Change what percentage/time remaining causes the battery icon on Mac to go red I'm dead broke. So, I have a cheap battery for my dead-broke-esque 2008 MacBook. It only lasts about 2 hours on a full charge. However, it's a little goofy at times. Not in a dangerous way, just that it seems to miscalculate how much time it has left sometimes, and suddenly dies at 25%. I know, terrible choice to get an old battery. But I'm poor and was sick of outlet-surfing, so I got a cheap battery. Anyway, since my upgrade to OS X Lion (in 2018, mind you), I haven't had as much of a problem, but still might have it sometimes. Plus, I'm going to be letting a friend/colleague of mine use it for a while, and would rather tell him to "plug it in when it gets red" than sit and explain the goofy battery more than I already have.

So what I am wondering is how I can, if possible, change the percentage of battery remaining that will cause the battery icon to turn red in the Menu Bar. I also would think it nice to be able to spring the "Reserve power" notification at a certain percentage as well. I know I can also just AppleScript Finder to pop up and say "ey, you're low on power" but I think it would be better to change the actual alerts.

...how I can, if possible, change the percentage of battery remaining
  that will cause the battery icon to turn red in the Menu Bar.

You can't.

It's not something that can be modified.

The battery icon changes to red when you have less than 15% charge remaining (macOS 10.8 and earlier).  It changes when there is less than 10 minutes remaining in Mavericks (10.9 and later).  See About Mac notebook batteries

You'd need a 3rd party app like Coconut Battery (Paid edition) so you can get notifications when your battery reaches a certain level.

(IMO) If you're going to pay for an app to tell you this, just buy a new battery and be done with it.


Is Maverick faster than Lion on a MacbookPro year 2009? I want to format and reboot my old 15" MacBook Pro year 2009 (2.4 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo,  RAM 8 GB). I'll use it with Office, Chrome and VLC, nothing else. Given that, what's the best choice between Mountain Lion and Maverick?

That depends.

First of all assuming that your hardware is per requirement for either OS.

The 3 apps you mentioned, you will not notice speed improvement in VLC or Office 2011 since those apps are not really speed dependent, but since Mavericks has better overall process task management it could be faster.

If you were to use Safari instead of Chrome you would notice improved speed in Safari with Mavericks.

The Mavericks does have a better memory (RAM) management them ML that can be helpful even for Office and VLC to make them work faster.

If you care about batter utilization then mavericks wins that one.

In summary, generally new software are always better (faster) the older one, otherwise they would defeat the purpose of been released as a improvement.


OS X Lion suppresses user's settings for the keyboard backlight Recently I've upgraded to Lion and in general I'm not satisfied with its performance, but what's really annoying is that the login screen always sets the keyboard backlight to the max (even when I set it to zero, after re-entering login screen, it's back to the max level).

That's not quite bad, however that maximum level of the keyboard backlight suppresses my setting (zero highlighting) when I log in. So when I log in, the keyboard backlight is still very bright, as it was at the login screen, I press F5 to discover that OS thinks the keyboard backlight is off. Pressing F6 brings the backlight down to 1st level, so pressing F5 again, turns the keyboard backlight off.

It was persistent at 10.7 and continues to be so for 10.7.2.

UPDATE: since some time I didn't see it. I'm running 10.8.4.

I don't know if it's Lion or a hardware feature, but on my MacBook Air, the system changes the keyboard lighting (and screen brightness) depending on the ambient brightness, which is detected by a sensor near the iSight lens at the top of the screen. In bright surroundings, the keyboard lighting is disabled and pressing F5 or F6 does nothing.


Stable and free CAD for OS X 10.11, El Capitan? Are there any stable and free CAD programs for OS X 10.11, El Capitan?

I just need to review one CAD file. I find many CAD programs for OS X 10.10, Yosemite, but not for El Capitan.

If you only need to review a file, try using a free demonstration of:

AutoCAD
MacDraft
Vectorworks
SketchUp

For more CAD applications on the Mac, see Pure Mac's CAD section and AppleCAD's extensive list. Most will work with OS X 10.11.


Mac Server setup for small office We have a Mac Mini with OSX server for our small web design company's office. We want to move toward a local setup and to then push up to the live server. In the past I have used MAMP PRO and Sequel Pro to create an environment on my personal computer.

Our setup is basically 1 Mac Mini with Server OSX and then 5 iMacs. I would like to be able to type in http://clients/client-name and pull up the sites from all of our computers.

My initial plan is to mount the the individual sites with Transmit 4, have CodeKit watch it for preprocessing (SASS), and Sublime Text as our editor.

I know I should ask a specific answerable question, but the real question is: what is the the best way for us to set up our server to our sites? We do a lot of custom WordPress builds so Apache and mySQL are key.

What could I can read about? Everything I have found is "OSX server, does it all - have fun!".

Another issue is how to push it live with Beanstalk, maybe, and migrate DB pro?

You will need MAMP on every iMac.
You need an Apple Time Capsule Router/Network Storage Drive.
Tell MAMP to look for the Site Files on the Time Capsule.
Import the MySQL Database for Each Website into phpMyAdmin on MAMP.
Run MAMP on each iMac.
Go to localhost:8888 in your Browser.
Click on the Site you want to Edit.

NOTE: Name the Site Folder for Each Website.


Can I use target disk mode from a Thunderbolt 3 mac to a Thunderbolt 2 for data recovery? I have a late 2014 15.6" Macbook Pro with Thunderbolt 2, on which I accidentally wiped the entire partition table, including Recovery HD (yeah, I was stupid). There's some data on it that I kind of want (nothing super important though). I haven't had any luck recovering the data with freely available tools (I tried a few things on Linux live USBs, and I also tried the Disk Drill MacOS USB, which saw nothing), so I was trying to demo the R-Studio data recovery software to see if it could find the lost partitions and files. However, the USB wouldn't boot on the old laptop, and the tech support guy at R-Studio said the only way I could do it was to run R-Studio on another Mac and read the drive using Target Disk Mode.
If I buy a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter and a Thunderbolt 2 cable, would I be able to use Target Disk Mode from my 2017 15" Thunderbolt-3-equipped work laptop? And would this in fact give the level of hardware access needed for lost partition/lost file recovery?
I feel like the data has to still be there in some form, because I haven't written anything to the disk since I borked it up.

Yes, that should work.  I recall that working for me with a similar situation in the past.
Here's a couple links that might help.
https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/41010-mac-os-101-how-to-boot-and-use-a-mac-in-target-disk-mode/
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/transfer-files-mac-computers-target-disk-mode-mchlp1443/11.0/mac/11.0


Looking for monitoring tool for app sales and trends - combining iTunes App Store and Android Market I am currently on the search for a universal desktop application (osx if possible) that is tracking both my iOS developer account as well as my android market store account.

I already tried a lot of different tools but none of them so far seemed to work this way:

Prismo (OS X / only iOS / lots of bugs)
AppViz (OS X / afaik only iOS / though decent tool)
AppAnnie (Web / only iOS / does not give all stats wanted / not sure but data privacy)
Distimo Monitoring Tool (Web / multiple Stores / data privacy not given)
AppFigures (I did not try this so far - anyone have experience with this tool?)

If anyone would know such a tool as Distimo but with the privacy and data security that is needed for highly confidential app statistics it would be awesome if you could post it right here.

A lot of small and big developers use Distimo Monitor, most probably because they like the feature set, number of supported stores and ad networks and also because they trust the data privacy and security. Just give it a try, for questions you can always use the contact form.


How to restore Macbook Air to factory settings? I am not a pro-Mac user (I am a Windows user)

Here's what I did with my old Macbook Air,

Press COMMAND + R while booting and it went into the mode shown in the picture
Selected Macintosh HD to (hopefully) install Mac OS X again
Entered Apple ID credentials

However, upon logging in, a message box shows saying that the Apple ID has not been used with App Store then the install won't proceed.

What can be done to format the Macbook Air into factory settings.

Your answer is right there in your last line, "format the MacBook Air..." Or more correctly format the hard drive.

When you boot into Recovery Mode you should be given the option to launch Disk Utility. Do that, go into Disk Utility, select the Macintosh HD volume/partition and format it.

Once there is nothing on the internal drive it should allow you to install macOS and there should be no conflict with the credentials previously used.

If you have not established an AppleID and logged into the App Store before you may need to do this once. It will likely want a payment method (credit card) but downloading and installing macOS is free. You should be able to do this in iTunes on your MacBook Air before you do the whole reformat then reinstall routine.


What control character do I send to the terminal to make it delete a full word at a time? I recently discovered that sending \033[5D and \033[5C sends the character to move a full word at a time, making mac os x terminal almost as awesome as the default ubuntu and debian terminals.

So then, the one thing I'm missing is: the control key to bind option-delete and option-backspace to deletion of full words.


Is there a way to force update of the notes app or calendar app on macOS 10.12.5 Sierra? I'm having a problem with the notes app and/or the calendar app. Is there a way to force an update/replace of either of these apps.  Maybe that will solve my problem.

Unfortunately, Apple does not offer any method of replacing or updating individual default applications. The only way to do this would be to perform a reinstall. Your issue is certainly unusual, but a reinstall will most likely take care of it. Note that a reinstall will not touch your personal data.


Where can I find drivers for Windows 7 on an iMac without Boot Camp Assistant? I have OS X installed on my 27" iMac and want to dual boot with Windows 7. I installed rEFit and then installed Windows 7. Now I need the drivers that normally get installed with Boot Camp Assistant. Does anybody know where to find them? I can't find them on Apple's site.

They are on one of the installation disks that comes with your iMac. Also, I'm pretty sure the drivers get installed if you download and run a "Bootcamp Software Update for Windows"  from Apple's support site. They are usually 200MB or up downloads that come packed with drivers for windows, so give it a try in case you can't find your cds.


Printing problems with original IPad I'm having two printing problems.

I can't print out of my yahoo email at all. Gmail email prints fine.
When I print out of Photos, only the center one third of the page.

Thanks!

In trying to understand you question it looks like you have 2 problems.

1--Your Yahoo email is not printing, since it does not know where to print it..so check the settings for Yahoo email

2--It is difficult to understand what you mean by

  When I print out of Photos, only the center one third of the page

Since you might have more the one print settings profiles set up (that is why Google email works) and others do not!

