How to get the call log from my iPhone in iOS 8? I need to get the call log from my iPhone. What is the path to get the call log from iOS 8.3?

The call history is in the database located at:

/var/wireless/Library/CallHistory/call_history.db


How do I script Powerpoint to save a directory of PPTX files as PDFs? If I have a directory of PPTX files I would like to save as PDFs.  How do I script this operation?

Assuming you have PowerPoint installed, this is quite simple using Automator.

(I have Office 2011, so I'm unsure if this would work with 2008)

Start Automator, and create a new Folder Action, and choose the input folder (i.e.: the one containing the PPTX files)

From the Actions list, choose "Convert Format of PowerPoint Presentations".  For the "New Format" option, choose "Portable Document Format".

Save it & close Automator, and you're done!

Any PPTX files saved in the chosen folder (either pre-existing, or any new ones you save from now on) will automatically be converted to PDF as an additional copy.

Hope this helps!

-U


Are there examples of iOS apps that use native subscriptions to pay for memberships? I have a client that has a membership card that gives discounts in restaurants, and wants to take payment through the phone. However apples ToS seem to explicitly forbid gym memberships, so I'm curious if that means all memberships are disallowed or if there are cases where this is done.

Otherwise we'll probably use PayPal.

In app purchase guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/In-App-Purchase-Guidelines.pdf page 7 explicitly disallow gym memberships.

You can't use In-App Purchases for that. From earlier in the In-App Purchase Guidelines:

  You must deliver your digital good or service within your app. Do not use In-App Purchase to sell real-world goods and services.


TimeMachine restore issue Times ago I did a "restore from time machine backup" in order to restore all my files on a new SSD I bought for my macbookpro (with OSX Lion), and all went fine.
Today I installed Mountain Lion on that mac, did a new timemachine backup, then used that backup in order to configure my new retina display macbook pro… initially seemed all ok this time too… but several files were not be backedup properly and I get "corrupted settings"… for example if I use git and svn commands in the terminal it says "no command found" althought under /usr/local/ I have them installed!
What happened? The thing which scares me the more is that in previous backup the files I was working on were backedup with older version (2012)… What should I do?

It sounds like your $PATH is not set correctly. All you probably need to do is set your $PATH in your shell config (.profile, .bashrc, .zshrc, etc… for whatever shell you are using).

For bash derived shells you can use:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local"

Are you sure the git binary is in /usr/local? One of my machines shows the git binary is in /usr/local/git/bin and on the other it is in /usr/bin.

I've got different paths for git on different machines, so maybe the new install of git put it in a different place than the old machine.


Does Apple's World Travel Adapter Kit work in India? I'm traveling to India next week and am considering buying Apple's World Travel Adapter Kit so I can use my Macbook pro in India.

However, India is not listed in its list of supported countries.  I came across a suggestion on the Internet that said the United Kingdom adapter would work just fine in India, but I'm not certain about that.

Can anyone confirm whether the kit has an adapter that works in India?  Being able to confirm from personal experience would be a big plus.

The adapter shown below, in Apple's World Travel Adapter Kit, will work in India.


11.1 GB of "OTHER" out of nowhere? I've had an iPhone 4S for about 1.5 years now. I have never had a problem taking tons of videos and pictures until now. Out of nowhere it says "can not record" because storage is full. I'm like "what, I have only one video".

When I check the usage, I have 11.1 GB of OTHER? I have only 1GB of Apps. What do I do to get rid of this? What is it? Calling people at Apple didn't work. I have contacts, notes, texts, apps I don't want to lose.

try deleting all unnecesary items photos videos and also every ios update adds other or ios___ update ___mb


Is it possible to use MacBook Pro with 3 monitors? Possible Duplicate:
  Mac book pro - can I plug two external monitors in?

I do have a MacBook Pro (2010) and I would like to use it with 3 monitors: the internal LCD and two monitors using DVI.

From what I know the DVI dual-link should support two monitors up to HD resolution each (1920x1080).

The question is if this is supported by the hardware and in this case what kind of adaptor do I need.

Please do not suggest invalid alternatives like using an iPad or and USB graphics card.

False, Dual DVI means that it has more bandwidth, not that you can attach two monitors. Quote from wikipedia article:

To support display devices requiring higher video bandwidth, there is provision for a dual DVI link. A dual link doubles the number of TMDS pairs, effectively doubling video bandwidth at a given pixel clock frequency.
Dual link should not be confused with dual display (also called dual head), which describes those situations where a computer is hooked up to two monitors at once. Neither, either, or both of the dual displays could be dual link. Depending on the video card(s), the displays could be both analog (VGA), an analog and a digital, or both digital.

In order to attach two monitors, you could use a third party device like Matrox GXM (Graphics eXpansion Modules) - you can connect two or three monitors from your Display Port, however, there are some limitations (like the OS does not know natively that there are two or three monitors connected and treats it like one). The price is about $350 for the Tripplehead and around $220 for the Dualhead one.
Here is the GXM homepage.


Receive notification when battery 100% charged on iOS device Is there any way to receive a iOS notification when you are charging your iPhone and the battery charge level gets to 100%?

Or any third party app?

Thanks.

10 apps for full charge alarm :

http://appcrawlr.com/ios-apps/best-apps-full-charge-alarm

Sound an alarm when your iDevice battery has a full charge :

http://www.cultofmac.com/208576/sound-an-alarm-when-your-iphone-battery-has-a-full-charge-ios-tips/

And the associated google search :

https://www.google.fr/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=alert+battery+ios+full+charged&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=808WVryqK6m40wXgt7HoBQ


How do you formulate Microsoft Excel "if" statement equivalent in Numbers? The syntax of a simple Excel if statement is:

=IF(a1="a",b2,"")

This places the contents of cell b2 in the current cell if cell a1 contains the character "a". Otherwise the current cell is cleared.

How is this statement, for example, entered in Numbers?

The syntax is the same as it is in Excel:

=IF(A1="a", B1,"")

For example:

And the results:


How to isolate an application from the system (fully sandboxed application)? Is it possible to do something like the concept of sandboxing (like all apps on iOS have its own system software resources) for all existing applications (so - not while designing an own new application) on OSX (Lion/ML/Maverics) just copying required frameworks, libraries, binaries (/usr, /etc, /Library, etc.) and than using chroot for the process when start?

Of course this is possible - iOS sandboxes all applications by default and runs on the same Darwin core as OS X. Apple hasn't chosen to implement this on OS X, so you would have a lot of engineering work to bolt this extra security on top of OS X. In the short run, it might be easier to virtualize the OS if you only need to sandbox one or two applications.


Macbook Pro upgrade advice I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and I'm told it's impossible to upgrade the RAM from the 8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 that I have.

However, I recently learned I could upgrade the 256GB harddrive I currently have. I'm thinking of upgrading to this.

However, will the SSD speed up my computer's performance as well as increase it's capacity OR will my expensive upgrade still leave me with a slow computer?

...will the SSD speed up my computers' performance as well as increase it's capacity OR will my expensive upgrade still leave me with a slow computer?

The 2015 MacBook Pro came with an SSD, so the only thing you'll do is increase the storage capacity, not improve the performance.

However, this sounds like you're just throwing parts at the problem in the hopes of solving it.   What you need to do is isolate and identify the problem causing the slowness:

If your SSD is full, it could contribute to the performance issues.  In this case, adding a bigger SSD would benefit.
Take a look at your Activity Monitor - memory and CPU.  See what's consuming either/both.*
Try doing a clean install (wipe the drive and do a fresh install of macOS)

Make sure you have a Time Machine Backup.

* Whatever results you get from here, search this site prior to asking a new question because this topic has been asked/answered numerous times previously and you're likely to find your answer there.


Huawei device pairing with Mac I am trying to connect my Huawei phone to my Mac. I get it as a new device and I can see it in the file manager. Now I would like point my Mac to some drivers of this small Huawei device. (I have them as .ini files or as .exe for the full installation package.) The thing is that I am programming for Android and did it easily on Windows (using Mac just for a couple of weeks). In Windows there is a great feature like "find device" and then just point it to .ini driver files. Is there any similar feature in Mac? I have installed some applications on Mac, like Huawei driver, Huawei modem something, also some mobilepartner application, but still nothing. Is there any way I can use the adb to connect to my device?

Your device should "just work" on a Mac. To use adb to connect to your device you do it as usual, meaning you would have to install the android SDK for mac, then enable debugging mode on your phone, and use the Terminal command-line app as you would on the Windows command-line.


iCloud Drive for Mac is taking up too much space on hard drive When I open files from iCloud Drive for Mac (via Finder window), it downloads and saves the files from iCloud which ends up taking space up on my MacBook. How can I prevent iCloud Drive from downloading files?

Picture is attached and it shows that some files are downloaded. I want to remove that space that it is taking up on my MacBook.

.

The cloud with an arrow icon means that the file is not currently on your computer. Clicking it downloads it to your computer.

There is a setting in System Preferences > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Documents called "Optimize Mac Storage." When this is selected, older files that aren't accessed regularly or recently are removed from your computer, but saved on iCloud.

The level to which the files are chosen for optimization is linked to how much free space you have on your Mac. If you have very little free space, many older files synced with iCloud drive will be offloaded from your computer, safely stored in iCloud. If you have a lot of free space, files might never be offloaded.

If you disable Optimize Mac Storage, you may run low on or run out of storage space on your Mac.

The exact length of time that the file is downloaded to your Mac is a mystery to me. Unfortunately, it's not possible to pick and choose which files you would like to offload, as this is done automatically.


Keyboard shortcut to switch between Google Chrome profiles in Mac OS X (10.10 Yosemite)? In Mavericks (OS X 10.9), I can simply Cmd+~ because it is another window in the same app group, but how can I do it in Yosemite?

