How to setup Apple Mail so it truly removes email from Google? After a lo-ho-hot of trial and error to get this to work properly I still was not able to find the sweet spot. The problem is simple. I am on OSX Yosemite and use the Mail.APP for my Google Apps for Work account. I like mail that I delete to truly be deleted, it may be moved to trash first, as long as when I delete it, it should truly be removed from Mail and Google. However, now when I delete a mail from the trash I won't see it in my Mail.APP but it does still appear in the Google trash. So technically it still exists.

My settings are the following:
Mailbox behavior:
- Everything checked. (as unchecking it will cause even more weird behavior)

Gmail settings:
- Automatically remove enabled: update server immediately (default)

The challenge is that Gmail uses "Labels" to attach to messages, and messages can have zero or more than one label, while IMAP puts messages in folders (Inbox, Trash, etc) and every message is in one, and only one, folder. Thus, when Mail.app tells the Gmail server to delete a message from the Inbox, the Gmail server cannot reliably tell if it should just remove the "Inbox" label from that message (leaving it with one fewer label, possibly still having other labels, or maybe no label but still available in the "All Mail" view) or if it should more permanently remove the message completely from the database.

The "fix" is to setup Gmail to not show the messages in multiple IMAP folders (by turning off the "All Mail" folder) and to also have the Gmail servers "expunge" the message when the Mail.app tells it so rather than doing it "automatically", even though that (default) setting on the Gmail server seems to imply that the "auto" setting would be what was desired.

I have not tested ALL of these settings (I mostly rely on the "30 days in the trash" feature of Gmail to empty things: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7401?hl=en ) and I have only recently updated to "El Capitan", but things do not seem any different from my Yosemite, Mavericks and earlier experiences. Note that as of May 2020 I am still using the same setup in systems up to and including Mojave, but have not done any testing of Catalina. The way the system works seems to be the same using either a "regular" @gmail.com account or a "Google Apps for Domains" @yourdomain.com account.

I do, however, have things set so that email does get put into the trash properly on the Gmail side of things, and it looks like there are settings available to delete things immediately, and it works on my system in the way I want it too.

So the detailed instructions are:

At http://gmail.com/, log in to your account and select the following:
"Settings" -> "Forwarding and IMAP"
Check "Enable IMAP"
For "When I mark a message in IMAP as deleted"

Check "Auto-Expunge off - Wait for the client to update the server."

For "When a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder"

Check "Immediately delete the message forever"
(I have my system set up to "Move the message to the Trash" and rely on the 30 days mentioned above)

You need to select the "Save Changes" button at the bottom for this to take effect.

These settings will only invoke the deletion (or move to Gmail Trash) when the message no longer has any Gmail tags associated with it, or in other words, when an IMAP client removes the message from all of the IMAP folders. Since one of the "folders" that can be displayed in a Gmail IMAP client is "All Mail", just deleting a message from the Inbox of the IMAP client will not cause it to go bye-bye. Thus we need to limit the "Labels"/"Folders" that Gmail exposes as IMAP folders:

On Gmail, select the following:
"Settings" -> "Labels"
Check the "Show in IMAP" checkbox for "Inbox", "Sent Mail", and "Spam" and UNCHECK the "Show in IMAP" checkbox for all of the other "System Labels". Any user generated non-system label can be set to "Show in IMAP".

Note that unchecking the "All Mail" "Show in IMAP" checkbox might make a whole bunch of email that has no other labels (is in no other IMAP folder) no longer be visible in Mail.app or any other IMAP client. Using the Gmail web interface to search up these "orphaned" messages and adding the Inbox label or some other label that is shown in IMAP would make them visible again to Mail.app.

With the Gmail system set in this manner, I find that the best Mail.app settings to use are to have the "Mail" -> "Preferences" -> "Accounts" set up for the Gmail account in question set so that "Mailbox Behaviors" is set to only "Store on the Server" for the "Sent" and "Junk" mailboxes. I have those two boxes checked, and have the boxes for "Drafts" and "Trash" unchecked. These two need to be unchecked because we have set the Gmail server to not expose those boxes as IMAP folders.

I only rarely go to the Gmail web interface, doing almost all of my interactions with Gmail through Mail.app or the iOS Gmail app. Some of these settings might have alternative setups if one did a lot of website interactions.

For Mark's desired outcome of deleting the messages immediately, the above settings should work - when a message is moved or deleted from the Gmail Inbox and Spam folders, it should immediately be deleted from the Gmail server. The message could still be available in Apple's trash can, but that is not linked to the server's trash can. (If the "Move the message to the Trash" setting was set on the Gmail server, the server will move it to the server's trash, and thirty days later, it will be gone). I do not know if Mail.app will send the "expunge" signal to the Gmail servers immediately, or only after the local Mail.app trash has been emptied, or on some other synchronization schedule.

An alternative might be to have the Gmail server expose the server trash as an IMAP folder and have Mail.app store the trash on the server. With the "Immediately delete the message forever" server setting set, this should behave as desired - emptying the trash in Mail.app should cause the Gmail server to delete the message forever. I have not actually tested this immediate deletion setup, so if anyone has any actual experience with this, please let us know.

The key to all of these is to NOT expose the "All Mail" as an IMAP folder, and to counter-intuitively have "Auto-Expunge" turned off so that the options for deleting the mail are available to be selected.

This also will not have a direct impact on messages manipulated via the Gmail website - when you use the website to remove all labels from a message, that message will still be in the "All Mail" collection, and will not be immediately delete or moved to the trash. It might be necessary to go to the Gmail website and look through the "All Mail" collection and dispose of anything that has no labels.

Note that in Yosemite and later, when you set up an account that Mail.app recognizes as a Google or Gmail account (including accounts of organizations that are hosted at Google), it will not set up the account designated as "IMAP", but will instead designate it as "Google IMAP" and will select and then grey out the "Advanced" setting of "Automatically detect and maintain account settings" which can cause the SMTP account associated with the "Google IMAP" account to also have this Advanced setting of "Automatically detect and maintain account settings" to be selected and greyed out, so it cannot be unselected. This also seems to happen when system upgrades happen and mail accounts are updated when the Mail.app program is updated.

To force the creation of a "regular" IMAP account, one can create a new account in Mail.app but use bogus IMAP server information that Mail.app does not recognize as Google servers (such as "smtp.notgm.comm" and "imap.notgm.comm"). After the account is created as a "regular" IMAP account, my testing indicates that changing the server information to the correct Google server does not change it into a "Google IMAP" account, and the "Automatically detect and maintain account settings" can (and probably should, if you don't want things to get changed without your knowledge) be unchecked. I do not know if the "Google IMAP" account designation has any other features or abilities that the "regular" IMAP account does not.

For completeness, here are the required settings for Google's Gmail system as of Nov 2015:

imap.gmail.com
Gmail IMAP user name: Your full Google account address (e.g. "me@gmail.com" or "me@company.com")
Gmail IMAP password: Your Google account password
Gmail IMAP port: 993
Gmail IMAP TLS/SSL required: yes

smtp.gmail.com
Gmail SMTP user name: Your full Google account address (e.g. "me@gmail.com" or "me@company.com")
Gmail SMTP password: Your Google account password
Gmail SMTP port (TLS): 587
Gmail SMTP TLS/SSL required: yes

Let me know if this works for you and we can update the answer with any detailed improvements you might discover.

More info is at https://web.archive.org/web/20151022160428/http://jeffschuette.com/2012/03/07/setting-up-apple-mail-to-rock-and-roll-with-gmail/ and https://web.archive.org/web/20151108133234/http://jeffschuette.com/2013/11/05/apple-mail-and-gmail-part-deux/ for Mavericks where Mail.app handles the "All Mail" label better than it previously did. For myself, I have kept the "All Mail" label not exposed to IMAP even in Mavericks and have continued with this practice in Yosemite and El Capitan.

This article from MacWorld back in 2013 covers some of the same info, and has some screenshots:

https://www.macworld.com/article/2048781/how-to-delete-gmail-messages-so-theyre-truly-gone.html


iPad Wi-Fi connection issues, including showing as connected with Wi-Fi disabled I've got a fairly new iPad, running iOS 10.3, which is doing some very odd things with Wi-Fi. Specifically, having issues with deciding it's properly connected to Wi-Fi.

Sometimes, when I go into the Wi-Fi settings, it simultaneously shows the iPad as being connected to Wi-Fi whilst the Wi-Fi is disabled:

Other times, it can go one better, and show Wi-Fi disabled + no signal + full signal:

Another trick is to show Wi-Fi as on and connected whilst off in the menu:

Fairly often, when connecting to a Wi-Fi network, I seem to have to disable Wi-Fi + wait 4 seconds + enable Wi-Fi to have it decide that there's a valid connection. If I'm unlucky, the Settings app will crash during me doing this…

I'd rather not upgrade to iOS 11 just yet, as a few apps I use haven't got iOS 11 versions out yet.

Short of an upgrade, is there anything I can do to my iPad to fix its frequent confusions about if it is connected to Wi-Fi / disconnected, has Wi-Fi enabled / has Wi-Fi disabled?

I would do a factory restore to your iPad.

Yes that does automatically update your iPad to iOS 11 but you can update to the lates iOS 10 update as well. The issue you have here is related to the software (and sometimes the connection with your other devices like an iPhone).

Use http://ipsw.me/# as your source for iOS 10 updates for the iPad. Make sure that you backup your iPad if possible (iCloud Backup or iTunes) then download the file you need (choose it based on your exact device) and then save it. Go to iTunes and where it has restore iPad, press and hold on to the "Option" key on Mac (ALT on Windows) and click on restore. That should let you select the update file where you saved it and then use it to restore your iPad.

If you need any assistance let me know.


How to read and understand kernel reports? When trying to troubleshoot kernel panics and I look at a log, I see these:

0xffffff821bd9b510 : 0xffffff802fd2bda1

I would like to know if there is any possible way of reading these, or interpreting anything from them. And also what their names are.

