How do I print in grayscale on Canon Pixma MP280? From my Macbook Pro (10.5.1), the print dialog has no grayscale option (screenshot below).

I opened settings, and there is a color option in each Preset. The Presets are read-only.

I guess I am supposed to click Duplicate and edit a copy, but the Duplicate button is disabled (screenshot at bottom), regardless of which of the three Presets is selected.

How do I print in grayscale or black-and-white?

To set Grayscale printing, click   Layout, then Quality & Media.  Not the most obvious choices in an OS famed for UX!


When I click ⌘+C on an email in Mail.app, why can't I paste it as plain text? If I select an email in Mail.app and do ⌘+C, I can then paste the entire email (including header info) in a rich text editor app, such as TextEdit or VoodooPad. However, I'm not able to paste it into a plain text editor like TextMate or into a terminal window.

(Oddly, I can paste into into TextEdit in plain text mode, which is exactly what I want to be able to do with other apps).

Why does it do this? Is there a workaround? Note that Plain Clip does not work as a workaround in this case.

This is because of how you can program the pasteboard on Mac OS X.

Text editors expect the pasteboard to contain, well, text data. There are however several kinds of text: there's plain text, there's formatted (RTF) text, there's formatted text with embedded documents (RTFD), there's HTML-formatted text, and a bunch of others.

When you copy something, the application tells the pasteboard how this data can be represented. There are usually several suitable representations: for instance, copying your question exports data in the pasteboard that can be represented as a web archive, RTF data, and plain text in three different encodings. Plenty of types that applications are likely to support.

However, when you copy a mail from Mail, it exports only as two types of data: plain UTF-8 text and a RTFD document. Cocoa tries to paste as an RTFD document because it likes them better, but applications say "no no, I can't do that"; they usually support getting text from RTF, but not from RTFD since RTFD usually has embedded resources such as images, and you end up pasting nothing because the apps don't bother to look for the plain text data.

TextEdit, on its side, is able to edit RTFD documents, so it has no problem pasting the data.


Boot into Mac from Windows after failed Bootcamp Don't hate on me too much for this one...

I put Win8 on my Mac Mini using Bootcamp, and all was well.  I switched back and forth a couple times between the two with no problems.  The problem started when I was trying to update drivers for my touchscreen monitor on the Win8 side.  I think somehow the Bootcamp drivers 'went away'....now I can't get back into Mac.

Is there a way to "manually" boot into a partition? I have tried using the "hold down the option key," but that's what I believe got messed up by the driver stuff.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Environment

Mac Mini running 10.7
No Optical Drive
Windows Style Wireless Keyboard/Mouse

The "correct answer" to this turn out to be not so deep.  The wireless keyboard was not waking up fast enough on startup to get the key press to initiate any of the startup key combos.

Hitting a couple keys before hitting the power button on the mac mini allowed the keyboard to wake up first.  All key combos work.

I believe the fact that the Bootcamp control panel does not show up on the Windows side, is because it is Windows 8 and Bootcamp and it's Windows support drivers are meant for Windows 7.

Also plugging the wireless keyboard into the mac also sped things up


How to show all results from a repeat loop in the Script Editor results pane I'm querying the ipstack API for data with a list of IPs using a repeat loop and JSON Helper.

I'm looping through a list of IPs, but I can't get the Script Editor to return all the results; I only get the one cityName of the last IP in theListOfips in the results pane, "Tallahassee".

How can I get the Script Editor to show a list of all cities in the result pane, with a carriage return after each?

 set theListOfips to {"104.137.108.23", "107.140.9.50", "146.201.166.248"}

    tell application "JSON Helper"

        repeat with theCurrentValue in theListOfips

            delay 2

            set json to fetch JSON from
   "http://api.ipstack.com/" & theCurrentValue & "?access_key=theAPIkey&fields=city"

            set cityName to city of json

        end repeat

    end tell

The immediate solution would be to use the Replies pane rather than the Results pane in Script Editor.  It will print a live result from each AppleScript command executed during the run of a script, whereas the Results pane only returns the overall result of the script's execution (which equates to the result of only the final command).

The final command in your script will be set cityName to city of json, and so the result of your script will be the value of cityName after it has been set to the value from the JSON record that pertains specifically to the last IP address in your list, i.e. "146.201.166.248".

So for a more comprehensive solution, you can edit your script slightly so that the last command will be one that returns what you actually want.  You can do this by first declaring a variable as an empty list, into which you would add an item of data in each iteration of your repeat loop.  After the repeat loop is complete, your final command would simply be a reference to that list so as to have AppleScript evaluate its contents and return the result:

set APIKey to "<your secret key>"
set URLRelativePath to "http://api.ipstack.com/"
set URLQueryString to "?access_key=" & the APIKey & "&fields=city"

set IPaddresses to {"104.137.108.23", "107.140.9.50", "146.201.166.248"}

set cityNames to {}

tell application "JSON Helper" to repeat with IPaddress in the IPaddresses
        fetch JSON from the URLRelativePath & the IPaddress & the URLQueryString
        set the end of cityNames to the contents of the result's city
        --OR: set the end of cityNames to the contents of {the IPaddress, the result's city}
end repeat

return the cityNames

This returns a list of all the city names (or a list of lists of IP address-city name pairs if you elect to use the line I commented out as an alternative).  To make this list into a single piece of text with one city per line, use the list that contains city names only; set the text item delimiters to linefeed; then coerce the list to text.  So, instead of return the cityNames, you would have:

set my text item delimiters to linefeed
return the cityNames as text


Bug with regards to .tar.gz in Chrome when 'Asking where to save downloads' Every time I try to download or save a .tar.gz file, I get something like this:

The popup is simply wrong, I've used the right .tar.gz extension. Clicking on Use .gz saves the file as .tar.gz, and clicking on Use .tar.gz saves the file as .tar.tar.gz.

Is there a way to fix this?

This is a documented bug:

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=83084

Look for a nightly build or update to potentially address this or perhaps choosing another browser. Hat tip to jaume for the comment alerting us to the specific issue being tracked.


iPad Remote app with Apple TV 2 not remembering where I was in iTunes pane Whenever I closed my smart cover or otherwise dismiss the Remote app, attempts to reopen the app result in a "reset", acting as though it was the first time remote was opened and "forgetting" where I was in the virtual iTunes view. The track playing shows on top of the iTunes view, but my track/album pane is cleared, and it is asking me what I want to connect to, just like when you first open the app.

Apple TV 2, iPad 2 with latest iOS

My "Remote" app experience is somewhat similar, although I am usually connecting to iTunes on my Mac, not ATV.  There used to be a "Stay Connected" option in the app that's no longer there.  I too would love to find a way to "stay connected", so I can just jump back into Remote to see what's playing!


Can't create events on iPhone 6 calendar The calendar + icon to add an event doesn't seem to be working - it's grey in colour and when I try to tap it, it doesn't do anything.

Sometimes all it needs is a push.

Go to Settings > iCloud

Switch off Calendars. Wait a minute…
Switch it back on.


How to reverse the defaults write com.apple.Safari CustomUserAgent "\"My user agent string\"" command Using the defaults write com.apple.Safari CustomUserAgent "\"My user agent string\"" command, you can set the default User Agent for Safari. This means that the CustomUserAgent key gets written in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist.

<key>CustomUserAgent</key>
<string>My user agent string</string>

But how can you reverse this action? (Manually deleting the two rows from the plist doesn’t work, as they just get rewritten when Safari restarts.)

defaults delete com.apple.Safari CustomUserAgent


Can I search for a multi-word expression in Preview? What can I do to search for a multi-word expression such as "little bug" in Preview? I want to return only words together and in that order. My first reflex was to try double quotes, but it looks like Preview is searching for them instead of ignoring them. Some googling turned up this question where someone mentions the double quoting working as of 2010. I'm running 10.7.5 and Preview 5.5. Is this a relatively new "bug" in Preview? I find it weird that I haven't noticed it before...

Well, of course, it was a problem with me. The search results only appear after having typed the whole query and pressed enter, which is a different behavior than the single word search where the results are updated as you type.

Somebody had a similar problem here.


iPad app to manage photos stored in cloud? I currently have several thousand (15GB) photographs stored on a PC. I would like to move them all to the cloud somewhere and use the iPad to manage them - change names, put in folders, etc. I also want to be able to copy pictures from the iPad to my collection in the cloud. I'm not committed to where in cloudland I should store my pictures - maybe PicasaWeb, dropbox, Amazon S3, or something else. I'm happy to choose based on what would work the best with an iPad management app.

Adobe Revel ($5.99pm or $59.99py)

Adobe Revel (previously called carousel) is a cloud photo editing and storage app, similar to Adobe Lightroom with the added function of being able to store images in the cloud. It is a subscription based service.

However this is currently only available on iOS, and Mac, with both Windows and Android currently in development.

If you were desperate to use this solution, you can get the iPad app, and sync the photos over iTunes and then use the app to pop the images in the cloud, however this would be time consuming, the Adobe website has a notify me, button on Windows/Android, so this platform will be available.


External Display "static" on MacBook Pro 15″ 2014 My MacBook Pro (15", 2014, OS X Mavericks 10.9.4) and my 24" 1920x1200 monitor are not working together.

I connect the two with from the Mini DisplayPort on the Mac to DVI on the monitor. The monitor only shows a "static" effect like when an old tv cannot pick up a signal and my Mac's screen flickers ~30 seconds.

When I turn the monitor off then on, when my Mac is still connected, the monitor goes blank and the MacBook screen begins to flicker every ~3 seconds.

Does anyone know what is going on here? I ordered a DisplayPort to HDMI cable just hoping that the cable I used was faulty.

It was completely the cable. I used a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable and it works perfectly.


What is the lightning bolt icon in iCal? I've gone through this document, but it's for iCal 3.0, Lion has 5.0+.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iCal/3.0/en/symbls.html

Here's what it looks like, I'm not sure if it's a bolt or a tilde:

Hovering over it gives you no information about it, and it disappears shortly after creating the event...

