iOS 11: How to change DNS settings for cellular/mobile data? Is it possible to change DNS for cellular internet? How can it be done without a jailbreak?

I've tried Apple Configurator, but didn't find suitable settings.

Build your own VPN using OpenVPN & easy-rsa on a digital ocean cloud server ($5/mo for cheapest VM & 2TB monthly transfer), configure VPN to tunnel/forward all traffic, set up Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 on VPN, then use Apple Configurator to set an always on VPN connection.

Can confirm this is how I do it, I set up Ubuntu 16.04 server instance and the above and never shut my vpn off.


How can I make Automator ask the user for a destination directory? How can I make the script output the encoded file in a user defined directory?

I'm trying to build an in-house media file encoder based on Automator and ffmpeg.

I want the source file(s) to be dropped on the app's icon and then ask the user where to output the encoded files.

So far I have an Automator app where I drop files onto it and it runs this AppleScript:

    on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "Terminal"
        activate
        set filesString to ""
        repeat with file_ in input
            set filesString to filesString & " " & quoted form of (POSIX path of file_)
        end repeat
        do script "for f in" & filesString & "; do

ffmpeg -i \"$f\" -c:v copy -an ${f%.*}_264.mp4

done"
    end tell
    return input
end run

Currently the app outputs the encoded file at the same directory as the input file.

How can I make Automator ask the user for and use a destination directory?

Automator - 'Ask for Finder Items'

You should probably want to clean up your code. Now you are using and AppleScript and Automator and BASH.

Anyway, in Automator you can ask for a location, store that variable and use it later in your Shell script. You can 'stack' variables in an array by concatenating 'Get Value of Variable'.

Example code and screenshot:

# all input arguments
echo "${@}"

# The 'Output location' is the first in the stack
echo "Output folder location: ""$1"

# Loop through the remaining arguments
for f in "${@:2}"
do
    echo "Video file:""$f"
done


Folder on left side of the dock I would like to add a folder to the left side of my Dock. When I try to do this it isn’t accepted. However, I can add it to the right side of my Dock. This doesn’t suit me for this particular folder.

My question is: Is there any way to add a folder to the left side of the Dock?

Yes, this is possible, but it may not behave the way you want.

What I mean is that adding a folder to the right-hand side of the Dock allows it to spring open, and also provides you with options as to how its contents should be viewed and sorted. Placing it on the left-hand side does nothing except open the folder for you within the Finder. If this is acceptable, then follow these steps:

Wthin the Finder, select your folder and press commandI (or go to File > Get Info)
In the Get Info window that pops up, you’ll see a Name & Extension field. Add .app to the end of the folder name.
Press return and in the pop-up window that appears, click on the Add button
You’ll notice that the folder icon has changed - ignore this for now and leave the Get Info window open
Now add the folder to the location you want
Now go back to the Get Info window and remove the .app you added to the folder name at Step 2
Press return and in the pop-up window that appears, click on the Remove button
You can now close the Get Info window

In a few moments the folder’s icon should return to normal and you can now click on it within the Dock. Remember, doing so will only open the folder in the Finder.

Note: If you ever accidentally remove the folder from the Dock you will need to repeat the 8 steps above. However, you may find you need to restart your Mac before doing so.


How can I move my signature from one Mac Mail account to another? Mac Mail has some nice features, and I have used it for many, many years. But I can not figure out how to move a signature from one account to another.

It makes no sense whatsoever that I can't use an existing signature on a new account.

I tried to just create the new signature for the new account. I tried to cut and paste from the old signature, unfortunately, the image does not come over.

Right-clicking and choosing Import Image in the signature actually tried to pull an image from a scanner or a camera? There doesn't appear to be a feature to import an image from your local files, which is just really beyond bizarre.

It seems like you are trying to do two different things a) attach an image to a signature; b) assign a signature to an account.

To attach an image to your signature.

After you open the Apple Mail preferences click on the Signature tab.
In the left column click on 'All Signatures'.
Either click on an existing signature, or click on the '+' button below the middle column. Then select your new signature.
In the right column, after editing your signature, place the cursor where you would like the image to appear.
Open Finder and navigate to the location of the image you would like to ado your signature.
Left-click and hold, then drag the image file to the signature panel. Then release the mouse button.

You should now see the image in your signature.

To assign a signature to an account.

After you open the Apple Mail preferences click on the Signature tab.
In the left column click on 'All Signatures'.
Click in the middle column.
Left-click and hold on the signature you want to associate with the new account.
Drag the signature to the new account and release the mouse button.

FYI, if you have multiple signature assigned to an account, you can change the order in which the signatures automatically appear by drawing them in said order. Then from the “Choose Signature” pop-up menu, below the signatures panel, select “In Sequential Order”.


Restrictions pin change I have inherited an iphone as my work phone, the user previously set the restrictions PIN number and I have no idea what it could be and therefore cannot change and delete his apps
Any body got any ideas.

You can restore your device to remove the restrictions passcode. This will delete the contents of the device, but you can restore a backup afterwards.

Connect the device to iTunes, choose your device and click Restore. This will erase and restore your device. Once this process is complete, you can set up the device as a new device or choose to restore from an iTunes or iCloud backup.


How to decrypt the system keychain from another mac at the command line I just ran into a situation where a user with a Mac that had been hard broken by an interrupted update needed into their Time Machine backup outside of the normal recovery process. Unfortunately, they'd forgotten the password to do this.

I have access to the filesystem on the broken Mac, and needed to recover their Time Machine password as well as anything else in the System keychain.

Difficulty: The system keychain does not use a normal password, it uses random bytes.

How do you decrypt a system keychain?

You need the following things:

One dead Mac with a readable filesystem (called the Source machine from here on)
One new Mac or Linux machine (called the Target machine from here on)
The System.keychain file from the source machine.

This file is located in either /System/Library/Keychains or /Library/Keychains

The SystemKey file from the source machine. This contains the actual password.

Located in in /var/db/SystemKey

Internet access on the target machine.

Step 1: Recovering the encryption key for the source keychain

We can't use SystemKey as is - it contains random bytes that can't be entered into a password dialog or command line. Even better, we need 24 bytes out of the middle of the file - after the magic number that indicates a key file, but before the checksum bytes.

The proper command to get the right hex key is:

hexdump -s 8 -n 24 -e '1/1 "%.2x"' /path/to/SystemKey && echo

Explained: Skip the first 8 bytes from the beginning of the file, continue 24 bytes after that, and use the format string to dump the data out on one line (it's a C-style printf string, if you're curious).

The && echo is so we get a single newline afterward so the output doesn't run into the beginning of your shell prompt after the command finishes.

Copy this string aside. This is the decryption key for the keychain.

Step 2: Dump the keychain using the password

We need a third party tool for this. We're going on the assumption that the dead Mac can't be booted in such a way that we can use its Keychain Access app normally.

That tool will be Chainbreaker - a python script. You'll need to install the hexdump library for Python. Run the following commands on the target machine:

sudo pip install hexdump
git clone https://github.com/n0fate/chainbreaker
cd chainbreaker

Now we simply give chainbreaker the key you just found and the file:

python chainbreaker.py -f /path/to/system.keychain -k (the byte string from step 1)

You'll see the plaintext password of everything in the system keychain. For my use case, I wanted the Time Machine password, and this will be represented in the output as a Generic password record named Time Machine. The plaintext password will be below.

Now we can simply use the Finder to open the Time Machine .sparsebundle, give the password we dug out of the keyfile, and continue as usual.


Independently change Lock Screen and Login Screen background image in macOS Mojave First of all, this question requires some terminology.

I'll refer to the Lock Screen as the screen you see when you lock the screen.
I'll refer to the Login Screen as the screen you see after a restart before you login.

This answer gives a great method for changing the Login Screen background image. I've found other sources that give the same answer. However I've not found any way to change the Lock Screen background image to be something different from the Desktop's background image. Is there a way to do that?

Furthermore, when I choose Logout [user], I see what I have called the Lock Screen, not the Login Screen as I would expect. Is this the intended behavior?

Mojave will use the desktop image from your first desktop on the lock screen.

The easiest way to change the lock screen to something else is to add a desktop, and drag it to be the first desktop and change it to what you want the lock screen to be.


iPhone 6s 3D touch overly sensitive On an iPhone 6s running iOS 11.2.5, suddenly 3D Touch is triggered at the slightest touch. For example, swiping to go back always opens the 3D touch app switcher and holding an app icon on the home screen opens its 3D touch shortcuts menu. Resetting the phone’s settings doesn’t help. What else could I try?

Go to Settings -> General ->Accessibility -> 3D Touch.

You'll see a slider there that allows you to control the sensitivity.


Macbook Air Bootcamp Assistant leads to Windows 10 install error 0xc0000001 Finally managed to get my partition to work, but now when installing Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Home N, or Windows 8.1, none will work and I am prompted with the error code 0xc0000001 loop. Please help. Here is the diskutil list of my drive.

The partition looks right.  Did you go through the BootCamp creator to create the installation media?  Drivers for the Disk Controller are added to the installation media by BootCamp.

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8276897 for an explanation.
See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201468 for Apple's official instructions.


File browser for iPad Is there an app for the iPad that let's you view an NFS share?

It seems like File Browser lets you mount SMB shares and iFiles lets you view different cloud storage sites like Flickr and other file shares such as FTP but neither support NFS or SFTP? Is that correct?

Thanks for your input!

Air Sharing HD supports browsing SFTP (among many other protocols, but not NFS) and works well. It's the best iOS file browser I used up to now.


Why can’t I enable True Tone on my iPhone 11 anymore? I noticed today that True Tone has disappeared from my iPhone 11 settings. Even in the control center I can't find it anymore. I rebooted it but it didn't come back.

Any idea on why it's gone and how I can get it back ?

I just came back from the Apple Store and they found the problem: my Ambient Light sensor was faulty and they changed it for free. Thanks anyway for your help !


Finder Replacements? Since it appears to be impossible to disable the creation of .DS_Store files in Finder I'd like to know of alternatives to Finder.

Ideally this would be a Community Wiki with one piece of software per answer and a description of the software with instructions for installing would be great.

Possible duplication:  Are there any free alternatives to the finder.  (Note that one non-free alternative is discussed as well.)

I don't know if any of the alternatives mentioned there help you evade the metadata issue.


How to remove the default application for opening a file? How do you remove the default open with application for a file extension? Not change it but remove it so when I try to open it a popup says "There is no application set to open the document “file.blabla”.

