where can i find my back up for my ipod? my computer had to be restored to factory setting and i had a ton of music on it. Well i backed my ipod up to my computer, because it said it would have a complete back up on my computer. For anyone who has done this, where could i find it? or what was yours under?

In normal situations you can just connect your iPod with your mac and there should be a restore button.

Furthermore iTunes in general does not backup music in the normal backup since it is just copying the music out of your iTunes library.

Nevertheless the folder where your backups are is in

 /Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup


Airdrop showing wrong name I have an iPad Pro running version 12.1.1. In Settings the name shows properly as Charles's iPad but when I try to airdrop photos it shows on other devices as John iPad.  I see nowhere to change this?  Anyone have a suggestion?

Finally fixed this. All the settings on my iPhone were correct, but my iMac kept thinking my phone had a different name (my son's). Took me a while, but figured out that my iMac was using my iCloud contacts, which I don't sync to my phone. I tracked down a stray listing for my son and deleted it, and now my iMac recognizes my phone correctly. So double check all your contact listings, both on your phone/iPad and in iCloud!


Use web page as (refreshable) wallpaper in iOS 8 I have a web page where the content changes hourly. I'd like to use this as my iPhone's wallpaper. Is there a way to have the wallpaper update automatically / on a schedule, with the contents of a web page?

I don't want to jailbreak my iPhone to do this.

This is not possible without a jailbreak due to iOS restrictions.


Reset the Launchpad to fix the ordering in macOS Catalina When I was using Yosemite in my old mac, I can simply use defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true; killall Dock to fix the ordering of apps but it is not working in macOS Catalina 10.15

Now I have only the pre-installed apps like App Store, Notes, Music etc. in my launchpad.

What should I do now?

Try Launchpad Manager. It’s the only tool that I’m aware of that will allow you to edit/control the Launchpad.


Can you make iTunes forget a device? After migrating from one computer to another, my iPhone now automatically appears under the devices list in iTunes on both my old and new Macs. I don't want to accidentally sync my iPhone with my old computer. Is there a way I can make it forget it knows my iPhone?

I've tried:

Turning off wifi sync on the old computer, but this is a device-level setting, so as soon as you turn it back on on the new computer, the iPhone shows on both.
On the old computer, deleting all device backups, 'ejecting' the iPhone from iTunes, and forgetting all remotes. None of those measures has had an effect.

Presumably I need to nix some folder deep in iTunes' lair. Any ideas?

Reset the SyncServices folder. Not sure why I didn't think of this earlier.

In short:

/System/Library/Frameworks/SyncServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/resetsync.pl full

Apple has some other tricks to try if you're on an OS prior to Mountain Lion, but it looks like this should work for Leopard through Mountain Lion.

You can confirm by comparing output of

grep -ir "device" ~/Library/Application\ Support/SyncServices

before and after resetting the SyncServices folder. You should see some lines about your device prior and no lines about it after.


Yosemite cannot connect with Google, but with Bing I updated my MacBook 13″ mid-2012 from Mavericks to Yosemite and everything was perfect, until I recognized that I couldn't check my YouTube feed.

I tried again and again, but it didn't work.

I tried it with other DNS Servers like Norton Security Free-DNS or the Normal Google DNS, but nothing happened.

In the end, I tried to use the Google IP in my Browser, but that only worked always for one link.

Running the Ping - Google.com results in

  cannot resolve google.com: unknown host

Assuming you've done this already but just to confirm. This will set you up to use Google's DNS service.

Open the Network pane in System Preferences.
Select the Network connection that is actually in use as indicated by the green dot.
Click Advanced...
Select the DNS tab.
Enter the values from the below screenshot. Take note of anything that is already there under "DNS Servers:" and remove it.
Click on OK to dismiss the Advanced panel and then Apply.

Then try pinging google.com again.


How do I encrypt an external HFS+ drive without erasing it on Big Sur? I have a Time Machine backup drive, which has to be HFS+ for Time Machine to work on it, and which I don't want to erase since it has a long history of backups. I would like to encrypt it.
What I find online is to control-click it and select encrypt. However there is no such option. I can't find anything in Disk Utility or the diskutil command to encrypt a non-APFS drive.
How do I encrypt this disk without erasing it?

Apple says you need to remove the disk from being a Time Machine destination for your Mac first.

If you want to change from unencrypted to encrypted backups, you must remove your backup disk and then set it up again.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh21241/mac
Removing the disk doesn’t delete the contents of the disk though, so you should be able reassociate the disk with your Mac once it’s encrypted, though I haven’t tested this.


Dual boot Macbook Pro MD101 (Mid 2012), with OSX and Bootcamp windows and a FAT32 shared partition I tried this and my hard disk looks something like this:

Vikrams-MacBook-Pro:~ Vikramguria$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MACINTOSH H             250.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data SHARED                  167.9 GB   disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                81.0 GB    disk0s5

I cant see the option to boot into windows at startup. I guess I can have only 4 partition so that this works efficiently.
Can I just delete disk0s3 or will I have to start from installing windows?

Here I will assume you are using the BIOS/MBR legacy boot method for Windows. This means you are using a hybrid GPT.

Idea 1:

You could delete disk0s3 so you only have 4 partitions. I would first copy the contents disk0s3 to a flash drive. The application needed to do this can be found here. It works with Lion through Yosemite. I have not yet tested with El Capitan.

The downside is that at some point an update to OS X will recreate the "Recovery HD" partition. So you will need to apply this fix again sometime in the future.

Idea 2:

Use gdisk (or some other tool) to create a MBR table that does to include disk0s3. In other works, you create a MBR table that contains disk0s1, disk0s2, disk0s4 and disk0s5. You then flag the fourth partition as active.

The downside is that other software (especially the Disk Utility application) will see this as a bug and may try to fix it so the MBR table contains disk0s1, disk0s2, disk0s3 and disk0s4. So you may need to apply this fix again sometime in the future.

Idea 3:

Change the order of your partitions so Windows occurs before OS X. In other words, you want diskutil list to produce the following output.

Vikrams-MacBook-Pro:~ Vikramguria$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                81.0 GB    disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data SHARED                  167.9 GB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS MACINTOSH H             250.3 GB   disk0s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s5

The downside is this limits the use of the Boot Camp Assistant. The Assistant can still be used to create the installation media, but you probably will have to manually install Windows.

What is meant by manually install? This depends on whether you want to backup OS X and Windows to an external disk or just start over. Having copied the "Recovery HD" partition to a flash drive aids either option. Booting to the flash drive allows you to repartition the disk. Also, you can either backup/restore OS X to/from an external disk or reinstall OS X from the internet. I backup and restore Windows using a third party tool called Winclone. It works great but costs money.

If you have additional questions, please post a comment below.


How to create a text file in a folder In windows I right click and then there is an option to create a text file.

How to do so in mac?

You can also do this in Terminal. Go to the directory where you want to create the file, then run the following:

touch file.txt

Or redirect 'nothing' to a text file

> file.txt


how to import all iCloud contacts into Windows 10 People how can I import all my iCloud contacts into the Windows 10 People app ?

You can export your contacts as vCards, then import these into Outlook/your mail client. If you can tell me what type of mail client you use, I can give specific instruction.


How to connect to tethering socks proxy? I've got socks proxy server running on iPhone, it is possible via Tethering app from Emu4iOS. iPhone connected to wifi hotspot and, as I can see in tethering app, connection is active. How can I connect to this proxy from Yosemite Mac wich connected to same hotspot?

In "System Preferences > Network", chose your WiFi connection and in "Advanced" options at "Proxies" tab check "SOCKS Proxy" and type your server's dress and port.

Also very important to uncheck "Use Passive FTP Mode (PASV)"


Stop Mavericks from relaunching applications Mavericks keeps launching recent applications at startup although I always keep the checkbox that should control this feature unchecked. This is really annoying, because (a) startup takes much more time, (b) I want to decide which applications are to be started and which are not, and (c) there are some applications that would crash (Apple's own Logic, for instance).

If I knew where OS X kept information about recent applications, I could write a script that deletes that at login. Has anyone figured out where these things are put?

EDIT: I'm also interested in the location where Mavericks puts the screenshot from last session. As you might have noticed, the screenshot is always shown first when logging in, then the screen is refreshed with the actual window contents.

There are three official places I know of that unwanted items on startup are controlled:

1) Login preferences: if you want to delete an item, make sure you highlight it and then click "-" instead of just unchecking it. If it is unchecked, it will still start, it will just have a hidden windows.

2) "General" - make sure "Close windows when quitting an application" is checked. This shouldn't control which applications actually open, but I've seen some people confuse unwanted windows with unwanted apps.

3) The "Reopen programs when logging back in" dialog on logout – this should be unchecked.

In addition, there are some unofficial tricks you can try:

Disable ApplePersistence:

defaults write -g ApplePersistence -bool no

Note that this will also disable Versions (autosave)

Set "System preference>General>Recent items" to NONE (default is 10)

ref:

The first three tips have worked for me; the last two are from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5538748?start=0&tstart=0


iOS App Store: Unable to download and update apps due to Terms and Conditions loop, even after agreeing When I go into the App Store and hit update, or try to download a new game, I get the prompt shown in the image.

I hit OK, and it loads the Terms and Conditions just fine and there is a nice blue accept button that I hit in the top right. However upon doing so it take me back to the App Store where I was before and then after about 1-2 seconds the prompt to accept reappears. Telling me to accept these Terms and Conditions.

I think the issue has something to do with the fact I had to change my region for the App Store recently as prior to that I had no issue with this. I needed an app from a foreign App Store to make travelling on public transport easier. And now I’ve switch back to the United Kingdom’s App Store. All of these apps that need updating were downloaded while I have been on the UK AppStore previously. And even games I’ve never downloaded before give me the prompt.

I also tried changing regions again and back, but to no avail. I’ve tried reading the whole Terms and conditions again and emailing them to myself. And I’m just about out of ideas.

