How do I pass the following error message in the Boot Camp Assistant: "Please format the USB drive as single FAT partition."? I am running the Boot Camp Assistant on El Capitan. Whenever I reach the third screen, titled "Save Windows Support Software", on which I can select an storage medium to save the Windows support software to, I am shown the following error message upon selecting a disk and hitting "Continue":  "Please format the USB drive as single FAT partition.".

I am using a Transcend 16GB USB drive. I have formatted it as FAT through Disk Utility. I have tried every possible partition scheme. I have also tried formatting the drive as Ex-Fat, again in combination with all three partition schemes. I keep seeing the error message. There seem to be a fair number of people who have encountered the same issue, and for some it was resolved by formatting the drive as FAT with a MBR partition scheme. For others however this did not work.

Any advice on how to make the Boot Camp Assistant accept my USB drive would be much appreciated.

After some trial and error, I finally figured out what the problem was and found a solution. Hopefully this will help those who come across this thread with the same problem.

The problem: Reformatting using Disk Utility did not create a child partition, but only formatted the whole drive as FAT. In Disk Utility one can derive this from the "Partition" button being greyed out when the USB drive is selected. In Terminal, the diskutil list command shows the USB drive having only one DeviceNode (labelled 0).

The solution: Reformatting the USB drive using diskutil in Terminal. This is the command line equivalent of Disk Utility, but unlike its GUI Counterpart, it creates a child partition, which in turn solves the error thrown by Boot Camp Assistant.

WARNING: Proceed with caution! If you have never used a command line interface before, you might want to ask a tech-savvy friend for help. I take no responsibility for the outcome of this. If you fry your hardware in the process, that's on you. Good luck!

Stepwise:

Open the Terminal application. You can find it by searching Spotlight for "Terminal" (sans quotes).
In Terminal, type diskutil list and hit enter.
Look at the results and determine the identifier of your target USB drive. It will look like this: /dev/diskX. If you have only one external drive connected, this should be easy to figure out (hint: behind the identifier it says (internal, ...) or (external, ...)).
Run the following command to reformat your USB drive: diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskX 1 MBR fat32 NAME 8G. Replace /dev/diskX with the identifier of your drive which you obtained in the previous step. Replace NAME with the name you want to give the partition (which essentially doesn't matter). Make it all CAPS to avoid problems. Replace 8 in 8G with the number of Gigabytes you want your partition to have. It's easiest to just go with the total size of your USB drive.
Wait for it to complete.
Verify the output. The end of the command's output should show the formatting of your drive. You should see two DeviceNodes: 0, of type FDisk_partition_scheme, and 1, of type DOS_FAT_32 and with the identifier diskXs1 where X is a digit corresponding to the identifier you found in step 3.
Run Boot Camp Assistant again and be happy because it finally works like a charm.


OS X El Capitan how to stop mail opening (many) popup windows for calendar notifications? I deleted a calendar within a two days full of events (325).

Now when I open mail I get a lot of new messages windows opening in the screen that completely stop mail usage. I believe that the invalid "from" address raises the problem asking for the user intervention, so a lot of popup mail alerts are shown on the screen completely, at least hundreds of them.

How to stop or delete this sending queue that prevents the mail app usage?

This is a copy/paste from my own answer at https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/174732/85275 with slight modifications

Changes per OS...
Since Sierra, Mail is in V4
Since El Capitan, Mail is in V3
All the rest will be the same.
If your machine has been upgraded through these OSes, you may have all 3 folders.

Try clearing the saved state, rebuilding & reindexing the database...

Clear Saved State

Switch to Finder,  Cmd ⌘   N  for a new window, then  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   G  for Go To...
copy/paste ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.mail.savedState then  Enter ⌅
This is an alias to the real location, so Right-click & Show Original
Delete the entire com.apple.mail.savedState folder.

Rebuild; Re-index

Source: How to fix Apple Mail by rebuilding and reindexing the Mailbox

  Step 1: Rebuild
  Rebuilding a Mailbox in Mail sounds daunting but it really isn't.

  Launch Mail, select one of your mailboxes and click on the Mailbox menu. At the bottom of the pane choose the Rebuild option. If you have a large mailbox, you can expect the process to take a few hours.
  You must repeat this step for each one of your Mailboxes.
  While the process takes place, you may experience system performance lag, as it can consume a lot of system resources and memory.

  Another caveat, if you use IMAP or Exchange with any of the accounts, the process will redownload every message from the server, so you'll use a lot of bandwidth.

  Now that you've completed these steps, work with Mail a little longer. If you are still having issues, or Mail fails to launch, you should try a manual reindex.

  Step 2: Re-index

  Manual reindexing of Mail messages is the only way to go if the  application has become so unresponsive it barely works at all, search is not functioning correctly or the app won't launch.

  Mail will automatically attempt to reindex your messages if it detects problems with the mailboxes, but sometimes a manual reindex is the best option. If you are still having problems with Mail after following step one, try manual reindexing.

  Quit Mail if it’s open.
  To get to your home Library folder, hold down the Option key, then in the Finder choose Go > Library.
  In ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm. (Before you actually delete the files, it makes sense to copy them to a folder on your desktop.)
  Launch Mail and the app will build new Envelope Index files -- this can take a long time if there are numerous messages to go through.
  If everything seems to be working correctly, you can now delete the copies of the "Envelope Index" files from your desktop.

  In most cases, these two tips should solve most Mail problems


Is there a way to toggle startup sounds on a 2017 MacBook Pro? I've been a Mac user for a while, and I was really upset about the removal of the startup sounds in the new MacBooks post-2016. I was wondering if there was a way to turn the startup sound back on, or even edit the startup procedure to play a sound file. I currently am using a 2017 MacBook Pro 15-inch running macOS 10.12.6.

From terminal, run

sudo nvram BootAudio=%01

to change it back, just change 01 to 00 run the command again.


Mail cannot connect to google account, won't open once quit Pretty simple - mail showed as unable to check for new message (tilde by the inbox, etc.). The activity doctor confirmed it could connect to the internet but not the mail servers. Quitting mail and trying to re-open it resulted in the error "Mail cannot save information about your mailboxes because of a network problem."

I had this problem yesterday and restarting seemed to fix the issue. When it came back today I looked online but couldn't find any answers. A look in the console showed that the issue was not network related, but actually caused by low disk space. Sure enough, making some space on my drive ( . . .was down to the bytes) immediately fixed the issue.

Moral of the story: Keep your disk clean!


How does one type an "É" (capital e acute) in the French keyboard layout in Mac OS X? I've searched the web for a method to type an "É" character with a french keyboard layout in firefox.

It appears I'm supposed to type ⌥+E, and then ⇧+E to achieve this, but as soon as I press ⌥ and E simultaneously, an

ê

character appears. Why, and what should I tried instead?

I'm using Lion.

French layout?

Press caps lock ⇪.
Press the é key (that's the 2 on a QWERTY).
Press caps lock ⇪ again.

But you need to make sure you're using the French layout, and not French - numeric (“Français - numérique”, French flag with “123” beneath it).

Otherwise, you're explicitly asking the system to use the caps lock key as a shift lock for the numbers bar on the top of the keyboard!


Is it reasonable to buy a new Apple Watch even though you own an iPhone 8? I own an iPhone 8 and I am considering buying an Apple Watch SE (GPS, 44 mm). I have had my iPhone for a long time and I have replaced the battery once. In my opinion, the iPhone 8 works perfectly well. But I have been contemplating about getting a fitness watch for a long time now and I really wanna buy an Apple Watch, but is it a good idea? Will it not drain my phone battery when paired? And will all features on the watch be available?

Question: Should you buy an older Apple Watch if you own an iPhone 8?

iPhone 8 supports iOS 14 which is compatible with watchOS 7, the latest OS available. Therefore all the features of the new watch will be available without compromise compared to a new iPhone.
Your iPhone battery will not have any noticeable impact caused by an Apple Watch. Bluetooth is required for phone/watch  communication, which can use some small amount battery on any phone, and may be more of an impact on an older phone with worse battery life due to age.


Prevent Microsoft Office applications to follow desktop (Spaces) When I'm working on an office application such as Excel, Word, etc, and I switch to a different desktop (right or left) the application always follows.
The desired behavior, and what happens with most other applications, is that the app should stay in the previous desktop instead of being persistent and showing up again in the middle of the application that I want to switch to.

Any fix for this? I could not find it in the Preferences of Office.
This happened to me in Catalina, Office 2019 and previous versions of them.

Any Application can be set to one of three options by right clicking it in the Dock

All Desktops - will follow you to all Spaces as you describe
This Desktop - will permanently fix the App to that Space
None - will stay on whichever Space it is launched

These only work as expected if you don't try to open multiple documents in multiple Spaces & if you don't use apps in Full Screen.


How do I get my books on the iBook store? How do I get my books on the iBook store?

There is a portal on iTunes Connect which allows you to publish your books. There is a bit of a writeup about the process here.


SMC Fan Control Causing random freezing and crashing After experiencing crashing and freezing on 15" MacBook Pro 2017 (macOS High Sierra), I started eliminating running programs that I thought might be causing the crashing as advised by an apple support employee.

I immediately suspected that it might be smc fan control (A program that hasn't been updated since 2016)

After removing the program I noticed that the problems stopped.

However it is useful to pre-emptively turn fan speed up before using a resource intensive program. My lap has also threatened to leave me if I don't resolve this issue.

Has anyone else experienced this or am I alone? Are there other alternatives for fan control in osx.

Here is a short list of apps that you can try.  I've listed them by price (lowest to highest).  All of them specifically state that they support High Sierra.

SSD Fan Control (Free)
Macs Fan Control ($15)
TGPro ($18)
HDD Fan Control ($35)


What can I do when macOS does not boot an APFS volume anymore and I cannot unlock it? I have an SSD, which until this morning I booted from through an usb3-to-sata adapter. I shut the computer off, removed the drive and came back to the Macbook hanging on a black screen when trying to boot from it.

I have tried with both MacBook Pro 15-inch 2018 and a Mid-2012 13" model. They behave similarly in that nothing happens after pressing ALT during boot and selecting the volume. Both Macbooks have macOS Mojave on them.

Things I've tried

1

Booting a different volume and trying to mount the offending disk (e.g. via disk utility), this window appears:

But it does not allow me to actually enter a password.

2

I have also tried the following form the terminal:

diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk3s1

This prompts for the password, but fails with

Passphrase incorrect or user does not exist

although the passphrase is correct.