It means iCal is having difficulty sync-ing with iCloud, or google Calendar. Or some other calendar services that you have.


Bizarre message whenever I open my calendar This is maddening. Why does my calendar version 10.0 start out with this pop up every day???
"The URL https://calendar.google.com/calendar/dav/xxxxx@gmail.com/user/ encountered HTTP error 404. Make sure the URL is correct."

It is possible that you are trying to access a calendar link that was created before Google changed their URL formats (which was a long time ago). Old Google calendar links started with
https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/

Back in 2013, they changed the URL format to
https://apidata.googleusercontent.com/caldav/v2/your-email

I would suggest that firstly, you should delete any subscribed calendars (e.g. things like the "Public Holidays" calendar. If the problem persists, the next step would be to remove your account from the calendar app entirely, close the calendar app, then reopen and re-add your account details.
Make sure you've backed up your data first.


Why erase a stolen iPad? I recently had my iPad stolen. I immediately marked it as lost in case it ever connected to the internet again (it is cellular enabled, so there is a favorably good chance). I clicked "erase iPad" but stopped when the prompt said "An erased iPad cannot be located or tracked any longer."

I began to wonder: how secure is my iPad's data? Is there any risk that the device may be hacked and its contents exposed? Passwords, credit cards, emails, etc.?

A simple google search found that iPads are very secure by virtue of the passcode (https://www.macworld.com/article/1160313/iPad_security.html). So, if left unerased, what risk remains? Certainly, I want to be able to track the iPad if it does ever come back online. But by not opting to erase the iPad, am I leaving myself potentially exposed?

In short, you erase it if -  & only if - the data on it would be more costly to lose than the price of a new iDevice. Some businesses consider their data to be worth far more to a 'spy' than the device itself.

If you're a 'regular guy' your best bet would probably be to leave it locked & registered actively with FindMy, just in case it ever shows up again. To all intents & purposes, any other 'regular guy' who took it now owns a very shiny brick.

If you're an international terrorist, business owner with a new patent, scientist with the formula to a cure for the common cold, or a government employee with national secrets on there - then you may consider total deletion a better bet - just in case another business/government agency considers it worth half a million bucks to hack into it.

iDevices are very secure - but nothing is impenetrable.


Is There An Alternative To Symbolic Links? I have an iMac and a MacBook Pro, both running the latest version of mavericks.. I want to sync files and folders outside Dropbox across the two computers. Up until now, I've been using symbolic links which I created via terminal. I've found that the symbolic links stop working after a while and I was wondering if there was a better way of syncing data between computers.

PS: I use Dropbox as part of it. For example if I want to sync mamp databases across two machines, on my iMac I find the db folder, create a symbolic link for that folder, move it into dropbox, go to my MacBook and make a symbolic link of the db folder that's in Dropbox and move it into the mamp folder, delete the current db folder and replace it with the db symbolic version. That's what I want to achieve, I want to be able to sync folders outside Dropbox through Dropbox if that makes sense.

There are are a range of third party tools for synchronising files across two or more computers. You mention already using DropBox.

DropBox is designed to sync only one folder. Using symbolic links is a great work around but as you have experienced, the approach is likely to be fragile as it is not the focus of DropBox's developers.

Consider using another synchronising approach that can handle multiple shared folders across your Macs.

Unison File Synchronizer

A stalwart of the file-synchronization world, Unison is designed for keeping two or more computer's files in sync. It deals with edge cases and is aimed at those needing more than just a routine copy between computers.

  Unison is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows
  two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on
  different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified
  separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in
  each replica to the other.

BitTorrent Sync

BitTorrent Sync is relatively new and claims to need no cloud and share no private information.

  Your information stays yours.

  Sync never stores your files on servers, so they stay safe from data
  breaches and prying eyes.

AeroFS

Another new comer is AeroFS. For private use a free plan is available. I am not sure how applicable this option will be, but it may offer more options, such as multiple shared folders, than currently offered by DropBox.

  Dropbox behind the corporate firewall.

  File Sync and Share, for the Enterprise, deployed behind your firewall

rsync

rsync is a command line tool included with OS X. You can use rsync to synchronise file systems with relative ease. Setting up rsync requires a scheduling tool such as launchd, cron, or Power Manager but once done it is extremely reliable.


Edit meta data of PDFs in iBooks.app? I use iBooks to store longer PDF's like scientific papers etc., so I can easily read them on my iPad.

But a lot of them do not have any meta data attached (like author) and/or have really bad file names.

I can't find a simple way to edit this within iBoks. What is the best possible solutions?

I guess I could export the PDF's, edit meta data in Adobe Acrobat Pro (or similar), and add them back. But I hope there is a simpler and quicker solution. Any suggestions?

Example below.

Ok, so after some trial and error, I found out how to do it.

When in list view you can just click the text fields and edit it. It's not that intuitive that the data only can be edited from one specific view, but glad there is an easy way to do it!


Time Machine Backups taking too much space? Yesterday, I installed an external hard disk for my Time Machine — well, a 1.6Tb partition of a 2Tb hard disk. I am running a new iMac with 512Gb SSD. The internal drive is about half full.

After a day, I have about 5 backups, and I find that I only have 448Gb available.

I am still trying to get the other folder sizes (understandably, this is taking a long time), but the first backup folder is about 250Gb. At a rough estimate, this suggests that the subsequent backups are about the same size. At this rate, I will run out by tomorrow.

I understood that the Time Machine backups are sort of differential, and that subsequent backups are mostly links to the original backup files.

The question is: is the size, being mis-reported, or is that a correct estimate of the space used?

I would probably do two things:

Let time machine run until it fills up the 1.6 TB and then see how long a windows you have. macOS will clean up the destination - purging old files as needed.
Use tmutil compare or a tool like Backup Loupe to check what is taking the space. Other tools do a lousy job of showing you actual space usage in time machine.

Why does Time Machine estimate a 109GB backup size, but then need 235 GB?
Time Machine - List of Files that were backed up


Macbook Pro (2009) doesn't recognise 7200rpm HDD I've been searching and searching for a solution to my problem and I've seen a lot of people have similar, but perhaps not quite the same, problem.

My original HDD failed on my MBP and I'm in the midst of trying to replace it, I wanted to make sure it was the HDD that had failed, so after backing the drive up, I formatted it and began reinstalling OSX Lion, however it keeps hanging during the install process.

Next I managed to get hold of another 320GB HDD to try that one, however once I boot up the install disc and use DiskUtility, the drive does not appear. If I connect the drive externally via USB, I'm able to see the drive and format it to Mac OS X journaled, but once I connect it internally again, DiskUtility still does not see it.

After trawling through post after post, I've tried downgrading the firmware to EFI 1.6 (still no luck), I've also tried using masking tape to thicken the SATA connector.

The main answer to come back was that the issue was the SATA Cable Connector in the Mac itself, however I'm reluctant to spend money buying a new one as I'm not convinced that is the issue due to the following...

...I then connected a smaller (160GB) HDD which is a 5400rpm drive and amazingly this drive is recognised by DiskUtility and I can install OS X Lion onto it without any issue at all.

I couldn't care less about enabling the 7200rpm drive for the faster transfer speed I just want my Mac to recognise the drive internally so that I can get the thing back up and running.

Does anyone have any idea why my Mac recognises a 5400rpm drive, but not a 7200rpm drive?

I'll bet you a dollar that its the cable.


How to remove deleted app from OS X update list? I'm using a Macbook Pro mid 2010. I have an deleted app always showing in my update list and it's very annoying. Problem has occurred since Mountain Lion, but has since become quite eye-catching after I upgraded to Yosemite, where there's always a 'available updates' badge in the menu.

It's AngryBirds that I want to remove from the app update list. Users can't hide 3rd party updates. So I tried to get rid of it by trashing it from Applications folder (2 years ago maybe). I hope it would disappear in the update list after I trash it. But it still appears in the App Store update list.

I also tried to click the update button of the app, and the window told me 'update unavailable with this Apple Id'. I vaguely remembered that this is an app downloaded long time ago. By then I used a different Apple ID. When I deleted this app I have already changed into a new ID. Is this the possible reason for this app remains in the update list even if i've deleted from my mac?

Update: After trying the suggestions provided by all the answers below, I think there's nothing left in my mac with regard to 'AngryBirds' or 'Rovio'. It could possibly be the push from Apple Server that invokes AngryBirds in the update list. What can I do in this situation?

Right click the item description in the App Store Updates panel & Hide Update


Cannot upgrade FROM High Serra 10.13.6 to Mojave 10.14.6? I am trying to upgrade Xcode from 10.1 to 11.0. Somewhere it says that I have to have iOS 10.14.6. (Currently my Mac is running High Sierra 10.13.6. And I have trouble to make Xcode 10.1 work with my iPhone 7 whiting is running 13.1.2.)

When I am trying to download macOS Mojave, I see the following message. After click OK, it seems that nothing happens.

I have MacBook Pro 2018.

What can I do to move forward?

If you have internet, you could boot to recovery and install the latest OS that your Mac is able to run (which is 10.14.6 right now). Power off your Mac and hold the following keys only right after you power on and until you see the Apple or the globe. You will need to connect to the internet (wired or wireless) for this to work.

Option-⌘-R

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

That will get you a free and clear installer that will run through the checks and if it fails, you will also have the ability to run Disk Utility from the installer to repair things if this is just a filesystem error causing the grief.

The Self Service app means you might be on an MDM managed application like with JAMF Pro, so if this is a work machine, be sure to check with your team to be sure there isn't a restriction preventing the upgrade.