I just discovered that it can be done by switching to the adjacent workspace using Ctrl + Left (or Right) arrow.

Update: After I restarted the OS (or maybe created a new user, sorry not sure) I noticed that when I switch to new profiles they are now created under the same app group so I can do again Cmd + tilde.

Update 2: I just discovered that the green maximize icon now in Yosemite will now full screen the app. The shortcut to maximize the length and width of the app window can be found in this question How to change the default behaviour of the fullscreen/maximize button?

  ⌥ + ⇧ + Click on green or outer right icon (plus icon)


Can iCloud notes be synced with different accounts? Is it possible to synchronize notes with different accounts? For example, if I write something in my notes - my friend will open his notes with his account and see the change.

Is this possible?

No, iCloud was not meant to work that way.

Some third party Apps, though, will do exactly what you're looking for. AppCrawlr has got an interesting list, which might be worth looking at.


mac mini flashing mouse repetitive sound wont let me click on stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5NeoGTkkZ4&index=2&list=PLTlfSplem0iX3CLphwxx5fPGD98ydgbpZ

okay so basically half a week ago my computer would start making weird sounds and not letting me click on anything. pretty sure that's not normal for macs, but anyway, i have searched long and hard for the solution tried restarting my computer, using all the computer repair tools built into the mac
literally nothing has helped. now i have two main theories, either my computer has been cursed or hive a virus. no clue what to do.

any help at all would be very very very much appreciated
Ps: i had to use someone else's computer to post this (yes it's that bad)

i eventually just decided to do a factory reset, it worked.


Correct way to free up Time Machine space I manage a Time Machine backup for a photographer.  We had a 2TB drive for photos and a 2TB drive for the Time Machine backup of those photos.  The Time Machine backup drive has run out of space and we realized that it's time that we can remove photos from the main photo drive (and burn DVD backups) anyways.  Since Time Machine keeps deleted files, simply deleting them from the main drive won't help us in freeing up the space on the Time Machine drive.  What is the correct way to handle this problem?

Here is a Q&A covering manual ways of cleaning backups.

How can I manually delete old backups to free space for Time Machine?

You can always just wait for Time Machine to delete old backups as there really is no need to free up space on the backup volume. In cases where you may need to recover old backups and don't have a proper archiving solution, some people archive the entire drive once it fills and start with a clean one.

As a photographer almost always has a separate archiving solution, letting Time Machine manage the backup space is often a workable plan and maintains a good 6 months of deleted data in all the cases I've seen on 2 TB drives.


iOS: how can I disable calendar alerts? Is it possible to disable alerts coming from the Calendar app? I am talking about the on the screen pop-ups that come before the start of an event. You can turn off the alert sound in the Preferences, but I don't see an option to turn off the alert pop-up.

(My iPhone calendar is synchronized with Google Calendar, and so I already alerts through some other means, and don't want to get them one more time on the iPhone.)

No, you can't disable pop-up reminders globally.
You can turn off an alert by accessing the event properties in the Calendar app, but then
it will be disabled in Google Agenda too.


Terminal output messed up on Big Sur my terminal is showing output in weird way and I don't know what it is called, so couldn't find similar question on this site, so pardon me for asking again.
This is the output on my terminal on MacOS 11.1 Big Sur:

As you can see the words are wrapped at first character.
I tried changing following things to fix: font, Oh-my-zsh theme. None worked.
My configuration for the terminal are:

Use Zsh - the default theme. .zshrc contents here
Use oh-my-zsh for the prompt and theme is powerlevel10k. Used robbyrussell theme for screen shot.
Font is Fira Mono, size 18.

Please tell me if I am missing something here to provide more details of my setup. Thank you.

I actually found out that the cause of the issue was this line tabs 4 in .zshrc. This worked on very well for me on Linux using Konsole terminal. I had copied my code configs from Linux after switching.
Update:
I found out that MacOS terminal uses negative values to the tabs command instead of positive. So for example, for width of 4 spaces, it should tabs -4. On Linux, it should be tabs 4 to achieve the same.


Download photos from digital camera to iCloud When I connect my Sony digital camera to my MacBook Air, photos go Dropbox instead of going to iCloud.  I have enough space in my iCloud account, which is almost empty.

It is possible you have checked the Enable camera uploads for: checkbox in Dropbox Preferences:


How can I show geolocation of one specific photo on a map in iOS? Just changed from Samsung Galaxy 5 to iPhone. Galaxy's feature I liked was click on a photo, then more info, and if the photo was geotagged, it would open a map showing location.

I can only show location of groups of photos on my iPhone, is there any way to select a single photo and show the location on a map? I see the generic location (i.e., Downtown Long Beach) but I can not see a specific location.

Anyone know a way to bring up a map of a single selected photo?

In iOS 12 fsb’s answer doesn’t seem to work any more. A different way is via Apple’s Shortcut app. In the gallery you can find a shortcut named “Where was this taken?”. If you add this and let the actions show up in the share sheet. Then you will be taken to the location by:

Select the photo
Press the “share” icon
Select “Shortcuts”
Select “Where was this taken?”
Done, you should now see the map app and the location of your photo


Can I connect an Apple Watch to my iPhone without syncing activity data? Or is there another way to roll back Activity data? First, the problem: I accidentally entered a 25-hour workout manually instead of a 1-hour workout (I entered "yesterday at time X to today at time X+1", instead of "…to yesterday at time X+1").  I deleted it immediately, but the damage was done.  This gave me thousands of unearned exercise minutes and has awarded me an unbeatable exercise record achievement, which are both really frustrating – I've been tracking my data for over a year now, and this really gets in the way of that.
Unfortunately, after talking to Apple Support for over an hour, I learned that there really isn't a way to undo this.  The exercise minutes haven't gone away, even though Apple Support said they were supposed to, and Apple Support said there's literally no way to remove achievements short of resetting my data completely.
Except!  The reason I'm in this pickle is that my Apple Watch actually basically died recently (or maybe not quite, some of the issue seems to be with the charger (that I've now replaced)) – it's barely charging (this might be cable-related), discharging quite rapidly, and basically isn't usable.  However, it might be usable enough to connect to my phone and unpair from it, which would create a backup with the old, pre-disaster activity data.  There's just one catch: as soon as I connect it to my phone, it's going to sync, importing the new data and breaking everything.  Apple Support wasn't sure if there was a way around this.
So that's my current situation.  I have my phone and a borrowed Apple Watch with the post-disaster, thousands-of-exercise-minutes Activity data, and my old Apple Watch with the pre-disaster good Activity data.  I want to import the data from my old Apple Watch and zap the data from the new Apple Watch.  How can I do this?
I'm also interested in other ways to solve this same problem – I'm under no illusions that I've thought about this completely enough to totally explore the problem space.  But this is the best idea I've had.

In short: Can I (1) connect an Apple Watch to my iPhone (2) without syncing activity data, then (3) unpair it to create a backup, and (4) restore another Watch from that backup, thereby (5) wiping out the past few days of activity data?  Or is there a better way?

Product versions:

Phone: iPhone 8+, iOS 13.5.1
Old watch: Apple Watch Series 4, 44m, watchOS 6.2.8
New watch: Apple Watch Series 5, 40m, watchOS 6.1

I also asked this question on Reddit in /r/applehelp.

So - as a direct answer to your question - no, unfortunately it doesn't appear possible to do what you're asking.
Now for a longer, more descriptive answer. After carrying out some research and performing some of my own tests, it unfortunatley doesn't appear that it's possible to simply remove a single exercise whilst also deleting the corresponding award earned from it; removing the exercise from within the Health app leaves the award which can, as you mentioned, still be found within the Activity app. The following threads posted to the Apple Discussions forum were posted by users who also had a similar problem - confirming the above:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8257414
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250261634
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250009083
In addition to this, it also doesn't appear possible to use the backup of an Apple Watch to simply replace the Activity data/rewards on the Watch's paired iPhone; that said, I'm not 100% sure whether the Watch backup itself actually includes any Activity data itself, or whether this is only retained on your iPhone. It appears that the only way to resolve this is to reset your Health data - which is far from ideal, but appears to be the only resolution at this time.


Chrome browser ignoring parental controls I'm running MacOS 10.13.6 and it seems that the Chrome browser is ignoring the parental controls that I've set up for kids' accounts.  If I try to go to a particular website in Safari it blocks it.  However, that very same website is allowed in Chrome.  Is this expected behavior?  Is there something I can do to make Chrome follow the parental rules?

This is the expected behavior, parental control only apply to the applications provided by Apple. At the time we needed that, we just blocked access to other applications through Parental Control.


How do I upload verification photos to Apple's Maps Connect? I'm trying to submit my place of business to Apple's Maps Connect so that it shows up in Apple Maps, but my submission was rejected (unable to verify) until I upload verification photos. Here's exactly what it says:

  Upload Verification Photos

  Please return to your business profile at Maps Connect and upload verification photos or videos. These must show your locations building and external sign, or building directory matching your business name. This will help us verify that your business is physically located at the address on your profile.

However, I can't find any place in Maps Connect that allows me to upload verification photos or videos. Is this a hidden feature? Is there some trick that allows me to upload verification photos? Has anyone else managed to do this?

It seems like email is the only way to send verification photos right now. This is the email response I received after reaching out to Support for Maps Connect.

  Regarding your inquiry, please reply to this message directly with a photo from outside your business.


Extend main APFS partition fails with "target disk is too small for this operation" /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         125.7 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Storage                 100.0 GB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +125.7 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            122.9 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 19.9 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                506.6 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

I checked the different similar questions and tried the suggested solutions but in vain. Disk utility doesn't help at all.