3

I then ran diskutil apfs listcryptousers /dev/disk3s1 and got this list:

Cryptographic user for disk3s1 (1 found)
|
+-- EBC6C064-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
    Type: Personal Recovery User

Not sure what this means, but I used the UUID to unlock the volume, to no avail:

$> diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk3s1 -user EBC6C064-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECA
Passphrase:
Unlocking the specific cryptographic user EBC6C064-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECA on APFS Volume disk3s1
Error unlocking APFS Volume: Malformed UUID (-69578)

At this point, I guess I have to erase the drive and restore it from backup, but macos recovery does not allow me to erase it without unlocking it. Seems to me I'm trapped by buggy software.
What can I do here? (even if it involves erasing the disk in question)?

Regarding the first attempt to simply use unlockVolume, please consider trying this variation instead:

diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/disk3s1 -user disk

Your attempt to unlock using the UUID failed, because you failed to enter the complete UUID. I don't know if you typed it in manually or used cut-n-paste, but you've missed the last letter "C" in the UUID - making it one character short.

I would try that command again with the full UUID - and remember that you're not supposed to enter your passphrase for the drive to unlock it with that UUID - instead you need to enter the personal recovery key. The personal recovery key was presented to you when you first enabled FileVault (I assume this drive was previously a boot drive) - and it takes the form of 24 upper cases alpha-numeric characters, grouped in 4 seperated by dashes. Something like AB1C-DEF2-G3HI-4JKL-MNO5-PQRS.

If the above fails, you can always erase everything on the drive completely, as you indicate this would be an acceptable option.

You can do that by opening Terminal.app and running the following command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk3 bs=1m

After it has finished, reboot the system so that it forgets the old partitioning information. Then you can use Disk Utility to add a partition table and format the drive.


Unable to install an update via the softwareupdate command line tool I am trying to install a macOS update from the  command line. Let's see what updates are available:
$/usr/sbin/softwareupdate -l
Software Update Tool

Finding available software
Software Update found the following new or updated software:
* Label: macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update-
    Title: macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update, Version:  , Size: 5099042K, Recommended: YES, Action: restart,

But what is the actual label? According to this resource https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/update-macos-terminal-command/ it is the exact wording:

So the analogous value here would be macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update- . However that does not work:
 $/usr/sbin/softwareupdate -i "macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update-"
Software Update Tool

macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update-: No such update
No updates are available.

I also tried some variants:
(python39) 10:25:21/~ $/usr/sbin/softwareupdate -i "macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update"
Software Update Tool

macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update: No such update
No updates are available.

$/usr/sbin/softwareupdate -i "macOS Catalina 10.15.7"
Software Update Tool

macOS Catalina 10.15.7: No such update
No updates are available.

So then how is the softwareupdate tool supposed to be used ?

As documented in the man page you need to use sudo to actually install software via softwareupdate. So in your case it's
sudo /usr/sbin/softwareupdate -i "macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update"

to install 10.15.7, or
sudo /usr/sbin/softwareupdate -ia

to install all available updates.


Downgrading from iOS 8.1 beta 2 to iOS 8.0.2 I have to use a backup of my iPhone but iTunes says that is not compatible with
the beta distribution. So I need to downgrade to iOS 8.0.2 but it seems not possible.

Any Idea?

Now I'm downloading it (iOS 8.0.2) manually and I'll try to replace manually.

The only method is this:

Be prepared to LOSE ALL DATA, so do the proper backup.
Turn off the iPhone.
Push the Home button until the iTunes icon on the iPhone appears red.
Connect it to your computer and do the restore.

iTunes will, at this point, download the last official release of iOS. And, keep in mind, you will LOSE ALL DATA.


iMessage's from Macbook send as my email instead of phone # I use an iPhone and a Mac.  I set up text forwarding on my phone so that I can text from iMessage on the Mac, but I noticed that my phone and computer are not always in sync.  For example, I'll get a text to my computer, but it won't show up on my phone.  Also people who receive my messages say that sometimes they come from my email (the @gmail.com below) instead of my phone #.  I posted screenshots below of my settings from my phone and computer.  Ideally, I would like all texts to be send from my phone # and my computer and phone to be in sync.  Thanks in advance for your help!

iMessage settings from computer:

You need to sign up to use you appleID for iMessage with same appleID that you use with your MacBook (@aol email) on the phone.

This can be done by going to settings -> messages -> send & receive; and tapping the option, which reads something to the effect of "use appleID for iMessage".

Once it logs in and activated, Apple will associate the phone number with your email address and it should show up on the Mac. If it doesn't, try logging out and back in from iMessage on the Mac.


Is there any real-time text-to-speech software? I type really fast. Almost as fast as I speak. Is there any software that synthesizes text in real-time, as I type?

Dragon Naturally Speaking v6 may be an option. Trial available here. Have used with school and it performed well in loud environments as well as those that are quiet. Doesn't need an internet connection after downloaded, so is a very good idea. Also, the macOS built in dictation software may be downloaded for free, but is not as reliable.

For more, see this thread, which says

  eSpeak is a brilliant opensource text to speech project. It's the default TTS software on many Linux distributations, but there's a Mac version available and it works great. There is also a project based on eSpeak called Mbrola which adds "singing" functionality.


iMac 2019: Can I mix the old modules with the new ones when upgrading RAM? I've found a similar question but it's about the 2016 iMac, so I want to double check for the current (2019) model.

Can I mix new RAM (Crucial CT2K16G4SFD8266) with Apple's stock RAM? I am planning to buy an additional 32GB of memory, so it'd be a total of 40GB - is that even a number the 6 core iMac can handle?

Yes, you can mix them. There are 4 slots, so you can keep the Apple RAM, even if it's in 2 slots.

According to the reliable EveryMac, your Mac can take up to 128Gb !!


Why is there so much outbound traffic from Airmail 3 (from Bloop)? I have been using Airmail 3 (highly regarded email client from Bloop that you get via the Mac App store) for some time now, but I am not sure how trustworthy they are.  What concerns me about the app is how much outbound traffic there is.   I use the Little Snitch firewall so I can see how much traffic is coming out of Airmail 3.  What I see is close to 1GB over a period of one year.  This may seem reasonable at first blush, but I almost never use Airmail 3 to access email.  My email provider is Gmail and I access this service through the mail.google.com website for 99.9% of the time.  So the question is what is all this data that Airmail 3 is sending?  Is it just from the handshake protocol of Airmail asking Google if there is new mail in my inbox?

Of asked Airmail 3 support and they claim to not store any user data (except under one exceptional condition that I did not trigger).

So I don't know what is going on, but I don't like all this outbound communication.

Privacy Policy and EULA

You should read Bloop SRL's Privacy Policy and End User Licence Agreement.

Bound by the GDPR

As an Italian organisation, based within the European Union, Bloop SRL is bound by the General Data Protection Regulation which should give you some reassurance.

No absolutes

However, no-one here can answer with absolute certainty that you can trust your information with the organisation. Policies and organisations can and do change.


The size of the video in iTunes is very small and won't change sizes The size of the video window in iTunes is very small. When I move the mouse over it the mouse cursor disappears. There are no buttons on the window and no context menu appears when right clicking.

I've tried going to Window > Zoom and nothing changes. I've tried going to View > Exit Full Screen and nothing changes. I've gone to View > Video Playback and tried to select "in iTunes window" and "in separate window" but neither change anything. There is another option in View > Video, "Full Screen" but that is disabled.

Obviously, I've restarted iTunes.

How do I get videos to playback normally?

I'm using iTunes 12.3.0.44 and OSX 10.10.5.

Restarting the operating system fixed it. :P


How to reset Calendar and Reminders on OS X Yosemite? I just hit a nasty bug in Calendar.app and Reminders.app on Yosemite.

For some reason, calendars also appear in Reminders.app as empty reminder lists and reminder lists also appear in Calendar.app as empty Calendars. Even if I delete all of my calendars and reminder lists (I've got them all backed up), they get created back again.

I've noticed both calendars and reminders get stored under ~/Library/Calendars. I've been trying a lot of things to fix this up. As suggested in other articles I've tried deleting these files:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCal (didn't exist)
~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache*
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.CalendarAgent/
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.CalendarAgent.CalNCService/
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iCal/
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iCal.CalendarNC/
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCalExternalSync.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.helper.plist (didn't exist)

I've also tried deleting the whole ~/Library/Calendars directory and I've restarted my mac many times during this whole process.

Yet every time I go back to Calendar.app or Reminders.app, the buggy calendars and reminder lists keep creeping back again.

I don't know what to do anymore now... any suggestions would be welcome!

Edit: I seem to have reached a state of sanity out of this mess... at last!

Searching up the ~/Library/ directory, I found what appears to be the culprit causing me this problem. There is a file that's being generated by some sync services from Apple located at ~/Library/Application\ Support/SyncServices/Local/TFSM/com.apple.Calendars/data.syncdb. I'm not sure what process is updating this, but I'm using iTunes to sync local calendars to my iPhone and I suspect it probably has something to do with this. So perhaps the bug is not in Calendar/Reminders but really in iTunes or the SyncServices.

So I've deleted that file as well as all files under ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.CalendarAgent/Data/Library/Calendars/ and restarted OS X. When I opened Calendar.app, the calendars one should get by default on a new user account were there: Home and Work, and in my case Birthdays and Holidays too. Reminders.app also showed an empty Reminders list, which is fine too. So then I proceeded to restore my calendars and reminders from my backups.

Synchronization in iTunes is now OK, but the reminder lists still shows up as calendars for some reason (seems like a bug here too). If I manually select calendars from Calendar.app, everything seems to work just fine.

My last resort would have been to move all my stuff to a new user account (assuming the problem was due to a buggy state with my current user account - as suggested by bmike), but luckily I don't have to do that tedious task, at least for now.

Using OS X 10.10.5 and iTunes 12.2.2.25.

I would say, you're off the wrong foot deleting files in ~/Library since the storage there changes from version to version (and sometimes even build to build).

If I have AppleCare - I just call them and they have internal documents and the ability to get you the exact steps for your exact situation.

If I don't want to call Apple or I have time to work on the issue - Here's the strategy I've employed to clean things out when iCloud is messed up. It takes me far less time to do it this way. :-)

Make a new account on your Mac
Log into iCloud.com and check if the cloud "truth" is correct.
If it is, sync one bucket of data to the new account. (Calendars)
If it's correct, turn that bucket off and let it delete all the local data if it prompts you.
Repeat the "sync one bucket" until you've checked all the buckets you wish to be correct.

