iCloud Keychain breaks login for iMessage and FaceTime For about 6 months I have had problems with iCloud Keychain.
Every time I login with my iCloud account on a new computer (e.g. a Mac Pro at work and a brand new MBP 15" with touch bar) iMessage, FaceTime, and Handoff do not work.
It will not let me login to either FaceTime or iMessage. (and somehow, Handoff seems to be linked to this problem).
It displays this error:

Could not sign in to iMessage.
An error occurred during activation. Try again.

I have tried a bunch of things: rebooting, resetting PRAM/SMC, reformatting the hard drive, re-installing the OS, upgrading the OS over 6 months time, calling Apple support for 5 hours.
The only solution I've found after all of this are two keychain items:

ids: identity-rsa-private-key
ids: identity-rsa-public-key

If I delete these two keychain items, and reboot the system, I can login for one session. As soon as I log-out, or reboot the computer, it kicks me out again.
If I create a new User on the machine, and do not enable iCloud Keychain sync in the iCloud settings, everything works fine. I can login to iMessage and FaceTime. As soon as I sync iCloud Keychain, everything breaks once the machine is rebooted or I logout. At which point, you either have to continue deleting the keychain items above, or delete the entire user and start over without syncing iCloud Keychain.
I can probably live without iCloud Keychain. I haven't used 1Password yet, but I'm sure it's awesome. My hesitation is that there are other things stored in iCloud Keychain, like Apple Pay, which would be nice to sync. I feel like iCloud Keychain will only become more important as all of my devices become more connected in the coming years.
Any ideas on how to fix iCloud Keychain from doing this? Thanks for your help!

I finally found a solution.

The iCloud Keychain had several system keychain items. These items were not supposed to be in the iCloud Keychain and were overriding the "login" Keychain items whenever I would request login to Messages or FaceTime.

I found the error by comparing my Keychain to a friend's laptop. I deleted everything from iCloud Keychain that was not in my friend's Keychain. (Well, anything that started with com.apple or ids.) (I left web page passwords.)

Once these deletions synced across devices, and I rebooted each machine, everything works perfectly.


How can I create plaintext files with Markdown syntax and convert them to PDF format? I am very much a novice at this, so please bear with me.

I'm intrigued by the idea of using Markdown. I want to be able to write my stuff in a plaintext editor on OS X and iOS and save it in Dropbox in .txt format using a Markdown syntax. I don't want to save my files in markdown format but as plain text. I need support for footnotes, so the Multimarkdown syntax seems like an obvious option.

What tools can I use on OS X and iOS to convert my .txt files, marked up with a Markdown syntax, to .pdf format? Is this even possible?

Thanks for reading.

I use Marked to process text files to pdf routinely.

No matter what editor you use, Marked will open and re-save a PDF generated from the plain text input by opening and re-saving the file.

It also saves to HTML or RDF output from markdown.

In reality, any program that renders markdown could print to PDF using OS X core services (File -> Print -> PDF -> Save as PDF), but I much prefer having Marked for it's multitude of handy and flexible processing options and it's ability to live preview markdown files as I edit them in another editor:

Printing: TOC, suppressing link underline colors, better page breaks
Multiple styles of markdown rendering
Support for custom processors, all manner of smart (and dumb) typography
overall clean, fast, robust, elegant software for a very reasonable price


Where is Time Machine restoration software installed? I am seeking to upgrade a MacBook Air MacBookAir4,1 (11-inch, Mid 2011), running OS X El Capitan and Office 2011. The SSD is documented here.

If a Time Machine backup is made, does the new SSD need to be prepared before Time Machine restoration? If so what exactly must be done, format file system, partitions, etc.?

The Time Machine backup can be restored once the  operating system has been reinstalled.

I would create a bootable usb flash drive with the macOS of your choice on it. There are other ways of prepping the drive but I like Diskmaker X. It's free/shareware and the developer has versions available for pretty much every (recent) version of macOS. There are other utilities and there is even a command line option depending on what version you want to install.

Once you have installed your new SSD and installed the OS of your choice you need to restore your apps and data. there are lots of tutorials out there on how to do this but it boils down to a few simple steps. Be sure and have your Time Machine backup drive connected when you do this.

Hold down the ⌘ Commandand R keys to start up in Recovery mode
Select Restore from Time Machine Backup and click Continue.
Select Restore Your System, click Continue and select your backup.

The restore process will take a good long while and the Mac should restart or prompt you to restart when it is done.

While that is an overview and some of the details on the Recovery Mode option from restoring from a Time Machine backup are "best of my recollection" that should do it.


Is it possible to copy the remaining files of a (possibly corrupted) hard drive to an external hard drive? Let me explain. After trying to update my Mac Sierra (it was a 2013 Macbook Air model) to Mac High Sierra, the update failed ("MacOS could not be installed on your computer"), and I was unable to start up the laptop without encountering that error screen. I did find a "Startup Disk" option, but Macintosh HD wasn't there (there were no options at all). I tried using Disk Utility, found that Macintosh HD was unmounted, and attempted to use First Aid to repair any issues, but that failed. Then, I tried booting the computer in Safe Mode, using Terminal (my "r" key shorted out, so cmd+r on booting wasn't going to work - I had to copy and paste an "r" from the error log to place in Terminal).

Upon checking, there was no available Time Machine device or directory I could use to save my computer, so that was out of the question. I intended to try to re-download and reinstall macOS, but then I found that my Macbook Air suddenly would not connect to my wi-fi, blocking me from that option indefinitely. From checking on Macintosh HD using Disk Utility, it appeared that my files still existed from the amount of storage taken up, but there was seemingly no way to access them or boot the Macbook Air from that HD.

My final hope is this: I have a 2TB external hard drive I could copy the existing files of the Macintosh HD to, and then access those files from a new Macbook Air (2018, 10.14.1, Mojave) entirely. Can this be done?

Assuming you haven't already solved this, each of the following options should work.  Also not sure if you went through with a new computer:

Start up in the recovery partition of an external bootable drive (especially if you have a USB recovery installer of Mac OS - highly recommended). Use disk utility to restore your external hard drive from the internal drive of the old MacBook Air. Once completed you should have an exact clone to hook up to your new MacBook Air or investigate a fresh install of the old one.
This is a slight variation, but if you haven't already got a USB recovery installer, you could partition your external drive, make the first partition into the recovery installer, and use the second partition to restore into a clone.
Start in disk utility on your 2018 MacBook Air (or a friend's Mac). Use a Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter and start your 2013 MacBook Air in Target disk mode (hold T on startup). If your hard drive doesn't mount, hopefully it appears in the device list for you to access.
Dismantle the old MacBook Air and place the hard drive into an external enclosure. Hopefully you have a friend with an enclosure you can borrow. If you buy a full upgrade kit, you may be able to salvage the old MacBook Air as well!


El Capitan SIP and CPAN As we know, Apple introduced it's new "rootless" feature in El Capitan that greatly restricts what the root user is capable of doing.  Unfortunately this feature breaks CPAN for Perl users.  One can install new CPAN modules but you cannot install a new version of CPAN — because that goes into /usr/bin/.  I know I can disable SIP but I'd prefer to work with it for a while.

Anyone know a solution to the CPAN problem?

You can install a newer version of cpan in /usr/local/bin with the following CPAN configuration:

cpan
cpan> o conf makepl_arg "INSTALLBIN=/usr/local/bin INSTALLSCRIPT=/usr/local/bin"
cpan> o conf commit
cpan> exit
sudo cpan -i CPAN

This solution, and others, is discussed at perlmonks.


Message icon says I have messages to read but I do not. How do I delete the shown numbers? How do I delete a text message that is not there for me to delete?  The number still shows that I have messages but I do not.

Try signing out of the iCloud account you use for iMessage and sign back in. Settings -> iCloud -> Sign Out. See if that helps.


How to stop a YouTube process running in Chrome? I have many tabs open in Chrome, and when I reboot it starts opening all the previous tabs, and when they contain YouTube videos they all start playing.

How can I find which tabs are running YouTube, so that I can pause them?

In the process list, there is no trace of YouTube, since it is running inside the browser, and only the tabs related processes are visible.

After reboot, it can happen that I have a YouTube process running and no corresponding tab from which to view it (I can just hear the audio).

You can open Task Manager, under Window on the Chrome.app menu bar, and see a list of all running processes inside Google Chrome.

You can see Task Name, Memory, CPU, Network and Process ID for each task running at the moment.

At the bottom of the Task Manager Window you can end the Task you selected by pressing End Process.

[EDIT]

If you are on Windows the Task Manager window is accessible via the Shift + Esc shortcut.


contents-immutable and locking the Dock I have the following:

defaults write com.apple.Dock contents-immutable -bool yes
defaults write com.apple.Dock size-immutable -bool yes
defaults write com.apple.Dock position-immutable -bool yes

I can run them fine from the Admin account and it works, but is there a way to do this on a non-admin account? Even Sudo did not seem to work exactly.

Can I just do a chattr +i? what is the immutable string actually doing in the background?

This is running 10.9.x

The property list you are referring to is com.apple.dock.plist. Try using com.apple.dock as the domain.


Apple Mail app search bar This may seem like a strange request (and I really hope it doesn't get closed) but I need some info on the iPad Mail app as I don't have an iPad.
On the inbox there is a search box at the top, if you scroll down a bit and then scroll up fast so that the table bounces. I need to know if the search box bounces with the table or if it sticks to the navigation bar at the top.

If this question is considered off topic, then please don't close it, I'll delete the question after an answer.

The search bar sticks to the top of the mail items and "bounces" with them when scrolled past the top.


Headphone Jack works, but only produces low sound The sound works, but only produces a low sound. Additionally, I have check the system preference's sound section, and checked the output, mute check, and made sure the headphones were chosen as the output. However still emits low sound. Is the jack damaged in some way and how can I fix it?

