How can I know how much I paid for an iOS app? I'd like to know how much I paid for a specific iOS app. Is there any way to do this?

I realize that you can see your order history in iTunes, but its really hard to find a specific app using that interface.

I get receipts by e-mail from Apple whenever I buy something in the iTunes store.  If you don't delete them they should still be there.


How to disable autocorrect for only one application in OSX? I know there is an option to disable autocorrect for all applications, but how do I disable autocorrect for only one application?

Turn off Autocorrect per Application

You can  do this in "Edit" menu for that Application under "Spelling and Grammar" and disable "Check Spelling While Typing".


coreaudiod and launchd are taking up 80% and 40% processor respectively I've just upgraded from mavericks to yosemite, the download was sluggish but eventually worked so I don't think any of the files were corrupted. There was no hitch with the installation as far as I know either. All I know is that when I woke up after leaving my MacBook Pro (15 inch, mid-2010) its fan was spinning out of control at the login screen.

When I restarted and looked at the activity monitor I saw that core audio and launchd were the culprits. I've tried the following to fix my problem:

Clearing the PRAM.
Clearing the SMC.
Deleting the plist for the audio preference pane.
Verifying disk permissions.
Repairing disk permissions.

Additional info:
I've run etreCheck a few times and have fixed most of the things it pointed out, all that is left is:

System launch daemons with problems :
    [fail]  com.apple.systemstatsd.plist

Launch daemons with problems :
    [invalid?]  com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist Aide

I've searched and haven't found any answers that worked yet.
Anything else I can do apart from a reinstall?

Also I've noticed that bluetooth can't be turned off anymore although it doesn't actually seem to be on, any fixes for that would be appreciated too.

Just had the exact same issue after restarting. I had previously unloaded a bunch of services.

The bluetooth issue was due to unloading the bluetooth service, but I had a bluetooth mouse plugged in via USB, I guess there was some override in the IO or something.

Loading the service again fixed the issue.

  sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.blued.plist

The core audio issue seems to have been fixed by loading the video assistant again

  sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.cmio.IIDCVideoAssistant.plist

Hope this helps someone as there shouldn't be the need for a full system restore because of one or two service issues.


Does an iPhone immediately download a visual voicemail as soon as it's been received, or only when it's chosen from the list of available messages? When using a carrier that makes use of the Visual Voicemail service, upon receiving a voicemail does the iPhone immediately download the message to its internal storage - or is this only done when said message is explicitly chosen from within the "Voicemail" tab of the Phone app?

I’d assume it saves it to its internal memory.


smb server not showing in the Finder sidebar under Locations I installed samba on linux.

From Finder > Go > "Connect to Server …" I can connect to the server and see my folders.
The server shows up in the Finder sidebar under Locations.
When I unmount the server it disappears from the sidebar and doesn't come back.

What do I need to do so the server always shows up in the sidebar when it's running?

I've tried various things I've found on the web. No joy.

macOS 10.14.3
samba 2:4.5.16+dfsg-1
Linux pi 4.14.98-v7+ #1200 SMP Tue Feb 12 20:27:48 GMT 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux

My best guess is that this is the result of something in your network configuration: e.g. DNS, or maybe DHCP. I'll assume you've not "tweaked" your macos network configuration.

When I've had issues similar to yours, I've been able to clear it up by installing avahi on the reluctant Linux host.  If your Linux host’s name is “jethro”, it will become jethro.local under the "zero configuration networking" scheme used by avahi and Apple's Bonjour.

You can easily check to see if avahi is installed on your Linux host; one way is type man avahi at the command line. If the man page is there, then avahi is almost certainly installed. If it's installed, you can check to be sure it's running:

$ ps -ax | grep avahi
... You should see something like this as the output:
  346 ?        Ss     0:20 avahi-daemon: running [raspberrypi3b.local]
  383 ?        S      0:00 avahi-daemon: chroot helper

Where raspberrypi3b.local is the Linux host from which I ran this command.

If it's not installed, there's almost certainly an avahi package for your distro. Install it, and let us know if that resolves your issue.

If avahi is installed & running, and you see a similar output to mine, then my guess/answer probably won't help you. You may want to try one of the other SE sites to get help troubleshooting.

Also, there's a good overview of zero config networking, and Bonjour in particular, in this Server Fault SE Q&A


Merge audio and video in a monitored folder I want to create a script on mac that monitors a folder and merge the video and the audio.
But if file01 exists (previous merge file) I want it to create file02 and if this one exists I want it to create file03,... I would be very happy if the older files could be deleted because of disk space. But this one is tricky because I monitor the folder through folder action setup on mac. This is what I get so far:

#!/bin/bash
now=$(date +"%d_%m_%Y_%Hu%M")
cd "/Users/tomvanwinkel/Documents/Convert/Merge"
for filename in *.mp4; do
    stub="${filename%.*}"
    /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "${stub}.mp4" -i "${stub}.wav" -c:v copy -c:a aac -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 "${stub}_ok".mp4

    FILE="${stub}_ok".mp4
    if [ -f "$FILE" ]; then
        cp "${stub}_ok".mp4 "${stub}_ok01".mp4
    fi
done

Creating target files in the watched folder is asking for trouble, so I would create them "outside" instead:

#!/bin/bash
now=$(date +"%d_%m_%Y_%Hu%M")
cd "/Users/tomvanwinkel/Documents/Convert/Merge"
mkdir -p ../Target
for filename in *.mp4; do
    stub="${filename%.*}"
    target="../Target/${stub}_ok_$(date +%Y-m%-%d_%H)"

    /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "${stub}.mp4" -i "${stub}.wav" -c:v copy -c:a aac -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 "${target}.mp4"

    rm -f "${stub}.mp4" "${stub}.wav"
done


Why does my new Macbook Pro ship with Mavericks instead of Yosemite? Why does my new Macbook Pro ship with Mavericks instead of Yosemite even after ordering it after the release of Yosemite?

Unless it was a BTO (Built-To-Order), it's likely coming out of a warehouse or shipping container that was packed pre-Yosemite and those boxes aren't opened to update the OS.

Yosemite is a free upgrade, so just upgrade the OS when you first power up the machine and there won't be any difference between your system and one that left the factory with Yosemite.

There should be no "performance lag" due to an upgrade vs. clean install, especially for a fresh-out-of-the-box system but if you're worried, this site has all sorts of questions and answers on how to erase and then install Yosemite.


How to add a new locale to macOS Catalina On System Preferences, Language and Region, when I select United Kingdom the output of locale is

LANG="en_GB"
LC_COLLATE="en_GB"
LC_CTYPE="en_GB"
LC_MESSAGES="en_GB"
LC_MONETARY="en_GB"
LC_NUMERIC="en_GB"
LC_TIME="en_GB"
LC_ALL=

If I select Norway though the outputs is

LANG="en_NO"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_ALL=

I suspect this is the reason why commands like ls show dates in the mon date format instead of date mon, even when Norwegian follows the latter. locale -a | grep en_NO shows nothing and I guess that's why. So I tried to copy /usr/share/locale/no_NO to /usr/share/locale/en_NO and change it to suite my needs and of course I receive mkdir: en_NO: Operation not permitted because the system volume is mounted as read only on Catalina. So, is there any way I can add my own locale?

I don't know if your issue was identical to mine, but this worked for me at least.
I also noticed that my system tried to set nb_no.UTF-8 (and failed) instead of no.NO.

vim ~/.config/fish/config.fish
set -x LC_ALL no_NO.UTF-8


How to solve audio sync issue on the Mac? (and it is not just by a constant out of sync amount) I downloaded a clip from 56.com or youku.com, and then found that the video and audio is out of sync.  At first, near 6:00, the video is about 0.7 second slower, and I used iMovie to "detach audio" and then drag the audio to play 0.7 second later and saved the video.  However, I found later that at around 50:00, the video was about 4 to 5 seconds slower.  So the video is constantly slower, not by a fixed amount. (I suspect that it is some 23.97 or 24 frame per second issue, but 4 seconds out of 50:00, and that is 0.13% off... (and 23.97 vs 24 is also 0.125%, so they seem quite close).

Is there a way using HandBrake, iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or any other tool to fix it?  I only saw that in iMovie, I can set the video to play at 101% speed, but then it will be too fast.

I made a workaround which works for short clips: at around 5:00 i split audio and resync second part (drag it backwards by around 0.4s so that is overlaps a little with 1st part). If clip is longer than 10 min I repeat operation at around 10:00; split audio again and resync 3rd part, and so on.

You can do it also for longer clips but it gets more and more tedious


Incremental Backup of iPhoto Library I have an external hard drive, not always connected to my laptop. I don't use it for Time Machine, as it's not big enough, and most of my important documents are on DropBox... Plus I only connect it a few minutes per week when I need to copy something.

For iPhoto, I found the Library file and I manually copy it to my external drive once in a while. The problem I have with that, is the file is growing big (22GB last I checked), and I feel like it's a waste to wait so long for copying the entire file, while I'm really only adding the last GB for example.

Is there a way to just add the increment?

Keep in mind again I only connect my external drive when needed.

Interesting question.

The first thing to realise is that the iPhoto Library is a folder, not a file. The Finder shows it as a file for end-user convenience, but it really is a folder.

There are many tools to quickly mirror a folder from a source to a destination. I would recommend using rsync.


Unable to remove login item from Users & Groups startup list I have an item in my "Login Items" list (System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items) that refuses to be removed. When highlighted, the minus button grays out. The "hide" toggle is also grayed out. There is no option in this specific app to disable load on startup. Why is it showing this way and is there a general way (override) to remove such apps?

For some reason, Content Manager Assistant added the login item to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist instead of ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist.

I was able to remove the login item by deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist and restarting (logging out and back in wasn't enough).


How can I improve the performance of an older iMac? I've got an older iMac running macOs Mojave. It is terribly slow and I am interested to see if we can improve the performance. Can you recommend steps to consider to improve the performance?

