How to add iTunes song to my iPhone? I'm attempting to copy song from iTunes to my iPhone.  All versions of software are current.  Trying to drag-and-drop from iTunes into my iPhone.  This was simple at some point in Apple history.  Now, nothing happens.  The "traveling" icon (drag/drop) tells me there is 1 file being  transfered, but no transfer ever takes place.  An hour chatting with Apple Support with all their versions of "are you sure it's plugged in" from their troubleshooting clones got me nowhere.

I had the same problem, trying to use drag-and-drop (as I'd always done) to add a media file (audiobook) to the iPhone.

When dragged to the iPhone, the item appeared in a small gray box with a red/white number such as "58." No idea what the number meant. In any case, I now know that the small gray box with the number is a visual cue that the dragged item will not be transferred to the phone.

After setting preferences to manual synch, this worked for me on a PC:

Connect the device to iTunes.
Select the device at the top of the screen (not in the sidebar). The iTunes Library view is replaced with your iphone view for "Settings" and "On My Device."
In Settings>Summary, scroll to Options and check-in (or out) Sync your synching method.
In Settings>Audibooks, check-in "Selected audiobooks." No need to actually select books from the list.
Switch back to regular iTunes Library (at the top of the screen, click the " < " (back arrow).
From the Library, select the media type and show it in grid view.
Select the grid item (tile?) for the media file you want to transfer.
Drag the item to the iphone. If drag-and-drop is working, then the entire iPhone and expanded content will be enclosed in a blue box.

Notes

After completing all of the steps, on the iphone, I had to leave "Synch" (see step 4, above) checked in. If I unchecked it, then all selected types of media were deleted from the iphone.
My environment: iPhone 10; Windows 10; software for both is up-to-date.

Apple updates its applications' behaviors more frequently than I transfer files. Consequently, figuring out what's changed and writing the steps for yourself seems to never be sufficient.

Having said that, I hope this helps at least a few people in the short term.


Is it possible to clear Automator logs? How do I clear Automator logs?

Go to ~/Library/Logs/ find the log file, and delete it. Or, if there isn't a log file for Automator there, go to /Library/Logs and find the file there.


Weird keybindings in Mac OS X Terminal.app I am trying to use the key "shift-tab" in emacs running purely under Terminal.app, but got an error saying there is no keybinding for "M-[ z" (where M is the meta key, set to be the option key under Terminal.app preferences). In other words, emacs thinks I am pressing "option-[ z" when I pressed "shift-tab" on the keyboard of my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X 10.6.6, what is the problem and how do I correct it? Thank you.

Terminal.app is actually doing what it's supposed to:  shift-TAB sends ESC [ z which Emacs reads as M-[ z.  The problem is that the terminal description for xterm-color (the one usually used with Terminal.app and other terminal emulators) is missing the kcbt declaration, so Emacs doesn't know that that's what the key sends.

There are two ways to fix this:

Edit the terminal description:

$ infocmp >xterm-color.ti
$ printf '\tkcbt=\E[Z,\n' >>xterm-color.ti
$ sudo tic xterm-color.ti

Tell Emacs about it directly:

$ echo "(global-set-key "\M-[Z" 'something)" >>~/.emacs

The problem in both cases is that there doesn't seem to be a backwards-tab command to substitute for something.  Emacs.app binds backtab to yank; what do you want it to do?


Finder freezes for several minutes when opening folder for first time after restart After I restart my computer, if I try to open a folder the wheel at the bottom of the Finder window spins and I get the beach ball. This happens for several minutes (over 5 minutes) while loading the files. Finder is completely unusable during this time.

I have a MacBook Pro w/ Retina on 10.9 Mavericks.

What I have tried (using advice from this question):
-Disable AppNap
-Clear Caches
-Reset Preferences

Also, my CPU usage is really high while it is trying to load. Any ideas what the problem could be?

Update:

Activity Monitor screen shot:

After further inspection, I noticed that when I first started Finder a process in Activity Monitor called InterCheck was taking up around 190% of my CPU (not sure how that's possible, but anyways).

A Google search revealed that that process is from Sophos Anti-Virus. It turns out that when I start Finder it is trying to live scan my entire disk, which is taking a really long since I had scan "inside archives and compressed files" checked. By unchecking this option, Finder loads much quicker and InterCheck spikes CPU usage briefly on start up and then goes back down to a reasonable level (which according to Sophos forums, is the normal behavior).


Importing modules in python gives syntax error Whenever I try to import modules from python source code files using the python shell(installed in brew folder), I get the following error :

>>> from not import *;
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    from not import *;
           ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Can anyone please help!?

not is a built in boolean operator so you can't use it as the name of a module. If you're trying to load this symbolic negation module: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/PADS/Not.py , you need from Not import * (python is case sensitive)

Incidentally, using from x import * is a bad idea in most cases. It breaks static code analysis, it can hide bugs, and you import all kinds of stuff into your namespace. Apart from a few specific use cases, it's probably better to import only what you need or to leave the module its own namespace.


Mac OS Recovery: Disk Utility always partitions SSD I am trying to recover my Mac OS installation. When I erase my drive in disk utility, instead of just seeing one partition, it shows me a Disk named APPLE SSD SM056L Media, with a partition called Macintosh HD. I am used to just seeing the Macintosh HD. Even if I press erase on the APPLE SSD it still remains in that state and only formats the disk that’s grouped beneath it. Is that a problem?

If you format your main internal disk from Recovery, Disk Utility will actually set the drive up ready to accept a new macOS. This will entail actually making 4 partitions, 3 of which will be nominally hidden from you.

If you don't need or want to see any of this 'under the hood' detail, you can set Disk Utility to only show Volumes, not all devices.

 Cmd ⌘   1  or View Menu > Show Only Volumes will do this for you.

if you really want to see everything that macOS hides from you, launch Terminal & type diskutil list [this will not change anything, merely allow you to see it] - you'll see 'real' disks & volumes, & also synthesised ones which are virtual but necessary for the smooth operation of the system.

for example -

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         1000.0 GB  disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1000.0 GB  disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            585.5 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 21.2 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.3 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      20.5 KB    disk1s4

Despite all this, all you will see in Disk Utility is either just Macintosh HD, or your drive's physical name [APPLE SSD SM056L Media] with [potentially an APFS container if your OS is new enough] & Macintosh HD inside that.


In Safari 5.1, how do I disable Top Sites and the caching of thumbnail images of Web pages? There were methods for doing this in earlier versions of Safari but I don't know of one that works with 5.1.

The reason I want to do this is that it takes up a great deal of disk space, and I suspect it slows things down on my older, slower Mac running Lion because of all the extra caching going on. I never use the feature anyway.

Here is the link to an earlier question on Ask Different with regard to Safari 5.0.

How can I disable "Top Sites" in Safari/Webkit completely?

I am creating a new question because apparently any methods that would work for Safari 5.0 will not work for 5.1.

While not a clean solution and not properly preventing Safari from creating the thumbnails in the first place, this apparently works to keep them from taking up disk space:

rm ~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db && ln -s /dev/null ~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db

Incidentally, even going to Safari → Reset Safari… and ticking Remove all webpage preview images will apparently leave this hack intact.

As for Top Sites, there are a few places you can remove it from:

Safari → Preferences → General → New windows open with
Safari → Preferences → General → New tabs open with
Safari → Preferences → Bookmarks → Bookmarks bar

I don't believe the menu item can be removed this easily.


iTunes 12 will not play albums - just one song at a time I have iTunes 12 and it will not play albums in order - just one song at a time.  I have tried all kinds of things to fix this.

Something I noticed is that none of the songs are checked any more and I don't know what that means.

I can't figure this out.  Help.

Thanks

iTunes doesn't move to the next song by default, it moves to the next checked song.

If all are unchecked, that's your issue.

To recheck, in 'Songs' mode, select the top one, scroll to the bottom, shift/click the last one.
Right click > check selection.
[it might say 'tick' not check, I'm not sure if that's input language-dependant…
US check == UK tick]


MacBookPro9,2 does not recognize drive as bootable after clean Install The original hard drive stopped working, so I got a new SSD (Crucial MX300, 275GB, part number CT275MX300SSD1) to put into the MacBook Pro and make a clean install of macOS.
Installation of High Sierra using an USB drive looked like it went through well, but when the MacBook Pro rebooted, it got to a screen where it just shows a flashing folder icon with a question mark inside.
After that failed, I tried a second time using Network Recovery and installed Mountain Lion. Same flashing folder icon after reboot. NVRAM reset did not fix the issue.
After wiping the drive once again, I immediately ran a volume check using Disk Utility and it told me that the volume was damaged.
Output of diskutil verifyVolume disk1s2:
Started file system verification on disk1s2 Macintosh SSD
Check file system
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume
Checking extents overflow file
The volume Macintosh SSD could not be verified completely
Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed
Underlying error: 8: POSIX reports: Exec format error

So maybe the issue lies on the SSD itself?

It turned out the hard drive cable was faulty. I found a couple of Q&A's on the net (like https://de.ifixit.com/Antworten/Ansehen/356610/Hard+Drive+SATA+cable+failing+related+to+the+battery+brackets) that highlighted the issue and so i decided to give a new cable a try. I ordered a new one, replaced it and now everything works without any issues.


How to install QuickTime 7 without overwriting the currently installed version I purchased a Intel MacBook Pro from a colleague with installed OS 10.8.5. I do not own the OS disks therefore do not have the disks to re-install QuickTime. QT 10.2 is on this "new" 2008 MacBookPro. The question relates to the need to install QT 7 which has the dialog box to register the key code to unlock the Pro features (QT 10.2 lacks the ability to enter the Pro key hence the need to install QT 7 then upgrade). How might I install QT7 and still retain the QT 10.2 version on the MacBook Pro, as I don't have the option of reinstalling 10.2 if written over. (I don't want to risk "losing" QT 10.2 on OS 10.8.5 because it will block the ability to use Final Cut Pro 7 or X). Please advise. Thank you.