I'm assuming that you've had no issues when using your computer's speakers to produce output so you could download an EQ like Boom 2 or eqMac to bump up the volume via software. Just be careful using your speakers afterwards if you have to turn it up really high.
Another solution which I think is a bit safer but can be a bit of a hassle depending on your personal preference would be to buy an external sound card. Depending on what you get you may gain functionality and if it doesn't work you can return the item and you can be pretty sure it's a software issue.
I also would like to make sure that you're not using high impedence headphones that need an amp because if you are then that would explain your issue but I'm assuming you're not.


Is there a way to completely disable Spaces in Yosemite? Is there a way to completely disable Spaces in Yosemite (without turning off Mission Control, Dashboard, etc.)?

As someone who frequently switches between multiple monitors and using my Macbook on its own, I frequently run into baffling setups where windows on one monitor become a Space on another monitor. I'd like to end this behavior.

I did this recently to get an iMac to better support an X-Arcade Tankstick and MAME. I do not know that it totally disabled Spaces, but is has effectively eliminated them for me.

System Preferences > Mission Control: Uncheck everything.
Set shortcut for Mission Control to "-"

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission control: Uncheck everything

In a Terminal window enter:
 defaults write com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled -bool true"

For more info you can check out:

Managed Client: How to disable Exposé and Spaces

Mac OS X: Disable Mission Control and Spaces


How can I get Safari to save passwords for a logged in Facebook account? The account is logged in on Safari, but I don't know the password.

Is there any possible way to save the password and get Safari to autofill the password when I log out and fill the username?

No, there is no possibility to retrieve the password at this stage. The session state (i.e. the fact that "the account is logged") is stored by the browser in a cookie. The password used to login is not stored anywhere (unless the user explicitly permitted the password to be saved, which is not the case you asked about).

This is a basic security feature protecting anyone from having their password compromised if they left the device unattended for a moment. For the same reason you cannot change the password using Facebook account settings without providing the old one.


How can I watch slowed down Youtube videos in iPad? I found this tutorial here but I am unable to find such type of buttons in iPad. I am also unable to slow down videos in OS X. I am trying to watch this video here but it is too fast educational video. So how can I watch slowed-down videos?

That tutorial on slowing down YouTube videos was made in iOS 5 with the older YouTube app. You probably have iOS 6 and are using the YouTube website or the YouTube app released by Google more recently.

Both the web app and the YouTube app no longer play videos with the QuickTime player with those controls. The only thing that still uses that interface is the YouTube app on the iPhone. I suppose you can try experimenting with other third-party YouTube video viewers, one of those may use QuickTime for playback, but I don't have experience with them.

By the way, I don't know how useful that video will be even slowed down, and there are a lot of great Blender tutorials out there if you look.

EDIT: Actually, embedded YouTube videos will use that player, so you just have to embed the video on a web page and then browse to that page on the iPad.


iCloud calendar not sending invites As in the title. iCloud calendar is not sending invites to people being invited. No matter whether I try via icloud.com or iCal.app synced with iCloud - it just doesn't. No events no updates. Tested sending to a gmail address and at least two other.

Why doesn't it?

Found this @ http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/gtpX0F7kgKI

For what it's worth, I started having a similar issue recently and came across this thread while researching the solution. My wife has an iPhone, I'm Android, and she routinely sends calendar invites to me. We just realized that I've recently stopped getting those invites to my Gmail account, even though she's still adding me the same way she always has. It turns out that since my iCloud account is setup with my Gmail address, iCloud has started to "intercept" those invites from her iPhone. Instead of going to my email account, they're being automatically added to my iCalendar. This can be disabled by:

Logging in at https://www.icloud.com
Go to Calendar -> (Cog) -> Preference -> Advanced
Beside "Invitations" select Email To  (Use this option if your primary calendar is not iCloud).

This may solve your problem if:

Someone with an iDevice is sending your the invite.
You have an iCloud account.


Yosemite 10.10.4 nowhere to set three finger tap to access Dictionary I'm in OS X, and I bought my mac from one of my friends. He bought this April,2015.

This is my Force touch trackpad. It's come from the fifth in the first picture. I know you may not understand the language but I am sure there is
no three finger tap to look up.

I find the three finger to drag in General(the 8th in the third picture)--Mouse/Force Touch trackpad(the fourth picture), but there is no three finger tap to look up, neither.

I tried the Better Touch Tool, and it work sometime, but most of the time did not.

I can push the Force Touch trackpad harder to look up the words in Safari, but not three finger tap. And in Chrome, even the push harder not work.

Now I use Command+Control+D to look up words in Chrome, it works, but I really think it is not as easy as three finger tap(I used it in macbook air).

So can anyone tell me how to make it work? or do I need more info for you to understand my question?

Finally, I find this by myself, and it turn out to be so easy.

According to this, I find that it's right in the first picture I post in the question and it's in the top of all and default to force touch but can change to three finger tap.


How to set custom DNS entry for a particular wifi connection Is there a way to set custom DNS settings for a single wifi connection without affecting other connections?

I use my laptop at home and work. When at work I need to type in an IP address of a local DNS server to resolve company resources. I currently do this by pressing the "Advanced..." button on the network preferences page. Unfortunately this setting is global for all of my wifi connections. So when I go home I need to remove the DNS setting.

Can I set the DNS setting to only work while I'm connected to the company's wifi?

What you want to do is Add a Network Location for work.

You can then easily switch between them using the Location submenu of the  menu.

If you really wanted, you could set up a script to switch locations based on network, but really, how lazy do you want to be? ;)


2015 Macbook Pro won't wake up in clamshell mode in morning only My situation:

Mid 2015 15" MacBook Pro (2.5 GHz i7) running 10.15.3 Catalina (clamshell mode)
Two external displays connected via each of the two mini DV ports (one uses a mini DV to HDMI adapter, and the other a mini DV to VGA adapter, if that matters)
Wired Lenovo keyboard attached to the mac via an old powered (plugs into wall) USB 2.0 hub
Wireless Logitech M510 mouse connected via a unifying receiver to the hub.

Procedure for putting my macbook to sleep:

Apple menu > sleep
Once the macbook goes to sleep, I press the power buttons on both displays to turn them off

Problem:

During the day, if I turn on the displays, and then press some buttons on the keyboard, the macbook wakes up just fine -- even if it's been asleep for a few hours. But in the morning after its been asleep all night this never works! The fans don't start to spin -- it just stays silent. The only way to wake up the computer is to physically open and shut the macbook's lid briefly. How do I fix this? So far I've had this setup for ~2 weeks, and I have never had trouble waking up during the day, and 100% of the time have had trouble in the morning after. How do I fix this?

Additional info/stuff I've tried:

In the Energy Saver system preferences pane, I have the following set (for "Power Adapter"):

Unchecked: Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off
Checked: Put hard disks to sleep when possible
Checked: Wake for Wi-Fi network access
Checked: Enable Power Nap while plugged into a power adapter

I also have automatic graphics switching enabled.

Should I change any of those settings?

I looked at this question, and tried things like clearing system caches, resetting the NVRAM and the SMC, and resetting display settings. I don't have the option of swapping ports. I have not disabled automatic GPU switching, as I am worried that that will wear out my mac faster. I also would really rather not attach my keyboard to the one free bluetooth wake is enabled, although I don't use any bluetooth devices, so I doubt that's important.

I know that I could simply prevent my macbook from ever going to sleep, but that seems like a really bad idea from a longevity standpoint, right? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Per our conversation in comments, the problem seems to be that your computer is going into hibernation (aka Safe Sleep) overnight, and that hibernation is interfering with waking the machine up while it's in clamshell mode. It's possible that the machine would eventually wake up, even in clamshell — waking up from hibernation can take significantly longer than waking up from sleep, and I don't know whether you've tested for that — but in any case, hibernation is a setting that can be adjusted or turned off.

When the computer goes into hibernation, it writes the entire contents of RAM to disk and then turns off power to the RAM chips, sending the machine into a low power-use state. When the machine wakes up, the RAM is turned back on and the hibernation file is read back into it, effectively returning the machine to the exact state it was in before hibernation. This was originally intended for Mac portables with swappable batteries to prevent data loss. In other words, if you were (say) on a plane doing spreadsheets or watching a movie (or whatever) and ran out of battery power, the machine would shut itself off, you could swap in a fresh battery, and the machine would restart exactly where you left off. You could also set the machine to only use hibernate mode, giving a bit extra battery life by bypassing sleep mode (which wastes power keeping RAM active while your machine is asleep). That effectively trades slower wake-ups and power-downs for better batter life. In modern machines with fixed batteries, hibernate acts as a failsafe: e.g., if the power goes out and your battery runs down, hibernate will ensure that you don't lose whatever you were working on.

Turning hibernate off mostly means you need to take responsibility for ensuring your work is saved. It has no effect aside from saving power and preventing data loss.

You control the hibernate function through the unix pmset (power management settings) utility. See: man pmset. To turn hibernate mode off completely when the machine is in charging mode (i.e., connected to a power cord), open Terminal and run the following command:

sudo pmset -c hibernatemode 0

This will turn off hibernate mode when your machine is plugged in, but keep it active when your computer is running on battery power. If you prefer to turn it off entirely in all modes, omit the -c option.

The hibernatemode setting takes three values:

hibernatemode 0: turns off hibernate for the specified power configuration
hibernatemode 3: turns on hibernate for the specified power configuration
hibernatemode 25: turns on hibernate for the specified power configuration, and sets it as the default mode, bypassing normal sleep.

It is also possible to change the way hibernate operates using the pmset settings:

standby (0/1): 'standby' tells the machine to hibernate after a set
time in sleep, saving power.
standbydelayhigh, standbydelaylow, highstandbythreshold: the first two specify a time in seconds for when to send the machine into hibernation; the last specifies a batter percentage. The threshold is usually set at 50 (half power), and longer hibernate delays are set when the battery has more power
autopoweroff, autopoweroffdelay: European-complaince equivalents ofstandby and the two 'standbydelay' settings.

You could monkey with those to fine-tune the machine's behavior, if you're so inclined.


changing language on ipad3 I changed language on the iPad3 from english to italian, but I noticed that a few things remain in english. For instance, day and time in locked screen, as well as in the calendar. Is there a way to fix it?

