Quickest way to "destroy" the contents of a drive? Consider a drive protected with the latest iteration of Filevault.
If I wanted to make the contents of the disk unrecoverable, I could of course do a security wipe of the entire drive - which would undoubtedly take a while.
Is there a quicker way?
Can the key material be irretrievably damaged instead for example, in such a way the encrypted contents are useless? For example dd'iing over a specific offset of the drive?

The encrypted contents are already useless, unless you have the recovery key.
If someone ELSE has the recovery key, then change it.
From https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/managing-yosemites-filevault-2-with-fdesetup/

You can add or change recovery keys using fdesetup changerecovery. To
change to a new personal key, run the following command with root
privileges:
fdesetup changerecovery -personal
You’ll be prompted for the password of an existing FileVault 2-enabled
user or the existing personal recovery key. Once entered, a new
personal recovery key will be generated and displayed. The former
personal recovery key will no longer work.


Trackpad on MacBook Pro 8,2 (15'' early 2011) goes crazy on power Whenever I connect the AC power cord the trackpad behaves erratically. If I disconnect the computer sometimes returns to normal, sometimes not.

Some background:

My computer is originally from the Americas.
I'm currently using it in Europe with a European charger.
It is running macOS Sierra.
I modified some trackpad configuration on my other partition that I use for  Ubuntu.
I already tried resetting NPRAM and SMC and nothing changed.
I repaired my disks using the Disk Utility, however I can't use the Recovery Partition.  The loading bar appears but doesn't go away.  (I have tried waiting over an hour.)
The charger was given to me from my employer and it appears to be original and it also appears to be ok (in fact it was still wrapped in plastic as it appeared to be brand new).
I don't have a way of testing it with other chargers and I don't exactly remember if it was happening before this charger. (It could have been).
- Currently in my battery menu there is a legend saying "Condition: Replace Soon". I just replaced the battery for a new one and still is not working.
Sometimes when this happens I run the following commands to recover my trackpad

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBMultitouch.kext to disable

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBMultitouch.kext to enable

However sometimes a Kernel Panic error appears.
- The last thing I noticed is that somehow only when I use two finger gestures I "lose" the trackpad.
- A new discovery is that the keyboard also behaves erratically sometimes like ignoring key presses.

So that's basically my story. I don't really know what to do next, also I don't really have a way to replicate the problem. I just know that only happens when the charger is connected.  Of course my MacBook is old but is really powerful.

To conclude, I ran Apple Hardware Test (extended) and everything appears to be fine!

After much research, trial and error and thanks to others in this amazing community I've found out the reason behind my trackpad and keyboard failures.

The reason is that my MacBook Pro was missing a Cable Bracket inside. Why was that bracket missing is because my MBP was candidate for the motherboard replacement program that Apple did for Early 2011 MacBook Pro related to the Video Card issue (more on this thread so I took it in Mexico City to an "authorised" distributor called iShop and I remember that was the last time I saw the part (as I reckon I changed the keyboard myself after a coffee indigestion).

So I hope my answer help any soul with the same problem!


Stop downloading Lion from the App store So, I bought a new Mac book Air recently, opened up the AppStore and found "Lion" in the featured updates.

I thought that was shown because I was not running lion and clicked on it to upgrade. Later mucked around the system to figure that I was running Lion and my system had been updated to the latest version of Lion.

But because I clicked the Install on the Lion in the appstore,

I am charged with $30, which I don't really have to pay.
My launchpad now displays the Lion as downloading.

I can't seem to stop the launchpad icon from downloading and can't remove it from there.

Now my queries:

Is it possible to "un-install" from the appstore. How?
Once the Lion completes download, will my system be updated again to the same version of the OS? What happens to the installed apps
Is it possible that somehow I can get back my $30, which is a wrong charge.
How do I stop the download from happening, prevent re-install and remove that downloading icon from Launchpad?

I probably acted a little stupid by clicking to buy that in the first place without even knowing my system runs Lion. But in my defense, I didn't think an app that I don't need to install would download and charge me; not by Apple.

Thanks in advance.

Purchasing is like being pregnant, but a little more black and white. It either went through or it didn’t. In your case, you can pause the download and delete the temporary file (turn off automatic downloads) and then decide if it’s worth it to ask for a refund.

  Is it possible that somehow I can get back my $30, which is a wrong charge?

To apply for a refund, contact Mac App Store Support.


How to add FaceID for family members to iPhones We only have cellular phones in our home and with our older phones my wife and I could add TouchIDs to each of our phones, and add our children's fingerprints as well.  So, anyone could quickly use either phone.  It's not just a matter of convenience, but also if there is an urgent matter... perhaps not a 911 emergency, but an emergency none the less, our children can quickly use the phones to get help.

Anyhow, with our new iPhone X, I cannot find how to train it to open for more than one face.  How can we add FaceID for family members to our iPhones now?

The iPhone X currently does not support multi-face authentication. You can only add one face now. It may be or may not be added in the future updates. As per a mail sent by Apple VP Craig Federighi, it's unlikely that Apple will add this in future. You can read the mail from him in below link at MacRumors.

Mail from Craig Federighi


How to format Hard Drive and reinstall Catalina from USB I have a disk that's so full I cannot install Catalina in Recovery mode as there is not enough space. I have a pre-formatted and bootable USB but when I try and install the image to  the HD it fails telling me there is not enough space, doh!
Could someone please send me a link or the instructions to reformat the internal SSD hard drive and create the necessary partitions so that I have an 'empty' drive on which I can install from USB.
Thanks in advance, and yes I have a time machine backup of the unit!

Thanks everyone. I reformatted the drive and reinstalled and now I am in the middle of a Time Machine recovery.  Cheers gents you are the best.


How do I get an operating system onto a new hard drive? I will be installing a new 500GB hard drive in my macbook.  It is a late 2008, aluminum, 13-inch screen.  Once I install it, how do I get an operating system that's 10.7 or newer (downloaded from the App Store) on to the bare/unformatted drive?

Being a 1 Mac household and an IT professional who has only supported PCs, I had a challenging time trying to figure out how to reload OSX after my husband's Mac hard drive died. Hopefully I diagnosed a bad hard drive correctly (I'll provide my method) and I hope this helps someone out there. This is probably overkill on instructions, but there are PC people out there who may try to help out the  (much more) rare critical Mac issue. I did most of this from memory, so I may have messed up a label here or there. Please use Common sense if I did this and look around the screen for something that looks like what I'm talking about.
NOTE: This process only worked because the hard drive was still able to access recovery mode by holding Command+R on startup. If your Mac is unable to access that feature, this may not work for you, but I included some other handy stuff, like recovering files from the drive.
Initial Symptom: My husband's Mac had been randomly shutting down for some time, but we were limping it along. Finally, on startup one day, he saw a progress bar that would complete and then the device would shut down. Here is the process I followed:
Things you'll need:

SATA/IDE to USB Adapter (Mine was Vantec USB 2.0, but it shouldn't matter. Be sure to get one with external power source. I've had little to no success with USB powered devices.
Mac running OSX Lion or later (prior versions didn't have the recovery partition)
New Hard drive that is compatible with Mac.
T8 Mini Torx screw driver
Small phillips screwdriver
Recommend: A cold beer and a lot of patience
Just in case you pull off the rubber coating, you'll need a case removal tool like you use to replace a cell phone screen. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XVPDSG/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk

Step 1: Troubleshoot the Device

Power off the Device
Hold down the Command+R keys as you start the device. Continue holding the keys until the Recovery Utility prompts you to select a language (Grey Screen) **NOTE:**You may have to hold the keys for up to two minutes.
After you've selected a language preference, Select the Disk Utility item in the list of utilities.
Select your drive on the left navigation panel (It's probably already selected)
Click the Verify Disk button in the Disk Utilities. It will probably show some erros. Click the Repair Disk button that will only appear after you click Verify. Do this until there are no errors or (like me) you receive a message saying that the disc couldn't be repaired.
Click the Verify Disk Permissions button. If this completes successfully, click Repair Disk Permissions
NOTE This may solve your problem. If you didn't receive a nasty message on step 5 saying the Disk was corrupt, to back up your files and such, good on ya! Try some Canadian troubleshooting -- When in doot (doubt) Reboot!

Step 2: Removing the Hard Drive from the Mac
Here's a great visual guide to the steps below: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2010+Hard+Drive+Replacement/4305

Turn off the MacBook.
Remove the hard drive from the device by removing the 8 screws from the bottom of the MacBook and pulling off the bottom cover, being careful not to pull at the edges as it will pull off the rubber coating. If you accidentally do this, tip to follow. To pull the cover, put your fingers at the hinge of the MacBook screen (from the bottom), and lift from the metal part under the rubber cover.
You will see a small black bar held down with two screws right next to the hard drive. This must be removed before the hard drive is pulled out.
If your hard drive is OEM, there should be a plastic tab that you gently pull on to lift the hard drive, being cautious of the SATA cable
Pull gently at the cable connector seated in the end of the hard drive facing the exterior of the case to disconnect the hard drive.

If you messed up and pulled off the rubber coating:

After you have finished removing the bottom cover, get out the case removal tool from the list of things you'll need that you diligently ordered with your new hard drive for just $1 or so
Hold the rubber coating on the metal case with the metal part (inside of the cover) facing you.
GENTLY slip the edge of the case removal tool under the edges of the rubber coating with the edge of the tool facing towards you and lift the edge back over the edge of the metal backing.
Slowly glide the tool around the edge, lifting the rubber back into place, being extra cautious around the corners.
Put the back plate down and don't breathe on it or the rubber stuff will come off again.