There is a deluge of info in a kernel panic log. I have had some problems lately so I was looking at kernel panics on my macbook and can offer the following hints based on some .panic logs I have.
First the name of the log is important. you need to look for files of the following form in your system diagnostic folder:

kernel-**(some personal data like name of my pc)****.panic

(unfortunately i got some .gpuRestart and .hang ones on mine too..)

Anonymous UUID:       F******************************* <-personal data

Sun Aug  9 22:23:37 2015

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff800c617cc2): Kernel trap at 0xffffff800c5d0395, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x0000000080010033, CR2: 0x0000000000000009, CR3: 0x0000000423b7f051, CR4: 0x00000000000626e0
RAX: 0xffffff800cce0cd0, RBX: 0x000000000000003f, RCX: 0xffffff800cce08e0, RDX: 0x0000000000000001
RSP: 0xffffff81f4cb2f80, RBP: 0xffffff81f4cb2f90, RSI: 0xffffff8019059000, RDI: 0x000000000000003f
R8:  0x00000000000001c0, R9:  0xffffff80190e6fc0, R10: 0x0000000000000100, R11: 0x0000000000000000
R12: 0xffffff80383643c0, R13: 0xffffff803e95c200, R14: 0xffffff801919e040, R15: 0x0000000000000000
RFL: 0x0000000000010296, RIP: 0xffffff800c5d0395, CS:  0x0000000000000008, SS:  0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0x0000000000000009, Error code: 0x0000000000000002, Fault CPU: 0x0

the first part shows the state of the registers . I dont think that this is info that you can personally act upon

However after that the good stuff comes...
some other register info

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
...
0xffffff81f4cb3420 : 0xffffff800c736c01
0xffffff81f4cb35e0 : 0xffffff800c733202
...
0xffffff81f4cb3fb0 : 0xffffff800c635068

and then:

      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
         com.sophos.kext.sav(9.2.50)[D9AF65D9-4A18-3B20-86BB-17DEBC7D5852]@0xffffff7f8cc18000->0xffffff7f8cc1cfff
         com.apple.filesystems.exfat(1.4)[6B0642D6-786C-323D-A762-9FFE6BFABFAF]@0xffffff7f8fa74000->0xffffff7f8fa81fff

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: InterCheck

this is info that maybe is important. It shows the last kexts (kernel extensions) loaded into your system. Most of the times they are the culprit for kernel panics... or at least the usual suspects.A good first move is to disable temporarily one of these kexts and see if the frequent kernel panics stop.

PS. it should be noted that the link offered as a comment by a fellow SE-er is very good if a bit verbose. However sometimes (eg. in a development situation) that amount of detail is just what is needed so you should definitely consult it


Wallpaper lock after mac restarting I recently restarted my mac and after login i am locked in a wallpaper.

This is a picture after i logged in.

If you know how i can make it work again you would save me !

Apple has a whole article what to do when a restart doesn’t work. Which of these steps fails you?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Once you start in safe mode, you’ll know if you need to reinstall or just make Some changes to the apps you start when the graphical boot portion is running.

Another tool would be to make a new user to test:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

You need a functioning admin account to follow Apple’s steps above and I’ll assume you can’t log in as another user. Here’s a “trick” or procedure to make a new admin account.

I don't have administrator account on my mac


Smart Cover back uncovered issues? Are there issues while using a Smart Cover for the iPad 2 arising due to the fact that the cover only covers the front?

(Not a buying recommendation, just a question about a specific plausible issue with a peripheral.)

One of the main reasons people would go with a Smart Cover over a full case is to avoid adding extra bulk.  The Smart Cover provides good protection for the screen at a minimal size/weight cost.

I use an iPad 2 with a Smart Cover daily, and it's really a great alternative to a case in my opinion.  To provide extra protection without bulk, I have added an InvisibleShield (thin scratchproof film) to the front and back of the iPad.

That said, if you are clumsy or will be using your iPad in more hazardous environments, you should probably go with a full case.


Reinstall Yosemite on Macbook Air I have bought Macbook with Lion, which I have upgraded to Yosemite. Now I want to reinstall Yosemite from stratch. Which Mac OS version will be installed if I'll follow this instructions (Command (⌘) and R keys).

Will it install Lion (which was installed on my Mac Air when I have bought it) or will be downloaded last version - Yosemite?

How can I install Yosemite from stratch?

From OS X: About OS X Recovery

  Which version of OS X is installed by OS X Recovery?

  If you use the Recovery System stored on your startup drive to    reinstall OS X, it installs the most recent version of OS X previously installed on this computer.
  If you use Internet Recovery to reinstall OS X, it installs the version of OS X that originally came with your computer. After installation is finished, use the Mac App Store to install related updates or later versions of OS X that you have previously purchased.

So as long as the local Recovery disk partition is intact it will install, at this point in time, OS X Yosemite 10.10.4.


App to hold photos and word docs in ipad I will have profiles with photos and their resume to show to clients ., how can i store a (say photos and corresponding resume in word format) in ipad., I seen some file managers ., or elase some special apps already available in market??

If you want a file manager app that can create folders and import files from other apps, I think Documents by Readdle would be a good app for your use-case.
It's free, you can create folders, import from many Cloud-services (Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.com, OneDrive (Formerly SkyDrive)), it also has an iCloud integration.


Gluing the cover of an Apple wireless keyboard Every one of the pins on the cover of my Apple wireless keyboard has cracked. The ones still there are holding on with an edge. Given the keyboard's age, I can't say these pins have a flimsy design. Lifting the keyboard to clean the sides of the buttons with a Q-tip is all it took for the cover to fall off.

I'm about to use super glue (it's not quite epoxy, but it's the closest to epoxy on the market) to glue the remaining pins in place. Before re-attaching, I'll wait 2-3 hours for the bond to cure to be sure I'm not gluing the cover back to the keyboard.

Have you tried this sort of thing? The easiest solution (just gluing the cover on the aluminum case) is not interesting, in case some maintenance is needed one day (plus, having replaceable batteries is kind-of a nice feature compared to sealed custom batteries). Can you suggest another solution, or confirm super glue works all right?

Please don't suggest to use scotch tape, unless you can suggest a brand that will detach cleanly, even two years from now.

It's not going to work, unfortunately.

I've attempted a very similar repair which only ended in failure (and despair).  The problem is the plastic and why the tabs broke in the first place - they've become brittle with age.

So with some patience you can get the tabs back on, but they will break off again, unfortunately.


How can I download the file on iCloud Drive manually? I have a few music files I put on iCloud Drive a while ago, and now I want to move them to my Dropbox directory.

So I tried to download them locally in order to move to my Dropbox directory, but the download won't start by double-tapping the filename.

I also tried to choose the "Download now" section on the file (maybe the English description is different, but it is the third menu item on the pane) but the download won't start, either.

In the past the download started immediately, but now it won't. There is enough storage in my local computer (about 90GB at least). Restarting the computer won't resolve the problem.

What is wrong with it and how can I download the files? I use Catalina Beta 6 on my 2017 12' MacBook.

Apple lets you click the file in Finder to download, but I prefer using a utility specifically designed for this.

https://eclecticlight.co/cirrus-bailiff/

Bailiff lets you set up rules and evict files the default settings think should be stored locally as well as request a download / pin files you want to keep whether the code thinks it should be freed up and only exist in the cloud.

Cirrus lets you look at the logs (and there are tons) so you can examine any specific file or container if needed to sort out a pause or error if those are to blame. They should work on beta versions and the developer is very responsive if you have a suggestion or need support in my experience.

I'm very happy with the default behaviors, but I get some people want to dictate and not trust the files come and go or wait for a download based on your internet connectivity and speeds.


No Facetime On My iPhone 4 My problem is that I can't enable Facetime on my iPhone 4. I've searched this problem on many forums and they all say Facetime needs to be turned on in the Phone app's settings, or enabled in some other settings. The problem I have is that I literally have 0 Facetime settings, anywhere on my phone. (please see screenshots).

I have an iPhone 4. It was bought second had and the previous owner said he bought it from the UK. It is on iOS 6.1.2. When I bought it, it was on iOS 5 which I upgraded to iOS 5.1 and I did not have Facetime at the time either. I jailbroke my phone and used this Cydia tweak to get Facetime. http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/10/how-to-enable-facetime-on-iphone-4-in-unsupported-countries-using-facetime-hactivator-middlewhat.html

It worked. My problem now is that I don't want to jailbreak my phone. I am on iOS 6.1.2 and it is likely that iOS 6.1.3 will not be jailbreakable. I want to get used to the idea of not having a jailbroken phone and I need a solution to my Facetime problem. I can provide any other information required.

This is what my settings look like:

Would really appreciate a solution.

PK-UFONE is a Pakistani carrier.

Pakistan is not listed as a country that doesn't support FaceTime, but some have similar problems and can't use FaceTime:

  (Sep 8, 2012) i do not have facetime option on my iphone 4 with operating system IOS
  5.1.1 please help me.

In another post a user states:

  (Aug 14, 2012) I have bought my iphone 4s from Apple Store in Birmingham,UK.I am now
  in Pakistan and connot use Facetime as the verification phone number
  displayed is that of UK.

Others successfully activated FaceTime, but activated it abroad:

  (Feb 3, 2011)
  I am not sure if it will 'activate' on a carrier in Pak. Can only
  share my experience that I hd similar situation but I activated it
  before coming to Pak and FT worked just fine on Ufone carrier.

I'd recommend that you contact PK-UFONE. Maybe you simply need a different plan to activate FaceTime.

I doubt this will help, but you can also check this Apple article for troubleshooting: iOS: Troubleshooting FaceTime.

There is a similar question related to an iPod here.


Tool for creating .rar files on the Mac? Is there any good, free program for OS X that can create RAR files? Preferably with a GUI.

It seems there are plenty of options for extracting RAR files, but not that many for compressing them...

You can use command line rar for Mac OS X, but it doesn't have GUI. On the other hand, it's useful for scripting. (I feel that it should be mentioned here anyway).


Time Machine stopped working after upgrading to Yosemite I have upgraded my Mountain Lion system to the latest Yosemite release in the App Store.

