Which Terminal theme and plugin is this I came across the following screenshot of someone's Terminal and I'd like to know how that person managed to display the full path on top. I also like the color scheme.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

My bet is on the agnoster zsh theme with a custom color scheme.

RobbyRussell Angoster theme for zsh

You may need to install Oh-My-Zsh first. For that, take a look at ohmyzsh


New thunderbolt MacBook Air and external monitors Does the MB Air with thunderbolt only connect with Apples Thunderbolt monitor?
What are the options for third party monitors with DVI or VGA?

They're the same as for other computers with Thunderbolt:

DVI/VGA/HDMI with cheap passive Mini DisplayPort adapters (audio is included over HDMI, assuming your adapter supports it)
dual-link DVI with a more-expensive active Mini DisplayPort adapter
any native DisplayPort monitor (many mid-to-high-end monitors already have them)
any Thunderbolt monitor (all one of them currently announced)

You can use any Mini DisplayPort adapter that you might already have, or any that are available for purchase. I have my brand-new 2011 MBA hooked up with a Monoprice MDP->DVI adapter right now.


hardlinks: does "original" mean anything? man rdfind discusses the rules to decide which file is the original when it finds a duplicate.
When all the others are hard links to the "original," does that really mean anything?  I thought the actual file was identified by the node, and that each directory/filename just contained the same node.
Is there any significant difference—actually something in the directory entries that can identify afterward which is the original?  (with hard links; obviously symlinks are different)

As far as I know: No, there's no way of telling which is the "original" with hard links.
When rdfind merges multiple files into a single file with multiple hard links, it needs some way to decide which set of timestamps and access rights to keep. Hence the heuristics for deciding which file is the original.


DNS: Search Domains not working correctly? I am running OSX Lion.

I've looked all over the web for solutions to the issue I'm having and can't find a fix.  I've found several entries where uses are trying to resolve custom_hostname.dev (etc, etc), but I'm actually trying to use the search domains for FQDN.  I do not have access to the DNS systems, so my system is assigned some DNS server IPs, but I  have to manually set all the search domains for some of the hosts.  For example:

search loc1.sitea.example.net, loc2.sitea.example.net, loc1siteb.example.net

Let's say  host mytesthost is in loc2.sitea.example.net.  I would have expected that when I type in mytesthost, that it would search the search domains and resolve an IP, however, in order for this to work, I actually have to type in mytesthost.loc2.sitea.example.net.

The "error" I get is "unknown host", which tells me that it is not resolving the hostname.

Any thoughts?

The domains in the search directive should be separated by whitespace only, not commas.  So replace

search loc1.sitea.example.net, loc2.sitea.example.net, loc1siteb.example.net

with

search loc1.sitea.example.net loc2.sitea.example.net loc1siteb.example.net

and try it again.  Note that in general it is better supported if you set these things up via System Preferences and then you don't get syntax problems like this.

System Preferences -> Network -> [Select the interface from the list on the left] -> Advanced... -> DNS -> Search Domains:


How does Apple Pay on OS X/Safari know to use the iPhone or Apple Watch? When I purchase something using Safari and the Apple Pay option, I either get to pay with my iPhone or Apple Watch.

The selection isn't consistent.

How does Apple Pay on iOS choose to send the verification (to a given device)?

If you're wearing an authenticated Apple Watch, you'll be asked to verify the payment with your Apple Watch. If you're not wearing it, then this won't be an available option, in which case you'd need to use your iPhone instead.

If this doesn't answer the situation in your experience, then you may need to provide more details/examples of what is happening for you.


How does the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter DAC compare to the internal iPhone DAC? This question is in light of the new iPhone 7, but is relevant to older iPhones as well since the adapter works with all Lightning iPhones running iOS 10.

Since the Lightning port is digital-only, the Lightning to 3.5mm connector must contain a Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC). Since the sound quality will depend largely on this DAC, how does it compare to the DAC contained in the iPhone and used traditionally for the headphone jack?

Edit: After receiving the adapter and subjectively A/B testing it with my Sennheiser 598 headphones for an hour or so, I did not notice any difference between my iPhone 5 analog output and my iPhone 5 with lightning to headphone adapter. See @timothymh's answer for quantitative details.

It is imperceptibly worse than the standard iPhone DAC + amplifier + headphone jack.

Regarding the debate over whether it contains its own DAC, iFixit looked into this, in collaboration with Creative Electron, by x-raying an adapter and investigated what they saw. According to iFixit, it is likely that it contains, at minimum, “a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and amplifier, and its counterpart, an analog-to-digital-converter (ADC).” If you’re interested in learning more about that, read their article.

Also on that page, they refer to German computer tech magazine c’t, which conducted a detailed study into the sound quality of the iPhone 7 with adapter when compared to an iPhone 6s and an iPad Air with and without the adapter. Below is their English translation of c’t’s findings:

If you compare the contents of the various columns, you can see that there is very little difference in output with and without the adapter, though dynamic range and output power are very slightly reduced—well below the threshold of human perception. From iFixit’s article:

  So, is it a difference you are likely to notice? If you sit in a quiet room with a really, really good pair of headphones … and you’re a canine, the answer is: maybe.

The numbers do show a reduced output impedance on he new models, which will improve frequency response with certain headphones. For optimal performance over the full frequency range, headphones with x impedance should be driven by an amplifier with an output impedance of no more than x/8. The iPhone 6s, with its 4.5Ω impedance, can drive headphones with impedance greater than 36Ω, which excludes many smaller in-ear models. The adapter's 0.37Ω impedance can accurately drive headphones as low as 3Ω—lower than any on the market.

In summary, if you have high-quality in-ear monitors, you may experience a small but noticeable increase in audio quality with the new adapter. Everyone else will experience an imperceptible decrease.


Given the following circumstances, how can I jailbreak my iPhone 6+ So, I want to jailbreak my iPhone, I know my options but lack the resources or knowledge.

Here's what I've got: Windows 10 64 bit PC, iPhone 6+ 128gb on iOS 12.4.6, MACOS High Sierra vbox machine.

First option: Use Checkra1n jailbreak on my vbox machine and directly solve the issue.

First Problem: I cannot connect my iPhone directly to the VM as it detects the device as a USB 3.0 and not an actual phone. I have the vbox extension pack installed, 'USB 3.0' USB controller and the iPhone filter applied but checkra1n will never detect the phone in order to apply the jailbreak.

Second option: Downgrade the iPhone to the jailbreakable, unsigned iOS 12.4 version using itunes and ipsw's and use the unc0ver app on the phone.

Second problem: 12.4 is unsigned. Can't downgrade as far as I know.

Third option: You tell me. Please.

What I'm asking is to let me know how to solve the problems listed above or supply a working alternative method to the circumstance

Thank you.

There is currently no way to jailbreak (as far as I know) using a virtual machine

Instead here is what i recommend you do (source):

  Download bootra1n 0.10.1

  Download Rufus, press SELECT, open the ISO file, and press START to flash it to your USB drive.

  Reboot your computer and enter your BIOS's boot menu.

  Select the flash drive, and it should boot into the login prompt
  Log in as anon, with password voidlinux
  At the $ prompt, enter sudo checkra1n

Further information can be found here


Airport Extreme - USB Disk as network disk for Windows and Mac, what format? I want to share a USB disk via Airport Extreme as a network disk for our Mac and Windows environment. To read and write on the disk, I've set it up as FAT32 (max 4GB files) and I can connect with it with all computers.

The problem is now, when I add a file / folder.. it's being displayed for 2 seconds and it hides itself (as it doesn't exist).

So, how should I format the USB disk so I can use it as network disk and write / read stuff on it?

From https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202807

  Supported formats: Mac OS Extended (HFS-plus), FAT16, FAT32

  If HFS+ formatting is used, AFP and Microsoft SMB/CIFS protocols are
  used to share the device on the network. If a FAT16/32 format is used,
  only SMB/CIFS protocols are used and AFP won't be available.

So if you are using FAT32 and connecting to it from Mac and Windows using SMB it should work fine.


Move Archived Outlook Data Record to external storage I'm keeping a lot of old email archived in the OLM files (I was using PST in the PC). Unfortunately this is using 20GB of my 128 SSD and I'd like to move them in an external disk. What is the best way to do this?

The OLM file is a standalone file, so all that you need to do is move that file to your external disk.  I have an external hard drive that I use for holding files that I want to keep but don't necessarily need daily access to.  In the Finder, I drag the file from my laptop hard drive to a folder that I've named "Outlook archives" on my external hard drive.


User account creation date time? I am using a shared mac in which a new user account was created by another user.  I want to know the dateTime of the account creation.  Is there a way to find it out without asking the peer?

A quick way to do it would be to go to the directory
/Users

And add the Date Created option via the View Options

This assumes that the home directory was created at the same time of account itself


Can I own an existing install of Logic Pro X from a used Mac? I'm looking at buying a used MacBook Pro on that comes with Logic Pro X that's running Sierra.

However I need to roll it back to El Capitan so it will run my UA Apollo console software. It's not yet compatible with macOS Sierra.

My question is, since it's already on the computer, if I sign into my Apple ID before I roll back, will I then 'own' Logic Pro X so I can install it again after I reformat from the Mac App Store?

The app, Logic Pro X in this case but it could be any Mac App Store app, remains tied to the account that purchased it, regardless of the currently authenticated account in the App Store app. Updating the app would require you to enter the Apple ID that purchased the app, and it is not possible to transfer ownership of an app from one Apple ID to another.

If you wish to keep the app, you can copy it to an external drive. The app is still linked to the old Apple ID, but you can use it either from the external drive or by copying it back after you've done whatever you need to do on the internal disk. You'll still not be able to update the app.