I tried running this command from the terminal as suggested.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

Error: -69771: The target disk is too small for this operation

I have more than 25 G of free space:

The free space resides after disk0s3. The command you issued can not reclaim the free space back into disk0s2, because there little or no free space between disk0s2 and disk0s3. To reclaim approximately 25 GB of free space back to disk0s2, you would need to execute the following procedure.

Remove the files from disk0s3.
Delete disk disk0s3. You can use the command given below.

sudo diskutil  eraseVolume free none disk0s3

Add the approximately 125 GB of free space to disk0s2. You can use the command given below.

 sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

Basically, it come down to this. If the files on disk0s3 are important, then you are going to need an external drive to temporarily store them. Once all the space has been returned to disk0s2, you can either create a new disk0s3 or create another APFS volume on disk0s2. Finally, restore the files from the external drive.


I just ran rm -rf /*, but nothing happened You know that one command that every idiot knows not to type? Yeah.

I was in  a directory that I  wanted to wipe, by typing rm -rf /*. For some unknown reason, I added /* to the end of the command. 10,000 iq, I know.

It started deleting stuff. I was like "huh, this seems like a lot of files. That folder had like 20 things in it. Wait, why is it deleting from the numbers application? Sh*t." I quickly terminated the terminal. (After about 5 seconds). I launched numbers. Everything is fine. I can't find a single thing wrong with the computer. My last time machine backup is a few months old, and before I updated to Catalina.

Any advice?

The good news: your system is working afterwards
The bad news: user installed apps and user data will be deleted

The command rm -rf /* tries to remove all files in the whole root hierarchy. This is done with the privileges of the user executing it.

An admin user will remove all admin user installed apps and his/her/* own files - including files installed to /usr/local/ (e.g. with brew). Additonally some files and folders in /private/tmp, /private/var/tmp and  /private/var/run are removed.

A normal user will remove his/her/* own files and probably some files and folder in  /private/tmp and /private/var/tmp.

BTW a good reason to configure at least a dual user setup: one admin user and a user for the day-to-day routine.

The reason why even sudo rm ... can't remove system files/Apple's apps are Catalina's new security measures. Most parts of the file system are mounted read-only.

Removal of files - if possible at all - is more or less alphabetical. In my test it started in /Applications, continued in /Library, /System, /System/Volumes/Data (and all subdirs like the "Users" folder) and finally finished in /usr/local.

If you have a normal Time Machine backup simply restore the last snapshot.

If you don't have Time Machine backup but localsnapshots enabled you will be able to restore the previous state of your Mac.

Local snapshots will be listed with the command:

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

You can restore your Mac either by doing everything manually (i.e. get snapshot name, make a temporary folder, mount the snapshot with mount_apfs there and restore everything with a lengthy and error-prone tmutil restore ... command.

The alternative way is the Time Machine GUI in Recovery Mode:

Reboot to Recovery Mode (cmd-R while booting)
Choose "Restore from Time Machine Backup" in macOS Utilities and hit continue

Restore from Time Machine chit-chat and continue

Choose the name of your main system volume (here System, usually Macintosh HD) and continue

Choose the last snapshot before issueing the fatal rm command and continue. I made several snapshots because I forgot to make admin created app folders (lower- and uppercase) containing apps to detect whether they are deleted alphabetically (shell style: first uppercase then lower case) - they are not.

Restoring

Automatic reboot

Fun fact: thanks to APFS' snapshot tech restoring took 35 seconds while trying to remove all files almost 30 minutes.


iTunes is syncing photos from 2006 when I've told it to include the last month I'm experiencing what I'm pretty certain is new behavior since switching from iPhoto to Photos. When I tell iTunes to sync my photos from the last month, I get photos going back to 2006.

My iTunes sync settings look like this:

Here's what I did:

unchecked "Sync Photos" and did a sync to clear everything out
clicked "Selected Albums" and unchecked every album
checked "Automatically include photos from" and selected "Last month"
did another sync

And that's when I got photos from 2006 when I was expecting only the last month's photos. I have a hunch that this is because the iPhoto --> Photos migration set the modified dates to that day...but don't quote me on that, because the photo files themselves retained their original dates.

This is what the dates look like on the photo folders:

Is there any way to get the actual photos from the last month?

Software/hardware: iTunes 12.1.2.27 on Yosemite 10.10.3 (14D131), and iOS 8.3 (12F70) on an iPhone 5s.

You should check the iPhoto/Photos app and see if any of your 2006 photos are in the Last Month tab or the April 2015 tabs. If they are then the problem is with the photos' dates, not iTunes or your iDevice.


How to create link aggregates (bonded interfaces) in shell? How do you create link aggregates for network interfaces from the shell in Terminal on macOS 10.13?

See man networkSetup.
Execute the following to bond interfaces en2 & en3:
sudo networkSetup createBond bond0 en2 en3

It is also useful to be able to get all active interfaces (with or without IP, simply labeled as active since you might have a primary interface + the interfaces you want to bond):
for i in $(ifconfig -lu); do if ifconfig $i | grep -q "status: active" ; then echo $i; fi; done


How do I emulate Internet Sharing from the command line? I'm trying to set up my Macbook Air to share an OpenVPN connection for use while I'm on the road and don't want my iOS traffic to go over the open Internet. Sadly, Mountain Lion's Internet Sharing feature doesn't include the VPN interface in the list of shareable network interfaces, so I assume I'm going to have to emulate Internet Sharing from the command line.

I've figured out some of the moving pieces that are put in place by the InternetSharing wrapper:

ifconfig to set up the bridge interface
ipfw to set up forwarding of traffic
bootpd to offer DHCP service to clients
natpmpd to handle port forwarding
named in a cache configuration to handle DNS queries

One piece I haven't figured out is the configuration of the wireless network, namely the SSID and WPA2 configuration. What service is responsible for that, and how does one activate it? It seems like it might be airportd, but I don't see any relevant-looking options there.

This could possibly get you part of the way on your journey to the final solution, though it hasn't worked for me so far on mountain lion.  I'd very much like to know what your solution is if you find one!


Is there software to test the hardware of MacBook Pro (Retina 15-inch, Mid 2015)? The company I work for uses MacBook Pros.  Mine is significantly slower and runs significantly hotter than my colleagues'.  I want to test the hardware to see whether there is a fault.

All the MBP's we use are Retina 15-inch Mid 2015, 2.5Ghz i7, 16GB RAM. The main software we use is VMWare Fusion running Windows 10 and the Mac version of MS Office. The machines are all running Sierra, but mine has run poorly since way before the upgrade.  The only quirk is that I use an external monitor, although my colleagues have used my monitor themselves with no problems.

When VMWare is running, the fans are running full speed almost constantly on mine, and Windows can become almost unresponsive at times. My colleagues' machines run quietly and only occasionally run the fans (but even then the fans are run slower than mine).  I am also not able to run VMWare Fusion in Unity whereas my colleagues are.  (Aside from my infuriation, the sheer amount of noise mine makes has become a standing joke in the office!).  If I leave the Mac for a while,  it has crashed when I return and refuses to wake up requiring a reboot.  The external monitor occasionally goes black for a second or two.

I have checked the VM settings and they are identical. I have:

toggled these up and down,
wiped the VM image and created a new one,
reinstalled VMWare,
copied my colleague's VM, and I have
wiped my Mac.

I'm a Mac noob and am pretty much out of ideas, and so I want to check the hardware.

Okay, the first things I would do are reset your SMC and NVRAM. Instructions follow.

Reset your SMC

Your computer's System Management Controller (SMC) can be reset as follows:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

Take a note of whether the fans and/or anything else improves and report back.

Resetting the PRAM/NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). Here’s how to reset the NVRAM on your particular MBP:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Run Apple Diagnostics

Now to answer your question about testing the hardware. If resetting the SMC and NVRAM don't resolve your issue, you can follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your MBP
Restart your MBP
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.


Turn off accented characters When I type ' then A , it types Á, instead of simply 'A . How to disable this feature. It's a pain while programming, as we need to type things like 'example string' a lot.

If you use the proper keyboard layout this won't happen. Proper keyboard layouts are US-english, US-english extended (or ABC Extended in El Capitan) or UK-english.

' is a single quote while ` or ´ are accents. The single quote will only yield an Á if you have the US International PC keyboard layout active.


Change my shell to a different bash version at /usr/local/bin/bash? How can I set my /usr/local/bin/bash (which is the 4.2 version that allows auto-completion of 'cd to directory with directory name') to be my default bash for a new window instead of my regular (v3.2.48) version.

I can type /usr/local/bin/bash and get into it but that's not the default for a new Terminal window which is what I want.

I don't know if this will populate in the terminal / advanced user account locations, but "The Way This Has Worked For Years"™ in Linux-land is that you must update /etc/shells with the path to the shell location, and then use chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash username to use it.

Simply running chsh without modification to /etc/shells should cause an error indicating you've chosen an invalid shell, in case you're curious.

/etc/shells is a root-owned file, so you must use sudo in tandem with an editor in order to modify it. I hope you're comfortable doing that, else I would highly advise against trying out a non-default shell :).

Summary (steps):

brew install bash, then
sudo vi /etc/shells and add /usr/local/bin/bash to the list, then
chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash [your_username] and restart your terminal in order for your changes to take place


I need help updating Xcode I have a mac that I primarily use for xcode (so I am not really familiar with how Macs work). I develop iOS apps. Of late I have been running out of space. I delete as much as I can and the space keeps filling up. I have an external drive that I can move thing to. So I moved a bunch of stuff last night so I had 8 GB free and tried to do the update. In the morning it said the update failed because I don't have enough space (400 MB available). I deleted Xcode 4 which freed up 10 GB of space. Immediately the available space started to drop and now it is down to 8 GB. The only thing that seems to be running is Application update.

Question: When an application update fails does it keep the space it is using? That is, do I have many copies of multi-GB partial downloads of xcode hidden somewhere on my disk? if so, where?

