How to capture mail.app message url that will remain persistent when message is moved? So mail.app has this wonderful message:// URL scheme, which works great—until the message is moved. Then links created sometimes work—and sometimes don't. I can't figure out the difference. So my question is twofold:

Is there a way to access messages through a URL even when they've moved?
If not, how do I move a message and then get its message ID?

My current script is

tell application "Mail"
    set theSelectedMessages to selection
    set the selected_message to item 1 of the theSelectedMessages
    set message_id to the message id of the selected_message
    set message_subject to the subject of the selected_message
end tell
set myPrompt to display dialog "Create New To Do in BusyCal" default answer message_subject
set response to the text returned of myPrompt
set quick_entry to encode(response & " " & month of (current date) & day of (current date) & "!!!" & " <message:<" & message_id & ">>") -- see encode handler below
tell application "BusyCal"
    activate
    open location "busycalevent://new/-" & quick_entry
end tell
tell application "Mail"
    move the selected_message to mailbox "Calendar" of mailbox " To-Do" of account "Calion"
end tell
--encode handler
on encode(msg)
    set theText to do shell script "/usr/bin/python -c 'import sys, urllib; print urllib.quote(sys.argv[1])' " & quoted form of msg
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
    set theTextItems to text items of theText
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "%2F"
    set theText to theTextItems as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
    return theText
end encode

Short answer

message: URLs are persistent, but Mail needs to be restarted so that its message ID database gets updated and the URLs are properly resolved.

You will have to restart Mail before using BusyCal. Alternatively, you could restart Mail in your script.

Long answer

After some tests I noticed that:

message IDs don't change when a message is moved:

The message ID of this test mail located in the Inbox:

doesn't change after moving it to the _People mailbox:

message IDs work after Mail is restarted:

After moving the message, the URL message:%3CCA+pHXZSgP12HvSg2sQ9J3ochK2K8xOTk_wEoTf+6WmMcYGYxnw@mail.gmail.com%3E shows an empty message because Mail looks for the message in the Inbox (press Command and click the envelope icon on the window bar to show the path to the empty message):

After restarting Mail, the message is found successfully:

(Tested on OS X Mavericks 10.10.4.)

To your questions:

Is there a way to access messages through a URL even when they've moved?

Yes, restart Mail so that it rebuilds its internal message ID database. You will be able to access any moved messages in their new mailboxes.

I understand this is annoying but it seems to be the only workaround.

If not, how do I move a message and then get its message ID?

That's not necessary as message IDs don't change.


Notifications on Mac OS X I would like to receive a notification somehow when system events happen.  For example, a process writes to a directory, or a sandbox violation gets logged.  (Ideally when it occurs, the sandbox violation).

Is this possible and if so how? Growl seems to work well for apps that already tell me things, but how about access of a directory?  Checksum change in tripwire? That sort of thing...

Growl comes with a commandline tool, 'growlnotify', that can send notifications. You can use that in scripts or from tripwire to send notifications to Growl.


Is there a way to re-organize the way mailboxes from multiple accounts are organized in macOS Mail? I am trying to group the folders by email account not by type, if I have three mail accounts:

Gmail,
Outlook,
iCloud.

I want them to be shown in the Mail app, as follow:

- Gmail
    - Inbox
    - Received
    - Junk
    etc…

But the way it’s shown as follow

Inbox
- Gmail
- Outlook
- iCloud

Is there any way I can do this with the Mail app in macOS?

Here is an image of my set up before posting this answer:

Now if I make the following three changes (one pop-up kept to show what to choose, on the left of the preference pane is the result in the mailbox display:


Is OS X 10.10.2 faster than Windows 8.1 on same hardware? I run geekbench on some computer on 10.10.2 get 7500,and on windows on same computer get 7200,does this mean OS X 10.10.2 faster than Windows 8.1 on same hardware?

I personally feel that speed tests such as these are of theoretical interest but not of any value in the real world.  After years of faffing around with windows and comparing to Mac after I saw the light, speed issues become a moot point:

Work flow windows: switch on-> wait 20 minutes for latest update to install->spend a further 20 minutes repairing the issues the update created->have a cup of tea to unwind->back to windows and with any luck the thing would work (about an hour total + time to complete initial intended task)

:Mac OSX workflow: click mouse to fire up (1 second)->open app ->  good to go (about 4 seconds+time to complete intended task)

In light of this, who cares if 1 machine takes 1 or 2 more miiliseconds to "theoretically" complete a given set of CPU calculations?


Transfer an App Store app to another machine without internet access I have a Mac, running Mountain Lion, which does not have internet access and cannot be given internet access. I would like to take an app, which is only available on the App Store, and install it on this Mac. I do have another Mac with internet access and can purchase the App on it. However, when I try to copy and install the app on the other machine, the app won't launch.

How can I accomplish this?

I have no intention of using the App on the Machine on which the purchase was made.

Short of cracking the code signing, you will need to have the receiving Mac connect to Apple's servers (through the internet) at least once to validate your account on that Mac. Once that is done, you should be able to run apps for the length of time that the code signing certificate remains valid.

You could also see about contacting the developer and see if you can purchase the app from them directly if you don't want to have the App Store model for software installation and validation.


How can I move Dashboard widgets to the desktop in Lion? In the OS X Terminal, there is a command that allows me to drag Dashboard widgets onto my desktop. In OS X Lion, the Dashboard became a Space. I am no longer able to use this command. What is a workaround to this?

The command is:

    defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
    killall Dock

Go to System Preferences -> MIssion Control, and uncheck 'Show Dashboard as a space.'

Then do exactly what you did before.


4G signal on phone, but showing LTE on my MacBook Usually, the signal strength on the iPhone is the same with the one shown on my MacBook:

However, in a specific area, between two hills, where the signal is pretty poor, my iPhone shows 1 circle of 4G signal (and the internet does work pretty well on the iPhone), but my MacBook shows 1 circle of LTE signal, and it's very slow.

Is there any setting that I can change to make the MacBook internet via Hotspot faster?

Why is this happening?

Reading about 4G vs LTE, I found LTE includes 4G. So, technically it's correct.

And sometimes, even it shows 4G on my MacBook, it's still slow. It seems to be just the naming.


Discrete Graphics not Activating I have an issue getting the discrete graphics card to activate. The About This Mac screen shows only the Intel Iris Pro active.

I've checked that Automated Graphics Switching is enabled in the Energy Saver system preferences. gfxCardStatus shows Intel as active even when I select the Discrete Only option.

I've tried closing any open applications in case something was using the graphics but I'm still unable to activate the discrete graphics.

Does anyone know if there's a command I can run to check if a process might currently be using the integrated graphics? Is there any other way I can try to get the discrete graphics enabled?

Thanks in advance!

Macbook Pro 11,3 MacOS 10.10.5

To know exactly what process is using the discrete card, look at the activity monitor energy tab "Requires High Perf GPU" column https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202053

To check what display devices are on your system entering the following in the terminal should work

system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType

As mentioned in a similar question https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/74881/39577


How to change URL handler for firefox? Basically I want firefox to open URLs starting with "ssh://whoever@wherever" using iterm2.

Unfortunately I didn't pay attention - the first time I tried this, Mac Os suggested to use Terminal, and stupid me also clicked the checkbox to remember that setting. Now I can't figure how to undo/change that decision.

I have seen this question - but unfortunately that one is 7 years old and seems to be outdated (my preferences->profile window doesn't look at all like the one shown in the existing question).

To fix this, you need to delete/change the association within Firefox.

Go into Firefox Preferences (hamburger menu in upper right hand corner of window or press ⌘ Command,)
Scroll down to Applications.  You can either scroll through or search for the association you wish to modify

Delete the association; the next time you click on the link it will ask you what you want to do.  Or... change the association to the application you wish to be opened.


Disk scan shows account Guest uses 74 gigabytes; Can I reclaim space? The DiskExpert Utility shows 74 GB of disk space allocated to user "Guest", yet Finder only shows less than one GB.

Can I reclaim the space, or is DiskExpert "lying"?

Disk Expert may be giving you the spaced used by "Users" which will include your stuff as well as Guest Users. If this is the case then erasing stuff under "Guest" will not buy you much. When I run Disk Expert I get space used by "Users" and the space used by me. Did you get a space for your user account? You should have unless you are the guest user. I also got a space labeled as "Files of user: Guest - Size 13.4 GB" so you should have similar spaces from Disk Expert. That is you should have a space for User that is bigger than the space for your account and the space for the Guest account. You should also have a space for both Guest and your home directory. By space I mean a section of the mapping for Disk Utility. See image below.

If you are sure the 78 GB are from guest users you should contact them and see if they need any of the info on the Guest Users account. If not you can delete the files under the guest user account. Be careful not to erase other directories and make sure there is nothing under guest user that you want to keep. The Guest user account was intended for "guests" to use your computer. If you haven't allowed others to use your computer I would not delete anything until I knew what was there.


How to install FaceApp to mac? How do I install FaceApp in macOS? Is there anyway to do it without using an iPhone or Android emulator?

From the App Store Preview for FaceApp - AI Face Editor it states:

  This app is available only on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

Also:

  Requires iOS 11.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Based on that, I'd say no.


mail activity window in el capitan Since upgrading to el capitan a couple of days ago, activity window in mail does not work. I do receive emails, but can no longer see or check mail through the activity window when i want, have to wait for 'whenever'; clicking 'get mail' does not work on my demand.

I am on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012)

thanks!

The Activity window shows for me (you could try under Window tab and click Activity).But I can't "Send it to Back" like before; now it is always the top window in the stack.


How can I test my LAN speed between Mac and Apple TV? How can I test my LAN speed when I do not have two computers? I have a Mac, an iPhone, and Apple TV.

I want to see the strength of my home network. I don't care about testing my internet connection, just the LAN.

What tools are available?