How to image USB drives without having OS X mount them afterwards I am using OS X to write USB drives. I have a disk image and am using dd to the raw device to create the drive image. The problem I'm having is that OS X is automatically mounting the drives as soon as they are imaged. I'd like to prevent this behavior. Is there any way to do so?

Download, install and start Disk-Arbitrator. Activate it in "block mount" mode.

Now execute sudo dd if=/path/to/file of=/dev/diskN [operands]. The resulting volume won't be mounted and no file will be created nor a folder will be changed:

sh-3.2# ls -laO
total 0
drwxrwxr-x  7 user      staff  -      306 17 Jan 22:21 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 8 root      admin  hidden 272 17 Jan 23:11 ..
drwx------  5 root      wheel  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt@ 2 root      wheel  hidden  68 17 Jan 22:21 .Trashes
drwx------  5 root      staff  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .fseventsd

Original image content:

drwxrwxr-x  7 user      staff  -      306 17 Jan 22:21 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 9 root      admin  hidden 306 17 Jan 23:23 ..
drwx------  5 root      wheel  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt  2 root      wheel  hidden  68 17 Jan 22:21 .Trashes
drwx------  5 root      staff  -      170 17 Jan 22:21 .fseventsd

Don't forget to deactivate Disk Arbitrator after finishing the cloning.

My first proposal below modifies at least some metadata of the folders /Volumes/VolumeName/.Trashes and /Volumes/VolumeName/.fseventsd

Simply appending && diskutil eject /dev/diskN after dd'ing should work:

sudo dd if=/path/to/file of=/dev/diskN [operands] && diskutil eject /dev/diskN

Upon completion of the dd command this should immediately eject the thumb drive.


Didn't Apple use to provide USB stick with OS X on it? I'm quite new to the Apple Mac world, and I've been told that some of the older macs used to include a USB stick to boot the OSX Mountain Lion.
I have a Macbook Pro with Mavericks, and there was no USB stick included. Did they discontinue this?

Yes, The USB recovery drive shipped first with a MacBook Air and Lion was also sold as a full retail OS on USB write only format instead of the retail DVD/CD that used to be available for purchase.

Apple discontinued this practice a few years ago and has started distributing OS X via the App Store exclusively as a digital download. You can make a bootable version of the installer from the App Store version if you have a USB stick handy.

There's a free, AppleScript-based program called DiskMaker X that will help you build a bootable USB stick for Mavericks. You'll have to download the installer from the App Store first. Just cancel the installation after the download and Mavericks will remain in your Applications folder for DiskMaker X to find and use.


Can I boot from a "bootable clone" on different Mac models? As part of my backup process I create a bootable clone of the HDD of my iMac. I have booted my iMac from the backup to test it works, this would be fine in the case of the original drive in my iMac failing.

However, would I be able to boot a MacBook from this backup?

The short answer is "yes".

So long as the Mac model was supported for that version of Mac OS X then you can boot it off a system built on any other Mac. This means that extremely old machines may not work with a recent OS X and brand new machines won't work with older versions of OS X but generally you will be OK.


How to actually select the tab that you search for on safari I love how you can search for tabs in safari by typing shift⌘\ and you get something like this

However the most important part to me is actually simply selecting that tab and start using it. Right now after the search I have to leave the keyboard and tap with my mouse, which is a huge productivity fail. I should be able to simply select it with my keyboard. How do I do that?

This is not an answer, but alternative approach(es).

One can use ⌘ + ⇧+/. This will open Safari Help and from that one can enter search word(s). There will be tabs list displayed with status/day (tabs currently open, Recently Closed, Earlier Today, by dates etc) and address. Everything what is available in Safari menus (history, recently open etc) will be displayed. This will work over all tabs, not only tabs in active window. Arrows + enter for navigation and selecting. This is text based and not visual search.

One can also use Window menu on Menu Bar. Last block there is all tabs open in Safari.

One can enable Alternate Control Methods in System Preferences > Accessibility > Pointer Control. Namely "Enable alternate pointer actions" and "Enable header pointer". Then set face expressions for "Left Click" and "Use a switch or facial expression to pause or resume".

If you reach the point displayed on your screenshot switch on head pointer with facial expression ("Raise Eyebrows" for example), move pointer with your head to the tab you want, use facial expression for Left Click ("Pucker Lips Outward" for example), pause head pointer with facial expression. It requires to have camera but it really fun to play with :-) - just raise eyebrows, look at desired tab, pucker lips outward, raise eyebrows.


OS X: Schedule Launchctl to quit application at certain time I have created this launchctl .plist for opening an application at a specific time every day – or the next time the computer wakes from sleep.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>caffeine-timecontrol.job</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Applications/Caffeine.app/Contents/MacOS/Caffeine</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key><integer>40</integer>
            <key>Hour</key><integer>7</integer>
            <key>WeekDay</key><integer>1234567</integer>
        </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

The above is supposed to wake app Caffeine at 7:40 AM Every day.

However, can I also include a clause to make the application terminate at 00:00 AM Every day if the computer is awake?

Meaning, is there an opposite to StartCalendarInterval, or would I have to go about it some other way, .e.g. via crontab?

One of these two methods should work, but I admit I have not tested them:

Either you could write an AppleScript a la

tell application "Caffeine" to quit

put this in a file, then either launch the file from an osascript command or  put it into Script Editor and save it as an application and launch that as a an app

or you could use the good old killall command. You would have to lookup the name of process of the Caffeine process and send it a

killall Caffeine

command, assuming that the process name of the Caffeine app is Caffeine (check  it from the Activity monitor or the ps command)


Can you what Apple ID is now associated with my MacBook Air using its serial number? My MacBook Air was stolen. Can you see what Apple ID is now associated with my MacBook Air using its serial number?

No, it is not possible to lookup that information for ordinary customers.

Apple has access to the information, but you cannot just call them and expect them to be able or willing to tell you. They would probably require an official request from the police with a warrant or similar.


Have Mountain Lion Messages running but hidden from dock? I use Mountain Lion (10.8.3) Messages exclusively to monitor text messages sent to my cell phone. When I first start my computer or login Messages is hidden (I don't want it in my dock) and if I receive a text message I get a banner alert from notification center. If I open the message I enter the Messages application and the running application shows up in my dock.

What I would like to do is have Messages behave as it does when I first start the computer (receiving notifications but not visible in the dock as running) all of the time (I assume it's running in the background somehow).

If I click 'Hide' on the Messages icon in the doc it remains visible, and if I quit messages entirely after reading a message I stop receiving notifications.

I have tried editing its Info.plist to include

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

as suggested in the Hide a running app from dock thread, but the behavior remains the same.

Thanks!

10.8 is a bit more strict than previous versions, with respect to what should be a boolean value.  If you change as below, it should work like you want.

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

Note that in this mode, not only is an app hidden from the dock, but the menu bar does not display either when the program is active.


Accidentally deleted everything from a directory on my Macbook using terminal I accidentally did a rm -rf * on a wrong directory on my macbook terminal. It appears that the rm command operates just like on a Linux system, where it's irreversible.

But I did back up my Mac to my external HDD so I can restore it using Time Machine, but I wanted to see if anyone knows of another, preferably quicker way to get all of my files back in the directory I used the above command in?

Restoring from backup is the way to go here, there is no magic „undo rm -rf“ command.


Is it worth upgrading my MacBook hard drive to an SSD? I have a mid 2007 white MacBook. I don't currently have the money to get a new computer (even though I'd love to). I was thinking with all the good reports coming out with the SSD performance in MacBook airs, perhaps I could get a speed boost of my own by replacing the hard drive in my computer with an SSD. I don't need a very big one so I'm thinking of spending no more than $250, but hopefully less.

The first question I have is has anyone performed the upgrade on that model of MacBook and do you have recommendations for SSD drives and tips for doing the actual upgrade?

The second question is do you think that it's worth plunking a hundred fifty bucks into a machine thats getting to its end of life cycle. Perhaps the upgrade will give the computer some new life and I can feel happy with it for another year if I can't get the money together for a new computer right away. On the other hand, is it better to just put that $200 into a piggy bank to start saving for the new airs coming out?

If it will help answer this question this is how I use my computer:

Apps that are always running:

Transmission
Dictionary
Preview
Safari (only a few tabs at a time)
Mail
Skype
iChat
Things
Notational Velocity
iCal
iTunes

Apps that I will run on top of that when I'm doing some specific task (ordered from least intensive to most):
Twitter
MarsEdit
Kindle
Reeder
Pages
Numbers
Keynote
Word
Excel
Powerpoint
iPhoto
GarageBand
iMovie
Miro

I usually run one or both of the office productivity suites at full blast, with multiple documents open in each, when I'm working as a math professor. Sometimes I run Photoshop, XCode, Coda, but not that often.

So, hopefully that helps clarify my MacBook usage.

Also, if you recommend waiting, not upgrading to SSD, but just waiting to get a new computer, do you think I could do this kind of usage on a 13" Macbook Air, or should I really think about getting the 15" Macbook Pro?

Here is a good article about the experience a user had with SSDs: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/05/the-hot-crazy-solid-state-drive-scale.html

Basically

  SSDs are so scorching hot that I'm willing to put up with their craziness.

but...