Step 3: Using a PC and HFS Explorer to Recover Files

Download HFS Explorer and install it on your PC (http://www.catacombae.org/hfsexplorer/)
Plug the removed hard drive into the SATA/IDE to USB device. There will be two cables to plug in and they are directional. The smaller plug is the data cable that goes into the rectangular USB connector. The other goes to the power cable. If you bought the same one I did, there is a connector that adapts the standard power supply connector to SATA. There is a power switch on this cable.
Plug the USB cable into your PC and turn on the power switch on the cable (if you haven't already).
You should hear the device chime in Windows, or you can verify that the device driver was recognized and installed in Device Manager. Note: You will not see it show up as a hard drive as the Mac drive format is not diurectly compatible as a disk drive with Windows.
Open HFS Explorer and click File > Load File System From Device
I was not able to use the AutoDetect Button successfully, but you can try. I selected the Select a Device radio button and in the Detected Devices drop-down and click Load
Select the files and folders you wish to back up in the tree to the left just like you would any Explorer (or Finder for you Mac peeps) tree, then click Extract. My husband's files were in the second partition under the Users > [Username] folder.
Follow the prompts to extract the files to the desired location. You will have to babysit it because there are a lot of Mac file names that are not OK on Windows. I used the "Auto-Rename" feature and it worked swimmingly.

Step 4: Installing OSX on the New Hard Drive
If you're still with me, crack open another beer, because you've probably finished the first one. This was the most frustrating part to research. When you Google, " How do I load OSX on a new hard drive using a PC ", you end up with some great suggestions to use VM Virtual Box, which means you have to get a copy of your OSX load. Well, mine happened to be on this one very broken Mac hard drive, and you can only make a Mac bootable with a Mac. Grr...So, I gave this a shot. I hope it works for you.

Install the NEW hard drive back into Mac. Before you do this, there are a couple of screw-in pins that are in the sides of the old hard drive that you will need to hold your new hard drive in place. Use the T8 mini Torx screwdriver to remove them and place them into the sides of the new drive. These will hold your new drive in place. Put a couple of screws on opposite corners of the bottom plate to hold it in place and protect all the precious bits in there. Do not turn on the Mac yet
Connect the OLD device to the SATA/IDE connector, connect the USB to the Mac and turn on the power to the new hard drive
Hold down the Option key and turn on the device to choose which device to boot to.
Select the OLD hard drive (Probably called Recovery_[something]) when prompted to choose a boot device.
The boot sequence will take you into the Mac Recovery Utilities menu
Select the Disk Utilities option from the menu
Select the NEW Drive in the list to the left and click Verify Disk. This should come out clean
Click the Erase option in the Disk Utility and complete a format of the hard drive using the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) option
If you like, partition the drive using the Partition option and set the number and size of partitions to the desired size.
Exit the Disk Utility tools using the menu in the upper-left
In the recovery menu, click the Reinstall OSX option
If you are prompted to connect to a wireless network, you can either connect it to an ethernet cable to speed things along, or click the Wireless icon in the upper-right of the top toolbar to search for an SSID to connect to. This will permit you to use the online recovery options to download the operating system.
Follow the prompts and enter your iTunes login info
When prompted to select a disk for installation, select the disk (or partition) you would like to install OSX on on the NEW hard drive and follow the prompts to initiate the installation.
IMPORTANT When the reboot after download occurs, if the installation gets stuck on Verifying Disks or shows symptoms of pixelation on the progress bar and corresponding status text, hold down the power button on the Mac to shut it down. CONGRATULATIONS! You successfully diagnosed that the old hard drive is bad. ;-) If this occurs and your installation doesn't go through, pull the USB cable from the SATA/IDE to USB adapter from the USB port, hold down the Control key and turn the Mac on. Select the Install OS X drive as the boot device.
Wait for an eternity...have a couple more beers...Voila.


Rebuild SystemUIServer's database I'm not completely sure what happened, but in Console I get the following errors repeating endlessly every few minutes:

28/07/2013 12:32:10.009 SystemUIServer[304]: Unknown error finalizing or resetting statement (11: database disk image is malformed)
28/07/2013 12:32:10.009 SystemUIServer[304]: DB Query: begin exclusive transaction
28/07/2013 12:32:10.018 SystemUIServer[304]: Error calling sqlite3_step (1: cannot commit - no transaction is active) SQLITE_ERROR
28/07/2013 12:32:10.019 SystemUIServer[304]: DB Query: commit transaction
28/07/2013 12:32:10.019 SystemUIServer[304]: Unknown error finalizing or resetting statement (1: cannot commit - no transaction is active)
28/07/2013 12:32:10.019 SystemUIServer[304]: DB Query: commit transaction

It seems like some database that SystemUIServer uses has become corrupted, and I'm looking for a way to repair it or, more likely, force it to be re-created. I've had a little poke around in /private/var/db but I haven't seen anything that looks likely, and of course the last thing I want to do is try moving/deleting things at random as I'm pretty much guaranteed to make things worse :)

Currently the errors don't seem to interfere with anything, but I figure if this database is corrupt then I should really fix it if I can. At the very least so it stops filling my console with thousands of message a day!

Have you got iStat Menus 4 installed? This thread identified the iStat Menus network module as the cause of the problem. Another one blames the CPU module.


How to create HFS partition on Windows 7 machine I've got Windows 7 running on my computer and I would like to partition my D: volume, make it HFS+ but I cannot find any tool that will accomplish this.

Anyone had done this before? Is it possible? I have EaseUS partition tool but it does not support HFS/HFS+.

I only know of two commercial tools: MacDrive and TransMac. They both have limited time trials to evaluate before you buy.

You could also try a Live CD of GParted, it has HFS support.

Update: a colleague of mine told me you can create a HFS partition with diskpart. Just make sure it's primary and use partition id af (create partition primary id=af).


missing /usr/bin/gnutar on Mavericks (MacPorts) MacPorts is complaining about missing /usr/bin/gnutar on Mavericks

:info:extract sh: /usr/bin/gnutar: No such file or directory

gnutar is indeed not there anymore.

As suggested here I tried to change the tar command in /opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf:

tar_command=/usr/bin/tar -0

with no effect.

Any suggestion? Did I configure tar_command in the wrong file? Is there another workaround?

The problem is that your version of MacPorts was not built on Mavericks and assumes the tools that were there when it was installed are still available. Since this is no longer the case, you should re-install MacPorts, which will automatically fix this issue.

Since there is no binary installer for Mavericks at the moment, you will have to build from source instead. Make sure you have installed the Command Line Tools using xcode-select --install before you attempt to run ./configure in the MacPorts source tree. See http://guide.macports.org/#installing.macports.subversion for a how-to.

If you don't want to build a development version from source, a binary installer will be made available in the next few days.

Edit: A binary installer for Mavericks (for the 2.2.1 bugfix release) is now available: https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-2.2.1-10.9-Mavericks.pkg.

Note that you should still run xcode-select --install in any case, even if you do have Xcode installed and use the binary installer.

Since this keeps getting referenced: If you just updated to Mavericks you should also follow https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration.


No Macintosh HD in Volumes folder I am running in recovery mode to save the data from disk( I cant login due to deletion of private/var folder). I opened Terminal and went to Volumes. This folder should be populated with the Macintosh HD subfolder. It isn't. It just lists the OS X Base System, the external hard drive I have connected and .Trashes. I ran First Aid on Macintosh HD Parent folder called APPLE SSD... in Disk Utility panel. Nothing changed. How can I copy the data if there is no Macintosh HD to navigate to?

This is the output from diskutil list

Your main volume is encrypted with FileVault and still locked – consequently it doesn't show up in /Volumes. Before being able to mount it you'd have to unlock it:

diskutil cs unlockVolume lvUUID #replace lvUUID by the one shown in the diskutil listing

You will then be asked to enter the passphrase/password. You have to enter a passphrase or a password of a regular user eligible of unlocking FileVault. In your example the lvUUID is shown in diskutil list and starts with 573…. You may also get the lvUUID by entering diskutil cs list.


Ping command on iPad Is there some way by which a ping command or somewhat similar can be run on iPad ?

I am trying to do this as my wifi connection dies out if there is idle time even for a few mins though it works with continuous ping on desktop browsers.

So i want to simulate the same ping thing on iPad..

Ouch - do realize that you will be working against two factors.

If the ping app is in the foreground - it's a easy project.
For it to run in the background (where it will do you any good) it has to play by the background task API - all of which are designed to prevent the usage of the CPU and preventing the WiFi from dropping. Even if it worked a while, it would be a bug and likely to break every time Apple updates it's OS.

Your battery life will be horrible - but that's your call since your network interruption might be more pain than a ten hour runtime. I have a solution that will work out of the box.

Get yourself a mapping app like Runmeter. It can be configured to upload a map to the internet every 5 minutes. It can also monitor a twitter stream, so you could set up a bot account to push updates more rapidly if the mapping alone didn't keep your iPad from detecting the WiFi as idle.


Adding photos to Shared Album, using the web I have some photos on a linux computer that I would like to add to a Shared iPhotos Album.

So I thought I would log in to my icloud.com account and add them there.

To my surprise, the shared albums are not even listed on my icloud.com account? Why not?

How can I add photos to my shared iPhoto album with a non Apple computer?

UPDATE: My Mac doesn't even show the Shared Albums, even though I use the same account as on my iOS devices.

UPDATE2: I am running MacOS10.13.6

UPDATE3: Thank you @fsb it was indeed an iCloud setting: "iCloud Photo Sharing" that wasn't enabled.

Shared albums are not available to view on iCloud.com.  You can only create albums and add/delete photos in albums on a device and then share a link to them.

You'd have to share your album and send yourself a link in order to see in online.

You can add/delete photos from any shared album while on your Mac.  After you do that, any subscribers to that album, Mac or PC, will be able to see the changes you made.

Add items to a shared album

In the Photos app  on your Mac, click a shared album under Shared in the sidebar.
Click “Add photos and videos.”
Select the photos, video clips, and Live Photos that you want, then click Add.
Subscribers to your shared album can play the video in the Live Photos.

Remove items from a shared album

In the Photos app  on your Mac, click a shared album under Shared in the sidebar.
Select the items you want to remove, press Delete, then click Delete.
Photos removes the items from the shared album, but leaves the original items in your library.

Important: If you delete photos or videos that others added to the shared album, you won’t have copies of them in your library. If you want to keep these items, download them from the shared album before deleting them.

Source


Mavericks and Yosemite on macbook pro My Macbook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) came preinstalled with Mavericks. Can I have Yosemite safely installed next to it on the same machine? If so, how?

Yes. You need to partition the drive into two volumes, and install Yosemite on the second partition.

You can, in theory, multi-boot your machine with any compatible OS until you run out of storage space. I have in the past had one machine boot with OS9, 10.3 and 10.5. You can also run two copies of the same version.