The performance issues I see impact the operating system and all applications. It's not specific to a single app.

When viewing the About modal:

MacOS Mojave Version 10.14.6 (18G103)
iMac 27-inch, Late 2012
Processor: 3.2 Ghz Intel Core i5
Memory: 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX 1GB

Looking at the System Report, I see:

Status on Memory Slots is OK. Has 2 4GB 1600 DDR3 cards.
Hard Drive: I have about 500GB of available storage on 1TB hard drive

Other than these basic stats, I'm not sure what would be relevant to help diagnose the performance issues on this machine. What information could I provide to help determine the issue? Thank you.

The only two things you can realistically do are change the HD to an SSD & upgrade the RAM.

Some iMacs have GPUs that can be upgraded [slightly] but that's not really going to gain you much.

A 1TB SSD can be bought these days for the price your 1TB HD would have cost back then, approx $£€ 100.
According to Everymac that model can take 32GB RAM. I'd recommend at least 16GB these days.

The SSD alone will put some spring back in its step. The RAM will let it breathe a bit better.


What does a family do for charging and storage of multiple Apple devices? What does a family with multiple devices do for charging and storage of a growing number of devices.  We now have 4 laptops 5 iPads and 5 iPhones plus several other iPods. Are there any cabinets designed for the home that can charge and house this many?  I am tired of the cords and devices laying all over my house.

I find the cables die pretty frequently. The kids always get them knotted, or stress them. So, I buy a lot of cheap ones. Something like these. At $4 for 5 I tend to buy 15-20 a time. Takes months to run through them and I don't fret about it. We have a huge stock of the actual little bricks from the many iPhones we've had.

I've also seen a lot of interesting little projects for charging and cable management:

DIY Charging Cell Phone Holder
Desk Phone Charger Holder

The neatest/simplest being:

Neatly Organize USB Cables and Charging Cords on your Desk

Also several items like this on the market:

Bamboo Charging Station

And finally, I'm putting these by the bed so my phone can charge over night:

U-Socket USB Wallplug


Replacement for Quicken 2007 Now that I've upgraded to Lion, Quicken 2007 is history. I need a good replacement that automatically downloads credit card and bank statements from major cards and banks. I need to track investments, too. Importing of old Quicken data would be required, too. Quicken Essentials doesn't fit the bill for me.

I have looked at Money and Moneywell. Both have their strong points, but they don't do everything on the list above. Moneydance is written in Java and I don't like the non-Mac OS look and feel.

Thanks for your suggestions.

In an attempt to replace Quicken 2003 for Windows, I ended up on Moneywell. It has a companion iOS app which allows me to enter transactions on the go and sync via Dropbox.

It isn't perfect, but I like it.


Force Mac to display in grayscale Is there a way to force OSX to display in monochrome(also known as grayscale)?

I'm working with a student who has ADHD (and I am mildly ADHD myself).  The colors are too much for him/her to handle.

EDIT: Ideally I'm looking to assign a keyboard shortcut or create a desktop icon.

Yes, this can be achieved with AppleScript and Automator.

The setting to automate is located in:

System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Use Greyscale

The keyboard combination option + command + F5 also shows Accessibility options.

This Apple discussion, Keyboard shortcut for "Use grayscale", shows how to use AppleScript and Automator to create a menu bar item that toggles the Greyscale on/off.


Does Yosemite still allow "per-user" Screen Sharing? According to answers to questions on superuser and serverfault, OS X Lion had the ability to allow multiple users to simultaneously log in from other Macs and get a VNC session with their own desktop on the target machine (not necessarily running OS X Server, from what I can tell).

For instance, I could connect to our (as yet un-purchased) Mac Mini from a Cafe with my Air, while my wife connects from the living room with her white MacBook, while one of our kids is actually sitting right in front of the Mini using it without screen sharing.

There is no mention of this on Apple's web site, that I can find, but of course they're focused on new features, so that's no surprise.  It seems unlikely that they would remove features, but that's not without precedent.

So: can anyone confirm whether or not this feature still exists in OS X Yosemite?  (Or Yosemite Server?--although the answers to the other questions did not mention the feature requiring OS X Server.)

Yes, this feature still exists, and operates in the same way.

As an example, here is a connection from one Yosemite machine to another:


Can't partition new SSD I got a new SanDisk SSD for my MBP and can't get El Capitan installed. Whenever I try to partition the SSD from within Disk Utility of my bootable USB (or format it via Erase), the process gets stuck and reports either the same error as here or gets stuck at 50% as described here.

I tried the approaches of the replies in those posts. I created a bootable ubuntu USB and used gparted to format the SSD to gpt first and then to fat32, HSF+, Ext3 hoping that it would allow me to erase the SSD back in Disk Utility. None of these worked out. (Formatting with gparted works, but erasing with Disk Utility afterwards still doesn't)

Gparted from within ubuntu reports The primary GPT table is corrupt, but the backup appears OK, so that will be used and I remember I tried to fix it via Terminal. The same error still pops up whenever I start gparted so I guess I failed.

When I use gpt from within the El Capitan USB it shows me unable to open device '/dev/disk0': I/O error.

Trying to partition the disk via command line (diskutil partitionDisk ...) also gets stuck at 50% as described above.

These are only a few approaches I've tried and which I can remember. I've been googling for quite some time now and don't really know what else to try. I also don't know if this is a problem with my MBP/OS X or the SSD and if I just should return it and get another one. Sometimes when I reboot it happens that the SSD is not displayed/found when using Disk Utility.

I would really appreciate any help on this.

in order to install ElCapitan, you have to format to GUID Partition Table, and Mac OS Extended (journaled), nothing else.


Powering up a MacBook Air with non-functional keyboard I have a working MacBook Air (2015 model) with a non-functional keyboard.  Water was spilled on it accidentally which shorted everything out. A 3rd party local computer repair shop got the machine working again except the keyboard. Since then it's been used with a Logitech Wireless PC USB keyboard without any problem, putting it to sleep when done, and waking it up via the external keyboard. This has been working fine without any issue.

Recently the battery has completely drained out, effectively powering down the machine. Although the machine has been fully charged, it isn't responding to the Power button on the external keyboard.

What options do I have to make the machine boot again?

Various internet sources (YouTube, iFixit) mention that bridging two solder points with a flathead screwdriver will start up the MacBook Air.

The following iFixit question includes an answer showing the location of the two points in question on the 2015 MacBook Air:
iFixit.com

More images and repair guides also can be found on the iFixit site:
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Air_13%22_Early_2015

With liquid damage, the chance the keyboard fails and no other damage is done is very low. Be sure you’re prepared for a short to the electronics and a fire if you keep charging a liquid damaged and clearly non functioning device. It would be best to have someone qualified to make a safety determination look over the device if charging is now affected in addition to keyboard function.


Finder Search (spotlight) not finding all relevant results I'm trying to remove an application manually by deleting it and any extras using the search function in Finder.

As a backup, I also ran the app through AppCleaner to see if it caught anything as well and I noticed that AppCleaner marked some files (.plist, plist.lockfile, and some actual folders) that no matter what keyword I use won't show up via finder search.

My settings are to search 'My Mac' and have made sure system files are included and used both 'name matches' & 'name contains' but I can't pull up these files. I have already rebuilt the spotlight index and don't know what else to do when a custom search that explicitly includes system files doesn't yield the expected results.

Did finder search change in os 10.9?

The Spotlight window does not include files treated as system files by default. Try setting "System files" to "are included":

Or use mdfind:

$ mdfind -name tweetbot
/Applications/Tweetbot.app
/Users/lauri/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/Tweetbot_4C49445B-E14E-51E5-87DC-7CE59AE6A841.plist
/Users/lauri/Library/Containers/com.tapbots.TweetbotMac/Data/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/Tweetbot_4C49445B-E14E-51E5-87DC-7CE59AE6A841.plist
/Users/lauri/Library/Containers/com.tapbots.TweetbotMac/Data/Library/Application Support/Tweetbot
/Users/lauri/Library/Containers/com.tapbots.TweetbotMac
/Users/lauri/Library/Speech/Speakable Items/Application Speakable Items/Tweetbot
/Users/lauri/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.tapbots.TweetbotMac.plist


macOS Sierra: Why can’t I bookmark to the “Bookmarks” folder anymore? After upgrading to Sierra, The option to add a webpage to the default “Bookmarks Folder” of Safari has disappeared. I’m given the option to bookmark a webpage to my Favorites folder, as well as all of my custom folders, but I no longer have the option to bookmark to “Bookmarks.” The Bookmark folder still exists, along with my previous bookmarks within it, but the option to add to it has disappeared from the UI:

In as many previous OSX’s as I can recall, “Bookmarks” existed as an option to bookmark a webpage to. Now it’s gone. I’ve added a “Bookmarks 2.0” folder in the meantime to save webpages to.

I’ve cleared my cache & local data, tried disabling extensions, purged Safari’s Container + Saved Application State folder contents, and traversed all of Safari’s preferences to see if I’d overlooked something. Additionally, I’ve reset iCloud syncing (unchecked then rechecked System Preferences > iCloud > Safari).

Nothing has worked. What gives?!

If there’s any confusion, SE member tubedogg posted a screenshot of the default configuration I’m talking about in the comment section. Many thanks :)

One potential workaround:

Open the bookmarks sidebar using the "Sidebar" icon in the toolbar or the "Show Bookmarks" menu item in the "Bookmarks" menu. Highlight the URL in the menu bar and drag it into the bookmarks sidebar.


How to clean my wireless keyboard I have the wireless keyboard and one of the keys is sticky.  Can I remove the keys or how can I get the sticky food from underneath the key?

You can clean these keys.  You need to lift up the individual keys from the bottom, there is a hinge that they click into at the top. DO NOT FORCE, they will come up. A guitar pick like device will helps. Once the keys are up, you can clean up the gunk underneath.

The keys that are not square get pried up from the side, and some have small metal springs that may get lost if you're not careful.

Hope this helps.


