How do I restart iPad with broken power button and unresponsive screen? My iPad 4 running iOS 8.0.x suddenly stopped responding only when in apps.  On the home screen taps and gestures work fine.

When I tap any app icon the app launches but doesn't respond to any touches or gestures.  This happens to both Apple apps (Settings, etc.) and third-party apps.

The iPad still responds to system gestures though, like four-finger pinch to go to the home screen.

I'm guessing a restart will fix this, but the power button is broken and the iPad is on a full charge.  Is there any other way to force a restart?

If you have AssistiveTouch enabled
You can use all the physical features on your device (volume control, on/off button, etc.)
Tap on the dot that appears on your screen. On the popup, tap "Device". Press and hold "Lock Screen", then slide to power off.
Depending on what is causing your device's power button not to work, you may or may not be able to turn it on now in the traditional way by pressing and holding the power button. If that fails, connect your device using its USB cord either to a computer or to a wall socket, and it should turn on after several seconds.
Once the iPad turns on you can enable AssistiveTouch by going to Settings > General > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch (under "Interaction"), and swipe the switch to turn on AssistiveTouch.
AssistiveTouch is an accessibility feature designed for people with limited movement capacities.  For more information about AssistiveTouch, see this Apple support article.
If AssistiveTouch is not enabled
You will just have to wait for the battery charge to run out.


Can I update apps that I've already purchased through the Mac App Store? I've previously purchased several apps (Pixelmator, Rivet, a few others I can't think of now) that are now available in the Mac App Store. Given that apps in the store are not allowed to use their own updating frameworks (like Sparkle), how will I get updates to them in the future? Can I somehow tell Apple that I already own those apps and get updates through the store? Or will the individual developers have to work something out on their own?

From Daring Fireball:

  Panic on the Mac App Store

  Cabel Sasser on what it’s like for existing
  Mac apps that are now in the App
  Store:

    PS:  If you’re a current customer,
    there’s no way to convert a previous
    purchase into a Mac App Store purchase
    — that requires a re-buy. But
    remember, what you have now will
    continue to work just fine.

    UPDATE: The Mac App Store may show
    software bought from us previously as
    “Installed”, even though they’re two
    different licenses. You will not get
    Mac App Store auto-updates unless you
    purchase from the Mac App Store. To
    re-enable the “Purchase” button in the
    Mac App Store, just drag the app to
    the trash. Your preferences/sites will
    not be affected.

  In other words, for apps that use the
  same bundle ID for the both the Mac
  App Store and non-App Store versions,
  the Mac App Store will not install
  updates to already-installed non-App
  Store versions, but it will recognize
  them as being already installed. If
  you want to get updates via the Mac
  App Store, you’ll have to re-buy the
  app through the App Store.


can i delete "developer-old" folder? I've got a "developer-old" folder besides for my "developer" folder. "developer-old" contains "headers", "SDKs", etc folders.

It'd be nice to delete this folder bc it takes up 10GB. Can I?

Yes, you don't have to keep that folder according to https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2780986?start=0&tstart=0

/EDIT

It's the backup of old Xcode installation.


How do I add subtitles to a DVD? I have to do a translation of the words of a DVD, and then add subtitles to that DVD (iso file or folder).

This is a professional work and it has to be clean (no change in quality, ie no "rip"...).

How can I add subtitles to a DVD (file) on a Mac (snow leopard)?

wysiwyg: being able to view the DVD / stop it to add the subtitle, set the duration easily
if possibly, set the font, size and position of subtitles
(if possibly, even add subtitles to the DVD Menu)

Is there already an App on the Mac that does that and just need a download?
Or a 3rd party software is required?

Final Cut Pro can do that.

So can DVD Studio Pro.

There are also some free alternatives, most notable: Aegisub and Jubler.


iTunes wishlist on ipad Is there a way to view your iTunes wishlist on an iPad? I checked at the bottom of the iTunes app but I couldn't find it there.

Unfortunately there is no way.
http://imore.com/wish-list


Use trackpad for annotation in Preview without clicking Is there a way to annotate PDF's without clicking the trackpad? Something more like writing on paper.

I love that markdown lets us annotate stuff to PDF's using preview. But its slightly impractical - always having to press down.

Is there an app or a toggle which can let me go into writing mode so that I don't need to keep the trackpad clicked while "writing" so to say.

If your MacBook has a Force Touch trackpad, you can use the Draw tool instead of the Sketch tool.

  Draw

  Draw a shape using a single stroke. Press your finger more firmly on the trackpad to draw with a heavier, darker line.

  This tool appears only on computers with a Force Touch trackpad.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH20218


iTunes is not Updating on a Window's Vista Laptop; Says I need Windows 7 I have installed the update to my iPhone after backing it up however I have an old version of iTunes and it will not let me update it on my Windows Vista laptop (tells me I need Windows 7). If I set up as new iPhone will I lose everything I've backed up? How can I get the new iTunes on my laptop?

You should be fine:

Windows System Requirements
PC with a 1GHz Intel or AMD processor and 512MB of RAM
Windows XP Service Pack 3 or later, 32-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8
64-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 require the iTunes64-bit installer
400MB of available disk space
Broadband Internet connection to use the iTunes Store

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Just figure out if you need the 32 bit version or the 64 bit version. The download website should detect for your system though.

Also make sure your laptop and your phone are Authorized on your Apple ID.

UPDATE Related to OP's comment:

Don't try to upgrade from inside iTunes itself.

Exit out of iTunes, even better restart your laptop.

Go to the website, download the installer

Use the installer you download to update.


Can I use the same Apple ID for multiple Macs if I only need Apple ID to update macOS? I don't use any Apple apps (iBooks, iTunes, iCloud etc). I just need to create an Apple ID to download and install macOS updates.

You can use a single Apple ID to log into a maximum of ten devices at a time (no more than five of them can be Mac).

For more information, you can refer to the Apple Support article, View and remove your associated devices in iTunes.


AppleScript to display notifications of closed apps with each separated, with a coma "," This is the AppleScript I am using..

    tell application "System Events"
set listOfProcesses to (name of every process where background only is false)
tell me to set selectedProcesses to choose from list listOfProcesses with multiple selections allowed
set myResult to ""
    end tell

   --The variable selectedProcesses will contain the list of selected items.
repeat with processName in selectedProcesses
do shell script "Killall " & quoted form of processName
    end repeat
repeat with s in every string in selectedProcesses
set myResult to myResult & " ," & s
    end repeat
tell application "Finder" to display notification "Apps closed successfully:
" & selectedProcesses

Please tell me a way to separate to results in displayNotification by a coma.
In this case, the two apps are Notes and Reminder..
The Notification looks like this-

Just need to replace selectedProcesses with myResult

tell application "Finder" to display notification "Apps closed successfully:
" & selectedProcesses


Deleting files requires password and doesn't increase free space I've been using my Mac for around 2 years, and 3 years overall with uni. I keep deleting files. When I do this, it comes up asking me to confirm my password that would normally come up after logging out and back in.

When I go to 'Trash', there is nothing inside the folder. Then, when I check my hard drive info, it just keeps going down in size, and not back up. Even deleting files over 1 GB in size. Makes no difference. Anyone got any ideas?

google a program called Grand Perspective and run that and you can see where the files are sitting as it scans your hard drive.


how might one spoof geographic location on a desktop Mac I use a social network site that attaches location information to posts made on iPhones or MacBooks. When I post from my desktop, no GPS information is available and this field is left blank (there is no provision for user-entered data, unfortunately). Is there some way to spoof GPS on a desktop Mac?

Is this site web based? Or app based?

If this is a web based service one idea that might work is to change your user agent in your web browser. For example, in Safari there is Develop menu that you can activate via the Advanced tab under Preferences:

Once activated, go to to the Develop menu and choose the User Agent option. There is a nice preset list of common user agents. So in this case just change it to one of the mobile device options like Safari iOS7 — iPhone:

Now with that done, go to the site in question, login & see how the site reacts. Mind you this is simply a brainstorming idea of a tact to spoof a mobile device. For all you—or we—know the site in question does server based geolocation based on IP address or just reacts differently from a real mobile device. And if that is the case, chance are you are out of luck.

But the choice of how/when geolocation data is added to a site is really based on the site owner’s preference in most cases and not controllable by end user interaction.


What does deliver higher transfer speed for Timemachine backup to ubuntu? NFS or AppleTalk (netatalk)? I want to do Time Machine backups to an ubuntu server. It is a hosted remote machine, not in my LAN.

So far, I have found two approaches to realize the connection between the computer and the backup server: netatalk or NFS. Question is: which of these approaches would deliver higher transfer speed?

I will communicate with the ubuntu server within a ssh tunnel.

NFS is known for higher performance than AFP or SMB; it is also a native protocol for unix based operating systems therefore it should be easier to setup.


Best version of OS X for a 2008 iMac? (This is a follow-up to How to improve old, slow iMac -- new SSD? Or more RAM?)

I replaced the HD on our old 2008 iMac 8,1 with an SSD, and it seems much faster.
However, it was running 10.9; now it's on 10.7.4 (which was already on the SSD.)

Should I install 10.9 like the App Store suggests? Or keep the version at 10.7.4?

It only has 3GB of RAM.

I am of the opinion that you should keep your O/S up to date unless you have a SPECIFIC reason to stay at an earlier version. E.G. incompatible software that you MUST run or a noted incompatibility with a service that you can't do without (EG some people are still having issues with MS Exchange compatibility in mail.app on Mavericks).

So, your computer has enough RAM (more RAM if possible) and a nice fast SSD so I would go with the Mavericks install... IMHO


iPhone turns off display whenever covering the proximity sensor I have an iPhone 7. Sometimes when I put my finger on the proximity sensor (besides front speaker), the display turns black. I can't find a setting to turn it off. Anyone know where it is? Or if I can?