Important Update

As noted in the below linked 9to5Mac article, an updated has been shared by TechCrunch:

  Update: TechCrunch has now reported that Apple has “deployed a fix” and the bug should be resolved “in a matter of hours” as the patch is rolled out. The fix is being applied server-side, so users won’t need to make any changes to see the problem resolved.

Originally Posted Answer

This is apparently an issue currently with the App Store which is affecting a large number of users and is also affecting Apple's own servers. It is widely reported.

Some users unable to download or update App Store apps, faced with endless iTunes terms and conditions prompts - 9to5Mac

  Some sizeable number of people are experiencing an issue with the App Store at the moment. On an affected account, when attempting to download a pending app update or a whole new app, users are presented with a dialog to accept new Apple Media Services Terms & Conditions.

and

App Store Users Report Endless T&C Loop Preventing App Updates and Downloads - MacRumors

  A number of iPhone and iPad users this morning are taking to Twitter and Reddit to report an issue with the App Store that prevents them from downloading or updating apps.

  The problem starts when a user taps the Get button on an app listing, whereupon a pop-up informs them that "Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions have changed" and that they must read and accept them to continue.

According to the article, some users were able to circumvent the issue as follows:

  Some users report that simply tapping Cancel when the T&C notification first pops up makes it go away, allowing them to download or update the app in question.

Since it's a widely reported issue, it's very likely that a fix will be made for the same. You can try the aforementioned, or wait for some time to have the fix available.

You can also consider getting in touch with Apple support via their support channels:

Apple Support (@AppleSupport)| Twitter
Contact - Official Apple Support

Do note that contacting support is crucial here. Even if the contact personnel is not able to provide you a solution instantly, with enough number of requests going to Apple Support, they become aware of the gravity of issue and will work on fixing it soon.


Mavericks frequently doesn't resolve any hosts after router switch; pings fine After a switch to a new router, I frequently experience that all sites fail to resolve under Mavericks 10.9.4 on MBA mid-2011, both with Safari, Chrome and pinging google.com. It lasts for variable time, from few seconds to several minutes. Same for wifi and Ethernet.

However, during such outages:

repeated pings to 8.8.8.8 works fine from OS X Terminal
sites open fine in Windows under Parallels if network is set as "Bridged", doesn't work when network is set to "Shared"
another Mac (MBP 2010) with OS X Mountain Lion resolves and opens sites just without a problem (checked by a script repeatedly pinging google.com) has the same problem as MBA
iPhone connected to the same wifi resolves and opens sites just fine

Switching back to my original router seems to solve the problem.

How to debug and resolve the problem?

Turned out the root cause was problematic new router (Sercomm RV6688BCM in my case). After Internet provider replaced it with another instance of the same product, the problem resolved itself.


Backing up huge iCloud photo library to external HDD I have a large iCloud photo library of about 30,000 irreplaceable images and videos. It is entirely hosted on icloud - I am using the 'optimise iphone storage' setting and have no high res images stored locally on my laptop as the library is too large. I'm getting concerned that iCloud is the only place I have the full resolution images stored and I want to download a backup of the entire library to an external HDD (preferred), or a second cloud service (less preferable) to ensure I have a second copy. I am happy keeping my main library on icloud as it works well for me and allows me to sync all my different devices (iphone, macbook, 2x ipads), I'm just looking to make a second backup copy in case something goes wrong. I don't need to use or access these photos under normal circumstance.
I can't work out how to do this. The only options I seem to be able to find is to either download 1000 images at a time from iCloud to my external HDD (which is near impossible as I can't work out how to select 1000 at once), or download the entire library to my laptop, then backup from there - which I don't have space for on my laptop (photos library is 250GB, laptop entire SSD is 250GB).
I'm not especially concerned about preserving file structure or anything like that, I just want to make sure I have all the images in case anything ever goes wrong with iCloud. What is the most sensible option? I'll pay for 3rd party software if that's the only option, though happy to put in some legwork to do it manually if there is a sensible way to do it. I don't mind manually adding future pics to the backup.

I think you have two options here:

Download the images and save them to your external hard drive
Create a photo library on the external drive and use that one with iCloud enabled (however iCloud is not a backup service, only a syncing service, so you'd then also want to backup that drive)

For the first option there are multiple online guides:

iCloud to Mac
iCloud to PC
iCloud to iPhone

I assume you are one a Mac. You should be able to simply hit cmd + a and be able to download all of the images. If not select an image, then scroll down as far as you want, hit shift and select the last image.
There is a download limit of 999 images in iCloud.com, so you'd need to select a certain range of images with shift. This will - for 30000 images - take quite some time but is technically possible.

I would however encourage you to pursue option two for multiple reasons. What you'd want to do:

get another external hard drive with at least the size of both your current external drive and the MacBooks internal drive combined
Create a new photos library on your MacBook, store it on the current external drive
Enable iCloud on that photos library (go into the photos app settings with this library opened and open the iCloud preference pane). After some wait time, you should have all the images synced across your iCloud devices, including the photos library stored on your external drive
Connect your newer and bigger hard drive as well and enable Time Machine in your mac settings including a backup of your external drive. That way you ensure you have both your Mac and your photos on the external drive backed up with history.
If you don't want a TM backup you could also open the library package (right click on the .photoslibrary file and the show package contents) and copy the images to somewhere else. All images excluding deleted ones are in the Master and originals folder inside the library package.

This article may also help you: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264
Some advantages of option two:

both your Mac and the external drive are backed up
You can work with the photos app offline and don't need to use the web interface on your Mac
You get a backup history of your photoslibrary and mac files
If iCloud at some point fails, you can get the actual library back (including albums, face recognition data,...) and not only the raw images

I know that you would need to buy a second drive to achieve this, yet even multiple TBs of storage capacity these days often costs less than 100€. I just recently had to restore my photoslibrary due to some bug I suspect in macOS BigSur and - trust me - it is not worth it taking that risk.

Note: For option two you could theoretically also partition the one disk you have and use the second partition as backup partition, yet a phyiscal failure of that drive will mean you lose the data on the external drive, but not the data in iCloud, which includes the photos.


Safari Can't Open the Page (Persistent Certificates Problem in Safari) I'm getting the error message "Safari can't open the page because Safari can't establish a secure connection to the server." Yet the page runs perfectly on an iPad and other computers. I suspect a problem with Keychain/certificates but I can't pinpoint the problem. Any ideas?

Running macOS 10.12.1, and system date/time is correct.

I ended up solving this issue on my machine by following these instructions which seem to be different for 10.12 vs. prior versions of OS X. To summarize:

OS X 10.12

sqlite3 ~/Library/Keychains/*/ocspcache.sqlite3 'DELETE FROM ocsp;'

For OS X 10.11 and earlier

sudo rm /var/db/crls/*cache.db


My iPhone isn't playing WhatsApp videos sent from an android device through WhatsApp I have an iPhone 5s and it isn't playing videos sent to me on WhatsApp, the sender is a Samsung user so maybe that's why? I can only hear the sound but the image is blank.
Is there a way to fix this or a video player than can play the videos?

I too had the same problem. But solved it by downloading an app called MConverter-Free medias converter.
After downloading, import the video in your app and convert it into .wmv format.
.wmv format is suitable for iPhone.


When online my webpage becomes unresponsive on my macbook-pro osx? When online my webpage becomes unresponsive, particularly when I click on a link, is there a fix? I have a MacBook-Pro osx 10.7.4 about a year old.  This is not a new problem and I have been blaming it on my router but the signal is strong and disconnecting from wi-fi and then reconnecting seems to get things going again. It happens intermittently and I can't figure out what is causing it.  Thanks for any help

Which browser are you using?

I was experiencing the same issue on Chrome, all I did was

Go into Chrome - Preferences
Go to advanced settings
Un-tick the box "Predict network actions to improve page load performance"
Restarted Chrome

Then it worked fine


Apple wireless keyboard + iPad 4: can I map a key to the home button? I use the Apple wireless keyboard A1314 (newer model, using two AA batteries) with my iPad 4th (or is it 3.5th generator? whatever is the newest) generation. Is there a way to map one of the buttons to the home key? Is it possible to do this with a jailbroken iPad, if not a jail-unbroken iPad?

An earlier answer says it isn't possible, but refers to iPad 2, so I don't know if anything has changed in the 1.5+ years.

This is more than a minor annoyance with the otherwise great Incase Origami stand, because the home button is physically blocked with the iPad in portrait mode.

This is an old question, but for anyone else coming across it, the answer is Command-H is the shortcut to display the home screen.

FYI

Command H displays the home screen
Command-Tab shortcut displays the task switcher
Command-Space toggles the search bar


Fastest way to migrate file by connecting two Macs together I am migrating data files from an Early 2011 MacBook Pro to a 2019 MacBook Pro 16" (all UCB-C cables).

What is the best (fastest) way to migrate the files in terms of connecting one mac to the other?

I'm not sure the wireless approach would be fast, though I'm not sure.  I was thinking ethernet cable (from Early 2011) to a USB-C-to-ethernet connector for the 2019 MacBook Pro.

The fastest way is to connect the two computers using Thunderbolt. This will give you 10 Gbps of bandwidth, which is 10 times what you would get from the ethernet port on the 2011 MacBook Pro.

Note that if you have only one drive in your old MacBook Pro, you'll technically be limited by the speed of that drive when transferring. I.e. if you have a 6 Gbps drive, you'll only be able to transfer at that speed - which will probably use approx. 7 Gbps of Thunderbolt bandwidth. If you've got the two drive mod for the old MacBook Pro, you'll theoretically be able to use the full bandwidth of the Thunderbolt connection.

You'll need a Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable and a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter cable to connect the two Macs. As Thunderbolt 2 is backwards compatible with the original Thunderbolt, this will allow you to link the two Macs together. Then boot up the old Mac in Target Disk Mode (hold down the T key while booting) - and you can use it as a data source in Migration Assistant.

If you haven't got those cables lying around, chances are that it is probably faster to just use Ethernet rather than waiting for cables to be delivered. WiFi is definitely the slowest approach here.