Are devices supposed to automatically be removed from iCloud when all content and settings are erased? I've just upgraded to a new iPhone; my previous device was linked to my iCloud account, and had Find My enabled. When choosing to perform a reset (from Settings/General/Reset/Erase all Content and Settings), I had to enter my Apple ID password; the text on this screen stated that this was to disable Find My, which has been done. However, when checking the devices still associated from my account on my new iPhone (from Settings/My Name/iCloud), I noticed that I still had my just-erased device listed, as well as two Apple Watches (one that I'd erased several minutes before doing the same to my old iPhone, and an old Watch that I erased this time last year).

When erasing a device, are these devices then supposed to automatically be removed from the list of associated devices in iCloud or should this be done manually? When erasing my Watch, I clearly remember the notification stating that Find My would be disabled, as well as the Watch being removed from my account but this doesn't appear to be the case - for either my Watch or iPhone.

In a word, no.

Simply erasing a phone does not remove it from your list of devices in iCloud, nor does removing it from "Find My."

You have to go into iCloud and purposefully remove it from the list of "my devices" to indicate that you no longer own this device.

Just because you erase a device does not mean you no longer own it. Especially as erasing a device is often a valid troubleshooting step in finding problems with an iOS device.


How to use macos camera as input source on windows with OBS Studio? I want to add my macbook's webcam as input source for OBS Studio on windows PC.

There's plugin Camera for OBS Studio which lets me do pretty much the same thing, but only with iOS (iPhone, iPad cameras), though I don't see such app for macos camera. Maybe there's no such one yet (at least I don't see one).

I know there's an option to build iOS app for macos. But here's the answer from author of Camera for OBS Studio:

  Unfortunately it's not currently possible to add support for [macos] Catalina. Catalyst apps (the name for iOS Apps on Mac) do not support using any capture devices such as your mac's webcam.

Would appreciate any helpful info of how to achieve that.

There is no direct way to share peripherals like this typically however in this case as you are shuttling video around the solution would be to look at video over IP solutions like the SMPTE standards and for this solution NDI:

NDI is a free/closed source protocol made by NewTek, it stands for Network Device Interface taken from SDI commonly used in broadcast video.

OBS is highly pluggable application and there is an NDI plugin for OBS on all desktop platforms.

There are two solutions to this problem:

Free Solution

Use OBS on macOS with the plugin, and output a fullscreen scene to NDI, then use NDI and OBS on the Windows computer to pull the video back in.

Sending the NDI source from OBS on a Mac

Once you've installed NDI and OBS on the Mac you need to create a new scene with the Video Device media source and configure it for your webcam, then make sure (if in studio mode) that this is the program output.

Then in the menu bar select Tools > NDI Output Settings and check the 'main output' box. This will make the program output available to the Windows computer.

Paid Solution

Buy an NDI Webcam app to capture the webcam to an NDI source then use NDI and OBS on the Windows computer the capture the video feed.

Capturing the NDI source on the Windows side

Once you've installed OBS and NDI you can add a new media source to your scene called NDI, here you use the drop down list to select your source.

Final note

NDI discovery is what populates the list of available sources, this uses a service discovery protocol that relies on both computers being on the same physical network and subnet, i.e. they need to be plugged into the same switch.


Verifying zsh version on macOS Catalina upon brew install The default zsh version located at /bin/zsh is 5.7.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin19.0).

I brew installed a new version, added /usr/local/bin/zsh to /etc/shells, and issued chsh -s /usr/local/bin/zsh to change it to that one - it's output: chsh: no changes made. I've also tried issuing sudo dscl . -create /Users/$USER UserShell /usr/local/bin/zsh and still see, upon restarting the command line and the machine itself, which zsh and type zsh showing /bin/zsh.

I checked System Preferences -> unlock -> right click my user and click Advanced Options -> and I see /usr/local/bin/zsh for Login shell.

On command line:

which zsh outputs /bin/zsh
echo $0 outputs -zsh
ps -o comm= $$ outputs -zsh
echo $SHELL outputs /usr/local/bin/zsh
type zsh outputs zsh is /bin/zsh
/usr/local/bin/zsh --version outputs zsh 5.8 (x86_64-apple-darwin19.3.0)
zsh --version outputs zsh 5.7.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin19.0)

I'm wondering, how can I ensure version 5.8 is being used?

Could it be that because /bin is before /usr/local/bin in my PATH, that /bin/zsh is resolved instead of /usr/local/bin/zsh, assuming shell binary is also resolved using PATH?

The PATH evaluation command in /etc/zprofile probably overrides your shell settings in the Directory Services.

If you give priority to /bin in the global PATH (or even in the user's .zprofile/.zshrc/...) Apple's zsh will be your default shell exec despite other settings in your user ds profile.

If you want to keep your current PATH settings (prioritize /bin) you can move/copy brew's zsh link to a (new) dir like /usr/local/zsh/bin/.

Then change the shell dir and the shell with sudo nano /etc/shells and chsh -s /usr/local/zsh/bin/zsh and finally change your PATH in .zprofile/.zshrc to

export PATH="/usr/local/zsh/bin:$PATH"

You have to renew the zsh link in /usr/local/zsh/bin/ after updating/upgrading brew's zsh!


Active sync issues with 8.3 - Calendar items missing I'm responsible for many iOS devices that sync to Exchange using Activesync.  I see a problem with iOS 8.3 where appointments randomly are missing from the local device.

Is anyone aware of this issue or know how I can resolve this?

You can usually resolve this sort of issue by contacting Apple support and getting a debug profile/build to load onto one device and track down the iOS errors and correlate them with the exchange server logs.

Alternate methods would include using Xcode to look at the logs on the iOS device if you are lucky enough to have relevant logs in the main log. My guess is you'll need specific logging on both sides to troubleshoot and then address this.

While you're on with Apple support, ask if they have a current exchange configuration guide - often you can get suggested settings rather than having to systematically change things server side which is never fun even if you have a development server to test with. Testing in production is not something I like to even consider when you can get at the logs and know what's happening with a known amount of work.


How can I put a Lion installer on a Flash Drive? Could someone please list the steps to make a backup Lion install on a flash drive? Is it as simple as copying the Lion installer?

Your best bet is to follow the instructions on this page.

Things you'll need:

Flash drive bigger than 4 GB (8 GB+ would be best)
InstallESD.dmg (extracted from the OS X Lion App, if you've saved it prior to the upgrade)

There's an alternate method mentioned here.

Note: If you don't have the  Lion Install App, follow the instructions on this page to download it again.


Is the Lion USB drive purchased from Apple bootable? I am helping my in-laws install Lion this weekend. They have purchased the Lion USB upgrade, but are only running Tiger on their Mac. Is the Lion USB bootable so I can do a clean install rather than upgrading their OS?

Yes. You can boot from the USB drive. This means you can avoid having to get 10.6.8 and the Mac App store to download the Lion installer but can instead boot from USB and erase the drive and perform a bare install.

Things to remember:

Lion does not ship with iLife so consider pricing that or checking if older versions of the suite will work as desired.
Lion may not import settings from older backups as well as it does in Snow Leopard, but it's easy to try and erase and start over if problems arise.
You can always hand copy files and folders or make a bootable clone of the old system just in case you will want to boot the mac in the old OS to export some data you didn't know needed moving (old tax programs, etc...)


Old iMessages are changing colors? In Messages I have a thread of sent messages that showed up as blue at the time of sending. These old texts remained blue until about 15 minutes ago; now they’re green.

I know sending the messages didn't fail because the conversation was successful. I don't know why, now, the message color changed from blue to green.  Does this mean I've been blocked?

I searched for answers on Google but didn't find anything that helped.

Blue means the contact is using the Message app on an Apple device (either desktop or mobile). Green means the contact is only available via traditional cellular SMS messaging protocol (i.e. not using an Apple device).


When I increase or decrease the volume a headphones symbol appears on my iPhone 6 On my iPhone 6 I see a headphones symbol that only appears when I increase or decrease the volume. I have no headphones plugged in.

Maybe related, I am also unable to get a sound notification, and for all calls I can’t hear the voice. I don't use a Bluetooth headset and I've never changed any settings.

I've had this iPhone for just one week. Is this a hardware or software problem? If software, how do I resolve it?

Always a good place to start is to shutdown and reboot your iPhone. If that doesn't work then it's time to investigate further.

If a reboot has no effect, is it possible that your iPhone is connecting to some sort of Bluetooth device? It may not necessarily be a headset (I know you said you don't use one) - it could be a speaker, a receiver, headphones, etc.

The next time this happens, the first thing I would do is go to Bluetooth settings at Settings > Bluetooth and check to see if any devices are listed there? If you see anything you don't recognise or ever want connected, tap on the blue ⓘ symbol on the right of it and select Forget This Device.

Another troubleshooting step you can take is to disable Bluetooth altogether for a while to see what difference, if any, that makes. Once again, you can do this at: Settings > Bluetooth.

If none of this helps, you could check your headphone socket to make sure it's clear of any debris. You can also plug some headphones in and see how your iPhone behaves and then unplug them again.

Finally, you do have various Reset options available to you at Settings > General > Reset. You could start with the Reset Network Settings option (note this will reset Wi-Fi networks and passwords, mobile network settings, VPNs, etc.).

Otherwise you could do a full backup of your iPhone and then do a full reset of all content and settings (also available at Settings > General > Reset). This erases everything, so make sure you've done a full backup so you have something to restore from!


new 4th generation iPod touch doesn't have the app store My brand new 4th generation iPod touch doesn't have the app store on it.

I think it's because I restored all the data from my old iPod touch and stored it on my new iPod, and my old one didn't have the app store.

I downloaded a software update on itunes to try and revert the restore, but after it downloaded, it said that it can't be un-restored, and I can't sync apps from my mac to my iPod for some reason.

Can somebody please tell me how to get the app store on my iPod and how to sync my apps from my mac onto my iPod? I would really appreciate it if somebody told me.