How to Measure

The place to monitor the speeds of course is your Mac. The easy built-in network speeds monitor is in Activity Monitor at the bottom of the main window. Alternatives include MenuMeters or iStat Menus which put the speeds right up in the menu bar.

How to test

This depends on which version of the Apple TV you have. With version three and earlier (the common black one), there's no local storage so you won't have much luck testing the upper limits. With the Apple TV 4, you'd need to jailbreak it to be able to directly copy media onto the drive (very strange). Just streaming won't test the limits of your network as most streaming will be in easy territory of 500 kb/sec, although you could try streaming an original MP4 from a DSLR to see if that chokes your network (and at what speed watching the transfer rates in either Activity Monitor, MenuMeters or iStat Menus).

It's fairly easy to figure out what your speeds will be. Any recent Mac (last six years) has 1000 BaseT (aka gigabit) ethernet (if it has ethernet at all, the USB to Ethernet adapter is just 100 BaseT). Hence the bottleneck will be your router. Real world speeds of 100 BaseT are 4.5 to 6 MB/sec. I recently upgraded my own router from 100 BaseT to 1000 BaseT (my old gigabit router had failed about a year ago) and had my internal transfer speeds jump from 6 MB/sec to 30 MB/sec. On the other hand, my computers on the powerline technology I use in part of the house to cut down on the ethernet cables along walls only tested at 4 MB/sec (even though it's theoretical maximum should have been closer to 40 MB/sec).

You won't be able test your wired internal network speeds with your iPhone as the connection is wireless. If you only want to check wireless connection, you can try copying some large files into your Saved Photos folder on your iPhone.

For your wired ethernet testing, I'd suggest having a friend bring over a 1000 BaseT laptop to do your wired ethernet testing. His laptop, a second short ethernet cable and some simple file transfers will do the trick. Testing with network storage devices (NAS) is not recommended as most of them are considerably slower than listed (there are exceptions).


Palm rejection on Apple Trackpad 2 I've a new iMac with Apple keyboard and Trackpad 2.  I'm coming from my old MacBook Pro to this new system and wanted a similar keyboard and trackpad arrangment, so I got one of these

I love it, BUT the trackpad is so very sensitive.  I swear it can detect my finger when it's a hair's breadth from actually touching it.  So, every time I accidentally bump it with my palm or wrist the cursor jumps while I'm typing.

Is there a way to configure it so that it's less sensitive?  I think this is called "palm rejection", but I haven't found anything about how to configure the trackpad to NOT be so sensitive yet.

I'm actually one of the 'studs' from the StUDS Collective that designed The Wedgie. The challenge you brought up is one we've wrestled with trying to find a good solution for without over-complicating the design of the tray. I use the tray daily, but don't use 'tap to click' so it's less of an issue for me, but here are a couple of low tech solutions we've come up with.

Turn the trackpad around backwards and use the "better touch tool" mentioned above to invert all of the functions on the trackpad. This makes the top edge recessed enough that it avoids contact with your palm. I also regularly use this configuration for charging the trackpad without removing it from the tray.

We've also developed a little silicone bumper that helps with the problem too. This is still something we're playing with so it's not listed for sale anywhere.


Hide a running app from Dock? Is there a way I can hide a running app's dock icon Mac OS X?

Important Note: In Mac OS X 10.5+ the method explained below only works for apps which are not using the "Code Signing" feature which was introduced in 10.5 to ensure authenticity of running code. The result of applying this method to a signed app differs; it might cause the app to  crash upon starting or results it unexpected behavior.

You can edit the file Info.plist contained in the directory of each App (e.g. /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/Info.plist)by adding the following lines:

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

For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>LSUIElement</key>
        <string>1</string>
        <key>BuildMachineOSBuild</key>
        <string>11G63</string>
        <key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
        ...
        ...
</dict>
</plist>

When you will start the App you will see the icon just for one second and the it will disappear.

Dockless and Dock Dodger do this change automatically in apps.


How to turn off Bonjour? My iMac (late 2009 with Mavericks) can only start up in safe mode. I have read that it might be related to a mdns responder issue.

The log comes back with 2 kinds of lines which look suspect (but I am totally novice at this!):

May  4 20:39:43 Macs-iMac-3.local racoon[146]: failed to bind to address fd20:c40d:6b6d:9361:80a:aacb:6d80:2d86[500]: because interface address is/was not ready (flags 2)
+
May  4 20:39:24 Macs-iMac-3.local mDNSResponder[35]: mDNS_Register_internal: ERROR!! Tried to register AuthRecord 00007FE4FA01AD60 Macs-iMac-3.local. (Addr) that's already in the list
May  4 20:39:24 Macs-iMac-3.local mDNSResponder[35]: mDNS_Register_internal: ERROR!! Tried to register AuthRecord 00007FE4FA01B1F0 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa. (PTR) that's already in the list
May  4 20:39:24 Macs-iMac-3.local mDNSResponder[35]: mDNS_Register_internal: ERROR!! Tried to register AuthRecord 00007FE4FB801B60 Macs-iMac-3.local. (AAAA) that's already in the list
May  4 20:39:24 Macs-iMac-3.local mDNSResponder[35]: mDNS_Register_internal: ERROR!! Tried to register AuthRecord 00007FE4FB801FF0 1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.8.E.F.ip6.arpa. (PTR) that's already in the list

I would like to try and turn off bonjour by using the Apple instructions http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3789
But I don't know where to put the line <string>-NoMulticastAdvertisements</string> in the mdnsresponder.plist.

Here is my plist. Where should I place this line?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.apple.mDNSResponder</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <false/>
    <key>InitGroups</key>
    <false/>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>_mdnsresponder</string>
    <key>GroupName</key>
    <string>_mdnsresponder</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder</string>
    </array>
    <key>MachServices</key>
    <dict>
        <key>com.apple.mDNSResponder</key>
        <true/>
               <key>com.apple.mDNSResponder.dnsproxy</key>
               <true/>
    </dict>
    <key>Sockets</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Listeners</key>
        <dict>
            <key>SockFamily</key>
            <string>Unix</string>
            <key>SockPathName</key>
            <string>/var/run/mDNSResponder</string>
            <key>SockPathMode</key>
            <integer>438</integer>
        </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>EnableTransactions</key>
    <true/>
    <key>BeginTransactionAtShutdown</key>
    <true/>
    <key>POSIXSpawnType</key>
    <string>Interactive</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Add it as a program argument. I've added it to the plist below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.apple.mDNSResponder</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <false/>
    <key>InitGroups</key>
    <false/>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>_mdnsresponder</string>
    <key>GroupName</key>
    <string>_mdnsresponder</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder</string>
        <string>-NoMulticastAdvertisements</string>
    </array>
    <key>MachServices</key>
    <dict>
        <key>com.apple.mDNSResponder</key>
        <true/>
               <key>com.apple.mDNSResponder.dnsproxy</key>
               <true/>
    </dict>
    <key>Sockets</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Listeners</key>
        <dict>
            <key>SockFamily</key>
            <string>Unix</string>
            <key>SockPathName</key>
            <string>/var/run/mDNSResponder</string>
            <key>SockPathMode</key>
            <integer>438</integer>
        </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>EnableTransactions</key>
    <true/>
    <key>BeginTransactionAtShutdown</key>
    <true/>
    <key>POSIXSpawnType</key>
    <string>Interactive</string>
</dict>
</plist>


Can't boot Apple Hardware Test with correct install disk that has AHT I just restored my HD from a Time Machine backup and afterward my AHT won't work, despite the fact that I have the original install disk (10.5 Leopard, disk #2 that says it has AHT on it). AHT worked a week ago, no problem. I'm 100% sure I have the right disk. I've successfully run AHT many times using this disk in the past.

Weirdly, I can still boot to Recovery Mode from the same disk by hitting Command + R (unfortunately, can't reach AHT that way). I ran First Aid from disk just in case, no problems found. So the disk drive, disk, and keyboard all seem to work okay.

I shut down, hit D right after hitting the power button, and screen goes gray forever, never boots. Same thing occurs when pressing Option at boot to choose the boot disk... goes to gray screen, never boots. I'm using a wired USB keyboard (a Microsoft brand, but I'm accounting for default option key vs. command key vs. windows key, etc.). I also tried hitting D at different times after hitting power, before hitting power, and tried different USB ports for the keyboard. Unplugged everything. All fails.

I assume my HD recovery changed something. Apple support said they think my disk is bad, which I don't buy since it worked last week.

Perhaps relevant: I want to use AHT because — before I recovered my HD — AHT indicated I had bad ram. (Ram problems were intermittent). I wanted to determine which of my two chips was bad by using just one or the other and repeatedly running AHT to find which individual chip is bad. Currently using just one of my two 4GB chips, which I guess could be related, if it's the bad one. MacMini is a 3,1 Intel currently running 10.11.6 btw.

Thanks a lot for any advice.

My first thought was that perhaps you had somehow updated the firmware and were trying to use an AHT disk that couldn't boot due to this. This is a possibility because your Mac Mini came pre-shipped with Mac OS X 10.5.6, but the firmware update (which you do have installed) requires Mac OS X 10.5.7. However, then I realised your question says you only just ran the AHT last week. So, unless you somehow updated the firmware in the past week, this isn't likely to be your problem.