This doesn't just happen when a call is in progress (which is expected behaviour), it happens anytime. Restarting the iPhone didn't resolve the issue, it start appearing again after a day or two.

There are several reasons why this may be happening:

You have a case or screen protector that interferes with the proximity sensor. If so then try to remove them.
Do a force restart of your device. Press and hold both the Side and Volume Down buttons for at least 10 seconds, until you see the Apple logo.

If that doesn't work then take your iPhone to an Apple Store.


Using Command-backtick (⌘-`) to toggle between windows As far as I can tell, Command-backtick (⌘-`) behaviour in OSX 10.9 works as follows:

Given a stack of windows for the current application 1 2 3 4 5 6 in order of most to least recently used:

Do it once: switch to window 2 (for the current application).
Do it again: switch to window 3.

However, if you click on window 2 before doing Command-` for the second time, window 1 gets the focus instead of window 3.

This behaviour differs from that of Command-Tab, which seems to always work as though the new application's current window had been clicked on, unless you hold Command in between presses of Tab.  While you continue to hold Command, a little overlay window is displayed to give you a visual representation of which applications are available and are getting the focus.

Is there a way to make Command-` work in a manner similar to that of Command-Tab?  I.E. so that the window stack will be reordered when, and only when, Command is released?  I find it distracting to have to a) remember whether or not I've clicked on the window I'm looking at and b) scrunch a finger down to engage the Shift key.

In MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra) I cannot get the Cmd-` to work at all unless the application itself has a menu command to cycle through windows.  If it does, it probably uses that key code; if it doesn't have a key code but has a menu item, it's easy to add the key code in System->Keyboard->Shortcuts.  If it does not have a menu for that, e.g. Safari, then I've found no way to cycle through windows. it does have a Next Tab command.


What is AKAuthorizationRemoteView (Messages) process and akd process? I noticed these two processes were causing my computer fan to spin right up, were using practically ALL the CPU % and they had over 40 days of CPU time clocked.
A quick google search revealed nothing. Seems that it may be related to Apple authorization... but why would it use so much CPU??
I'm concerned because AKAuthorizationRemoteView implies it may be performing some remote view operation via Messages.
Any help appreciated.

akd is a background service created by Apple that runs on macOS as part of the AuthKit framework. It is used by other Apple programs to facilitate the process of validating Apple IDs.
For example when you login to iCloud from the App Store, System Preferences or similar, the akd background process is responsible for actually "talking" to Apple's servers. This approach makes it possible for Apple to centrally manage and update authentications on macOS, instead of having to bake that support into each and every app that needs it.
Note that when you log in to iCloud from a browser, akd is not involved.
Usually akd does not take up huge amounts of CPU time. The fact that it does on your computer, indicates that there was a bug in the program. For example it could be that there was some unexpected delay or break in the connection between the program and Apple's server, and that the program went into a never-ending loop waiting for something to happen.
That sort of problem is usually resolved by either "killing" (i.e. stopping) the program and letting it restart automatically, or by simply rebooting the computer.
AKAuthorizationRemoteView is part Apple's AuthKitUI framework. Similar to the purpose of AuthKit, the AuthKitUI framework contains the functionality necessary to provide a user interface for authentication with Apple's services. It is created as a framework that is shared by other applications so that Apple does not have to update each and every program when they make a change to how the user interface for authenticating with their server's look like.
The user interface would include things like a dialog for entering your Apple ID and password, dialog for entering the 6-digit 2-factor authentication codes, a password reset dialog, etc.
You do not need to be concerned about the AKAuthorizationRemoteView. "Remote View" does not mean that something or someone is remotely viewing the screen of your computer. In technical terms a "view" is something that is displayed on your display - like for example a button, a menu, a text input field or similar. A "remote view" is a view that is displayed by a different thread or process than the main process.
I.e. in this case it just means that you have a main program (Messages for example) that is using this external framework and letting it display an authentication dialog on its behalf. This dialog is then "remote" from the Messages program, although everything is contained and running on your own computer.


How to manually upgrade iTunes library to Music.app library on macOS Catalina? I have a smaller iTunes library on an internal SSD and larger one on an external drive.

I have upgraded to macOS Catalina.
The smaller music library has been upgraded, the larger one hasn't.

How can I force the second library to upgrade to Music.app library format too?

Quit Music.app by Cmd+Q
Hold Option key and start Music.app
Choose music library dialog opens. Click Choose library...
Locate the old .itl file (e.g. Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl) and select it
Input a name for a new library and click Save
Music.app starts with original library contents within a few seconds. Only a few megabyte large library is created on the disk. Media files and iTunes files are left intact.
Optional: go to Music.app preferences - Files tab and check the settings, so you know which location is currently used for media files.

Note: This didn't work in beta versions of macOS Catalina – first versions of Music.app didn't support multiple libraries or selecting a library.

Good to know to avoid confusion while working with multiple libraries: double-clicking on .itl file, or .musiclibrary library (folder) from Finder opens Music.app with the last used library. It does NOT switch the library.


Issue with Homebrew when trying to parallelly install Python 3.x I am trying to install Python v.3.x in parallel with the already installed Python v.2.7.10. I'm following the procedure explained in this tutorial which I found on YouTube. Despite it seems not an hard procedure, in my case, when I launch the brew doctor command, it returns:

MacBook-Pro-di-Rodolfo:~ Rodolfo$ brew doctor
Please note that these warnings are just used to help the Homebrew maintainers
with debugging if you file an issue. If everything you use Homebrew for is
working fine: please don't worry and just ignore them. Thanks!

Warning: "config" scripts exist outside your system or Homebrew directories.
`./configure` scripts often look for *-config scripts to determine if
software packages are installed, and what additional flags to use when
compiling and linking.

Having additional scripts in your path can confuse software installed via
Homebrew if the config script overrides a system or Homebrew provided
script of the same name. We found the following "config" scripts:
    /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python-config
    /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2-config
    /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2.7-config

Warning: Python is installed at /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework

Homebrew only supports building against the System-provided Python or a
brewed Python. In particular, Pythons installed to /Library can interfere
with other software installs.

Warning: Unbrewed header files were found in /usr/local/include.
If you didn't put them there on purpose they could cause problems when
building Homebrew formulae, and may need to be deleted.

Unexpected header files:
    /usr/local/include/jack/control.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/intclient.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/jack.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/jslist.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/metadata.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/midiport.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/net.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/ringbuffer.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/session.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/statistics.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/systemdeps.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/thread.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/transport.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/types.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/uuid.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/weakjack.h
    /usr/local/include/jack/weakmacros.h

Warning: Unbrewed .pc files were found in /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig.
If you didn't put them there on purpose they could cause problems when
building Homebrew formulae, and may need to be deleted.

Unexpected .pc files:
    /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/jack.pc

These warnings refer to two packages that I installed before Homebrew which are Python v.2.7.10, plus relative applications, and JACK, an API for audio routing between applications. Their installation has been made through two ordinary .pkg downloaded files.
So, in order to avoid possible future incompatibilities, how could I solve the warnings above reported? Are there alternative solutions to a brief uninstalling and reinstalling procedure?
If it could be useful, I am using all these applications on OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

brew doctor spits out possible sources of error in your setup (see a description of some errors and reasons for which they are triggered on the Homebrew Github page, like this). If you aren't running into issues with your setup, you can usually ignore the messages (they're there to help Homebrew maintainers to solve issues, should you have them).

With this in mind, I think you can ignore the messages related to header files and .pc files from Jack. If you want to clear these ones, you can remove your current installation and brew install jack, which will house all of those files in "Homebrew-approved" locations.

As far as the Python issues, it looks like you installed Python from a package downloaded from python.org. This resulted in your PATH being modified (either by you via their instruction, or as part of the install script) with a line in your .bash_profile. When you type python at the command line, the system will execute whatever version of Python it finds first in the PATH. In your case, it's the 2.7 version in /Library/Frameworks/. You can uninstall that version using the instructions here, replacing instances of 3.x with 2.7. Regardless of whether or not you keep that installation, you can ensure that python directs to the "Homebrew-ed" version by making sure that /usr/local/bin occurs before /Library/Frameworks/... in your PATH.

In other words, remove the statement:

PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH

from your .bash_profile, or change the first line to:

PATH="${PATH}:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin" export PATH

This second version is somewhat useless, as there are two versions of Python that will be encountered before the Frameworks version (the Homebrew one in /usr/local/bin and the system version in /usr/bin). If you're curious where all of your Python versions live, you can check with which -a python, which lists all binaries named python in your PATH.


Itunes sees, but won't load other user's shared library I'm stumped.

My computer, Lothlorien, shares my iTunes library to the local network.

My wife's computer, Gutenberg, can 'see' my library in the drop down ribbon top left (Music...) but if she selects it, there is a spinning icon for about 20 seconds, then it pops back to her normal view.

The book keeping computer, Fibonacci, can see and load the library on Gutenberg, but doesn't even see Lothlorians.

Lothlorian's console shows:

2019-05-18 8:21:10.864 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.

2019-05-18 8:21:11.185 PM com.apple.iCloudHelper[68679]: objc[68679]: Class FALogging is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FamilyCircle.framework/Versions/A/FamilyCircle and /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FamilyNotification.framework/Versions/A/FamilyNotification. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

2019-05-18 8:21:11.192 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.

2019-05-18 8:21:11.566 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.

All three computers are running Yosemite current.

The errors were logged within seconds of attempted access (I can't be at two machines at once...) and were similar for each attempt.

The errors you cite doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the problem you're encountering. 10.10 (Yosemite) is nearly five major OS revisions old now... I assume being run because your machines no longer support newer operating systems?

All I can really suggest is that you make sure each of the machines are running 10.10.5 and all supplemental updates, and all have the latest supported version of iTunes installed, 12.8.1.