The QuickTime Player 7 and QuickTime 10 apps coexist on all my Macs without causing any problems.

If you're worried about overwriting QuickTime Player 10, right-click on the app, and choose Compress "QuickTime Player.app" and zip it up. If the QuickTime Player 7 installation wipes out v.10, (and I don't think it will,) then you can simply uncompress it.

You can also retrieve it from a Time Machine backup. You do use Time Machine, don't you?


CHM reader with Dropbox/Google Drive support in iPad? I would like to find some CHM reader which you can use to read CHM files which are located in Dropbox or Google Drive.
I could not open books of those cloud services in CHMate premium, although there is a piece of advice about Dropbox how to do it: Offile storage > Open in but no CHMate button found.

How can you read documents of cloud services in iPad?

This app looks to be your best bet. It has very limited reviews and very mixed feelings towards it.

It supports opening .chm files from Google Drive, but from one of the reviews, it has a bunch of ads that prevent viewing the files. You might need to pay the IAP (in-app purchase) for the "Pro Version." I'm not suggesting you do, as I haven't used it, but it is worth a try.


What do I have to do to unjailbreak from Absinthe? I'm a little new to the whole iPhone / iTunes world, but I'm planning on eventually jailbreaking my iPhone 4S with Absinthe. The instructions tell me to erase all data from my phone, then restoring from a backup after jailbreaking to get my data back.

But what would I have to do in order to actuall remove the jailbreak again?

The Absinthe README doesn't mention this at all, and the website doesn't seem to have that info either.

To jailbreak with Absinthe they tell you to erase all data just because the software works faster, but you can do it with all your info. It will only take more time.

I recommend you to use the last version of Absinthe.

To remove jailbreak you have to restore your idevice. (it will restore with the last iOS version at the moment).


How can I "mark as spam" in Sparrow for iOS? I have labels, archive, trash, respond, etc. but can't find any way to tag a message as spam on the iPhone version.

From the messages list, swipe left on the message to mark as spam, tap on the label icon, and select Spam.


Restoring Chrome cookies I use Google Chrome as my browser. I deleted Chrome cookies and there are some files that were stored in the cookies for a note taking web application I use. I want to restore the files that were stored in the cookies I deleted. How can I do that?

Use the Enter Time Machine command from the Time Machine menu to restore the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome from a Time Machine backup made before you deleted the cookies. Note: all changes to your Chrome settings and preferences will be reset to the time of the backup.

Make sure Chrome is not running.

Here's Apple's guide to restoring files with Time Machine.


How do I reliably get the file name of the current background picture? Latest Lion update broke a simple Geeklet osascript that used System Events to lookup of Background picture names.  Running the associated command from the terminal returns the same name, every time, even though the picture is changing every minute.

The code below worked for the primary display on my two headed Mac until this last update:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get value of (property list item "LastName" of property list item "default" of property list item "Background" of property list file ((path to preferences as Unicode text) & "com.apple.desktop.plist"))'

The secondary display has a hard-coded id where "default" goes;  I've used the numeric IDs, everything I can think of.

What is particularly annoying is a dump using just 'property list item "Background' in the above script shows the new file names with the appropriate "LastName".  But running the script above always returns the same two names, the initial files shown in the Desktop/Screen Saver preferences.

I'm not an AppleScript or System Events/plist guru, and any help would be appreciated.

--UPDATE--

Modifying the “Spaces” plist on OSX to set default desktops and some experimentation with the "defaults" command led to the following (less than ideal due to the embedded ids, but...) workaround:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get value of (property list item "LastName" of property list item "722492885" of property list item "" of property list item "spaces" of property list item "Background" of property list file ((path to preferences as Unicode text) &amp; "com.apple.desktop.plist"))'

I'm certainly open to more elegant solutions but they must reflect the changing filename with "Random" set in Desktop Preferences.  I'd even like to see a more readable version of what is posted above - all one line.  I'm sure there's better ways to lay this out!

Try

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print :Background:default:ImageFilePath' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist


Change children's Apple ID I accidentally created an @icloud.com address for my kid's (under 13) Apple ID, and now I want to change the primary email to his correct address. However, there is no option for setting a new primary email when I sign into his account at appleid.apple.com. The correct address is listed under Alternative Email Addresses
 I thought maybe I'd have to change it through my account, but I couldn't find any help there either. How can I change his primary email address?

EDIT: The only buttons next to the alternative email address are edit and delete. There are no buttons next to the primary address. Both addresses are verified

http://appleid.apple.com/ is the correct place.

It's been awhile since I did this, but as I recall you will need to delete it as the secondary email then you can edit the primary.

Also, it's easiest if you turn off FindMyiPhone on the device before starting this process.  After all changes have been made and you are logged back into iCloud on the device using the new appleid then be sure and turn FindMyiPhone back on. (FindMyiPhone is a security feature and one it's purposes is to make it difficult for someone without the appleId details to log out. Changing your appleId can confuse the secuirty features, solution is to turn it off during this process.)

Also realize that once you have made the change at appleid.apple.com, the are multiple places in settings on the phone to logout and log back in under the new: iCloud, iTunes and App Store, facetime, messages, Game Center, and likely email needs setup changes.

Edit (based on OP's comment below): Apple states that "If your email address ends with @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com, it's already an Apple ID." Therefor it's not going to be possible to make this appleid have a different primary email address.  If you want an appleid using your son non @icloud.com address you will have to create it.  In order for that to happen you may have to delete it as the secondary on this account.  There is logic in no edit button appearing for the primary. If you made this appleid differnt, how could the @icloud address still be an appleid?


Is there an easy way to make Apple Watch chime or tap hourly or more? One of my planned uses of the Apple Watch was to use the Haptic technology to make a discreet tap on the hour and 20 minute marks, to gauge appointment times. But I was dumbfounded to see that Apple has not built any kind of a chime into the Apple Watch!

Does anyone know of an App or strategy that can do that without setting up hundreds of reminder or calendar notifications?

By using the recurring event feature, you can manage them as less than 24 events. iCloud manages this efficiently. If you wish to delete one, you can delete all future events at one time.

Creating a recurring calendar event

Create a calendar event for your first Chime with these settings:

name: Chime
starts: 4:00
ends: 4:01
repeat: Every Day
alert: At time of event

Since there are 24 hours in the day, you will need to create 24 of them for each hour in a single day.

Uncheck that calendar in your Calendar app to hide it so you don't have to see it:

Perfect! Now your calendar still looks nice and clean.

Deleting a Chime

If you want to delete a chime, check the Chime calendar to make it visible again. Select an event and press the Delete key:

Click Delete All in the prompt:

Now your Chime is removed from all future days:


Is there a way to determine what program is calling a sound randomly on my Mac? I'm currently having an issue with my Mac running Mountain Lion making the "lockOpening.aif" and "lockClosing.aif" sounds apparently at random. I'm looking for a way to narrow down what program or setting is causing them to be played and what action is occurring when it happens. I've seen elsewhere that there was a program that could be used to determine what sound is being played when, and what program is calling the sound, does anyone know of a way to do this?

This would show aif files that are being opened:

sudo opensnoop | grep -F .aif

Or see if any application has those files inside its bundle:

find /Applications -name \*.aif


What are the key differences between fink and macports? I don't want to start a holywar, but as far as I am concerned, I am on track according to the faq.

I wanted to know the key differences between macports and fink. I am a long time macports user and am looking for some fresh blood (if I may say so). I was looking towards fink. I'd appreciate it if anyone listed out a few differences between these two package management systems.

Fink is a binary distribution using tools that originated from Debian (e.g., apt-get, etc.)

Macports is built around the philosophy used by the FreeBSD ports collection. In this you download tarballs directly from the upstream source, apply patches and compile. It's entirely automated.

I haven't used Fink in quite a while (since Panther) because it didn't seem very well done to me.


How do I disable the charging chime with Mojave on 2018 a MacBook? Searching for commands to disable the charge chime, I have run both of these.

defaults write com.apple.PowerChime ChimeOnAllHardware -bool false; killall PowerChime

defaults write com.apple.PowerChime ChimeOnNoHardware -bool true;killall PowerChime

I still hear the sound. No answers here are selected and they conflict.

Turning Power Chime Off

Can the chime be suppressed with Mojave?

In my case it did work after running this in the Terminal
(I am using a USB-C monitor for powering the MacBook Pro)

defaults write com.apple.PowerChime ChimeOnNoHardware -bool true
killall PowerChime

also this question discusses more ways to solve:

Turning Power Chime Off


Multiple Apple ID accounts – can I delete one safely? I have two Apple ID accounts and wish to remove one as it causes confusion with password issues. What problems will this cause if I delete this app from my iPhone.

The main issue you might have is if you have purchased/downloaded apps, music or any content with that apple ID. You won't be able to update them or you will need to re-download them or purchase them again with the other ID in order to continue having updates.

The same applies with synced content via iCloud such as contacts, iCal, etc.

You just need to be sure that no content, apps or anything was synced or downloaded with that ID.


Use Airplay Mirroring and Airplay Speakers at the same time on iPhone Is it possible to use AirPlay mirroring for the video output and AirPlay speakers for audio at the same time? Unfortunately, the AirPlay menu available in the dock only allows me to select one device at a time.

Thank you.

For iTunes content you may use Apple's Remote app to send signal to multiple sources at once.

For local content for Apple TV 2nd and 3rd generation on latest firmware you might try sending AirPlay stream to AppleTV and then choose your Airplay enabled speaker for sound output in AirPlay Preferences on AppleTV itself. It will only work for 2.0 (Stereo) sound.


Removing Jailbreak from iPod touch 4g 8gb So I wanted to play some pokemon games on my iPod touch, and I jailbreaked it with redsn0w 0.9.15b3.
In the end I couldn't use neither safari nor anything apple related(plus my home key isn't working as it should and I couldn't "just root" it).
Now, I want to know how to remove jailbreak. I don't care if any data is lost or anything.
It's iPod 4G 8gb and I can't install iOs7 'cause of that.