Use RCDefaultApp. With it, you can set the file association to <disabled>
Another option is to use the command line and lsregister. lsregister is located in /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/ To see all the available commands, run /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister. See this article for more information.


Popcorn-Time movies error loading data, try again later The error appears when choosing the movies tab. I am noticing it in Popcorn-Time Version 0.3.5-4 (0.3.5-4), OS X 10.10.1.

Also noticed that the movie thumbnails are not appearing.

Fixed it by clearing the parent directory /Users/SOME_USER/Library/Application Support/Popcorn-Time. (Replace SOME_USER)

I also have to clear all cache and data.

I also got the latest version from the continuous build in http://ci.popcorntime.io/job/Popcorn-Time/

Update: I also use this technique to debug. I run the app in the command line.

$ pwd
/Applications/Popcorn-Time.app/Contents/MacOS
$ ./node-webkit

Noticed this error (replace xxx with the username).

[61835:0207/235212:ERROR:leveldb_database.cc(280)] Failed to open LevelDB database
    from /Users/xxx/Library/Application Support/Popcorn-Time/IndexedDB/app_host_0.indexeddb.leveldb,
    IO error: /Users/xxx/Library/Application Support/Popcorn-Time/IndexedDB/app_host_0.indexeddb.leveldb/LOCK:
    No further details. (ChromeMethodPFE: 15::LockFile::1)

I deleted /Users/xxx/Library/Application Support/Popcorn-Time/IndexedDB and the issue disappears.


Transferring iPhone Voice Memos Is there a way of transferring iPhone voice memos to a Windows computer without linking it to the computer by iTunes or sending them via mail?
Thank you.

Best way to do is, is using an cloudsharing app, like Instashare (There are a bunch of them, just search the App store and you'll find a lot of them).

Concidering you'll use Instashare, download the app and set it up. Open your voice memo app and click on the share button. Your familiar share screen will popup. If it isn't listed yet, click on the more button next to Messages & Mail. Enable instashare or any app you want to use, close it by clicking done. Then click yours app its icon. Depending on the app, you have to choose where to place it, but after that it's stored for you. Just now download on you're pc and you're done.

For this method you'll need IOS 8, which is supported for the 4S. Otherwise it'll become really complicated to share it, then you'd better use mail or USB.


Scheduling cronjobs at specified time I have scheduled some jobs in crontab which are to be run one by one, at some specific time. My script for crontab is :

15 10 * * * /Users/sri/files/BatchFF.sh
45 11 * * * /Users/sri/files/BatchGC.sh
15 13 * * * /Users/sri/files/Batch_GUI_FF.sh
45 14 * * * /Users/sri/files/Batch_GUI_GC.sh
15 16 * * * /Users/sri/files/Batch_Sim_FF.sh
45 17 * * * /Users/sri/files/Batch_Sim_GC.sh

These scripts ideally should start at 10:15, 11:45, 13:15, 14:45, and so on.
But the scripts are not starting as expected, rather they start at 10:15, 10:15, 10:16, 10:16, 10:17, 10:17.
These scripts are writing some log files also.
I am running it in Apple McBook Air, with OS X 12.4.0 Darwin

Can I suggest you look into using LaunchD. Cron is officially deprecated on OSX. LaunchD has a lot of really nice features too.

The plist files can be a pain at first, but you get used to them.

Something like this can help:

http://blog.mattbrock.co.uk/2010/02/25/moving-from-cron-to-launchd-on-mac-os-x-server/

It can be as simple as this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>BatchFF</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/sri/files/BatchFF.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>15</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>10</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>

Save the file as batchFF.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents


Disabled 'Shake mouse pointer to locate' setting in El Capitan but still get big cursor I have been able to disable the shake cursor to enlarge setting by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display > Shake mouse pointer to locate and disabling the option. The only issue is when I try and use the trackpad on Better Touch Tool Remote (iOS), the cursor is large all the time I am using the BTTR Trackpad!

Is there a way how I can fix this problem? I can only disable the big cursor when using the MBP trackpad not the BTTR one.

I am using El Capitan Public Beta build 15A262e

That just sounds like a bug to me. Really, like with all beta software, bugs are to be encountered in the OS X El Capitan Public Beta. In fact, that's the point of betas, let certain users find and report bugs so that Apple, or whatever developer, can fix them before the software reaches mainstream adoption. So, unfortunately, all you can really do is report that bug to Apple, using Feedback Assistant. If you really hate it, then you could either wait for the public release of El Capitan in a couple of weeks or downgrade to Yosemite. You could also try installing El Capitan again, but it just like a bug in the beta software to me.


Cannot compile C code after installing xcode When I installed Xcode on Snow Leopard, gcc was not in my path. I manually added /Developer/bin to get gcc. However, I wrote a simple C program to include stdlib.h and stdio.h and print a string, but I get linker errors.

I think this is because I don't have my include path configured. Can anyone tell me why this was not done automatically and how I can get my C compiler set up?

I think there was a bug in Xcode 4.1 where the command line tools were not installed. I just ran the 4.1.1 delta installer from the App Store and things work just fine.

Last login: Tue Sep 20 14:47:44 on ttys001
mac:~ mike$ which gcc
/usr/bin/gcc
mac:~ mike$ ls -l /usr/bin/gcc
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  12 Sep 19 16:04 /usr/bin/gcc -> llvm-gcc-4.2
mac:~ mike$ echo $PATH
/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin
mac:~ mike$ mkdir /tmp/test
mac:~ mike$ cat > /tmp/test/hello.c << EOF
/* Hello World program */

#include<stdio.h>

main()
{
    printf("Hello World");

}
EOF
mac:~ mike$ cd /tmp/test
mac:test mike$ gcc hello.c -o hello
mac:test mike$ ./hello
Hello Worldmac:test mike$

This should work out of the box with the latest Xcode. Have you made sure you are using the latest gcc / Xcode and not having previous path or binaries installed?


Where are [ and ] in a French keyboard? I am getting used to Mac, I have a french keyboard, and can see Character Viewer and Keyboard Viewer, but I still don't know how to type some characters, for instance [ and ]?

The AZERTY keyboard is the most common in France. '[' is shared with the '5' key and ']' is shared with the degrees symbol key to the right of '0'. The '[' or ']' characters appear when you use the AltGr key.

I would hate to be doing Objective C on a French keyboard!

Home and End depend on context in Windows. If the text is editable, home goes to the beginning of the line and End to the end of the line. The Mac does this with Command-Right Arrow (End) and Command-Left Arrow (Home).

When the document is not editable, Home goes to the beginning of the document and End to the end of the document in Windows. On a Mac, for Home you use Command-Up Arrow, and for End you use Command-Down Arrow.


Need to reset admin password with OS X 10.6.8 Will this impact Time Machine backup? I have Mac OS X 10.6.8, connected to Time Machine backing up my files. I see directions you gave for resetting admin password. I'm wondering if I can just keep Time Machine plugged in while I reboot and reset. Will I keep all old files? Do I need to know anything about accessing them with a new password? Just making sure I don't lose files! Tx!

Resetting the password should not do anything to the files stored by Time Machine. Files on the system are associated with a user ID, and changing or resetting a password does not alter the user ID.

If you delete the account that holds the files you are interested in, this will not directly delete the matching files in the Time Machine backups, but as Time Machine continues to run and throw out old backups, eventually the files deleted from the computer will be removed from the Time Machine backups. But as mentioned, just changing the password of a user account (even an administrator account) does not change the documents made by that user.


Is there any iphone call history downloader for windows which actually works? Does anyone know an app (or procedure) that WORKs, to export the 4 months of iphone call logs, that everyone has been saying since 2016, is saved in iCloud?

Google is jammed with pages which say they "download call history for free", but DONT even find ANY (on phone, itunes or iCloud), as at April 2020.  They all look strangely similar, they all have "free download" buttons and then they don't work

(not 1 trial actually shows it properly finds and downloads all call history, several dont find even notes or reminders, others show wrong numbers of contacts...)

and then demand payment for their buggy software!

Minitool free $60 (CALL HISTORY EMPTY, ONLY ONE NOTE, 2 REMINDERS, double contacts, no whatsapp atts)
freeiphonerocovery gihosoft $60 (took hours, found 411 but cant view or download)
imanager gihosoft $35 only found 190
wondershare Dr Fone $99
Syncios $40, no call logs or whatsapp found, NW ios 9+
Easus MOBISAVER FREE $60- 0 call history, reminders, whatsapp; Mobimover doesnt even have button for call history
Tenorshare ultdata- $70,says found 1031, but doesn't show what dates it has recovered - and large patches of details missing completely - why would it hide PREVIEW if the app worked?
Imobie phonerescue

Copytrans doesn't (but doesn't say it can!)

Will post more apps- after I get rid of the migraine...

https://privacy.apple.com

Sign in and download the "other data" category.

Why does Apple store my call history?

When you’re signed in to iCloud with your Apple ID on multiple devices, your call history is stored and synced to allow you to return calls from any of your devices. Apple doesn’t access or use this information for any other purpose. You can turn off this feature by turning off iCloud Drive in iCloud settings.

https://support.apple.com/HT208502
This page maintains the personal data downloads of an Apple ID. Whatever is ever recorded or synced with Apple servers can be requested after sign in, the download link is sent to Apple ID email. Account deactivation and deletion is also possible here.
There are some exceptions:

End to End encrypted data, like iMessages.
Items like books, music that you purchased, but you don't own.


Where are texts from an email address stored? When I use my iPhone to send a message under an email address rather than my phone number, where is that message recorded as sent? It does not show up in usage logs the way text messages do, nor under 'sent' in gmail, for example.

Is there a record of it? If so, where?

All messages sent via the iOS Messages app are stored within the app. However, messages sent to and from email addresses are stored in their own message thread. I'll try and explain this with an example below:

EXAMPLE

Let's say you have a contact whose name is Jane Doe. You have a mobile number and an email address for her. Usually you send messages to her mobile number and you have a long history of messages going back five years, all of which you can view via the Messages app. However, one day you accidentally send her a message to her email address instead. This message is not stored with all the other messages, it is stored under a second thread for Jane Doe, containing only the history of messages sent to or received from Jane's email address.

Using the example above, since both the email address and mobile number are stored in Jane Doe's contact details, you can go to the Messages app and in the search field at the very top, type in "Jane Doe". This will filter your message threads and you should see both of them listed separately. From these you can see all messages sent and received.

