iPhone is connected to a computer, how could these apps find cache folders and delete files? Did they  jailbreak the phone? I'm running iOS 10.0.2.

Moreover, I realised these apps could be malware, as I found a log file that showed my Mac serial number. What consequences I might have if the SN is disclosed?

iOS apps that run on the device itself are sandboxed. Software running on an external device is not nearly as limited since it has more direct access to the device.

The reason you can't directly see folders on the device when you connect it to a computer is software - the drivers that let the computer OS recognize the device are set up to not show it as a removable storage device in Finder.

No, you did not jailbreak your phone.

Anyone who has physical access to your Mac can obtain the serial number (as can any application running on it). The appearance of the serial number in a log just means it was logged to your computer. It doesn't actually tell you anything about what was done with it. The serial number is not private information, anyway.


How to restore Parallel's Applications folder? Normally when you install Parallels, it adds a folder to the dock which acts exactly like the default Applications folder on the Mac, except for all the Windows apps.

It even organizes them in folders exactly as the start menu on the PC is organized.

I accidentally dragged it out of the dock, and I'm not sure how I can restore it.

The way I was able to resolve the issue is by launching Parallels and then going into the "configure" settings. Next, I went to the Options > Applications, and checked "Show Windows applications folder in Dock".

Apparently when you drag the folder out of the dock, it will automatically uncheck this setting for you. In fact, if you try adding the folder manually and then launching Parallels, it will automatically remove the manually added folder.


How do I run a binary program without showing the gear icon? I created a automator workflow, add a Run Shell Script part and put these lines in:

  /Users/xxx/Library/Android/sdk/tools/android avd

I saved it as an app and it works.

But I will always see a gear icon on the menu bar.

I tried to put a & or nohup, if so the program won't start.

Any ideas? The android I'm trying to execute is a shell script

You will always see the gear in the menu bar if you are using Automator. If you want it to exit quickly, create a wrapper that forks off your android script into another process, and exits.

For example, you could run

  echo "/Users/xxx/Library/Android/sdk/tools/android avd" | /usr/bin/at now

(source for script is from this Apple Discussions page near the bottom)


How to properly remove old Bluetooth devices listed in the Bluetooth menu? I hit the Option button as directed before opening Bluetooth Preferences to delete old devices but only the one I'm currently using comes up, not the three other old ones listed under the Bluetooth menu.

How can I access and delete these?

I don't know who directed you to do it this way but the ⌥ method is for troubleshooting/removing active devices.

As far as I know, this is how you unpair/remove a Bluetooth device:

 → System Preferences → Bluetooth → Hover over the device you'd like to unpair/remove → click the x to its right.


What options for clean install of MacOS High Sierra after permanent error message? I have a late 2012 iMac i7 16GB RAM and 1TB FusionDrive which I want to sell. Using the Disk Utilities in Recovery Mode, I erased all data on the Macintosh HD partition. I then went on and selected reinstall MacOS High Sierra in the recovery mode, which failed a couple of times (no progress for hours) and after several tries it showed Mountain Lion (instead of High Sierra before) as the OS to be installed. I tried this as well, but the installation process froze after about 7 hours with "3 hour remaining". Then, I created a USB bootable installer for High Sierra. When booting the iMac and pressing the option key, I am presented this USB drive as startup option, and when I select it I end up in the recovery mode window again with the option to reinstall High Sierra. The installation takes about 5 minutes and in the very last second I receive an error message "An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again".

What options do I have from here?

Note: I already checked the system date, which is current. I checked if there's a recovery partition, and there is a Apple_Boot partition but without the usual name ("Recovery HD"). There are no disk / partition errors when running verify / repair.

I finally made it work. It must have had something to do with an encryption I had set up for the FusionDrive previously.
SOLUTION:
I deleted the Logical Volume Group which resulted in 2 separate 'untitled' drives, i.e. one SSD and one larger HDD drive. I then combined those drives again to form the FusionDrive. After that, I installed the original OS X Mountain Lion via web recovery, installed the High Sierra upgrade via the App Store, and then went back to the recovery mode to erase the volume again and install the High Sierra OS from there. Now I have a clean High Sierra preinstalled iMac, as intended.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank all of you for your support, which was extremely helpful for me in finding the ultimate problem solution!!


macOS freezes every few days I've bought iMac 27' in 2017 since the beginning I'm having a very annoying issue with it. On average every two weeks, my mac will freeze to the point where the mouse is still moving, audio continues to play and it even advances to the next songs. Besides the moving mouse and audio in the background, I'm unable to click anything. Usually, it happens when I close an application or when I decide to install updates from apple. Rarely it just happens out of anything.

I've tried a few things like removing programs cache, unused apps, reset SMC and NVRAM but so far nothing fixed the issue. After upgrade from Sierra to High Sierra it became more often but after updates (I remember that WindowServer had memory leaks), it got back to normal so I can live with it but it's still annoying. Also, I've run Apple's diagnostics to check if everything is okay and it's.

The only thing that I've changed in my mac was RAM upgrade so I have 2x4GB (Apple) and 1x16GB (Crucial 16GB DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200)) so in total, I have 24GB of RAM.

I've MacBook pro as well which has basically the same set of applications installed and even more and it never happened it so far and I have for over 2 years.

The last time it froze was today and I've decided to enable SSH so maybe when it'll happen again I might be still able to SSH and list processes list.

Besides the issue that I just described I have no other issues.

Does anyone have an idea what's going on?

Additionally, bellow is the list of apps that I use:

- Android Studio
- PyCharm
- Goland
- Magnet
- VirtualBox
- Vagrant
- Google Chrome
- Minecraft
- iTerm
- Slack
- Discord
- Intelliji Idea
- Magnet
- Clocker

One last thing, after it froze today I've decided to check DiagnosticReports and I've noticed that the last report is about WindowServer and when I checked the date when it happened the last time there was also WindowServer. I'm starting to suspect that it might be a bug in WindowServer but what would I have to do to fix it?

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and often requires patience, but since it seems you don't have a way to bring on a freeze - and because of the time in between incidents of this happening -  it's going to be somewhat slower to diagnose.

While I understand your instinct that it could be a bug with WindowServer, it's actually much more likely to be an issue with how well one of your installed apps is communicating with WindowServer. I'm not familiar with all of the apps you have installed, but if you have anything that hasn't been updated in a long time it may be worth isolating that for a while (i.e. not using it) to see if that makes a difference.

One thing worth doing regardless is to boot your iMac into Safe Mode.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your iMac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Now use your iMac in Safe Mode until it crashes again or until you're satisfied it's not going to crash (i.e. you may be at this step for some days). Of course, some things don't work in Safe Mode, so you may need to exit Safe Mode earlier and boot normally anyway.
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your iMac as normal
Once again, test to see if your iMac still crashes

Let me know how you go, although it may take you quite some time to know if doing this has helped.