Why does my iPhone heat when charged and when in use My iPhone gets really hot when charging and sometimes when I use it. I thought it might do this because my iPhone is cracked and I've thought about getting the screen fixed but I'm not sure if that's the reason why it's hot. I have also stopped using, I haven't used it for a few weeks now but it still heats up when I charge it. What can I do to resolve this problem?

1. Bad Connection
In areas with poor or reduced connectivity, iPhone has to expend more time searching for and maintaining network connections. This in turn uses more energy which causes the battery to heat up.
Possible Solution
You can try turning Airplane Mode on and see if you have the same problem with heating up.  I also have an iPhone and I myself notice that it does not heat up if I am out in the open, but it heats up and drains the battery if I am in the basement of a large concrete building.
2. Case?
If you have a case for your iPhone, you should expect that it heats up. The case, while it does protect your phone, also blocks some air from coming out and consequently causes the hot air to be trapped inside the phone. This will cause your iPhone to heat up almost indefinitely.
Possible Solution
When you are charging your iPhone, take it out of its case. While this may be inconvenient, it will help.
3. CPU Usage
If your phone is heating up, you may have a lot of applications open. Also, if you were playing a lot of games, then you can expect an increase in CPU usage and temperature as well.
All of the listed items below can contribute to an increase in CPU Usage:

Games
Data Usage (Facebook, Emails)
Fetch/Push Data

Possible Solutions

Do a Network Connections Reset (Go to Settings => General => Reset => Reset Network Settings, then reboot (you will lose WiFi passwords)

Try disabling the following apps (in Settings => General => Restrictions): Multiplayer Games, Ping, App Store, iTunes Store. Then reboot.

4. Defect
If nothing else works, then it is also quite possible that your iPhone is defective and if this continues to occur as you have stated, I would take it to an Apple Store. They may be able to better diagnose the problem.
Links and Resources
MacRumours
Apple Discussion Board
Apple Discussion Board


Is there a trick to making Adobe products play nice with Mission Control? I really love Mission Control but at times some of my programs (Illustrator and Photoshop in particular) won't always minimize to the Mission Control view.

According to Adobe's support pages, more development is needed to support all the features of 10.7 like "Autosave, Restore, Versioning, Full Screen Mode, and more multi-touch gestures."  I think Mission Control is part of this.


Using dd on video DVDs gets permission denied after about 700MB I bought three movies on DVD on eBay. I am trying to make .iso backups onto my external hard drive. The first one I tried using Disk Utility, but it only produced a partial copy (without generating any errors) so I switched to using dd, which worked on the first movie. For both the second and third movie, dd only partially ran through before giving the following error:

dd: /dev/disk2: Permission denied
1438432+0 records in
1438432+0 records out
736477184 bytes transferred in 212.743197 secs (3461813 bytes/sec)

The number of records/bytes is similar, but not exactly the same, for both movies. I have no clue what else to try, since dd is as low-level a program I know to use. I have no idea why the error would be generated mid-copy like that. Googling for this kind of error leads to answers regarding improper filesystem permissions (I'm running sudo dd) and unmounting first (I'm also running sudo umount), and AFAIK neither would lead to dd working for the first 700MB and then getting that error.

Also, I have watched these movies all the way through without incident, so the filesystem appears to be good.

While writing this question, I remembered something I did different with the first disk and think I figured it out. For the second two disks I was using sudo umount /Volumes/DISK_NAME to unmount the DVD before running dd, which generated the permissions error, so I tried sudo umount /dev/diskX. This works, but only once per boot (it would fail again after one successful dd, until I rebooted). But can anyone explain why it worked? I thought the two invocations of umount were equivalent.


Check for available app downloads on Apple TV Several months ago I bought Sonic the Hedgehog (1) on iOS and was very happily surprised to see it appear on my 4th gen Apple TV also. Now I bought Sonic 2 but it hasn't shown up on the Apple TV yet.
I checked that it is one of the Sonic games with an Apple TV counterpart, so it is possible.
In the Apple TV menu I went to Settings > Apps > Automatically Install Apps and switched it to "On" (I guess it was off when I purchased Sonic 2, but not 1). I then restarted the Apple TV but no new apps appeared.
I also tried switching accounts and switching back, hoping that would prompt tvOS to check for available downloads, but it didn't.
How can I get iOS apps with an Apple TV version to install on Apple TV? Thanks.

If you open up the App Store on your Apple TV, then go to the Purchased tab, there’s a section titled Not on This Apple TV that will list apps you’ve purchased (even for free) that are not installed. You can select it there and then download it for free. Alternatively you can search for it on the App Store and download it for free from there. Make sure you’re signed in with the same Apple ID you used to purchase it previously.


Odd problems with vim over ssh to remote linux machine I'm having some strange issues working with vim editing files in an ssh session on a remote linux (Ubuntu 13.04 ) server.  On the client side, I'm on a mac running OS 10.8.4 (late 2012 mac mini). I've googled around extensively on this and came up empty handed. I've used vim for years, and I've never seen problems like this before.

The issues all present themselves when I first load the file in vim. I've experienced the following issues:

The top couple of lines are missing. Using arrow keys or the top of file shortcut, I can simply not get to these lines.
Sometimes, when attempting to delete a character, an entire word or words will be deleted.
The result of yank and put is inconsistent. Sometimes the line appears correctly, other times all I get is a jarbled mess.

Am I using the wrong version of vim remotely or some terminal problem specific to Mac OS?

I would recommend changing from x-term256color to xterm for your TERM variable as that seems to have resolved my similar issues.

The things I saw (in addition to the question's symptoms) are often to have  line over-flow issues within the vi session. That is if I type beyond a certain number of columns then the rest of the text is put onto the next line (i.e. with a new line \n character in place). This overflowed text is not displayed in the current vi session but I will see it after reopening.

Another problem is occasionally the cursor is displayed on one line but I will start editing the next line down..... a real pain when you are writing code!


Create Smart Folder which only shows files of Macintosh HD I have created a smart folder which shows me all files greater than 200 MB. My problem is that this folder should only shows me files on the Macintosh HD. But when I connect my external disks it shows up files from there also.

I tried with this search criteria but that doesn't seems to work. (It doesn't show up anything)

Does anyone know how to only show up files from my Macintosh HD?

When creating your Smart Folder through File → New Smart Folder, choose your Macintosh HD before you create it (either from the sidebar or through general navigation).

Then, in your Smart Folder criteria, you can choose to search only Macintosh HD.

My Macintosh HD is called Mac SSD in the example above.

When you click Save, the Smart Folder that is created maintains this setting.


Automator: Filter Finder Items selecting wrong files I wanted an Automator folder action to automatically remove old downloads from my downloads folder whenever I download a new file (I wanted to avoid making this a scheduled job).

The workflow looks like this:

When I test it, it works fine - selecting only files older than 60 days. However when I actually download a new file to the downloads folder it sends the new file to the trash.

What gives? Is the timestamp on the new file not correct until after the download finishes or something?

EDIT: I discovered that it deletes the file being added to the folder no matter what. Meaning - if I drag and drop a new file to the folder, the workflow deletes it even though the time stamp is from today.

Finder uses the kMagicBusyCreationDate for files currently being downloaded, which is 08:34:56 on 1946-02-14 (+0000).

  Use this date as a file's or folder's creation date to indicate that it is temporarily busy (while it is being downloaded or installed, for example).

What is the significance of 1946-02-14 08:34:56?

As this is well outside your date range, the file is removed immediately. Therefore you can’t use any date based checks whilst files are being downloaded.


How Do I Fully Flush Cached Redirects From Safari? I have a device with a web-based control panel, and accidentally set it to redirect all http pages to https, even though some don't work over https. Although I've since corrected this, Safari seems to have memorised the redirect and is refusing to forget it, instead constantly attempting to redirect me to the invalid https address.

I've already closed Safari, cleared ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/ and ~/Library/Cookies/HSTS.plist but it still seems to be remembering the redirect when I re-open it.

Where else could Safari be storing this information? I can access the correct page via Firefox or Chrome, so it may not be a system wide service, or if it is it's not one that the other browsers use.

Unfortunately because the web-panel is provided by a device I don't believe I can adjust headers or setup a redirect back to the correct URL, which seem to be options offered in other similar questions, so I really need to find out where this data is being stored so I can destroy it with fire.

Based on quanta’s answer:

I wasn’t able to use launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.nsurlstoraged.plist because I have System Integrity Protection enabled:

$ launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.nsurlstoraged.plist
/System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.nsurlstoraged.plist: Operation not permitted while System Integrity Protection is engaged

However I was able to work around it by doing the following:

killall nsurlstoraged (stops your user’s nsurlstoraged process; I actually ran sudo killall nsurlstoraged, but I suspect it isn’t necessary to stop the system’s nsurlstoraged as well, since the cache is in the user Library folder)
rm -f ~/Library/Cookies/HSTS.plist (deletes the HSTS cache)
launchctl start /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.nsurlstoraged.plist (restarts nsurlstoraged)


I accidentally deleted an iMovie project, but I recovered it. Now it is too blurry to see! I accidentally deleted an iMovie event with an important school project within it, but I recovered it by going to Finder, then clicking Movies. I re-uploaded them to iMovie but now they are so blurry, I cannot see the video! Please help me revert it back to its original state of clarity in time for presentation date, being Monday!

sounds like you only recovered the low-quality proxies.

The structure should be

Project Name folder, containing

CurrentVersion.imovieevent file &
Profect Name.rcproject folder, containing

Movies folder
Project file
Proxies folder
QuickLook

That applies whether you have the old iMovie structure or the new one.
If you have the new structure that doesn't look like a folder, then right click the iMovie Library 'file' & select 'Show Package Contents' - then you will see the actual folder structure


Permissions errors thrown, but permissions appear to be correct On my HD, I have a bunch of files that I've generated via Python scripts (or otherwise).  When I run "open foo.png" from terminal (or via finder), I get a popup that says

  The file “foo.png” couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it.