If, on the other hand, you had sent a message directly to an email address that isn't stored in your contacts, then the message thread is stored under the email address rather than a person's name. So, if Jane Doe's email address is jane.doe@email.com and you didn't have this in her contact details, then the message thread would be listed under jane.doe@email.com rather than Jane Doe.


App download stuck in iOS Whenever I try to download an app in iOS, the icon goes onto my Home screen, but then it gets stuck on loading.

What do I do to resolve this?

Assuming you’ve exhausted the usual steps:

iOS App stuck in 'Loading...'

Then you could either contact Apple support to check on their services and your account or make a backup of your phone - erase all content and seettings and see if things are better after a restore.

Worst case, you’d have corruption on the OS level and need to restore the OS, but usually you can remedy this by taking lighter handed steps as opposed to wiping the system or the data of all apps being loaded.


Difference between US QWERTY and International QWERTY Apple keyboards? What exactly is the difference between US QWERTY and International QWERTY Apple keyboards?

I’m talking about the hardware keyboards specifically, not about keyboard layouts (in System Settings).

The most important differences are the size and position of the Enter/Return, and a few differences in the layout. The ~ key and the \ key have an entirely different position on both keyboards. Also, the US keyboard has no € label (although it can be entered: Alt+Shift+2).

The International keyboard (‘keyboard type’ = ISO) also has one more key than the US keyboard (‘keyboard type’ = ANSI).  Some Apple keyboard layouts use that key for essential characters, and this can cause problems for users with only the US keyboard.

Below is a high-quality visual comparison.

US QWERTY Apple keyboard:

EN International Apple keyboard:


Renaming user failed, lost admin rights I wanted to change the name of my user as well as its home directory. Looking for a way to do this, I stumbled upon this support document.

I did everything as described there, but since I restarted the computer, all that happened is, that I'm not an admin anymore.

I can't unlock anything under System Preferences > Users & Groups, as well as I'm unable to edit /etc/sudoers/

What went wrong?
whoami still shows my previous username..

How can I fix this mess? Am I screwed now?

macOS 10.13.4 btw

From I don't have administrator account on my mac

  Boot into Single User Mode: Start/restart your Mac. As soon as you hear the startup tone, press and hold ⌘ + S
  until you see a black screen with white lettering. (If you end up back
  on the login screen after a flash of the black screen with white
  lettering, enter your password and it will return to the black
  screen.)
  Mount the drive by typing /sbin/mount -uw / then ↩ enter.
  Remove the Apple Setup Done file by typing  rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone then ↩ enter.
  Reboot by typing reboot then ↩ enter.
  Complete the setup process, creating a new admin account.

This should allow you to create a new admin user.

I will edit this answer to include a fix for your old user soon.


Why did the contacts on my husband's iPhone sync to the iPhone I just activated? My husband and I both have the iPhone 4s, he has had his for over 2 years, and I recently activated one I received from a friend. I did a complete reset of the phone before I installed my SIM card. We do not share an Apple ID, and neither of us use the cloud. All of the iCloud setting are in the off position on my newly activated phone. His phone wasn't even in the house when I activated my iPhone. We even use separate computers for our own individual phones and separate iTunes accounts. Can anyone explain why this happened? What happens if I start deleting contacts on my newly activated iPhone that somehow came from his phone, will they also be deleted from his phone? How can I keep the phones from syncing in the future? We don't need each others contacts to continuously sync on our phones. Please advise, thank you.

A few possibilities:

Somewhere down the line, one of you accidentally combined and synced your contacts.
You added a non-iCloud account in "Mail, Contacts, and Calendar" that contains the contacts unknowingly.
You restored from a backup during setup that contained the contacts.


App updates from a different country's iOS App Store? I have a Turkish Apple ID which uses the Turkish iOS App Store.

An application which I needed is not available in this store, so I temporarily changed my App Store ID with a different ID which uses the U.S. App Store. I downloaded the app and switched back to the Turkish App Store ID.

Will the installed app from the U.S. store continue to get updates regularly?

Yes and no. Let me explain:

You will be able to update the app, but only by logging into the same U.S. Apple ID you used to download the app. You cannot download updates any other way.
Since the app in question is not available in the Turkish App Store, you're also not going to get notified via the App Store of any available updates (i.e. unless you are logged in with the U.S. Apple ID you used to download the app).
However, depending on the app itself, you may get a notification from the developer via the app when an update is available, in which case you know to log in with the U.S. Apple ID you used to download the app in order to install the update.
In the event that the app becomes available in the Turkish App Store at a later date, you will actually start to get notifications via the App Store app when updates are available. However, you would still need to log into the U.S. Apple ID you used to download the app in order to install the update. (NOTE: If this were to happen, you could then delete the app entirely and then redownload it using your Turkish Apple ID in order to manage future updates without the need of the U.S. Apple ID.)


rsync errors, but only when run in launchd I have a script which runs rsync on my ~/Library/Preferences/ folder:

#!/bin/zsh -f

SOURCE="$HOME/Library/Preferences"

TARGET="$HOME/Dropbox/Backups/Preferences/$HOST"

LOG="$HOME/logs/$HOST/${NAME}.log"

[[ ! -d "$LOG:h" ]] && mkdir -p "$LOG:h"

[[ ! -e "$LOG" ]] && touch "$LOG"

/usr/bin/rsync \
    --8-bit-output \
    --human-readable \
    --itemize-changes \
    --progress \
    --safe-links \
    --links \
    --times \
    --delete \
    --recursive \
    --checksum \
    --verbose \
    --exclude='.DS_Store' \
    --log-file="$LOG" \
    "${SOURCE}/" \
    "${TARGET}/"

exit 0
#EOF

This script works with no errors from iTerm.

However, when I try to run it via launchd I consistently get errors about 3 files:

com.apple.homed.notbackedup.plist
com.apple.homed.plist
com.apple.mail-shared.plist

Here's an example:

building file list ...
511 files to consider
*deleting com.contextsformac.Contexts.plist.JkbicFf
.d..t.... ./
rsync: send_files failed to open "/Users/luomat/Library/Preferences/com.apple.homed.notbackedup.plist": Operation not permitted (1)
rsync: send_files failed to open "/Users/luomat/Library/Preferences/com.apple.homed.plist": Operation not permitted (1)
rsync: send_files failed to open "/Users/luomat/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail-shared.plist": Operation not permitted (1)
>fc.t.... com.contextsformac.Contexts.plist
       3.10K 100%    0.00kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#4, to-check=249/511)
.f..t.... com.setapp.DesktopClient.plist
>fcst.... test-ignore.txt
         203 100%  198.24kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#5, to-check=75/511)

sent 31.63K bytes  received 142 bytes  63.55K bytes/sec
total size is 3.42M  speedup is 107.49
rsync error: some files could not be transferred (code 23) at /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/rsync/rsync-52.200.1/rsync/main.c(996) [sender=2.6.9]

I assume this has something to do with Mojave's security because I have access to the files:

$ ls -l com.apple.homed.* com.apple.mail-shared.plist
-rw------- 1 luomat staff 184 Sep 12 00:43 com.apple.homed.notbackedup.plist
-rw------- 1 luomat staff 567 Sep 13 09:53 com.apple.homed.plist
-rw------- 1 luomat staff 225 Aug 18 23:44 com.apple.mail-shared.plist

What I have tried

I have given /usr/bin/rsync "Full Disk Access" in System Preferences
I have tried rsync from homebrew /usr/local/bin/rsync and given it "Full Disk Access"
I have given /sbin/launchd "Full Disk Access"

Now what?

Given that it does not give any errors when not in launchd what should I try now?

Your running in different contexts when you use launchd and iterm2. With iterm2 your profile gets run but your profile isn't run when you use launchd.

Some programmers invoke there profile from their launchd script. I do everything so it works without the need to run my profile.

I suggest you cd to whatever directory you ended up in iterm2.

I wrote a little function to display all my terminal settings.
Run this in iterm2 and launchd while sending output to a file and compare.

settings ()
{
    ( echo "---------- env ----------";
    env;
    echo "--------- set ----------";
    set;
    echo "--------- export ----------";
    export;
    echo "--------- export -f ----------";
    export -f;
    echo "--------- alias ----------";
    alias;
    echo "--------- set -o ----------";
    set -o;
    echo "--------- shopt ----------";
    shopt;
    echo "--------- enable -a ----------";
    enable -a ) | less
}

for terminal you can copy & paste settings to terminal.

settings >>/Users/mac/xset
cat xset


mupdf command does not install with homebrew I tried to install MuPDF on OS X 10.11 using Homebrew:

brew install mupdf-tools

But when I try to use it from the command line (it doesn't show up on Launchpad) I get the following error:

mupdf example.pdf
-bash: mupdf: command not found

Looking around a bit, I find 64-bit executables for mudraw, mujstest and mutool in /usr/local/bin. These commands seem to work. But there is no executable for mupdf there or anywhere else that I can find (using the find command). Any ideas what has gone wrong?

As of 2019, the accepted answer doesn't work for me.

I installed it with
brew install mupdf

After that, mupdf-gl, or mupdf-gl <file path> works. You might want to redirect STDOUT if you are using it in a script, for say in midnight commander like this:

# PDF
type/^PDF
    Open=mupdf-gl %f >/dev/null 2>&1 &


Disable the sleep function of the macbook touch bar I got the new Macbook Pro and i found out that the touch bar goes to sleep after 75 seconds of inactivity. This function is quite annoying to me.

Is it possible to disable the sleep function of the touch bar for the 75 seconds of inactivity? I have googled it, but i didn't find anything.

You can use my script until Apple adds a preference for the Touch Bar.

It simulates keyboard activity by sending the command for the fn-key every 60 seconds. You should not notice it while typing. Keep in mind, however, that this will prevent display sleep / system sleep as well.

Copy and paste the following code into the "Script Editor" application on your MacBook Pro with Touch Bar:

(*
1. Save as an Application: Script Editor > File > Export… > File Format: Application
2. Check "Stay open after run handler"
3. Run the app or add it to your login items: System Preferences > Users & Groups > User > Login Items > Press the "+" button

# http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/269174/disable-the-sleep-function-of-the-macbook-touch-bar
*)

on idle
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke (key code 63) -- press fn key
    delay 60
end idle

Please let us know if this solves your issue.