There's a possibility that it's Time Machine local storage; though I'd use something like GrandPerspective to see what is taking up the most space.

If it is local backups...

Disable Time Machine Local Backup Storage

Here’s how to turn off local backups:

Launch Terminal from /Applications/Utilities
Enter the following command:
sudo tmutil disablelocal

Enter the admin password when requested to disable local backups

Re-Enable Local Time Machine Backups

sudo tmutil enablelocal

Remember, if you disable this feature you will not have local backups anymore, so if something goes wrong you will be out of luck. It’s important to have regular backups of your data, and so if you’re going to disable this be sure to still use Time Machine, perhaps even initiating a manual backup before you disconnect the drive, in order to preserve a recent copy of your data.

Source: http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/28/disable-time-machine-local-backups-in-mac-os-x-lion/

As regards temporary downloads…
They really ought to clean themselves up automatically, but if you're feeling brave & want to dig [very carefully] down into the filesystem, they live deep inside /private/var/folders/
I'd use something like EasyFind (freeware) to search for the string com.apple.appstore in Invisible files & folders, & look inside the most recently-modified folder matches (double click one of the found folders to open in Finder).
But I'd be really careful to be absolutely certain of what you're doing in there - I don't know if partial downloads will be obvious & in cleartext. I wouldn't touch anything with an unfathomable name.


How can I install the Command Line Tools completely from the command line? I'd like to script the installation of the the Xcode Command Line Tools.

On Mavericks,

xcode-select --install

will open a dialog prompting the user to install, but I'd like to trigger the install without the dialog, like using the softwareupdate command.

Is there a way to do this?

Edit:

Specifically, xcode-select --install launches an application that downloads and installs the tools without requiring the user to manually download them or have an Apple Developer account. It appears to use /System/Library/CoreServices/Install Command Line Developer Tools.app to do this.

I would like to use the same mechanism that Apple is, but without the GUI. I do not want to have to manually download the .dmg containing the tools as this seems fragile. Apple provides several other command-line tools, like softwareupdate and install that download or install software directly from Apple, and I'm looking to find the same for this type of distribution.

Wish I could claim credit for this one, but I found it buried in https://github.com/chcokr/osx-init/blob/master/install.sh

This worked on my 10.10 headless VM without a logged in UI.   Updates applied for compatibility with at least 10.9-10.14

touch /tmp/.com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand.in-progress;
PROD=$(softwareupdate -l |
  grep "\*.*Command Line" |
  head -n 1 | awk -F"*" '{print $2}' |
  sed -e 's/^ *//' |
  tr -d '\n')
softwareupdate -i "$PROD" --verbose
rm /tmp/.com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand.in-progress

This presumes you only have 1 result to
softwareupdate -l | grep "\*.*Command Line" - if this returns multiple versions, you might need more specific logic.  (I dont have a repro case)

one variation that seems to work (limited testing) on 10.10-10.14 (10.9 doesn't return an osx version number in the cli tools name..so this doesn't work there):

PROD=$(softwareupdate -l |
 grep "\*.*Command Line.*$(sw_vers -productVersion|awk -F. '{print $1"."$2}')" |
 head -n 1 | awk -F"*" '{print $2}' |
 sed -e 's/^ *//' |
 tr -d '\n')

a few example results:

* Command Line Tools (OS X Mavericks)-6.2
* Command Line Tools (OS X 10.10) for Xcode-7.2
* Command Line Tools (macOS El Capitan version 10.11) for Xcode-8.2
* Command Line Tools (macOS High Sierra version 10.13) for Xcode-10.1
* Command Line Tools (macOS Mojave version 10.14) for Xcode-10.1


How can I move /Library/Developer to an external disk? Until Xcode 10 I was able to move the Xcode Library/Developer folder to an external drive using a symlink, in order to free up space on my main disk, like

ln -s /Volumes/*/Library/Developer /Users/*/Library/Developer

In Xcode 11, moving the Developer folder produces errors related to my .xib files, like

/Users/*project_directory*/objects/View.xib:1:1: Failed to find or create execution context for description '<IBCocoaTouchPlatformToolDescription: 0x7fbc697f2a20> System content for IBCocoaTouchFramework-ElevenAndLater <IBSimulatorDeviceTypeDescription: 0x7fbc68ecd0c0> deviceType=com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimDeviceType.iPhone-8'. These intermediate objects were non-nil: ( …

Restarting the CoreSimulatorService, which is often proposed as the solution for this kind of errors, doesn't work in this case.

Well, might be a strech to call this an answer, but most of the stuff that requires hd space on a modern Xcode installation is located in your
$ ~/Library/Developer

directory (mostly simulator files), and within the Xcode app bundle itself, in my case Xcode alone needs 10 gigabyte plus around 6 gigabyte for the simulator files and only 1.3 gigabyte in /Library/Developer.
I also do some Flutter development, so that is another 10 gigabyte for the Android sdk and 4 gigabyte for the emulator files, plus a couple for Flutter itself.
All those directories have been symlinked or aliased and works just fine on an external drive.
This is described in my answer regarding moving Xcode and friends to an SSD drive.
I also got some problems using brew when I moved the /Library/Developer stuff, so it's probably best to leave that wormhole alone and focus on moving the things that does take a lot of space.
If you've already messed it up, just install the command line package again using the xcode-select command as described in my other post and go through those steps that fits your setup.
I save around 50 gigabyte ++ on the system drive by using this method with Xcode, the simulator and all, and I don't have the problem you mentioned in your question. I've been doing this for a couple of years now. So it IS possible, even if I can't pinpoint why it's not working for you.
If you update the question, documenting:

the file system in use on the external drive
mount options you use for mounting it
if you use FileVault or not on the system
have you tried repairing the permissions on your whole user directory while booting into recovery mode? (In the terminal)

I'd have a bit more to work with probably.
But as of now I can't reproduce what you experience.
Also try using a good old "alias" for the developer directory, don't use the command line to make a symlink, just hold down the option and command keys while dragging the Developer directory back to where it used to be. Sometimes things work better with a symlink, but in other situations I've found aliases to be the only way...


How to uninstall wget I recently installed wget on my Mac using the instructions listed here: http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/22/install-wget-mac-os-x/
and lorcan's instructions here: How do I get "wget" for Snow Leopard?

However, I realized that I installed an outdated version of wget.

Is there an easy way to uninstall wget from my system?

It depends on how you installed wget in the first place.

If you installed directly from source, run sudo rm /usr/local/bin/wget
If you installed via Homebrew, run brew uninstall wget (or just use brew upgrade wget to install the most recent version)


Apple Watch Siri cannot stop workout I can say into my watch: Hey Siri, start Outdoor walk and it will open the Workout app on the watch and start that specific workout.

Later I say Hey Siri, stop workout and this used to work - the workout would stop.

Now Siri says I wish I could but workout is not set up with me and I cannot see any options to do that.

According to this Apple  support page, it doesn't appear that Siri can end a workout.

The site only show Siri starting a workout, as you've already found.   You can always submit feedback to Apple  and suggest this feature be added.


What security preferences are blocking McAfee? I changed some of my Macbook's security settings today.  I also updated to the latest version of High Sierra (10.13.4) shortly before changing my security settings.
 Shortly thereafter, I got the following message from McAfee:

  Your system's security preferences are blocking McAfee software from loading.  Because of this, some software features are not enabled.  You can change your settings in the Security & Privacy System Preferences pane.  Click OK to open System Preferences.

"Cancel" and "OK" are then given as options.

This keeps popping up.

The privacy features I changed:

Share Mac Analytics and Share with App Developers were turned off.
Dropbox and Steam are no longer allowed to "control [my] computer", changed under "Accessibility"
Under Location Services, under System Services, "Location-Based Suggestions" was turned off and "Significant Locations" was reset and turned off.

What security features are making McAfee upset? Or does it have to do with the OS update?

When the message from McAfee appears, click OK and open System Preferences > Security & Privacy. Under the General tab, you may see an Allow button like the image below. You will need to click this and follow the prompts to allow your software to work properly.

McAfee's knowledge base has instructions on this under the "Standalone installation on macOS High Sierra without a Mobile Device Management (MDM) profile" section of this page.This is a security feature introduced in macOS 10.13 to make sure certain kinds of software, kernel extensions, are loaded with the permission of the user. This Allow button is only available for 30 minutes after the alert appears.


Google Maps app is no longer in the Background App Refresh list After upgrading to iOS 8, Google Maps no longer appears in the list of apps that can be toggled on/off for Background App Refresh functionality.

Doesn't it need to be enabled for the app to continue using the GPS and giving voice directions while the phone is locked, or while another app is in the foreground?

GPS apps such as Google Maps do not rely on Background App Refresh to perform their tasks. They use CoreLocation, and declare Location Updates as one of their capabilities. This allows them to run continuously in the background (with caveats).

Background App Refresh allows an app that declares Background Fetch as one its capabilities to periodically (but infrequently) download small amounts of data in the background. The scheduling for background data fetch is left at the discretion of the operating system, and may actually get cut off after the app is not accessed for a number of days.

Background App Refresh is useful eg. for news apps, allowing them to have fresh content ready to display before you launch the app (as per Craig Federighi’s keynote presentation at WWDC 2013). This functionality is non-critical, and apps should be able to live with it disabled.

For further details, refer to Apple’s App Programming Guide for iOS.

If-This-Then-That also has a layman’s explanation of how some background operations work in iOS under the heading About iOS Background Syncing.


Mac Sierra, iCloud > Notes is greyed out I recently updated to MacOS Sierra Version 10.12.2. In the System Preferences > Internet Accounts > iCloud > Notes. The Notes application is greyed out. It was working fine in El Capitan. Did someone face this issue? Thanks in advance.