  Just make sure you have a good backup plan if you're running on a SSD.


iCloud "message size violation" when sending zip containing more than 127 files Revised question
As per Tetsujin's suggestion in the comments I did some further testing.
There seems to be a problem with iCloud and sending a zip file of a folder with a certain amount of files. There appears to be a limit of 127 files in 1 folder, regardless of file type (tried .png, .svg and .txt).
When sending the mail using the Mail app I get a message size violation error and the mail can not be sent. Using the iCloud web interface the mail does appear to be sent (no error, appears in 'sent' list) but it never arrives.
Does anyone know why this limit exists? (as Tetsujin mentioned in the comments it might be some 7-bit shenanigans)

Old question
If I try to send an email with a 1.3 MB zip file as attachment I get a message size violation error:

File sizes of the zip file and original folder (1.3 MB and 10.7 MB respectively):

At first I thought it was somehow related the original folder being more than 10 MB, but according to Apple's iCloud support page the limit is 20 MB:

Limits on sending messages
There are several safeguards in place to make sure that only iCloud members can send messages using iCloud. One of these safeguards includes reasonable limits on:

...
The size of incoming and outgoing messages (20 MB, up to 5 GB with Mail Drop turned on)

Why am I unable to send this zip file? (also: shouldn't Mail Drop kick in if it thinks the attachment is too large? It is turned on.)

I just ran into the same problem : zipped two 11.5 MB Xojo compiled apps. Sending from me.com or sending to me.com gave the 'message size violation' error.

To bypass this possible 127-file limit, I created an empty disk image with Disk Utility. Mounted it and copied the two apps onto it. Unmounted and zipped it and sent it via me.com : that worked.


How do I create a virtual machine with a disk size different than the default? I'm trying to create a virtual machine for Windows 7 x64. However VMWare Fusion automatically decides that the disk size can be 60GB and no smaller.

How do I create a virtual machine with a smaller disk?

VMWare Fusion (which I'm assuming you're using since you're posting in the Apple section) has some presets for disk space depending on the OS (20 GB for Linux, 60 GB for Windows, and 40 GB for OS X) when you create a new virtual machine. There are two ways around this:

Option 1: Create your own virtual disk

Run

/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager -c -t 0 -s 20GB -a ide myDisk.vmdk

to create a new virtual disk.   Replace "20GB" with your desired size and "myDisk.vmdk" with the desired name and path of your new disk.

When creating the machine in VMWare Fusion, in the "Choose a Virtual Disk" screen, check the option to use an existing virtual disk.

Option 2: Resize before installing
You can also resize the newly created virtual disk before the OS is installed.

Set up your VM as normal, accepting the default disk size for now.
When you get to this screen, click "Customize Settings":

Save the VM
In the Settings window, click "Hard Disk (SCSI)"
Resize your disk as needed and click "Apply"


Downloading songs from external hard dirve I'm using an external hard drive to download songs to itunes.  When I'm done syncing, I get a message saying my ipod cannot be ejected because some of the files are being used by another source.  Somehow I think some of the files from the external hard drive got downloaded onto the internal hard drive.  I'm not super computer literate but I really don't remember doing anything other than moving the file from the external hard drive to iTunes.  Why is this happening and what do I do to fix it?

When you add the music to iTunes to put on your phone, you're importing it into iTunes. If you import music into iTunes, it will get stored on your internal HD. ITunes has its own folders on your computer containing all of your files.


MacBook Pro doesn't recognize internal SSD A week ago I inserted a USB cable into my MacBook Pro (late 2013) which resulted in the laptop immediately shutting down. After a lot of searching how to boot it up again I had to reset the SMC. After this it booted normally.

A few days later the MacBook Pro started hanging and freezing from time to time.

I decided to do a clean OSX install.
After erasing the disk the SSD has never been detected again. Check the pictures:

So right now I'm unable to install OSX... Any ideas?

It may be that your hard drive is no longer working properly and needs to be replaced.  However, you can try to diagnose using the Apple Diagnostics.

If hardware problems are indicated or Apple Diagnostics does not recognize your hard drive either, it may be worth looking for a Retail Store or AASP to get it looked at.

If you are still in Apple's hardware coverage, such repair will usually be free of charge.


Identify correct guid for diskutil command I lost disk space resulting from a failed Boot Camp run.  I was trying to create a partition to run Windows 10.  Bootcamp failed to make the partition, but the allocated drive space disappeared.  This has been covered in another Ask Different thread where I got apartial solution. The command:
 "sudo diskutil cs revert [Logical Volume guid]"
will recover the space, but I need more details.  See:
Missing Space on Drive using Core Storage after Boot Camp Assistant Failure

MY QUESTION: I need clarification on the command – What is the right value for [Logical Volume guid]? This could be a dangerous command. Here is my diskutil list:

I have a MacBook Pro Retina mid-2012, 8gb memory, running High Sierra.

Any help appreciated,
Rolf

Answer:  Yes, disk space was in fact missing.  "Get Info" on Macintosh HD came up 30gb short.
Solution:  I backed up the whole disk to Time Machine, wiped it, and restored.  Needed some follow-up fixes to things like Google Drive, but all-in-all, it went well.
-Rolf


Can't kill Preview app I have strange problem, my Preview app is not responding and can't kill it.

leo-mac:~ leo$ sudo killall Preview
No matching processes were found

Force Quit button also doesn't give any result.
ps (and Activity Monitor) is empty:
leo-mac:~ leo$ ps -ax | grep -i preview
24793 ttys000    0:00.00 grep -i preview

It's not a zombie because next command is also empty:
ps aux | awk '"[Zz]" ~ $8 { printf("%s, PID = %d\n", $8, $2); }'
I really can't understand what happened. Any ideas?

I had the same problem. Workaround:

sudo killall launchservicesd
sudo killall Dock


Grant "Full Disk Access" to Workflows run via the Services menu I have an Automator Workflow installed as a service, that I run via Finder → Services → My Automator Workflow.

The workflow copies some files to a DOS formatted thumb drive, and them attempts to remove invisible directories from it before ejecting it. The device that then uses this drive doesn't like dot-directories like /.Spotlight-V100/.

Inside that Workflow is an AppleScript step, which includes a do shell script command, which uses an /bin/rm command which fails with the message:

The action “Run AppleScript” encountered an error: “rm: /Volumes/MERCEDES/.Spotlight-V100: Operation not permitted”

If I launch the workflow in Automator, I get the same error.

BUT, if I add Automator.app in System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → Full Disk Access, I no longer get that error when I run the Workflow from Automator, but I still get it when I run from Finder.

So, naturally, I presume that when the script is run by the Services menu, it's different process running it, and I've been trying to figure out (by watching Activity Monitor) what process is so I can whitelist. Processes I've tried unsuccessfully:

com.automator.runner.xpc
ScriptMonitor.app
rm

Does anyone know which process needs to be whitelisted for this use case?

The problem is that the automator service inherits the permissions of the application it's running from.

Automator has Full Disk Access. So, if you run it from Automator, it works!

But let's say you're running Chess.app, and from the top menu, you select Chess → Services → My Automator Workflow. Chess.app does not have full disk access, so the workflow fails. I expect that if you grant Chess.app Full Disk Access in System Preferences, the Workflow will work when run from Chess.app—but not when run from DVD Player.app.

Yes, I recognize that this is incredibly frustrating.


How to set positioning/filling of desktop background image with AppleScript How can I set the positioning/filling of the desktop background image from the command line with one of the available options listed in the Desktop & Screen Saver preferences:

Crop, SizeToFit, FillScreen, Centered, Tiled

I can set the desired background image itself using:

osascript -e "tell application \"Finder\" to set desktop picture to POSIX file \"/Library/Desktop Pictures/Beach.jpg\""

However I'm not sure how to set the positioning/tiling.

According to

'AppleScriptEditor' > File > Open Dictionary >
   Finder > Legacy Suite > Application > desktop picture

all you can do is set the picture.

There are references to messing about with the .plist file, but the internet (and Apple) are silent on an Applescript-approved route.

This plist is empty for me in Sierra:  ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist so I imagine Apple have hidden what used to be there inside one of their even less well documented databases.


Apps connect to unknown IP Thanks to Little Snitch I've noticed that a lot of apps installed on my MacBook (El Capitan with latest updates) connect to an IP address in The Netherlands (23.74.205.239, registered with Akamai). As I couldn't find any more info on this I am wondering what to do?

So far I've blocked the IP on the system level and scanned my system with "MalwareBytes" without any problems. Strangely enough all that seems to happen is a connect but no data transfer (according to Little Snitch, with blockage of IP temporarily disabled). There is also no clear heuristic of which apps connect, the only thing: native Apple apps (iTunes, ...) are not affected. But if an app connects it does so with every start.

I am starting to worry because a few days ago I got a security notification by Cloudflare while accessing a website.

I am really curious what to make of all of this, and would appreciate any help or suggestions.

As Tetsujin mentioned in the comments, Akamai is simply a content delivery service with servers & data centers around the world. The advantage to developers and companies is they get to access the closest server to your location for their ads or app content.

Many ad networks use Akamai to get their ads and apps that use analytic services use them to get/send their data.  I'm about 99% sure there's nothing for you to worry about regarding the connections. You ran Malwarebytes and it said it didn't notice a problem and that's good.


How do I remove a stuck Mini CD from the SuperDrive on a Macbook Pro? I have a 2010 13" MacBook Pro that someone inserted one of those Mini CD type discs in to. The SuperDrive happily ingested the media but now refuses to spit it out. It does not show up as a mounted drive in Disk Utility.

I tried starting the machine up while holding down the Eject key and the SuperDrive makes a few clicks, but the media doesn't eject and the OS boots as normal.

There does not appear to be a hole on the outside of the Macbook where I might be able to insert a paperclip to push the media out.

Is there any way to get the disk out of the drive or am I destined for a Genius Bar appointment?

Do not stick anything else in the slot. Really.

The inject / eject mechanism is keyed for a full sized disc and you don't want to wedge it in the wrong direction or retract that delicate part any further by fishing around inside the narrow slot. There is no eject button so you will need either luck or finesse and skill to get the CD out.

Power down the Mac and hold it firmly with the Apple logo facing you at chest height with the CD slot pointing to your lap. Gently rock and shake it to see if the CD is loose and encourage it to peek out the felt skirt that is inside the unibody enclosure.