MacBook keeps booting into system installation after failed installation I did try to install Mavericks from the original installer package onto a separate disk via Firewire. The machine used is a MacBook Pro which is newer than the Mavericks package. As usual, after starting the installation from the desktop, the system rebooted to perform the installation after a minute or so. After rebooting it got stuck on a grey screen with a slashed circle on it. I did remember that Apple some when in the past introduced this nice feature to prevent installing an older MacOS on a newer Mac, so I booted into the recovery mode and installed on the external disk from there. So fine, so good - but when I unplugged the external disk to reboot into my normal system again, I ended up on the grey awful screen again - looks like the Mac insists to continue the failed installation which is not possible. Using the option key on booting to select my normal boot partition does not work, it does not show up. So I assume the installer has put something to mark this system as installing. I don't want to reinstall my entire system to get rid of it for several reasons. So now comes the question: What did it put there? I can handle a bash to clean it out manually, if I just knew what and where.

Thanks in advance,
  Peter

Use Internet Recovery to reinstall the correct build of Mavericks for your machine, your user account and applications will be unaffected.

When you've done that, re-download a fresh copy of the Mavericks installer from Apple. This will be the latest available build (10.9.5) and you should have no further problems if you install from that. I'd recommend you build a USB installer from the Mavericks installer so you don't have to worry about a hard disk failure, lack of internet connection etc. To do this you can use 3rd-party utilities or follow this procedure. Download the Mavericks installer but quit it when it tries to run. Take an 8GB USB stick and name it Untitled. Then run this command in Terminal...

sudo /Applications/"Install OS X Mavericks.app"/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/"Install OS X Mavericks.app" --nointeraction

As you noted, you cannot install an unmodified version of OS X on hardware newer than the OS X build, regardless of where it's being installed to.


Missing Lyrics option in Music app in iOS 11.1 I recently upgraded to iOS 11.1 and none of my songs are giving me the options to play lyrics. Has this feature been removed or the option to display them been changed?

This is a known bug in iOS 11.1+ (11.2 and 11.2.5). There is an Apple Discussion with over 1250 users saying they are having that issue. I am not sure if there is an open Radar ticket for this bug.

Update: Fixed in iOS 11.4.


How to see the results of Apple TV's network tests? I can run the network test inside the settings menu. But at the end I only see "Network test successfully complete".

I don't see what speeds the Apple TV 3 is actually getting at that spot in the house. It's a pretty dumb thing thing to conduct the test and not have even the basic stuff (like xyz Mbps) reported back!

Are those results posted somewhere else on the Apple ID? Or can I pull them off the Apple TV somehow? Note that the Apple TV is NOT jailbroken and is running the latest OS.

The answer is: No

The network test is testing whether the AppleTV is connected to a network.  That's all it is doing.

AppleTV connected to network = success
AppleTV not connected to network = failed


Is it possible to run Internet Explorer on OS X El Capitan? I need to connect to the website dictate.it, which says it only works with Internet Explorer.

Is it possible to find versions of IE to run somehow within macOS?

You can use a virtual machine and then use the images provided by Microsoft for use in testing older versions of IE. Requires no cost and you can delete it when you've finished using the site.

For free you can use VirtualBox, and then use one of the images from Microsoft.


$600 for a sticky spacebar? I spilt a little bit of juice on my Macbook Pro keyboard which causes the spacebar to stick (it still works but is not so convenient to use). I took it to a non-official Mac service where they told me that it needed some cleaning that would cost around $60. Then I took it to an official Apple service where the guy without any deeper investigation told me that a brand new replacement top-case is required for $600.
The computer is otherwise completely functional. I still have a warranty until February that would probably be void if a non-official service fixed it.

Do you think the $600 offer is realistic and this much has to be paid just to fix a sticky spacebar?

Update: my girlfriend accidently spilt a half glass of water on my keyboard, and after drying it, the stickiness vanished :D Gotta admit, Macbooks are of high quality and I should care more about my computer.

That $600 rate is less than Apple charges for a liquid damage overhaul at the repair depots. That repair is around $900 for the Air and 13 inch models and $1200 for 15 inch models.

Since the keyboard is integrated within the housing, it's like taking the engine, chassis and all parts out of a car and building it up new in a new frame.

The labor time and consumables (ribbon cables that are too fragile to reuse, etc...) seems about right for a $600 repair. Apple techs see this sort of things all the time, and won't push the expensive repair unless there is internal damage. A light cleaning would be $39 of labor or possibly free if they could do it while you waited. If they didn't open and inspect the Mac, you could ask what that charge would be to be sure it really needs an overhaul and rebuild.

I would say, you could do a surface cleaning yourself as long as the machine is functional and then shop around for a used Mac between now and February. Then at worst, you could then do the $600 service or if the corrosion damages internal components you might be on the hook for the $900 repair. During that time look out for any Black Friday sales and/or new models since repairing it makes more sense if you have AppleCare for several years or really love this particular model Mac. You could also sell it for $700 to $800 to someone that needs a cheap Mac and then pay for the repair once you have an agreement for them to buy it.

You'd only be out of pocked a few hundred $$ and could buy your choice of new Mac. Lots of options, but the quote is legitimate and you would have a warranted Mac for 90 days post repair should you send it in.


Are there any steps I can take to make macOS use more of my RAM? Last weekend, I upgraded my machine to have 32 GB of RAM. I knew I didn't really need this much memory, but I figured macOS would use it for file caching or some such.

According to Activity Monitor, around 13 GB of memory are being used by applications, around 6 GB are being used for caching, and a whopping 13 GB are just being left idle. These numbers vary a bit depending on time and current workload, but in general, macOS consistently fails to use more than around 20 GB of memory.

Are there any steps I can take to make macOS utilize my additional memory? For example, it would be great if I could make macOS cache files more aggressively, to offset my computer's relatively slow SSD.

macOS will by default aggressively cache files, etc. in memory. In your case, it seems your programs simply aren't loading in that much data - and then there's really nothing more to cache.

If you keep the system running longer and look at the values again, you'll most probably see that the numbers have changed so that less memory is left idle.

You can selectively use more memory by adding a RAM disk to the system. I.e. a virtual "disk" that is really in RAM. You could then copy files to that disk to ensure that they stay in RAM. It is hugely impractical for ordinary desktop usage.


How to show serving fonts in character table In the upper right corner of the screen, right beside the clock, you can open the character table which opens a window with a lot of different characters, sorted by categories (currencies, arrows, math symbols, ...). Now my question is how can I know which font serves one specific symbol? For example if I insert the arrow "RIGHTWARDS ARROW FROM BAR" I get only a questionmark in my text. Obviously my font does not contain this symbol but how to know which font DOES contain it? I don't have to try all my 200 fonts, do I?
Thank you!

If you open the Font Variation section of Character Viewer and set Collections to "Containing selected character" it will show all of the fonts that have the character and how they'll display, as shown here:


Screen doesn't turn back on I have a brand-new Macbook Pro, my first mac since 1987, and unfortunately I'm experiencing a severe issue with it. If I leave it by itself for a while, or close the lid and then re-open it, the screen remains black and nothing I do can fix that - I have to forcefully shut down the mac (holding the power button for like 10 seconds) and re-open it.

I searched for this problem online and found many similar instances of it, but could not find any actual solution. How can I solve this issue? And if it's a still-unsolved problem, is there any work-around I can use to bring the screen back to life without rebooting the laptop?

Technical details, as copied from the About This Mac dialog:

MacBook Pro
15-inch, Late 2011
Processor  2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory  8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics  AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB
Software  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)

Running software update reports that the laptop is up-to-date.
I only got it yesterday, and have managed to install a grand total of just 4 applications (Keka, Steam, Syncplicity and Chrome).
I have no peripherals connected - the only physical connection is the power cord, the only wireless connection is the Wi-Fi. The problem persists whether the mac is connected to the power or not.
The problem is consistent, once the screen turns off it's always doomed.

I have a brand-new Macbook Pro

Well the obvious first solution that comes to my mind is: use your excellent AppleCare support service! Since it's brand new, presumably it's within the initial complementary AppleCare period. Their tech support is awesome, and if they can't solve the problem, you can take it in to an Apple store for repair, or they'll ship you a box and return shipping label to have the machine shipped to them and fixed, free of charge.


Resources for a Mac-only office What are some good resources about running a small office (25 or so computers) with Mac computers only (though perhaps with a Windows or Linux/Unix file server)?

In other words, what information and options are available that would help understand how to standardize and maintain a number of Mac clients in an office?

If you are in a basic office scenario, I dont think you would need much beyond a good setup and deployment of Apple Remote Desktop, and a proper application of Google Apps for your Business.

Apple has plenty of reading material on ARD, and most of it is actually useful, for instance, the ARD 3.1 Admin Guide talks about performing basic maintenance remotely and automatically, describes how to create reports, install applications, the whole nine yards.

On to the Google section, and there are two big pieces that I would recommend:

Why Google Docs?

Easily share documents, though for super quick stuff I recommend iChat
track revisions
collab editing
offsite storage
get free stuff like the GAS

Why Gmail?

The insane storage
spam protection
letting google handle all the email crap (99.9% SLA aka 8 hours of downtime a year)
the centralized control of groups and shared contacts
all which sync with mail.app and your address book.

You also get a plethora of other Google products for your business like Google Groups and Google Video, but I dont think those would be that useful in the organization you mentioned.

I could go on, but it is a great small business package, and it is cheap as dirt (50$ per user per year). The biggest cost I find with Google Apps is some user adoption work (though Google makes it painless as possible).

You can even sign up for Google Apps for your domain and try out 50 users at a time, or go with the 30 day free trial of Google Apps for your business (different, better, the one you actually want), that way you don't have to make a big purchase, and still see if your users would be amicable to the change.


Unable to Resize Partitions I have recently created a partition on my macbook air running OS X 10.9, and this was to run install another OS instance (Yes, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, but that is an aside to the query I have) on it.

I got the partition running fine, with the OS working fine as well, but now when I go back into Disk Utility, I noticed two things that are wrong:

Firstly, the disk that houses the two partitions has taken the name that I had thought I had given the new partition ("Yosemite"), instead of what it originally said, somewhere along the lines of "125GB Hard Drive" or similar.
Perhaps due to this, I believe, the tabs have changed when I select this disk, and I can no longer resize the partitions. The options are greyed out, and I cannot drag to resize either.