Batch convert Apple Pages files to Microsoft Word doc files How can I convert a large number of Pages and Numbers files into corresponding MS Office format in a quick manner.

iWork Converter can batch convert Pages files to doc without script.
Also can convert Numbers files to xls.

http://tyorex.com/iWorkConverter


Safari displays wrong color according to Digital Color Meter I have the following HTML snippet open in Safari. Digital Color Meter reports the color as #FEDC53.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Broken Colors?</title>
</head>
<body style="background-color: #FFDD44">
Hello, World!
</body>
</html>

Is Safari displaying the incorrect color? Or is Digital Color Meter displaying reading the wrong color? How do I find out? How do I fix this?

Comparative true FFDD44 swatch, with sRGB profile embedded.

What's happening is that Digital Color Meter (and all color droppers) is reading the color value AFTER it has been adjusted for your display's ICC Color Profile. See how it shows "Color LCD" in the bottom right box? Despite the generic sounding name, that is the ICC Color Profile specifically for Macbooks.

Here's a data flow diagram:

#FFDD44 (original)
   ↓
#FEDC53 (adjusted for Color LCD display profile)

The term "Display native values" is misleading because it sounds like it's going to display the original values, but it doesn't. Apparently, color droppers cannot get the original values. So there are 2 solutions:

1. Quick and dirty solution

Change Digital Color Meter to "Display in sRGB" mode. What that does is re-convert the adjusted value to sRGB (assuming that's what the color space of the original image is). The problem with this is due to the double conversion and rounding errors, sometimes you will not get the exact original value back! (In this case, it was the same, but if you try more colors, you'll find some that are slightly off).

#FFDD44 (original)
   ↓
#FEDC53 (adjusted for Color LCD display profile)
   ↓
#FFDD44 (convert back to sRGB)

2. Exact solution

If you want to guarantee the exact original values, you should set Digital Color Meter to "Display native values", then change your System Preferences > Displays > Color > sRGB. Verify that Digital Color Meter now shows "sRGB..." in the lower right box. Since that matches the color space of the original source, no adjustment will be made, so "Display native values" will always be the exact original values. (You should remember to change it back to "Color LCD" afterwards. Or if you don't care, leave it in "sRGB".)

#FFDD44 (original)

(no adjustment since display profile sRGB matches the original color space)

See this answer for more details.


Change Security & Privacy setting from terminal I need to enable the "Require an administrator password to access locked preferences" on about a dozen Macs. I would like to do it from ARD as a unix command. Is this possible?

Using AppleScript :

tell application "System Events"
    tell security preferences
    set properties to {require password to unlock:true}
    end tell
end tell

You can call the Applescript code using the osascript command.


Unlock read-only USB key A free 8GB USB key given to me shows up in Snow Leopard as read-only.

$ mount
/dev/disk1 on /Volumes/USB DISK (ntfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only, noowners)

How can I mount it read-write? According to the provider of the USB key:

"The USB needs to be unlocked. Right click USB-properties-security-select everyone-edit-permissions for everyone-Allow full control"

But I think these must be instructions for a different OS.

I'd be fine with reformatting it - there's nothing valuable on it.

Attempting to force the issue with mount doesn't seem to work:

$ sudo mount -w -t ntfs /dev/disk1 "/tmp/USB"
$ touch /tmp/USB/foo
-bash: foo: Read-only file system

It's read-only because it's formatted with NTFS (the Windows filesystem), which OS X can only read without the help of third party software. If reformatting isn't a problem, then that's likely the easiest way to go. If you need to transfer between OS X and Windows with the stick, use the FAT filesystem. If you're just using it with Macs, the defaults will work fine.


Safari keyboard shortcut for iCloud tabs? Is there a keyboard shortcut for the iCloud tabs in Safari (7.0.5)? So far I have to click on the cloud button to view iCloud tabs.

In Safari 6 or newer, ShiftCmd\ or a two finger pinch invokes the "Tab View" which includes iCloud tabs.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202525


Why are marked E-Mails by iPhone's Mail.app not shown in GMail's marked folder? I have a GMail account (Google Apps with my own domain) hooked up as an exchange account in my iPhone.

If I mark an E-Mail (as shown in the screenshot) on my iPhone, it is not regonized by the GMail Web Client aka shown in the marked folder.

Do I have to configure something in my iPhone to fix this or is this not possible?

The text in the screenshot is german, but I think it is clear what means what. :-)

I dont think this is possible using the iPhone mail app. Marking an item with the iPhone mail app doesnt 'star' it on Google.

I'd recommend trying the official Gmail App for iPhone and iPad.


2012 Macbook Pro Bootcamp Driver For External Mic I'm still having the same issue discussed at length in the below thread to this date and can't find a solution that works for me:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6767136
Microphone / Headphones combo port does not work in BootCamp
I have an old 2012 Macbook pro running Windows 10 and trying to utilize a gaming headset that has combined headphone/microphone. The headset has a mic cord and a headphone cord, so utilizing a mic/headphone to TRSS adapter as seen here:
https://cdn3.volusion.com/zcgcs.pctzl/v/vspfiles/photos/29-8327-2.jpg?v-cache=1593342269
The headphones work totally fine, but can't get the microphone to be recognized in Windows 10 and can't find a driver to fix the issue. Separately, I've confirmed the headset/adapter works totally fine from a hardware perspective and is recognized on the MacOS side of the computer.
This is what my audio devices look like in device manager:

Any help would be greatly appreciated

There is no driver for a mic or headphone connected to a 3.5" audio jack. The device driver is for the audio system that the jack is connected to, not the jack itself.  This applies to all computers and operating systems, not just Macs
As you can see from the device tree image you posted, the microphone is recognized as an input device and is technically working properly.  However...
You have the wrong TRRS adapter
There are two different TRRS adapters, one for Apple and another for Android (everything else). The difference is the ground and microphone connectors are reversed.  The microphone is  "seen" because the audio chip senses the resistance and continuity of the completed circuit but it won't work because it's backward.
You need to get a microphone/headphone adapter that is Apple compatible. You can also use a USB DAC with dedicated mic and headphone connectors for better sound and reliability.


How many people can you add to an iMessages group? I was curious what the limit was on the number of people you can add to an iMessages group. Assuming everyone was on iMessages (i.e. everyone shows up as blue).

I read nothing about a limit in the different user guides for iOS devices (e.g. iPhone User Guide [PDF, 17MB]). Because of that I think there is no limit for groups.


Changing artist name on itunes without changing to unknown album I like to keep my itunes neat and organised, so naturally I like to keep the correct artist name for each song. Unfortunately, I have a problem. This only happens with one song, it's in a compilation so the artist originally listed on the song was 'various artists', and while I have no such issue with any of the other songs, when I change the artist name on this particular track, the song is suddenly listed as 'unknown album' and the only way to change it back is to change the artist back to various. All of the songs in the album share the same album artist so I don't know why this would happen, particularly with this one song. I cant find anything about this issue anywhere so it would be great if someone could help.

Have you tried deleting the ID3 tags?

sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install mutagen
mid3v2 --delete-all song.mp3


Move all app windows to another work space in El Capitan On my home machine (which is still on Mavericks) I can load mission control and move multiple windows from a single app by dragging the app icon (instead of the individual windows) to another work space.

This icon is not available in El Capitan, is there another way I can do this or at least a work around for it?

Enable “Group windows by application” in Mission Control preferences:

That will bring back the app icon in Mission Control, which would allow you to drag all windows of a given app between spaces:


Get/Copy current Excel file's path When in Windows 10 or in Windows 7, if I have an Excel file open and I want to know the path to the file I can use the ‘open current file in explorer’ button and it opens that file in the Windows Explorer, where I can copy the path to the file.

However, in Mac, I am not able to find any option like that unless I open Finder and find the current file's name, then right click and choose Get Info on the file there.

I do not want to do a lot of work just to get the file path. Is there an easy way to do this?

The Excel function

=CELL("filename",A1)

will give you the complete path to a file that has been saved. You can copy the result of the function and use Paste Values to retain only the text.

If the file has not yet been saved, the function returns a blank.


How do I boot from DVD to do clean install of Snow Leopard on iMac4,1? I have an iMac4,1 (20" Intel Core Duo 2.0) -- stock except an authorized Apple Repair place upgraded the HD to 1TB for me a couple years ago.

It's been acting strange for a while, log in, use it for a few minutes and then get a spinning wheel, computer becomes unresponsive.

I've backed up all user data to an external drive, and now I want to do a clean install of Snow Leopard.

I have the Snow Leopard DVD (I bought it retail when it came out).

I put the DVD in.  I restart the iMac, and I've tried holding down C, then D, then Alt keys on the keyboard, but it will not boot from the DVD -- it just takes me to the login screen.

With the keys pressed, during start up the pale grey Apple logo does seem to flicker to something else, might have a question mark on it.

I also tried using Disk Utility to format the drive, but it doesn't seem to want to let me do that.

So ... QUESTION ... how do I boot from the Snow Leopard DVD to do a clean installation?

You need to press and hold the key(s) immediately after you turn on your Mac and hear the startup sound. Keep holding until the described behavior occurs. To Start up from a bootable CD, DVD, or USB thumb drive (such as OS X install media), press and hold the C key.  Or try using the Startup Manager to see if the DVD is available as a boot device, press and hold the Option key.  See: Startup key combinations for Mac

Also have a look at: How to choose a startup disk on your Mac


OS X restarts every app when waking up When my MacBook Pro (late-2013, Mavericks) wakes up, it restarts all apps after a few seconds. After a wake up, firstly I see all apps running normal then all apps begin restarting. I think I accidentally changed a preference but I can't find it.

I presume you're talking about Resume, a feature that will cause apps that were left open when you logged out to open again when you login.

From your explanation, I presume you see a window of an app, but then it will fade out and appear to 'restart' — in actuality the app hasn't loaded once yet, and is loading, not restarting.

You can stop Resume by unchecking the Reopen windows when logging back in option in a log out or shutdown dialog.


Mac wakes up from sleep every two hours on Mac OS X Yosemite Since upgrading to the first stable release of Mac OS X Yosemite a few days ago, my Mac Mini wakes up roughly every two hours from sleep for about a minute, then goes back to sleep. This is particularly annoying at night since I sleep my Mac, and it's in the bedroom, so I notice when it turns on.