Just use iTunes and restore it.
You could also use your jailbrooken backup to get your saves and stuff back, or just start a clean one and let iCloud sync contacts and primary stuff back.


Unable to verify account name or password despite using correct details I've had this problem for a while, but I hate not knowing or getting to the bottom of things, so here I am! :)

On an iMac I am running El Capitan 10.11.6 and in the Mail app I successfully send and receive emails from five separate accounts. So all seems good.

However, if I go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts and manually select each of these five accounts, for two of them I get the following Can't connect to the account error message:

Now, when I enter my password, I get the Unable to verify account name or password prompt in red text:

I manage my own domain and email accounts, so know for a fact I have the correct passwords. And, as I said, I am using these accounts fine within Mail. I also use them fine on various iPhones and iPads and other Macs.

Any suggestions as to what's going on?

I was having this issue also, tried restarting the computer, editing the SMTP, nothing worked. I went into internet accounts and clicked the remove button (-) in the bottom left. After removing and re-adding the account everything seems to be working fine!


How do I delete my notes on one device without deleting them from iCloud? A friend of mine bought a new iPhone yesterday and wants to give her old one as a hand-me-down. The retail guy transferred her contacts but not her notes.

Remove the iCloud from the device and the notes will/should disappear with it.


Can I stop the App Store from exiting every time I install an app? Every time I install an app in app store on iPad, the app store will close. This is annoying when I want to install multiple apps at once. Is there a way to stop it from doing this?

Apple implemented this in iOS 6. Install iOS 6 and enjoy the updated appstore.


Unable to install an OS on Mac (prohibited sign) I had an issue with my MacBook Air "Core i5" 1.6 13" (Early 2015) (MacBookAir7,2) and after repeated problems I decided to wipe the computer and give it a clean slate.

I downloaded a copy of Mavericks and Yosemite off the internet and created a bootable external hard drive with an iMac. I've tried both Mavericks and Yosemite but always get the prohibited sign.

I tried cmd + S while booting with the hard drive and it said "This version of Mac OS X is not supported on this platform" for both versions of OS X. The funny thing is I tried the bootable hard drive with the old iMac I have in the house and it booted into the installer just fine.

What can I do to fix this issue?

To start with your MacBook Air will not run Mavericks, so you can put that one aside as incompatible.

As for Yosemite, the earliest possible version that will run on your model MacBook Air is actually Mac OS X 10.10.2 (build 14C2043). My guess is that the copy of Yosemite you've downloaded is either 10.10.0, 10.10.1 or a build version of 10.10.2 earlier than 14C2043.

Regardless, your best option is usually to boot into Recovery Mode.

Recovery Mode

You can boot into Recovery Mode and reinstall macOS from there. You will have up to three options:

Hold down the commandR keys as soon as you power up to reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version
Hold down the optioncommandR keys as soon as you power up to upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac
Hold down the shiftoptioncommandR keys as soon as you power up to reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available1

1 That third option is a new option only available since 27 March 2017 and requires macOS Sierra 10.12.4.

For more info refer to: About macOS Recovery

IMPORTANT - Your question doesn't specify where you've downloaded the installers from. Please note that if you haven't downloaded them directly from Apple then there is no way for anyone here to confirm the suitability/safety of what you've downloaded.

[UPDATE]

Since you're having problems with Recovery Mode I suggest you reset your Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM).

Resetting the NVRAM

To do this on your MacBook Air, follow the steps below.

NOTE: Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and make sure you use the built-in keyboard.

Fully shut down your machine.
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 hear the startup chime for the second time.
Let go of the keys

Once you've reset the NVRAM, power off and try the various Recovery Mode keyboard shortcuts again.


OS X Server MailBox size expand I'm running OS X Server app version 5.1. I have mail configured for all my users. I have a default value of 200 MB for each mail box, as the server is only 256 GB. Is there any way to change the mail box location to my attached external NAS so I can locate more then 50 GB mail space to each user.

You two options to change the mail box location:

You can either change the Server Data location to an external volume or a share:
Open Server.app. In the left pane choose Server -> server_name -> Settings -> Service Data. Hit the button Change Location and choose another volume. This will copy all service data to a new location. Before migrating the services will be shut down automatically.

Or you copy the Mail folder /Library/Server/Mail to a different location
Stop the mail service. Copy/rsync the folder /Library/Server/Mail to a different volume/share. Keep the original permissions! Remove the original folder and symlink back the new location to /Library/Server/Mail.

After moving the mail data location adjust the mail box size and start the mail service again.


Adding GPS support to a Wi-Fi only iPad I have been reading on this, and so far the option I found is:

Garmin/XGPS external Bluetooth GPS receiver

And that is it. Are there any other alternatives?

I’m curious if an Android or iPhone could be used to share its GPS. I should have gotten a Wi-Fi + cellular iPad, but thats a different story.

Using External GPS / GNSS With iOS

This requires :

The external GPS must be a Made for iPod (MFI) certified External Accessory (EA) that support iOS (has the Apple authentication chip) via a Bluetooth connection to the GPS
Requires that iOS Core Location Services be overridden by one of two methods so that all apps on the iPhone/iPad will use the external GPS.

1) Use of an app such as EOS Tools Pro that receives location information and overrides iOS Core Location Services.
2) The External Accessory (EA) itself somehow overrides iOS Core Location Services.
I do not understand how this is done.
Only devices made by SXblue https://sxbluegps.com/products/gps-gnss-receivers/ can do this MFI magic AFAIK.

I have found only a few GPS manufactures that support iOS:

BadElf (lower accuracy but lower cost)
EOS https://eos-gnss.com/product/arrow-series/arrow-gold/
BlueStar (rebranded EOS devices) http://bluestargps.com/index.html
SXblue https://sxbluegps.com/
EOS (BluStar is EOS Arrow 200 I think). All these EOS devices support iOS:
https://eos-gnss.com/comparison-chart

Sharing Android GPS with an IOS Device

I have no idea if this works.

How To Share GPS From An Android Phone To An iPad [Guide]


Recharging iOS devices What's the current advice on recharging my iOS devices?

I try to maximize the long-term lifespan of the battery by only recharging to 100% and promptly disconnecting from the power, but I know many people who leave their devices docked and charging until they walk out the door. I also try to run down to zero/empty periodically. What's the best practice here? I've read Apple's suggestions too but wonder what others have found.

I am not an engineer [IANAE?], but I have been impressed by the advice of Steve Gibson, www.grc.com, a security researcher who has produced more than 300 consecutive weekly shows for his podcast, "Security Now."

His advice is charge lithium ion batteries early and often.

Two weeks ago he stated it thusly:

  STEVE:  Yes.  Now, the universal agreement is that, unlike prior technologies, prior chemistries, both nickel-cadmium and then nickel-metal hydride, which was actually the same fundamental electrochemistry, those had a memory effect.  So if you only discharged them a little bit and recharged them often, they would forget that there was, like, a lot more room down below the point that you were normally starting the recharge.  So the logic there was run them all the way down to the ground before you recharge them.  And if you can't, then you could reset their memory by deliberately doing some deep cycles.

  Lithium-ion, completely different story.  It has no memory.  And it actually is better for the chemistry not to be running it all the way down.  So there the logic is charge often.  And if you are in a situation where, for example, you have access to a plug, and you've got your adapter, always use the adapter when you can.

I took this quotation from the transcript of episode 334, available here, on grc.com.

I hope he's right.


macOS Sierra, system size is 180+ GB! I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) running macOS Sierra, the Mac started to be slow due to storage.

When I've checked my storage I was shocked, from 250 GB I have, 180 GB was allocated to the System it self!

I've checked my friends storage and found that the System is only 30 GB!

How can I manage this and why do I have that much storage allocated to the System?

Download Diskkeeper and analyze your hard drive.

  OmniDiskSweeper will show you the files on your drive, in descending
  order by size, and letting you decide what to do with them. Delete
  away, but exercise caution.

Omnidiskkeeper will show detail of space usage:

Select System and start cleaning.


Streaks in PDF when using preview When opening a PDF in preview there often are streaks like this:

Does anybody have an idea where this is coming from?

There's a bug somewhere (maybe a PostScript bug related to Preview) in the Mac workflow when you Save as PDF. There is a rare occurrence where a line like that will occur, and the workaround is to repeat the Save as PDF command. The bug is rare, so you probably won't get a repeat the second time.

I've encountered the bug a handful of times because I frequently use Preview to compile screenshots (from online seminars) into a single PDF for later review. Here is the workflow I'm using when I encounter the bug:

Select all your screenshots, right-click, open with Preview.
Review the screenshots; right-click and delete any you don't want.
On the left, use [Cmd+a] to select all the screenshots.
Use [Cmd+p] to open the Print dialog, but at the bottom-left, choose Save as PDF.

After step (4), I find it necessary to quickly skim through the resulting PDF, just to confirm that a random line hasn't occurred. If it has, then I repeat step (4) and check again.

If my descriptions above are not helpful to you, then another thing to check is the software that was used to generate the PDF. For example, if you open a PDF in Acrobat (I'm not certain about Adobe Reader), then use [Cmd+d] to open the Document Properties dialog, and the Description tab will list the software used to produce that PDF. Knowing this, you can potentially identify the source of issues.


Mysterious photo uploads to Google Photos I realise this question is somewhat of an intersection of OS X and Google but I'll start here. My partner discovered that most of her pictures (up to 2013) that are on her Mac were mysteriously available on Google Photos; we're puzzled as to how all these pictures ended up on Google Photos when we did not explicitly upload them.

What mechanisms are available that would automatically sync up photos from OS X? My prime suspect is Google Drive for OS X. We don't appear to have that installed any more and that might explain why the pics only go to 2013.