NOTE: Even just booting into Safe Mode temporarily can be enough to resolve some issues, so it's still worth doing even if you can't stay in Safe Mode for too long.


Replacing MacBook's SSD with a new one - how to clone? so I have a MacBook Pro, a new drive (NVMe SSD), PC, and portable USB HDD.
The goal is to clone the MacBook's drive to a new drive (which cannot be attached to MacBook at the same time with the old drive).

It looks like I can attach the portable HDD to the MacBook and clone MacBook's drive to it and then attach both the new drive and portable HHD to PC and clone it again there. Is it possible, right?

Can I attach the new SSD to the PC and clone MacBook's SSD via network?

Another way is to buy an adapter for NVMe to connect to MacBook via USB but I would prefer to not do it.
P.S. I have an adapter for NVMe SSD to connect to MacBook

If you can't connect the old and new drives to the Mac at the same time, follow this procedure:

Create a clone copy from the old drive onto the intermediary external USB drive, using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.

Then swap the hardware over.

You will need to boot to the intermediary drive (or a fourth drive!), so that you are free to write all over the new internal. (So make sure you've installed an OS on the disk beforehand...!)

Use one of the apps mentioned above (the same one!) to copy the clone back to the blank new drive.

Generally, I would always advise having a spare drive with a bootable OS on it, 'just in case' - even if it's just a little 64 GB flash drive or something. (Oh, and of course, you'll also have another drive for your backup...!)


Uninstalling NTFS-3G and MacFUSE after upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan After I upgraded from Yosemite to El Capitan with NTFS-3G and MacFUSE installed, both programs stopped working. So I wanted to remove them and install Fuse for OS X instead. I still have the NTFS-3G and MacFUSE settings page in System Settings available, but I cannot uninstall them because the button is not clickable.

After some little research, I found the NTFS-3G folder under:

/Library/SystemMigration/History/Migration-CA37AC69-836D-4620-AD96-0F566792C5A0/QuarantineRoot/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs

I tried running the script uninstall-package.sh manually, but it did not work due to the changed folder location.

Now I wanted to ask if anyone has an idea how to get rid of them, including the System Setting entries.

In order to remove MacFUSE, you can following this guide. So:

Access the root account: sudo su
Execute uninstallation scripts:

/Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs/Support/uninstall-macfuse-core.sh
/Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs/Support/uninstall-osxfuse-core.sh
/System/Library/Filesystems/ntfs-3g.fs/Support/uninstall-package.sh

Additionally you can remove files and directories, that uninstallation scripts don't remove:

rm -r /Library/PreferencePanes/MacFUSE.prefPane

(to remove the button from the preferences)

rm /Library/Preferences/com.google.macfuse.plist
rm /Library/Logs/ntfs-3g_util.log
rm /Library/Preferences/org.catacombae.macntfs-3g.DriverSettings.plist
rm /Library/Preferences/org.catacombae.macntfs-3g.DriverSettings.plist.lockfile
rm /private/var/run/ntfs-3g_daemon.pid
rm -r /private/var/root/Library/Caches/autoinstall-macfuse-core
rm -r /Users/admin/Library/Caches/com.github.osxfuse.OSXFUSEPrefPane


MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt display - Why do programs always start on the laptop screen? I have an MBP Retina with a Thunderbolt display. I have them arranged non-mirrored with the thunderbolt display in front of me (bluetooth keyboard) and the laptop to the right.

I'm using the TB display for most things and the laptop for 'overflow' when needed.

The problem is that whenever I start a new program it appears first on the laptop screen and I have to drag it onto the Thunderbolt display.

Why is it doing this, and how can I have it start programs on the thunderbolt display?

there are 2 ways to help you solve you issue

set the TB display as the "main" display. You can drag the "Menu bar" to the TB display in "System preferences"->Display setting, please refer the screen shot below. As you said the external TB display is most thing, so I suggest you this way.

You can setup App launch in individual desktop or display. Right-Click the App icon in the Dock and choice "Option",set the App launch at the display you want.


Is there any way in Lion to have "Natural" scrolling for trackpad and "reverse" for mouse? Possible Duplicate:
  Macbook Pro with Lion: scrolling via trackpad vs. mouse

In Lion is there any way to have "Natural" scrolling for trackpad and "reverse" for mouse? They seem tied together in the system preferences. If I change one it changes the other. I would like UP on the mousewheel to scroll up but up on the trackpad to scroll down? Is there any way to do this?

You may try Scroll Reverser. That screenshot says it all; you can invert scrolling per-axis and per-device, individually for trackpad and mouse.

(source)


Is latest 16" MacBook Pro powerful enough to stream 4k video from Plex to AppleTV without buffering issues? Scenario:

I have a mid-2015 MacBook Pro running 10.15.3. I've downloaded some 4k movies to that computer. They're in MKV form. I use a program called Plex to stream the movies from the MacBook to an AppleTV. Plex Server runs on the Mac and the Plex Client runs on the AppleTV. The AppleTV is connected to a 72" Sony OLED TV where I view the content. Both the Mac and the AppleTV are hardwired to the network via 1gb Ethernet. WiFi never comes into play. The 4k video quality is absolutely beautiful and audio is fantastic too.

Problem:

Once every five minutes or so the movie freezes. Plex shows a temporary error popup indicating that either the network is too slow or the CPU on the Plex server isn't powerful enough to convert the file. After a few seconds the error message disappears and the movie resumes at full quality.
The problem can be eliminated by telling the Plex client to play the content at 1080p instead of 4k but I much prefer the visual quality of 4k.

Question:

Will upgrading to the latest 2020-era 16" fully spec'd MacBook Pro (2TB SSD + 32GB RAM) eliminate the buffering issue when delivering 4k content from Plex Server to AppleTV? Is there a way for novice consumers like me to figure this out on their own by looking at the more modern Mac's specs? It feels like my current 2015 machine is almost powerful enough to do it, but not quite. I'm hoping a Mac upgrade would solve the problem.

UPDATE:

The CPU specs for my 2015 Mac are: 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

The CPU specs for the current model Mac I'm considering for purchase are: 2.4GHz 8‑core Intel Core i9, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz, with 16MB shared L3 cache

I eventually ended up getting that new 2020 16" MacBook Pro and can conclusively say the answer is Yes.

4K .mkv files stream from the Plex Server running on the Mac to the Plex client running on an AppleTV box with no buffering/delays. This is over an Ethernet connection.