Did you try to change the Region Format settings in Settings > General > International ?

You should be able to change it to Italian.

Note : this is an iPhone capture but it is exactly on the same place on the iPad. It is easier to put an iPhone capture in a post.


2 Column Text plain text or markdown editor? I'm looking for a text editor of some kind where it's split down the middle when editing 2 separate files.

I'm trying to translate some text and it would be helpful if I could have English and its meaning on 1 side and Spanish on the other.

Is there anything like this for OS X?

There is also Emacs where you can split a window horizontally:

vertically:

or in a more complicated fashion:


Get rid of text slide in iphoto 11 slide show I added a text slide to a slideshow. I can't get rid of it. If I delete it, the neighboring picture gets deleted, too. If I re-add the picture, the text slide reappears with it.

The Title slides in iPhoto work in an odd way.
When you create a title slide iPhoto uses the first photo as the title and then puts text over it.

So when you delete it you are deleting the photo with the text on it.

To remove the text click on the photo, and in the settings pane, uncheck Show Title Slide'.

If you want to add a proper title slide it is better to create it in PowerPoint, Keynote, Paint, Photoshop etc, and save as either a JPEG or PDF and import that as a photo into iPhoto.


Notification Center iOS7 bug? Before submitting to Apple I'd like to know if anyone else has this problem on an iOS7 device

The images is in Dutch, but the visual should be clear.

Yes, I am able to reproduce this bug in all of the UITableViews with reordering. Whilst I'm not convinced it's a bug, it is indeed reproducible in all views I've encountered.


Is there a free wordpress client for mac? I am a new Mac user and a casual blogger. All the applications listed are expensive, as I am a student. I am scared to set up Wordpress natively on my MacBook Air. Something like the wordpress app on android?

If you are a casual blogger then your best bet is to use the web client built into your Wordpress installation, just log in to your blog and away you go.

And I believe that the Wordpress app for IOS is free...


iOS App Store: free limited version of app I would like to have a free trial version of my app, with limited functionality, and at the same time to have a full paid version. The apps can have slightly different names on App Store, say MyApp 1.0 and MyApp 1.0 (Limited).

Does this violate Apple's policies?

You are permitted to have free, lite versions of your app in the App Store.

However, demo/trial versions are prohibited per the App Store Guidelines.

  2.9 Apps that are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected

A far better solution is to offer a full featured free trial and then offer purchase and or subscription to maintain the paid app status.  Watch the 2018 WWDC videos on App Store changes to get details on how a developer might implement this.  On the policy side, this is pretty clear-cut and allowable by Apple.


Diskutil can't find Core Storage Volumes My OSX Mountain Lion will no longer atart up. After the logon screen it spins forever (the Apple logon is replaced by an error sign).

When I run in single user mode I get a "still waiting for root device" that repeats every few seconds.

I suspect the problem is with core storage. Although I have encrypted the osx partition, the system can't find it (from recovery):

diskutil corestorage list
No corestorage logical volume groups found.

fsck_cs will however report a corestorage:

** Checking volume.
   Content Hint for disk0s2 is not Apple_CoreStorage
** disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
** disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
** Logical Volume Group D4B301AF-3633-418B-980D-4CADB2DA6B0B on 1 device
** disk0s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
** Logical Volume Group has a 16 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
** Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
** Load and verify Segment Headers
** Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
** Load and verify Transaction Segment
** Load and verify Transaction Segment
** Incorporate 1 newer non-checkpoint transaction
** Load and verify Virtual Address Table
** Load and verify Segment Usage Table
** Load and verify Metadata Superblock
** Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
** Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
** Load and verify BE7E7CD3-AB97-45F3-AC3C-B4AE8D73E22F
** Load and verify C418ACC5-E2D4-4EDE-84D7-2366A261A08E
** Load and verify Freespace Summary
** Load and verify Block Accounting
** Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
** Load and verify Segment Cleaning
** The volume D4B301AF-3633-418B-980D-4CADB2DA6B0B appears to be OK.

Any ideas on how I can repair this?

Or at least mount it to get at a few files?

I was finally able to fix the problem:

boot into recovery
unmount all volumes (otherwise gpt will complain that the resource is busy)
use gpt to remove the partition (it had the HFS instead of the CoreStorage type)
also delete the partition from the MBR with fdisk (otherwise gpt will not allow you to add the partition).
finally use gpt to add the partition with the same values but as core storage (type 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC)

Afterwards diskutil cs list showed the volumes again - disk utility repair did the rest. No data lost :)


How to stop the Mail app from running every 10 minutes on the Mac? I have Mountain Lion on an 27" iMac, and recently, for some reason, the Mail app launches every 10 minutes or so, and I have to quit it every time.

In the Preferences of Mail, I already tried every possible way to tell it not to start itself, but every 10 minutes or so, it still launches and I have to quit it manually.  I don't know whether it is because I set in Gmail calendar to send email alert on some special events in my Google Calendar, but that should be handled by the Gmail server, not the Mail app...

I don't know whether it is related to the Notification Center, as the last few times, I notices messages popping up at the top right corner of the screen, and the Mail just started to run all by itself as well.

Is there a way to stop it from running automatically?

This is not normal behavior. Edit your question with your console log information from the moment of launch, it might help.
Notification center will provide alerts when mail arrives if set to do so, and clicking on a message will launch Mail. Mail messages also reside in the notification center and clicking one there will also launch mail.
Short of these events, Mail should not launch itself, unless you have some background process or script you are unaware of.

There is a background process or helper to allow the notification center to show incoming messages while Mail.app itself isn't running. This is normal behavior. If Mail is turned off in the notification system preference you won't have any intrusions.

Of course different things such as shell scripts, other apps and so on can launch apps so if you've configured other apps to launch Mail you need to deal with that scenario. This is where the log files can give you a hint as to what happened immediately prior to Mail launching.


Does `ps` command on MacOS have permission for non-admin user? I am creating an app using the following command to get CPU and memory usage:

ps -A -o %cpu,%mem | awk '{ cpu += $1; mem += $2} END {print cpu , mem}'

I wonder whether all users have permission to run it and get the same results? If there is an admin process, whether the ps command outputs it for a guest user?

ps -A shows all processes, regardless of user. From the man page:

  -A Display information about other users' processes, including those without controlling terminals.


App for convenient media consumption What are some iOS apps that work well for searching, collecting, and consuming media like video (YouTube, Ted talks, and private hosts) and audio (podcasts, NPR, etc)?

The important feature is that it must be a universal way to parse media from the whole web, similar to how google can search the whole web. In other words, not tied to a particular app store or "ecosystem". This might be hard to do technically but I'm looking for an app that will at least take any URL I give it and try to find some media to play. The whole purpose is to keep my media consumption organized not frustrate me by boring quests to find some way of playing a recording I know exists on the web. And it should allow me to download the media for offline consumption.

Bonus points for something that has cloud storage integration and or a text to speech facility for "reading" ebooks, PDFs, and web pages.

There is an App called Meteoric, which does exactly what you want. You can test the free version, which only supports 2MB downloads. And if you like it, you can buy the full version, which is with $1.99 quite inexpensive.

Here is a nice article with screenshots if you are interested (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-file-ios-device-meteoric/)


How Can I view My local/offline Html file on Ipad I have My HTML file saved in many locations on IPAD to try to launch it.

In files. When i click on the html file, it shows a preview ( with an empty white page) since this step is not calling any links (js, css, etc) i tried to tap and hold to see if i can open it with safari also no luck, and i did some research about it. It says that you can not open html with safari or any other browser on ipad cause it will not call the links in the folder.
I tried to open it in dropbox also. Again it shows a white empty page.
I tried to launch it directly after downloading the file from we transfer (i sent it to myself) also no option to launch it. It only gives me the option to save it.
I used to save it to files, icloud or dropbox. I previously downloaded an app called documents by readdle. Locate the file. When i used to click on it, it used to work perfectly fine. Within the app itself. No browser needed. But suddenly after updating the app all the html folders i have stopped working.
I also tried documents pro app: no luck
goodreader app: it opens the file but freezes and the app stops responding after.
I also didn’t find a way from safari to locate a specific file and open it.

  so i reached the i “give up” phase. And i am searching for help

There is a way but you need to know how to make shortcuts. Here is how to make this one (sorry about icloud but i’m logged out :’D ) important are only 3 last actions cuz i made printscreen from existing shortcut:


Trying to delete an application that always says it is open (in this case AVG AntiVirus.app) This is the troubleshooting I've done so far:

Went to Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor and force quit the process. Shortly after doing that AVG shows up again in activity monitor.
I went to terminal and typed in rm -rf hit return and then dragged the application to terminal. Once it showed me the path of the file I hit delete. Then terminal came back and said (-bash: /Applications/AVG AntiVirus.app: is a directory)

How the heck do I delete AVG AntiVirus on my computer?

You need to properly uninstall AVG AntiVirus for Mac first.

See: How to uninstall AVG AntiVirus for Mac

  To uninstall AVG Antivirus for Mac:

  Run the AVG AntiVirus for Mac
  Click the AVG AntiVirus Menu bar, and click Uninstall AVG AntiVirus
  Click Continue to begin the uninstallation process
  AVG will run the uninstallation
  The Uninstallation is now complete, please click Restart to reboot your computer


How do I get rid of this power assertion from a dead process? I have the screensaver on my MacBook set to kick in after two minutes of inactivity and require a password immediately after it does. Normally, this works fine, but in the last week or so, the screensaver hasn't come on at all. After skimming pmsets manual page, I made this discovery:

$ pmset -g assertions
2015-04-11 22:30:47 -0700
Assertion status system-wide:
   BackgroundTask                 0
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   UserIsActive                   1
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    1
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   ExternalMedia                  0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     1
   NetworkClientActive            0
Listed by owning process:
   pid 71(hidd): [0x004d32870009146b] 12:40:26 UserIsActive named: "com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle"
        Timeout will fire in 7192 secs Action=TimeoutActionRelease
   pid 19013(AddressBookSour): [0x00332e3200050457] 486:17:00 PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep named: "com.apple.avkit.disableUserIdleDisplaySleep"
        Details: disable user idle display sleep
Kernel Assertions: 0x100=MAGICWAKE
   id=504  level=255 0x100=MAGICWAKE mod=2015-04-11, 12:44:09 description=en1 owner=en1

If I'm reading this right, the latter assertion there would prevent the screensaver from kicking in or the display from going to sleep. (Presumably the former assertion exists only because I'm actively using the machine.) The problem is…it belongs to a process that doesn't exist at this point.