However, via chmod or 'Get Info', I do theoretically have permission to view it.  The file is also unlocked, and sudo doesn't solve the problem either.  The file isn't corrupt (I can view it elsewhere).  I've also played the 'repair permsissions' game.

I've exhausted my google-fu on possible problems.  Ideas?

Try  to access to the file on the terminal with the root access

Open the Terminal, input "sudo -s" .
And, after that, try to open the file.


10.11.2: QuickLook and thumbnails crashing finder I have a strange problem: Finder crashes ("not responding") after performing one of these:

pressing space on a file that can be previewed with QuickLook, e.g. a sound file or an image
simply selecting a file that can be previewed with QuickLook when the finder displays the instant QuickLook pane

Also, all my thumbnails are not displayed. All files are shown with their file type icon and not with a preview icon.

Any ideas? I have already removed Flip4Mac in ~/Library/Containers/QuickTime to make sure no third party module is responsible for this.

I was able to solve it:

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs /

did repair the access rights of the folder /private/tmp. I suspect that Adobe Creative Cloud has altered the rights.

There have been some log lines in the console about quicklookd being not able to scan /, so that is another symptom of that problem.


Can I enter my pass code when in voice over mode? Is it possible to unlock the iPhone 4s when in voiceover mode?

I need to be able to enter my pass code in voiceover mode.

Slide to Unlock at the bottom of the screen.
Tap the first digit of your passcode once.  VoiceOver will read the digit aloud.
Double-tap on that digit to enter the digit of the passcode.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the next three digits.
Your phone will now be unlocked.


Can't eject Windows 7 install disk to get drivers from Snow Leopard Install Disk Alright.  I'm angry at this.

I'm on a 2008 Macbook Pro, running snow leopard trying to install windows 7.

During the "find drivers" phase still in mac, it can't.
So according to apple I'm supposed to continue on anyways and use my snow leopard install disk to install the drivers.  But once I am installing windows 7, there is no way to eject disks because I don't have drivers installed yet.

How am I supposed to get around this?

Turn the machine off.  Turn it on again, and hold down the trackpad button. The disc should eject.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1750.html

  Restart and hold down the mouse or trackpad button until the disc ejects.

(The other suggestions don't apply; you're not in MacOSX yet, you don't have an eject hole, and you have an Intel machine so the firmware thing won't work.)

The other Apple support page is here:-

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801?viewlocale=en_UShttp://support.apple.com/kb/HT2801?viewlocale=en_US


Is there a way to update a Mac to High Sierra or Mojave if OEM SSD is unavailable? I have a late 2013 Mac Pro that had been running Sierra before its internal SSD died. I'd like to replace the internal drive, but OWC's site indicates the following:

"macOS 10.13 and later versions include an EFI (firmware) update that adds support for the Aura Pro X to the host computer. If you do not first update the host firmware by installing macOS 10.13 or later onto the existing SSD, the Aura Pro X will not function properly once installed."

Is there a way to get the Mac's EFI updated using an external drive so it will be able to make use of the replacement internal drive?

Internet recovery allowed me to do a fresh Mavericks install on the machine, and I'm currently updating it to El Capitan, from which I'll hopefully be able to get Sierra running, but I'm expecting that High Sierra will give me trouble on the external drive.

Any recommendations?
Thanks!

The firmware updates are now included in macOS installs. Upgrading by installing High Sierra or Mojave to a USB external drive should cause the firmware to be updated. I have a external HDD with a APFS container partition. I installed High Sierra to this container using a 2011 iMac. I also installed Mojave in the same container (to a different volume) using a 2013 iMac. The firmware on both Mac was updated or I would not be able to boot from the external drive. (Although I can not boot Mojave on the 2011 iMac, which was expected.)


TP-Link USB Wi-Fi dongle won't detect any wireless networks This is the second Wi-Fi card I am trying, so I am confident that it is not the card in question that is not working correctly.

I have macOS High Sierra running 10.13.5 with a TP-Link Archer T4UH with the official drivers installed from TP's website.

Everything appears to be in working order, however no matter what I do I cannot get the network to display.

I am running Mac OS X in a VM. But to my mind this shouldn't make any difference at all.

I pass the usb dongle directly into the Guest. No longer having access to this device in the host.

Below is what I see:

Update

After using an older version of OSx I have got the wireless to work internally.

Showing my setup

As Allan has mentioned in the comments, what you're trying to do (or perhaps how you're trying to approach this) is not possible.

Let's assume you're using Parallels (if not, it doesn't matter - this is just an example). And let's assume you're running Parallels on an iMac and you've installed Windows 10 on a virtual machine (again, an example - I know you're talking about an OS X guest).

Now, for the guest OS (regardless of what it is) to access the internet or a network, it needs to access that network via the host in some way. Typically you'll have options for using a Shared, Bridged or Host-only network. All of these still require the network (or adapter) to be running on the host machine.

Some tips:

If your goal is to connect to the internet from your guest machine, then you wouldn't use the Host-only (or equivalent) option.
If what you're trying to do is have your virtual machine treated as a stand-alone computer on the network and configured in the same way as a real one, then you'd use the Bridged network option. This allows your guest to access the network and internet using the adapter you've connected to the internet (assuming you've set this up properly on the host machine). Just to be clear, the adapter must be installed, recognised and running on the host machine!
If you're wanting your guest to share all the network connections available on the host machine (including the internet), then just choose the Shared Network (or equivalent) option.

In my case I always use the Shared Network option in my virtual machines. This allows the Network Address Translation (NAT) feature to work on the virtual machine and is usually the most reliable option (at least in my experience). The only exception to this is if I need a stand-alone virtual machine totally segregated from the internet, in which case I would use the Host-only option.


Black Screen on MacBook Pro A1278 I have a MacBook Pro A1278 that recently had a bunch of screen flicker and then the laptop display went out completely. The system boots and I am able to connect an external monitor via a thunderbolt adapter.

Detect display doesn't show the presence of the laptop display just the external monitor.

Pretty new to Macs was wondering if there was anything to look at or test or if this seems like a clear screen replacement project.

Have you tried resetting the SMC (System Management Controller)?

With charger plugged in, hold Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the Power.

  The LED on MagSafe power adapters might change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

  Indicators that your SMC might need to be reset

  The computer fans run at high speed, though the computer is not experiencing heavy usage and is properly ventilated.
  The keyboard backlight behaves incorrectly on Mac computers that have this feature.
  The status indicator light (SIL) behaves incorrectly on Mac computers that have this feature.
  Battery indicator lights, if present, behave incorrectly on Mac notebooks that have a non-removable battery.
  The display backlight doesn't respond correctly to ambient light changes on Mac computers that have this feature.
  The computer doesn't respond to the power button when pressed.
  A Mac notebook computer doesn't respond properly when you close or open the lid.
  The computer sleeps or shuts down unexpectedly.
  The battery doesn't charge properly.
  The MagSafe power adapter LED doesn't indicate the correct activity.
  The computer is performing unusually slowly, though it isn't experiencing abnormally high CPU utilization.
  Application icons may bounce in the Dock for an extended amount of time when opened.
  Applications may not function correctly, or they may stop responding after being opened.
  A computer that supports target display mode does not switch into or out of target display mode as expected, or it switches into or out of target display mode at unexpected times.
  The illumination around the I/O ports on a Mac Pro (Late 2013) does not activate when you move the computer.

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201295


How do I add a label to identical cards in Wallet? I have 2 identical transit cards in my Apple wallet. One is for personal use. The other for business use.

Unfortunately, other than the position in the stack and the amount of money on the card there is no way to tell which card is which.

It seems like there has to be some way to add a label to the cards, ideally at the top so I can know which one to select.

How can one add a label to cards in Apple wallet?

This doesn't appear to be possible at present. (See Apple discussions 8208759 and 8126880.)

As you point out, the only currently available options seem to be sorting your cards in an order you can remember or relying on details like a card balance or the last four digits of a card number.

On the other hand, if it's important enough to warrant the trouble (not to mention the awkwardness), you could perhaps create your own dummy cards and use them as labels, naming each for a card you want to identify and sorting it above the card it refers to.

You can request a feature at https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html.


How do I disable retina mode/HiDPI on macOS Mojave on the built-in display of a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017)? I want to test non-retina/non-HiDPI mode on macOS Mojave on the built-in display of a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017). I found articles that suggest enabling the option sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true, restarting the computer, opening System Preferences, selecting Displays, and holding down the option ⌥ key when selecting Scaled should show a list of all available resolutions, including non-HiDPI resolutions; however, I just see the following:


Fresh install Big Sur without deleting a partition Can I create a partition and store files I want to keep there, then do a fresh install to upgrade to Big Sur, or will the fresh install delete all partitions?

While upgrade procedures are tested before macOS is publicly available there always remains a slight risk that things go wrong and data gets lost. To be on the safe side, always make a backup on an at least one external device (two devices are even better) before upgrading macOS.


Is it possible to time adjust push mail on iOS 5? Is it possible to time adjust push mail on my iPhone? What I want is that the phone automatically adjust the push setting for some time slots a day. E.g. that it should push mail between 9-17, but after 17 it should not push mail for an account. Is there an app for that?

There is no simple app for this in the default Mail app as unfortunately there is no way for an app to change this setting. You either have to accept notifications all of the time, or manually turn them on/off in the Settings app every time you want to change them as @afragen said.

There may be other email apps that will provide this functionality, but I've not come across any.


Use SOCKS proxy for several IP addresses on OSX Yosemite I just wanna use socks proxy for some ip addresses. I found this setting:

Sorry for non-English screenshot. Here is OSX Networking settings for SOCKS proxy. I can see only "black list" for ip addresses to access without proxy. But I need "white list" of ip addresses.

I enjoyed your screen shot. I just learned how to say прокси-сервер!

I believe what you'd be doing is asking the proxy redirector to make exceptions to its exceptions. I think this will probably not be possible.