Fix fan noise and CPU throttling after imac SSD upgrade I've replaced the original 3,5" 3TB HDD in my imac (27", late-2013, 3,4 GHz Intel Core i5, A1419, iMac14,2) with a new 2,5" Samsung 860 QVO 4TB SSD-drive.  The system was equipped initially with a fusion drive and the old SSD (PCIe) is still installed.

First, I connected the new SSD via USB and copied over everything.  Then I replaced the drive and checked that everything was working.  After that, I upgraded to OSX Mojave (from High Sierra).

Now everything seems to be working fine, except that the system fan is running at full speed and the CPU is throttled (a process called "kernel_task" is eating up the available performance).  After all, the system is much slower than before the upgrade (so I'm considering of going back to my old HDD/fusion drive).

I've already tried a lot of things:
- installing OWC temperature sensor -> doesn't change anything
- SMC reset
- PRAM reset
- installing different tools to take over fan control -> fixes the fan noise, but CPU throttling remains
- checking the filesystem with fsck when booting in single mode

Note, when I installed the different fan control tools, all reported temperatures of the system, even from all hard drives/disks, are perfectly OK.  I guess it's just some compatibility issue (i.e., the SMC is complaining about the non-certified SSD).

Is there a way to get more information about why the SMC is turning the fan on and throttling the CPU ?

What else can I try to fix this?

Thanks for your help!

[UPDATE:] Running Mac Diagnostics at startup showed error PFM006, which is, according to https://support.apple.com/de-de/HT203747, some error in the SMC.

After doing some further research on the CPU throttling, I found a command line command to display the limit (see below).  Note, both limits are below 100 which means that the CPU is throttled:

 $ pmset -g thermlog
 Note: No thermal warning level has been recorded
 Note: No performance warning level has been recorded
 2019-09-22 12:15:14 +0200 CPU Power notify
    CPU_Scheduler_Limit     = 40
    CPU_Available_CPUs  = 4
    CPU_Speed_Limit     = 21

I did some further testing today.  It turned out, that the display temperature sensor was missing.  After I installed it correctly, the problems (fan noise and cpu throttling) were gone!


Xls to csv - Numbers creates multiple csv files for some reason I have a small xls file which 200Kb of size. When I export it to csv format, Numbers creates multiple csv files. How do I make it create a single one?

CSV are simple text file where the data are only separated by comas and new lines.

There is no concept of sheets therefore Numbers need to create a csv for each sheet.


How to select or autofill all distinct elements from a column in Numbers? My home banking App can export to Numbers. It will give me a table with date, category, description and amount. I want to extract all the categories automatically in a second sheet. How can I do this?

Example screen:

I can't do it in Numbers. Numbers  has some interesting layout tools,but its utterly pathetic for anything signficant.

If you export as an excel sheet, save to google drive, then open in google sheets it's easy.

Cut and paste seems to work between Numbers and Google sheets too.  Values only, AFAIK.

To get a list of unique categories:
In Sheet 2 enter the following formula at the top of the column: =Unique(sort(Sheet1!B:B))  This will autofill down.
Now if you want them as columns instead:

Create a third sheet.
in A1 enter the formula =Transpose(Sheet1:A:A)

If this happens a lot, leave it in place.

If it's a oneshot, then select, copy, paste special, paste values only.


Movie from iTunes: We've determined that your purchase does not meet the conditions for a refund My toddler bought a random movie on Apple TV by accident (even a foreign language).

I tried to use a form to get a refund (Ask Different how-to):

how do you cancel a pending purchase in iTunes

which gives me this output after a millisecond:

  We've determined that your purchase does not meet the conditions for a
  refund.

I also tried this Request a refund for an App Store or iTunes Store purchase

I don't wish to use phone support. Is it possible to use other process/form?

I had this issue once before and if I recall correctly, I was able to use the support chat on apple.com to resolve the issue. Give it a try.


How to customize open with menu in Yosemite? I want to customize the right click/"open with" menu for some file extensions like jpg, in order to see just the 4 apps i want to use with this file type. Google suggests me to edit the info.plist file of the apps (Applications/**/Contents/) by changing the CFBundleTypeExtensions section. This does not seem to work anymore in Yosemite. Does anyone know this?

You need to reset LaunchServices for changes to take effect:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain user;killall Finder


Can you just use one side of Airpods and leave the other side at home? Because I usually just use one side of the Airpods, so that I am aware of the environment whenever I exercise or in a cafe, can only one side of the Airpods be used independently, while the other one is left at home?

So if one side of the Airpods is lost for some reason, you can still use the other side independently?

Yes, AirPods can be used independently in only one ear.

I use only one AirPod the majority of the time. Great for mono podcasts and for environmental awareness as you're walking around.


Where is the history of "Go to Folder..."(in Go menu of Finder) located? I just searched for a folder with that tool and now I want the 'history' of it cleared. I mean, I don't want it to show the last place(folder) I've gone by that thing.
I tried Relaunching Finder while that window (that asks to enter an address) was open, it worked but only once. Now it doesn't work.(I did this on 10.7 and worked, but it didn't work on 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10)

This works for me to delete the "Go to..." history in Sierra:

defaults delete com.apple.finder GoToFieldHistory; killall Finder

This history key (which contains more than just the last targeted folder) was introduced in Sierra and doesn't exist in older system versions.


How can I simply and quickly upload just 1 photo from my iPhone to a PC or Mac? This is really frustrating. Occasionally, my work requires me to upload a photo from my iPhone (ios7) to a clients PC or Mac. I used to simply email it to my Gmail account and download it from the web but for whatever reason I can no longer do this (seems I can no longer email something to my self via Mac mail).

I've got Photostream set up but I cant access it via iCloud - theres just no photo option.

Obviously my clients PCs dont always have iPhoto (which is a huge pain to use anyway).

Why isnt there a simple way to transfer a photo from my phone to a computer via Bluetooth or USB?

Is there just a simple, non-proprietry software solution for transferring just 1 photo between devices?

You can email it as an attachment to another email address. For emailing single photos, I got around this problem by setting up a secondary email account and emailing it to myself there. Then I checked the email account from my laptop. For multiple pictures, I had to use a windows machine (Windows 7). I just plugged the iphone into the PC's USB and it worked, reading it as a data drive.

It may also work to save it as an attachment in a draft message. Then synch accounts and look in the drafts folder of your computer.


Large preferences (plist) files Browsing through my recent Yosemite backup I noticed that two of the largest files were com.apple.sidebarlists.plist (78 MB) and com.apple.recentitems.plist (10 MB). Both files are located in ~/Library/Preferences.

Investigating com.apple.sidebarlists.plist yields that the following key holds a huge amount of data under the key: systemitems > VolumesList > Bookmark > data

Is it normal for plist files to become so large? What kind of data is this (icon previews?) and why are the files so large?

Property List (plist) files can grow to large sizes. Ten megabytes is large for preferences but not extreme.