I would in any case check you print settings in the System Preferences and correct them.


Can AppleScript automatically press a key for me in an application? I'm trying to devices an AppleScript that will automatically press the right arrow key for 1 second, then the left arrow key for 1 second and repeat this in an endless loop until I interrupt it.

Here is what I've come up with so far, but it's not quite working:

tell application "VisualBoyAdvance"
    repeat 100 times
        tell application "VisualBoyAdvance" to keystroke "124"
        delay 1
    end repeat
end tell

You could repeat key code commands until the frontmost application changes:

delay 1
activate application "TextEdit"
tell application "System Events"
    repeat while (path to frontmost application) is (path to application "TextEdit")
        repeat 3 times
            key code 123
            delay 0.3
        end repeat
        repeat 3 times
            key code 124
            delay 0.3
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell

Shorter delays (including 0.2 seconds) made it difficult to stop the script. I had to hold ⌥⇧⌘⎋ to force quit TextEdit.

This moved left only once:

delay 1
tell application "System Events"
    key down (character id 28)
    delay 5
    key up (character id 28)
end tell

left: 123 / 28
right: 124 / 29
down: 125 / 31
up: 126 / 30


Displaying numbers with the right sign I have an odd question: how can I persuade Numbers to show the signs of a series of numbers which may be either positive or negative? The negative sign is a default setting, but there appears to be no default to show the plus sign for positive numbers. It would be useful if it existed, or if some bright spark has a work-around.

At least in older Numbers versions (in my example it's Numbers 3.2.2/Mavericks 10.9.5) you can define a custom data format.

Hit the "Cell" tab and the "Data Format" drop down menu > Create custom Format….

Use the default Number format and apply an additional rule like in the screenshot below:

and hit the OK button. Then apply the custom format Number+ to all appropriate fields.

The custom format is document based. You have to configure it anew for every new document.


How to go to new line in iTerm2 without executing command? Don't flag this as duplicate to answers that say append \ because I am not asking for line continuation.
I want something equivalent to Command .  from default terminal in ITerm2. I want to treat line as a comment.
Just want to go to a new line without executing. And I don't want to erase the command as well.
$ hello world
$ previous line was not executed and its still there without showing errors
$ ls -la

This has nothing to do with iTerm, but rather the shell that you're using and whether or not the option interactive_comments is enabled or not.  To treat the line as a comment, you have to start the line with a comment character.
Bash Reference Manual (Chapter 3.1.3) - Comments

In a non-interactive shell, or an interactive shell in which the interactive_comments option to the shopt builtin is enabled (see The Shopt Builtin), a word beginning with ‘#’ causes that word and all remaining characters on that line to be ignored. An interactive shell without the interactive_comments option enabled does not allow comments. The interactive_comments option is on by default in interactive shells.

$ shopt -s interactive_comments          <-------- Enable interactive_comments
$ shopt -u interactive_comments          <-------- Disable

To make this permanent, put the command in your ~/bash_profile or ~/bashrc.  It's enabled by default in Bash
Zsh Reference Manual (Chapter 6.7) - Comments

In non-interactive shells, or in interactive shells with the INTERACTIVE_COMMENTS option set, a word beginning with the third character of the histchars parameter (‘#’ by default) causes that word and all the following characters up to a newline to be ignored

% setopt interactive_comments         <------ Enable interactive_comments
% unsetopt interactive_comments       <------ Disable

To make the setting permanent, place the appropriate command in  your ~/.zshrc.  It's disabled by default in Zsh.


Are App Store elements (eg app store copy, preview images) perserved when you transfer an app Will I need to re-enter the app store copy, translations, preview images and video when I move an app to a new publisher account, or is that content retained on the app store?
Thanks in advance for any comments!

The data is retained when transferring the app.


How to add keyboard shortcut for "Move to Predicted Mailbox" in Apple Mail? In Apple Mail (under macOS Catalina, 10.15.3) there is a menu item "Move to Predicted Mailbox" .
It already has a keyboard shortcut ^ CMD M.

I would like to change that to something else.
Now, the problem is that this menu item changes every time I select a different message, depending on the folder Mail predicts. So, one time it is called 'Move to "MailboxA"'  , another time it might be called 'Move to "MailboxB"' .
Consequently, I cannot define a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences for it. I have tried to define it for "Move to Predicted Mailbox", but when Mail actually does predict a mailbox, then it shows the original shortcut, not mine.

Does anyone have an idea how I might be able to define a shortcut for this that "sticks"?

There are built in shortcuts for the Favorites bar – the bar shown here that has "Mailboxes Inbox (5) 2021Q1 2020Q4 (1)".

The shortcuts are ⌘+Control+<number>, where number is the position on the bar with "inbox" getting position 1. So to move to 2021Q1 on my favorites bar, I hit ⌘+Control+2 (probably my most hit keyboard shortcut since my current archive folder also holds this spot on my favorites bar).
If you don't see the favorites bar, show it from the View menu, "Show Favorites Bar." Then drag your preferred folders from the folder list on the left onto the favorites bar.


Which terminal window app allows for multiple panes and click to open new window I am watching this screencast series where the guy is using OSX and has this cool terminal window client.

Trying to figure out which one he is using.  Here is a screenshot:

It looks like he is able to also click on folders and it opens a new terminal window.  Full video is here: https://youtu.be/-kXYycFYDzo?list=PL05JrBw4t0KqoFUiX42JG7BAc7pipMBAy&t=211

Can someone recommend software that performs this based on the screen shot?

Acme in Plan9.

There's a macOS version available.

If you want this video Ori actually talks through and explains how to change and edit how the editor behaves: Plan 9: Not dead, Just Resting, by Ori Bernstein


How can I move from iOS 11 Developer to iOS 11 Public I’ve been on the developer beta since it came out, but for some stability improvements, I’d like to go to and remain on the public version. How can I move from iOS 11 Developer Beta to iOS 11 Public Beta?

Remove any profiles that are in the settings app (general section)  relating to the developer program.
Enroll the device in the public beta program with a public beta profile.
Wait for the public beta build to be a newer version than your current Dev beta and then update the device.

If the Dev beta is too new or you never get an available update, you might need to erase and restore / recover the device. Since you ask this early in the 10.11 beta cycle updates should be every couple of weeks for a while. This shift isn’t a given and could break in the future even though it worked a few times in the past.


Get cell value by address string in Numbers In Numbers 3.5.2 I manage to get a cell address sting (I compute it based on some data). Now when I have it, how can I get the value behind that address without copying the result of my function to the another cell and adding = before it?

There's the INDIRECT function, which returns the contents of a cell or range referenced by an address specified as a string.

example:

INDIRECT("B2")

Here's Apple documentation about Numbers.app functions.


how do I get everything back to normal (partition issue) Okay, so I've recently shifted to Mac from Windows. I was curious to check out what the Yosemite OS looked like, and hence I downloaded the beta and had it up and running. It was downloaded on the primary hd.

There were already a few backups on my time machine, so I decided to erase the primary macintosh hd and restore the backups. Everything got erased and it's all lying as a corestorage unit now. It says that there is no available space and all the options have been greyed out. I don't know how to create the partitions now and all efforts are in vain. Any help would be appreciated.

Try using cmd + R during startup and booting to the Recovery HD.

Booting to Recovery HD.

Open up DiskUtility from the menu and you should be able to access the drives and re-partition them and restore the OS again.


How to install iPad App Store downloads after being deleted? After deleting several applications I downloaded from App Store, I don't seem to be able to download them a second time as there is no Install button. Is this normal? Are they lost forever?

Once you purchase or download a free app you will see a 'cloud' icon with a down arrow next to the apps name in the App Store. This identifies that you've previously purchased the app. Just tap on that and it will download again free of charge. Alternatively you can click on the App Store > Updates and there will be a Purchased button at the top. Tap on that a list of all the apps you've downloaded previously will display


Always Automatically 'Right-Size' All Finder Window Columns Individually? Is there a way to make all Finder Column Views automatically 'right-size' all of their columns individually by default in OS X 10.10.x 'Yosemite?'

The only solution up to OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), is to download XtraFinder - a free app that is very useful for your issue as well as many other things, including restoring full coloured labels rather than OS X's silly little dots.
Sadly the full functionality of XtraFinder was destroyed initially when El Capitan came along but if you don't mind disabling System Integrity Protection some of XtraFinder's features can be restored. The guy who publishes this is working on an update that will restore everything in El Capitan, later. You can plumb the internet to get more information about XtraFinder and also how to disable SIP.


How do I verify the integrity of my OSX installation? (Files, versions, and preferences) I want to verify the files, and configuration settings for my OSX installation against a known good reference "base".

Assuming I have two identical Macs (hardware), with one being factory installed and up-to-date in patches versus another as-is Mac.. how do I compare the differences between them?  Where do I look?

Although some people may use this answer as forensics, I'm looking more in the sense that I installed a few python libraries and am not sure what I did with them, and want to do some housekeeping.

Terminal commands (grep, ls, etc are all welcome).  Lacking an all encompassing solution, I'd appreciate your input on whatever you can contribute.

Mount both volumes on a Mac and drag both drives into a file comparison tool like Kaleidoscope. It will show file differences as well as hilight files that exist on one folder as opposed to the other folder.

You could also diff a file listing like ls -laR or whatever other flags you prefer to see what differences (excepting file metadata and ACL / special flags that either take other ls flags or are invisible to a simple file listing.) Some people go so far as to create a listing with md5 or other hashes that checksum the actual contents of files, but that's more appropriate for a security scan / configuration management suite like munki or tripwire.

Lots of blogs cover that sort of professional system management like these entries from 318, Inc.


Can't Delete Video Files from my Macbook Pro hard drive My Macbook Pro hard drive is full. I have attempted to delete video files from All My Files but they won't delete. I also found that several files with just audio from many of my videos are also there. When I try to move them to the trash, they go to the trash but then another copy is made. How do I permanently delete video and photo files?

Open Finder and go to your Home folder (named after your User Account).
Find the Movies folder.