I launched reminders and clicked reminders->add account from the menu.  I logged in with the same iTunes account that is already setup in System Preferences->Internet Accounts.

Reminders and System Preferences crashed, but then I could see reminders and notes selected in System Preferences->iCloud.  I can now see notes and reminders across my Mac and iPhone.

The options in System Preferences->iCloud are still greyed out.


Macbook Pro 2015 Horrible Ping w/ Slow Download/Upload Speeds I've been having a little issue with my wireless connection on my Macbook Pro and I can't seem to figure out what the issue is. Here's the difference in overall connection quality from my phone and my laptop.

Phone:
http://i.imgur.com/CAjWKnr.png

Macbook:
http://i.imgur.com/q4adpX9.png

I'm running Yosemite for anyone that's wondering, but if any of you have an idea for what the problem is please let me know! Thanks.

Tether the Mac to your iPhone temporarily. You'll likely find the problem isn't the Mac but it's the service upstream from your WiFi router.


Removing print from keyboard Did anyone succeed in removing all print from an Apple keyboard? I would like to do this in a clean way, not involving stickers or paint that changes the feel of the keys. Might it perhaps be possible somehow to rub it off, using a chemical or a tool? (I want to do this primarily because it would be aesthetically pleasing; any solution less than perfect would therefore be inferior to doing nothing.)

It took me 7 years to type off the text from enough keys to irritate me on my last keyboard. By that time the surfaces were completely smooth & shiny.

Simple extrapolation would tell me the 'text' is mounded into the plastic in a different colour, not a cheap screenprint that can be 'washed' off.


How to fix a broken recovery partition (remove it) when repairing it is not possible? My main system is bootable but disk utility says it needs to be repaired.

I can start disk utility from Live-USB which can verify my OS X partition but gives errors on checking the whole disk. The error is "unknown file system" - but it appears only after it found the main file system.

I guess my (hidden) recovery partition might be broken, since I cannot boot into it. Maybe this is the cause for disk utility to bring the error.

I would like to repair the recovery partition or at least delete it. I know there are tutorials of how to create a new one.

I removed my partition with

$ diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ Blank /dev/disk0s3

which created a blank space.

I then also had to repair the disk in disk utility. Since then everything works fine.


SMS messaging when tethered to phone in Yosemite, not just iMessages Ive got facetime on my laptop working with my phone which allows me to make and receive calls (these are phone calls as opposed to facetime audio calls).

Ive also got messages on my laptop but with the messages it seems to only let me send and receive imessages is there a way i can set it up to also allow me to make and receive incoming SMS messages ?

On the apple support website i can see that that it seems to be possible, but when i got to messages on my machine i only get the option to iMessage.

My laptop is an MBP running 10.10.5, My phone is a iphone5s running iOS8.x (latest 8 version)

This is my current messages setup :

And this is the setup on my phone :

http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/how-send-sms-texts-in-yosemite-3582821/

Follow the link above it worked for me. All the best.

Make sure you are signed in to iCloud on both your iOS device and Mac using the same Apple ID.


Nike+ FuelBand (Pedometer) with local analysis software - no personal data in cloud I want to buy the Nike+ FuelBand, but don't want my information to be in the cloud.

Extracted from Wikipedia:

  In addition to tracking personal workout statistics, the Nike+ integrates directly with the Nike website. Workout data can be automatically uploaded to the website during an iPod sync with iTunes or through another program via the website's public API. The uploaded information is mostly not personally-identifying, but does also contain some personal statistics such as weight (if configured). Workout data is stored in XML files on the iPod, which has led some web and applications programmers to offer alternatives to the official Nike reports.

So, is there any OS X software I can use to have these nice diagrams? And, is it possible to use the Nike+ FuelBand without syncing to the cloud?

It's technically possible, but no apps have so far used the Nike+ Fuelband without using Nike's website. Hack Nike+ Fuelband tried to make this a reality, but there has been no progress.


Macbook Pro Battery Care I found instructions about MacBook battery care, but it made me confused. I received my MacBook Pro yesterday. After unboxing, I used it for some time and then I fully charged the battery. I will be using this laptop as my primary device.

So, my question is, if I use my MacBook about 7-8 hours a day with the charger plugged in, will it be harmful for the battery? What is the recommended way?

To get the most out of your MacBook Pro's battery, follow the Notebook Battery advice from Apple: unplug and use your battery until empty about once a month, then charge back up to full.

If you need help following Apple's advice, use Battery Guardian; it is free and will remind you when to deplete your battery.


Time Machine partition won't mount I have an external drive with two partitions, the first of which I use for Time Machine backups. The other day I got a message telling me that my drive had been unplugged without being ejected first (not true). Today when I plugged it in, the Time Machine partition did not mount but the second partition did.

When I try mounting the partition in Terminal I get: Volume on disk2s2 timed out waiting to mount

I tried $ diskutil repairDisk disk2 and got:

Started partition map repair on disk2
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Adjusting partition map to fit whole disk as required
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition's size
Checking the EFI system partition's file system
Checking the EFI system partition's folder content
Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map
Error: -69854: A disk with a mount point is required

I tried $ diskutil repairVolume disk2s2 and got:

Started file system repair on disk2s2 Backup
Repairing file system
Volume is already unmounted
Performing fsck_hfs -fy -x /dev/rdisk2s2
File system check exit code is 8
Restoring the original state found as unmounted
Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failed
Underlying error: 8: Exec format error

I did $ ps aux | grep fsck and got:

root               642  22.8 12.6  6396120 2107688   ??  U     3:27PM  15:48.20 /System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/Contents/Resources/./fsck_hfs -y /dev/disk2s2

According to another thread here, this means that fsck has "hijacked" the partition, but I don't know what that means.

I don't know what to do at this point. My big concern is not losing my Time Machine backups.

Okay, I figured out what was going on: When macOS detects a drive being unplugged without being ejected (which I don't think happened but I did get a message saying it had), the next time you plug the drive in fsck is going to go to work automatically, to check out the drive and attempt to repair it if need be. Unless you go looking, you'll get no indication that this is what's happening other than that the drive (or a partition on it) won't mount. This super helpful comment was key to my understanding what's going on: https://superuser.com/a/1013435/955941. After about 10 hours, fsck finished and the partition mounted correctly.


MacBook Pro 2011: vibrating horizontal dotted lines all over the screen I have had the well known AMD GPU failure on my 2011 MacBook Pro. Thanks to the instructions of Nimesh Neema, I have successfully disabled the AMD GPU and enabled the onboard Intel GPU. Fantastic!

Next I rebooted my MBP about 6 times, and all was working and normal. When I unplugged the power cable to move the MBP to another location, the screen went black. Touching any keyboard button or the power button, did not reactivate the screen. So I pushed the power button for 4 sec's, waited a bit and then powered the MBP up again.

Unfortunately, immediately after booting when the screen turns on, it showed vibrating horizontal dotted lines all over the screen, as in the attached picture (not the well known grey/pink vertical lines). The booting works normal, logging in works, all applications work. But the screen is terrible with these lines.

Does anyone recognize this?

Is this a malfunction of the Intel GPU?

What can I do?

Does it do this on an external screen?  This would show the difference between the GPU being bad or the display going bad.  Being you had to hard shut off the laptop I am leaning to GPU being bad.


"Find My iPhone" locked my Mac Yesterday my MacBook Pro started to be blocked.

When it boots it asks for the password for the Guest account. No password is right. According to various sources of information I found on the Web, this may mean that the computer has been locked from iCloud using "Find My iPhone".

From https://www.icloud.com/#find the Macbook seems to be blocked:

But there is no "unlock" button on iCloud:

When I click "Play Sound" a sound is effectively played by the Macbook:

"Find My iPhone" is not able to locate the computer's location, but it is here, on my desk!

When I power off the MacBook Pro something changes on https://www.icloud.com/#find and a button "Remove from Account" appears. After I clicked that button the MacBook Pro is removed from the device listing. But as soon as I reboot the Macbook will reappear in the listing.

I don't understand what is wrong: I own the computer, I own the iCloud/Apple ID account but I can neither use it, nor unlock it.

I tried to call Apple, today they won't respond (today it's Sunday, tomorrow is a holiday in my country.) I can't wait till tuesday.

Do you know how to solve my issue?

Solved following these steps.

Removed my macbook from iCloud
Followed this guide: http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/id-1317787/unlock-apple-macbook-pro.html


How do you use an existing AppleID on iOS App Store without providing a credit card number? I already have an Apple ID, made at Apple.com. Now, when I want to access the App Store from my iPad, I am told that I have to review my information. On the credit card page, I am not presented with a "None" option, even though I am in the United States.

What can I do to proceed without entering this information?

You need to do the following when at the Credit Card page

Click on Paypal
Click on 'To redeem a code, click here'

From this new workflow, you will be able to get to the same page with the 'None' option


macOS Sierra GDB not codesigned First I should note that I'm using macOS Sierra (version 10.12 beta 16A238m), but I don't think it's that different than El Capitan in this certain situation (but I guess you know more than I do about that, or I wouldn't be here right now asking this question).

So I installed GDB (The GNU Debugger) for following among a book I am currently reading ("Hacking: The Art of Exploitation"), which only explains how to use GDB, so I can't use LLDB. I installed it using Homebrew (brew install gdb), and everything worked fine. Until I used it.
I compiled my C source code using clang -g hello_word.c -o hello_world (it's just a simple C "Hello, World!" program), and then I run gdb -q hello_world, and here's the session:

Chens-MacBook-Pro:C chenjian$ gdb -q hello_world
Reading symbols from hello_world...Reading symbols from /Users/chenjian/Documents/Coding/Projects/RandomDev/C/hello_world.dSYM/Contents/Resources/DWARF/hello_world...done.
done.
(gdb) list
1   #include <stdio.h>
2
3   int main() {
4       printf("Hello, World!\n");
5   }
(gdb) break main
Breakpoint 1 at 0x100000f6f: file hello_world.c, line 4.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /Users/chenjian/Documents/Coding/Projects/RandomDev/C/hello_world
Unable to find Mach task port for process-id 42492: (os/kern) failure (0x5).
 (please check gdb is codesigned - see taskgated(8))

So I googled a bit about codesigning, and found this. So I went through the instructions (except for the ones for Snow Leopard), and it still doesn't work! Anyone knows how I can make it work?