Reasonable Size

Apple's developer documentation mentions that preferences sync'd with iCloud have an upper limit of 1 MB:

  The total amount of space available in your app’s key-value store, for a given user, is 1 MB. There is a per-key value size limit of 1 MB, and a maximum of 1024 keys.

Bookmarks

The sidebar lists and recent items content you mention are bookmarks. Bookmarks are encoded blobs of data used by OS X to locate a specific file or folder. A bookmark frequently contains more information than just a path; information such as security rights and means to locate the original file should it move or be renamed.


How to enable hardware virtualization on MacBook Pro 2020 M1? I just got a new MacBook Pro 2020 M1.
I installed the VirtualBox and tried to create a new VM to install Windows but is show me an error that says: "System Acceleration Settings: The hardware virtualization is enabled in the Acceleration section of the system although it is not supported from the host system. It should be disabled in order to start the visual system.".
I'am going to the Settings, System, Acceleration and there when i try to untick the box "hardware virtualization" it doesnt let me, so I probably have to enable in the host system but I don't know where I can do it.
The VM is off so that wouldn't be the problem.
Can someone help me to solve the problem?

Finally after a few day's I find a way to install windows on M1 Mac.
I find a website that tells you step by step how to do it.
If u are interested on that there is a link for the Website below.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/success-virtualize-windows-10-for-arm-on-m1-with-alexander-grafs-qemu-hypervisor-patch.2272354/


How does one create standalone safari Apps in MacOS Big Sur (Like Chrome Apps) This thread explains How to make Web Apps appear as First-Class Mac Desktop Citizens with Chrome. Looking for the same approach with Safari.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PWA/comments/ht2uc3/does_safari_in_macos_support_pwa/
It does not support PWAs on desktop yet


Sync Google contacts and iCloud contacts I use CardDav to get my Google Contacts on my iPhone, which works great, but I would love it when those contacts were also in sync with iCloud contacts.

Meaning when I add John Doe in Google contacts it will show up in iCloud (eventually) and vice versa when I add Jane Doe in iCloud it will show up in Google contacts.

I've got an iPhone 4S with iOS7 and a MBP with Mavericks.

Just saw a question similar to yours, Apple does not allow sync of contacts between various cloud accounts (i.e. between Google and iCloud), however you can use this tutorial to transfer or copy contacts from one iPhone cloud account (Google) to the next (iCloud).


Where is the search functionality in Apple Music? I have just installed the new iTunes 12.2, and activated Apple Music through the iPhone app.

Despite the too many buttons on top, it all seems confusing. I just want a simple search for streamable music. There is Radio, My Music, New etc.

  But where can I stream an artist I like, who is not shown yet
  to me through those options?

Is there a functionality inside iTunes or the Music app in iOS?

You can search directly from the search box in iTunes. Just type artist name and you will get suggestions. You can select the artist name and you will be shown all the songs and albums. There you can stream. Also you can use the iOS Music application search functionality for your favourite artists.


Creating a new folder in Finder In macOS Catalina 10.15.4, I would like to create a new folder in Finder, in the view where directories in Finder are organised with the second button from the left ("Show items as icons, in a list, in columns or in a gallery). Specifically, I would like to create a new folder inside a specific existing folder (let's call it "Folder X"). But I don't know how to do this.
What I have tried, is to highlight Folder X, then click on the "cog" button, and then select "New Folder". However, this just creates a new folder at the root of all the displayed folders. It does not create a new folder inside Folder X, even though Folder X is highlighted. So, the only way I know to do this, is to create the folder as above, and then drag it into Folder X. This seems very inefficient, and there must be a way to directly create a folder in Folder X.
How can I do this?

The behaviour you are seeing is the way it is supposed to work.  As @benwiggy said in a comment your location is as displayed in the toolbar and that is where a new folder will be created.
I can accept that you do not like this - you are probably not the only one. I can see two alternatives:

Use 'column' view.  With this view your focus/location changes as
you go down the folder hierarchy.

Look for a third party Finder replacement which has the behaviour you
would like.  For example:
Path Finder which behaves in the way you would like.
ForkLift which behaves like Finder.


How to apply written defaults to a Magic Mouse (com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse)? Running OSX 10.7.4
I wrote a script to swap Apple Magic Mouse secondary click.

The following simple bash script do modify the system preferences (can be seen in System Preferences GUI), but the mouse secondary click is not really swapped.

#!/bin/bash
mmode=$(defaults read  com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse MouseButtonMode)
echo --- $mmode ---
if [ $mmode = 'TwoButton' ]; then
defaults write  com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse "save.MouseButtonMode.v1" -int 2
defaults write  com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse MouseButtonMode -string "TwoButtonSwapped"
echo LEFT HAND MODE
else
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse "save.MouseButtonMode.v1" -int 1
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse MouseButtonMode -string "TwoButton"
echo RIGHT HAND MODE
fi

It seems the OS needs some reload/refresh command for the change to take effect.
Can anyone figure out what I'm missing?

I couldn't find any way to apply the changes, but you could also use UI scripting to change the setting.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"
    try
        set visible to false
    end try
    tell application "System Preferences" to reveal pane id "com.apple.preference.mouse"
    tell radio group 1 of window 1
        if value of radio button 1 is 1 then
            click radio button 2
        else
            click radio button 1
        end if
    end tell
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"


Can a photo editing app access my photos while running in the background? I want to know: if we allow a photo editing app access to the photo gallery, can it access the photos only when actively being used, or even in the background? Can it upload my photos to its server in the background? And if so, how do I know that the app is active in the background?

There are some limits to what an app can do in the background, but once you give an app access to your photos, it has that access even while running in the background, and it could upload them to a server.

To kill an app running in the background, just use the normal procedure: double-tap the Home button and swipe the application window up.


How to replace a Mac hard drive with a Windows hard drive and run Windows Vista History: My macbook hard disk failed after i dropped it and I need to replace my hard drive. I have a hard drive from a PC laptop that has Windows Vista 64-bit installed on it.

Objective: I want to replace my macbook hard disk with the PC hard disk and run the Windows Vista that is on it.

Problem: How do I do this without reformatting my windows hard disk? This hard disk probably has a MBR and no GUID partition (GPT). Is there a way for me to change the boot sector to GPT safely and the windows Vista SP1 will boot from it? I definitely can't run it as an external hard disk with external case since Windows Vista doesnt support USB booting. Is there a boot manager program that will add an EFI partition to my hard disk?

Random Idea: If there was a program that would allow me to transfer my windows partition to a backup drive, I could probably install OSX and then use bootcamp to setup the hybrid boot sector and then copy back my windows partition. That might be the perfect solution, if there's no way to move a windows hard disk to a mac.