You can drag it into Finder's Sidebar for convenience.
In the Movies folder, you can delete anything.
Make sure to quit all programs before deleting something, so that the files are not in use. In other words, don't be listening to iTunes or whatever while you're deleting media files.

In some cases, a file may be in use, even if you've quit the relevant app. If this happens, log out and back in, or reboot the computer, then attempt to delete the files.
Be sure to empty the Trash after you delete the files, otherwise the space will not be regained.


Alternatives to QuickTime 7 for making simple edits without re-encoding? (This is similar to a question I asked in 2014 but I'm hoping there are better options available now, plus we have to take the lack of 32-bit apps into consideration now.)

QuickTime 7 will no longer work in macOS 15 "Catalina" so the time has come to find an alternative.

Playback is no problem, as there are many apps that can playback videos in more formats than QuickTime 7 could.

However, one of the best features of QuickTime 7 "Pro" was that it was able to make simple edits to video files (not just trimming from the start or end, which is all QuickTime X can do).

It also did so without re-encoding the videos, at least for .mov files.

I'm hoping to find GUI app options, rather than, say, some kind of magical ffmpeg invocation. Bonus points for being easy to use and not having an atrocious UI, but at this point I'm open to just about anything.

QuickTime X seems to be able to open a .mp4 file, trim it, and re-save as .mp4 with no re-encoding.
This was surprising to me, as the only way to Export the file is via a filetype change to .mov.
If you take other actions such as Add Clip to End..., the menu item for Save will become greyed out and you will be forced to export as .mov if you wish to save. If you Split Clip more than one time without deleting a segment it similarly prevents the save.
But this does enable easy trimming and re-saving without .mov conversion using Quicktime X.
Trim .mp4 video file:

Open a .mp4 with QuickTime Player X
Scrub to a location in the file. Use the keyboard arrow controls for frame-perfect accuracy.
Press Split Clip CMDY to cut the video into two segments.
Select the unwanted segment. Press delete to delete.

Note: You can also use the Trim CMDT command. But I find it is almost impossible to accurately set the In/Out markers without keyboard arrow controls, which do not function in the Trim UI. Instead, use Split Clip to delete each end of the trim.
Save without re-encoding

Press Save CMDS
A "Save As..." dialog will pop up.
Note that it is exporting as .mp4. Default value: Export As: Untitled.mp4
Rename your file and save.
Resulting format will be same file type and dimensions as your source file. Its file size should also be smaller, depending on how much was trimmed.

Export As...
Note that the Export As... menu does NOT contain "pass through" or "original" or any good option.
When you select 480p you are only able to export as a .mov file.
Use Save rather than Export, which will allow you to re-save as a .mp4.


My iPhone 4S has been destroyed... can I backup from the cloud at a later time? My iPhone 4s is giving me the option to set up as new phone or restore via iTunes or iCloud. I have pictures on my previous phone that is now destroyed. I am unable to maintain a stable wireless connection.

Is there any way I can set up as a new iPhone now and restore all my data later? Or will I lose all my data from my previous phone if I set up a new iPhone?

The backup for the old phone will be stored in the cloud until you delete.  However, if you restore later, you will have to erase any data that you have added since then on the new phone.


Why TimeMachine defaults to case sensitive? I've just had some problems with a disk that was formatted with HFS+ case sensitive while every else by Apple was non case sensitive.

After a long time moving things away from my biggest disk, partitioning and formatting non-case-sensitive, I've found out that Time Machine does format "case sensitive"

Why Apple wants case-sensitive only for Time Machine??? What's the technical advantage? I've just invested a long time fixing sync problems with my disks because of different case sensitivity problems

Case-sensitive and -insensitive filesystems under OS X are a mess (to say the least), primarily because some well-known and big software companies require their software to be installed on an case-insensitive filesystem. Otherwise these applications wouldn't really work because accessing IMPORTANT-RESOURCE.jpg would never work with a file named important-resource.jpg on disk.

OTOH for TM backups this is not really important because you will never run an application directly from your TimeMachine drive. Using a case-sensitive filesystem in that case covers both possible options without negative impact.


How can I create Todoist tasks with Siri? I recently started using Todoist as the primary reminder/task management app on my iPhone. However, one feature I miss from Apple's native Reminders app is being able to create reminders using Siri commands. (ie: "Remind me to buy groceries tomorrow")

Is it possible to create Todoist reminders using Siri? Or is Siri only able to interact with Apple's native Reminders app?

For now this feature is only available for Reminders.

In iOS 11 it's possible for todo list apps to use Siri. So you need to wait for iOS 11 and for the developer of Todoist to update it's app to add support for Siri.

  SiriKit gives developers the ability to integrate Siri into their
  apps, and with iOS 11 it expands to support more categories, including
  to-do lists, notes and reminders; banking for account transfers and
  balances; and apps that display QR codes.

Source: look for SiriKit


App Store Does Not Work - macOs Sierra For some reason app store simply does not work:

Solutions like:

reset NVRAM;
remove com.apple.appstore.plist, com.apple.storeagent.plist and then restart,

did not solve the problem.

Does anyone know other possible solutions?

Thanks.

TLDR: If you can browse the web with Firefox or Chrome, but not with Safari, then adjusting your network settings might fix both Safari and the App Store.  Start by looking at proxy settings.

I'm hoping you found a solution by now.  Just in case this helps anyone, I'm going to share what worked for me.  I had no problem browsing the web with Firefox or Chrome, but the App Store just showed a grey window like the screenshot in the original post.

During troubleshooting, I discovered that Safari couldn't connect to any web servers.  This suggested that the problem had something to do with the Mac's network settings.  I opened the network settings, selected my network adapter, clicked Advanced, went to the Proxies tab, and unchecked Automatic Proxy Configuration.  That fixed everything.


Folder displaying in terminal but not finder Alright, so I just started beginning web development using my mac. My localhost says "It works" and I read somewhere I need to add my code files etc in Library/WebServer/Documents.

However, inside my Library, I do not see any WebServer folder. I can only see WebKit.

But if I try to locate the folder with terminal, it exists right there inside /Library.

What mystery is this? Please help me out.

Mac OS has hidden folders within the depths of its hard drive. If you want to make these appear, you have to use the terminal.

Open the terminal.

Type the command defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE, then press Enter (Or Return)

Type the command killall Finder (make sure you do the capital F) and press Enter/Return.

If you ever want to turn this off, just repeat the commands above, substituting TRUE for FALSE.


Select outgoing mail folder in Mail.app On my iPhone, I can go to Settings > Mail > Any Account > Account > Advanced > Sent Mailbox and select which folder I'd prefer to have my Sent mail stored in. How can I do this in Mail on a Mac? I am trying to change which folder the sent messages are stored in when saving them to the server.

In Mail select the mailbox you want to use from the list on the left and navigate to the menu Mailbox > Use this Mailbox For, then choose the appropriate purpose from the menu:


iPhone Apps section not showing up in iTunes I'm using the latest iTunes 12.7 and iPhone software (iOS 10.3.3). Any suggestions?

iTunes 12.7 removes the App Store and iOS apps sync functionality.

  If you previously used iTunes to sync apps, books, or ringtones to your iOS device, use the new App Store, iBooks, or Sounds Settings on iOS to redownload them without your computer.

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1814


Planning to sell iPad 2 - need to know how to securely erase data I did a Google search and I have followed instructions from this link: http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iosapps/how-wipe-all-personal-data-from-iphone-ipad-3498379/

Is that all I must do? Are there any other things I need to check before selling it?

I think you are good to go. If you are concerned about recovering data, it is almost impossible to recover the data after the encryption key has been deleted (that's what Erase all content and settings does). You can check at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5661 to make sure everything is good.

TL;DR: Good to go. Nothing else needs to be done.


iPhone 5 iOS7 no sound only vibrates when ringing? Here is what I tried...

Do Not Disturb is off
In Settings -> Sounds, Vibrate on Ring is off and Vibrate on Silent is off
The switch on the side is set to silver not red.
The music will play over the headphones and over the speaker.
The keyboard click sound will play over the headphones and over the speaker.
I looked in Settings -> Accessibility and there doesn't seem to be anything in there (however whenever I got the phone the zoom was turned on)

I don't know what else there is to try, but it doesn't play the ring tone when the phone rings.

moving mine in and of the holster moved the ringer button to the off position accidently. Glad it was something that simple....but sure stumped me for a while.
the ringer button is the one above the volume buttons on the left side


iPhone App Store: can I install free apps using Face ID instead of my Apple ID password? The App Store prompts me for my password for every free app I am trying to install. I have already Face ID setup for the App Store, can I use it instead? Or even the phone's passcode?
On my Macbook I have disabled the password prompt for free apps, but I'm not sure whether that's device specific.
I have tried restarting the phone and disabling Face ID for the App Store.
iOS 14.1

I ended up fixing it by enabling Face ID back:

Settings app, Face ID & Passcode, disable for iTunes & App Store
reboot the device (not sure that’s needed)
Settings, Face ID, enable for the App Store


OSX Yosemite DNS cache Issues I'm having a really frustrating DNS cache issue on my Macbook running Yosemite.

I'm a web developer so i'm always working with new sites and setting up new servers / domains etc.. so every now and then I will try to load a domain that hasn't propagated yet and I will get the standard "ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED" error.

I will then confirm the domain has propagated and try clearing my DNS cache using every single option I've found online:

sudo killall -INFO mDNSResponder
sudo discoveryutil udnsflushcaches
sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache;sudo discoveryutil udnsflushcaches;say flushed

And NONE of them work! I simply can NEVER access that domain until I restart my Mac or wait 24 hours or something stupid!

I can access the domain FINE on my phone via both WIFI (same network) AND 3G / Mobile... so the issue is 100% with my Macbook and Yosemite!

It's so frustrating!!!!

Does anyone know a fix for this?

Yosemite doesn't use mDNSResponder, it uses discoveryd - which has caused so many people so many issues that Apple have done an about face & are re-introducing mDNSResponder in Yosemite 10.10.4

You can sign up for the Appleseed Beta if you really want it early.