The Disk Utility looks similar to that seen in this question: Unable to adjust partition of USB drive with Mountain Lion Disk Utility though my computer is not encrypted, and it is the computer, not the USB I am having trouble with.

I tried entering Disk Utility from the Recovery Mode (by holding down option at start up), but the problem still persists.
I have tried changing the start up discs between the two, but still nothing changed in the menu.

I believe that a reason for this problem is that somehow the drive is now a logical volume group. I don't really understand what this is, and how to fix it.

  Note, this question is purely about partitioning, I  do intend to
  use Yosemite on the partition when it is working, but at present
  it's a plain Mavericks system with a partitioning problem.

Here is an image of my Disk Utility:

If I understand your question correctly you are trying to resize the volume group or actually one of the volumes within a group. From what I could gather your disk was converted to a CoreStorage Volume. Could you please verify that by issuing the following command in a terminal and check if you get a similar output to the one in the picture:

diskutil corestorage list

The currently available Disk Utility doesn't support resizing of logical Volumes.  However using the command line, there is a undocumented function that allows you to resize Volumes.

If you consult the help command of diskutil you will receive the following output:

chris$ diskutil corestorage

Usage:  diskutil [quiet] coreStorage|CS <verb> <options>,
    where <verb> is as follows:

 list                     (Show status of CoreStorage volumes)
 info[rmation]            (Get CoreStorage information by UUID or disk)
 convert                  (Convert a volume into a CoreStorage volume)
 revert                   (Revert a CoreStorage volume to its native type)
 create                   (Create a new CoreStorage logical volume group)
 delete                   (Delete a CoreStorage logical volume group)
 createVolume             (Create a new CoreStorage logical volume)
 deleteVolume             (Delete a volume from a logical volume group)
 encryptVolume            (Encrypt a CoreStorage logical volume)
 decryptVolume            (Decrypt a CoreStorage logical volume)
 unlockVolume             (Attach/mount a locked CoreStorage logical volume)
 changeVolumePassphrase   (Change a CoreStorage logical volume's passphrase)

As you can see, it doesn't offer any option of resizing a Volume, hence my guess why Disk Utility doesn't allow you to resize.

However the following undocumented functions exists:

    chris$ diskutil corestorage resizeVolume

Usage:  diskutil coreStorage resizeVolume
        lvUUID|MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode size
Resize a logical volume, which is one of one or more disks that consume storage
out of a logical volume group. The logical volume group will have more or less
available space after this operation, if it was a shrink or grow, respectively.

Example: diskutil coreStorage resizeVolume
         11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555 10g

The resizeVolume function isn't listed in the first listing of available commands above but it still exists and it even provides you with an example on how to use it.

With this command and the correct UUID of the Volume it should be possible to resize one of the Volumes within your logical group.

I did some more digging around the command line and came across the following commands:

Physical Volume (Disk) Commands

resizeDisk (undocumented) – Resize a physical volume
removeDisk (undocumented) – Remove a physical volume from a logical volume group
addDisk (undocumented) - Add a new physical volume to a logical
volume group

Logical Volume Commands

deleteVolume (undocumented) – Delete a logical volume and all of its contents
resizeVolume (undocumented) – Grow or shrink a logical volume
resizeStack (undocumented) – Grow or shrink a logical volume as well as the volume group and physical volume.


Addressbook resolution for International Callers Numbers in my phone are stored in the following formats

+1.305.555.1212
+1.202.555.1212
+44.222333444
+44.222.33.3444
+91.22.34567890
+91.98765.43210
+91.98.76.543210

All calls from the USA show the proper entry from the Addressbook regardless of the format that the number is stored in my address book.

When I get calls from UK or India, the Addressbook lookup does not work most times - over 90% of the calls just show the number. Very rarely do I actually get the name.

Funnily enough, Addressbook lookup works perfectly for SMS messages.

What do I do to mitigate this?

Make sure they are in the Address Book on your iPhone. The ID will resolve itself via the Address Book if the Caller ID itself can't be resolved. The caveat is that this is an entirely manual process on your part. I get phone calls from the UK here in the US, I've never gotten Caller ID to resolve on its own, but as long as the number and name is in the Address Book, then I know who is calling.

There is probably a jailbroken-phone method, but I don't know anything about that to provide a reasonable answer.

UPDATE per your comment: The format of the number received and the number in your phone has to match. I have the impression the OS is looking at the numbers with a simple string comparison, so it's an all-or-nothing scenario. I had a problem with this until I copied and pasted the numbers in the call log into the Address Book entry, then everything eventually worked out fine. Sometimes I get the odd formatting (I'm guessing it depends on which carrier's calling card was used), but now I have a tidy collection for each entry on valid phone numbers. It's still manual, and it's still a hassle to maintain at first, but it was the only way I saw around the problem.


Why does my iPhone turn on when I plug it in to charge? If my iPhone 4 is turned off and I plug it in to charge, it automatically turns itself on again.  Anyone know why this happens?

It appears to happen with all three iPhones in the house (a 3G, and 2 x iPhone 4).  All the chargers are the chargers that were bundled with iPhones.

The cable on the chargers range from the original iPhone cable, the original dual charger cable for the iPhone and Apple Bt headset, and the newer low profile connector cable that came with the iPhone 4.

Apple designed the hardware to power on when it detects charging power.
When the operating system is off, the hardware still remains sensitive to the introduction of charging power. Not only does this help in cases where the OS has frozen and run down the battery past the point where available voltage can even run the system (including the charging circuitry) but it also helps in the more common case of "my phone is dead" and I'd like it back without having to press buttons. Depending on how long the battery self-discharged after crossing the "empty" line, it may need tens of seconds or even minutes of charging to get back to the minimum viable voltage. At that point, the sleep/wake button can become effective again for starting the OS.

You can of course plug in the power and then shut off the operating system phone to Charge with the OS halted. The charging circuitry runs whether the OS is running or not, and that circuitry is what kicks the OS to start when the 30 pin, lightning, USB-C or wireless charging commences while the OS is not running.


How can I limit whatever Time Machine wants to do with sparsebundles Is there a way to limit the "appetite" Time Machint?
How do I this is achieved in the most simple manner on a network drive?

As is often the question is how to limit the size of backup Time Machine, and then the subject of this post.

So:

All Time Machine backups keeps "growing image-disc package «https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_file(sparsebundle)», which is the physical size at the location takes exactly as much space as occupied by the data stored in it (), while Time Machine creates backups, capturing all the available disk space (it can be seen for example in the disk utility, select your mounted * .sparsebundle and pressing the "info" button).
Even if you change the size of the * .sparsebudle, the next time you create a reserve copy of Time Machine (from version 10.6.3) again to change the size of the maximum possible.

Yet there are ways to limit the "appetite" Time Machine.

The first requires Xcode, and, in principle, interfere in the "life" Titem Machine (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2383738?start=60&tstart=45)

The second is that the limited size does not * .sparsebundle, and section (partition) with backups on it.
For this, I wrote a one-line script mentioned below (copy and paste in Terminal.app):

time { clear; declare -i s; read -p "The name of the mount point of your disk?" dn; read -p "Desired partition size in GB?= " s; ((sb=10**9*s/512)); cn=`scutil --get ComputerName`; echo -e "\nWait..."; hdiutil resize -size ${sb}b -partitiononly "/Volumes/${dn}/${cn}.sparsebundle" && echo -e "\n\n\t\t\e[01;38;05;40;48;05;20m"Section now has a size"${s}GB\e[0m" || echo -e "\n\n\t\t\e[01;38;05;160;48;05;20m"Alas, the partition size is not changed"\e[0m"; }

Means "/ Applications / Utilities / Disk Utility.app" (GUI) to change the size of the partition backups can only be a very limited extent.


Spell check settings Right now i am using Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 (on my macbook pro). I am doing a project on Hispania (an old Roman province) which today is currently Spain. My spell check has switched languages to spanish (for this reason i think). However I need it to be in English because my project is not in Spanish. When i go to Tools>Language... and set it to english it ignores my change in the settings and continues to check in Spanish. Can someone please help me change my settings. Thank you

Just to eliminate the possible culprits and short of reinstalling the Office. Please check in you PowerPoint in the Tools > Dictionary ... what language is indicated. If it's Spanish there try to set it to English and see if that helps. Probably after setting this you would better close entirely PowerPoint and then open it again.


Seeing the desktop while in Unity mode in VMWare Fusion? When I run VMWare Fusion in Unity mode, is there any way to see the desktop or access the files on the desktop? Or must I switch into Single Window/Full Screen mode?

You can view the Desktop as a folder in Windows Explorer.


I need to get my pictures from the iPad to my PC I got my iPad in february, and got it syncing with my PC. That transfered all my music and pictures onto my iPad (Nice). But then my hard drive on my PC said goodbye and didn't want to work any more.

So all of my pictures are gone, I just got a baby girl and we had taken pictures of her in the hospital and everything (And YES, I didn't make a back up of my pictures with all the latest pictures).

In my iPad, the pictures are located in albums, but when I connect my iPad to the PC, it will only transfer 4 pictures (those located in the file: archived pictures). I have over 3000 pictures on my iPad, and now this is the only place I have the latest pics.

Is there anything I can do? Or is this as a lost case?

Create an account in Dropbox (this is a referral link, it will give both of us 250 Mb of free storage).

Install the free Dropbox app on your iPad.

Use the Dropbox bulk uploader to add the pictures on your iPad to your Dropbox account.

Install the Dropbox app (found on http://www.dropbox.com) on your computer.

It will download the pictures you added to your dropbox account on your computer.