Unable to find my Mac OS operating system in /dev/disk0 I have issues similar to this case :

Accidently deleted some small sized partitions when installing WIndows(Bootcamp). OSX Partition wont boot

I was installing Windows 10 into my laptop using bootcamp and deleted some partitions which I thought it was unnecessary. And now the only option I have is to boot into Windows OS. I followed the method as shown in the link above but apparently my Mac OS is not inside the disk0, I am very sure that I did not delete the Mac OS and I only delete the small partitions. I am currently running Mac OS Sierra. Is it because it is hidden? I have really important unsaved documents inside my operating system and I would be really glad if someone could offer me some help!

Sorry I am a complete beginner and have no idea how to solve this problem.

Here I attach with the screenshot I took:

According to your screenshot, it looks like you deleted your main OS X partition and the recovery partition. You may very well have destroyed your data.

There is a glimmer of hope though. The numbers don't add up. It's a 250GB drive but the Windows partition is only 70GB. There's ~180GB of space unaccounted for, which might be the partitions you deleted. It's tough to say without knowing the exact steps you took.

You can try to use a partition recovery program like TestDisk to get them back.

I could tell you more of you post a screenshot of the output of the following command:

sudo gpt show /dev/disk0


Download app from iPad to iPod touch with different Apple ID How do I download a purchased app on iPad to an iPod touch with a different Apple ID?
My daughter purchased an app and put it on her iPad, and I want to put it on an iPod touch that I gave my grandson with my Apple ID.  It won't let us do that.

Correct, it won't let you do that.

You'd need to re-purchase it on the other ID, or investigate Family Sharing - one credit card, multiple family members, multiple account IDs, shared apps & content, with Parental Control.


Can I write on iPad using touch typing technique? Is there any way on iPad that I can write text on iPad using Touch Typing technique, as this is the way I use keyboard?

The onscreen iPad keyboard offers no way to (re)orient your fingers to the home keys, which makes touch typing nearly impossible in my experience. However, with practice many iPad owners become skilled at using the onscreen keyboard well.

If you absolutely need to touch type longer documents, you can use a bluetooth keyboard with the iPad.

I rarely carry the external keyboard when I'm out and about, but if I plan to settle in to write I toss it in my bag and when traveling I keep one in my hotel room for evening writing marathons.


Is there a ‘FileHippo.com Update Checker’ equivalent for the Mac? I used to love FileHippo.com for keeping a lot of my well-loved tools on Windows up to date with its tool that you could check to scan your current program versions (both freeware and paid - in the case of paid it still works to download the latest installer as your license is still located in the system - I assume it would work for Mac too), and a simple repository on the site to directly download the new updater installer files from once the results screen online shows you what you can download and update.

Common apps monitored by FileHippo would be VLC, uTorrent, Firefox, Chrome (all the way up to dev channel), CCleaner, Adobe Reader, Adobe Air, DivX, Safari, Skype, Thunderbird - and all these apps I now have on the Mac too.

Is there anything like this for the OS X world?

MacUpdate.com looks great, but it doesn't seem to officially offer an equivalent 'update checker' app from looking at its website.

And as for Apple's Mac App Store solution, that doesn't cover the apps I listed above so could not be considered an adequate solution, unless all those players unanimously participated in that ecosystem which I don't think is the case.

Coincidentally, FileHippo isn't necessary for the vast majority of those apps you listed. Tons of Mac OS X apps use a framework called Sparkle for self updating.

Don't download Sparkle, it won't do you any good. It's a developer tool intended to be added as part of the application's code. The point is that Sparkle (or some other self-updater) is already part of the application.

VLC self-updates via Sparkle
I'm fairly certain uTorrent does (I'm a Transmission guy, personally, which also self-updates via Sparkle)
Firefox/Thunderbird each have their own self-updaters possibly written by Mozilla
Adobe has their own software updater framework
Skype self updates though I don't remember the process
and Safari updates come from Software Update/Mac App Store.

I don't personally know about CCleaner, DivX.

These apps "phone home" when you open them in order to determine if there is an update or not. If there is, you get a nice little dialog prompting you whether you want to update or not, and there is usually also a changelog to inform you of what's changed.

If you let it take it's course, the process begins:

And then you're done.

Yes, this is only one app at a time, but it only happens when you use it, which really is preferable IMO. Things that update versions automatically out from under you can really throw you off. At least with this process you know when it's happened.


Macbook Screen Graphics Glitching From One Frame To Another My MacBook Pro (13.3 inch, MacOS Sierra 10.12.15,Late 2017) started to have grey horizontal lines appearing on my screen in Mid 2018. At first I thought it was not very serious and could deal with it, but later into 2019, a dark grey translucent stripe started appearing at the bottom of the screen.

Still, I decided not to take action. It was when at the bottom of my screen started glitching and it started to take the graphics of a different app (swiping left/right with three fingers), but only at the bottom of my screen. The bottom started to have coloured glitches and little do you know, the top of my screen started to do the same. It was at the start of summer when it started to become worser than ever.

Because the usage of my MacBook has increased far more hours than usual, the whole display started to fail. For example, if I was to be watching Netflix, the screen would freeze on one frame, but continuing what was supposed to have been playing underneath the first frame that was frozen. I could only see what was happening because it froze translucently, where I would immediately turn off my laptop to prevent further damage.

Other example that may occur would be when I am on one tab (let's say, a Spotify playlist), and then swipe across my trackpad to a Google Document filled with writing, and then to my desktop. My screen would have my desktop wallpaper with a translucent overlay of both the playlist and the text that I would have been working on, on the document. I figured the fault may have been because of a crack at the bottom my screen, although I do not understand how that may have happened.

Any ideas on how to fix this problem?

Take it to an authorized apple repair facility.  They are the only ones that can get new parts.  The labor is reasonable, $75 an hour if I remember right.  You can try and go with a used screen but you're taking your chances.  If you have apple care then they might replace the screen for free.  I can tell you that the retina screen is about $450 on a MacBook.  They will also do a free diagnostic to make sure the quote is accurate.  Looking on Amazon the price is about the same so might as well let the pros do it.

As far as the diagnostic part try plugging in an external display.  If the display glitches there too then it's probably not the screen.  Let us know what happens on an external display.


Permanently enable to show hidden/system files when searching in Finder I've been searching for a lot of hidden/system files through the Finder recently and it's really annoying to activate the display of those system files manually each time (Tutorial for this here). So my question is: How can I permanently enable to see those files when searching through MacOS' Finder?
(Using MacOS High Sierra)

To see hidden files

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Then re-launch the Finder.


How can I merge Notes from two Macbooks without using iCloud? I have two laptops and both have different Notes that are useful to me.

Not wanting to share any such data with Apple, they are also not synced to iCloud.

So far, I found the path where they are stored:

~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes

And see that the "DB" behind this is sqlite.

Is there any way to export all all the content in one directory and then clear all notes so the files can be re-imported?

I could see perhaps altering a bit the sqlite DB (or merge the two) and then have my notes from both Macs in one place in the end but lack a starting point or guide. I know iCloud sync is the easy way, but consider confidential data from clients where we agreed not to store the data online or transfer / store it external to the Mac in question.

You can use Exporter (free app from app store) to save all notes as text to a folder on your computer. Then import them into other notes.

It likely did work equivalent or extending on this reverse-engineering effort to get data from the database that backs the application:

https://articles.forensicfocus.com/2013/11/02/analysis-of-ios-notes-app/
What format does the apple notes sqlite db date use?

You could also just set up an IMAP server (even on your Mac) to sync up and then merge down the notes. iCloud isn’t the only server that can sync notes.

Sync Notes from Mac and iOS devices without iCloud


Tap to click only on Magic Trackpad Is there a way to configure the Magic Trackpad with tap-to-click without having tap-to-click on the built-in trackpad of a MacBook Air?

Have you already taken a look at MagicPrefs (free)? It lets you assign custom actions to various gestures and touches, maybe this will let you realise what you want. Since I don´t have a Magic Trackpad near me, I can´t verify this though.


How to restore last El Capitan/Safari session manually with Time Machine backup? I am using Safari version 9.0.3 on Mac OS X El Capitan version 10.11.3.  I had dozens of Safari windows and tabs open when it became unresponsive.  In the past I could force quit and then the session would automatically restore at the next launch of Safari.  However, this time Safari was still unresponsive after force quitting and relaunching (the whole system was having difficulty at this point), so I force quit Safari a second time.  Now the last session windows are gone, and the history menu option to restore it is greyed out.

In an earlier version of the system a few years ago I used to manually restore Safari sessions by simply replacing the ~/Library/Safari/LastSession.plist file with a backup.  That is no longer working.  I have also tried restoring ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist and deleted the ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Safari.savedState folder since it did not exist before the issue; I might have caused creation of the folder by fiddling with the General pane System Preference setting to close all windows when quitting an app (I unchecked and checked it back on), and the Safari > Preferences... > General > Safari opens with: setting (changed from "A new window" to "All windows from last session" and then back again).  Any further ideas of how to restore the session?  The History option to restore the session is greyed out no matter what files I restore from the backup.

I don't know what you are talking about, since I just restored a lost session using Time Machine following the usual steps: quit Safari, restore the ~/Library/Safari/LastSession.plist file from a backup, launch Safari, hit "restore last session" menu option. (Safari 11, El Capitan)


Streaming DVDs from iCloud through AppleTV I have an Apple TV and a bunch of DVDs that I want to rip and then stuck in the loft. I want to watch them via the AppleTV.

I’ve tried putting them in iTunes and that works but only while my PC is on. My thinking is that if I store them in the iCloud, surely there must be a way that I can then watch them on my Apple TV without needing an iTunes engine running elsewhere?

Is there a simple solution?

There are no direct solutions. However, you could consider a service like Plex (Link) this would allow you to create a Plex server with your media and stream it to several devices.

I have used plex for many years and it has worked perfectly for me. The service has some fees but they aren't massive and it will allow you to stream the content both to your tv and other apple devices with the Plex app.

