Why is the screen saver not kicking in? I have  a Mac mini running 10.6.7. I have set the screen saver to be automatically activated after 15 minutes, and the session to be locked a while after that.

But sometimes, the screen saver stops working. The screen remains on and unlocked indefinitely.

I sometimes suspend the machine manually (for example by pressing ⌘-⎇-⏏). This will suspend it properly, but when I come back to it sometime later I will often see that it is on again and no screen saver.

This problem appears after I have been using the computer for a while, and then doesn't go away until I turn it off (or perhaps just log out). It could perhaps mean that some screensaver process has died and not restarted automatically.

Can anyone help me figure out what is going wrong, and what I can to to fix it?

Update: In the end, I found the application causing it to not suspend. It was SqueezePlayer. I didn't any really good suggestions how to find the culprit, though.

I cannot tell about screensaver for sure, but you can use pmset -g to show which process is disturbing sleep (think this first appeared in 10.6.7)

# pmset -g
[cut]
sleep       0 (imposed by 1517)
[cut]

this means that pid 1517 is preventing the system from sleeping.

# ps ax |grep 1517
1517   ??  Rs     1:59.76 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd

This shows that this is the backup daemon running.


How do I add a wireless printer? This seems pretty easy in Windows 7, but I am unsure of how I can do this on Mac OS X. I have a Wireless printer connected to my router via Wireless, and now I want to use it with my Mac. How can I connect to the wireless printer with my Mac? I am using OS X Lion and am on a MacBook Pro.

If the wireless printer has joined the network, OS X should see it listed as a nearby printer. From the Print & Scan pane in System Preferences, click the Plus (+) button in the lower left, and it should show up in the popup menu.

If it doesn't, select "Add Other Printer or Scanner…" In the resulting window, the "Default" Tab will show all local Bonjour printers, as well as any connected directly via USB. If you know the local IP of the printer you want to add, you can enter this in the IP tab.


Cannot reject a binary on the new iTunesConnect UI We submitted our binary, but discovered that there was an error. I uploaded a new binary from XCode6 and it shows up in the Prerelease Tab of iTunesConnect. It has a higher build number (#706) as opposed to the "waiting for review" version (#704).

I can't reject #704 and replace it with #706 in Waiting for Review. There is no reject binary button anywhere in the iTunesConnect UI, nor on the mobile app. According to the Apple Documentation it should be here, in this screenshot:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Chapters/ChangingAppStatus.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011225-CH30-SW34

If you cannot reject an app after a day or two of trying, the best thing would be a call to Apple Developer support.

https://developer.apple.com/support/


Is it normal for there to be a 5min+ period of high CPU usage when going to sleep under El Capitan? I have recently upgraded my 8GB MacBook Pro (mid 2010, model ID: MacBookPro6,2) from OS X 10.6.8 to 10.11.4.

Under Snow Leopard, after I closed the lid it would take something like 30 seconds to write memory contents to disk before the HDD would spin down and the sleep light begin to pulsate.

Under El Capitan, it takes five to six minutes between when I initiate sleep and when the machine actually powers down and the sleep light begins to pulsate.

During this time there is very high CPU usage, as evidence by:

The fans often spin up (to very high speed, if I have closed the lid and zipped the machine into the neoprene case I normally carry it in).
The period of high CPU usage is clearly visible in Activity Monitor upon waking:

Screenshot after waking from full sleep; note CPU usage was very high, then moderately high while going to sleep; there is a momentary spike (presumably upon wake) and then drops to near idle again:

Sreenshot after putting machine back to sleep, then waking again after one minute (while machine was still busy); note CPU was near idle until sleep initiated, whereupon it was very, very high, then very high, then back to near idle upon wake:

I note that /private/var/vm/sleepimage is exactly 4GiB, even though I have 8GiB of RAM.  It was previously 8GiB under Snow Leopard.

Question: Is this behaviour normal?  If not, what can I do to fix it?  If it is, is there anything that can be done to mitigate it?

Is it normal? No. Not with an optimal install, optimal hardware & configuration.
Is your computer stock or have you installed non-oem parts? Age can also be a factor as the thermal grease can deteriorate over time especially when a cpu gets overheated. Also Apple had indicated that you need a minimum of 1GB free to even be able to run effectively. My experience is that having much more than 1GB allows the system to run best.

What can you do to fix it? Take a free disk and install the OS on it. Boot from that disk and see if the problem disappears. If it is gone then it's a software issue. If it still exists, you have a hardware or resource issue. If it's software you can create a new user and log in under that account. If the problem is gone then it's the old user account. If it's not, do a clean install of the system. If the problem is gone then it was a problem with the system.

What can you do to mitigate it? See the second response to fix it or replace the machine.


How to move Mac OS application to specific display and also resize automatically? Usually when you have multiple monitors, you arrange your apps manually by dragging them to different screens and resizing them manually. Is there a tool to do it in one click or one command/script?

If using osascript, I'm able to find how to change the position and resize this:

osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to tell window 1 to set bounds to {100, 100, 1200, 500}'

How to specify display number?

Thanks

Over on Superuser there are a number of answers that sound like one or more might help with your search.

Specifically that user was looking for something similar to (the Windows only) Ultramon.

https://superuser.com/questions/100364/mac-tools-for-control-multiple-monitors

MercuryMover sounds like it might do the trick. The answer is rather old but it might give you a starting point for finding something that works a treat for your needs.


Command-line tool to check if current user has the desktop? Is there a way, via the command line, to check if the current user has the desktop?  That is, if I run a shell script in a window, I want to be able to tell (in the script) if the user has switched to another account via Fast User Switching.  The shell script is still running in that command window, but since the user has switched to another account, the Desktop doesn't show that command window.

I share my Mac with my wife, and we each have our own accounts.  When she sits down at the computer, she switches to her account.  I want to write a Python program that runs 24/7 on my account.  I want that program to know when my wife is at the computer and has switched to her account.

I hope I'm explaining this clearly.  I searched on Google for 20 minutes before giving up, as none of the search results were even close to what I was trying to find.  I don't even know how to phrase the question properly.

You can check who has the "console" with command:

ps aux | grep console | grep -v grep | awk '{ print $1 }'


SMTP with STARTTLS on iPad I tried to configure the Mail App for my Mail Server using STARTTLS on Port 587 but it does not seem to work. The app complains that there is no connection possible whether I check to use encryption or not. In the server logs I see that the iPad connects but does not issue a STARTTLS command.
I found these questions 1, 2 that suggest that iOS does not support STARTTLS but this sounds quite unreasonable. So I would like to confirm that iOS does not support STARTTLS or that the error has to be found somewhere else. Other devices can connect without problems.

The problem was not STARTTLS, I was able to verify that the mail app supports STARTTLS. My problem is that the iOS 9 mail app does only support old and insecure SSL/TLS protocol versions. Usage of these versions (TLSv1.0, TLSv1.1, SSLv2 and SSLv3) is forbidden by my mail server for security reasons. Since the iOS 9 mail app only supports these insecure protocol versions no connection is possible.

See also 1 and 2.


Using Google Chrome on macOS to run Windows executable (.EXE files) My students write code in Lazarus IDE on PC running Windows 7, using Pascal programming language, and get a .exe file as their final product.

Is there a way to open these files within Google Chrome running on macOS? I read a bit about NPAPI (now discontinued) and Simple-Get, but I'm not sure either does the trick.

On a Windows PC, it's simple. I download the .exe from the dropbox where the students have submitted it to me, then open the download, and everything is right there ready for my keyboard input.

On my school-issued Mac, I'm disabled from downloading software for local installation. Thus, I'm looking for a way to make this all happen within Google Chrome as an extension or add-on.

Ultimately, I need to download the file (.exe) then open that downloaded file in Google Chrome (in a somewhat efficient way that allows me to look at probably 50 or so programs in 30 minutes).

Layman's terms certainly appreciated where possible, I have a definite language gap!

No, you can't run exe's via Google Chrome. You may be able to use some sort of remote desktop solution such as Chrome Remote Desktop, whereby you install the exe on a Windows computer which you can see and control from your Mac—but that's not quite the same thing.

There are a number of solutions for running Windows executables on a Mac, each with their own set of compromises:

Wineskin / Wine. Works perfectly with a minority of Windows programs, but doesn't work at all with others. When it does work, this is the best solution by far.
Bootcamp Assistant, which is preinstalled on every Intel Mac in the Applications → Utilities folder, will guide you through the process of installing Windows on a separate partition. Once done, you will be able to reboot your computer into Windows—effectively turning it into a PC, temporarily—and reboot again to return to macOS. Note that this will require a purchased copy of Windows. While rebooting is a pain, this is the most "no compromise" solution, in that every Windows app will work and you won't loose any performance.
Virtualization software such as Virtualbox (free) or Parallels (paid, and expensive). Like Bootcamp, but you'll be able to switch to Windows without rebooting your computer. The catch is that you lose performance—applications will run considerably more slowly than normal. Note that the performance loss is much worse in Virtualbox than in Parallels—you get what you pay for, in this respect.

The problem is that all of these solutions requires either additional third party software (1, 3) or administrator privileges (2). I don't know your situation, but it seems to me that you need to have a discussion with a supervisor or similar about obtaining the resources and privileges necessary to do your job.


Tilda becomes ± with bluetooth keyboard Keychron K2 in OSX I want to type  ~/work in iterm2 but somehow it becomes ±/work. I am also unable type the inverted comma ` (the character shares the same key with tilda). It becomes §.