When I click the Back Up Now link in the Time Machine menu it says it's preparing the backup but it never gets past this and actually starts backing the system up.

How do I get Time Machine working again?

I had the same problem.  At the Apple troubleshooting site, it stated that the initial backup after an upgrade will take a long time.  I hit "Back Up Now" before bed, and when I got up in the morning, it had completed the Back Up.  After the initial Back Up, it works just fine now!


Can I get files off an iPhone 4 that is stuck in a firmware update loop? So I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS6 today (using the built in updater on the iPhone). The phone did some stuff for a while and then rebooted with a progress bar which never updates. If I leave it long enough it reboots and then shows that bar again.

Annoyingly I have some stuff on that I didn't back up, is there any way to fix this? Even if I didn't care about the data on the phone, I can't get iTunes to do anything and the phone will just reboot to this progress bar screen.

Not once have I had any error codes from iTunes. I'm more concerned with the data at this point and can probably force the device into restore mode once I have the files I need.

Usually this is resolved by a second restore after you reboot your computer. Of course, you might wait things out if you don't have a backup and there is any chance whatsoever the phone will complete this update without risk of losing the data on the phone (contacts, app information, documents, etc...)

To be sure you (and I) haven't skipped a step, you will want to do everything on this page.

iTunes: Restoring iOS software

Pay attention to the link at the bottom should you get there about putting the device into recovery mode. That will wipe everything, so don't do that unless you have a good backup from this morning (or whenever you started the update process).


Why can't I open downloads from Google Chrome's download bar? For some reason, clicking on downloads in the Google Chrome download bar does nothing any more; I'm pretty sure it did until some time recently, but it's been a while since it did.

Also, choosing "Show in Finder" doesn't work. So, it seems that Chrome in general can't open anything in the Finder.

If anyone knows what is causing that, I'd love to know it, or alternately, how I could go about troubleshooting it myself.

Edit in response to comments:

I've tried re-downloading it, although not running it from another directory; I'll try that at home.
I'll give it a shot.
No, the downloads list is no more functional than the download bar with respect to Finder integration.

It's caused by a bug in 10.8.2. Occasionally revealing files in Finder stops working in all applications, and for example Archive Utility stops responding when extracting archives.

As a workaround, you can terminate appleventsd from Activity Monitor or with sudo killall -kill appleeventsd (without -kill the process is sent a TERM signal, which makes other processes stop responding). The issue will probably return within a few hours or days though.


Adding Google to the Internet Accounts is not working After changing networks where i used a proxy to go online back home I got the message in Chrome that my login details are not up-to-date. I tried to log me in and it works until I close the browser. If I open it again, the same error comes again.

After googling I tried the following; nothing worked for me:

Make a new profile in Chrome for my Google-Account
Reinstalling Chrome and set up everything from scratch

After that, I tried to remove my account in the System Settings. I removed the account and deleted all passwords. However, when I try to make a new account, it get stuck after I entered the password and want to accept the preferences (see screeenshot). It is stuck now for nearly an hour. Maybe someone has a solution for me

Fixed it for me. I had to restart my computer. After that it worked without any issue.


How does a misspelled city name get fixed in Maps? Apple has been misspelling the city "West Des Moines" as "West des Moines" (no capital "D") for quite some time now. I tried reporting this issue a number of times through the Maps application during the past few years, but it has still not been fixed.

How do I go about getting the city name fixed? Who does Apple get the data for its cities on its Maps application? I'm guessing Apple's map provider or providers need to fix this at their level.

The same issue occurs when I take a pic in West Des Moines. The Photos app lists the location as "West des Moines".

I would send Apple this name change request through the feedback page Maps for iOS or Maps for Mac.

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How to change a Mac/iCloud account the right way I'm helping someone who is divorced and needs credentials changed on her iMac. It is using a local account with her ex-husband's name and iCloud account. I would appreciate some assistance with a strategy so I don't overlook anything.

Access point SSID and password have been changed, as well as the router's password (which was still set at factory default!). Her email password has been changed, along with website passwords.

I have created a new account on the Mac with Administrator access and changed the password on the old account. Verified it has no remote access apps. Ready to create a new Apple iCloud account based on her own e-mail address.

The things that are on my mind due to knowing MacOS less than Windows:

What happens to apps purchased on the old Apple ID once this machine is updated to the new one? Must they be repurchased?
iCloud's list of devices includes this Mac, her kids' iPads, and her iPhone. But it also includes his iPhone. Best way to move these devices to the new iCloud account without disturbing his?
Best way to copy Safari and Firefox history/bookmarks/etc to the new account?
Any other important steps?

You can’t split an AppleId so either one party keeps it or the other keeps it. Then you remove the account from all devices not belonging to the new owner.

When you delete an account, you can choose to retain the data locally or erase it. Without a backup, this choice is permanent.

Since app purchases cannot be transferred

Data like Safari history(other than copying from ~/Library folder) is more amenable to an export or migration once you detach from iCloud keeping in mind only one owner of the account remains. To deranged things, one option is to change the email address and all other info of the account so it matches one identity. This preserves all the devices' sign-in and data.

As comments say, both old and new account are not Apple domains, Logging into AppleID account page and changing the email address would work. Verification is required ofc.

  You can change your Apple ID to another third-party email address if your current Apple ID is a third-party email address. You can also change your Apple ID to a login alias that already exists.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202667


Find My Stolen Mini Mac After Installing New Clean Mac OS X Installation My Mac Mini was stolen from my office and I think it was stolen by my colleague. They are all software engineers and I think the thief will install a fresh version of macOS on the stolen Mac Mini.

My question is , can I see my Mac's location even after the thief installs a fresh clean macOS onto my stolen Mac ?

I know Find My Mac information is saved in NVRAM and the thief can erase it without booting the whole Mac by some shortcut keys.

Is the serial number of the machine paired with The Find My Mac function at Apple? If yes, can I find it even after a clean macOS installation?

I bought an iMac from a colleague - he wiped it completely and it was in the power up install process choose language.

Then as I continued the normal install it stopped as it thought it was stolen...

The serial number is checked against Apple ID’s and as it was still listed against my colleagues Apple ID it refused to continue...

Once my colleague removed it from his device list for his Apple ID all was then fine as I added it to mine.

So it may not work for them even if they do a fresh install until you remove that serial number from your Apple ID - at least that was my experience.


What is the bottom thumb swiper bar called in iOS 14? What do you call the black line at very bottom of the screen in the following picture? It is used to activate "App Switcher".

Image taken from https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/bars/toolbars/


How to use Homebrew to install local archive I'm trying to use Homebrew to install wget, but something is happening where the download is always corrupt.  This happens for all packages, not just wget.  I can download the tar.gz fine through a browser.  Can I use Homebrew to install a locally downloaded archive?  Something such as:

brew install wget-1.14.tar.gz

If Homebrew already has a formula for it (in /usr/local/Library/Formula), and you have the exact archive that the formula expects (i.e. same file name and same contents, as determined by SHA1 or whatever hash type the formula uses), you can put the archive in ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew and then try brew install formula_name (substituting the correct name for formula_name, of course).


Rosetta 2 is not installed on M1 The terminal writes about a successful installation, but it is nowhere to be found. And no program can be run through properties.
After such a problem, I tried to find the old program in the store and start the installation like this. But it's strange. Programs that have not been updated for several years are quietly launched.
softwareupdate --install-rosetta
I have read and agree to the terms of the software license agreement. A list of Apple SLAs may be found here: http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/
Type A and press return to agree: a
2021-04-16 17:32:59.495 softwareupdate[2131:42413] Package Authoring Error: 071-08933: Package reference com.apple.pkg.RosettaUpdateAuto is missing installKBytes attribute
Install of Rosetta 2 finished successfully

I do not appear in the properties to run through Rosetta
I even downloaded an old Intel program from 5 years ago and it started quietly but Photoshop does not work.
How do I install it so that everything works? help me

The terminal is likely lying to you - the error message should say, “Rosetta is already installed” when I see that. If you are sure you don’t have Rosetta and it’s not running and you did get a new Intel app after the error, one lpotential cause of that error is if your network has failed to deliver the update from Apple content delivery network (hard to tell if CDN is overloaded or it’s your network with one try, though).
I would restart the machine and try again. If the error persists, you may need to try a different network or look at reinstalling the OS or troubleshoot further.
A call to Apple support to escalate to engineering may be needed if they don’t fix this “issue” of the installer messaging.


Notes script to access notes in specific folder? I have tested this Notes export script (https://github.com/alexwlchan/notes-export/blob/master/notes-export.scpt). It seems to work, but the issue is that I want to specify a specific Notes folder to export, rather than every single one.

The issue is the main loop clause:

repeat with theNote in notes

"notes" is a Notes field that is a collection of all notes. However, I only want notes in a specific Notes directory. I have no problem specifying the Notes folder by name and having the script confirm that the folder actually exists. Unfortunately, I don't see this documented anywhere.

How do I, in AppleScript, get the list of notes in a specific Note folder? I also need to get the notes's path, since in some cases the Notes directories I am exporting in turn have sub-directories.

Try:

tell application "Notes"
    set myFolder to first folder whose name = "FolderA"
    set myNotes to notes of myFolder
    repeat with theNote in myNotes
        -- insert your code here
    end repeat
end tell


Can I mirror my second and third monitors but not the first for a presentation? Assuming I have an external monitor plugged into my laptop and a projector - I now have three monitors.

I want to be able to see what is on the projector from the second monitor and leave the primary monitor for controlling the presentation.

My question is: Can I mirror my second and third monitors but not the first for a presentation?

I don't know how to do it exclusively in Keynote, but it is indeed possible to mirror two of three displays.

Open Display preferences, click the ? at the lower-right of the "Arrangement" tab of "Displays" system preference. To set up a combination of displays showing mirrored and extended desktop images, set up the three displays as an extended desktop, and then Option-drag a display icon onto another display icon to mirror the two displays.

Instructions with pictures.