You will need to bare in mind the CPU and GPU cost. Plex won't run well on a laptop you'll need a desktop of some form so Plex can transcode the videos for you to watch.

Download Plex server here.

Hope this helps!


Bluetooth Audio with Bootcamp on Macbook Pro I have the late 2013 model Macbook Pro retina, and a Bose Sound Link speaker (bluetooth speaker).

I am using Bootcamp with Windows 7 Pro.

I'd like to be able to connect to my Bose speaker from the Macbook via Bluetooth, and play audio from it. But the problem is, every time it will say something such as 'driver not found' and then ask me to download a new driver. I've searched quite some time, following several guides online, but none of them seem to work.

How would I do this?

On my MacBook Pro 17” with Windows 7 32bit – I had only to download the:
Updated Bluetooth® for Windows® software at
http://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth/update.php
this small software will do all to you, find, download and install like a miracle.

On my MacBook Pro 13” with Windows 7 64bit wasn’t that easy.
Just download the above driver from the apple forum:

http://global-download.acer.com/GDFiles/Driver/Bluetooth/Bluetooth_Atheros_7.4.0.96_W7x64_A.zip?acerid=634556349384706773&Step1=NOTEBOOK&Step2=ASPIRE&Step3=ASPIRE%204830TG&OS=ALL&LC=en&BC=ACER&SC=AAP_10#_ga=1.168624617.97054721.1418479225Bluetooth_Atheros_7.4.0.96_W7x64_A.zip

After unzipping I only had to run the Bluetooth_Suite_win7.EXE file, reboot the computer and my SoundLink Mini was installed correctly!


How to disable Preview from opening up the last couple items viewed? osx lion When I download a PDF and open it in Preview on OS X Lion, Preview opens the last couple documents that I viewed. It seems to arbitrarily open anywhere from the last document to the last x documents.

Does anyone know how to disable this feature?

To stop only Preview from doing this open up Terminal.app and enter:

defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

To re-enable this at any time enter:

defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool true

If you want to turn off the resume-on-load feature for all applications you can go to System Preferences -> General and at the bottom of the screen uncheck the option Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps to prevent any application from doing this.


Corrupt Photos Libray when migrating to new Photos.app I've downloaded the new Photos.app and migrated my iPhoto Library and now all my full screen images are replaced by a grey exclamation mark.

This is being logged in the console :

14/04/2015 22:48:04,002 Photos[1373]: Unsupported item: IMG_0694.JPG of type 0`
14/04/2015 22:48:04,029 Photos[1373]: Unknown version type: RDVersion(0x600003530860) modelId=23946 uuid=134LStKnROWcZ51vzo+yGg
tableName=RKVersion state=persisted,readonly,local, IMG_0694.JPG 0

Does someone as any idea how to fix this ?

If I explore the package of my Library the Masters folder contains all my files.

Since Photos is so new, it may be tricky to find solutions to issues.  However, applying iPhoto type fixes may help.

Before beginning and repair, make sure you have a backup of your entire Photos/iPhoto library.

You can try closing Photos, then open Photos while pressing Command and Option.  This brings up a window for repairing issues.  Select the Repair option to start rebuilding the library.  These instructions can also be found HERE on Apple's website.
Unfortunately, the wonderful app, iPhoto Library Manager doesn't support Photos.app, but they are creating a new app that does, call PowerPhotos!  Hopefully it'll be released soon.  Until then, we must rely on Apples built in repair functions.


How to restore my MacBookPro 6,2 I would like to restore my 9 year old MacBookPro6,2 to its former glory. And to get rid of anything that might be slowing it down.
I have original discs. Do I have to go down that path to original OS or is there a way to restore it to some  intermediary OS online?

Once I do that can I update it straight to High Sierra (highest OS that my configuration supports) or do I have to go through all the updates one by one?

What state is it in now? If you can access the Mac App Store, then you should be able to install High Sierra directly from there.

If you can boot to a Recovery Partition (Command R on boot), then you can erase the hard drive and do a 'clean' install of the current OS, if that is what you want to do, and then update to High Sierra from the App Store.

It's unlikely that age or software is 'slowing it down'. A full, or failing, mechanical hard drive might do that.

The best way to keep it useful is to replace the Hard drive with an SSD, and max out the RAM.


Unable to mount remote directory using SSHFS I installed SSHFS 3.5 via Homebrew on OSX 10.9. I try the following:

~$ mkdir link
~$ sshfs user@hostname:/path/to/dir/ ./link

But I keep getting this error:

the OSXFUSE file system is not available (-1)
the OSXFUSE file system is not available (1)

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Turns out it was just a case of RTFM. I needed to install the kernel extension too, like so:

sudo /bin/cp -RfX /usr/local/opt/osxfuse/Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs /Library/Filesystems
sudo chmod +s /Library/Filesystems/osxfusefs.fs/Support/load_osxfusefs


Finder not responding My Mac is working perfectly but for the fact that Finder won't respond. Unless another app is running, my Mac's toolbar isn't showing up. Also, some of Finder's functions e.g. shut down, restart, and so many more are disabled. When I right click its icon, it says "Application Not Responding" or something along those lines. I have tried relaunching from the GUI, because the toolbar disappears every time I close other applications, I couldn't do it from the toolbar, and even the killall command doesn't work. I have to use the sudo shutdown -r now command to restart. Somebody help me please!

I'd first start up in Safe Mode by holding down the Shift key at the startup chime; Safe Mode does some internal housecleaning.

If that doesn't fix it, I'd reinstall macOS.


OS X 10.3.9 Update available? I just found my old iBook G4, but I only have the installation-cd for OS X 10.3 and I can't find any downloads on the official Apple download pages. Is there some way I still can get the update?

Update: I overlooked the "Load" button
Update2: Actually my iBook is to old to show the Loadbutton

Google can always find OS X/macOS updates if you use the keywords 'combo update' followed by the main version - e.g. combo update 10.3

The file is at https://support.apple.com/kb/dl496

A combo update can update anything from 10.x.0 right up to itself, without needing individual updaters for the in-between versions.


iTunes Backup did i lose my backup? okay so basically I deleted whatsapp and the whatsapp backup available on iCloud but before doing that I backed everything up on my itunes pc
when i reinstalled whatsapp they said that there was no backup available to restore
so I connected my iPhone to itunes to restore and it said there wasnt enough space, I started deleting apps and pics while downloading the newest update.
I thought that during the update it will restore everything automatically but it showed backing up message again and here I freaked out because it will over write my old backup that had the whatsapp messages on it.
Now i tried mulitple times to do a restore and it says that the backup is corrupted!
Does that mean my whatsapp backup is lost? I tried third party apps for extracation and they didnt work
please help im stuck

If you deleted the WhatsApp backup in iCloud and the backup you had in iTunes is corrupted, then your WhatsApp history is gone.

PS: Unless you have made a Windows backup between the moment you made the last good backup in iTunes and the moment it got corrupted, but based on your description this seems unlikely.


zsh themes loaded but not working I set theme in .zshrc file:

ZSH_THEME="random"

And when open new tab, it shows that new theme is loaded:

[oh-my-zsh] Random theme '/Users/maks/.oh-my-zsh/themes/gozilla.zsh-theme' loaded...
mac

But in fact I dont see any changes in theme.

New tab again

[oh-my-zsh] Random theme '/Users/maks/.oh-my-zsh/themes/crunch.zsh-theme' loaded

and again:

[oh-my-zsh] Random theme '/Users/maks/.oh-my-zsh/themes/tjkirch.zsh-theme' loaded...

But still see the same theme. I have already reloaded mac, but no result. The same result in Terminal and iTerm

Update:

Not all themes fails. This one works: trapd00r but with error: prompt_jnrowe_precmd:3: command not found: zsh_path. Others not working.

Update 2:
linuxonly theme works too:

[oh-my-zsh] Random theme '/Users/maks/.oh-my-zsh/themes/linuxonly.zsh-theme' loaded...
mac
maks@Makss-Mac:s047->/Users/maks (0)

but with error:

Can't open perl script "/home/scp1/bin/foopath": No such file or directory

Do you have a custom PS1 that is overriding the prompt from the theme you have selected?

Check you don't have any additional lines in ~/.zshrc beyond the default?

Backup your .zshrc
Delete all lines beyond export PATH=$PATH:/…
Reload your Terminal

Do you have any plugins that are messing with things?

Check ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/ for any additional plugins.
Remove all your plugins from your ~/.zshrc and reload your Terminal.

Check you don't have any additional lines in your ~/.zprofile?

mv ~/.zprofile ~/.zprofile-bak

…and reload your Terminal. (Put back with mv ~/.zprofile-bak ~/.zprofile)

Note: trapd00r and linuxonly show the same errors for me


How to switch input in split panel terminal? I split terminal upper and down, I want to input the command in the upper panel, what should I do?

The idea behind splitting is that it allows you to keep a certain part of the shell buffer displayed while continuing to enter new commands. So only the lowest split does allow keyboard input. To position the view on the shell buffer use the scroll bar.

How to switch or close the new split Terminal pane?


How to reset Logitech mouse's back/forward buttons? I've been using my Logitech Anywhere MX with my Mac succesfully for a couple of months, but suddenly last week the functionality of the back/forward buttons changed from navigating to previous/next page in history to switching to next/previous tab in Chrome. How can I restore the previous functionality?

I've already checked the Logitech Control Center, and there the buttons are still defined as back and forward.

Note: If I remember correctly, the buttons have never worked in Finder.

As I mentioned in the comments, I found no other solution except changing the buttons to send the corresponding keystrokes. Fortunately, this works fine in almost every app I frequently use, including Finder.

The keystrokes I used were command+option+8 for back and command+option+9 for forward. Note that this is on a Finnish keyboard layout.


How can I wipe my stolen iPhone with no sim My iphone has been stolen, however I did not keep a sim in it since I no longer use it as a phone, just for a music player. It's password protected however in the notes app there's private and confidential information. Is there any way apple can wipe the whole device with just my apple ID?