There is a kind of tool which may work better for you.  It is called a URL re-writer or URL re-director.  Instead of setting up a SOCKS proxy, which would be designed to forward every kind of web call, a URL re-writer would watch all the outgoing connection requests and replace just the ones that match to wherever you re-direct them.  This is very good for sending a small number of addresses or domains to another place--like your proxy server or tunnel endpoint.

These URL rewriters come in two flavors: the sort installed in routers—-like squid—-or they can be browser plug-ins. Some routers have this feature built in and call it "transparent web redirecting."

There's a plug-in for Safari called "urlrewrite-safari" that lives at https://github.com/sjmulder/urlrewrite-safari .  There's one for Firefox called "Redirector" which works much the same. I haven't looked to see what's there for Google Chrome.

The only snag is that when you do a web search for "URL rewrite" or "URL redirect" you also end up with a lot of server-side redirection stuff, too.


Automatically delete files older than 3 hours macOS I have a camera setup up to take an image every few seconds and then the image is processed and is no longer required. Can anyone help me to write a script/service that will delete files/images in a folder that are older than 3 hours? I'm trying to do this as it takes a ton of space if only purged every 24 hours using Automator.

Here is an example find command that you can modify to suit your needs:
find '/path/to/files/' -type f -name '*.jpg' -mmin +180 -delete

I'd use launchd to run it every 3 hours.
Here is an example .plist file that will run the find command every 3 hours using launchd:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.my.delete.every.three.hours</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/find</string>
        <string>/path/to/files/</string>
        <string>-type</string>
        <string>f</string>
        <string>-name</string>
        <string>*.jpg</string>
        <string>-mmin</string>
        <string>+180</string>
        <string>-delete</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <false/>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>10800</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

It would be saved in: $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.my.delete.every.three.hours.plist
From Terminal:
touch "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.my.delete.every.three.hours.plist"
open -e "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.my.delete.every.three.hours.plist"

Copy and paste example XML code into the opened TextEdit document:
Modify as needed:

E.g. Change /path/to/files/ to the actual path.
E.g. Change *.jpg to the proper extension if not: jpg

Save and close the document.

Continue in Terminal, to load the plist file:
launchctl load "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.my.delete.every.three.hours.plist"

To stop and unload the "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.my.delete.every.three.hours.plist" file use:
launchctl stop "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.my.delete.every.three.hours.plist"
launchctl unload "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.my.delete.every.three.hours.plist"


How do I force the Trash to empty on El Captan? Prior to El Capitan, it was possible to force emptying of the Trash when stubborn or "in use" items prevented it with "Secure Empty Trash". This option has however been removed in El Capitan.

How do I force the Trash to empty on El Capitan?

You can use 'rm' with the '-f' option:

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash /Volumes/*/.Trashes

Be very careful if you manually type this in.

This empties the trash in your home folder and any trash on any other mounted partitions.


How to strip a filename of special characters? I have a file with a name such as "Today's Date.txt"

What I am interested in is stripping away all special characters using the terminal  such as:

" - , ' ' [

The reason for this is because I plug these into a script later and it is too much of a headache accounting for and changing the names individually.

Spaces " " and Underscores "_" and the alphabet "A-Z, a-z" are ok and so is replacing the characters rather than erasing them.

At first I thought the terminal command "iconv" could help me by converting to a simpler encoding, but I tried out several of the encodings and it seems I might be mistaken.

I know regular expressions might help me but sadly I am not well versed in them. I found this question that seems realated, but I dont know how to implement it or if it covers the same cases as mine.

The reason I posted this here is because this question might be unique to the character set OSX supports for filenames and the encoding it uses...although it's more likely I have no clue what I'm talking about.

Thank you for your help in advance.

Edit: The command

sed 's/[!@#\$%^&*()]//g'

Seems to work very well but I can't get it to work for my original usage case and others:

' ` "

Escaping them doesnt work either. I'm very new to bash scripting so please bear with me.

Edit 2: Posting this here or else I'd have to wait 6 hours.

In addition to Alan Shutko's Answer, I would like to add my own solution that I found.

awk '{gsub(/[[:punct:]]/,"")}1'

I'm kind of hesitant to post this since I cannot explain it well.

Awk, as it's man page says, is used for "pattern-directed scanning and processing language". The gsub function searches and replaces all occurrences of the regular expression you input. The gsub part would look like this:

gsub("a","b")

Where in my example, all occurences of a would be replaced by b. Like in the comment above [[:punct:]] sounds like it stands for all punctuation marks. However, I do not know what the 1 on the outside of the brackets stands for.

If you have a specific set of characters that you want to keep, tr works very well.

For example

tr -cd 'A-Za-z0-9_-'

Will remove any characters not in the set of characters listed.  (The -d means delete, and the -c means the complement of the characters listed: in other words, any character not listed gets deleted.)


Call the window to active desktop Many applications are one-window app. When I switch to the app it does not appear on current desktop but my view is moved to the desktop where target app's window is located. I wish to change this behaviour: on switch move target app to current desktop. I wonder how to do?

There is option 'When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application' in Mission Control preferences. Does unticking it delivers expected behavior?


Can playing music at full volume on a 15" MBP (2017) damage the speaker irreversibly? A few weeks ago, the left speaker on my MacBook suddenly "popped" when I received a notification. The volume was not high and no music was playing. It seems that the speaker was overdriven and pretty much self-destructed. It sounded like a very loud bang and the speaker never worked correctly again afterwards. The moment it happened, I noticed a fair amount of heat coming out of the part of my MacBook's chassis where the speaker is hosted.

As this failure was not my fault (I was not playing any sounds at a volume you'd consider reckless), it was replaced by Apple under Warranty.

Since I now have a fully functional MacBook again, I'd like to enjoy its speakers but I'm very wary of the fact that they're vulnerable.

Are the 2017 15" MacBook Pro's speakers designed to withstand playing music (primarily Electronic Dance Music in my case) at the maximum volume with negligible wear to the speaker?
Given that I generally play music no louder than at 50% volume, will this reduce the risk of damage to the speaker to a negligible level such that long-term use is unlikely to affect the speaker?

Yes, high volume on an underpowered amp, can damage your speakers.

The problem comes in when the audio starts to clip or distort - the loud "pop" you heard is a good example of what can damage a speaker.

There's lots of discussion about this on AV forums.

  Are the 2017 15" MacBook Pro's speakers designed to withstand playing
  music (primarily Electronic Dance Music in my case) at the maximum
  volume with negligible wear to the speaker?

That depends.  At what input level was the music recorded?  If you must crank up the volume because you can't hear it (assuming your hearing is good), then it was recorded to low.  If you simply need more volume on a consistent basis requiring you to be at max, it's time for an external amplifier and speaker setup.

  Given that I generally play music no louder than at 50% volume, will
  this reduce the risk of damage to the speaker to a negligible level
  such that long-term use is unlikely to affect the speaker?

That depends.  At what input level was the music recorded?  If the input was very high, playing at 50% might still be "too loud" for the speakers.  The key here is clipping and distortion.  If the sound begins to distort but you need the volume at that level, it's time to get an external amplifier and speaker setup.

I personally had noise (pops and distortion) on my speakers and I solved it by using an external DAC (digital audio converter) and external speakers (Bose Wave Radio).

Finally, the one thing that I learned (from an audio engineer) from trying to set up an audio presentation in a gymnasium (worst case scenario) is it's better to have more "larger" amplified speakers at lower volume than to have fewer speakers driven at or near maximum volume.  The quality of the sound is just immensely better and you don't risk damaging your equipment


Is there a good, non-Google Reader RSS reader for iPhone/iPod? I'm looking for an app to read RSS feeds on my iPod Touch. I saw Reeder, but it looks like it only interoperates with Google Reader, as far as I can tell -- you can't just add an arbitrary RSS feed. Is there a good RSS reader that works without Google Reader?

NetNewsWire is a good reader and syncing with Google Reader is optional.


Changing icon of a mounted disk image I want to modify the icon of my mounted disk image, the same way as FUSE for OS X.

My desktop screenshot, where my disk image is the left one (name is censored):

Changing the icon of the dmg is simple, but has no effect on the mounted drive.

The, e.g., osxfuse-2.8.2.dmg disk image file uses a hidden .icns file named .VolumeIcon.icns in the root of the volume and has the Custom Icon attribute set, probably using /usr/bin/SetFile. E.g.: SetFile -a C /Volumes/FUSE\ for\ OS\ X

You can also change the icon of the mounted disk image from its Info sheet. Place the wanted icon on the Clipboard then select the disk image on the Desktop and press Command-I then click the icon in the upper-left corner of the Info sheet and paste the wanted image there.


Is the blue button outline in dialog windows removed in Yosemite when using Tab (keyboard navigation)? Being a zealous user of keyboard navigation, I activated All controls in Full Keyboard Access (Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts).

In Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks I was used to having a blue outline on the button/input box that was active, and I could see it move to the next one when pressing Tab.

After updating my OS to 10.10 Yosemite, the outline (now grey) is gone on specific button types and for the large part I cannot see which button is active anymore. When pressing Tab repeatedly in a "Save" window the text boxes and switch buttons highlight but drop-downs and regular buttons don't, even though they are active (i.e. pressing Space will act as if I clicked them with a mouse).

Do more users experience this behavior, or is it just me? If it's just me, does anyone know how to fix this? If it's not just me, where do I report this bug?

This seems to be indeed a bug; I reported it on bugreporter.apple.com, the openrdar is here: http://openradar.appspot.com/radar?id=5297887323881472

Also, the latest Photoshop CC 2014 seem to be working ok


How can I config an email account in Apple Mail with my own domain? I am using outlook.com for my own email "mydomain.info" but I can not add an account in Apple Mail. I have searched in Ask Different for similar questions. I got this:
Personal domain email using Outlook.com on Apple Mail

I have exact the same problem but the accepted answer doesn't work for me. My domain is "domain.info". I never configured an account successfully in Apple Mail from Maverick to Yosemite and now El Capitan.