What other items can we look at? They're not pictures from her phone (iPhone 4, iOS 7) nor have we installed anything on there that might sync pics from her phone.

Google + for iOS, Google Photos for iOS and Google Photo Autobackup do that. The age of the pictures is not really relevant, because the last app would upload any image on your computer (on the pictures folders mostly).
Also, Picasa used to be able to sync your pics with G+, although I'm not sure it was automatic.


How to get rid of nuisance time machine popup dialog Every hour the Time machine pops up a dialog window.  It takes the focus off of what I am doing and is generally a nuisance.  The external disk drive is connected via a thunderbolt cable.  It is an apple thunderbolt powered 1t drive.  It is primarily used by time machine.  I could care less that it cleans up its own space, just do it and don't tell me about it.  There is nothing I can do or should do.

Text of dialog below:

  Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “HD-PATU3”.
  The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. Time Machine will try to make more space available by removing expired backups during the next scheduled backup.

Open Time Machine preferences to select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files.

Is there anyway to get rid of this nuisance?  One time I went in and manually cleared a bunch of old time machine files, and that fixed it until it filled up again.  But I thought apple was better than that.  Forcing users to understand the administration of there machines and do manual efforts.

It could be as simple as de-selecting the

But there also is a warning that happens when the size estimate for pre-backup pruning is much larger than the free space on the system.

We would need you to edit your question to show a bit more detail about the version of OS X you are running (there are 3 with Time Machine) and what the system believes the pre-backup estimate size is as well as the size and space on the backup drive.

I have seen a few cases where you can't get around this message without starting again on a new drive or manually clearing enough backups to make room for the normal silent operation to run. You can see most of the information needed from the console app and searching for backupd in /var/log/system.log (or any collection of logs that includes the system log)


Virtual machines to install for OS+Ubuntu+Windows I have a MacBook Pro running OS X Lion 10.7.2, and I am going to install VMware to run virtual Windows.

I would like to use Ubuntu at the same time; is it technically possible? Do I need to install another virtual machine for that? In this case, which virtual machine is a best choice?

So ideally, I would like to use OS+Ubuntu+Windows, with a shared folder. Is it possible to adjust frequently the memory that a machine occupies?

PS: some info of my hardware:

Processor: 2.5GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Yes it's possible. You don't need to install multiple virtualization software to run multiple virtualized systems.

You can use one virtualization software (VMware, Parallels or VirtualBox for example) to run multiple virtual machines at the same time.

You can edit the Virtual Machines.

You can change the amount of memory and the number of cores used by each virtual machine among other things, but it requires shutting down the VM you will edit.

For non Bootcamp virtual machines, you can also change the settings of virtual hard drives by creating new drives, removing existing ones or even resizing existing virtual hard drives (which are just files on your hard drive).

Getting the best of both worlds.

I would recommend you install Windows in Bootcamp first. Then back in Mac OS you create your Windows virtual machine from the bootcamp install. Follow this procedure.

This way you will be able to either launch Windows from Mac OS and run both systems at the same time and restart your computer to boot into Windows natively for better performance (for video games or power hungry applications).


Macbook external display rearranges homescreen I've just set my PC moniter as primary screen when I plug in my MacBook (Air 2020) but it keeps rearranging my Homescreen.
When I rearrange it so it fits my external display and unplug my laptop it will place the apps on top of each other so I that doesn't work.
Can I prevent this from happening?

Because it's a laptop with its own screen, as soon as you unplug your Primary screen, the internal once again becomes Primary & all windows will migrate to it.
Re-connecting the other display it will then once again reassign it as Primary - but the 'damage' has already been done & it will not be able to correctly place the windows back where they were.
You may benefit from using a third party window manager. There are a few listed in the answers to this question - Do any window managers allow me to snap windows to the sides of the display?


mac: /usr/sbin/diskutil verifyPermissions / hangs in single-user mode I'm trying to repair my sister's iMac using single-user mode.

Since a recent power outage (no surge protector) it won't boot.  I used verbose mode to see where it was hanging ("mDNSResponder: adding browse domain local") and found some advice online that said repairing the disk permissions might help.

So I booted into single user mode, ran fsck -fy a couple times until it stopped complaining, ran mount -uw / and autodiskmount -va fine, and got stuck at diskutil.

It just hangs (over an hour, no output).

Is there anything else I should try, or should I just revert to surgery and grab the hd?

Sounds like your filesystem took a serious beating (if you have to run fsck multiple times, it probably discarded a bunch of stuff in the process). Permission repair (diskutil repairPermissions disk<X>s<Y>) relies on the package receipts kept in /var/db/receipts and will not work successfully if these are damaged or missing (although it shouldn't hang, but who knows what else got blown up).

Assuming you don't have a recent backup of the system (if you do, restore from that), the next step would be to boot from the OS X DVD, launch Disk Utility from there and try it's permission repair. If that doesn't work either, exit Disk Utility and select Archive & Install, which basically moves all system files into /Previous System, reinstalls OS X and leaves the user files intact (or at least as intact as they are now). If you lack the disk space for that, you can also Install (without archiving the old system files). In either case you'll want to check the Preserve existing Users & Network Settings option.


Using Find my iPhone to track my daughters phone Can I use find my iPhone to track my daughters phone if we each have different apple ids?

Only the main Apple ID on the device (the one that has iCloud backups available) is available to log in to Find my iPhone. Any secondary iCloud accounts added to the device can not be used to track the device.

If she doesn't mind that her Apple ID won't be the main one, then yes, you can set it up with your Apple ID as the main one and that will work fine.

Also, if she doesn't mind, you can log in with her Apple ID.

If not, you can use Find my Friends since this works across multiple Apple IDs.


How to change this terminal customization tutorial for usage in zsh rather than bash? This tutorial gives instructions on how to customize the look of macOS's Terminal application. I followed the instructions but used zsh where it said bash in hopes that it would work, but it didn't. I changed the shell to Bash to see how it would work, and it did, but I need to use zsh for work purposes. Is there a way to adapt the tutorial for use in zsh rather than Bash, or is there a tutorial for customizing your zsh shell?
Thanks in advance.

Is there a way to adapt the tutorial for use in zsh rather than Bash,

No, not really. Customizing Zsh is fairly different from customizing Bash. It would be quite a lot of work.

or is there a tutorial for customizing your zsh shell?

Yes, there is!  There’s quite a few of them, in fact, but I found this one by far the best: https://scriptingosx.com/2019/06/moving-to-zsh/
However, instead of doing everything by hand, you might just want to copy-paste an existing config to get you started quickly. Here’s one I’ve been working on, with input from the Zsh development group, which has zero external dependencies, and thus should work out of the box for any Zsh installation: https://gitlab.com/marlonrichert/zsh-sensible/-/blob/master/zshrc
Just save that as ~/.zshrc and restart your shell. Please try it out and let me know what you think. Ideas for improvement are welcome.


Sierra as NFS/LDAP client: write permissions problems I have set up an NFS/LDAP client under Sierra and I have write permissions problems with the user profile. Some installed applications do not want to launch with the user account such as LibreOffice, Filezilla, Opera... I use /etc/auto_master and /etc/auto_nfs

The user manages very well to write on his account nfs

Here's what it is:

+auto_master # Use directory service
/net -hosts -nobrowse, hidefromromfinder, nosuid
/home auto_home -nobrowse, hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers -fstab
/- - - Static
#/- auto_nfs -nobrowse, nosuid
/- auto_nfs -nobrowse, nosuid

/home1 -fstype=nfs, noowners, rw, resvport, nolockd, hard, bg, intr, nfc 192.31.21.33:/home1
/home2 -fstype=nfs, noowners, rw, resvport, nolockd, hard, bg, intr, nfc 192.31.21.33:/home2

I deleted nolockd and it works much better.


Freeze/frost alarm for iOS I want to receive an alert whenever there is a freeze or frost advisory in my area, so I can know when to cover my plants. I would assume there is an app for that, but there are dozens weather apps, and all their features are not listed.

Ideally, I just need something like this Android app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cook.org&hl=en

Many apps offer weather alerts, but I don't want to get alerts for all inclement weather, just cold weather, and none made it clear that this is possible. Paid or free is fine. Thanks!

One good option might be to combine IFTTT and Pushover.

I currently get alerts whenever snow is forecast via this setup.


Export from garageband to audacity I want to export ALL the audio tracks from garageband to audacity. I searched on the internet and it is apparently not possible ( here for instance), or better it is possible but one track at time.

It seems so weird that nobody found a workaround or wrote a software which performs this acrion...

So, my questions are:

is it possible to export the whole (ALL TRACKS) garageband project to audacity?
is it possible to export the whole garageband project to any other multi-track recording software?

GarageBand is basically a simple version Logic, in a similar way that iPhoto is a simple version of Aperture.

What you want to do is easily done in Logic, and it also has the functionality within it that you probably wouldn't even need to export it to Audacity at all.

You can import anything created in GarageBand directly into Logic.

(if it's something you can't justify buying Logic to do, you could get someone with Logic to export the GarageBand tracks for you)


Is it safe to restore the ~/Library folder? I have just replaced my magnetic hard drive with a new and fast SSD drive.

I have placed the old drive in an external case, so all the files are available, and all the data was successfully restored.

My dilemma is about the ~/Library folder. It contains a lot of application settings which can save lots of time reconfiguring.

Is it safe to restore the contents of the ~/Library folder to the new SSD drive?

Update: I have not used time machine, just placed the old hard drive in a case and connected it via USB.

I always did that -- in fact, if you did NOT upgrade OS version I'd just copy the folder wholesale.  Restoring from a Time Machine backup would do something similar, and equally dumb -- I had problems with Mail once because time machine had passed a preference file across between OS versions, and the pref file conflicted with the new Mail [1], so Time Machine is no guarantee that all will be smooth.

So, if you are NOT also upgrading OS, just copy all across.  If you are also upgrading OS move the data in ~/Library (such as your emails), and the prefs for stuff that is not bundled with the OS (such as Mail or Safari), but I'd reset the preferences for those applications only once more from within the apps themselves.

