Can't increase APFS volume's size I've created a new partition on my Mac and deleted the previous one.
I can't find any way to increase the "Container disk1" size.
Even if I try to reinstall the OS with recovery mode, it's written that there's only 100GB available on the disk.
Here is the output of diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         100.3 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +100.3 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume macOS Playground - Data 50.0 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 81.0 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                528.1 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume macOS Playground        11.1 GB    disk1s5

Rebooting in internet recovery mode and erasing the physical worked. Save your data before doing that.


Google Pinyin for iPhone Is there a Google Pinyin app for iPhone? Current pinyin on iPhone is really bad.

Currently, no. Google has only released the Pinyin app with support for Windows. A Mac OS X beta did come out last year, but it hasn't been released publicly, and as far as I know, there's no support for mobile devices.

Source


How can I airplay to my Apple TV without having to turn it on with the remote first? I can stream / airplay fine from my macbook or iPhone to my Apple TV, however whenever my Apple TV is on standby (the light is off) I have to manually switch it on with the remote control first, and then choose to airplay to the device.

I was always under the assumption that trying to stream to it would wake the Apple TV up from standby. Is there a setting I have missed? It didn't used to do this in previous years to my knowledge.

How can I stream to my Apple TV without having to manually turn it on with the silver remote first?

The short answer is, that you are doing the right thing, the Apple TV should just wake up when it gets an AirPlay stream coming at it.

My Apple TV (720p) one is having similar issues, you have to wake it up to stream to it, and it has other issues.. I would suggest a factory restore which is what I am going to do.

It will loose all your preferences, but should fix the issue. Worst case you could also look at reinstalling the firmware using a Micro USB cable and iTunes on your PC or Mac.

Instructions on Apple.com for both methods


Sudden, unexpected logouts Sometimes, Yosemite will randomly log me out without warning or a chance to save work. This has happened twice so far since I've installed Yosemite on my 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. Needless to say, this is very unnerving and reminiscent of malware activity.

With help from Google and scouring event logs, I've traced the problem down to a crash in the window server. The crash report can be found here: http://puu.sh/csTor/0012220497.crash

Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening again?

Update: It seems having a secondary monitor is triggering it. Dell U2412 over HDMI. I also seem to be able to prevent crashing by avoiding the login screen while the monitor is plugged in.

There is no point in trying the vague 'catch all' solutions like wiping NVRAM and system controllers. The problem you are having is a SIGSEGV, or, a segmentation fault in WindowServer. It is likely due to corrupt identifiers. Those identifiers are stored in multiple places, and if enough get corrupt, you get crashes. While some identifiers are stored in the NVRAM (or PRAM), wiping this usually only postpones the next crash since the identifier eventually ends up in there again.

If WindowServer crashes, all GUI applications stop and it restarts via launchd. When WindowServer starts, it first gives you the login window. So in fact, you are not getting logged out, but your whole graphical session simply crashes.

Having a peek at your crash report, it seems this thread is crashing:

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

The last few calls were to color space functions (or methods), leading me to believe you might simply be dealing with a corrupt ICC profile.

The cash is within com.apple.CoreGraphics, and the most recent calls are to:

color_space_get_md5_digest + 57
color_space_get_identifier + 9
CGXColorSpaceRegistryCopyRegisteredColorSpace + 42
_CGXCopyColorSpace + 27
_XCopyColorSpace + 57

Now, if I'm right, it's trying to calculate the MD5 hash of a color space. It's doing that because it wants to find the identifier for a color space, and it needs that identifier because CGXColorSpaceRegistryCopyRegisteredColorSpace needs the color space data for the preset color profile for your monitor. Now, to be 100% this is the source of your crashes, I would need as many of your crash reports as possible, because if they all crash because of different reasons, it has nothing to do with the software on your system but it's more likely to be a hardware issue where bogus data is fed in to the software which then tries to do something with that data which it cannot do and therefore cashes.

A simple test might be to start Apple's built in ColorSync Utility and pressing the Repair button. This could print something like:

Header message digest (MD5) is not correct. Fixed.

Which would make sense since a broken MD5 might be the source of your crash. So try that first. On my system, that ColorSync Utility is in /Applications/Utilities and I think it has been there since every version of OS X. Please let me know if that found broken ICC files and if it could fix them. If not (either nothing found or unable to fix) please do post any crash logs on WindowServer you have :)


How to access the Wi-Fi password through Terminal? I am at my school and the computer I am currently using is connected to a Wi-Fi network. I want to know the Wi-Fi password and I am on a Mac. I know there is a way to do it through Terminal.

What I am using is:

security find-generic-password -ga  AirPort

I use that to find the password if it is in a keychain, but I know there is another way to do it. My friend who is a coder told me their is but they said they wont help me. All they told me was "generic" was a hint. I used "generic" in my command but I don't get it.

I tried your answer but it keeps asking my for the admin password. I am connected to the wifi but it still wont work. My coding friend looked at this and said I'm not looking for a AirPort password I'm looking for a regular password.

security find-generic-password -D "AirPort network password" -a $SSID -g | grep "password:"

Replace $SSID with the SSID of the network that you wish to obtain the key of.
This command looks for all keys with a type of "AirPort network password" and searches for the key with the name of the SSID that you provide.


How to disable notifications for a single mailbox in Mail? When managing multiple mailboxes, is it possible to disable the notifications for certain mailboxes?

To disable notification for certain Mailboxes you can create Smart Mailboxes for the accounts that you want notifications, and change the settings to enable only them.

Create a Smart Mailbox through the menu Mailbox > New Smart Mailbox including only the Accounts that you want to receive notifications.

Inside Preferences > General change the Dock unread count and New message notifications putting the name of the Smart Mailbox or group of Smart Mailbox created.


Map Right Command Key to Escape? Quite simply, I'd just like to modify the right command key to escape and that's it. Keep the left command key as is.

The only tool I've been able to find for this is ControllerMate but I'd rather not pay $14 to map one key.

Can anyone suggest a free alternative?

You can download Ukelele. It is an free keyboard layout editor, and you can make a new layout for your keyboard where simple redefine the keys. In the package are sample keyboards and a manual/tutorial too.


Where can I find the Mountain Lion (Notification Center) notification sound? I've been searching around for the little sound (the default one) when a notification is presented (on Mountain Lion Notification Center) but I can't find it. Example: http://d.pr/a/P5xo (sound recorded)
Any ideas? Thanks!

In OS X 10.8 it's called burn complete.aif (or burn failed.aif–they are the same sound) and is found in /System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/SharedSupport/SystemSounds/system/.

To get into CoreAudio.component, right-click the file and select Show Package Contents.


HP LaserJet 1018 macOS Mojave and Catalina USB driver it seems that HP abandoned old cheap, but very functional and small printers like HP LaserJet 1018.

Posting this question to share solution, that allows extend usability of normally functioning hardware, not to buy new unneeded one, save resources and planet.

HP site says that no software or drivers found for your operating system when it comes to latest macOS versions.

Solution is to use HP printer driver bundle from file HewlettPackardPrinterDrivers5.1.dmg which can be found on
Apple or search engine or direct link

Download and install the printer driver package
Open System Preferences -> Printers and Scanners
Click + to add new device and click HP LaserJet 1018 printer name
Click the Use drop-down menu and then click on Select Printer Software
Search for 1022 in the search box and choose the HP LaserJet 1022 driver
Finish installation and print test page

This allows to use old printer on macOS 10.14 and macOS 10.15 systems.

I hope it will help lots of people to save some gears.


Mac mini wont shutdown I can't shutdown my Late 2012 Mac mini, running El Capitan, in the normal way, by selecting the Shut Down... on the Apple menu. Every time I try, Finder vanishes and the shutdown progress freezes. I'm still able to work with the Dock, so I can shutdown using Terminal. In long term it's really annoying.

Hopefully someone has an idea whats wrong.

[EDIT] I just found out that im able to shut the system down by sign out and them use the displayed shutdown on the bottom.

Close all Mac OS X apps before shutting down
Try to determine if one particular app is causing the problem. Maybe one app always aborts the shutdown process. Try updating to the latest version.
Open Disk Utility. Choose the your main hard drive and click Repair Disk.
Usefully shutdown freezes are caused by incompatible or outdated drivers e.g printer, scanner software. Open OS X activity monitor. Do you see any high cpu processes or unresponsive applications that are marked red?


TimeMachine and an External HFS + NTFS HDD Can I partition my external HDD into 2 HFS + NTFS? and use HFS+ partition for TimeMachine backup. I already lost my info once in this way, this is why I have to ask now, before doing some stupid things again. The NTFS partition is for Ubuntu and Windows machine from my office, at home I am using 10.6.8

Time Machine needs a mountable HFS+ partition; it couldn't care less how large that partition is relative to the overall size of the drive.

But I agree with Gio's comment; drives are cheap, so I'd suggest getting multiple drives.


Mac Terminal: Delete a word at time In iTerm2, if I type /one/two/three/four/five and now if I want to delete five and write another string, then how do I delete the word five ?

If I use CTRL + W, it deletes the entire command all the way up to the beginning forward slash.

This exact same functionality is available on the out-of-the-box Terminal  using option + BACKSPACE by using option key as meta key. I am running bash, but this terminal keyboard combination is not working on iTerm2.

I just found that in iTerm2, set options key as ESC+ key under profile -> keys.


How to switch MacBook Pro back to Normal Digital Audio Out from Optical Audio Out? I have a Late 2011 MacBook Pro (2.2 GHz Intel Core i7) for six years which means no Apple Care or Warranty. One day, Just after a Normal Boot the Audio was not coming and the Audio was permanently muted but since I heard a lot about these issues on MCP from this era I did a small research on google and found these two websites, one from Apple and another from Joseph Hall's Blog. Joseph's Solution worked a dozen times and never did again. I tried the Toothpick method(Stick a nonconductor inside the audio jack) as said on the Apple Forum but no luck. After some further research, I figured out that the switch between Optical and Digital is something which the IC in the motherboard controls. Now I can only hear the output from a headphone or via Airplay (Apple TV). Should I change the motherboard in order to hear the sound? Thank You!