However, you will run into fairly serious synchronization issues if you want to run cloud services. You will not be able to revert to Mavericks after using any service with Yosemite.


User folder icons replaced by generic folder icons after 10.9 upgrade After updating a 10.8 machine to 10.9, the standard user folders--"Documents", "Downloads" and so forth--have lost their special icons and now appear with the generic folder icon.

Interestingly, if I create a new user, the new user's icons appear as expected. Any ideas as to why this is happening, and how I can restore the default set of icons for this user?

Fix:

Restore the default icons
1. Go to the info view of each folder.
2. Click at the icon in the top left corner
3. Reset the icon via Command ⌘+X

Workaround:
You can copy a folder icon to another folder.

There is a solution to bring the folder icons back:
1. Create a new user
2. Go to the user folder of the new user
3. Select the Documents folder
4. Create a new folder with on an USB stick or at some location that can be accessed from both users (You can also create the folder in /Macintosh HD or however your OS X installation partition is named)
5. Open the Info view of the Documents folder (via Command ⌘+I or via File -> Get Info)
6. Open the Info view of the folder you created
7. Tap on the folder icon displayed in the top left corner, left to the Folder name (It should be surrounded by a blue line)
8. Copy the icon via Command ⌘+C
9. Tap on the folder icon in the Info view of the folder you created and place the icon there via Command ⌘+V
10. Do these steps for all folders in the users directory that have lost their icon
11. Switch back to the user with the missing icons and paste the icons of the folders you created into the folders inside the users directory

I hope that I explained these steps well enough. If you have any questions, just write a comment under this answer

Please notice, that if the folder icons get changed in future versions of OS X (like in Yosemite), you will have to go through these steps again in order to get the new icons


Photo Stream stopped working on my iPhone Photo streaming to and from my iPhone 4 (iOS 7) and iPad Mini (iOS 8) was working well, but suddenly photos taken on the iPhone will not stream. Furthermore, in iCloud the phone is no longer listed under "my devices" and the only photos in the iCloud album are those from the iPad.  Yet photos taken on the iPad DO stream to the iPhone, so something is connecting the two devices. I have already checked the relevant settings on the phone, and all iCloud functions are turned on (as they have always been). The only change I know of is that the iPad is now using the latest OS 8, but the new OS does not support iPhone 4. Why is the phone still able to receive streamed photos but not showing up on iCloud, and how can I get photos streaming again from the phone?

Did you happen to switch iCloud Photo Library on for your iPad? That could prevent proper synching of your devices as it's an iOS 8 feature and therefore wouldn't be supported on your iPhone.

Additionally, have you tried logging out of iCloud on the iPhone, rebooting the phone, then logging back in?


Is OSX 10.6.8 too old? Constant slow/lockup w/ FireFox, which constantly draws high %CPU rate I switched to FireFox when Safari started to have massive problems.  Firefox is not much better.  Mozilla forum responses keep blaming AddOn incompatability.  But mostly I'm running security & privacy enhancers (DoNotTrackMe, Ghostery, etc)

I have a DSL line.

I've got an MBP 2.66 Ghz Core i7, wish I could install more than 8 GB memory.  I tried a PCI card, but it causes a kernel panic (Delkin Devices ExpressCard 34 PRO SSD PCI Express)

I want to keep >100 tabs open.  Closer to 200.  Used to be able to do that with Safari.  What has changed ?

FF was working adequately until the last security update.  Now its just constantly showing anywhere from 20% to 80+ %CPU usage. It can take many seconds to open a new blank tab, and then 10-20 seconds before it accepts input (trackpad click on the URL box, or keyboard entry).

Seems like every other FF update screws it up.

The problem seems to be that you want to keep 200 tabs open. Try reducing this number and the computer should perform better.


Limit iPad data when tethered to iPhone (iOS equivalent of "Trip Mode" or "Little Snitch") I am using an old iPhone to create a Wi-Fi hotspot when I need to work at my cabin.

I found "Trip Mode" for limiting data usage from my MacBook; however, my iPad seems to be a little data-hog.

Is there any way to limit the apps (directly on my iPad) that can use data while tethered to the iPhone?

i.e. Is there an iOS equivalent of Trip Mode that I could install on the iPad?

This seems like something that many folks would need, but I can only find really old threads discussing it when I Google it.

A simple Web search revealed this app which claims to monitor data usage on your iOS device.

My Data Manager VPN Security

Some of the features as listed in the app description are:

Monitor your data usage on mobile, WiFi, and roaming
Find out which apps are eating up your mobile data
Get alerts before you reach your data limit to avoid overage fees

The app is available free of cost from the App Store.

Note: No affiliation whatsoever with the developer of the app. Based on the app description and ratings, it appears like a useful app.


CPU at 100% for a long time - Harmful or not? On my 2010 MBP, I want to encode several hours of video, which will end up with the CPU used at 100% for a long time and the MBP heating quite a lot.

Is this considered as normal use (I would say yes, isn't it what computers are made for! :)) ? Could it end up with a too high internal temperature and could it damage some components? (The aluminium case will be hot but the hand is not a good thermometer).

In case this could be a problem, is there a way to cap the maximum cpu% a process can use. I don't really care about the time it will take, I just don't want to kill my MBP...!

100% CPU utilization will not directly be harmful to your laptop.  Heat, however, can be.  Your MacBook Pro does have several internal temperature sensors that will turn on the internal fan and finally halt the machine should it get too hot.  You can see the temperature each sensor is reading by using this free program:

http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html

You should still use some type of cooling stand if possible.  My 2007 MacBook Pro suffered a broken display from what I believe to be a heat related issue.  After heavy use and high CPU utilization the bottom of the display would get very hot.  Then, the screen would start to flicker slightly (but only when the laptop was running hot).  Eventually, the screen had to be replaced.  Using a laptop stand with multiple fans kept my machine running cool enough to prevent the issue from happening again.

Also, you do have some control over how much CPU a process gets.  For that you can use BeNicer, another free piece of software:

http://frozenheads.com/page/benicer


AppleScript: move a folder to library (to root) in iTunes Does anybody know how to move some folder to library playlist in iTunes?

I can move some folder to another folder using the following script:

tell application "iTunes"
    move folder playlist "3" to folder playlist "1"
end tell

The initial state is:

1
|--2
   |--3

After executing the script state will be:

1
|--2
|--3

But I don't know how to move folder "3" on the same level as folder "1". Folder "1" is located in library. I mean the following structure:

1
|--2

3

You can see picture what I want to do using AppleScript

@ArtemG. then I assume that this operation could be done by editing the playlist file that is loaded by iTunes. It should  be located in ~/Music/iTunes/

Information is according to the posts marked as helful over here (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2439817)


AppleScript bug: When placing plain text on the clipboard, the text is always converted to rich text Run the following code to put some text on your clipboard:

set testString to "This string should be plain text."
set the clipboard to testString

If you open up a new .rtf file in TextEdit.app, and paste the clipboard into this document, you will observe that the clipboard contains rich text. Specifically, the clipboard text is of the font Helvetica and size 12.

I also tried specifying set the clipboard to (testString as string) or set the clipboard to (testString as text). But, the code always puts rich text on the clipboard. This rich text is always of the same style (as described in the previous paragraph).

Is it possible to put text on the clipboard, as plain text, in AppleScript?

OS X El Capitan, version 10.11.6.

Maybe copying the text to the Pasteboard using Cocoa-AppleScript will only set plain text to paste to the RTF document.

Otherwise, use the following as a workaround:

set testString to "This string should be plain text." as string
do shell script "pbcopy <<<" & quoted form of testString

The previous mentioned workaround method adds a linefeed after testString to the Clipboard and if that's unwanted behavior, use:

set testString to "This string should be plain text." as string
do shell script "printf " & the quoted form of testString & " | pbcopy"

The other option is to use Paste and Match Style ⌥⇧⌘V instead of Paste ⌘V to match what's at the insertion point.


Automator fails. Is there a better solution? Recently I was trying to train an Automator script to run some mundane tasks - unfortunately it stops at the first step.

I clicked the "record" button on my old Mac OS 10.5 machine, opened Keychain and did a few more steps. It failed on the first step unfortunately - the cursor just points to the spot a little to the right of where Keychain shows on the bottom dock. (Yes, I tried turning off autohiding, and the jumpout effect)

On a newer Mac it was actually worse, when recording and playing back the steps it didn't give an alert saying it failed, it just kept pressing the mouse down, down, toward the icon, and never clicking it.

If Automator isn't the best tool for what it says it does, what is the best solution?

Since this will be programmatically called, one natural choice might be the Java Robot class - unfortunately it seems this does simple key press, key-up, mouse movement, but doesn't seem to have the smarts Automator has.

Sikuli seems like possibly a good solution, but I can't test right now as it apparently only works on OS 10.6+ (and earlier than 10.10). It also sounds a bit hacky, how it uses image processing to find what you're looking for.

I know there are OpenSSL commands that do the same as the Keychain, but for the purposes of this automation it has to be known by the system - which from what I can tell requires certs to be in the Keychain. I need a solution that can be scripted.

You can add certs to a keychain with the command line tool security

It's been a while since I've used it, but IIRC the command would be:

security add-trusted-cert -r trustRoot -k /path/to/keychain /path/to/cert

Read the man page:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/security.1.html


shutdown multiple Macs after a runtime of 24 hours? Can I shutdown multiple Macs in my office (9-10 Macs) in my office after checking their runtime? I have one Mac, which acts as a Server (with the OS Server application). SSH is also enabled on every Mac, so logging on remotely is not a problem. I want to write a script that checks:

if the runtime >=24h then shutdown mac

Now I don't know anything about scripting on a Mac but I've done this before with powershell and windows machines.

