Why does OS X terminal need manually sourcing to display colour? I have the following in my ~/.bash_profile file:

export CLICOLOR=1
export PS1="$FBLU[\#]$RS--$RS{\t}$RS$FWHT\W$RS$FMAG@$RS$FRED\u$RS$FCYN\$$RS$FBLU>>>$RS"
# ANSI color codes
RS="\[\033[0m\]" # reset
HC="\[\033[1m\]" # hicolor
UL="\[\033[4m\]" # underline
INV="\[\033[7m\]" # inverse background and foreground
FBLK="\[\033[30m\]" # foreground black
FRED="\[\033[31m\]" # foreground red
FGRN="\[\033[32m\]" # foreground green
FYEL="\[\033[33m\]" # foreground yellow
FBLU="\[\033[34m\]" # foreground blue
FMAG="\[\033[35m\]" # foreground magenta
FCYN="\[\033[36m\]" # foreground cyan
FWHT="\[\033[37m\]" # foreground white
BBLK="\[\033[40m\]" # background black
BRED="\[\033[41m\]" # background red
BGRN="\[\033[42m\]" # background green
BYEL="\[\033[43m\]" # background yellow
BBLE="\[\033[44m\]" # background blue
BMAG="\[\033[45m\]" # background magenta
BCYN="\[\033[46m\]" # background cyan
BWHT="\[\033[47m\]" # background white

alias ls="ls -l"
function cd() { builtin cd "$@" && ls -l; }

When I open the terminal, I get:

[1]--{08:20:18}~@mike$>>>

which proves that the formatting is working. However, I am required to source the .bash_profile file every time the terminal runs in order for the colours to display correctly:

. ~/.bash_profile

Why is this happening? What can I do so that the colours display each time the terminal runs?

I am also running the Peppermint terminal style, although I am having the same problem without it - could this have something to do with it?

The color variables should be defined before the export PS1. Now, when you call $RS on that line, that variable is empty. Try this way:

export CLICOLOR=1

# ANSI color codes
RS="\[\033[0m\]" # reset
HC="\[\033[1m\]" # hicolor
UL="\[\033[4m\]" # underline
INV="\[\033[7m\]" # inverse background and foreground
FBLK="\[\033[30m\]" # foreground black
FRED="\[\033[31m\]" # foreground red
FGRN="\[\033[32m\]" # foreground green
FYEL="\[\033[33m\]" # foreground yellow
FBLU="\[\033[34m\]" # foreground blue
FMAG="\[\033[35m\]" # foreground magenta
FCYN="\[\033[36m\]" # foreground cyan
FWHT="\[\033[37m\]" # foreground white
BBLK="\[\033[40m\]" # background black
BRED="\[\033[41m\]" # background red
BGRN="\[\033[42m\]" # background green
BYEL="\[\033[43m\]" # background yellow
BBLE="\[\033[44m\]" # background blue
BMAG="\[\033[45m\]" # background magenta
BCYN="\[\033[46m\]" # background cyan
BWHT="\[\033[47m\]" # background white

export PS1="$FBLU[\#]$RS--$RS{\t}$RS$FWHT\W$RS$FMAG@$RS$FRED\u$RS$FCYN\$$RS$FBLU>>>$RS"

alias ls="ls -l"
function cd() { builtin cd "$@" && ls -l; }


Can the finder edit mp3 sound file tags like artist? How can I change artist of multiple selected mp3 files in finder?

Like in windows we can select multiple mp3 files and can change the artist of all selected file in properties.

For those seeking a free terminal-based solution

Per the rest of the answerers in here, Finder (as of El Capitan) does not do this.
I arrived at id3v2 referenced in a Linux forum.

Installation

  Via HomeBrew - Update HomeBrew and install commands

brew update && brew install id3v2

Example Usage

Change Artist to Prince

id3v2 -a "Prince" 01\ Wow.mp3

Change Title to Wow

id3v2 -t "Wow" 01\ Wow.mp3


Open app in current directory when another app with the same name exists, from command line I have an app name foo.app I want to open from command line (using open).

My folder structure is like this:

~
+---bar
     +--- foo.app
+---baz
     +--- foo.app

I want to open the app located in the bar folder, however if I do open -a foo.app, the app located in the baz folder will open, even if my current working directory is in the bar folder.

open -a ./foo.app or open -a ~/bar/foo.app doesn't work either.

In this case, open -a is NOT what you want; the -a option is for launching known applications (indexed in the Launch Services database that lets you open a document and get the right application) by name, not by pathname, or for opening files with a given application.

What you are looking for is just plain opening foo.app, just like you double-clicked it in the Finder. To do that,

open foo.app

This will open exactly that application, without involving the Launch Services database at all.


Can I make applications load on the same monitor as the mouse cursor? I have multiple monitors, and with Quicksilver and Magic Mouse gestures I open applications without using the dock more often than with it.  Is there a way to have these application windows appear on the monitor that currently has the mouse cursor?  An added bonus would be the ability to have Finder open a new window if there isn't one on the current monitor, even if there is one on the other monitor.

I think Mr. Siracusa has railed against the lack of consistency or flexibility that leads to a situation like this, and I don't have a "you can modify this plist and presto!" answer either, but I saw this and thought of your plight:
cordlessdog.com/stay/

It may not be what you need, but it could be a step in the right direction, which I heard of here: http://twitter.com/wilsonminer/status/20750686482


How can I remove Chess from my mac? I tried to remove Chess.app from my Mac:

Moving to Trash: “Chess.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by macOS.
Trying to change permissions for everyone in Get Info: The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have the necessary permission.
chmod 755 Chess.app/ in Terminal works, but then doing sudo rm -rf Chess.app/: long list including rm: Chess.app/: Operation not permitted

So how can I remove it?

Chess.app is, as everything else installed by default, protected by SIP and can't be removed. If you absolutely want to reclaim the 5mb used by the application you can

Reboot into Recovery Mode to disable SIP
Reboot normally, log in and remove Chess.app
Reboot into Recovery Mode to enable SIP
Reboot normally
(and then repeat this with every macOS upgrade)

See How do I disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) AKA "rootless" on OS X 10.11, El Capitan? for details about disabling/enabling SIP.


Is it safe to buy MacBook Pro batteries on eBay? My 15" MacBook Pro 5.1 (late 2008) battery is inflating to the point of nearly breaking the unibody battery cover, so I'm really into replacing it as soon as possible. There are loads of these batteries on eBay (mostly UK sellers with high reputation) that cost less than half of the price I'd have to pay for a battery on a local Apple reseller store.

My question is: is it safe to purchase batteries for MacBook Pros on eBay? Are there any known issues or ripoffs that I should know of?

Another option for longer term (after you have determined why the battery is expanding like it is) may be to see about getting one of the Newer Tech (or other known manufacturer) batteries for your MBP, as they have longer life ratings for the charge. Newer Tech is available from Other World Computing (www.macsales.com), and I've seen it from a few other online sites as well. (I do not work for OWC, but have been very pleased with their products and service) The NewerTech ones I've checked on are rated at higher mA ratings than the original Apple batteries.


How to make Smart folder like physical folder with the combined contents of two folders I have an application which looks for its data (*.txt) files in a folder. I have two folders containing text data that I need to keep separate, but it would be useful to have the application see the text data files as residing in one folder (containing the two sets of files).

I can create a script that maintains symbolic links to the files in the two folders in a third combined folder.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'd like to use a proven solution if possible.

The solution would have to deal with the case of file name clashes in a sensible way.

You could use launchd.

launchd lets you manage daemons and agents according to certain conditions.

What are daemons and agents?

From man launchd:

  A "daemon" is, by definition, a system-wide service of which there is
  one instance for all clients. An
       "agent" is a service that runs on a per-user basis. Daemons should not attempt to display UI or interact directly with a user's
       login session. Any and all work that involves interacting with a user should be done through agents.

From http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2083/_index.html:

  Daemons and agents, collectively known as background programs, are
  programs that operate without any graphical user interface. As a
  developer, you can use background programs to perform actions without
  user interaction, and also to manage a shared state between multiple
  other programs.

  The difference between an agent and a daemon is that an agent can
  display GUI if it wants to, while a daemon can't. The difference
  between an agent and a regular application is that an agent typically
  displays no GUI (or a very limited GUI).

The daemon/agent is described in an XML file with extension plist. One of the conditions that can be monitored is changes in a folder. This will come in handy.

OK, let's get our hands dirty:

Let's say these are the 2 folders where you and your friend keep your files:

/tmp/folderstuart
/tmp/folderstuartsfriend

and this is the common folder for the application:

/tmp/folder

We want to monitor the two paths above and synchronize their contents with /tmp/folder.

This is the plist that does what we need:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>notesfoldersync</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/rsync</string>
        <string>-aE</string>
        <string>--delete</string>
        <string>--exclude='.*'</string>
        <string>/tmp/folderstuart/</string>
        <string>/tmp/folderstuartsfriend/</string>
        <string>/tmp/folder</string>
    </array>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/tmp/folderstuart</string>
        <string>/tmp/folderstuartsfriend</string>
    </array>
    <key>ThrottleInterval</key>
        <integer>10</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

The plist monitors the two folders with key WatchPaths (see http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000172i-SW7-SW8).

I suggest the program rsync for synchronizing folders. Option --delete ensures that files deleted in the monitored folders are also deleted in /tmp/folder. Other options are -aE to copy standard and extended HFS+ attributes, and --exclude='.*' to skip .localized, .DS_Store and other hidden files.

I added ThrottleInterval in case you want to set the minimum interval a job can be spawned. Default value is 10 s, that is, jobs will not be spawned more than once every 10 seconds.

Save the plist (see man launchd for a list of possible paths) as:

 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/notesfoldersync.plist

Create:

/tmp/folderstuart
/tmp/folderstuartsfriend
/tmp/folder

and load (that is, enable) the plist:

sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/notesfoldersync.plist

Now create a file in /tmp/folderstuart:

touch /tmp/folderstuart/file.txt

and watch the magic happen: file.txt will be created within seconds in /tmp/folder. Delete it and it will disappear from /tmp/folder. It will also synchronize files created or deleted in /tmp/folderstuartsfriend.

