How to use RADIUS with macOS Server? We have a Mac Mini Server (macOS 10.12) with Server App (5.2) configured (Open Directory and DNS Server Services active, the network is on static IP). We used to have one Airport Extreme configured from the Server App, with Server providing RADIUS authentication.

Now we would like to add other Airport Extreme basestations to the network in order to extend its range. We were already able to add another RADIUS client via Admin Tool Radius.

I would like to know what kind of RADIUS support does Server App provide?
Since adding a second Airport basestation does not work, I guess I will have to configure a RADIUS server outside of Server App, probably following this video: https://vimeo.com/53774350?
What happens to the Server App's Airport Basestation configuration I had active for the first Basestation? Can I still configure Services and mapping from Server App?
Should I just keep the Basestation activated in Server App, but deactivate the authentication requirement over WiFi and configure a separate RADIUS server?
How about certificates: Server App already has a global certificate, can i use this instead of building a new one?
Will the access group (which is mentioned in the video) be visible in Server App?

Hopefully someone can help.

When I "sudo radiusconfig -getconfig" I get:

{
    clientcount = 2;
    configured = 1;
    "eap.conf" =     {
        "CA_file" = "/etc/certificates/server.yyyy.zz.xxxxxxxxxx.chain.pem";
        cadir = "/Library/Server/radius/raddb/certs";
        certdir = "/Library/Server/radius/raddb/certs";
        "certificate_file" = "/etc/certificates/server.yyyy.zz.xxxxxxxxxx.cert.pem";
        "check_cert_cn" = "%{User-Name}";
        "check_crl" = no;
        "dh_file" = "/Library/Server/radius/raddb/certs/dh";
        "fragment_size" = 1024;
        "include_length" = yes;
        "private_key_file" = "/etc/certificates/server.yyyy.zz.xxxxxxxxxx.key.pem";
        "private_key_password" = "Apple:UseCertAdmin";
        "random_file" = "/Library/Server/radius/raddb/certs/random";
    };
    "radiusd.conf" =     {
        auth = no;
        "auth_badpass" = no;
        "auth_goodpass" = no;
        "cleanup_delay" = 5;
        confdir = "/Library/Server/radius/raddb";
        "exec_prefix" = "/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr";
        "hostname_lookups" = no;
        localstatedir = "/private/var";
        logdir = "/private/var/log/radius";
        "max_request_time" = 30;
        "max_requests" = 1024;
        prefix = "/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr";
        radacctdir = "/private/var/log/radius/radacct";
        raddbdir = "/Library/Server/radius/raddb";
        sbindir = "/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin";
        sysconfdir = "/Library/Server/radius";
    };
}

When I "sudo radiusconfig -naslist" I get

sudo radiusconfig -naslist
client IP.xxx.xxx.xxx {
  secret = YYYYYYYYYY
  shortname = "Base Station 1"
  community =
  type = "AirPort Base Station"
  description =
};
client IP.xxx.xxx.xxx {
  secret = ZZZZZZZZZZ
  shortname = "Base Station 2"
  community =
  type = "Airport Base Station"
  description =
};

After some work I got it working. I went through all the steps in the video minus access group. I guess my problem was related with capturing the new basestation, after going over the setup of the second Basestation and rebooting everything works now! I corrected also some certification related problems. I used the excellent Admin Tool Radius to set alt up correctly, an incorrect setting might have been the cause of my troubles!

1) I would like to know what kind of RADIUS support does Server App provide?

It appears to provide full support.

2) Since adding a second Airport basestation does not work, I guess I will have to configure a RADIUS server outside of Server App, probably following this video: https://vimeo.com/53774350?

Still excellent tutorial, slightly outdated in macOS Sierra.

3) What happens to the Server App's Airport Basestation configuration I had active for the first Basestation? Can I still configure Services and mapping from Server App?

It works in our case

4) Should I just keep the Basestation activated in Server App, but deactivate the authentication requirement over WiFi and configure a separate RADIUS server?

It works in our case. No need to set up the Radiusserver again. My incomplete Radius Server was probably a certification related problem.

5) How about certificates: Server App already has a global certificate, can i use this instead of building a new one?

Radius will use the certificate used in the Server App. I used the excellent Admin Tool Radius to set it up.

6) Will the access group (which is mentioned in the video) be visible in Server App?

If you choose "show system accounts" under Server>View then it should show up. But there is no need to set an access group, since RADIUS will use Opendirectory.

So everything is working now. As I said I just went over the single steps again, the problem I had was probably related to the Certificate or a mistake in the Client setup.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the RADIUS logs into Console, since they do not appear there in macOS Sierra!


iMac as external display for new MacBook Pro? I've got an iMac from 2011. Will I be able to use this as an external display for the new MacBook Pro? If yes, which adapters will I need? I'm not sure what to make of this info from apples site about the MacBook ports:

  The USB-C port on your Mac notebook supports charging, data transfer, and other modes such as DisplayPort video. You can use a USB-C adapter to connect to HDMI and VGA displays or connect other standard USB devices. This includes devices like iPhones, iPads, and iPods for charging and syncing, and cameras, hard drives, and thumb drives for transferring data.
  The USB-C port on your Mac notebook doesn't support Thunderbolt devices or displays.

Target display mode is supported on your iMac and how to use it is described in this support document on the Apple site.

It states that for the Mid 2011 iMac, which you linked to, a Thunderbolt cable will work (Thunderbolt wraps the DisplayPort data stream)

  iMacs you can use | Cable       | Port you need
  as a display      | you need    | on your other Mac
  ----------------------------------------------------
  iMac (Mid 2011)   | Thunderbolt | Thunderbolt

  Use Target Display Mode

  Follow these steps to start using your iMac as a display:
   1. Make sure both computers are turned on.
   2. Connect the Mini DisplayPort or
  Thunderbolt cable between the two computers.
   3. Press Command-F2 on the keyboard of the iMac that you want to use as a display.

  After you press Command-F2, your iMac displays the desktop from
  the connected Mac.

So, you should be able to connect a new MacBook Pro via a Thunderbolt 3 -> Thunderbolt 2 adapter and a standard Thunderbolt 2 cable.


How to set several siri triggers for the same action (automation) I am someone that is pretty forgetful and don't have the tendency to remember exact sentences that trigger automations on the Shortcuts App.
This leads to me having to open the app every time I want to trigger an automation to see what's the name. Because I have to open the app and see the actual sentence I many times just click it instead of just telling Siri the sentence.
I would like to set several sentences as the triggers for Shortcuts actions so that I can associate more generic sentences to the correct action.
Example:
I want to preheat the car.

- "Hey Siri, preheat the car."
- "Hey Siri, warmup the car."
- "Hey Siri, I'm going to drive."
- "Hey Siri, heat the car."
- "Hey Siri, cooldown the car."

All of those sentences should trigger the same action. So could I define several sentences as a trigger for the shortcuts when interacting with Siri? Or the only input is exactly what you type in the name of the shortcut action?

You could try System Preferences / Keyboard / Text.
Click + below to add a new text shortcut. Choose something short and easy to remember. Then define the longer, full version.
perhaps you could somehow trigger the shorter version with Siri (one that's easy to remember), and that would trigger the longer, full version.
You might be able to set this up using Soundflow (automation platform that works with all apps, not just music), or Keyboard Maestro.


Editing Finder Favorites I am trying to edit one of the names of a Favorite in the Favorites List in Finder. In most parts of OSX, one can simply position the cursor to the name and and editing box opens up, but not here. Any suggestions?

You'll want to right click on the favorite and "get info". The name shows up under "Name and Extension". You'll not, I think, be able to rename everything. If it's greyed out, for example, you won't be able to rename it.


Does PhotoStream send pictures encrypted over the Internet? When I'm on a public Wi-Fi network and my photos are being synced to Photo Stream, is there any way for someone on the same network to be able to see them? What about anyone else on the way to Apple's servers?

Yes, everything sent to or from iCloud is encrypted with SSL:

iCloud Security
iCloud secures your content by encrypting it when sent over the Internet, storing it in an encrypted format, and using secure tokens for authentication.
Encrypting content that is sent over the Internet
The following content is encrypted using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) when sent over the Internet to or from iCloud:

Photos in your Photo Stream
Documents in the Cloud
Backup data for your iOS device

...


Searching for emoji and symbols I've recently upgraded my macos from a very old version to Catalina.
In the old days, if I wanted to enter a special character such as a mathematical symbol, I would hit ctrl-CMD-space to bring up the emoji and special characters dialog, and then search for the name of the unicode symbol I wanted.
In Catalina, ctrl-CMD-space brings up a much simplified version of this dialog that looks like this:

The problem is I can't see any way to search this list. Online I can find screenshots of a dialog that looks like similar this but has a search bar at the top. That version also has an icon in the top right that switches to the expanded dialog that I'm used to. But as you can see neither of those exist in the screenshot above, and I don't know how to make them appear.
Is there a way to search for unicode symbols from this dialog, or switch it to the old one, or is there some other convenient way to search for unicode symbols in Catalina? I sometimes need to use obscure mathematical symbols, and it's not really feasible to find them by just scrolling through the list.

Uh, I always figure these things out myself immediately after posing the question. Here's the solution - I hope it will be helpful for someone else:
To search for characters, you just press ctrl-CMD-space to bring the dialog up and then start typing. The search bar appears as soon as you type something, along with the button that switches to the "character viewer" window. They will then be there the next time you bring the dialog up as well.
This is actually more convenient than the old dialog, it's just that for some reason they went out of their way to make the feature hard to discover.


Canon Camera Connect to Iphone to Cloud to Mac Issue I just started using Canon Camera Connect with my PowerShot. I am connect via wifi to my Iphone.  The photos move well to the phone and then to the Icloud.  I then did a usb transfer to my MacBook Pro and they were there.  Then to clear space on my camera I deleted (having already seen them on my Laptop).  When I deleted them from my camera they are now gone from everywhere.  What did I do wrong?

If you have iCloud Photo Library activated, all changes are synced between all connected parties —deleting in one device deletes in all devices. Same will happen if you erased them from your Photo Stream although that would probably leave a copy on your Camera Roll (unless you erased iPhone originals when importing via USB and had only the Photo Stream copy left).

In any case, you can still look for your pictures in the "Recently Deleted" album; manually deleted pictures should be there but I couldn't find the Photo Stream deleted picture on it and I don't know if they are saved there when batch removed after importing via USB.