Curently I have this script:

#!/bin/bash
BOOT_TIME=$(sysctl -n kern.boottime | sed -e 's/.* sec = \([0-9]*\).*/\1/')
CURR_TIME=$(date +%s)
MAX_UPDAYS=1 #Days

DAYS_UP=$(( ( $CURR_TIME - $BOOT_TIME) / 86400 ))
    if [ $DAYS_UP -ge ${MAX_UPDAYS} ];then
        echo Mac is going to shutdown
        shutdown -h now
    else
        echo No shutdown needed
fi

but don't know how to run it on the remote Macintoshs

You can do this with a simple bash script, the uptime command and launchd.  If you execute the command by itself, it will tell you how long the machine has been up:

$ uptime
6:08  up 20 days, 21:09, 4 users, load averages: 1.09 1.29 1.36

So, the number that we are interested is the "20" which we will evaluate against our condition of "1 day"

#!/bin/bash

#Maximum number of days to be up
max=1

#Get the uptime days and assign it to a variable
uptime_days=`uptime | cut -d " " -f 5`

if [ $uptime_days -ge $max ]
  then
  shutdown -h now
fi

exit 0

Make sure you set the script as executable or it won't run:

chmod +x shutdown24.sh

Now, here's the most important part.  When do you want to evaluate this?  Technically, your could have this script run every hour (or even ever minute) to evaluate if the computer has been up for 24 hours.

This is not recommended because if for some reason the computer was turned on at 10:00am (because the person was late, for example) you don't want it shutting down at 10:00am the next morning when they are in the middle of their work.

So, I'm going to assume you want it run at midnight so you don't inadvertently shutdown the machine while people are working.  What you need is to utilize lauchd and create a .plist that defines the job (similar to Task Scheduler) in Windows.

Let's assume that we called the bash script shutdown24.sh so we will call our .plsit com.user.shutdown24.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.shutdown24</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/USERNAME/Path_to_Scripts/shutdown24.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
    </dict>

</dict>
</plist>

Copy this file to /Library/LaunchDaemons and then load it to launchd:

sudo launchctl load com.user.shutdown24.plist

The job will be run as root and at 12:00am every morning, it will check if the system uptime and will shutdown if it's greater than 24 hours.


Parental Controls preventing access to legit sites For my kid's account on OSX El Capitan, I've turned on Parental Controls, with the Web settings to "Try to limit access to adult websites".   This causes non-adult websites to fail to load.  For example, edx.org works for a while then inexplicably, Safari/Chrome can't access it.  The same happens with nytimes.com.  ping and traceroute to these sites eventually fail also.

Why?

It's not a perfect system because there's no way for any filter to know exactly what the content of a site is or whether it's an "adult" site or not.  This is from Apple's site explaining the filtering:

  When "Allow unrestricted access to websites" is selected, the Internet content filter logs websites that the account visits but does not restrict Web browsing. Visited websites are still logged and can be examined in the Logs tab of Parental Controls preferences.

  When "Try to limit access to adult websites automatically" is selected, the Internet content filter does its best to block websites with inappropriate content. To do this, the Internet content filter uses the same technology that the Mail application uses to identify "junk" mail. The Internet content filter can identify, with a high degree of accuracy, whether a Web page is safe or not by examining various properties of the website including text and structure.
  Additionally, the Internet content filter will block a website if the website identifies itself as adult-oriented using RTA (http://www.rtalabel.org/) or SafeSurf (http://www.safesurf.com/ssplan.htm) rating systems, as well as forcing "safe" searches with some search engines.

  In this mode, the Internet content filter logs all visited and blocked websites, and flags them as such in the Logs tab of Parental Controls preferences.
  In certain situations, the automatic Internet content filter may mistakenly block a safe website or allow an adult-oriented website. For example, if the website uses an uncommon language or if there is very little text on the page. These websites can be identified in the Log tab of the Parental Controls preference pane and added to the "Always Allow" or the "Never Allow" lists. These lists can also be accessed by clicking the Customize… button in the Content tab of Parental Controls preferences. Websites that are mistakenly blocked can also be allowed by clicking the "Allow…" button on the blocked web page and authenticating as an administrator user.

So there's no way you're going to be able to do perfect filtering.


Install Sierra on Macbook Pro shipped with High Sierra New MBP purchase shipped with High Sierra. I'd like to downgrade to Sierra but am running into the issue that you can't install a version of the OS lower than what was shipped. The explanation I found is that the drivers don't exist, but I know for a fact that the drivers exist since there is another MBP at my company shipped just a few months prior with the same specs, running Sierra. Is there any way to force this laptop to boot into a bootable Sierra install USB drive so I can perform the downgrade? I can't even get this laptop to boot from a live Linux USB, I just get a giant "No" icon. It seems li

I've tried to sidestep it a few ways, none of which have worked. I'm now thinking of trying to clone the hard drive from the other MBP I have that's running Sierra onto the new one. I wish I knew how Apple was able to perform this restriction. I imagine it's just a piece of information somewhere with a version check, if I could find that file maybe I could lower the minimum version?

I'm not willing to put High Sierra on my network yet, it doesn't play nice with profile management or Munki. I also really don't like the idea that I've purchased hardware which doesn't allow me to install the software I actually want. I know Apple is "Big Brother-ish", but this obnoxious. For what they charge for hardware, I should be able to do whatever I want to this machine.

My rant aside, does anyone have any insight on a method to get around this restriction?

EDIT:

In regards to the duplicate flag, I had read all of the referenced articles before posting, but asked this anyway because I wanted to know if it was possible to circumvent the protection. As I said, I find it very difficult to accept that I've purchased a piece of hardware which I won't let me use it the way I want to use it.

The well-accepted answer now and since there have been Macs (I believe...) is that whatever OS ships with it is the earliest version of the OS that will go on it.

So if it ships with macOS 10.6.8 then there is no way you will ever get anything lower than 10.6.8 on it (not 10.6.7, not anything).

So to answer your question specifically, if it came with High Sierra (whatever version) that is the lowest version of macOS it will ever run.

There may be hacks around that (and that answer won't be here), but I am not aware of any and I have been supporting Macs since 1990, professionally since 1992.


Upgrade iPad 2 from 4.3.5 to 5.1.1 I want to install iOS 5.1.1 on my iPad 2. Currently it's running on 4.3.5. iTunes just shows me a popup with the option to install iOS 6.0. How can I install 5.1.1?

There is no way to do that. Unless you already have a copy of the iOS 5.1.1 package for your iPad downloaded, you can only upgrade to the latest supported version for your device.


Spaces in Mavericks: apps do not remember their space I've switched to Mavericks and i wonder if the behaviour i'm seeing is a bug or a "feature".

It used to be that whenever you created spaces you could assign apps to a specific space, say Mail.app to space #2. In 10.8 that functionality was lost, but apps seem to 'remember' the space they were closed in. So if i opened Mail.app, dragged it to space #2, switched back to space #1 and open Mail.app again it would still open in space #2.

Unfortunately this seems to be broken in Mavericks. If i try the same thing the app simply opens in the space where i'm currently in, so i need to drag the app to the correct space again. Very frustrating.

Does anyone know a solution to this problem or should i try to file it as a bug with Apple?

Since Lion you assign app to a Desktop/space from the dock.

Doing this, app will open in the designated space regardless of the space you actually are.


Getting coordinates for frequent locations? In iOS, if “system services” are active in privacy, my “frequent locations” are recorded, but I can only see, for each of them, a fragment of a map and a quite generic description: the name of a road, for instance, which is less than useful for a long, out-of-town road without specific nearby points of reference. Is there a way to get more useful data, such as latitude and longitude?

There is nothing directly on the iOS device to provide the coordinates. Through the iOS developer sdk you can access the CLVisit class which has the following properties:

coordinate- which will give you the geographic coordinates
horizontalAccuracy- gives the horizontal accuracy of the above coordinates
arrivalDate- date arrived to location
departureDate- date departed location

There is also a CLFloor class which has the following property

level- which will give you a value for the floor. 0 bring ground floor, 2 being 2 floors above the ground floor, etc.


Can any recent iPhone benefit from the AirPods instant pairing? The W1 chip makes the AirPods and the new Beats headphones instantly pair with an iPhone. Does this work only with the iPhone 7 or would this work with all recent iPhone models as well?

i.e. Does the W1 need a specific client chip to work its pairing magic or would it work the same way with a recent Bluetooth (4?) chip in an iOS device?

(I know the AirPods also work with regular Bluetooth devices, but I'm particularly interested in the instant pairing feature)

Yes, the iPhone 5 and newer running iOS 10 can be paired with headphones equipped with the W1 chip.
From Apple's website:

Beats Solo3 Wireless is ready to go when you are. They instantly set up – just power on and hold near your iPhone – and then simultaneously connect to your Apple Watch, iPad and Mac*.
*Requires iCloud account and macOS Sierra, iOS 10, or watchOS 3


OS X El Capitan: Change the direction of text I remember I used to change the direction of text using keyboard shortcuts (like Command-Control-Right Arrow), but it doesn't work anymore.
How can I re-enable it?
I found this page about this topic from Apple, but none of these work.

Go the System Prefs/Keyboard/Input Sources/Arabic  (or whatever script you are using) and make sure the box for Enable Keyboard Shortcuts is checked.


Lost SMS/Txt Msgs on iPhone I seem to have lost the SMS/TXT messages on my iPhone 6 128GB (iOS 9.3). This iPhone is not jailbroken. I have the passcode. It's close to full with only about 3GB of storage left.

Suddenly, a few days ago, I realized that about 75-80% of my SMS/txt message conversations had disappeared.

This is a big problem for me as it may look real bad in an upcoming divorce.

Can anyone shed ideas on how I can recover these? What about my iTunes backup? (I can decrypt output). Anything else I can try?

I've also had on this iPhone a problem with lots of photos/videos disappearing, too (when the iOS update added the separate "Screenshots" photo album (I have many screenshots)

Are you sure your SMS/Text Messages are gone? Assuming you have iOS configured to keep them, they should be there.

If you're not sure, here is how to check:

Tap on your iPhone Settings
Swipe up until you see the Messages option
Tap on Messages
Swipe up until you see the Keep Messages option. This should show either 30 Days, 1 Year, or Forever.

If it shows Forever you should be okay. Likewise, if it shows 1 Year you may be okay depending on how far back you need to go. However, if it's only set at 30 Days then you're going to be out of luck unless you have backups for the period you need (which you may do if you have a good backup regime in place).

In terms of accessing past messages, may people don't realise they can do this quite easily by using the following procedure:

Open Messages
Tap on your spouse's name
When the messages appear, tap at the top centre of the screen to load more messages.