Since you don't provide any more info about your email service, you must do some of the next:

Go to your TLD admin panel, must of them already have documentation about how to configure this.
Can you access it via web? something like webmail.MyDomain.info? if so, there could be some documentation in there too.
have you already tried adding your account via

Settings > Internet Accounts > Add ( + button) > Add Other Account...

Most of the times this should work


Photos on iOS 11 re-uploading entire library to iCloud Since updating to iOS 11, Photos has been behaving strangely. My settings for iCloud Photos are blank

My photos are endlessly re-uploading (even though they are all already in the cloud):

Worse — or at least further unnerving, if the upload is actually doing something — this upload pauses itself after a period of about an hour (without notice) and needs to be manually restarted to proceed.

(In contrast, Google Photos, which syncs with the same library on my iPhone, seems to be working fine.)

Why are my Photos settings blank? Why is my photo library being (re)uploaded to iCloud?

If you go to a computer and log in to http://iCloud.com/photos you will be able to see the status of your library as rendered from Apple’s servers in the data center.

If your cloud library is corrupt, you can either:

try and delete it and let it clear up and try a sync up from the one device that has your master copy / most complete library
work with support to convince tier 1 support that you’ve read the instructions and don’t need basic training and need an engineer to look at your account on the server side

If your cloud library isn’t corrupt, you can then decide to wait out the sync or wipe that device and start the iCloud sync over. I’ve had times where things are blank and syncing for three to four days and it clear up so you might need do nothing but connect to WiFi and connect the device to power for a few 8 hour periods to let all the sync / upload / duplicate processes to run.

You might have something the code can’t resolve and need to get Tier 1 to refer you to engineering since Apple doesn’t let people contact iCloud engineering directly and you do need to work through support to get there if needed.


Bright-Pixel Policy for MacBook Pro Recently bought a 13" MacBook Pro on Apple Store. I just discovered a "stuck pixel" which shines red when it's supposed to be black.

I can't find any pixel policy on the web page. Do they have such policy? Does anyone have any experience from trying to return / change the product?

(Bought it in Sweden if it matters.)

Your Macbook comes with a worldwide one year limited warranty.

Apple [...] warrants this Apple-branded hardware product against defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of ONE (1) YEAR from the date of retail purchase by the original end-user purchaser (“Warranty Period”). If a hardware defect arises and a valid claim is received within the Warranty Period, at its option, Apple will either...

repair the hardware defect at no charge, using new or refurbished replacement parts, or
exchange the product with a product that is new or which has been manufactured from new or serviceable used parts and is at least functionally equivalent to the original product, or
refund the purchase price of the product.

See to your preferred Apple-Certified-Reseller with your Macbook and state your claim. You should be proposed a fix at not cost if the defect is due to bad material or workmanship under normal use.


How to get MacBook Pro(early 2011,13 inches) logic board schematic? I destroyed my laptop i.e. Macbook pro early 2011-13 inches, last night. The computer works fine and has 50% charge left in the battery. But despite showing "Magsafe connected" on the screen it shows "Battery is not charging". So I went to my friend and got his charger, However, I got the same message again.

Thus, I thought its a problem with logic board. I youtubed and found something worthwhile.

At the moment I need Schematic of MacBook Pro Logic board to study the circuit and fix it.  How can I get this schematic?

"Silviu St" tho a tad snarky is absolutely correct. Apple has not released Schematics for computers since the Apple-II days.

Apple uses state of the art PCB manufacturing and I would be willing to bet that taking a soldering iron to it or even a volt meter would be like taking a framers hammer to a dent in your car: likely to do more harm than good.

You are welcome to try but you are likely to end up with a pile of garbage worth nothing more than the alloys and rare-earths the components are made of and with.


How to pin a URL to OS X Dock with a custom image? I'd like to pin a URL to the Dock and have its icon be something meaningful or recognizable.

By default, the icon/shortcut is a generic spring icon, and in Yosemite it shows a globe.

How can I create or modify a docked URL shortcut to be the site's favicon or an image I choose?

Move/drag the shortcut to the Desktop first
Find an image (on the web, etc.) Open it in Preview, Select All, and Copy.

Open Get Info on your shortcut on the Desktop. Select the current icon at the top left of this window. It will highlight to be blue.

Command-V to paste the image over top of the icon.
Close the properties window.
Drag the shortcut icon to the Dock. Note that items can only be dropped between the trash can and the black divider line.


Can I force a cache refresh in Safari running on iOS? Most Windows desktop browsers utilize the keyboard combination Ctrl + F5 to force a page specific cache refresh. Mac OS X based browsers tend to use Command + R. Is there an equivalent cache refresh for a single page in Safari running on iOS?

I realize I can manually clear the browser cache, but I'd prefer to only refresh for the page I am currently viewing.

Force quit did not work reliably for me in iOS 8. What did is using private mode for testing:

Open the page in private mode (and bookmark it so you can open it later).
When you need to refresh, close browser "tab" (you can stay in Safari and private mode).
Open the page again (use the bookmark you created in step 1).


Why is iTunes photo sync showing separate event for each photo? I am syncing photos through iTunes to my iphone but I am seeing 40 events with the same date show in the Events selector. The same photos are included within a single event in iPhoto. How can i get iTunes to see these events as one?

I have same problem with iphoto latest version 9.4.2. At genius bar nobody know a solution. Genius talked to Cupertino, they know about the problem, we have to wait for an update for iphoto software.  I tried using "iphoto library manager" software (not apple) to recover the iphoto library. Apparently problem was solved in itunes, but iphoto became very slow and i came back to normal iphoto library.
In itunes events have a date as a name and each contains few pics, some of them have been deleted from the iphoto library but still in those strangfe events, maybe as a miniature.
Somebody can help?
Deleting ipod photo cache non solution, unfortunately.


AppleScript error: “Finder got an error: Network file permission error.” I have an automator script that I use to create an empty file in finder and I've been using it with no problem for about a year. All of a sudden, it's giving me this error:

  The action “Run AppleScript” encountered an error: "Finder got an error: Network file permission error."

What is this error about?

I'm running Mojave.

Upgrading to Catalina solved this problem, and the twin problem I had: App Store on Mojave: "We could not complete your purchase. cancelled".


Keep iPhone and iCloud Photos In-Sync Is it possible to keep the photos on the iPhone and iCloud in-sync? So if I delete a photo on the iPhone, I want it to be deleted on iCloud and vice versa.

Is it possible to configure the phone/cloud to do this?

Yes, if you enable iCloud Photos on the iPhone, your iCloud photo library and the iPhone's photo library will automatically be synchronized. Then if you delete a photo on the iPhone, the same photo in the iCloud library will automatically be deleted.

You'll find the guide for turning on iCloud Photos here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204264


Screenshot thumbnails can't be dragged to most applications I am running Mojave (10.14.2). Since the introduction of the floating screenshot thumbnail, I have been unable to drag these thumbnails to most applications, with few exceptions such as Telegram and Notes.

I'm not sure how something as prominent as this draggable thumbnail is incompatible with the rest of macOS's drag and drop systems, so I feel like I'm missing something.

An example of an app that won't support this (but supports normal file drag&drop from Finder) is Slack. In fact, I really struggle with this one as one of my main use-cases is taking screenshots and sending them via Slack. I currently right-click on the thumbnail, copy it to the clipboard, then paste into Slack.

Is there a way to get full drag&drop functionality on macOS's screenshot thumbnails?

Take the screenshot (My favourite shortcut is ⌘ + Shift + 4)
Double click the miniature
In the "editor" click share button and select Mail
You'll see a mail compose window. Drag the picture to the application you originally wanted to drop to (e.g. Slack).


Unable to locate an executable at "/usr/bin/java/bin/java" I am having an issue with Java in my Mac (OS X 10.7.3). Previously I installed it and it was working fine. After some changes in the .bash_profile and .profile file in the course of time, I am having an error like Unable to locate an executable at "/usr/bin/java/bin/java" whenever I try to run "javac" or "java" in my terminal.

echo $PATH gives an output like:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Users/sabya/Documents/Play_Framework/play-2.0:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin

My .bash_profile looks like:

alias start_mysql="/Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start"
alias stop_mysql="/Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM stop"
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/bin/java

Its bugging me for several days and reinstalling Java did not help. I'm a newbie in Mac and need help to sort out this issue. I Googled before posting this question but did not find anything relevant.

You probably can just remove the definition of JAVA_HOME from .bash_profile and restart the shell. If you really need to set the variable, use

export JAVA_HOME=$(/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/A/Commands/java_home)

to define it dynamically depending on the installed JDK version or

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home

to use the default place (which is symlinked to the above path).


Can the macOS keychain generalize across all iOS apps? Why can't I access my keychain in iOS apps other than safari (or OSX apps, for that matter?). How can I access my passwords across the entire platform?

Apple simply hasn't opened access to the Keychain to third-party apps. However that is changing in iOS 11. You'll be able to use your Keychain passwords across the system then.


How do I delete most of my reminders on the iPhone? Whenever I need to remember something (oil change, buy something for kids, do something, whatever), I fire up Siri and create a reminder for a specific date/time.  I do this for both my personal and work life.  This method has been very successful in organizing my life and not letting things fall through the cracks.

When the time comes, iPhone reminds of the task and I go and do it.  However, now I have several thousand reminders and it now takes a while for the Reminders app to start.  I'd like to delete most of the reminders since they have expired long ago.

However, I see no way to delete Reminders in bulk.  I don't see a way to do it on the phone, nor do I see a way to do it in icloud.com.

Am I missing something simple?  If not, is there another way to manage reminders?

I am not aware of any iOS or web app that will allow bulk deletion of iCloud reminders but that is something that presumably could be written.

The only mechanism I am aware of that will bulk delete reminders is the Automator app running on OS X.

Here is a screen shot of something that would find all reminders older than 20 days and delete them summarily.