Notice that this solution doesn't handle name collisions! If you can't ensure that files will be named differently substitute rsync with a script that rsyncs and does file name checking to avoid data loss.

If copying files is not an option, substitute rsync with a script that creates hardlinks (if both files are in the same filesystem I'd recommend hardlinks instead of symlinks). Before changing the plist unload it:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/notesfoldersync.plist

When you're done, load it again.


Can I receive calls only from a set of approved phone numbers? How can I receive calls only from a set of approved phone numbers?

One way you could do this is to use the iPhone's Do Not Disturb feature.

More specifically:

Launch Settings
Tap on Do Not Disturb
Enable the Manual option at the top
Tap on the Allow Calls From field
Select the group1of people you want to receive calls from
Go back to the previous screen
Tap on the Always option near the bottom of the screen
Exit Settings

1 You may need to create a particular group for the people you want to allow calls from. To do this you will need to use your computer or a 3rd party app. Another option would be to ensure you don't have anyone in your contacts who you don't want to receive calls from. In this case you would then select All Contacts as the Group at Step 5.


How can I easily share clippings across platforms and networks? I have to use a Windows PC at work, but I often bring my MacBook Air so I can get work done that is hard or inefficient to perform on Windows.  I am not allowed to connect my Mac to the corporate network, so when I do something on the Mac and want to copy from the Mac and paste into an app on the Windows laptop, there's no easy way.  No network clipboard manager I've ever seen I had seen at the time I wrote this question works when your two machines are not on the same network.  (Obviously both machines are connected to the internet, however.)

Using Dropbox or (worse yet) e-mail or (worst of all) a flash drive is too painful.  I want a simple and almost effortless way of transferring data or text between machines—something so easy and transparent that I don't have to think about the process, but can instead focus on whatever work I'm doing and not lose that focus.

How can I achieve this?

Some sort of Bluetooth data transfer might be allowed, as long as there's no TCP/IP connection to the Mac over Bluetooth, or something like that.  But I'm guessing the solution will more likely involve both machines communicating in some fashion over the internet.

Evernote (free, $5/month or $45/year for premium)

  The Evernote family of products help you remember and act upon ideas, projects and experiences across all the computers, phones and tablets you use.

Simplenote (free)

  An easy way to keep notes, lists, ideas, and more...Keep notes on the web, your mobile device, and your computer.


How can I remove pending downloads in iTunes? I have an update for the Dexter game on iPhone which is 400MB in size. Since I don't play this game anymore, I deleted the app. But iTunes still wants me to download the update and tells me I have "1 iTunes Download available".

I tried deleting it (pause then right-click-*delete*), but the download keeps coming back.

Is there a way to permanently remove those available downloads?

Is there a Downloads item in the Store area of the column on the left side of iTunes? If so then you can click on it, click on the stalled download, and delete it.

Edited to add

There are a couple of places you might check after quitting iTunes. The first is

/Users/yourUserName/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/Downloads/

Make sure it's empty, and if not, remove what's in there (set it aside so you can put it back if it confuses iTunes later).

The other place is:

/Users/yourUserName/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/

and look for the file Dexter.ipa (or DexteGame.ipa or whatever the game is called). Delete this file -- it's the actual now-outdated game that iTunes is trying to update.

Otherwise iTunes has the need to download it stored in its database and doesn't care about files.

I take it that agreeing to the download doesn't help?


iMac only show flashing folder with question mark after formatting OS X partition drive Today i format my "OS X El capitan" partition for installing "Yosemite". But due an error in bootable yosemite usb it didn't install on this partition. After some hours when i turned on iMac and hold down "option" key for boot into usb but just blank screen and mouse show. And every time when i turend on iMac it only show flashing folder with question mark.
I've tried to resolve it by reseting "NVRAM". But after restarting problem still same.
Also I've tried many "Startup key combinations for Mac" but didn't work any combination on startup.
Also i have important data in my other one partition.
Please can anyone tell me what i do for resolving that issue Without loosing my data?

This error appears when the startup disk's operating system is corrupt. The safest way to recover the drive's data is to pull it out of the machine and connect it to a different machine. However this is difficult and not likely an option for you. I would try getting someone you know to create a bootable flash drive of an operating system (which system doesn't really matter). You can use this drive to either 1) access all of your files or 2) reinstall a working OS.


Keynote - View slide as at end of all animations I am working on my first Keynote presentation, and my first slide has a series of complex animations which results in a slide which is very different from how it started. I wish to maintain the end state of the first slide when I transition into the next slide so that I can keep some continuity in the story.

I was wondering, is there any way of viewing the final state of a slide, after all animations are complete? I can then copy everything into the next slide. I'm not able to find anything that would let me do this. The designer only shows me elements as at the beginning sans any translations/animations.

This is not possible. A really quirky workaround would be to export the slides as PDF or images including all the animation phases and then insert the final animation phase into the new slide.


Possible Methods to Restore Speed of File Sharing (AFP) in OS X 10.10? I have an iMac and a MacBook Pro under the same network connected through AFP file sharing protocol. Before I upgraded to OS X 10.10, the speed is very fast - copying a 200MB file would take a couple of seconds. Now as I have upgraded to 10.10, the speed slowed down drastically. When I copy a 200MB file it took me around 10 or 15 minutes. The iMac is connected to the router directly through Ethernet and the MacBook Pro is connected through wifi.

AFP is more so meant for a LAN configuration and not a WAN network. Instead you could try CIFS or another protocol and see if you see the same speed or an increase.

I would also try to use AirDrop and see how that works.


Issue with using Netgear AC1600's 802.11ac standard and WMM on 2014 MBP When I enable the WMM (Wireless Multimedia) setting, which allows the full bandwidth of ac, and the computer is for instance streaming online video, or video over ip within a browser like a chatroom, I am unable to open another page on the same computer. The browser is academic, including if I try to use a different browser for each. The source of the video does not influence the performance either. I will try to resolve another webpage, which this page doesn't matter except that smaller pages are more likely to go through, but not by much. Sometimes trying over and over again will yield a result, other times not. I have played with the QoS settings to no avail, and turning off the WMM uses the 802.11a standard only and connects at 54 Mbps. Any ideas as to why this is happening and how to fix it?

My wifi scans read the width as such: 20 MHz for 5 GHz and 20 MHz for 2.4 GHz with WMM disabled, and 80 MHz for 5GHz and 40 MHz for 2.4 GHz. This problem only occurs on my MacbookPro 11,3 15 in Retina, as it is the only computer on my network that uses 802.11ac, and while it is happening on my MBP I can load a webpage on my iPhone, or another computer just fine.

The problem has resolved itself with the update to OS X Yosemite. It must have been a Mavericks issue. I have done nothing to the routers settings prior, and have since been able to enable WMM settings.


How to download and install updates to these Apple apps in this macOS without an Apple ID? Can I download the installer? If so, from where exactly? I need to update Numbers, Pages and Keynote on macOS 10.15.7 but I do not have an Apple ID. Is it possible to update macOS without Apple ID? has an answer which is insufficient for me and is closed so it cannot receive any further answers.

Most important thing to remember is that a user only needs the Mac App Store to download the installer, which downloads the update to the machine.
You can also download the installer from the Web by visiting this link on Apple Support website.

If I go to that download site and type "installer" in the bar no results are found.

So I am stuck.
Question: How can I download and install updates to these Apple apps in this macOS without an Apple ID? Can I download the installer? If so, from where exactly?

Note: I just want to update the three Numbers, Pages and Keynote

The linked question bypasses the App Store, because merely owning a Mac entitles you to macOS. You can also get any of these through Software Update in the Control Panel. You'll note you can only get delta & combo updaters there, not entire installers for the whole OS - for that you need the App Store, or to boot from Recovery.
To update any app from the App Store, first you need to be signed in to the Apple ID that "purchased" it, even if that purchase was free, or it came pre-loaded on the Mac. The only exception I can think of to this might be Safari, which seems to come through the Software Update channel rather than the App Store.


Backing up when logged into wrong iTunes account I have just backed up my iphone on my laptop for the first time in a while and updated my handset. After I finished, I then realised that I was logged into my friends iTunes account on my laptop.
Does this mean that my friend will have access to everything that is on my iphone when they log into their iTunes? texts / contacts / emails etc?
I am worried that all of my information including text messages has now been uploaded to their handset and I don't want this to happen.
I want to make sure that when they back up their phone, they won't be uploading my information from their home computer to their phone.
Can someone please tell me that the back up is just on my lap top and not on their overall iTunes???

iCloud and iTunes backups are totally separate. If you backed up to your computer, it doesn't matter whose account was logged in on iTunes. The backup is on your laptop.

iCloud backups occur directly from the device and who is logged into the device does matter in that case.

Also I think you are misunderstanding what happens during a backup. Nothing is transferred to the phone. What you are describing would be a restore.


Losing connection with wireless headset since restoring computer I have a Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G930 connected to my Macbook Air which loses the connection to the headset every 5-15 minutes.

The headset is now several months old and I haven't had any problems until a few weeks back. Around the same time I restored my computer with first installing Yosemite and then a week later installing the El Capitan public beta (currently on Public Beta 3, 15A243d).

When the headset loses its connection I can still see the headset in the OS X speaker selector, since the USB dongle is connected. I can then reconnect the headset by unplugging and plugging back in the USB dongle.

Could El Capitan be the problem or could I have missed installing some software after restoring my computer?

Edit 2015-08-24

After updating to Public Beta 5 the connection have been significantly  better, only disconnecting 1 or 2 times per day

El Capitan is beta software, so there's going to be a lot of bugs, that's the idea of a public beta: let users find and report bugs before the software is released to the mainstream. So, unfortunately, you may have to wait until October when El Capitan comes out for a fix.


How many cores does a Mid 2012 Macbook Air have? I checked the specs, and the i5-3427U CPU has 2 cores.