NOTE: It's easiest to tap where the Time is displayed. Each time you do this more messages will load. Depending on how far back you want to go, you may need to tap many times to load them all.


How to open a new c++ file with a predefined template in Sublime Text? I am keen to know if there is a way to open not an empty new file but a new file with some predefined template. I participate in online coding contests and for every new file (which I save as a '.cpp'), I have to Cmd+C and Cmd+V all the preprocessor directives i.e. #include <..>'s and #define's from one of my earlier '.cpp' file. Is there a way by which I can have all these things written to some file and every new file that I save as a c++ file this data gets loaded onto it thus saving my copy-pasting/retyping. Eclipse IDE has this feature, I wanted to know if its possible somehow in Sublime Text too. Thanx!

You should use a snippet. For instance, you can define a new snippet and trigger it with !initcpp. Then you open a new file, type !initcpp, hit ⇥ and your are ready to go.
To define a new one go to Tools → New Snippet…
From Sublime Text: Snippets.
Snippets can be stored under any package’s folder, but to keep it simple while you’re learning, you can save them to your Packages/User folder.
Snippets File Format
Snippets typically live in a Sublime Text package. They are simplified XML files with the extension .sublime-snippet.
The structure of a typical snippet is as follows (including the default hints Sublime Text inserts for your convenience):
<snippet>
    <content><![CDATA[Type your snippet here]]></content>
    <!-- Optional: Tab trigger to activate the snippet -->
    <tabTrigger>xyzzy</tabTrigger>
    <!-- Optional: Scope the tab trigger will be active in -->
    <scope>source.python</scope>
    <!-- Optional: Description to show in the menu -->
    <description>My Fancy Snippet</description>
</snippet>

The snippet element contains all the information Sublime Text needs in order to know what to insert, whether to insert and when. Let’s look at each of these parts in turn.
content
The actual snippet. Snippets can range from simple to fairly complex templates. We’ll look at examples of both later.
Keep the following in mind when writing your own snippets:

If you want to get a literal $, you have to escape it like this: \$.
When writing a snippet that contains indentation, always use tabs. When the snippet is inserted, the tabs will be transformed into spaces if the option translateTabsToSpaces is true.
The content must be included in a <![CDATA[…]]> section. Snippets won’t work if you don’t do this!
The content of your snippet must not contain ]]> because this string of characters will prematurely close the <![CDATA[…]]> section, resulting in an XML error. To work around this pitfall, you can insert an undefined variable into the string like this: ]]$NOT_DEFINED>. This modified string passes through the XML parser without closing the content element’s <![CDATA[…]]> section, but Sublime Text will replace $NOT_DEFINED with an empty string before inserting the snippet into your file. In other words, ]]$NOT_DEFINED> in your snippet file content will be written as ]]> when you trigger the snippet.

tabTrigger
Defines the sequence of keys that must be pressed to insert this snippet. After typing this sequence, the snippet will kick in as soon as you hit the ⇥ key.
A tab trigger is an implicit key binding.
scope
Scope selector determining the context where the snippet will be active. See Scopes for more information.
description
Used when showing the snippet in the Snippets menu. If not present, Sublime Text defaults to the file name of the snippet.
With this information, you can start writing your own snippets as described in the next sections.


Recovery HD broken, cannot start recovery mode Background:

System: macOS 10.13.3 late 2009 iMac

I was originally creating a 25 GB partition for a linux installation, but then something went wrong with it and somehow the 25 GB went to my Recovery HD. I resized it and reclaimed the disk space and tried the partition again. It worked, but now I think the Recovery HD is broken in a way. However, my main OS still works just fine. Here's what comes up in the terminal from diskutil

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                      TYPE NAME                 SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                      *500.1 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                   209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD          474.2 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot                       650.0 MB   disk0s3
4:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD           650.0 MB   disk0s4
5:           Linux Filesystem                       24.2 GB    disk0s5

I'm pretty sure Recovery HD is supposed to be on disk0s3 with Apple_Boot type, but it's not. When I look in Disk Utility and System Information, it shows that Recovery HD is mounted, when it's never shown it before

Question:

How can I solve this, if it is an issue I should worry about? I heard deleting Recovery HD then updating macOS should sort it out, but I have no idea how to do that (I haven't updated to macOS 10.13.4 yet). Otherwise, what can I do with diskutil to resolve this?

Update: Tried updating macOS without removing it, it seems to be related to my issue as it fails to update every time. It just boots back to my login screen saying "Some updates could not be installed automatically"

Reinstalling macOS from the App Store seems to resolve this problem; it re-adding the Recovery HD partition correctly.


What is this qemu-system-aarch64 process and why is it using almost 3 GB of RAM on my M1 Mac I am on my M1 Mac mini(Big Sur 11.3.1) and got a message that I am running out of RAM and should close some apps. I saw this process called qemu-system-aarch64 that takes up to 3GB of RAM. I don't know what it does and cannot stop it either. What is it and why does it eat up so much RAM?

This process belongs to an application you've installed yourself. To find out more, select the process in Activity Monitor and press Cmd-I to open the Process Information window. You should see the name of the process which started it at the top, and the path to the binary itself near the top of the 3rd tab (open files and ports).


How can I preview an image in its original size? I have 2 images in a directory and I see from the Get Info that one has Dimensions: 532 × 1051 and size 45KB on disk. The other based on the Get Info has Dimensions: 1440 × 2900 and size 379KB on disk.

Problem

When I open them with Preview they both show in the same size although the resolution is better in the latter, but how can I preview them and have the images open in their original size? I think the one with 532 × 1051 should be smaller when opened.

I see that there is an option in Preview -> View -> Actual Size, I selected that but the size remained the same (slightly zoomed in) and now that option is grayed out.

"Resolution" is not the number of pixels, but the number of pixels per inch, or centimeter, or other unit.

Most image formats contain data about the resolution: i.e. how many image pixels should appear in a given screen area. If the smaller image has a resolution of 72 pixels per inch, and the larger image a resolution of c. 200 ppi, then they will appear the same size on screen in Preview.

You can see the DPI setting for an image in Preview by showing the Inspector window -- Command I. If the image file has a resolution set, it will be listed there as DPI Height and DPI Width.

Preview does have a Preference to define 100% scale as either 1 image pixel = 1 screen pixel, or to use the resolution data in the image ("size on printout").


Why is iPhoto changing the titles of my photos after uploading the files to Flickr? After uploading photos to Flickr via the iPhoto "share" button, I find that iPhoto renames the photo titles to whatever I have in the description field. It'll then pass along those changes to Flickr.

I like to change my titles to something short before uploading, but this overrides either my custom titles or the ones the camera assigns.

Does anyone know how to turn this "feature" off? I'm using iPhoto 9.1.5 (that's iPhoto '11) under OSX 10.6.8.

I don't think this can be turned off. Another effect this has is that if you delete a photo in iPhoto, it also gets removed from Flickr.

To avoid this, i use Flickr's free Uploadr rather than the built in tool. This lets you select the photos, give custom names, etc. It's easy to use, and if you make changes to the photos in iPhoto, there will be no effect on the images on Flickr.


Can I run a script in the background? (Apple script editor) I have a script on apple script editor for a discord bot. (Discord is a chatting app my friends and I use) The discord bot is called "Dank Memer" and basically there are coins that you can get by typing in certain commands, such as "pls beg". I have a bot that I can run overnight to farm coins, the problem is that i need my laptop to be on that window to run it, since all it does is type the command and then press return. I was wondering if I could run the script in the background so I can farm coins 24/7.

Here's the code.

tell application "System Events"
    repeat
        delay 40
        keystroke "pls beg"
        keystroke return
    end repeat
end tell

No, System Events can only send keystrokes to the frontmost window and is not capable of sending keystrokes to a window  that's in the background.


What are M4 & T4 protocol of Hearing aid compatibility of GSM & CDMA model of iPhone 4? Saw this in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone_4):

Hearing aid compatibility

GSM
3G 850/1,900 MHz M4, T4
2G 850 MHz M3, T3
2G 1,900 MHz M2, T3

CDMA M4, T4

So what do M4, T4, M2, ...  mean?

If you see a M3, M4, T3 or T4 on the box then the phone has been designated as HAC compliant.

About the T

  "T" refers to the phone's coupling ability and is intended for use
  with hearing aids in the telecoil mode. The higher the "T" number the
  more likely you will be able to use the phone with your hearing aid on
  the telecoil setting. A telecoil is a small device that is built into
  some hearing aids for use with the telephone as well as assistive
  listening devices. To use the telecoil, generally either the hearing
  aid is switched to the "T" position or a button on the hearing aid is
  pushed to select the telecoil program. The telecoil picks up magnetic
  fields generated by telephones and converts these fields into sound.
  Telecoils are particularly useful for telephone communication because
  they permit the volume control of a hearing aid to be turned up
  without creating feedback or "whistling," and background noise can be
  reduced especially when using cell phones in noisy places. That is why
  hearing aid phones are important. They give you the ability to control
  and process sound.

source: betterhearing.org

About the difference between M and T

  An "M" rating measures compatibility with acoustic hearing aids while
  a "T" rating measures compatibility with induction hearing aids. So
  the higher the number (e.g., M3, M4 etc.) the more compatible the
  handset. Generally, handsets rated "M3" or "T3" by ANSI or better are
  considered compliant with FCC requirements. Acoustic Hearing Aids
  M3-rating indicates the handset has satisfied the ANSI standard
  M4-rating indicates the handset has exceeded the ANSI standard

  Induction Hearing Aids T3-rating indicates the handset has satisfied
  the ANSI standard T4-rating indicates the handset has exceeded the
  ANSI standard

source: uscellular.com


Which OS X Applications do you find indispensable? Please Search Prior To Posting!

There are many applications already listed.  In all likelihood, this includes the one you are thinking of. Please check the existing answers to avoid duplicates, and the resulting cleanup it necessitates.

To search, use the search box in the upper-right corner. To search the answers of the current question, use inquestion:this. For example:

inquestion:this Evernote

If it hasn't already been posted, please follow a few simple rules when adding it as an answer.