The only way to wipe it is to use "Find my iPhone" (assuming it's registered there) and issue the "Wipe" command from there. As the iPhone doesn't have a SIM you'll have to wait until it gets online via WiFi.


What's the difference between the normal Mac Mini and Mac Mini Server? I'm planning to buy a Mac mini i5 as it's fitting my budget.
Will be making it a server for hosting websites, so before I buy the i5 version I wanted to know if there is any hardware difference between the mini & mini server.
Hardware difference as in working of the motherboard or any thing added extra.

i will be upgrading the mini with 16GB RAM & an SSD

There is no Mac Mini Server with an i5 processor, and with your upgrades, the Mac Mini with OS X Server has no hardware differences from the normal i7 Mac Mini. Unless you want 2 internal SSDs, you would be wasting $200. I assume that if you're hosting other websites then you would be using external Thunderbolt or USB drives for storage space, so it would make sense just to have the 256GB SSD.


Mavericks Finder No Coverflow I just upgraded to Mavericks (late I know), and I'm not much liking the new Finder sorting system. I had it arranged by modified, for workflow reasons, but I liked the grid too, not the coverflow rows that happen now.

Is there a way to have the grid and 'arranged by modified'?

EDIT
By grid I mean the old icon layout, which now only happens with 'arrange by name.'

Cannot see why this cannot be done.

Select grid :-

then choose:

And you should get something like this:

I you want to get rid of the grouping right click in the finder window

and show View Options

Set arrange to: By name

Set Sort by to : Date Modified

What you get is this:


Is it possible to customise the ‘fixed’ controls at the top of Control Center? iOS 11 provides the ability to customise the lower toggle controls in Control Center (show/hide and rearrange) from Settings → Control Center.

Is it possible to customise the other controls at the top of Control Center, showing/hiding or rearranging toggles and controls?

Yes, if you're on iOS 11.1 to 11.1.2 inclusive. Tested myself on iOS 11.1.1. A reminder that you perform this at your own risk.

Install FilzaEscaped from https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/7lisma/release_filza_with_root_access/
This works with any method of writing outside the sandbox (so FilzaJailed too) but I have not tested other methods myself.

Download the first IPA from the post.
Download Cydia Impactor from http://www.cydiaimpactor.com.
Open Impactor and connect your device over USB.
Drag the downloaded Filza IPA to the Impactor window and follow the prompts. If you use 2FA on your Apple ID, you will need to generate an app password.

In Filza on your device, navigate to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ControlCenterServices.framework/ and open DefaultModuleOrder~iphone.plist with the text editor.

Filza starts in /var/mobile by default, so use the back button to navigate to root (/) first.
When in the correct folder, tap the ⓘ on the right of the file, then Share at the top-right, then choose Text Editor.

Move all strings from the fixed array to the user-enabled array.

Select all the strings, cut and paste them into the bottom array.

Below is an example DefaultModuleOrder~iphone.plist with all components controls moved to the user-enabled array.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>fixed</key>
    <array>
    </array>
    <key>user-enabled</key>
    <array>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.FlashlightModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.mobiletimer.controlcenter.timer</string>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.CalculatorModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.CameraModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.Home.ControlCenter</string>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.ConnectivityModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.mediaremote.controlcenter.nowplaying</string>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.OrientationLockModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.DoNotDisturbModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.DisplayModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.control-center.AudioModule</string>
        <string>com.apple.mediaremote.controlcenter.airplaymirroring</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Respring. Rebooting will do it and is probably the easiest way if you're unfamiliar with other methods of just restarting SpringBoard.
In Settings → Control Center, re-enable the disabled standard controls if you still want them and customise their position as you wish!


My Mail app (MacOS Catalina 10.15.3) displays phantom unread messages My MacBook displays 1 unread message in smart mailbox while there are none.
It used to work OK, but recently it shows unread messages. When I click on this Smart Mailbox it doesn't display any messages. Settings for the Smart Mailbox is OK. I tried methods described in different topics but it doesn't seem to work. Any ideas? Thanks

Quit Mail if it’s open.
In ~/Library/Mail/V7/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm.
Your home Library folder is hidden by default. To display it, choose Finder > “Go to Folder” and then enter “~/Library.”
Open Mail.
Mail creates new Envelope Index files. This process may take a few minutes, depending on how many messages Mail is reindexing.

It will fix your issue.


keyboard input stopped being accepted after login I just disabled my screensaver successfully by entering my password, then after that my machine no longer accepts keyboard input.  The only thing I was able to do is change windows with option-left/right/up/down, but no other keys worked.  The mouse worked.

I have ssh and vnc sessions open.  The VNC session also does not accept keyboard input, so it cannot be a physical problem with the keyboard.  The ssh session does, so the computer is alive and well in some limited sense.

How can I debug this?  Are there any command-line equivalents to KeyboardViewer.app?  Any recommendations short of 'reboot the machine' would be very helpful.

(running 10.6.8 on this machine)

I'd start with any apps or utilities that might intercept USB devices. I once had a forgotten keyboard tool that was used to alter mapping of command and option keys that was not compatible with a system update and caused a similar problem.

USB Overdrive? Keyboard macros? Virtual machine apps? Any similar things could be capturing the USB input from the keyboard and failing to pass to the OS.


Shortcut to Eclipse in /Applications I just downloaded Eclipse for OS X. I managed to run it, but I want to put it directly in /Applications:

I don't want to place the eclipse folder, which has inside it the Eclipse.app, inside /Applications, but I want to place a shortcut to Eclipse.app directly into /Applications (so I can run eclipse with one click, as if it was any other app inside /Applications).

Any ideas how to do so? Tried a symlink but doesn't seem to work.

A symlink won't work as at the command line level an application is a directory.

Make an alias to the Eclipse application in the Finder and drop that into /Applications and it will work fine.

By the way, you will see in the eclipse folder a file eclipse which is a link to the actual Eclipse unix executable that lives in Eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS alongside the eclipse.ini file that defines all the startup options. You might want to replicate that link to somewhere in your PATH so that you can run Eclipse from the command line.


Is it a MacOS normal behavior to switch between desktops slower while in Mission Control mode? I'm having an issue regard MacOS (Mojave 10.14.6) for some time now:

If I'm not in Mission Control mode I can instantly change between the desktops using the keyboard (ctrl+direction, left or right).

However if I'm in Mission Control mode and try to change desktops with the same approach I have a delay of like 1 or 2 seconds.

Someone else having the same issue? There's some type of fix for that?

This is more of a performance issue than anything else.

Bringing up Mission Control is already a pretty complex split-second animation for your Mac to handle, especially if you have several windows open in your current desktop.

And if you have multiple desktops with several windows open, it has to render all the windows, grouped by application per desktop, and give them a different effect than usual (drop shadows are applied on the window group rather than individual windows in Mission Control) and so on.

Basically, it's a more complex task for your Mac to do, and since you're on Mojave, system UI is largely Metal, so if you have an nVidia chip or older intel graphics with no Metal 2 support, unfortunately it will feel like molasses.

The only solution would be to upgrade your hardware, or turn off the special effects by going to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display then checking reduce motion, reduce transparency, either one or both, depending on what you are willing to give up and how much of an improvement checking the options yield.


What Yammer clients available on the Mac? People in my new job seems to like Yammer. I'm aware that Yammer has a desktop client for the Mac, but I find the interface rather unappealing (version 300222 of the Adobe Air client is not responsive and really slow when switching between my primary network and external networks). I wonder if there are 3rd party clients available?

There are two out there that I like, each for different reasons:

Gabble is a free application that allows for threaded conversations, private and public groups, attachments, and tags.
Scuttlebutt is an application in beta.  The major thing that it improves over Gabble is support for multiple Yammer accounts (although there is a workaround for that in Gabble: you can launch multiple Gabble instances).

Both of these software are native OS X apps and should be much faster to use than an Adobe Air client as well as have the potential to support things like spelling services, voice dictation and other nice integrations that a native app can provide more easily than using a cross-platform toolbox.


How do I migrate the @me.com email from one Apple ID to another? So my girlfriend has this setup with her Apple IDs, where she has one Apple ID as her primary, with which she is logged into iCloud on all her devices, and she also has a second Apple ID which she only uses as an email account.

I would rather like to streamline this whole setup by migrating the email address of the secondary Apple ID to the primary.

I do know that it is not possible to simply merge the two Apple IDs, but I thought there may be a way to migrate an email address. The emails associated with that address wouldn't even have to be migrated over since I can do that manually within Outlook.

No - Apple doesn’t split the mail accounts or aliases - once one is associated with one account, there’s no releasing it or migrating it or reassigning it. I’ve tried twice to do this with support and it got escalated to engineering both times.

The answer was no - set up forwarding or make a new mail account. Maybe this changes, but Apple treats an email associated with an AppleID in any way as unmovable. The only time I’ve had any relenting from that stance was for rescue and security emails. I argued that then can’t tie my external address to one AppleID since I may choose to move to a new ID for the reasons they explicitly designed.

If you control the @ domain - you can have some measure of moving, but I wouldn’t assume you could move it on to a new account - just that you could discard it and never use it on the new account if we’re talking about the AppleID and not a secondary mail.

If in doubt, get in writing from Apple before you change that they confirm it will be reversible. That saved me when I got my rescue mail and needed them to fix it like they told me. Without written confirmation, I suspect I might have gotten a no.