PS: This is not a duplicate and if you think so then please leave a comment below and I'll clarify it. I'll try my best to make the question more clear for every user.

It's unclear what you mean by "Normal Digital audio out." Optical digital audio out is the digital audio output if you're not using external USB/firewire/thunderbolt audio, so unless you're working with external audio interfaces switching between optical and digital does not apply as they refer to the same thing. I'm assuming you want to be able to use speakers and headphones as normal?
You've correctly identified that the audio codec IC on the motherboard controls this selection, and although many users find that toothpicks or blowing really hard or a dab of isopropyl alcohol on a toothpick works for them, it's possible for the little switch inside the headphone jack to become nearly permanently stuck. Since the headphone jack still works with headphones plugged in, that rules out the audio codec and means it's a problem with the switch itself. Somehow, headphones take priority over the digital output if both switches are on at the same time.
The solution, which I've described in the iFixit link you referenced in your question, and which originally comes from stin17 on this MacRumors thread, is intimidating but uncomplicated. We simply want to interrupt the line between the audio codec IC on the logic board and the little switch in the headphone jack by removing a component in between. This is usually a small resistor on older models, and after the Retina MBPs I believe it is an inductor.
If you can correctly identify your logic board model number (physically located on the logic board itself, usually a 6- or 7-digit number; for example, my 2012 MBP with a 2.3GHz i7 is a model A1286 and board number 820-3330-B) and find the boardview and schematic, you'll be able to find a resistor in line with the digital output switch, which, when removed, will prevent the audio codec IC from reading the digital switch. This permanently disables the optical digital/TOSLINK audio output, and you should not do this unless you are certain you've found the right resistor! However, if you're sure you know which components you're looking at, it takes about 10 seconds to scrape the tiny surface-mount resistor off the logic board with an x-acto knife.
If you have an A1286 macbook, it is likely R6805, which you can find in schematics and boardviews; this part number will certainly be different on other models. On my logic board, the circuit we want to interrupt is labeled AUD_PORTB_DET_L. Later models seem to rename this circuit to AUD_CONN_TIPDET_1 or AUD_CONN_TIPDET_2; I'd guess TIPDET_1 is headphone detection and TIPDET_2 is TOSLINK detection, but I'm not positive since I don't have one of those boards to check. Make sure you double check these on your particular model! I can't guarantee that R6805 is the one to get, but that's a good place to start.
The result here is that the digital switch inside the headphone jack remains physically stuck, but it no longer matters as it cannot complete its circuit to erroneously tell the audio IC that there is a TOSLINK plug in the jack. Again, optical digital audio output over TOSLINK does not work after doing this, unless you replace the resistor, but it sounds like you don't need optical digital audio output. This is straightforward and familiar for some, for others it's new and terrifying! I started learning my way around schematics and boardviews because of this exact problem. If you feel up to the task and you don't need TOSLINK audio output from your headphone jack, this is the most reliable and elegant fix when the other temporary methods fail.


When I close the lid and open it later in the day, will command line programs resume? I've been running a python script from the command line that's inserting data in a database for a couple of hours now. It will take at least half a day more before it's finished. However, I want to take the laptop with me to somewhere else.
My sleep at closing lid settings (if they exist) are at default (I've never looked at them). If I close the lid and open it in 4 or 5 hours, will the python script resume from where it left off? If not, can this be set to work in the preferences somehow?

It should continue, if your script has any error-handling for loosing connection to the database (assuming off-site DB).

Though the exact behaviour is hard to predict without seeing the actual code. Sleeping the system may also leed to unexpected results in the script.


Get serial numbers of connected USB devices I'm searching for a terminal command to find out the serial numbers of connected USB devices on macOS computers. Is there any equivalent to the linux command "usb-devices"? I tried "ioreg -p IOUSB" but the output does not contain the serial numbers.

Information about USB Devices is stored differently under Linux then macOS:

In Linux, usb-devices is a bash script that essentially reads a bunch of text files, symlinked to /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb*, that contain information about the USB Devices and formats it in the output you see under Linux.
In macOS, it does not have such a script as it doesn't store the information in the same manner. However, if you want to output information about USB Devices that are enumerated by the OS, in Terminal, then use the following command:

system_profiler SPUSBDataType

If a USB Device has a serial number it will be shown in the output.

As mentioned by Allan in his comment, you can use the following command to minimize the output to include relevant portions of the device information that contain the device name and serial number with a bit of additional info.

system_profiler SPUSBDataType | grep "Serial Number" -B5

Note that doing this does obscure some of the device information as compared to the info outputted by usb-devices, although it may be unnecessary info depending on your needs.

As an example, here is the usb-devices output, in Linux, for an 8 GB USB Flash Drive:

T:  Bus=03 Lev=02 Prnt=03 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  6 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=0781 ProdID=5530 Rev=01.26
S:  Manufacturer=SanDisk
S:  Product=Cruzer
S:  SerialNumber=20042214412B1A33690E
C:  #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=200mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage

Same device under macOS using system_profiler SPUSBDataType:

            Cruzer:

              Product ID: 0x5530
              Vendor ID: 0x0781  (SanDisk Corporation)
              Version: 1.26
              Serial Number: 20042214412B1A33690E
              Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
              Manufacturer: SanDisk
              Location ID: 0x1d110000 / 7
              Current Available (mA): 500
              Current Required (mA): 200
              Capacity: 8 GB (8,004,304,896 bytes)
              Removable Media: Yes
              Detachable Drive: Yes
              BSD Name: disk3
              Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record)
              S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
              Volumes:
                disk3s1:
                  Capacity: 2.97 GB (2,966,634,496 bytes)
                  BSD Name: disk3s1
                  Content: 0x17
                NO NAME:
                  Capacity: 110.1 MB (110,100,480 bytes)
                  Available: 4.1 MB (4,124,672 bytes)
                  Writable: Yes
                  File System: MS-DOS FAT16
                  BSD Name: disk3s2
                  Mount Point: /Volumes/NO NAME
                  Content: DOS_FAT_12
                disk3s3:
                  Capacity: 3.92 GB (3,923,232,768 bytes)
                  BSD Name: disk3s3
                  Content: Linux

Output under macOS using system_profiler SPUSBDataType | grep "Serial Number" -B5:

            Cruzer:

              Product ID: 0x5530
              Vendor ID: 0x0781  (SanDisk Corporation)
              Version: 1.26
              Serial Number: 20042214412B1A33690E


How to edit the apple developer account Is it possible to edit the date of birth provided while creating the Apple Id

Sign in to your apple account here :

https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage/security

Answer your security questions. Birth Date is the last option.


Is there an iPhone App for reading PDF files? After having used Eucalyptus and Stanza apps on my iPhone, I really can't read printed books while traveling any more.

What similar app can I use to transfer, store and read my own pdf files on my iPhone?

I know that Stanza has a Windows application that converts PDFs for iPhone, but I am not a Windows user.

GoodReader is very handy.  You can wirelessly transfer files and you can even add any web content to the GoodReader library simply by  placing a "g" in front of the URL in mobile Safari.


Improve palm rejection on 2018 MBP I kept having failing palm rejections on my new 2018 MBP's trackpad. I've never had any issue on my 2013 MBP or my 2009 MBP trackpad.  The 2018 MBP's trackpad is impractically huge, and the heel or base of my thumb would register a false click while I'm typing or changing in between typing and trackpad use.

I had to enable dragging (without drag lock) since I'm so used to tap-to-click and that exacerbate the issue bad enough that I can't even complete typing any email without repositioning the cursor, or worst, undo-ing jobs manually because the trackpad falsely double-register a tab selection and insert/delete lines as I type, especially while I'm typing or coding fast.

What makes it worst is also the trackpad is slightly off centered to the right making the right thumb base more prone to false registering as a finger.

I tried a few suggestions found on google and played with the sensitivity but none really helps. I resort to cover the side of trackpad (plastic-foil-plastic layer) to block it off. It's not a perfect solution but at least it takes care of most (~90%) of false registering. But that also means I cannot swipe from edge to bring up notification center. Plus it looks clumsy after spending that much money on a MBP.

Having been using MBP most of my life I'm sure I'm not the only person having this issues with 2018 MBP - is there a better or preferred (software) solution to improve the palm rejection?

Unfortunately palm rejection has never worked properly with the larger trackpad, and there is no fix for it. Just search for "macbook pro palm rejection" and you will discover many tales of woe but no actual fixes that work properly. Turning off tap to click doesn't help - besides tape or using an external pointing device, it seems there is little we can do until Apple fixes this hideous defect.


Ghost project icon in Xcode laucher Every time Xcode's launcher opens, I see the icon of a project that has been deleted for ages. I double click it, then the error message appears saying it's no longer in my system, but the icon continues to show up in the launcher.

I've already tried:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/*

Any ideas?

When Xcode opens, by default, it shows the Welcome to Xcode window upon which there is a list of recent projects one can select to open.  To clear this list click: File > Open Recent > Clear Menu


What can I do with an iPad Bluetooth-paired to a Mac? I have successfully paired my iPad Gen 3 to my Mid-2012 MacBook Air. What can I do with this connection?

I recently gave a presentation using Keynote on my MacBook and keynote remote on my ipad. This is a really cool solution that allows you to control slide movement on the MacBook while seeing both slides and presenter notes on the ipad.


Is it necessary to give my debit card details to update the macbook? when i am trying to update my version to Mac os high sierra. mac asks me to review my account in apple store. for reviewing my account i need to give my debit card details. Is it necessary to give that?