I am using a bluetooth keyboard (Keychron K2) with ANSI layout. I have already tried turning the keyboard on and off. I have also tried depressing the Fn key and other key combinations but there is no effect.

The keyboard has no such issue before.

The language is set to Australian

What is the likely cause of this issue? How can I fix it?

I am using a MacBookPro.

Edit:

Upon more testings, this is normally what I see in the System Preference.

However the moment I depressed a key, I can see the layout switched

The keyboard supports wired mode (see https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k2-wireless-mechanical-keyboard). If I connect the keyboard with the mac in wired mode, the problem went away
Before this problem appears, I have uninstalled Karabiner-Elements. I used Karabiner-Elements because I need it for other mechanical keyboard.

It sounds like your machine may think the keyboard is ISO instead of ANSI.  Some possible fixes for this problem can be found here.


Is there any way to list all .pkg packages that I have installed? Just wondering if there is any Terminal command to do this, because I think my OSX was already messed up with some incompatible .pkg installations.
Thanks.

The package management system used by OS X is rudimentary when compared to Linux counterparts like RPM or DEB. Fortunately, basic operations like listing packages and its contents are possible:

Everytime a .pkg file is installed a BOM file is stored in /private/var/db/receipts/. You can either do ls in that directory or use pkgutil to list installed packages:

$ pkgutil --packages
(...)
com.apple.pkg.HP_Scan
com.apple.pkg.HP_Scan3
com.apple.pkg.HP_SmartX
com.apple.pkg.InstallMacOSX
com.apple.pkg.JavaEssentials
com.apple.pkg.JavaForMacOSX107
com.apple.pkg.JavaMDNS
com.apple.pkg.JavaSecurity
com.apple.pkg.JavaTools
com.apple.pkg.MBP91
com.apple.pkg.MediaFiles
com.apple.pkg.MobileDevice
com.apple.pkg.MobileDeviceDevelopment
com.apple.pkg.OxfordDictionaries
(...)

To query the .pkg file's contents use pkgutil:

$ pkgutil --files com.apple.pkg.Pages4 | less
Applications
Applications/Pages.app
Applications/Pages.app/Contents
Applications/Pages.app/Contents/CodeResources
Applications/Pages.app/Contents/Frameworks
Applications/Pages.app/Contents/Frameworks/Inventor.framework
Applications/Pages.app/Contents/Frameworks/Inventor.framework/Inventor

or lsbom:

$ lsbom /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.Pages4.bom | less
.   40775   0/0
./Applications  40775   0/80
./Applications/Pages.app    40755   0/0
./Applications/Pages.app/Contents   40755   0/0
./Applications/Pages.app/Contents/CodeResources 120755  0/0 28  2941952436  _CodeSignature/CodeResources
./Applications/Pages.app/Contents/Frameworks    40755   0/0
./Applications/Pages.app/Contents/Frameworks/Inventor.framework 40755   0/0
(...)

See man pkgutil and man lsbom for other options.


Is there a way to open Mail.App from QuickMailer? Is there any way to open Mail.App from QuickMailer?

My dock auto-hides to get more screen space.

That's actually pretty easy, you just double click the icon in the Menubar.


How do I associate the right Contact Card under Users & Groups to my own profile? Just got a Mac for the first time...

Under System Preferences > Users & Groups, I have a user profile set as the Admin.

My Full Name and Apple ID are shown correctly. However, when I click on the "Open" button next to "Contacts Card", it thinks that this user profile is associated to the contact card of another member of the family. How do I change that to my own Contact Card?

The consequences of this wrong profile is that whenever I install a new software and I get asked for my name, it keeps putting the name of the family member by default. I also had to go back into my Mail, Contacts & Calendars settings where the full name field was filled out with the family member's name although the accounts were set up correctly.

You don't need iCloud.com to do this.  Open the Contacts application, select your card entry, click on the Card menu, choose "Make this My Card"


Is that possible to change PPTP VPN password on mac? Could I directly reset my password for VPN on mac?

For Windows, I found the instruction below
(source from ehow, not tested as I only has a mac):

Log on to your VPN.
Enter the "CTRL+ALT+DEL" keys simultaneously and select the
"Change a Password" menu option.
Enter a new password. Then depress the "CTRL+ALT+DEL" keys
simultaneously and select the "Lock the Computer" menu option.
Immediately unlock your computer. This action will update your
cached VPN login information and your VPN password will be updated.

Can I do this on mac too? Thanks.

No.

To my knowledge, the native VPN client on Mac OS X does not have functionality for changing your password. There is some code in directory authentication that can do this, but in order to change a password used for VPN, you'll likely have to log into a web-based password utility that's bound to the directory the VPN is authenticating to.

Additionally, those ehow instructions are quite vague. It looks a little like the system is authenticating to a VPN at login, much like how OS X can authenticate to a directory service at login. Perhaps it is possible to connect to a VPN prior to login on Windows? On Mac, on the native client, this is not possible: VPN sessions happen AFTER a user has logged in.

Now, if your VPN is authenticating to a Directory Service used for login, it may be possible to change this password inside loginwindow (as changing your account password).


Could not determine GDB version using command: sudo /usr/local/bin/gdb --version Eclipse (Mars) version (C programming language):
Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers
eclipse.buildId=4.5.0.I20150603-2000

MacOS version:
OS X Yosemite 10.10.3
HW: MacbookPro 15" (mid-2015) Retina

Problem:
Debug action causes following error message ("111" is both Project Name, and source 111.c file as well):

window title: "Problem Occurred"
Error message:
'Launching 111' has encountered a problem.
Could not determine GDB version using command: sudo /usr/local/bin/gdb --version
sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified

As far as I understand - that GBD module was removed from MacOS X, so I probably need to install manually one.
I am newcomer in Mac, and trying installing upon different forums - I didn't succeed yet.

Probably, there maybe changes required as well in:

  Debug Configurations (Run->Debug Configuration->"Debugger" tab).
  Or/and as well in:
  Eclipse -> Preferences -> C/C++ -> Debug -> GDB

Please answer me - who installed recently by him-/her- self. Since old (more than year from now) forums may describe other case compared to problem I need to solve.

Please provide exact steps how to manage.

Install with MacPorts

Install Xcode and MacPorts, if not already installed.
Now install the Apple GCC and GDB from MacPorts:

$ sudo port install gdb-apple
$ sudo port install apple-gcc42

Install with Homebrew

Install Xcode and Homebrew, if not already installed.
Now install GDB from Homebrew:

$ brew tap homebrew/dupes
$ brew install gdb

Source: http://ntraft.com/installing-gdb-on-os-x-mavericks/


Mail.app refuses to set accounts online This started happening recently (not sure if it was since the last Mavericks update but I think so). I have two IMAP accounts and one SMTP account.

Mail.app seems to get stuck in offline mode if there is any network hiccup, and it refuses to go back online. The only way I can get mail to be sent or received is to quit Mail.app and open it again, and it works great until the next network hiccup.

Other network operations work fine (Safari, Chrome, ssh, etc.) -- it's just Mail.app that exhibits this behaviour.

Has anyone seen this before, or does anyone have any comments on additional things to check to help troubleshoot the issue?

What causes mail to go offline is authentication errors.  You must contact whomever is in charge of your mail authentication servers and ask them to resolve the issue. At my work mail going offline is almost considered normal due to the fact that our internet access must pass through our network proxies which often cause mail connections to fail authentication.


Install SwiftKey on iPhone simulator Is it possible to install SwiftKey on iPhone simulator ? If yes, how may I ? There are few scenarios I want to test for Swift keyboard but I am out of device.

Officially, no. You can't install appstore apps on the simulator, your best shot would be to talk with SwiftKey and see if they give you access to the source code, this way you could compile it to the simulator and activate the keyboard, but I really doubt they would do that.


What to do if anemone themes won’t disable - Electra Jailbreak I installed an Anemone theme from Cydia called “iPhone X Theme” to get the dock from the iPhone X on my iPhone 6s, but it didn’t look very good, so I disabled the theme and deleted it, but the dock still didn’t go back to normal. Here’s what it looks like right now. My clock app also got messed up

To fix it, all I did was disable all the themes on anemone, then restart my device. After then, I just reran the jailbreak, and everything went back to normal!


How do I stop getting charged for an app I deleted? I downloaded Recolor app. Hen I got a bill and did not know there was a charge for this app. I deleted the app and on the receipt I received I reported the problem that I didn't know there was a charge. I thought that this would stop me from getting charged. But I am still getting charges

Can you help me?

There is such a thing as app subscriptions which will just be billed to the card associated with the app store.

Go to the app store, scroll to the bottom click your username, click view account, then hit Manage, then find the app that has a subscription added to it, click it and then hit the automatic renewal toggle to off.

You had purchased the app subscription which is why it's billing you


osx apply to enclosed items error My network uses a magic triangle with windows server 2012 and osx Yosemite. I am migrating to a new osx server, this one using Sierra. So I copied all the user files from the old to the new server.

After copying, all the network user's permissions disappeared, so they won't be able to get at their files on the network. So I tried to restore their permissions one user at a time. I can change the ownership of a user's home directory. But when I try to use the "Make ___ the owner" or "Apply to enclosed items" I get the error:

The operation can't be completed
An unexpected error occurred (error code -8076).

How can I give my users their permissions back?

Okay, I did it in terminal and it worked fine. I went to the correct directory and used:

sudo chown -R user.name *

That changed the permission recursively like it should.


Command Line for Final Cut Pro Import? Is there a command that I can use for importation of files into Final Cut Pro?  I tried this next command but Command-O is not the way to import files.

open -g -a "/Applications/Final Cut Pro.app" /Volumes/D2/converted/20190811_000009_14E7_00408CFA958C.mp4

Is there a way to do this?  I need to automate importation of many files at 1am.