How to check which process took a desktop screenshot on macOS? I heard a shutter sound when pressing the ▼ (down arrow) key on (lock screen) login page. I heard it again 10min after login, when using the same key again. And then heard it no more, even when using the same key.

I found 2 full screenshots on my desktop, both identifying the time and the respective screen I heard the sound. First of the login page, 2nd of my desktop (icons opened apps, etc).

How can I find which app / process took the screenshots?

obs: I'm running macOS Sierra and I'm using a bluetooth Logitech keyboard.

My Chrome has the Adblock Plus and Privacy Badger extensions enabled only; I'm running Sophos AV.

Using the log utility in Terminal you should be able to identify what exactly happened.

If you don't know the exact second that this happened go into Language and Region System Prefences settings and click the "Advanced Settings" button then go to "Times" tab and drag the blue box next to "Second:" in the "Time Elements" section up into the first line labeled "Short" so you can see seconds now along with dates in Finder's Date Created column.

In the Terminal app enter the following, substituting the correct time in 24h format and correct date (YYYY-MM-DD) for a couple seconds prior to the timestamp of the file and however many seconds after:

  sudo log show --start "2018-10-23 23:45:17" --end "2018-10-23 23:45:47" --info --debug --signpost | grep -i screencapture

This will likely detail what prompted the screencapture process to take a screenshot. If it's all labeled < private > you will have do another additional step to get this info but it's very simple.

Very appropriate joke(?) about the NSA too. It actually really demonstrates the notion that malware or any sort of compromise is so far fetched that only someone like the NSA would understand it. The reality is that it's extremely unlikely that your computer hasn't been compromised. Considering most users think they have a magical stealth firewall and are protected by top secret Apple security features only makes the problem worse. Apple is at the end of the day just another for-profit company and admitting they've been perpetuating this lie for a long time past its expiration date would be very bad for its bottom line and stock price.

Considering you have an AV product installed and are suspicous enough to ask this question it's very likely there's some sort of keylogger/remote access/spyware installed. Confirming this is possible but typically made more difficult thanks to Apple's own security features being altered to actually protect and hide the malware ensuring persistence.

To date there are 6,275 enteries for Apple products in the National Vunerability Database. Many are critical flaws that are only patched by Apple after being documented and reported via this official process which also to some extent broadcasts the flaw to the world. Even more concerning is that Apple only addresses vunerabilites that are properly flagged via this official process and only for the version of macOS, iOS, etc. that is required. So new and old version often can be vunerable to an issue that was at one time addressed. It is, after all, easier to say you've built a magical computer than to actually make one.

Thanks to dedicated malware developers most people would never notice these little additions. Maybe you can learn to live with it..maybe imagine its a little fairy who watches over you and remembers all your passwords or checks to see you're getting to bed on time. Best of luck..


Can Terminal access the microphone in Catalina? (for SoX, FFmpeg, Ecasound, pyaudio etc.) When I try to record audio from the command line with programs such as SoX or FFmpeg it doesn't record anything and ends up with a flat-line recording. I am guessing this is due to privacy restrictions from macOS Mojave/Catalina. This is similar to the issue Audacity is having, in which the fix is opening it from the terminal to trigger a request for microphone permissions.

This answer suggests granting Terminal access to the microphone from System Preferences. However, it will only show up in the list if Terminal requests it. So is there a way to grant an application unrequested permissions?

I also saw that Apple tech support have said non-GUI apps can't access the mic. Does this mean command line audio recording is completely broken? As it seemed to work perfectly on previous versions, could there be a fix for it like there is for Audacity?

If Terminal isn't showing up in the System Preferences list for microphone permissions, open it by:

open /System/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal

Then run a program that uses the mic e.g.

sox -d -d

(Not a pre-installed program. This will let you hear your mic input)

That should trigger it to request. If that didn't work try running the command on a different command line e.g. iTerm2. This is a problem and solution similar to the one for Audacity on Catalina. I'm not sure what the exact cause is though.


What are safe files to delete to free up space? Apart from deleting old documents and apps that are no longer useful or can be re-downloaded again from the App Store (like iMovie / Garageband), what can safely be deleted from a Macbook Pro?
I deleted Caches from /Users/John Doe/Library/Containers/com.apple.safari which was 1.1GB, which contained a WebKit folder and a few other ones.
In general, if you ignore the /var directory, what files from the /Users/USERNAME/Library and the /Library directory (aside from Caches very infrequently) are safe to delete to free up space and will have no major consequences on the OS?

Technically, you can delete every thing in the User Library and the system will continue to work just fine. A brand new user account has nothing in its Library, after all.
The user Library contains iCloud Drive files, iOS backups, user-specific app data like Mail and Messages, as well as settings and preferences.
But realistically, the small amounts of space you can save here and there (and the constant manual management) is not worth the effort: the biggest occupier of space is your apps and your files. If you're filling up a small internal storage drive, then you need to think about using external drives, network or cloud-based storage.


How long does the battery last on mid-2011 MacBook Airs? I know that one of the big innovations in the MacBook Air was in the battery (which gets most of the internal volume of the computer!)

What is a normal loss of battery life (change in usable time on battery starting from a full charge) for a mid-2011 13" MacBook Air? After how many charge cycles does one expect to see a substantial reduction in usable time? Is there any recommended course of action for someone to take to slow or reverse this degradation once it begins?

Battery Life
Apple's documentation states that the battery of the Macbook Air performs just like the batteries of the Macbook Pro:

The built-in battery of your MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air is
designed to deliver up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles before
it reaches 80 percent of its original capacity.

In addition, Adaptive
Charging reduces the wear and tear on the battery giving it a lifespan
of up to 5 years.

During this lifespan the batteries will have a fast charge to 80% of the current battery capacity (2-3 hours). [source]

Battery Maintenance

Do not leave your Macbook plugged in all the time. The battery juices need to move from time to time. It's recommended that you charge and discharge the battery at least once per month.

Temperature: Keeping your Mac at room temperature (22°C/72°F) is ideal.

Long Term Storage: Apple recommends that you store the battery with a 50% charge, if you are not planning on using it for at least half a year.

The innovation in the design of the battery of the Macbook Air was not about increasing capacity, but about the ability to manufactures them very thin. The batteries of the Macbook Air are located towards the thin end of the Macbook Air.


OSX suddenly hangs/beachballs all the time - possibly caused by windowserver or aperture? Since a day, my Macbook Pro has (quite suddenly) become very slow. Of course, this is just a couple days before a major deadline :-). Any help would be appreciated! If there any questions I can answer, ask away.

It beachballs all the time. This happens in whichever app I’m running at the time, and independently of how many apps are open and which apps are currently open.
It seems to be especially slow when actions that require drawing things are taken. I.e. showing the dock, typing text, pasting text, opening a right-click menu or a new window. For example, I tried to right click to open a menu just now and it beach balled. I am not entirely sure if this has anything to do with OSX actually having to draw things, or if it’s just that it’s slow because it needs to do something slightly more complex, but I think it has something to do with graphics.
Sometimes, when a certain app starts to beachball, I can switch to another app and I can use that one fine. Switching back to the beachballing app becomes impossible. Sometimes, even switching to other apps or using expose stops working.
Sometimes the dock (set on autohide) seems to not want to show, or when I click an app on it, nothing seems to happen. It’s as if it doesn’t register my click. Same goes with launchpad or for example Firefox's back/forward buttons.

I can’t really think of any direct cause. I was using it fine yesterday, and since yesterday night it is suddenly b0rked. Two-three days ago, I installed two apps: Boom (including its helper application, BoomDevice) and Aperture (because meh@Apple Photos). I’ve since uninstalled both using CleanMyMac3, and ran a script to remove the helper application. No improvements though (I did restart).

I’ve had the feeling on previous Mac OS X installs I have that my Mac becomes slow after installing Aperture, even when it’s not running, but it’s never become this slow.

What I’ve already done/checked

Checked system monitor to see if there are any processes hoarding memory or CPU. There don’t seem to be any processes with any CPU footprint > 10%. Except for Windowserver, which seems to take between 3% and 15% of CPU, which seems high to me.
Used bitdefender to run critical and deep system virus scans - no results.
Removed all Today widgets in the notifications menu
Tested if it seems tied to running a particular app such as Firefox or Calibre.
Reset my Firefox profile
Ran CleanMyMac 3 maintenance scripts
Uninstalled Aperture, Spotify and Boom using CleanMyMac3’s uninstaller
Uninstalled the BoomDevice helper application using the Apple Script provided by the developers
Ran the Disk Utility’s first aid tool on the Macintosh HD partition and the HD (?) itself. Didn't find anything on the Mac HD partition, but on the HD itself (the numbers/serial code thingie?) it found some minor partition issue it fixed (to no avail)
Disabled all sources in Spotlight settings

Past issues that might be relevant

One problem from the past worth mentioning is that I’ve
returned this Macbook for repairs twice, under garanty, because its logic board was fried (the wellknown graphics problem with the late 2011 macbook model where its graphics card would die and the screen would go berserk. The weird problem is that this happened even after having it repaired within the special Apple program). I'm kinda afraid my current problems might be a precursor to having this happen again.
I've returned this Macbook twice to reinstall Mac OS X since somehow the Mac OS X installer (in the recovery mode) fails to recognize this computer’s serial number. This is also the reason I’ve not just reinstalled El Capitan right now (or upgraded to the new version), because I’m afraid it’ll turn my Macbook into a brick again…

Information about the computer

Model: MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2011)
OS Version: El Capitan (10.11.6)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Memory: 4GB
Most used apps: Firefox, Sublime Text, Alternote, iBooks

According to the EtreCheck post, your harddrive is about to die. Do the following a.s.a.p.:

Backup all the data you don't want to lose on a different storage medium
Create a Recovery USB drive using https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433?locale=en_US
Replace the harddisk
Either reinstall using that USB drive you made, or use internet recovery if supported

There is a slight chance that it's not the harddisk, but possibly the SATA cable between the harddisk and the mainboard. This cable is cheap and I would recommend to replace it while you're at it.