Your Mac when powered off is very strong and you gently start it down and then quite forcefully yank it back up vertically. One or two shakes is all it takes to get the mini CD poking out just a bit. At that point, the felt will hold it and you can return the Mac to a level table and use tweezers or needle nose pliers or nimble fingers to remove the CD.

If you can't get it out - take it in for service. Unless you work on these regularly, you don't know which model superdrive is in your Mac and how hard, deep, gentle you can be with tools to help dislodge the CD. Also, if you are comfortable popping the back off your Mac - you could use iFixit to get to the drive itself and the CD will likely fall out once you have that component out of the Mac and away from the felt skirt.

Again, have a good firm grip - if you are so nervous that your palms are sweaty, that's your signal to see about getting a technician to help or waiting a bit to convince yourself you can shake it loose. These computers are made to endure UPS and FedEx shipping, packing in luggage in a bumpy car and your shaking should be on that level of violence and no more. If it's lodged behind the eject mechanism, you'll need someone to get inside and clear things in most cases.


About This Mac Shows 43 GB of Backups, Disk Inventory X Shows 0 GB, Need to delete Backups Currently in About This Mac, I'm seeing 43.05 GB of 128.47 GB of Backups.

However, in Disk Inventory X, I do not see these backups:

I want to delete these Backups as I do not need them anymore, how should I go about doing this?

Info:
MacBook Air mid 2011

You may notice a difference in available space statistics between Disk Utility, Finder, and Get Info inspectors. This is expected and can be safely ignored. The Finder displays the available space on the disk without accounting for the local snapshots, because local snapshots will surrender their disk space if needed.

This also applies to Disk Inventory X. Local snapshots are hidden from view and you don't need to think about them. They will be deleted automatically when disk space drops below a certain percentage (20%, I believe).

You can enter Time Machine and remove the snapshots from there but you should not do this. They don't really take any space, since they give it up immediately when needed, and backups are a good thing.

More information: http://pondini.org/TM/30.html


Does Garageband update with High Sierra updates I am running Mavericks om my Mac and using Garageband 10.1.2 .

I want to update my computer to MacOS High Sierra, but I do not want to change my Garageband version

Does Garageband get updated along with the High Sierra update of MacOS?

As far as I could see in the HighSierra installer there is no Garageband included in the apps list.
No guarantee, I did not try this:
You could download Garageband before the OS upgrade (in the Purchased list in Appstore), back it up.
Then "uninstall the actual Garageband in the Applications folder
Then download the HighSierra installer (Appstore Featured).
After updating to HighSierra it should not be there.
Then you install the backed up Garageband, I am not sure that it will install, but I suppose it does. Then try and see if it runs correctly, do not update.


Where has Numbers gone? I created several spreadsheets in Numbers.  Lately I have been using Excel, which won't open them.  I can't find Numbers in my application folder--is it hiding somewhere??

It generally is located in your Application folder, though may also be in a folder entitled iWork within Applications.

You can try using Spotlight to find Numbers, if necessary...


How to refer to Applescript dictionary objects with spaces in the name I'm trying to write an Applescript that accesses EyeTV (yes, I still have one running!). I'm trying to list the recordings in the programs window. From the dictionary:

application n [see also Standard Suite] : the EyeTV application
  elements
   contains player_windows, programs, recordings, channels, favorites lists.
  properties
   current recording (double integer, r/o) : unique id of the current (frontmost) recording. Returns 0 if there is none.
  programs window (programs_window, r/o) : schedule dialog

Further down in the dictionary is:

programs_window n [inh. window] : window containing the list of programs and recordings
  elements
   contains programs, recordings.
  properties
   selection (list of list) : A list containing every selected recording, channel or schedule (program) in the programs window, depending on what the current category is.

If I right click the dictionary and choose "New script" it will helpfully start the script for me:

tell application "EyeTV"

end tell

I then add the line that is the problem:

tell application "EyeTV"
    set recordList to recordings of programs window
end tell

If I compile this I get "Syntax Error Expected end of line but found class name."

If I use programs_window instead, on running the script the error will be The variable programs_window is not defined.

I found a script someone else has written to export recordings from EyeTV to Plex, and it uses programs window. If I copy and paste the whole script and try to compile it I again receive the error Syntax Error Expected end of line but found class name.

I'm unsure how to proceed. Should I be referring to the programs window property of the application or the programs_window class? How can I get rid of the errors?

I have a copy of the AppleScript Language Guide but it seems to say nothing on the topic of application dictionaries.

Any help with this would be much appreciated.

There was a simple fix, make sure the application is running during the compilation phase. I find that strange considering it has the dictionary and isn't (or I assume it isn't) making any calls to the application in question, but that's the way it is.

A little digging brought up a book about Applescript a few versions back but it obviously still applies (emphasis mine).

  External Referents Needed at Compile Time

  AppleScript is a little language, leaving it up to various external
  entities such as scriptable applications (or scripting additions) to
  extend the language as needed. When the time comes to compile a
  script, if it makes any use of such externally defined extensions to
  the language, those external entities must be present, and AppleScript
  must be able to locate them, so that it can ascertain whether the
  words you’re using in your code correspond to extensions to the
  language defined in these external entities, and if so, how to
  translate them into bytecode.

This is one more instance of the ancient call to developers - please, make your error messages better.


Set up VNC to use iPad Pro with Apple Pencil as a graphics tablet I work with photoshop in my Macbook Air. I want to use my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil as an input device (because Photoshop for the iPad is still too limited for some tasks). I don't want to use Duet Display or Astropad (already tried and they don't suit me).

I managed to mirror the computer screen into the tablet using VNC client, but the tablet behaves as a trackpad:
* tap and drag = move the cursor
* double tap = click

How can I make the motion of the Apple Pencil around the screen to be exactly reproduced on my computer screen? I mean, when I tap a particular point in the tablet, have it reproduced in the screen in the same screen position?

I’m slightly expecting you’ll find this workable since AstroPad and Luna display are the best solution I know for your specific use case, but I’ll presume you have reasons to discard them as solutions.

https://lunadisplay.com/
https://astropad.com/

(Everyone else, use the tools above if you can, the tools below are the best screen share and tablet apps as well, so I highly recommend all these links)

The tool I use for Mac Remote Desktop is screens app and you can use your phone or a second iPad as a touch device or use the pencil in touch mode as you request.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/screens/id655890150

Been using screens for years, and only my full time artist colleagues use the accelerated versions, but they love the custom tools when they cant just render on iPad directly which is the case more and more. Screens is way better than the other “vnc” apps due to this feature and a few others IMO.

Also, check out touchpad if you don’t need to see the content VNC on the iPad, that is even more responsive than the above solutions.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/touchpad/id297623931


How to temporarily suspend iTunes Connect payments for app earnings? I should temporarily suspend Apple's payments for sales of my apps on AppStore.
Other markets allow you to change the minimum amount to receive your payments, or suspend payments for a few months. Is there any way to do it on iTunes Connect as well?

You can adjust your app's price tier in iTunes Connect, including making it free and including setting start and end dates for the price tier change.

See these instructions from Apple for details of the steps to take for the app itself.

See these instructions from Apple for details of the steps to take for an in-app-purchase.


Can I download the Yosemite install "app" on a MacBook Air, move it to an install USB drive, and install it on a MacBook Pro? That is, is there a difference between the Yosemite install "app" that I would get on the Mac App Store, between the one I would get on a MacBook Air vs. on a MacBook Pro?

Trying to download it on my Air and install it clean on my Pro.

The Install App that you download from the Mac App Store is a universal installer that isn't tied to a specific model/build.  Similar to the retail installation discs from earlier operating system releases.  It will install properly on any supported systems that meet the requirements.

So yes, as long as the installer is from the Mac App Store then you should be able to copy it to a thumb drive and install it on any supported Macs.


How to pay for an app using credit on my App Store card? I have £5.02 left on an App Store card and wish to buy an app costing £1.99 but it asks for a credit/debit card number. How do I get it to come off my credit?

Likely the store is just trying to make sure you are the actual person with the account, and so it is asking for verification information rather than wanting to charge your credit card. If you have already entered credit card info in the past, re-entering it will not change any of Apple's data, but will verifiy that you are the same person who set up the account.

I beleive you can also hit the "none" button beside all the credit card icons if you do not have a credit card on file and are just relying on gift card credits.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534


How can I disable the "no backup in x days" from TimeMachine? (Updated answer choice for High Sierra. See the old answer if you are still on Yosemite)

I'm running OS X Yosemite, and I want to disable the notifications from Time Machine. I rarely do a hard-drive backup because all of my essential files are in the cloud. I don't need to run timemachine as often as it suggests/warns/annoys me about.

How do I disable the notifications? Time Machine is not in the Notifications preferences, and I don't want to stop using it entirely.

When you don't have the external hard drive hooked up, go System Preferences >> Time Machine, and switch it to OFF. You will still be able to perform backups, it just won't happen automatically.

In newer OS versions, you must uncheck the Back up automatically box and then right-click on the backup disk on the right side and select Stop using ‘Time Machine’ Backups.

This is the technique that I use, and I don't see notifications.


OSX wont save external monitor screen arrangement settings, weird graphics issues with displays Ive got a 27" iMac 4.2ghz i7, 16gb ram, 8gb GPU, running OSX 10.13.6

Ive got 2x external 1080p monitors connected to it via the thunderbolt ports using 2x of these HDMI to thunderbolt adaptors

Recently Ive been having allot of issues with all 3 screens, mostly to do with the order in which they are setup in system preferences > display > arrangement. I have the screens setup as follows on my desk from left to right : 1080p display, iMac 27", 1080p display. I originally arranged the screens like this in the arrangement tab, but every time the iMac goes to sleep the arrangement seems to randomly re arrange itself, so each time the computer is turned back on i need to reset it.