How to save AppleScript Editor Documents? I try to save script in front most window in AppleScript Editor to desktop as text without using GUI scripting.

tell application "AppleScript Editor" to save contents of document 1 as text in ((path to desktop) & "test.txt" as string)

To save it as a .scpt file for AppleScript Editor:

tell application "AppleScript Editor"
    save document 1 as "script" in file ((path to desktop as Unicode text) & "Hello.scpt")
end tell

To save as a plain .txt file, just change the middle line slightly

tell application "AppleScript Editor"
    save document 1 as "text" in file ((path to desktop as Unicode text) & "Hello.txt")
end tell


iOS: Newly added contacts get hidden and don't sync to iCloud I was facing the issue outlined on this Apple discussion thread, where I had duplicates of every contact on my iPhone -- one in iCloud, and one "Unknown". The thread presents a working solution on how to remove all "Unknown" contacts.

However, when I add a new contact without using the + button, it still goes into an "Unknown" list. Does anyone else experience this? To replicate this, try:

Add a new contact, say an unknown number from your recent calls list, or from an email. 1. Save it, and go to the home screen.
Go to your Contacts tab in Phone
Go back to "Groups"
Choose "All Contacts"
Try searching for this new contact — I don't see it
Go to your spotlight screen (home, then swipe left)
Search for this new contact — it'll show up, and you can select it

Does anyone else see this and/or know how to solve it?

My guess is "unknown" is somehow the same as "On my Mac."

If you go to Address Book / preferences / accounts, do you see "on my mac" or "unknown?"

If so, if you can disable or delete it (if you're sure your contacts are all on iCloud).

That will get rid of the duplication and if/when you add a new contact on your Mac it should go up on iCloud.


Which ebook format do books from the iBooks Store use? What is the format of ebooks that the iBooks uses that allows page turning, white on black text, etc.? (I.e., the books you get from the store.)

Books sold by the iBookstore are in ePub format with a FairPlay DRM wrapper.


How to trigger lid close action programmatically? Is there a way to trigger the lid close action programmatically with a script or through terminal?

I am testing this by placing a small magnet near the SD slot on my MacBook Pro.

There is no Apple supported programming interface to simulate the lid being closed.

You can put your Mac to sleep using this command line:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to sleep'


How do you update the default version of Nano on MacOS X without using the homebrew package manager? I did do some research to check for installation methods but I primarily came across the homebrew method, and I didn't actually see any information about a binary download for Mac. The binary on the nano website is only for Linux.

However, I want to update the version of the nano that is bundled with my Mac, located in the /usr/bin folder. Is it safe to directly paste the Linux nano binary into the aforementioned folder?

If my lack of knowledge is showing through my summary of the information please let me know.

Recent Macs ship with GNU nano version 2.0.6, which is a far cry from the latest version 4.3.

GNU nano is written in C and thus very easy to build from source. To do this, try the steps below that are reproduced from the README file that is included in the source code which you can find here:

curl -O  https://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v4/nano-4.3.tar.gz
tar xvzf nano-4.3.tar.gz
cd nano-4.3
./configure
make
make install

You should then have an up to date version of the binary. This does not replace the nano that ships with macOS - but it allows you to have one you can patch faster (or to a different level) than Apple updates it. You will have to make sure you add the path to the nano above to your path before /usr/bin/nano is in the $PATH

Many people like https://brew.sh since it fixes your path and then installs nano and other tools correctly so they run before the system versions.


Delete app data without deleting app One of the apps I have installed is not working super well and I'd like to try deleting its data to see if that helps.

Usually, when you delete an app on iOS, it warns you that all data will be deleted. As such, the common advice is simply deleting the app and then redownloading it from the App Store.

However, this app has been delisted from the App Store, meaning it can't be redownloaded, so I don't want to delete it. What else can I do?

For what it's worth, this is an iPhone 4 running iOS 7.

Depending on the version of iTunes you have you may be able to do this. You need the last one that has App Management built in. This one to be specific.

As long as the needed app is listed in iTunes and you can find the .ipa file on your hard drive, it should be safe to delete the app from your phone and then sync with iTunes to put it back.

It has been a long time since I tried this, you might want to wait till someone else who has done this more recently can verify this just to be safe


iOS — Is there any way to send a gift to a user of another App Store? The recipient of your gift must have an Apple ID in your country or
region. For example, if you're in the United States, you can't send a
gift to a friend who lives in Australia.

I'd like to send an app gift (a game), but I'm in Germany an the recipient is in Russia. Is there a way to do so?

There is no way around what you've already found.  Different countries have different rules so Apple enforces the rule when gifting apps.
You can send an Apple Gift Card to the recipient to have them buy the game.


How to implement this script on a Mac I just read Matt Might's blog post on eliminating filler and "weasels" from my writing, and I am wondering how I would implement this on Latex to run and check my document? I know I should use terminal, but I'm not at all familiar with how Terminal accepts commands or which directory I would store the script in?

Thanks for any help.

You could save the script as ~/Scripts/weasels.sh with any text editor, and run it with bash ~/Scripts/weasels.sh ~/Documents/input\ file.txt. Or if you use TextMate, you can run the script with just ⌘R.

If you want to run the script with weasels instead of bash ~/Scripts/weasels.sh, you can make it executable and add its folder to the path:

mv ~/Scripts/weasels.sh ~/Scripts/weasels
chmod +x ~/Scripts/weasels
echo 'export PATH=~/Scripts:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile
. ~/.bash_profile
weasels ~/Documents/input\ file.txt


Where on the OSX Mavericks is the Applications folder supposed to be? All my Music, Movies, Documents etc, are stored under /Users/myusername/

But it seems that Applications are stored under:   /Macintosh HD/Applications

Is there something wrong with my installation ? Is it supposed to be there ? I don't recall moving the applications folder there. It just seems weird that it isn't stored in my user directory.

Could parallels have done this?

There is absolutely nothing wrong. That is how your Apple is suppose to be. /Applications , /Library , and /System are managed and used primarily by the OS. Your files should be in your user folder /Users/john for example. If you want you can create another folder in your home folder (user folder) called Applications or Programs or "whatever" and put third party apps in there. It is your choice but you shouldn't remove any applications from the /Application folder should they automatically be installed there or be default programs, doing so will result in issues.


Share links (URLs) between iPads? Is there any easy way to share links between iPads? For example, if my friend is looking at something interesting and wants to send it to me. Is email still the best way?

iMessage in iOS5 is a great alternative to email as you don't have to mess with a subject and it pushes the link quite rapidly to another iOS device.

Settings -> Messages -> iMessage (On)


How to upgrade a 2009 MacBook Pro from 10.11.6 to 10.12? I have a 2009 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.11.6 "El Capitan". Can I upgrade to macOS "Sierra" 10.12, and if so, how? I can't find it on the App Store.

The maximum supported OS for all of the MacBook Pros released in 2009 is OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G31).
So your model of MacBook Pro can not be officially upgraded to macOS Sierra 10.12.


Add a song into a playlist while listening to it? Is there a button to add the song that is being currently played into a playlist on my iPhone?
So i don't have to search it back and add it manually?

No - the playlists only get curated from the playlist tab.

The iPods with physical buttons have an "add to playlist" functionality that worked this way but there's nothing yet in iOS 4 or less to do a similar thing. The drawback there is everything got added to the "on the go" playlist - not an arbitrary one.


How to find duplicate folder names and resolve naming conflicts in OS X? I have my music collect on my NAS and would like to copy it to my laptop. When I try to copy the music folder and paste it to a new location on my laptop I get messages that OS X can't paste the folder to the new location because a folder with the same name already exists.

For example, let's say I have the following two folders:

/Music/311/horrible album

/Music/311/Horrible Album

As it stands right now, both folders are sitting on my NAS. When I try to copy the Music folder over to my laptop, I get a message that OS X won't allow this because of the above folders have the same name.

Each time I try this whole copy/paste thing I'm getting the same error message, find the conflict, move the files from one folder to the other, delete the original folder and then try again only to have another conflict.

So...I'm trying to find an application or script that could scan my iTunes music folder and see where I have these conflicts so I can actively go in and fix them so that the copy/paste thing will work without errors.  I'm a bit of a newbie with Terminal but willing to give it a try.

System specs:

Latest OSX 10.10.4
Lastest iTunes 12.2.1.16
Old Macbook Pro
Synology DS213J

You can do this in bash to identify which files and folders are problematic:

find /path/to/remote/library | tr A-Z a-z | sort | uniq -d

This will output all lower case files and folders that have a duplicate with upper case letters.


What user details are shared with publishers through Apple News? Apple says that “News seamlessly delivers the articles you want to read in a beautiful and uncluttered format, while respecting your privacy, because Apple doesn’t share your personal data,”. What user data is shared with publishers. It is the same data that iAd shares?

In iOS 9 Settings >> News >> News and Privacy, there's a long text that itemizes the privacy protections (and limitations) related to collection and use of individual and aggregated data.

Regarding "Disclosure to Third Parties", it says, in part:

  We do not share any of your individual data with third parties...


Which graphics chip on MacBook Pro? My MacBook Pro has two graphics chips and automatically switches between them. How can I tell which one is currently in use? I'm just curious really; it's plenty fast enough whatever it's doing by default!

gfxCardStatus is a free app that lives in your menu bar. When you click it, it tells you which graphics card you're using. It also has a beta feature that lets you manually switch to one or the other.

Hope it serves you well.


Imessaging when travelling and not using cellular I would like to know whether iMessages will revert to text messages when I travel overseas and have my cellular set to "off when roaming". I normally use SMS or MMS to keep in touch when travelling.

Providing you have Settings > Messages > Send as SMS toggled on and Settings > Mobile Data > Mobile Data Options > Data Roaming toggled off then yes, messages sent from the Messages app will go as SMS.


Why is Wine X11 not creating a window on my Mac? I have the wine software on my mac and I have a little problem here:

I try running my windows executable and I get this error in the console:

Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded. make sure that your X server is running and that $DISPLAY is set correctly.
Application tried to create a window, but no driver could be loaded.
Make sure that your X server is running and that $DISPLAY is set correctly.
err:ole:apartment_createwindowifneeded CreateWindow failed with error 126

I have my DISPLAY set to 0.0 and WINEPREFIX set to x.