For harddisk replacement, I would recommend a SSD instead of a traditional harddisk, it will make your Mac feel like new. While you're at it, upgrading the RAM to 8GB or 16GB will definitely help a lot performance-wise and make your Mac last a few more years.


Why do I have to unlock an iPad to charge it? When I plug in the "iPad (6th generation) Wi-Fi + Cellular" to the MacBook, it always says "unlock this iPad to use accessories."  What it doesn't say is that it also won't charge until I do so.  Took me several times to figure this out.  (Has a cover, so I didn't see the message.)

But the iPhone 7+ doesn't do that.  Both have IOS 12.4, so there must be a setting that I am not recognizing.  Or are there distinct unlabeled "flavors" of IOS?

How can I make it start charging as soon as plugged in, even if screen is locked?

The 'unlock to charge' is a new security feature since iOS 11.4. If you charge from a device that asks to communicate over USB you have to opt in.
Alternatively, just plug in to a 'dumb' charger or employ a USB data block dongle / condom to physically prevent “juice jacking”. If there's no potential data connection, there's no restriction on charging or prompt to unlock.

To elaborate a bit, this design prevents hardware USB devices read data from your device. Remember when the FBI wanted to get into some guy's phone & tried to force Apple through the courts to 'let them in'? This is the current state of play in the hacker 'war'.

It can be disabled if you don't think you have any data on there worthy of government or black hat hacker intrusion.

Apple KB - Using USB accessories with iOS 11.4.1 and later

Settings > Face [Touch] ID & Passcode > USB Accessories


Can I use my regular 3.5 mm earphones with an iPhone? The earphones that I have received with my iPhone have 4 metal connector jack. By the size of it, it looks 3.5 mm in diameter. Unfortunately, the white earphones are not of the in-ear type and slip out from my ears quite frequently.

I have a different set of Sony earphones with a 3.5 mm jack. It has 3 metal connectors which means that if I insert it in the iPhone, at least I am shorting out 2 metals receptors on the iPhone female. Is it fine to do such a thing? My guess is that if the short is occurring between the mic and the ground, it should be fine as usually not a lot of current is sourced to a mic. I was just looking around for more information. A connection diagram would be great.

Yes, you can use any earphones with a 3.5mm audio jack. I'm surprised you did not just try it out :)

I thought I'd add some additional background information I just read about in a report on yet another Apple-Samsung patent case, Apple holds a patent on an audio jack which has the circuitry to detect the type of headphones plugged in, and I can only assume this is what they actually use in their iPhones.


Syncing iPhone 3G with iCloud Was wondering whether it's possible to sync non-iOS5 devices (in this case iPhone 3G) with iCloud? In particular I'd be interested in syncing contacts.

I know syncing iCloud e-mail won't be much of a problem, as it can be configured as a standard IMAP account, but what about the contacts? Does contacts syncing go via some standard protocol that iPhone 3G with appropriate settings could use?

Its easy:

Go to: setting > Mail, Contacts, Agenda   and "add a new account".
Choose "other"
Then add "CardDav-accounts" under "contacts" tab

In the server field first fill in: contacts.icloud.com
Then you apple id and password, then add or save account.
Then the server address will change to something like:  p02-contacts.com

Next step is to know what unique apple ID you have, you can find it here on your mac:

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources/<iCloud Account ID>/Configuration.plist.

Now, go back to the just created account on your iPhone for your contacts and change the server address field.

Contact server: https://p02-contacts.icloud.com:443/<uniqueid>/carddavhome/

You have to add everything above, so https://<your correct server>:443/<your uniqueID>/carddavhome/

Before you do all this you have of course setup iCloud and make sure that you have address book checked. Also make sure you have deleted your MobileMe account on the iPhone first if you have one.

It might take some time but it will work.


Cannot connect to Linked In on Chrome or Safari on OS-X SSL Issue I tried fixing the issue of not being able to access LinkedLn by installing lots of certs from DigiCert in my Keychain and while that fixed LinkedIn, I then couldn't go to Github.com. I ended up having to restore my keychain from time machine, and for the /Library and /System/Library paths, I had to do the restore to a temp directory. THis only affects Safari and Chrome, and not Firefox.

Any way, I got my system back to accessing github, but LinkedIn still has the issue.

Is there any utility to properly check and fix SSL configuration issues on Mac OS X?

~/Library/Keychains
/Library/Keychains
/System/Library/Keychains

Should I maybe just trust the linked in cert (or digicert one)?

Safari gives me options:

Firefox shows LinkedIn as fine:

Next, digicert.com shows a SSL error on Chrome, but not on Safari:

Even more oddly, when I click for more info from Chrome, the Cert shows as valid!

I wouldn't start randomly trusting individual certificates for websites. That just sounds like a bad idea. Without the chain of trust to confirm the provenance of the certificates it just seems like too much of a risk.

One option is to visit DigiCert's site and download the specific DigiCert certificates that are missing and install them. You appear to still have the High Assurance EV Root CA certificate installed that the site uses, so you can be confident that you are downloading them from the proper source. Just download the file and open them, Keychain should launch and accept them.

https://www.digicert.com/digicert-root-certificates.htm

I'd also recommend running Keychain First Aid. You can find it on Keychain's application menu.


How can I screen record iPhone and Android screen at the same time visible right next to each other? I need to create an app video that need to show interaction b/w a iPhone and a Android phone (Galaxy).

I could use quicktime to screen record single iPhone screen.

How can I screen record iPhone and Android screen at the same time?

The two screens should be visible right next to each other showing everything that is happening on the respective screens.

Does this help? Maybe you can use QuickTime for the iPhone and the options on this link for the Android. Then export the Android video.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/android-screen-recording-apps/


How do I install Windows 7 without BootCamp and keep the OS X installation intact? Because I already used BootCamp for creating the partition I used for installing Ubuntu, now I am not able to install Windows 7 by using BootCamp.

Here is my disk partiton configuration:

refit (fat)
osx (hfs+)
freespace (here I want to add the NTFS partition)
linux-swap (raw)
linux-ubuntu (ext4)

How can I install Windows 7 on the freespace I do have now on the disk? I do not want to destroy osx partition by mistake.

You'll probably need to redo this setup and install Windows 7 before Ubuntu. I am pretty sure if you install Windows 7 it will take over the GRUB bootloader. There is an article on lifehacker that gives instructions on how to set this up http://lifehac.kr/ihVY4k


Is the iPhone 4 antenna problem fixed in the iPhone 4S Is the iPhone 4 antenna problem fixed in the iPhone 4S?

Was it secretly fixed for all new models or just the iPhone 4S or none?

I think so. Since Apple placed an extra antenna (now they are two) in the iPhone and they redesigned the whole antenna system (an extra receiver in the frame inter alia).

And according to the movies in this blogpost, it seems like the new system did fix the so-called antennagate! They compared the iPhone 4S reception with an iPhone 4 which is suffering from the antennagate.

According to Apple itself, the system...

  Intelligently switches between two antennas to transmit and receive


How to disable Two-factor authentication for Apple ID? I want to disable Two-factor authentication for my Apple ID.

When I log in to Apple ID website, and click edit, it lists Two-factor authentication as On, but does not allow me to turn it off.

How can I disable it?

Two-factor authentication can be turned off up to two weeks after enabling it. If it has remained enabled for over this period of time, you are locked into using it (for your account's safety, as per Apple.)

It is a useful feature which adds an extra layer of security for your account. Also, as per Apple, even if you do not wish to use it, certain features in iOS and macOS software require this extra level of security.

From the Apple Support document on Two-factor authentication, Two-factor authentication for Apple ID:

  Can I turn off two-factor authentication after I’ve turned it on?

  If you already use two-factor authentication, you can no longer turn it off. Certain features in the latest versions of iOS and macOS require this extra level of security, which is designed to protect your information. If you recently updated your account, you can unenroll for two weeks. Just open your enrollment confirmation email and click the link to return to your previous security settings. Keep in mind, this makes your account less secure and means that you can't use features that require higher security.


Can I upgrade RAM on late 2013 retina Mac Book Pro? Do the late 2013 models (13" - (ME864, ME865, ME866), 15" - (ME293, ME294)) support RAM upgrades?

No. The RAM is soldered to the logic board in all of these models.

Here is the logic board from iFixit's Teardown of the low end 15'' model (2.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 256 SSD).

Inside the yellow box are 16 x 512 MB DDR3 SDRAM (8 GB total) memory chips. As you can see, they are soldered directly to the board and cannot be replaced without replacing the whole logicboard.


Quickly transfer file from iOS device to new Windows computer I often need to transfer files from my iOS devices to university PCs. The university PCs always delete all user-installed programs and files upon logging off. What is the easiest way to transfer a file from my iOS device to the Windows PC?

I currently upload the file to Google Drive and then download it again on the PC, but this requires me to log in and relatively takes too much time.

I tried using SnapDrop (snapdrop.net or yg.gl), which is a sort of browser-based “AirDrop” service which works across OSes. However, neither device can see each other since it only works if you’re on the same WiFi network (the PC is connected to Ethernet).

Is there any faster way of securely transferring files from my iOS device, which wouldn’t require me to install anything? (I would otherwise need to install it every time I logged in, which would make the process slow)

I think uploading to Google Drive is the best solution without installing any programs. If you use your email in your university anyway, you can email the files to yourself and then download it again.


How to uninstall Samsung SmartStation display driver from Mac OS X? How to uninstall this Samsung DisplayLink USB display driver for Mac OS X?

I had some trouble doing this, so I figured I could share it, it might be useful to someone.

Get the DMG file you used to install

I personally used this one:
http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/SW/201206/20120626165207619/Samsung_Smart_Station_CA650_x.dmg

Mount it

A double click in the finder should do it

Extract the setup package

This will create a temp folder on your desktop that you may remove at the end of the procedure.

cd ~/Desktop/
mkdir tmp
cd tmp/
tar xf /Volumes/Samsung_Smart_Station_CA750/Setup.app/Contents/Resources/Installers/Samsung_Smart_Station_Lion_10_7.pkg

You can/should replace the pkg file with the latest that matches your OS (tested here with the "Lion 10.7" package on Yosemite 10.10, it worked).