If there were issues syncing one bucket - contact Apple Support or install a new OS and re-test on the new OS.

If there are no issues - then turn on all of the buckets in the new account to verify things are OK.

At that point, you know these things:

iCloud has good data
Your Mac has good software
The settings you want will work

At that point, you can make a decision to migrate the user from the broken user (it might be broken from you deleting things or a bug or just bad luck - but it's clearly broken).

If you really want to clear things out, it would be best to just ask separately. The steps to clear Calendar are not the same as clearing Reminders.

Also keep in mind - other devices can inject data into the cloud - you might have to isolate the problematic Mac and the Cloud data in some cases.


Iterm2 disable Command shortcuts I use Iterm2 on the Mac. Many times, I accidentally press Command+some key, so I'm wondering, is it possible to disable the Command shortcuts? Like Command+D for example, as I use tmux for split panes.

You'll want to override iTerm's default shortcuts with your own shortcuts to "Ignore".

Go to Preferences > Key and press the + button at the bottom of the Global Shortcut Keys:

Then add an entry for Cmd+K and choose "Ignore" for the action:

This disables Cmd+K.


How is Clash of Clans added to the bottom of recent apps? If I swipe it up, it opens Clash of Clans.
May I know what feature is this?

You're experiencing iOS's proactive suggestions - iOS learns your routine over time, and eventually suggests the apps it thinks you're about to open based on factors like location and time of day.


iOS Audiobook player without iTunes media library I would really like to find an audiobook player that works on iOS without using the iTunes media library.

Here is my problem: iTunes (on Mac) mixes audio and e- books together.  I have a fair sized software development library in e-book format and I can't begin to say how annoying this is when I am trying to manage (or use) e-books.  I can't say enough how I don't want audio books appearing in alphabetical order mixed in with my developer library.  Removing the "audiobook" designation will make the impossible task of separating modern and classical music on iTunes that much more aggravating.

I used to have a similar problem with podcasts being in the same app as everything else, and I solved that by switching to an iOS podcast app: it downloads podcasts, stores them outside of the media library, remembers my place even after I have been listening to music, and is far easier to operate than the Music app.

Unfortunately, every iOS audiobook player app I have found seems to use the iTunes media library for its storage, solving only half of my frustration.

Any suggestions for audiobook management and playing alternatives on iOS?

I have been trying to answer this question for myself for ages. I've only recently found the solution for me - SpeedUp Player Pro seems to have all of the audiobook functionality I need. The hightlights are:

Speed up (up to TRUE 2.5x)
Load items from Dropbox
Adjustable Forward and Backward Skip
A/B Repeat (for studying)
Gestures
Functional free version with some features disabled.

The app is not rock-solid in terms of stability, but I expect it will get there as the developer continues to work on it.
The developer's name is mix1009 and there is a link to his/her website.


Force Quick Look to treat .in files like .txt files I would like Quick Look to treat files that have .in extension like regular text files, meaning show me the contents of the file after I click spacebar on them.

How can I configure my system to work that way?

Install QLStephen:

wget https://github.com/downloads/whomwah/qlstephen/QLStephen.qlgenerator.zip
unzip QLStephen.qlgenerator.zip
mkdir -p ~/Library/QuickLook
mv QLStephen.qlgenerator ~/Library/QuickLook
qlmanage -r


Rename application so I can search for it with spotlight Is there a way to rename an application so I can search for it with Spotlight?

I don't see a rename option there.

Select Show in Finder
Select the name of the app
Press enter
Type the new name

Bob’s your uncle. You might need to quit the app before the rename works or shows in the dock, though.


Other IOS devices ring when my iPhone is called and I cannot turn that off How do I change other iOS devices that ring and receive messages when near my iPhone receiving calls?

On the iPhone - go to Settings and turn off each device you wish to opt out of cals on other devices.

Settings.app
Phone
Calls on Other Devices
Turn it all off or just toggle the devices you want and don't want individually.

Messages and FaceTime work the same, and are located in settings under Phone.


In macOS settings, what is the difference between apps accessing to iCloud vs iCloud Drive I know the difference between iCloud and iCloud Drive. But I don't get what's happening if I allow – Mail for instance – to access iCloud or iCloud Drive.
Mail won't save my emails as files in a folder called "Mail" in iCloud Drive, so what will it do with the Drive and what would it do in iCloud (not drive)?

There's really not much difference, but the way to generally look at is:

iCloud is all the behind the scenes things like settings, scripts, messages, etc.

iCloud Drive is the user "usable" front end where you can directly access files and such as you normally would on a computer.

Let's use Photos as an example... You don't really access Photos either via the actual photo files nor do you really need access to the Library (database) file.  All of this happens behind the scenes and you access your Photos via the Photos app whether it be on your Mac or your iDevice.  A third party app (Lightroom for example) would want access to your Photos so it might ask for permission to use "iCloud."
Looking at a different (random) app, maybe you get a "Journaling" app that lets you chronicle the day's events.  It saves it in a Rich Text format and can use any number of online services like iCloud Drive, OneDrive, DropBox, et al.  That may ask you for access to "iCloud Drive" because it's saving a file in the more traditional sense - to a common location where you save documents.
Going back to Mail, it may need access to both.  It will utilize the mail back end of "iCloud" to synchronize mail across the devices or access contacts, but will also utilize "iCloud Drive" as a place to save and get attachments.
I applaud your diligence in questioning what Apps are asking for and this is an excellent line of questioning.  What you should also be looking for is what the app in question is accessing when it accesses iCloud or iCloud Drive - i.e. Contacts, location, mail etc.  I was recently looking for an IP subnet calculator (a networking thing) and it wanted access to my Photos and Location.  Needless to say, it didn't get downloaded.


Yosemite - Require password after sleep is disabled I am trying to prevent the system to always ask for the password when it wakes up from sleep.

I have a MacbookPro with Yosemite 10.10.5.
User has admin rights and password different than the iCloud one.
FileVault is off.

The System Preferences > Security and Privacy > "Require password [5 seconds] after sleep or screen saver begins" is disabled and there's no way to enable it.

If I execute defaults read com.apple.screensaver i get:

{
    askForPassword = 0;
}

If I execute defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPasswordDelay -int 3600 the defaults don't change...

Run in Terminal

defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -bool false


iPhone 4s can't keep Wi-Fi connection My wife just won an iphone 4s with iOS 9.2.1 from a friend that bought a new one.

I did a factory reset (without backup) so the phone would be completely wiped.

I turned on wifi, connected to my home network. But I can't access the Internet. Every time I try, the phone loses connection and does nothing. 3G connection works fine.

I have searched a lot and tried all major "solutions" proposed:

Reset phone
Reset Network Settings
Turn off Wifi-Assist
Turn off Wifi on location settings

And so on. Nothing I have done worked so far.

Network at home works fine. I have my android phone connected along with other devices (notebook, and iPad 2, etc).

Does anyone has any idea how to make it work? May this be a hardware problem?

EDIT

I noticed that, we can surf for quite a while and we always loose connection when opening the app store.

The Broadcom chip that controls the Wi-Fi connection has been known to be faulty in the iPhone 4s. I'd take it into a repair shop, as the fix requires the solder to be melted under the chip with a heat gun and it is very easy to mess it up.

You can see the details of the repair on this iFixit guide.


Mac OS X Lion Safari Doesn't Display Tab Bar in Full Screen Mode In the recent developer preview(2) of Mac OS X Lion, Safari no longer displays Tab Bar when put into the Full Screen mode. You have to move the pointer to the top to see the Tab Bar, which is very annoying for people who mostly work with keyboard.

Is there any quick fix? Or should we just take a nap and see how the final version will look like?

If you work with keybord mainly try Cmd + Shift + Arrow Keys or [ and ]. You should be able to cycle your tabs like that. I dont have the Developer Preview, so I dont know if there is any quick fix, and I dont think Apple will change it in its final version. After all this is how all major browsers work in fullscreen mode: they all hide the tab bar so you focus on the content... :/

Anyway, Hope it helps!
Kevin


Can I copy an iTunes Library from another Mac Can I copy an iTunes Library from another Mac?

Just to be clear I am interested just in Music / Music Playlists - mostly ripped CDs or mp3 files with a couple of on-line purchases.

My wife ripped our joint CD collection to her Mac many years ago.  We share an Apple ID for purchases.

When I bought an iPod, Rather than repeat the very time consuming task, I copied to my Windows XP machine, although I had to modify many of the names, as they were too long.

Since then I acquired a Mac, and this still has the old iTunes Library, but I would like to tidy it up and synchronise the two.

My plan would be to delete my ~/Music/iTunes and replace with a copy, although I am open to suggestions. This is the process I used initially in 2011 to copy to Windows. (I may need to copy ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist)

My /Music/iTunes is currently ~22GB

I do not play music on my Mac, it is used solely to synchronise to my iPhone, iPad etc.

Not sure what you need past this article, but sure - you just need two folders worst case:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204318

The folder where the library index and cached files exist.
The media folder if it’s not a sub folder of #1 above.

You will want to tell iTunes on the sending copmputer to reorganize all media files and copy/move them to the data folder and then run the “organize” command once or twice to be sure all the files are correct - organized and in the right folders.

Then move the two (one) folders to the new computer and point itunes to the correct location of the library. iTunes won’t merge two libraries - so be sure you don’t expect a merge on the receiving computer.


My iPhone & my daughters iPhone are getting the same text messages I just restored a phone from back up for my daughter.  Now my text messages say they are from her.  We both have IOS 7, and share an Apple ID.

guessing - they're iMessages & both are using the Apple ID rather than just the individual phone number…

though I still don't think it's very wise have 2 people's devices using the same ID, Family Sharing would seem a better option.

Try removing the ID as an iMessage source, leaving just the phone number, on at least one of the devices…


Can I still downgrade from iOS 6.1.3 to iOS 6.1.2 (iPhone 4)? I am trying to jailbreak a friend's 16GB iPhone 4. It's currently running iOS 6.1.3.

I'm aware that you can't jailbreak 6.1.3, so I am attempting to downgrade to 6.1.2, however I am having an issue creating or finding SHSH blobs for redsn0w to complete the downgrade.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

As mentioned in the firmware signing status for iPhone 4, only iOS versions from 7 and up are being signed by Apple.