But the Activity Monitor shows 4 little charts for the CPU, so it looks like 4 cores.

Which is correct? Why does the Activity Monitor have 4 charts?

Your computer has 2 cores, but 4 logical processors. What you are seeing is Intel's hyper-threading technology. This technology puts multiple logical processors on a single core, so that each core can run multiple threads at once.

The difference between this and multiple cores is that hyper-threading only duplicates the parts of the processor which control the current state, not the actual execution unit, but multiple cores duplicate everything. This means that your computer will run like it has four cores only if the threads on each core are using different parts of the execution unit, but if the exact same thing was running on both threads in a single core, it wouldn't be any faster than a two-core system without hyper-threading.


Upgrade to final from Public Beta? I'm currently on the public beta of El Capitan, how do I upgrade to the final version of the new OS?

You don't need to upgrade. OS X 10.11 GM and final release are the same according to Apple and once 10.11.1 is released both the GM and final release will update to it.


Why am I able to receive SMS texts when Cellular off and no WiFi connection? Background

I'm using an iPhone Xs Max, iOS 13.3.1.

I typically keep celluar turned off, and WiFi on. When I'm at home I automatically connect to my WiFi and can receive calls and texts no problem. When I'm not home, I can't receive calls or texts, which is fine by me -- and I'll only turn cellular on if I have to use Uber/Lyft or if I need to make an outbound call.

Issue

On very rare occasions when I'm away from home (and therefore connected to neither cell nor WiFi) I'll receive an SMS text. Usually just random stuff like Amazon sending me a locker access code, telling me I have a package to pickup, etc.

On even rarer occasions I'll receive a call in this mode. I can't actually answer it, but it'll ring once briefly and show me a caller ID.

Question

Why am I able to receive occasional SMS texts and inbound call attempts, despite cellular being off and not being connected to a WiFi network?

Why am I able to receive occasional SMS texts and inbound call attempts, despite cellular being off and not being connected to a WiFi network?

Cellular data is not related to SMS.  That's a function of your voice service. See:  Cellular iPad-Air text message configuration for more details.

WiFi calling is a supplement to your cellular voice plan.  If the WiFi network is available, your phone will use WiFi instead of the LTE network to make a call.  If you turn off WiFi and cellular data and leave cellular voice on, calls will continue to come through.

But to summarize it, if you can make voice calls on your cell network, you can receive SMS/MMS messages.


Mavericks - User Account unavailable at login I have a Macbook Pro running Mavericks. I was using it just fine, stepped away and it had gone into powersave mode. Upon my return I turned it back on, no response, so I held the power down for a short while and then rebooted. Now my user account is missing. I can see Administrator or Guest.

This is a company supplied Macbook so I don't have the administrator password.

Any ideas as to what has happened? I can see my user folder is still there is I login as Guest.

Issue resolved. Had to RM the plist and recreate the account. No Firevault enabled.


Copying data in recovery mode - is this a security flaw? My Mac crashed, operating system error, tried reinstalling OS, no luck.... anyway I need to do a fresh install so I am copying my data off the machine using command line and recovery mode.

My question is, I've copied the data without any issues, but isn't this a security flaw?

What's to stop me going to someone's Mac, starting recovery mode, open terminal, go to the Users or a user directory and copy off whatever I want?

That is what Filevault is for.

If a bad actor has your computer in their hands you need encryption to keep them out. No encryption, no security.

Even if you have the computer firmware password protected, that wouldn't prevent them removing the drive to access from another machine.


Can I disable the lighted Apple logo on the back of my MacBook Pro? I want to disable the light on the apple behind my screen. Besides covering it physically, is there a program or setting to disable it?

Reason being - to make my MacBook Pro as uninteresting as possible to hyperactive two-year-olds.

Nope.

The glowing Apple on your MacBook Pro is actually illuminated by the backlight of your screen as well. So you can't turn it off as long as you have your screen lighted on. Your best bet is probably to put a sticker on it.


iPad Air screen is black and unresponsive The screen of my 2014 iPad Air, is black and unresponsive, currently the alarm is going off (so I know it is working) but the screen is black and unresponsive. I have not dropped it, I have tried to power it off, but since there is no response, I don't know whether it had any effect.

I have charged it fully overnight. I tested the charger on another device and it works fine. I don't have another Mac computer to connect it to. Yesterday was the first time I used Siri, could that have something to do with it?

What else could I try?

I like to connect devices with no visible display to iTunes and see that I can make a backup of the device. At that point, I follow the 6 step process (even if I don't think the first few will work, sometimes going through the shutdown motions revives the screen.)

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3281

If you can make a backup, you have a good base and then can try a restore. Also, if you haven't powered it off, that might do the trick without needing a computer.


How to connect iTunes on Windows to only a specific AppleTV when several are available? We're a college campus that has an iPod Touch program... all new full time students get an iPod when they first arrive on campus. We also have a number of faculty using iPads.

To help take better advantage of these devices, we are about to connect AppleTVs to a number of the projectors in different classrooms... 18 in all. These classrooms also have Windows PCs (mostly XP, but some 7) connected to the projectors.

What I want to do is install iTunes on each classroom computer, and set iTunes to connect to the AppleTV in that classroom (and only the AppleTV in the classroom). I want it to ignore the AppleTVs from other classrooms.  All the classrooms are on the same subnet.  The idea is that when different faculty members or students log in to the computer with their own profiles, that iTunes profile will automatically see the right AppleTV, and no one will accidentally connect to an AppleTV in a different classroom.

So far, the only way I can see to do this is let the computers connect to any AppleTV they see, and then put each classroom on an individual subnet (a huge pain in the you know what).  Are there any other ideas? I'm okay with hand editing a config file somewhere, if need be.

Never mind that the computer is already connected directly to the projector, and therefore should never need to rely on the AppleTV to show anything in iTunes. If someone tries to use iTunes to control the AppleTV, it should work.

I would suggest, assuming the main function you'll be using is AirPlay, that you give each classroom's Apple TV its own AirPlay password that only the instructor in that room knows. That way, he/she can connect to it with the credentials you've given and no one else can. If a student needs to connect to it to show something, the instructor could put in the password on the student's laptop. Obviously, if the password gets leaked you can change it at will.

I know this seems a little tedious, but I think it's the only way of doing it short of re-subnetting the building (I understand why you'd want to NOT do that!).

Also, I would suggest you create DHCP reservations for each Apple TV on your DHCP server so they always get the same IP address when connecting, just in case your network gets overloaded. Just a suggestion.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck.


How to share mouse and keyboard via Wi-Fi to Android? I use 1keyboard via Bluetooth to share keyboard with my Android phones, but this is less productive than Logitech's Flow where I can switch between devices much faster and more seamlessly.

Is there an app that can help me sharing keyboard and mouse with Android phones?

The webpage at alternativeTo lists some alternatives to 1keyboard for macOS.


multiple dropbox instances hangs in starting loop So I have recently installed two separate concurrent instances of dropbox on Mavericks. There are plenty of scripts on the web (all roughly the same) that seem to lead to a common issue, specifically for Mavericks. After the second instance is started via this script:

HOME=$HOME/Dropbox-second /Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox &

it hangs in a constant state of 'starting.' I have looked around quite a bit and can't seem to come up with a solution. Any ideas or leads would be greatly appreciated.

In response to comments:
Ideally, the solution would function for the same user account of the computer. The idea is that two separate Dropbox accounts be available and usable at the same time. I do understand Dropbox doesn't support this functionality, hence the reason for the question. It is a workaround solution that I'm after. Additionally, the script cited above does work in other versions of osx, so again I'm asking for solutions to regain functionality in Mavericks specifically. Thanks for your help.

Personal Dropbox does not work in this fashion, as it causes open preference file conflicts, thus the hang on the startup of the second instance. You must login and logout of each personal Dropbox account to use them individually, or used shared folders for common files. You can also have two Dropbox accounts open in different web browser windows.

If you are a Dropbox for Business user, you can have personal and Business accounts sync to single devices, which is what you may be looking for.


Is there a way to make a portable iOS backup? I'm travelling and will probably get a new iPad (actually an iPad Pro - woo hoo) while I'm away. Is there a way to backup my current iPad, take the backup with me, and then when I'm near a laptop or family computer restore my current iPad backup to the new iPad?

And for those of you that are going to suggest iCloud backup, my iPad chokes everytime I try to do an iCloud backup and never completes.

Any ideas?

Thanx in advance for your help!

I'm going to posit this as an answer.
Though I've never tested it 'in anger' it does work after a migration, so might work on a simple 'file copy'…

Your iTunes 'iDevice' backup is stored in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
so in theory, carrying that to another Mac ought to allow a restore.

The untested part of my theory is whether or not the iCloud sign-in & encryption factors are also contained within that structure. The sign-in, presumably will just ask you to confirm with your ID & password, then check against Apple's servers, but the encryption [assuming you use it to preserve your passwords etc in the backup] is another factor.

All I could suggest would be to test before it becomes critical - if you have another computer to test with, or even on a new, 'blank' Mac account, before you go away.
If it failed at that point, you'd have your 'real' backup at hand.

As the saying goes, a backup strategy is only as good as your ability to restore it.


How can I force new browser windows to open on my main display? I use a MacBook Air at work connected to a larger display, which while working is my main display. I use the MacBook's display as a secondary screen on which I usually have a browser open with some tools. If I cmd-tab to the browser from another application and create a new window with cmd-n it always opens on my secondary display, since I already have one window open there. What I want is for new windows to always open on the main display. Is this possible?

Have you tried running your browser in fullscreen mode? (Using the 2 diagonal arrows button in the upper right corner of the window)

I have a very similar setup and it works exactly as you are asking.

MacBook Pro connected to a Thunderbolt Display
Thunderbolt Display is the primary (with the Dock), MBP is secondary
Chrome running on the MBP screen in fullscreen mode
⌘+Tab to Chrome, which activates the app on the MBP screen
⌘+N to create new Chrome window, which appears on the primary Thunderbolt display


Opening iBooks PDFs with Other Apps on iPhone I have several PDF files in iBooks. I want to open them with the "PDF reader" App instead.  How do I do this?