Yes this is normal and necessary once Apple asks for that information on your Apple ID. When you initially sign up, this can be optional based on how precisely you establish your AppleID, but once asked, you must enter a valid form of payment to continue to use that AppleID in the stores.

You are still purchasing and agreeing to be legally bound to the license terms when you install “free” software in any of Apple’s online stores. A form of payment is a very strong anti-fraud method since there is a paper trail to get payment credentials.

Once you validate your identity, you can usually make the payment method none, use a card with low balance as suits your needs.


Trying to remove "FDisk_partition_schem" from USB drive I'm trying to reset this USB drive so that I can use the 64.2 GB of space.
I've tried diskutil unmount and it didn't work.

I fiqured it out. I used this:

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Emptied /dev/disk3


extracting multiple zips/rar into same folder maybe I am stupid, but I just cant figure out how to extract multiple zips into the same folder easy.

I always end up with folders of the zip name that then has the content in it... this is really annoying.

Is there a app that does this automatically?

thx

One real easy way is to use unzip on the command line.

1) If the ZIP file doesn't contain any folder hierarchy, simply files at the "root" level of the compressed file, do this:

open Terminal and cd to the folder with the ZIP file
unzip zipfile.zip

-> The files are extracted directly into that folder.

2) If the ZIP file does contain a folder hierarchy, but you still want to extract everything in the same folder (usually not a good idea, as the hierarchy is there probably for a reason), do the same thing as above, but with -j modifier for unzip, which means "junk paths (do not make directories)":

unzip -j zipfile.zip

Edit: the same approach works for RAR files, except you'd need to install the command-line unrar tool yourself (unlike with unzip), and I'm not sure what the equivalent for unzip's -j modifier is.


iPhone won't connect to some Wi-Fi hotspots As of the last few months, my phone refuses to find most public hotspots, but will generally connect to home wireless networks.  For instance, I can connect to my home wireless and my girlfriend's home wireless, but if I go to a local place like Starbucks that I know for a fact has public wifi, my phone won't pick it up.  Restarting the phone doesn't fix it.

I haven't updated to iOS 6 yet.  Could that potentially fix the problem?  IS there a different problem that could be causing my issue?

I'd go into settings and erase all the stored SSID/passwords by choosing:

General > Reste > Reset Network Settings

At that point, you would need to try joining the network and be prepared to gather more information about that location. Do other iPhone work with the router, can the router be rebooted (or checked to be sure that there are DHCP leases available - many routers issue only a fixed number of valid IP addresses).

You can troubleshoot things quite well following Apple's guidance too:

iOS: Troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and connections


Can app store purchase be shared with a Mac running older version of Mac OS X? I'm running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 and need to install an app that can only be downloaded from the App store.  If I download it to a newer Mac can I install it on my main Mac running 10.5.8? When I click "Buy App" it starts the install immediately.  I would like for it to just be a download that I could transfer to my other Mac and delete from the mac downloading the App. Is this possible? How?

An install on Mac OS is generally just copying the relevant files into place. Usually, you'll be able to copy an app's bundle over from one machine to the other. The only thing is that the App Store will have some sort of DRM, so just copying it may not work. I suspect that the answer is no, because you'll need to sign in to the App Store, but I haven't tried it. (On the other hand, I've installed Lion on a Leopard machine via a disk without Sow Leopard.) Additionally, Apps that are downloaded from the Mac App store will carry minimum system requirements that might prevent them  from running altogether, even if you theoretically circumvented the DRM from the App Store.


Whole album track listing Before the update to 8.4, when I was listening to a song, there was a button in the upper right where it would bring up the whole album that track was on so you could listen to other songs on that album (for example, if I was listening to all songs on shuffle and I heard a song and wanted to see or listen to other songs on that album).  After the update, I can't find that option.  Help/suggestions?

Tap on the three dots on the bottom right corner, it will pop-up a menu;

Tap on the title bar on the top of the menu (in this example, the bar that says "Dam That River" and has the Album title and artwork.
This will bring you to a second screen, with some of the tracks, more albums from the same artist.

Tap on "Show complete album"


Can I drag a window into a new tab of another window I have two Finder windows open. Window A has a single tab (or no tabs) while Window B has multiple. Now I want to drag Window A to join the tabs in the Window B. Is there any way to do that?

Thanks

There is a shortcut you can use.  In Finder you can select menu item Window / Merge All Windows


Convenient way of maintaining differential backup of a large file I'm interested in maintaining differential backup of a file (~2GB). I have Time Machine set up to cover the whole system but in case of this particular file, I would like to have a convenient backup solution that would enable me to:

Browse changes in the file
Ideally, the differential backup would take place automatically when the new file with the same name is moved to the folder

I'm not necessarily looking for this backup to take place through time machine and I would be happy for the backup to take place outside the normal backup routine. I'm more interested in maintaining the record of changes to the file then maintaining a safe copy.

The only product that I know of that can handle binary files is an open source product called xdelta.

I have used it on Linux and it has worked really well.  However, there is a caveat and a big one - you must compile the application.  This means you are going to have to become familiar with compiling files on OS X.  This requires downloading the XCode development environment and issuing the make command.

I haven't done this on my personal mac as I keep my "dev" and "production" systems separate.  At the moment, I don't have a "dev" OS X box. I personally don't recommend installing development tools on production machines, but to each their own.  So....if you would like to install make on a Mac, refer to this article:
Installing "make" on a Mac

Some alternatives - check out this Wikipedia page for a list of alternatives based on rsync (built into OS X).  Your mileage may vary


iOS5 - Does the ActiveSync Pin code lock prevent the new camera shortcut? I've had an iPhone of various vintages for 3 years connected to MS Exchange activesync for work email.

Part of the deal with this that you need to enter a four digit PIN before you unlock.

I was quite excited about the iOS5 camera option available from the lock screen.

From what I can see - the camera shortcut is not available if you have ActiveSync enabled and thus the four digit PIN. I'm asking the question because I hope I am wrong. Here is my question:

Does the ActiveSync Pin code lock prevent the new camera shortcut?

No, the PIN Code doesn't prevent you from using the camera shortcut.

Just make sure to double-press the home button to show the camera shortcut.

Note: you can't access your old photos as long as the iPhone is locked.


a and c keys not working on macbook, even on an external keyboard It's a 2011 MacBook pro and the a and c keys are not working on both the built-in keyboard and the usb keyboard.

Because of this i can't bypass the firmware login screen.
Now the weird thing is that that cmd + a works (select all) so the key is being recognized, but a by itself doesn't.

Any ideas?

You can start by rebooting into safe mode as a troubleshooting step. Restart and hold down the shift key, when booted into safe mode you can test the keys:

Delete the preference file which can be found here  /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist

Restart normally


Moving photos from Photos app to my iPhone I have photos in the photos app on my Mac from a previous "back up" and now I would like to bring them back to my phone without having to use iCloud photo library. Is there a way to do it?

I would first send the photos on your iPhone back to your Mac using AirDrop. This way you will get ALL iPhone photos on your mac, which you can then import in the Photos app on your Mac. After that you can then sync all photos back to your iPhone with iTunes:

First make a successful backup of your iPhone with iTunes.

Iphone:

Settings -> General -> AirDrop -> Contacts only

Mac:

Open Finder
Click Go in the menu bar and select AirDrop
Allow me to be discoverd by -> Contacts only

Iphone:

Open Photos
Select all photos
Tap the sharing button
Wait untill AirDrop finds your Mac and click it

Mac:

accept the popup window asking you to accept the photos
Import the Photos to the Photos app
Lastly, you can now sync your iPhone with iTunes to transfer all photos/the albums you want to your iPhone. But note that this will erase the media items synced with the previous library (music,podcasts,audiobooks etc.)


Can I gift a song from the iPhone iTunes app? Just as the title says: can I gift a song from within the iTunes iPhone app? I searched but couldn't find any option to.

Gifting only works from iTunes on a computer.

Perhaps it could be added if enough people ask to spend money that way.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

You can also gift from store apps with iOS 6.


How to create a bootable USB drive for Disk Utility? Disk Utility says my boot drive need repair.  Unfortunately my DVD drive is toast, so I can't boot from the install DVD and make the repair.  Is there a way I can create a bootable USB drive and perform the repair that way.  I have an 8Gb USB drive.

In order to create a bootable drive, you need the install DVD (or a copy of it) mounted. Sorry…

Do you have a friend with a Mac? If so, you could take the thumb drive & install DVD there and create a boot drive for yourself.


How much storage do photos take up? I am considering asking my parents for an iPhone 7 or 8 for Christmas, but I can't decide between which.

Straight Talk offers the iPhone 7 with 32 GB and the iPhone 8 with 64 GB.  I'm not planning on downloading any apps on my phone.  How much storage does each photo (all options, resolution, live or not, etc.) use?

The size of the photos will depend on the camera and the size of the images. I have photos on my Mac that run from a few hundred kB to around 4 MB. My backup folder for my Photos has more than 2000 photos and takes up 2.5 GB but I have no movies. I would check the difference in the size of the cameras in the 2 phones. They are probably the same but I don't recall. A 12 MP camera will take images that require more size than a 5 MP camera.

That being said, while 32 GB is probably fine for you, I would opt for the 64 GB option. You never know what your interests will be in the future, and you can't increase the size of your memory on an iPhone. You may decide you like to make movies with your iPhone which takes up much more space (think 30 images per sec for a 10-sec movie) or you decide you want to edit your photos or movies which could mean downloading apps. The 64 GB option allows your iPhone content to grow in more areas. This is just my opinion.


How to install Mountain Lion on USB disk and boot from USB I have MacBook Pro from late 2011 era which I recently upgraded to Yosemite from Mountain Lion. But unfortunately I need some application that only worked on Mountain Lion and I cannot restore back to Mountain Lion as I did not have backup. Now is it possible to install Mountain Lion on USB disk from which I also boot from without actually installing on my MacBook AIR Samsung SSD drive ( the only drive on the system) on which Yosemite is installed and running?