Yes, code signing should work is a substantially better alternative to disabling SIP. I can't really believe how often disabling SIP is suggested as a solution to this problem - if you get desperate I'd sooner advise running sudo gdb (have backups!) than disabling SIP.

For me, the problem was that I repeatedly messed up one or more steps in the procedure. I ended up doing brew reinstall gdb, deleting all the certificates I had created, rebooting and then very carefully following the procedure again. Note that when you install gdb with Homebrew, the following is shown:

==> Caveats
gdb requires special privileges to access Mach ports.
You will need to codesign the binary. For instructions, see:

  https://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/BuildingOnDarwin

On 10.12 (Sierra) or later with SIP, you need to run this:

  echo "set startup-with-shell off" >> ~/.gdbinit

Those instructions were what worked for me on Sierra. Disabling startup-with-shell so far has not been necessary, but it's worth keeping in mind if you're sure that you did it all correctly and the troubleshooting section of the link is of no use.


High Sierra not recognizing username when entering credentials After a new hard drive replacement in my old iMac (late 2009) I have similar problem like the questioner who changed it to grant. My main question if I follow the direction given in the answer will it reset to old Operating system? Please help.

To be clear I will explain what happened.

I tried to change user name in preferences, clicked on the current user (advanced options), which was named 'user', which was also the administrator, and changed the name. This didn't end up changing the username. I then tried to create another administrator user.

I logged out. When I logged back in the only user available to log in with was 'user'. When I opened user preferences I see that 'user' is no longer an administrator.

I now have no way of accessing an administrator. When I try move files into the applications folder it asks for admin username and password. I've tried every combination of 'user' and 'new user name' and nothing works.

Assuming you have a system installed that is new enough to allow you to boot into Recovery mode (hold ⌘-R at startup, if not, use the disk as explained in the article), I think this may help you. Oops, forgot your question title. Look for Terminal in the Utilities menu after you get into Recovery mode. "resetpassword" still works, even in High Sierra.

Use OS X Recovery Disk Assistant to reset Your files and folder permissions


When were custom sounds for e-mail notification alerts introduced in iOS? When were custom sounds for e-mail notification alerts introduced in iOS?

I know that for SMS/MMS/messages they were introduced with iOS 5.0. Now I always thought e-mail sounds could be changed since 4.x..?

(custom sounds = the ones you create yourself and import by using iTunes on a computer)

Nope, this is all new. Before iOS 5 you could only set the ringer's sound to a custom one. If you ask me, it's about time!


How does automator know that the text that it receives, is an address? In automator there is an action called "Extract Data from text". It can extract stuff like email addresses, phone numbers but also addresses. How does that work? How does automator know that the text that it is receiving is an address?

OS X features NSDataDetector which has the ability to detect types of data.

More information regarding the NSDataDetector class can be found on Apple's developer site:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Foundation/Reference/NSDataDetector_Class/


How to restore System Preferences.app without reinstalling? My younger brother decided to sudo rm -r /Applications/System\ Preferences.app. Yeah, it was a pretty stupid thing to do.

(In his defense, it's probably my fault for giving him bad habits--whenever I set up new macs, I always forcibly remove iTunes, Chess, and other preinstalled applications that I consider useless.)

He is currently running MacOS Sierra, and aside from the fact that he can't change any settings, his computer appears to be running fine.

I told my brother to redownload the Sierra installer from the Mac App Store, use Pacifist to extract the System Preferences application, and copy it back to his applications folder.

He did so, but the newly-extracted System Preferences app doesn't work. It opens, but displays a blank window with no preference panes to click on. I advised him to do a reinstall, but he doesn't want to.

How can my brother get System Preferences back?

Reinstalling the latest combo updater for Sierra is probably the first thing I'd try. Won't overwrite anything it doesn't need to, but should put back anything that's missing.

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1918?locale=en_IE


200GB unused, but can't change APFS container size due to minimum requirement I want to create a partition with a different filesystem but in order to do that I need to resize my APFS container.

  This container has 292,4 GB used space. Its minimum size is 500,07 GB.
  This container cannot be split because the resulting containers would
  be too small.

What I tried

From "How to Resize Your APFS Container on macOS High Sierra"

diskutil list

Output:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         500.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +500.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            288.3 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 43.9 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                512.3 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      3.2 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +1.9 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Time Machine Backups    1.9 TB     disk2s2

Then:

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 450g

Or:

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 450g jhfs+ Extra 50g

Output:

Aligning shrink delta to 50.068.037.632 bytes and targeting a new physical store size of 449.999.998.976 bytes
Determined the minimum size for the targeted physical store of this APFS Container to be 500.068.036.608 bytes
Error: -69521: Your APFS Container resize request is below the APFS-system-imposed minimal container size (perhaps caused by APFS Snapshot usage by Time Machine)

  (perhaps caused by APFS Snapshot usage by Time Machine)

I have removed all local time machine snapshots but I am still getting the same output.

How do I change a APFS container's minimum size?

Again, yes, you have deleted all the local snapshots. But you clearly have an external Time Machine drive. And Time Machine snapshots (local or remote) place certain requirements on the source drive.
From man tmutil:

BACKUP STRUCTURE
     Throughout this manual, specific language is used to describe particular
     "realms" associated with Time Machine backups. It is important to under-
     stand this terminology to make effective use of tmutil and its manual.

     backup source
             A volume currently being backed up by Time Machine.

     backup disk
             The HFS+ volume that contains Time Machine backups.

     backup destination
             In the case of a local destination, a synonym for backup disk.
             For network destinations, this is the AFP or SMB share on which
             the backup disk image resides.

     backup disk image (or backup image)
             A sparsebundle that, when mounted, is the backing store for a
             volume that is a backup disk.

     backup store
             The top-level "Backups.backupdb" directory at the root of a
             backup disk. E.g.,

             /Volumes/Chronoton/Backups.backupdb

     machine directory
             A directory inside a backup store that contains all the backups
             for a particular computer. For local destinations, a backup store
             can contain multiple machine directories, all for separate com-
             puters. E.g.,

             /Volumes/Chronoton/Backups.backupdb/thermopylae

--

Remember the error?

E.g., (perhaps caused by APFS Snapshot usage by Time Machine)?

Read this one:

     snapshot
             A directory inside a machine directory that represents a single
             initial or incremental backup of one computer. The word "snap-
             shot", in most contexts, is a generic term and is not to be con-
             fused with a "local Time Machine snapshot", which is simply a
             snapshot stored locally on the computer. E.g.,

             /Volumes/Chronoton/Backups.backupdb/thermopylae/2011-07-03-123456

     snapshot volume
             A directory inside a snapshot that represents a single initial or
             incremental backup of one backup source. E.g.,

             /Volumes/Chronoton/Backups.backupdb/thermopy-
             lae/2011-07-03-123456/Mac HD

VERBS
     Each verb is listed with its description and individual arguments.

     destinationinfo [-X]
             Print information about destinations currently configured for use
             with Time Machine. For each backup destination, the following
             information may be displayed:

             with Time Machine. For each backup destination, the following
             information may be displayed:

                 Name          The volume label as shown in Finder.
                 Kind          Whether the destination is locally attached
                               storage or a network device.
                 URL           In the case of a network destination, the URL
                               used for Time Machine configuration.
                 Mount Point   If the volume is currently mounted, the path in
                               the file system at which it was mounted.
                 ID            The unique identifier for the destination.

             When more than one destination is configured, the most recent
             backup destination will be marked with the > indicator.

             When the -X option is provided, output will be printed in XML
             property list format.

     removedestination identifier
             Remove the destination with the specified unique identifier from
             the Time Machine configuration. Requires root privileges.

             To obtain the unique identifier for a destination, see
             destinationinfo.

A. The error:

Error: -69521: Your APFS Container resize request is below the APFS-system-imposed minimal container size (perhaps caused by APFS Snapshot usage by Time Machine)

B. Your response:

  I have removed all local time machine snapshots but I am still getting the same output.

C. The documentation:

The word "snapshot",  in most contexts, is a generic term and is not to be confused with a "local Time Machine snapshot".

Capisce?

Yes, you have deleted all your local snapshots. But you also have another backup drive. In the example you linked, there was no such drive.

You need to remove all Time Machine backups stores, disable all destinations, etc. You can reassociate your backups later. But following this, you should be fine; worst case, decrypt your drive too (APFS encryption is complicated and has a lot of overhead due to the drive-key/user-key system).


security command gives out passwords without prompting for the keychain password When I try to access a keychain password using the keychain access GUI, I always get a dialog box for inputting the current keychain (login) password.

However, when I try the same thing from the command line using commands like the following

security find-generic-password -gs site_name

there is no such dialog for password input and the password is just given without any form of validation.

Is there any way to change this?

I bumped into this same issue, and it seems its all about removing the default access when creating the new password, this is described on help of the command:

security add-generic-password -h

At the bottom you will see:

  By default, the application which creates an item is trusted to access its data without warning.
  You can remove this default access by explicitly specifying an empty app pathname: -T ""
  If no keychain is specified, the password is added to the default keychain.