Since you can't seem to get your disk to work, the only other option I can think of is to download AHT again and run it from a USB. The steps to do this are as follows:

Create a bootable USB flash drive by using Disk Utility's Erase function. Make sure you choose OS X Extended for the format and the GUID Partition Map for the scheme. For the purposes of these steps, also give your USB the name AHT when you're erasing it.
Download the AHT for your particular Mac Mini here
Mount the downloaded image (it should mount as AHTCThree)
Now you will need to copy the AHT to your USB flash drive. To start, Launch the Terminal app (usually found within the Utilities folder)
In the Terminal window, enter the following:

cp -r /Volumes/AHTCThree/System /Volumes/AHT/
Now we need to make the USB flash drive bootable, so enter the following line in Terminal:

sudo bless --folder /Volumes/AHT/ --file /Volumes/AHT/System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics/diags.efi --label AHT
Enter your Admin password
Leave the USB flash drive plugged in and restart the Mac Mini
Immediately hold down the Option key
Select the AHT from the list and boot up

NOTE for other readers: - These Terminal commands were written for this specific question. However, these can be adapted for your use by replacing the AHTCThree with whatever name your downloaded disk image mounted as at Step 3. For example, if at step 3 your downloaded disk image mounted as AHTEOne, then at Step 5 you would use AHTEOne instead of AHTCThree within the Terminal command.


Force Closing Finder, Deleting Files, Recovering Said Files? Okay. So long story short, I was working in Adobe Premiere yesterday and saved a video to my external hard drive and it ended up being over 1GB. I began to drag it to another folder and Finder crashes. I leave it for about 10 minutes and nothing. So I force closed Finder.

Only then, a folder of 15,000 photos (the one I tried dragging the video to) got deleted. At the time I noticed that the Google Photos Uploader app (which is connected to the folder) had it's contents deleted, so the app didn't work. And then I discovered the same thing happened to Adobe Lightroom. So. Everything's gone.

I tried out DiskDrill and nothing really turned up. Currently waiting on its deep search recovery -- so far nothing. I also tried out TestDisk. It seems more promising to produce results...but when I navigated to the right spot to "undelete" files it said there was nothing to undelete.

So. Is there anything I haven't tried or am I as hopeless* as mashed potatoes?

*Note: I actually have everything backed up to Google Photos, so it's not the worst thing in the world. But it took a week to upload and could take just as long to download...

Ugh - Do you know specifically if you used Finder to move a folder within one volume or copy the contents to another volume?

If you were copying, boot to recovery and run Disk Utility or power off and run file recovery software like Data Rescue.

If you were moving, then finder can't have caused the issue - force quit or not. Look at backing things up immediately and checking the drive / Disk Utility or hardware test.

Also - you might want to be sure you have Journaling enabled on all the drives in question. That will save you hours of check time when things crash - you might lose a file, but the loss will be quick and then you can move to restore things from the cloud or the backup.


"S" key does not work in X11 (XQuartz) The S key seems to be mapped to an incorrect value in XQuartz for me.  I am running OS X 10.7.5 and XQuartz 2.7.4 (xorg-server 1.13.0).  The problem also occurs in X11.app (XQuartz 2.6.5, xorg-server 1.10.6).  I am also running Homebrew  0.9.4, if that makes a difference.

Pressing S in X has never worked correctly for me.  In most applications in X, pressing S has no effect.  It may actually be mapped to a meta-key, because pressing S in some contexts (e.g., in most save dialogs) seems to trigger button hotkeys.  If I copy the "s" character from within a native Cocoa application and then paste it into an X application, that works fine.

Update: xev reports the following when S is pressed:

KeyPress event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0xa00001,
    root 0x281, subw 0x0, time 2057519943, (138,-10), root:(158,32),
    state 0x0, keycode 9 (keysym 0xff1b, Escape), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (1b) "
mbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (1b) "
FilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0xa00001,
    root 0x281, subw 0x0, time 2057520022, (138,-10), root:(158,32),
    state 0x0, keycode 9 (keysym 0xff1b, Escape), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (1b) "
FilterEvent returns: False

Update 2: xmodmap reports:

shift       Shift_L (0x40),  Shift_R (0x44)
lock
control     Control_L (0x41),  Control_L (0x43),  Control_R (0x46)
mod1        Mode_switch (0x42),  Mode_switch (0x45)
mod2        Meta_L (0x3f),  Meta_R (0x47)
mod3
mod4
mod5

It appears that s has been mapped to Escape.

I don't know how it got be like this. I also don't know how to reset the map, given that setxkbmap -layout us (recommended by https://askubuntu.com/questions/29603/how-do-i-clear-xmodmap-settings) does not work. (It doesn't work for me either.)

So, as a last resort, if the only problem is s, then try

xmodmap -e "keycode   9 = s S ssharp Iacute"


Menu bar missing on second screen after El Capitan update 10.11.5 I was on El Capitan 10.11.4 and just updated to 10.11.5.  Now the menu bar is missing on my second screen which is an enormous pain in the apple.

I have tried:

Searching Google and AskDifferent and wading through many answers for much older OSX versions that no longer are relavent
Rebooting
Confirming that it's not just my display setup hiding the menu bar above the visible area
Moving different apps into the second screen
Turning off and on the System Preferences > General > Automatically hide and show the menu bar setting
Turning on mirroring and then turning it off
Killing and relaunching Finder
Petitioning the ghost of Steve Jobs for help

You only get a menu bar on anything other than your primary monitor if you have
System Prefs > Mission Control > Displays have separate Spaces checked.

It's not a setting to idly switch on & off if you have a very specific setup because it can seriously mess up your workflow... I did it once before to test a feature for SE, took me days to get my 12 spaces back together :(


How do I pack regions into a folder in Logic Pro X? The Apple help site says:

Select the regions, then choose Functions > Folder > Pack Folder from the Tracks area menu bar.

However, there is no Folder tab under Functions, nor is there any command in the menu bar or edit dropdown that says "Pack Folder."
This seems like a very simple thing, but I can't figure it out because following Apple's directions doesn't work. How do I pack and unpack folders?
I'm using the most recent version of Logic Pro X, so the YouTube tutorials I've found are unhelpful as they are older versions in which the Help site directions still work.

This got answered on another site, but I figure I might was well share it here:
Preferences > Advanced Tools... > Show Advanced Tools
makes the option available. Why organizing with folders is an advanced tool is beyond me, but that's a discussion for another day.


How to shrink Recovery HD on macOS Sierra After removing a Windows partition, my Recovery HD has increased in size to about 70 GB. I'd like to reclaim this disk space into my main HD, but cannot figure out how. What is the easiest way to do so?

The output of diskutil list gives:

/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_HFS Macintosh HD            429.9 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery HD             69.9 GB    disk0s3

My machine is a 2015 MacBook Pro.

And the results of diskutil resizevolume disk0s3 limits give:

Resize limits for partition disk0s3 Recovery HD:
  Current partition size on map:              69.9 GB (69933821952 Bytes)
  Minimum size (constrained by file usage):   553.4 MB (553422848 Bytes)
  Recommended minimum size (if used for OS):  5.9 GB (5922131968 Bytes)
  Maximum size (constrained by map space):    69.9 GB (69933821952 Bytes)

Reduce the size of the partition containing Recovery HD volume. You can do this by entering the command given below.

diskutil  resizeVolume  disk0s3  660M

Download and install the third party tool gdisk.
Boot to macOS Recovery over the Internet. Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the option+⌘+R key combination. Release the keys when the spinning globle appears.
Partially disable System Intergity Protection (SIP). From the menu bar, select Utilities➔Terminal. Next, enter the command given below.

csrutil  enable  --without  fs

Boot back to macOS.
Use the interactive command gdisk to change the partition type and attributes for disk3s3. Enter the command given below

sudo  gdisk  /dev/disk0

  Note: The procedure below assumes field 49 (bit #49) is not set. If this field is set, then you should leave the field set.  In other words, if the attribute value is 0002000000000000, then field 49 is set.

Below is an example of using gdisk to repair your Mac.

  Note: You can exit gdisk at any time without save changes by entering a control+C.

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.3

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): t
Partition number (1-3): 3
Current type is 'Apple HFS/HFS+'
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = AF00): AB00
Changed type of partition to 'Recovery HD'

Command (? for help): x

Expert command (? for help): a
Partition number (1-3): 3
Known attributes are:
0: system partition
1: hide from EFI
2: legacy BIOS bootable
60: read-only
62: hidden
63: do not automount

Attribute value is 0000000000000000. Set fields are:
  No fields set

Toggle which attribute field (0-63, 64 or <Enter> to exit): 49
Have enabled the 'Undefined bit #49' attribute.
Attribute value is 0002000000000000. Set fields are:
49 (Undefined bit #49)

Toggle which attribute field (0-63, 64 or <Enter> to exit):

Expert command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk0.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.

Enable SIP. Enter the command given below, then restart your Mac.

sudo  csrutil  clear

Recovery the free space back to the Macintosh HD volume. You can do this by entering the command given below

diskutil  resizeVolume  disk0s2  R

Restart your Mac then enter the command below to check the results.

diskutil  list


How to disable guest browsing in chrome on Mac? I am trying to disable guest browsing in Chrome. It's proving to be somewhat difficult. I have tried using terminal which I was able to disable incognito browser but failed trying to disable guest browsing.

How do I proceed?

By piecing together information I found on various forums, I was able to come up with this method that worked on my Mac Mini running macOS 10.15 (Catalina):

Open the "Terminal" application. Use "Spotlight Search" (magnifying glass icon in upper righthand corner of screen) to search "Terminal" and click on the first result to open the application, or go to Finder --> Go --> Utilities --> Terminal.
Copy and paste the command below into the Terminal window and hit "Enter" on the keyboard.

defaults write com.google.Chrome BrowserGuestModeEnabled -bool false

Restart your Mac and the option for guest browsing will be gone the next time you open Chrome.


CMake GUI failed to create directory in /opt/local/ I’m trying to build the Eigen library using the CMake GUI. I’ve downloaded the library from the webiste (.tar.bz2), extracted it, and used the extracted path as source location for the CMake GUI, the CMakeLists.txt was already provided with it.

I’m able to build the library in other places, but when I set destination path to:

/opt/local/DESTINATION_PATH

It first asks me if it should create the destination directory as it doesn't exist. When I click yes, it tells me the following and quits:

  FAILED TO CREATE DIRECTORY

I need the library to be built within /opt/local/. Can anyone help me?