You can buy the ML from App store.

Then install it on USB following these instructions from Apple-HT202796.

Then hold the Option key during boot to select the start up disk.

How ever, running from USB disk can be slow.

Alternative->better solution is to create a new partition (size to be determined) and install the ML on it, if you are using the ML frequently.


How to save a pdf file in a browser window without downloading it again? Typically on my Macbook Pro, I click on URLs to pdf documents and they open in a browser window (say, Safari or Chrome), and later if I wish to keep a copy of the pdf file, I click the down arrow icon.

However, the down arrow icon actually attempts to fetch the pdf file from the server again, whereas I already have a local copy in a browser cache somewhere. So, it is an inefficient use of bandwidth. Furthermore, sometimes the original file may no longer be available at the server, or I may not be having Internet access, etc., and I want to save a copy of the file.

Do I need to go searching for the file in the browser cache somehow? Or is there a more convenient way?

If you have a PDF file in the browser window you can just go to the File menu and save the file. It will save as a regular PDF and you can choose where to save it.


How to type this tilde ~ in Mac (I can only type ˜ Using Fn + N) on an Italian Mac? I've seen this answer, but on my Italian keyboard I've got < between Z and Left Shift instead of the ~. So, how can I type it?

Option ⌥ + 5

You can show the keyboard viewer from the input menu if it's enabled.


How can I turn off iCloud? As far as I can tell, I have all iCloud settings turned off, but I am still incessantly asked to log into iCloud. Is it possible to not use iCloud without being reminded every 5 minutes to log into iCloud? I'm on a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.9.5. Any insight is much appreciated!

In your system settings go to iCloud and make sure you have all of the switches set to off.  If you have any other devices (iPad, iPhone) do the same.  Open Mail, iTunes, Messages, etc.. all the default apps, and make sure your settings are disabled in each.

In this article, it's mentioned, that this may be a bug with OSX and by clearing all your cache and then turning the switches all on, saving, and off again may resolve the issue.

Running this command in terminal will disable applications from like Textedit from trying to save to iCloud by default:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool FALSE

and this command should disable the iCloud prompt when you login

sudo defaults write "/System/Library/User Template/Non_localized/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SetupAssistant" DidSeeCloudSetup -bool TRUE

(Note the quotes are required since one of the pathname components, "User Template", has an embedded space.)


iTunes/Applescript: get all tracks from (incomplete) album I try to write an Applescript that would sort playlists by album. That is, a playlist P might contain 20 tracks split on 4 albums (A1, A2…). Each album has 10 tracks, in other words, on this playlist, the albums on average only contain half of the tracks.

I have found a lot of examples where you can query iTunes for all tracks that belong to an album on the library level, typically something like this

set albumSongs to (every track of library playlist 1 whose album is currentAlbum)

while I want to do something like this

set albumSongs to (every track of playlist myPlaylist whose album is currentAlbum)

but compiling my example returns an error message Expected class name but found identifier. pointing at the track keyword in the line above.

Update:

The unfinished function I try to write where I want to get all tracks that belong to a certain album

on sortPlaylist(albumList, currentPlaylist)
    repeat with currentAlbum in albumList
        set albumSongs to (every track of currentPlaylist whose album is currentAlbum)
    end repeat
end sortPlaylist

It takes a list without duplicates of all albums (albumList) and the playlist (currentPlaylist) I want to work with. I still have no code to actually sort it (input is appreciated!) but the plan is to sort albumSongs in track order and then add the tracks to the playlist in order.

Try:

set playlistName to "playlist name"

tell application "iTunes"
    set playlistReference to first playlist whose name = playlistName
    set currentAlbum to album of current track
    set albumSongs to (every track of playlistReference whose album is currentAlbum)
end tell


Can I add a couple of text files in Xcode for write and read I'm using Xcode for developing in C++ language. Is it possible to add a couple of txt files to write and read from them? It is a very cool feature to test a project in a lot of tests.

Go to File → New File or type ⌘+n. Under iOS or OS X select Other and click Next. You will be asked to give a name to that file. Call it whatever.txt and you are done.


Disable iOS messages in-app sounds/vibration When you are in the messages app (this also happens on Facebook app) and you recieve a new message a sound will play even if you're looking at the thread where the new message came in.
How do I disable it? It's very annoying and battery consuming for no good whatsoever.
Any help is appretiated.
Regards, Rodrigo.

In the Settings App -> Notifications -> Facebook you can turn "sounds" off.

This will also turn off vibrations.

It will not distinguish between whether the app is currently running or not, it'll just always be off. If you want that, then you will have to send an email to facebook requesting they change how their app works.


After Yosemite, the volume adjustment doesn't make noise? I tried to fix it in system preference...but when I did, it made a weird ticking noise rather that the noise it used to. How do I get this to go back to normal?

This bugged me as well.  You can change it by modifying the sound it plays.  Open Terminal.app and execute the following commands.

First navigate to the following directory:

cd /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin/Contents/Resources

Then make a backup of the Yosemite sound, if you want to.

sudo cp volume.aiff volume_backup.aiff

Move the old sound file from Mavericks (or anything you want), found in the link below and rename it to volume.aiff.  (If you use the link below it will already be named volume.aiff afer you extract it)

sudo cp "~/Desktop/mysound.aiff" volume.aiff

Change ~/Desktop/mysound.aiff from above command to the path to the new sound file you want to use.

Restart for it to take effect.

Original sources I used below:

MacWorld Change Volume Sound

Macrumors forum with original sound.aiff


Dual monitors causing wireless drop outs on MacBook Pro running Lion I have a 13" 2011-model MacBook Pro running Lion that I connect to a Dell monitor.

The connection is made as follows: mini DisplayPort -> mini DisplayPort to DVI-D adapter -> DVI-D into monitor.

Everything works quite well graphically when I connect the laptop to the monitor, but it pretty much instantly causes the wifi to slow to a trickle.

This wifi trickling happens every time I connect to the external monitor. As soon as I unplug the connection to the external monitor, my wireless is restored to full power and I can connect to websites like this one.

Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot this very annoying problem?

Here's what happens when I switch from single monitor to dual while pinging 8.8.4.4:

64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=14 ttl=56 time=30.070 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=15 ttl=56 time=30.886 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=16 ttl=56 time=31.343 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=17 ttl=56 time=31.772 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=18 ttl=56 time=30.662 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=19 ttl=56 time=162.196 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 20
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=20 ttl=56 time=1071.753 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=21 ttl=56 time=417.013 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=22 ttl=56 time=478.626 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 24
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=25 ttl=56 time=367.057 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=26 ttl=56 time=443.585 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 27
Request timeout for icmp_seq 28
64 bytes from 8.8.4.4: icmp_seq=29 ttl=56 time=365.072 ms

As you can see, soon as I switch to dual monitors, the return time drastically increases, sometimes timing out completely.

Any ideas?

Looks like I accidentally stumbled across a solution: if I move my laptop an extra 30cms away from the monitor, the internet connection doesn't trickly away to nothing.

It's probably some kind of interference that is causing the problem, and it seems that keeping some distance between the monitor and the laptop is enough to resolve the issue.


I want to create and automator that opens a specific file I want to open a specific file - if I press F5 or another key - its a file I use all the time, so want it to be open at a touch of a key

Create a service like this and give it a shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services:

There's a bug in 10.7 and 10.8 where the shortcuts for services don't always work until you hover over the services menu from the menu bar. There is also a short delay before services are run, and the shortcuts don't work when the frontmost application doesn't have a services menu.

I use Alfred:

In Alfred 2 hotkeys have a short delay unless you change the trigger behavior:


Accidentally deleted iPhoto and lost all of my photos, how can I get the photos back? Not sure how I did it, but iPhoto is gone from my computer, along with all of my 800+ photos. How can I get my photos back? I reinstalled iPhoto and signed in, but it is empty.

Assuming you didn’t delete your iPhoto Library, but just iPhoto

Reinstall iPhoto from the Mac App Store [you did this, go to 2]
Hold down the option key while opening iPhoto to select a different default library. The current default is the empty library. We want to track down your original library.
Click “Choose library...”
By default, your iPhoto Library is located in /Volumes/<HDNAME>/Users/<USERNAME>/Pictures/. Assuming you haven’t deleted the library itself, or moved it to a different location, your original iPhoto Library will be located in your pictures folder. It will be labeled iPhoto Library_2.iphotolibrary, iPhoto Library.iphotolibrary~old or something of that nature. I don’t know what the exact name will be. You will be able to tell the new from the old simply by examining the size (800 photos will be atleast a couple GB’s). Select the old library.
When iPhoto opens, your original library should be present and intact. If it’s not, you’ve just selected the current default library. Repeat steps 2-4 in this case.
Once you have identified the correct original library - using step 5 - you can now safely delete the empty (false) iPhoto Library from your pictures folder. Your original iPhoto library is now your default.


How to setup Gmail SMTP server for OSX Mail with 2-step-verification and App-specific password? Haven't been able to solve this problem with the threads such as here.
My Gmail stops always working after a while, perhaps after accessing it in different WIFI network or something like this -- it is really driving crazy thing. The Gmail account uses 2-step-verification and app-specific password. I cannot understand this SMTP thing.
How to configure Gmail with App-specific password and 2-step-verification to OSX Mail?
Helper question

how to add the app-specific password to keychain?

app-specific password used in the Internect Access list?

Description and issues

The SMTP server is used to send mail.

(Note: There are two locations you must paste you app-specific password, these instructions are for the 'sending' server, not the 'receiving' server')

Go to Google and generate an app-specific password on this page.

Now open Mail and go to Preferences > Accounts and select your Google account. At the bottom of the right hand pane it will say "Outgoing Server (SMTP):" and should have "Gmail" selected/ Click on this and you get a pop up menu and select "Edit SMTP Server List".