$ ps -e | grep 19013
$

No wonder the screensaver isn't activating.

Am I right? What might be causing this assertion to stick around after its process died? Short of logging out or rebooting, how do I get rid of it?

I had the same issue: a PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep assertion set by a process that was no longer active. Killing the powerd process (to be restarted by launchd) cleared the assertion without logging out or rebooting.

$ ps -e | grep powerd
63 ??         0:00.05 /System/Library/CoreServices/powerd.bundle/powerd
$ sudo kill 63

I'm not sure about any undesirable side effects might occur when killing powerd, however.


iPad as Home Hub: Option not available under iPad settings I've given up on trying to make my once working Apple TV Home Hub respond again. So I logged the apple tv out of the appropriate iCloud account and decided I would make my iPad the HomeKit hub. Much to my chagrin, there does not seem to be a "Make iPod Home hub" option showing up under the iPad/Settings->Home (where all the instructions tell me to go an enable the iPad as the hub)

Per instructions, two-factor authentication, keychain, and Home are all enabled under the iPad/Settings//iCloud settings.

Suggestions are welcomed. Being unable to share lighting control with other household members is causing a great deal of irritation.

I know this is an old question but just saw it. You don't need a home hub to share your "home" with other users. Home hub is for automation.

I don't have a home hub and my wife and kid have access to my Apple home. In the Home app go to the top left house icon and add whomever you want to the people section.

Thanks


OS X Private Folder - Runaway file "crash recovery" 126.61GB! Woke up this morning any my 250GB, which had approx. 50% free space last night, was totally out of disk space!

Took me all day, but finally found a file in /private/var/audit/ called "20110423020458.crash_recovery" that is 126.61GBytes!

I've tried running daily/weekly/monthly via Onyx. Running most all the cache cleaning scripts. Used Techtool, the DiskWarrior. Finally went to SnowLeopard Cache Cleaner and Applejack deep cleaning.

Nothing got rid of it. Only reason I eventually found the file at all is that it showed up in DaisyDisk (it didn't in other mappers).

Question is => is it safe top delete /private/var/audit/20110423020458.crash_recovery ?

I know there is various Unix core stuff in /private, but that is about the limit of my knowledge there. I've got all manner of good backups (CCL, Time Machine, Dropbox) – so I'm not as worried about data loss as I am jsut anxious to get my system back (everything working normal except disk space issued...booted from external drive and deleted 5GB to make some breathing room).

Thanks for any advice / tips in advance! - Larry

(System: MBP Late 2010 Unibody, 8GB RAM, 250GB HD, OS 10.6.7)

Yes.  You have enabled auditing somewhere along the line, being  a wise person, but you have not trimmed the file, being a human, like I.  Note the instant edit ;)

man -k audit

if you can get a shell will show you where you need to go

( look at them on the apple dev site )

i think here you want

audit -e

to get rid of your old audit files.

From the man page:

The audit utility controls the state of the audit system.  One of the
     following flags is required as an argument to audit:

 -e      Forces the audit system to immediately remove audit log files
         that meet the expiration criteria specified in the audit control
         file without doing a log rotation.

 -i      Initializes and starts auditing.  This option is currently for
         Mac OS X only and requires auditd(8) to be configured to run
         under launchd(8).

 -n      Forces the audit system to close the existing audit log file and
         rotate to a new log file in a location specified in the audit
         control file.  Also, audit log files that meet the expiration
         criteria specified in the audit control file will be removed.

 -s      Specifies that the audit system should [re]synchronize its con-
         figuration from the audit control file.  A new log file will be
         created.

 -t      Specifies that the audit system should terminate.  Log files are
         closed and renamed to indicate the time of the shutdown.

On my system:

ls /var/audit
20110414160828.20110415024057 20110420155533.20110421134946
20110415024148.20110416200834 20110421140348.20110421151928
20110416200951.20110417013744 20110421152018.20110422125418
20110417014358.crash_recovery 20110422125606.20110422205003
20110417024720.20110417120347 20110422205003.20110423102007
20110417135346.20110419142539 20110423102114.20110423204207
20110419144659.20110419150605 20110423204320.20110424094847
20110419150626.20110419201121 20110424094940.not_terminated
20110419201223.20110419225009 build
20110419225100.20110420153215 current
[root:8va:0:~ ]# du -h /var/audit
4.0K    /var/audit/build
6.0M    /var/audit

Yes.  It's audit -e

[root:8va:0:~ ]# audit -e
Trigger sent.
[root:8va:0:~ ]# du -h /var/audit
4.0K    /var/audit/build
6.0M    /var/audit


My iCloud email and password My iCloud account is under a @yahoo.com address which was canceled by yahoo for some reason, and the security questions do not seem like ones I would have chosen. So I cannot get my back up from iCloud as I have just purchased a new iPhone. Is it possible to get my old password so I may change my iCloud email and password?

Most probably your system has "saved" your  iCloud log in information in you keyhain.

Open it and type iCloud in the search.


Can I edit Demo account details in app review information in iTunes Connect when app status is “Waiting for Review”? I have resubmitted my app for review after Apple rejection due to metadata rejection.

I have updated the details in "Notes". Now my app status is "Waiting for Review". I want to change the demo account details.

Can I update the "Demo Account" details when the app status is "Waiting for Review"?

"

Yes, you can change all the metadata until your app is In Review.


How can I watch iTunes purchased movie on my Mac if it is missing in my library? I have purchased Cars 2 HD movie on my iTunes. I can't find it and/or play it on my Mac now. the only option is to buy it once more. I have just one iTunes account. when go to the movie bar in my library, there's nothing there, just the intro screen. Please help.

This Apple support article deals specifically with downloading past purchased content. You want to check the section labeled Mac or PC since you're trying to download purchased content in iTunes on a computer.

From the article and assuming you're using iTunes 11 or later:

Open iTunes.
If you're not already signed in, choose Store > Sign In and type your Apple ID and password.
If you're in the iTunes Store, click the Library button, in the upper-right corner, to go to your library.
Make sure that you have "Show iTunes in the Cloud Purchases" enabled in your iTunes preferences by going to iTunes > Preferences in the Store tab and clicking OK.
In your iTunes library, click the content type you wish to download using the content selector in the upper-left. Choose Music to download music, Movies to download movies, and so on.
Locate the item or title you wish to download.
Click the download icon to download that item.

And as 2DD8847 points out their answer: being able to do this is country dependent. You can only do this where an X appears in the media category for the iTunes in the Cloud availability by country table found in this support article. And note that for some countries, under the Movies category, there's a caveat that "Some previously purchased movies may not be available in iTunes in the Cloud."


Is there a way to put the iPhone into a child-only mode? I find that my two-year-old will often delete photos...most of the times by accident.

Is there a mode on the iPhone or some other software that will help thwart this?

Is there a way to control which apps a child can access?

(I'm hoping that Apple would build it right into the OS.)

Yes, start with Guided Access which easily locks one app in full screen mode and then move on to restrictions once you have a feeling for what you want to open up past one app at a time as your two year old gets more able to use more than just one game at a time..


How to view Failing Authentication Logs for a specific iOS Application How do I view specific logs for a specific iOS Application?  It is not a native iOS Application.

It is an iOS Application installed from an MDM solution.  It is an iOS Application that allow the user to check his/her email.

I am not looking for Crash Logs but I am looking for Logs that will tell me why the User Authentication failed.  I am looking for some kind of authentication logs messages failures and see at least if it was a Token Authentication Issue, or Certificates Issue or something like that.

Reading some online articles, I can connect the iOS device to a Mac OS X device, and I can use Apple Configurator 2 or XCode to view the crash logs.  But again, I need the authentication user logs for a specific application not the crash logs.
Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

If you do not see the log file you need along the crash logs in XCode or Apple Configurator 2, then the log file is not available here.

In that case the log file is something proprietary to the app - i.e. for example just a text file that the app writes to during execution. In that case, the text file is within the app's document folder. You can use the "Files" app on the iOS device to look inside the app's folder for the log file.

If you do not see the log file there, I think you might be mistaken that there should be a log file at all. If you haven't got a manual, support web site or similar stating that there should be a log file, there usually isn't a log file.

You could use a program like iDevice Manager or similar to browse the file system on the iOS device to look for a log file within the app's folder. This is normally not something you want or need to do.


Window corners don't render properly I have recently noticed that some of my windows have weird looking corners. It's like they are missing dark pixels right on the edge.

It doesn't always happen, some windows seem to be 'immune' - one example would be Messages, which is the window in the middle.

I'm running OS X 10.9.3.

After the OS X Mavericks v10.9.4 Update, window corners have returned to their previous glory. Update notes don't mention any issue of this kind, so I guess it might have been fixed as a side effect of running the system updater.

EDIT: Aaand the corners are ugly again. It's really weird.


Where are the files installed when you execute a mpkg file? I am running Mac Os X 10.9.1.

I downloaded and open an .mpkg file and when through the installation flow but at the end of it I still don't know where the files were installed.

Is there a way to find out what the mpkg executable did in terms of which directories were modified or what files were added and where?

I checked the Applications folder and can't see anything relevant there...

An "mpkg" file is a meta-package file, a file that can contain files and packages to be installed.

They also contain a "bill of materials" that lists the files installed (but not the files installed by the packages it might contain - they have their own bill of materials).

Therefore you need to find the package ID of the mpkg file and any packages it might contain.