Unpack the display driver setup package

cd sgfx1072.pkg
cat Payload | gunzip -dc |cpio -i

It replied 20340 blocks on my setup.

Uninstall the Display Driver

Now we're done, you can either browse with the finder or run this:

open Applications/SMSC/SGFX\ Uninstaller.app

Your machine will reboot free of this driver.
You may now remove the tmp folder that lays on your desktop.

Special thanks to this answer that helped me unpack the pkg files: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11298855/how-unpack-and-pack-pkg-file


Can I put music files on an iPod without iTunes? I can't find any definitive info on this and I need to know for sure before I purchase one.

I hate iTunes with a burning passion, but I like iPods and I have a whole lot of music on my PC.

How can I move music from a Windows computer to iOS without using iTunes?

A google search for "iTunes alternatives" returns a lot of results. For example: http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager.php


Not even root can `ls .Trashes` on external disk in MacOS I want to look in the trash directory on an external disk connected to my Mac.
db@15 ~ % cd /Volumes/2TB/.Trashes
db@15 .Trashes % ls
ls: .: Operation not permitted
db@15 .Trashes % sudo su
Password:
shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
sh-3.2# ls
job-working-directory: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
ls: .: Operation not permitted
sh-3.2# cd ..
chdir: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
sh-3.2# pwd
/Volumes/2TB
sh-3.2# ls -lO
d-wx--x--t@   5 su        staff     hidden         170 Aug  6 21:30 .Trashes
sh-3.2# xattr .Trashes
com.apple.FinderInfo
sh-3.2# chmod o+r .Trashes
chmod: Unable to change file mode on .Trashes: Operation not permitted

What now? There seem to be no flags that applies and just one extended attribute.
Why can't root ls or chmod this directory?

On my imac, I went to /Volumes/MyBook/.Trashes and I just tried sudo ls and it worked. It asked me for a password and then listed the contents. I was able to do sudo ls from then on without the password.


/private/tmp vs /private/var/tmp vs TMPDIR What is the differences between these directories?
How long is the files stored in each of them?

The oldest file/folder I could find in each of them were

/prviate/tmp, 13 days old
/private/var/tmp, 28 days old (2-3 days after I upgraded to Lion)
TMPDIR, 1 day old

Note: TMPDIR is what you get when running echo $TMPDIR in Terminal. My TMPDIR is /var/folders/3y/d44gn_2x7vv8d9d67969f54c0000gn/T/

TMPDIR as defined in OSX is only accessible by yourself which reduces the risk of somebody else accessing your temp files created by programs using mktemp() to create temporary files.

The difference between /tmp and /var/tmp is more subtle and goes back a long way in the Unix world, the discussion concerning the differences and uses are probably going on since the first Unix system was deployed with both (see Google for long list of links). /tmp resides on the root filesystem so it it accessible as soon as the system starts (even if no other disk is mounted yet) but may be rather small. The /var filesystem usually is in another partition and much bigger. I've also encountered systems where /tmp was just a ramdisk or a symlink to /var/tmp. It's not that way on OSX though.

/tmp is cleared out regularly on OSX (see /etc/defaults/periodic.conf), /var/tmp very rarely (if at all).


Using AppleScript to modify contacts not working I'm trying to use applescript to clean up various problems a large address book, to large to fix by hand. I've been able to find and observe contacts and groups in AppleScript successfully. However, any sort of modifications I make to any property of a contact do not persist, even after calling Application save. For instance, this script to change the first name of my first contact:

tell application "Contacts"
set thePerson to (item 1 of people)
log (get name of thePerson)
set first name of thePerson to "JustTesting"
if unsaved then
    log "unsaved"
else
    log "not unsaved"
end if
save
log (get first name of thePerson)
return thePerson
end tell

This script doesn't work - it does not modify my first contact, and also logs "not unsaved".

I am using 10.8.3 Mountain Lion. What am I doing wrong here?

(I've asked a similar question on SO here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17140148/how-to-modify-an-abperson-instance-using-pyobjc , on how to do this with PyObjC)

Answering my own question. Looking at errors in the console after running the above script, I saw many errors looking like:

AOSKit ERROR: (-) RAF: Invalid url -- https://[myemail]@webdav.facebook.com/[myfbid]/contacts/

(email and id changed of course). I have a 'Facebook' account set up in OS X preferences. By an educated guess, I deleted this Facebook OS X account, and then re-added it. After that, the above script works correctly.


What is the use of selection like blue box in pdf apps? What could be the use of that selection like blue box(see the + sign and box from by it) which can be formed when we right click and drag in files like pdfs? on home screen this will be useful for multi selection of icons, so what is use of it in pdf? its is not selecting anything when we start dragging at some empty place.

If its not having any function then why is it present?

It is used for selecting content in the PDF. The selected content could then for example be copied to the clipboard.

Note that not all PDFs have content which can be copied in this way.


Cannot Connect to internal IP addresses My OSX 10.8 machine can no longer reach several machines on my home network's internal IP range.  For example, I have an internal server which is also NAT'd through the router to accept SSH.  The server is at 192.168.1.65.

~$ ssh 192.168.1.65 -v
OpenSSH_5.9p1, OpenSSL 0.9.8x 10 May 2012
debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/jakes/.ssh/config
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh_config line 20: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.65 [192.168.1.65] port 22.
debug1: connect to address 192.168.1.65 port 22: Host is down
ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.65 port 22: Host is down
~$ ssh myDynDNSDomainToTheSameMachine
jakes@myDynDNSDomainToTheSameMachine's password:

The same thing happens if I try to RDP to another machine -- similar setup.  RDP to it's internal IP does not work.  RDP to my dynDNS domain works fine.

It CAN connect however to the router and wireless access point IP addresses over http: 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.254.

Connection from other machines (including IOS devices) internally to other internal IP addresses works fine, it's just this OSX machine that has started to show this issue.

Can anyone offer any suggestions to troubleshoot?

EDIT:  I found that I'm getting incomplete ARP entries:

~$ arp -a
? (192.168.1.1) at c0:c1:c0:65:c2:0 on en1 ifscope [ethernet]
homedesk (192.168.1.64) at 0:22:5f:2b:d:4c on en1 ifscope [ethernet]
raspberrypi (192.168.1.65) at (incomplete) on en1 ifscope [ethernet]
my-ipad-2 (192.168.1.77) at 1c:ab:a7:94:42:54 on en1 ifscope [ethernet]
home (192.168.1.254) at b0:e7:54:3d:c2:e9 on en1 ifscope [ethernet]
? (192.168.1.255) at ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff on en1 ifscope [ethernet]

Is that a problem on the OSX machine, the raspberrypi, or the router?

I hooked my laptop up to my WAP, which was a linksys router set to be "bridge-only" mode and should not be doing any actual routing.  With this, I was able to reach the internal IPs without issue.

So I rebooted the WAP and the problem cleared up.  I guess it had nothing to do with OSX/Apple after all, and just a bug in the linksys bridge-only code.


Do the chips in 2018 Macbook Pros have fixes for Spectre and Meltdown? I know there are software fixes in macOS, but I want to know when the hardware is fixed. I'd like to buy a new Macbook Pro, but only after the hardware is completely fixed.

The 2018 Macbook Pros have "Coffee Lake" Intel chips.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro#Technical_specifications_4

Various articles say that Intel would release fixed chips in mid 2018, but I don't see specifics.

Did a hardware fix make it into the chips in these 2018 Macbook Pros?

Intel announced via press release that the patched CPUs will be integrated into their hardware in the 8th generation chips shipping the second half of 2018:

These changes will begin with our next-generation Intel® Xeon®
Scalable processors (code-named Cascade Lake) as well as 8th
Generation Intel® Core™ processors expected to ship in the second half
of 2018.

Anything manufactured prior to 2H 2018 will be updated via microcode software patch:

First, we have now released microcode updates for 100 percent of Intel
products launched in the past five years that require protection
against the side-channel method vulnerabilities

Which Chips?
The three new chips that were released in Q3 2018 are (all mobile):

Kaby Lake G (9706G)
Whiskey Lake (8565U)
Amber Lake (8500Y)

Whiskey Lake is the only CPU line to have the actual fixes in hardware where as Amber Lake and Kaby Lake G are both "Kaby Lake" based CPUs.

The situation with Amber Lake is a little different. Intel confirmed
to us that Amber Lake is still Kaby Lake – including being built on
the 14+ process node – making it identical to Kaby Lake Refresh as far
as the CPU die is concerned. In essence, these parts are binned to go
within the 5W TDP at base frequency. But as a result, Amber Lake
shares the same situation as Kaby Lake Refresh: all side channel
attacks and mitigations are done in firmware and operating system
fixes. Nothing in Amber Lake is protected against in hardware.

Emphasis Mine
Bottom line, unless you're running a Whiskey Lake CPU, mitigations are still done in the OS and in firmware microcode.

Get Your CPU Identifier
To find which CPU your system currently configured with,  issue this command:
$ sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string

It will output something similar to the following:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz


Is there a way to make the Menu bar show at all times in fullscreen windows? I'm new to macOS and I really like the way you can assign a window to be it's own Desktop via full-screening. However, I have an issue with the default way the Menu bar works in full-screen.

I often move my cursor to the top of the screen to click on my tabs in my browsers and editors, and accidentally trigger the Menu bar obscuring my tabs. Other times I'd like the Menu bar to be available at a glance rather than having to trigger it by mousing up.

Is there some setting or application that will force the Menu bar to show at all times for full-screened windows?

It appears I'm not the first to have this issue, but the solutions in this post didn't work for me and based on the comment for the top answer it won't work for anyone.

If there is no way to do this can anyone give me a hint where I can get started writing an application to do this?

PS: Please don't suggest that I simply hold alt when clicking the fullscreen green button or anything else like just resize the window to fill the screen". This doesn't solve my issue because it strips away many of the advantages of fullscreening.