I'm one of the creators behind CommandPost.

CommandPost is a free and open source Mac application that allows you to seriously speed up your creative editing process through powerful and customisable automation tools. Think Apple’s Automator, with a little bit of BetterTouchTool and Keyboard Maestro thrown in, but specifically designed for creative professionals. It's a fork of Hammerspoon - and everything is scripted in Lua.

The way we get files into Final Cut Pro using our watch folder functionality is via the Pasteboard. We copy the file path to the pasteboard, then trigger a Paste operation in Final Cut Pro. Here's a link to the specific code:

https://github.com/CommandPost/CommandPost/blob/develop/src/plugins/finalcutpro/watchfolders/media/MediaFolder.lua#L710

You can control CommandPost via Lua-based plugins, AppleScript, URL and Terminal commands - so you could definitely work out a way to do this at a specific time rather than via Watch Folders.

We have a fairly active Facebook Group, and you're also more than welcome to contact us via the details on the CommandPost site.

Hope this helps!


Why is pressing = repeatedly on iPhone calculator useful? Press these keys on iPhone calculator:

5 + 5 =

Unsurprisingly, the answer is 10. But keep on pressing the = sign and this is the output:

10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 … and so on

Why is this useful?

It's an auto-constant
Whether or not you find it useful depends on what you want to do.

Your method of just hitting = over & over just repeats the last calculation, so
 2 * 2 = 4 = 8 = 16 = 32 etc

But, say you needed to calculate tax on a set of payments at 15%

If you want just the tax, type
100 * 0.15 =
then your amounts
87.20 =  13.08
43.57 = 6.55
12.50 = 1.88 etc..
If you wanted the amount including tax, you'd start with
100 * 1.15 = & off you go with your amounts, as above...

From comments - this function has been on calculators [in slightly different ways] since at least the mid-70s. It's not a new feature.
On the early ones, 2*=======... would quickly just ERR. Since then they've got somewhat more flexible & move to scientific notation.


How to enlarge the reading pane font in Office 365 (Outlook)? The font is too small on the reading pane of Outlook 2016. Is there a hack to enlarge the reading pane font? I've had Macs for years but then Helvetica Neue font is too small for me.

While in the reading pane of Outlook 2016 click Format >  Increase Font Size or press command⌘+ on your keyboard.

This should increase the font size of the message content in the Reading Pane.


Terminal command to arrange all files/folders by name on hard drive Looking to tidy up my iMac.

Like everyone, I have lots of files/folders on my iMac. When they get dragged and dropped, or moved around, they retain their position, and the only way to fix this is to right click on the mouse select 'Clean up By' > 'Name'

I'm wanting to run a script in Terminal (or similar) that will do this to every file/folder on my iMac

E.g.
Directory X contains four files

ABC99, ABC45, ABC32, ABC01

After running the script, the folder should contain the same files but in the correct order

ABC01, ABC32, ABC45, ABC99

Deleting .DS_Store SHOULD reset the appearance of a folder's content.

BTW, the problem with the other answer could be the handling of special characters, which in my guess is space.

For example, you have a home directory named "First Last". In find, the result it pipes out would be:

/Users/First Last/.DS_Store

etc. Try,

rm /Users/First Last/.DS_Store

would end in error, because the two properly escaped forms are:

rm  /Users/First\ Last/.DS_Store

or

rm "/Users/First Last/.DS_Store"

The correct way to go about it should be: run

find / -name ".DS_Store"

first to list all .DS_Store files. (Don't mind the Permission Denied.) Then

find / -name ".DS_Store" -delete

to delete all that you saw. Then

find / -name ".DS_Store"

again to confirm.

sudo is excessive. Unless you have used "sudo open -a Finder; killall Finder" before. A user's Finder has not have permission necessary to create .DS_Store files in /Library, /System, etc.


bug: unable to turn on "Show date and time in menu bar" All of a sudden, I had the date and time on the menu bar of my 10.6 machine vanish. I tried turning it on in the "Preferences >> Date and Time" section but I'm not able to.

Anyone got similar problems/found a solution to this?

If there's any additional information I can provide you, please let me know. Thanks in advance!

It's possible com.apple.menuextra.clock.plist located in your user /Users/yourShortNameHere/Library/Preferences is corrupted.

Close the System Preferences window. Move that plist out of its directory, and re-launch the System Preferences.

Feedback if it doesn't work.


Can I put a Keynote presentation in a Keynote presentation? I have a bunch of related topics I teach.  Each topic has its own Keynote presentation.

I am making a new class which teaches all the topics together.  I would like to make a Keynote presentation for this class using the existing presentations.  I don't want to copy the slides, that will be a maintenance hassle to change both copies.

Can I embed a Keynote presentation in a Keynote presentation?

You can create an iBooks presentation which allows you to do this. Whenever I have multiple presentations in one topic, I combine them into an ibooks, which allows you to embed several keynote presentations onto one "slide" or "page". Plus it looks really good -- you just click (or tap in iPad) and the embeded keynote will display. Hope this helps.


Downgrade Yosemite from back-up (not Time Machine) I've read some questions and posts regarding Yosemite downgrade from Time Machine back-up (like this and this) but I was wondering if the same thing would work for a bootable backup made with Disk Utility. Will this process work?

Boot the Mac from Recovery HD
Enter Disk Utility
From the restore tab, choose the internal hard drive as destination and the bootable drive as source.
Restore

Are there going to be problems due to Yosemite change in drive structure? (as suggested by this answer, if I understand it correctly)

I would not use Time Machine in this case, use SuperDuper! of Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable image on another drive, upgrade, see how it is and if it fails to work, then go boot off the bootable image and clone it back to where it was.

I would suggest taking a Time Machine backup in addition so you always have 2 copies of the data.


Restricted Messaging My daughter has an iphone and I would like to restrict when and who she can text with.  I'm aware that you can turn off the messaging completely but that's not wanted.  Is there a way to only allow texting to and from specific numbers.

You can't restrict Messages by person/number.  You can only turn Messages off or on.  This site can show you how to do that while using Restrictions to prevent your daughter from making changes.

There are some 3rd-party applications that might be able to do what you want.  Search the App Store for messaging apps that have that feature.


Conflict between internal Apache and Apache installed via Homebrew I have faced following trouble.
I wanted to have multiple versions of PHP so I used this article to achieve this. But I could not stop Apache via
sudo apachectl -k stop when running this command I am getting the following result:

So now it seems like I have two configuration paths:

open -e /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf
open -e /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

And currently I am frustrated and stand with following questions:
- which path is correct?
- why any changes in both files do not change anything? (after loading php7 module instead of php5 doesn't impact after I ran sudo apachectl restart)
- how should I cope with this and resolve servers conflict?

Can somebody please help me to resolve this?

P.S. If any additional details are needed or I missed something please let me know in comments.

I had the same problem on a Sierra system. I run:

which -a apachectl

outputted:

/usr/sbin/apachectl
/usr/local/bin/apachectl

to stop the apache by apple version:  sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl stop

To see the running processes: ps aux | grep httpd Outputted:

ibook             1359   0,0  0,0  2432804    768 s000  S+    4:13pm   0:00.00 grep httpd
_www              1014   0,0  0,0  2479412    836   ??  S     3:57pm   0:00.00

/usr/sbin/httpd -k restart
root              1013   0,0  0,1  2479668   7544   ??  Ss    3:57pm   0:00.12 /usr/sbin/httpd -k restart

So to stop apache by apple: sudo /usr/sbin/httpd -k stop
And to check if it occurred: ps aux | grep httpd Outputted:

ibok             1375   0,0  0,0  2432804    776 s000  S+    4:14pm   0:00.00 grep httpd

To start the brew apache:

sudo /usr/local/bin/apachectl start

And to check if it's on:  ps aux | grep httpd outputted:

 ibook             1390   0,0  0,0  2432804    768 s000  S+    4:14pm   0:00.00 grep httpd
    _www              1387   0,0  0,0  2652596    780   ??  S     4:14pm   0:00.00 /usr/local/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -k start
    _www              1386   0,0  0,0  2652596    752   ??  S     4:14pm   0:00.00 /usr/local/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -k start
    _www              1385   0,0  0,0  2652596    756   ??  S     4:14pm   0:00.00 /usr/local/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -k start
    _www              1384   0,0  0,0  2652596    756   ??  S     4:14pm   0:00.00 /usr/local/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -k start
    _www              1383   0,0  0,0  2652596    744   ??  S     4:14pm   0:00.00 /usr/local/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -k start
    root              1382   0,0  0,1  2652596  10976   ??  Ss    4:14pm   0:00.03 /usr/local/opt/httpd/bin/httpd -k start

To see the running version of apache: httpd -V that outputted:

Server version: Apache/2.4.28 (Unix)
Server built:   Oct 29 2017 19:28:54
Server's Module Magic Number: 20120211:68
Server loaded:  APR 1.5.2, APR-UTIL 1.5.4
Compiled using: APR 1.5.2, APR-UTIL 1.5.4
Architecture:   64-bit
Server MPM:     prefork
  threaded:     no
    forked:     yes (variable process count)
Server compiled with....
 -D APR_HAS_SENDFILE
 -D APR_HAS_MMAP
 -D APR_HAVE_IPV6 (IPv4-mapped addresses enabled)
 -D APR_USE_FLOCK_SERIALIZE
 -D APR_USE_PTHREAD_SERIALIZE
 -D SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT
 -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD
 -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS
 -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=256
 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/usr"
 -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/bin/suexec"
 -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="/private/var/run/httpd.pid"
 -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status"
 -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log"
 -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/mime.types"
 -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf"

And that was the APPLE installed version (2.4.28) again! In stead of the brew 2.4.38.
I recognize the frustration.