How can I open a System 9 FileMaker document in OS X 10.9? I need to print some FileMaker pages that I created in System 9 (MacOS 9). Is there any free OS X 10.9 software that will open those files?

Which version of FIleMaker created the file that you wish to open?

Presumably, you are talking about a file created by FileMaker 5 or prior, which was the last version not to support OS X, which was introduced in FileMaker 5.5 (April 2001). MacOS 9 support was dropped in FileMaker 7 (March 2004). Source Wikipedia: FileMaker Version History.

Regardless, the current versions of FileMaker (v14 was released just this month) only offer backwards compatibility with files created with earlier recent versions of FileMaker (v13 and v12). v11 and earlier need to be converted to the latest file format in order for them to be opened with FileMaker Pro 14. Thanks to user3439894 for that information.

However, I guess that you are looking for a free database application that offers compatibility with FileMaker. I would have suggested OpenOffice or LibreOffice. However as user3439894 has commented below, you can not by default, open FileMaker files with these two applications, unfortunately.


Is it possible to map doubleclick on folders in Finder List View to Expand/Collapse triangle? I really hate all these windows cluttering the desktop, and spring-loading isn't a big help. So to have a more Windows-Exploreresque view, I try to use the collapse/expand triangles in List view only, to be able to sort my files properly in the folder hierarchy.

I installed XtraFinder to use Return for opening files (please raise your hands if you like cmd-o to do that) and Navigating back via Backspace. But my motor skills are very hard set on doubleclicking folders or hitting enter to expand them.

Is there any way, to never "open" folders in new windows/same window, but to toggle collapse/expand always instead?

I'm raising my hand…

 Return ⏎  or  Enter ⌅    is to rename,  Cmd ⌘    O   or double-click is to launch or open.

The Finder is the most beautifully key-commandable environment. Just look at what you can do…

OS X: Keyboard shortcuts (Finder is towards the bottom)

Very simply, in List view  →  &  ←   will open & close the current folder, add the  Option ⌥  key to recursively open/close all folders in that folder simultaneously.
 Cmd ⌘    [   or   ]  will go to the previous or next folder...


Is there any iTunes Connect API? What I am actually looking for is to get the app download statistics from iTunes connect. Ideally a dashboard would be possible with a full API.

There was this idea where some coding could be done in the iphone app section so as to determine if the app is being launched for the first time and so fire a url with the flag. Rather than intercepting or proxying the the communications from the iOS iTunes connect app, I would like to retrieve an app's download statistics from iTunes connect itself.

Is there a public API or private framework to reverse engineer this?

As noted in a PDF released by Apple, there is a java tool to export the data from iTunes connect.

This is to compensate the absence of API for iTunesConnect. Still in late 2017, Apple provides no API for iTunes connect or app review services.


Unable to install mac Big Sur beta 11.0.1 in Macbook pro 2020 'I am unable to install Big Sur beta 11.0.1. It is downloading fully from the update screen and showing 15 minutes remaining for the installation process. Then the below screen is coming.

I'm continuously getting this since last 5 times. No success in the update.
Is there any way to fix this? Any help could be appreciated

I have fixed this finally.

I turned off the file vault
Run the update from the terminal using the command
softwareupdate --install "macOS Big Sur Release Candidate 2-20B28"


Does Mac have something similar to a Linux loop device (alternative to losetup)? I am trying to work with some CD and hard drive images that I will run inside of QEMU. On Linux, I mount the images using the losetup command, but I notice Mac does not have this.

Is there something similar I could use instead?

You can use hdiutil for that. Basically, it does the same as losetup on Linux.

If you are planning to work with images with non-standard layouts or filesystems (for example, live CDs), make sure to pass -nomount to hdiutil attach, as otherwise it will complain that it couldn’t mount it (it tries to mount everything by default).

After the image is attached, it will appear in diskutil list as an ordinary disk. You can work with it just like with a physical disc.

Here is an example of mounting a live CD:

$ hdiutil attach -nomount path/to/file.iso
/dev/disk2              FDisk_partition_scheme
/dev/disk2s2            0xEF

It prints the name of the new disk. Now we can see it:

$ diskutil list

<...>

/dev/disk2 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        +453.0 MB   disk2
   1:                       0xEF                         12.6 MB    disk2s2

This is a live CD, it uses ISO 9660 file system. You can’t mount it using diskutil, you have to use a special tool:

$ mount_cd9660 /dev/disk2 ~/tmp/mnt

When you are done, unmount and detach:

$ umount /dev/disk2
$ hdiutil detach disk2
"disk2" unmounted.
"disk2" ejected.


Mavericks Captive Portal Request Anyone else just (15th July 2015) started seeing Apple's captive portal probe popup in 10.9.5? It may be a sneaky silent push (this isn't affecting 10.10.x) due to Flash security issues?

We've worked around this by pushing out (we use Munki) this to our devices and asking the user to reboot.

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add ProbeParameters:SSIDExceptions:**SSIDName**:ProbeProtected bool true"

try renaming /System/Library/CoreServices/Captive Network Assistant.app, i used "no Captive Network Assistant.app" and restarted my Mac.

It's not a real solution just a workaround, it might be related to Apple Servers or something, but it works. Still waiting for Apple to solve this issue. Hope this helps!


Could two WD Passport Ultra 1TB drives be used in the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini enclosure as RAID 1? I'm thinking of buying one more WD Passport Ultra 1TB (I have one already) so that in the near future I could disassemble the two Passports and install the 1TB drives into the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini (0GB, enclosure only) for a RAID 1 setup.

But from this Youtube video of a guy dissembling a 2TB version of the Passport Ultra, he says the "interface is directly soldered onto the drive". Does that mean it won't fit into the OWC enclosure, or in any other enclosures like this as well?

Thanks!

Although that enclosure accepts 12.5mm drives, those WD Passports have the USB connector built into the drive. They don't have a standard SATA connector and therefore cannot be used in that enclosure.


SSH rejecting key file with extended attributes In my .ssh/ directory, when running

$ ssh-add dev
Permissions 0755 for 'dev' are too open.

But looking at the dev file

$ ls -lF dev
-rw-------@ 1 me  staff  1675 Feb  3 09:37 dev

The @ at the end means that there are extended attributes. So I then run

$ xattr dev
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms
com.apple.quarantine

These have no meaning to me.
It looks to me that the permissions are what they should be (600)  where is the discrepancy coming from, and how do I fix it?

I assume your working directory is ~/.ssh/ when you run ssh-add, ls and xattr.

I suspect there is a subdirectory named dev (i.e., ~/.ssh/dev/). Check for it with ls -lFd dev.

ls normally lists the contents of a directory. Adding the -d option lists a directory as a directory itself.

Further, I suspect that there is a file, ~/.ssh/dev/dev which is what ls -lF is displaying the information about.

If my suspicion is correct, xattr dev displays the extended attributes of the subdirectory named dev (not the file dev/dev). The directory attributes probably are not the cause of this problem.

If this is confusing, ls -lFR might help you see what's happening (the -R option recursively lists subdirectories).

Finally, if my suspicion is correct and you're really trying to add a private key identity file named ~/.ssh/dev/dev to the ssh authentication agent, try ssh-add dev/dev (or perhaps better, ssh-add ~/.ssh/dev/dev, which should work no matter the permissions of the enclosing directory.


after waking from sleep native screen in clamshell mode wakes up and takes dock I work on external screen mostly and have MacBook in clamshell mode. External screen is set as main screen with dock attached to it.

When I wake MacBook up from sleep, sometimes screen in clamshell mode wakes up and overtakes my dock. Screen itself is turned off, but soft thinks its on.

To fix this I've to open MacBook lid and close it again. This brings dock to my external screen.

Atm I've set external monitor to mirror MacBook screen avoiding this issue altogether. But surely its annoying. Seems like a bug as I didn't notice this in OS X.

I noticed this issue on macOS sierra. I've a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), 2.6/8/256

The first things I'd try are to reset both the NVRAM and SMC in that order. Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected (so, unplug your external display) and make sure you use the built-in keyboard.

Reset the NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). Here’s how to reset the NVRAM on your particular MBP:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Reset the SMC

To reset the SMC on your particular MBP, follow these steps:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

After resetting both the NVRAM and SMC, use your computer to determine if the issue still persists.


How many CPU cores should be in my MacBook Air? It looks like something's seriously wrong...

My Air should have 4 cores. However, I saw that the number of cores has sunk to 2 when I was going to make a new virtual machine...

I checked out what System Information says and the result doesn't match with the one I get by running htop in Terminal. Please, check out these screenshots:

htop:

System Information:

I don't understand... Any help is hugely appreciated!

Your MacBook Air has 2 independent processor cores.

When Hyper Threading is used, each core can act as two. In this case you will see four computational cores.

The EveryMac page for your MacBook Air explains why you are seeing four in some situations and two in the System Information application:

  This model is powered by a 22 nm, 64-bit Intel Mobile Core i7 "Ivy Bridge" (I7-3667U) processor which includes two independent processor "cores" on a single silicon chip. Each core has a dedicated 256k level 2 cache, shares 4 MB of level 3 cache, and has an integrated memory controller (dual channel).

  This system also supports "Turbo Boost 2.0" -- which "automatically increases the speed of the active cores" to improve performance when needed (up to 3.2 GHz for this model) -- and "Hyper Threading" -- which allows the system to recognize four total "cores" or "threads" (two real and two virtual).


Might have accidentally change admin user to standard user So I tried deleting an app a few days ago and it requires admin name and password. I tried every single combination that i can think of and it wouldnt work. I then realize that I have a standard user instead of an admin. I tried the create a new admin user way but the permission is denied.
I got no idea how to proceed onwards. Help needed please.
Its a osx yosemite 10.10.5

To create a new admin user, you need to reboot into Single User mode once:

Boot to single user mode (⌘-S while powering on)
Run /sbin/fsck -fy
Run /sbin/mount -uw /
Run rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
Run reboot

After the reboot, the Setup Assistant should get displayed again (as for a new Mac) and prompt you to create a new user. This user will automatically have admin rights.


Can arrow keys be added to an iPhone keyboard? Is there a way to add arrow keys to an iPhone keyboard under iOS 6?

It might be possible on a jailbroken device, but not on with standard iOS. There are just no user configurable options for the keyboard, beyond adding additional languages. App developers can augment it slightly, and there are some apps with additional keys, such as Prompt and Textastic, but it's otherwise a standard system component that can't be changed.


Missing driver for printer - adobe postscript I have a Panasonic Workio 190 Printer.