The easiest way to do this is to have a look in the receipts folder. This occasionally moves but in 10.9 it is in /private/var/db/receipts.

If we installed our mpkg file recently then it is best to use find like so:

find /private/var/db/receipts -ctime 2

which will list all the receipt files changed in the last two days. The files found will have names that look like "com.company.application.bom" or they also end in ".plist". The file name without the .bom or .plist is a package ID.

Now we know a package ID we can ask pkgutil to list all the files installed and their location.

pkgutil --files com.company.application

This will produce a long list of all the files installed and where they are located.

You may see some who recommend methods using the folder /Library/Receipts but not all receipts are actually stored in there for some reason.


iPad E-Mail Attachments are destroyed on the Exchange account I have a problem with my ipad Air iOS 7.0.4. When I receive E-Mails on my Exchange account, which contain for example a .pdf, the pdf is destroyed an can't be opend. If I forward the attachment, the attachment is still destroyed on the other recipient. I also receive my exchange mails on my PC and there are the attachments fully functional.

On my iPad I have a second GMX Imap account, and if I send a attachment to this account, I also receive it fully functional.

I already tried to delete the Exchange account from  the iPad and added it newly.

I have exactly the same problem and deleted the Exchange account but this did not solve the problem. The Apple Store has never heard of this problem. Their suggestion was to restore to factory defaults.


Combine external mic and system sound and send output to HDMI I am looking to combine the system sound with an external mic plugged into the microphone jack and send the combined audio output to HDMI. Is this doable on my Macbook pro. I have tried different things with sound flower and creating aggregate devices and such without luck. I am able to create a recording in Quicktime which has the sounds sources mixed perfectly. But, I want to be able to send this output live through HDMI. Any help is greatly appreciated.

If you are looking to combine separate HDMI video and audio into a single HDMI connection (to go to a monitor, for example) you need an HDMI Audio Injector

This device is separate from your MacBook Pro and will work with virtually any digital video source and either an analog or digital audio source.

As for getting the sound to/from your MBP, you will need a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI for the video and perhaps a USB Audio Device.  Here are two products I have personally used with good success:

Mini DisplayPort to HDMI

USB Audio Adapter

You hook the outputs up to the HDMI Audio Injector and you should get the results you are looking for.

I hope that helps.


How can I make two cells edit and display the same information in Numbers? I would like two cells to contain the same information, if I modify one the other should modify also.

I was using the Concatenate function to make "slave" cells that pull data from a "source" cell but I have to travel back to the source cell and modify it there. Are there other ways to do this?

You can't make 2 cells which content would be synchronised from each other.

To define b1=$a$1 and a1=$b$1 would create a loop of cross references.

This graph of dependency would be a cycle.

On the other hand you van make 2 cells depend on a common source:

a2=$a$1 and b2=$a$1.

This graph of dependency is a tree.


terminal script for renaming folders in a specific scheme i have about hundreds of movie files stored each in a folder. the scheme i named each folder is like this:

ABCD

for movies with titles starting with A,B,C or D for example. In this folder are those movie folders like this

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 0526 20180223Eph

0526 is a specific number for this file/folder.

I'd like to rename all folders to this scheme:

(0526) Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 20180223Eph

but i don't know how to do this on my mac?! please note, that some folders don't have the suffix like 20180223Eph.

It should be done for all movies in one turn - renaming all by using finder would be a little to long...

Thanks in advance,

mnasdaq

First off, I have to say that the example bash code used in this answer, shown further below, is by no means robust, however it does get the job done!

With the following as a representative sample of the hierarchical structure of directories:

.
├── ABCD
├── EFGH
├── IJKL
├── MNOP
│   ├── A Most Violent Year (2014) 1180 20150807Lov
│   ├── A Most Wanted Man (2014) 1146
│   ├── A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) 0432
│   ├── A Perfect Getaway (2009) 0433
│   └── ¡NO! (2012) 0939
├── QRST
├── UVWX
└── YZ

Then after running the example bash code saved as a bash script, and run from within the directory containing the hierarchical structure show above, the results for the directories will be as shown below, and being as the stated desired output based on the representative sample of the hierarchical structure of directories shown above:

.
├── ABCD
├── EFGH
├── IJKL
├── MNOP
│   ├── (0432) A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
│   ├── (0433) A Perfect Geatway (2009)
│   ├── (0939) ¡NO! (2012)
│   ├── (1146) A Most Wanted Man (2014)
│   └── (1180) A Most Violent Year (2014) 20150807Lov
├── QRST
├── UVWX
└── YZ

To use the example bash code, In Terminal cd to the directory containing the ABCD, EFGH, etc. directories and run the following commands:

touch rendir; nano rendir

In nano copy and paste the example bash code, show below, into the rendir file and then press Control+X and then Y and then Enter.

Next:

chmod u+x rendir

Now that it's executable, run it by typing:

./rendir

Then press Enter to run it.

Example bash code:

#!/bin/bash

find -E . -type d -regex '.* [0-9]{4}$' > /tmp/foo

while read -r l; do
    p="$(dirname "$l")"
    d="$(basename "$l")"
    n="$(awk '{print "("$NF")"}'<<<"$d")"
    f="$(awk '{$NF=""; sub(/ $/, "", $0); print $0}'<<<"$d")"
    echo mv "$l" "$p/$n $f"
done</tmp/foo

find -E . -type d -regex '.* [0-9]{4} .*$' > /tmp/foo

while read -r l; do
    p="$(dirname "$l")"
    d="$(basename "$l")"
    n="$(awk '{print "("$(NF - 1)")"}'<<<"$d")"
    f="$(awk '{$(NF - 1)=""; print $0}'<<<"$d" | awk 'sub(/  /," ")')"
    echo mv "$l" "$p/$n $f"
done</tmp/foo

rm /tmp/foo

Note that as coded, it will output the mv commands that would be executed if echo wasn't there. After testing and examining the output to see that the mv commands are properly formed, you can the edit rendir (nano rendir) and remove the two occurrences of echo, saving the file, again using (Control+X and then Y and then Enter) and executing it again.

At this point you should have the desired output as shown in the second tree hierarchical structure of directories shown above. This example bash code does not account for any deviation from what was expressed in the OP and comments to the OP.

NOTE: You should never run code without first being properly backed up and or testing the code on a sample copy of the originals.

If I knew awk better I'd imagine that an awk program could be written to manipulate the input string to the desired output string in a single calling of awk, but I don't know awk well enough to achieve that.

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


Why is corestoraged preventing sleep in macOS 10.12.3? I've noticed consistently that a day or so after reboot, my Mac will refuse to go to sleep. Activity Monitor shows that the process corestoraged is preventing sleep. If I reboot, it will no longer be listed as a process preventing sleep -- until it starts doing so again.

Does anyone understand why this is happening? Is this a bug in 10.12.3?

1) If FileVault is encrypting your disk you will see corestoraged as a blocking process.

2) If Time Machine is encrypting an external drive with backup corestoraged will be also blocking sleep (even if the backup disk is unmounted and not connected to the Mac!!!).

➜  ~ pmset -g
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelay         10800
standby              1
womp                 1
halfdim              1
hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap             1
gpuswitch            2
networkoversleep     0
disksleep            10
sleep                10 (sleep prevented by corestoraged)
autopoweroffdelay    28800
hibernatemode        3
autopoweroff         1
ttyskeepawake        1
displaysleep         10
acwake               0
lidwake              1

In my case, it was the Time Machine. After it finished encryption of the backup disk (took a week or so) corestoraged is not longer causing a sleep issues.


Keep all system logs, forever In console app I can see only couple system.log.${i}.gz archived log files that can only show me info about last 10-15 days.
How to keep all logs archived somewhere, forever ?

The log files are rotated and eventually removed by the asl system. You can change the configuration by editing /etc/asl.conf under sudo. Start Terminal.app and issue this command:

sudo -e /etc/asl.conf

You'll find in there a comment stating that rules for /var/log/system.log follows, the first line looks like this:

> system.log mode=0640 format=bsd rotate=seq compress file_max=5M all_max=50M

Change that to look like this:

> system.log mode=0640 format=bsd rotate=seq compress file_max=5M all_max=9999G ttl=99999

This means that each seperate log file will be maximum 5M. Normally the asl system removes log files when either they exceed the all_max limit (before 50 megabyte, now 9999 gigabytes) or when the file is older than ttl days (before 7 days, now 99999 days).


Mac OS UI Slow Response I am new to Mac so forgive the naive question. I have used Windows & Linux for a long time in the past and no matter how slow the system becomes (this actually applies almost only to Windows), the UI is usually snappy if the system is not busy executing multiple background tasks. For example, if I click on a Window or hit Alt-Tab, the switch is almost immediate (unless of course, the application executes some tasks when its window is activated). However, this is not the case with my Mac and a simple click on even the Finder window takes between 500ms to 1000ms to take effect. This is always the case no matter how busy or free my Mac is. Even though it is relatively old (Early 2015), the hardware is quite powerful:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch)
Processor 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1867 DDR3
Graphics Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1536 MB

In comparison, my Ubuntu laptop (System 76) is about 3-4 years old, but it is much faster and I rarely feel I have to wait for a second or so before it switches application!

Has this always been the case with Mac, or there is something to configure on my machine?

The best way (in my opinion) is to launch an application called Activity Monitor. You can do so by using spotlight (the magnifying class in the upper right hand corner), or by pressing Command+Space at the same time. Just type "Activity Monitor" and an option should pop up. This lets you see the CPU usage by process, as well at RAM being utilized, and a lot of other good metrics. This should help you get a good idea of what might be slowing down your machine.


How do I view all my weight data in apple health on iOS? Is there a way to show a list of dates and times and weights in the Apple health app on iOS? I don’t want to see it as a graph.

On the weight screen it will show a graph with D, W, M, Y across the top to change the graph time scale for days, weeks, months and years. While you are on this same screen, scroll all the way down to the bottom and there will be a button that says Show All Data. Click on this button and you can view all the records you have entered and also edit them. This applies to iOS 13.6.1.
Posting this answer because my version of Apple Health did not have a health data tab that @anki mentioned in their answer.