Update:
I have read that it is possible to migrate a windows bootcamp installation using WinClone, so I will attempt to use winclone on the windows partition from my PC and then restore this to a fresh bootcamp setup using Winclone

You could install a retail version of Windows on the Mac and migrate your data (which you would previously have backed up) onto it.  Just mounting a Windows install that had been made on other hardware is pretty much doomed to failure.  The correct hardware drivers won't be present and the existing ones wouldn't be correct for the hardware, for starters.


I have override a file in bin folder and this affect other programs I was installing phpstorm. It use shortcut to use it in bin files as "ps"
to use "ps" in terminal to open phpstorm.

I didn't know that a file with that name already existed, and I found that when I use nodemon and other scripts, the phpstorm opens automatically and that there are "ps" in bin folder /usr/local/bin. That file was used with other programs as MAMP and NODEMON.

I want to recover that file any help ?

There's no default ps binary installed in /usr/local/bin. It is installed in /bin.

What happens here is that your /usr/local/bin/ps program seems to take precedence over your /bin/ps program because of your PATH settings.

In order to fix the problem, just delete your newly created shortcut in /usr/local/bin/ps. When you delete the file, the system should return to its former way of working.


What’s going wrong with printing my mini booklet? I’m preparing a miniature book-style document—that is, I plan on stacking the sheets one on top of the other and binding them in the center, where two portrait pages are printed on each side of the landscape US letter sheet of paper.

I’m working with 2016 Microsoft Word for Mac (version 15.24) and OS X El Capitan (version 10.11.6).

The first thing I noticed was that the Mac version does not seem to have a feature that automatically prints documents booklet style. Therefore, I edited the page setup within Microsoft Word so that each page has the dimensions 5.5” × 8.5” (exactly half of a US letter sheet). Then, I exported the document as a PDF and rearranged the pages appropriately so that I could bind the document as a booklet in the middle (as opposed to a packet with a staple in the corner).

The problem occurs when I select my paper size in print preview:

It appears that when I select “US Letter” as my paper size with “2 Pages per Sheet,” Preview automatically prints two scaled-down US letter pages on one US letter sheet rather than letting each half-US-letter page take up half of the sheet.  As a result, I have a large margin of dead space around each page of content.

Are there any ways to troubleshoot this problem? How can I ‘outsmart’ the system so that my content takes up the entire sheet?

I am not a frequent visitor on this site, so please adjust the tags if appropriate.

Edit: I’ve been meaning to order A4 paper anyways since I’m an international student and I like its dimensions better anyways. I have some coming in on Monday, and the proportions of A4 paper will resolve the issue. Nevertheless, I would still like to be able to print booklets on US letter paper, just to know how.

Although MacOS doesn't comes with a built-in booklet maker, there are a number of ready-made options to avoid doing this manually.

PDFs can be easily manipulated ("imposed") into booklet spreads, and there are several apps to do this, both on the Mac App Store and on developers' websites. Some are free, some are very cheap.

Adobe Reader contains a booklet setting in its print menu.

You can find a "PDF Service", which will make booklet PDFs and save them to disk here. You will need to install it in your user Library's "PDF Services" folder, which may need creating if not present. Then it will be available in the PDF button of every print dialog. (It's currently set for A3, but there's an option in the script to change the paper size.)

Some Printer drivers have the function built-in, particularly on large-sheet printers.


MacBook Air won't power on, except I remove the battery and plug it back in (SMC reset?) - sleep works I have a bizarre problem with my 2012 MacBook Air 13":

At some point, a couple of weeks ago, it suddenly stopped turning on. The battery would charge, but pressing the power-button just wouldn't have an effect. I clearing the SMC by pressing Shift-Control-Option, which didn't have any effect. I tried different power adapters.

Then in a last-ditch effort I decided to open it up. Much to my surprise it did boot up just fine after: disconnecting the battery, pressing the power button (with AC not attached), reconnecting the battery, reconnecting AC power, and pressing power.

The weird thing is that everything (including the power button, going to sleep etc) just works, just when I shut down OS X completely, the same problem occurs (all the times), making it necessary to unscrew the bottom and do aforementioned procedure again ;)

Have anyone heard of this problem before? Are there some specific components on the logic board that could be causing this? (I am not sure if it's worth having this repaired through official channels.)

Update: To clarify the symptoms when the Air doesn't boot up: black screen, no fan, no keyboard backlight (or anything else that would indicate that it is running).

There are two possible causes these symptoms:

Faulty Battery
Bad SMC Chip (Logic Board)

Faulty Battery.  As the OP described, once the battery was disconnected, the machine booted fine.  What could be happening here is that the battery life has degraded to the point where it will not hold a charge above the threshold to power on the device.

If you can power the MBA in this manner, try resetting the SMC then reconnect the battery.  If it continues to fail, you probably need a new battery.  If you already know how to open the MBA and disconnect the battery, you are halfway to replacing it.  If you're not sure, ifixit.com has an excellent tutorial.

Given that the OP's machine is a 2012, it would mean the battery is pushing 5 years now which is around the EOL for this battery.  It's time for a replacement.  I recommend getting one with at least a 18 month warranty.

Faulty SMC.  There is a possibility that the SMC (chip) is faulty.  The first thing to attempt to diagnose it would be to run Apple Hardware Test (AHT).  Hold the D key while booting from a powered off state with the AC adapter connected.

It may come back with "no errors" so the positive diagnostic test would be to attempt with a known "good" battery.  If it continues to fail after the battery is replaced, there's a high chance than the SMC is bad.  It's time to take it in for service.


How do I format a partition with FAT32? The command diskutil eraseDisk is not what I want because that wipes the entire disk. I have a partition already allocated and it is blank. All I need to do is format it with VFAT/FAT32. How can this be done from Terminal? It must the same effect as using mkfs.vfat on Linux.

Enter diskutil list to get the disk identifier/partition. Then enter:

diskutil eraseVolume FAT32 DATA diskXsY #replace diskXsY by the proper disk identifier

DATA will be the name of the volume. The name has to be capitalized using diskutil ....

The diskutil eraseVolume ... command will change the pMBR of the GUID partition table to a hybrid MBR and probably renders an existing OS X system volume on the same drive unbootable.


Clean Install MacBook Pro I have a 13" MacBook Pro that Apple has lent me while my new 15" is being built and I need to restore it to the same condition as the day I received it from Apple. How do I do that?

You can do that by shutting down your computer, then when you turn it on press and hold command+option+R and wait a while (normally about 5 mins)

Once your in Internet Recovery go to disk utility and format your drive. After you have done that go to Install OS X and follow the instructions. This will create an clean install. Once you do that shutdown the computer and then you can give it back to them. Don't do the setup.