Another method, simpler, not involving clouds is as follows:

Touch and hold on book's icon in iBooks, and, from pop-up menu
choose "Print", see figure below:

On the preview page, do inverse pinch (two fingers spread):

Now, from Printer options, lower left corner, touch the square to
send to other applications:

And choose where to send a copy - in this example I used Documents
application


Updating macbook from 10.6.0 to 10.6.8 I am trying to update my macbook to 10.6.8. I tried to update to 10.6.8 directly but it does not update it directly so I am going in a sequential manner now. Firstly, I updated it to 10.6.1 by downloading the update to my macbook. Next, I updated it to 10.6.2 and doing so again and again I have updated my laptop to 10.6.4. Is there any better(faster) way I can get my macbook updated to 10.6.8? Thanks

I would assume you would use the latest combo update for 10.6, which should update you completely to the current version in one shot.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


My Brother printer not working in macOS Big Sur(11.3.1) Help me please
I bought my new printer Brother MFC-1910W yesterday.
I'm trying to install driver and print my work by Microsoft Word but not working.
I checked information in Brother Website seem like MFC-1910W not support macOS Big Sur(11.3.1) but I'm not sure.
I don't know what should to do with my new printer. So sad
Everyone help me please

Brother recommends using AirPrint with Big Sur. Unfortunately, your model does not support AirPrint. As an alternative, Brother recommends you download Brother iPrint&Scan from the Apple App Store. Note: Most reviews for the Brother iPrint&Scan software are not very good.
When viewing the Downloads webpage, there is no printer driver available for macOS 11. Therefore I would assume Brother will not be releasing a printer driver for your current macOS 11.3.1.


Brand new 10.10 Yosemite mail.app can not work with Yahoo Mail? As of January 2015, I have a brand new Macbook Air running all fully updated Yosemite 10.10.

I have been simply trying to configure the mac OS mail app to work with a simple, normal Yahoo Mail account.

I add the account, it appears correctly in the Preferences settings as an internet account with "mail" checked... it creates entries in the left pane of the Mail window.   BUT... nothing ever appears in the Inbox.   AND, it DOES succeed in loading the many sub-folders within the mail account that I have configured in yahoo... AND, if I click on one of those, then after 20 seconds, it loads the folder's contents fine. AND, when I SEND mail, it sends out just fine.  But nothing in the normal, plain Inbox!

I have created it several times. Once I even tried to force it to allow me to "manually" create the inbox without it sniffing that it was a yahoo account and applying the official yahoo settings it knows. I did that by initially putting extra false characters in the yahoo domain name, and then setting up all the IMAP and SMTP stuff manually, and then changing the initial domain name entry to remove the wrong characters.  But the results were exactly the same -- empty inbox.

AND, when I have yahoo set up in the normal way (but not working right...)  and I go to the Connection Doctor... it scans through and gives the green-light indicator saying that IMAP and SMTP are working fine!

Any info, tips, or similar issues with Yahoo Mail and the mail.app in Yosemite?

THANKS -- Eric

I am sure you did all these things, but just in case...

Turn POP access in Yahoo mail through browser:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/mail-for-desktop/SLN15404.html?impressions=true
Check you IMAP settings in Mail app:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/imap-server-settings-yahoo-mail-sln4075.html
Check that you actually do have messages in your Inbox (through browser) :)
Check that you do not have Forwarding ON:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/automatically-forward-emails-yahoo-mail-sln22028.html

If this didn't help, let's search further...


Hitting Play/Pause key (F8) ends FaceTime call In High Sierra, hitting the Play/Pause (f8) button now ends a FaceTime call if one is in progress. This is quite frustrating as I often pause music after I answer a FaceTime call, is there any way to disable this?

You mentioned in the comment that the music playing app is usually Spotify.

The media keys (Previous, Play/Pause, Next represented by F7, F8 and F9 keys respectively) gets associated with the an app outputting audio/video (if the app is programmed to support it).

If two or more apps are simultaneously outputting audio/video, the keypress is captured by Apple's own built in app (in this case FaceTime).

This explains your observation. In this case, it would be recommended to pause Spotify using it's menu command.


How can I add support for .flac files in SoX? I want SoX to record audio in .flac files. When I do:

rec -t flac ~/Desktop/myrec.flac

…it gives the following error:

rec FAIL formats: no handler for given file type `flac'

I have installed SoX from 'brew' and and I do have flac 1.2.1 installed.

I have gone though man pages at http://sox.sourceforge.net/sox.pdf but did not get the information that I am looking for.

How can I add support for .flac files?

I am on OS X 10.9.3

Keeping it simple.

Removing it using brew like so :

brew remove sox

Then installing it again with specific options, like so, did the trick for me:

brew install sox --with-lame --with-flac --with-libvorbis

You may want to remove the --with-lame option if you won't be using MP3s, or the --with-libvorbis if you won't be using OGG.

I hope this helps someone.


How to auto-create mount points in /Volume with sshfs I believe the title says it all, but anyways:
I would like to recreate the OSX behaviour of auto-creating mount points in /Volumes with sshfs mounting remote folders and auto-deleting these mount points. I prefer this to have mount target folders hanging around with no other sense then waiting to get something mounted on it. ;)
Is there a way to achieve this with sshfs?

The MacFusion Menuling will do that for you if you're willing to use a GUI. The menuling is a little crashy on Mountain Lion, but you may be able to fix that since the source is on Github.


HD Video Capture software for Logitech Web Cam? I have a Logitech HD C910 webcam for which Logitech has no up-to-date drivers. They stopped updating for Mac at 10.6.

I would just write it off, like so many webcams before it. But it's an AWESOME camera. Its color balance and low-light clarity are just outstanding. It would be a shame to throw away such a great camera. Especially since I have several.

And, while the Logitech software crashes and burns upon launching, other apps can at least partially see the camera. FaceTime and PhotoBooth, for example. They don't have video capture, however. Final Cut Pro, which does have video capture, does not see it.

So...looking for recommendations for other applications or utilities I might use to capture video from it. Failing that, looking for replacement recommendations. Not from Logitech, apparently, because they don't seem to support Mac.

I have the C910 and it's totally working on my Mac Pro and my MacBook Air.

QuickTime can record 1080p, as well as iMovie/FinalCut should.

There is no necessarity for drivers or additional software to get this working on your Mac.


Syncing files not in Desktop / Documents via iCloud I have a folder containing scripts and files they operate on in a root folder /data. I would like to have them automatically backed-up as they get updated but I can't move them out of /data, as that's the folder most scripts use to locate their files. Is there a way to do this?

I use macOS Sierra Version 10.12.4. Thanks!

I've come up with two solutions:

Using Google's Backup-and-Sync app, which allows you to select which folders to automatically sync with Google Drive (this doesn't use iCloud through)
Using cron, a MacOS / Linux command-line program, to automatically rsync your directory outside of iCloud path and its copy in the iCloud folder.


Can Safari copy both the URL and page title during a drag-and-drop? I frequently want to paste a URL and page title into a document or email message. When I drag and drop a URL from Safari and other browsers (by dragging the URL icon) I see the page title being dragged with the cursor. However, when I drop it in Terminal or in a Gmail message in plain text, I get the URL only and when I drop it in Textedit or in a Gmail message with rich text, I see the title only (with the link). Can I get both?

Byword seems to do that by default:

It's not really drag and drop, but you could also assign a shortcut to a script like this:

tell application "Safari" to tell document 1
    set the clipboard to "[" & name & "](" & URL & ")"
end tell


How to remove privacy settings for files and folders in Catalina? It seems to be simple, but how to remove the given privacy settings for files and folders? I have some double mentions which I would like to remove!

So how to achieve this, when the + / - control buttons are disabled?

In short, those buttons don't work and there's no easy way of adding, deleting, or modifying the contents of that list.

For the difficult way, have a look at this answer:
Add apps to "Files and Folders" permissions?


If add a file to books, do I need to keep the original file? Suppose I have a pdf file (i.e. some file that is not purchased through books).

If I add this file to Books, do I need to keep the original file, or does Books make a duplicate copy that it saves somewhere?

If the answer is "it saves a duplicate copy", is this contingent on cloud services being turned on?

It is not easy to extract books out of iOS' Books app once you import them. You can only take out their names, as the app treats them as purchases, not imports. So keeping a copy in Files and then opening it in Books is better.

If Mac's Books is being used, the books can be found easily by spotlight or Finder. So sync would be necessary for an easy way out. Of course there are apps which claim to go into iOS's database, but if you have a Mac, better sync.

/Users/me/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books/395687522.epub

Add PDFs to iBooks, without making a copy to com.apple.BKAgentService folder


Can Coda 2 be made to uploads to locations other than the root of a website? I am using Coda 2 coming from Dreamweaver, and it all seems great.

However, uploading a file or 'publishing' (what's actually the difference here?) seems to stick the file in the root. Even when the local file structure maps directly to the remote structure. VERY annoying!

My local root is my local folder and my remote folder is the standard / web root. They should reflect one another perfectly, but uploading always goes to root.

Even if I 'drag' a file from the local view into the correct folder on the remote...it puts it in the root of the website.

The only way I can get it in the right place is to move it on the remote server and over-write it. Too long of a process to be productive as changes occur all the time in development.

Can anyone tell me how I can fix this issue? Is it a setting somewhere? I do not have this problem with Dreamweaver.

Publishing is different than uploading in Coda.
Uploading will just upload to whatever folder you are in in the web view (bottom of the file list pane, 2 icons, local and remote).

So if you are in the root on the web view pane, anything you 'upload' will go there. If you want to upload by manually 'uploading', navigate to the folder you want in the web view, then whatever you upload will go there.

If you want to upload files retaining their structure, you want to 'publish'. So you can either 'mark for publish' or when you save a file, it gets marked for publish, then you can publish the lot, which will upload everything in its right place.

Of course, this all depends on your folder settings. Make sure you have the right info in your settings pane, for local folder root and remote folder root etc.