[1] What is com.apple.mail.plist and why was it slowing Mail down?


Possible to remap CapsLock to emulate the "French - Numerical" behavior on a U.S qwerty keyboard I would like to remap the capslock key to behave as such:

When Off :

letters are lowercase
numbers are not active (symbols characters are active)
other symbols (not on the numbers row) behave normally (as if shift was up)

When ON:

letters are uppercase
numbers are active
other symbols (not on the numbers row) are inverted (as if shift was down)

It is the behavior from the "French - Numerical" layout, but I need this on a U.S. keyboard.

Not natively, as far as I'm aware.

Though I don't think it'd be easy, I guess you could use an app such as Ukulele. I suggest the stable 2.2.8 version, since the 3.0 beta might crash when changing modifier keys.

Download Ukulele
Change your keyboard layout to French - Numerical ( > System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources)
In Ukulele: File > New From Current Input Source (Which is why you changed to French - Numerical in the previous step). After this you can change back to the regular keyboard layout.
Essentially change all of the keys to match the English QWERTY.
Save your new layout in your Library folder > Keyboard Layouts (Accessable by pressing ⇧+⌘+G and typing in "~/Library/Keyboard Layouts" and clicking Go)
Log out and log in again an switch to your new fancy keyboard layout

I think this is the way to go simply because Apple probably did some fancy trickery to make this work for the French layout, so if you base it off of that, you might be able to "trick" the system into accepting the new one.

Note: Since we're not entirely sure this'll work, I'd recommend only changing a couple of keys to be begin with, as a "proof of concept" (Then, obviously, if it works, simply finish the layout and repeat step 5 and 6).

Good luck!


External monitor usually not working on MBP I am connecting an external monitor to a MBP with a MiniDP-DVI adapter to which I connect a DVI cable going to a monitor.

The monitor usually doesn't wake up from sleep. I have been unable to use the monitor and gave up for a couple of months. I then used the exact same cable combination and the monitor successfully for two days in a row (a couple of days ago). Now I can't get it working once again. The monitor in question is Dell U2311H.

I noticed a couple of things:

once I connected a USB mouse to a MBP, there was 2 seconds of blue screen on Mac screen (not sure but it might have also been blue on the external monitor).
if I disconnect the DVI cable from the adapter and reconnect, 2 seconds of blue screen are shown on Mac, but external monitor doesn't react
unplugging and plugging the adapter-cable combination does nothing
resets don't help

Is there a procedure to get this working (e.g. unplug cables, restart, plug again)?

There is probably something wrong with the adapter cable. When it's straightened out, and the monitor is connected after the system has started, everything is working okay. I've tested that for a couple of weeks now.


How can I mirror one iPhone 4 to another? I have heard you can mirror an iPhone 4 so that whatever happens on one phone you will see on the mirrored phone. Can this really be done and if so how do I go about setting up the two phones? I am very technologicaly challenged, but I'd like to monitor my daughter's iPhone.

Without jailbreak, No.

With jailbreak, still, No.

Furthermore, it is considered pretty rude to do that IF it's for spying on someone.


Mail App search not finding recent emails in inbox Mac is running Sierra and using the mail app.

When I try to use the mail search function in the top right of the screen it doesnt find recent emails.  Ive tried changing the search context and looking in different mailboxes to no avail.  I've rebuilt the mailbox and also re-indexed the spotlight searc (because this is having the same issue but with files) to no avail.

Any ideas on what I could do to fix this?

I had the same issue when finding a 2015 email from my iCloud inbox. I switched to iCloud.com to find it. And I still have to go to the website even in High Sierra. Guess this has been a bug...


Changing the Desktop background of the current Space does not change the background for other Space(s) When I change the Desktop background in macOS, the change gets reflected only in the current Space and not the others. The background image I am selecting is one from the default set.

I tried disabling use different spaces for displays but that didn't work either.

This is the default behaviour in macOS. If you have more than one Space, the desktop background is changed only for the current Space and not for the others.

Disabling use different spaces for displays have no relation to this behaviour whatsoever.


sudo: effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root? I was trying to remove some folders (python) via sudo rm in Terminal and got this message:

sudo: effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root?

I already tried to verify/repair disk permissions (only shows 1 error, apple's remote agent), but that didn't help.

$ sudo
sudo: effective uid is not 0, is sudo installed setuid root?

$ type sudo
sudo is hashed (/usr/local/bin/sudo)

$ ls -@@eil /usr/bin/sudo
2215747 -r-s--x--x  1 root  wheel  164560 Sep 10  2014 /usr/bin/sudo

$ md5 /usr/bin/sudo
md5: /usr/bin/sudo: Permission denied

OS X 10.10.4

For whatever reason, you have a sudo installed in /usr/local/bin (see the output of type). Did you install something with homebrew or another package manager?

To fix, run

/usr/bin/sudo mv /usr/local/bin/sudo /usr/local/bin/sudo-strange

or (if you want to get rid of it completely)

/usr/bin/sudo rm /usr/local/bin/sudo


Intermittent detection of USB 2.0 keyboard thru Anker hub on macOS Catalina I am encountering a very frustrating issue since purchasing a MBP 2018.

I have a USB 2.0 Apple Keyboard.

As new MacBook models only have USB-C ports, I had to purchase a USB hub (Anker 7-in-1).

However it is it and miss whether or not my keyboard is detected. I haven't yet been able to isolate a fix-sequence (e.g. connect keyboard to hub, connect power to hub, connect hub to MacBook).

Hub, but no keyboard plugged in:

Keyboard plugged in but not sending keystrokes:

After reboot, keyboard is detected and sends keystrokes:

I notice strange USB device enumeration also -- Those screenshots display 3x USB 3.1 bus, but MBP has 4 USB-C ports. And Anker appears underneath two of these, but There is only one Anker hub.

Is there some known issue with USB on these new machines?

I have the same issue. My USBC hub is Deltaco USBC 1266.

You probably don't need to reboot, just move the keyboard from one slot to another or move the whole dongle from one port to another. This usually resolves it for me.

I had this problem when the computer was new in 2016. Whatever the OS was then. And I got it again after upgrading to Catalina.


Tracks are listed in the wrong order when iTunes is importing CDs I am importing a CD to iTunes and find that when it appears the track listings are in the wrong order. The tracks themselves are labelled correctly as in track 1 and track 8 etc. but appear in the iTunes import page in a scrambled order. Can anyone help?

Tracks are sorted by the selected sort column. To sort by track number, choose the track number column header and observe the sort arrow appear next to the header.


Is there a way to view Game Center information on OS X? Is there a way to view Game Center information, such as achievements or friends, on OS X (or any other desktop OS), or is Game Center only accessible from iOS?

For the moment it only works on iOS. I would assume there will be plans at some point for Apple to release it to the Mac, however nothing has been mentioned publicly. Apple has also not provided any web interface for it, and I suspect if they do it will be part of iCloud.


Can't locate /.Spotlight-V100 anywhere, spotlight has incomplete results even after index rebuild I tried everything I could find on StackExchange and the internet, including the official apple-suggested approach of removing adding and removing the volume to privacy https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716 . This question sums up most of the things I tried Spotlight doesn't show applications also this answer https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/337782/146629
One thing many tutorials mention is that you should run sudo rm -rf ./Spotlight* or ./Spotlight-V100
However, I don't have it in root and I asked around friends with newest macOS and they did not find it in root either. I would like to give it a last shot and remove that index manually before I give up and try a system restore with Time Machine, but I can't seem to find the indices anywhere. Have they moved in recent versions? Any hints on how to make spotlight work again without system restore?
I'm on 10.15.6 (19G2021)

Just tested on a macOS Catalina 10.15.6 system, used the following command in Terminal to remove the .Spotlight-V100 directory:
sudo rm -r /System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100

It deleted the .Spotlight-V100 directory and in less than a minute recreated it and started indexing the system again.


Easiest way to delete NON-Album photos from iphone camera roll What is the easiest way to delete photos from Camera Roll that I haven't put in an album?

Click Select from the right upper corner, select the photos you want deleted and click delete.


Upper limit on simultaneous streaming from a single AppleTV+ subscription? Is there an officially enforced limit on the maximum number of screens that can simultaneously stream from a single AppleTV+ subscription?

While a single AppleTV+ subscription can be shared by a family of six using Apple's Family Sharing, I am looking to determine the limit enforced (if any) on a single Apple ID.

According to the Apple Support document Download and stream shows and movies from Apple TV+ and Apple TV channels, 6 streams at the same time are the limit for the normal subscription:

  Apple TV+: One subscription allows you to enjoy 6 simultaneous streams.

Since they say, that 6 streams are allowed, multiple streams per Account should be possible. Otherwise they would state, that up to 6 Accounts could be linked to the subscription.

But restrictions apply to students with the cheaper subscription:

  If you have an Apple Music student subscription, which includes Apple TV+ for a limited time, you can only stream Apple TV+ on one device at a time.


Starting multiple HomeBrew Services I would like to run two different mongodb databases on my Mac. I installed mongodb with the HomeBrew manager. However I was unable to find a possibility to create new homebrew services. I already created the new config file and new location to store the data.

Cheers

First, you are not able to use brew service to start the two different mongodb. Cause the LaunchAgent .plist files have the same name. The former enable one will be overwritten by the latter one. Find the corresponding .plist service file, copy it to ~/Library/LaunchAgents as a different name.

Secondly, the service .plist must be modified to use a different conf for mongodb. It's impossible to make two daemons listen on the same port.


Why doesn't window management software like Divvy work with Adobe Photoshop? I use both Divvy and SizeUp to manage my  windows. They work fine with application windows with the exceptions of Adobe Photoshop. They just don't seem to work with Photoshop. Whenever I apply them on Photoshop the window just acts bizarrely.