Rules

Limit to one application per answer.
Add a short description of the application.
Add a link to the website in the name of the application if possible (no direct downloads).
Use ## [appName](link) for citing the application name.
Only Mac OS X (not iOS, OS 9, compatible, etc) applications. All versions of OS X are accepted, but if the application requires a specific version please note.

Dropbox
Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they'll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you've installed Dropbox on.


Send/Receive SMS on an iPad I would like to know if one can send and receive text messages on the iPad without having to bother those who are texting you to join IMs etc.

Google voice is a good option. It lets you send and receive texts from anywhere you have Internet. You get a phone number through it.
It's completely free, and you can use Google's iPhone app on your iPad. Or, you can buy GV Connect for iPad.


Long term effect on Mac computer of installing Windows/Running a Windows VM I need to install Windows on my MacBook Pro. Hardware limitations are not a problem for me. I am mostly concerned about the long term effects that running Windows might have on my Mac.

I am assuming that there will be no impact on the hardware. If I install and run Windows for the next 6 months, and then uninstall it, then the hardware would respond exactly as it would 6 months ago. Is this true?

My biggest concern is regarding what might be left behind due to this adventure. I will be either using Virtual Box, VMware or BootCamp. In any case, I will use an external drive for storing either the Virtual Machines or the partition.

When I don't need Windows anymore, does deleting everything on the external drive mean that all traces of the Windows activity will be gone, with no noticeable effect on my Mac? If not, what will remain?

There will be zero issues running Windows on a Mac.  A Mac is basically an Intel based PC.

If you are using a VM, regardless of the platform (VMware, VirtualBox, etc) once you delete the virtual machine, it's gone.  Unless you share folders between the VM and the host, there is nothing that goes outside the VM container.

If you are using BootCamp, once you delete the BC partition, Windows will be gone.


Does my Air have malware if windows pop up when I click on any link? Every time I click to open a link, other windows start opening. They all want to sell me Detox your Mac or have warnings about how my Mac is at risk or infected.

How can I check for malware?

You can check for malware and also make sure that you don't have some known adware installed:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT203987

The second link is quite long, so feel free to point out one line or a paragraph that don't make sense if you need a hand digesting it and then implementing the fixes.

I've also checked into http://www.thesafemac.com/arg/ and their product free but donation supported product Adware Medic and the program and site are valuable and honest tools for fighting malware and adware. I've chipped in some cash to help them continue to make information clear and available.


Does App transfer between developers necessitate a re-purchase by end users? If an app gets transferred from one developer to another, does it necessitate a re-purchase?

From the App Store Connect, App transfer overview page:

  You transfer an app when you’ve sold the app to another developer or you want to move it to another App Store Connect account or organization.

  You can transfer the ownership of an app to another developer without removing the app from the App Store. The app retains its reviews and ratings during and after the transfer, and users continue to have access to future updates. Additionally, when an app is transferred, it maintains its Bundle ID — it's not possible to update the Bundle ID after a build has been uploaded for the app.

I have purchased a free/paid app from the App Store but it is not currently installed on the device. In the meanwhile, the original developer of the app decides to sell away the ownership to someone else.

As an end user who previously bought the app, (and any associated in-app purchases,)will this necessitate a re-purchase? i.e. will the app remain linked to my Apple ID or not?

Emphasis on the fact that the app is not currently installed on device. The linked documentation does mention that the users will continue to have access to future updates, but I am looking for an authoritative documentation which answers the query. (Or someone who had personal experience with this scenario)

There's no 100% certainty here, but let me explain that because it's not as bad as it first sounds.

Assuming your Apple ID has previously purchased the app (either free or paid), then it doesn't matter if the app is installed on any of your current devices. The purchase is in that Apple ID's purchase history and it still has access to both redownload the app and to future updates.

However, the reason this isn't 100% certain is because the developer may choose to no longer offer the app for sale and/or offer the availability of older versions to users who are not on the latest version of iOS. Let me explain with the following scenario.

Scenario

Let's say you purchased app XYZ on an iPhone 6s with iOS 9 installed. You continued to update XYZ from version 1 up to and including version 3. You then purchase an iPhone X (with iOS 11) and decide to start from scratch in terms of what apps you install and you don't install XYZ. In the meantime, the developer of XYZ transfers the app to another developer. This new developer continues to maintain and update the app which is now at version 5.

Apple then releases iOS 13 and the new developer updates XYZ to version 6. However, upon doing so, they decide to edit the list of last compatible app versions so that moving forward only versions 5 and 6 are available for download. However, because you're still on iOS 11, when you try to install the app it isn't available.

Of course, in the above scenario, you could just update to iOS 12 (or iOS 13) and the app will then be available.

Additionally, as alluded to earlier, the developer may choose to remove the app from sale in which case you also will be unable to install it again.

NOTE:- The original/existing developer of an app can also remove it from sale or edit the last compatible app versions list, in which case the end result would be the same.


Disabling the iPhoto Photo Stream App badge icon without disabling shared streams? When I have new photos available in my shared photo streams, the iPhoto icon in the dock has a red circle with a number in it, also known as a "Badge App Icon".

I went to System Preferences -> Notifications -> Photo Stream and disabled everything, but the badge app icon on iPhoto still shows.

For now I have disabled shared photo streams completely from iPhoto -> Preferences, and that has removed the badge app icon, but I would prefer to still keep it enabled.

How can I disable this badge app icon?

I got rid of the red circle number (the notification), by going to
system preferences ➔ iCloud ➞ and then unchecking the box to the left of "Photos"   When you re-check the checkbox, the notifications will briefly display in the upper right part of the screen, telling you about photo stream invitations you have received from other people.


Should I get the new Apple TV if I don't have a digital TV? I have been considering buying the new Apple TV. Maybe the biggest reason is for Netflix streaming. However, I do not own a digital TV, and the only output on the Apple TV is HDMI. I could get a box to convert HDMI to analog RCA but the only ones I can find are more expensive than the Apple TV itself.

I could use a new DVD player, so I'm thinking maybe I should get a Blu-ray player with analog outputs and Netflix streaming capabilities as an alternative.

What do you think? Would it be worth it to buy a converter box, just so I can get the fancy new Apple TV? Or would it be better for me to invest in a blu-ray player?

Update: I decided to go with a Visio blu-ray player. It works pretty good. If I didn't need a DVD player, I would have gone with a Roku player instead.

I don't think it'll work. According to the Apple TV's tech specs, playing protected content (which I imagine means the one you'll get from iTunes rentals and Netflix) requires HDCP, so using a converter box probably won't work. At least the ones I've found online after doing a quick search specifically say they won't work with HDCP.


MBP trackpad/keyboard unresponsive after application crash Problem

I have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13" (non-retina) equipped with 6GB RAM.
Recently, I have noticed that when an application crashes and Crash Reporter appears, the trackpad and keyboard do not function until about ten seconds later. All background tasks that were running at the time of the crash are still running.

This behaviour is extremely strange, and I'd like to know if:

Is this exclusive to my Mac, or is it a known issue?
Is there a way to fix it?

Extra details

The 6GB RAM was equipped in December, before this issue started for me.
I am running the release version of 10.8.3.
I have installed no Trackpad tweaks.

I would definately diagnose with Apple's hardware test but you can also look through the system log.

You should be able to see if a particular application/service is causing this issue.

System logs are in /var/log/system.log

Take special note of the TIME when an application crashes and then go into the log and see if there is something related to the keyboard/trackpad; or any particular patterns. You may find that after a crash a service is restarting and that service is consuming either

enough resources to put the keyboard/trackpad out for 10secs
there is an I/O conflict.

Worst case scenario you can (painstakingly) format.

I would be looking at why your computer is crashing in the first place and prevent such application(s) from crashing.


Do I need to upgrade to get iTunes 10, or can OS X 10.4.11 run it? So, I have an old iBook G4 running OS X 10.4.11 (It was a gift for Christmas.) and when I went to download some of my iTunes purchases to my computer, I got this (Basically, it didn't say "What's New in iTunes 10.3", just "What's New in iTunes"):

(Sorry, forgot this first time around :P)

I was reading over this and it looks like Snow Leopard can be installed on my system (can anyone confirm this and what would be the pros/cons of it) and that iTunes would work on that.

However, unless it is something that will improve performance or the like, I really don't want to have to pay $20 for the upgrade disks.

Can I download/install iTunes 10 onto my G4 and will it run without turning my system into a pig in treacle?

Your iBook G4 can not run Snow Leopard, because of PowerPC G4 chip inside. Snow Leopard require an Intel chip. You can get iTunes 10 to work on your computer, just upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 (eBay or so... buy full retail version, not gray discs).


How to set topmost big contact entry in contact in iPhone 5C? When I open Contacts app in iPhone 5c, I see one contact displayed on the top of the list with bigger font and icon.

How to choose this entry?

The contact displayed on top of the list with bigger font and icon is generally your own contact entry, i.e. the contact entry corresponding to logged in Apple ID.

You can tap to select and navigate to the details screen and edit the fields in the detail screen.

Update: As mentioned by @fsb in comment, Go to Settings app → Contacts and verify the contact selected for My Info is actually your own contact card. That's where Contacts app gets the name for the top of the list entry.


What folder do alchemy samples get saved to in Logic Pro X? I'm also curious about ESX, Drum samples, and Apple Loops. I have two folders on my Mac that have the audio files. One is Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support and the other is Macintosh HD/Users/Sal/Library/Application Support. Which one is actually being accessed when loading the sounds in Logic?

Both are accessed when looking to load content, but the one in your user area is used when saving your own content. This is consistent with the majority of apps, where the /Library folder is for all users and the ~/Library folder is for your own user.


Face ID Has Been Disabled I see warning about

  Face ID Has Been Disable

  A problem was detected with the TrueDepth camera. Face ID has been disabled.

in Settings.app on iPhone X. How do I fix it?

Reboot or Force Reboot

Rebooting fixed it for me. If that doesn't work take the device to Apple.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208186


App Store disables downloading of macOS Sierra I've been trying to download OSX "EC" (10.11) for the last week in order to make a recovery USB. The download always fails at exactly 1.92Gb.

Now that macOS Sierra has been released I notice that the 10.11 download has been removed from the App Store.