I've been annoyed by this, too, and the simple, yet very, very painful answer is to hold alt ⌥option and press the green title bar button (which should turn into a + when you hold option/alt)

If this doesn't make it cover the screen, you can finish the job by holding alt ⌥option and double-clicking a corner to resize the window to fill the screen.

If you make your dock hide by default, this essentially gives you a "fullscreen" program with the menu bar always shown.


show long filenames immediately in Mountain Lion when hovering mouse and key press In Leopard, at the finder, when a file/folder had a long filename (and it truncated it with an ellipsis "…"), I just had to press the option (alt) key and hover the cursor on that file/folder, and it would show a tooltip with the full filename.

In Mountain Lion (10.8.2) I can't do that, and I haven't found a way to get the full filename without selecting the actual file and going to "Get Info".

So, is there a way to get the full filename without selecting the file/folder in Mountain Lion just like it could be done in Leopard (immediately get the full filename tooltip via a keyboard key and hovering the cursor over the file/folder)?

The tooltips are still shown in column view and icon view if you hover an item for about two seconds (no need to hold option). I don't know about list view though.

You can also select an item and press return to enter renaming mode.


How to recover NTFS volumes after accidentally formatting drive as JHFS+ volume? I was reinstalling 10.9 Mavericks on my dual boot setup.
I had 2 separate HDDs for 2 OS, both Hitachi 500 GB. But i accidentally formatted the Windows 8 HDD (NTFS) to Mac extended journaled.

I had really important files on it.
The disk had 3 partition (the 1st for Windows files, 2nd one was for my work files and the 3rd partition was for other files)

I need to recover everything or at least the work partition

How can i do this?

I started writing up a long complex answer on how to recover your data using tools like Disk Utility to create a backup image and testdisk to recover the partition table, because that might be all you need to do.

But if you don't already have experience doing work like this and this data is valuable to you, you should really go to a data recovery specialist. At the moment this might be a simple fix, but a wrong step could make this much more complex.

Please find a local data recovery specialist and ask them to recover your data.


No timezones for any location I cannot set any timezone on my Mac. If I go to Date & Time and pick any location I always get empty timezone.

Running:  sudo systemsetup -listtimezones
returns
Time Zones:
When I try to set timezone from command line I go info about invalid timezone.
What is interesting:
/etc/localtime -> /var/db/timezone/zoneinfo/Europe/Warsaw
Still time is not correct for Warsaw timezone.
I tried set automatically and not - nothing helps. (I did reboot laptop)
I suspect there is some cache for timezones which is corrupted, but I don't know how to rebuild it.
System Version: macOS 10.15.6 (19G2021)
Kernel Version: Darwin 19.6.0

I think you are encountering the same issue as Time in GMT or Missing Time Zones in systemsetup. I posted a solution there. In my case, I didn't even have the visual representation of the timezone on the map.


Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client on OS X Yosemite - CSD library signature verification failed I just updated my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) to latest OS X Yosemite (10.10 (14A389)) and Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client (3.1.05182) is generating an error while trying to connect:

Posture Assessment Failed: CSD library signature verification failed.

Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client VPN User Messages, Release 3.1 - Cisco states following:

CSD library signature verification failed.
Description    The signature of the library could not be verified. This indicates a problem with the CSD library.

Recommended Action    Remove the library from the cache, and try a new connection.

Removing library from the cache did NOT solve my issue(

Any other ideas?

I had the same problem as the OP with Cisco AnyConnect version 2.3.2016: installing OS X 10.10 Yosemite broke it. Scrounging up a copy of 3.1.05187 WORKS (kind of) on my Mac.

I said "scrounge" because I couldn't download the correct version from Cisco's web site, because I don't have a login there associated with our license, and I couldn't get our local tech folks to understand why I couldn't just install the "MSI" file on my Mac.

Anyway, searching the web for "anyconnect-macosx-i386-3.1.05187-k9.dmg" unearthed a copy from a university web site (not something I like to do, particularly with security software), and behold, it installed and runs!

One wrinkle: unlike the older version, the newer one didn't route DNS lookups through the VPN. When Cisco establishes a VPN connection, it seems they edit "/etc/resolv.conf" to add the VPN's DNS servers. That doesn't work, and there's a warning to that effect in the Apple-generated "resolv.conf" file.

My work-around is to consult what Cisco added and manually add those servers through the Mac OS X Network Preference Pane.


How to minimize all windows/applications to the dock? ⌥+⌘+M as mentioned in multiple docs only appears to minimize the current (focused) window.

I am looking for the "Show Desktop" equivalent.  If it matters I'm using 10.6.4.

⌥+⌘+M actually minimizes all windows of a current application, not just the current focused window (unless of course, the application you have running only has one non-minimized window.)

The easiest way to hide all active applications is to select the Finder/Desktop, and then "Hide Others." The keyboard shortcut is ⌥+⌘+H.

You can also simply hold ⌥ and ⌘ and click on the Desktop, or Finder on the Dock, or of course, simply use Expose and hit F11 (Or whatever you've rebound Hide-all to.)


Removal of proposed updates I don't want to update my epson printer driver since I'm informed that it's likely Epson's method of preventing the use of non-Epson cartridges. Is there a way to stop the proposed update from popping up every morning when I start iTunes ?

There are two places the pop up can come from.

Apple store web site
Epson software that you installed on your computer.

If it is Apple-- If you right-click on the Update button you get the option to hide the update.

If it is the Epson Connect Printer Setup Utility v1.30 on your computer find it and select NO-auto updates.


Is there a way to force tethered data to go through an iOS VPN, instead of passing through raw to the mobile carrier? When tethering a cellular-capable iOS 10 device, the traffic from the remote machine seems to bypass the connect-as-needed VPN and go directly to the cellular network. Local iOS device traffic starts and uses the VPN as usual, but web sites visited from the remote machine see the mobile IP address, not the VPN IP address (regardless of whether the VPN is on at the time of the visit or not).

One purpose of a VPN is to shield traffic from the prying eyes of the (mobile) ISP. Is there a way to force tethered traffic through the VPN (other than by putting the VPN on the remote machine)?

No, it seems that's not possible.

I have made several tests with different VPNs and VPN settings on my iPhone - some on demand, some not, but even when switched on manually, tethered traffic was never sent through the VPN.

I've also tried setting OverridePrimary to true as described here (it is false by default when creating the profile in the Apple Configurator), but that did not change the tethered traffic either.

The remaining solution is to install the VPN connection on your tethering client.

BTW, if that client is a Mac, you can simply import the same VPN profile by double-clicking on the mobileconfig file created for iOS.


Does installing Command Line Tools for Xcode also install Git? When I run git --version I get git version 1.7.12.4 (Apple Git-37), and it seems to be located at /usr/bin/git. I don't remember installing Git, but I did install Command Line Tools for Xcode in order to install Homebrew. Not a full Xcode install — just the command line tools.

I'm trying to figure out how best to update to a newer Git version, and determining how it was originally installed would be helpful. I think it came with the command line tools installation, but I'm not 100%.

Yes, the Command Line Tools package does include /usr/bin/git. You can see what files are included in an installer by pressing command-I:

As of 10.8, OS X does not come with git preinstalled.


How do you turn Three Finger Drag on? I'm trying to use the new "three finger drag" gesture in Lion and it's not working. There isn't a preference setting for it in TrackPad -> Point and Click either. Does anyone know how to turn it on?

Some older Macs only support two finger scrolling on the trackpad, not three. Since you're not seeing a setting for three finger drag, I'd guess your hardware just doesn't support it.

Are you able to do other gestures that require more than two fingers? If not, it's probably a hardware limitation, and you could just get a Magic Trackpad.


Big Sur beta on external disk vs internal disk? I've read this question: Remove macOS from a APFS container? and this question: APFS - Is it possible to install 2 macOS versions inside one APFS container?
It seems there is a little bit more mess to using (the admittedly very cool) APFS to install more than one OS.
The way the Apple support document mentions it, it seems so easy, and APFS is very modern and flexible.
However, as you can see in the question linked above, it's more subtle. Removing the second OS can require lots of manual steps to clean up the recovery partition, etc.
So my questions are:

Is this messiness still present in Big Sur/Catalina running side by side? Does using a separate container help this?

If installed on an external disk, does this issue still persist?

In summary, Apple's support of multiple OS side by side in separate partitions seems to forget about the contamination of VM, Preboot and Recovery partitions...

In general, I would recommend installing it on an external SSD disk. First, you won't have to worry about possible disk issues with your regular MacBook. Second, it is easier to erase and manage with Disk Utility.
Just as long as you know how to install correctly, I would go for that option.
Edit: While setting up a separate APFS works well in many ways, such as dynamically adjusting the size, the slight risk is still present in case things go wrong.


App locker for iPhone I use an iPhone 6s. I am looking for an app locker. I tried searching on the App Store, found various app locker apps but none of them works.

Is there any method to lock my apps?

The said functionality is neither built into iOS natively (unlike some Android phones), nor is it available via any 3rd party apps.

However, certain apps which deal with sensitive content give you the ability to restrict access partially or totally via Touch ID/Face ID authentication. Common examples include banking, financial data management, password manager apps etc.

Partial restriction entails requiring successful authentication when accessing sensitive parts of an app (such as when authorizing a purchase on the App Store). Total restriction entail requiring successful authentication every time when accessing the app (accessing a password manager app).

Total restriction is very similar functionally to app locker feature offered in some Android devices either natively or via a 3rd party app.

To learn more about Touch ID and Face ID, refer to these links:

Use Touch ID on iPhone and iPad
Use Face ID on your iPhone or iPad Pro

A good number of built-in and 3rd party app support Touch ID/Face ID authentication. You can also search for apps catering to specific required feature (hiding sensitive photos, videos, notes) with support for Touch ID/Face ID authentication to access content.

Look for Touch ID/Face ID support in an app when going through its description or settings. Apple's Notes app for example lets your lock certain notes with Touch ID. 1Password - Password Manager for iOS offers total restriction and asks for authentication every time you try to access the app (very similar to app locker functionality).