I assume you have all your media synced to iTunes on a Mac or PC? Then it's save to do a full restore of your iPod touch.

  Disconnect the USB cable from the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, but leave the other end of the cable connected to your computer's USB
  port.
  Turn off the device: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until the red slider appears, then slide the slider. Wait for
  the device to turn off.  * If you cannot turn off the device using the
  slider, press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same
  time. When the device turns off, release the Sleep/Wake and Home
  buttons.
  While pressing and holding the Home button, reconnect the USB cable to the device. The device should turn on.
  Continue holding the Home button until you see the "Connect to iTunes" screen.
  If necessary, open iTunes. You should see a "recovery mode" alert.
  Use iTunes to restore the device.

also see: official documentation


Relative path in Automator I want to make an Automator action that copies a set of files from a folder to another folder that is one folder up and then two folders down from the original files. In other words: ../Folder1/Folder2. The Automator action would be in the same folder as the files, but the root folder will be duplicated and renamed across multiple computers, so the path MUST be relative.

My understanding is that I need to run an Applescript to grab the current path and then do...something. I have zero scripting experience. Can anyone help?

Instead of AppleScript, you could do it by adding a Run Shell Script module with this content:

for F in "$@"; do
    cp "$F" "${F%/*/*}/Folder1/Folder2/${F##*/}"
done

Edit the names of Folder1/Folder2 to match your actual case.

Choose As arguments from the Pass Input: pop-up at right where it says to stdin.

$@ stores the full path of all files selected. $F is each individual file's path as it is processed by the for loop. The weird ${F%/*/*} is the full path of the file minus the file name and its parent folder name. The weird ${F##*/} is the file name itself.

Test first for safety!

The other way to do it, which I think would be easier in the long run:

Open a terminal window.
Type cdspace and drag the folder containing your files into the window. (This will paste in the path to that folder. Be sure to include the space after cd before you drag-and-drop.)
Type cp *Video* ../Folder1/Folder2
Done!


My friend upgraded to a new phone, but it has less space than the old one My friend isn't very technology literate, so I backed up his phone to my computer for him. The problem is, his new phone doesn't have as much space, so I can't load up the back up on there.

Is there a way to extract at least the photos and contacts from the back up?

Thanks in advance!

Mac or PC?

Because if you Sync'ed the phone with your computer it most likely copied the pictures to your My Pictures folder (PC) or into iPhoto (Mac). If you didn't sync the phone but just performed a backup then you will need one of the many utilities that let you browse/extract data from the backup.

I have not futzed with such a utility in many years I hear that iExplorer is a decent product.

It should allow you to do just what you want on a Mac or a PC.


Proxy @ work, no proxy @ home I own a MacBookAir and surf great from home (wi-fi with WPA2).
From time to time, I'd want to bring it at work where I have a connection through proxy (i know address and port).
If I do save the settings when I am at work, will I have to reopen settings page and remove proxy setting when reconnecting from home?

You can configure two locations in your network settings and then configure the proxy for your work location in the advanced settings.


Can an iOS app be released as a public beta? I'm wondering if there is an equivalent in the iOS App Store to Google Play's beta testing program Early Access.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/01/google-plays-beta-testing-program-early-access-opens-to-more-developers/

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7003180?hl=en

We are currently testing our app with a handful of users and a few small groups via Testflight, but it's unclear to me if we can scale up the testing without just releasing the app to everyone.

To reiterate what I wrote in the comments: Apple does not currently have any "open beta" program like Google Play's Early Access. In terms of TestFlight's scalability, you can invite up to 10,000 testers through the platform (as is listed on Apple's TestFlight web page).


How can I change a command and cursor key bindings globally? I want to assign "Go to previous word" command to cmd← and "Go to beginning of the line" command to alt←.

In short, I want to switch the actions of cmd← and alt←. Similarly for cmd→ and alt→ as well. How can I accomplish this?

To swap the key bindings download, install and start Karabiner.

Open the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences... in the menubar, search for arrow and enable the swapping of the two command like in the example below (FYI KeyRemap4MacBook shown in the screenshot is the predecessor of Karabiner):


How to connect to a FTP server from a Wi-Fi Hotspot that prevents direct FTP connections? I am using the wifi at a library where they prevent me to connect to FTP servers for some reason. I need to upload my work.

Is there any tool or trick to go around this?

I actually have found one solution:

net2ftp - a web based FTP client

Usual warnings concerning (non-)confidentiality of data etc. apply.


4k Monitor, 2014 Macbook air, and an all around DILEMMA I would like to get a 27 inch 4k display to hook up to my early 2014 macbook air. My Early 2014 Macbook air only has a thunderbolt 1 connection and I an aware it is not possible to get 4k quality through my thunderbolt 1 connector.

Could I still use the display, using a thunderbolt 1 to thunderbolt 3 adaptor, and get a decent quality, perhaps 2k, on it without anything looking distorted?

Thunderbolt 1 is not "forward compatible" with Thunderbolt 3;  Thunderbolt 3 is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 1.  So, you cannot go TB1 >> TB3

That said, TB (1, 2, or 3) is a "multiplexing" of different signals - PCIe, DisplayPort, power, and USB(TB3).  What you need to do is connect the "video" signal from the Thunderbolt Port to your monitor.

So, what you need is a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable to connect to your 27" monitor.  Your monitor should be able to adjust to the lower resolution while maintaining quality.


Why does Disk Utility create EFI partitions on external disks? A technical told me about the EFI partition that...

...it's only there in case your computer will do an EFI update so the update files can be loaded onto the EFI partition.

This is consistant with what Wikipedia says:

The EFI partition is initially blank and not used for booting. However, the EFI partition is used as a staging area for firmware updates.

Apples's Software Update utility does not update the firmware of non apple hardware.

Question

Why then does Disk Utility create EFI partitions on external disks?

/dev/disk1
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
       1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
       2:       Microsoft Basic Data HEAP                    150.0 GB   disk1s2
       3:                  Apple_HFS Backup matt             150.1 GB   disk1s3
       4:                  Apple_HFS Freedom                 199.5 GB   disk1s4

So you can image the drive and get things set up while your new drive is in an enclosure and only swap it into your Mac as an internal drive once it is tested and ready to go. Also, not having to code special exceptions when to and when not to write an EFI partition is sound engineering practice.

You can't write buggy code if you don't write any code.


Does having to turn on an iPhone by holding power and home indicate the device is dying? I had to press and hold the Power and Home buttons because my iPhone shut off and wouldn't turn on through normal measures. When I pressed the Power and Home buttons for 20 seconds the iPhone powered on, but does this mean the phone is dying?

If it's a one-off occurrence, it doesn't mean much and you can probably ignore it.

If it's a regular problem, it may indicate something more serious, either software or hardware. You can try restoring the device in iTunes to see if it is a software problem, or take it to an Apple Store.


Can i create a bootable clone for my mac using diskwarrior? My mac book pro (mid 2010, running 10.10.1) is currently operating normally. I would like to clean it up and create a bootable clone to an external hard drive. Diskwarrior seems like a good cleaning/maintenance software from what I have read, I can't find a simple, clear answer if it can be used to make a bootable clone of all my software, files and operating system. Thank you for educating the newbie.

No - that's not a function of Disk Warrior. It just works on a drive to fix up the partition / volume / directory if needed.

Check out SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner for bootable images if you don't like Disk Utility which is free and Apple included.


Do I need to open port 5223 for iPhone push notifications to work when on wifi? iPhone 4, iOS 4.3.1

Push notifications are working, when WiFi is turned off and device uses 3G, but when WiFi is on I can't receive any notifications.

I was told that something can block port 5223 that push notifications, so I've turned of firewall on my Linksys router. Still don't work.

For some games I used to forward port for IP address, the pattern in router configuration is as follows:

app_name, port_range_start, port_range_stop, TCP/UDP, IP

But when I list my DHCP clients in router admin page it seems that iPhone has no IP.

So what to do nex

You don't need to open any ports on your firewalls for push notifications to work on your iPhone.

My iOS devices spent 90% of the time behind firewalls that don't allow any inbound connections to them. Notifications work fine (even with mobile data turned off).

The Apple docs at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3576 do talk about port 5223. But they will be referring to out going connections on that port (even though they don't explicitly state that). Your firewall is unlikely to be blocking those, though I guess it is worth checking. I guess it is also possible that your ISP is blocking the out going port, but again that seems unlikely.

Despite the "push" in its name, Push Notifications are actually more accurately "pull" notifications (like most things with "push" in their name). The iOS device connects to Apple on port 5223 to listen in for the notifications.


Finder sidebar icon for my folder I want to put a folder called, say, Fonts in the Finder sidebar. Normally, putting a folder there gives you a generic folder icon (see the Fonts folder below):

However, I want to change the sidebar icon of the Finder folder to something like a stylized f. How would I do this?

One possible way would be to change the generic folder icon into the stylized f, but this would only really be viable if I wanted to put one folder there. Is there a better way?

Not possible, at least without serious hacking.

OS X supports changing folder and app icons through the "get info" pane (open "get info," click the icon to select it and copy or paste). You can copy an icon from one app or folder and paste it onto another.

However, when I tried this with a folder on my Mac, it did not affect the icon in the sidebar. It looks like the sidebar uses the type of the item to choose the icon, rather than using the icon in the info.


Can I re-purchase an app with a different apple ID? I have a development machine that another employee (who has left) purchased Xcode on. Now I want to update Xcode, but I don't have that employee's apple ID information. I signed out of the App Store and back in with my account, but it won't let me update or re-buy the app because it was originally bought with his account. Any ideas?

Simply delete the app from your machine. The store prevents two copies of the same app from being installed as a general case

You should then be able to re-buy it as it would be a fresh download - signed for the account you prefer rather than a re-download of the app signed for the old Apple ID.