How may I address this?

turns out that slate works just fine with photoshop.. it's a bit more technical/harder to set up than the other two.. but based on the people i've spoken with.. it's well worth the trouble


Is it possible to move all windows from one space to the other? Is there a way to move all the windows found in one space into another without having to move them one by one?

(This feature was available in Snow Leopard)

You can still do this in OS X Lion.

Move to the space you want to move the application's windows to. Right-click on the application icon in your Dock, select Options and enable "This Desktop" in the sub-menu. All of the windows should now move over to the current space.

Out of interest, how do you do this in Snow Leopard?

Edit: At last, I found a way to do this. Open Mission Control, and left-click and drag the application icon under the application windows to a new space at the top of the screen. You can create a new space entirely, or move all of the windows to an existing space. Hope this helps.


MacBook Pro 2015 install app on external drive including a cloud storage drive I would like to install MS Office 2016 on my MacBook Pro but there's not enough space. I thought of installing it on an external USB drive. However, I got an error message that "Microsoft Office 2016 can't be installed on this disk. OS X isn't installed.", and hence I couldn't install it.
Is there anyhow to overcome this situation?
I have one more question which is, is it possible to consider a cloud storage drive like Google Drive as a kind of USB and install an app on it?

Install the application to Macintosh HD (your internal drive). Then go to your Applications folder, move the applications (after they've been installed) to the external drive. Test to make sure the apps on the drive open properly. Then delete the ones in the Applications folder.

Addition: if you have a cloud storage service, you cannot install the apps onto it, but you can store some of your other documents there while you install MS Office on your internal drive.


iPhone Photos shown on preview but gray when opened On my iPhone SE, some (but not all) of my recent photos will display their preview within the Photos app, but when I click on a photo it just shows a gray box. On some photos, a single line of pixels will appear on the top or the right side.

The images that are affected by this are unable to be uploaded onto iCloud or onto an alternative cloud storage service, and cannot be sent to someone else via any method.

I feel as if these files are corrupted, but have no idea how or why. Any advice on how to fix this issue or recover these photos?

I used to have this problem too. Quickest fix for me was to preview the photos one by one and open the editor for each one. I didn't have to do any fixing per se. After I saved them they appeared in the photos app normally. It was simple fix for me.


Where are audiobooks accessible in iOS? I synced an audiobook to my iPhone, now where can I go to listen to it?

I can't find the audiobook in Music.

The audiobook can be found in iBooks. For some reason the newly added audiobooks are listed at the bottom of the list after all of the random stuff that is in iCloud.

If you tap "All Books" at the top in the center you can select "Audiobooks" to see only audiobooks.


How to search text in files of all types (including binary)? I want to find some text inside binary files. Is it possible to do in Finder (it skips binary even if I set up "All kinds" of file types)? Otherwise I would be thankful for utility that can do it.

PS: I need to search among many files in directory.

You should use the strings application in the Terminal.

strings filename(s) | grep text_to_search_for

From Wikipedia:

  In computer software, strings is a program in Unix-like operating systems that finds and prints text strings embedded in binary files such as executables.

I'm not aware of any way to use Finder to search for text in binary files.


My Press and hold accents have been disabled in Yosemite I just got Yosemite and now my Press and hold accent capability seems to have disappeared with my old software.

I tried using /System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app in Terminal to find Press And Hold but it comes up saying

  -bash: System/Library/Input: No such file or directory

and I am not even able to use defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

to enable it. Please help!

I just realised you need to restart the device for it to take effect...


Can't access boot options in MacOS Sierra When booting my mid 2014 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro, holding the option key to choose a startup disk doesn't work. I have just installed Windows 10 on an external SSD and the only way I can choose which to use as my startup disk is to change it from within whichever OS I am using, and my computer will boot into that OS until I change it again.

I tried resetting the NVRAM by pressing command+option+R+P on startup. All this did was boot into recovery mode. I want to be able to choose the startup disk by pressing option on startup but I don't know how to fix the problem I am having.

So this issue is more common than you'd think. To me what you're describing sounds like the issue where the keyboard is not initializing on time to recognize the full key sequence you're holding down. If you're getting to the Recovery Partition by holding command, option, P and R that means that the system is either only recognizing the command and R keys at that time (which happens to be the exact sequence to get to the Recovery Partition), or at the very least not recognizing the option key.

First I would try resetting the SMC in case it's a System Management Controller issue. If you've never done one it's actually pretty easy, you just have to make sure it's charged over 10% first. Shut down your Mac. Disconnect the power source. Press Shift + Control + Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the power button at the same time. Hold all 3 keys and the power button for 10 seconds and release. (I do recognize that if the 'option' key is the issue, this reset may fail as well.)

If this works you should now be able to reset the PRAM as well as access the startup disk screen.

If you still cannot reach the startup disk screen holding option, may I suggest testing with a usb-keyboard? (Not a permanent solution obviously but would give further insight as to what's going on.)


Reverse sorting order in Photos app on Mac OS X the Photos app on Mac is really nice, but it shows the oldest pictures first, so I have to scroll to the bottom each time I open it... and I have lots of pictures.

So my question is: How can I reverse this order and see the newest pictures first? And can I do that across all platforms?

Thanks anyway!

According to Apple Communities that is not possible as of August 2015.


iPhone 5 and iPad Air calendar Time Zones My calendar on both my iPhone 5 and iPad Air is beyond screwed up. The most common problem is that an entry moves from the time I set for it.

I live in France but I purchased the phone in New York. I thought I found the problem to be related to a time zone preference.

It always defaults to New York no matter how many times I change it to Central European Time.

So I started specifying the Paris time zone on every entry. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

And when I travel to another time zone I have no idea if any of my entries are accurate, mostly not. I really have a very simple calendar life. No linking with other people or work accounts. I don't want to completely reset my devices.

Any thoughts on how to resolve this?

Check the following "Settings".  Make sure under "General > Date & Time", that your iPhone is showing the correct "Time Zone"  You can either have the iPhone determine this automatically (by turning on the "Set Automatically" switch) or you can set it for a specific location.  Do note that in order for this to set itself automatically you need to have location services enables as well.

The next thing I would check is "Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar" and make sure in the "Calendar" section that you've enabled "Time Zone Support".

All of this is covered in this Appple knowledge base article: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4576

Hope this helps. Good luck!


iTunes Smart Playlists: Songs not played in the last 6 hours I'm hosting a barbecue on Saturday that is likely to go on well into the night, so I have compiled a playlist of approximately 10 hours of music. I want to make sure that if I need to stop the playback and start it again, I don't want to hear the same tracks already played recently.

In conclusion, I'd like to create a Smart Playlist that will only show songs that haven't been played in the last 6 hours. Unfortunately, the "Last Played not in the last" shortest option is 1 day. I considered the "Limit to XX items selected by least recently played" option, however that will mean the music will be skewed towards music I haven't listened to for the longest, which is not what I want, because that ends up grouping lots of a similar artist together and it won't feel very random. I tried entering a fraction for number of days, but it doesn't allow that.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could get this to work?

I do this all the time.

Create a smart playlist, Last6Hours.  Limit the size of the playlist to 6 hours; the drop down box for this setting has items, minutes, hours, Mb, etc.  Make sure Live Updating is checked.

Create another smart playlist, PlayME.  Add two items: "Playlist IS 10HourCompilation" and "Playlist IS NOT Last6Hours."  The setting for PlayME should be "all" and not "any". Make sure Live Updating is checked.

Play the PlayME playlist and you're all set.


How to patch a file that resides in /Applications (patch can't find file to patch at input line)? I am trying to patch 5 files within an Mac application bundle using the Terminal patch command. The files to be patch are specified using an absolute file path (the file name and path start with a slash).

The output when running $ sudo patch -i ~/custom.patch is:

can't find file to patch at input line 3
Perhaps you should have used the -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:
--------------------------
|--- /Applications/Xyz.app/Contents/Resources/dashboard.js
|+++ /Applications/Xyz.app/Contents/Resources/dashboard.js
--------------------------
File to patch: ^C

I have verified that the file /Applications/Xyz.app/Contents/Resources/dashboard.js does exist using at the specified file path using the ls command.

Regression:

Tried to run the patch command from root folder using $ cd /
Tried to run the patch command from root folder with the first slash removed, that results in an almost identical result:

can't find file to patch at input line 3
Perhaps you should have used the -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:
--------------------------
|--- Applications/Xyz.app/Contents/Resources/dashboard.js
|+++ Applications/Xyz.app/Contents/Resources/dashboard.js
--------------------------
File to patch: ^C

How can multiple files within a Mac OS X Application bundle be patched using patch?

I think the problem is that you are not specifying the p option.

From the manual for patch:

For example, supposing the file name  in  the  patch file was

  /u/howard/src/blurfl/blurfl.c

setting -p0 gives the entire file name unmodified, -p1 gives

  u/howard/src/blurfl/blurfl.c

without the leading slash, -p4 gives

  blurfl/blurfl.c

and  not  specifying  -p  at  all just gives you

  blurfl.c.

Whatever you end up with is looked for either in the current directory,
or the directory specified by the -d option.

So the command should be something like:

patch -p0 <custom.patch

or you could specify the directory to which the patch should be applied:

patch -d /path/to/dir <custom.patch


Why are some tracks in my iTunes grayed out? Note: There seems to have been quite a few threads on grayed out tracks on iTunes but none of them seem to be relevant with my question/issue.

Context: I have just subscribed to Apple Music about 2 weeks ago for the first time. Still on trial period.

As shown in the image below, these are the 2 albums I added to my library from Apple Music. The first album, I also download the physical files, whereas the second album I do not download for offline listening.

Track 10 for first album is grayed out for some reason, while track 4 for the second album is grayed out.

Both songs are playable. I have no issues playing them despite being shown in gray.

What is it indicating?

I finally found a solution to this. If you sort by song you can see a check mark next to most songs but the greyed out ones won't be checked. Just make all songs checked and they work again. Hopefully this helps you and others with a similar problem.