You can see I searched for reminder and chose a task to select them and another to delete them. DO NOT RUN THIS unless you are prepared to lose all your reminders or test things on a second iCloud account.

For testing, I would add a second condition and watch the script run before letting it loose on a thousand reminders. I'd hate to be the one to find a bug in the time logic of the Find Reminders action by working on live data that's not backed up (and I don't know a good way to back up the reminder data and have it re-syced back to the cloud easily).


Backing up another user’s mid-2013 Macbook Air I have pretty much been a Windows user all my life but a family member has recently given me his mid-2013 i7 Macbook Air. This machine is logged in with his Apple account (I have the credentials) and I would like to reset it and start using it as my own machine with my own Apple account.

However, I would like to backup the machine before resetting in case he needs some files from it (he should have retrieved the files already but I’d like to be safe). My concerns are as follows.

He has moved back to the Windows ecosystem and no longer possesses a Mac.
Once I reset the machine with my own Apple account, I don’t know if I will have issue accessing the backup as it might be attached to his Apple account.
I prefer a non-cloud solution, for example, a disk image that can be amounted (ideally from a Windows machine; please see (1)).
If I back up the machine (storage capacity 128 GB) to an external disk with larger capacity, I would like that the unoccupied space of the disk is usable (ideally both with Windows and Mac).

How do I best proceed please? Please be detailed if you can as this will be my first Mac exp; however, please assume an otherwise generally competent tech user.

As the end result is to be able to access any forgotten files from a Windows computer in future, rather than to be able to restore to a new Mac, I would forget trying to backup the drive in its current form.

The OS & apps themselves would be of no use; & could easily be re-acquired if ever needed, as they will belong to that user's Apple ID. It would also be reasonably safe to assume that any 'hidden' files wouldn't be portable to Windows - unless the machine was previously used for programming/coding. [Let us know if that's the case.]

That leaves you with, essentially, "Documents".
These would to a large extent be cross-platform, in & of themselves - txt, rtf, jpg, mp3, etc etc
I'd say in that case that simply copying the entire User folder [Macintosh HD/Users/username/] would be more than enough. If you copy it to a drive formatted as ExFAT, it can live there as just another folder, accessible from any OS. You will probably be saving 'too much' data that way, but it will save having to make individual decisions on the contents of each sub-folder.

This solution does, of course, ignore any security considerations. The files will be in plain sight on the new drive.


Can i upgrade my mid 2012 macbook pro to use DDR4 ram ? Can i upgrade my mid 2012 macbook pro to use DDR4 ram ? Checking Apple > About this Mac > Memory i got the following

Your Mac contains 2 memory slots, each of which accepts
a 1600 MHz DDR3 memory module.

Which seems to suggest not, but i wondered if DDR4 was even around at the time my mac was made, is Ram a backwards compatible upgrade like placing a Sata SSD in a 10 year old device ?

No, the Mid-2012 MacBook Pro is in no way upgradable to DDR4 RAM.

To use DDR4 RAM a lot of things must be compatible with DDR4 - one of those is the CPU itself. The Intel CPU in the mid-2012 MacBook Pro does not support DDR4 RAM.

And no, DDR4 was not around in mid-2012. It was released to the market in 2014.


Can Mac OS X distribute applications/processes across multiple intel cores? Or does efficient usage of cores depend only on whether a given application is written to take advantage of them? I am deciding between a Mac Mini - Intel dual core i7 2.7Ghz vs. one with a quad core i7 2.0Ghz.

Any modern operating system, including OS X of course, will take advantage of multiple cores as best it can. Applications need to be multi-threaded to truly take advantage of this within themselves,  but even when an application is not able to take direct advantage of multiple cores, the OS will still use its resources efficiently by finding something else for the 'idle' cores to do.


How can I "clean out" my Time Machine backups if Time Machine won't backup because the disk is full? When Time Machine tries to make a backup, it informs me that it can't because the backup disk is full.

What it's mostly full of (about 700GB of 1TB) is prior backups of the same machine. Time Machine used to just delete the oldest ones, but now it seems unwilling or unable to do so.

Is there some manual way I can make room by clearing out old backups?   When I go into the Time Capsule through Finder, the backups all appear to be in a sparse bundle, which I'm nervous to mess with.

Enter TimeMachine, then in the main window, select the backup you want to delete (on the right), then use the Action Menu (Gear icon) to select "Delete Backup".

Using this menu, you can also, when a file or a folder is selected, delete all its backup.


Can a Mac be programmed to simulate pressing a key at a certain rate via software? Is there a way or a 3rd party application which would let me specify, for example, that I want it to send a keyboard event (so that it has the same effect as physically hitting the key on the keyboard) every 5 seconds?

So, for example, I could tell it to hit K every 5 seconds, 15 times in total?

Basically, I'm looking for something like AutoHotkey but for OS X.

I found a way to do this in a bash script:

#!/bin/sh
# Simulates hitting a key on OS X
# http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/63899/72339

echo "tell application \"System Events\" to keystroke \"$1\"" | osascript

Save as hitkey, chmod +x hitkey, hitkey k to hit K.

From there it's simple to use Automator to loop over the script several times or make an iCal alarm to initiate the script at a specific time.


MacBook Pro 2011 SSD/RAM compatibilities and investments I'm a graduating Computer Science student using a MacBook Pro early 2011, 2.3GHz Intel Core i5, RAM of 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3, and running at OSX Yosemite(10.10.2).
I run memory and CPU intensive applications, especially with virtual machines and programming applications, and my MacBook just couldn't these heavy apps (deadly beach ball icon).

So, I was considering in using my savings to upgrade my MacBook's RAM and SSD until I raise enough budget to purchase a newer MacBook Pro with a better CPU and better capacity for upgrades(probably in about 5-7 months). For now, I'm stuck with my current 2.3GHz MacBook Pro.

I'm not really verse with hardware, and since upgrades are very pricey, I kinda need some assurance that my choices are sustainable and the right ones.

I know it's better to upgrade SSD first before RAM. Bu in running multiple memory heavy apps, isn't it better to upgrade the RAM instead of the SSD? Since booting apps or my laptop isn't really an issue.
Is a Samsung 850 Pro (1TB) a good investment and is compatible with my early 2011 MacBook Pro? I was thinking of just installing this SSD into my new laptop when the time comes, so I thought it might be a good investment to opt for one of the 'best' SSD with a larger capacity and longer 'life'/warranty.
Sorry for the ignorance, but when upgrading the RAM, do I really need to strictly purchase a 1333 MHz DDR3 (8GBx2) in order for it to be compatible?

Thank you very much!

Answer to question 1-3:
1.SSD or RAM?

My suggestion is 512GB SSD and a memory upgrade.

2.5inch SSD that is used in an old MacBook cannot be used in a new MacBook. So 1TB is not necessary.

512GB SSD and RAM upgrade can ensure performance and avoid the choice between SSD or RAM.

2.RAM selection?

Since you already have a 4GB ram, adding another 8GB ram could work just fine. It is ok if you want 8GB * 2 as well.

RAM frequency could be 1333MHz or 1600MHz, no need to consider about compatibility.


Notifications stopped working for Messages (Mavericks) I'm using a 27" iMac with Mavericks. About 2 weeks ago, Messages stop creating notifications whenever I received a message from someone. I used to get a notification in the upper right corner of the screen if Messages was in the background, but now I don't get anything. As a result, when people send me IM messages while Messages is in the background, I don't see them until later when I see the Messages window.

I didn't change any settings or anything like that. They just stopped showing up.

I don't see anything in the Messages Preferences about turning Notifications on/off either.

The issue might be the way that you have your notifications for Messages set. If you go under Notifications -> Messages, you will see something that says "Messages alert style:" and will have the option to select None, Banners, or Alerts.

Make sure you don't have "None" set as your alert style. You can also set the badge counter to show for when you get a new message by clicking the "Badge app icon" option lower on the screen.


Not getting new iOS Gmail notifications I haven't changed any of my notifications settings but from today Gmail notifications (from Gmail iOS app) have stopped and I'm not alerted to new emails. Only when I open the app, new emails are loaded. The badge is not being updated with the count of new emails.

I've already updated iOS for iOS 13.4 and I've already checked that there are no updates for Gmail app.

Could anyone help me, please?

Thanks

See that all your setting according to this.


Specify mount point for Samba share I can connect to a Samba share on my Raspberry Pi with the following:-

open smb://pi:password@MilliwaysPi4.local/pi

This works, and Finder shows the Location as MilliwaysPi4.local with access to the pi home directory.

This mounts at /Volumes/pi but if I have another Raspberry Pi already mounted it mounts at /Volumes/pi-1 etc.

Is there any way I can specify a mount point?

On Linux I can mount a share on my Mac at a specified mount point /mnt/Image with a command like the following:-

sudo mount.cifs //Milliways.local/Images /mnt/Image -o user=XXX

Is there any similar option in macOS.
The Help file is very brief, and I can't find any detailed documentation for the open smb:// commands.

The open smb:// command is just automating what you're doing manually in Linux

Start by creating the mount point

sudo mkdir /Volumes/foobar

Then mount the share

sudo mount -t smbfs //user@hostname/path/to/share /Volumes/foobar

or

sudo mount_smbfs //user@hostname/path/to/share /Volumes/foobar


External drive error while moving files, now folder is inaccessible from Finder I was moving some files from one external hard drive to another, while the system froze, and I had to reboot the hard way.

When I logged in again, the folder was looking semi-transparent (as it is when it's moving files, I'm guessing Finder puts some sort of flag to it). I would have done the operation back from the start, but the source folder was smaller than it was originally, which meant that some of the files were already transferred, albeit inaccessible (at least from Finder).

[Mon Oct 01 01:35:00 fede@4v4l0n42-3:/Volumes/data]
ls -lO
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   29 fede  staff  -  986B Jan 25  2012 lectures/

So, I copied the remaning files via Terminal, and they are all there now. I can access them via Terminal just fine. The problem is that Finder still shows the directory as semi-transparent, and I can't open it via the GUI.