But it turns out that the pages in the localhost url are served by the new apache!

To show the OSX apache version:

Terminal input: /usr/sbin/apachectl -v

Server version: Apache/2.4.28 (Unix)
Server built:   Oct 29 2017 19:28:54

And to see the brew version:

Terminal input: /usr/local/bin/apachectl -v

Server version: Apache/2.4.38 (Unix)
Server built:   Feb 10 2019 02:49:25

And for php:
Just type in terminal : which -a php
My mac shows:

/usr/bin/php

/usr/local/bin/php

And to show the php versions just use this:

Terminal input: /usr/bin/php -v

shows the OSX build in version:
PHP 5.6.30 (cli) (built: Oct 29 2017 20:30:32)
Copyright © 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright © 1998-2016 Zend Technologies

And terminal input: /usr/local/bin/php -v

Will show the brew version:
PHP 7.3.2 (cli) (built: Feb 14 2019 10:09:47) ( NTS )
Copyright © 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.3.2, Copyright © 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.3.2, Copyright © 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies


Sending commands from TextWrangler to the terminal I want to send commands from TextWrangler to the terminal. Even if I found this, I don't understand how that works since I'm brand new to Unix and running Applescripts.

tell application "TextWrangler"
    set the_selection to (selection of front window as string)
    if (the_selection) is "" then
        set the_selection to line (get startLine of selection) of front window as string
    end if
end tell

tell application "Terminal"
    do script with command the_selection in window 1
end tell

I saved an Applescript that looks like this:

Now, what I think is to put the script in the TextWrangler Scripts Folder:

But then, how do I send commands to the Terminal.app?
How can I press cmd + enter to send a line from TextWrangler to the Terminal?

You must put the script in the "/Users/yourName/Library/Application Support/TextWrangler/Scripts" folder

After that:

Open the preferences of the TextWrangler
Select "Menus & ShortCuts" --> "Scripts" --> "your script" to add
your shortcut to the script
TextWrangler accept the (cmd + enter) keys as shortcut


Should I move my home folder to my HDD to reduce writing to the SSD? I recently added an external SSD to my 2012 Mac mini, connected with a USB 3.0 cable.
I also have a 500 GB HDD and everything works fine.

I am just wondering if it's recommend to move the home folder to the HDD to reduce the writing to the SSD.

One more thing, since the addition of the SSD, I'm avoiding entering sleep mode (again, to prevent pointless writing to the SSD) and I'm turning the computer off instead.
Is there a solution for this?

To disable hibernation go to terminal and type

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

If you'd like to reenable later down the line use:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3

As far as moving the home folder, I feel is a bit silly given the price of ssds. If you do want to do it that's fine, but I don't think most people would suggest doing so. Especially given that it's an external drive connected with a cable I would suggest leaving everything on one drive. Less chance of things going wrong, just make sure you have back ups.


How can I prevent Messages from opening up a new chat window? When I am working on something else on my iMac, I tend to get a lot of messages via the Messages app.  For some reason, when I click once on the messages app window, it does not get focus right away: Therefore, I usually double-click (Perhaps its a habit from MS Windows).  When you double click inside a chat area, it opens up that specific chat conversation into a new chat window - which is extremely annoying (IMHO).

Is it possible to turn off the feature of opening that chat conversation in a new window?

I am running 10.8.2 and Messages version 7.0.1 (3314).

EDIT: So some further testing - This happens when:

A different chat session is selected
Messages does NOT have focus
I click into a different chat session inside of my Messages window

this requires two clicks, 1 click to gain focus, 1 click to change chat windows.

All I am looking to do is disable the chat session from opening up in a new, independent window.

Unfortunately this is something that isn't possible. As you are aware, the only control we have over any double-clicking in the "Double-Click Speed" in Mouse preferences. Any changes here would be undesirable as it would affect the entire system and your goal is just the Messages app.

There is a convenient keyboard shortcut, Command + W, to close the new window that comes up, so at least you don't have to go over and manually close the window.

I suppose this is a feature request that doesn't come up very often but you could at least do what you can and fill out a feature request.


App for macOS to add words to personal vocabulary list? I search for a way to add unknown words in a personal dictionary or vocabulary list only by right-clicking the word and choosing the add option (in macOS). It would be very helpful for me to add the words directly to a vocabulary list, without breaking my workflow. I already found an addon for chrome which resolves my problem (you can see it on the attached screenshot). But I need a similar (overarching) solution that works with various apps (like PDF reader (Preview in macOS), other web browsers (safari)..). If there isn't any app for this "issue", would it be difficult for somebody without specific Swift (or macOS development) knowledge but expertise in other languages to write a small (background) APP in swift for helping me out?

You can create an Automator Quick Action that takes the selected word as input and saves it to a predefined document. The Quick Action can then be configured with a keyboard shortcut of your choosing.
Setting it up

Launch Automator (located in /Applications).

Create a new document of type "Quick Action":

Search for "shell" and drag the "Run Shell Script" action to the right panel:

Configure it to receive selected text from the current application and add this script, modifying ~/Documents/Vocabulary.txt to your needs (see below for a fancier script):
if [ "$@" != "" ]; then
    echo "$@" >> ~/Documents/Vocabulary.txt
fi

Save the Quick Action with a meaningful name like Save to Vocabulary List:

Open System Preferences>Keyboard>Shortcuts, select Services from the list on the left panel, enable the Quick Action and set a "complex" keyboard shortcut, for example ControlShiftCommandV, to reduce the change of a conflict with an existing one:

Open an app, select some text, press ControlShiftCommandV and the text will be added to the file configured in the Quick Action (~/Documents/Vocabulary.txt).

Going fancy
You can easily extend the script's functionality (basic scripting knowledge required). For example, to add a timestamp and a link to the Dictionary app, use this script instead (note that the vocabulary list is now saved to the HTML file ~/Documents/Vocabulary.html):
if [ "$@" != "" ]; then
    timestamp="$(date +%Y-%m-%d' '%H:%M:%S)"
    dictlink="dict://$(echo $@ | sed 's/ /%20/')"
    ahref="$@"

    echo "$timestamp - $ahref
" >> ~/Documents/Vocabulary.html
fi

When opened in Safari, the vocabulary file looks like this:

and you can click the word to look it up in the Dictionary app.


Efficient creation of filtering rules in Mail.app I have selected a received email in Mail.app and would like to create a rule to redirect all emails from the same sender to a specific folder. I know how to create such rules manually from the preferences menu. However, I wonder if there is any way to do this more efficiently by having some information from the selected email being filled in automatically? I checked the menus and in-app help, but couldn't find anything in this direction.

Select the email then using preferences->rules will fill in the values from theemail in the selections e.g. if you choose From it will show who the email is from.


macOS updated to Beta despite opting out This morning I was surprised seeing that my Mac mini has updated to 10.12.2 (16C32e) beta although I did opt out under the System Preferences from receiving future beta updates .

I am an Enterprise Developer so I believe that this is part of the Developers Beta and not the Public Beta, I mainly develop on iOS and would rather keep working on a non-beta machine so that my development could go smoothly without any beta bumps.

Any suggestions?

Try using the following Terminal command to manually reset the Software Update catalog to the default end-user list:

sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog

This won't remove the current beta build from your Mac, but it should reset to the correct release version next time one comes out.


How do I do the balloons effect in iOS 10's Messages? How can I do the new balloons effect, like in the commercial? Can I do it on macOS too or just iOS?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR6JtMIdMuU

1. Write your message (you'll add your effect when you're ready to send)
2. Hold down the blue, circular send icon—"Send with effect" options will show
3. Select the "Screen" tab and swipe between your five options. Press the blue icon to confirm and send!
It only plays once, on arrival, and does not replay so enjoy the moment. As of now, the effects can only be sent and played back on iOS. (They'll show as plain iMessages in the macOS app.)


Pair an Apple watch with an iPhone for display in an Apple store? I have an Apple Watch upgraded to WatchOS6 and I have only an old iPhone with iOS12 so this Apple Watch is blank and can't be associated to this iPhone (I'm using those devices for test - I'm not really an Apple user).

I would like to use this Apple Watch for its basic features and for some tests without the need to synchronize it with an iPhone.

1) Will I be able to associate this Apple Watch with an iPhone "for display" in a physical Apple retail store to pass the first WatchOS screen that asks to "associate to your iPhone"?

2) The idea is to associate without linking the watch to the cloud. Am I going to virtually brick the watch or will I be able to reset it from its own settings menu without the used iPhone of the Apple retail store?

So, I would 100% ask for help at the store in setting up your Watch rather than trying to use the display devices for pairing or setup. The display devices are heavily managed, your personal data could be synced up to Apple’s account if you managed to do this.

They have staff dedicated to the task of getting you set up and have equipment specially prepared / wiped / sanitized to help you with getting your watch set up.

If you can’t borrow a friend’s device / wipe it and then set it up, I would seek help at the store and only with staff help - attempt to pair your device to the display phones. Also, try Apple support online - they might be able to help you get set up watch free or make an appointment so you know you’ll be seen when you arrive.

https://www.apple.com/iphone-and-apple-watch/

I don’t know what WWDC 2020 will bring, but you really need an iPhone to set up and do some critical tasks with your Apple Watch with the current version of watchOS and iOS.