Photo viewer for Mac that can rotate (and save) pics while browsing folders I am coming from Win and I am so disappointed by Mac's usability so far. My current problem is with maintaining photos. I usually take lot of pictures with my DSLR and I want a very simple solution to:

browse through pictures where they are - without the need to copy them to some library like in iPhoto
ability to easily rotate one or more of them at a time - unlike in preview where you can rotate only one picture in only one direction
they should stay rotated(!!!) after I close the program - unlike x mac apps that I tried that do not save the rotation, which is totally useless
large/full screen preview, with easy way to jump to prev/next photo without any headache inducing animation
I want to know the number of pictures in a folder without going to a special menu like in Finder
I don't want to spend more than $1-$2 on this simple app.

I am sorry if this sounds like a rant but I have tried so many options so far including spending money on useless app in the app store.

So if you only want to spend $2 for such an app, you definitely will be disappointed in every direction you will take a look at.

Regarding my most famous and favourite graphics manipulation and imaging software "Graphicconverter", which can do everything you want and described, you would pay 35€. But if you want to, you can try it out.

http://www.lemkesoft.de/en/products/


Which Wireless-N Routers are compatible with Apple products? I have an iPhone 4, iPad, and MacBook Air, all of which support Wi-Fi 802.11n. However, there are many routers out there that were created before the official N spec was finalized (e.g. those based on drafts). How do I know which routers will be compatible with my Apple products?

The simple answer is buy an Airport Extreme

Otherwise use the internet and read reviews.  Virtually any draft-N or official N spec routers will 'work'.  As with anything, the only way to be absolutely sure is to try them out.


OS X Server - Reset all POSIX and ACLs on new file share I've just set up a new mini running OS X Yosemite/Server 4, and am using a Drobo 5D for file storage. All of the files on the Drobo have been copied from an old Xserve setup and various external drives and at least one other Mac's user folder.

I have my own admin account on the mini, then a small handful of users with local accounts on the mini (added through the Users panel) in a single Group which I've given access to the fileshare. Eventually there will be two Groups, one for administrative stuff that will be in a separate folder that the other users can't access. So, fairly simple.

Is there a proper way in Server to reset all ownership and permissions for the entire fileshare? I'd like to start with the cleanest slate possible. I'm comfortable with the usual simple Linux chmod/chown commands but completely unfamiliar with the ACL and umask and what not, but am not afraid to cut and paste into Terminal. :) Basically I'd want to be sure to wipe out any old ownerships or other stuff from other machines, and make sure everything is set up so we don't run into any problems down the line with new files or modifying old ones.

Thanks in advance!

I believe the proper commands for this are:

ACL

sudo chmod -RN /Path/to/your/share

POSIX (assuming the short name for your local admin account is 'admin' and you want everyone to have read-access, if not change 744 to 740)

sudo chown -R admin:wheel /Path/to/your/share
sudo chmod -R 744 /Path/to/your/share


Safari Presentation Mode command line I created a HTML5 presentation that I would like to run fullscreen (no toolbars, just viewport). With a simple command line I can open the presentation in fullscreen on Chrome:

open "/Applications/Google Chrome.app" --args --kiosk http://192.168.1.1

However, because the presentation uses some heavy HTML5 and jQuery, the animations run much smoother in Safari (optimized for the MacBook).

Is there any way (or command line argument) I can open Safari in true fullscreen mode on Yosemite without toolbars or address bars?

You could use an AppleScript like that to do it.

tell application "Safari" to activate
delay 3 --adjust to your needs
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Safari"
        tell menu bar 1
            tell menu bar item "View"
                tell menu "View"
                    click menu item "Hide Toolbar"
                end tell
            end tell
            tell menu bar item "View"
                tell menu "View"
                    click menu item "Hide Status Bar"
                end tell
            end tell
            tell menu bar item "View"
                tell menu "View"
                    click menu item "Enter Full Screen"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Save it with the name you want, and then run with osascript your-script.


Sending Keystrokes to a Window when it Loses Focus I am running virtual machines for testing on a second Space using Virtualbox, and the problem is that when I'm on the primary space, the virtual machine continues to use a lot of CPU time and kills the battery.

Right now I try to remember to manually Pause the virtual machine every time I switch back to my primary space, but that gets tedious and I'd like to do it automatically.

So the question is:

How can I send the CTRL + CMD + P shortcut key combination to the virtual machine to pause it every time it loses focus, or alternatively whenever I switch back to Space 1.

Ideally it would also send the combination again when I switch to the Space with Virtualbox running on it, but that isn't as important.

[edit]

I've been able to solve the problem using third-party software - Keyboard Maestro triggering the command-line VBoxManage tool and sending a Pause command that way. But there must be a way to do it without paying for software.

A way to trigger it with a global keyboard shortcut (and without having to switch back) is to create a little applescript to do it for you.  I'm not familiar with Virtualbox's windows, so you'll need to modify the below to suit your needs.  You can run it as is, and note that 1) Terminal does NOT take focus when you run this, it stays in the background and 2) when you do switch to terminal, the Inspector will be showing.

tell application "System Events"
  tell process "Terminal"
  click menu item "Show Inspector" of menu "Shell" of menu bar 1
  end tell
end tell

I'm assuming that the Pause VM command will be available from the VB menus, if not, please let me know in the comments where the command lives, and I can update the answer to reflect that.

Once you have the applescript tested, use Automator to create a service: this will let you activate it with a global keyboard shortcut, no need to switch applications or anything.

Launch Automator
New project if it loads an old one, and select "Service"
In the search box enter, "script" to filter the options and double-click "Run Applescript"
Paste the applescript right in there.
Save it, give it a name like "Pause the dang VM", and quit.

Next, to give it a global keyboard shortcut:

Open System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts Tab
Select "Services" in the left pane
Scroll to the bottom of the right pane, and you should see your new service
Click "none" to the right of your new service and you can create a shortcut.

So now if you forget, at least it's just a key press instead of a whole application switch around.

NOTE: you'll need to allow Automator to control the computer in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Accessibility


Fit-screen dosn't fill all the screen I'm new Mac user, on Yosemite.

Some apps, like Chrome Sublime Text,  when I double click on the title bar doesn't fit my screen, check the image
Also for some others apps, Like Xcode or Safari it works fine - double click on the title makes my app fit full screen.

How to fix?

Fit screen & full screen are not the same thing.

Fit screen makes a 'guess' based on window content & probable usage [per app, it would appear to not be consistent, some apps are better than others at 'guessing']

Full screen is under system control & will generate a new Space for the app, filling the entire screen.

Clicking the green dot, top left of a window, will set Full-screen.
Alt [opt] clicking the same dot will set to fit-screen.


Active Calories VS Total Calories during a workout I'm fairly new to the Apple App- I was a Fitbit user and Fitbit reflected Fat burn, active minutes and Peek time during a work out.  Apple app reflects Active Calories and Total Calories during a work out and I am not able to find an answer to define the difference.  what is the difference in a work out from Active vs Total.  I am still on the fence about this app, fitbit showed when during my work out my heartrate increased, and clearly reflected the calories -

Active calories are a result of your activity (running, swimming, etc.) only.

Total calories take into account how many calories your body consumes during that period of time (just to keep you alive) as well as the active calories.


Screen sharing not working on OS X 10.11 El Capitan I'm running OS X 10.11 El Capitan and Screen Sharing has become more and more tedious. I have a MacBook Air, my usual laptop, and a Mac mini to which I want to connect with Screen Sharing (on my MacBook Air).

However, most of the time I cannot see anything on the Sidebar of the Finder on my MacBook Air. If I manually Go → Connect to Server and enter vnc://myhomemini (which is the server that my Mac mini's Sharing settings suggests I use), I just the popup message:

  Unable to resolve “myhomemini”
  Verify the name you entered and make sure your network connection is working.

Neither computer has a firewall enabled. Both are on the same home network that belongs to me, of course, and both are online without issues individually. On the Mac mini (destination computer, whose screen I want to see on the MacBook Air), the Sharing settings have both Screen Sharing and File Sharing enabled. Nothing else like Remote Management etc is enabled.

What else? Apple's support website is utterly useless. All the advice on the Internet is also speaking of random things from 2012, etc. Welcome any ideas.

Sounds like one computer isn't able to reach the other.

Try using vnc://myhomemini.local

Adding the .local tells your Mac that it should use bonjour (multicast DNS) to resolve the address.  If everything is on the same network and multicast is allowed (usually the case) this should allow your computers to find each other.

Another possibility is that your network is configured not to allow hosts to talk to each other.  So even though they are on the same network, the router doesn't allow them to talk.  Look at the settings on your router to determine if that is the case or not.


Why is Photos uploading more photos than I have? When I open photos it shows the number of photos and the number left to upload:

How come it is uploading more photos than I have?

This may be caused by duplicate photos. For some reason Photo app sometimes adds already existing photos or user may import already imported ones.
You can try Photos Duplicate Cleaner app. I haven't checked it now, but it was free a couple months ago.


Phone calls immediately hang up - unless headphones are connected Since updating to iOS 14.3 on my iPhone 7, incoming and outgoing phone calls immediately hang up with the error message below unless I have any Bluetooth headset connected.

Everything works fine with a headset, though. As doing phone calls is kind of an important functionality in an um... phone,  I would love to be able to restore the phone call feature.
What would be steps to try to fix this problem?

As a (former) iPhone 7 user with a similar problem, I presume you are also unable to record voice memos or audio in your videos. If so, I am afraid it is a common problem having to do with the sound card of your iPhone 7: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/apple-iphone-7-owners-report-sound-issue-011519.html Apple has previously offered cheap(er) repairs for this issue, but I am unaware if this is still the case. Be sure to contact your local Apple dealer to see if this is the case.
Otherwise, there are second-party shops which should be able to perform this repair. Your iPhone is most likely already out of warranty so there should not be significant issues with future repairs. However, Apple has previously said they will not repair items repaired outside of official Apple shops, so it might be wise to do some further research and decide if you are willing to take the risk.