How can I use $HOME or ~/ in my log paths of launchd plist to run as LaunchAgent My plist has below keys:

<key>StandardOutPath</key>
<string>$HOME/launchd.stdout.log</string>
<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
<string>$HOME/launchd.stderr.log</string>

But it doesn't identify  $HOME. What I want is to load this plist in different user accounts as I cant hardcode my user name.

How can I achieve this ultimate aim?

You cannot use $HOME in these keys. You'll need to use the work-around shown in this answer:

how can I use $HOME, ~ or environment variable in plist file of LaunchDaemons

And then use ordinary shell scripting to redirect standard out and standard error to locations within $HOME. I.e. use a command similar to:

command >$HOME/launchd.stdout.log 2>$HOME/launchd.stderr.log


How to convert an epub file to pdf from the command line? I want to convert a few .epub files into .pdf files (no merge, just convert file_1.epub to file_1.pdf, file_2.epub to file_2.pdf, ...) and was wondering if there was a way to streamline the process using the Mac command line.

Heard about the Calibre application but this is not what I am looking for as I want to use the command line.

Calibre has a command line interface, see this part of the manual. Basically you should be able to add /Applications/calibre.app/Contents/MacOS to your PATH (or symlink the binaries there into /usr/local/bin) and then run

ebook-convert input_file output_file


Compiz-like effects on OS X I recently moved from Linux to OS X.

So far nothing has disappointed me but I miss the compiz desktop effects I used to have on my Debian (on Ubuntu before I moved to Debian) with xfce and compiz like 3D effects, desktop workspaces in 3D view and many more:

I tried searching for equivalent or similar stuff for OS X but no luck.  Looking forward to making my OS X desktop experience like (or even better than) compiz.

Yes, check out Deskovery:

Efficient and fun window management.
Stop wasting time to find, align, place and resize your windows. Manage your windows efficiently with fun and simplicity in the pure Mac style !

It has some of the features of Compiz, such as wobbly windows and window shading.


What happens when you have two connected network interfaces? I have two connected network interfaces, ethernet and WLAN.  How does OSX handle traffic in this situation? When outgoing messages are sent which interface are they sent from? If I use tools such as Logmein.com, which interface does it connect through?

It depends on the service order set in System Preferences->Network. The first one that has a route to the requested endpoint will be used.

Click on the wheel icon at the bottom left and choose Set Service Order.... Then drag the items into the required order.

This is the order on m machine which I do not think I have altered.


How do websites offer a factory unlocking service There are numerous websites online which offer an actual genuine factory unlocking service if you provide the iPhone's IMEI code. They advertise a service which whitelists your iPhone's IMEI code from Apple's database. As far as I know, only certified carriers can carry out this service.

How do these independent websites and other individuals manage to offer this service too? According to user comments and testimonials they really do carry out what is advertised.

They pay someone that works for a carrier to enter that information into the carrier database or they have hacked access to that database.

As long as iTunes gets the device ID as one to be unlocked when it restores the device, it gets unlocked. Otherwise it gets locked to the carrier under which it was sold.


Is it possible to use iPhone's hardware vibrate button to toggle "silent" / "vibrate only" instead? I don't like having my phone ring. I just use two modes: vibrate only (when it's in my pocket) and no vibrate and no ring (when it's on a table/dock in front of me, and I'll see if something happens just by seeing the screen turn on).

Is there a way to use iPhone's hardware vibrate button to accomplish toggling between these two modes? Right now it is not useful to me.

I tried turning the volume to the minimum and treating the ring mode as the silent mode, but the volume doesn't really go all the way down to zero, and it affects the alarms.

What can I do?

You could set your phone up to vibrate on silent and then configure your sounds to be short silent ringtones. Then when your phone is in "normal" mode it will play the silent alerts (The Sounds of silence... Yeah shouldn't try singing) instead of ringing.

Unfortunately you'd have to set multiple alert sounds (SMS/iMessage, Ringer, etc.) but here's a link to a step by step plus sample ringtones: http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/971156


Where does $LANG variable gets set in Mac OS X? I've used wget for the first time after installing Lion OS X and I've noticed that wget got localized to my native language. Running set command in terminal showed that my LANG variable represents my local language. Where can I change this or make wget ignore this setting?

update

Here's what locale gives me:

LANG="lt_LT.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="lt_LT.UTF-8"
LC_CTYPE="lt_LT.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="lt_LT.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="lt_LT.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="lt_LT.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="lt_LT.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

Hence all the output of non-parameters (such as prompts and debug messages) are in Lithuanian. That is my problem. I'd like to get it back to English.

I am using zsh as my login shell.

By default, Terminal sets the locale environment variables to match the currently selected language and time/date/number formats that Terminal is using, which is selected via

  System Preferences > Language and Text

(That's the name on Lion. On earlier systems the exact name of the preference panel may vary.)

A temporary solution is to drag English to the top of the list of languages, then open Terminal, then move Lithuanian back to the top. Then only Terminal will be in English. However, it will reset to Lithuanian if you Quit and restart Terminal.

A persistent approach is to tell Terminal to not set the locale environment variables, by turning off

  Terminal > Preferences > Settings > [profile] > Advanced > Set locale environment variables on startup

Then the locale will default to "C" with no language specified, and most programs will then default to English.

Note that turning this off means that some programs won't be aware of which character encoding Terminal is using and will assume that it's ASCII or ISO-Latin-1 only. So if Terminal is using UTF-8 (the default), those programs may or may not behave as desired.

If this is mostly about wget, I recommend that you make a copy of the default settings profile, turn off the locale setting in your custom profile, and only use that profile when using wget, so that you can continue to use UTF-8 with full support when using other programs, using the default settings.

As others have mentioned, you can also override the initial locale settings supplied by Terminal in a shell startup script. For zsh, put it in ~/.zshrc. For bash, use ~/.bashrc (and if you don't already have one, create a ~/.bash_profile that runs ~/.bashrc).

See x-man-page://1/locale for more information about each of the locale environment values.

However, if you were to merely unset LANG or set it to "C", that would normally apply to all of your shells and programs, whereas most of the time you probably want to use UTF-8 and have Terminal set the locale variables to match, to get the highest degree of cooperation, fidelity and functionality.

Therefore, if you're going to go that route, I suggest you write code to edit, rather than replace, the initial values, so that you preserve the encoding information ("UTF-8") and merely force the language to English, rather than setting the variables to "C".

For example, this works in zsh and bash:

# Replace Lithuanian with English
export LANG=${LANG/lt_LT/en_US}

When LANG="lt_LT.UTF-8", this will change it to LANG="en_US.UTF-8". I don't have wget available to test this, but this should suffice.

Doing it this way means that if you change the character encoding preference in Terminal, you won't override that in your shell startup script.


Advanced find in files tools for OS X? I am looking for a tool that would allow me to do fast searches inside files, something considerably more complex than what finder provides.

Features looking for:

file extension filtering (include/exclude)
directory selection, eventual defining search groups
unicode support
replace functionality (optional)
save/load presets (optional)

Also, it has to be fast and be able to search in >100.000 files without putting the computer down.

Once you get beyond simply searching in files and enter the realm of doing things like find/replace and file extension filtering, you can't get faster or more extensible than Unix tools like sed, awk, and grep (or ack), particularly when working on hundreds of thousands of files, as you specify.

Bash supports file globbing, so you can easily do extension filtering. Pipe the filtered files into sed for search and replace. I'm not sure exactly what kind of presets you're looking for, but if you find yourself doing the same type of thing often you can put together a script with common "presets".

I've tried TextMate and TextWrangler, and both slow down considerably when running on lots of files. I'd highly recommend familiarizing yourself with the above tools, if you haven't already.


Why does Mountain Lion keep using the wrong screen saver? I have my screen saver set to Arabesque. If I move my mouse down to the Screen Saver hot corner, I get Arabesque. If I sit and wait for the screen saver to start automatically, I get Arabesque.

But if I leave my computer for any length of time and come back to it, it's almost always on Message, putting the name of my Mac up for everyone to see. I dislike this behavior. If I go to System Preferences after this happens, it's still on Arabesque, it's just ignoring the setting.

What's going on? Is there any way to fix it?

If your computer is locked, the screensaver settings for the root user account is used instead of your own. You can change those settings according to the answer to this question: How can I set the Mac OS X screensaver when not logged in?


Compress iPhoto movies for archiving Is there any automatic way (or a good script) to compress the videos you import to iPhoto? I currently import the pictures and videos from my camera, and the videos are not compressed at al, and take up a lot of space on my hard drive.

My current solution, is to have a smart album to filter videos, and manually compress them using Handbrake to H.264. Then, I would delete the original in iPhoto, and re-import the compressed version (after changing its timestamp to match the original's one).

Is there any tool that can help me automate this process?

see
http://endlessgeek.com/2014/03/batch-convert-iphoto-videos-mp4/

It uses handbrake.
Best way is to experiment manually with a handful of videos and watch out for compression artefacts (the color-bleed-out blocks on faces and other smooth color transitions). When you are satisfied, create a profile with the settings, name it e.g. MyProfile. You can use these settings by invoking the cli version of handbrake inside the batch script with --preset="MyProfile"

Where or how do you store the originals?
Don't throw away information lightheartedly. This is what you do when compressing.

I copy the original folders of my canon camera manually to my external drive, additionally to importing stuff to iphoto.
So iphotos videos are rather.... dependable.

I will modify the script to directly access the originals inside the photo library. This a really bad thing to do, normally.
If you want try to contact me 1'2016. appstackex-imov4m.hofma at the service 0ox with domain .com ;)

If you try this, too, please backup before tampering with the package!

Read http://osxdaily.com/2015/04/22/show-original-file-from-photos-app-mac-finder-osx/ to see the part/video where they open the package in finder.

In finder, you can locate your library, for me and just e.g.it is:
~/Pictures/Fotos-Mediathek.photoslibrary/Masters/
(photoslibrary is the new one since migration of the iphoto database to photos database. Just look in finder, right-click "open library content" or whatever the menue entry reads in english, might be "packet content" (it is "Paketinhalt anzeigen" for me) then open the subfolder "masters", and drag the masters-folder to terminal, then you have text on the command line representing the correct location...