You say this:

  I’m able to build the library in other places…

But it’s choking here:

  /opt/local/DESTINATION_PATH

While I have not used CMake, in general Unix/Linux context the problem is the /opt/local/ directory would be owned by root. And if you want to create content in there, you would need to launch CMake via sudo so you can gain super user privileges.

According to this answer on Stack Overflow you can do it like this. First open up the terminal command line and type in this command:

sudo /Applications/CMake.app/Contents/MacOS/CMake

Next it will ask you for your password. Go ahead and type that in. And when CMake launches it will be via sudo so writing to /opt/local/ should not be an issue.


Debounce mechanical keyboard in OS X My work has me back on a Mac. I am using my mechanical keyboard (USB, Cherry blue switches, not that that's important) with OS X. The problem though, is that I get relatively frequent "bouncing" or "chatter" of the keystrokes. For example, if I type hello something like heello might appear. This is rather annoying, especially when entering passwords.

Under Linux I could solve this in software by debouncing, using the xkbsetbouncekeysdelay setting, which adds a minimum number of milliseconds, e.g. 40ms, between key presses. Rather a blunt tool but solves the problem perfectly. However, I haven't been able to find an analogue under OS X.

Does anyone have any software based suggestions? Am I overlooking a simple plist setting somewhere?

I had actually forgotten about this, but a recent comment prompted me to post the solution I ended up going with.  Since macOS does not provide a debouncing facility, I ended up writing my own [1].  It hooks into keypresses using a CGEventTap, and if the most recent keypress keycode is equal to the current one, with a timestamp more recent than ±30ms, it disregards it as a bounce.

I apologise for the rough and ready state of the tool, but compile it with the Makefile (you'll need XCode or Developer Tools or whatever they're called these days), and run it using sudo ./debounce (root permissions are necessary because it hooks into all keypresses).  It works and has worked for me for the last year-ish, but use at your own risk, free of charge, free of warranty.

https://github.com/toothbrush/debounce-mac/


User input assigned to variable in AppleScript then passed to "do shell script" command How do I grab input from the user in AppleScript and then pass the result of the variable to a do shell script command from within AppleScript itself?

For example, the user would type the answer foo to the following dialog box:

display dialog "Please enter your username" default answer ""
set the userID to the text returned of the result
do shell script "rm -rf /Users/$userID/.Trash/*" with administrator privileges

So in this instance, if I were to incorporate the answer of foo in lieu of $userID, it would read as the following when it executes the command:

display dialog "Please enter your username" default answer ""
set the userID to the text returned of the result
do shell script "rm -rf /Users/foo/.Trash/*" with administrator privileges

How do I pass that variable I grabbed earlier, in this case it would be $userID and incorporate it into the middle of the shell script call that I have made just above.

This assigns the name entered to the variable answer.

display dialog "What's your name?" default answer ""
set answer to text returned of result
display dialog "Your name is " & answer


Dual External Monitors on a (late) 2017 MacBook Pro I'm trying to set up my 2017 MBP with two external monitors. I have a Totu USB C Hub, TOTU 12-in-1 Type C Hub with dual HDMI inputs. It's supposed to allow me to use two external monitors with my MBP in clamshell mode but after exhausting SO and YouTube, I've found no good workaround. My machine only has two USB-C inputs (Thunderbolt 3). Anyone out here doing this?

The other posts similar to this were quite old and I'm looking for a solution specifically for newer MBP's with the two USB-C ports. Thanks,

Your problem is that you have chosen a USB-C hub - this means that MST is a requirement for supporting dual displays in a non-mirrored configuration. MST is not supported on macOS, but will work if you run Windows.

In order to get dual displays working, you'll need to either: (a) connect each monitor seperately to the two Thunderbolt ports on the Mac - directly or through your hub, or (b) get a Thunderbolt 3 hub/dock with dual display capability.

Such a Thunderbolt 3 dock could be for example the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock. With that dock you would need to connect your two monitors to the dock like this:

Monitor A: Connected to mini-DisplayPort port
  Monitor B: Connected to daisy-chain Thunderbolt 3 port

Note that you'll need cables that match the inputs your monitors support. That could be for example a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort and a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C to HDMI cable.

The OWC dock is just one option - many other docks are available from various vendors at various price points.


Win7 iTunes no longer sees new iPhone SE I recently upgraded from an iPhone 4S to an SE and successfully transferred everything.

Today I took a photo using the new phone and wanted to download to my Win7x64 system. Previously all I had to do was plug in the phone and it would appear in my devices and as a removable drive in Windows Explorer.  The iPhone SE did not appear in Windows Explorer, and in Devices and Printers it showed up as "Apple USB Driver" instead of "iPhone".  At this point it was appearing just fine in iTunes.

I deleted the device driver and let the system reinstall it, which restored desktop access to the photos on phone.  It appears in Windows Explorer, but curiously no longer as a removable device.

However, since that point, every time I plug it in I get the "Allow this device to access photos and videos" prompt on the phone, but the phone does NOT appear any more in iTunes.  I suspect somehow Windows is treating it like a permanent device instead of removable and is preventing iTunes from seeing it.

So far I've rebooted both the phone and the computer (several times each) and reinstalled iTunes.

Not sure what to do next.

Go to: iTunes - Help - Run Diagnostics... - select Device connectivity tests

The tests will show what service is dead or running.

Usually a dead service could cause this problem.

If still not solved , go to this page for more information.


Is it possible to automatically exit full-screen mode in Safari on cmd-tab press? I have a problem that while watching videos in Safari in full-screen, I need to access another program, but at the same time keep watching the video, in not-full-screen mode though. Currently if I cmd-tab from full-screen of Safari to another program, that covers only a part of the screen,
I get this in my Safari window:

How can I switch to non-full-screen move automatically after using the combination of alt+tab?
Or is there any alternative that could be tailored to my need?

As far as I understand your problem, when you are in full screen video, you can switch to normal video size by ⌃⌘F

(And switch between Apps by ⌘TAB, not ⌥TAB)


How do I disable Wi-Fi roaming? (disable autoconnecting to the strongest AP) I can't find a way to disable Wi-Fi roaming on my Mac so I can connect to a specific AP and stay associated to it without roaming to the strongest AP. Is there any way I can do that?

My MacOS version is High Sierra 10.13.2.

I have already tried all airport JoinMode settings ( /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport prefs JoinMode) and the "airport-bssid" tool that is available on GitHub, and both solutions didn't work.

It is sort of possible to do but the wording is not clear.

If you open System Preferences > Network and click on the WiFi icon on the left side of the Network Preferences window you will see two checkboxes below the Network Name pop-up menu. On my Mac it looks like this.

For your situation I would select your preferred network from the Network Name pop-up menu, and check both checkboxes so that it will auto-join your preferred network and force your Mac to ask to join other ones.

That is the only way I know to even get close to the settings you need without 3rd party software.


Is fast user switching in Lion disabling the network connection for the accounts that aren't active? With 10.6, I routinely had two accounts logged into the Mac while I was working - my personal and my work account. I switched between them as needed and this worked fine. For example, if I had an IM client running under the work user and switched to my personal user and then back again to the work user, everything was ok. The work user's IM client stayed connected the whole time.

With 10.7, it looks like switching to another account renders the network connection inactive for the account that is no longer in use. When I switch back to the work account now, the IM client has to reconnect and the VPN attempts to reconnect.

Is this new behavior documented somewhere and is it configurable?

Not really - Lion is now able to kill processes that appear to be idle and unused. Fast user switching adds more load on memory and processor (due to the simple fact that more is now running), increasing the chance this will trigger.

Also, the changes to allow multiple simultaneous logins may have changed the API which will need the VPN client to request to stay connected or otherwise start itself outside the user space to survive a switch in Lion.


Does force closing apps have any benefit on iOS devices? I've gotten mixed answers from various websites and people concerning this question, and I wanted to put it out there for all of you to answer once and for all.

The question is, does force closing apps, (that is, double-clicking the home button, then swiping up on them), have any benefit to the battery or overall performance of an iPhone or any other iOS device?

There's been much debate and discussion around this topic.  I believe it was beneficial for iOS back in the v3 and v4 days but now it's not.

Craig Federighi even came out recently saying it's not necessary and it doesn't increase the battery life.  Apple has built-in their memory management the proper time to suspend and/or kill an app when necesssary.  The only time you should force-close an app is if it has become unresponsive.


Remap the 'UpperCase' key Possible Duplicate:
  How can I set caps lock to a more complex keystroke?

I lost the tab key on my macbook and since i rarely use the uppercase key i'm wondering if it is possibe to use it instead by remapping or else?

http://i.imgur.com/zIKGll.jpg

I installed KeyRemap4Macbook but can't figure out how to do it.

Thanks a lot

In general, remapping a modifier key to another modifier key is relatively simple; Apple provides a system preference pane to do it. Remapping a standard key to another standard key is slightly more complicated, but easy enough by editing or creating a keyboard layout. The tricky part is converting a modifier key to a standard one, or vice versa. For that, you need a specialized program.

You will need a System Preference Pane called PCKeyboard Hack.

First, go the the Keyboard preference pane, select the Keyboard tab, and click the Modifier Keys... button. In the resulting sheet, set Caps Lock Key to No Action.

Then, install PCKeyboard Hack.

In the preference pane it installs, go to Caps Lock, select "Change Caps Lock", and set the key code to 48 (the key code for the tab key).

Instructions on a related question are available on Stack Overflow.


moveWordForward: on ⌥-f in El Capitan doesn't repeat I've used Jacob Rus' cocoa text system bindings for many years to give me more emacs like bindings in cocoa text fields (apple doc here. Since El Capitan I find that option-f which does moveWordForward: only works once and doesn't repeat if I hold down the keys. option-b (moveWordBackward:) does repeat as it always has and so does option-rightarrow (which I assume also does moveWordForward:).