Safari on MBP keeps running extensions for the 'first' time on startup Strange problem - I recently purchased a MacBook Pro, recently updated to the latest OSX and I have an issue in Safari where when I install an extension (doesn't matter what extension) Safari will keep loading its "first time installed" dialog, every time I start safari rather than once, when the extension is installed.

It is driving me crazy - I have tried it with another user on the same mac - I can't reproduce the problem. I have tried it with multiple extensions installed, and a single one, every extension I have installed (1Password, Amazon, Ad-block) recreate this problem.

I have uninstalled extensions, deleted preferences, etc...

Any ideas anyone?

I have had a look at this question (which is the opposite of what is happening to me): Installed Safari Extensions disappear after restarting Safari
I tried deleting extension-related keychains, and changing permissions on the Safari Extensions List but to no avail...

Soon after writing the question, I realized that even with no plugins installed, I had the Welcome page appear, which changed what I googled for. That helped me find:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6663182?start=0&tstart=0

sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-


The OpenSSH upgraded to version of today automatically I issue the following command follwing a command line instruction book,

$ ssh remote-sys
ssh: Could not resolve hostname remote-sys: nodename nor servname provided, or not known

To be cuirious, I refered to it's manual

$ man ssh
AUTHORS
     OpenSSH is a derivative of the original and free ssh 1.2.12 release by Tatu Ylonen.
     Aaron Campbell, Bob Beck, Markus Friedl, Niels Provos, Theo de Raadt and Dug Song
     removed many bugs, re-added newer features and created OpenSSH.  Markus Friedl con-
     tributed the support for SSH protocol versions 1.5 and 2.0.

BSD                             March 30, 2018                             BSD

It's the latest version of today (March 30, 2018).

It seems to be updated automatically,
Is that normal?

By default nothing is updated automatically. Even if you enable automatic updates, you can check when they are installed via App Store's Updates tab. If there's nothing for today, no updates are installed today — simple.

This assumes you haven't installed or set up something non-default administrative update tool. It's perfectly possible to install non-default SSH client and then have a script to check updates for it daily and install them if available. This probably isn't the case here.

And as one can install such a script it is also possible to do so unknowingly (by something malicious)—but, again, this probably isn't the case in hand.

In this case, we're putting too much trust on the header section of the man page.

The ssh man page, located in /usr/share/man/man1/ssh.1, is missing a .TH line, where the date you referred to should be defined, so presumably it's just printing a fallback: "BSD" and current date.

Date can also be defined with .Dd line, which in ssh.1 is .Dd $Mdocdate: September 21 2017 $, which might be incorrectly interpreted on macOS.

If you wish to know when the SSH version you are using was released (note: released, not installed), you can check the current version with command ssh -V and cross reference that info with release notes to check the release date.


Can I remove a Family Sharing child by deleting his account? I started Family Sharing and created a new account for my child, but I was forced to create an icloud.com account, which is not desirable. He already has a Google Account, which may be favourable.

Because he is under 13, I find I cannot actually remove the recently-created account from the family, only transfer him to another family.

It seems possible to self-delete the child's account whilst logged-in as him, which generates a request for parental approval by me.

However, will this also achieve the aim of removing him from Family Sharing? I assume, if the child account which had been added to Family Sharing no longer exists, it cannot be a part of Family Sharing.

And then I could start again, creating a new Apple ID using his Gmail address.

If you want to maintain the gMail address, you can use that as the Apple ID for the child.

Source.

Removing Kids 13 and Under From Family Sharing

Apple doesn't allow you to remove a child under the age of 13 from your Family Sharing (in the U.S., at least; the age is different in other countries). When you add a child that young to your Family Sharing group, they're there to stay until they turn 13.

If you started Family Sharing and added a child under 13, you can't remove them on your own. You have a few ways you can potentially get out of this situation:

Disband the family

You can disband the entire Family Sharing group and start again. When you create the new group, don't add the child under 13. If you and the child are the only people on your Family Sharing list, you need to transfer them before you can stop Family Sharing.

Transfer the child to another family

When you add a child under 13 to Family Sharing, you can't delete them, but you can transfer them to another Family Sharing group. To do that, the organizer of another Family Sharing group needs to invite the child to join their group. In this case, the child's Family Sharing account won't be deleted, but it won't be your responsibility any longer.

Call Apple

If transferring a child to another Family Sharing group isn't an option, call Apple. While the company doesn't give you a way to remove a child from Family Sharing, it has other tools that can help. Call 1-800-MY-APPLE and talk to someone who can provide support for iCloud.

Note:
When you call Apple, make sure you have all of the relevant information handy. The customer service representative will need the email address for the account of the child you want to remove. You'll also need a device handy so that you can access your own Apple ID. Apple Support will walk you through the process of removing the child, though the official removal can take up to 7 days.


Photos lost in iCloud due to turning off during backup Recently I purchased the .99 cent 50g iCloud backup and attempted to back up my 1000 photos.

Unbeknownst to me my daughter was also logged in under my Apple ID user info. When backup process started I began to see her photos flash thru my photos. Not wanting to have her photos touched I began turning the iCloud backup off and on in a frantic attempt to stop process.

Now not only are my photos gone but also 3000 photos off my daughter’s phone. Needless to say she is VERY upset. I spent four hours on the phone with Apple and they weren’t able to help. There are no photos in my iCloud account and I only have 1 Apple account.

Can anyone help? Has this happened to anyone else where you’ve found a solution to this issue.

Apple can surely help you untangle your accounts. As a paying customer they will work with you to explain how to set up two separate accounts, then you can detach from one of the accounts - keep all the combined photos and then sync them to a new account.

Once you have two iCloud accounts you can delete any cross contaminated photos that don’t belong to account A or account B and be happy again.

http://support.apple.com

This happens all the time when people wanted to share an App Store account for whatever reason and didn’t realize it might share more than you hoped. Hopefully it isn’t all your calendars / contacts / app settings that are mixed as well. That can take a couple hours to a couple days to sort out, but the process is the same. Get everyone their own Apple ID (and only one Apple ID) and then clean up once accounts are individual.


How to create an identity who can be used for signing code from custom certificate? I want to codesign one of my applications by using my own certificate (not created with Keychain Access).

First, I create a v3.ext file:

keyUsage = digitalSignature

Then, I created my certificate with openssl:

$ openssl genrsa -des3 -out passkey.key 2048
$ openssl rsa  -in passkey.key -out mykey.key
$ openssl req -new -key mykey.key -out cert.csr
$ openssl x509 -req -sha256 -extfile v3.ext -days 3650 -in cert.csr -signkey mykey.key -out mycertificate.crt
$ openssl pkcs12 -export -in mycertificate.crt -inkey mykey.key -out certificate.p12 -name "My Company Name"

I imported certificate.p12 into Keychain Access by dragging it on the docker. Now, when I try to sign my application, I have this error:

$ security find-identity
Policy: X.509 Basic
  Matching identities
 11) 5DC3086CAD3848A22FB6E614FB8836BDDBD18938 "My Company Name" (CSSMERR_TP_NOT_TRUSTED)

$ codesign --deep -fs 5DC3086CAD3848A22FB6E614FB8836BDDBD18938 repro.app
: this identity cannot be used for signing code

However, we can see this certificate can be used to verify (CSSM_KEYUSE_VERIFY):

$ certtool y
Serial Number      : 00 F6 E2 FC FC D1 67 A6 7A
Issuer Name        :
   Country         : FR
   State           : Some-State
   Org             : My Company Name
Subject Name       :
   Country         : FR
   State           : Some-State
   Org             : My Company Name
Cert Sig Algorithm : OID : < 06 09 2A 86 48 86 F7 0D 01 01 0B >
   alg params      : 05 00
Not Before         : 15:09:59 May 13, 2019
Not After          : 15:09:59 May 10, 2029
Pub Key Algorithm  : OID : < 06 09 2A 86 48 86 F7 0D 01 01 01 >
   alg params      : 05 00
Pub key Bytes      : Length 270 bytes : 30 82 01 0A 02 82 01 01 ...
CSSM Key           :
   Algorithm       : RSA
   Key Size        : 2048 bits
   Key Use         : CSSM_KEYUSE_VERIFY
Signature          : 256 bytes : 4E F5 B9 35 9D 6A D5 2E ...
Extension struct   : OID : < 06 03 55 1D 0F >
   Critical        : FALSE
   usage           : DigitalSignature

What should I do to allow this identity to sign code?

Your certificate is missing specific codesign requirements. These go beyond keyUsage = digitalSignature.

Conforming Certificate

You need to create a certificate that conforms to macOS's codesigning requirements. You can find the requirements in Certification Authority Certification Practice Statement Developer ID:

  4.12.2. Code Signing Certificates

  A Code Signing Certificate issued by the Developer ID Sub-CA shall conform to the X.509 Certificate format and shall contain, at a minimum, the following data elements:

  Serial Number
  Subject Distinguished Name
  Issuer Distinguished Name
  Algorithm used (RSA)
  Modulus (Size in bits)
  Validity period
  Certificate Policies extension listing the CP
  Certificate qualifiers listing this CPS (URL)
  User notice qualifier
  Extended Key Usage extension, critical, with a purpose containing Code Signing (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3)
  Developer ID Code Signing (1.2.840.113635.100.6.1.13)
  Certificate Authority Information Access extension, non-critical, with a method of obtaining certificate authority information via Online Certificate Status Protocol method.

For more details, see the Security StackExchange question How to create an Apple Installer Package Signing Certificate.

Trusted Certificate Authority

With a conforming certificate, you will be able to codesign your binary. For the code signature to recognised, you will need to install and trust the Certificate Authority (CA) certificate on your Mac. This needs to be done in a way that Gatekeeper trusts.

You can learn more about this step by searching for install root certificate mac.