How do I recover "discarded" files using Pages? I was trying to save a file on my Mac and it said

  The document could not be saved.
  You don't have permission

I have papers to write and recover because they decided to delete themselves

How do I fix this "You don't have permission" error when using Pages on OS X?

Sometimes the System and or User permissions need cleaning/Repair

To fix the System level permissions:

Open Disk Utility and repair the permissions.

To fix the user level permissions

Restart while holding the cmd-r.

The select reset password (you will NOT be resenting the password)

Instead use the restore ACL's on that screen,


How can I "Page Down" from the keyboard in an Apple Mail message list? With recent versions of Apple Mail, the Page Down key always applies to the message content pane (unless no message is selected), even if the message list had focus. However, you used to be able to type Control–Page Down to make it apply to the message list. This no longer works in OS X 10.9. Is there another way?

I wrote some AppleScripts that can Page Up/Down in Mail’s message list, and the scripts can be assigned Control–Page Up/Down as keyboard shortcuts.


Eyefinity PCI Express card with Apple Thunderbolt Display Can I connect the Apple Thunderbolt display to any PCI Express graphics card with Mini DisplayPort v1.2 Eyefinity technology?

You'll need a graphics card that can output Thunderbolt (if such things exist, I have not checked). The Apple Thunderbolt Display can only accept input in the form of a Thunderbolt signal, Mini DisplayPort will not work.

Apple does sell a Mini DisplayPort variant of their 27" display, so if you don't yet have the display you should get that instead


Is there an easier way to turn wifi on and off on iOS? I realize that there are no shortcuts specifically for the Settings program on iOS.  With that in mind, perhaps there's another way to do what I'd like.

I live in the boonies, where the only effective internet I can get is through satellite.  This creates issues with my iPhone.  For instance, if I'm working on the lot and have wifi on and I'm listening to streaming, when I leave range, the stream stops and has to restart, which takes time.  The same happens when I walk back in range.  Also, I have unlimited bandwidth on my wireless plan and a cap on my satellite data.

Whenever I pick up my phone before going out of the house, I turn of wifi to avoid issues like the one above.  But when I come home, I need to turn wifi on so my photos will update and for other reasons.

It's not a terrible thing to go through, but it's several steps.  Is there any way to add an icon to the homescreen that turns wifi on and off?  Or any other easy shortcut to do this?

You don't specify the model of iPhone you have, but the Control Centre is definitely the easiest way to toggle many functions on/off.

Typically, to access Control Centre you would swipe up from the bottom of the screen. If you have an iPhone X you need to swipe down from the top right of the screen instead.

You can configure the Control Centre by going to Settings > Control Centre. If you're on iOS 11 you have a lot more options available to you and can even select what functions you want available from the Control Centre.

Below is a screenshot of how I currently have my Control Centre configured:

As you can see, by accessing the Control Centre you can instantly tap on the Wi-Fi toggle to switch it on/off. The Control Centre also give you fast access to Bluetooth, Airplane Mode, etc.


Macbook Air ignores our strong cable signal and tries to connect to other sources We have a Virgin Media cable provider and most of our neighbours are Sky or BT.  All available networks appear in the drop-down on the top menu and indicate if they are secure or not.  Ours is the strongest signal, yet repeatedly it is pushed to the bottom of this list and my Mac tries to join a BT one.

I want to just remove all these BT and Sky Wi-Fis so the Mac always defaults to our provider and never tries to connect to them, but solutions supplied elsewhere don't apply.

When I go to the Advanced menu on the WiFi preferences, these BT and Sky options aren't there.  How do I get them off the dropdown menu or just tell Mac to ignore them permanently?

Have you tried System Prefs > Network > WiFi
Switch off 'Ask to join new networks', then in the Advanced... section below, you can drag networks into your preferred order & delete ones you no longer wish the machine to remember [this will tie in with 'Ask to join...' & shouldn't bother you again].


Running a bunch of commands in Terminal I run the following commands for logkext a lot in my terminal and would like a know a way to automate the whole process.

Open terminal
type "sudo logKextClient"
Type in administrator password
logKextClient has its own password which I need to type now
logKextClient is running now. prompt is logKextClient >
I have to type a command here. "open"
Then I need to close a window that opens. Window is titled out_logFile.txt. Usually it opens in TextEdit. I don't mind force quitting it. As a copy of the file is saved on the desktop.

I'd like to be able to double click something and execute the above list of commands/actions flawlessly.

Many thanks for your suggestions.

I went through the exact same process back when I was playing around with logKext. The unix command you may want to explore is /usr/bin/expect.

It can get complex quickly, but basically what it does is act as a mediator between you and the programs you're running so it can provide answers that you would normally have to type. As an example, I built this script so I could automate the process of printing the logKext output. You should recognize all of the commands you'd normally type to logkextClient yourself...

#!/usr/bin/expect -f
spawn logkextClient
expect "logKext Password:"
send "mylogkextpassword\r"
expect "logKextClient > "
send "print\r"
expect "logKextClient > "
send "quit\r"
close

Back in 10.5 and 10.6 this worked well for me for outputting the logKext print so I could pipe it into an email and send it. However, I was running this logged in as root to terminal, so it was simple.

Theoretically, if you weren't logged in as root, you could instead say

#!/usr/bin/expect -f
spawn sudo -k logkextClient
expect "Password:"
send “myrootpassword\r”
expect "logKext Password:"
send "mylogkextpassword\r"
expect "logKextClient > "
send "print\r"
expect "logKextClient > "
send "quit\r"
close

(note that I used sudo -k intentionally to be consistent and require a password every time)

So you could use your favorite command line editor to create this script, do a chmod +x to it and drag it to the dock for launching... Theoretically.

But I have been having problems in Mavericks getting /usr/bin/expect to behave properly with sudo, so this isn't working for me in other scripts like it should. And I don't have logKext installed at all anymore for testing anyway.

But I think this is the direction you may want to head.

Good luck!


Paused & want to delete partially downloaded Yosemite I was installing Yosemite Beta, however, I paused the download as I have not backup my Mac. Does anyone know how I can delete the paused download of it? It's driving me nuts! I can't just press "delete" like my other Apps!

There are two simpler ways for this:

In Mac App Store Updates page, simply hold down option, and you'll see the Pause button changes to Cancel.
In Launchpad, hold down option and you'll see apps icons begin to wiggle (just like they would on iOS). Click the X that has appeared and the update will be canceled.


Multiple AppleIDs across two iMacs I have an old iMac, but also acquired a new one, and now run them both, side by side. I set up the new one to have the same AppleID as my old iMac, which has an enormous amount of music in iTunes. While there are a few iTunes purchases in there, mostly this music is from my CD collection that I imported over the years into iTunes on the old iMac.

I thought that these would sync, but that music won't appear on the new iMac's iTunes, even though its signed in with the same AppleID credentials.  To confirm the credentials are identical, I can see (for example) that my "Purchase History" in iTunes contains identical information on both iMacs.

So why is it that my imported CDs (in the original iTunes) can't be seen on my new iMac?   many thanks for any thoughts - very concerned that I'll lose all those old songs, and all the effort it took to import them - I had hoped to migrate it all to the new iMac :(

By default, iTunes is not going to copy your Music CD tracks from one Mac to the other, though Apple does offer more than one paid method to have them moved for you.

There are free ways too, multiple of them, and this article from Apple goes over some options: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204318


Can you search for tags in OneNote for Mac 2016? Searching for tagged content within a notebook in OneNote for Windows is straightforward. There's a Find Tags menu option.

This option does not seem to exist in OneNote for Mac 2016. There's nothing to the right of To Do Tag. Therefore, you can't search your notebook for "discuss with manager", for instance.

This functionality is not (yet) available in OneNote for Mac.

Since I also use Visio and Project, I have a Windows VM with OneNote also installed.  From there, I use the "Find Tag" feature and create a new page with the To-Do tags and then allow it to sync to my Mac and iPhone.

It's very cludgy, but for now, it works.


IPad and IPhone - backing up "corrupted" file - spyware on IPad My IPad Backup failed because the back up is corrupt.
Deleting the back up using iTunes or Windows File Explorer and repeating did not work. During Backup to my PC I got multiple popups from ESET NOD32 stating I had "adware" spyware on my IPad. NOD32 erased them on my PC but not IPad. Repeating the back up failed again.
I temporarily disabled NOD32 and the back up worked. But my IPad still has spyware on it.

Searching for spyware removal software or applications .. uncovered nothing.
How do I remove spyware, adware, malware from my IPad??

It's kind of Catch 22, but with a get-out clause...

If you let the Windows antivirus delete the suspect file, it will corrupt the backup.
However, as it is being recognised as a Windows virus by a Windows antivirus, then it almost certainly cannot actually have any effect on the iPad.

The iPad, of course, does not run Windows & cannot be infected by a Windows virus - even if it can 'carry' one & unfortunately, possibly pass it on.

One 'fix' would be to ensure your iTunes backups are encrypted [an option available in the Summary page in iTunes when your iPad is connected]  - that way the Windows antivirus can't even see the 'infection', nor, as the file would be encrypted & unreadable by Windows itself, could it infect your PC.

The other - more long-term - fix would be to delete the offending files from your iPad; your next backup would then be clean.


Is there a way to schedule airplane mode for iphone? This question was essentially asked 3+yrs prior, but I don't see any recent updates.   I'd like to set my iphone to engage airplane mode for an hour (example) and then turn off airplane mode/engage cellular service an hour later.  Is that possible?

Using a Shortcut for that would probably be the best solution. If you have any experience with programming you could probably whip something up without too much effort, or I'd recommend checking out the shortcuts subreddit.

There's also a chance somebody has already created what you're looking for, I didn't find anything in a quick glance through this gallery, but you could possibly find something with some digging.

I hope this helps move you in the right direction!


File sizes greyed out (strange extended attributes) in Finder on Lion? I just got a new machine with Lion preinstalled. After transferring all my applications, I noticed that the file sizes (and only the sizes) of some applications and folders are greyed out:

Does anybody know what this means?