However, the macOS Sierra download also failed after several Gb, but unlike the 10.11 download I'm physically unable to re-attempt the download- please see the attached screenshot.

I've had a quick look over the stack of App Store related questions but none seems to have solved it.
Anyone please any ideas? I can't even seem to create a working .zip of a good download from another machine.

Try this article and link:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202 -  How to download macOS Sierra
macOS Sierra Installer on the Mac App Store

I would use the help article HT20802 to check for an updated link if the Mac App Store one fails you.


Ethernet port doesn't work anymore I was using my iMac 27" 2010, doing some work online. From one instant to another, internet stopped to respond. Unable to ping the local router, I initially believed it crashed. However, the rest of my home network was fine.

I'm now forced to use a WiFi connection to connect to the internet. Tried to boot Windows, it dosen't detect the wired network connection too.

A bad way to be forced to change a 1500€ machine.

What do you suggest?

Have you tried to reset your network settings to default?

Turn off your WiFi and unplug all network connections
Go to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
Take a backup of the preferences.plist by renaming the file to preferences.plist.bak (just in case)
Reboot and a new preferences-file will be automatically recreated

... and by so your network settings will be restored to the default.
Don't worry, it's all about settings, not stored data (like names of networks) will be erased.


iOS 7 app to create a password protected PDF or DOC file I would like to create a file on my iPad, password protect it, and email it to a colleague.  Is there a way to do this?  It would have to be in a format that is readable by others, like a password protected PDF file or a password protected Word file.

molgar is right, just open in Pages app, set password and export as any file format and email it.

Set password

Open in another app

Choose export format

If you wanna email any file just download MailAnyFile from iOS AppStore.


How to Map f2 to Ctrl u in Excel (to make cell editing easier) Just upgraded to High Sierra on my MacBook air 2011.
Unfortunately my Excel keyboard shortcuts have stopped working - I was using Karabiner to map F2 (usual windows edit key) to use ctrl u, which makes it easier to use excel.
I had to also move to Karabiner-elements, as the version I was using isn't compatible with High Sierra.
I have attempted to write a .json file to setup a complex_modification, but it doesn't seem to work - the event viewer just shows the f2 key
Im using MacOS 10.13.6
Excel for Mac 2011 version 14.7.7
Karabiner Elements 12.6.9

The code I wrote is:

{
    "title": "F2 change to Ctrl U",
    "rules": [
        {
            "description": "F2 change to Ctrl U",
            "manipulators": [
                {
                    "type": "basic",
                     "from": {
                        "key_code": "2",
                        "modifiers": {
                            "mandatory": [
                "fn"
                ],
                "optional": [
                         "any"
                        ]
                        }
                    },
                     "to": [
                        {
                          "key_code": "u",
                          "modifiers": [
                            "left_control"
                          ]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

What am I missing?
Thanks,

I just used the "customize keyboard" in the Tools menu and it works fine...

This image shows it being set up:


Issues sharing folder through NFS - RPC: Unable to send; errno = Bad file descriptor or Program not registered I'm using Mac OS High Sierra 10.13, and I'm facing some issues sharing a folder through NFS.

The configuration:

Built-in firewall is disabled and there is no third party firewall installed.

I made sure the nfs service is enabled:

$ sudo nfsd enable

  The nfsd service is already enabled.

I made sure the nfs service is running:

$ sudo nfsd start

  The nfsd service is already running.

I checked with nmap to see ports being listened to:

$ nmap localhost

Starting Nmap 7.60 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2017-10-17 21:53 CEST
Nmap scan report for localhost (127.0.0.1)
Host is up (0.00034s latency).
Other addresses for localhost (not scanned): ::1 10.101.97.98
Not shown: 995 filtered ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
80/tcp   open  http
111/tcp  open  rpcbind
1021/tcp open  exp1
1023/tcp open  netvenuechat
2049/tcp open  nfs

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4.34 seconds

rpcinfo

$ rpcinfo -p

program vers proto   port
100000    2   udp    111  rpcbind
100000    3   udp    111  rpcbind
100000    4   udp    111  rpcbind
100000    2   tcp    111  rpcbind
100000    3   tcp    111  rpcbind
100000    4   tcp    111  rpcbind
100024    1   udp    612  status
100024    1   tcp   1021  status
100021    0   udp    843  nlockmgr
100021    1   udp    843  nlockmgr
100021    3   udp    843  nlockmgr
100021    4   udp    843  nlockmgr
100021    0   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
100021    1   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
100021    3   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
100021    4   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
Test connection to nfs

$ telnet localhost 2049

  Trying ::1...
  Connected to localhost.
  Escape character is '^]'.

Create folder to be shared

$ mkdir -p ~/tmp/shared-test
$ touch ~/tmp/shared-test/works.txt

Add it to /etc/exports

$ sudo echo "/Users/user/tmp/shared-test -mapall=-2:-2 -ro" >> /etc/exports
$ sudo chmod 640 /etc/exports

Make sure /etc/exports is correct

$ sudo nfsd checkexports

The issue:

$ showmount -e

showmount: Cannot retrieve info from host: localhost: RPC failed:: RPC: Unable to send; errno = Bad file descriptor

$ syslog

Oct 17 21:56:28 Estebans-MacBook-Pro-2 rpc.lockd[215] : can't contact statd, 100024 RPC: Timed out
--- last message repeated 2 times ---
Oct 17 21:58:29 Estebans-MacBook-Pro-2 syslogd[43] : ASL Sender Statistics
Oct 17 21:59:31 Estebans-MacBook-Pro-2 rpc.lockd[215] : can't contact statd, 100024 RPC: Timed out
Oct 17 22:00:19 Estebans-MacBook-Pro-2 login[1328] : USER_PROCESS: 1328 ttys002
Oct 17 22:00:33 Estebans-MacBook-Pro-2 rpc.lockd[215] : can't contact statd, 100024 RPC: Timed out

I can see rpc.lockd[215] : can't contact statd, 100024 RPC: Timed out all over, as a recurrent log.

$ showmount 127.0.0.1

showmount: Cannot retrieve info from host: 127.0.0.1: RPC: Program not registered

Apparently, I had some issues with my /etc/hosts file. The suspicion was alert seeing rpc.lockd[215] : can't contact statd, 100024 RPC: Timed out all over.

I cleaned up the /etc/hosts file:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost

Restarted the service
sudo nfsd restart

And finally when doing showmount -e localhost:

Exports list on localhost:
/Users/kiwi/user/shared-test         Everyone

rpcinfo -p

   program vers proto   port
    100000    2   udp    111  rpcbind
    100000    3   udp    111  rpcbind
    100000    4   udp    111  rpcbind
    100000    2   tcp    111  rpcbind
    100000    3   tcp    111  rpcbind
    100000    4   tcp    111  rpcbind
    100024    1   udp    906  status
    100024    1   tcp   1021  status
    100021    0   udp    730  nlockmgr
    100021    1   udp    730  nlockmgr
    100021    3   udp    730  nlockmgr
    100021    4   udp    730  nlockmgr
    100021    0   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
    100021    1   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
    100021    3   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
    100021    4   tcp   1017  nlockmgr
    100003    2   udp   2049  nfs
    100003    3   udp   2049  nfs
    100003    2   tcp   2049  nfs
    100003    3   tcp   2049  nfs
    100005    1   udp    989  mountd
    100005    3   udp    989  mountd
    100005    1   tcp   1023  mountd
    100005    3   tcp   1023  mountd
    100011    1   udp    636  rquotad
    100011    2   udp    636  rquotad
    100011    1   tcp    999  rquotad
    100011    2   tcp    999  rquotad


Macbook pro trackpad works but not detected in system preferences My macbook pro's trackpad is working normally, but when I check up the system preferences > Trackpad, I find that NO trackpad is found!
I use macOS Catalina Version 10.15.7,
and this is the mac I use
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP747?locale=en_US
And I have the same problem in safe mode.

open up system prefs and click the 'view' drop-down options (Next to the apple logo on the upper left corner of your monitor its the third option) > go to 'customize'
and check to see if there are any disabled preferences...(such as your touchpad or whatever...)


"open -j" command does not work for all apps I was writing a .sh script for opening a bunch of apps and i was looking for a way to force my apps to launch minimized.

The open command man page usage prompt, (displayed when you run open without args) says:

-j, --hide        Launches the app hidden.

but some apps are still opening in the foreground (i.e. Chrome and Airmail).

I'm running El Capitain (10.11.6) and using zsh.

Do you know why those apps behave like that or if there's another way to accomplish this in bash?

Thanks.

Google Chrome uses different mechanism to display the app, so the standard -j switch does not work as expected in this case. Main process spawns the Google Chrome Helper processes for every tab. If you check the .app bundle, you'll see it resides in /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/XX.X.XXXX.XX/Google\ Chrome\ Helper.app. You can't launch it directly, because main app has to be running.

I couldn't find the other way around than just creating osascript like this:

open -j /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app && sleep 1 && osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to set visible of application process "Google Chrome" to false'

However this will create 1 sec. delay in your script.


Does deleting my backup on my iPhone give me more space? I'm running out of space on my iCloud and my storage in general. If I delete my backup, will I gain more space for pictures?

If you disable/delete iCloud backups of your iOS device, it will indeed free up space in your iCloud account. This only means you will have more space available in the cloud, not on the actual device.

If you have iCloud Photo Library enabled, note that your iCloud backups will not include that media since it’s already being uploaded to the cloud.

To free up space on your actual iOS device (again, assuming iCloud Photo Library is enabled), make sure that Settings > iCloud > Photos > Optimize Storage is selected.


Sensor in Apple Logo at the Back of iMac I am cleaning and preferrably washing the iMac aluminium casing. I have removed all the hardware from the iMac except the sensor placed at the back side where Apple logo is. I would like to know what exactly is that sensor and if it could be removed?

I tried exhaustive search but it appears that all roads lead to dead end. So I would like to ask the type of the sensor and can it be removed? My guess is that it is ambient light sensor but I am not sure.

You do not list which model of iMac you're cleaning, but in general the alu iMac models do not have a sensor in the back logo. Perhaps you're talking about the WiFi antenna that is located there on some models - you could ofcourse argue that an antenna is a type of sensor.