In my Console, here's some of the lines from it from when it wakes up:

14/10/19 6:48:06.000 am kernel[0]: Wake reason: RTC (Alarm)
14/10/19 6:48:06.000 am kernel[0]: RTC: Maintenance 2014/10/19 10:48:06, sleep 2014/10/19 09:00:12
14/10/19 6:48:06.001 am SyncServer[910]: [0x7fdd69c19d80] |SyncServer|Warning| Refreshing watchdog because of a calendar time change alert.
14/10/19 6:48:06.000 am kernel[0]: Previous sleep cause: 5
14/10/19 6:48:06.000 am kernel[0]: AppleThunderboltNHIType2::prePCIWake - power up complete - took 1 us
14/10/19 6:48:06.000 am kernel[0]: The USB device USB 3.0 HUB (Port 1 of Hub at 0x15000000) may have caused a wake by issuing a remote wakeup (1)

From the last line, yes, I've got a USB 3 hub plugged in to my USB 3 port on the Mac. But there are no devices plugged into the hub. Nevertheless, I'll try unplugging it tonight, but I suspect it won't make a difference.

Also, I've already disabled "Wake from network access", disabled "Power Nap", and pretty much disabled everything else in the "Energy Saver" system preferences pane.

When I run pmset -g, I get:

Active Profiles:
AC Power    -1*
Currently in use:
 standby              1
 Sleep On Power Button 1
 womp                 0
 autorestart          0
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 darkwakes            0
 networkoversleep     0
 disksleep            0
 sleep                0 (sleep prevented by iMovie, coreaudiod, iTunes, AddressBookSour)
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 hibernatemode        0
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         60
 standbydelay         4200

I often have wake problems with my Mac, especially after upgrading to a new OS, and this time is no exception:

OS X Mavericks wakes my Mac from sleep every hour or so
Mac wakes up from sleep every night and then goes back to sleep immediately

Since com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist got replaced by com.apple.discoveryd.plist after Yosemite Beta, there is another solution for your Problem.

All you have to do is to run following command in your terminal:

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :ProgramArguments: string --no-multicast" \
         /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist

And reboot your system and it should be gone.

Like also described here: http://ispire.me/fix-yosemite-rtc-alarm-wakeup-issue/

You just have to know that services relying on multicast might not work properly anymore after this change.


Anyway to save contents of iPhone app to a PC? I bought a video course on my iPhone, the app essentially launches the videos in the standard iPhone video player.

I'm selling my iPhone and would like to recover the videos, or at least preserve the app data until I can figure out how to extract the videos from it.

I currently sync to Windows. But I have a MacBook as well if it matters.

You could try i-FunBox it allows you to save apps to your computer without using iTunes.


Issues & Errors with Restore from ios7 Backup to ios9 on iPhone 5? Steps & Insights:

iPhone 5 GSM - iOS 7.1.1- 64 GB
Backup using iTunes 12.3.0.4 on Windows 8.1 Pro
Shift + Restore the Apple Firmware iOS 9.0.2 .ipsw file into iPhone via DFU mode
Setup as New - iPhone iOS 9.0.2
After bit of play, iOS 9.0.2 felt stable, so I tried to Restore from my iOS 7.1.1 Backup
Left to do what it wants: iTunes took 10+ maybe 15 hours to finish Restore + auto App Sync after restore

Problems:

During the iPhone Restore from Backup:

iTunes auto created multiple backups for some reason - Which Backup to use for restore now?

iTunes auto created multiple backups, and as restore failed once, due to lack of extra drive space for the additional instance/ copy of Backup. {I had 30 GB open but iTunes filled it all up}

So I "cloned" my SSD to a bigger HDD to do this and my Restore went through after 10/15 hours, with some caveats:
Bunch of Apps would not restore i.e. could not be sync'ed back to iPhone due to Error that was like (0xBE00000E or 0xBE00000E). Googling it nothing came up

Which Backup to use for restore now?

After the iPhone Restore from Backup:

Sync is stuck for several Apps that are in "Waiting" "Will Install" state as outlined in this split question.

Restore from Backup: Apps in iTunes library were not installed on iPhone because Unknown Error occurred 0xE800002D

How to Resolve stuck "waiting" "Will Install" Apps?

Additional Details on Backups & its Copies:

New Backup folders are identical to original Backup except for the following:

Owner permissions are different; I did try & use "Run as Admin on iTunes"
1 file in both folders info.plist is different, with further tinkering found to contain identical data in XML vs Binary formats, except for 2 small strings:

1:30 | 32 MB | plist XML
-- <string>AS_iPhone5_711</string>
-- <string>01b4384a905a10b3061004b3281a915aca60c362</string>
4:30 | 22 MB | plist Binary, 99% Identical when converted to XML using putil
-- <string>AS_iPhone5_711 - Oct 23, 2015, 4:06 AM</string>
-- <string>01b4384a905a10b3061004b3281a915aca60c362-20151023-040611</string>

Screenshots of Backups Folder with Timestamps & Comparisons (using Beyond Compare):
Images will not show clearly until you click to Zoom in.

C:\Users\..MyUserName..\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

When you see two backups for the iPhone, there is one automatically from sync and one you did by hand by "Backup Now". I would choose that one, it is the one marked with the precise date.
Note: auto backups (sync) are overwriting the earlier one.


Pages for iPhone: how to add a page break? I am using Pages on an iPhone (iOS 10.3), and I can't add a page break. Apple's support page (https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18098) says to just press the "" key in the format bar above the keyboard, but I don't see it in my iPhone. What I see in my keyboard is just this:

As you can see, there's no format bar above the keyboard anywhere. Maybe it does show up on an iPad, but as I said, I'm on an iPhone.

Double-tap where you want the break to occur.
  Tap More button until you see Insert, tap it, then tap Line Break or Page Break.

  If you don’t see Page Break, your document is a page layout document and doesn’t use page breaks. In that case, open the document in Pages on your Mac, add a new page, then open the document again on your iOS device.

Pages for iOS (iPhone, iPod touch): Add line, page, and column breaks


Import certificates into the System Keychain via the command line Is it possible to copy a certificate to a machine running OS X Snow Leopard, add it to the System Keychain, then set it to "Always Trust via SSH?"

And if so... how?

To import a trusted certificate use the terminal command
sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain <certificate>

This will add a trusted certificate to the System.keychain. You should modify the options and paths to suit your situation. See the man page for security for more information.
↬ Rich Trouton, Adding new trusted root certificates to System.keychain


How to run custom AppleScript in the background at all times? Given an AppleScript file designed to poll for an application dialog box every 30 seconds, how can I easily setup my Mac OS so that this AppleScript file starts every time I login silently in the background?

Code for the script ( in case interested ) is listed below, and is designed to click "Later" on the AirMail Beta app:

repeat
    if (exists application "AirMail Beta") then
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "Airmail Beta"
            if exists (button "Later" of front window) then
                click (button "Later" of front window)
            end if
        end tell
    end if
    delay 30
end repeat

The above script works, but if anyone can think of a better way to auto-click a dialog without writing an AppleScript that polls every few seconds, feel free to offer such a solution in comments.  Mainly though, I'd like to know the best way to manage AppleScripts designed to run continuously so they can be enabled / disabled and startup without being seen at login automatically.

In my opinion, the best way to do it is by using Apple's own task scheduler: launchd, because you don't need to install third-party software. First, the theory: to run a script from the command line, you just run:

osascript /PATH/TO/YOUR/script.scpt

Knowing this, all you have to do is create a plist file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ with this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>air-mail-beta.job</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
        <string>/PATH/TO/YOUR/SCRIPT</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

The name of the plist file doesn't matter, but it should be in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/. Also, make sure to change /PATH/TO/YOUR/SCRIPT accordingly.

Finally, you just need to tell launchd that you want this script to always run. To do that, you just do:

launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/NAME-OF-YOUR-PLIST.plist

and you're done! If it looks like the script didn't start, you can do this:

 launchctl start air-mail-beta.job

where air-mail-beta.job is the property under <key>label</key> that we've set in the plist file.

Finally, should you ever need to disable the script, don't forget to unload it with:

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/NAME-OF-YOUR-PLIST.plist

I know this solution is more technical, but trust me, that's a better way to deal with your issue. If you have any question, just ask!


Is this MacBook Pro charger safe to use? I happen to accidentally jam my charger in between a few moving objects and this was, unfortunately, the resut. Is this still safe to use? Are there any risks to continuing using assuming it will still charge my MacBook Pro?

There's no way to know from a simple visual examination.
You have three options...

[the cavalier] Try it & see what happens
[the circumspect] Take it to be tested
[the disposable income] Buy a new one & throw that one away.


How do I sort Reminders in OS X? One can enter reminders in OS X in the Reminders app. But how can they be sorted by name or date? I can't seem to find out how.

Afaik there's is no "automatic" sort. But you can drag them in the order you want.


Symbolic link icons don't update When a symlink is created, it gets the icon of the target folder (with the addition of a black arrow in the lower left corner). The issue I am having is that the symlink icon does not update when the icon of the target folder changes. Deleting and recreating the symlink does not fetch a new icon from the target folder: the symlink continues to show the old icon.

What's strage though is that if I right click and "Get Info.." on the symlink, it shows the correct icons in the information pane... but in the finder window itself, the icon is out of date. This leads me to believe there is some cache for the actual icon that is displayed in the finder window, and it needs to be refreshed.

The issue can be recreated fairly easily:

Create a folder on Desktop called "Target Folder"
Right click Target Folder, Get Info.. and paste any icon from another folder.
Create a symlink on the Desktop called "Symbolic Folder" that links to Target Folder. (Symbolic Folder will now have the same icon as Target Folder).
Right click Target Folder, Get Info.. and paste a new, different icon. (Symbolic Folder does not update and will continue to show the old icon)
Right click Symbolic Folder, Get Info.. the information pane shows the correct icon.

Any idea how to get Symbolic Folder to show the new icon in the Finder window?

This issue has come up due to Yosemite's change of the folder icon style. I use symlinks to link my main user folders (Pictures, Movies, Music, etc) to folders in Dropbox, and many of my symlink icons continue to show the old, pre-Yosemite folder icons even though I have updated the icons of the folders they link to. I'd like to be able to clear out all of the old folder icons.