It doesn't seem like there is a Mac driver (I'm on Mavericks). The only thing there is, is a Adobe PostScript Driver:

I've never come across this kind of driver before and I don't want to go and install the wrong thing. Is it saying that this driver would allow the printer to work with my Mac, and are there any disadvantages to using the Adobe PostScript Driver? It seems like the only option I have at the moment.

Any input would be much appreciated as to whether this is the software I need.

Accordingly with the link here you have to download and install this software: Mac OS X 10.1 (PPD File).

After the installation of the file: PPDInst.dmg, I suggest you to install the printer from the System Preferences > Printers & Scanners > (add a new printer by pressing + button) and you should not have problem for the printer's driver.


iPhone XR stuck on update Apple iPhone XR gets stuck on update. Usual reset (quickly press and release Volume Up, quickly press and release Volume Down, press and hold side button) doesn't help.

I found this issue on apple forum unanswered with a lot of people having it:

  Apple iphone XR frozen during software update. Unresponsive during
  reboot try. Black screen with Apple Logo . Can not even reboot. What
  is the Next step ?

So I decided to provide an answer here which I've got by chatting with Apple Support.

Note the last line. It similar, but different:

Press and quickly release the Volume Up button.
Press and quickly release the Volume Down button.
Then, press and hold the Side button until you see the recovery mode screen

Then iPhone will get into restore mode and you'll be able to proceed by connecting it to your PC/Mac with iTunes and then choosing Restore and Update.


Where to find online documentation for older versions of Swift? Is there an official online Apple source for documentation for Swift 3? (Preferably that can be accessed without signing in to a developer account.) Browser searches for "Swift 3" are finding links to documentation for Swift 4 at developer.apple.com, but I am interested in the older version.

If you're using a modern Apple Device, which you must be in order to develop with Swift 3, you can use iBooks' Swift 3.1 Guide. Once Xcode 9 and Swift 4 are finalized, this book may receive an update to Swift 4, but you should be able to decline the update.
Check out the book here: The Swift Programming Language (Swift 3.1)


Macbook Air boot menu defaults to external monitor Took a while to figure out why the screen stays black during boot, but I eventually found that the boot menu and apple logo are by default going to an external monitor. I have tried to fix this by resetting the default display in system preferences, SMC and PRAM resets, but to no avail. I'm at a loss as to what is causing this to happen, and can't seem to figure it out. Any help would be appreciated!

Dragging the status bar (in Display Settings) to the screen you want as default worked for me! :)


Is the Macbook 12 inch's USB-C charger interchangeable with other USB-C chargers or devices? If there is only the Macbook 12 inch USB-C charger nearby, can it be used to charge other USB-C devices, such as any Android phones that also use USB-C? (will it be "too powerful" and damage other devices?)

Vice versa, if there is a Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0 USB-C charger from other devices nearby, can it be used to charge the Macbook 12 inch?

The main concern is about whether it could damage the device or battery.

This answer is indented to be canonical answer for similar questions and applies to all devices that utilize USB (Type A or C) chargers and conform to the USB Power Delivery  specification (version 2.x through 3.x).

  If there is only the MacBook 12 inch USB-C charger nearby, can it be used to charge other USB-C devices, such as any Android phones that also use USB-C? (will it "too powerful" and damage other devices?)

Yes, it can be used and you will not cause any damage.

USB-C conforms to the USB 3.1 specification.  Part of that specification is the Power Delivery spec.  This means that the device and charger will negotiate the power that is delivered.

As to whether a charger is too powerful or not, you can always use a charger greater than or equal to the maximum power draw of the device.  This applies to all chargers (USB, barrel connector, etc.), not just those that conform to the USB 3.x specification.

In other words, if your Apple USB-C charger is capable of delivering 87W of power, but you only need 10W for your phone, you can charge your phone no problem.

However, your 10W phone charger should not be used to charge your 87W MacBook.  Why?

If it's USB 3.x (USB Type C), it will negotiate power.  Since it technically doesn't have enough, it will either charge slowly or not at all
If it's USB 2.x (USB Type A) or a regular type charger, it will either not charge or have the possibility of damaging the charger because the draw of the device will exceed the charger's ability.

(MagSafe power adapters have a chip built into it prevent using an under-powered charger).

  Vice versa, if there is a Quick Charge 2.0 or 3.0 USB-C charger from other devices nearby, can it be used to charge the Macbook 12 inch?

Possibly.  The power delivery spec allows for power negotiation.  If there is sufficient power, it will charge, albeit slowly.  It may charge, but not power your device.  It may do nothing (it couldn't agree on a negotiated power delivery so it stopped delivering power).  If it's a poor quality charger (and does not conform to USB 3.0+ spec) it may overheat.

This is why you always use chargers greater than or equal to your device load.


Quitting and reopening Mail loses all accounts Every time I quite Mail or reboot my computer, all of my mail accounts are gone and I'm prompted to reconfigure my accounts (6 of them).

This is incredibly annoying and I'm not sure where I've gone wrong.

What I have tried id deleting the plist file in ~/Library/Preferences/ and recreating from scratch, but the same crap still applies. (I'm not worried about losing stuff as the accounts are all IMAP)

Also, the folder ~/Library/Mail only has two folders

Mail Lost+Found
V2

All of my mailboxes are contained within V2... is that normal?

Lastly, and a completely side topic. It's annoying to have to go through the wizard every time I have to configure an account. When I hold the Option key (as I read on MacWorld) doesn't do anything.

I'm using Lion (Mail Version 5.2 (1257))

Chase reports and asks:

Also, the folder ~/Library/Mail only has two folders
Mail Lost+Found
V2
All of my mailboxes are contained within V2... is that normal?

Those folders should exist, but at least based on the contents of my own ~/Library/Mail folder, it's incomplete. I also have individual folders for each of my email accounts and those folders contain mbox files which I assume are the local copies of the IMAP mailstore.

By way of troubleshooting, it might be interesting to know what the file permissions are for the Mail directory.
Open the terminal, and type (or cut and paste) the following command:
ls -l ~/Library/Mail

The results (edited here to show only the relevant line) for my own functional Mail folder are:
drwx------    13 jaberg  staff    442 Oct 13 00:25 Mail

The permissions basically tell us that this a directory and that the owner, jaberg (me) is able to read, write and execute. (The execute permission of a directory is sometimes thought of as the search permission. You need the x in order to be allowed access to the information about the contents of the directory.)
You can also view permissions from Finder by selecting the folder and performing Get Info… from the file menu (or ⌘+i), but you won't get as much information.

You'll find more information about accessing and interpreting file permissions in the Apple Knowledgebase: Troubleshooting permissions issues in Mac OS X
If you're permissions differ from those shown here, you can try to Repair Permissions using Disk Utility (this doesn't require a restart or booting from a different volume) or, if you're comfortable, change the permissions of the Mail folder to match those shown using the chmod command. You can learn about chmod from its man(ual) pages, accessed from the terminal by typing:
man chmod


Messages not working on iPhone 5 I am using an iPhone 5, version 9.3.2, 32 GB of memory, 27.1 of capacity.

Suddenly I cannot use my Messages.

Other option is working well but when click Messages it's just hanging.

I even cannot delete/read/send any messages.

I already powered off my phone but still same thing.

What can I do now?

Press the Home button twice. This will bring up recently used apps. Find the Message app and swipe up. This will force close the app.
Hold down the Power button until the power-slider appears, but don't turn the device off. Instead, while that power-slider is showing, hold down the Home button until your home screen re-appears.
Hold down the Home and Power buttons until the Apple Logo shows, and then release.
If one of your recent messages had a photo or video, try deleting it from the Messages. This may keep it from crashing again if you're able to open the app at all.

→ Try this multiple times.

If these steps still don't fix the problem, try backing up your iPhone to iTunes. Then restore from the backup. This step is tedious, I understand. But it may solve the problem when everything else has failed.

EDIT:
(additional suggestions)

Going beyond what usually fixes this problem...

You're options, shy of going to an Apple Store for an actual diagnostic, would be limited at this point. I see two options.

• Restore as a new iPhone.

• Try downloading PhoneClean on your computer. I have only used this briefly and am not entirely proficient in this app, but it has helped me in the past. It's available for Mac and PC.


Can I keep the Mail app on my iPhone from automatically marking messages as read? Is there a way to prevent the iPhone's mail app from marking messages as read automatically when I view them?

Thunderbird on my computer has a way to do this and I find it useful.

There is no setting that will not mark the email, in the Mail app, as read. So, the short answer to your questions is No.

A workaround that may, or may not, appeal to you, but would involve one more step would be to tap the Edit button in the upper-right corner above the list of email, check mark the ones you want to be kept unread, then tap "Mark", then "Mark as Unread". Again, this option may not work for you, but is probably the fastest way to mark multiple emails as Unread.


iCloud photo library - Lost locations I must mention that I've contacted Apple support many many times about that, there were a bunch of call back from them and email conversations with senior advisors, but there was no success in finding a solution for this issue.

What they've told me in our final conversation over the phone was: "The engineers are working on this issue and we have couple of reports with the same issue as you do so you must wait till they find a solution".

The reason I'm opening this discussion is to see if there is somebody else with the same issue as mine or anybody has successfully resolved it.

Now let begin with the explanation of the issue.

I can see no locations in YEARS, while in COLLECTION and MOMENTS there are locations visible. We are talking only for year 2015. And yes LOCATION was turned ON while using Camera in Settings.

As you can see there are no locations for 2015 while for 2014 and 2016 there are.
Lets take a look into Collections and Moments:

MOMENTS:

So now there are locations, and also if I select a picture from the same year there will be a location.

I was unable to resolve this issue even after changing my device, from iPhone 5s to iPhone 7 Plus.
I would really appreciate if you give me any tips for how to resolve this, if anybody already done that.(?)

***Note: I've posted the same question a long time ago on a couple of other forums but still no answer. Only on one of the forums I got a question if an advisor from apple asked me to restore the device. The answer is Yes. I made a backup of my iPhone 5s and restored it from the backup and still nothing. I even tried setting it up as a "new iPhone".
I tried this even with my iPhone 7 Plus.

I think this one has to do with your iCloud account.
First of all you need to be up to date to all of your Apple devices under the same appleid (your appleid). Then my suggestion is to log out of your iCloud account to all of your devices and login back again. Also check Photos location services (that’s under settings/ privacy / location services/ photos) should be “ WHILE USING”.  Reboot your devices and see how it goes. Cheers.