Yesterday i was having allot of issues with all displays, the iMac was displaying the image below (see attached), the far left screen 1080p wasn't working, and when it did it the other 1080p and the iMac screen would dim very dark. I swapped out the HDMI to thunderbolt adaptor, and it seemed to get all screens working, but they are still not saving their arrangement settings.

Any ideas what might be wrong here and how i can fix it ?

That looks like a GPU failure and not any sort of software issue.

Have you tried making a new user account or does this garbled text happen at the pre-log in / pre boot screen?

Worst case, you would need to bring a second bootable OS to that Mac to be sure it's not the OS if you get clean graphics in the startup mode, but garbled once the OS takes control of the GPU and enables the standard rendering options.

If you can work with it normally before the image fails, make a new user account and make sure that new account has the issue before going to the trouble to make a second OS or erase/install.


Copy complete partition mapping How do I copy the whole partition map for a drive 'cloned' with DD? Same size hard drive for input and output of DD. Device block size was 4096 Bytes on input disk, 512 Bytes on output disk. Filevault 2 partitions on source.

You mustn't clone the partition map of a 4096 Byte disk to a 512 Byte disk (and vice versa) directly. 4096 Byte/512 Bytes are the device block sizes here.

The major differences are the 1st block (block=0) and the GPT header (block=1):

While the MBR (PMBR) on a 512 disk only occupies 512 bytes (Block(512)=0), the MBR on a 4096-disk occupies the whole first block and the GUID starts at block(4096)=1 (which would translate to block(512)=8).

The first GPT header on a 512 disk occupies the second block (Block(512)=1), the first GPT header on a 4096-disk occupies the whole second block and the GUID partition table starts at block(4096)=2 (which would translate to block(512)=16).

Examples:

Device block size: 512

                0           1         PMBR
                1           1         Pri GPT header
                2          32         Pri GPT table
               34           6
               40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
           409640 size-main-v      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
totalsize-1269576     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
     totalsize-40           7
     totalsize-33          32         Sec GPT table
      totalsize-1           1         Sec GPT header

Device block size: 4096 (in parenthesis the "respective" 512 start block/block size)

               0 (0)           1     (8)        PMBR
               1 (8)           1     (8)        Pri GPT header
               2(16)           4    (32)        Pri GPT table
               6(48)       51200(409600)      1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
           76806(..) size-main-v              2 GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
totalsize-158697(..)      158692(..)          3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
     totalsize-5(..)           4    (32)        Sec GPT table
     totalsize-1(..)           1     (8)        Sec GPT header

As a consequence don't clone the partition table but create it yourself:

sudo gpt create diskX #(with diskX the disk identifier of the target disk(512)

Then add the EFI, the main partition and the Recovery HD. Just start at block 40(512) on your disk(512) while multiplying the sizes of the disk(4096) partitions by 8:

sudo gpt add -b 40 -s (size-old-efi*8) -i 1 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B diskX
sudo gpt add -b 40+(size-old-efi*8) -s (size-old-main-vol*8) -i 2 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC diskX
sudo gpt add -b 40+(size-old-efi*8)+(size-old-main-vol*8) -s 1269536 -i 3 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC diskX

Your source EFI partition probably has either 51200 blocks(4096) or 76800 blocks(4096).


Does deleting a photo on iPhone also delete it from PhotoStream? I am trying to transfer my photos from my iphone 4 to my new iPhone 5c. I put all my photos in icloud in a new photo stream and shared it with my iPhone 5c and some with my macbook. If i now clear my iphone 4 completely will I lose the new photo stream with the photos that im trying to save?

As long as you don't remove the Photo Stream photos or albums from your iPhone 4, no it doesn't.

Since your Photo Stream photos and albums show up on all of your devices, whatever changes that you do on the albums will be reflected everywhere else. In this case, if you delete the Photo Stream album from your iPhone 4, your iPhone 5c will lose access to said album, too.

If you still feel uncomfortable deleting your photos, backup your photos to your Mac or Windows PC using iTunes, then delete the photos. If they are gone from your 5c, then at least you have a backup to fall back on.


Have my Mac wake me up I am currently a thousand miles away from home and will be for 2 months more. Today, another bad thing appended on my Weekend, locking myself out of my mobile, since I wrote the PIN wrongly 3 times. However, tomorrow I will have to go to work, how am I going to wake up?!

I went to Calendar and set up an event with a message with sound, but this does only make a very short sound and pops up a screen notification. These two are unlikely to wake me up.

How to tell my laptop to behave like an alarm clock?

I am not worried at all for energy consumption at the moment and I have my laptop charging.

Open the Mac App Store and search for "Alarm Clock". Take your pick from the many apps that will do the job.


How long does the DNS cache last in Mac OS X? I know I can manually flush the DNS cache, e.g. with sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder.

But how long will the cache last if I don't do this? Does it reset on a reboot?

You can flush the local DNS cache with the following command:

dscacheutil -flushcache

How long a DNS entry is cached typically depends on the TTL of that DNS record, which is configured by the DNS admin of the relevant hostname.

You can find out the (remaining) TTL of any given DNS record with the dig command:

dig apple.stackexchange.com

In the answer section you'll see the remaining TTL right next to the hostname (in this example 257 seconds).

;; ANSWER SECTION:
apple.stackexchange.com. 257    IN  A   198.252.206.16


How to link /usr/local to user specific directory? Is it possible to map the /usr/local/ path on MacOS to a directory that is unique for each user, for example ~/local/? Or is there another way to solve the following:

I trying to give each user on my MacOS server a personal homebrew installation. However the disadvantage of installing homebrew in a non-standard user directory is that all packages will need to be rebuilt from source. Homebrew only uses the binary bottles for the default /usr/local dir.

Preferably I would like each user to have a copy of homebrew in their home dir, and somehow map the /usr/local path to that directory so that the binaries still work.

Yes, you can do it - but it is relatively involved.

Essentially you could chroot each user into his own directory and replicate the filesystem in there, except for the /usr/local directory, which would then be user-specific.

To access the system directories inside the chroot, you could use bindfs, osxfs or even a NFS mount.

Far easier to just let each user have a non-default homebrew and let them rebuild all their packages as needed. By definition, not sharing one folder implies duplicate storage and work but that’s likely far less hassle to set up.


Trying to install Boot Camp Drivers on MacBook2,1 for Windows XP I am trying to install Boot Camp Drivers for windows XP on a Late 2006 MacBook (MacBook2,1) but i cannot find any drivers for it. Could you help me find some?

The Boot Camp drivers for (really) old iMacs is included on the OS X Snow Leopard installation DVD. This DVD can still be purchased from Apple. Since Snow Leopard was released in 2009, the DVD should contain the XP drives for your 2006 Mac.

Since OS X Leopard was released on DVD in late 2007, the Boot Camp drivers on this DVD should also work with a XP installation on your Mac.

Apple does have a Boot Camp - Windows XP Drivers Update 2.1 website which states the following:

  Note: This download contains complete copies of Boot Camp Windows XP Drivers (version 2.1).  If you have Boot Camp drivers already installed, it will update them.  If you do not have any Boot Camp drivers installed, it will install version 2.1 drivers onto your already installed Windows OS.

Since the Post Date is Apr 24, 2008 and the website mentions OS X Leopard, I would assume the download would contain the drivers for all 2006 Macs that can run Windows XP. The web site has a special note, which is repeated below.

  Important: Installation of Boot Camp 2.1 is required before installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)

There is also a Boot Camp Drivers Update 2.2 for Windows. However, this does not appear to contain all the XP drivers. Therefore, this update should be applied after installing Boot Camp 2.1.


MS Office 2011 Word printing range of pages fails I tried to print pages 7-8 and 11-14 of a 14 page document. Word decided it was going to print the whole document. No matter what settings I tried; whole document. Except that you can successfully print "current page".

I have seen this issue complained about for about 2 years, but did not find any solution. Only that the problem was "intermittent" and "fixed itself."

Is there any better wisdom than the workaround of printing one page at a time?

In addition, during the attempts to use the different page range settings, I saw the the preview would occasionally report the document had 28 pages. And sometimes when printing, the pages would come out in "random" order. Very strange.

I had the same problem occur and I found a solution…

When you look at the number of pages in the status bar in Word (bottom left corner) it reads something like: Page: 1 of 20 (or however many pages your document has in it).

Now go to your "Insert" Tab and look for the "Page Number" menu/button and drop it down to the "Format page numbers…"  In this dialog box, what does it read for "Page Numbering/Start at:" ?  If you have changed this setting to start at a new number, that is now the new page parameter set.

That should be the beginning of the print dialog box print range.

So say you have it set to "Start at: 9"  When you go to print the page range in the print dialog box your document is actually set now as Pages: 9-29 (instead of page 1-20).

If you only want to print the last ten pages you need to say print range "19-29".


2 iPads - does that mean double storage? I'm just wondering: if I have two iPads, can I choose which apps go on each of the iPads. The memory is almost full on both. I hope I've explained this clearly.

Yes, this is possible. I assume you're using the same Apple ID on both iPads (otherwise it isn't an issue at all). Go to the Settings app and choose iTunes & App Store. In the Automatic Downloads section, disable the switch next to 'Apps'. Once you've done this, apps will no longer automatically be installed on this iPad if you install them on the other.


Freeware for tiling windows Possible Duplicate:
  What Window Management Options exist for OS X?

I've seen many, many utilities for resizing windows (BST, Moom, Divvy, SizeUp...) but I wanted to know if there were any available for free. Most of these utilities have a free trial, but I'd expect there's at least one available completely free.