(This accounts area is where you paste in your 'recieving' password under 'incoming mail server'. Incoming server should be: imap.gmail.com, your username should be the start of your email address without the '@gmail.com' section and your password should be the app-specific password, NOT the account password that was previoulsy used)

This will open a list of the SMTP servers you have set up for sending mail. Click on the "Gmail" one and then click on "Advanced".

Set Authentication to "Password" enter your Google user name then the app-specific password you generated in the password field.

This should now work until you revoke the password.


User specific host file I would like to add a user specific host file on my Mac (El Capitan 10.11.5) to a users home directory and have this be checked in addition to /etc/hosts when resolving domain names.

I found a similar answer here. This answer was a flat no because that individual did not have superuser privileges. This is not the case for me because I do in fact have superuser privileges.

I found another answer here, but that doesn't seem to work on my machine. This answer involves setting the HOSTALIASES environment variable to ~/.hosts, but no addition to the ~/.hosts file ever had any implications in my web browser, which is the goal of me wanting to create a user specific host file.

NOTE: After reading through a bit of the man pages of bash, the correct environment variable on mac that the second answer needs is HOSTFILE. However, this still didn't affect anything. Thoughts on this?

EDIT: This is for a single user environment as MrWonderful suggested. However, I would like for the hosts setting of one user to be unaffected but another user.

Thoughts?

If you are managing a single-user environment, such as a shared MacBook, you could potentially have each user's .bashrc copy a base hosts file, then append their custom one to the end of it.  For example:

sudo cp /etc/common_hosts /etc/hosts
sudo cat ~/my_hosts >> /etc/hosts

This would effectively give every user their own custom additions to the hosts file.  You can make it so a password isn't needed for these sudo commands by using the sudo visudo command and adding them to the allowed commands.  Here are some examples from the bottom of my sudoers file:

# Samples
# %users  ALL=/sbin/mount /cdrom,/sbin/umount /cdrom
# %users  localhost=/sbin/shutdown -h now

Under OS X, the /etc/hosts file is apparently dynamically read, so the net services would not need to be restarted.

mbp-c17189:~ root# ping goog
ping: cannot resolve goog: Unknown host
mbp-c17189:~ root# ping google.com
PING google.com (172.217.4.238): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.217.4.238: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=4306.507 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 50.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 4306.507/4306.507/4306.507/0.000 ms
mbp-c17189:~ root# echo 172.217.4.238     goog>>/etc/hosts
mbp-c17189:~ root# ping goog
PING goog (172.217.4.238): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.217.4.238: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=43.639 ms
^C
--- goog ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 43.639/43.914/44.189/0.275 ms
mbp-c17189:~ root#


Why is this command for "Changing Where Screenshots Are Saved" failing? Screenshots are being saved to the desktop but not in a specific folder. I want to remedy that so I found instructions to do so through Terminal. I am following the instructions but I am getting the message that it has NOT changed. Here is what has been entered...what do I have wrong?

You do not have a space between location and /Users/.., there needs to be a space between arguments.

Example:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /path/to/folder


Mail crash immediatly after launch I've just update MacOS to the latest version of Mojave 10.14.1 from the previous one (already Mojave) and now the Mail app won't load anymore. It crashes instantly after launch, no GUI is visible before the bug

Greetings

I've booted in recovery mode and reinstall Mojave and now everything works fine again


Show all flagged items in Archive in Mail (iOS 7) I am using Mail in iOS 7 on my iPhone 5.

I was wondering: The "Flagged" Mailbox under iOS 7 only shows the flagged items which are in the Inbox, but not in the whole Archive.

However, in Mail for OS X, the Flagged-Mailbox shows ALL flagged items, also when they are any flagged mails in the Archive.

  Is there a ways to get this functionality in iOS 7 and Mail?

In Mail for iOS 7 you can tap on Archive Mailbox then type the word flagged in the search box. You can then pull down on the results list which gives you the option of All Mailboxes, or Current Mailbox, which is actually pretty useful. Selecting All Mailboxes should show all flagged messaged globally, and Current Mailbox only the ones in the Archive that have been flagged. I realize that this is more of a work-around than the way it's done for the normal Inbox, although seems to work relatively well considering there's no actual Flagged button for messages in the Archive.

I've found that the Flagged button doesn't always show all the flagged items in the Inbox anyway. It appears that it has something to do with flagged messages that are stored on iCloud or possibly doesn't search for flagged messages past a certain date. I usually end up typing flagged in the search and sure enough it finds items that weren't listed when I had initially tapped the Flagged button. After the search completes then older flagged items end up showing when tapping the Flagged button.

*I believe flagged messages are also put at the top of the message list by default when you tap on the Archive Mailbox (at least on mine). If someone has a better solution it would be nice to know, however, in meantime hopefully this helps.


Why do Mac OS X ramdisks appear to be limited to 550mb and how can I change this? All I can find on the Internet is a one line bash command to activate a ramdisk. It is only 550mb and I would like to be able to create on with more space? Is there a way to configure how big they can be? If not, why are they limited in the first place?

Here is the one-liner I found to create a ramdisk:

diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "ramdisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://1165430`

It is actually two commands; if you run them individually, you get:

$ hdiutil attach -nomount ram://1165430
/dev/disk4

$ diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "ramdisk" /dev/disk4
Started erase on disk4
Unmounting disk
Erasing
Initialized /dev/rdisk4 as a 569 MB HFS Plus volume
Mounting disk
Finished erase on disk4 ramdisk

The first command creates a block storage device in RAM, and the second command formats it with the standard OS X filesystem.

If you run df to see how much free space is on your disks, you'll get:

$ df
Filesystem                        512-blocks      Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                       974509344 435640768 538356576    45%    /
....
/dev/disk4                           1165424     27376   1138048     3%    /Volumes/ramdisk

Note how it shows that the RAM Disk is using 1165424 '512-blocks' (which, if you run df -h, for human readable output, you'll see is '569 Mi').

So, the answer is, change the number you specify in the first command, which specified how large the disk is in 512 byte blocks.  If you want 1.5 GB (or, perhaps I should say 'GiB', go as follows:

           1024 MiB   1024 KiB   1024 bytes    1 block
 1.5 GiB * -------- * -------- * ---------- * ---------   = 3145728 blocks
             GiB        MiB         KiB       512 bytes

To verify, I'll run the following commands:

$ hdiutil eject /Volumes/ramdisk/

$ diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "ramdisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://3145728`
Started erase on disk4
Unmounting disk
Erasing
Initialized /dev/rdisk4 as a 2 GB HFS Plus volume
Mounting disk
Finished erase on disk4 ramdisk

$ df
Filesystem                        512-blocks      Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2                       974509344 435460472 538536872    45%    /
...
/dev/disk4                           3145728     24696   3121032     1%    /Volumes/ramdisk

$ df -h
Filesystem                          Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk4                         1.5Gi   12Mi  1.5Gi     1%    /Volumes/ramdisk

It sounds like previously you could only create a RAM disk up to 2.1 GiB, but that is not the case in Snow Leopard and newer.

Also, there are tools to help create RAM disks without calculating blocks yourself.  I haven't used them, but here are three: TmpDisk, Make Ram Disk, and crd.


Is it safe to discharge my body's static electricity onto my MacBook Pro? Often in the winter (low humidity), getting up from and sitting down onto the seat at my desk, or taking off a jacket, and such will build up a static electric charge on my body.  Sometimes I don't remember to touch a metal object before touching my MacBook Pro, causing me to zap my laptop.  Is this likely to cause damage?  Should I be very careful to discharge before touching my laptop?

That shouldn't be a problem at all if your MacBook is connected to the power source since it's grounded and by the way I wouldn't consider harmful to touch the MacBook body after being electrically charged even if the MacBook isn't connected to the power source. You have to pay attention only if you're touching directly motherboard components.

EDIT

My answer is not completely correct.
Check the comments


How to magnify OS X keyboard viewer? The keyboard viewer is so tiny, but it does not seem to be resizable (other than full screen, which hides what I want to type into!).

Taking a screen image of it is awkward at best and when the result is magnified, not only does clarity suffer greatly, but you can't "type" by clicking on the image.  You can of course look at the image and click on the viewer (or just use the real keyboard) but that's not optimal either.

Is there a way to make the actual keyboard viewer fully usable by someone with aging eyes, or must I settle for an irritating workaround?

You should be able to make the Keyboard Viewer bigger by just click/dragging any of the corners.


Can I use an iPad charger with my iPhone 4? Is there any harm in using the iPad charger for iPhone 4?

The iPhone simply won't draw as much through the charger as the iPad would. Certainly shouldn't cause a problem at all (and my money's where my mouth is because we just have the iPad charger plugged in these days, using it for our iPad as well as our 2 iPhone 4s - we've been doing this for about 5-6 weeks now without any obvious ill-effects).


Question Marks in iTerm (Font Issue?) I recently set up my iTerm and have been really enjoying how smooth and functional it is out of the box. I installed the Prezto zsh pre-config and set up Powerlevel10k as my Prezto theme. I also use solarized dark with Inconsolata for Powerline and Menlo for Powerline as my font, both of which have this issue.
When I cd to my root director (cd /), I see an odd question mark box on my powerline. I also see the same box when I activate my virtualenv in a python code directory.
Below is a picture of this happening with the root directory. When I activate the virtualenv, the same thing happens but ON THE RIGHT SIDE beside an indicator with my project name that comes up when virtualenv is activated. What do the question marks mean? What is failing to display? I have no idea what is going on and would appreciate help in troubleshooting.