Update:

ls -la gives the following lines for DjView and Dropbox:

drwxr-xr-x   3 daniel  staff    102 31 Okt  2007 DjView.app
drwxr-xr-x@  3 daniel  staff    102  3 Mai 10:06 Dropbox.app

I.e. Dropbox.app has extended file attributes, namely

$ xattr -p com.apple.FinderInfo Dropbox.app/
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Cheers

MrMage

I have only the craziest of guesses, but since we're all striking out so far, here goes.

Is there any chance you've turned on the Asepsis mode which installs a kernel extension? You may have not disabled that in your testing (a safe boot should confirm / rule this out as well). It seems possible that it's intentionally showing you which folders it has replaced the normal .DS_store file with entries in /usr/local/.dscache

I would also use mdls to inspect the metadata for these folders (since apps are really folders these days) in case some clue jumps out at you.


What are some good ways to close an app without using your mouse/trackpad? I have an app that would fail once in a while, and I need to restart it if it doesn't works as expected.

I can use Spotlight to start it after closing it.
But how do I close it quickly using something as efficient as Spotlight?

If the application is active You can press ⌘ CMD+Q to quit the app. If You want to force quit this app - press  ⌘ CMD+⇧ Shift+⌥ Option+⎋ Esc.

If the app is currently not active hold down ⌘ CMD and navigate to Your app with ⇥ TAB, then without releasing the ⌘ CMD press Q.


WhatsApp doesn't use contact name on lock screen notifications Hello Community Members,

I am using iOS device (iPhone) with latest iOS version.

I am facing an unusual problem with WhatsApp.

When I get message from one of my contacts and screen is locked, WhatsApp shows that I got message from name (name it uses is set by user, and not as saved in my contacts)

Example: If I get a message from my brother, whose contact is saved on my device as "Bro" and if screen is locked, it reads 1 message from Mr. Mehta (which is set by my brother as his display name on WhatsApp)

Anyone facing same issue, or it's just me. If yes, any solution for same.

On iOS devices that is the default setting for whatsapp you cannot change it :-/


Magic Mouse: disable lower half of the touch area To avoid false gestures, I would like to disable the lower touch area of my magic mouse.

I tried to use an option in Better Touch Tool (BTT) that is supposed to do this and in the BTT live view, I can see that BTT ignores any touches in this area. However, the touch area still works in all apps.

Is there another way (e.g., via Terminal) to savely limit the touch area of a magic mouse?

System specs: Macbook Pro Retina, Magic Mouse, OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks), BTT 0.9985

Magicprefs (http://magicprefs.com/) worked for me. I've disabled two-finger scrolling and reduced the area that actually activates the scrolling.


Why is my MacBook Pro's fan constantly on at 6000RPM? I recently replaced the logic board on my Mac, now I have this "fan constantly on at 6000RPM all the time" issue.

So I did an Apple hardware test using the installation disk that came with my Mac and got this cryptic error:
4SNS/1/40000000:Th2H-128.000

After some googleing I came across this:

Th2H Right Fin Stack Proximity Temp

And my question(s), what part does the Right Fin Stack Proximity Temp refer to?

Is the error given by the Apple Hardware Test considered 100% accurately?

This is a guess but I would assume it's referring to the Temperature sensor next to the heat sink exhaust for the right fan.  That would definitely account for your fan running at max... if the sensor is not reporting the temperature, the logic board would likely turn the fan on full blast in order to keep the processor from overheating or even setting the computer aflame.

You might have just forgot to plug the temp sensor in, or left it loose, or it became loose during your board replacement.  Or it could have failed...

Try using a temperature monitoring app like Temperature Monitor and see if it gives you any more info.


Factory reset on a 2009 MBP I recently purchased a MBP it has El Capitan. The people who I purchased it from were unable to perform the factory reset. They tried for over an hour. So I have this really nice MBP that still has all of their information. I have all their log in information, so that we can reset it ourselves. They purchased it as a reconditioned unit 2 years ago they haven't really used it and have never made any updates.  It came with the box and all the installation disks. The disk is Snow Leopard.
First and foremost what's the best way to process the reset?
Will I have to install Snow Leopard?
If so how do I install El Capitan?
Is there a way to upgrade to Sierra? It's a mid 2009.

The best way to do a factory reset of a Mac is basically to wipe the hard drive and reinstall from scratch. You can boot off the installation DVD (insert the DVD, reboot and hold down the ALT key to get the boot selection menu), then once you see the first page of the install wizard choose Disk Utility from the menubar to wipe the drive. Then you can continue the install to get a fresh copy of Snow Leopard. Once that is complete you'll be able to freely update to El Capitan from the Mac App Store.

Unfortunately it looks like you won't be able to upgrade to Sierra. The earliest MacBook Pro supported by Sierra is the Mid 2010 model. https://www.apple.com/macos/how-to-upgrade/#hardware-requirements

However if this MacBook hasn't been used since reconditioning, then perhaps just creating a new account for yourself and deleting their account would be enough. Just select System Preferences from the Apple menu, and click on "Accounts". You'll be able to create a new account there (make sure to tick the "Allow user to administer this computer" box), and then once you've logged into your new account you can use the same Accounts pane to delete their account.


Can't find my Mac last location even if my Mac was online only for half an hour? My Mac was lost the other night. Someone probably wiped it clean, and reset nvram.

Is it possible to see last locations on Find my Mac?

Because who ever found it, he must have been connected to Wifi for at least 15-20min so he can do what he has done.

So the question is: can I see more than one last location of my MacBook, when he was online, on Find my Mac?

It depends how smart the 'finder' was.

If they were fully aware of how to deal with a stolen ermm... borrowed computer, & knew to take it well away from any potential location-capable resource, then it could have been wiped with no further data exchange & therefore no Find My Mac information.

Unlike an iPhone/iPad. a computer is not a completely locked-down environment, unless the drive is encrypted with FileVault & a firmware password set - though you still need to have enabled Find My Mac.


Screenshot to OCR on OS X? I want to be able to take a screenshot on my mac, then send that to an OCR engine and get back the text it has identified.

Are there any existing software tools that do this for OS X?  I have a Windows solution but not one for Mac.

I have used FastScripts to assign a keyboard shortcut to this script:
screencapture -i /tmp/tesseract.png
tesseract /tmp/tesseract.png stdout|tr -d \\f|pbcopy

brew install tesseract installs tesseract. tesseract prints to STDOUT when the output file name is specified as stdout. tesseract adds a form feed character to the end of the output.
Edit: tesseract isn't very accurate, so I now use Google's Cloud Vision API instead:
curl -sH"Authorization:Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" -HContent-Type:application/json\;charset=utf-8 https://vision.googleapis.com/v1/images:annotate -d@<(printf %s '{"requests":[{"image":{"content":"'"$(base64 path/to/input/file.png)"'"},"features":[{"type":"TEXT_DETECTION"}]}]}')|jq -r '.responses[0].fullTextAnnotation.text'

Demo: https://cloud.google.com/vision/docs/drag-and-drop. It even works with Japanese and Chinese text.


Connecting a 2007 Mac mini to a Samsung Tv I have a mid 2007 Mac mini that I bought to hook up to a tv and use for Netflix, tv, etc.
When I connect to the tv it shows a mode not supported message.
I followed the instructions on the web and I can remotely log in when it's connected, and it is running at 60Hz and I tried most of the resolutions all to no avail.
Has anybody had success connecting these two devices?

I solved it.  After setting up a remote connection, I went through the video settings and it turns out the only resolution supported was 720p.  It was, by default, using something else that didn't work.


Using different Apple IDs for device and iTunes Store Is it possible to have one Apple ID for a device, and a different Apple ID for the iTunes Store on the same device?

In Settings, where do I find the Apple ID entry for the iTunes store?

If you mean a different Apple ID for iCloud services and iTunes, yes, that is possible. On iOS, your iCloud login is in Settings / iCloud and your iTunes login is under Settings / iTunes Store and Apps. On OS X, your iTunes login is in iTunes under the Store menu, and iCloud is under System Preferences / iCloud.

Note that the iCloud login is tied to your iCloud account, your icloud.com/me.com/mac.com email address, and other services. If you are actively using that email address, you may not be able to switch to the Apple ID you use in iTunes.

Apple does not currently provide a way to merge Apple IDs.


How to allow multiple network users to login on Mac machine which is enabled with File Vault I have a scenario where I have connected all of our Mac machines to Active Directory (which is pain itself). However, after enabling FileVault from an Administrator account, I saw that network users can't log in even after enabling: Display login window as Name and password.
First I have to login with an admin account and then logout allows an only network user to login which is not an ideal solution.
There is some solution but what if I don't know the user and would like to make Mac machine open where random AD user can log in in that machine (FileVault enabled).
Any suggestion or solution will be highly appreciated.

I will explain this process very technically in details.

When you have an encrypted disk with FileVault, the system needs to ask for an authorised user to login just after EFI boot.

This is necessary because the system has to mount the disk. And it can't mount it without an admin password input.

You then see a screen with local admin-level users avatars.

That screen shows some users avatar because that user's avatar were inserted on the EFI boot image/nvram. At this point of the boot sequence, there is no Operating System loaded yet, it's just a simple boot screen to ask the user password [which simulates the login screen appearance of the GUI], but it just a static image containing the user avatars! (almost like a kind of bootloader statical image, except it asks for user/pass combination)

After you insert the password, the disk is mounted, and the boot process begins.

After the loading bar reaches about 80% that screen changes to another almost identical, it sometimes blinks at this point. This is the GUI interface being loaded, process called WindowServer.

At this point the network interface is UP, other network subsystems are just started, including open directory services [which you need]. If the disk were NOT encrypted, this is the EXACT point where you would see the REAL login screen asking for username/password. But since the disk is encrypted and you have provided the user/pass to decrypt it earlier [before mounting the disk] it skips the real multiuser-mode login screen that should appear here and auto-logs the username you inserted before.

So in practice, it is just a mimic theatrical simulation of a real login since the boot, but it is fake, until when GUI is ready and then the MacOS does an auto-login once in multiuser mode, to make you think all was kind of  "magical". But there is no magic at all.