So, is there one?

BetterTouchTool is a freeware application mainly for defining custom gestures of trackpads and Magic Mice, but it also has the ability to tile windows.


Apple.ca accepts answer, Apple ID app/ iCloud doesn't? how can Apple.ca accept my answers for security questions but when I type them into the set up for iCloud their wrong?? They are each 3 letter words, so spelling & capatlization wouldn't be a. Problem :( I forgot.ca doesn't help either

If one web app works and another doesn't you would probably need to contact support to determine if the problem is with your account or with Apple's infrastructure.

Also, you will want to be sure you are really connecting to Apple sites (some computers and networks are compromised by malicious software). If you are connecting to a site that is imitating / designed to look like Apple's, that could explain the acceptance of your answers as it would actually be collecting your account details.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204759 - phishing / verified Apple websites
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201487 - change back your actual password

In that case the "fake" approves your transaction to get you to keep trying all passwords you might reuse and then when you try a legitimate Apple site you are either locked out or the malicious people/software may have changed your password.


Archive iCloud calendar How do I archive an active calendar so it's still in iCloud but doesn't sync with any devices. I can do this in Google Calendar but not sure about iCloud.

You can't selectively sync calendars on iCloud. If it's on iCloud, it goes to all your devices. You can however select which calendars get shown on a each device.

In iCal for OS X and Calendar for iPhone and iPad, there's a Calendars button in the upper right corner of each app. Tapping/clicking it will give you a list of all your calendars, grouped by what service they use (iCloud, Local, CalDAV, etc.). Simply uncheck the calendars you don't want to appear.

If you want to save a separate copy of one or more calendars as an archive, you can do that with iCal on the Mac. You can save either an iCal Archive, containing all the calendars in iCal as one bundle, or you can save individual calendars as .ics files. Both options are available under the File → Export menu in iCal. Export… will save whichever calendar is selected in the Calendars pop-over menu as a .ics, and iCal Archive… exports all your calendars.


in macOS mojave apps freezes and beachball appears for some seconds when doing tasks like loading a conversation in Messages macOS 10.14.6 on my MacBook Pro early 2015 13" with an i7 and 16GB Ram the active app freezes for some seconds when doing tasks in it, like loading conversation in Messages (happens not on every conversations, more like.. every fifth or sixth I click), clicking into Address Bar in Safari or calling up the context menu and I can't figure out why this happens. It happens at any time, means right after a restart.
It existed before the 10.14.6 update.
I uninstalled a clipboard manager which I use and thought it could have sth. to do with it... still existing.
I always look and try to figure it out via Activity Monitor, but no clues.
I booted into Safe Mode... still existing.
I reinstalled macOS via Recovery Mode... still existing.
I also tested my RAM with a memtest86 boot stick. Nothing.
My guess is it would still be present when I recover from a backup... are there any other clues or things I can try to figure this out without installing everything from scratch? Help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

This is easy to isolate.

Sign out of Messages and make sure no other app or system is causing the slowdowns. The more you get freezes, the quicker you can know that it’s just messages causing the slowdown as opposed to being impacted. YOu might open Activity Monitor and show all processes to see which are using a lot of CPU.

Then you can make a new user account. In that account - only sign in to messages - see if the slowdown is there (assuming you concluded it was the cause above).

If so - then you might check with Apple Support to be sure you don’t have an issue server side and possibly consider backing up and restoring your Mac to make sure it’s not part of the system that’s stuck or causing the slowdown.

Keep in mind, for physical hard disks - the first sign you get of imminent failure can be slow apps, so maybe make a good backup first and then test to isolate what’s slow.


whoami is not who I am! I login into my own computer as username geoff. When I open a terminal I have as prompt:

Geoffs-MacBook-Air:~ org1$

The org1 is my work username! I have no login of that username for this computer except for when I need a to access work from home, and I do this with VPN. At the moment the VPN is not connected. When I do whoami I get org1. I also did login geoff gave my pword and then did a whoami and still I get org1!

What is my computer doing? What do I need to do to have a normal prompt?

The real problem comes later, when I need (I believe I need) to use sudo and it eventually says that org1 is not in the sudoers list. I don't care for org1 I want me.

@Patrix EDIT

Geoffs-MacBook:~ org1$ id -a
uid=501(org1) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),61(localaccounts),12(everyone),402(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1)

Geoffs-MacBook:~ org1$ who am i
org1     ttys000  Dec 27 17:17

Geoffs-MacBook:~ org1$ w
w: /dev/ttys001: No such file or directory
w: /dev/ttys002: No such file or directory
w: /dev/ttys003: No such file or directory
17:18  up 29 mins, 2 users, load averages: 0.52 0.29 0.17
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
org1     console  -                16:49      28 -
org1     s000     -                17:17       - w

The org1 username is for work, which I can use remotely through a browser or VPN. There is no user on my computer with that name.

It seems that the short name and the username on your Mac do not match. To test this just type id and echo ~ to confirm that the Mac is fine, but the short name and home folder are not to your liking. Apple has an official procedure to fix this at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1428 and we have several questions here that also cover the topic when people have found that HT1428 didn't work for them.

There are several procedures to edit the short name but they're all a pain. Furthermore, they often don't clean everything up correctly and traces of the old name you didn't like will remain on the system in folders and lists. Your best bet is to go into the users preference and create a new admin user with a password that you know.

Then you can follow the steps on this other answer here to delete and re-create your account with all of your files intact and the correct short name  that you prefer. You will find that you prompt now matches the short name that you like. Before starting this process, you might make a good backup if your system just in case you make a mistake of my instructions are not clear or if the computer just crashes at the wrong time.


Update Xcode from 4.6.1 to 4.6.3 for Homebrew I have installed Xode downloading the DMG (not from the Mac App Store). Now each time I run brew doctor it says:

Your Xcode (4.6.1) is outdated
Please install Xcode 4.6.3.

But In App Store > Available Updates.. it does not appear. How can I upgrade it?

Please note that I'm not using Xcode but Xcode command-line tools (the C++ compiler) and if possible I would like to avoid reinstalling it.

I have just found this on GitHub Gists.

Try enter the following command in Terminal:

sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

Solved my brew doctor problem of Homebrew not recognising updated version of Xcode.

Also see this Homebrew compatibility guide and ensure that your OS is compatible with Command Line Tools on their own or if you need the full version of Xcode.


Remap eject key to backslash There is an eject key on the upper right corner of my Magic Keyboard. Since I'm neither using the eject key directly nor any of the shortcuts associated to it, I would like to remap it to a symbol that I use more often. That is in my case the backslash.

How can I remap the eject key to backslash, preferably without using third-party software? I'm using High Sierra version 10.13.3 on a Macbook Pro 2017.

Scripting Key Remapping

Keys can be remapped via the command-line tool hidutil. For example, use the hidutil command-line tool to remap the 'A' key to the 'B' key as shown in Listing 1. The map array consists of two key/value pairs that contain the source (HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc) and destination (HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDstKey) of the key remapping. The keys take a hexadecimal value that consists of 0x700000000 or’d with the desired keyboard usage value (see Table 1 for usage values).

Listing 1:   Remapping keys in a script Use The value From the Table Given In the Link

$ hidutil property --set '{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000004,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000005},{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000005,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000004}]}'
)

A null result indicates that there are no key remappings active.

Listing 2:  Checking Key Remapping state

$ hidutil property --get "UserKeyMapping"
(null)

  https://developer.apple.com/library/content/technotes/tn2450/_index.html


Time Machine: error occurred while enabling ownership on the backup disk Time Machine started failing on an external USB drive.

  Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “ExternalTimeMachine”.

  An error occurred while enabling ownership on the backup disk. You may
  need to repair or erase the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can’t
  be repaired, select a different disk for backups.

  Latest successful backup: January 26, 2020

I ran First Aid from Disk Utility and there are no problems.

I tried enabling ownership manually. The Ignore ownership on this volume option is missing for this Time Machine volume's Get Info in Finder whereas other volumes on the same physical drive have this option. I enabled ownership through the command line and Time Machine continues to have the same error.

$ sudo diskutil enableOwnership /dev/disk5
File system user/group ownership enabled
$ sudo diskutil enableOwnership disk5
File system user/group ownership enabled

Disk Utility reports the following:

Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
Type: CoreStorage Logical Volume
Owners: Enabled
Connection: USB
Device: disk5

I removed the backup from Time Machine and added it back. It continued the backup successfully after that. Looks like yet another brittleness in Time Machine.


Can I make double-sided printing the default? In the "Print" sheet, there's a checkbox for double-sided printing, but it's off by default.  I often end up using twice as much paper as I want to because I forget to check this.

Is there a way to make this enabled by default?

Yes. In the Print dialog, check the double-sided box.

Now, go to the Presets dropdown and click it. At the bottom of the dropdown list, you'll see "Save current settings as preset." Do that. It'll ask you to name the preset, so pick a name for it.

The OS uses the last preset you used, unless you have checked the box to return to the default settings after printing. So in a sense, the last-used preset IS the default. But there's still a "Default" choice on the presets menu, and you can examine (but not change) its settings.


Cmd+Option+Esc not working in macOS Mojave 10.14.5 I'm on macOS Mojave 10.14.5 and I'm trying to kill a process. I tried cmd+option+esc to bring up the task manager, but nothing showed up.

How do I bring up the task manager?

This is same as the shortcut you're trying. Apple logo in the menu bar in top left corner-> Force Quit. This should be done from an app whose menu bar is not in the hang(spin-ball) state. To achieve this, I normally click on desktop to get Finder.
A different approach, type Activity Monitor.app in spotlight(cmd+space) or via launchpad or via Applications folder. As your question seems like you're not talking about any application, the first method is not so useful.