The free Dropbox account is 2Gb (2.25 if you used my link). So you might need to repeat this operation multiple times (copy the file from the Dropbox folder to another folder and delete the files on your Dropbox folder)


Any Issues Using Non-HFS+ As Data Partition? Boot Camping with a 3rd partition (I know it's non-standard) for data sharing/ease of reinstallations, and possibly to keep applications too… Options are exFAT or NTFS-3G. I went with exFAT originally because it's native and I'd rather not rely on 3rd party drivers for my critical files. However now I'm wondering if I'll run into any issues down the road with regard to permissions, since exFAT doesn't support POSIX ACL—and neither does NTFS; it has its own similar thing, but the advanced [I'm assuming unstable] NTFS-3G add-on can supposedly map between the two. Is that a better bet? If I do ls -al in Terminal on the exFAT drive I get Mac owners, groups, etc., but I don't know where any of those are coming from. What's the best way to go on this?

When using a non UNIX file system, the permissions you see are default for all files, unless the filesystem logic (i.e. the driver) contains some "translation" from the actual filesystem to those permissions seen by VFS (the filesystem abstraction layer in UNIX and OS X/iOS).

Using a non HFS+ filesystem, and non UFS, will lose the permissions, but not just that - you will also not get filesystem notifications when the filesystem is close to full. Some advanced system calls (like exchangedata(2) ) will not work, either. For the most part, however, most apps don't use these features, so you should be ok. Another issue to consider is case sensitivity - HFS+ isn't (though HFSX is). Using a case sensitive fs may lead to weird results where case insensitivity is assumed, and vice versa.


Will it fit (specifix RAM on iMac)? Cheers!

I have an iMac 27" mid 2010 with Intel i7 2.93Ghz and MacOS 10.9. For now it have 8GB stock 4x2GB RAM but I want install at least 16GB+ RAM.

All official documents and data-sheets (especially Intel's chipset data-sheet) tells me that I can't install more than 16GB RAM with 4x4GB plates. But experience of all other users tell me that I can successfully install up to 32GB RAM with help of 8GB plates. Who is right?

I want to install 2x8GB of this Kingston: KVR1333D3S9/8G with 2x2GB of stock memory and get 20GB in total (smth like this this).

So, will it fit and work?

Here is your model on EveryMac.com, according to them it will support a maximum of 32 GB of system RAM.

The mid-2010 iMacs support 1333 MHz PC3-10600 DDR3 SO-DIMMs with 204-pin.  Crucial mirrors this statement.

According to the datasheet you linked, the Kingston RAM is 667MHz.  I believe when it comes to RAM, the machine simply lowers the frequency to a consistent level in order for the RAM to be compatible across the entire computer.


iOS calendar is behaving strangly I want to create a recurring event on iOS calendar but the event is not getting created properly. The event dates go beyond the specified dates.

There is event start and end date.

This is when event should repeat it.

And this is what I see when I search for the result I just added

As per my understanding event should have been ended on 25-July-2016, but the even is repeating itself to 2017.

You have theEnd Date = Never.  The Starts and Ends are the appointment times, not the dates.  If you want it to be from 7pm to 8pm then 10-May-2016 8:00pm would be the Ends.

When you want to stop the repeating event, put that date in the End Date row.  So you would have End Date as 25-July-2016 8:00pm.


Delete a device from iCloud I sold my old Mac but it still appears in the list of iCloud devices e.g. in Safari Tabs. Is there a way of deleting devices from the 'iCloud sync list'?

HT5372: Using and troubleshooting iCloud Tabs

Removing Tabs from the Tab list
To remove a tab from the list of iCloud Tabs, you must close that tab in Safari on the supported device that you used to browse that website. Quitting Safari, putting your Mac to sleep, or shutting it down will not remove the tab from the list. If you no longer have access to the device that that you used to browse that tab, the tab will automatically be cleared from the list after 7 days, if not updated.

Just wait.


2007 macbook pro won't boot. What's the easiest way to diagnose the problem? My 2007 Macbook Pro Santa Rosa just developed a problem where it failed to wake from sleep. I power cycled it, and it would not POST. I removed the battery and discharged the capacitors by holding down the power button, but laptop will not POST. The front light on the unit's latch powers on (steady light), there is a noise from the DVD drive as if it's checking for the presence of a disc, and a small amount of hard drive activity, but the display remains off.

It's been sitting on my desk for months. There's been no physical or liquid damage to it. I did notice prior to this that the DVD drive would occasionally check for DVD's for no reason (unit was sleeping, suddenly the DVD drive starts making noise), but I figured that had something to do with installing Mountain Lion about 2 months ago, since that's when I started noticing that issue.

What's the best way for me to diagnose the problem (motherboard, power supply, or something else)? I doubt it's worth getting it repaired by Apple, given the age of the unit, but if I can figure out what's broken I might swap out the offending part.

The mid 2007 MacBook Pros (MBPro 3,1) and the early 2008 models had defective NVidia GPUs that would cause failures similar to yours. The GPUs would fail at various times (6 months in for some, 3-4 years later for others). When that happened, Apple fixed them without charge.

If your MBPro still has its original NVidia GPU, then the problem could very well be that. Unfortunately, Apple's repair extension program for this program ended on Dec 7, 2012.

You might be able to find a replacement logic board on eBay or Craigslist.


Most reliable way to mirror large number/size files/folders between drives & computers Often I find myself shuffling large directories (20 GB+) of data between computers or drives.  What is the most reliable way to ensure that all data is being exactly mirrored with permissions/dates intact?

Bonus points if it's wrapped in a GUI rather than a terminal command.

I saw this question regarding copy utilities for OS X, however the answers were skewed towards speed.  My concern is ultimately file/data integrity.

rsync has proven to be very stable and effective throughout its years of Unix service. It’s included in any OS X since Tiger and it’s relatively easy to use.

If you want the bonus of a GUI, you can use Arrsync, a free utility better described as:

  A Mac OS X graphical front end for the utility rsync.

If, on the other hand you want something more “easy to use” I can recommend you take a look at the two winners:

SuperDuper! ($)

Carbon Copy Cloner (Free, Donationware).

Either will allow you to clone entire drives or folders or anything you can imagine.

Their reliability to copy permissions, ACLs, and that stuff has been proven throughout the years.


how to do screen+audio recording when mac is muted? I want to record a video+audio on hangout (not sure if on the web or on an app) while i'm in another meeting.

I saw this tutorial using quicktime:
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/4587/use-quicktime-player-to-capture-web-video-and-audio/

However it won't record audio when my Mac is muted.

How can record audio as well without actually hearing it when played on my Mac?

I used quicktime + soundflower.

Worked well :)


Does this mean my fusion drive has split? I've been getting the message that my Mac has run out of application memory.
I've  been trying to clear up some disk space, but some how it doesn't move free space up, in fact it decreased.

Then I saw this article https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT207584 that says:

  If your Fusion Drive appears as two drives instead of one in the Finder, it's no longer working as a Fusion Drive.

Is the SSD below what the quote is referring to?

Don't recall seeing this Container disk2 thingy around before.

Should I follow the steps in the support article to merge the drives back? I would prefer an option that doesn't wipe all my data.

Update:
The article is referring to the Storage tab from About This Mac.

So does this mean my drive is fine? I just need to continue clearing up more stuff?

Note that the article says "in the Finder". Disk Utility shows you more detailed information, because it's ... well... Disk Utility. The Fusion logical volume is stored within a "container" data structure. You may see more information if you have checked "Show All Devices" in the View menu.

A fusion drive is usually made of 1Tb mechanical drive with a 120Gb SSD. If your Fusion drive had "split", you would see two separate volumes on the Desktop.
(Oh, and you wouldn't have a working system, as both volumes would be unreadable and all your data would be lost!)


Best practice for installing applications for multiple users? I have a MBP with Lion (10.7.3) on it and there are two user accounts on it, I use them to seperate work and private stuff, but when I install apps, I generally want to use/upgrade/remove them using either account.

Applications that come as a package (.pkg/.mpkg) tend to install/upgrade easily and require admin permissions in a user friendly way, no problem here.

Other applications just come as an app bundle, which you can move to a desired location, in my case this is the /Applications folder, since I like all apps to be in a central place. But when user A moves an application there, there's no need for a password, but a application will be owned by user A, and read-only to user B. A lot of things that are supposed to be user-friendly break in this situation, for example: applications that upgrade themselves stumble over this, and instead of replacing an old bundle with a new one, I have to manually delete the old one before putting the new one in place. It's not the end of the world, but I wouldn't exactly call this user friendly.

So, how is it possible that user A can dump something in the /Applications folder without using a password, only to find it read-only to user B? It's very annoying. Also when I install something in account A, but use it the first few times using account B the "this application came from the internet, are you sure you want to use it?"-warning doesn't go away until I use it with account B.

I'd like the applications (or their folder, whatever) to be read-write for both or writable using a password or something. Is there a way to make this annoyance go away? Should I install these applications in a different way? I want to manage my apps "user account-agnostically" if that's possible.

I have experience with linux/unix/command/BSD subsystem, what have you, so answers of a technical nature will help. Of course I have tried chmod, chown creatively to tackle single instances, but I don't like fiddling around with permissions when I'm in the mac's natural habitat (system folders/app bundles). So any info on this matter will help.

EDIT:
Just to make it clear, I would like a nice workflow for managing/upgrading apps between two admins on the same computer, it shouldn't require an understanding of file permissions as it does now, it seems this situation is something the developers at Apple never thought of. Filling in a password is no problem, but sometimes deleting an app (in order replace it with an upgrade) is impossible unless I open Terminal and use sudo rm -rf /Application/SomeApplication.app. You just can't expect that from two users of a single computer that know both are able to install/delete apps but aren't technically savvy.

Best practice - use one admin account that is used to install applications. Start application with the admin account after download.

Avoids file permission problems when updating applications.
As long as the admin account has OK:ed the "downloaded from internet" popup, the other users do not have to.
If the other users are not administrators, they will have less automatic update notifications (at least System Update will not run).
Avoids the need for cryptic terminal commands after every installation.