Errorr kernel SMC::smcReadKeyAction in Console I have OSX 10.9 Maverics on my iMac and I got this message (in Console) every few seconds:

kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR TH0P kSMCBadArgumentError(0x89) fKeyHashTable=0x0xffffff802af9b000

Any idea ?

The culprit can be a fan controll program you may have previously installed.

To my knowledge there are two possible candidates (FanControl & smcFanControl but there may be more that have the same problem).

You can verify if you have them installed and eliminate if needed.

NOTE: this problem is similar but not equal to this one Kernel SMC::smcReadKeyAction error The other one is for another version of OSX.

Procedure to check & eliminate FanControl

Open terminal and search for FanControl:

$ ps -ef | grep -i fan
0   145     1   0 Gio12am ??         3:58.07 /Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon/FanControlDaemon run

This tell you that you really have FanControlDaemon running as pid 145 as PidNumber

To eliminate it :

$ cd /Library/StartupItems/
$ sudo rm -Rf FanControlDaemon/

and then kill the daemon:

$ sudo kill PidNumber

WARNING: if you replicate this procedure replace PidNumber with the PID you get from ps -ef

This eliminate the messages for me.

Procedure to check & eliminate smcFanControl

I also try to run the current version of another fan controll utility called smcFanControl (version is 2.4) and it seem to not work in Maverics (no window) but it produce near the same message in Console:

15/11/13 14:19:35,000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR TC0F kSMCBadArgumentError(0x89) fKeyHashTable=0x0xffffff802af9b000

Note that for smcFanControl you got "ERROR TC0F" instead of "ERROR TH0P".

If you have this problem you can try to find and kill the process "smcFanControl" instead.

$ ps -ef | grep -i fan
501 45716   254   0  2:44pm ??         0:00.38 /Users/dave/Downloads/firefox/smcfancontrol_2_4/smcFanControl.app/Contents/MacOS/smcFanControl

If you find it then kill the rogue process as explained before.


Installation of Office 365 for Mac is freezing at "Running Package Scripts" (Sierra) I just downloaded Office 365 for Mac, and tried to install it in macOS Sierra 10.12.5. The installation froze when Running Package Scripts.

It is a common problem. I followed this answer and launched Disk Utility, but it seems that there is no repair disk permission in Sierra.

Then, I found the answer of dianeoforegon here. I did pay attention to close all browsers and applications (except Finder) before launching the installer. Clicking on Shift did not help either.

It is really annoying. Does anyone have a solution? Otherwise, how could I clean what I have installed completely?

Edit 1: I chatted to Microsoft support yesterday, and they let me create a new user account on my Mac, and install Office 365 under that account. I tried, the installation was freezing at the same place.

Edit 2: I chatted to another Microsoft support agent, he suggested me to remove the Office before installing, I then removed them in Applications, there was no Library/Containers or Library/Group Containers (I guess it is because the installation was not completed). And the re-installation still failed at the same place.

Additionally, I have to use VPN to connect to the internet, some sites still don't work well. Is this an issue? Does Running Package Scripts require some special Internet connection?

Turn off virus protection. As soon as I did that the installer completed the task.


AppleTV 3rd Gen Displaying 'static' randomly We have a third generation AppleTV that has just started giving us trouble (after moving - although the unit was properly packed and transported, so I do not expect damage from this).

Randomly when using various apps, the device will show what I would reference as static. The entire screen does this. The audio usually continues fine. Sometimes it gets so bad, that the TV will act like the input was dropped as well.

Connections seem ok. Rebooting the unit (unplugging power) seems to stop it for a while. It may be using a new/different HDMI cable, but I have not swapped that out to see if it makes a difference. I did reseat all cables though.

What would cause the device to do this? Is there anything I can do to fix it?

Generally speaking, static on the HDMI link can be as a result of too much noise (the signal to noise reason is to low). You say you have not changed the cable, that would be my first suspect.

Change that up and take it from there. Any breaks or wear on the cable and pins can introduce noise such that the signal effectively drops out.


Search not working in Preview.app Viewing a pdf with Preview, I do cmdF to bring up a search box and then enter a word and hit enter.

Basically nothing happens even if it's a word that's obviously present. Sometimes if I smash my hands all over the keyboard and spin around in my chair three times the search suddenly starts working again, but I haven't figured out how to do that trick reliably.

I selected the "Table of Contents" in "View Menu" and searched again. It is working. Check the screenshot:

Anyway, make sure that your PDF contains texts and not the image of some texts.


What is the workflow between iWork apps with iCloud? I have Numbers and Pages for iOS and the Mac. With iOS 5, I can create documents and spreadsheets in iCloud. How can I access those same iCloud documents in the Mac versions? Even better yet, if I want to create a document in the Mac version, how can I save it in iCloud to begin with?

I have upgraded to the latest OS X Lion version (10.7.2) and while I see the new iCloud preference pane un System Preferences and I have enabled Documents In The Cloud, I cannot see to find their counterparts in the Mac iWork apps. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

There is no iCloud-enabled version of iWork '09 on the Mac as of yet. Right now the way to save to iCloud from the Mac iWork apps is through the website.

Enabling iCloud for iWork for Mac is a bigger deal than I think most people realize. We've still yet to see any sort of UI for saving documents to iCloud on a Mac. So, for example, in iWork, will you see a standard "iCloud" folder in the Finder? Will you see a UI pane similar to the iOS versions of the apps? But in that case, how can you save a standard file to on your computer? Apple hasn't yet answered these questions, and I believe they are still working out some of these major details.

Aside from the UI issues, the Mac versions of iWork still have more advanced capabilities than the iOS versions. My guess, and hope, is that Apple will not enable cross-platform iCloud auto-saving until they are sure that changes will persist exactly across both platforms.


How to check the version of an application installed with Homebrew (Mac)? I'd like to check the version of GCC on my macOS, found this command:
$ gcc -dumpversion | cut -f1 -f2 -f3 -d

If I want to check my brew-installed GCC --version (or any other app) what would be the command?
Thank you!

To see which version(s) of a particular utility you have installed using brew, e.g. gcc, use:
brew list --versions gcc


Update trusted phone number: Cannot tap "keep using current number" I am abroad so I'm using different SIM to that associated with my Apple ID.

I'm getting an annoying badge in my iPhone settings prompting me to "Update Trusted Phoned Number".

Which takes me to the screen shown below.

Infuriatingly I am unable to tap "Keep Using +bleh".

Is this a bug? I am able to tap 'Update to +blah'

The problem got worse. Later I was unable to tap the screen while in settings.

Restarting the iPhone shook it loose.

I look forward to the day when restarting your device fails to fix any problems.


What is the latest OS to which I can upgrade an early 2015 MacBook Air running Sierra (10.12)? My daughter has an Early 2015 MacBook Air running Sierra 10.12.
In addition, she has Office 2011 installed on it as well (used through her GCSE's and A'Levels).
We now need to upgrade Office, but before I do that, I would like to know:

What's the latest OS to which I can upgrade her laptop?
Can the upgrade be performed in a single upgrade, or will I need to upgrade gradually through increasing OS versions?

Looking online, it seems I can upgrade to Big Sur. When I open the Apple Store, I can search for Big Sur, but I cannot download it. (No Get option is available.)

Apple states you can upgrade to Big Sur directly from Sierra. You say you can not find Big Sur in the Apps store. Perhaps, you can use a link from this Apple website.
The recommendation to first upgrade to High Sierra not uncommon. High Sierra includes a firmware upgrade that allows booting from Apple's new APFS format. Although if you upgrade directly to Big Sur, the firmware upgrade will still take place. Apple offers this webpage for information on how to obtain and install High Sierra.
You should be aware that do to a the firmware upgrade, installation can take longer that you would normally expect. If your computer seems stop working during the upgrade, be patient this may be normal.


Too large Other Volume in Container My Mac show disk full and realized that I can use only 100 GB (Out of 500 GB).
I checked Storage and realized that there are a lot of space for "Other Volume in Container".

So I check diskutil list in terminal and found below

I know APFS Volume disk1s5 and disk1s6 but I am not sure what is disk1s1.
It is not visualized it in DiskUtil also. Does someone know how to increase available volume?
Or how to delete that disk1s1 volume?
Below is the command result from "diskutil apfs list"

Thank you!

Multiple "Macintosh HD - Data" is a sure sign that Catalina has been installed more than once without erasing the whole physical disk.
You may be able to fix it by:

Backup all your data and settings to Time Machine (in case something goes wrong).
Discover using "diskutil apfs list" which of disk1s5 and disk1s6 is  mounted.
Boot into Recovery mode (reboot holding Cmd-R down).
Using Disk Utility, delete all but one of the multiple Data disks.  Keep only the one which was mounted in step 2.
Reboot as normal.
If this works, all good.  If not use the Second Way below.

Second Way:

Backup all your data and settings to Time Machine - this is essential.
Boot into Recovery mode (reboot holding Cmd-R down).
In Disk Utility make sure you can see all physical disks.  Do this by using the menu View and Show All Devices.
Erase the disk (not the volume) in Disk Utility.
Reinstall macOS.
Use Migration Assistant to recover all your data, apps and settings from Time Machine.

If you are not confident of doing this, take your Mac to a repair shop.
There are numerous examples on the web of people getting into this mess, and getting out of it!  For example: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250731491


How to map touchpad to screen? Touchpad shape is more or less like to the screen shape. Isn't there a way to map each position on touchpad to the position of mouse on the screen, so you simply tap at any point on the touchpad and got the mouse in the correspondent position on the screen?