From where to download xcode 5? I am using xcode 4.6.3. and now i want to download xcode 5.

But i dont want to download it from itunes / mac store or apple developer site.

So what are the other sources to download the xcode 5 ?

Please provide me links for this..

Thanks.

Xcode 5 can be downloaded only from the Mac App Store or from the Apple Developer site.

You could create an Apple ID and use the Mac App Store to download it.

OR

You could create a free developer account at the Apple Developer portal
go to the downloads section
check only Developer Tools under Categories on the left (uncheck others, to make it simpler to find)
then download the Xcode 5 DMG file.


Volume level intermittently drops I've noticed issues where the audio level intermittently drops.

When playing audio the volume will intermittently drop off (doesn't stop just gets quieter) then after some period of time it will return to normal volume.

This happens consistently when using CarPlay (plugged in via lightning connector) or on car Bluetooth.

The same issue happens on Bluetooth headphones.  This issue didn't appear until after iOS 11, but has been going on ever since then despite several updates since then.

This issue first appeared on my iPhone 7 after the iOS 11 updates.  Now I've just upgraded to an iPhone 8 Plus and it is having the same issues straight out of the box.

This is a problem across the phone itself, but for some reason is more noticeable in some situations than others.

For example; this issue occurs with Apple's "Music" app, but the volume change isn't as drastic as with the "Amazon Music" app.

When plugged in with a pair of lightning headphones this issue doesn't happen, but when using bluetooth or carplay  (even using usb/lightning adapter) it constantly drops in and out.

Are you receiving texts, notification, etc when the volume drops? Most bluetooth interfaces will dim the volume when a notification arrives, even if the notification sound is set very low. Check your notification setting on the bluetooth device by adjusting the volume without any music playing.

Try using your phone in silent mode and see if the problem goes away.


What is the easiest way to find and delete duplicate songs in iTunes? Possible Duplicate:
  Remove all duplicates on iTunes library

A few days ago, I synced all of songs from my iPhone 4s to iTunes. After it finished, I found that some of them have duplicates. I thought maybe I transferred them to iTunes before. Now I want to find and delete them from my iTunes library. What is the easiest way to delete the duplicates?
Thank you very much in advance.

There is a menu item for this directly in iTunes:

You may find additional utilities at Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes.


Cannot change font size in Xcode 4? Everywhere I look I see that in order to change the Font size in Xcode I simply click on the "fonts window button".
However, I can't.
I have a default install of Xcode, just started trying to use it the other day.  The fonts window button looks like this:

Notice how it is grayed out?  Nothing I can figure out will let me click on it to change the font size.  Is this a common problem?  Anyone have a clue how to fix it?

You have to select one or more categories in the list (on the right). Steps in Apple Docs


How can an app be running yet not appear in the Dock? On two instances, I've been unable to empty my trash because it contained a pdf that the system claimed was in use. On both occasions, I typed the lsof command to find out which app was using it. In both instances, Preview was indicated -- yet it wasn't shown in the Dock! Activity Monitor does show Preview running.

How can this be?

It's possible that the plist of the application has been changed (eg, /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info.plist).  There is a setting LSUIElement, which if is true, causes the app to be hidden from the dock, the ⌘-Tab application switcher, etc.  See this similar question for more details.


MBA 2008 Model - Mac OS X 10.6.8 is sluggish and I want to revert back to factory settings (OS) but don't want to loose my Office for mac 2008, how? I just got a used Macbook Air (The original 2008 model) for writing purposes only. It came with Mac OS X 10.6.8 installed + Office for Mac 2008. However it's very slow and I have tried tools (like TinkerTool and Onyx) to speed it up and turn off the 'eye candy' but it still goes sluggish after around 20-25 minutes of usage. I have tried turning off 'indexing' by 'spotlight' and usual tricks I could find online but nothing worked for me.

I think it's best if I revert back to the original OS version this shipped with (OS X 10.5?). Here are my questions:

How would I revert back to the original OS? (I don't have any installation disks and I think before giving it to me the original owner wiped the hard disk clean and just installed the Office for mac 2008)
How would I make sure I don't loose my 'Office for Mac 2008'? Do I need to write down the key from somewhere?

Please help me out, I'm a Linux guy (and geek at that) but very new to Mac OS (This is my first Mac)

Snow Leopard is known to be better optimized than Leopard so I'm not sure it would be that great. The main bottleneck in the original Air is the slow as hell hard drive if yours doesn't have an SSD.

Regardless, you should backup your apps and data to an external drive (USB 2.0) and then reinstall the original OS (which if I remember well came in a thumb USB drive with the Air) and then restore your data and apps from the external drive.


SSD w/ brand new clean in stall of Yosemite fails to boot I've just installed a new version of Yosemite on a third party SSD (Crucial). When I boot it up it hangs on a gray screen.

Steps that got me here:

Connect SSD to Macbook Pro (with existing HD) using USB2
Install Yosemite onto SSD while connected to MBP
Complete installation (at this point, I'm up and running with a
working Yosemite running on the external SSD)
Install SSD into internal port
Boot MBP
Immediately hangs on gray screen

I've read about issues with Trim and Yosemite, but to my knowledge I've never enabled or installed Trim on this SSD.

The Option key and Command-R are both non-responsive during startup.

You are most likely suffering from a bad SATA cable. This is a very common issue with any MBP so far, and often presents itself when someone decides to swap out their drive.

You can check this by plugging in both the SSD and an external boot medium and then booting up with option key pressed. If you can see the external medium after some time but not the SSD, your SATA cable is most likely broken.

This is the thin black cable going to your motherboard from the SATA plug. It's pretty cheap to buy and can be installed really easy. It is screwed down to the chassis so you will have to unscrew it before you can replace it.

Addition to my post: TRIM has nothing to do with this. Neither does Yosemite :) TRIM is a garbage collection technology (or: a ATA command to initiate GC on a specific part). Modern SSD's work fine with or without it. The difference is that TRIM can be used by the operating system to direct some specific garbage collection. This is separate from the SSD controller's own garbage collection scheme. You do not need TRIM, you should not install a "TRIM Enabler" as they work (since Yosemite) by disabling kext signatures and blindly modifying some code and/or a plist for a kernel extension. Some newer enablers use local kext signing as an immediate solution. You will however not have any noticeable performance difference, but you will have a system that's been messed with. The only thing you have to make sure is that you don't have your SSD completely filled 99% of the time as this limits the SSD's ability to maintain itself properly in some cases.


Does laptop in clamshell mode go to sleep when unplugged? If I am using a laptop in clamshell mode, and then I unplug the screen and disconnect the power without opening up the laptop, will it automatically go to sleep or will it stay turned on?