In order to use redsn0w to do a downgrade, you need the SHSH blobs saved for the specific version that you wish to downgrade to. In this case, it seems like they were never saved while the phone was on iOS 6.1.2. So you cannot create/retrieve them.


Keyboard is too stiff for me - any way to make it looser? Edit: I'm talking about scissor-type - and butterfly is worse, in my opinion.
In general, I feel that the keyboard of Mac (or here my main focus is actually MBP) is too stiff. Because I'm too weak, when I keep typing my fingers eventually start hurting.
This is the only reason why I keep using XPS, whose keys are very easy to type.
But because I want to completely switch to Mac, I'm looking for a way to make MBP's key looser, that is, less stiff. Is there anybody who has this kind of experience, or any successful result? I'm thinking like, for example, taking the key cover off the board and tweaking the spring(?) to make it weak or somethinkg like that.

I feel that the keyboard of Mac (or here my main focus is actually MBP) is too stiff.

There is no reasonable way you can change the stiffness of a MacBooks keyboard. However depending on the model of the MacBook, the tactile feedback could differ. While the keyboard typing feel could argued to be subjective, a general perception is that the new Butterfly keyboards introduced in Late 2019 16" MacBook Pro and then eventually in the newer 2020 13" MacBook Pro and 2020 MacBook Air are easier to type on.
So if you are using one of the older MacBooks, you can consider buying a new one after you give the new Butterfly keyboard a try in a store.
Alternatively, you can also consider getting an external keyboard where you pick one as per your exact liking.


What does "A1278" mean in specifying a MacBook model? I need to replace a part in my MacBook 13", Aluminum, Late 2008 and I have found a piece that seems to match,  but I got confused by the code "A1278" in the description, which I have not seen anywhere in my machine's specifications.  It looks like it is associated with different models, not just with mine, and mostly with MacBook Pro.

What does "A1278" mean in a description of a MacBook model?  It seems to be referred to as model number, but it is shared by different models.  Would it mean that all models with this identifier are in some sense compatible?  Can some parts of one such model be used in another?

The model number can be found on the bottom side of your MacBook.

I have an app called "Mactracker" and it gives statistics for (allegedly) all of the various Mac hardware options.

Here is some info on model number A1278:

Hopefully that helps.


Remap "Home" and "End" to beginning and end of line Most of my computing time is spent in Linux (with occasional time in Windows). On these platforms the Home and End keys universally jump to the beginning or end of the current line.

I am gradually getting used to using the one Apple computer in my life, but it is still frustrating than these keys seem to be bound to the beginning and end of the document and there doesn't seem to be any key at all for the line based actions.

My question:

Are there existing keybindings I'm missing for beginning and end of line? (I mostly use a Terminal, Chrome and LibreOffice)
Is there a way to rebind the functions of these keys to the functions I am familiar with? I am willing to give up the document based versions which seem of little use to me.

Also two caveats:

I am not the only user on the system. It would be nice if my user settings didn't break other peoples experience. If this isn't possible, I think I probably have the strongest preference!
I do use multiple languages and switch between keyboard layouts, so any solutions would be expected to work even when toggling between multiple keyboard layouts.

The default shortcuts for moving to beginning or end of (wrapped) lines are ⌘← and ⌘→. ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ or ⌃A and ⌃E move to the beginning or end of unwrapped lines (or paragraphs). ⌥← and ⌥→ move backwards/forward by words, and all of these are compatible with holding Shift to select during the corresponding moves.

You could remap home and end by creating ~/Library/KeyBindings/ and saving a property list like this as DefaultKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "\UF729"  = moveToBeginningOfLine:; // home
    "\UF72B"  = moveToEndOfLine:; // end
    "$\UF729" = moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:; // shift-home
    "$\UF72B" = moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:; // shift-end
}

Most of the keybindings for editing text in OS X are defined in /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Resources/StandardKeyBinding.dict.

Applying changes requires reopening applications. DefaultKeyBinding.dict is ignored by some old versions of Xcode (works with latest version 6.3.1), Terminal, and many cross-platform applications.

See Cocoa Text System and my website for more information about the customizable keybindings.

Terminal's keybindings can be customized in Preferences > Settings > Keyboard. \033OH moves to the beginning of a line and \033OF to the end of a line.

In Eclipse, key bindings should be modified in Preferences > General > Keys. You need to modify default bindings for commands Line Start and Line End (replace ⌘← by ↖ and ⌘→ by ↘). For selection to work, also modify Select Line Start and Select Line End.

PS: You may need to logout and login again for the ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict change to take effect.


How do I remove a name from my VIP list in Mail? On my Mac mail I have a person listed in my VIP list but I don't even know who the person is. There are no emails in the boxes with his name on it. I cannot find a way to delete this person from my VIP list.

How do I remove this person without removing my VIP folder?

In Mac Mail, under the VIPs Mailbox, control-click the VIP you would like to remove, and select remove from VIPs.


Still shot from video on iPhone I took a video with my iPhone 5s. I would like to print one frame of this video as a still picture. I tried taking a screen shot of it, but ended up with the menu on the top and bottom of the picture. Is there an easier way of keeping one frame of a video as a still picture?

If you tap the screen, the top and bottom bars disappear, and you can take your screen shot then. However, taking a screenshot may give you a lower quality result that may not look nice printed out. iMovie (Mac or for iPhone) should be able to do this without a loss in quality, as well as other video editors / certain video players (e.g. VLC).


How do I display unsupported emoji on OS X Yosemite OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 by default can't display some emoji, for example the "Cloud with rain" emoji: .

How can I view such problematic emoji? Do I need to install a custom font?

I copied these two files from El Capitan and replaced the default ones (I recommend making backups):

/System/Library/Fonts/Apple Color Emoji.ttf
/System/Library/Input Methods/CharacterPalette.app/Contents/Resources/Category-Emoji.plist

After a reboot I have all emojis in Yosemite.


Esperanto and Dvorak keyboard? So, I'm fully aware on how to type characters with various accents (å, à, ø, á, ä and â) but one thing I don't understand is how to type those accents when typing in Esperanto. The circumflex, for instance, will only work with vowels (â, ê, î, ô, û) but Esperanto uses a different set of special characters. These would be ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and ŭ (which can be described as c, g, h, j and s circumflex and u breve) and apart from copying them from other pages on the web or popping open the Emoji and Symbols panel, I am at a loss on how to type these in Dvorak and since I have near exclusively typed in the Dvorak for the last two years, I'm not really too enthused to switch back and forth to Qwerty just to type one character every so often. It, like popping open the "Emoji and Symbols" panel, is simply unrealistic and really breaks my flow.

So, any suggestions on a work around that is actually much simpler?

Just in case you may need to know, I'm running OS X 10.11.1 on a late 2013 15" Retina MacBook Pro.

You can install a custom keyboard like Dvorak Extended, an example of which is found at

http://fwvdijk.org/

Or create substitutions for the needed characters in system preferences/keyboard/text


How to check encryption status (completeness) of an external disk? When I click on an external USB disk in Finder's Sidebar it shows it is still encrypting (which is expected):

diskutil shows only Encrypted: Yes in CLI and GUI.

Is there any way to check the current status of encryption (percentage complete)?

If you type the following command in Terminal you will get all sorts of info on all the corestorage volumes currently attached to your Mac, including the conversion status you are looking for:

diskutil cs list

There are more answers here.

One of my favorites is Nick Bedford's answer towards the bottom of that page that gives you just the status of each volume without all the other info.

diskutil cs list | grep -e "Conversion" -e "Volume Name"


How to remove your name from the menu bar after 10.7.5 update? After the 10.7.5 update to Lion, I'm getting my name to appear in the menu bar. I don't particularly like it there. Any way to remove it?

Go to System Preferences -> Users & Groups

At the bottom of the user list click the 'Login Options' item and then make sure 'Show fast user switching menu as ...' is unchecked.

That'll get rid of fast user switching from the menu bar for you.


Mass conversion of .numbers files to .csv I have a lot of files with a .numbers file extension, and I need to convert them to .csv, so I can more easily work with the data. There are probably about 1000 of them, so opening them in numbers and exporting each one individually is not an option.

Is there some sort of terminal function that could do the job?

Update:

An AppleScript might be able to do the job, and the one provided by Frysk in the comments below gets close. However, it only works one file at a time.

To work in mass the script needs:

to loop through all the .numbers files in a directory
to write csv files to a specified directory

Automator is the tool for the job.

You can do a "watch me do" and have it export an already open file to a new folder as csv. Then stop recording the script.

At that point, you can add an acton to process files and folders so the script will one by one open each file, save it to the new location. As long as the names aren't conflicting, you would have an easy tool.

Better would be to script the actual export options, but start simple and then add the batch processing.


Import Voice Memos back to iOS For some time ago, I've exported my voice memos from my iPhone to my Mac for back-up purposes using iExplorer and deleted the originals.

Now, again using iExplorer, I tried to copy them back to my iPhone, to their original place although nothing copied showed up under Voice Memos. Probably iOS has a database file concerning the recordings. I've the previous database as well but copying it will for sure mess up the current new recordings under iOS.

The web is crowded with how to export your voice memos to your Mac but no one is talking about how to import them back to your iPhone and since my try failed, is anyone aware of a possible solution?

You need to sync the voice memos via iTunes:


MBP 2010 mini-DisplayPort detected but "No Signal" when connected to external DisplayPort monitor I have a MBP 2010 which I reliably connected (for many years) to an external LG 25UM64-S UltraWide monitor at 2580x1080 native resolution using a mDP<->DP cable. The 25" monitor broke and I replaced it with a newer, bigger LG 29UM68-P UltraWide monitor, also with DisplayPort.

When I connect my MBP, the monitor detects the connection, but reports "No Signal" when I switch the input to DisplayPort. The SAME monitor+cable works fine with a newer MacBook Air.

I have updated macOS to the latest version of Sierra (10.12.6). When I open the Display applet, it detects the LG Monitor, but reports it as a 34" model. I can hit "Gather Windows" and change the resolution on the LG, but I always get a gray screen with "No Signal"

update:
I have tried to reset the SMC once, also the NVRAM (as per below) and even checked the monitor while booting into safe mode. None of these steps changee the outcome. What else can I try?

Here's what worked for me (none of the above worked): unplug the DP cable. Then slowly plug it in until the laptop screen (not the external) flickers and returns back to the normal image, then immediately push (not too hard) the cable in the rest of the way. Seems that some MacBooks have finicky ports.