VoiceOver's Trackpad Commander does this, although I doubt you can use it without having VoiceOver on. Here is Apple's tutorial on Trackpad Commander.


How can I completely disable SW updates on iPhone? As a QA engineer I have to maintain a bunch of iPhones to run my tests on them. I have to test on many OS versions, also the very old ones.

The problem is that every once in a while someone(*) (from my or next door team) updates (maybe even accidentally) the OS and we loose a valuable "old OS device".

(*) someone - just an average iPhone user, must be able to manually test apps, not too wide privileges (Do they need access to the Apple ID associated with the phone? No. Do they need to do anything besides access that single app during the QA period? No.); definitely must not be able to update OS

How can I completely disable SW updates on iPhone?

Use Guided Access to restrict their access to the single app during the QA session.

It'll prevent them from accessing anything but that app, but from what it sounds like, that's not a problem, and might even be a boon.

To enable Guided Access:

Open Settings and go to General > Accessibility > Guided Access to set up Guided Access.

To start a Guided Access session:

Open the app you want to use.
Triple-click the Home button.
Adjust settings for the session, and then tap Start.


macbook with mac OS 10.5.- not booting past apple logo For the past few days, my old macbook told me that it wa not charging, although the plug was plugged in. Unplugging it would just stop the computer from working, so the battery would really not charge. Last night, I accidentally pulled the wire out of the computer, and it stopped working. When I started it again, the indicator light at the front of the computer flashed a couple of times (I think 6), before starting seamingly normal, but it got stuck at the apple logo with the spinning disc, indicating something is loading, below it. I've waited for half an hour, seeing if something would happen, and I've tried turning it on and off. Does anyone have any idea what I can do to resolve this issue?

When reading the output of verbose mode, I notice that the call to function cat_delete() fails, and deleting a certain process on volume Macintosh HD is failing. After tat, some runtime corruptions on the same HD are deteced.

Firstly the blinking led on the front would have blinked 5 times, indication that the battery has problems or can't be seen by the computer. You should replace the battery or have it tested by Apple.

Also regarding the startup failure, you can hold down "CMD V" which is verbose mode and this tells you what the computer is doing in the background whilst booting up, so if you have a hard drive problem then you might see messages in verbose mode like "I/O error"

To fix the issue, boot up to the installation disc "grey disc" and use disk utility to verify your hard drive.


Rejection of iOS app due repackaged website I have a travel app which showcases the content related to the travel platform like "Offers", "Essentials", "Attractions" and "Ships for different routes" "facilities in each ships". But the "Booking" feature we are covering with help of that app's corresponding website.

The workflow is as follows, if user clicks on "Create Booking" button, it takes the user to website displayed in WKWebview which is presented modally. User can book the  tickets and once he close the WKWebview after booking the tickets, my tickets screen which is a different tab view gets updated.

I just wanted to clarify, is there any chance that my app will get rejected as it is doing the "Create Booking" feature by displaying the website in WKWebView.

Specifically we like to know, whether the above workflow is against "4.2 Minimum Functionality" guideline mentioned in apple appstore review guideline(https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/)

It will be really helpful, if your team is able to provide us insights regarding the above clarification
Thanking in advance,
Smitha

Regrettably, no-one on Ask Different is able to speak on behalf of Apple's reviewers.

Contact the App Store

The reviews can feel capricious, so do ask your question to Apple directly. Contact the App Store staff via the Support and Contact Us link at the base of the App Store Connect page. They are best placed to help you.


Understanding Mac Battery Information In System Information, we can obtain information about the battery, e.g.:

Battery Information:

  Model Information:
    Serial Number:  D866192Q1NFFWLKE1
    Manufacturer:   SMP
    Device Name:    bq20z451
    Pack Lot Code:  0
    PCB Lot Code:   0
    Firmware Version:   702
    Hardware Revision:  1
    Cell Revision:  3241
  Charge Information:
    Charge Remaining (mAh): 8681
    Fully Charged:  No
    Charging:   No
    Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 9199
  Health Information:
    Cycle Count:    4
    Condition:  Normal
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    -1131
  Voltage (mV): 12817
  Battery Installed:    Yes
  Amperage (mA):    -1131
  Voltage (mV): 12817

I'd like to know:

What does the Cell Revision field mean?
How are Cycle counts calculated?

Every time you fully charge your macbook battery it counts as 1. to count 1 cycle you will have to charge unto 100%. That 100% can be charged in 1 time or you can charge 20% 5 different times.


Get text from multiple webpages doesnt work if one URL is down I have creating a simple workflow in Automator which will extract text from a list of URLs and save them into one text file.

The actions are:

Get Specified Text
Get Text from Webpage
New Text File

Whenever there is a problem with one of the URLs, Automator throws an error and stops working - is it possible to make it ignore the problem URL and continue?

The reason is, the "Get Specified Text" does not allow returns (if you are putting more than one line of text).

In order for me to fix this problem (mine was similar), I found an automator text actions pack on line and bought it (really cheap). You can find it here:

http://www.automatedworkflows.com


Google Chrome screen pixelated I have a brand new MacBook Pro (16" 2019 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7) and this keeps happening in Google Chrome. I have restarted several times and it eventually goes back to this. Just doing a hard close on Chrome doesn't work.
I'm using macOS Catalina 10.15.7 and Google Chrome (86.0.4240.193).
So far, it's only Google Chrome that this happens to. Anyone have any debugging tips?

Try disabling hardware acceleration: chrome://settings/?search=hardware

I had exactly same issue: Strange video glitch in Chrome browser and @jaume suggested that. Maybe it will help?


iOS5 Upgrade fails with Error 3014 While upgrading to iOS5, my iPhone 4 got crushed.

Here is the log from the upgrade process:

Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop usbmuxd[38]: AMDeviceConnect (thread 0x100781000): This is not the droid you're looking for (is actually com.apple.mobile.restored). Move along, move along.
Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop usbmuxd[38]: _AMDevicePreflightWorker (thread 0x100781000): Pair worker could not connect to lockdownd on device 3: 0xe8000028.
Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop iTunesHelper[790]: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0x7fff76d4c960): Device 'AMDevice 0x100436990 {UDID = ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, device ID = 3, location ID = 0x24100000, product ID = 0x1297}' attached.
Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop iTunes[785]: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0x10abde000): Device 'AMDevice 0x7fe3cadbb000 {UDID = ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, device ID = 3, location ID = 0x24100000, product ID = 0x1297}' attached.
Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop iTunesHelper[790]: AMDeviceConnect (thread 0x7fff76d4c960): This is not the droid you're looking for (is actually com.apple.mobile.restored). Move along, move along.
Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop iTunes[785]: AMDeviceConnect (thread 0x10abde000): This is not the droid you're looking for (is actually com.apple.mobile.restored). Move along, move along.
Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop iTunesHelper[790]: AMDeviceConnect (thread 0x7fff76d4c960): This is not the droid you're looking for (is actually com.apple.mobile.restored). Move along, move along.
Oct 12 23:23:24 qwertzuiop iTunes[785]: AMDeviceConnect (thread 0x10abde000): This is not the droid you're looking for (is actually com.apple.mobile.restored). Move along, move along.
Oct 12 23:24:01 qwertzuiop com.apple.usbmuxd[38]: MuxTCPInputSCE received RST for 0x3-ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff@0x24100000:12345->0x100318240-iTunes/com.apple.iTunes:18432: handleConnectResult: failure - 61
Oct 12 23:24:01 qwertzuiop com.apple.usbmuxd[38]: MuxTCPInputSCE received RST for 0x3-ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff@0x24100000:12345->0x101828bb0-iTunes/com.apple.iTunes:18688: handleConnectResult: failure - 61
Oct 12 23:27:25 qwertzuiop iTunesHelper[790]: _AMDDeviceDetached (thread 0x7fff76d4c960): Device 'AMDevice 0x100436990 {UDID = ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, device ID = 3, location ID = 0x24100000, product ID = 0x1297}' detached.
Oct 12 23:27:25 qwertzuiop iTunes[785]: _AMDDeviceDetached (thread 0x10abde000): Device 'AMDevice 0x7fe3cadbb000 {UDID = ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff, device ID = 3, location ID = 0x24100000, product ID = 0x1297}' detached.

Upgrading stuck with a 3014 error. Any help highly appreciated.

Update: Apple says error 3014 tends to appear when there is not enough free disk space on your Mac. Actually I have only 6GB left on my hard drive, I will try to free more space and try upgrading again.

Today, it means the Apple server is overwhelmed.  Try again tomorrow.


External monitor randomly lowers resolution adds black borders Okay this has been driving me crazy long enough.

I have an external monitor who's resolution is 1920x1080 60Hz. My MacbookPro Late/Mid 2010 has been able to work with the monitor and resolution since I've owned it. However, this past month or two the monitor's resolution would seem to reset itself to 800x600.

The reset seems to happen sporadically, usually when coming out of sleep. I also experience the monitor going in and out. I've already replaced the Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter.

Here's a screenshot when the monitor acts up. I can't get rid of the black vertical borders that magically appear nor can I select 1920x1080 as an option:

Sometimes after several restarts or plugging/unplugging the adapter, the monitor will fix itself. I have no idea what is going on, it is very frustrating.

I forgot about this question, but I eventually did find an answer.

It was a bad cable. The VGA cable was faulty (the Mini DisplayPort adapter was fine actually) - once that was replaced, everything worked fine.


What is the best way to test Metal - MBPr late 2012 I just finished upgrading from 10.10 to 10.11 and so far its allot more smooth and responsive.