Macbook Pro is Excruciatingly Slow I have a Mid 2012 Model Macbook Pro, nearly 3 years old, and my computer has recently become extremely, stupidly slow. It's becoming hard to perform simple tasks on the computer, like opening a Google Chrome Page, opening any app on my computer or even switching to a different application via the dock. I use this computer for school, however much of my classmates (who have the same model computer) aren't having the same problem as I am.

Usually, it takes about half an hour for my computer to start up and log in, and another half an hour to get everything set up on my desktop (as in loading up desktop, dock, menu bar and letting the computer speed up and stabilise). Below is an image of my Activity Monitor:

I have nothing on my desktop as of now. My Downloads folder is rather full, and I still have 200 GB of storage out of my 500GB remaining. I can't figure as to why it is this slow, and I know it's not because of my internet connection because I have a second Macbook Air laptop (relatively new) that runs at beautiful speeds.

What should I do about this?

Specifications:
Macbook Pro (13 Inch, Mid 2012)
Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB
Storage: 500GB total, 200GB remaining

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination, so you will need to try a number of things one by one and take note of the results.

Start in Safe Mode

First of all, try starting your MacBook pro in Safe Mode and testing to see whether you still suffer the same sluggishness in performing typical tasks. To do this, follow these steps:

Shutdown your MacBook Pro
Restart your MacBook Pro
Immediately press and hold the Shift key.
Let go of the shift key when you see the login window.

Use the computer as per usual and determine if it's working faster now? Report back.

Run hardware diagnostics

You should also run some hardware diagnostics. To do this, follow these steps:

Shut down your MacBook Pro
Restart your MacBook Pro
Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.
After a while, Apple Hardware Test (AHT) will start.
When prompted, select your language and click the right arrow.
When the AHT console appears, you can choose to run Basic tests by clicking the Test button. I suggest you select the "Perform extended testing" checkbox before you click the Test button.
Your test results will appear in the window in the bottom-right of the console.

Note that the extended test will take some time. Take a note of the results and report back.

For good measure, it may be worth resetting both your NVRAM and the SMC.

Reset your PRAM/NVRAM

Reset your Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM) by following these steps:

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

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

Reset the SMC

For your model MacBook Pro, resetting the System Management Controller requires these steps:

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

Once you've done all these steps let us know how you went.


Reformatting Mac... what are some files that are automatically saved? Last time I reformatted my Mac, I noticed all my passwords and favorited websites were saved.  Also my voice memos, I think, were also still there.  Everything else was deleted and I did not use iCloud Drive.

When you reformat a Mac, nothing is really left over or "automatically saved". After formatting, every file on that volume is gone (in terms of being visible through ordinary applications - be aware that it is possible in some cases to perform recovery of the formatted drive, so it is not a safe way to ensure data is permanently deleted).

When you use the macOS Recovery system to format and re-install macOS, you're offered multiple ways of adding your data back to the formatted drive. This is mainly in the form of (a) restoring from Time Machine backup, (b) migrating data from another computer or (c) adding an iCloud account that could then sync over data from iCloud Drive (not in your case), and various other iCloud services such as Photos, Contacts, Mail, Keychain, etc.


Possible to update within iOS 6? If I purchase a brand new iPhone 5 and it has iOS 6.0, can I still upgrade to 6.1.4? I do NOT want iOS 7 or 8.

If the phone is capable of running iOS 8, then there would be no chance to upgrade to any other older version. Updates must be validated (signed) by Apple at the time they are applied and Apple has stopped signing iOS 6 and iOS 7 updates for all but a very few devices which cannot run iOS 8.


I need a pdf reader for my 4th Gen iPod Touch iBooks will not download to it, as it requires OS7,which the iPod 4th Gen cannot accommodate... I downloaded Adobe Reader, but can't locate the file on my iPod for it to open (when it's attached iTunes tells me the file is in "Books", but I can't find "Books" on the iPod itself)

As of version 4.4.1 (current latest version), Documents by Readdle only requires iOS 6, and therefore should work on your device.

The books in the iTunes books section will only sync with iBooks. Simply un-sync that section, since you don't have iBooks installed. Download, install and open ’Documents' on your device, then go to the Apps section, scroll down to the file section, select Documents and browse to your files there, then sync.


When is the GUID partition table (GPT) preferred over Apple partition map (APM) for external drives? I have seagate external portable hard-drive 1 TB, and I will be using with following Mac's.

13" White MacBook (Intel Core 2 Duo) running Snow Leopard
13" MacBook Air (Intel Core i5) running Lion
iMac running Lion

What partition map I should use, GUID or Apple when formatting external portable hard-drive?

It's always better unless you must use the drive with an OS that is too old or too different to support the GPT format. Windows, Unix, macOS all support GPT / GUID and APM is not widely supported on other OS.

To elaborate, GUID (or more properly GPT - the GUID partition table scheme) is the new bootable standard for Macs so use it unless you have macs that need to boot from this drive and cannot support GUID. APM is your only option in that unlikely case. The vast majority of macs will work with both in all instances - especially if you don't need it to be bootable.


Sound files in System/Library/Sounds gone with macOS Sierra upgrade? I noticed that all the sound files in System/Library/Sounds have been replaced with a TextEdit file called "Sounds" with my upgrade to macOS Sierra. Is there a way to get the sound files I put there back? In the terminal, when I do file sounds it prints out sounds: IFF data, AIFF audio. Can I get it back into multiple AIFF files?

I have upgraded to macOS Sierra (10.12) from OS X El Capitan (10.11) as well.

macOS 10.12: In my /System/Library/Sounds/ directory there are 14 AIFF sound files with a time stamp of Aug 20 2016.

In OS X El Capitan there are the same 14 AIFF sound files in the same directory. Their timestamp is Aug 26 2015.

I have confirmed the same files for three other Macs that were upgraded from 10.11 to 10.12.

To answer your question:
Yes, you should be able to copy the AIFF files to your /System/Library/Sounds/ directory from another installation.

Please keep in mind that you need to copy them using sudo as this is a system folder.


Why is my computer name new-host-2.home on the network? I configured my computer name to "Macbook of Matthieu" in the network sharing preferences.

However, this name end up being used: new-host-2.home, how can I change that?

The ".home" domain sounds like it might be something your router is providing. Check your router's settings for a DNS server configuration. If you want to use the Bonjour/mDNS ".local" names, then turn off the router's DNS server, or tell it to act only as a proxy for your ISP's DNS service.

Unfortunately, the specifics of these settings, and even how they are named, vary widely across routers. You will have to look up instructions for your specific router model.


Troubleshooting: 90 seconds to eject external Time Machine drive? I have a 5TB USB-C drive attached to my 16" MacBook Pro running Big Sur 11.2.3. I use this drive exclusively for Time Machine. When ejecting the drive, it takes anywhere from 90 - 120 seconds before the drive is ejected. This happens even when Time Machine is not actively backing up to the drive. A couple OSs back, I remember thinking 15 seconds was a long time to wait for a drive to eject, but now, 90+ seconds feels like forever.
What steps can I take to troubleshoot and shorten the ejection time?
Update
I plugged the drive in this morning. After letting Time Machine run, I waited for it to finish and ran the command from @jaume :
Anthony@Vincent ~ % sudo lsof +d /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
COMMAND PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
mds      90 root   21r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   25r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   27r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   31r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   34r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup

I waited another 10 minutes ran the command a second time to see if mds was still using the drive and the results were the same.
While ejecting the drive, I ran the command and the output was:
Anthony@Vincent ~ % sudo lsof +d /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
lsof: WARNING -- child process 72811 may be hung.
Anthony@Vincent ~ %

Update #2
I added the drive to Spotlight exceptions and reran the lsof command. I noticed that there are now 3 mds processes rather than 5:
Anthony@Vincent ~ % sudo lsof +d /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
COMMAND PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
mds      90 root   21r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   24r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   28r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup

Right-clicking and selecting Eject from the context menu still takes quite a while to eject the drive. During that time, I ran the lsof command and received the following output:
Anthony@Vincent ~ % sudo lsof +d /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
lsof: WARNING -- child process 73283 may be hung.
COMMAND PID    USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF  NODE NAME
Finder  431 Anthony   15r   DIR    1,6      160 23740 /Volumes
Finder  431 Anthony   16r   DIR    1,6      160 23740 /Volumes

The Finder commands appeared in the results right before the drive disappeared from the desktop.
However, running diskutil unmount /dev/disk3 from Terminal ejects the drive almost immediately.
Why would Finder take so long to eject the drive? I would've thought Finder was using diskutil in the background.
Update #3 (final update)
After a reboot, Finder, diskutil, and Alfred -- the 3 ways I use to eject this drive -- all seem to work fine. My Mac also restarts and shuts down much faster.
Thank you @jaume for the constructive comments. Can a comment be marked as an answer?
Update #4 (Final, FINAL, update, post accepted answer)
A month or so on from this, I was still having slow eject times. My tests ejecting the drive were done after a reboot but before Time Machine had a chance to run.
The answer from Jaume was helpful but I don't think it solved the problem.
The drive was purchased when I was running Catalina and I don't think Catalina supported Time Machine disks formatted with APFS. Now that Big Sur does support the format, I updated the drive to APFS and the eject times are now in the 5 second range.
After numerous restarts and Time Machine backups, the disk is quickly ejecting.
Also, in Big Sur, Time Machine drives are no longer able to be added to Spotlight Privacy:

Some process (or processes) seem to be accessing the drive and preventing it from ejecting. You can list those processes with this command:
sudo lsof +d /Volumes/<Time Machine hard drive name>

which displays all running processes that are accessing the folder /Volumes/<Time Machine hard drive name>
From the information in your post, the culprit is mds:
sudo lsof +d /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
COMMAND PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
mds      90 root   21r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   25r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   27r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   31r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   34r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup

which is the metadata server used by Spotlight.
To prevent this from happening, add the Time Machine drive to the Spotlight exceptions:

Open System Preferences > Spotlight.
Select the Privacy tab.
Press the + button, select the Time Machine drive and select "Choose".