When you do a change directory to the path of masters, you can thereafter find all originals, e.g. by:

find . -type f \( -iname "*.mov" -o -name "*.mp4" -o -name "*.jpg" \)

This is nice for me, because I have a bunch of empty folders in this directory structure created by iphoto / photos. Find does show only results with a nice relative path.


Can not set startup disk At System Preferences > Startup Disk I select a disk with Mac OS X (10.5 or 10.6) installed, but when I click Restart I get this error message: You can’t change the startup disk to the selected disk. The bless tool was unable to set the current boot disk.

I have 10.6 installed on an internal hard drive and 10.5 on an external drive.

I have completely erased both disks from Disk Utility; done Verify Disk, Repair Disk, Verify Disk Permissions, Repair Disk Permissions; reinstalled Mac OS several times on both drives...

Update:

Looks like something is wrong with internal hdd. I have tried to restart the machine in target disk mode, but I got You can't start up with target disk mode. The nvram tool was unable to set a preference

From the errors given, it sounds like it's more about setting the NVRAM than the startup disk itself.  Clear the NVRAM (previously referred to as PRAM; reboot holding command-option-P-R until you hear a second chime) and see if the problem works itself out.


Should I be worried about doing a hard reset on my iPhone? Just for my curiosity and knowledge, from a Software and Hardware stand point prospective, the other day I was having a discussion with some iPhone users.

The topic was the Hard Reset that you can apply by press and hold both the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for at least ten seconds, until you see the Apple logo. As you already know, most of the time, this method fix so many iOS issues.

Now, some of them say that it is safe to do, as many time you want the hard reset, some other say that even if it is safe to do it, it is always recommend to have an iCloud or iTunes backup before do the hard reset due to kernel panic, lost of pictures during the rebuild of the library, etc.

What is the real answer on that?

A hard-resart is perfectly okay to do. However, I believe some may be mistaking this for a DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) which has a similar process of initiating and will essentially force you to restore or wipe your device.


After the iOS 7 update the weather app has changed my suburbs After updating my iPhone 5 to iOS 7 the weather app that comes on the phone has changed all my suburbs to Sydney.  I live in Mona Vale and also had Warriewood in there and Palm Beach but they all say Sydney.  Any ideas why?  I also cannot add them as they are not in the list of places even when I add by postcode they all come up as Sydney.

The effect is in Mac OS X's Dashboard weather widget, and iOS 5 weather app as well. All Australian suburb data appears to have been removed, and redirected to the encompassing city.

Since both are sourcing from Yahoo, it would be safe to assume either Apple is no longer getting the data, or Yahoo has stopped providing it - I'd speculate that perhaps the bureau of meteorology has changed their terms for access to the data.

Kindof makes the iOS "Local weather" option useless.


Siri can't text someone even though it can call them, email them, and show me their contact information I ask Siri to "Send a text message to John Smith". I get a response, "You have two contacts named John Smith, and neither has a phone number or email address". However, if I bring up John Smith's contact information in Contacts, I see only a single card and that card has his emails and phone number.

If I ask Siri "Show me John Smith's contact information", I see John Smith's contact information. If I ask Siri "Where is John Smith?" Siri will show me where John Smith is in the Find my Friends App. If I ask Siri "Email John Smith", Siri replies "Which email address for John Smith" and shows me all of his email addresses. If I say "Call John Smith", Siri calls John Smith.

And, if I bring up the contact, and press the little speech bubble, I can text John Smith that way. And, I can also ask Siri to display John Smith's contact information and send him text that way too.

The issue only seems to be with text messages. John Smith also has an iPhone and uses iMessage.

Any idea how I can get Siri to find John Smith's email address or phone number when I text him? I have no problems with email or phoning John Smith through Siri -- just texting through Siri.

Okay. I fixed the problem — at least so far.
Deleting the entry did nothing. I recreated the entry, it initially worked, and then failed five minutes later with the same problem.
On my iPhone, entries are "unified". For example, my wife has an entry for someone, and I have an entry for someone, it shows up on my iPhone as a single entry. On my iPad, these show up as multiple entries. If Facebook creates an entry, a third one shows up.
I want to my iPad, and there were three entries for this name — two had email and phone numbers and one did not.
Deleting that mysterious third entry worked for about two minutes, but it reappeared a minute later, and I had the same issue again. I ended up editing that third entry and added a phone number and email addresses. That allowed me to text John Smith through Siri. It so far has held for two days. I can once again text John Smith through Siri. However, other people who have Facebook profiles and are in my phone book aren't an issue. It was just this one.

Addendum
The problem was tracked down to Facebook being allowed to munge my address book. This user didn't have phone or email information in Facebook, so Siri must have seen the Facebook info, and tried to use that. On my iPhone, the contact entries are unified, so I see both what Facebook puts in and my entry.
Turning off Settings->Facebook->Contacts solved the issue.
There maybe similar issues with other contact applications like Twitter and Outlook which might cause Siri not to see the information you have for a contact. Turning off these app's ability to update your contacts may solve the issue.


iOs is not updating on my iPod Touch - how can I fix it? I have an iPod touch (8gb) which currently has iOS 4.2.1.  I thought the latest version was 4.3, but it's not upgrading.  When I go to iTunes, I click on 'Check for update' and it says I have the latest version.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the new version just not available for my iPod?

iOS 4.2.1 is the latest available version for 2G iPod Touches.


AppleScript click Ui Element with modifier keys I want to click an Ui Element button with modifier keys pressed.

Here is my code:

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Pro Tools"
        tell (1st window whose title contains "Edit: ")
            tell table "Group List"
                tell row 2
                    tell UI element 2

                        click

                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

I tried adding key down (option) and key up (option) between the click lines, but it doesn't work.

I do not have Pro Tools, so I can only offer some information that may help you.

First I have to say that UI Scripting can be kludgy and may not always work consistently depending on how its coded and the UI element being targeted. It's always better if one can find a way to do something without resorting to UI Scripting first.

As I originally said to you in a comment... Basic vanilla AppleScript does not have a provision to preform a key down and mouse click simultaneously. You could try using a third-party utility like cliclick wrapped in a do shell script command. You'd have to programmatically determine the position of UI element 2 to then click on it with cliclick.

Without Pro Tools, I'm going to use Safari as an example, and the Show sidebar UI element on its Toolbar in conjunction with cliclick in a do shell script command.

The purpose of following example AppleScript code is to demonstrate how to programmatically get the position and size of the target UI element, in order to calculate where to click. It also assumes that Safari is already running with a standard window opened to, e.g., this question you posted.

activate application "Safari"
delay 1

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    set ps to {position, size} ¬
        of UI element 2 ¬
        of toolbar 1 ¬
        of window 1 ¬
        of application process "Safari"

set p to item 1 of ps
set s to item 2 of ps

set x to (item 1 of p) + (item 1 of s) / 2 as integer
set y to (item 2 of p) + (item 2 of s) / 2 as integer

do shell script "$HOME/bin/cliclick c:" & x & "," & y

      • Change $HOME/bin/cliclick as appropriate to: /path/to/cliclick

When run in Script Editor, this clicked the Show sidebar UI element on the Toolbar in Safari.

Now I know you said you want to click with the option key down, however for a practical example I'm going to modify the example AppleScript code, shown above, to control-click to the right of the Show sidebar UI element on the Toolbar in Safari, which will pop-up the Customize Toolbar… menu.

Change:

set x to (item 1 of p) + (item 1 of s) / 2 as integer

To:

set x to (item 1 of p) + (item 1 of s) * 2 as integer

Instead of dividing the x axis size by two to get the center of the target UI element on its x axis , we'll multiply its x axis size by two so it will click on the Toolbar itself.

Also Change:

do shell script "$HOME/bin/cliclick c:" & x & "," & y

To:

do shell script "$HOME/bin/cliclick kd:ctrl c:" & x & "," & y & " ku:ctrl"

Now when run in Script Editor, this control-clicked to the right of the Show sidebar UI element on the Toolbar in Safari and popped-up the Customize Toolbar… menu.

With all of this in mind, maybe the following example AppleScript code will work for you, however remember it's untested as I do not have Pro Tools and may require you to rework the tell application "System Events" ... statement:

activate application "Pro Tools"
delay 1

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    set ps to {position, size} ¬
        of UI element 2 ¬
        of row 2 ¬
        of table "Group List" ¬
        of (first window whose title contains "Edit: ") ¬
        of application process "Pro Tools"

set p to item 1 of ps
set s to item 2 of ps

set x to (item 1 of p) + (item 1 of s) / 2 as integer
set y to (item 2 of p) + (item 2 of s) / 2 as integer

do shell script "$HOME/bin/cliclick -r kd:alt c:" & x & "," & y & " ku:alt"

      • Change $HOME/bin/cliclick as appropriate to: /path/to/cliclick

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.

Note: The example AppleScript code for use with Safari and cliclick was tested and worked as presented in macOS Catalina.

Note: I am not affiliated with the developer of cliclick, just a satisfied user of the product.


Is it possible to to do add a brand new SSD to a MacBook Pro and just fresh install Lion? I'm interested in getting an SSD for my MacBook Pro (2.2Ghz Early 2011) and I can't find out if it's possible to, when I first get the SSD, put it inside my MBP and then boot up with my OS X Lion USB stick which I created back when I did a clean install of Lion.

Can I do a completely clean fresh install on the blank SSD? And then transfer over a few of my files from an external hard drive that I want on it?

I'd rather do this as most of my files are easily transferrable and the amount of clone software and mirroring software etc. I'm reading about just has me confused to be honest. I'm thinking this would be way preferable and suitable to me.

I'm kind of puzzled as I don't know if the bare Mac interface that allows me to hold ⌥ at boot and then install Lion is on the HDD that's currently in or is part of the Macbook's internal hardware...

Yes. Hold the ⌥ key while booting up to select your install USB.

Also note that if you upgrade to the most recent version of Lion you should get the recovery partition to boot up without having to use the USB (internet connection required).


Imported Aperture library into Photos, "Show Referenced File in Finder" does nothing I just finished importing my Aperture library into Photos using the official import process. My Aperture library used referenced masters on an external drive, and I had my external drive connected during the import process.

With my external drive still connected, nothing happens when I two-finger click on a thumbnail and choose "Show Referenced File in Finder." Any ideas?