Set a default Wifi network I am new on Apple world. I have a MacBook Pro mid 2014. I have an issue and don't know how to solve it.

When I am at home and turn my Mac on, it tries to connect on the first free wifi network which is a low signal one. I want to force it and connect on my home network instead. Now, I do it manually by disconnecting and connecting to the right one.

Is there any solution?

Open up System Preferences. Click Network. After you select Wi-Fi on the left, click Advanced... . Drag your home network to the top under Preferred Networks. Click OK then Apply.


Mac virtual memory: how to make OS X create swap (page) files as freely with a normal boot as it does with a safe boot (swapfile1 etc) Background

When my MacBookPro5,2 with 8 GB memory boots in safe mode I see that the operating system causes dynamic_pager(8) to create swap files in a way that's relatively unrestrained. In the file system that I dedicate to swap, siblings of

/Volumes/swap/swapfile0

are created very quickly. Simple use of an app seems to result in more swap files than comparable use of that app with a normal boot.

Performance with safe boot – with a greater than normal mass of external swap files – is remarkably good. So I'd like to experiment with:

an equally unrestrained approach to swap files with a normal boot.

Question

How can I make the operating system behave in a way that causes a greater than normal mass of swapfiles to be created by dynamic_pager?

I'm prepared to accept the risks that may be associated with evil tuning.

Related

Why might more memory be wired in safe mode than in normal mode?

Answers there may help towards answers here.

Preliminary investigation

I ran sysctl -a in normal mode and safe mode. I see differences but (unless I'm missing something) nothing to explain the freedom that's associated with a safe boot.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/72732/8546 by @Quantumpanda is thought-provoking but the question there is, in a way, the opposite of what I want.

In Server Fault, FreeBSD performance tuning. Sysctls, loader.conf, kernel is popular but much of that seems network-oriented.

First experiments

The essence of this question was originally:

How can I get dynamic_pager to behave with a normal boot as it behaves with a safe boot?

– and so I experimented with values for -S and -H.

dynamic_pager option -S

In 2003, when -H and -L were hire_point and layoff_point, the default file_size was 20000000 Mac OS X in a nutshell, page 595). For more recent versions of the operating system, some users prefer a filesize that's around fifty times greater, 1.07 GB on disk:

1073741824

dynamic_pager option -H

With and without a value for -S, I experimented with various high-water-trigger values, including the one suggested by dynamicpagerwrapper:

209715200

None had the required effect.

References

Addressing The Outmoded Swapping And Paging Strategy in OSX? | dropsafe (2010-03-01, updated in 2012)

dynamic_pager_wrapper source from dynamicpagerwrapper –
performance wrapper for /sbin/dynamic_pager on OSX

In the Mac Developer Library:

Memory Usage Performance Guidelines: About the Virtual Memory System
Kernel Programming Guide: Memory and Virtual Memory

AFAIK the reason all those swap files were created so quickly in Safe Mode is because dynamic_pager fell back to an initial swap size of 64MB.  How many swap files did you see?  How many do you want to see?  How many are you seeing?

Right now on my Mac Pro (desktop) running OS 10.8.3 I have 7 swap files (numbered 0-6).  Is that what you want?  Actually, since you've pointed this out, I'm going to try to reduce that to 2.

If you really want to create a lot of swap files, just set -S 67108864

BTW, 1073741824 = 2^30 = 1 GiB

Followup

Turns out there is a bug in dynamic_pager (at least under Mountain Lion 10.8.4) where setting -S 2147483648 (= 2 GiB) fails because of some sort of 32-bit conversion error.

Cannot extend paging file size /private/var/vm/swapfile0 to 18446744071562067968!

2147483648 as a 32 bit signed in is actually -2147483648 or 0x80000000 which gets extended to a 64 bit number by extending the MSB and turned into 0xFFFFFFFF80000000 which is then converted to a 64 bit unsigned which is 18446744071562067968 or 2 GiB * 8 GiB.   Crazy.  So after you mess with the dynamic pager options, look for error messages in the console logs.


How to remove emoji autocomplete suggestions? I would prefer to not have emoji's suggested. Is it possible to remove emoji's from the autocomplete suggestions on macOS? If so how?

This is untested but I did find this method for disabling emojis in the Messages app.

NOTE: In any applications where emojis are supported you should find a similar item under that app's Edit → Substitions menu. Simply uncheck emojis per app.

References

How to Stop Automatic Emoji Replacing Emoticons in Messages for Mac OS X


Help: spotlight can't see Firefox in Applications folder? (FYI, I'm using Snow Leopard.)  I used to launch Firefox using spotlight by just typing "Firefox" to locate it.  Since I didn't launch Firefox often, I didn't want it in my dock, so I just got in that habit.

For some reason, starting last week, spotlight can no longer find Firefox.  I type "firefox" and I get results (emails, jar files, and so on), but no Firefox.app.  It's still there, though, sitting my Applications folder and it launches fine when I click on it.

Did I do something to break spotlight?  And how should I fix this?

Thanks, Rob

This has helped on a lot of macOS boxes I've worked on (10.14, 10.15 Catalina beta 1, beta 2, beta 3 and beta 4), perhaps for different reasons now in 2019 than when OP originally asked the question.

Open Terminal/iTerm and run:
sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Firefox.app
Authenticate with your admin password.

Your download was tagged by a macOS security mechanism as potentially dangerous, so the extended attribute com.apple.quarantine was set.

Since the OS didn't ask for user confirmation, the xattr was most probably already removed, but only from the top level package Firefox.app itself, but not its contents.
This is at least one scenario where an App

can be launched without user confirmation, but
Spotlight refuse to index.

See superuser.com/what-should-i-do-about-com-apple-quarantine for more.


How can I remove leading/trailing whitespace from filenames in Automator? My wife tediously renames files all the time when storing on her backup external storage, so I investigated using automator to do this for her. I now have an automator folder where she just drops the file in there and it will rename the file appropriately.

I'm now faced with a situation where the file may now contain leading and/or trailing whitespace, how might I simply trim this whitespace?

I've never really used AppleScript but am proficient in shell scripting, can I simply write a shell script that will perform this task? I will give AppleScript a go if someone could point me in the right direction.

There's one line script for that, cd to that folder and ...

for f in *; do mv "$f" "$(echo $f)"; done

Put it into a shell script and call it from Applescript:

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "whatever"
end tell


When editing files on a (Windows?) networked drive I get "could not be saved" errors When I edit files that are stored locally, everything works fine, but when editing files that are stored on my networked home directory (at uni here), I get:

The document "<x>" could not be saved.

when I try to save a file. If I then close the program (XCode), I get this:

If I click duplicate, and then reopen the file, the changes I just made are all there. And as far as I can tell, no duplicate file is created. With TextEdit I get this:

I've lost the browser tab now, but I read something that was saying this will only happen for programs that use OSX's autosave feature or something? So far, I get the error message in XCode and TextEdit, but not TextWrangler.

The networked drive is at /Volumes/Student/Home/myUsername/, and I think it's a windows drive, but I'm not sure.

EDIT:
As requested, df:

Filesystem                             512-blocks       Used   Available Capacity  iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                           1951845952   92568016  1858765936     5% 11635000  232345742    5%   /
devfs                                         363        363           0   100%      629          0  100%   /dev
map -hosts                                      0          0           0   100%        0          0  100%   /net
map auto_home                                   0          0           0   100%        0          0  100%   /home
map -fstab                                      0          0           0   100%        0          0  100%   /Network/Servers
//myUsername@domain.edu.au/student        285149176   74120992   211028184    26%        0 18446744073709551615    0%   /Volumes/student
//myUsername@domain.edu.au/student/Home 17203089400 5130812464 12072276936    30%        0 18446744073709551615    0%   /Volumes/student/Home

, and diskutil list:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

Autosave is not working, you might not have sufficient permission on that volume. You should try rebuild the permissions or take the folder ownership using chown -R.

"… does not support permanent storage" means Versions is not working because the volume is not HFS+, it must be NTFS or FAT and you are using a protocol such as smb.

Apps who aren't using Version and Autosave have no problems.
If you want to disable these look here.


Renaming files/names in bulk, any smarter solution? I have few thousand files to rename.

The thing is I have the old file names and new file names as columns in a spreadsheet. Without renaming them one by one. Is there a better way to do this?

Appreciate any help. I have tried the following with little satisfaction:

File Renamer - This allows me to rename the specified files from an external list in .txt. However the Trial version limits to 500 items. I do not wish to pay $20 just for this manual job.

Could have installed them in separated computers or virtual machine though.
Automator - Get specified items > Rename >

Not as effectively as I thought it would.

Just looking for some smarter solution. Appreciate any help

export into a CSV (unicode UTF-8 or any other 8bit encoding, not UTF-16): two columns, separated by ; (assuming there is no ; in a file name)
open Terminal
change to folder containing the files
run perl -pi -e 's/\r\n/\n/;' LISTOFNAMES.csv to fix CRLF issues
run while IFS=\; read old new; do mv "$old" "$new"; done < LISTOFNAMES.csv

PS: This will overwrite existing files if the new name already exists.

PPS: Test this on a temporary folder with just a few files first (and make sure you have a recent backup)


How to turn off slide transition when switching between two full screen applications on OS X Mavericks? Application switching cause one application to slide into another. Most times this is fine but am working on a MacBook Air and the slide transition causes motion sickness at times, especially after prolonged use (4+ hours). Looking for a way to turn off these animation.

Totalspaces2 has a turn off slide transition option, so I am pretty sure it's possible. Lion, Mountain Lion had Terminal commands for animation. I tried them all, and they don't work with Mavericks. I'm looking for Mavericks terminal commands to achieve the same.

In MacOS Sierra:

 - Go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display
 - Check in the box "Reduce motion".

This new function will speed up the animation between various display motion techniques such as using the mission control, switching desktops etc.


Perl RegEx in Mac terminal: grep -p "^([^\t]*\t){2}mypattern\t" textfile.txt doesn't work I am a beginner of using programming commands.

Why {2} is not functional after ([^\t]*\t) in macOS terminal?

Is there any website providing Perl RegEx which works in mac? Thanks!

RegExPlanet offer a Regular Expression Test Page for Perl. This page works with Safari on macOS 10.12.