What are the differences between an iMac Display and a Thunderbolt 27" display Context: I purchased a Mac mini 2011 (lower end) last year to move from PC to a Mac. I went for a Mac mini because I wanted to reuse my old PC's peripherals. Later however, I developed a liking for the Apple Touch Mouse, the Bluetooth keyboard, and the external SuperDrive and supplemented my Mac mini with them. Now I am wondering if the Thunderbolt display is any good (I am currently using a 20" LED display from Samsung). Obviously, this leads me to wonder if I would have been more cost effective to go for the iMac 27" to begin with.

Actual Question: What are the differences between the iMac 27" display and the Thunderbolt 27" display? Why is the sum of prices of the parts of an iMac 27" significantly more than the whole unit's price? Are there better alternatives to the Thunderbolt 27" display that will work great (fonts should appear smooth and the display should have a high resolution and a high contrast ratio) with OS X?

Thunderbolt Display:

  This huge 27-inch glossy widescreen display features a cinematic 16:9 aspect ratio and an astonishing 2560-by-1440 resolution.

iMac 27-inches:

  27-inch (viewable) LED-backlit glossy widescreen TFT display with support for millions of colors. Resolution: 2560 by 1440 pixels

You won't notice any difference between them. Therefore, if the concern is just with the Display, the Thunderbolt's should be your choice. If, in the other hand, you are feeling that your Mac Mini is not powerful enough for you, getting an iMac could be a good idea.


Change hosts file does not have any effect I have edited the /etc/hosts file on macOS 10.12.6. Then trying to flush the DNS services has no effect, why?

Here is what I have done:

cd /etc
sudo cat hosts
sudo cat -te hosts
##$
# Host Database$
#$
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface$
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.$
##$
127.0.0.1^Ilocalhost$
255.255.255.255^Ibroadcasthost$
::1^Ilocalhost$
127.0.0.1^Ipagead46.l.doubleclick.net$
$
$

ping pagead46.l.doubleclick.net
PING pagead46.l.doubleclick.net (172.217.23.66): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.217.23.66: icmp_seq=0 ttl=56 time=678.921 ms
64 bytes from 172.217.23.66: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=35.715 ms
64 bytes from 172.217.23.66: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=52.304 ms
64 bytes from 172.217.23.66: icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=48.495 ms
^C
--- pagead46.l.doubleclick.net ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 35.715/203.859/678.921/274.346 ms

dscacheutil -flushcache
ps -ef | grep mDNS
    0  1777     1   0  6:46PM ??         0:00.11 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponderHelper
   65  1916     1   0  8:17PM ??         0:00.07 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder
  501  1929  1013   0  8:19PM ttys007    0:00.00 grep mDNS

dscacheutil -flushcache
sudo killall mDNSResponder
sudo killall mDNSResponderHelper
ps -ef | grep mDNS
   65  1933     1   0  8:20PM ??         0:00.03 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder
  501  1936  1013   0  8:20PM ttys007    0:00.00 grep mDNS

sudo cat -te hosts
##$
# Host Database$
#$
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface$
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.$
##$
127.0.0.1^Ilocalhost$
255.255.255.255^Ibroadcasthost$
::1^Ilocalhost$
127.0.0.1^Ipagead46.l.doubleclick.net$
$
$

ping pagead46.l.doubleclick.net
PING pagead46.l.doubleclick.net (172.217.23.66): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.217.23.66: icmp_seq=0 ttl=56 time=43.226 ms
64 bytes from 172.217.23.66: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=39.457 ms
64 bytes from 172.217.23.66: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=36.937 ms
^C
--- pagead46.l.doubleclick.net ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 36.937/39.873/43.226/2.584 ms

cat -te ... shows a ^I for tabs and a $ for newline to show what is exactly
in the file.

None of my browsers (Safari or Chrome) seem to honor the new hosts entry.

I am most certainly doing something wrong here, any help is welcome.

I'd recommend  Gas Mask (freeware, no affiliation) which not only eliminates the need to try hack it in terminal, but also allows you multiple versions of the hosts file, switchable on the fly, instant response.

To use, Create a new file - it will setup the defaults automatically. Copy/paste any existing setup you want to carry over from any file to any other. Add any new data in the same format - it's very lenient on formatting, tab or space.
Save, then activate.
You can swap profiles any time the app is running, otherwise your last chosen will persist.
Activating a profile makes it immediately available.
 Note: the use of 127.0.0.1 rather than localhost for IPV6 is non-standard, but just seems to make the Mac behave better


Will using my iPad as an external monitor negatively affect it's lifespan? I'm using AirDisplay to allow me to use my iPad as an external monitor for about 10 hours a day. I have it plugged into my Mac the entire time (so the battery doesn't completely die).

Will this negatively affect it's lifespan? I'm sort of expecting my iPad to last for 5 or 10 years at least if I treat it well (is that realistic?), but, will this cause it to burn out in the next year or two?

What I'm specifically worried about is:

The display could somehow stop working (would pixels burn out? Would it not be able to get as bright? What specifically bad will happen from over-using the display?)
The battery could go to crap (I'm worried I'll get to the point where I'd have to continually charge it and it wouldn't be able to hold any meaningful charge)

With regard to your question about a realistic lifespan:

I would define the life expectancy of any device as however long its user can use it for its intended purpose. Which will cease to be the case when something physically breaks or when functionality is phased out (e.g. AirDisplay functionality is removed in a future update). It is impossible to predict if and when either of these things will happen to your iPad in the next few years. There are simply too many factors involved.

In my own experience, we have a 1st gen iPad (bought end of 2010) in the office that is on 24/7 (no screen timeout) as an interactive wall calendar and it is still going strong. On the other hand, one of my coworkers bought a 3rd gen iPad a few months ago and it died after a few weeks of use (he apparently got a lemon). I hope you see my point: There are so many factors involved in determining the lifespan of a certain device that it is impossible to say what will happen to your iPad: Sometimes you get lucky, but there are no guarantees.

With regard to your other 2 questions:

As far as screen life is concerned, 'screen burn' only occurs on the old-style (CRT) monitors. Also, the backlight is provided by LEDs which are supposed to have a pretty long lifespan.
As far as battery life is concerned, there are some pointers at http://www.apple.com/batteries/ipad.html and at http://thehowto.wikidot.com/prolong-battery-lifespan-for-ipad on how to maximize your battery lifespan.

I hope this helps.


Is my hard drive starting to fail? My MacBook Pro (mid-2012, 16GB, i7 2.3) has started to misbehave:

very slow to start up and shut down
application launches are slow
system becomes nearly unusable when "free" memory approaches zero.

Disk Utility is showing SMART status of the drive as "verified". However, Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is showing a read speed of 27 MB/s and a write speed of 25.7 MB/s. This seems slow to me, though I'm have trouble finding any benchmark values to compare against.

I've run "verify disk" in the Disk Utility app twice. The first time it completed with no errors. The second time the computer froze before the procedure finished.

Here is the system profiler information for the drive.

Capacity:   500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)
  Model:    APPLE HDD HTS547550A9E384
  Revision: JE3AD70F
  Serial Number:          J226008BJ65LKC
  Native Command Queuing:   Yes
  Queue Depth:  32
  Removable Media:  No
  Detachable Drive: No
  BSD Name: disk0
  Rotational Rate:  5400
  Medium Type:  Rotational
  Partition Map Type:   GPT (GUID Partition Table)
  S.M.A.R.T. status:    Verified
  Volumes:
disk0s1:
  Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
  BSD Name: disk0s1
  Content:  EFI
Macintosh HD:
  Capacity: 499.25 GB (499,248,103,424 bytes)
  Available:    101.87 GB (101,868,064,768 bytes)
  Writable: Yes
  File System:  Journaled HFS+
  BSD Name: disk0s2
  Mount Point:  /
  Content:  Apple_HFS
  Volume UUID:  BBF6F6B8-26B8-39B4-A206-81471EA7F2B2
Recovery HD:
  Capacity: 650 MB (650,002,432 bytes)
  BSD Name: disk0s3
  Content:  Apple_Boot
  Volume UUID:  DB9ED89F-80DF-3A80-BCC4-58DF1F234256

Does any of this indicate an imminent drive failure? The AppleCare plan for this computer expires in 6 days.

There is no harm in getting a call logged before your apple care expires, although from your description nothing you say would suggest to me that the hard drive is at fault.  It sounds more like the slow build up of unwanted startup items, and inevitable disk fragmentation is just slowing things down, or you could plain be out of memory more often than before.  If you have a secure backup, I might consider a couple of things to test:

1) Create a new user, and see if it is as slow as your usual user account
2) From a complete backup, format your drive and restore to defrag the drive, and again see if the same happens.

HD problems would usually manifest themselves in unusual noises, clicks and whirs, repeated attempts to load a file, genuine errors in log files where you could use the Console app to search for things like "disk0s" "error" and "I/O error" - especially if they correlate in time to the slowness or freezing you are seeing.


How to completely disable the sound effect at all for an invalid action? Here's the problem that I have

My Bluetooth headset is connected to my smartphone and laptop.
I'm listening to music using the smartphone.
When I do some invalid action using the laptop my music gets interrupted.

I know how to volume down not to make a sound effect for an invalid action but what I want is to completely disable the sound effect so that my Bluetooth headset is not interrupted by it.

How can I completely disable the sound effect?

FYI, these threads don't have the answer

How do I disable the beep in OSX Leopard when I perform an invalid action?

How can I get the Mac Terminal to not beep?

Mac: disable the “boop” sound played when search results are not found

Update

I still want to listen to the sound of my laptop when it plays videos or something. I want to disable only the sound of an invalid input.
Even if I set the alert volume to zero my music still get interrupted by the sound effect of an invalid action - the sound effect doesn't make any sound but my music stops for some seconds as my laptop plays a sound effect without a sound.

So I want to know the way to completely disable the sound effect of an invalid input, not the way of muting it.

You can set alerts to a different output, i.e. Internal Speakers, and/or turn the Alert volume: down completely.

System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects


Can I safely use my MacBook Pro HDD late 2011 with a late 2009? I have a GPU issue with my MacBook Pro late 2011 which requires 3 weeks in repair (until the required parts come in). I took out the hard drive and put it in an external casing.

Can I safely use this hard drive on another MacBook Pro (late 2009) and still use my data/applications/OS X?