I had a similar issue, which seemed like it had something to do with access permissions. Try the following:

Pick a random photo for which "Show Referenced File in Finder" does nothing.
Select it and hit space to view it.
Photos will pop up a dialog saying that it can't access some files outside the Photos library and will ask you to select a certain folder (for me it was the root of all my referenced files).

After I'd done that, "Show Referenced File in Finder" now works for all my images.


MBP 2017 w/ Touch Bar: How to turn off internal display & use external display instead Configuration:  I have a MacBook Pro 2017 with Touch Bar connected to a 27" external display and a very fast external HD connected via Thunderbolt-3.

Problem:  I am unable to drive 4K or HD video in this configuration without constantly dropping frames (in Davinci Resolve.)  When I disconnect the external display and use only my laptop's display, the video plays significantly better -- almost perfect.

Hypothesis:  I suspect the original configuration is a heavy lift for my laptop's graphics chip.  And the video may play fine if it is driving only one monitor instead of two.

Goal:  I want to use my external display and not my laptop's internal display -- all the while keeping my keyboard and mouse functional.  (No, I do not want to turn the brightness down to 0 nor do I want to do mirroring.)

How do I do this?

Thanks in advance.

I have tried this as well with no luck for several months, then connected to docks and still stuck with internal display to be on.

Then I tried the hedge dock and similar and works well but using an external Apple Key and Mouse was my only solution.

I do know the Windows PC have that certain function and only seen it on older macs with Function keys nothing yet on MBP2016 and later w/TB

I would figure there must be a way via a terminal command.


Permissions won't let me delete a file on a shared school server I'm on OS X Mavericks. When I click on Get Info it doesn't even have a drop down of selections for permissions. It just says read/write but it really won't let me do anything. I can't delete nor edit and save the files. I need to allow permissions to everyone including myself to edit the files, etc.

Is there anything I can do on terminal.app to allow myself more permission than the one given by admin?

If you're not the administrator or do not have the administrator credentials, there's nothing you can do. The administrator has likely setup restrictions, and the best course of action is to work with the administrator to find a suitable solution (depending on your needs).


Safari and Firefox Browers not working I cannot open Yahoo or Google or other websites with Firefox or Safari on my Mac. I cannot open Apple either. I made sure the  proxies were not checked, I emptied history and cache and cookies, I reset Safari, I restarted each time I did these things. But I cannot get my mail on Yahoo or Google. I could open CNN or NFL or Fox only! IS there anything else I can do? This is on an older Mac 10.5.8.

Might check your system's hosts file.  See http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/07/edit-hosts-file-mac-os-x/ and be sure to create a backup copy of the file before doing any editing.


Where did my documents and desktop go when logging out of iCloud? I've been using a different Apple ID on my MacBook Pro than my usual ID (for work reasons), but decided to move everything to the same Apple ID. I logged out and...my documents and desktop were gone. I know some of them synced to iCloud, so I can get them off the website, but I had more than 5GB in there,  so many files didn't sync, and I didn't care to upgrade because I just wanted to keep it local. Did it delete my files, or are they tucked away somewhere where I can retrieve them from?

They are synced to the other Apple ID. All information in the iCloud is stored there and logging out of an Apple ID will take all the information away with it.
To retrieve them, I suggest logging back with the ID and copying them to the local machine. Log out, and log into your new Apple ID.
There’s no other way around it. Apple is very strict about information stored in the iCloud


Export Wi-Fi passwords from keychain I want to export all my Wi-Fi passwords and import it to the keychain of my girlfriends Mac.

Is this even possible? And how its done? With iCloud Keychain Sync this passwords should also be available on her iPhone, shouldn't it?

From the  Finder of original keychain file, press Command+Shift+G to bring up Go To Folder and enter the path:

~/Library/Keychains/
Copy the ser “login.keychain” file to the new Mac, do this with AirDrop, Ethernet, USB or any external devices.
On the new Mac, press Command+Spacebar to open Spotlight and type “Keychain Access” then hit return, this launches the Keychain manager app
Pull down the “File” menu and select “Add Keychain” and browse to the keychain file you copied to the new Mac, selecting Add to import the stored keychain data to the new Mac

Hope this helps :)


Finding mysql username and password I have used the binary installer on my mac and use the following to start mysql.

sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start

It seems to start ok, but i haven't set up any passwords for users yet. I followed the instructions here from MySQL https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/default-privileges.html

mysql> SELECT User, Host, Password FROM mysql.user;

This just returns -bash: mysql: command not found

I'm a first time mac user and don't really know how to fix this?

Solved it i think

export set MYSQL_HOME=/usr/local/mysql-5.6.17-osx10.7-x86_64

export set PATH=$PATH:$MYSQL_HOME/bin


How do I get my iOS5 iPhone 4 (and 3GS) to play a .wav file attachment in email? I have a phone service that sends me emails of voicemails in .wav files as attachments.  How do I get them to play on my iPhone 4 (and 3GS)?

In Mail, just tap on the attachment to play the .wav file.


Play .ogg on command line How can I play a .ogg music file on the command line? On Linux I can use ogg123, but what about on Mac?

You can still use ogg123 through the The Ogg Vorbis CODEC tools, installed through the MacPorts Project.


Why is my husband's iphone now getting my call history Why is My husband's iPhone getting my call history?

If you both have iPhones the only way your husband can see your call history is if both phones are using the same iCloud account.


Recover deleted folder from user/library I have accidentally deleted a folder /Users/me/Library/Application Support/Postgres/ through the use of a third party uninstall app (CleanMyMac). Is this folder gone forever or can I recover it? I haven't restarted the system. The folder contains the postgres db and I don't run time machine, I have a backup of the db but it's old so would like to recover if i can

The answer from CleanMyMac is that it permanently destroys this, I tested two file recovery software options and neither found the old library fodlers


Stocks app added stocks overnight I use the iOS Stocks app to track different securities.  Yesterday I had only four securities listed, yet somehow overnight six additional securities were added. Those additional six securities were tracked in the past, months ago.

How can I tell if the app store past data in the cloud?

Ok, it happened again, but this time I know why. I recently did a clean install of macOS Sierra on my computer. macOS Sierra has a Notification Center and a Stocks widget.  This is linked using iCloud to my iPhone's Stocks widget in its Notification Center.


Simulate touchpad or gestures on iMac I recently started using a MacBook Air and find some of the gestures such as the double click zoom in Safari extremely useful, I'm aware I can zoom normally using cmd - (+) but find the gesture zoom much better. Can I simulate the touchpad or another way to do this on my iMac.

You can use a Magic Trackpad with your iMac - that will let you perform all the same gestures as you use on your MacBook Air.

There are even neat accessories to make it one unit with your Apple Wireless Keyboard. The ones I know about are the Twelve South "Magic Wand" and the Henge "Clique".


Mac OS stuck after login This screen came after I entered my credentials to login, and stayed here for a long time. I have tried reinstalling the os and clearing nvram, tried booting into safe mode and run diagnostics and tried updating the OS, but nothing has worked. How do I get to log in?

Try creating a new admin user (follow the steps below) and see if this new user can login without this problem. If the new account also experiences the problem I suggest using Recovery Mode to install a new copy of macOS/OS X as it could be a problem with a preference file or other system resource.

Start up the Mac whilst holding down ⌘-S. After a few moments, you'll see the Mac boot to the command line.
The following command will check the filesystem to ensure there are no problems. Enter:

/sbin/fsck -fy

The next command will then mount the filesystem for it to be accessible:

/sbin/mount -uw /

With the filesystem mounted and accessible, it's time to remove the file so OS X will re-run Setup Assistant:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

After that, simply enter reboot and your Mac will restart and boot normally. Only this time, Setup Assistant will launch.

Create the new admin user and continue through the setup process then sign in as this user.

To re-install macOS/OS X follow these steps:

Restart your Mac whilst holding down Command (⌘)-R to startup in OS X Recovery
Select Reinstall macOS (or OS X, if your using an older OS) from the options displayed and follow the steps presented

This process does not delete the original System nor does it delete your user accounts or personal data. All existing user accounts will continue to work as before and all personal data will be left intact. Some applications may require reinstallation if using this process as they sometimes install elements of their resources in the /Library folder.


Bluetooth Manager not present in Boot Camp (Windows 7) My laptop is pretty old (late 2008 MBP), and I've been trying to get Bluetooth to work under Boot Camp because I just got some wireless headphones. Thing is, Bluetooth doesn't show up under device manager. In fact, I install the following three drivers from the Boot Camp support package (version 4.0.4033), and the following happens:

AppleBluetoothBroadcomInstaller - success, driver being used
AppleBluetoothEnablerInstaller - success, driver being used
AppleBluetoothInstaller - success, but "Not needed (no device for
update present)"

The last part is the worrying bit. There's no yellow triangle in Device Manager. There's just plain nothing. No device that does Bluetooth at all. I tried the broadcom drivers (  http://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth/update.php) and it won't detect any device, it just gives up before installing anything. I tried WIDCOMM (http://www.drivers-win.com/acer/acer-aspire-5740-windows-7-drivers/), and it also gives up, not able to detect anything. I looked at the Broadcom adapter under Network Adapters in Device Manager and enabled Bluetooth Collaboration, still nothing. I've even reset the SMC and tried everything again. Nothing at all.

I would think this was a heavier issue (i.e. the Bluetooth is fried on the machine), but my headphones work like a charm when I switch back to Lion. Does anyone know what could be the issue, and whether I could fix it without reinstalling Windows?

Maybe I'm installing the wrong support package...how can I check my Mac's actual model?

This is what Device Manager looks like...as you can see, Apple Built-In Bluetooth is nowhere to be found

It seems this has to do with your older macbook pro because I have a more recent iMac and my Bootcamp version shows Bluetooth devices. When did you download that version of Bootcamp? If you're still using the original version from years ago, you may want to try downloading a new version as it may include the Bluetooth capability. If not, your computer may just be too old. Hope this helps, good luck!


Using Finder To Arrange Applications By "Application Type" Finder is intuitively designed to help you find things on your Mac. In Finder Windows you can arrange icons or lists of files in all manner of ways: Name, Date last opened, Created, Modified etc, as well sort lists in Ascending or Descending order by clicking on the top column title.