How do currently downloading files show a circular progress indicator besides them in Finder? When downloading a file using Google Chrome, Mac App Store, or some other app, Finder usually displays a circular progress indicator besides the file name.

Out of curiosity, is there any technical way this is accomplished on Mac? Is there some sort of metadata attached to the file that is constantly updated?

How does Finder know when to display the download progress indicator?

This is achieved by macOS apps using Apple provided API. Specifically, NSProgress Cocoa API.


I want to restore the "All My Files" folder/view to the finder sidebar While I've had my ups and downs with the "All My Files" folder in the Mac sidebar, it is a really useful tool for unclogging my hard drive of large files - this is especially important because of the small hard drive in the Macbook Air I'm now using.

Some time ago, the "All My Files" folder/view completely disappeared from the finder sidebar, and I havent' been able to figure out how or why, or restore it to finder.

Because of my search for an answer, I'm now learning about creating smart folders, which is great, but I still can't figure out how to create an "All My Files" smart folder, which REALLY shows all the files on the Mac!

Any ideas out there?

Go to the Finder Preferences, go to the Sidebar tab, and then make sure the "All My Files" box is checked:


MacBook Pro Retina 2012 - sensor issue I have a late 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display and recently I've had some issues with it. Firstly it began to not charge properly - the charger light would stay orange and never go to green, and it wouldn't boot up (I imagine the battery was discharged and was failing to charge). This seemed to resolve itself but lately it has been unusable due to the system being extremely sluggish (taking 10 minutes just to open Safari), and the fans being at top speed constantly.

After some research I discovered I could run the Apple Hardware Test to diagnose any hardware failures/issues, and it indeed find a failure with the code below

4SNS/1/C0000008: Ts0P--124

After some research I discovered this is an issue with the palm rest temperature sensor - which makes sense as obviously the system is running away with itself and running the fans at max speed. I've tried resetting the PRAM and SMC to no avail.

I'm unable to get an appointment at the Genius Bar for at least a week and I do not drive so I can't drive to one with more availability so I'm wondering if there is anyway to fix this myself. If not, would this likely require a full logic board replacement or is the sensor quite simple to replace?

The temp sensor is in the track pad so if you choose to undertake this repair, this is the part your are going to have to replace.

The PN# for the track pad for MBP 2009-2012 is PN# 922-9063.  The good news is that it's under $30 at the time of this writing.

To change out your track pad, you will need to remove the battery from the top case assembly.  iFixit.com has an excellent tear down which details how to do this.

Note:  You won't have to completely disassemble the unit, but you will have to remove the battery to gain access.  You can remove it by gently prying it up with a plastic putty knife.  I have even seen dental floss used to slowly work the battery loose.

If you are not comfortable doing this repair, I suggest you let a tech handle the repair.

I was able to find a YouTube video showing the battery removal.  Once it's removed, you will be able to get a good idea of where the track pad is located.


Can I have launchctl output stdout/stderr from my application to the system-wide Unified Logging mechanism? I have set up a custom .plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents to run a process (offlineimap) on a periodic basis. I've specified both the StandardOutPath and StandardErrorPath keys to point to files in my home directory, which works. However, this doesn't really provide a complete logging solution from what I can see. The logs are not rotated, there are no timestamps (addressed by this question, although there was no clear answer), and the log is not integrated into any other logging on the system. I think I would prefer it if the logs went to Unified Logging.

I'm used to systemd logging on Linux, which is a similar mechanism, and it would be great if there was a similar way I could redirect that output into the system-wide log, viewable with the log command. Is there any way to do that with a custom LaunchAgent?

I should add that I'm using MacOS 10.14.5.

You could use blowhole.

blowhole is a command-line tool that takes a string as an argument and sends it to the unified logging system. It is supported from Sierra (10.12) up to Catalina (10.15).

How to use it

(Tested on macOS Catalina 10.15.5)

Modify the ProgramArguments array in your .plist file like this:

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/bin/bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>COMMAND OPTIONS 2> >(while read; do /path/to/blowhole -e "$REPLY"; done) | while read; do /path/to/blowhole -d "$REPLY"; done</string>

where COMMAND OPTIONS is the command you want to execute, followed by any desired options.

Here, I make use of bash's support for redirection (2>), process substitution (>()) and pipelines (|) to:

sort out the command's standard error and standard output
process them separately inside two while loops. The first while loop runs blowhole -e to log standard error with an "Error" level:

  <timestamp> Error <info> blowhole: [co.eclecticlight.blowhole:general] Blowhole: STANDARD ERROR MESSAGES

and the second one runs blowhole -d to log standard output with a "Default" level:

  <timestamp> Default <info> blowhole: [co.eclecticlight.blowhole:general] Blowhole: STANDARD OUTPUT MESSAGES

(Since blowhole can't read from standard input, we need while loops to feed it a line of input at a time.)

The blowhole: [co.eclecticlight.blowhole:general] Blowhole: string is not configurable, but you can add a prefix of your choice to the logged messages. For example, since you mention offlineimap in your question:

  /path/to/blowhole -d "offlineimap stdout: $REPLY";

and:

  /path/to/blowhole -e "offlineimap stderr: $REPLY";

You can read log entries with sudo log show | grep blowhole:general or sudo log show | grep offlineimap, if you added the customized prefix. To read log entries as they are generated, in a manner similar to tail -f, use show stream instead.

Alternatively, you can wrap the command you want to execute in a shell script so that blowhole logs the command's standard output and error in a way similar to above. This is convenient if you want to run some code prior to executing the actual command:

#!/bin/bash
# Add the code you want to execute prior to the actual command here
COMMAND ARGUMENTS \
> >(
while read; do
    /path/to/blowhole -d "$REPLY";
done) \
2> >(
while read; do
    /path/to/blowhole -e "$REPLY";
done)

You can then configure the ProgramArguments array of your .plist file to run the script instead of your command:

<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/bin/bash</string>
    <string>/path/to/script.sh</string>
</array>

Where to get it from

You can download blowhole from its project page or directly from here. The program is provided as a signed, hardened and notarized executable (as required by Catalina) and as an Installer package.


How to get the window id with title of every process? I'm using the following simple script:

tell application "System Events" to get the title of every window of every process

Which works by printing titles of every window.

tell application "System Events" to get the id of every window of every process

The above script prints missing value

{{}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {missing value, missing value}, {}, {missing value}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {missing value, missing value}, {missing value}, {}, {}, {missing value, missing value}, {missing value}, {missing value, missing value}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}, {}}

How can I get the window id of every window?

Is it possible to get the window id and window title at a time?

Yes, you can get the window id and window title at the same time:

tell application "System Events" to get the {title, id} of every window of every process

However, many/most processes are invisible ones, so you'll want to reduce your list:

tell application "System Events" to get the {title, id} of every window of (every process whose visible is true)

And further, id is not something set in most windows. Perhaps you can say more about what you're trying to accomplish. You can examine the potential window properties with:

tell application "System Events" to get the properties of every window of (every process whose visible is true)


My MacBook Pro is taking time to load after signin I'm facing strange issue with my new MacBookPro(4GB RAM). It is taking more time to load apps after signin. And when I click on any app, it is stopped responding for some time.

I did FirstAid to my both drives(one is Macintosh, 2nd is other data drive) to find and repair what is going wrong, but result was success(Nothing to repair).

UPDATE:  per the suggestion in the comments, I created a new user account and now my MBP works correctly when signed into the new account.  What could be in my old account that's causing the problem?

I issued the command below to get the size of my home folder:

sudo du -d1 -h /Users

Results:

190M    /Users/bujji
4.6G    /Users/Nagendra
364K    /Users/Shared
4.8G    /Users

It appears that there's some corruption in your old account.

What you need to do is two fold:

Make the new account your primary with the intention of eventually deleting your old account.
Incrementally copy of files and settings from the old profile to the new one until all the files are transferred.

You want to do this in small batches because you don't know what is corrupted and what isn't.  Now, it's highly likely you won't have a problem with documents, pictures, movies and music.  However, there may be a setting (file) for an application that is causing the issue.

If after a copy, things go awry, you will have narrowed down where the offending file is.

All in all, the solution was and is to create a new user account.


Apple external (magic) keyboard: SHIFT + [ not working Im having some weird problem. I have connected my magic keyboard via USB.

When I type "[" its working as you see. Also when I type SHIFT + ] I get "}".

PROBLEM: But when I try to type SHIFT + [ I cant get left curly bracket.
(Its working on my internal keyboard)

PRAM reseted. Keyboard layout - English. No shortcuts on this combinations made. Sticky keys OFF, slow keys OFF. Dictation OFF.

What could be the problem ? Maybe I could delete some Library/Preferences or something ? I cant code without that brackets

I had a problem like this once. What I did was look through the accessibility settings to try to find something, but it seems like you already did that with dication. You could also delete some .plist's that have to do with the keyboard, but I would only do that if you have a backup of your computer


WebP support on macOS — is it indended to actually work? macOS seems to recognize WebP images as such, and seems like it actually tries to display previews of them, but always fails.

They are also associated with Preview application, just like other image formats, but Preview also chokes on it (without any error messages, it just silently fails to open a window).

Does it mean that it's intended to actually work but it fails just on my system for some reason?

In my case, the WebP images are lossless and not animated.

Now it's possible with this Quick Look plugin:

WebPQuickLook


Does deleting an iMessage on a device deletes it in all of the other iCloud synced devices? If I have my iPad and my iPhone synced through iCloud and I can see that my text messages  are being received/sent on both. If I send an iMessage on my iPad and immediately delete the entire text thread on my iPad, does it in turn delete the text threat off of my iPhone?  If not, does it show the iMessage I sent from my iPad?

Pretty much what happened was I was over my buddy's house and his iPhone and iPad are synced to iCloud.  I am assuming this because he had been text messaging me all day and all of the most current text messages were showing on his iPad.  I used his iPad to send a text message to my wife with some of our bank account information she needed.