I played with KeyBindingsEditor and found that option-control-f is bound to moveWordForward: in /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Resources/StandardKeyBinding.dict and it repeats (also that option-right is bound to moveWordRight:). It also confirmed that option-f is bound to moveWordForward: in the Standard and my user KeyBinding.dict.

I've checked for other bindings on option-f in System Preferences and haven't found any. Anyone know what might be wrong or how I can debug this further?

OS X 10.11.1, 3.4 GHz i7 iMac, 24GB RAM, 1TB Fusion, Apple Wired Keyboard


Activity Monitor in Mavericks "Show Memory Usage" dock icon gone? I just purchased a new MacBook Pro with Mavericks installed and noticed that Activity Monitor doesn't have the "Show Memory Usage" dock icon option anymore.  I really liked this option since I used it to prevent disk swapping by closing applications when I had too many open.  What gives?

It seems that this feature – since Apple has changed the way how they display memory usage – isn't a option anymore:

  This is no longer an option, especially since Mavericks has new memory management routines (ie, memory compression) that make the charting of memory usage less straightforward. Apple has switched to a new "Memory Pressure" approach to viewing memory usage, which is available in the Memory section of Activity Monitor, but so far has not been added as a Dock icon option. Hopefully Apple will do so, as this would perhaps be one of the more useful Dock icon options.

I've got that from here one would hope that at some point we could graph memory pressure in the dock using Apple's Activity monitor as opposed to needing to open the whole tool with a window that shows many other items.


Where are bash profile startup files? I know that you can have a .profile or .bashrc file in your home folder to customise Mac OS X 10.6.4 Terminal bash startup.

Every time I start up Terminal, there is a line that tells me "You've got mail". I am trying to find where this line is stated in my startup files, but can't find .bash nor .profile nor .bashrc in my home folder.

I also read that the global settings file is in /etc/profile and /etc/bashrc, but they don't seem to tell me anything:

/etc/profile

# System-wide .profile for sh(1)

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
        eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi

if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
        [ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi

/etc/bashrc

# System-wide .bashrc file for interactive bash(1) shells.
if [ -z "$PS1" ]; then
   return
fi

PS1='\h:\W \u\$ '
# Make bash check its window size after a process completes
shopt -s checkwinsize

BTW, there is no /etc/bash

Any ideas? Thanks!

This probably doesn't answer the mail question but here is some more info on the startup files.
Are you searching for the files in Finder?  Make sure that you are searching from a terminal and using ls -A so that hidden files (files beginning with a '.') show up.
The following is from the Bash Reference Guide.  It describes the startup files that are executed when you start a new terminal window in OS X (which is an interactive, login shell).
6.2 Bash Startup Files
This section describes how Bash executes its startup files. If any of the files exist but cannot be read, Bash reports an error. Tildes are expanded in file names as described above under Tilde Expansion (see Section 3.5.2 [Tilde Expansion], page 19).
Interactive shells are described in Section 6.3 [Interactive Shells], page 75.
Invoked as an interactive login shell, or with ‘--login’
When Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The --noprofile option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit this behavior.
When a login shell exits, Bash reads and executes commands from the file ‘~/.bash_logout’, if it exists.


New MBP 13" can't connect to external monitor I am trying to connect my oldish LG monitor with DVI port (adapter hdmi to dvi is in monitors end) to my macbook pro 13" (late 2013 haswell model)

and it is pretty weird, macbook recognizes monitors model, I can change resolution, even hertz rate is correct- 59hz, but monitor just says to check cable. Cable is fine, it was working with my windows laptop, it is working with friends windows laptop.

what I have tried, checked all posibilieties that monitor or cable could be damaged, and walked through all settings on mac, can't get it work.

I was able to get the external monitor to display when I used an HDMI to DVI cable.

HDMI output from MacBook, DVI input on the LG monitor.

I have and LG 27 inch monitor


How do I disable or remove the root account created as a side effect from this High Sierra security bug? This article describes a bug where entering root when prompted for an unlock allows any user to unlock system preferences. It warns that:

  There’s no need to do this yourself to verify it. Doing so creates a
  “root” account that others may be able to take advantage of if you
  don’t disable it.

The article does not describe what to do if an over-eager engineer reproduced the problem and now needs to remove or disable the root account.

How can this account be safely disabled or removed?

This Apple page describes how to disable the account but this does doesn't protect against the fault because the fault can just re-enable the account. It will work to restore the system to its normal state with root disabled once the security bug is fixed.

Update 2017-11-29 16:43 UTC

See About the security content of Security Update 2017-001 to update macOS High Sierra to protect from bypassing administrator authentication without supplying the administrator’s password.

Patch available, click here, or just update on the machine

Interestingly enough there is no patch for the beta and developer versions of OSX yet as far as I know. I'll update this answer as soon as I hear of them.

Download the patch above. Leaving the rest of the post for history :-)

The CVE is CVE-2017-13872 and NIST will update the analysis in the near future.

Original answer, relevant without patch

First off, do not disable the root account via the GUI, having a "disabled" root account is the cause of the problem.

You shall enable the root user and give it a password. This is important, since the vulnerability is available remotely as well, via VNC and Apple Remote Desktop (to name a few)(another source).

There are two basic ways to do this; GUI and terminal.

First off, GUI

To enable the root account, go to "Directory Utility", ie cmd + space and search. Press the lock to unlock "admin mode", then enable the root account through edit -> "Enable Root User".

It should ask for a root password, for now enter your normal password (so you don't forget it). If it doesn't ask for a password, use Edit -> "Change Root Password..." above.

Terminal

If you are more of a terminal person, use the below:

sudo passwd -u root
## Enter passwords as needed....
## (if you are using the terminal you should know what you are doing...)

This is enough with a terminal, the problem with the GUI way is that we have to enable the account to set a password, which we don't have to with the terminal.

Notes

Even if you have a password set for the root account your computer it will become vulnerable if you disable the root account. The action of disabling the root account  seems to be the culprit. So I repeat, the root user should be enabled and have a password if using the GUI, whilst via terminal only using ´passwd´ is "ok" (although this state is unreachable via only the GUI). It seems that the "Disable Root User" in "Directory Utility" removes the password for the root account, in a sense giving you a password-less root account which is vulnerable.

It seems like trying to log in with "root" in a systems login-window enables the root account if it is disabled previously. Ie with a disabled root account you need to enter root twice in a systems login-windows to gain root access, and (according to my testing) on the first try the root account is enabled (with no password if not set via passwd), and on the second try you go through.

It seems that the issue has been in the open since at least 2017-11-13 (13th of November), when it is mentioned in the Apple support forum.

Please prove me wrong, I would really appreciate to be wrong right now.

Scary update

After enabling the passwordless root account (i.e. through the system preferences panel and clicking a "lock" and entering "root" with blank password one, two or three times (number of times depends on initial state)) it is possible to log on to the computer from the main login screen using "root" and a blank password (!). SSH / Telnet does not seem to work, but Apple Remote Desktop, Screen Sharing and VNC are vulnerable.

So for networks admins it might be of interest to temporarily drop packets to the following ports:

5900-5905(ish, to be ninja safe) to get the most common VNC ports. VNC starts at 5900 by default and enumerates upwards if you are using multiple displays (uncommon though). Screen Sharing and Apple Remote Desktop also seems to use these ports (list of Apple software ports)
3283 and 5988 for Apple Remote Desktop (list of Apple software ports)

Additional reading:

A valiant attempt to reference other sources dealing with the issue. Do edit and update my answer if you have more.

Hackernews article
Arstechnica article
Techcrunch article
Objective-See blog explaining the fault (I haven't updated this answer to fully match the technical explanation, will do that tonight, but it is close enough for a layman)
MITRE page for CVE
NIST entry for CVE
The original entry from 2017-11-13 in Apple developer forums (since 2017-11-30 removed by Apple)
Google cache link to original entry in Apple developer forums (since 2017-12-01 removed from Google cache)
Screenshot of above forumpost by chethan177:


Deleting messages only once on IPad IPhone, and mail account I have an email account and get emails in my Comcast email list, and on the list on my IPhone and IPad. So, if I want to delete a message, I need to delete it on all three.  Is there a way to sync the deletion of a message so if I delete it on one device it is deleted on the others?

It sounds like you are using a POP3 type email account. Unfortunately, using native (built in) apps, I don't know of any way to sync across your devices. Deleting emails multiple times is indeed something that can be a major pain.

One usability thing you probably use all the time, but just in case you haven't seen it is the fact that you can tap the edit button on an iOS device (upper right) and tap the emails listed to quickly delete emails. This is faster then swiping each email.

Also, if it is possible (if the Comcast email is just personal and you have a choice where to host your email), you could switch to a Gmail type IMAP service. This automatically stores all your email in the cloud and will sync across all your devices.


Private WiFi network between OSX and Android I want to use a remote control app for presentations I'm giving offsite, using my Android phone as a remote for my MacBook. (the software is Unified Remote)

I have no guarantee that I can access a WiFi network offsite (or that there will even be one), so I wanted to keep things simple and just setup a private AdHoc network.

To my dismay, I have discovered that Androids do not recognise the AdHoc network created by MacBooks.

What other viable solutions are there?

I have to give presentations often, so I'm hoping for a solution that is easily switchable between normal WiFi use and "presentation mode".

Other options I've looked into
Using the connection sharing under Sharing -> Internet, but as I have no other active connection, this is disabled.

I've tried the solutions listed in this Stack Overflow question but they seem to be windows only.

Other than your self-found answer, my suggestion would have been to get an Airport Express base station and take it with you all the time.  All it is requiring is an extra power outlet.

Any other router would possibly do as well, but the Airport Express is fairly small and fits into almost every pocket.

Since you frequently do presentations and it can be used at home or elsewhere as well, the price tag would not be too bad either.