Black lines on my Macbook pro screen I keep on having glitches with my Mac, and then after it freezes with 3 beeps.I have to press the power button for about 8 seconds before it stops. Sometime it turns on back, sometimes it doesnt. What could be the cause of this problem?? My Mac is 2012

An intermittent issue like that could be as simple as broken wires, or cracked internal connectors, that make/break connection, which causes the unit to sometimes work, sometimes fail.

It would be prudent to send the unit in for repairs by Apple, and hopefully you have a Time Machine backup of your system.


Airport Express requires frequent rebooting I use an Airport Express to create a wireless network at home. Frequently (~2 times a week), all the computers using the network (eMac, Intel iMac, MacBook Air) can see the network as an option in the Airport/WiFi menu (one machine is running Panther, one Leopard, one Lion), but cannot connect, resulting in a Timeout error. I get the same problems when trying to connect my iPod Touch. The light on the Airport Express is still green when this happens. Rebooting the Airport Express fixes the problem.

What could be causing this, and is there any solution that doesn't involve climbing under the desk in my family room twice a week to unplug and replug the Airport Express?

In a WLAN used primarily with the same computers all the time, a DHCP lease timeout of 4 hours isn't necessary. You can easily set this to 4 weeks.


Name and Summary Missing from Messages My wife did something to messages and it left only the picture for each conversation and it removed the name and summary.  We have gone so far as to reboot her Macbook but we can't get it back to normal.  Here is an image of how her Messages looks now.

Any one know how to get her back to normal?

Move your mouse cursor on the line that separates left column where are the conversation listing and the right column – the conversation window (the red arrow on the picture below). When the cursor changes to left/right arrows separated by | – just press left mouse button and drag it to the right expanding left column and bringing back the info you are missing now.


Command-W not working correctly on Safari ⌘W always worked in my Safari like this:

it closes all tabs
if there's no tab, it closes the window.

Now, #2 is not working anymore.

Any clues?

Go to your System Preferences… application, and select the Keyboard pane.

Hit the Keyboard Shortcuts tab on top, and Application Shortcuts on the left. Is there an entry for Close Tab ⌘W or an entry for Close Window that's set to something else? If so, remove it with the +- widgets at the bottom of the window.

Without knowing what other applications you're running, that's the first place I can think of to check what might be intercepting it.


Bootcamp Windows 8.1 keymap Case:
I just received a MBP 13" Haswell Retina and installed Windows 8.1 with Bootcamp 5.0.5033 drivers.

Problem:
The Danish and Danish (Apple) keyboard layouts have two keys swapped: $ and <

How can I swap these back to their correct function?

It's a bug with Win7 as well.
A bit of a show stopper for a developer...

If it's still a problem, then perhaps this can help:

I used Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4 to load the original 'Dansk (Apple)' layout, and alter the keys. It's pretty straight forward (load the keymap you want to alter, and when all done (remember shift+keys) click 'Project' => 'Build DLL and Setup Package'. Then install the new keyboard, and switch to it under 'Region and Language'). If it's fixed at some point you can just switch back to the original.

BTW: The keys will look like they are in the right spots in Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, even though they aren't.

If Win7 and Win8 uses the same layouts, you can try the one I made. Download it here. Happy new year!


Scrolling of the terminal does not always stick to the bottom When my terminal gives lots of output (for example when I am compiling something), by default the scrolling automatically sticks to 'bottom' of my terminal window.

But when I scroll within my output, and then scroll back to the bottom using my trackpad, this sticking effect is sometimes gone and sometimes it persists.

When I use the slider on the right hand side, the sticking effect persists, just like I would expect it to be.

Is this expected behaviour or a bug? Should the terminal stick to the bottom when I scrolled all the way down?

I created this terminal oneliner to try it out for yourself (downloads the linux kernel at 10k and outputs it to the terminal):

curl --limit-rate 10k https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/testing/linux-3.15-rc5.tar.xz

Not related to the trackpad, but you can use your keyboard to scroll to the bottom of the document and be sure it sticks to it!

Press fn + RightArrow


How can I use two iPads and one Apple ID and still have different content on each iPad I have two iPads and I've backed up and transferred everything onto the second iPad. So now they are identical in loaded apps and data. But I want to use them for different purposes, pleasure and business.

How can I delete things on only one iPad without them being deleted from the other as well.

You can delete apps on any device without affecting the other.


I'm in Peru and having battery problems and electric shock issues with my new MacBook Air I purchased this MacBook Air in late 2012, found that the initial battery life was more than six hours in the US, then came to Peru. Peru runs on 220, and most everywhere that I am, the electricity is not grounded. Although I used a good quality surge protector, something happened with the battery within weeks, and it holds only about 1.5 hours of run time.

It shows that I'm getting 100% charge, and I had a technician here in Peru check it. He thought it was charging fine. In the meantime, when I used the computer while it was charging, I noticed that I was feeling electricity in my hands. Then my partner came by and felt a strong electrical charge running through my neck. Shortly after that, my neck  spasmed, followed by my lower back, then the other side of my neck and shoulder.

I've tried various ways not to have my body act as the ground for the computer. I'm a writer and need to be at the computer for longer periods than the battery will hold.

What can I do to fix this?

You could take a look at this question: How can I avoid my MacBook Pro giving me minor shocks?
The only real solution is to use a grounded power source. That's just how electricity works, unfortunately.


How do I add an ePub to my iPad I have an ePub which I bought outside of the Book Store, and on which there is no DRM. It is sitting on my iMac, running MacOS Big Sur.
I can double click on the ePub and open it in the Books App. From there I can add it to one of my collections. The question is how do I add it to my iPad from there?
As of Catalina, you’re supposed to do this sort of thing in the Finder. Indeed I can see my iPad, and select the Books tab. However, the list of books only shows a few dozen books, when my iPad definitely has hundreds. The list of books doesn’t show my new books, certainly not my collections. Thus there is no check box for me to select and then sync.
What do I do now?

Just send the book via AirDrop to your iPad, then click share and after that select the Books app.


Mount SMB share without 2GB filesize limit on OSX Lion I want to mount a network attached drive onto OSX Lion with Samba.

Usually I do this in Finder with "Go>Connect to Server" and type "smb://192.xxx.xx.xxx" in the Server Adress field, however doing this i ran into a problem with transfering files larger than 2GB (SMB limit).

To bypass this issue I need to mount the drive with LFS (Large File Support), there are many posts online that show how to do this in terminal in Linux, but I cannot find nowhere how to do it in OSX. How can I do this?

Thanks!

Since Lion, OS X does not come with Samba, but with another implementation of SMB/CIFS.

OS X documentation does not have an option for large file.

You perhaps simply need to update your OS X installation. I have OS X Mountain Lion, and files of 3GB are copied over SMB without trouble. Either you need to upgrade to Mountain Lion or to a newer Lion release.

Other possibility, your server does not support large file and needs an upgrade.

PS: you should avoid cross-posting on multiple stack exchange sites at the same time.


Apple Photos face recognition: cloud or local? I am using Photos on:

iPad Air 2013 A1474 / iOS 12.4.6
MacBook Air 2013 / OSx Catalina 10.15.4
iPhone 7 Plus 2013 A1784 / iOs 13.3.1
MacBook Pro A1989 / OSx Catalina 10.15.4

All devices are set to synchronise iCloud Photos "Optimise Mac Storage", with the exception of the MacBook Pro, set to "Download originals to this Mac"

On the MacBook Air I have imported thousands photos from older folders on disk. It took a few days to upload to iCloud and sync on other devices.

Once done, for some unknown reasons,

on MacBook Pro, people and pictures are set and done. No curation
on iPhone all pictures available, people search doesn't work (empty) results when selecting people
on iPad it took days to build thumbnails, people search limited to few results
on MacBook Air, people recognition is not working yet as it is 4 days the computer is "Curating" (tried to reboot twice, still curating): "5.114 photos scanned photos will continue scanning your remaining 24306 photo when you're not using the app and your Mac is connected to power"

I wonder why such a different behavior...
Is face recognition performed in the cloud or locally on each device?

Is face recognition performed in the cloud or locally on each device?

According to Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207368

“When you search your photos, all of the face recognition and scene and object detection are done completely on your device”

Now, about your issue, here are some things you should know and can try that might answer your question.

in order for your devices to build up the curation of faces it needs to be plugged in (according to the initial pop-up you receive after purchasing a new device and opening the photos app)
As you take photos the curation process will always be running, since you have a huge database of images, allow your device to sit with the photos app front and center.
As far as I am aware, Apple does not automatically add people to the People album (probably to save processing power). You must find a photo of the person you would like to see filtered from your library and enter a name. This will add them to the People album and begin sorting all images of that person immediately from all photos.

I just tried this with my iPad and iPhone, and both devices have empty People albums until I add my name to my face manually and then all photos where I appear are sorted.

Edit: Faces that appear constantly throughout your library might appear in the People album on their own, but you should still add whomever you desire manually for best results.


Which Apple ID is used for Apple Music—iCloud or iTunes? I have different Apple IDs for iCloud (backups, iCloud Drive, Keychain Sync...) and iTunes (purchasing media—music and movies.) They are in different countries.

Which Apple ID is used if I sign up for Apple Music?

Is it even possible to be logged in with different iCloud and iTunes IDs and use Apple Music?

Your iTunes Apple ID is used. I also use two Apple IDs and the one logged in to iTunes & App Store in Settings is the one which was used.


Green Flickering on Black Pixels - Macbook Pro 2011 (Auto Graphic Switching) So, I had a panic an hour or so ago because randomly my Macbook Pro 2011 screen decided to display flickering green on black pixels.

This looked quite bad on my desktop as it has so many dark colours:

After a frantic Google and Stack search, I found THIS that basically says to open up the Macbook, disconnect the screen cable, clean it with a can of air and reconnect.

I did this twice, but it didn't work for the most part.

I then went on to find THIS on this exchange, that suggests the first port of call is to disable "Automatic Graphics Switching" before trying anything else.

So that's what I did... I think...

I actually went into the Energy Preferences and ticked the box, so it looks like the image above...