How do you therefore go about arranging Applications by "Application Type" ie Productivity, Music, Video etc....... ?

In Finder, you can Arrange By → Application Category:

This sorts your Applications folder by the category of the application.

Applications without a category are listed under the Other section.


Manually Add Twitter Account in Contacts.app in Mountain Lion With Mountain Lion providing integration it is possible to have a contact's twitter username listed as a part of the contact. I don't see any way to manually do this before an account has already been added.

There seems to be two separate social media lists available. The first looks like this.

As you ca see it provides a list of quite a few networks, but no twitter. Once a twitter account has been added a second list seems to become available though, and lists different networks

This second list doesn't become available until an account has already been added. Which causes issues if none of your contact's details match with their twitter account, but you know their account and would like to add it.

Anyone know of a way around this?

What you're looking at in your first screenshot are the Instant Message fields. The second screenshot shows the so called Profile field. The Profile field seems to be the same as the Twitter field. So, if you want to add a Twitter handle to any contact go to Card > Add Field > Twitter (or Profile). This works even if there's no Twitter match for that contact.

Alternatively, you can display the Twitter field by default by editing the card Template.


Safari on iPhone shows "iMac | Access Restricted" after the opened tabs What does iMac here mean or do? My iPhone is not connected to my iMac. When I tap on it, it opens a new tab with Wikipedia.

This is due to an iCloud feature called iCloud Tabs. From the Apple Support document, Set up and use iCloud Tabs:

  iCloud keeps the tabs you have open in Safari up to date on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac. That means you can go from one device to the next and pick up browsing wherever you left off.

To enable iCloud Tabs, you need to enable Safari under iCloud in Settings app on your iOS device(s) and iCloud System Preference pane in System Preferences on your Mac(s).

iCloud for Safari is enabled by default when setting up a new iOS/macOS device.

With iCloud for Safari enabled, the browsing history (along with other data such as history, bookmarks etc.) are automatically kept in sync across all the devices setup with same iCloud Apple ID.

You can see open tabs on other iOS/macOS devices on any of your iOS/macOS devices. As an example this is what a web-page open on an iPhone/Mac looks like on a Mac/iPhone and vice versa.

In Safari on your iPhone, tap on the show all tabs button (shown towards bottom right corner), scroll down past all open tabs to see the tabs open on other devices:

In Safari on your Mac, invoke the Menu bar command View → Show Tab Overview or use the keyboard shortcut, Shift + Command + \, and scroll down past all open tabs to see the tabs open on other devices:

The name above the line (iMac in your case) is the name of the device, and just below is a list of all the open web-pages on the device showing the title of the web-page.

Thus, Access Restricted is the title of the web-page shown on your iMac whose name is apparently iMac. Tapping on it opens it on your iPhone.

To change the machine name to something else (instead of iMac), go to System Preferences app → Sharing on your iMac and set the value for Computer Name.


macOS High Sierra Turkish Keyboard Issue I started to use a Mac mini with Turkish keyboard. However, macOS High Sierra has only Turkish Q and Turkish Q Legacy keyboard options. If I remember correctly almost one year ago I was using a MacBook in a virtual machine and when I chose to Turkish QWERTY PC option, every key was working as I expected. This option was removed now I think. And some keys and combination of keys don't work or represent totally different charters or symbols.

I tried to change my location but it didn't help me at all.

How can I fix this annoying issue?

Here is a copy I made of my Turkish QWERTY PC layout from El Capitan in case that helps.

If <> is on the topmost leftmost key instead of next to the left shift, you may have a Keyboard Type Problem, where your machine thinks the keyboard is ANSI instead of ISO.  The link suggests some possible fixes.


Applescript for multiple find/replace using separate masterlist I am trying to create a script to extract a list of data from column A on document 1, and then use columns A & B on document 2 as multiple find/replace data.

Everything works in so far as grabbing the data required but I don't understand how to write the script to do the find/replace. I want it to run through the entire list from document 1 whilst referencing the first row of the find/replace list (document 2), and then to do the same with row 2, and so on until it reaches the end of document 2.

You will see how I have tried to execute this at the bottom but I don't understand how this should be written. I'd really appreciate some pointers here if anyone would care to help me.

-- set paths

tell application "Finder"

set folderpath to folder "Macintosh HD:Users:Will:Desktop:Data1"
set filePath to first file of folderpath as alias
set folderpath2 to folder "Macintosh HD:Users:Will:Desktop:Data2"
set filePath2 to first file of folderpath2 as alias

end tell

-- grab data

set fileRefr to (open for access filePath)
set theText to (read fileRefr)
set textList to paragraphs of theText
close access fileRefr

set uniqueList to {}
set dataList to every paragraph of (do shell script "cat " & quoted form of POSIX path of filePath & " | awk -F'" & tab & "' 'BEGIN{getline}{print $1}'")
set uniqueList to uniqueList & dataList

set fileRefr2 to (open for access filePath2)
set theText2 to (read fileRefr2)
set textList2 to paragraphs of theText2
close access fileRefr2
set theCNT to (count of textList2) - 1

set uniqueList2 to {}
set dataList2 to every paragraph of (do shell script "cat " & quoted form of POSIX path of filePath2 & " | awk -F'" & tab & "' 'BEGIN{getline}{print $1}'")
set uniqueList2 to uniqueList2 & dataList2

set uniqueList3 to {}
set dataList3 to every paragraph of (do shell script "cat " & quoted form of POSIX path of filePath2 & " | awk -F'" & tab & "' 'BEGIN{getline}{print $2}'")
set uniqueList3 to uniqueList3 & dataList3

-- find/replace data

repeat with i from 1 to count theCNT
set uniqueList to (replace_chars of uniqueList from (item i of uniqueList2) to (item i of uniqueList3))
end repeat

You must use the text from the first document instead of putting it into a list.

Put the searching text and replacing text from the second document into a list.

Like this script :

tell application "Finder"
    set filePath to (first file of folder "Data1" of desktop) as alias
    set filePath2 to (first file of folder "Data2" of desktop) as alias
end tell
-- get unique text from the first column
set uniqueText to do shell script "awk -F'" & tab & "' 'BEGIN{getline}{print $1}' " & quoted form of POSIX path of filePath

-- get unique text from the first column, but print the first and the second column to get the searching text and the replacing text (pair), this put the awk's result into a list
set uniqueList2 to paragraphs of (do shell script " awk -F'" & tab & "' 'BEGIN{getline}{print $1\"\\t\"$2}' " & quoted form of POSIX path of filePath2)

set uniqueList to my replace_chars(uniqueText, uniqueList2) -- find/replace data, put the paragraphs into a list

to replace_chars(t, L2)
    set tid to text item delimiters
    set tc to count L2
    repeat with i from 1 to tc
        set text item delimiters to tab
        set {toFind, toReplace} to text items of (item i of L2) -- get items separated by tab from a item in uniqueList2)
        set text item delimiters to toFind
        set {L, text item delimiters} to {text items of t, toReplace}
        set t to L as text
    end repeat
    set text item delimiters to tid
    return paragraphs of t
end replace_chars


How to make Spotlight promote results to the top? I recently updated my my Mac from a Macbook Pro 2013 Retina to a Macbook Pro 2017. In the process, I moved from Sierra to High Sierra OS.

The most annoying thing about this transition has been the loss of a quick navigation to the applications folder. I used to be able to bring it up with Cmd + space for spotlight, and type "App" and the Applications folder was the first result.

Now, it's a crap shoot if the folder will be in the results for "App" at all. To get it to reliably be the top result, I have to type all the way out to "Application" or even "Applications". (The horror!)

How can I change this behavior to have what I want at the top of the list? Is there a specific setting change I can make to Spotlight? Or is it just a matter of patient retraining?

I saw this question Spotlight search results priority from 2015 and OS X 10.9 that suggests modifying the filters and also states that there are no options provided for changing the priority. Is that still the case?

I ran into the same problem.  What worked for me was to use command-space to begin the spotlight search, type in the characters to search for, then clicking on the app I want to be the first in the list.  For example, if I type just a "t", the textEdit app was the first choice, but I wanted the terminal app to be first.  After clicking on the terminal app in the list, the next time I typed just "t", the terminal app came up first!


I don't ever use Siri, but it's using too much battery I never use Siri, but when I look what has been draining my battery it says it's Siri!

In iOS 9, Proactive services like Siri Suggestions (on the far left home screen page) will consume power. It has nothing to do with the actual Siri.

If you don't like Siri Suggestions, you can disable it in Settings > General > Spotlight Search.

You might also go into Settings > General > Siri and make sure "Hey Siri" is turned off, especially if you have an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus. Your iPhone "listens" for the words "Hey Siri" but only when connected to power (unless you have an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, then it's all the time), but doing the two things above and then restarting your device should prevent more usage from accumulating under the "Siri" bucket.


External hdd: Difference "Get Info" Available space and "About This Mac - Storage OS X El Capitan.

I have seen this thread, and it explains a bit (different reporting units), but there is an additional substantial discrepancy in the free HDD space of an external HD reported:

Get Info : 11.22GB
df -h    : 1.3Gi
About This Mac - Storage : 1.42 GB

So the differences between About This Mac and df -h can be according to the different units - but the Get Info is heavily off?

Any ideas what is going on there?

I know for a fact that the df -h and About This Mac are correct as I can not copy anything larger than the 1.4 Gb on the disk.

ADDITIONAL INFO

These are the hidden files and folders - the rest is stuff I put there:

$ ls -la
-rwxr-xr-x   1 rainerkrug  staff       14340 Nov 10 14:51 .DS_Store
drwx------   5 root        staff         170 Nov 10 18:19 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt   2 root        staff          68 Nov 10 17:36 .Trashes
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rainerkrug  staff         313 Mar 15  2015 .apdisk
drwx------  15 root        staff         510 Nov 10 18:24 .fseventsd

and their disk usage:

$ sudo du -sch .[!.]* *
 16K    .DS_Store
 11M    .Spotlight-V100
  0B    .Trashes
4.0K    .apdisk
 52K    .fseventsd

You could try sudo mdutil -E / on the terminal, to reindex Spotlight.