Catalina Trusted Root CA certificates are revoked - Chrome I have a trusted self-signed root CA named CA and I use that to sign a certificate for my local website, before I install CA's certificate and trust that, chrome shows me an error about the site SSL certificate ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID:

So I install the root CA certificate and mark that as trusted, now chrome gives me an error about ERR_CERT_REVOKED but shows the certificate as a valid certificate!

After I installed my CA certificate, firefox trusts my website's certificate with no problem.

I'm using macOS Catalina and Chrome 78.

I just figured out that macOS Catalina has a limitation on a certificate validity dates (and some other things), a certificate can't have a validity period more than 825 days and my certificate was valid for about 5 years.

So I regenerate my certificate and replace the old one with a certificate that
 has a smaller validity period and everything is working fine now!

According to apple's support page, a TLS certificate should meet this requirement:

The key size must be at least 2048 bits.
Hash algorithm must be SHA-2 or newer.
DNS names must be in a SubjectAltName, not in the CN field only.

and if certificates are issued after July 1, 2019:

The ExtendedKeyUsage extension must be present, with the id-kp-ServerAuth OID.
The validity period should be less than 825 days.


What are the default special folder names for IMAP accounts in Mail.app (like Drafts, Junk, Sent)? I'm setting up my own email server. Clients will connect to this server using IMAP.

Nowadays it's possible to map the correct 'special' folders on the server to the local client (like Drafts, Junk, and Sent). However, because the majority of the devices connecting to my server will use Mail.app (or Mail on iOS), it'd be nice if the default folder names on the server correspond to the names Mail.app uses (so I don't have to remap the folders on all devices).

Therefore, my question is: what are the special folders names Mail.app uses by default?

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) defines that in a proper RFC, the RFC 6154. There you will find a list of special use mailbox denominations:

   \All
      This mailbox presents all messages in the user's message store.
      Implementations MAY omit some messages, such as, perhaps, those
      in \Trash and \Junk.  When this special use is supported, it is
      almost certain to represent a virtual mailbox.

   \Archive
        This mailbox is used to archive messages.  The meaning of an
        "archival" mailbox is server-dependent; typically, it will be
        used to get messages out of the inbox, or otherwise keep them
        out of the user's way, while still making them accessible.

   \Drafts
        This mailbox is used to hold draft messages -- typically,
        messages that are being composed but have not yet been sent.  In
        some server implementations, this might be a virtual mailbox,
        containing messages from other mailboxes that are marked with
        the "\Draft" message flag.  Alternatively, this might just be
        advice that a client put drafts here.

   \Flagged
        This mailbox presents all messages marked in some way as
        "important".  When this special use is supported, it is likely
        to represent a virtual mailbox collecting messages (from other
        mailboxes) that are marked with the "\Flagged" message flag.

   \Junk
        This mailbox is where messages deemed to be junk mail are held.
        Some server implementations might put messages here
        automatically.  Alternatively, this might just be advice to a
        client-side spam filter.

   \Sent
        This mailbox is used to hold copies of messages that have been
        sent.  Some server implementations might put messages here
        automatically.  Alternatively, this might just be advice that a
        client save sent messages here.

   \Trash
        This mailbox is used to hold messages that have been deleted or
        marked for deletion.  In some server implementations, this might
        be a virtual mailbox, containing messages from other mailboxes
        that are marked with the "\Deleted" message flag.
        Alternatively, this might just be advice that a client that
        chooses not to use the IMAP "\Deleted" model should use this as
        its trash location.  In server implementations that strictly
        expect the IMAP "\Deleted" model, this special use is likely not
        to be supported.


Add data point in Health app Is there a way to add a data point for steps and workouts in the Apple Health app in iOS 10? I cannot find it.

From the main screen (Health Data), tap on Activity, then the item you want to add a data point for (Steps, Walking + Running Distance, etc.)

From there, tap on the + in the upper-right hand corner and you can enter a new data point.


iPhone 7 Plus Battery Life draining? I feel like my iPhone 7 Plus battery life has gotten seriously bad at the point where I sometimes run trough 2 full charges a day.

I got the iPhone in mid-November.

I get between 4-5 hours of usage time and maybe 10-12 hours of standby.
And I wouldn't really say I'm giving it a heavy load.

I don't really have much push notifications enabled. The main push notification is Gmail really which I get between 10-15 notifications a day.

What do you guys think? I've read a lot of people getting at least 7 hours of usage under a more heavy load.

How many cycles do you have on the battery? If you have lost >20% of your
full charge less than ~200 cycles in, your phone is defective and eligible for service.

Failing that, you can go to the Battery tab of Settings and see which apps drain your battery the most. Quit any ones you don't need by double-clicking the home button and swiping up on them.

You can always enable Low-power mode all the time if necessary.

P.S. I have a 7+, and I get a full day (8+ hrs) between Clash Royale, texting, and the occasional web page.


Color changing of the window title bar Is it possible to change the color of the window title bar (possibly with Terminal.app) like in Firefox?

If you would like a GUI, then CrystalClear might be for you. However, it is a bit outdated. Geektool is another great alternative, however you will have to find the modules yourself.


How to exclude docker files from time machine backups I don't need back up of my docker files. How do i exclude them from time machine backups
I see people mentioning /Users/david/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker folder but that does not exists on my machine.

Docker engine version: 20.10.2 running on
Big Sur: 11.2

Update: Found the location
My virtual machine appears to be here. I added it to the list of folders to be excluded. However that folder is not shown in the Time Machine UI.

tmutil addexclusion  /Users/david/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/

I use the generic addexclusion clause of tmutil to make files not get backed up even if I move or copy them.
Open a Finder window to the files and a command line prompt (terminal.app is fine for this) and drag that file into the prompt after typing tmutil addexclusion and press enter. Here you can see me checking files on the desktop of a user named mike...
mike@m1 ~ % tmutil isexcluded /Users/mike/Desktop/Docker\ Files
[Included]    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/mike/Desktop/Docker Files
mike@m1 ~ % tmutil addexclusion /Users/mike/Desktop/Docker\ Files
mike@m1 ~ % tmutil isexcluded /Users/mike/Desktop/Docker\ Files
[Excluded]    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/mike/Desktop/Docker Files


How to change the Organiser for Family Sharing I have set up Family Sharing on my daughter's iPad Pro and I am the Organiser. I also added my daughter as a family member. How can I delete myself as the Organiser and add my wife instead? I hope after doing that my wife can replace my bank details with hers.

The only way to change the person who is responsible for the payment method (in other words, change the Organizer) is to turn off Family Sharing and have the new person start it over again.

In the Settings app go to iCloud then tap on Family, then your account in the list at the top, then Stop Sharing. This will disband the family.

At this point, your wife can go to the same location (Settings > iCloud > Family) to start Family Sharing again with her account as the Organizer. This will then use her selected payment method for any charges made by the Family members.

Your daughter's account will have to be re-invited to the family. Your wife can also invite your account and once you accept, mark you as a Parent so that purchase requests from your daughter will go to both you and your wife.


A question about syncing the IPad with Win XP and Win 8.1 I use an IPad, a Windows XP SP3 desktop and a Windows 8.1 laptop. I usually use the IPad and I delete emails from there. I do not know how to sync all three of these machines to get rid of the deleted emails and update everything else. Can someone tell me how to do this? I am new at this syncing thing.

Are you using POP3 or IMAP for your email?

If your service is POP3, then each machine will download emails unread by that machine, up to the retention limit of the mail server.
This means that you will always have to manually delete each email from each machine.

There is the possibility that you can adjust the retention limit, to reduce the amount of backlog that is downloaded. The retention period usually starts after the first device has downloaded that particular message, so you don't lose any mail if no machine picks up messages for a few days etc. You would need to ask your Service Provider how to do that.

If you use IMAP, then the emails actually always live on the remote server, so any action you take will be reflected across any machine that accesses that remote data.

Which of those services you use is usually not choosable by the user, it's in the hands of your Service Provider.


Where is Active Directory configuration information stored? I'm curious as to where Active Directory configurations are stored on Mac OS X 10.6. "man dsconfigad" and "man dscl" are both silent on where those utilities store/read their information.

In particular, I want to find where the AD binding authentication information is stored (hopefully securely?).

The config info for the Active Directory connector is all in /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService, in a bunch of files with names starting with "ActiveDirectory".  The one with the bind info has file permissions set so only root can read it.  There's also some related info in other files (e.g. that the AD connector is enabled, and its inclusion in the search policies), but most of it's right there.


Files missing after doing disk repair I have an NTFS external disk,

And I followed a stupid tutorial, it told me to repair my disk then I can delete the 'un-deletable' files in the NTFS external disk.

However, When I done the repair-disk, the files on the disk were missing.

But it seems all the files are still existing on the disk,

But couldn't be seen on OSX and Windows 7 (I used the parallel to inspect the disk)

How could I recovery the data on the disk, thanks T_T

I experienced this exact problem yesterday. I fixed it by putting the ntfs drive onto a PC and searching for the files. They had all just been moved, not deleted--very strange. Also, running a disk error check in windows after to clean up any straggling issues.


Faster way to expand submenus using keyboard Consider the nested menus structure (from Intellij) as shown in the screenshot:

Using the right arrow key will cause the Find submenu to expand. But the right arrow key is inconvenient/slow to reach.

In Linux/Windows the Menu actually opens automatically: is there some faster key combination  - than the awkward ^F2-<E>-<F>-<Right Arrow Key> way to nudge OS/X to "move along" a bit faster?

Note: Intellij has over 150 menu items so comments/answers like "Why not use Hotkeys?" are naive/impractical.

Why don't you use hotkeys from that menu? ⌘F, ⌘R etc.

Use Control + ]


iPhone restarts whenever a call is made I updated my iPhone yesterday and now whenever I take or make a call my phone restarts itself.

It was updated via iTunes on my computer. Each phone call can last between 1 - 10 minutes.
I've never had this problem before.