You may need to reboot your Mac for changes to take effect.


Which MacOS (Sierra) Services are spy services/daemons from Apple? Does anyone have a list of spy services/daemons (colloquially known as "junk")? I know this question could be interpreted as primarily opinion-based, but I'd like to keep this thing objective, so here are the parameters:

Services are quantifiable: sudo launchctl list

Defininition of spy services
Services that track

browsing history
location (I know Address Book or Maps needs to get the location when planning routes, but besides that?)
installed applications

Feel free to specify things I have forgotten in the comments

Notes
It would be useful to know this list to remove them from the list of startup services/daemons.
e.g. launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/nameofagent.plist

Diagnostic and usage reporting services are controlled in System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → Diagnostics & Usage. Uncheck both boxes to disable reporting.

You would have been asked to opt-in to reporting when you first set up your computer. You are recommended to use the official switch in System Preferences to disable this reporting. There's a handy switch for you to use, unlike a certain other OS!

If you really want to manually disable the services…

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.ReportCrash.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.ReportCrash.Root.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DiagnosticReportCleanUp.plist

With regard to what is reported, full details can be found in that System Preferences pane:

  If you opt-in to sending diagnostic and usage information to Apple, it may include the following information:

  Details about app or system crashes, freezes, or kernel panics
  Information about events on your Mac (for example, whether a certain function, such as waking your Mac, was successful or not)
  Usage information (for example, data about how you use Apple and third-party software, hardware, and services)

About Diagnostics & Privacy


OS X Lion Connection to Business network? I have a client that wants to connect an OS X Lion macbook air to his business network remotely, and I was just wondering if anyone knows of a way to do this easily. Normally, I would set up a VPN server and allow for a connection in this way, but that is not a process I can recommend to "less techy" people. Is there an easier (while still secure) way to set up a business network connection remotely? Thanks beforehand.

I don't see a reason not to set up a VPN. You can add the VPN menu to the status bar and your client can simply select their VPN and enter a password when prompted. It's no more difficult than say, a TeamViewer connection setup. (In fact, VPN is arguably easier, since the system stores your username and merely prompts for a password. TeamVewer requires an ID and a password.)

I just began using VPN this week, and it's super easy. Really. To add VPN to the status bar:

Then, your client can simply click to connect, like so:

(VPN info blurred for security reasons.)


When will the iPad get threaded email messages? I use my iPhone and iPad to check emails, and would really like to have the threaded email functionality on my iPad the same as it is on my iPhone? Will this be available in iOS?

That's one of the features of iOS 4.2, which will be released in November.


Reset NVRAM, PRAM, and SMC, all in one go from the terminal? I'd like to run some code, go away and have a coffee and come back to a MacBook with the NVRAM, PRAM and SMC all reset (rather than doing them manually with yoga postures to press all the keys, waiting around for various signals that it worked etc).

Is there a quick and easy terminal script I can run?

I have a bad mac keyboard which could 'unpress' or double press at any time so I would think the reset was performed when in fact it had not. I want to alleviate that doubt

I'd try with a script using the following outline

sudo nvram -c

which should clear the contents of NVRAM.

curl 'https://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/0.11.4/refind-flashdrive-0.11.4.zip/download' --output refind.usbimage

copy SmcFlasher there (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4855319?answerId=22024754022#22024754022)

shutdown -r now

and then you will have to manually follow the smcflasher instuctions up to

SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1

you can of course automate that as well by modifying the USB image accordingly and you'd be right where you want to be.


iTunes 12.2 broke the shared library feature from Mac to Windows My music is stored on my iMac, and I also have a PC with windows that I use for video games, I leave iTunes opened on my iMac when I'm on my PC so that I can listen to songs while gaming.

Here's my iTunes Sharing preferences on my iMac

The shared playlist appears on my PC, as you can see here

But clicking on it only shows a spinning indicator and then gives up after about 20 seconds, not showing the library on my iMac.

Yes, both iTunes versions are exactly 12.2 on each machine, and this only happens since 12.2. Sharing my library worked fine before this update.

Apple removed Home Sharing for music with 12.2. The theory I've read on the Apple forums is that this is one of the concessions they had to make with the music labels in order to get Apple Music off the ground.

Here's a cnet article that mentions the feature change:

http://www.cnet.com/news/itunes-users-hit-stumbling-blocks-with-arrival-of-apple-music/

Edit: Home Sharing for music was indeed removed with the latest updates.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/07/eddy-cue-apple-working-to-bring-back-itunes-home-sharing-for-ios-9/


MacBook Pro won't shutdown My MacBook Pro seemed to get hung up in Chrome. Was able to quit Chrome and all other apps running (Mail and TextEdit) and tried to restart. Screen went black, trackpad still moving cursor but didn't restart. Tried to force it by holding down power button but now it won't shut down either. Also tried command-option-eject with no effect. Can't get to Apple Store until tomorrow. Aside from waiting/hoping for battery to drain is there any other way I can force it to shutdown or restart.

Sounds like your SMC is broken.

As last resort I would remove the battery.


Trying to find file location of Mac Mail Smartboxes so that I can run automatic email archiver I'm currently working on a MacBook late 2008 with OS X Yosemite 10.10.3.
I use Mac Mail for my email.

I have created smart mailboxes to collect together emails that relate to a project number.
When the project is complete I want to be able to archive the emails into PDFs and store them on Dropbox.

I have purchased Email Archiver for the purpose.
Email Archiver needs the source folder destination and I can't find the smartbox location. I have looked in Library/Mail/V2/MailData and can see the SmartMailBoxes.plist but I can't see folders relating to specific smartmailboxes.

Anyone got any suggestions about how I can achieve this?
Is what I want to do possible?

The smart mailboxes aren't real mailboxes—they're just filters stored in Mail preferences. You can't find the location of the smart mailbox because it's not actually stored separately on disk.


Mac Mini 2012: Cant Boot after moving SSD from external USB3 to internal SATA I have a 2012 Mac Mini with a working High Sierra install on a SSD (APFS Volume) in an USB3 external enclosure mounted on /dev/disk2s1 according to Disk Utility

After I moved that same SSD to the internal SATA HD slot, it no longer appears as a boot drive. Disk Utility would still recognize the SSD on /dev/disk3s1 as a SATA drive. Also tried resetting the NVRAM but that did not solve the problem.

I moved the SSD back to USB3 and everything still works fine.

Update

I backed up my data with the SSD connected by USB3 and then tried a time machine recovery to the SSD installed as SATA. Also tried a fresh install to the SSD after erasing the partition. After both efforts, the SSD still will not appear as a boot drive when I hold the option key on startup.

any ideas?

SOLVED

I ended up swapping SATA positions on the SSD and HDD so that the SSD is in position 2 (nearest the bottom of the Mac Mini).  After that change, plus a Time Machine recovery, the SSD shows up as a boot drive and everything seems to work fine.

I'm not sure why this worked, but it did.


Prompt for encrypted disk password on startup I enabled the full disk encryption or at least I think so. The HD shows up as "Encrypted Logical Partition" in Disk Utility.

When I boot up the macbook however I can choose between logging in as Andreas Bonini - with my user account password - or entering the disk password.

If I choose the former option, I am never asked for the disk password.

This is not what I had in mind -- I wanted something like TrueCrypt, where everything on the disk is encrypted and the only way to access it is entering the disk password; the macbook shouldn't even be able to know what user accounts if any are present before unlocking the disk.

My user account password is obviously considerably less secure than the disk password.

You can remove yourself from being able to unlock the disk:

sudo fdesetup remove -user username


Fear of FaceTime scam I was dealing someone about a rental property. They said they would call me on FaceTime. I was suspicious but went ahead with it anyway. When they called they immediately hung up and then (regretfully) I called back. No answer. Then I texted them and they said the rental wasn’t available any more.

Is making or receiving a FaceTime call a security risk?

I'm not aware of any FaceTime vulnerabilities that you would need to be worried about.

Sounds like your biggest concern is a sketchy/unreliable realtor/property owner. Unfortunately there is no technology that I'm aware of that can protect you against them either.


When will the iPad 4th Gen stop getting iOS updates? It appears that iOS updates no longer run on the original iPhone. Apple eventually deprecates products from its iOS update cycle.

I wonder if there is a pattern to this. Has anyone worked this out and made a prediction about Apple deprecating support for old products.

My question is: When will the iPad 4th Gen stop getting iOS updates?

Warning: conjecture ahead!

It's impossible to predict with certainty - but it helps to think about what is politically expedient for Apple, what is technically feasible (due to device specs), and by looking at past trends.

Importantly: Apple has no stated-policy, but iOS updates seem to always be available for at least 2 years after a product was discontinued (excepting the original iPad)

Product    Launched    Discontinued     Last iOS Update Date   RAM
iPad 1     2010-04     2011-03 (1yr)    2012-05 (iOS 5.1.1)     256
iPad 2     2011-03     2014-03 (3yrs)   Current                 512
iPad 3     2012-03     2012-10 (7mo)    Current                1024
iPad 4     2012-11     2014-10 (2yrs)   Current                1024
iPad A1    2013-11     Current          Current                1024
iPad A2    2014-10     Current          Current                2048

iPad 2 was sold from 2011 until March 2014 - a long time - cynically, because it represented an 'entry-level' value-proposition from Apple with what I believe was a good profit margin compared to the relatively far more expensive retina iPads - so it wasn't much of a surprise to see the iPad 2 out-last the iPad 3 in 2012 and almost the iPad 4 (which was sold until October 2014).

I think iOS 9 will be the last iOS update for the iPad 2 - look at that 512MB RAM figure, that was probably the reason the iPad 1 with its tiny 256MB RAM wasn't given the iOS 6 update. 1024MB RAM gives more breathing room - while the iPad 3 is older than the iPad 4, they are very similar internally (the major change in the iPad 4 was the Lightning connector) - so I expect them both to stop receiving iOS updates on the same date.