You may find that grep included with macOS does not include all the functionality you want. If so, try installing grep from Homebrew or MacPorts.


ath leaves many open sockets This seems somehow similar to this question. While diagnosing some weird application behaviour on my MacBook Pro and the dreaded "too many open files" errors appearing in the shell out of nowhere, I came to find out that ath, an executable component of AirTrafficHost.framework, keeps a huge number of open sockets in CLOSE_WAIT state. The number tends to only increase in time until it hits the system limit for open file descriptors. I use my MBP docked most of the time and it is always on, so the limit is reached after a couple of days.

AirTrafficHost.framework is a private Apple framework and seems to be part of the wireless communcation with iOS devices. There are two iOS devices for which I've enabled network sync - an iPad Pro and an iPhone. It seems that ath tries to talk to them and at some point the connection is terminated, but the network sockets are never closed and just keep piling up. lsof shows:

ath  627 hristo   7u  IPv6 0x2e106590d5ff22b3  0t0  TCP [fe80:5::xxx]:49280->[fe80:5::yyy]:57461 (CLOSE_WAIT)
ath  627 hristo   8u  IPv6 0x2e106590d6aea413  0t0  TCP [fe80:5::xxx]:49300->[fe80:5::yyy]:57464 (CLOSE_WAIT)
ath  627 hristo  10u  IPv6 0x2e106590d7a65c93  0t0  TCP [fe80:5::xxx]:49529->[fe80:5::yyy]:57482 (CLOSE_WAIT)
ath  627 hristo  11u  IPv6 0x2e106590d4fe9a33  0t0  TCP [fe80:5::xxx]:49574->[fe80:5::yyy]:57486 (CLOSE_WAIT)
ath  627 hristo  13u  IPv6 0x2e106590d5feeb93  0t0  TCP [fe80:5::xxx]:49609->[fe80:5::yyy]:57490 (CLOSE_WAIT)
ath  627 hristo  14u  IPv6 0x2e106590d18e7b93  0t0  TCP [fe80:5::xxx]:49656->[fe80:5::yyy]:57494 (CLOSE_WAIT)
... many more ...

Right now, it's been 5 hrs since the last reboot and the number of socket descriptors is already 162 in two ath processes (one for each iOS device, I guess) and growing:

$ lsof -n | grep ^ath | grep TCP | wc -l
    162

It also seems that for each disconnect, there is an entry in /var/log/system.log:

Mar 17 01:15:23 MacBook-Pro AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[433]: Entered:_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:159
Mar 17 01:15:23 MacBook-Pro AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[433]: Entered:__thr_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:159
Mar 17 01:15:23 MacBook-Pro AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[433]: tid:7387 - Mux ID not found in mapping dictionary
Mar 17 01:15:23 MacBook-Pro AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[433]: tid:7387 - Can't handle disconnect with invalid ecid

The OS is a fully updated macOS Catalina 10.15.3.

Is anyone else seeing the same problem and are you aware of a solution that does not involve increasing the system limits or performing a clean OS install? I already have a launchd job to increase kern.maxfiles and kern.maxfilesperproc, but that's not really a solution - it just postpones the problem. And I'd prefer not to disable network synchronisation, because I'm out of USB ports.

It is actually okay to raise the system limits - for example up to 65536 open files. 162 sockets over 5 hours is a relatively low number. It is not going to affect system performance in any way, and does not use up any kind of significant resources.

Ordinarily sockets will eventually go away by themselves after a timeout. However in your case, they're listed as being in state CLOSE_WAIT. This means that the kernel is waiting for the application to call close() on the socket descriptor, and they will not go away automatically.

ath is supposed to be doing just that - so it seems like you've either hit a bug, or have some kind of serious misconfiguration that makes ath behave incorrectly.

As a temporary measure, you can get the sockets closed by closing the ath process. You can see the process ID in your output from lsof, and then use the kill command to close it up. You can start it again from:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AirTrafficHost.framework/ath


Home folder has 'everyone' Read-Only permissions I just realized that my home folder (/HD/Users/Bob) has Everyone 'ReadOnly' permissions set at its root level.

If I browse this folder from another account, I can view the folders, but I'm not allowed to open the standard OS X folders (Desktop, Documents, Music, Movies, etc...). However, I have created a few folders on the root level of my home folder, and those ARE accessible to this other user. They can open folders, and open some of the documents with ReadOnly access.

Is anyone else seeing this? Is this a standard configuration, or is my Mac screwed up? This seems like a security hole to allow users to access files of other users on the system.

I'm running a fairly clean build of Yosemite 10.10.1 - this was installed about a month ago. I restored my old files from a hard drive. They were not restored via Time Machine

If you wish new folders at the top level of your home folder to by default be non-readable by anyone but you, add the following two ACLs to your home folder. DO NOT PROPAGATE PERMISSIONS. The first ACL makes all new folders unreadable, unwritable, and unsearchable by everyone. The second ACL makes an exception for you. Be sure to enter them in this order, so the second entry can push itself to the front.

chown +a "group:everyone deny list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,directory_inherit,limit_inherit,only_inherit" ~
chown +a# 0 "user:$USER allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,directory_inherit,limit_inherit,only_inherit" ~

But truth be told, it's easier to just fix up the permissions on any subfolders you create directly under your home folder. I mean, it's not like you're going to do that often, right?

And besides, who's to say you want these new folders readable only by you? What if you want a folder that is group-readable for some group but not world readable? These inherited ACLs are just going to get in your way then.

Creating a top-of-home-folder folder should be a rare event. Ad hoc solutions are best for rare events.


Mac OS X Lion boots very slowly takes 2 minutes to start Leopard was good used to start in second but Lion is taking too much time to start it takes 2-3 minutes to start.

Is it problem with my MBP or anyone experience this before? Please guide help.

Try a...
PRAM Reset

Shut down the computer.
Press and hold the ⌘+⌥+P+R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

Why could this help? ->
Information stored in PRAM includes the startup volume choice.


Create new 'super-category' in iTunes heirachy In iTunes, I have many audio files which aren't music. In my case they are guitar tutorial tracks, but others may have similar things which are for language learning or self-help/hypnosis tracks.

I don't want these lumped in with the rest of my music, as I find they clutter up my music collection, make it hard to find things and makes playing my music on 'shuffle' a strange experience.

I know I can untick the songs to prevent them from being played, or create some kind of playlist for the songs I do want to play, but these are not ideal solutions.

Is there a way of removing them from the 'Music' super-folder altogether, ideally creating a new super-folder just for them? (By super-folder I mean the 'Music', 'Movies' and 'TV Shows' categories that appear on the left).

Select all the items and get the item information by pressing Command+I. Choose Options tab and change the Media Kind to the suitable category. It doesn’t let you create a new category, but the some of existing categories should fit to your media (perhaps using iTunes U or Audiobook).


How to access Time Machine without the access password? I have an older 2TB Apple Time Machine with years of kids photos.

Unfortunately, my wife cannot remember the passcode to get in.  We are at a loss as we have tried every password we can think of. We really don't want to loose all these kids pics!

You will want to use AirPort Utility to log in to the base station and reset the disk sharing password.

If you can't remember that password, the button on the back of the unit can reset that password to the default value of "private".


Can Server be used to standardize the desktop background on user computers? I have a Mac Network controlled by Mac OS X Lion Server and a bunch of clients on Snow Leopard, with many network users. I want to force them to all have the same background (that is custom) by some form of preference. I can't find a way of doing this - is it actually possible? The network users do not have access to System Preferences.

This is one of the preferences that Server can manage using the managed preferences (sometimes referred to as MCX on older servers and now called profiles on Lion and later for servers).

Here is a short Apple document covering the high points on how to use managed preferences and the workgroup manager. This would be a good, safe item to test with in getting started with WorkGroup Manager and a couple of lightly used Macs.

Managed Client: How to manage settings using the preference editor


How to convert .mdf/.mds to .iso? I have an old Alcohol 120% CD/DVD image file that I'd like to convert to an .iso image. I have tried simply renaming the file thus (disregarding the 4 KB .mds file):

video.mdf --> video.iso.

This sort of worked. Most of the video played perfectly (in VLC) but then the final three minutes were silent with a blank screen.

How should I go about doing this?

You can use very simple command line program mdf2iso for this.
it is available via MacPorts (for example).

PS: This utility can be also used in any Linux, *BSD and Windows systems


Mac admin account deleted -- have I lost my files? I got a new computer and gave my old one to my wife. Before I had a chance to save some files she deleted my admin account and set up one for herself.

How do I get my old files off the computer?

There are a few options given when deleting an account on a Mac:

Save the home folder as a disk image: This will archive all the
user’s documents and information so the user can be restored later if
needed. The disk    image is saved in /Users/Deleted Users/.
Leave the user’s home folder as is: Select “Don’t change the home
folder.” The user’s documents and information remain and the user can
be restored later if needed. The home folder remains in /Users/.
Remove the user’s home folder from the computer: Select “Delete the
home folder.” The user information will be deleted and the storage
space will be freed. If you want to prevent programs that read raw
data from retrieving any files, select “Erase home folder securely.”

If she chose the second option, to save the home folder, you might still have your files. Are you comfortable using terminal? If so, you can navigate to the users/ folder and see if you see your old username and if anything is in there. If there is, you can use some commands to move the files onto the desktop

cd /Users
ls -l
sudo mv -r [username] ~/Desktop

If she chose the first option, then cd/Users/"Deleted Users" instead of /Users.
If she chose the third option, that's beyond what I know to do. Either way, check those two folders.


Upgrading SSD in 2015 MacBook Pro I haven't been able to find the solution to my issue anywhere, so here goes:
I have a 15" MacBook Pro (mid 2015) and it's at all points a great device, with the only drawback being low storage (I only have the 256GB installed).
I am aware of OWC's solution and I almost bought a 2TB SSD, but then I remembered that the new macOS runs a bit differently, if I understand this right. I am not sure if the OWC's SSD would be even compatible with Big Sur (I also read somewhere that it's also completely incompatible with Windows 10 already, so no workarounds there?).
So, does anyone know how things stand right now with upgrading storage in "older" MacBook Pros in 2021?

At least one of OWC's 2 TB SSD is compatible with OS 10.13 and later. From the page for the OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD for the 2013-2015 Retina MBP:
"Aura Pro X2 is designed for the latest macOS versions (macOS High Sierra 10.13 and later), taking full advantage of the advanced features of APFS including: strong encryption, copy-on-write metadata, space sharing, cloning for files and directories, snapshots, fast directory sizing, atomic safe-save primitives, and improved file system fundamentals."


The folder Library/StartUpItems is empty Under System Preferences / Users & Groups / Login Items I can see all of the items that I've selected to launch at startup, but the folder,  Library/StartUpItems is empty.