Yes. According to this document Macs that can run either Mountain Lion or Mavericks are good for Yosemite. The oldest MacBook Pro you can use is therefore Mid/Late 2007. So in any case you should be fine.

OS X Mavericks: System Requirements:

  To install Mavericks, you need one of these Macs:

  iMac (Mid-2007 or later)
  MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
  MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later),
  MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later)
  MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
  Mac mini (Early 2009 or later)
  Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
  Xserve (Early 2009)

  Your Mac also needs:

  OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard v10.6.8 already installed
  2 GB or more of memory
  8 GB or more of available space


Why does Java SE 6 Web Start (javaws) not find the JRE with Apple's Java for OS X 2012-006 on Mountain Lion? In brief
The JRE is installed but javaws can not find the JRE.
What can I do on the command line to re-enable the web plugin for Apple's Java 6 in Chrome or Safari?
I want to avoid Java 7. (We're awaiting Java 8.)
Detail
I have a fresh upgrade of Mountain Lion (10.8.2). I have installed JDK V6 from Apple (Java for OS X 2012-006). Now:

all of my Java apps run fine
the Internet plug-in no longer works in Chrome or Safari.

javaws at the command line reports:

No JRE present

When a web applet is clicked:

the operating system directs me to install a JRE
the link goes nowhere because the JRE is already installed.

 History

Upgraded to Mountain Lion
Forced JRE install through java -version method.  "Successful"
All Java applications work as before (ide/dbms/email/etc)
Tried to launch a java applet in Chrome (or Safari)
Message in the applet area "Missing Plugin =>".  click it
Error that the 'JRE is not installed, click ok to open page...'.
Click [OK] but no page opens. Assume this is because the JRE is actually already installed.
Try from command line (/usr/bin/javaws):

When I try /usr/bin/javaws from the command line I get this output, plus the standard install-a-jre popup.
[~] /usr/bin/javaws  (or just [~] javaws)
No Java runtime present, requesting install.
Unable to locate a Java Runtime to invoke.

– but the JRE is present –
[~] /usr/bin/java -version
java version "1.6.0_37"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_37-b06-434-11M3909)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.12-b01-434, mixed mode)

– Java apps do run.
Java executables
[~] ll -s /usr/bin/java*
/usr/bin/java@ -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/java
/usr/bin/javac@ -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/javac
/usr/bin/javadoc@ -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/javadoc
/usr/bin/javah@ -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/javah
/usr/bin/javap@ -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/javap
/usr/bin/javaws@ -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/javaws

I heard that it may be possible to install the Java 7 JDK (including a JRE) to regain preferences and enable switching.  If that is the only course of action I will do it, but I would much prefer JAVA_HOME to work properly with Java 6 without Java 7.
Apple's Java Preferences utility is no longer applicable – Apple's most recent update for Java for OS X removes the utility.

At About Java for OS X 2012-006 (article HT5493, modified 2012-10-16) Apple gives a related article:

Java for OS X 2012-006: How to re-enable the Apple-provided Java SE 6 applet plug-in and Web Start functionality (article HT5559, modified 2012-10-22).

Please run all four commands. The fourth should re-enable Java SE 6 Web Start.


Broken iPhone 6 can't connect to iTunes My iPhone broke the other day and the screen is broken so bad it doesn't work anymore. It has typed its own passcode on the lock screen so many times it has disabled the phone so now I can't do anything with it.

The lock screen says "Connect to iTunes," but when I try to connect it says that I have to enter the phone's passcode which I can't.

What can I do to back up my phone or connect it to iTunes? If I go to an Apple store, will they replace it or change the phone all together?

Sounds like the digitizer (the part that recognizes your touches) is also broken. My experience with Apple store is they will try to replace your screen first (at a cost).

Many third party repair shops can help you get a working digitizer connected without erasing the device. Expect to pay them extra for the data transfer as part of the repair. You could even just pay them for the data transfer and then go back to Apple for a repair that has warranty from the manufacturer.


Where can I buy a spare power cable for a i5 Mac Mini? I don't see extra power cables for the i5 2011 Mac Mini in the Apple Store Accessory section.

But this power cable looks a lot like black ones I've seen that go between a power brick for a Lenovo laptop and the outlet. Is this the very same cable?

Provided it connects fine you should be ok. It uses a standard power plug with this design. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4806

Otherwise any sort of Apple Service Provider or http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/23-190


Where does gmail/Apple Mail keep its messages? I have several email accounts on a Mac.

With a simple IMAP account, the messages are in /Users/[user name]/Library/Mail/V[a number]/IMAP-[email adress]/INBOX.mbox/

However, Apple Mail seems to hide the messages away differently if you are using gmail. If I go to the same folder scheme -- nothing there.

Ideas?

More specifically, I am looking for a way to find only the Sent messages. I have been able to locate an ALL messages folder at:

/Users/[user name]/Library/Mail/V3/IMAP-[email address]@imap.gmail.com/[Gmail].mbox/All Mail.mbox/

But how do I separate out the sent messages?

The Sent Mail.mbox directory only has a .plist file in it even though there are thousands of sent messages. Doing a file count on the All Mail.mbox makes clear that that is literally all the mail (sent, received, drafts, etc) Looking at the .emlx header it is not obvious what would differentiate one from the other.

The URL you state is by and large correct, but the details can differ based on your exact configuration. On my machine (which runs El Capitan, uses V3 in the mail path, and for a Gmail account where the IMAP Path Prefix is set to [Gmail]), the messages for the inbox are stored in the path you stated but messages for other standard folders are in the path MrWonderful suggested.

The easiest way I think is to send yourself an email with a unique string (ideally without spaces) as the subject) and to get creative on the command line.

find . -name '*emlx' | xargs grep 'UNIQUE_STRING' -ls

This finds all messages and subsequently searches them for the string, spitting out only the file names (with path) for the files containing that specific string.

Hope this helps you dig around the mail folder and find the information you're looking for.


How long is the power cable on the HomePod Mini? I'm thinking about ordering a HomePod Mini, and I want to put it in some places that might be just far enough away from a power outlet that the cord doesn't reach. How long is the power cable? 2 meters, like the full HomePod?

There are no official specs on the cable length just yet, but an early review indicates it's about 6 feet long. Also of note, it's permanently attached but terminates in USB-C.
https://www.theverge.com/21561589/apple-homepod-mini-review


Keyboard malfunction: Mac always opens in safe mode I am using a MacBook Pro and facing the following problem:

My keyboard is not working properly. Some keys don't work and it looks like the Shift key is always pressed because the machine always opens in Safe Mode. When the machine starts up I can work using my external keyboard and disable the internal keyboard but while starting up I can't, or at least don't know of a way to, disable the internal keyboard.

Is there a way out of it or do I have to take a trip to the Apple Store?

Edit: By a way out of it I mean is there a way I can change the start-up combination for Safe mode?

On the basis of your current issue where you want to bypass Safe Mode, then

Hold the Option button down on boot to bypass the Safe Mode ensures a normal boot

However, you have mentioned that your keyboard is not working as expected. If you can afford it, I would recommend replacing the top case and keyboard. But, as an alternative

Download and install KeyRemap4MacBook.
Use a combination of the functionalities of the Keyboard Viewer and KeyRemap4MacBook to figure out which shift key is the problem.
Disable the left/right shift key on KeyRemap4MacBook and click on the 'Reload XML' button to make that take effect.

If only one shift key was the problem, then you are done. If both shift keys were shorted, then its likely other keys are too. In which case you should probably just replace the entire thing. If you think other keys are not affected, then you can use KeyRemap4MacBook itself to remap the shift functionality to a lesser-used key like the Left Option key.

Under System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items , add KeyRemap4MacBook as an application that should start on login. This will ensure that you disable/remap of the shift key is active every time you log in.

Things to remember

Remember to hold down the Option key every time the computer boots or reboots to bypass safe mode. The fix above is at the software level.

The key is physically still shorted at the hardware level and will affect boot.


FTP Client with Email notifications? I'm looking for a FTP client that supports sending notification when transfers have completed. Does anyone know of one?

I'd like to trigger an email when files have finished uploading to a server.

You can also use any FTP client which supports Growl notifications (Transmit, Forklift, YummyFTP, whatnot).

In Growl's (v2) preferences, go to the Displays tab and configure the MailMe action. Then in the Applications > Application tab, select the MailMe action for all notifications or, alternatively, switch to Applications > Notifications and select the MailMe action just for the notification you want.


Adding a comment to Facebook post acts weird when using Safari I'm having this weird issue when commenting on a Facebook post on Safari.

It mostly happens when I try to add a space after adding punctuation like comma ,.

What happens is that the cursor is thrown back to the starting point of comment and erases almost all the text I have entered before the punctuation.

This only happens when trying from Safari while it works normally on browsers like Chrome, Firefox etc.

Did any of you run into the same issue? Is there any workaround to overcome that?

Safari - Version 9.0.1 (11601.2.7.2)
OS X   - (El Capitan) Version 10.11.1 (15B42)

I had this same problem as well a few weeks ago, I believe I hit tab and it fixed itself never to glitch out again. I should note though that it was a different website, I'm running Yosemite, and my memory is always not the greatest.


How to know which app is playing a sound? There are a couple of sounds that my mac makes, which annoy the heck out of me.

However, I don't know which application that's running is making these (perhaps it's the system itself)

Is there a way to identify which app recently caused a sound to play?

I was going to suggest WireTap products from Ambrosia

They had the ability to differentiate sounds from different applications, however due to the nature of Lion these products no longer do that and Apples sand boxing requirement is going to make it worse.


Rotate Selection in Preview I am doing something I thought would be pretty easy, but apparently I was wrong.

I am wanting to edit blueprints for my sister-in-law's new bathroom redesign.  I have made selections to the PNG with my rectangle tool for the shower, sinks, toilette, doors, etc., etc.,

I simply want to rotate these selections (not the entire imagine) 90°.

Right clicking to rotate, does nothing.  Right clicking isn't allowed.

When I try to go to tools-rotate left with the selection selected it flips the entire imagine with the selection along with it.

I tried selecting the image, copying it to the clipboard and THEN rotating the imagine to get it to line up.  That too doesn't work as Preview clears clipboard every time I rotate the entire image.

Surely I cannot be the only person wanting to do this. I am running 10.11.6

Copy the selection.
Open the selection in a new document.
Rotate the new document.
Select and copy the new document.
Paste the new document into the original.
Re-position.


set checkbox based on parameters in iWork Numbers I would like to be able to tick or untick a checkbox in iWork Numbers based on certain parameters.