So essentially you create the password with the -T "" setting:

security add-generic-password -a YOURUSER -s SERVICENAME -w YOURPASSWORD -T ""


Fastest way to disable daemons gone wild; how to know if attempts to interrupt will break app? As software advances so do the installers, which have become vehicles for all kinds of needless bloat ware.  I do not believe this to be an inevitably, its possible for software to progress without demanding more space and resources—directly, or indirectly, through the numerous "Helper" apps they propagate.

Even the dæmons (background processes) built into the operating system are way too numerous, attempting connections countless times each hour for menial tasks like checking data and time (which only changes twice a year!) by querying what appears like a small list of domains, but which resolve to hundreds of ip addresses.  Many of them suspicious.

This is but one example.  Anyone who has installed Creative Cloud knows that even if you never launch an app, there are about a dozen background apps each with their own daemons doing god knows what.

I have a subscription to Creative Cloud, that isn't the issue.

I want to know the safest way to prevent some of them (the resource-hoggers) from opening, to help my system run smoother.

In the past I've simply replaced one of the unimportant binaries with one of my own, renamed as the original, so that when Adobe forces it to load, it does something innocuous like clear my RAM.  This usually works until it's time to update.

Is there a way to know which daemons can be changed without a negative outcome?  Or to install software with an app like Pacifist to customise which daemons get left out?

I just want my Mac to run smoother, and the daemons in question cannot be quit once open, and deletion usually corrupts the app— replacing is the only way I've found to circumvent the hogging of resources.

Moscarda, friend:

These are good points, each, and I agree with your conclusion that the list of system daemons or services which are running after the operating system installation is rather excessive.

Between performance and ease-of-operation I readily prefer performance.  Thus, I tend to reduce to bare minimum the list of services which are allowed to run.  I also expect that if something fails to work auto-magically, that I probably need to launch a particular system service which got disabled as a consequence of my preference for performance over ease-of-operation.

Apple has made disabling services rather elegant via launchd in the more recent versions of its operating system.  To a system administrator's dismay, however, Apple continues to allow the historic, deprecated means of launching services and therefore some third-party software still uses the likes of SystemStarter.  SystemStarter is a direct descendant of historic BSD rc (resource control) and System V init processes.  While being more modern than the historic UNIX parents it descends from, SystemStarter is still a far cry from the more evolved functionality and elegance of launchd.

My procedure:

Preserve a copy of the original state of configuration by making a backup of relevant files.

 mkdir /private/var/archive ; tar -czvf /private/var/archive/SERVICES_$(date '+%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S').tar.gz /System/Library/StartupItems /System/Library/LaunchDaemons /System/Library/LaunchAgents /Library/StartupItems /Library/LaunchDaemons /Library/LaunchAgents ~/Library/StartupItems ~/Library/LaunchDaemons ~/Library/LaunchAgents

Inspect what still relies on the deprecated StartupItems and disable anything relevant by removing its items from the ( ~/ | /Library/ | /System/Library/ ) StartupItems folder.

Please remember this: These paths ~/, /Library/, /System/Library/ are listed in order of their importance and therefore sensitivity to potential errors that might affect the ability of your machine to boot properly or behave normally.  Use caution, and when in doubt, recover from the archive the original file, replacing any edited files in error.

Identify what is running via launchd:

 launchctl list | grep -v '^-' | sort -nr -k 1

Test system stability and needed functionality by stopping the services identified in step 3:

 launchctl stop [service name] ; launchctl remove [service name]

Unload services that are able to be disabled in the list from step 4.

 launchctl unload [service name]

Disable the startup of the items stopped in step 4 by editing the appropriate .plist file ( for info -- man launchd.plist ) and if already present, set the 'Disabled' key to true.  If this key is not already in the file, add it by adding the following lines to the first  block:

    <key>Disabled</key>
         <true/>

The first five lines from a config file on my system illustrates this:

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
 <plist version="1.0">
 <dict>
     <key>Disabled</key>
     <true/>
     <key>Label</key>
     <string>com.apple.tftpd</string>

Reboot the system.  Better to do it the gentle way, than to issue a launchctl reboot, unless you are prepared for the brutal user session tear down which may result in lost information, unpreserved states, inconsistent file states.

I hope this helps.

F.


Restoring Saved Webpages on Home Screen from Backup I ran into an update issue with my iPad, and took it to the Apple store to fix it. When I got there, an employee said that I could only recover from the issue by resetting my iPad. After he reset it, it was left in the 'new' state. I managed to restore my information from a backup that was made a few months back, but one of the most important things that wasn't restored were a large number of Safari webpages saved to the homescreen, organized into sub-folders, etc. These represent quite a large time investment to manually restore, and it may be impossible for me to do so from memory.
I read through this post about restoring additional information through an iTunes re-sync, but I'm not sure that the linked scenario applies here, and I don't have a device to test this with.
I tried reaching out to Apple support / the Apple store, but they could not or would not help me.
Any help that you could provide to restore these saved webpages would be incredibly appreciated! :)

For a restore to work, the data must be backed up in the first place.

I managed to restore my information from a backup that was made a few months back, but one of the most important things that wasn't restored were a large number of Safari webpages saved to the home screen

The critical piece here is,  was all that work you did backed up at any point?  If the last backup was made "a few months back," you won't be able to restore anything since because it simply doesn't exist. From what you describe, it wasn't backed up.
Unfortunately, nobody is going to be able to assist as you've found with your latest interaction with Apple.  You will have to re-create it from memory.


Time Machine on High Sierra failure I have tried a lot of things but I keep getting failed backups when doing a first backup on High Sierra. I have not used Time Machine previously and I am trying to backup to a usb drive.

Checking the logs after a failure I get something like:

Last failure:

 (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Error: (-50) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/<NAME OF MY COMPUTER>/2017-12-29-105925/Macintosh HD/usr/local/texlive/2015/texmf-dist/tex/latex/seminar/seminar.cls to /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/<NAME OF MY COMPUTER>/2017-12-29-105925.inProgress/15E91B0A-F367-4968-A948-04FF05E7404A/Macintosh HD/usr/local/texlive/2015/texmf-dist/tex/latex/seminar

The errors are always Error (-50) SrcErr:NO Copying and it is always some file from /usr/local (or /usr/) that fails. Could this have to do anything with permissions? I previously had Homebrew installed (which modifies the permissions for some of the subfolders of /usr/local/) and I also have Tex-Live 2016 installed.

Any suggestions on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated as I am pulling my hair out on this one.

Turns out that it was the hard drive that was the problem. Changing to another drive solved my problem.

Perhaps Error (-50) is an indication that the drive is failing? I am not sure, but I will leave this here in case someone else runs into the same problem.

Edit: I ran some diagnostics and the SMART test fails so it was definitely the disk.


20 Watt charger harmful for the battery of a device? I'm considering to buy a 20 watt charger for my iOS-devices. Obviously it charges a device two to three times faster then the 5 watt chargers, which I currently use.
I just wonder: Might it reduce the life-time of the battery? Or is it even dangerous (strong heating up, explosions)?
Should I definitely get an original Apple charger? Or are others vendors safe too?

I'm considering to buy a 20 watt charger for my iOS-devices. Obviously it charges a device two to three times faster then the 5 watt chargers, which I currently use.

I'm not sure about that, the BMS on the iOS device should alter its power draw to match what it's programmed to accept, given the current state of the battery.
If 5 W is the most it can charge at, then plugging it into a 20 W charger isn't going to force more than 5 W in.
If your device is capable of drawing more than your current charger provides then you'll see some improvements in charge time with a higher capacity charger but not necessarily by the ratio of how many watts the new charger provides vs the old one, ie. 20/5 = 4x faster. The BMS has to accept 20 W and even then things are a bit more nuanced as 20 W would be the maximum, not continual power draw.

Might it reduce the life-time of the battery? Or is it even dangerous (strong heating up, explosions)?

It really shouldn't, unless there's an existing flaw in the battery or charger.

Should I definitely get an original Apple charger? Or are others vendors safe too?

I think that's going to be tough to get a definite answer for unless you have a teardown on the specific device, from someone qualified to comment on its quality. I've seen some teardowns of USB chargers with terrible isolation and there have been cases of people being shocked while using their phone as it's charging.
I'd put money on there being plenty of properly made, safe chargers out there. The question I ask myself is: do I feel safe plugging a $1,000+ phone into this to save a few dollars, or is my peace of mind worth the ~$30 for an OEM part that I've seen a teardown confirm that at least the design is sound?


Moving an SSD from a MBP 2014 to a 2015 If I want to transfer a 256 SSD with everything on it (OS Catalina) from a mid 2014 Macbook Pro 13" to an early 2015 Macbook Pro 13", will it work?

Or should I reinstall it?

In short, yes, but there is a caveat. The SSD sticks are transferrable between those two models, no problem.

What you have to be aware of is that as part of any major, and sometimes minor, macOS update, the firmware is also updated. This update, which can be important to have a specific OS version work well on any Mac, obviously does not get applied to the Mac you are transferring the SSD to, just by transferring the SSD.

You must therefore be sure that the Mac you are putting the SSD into either already has the latest firmware, or you must apply it first by running the installation for the version of macOS that is on the SSD you are transferring, on that Mac. You do not have to actually install it on the main internal drive, it is sufficient to in some way do the installation on the Mac in question, for instance by attaching an exteranl hard drive or big enough USB stick, and installing Catalina on that.

Once you have made sure about the firmware, you should be able to transfer the SSD and it will boot. On first boot after the transfer, you might want to hold down the CMD-ALT-P-R key combo so that the NVRAM is flushed and it defaults to boot from the new internal SSD, instead of first looking for the old one.


unlocking laptop moves all windows to primary display I have a macbook pro. I have it hooked up to a second monitor. I have the primary display marked as the laptop screen.