After a period of troubleshooting, and with some nudges from Allan, I was able to figure out what was going on: my terminal was attempting to display a unicode lock.
Turns out, my font, Inconsolata for Powerline, didn't support this. I came to this conclusion after reverting to my default theme in iTerm2 WITHOUT Inconsolata enabled. The lock displayed correctly there!
After research, I found a Github repo (and its name is familiar... I feel like I used it on a previous install) of patched fonts that display most of the proper terminal unicode icons. Much thanks to ryanoasis on Github for this!
If you're having a similar problem like me, give it a try and see how it goes. Here's what the fixed terminal looks like:


Difference between the M7 and M8 coprocessors? What's the difference between the M7 and M8 coprocessors? I've been unable to find a clear answer online. On the iPhone 6 webpage, Apple simply states:

  When you’re in motion, the M8 motion coprocessor continuously measures
  data from the accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, and a new barometer.
  This offloads work from the A8 chip for improved power efficiency. And
  now those sensors do even more, measuring your steps, distance, and
  elevation changes.

Is the only difference the ability to track data from the new barometer?

As you noted, the M8 coprocessor is able to collect data from the new barometer in the iPhone 6 series phones as well as the iPad Air 2, which provides a measure of relative elevation for floors climbed.

We may also speculate that it is more accurate and power-efficient, although whether accuracy improvements are up to the sensors or the M8 is hard to prove (software improvements would also come into play here, as CoreMotion attaches a confidence value to measurements, which could be tweaked in software).

However, Phil Schiller raised another point during his presentation that many people seem to have missed: the M8 chip is now also able to recognize cycling activities. This new capability is reflected in the updated CoreMotion API, as detailed here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreMotion/Reference/CMMotionActivity_class/index.html#//apple_ref/occ/cl/CMMotionActivity

The M7 only recognized stationary, walking, running, automotive, and unknown. The M8 adds the cycling property to the list.

It is worth mentioning that iOS 8 does not make use of this functionality, and that the iPhone 6 does not write cycling data to the Health app on its own. You will need a dedicated app for that.


How can I import a .terminal file using the command line? I'm writing a (Bash) script to automate setting up my Mac environment and would like to do this, except using the command line only. I'd also like to make that theme the default.

I have a .terminal file exported and all ready to go, I just can't figure out how to do this programmatically. Is there a documentation for this somewhere that I'm missing?

... or would these be easier using AppleScript? Never done that before though.

Use the open command, followed by the preference change:

open ~/MyTerminalSettings.terminal
defaults write com.apple.terminal "Default Window Settings" "MyTerminalSettings"

The open command will further open a new Terminal window, but the script will continue running in the original window, and you can close the new window when convenient.


MacBook Pro 2015 15" with ASUS PB279Q 4K @ 60Hz I'm looking to see if anyone has been successful in running the ASUS PB279Q at 4k 60Hz via mini DisplayPort on a MacBook Pro 2015 15".

Running via HDMI works at 4k with 30Hz only, likewise setting DisplayPort to 1.1 does the same. As soon as you set the monitor to DisplayPort 1.2 I get a no signal on the monitor with the MacBook Pro screen flashing like it can't make up its mind.

I'm running up to date OSX Yosemite have tried a genuine apple thunderbolt to thunderbolt cable (mini dp > mini dp) as well as a cheaper mini dp to dp. According to https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202856 4k should work as expected using SST.

Any further ideas?

In order for your connected display to use DisplayPort 1.2 you also need a compatible cable. I'm not sure about the third-party cable you were using but I believe the Apple Thunderbolt cable only carries DisplayPort 1.1a signals.

If you buy a third-party cable that's confirmed to support DisplayPort 1.2, 60Hz MST should work properly. The DisplayPort products database may help in that regard.


Early 2011 Macbook Pro display crash In the last week I started seeing a serious issue with the display on my Macbook Pro (Early 2011, El Capitan) where the screen has gone "crazy".  I didn't apply any updates just prior to the issue, so I can only assume that something has changed for the worst.  The screen issues manifest themselves in several different ways:

Interlaced image.
Totally "Blue" screen (with alternate lines of differing blue)
Totall black screen (nothing showing)

This one example:

There have been different triggers for this behavior such as

Click on an random link in Safari (especially one with images, or google maps) But not all the time as I am posting here on the system in question.
Plugging in a second monitor

Sometimes (if I am lucky) I can still see a mouse pointer and shutting down safari clears the issue.  At other times I am forced to power off blindly and at those times it can take 2 or 3 hard reboots to clear the issue an get to a working login screen.

I would love this to be a purely software issue that I can fix by reloading El Capitan, but I am afraid the problem will be related to this question

Macbook pro checkered display, safeboot works

EDIT

Good News Everyone!!

It turns out that there is a known issue with early 2011 Macbook Pro's displays and that Apple is going to replace the logic board for free.  This is outside of Apple Care.

This program will end sometime in the future (I did see 4 years after date of purchase mentioned on the Apple site), but even if you don't qualify for a fee replacement the cost of replacing the logic board is only in the order of $USD300 - a lot cheaper than a replacement laptop!

Edit 2

Just got an email from Apple containing in part:

Proposed Resolution: Replace logic board under quality program.

Repair Estimate
Item Number Description             Price       Amount Due
661-6082    Board, Logic, 2.3 GHz   $ 567.05    $ 0.00
S1490LL/A   Hardware Repair Labor   $  39.00    $ 0.00
Total (Tax not included)            $ 606.05    $ 0.00

This is kind of related to macbook pro refuses to boot recover hangs at white screen and question and MacBook Pro will not boot, begins to load then hangs with white screen

Its hardware related. Logic board needs to be replaced


Can a connected Thunderbolt display be put to sleep while the MacBook Pro remains running? Does anybody know a way to sleep the Thunderbolt display if I don't need it for a short time? Like if I'm going to watch TV, normally I've just got my MacBook Pro's display turned on, while my old external then got turned off.

I'd like to do the same with the Thunderbolt display - to sleep it, or at least turn off the display, but still keep the screen on in my MacBook Pro.

I don't care if I need to use a program or something to do so. I would just like to be able to actually sleep the Thunderbolt display because there's no power off button.

SwitchResX lets you disable an unused display via a handy menubar item (bottom of page). This should cause your Thunderbolt Display to sleep.


How can I triple boot MacOS Catalina , Ubuntu 18.04, and Windows 10 I currently use the mid-2014 MacBook Pro.
I have read the similar questions asked but as I don't have much technical knowledge I thought I should create a new question.

Device History

I had installed Ubuntu along with macOS
I recently tried to create another partition and install Windows 10
Installation was successful but the problem was with boot entries
I wasn't able to boot into macOS but was able to boot into Windows and Ubuntu.
Then created This question to resolve the issue.
I have backed up data from ubuntu and deleted the Windows and Ubuntu partition
But I am not sure whether I can directly proceed to installations again as I had previous installations that might have done some changes to EFI etc.

My diskutil list output is:

DEREK:~ TheSwapnil$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.8 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.8 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume MacOSX - Data           105.8 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 80.7 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                529.0 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume MacOSX                  10.6 GB    disk1s5

  Please guide me for the step-by-step installation without using
  Bootcamp.

  I have .iso files of Ubuntu and bootable USB of Windows10 ready with me.

These instructions are for the latest Intel Macs which boot macOS from an APFS volume and EFI boot both Windows and Ubuntu.
If you need to install Ubuntu on a Mac with an internal PCIe-based SSD and/or T2 chip, then you should read japhwil's answer.

Note the following:

If your wireless mouse or keyboard will not work during the installation process, then I assume you have a wired replacement you can temporarily use.

Apple introduced the T2 Security Chip and Secure Boot starting with certain Macs in 2018. If your Mac includes the Apple T2 Security Chip, then you may have to modify the security settings in order to use the procedures given below. See the Apple website About Secure Boot for more information.

User therobyouknow has pointed out with the MacBook Pro Touch (15-inch, Late 2016), /dev/sda needs to be replaced by /dev/nvme0n1p in the instructions below.

Removing Boot Files from Previous Windows or Ubuntu Installation
If you removed a previous version of Windows or Ubuntu, then you may have files remaining in the EFI partition (disk0s1). The commands given below will remove these files.
sudo diskutil mount disk0s1
cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI
rm -r boot ubuntu windows
cd ~
diskutil unmount disk0s1

Note: If the boot ubuntu or windows directory (folder) does not exist, then expect to get an No such file or directory error message.

Installing Windows without Using the Boot Camp Assistant.

Note: If you can use the Boot Camp Assistant application to install Windows, I would suggest you do so. These instructions are mainly for those who have a special configuration which prohibits the use of the Boot Camp Assistant application to install Windows.

Use the Disk Utility application to erase a 16 GB or larger flash drive. Choose the ExFAT format and the Master Boot Record scheme.

Mount the Windows ISO file, the copy the files to the flash drive. The current Windows 10 ISO can be downloaded from the Microsoft website Download Windows 10 Disc Image (ISO File).

Copy the Windows Support Software designed for your Mac to the flash drive. The Windows Support Software can be downloaded by using the Boot Camp Assistant application. Select Action->Download Window Support Software from menu bar.
Below is the contents of Windows installation flash drive as viewed in the Finder application. The AutoUnattend.xml file and both the $WinPEDriver$ and BootCamp folders came from the Windows Support Software downloaded from Apple for an iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013). The remaining files and folders were from the Win10_1909_English_x64.iso file downloaded from Microsoft.

Create free space to be used by Windows. In this example, 400 GB will be reserved for Windows on a 1.1 TB drive. Before allocating the free space, the output from the command diskutil list disk0 is shown below.
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.1 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         1.1 TB     disk0s2

To make 300 GB of free space available, the command shown below was used.
sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 700G

The new output from the command diskutil list disk0 is shown below. Notice, the 300 GB block of free space created directly below disk0s2 is not shown.
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.1 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         700.0 GB   disk0s2

Restart the Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Choose the EFI Boot label below the flash drive icon.

When the image below appears, press the shift+F10 key combination.