So what you need/want is impossible on that initial screen, because no network authentication protocol is up at that point. Even the disk isn't ready, which only becomes mounted and readable after inserting the user/pass combination.

You can take a better understanding of what I have written and how all this happens by booting it a little different:

Use the -v nvram boot argument, to boot it verbosely.

If you boot it using the "-v" nvram argument you can get a better view of what is happening "behind" the scene, and also can see the GUI loading moment, and the auto-login happening.

What has to be done:

To achieve what you need, we have to prevent the auto-login mechanism on the real GUI [windowServer] to happen.

This way you will have a local user just to mount the system-disk on Boot-time, then after GUI gets-up it must stay on the un-logged state, and showing the real login screen with the real avatars or fields to input user/password (depending on how you prefer to log users [by avatars or by text input name/pass]).

This will force 2 logins:

one for Filevault [on Boot] and
one for the OS

On the second login you can either login the same local user used on boot, or you can login any other user.
This will also let you login [on the second login] any AD user as you need to.

(Remember that the first login is not a real login, it just an authentication to mount the disk, so nobody is technically logged-in on the UNIX/BSD [system portion] after mounting the disk. The Real/true login only happens on the second one [on the GUI portion])

How to do it:

To force 2 (two) logins there is a secret key to be added to MacOS configuration:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DisableFDEAutoLogin -bool YES

After executing it, reboot, and it is done!

  Please post your results, I just tested it now on Encrypted El Capitan and it works!, and it should work up to Mojave (but I don't have any encrypted Mojave here
  now to test it now. I will test and validate it also on Catalina tomorrow. If
  you can, please validate it for your macOS version, post the results, and we can
  build a mini-table here listing all known working versions later.

Executing the above command is completely safe, nothing to worry about it.


Press space to preview in LogMeIn Pressing space in Mac OS X on a file name, lets say on a CSV file, it shows me a preview of the file, which is a great feature.

When using LogMeIn to remote control other macs, this function is disabled.

Does someone know why?
Is there a workaround to do it?

You are presumably accessing the remote computer via the web portal?

The space bar is a common shortcut in most browsers to scroll the page (vertically down). I'm guessing that the browser is taking priority in this instance and not allowing the event to fall through to the remote OS. (?)


Can't get TV show name to display I imported a set of .mov files as a TV show, or at least I tried to.

I imported them into iTunes, set them to the same "Show" name, numbered them as season 1, episodes 1-6. I also named them "Episode One", "Episode Two", etc. I also marked them as "Media kind: TV Show".

Everything looks fine in iTunes. The problem is when I sync them to my iPhone, when I look in Videos, under TV Shows, it shows "Episode One" as the name of the show.

So for example, on my iPhone, under TV shows I might see: Breaking Bad (4 episodes), Mad Men (2 episodes), House (3 episodes), Episode One (6 episodes).

How can I make the iPhone display the show name? Both "Show" and "Sort Show" are set, but the iPhone seems to be ignoring them...

You will want to check the following fields - they are the ones I see on iOS 6 when I sync a TV show to my iPhone:

Video tab: Show and Season Number
Info tab: Name and Album

The information from the first item (Video tab) is shown in the top level view of the Videos app and the second line (Info tab) gets shown when you drill down to see the episodes that have synced over to the phone. If you sync to an iPad, more details are shown in the video app - but the core 4 items above are shown there as well.


How do I permanently delete fontbook from mac (Sierra OS)? When I try to drag to trashcan, it says it's a system app that is required by os.

How do I bypass this check and remove the app?

There are instructions for removing font book on this page

http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html#fontfolderlocations

If you just want it hidden, there's always a chflags command to hide it. You need to bypass SIP restrictions on that folder before you can delete or change the flags to hide it, so it's not going to be quicker than removing it - just easier to undo if you find you or another program needs it at a later date.

ls -laO / && ls -laO /Applications | grep Font

The first listing shows the variety of flags (hidden, sunlink, restricted, uchg) and the second shows Font Book is restricted from change even by root.

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/system-integrity-protection-adding-another-layer-to-apples-security-model/


Do the two iPhones receive the messages? I have set my Apple ID on two iPhones already and I'm wondering if the other iPhone will receive my messages?

The phone I'm using has service but the other one doesn't.

I was thinking only the messages sent from iMessage, but I don't know so. Will they receive my messages?

The service-less iPhone will receive iMessages (and other notifications for other apps that register push notifications) while on Wi-Fi. You can remove the device from your iCloud account or unregister it from the iMessage and FaceTime services if you don't want this behavior.


syspolicyd producing huge amount of read on disk syspolicyd is producing about 2-3TB of read on my SSD every 24 hours (since I leave my device on 24*7). This behavior began after the macOS 10.15.4 update, and has produced about 150TB read. Killing the process, restarting the computer does not help with the case. I am wondering what is this process doing to read data repeatedly, if anyone else has the same problem, and what is a potential solution. Thanks.

Device: Macbook Pro 16 (2019), macOS 10.15.4
Update: problem persists with 10.15.5; problem persists after disabling SIP

Same Macbook Pro 16 macOS 10.15.4 here.

That process verifies 3rd party software. When you open certain apps that process reads (and a lot, if the app is big). It happens to me for example when I open Photoshop 2020, it reads about 1GB.

You say you never turn it off? How much have your laptop been running? If you never power off your computer that read usage stats are not going to be wiped, so they will just keep growing, hence the huge number. If you poweroff so it starts from zero, how much syspolicyd reads in a 24h timespan?


Remote app won't connect, says "Turn on home sharing" After an update installed, none of my iOS devices recognize my Apple TV from the Remote App. They just say "Turn on Home Sharing..."

When I go through the "add remote" wizard, I see a disabled music icon. I can't do anything with it except delete it.

What am I missing?

I play a song on my phone and then close AirPlay and select Apple TV which wakes the device. This works most of the time.


How can I wipe a disk from a Mac with firmware password set? I'm in a somewhat odd situation: I need to wipe the disk of a MBP, but I can't boot into Recovery Mode/from a CD/etc. as there is a firmware password set.

Is there a way to wipe the disk from within the OS? (I guess the answer will likely be no, but I had to check). Or maybe just to "remove" the encryption password from the HD so as to make it unreadable?

I've been looking around and have found several ways of wiping files (srm, "Permanent Erase", etc) but if possible I'd like to be more thorough.

PD: A bit of background to explain how I got to be in this situation: I've been doing some work for a company where they use Macs so they've loaned me a laptop configured as per their policies (encrypted drive, firmware pwd, etc); once but I've finished the project I have to return the laptop but I'd like to clean it up as much as I can before handing it back.

I am not personally aware of anything, but then I haven't done any work with firmware passwords...

Just a thought though, can you take the drive out stick it in an enclosure and format it on another computer? I know it's not what you asked but it might do the trick if you have an external drive enclosure and another Mac (or even PC...)


Macbook 12" doesn't sleep/wake on close/open I bought an Macbook 12" 2016 which doesn't want so sleep when I close the lid. Furthermore it also doesn't want so start if I open the lid. I tried resetting the SMC and NCRAM, then I reinstalled MACOS. Nothing helped. I also tried to get it so sleep with magnets, this worked out quiet well, so I don't think that the sensors are broken.
Here is my pmset -g output:
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         1
 standbydelayhigh     86400
 autopoweroffdelay    259200
 standbydelaylow      10800
 standby              1
 proximitywake        0
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 gpuswitch            2
 powernap             0
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 highstandbythreshold 50
 displaysleep         2
 sleep                1
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 tcpkeepalive         1
 disksleep            10

and my pmset -g assertion output:
Assertion status system-wide:
   BackgroundTask                 0
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   UserIsActive                   1
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    0
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   ExternalMedia                  0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     0
   NetworkClientActive            0
Listed by owning process:
   pid 142(WindowServer): [0x0000001800098047] 00:00:00 UserIsActive named: "com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle serviceID:100000271 name:AppleHIDKeyboardEve product:Apple Internal Keyb eventType:3"
    Timeout will fire in 120 secs Action=TimeoutActionRelease
No kernel assertions.
Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler

Thanks for your help!

Your power management settings are excellent. If you say you've already reset all of the controllers that could be causing this problem, then it really could be a hardware failure.
I just don't quite understand how you notice that the computer is not sleeping? In the settings of pmset no process prevents sleep?
My final advice would be to switch to Hibernatemode 25
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25


Using ThunderBolt 27" Display with a Second VGA Display not working in Bootcamp I have purchased a ThunderBolt display and is lovely.

I have it setup with a second monitor using VGA in OSX to have 3 monitors (inc 1 of the 15" MacBook Pro display)

So my setup is as follows:
MacBook Pro 15"
27" ThunderBolt Display
WD ThunderBolt MyBook Hard Drive (Has two Thunderbolt ports, which allows me to extend display)
Normal Samsung 23" Monitor connected to WD MyBook Hard Drive with the normal ThunderBolt/Mini Display to VGA adaptor

This setup works perfectly in OSX without any issues, however I cannot get the VGA monitor to work when booted into Windows 7 using a native BootCamp partition.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this or has managed to get this setup working in Windows at all?

Yo.  I've tried with every possible scenario.  I found a note on Apple's site somewhere that stated that only one tb monitor is allowed for use in windows 7.  So...  Until they update the drivers for Win7 you can't get it working.  However...  If you use a TB Imac and add a second monitor to it, that does work as I have that setup at home.


Can one restore a Time Machine backup to a new computer? I am currently backing up my MacBook Pro late 2013 to a Time Machine. If something happens to my Mac (I can't use it anymore), can I retrieve my files and data onto another Mac? Thanks.

Yes that is exactly one of the reasons it's great to have a Time Machine backup.

With the new Mac, if you want to restore the data from the Time Machine backup, ensure it is connected to the new Mac. Then power on the new Mac and follow the setup instructions.

When you get to the question asking if you want to migrate data you would choose the option to do so from a Time Machine backup.