Keyboard shortcut flip screen How can I create a keyboard shortcut that flips my screen upside down?

I know how to enable this setting in System Preferences but I want to be able to bind it to a shortcut.

Is it possible to make the same keyboard shortcut revert the display back to normal orientation?

The following has been tested under macOS Sierra 10.12.5 and macOS High Sierra 10.13.3, and works without any issue on my system.
Using the example AppleScript code, from my original answer, saved as an AppleScript application named Flip Display 180° and added to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility, so as to allow it to process the code, I then used an Automator service workflow, also named Flip Display 180°, to open the AppleScript application of the same name, while assigning the following keyboard shortcut:  ⇧⌃⌘R

Note that the keyboard shortcut ⇧⌃⌘F, which worked under OS X 10.8.5, conflicted with a system default keyboard shortcut under macOS 10.12.5, macOS 10.13.3 and why I changed it. You may have to use a different keyboard shortcut and as usual you have to choose one that isn't already assigned in any application that has focus when pressed to activate this Automator service workflow.

I also ran the following command, in Terminal, so as not to show the Dock Tile for the AppleScript application on the Dock:
  defaults write '/Applications/Flip Display 180°.app/Contents/Info.plist' LSUIElement -bool yes

That said, if the UI for Displays in System Preferences in macOS High Sierra on your system different for some undisclosed reason then the example AppleScript code will need to be modified to accommodate the the differences between what works on my system and yours. If it does need to be modified, I'd imagine it wouldn't be that hard to figure out.

The following images show the relevant details:
System Preferences > Displays > Display, as shown on my system:

AppleScript application, named Flip Display 180°:

Automator service workflow, also named Flip Display 180°:
Code: open -a 'Flip Display 180°'

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services > General > Flip Display 180°

For the time being I'm leaving my original answer at the bottom portion of this answer as it does work as stated under OS X 10.8.6 and may be beneficial for other users.
Original Answer:
I know you are using macOS High Sierra and maybe you can use what works for me under OS X 10.8.6.
The following example AppleScript code used in a Run AppleScript action in an Automator service workflow flips the Display 180° when I press: ⇧⌃⌘F
if running of application "System Preferences" then
    quit application "System Preferences"
    delay 1
end if

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal anchor "displaysDisplayTab" of pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        tell pop up button "Rotation:" of tab group 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
            if (value) contains "Standard" then
                click
                click menu item "180°" of menu 1
                my clickConfirmButton()
            else
                click
                click menu item "Standard" of menu 1
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
    quit
end tell

on clickConfirmButton()
    set wasClicked to false
    repeat until wasClicked
        delay 0.5
        tell application "System Events"
            try
                click button "Confirm" of sheet 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
                set wasClicked to true
            end try
        end tell
    end repeat
end clickConfirmButton

Note that the value of the delay commands may need to be adjusted for your system, and or additional delay commands may or may not be needed. Adjust values of and or add/remove the delay commands as appropriate.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not employ any other error handling then what's shown and is meant only to show one of many ways to accomplish a task. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.

Automator service workflow:


Are there default shortcuts for special hyphens and minus sign? On Mac, en dash and em dash characters can be typed with Opt - and Opt Shift -, respectively.

But are there default shortcuts for other bar-like characters, especially for these ones:

U+00AD SOFT HYPHEN,
U+2011 NON-BREAKING HYPHEN,
U+2012 FIGURE DASH,
U+2212 MINUS SIGN?

I did not find them, but maybe I was not searching properly. If you are going to answer that there are no such shortcuts, please point me to some reliable evidence like an official article on Apple’s website, or a full list of all existing shortcuts in latest version of macOS etc.

Also, my question is about default shortcuts in a freshly-installed system, not for custom settings, tweaking DefaultKeyBinding.dict file, using third-party keyboard managers etc.

The characters you mention are not available on the US layout.  Apple does not publish a list of all the shortcuts, but you can use the Keyboard Viewer to see what each key does.  This list is old but probably still accurate.

The standard way to access them would be via the Character Viewer (Edit > Emoji & Symbols).  If needed often, then creating a shortcut in System Preferences/Keyboard/Text/Replace  With  would be an option.


What could cause MacBook battery cells to swell up? I have a problem with my 3 year old MacBook. The battery has "swollen up" (I could post a picture if that is of help).

One side of the battery is much bigger than the other. Since it no longer works, I opened it. Inside it is 6 cells covered in metal envelopes. 2 of the 6 cells are about twice as big as they ought to be.

What do Apple's batteries contain? What could be the reason for battery cells to swell up?

Apple battery packs contain a set of 6 lithium Ion (Li-Ion) cells (the metal covered envelopes), connectivity circuitry, and a small logic board.

The main cause for battery cell swelling is what is known as thermal runaway.

If a cell reaches a certain temperature then a chemical in the cell (usually Cobalt Oxide for Lithium Ion batteries) starts an unintended reaction which is exothermic in nature (i.e. it creates heat).  More heat raises the cell temparature further which causes more of the same chemical reaction

This creates a runaway thermal overload which can end in one of two ways, the cell and therfore the battery pack, catches fire or the reaction fizzles out with the cell in a swollen state.


Attempting to use a an IF formula to dynamically copy cell contents given the presence of a specific value I need to duplicate cells from one worksheet to another if the associated record [row] contains a given word.

Say row 2 has "foo" in cell A, I would like to duplicate all the cells in that row to another workbook. If A3 has "floop" in it no cells should be duplicated—it would be skipped essentially (without a blank row).

The data is as so:

    A   |   B   |  C

2  foo  | blah  | blah

3 floop | blah  | blah

4  foo  | blah  | blah

The resulting table would be as so:

    A   |   B   |  C

2  foo  | blah  | blah

3  foo  | blah  | blah

--

This is as far as I've gotten:

I've created a helper table beginning at A52 to sort the data for which "foo" is present in column A utilizing the formula =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("foo",a2)),a2,"")
[Which I have a feeling is redundant, but is the only bit that seems to be working.]

In the final table I'm using =IF(ISNUMBER(ISBLANK(A52)),A2,[!!!!!])
[Wherein [!!!!!] is the display code that I don't know.]
It resolves as "FALSE"

I know this is likely an elementary question, but I haven't had any luck finding an answer elsewhere.

Thanks in advance!
- p

PS  As I'm writing this I realize that I'm going to need to process the entire row as opposed to the individual cells, so I'm likely going to need another approach. Oh well! I've gotten this far!

Using an IF formula to achieve this is going to be problematic for a number of reasons. But assuming you got it to work, you're always going to have the issue that a formula has to be placed within a cell and therefore your workbook is not scalable (i.e. what happens over time if/when you add/delete rows)? Sure, you can work around that too (e.g. by formatting your data as a proper table/list), but from my experience you'd be better to use a macro to do this.

Step 1: Add the Developer tab to Excel

First of all you need to ensure that you have the Developer tab visible in Excel's ribbon. If it's already there (typically it's the last one after the View tab, then skip to Step 2: Creating your macro. Otherwise, follow the steps below:

Launch MS Excel
Go to Excel > Preferences (or just press the command, keys)
Select the Ribbon & Toolbar icon
Ensure the Ribbon tab is selected at top
On the right-hand side you'll see a list of tabs - select the checkbox next to the Developer tab (it's probably listed at the very bottom)
Click on the Save button
Exit Preferences
Now you'll see the Developer tab (see image below):

Step 2: Creating your macro

Now we need to create your macro. Follow these steps:

In Excel, make sure you have your workbook open
Select the Developer tab
Click on the Visual Basic option (at far left of the Ribbon)
This will open the Microsoft Visual Basic window
The top left of the window should look something like:

Now right-click on ThisWorkbook and select Insert > Module (see below)

In a few moments you should see a white window open on the right-hand side of the Visual Basic Editor
Now copy the code below and paste it into the white space:

Sub CopyRowsBasedOnCellValue()
'This macro copies rows from one worksheet to another within the same workbook if that row contains a specific value in Column A
    Dim xRg As Range
    Dim xCell As Range
    Dim X As Long
    Dim Y As Long
    Dim Z As Long
    X = Worksheets("Sheet1").UsedRange.Rows.Count
    Y = Worksheets("Sheet2").UsedRange.Rows.Count
    If Y = 1 Then
        If Application.WorksheetFunction.CountA(Worksheets("Sheet2").UsedRange) = 0 Then Y = 0
    End If
    Set xRg = Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A1:A" & X)
    On Error Resume Next
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    For Z = 1 To xRg.Count
        If CStr(xRg(Z).Value) = "foo" Then
            xRg(Z).EntireRow.Copy Destination:=Worksheets("Sheet2").Range("A" & Y + 1)
            Y = Y + 1
        End If
    Next
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Now you should see something like the following:

Now you will need to customise this code slightly as it's currently written specifically for the example in your question. You need to customise the following aspects:

Replace the two instances of Sheet1 with the name of your first worksheet (i.e. the one you're copying from)
Replace the three instances of Sheet2 with the name of your second worksheet (i.e. the one you're copying to)
The instance of A1:A indicates the column being searched for the value you're trying to match (i.e. the "foo" value in your example. If it's not Column A in your worksheet, then change the A to whatever column it needs to be. For example, if your worksheet contains the "foo" value in Column D, then this needs to be D1:D
Finally, you will see a single instance of "foo" in the code. Replace the foo with whatever value you're trying to match.

Finally, you will need to save your workbook as a macro-enabled one. To do this, click on the Excel icon at top left to return to Excel and then choose the Save As option from the File menu. For the file format you must select the Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook (.xlsm) option from the drop-down list.

Step 3: Using the macro

Now you're set to go. To use the macro, follow these steps:

Launch Excel and open the workbook
Select the Developer tab
Click on the Macros icon (it should be the second one)
This will bring up the Macro window:
Select the CopyRowsBAsedOnCellValue macro (see below)

Click on the Run button
Your macro will run and all rows matching the criteria will be copied to your destination sheet. Below is an image showing the before and after shots, based on your example:

Note: The above code was adapted from code originally sourced from https://www.extendoffice.com/. I have no affiliation with that website whatsoever.