Where can I see these items?

The file the preference pane loads the list of items from is:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginitems.plist

It is a binary file. You can use Xcode to open it.

For example, if you add iPhoto to your login items:

your com.apple.loginitems.plist will look similar to this:


How to resize folders on desktop At some point I changed some setting - I am not quite sure how, maybe via some sequence of keystrokes, and my folders all got bigger on my desktop.

I don't think this looks very aesthetic, how do I change the size?

This is what they look like:

With the Desktop in focus, press cmd-J to open view options and adjust the Icon size slider.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchldaafb302/mac


Can't register new App ID I'm trying to register a new App ID inside iTunes connect web site, but when I've filled out the details and hit continue, it just comes up "Loading" and stays like that, any ideas?

Just for anyone else with the same issue. I tried another browser and it worked fine, so it's some kind of browser issue.


Is there a way to automatically delete all cookies in Safari upon exit? For the longest time the ill-named "Safari Cookies" extension (by using SIMBL) provided this function of automatically deleting all cookies in Safari when quitting the application.

But development of that project has stopped and it does not work with the latest version of macOS and Safari. Instead they sell a 20USD product that promises to continue doing that and more.

Is there any free option for providing what should be an essential privacy feature of any modern browser? I don't want to select "Clear history..." from the Safari menu every time I use that application.

You can use the private mode which erases cookies(I think) and your history upon closing the windows.


How to display contact anniversaries in MacOS Calendar? Is there a way to pull in anniversaries for contacts to the Birthday calendar or another calendar in the MacOS Calendar app?

You could make a new calendar with, say, Google, import the anniversaries into that calendar, then subscribe to that calendar with Apple Calendar.


Does AirDrop resize pictures - AirDrop photo resolution Does AirDrop alter images in any way to reduce size for faster transfer or the "Preparing" is preparing the package for tranfer, involving no image resize/compression?

When it was originally launched for iOS (iOS 7), AirDrop occasionally down-sampled photos and videos for no apparent reason. However, since a later release (possibly iOS 8), I have never seen AirDropped media in a size/quality other than the original.

When sharing photos and videos, “Preparing” indicates that the Photos app is downloading the full-resolution version from iCloud Photo Library. You will see this step regardless of the channel through which you’re sharing (including email and iMessage).

You should be able to verify after the fact that your device now holds a larger-file version of your photo or video (eg. by opening Image Capture or checking your storage used). See this answer for further details.

There are notable exceptions:

Slo-mo videos are finalized and reencoded, which removes their ability to have their “slow” portion adjusted.
Edited photos and videos need to be reencoded (to include those edits), so the quality may be slightly different vs. what was originally shot. However the resolution will remain unchanged.
It is unclear what quality setting Photos for macOS uses when sharing via AirDrop. You can enforce a certain quality level by first exporting the photo to your desktop, and AirDropping that file, rather than AirDropping straight from Photos. You'll probably want to use High quality and Full Size for edited photos, and Unmodified Original for unedited photos. See this answer for more details.


Siri reports my correct birthday, but then uses wrong date when asked how many days until my birthday When I say to Siri "When is my Birthday", the response is May 20th, which is correct.

However, when I say "How many days until my birthday" the response uses September 16th as the birthday. How do I fix this?

This is most likely a bug that either Apple or Wolfram Alpha will have to fix. I reported the bug at http://bugreport.apple.com/ .


How do I move Mac and Windows partitions to single Hard Drive? I have this scenario:

600 GB Hard Drive, using Master Boot Record

300 GB Windows 7 x64 Parition, NTFS
300 GB free Space

1 TB Hard Drive, Guid Parition Table

730 GB Data Partition, exFat

Two More hard drives which are irrelevant but provide 2 TB of free space

I want to have both the Mac and the Windows Partition on the 600 GB Hard Drive, because it's by far the fastest drive in the system. However, I do not want to reinstall Mac OS X. I may be able to reinstall Windows, but I'd like to avoid that as well.

Does anyone have some hints how I should proceed? I'm also worried about stuff like the Boot Sectors.

Could I just use something like dd on the paritions? I heard about Carbon Copy Cloner, but that seems to be a file copy rather than a partition copy?

Since the 600 GB Drive uses MBR, I need to wipe all partitions anyway and repartition using GPT, correct?

Before you start, make sure you have a verified working clone of both partitions/systems.

You will ideally want to have software that can clone partitions, such as either the excellent CarbonCopyCloner, or the equally awesome SuperDuper, both of which will allow for your needs (complete clone) in their Shareware mode.
I don't know what tools are suitable for PC, but find one that does the equivalent for Windows installations.

Reboot from your cloned Mac OSX installation, and prepare to repartition your target Hard Drive. Disk Utility can sometimes repartition volumes non-destructively, but for this I would recommend quick erasing the drive and repartitioning to the desired sizes for each OS, with a caveat for the situation below.

Repartition as desired (ensure GUID, journaled, case-insensitive for the Mac Volume), noting you may need to go through various procedures if you are using OSX 10.7 Lion and wish to retain the hidden recovery partition (ie: you may have to reinstall Lion and restore from your backup, then proceed with Bootcamp installation which will again walk you through creating a suitable PC formatted boot volume which you can later clone your Windows installation back to).

Clone back the OSX Installation that you are booted from to the target Mac partition on the internal drive (if you haven't already restored from this in the previous step). Do the equivalent process in Windows for your Windows installation.

Test each by booting into each and making sure everything works as expected.


The best OS X for late 2008 MacBook? What's the latest supported OS X for the 1181 model?

Also what is the best version (performance and speed wise) for the model?

Maximum OS for A1181 is 10.7.5 (Lion)

That is going to be the best option performance wise.


Restore from "iOS7 backup" to an iOS6 phone A friend upgraded my device to iOS7. It didn't work properly so I downgraded it a few days later to iOS6.

I have backups both in iCloud and on OS X (iTunes). When I try to restore either I get a message:

  To restore this iPhone from this backup, you must first set up the
  iPhone as new and restore the software to the latest version.

Without this backup I am very inconvenienced, so I ask is it possible to restore an iPhone from a iOS7 Backup if you downgraded the phone to iOS6?

You can edit the info.plist file. I successfully restored my backup to 6.1.4. Edit the build version to your ipsw's build version and product version to the version you want to downgrade to. Using plist editors in windows are highly recommended.

Windows: C:\Users[Your username]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup[Your UDID]

Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[Your UDID]/

After that just restore the backup normally. If an error popped up at the end, ignore it. Hope this helps.


Use MacBook Air as a monitor for Win7 Desktop PC Not sure if this is the right place to ask: but i have a Win7 machine and i want to save apartment space by foregoing the monitor, and use my existing MacBook Air screen as a temporary monitor when i reboot my Win7 machine.

Does that work?

According to Apple's documentation notebooks do not support Target Display mode.

However, if you run any kind of VNC software on your Windows machine you can use the Windows desktop from your Mac using the Screen Sharing application. No additional software is needed on the Mac end.

If your Windows machine won't boot to the desktop the VNC software will not run, so you will need a temporary monitor here. And you will need to install the VNC program somehow.

In short, Windows computers really expect to have a keyboard, monitor and mouse connected.


Will apple accept a javascript app that usees Google Maps API? Will there be any problems if I send a javascript and html app to the App Store, which uses the Google Maps API. The app is a route planner.

No, there shouldn't be any problems. My app was essentially just a web frame, which loaded a HTML page which used Javascript and Google Maps API. Apple accepted this fine. My current app uses Google Maps API and displays this on an Apple Map, and again, this was accepted.


How do I stop iOS 4 from draining the battery of my 2nd gen iPod Touch overnight? Every since "upgrading" my 2nd generation iPod Touch to iOS 4, it seems to lose power overnight (when not plugged in). What can I do to fix this? I have tried a restore and that did not work. Seen as a problem in releases iOS 4.0.1, 4.0.2 and 4.1

If you don't need any network activity, I would recommend enabling Airplane Mode overnight.
Failing that, disable bluetooth and/or wifi if they are unnecessary
Disable as much Spotlight search as you can afford to by going to Settings->General->Home Button->Spotlight Search.


How can I remove all my downloaded YouTube videos in the YouTube iPad app in one go? How can I remove all my downloaded YouTube videos via the YouTube app at once on iPadOS?

In the YouTube iPadOS app, tap on the account profile picture at the top right of the screen, tap on Settings, scroll down to the Offline section, and tap on Delete downloads item. You'd be alerted stating that all downloaded videos and playlists will be deleted from this device.
Tap on Delete button to delete all the videos downloaded and saved for offline viewing on the device.

Tap on the account profile picture shown at the top right of screen to access your account.

Scroll down on the account sub-window and tap on the Settings item. Scroll down on the Settings screen and tap on the Delete downloads item.

In the pop-up window that appears, tap on the Delete button to delete all offline videos in one go.

This would instantly delete all the offline videos in one go and and you'd be able to re-claim the storage space on your iPad.


Charge my Mac via USB I have a portable power bank and I can charge devices via USB on it. Is there an adapter to change a 3 prong charger to a USB, so I can plug my Mac into my power bank? A Mac air charger that can plug into a USB port would work as well.

Most MacBook use MagSafe charging which doesn't operate on the same voltage as USB - so the vast majority of battery banks that charge anything USB won't work. There are some inverters that would power the adapter using 120 or 240 VAC but those are quite large.

Only the new MacBook with USB-C connector is low power enough to charge over the new power delivery specification for USB 3.1 that generally is supported along with the change to USB-C connector. Any charging bank would need increased power than what is used to charge most any mobile devices made in 2015 and earlier.


Speeding up iMac (early 2006 I have an early 2006 iMac, the first with Intel CPU and now I am looking for speeding it up a little. I maxed out the RAM (2G) and my only other option is to install an SSD drive there.

First of all, I would like to know if this is a good idea to speed up my iMac?
Shall I take my iMac to the service for this installation or I can try this on my own at home?
Would it be possible to keep the current primary hdd as a secondary hdd in the machine or there is no space inside?

SSD will make everything feel faster, but it's kind of pricey. Your internal HD is probably wearing out anyway, so it's not a bad idea to substitute it. If price is an issue you can buy one of the new 7200rpm with 32/64MB of cache, and do a clean install. Before moving your data into the new HD, install your Applications. This way they will reside in area of the disk which can be retrieved faster.