It's worth mentioning, (and something I've only just realised), at the time, I had a couple of web browsers open, one with youtube playing, just as I opened a Word doc in Microsoft Word! I believe this is around when It happened. (Although I had just moved the Laptop back from another desk as I was cleaning too), Possible irrelevant but worth noting.

Anyway, could Word opening have caused the Macbook to enable/disable graphics switching some how?

So basically, my questions are, firstly, does it mean I've just enabled or disabled Automatic Graphics Switching? Secondly, why are the dark pixels flickering green? And thirdly, has it fixed the problem, or is there still a hardware problem somewhere?

This is related to the AMD Radeon discrete graphics card. It is a hardware issue.

I noticed it come up when plugging in an external monitor on my 2011 MacBook Pro 15" (as it forces the discrete graphics to be used at that time).

The only band-aid fix I was able to find was to force the use of the Intel integrated graphics over the AMD Radeon graphics card. I found a handy utility called GfxCardStatus to both show you what graphics card is in use, and also toggle the use of the Intel integrated graphics card. The utility is available at http://gfx.io

Unfortunately for me in my case, you can't use the integrated graphics card with an external display attached. But at least it gets rid of the green dots in some cases.


Is it possible to record iMovie voice over with AirPods? I'm using iMovie 10.1.9 on High Sierra. My AirPods are paired and all of my audio is playing through them but I am unable to choose them to record a voice over in iMovie. I've even set them as the default input source in sound preferences but the internal microphone is always used.

I also attempted to record a voice over on iMovie on my iPad Pro, and again, it only uses the internal microphone. I can hear audio in the AirPods but it doesn't use the microphone in the AirPods to record the voice over.

In both cases I can tell that it's not using the AirPods microphone because I can hear lots of reverb and background noise. I also hear nothing if I tap on either of the Airpods when recording but do hear a noise when I tap on the MacBook or iPad body.

Am I missing something or does this just not work?

I found a way to trick iMovie into accepting my AirPods by creating a new Aggregate Device with the Audio Midi Setup Tool. First launch the Audio Midi Setup app, and click the + in the bottom left of the window. Select Create Aggregate Device

Next select your AirPods input device as the only device in the aggregate and name it something useful.

Finally, you'll be able to select your new Aggregate Device in the microphone selection dropdown in iMovie. Hope this helps somebody in my position in the future!


Can't read my Windows (Boot Camp) partition from OS X I have a Boot Camp problem. Both OSes boot correctly, but when I'm in OS X, I can't access my Windows partition and vice versa. I know that I can't write, but it should be able to read. But I can't access the partition at all.

In disk utility, I can see a disk0s4 grayed out where my Boot Camp disk should be.

To add, I tried to go with a 3 partition setup (OS X, Windows 7 and a data disk). This is after a clean Lion installation.

Here are additional details on my setup in case it helps narrow things down:

Installed a clean version of Lion after installing a new HDD.
Using Boot Camp assistant to install/setup Windows partition.
Before installing Windows 7 I created a new partition.
Restart and install Windows 7 from CD/DVD.

diskutil list shows:

  GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
                    EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
              Apple_HFS OS X                    270.0 GB   disk0s2
              Apple_HFS DROPZONE                208.9 GB   disk0s3
   Microsoft Basic Data                         270.8 GB   disk0s4**

NTFS support was removed in Lion, follow below to re-add it (you should be able to write to the drive as well, after installation)

install and enable ntfs-3g:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g/

and install fuse_wait:
https://github.com/bfleischer/fuse_wait


Forgot the password of a keychain (non the login one) I have installed a bunch of certificates on my mac, due to italian legal system, in order to login to a certain website with a smartcard.

It all worked well for a few months and then yesterday it started to ask me the password for a keychain called SmartcardS00...and a bounce of letters.
When I open the app keychain and I look into this locked keychain it shows me the certificates and in order to do something I need the password it asks me, but I don't know if I have ever know this pwd or not.

I tried to " delete " the keychain and try to reinstall all the certificates from the thumb drive with the smartcard, but I can't find the option to delete it anywhere.

PS I have MacOs X 10.11.1

Hope you understand my english.

You can reset your login keychain by opening Keychain Access from /Applications/Utilities and in Preferences selecting Reset My Default Keychain. Be aware of the statement shown beside the reset button.


Mac mini (Late 2014) and 4K TVs Based on Apple's documentation, my Mac mini (Late 2014, mid-range model with Intel Iris) should be able to support 4K video through HDMI.  I've plugged in my Seiki 39" 4K TV (SE39UY04), but when the "Best for display" option is chosen, it outputs 1080p, rather than 2160p.  If I choose "Scaled" for the resolution, the only options are 1080p, 1080i, 900p, and 720p.

How can I force the Mac mini to output at 2160p?  Or is Apple's marketing wrong and I bought a machine that doesn't actually support 4K over HDMI?

Edit:  Apparently, it really is an Apple-acknowledged issue, but they've stubbornly not provided any fix.  Frustrating.

Summary: Yosemite reads the EDID from the TV that clearly indicates it supports 4K @ 30Hz, and promptly throws it away considering it invalid because it erroneously thinks the pixel clock to be too high (297 MHz).  Once you fix that, though, there's yet another bug in the frame buffer.  Apparently others online have success in Mavericks and it fails in Yosemite and also no problems at all under Windows.  I'm going to try both of those this week, but ... ugh.

Also... since the comments indicated that perhaps it had to do with the cable or the TV, I should note that during the initial boot (Apple logo with progress bar), the output is correctly set to 2160p@30Hz.  Likewise if I boot while holding down option, when presented with the options for drives to boot from, that screen is outputed at 2160p@30Hz.  But the moment the login screen is presented, it switches back to 1080p@60Hz.

Did you try the final solution on that thread?

"Final update. Got my new 2014 Mac Mini now, works w/o problem with my 4k Hisense TV now.

Maybe, worth a note ...

Initially, boots in 4k but then switches to 1080p after the OS is loaded.
To get 4k at the OS level, one has to do this:
1. Switch to 24Hz, 25Hz or 30Hz under Scaling
2. Now, the 2160p resolution emerges in the list (3840x2160)
3. Select it
4. Note how 50Hz and 60Hz now disappeared from the list

It is straightforward to do. But maybe not as intuitive to everybody as Apple may think."


Yosemite One User Hangs After Login, Other Works I turned on my computer yesterday to have it hang after login with user A. The desktop loads but (sometimes my icons appear, sometimes they don't) but as soon as I try to do anything with my mouse, it goes circle wheel of death.

However, when I login with a user B, everything loads fine. (Of course, all the files I need are on the user A login. I barely even knew I had a second user account until I started trying to fix this as I had an auto login setup.)

I've done the disk utility repair disk and repair permissions, as well as the PRAM reset and SMC reset. Also did a "reset home folder permissions and ACLs" and the parental controls tricks per this post: One user can't open anything after Yosemite upgrade   I've even uninstalled a ton of apps.

None of it helps. I've also booted into safe mode. And it's the same problem, user A hangs after log in.

I'm currently re-installing Yosemite (5 hours left, this is ruining my day).

If this doesn't fix the problem, does anyone have any other suggestions? Or if you've had this issue, how do I prevent it from happening again?

I'm using an iMac if that makes a difference.

You have just duplicated the first part of the "why is my Mac crashing?" troubleshooting steps.

If it works fine under one user and the other user, not so much then the problem is not with the O/S it is something specific to the user.

Steps to fix this include booting into Safe Mode (hold Shift while booting) and logging into that account. Take the contents of that users Library/Preferences folder and put it in another folder on the desktop. and reboot normally. If that fixes it one of the many preference files was corrupt. If not...

Then there may be something installed in that user's account that is doing something bad. Go into System Preferences -> Users and remove the startup items for that user and reboot.

There are a lot of things that this could be. And it is a matter of finding what is unique to one user account that is crashing. It's a lot of fiddly, annoying investigations. It might be easier to just create a new user account, move only the necessary stuff to the new user profile and delete the old one.


Can every YouTube video be played on the iPad2? I would like to know if every YouTube video is playable on iPad2.

Further does iPad2 play .avi or .mp3 or .flv videos ?

For example can an iPad2 play these videos -

http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/qcdscat11/arkanihamed/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ3M3tp0GJE

A list to give a flavour of the kind of videos I watch and hence will hope to watch on my iPad.

If iPad can't play these then is there an app which makes it possible ?

I would like to know if every YouTube video is playable on iPad2.

No, not every single video but most YouTube videos are playable on iOS devices. It is not easy to determine which videos are playable other than just trying to play them. There are a few reasons why YouTube videos may not be playable: old videos may have not been converted to H.264 (remember before the iPhone, YouTube was all Flash) or the owner of the video may not want it to be viewed on mobile devices or embedded in websites.

Further does iPad2 play .avi or .mp3 or .flv videos ?

Kind of. It will handle mp3 and PCM stereo audio in .avi, but not flv.

For example can an iPad2 play these videos -
http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/qcdscat11/arkanihamed/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ3M3tp0GJE

I can confirm the YouTube video you linked to works fine. The other link has a bunch of different formats but most of them are not playable. The flash links will not work. Usually mov links will work but these don't look like they are H.264 and do not work. Usually 3gp works as well but I could only open it in OPlayer.

If iPad can't play these then is there an app which makes it possible?

OPlayer doesn't work for every codec, but it does bridge the gap sometimes. And it has a free lite version so it is worth the download.
I think you should take a look at the official audio and video formats supported by the iPad 2:

Video mirroring and video out support:
Up to 1080p with Apple Digital AV
Adapter or Apple VGA Adapter (cables
sold separately) Video out support at
576p and 480p with Apple Component AV
Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple
Composite AV Cable Video formats
supported: H.264 video up to 720p, 30
frames per second, Main Profile level
3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and
.mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to
2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC
audio up to 160 Kbps per channel,
48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and
.mov file formats; Motion JPEG
(M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720
pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in
ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file
format


How do you turn off AirPlay on ipad3?I'm trying to watch Netflix in my car but it just shows a tv box and says "you are now watching on your tv" As stated I'm trying to watch Netflix in my car. Called Netflix they say to turn off AirPlay on my iPad. Can't find it anywhere on my iPad. Is there a way to do this? It's weird if I move the search button it shows were I am in the show.