The Command Prompt window shown below should appear.

Enter the following command to create the Windows partitions. There commands are based on the instructions found at the Microsoft website UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions.
diskpart
select disk 0
create partition msr size=16
create partition primary
shrink desired=800
format quick fs=ntfs label=BOOTCAMP
assign letter=w
create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
format quick fs=ntfs label=Recovery
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
list partition
exit

The output from the list partition command for this example is given below.
  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             200 MB    20 KB
  Partition 2    Unknown            651 GB   200 MB
  Partition 3    Reserved            16 MB   652 GB
  Partition 4    Primary            371 GB   652 GB
* Partition 5    Recovery           800 MB  1023 GB

Enter the command exit to close the Command Prompt window.

Proceed and finish the installation of Windows.

Note: If the Mac boots back to macOS before the installation of Windows completes, open the Startup Disk pane of the System Preferences application. After unlocking, highlight the icon labeled Windows and then click on the Restart button. The installation of Windows should proceed.

If after Windows finishes installing, the Windows Support Software does not automatically starting installing, run the Setup application in the BootCamp folder on the flash drive.

Installing Ubuntu

Download the latest Ubuntu installation ISO file from the Ubuntu Home Page. The file download and used in this answer was named ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso.

Create free space to install Ubuntu. In this example, 300 GB of space will be reserved for Ubuntu. The output from diskutil list disk0 after install Windows is shown below.
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.1 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         700.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                398.4 GB   disk0s4
   5:           Windows Recovery                         838.9 MB   disk0s5

Note: In this example, the EFI partition (disk0s1) is 209.7 MB. Remember the size of the EFI partition on your drive. You will need this value in a later step.

The command given below will shrink the APFS by 300 GB.

Note: To be compatible with macOS, the entries in the Guid partition table (GPT) should occur in ascending order. To help insure this happens, dummy partitions need to be created when reserving the free space. Since the Ubuntu installer will be creating two new partitions, the command given below will create two dummy partitions.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 400G exfat DUMMY1 200M exfat DUMMY2 200M

The dummy partition can arbitrary in size, since the partitions will be deleted later. The output from the command diskutil list disk0, after entering the above command, is given below.
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.1 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         400.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data DUMMY1                  199.2 MB   disk0s8
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data DUMMY2                  199.2 MB   disk0s9
   5:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s3
   6:       Microsoft Basic Data                         398.4 GB   disk0s4
   7:           Windows Recovery                         838.9 MB   disk0s5

Use Etcher to create a bootable Ubuntu flash drive installer, then boot from this flash drive. A tutorial can be found at the Ubuntu website Create a bootable USB stick on macOS.

When the menu below appears, select Try Ubuntu without installing.

When the Ubuntu desktop appears, press the control+option+T key combination to open a terminal window.

Temporarily rename the folders containing the Windows EFI boot files. This is done so certain files will not be overwritten when Ubuntu installs. Also, this will prevent Windows being added to the GRUB boot menu. Enter the following commands to rename the folders
sudo -i
mkdir efi
mount /dev/sda1 efi
mv efi/EFI efi/EFI.win
umount efi
rmdir efi
exit

Enter the command exit to close the terminal window, then double click on the icon labeled Install Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS shown on the desktop. Proceed with install Ubuntu.

When the screen shown below appears, select "Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and additional media formats", as shown below.

When the screen shown below appears, select "Something else", as shown below.

Delete the dummy partitions. Since the output from diskutil list disk0 showed the third and fourth partitions to be the dummies, the window below will identify these dummy partitions as devices /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda4. Highlight device /dev/sda3, then click on the - button to delete. Repeat for the /dev/sda4.

Highlight the 300 GB of free space, as shown below, then click on the + button to add a new partition.

In the popup window, select a size and a use as of EFI System Partition, as shown below. Here, 210 MB was used since the size of the original EFI partition was 209.7 MB. You should enter a value equal to the size of the original EFI partition on your drive rounded up to the nearest MB. Next, click on the OK button.

Highlight the remaining free space, as shown below, then click on the + button to add new partition.

In the popup window, select a mount point of /, as shown below. Let use as default to Ext4 journaling file system and do not change the size. Next, click on the OK button.

Since all the new partitions have been created, click on the Install Now button. When the screen show below appears, click on the Continue button. Proceed and install Ubuntu.

When Ubuntu finishes installing, the Mac will need to be restarted. If asked to remove the installation medium, then do so. When the Mac restarts, immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appears. Next, hold down the control key while selecting the EFI Boot label under the internal drive icon. The Mac should boot Ubuntu.

From the Ubuntu desktop, press the control+option+T key combination to open a terminal window. Enter the following commands to move the Ubuntu EFI boot files to the new EFI partition and restore the Windows boot folder names.
sudo -i
mkdir efi
mount /dev/sda3 efi
mv /boot/efi/EFI efi
mv /boot/efi/EFI.win /boot/efi/EFI
umount efi
rmdir efi

Use the following command to label sda3 with EFI2.
fatlabel /dev/sda3 EFI2

Use the following command to get the UUID value for the old (sda1) and new (sda3) partitions (to be used in the next step).
blkid /dev/sda1 /dev/sda3

From the output, the UUID value for sda1 and sda3 was determined to be 02E4-255E and 2BCF-0C4E, respectively. In your case, the UUID values themselves will be specific to your machine. The given UUID values are as an example and will likely be different in your case, as would be expected. The next step shows what to do with the UUID values.

Change the UUID in the /etc/fstab file. Use the command nano /etc/fstab or some other command to open the /etc/fstab file in an editor. Replace the UUID for sda1 with the UUID for sda3. For this example, this would mean to replacing 02E4-255E with 2BCF-0C4E. Save the change and close the editor.

Make sure the drive is not using hybrid partitioning. This can be accomplished by entering the command given below.
gdisk /dev/sda

This command is interactive. The interactive commands you will need to enter when prompted by gdisk are given below.
x
n
w
y

Finally, enter the command exit twice to close the terminal window. Restart the Mac.

Adding an Ubuntu Icon and Label to the Startup Manager Menu (Optional)

Boot back to macOS.

Download a collection of icons from the sourceforge web
site Mac icns. Use the Finder application to open the
downloaded file mac-icns.dmg.

Open a Terminal application window and enter the command given below to mount the EFI partition (/dev/disk0s3) containing the Ubuntu boot files.
sudo diskutil mount disk0s3

Under Ubuntu, this is the /dev/sda3 partition. The volume stored in this partition was given the volume label EFI2 during one of the previous Ubuntu installation steps.

Enter the command below to copy the Ubuntu icon file os_ubuntu.icns to the EFI2 volume.
cp /Volumes/mac-icns/OSX10.11.6/os_ubuntu.icns /Volumes/EFI2/.VolumeIcon.icns

This will add the following Ubuntu icon to the Startup Menu.

Note: When finished, you can use the Finder application to eject the mac-icns volume.

Use the command shown below to change the label that will be shown below the Ubuntu icon on the Startup Manager menu.
bless --folder /Volumes/EFI2/EFI/BOOT --label "Ubuntu"

Use the Finder application or enter the command below to unmount
the EFI System partition labeled EFI2.
diskutil unmount disk0s3

References
About Secure Boot
About the Apple T2 Security Chip
Download Windows 10 Disc Image (ISO File)
UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions
Ubuntu Home Page
Create a bootable USB stick on macOS
Etcher Home Page
How to move EFI and boot partitions?
Installing Ubuntu on Mac with macOS and Windows already installed
Dual-Booting OS X or macOS with Linux without rEFInd
Mac icons


iMac 27" Late 2015 - what ram to buy? I'm waiting for my iMac 27" late 2015 4.0ghz i7 to arrive and I'm looking to buy a 32gb kit to upgrade. I've been browsing for an hour and I can't find any specific buyer guides or websites that sell Mac compatible memory (in the EU).

According to Apple's RAM specs, I managed to find this:  PCPartPicker.com

This is what the Apple specs say:

PC3-14900
Unbuffered
Nonparity
204-pin
1867MHz DDR3 SDRAM

Source: Install memory in an iMac

You will need two "16GB Kits" (four 8GB modules in total) to get the full 32GB.  I have personally done this in my 2012 iMac 27"

The memory that I recommend is Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3L - PN# CT2K8G3S186DM

I recommend Crucial because they are very reliable and they have a lifetime warranty.  There are brands that are cheaper, but (IMO) it's simply not worth the cost savings.  I have found that not only is the quality better (fewer failures with lifetime warranted memory versus non-lifetime warranted)  the customer service has always been much "stronger" in terms of getting faulty memory replaced.


Batch rename files replacing non-alphanumeric characters with underscore I would like to recursively rename several files located in all subdirectories of a parent folder. I would like to remove spaces and other non-alphanumeric characters and replace them with an underscore.

I have looked at several command such as tr, for f in *, and rename but I'm still having struggles trying to accomplish this recursively.

How can I go about doing such a rename recursively?

When you're talking about "recursively" then find comes into play.

cd /path/to/parent_folder
find . -depth -exec do_stuff_here +

I'm using -depth so that files in a subdirectory get renamed before the subdirectory itself,
and -exec program {} + so that the program receives many filenames at once, reducing startup overhead.

Since there's no builtin rename utility that ships with the mac, I'll wrote do_stuff_here as a bash script

bash -c '
  for file; do
    tail=${file##*/}                         # part after the last slash
    alnum_only=${tail//[^[:alnum:]]/_}       # replace characters
    mv -v "$file" "${file%/*}/$alnum_only"
  done
' sh file ...