If you're actually talking about the front Apple logo, then older iMacs had an IR-sensor there for taking input from the Apple Remote.


What causes the repeated popup? after installing yosemite Bug. What could be the cause/s of the repeated popup? after installing yosemite. Emphasis here on different theories about what actually causes the repeated interruptions of the popup.

There have been solutions for stopping the repeated popup. This is the question of cause/s and triggers.

a) Triggers? What triggers are there that activate the popup each time?

b) Cause/s ?  What actually causes it?

c) Different theories? How do varied notions of what actually causes it differ?

__________ transcribed popup ____________________
[icon. cup of coffee and two arrows curving around cup]
To view this web content, you need to
install the  Java Runtime Environment
Click "More Info..." to visit the website for the Java
Runtime Environment
[ More Info... ] [ OK ]

There is a stub executable for Java. This is what it looks like.

It exists to get you to install a specific version of the framework since Apple doesn't bundle it with their computer.

Think of this as an "install flash player" message, but for the operating system as opposed to a browser plug in.

No bug, this is how things are designed. If you see it more than once, then you either are calling programs that want you to install Java or you didn't install the tool completely.

See http://www.java.com/en/download/help/mac_10_10.xml and the general Mac FAQ at the bottom of the page from the link above.


Excel 2011 Opens Spreadsheet As Read-Only I have a spreadsheet (.xlsx) file that, when I open it on my MBP running Excel 2011 14.3.6, I get a pop-up telling me the file is locked and can only be opened in read-only mode.  About a minute later, Excel opens another pop-up and this time says that the file is unlocked and asks if I want to edit it.

I've triple-checked permissions on the file and it's definitely editable by me.  I've also verified in Get Info -> General that it's not locked.

The file is located on a USB flash drive.  I created a copy of this file on the local drive (/Users/aj) and it will open fine without the warning.  Other Excel files saved on the USB flash drive open without this warning.  A copy of this file on the USB drive still has the warning.

What can I do to remove the warning?  I use this file all the time and it's super-annoying.

Does your file name contain a /? For example, if you take thisfile.xlsx, and make it into this/file.xlsx, it will only open as read only. I verified this on my own Mac.


Spotlight change keywords in Yosemite Spotlight seems to always suggest the wrong thing and doesn't learn when I don't choose the Top Hit.

Is it possible to change the priorities of Spotlight? The internet suggests that there has been a way to edit keywords (or Spotlight comments) under "right click/Get Info". But there is no such thing here in Yosemite anymore.

Preferences -> Spotlight -> Search Results allows you to change the order of results by reordering categories.  As far as specific items within a category, this answer suggests that Spotlight is supposed to learn the Top Hit from what you choose over time: Changing OS X Spotlight priorities for specific applications.


How does Time Machine make room for new users? This is more of a hypothetical question, but we've been using a Time Capsule to back up our Macs, and it has steadily been filling up since the year or so that we've had it.

We've since brought a few new Macs onto the network and have started backing them up to the Time Capsule as well. From what I've read, Time Machine makes incremental backups of Macs, and apparently deletes old backups to make room for new ones.

My question is twofold:

How does Time Machine decide which backup information to delete, especially amongst several Macs backed up to a single Time Capsule?
As we add more users to the Time Capsule, and it begins to fill, will Time Machine be smart enough to give new users enough space by deleting old backups from other users? If not, how can we achieve this?

My experience is that TimeMachine does not cross the "per-machine" boundary when deleting old backups.

We have a disk attached to an AirportExtreme AC and which is the target for four Macs. These machines have significant differences in the size of their backups. One of them in particular is an old Mini running 10.6.8 that does not see much activity other than the occasional software update, so the incremental backups are rather tiny. The MacBook Pros on the other hand are a lot more active and regularly submit incrementals that are several GB in size.

Whenever the MacBook Pros need space TM just discards their own history, never touching the others' directories.

This fact is immediately evident when comparing the number of backups for each machine. The Mini has a long history saved, the MBP's quite shorter ones.
Hope it helps.


Should this new MacBook Pro be returned? I ordered the base model MacBook Pro 13" with upgraded SSD and RAM about one week ago. I was starting to feel I maybe bought something of a lemon—seeing things like a spontaneous shutdown, a Safari keyboard shortcut only intermittently working, mute apparently toggling itself, occasional app freezes, etc.—but couldn't find any pattern to make me believe it might not be coincidental software issues, or possibly from an external HDD working hard.

Now Mail is consistently showing unusual graphical behaviour in the message list: Mail graphical glitch (video). (Note: Empty rectangles added to censor personal data; they are not part of the problem.)

As I move about the message list with the arrow keys, the list glitches in strange ways. This happened in another folder as well. I can't find anyone else talking about this online, so I'm looking for opinions. Thanks!

Yes, you should consider returning it back to Apple and get a refund:

Returns & Refunds

  You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it.
  Only items that have been purchased directly from Apple, either online or at an Apple Retail Store, can be returned to Apple. Apple products purchased through other retailers must be returned in accordance with their respective returns and refunds policy.


Iphone 5s says storage is full when I have few images/videos or apps on it My phone has been giving me the "storage is full" message for quite some time now. However now it is preventing me from downloading or taking pictures on my phone when I have maybe at most 20 pictures on my phone and two apps.
So I hooked it up to my computer and iTunes is saying I have 10GB of pictures/videos that are non-existent on my phone.

Have you checked your "Recently deleted" album? Maybe it takes up your storage. Since iOS 8, the pics and videos you deleted are not actually gone. If you want to make them disappeared you need to go to the "Recently deleted" album and delete them again. Otherwise you need to wait for 30 days they will be deleted automatically. You should check it.

There are just too many things that require physical storage. That's why Apple chose to lump a lot of things into the "Other" category. it's seems like your phone is filled with cached files and data. That can include:

Documents & Data
Safari browsing data
Mail data
iTunes data, including files that have been streamed (which can be
BIG)...

Since iTunes categorizes cached files as Other, reported usage for Music or Videos might differ.

Deleting data, and then restoring is a good way, but you should back up first. or it will cause data lost.

In addition, you can try to clean up cache files frequently. This thread is for your reference.


Xcode and Apple Software Update Some of my coworkers receive updates to Xcode through the regular software update mechanism in OSX. I however have always had to manually download it from Apple and install it myself.

What's the difference between us? Neither I nor they know why. How can I get Software Update to recognize Xcode?

Also, I understand that Xcode 4 is available from the App Store and that will (or at least should) be updated. That's not the point. I want Xcode <4 to be updated via Software Update.

Edited to add

Based on the comments on this answer, it appears that Xcode updates via the system Software Update were delayed, appearing quite a bit after they became available for manual download from the developer portal.

It may even be that Apple fits them into times when their network usage was low, which could delay an update even if you clear out your old copy and reinstall the not-quite-up-to-date version. Perhaps the update would appear if you waited several days.

Previous answer

Xcode has never, ever updated for me through Software Update, and it's never updated for the dozen or so developers I work with. The Apple employees that I follow on Twitter -- guys like Jake Behrens, Michael Jurewitz (the dev tools evangelist), Chris Hanson, and Bill Bumgarner -- along with former Apple employees who are devs and other high-profile devs I follow, all tweet something along the lines of, "hey devs, time to visit the developer portal to download the new version of Xcode" when an update comes out.

Are you absolutely certain Xcode updates are arriving automatically for your coworkers? Have you seen it happen? Are you sure they're not pulling your leg? I've certainly never heard of it and consistently hear the opposite, so it sure seems unlikely to me.

The only automatic Xcode updating I'm aware of for Xcode 4, and only then if it was purchased through the Mac App Store and not downloaded from the portal, and only then if you launch the App Store and click on the update, which really isn't very automatic.


How to sort by name in Finder? I cannot sort by name when I simply open a finder, and select a folder. See the image below:

I know that I can do Cmd-J to bring up the menu for defining the sort and arrange by, but this seems rather complicated (as does customizing the toolbar).

So how can I easily sort the files and folders to be in alphabetical order in Finder?

If you're just looking for headers that you can click on to sort your items by name, date, size, etc then you're probably wanting to use the List view instead. This allows you to sort items by clicking on the headers (e.g. clicking on the Name header will choose between an ascending or descending sort).

If you're wanting to manually sort items regardless of the view you're using, you can use the Arrange button in the Finder's Toolbar. This looks like:

By clicking on this you can arrange your items by any of the following options:

Perhaps an option that will interest you is the fact you can customise your Finder's Toolbar. To do this, within Finder go to View > Customise Toolbar...

From here you can add/remove buttons, opt for the default set, and choose whether you want to see icons only, text only, or icons and text in the Toolbar.


iTunes syncs only one songs from each album I have about 7 GB worth of music, all complete albums, that I'm trying to sync on my phone. I select Entire music library and hit apply. Before I hit apply, it shows me 27 GB free on my iPhone. Then, it finishes the copying process way too quickly. After the sync completes, it says 34 GB free, and there is only one song per album. I tried choosing the artists and albums individually, removing all music and re-synching, and nothing worked. What could be the problem?

This is a bug in iTunes. Restarting iTunes and re-syncing solved the problem.


macOS Sierra Recovery Mode does not work I have a Mac mini 2014, running macOS Sierra from a SSD drive, and using an Apple Keyboard M9034 D/A.

Since I replaced the rotational hard drive (HDD) with an SSD, I do not see the Apple logo on the screen to show it's loading.

The start up shortcuts below do not work:

⇧ Shift  Start up in Safe Mode;

⌥ Option (alt) Start up to Startup Manager;

⌘ CommandS Start up in single-user mode;

⌘ Command R - Start up from macOS Recvery

⌥ Option (alt)⌘ Command R Start up from macOS Recovery over the Internet.

The only combination that works is the PRAM reset:

altcmdPR

Already tried with 3 different keyboards.
Installed a complete fresh copy of the Operating System.
macOS Recovery only works if the system has some kind of issue, meaning if the boot does not work.

C Start up from a bootable USB only works if there is not an operating system on the hard drive.

Anyone have suggestions to try?

Thanks Kevin Grabher,

You gave me the solution....

I tried booting the system using only the HDMI monitor, removed the Mini DisplayPort VGA adaprter.

Using only the HDMI cable and monitor, everything works.