I think the iPad Air 2 is the new iPad 2 and will serve as Apple's new 'entry level' tablet so it will have a longer market lifespan and will probably be discontinued after it's at least 3 years old and receive updates for at least 2 years after then (though I'm surprised the iPad Air 1 is still in production given the iPad Pro 10" is now available).

My predictions:

Model     Discontinued   Last iOS Update
iPad 2    2014-03        iOS 9 (2016)
iPad 3    2012-10        iOS 10 (2017)
iPad 4    2014-10        iOS 10 (2017)
iPad A1   2016-10        iOS 11 (2018)
iPad A2   2017-10        iOS 12 (2019)


Getting all email out from iPhone I had my email connected to an exchange server. I no longer have access to this server, but all the messages are still stored on my device.
I keep getting messages that I need to reenter my password. I can click cancel, and browse the messages, see the attachments and all.
Is there a way (free/paid) that I can extract all the messages from my device?
I don't want to remove the email account from my accounts, as I do want to keep the messages and attachments.

The easiest option is to move the mails to another account. You can open a certain mail or select multiple mails (hit edit in the mail view and select the mails). Then click the folder icon/move label and select the folder in a different account to move the mails to.


How can I use "Capslock" in iOS? On rare occasion I'll want to type a whole word in capital letters, but I can't get the iOS keyboard to "stick" it's shift down. In Android I can hold the Shift key and it'll stay in Shift until I hold it again.

How can I capslock/hold shift in iOS' keyboard? I'm on iOS 5.1

Double tap on shift to enable caps lock.

The shift button will turn fully blue to indicate caps lock is enabled:

A glow on the shift arrow after a single tap denotes a normal shift press that is removed after the next keystroke:


Java applets freezes browser Java applets freezes every browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox).

Java version: 1.6.0_33

Software: OS X 10.8.1 (12B19)

"Native" Java applications (like Eclipse etc.) works fine.

As you probably well understand it is likely to be a Java issue.

Unless there is a particular reason you want to use that version of Java you should get the latest Java version.

Download here:

http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp


Disable hardware trackpad clicking My trackpad is broken, which causes the left-click button to get stuck. This results in a lot of unwanted clicking. Tap-to-click works fine and causes no issues.

Is there a way to disable the trackpad hardware, but not disable tap-to-click?

Thanks!

I do not know of any way to disable the physical clicking of a
Trackpad. The OS X trackpad preferences can be found here, or by going to System Preferences -> Trackpad. If the Trackpad is constantly telling the OS to click, then there is little you can do to get around this. Trackpad replacements are $69, I believe, at the Genius Bar.


Mail.app shows empty Gmail labels, but they're not empty in Gmail This used to work, but at some point it stopped.  I have labels defined in Gmail. In Mail.app they show up as folders on the left side, like:

That image shows the apartments label. The problem is that Mail.app thinks there are 0 message in apartments, but if I go to Gmail I see 27 messages.

The "Show in IMAP" checkbox is checked in Gmail settings.

I had the same issue, under Mailbox there is a Synchronise option. This worked for me on Sierra.


Accidentally entered the login window while working; is there another way to return to the regular desktop without typing in the password? In other words, how do you exit the login window using shortcut keys or without inputting a password, or is avoiding this step not possible?

If you've accidentally switched to a different user, press ESC or click on Cancel to return to your desktop.

If instead you've landed in the login window, you need to select a user and type the password.


How to turn off the dictation beep? For dictation on OS X, you have double-tap a key (I've set mine to fn) to start dictating. It then does a very irritating beep noise. And when you hit return, it does another very irritating beep noise.

How do I turn off this very irritating beep noise, without turning down the system volume?

Tested:

There are 3 sound files for the 3 functions: start, cancel, and stop.
They are called: dt-begin.caf, dt-cancel.caf, and dt-confirm.caf (respectively). These have a mid, low, and high tone (respectively).
They are located in: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AssistantServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/
You can make a functional .caf audio file by simply changing the extension of a .aif/.aiff file to .caf.
You can convert from another format or create a .aif/.aiff in iTunes, Garageband, most audio editing programs, etc.
If you put a store-bought music CD in your computer you will often see the tracks as .aiff, not .aif files. However, they are the same format. An analogy is .jpg and .jpeg. The only difference I know of being you can set different programs to open each by default.

Power users should mostly be able to take it from here, and/or skip to Step 10.

For the rest:

Notes for novice audio conversion folks:
AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format.
If you put a CD in your computer the files will have .aiff
If you convert files with iTunes you will end up with .aif (missing second 'f')
If you convert files with other programs you may be able to choose, or set ahead of time, or will simply get what the devs decided you get.

To convert a bit of (optionally silent) audio in iTunes 11 to an aiff file:
Turn off Dictation: (System Preferences>System(tab)>Dictation&Speech(button))

iTunes(menu)>Preferences(menu-item)>General(tab)>Import Settings...(button)>Import Using(menu)>
change to: AIFF Encoder
click OK (button).
Find a song with a silent intro (fastest), or segment, or any sound that you like.
Get Info on the song (command-i, or right-click, or control-click, or File(menu)>Get Info). Go to the Options tab.
Edit the Start and Stop times to bracket the portion you want for the new sound (this may be 10 milliseconds of silence, up to you). The check-box(es) will automatically tick themselves if you edit the time(s). Click OK. (Do not worry, this is non-destructive and the times will be reset back to the correct ones down to the thousandth of a second if you uncheck the boxes and click OK again, I will remind you at the end to do this.)

**If you want NO sound, DO NOT simply remove the relevant files from the framework. Follow the directions herein and make a "silent" piece of audio from a quiet part of a song.
You can use any combination of the default sounds and your own.
You can use other built-in system sounds, like alerts, etc. Just go to /System/Library/Sounds and copy your favorite alert sound(s) and rename as appropriate (see the following steps).

control-click, or right-click, or File(menu)>Create New Version> and select Create AIFF Version. Then from either menu from the first sentence of this step select Show In Finder, or hit command-shift-r.
Go to Finder and open a new Finder window (command-shift-n) so you have two windows open. In the new window, navigate to the directory with the default dictation sounds (for the novice do this: by highlighting, then copying (command-c) the following line (it works, it's different from the actual directory path, given at the top of the answer, if you want you can use that one instead, the Resources in the following string is merely an in-built alias or sym-link):
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AssistantServices.framework/Resources
hit command-shift-g, then command-v to paste in what you just copied, then hit return)
Back-up the original files (they are called:
dt-begin.caf, dt-cancel.caf, and dt-confirm.caf) by dragging them to a folder you create somewhere specifically for the purpose of backing up in case something goes wrong or you don't like your new custom sound files. Sometimes I like to name the folder the the path to the directory where the system files came from with modifications like this. Since you can now include the / character in filenames this is not a problem (typically). If you want the best of both worlds simply make an empty directory in your backup directory with the path-as-name next to the files you just backed up, so if there's a problem with some third-party backup program it will fail copying an empty directory, no great harm. Directory and folder are interchangeable terms herein. Once they're backed up, delete them from the Resources folder. You will have to authenticate as an admin since they are protected system files.
Now, in the other window showing the new music file you created (in your iTunes library somewhere) rename the file to whatever sound file you are replacing. If replacing all three default sounds with the same file, duplicate it by highlighting it and hitting command-d twice, or three times if you want to keep the ORIGINAL filename/file in your iTunes library for any reason. Then rename them appropriately, as per step 7. Confirm you want to change the extension. Then hold down option to copy them to the Resources folder. You will have to authenticate again.
Cleanup time (before we forget. This is the second to last step):

backup the 3 (or 4) files you just made/renamed to a folder as well. This way you should always be deleting or REPLACING the files in the Resources folder by copying and you'll always have a backup of your custom set and the original set.
delete the renamed custom files from the iTunes library folder they were in if you didn't move them in the sub-step before this one where you backed them up.
if you don't want the original modified song file in iTunes you can move it too, or you can leave it in there for reference. If you moved it in the previous sentence or at the beginning of cleanup, then highlight it in iTunes and hit the 'Delete' key, then confirm, I would move to trash if it's there still and you don't want it.
go back into iTunes and Get Info on your original song file, and go back to Options to change the Start/Stop times back to original by unchecking the boxes and hitting 'OK' (iTunes will automatically get the correct Stop time, don't worry!), like in step 4.

Now that you've changed the files with Dictation off you can either:

a) Reboot (if Dictation was turned on since the last time you booted up, or if you don't know, or just to be as sure as possible you're having a good shot)
b) kill the 'assistantd' process owned by 'you'. (If you don't know what this means, just reboot, there's been enough hand-holding so far.)
Once your computer comes back on, log-in and go to System Preferences to Re-Enable Dictation.

Power User / Activity Monitor Notes:

DO NOT simply remove the relevant files from the framework if you want a 'silent' notification (replace them with silent sound files). This will cause a crash of the relevant processes, and spawn the ReportCrash process, and dictation will fail to recognize any audio input, and assistantd will have 'unexpected' behavior.
Three (3) Principle processes are launched when Dictation is turned on (all run by the user):

assistand is launched first, and doesn't quit on its own.
Dictation is then launched a few seconds later, and auto-quits ~6 seconds after Dictation is turned off normally (in System Preferences).
ABAssistantService is launched a few seconds after Dictation and I believe it is gathering and then passing to assistantd to upload some amount of AddressBook data, then quits. This happens if it's been ~>45 seconds since the last launch. (See this question on A.SE for more research me and others did.)

If you kill the assistantd process while Dictation is turned on in System Preferences it will just relaunch.
as a side note, multiple com.apple.audio.ComponentHelper and com.apple.audio.SandboxHelper (a duplicate of an older process owned by _coreaudiod) were spawned with user ownership when playing around a bit too heavy handedly with changing the .caf files sometimes, usually together.