When i unlock the macbook or wake it up from sleep, it moves all my open windows to the primary monitor. Is there a way to keep my windows where they are after waking up or unlocking?

I saw stay, but i am not paying $15 for a feature that should be in the OS. And it has lots of reviews saying it just doesn't work as expected.

It does it because the external display isn't waking up fast enough to register with the Mac.

Not sure there's any way to fix that unless you can try wake it manually first.


Mac wakes up from sleep every night and then goes back to sleep immediately I've had my Mac Mini for about six months now. Every night, I put it to Sleep rather than shutting it down. Since about two weeks ago, the Mac Mini wakes up from sleep around 1 to 3 am, once a night, and then after about 10 seconds, it puts itself back to sleep. Why does it do this? Is it performing some sort of maintenance function? But that then begs the question, why is it only doing this recently, and not a few months ago?

I checked the Console for messages, and there's roughly the same thing every night. Here's part of what appears in the logs, particularly whatever pertains to waking from sleep (let me know if you need me to post a specific snippet):

Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: AppleThunderboltNHIType2::waitForOk2Go2Sx - retries = 6
Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: IOThunderboltSwitch<0xffffff8048e40000>(0x0)::listenerCallback - Thunderbolt HPD packet for route = 0x0 port = 12 unplug = 0
Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: TBT W (2): 0x0100 [x]
Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: Wake reason: EC.SleepTimer (SleepTimer)
Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: AirPort_Brcm43xx::powerChange: System Wake - Full Wake/ Dark Wake / Maintenance wake
Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: Previous Sleep Cause: 5
Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: The USB device USB 3.0 HUB
Sep 14 02:00:30 gary-mac kernel[0]: (Port 1 of Hub at 0x15000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a remote wakeup (1)

I'm sure there's something useful in there (such as references to the USB ports) but I can't exactly figure them out. For your information, my Mac Mini has four USB ports, and all four are used. USB port 1 is an external drive, USB port 2 is an external drive, USB port 3 is connected to a KVM, which provides access to my mouse and keyboard, and USB port 4 is connected to a USB 3 hub that splits the port into four other ports.

When I go to the System Information app to determine what device is at USB location 0x15000000, I get the following:

USB 3.0 HUB:

Product ID: 0x0812
Vendor ID:  0x2109  (VIA Labs, Inc.)
Version:    85.71
Speed:  Up to 5 Gb/sec
Manufacturer:   VLI Labs, Inc.
Location ID:    0x15100000 / 3
Current Available (mA): 900
Current Required (mA):  0

It just looks like a generic device of some sort. Right above this device in the System Information app is the first USB device I have connected, which is my external drive for Time Machine. Could that be the problem somehow, even though its device location is 0x15400000 / 4?

Could this problem be due to the recently released Mac OS X 10.8.5? It seems like the problem started occurring a few days after the update was released. I have already performed the basic maintenance of resetting the SMC and PRAM, and Repairing Disk Permissions, but that didn't fix the problem. Also, in the System Preferences -> Energy Saver page, I've got all checkboxes UNchecked (including "Wake for network access"). I haven't had any other wake issues since this started happening. Plus, the fact that the Mac Mini goes back to sleep after a few seconds doesn't seem to indicate that it could possibly be a network access problem, or a mouse randomly moving, right?

I'd eliminate any external devices as the cause of waking first. You can set the MacMini to go to sleep automatically, then eject/unplug all external devices.  KVM & Mice are the usual suspects...

  (Port 1 of Hub at 0x15000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a
  remote wakeup (1)

If you haven't already, you may be able to identify the USB device suspected of issuing the remote WakeUp call.

About this Mac > System Report > Hardware > USB > USB Device Tree

or use the shell command system_profiler SPUSBDataType


Why is the audio volume level at 0 every time I start my Mac? I don't know if this is a bug or a feature in Mac OS X 10.7. Every time I (re)start my Mac the volume of my audio device is set to zero and doesn't remember the last level I set.

I think this started some weeks ago, maybe with a Lion update. I don't remember changing any audio-related setting.

Is this something I can change? I'm running Mac OS X 10.7.2 on a 2009 MacBook Pro which sometimes I connect to a 24" Cinema display (but it seems that the behavior doesn't depend whether it's using the laptop's or the display's speakers.)

I found the answer on AskDifferent's sister site Superuser.com:

Snow Leopard resets sound volume whenever I start my computer

  In Macintosh HD / Library / Preferences / Audio there are two audio setting files. Delete them. Set your sound to the desired setting. Restart.

This solved my issue.


The full size of the Fusion Drive is not available for repartitioning Any help would be greatly appreciated, I've found so many similar questions but none that match mine exactly.

I created a partion on my 2013 iMac in order to test out the Yosemite upgrade. I decided to proceed with the upgrade from current Mavericks 10.9.5 but now I'm unable to reclaim the space dedicated to the Yosemite install, 1.5TB (half of my HD).

System info

GRAPHIC NVIDIAGeForceGTX775M 2GB GDDR5

PROCESSOR  3.5GHz Quad‑core Intel Core i7

MEMORY 32GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM‑4X8GB

HARD DRIVE  3TB Fusion Drive

I was able to delete the partion, but the space allotted to it in disk utility is greyed out, and there is no drag to resize option for my remaining HD.

Ive tried in safe mode and recovery mode.
I've verified and repaired all disk permissions to no avail.

1) Has anyone successfully reclaimed entire HD after partitioning a Fusion drive

2) Based on the output below can someone help me identify the partition I created by either a UUID or Identifier? I've found many instructions online but dont know which disk/volume I should be attempting to resize/delete.

Run the following command in Terminal: diskutil cs resizeStack ACA4133B-5F31-4D66-B502-4EABED4E2958 5E6D00FD-4BAD-424C-92CF-F8080CCC2C95 3.128t

The first UUID is your LV UUID, the second is the PV UUID that you want to grow (incase I mistyped one of them).

This will grow your disk back to fill up your 3TB disk. You may have to reduce that number to 3.1279t or something though. 3.128t should work. Unfortunately, you can't specify 100% like you can with many commands.


Where should I install new (source code) software on a Mac? I am new to the Mac philosophy, but I have been using Ubuntu since a while. Now I am using Mac at work, and I have to install a few programs, not apps, from source code distribution.

I did try to gunzip a folder in /usr/local/ but it says permission denied. Same result with sudo. The su command just freezes.

Is /Users/ a better place to go? I suppose I do not need permission to write in there, right?

Where should I install new software (from source code distribution) on a Mac?

To start we should define a few terms. An install from source code means that the software needs to be built before it can be executed.

So your first step is to find a place on your computer to perform the build. The best place for this is a directory in your home directory. I use a directory at ~/src/ to hold the packages. So, create this folder and unpack your source into here. Then you can build the software here.

When it comes to the executable files man hier will tell you that /usr/local is the place to install things not included in the OS. Homebrew, for example, will install into here. So executables should go into /usr/local/bin. Most software packages will have an install tool that will perform this step. Of course /usr/local/bin needs to be in your PATH variable.

This is identical to Ubuntu in almost every respect.


How can I change the color of tentative ("Maybe") events in Calendar? I'd like to differentiate more between "Accepted" and "Maybe" events on my Calendar app.  Right now "Maybe" events are pinstriped with the same color scheme as "Accepted" events, and it's hard to differentiate them at a glance.  I'd rather they be different colors, though the pinstripes can remain.

How can I do this?

I'm on High Sierra, version 10.13.6.

I have a calendar for tentative events and I move them there / make that my default calendar.

Once I accept the meeting, I recategorize it according to my other colors / must attend / optional / travel / etc...

It’s not automatic, but it works to get things color coded.


Mail.app won't sync Gmail account I have several Gmail accounts. One in particular started demanding the password before sending emails. I have two factor authentication with the unrecoverable password so I had to delete the account and create it again.

This has led to Mail.app not synching that account anymore. I have the disconnected thunderbolt symbol over it, and hitting the send/receive button seems to do nothing.

Is there something I can do to force Mail.app to work normally with that account? All others are fine.

Tested on a 10.10.3 Yosemite MBP. I assume that you have created the Gmail account in the first place and that an entry exists in the Accounts tab of Preferences in Mail.app.

If you have enabled two factor authentication in your Google account then you need to create an App Password at https://security.google.com/settings/security/apppasswords?pli=1. This is a critical step.

Take this password you have just generated and go to Mail.app > Preferences > Accounts > your Google IMAP Account > Password field and add that password. Copy/paste works.

If it's a problem just to send mail, from the same place click the Outgoing Mail Server dropdown > Edit SMTP Server List... tab > smtp.gmail.com > Advanced tab > Password field and populate it with the same Google App Password.

Either way, close preferences and say yes when prompted to save changes.

Now, still in Mail.app, click Window > Connection Doctor and investigate the information there. You are looking for two entries, one is Google IMAP and one is SMTP next to the Google account name you are concerned with.

If you have green lights, you are good to go. Red lights indicate a server communication problem.

You can change passwords now that you know where without deleting/creating a new account every time you have an issue.


How do I set my external monitor so that my gestures won't activate spaces on the external? I'm working with the new 13" MacBook Pro and have just set up my external monitor.  I am looking to accomplish two things:

1) How can I change the external monitor settings so that they do not respond to the gestures used for spaces?  That is, I want my laptop to respond to spaces while the external remains on a single screen.

2) Slightly related: is there a way to set up two independent sets of spaces between the laptop screen and the external monitor?  Again, having separate control of these two sets would be key.

Control over spaces and external displays is fairly limited in Lion. At the moment what you're looking for isn't possible.

One "space" is really the combination of your MacBook and external display, they can't be separated. Because of this, the number of spaces on your external display will be exactly the same as the number on your MacBook display, and you can't exclude one display from switching spaces or activating Mission Control.