Testing this just now on my personal rMBP, it does not go to sleep immediately. It appears to trigger the sleep at the normal "power adapter sleep" time.a


cupsfilter: Unable to determine MIME type of ““??”.** I'm trying to convert html files to pdf files using the following command line

for file in *.html; do /usr/sbin/cupsfilter “$file” > $file.pdf; done

But I got the message as below and empty pdf files

cupsfilter: Unable to determine MIME type of ““??”.**

Could you please point out the syntax error that I made in command line.

I'm currently using Mac OS X 10.11.3

Quotes: “ versus "

You are using 'typographers' quotes instead of 'regular' quotes.
Try this line:

for file in *.html; do /usr/sbin/cupsfilter "$file" > "$file".pdf; done

note the difference in quotation


External HD Accidentally pulled out of computer A few days ago I accidentally pulled my WD MyBook 1110 Media external HD out of the USB connection on my Macbook Pro.

I have tried to repair the HD with Disk Utility, but the 'Repair Disk' option is grayed out.

Of course I would like to recover the information on the external HD. Is there any way to do this?

When plugged in, the HD starts up perfectly fine and seems to run (I can hear it). But my computer isn't able to recognize it. The message I get is "The disk you inserted was not recognizable on your computer."

I am running Mac Yosemite 10.10 on a Macbook Pro.

I know this is an old thread but I have just encountered the problem yesterday when I accidentally knocked my external drive USB cord off.  I ended up with the same problem in this post.  What I did was connecting the drive to a windows machine and it will automatically detect and fix the errors.  It's an annoying solution but it worked.  I just wish Apple will have some kind of safeguard procedure against things like this from occurring, especially with most people backing up their life onto an external drive.


Can an iPad be child locked so they cannot escape from one app? I'm planning on getting an iPad, but it very much needs to be childlockable - that is I need the ability to lock it so only one app can be used unless a user has a pincode or password.  I'm presuming I'll have to jailbreak to get the functionality but I'm not sure where to go from there - any ideas?

This is the only feature I'm looking for - the app I'm wanting to access is likely 'prologue2go' but that's the only reason to purchase - I'm presuming I'll be getting an iPad2 simply because they are, and will be (I pressume) more stably jailbroken.

This is now a feature in iOS 6 by using Accessibility. You can enable this feature by opening Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access. Here you can set a Passcode, enable Guided Access, and choose whether to allow the device to sleep or not (in this case you would want that enabled). After that, triple click the home button after opening the app, and configure the remainder of the settings.

One Caveat:
The only way to get out of Guided Access (without entering the passcode after triple clicking the home button) is to reboot the iDevice. This could be a good or bad thing, depending on the scenario. Obviously one could put a passcode on the device itself which would prevent the user from accessing everything else.


Can I make Apple Mail use "m" as the "mark unread" hotkey? I'd like to make "m" the hotkey for marking emails unread, since that's the same key as every other email or RSS application uses, and command+shift+u is unwieldy. The only place I can find to set this is the global hotkeys and it won't let me use unmodified keys (presumably because that would break things). Is it possible to do this?

You can do the following:

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts
click App Shortcuts and add a new shortcut using the "+" button
Select Mail from the list of your applications
As Menu Title, you have to put the exact name of the menu command you want to add. In your case, it should be "As unread"
Choose the shortcut you want
Just Add the modification

After these steps, just restart Mail and it's done. You can check on the menu bar to see that the shortcut has been modified.


Calendar does not show event times in month view after Yosemite download Calendar does not show times in month view, and there is no box on Preferences to Show Times in Month View, as some have said there is.

The pref for Event Times in Month View disappeared with Mavericks.

Make the window large enough & they will automatically show.

 … or ...


Mac Pro in a hot country - bad idea? I'm about to buy a second Mac Pro - I have one in London where the temperature is pretty cool most of the time, but want to get another one for Spain where the temperature gets up to 51 degrees celcius outside sometimes.

What it be a foolish thing to try and use a system that presumably would overheat pretty quickly in such a hot country? I've tried air conditioning, but that really doesn't bring the temperature down much when you're in that kind of heat. Plus it's VERY noisy with AC on and I'm a composer so need as much silence as possible for when I'm recording...

Thanks for any pointers - especially from people in hot countries!

From Apple's Mac Pro Technical Specifications:

Electrical and operating requirements:
Operating temperature: 50° to 95° F (10° to 35° C)

If your indoor temperature reaches 51˚C, that probably spells bad news for microprocessors. You might be in for a very costly climate control system if you need an acoustically isolated space.


Mail PDF attachments shown as 0 KB Since I updated to macOS Sierra (10.12.2) PDF attachment are shown with sizes of 0 KB and a preview is not embedded. Resetting Mail and even re-installing the whole macOS system (factory default, no recovery) did not help.

The only way to read the attachments is to view the e-mail raw data (⌥+⌘+u) and then store it into an *.eml file. The created eml file can then be opened with Apple Mail via ⌘+o and the attachment is readable.

What am I missing? My inbox is IMAP not POP3 and my provider is posteo.de.

Go to Preferences -> Accounts -> specific account, and change the pop-up entry for Attachments from "all" to "last" (or however the "zuletzt" entry is called in english).


Service on Big Sur to start Terminal doesn't work with Finder, works with other apps I picked up a new MacBook recently and started customizing it software-wise.
After some research, I have managed to set a shortcut for opening Terminal as follows:

Open Automator
Select New Document, Quick Action, search „Launch Application“ and drag it over
Select the desired application (may be located in „others“)
Select File->Save in the menu bar
Open System Preferences and select Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services
Provide a shortcut for the Quick Action. In my case, I have selected CommandControlT

Sadly, the shortcut CommandControlT doesn't work when the Finder is the active app. With any other app, it works.
I don't understand why, as the shortcut isn't assigned to any action in the Finder.
Thanks in advance

There is default shortcut which may interfere: Mac keyboard shortcuts > Finder and system shortcuts:

Control-Command-T: Add the selected item to the sidebar (OS X
Mavericks or later).


Changed the user account name; unable to use sudo I tried renaming my root user account and for a second after saving it looked like it had no name whatsoever. That was the last time I could use the "lock" icon under Users & Groups.

I followed some instructions by rebooting in CMD+S mode and basically using passwd command to reset it which allowed me to log in but I'm still powerless to use anything that requires admin privileges.

For instance, the "put in your root password" dialogue box is no longer pre-filled with my account name and no variation of the name seems to work.

Using sudo in the terminal results in:

~/lab ~ sudo nano /etc/sudoers
Password:
johnnyuser is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.

What do I do to restore things to the way they were before?

This question has been answered here: Changing my administrator user's username has removed privileges

I had this issue as well and it worked for me.