Choose the Time Machine drive (shows up as a green icon) and then click next.
Choose what data you want to restore and then click next again.

For clarification and further information have a look at, Move your content to a new Mac and How to transfer backups from Time Machine to a new Mac.


Guest user randomly created on my Mac, after setting up Find My Mac How do I disable the guest user? Is there a reason why it gets created? It won't mess up any of my files or data on my computer right? Is find my Mac suppose to randomly create it?

With Find My Mac enabled, someone who found the computer could sign into the guest user, which could then be located via iCloud. The guest user is a feature of the operating system which allows people to temporarily use your computer but not save any files.

You can go into Users&Groups System Preferences and disable it, for more details see this article

Just make sure you don't sign into it and expect files you save to still be there after restarting the computer :)


How can I downgrade Safari 6 to 5 in Mountain Lion? Is it possible to downgrade Safari 6 to 5 in Mountain Lion?
I tried to install 5.1.7 but it says it only works with OS X 10.7.

Is there any workaround I can try?

No, you can't go back with Safari on Mountain Lion.


Is there a way to only enable automatic graphics switching when on battery power? It is rare when I use my MBP on battery power. But is there a way to only enable automatic graphics switching when on battery power?

You can try an application called "gfxCardStatus" :)


Two Recovery Partitions Similar, but not a dupe of Time machine restored recovery partition, now I have two

I have a single Recovery partition on my boot drive, even after a recent Time Machine restore. I also intentionally keep 'spares' on other drives, in case of disaster, including an e-drive on the same disk as my Time Machine - so I'm fully prepared in case something ever goes wrong..

However, I've just noticed one drive has two Recovery Partitions.
I'm not sure whether this may cause problems in future; it doesn't seem to be giving me any issues right now, even if I boot to any of the recoveries I can see from the boot chooser, but wondered if it is possible/simple to remove the extra one - or even if it's worth the effort.

It's on a drive with 3 main partitions, Data [Downloads], Boot Camp [MacWin7] & a clone of my regular boot drive [KickClone]

I'm not certain how to even test what OS is on each Recovery, or if it's truly important that it's Sierra.

So, I guess the actual question is ...

Is it best to leave it, or to try remove it?
If remove, that would of course lead to a secondary & tertiary, 'which one?' & 'how?'

I wouldn't want to remove it if it's in any way 'dangerous', because I don't have a direct clone backup of the entire drive, only of each partition's contents, so I don't want to have to do a full rebuild of the structure.

/dev/disk3 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk3
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Downloads               999.3 GB   disk3s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             784.2 MB   disk3s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data MacWin7                 209.1 GB   disk3s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS KickClone               1.8 TB     disk3s5
   6:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             1.3 GB     disk3s6

disk3s3 and disk3s6 are both non-default Recovery HDs. I've never seen other sizes than ~650 MB - except after cloning a drive with Carbon Copy Cloner which resulted in a 1.3 GB RecHD partition. 1.3 GB is the size of the uncompressed Base OS X.

To get the system version of the Base OS X do the following:

check with mount that no other volume with the name Recovery HD  is mounted, else: unmount it with diskutil umount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD
mount the first RecHD slice r/o:

diskutil mount readOnly /dev/diskXsY #i.e. disk3s3

get the system version of the "outer" Volume:

grep ProductVersion -a2 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/SystemVersion.plist

get the system version of the inner Base OS X System volume

hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg
grep ProductVersion -a2 /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

Both ProductVersions (outer and inner) should be identical.

Check the content of the volumes:

Recovery HD should contain 3 folders: com.apple.boot.S, com.apple.recovery.boot and System
Base OS X System looks like a normal system volume except /Users is missing and usually invisible folders/links are visible (e.g. /bin or /etc)
Unmount first the Base OS X volume, then the Recovery HD volume.

diskutil umount /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System
diskutil umount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD

Repeat all previous steps with your second Recovery HD:

diskutil mount readOnly /dev/disk3s6
...

Depending on your results (are both Recovery HDs/Base OS Xs legit regarding their folder structure and the inner & outer ProductVersion) and whether the disk contains a bootable system volume at all (probably KickClone), delete one or both slices. If KickClone contains a bootable system, the (succeeding) Recovery HD should have the same system version (ProductVersion) as KickClone (grep ProductVersion -a2 /Volumes/KickClone/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist).

To delete/remove a Recovery HD simply merge it with the preceding partition:


How to change part of file Quick Look previews? For specific files I would like Quick Look to preview the end of the document, rather than its front. In this case I am working with CSVs and want the preview to show the most recent additions. (I’m aware the previews are cached and maybe not fully up to date.)
1. Is there a way to change what Quick Look displays, especially which parts of a file?
2. Can this be done for specific files, rather than globally?
My research so far leads me to think qlmanage in Terminal is how I’d change this, but I’m not sure how. (Also not on Mac right now and qlmanage’s man page is ... sparse.)
I could also imagine an approach that changes where a file opens to – opening to the end of the document instead of its start – and that the preview would then do similar

You're on the right path with qlmanage.  Unfortunately, using qlmanage is the last step in assigning a Quick Look generator to your file type.  You first have to obtain the generator, or write it from scratch.
So, to quickly answer both of your questions... yes, you can change what QL displays and yes, you can do it for a single file type.
To see what generators are associated with what file types, use the -m flag.  Here's a sample of the output
% qlmanage -m

  com.apple.iwork.pages.pages-tef -> /System/Library/QuickLook/iWork.qlgenerator (209)
  com.microsoft.powerpoint.ppt -> /System/Library/QuickLook/Office.qlgenerator (40)
  public.comma-separated-values-text -> /System/Library/QuickLook/Office.qlgenerator (40)
  com.apple.ical.ics.todo -> /System/Library/QuickLook/iCal.qlgenerator (906.3)
  com.adobe.encapsulated-postscript -> /System/Library/QuickLook/EPS.qlgenerator (906.3)

Within each of those directories is code, very similar to a macOS Application,  that  generates a QL preview; so you can, in fact, create a preview to your specifications.
As for how to create that code, see the Introduction to Quick Look Programming Guide to get started.  The code is written in ANSI-C or Objective-C.


Safari: stop hiding tabs I can't use safari and continue using chrome only because of 1 reason:
chrome doesn't hides tabs (when there are too many of them)
I just want to act safari like this

And not like this

Is there some plugin or workaround to make safari better ?

Glims for Safari is your friend.

After installation go to Safari > Preferences > Glims > Tabs Misc.  and check "Set minimum tab labels size to favicon size".

You'll get something like this…


Are iMessages saved to iCloud even if iCloud is turned off on my phone? If I have iCloud turned off on my iPhone, are incoming and/or already received iMessages still stored in the cloud? Can someone sharing my Apple ID see my iMessages even after I delete them on the iPhone?

iMessages are stored in the iMessage service on your Apple ID. They are completely separate from iCloud. Turning on iMessage will store your messages on Apple's servers, regardless of iCloud setting.

Deleting an iMessage does not delete it from all your currently-authenticated devices but the message won't show on future authenticated devices.


Sub-divide the home screen iPad I recently got hold of an iPad and was wondering if it is possible to have home screen dividers like if I want to label first row of the home-screen as email, second row as blog posts similar to

Any help?

No, that's not possible. iOS will reorganize the apps and folders from the top left to bottom right automatically.

Reorganising your apps and folders on a per-page basis is the closest you can get: 1st page "Main", second page "Games", third page "iCrap", and so on.


Modify Web Page Content in Safari 12? The tool I was using to block #hot-network-questions is now blocked in Safari 12.

I can see some ad blockers are still allowed, but I cannot find one which allows custom blocking specific content.

Can anyone recommend a way to block specific content in the new Safari 12 world?

AdBlock still works - better than the newer App Store version - on Mojave & Safari 12.

You can simply drag a box round content you want rid of & then shift a slider until you're happy, then Click Done.
I use it on SE to remove the Watched & Ignored Tags sections, as well as standard ads.


I'm not able to search for specific files in a folder saved on SD card on Macbook air I have a folder saved on my SD card with many different files. When i go to search in my SD card, and search for a specific file in that folder the page shows completely blank & that file does not show up! Even-though the file i'm searching for is in that folder and can be found manually.
Is there any solution for this ?
Thanks

You should try the cool, (and free,) app EasyFind by developer Devon Technologies. It searches for files where Finder can't search well, or can't search at all. I use it at work for searching for files in very complex macOS folder structures shared on Windows servers, and it is fast.
Alternate download site.
Disclaimer: I'm a very satisfied user of EasyFind and other Devon Technologies apps, and have no financial or other involvement in the company.


My Dock won't launch upon login I recently installed the 10.10.5 update on my Macbook Pro, and now upon login with my home account, the dock won't launch (literally, there is no Dock process; killall Dock returns No matching processes belonging to you were found. Another command I've tried is sudo  /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock, and this returns 2015-09-16 10:26:35.219 Dock[1854:178195] __33-[WVSpaces _initializeFullscreen]_block_invoke: fullscreen message error: Connection invalid). In addition, several standard user interface elements, such as command-tab, spaces, and trackpad gestures, no longer work. When I login as a guest user, though, everything works just fine. I'm confused how to get these UI elements working again.

Edit: I've checked the system console, and it appears as if the dock is constantly trying to launch, but failing.

Sometimes the LaunchAgent (launchd job) that ensures that the Dock starts up gets stuck. Try unloading and re-loading it:

launchctl unload -F /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Dock.plist
launchctl   load -F /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Dock.plist
launchctl start com.apple.Dock.agent

The Dock is an app, and apps run as the current user, not as root. (To convince yourself that this is true, remember that each user has their own Dock.) So don't start it with sudo, unless you want to see the root user's Dock. You should be able to start it the way you did (except without sudo), given that the LaunchAgent is unloaded:

launchctl unload -F /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Dock.plist
/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock

The reason you need to unload the LaunchAgent is because it will reserve certain ports/services for use by the Dock process it's (unsuccessfully) trying to launch. This keeps your manually-launched Dock process from using them.