This post seems relevant, but the solution did not work for me:

wrong icon of Unix symbolic link in Finder

UPDATE
The "caching" of the incorrect symlink icon happens only in the "view mode" where the icon of the target folder is changed. So if you follow the steps above in a Finder window where the view mode is set to "icon" then the issue will persist only in Finder windows where the view mode is set to "icon". If you are browsing in a Finder window where the view mode is set to "cover flow" or "list" then the symlink functions correctly and the icon tracks the icon of the target folder just fine (until, that is, you change this icon of the target folder in either the cover flow or list view modes). This explains why the information pane for the symlink shows the correct icon.

I had this problem and the following seems to have resolved it. I'm not sure if steps 2 and 3 are both required so you can try one and then the other if you prefer.

Remove symbolic links
Clear your icon cache:

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;
Clear your caches:

sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/*

sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/*
Restart
Recreate symbolic links


Preload and preconfigure an iPad for someone else I need to preload and preconfigure some software on an iPad, and then give the iPad to someone else.

I thought about just buying the software with my App Store account, but is there a way that I can "transfer" the ownership of the app (and the registration of the iPad itself) to the other person?

This is similar to Is it possible to pre-install apps on an iPad? except that I can activate the device first, and I want to do more than just install an app, I want to be able to pre-configure everything and then (I suppose) transfer the app to the other person.

You can do several things:

Convince them to permit you to use their Apple ID and password (they can change the password to something you prefer - then change it back). They can also remove the credit card and let you gift the apps or redeem a gift certificate.
Just gift them the apps and assist them as they learn.

In the long run, you'll either be acting as a custodian or want to be hands off - look at things six months from now and you can decide if you'll just be on the hook to support them perpetually or if you just want to be with them and let them do the setup so they are self sufficient.


Duplicate Google Calendar Entries in iPad Calendar App I'm using my Google account to sync my calendars. The iPad shows duplicate entries, but my phone and Mac do not, as you can see:

What exactly am I doing wrong? I've tried removing every account and restarting and adding but still the same.

NOTE: I've added this Google Account by "Gmail" not Microsoft Exchange.

I've had this problem since back during the days of Mobile Me, worked with Apple on it by sending copies of my calendar, and even managed to get the problem to happen at their end via their website and without having my computer or devices involved.

Apple initially tried to pawn the problem off as Google's, though disabling Apple's cloud and using Google alone works perfectly.

In short, I don't think you're doing anything wrong.  In the end, I had to have them completely delete the account on the Cloud, create a new one, and re-push everything back, starting with an empty calendar.

From my own experiments, the problem for me seemed to originate when a calendar event on Google spans more than one day (like over a weekend) is synchronized with Apple. It did not replicate calendars that didn't have these entries. Every time Apple synchronized, it seemed to add more calendar entries. My iPad produced warnings of horrific amounts (I have the screen shot around here somewhere), my Mac slowed to a crawl, eventually forcing me to have to disable the Cloud.

My notes are here:
1) http://www.wwco.com/~wls/blog/2009/07/25/mobileme-sync-problems-resolved/
2) http://www.wwco.com/~wls/blog/2012/06/23/resetting-mobilemess/

While I got my own problems sorted out, Apple's solution was pretty much (and I'm rephrasing here), "we're dumping Mobile Me soon, hopefully iCloud won't do it, and if it does, that's now another group's problem ...not ours."

On a Mac, the problem will eventually reach the point where iCal won't open. Here were my notes to Apple:

"Completely unable to open iCal without the spinning pinwheel of death, I put on my developer hat and did the following (though I have no idea how a mortal user would know how to do this):

$ cd ~/Library/Calendars
$ rm -rf Calendar\ [CS] *
$ du -h .
(find the largest file size entry and remove it, for example)
$ rm -rf 74D1E7F2-3CA2-44E8-9690-093227ACF17C.caldav

This lets iCal start, and during the upgrade process, there's barely enough time that if you're lucky you can open iCal preferences.

It gets worse.  The console log goes wild with 500 messages per second.  Meanwhile, Finder slows to a crawl and won't even handle right-click menus."

4/18/11 7:04:42 PM  [0x0-0x3d03d].com.apple.iCal[769]   line 1,1: expecting FREQUENCE, found 'INTERVAL' as token type 6
4/18/11 7:04:42 PM  [0x0-0x3d03d].com.apple.iCal[769]   line 1,1: expecting FREQUENCE, found 'INTERVAL' as token type 6
4/18/11 7:04:42 PM  [0x0-0x3d03d].com.apple.iCal[769]   line 1,1: expecting FREQUENCE, found 'INTERVAL' as token type 6
4/18/11 7:04:42 PM  [0x0-0x3d03d].com.apple.iCal[769]   line 1,1: expecting FREQUENCE, found 'INTERVAL' as token type 6
4/18/11 7:04:42 PM  [0x0-0x3d03d].com.apple.iCal[769]   *** process 769 exceeded 500 log message per second limit  -  remaining messages this second discarded ***
4/18/11 7:04:43 PM  [0x0-0x3d03d].com.apple.iCal[769]   line 1,1: expecting FREQUENCE, found 'INTERVAL' as token type 6
...hundreds of times...

To get anywhere, I had to use an outgoing firewall (LittleSnitch) and turn off connectivity to Apple.com -- things instantly sprang to life. If your Mac knows about the Apple cloud, then iCal will recreate files, even if you don't have an Apple cloud account configured in its preferences.

In looking at the log messages and examining the CalDAV, the most suspicious entry was this:

DTSTART:20070311T020000

The ending date format looked off. I'd expected a YYYYMMDD, but have no idea what 020000 represented.

I'm hoping the above blog data gets you a bit closer in sorting things out. Again, I doubt its you.

If you're going to mess around with any of the raw file system, please, please, please make a backup. Noting that complete removing ~/Library/Calendars seems to solve things using the scorched earth methodology.


Charging a Macbook pro 15-inch (late 2016 touch bar) The original charger for my laptop model can output 87W. Sometimes I forget it at work and I use my Nintendo Switch Charger (Output: 15V, 2.6A = 39W) for emergencies.

I was wondering if using a charger that may not be able to input the amount of power needed (for example maybe the laptop needs 45W so it will take the rest from the battery) could damage the laptops battery?

Extra: If there is no problem, would that also hold for this power bank: https://www.amazon.com/AUKEY-30000mAh-Portable-Delivery-Nintendo/dp/B071CQYBSN

Officially according to Apple:

  You can use a compatible higher wattage adapter without issue, but it
  won't make your computer charge faster or operate differently. Lower
  wattage adapters don't provide enough power.

There is no mention of risking damage to the battery, but you may not be able to charge at all at lower wattages.

Additionally, you have to use a USB-C cable that is meant for charging. The Switch cable appears to be made for such.

In personal experience with MagSafe-powered MacBook Pros, the battery indicator in the menu may say "Battery is not charging", but I've noticed it stays powered on longer than just running off the internal battery alone. Your miles may vary.

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700


Can you export or share Categories in Outlook 2011? Is there any way to export or otherwise copy Categories, with colors, between Users/Macs?  They also don't yet synch to Exchange 2010, from what I can tell.

I'll likely develop a default new user profile and then run an AppleScript to add the Exchange account based on the currently logged in user's credentials, so I can set up defaults that way, hoping that there's a way to export or copy categories however.

Sadly, and unfortunatly No. This is something I spend a few days on recently, and out of interest, it can't be done on the Windows version either. There is no way to keep these categories intact, and it can be a huge problem, especially when sharing items with others since the minute they make a change to a shared item, the categories are overwritten.

You could possibly however use an AppleScript to add them manually, I haven't tried thought.


Can't connect bluetooth headset to mac mini I just bought sony ch500 wireless bluetooth headset and I can't pair it with my mac mini. I was able to pair it with my android phone though. What could be the problem? The bluetooth menu doesn't show my headset.

There’s not much you can do but restart and remove any 2.4 ghz interference sources.

iOS has some tips like making sure the device is reset. If it’s paired with your android, it might not broadcast it’s looking to pair with your Mac.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201205


Damaged macOS Mojave installer I downloaded the macOS Mojave installer on my 2015 MacBook Air. However, upon opening the installer, it gives this error message:

  This copy of the Install macOS Mojave application is damaged, and can‘t be used to install macOS.

Please do guide me on how to re-download this installer or any other method to install macOS Mojave on my MacBook.

As per this discussion on Apple support community, you should be able to overcome the issue by deleting InstallInfo.plist file from within the macOS Mojave installer app.

  Go to your applications folder.
  Find the installer for macOS Mojave.
  Right click on the installer and click "Show Package Contents".
  Click on folder named "Contents".
  Click on the folder named "SharedSupport".
  Delete the file named "InstallInfo.plist".
  Enter your administer password to confirm.
  Now open the installer.


Mac OSX Recovery Mode Terminal: rm -rf doesn't delete anything I have a seemingly broken MacBook Air that doesn't boot, but I can get into the recovery console. If I try to reinstall Mac OSX on the main disk (Macintosh HD aka /dev/disk1s2), the installer complains that there isn't enough disk space available.

So I opened up a terminal and tried to manually delete unnecessary files.

Using rm -rf, it looks like everything works, except that the disk space isn't freed. On reboot, the files are there again as if nothing happened.

Folders I 'delete' with rm -rf seem to vanish from the directory listinng (ls)
df -h never updates the amount of free space after rm
Rebooting into recovery console shows the deleted files are there again

And when I look at the disk in Disk Utility in the recovery console, it tells me that there are 4 GB of free space, but 0 KB deletable.

How can I delete the missing files without reformatting the whole HD and losing all data?

And why doesn't rm -rf work?

Using rm without -f (e.g. # rm -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Developer) first asks me to confirm each file deletion, then errors with

  no such file or directory.

Which I would assume is a permissions issue. But I'm root (#) in the terminal and the files are owned by root/wheel. As suggested, I tried to remount with write permissions (mount -uw). This did not give me an error message, but the behavior is still the same (files reappear on reboot).

Using -f hides errors. Try running the command without the f option: rm -r ….

Without the actual error message, I can guess what the problem is: you're trying to delete files by providing a path you expect to the files but do not match the actual path.

When you're booted into Recovery, the Recovery environment is mounted at /, so paths like /Users are actually pointing to the Recovery HD. For example, instead of

rm -rf /Users/…

you should prepend to your paths the correct path to the volume

rm -rf /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/…

where Macintosh HD is your startup disk volume. Try ls /Volumes to see what's available.