Does anybody know an email client for iOS that is password protected? I am looking for an email client, that when opened, asks for a password before showing email messages. Is there such an app available for iOS?

I haven't seen an app like that, but if you have a Gmail account you can use 1Password (App Store Link) to access the web interface. The 1Password app is locked by default. This would work with any email account with a webmail interface.


Is it possible to have my MacBook become an iBeacon? Is it possible to have my MacBook become an iBeacon?

I would like it to broadcast itself to iOS devices which support iBeacons. If this is possible, what are the hardware requirements of the computer (e.g. is Bluetooth 4.0 enough?), and how would I do it?

Update: I am primarily looking for a way to do this without any additional hardware (since my MacBook already has Bluetooth built-in).

If you are a programmer I have posted instructions on how to use a MacBook with Mavericks as an iBeacon.  You can find the instructions on my blog at http://www.blendedcocoa.com/blog/2013/11/02/mavericks-as-an-ibeacon/

If/When I get a chance I may create an app that you can use to advertise an iBeacon.

This is the answer I gave to a similar question on Stack Overflow

Mavericks doesn't have the iBeacon support in Core Location that was added to iOS 7.  However, Mavericks does now have the ability to act as an BLE peripheral device.  Given that an iBeacon is basically a peripheral it should be (and indeed is) possible to use Mavericks as an iBeacon.

In order to create an iBeacon on iOS you first create a CLBeaconRegion object and then use the peripheralDataWithMeasuredPower: method to get an NSDictionary containing the necessary advertisement data to broadcast.  If you take the contents of this NSDictionary from an iOS device and use it on Mavericks then you get an iBeacon.

I have created a class to make this easier and allow you to generate the advertisement data dictionary directly on Mavericks.  The source code is available at https://github.com/mttrb/BeaconOSX

The BLCBeaconAdvertisementData class take the proximityUUID, major, minor and calibrated power values and creates an NSDictionary that can be passed to the startAdvertising: method of CBPeripheralManager on Mavericks.

The BLCBeaconAdvertisementData class is quite simple.  The main work is done by the following method:

- (NSDictionary *)beaconAdvertisement {
    NSString *beaconKey = @"kCBAdvDataAppleBeaconKey";

    unsigned char advertisementBytes[21] = {0};

    [self.proximityUUID getUUIDBytes:(unsigned char *)&advertisementBytes];

    advertisementBytes[16] = (unsigned char)(self.major >> 8);
    advertisementBytes[17] = (unsigned char)(self.major & 255);

    advertisementBytes[18] = (unsigned char)(self.minor >> 8);
    advertisementBytes[19] = (unsigned char)(self.minor & 255);

    advertisementBytes[20] = self.measuredPower;

    NSMutableData *advertisement = [NSMutableData dataWithBytes:advertisementBytes length:21];

    return [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:advertisement forKey:beaconKey];
}

I have a more detailed blog post about this at http://www.blendedcocoa.com/blog/2013/11/02/mavericks-as-an-ibeacon/


Change iPhone pin remotely iPhone SE without Touch ID.

my problem is that a specific area on the screen is not working. Hence I am unable to unlock the phone using a pin number.

So, is there any way I can unlock the iPhone remotely? Using iCloud or iTunes?

Source:

No, you can't unlock the iPhone remotely.  You can use VoiceOver to select the numbers on the screen.

Hold down the Home button to activate Siri. Say “Turn on VoiceOver”.
Press the Home button twice to bring up the passcode screen.
Use the portion of your screen that responds to touch to swipe left and right, which will move your VoiceOver cursor to different passcode number buttons. VoiceOver will also say the button being selected, which is helpful if you can't see the screen.
When the cursor is on the passcode number you need, double tap the screen to “tap” the selected passcode number.
After the iPhone unlocks, you may need VoiceOver one last time to tap “Trust” in the dialog that comes up when you plug in your iPhone to your computer.
Copy your photos and/or make your backup in iTunes.

To turn off VoiceOver, you can say “Turn off VoiceOver” to Siri, or go into Settings -> General -> Accessibility to turn it off manually.


New harddrive on a macbook pro 13 inch, dvd drive doesn't work, what do? What I don't have:

An USB dvd drive

What I have:

Another working, up to date, Macbook (with snow leopard).
purchased Mountain Lion on the app store
A desktop PC
A 4GB usb stick.
A USB harddrive I'd like not to wipe out entirely.

My macbook pro's dvd drive seems busted, I spray some dry air inside and tried to 90 degrees trick, did not work.

Doesn't apple provide some way to make a bootable usb thing ?

There is a few way you can do this from the working MacBook. The first is to follow the tutorial here which will take you through the process of making a bootable USB disk for Mountain Lion.

The steps involve

Reformat the USB stick to HFS+
Extract the install image from the downloaded installer
Write the image to the USB using Disk Utility

Alternatively just download the Lion DiskMaker software which will do all the work for you.

The only problem I can forsee is that you need an 8GB USB stick for this to work since the OSX installation is bigger then 4GB.


Can I override the error AutoCAD gives about my older video card? I have a macbook 2,1 upgraded to 4GB ram and 500 GB hard drive. When installing AutoCAD, it complains that i have an older video card. Granted, that is true, I only use autocad for 2d purposes only. Is there a way to override that error?

Thanks to Asmus's suggestion I found that if you remove your graphic card's model from the file unspt_gfx_cards you can install AutoCad. So to recap:

Copy the .mpkg package out of the DMG file to some place like your Desktop
Right click on the package and select 'Show Package Contents'
Browse to Contents/Resources/unspt_gfx_cards
Right click unspt_gfx_cards and open with textedit
Remove all lines that contain Intel or GMA(for your macbook) and save
Double click on the .mpkg to install without hardware restrictions

Not sure if you will have any problems running Autocad but at least you should be able to install it.


Cannot authenticate to twitter, facebook, linkedin in "Internet Accounts" MBP OSX 10.9.4 OSX Mavericks 10.9.4 on an MBP

I cannot authenticate to any social network from the "Internet Accounts" in System Preferences, usually the response is:  "Unable to verify account name or password"
(I have checked these credentials at the websites for the appropriate networks)

Here is an example result from the system.log:

Jul 17 14:48:15 apa com.apple.preferences.internetaccounts.remoteservice[3953]: *** accountTypeWithAccountTypeIdentifier:com.apple.facebook returned nil
Jul 17 14:48:15 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 17 14:48:15 apa com.apple.preferences.internetaccounts.remoteservice[3953]: -[IAAccount initWithProviderType:loginName:] [358] -- *** Missing parameter. provider = com.apple.account.facebook; loginName = (null)
Jul 17 14:48:15 apa com.apple.preferences.internetaccounts.remoteservice[3953]: *** accountTypeWithAccountTypeIdentifier:com.apple.facebook returned nil

I have verified and tried facebook, twitter, linkedin, and flickr.  I mostly just want to integrate these services into the notification center.

Has anyone seen this behavior (failure for all social networks)?  Any fixes?  Thanks for looking...

I looked in my logs and I get a different reply... seems that the linkedin processes/api have changed

Jul 31 19:07:20 --- last message repeated 9 times ---
Jul 31 19:07:20 baksons.local accountsd[259]: /SourceCache/Accounts/Accounts-336.9/ACDAccountStore.m - -[ACDAccountStore verifyCredentialsForAccount:saveWhenAuthorized:withHandler:] - 1413 - com.apple.preferences.internetaccounts.remoteservice (com.apple.preferences.internetaccounts.remoteservice) is trying to verify account credentials for account: peter.bakker@alumni.insead.edu
Jul 31 19:07:21 baksons.local accountsd[259]: (null) - (null) - 0 - Request status was 500
Jul 31 19:07:21 baksons.local accountsd[259]: /SourceCache/Social/Social-279.11/LinkedIn/LinkedInAuthenticationPlugin/LinkedInAuthenticationPlugin.m - __65-[LinkedInAuthenticationPlugin _authenticateAccount:withHandler:]_block_invoke - 262 - Access token request failed. Response: <!DOCTYPE html>

      <title>Your LinkedIn Network Will Be Back Soon</title>
      <meta charset="UTF-8" />

            We're getting things cleaned up.
            We'll be back soon.

            Follow @LinkedInHelp on Twitter to get site availability updates.
            In the meantime, learn what's new at LinkedIn by visiting our blog.

          &copy; 2013 LinkedIn Corporation

            Error Id: 140679763152567

Jul 31 19:07:21 baksons.local accountsd[259]: /SourceCache/Accounts/Accounts-336.9/ACDAccountStore.m - __70-[ACDAccountStore saveAccount:pid:verify:dataclassActions:completion:]_block_invoke539 - 1362 - Could not verify account: The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.accounts error 3.)
Jul 31 19:07:21 baksons.local WindowServer[102]: window 4fd is already attached to window 4fb
Jul 31 19:07:26 --- last message repeated 9 times ---
Jul 31 19:07:26 baksons.local Preview[74667]: CoreText CopyFontsForRequest received mig IPC error (FFFFFFFFFFFFFECC) from font server
Jul 31 19:07:50 --- last message repeated 1 time ---


Transfer photos (in iPhoto) and maintain detail? I would like to transfer photos from one computer to another, but I would like to maintain the originals (most of them are re-touched), faces information, gps coordinates, whether the image has been hidden, and it's rating. I know that transferring using the built in sharing mechanism will remove this detail, so is there a workaround?

There is a (paid) utility, it's called iPhoto library manager.
From the description on the website:

  Makin' Copies
  Copy photos from one library to another while retaining titles, comments,
  keywords, ratings, and dates


Replace Messages app with something else and have it use my phone number? Is there a way for me to use a different app to send/receive SMS messages on my iPhone, and still use my same phone number?
It'd be great if it could become the default for sending messages on my iPhone, without jailbreaking.
So I'd like an app that

defaults to sending SMS messages, even for contacts that have iMessage
reuses my existing phone number when sending/receiving SMS messages

So in theory, it's like I have an Android phone, and only know how to send/recive SMS messages ;-)
EDIT: Note my main problem is that when I have iMessage disabled, other people still try to send me iMessages, which I dont get if I have iMessage disabled of course!

According to a third party wanting the same, Apple doesn't allow this: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007321171-Can-I-send-SMS-MMS-with-Signal-

There was once an app which synced your sms and allowed sending and receiving through an app: mysms. It would still work if you put the sim card into an android phone, but that doesn't seem to be what you want, as you'd now need another phone number for calls on your iphone...