Sounds like either a bug or the update didn't work properly.

That said, you should re-apply the update using these instructions from Apple support.


Macbook Air Logitech K120 USB Keyboard auto remapping problem I'm having an issue with my 2013 MacBook Air. From day one, I've been using my Logitech K120 USB keyboard with it, and it worked flawlessly from first plug, no problem at all.

I've been a month away from home, carrying my MacBook only, no usb keyboard.

Now I'm back home and keyboard seems to be crazy. For instance, Home key and Page Up work now as Brightness- and Brightness+.

My layout is spanish QWERTY, by the way. Other keys malfunctioning, are ºª\ key (top left key) is working as >< key (left to Z key, next to bottom left).

I don't know what's causing this, and I don't see any setting where it may have been changed.

And Google isn't helping either, so you guys are pretty much my only hope.

Thanks in advance!

I think best solution it's made your own keyboard layout with Ukelele.

I solved the problem that interchange "ºª" and "<>" key behaviour on Genius keyboard.
https://github.com/equiman/ukelele-es-layout/blob/master/README.md

Maybe can help you too.


I want to update an app but it asks for another Apple ID Yes, this is asked a lot, but most people suggest deleting the app and re-installing it with your own Apple ID. I can't do that, because I have made serious progress and I lose it all if I do that. You can't connect to the app through Game Center etc, so I can't transfer data that way either.

What can I do?

You have but two choices...

Use the Apple ID & password that was originally used to download the app.
Delete the app & re-download it under your own Apple ID.

There is no 3.


How do I enter superscript text with Preview's PDF annotation feature? I can add text to existing PDF files with Preview. But how do I enter superscript text like 123m2 ?

This normally works by selecting the appropriate menu entry

or shortcut, but I don't find such an entry with Preview and the shortcut does not work either.

I think you need to input Unicode superscripts via the Character Viewer or a text replacement shortcut.  Superscript 2 is U+00B2  ²


Use iPod touch to connect phone to car stereo I have a iPod touch 4, paired to Boss 758DBI in-dash car stereo. Why can't I use Bluetooth on iPod to pair my phone?

Would like to do this so that I can have a handsfree conversation through my car stereo.
My iPod has a built-in mic and Bluetooth and a dock in my car.

Bluetooth devices are designed to function under certain "profiles". This is what allows a headset to work with Skype versus Bluetooth headphones which might work with iTunes. Apple's iOS uses very restrictive setup with their Bluetooth profiles. Because of this you cannot pair an iPod touch to a mobile phone.

Here is a list of the supported Bluetooth profiles: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3647


assassin creed brotherhood : mac requirement I have a early 2011 Macbook pro with graphic card as Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB, will Assassin creed : brotherhood run on this Mac version.

Yes, it will, but the graphics card is not supported by the game manufacturer.


Contacts on my iPhone 6S not appearing on iCloud on my Windows 10 PC I have a new iPhone 6s. My contacts are Google and are all on my iPhone. I cannot see my iPhone contacts in iCloud on my Windows 10 PC to let me prepare Group contacts for my iPhone.

If your contacts are stored on Google then you will not be able to see your contacts in iCloud because that is not where they are stored.  Unfortunately syncing groups between Google and your iPhone is not possible without an app to do so.  Here is one such app that you can use that will allow you to sync your Google groups with iPhone.

Google Contact Sync

Otherwise you will have to organize the groups on your phone directly.


Why does the "hand" cursor in macOS have three vertical lines? What are the three vertical bars in the middle of the cursor supposed to represent?

It's a housekeeping, or butler's glove - similar to the ones Mickey Mouse wears.
The 'indentation' actually is on the underside in real life, & is usually a button-fastener, but liberty has been taken to give a more skeuomorphic look.
A tradition since at least Victorian times. A symbol of cleanliness & discreet, professional service.

More images at Alamy - https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/white-gloves-butler.html


Homebrew: Rollback from Python 3.7 to Python 3.6.5.x? A brew upgrade upgraded my system Python to Python 3.7. Unfortunately, Python 3.7 breaks other software I need to use (including but not limited to Ansible). I imagine these problems will be worked out in the next week or so, but in the meantime, I'd like to rollback to Python 3.6.5.x

A brew info python shows that previous versions are still installed and not purged:

➜ brew info python
python: stable 3.7.0 (bottled), HEAD
Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language
https://www.python.org/
/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.5 (4,825 files, 100.8MB)
  Poured from bottle on 2018-03-31 at 20:21:57
/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.5_1 (4,788 files, 99.9MB)
  Poured from bottle on 2018-06-20 at 16:00:26
/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.7.0 (4,869 files, 103.3MB)
  Poured from bottle on 2018-07-01 at 19:30:37
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/python.rb

Various brew link and brew install commands that are suggested by other sites don't seem to work:

➜ brew link python@3.6.5
Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/python@3.6.5
➜ brew link python@3.6.5_1
Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/python@3.6.5_1
➜ brew install python@3.6.5
Error: No available formula with the name "python@3.6.5"
==> Searching for a previously deleted formula (in the last month)...
Error: No previously deleted formula found.
==> Searching for similarly named formulae...
==> Searching local taps...
Error: No similarly named formulae found.
==> Searching taps...
==> Searching taps on GitHub...
Error: No formulae found in taps.

If you still have the previous versions available, you can just use

brew switch python 3.6.5_1


iPhone won't connect to wifi but iPad do My home network is same and so is the setting, I been using it for months my net connection but today my mother iPhone and my iPhone couldn't connect to home wifi. But my iPad is working fine. I didn't change any setting in iPhone, when I try to connect, it shows busy icon and that's it.
What can be wrong?

This probably happens because some of the wireless settings have gone wrong. It's hard to tell exactly what went wrong without more information, but you can reset your network settings by the following:

Go to Settings > General > Reset Network Settings.

Then try connecting to your wifi again.

(or you could try turning the iPad off and on again :)


When will my Mac (13inch MacBook Pro Mid 2013) become a un serviceable product in California? When will products purchased in California become un-serviceable?  This question answers the question in places for most cases.

According to their warranty

  Products purchased in the state of California, United States, as
  required by statute

source

So it appears that items are serviced and are repaired longer in California yes?

Residents of California can obtain service and or parts for up to 7 years under the Song Beverly Consumer Warranty Act.

First, what Apple terms "vintage" and "obsolete" are not in anyway bound legally to what California law provides for.  For the record, Song-Beverly provides for manufacturers making parts available for up to 7 years; Apple can, in it's discretion, make "Vintage" in 8 years.

Secondly, the law only allows for replacement parts and service information be made available.

  Every  manufacturer making an express warranty with respect to an
  electronic or  appliance product described in subdivision (h), (i),
  (j), or (k) of Section 9801 of the  Business and Professions Code,
  with a wholesale price to the retailer of one hundred  dollars ($ 100)
  or more, shall make available to service and repair facilities
  sufficient  service literature and functional parts to effect the
  repair of a product for at least seven  years after the date a product
  model or type was manufactured, regardless of whether the seven
  - year period exceeds the warranty period for the product

To put this in layman's terms, see:  Sold a defective electronic device? California Law Protects You

  To be clear, the law does not force manufacturers to replace an
  electronic device that no longer works. Instead, the law requires
  expressly warranted electronic goods to have replacement parts
  available to consumers and service information available that allows
  enough information for repairs.

What's most important here, is the context of that warranty point you brought up:

  Products purchased in the state of California, United States, as
  required by statute.

  Owners of vintage Mac products may obtain service and parts from Apple service providers within the state of California, United States.

(emphasis mine)

TL;DR

The Song Beverly Consumer Warranty Act says that the manufacturer (Apple) must make available parts and service information for up to 7 years on your electronic device (MacBook) that was purchased in the state of California.  This doesn't extend the warranty to 7 years.


Could you help me to identify this font? I'm looking to reproduce the font for the red text Selin ve Sercan to use on OS X.

It is very important to find this font's name for me. Does anyone know the exact name of this font?

According to WhatFontIs, seems to be In And Out Black:

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fenotype/in-and-out/black/


How can I show the full notifications in the notification center? I cannot read the full notification (see attached). How can I?

Notification Center limits the size of a notification to 256 bytes (see developer reference), so there is no way to expand or change how much of a notification you see (unless you can find some third-party application that disables the limit).

After 256 bytes, the notification will be truncated and the user has to click on the notification to see the rest.

For example, if Mail.app sends you a notification of a new message, you likely won't be able to read the whole message from the notification, so you'll have to click on it to open the message in Mail.

However, if the notification is purely informative and does not point to a specific piece of data within the application, when you click on the notification, it will only open the application or, if it is already running, bring it to the foreground.

Terminal is not a UI-based application, so notifications from it are not going to focus on a specific element. A notification from Terminal will simply open the application because its notifications are plaintext messages from the application that don't point to a specific UI element or piece of data.


What is iTunes Error 13019? I am trying to help someone sync their IPhone 4 to their desktop computer, in order to make a backup of their info (contacts, their numbers, calendar dates and such). This person has an IPhone 4 running IOS 4.3, and is using Windows XP.

Unfortunately, whenever we try to sync, Itunes gives a message box saying that it could not sync to the IPhone (error 13019).

Does anyone know what this code means, and if so, anyway to fix it?

Please note that this most likely isn't a problem with ITunes, seeing as we just downloaded it specifically for this, about 5 minutes ago, with the latest software from the website.

Thank you.

The Apple Support Page for this error (now a broken link), "iTunes: Error 13019 during sync," gives quite a few solutions. The first one is to make sure you're on the most recent version of iTunes (which you stated that you are). On that page, you'll notice that there are some drop-down arrows that reveal more suggestions. The second one tells you to disable Voice Memo syncing. There are some more helpful procedures there if the voice memos aren't the issue.