That trailing "sh" is required for bash -c '...' one-liners -- the first argument is taken as $0 and the rest of the arguments are $1 etc

Putting it all together:

find . -depth -exec bash -c '
  for file; do
    tail=${file##*/}
    alnum_only=${tail//[^[:alnum:]]/_}
    mv -v "$file" "${file%/*}/$alnum_only"
  done
' sh {} +

Other notes:

this solution does not take care of file extensions: file.txt will turn into file_txt.

if this is a problem, change ${tail//[^[:alnum:]]/_} to ${tail//[^[:alnum:].]/_} -- adding a dot to the characters to keep.

Have you thought about what should happen if two different files_with_special_chars both map to the same destination file?

./subdir/file_1
./subdir/file-1

With my solution, only the contents of the last file will remain.


Is iPhone activation locked if Find My iPhone is disabled? I have an iPhone 5c and before I hard resetted it I turned off Find My iPhone.

I'm at the setup screen I don't have a SIM card for it yet. The phone asks me for my language, country, WiFi, then tells me to insert a SIM. Is it going to tell me I need the previous AppleID and password after I get the SIM card and insert it?

If you disabled "Find my iPhone" you don't need an Apple ID to reactivate the phone. You will be asked for an Apple ID to log into iCloud etc. but this step can be skipped.

Since you are still stuck at the SIM prompt, it's too early to know if the device is activation locked yet. Pass that step and then you'll know.


How can I use system commands in Google Now Voice Actions? I have an iPhone 4, so making Siri work on it is impossible (you can never find a working port). Is there a Cydia package that can take system commands such as alarm clocks and reminders from Google Now Voice Actions and use them as system commands, like Siri?

I'm not sure if this will work on iPhone 4 because it does not have Siri but there is a new Jailbreak tweak called googiri which allows Google Now to invoke Siri actions. To use Siri actions inside the Google Now app, You can prefix "Siri" keyword before talking. It works well on devices with Siri enabled already.


Is there a way to view one's iTunes Match content online? After having removed a song from iTunes (and having selected "remove from iCloud") checkbox, my iPhone believes it still can downloaded from the iCloud.

I wonder, if it's possible to view one's content from the stand point of Apple. Do they have the song I removed or do they not? If they do, under my account, I'd like to be able to remove it.

No. The clients that access the data are iTunes on the Mac and Windows OS as well as the music app on iOS.

I've seen some desktop iTunes libraries get messed up and not ask to delete a song from the cloud. In that case, set up a new user account on the same computer and sign in and try the delete again.

iTunes Store: How to delete songs from iCloud


Dock unread count is inaccurate Every couple of days Mail.app stops showing the unread message count on the Dock icon. Restarting the application brings it back immediately.
In Preferences->General, I have Dock unread count linked to a smart mailbox that excludes a handful of folders.
Is this a known issue, and is there a fix?
UPDATE:
The problem just recurred, and I notice that when I open the smart mailboxes list, the mailbox I have Dock unread count linked to also doesn't show an unread count, even though viewing the smart mailbox contents has some messages marked as unread.
So the problem seems to be related to how unread counts are calculated for smart mailboxes.
UPDATE 2:
I've reopened the question. Things were going pretty well for a few days with the solution I posted in the answer. But today I'm seeing the opposite problem: the Dock count is 3, but there are no unread messages in any of the folders that are supposed to be counted. When I view the smart mailbox, it's empty. And marking messages as unread adds them to the smart mailbox, but the badge in the dock doesn't change.
As in the past, restarting Mail corrects it.

I think I might have found a solution.
I added the following condition to the smart mailbox that the unread count is linked to:

Message is unread

Before I made this change, I noticed a significant lag between marking/unmarking read messages and the unread count on the smart mailbox and the dock badge changing. When I added this condition, the changes were immediate.
I suspect part of the problem may be that some of my folders (including one of my inboxes) have hundreds or thousands of read messages.


Auto rotate photos and save them afterwards (perhaps using Preview?) So I was previewing some photos using Preview app and I notice that Preview (at least on 10.10.5 Yosemite) automatically fixes rotation issues on the thumbnail on the left.

e.g. photo is upside-down when viewing it but the thumbnail shows it the right-side up. On preview, I still have to go through each photo and manually rotate them to make the changes permanent.

Do you know of any freebie app (or not so expensive) or perhaps using Preview? I want the app to ignore pics that's right-side up.

I came across a binary called "nconvert". I copied these to /usr/local/bin. I then created a simple recursive shell script to go through the folder and subfolders and convert any photo that needs converting.

#!/bin/sh

function recursion {
    if [ $(find . \( -iname "*jpeg" -or -iname "*jpg" \) -maxdepth 1 -type f | wc -l) -gt 0 ]; then
        _fullpath=`pwd`
        echo "Processing $_fullpath"
        echo "Processing $_fullpath" > $HOME/logs/recursive-autorotate-photos.log
        nconvert -jpegtrans exif -overwrite *.jpg
    fi

    for _item in *; do
        if [ -d "$_item" ]; then
            (cd "$_item"; recursion)
        fi
    done
}

if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then
    if [ ! -d "$HOME/logs" ]; then
        mkdir "$HOME"/logs
    fi
    echo "" > $HOME/logs/recursive-autorotate-photos.log

    cd "$1"

    recursion
else
    echo "Usage: recursive-autorotate-photos.sh path-here"
fi

sample: # recursive-autorotate-photos.sh "/Volumes/my-external-disk/photos"

take note of the quotes in the path. if there's a space in the path, there you need to enclosed it in double quotes. I always use double quotes now out of habit.


Inherit Time Machine Backup Snow Leopard I have a Time Machine backup of a harddisk with Snow Leopard (HD1). The SATA cable for the disk failed and got replaced. The HD was replaced out of precaution as well. The new HD (HD2) got restored from the Time Machine backup, but now if Time Machine is started up again it starts a full backup of the disk, and does not do an incremental on top of the old backups.

So the content of HD2 is equal to HD1, but Time Machine thinks otherwise.

How do I force Time Machine to inherit the backups for the new HD?
Anything related to the Terminal command tmutil does not work as that is only for Lion. This command does not exist in Snow Leopard.

I have the same problem, and I'm using Snow Leopard (hate Lion/Mt Lion).

I found a discussion and a script at

http://simon.heimlicher.com/articles/2011/02/18/time-machine-volume-uuid

But I have not tried it myself just yet.  I will though.


Can't log in into iCloud after installing macOS Mojave on MacBook Pro 2013 Retina I updated my MacBook Pro to macOS Mojave. Everything was working fine except iCloud, it was not synchronizing data.

So I thought I sign out and back in.

But if I try to sign in, the wheel spins, and after a while it goes back to the original screen where you have to enter your Apple ID without error message.

After trying a restart, deleting cache etc. I created a new user, here everything is working.

But I want it working with my original account with all my data.

There seems to be a problem with some keychain file:

Since you have confirmed that a new user can sign in, your next step is unfortunately to engage Apple technical support.

You’ve ruled out date and time errors, an error on the network and an error on the cloud side of your account that’s like a lockdown or other massive error. You should expect to be requested to make a support pin to indicate that you allow Apple engineers to support you with your personal data.


Resizing a partition on El Capitan 10.11.6? I want to remove both disk0s4 and disk0s5 partitions which were created for a bootcamp install. However when I goto disk utility then try to remove the partitions from my drive, I get the following error: MediaKit reports not enough space on device for requested operation.

Screenshots below:

Here is what I get when I run diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            425.6 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
4:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                73.4 GB    disk0s4
5:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s5

After I run the command sudo gpt -r show disk0 :

      start       size  index  contents
         0          1         PMBR
         1          1         Pri GPT header
         2         32         Pri GPT table
        34          6
        40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640  831297360      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
 831707000    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
 832976536  143274344      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
 976250880     262144
 976513024      32768      5  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
 976545792     227343
 976773135         32         Sec GPT table
 976773167          1         Sec GPT header

I would like to keep all data currently on the Macintosh HD, if someone could help me remove the untitled and microsoft reserved partitions, that would be great, thanks.

The command below should remove disk0s5.

sudo diskutil erasevolume "Free Space" "" /dev/disk0s5

The command below should remove disk0s4.

sudo diskutil erasevolume "Free Space" "" /dev/disk0s4

The next command expands your Macintosh HD volume (disk0s2) to contain the free space. This command will also automatically move the Recovery HD volume (disk0s3) to the end of the drive.

sudo diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 R

  Note: I am not sure if the prefix sudo is necessary. (But, it will do no harm if you include the sudo)

There are more complex steps that can be employed to remedy your problem, but I will not post these steps unless the one of the commands given above fails to work.


Make external optical drive appear identical to internal SuperDrive? Is there a way to make a external optical drive appear to applications as though it were an internal SuperDrive?  I am using the optical drive bay in my MacBook Pro for a secondary hard drive, and I would like to regain as much SuperDrive functionality as possible with the optical mounted via an external USB enclosure.

I'm familiar with the hack to allow DVD Player to play via an external drive, but other apps won't recognize the drive in exactly the same way as when it's mounted internally (VMWare Fusion and Handbrake immediately come to mind).

What's required with making a drive show up as a SuperDrive?

you can get this working by editing a plist file:

open a new Terminal window
edit: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
Insert mbasd=1 in the <string></string> value below the <key>Kernel Flags</key>. If the string is not empty to begin with (it normally is) or doesn't exist (sometimes happens), then use a space to separate the mbasd=1 from what’s already there or create the entry.

The original solution was from Lukas Zeller's blog here

A Gist is available on GitHub for this change also.


Can Lion be configured to use the three finger drag gesture anywhere in the window? With the proper gesture enabled, Lion allows using a three-finger drag to move a window. However, it only does this when the pointer is over the title bar; gesturing anywhere else in the window does a text highlight instead. Is there a hidden configuration or a hack that would allow three-finger window moving from anywhere inside the window's bounds? Thanks!

Three-finger drag isn't a gesture for "move the window"; it's a gesture for "click and drag." While there might (now or someday) be third-party software that could accomplish your desired behavior, it falls beyond the scope of a simple hidden preference.