The spreadsheet is a list of projects (Column C), each composed of several tasks (column D). Column B is a completion date that gets filled in by the user when a task is completed. Column A contains checkboxes.

I would like to be able to automatically check the box in column A when a date is entered into column B. Further, I would like to automatically check the box for the project once all the boxes are checked for the encompassed tasks.

A sample code for task completion would be: IF(B2<>"",TRUE,FALSE).
Sample for project completion would be: IF(COUNTIF(C,C2)=COUNTIFS(C,C2,B,"<>"&""),TRUE,FALSE).

What I'm hoping to accomplish is to convert the TRUE or FALSE result of the formula into a ticked or unticked checkbox.

Unfortunately, cells formatted with as "Checkbox" type will not accept a formula in the current version of Numbers. (version 4.3 as of this posting)

One workaround is to use a formula such as this: =IF(ISBLANK(DateCell),"","✓" in the cell you wish to have the tick mark.  Of course, one can get much more creative than this, but it is a start.

The 'Check Mark', as it is called in the system can be found in the Character Viewer.


What is the Documents & Data item used for in the iCloud preference pane on my Mac? I am seeing an item called "Documents and Data" in the iCloud preference pane. I have switched it on, but what can I expect from it? I have searched the web about iCloud, syncing between Mac and iOS devices and how iWork relates to all of this, and I don't like what I see.

Question:
Can anyone tell me what happens when I switch on/off Documents and Data syncing on my mac?

I know that there is a folder ~/Library/Mobile Documents that contains the actual documents and data, that I can muck around in there, use it like a Drop Box, that any iWork documents I put in there get mutilated beyond belief when opened by the corresponding iOS iWork app, and that Apple does not offer support on this matter, but most iCloud users owning a Mac don't, so let me rephrase:

What awesome and easy to use iCloud sync feature becomes available to me when I switch on that particular item in the iCloud preference pane on my Mac?

If the answer really is "None", I'll accept it. I just would like to make sure I haven't missed anything.

Thank you.

Well, at the moment, there isn't much to see with that option.  However, enabling Documents and Data sync allows applications on your Mac to sync their data with iCloud, just like iWork on iOS does.  But, most Mac applications have not been updated to support this feature yet (even Apple's iWork suite doesn't support this yet).  However, this does allow applications to sync with any other Macs and iOS devices that you own, so I recommend leaving it on so you are prepared for app updates that support iCloud.  iA Writer is an example of an application that already uses iCloud to sync between both Macs and iOS devices.


MacBook Pro battery rapidly loses charge I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2010 that I changed the battery and logic board on, a few moths ago.

I have an issue with the battery that after a full charge and removing the charger plug the battery suddenly drops below 80%, but runs normal till about 50% and then the MacBook suddenly shuts down and doesn't turn on again until I plug the charger in again.

I've tried reseting SMC and calibrating the battery with no result.

Apple has better diagnostics than third party plug in, so I would seek a quote / evaluation from AppleCare online or a store if that’s more convenient.

The shutdown at 50% should be logged well enough for them to diagnose if you need another battery since that’s exactly what happens when one cell is failing or behaving like the other cells and the predictive model of how much charge is left doesn’t accurately tell you how much run time is left.

Over time, I would expect the battery status to go to check battery or replace battery if it’s the battery that’s failing.

It could be the logic board, too but that’s far less likely. Only swapping one and not the other will let you test which item is causing the discontinuity.


This gray bar blocking my text box is driving me insane. It still comes up even after I turn off predictive text Anyone have any idea how to fix this? I have an attached keyboard case and whenever I try to use it, this gray bar just comes up and blocks the area where I am meant to see what it is that I am typing.

To disable the bar completely, not just the predictive text suggestions, toggle "Shortcuts" in Settings > General > Keyboard. When it is disabled, the grey bar will not appear (whether or not your physical keyboard is connected).


Catalina update 10.15.4 freezes with 5 min. remaining I’m trying to update, but the installer hangs with five minutes left, and no reboot sequence can get around the installer. It’s not a space issue. There’s ~300GB on the SSD. Pressing the power button once changes the completion time to 1 minute, then 14 minutes, then back to 5 minutes.

I cannot get to the recovery partition, and cannot choose another startup volume. With every reboot & startup key combination, it returns to the update installer.

Anybody else getting this?
Late 2012 iMac, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.

Something was clearly borked on the target SSD, as after finding and booting from an external Catalina startup disk, I could reinstall Catalina on the original disk, and all is well. Possibly something with the nested APSF volume chain?


To to disable a service form OS X by using recovery console? I cannot boot my system anymore and I want to disable a service from loading and the only way to do this by using the terminal window from the recovery mode.

launchctl is not available in the recovery mode.

Try doing a Safe Boot by holding down the shift key on boot. This will boot, but disable all login items/services. From there, you should be able to disable the problem and boot normally.

More about a Safe Boot
How to perform a Safe Boot


Is there an easy way on a Mac to split an audio file at defined intervals? I have a 45 minute long audio (.m4a) file.

I would like to split this audio file into a separate audio file every 2 minutes.

So, that:

  AudioFile1.m4a is created from [00:00] to [02:00] of
  originalAudioFile.m4a.

  AudioFile2.m4a is created from [02:00] to [04:00] of
  originalAudioFile.m4a.

  AudioFile3.m4a is created from [04:00] to [06:00] of
  originalAudioFile.m4a.

  ...

and this is continued until

  AudioFile23.m4a is created from [44:00] to [45:00] of
  originalAudioFile.m4a.

Here are additional details:

I am not particular about the filenames of the resulting files.
I am not particular about the file types of the resulting files (e.g., whether they become .mp3 files or stay .m4a files).
This is not a situation where the resulting audio files will be mastered to a CD or something. I'm just looking for a quick and handy way to split an audio file based on a specific interval. A minor loss in audio quality is not a big deal (but this would obviously not be preferred).
I do not want the originalAudioFile.m4a to be altered in the process.

The most important condition is that the method requires minimal time and effort from the user.

There are various methods to accomplish what I want in Microsoft Windows, but can this be done on a Mac?

Use ffmpeg.  It's available via Homebrew and MacPorts, but I just prefer to use the prebuilt binaries

Just off the top of my head, you could do something simple like:

$ ffmpeg -i source_audio_file.mp3 -ss 0 -t 120 segment_1.mp3
$ ffmpeg -i source_audio_file.mp3 -ss 120 -t 240 segment_2.mp3
$ ffmpeg -i source_audio_file.mp3 -ss 240 -t 360 segment_3.mp3
.
.
.

To put this into a script wouldn't be too hard


Set Safari's default search engine to Google UK How can I change Safari's default search engine to google.co.uk?

Currently when I search in the address bar the results are always from google.com.

Also if I highlight a term in Safari, right click and select "search with Google" it's from the US site.

If I scroll to the foot of the search results page it says "United Kingdom" at the bottom, and gives my location accurately based on my Android phone's location, but it's not actually using Google.co.uk.

If I select preferences, I only have Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo listed. Is there any way that I can customise this list?

You can try using the AnySearch Safari extension which will allow you to set custom search engines to be used as the default.

Add this as a search engine in AnySearch: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=@@@


Way to back-up phone numbers on iPhone? What is a good service to back up my contacts on my iPhone?

I use Google services and probably you as well, I love the translate, the email, documents, reader (RSS), etc ...

So, why not using Google Contacts as your "middle men" and sync them with your Apple Mobile device?


Does MacBook Pro 13" 2017 and 2018 with Touch Bar have the same bandwidth on all 4 ports? I learnt from this article:

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/28/macbook-pro-tb3-reduced-pci-express-bandwidth/

...that the right ports on MacBook Pro 13" 2016 with Touchbar deliver reduced throughput for Thunderbolt devices.

I wonder if this is also the case with the 2017 and 2018 MacBook Pros.

Check this information I found on an article:

  "The 13-inch MacBook Pro (2017) without Touch bar has 2x full-speed
  Thunderbolt 3 ports / USB-C ports. The 13-inch MacBook Pro (2018) with
  Touch ID has 4x Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports and, with the 2018 model,
  all four of those ports are now full bandwidth."

I hope this answers your question.


Sandboxing prl_disp_service to prevent disk waking So there is prl_disp_service, a Parallels 7 background service that periodically wakes the internal hard drive in my Macbook Pro although it`s unmounted most of the time since I boot from an SSD I replaced the DVD drive with.

For reference: http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=114974

Is there a way to apply some sandbox-exec profile to this process so it will continue functioning normally but won´t see /dev/disk1* and do stat or something else on it that causes it to wake up?

Yay, I managed to sandbox prl_disp_service \o/

I put a file named prl_disp_service.sb into /Library/Sandbox/Profiles denying ioctl on disk1 (the harddisk I wanted to prevent from waking):

(version 1)
(allow default)
(debug deny)
(import "system.sb")
(deny file-read* file-ioctl
    (regex "/dev/disk1*"))

And edited /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Resources/ParallelsDispatcherService:

sandbox-exec -f /Library/Sandbox/Profiles/prl_disp_service.sb "${ParallelsDispatcherService}" -e --logfile "${LogFile}" --pidfile "${PidFile}" >/dev/null 2>&1 &


Trackpad collapsed on the right side (unusable) and very risen on the left side. Is this fixable? I have a MacBook Pro. After 4-years of use, the right side of the trackpad has completely collapsed. It can no longer be pressed. The left side has risen significantly, but is usable.

Given how a MacBook is built, is it possible to open it up, remove the battery, and maybe tighten some screws (or whatever) to level out the trackpad?

notes
MacBook Pro (13", mid-2012)
I've already opened it once to upgrade to a (256-gb SSD) and (16-gb RAM).

If the trackpad is lifting out of the casing, then it is likely a battery problem. Usually costs $200 USD to get everything that has been damaged replaced. This includes installation at an Apple Store.

Here is the price breakdown

Battery: $130 USD
Trackpad: $50 USD

Better get to Apple Store. They will likely warranty the new battery for a year just in case it happens again. Your choice though.

If you feel like taking the risk and doing it yourself, maybe see iFixit.com... I have attached this link for a trackpad replacement, and this link for a battery replacement.