What is this olympic icon in the iPhone status bar? Today, professional skier Tom Wallisch (at one point on the US Ski team) uploaded a screenshot of his phone:

(source: newschoolers.com)
Does the Olympic icon indicate this is an Olympic, or US Olympic, sanctioned iPhone? Are there other examples of custom brand icons in the status bar?

Changing the iOS carrier name/logo is possible using external tools on your mac or on the iPhone, if the iPhone is jailbroken. There is no indication that this iPhone is related to the olympics at all. Changing the carrier logo is relatively easy.

To change the carrier to a logo using a mac on a non jailbroken iPhone, use the following tool: http://uhelios.com/downloads/.

To change the carrier on a jailbroken phone, use the tool Zeppelin. A how to can be found here: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/12/change-iphone-carrier-logo-ios-7-zeppelin.html.


Should you unplug the cable once your MBP is fully charged? With Mavericks is this still needed? Doesn't this eventually cause the battery to die faster because it means it'll have to go through more cycles frequently?

Personally if I am using the machine I will keep the charger plugged in until I'm done, regardless of whether its full or not, if I'm not using the machine I will unplug when its full.

Read up on Apple's official recommendations, there is some good stuff here:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

Follow the links at the bottom.


iPad 2 16gb WiFi can no longer connect to home WiFi after iOS 6 upgrade My wife's iPad, which has been working perfectly since she bought it almost a year ago, has, as of a few moments ago, stopped connecting to our home WiFi network. My laptop (2010 MBA) and her laptop (2012 MBA), both iPhones (4s) and my iPad (New iPad WiFi) and my brother's laptop (2011 MBP) all connect to our WiFi perfectly.

However, when her iPad tries to connect it will work but then the "login" page that happens at, say, Starbucks, will come up (the Hotspot Assistant or whatever it's called) and shows a "Page not found" error. Then the WiFi disconnects.

It was working fine earlier, now after upgrading to iOS 6 the problem has come up.

Is it a bug that's affecting a lot of users or is it something that's been around for a while and just never happened to her?

The solution is to clear your Safari cookies and settings:

Settings - Safari - Clear Cookies and Data - Restart


Copy video files as is from iPhone 5 to Mac Is there a simple way of copying video files (taken with the camera, so they are .mov) from iPhone 5 right to desktop using the USB cable? I thought of adding them to Goodreader, but Goodreader compresses the files before adding them. Dropbox would maybe kind of work but I guess it uploads to the internet dropbox first which is an unnecessary and slow roundtrip, especially since WIFI on iPhone 5 is (still) broken.

Image Capture works with movies as well, so no need for iPhoto BUT this only works with videos that YOU shot on the device. If someone sends you a video and you save it to your albums, then Image Capture ignores it.


Can photos taken with my iPhone (and Apple ID) stream to my husband's iPad (and Apple ID)? My husband and I have different Apple ID and iCloud photo stream.

When I take photos on my iPhone, registered to my Apple ID, can I have them automatically uploaded to my husband's iPad 2 registered to his Apple ID?

You could share a photo stream with him.  Here's a youtube tutorial on how to set it up.


Spotlight hangs on ical item My iMac (early 2009) is super slow and spotlight and timemachine doesnt work at all. I am suspecting the the spotlight index (which never seem to finish) is behind some of the performance issues. I have reset the spotlight index and deleted the old files and restarted indexing. I am snooping the progress with this command: sudo opensnoop -n mdworker and then I can see that the indexing seems to halt on 0    169 mdworker       5 /.vol/16777218/695996

I suspect that this is a calendar event? How can I see if spotlight indexing is crashing and restarting? I have let it run for hours and it never finishes.

Sounds like it's just stalling on a corrupt file.

Try typing

GetFileInfo /.vol/16777218/695996

into the Terminal to find out what the file is.

If you're right about Spotlight stalling on a calendar event, try going into preferences and disabling the indexing of Events and Reminders. And then resetting spotlight.


How can I save my PowerPoint 2003 presentation (.ppt file) in Windows so that it can be viewed (including animations) on PowerPoint for Mac? I have created a Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 presentation (a .ppt file) using Windows XP.  My colleague has a Mac computer and PowerPoint for Mac.  I would like to share my presentation -- including animations -- with my colleague.  Is there a way that I can save my .ppt file to a form that PowerPoint for Mac can open, and retaining all animations?

Your file should be viewable on the Mac without issues, though there are some things you need to avoid. Motion path animations isn't a feature that exists on the Mac version, but it will play those animations in files created on windows. You just won't be able to edit that animation on the Mac.

You should also avoid embedding linked content and anything windows specific, such as WMV video. If you need to link to content, it may work if you put the file in the same directory before embedding, and then send both files to the recipient.

There is a lot of platform compatibility links, such as http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/cross-platform-powerpoint-compatibility-HA010287268.aspx and http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00281_PC_to_Mac_and_Back.htm


Read epub book purchased from iTunes on Windows I have purchased a book through iTunes, it is formatted as an epub. Is there anyway I can read it in a Windows PC?

Depends on whether it's protected by DRM or not. If it's not DRM protected, you can use free software like Calibre. You can also read the ePub books in Firefox using the EPUBReader extension and in Chrome using the MagicScroll eBook Reader extension.

To know if your eBook is DRM protected (fixed the description to correctly say "DRM" instead of "copyright"):

  Open iTunes.
  Select the target ebook.
  Choose File.
  Choose Get Info.
  Look at the “Media Kind” field.

  If it says “book,” it is a web download.
  If it says “purchased book,” it’s a DRM free iBook purchase/download.
  If it says “protected book,” it has a DRM attached.


Shared hard drive with user-level permissions I have a Drobo attached to an always-on Mac mini, with a bunch of files I want to be able to access from other computers. Some of them (DVD rips, photos) I want to be available to anyone on my network, and some (backups, personal file storage) I want to restrict to certain users.

I know that I can change the permissions for different folders by modifying the "Sharing & Permissions" attributes in the "Get Info" window, but how does that work if the user is coming from a different computer? Obviously that's no good if someone can just make a new user on their own computer with the same name and then have access.

All machines are running OS X Lion. Is this something I need Lion Server for?

The "Sharing and Permissions" attributes are directly related to other users on your computer. In System Preferences, you can enable "File Sharing" which allows others on your network to connect to your machine and access folders that you designate.
In the configuration for File Sharing, you designate "Shared Folders". You can set them up to be read (or even written to) by "Everybody" or only designated users. Those designated users would need to have an account on your machine to authenticate themselves; the name of their account on their own machine isn't the factor here.

None of this requires Lion Server.


Installing OSX onto PPC using Intel Mac and Firewire I have an old G5 PPC machine with no OS X installed.  I have the installation disk.  Unfortunateley there seems to be an issue with the G5 reading or accepting the data from the disk. I've tried Everything I can but the disk is not read. I've swapped drives etc. to no avail.

I know the G5 will not boot from USB, trust me, I've tried, then I tried again.

My current option is using Target Disk Mode and a Firewire cable (these G5's can boot from Firewire).

I have an Intel MacBook, an A1181 series.

I can boot into Target Disk Mode, the disks from the G5 are recognised.  I cannot use the drive of the MacBook to install onto the hard drive of the G5 because of an error that appears along the lines of "10.3 cannot be installed on this machine", I assume it's because of the Intel/PPC difference.

So I then restored the disk to a partition of the HDD from the G5 thinking I could 'boot' from that partition and then install.

That also failed, the disk was recognised but when selected a "no entry"-like symbol displayed in the middle of screen and nothing happened until the fans went into tornado mode.

I have a PPC G5, an A1181 MacBook, Firewire cable and the OS X install disk.

EDIT: The MacBook is running Leopard.
I just tried this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4177625?start=0&tstart=0
And the same thing happened as before: I can see the disk but when selected the Apple logo turns into a "no entry" type sign

There has to be a typo in the OPs question that can only be corrected by the OP:
The error message "10.3 cannot be installed on this machine" is out of place there.

To install OS X (maxing out at OS X Leopard 10.5.8) you have several options regarding the DVD:

clean the DVD drive in the G5, the lens might just be dirty
clean the Installation DVD, the DVD might just be dirty, slightly scratched
get another Leopard Installation DVD that doesn't have these flaws

Using the Firewire and Target Disk Mode route should be possible too.

But then there is the problem with "PPC to Intel transition": PPC machines boot from drives with an Apple Partition Map and Intel machines from an GUID partition map drive.

That prevents booting the G5 form a MacBook in Target Disk Mode or if you just swap the drives out; although the contents of 10.5 installations would be the same on both machines. Using a GUID formatted drive in a PPC machine is the most likely reason for the "No-Entry"-sign: there is just no disk available the PPC machine deems bootable.

You can therefore

boot into Leopard on the MacBook,
mount the G5 in Target Disk Mode,
format the G5 drive with an Apple Partition Map
then install Leopard onto the G5 from the Macbook (this can be forced using Pacifist)

This describes the clean way.

Alternatively you could just clone the Leopard installation from the MacBook to the G5's drive.


Yosemite migration assistant locks on start, no way to boot anything else I have a 2011 MBP Yosemite development 2011 machine that will not upgrade cleanly to Sierra, too many weird tools installed there I suppose. So I got another MBP from the same era, wiped the drive, installed Sierra, and planned to use Migration Assistant to move what I could. I plugged in an Ethernet cable, set the new machine as destination, and started the Yosemite Migration Assistant on the old machine, thinking to use it as the source. However, it hung on start and I cannot restart the machine to anything but the same Migration Assistant screen.

I tried rebooting with option key down to pick the drive, but it showed me two of my boot drive, neither one works, then I did recovery boot and fixed the boot drive. Then I did the reset PRAM boot three times in a row. Nothing gets me past the locked up Migration Assistant. When I boot I see a flash of the normal start, then it goes to a screen that says:

Transferring you information
Finishing you Migration

This Mac
Starting up...

Any idea on how I can get my disk to skip this switch to Migration Assistant on boot? The reason I was doing this today was that last night my Time Machine drive failed and I could not recover it and I thought to migrate to a different machine immediately instead of waiting for a new drive to arrive so that I'd be on two drives and upgraded to Sierra. So, I lost my Time Machine backups and cannot recover that. I suppose I can just pull the drive and put it in an enclosure and recover what I can, but I'd really like to be able to boot normally and make a full backup.