To turn off airplay on iOS 10 you swipe up from the bottom of the screen and then swipe to the right. At the bottom of that view you'll see a triangle icon with circles, click that and change the source to iPad.


How can I share a Time Capsule connection? I have my Time Capsule connected via wi-fi, and I want to share that connection with my other 2 computers via their ethernet. So basically, share the current wifi connection that my Time Capsule has and make sure that my other 2 computers can connect to the internet via that Time Capsule's ethernet ports. Thanks in advance.

Yes you can. Since the Time Capsule is an Airport Extreme with an internal hard drive it's relatively easy to convert it into a wireless to wired bridge assuming you already have it set to hook up to the wireless network.

Open up Airport Utility and start Manual Setup on your Time Capsule
Go to the Internet section
Under Internet Connection be sure Connection Sharing is set to Bridge Mode

If bridge mode is turned on it will share the connection and essentially act like a switch.


Mac Mini 2018 Ethernet option 1 vs. 10 GB What is advantage of 10 GB Ethernet vs. 1 GB Ethernet in the new Mac Mini?

Where is it important or helpful to have the 10 Gbps option that costs $100 extra.

10 GB/s transfer speeds are faster than 1 GB/s transfer speeds.

From the Mac mini purchase page

  Mac mini has some of the most versatile ports and connectivity options
  of any Mac, allowing it to serve and adapt to a wide variety of
  situations and workflows. Mac mini comes standard with
  10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit (1Gb) Ethernet using an RJ-45 connector. For
  network connections that are up to 10 times faster, Mac mini has a
  10Gb Ethernet option. The 10Gb Ethernet option supports Nbase-T
  industry-standard 1Gb, 2.5Gb, 5Gb, and 10Gb network speeds using an
  RJ-45 connector. With 10Gb Ethernet, Mac mini will provide higher
  connectivity bandwidth for sharing files between desktops, working
  with high-performance network storage, or large-capacity data loads.


Is it possible to execute the package (located in FTP) from terminal of Mac I have a scenario where I don't want to allow end-user to download the file but I want for them to install the required tool on their Mac machine using the package of FTP. Is there any way that allows the user to run the command from Terminal and execute the package without downloading it. While googling, I saw the option of wget but I am still researching to know whether it is doable or not.
Kindly share me your opinion on it.

Shell script: curl & installer

If you can host the package on a web site, the installation can be reduced to the following two commands.

Download the file to the local computer:

/usr/bin/curl https://www.example.com/mypackage.pkg > /tmp/mypackage.pkg

Install the downloaded file:

/usr/sbin/installer -pkg /tmp/mypackage.pkg -target /

You can combine these commands in a text file called install-mypackage.command:

#!/bin/bash

/usr/bin/curl https://www.example.com/mypackage.pkg > /tmp/mypackage.pkg
/usr/sbin/installer -pkg /tmp/mypackage.pkg -target /
/bin/rm /tmp/mypackage.pkg

When the .command file is opened by the user, the package will be downloaded and installed.

This approach assumes:

The software is distributed as a flat .pkg file.
You can host the package somewhere privately.

Using sftp instead of curl

If your files are hosted on a Secure File Transfer Protocol (sftp) server, use the sftp client. To script the client, use a batch file or follow answers to Single Line sftp from Terminal.

Improvements

Please note this script has no error checking. Consider this script a starting point for your own script.

You could add a password to your web site and then use a URL with the credentials embedded, such as https://username:password@www.example.com/mypackage.pkg.

Given you have ssh access to the computers, you could run this script or commands remotely.


Wifi problem in OSX 10.7.1 after wake from sleep Basically it takes very long (sometimes up to 5 minutes) to reconnect to wifi after waking my Macbook Air (june '11 model) running OSX 10.7.1
It does show a list of available networks when I click the wifi icon and it does include the network I want to connect to, but it doesn't do anything if I click the network name.

Seems these issues will be fixed in 10.7.2—maybe you'll just have to wait a few more days until things will get back to normal.


mdfind query on kMDItemFSTypeCode can't find some type codes I just upgraded to a new MacBook with Lion, and having discovered that some of my old apps can't come with, I'm scouring my files for certain types that will need to be converted to future-proof formats. A lot of these files go back to System 7 and some never had filename extensions (d'oh), so I figured the best way to find them would be to search by the old-style creator/type codes.

I've been using the mdfind command with success for most type codes, but I've discovered that its results aren't always consistent. Here's an example of what's going wrong when I try to find 3DMF files.

First I run mdls to verify the type code:

$ mdls garage.3DMF

kMDItemContentCreationDate     = 2002-06-24 02:05:20 +0000
...
kMDItemFSCreatorCode           = "OP40"
...
kMDItemFSTypeCode              = "3DMF"
kMDItemKind                    = "3dmf"
...

"Ah, so it's '3DMF'," I think. So now I run mdfind on the same directory to verify it's working:

mdfind -onlyin . "kMDItemFSTypeCode == '3DMF'"

But nothing is returned! In fact, nothing comes back when I run it over the entire drive, even though I have 3DMF files scattered all over.

Running a general query (mdfind 3DMF) seems to do the job, but it's overkill and returns a lot of false positives. Is there something obvious I'm doing wrong here?

You have to translate the type code string into an actual type code (a number).

For your '3DMF', that number is 860114246. Thus, this will work:

mdfind kMDItemFSTypeCode == 860114246


Full video+audio recording with QuickTime on Mac OS High Sierra? An old (2014) link suggests that it is possible to do a full video recording (video+audio) on a mac with Quicktime, using only free software.

That seemed a little bit too good to be true, and when I tried it
out on my recently bought MacBook Air with MacOS 10.13.6 and QuickTime 10.4 installed, I wasn't surprised to see it go wrong. The main problem is that as soon as audio is turned on in a QuickTime screen video, it starts repeating continuously an unbearable sequence of (mostly strident and high frequency) sounds in the background which all but hides any other sound. And yes, I double-checked the "Use ambient noise reduction" boxes to be checked and the volumes to be set reasonably in System Prefs > Sound.

This background theme sounds a lot like a proposital handicap, to be removed by payable additional sofware. I googled and browsed apple pages, but did not find any real explanation.

Related (but older, and perhaps a little outdated) questions : here, there

There are three different auto levels involved with a recording. The first two can be set from System Preferences, as shown below.

The input volume is the record level from either the built-in mic or input jack. The output volume controls level for the internal speakers other device (such as headphone) you may plug into the output jack. The third auto level is set in QuickTime, as shown below.

This is the level used monitor what is being recorded. This is not the same level as the output volume shown in System Preferences.

If you are using the built-in mic or an external microphone and the internal or some other external speakers, then the System Preferences output volume and/or the Quick time level should set to zero.

Although not directly asked in our question, I might as well add the following:

If you are trying to make a recording where the sound is being produced by the computer, then you need to plug a jumper into the input and output jacks. Say for example, you want to record video either from the camera or the screen and you want to sound to be music from iTunes, then you will to feed the sound from the output jack back into the input jack.


How do I find songs in my iTunes library that aren’t associated with my Apple ID? I get messages when syncing my iPod that tell me that a song cannot be copied because I am not authorised to play them.

Is there a quick way to find all songs that are like this and delete them?

First, why not authorise your computer? Store → Authorise This Computer… and log in.

Whilst you can't distinguish between songs for an authorised Apple ID and an unauthorised Apple ID, you can create a smart playlist that shows Purchased songs.


Does my MacBook battery have an issue? It's been nearly 1yr & 6 months since I bought my MacBook 13" 2015 retina.
Now, the battery only holds 57% of its original capacity. Number of charge cycles is 234. This battery can hold only 2 - 3 hours.

Is this normal? I have no any warranty now.

Try remembering your usage of the battery. Is it always plugged with the AC charger? How many times did you go from 100% to 0? Did you leave it discharged for a long time? This all cuts down you battery life despite having only 200+ cycles.

You can though try a calibration procedure. Charge you MacBook to 100% and stay plugged for 2-3 hours. Then use it as usual and let it go to 0. Leave it for 5-6 hours discharged (overnight probably) and then charge back to 100%. You will see change in you battery life mAh. If you had never done this before, probably you would like to do this 2 times. It is recommended to do this procedure once in one-two months.

You may track how you battery behaves by entering in terminal the following code:

pmset -g rawlog

It will show current charge, current battery life, design battery life, drain, remaining charging/discharging time etc.


Choice of Scheme when formatting USB flash drive in macOS When using Disk Utility 16.3 with macOS Sierra to format a "thumbdrive" USB 3 Lexar flash drive (64 gigs), when I choose a Format of ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled)’, I get a list of three Scheme items:

GUID Partition Map
Master Boot Record
Apple Partition Map

Which is appropriate for a flash drive?

I know the first one (GUID Partition Map) is for booting modern Macs. Booting is not an issue for my use of this flash drive.

The second one (Master Boot Record) is old, from the 80's DOS 2, for old PCs. Why is this offered as a scheme for "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"? That really threw me, and prompted this Question.

The third one (Apple Partition Map) is for booting old Macs (68K and PowerPC rather than Intel chips).

Mysterious error when formatting higher item

No matter what Scheme I choose, I get an error when trying to format the item higher in the hierarchy in the sidebar to the left (Lexar USB Flash…), as shown in the screen shot above. Why?

If I select the secondary item in that list (Lexar), I can successfully do a format operation. But the "Scheme" popup menu does not appear in the panel.

What is the difference between the two items in hierarchy? Does it make sense that I cannot choose a Scheme on the secondary one?

In virtually all cases, you want GUID Partition Map. Only choose a different scheme if you have specific needs that require that scheme. GUID Partition Map provides the best compatibility and is the most current scheme.