I immediately deleted the text thread from the ipad (My wife also has an iPhone so I am assuming it was an iMessage).

My question is does this iMessage go to his phone still if I deleted it?  Or does it delete from his phone because I deleted it from his iPad?

My experience is you cannot actually delete an iMessage once and have it delete elsewhere.

You can only delete the local cached copy of a message to suppress it being showed/stored on that one device. If you turn off iMessage and turn it back on, you will see the messages from iCloud come back whether you deleted a message or not.


No SMS notifications for one contact I have a weird problem. For this one contact I don't get any sound or vibration notifications when a SMS arrives.

What I have tried:

Change Text Tone
Change Vibration
Delete contact and create new with same mobile number
Rebooted iPhone

What could be the problem?

You may have accidentally muted the SMS conversation.
To change this go to the SMS messages for that contact and click Details (top right) and make sure that Do Not Disturb isn't selected.


Can't run VLC on 10.13.6 Here's how to reproduce this:

Installed VLC via: brew cask install vlc*
Open VLC (via Spotlight/Finder/open/something else using launchd**)
Finder alert dialog pops up with message:

  The application “VLC.app” can’t be opened.

This has never been a problem until I installed the latest version. I'm guessing it's more something to do with launchd than VLC (my other MacBooks are all fine).

How can I diagnose what's failed and/or make this app launch again?

* makes no difference downloading with browser).

** I'm able to start it via: $ /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC, so I am guessing it's something to do with what is launching it.

I don't have the same issue, but before you try to remove the vlc 3.0.4 and try installing an older version, do you have any errors in the doctor output:

brew doctor
brew cask doctor

If not, then an upgrade, reinstall of the VLC and then force linking the app again might help. Also - if you open the console log when you open the VLC app - can you see any interesting or relevant errors right around when you launch the app?

brew upgrade
brew cleanup
brew cask reinstall vlc
brew link -f

Feel free to @ me in the comments if you make a substantial edit or ask a follow on question to review the output of the above if it's not clear how to fix this once you dig in a bit.


What is the best way to connect an external 4K display to an iMac 2015 for optimal performance I'm experiencing some kind of ghosting problem when connecting my iiyama 40'' monitor to my iMac 27'' retina 5K display (osx 10.11).  Not sure about the term ghosting but when moving screens (and mouse pointer) on the external monitor, they behave sluggish and the contrast whith the movement on my retina display is huge and therefor a bit annoying (it is not display lag).  I also had the same problem when connecting my iMac to a Samsung 4K tv (UE40JU6000) even in 'game mode'.  When connecting my older Macbook pro (late 2009) to the samsung tv or the iiyama the 'ghosting' is gone and the screens and mouse pointer are moving very smooth, just like on my iMac.

I made the connection with a Belkin 4K mini-displayport to HDMI cable both for iMac and Macbook. For the iMac I also tried a displayport cable (deliverd by iiyama) without improvement (not sure if its 1.0 or 1.2 displayport)

I also tried different resolutions on both screens and all available HDMI-ports on my iiyama.

The HDMI 2-port on the iiyama looks like the one to go. This port is suitable for 3840 x 2160 at 30 Hz.

Apple stating 30 Hz connection:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587

full specs iiyama:
http://www.iiyama.com/gl_en/products/prolite-x4071uhsu-b1/

Any help would be highly appreciated

Rob

Some displays allow you to specify the DisplayPort version. If your display defaults to DisplayPort 1.1, changing it to DisplayPort 1.2 via the OSD might improve the DisplayPort connection.


iMac excessive GPU heat when using a second display Without a monitor connected (via Thunderbolt/mDP) to my iMac (2011, 3.4 GHz, 6970M 2GB), iStat Menus reports the GPU is using ~15 watts, and has a temperature of 60c. With one connected, it uses ~35 watts, and is ~80c. Both of these are when idling.

Regardless of it pushing an extra 1920x1200 monitor, 80c seems very excessive. I use my computer near enough everyday for up to 10 hours, and I'm worried about the long-term stress due to such a high temperature.

Is it normal, and if so, safe long-term?

(SMC reset, fans working correctly, no dust in air ducts, etc.)

Well, yes, driving two monitors requires more work from a GPU. But is 80 C normal, long-term-wise? I think not. You can get yourself badly burned at 80 deg, so why would this be good for a computer part, especially over 2 or 3 years? :-/

I remember I had a problem with a Mac Pro years ago. All the RAM slots were occupied, and iStat reported 70+ temperatures in these slots, even though the fans were doing their job. But I had a lot of crashes and kernel panics. Then I thought that such temperatures could not be helping. Then I installed a little helper app that enables you to set the minimum speed for any fan in you system. I just set the fans to 1200 rpms instead of the default 800, and everything began behaving smoothly from that point. Putting my hand to the back of the computer I could really feel the difference in temperature. And the modules' temperature went from 70-80 C to 35-45 C in about 5-10 minutes!!

Of course the fan noises was slightly more annoying, but I was willing to sacrifice a bit of my sanity for a stable computer. :-)

The app was named smcFanControl (http://www.eidac.de/). Works with Lion as of v 2.3. And free. There are of course other apps that would do the same, but this one has worked flawlessly for many years.

I think that Apple is setting it's temperature threshold limits a little too low, all for the sake of silence of operation...


How to delete a Catalina Beta from a disk with Dual-Boot Mojave and Catalina Beta I have a disk with DualBoot Mojave and Catalina Beta in a single container. Catalina Beta has two volumes: 'MacOSBeta' and 'MacOSBeta - Data'.

I want to delete the Catalina Beta os. Is it as simple as deleting the Catalina Beta volumes?

Yes, APFS containers make it trivial to erase a volume since the free space commingles, you can walk away from the data once you’re sure you have a back up or don’t need one.


ssh port forwarding error I have two Linux servers and one Mac client, and I would like to do SSH port forwarding via local port address on the Mac.

In Terminal 1 on the Mac,

localhost:~ user1$ ssh -L 8022:server2:22 server1

and from Terminal 2 on the same Mac

localhost:~ user1$ scp -P 8022 0.0.0.0:file .

works OK. But if I use another account user2 on the Mac,

localhost:~ user2$ ssh -L 8022:user1@server2:22 user1@server1

I get the following error on Terminal 2.

localhost:~ user1$ scp -P 8022 0.0.0.0:file .
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

At the same time, another error message appears in Terminal 1.

channel 3: open failed: administratively prohibited: open failed

Either user1 or user2 does not have any special port forwarding settings in /etc/sshd_config, /etc/ssh_config, or ~/.ssh/config. Both users have access for SSH login to the Mac (i.e., in "Remote Login" panel of System Preference, these users are in the white list).

I don't see any message in /var/log/system.log.

Which configuration should I check? I use OS X Yosemite.

Here is the verbose output of the scp command.

Executing: program /usr/bin/ssh host 0.0.0.0, user (unspecified), command scp -v -f file
OpenSSH_6.2p2, OSSLShim 0.9.8r 8 Dec 2011
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh_config line 20: Applying options for *
debug1: /etc/ssh_config line 102: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to 0.0.0.0 [0.0.0.0] port 8022.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /Users/cta/.ssh/id_rsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/cta/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/cta/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/cta/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.2
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

When you initiate port forwarding, you don't specify the user.

localhost:~ user2$ ssh -L 8022:server2:22 user1@server1

You need to specify user in the second command:

localhost:~ user1$ scp -P 8022 user1@0.0.0.0:file .

That should work fine for you


What has Apple done to make macOS partially closed-source? The macOS operating system is on nearly every Mac. What has Apple done to make sure that their users cannot see, and thus recreate or modify, the low level code that makes macOS, macOS, how have they done it, and why can't we, the users, get around their method of hiding parts of macOS?

We don't know whether Apple did anything special here (like obfuscating their code or such).

A lot of software in macOS is actually Open Source and published on Apple Open Source
The source to the kernel (the core of the OS) is available from the above link but also on GitHub where it includes the version history.
You can also learn a lot about how everything works by reading through the documentation available (e.g. Mac Technology Overview)
And there is always the technical option to reverse engineer any library or application (even though it may be illegal to do so depending on where you live)


Photos.app doesn't play audio from videos recorded by Olympus camera Apple's Photo.app has no problem playing the audio from some videos (for example, videos recorded by an iPhone). But it does not play the audio from videos created by an Olympus SZ-31MR digital camera.

These videos do play within Photos, but they are silent.

When played in Quicktime Player (and VLC), the audio plays correctly.

According to Quicktime Player, videos from this camera are encoded as "H.264, 1920 × 1080, Millions; 16-bit Integer (Little Endian), Stereo, 32.000 kHz"

This is in OS X El Capitan (10.11.2) and Photos.app 1.3 (350.23.0), but the problem is not new. This thread on discussions.apple.com claims the problem is the audio codec used by the Olympus camera.

Is there a way in which I can play these videos and get sound, without having to find the individual video files and open them in Quicktime.app? Any of the following solutions would be acceptable:

Some kind of install (a Quicktime plugin?) that fixes the behaviour in Photos.
An alternative photo browser that can import (or view in place) the Photos library and which can play the audio in these videos. (I've tried Lyn, but that has the same behaviour as Photos.)
Some way of transcoding these videos so that the audio plays in Photos. I have lots of videos and import new videos regularly, so a convenient interface would be important here.

(Answering my own question.)

The problem is that the Olympus SZ-31MR encodes its audio as signed 16-bit PCM. This audio format is not supported by Photos. So the audio needs to be transcoded in order to play from Photos.