What is mdflagwriter and why does it eat up so much RAM? On my Mavericks 10.9.4 instance of mdflagwriter eats up 2.18G of RAM. I know that it's somehow related to Spotlight, but what is it exactly and why is it so RAM-hungry?

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdflagwriter is part of Spotlight's indexing. There seems to be a bug present for some people where mdflagwriter uses a considerable amount of RAM, but no canonical fix, apart from reinstalling OS X, or for some people reindexing with sudo mdutil -E /.


How do I move my menubar to an external monitor? I just asked this question (Using External Monitor and Spaces. Want Mouse to move Up/Down, not Left/Right?) and @calavera gave me a great answer, thanks!

But now I have another question. It seems that the menubar wants to stay with the laptop and doesn't seem to be possible to move to the external monitor. Am I beating a dead horse here or is it somehow possible to achieve the layout I'm looking for? See screenshot:

(source: mikeschinkel.com)

Try and drag the menubar icon you're pointing to in that screenshot to the other monitor.  It's kind of hard to grab with the mouse pointer but it should work if you can click/drag that white space rather than the blue space representing the monitor.


Is there a way to announce Reminders? I know that there’s an option to announce calls. Is there any way to automatically announce Reminders at the time for which  they’re set? I’ve looked around, but couldn’t seem to find anything that would make that possible. (Though there may be and I’m just not aware of it.) Any assistance would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Take a look in your settings: Accessibility -> Voice Over -> Always Speak Notifications.


How can I keep a folder on a remote server in sync with a local folder in iOS accessible via Files? I prefer not sideloading apps onto my devices, so solutions leveraging existing products are preferred.

I tried using Nextcloud, but I don’t know how to accomplish my goal of a synced folder with it, and it is slow.

PS: I have Blink installed.

I asked the maintainer of the snap package, and learned how to do this with Nextcloud:

  The way I've done this in the past is to move files into
  the files directory of the user's slice of the datadir, make sure
  permissions were the same, and then run occ files:scan --all. In the
  snap it's the same, and the command is nextcloud.occ files:scan --all.
  Unless you've put the data elsewhere, the data is
  in /var/snap/nextcloud/common/nextcloud/data/.


Network interfaces missing after software update [iMac 7,2] I recently updated my iMac to Mac OS X 10.6.8, it took a while to come back up, and when it did start up, the network interfaces were missing and when trying to open the Network tab in system preferences, the program just crashes...
Any idea? I'm desperate...

Download the 10.6.8 combo update on another machine and copy it to a thumb drive to run on the machine that's down.

If that fails, I would open a ticket with Apple and let them solve the issue.  There's a fee but it gives you the best way to get the best help.


Pausing workflow until action complete I have Hazel set up on a media server to automatically add files to specific iTunes playlists based on a text tag in the directory name. Several users will send us individual files or directories through a dropbox on our server and they're automatically downloaded to the media server via Cargo.

The problem I'm running into is that Hazel applies the rules as soon as it sees 1 file in the Cargo directory, so if someone sends multiple files only the first one is automatically added to iTunes. You have to manually select "run rules" in Hazel to get the remaining tracks added to the library and proper playlists.

Manually running the rules is absolutely not an option in this set up so I'm wondering if there's a way with Applescript or Automator to force Hazel to standby until the download is completed.

Just loaded Hazel v3 on my Snow Leopard (10.6.8) and I noticed that it does a poor job of detecting when a file is busy.

When I created a file like this...

$ cat > fileXX

In it's log it correctly says that file is busy but then gives up on it and moves it anyway....!?

2014-09-28 22:07:32.735 hazelworker[11272] Processing folder Test
2014-09-28 22:07:34.740 hazelworker[11272] File fileXX is busy. Skipping for now.
2014-09-28 22:07:36.751 hazelworker[11272] File fileXX is busy. Skipping for now.
2014-09-28 22:07:38.756 hazelworker[11272] fileXX: Rule Newly Added Files matched.
2014-09-28 22:07:38.871 hazelworker[11272] [File Event] File moved: fileXX moved from folder Test to folder Test2.

Multiple files are processed as they appear. I even tried adding a delay on the fist file, via applescript, to confuse it but all that did was delay the first file, all other files got processed, one at a time.

On the opposite side, creating a bunch of files in a burst, didn't affect it. Even tried creating and importing into iTunes in a burst - no problems.

So, I'd recommend

Check your Hazel log file for issues.
Possibly change your rule to process files with Date Added is not in the last x minutes
Check whether your iTunes is the root cause. First processing may be slow since iTunes takes a while to launch, affecting subsequent files...

If all else fails, try contacting the developer... :(


Why do I have a /home folder and do I need it? In my root folder, there is a hidden folder called "home" at the path /home. It's empty. Do I need it and can I delete it safely?

The folder /home is part of the standard MacOS installation. Just because it's empty, doesn't mean that it's not needed or not expected by other processes at certain times.

If you're short of space, deleting parts of the OS that you think might not be used is unwise. User-added content is likely to be at least 10 times the size of the system files, so start there!


Spotlight search on iOS not showing options to search web/maps/App Store unless it has results from other apps I am noticing something both on my iPad 2 and iPhone SE running iOS 9.3.2 that I don't recall seeing until today. When I do a spotlight search, it shows a list of results from different apps, and then at the bottom options to search web, App Store, and maps. But now, if the search is such that there are no results from apps, it won't show those last three search options either.

Also, if relevant, a search that brings up just one top hit of an app and nothing else, also does not show options for the web/app/map search. Also, spotlight might start showing a result, like of a note I'm typing, but as I keep typing just a little more of the title of that note, then all results disappear.

And when offline, this problem goes away. Even about the disappearing notes search result problem.

Upon a little testing around, I have discovered the solution. Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search and disable Bing Web Results. There must be some problem either on Microsoft's end or in the way the iOS software gets it, and this interferes with Spotlight from doing what it needs to do.

Hopefully Apple will fix this and it can be re-enabled with iOS 10 or a future iOS 9.x update, or it will be fixed on Microsoft's end, if the issue becomes known to them.

It's unclear to me if this affects everyone or just a small number of users. If you're not sure if you have this problem, test it out as per the original question. And please comment if this does or does not fix it for you.


What are some great OS X games? Despite being a "subjective" question, it is a useful one for newcomers to the Apple platform, and serves to aide the lacking gaming community.

What are your favorite OS X games?

Rules:

Limit to one application per answer.
Add a short description for the application
Add a link to the website in the name of the application, if possible (no direct downloads).
Use ## [game name](link) when citing the game.

Only Mac OS X games please, iOS games will be in another question.

Portal

  Portal™ is a new single player game from Valve. Set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories, Portal has been called one of the most innovative new games on the horizon and will offer gamers hours of unique gameplay.