Hard drive no longer accessible This is a 4 TB hard drive formatted in Mac's Disk Utility as a single non bootable Exfat partition with the drive letter G. It worked fine before I decided to make a clone drive of my C bootable drive. During boot Windows repaired the new clone drive with the letter E, after that G is no longer accessible in Mavericks or Windows.

The hard drive is listed in Mac's Disk Utility and Windows Disk Management. But there's no drive letter and I'm unable to mount it.

In Windows Disk Management, the Hard Drive shows as Healthy "EFI System Partition" labeled as Free Space. All the options are grayed. Only "Convert to Dynamic Disk..." is accessible.

As for Disk Utility in Mac, the mount option does nothing, and Repair returns:

  Error: This disk doesn’t contain an EFI system partition. If you want to start up your computer with this disk or include it in a RAID set, back up your data and partition this disk.

As mentioned, this is a non bootable drive.

The documents in the drive are very important, so a format would be detrimental.

sudo gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=4000787030016; sectorsize=512; blocks=7814037168
gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 7814037167
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34      262144      1  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
      262178        2014
      264192  7813771264      2  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
  7814035456        1679
  7814037135          32         Sec GPT table
  7814037167           1         Sec GPT header

TestDisk results:

I suspect Windows` chkdsk or another Microsoft tool to erroneously repairing the partition table of your device containing the EXFAT volume.

The result of sudo gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk2 of my 4 TB device created in a VM and formatted with Disk Utility in comparison looks like this:

gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk2
gpt show: /dev/disk2: mediasize=4000655081472; sectorsize=512; blocks=7813779456
gpt show: /dev/disk2: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk2: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk2: Sec GPT at sector 7813779455
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640        2008
      411648  7813365760      2  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  7813777408        2015
  7813779423          32         Sec GPT table
  7813779455           1         Sec GPT header

(Please consider that the mediasize, the blocks and some other values are different to yours, because i use a slightly smaller example disk here.)

The differences to your finding are obvious: the first partition of your disk isn't aligned properly to the 4096 byte sector size and is smaller. The second partition starts too early and is probably too big.

You probably have to fix both partition. This will only work if you partitioned the drive with Disk Utility in Mac OS X.

Preparation:

Backup your Mac and then detach all external drives.
Download  and install wxHexEditor. Enable the root user and log-in as root.

Hint: While working with wxHexEditor don't use copy and paste. Enter everything manually! You might accidentally write directly to your disk.

Where does the EXFAT partition start and end?

First you have to determine the starting block of your EXFAT volume:

Open Terminal and enter diskutil list. Get the Identifier of the disk to repair.
Open Calculator. Open wxHexEditor. Check that you work in read-only mode ("Options" -> "File mode" -> "Read only"). In the menubar go to "Devices" -> "Open disk device" -> choose the appropriate diskNumber.
Hit the search button (marked with the red circle in the picture below) and enter EXFAT (exactly like in the picture). Please try to arrange the wxHexEditor window like in the examples below with straight red lines.

My EXFAT entry (see picture below) is at offset 210763776. Now you can calculate the start block of the volume with: OffsetBytes/512 = NewStartBlockEXFAT. The start block in my example is 411648.

If you get a significantly smaller starting block (=<409639) stop here, because you probably didn't partition your disk with Disk Utility previously.

The ending block of the EXFAT volume can't be determined easily; we have to guess it (somehow). The problem is the variable gap between partition 2 and the second GPT table. In your case it has 1679 blocks, in my example it has 2015 blocks.

Method 1 (maximal size in the "unallocated space" between the block containing the EXFAT string and the second GPT table):
The maximal volume size is StartBlock2ndGPT-NewStartBlockEXFAT. The size has to be dividable through 8. Reduce the size until you get a size dividable through 8.
Example: In my case the maximal size would be 7813779423 (StartBlock2ndGPT) - 411648 (StartBlockEXFAT) = 7813367775 (which isn't dividable through 8). The biggest size dividable through 8 is 7813367768.
Method 2 (minimum size containing all occupied blocks between the block containing the EXFAT string and the second GPT table):
You might jump to sector 7814037135 (the first block of your secondary GPT table) with the arrow button (the second button left of the search button) and search backwards and match case disabled with "Find some bytes" to get the last occupied sector. This may take a while. Make a note of your finding (if you have one in a reasonable timeframe). Divide the offset through 512 to get the sector number. The sector number should be smaller than 7814037135. Now calculate the provisional minimal size of your volume: StartBlockEXFAT+1-LastOccupiedSector. The result must be dividable through 8. To get size add blocks until the size is dividable through 8.
You may stop the process after 5 minutes without result because then the last occupied block number is probably smaller than 7807917625 assuming the process searches 10 MByte/s (the last ~3 GB of your disk). Use Method 1 then.

Both results probably lead to a wrong size of the EXFAT volume, but this should be repairable. It's more important to get the proper start block. Additionally method 2 may deliver incorrect results if the disk has been completely filled with data previously using a different partition layout and hasn't been zero-filled afterwards.

Restoring the "old" GPT

Here i assume the identifier of the disk containing the EXFAT volume is disk0.

First you have to unmount the disk

diskutil umountDisk disk0

Check the partition layout, then remove the two partitions:

gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk0

gpt remove -i 2 disk0
gpt remove -i 1 disk0

Since the (Apple-)EFI usually has a fixed size we can easily add it with:

gpt add -b 40 -i 1 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk0

With the start block of the EXFAT partition and Size (the volume size found with Method 1 or 2 above) we can also add it:

gpt add -b NewStartBlockEXFAT -i 2 -s Size -t EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 disk0

Remount disk0 with:

diskutil mountDisk disk0

Quit Terminal, Calculator and wxHexEdit and open Disk Utility.
Check your EXFAT volume for errors.

If you run into problems (e.g you can't find the proper EXFAT volume size), have doubts or questions immediately stop and contact me with a comment @klanomath!


"Soft Return" character (Shift-Enter) on iOS? How can I enter a soft return character (Shift-Enter) on iOS?

There is actually a way by using the microphone symbol on your keyboard and then saying “nieuwe regel”. That is Dutch for “new line” but I am not sure what the exact english equivolant is. But it works, it creates a soft return.


iPhone LED / Flash light on charging? I just recently bought an iphone this year, and need to know if it has any led flash light for letting my know that it's charging?

I have iPhone 5c, and it's got this setting for light for call and message alerts. I'm trying to look for a similar setting for when it's in charging mode.

Please could someone provide any help regarding this?

Sadly there is no led light for when it is charging it only vibrates/shows a picture of a battery


iOS Calendar showing year as 2559 BE My iPhone 5's Calendar shows the year as 2559 BE and I'm unable to change that to the current year.

Your phone doesn't actually have the wrong year. It looks like your phone is set to use a Buddhist calendar for some reason. To change it to Gregorian:

Go to Settings > Language & Region > Calendar > Gregorian.


Move window to other space by pushing; multiple monitors as discussed here it is impossible to move a   window to another space by pushing it against the side of the screen. I wanted to know if there now is a workaround for this, since it is really annoying, thanks.

The workarounds are fairly well described on the page you linked...

Disable 'Displays have separate Spaces' in System Preferences > Mission Control.
This will re-enable the drag action, if you hit the extreme left or right of the screen pair.
Grab the title bar & use the appropriate shortcut key  Ctrl ⌃    [Number]  - though this needs setting up in System Preferences > Keyboard > Mission Control. Commands are added with each Space, but not activated by default.
You can also use  Ctrl ⌃   ←  or  Ctrl ⌃   →


What is an iTunes card generator? I was just wondering what is an "iTunes card"? Also, what is an "iTunes card generator"? What is the use of it and how could anyone get this?

An iTunes Card is Apple's version of a Gift Card. It comes in a different range of values ($10, $15, $25, $50 or $100) and it can be used to redeem any item of the iTunes Store, App Store, iBooks Store, and Mac App Store.

An iTunes Card Generator is a software which allegedly generates these gift codes, so that you can acquire anything from the aforementioned stores without actually paying anything.


Photo indexing software for Mac OS X 10.5.8 with the ability to upload to a photo printer / sharing service? I want to scan old color slides using a Nikon Coolscan on Mac OS X Version 10.5.8.  I want a program that will allow me to index these files and add descriptions, dates, locations and other information.  I would like this program to upload to an image sharing service like Picasa, Flickr, or Shutterfly so that I can print them out and share them with others but also keep them private.  I don't want third parties to be able to copy and print them.

That's precisely what iPhoto is for.  Google has discontinued the Picasa exporter for iPhoto, but there are numerous other exporters including:

Flickr exporter, and an exporter for Shutterfly.


Bash on OS X 10.4 ftp server I am running OS X 10.4 on a G4 using Rumpus software for a FTP server. I keep reading I do not have to worry about Bash Bug if I am not running a web server or other services. does my FTP server qualify as other services. Am I vulnarable

The primary concern would be if you were running Web Sharing with mod_cgi enabled. The other issue is if you have remote login enabled. If the latter is enabled, your system is at risk.

It's unlikely that your system is all that vulnerable. If you have got Xcode's developer tools (including gcc) installed, you might want to give compiling your own binaries a try. The page linked below is chock full of different approaches to solving the particular problem:

How do I recompile Bash to avoid Shellshock (the remote exploit CVE-2014-6271 and CVE-2014-7169)?

For ease, you'd want to retain the same bash base version as you have now, which is likely v2.05b. There are newer versions available, but some differences in behaviour may cause things to break. As such, it's best to take your existing 2.x version and apply the patches available to it. Currently, there are 10 patches released for that version of bash.

Patches can be downloaded here:

https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-2.05b-patches/

The download of the main 2.05b source is available in the parent directory:

https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/

In summary: Are you vulnerable? Yes. Is it likely to be serious? No. If you have the skills to fix it yourself, then I recommend doing so. Apple last released a security update for Tiger in Nov 2010. As such, it's unlikely that Apple will ever release an update for that OS version again.