I was just wondering if theres any particular games or apps which utilise the new Metal gfx technology which I can checkout now. Anything that really showcases the new technology :)

I play Guildwars 2 a little, will non Metal games benefit?

And/or is there a way to know if my Macbook is using Metal or not.

Thanks

As yet there aren't any games from the big dev companies utilising Metal, although companies like Blizzard are testing support and will update theirs accordingly in the 'next 6 months'

Those running 10.11 El Capitan can check whether their GPU supports Metal with this app:
Metal Capability Test App


Open source alternative to Adobe Edge Inspect I finally got around to trying out Adobe Edge Inspect today and was extremely disappointed.

I found an alternative named Ghostlab but am trying to find a free or open-source alternative.

Anyone have suggestions?

Try this software: Muir

Its what you search.


Create a contact in people in Outlook 2016 In Mail for Mac I can create a contact directly from an email message. In Outlook 2016 for Mac how can I do that as well? Seems like email has made more advances that Outlook has.


How do I highlight PDF text properly in the Preview application? I've been using the Preview application to view and annotate PDF files for quite a while. You can use Shift-Command-A to display the Annotations Toolbar. Then you can select the Highlight tool and choose a color (such as yellow for a standard highlight color).

Strangely, the highlighting tends to get lighter after I save and re-open a file and I can't figure out why. It may be that the highlighting gets lighter with each repeated Save of the PDF document, or that the older highlights are being made lighter for some reason.

In other words, the new highlights that I create look fine. And even after I save the document they appear to be fine. But if I look at the highlighting that I did yesterday on the same document (with the exact same settings), those highlights are in a much lighter shade of yellow. This is sort of defeating the purpose of highlighting the text since I can barely tell that I did so.

I think this only tends to happen on OS X Lion and may be a byproduct of some of the new save functionality. If there is an option to turn of "Highlight... um... lightening" then please feel free to let me know. I'll also take recommendations for a better method to annotate PDF files more effectively.

This seems to be a bug in Preview. There's a related thread about this topic in which many people say they are experiencing the same problem. I too have just tested it out and see the same results.

There are 2 workarounds I can think of. The 1st is to select all the annotations and set their color manually:

Open the annotations toolbar.
Press the right-most button which will show you a list of all the annotations.
Select all the annotations.
Choose a new color from the annotations toolbar.

The 2nd workaround is to use the Python script from the same thread previously mentioned.


Split Quicktime Clip Collection Into Individual Videos For whatever reason, my camcorder saves recorded videos as "clips" all bundled into a massive AVCHD movie file. I can open each clip individually and manually export it through Quicktime, but this is a time consuming process I would prefer to automate. What is the best way to automate exporting each of these individual "clips" into their own movie files?

For reference, the "clips" view that shows upon opening the huge AVCHD file looks like the following:

I ended up just opening each file in QuickTime and exporting each clip manually. It wasn't the optimal solution, but did get the job done.

For future viewers, showing package contents on the video file did yield a set of individual movie files in MTS format. I defaulted to manually exporting each clip, however, because I wanted the files in MP4 and didn't have access to a video converter app. However, that would have been a viable option as well.


How can I extract a .bz2 files directly into an external hard drive? I have a large .bz2 file of 18 gigabytes and there's no way it will extract on to my very small computer storage. So I got an external hard drive, copied the file to it, and pressed 'extract' expecting it to extract to the hard drive. About 1/4 the way through, it stopped because it ran out of space because it was expanding on my computer storage, not the drive's.
I then looked at this question and tried to extract it like so but it turns out .bz2 is not .zip (obviously) so when I tried putting this command in terminal:
unzip /Volumes/My\ Passport\ for\ Mac/lichess_db_standard_rated_2020-10.pgn.bz2 -d/Volumes/My\ Passport\ for\ Mac

it gave me the following error:
Archive:  /Volumes/My Passport for Mac/lichess_db_standard_rated_2020-10.pgn.bz2
  End-of-central-directory signature not found.  Either this file is not
  a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive.  In the
  latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
  the last disk(s) of this archive.
unzip:  cannot find zipfile directory in one of /Volumes/My Passport for Mac/lichess_db_standard_rated_2020-10.pgn.bz2 or
        /Volumes/My Passport for Mac/lichess_db_standard_rated_2020-10.pgn.bz2.zip, and cannot find /Volumes/My Passport for Mac/lichess_db_standard_rated_2020-10.pgn.bz2.ZIP, period.

How can I extract this .bz2 into a hard drive directly?

The Unarchiver is a great tool where mac os's own extractor comes in short. You can download the utility via official website.
Once installed just open the app via Spotlight search or something. The preferences windows will open.

Make sure to activate bzip2 file archive type.

When you head to Extraction section of the preferences, you can click the dropdown menu mentioned as "Extract archives to:" and select "Ask for a destination folder".
Then, when you try to extract anything, you can select the destination folder as desired.
I hope this utility solves the issue for you. Feel free to comment if anything goes wrong.
Cheers!
Update: In order to extract to an external drive, you have to create a new folder inside the storage unit for unarchiver getting write permissions to your hard-disk. Minor thing mentioned by question owner in comments down below.


Outlook 2011 Conditional Formatting I'm having a hard time differentiating between the "bold" unread messages and read messages in my inbox.  I would like to be able to make unread messages a different color (e.g. red)...is this possible?  I can't find a way to do it.

I have not found an automated way to do what you are asking in Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011.

A (very) manual way would be to create a category named Read and assign it a color that contrasts well with black. As you read your email, categorize each as Read. Then the text of your read email would be colored to match the category color. Again, this is not the optimum way to manage email.

If someone knows a better way I am interested to read it.


How can I get Armenian language support in iOS? I find it strange that while the Armenian language (keyboard layouts and characters) is supported on OS X, on iOS it is not supported at all.

A jailbreak on iOS 3 allowed me to install iKeyEx from Cydia, which had an Armenian keyboard in it. This solution no longer works because the app is not supported. Besides, jailbreak probably isn't the answer.
There are 3rd party apps (like iTetr) that can be used for typing in Armenian.

How can I get Armenian language support in iOS?

iOS does have an Armenian font and can therefore display Unicode Armenian in emails, webpages, and text.  For input there are at least two apps that let you construct custom keyboards, and one of them, UniKey, comes with Armenian already:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2011/05/custom-keyboards-for-ios-devices.html

Beyond that or jailbreaking, I think all you can do is ask Apple to add it via their feedback channel.

PS To see Armenian display on your iOS device you can go to

http://www.gov.am/am


How can I find out which apps I have already downloaded on my iPhone? When you attempt to download an app that costs money, you will not be charged if you already bought the app. After you press buy and enter your iTunes password, it will say "You have already purchased this item. To download it again for free, select OK."

The problem is that I deleted hundreds of apps from my phone, some of which were paid for. Later on I might find an app I like but notice that it costs money. It might be an app I had already paid for, or an app which I got when it was free.

How can I know if I tap the buy button if I will be charged for the app or not?

In other words, how can I know if I owned a previous version of an app before?

To see a listing of all the apps you have purchased or downloaded, do this :

Go to Store > View My Account
Login
Click on "Purchase History"

You should now see all the apps you have downloaded before.

Stolen from caliban's answer here.


Command Line for Enable Dragging In MacOS, in the Accessibility widget (in System Preferences) if you scroll all the way down to 'Mouse & Trackpad', and then click on the 'Trackpad Options' button, there is a by-default-unchecked box for 'Enable Dragging'.  This option is what allows you to "tap and drag" a window around using its titlebar.

I need to know the command line for checking that box.  Can anyone help?  Thanks!

The easy way to find the plist key for a given preference is to open a Finder window of ~/Library/Preferences, set it to List View, sorted by Date Modified.

Then, set the preference and see what file gets modified.

From that, I get two almost identical files modified (on 10.14.5):

com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist
com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad.plist

They contain the following relevant keys:

<key>DragLock</key>
<false/>
<key>Dragging</key>
<false/>
<key>TrackpadThreeFingerDrag</key>
<false/>

so you can set these keys directly with defaults:

defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad Dragging -bool true
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Dragging -bool true

You can include three-finger dragging or Drag Lock, if that's what you want with similar commands.


How to create a Dynamic chart in Numbers to change dates based on cell I would like to create a chart in Numbers that can dynamically change date ranges depending on different start and end dates set in start and end cells (or drop downs). This is for the purpose of charting stock prices 1 month, 3 Month, YTD etc. Excel allows for this - does Numbers?

Yes. Open help and search for “Add Interactive Chart” and you’ll get a very good guide on how Numbers supports interactive graphics.


Where can I see the full key-to-character mapping for a language-specific keyboard? I'd like to know which character is output from which key, including with modifiers like  ⌥ ⌘  ⇧ ⌃, including the character and its Unicode number.
Only the primary characters appear on my physical keyboard, but some less-known ones are produced with the modifiers.
This can actually be seen under System Preferences->Keyboard->Input Sources; Select language and then press modifier keys. However, I cannot screenshot the image of the keyboard with a modifier because the screenshot key-combination overrides the modifier key; and in any case this  is a tiny  image of the keyboard, whereas I would like a precise listing in text form.
Is this in a configuration file somewhere on my Macbook (2017 15 inch; OS 10.15.7), or can I output it with a certain command?

[Edit]: In addition to the answer below, using Ukelele, note this  code which processes Ukelele output into a searcable document.

Use Keyboard Viewer instead of the preferences pane.
Use the Screenshot app found in Applications/Utilities to create shots of the different modifier levels.
I don't know of any easy way to get the Unicode numbers.  Perhaps the Ukelele app, which can make a copy of the current input source for analysis.