Copy audio files to iPhone without using iTunes? I have a few audiofiles on my PCs (Windows/Mac) that I would like to listen to on the go on my iPhone.  Is it possible to copy them somehow onto the mobile without using iTunes?

Yes, it is possible however Apple seems to have gone to great lengths to try to prevent you from doing this. Especially if you meant without the use of any sort of app on the PC at all, as if it were simply a disk drive in explorer.

That, I believe, is not possilble/practical without first jailbreaking your phone. If you do not have iOS 8 and you have not jailbroken your phone, I would suggest that you do while you still are able to and while it is a simple "one-button" process. While Pangu recently released a jailbreak for iOS 8, it is reportedly still a bit buggy so I would wait a bit if you have iOS 8. You would jailbreak your iPhone by downloading the pangu app on your PC from http://en.pangu.io/

However, if you don't want to jailbreak but you don't want to use iTunes, there are a number of different "replacements" for iTunes. Many people even go so far as to completely remove iTunes from their system as well.

Media Monkey is a rather full-featured replacement for iTunes that can do a number of things that iTunes can or will not. I personally liked MM when I was using it a year or two ago. They support Android as well.  You can download it at http://www.mediamonkey.com/download/

Another option is called iFunbox. They recently revamped their software but luckily they deigned to keep the older version, calling it iFunbox classic. Here's a quote from their website about it."

  With iFunBox Classic included, you can still manage files on your iDevice with no jailbreak needed. Here's some basic features:

  • Safe ipa package installation and easy access to files and resources in app sandbox. Learn More
  • Use your device as portable USB disk with hi-speed transmission beyond 20MB/s on iPhone and iPad.
  • Import and export songs, videos, photos and ringtones with iFunBox quick toolbox.

You can find iFunbox at http://www.i-funbox.com/

Hope this helps.


How to show split view spotlight results without clicking I just upgraded to Big Sur.
Something I don't like is that Spotlight doesn't show BIG RESULTS for dictionary definitions and calculator, unless you click on them.
It used to be that the answer to the calculation was automatically displayed largely in a panel on the right half of the results.
Similarly for the dictionary, in fact Spotlight now doesn't show me the word's pronunciation, etymology, alternative definitions, etc, unless I click on the result physically with my mouse (maybe there is also a hidden keyboard shortcut for it)
How can I make it present the results as it used to in Catalina, without me having to do any additional action other than search?

Spotlight has changed quite disruptively for many workflows and I am not sure that in right direction. There is a choice: adapt or resist the change. Following is from adaption perspective:
How to display calculation results largely in a panel on the right half of the results > press ⇥ (TAB) at the end of calculation.
For dictionary > use ⌘ ↓ to navigate to Definition block and press enter (or alternatively enter term, then ⇥ (TAB) which displays preview and then navigate to Definition block; during navigation preview stays open)
If you are looking for "word's pronunciation, etymology, alternative definitions, etc" then one option it to search directly within Dictionary app (or use dict:// at the beginning in Spotlight and then press Enter which takes to Dictionary term)


change or deactivate iOS 9 newsfeed on the search screen I have an iPhone 5 and just updated to iOS 9 (all german).

What I really do not like is the content of the newsfeed that is presented to me on the search screen. How can I change what content is presented to me (no more news from spiegel.de or focus.de please!) or if that is not possible, how can I completely disable news on that search screen but keep all the rest of the proactive search features on that search screen?

It appears in the US locale, the solution is to disable the news app from contributing to spotlight search but this app (and the switch for it) does not exist in iOS 9 that detects a german locale.

You can disable it by navigating to Settings > General > Spotlight Search
This will however disable the whole news feed and other Spotlight Search feed items such as:

recent applications
recent contacts
nearby places

When you scroll down the Spotlight Search settings, please check out the "About Spotlight Suggestions & Privacy..." link on the bottom.
This will contain a lot of information about what information is sent from your phone to Apple and third parties like Microsoft when you open or use Spotlight Search.
This information includes among other things: search queries, location, account names, subscription information.

More information about Spotlight Search can be found here.


iPad mobile safari printing I need to print web pages from Safari to a mobile printer in the field using an iPad.  I can't seem to figure this out - any ideas, suggestions?

As I understand it, I cannot connect to a printer via bluetooth - iOS does not allow this.

I won't be in an area with WiFi - so I can't connect that way.

I have two thoughts....

Can I use the mobile hotspot on the iPad to create the WiFi network and then print to the Wifi printer using this network? Would that work?
Using the camera connection kit/USB attachment to print to a USB connected printer.  Would that work?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be so appreciated.

Thank you!

Depending on your printer, you can sometimes print photos from the printer end. If your printer is able to see photos on your iPad using the camera connection kit, then you could take a screenshot of the webpage, then find the image using the photo browser function of your printer, and print the image.

If your printer is airprint enabled, then it might be possible to do as you suggest and connect the printer to the iPad hotspot, but I don't have an iPad that can create WiFi hotspots, so I can't test it.


In iOS Safari, why aren't the Facebook social plugin cookies blocked, in spite of the "from visited" option? In my iPad, the cookie setting for Safari is set to "from visited", which should block all third party cookies. But if I am not logged out of Facebook, then from any third party webpage that uses the Facebook Social plugin, I can see which of my friends have liked that page. That means Facebook knows that I am visiting that page, so its third party cookie isn't blocked. What am I missing here? (I use Chrome with my Desktop computer, and this does not happen, i.e. with its "block third party cookies" setting, the Facebook social plugin cannot see who I am, even when I'm logged in to Facebook.)

Facebook's 'social plugin' is iframed, and as far as the browser is concerned content in an iframe is on the domain that served the iframe, not the domain of the page that had the iframe in it.

So, to the 'social plugin', facebook's cookies are first-party cookies, not third-party ones.


Acknowledging an Exchange calendar response triggers a new invitation I have Calendar connected to an Exchange 2010 server. I created an event with several (~40) persons. When someone answers I sometimes (not always) have a notification in Calendar with an "OK" button.

If I click "OK" the invitation is sent again to everybody.

I also noticed that sometimes when I snooze an alarm the other invited persons receive a notification per email.

Edit 1

This happens with each and every event that I create on Exchange, not only the example above.

Edit 2

Is there a way to solve the problem?
Or is there a way to gather more information (for example logs)?

Edit 3

I just noticed that when clicking on "OK"

Calendar sends an email to the attendees (I found it in the "Sent" folder) with the invitation attached (which makes no sense).

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:REQUEST
PRODID:Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:W. Europe Standard Time
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16010101T030000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0200
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
ORGANIZER;CN=:MAILTO:********
ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=TRUE;CN=HÃ¤ubi  J
 Ã¼rg A. (ID PPF):MAILTO:********
DESCRIPTION;LANGUAGE=en-US:When: Thursday\, January 29\, 2015 2:00 PM-3:00
 PM. (UTC+01:00) Amsterdam\, Berlin\, Bern\, Rome\, Stockholm\, Vienna\nWhe
 re: STB H11.1\n\n*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*\n\n\nORIGINAL TEXT\n
SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-US:Archivmigration
DTSTART;TZID=W. Europe Standard Time:20150129T140000
DTEND;TZID=W. Europe Standard Time:20150129T150000
UID:484366B6-E758-4B66-B590-E42D1797C805
CLASS:PUBLIC
PRIORITY:5
DTSTAMP:20150123T152428Z
TRANSP:OPAQUE
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SEQUENCE:1
LOCATION;LANGUAGE=en-US:STB H11.1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-APPT-SEQUENCE:1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-OWNERAPPTID:2112993755
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:TENTATIVE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-ALLDAYEVENT:FALSE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INSTTYPE:0
X-MICROSOFT-DISALLOW-COUNTER:FALSE
BEGIN:VALARM
ACTION:DISPLAY
DESCRIPTION:REMINDER
TRIGGER;RELATED=START:-PT15M
END:VALARM
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

This does not seem to be generated by Calendar (PRODID:Microsoft Exchange Server 2010), it seems that Calendar sends back the confirmation it received.

Edit 4

I am using Calendar 8.0 on Yosemite but the problem was already present on Mavericks before the upgrade.

This is a problem between Microsoft Exchange and your mac. I have had same issue a while ago, and decided not to change stuff via an Apple device.

I know it's not the answer you were hoping for, but's the reality at this moment.


Apple Wallpaper gone in recent versions of iOS? Has Apple been replacing their Wallpaper images during updates of iOS 7, 8, and 9?

My iPhone 5s has an image of a blue-green aurora borealis that I assume was Apple-provided. I don't recall installing from outside. But now I do not see that image listed in Settings > Wallpaper > Choose a New Wallpaper > Apple Wallpaper in iOS 9.2.

Yes. Nearly every iOS update phases out some of the wallpapers and introduces new ones. They typically phase out the oldest wallpapers while adding new ones into the mix. Many of the earlier iOS versions introduced and phased out fewer images, but the last few have introduced more, and subsequently removed more.

The dynamic wallpapers have stayed the same since they were introduced in iOS 7.


mac os x - UNIX domain sockets in abstract namespace Are they possible?

According to this it is possible starting from Mac osx 10.9. Ctrl + F for "New support for Abstract namespace sockets" on that page. But I was not able to find one single example for Mac.

Also in Linux the sockets created in the abstract name space you can see them in /proc/net/unix (cat -v /proc/net/unix).
The mac does not have /proc/...

Where can I expect to find them? Does it have something similar to Linux?

Thanks.

The developer documentation linked is for perl, not Mac OS X. The documentation states that perl v5.11.0 is capable of supporting abstract socket namespaces.

The undocumented assumption is that the underlying operating system also provides this support.

I am not aware of any Apple documentation saying Mac OS X supports abstract namespace sockets.


Any way to use a scan as a signature in Preview (Yosemite)? I want to add my signature to PDFs in Preview, but the Trackpad/Camera method is terrible.

Any way to add a scanned signature to Preview??

sadly the only ways to add a signature in Preview, is by using the two different ways you mentioned. You could type your name in pages, print it out and use the camera.


Keyboard shortcut for "replace" on the dialog box Every time I need to overwrite files on my macOS Sierra Macbook when saving from a different location, I have to necessarily click on the Replace button. Is there a way to do this via the keyboard? I tried enabling All controls in the keyboard options but I can't seem to get it to work. The button focus shifts when I press Tab but pressing Enter does not do anything.

When All controls is enabled, a border is wrapped around the focused button. Press Select to select the focused button. Enter always select the default button in the dialog which may not be the one with focus.