The closest you can get on an iphone is probably through your provider's sms website offerings, like this one: https://n.vodafone.ie/business/products-and-solutions/mobile-communications/bulk-texts.html

Depending on your provider, you could probably put a shortcut somewhere on the iphone which opens a page where you can see your sms inbox and write new ones - with some business features on top.

Then you just need to deregister your phone number from imessage and make it work with your email address only. Anyone entering your phone number on imessage should then get to send the message in green.


How to get tab completion for LaTeX in TextMate? For instance, try; \begin{ite[tab] but you get nothing.

How can you have tab completion for LaTeX in TextMate?

TextMate generally uses esc for completion, though certain triggers can be specified in the Bundle for tab 'completion', you can see what the triggers are by going to the Bundles menu > Bundle Editor > Show Bundle Editor.


mysql on OSX suddenly stopped functioning, unable to locate or connect Having been using an installed version of mysql for some time without any problem, when I attempted to start the server recently it simply failed to recognise the command.

The installation is still there and I can see my databases in the filesystem. However, I cannot start the server. See the following steps, which include trying to re-add mysql to the $PATH or the bash profile, as advised in several other answers (although I don't believe this was necessary before).

pointcloud:~ james$ mysql.server start
-bash: mysql.server: command not found
pointcloud:~ james$ cd ../../usr/local/var
pointcloud:var james$ ls
cache       homebrew    log     mysql
pointcloud:var james$ cd mysql
pointcloud:mysql james$ ls
MacBook-Air.local.err           ibdata1
MacBook-Air.local.pid           ibtmp1
Otago-2.local.err           mysql
Otago-2.local.pid           mysqld_safe.pid
Pointcloud-Matrix-3885731C.local.err    otago.home.err
Pointcloud-Matrix-3885731C.local.pid    performance_schema
auto.cnf                pointcloud.err
ca-key.pem              pointcloud.local.err
ca.pem                  pointcloud.local.pid
cameras                 pointcloud.pid
client-cert.pem             pole
client-key.pem              private_key.pem
cloudpedia              public_key.pem
flightpaths             satcat
ib_logfile0             server-cert.pem
ib_logfile1             server-key.pem
pointcloud:mysql james$ echo $PATH
/Users/james/torch/install/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/local/MacGPG2/bin
pointcloud:mysql james$ export PATH=/usr/local/var/mysql:${PATH}
pointcloud:mysql james$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/var/mysql:/Users/james/torch/install/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/local/MacGPG2/bin
pointcloud:mysql james$ mysql.server start
-bash: mysql.server: command not found
pointcloud:mysql james$

Some of the other answers refer to a /bin or /support-files directory in the mysql directory. I don't seem to have these.

I'm not aware what has changed since I last started the server. I have installed a number of Homebrew and Python packages, but not anything to do with mysql, as far as I am aware.

Any assistance in restoring access to my DBs gratefully received.

Alternatively, if there is a way of re-installing Mysql while preserving and re-importing the existing DBs, this would be a possibility.

Installed system version: OSX 10.11.4 (15E65)

Edits:

I believe my mysql version was installed under homebrew, but it was some time ago (2yrs +) when I was less proficient, and I'm unable to recall the details.

brew list does not include mysql, so that is not the case.

pointcloud:mysql james$ brew list
eigen       ilmbase     libpng      opencv      python      x264
ffmpeg      jpeg        libtiff     openexr     readline    xvid
gdbm        lame        numpy       openssl     sqlite

Searching for mysql binaries in the file system:

pointcloud:var james$ sudo find / -type f -name mysql
find: /dev/fd/3: Not a directory
find: /dev/fd/4: Not a directory
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2016-11-26-201238/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.6.22/bin/mysql
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2016-11-26-201238/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.7.9/bin/mysql
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2016-12-12-110455/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.6.22/bin/mysql
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2016-12-12-110455/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.7.9/bin/mysql
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2017-01-02-114333/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.6.22/bin/mysql
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2017-01-02-114333/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.7.9/bin/mysql
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2017-01-04-122725/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.6.22/bin/mysql
/Volumes/Ironside II/Backups.backupdb/pointcloud/2017-01-04-122725/Macintosh HD/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.7.9/bin/mysql

It appears, evidenced by the backups, that at some previous (recent) point, the Homebrew version of mysql was uninstalled, leaving the data intact.

Reinstalling with brew install mysql returned full functionality.


I keep deleting files but my Macbook Pro hard drive is still full I have a MacBook Pro (late 2011) with a 500Gb SSD hard drive.

Today suddenly it said that my hard drive was full, so I started removing the files. Got rid of lots of Gigas, even the sleepimage file, emptied all the trashes, etc.

Still, it shows like nothing was deleted, only has 500 Mb free and nothing is changing.

Do you know what the problem could be?

Probably TimeMachine local snapshots is enabled on your Mac. Local snapshots are basically backup files stored on your local hard-disk (as opposed to regular ones stored on the external TimeMachine volume). This is a useful feature for people who travel a lot, so they can revert files to recent versions even when they are not connected to their home TimeMachine.

To disable "local snapshots" open Terminal and enter sudo tmutil disablelocal and hit ↵.
Enter your password at the prompt (the password  will not be visible) and hit ↵ again.
Enter exit, hit ↵ and quit Terminal.

Now check in Finder and Disk Utility if you regained valuable disk space.

To reenable local snapshots just enter sudo tmutil enablelocal.


How can I find out when my Macbook Pro turned itself on? I'm trying to track down a problem where my MPB occasionally turns itself on while still closed. Perhaps if I can identify the time it happens, it will reveal something useful. In the most recent case, I found it on at 7:25am, and the battery was at 73%, so I'd guess it hadn't been for more than an hour.

There's not much in system.log. At 4am these messages appear, but that's it:

Feb  6 04:02:08 Steves-MacBook-Pro-3 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.sandboxd[6466]): Service exited due to SIGALRM | sent by kernel_task[0]
Feb  6 04:02:08 Steves-MacBook-Pro-3 syslogd[56]: ASL Sender Statistics
Feb  6 04:02:09 Steves-MacBook-Pro-3 Dropbox[892]: [0206/040209.126924:WARNING:dns_config_service_posix.cc(326)] Failed to read DnsConfig.
Feb  6 04:02:13 Steves-MacBook-Pro-3 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.bsd.dirhelper[6657]): Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.bsd.dirhelper
Feb  6 07:25:40 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME 1549398340 0

Where else can I look?

Update:

Edited section of pmset -g log:

2019-02-06 00:00:30 +1100 Assertions            PID 113(hidd) TurnedOn UserIsActive "com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle.4294970902.3" 00:00:00  id:0x0x900008dda [System: DeclUser kDisp]
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 Kernel Client Acks    Delays to Sleep notifications: [AppleThunderboltNHIType2 driver is slow(msg: WillChangeState to 2)(366 ms)]
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 Assertions            PID 71(powerd) Created InternalPreventSleep "Holding in darkwake for up to 30 seconds to update inactivity prediction" 00:00:00  id:0x0xd000093b4 [System: DeclUser SRPrevSleep kCPU kDisp]
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 Assertions            PID 113(hidd) TurnedOn UserIsActive "com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle.4294970902.3" 00:00:00  id:0x0x900008dda [System: DeclUser SRPrevSleep kCPU kDisp]
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 com.apple.sleepservices.sessionStarted    SleepService: window begins with cap time=180 secs
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 DarkWake              DarkWake from Standby [CDNP] due to RTC/SleepService: Using BATT (Charge:97%)
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 HibernateStats        hibmode=3 standbydelay=10800                                                          34
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 WakeTime              WakeTime: 1.693 sec
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 Kernel Client Acks    Delays to Wake notifications: [AppleIntelFramebuffer driver is slow(msg: SetState to 1)(495 ms)]
2019-02-06 04:02:08 +1100 Assertions            PID 183(mDNSResponder) Created MaintenanceWake "mDNSResponder:maintenance" 00:00:00  id:0x0xd000093ba [System: PrevIdle DeclUser PushSrvc SRPrevSleep kCPU kDisp]
2019-02-06 04:02:09 +1100 Assertions            PID 183(mDNSResponder) Released MaintenanceWake "mDNSResponder:maintenance" 00:00:00  id:0x0xd000093ba [System: PrevIdle DeclUser PushSrvc SRPrevSleep kCPU kDisp]
2019-02-06 04:02:09 +1100 Assertions            PID 113(hidd) TurnedOn UserIsActive "com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle.4294970902.3" 00:00:00  id:0x0x900008dda [System: DeclUser PushSrvc SRPrevSleep kCPU kDisp]
[repeats ~10 times]
2019-02-06 04:02:09 +1100 Notification          Next largest inactivity window start:'2019-02-07 00:00:00 +1100' end:'2019-02-07 04:00:00 +1100'
2019-02-06 04:02:09 +1100 Assertions            PID 71(powerd) Released InternalPreventSleep "Holding in darkwake for up to 30 seconds to update inactivity prediction" 00:00:00  id:0x0xd000093b4 [System: DeclUser PushSrvc kCPU kDisp]
[repeats ~165 times]

2019-02-06 07:25:47 +1100 HibernateStats        hibmode=0 standbydelay=0                                                              0
Sleep/Wakes since boot at 2019-02-04 19:28:51 +1100 :0   Dark Wake Count in this sleep cycle:3

You could try looking at the output of pmset -g log.  You didn't specify your macOS version, but the last three OS versions (at least) have this utility.

It outputs a log of power-related events:

...
2019-01-30 02:21:22 -0800 DarkWake              DarkWake from Normal Sleep [CDN] due to RTC/SleepService: Using AC (Charge:100%) 45 secs
2019-01-30 02:21:22 -0800 HibernateStats        hibmode=3 standbydelay=1800                                                           187
2019-01-30 02:21:22 -0800 WakeTime              WakeTime: 1.799 sec
...
2019-01-30 08:37:56 -0800 Assertions            PID 3724(PowerChime) Released DisplayWake "com.apple.chimeOnAttach" 00:00:04  id:0x0xe000090b9 [System: PrevIdle DeclUser BGTask SRPrevSleep IPushSrvc kCPU kDisp]
Sleep/Wakes since boot:0   Dark Wake Count in this sleep cycle:7

Dark wakes are when the system wakes up to perform some limited activity.  If you see lots and lots of dark wakes in a sleep cycle it might be somewhat problematic.

More often, it's something like a Bluetooth mouse or other network device being allowed to wake the system, which you might also see in the power log as a wake event.