Without knowing what the error is, I can't say why you're unable to erase the disk. The top level item is the disk itself, whereas the lower level items are partitions. When erasing a specific partition, you're only changing that partition, not the whole disk. Since the scheme is for the entire disk and not one partition, it doesn't make sense to have the scheme show for a partition.


After upgrading to El Capitan, Preview opens the sidebar. How can I permanently disable it without having coding skills? After upgrading to El Capitan, Preview opens the sidebar. How can I permanently disable it without having coding skills? I saw other answers to this annoying problem, but I don't have the capacity to do it and don't want to mess up my computer trying it. Is there an alternative?

This should work. Type the following in Terminal:

cd ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/

defaults write com.apple.Preview PVPDFSuppressSidebarOnOpening true


Scaled Resolution switching interfering with Terminal startup I saved a window group in Terminal and set that as my default startup group in Terminal preferences "On startup open: window group..."

If I then switch my resolution scaling from "More Space" to "Best (Retina)"  all of my terminal windows shrink to fit (and oddly get wider by two columns).

I think application state saving gets in the way because these fat-squat terminal windows are all I get until I resize them all by hand.

Is there any way to get the windows to resize back to full height when switching back to normal resolution?

I did discover a non-ideal solution when I was researching for this question:

If I close all the windows I can then use the Window > Open Window Group command to get back to my nice windows, though the history is emptied out of each window.

I hope someone else is able to answer this question better.


Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available I am not sure what happened… My internet was working fine all day, so I do not know what would cause this message and notice my browser is currently not recognized.

Don’t worry about it.

The snippets of text you see in search results are what the webpage responded when the webcrawler was indexing it. Most of the time those error messages aren’t relevant to you at all.

In this case it’s not saying your browser isn’t recognized, but rather that the GoogleBot couldn’t play that YouTube video.

In other words, you’re fine. If you can play that video, then that’s all you need to worry about.


Access messages in Outlook's 'Drafts' folder I would like to use a message that is stored in the 'Drafts' folder as a template for other messages.  Unfortunately, I don't have the correct syntax:

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"

  -- locate the message
  set theMessage to the first message in mail folder drafts <== error: 'Can't make mail folder id 107 into type integer'

  -- show subject (testing)
  display dialog of the subject of theMessage

  -- for each contact with category 'foo'
    -- copy message
    -- add sender
    -- add first name to message's body
    -- set delivery date to 5 minutes in the future
    -- send message
  -- end loop

end tell

What am I missing?

The corrected code:

-- locate the message
set theMessage to the first message in drafts

-- show subject (testing)
display dialog of the (subject of theMessage as text)


QuickLookUISevice bug When I press the 'Mission control'-button(?) / F3, It shows me 6 extra blank windows. They're called 'QuickLookUISevice'. When I press on them nothing really happens.

Been searching for a solution, but unfortunately not able to find the right. Perhaps anyone on here knows more about this issue and is willing to tell me a little more about it. I'm quite curious how this occurs and how to fix it.

I'm running HighSierra 10.13 on a MacBook Pro

I got rid of it by force quitting it at the 'Activity Monitor'...
I'm not quite sure if this is the correct way to handle this, but it's fixed now. Still, I'd like to know how this occurs and how to handle it in the future so further responses are more than welcome.


Problem with reinstalling Facebook app on iPhone I accidentally deleted my facebook app on my iPhone5.
When i tried to download it again it says " Unable to download Facebook at this time."

What's wrong? How can this be resolved?

I already restarted the phone, still getting the same error.

Here are a few things that you can try. These will be non-technical answers to you question.

Go to Settings>General>Date and Time and toggle the Automatic switch. This will set the correct time for your iPhone, as sometimes the App Store does not download apps to iPhones with their clock set in the future.

Restart the iPhone by holding down on the lock and home button at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears (there is no red slider) then let go of the buttons.

Sign out of the App Store in Settings, sign in again and try to download.

Sometimes, users have connection problems to the App Store (or the App Store has an internal problem) so wait and try again later. You can use Facebook in Safari in the meanwhile.

Mainly this error occurs when Apple changes their Policies and Terms, or when the wrong time is set on the iPhone, because the iTunes/App Store Session is invalid or has expired. So this should help you, otherwise let me know in a comment and I will try to help :)


How to add an existing smart folder to the sidebar I previously used the option to add a smart folder to the sidebar on its creation. I've only done this in macOS Sierra, having never tried it in a previous OS version.

Not wanting the folder to be stored on the desktop, I moved it to the default suggested location of the 'saved searches' folder and it promptly disappeared from the sidebar.

Dragging it back is not possible.

I duplicated the smart folder to alter one of its search criteria. Now I have two smart folders with no apparent means of placing them in the sidebar other than negating any tools to duplicate and move smart folders and only rely upon creating new smart folders to reveal the sidebar option. This feels like an oversight from Apple.

In Finder, select your Smart Folder (typically saved in ~/Library/Saved Searches, it's a .savedSearch file).

Then from the menu in Finder, select: File > Add to Sidebar    ^⌘T

Or after selecting the Smart Folder file, just press ^⌘T on the keyboard.

Note that in OS X 10.8 and earlier the keyboard short cut was: ⌘T


List of all AppleScript commands for Terminal application In AppleScript we can write things like:

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    set currentTab to do script (someScript)
end tell

I mean we are using commands like activate and set currentTab....

Where can I find documentation and a full list of all the commands that we can use for Terminal in AppleScript?

In Script Editor you can reference the Dictionary:

Open Script Editor, navigate to File > Open Dictionary...  Choose The Terminal.app

When you click Terminal Suite you can see a list of classes:

If you wanted to get deeper in AppleScript you could buy the application Script Debugger version 7, but as noted in the comment there is a free version which is Script Debugger Lite if I recall.  It appears to have an extensive library and utilizes a tree structure separation that helps filter through what you might want.  The referenced image is from Script Debugger 6.


Share laptop wifi connection to iPhone I have windows sony vaio laptop which is connected to Internet through wifi. I want to share connection from laptop to iPhone. I see some articles on sharing Internet from laptop to device WHEN laptop is connected to LAN, but here my laptop is connected ti WIFI.

Please guide me on this. Links to articles will be fine.

Thank you.

You cannot do that, because the WiFi card cannot be connected to another WiFi spot as broadcasting his own signal. If you want to become a wireless hotspot, you'll loose connectivity with the internet. Therefor you'll need to be connected to internet with LAN. To do what you want, you'll need an external WiFi card.


Will windows be open after restart? I restarted my MacBook and I had some important tabs open in Incognito mode. Will they still be open when I reboot?

So you mean browser tabs rather than application windows? Answer is no. That's the purpose of private mode / incognito tabs. Once closed - they are gone.

If you talk about opened programs, that is possible.


Control not working in iTerm 2 when using Programmer Dvorak keyboard layout I'm using the Programmer Dvorak keyboard layout and found that the Control key does not work in iTerm 2. Emacs is unusable as a result, and I can't interrupt processes with Ctrl-C. Interestingly, the only thing I have found control to do is that Ctrl-Z still sends SIGTSTP.

I've swapped the Ctrl and Caps-Lock keys at the Mac level, but undoing that has no effect. I use zsh, but running bash doesn't help. Everything works fine in Terminal.

How can I get a working control key?

PS: Reverting back to QWERTY does fix this, but that's not really an option.

Edit: There is now a new version of Programmer Dvorak that works with key combinations like ⌃A, so the instructions below are no longer needed.

  ◊  Option modifier is currently non-functional. Also, you cannot replace a default Roman layout with this one. Control keys should now be functional.

Option worked everywhere I tested, so non-functional could just mean that states under option don't output non-ASCII characters. If you want to disable all other input sources, you can edit the HIToolBox plist.

Instructions for older versions of Programmer Dvorak:

Open /Library/Keyboard Layouts/Programmer Dvorak.bundle/Contents/Resources/Programmer Dvorak.keylayout
And add this to modifierMap:

<keyMapSelect mapIndex="3">
  <modifier keys="control anyOption? anyShift?"/>
</keyMapSelect>

Add this to keyMapSet:

<keyMap index="3">
  <key code="0" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="1" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="2" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="3" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="4" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="5" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="6" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="7" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="8" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="9" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="10" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="11" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="12" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="13" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="14" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="15" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="16" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="17" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="18" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="19" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="20" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="21" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="22" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="23" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="24" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="25" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="26" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="27" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="28" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="29" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="30" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="31" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="32" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="33" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="34" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="35" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="36" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="37" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="38" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="39" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="40" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="41" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="42" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="43" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="44" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="45" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="46" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="47" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="48" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="49" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="50" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="51" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="52" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="53" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="64" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="65" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="66" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="67" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="69" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="70" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="71" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="72" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="75" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="76" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="77" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="78" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="79" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="80" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="81" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="82" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="83" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="84" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="85" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="86" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="87" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="88" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="89" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="91" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="92" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="96" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="97" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="98" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="99" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="100" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="101" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="102" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="103" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="104" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="105" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="106" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="107" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="108" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="109" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="110" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="111" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="112" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="113" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="114" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="115" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="116" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="117" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="118" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="119" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="120" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="121" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="122" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="123" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="124" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="125" output="&#x0000;"/>
  <key code="126" output="&#x0000;"/>
</keyMap>

Run sudo touch /Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/ and log out and back in


After adding a font with Font Book, is it safe to delete the original file? I often find free download resources for font faces. I usually download the file and then double click ,expand, install with Font Book. It has never been clear to me if Font Book copies the font files to a system folder or if I need to keep the original file. I have encountered some fonts that became corrupt  at a later date and I wasn't sure if that was because the original file couldn't be found. Can anyone verify that it is safe to trash the downloaded file after installation?

The fonts you import to Font Book are imported into the system and Font Book no longer uses the original.

Yes, you are safe to delete the original fonts you have downloaded and the absence of the original files will not pose a problem.