Does a modern MacBook's green "camera light" always turn on when the camera is activated? Many people are seen to put strips of tape and other adhesive materials on their MacBook camera in an attempt to thwart any potential hacker from accessing their system and camera. MacBooks have a green "camera light" on the right side of the FaceTime camera on the front that seems to turn on when the camera is activated (i.e. the sensor is provided energy and transmits a signal to the motherboard).
Does the camera of a modern MacBook require that the green camera light turns on as well? In other words, is the camera light hardwired to the camera in such a way that if the camera is supplied electricity, that itself would enable the camera light? This would prevent a hacker from being able to obtain any information from the camera without the user being notified by the green light.
I've seen this question come up again and again, but no satisfactory/definitive answers were provided. The last time such a question was posted received an answer that linked to a research paper showing that it is possible to activate the camera without activating the camera light—but only on pre-2008 Macs. The answers to another question question come to a similar conclusion. A user did say that there was "[no] proof that you can do the same in post-2008 laptops," but this doesn't prove that the camera light is in fact hard-wired to the camera.
The fact that there is no proof for such an important security feature is rather strange. There must have been a group of designers and engineers who created the camera system—surely they would know and would have publicized this perhaps in an Apple support article or in an interview? Or perhaps this could have been discovered in a teardown by a group at iFixit (although I am no electrical engineer), but this doesn't seem to have happened yet. Most importantly, I would expect Apple to tout this as a security feature, but there is no mention of it on their site. Is there really 'no proof' as to whether the camera and camera light is hardwired or not?

There must have been a group of designers and engineers who created the camera and camera light system – they would surely know and have told others.

John Gruber received an email from one such former Apple engineer:

https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams

  Security researchers at Johns Hopkins released a paper in 2013 revealing that the indicator lights on Macs released prior to 2008 could be circumvented by software. I linked to this in 2016, wondering if the same exploit was possible on more recent Macs. Here’s an answer I received from a former engineer at Apple who was intimately familiar with the software drivers for Mac webcams:

    The original cameras had the problem that the JHU researchers detailed in the article that your linked to. Problem was that the firmware was downloaded on every boot and there was no security/encryption mechanism for verifying it. The part used was fairly common and the firmware was just in RAM (hence the loading after a cold boot), as oppose to flashed.

    All cameras after that one were different: The hardware team tied the LED to a hardware signal from the sensor: If the (I believe) vertical sync was active, the LED would light up. There is NO firmware control to disable/enable the LED. The actual firmware is indeed flashable, but the part is not a generic part and there are mechanisms in place to verify the image being flashed. […]

    So, no, I don’t believe that malware could be installed to enable the camera without lighting the LED. My concern would be a situation where a frame is captured so the LED is lit only for a very brief period of time.

  The still photo problem — where the light only turns on for the instant the image is being captured — is interesting. But I would wager real money that the camera indicator light cannot be circumvented by software on any Mac released this decade.

emphasis mine


My phone isn’t able to receive incoming calls from my girlfriend’s phone but can make outgoing calls to it Whenever my girlfriend calls my phone, she gets the same message you would get if you were to call someone who’s blocked you, and the call doesn’t go through. Although this happens, we’re still able to exchange texts, FaceTime each other, and I can call her. For the time being, whenever she needs to call me, she uses FaceTime audio.

I’m using an iPhone 11 running iOS 13.

Here is a list of things you could try:

Check your settings Phone > Silence Unknown Caller - disable this if enabled.
Type her number out on the dial pad to see if her number is saved as another contact on your phone that was previously blocked.
Try resetting call blocking software like TrueCaller
Try saving her number under a new contact after removing everything that showed up on Step 2 and adding the new number to favourites.


How to sort new folders alphabetically in OS X Mail? I am running OS X Yosemite and Mail v8.2. Every time I add a new folder, Mail puts them to the bottom folder structure. This is very confusing and I have to go through all folders all the time to find my stuff. I would like the mailboxes to stay in alphabetical order. How can I do that? This was just working fine in previous version.

Any good solution? Disable and Enable the IMAP account is not option.

I am running Mac OS Sierra on a late 2009 iMac 27".  My Mac iCloud account mailboxes were NOT in alphabetical order and I have too many to manually sort.  Disabling and enabling IMAP Mail for my Mac iCloud account did not work for me. This did the trick perfectly.

Stop Mac application
Run these commands at a command line prompt in bash or ksh.  (Substitute your user name where you see "steve" below.  Substitute whatever you like for "Nov-12-2016".  That is just arbitrary stuff to rename the files and to be able to find them if needed later):

cd /Users/steve/library/Mail/V4

for file in $(find . -name .mboxCache.plist)
do
    print mv $file ${file}.Nov-12-2016
    mv $file ${file}.Nov-12-2016
done

I really wish Apple would just fix this bug once and for all. But until they do, when I see my Mailboxes are out of order I will run my script.

I cannot figure out how to get this simple ksh code to format correctly here, even though I read the help and tried the code and block quote buttons.  So the code as shown has too many empty lines and spaces.  Sorry for that.

Steve Price


Is there an easy way to add, modify, or remove what files or URLs are associated with Apps? This is an attempt to write a canonical QA for this issue, as per the Meta post: Where is the list of canonical questions stored for Ask Different? I expect it to be periodically edited with the goal of becoming a comprehensive information resource.

How can I change the application that normally opens when I...

Open a link or a file

Make FTP open with Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc. instead of Finder
Set my default Mail, News or RSS reader
Have ssh connections open in iTerm but Telnet open in Terminal
Open a music app like Vox (anything but iTunes) for music
Open a zip file with WinZip for Mac instead of Finder
Do nothing when a file or URL is selected/opened

Connect a media device (camera, webcam, CD/DVD, etc.)

Prevent Photos from opening when I attach my camera
Run a script when I plug in a webcam
Automatically launch a Handbrake (or another app) when I insert an Audio CD

Also, is it possible to see, define, or edit what files, extensions are opened by Applications?  For example, I want...

Photoshop
TextEdit
Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.)
Archive Utility

Using CommandI is very useful for setting specifc apps, but I want a more "global" solution to set specifics for each application and or extension.

Is there a way to do this easily on macOS?

RCDefaultApp.

UPDATE

As of 2020, RCDefault App seems to have been abandoned.  There is another FOSS alternative - SwiftDefaultApps which is available on GitHub and via Homebrew.  It's described as a "Replacement for RCDefaultApps" and testing has shown that it functions pretty much the same way as the original.  It works on macOS 10.12.x (Sierra) through 10.15.x (Catalina).

There's a free (as in beer) application that you can use to change how macOS behaves with respect to application associations and URL, protocol, and media handling:  RCDefault App.

  RCDefaultApp is a Mac OS X 10.2 or higher preference pane that allows
  a user to set the default application used for various URL schemes,
  file extensions, file types, MIME types, and Uniform Type Identifiers

Set Default Apps

One of the most convenient uses of this application is to set your default app for common protocols like web browsing or email (setting your default browser or mail apps) or switching FTP from Finder to Firefox or Chrome.

File (Extensions) by Application

One of the more useful (and global) features is to find out what file extensions are "assigned" to a particular application.  For example, here we can see what's associated with Acrobat Pro.

Applications by Extension

The flip side to seeing what's assigned to a particular application is to see what application is assigned to a particular extension.  In this case PDF is assigned to Acrobat Pro.  From here, we can change its association to another application (like Preview).

Disable an App

One of the more useful tools (extremely useful in Lab or shared environments) is to disable certain apps, extensions, or protocols from ever being opened.  For example, in the example below, Spotify can be disabled and will not open.

Installation & Use

It's an older app and it hasn't been updated since 2009; however, I recently tested it on both El Capitan and High Sierra.
Tested still working on Mojave 10.14.1 at Oct 18.

After downloading and mounting the DMG, simply copy the file RCDefaultApp.prefPane to either of the following directories:

/Library/PreferencePanes/ - will be available systemwide for all users
~/Library/PreferencePanes/ - only availabe to your user profile

Open System Preferences and launch the utility

Pricing

It's FREE as in beer, but if you do find the utility useful, I encourage you to make a donation.  Please note that I am not in any way affiliated with the developers or the software referenced here in any way.


Send Photos via Email when accessing Camera from Lock Screen I access the camera from the lock screen all the time.  Often times I want to send those photos.  In order to send them I have to... close the camera app, reopen it, find the picture and then send it.  What a pain!

I know that Apple changed this because of some security problem, but is there anyway that it can be enabled to be able to mail photos when I access the camera app from the lock screen?

Your out of luck for now as there is currently no way to enable this functionality with the stock iOS.  That being said if you are a jail breaker there IS a jailbreak app that enables this.  That jailbreak app is called 'LockShare'


Is there a way to force Google Photos to upload in the background? I recently download the new Google Photos app for iOS, and I noticed that my photos are only uploaded when I have the app opened and in focus.

Background app refresh is on for the app.

Is there another setting I can tweak to make it upload even when I'm not using it? Otherwise I need to remember to open it from time to time to have my pictures safely backed up.

Is this a limitation in iOS that cannot be worked around? Is it something that should be programmed in the app itself and it's not?

So I was experiencing the same issue and turning off background app refresh in for Google Photos under the settings app and then turning it back on seemed to do the trick for me.
Also when phone is in power saving mode background upload also disabled.


How can I make a screenshot (printscreen) on my Macbook Pro using Windows 7? How can I make a screenshot on Macbook pro using Windows 7?
The keyboard does not include a special key for this function.

If you are using Bootcamp, Apple has provided documentation of key mappings:

  print screen = fn + ⇧ shift + F11


Is it possible to update Java7 without first uninstalling Java8? On my MacBook I've got Java 6 through 8 installed and I happen to need and use them all on a daily basis. Lately it has been bothering me that every time I want to install an update to Java7 I need to first uninstall Java8.