The command-line program ffmpeg can transcode audio streams while leaving the video streams unchanged. For example, here's how to transcode the audio to Apple Lossless (ALAC) and copy the video:

$ ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec copy -acodec alac output.mov

Experimentally, it seems that Photos doesn't mind if I edit the videos in its library, so here's a shell script that automates transcoding the Olympus's 16-bit PCM to Photos-compatible ALAC:

#!/bin/sh
# Convert movies in Photos library from 16-bit little-endian PCM to
# Apple Lossless.

set -e

# Location of Photos library
PHOTOS=~/"Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters"

# Directory for movie backups
BACKUPDIR=~/movie-backups
mkdir -p "$BACKUPDIR"

find "$PHOTOS" -name '*.MOV' | while read MOV; do
  if ffprobe -v fatal -show_streams -select_streams a -of flat -i "$MOV" |
    grep -q 'codec_name="pcm_s16le"'
  then
    echo "Transcoding $MOV..."
    BACKUP=$BACKUPDIR/$(echo "$MOV" | sed 's+_+__+g;s+/+_+g')
    TMP=$BACKUPDIR/tmp.mov
    ffmpeg -v fatal -y -nostdin -i "$MOV" -vcodec copy -acodec alac "$TMP"
    mv -- "$MOV" "$BACKUP"
    mv -- "$TMP" "$MOV"
  fi
done

This script is careful to keep the original movies in a backup directory in case something goes wrong, and it uses set -e and ffmpeg -v fatal to avoid continuing after an error, but it does overwrite the movies in the Photos library, so use it at your own risk.


Finding the icon of the default application from Terminal Say I have some files

simple_doc.txt
document.pdf
website.html

The .txt file opens with textEdit by default, the .pdf opens with Adobe Reader and the .html file will open in Google Chrome.

How can I find out this information from the command line? In particular, how can I find the icon of the default application for each of these files from the command line alone.

Thank you!

Background

There's a couple of tools you can use to analyze this situation.

lsregister
defaults read

NOTE: lsregister is located here:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/Current/Support/lsregister

Navigating lsregister

You can use this command to navigate through the output from lsregister:

$ cd /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/Current/Support/
$ lsregister -dump | less
...
...
    --------------------------------------------------------
    claim   id:            15536
            name:          Plain text document
            rank:          Default
            roles:         Viewer
            flags:         relative-icon-path  doc-type
            icon:          Contents/Resources/document.icns
            bindings:      .txt, .text, 'TEXT', text/plain
    --------------------------------------------------------
...
...

The structure is a little difficult to discern but you can look for strings such as .txt and take note of the lines occurring before it.

To help us navigate this output, we can look in the Finder GUI for a type of file that we're interested in, for example a .txt file. Select it and then open up the info dialog about this particular file (⌘ + I).

For example

With the details such as the "Kind: Plain Text Document" and what application it's associated with to open it, "TextEdit" we can then look through lsregister output and see if we cannot correlate things a bit.

For starters lets look for that "Kind: Plain Text Document".

$ lsregister -dump | grep -A5 -iE 'name:.*Plain text document'
        name:          Plain text document
        rank:          Default
        roles:         Viewer
        flags:         relative-icon-path  doc-type
        icon:          Contents/Resources/document.icns
        bindings:      .txt, .text, 'TEXT', text/plain
--
        name:          Plain text document
        rank:          Alternate
        roles:         Viewer
        flags:         apple-internal  relative-icon-path  doc-type  resolves-icloud-conflicts
        icon:          Contents/Resources/txt.icns
        bindings:      .txt, .text, 'TEXT', text/plain

Above we can see that the icon for the default is this: Contents/Resources/document.icns.

References

Where does Mac OS X store file association information?
defaults CLI
Launch Services Concepts


Folder name change in Finder but not changed in Terminal iMac running Mojave 10.14.6
I changed a folder name in Finder but I can't see the change in Terminal.
old folder name: A.B
new folder name: A
in Terminal ls still shows A.B
cd . or cd .. then cd back won't change the ls outcome.
in Finder using Go to Folder can go to the new folder name, however the Path bar at the bottom shows the new name but Copy as Pathname or New Terminal at Folder are using the old name.
Restarting the iMac won't fix.
What kind of bug is this? I can fix this by mv in Terminal but I'd prefer the syncing between Finder and Terminal automated.

You probably have "Hide extension" set for that folder or have globally disabled "Show all filename extensions" in Finder Advanced preferences.


"PKDownloadError error 8" upon Catalina update How do I resolve this? Error was encountered on a 2018 MacBook Air.

I have been pulling my hair out with the same problem over the past few days, and have isolated the PKDownloadError error 8 issue - I was able to solve this via 2 methods:

use my iPhone's hotspot as the wifi for the update (note: this is
slower AND may be very expensive depending on your cellphone plan)
change the DNS settings on my home router to OpenDNS
(https://use.opendns.com/), allowing me to use my home internet
(faster & cheaper)


Missing the iPhone "Installed Apps" tab in iTunes on Mac iTunes use to allow me to see the apps installed on my connected iPhone. I could see the screens and rearrange them. But its missing now. Where did that section go?

I am using iTunes 12.7.0.166 on my Mac running High Sierra with my iPhone running iOS 11.0.1

With iTunes 12.7 Apple has removed app management from iTunes


What is the explorer.exe equivalent in OS X? I just started using Mac and would really like to get in depth detail about OS X. I tried disabling the desktop functionality — disabling the dock and other features as right click context menu on desktop etc.

In Windows, we can edit the Registry or can kill explorer.exe so as to kill the desktop environment.
Also, in Windows we have the Task Manager to manage all tasks.

Is there any such thing in OS X by which we can disable these features of desktop environment and also interact with systems with something like Task Manager or just by command line?

This is a very wide reaching question, but to answer the central theme, the rough equivalent of explorer.exe on Windows is the Finder application.  Finder is the only application you cannot remove from your dock, mainly because it is the finder that runs the dock etc, much like explorer.exe runs the taskbars etc in Windows (I think I got that right for windows)

You can kill the finder, and it will automatically re-spawn.  The equivalent of Task Manager would be Activity Monitor as a graphical app, and of course you have a fully featured Unix command line environment in Terminal, which allows you to interact with processes using all sorts of commands, for example:

ps -ef (lists active processes)

kill -9 243 (send interupt request 9, or terminate with extreme prejudice to the process number 243)

There is no Registry in OS X, which is nice because that was a horrible idea (in my opinion), but settings and preferences etc are commonly stored in .plist files that reside in either the system or an individual users Library folder, which I suppose could be analogous to the windows\system or user\application data folders in Windows.


Suddenly cannot mount Sandisk External SSD Extreme - APFS error 49218 After a reboot I am suddenly unable to mount an external USB-C SSD with Catalina 10.15.5

Disk Utility is recognizing the disk, I can see a "disk3" container with my APFS volume , but once I try to activate it I get a com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error 49218

When trying a diskutil repair I get :

Started file system repair on disk3s1 1TB - SSD
Repairing file system
Volume is already unmounted
Performing fsck_apfs -y -x /dev/rdisk3s1
Checking the container superblock
Checking the space manager
error: (oid 0xa550) cib: invalid o_cksum (0x0)
error: failed to read spaceman cib 0xa550
Space manager is invalid
The volume /dev/rdisk3s1 could not be verified completely
File system check exit code is 0
Restoring the original state found as unmounted
Finished file system repair on disk3s1 1TB - SSD

But disk still cannot be activated afterwards.

I already tried disk utility from recovery mode, no success... Also tried to connect the disk with another USB-C cable with no success...

Any idea on what to do to try to recover my data ?
Is the disk damaged ? It's only 4 months old :o

There is an app called Mountain that I use to mount stubborn drives. It has worked well for me. The app is not free but has a free trial. You can get it from this link.


Target Disc Mode from 2009 Mac mini to 2019 iMac I need to transfer some large files from an Early 2009 Mac mini to a 2019 iMac.  The Mac mini has FireWire 800, Ethernet, and USB-1. The iMac has USB-C and USB-3 and Ethernet.

Is this the best way to do it? Is this string of dongles likely to work? Would you risk using Migration Assistant for this, or just transfer the files you need (mostly photos).

FireWire 800 cable --> Apple FireWire 800 to Thunderbolt adaptor --> Apple Thunderbolt to USB-C adaptor

You should be able to connect the two machines directly with an Ethernet cable (if you do not have cabling already) and then enable file sharing on one machine, and locate that machine on the other so it shows up in Finder as a mounted disk.

Then you can just drag and drop the files.


Does synchronizing google contacts with apple address book send my data to Apple? I am using OS X 10.6.8 and I have a question regarding the address book synchronization.

Does synchronizing google contacts with apple address book send my data to Apple?

In other words, does the address book application directly sync the contacts with google or does this process goes through Apple servers and/or cloud? I am having a doubt because when I started the sync on my MacBook, the MobileMe icon appeared at the right of the menu bar. MobileMe seems to be related to cloud stuff so, is the contact book application directly interacting with google or not?

It does not route through Apple. It syncs directly between Google and your computer. The sync icon you're seeing in the menu bar is probably Sync Services (or iSync), not MobileMe. It's simply a visual indication that it is syncing.

The only case where Apple would potentially see any of this data would be in the event of an application crash, and only if it was in the crash report and only if you allowed it to be sent.


iPhone using data despite per-app cellular data being disabled My iPhone 5 with iOS 7 is using data for no reason. I have done everything I can think of to stop this.

  Turn off your wifi, then reset your cellular network statistics, let it sit for 5 minutes, then go back to the cellular pane in settings and see whats using the connection

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/22tqhd/what_is_the_spinning_wheel_next_to_the_wifi/

Here are my test results. This seemed like a good idea so I did it. I was extra thorough and did it for 2 hours. During the 2 hours I waited it did not stop at all.

Here is everything I have turned off.

Here is my usage.

I have turned off Background App Refresh. I have also closed all my apps.

What else can I try?

You need to also turn off background updates, which is where the bulk of the data usage is likely occurring.

Settings> General > Background App Refresh > Background App Refresh Off. Of course, you can choose which apps you wish to turn off individually for background refresh instead.

Don't forget that if you are worried about cell data usage, you can also put your phone in Airplane mode, which turns off all radios, but then manually turn on Wifi. This will force your phone to use only Wifi, as the cell radios are off. Simply turn off Airplane mode when you wish to use the cell radio again.