I used Disk Utility from recovery to clone the boot drive as an emergency backup since I no longer had a working time machine backup. When it finished it rebooted half way, glitched the screen and then went back to a normal boot up and I could access the machine as usual. All ok so far.

I suspect that it had something to do with connecting an Ethernet cable to a Yosemite machine while trying to do a migration. I'll not do that again.


How can I increase my scrolling speed with a third party mouse? Currently using a Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse with the driver software installed, and I have tried adjusting the scrolling speed in the system preferences in both Mouse Settings and in Accessibility (not sure why there is 2 different settings).

If anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. I have to scroll through a lot of code when I work and my pointer finger is getting disproportionally muscular.

Using macOS Sierra on a 27 inch Late 2013 iMac.

Figured out the problem. The Razer official driver takes over the mouse settings, but does not allow you to configure mouse scroll speed, and the setting was too low.

Well that is annoying.


Mac wants to connect to an old / dead server My mac is still trying to connect to an old Time Capsule that doesn't exist anymore.

I went to Finder -> Go -> Connect to servers and could see the old TimeCapsule server address:

"afp://Timey%20Wimey%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.local"

(It was not listed in the favorites box however)

Running OS 10.12.1

Details: A year ago I had a time capsule set up with my mac. I had my iTunes library on there but the stress killed the hard drive in the Time Capsule.  I have since done away with the TimeCapsule but my mac continues to search for the server.

afp://Timey%20Wimey%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.local

Your Mac is not searching for the server. When you go to "Connect to Server", it automatically puts in the last used address. That does not mean it is actively searching for the server. If you see a blue status bar that says "connecting to ...", that means your Mac is searching for a server.


Where is the App Store wishlist in iOS 11? Ever since updating to iOS 11, I haven’t been able to locate my wish list anywhere in the App Store.

I had quite a few apps saved that I was planning on purchasing once the price dropped, but any trace of my wishlist seems to have vanished.

How do I access my App wishlist in iOS 11?

The wish list has been completely removed from iOS 11 and iTunes 12.7.

This article confirms my statement:

  With iOS 11, you get a truckload of new features but you also lose some pretty useful things. Having already killed 32-bit apps on iOS, Apple has now removed wish lists from the App Store. Since Apple removed iOS apps from iTunes as well, there’s now no way to add apps to your wish list or to see which apps were there in your wish list on iOS 10.

You can share apps into Notes as a workaround.


Automator service script ALWAYS launches application, disregarding conditional I wrote a little service script to open an iTerm terminal window on an arbitrary folder on Finder.

I want it to check if iTerm is running, and if it is to open the terminal session in a new tab instead of on an existing one.

The script goes like this:

on run {input, parameters}

set cdPath to "cd " & (quoted form of POSIX path of (input as string))

if application "iTerm" is running then
    display notification "running"
    tell application "iTerm"
        set termWin to (current terminal)
        tell termWin
            launch session "Default"
            tell the last session
                write text cdPath
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
else
    display notification "not running"
    tell application "iTerm"
        activate
        set termWin2 to (current terminal)
        tell termWin2
            tell the last session
                write text cdPath
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end if
return input
end run

Problem is that when I run the script as a service, it will always behave as if iTerm was already running (displaying the "running" notification), even if iTerm is closed and very clearly NOT running.

But if I paste the same script to the Script Editor (setting cdPath to a literal, like set cdPath to "cd /etc") and execute it directly it will work correctly, either opening a new iTerm instance or reusing an existing one and creating a new tab, and display the corresponding notifications.

What's going on here? Why running the script as a service would detect the application as running no matter what?

Update

If I simplify the script to just displaying the notifications like this:

on run {input, parameters}

set cdPath to "cd " & (quoted form of POSIX path of (input as string))

  if application "iTerm" is running then
    display notification "running"
  else
    display notification "not running"
  end if
  return input
end run

It'll behave as expected (displaying 'running' or 'not running' accordingly).

But if I add the "tell application" part, it will always go the through "running" branch, no matter what.

E.g.:

on run {input, parameters}

set cdPath to "cd " & (quoted form of POSIX path of (input as string))

  if application "iTerm" is running then
    display notification "running"
  else
    display notification "not running"
    tell application "iTerm"
        activate
    end tell
  end if
  return input
end run

Will always open iTerm (even if the tell application "iTerm" it's on the "not running" branch, but display the "running" notification, from the "is running" branch... The mere presence of a "tell application" will trigger opening the app then the Service is run.

Is there a way to circumvent this?

Thanks and regards.

El-Capitans security restrictions are NOT responsible for erroneous behaviour above. I tested the script some more and found that:

Any "is running"-phrase needs to have a short "delay" in front of it to  reliably return a true answer ... but still won't do so if called as an app's service.
Furthermore I guess that Automator scripts are somehow "pre-processed" before being run as Services.
All if-branches are evaluated (played through) and thereby activated "just in case".

In jweaks code at stackoverflow, iTerm is only affected directly in the 2nd clause ("tell ...").

tell application "System Events" to set theProcesses to name of every ¬
    every process whose visible is true

if theProcesses contains "iTerm" then display notification "running"
else [...]

Try this code in ScriptEditor, Automator and as Service in Safari:

display notification "" & running of application "TextEdit"
tell application "TextEdit" to activate
quit application "TextEdit"
display notification "" & running of application "TextEdit"

You will get different results from AppleScript/Automator (=> false + true) and Safari (true + true).
Especially AppleScript/Automator's true from the 2nd notification is quite telling.

... however, if you insert just a minute delay, say 0.01, after the "quit" line, running will be tested as "false" - if the script is run from within AppleScript/Automator.


Internet Recovery booting to old OS I need to reinstall macOS on my 2011 iMac. The iMac was last running High Sierra (which is the last OS it supports) before I wiped it. I am booting into Internet Recovery mode on my iMac, but for some reason the computer seems to be retrieving Lion from Internet Recovery. This would normally be fine (I could just install Lion and then upgrade to High Sierra through the Mac App Store), but in order to install Lion, the installer asks for my Apple ID and password. I type my credentials in correctly, but the installer seems to be so old that it is unable to communicate with the Mac App Store properly, so it rejects my credentials and doesn't proceed with the installation.

Is there a way to get Internet Recovery to boot into High Sierra?

Since macOS Sierra 10.12.4 Apple has provided three different macOS Recovery options. These are described below:

commandR to reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version
optioncommandR to upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac
shiftoptioncommandR to reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available

So, the best options if you're wanting to install macOS High Sierra from Recovery mode is to use the:

commandR shortcut (since that's the last version of macOS you had installed), or the
optioncommandR shortcut as that's the one for installing the latest macOS compatible with your hardware.


How can I format Time Capsule? How can I format the Time Capsule hard disk?

Launch the AirPort Utility.
Select the Time Capsule whose disk you want to erase.
Hit the "Manual Setup" button.
Click the "Disks" icon button.
Click the "Disks" tab.
Select the disk (not a subvolume, the disk itself).
Click "Erase...".
Follow the dialogs from there.


Key combinations CTRL+SHIFT+D/E/F not working I found that the key combinations Ctrl-Shift-D/E/F somtimes are not working

I really do not know what caused this, but a few tests are as follows,

Restart the computer or logging out and back in is the only two ways I know to temporarily solve the problem, but the issue comes back after some period (no idea what triggered this);
The hardware is OK (I think). I used the Keyboard Viewer and can see that only these three combinations have problems. Specifically, I can see that when SHIFT and CTRL are pressed, pressing D,E,or F has no response. Others are fine, for example, CTRL+SHIFT+T works fine;
While on screen saver, the key combinations works fine while I experiment on the passwords I typed.

How can I resolve this?

PS: I recently updated to Mojave, but I recall that the issue happened once before the update. Also the model is MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), and currently I'm not using an external keyboard. (I just tried plugging in another keyboard, still not working.)

I just found out that the problem is caused by Sougou Pinyin, a Chinese input software, who recently updated itself with some features along with these new shortcut keys as shown below (pls excuse the Chinise interface)

(Obviously I missed the shift+cmd+E).
Now I have disabled them all.


Pairing 5th generation iPod touch with Bluetooth-HID dongle and windows PC Aim:

I am trying to pair my 5th generation iPod touch with windows PC.
I also have a "Bluetooth to HID" USB dongle(connected to windows PC),
which I am trying to pair with my iPOD touch. The dongle supports
Bluetooth 2.1/2.0/1.2/1.1. It sends out a byte stream, which I want
to read.

Problem:

When I am trying to pair my 5th generation iPod touch with windows
PC, even though everything goes fine on the PC side, my iPod is
giving "Device not supported" error.
My iPod is not even detecting
the Bluetooth-HID dongle. Although my Mac-mini detects it, but I am
unable to pair it.

Findings till now:

When I searched, I read on Apple discussions that "The iPod does not have the necessary BT profiles to pair with a computer." On another thread it says, "It only support bluetooth for stereo headphone/speakers, some peer to peer apps from the app store, some keyboards." Fair enough.

If iPod cannot actually pair with the PC or the Bluetooth-HID dongle, are their ANY Apple devices which are capable of doing the same? Again my main aim is to read the byte stream from the dongle for which pairing seems necessary.

I would be really thankful if you could please share your experience and provide some guidance.

Actually you can get the BT Stack needed to connect to pc but only if you jailbreak your iPod Touch 5Th gen.
 you can do this simply with pangu and iOS 8.x and you just search for BT Stack in Cydia and install that and you should be good to go.


Lost keyboard shortcut for beginning-of-line/end-of-line After purchasing a new computer (Mac Mini w/Lion) and migrating my settings from old one (Macbook Pro w/Snow Leopard), the system shortcuts for beginning-of-line and end-of-line text navigation commands (Cmd-left/right arrow) just don't work anymore, anywhere.

Curiously, this happens only in a single user account, and in other accounts on the same computer it's OK. Other shortcuts with the Command key (like Cmd-up) also work just fine.

I have browsed through the keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences > Keyboard. I also have KeyRemap4Macbook installed and browsed through its settings, to no avail. There is no Keybindings folder in my ~/Library, either.

Anybody have any idea how to even start debugging this problem?

I remember having the same problem in some apps after upgrading to Lion. A reboot fixed it for me.

Workaround: use Ctrl+A (instead of ⌘+←) to move the cursor to the beginning of the line and Ctrl+E to move the cursor to the end of the line (instead of ⌘+→). This works in all Cocoa-based applications.