So my question is: is it possible to update an older release of Java (1.7) without having to uninstall the newer one (1.8)?

Trying to run the update without first removing Java 1.8 notifies me that:

You are trying to install Java 7 Update 67,
however Java 8 Update 05 is already installed.
Visit java.com/newerversionexists for more information.

And the link points to a page that doesn't even exist at the moment.

With Mac OS X 10.10 and the most recent JDK versions (7.72 and 8.25) the problem seems to have been fixed.


Is there a limit to the quantity of text one can write in Stickies? I've gotten into the (bad) habit of writing for hours within Stickies. It's fast to start up, uses very little RAM, doesn't distract me with bells and whistles or obtrusive GUI, it auto-saves, and the windows can be usually very small, which I like.

Some of my notes are becoming rather large, however, and I am wondering if there's a limit to the quantity of text one can write in Stickies (with the default font and font size). Or if the limit may be assigned to the overall quantity of text within all Stickies notes combined.

There shouldn't be. The only issue you may incur is writing too much for your RAM to handle, but that's into if you write gigabytes unto gigibytes of raw text.
The average user shouldn't.


Using Configurator 2, Prepare Device Without Changing iOS Version I essentially have an updated version of this question: How do I prepare a new device in Configurator without updating the device iOS?

I have an iOS 9.0.2 device. I want to Prepare and Supervise it with Configurator 2, but do not want to update the device to iOS 9.1. With the old Configurator, this was possible (see answer to linked question).

Does anyone know if there is a similar way to do this with the new Configurator 2?

It seems that the way Apple wants you to do this is described here:

  Update iOS beta software
  You can use Apple Configurator 2 to install beta versions of iOS software.

  To install iOS beta software on a device, select the device in the    device browser and drag the .ipsw file onto the device.

However, the specific use case described is for beta versions of iOS. In my case, I wanted to install an older (than the newest public) version of iOS. It looks like the UI is the same for doing either.

When I attempted to prepare my device this way, the process failed with error codes:

  Personalization failed: 4027
  Personalization failed: 3194

I am not clear whether this is because updating a device to less than the newest version is unsupported ... or there is some other problem. Therefore, I'm leaving this answer, but not accepting it as solved, should someone else have more to add.


Accessing Gmail From Terminal Is there a way to access my Gmail smtp account  just using the terminal or is this not possible? I saw this link but it did not help:

https://medium.com/@stessyco/gmail-from-the-command-line-with-mutt-mac-os-x-92d047bcd74f

What specifically didn't work was the configuration file. I edited it with my gmail specs as stated in the tutorial, but when I ran it, nothing happened.

I'm sure that by "access my Gmail smtp account just using the terminal" you mean "Using a command line program in the terminal" :)

I personally don't use Mutt and don't know the program. However, it is one of the best command line email client.

Everything seems to be well explained on the webpage you provide via the link

I'm using alpine (same concept). Here is a tuto: How to set Alpine and gmail


/etc/launchd.conf setenv value containing whitespace In my /etc/launchd.conf file, I added these lines in an effort to figure out exactly how to create globally scoped environment variables whose values contain whitespace.

setenv foo1 123456
setenv foo2 "123456"
setenv foo3 123\ 456
setenv foo4 "123\ 456"
setenv foo5 "123 456"
setenv foo6 "123\\ 456"
setenv foo7 '123456'
setenv foo8 '123 456'
setenv foo9 '123\ 456'
setenv foo10 '123\\ 456'

To see what stuck and what the results were, I ran set | grep foo. The result:

foo1=123456
foo2='"123456"'
foo7=''\''123456'\'''

I'm out of ideas. Is this even possible? If so, what's the syntax?

Use export instead of setenv.

export foo1=123456
export foo2="123456"   # foo2 should now have the same value as foo1
export foo3=123\ 456
export foo4="123 456"  # foo4 should now have the same value as foo3


Can I Delete Specific Apps Through Terminal while booted to recovery or an os installer? I think I have a failed installation issue from trying to install Catalina. Apparently there wasn’t enough space, and when it restarted I wasn’t able to log into my MacBook. Every time I do, the progress bar goes halfway, and then the MacBook shuts down.

I’ve tried to use command + S boot up, but it just shows the login screen as usual. It doesn’t show the terminal, except when I shut it back down or restart (for a brief second).

This means I have to use recovery mode’s terminal. I need to use the terminal in recovery mode to delete my Adobe apps so I can free up space to reinstall Catalina from recovery mode.
The problem is, when I navigate to cd /Applications, there’s nothing but Safari.app and Utilities. How do I find my Adobe apps?!

I ran ls in cd /Volumes, and it says:

Macintosh HD
Macintosh HD - Data
macOS Base System

Using the Terminal app. Look in /Volumes to see if the name of your normal desktop hard drive is there.

If so cd to /Volumes/< Insert your home volume name >/Applications

That will take you to the applications folder of your desktop.  Where you can remove unneeded items.

If not present, you will need to mount it.  If using a standard disk with a recovery volume you can issue the following command (with root permission)

mkdir /Volumes/mydrive
mount /dev/disk1s5 /Volumes/mydrive
cd /Volumes/mydrive

an "ls" should show you the Applications directory where you can remove the needed items.


I have an Iphone 6 and I dont have the Start New Conversations from option I do not have the start new conversation from option, I was close to fixing this issue following your direction, and then I hit this issue. Its just not there it ends with the "add another email..." option. This is so aggravating its confusing all of my messages to everybody, its caused me so much verbal pain and misconstruction. LOL...i think im laughing out loud i dont know

If you are showing a conversation, go back to Messages.  (Top Left on your screen)  Then at the top right side you will see an icon to start a new message.

See picture below.

Apple Support has more help for you too.
Hope this helps you.


Text Stuck in Message Field Using an iPhone 4 and within Messages, a previously sent message text is stuck within the text box!

Whenever I open a new message window, the text box shows with the old message text pre-populated within it and I have to delete the text and then type out my message.

Even for SMS replies, the message field shows the old text always and I am having to delete it manually in order to type a new one.

This is happening with iMessage ON and OFF and I have restarted the phone as well as reset it from an iTunes backup but still the issue persists.

Is there away way I can erase the text permanently so that I get a blank message field when I send a new sms?

Had a similar "stuck in message" problem. Powering off/powering on fixed the issue....


How best to isolate my development environment on OS X? What is the current best practice for setting up a development environment on OS X?

I recently got a new Mac with OS X 10.10, Yosemite.

I'm familiar with homebrew, and from my Linux experience, also with VirtualBox and using (headless) VMs. However, I know virtually (pun intended) nothing about Docker.

I'm a developer and have recently begun learning Node.js and Meteor. I have worked in the past mostly with Python on Linux machines. However, since 2013 I've had a self-imposed break from daily development while I've returned to school to earn a new degree.

A lot has changed since I left full-time development work in 2013 (I should have done a better job of staying on top of things). Now there's Docker, I'm hearing about Ansible for the first time, Homebrew is still around, no one seems to be using MacPorts anymore, and I feel completely lost with regard to figuring out the optimal way to setup my new machine for Node, Python, and C/C++ development.

My primary concern, aside from being free to play with and develop apps in Node, Python, and C/C++, is that my development environment must not interfere with my OS and daily computing life at all. For instance, when I got my first Mac back in 2009, I used homebrew to install Python and several packages, and at some point my system got somewhat screwed up with all the cruft I put on it.

I definitely want to avoid that. If that means using a VM or container (I'm not sure what the difference is, btw) to do all my development in, so be it, no matter how inconvenient it is. I'd rather keep my OS X system clean.

On the other hand, if there is a way to develop directly on my OS X machine, while keeping it clean and without allowing any software I install to interfere with my "normal" day-to-day apps and usage, that would be nice.

Can anyone offer any suggestions/advice? I have googled several variations of the query "os x development environment [language]" and have used search tools to filter out all but recent entries, but I haven't found an article on the subject yet that I am confident in.

There will be no correct answer to your question. Much relies on your preferences and development needs.

Developers working on Mac or iOS software are expected, by Apple, to do so without using a virtual machine.

If you are deploying to Linux or a non-Mac platform, a virtual machine is probably recommended.

To test your software on other versions of OS X, a virtual machine can be helpful.

Compiled Languages

To develop with C, C++, Objective-C, and Swift use Xcode. Xcode is Apple's own development tool and it will not harm your installation of OS X.

Scripts and Dynamic Languages

To develop with python or another scripting language, consider using a tool that allows installation of multiple versions of your language.

For python investigate virtualenv; see Multiple Python Versions on OSX with Virtualenv and Homebrew;
For perl this would be perlbrew.

The aim is to install and use a version of your language that is isolated from the OS X provided binaries. Updates may change the OS X provided edition, but your environment will remain unchanged.

Homebrew and MacPorts

You should be able to use both homebrew and MacPorts without risk to your installation of OS X. Both package managers try to isolate their installations and both simplify removal of unwanted or troublesome software.

If you encounter problems, please log bugs with the developers.

As of 2015, both package managers are being actively developed:

You can follow homebrew's development on Github;
You can see recent changes to MacPorts in their timeline.


Can I separate app download stats to see one app vs. another? We have released two apps under our iTunes connect / developer account, and it looks like the day by day reporting includes both apps and I can only see it broken down by app for the previous day. Unless I check stats daily and track it elsewhere, I can't see how each Indiv is doing.

If Apple's recent improvements don't let you break out sales per app, you might want to look at a service like AppViz that has programmed that feature in and assists in synthesizing the data most accountants and developers need to understand their sales patterns and account for sales accounting-wise.

https://appviz.com