Please show me how to fix this with exact code/steps because I am new to this.

Thanks!

You don't have X11 installed on your computer. It is available on the OS X install CD.


Is it possible for search terms to appear in the search bar of an iPad just from going to a "bad" website? I was told that some search terms appeared in the search bar of an iPad because that person had gone to a "bad" website and the terms must have come from that visit.

The search bar should only offer suggestions based on your website history, your bookmarks, or searches that you have typed in and hit enter for.

It won't scour the pages you have been to, looking for related terms.


MacBook Pro 16" Pinch to Zoom Delay in Google Chrome I bought a 16" MacBook Pro a few days ago. It is on macOS Catalina 10.15.2. When I use the trackpad to pinch to zoom in Google Chrome or Chromium, for the first 1.5 cm or so, it does not zoom. It starts zooming normally after that.

I don't have Smart Zoom enabled. Pinch to zoom in Safari and other apps works fine, starts zooming instantly.

Does anyone know what might be causing this issue?

Unfortunately, Google Chrome has always worked like that on macOS and it's the same in many Electron apps (since they're based on Chromium).
The only thing you can do is report the bug to Google, but don't expect much.


Process "warmd" keep busy mac after upgrading to macOS 10.14.4 After upgrading my Mac mini to macOS Mojave 10.14.4, every time I restart the computer the process "warmd" keep busy CPU and hard disk for 10-15 minutes, with great "spooling" noise and slowing down all the finder. What's happened? Its a well known bug of the upgrade?

Have a read of the following;

Provisioning OSX and disabling unnecessary services

It has instructions on how to disable warmd. I can not confirm they are still relevant at this stage as I myself am installing the latest OSX as we speak. I will provide more details after that install finishes.

TL;DR

Kill warmd: sudo launchctl kill -9 system/com.apple.warmd

Disable warmd: sudo launchctl disable system/com.apple.warmd


How to have arrows for moving the cursor up and down when writing text on iPhone? When writing paragraph on iPhone, I need to quickly move the cursor up and down so that I can go to lines above and below respectively.

Although, you can do this by touch and holding the cursor, and then moving it to wherever you want, I specifically need to have a keyboard stroke.

When filling up forms, you see the up and down keys.

Is there any keyboard out there that has this feature?

The arrows you see in your screenshot move the cursor to the previous or next form input field, they do not navigate within a text field to go to previous or following lines. If you have a phone supporting 3D Touch, you can force press on the stock iOS keyboard to quickly move the cursor (the phone will vibrate and the letters will disappear, then the keyboard area acts like a touchpad to control the cursor). If your phone does not support 3D Touch, you double tap and keep your fingers on the screen on the second tap for the same effect.


I want to delete Photos for OS X and just use lightroom. HOW do I do this? I get this error every time I insert an sd card from my DSLR. It opened my sons external library, and when unplugged, I guess it is trying to connect to it. I know I could create a new library; but I don't want to use photos at all; but I get the message “Photos” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by OS X. when trying to delete the app. WTF?

OS X will not let you remove Photos.app. And in their ever expanding quest to make things simpler and easier, certain preferences are hidden.

So open Photos and create a new photo library. there doesn't have to be anything in it, it just has to be there so Photos will open.

Insert the card from your DSLR and photos will see the card and present you with a list of photos on the card.

There should be a checkbox (upper left if I recall correctly) that you can uncheck to prevent Photos from opening when you insert that card.

And the fun continues! You can't turn it off for all cards all at once, you have to do it one at a time for each card you have with your camera.

Perhaps a smart person can find a "defaults write" command to stop this from happening but so far this is the only way I have found to do it.


What is sound drift correction on OS X and how should I use it? On Audio MIDI Setup there is an option to to enable/disable audio drifting for any sound output device?

What is this and how should I use it?

I do want to enable sound output for multiple devices: HDI TV and normal jack as I do not always know which one is connected.

(This is answering an old question, but since I was researching the topic...)

It's to do with keeping different hardware devices in sync.

When you create an aggregate device, more than one piece of sound generation hardware may be required to operate concurrently. Even if these devices are running at the same sample rate, they're probably all using independent hardware clocks to send buffered audio through their DACs and actually generate sound. If these clocks get out of sync, the audio would drift out of sync too and eventually one or more of the hardware devices would start exhausting its data buffer before others had finished with theirs. In short, it'd get glitchy and break.

So for example, you might connect a TV via HDMI and use it as a second monitor to watch movies, but you might want both the TV speakers and your computer speakers to be used - maybe you've plugged in computer speakers with a subwoofer and you like the added bass that the TV speakers can't produce. So you use Audio MIDI Setup to add an aggregate device for both your computer and the TV. But the computer is sending digital audio over HDMI to the TV which independently decodes it - there needs to be some way to make sure both the computer and the TV decode at the same rate, without any clock drift over time screwing things up.

Over digital links like SP/DIF, hardware devices can both transmit and receive a signal in addition to the audio data which is used to perform this kind of synchronisation. It's called word clock. It's really important when you're recording digital audio, so that the recording digital sink is kept rigidly in sync with the transmitting digital source. You can find out more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_clock

If your aggregate devices all support word clock, then you don't need software drift correction - the master will be used as a word clock source and the word clock data will be sent to the other devices. They'll all use that clock to keep themselves in sync. Otherwise, any devices except the master which don't support word click need the drift correction switch turning on. This uses some sort of software mechanism for trying to combat clock drift (I don't know how it actually achieves this, or how robust / reliable it is).

In the TV example, you'd set the computer as the master audio device and add in the TV audio output, enabling drift correction for the TV (but not for the master device as that wouldn't make sense - the TV audio clock is corrected using them master as the reference). For another example of how word clock and drift correction work together, see steps 11 and 12 here:

http://www.absolutemusic.co.uk/community/entries/set-aggregate-audio-device-mac-os-lion


How do I remove old computers from my iCloud? Last year I was at a job where I logged into my iCloud at work.  I set my computer up with my iCloud so that everything would be hooked to my phone as well.  Long story short, I am not at that job anymore and my boss is still using that computer and I can see all of the things he's bookmarked since then on Safari.  How do I go about unauthorizing or removing that computer from my iCloud so I don't see his stuff and he doesn't see mine?

You can log into your account on iCloud.com, select Settings and disconnect from all browsers from there. It might also be advisable to change the password of your iCloud account (and enable two factor authentication at the same time).


"iTunes could not connect to this iPhone. This device is no longer connected." I have a first generation iPad Air (with up-to-date iOS 8.1)

When I connect it to my 2013 iMac (with up-to-date OS X Yosemite 10.10) - it doesn't work.

Specifically - iTunes automatically launches, but then quickly shows a dialog window that says, "iTunes could not connect to the iPhone. This device is no longer connected."

(That's not a typo - it really says 'iPhone', not 'iPad')

Here's a screenshot:

Meanwhile - on my iPad - in the upper right-hand corner (where the battery life is displayed) - you can see the "plugged in" icon (lightening bolt) rapidly blinking on and off.

In other words - it seems like, when it's plugged in - it's rapidly connecting and disconnecting (several times per second).

If I click "OK" on that dialog window on iTunes - it instantly pops back up, and continues to do so as long as I keep the iPad plugged in.

So - bottom line - I cannot connect my iPad to my iMac.

I'm virtually certain that I was able to connect my iPad before I upgraded to Yosemite on my iMac, and iOS 8 on my iPad.

Thanks in advance for any help!

I was getting the same problem yesterday with both my iPads.  Finally gave up and re-booted the Mac -- problem went away.  Might be worth a try.


Fixing error 73 AND Open Directory without Internet I have been messing with an old PowerMac G4 running OSX 10.5 Leopard Server trying to get Open Directory running on a small network I set up for testing purposes. I can't find anything useful online about my specific situation.

My network hasn't got, and never will have, an internet connection, but I have multiple Mac machines connected either through Ethernet or WiFi.

I found on the internet that I would need a DNS server with a forward and reverse lookup name and so I set the DNS service up with a hostname I randomly picked. I don't think the fact I randomly picked a name matters because the network will be offline. Is this wrong?

When I try to set up an Open Directory master, I get:
"This server has not been configured as an Open Directory Master. Error has Occurred! Error value = 73"

When running sudo changeip -checkhostname I get:

Primary address = 192.168.1.15
Current Hostname = PowerMac.exampledomain.net
DNS Hostname = PowerMac.exampledomain.net
The names match. There is nothing to change.

I do not get dirserv:success = "success". Does this cause error 73?

Am I doing something wrong?

I've now managed to solve my errors and such. I will now explain how to fix error 73 and how to set your server up as an OD Master. Hopefully someone else will find this useful and save themselves many months of pain trying to resolve their issues.

Firstly, we need to completely reset the database. To do this, we will open up terminal and enter sudo slapconfig -destroyldapserver. The OD service should be reset now. To ensure changes take effect we need to reboot the system. Don't skip this part.
Next we need to configure DNS. Make a new domain on the local network and add the to-be-OD master's local ip address as an A record. Make sure the reverse record also matches up. If this doesn't make sense to you then you need to look up how to set DNS up. Make sure you click the Start DNS button to start up the service.
Now add the local DNS server to your router's DNS output so that your router gives all DHCP connected devices your DNS servers local IP address. To allow external internet connections, you may want to add another DNS server to your local one, so any invalid addresses can be tried for a non-authoritative answer.
Go back to terminal and type in sudo changeip -checkhostname. If there are any issues then follow the example given to fix your machines host name.
Reboot again if you had to make changes. If not then skip the next step.
Redo the last two steps.

We now have to fix LDAP permissions causing error 73:

In terminal type sudo mkdir -m755 /var/db/openldap.
Reboot yet again...

Lastly we can now create the OD server following some of the strict rules explained below:

Open Server Admin, choose Open Directory, under General, click Change...
Choose Master.