  Resolution

  Update to the latest version of iTunes. The latest version of iTunes can be downloaded from this page. If updating to latest version of iTunes does not resolve the issue, continue:

  Error occurs while syncing music

  The error will most commonly occur while syncing music. This issue can be resolved by following these steps:

  Select the device name in iTunes under Devices.
  Click the Music tab and under the Sync music option, choose Selected playlists.
  Deselect the Voice Memos playlist.
  Click Apply and then click Sync.

  If the above steps do not resolve the issue, check the device and the iTunes library for duplicate voice memos. If you find any duplicate voice memos, delete the duplicates and then sync.

  If those steps do not resolve the issue, then follow these steps:

  Select the device name in iTunes under Devices.
  Click the Music tab and deselect the Sync Music option.
  Click Apply and then click Sync.
  After the sync is complete, reselect the Sync Music option.
  Click Apply and then click Sync.

  Test in a new user account

  If the steps above do not resolve the issue, attempt to sync with iTunes while logged in as a new admin user. Follow these steps to create a new administrator user:

  Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7

  From the Start menu, choose Control Panel.
  Open User Accounts.
  Select Create a new account and follow the instructions to complete the account setup 4. process.
  Once the new account is created, choose Log Off from the Start menu.
  Log in to the newly created user account.

  Mac OS X

  From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
  Choose View > Accounts.
  Click the "+" (you may need to authenticate to be able to click this).
  Give the new user account a name and short name and enter a password.
  Select the checkbox for "Allow user to administer this computer". This makes the user an admin user.
  Click Create Account.
  Log out and then log in to the new account.

  If the error does not occur in the new user account, other content is causing the error. Proceed to the next section.

  If the error does occur in the new user account, the issue may be caused by content downloaded or created on the device, such as podcasts and voice memos. Removing content from the device may address the issue.
  Error occurs while syncing other content

  If the error occurs while syncing content other than music (applications, podcasts, and so on), perform the same steps as above, but deselect the content that stops the sync. Deselect one type of content, then attempt to sync. Continue until you sync without error. Deselect Apps last, since restoring your Apps would take longer than restoring other content.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2830


Macbook Pro cannot automatically detect external monitor automatically after I unplug external monitor when it is sleeping My late-2013 13'' (Retina & OS X 10.9.4 (13E28)) Macbook Pro can not automatically detect external displays after wakes up, if I pull the display‘s plug out during sleep.

1) connect Macbook to my dell display

2) put Macbook into sleep state via apple menu

3) pull the display's plug out while Macbook is sleeping

4) wake up Macbook

After these procedures above, My Macbook cannot automatically detect the remove of external monitor. The Arrangement option card is still there in Display section of the System Preferences and the cursor can still move out of the edge of internal screen just as the external monitor is connoted.

When I then pull the plug and plug it back in, it finds its old configs and fixes the arrangement. Also, I can manually click Detect Displays to fix this problem.

I have tried to reset SMC and PRAM but doesn't work.

By the way, if I check Mirror Displays checkbox in Display Preferences after I weak up my Macbook from sleep, the system will halt and automatically reboot. I think the reason which causes reboot is the conflict between the system tries to mirror display and there is no one external display.

Does anyone experiences the same issue?

I apologise for my poor English.....

I have the same behaviour with exception of the Automatic reboot (it does not do that).

I explain it this way.

When going to sleep mode Mac will create a Sleep image of the system status/configuration.

It is not monitoring the external devices during the sleep.

If you disconnect the monitor during the sleep it will not know that.

When it wakes up it will load the sleep image containing the system profile and is looking for the monitor and can not find it.

So far everything is normal.

I do not know why does it reboot on Mirror Display? For that please provide the Console log at that time stamp so we can look ofr the reason.


Applescript to find and add specific contacts to a group I tried to re-jig the applescript from these two answers, but no dice. It seems to work if you're creating contacts at the same time, but not when finding existing contacts.
tell application "Contacts"
    set thePersons to {"john@email.com"} as list
    set theGroup to group "MyGroup"
    repeat with thePerson in thePersons
        delay 0.1
        set theContact to (first person whose value of last email contains thePerson)
        add theContact to theGroup
    end repeat
end tell

The above runs without error, but nothing happens, no one is added. I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing wrong.
The goal is to produce an applescript where I can just provide a list of emails and it'll find/add them to a specified group.

This is one way to do get the syntax right for this task:
to addContactsByEmail:(e_mails as list) toNamedGroup:(group_name as text)
        local e_mails, group_name
        tell application id "com.apple.AddressBook"
                set target_group to the group named group_name
                repeat with e_mail in the e_mails
                        tell (the first person whose e_mail is in the ¬
                               value of its emails) to if exists then ¬
                               add it to the target_group
                end repeat
                save
        end tell
end addContactsByEmail:toNamedGroup:

I've also wrapped it in a handler to be called as a re-usable code block, e.g.
my addContactsByEmail:{"foo@bar.com", "people@desks.com"} toNamedGroup:"Imaginary Friends"

You may wish to add some error-handling to cover the situations where the specified named group doesn't exist.  Currently, it'll throw an error (the same as yours would), but you could either elect to exist the handler gracefully if the group doesn't exist; or to create the group automatically.


Change the location of Chrome notifications? Chrome notifications are by default in the top right corner, and native notifications cover them.

It does not appear possible to change the location of native Notification Center alerts:
Change location of macOS Notification Center alerts?

Is there any way to change the location of Chrome notifications so that they are not covered by native notifications? I'm using MacOS Sierra.

The only workaround I've found so far is to set Chrome to use native macOS notifications, but these notifications doesn't hold all the information of the original Chrome notifications.

This isn't possible right now, with Chrome's notifications or with native macOS notifications — they're stuck in the top right.

This functionality used to exist on Windows, but isn't possible now, and there don't appear to be any plans for its implementation.


Why isn't iTunes starting on my mac? I am trying to figure out why iTunes is not starting on my mac.  When I double-click on iTunes.app in the finder, I get the usual animation of the icon indicating that the app is starting, but then nothing happens.

Digging a little deeper, I see the following entries being created in the console:

2015-05-10 7:21:11.710 PM pkd[445]: com.apple.message.domain: com.apple.appextension.state
com.apple.message.action: Uninstalled
com.apple.message.name: com.apple.iTunes.today.TodayExtension-1.0
com.apple.message.reorder_direction: 0
com.apple.message.source: Apple
com.apple.message.type: com.apple.widget-extension
SenderMachUUID: 58242545-21FA-3D58-8722-ED1C2E256DB6

2015-05-10 7:21:11.720 PM pkd[445]: com.apple.message.domain: com.apple.appextension.state
com.apple.message.action: Installed
com.apple.message.name: com.apple.iTunes.today.TodayExtension-12.1.2.27
com.apple.message.reorder_direction: 0
com.apple.message.source: Apple
com.apple.message.type: com.apple.widget-extension
SenderMachUUID: 58242545-21FA-3D58-8722-ED1C2E256DB6

This pair of entries is created each time I double-click. There is no other indication that I can see on why iTunes is not starting.

I have recently re-downloaded and installed version 12.1.2 from apple and continue to have the same problem.

I am running Yosemite version 10.10.3 and I can provide any other information that may be useful. Does anyone have any ideas?

EDIT:

Logged in as Guest User and experiencing the same behavior.

Other seemingly related apps (eg- iBooks, keynote, app store, photos) have no trouble opening either as the regular user or as the guest user.

I have a workaround. Not a fix, but something that allows me to open itunes.  I've created this bash alias:

alias itunes='/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes --x &'

Now, whenever I type itunes in the terminal, the application opens.

The --x option is not valid AFAIK. For some reason, passing a command line option kicks iTunes to  open. When passing no parameters, iTunes does not open.

I cannot explain this behavior and would appreciate an explanation if anyone has one.

I'm going to try @Tetsujin's suggestion to see if it provides a complete fix.


Is there a way to register more fingerprints for TouchID on a MacBook? It seems strange to me I can only register 3 finger prints for TouchID on my new 2016 MacBook Pro.

Is there any way to get macOS to allow for more?

Note: I know with iPhones you could fool it by alternating fingers back and forth while registering them and may try that, but 3 just seem bizarrely limiting.

Preempting the person that asks why? I place my MacBook on a rain stand regularly to the left of my external monitor and it'd be easier to use my left had to reach the sensor...  coupled with the face that I occasionally do things (usually twisting copper wires) the chews up the finger prints on my index finger...  all together it'd be nice to register middle, index and thumb on BOTH hands.

One option it to alternate fingers back and forth while registering them.
ie. place your right index one press, then right middle one press, then right index again for one press, etc... Do that the same when you get to the edges. You'll be able to unlock using either finger stored in a single memory location.

I currently use this, it does work, I've heard of people registering several finger prints to a single location on iOS. I'd rather register them discretely though, hence why I asked this question.

I suspect it's accuracy goes down as the number of finger prints goes up, but I haven't seen that with just two prints on one memory slot.


Does the AirPod Case, or headphones when in the case, emit a bluetooth ID? I'm concerned about privacy and don't want my airpods (or the case) to emit the bluetooth ID while I'm shopping in malls that use iBeacon technology.

How can I be sure that the airpods (when stored in the case), and the case itself doesn't leak out a Bluetooth ID while I roam?

When the case is closed with both AirPods inside, you can't locate the AirPods. It will only show the last know location which is when the AirPods were last connected to a paired device. So no Bluetooth is not emitting if the AirPods are in a case. Technically they are turned off.

If you want to test them you can place them in a case and then check for bluetooth signal or go to find my iPhone and see if you can locate them. It will only give last known location.


How to play AVI files on MacBook Pro Using GoPro software, I had imported videos to PC. However when I bought a new macbook pro, I transferred all files onto an external Hard Drive. They are currently in .avi format. I am struggling to play the video files on the MacBook, as the file type is not supported.

How can i play .avi files ?

VideoLAN's VLC is the way to go here, I haven't found a movie file that it can't play.