[Mon Oct 01 01:48:05 fede@4v4l0n42-3:/Volumes/data]
ls -l lectures/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  20 fede  staff   680B Dec 28  2010 RSA/
drwxr-xr-x   5 fede  staff   170B Dec 28  2010 TED/
drwxr-xr-x   3 fede  staff   102B Jan 20  2011 environmental science/
drwxr-xr-x   6 fede  staff   204B Jan 25  2012 general physics/

(I'd post a screenshot, but this is my first post and I need more reputation points).

I tried looking for some sort of weird flags on the terminal that the folder might have, but couldn't find any. I'm there is something, I just can't find it.

Ideas?

chflags can set various options on a file that affect its display in Finder.  See man chflags, which mentions that the existing flags on a file can be seen by using ls -lO.

Extended Attributes are also a possibility (although I think less likely for this issue): try ls -l@, or xattr -l filename to see those.


Transfer Photos from Mac to Android Device How can I transfer photos from Mac(including iPhoto) into Android phone? When I connect my android phone to Mac via USB, iPhoto can recognize it, but I can only find the import new photo button, then where is the export photo to android phone button?

Find the Android phone in Finder, as it shows as just another USB device. Drag photos from iPhoto to the Android device in Finder.


How can I diagnose intermittent network failures from my MacBook? I've been having a persistent problem where my 2011 MacBook Air abruptly loses its network connection for 30-60 seconds before regaining it without action on my part.

This doesn't seem to be a problem with my internet connection, as the MacBook loses both internet and its AFP connection to my NAS (the NAS is wired to my router via a wired switch, while the MacBook connects to the router via WiFi).

The issue occurs seemingly at random, but yesterday I was downloading files from the Internet to my MacBook and then transferring them to the NAS. Twice in a row when I tried to both download files and transfer other files simultaneously, I experienced this connection drop.

My hope is that the problem exists at my D-Link router, but I fear it might be a problem with the MacBook Air. How can I determine which device is at fault?

Firstly, do you have problems anywhere else, or just trying to connect to your NAS via your D-Link?

Consistent problems most other places could point to your Mac. Problems only with your equipment, issue is probably closer to home.

I posted an answer to a similar issue on a 2012 MacBook Air. Nutshell version: Apple has implemented Intel's newer power saving techniques which puts various parts of the computer to sleep a lot sooner and more often than older wifi routers will keep alive. I don't have hands-on experience with this issue and the 2011 MacBook Air.

First question I would ask: How old is your D-Link router? More than a year and it's probably my first target. Log into the router and see if you can find a place to increase the amount of time before a "connection timeout" occurs.

If you cannot find a place to extend timeout values, you might be better off looking to replace the router, especially if you have a computer store with liberal return policy. A safe test to see if it is indeed the router or your laptop is to pick up an AirPort Express (about $100, one WAN, one ethernet, one USB printer) or an AirPort Extreme (about $200, one WAN, three ethernet, one USB for printer or TimeMachine hard drive). Configuration with the AirPort Utility is straightforward.

Hook your NAS up to the ethernet port on the AirPort and start transferring files to and from it with your MacBook Air. If the problems disappear, you can either keep the AirPort or return it and purchase a newer wifi router from another company. I'm sure most newer routers support Intel's deep power saving modes, I just haven't used them.

If you still have problems keeping a connection even with an AirPort, then it's probably your Mac.

Good luck!


How do I get Pages for iOS 7/8 to use the TAB key on a bluetooth Keyboard to change the indent level? So Pages for iOS 7/8 has a software TAB key that changes the indent level of an outline. It also has forward and backward indent keys. Great.

However, when I press the TAB key on by Apple Wireless Keyboard, all it does is put in a tab character. The TAB key works fine on Pages for my MBP, with Shift-TAB back indenting it.

Is there a way to get the TAB key on the Wireless Keyboard to work like the software TAB key for iOS?

No. Apple would have to add an additional function for the bluetooth-users, which they hadn't until now. So it's not possible to use the tab-key, because you can't change the button-functions in the iOS-iWork-apps.


Unable to format / erase hard drive I have an external HD that died on me a while ago and I'm trying to see if I can format / erase it to start using it again.

The disk does not show up in Finder but I can see it in Disk Utility. When I try to erase it from there I get

Disk Erase failed with the error:
POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memory

When I try to verify the volume:

diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2
Error starting filesystem verification for disk2: Unrecognized filesystem (-9958)

I've tried running a surface scan in Techtools Pro, it processed 650 blocks and all were bad. I cancelled the operation cause it was very slow.

Diskutil info /dev/disk2 tells me:

Device Identifier:        disk2
   Device Node:              /dev/disk2
   Part Of Whole:            disk2
   Device / Media Name:      WD Ext HDD 1021 Media

   Volume Name:
   Escaped with Unicode:

   Mounted:                  No

   File System:              None

   Partition Type:           None
   Bootable:                 Not bootable
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 USB
   SMART Status:             Not Supported

   Total Size:               2.0 TB (2000396746752 Bytes) (exactly 3907024896 512-Byte-Blocks)
   Volume Free Space:        Not Applicable

   Read-Only Media:          No
   Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (no filesystem)
   Ejectable:                Yes

   Whole:                    Yes
   Internal:                 No
   OS 9 Drivers:             No
   Low Level Format:         Not Supported

I've also tried:

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Stef2TB /dev/disk2
Started erase on disk2
Unmounting disk
Creating partition map
Waiting for disks to reappear
Formatting disk2s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Stef2TB
Error: -9944: File system formatter failed

Can I salvage this drive somehow or is it ready for the trash?

I found this worked perfectly (from the terminal):

diskutil eraseVolume ExFAT MyName diskX

You'll need to change diskX to whatever the number is for your drive. You can find that out in disk utility, select the drive, click info, and look under 'BSD device node'


Slow iOS app and firmware update downloads in iTunes All my iOS related downloads (firmware updates and app downloads) are incredibly slow in iTunes. Right now, a single 70 MB app is an estimated 3 hours download making the transfer rate lousy 52 Kbit/s on an 8 MBit/s ADSL.

When I download my .ipsw firmware updates (400 - 600 MB) in a browser from a direct download link (appldnld.apple.com) the transfer rate is normal though.

I suppose my iTunes is connecting to geographically "wrong" servers. Changing Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4) to my ISP's DNS servers doesn't solve the issue.

Is there a way to improve iTunes download rate?

It sounds like the itunes servers are still cached in your DNS cache after changing from Google's DNS severs to your ISPs.

Once you change the DNS servers, clear your DNS cache using terminal

dscacheutil -flushcache

I would also quit the iTunes Helper process (via Activity Monitor) and restart iTunes.


What stops step data from the accelerometers on the phone and watch from doubling up? We see that the Apple Watch sends step data from its accelerometers to the iPhone 6 (and above) which also has accelerometers.

When you walk holding both an (recent) Apple phone and Apple Watch - you trigger accelerometers on both. This raises the risk of duplicate data.

We can see data from both devices in the health App.

My question is: What stops step data from the accelerometers on the phone and watch from doubling up?

Apple Health is smart. It automatically aggregates step data, so that every minute, it takes the step count from the last 60 seconds from the device with the highest input and adds that to the daily total. It knows when the measurements from each device were started and when they ended, and it makes sure to not include any steps from two sources measured at the same time. This is a post-processing thing, not in the time of measurement: it's not that the Apple Watch shuts off the iPhone's accelerometer; rather, they both generate step data, as in your screenshot, but Health figures out which step counts to use from both in an aggregation-type process after the fact, getting you the most accurate and complete step count possible, while not exaggerating.


AppleScript executes itself again after a reboot it initiated. How to avoid that? I have a shell script that is run by an AppleScript app.
That shell script restarts the machine at some point with shutdown -r now.

How can I avoid having the AppleScript application automatically launch itself again after the reboot?

The app is not included in the startup items
The app is launched again just like any other open app when the shell script restarts OS X

The sequence is this:

I double click on the AppleScript app
AppleScript launches a shell script in Terminal
The shell script, at some point, reboots the system
The AppleScript app starts again after the reboot

Have your AppleScript write an empty file to a predefined location and test for its existance when the script starts. If the file is already there, delete it and quit the script; otherwise proceed as normal and reboot.


Dock icons changing sometimes I noticed that some app icons changing sometimes with same blank like icon. Right now Sublime Text icon changed. Couple days ago it was happened on Safari. How can I prevent this? What will can cause this?

Your best bet is to reset and restart the Dock. Note you will need to re-add any non-default icons (i.e. apps) that you've added to the Dock - so you may want to take a screenshot of your Dock as a reminder of what you had there. (Or start afresh and only add things as you actually use them).

To reset and restart the Dock, follow these steps:

Go to Finder
Press and hold the option key down
Now go to the Go menu
Select the Library option to open the User's Library folder. You can let go of the option key now.
Go to the Preferences folder (i.e. within the Library folder)
Find and move the com.apple.dock.plist file to the Trash
Now open Terminal (usually located in Applications > Utilities)
Enter this command killall -KILL Dock
Press enter

This should resolve the issue. As mentioned previously, you will need to re-add non-default apps back to the Dock.


Lost pictures in iPhoto I lost all of my pictures from my iPhoto after updating it to the newest version. How do I find them?

Have you pointed iPhoto to your old library (In iPhoto: File>Switch to Library)?

I also recall that it said: "The photo library needs to be upgraded to work with this version of iPhoto." when I updated. Did yours do this? I notice also that there is a quit option, did you just click through thinking it was junk?


Is it bad if Guided Access is always running? Since Guided Access restricts only one app to be opened, would it prevent other background processes like app updating, memory cleaning, data fetching and cause apps freezing? My old iPad 2 sometimes lags, and I'm not sure it's because it's designed as is, or because Guided Access is not exited regularly. It's also rarely restarted.

I have guided access running all the time, however i am not experiencing any slow-downs (using an iPad Pro).
I doubt guided access is different than any other app, so the background tasks should execute.