Ensure you do not use any account details which are associated with a local machine account in the Master Domain Administrator account fields.
Click continue.
Under Kerberos Realm type in your machines new DNS host name.
Click continue.
Click continue.

Be greeted with the success message and a working OD Master .

I hope this helped someone. Feel free to remake my guide in a better form and reply with it.


Payments to App Store Suppose I want to find (for tax purposes) the amounts of all payments I made to the App store during 2014.  In the App Store application, I did not find this information in "Purchases" nor in "View My Account".

Is there something easier than finding the dates of my purchases (under "Purchases"), then looking for that date in my credit card statements?

Open iTunes on your Mac or PC.
Click iTunes Store.
Click Sign In.
Enter your Apple ID and password.
Click your Apple ID and select Account Info from the drop-down menu.
Next to Purchase History, click See All.

It might take a moment for your Purchase History to appear.

To see the details for a purchase, click the arrow to the left of the order date. Your most recent purchases are first.

You'll see the date, time, and web order number in the top-right corner. If you don't recognize a purchase, see if it's one of these types of charges.

Source


What is the quickest way to get to the Phone app's favorites list? I can no longer double-tap the home button to get to the iPhone's Phone apps' favorites list.

I'm looking for an alternative method to quickly access the favorites list, possibly using gestures?

The other answer (@Paul) seems confusing, but I somewhat get what he is saying. Basically, closing the Phone app after selecting the Favorites tab at the bottom of the screen, and then re-opening the app will return you to the Favorites tab.


Time and date won't update on Mac I have set the time and date to update automatically on my Mac running Snow Leopard, however the time and date do not update. I ran ntpdate -q using time.nist.gov & time.asia.apple.com and receive the error message:

  no server suitable for synchronization found

I checked the modem and it uses time.nist.gov and has the correct date and time. Neither my router nor Mac will update to the correct time.

Have you tried using telnet to diagnose the connection?  Issue the command:

telnet <hostname or ipaddress> 13

Insert either the hostname or ip address of the time server you wish to connect to.  Be sure to include the "13" that follows. This is the port number that NTP communicates on.

I tried it with the time server you specified above and here are the results:

    telnet 128.138.141.172 13

    Trying 128.138.141.172...
    Connected to utcnist2.colorado.edu.
    Escape character is '^]'.

    57126 15-04-14 11:48:04 50 0 0 907.8 UTC(NIST) *
    Connection closed by foreign host.

The server will report that the connection was closed by the remote host; this is perfectly normal.  However, you can confirm that everything is working by noticing that the server sent the time string (it's the line that starts with 57126 in the example above.

If this test works, then you know it isn't your firewall, router, or ISP.  That means we have to look at the NTP service running on your Mac.

If it dosen't work, chances are, something is being blocked.  Try turning off the firewall on both your mac and router (just temporarily for diagnostics).  Does it work now?

Re-enable the router firewall and re-check.  Still working?   If not, your router is blocking the traffic.  If it is, re-enable the firewall on your mac.  If that breaks it, then you know that your mac was blocking it.


Opening a new Finder *tab* from command line I'm wondering if there is a means of opening a new finder tab (not window) from the command line. I can do, e.g.,

open .

but this opens a new window. It would be nice to open a new tab in the most-recently active existing finder window.

You really can't via any “normal” shell commands, but you can run AppleScript via the shell to accomplish the task.

Here's a Bash function with the command fnt for “Finder New Tab”:

function fnt()
{
    osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to perform action "AXPress" of menu item "New Tab" of menu "File" of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1 of application process "Finder"'
}

Add the above bash function to your ~/.bash_profile or ̃/.profile file to use it. After adding, restart Terminal or use the source command in the current Terminal window to have access to the fnt function.

This should work on any version macOS that has the “New Tab” command in the “File” menu. You'll also need to add Terminal to: System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy Accessibility

I understand some improvement to AppleScript has been made in Mojave relative to tabs in the Finder, but I'm still using macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and can't test.


Is it okay to use an external flash drive to store a Photos Library? I'm getting an M1 MacBook Pro from my employer which only has 512 GB of flash storage (my 2018 MBP has 1 TB), so I'll need to move my 350 GB Photos library to an external drive. I know that I could have Photos optimize for storage (I do have iCloud Library), but I think it's best to have the full-size Photos library stored somewhere.
Would it be okay to store the Photos library on an external thumb-type flash drive from a reputable manufacturer such as SanDisk, or should I stick to a more conventional external USB flash drive, such as the SanDisk Extreme series?

There is Apple support document Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac where among other things are stated:

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries
on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or
drives that are shared on a network.


How can I stop recieving calls? I'm heading out internationally and do not want to drum up a large phone bill by taking calls while I'm away, yet I would like to have the phone to use over WiFi - FaceTime, iMessage etc.

Is there a way to turn off the phone function while keeping the ability to receive SMS messages?

Set call forwarding to forward calls directly to your voice mail or your home number (assuming you have an answering machine). As long as you do this before leaving the country it should not result in huge roaming bills. You will still get SMS though, and data roaming may cost a lot as well.


How to determine which traffic goes over the PPTP VPN? I setup a PPTP VPN on mac os x lion, on the advanced tab I do not have the send all traffic over VPN connection checked. I only want traffic to a specific server connected to go through the vpn, everything else should not be sent over the vpn.

Where do I look to find out which IP addresses will be included for traffic over the vpn and which ones will not?

Have you tried using the route command to declare a static route?

For instance, I use the following with my VPN:

sudo route -v -net 10.41.0.0 -netmask 255.255.0.0 -interface ppp0

This tells any traffic going to 10.41.x.x to go over the VPN interface (ppp0).


Keyboard shortcut to delete row in Numbers I can add rows conveniently using Option+Shift+Up Arrow (insert above) or Option+Shift+Down Arrow(insert below).

Is there a keyboard shortcut to delete the current row?

By default, no, there's no shortcut.

You can create one yourself though:

Open System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
Click the + button to add a new shortcut.
Set the Application to Numbers.app, and the Menu Title to Delete Row.

Set your keyboard shortcut and press Add.


MacOS: Add browser tab (i.e. Gmail) to application switcher? I use Gmail for email in my Google Chrome browser. Is there a way to make Gmail appear as an application that I can choose using the application switcher invoked with Cmd + Tab?

Use Fluid:

  Fluid lets you create a Real Mac App (or "Fluid App") out of any website or web application, effectively turning your favorite web apps into OS X desktop apps...your chosen website has a permanent home on your Mac as a real Mac application that appears in your Dock.

Gmail is even one of the examples they show in the video, and it supports features like badging the application icon when you have new messages.


Missing /usr/local/sbin directory in the /etc/paths file Why doesn’t the /etc/paths file include the /usr/local/sbin directory on macOS?

$ cat /etc/paths
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

I would have expected:

$ cat /etc/paths
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

Note. — The /etc/paths file is read by the /etc/profile shell script to generate the PATH environment variable.

The /usr/local/sbin directory does not exist on a default macOS installation, but you can easily add it yourself.

To add that directory to the system-wide PATH environment variable (for all users), as there is always the risk of a macOS update overwriting /etc/paths, it might be better to add a file named usr_local_sbin (or anything else) to /etc/paths.d with that single line:

/usr/local/sbin

This will put the /usr/local/sbin path in a position close to the end of PATH, which usually (assuming unique command names) is not a problem. If you want to have it early in PATH for whatever reason, either add to  /etc/paths nevertheless or edit the PATH order in the user-specific ~/.profile.


How to restructure TM backup drive without losing backups? I had some hard drive problems a little while ago, so installed a new drive system, and restored data from my Time Machine Backup.  However, the mount point is very different from the one originally backed up.

Right now I have a 6 TB backup drive, with 1.6 TB free.  I have 4 TB's to backup to it, most of which is already on the backup drive, just mapped to a different folder/volume.

I'm quite comfortable using the shell or whatever, I'm just getting permission problems or 'operation not permitted' when trying to move the folders to an existing tree, or to even create a symlink.

Hopefully I don't need to dump my old backup data in order to continue backing up.

Is there a way I restructure the backup folders on the Time Machine drive, so I don't lose my backups from before this restore point?

Restructuring the files manually isn't a very easy or practical solution. Due to the hard links used to store the files and the data structures and metadata involved for Time Machine to track which files have changes, it would be better to live with the change.

You can enter Time Machine and delete entire backups or manually delete files or entire snapshots. If you do nothing, you will have two copies of some files where you would have had one had the normal compression of files being stored in the same path are unchanged on the backup when the file does not change. Once Time Machine sees that you don't have enough space to hold the next backup (as it estimates each backup need before starting) it will then do the clean up by time for you.

Technically, the system has locked the backups into a special state where even root has to disable the protections to then delete files. It's much better to use tmutil to delete entire snapshots (or a range of them systematically) or the normal UI to delete all backups of a folder or a file.

You could also just put that drive on a shelf and start with a new one. This does add extra cost (well a lot of cost for 6 TB of disk) but you won't have to lose backup history. If the files are truly duplicated, just let Time Machine clear enough space to accommodate the next backup and you should be clear. The risk is that the deletion happens before the backup starts, and there is a short window where a bit more than 4 TB of data was deleted, and you haven't made a new backup copy of the files - they will only exist on the source and a failure during that next backup could cause you data loss.


Tmux hampers osascripts display notification I like to show notifications from scripts using osascript -e 'display notification "Some text"'.

This works fine from the plain shell but it stop working when in tmux.

It just doesn't show the notification in tmux. No errors or anything else is shown.

Has anyone else had this problem and how do I fix it?

I don't plan to use Tmux but just from curiosity I leafed through its manual pages and saw under "Options":

focus-events [on|off]
When enabled, focus events are requested from the terminal if supported
and passed through to applications running in tmux. Attached clients
should be detached and attached again after changing this option.

You might look into Tux' options to get what you want, I guess.