Cursor-down not working 100% on a end-of-2019 MacBook Pro I've been using a MacBook Pro (ordered in Q4/2019) for about 6-7 months now, and one of the keys (cursor-down) is often reacting sluggishly - I have to press it much with much mor force  than normal. The key shares the cursor-up function, and that side is totally trouble free.
Is there a safe way to release the key cap to check if it's just a matter of cleaning a speck of dust that may have gone down there? I have found videos that show how to remove a regular key, but don't want to risk destroying the presumably tiny plastic piece on the double-function key...
Also, is this keyboard known for being problematic in this way?

This sounds like a typical symptom of the butterfly keyboard.

your Mac is less than a year old and should be covered under nornal warranty.
It may be covered under the Keyboard Service Program

Both the 13” and 15” MacBook Pro laptops are covered under the program.  I wouldn’t  attempt a fix as any damage may nullify your coverage.  Just take it in.


kernel_task consuming a lot of memory, can't finish my computations I am running a computational process that requires several GBs of memory. When my process consumes about 11Gbs, Activity Monitor shows me that kernel_task consumes more than 20Gbs thus making my system run out of memory. I need my process to finish the computation, but with kernel_task eating all the memory, the process will not finish in any reasonable time. Why is kernel_task consuming so much memory and is there a way to let it know not to? Hibernation is OFF, opening windows on restart is OFF.

My system: OSX 10.9.2, 32Gb of RAM

The kernel_task process in question is likely your process running.

You can try freeing up "inactive memory" with the purge command in Terminal, just type purge and hit return when the inactive memory gets to be a good percentage of the used memory.

You can also try running your process without the gui, or without the window server running. This will free up memory and processor resources.

Set your login window to require name and password from the accounts control panel in system preferences, turn off auto login if enabled.
Then reboot to free up memory.
from the login window (if set as username/password) type >console in the name field, hit enter, and when the window server quits...
log in at the console, shortname & enter password when prompted
type screen and hit return

screen man page - so you can have another term to watch with top; will use less resources than running gui. control-a then c to create new terminal, control-a then n to move between the two scrreens

run your process in one, run top -u -s5 to run a utility like activity monitor so you can monitor your process

when done, just exit out of both screens, and then exit out of the console to launch the window server and return the login window and back to gui


What is the definitive iPhone X corner radius? I've been experimenting and have found no conclusive corner radius for the iPhone X.

Some sources, such as iPhone X Screen Demystified - PaintCode, say its 40pts.
Some say it's 44, like UI Design for iPhone X: Top Elements and the Notch - Max Rudberg.

Using Xcode, I created a circle with a width and length of 80 (so radius 40), and put it in the top left corner of the iPhone X (so x and y are zero), there is a tiny white gap between the circle and the the edge of the screen, which you can see here:

I also tried another method, doing this with a button:

button.frame.size.height = 812
button.frame.size.width = 375
button.layer.cornerRadius = 40
button.center = self.view.center

With this I am left with:

So the question is, what is the real corner radius? Or what is going on with Xcode?

iPhone X corners do not have a conclusive corner radius. They're not normal arcs, they are ‘continuous corners’.
You can't replicate these with a simple .cornerRadius, and you also can't use Apple's own continuous corners, since that's a private API.

CALayer on iOS 11 has a private "continuousCorners" property, which is what powers many rounded corners in SpringBoard – and likely more! Now I'm jealous.

https://twitter.com/argentumko/status/955773459463790592
The closest you can get without your own implementation is UIBezierPath's rounded rectangle drawing, which uses _continuousRoundedRectBezierPath.


How does macOS "detect malware downloaded with Safari"? On Apple's website, the company makes this claim about macOS High Sierra's security features:

Can anyone give me more details on the technology that enables macOS to determine if a file downloaded with Safari is a malware ? I'm just curious to see how it compares with an antivirus (no need to start a discussion about why you need or don't need an antivirus on Mac or in general, please not for the 10000th time).

It's part of the XProtect / file quarantine scheme built into the OS.  macOS has a hard-coded list of file signatures in /System/Library/CoreServices/XProtect.bundle/Contents/Resources/XProtect.plist.  If a file matches one of the signatures, it gets flagged and quarantined.  The list is silently updated, outside the usual software-update mechanism.

It is effectively a very rudimentary blacklist of known malware.  XProtect does not provide active scanning or heuristic-based protection offered by typical antivirus products.


Can AppleScript search deeply for the largest file contained below a folder? I need to make an AppleScript that would find the biggest file in selected directory (even if its inside another folder) and show full path on screen.

This is what I have so far, but it doesn't work:

set theItem to quoted form of POSIX path of (choose folder)

set theSize to (do shell script "/usr/bin/mdls -name kMDItemFSSize -raw " & theItem)

on open f

set filePath to do shell script "dirname " & POSIX path of f as string

display dialog theFilePath

I'm not sure how to tell what isn't working from the script above. Can you help with the next step in making this work?

There are various methods to accomplish this task, each with pros and cons.  The shell methods are fast-ish, but don't always return up-to-date information.  AppleScript's Finder interface is not as slow as I thought it would be, but only returns viable values for file sizes that have been cached, otherwise "missing value" for the rest.  System Events is normally the AppleScript file managing application of choice, as it's fast upon retrieval, but slows down when accessing file attributes.  It also can't do a deep directory enumeration like Finder can (although one can be implemented manually).

I decided to use the Objective-C scripting bridge to write an AppleScript that is both super fast, and fully capable of descending into the subfolders of a directory.   Overall, it's the best method, but comes with the drawback that your teacher might be a bit suspicious.

# Loads the Foundation framework into the script so that we can access its
# methods and constants
use framework "Foundation"

# Declare properties that belong to the Foundation framework for easier
# referencing within the script
property this : a reference to current application
property NSArray : a reference to NSArray of this
property NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles : a reference to 4
property NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsPackageDescendants : a reference to 2
property NSFileManager : a reference to NSFileManager of this
property NSSortDescriptor : a reference to NSSortDescriptor of this
property NSString : a reference to NSString of this
property NSURL : a reference to NSURL of this
property NSURLFileSizeKey : a reference to NSURLFileSizeKey of this
property NSURLNameKey : a reference to NSURLNameKey of this
property NSURLPathKey : a reference to NSURLPathKey of this

# Call the handler defined below.  This is where the script does the actual
# retrieving of the files and filesizes
get my contentsOfDirectory:"~/Downloads"

# If we stopped the script at the line above, you'd see the entire contents of
# the directory subtree listed with file paths and filesizes, ordered in
# descending order by filesize.  However, you only want the largest file, so
# we pick out the first item in the list.
return item 1 of the result

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This is an AppleScript handler declaration
on contentsOfDirectory:dir
    local dir # This tells the handler that the variable passed as the
    # parameter is limited in scope to this handler

    # Obtain a reference to the default file manager of the filesystem
    set FileManager to NSFileManager's defaultManager()

    # This is where retrieve the contents of the directory, recursing
    # into any subfolders.  The options declared tell the method to skip
    # hidden files and not to look inside file packages, such as
    # applications or library files.  I've declared a list of keys that
    # pre-fetch file attributes during this retrieval, making it faster
    # to access their data later: filename, full path, and file size.
    set fs to FileManager's enumeratorAtURL:(NSURL's ¬
        fileURLWithPath:((NSString's stringWithString:dir)'s ¬
            stringByStandardizingPath())) ¬
        includingPropertiesForKeys:[¬
        NSURLPathKey, ¬
        NSURLNameKey, ¬
        NSURLFileSizeKey] ¬
        options:(NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles + ¬
        NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsPackageDescendants) ¬
        errorHandler:(missing value)

    # I created the script object just to speed up the process of
    # appending new items to the empty list it contains.
    script |files|
        property list : {}
    end script

    # This is the repeat loop that we use to enumerate the contents
    # of the directory tree that we retrieved above
    repeat
        # This allows us to access each item in the enumerator one
        # by one.
        set f to fs's nextObject()

        # Once the list has been exhausted, the value returned above
        # will be a "missing value", signifying that there are no more
        # files to enumerate.  Therefore, we can exit the loop.
        if f = missing value then exit repeat

        # Here, we retrieve the values of file attributes denoted
        # by the keys I declared earlier.  I'm picking out the path
        # and the filesize as per your needs.
        f's resourceValuesForKeys:[NSURLPathKey, NSURLFileSizeKey] ¬
            |error|:(missing value)

        # The above command returns a record containing the two
        # file attributes.  This record gets appended to the list
        # stored in the script object above.
        set end of list of |files| to the result as record
    end repeat

    # The list in the script object is an AppleScript list object.  For
    # the next part, I need a cocoa list object (NSArray).
    set L to item 1 of (NSArray's arrayWithObject:(list of |files|))

    # This defines a sort descriptor which is used to sort the array.
    # I'm telling it to use the filesize key to sort the array by
    # filesize, which will let us grab the largest file easily.
    set descriptor to NSSortDescriptor's alloc()'s ¬
        initWithKey:"NSURLFileSizeKey" ascending:no

    # Sort the list.
    L's sortedArrayUsingDescriptors:[descriptor]

    # Return the result.
    result as list
end contentsOfDirectory:


How do Apple's USB Power Adapters allow for more power output than is possible in the USB 2.0 specification? From my understanding, the USB 2.0 specification allows for a maximum power draw of 2.5w - but Apple's own USB Power Adapters allow for a maximum of 12w using a USB to Lightning cable. How is this possible over a USB port if this power usage isn't defined as part of the specification?

In the official website, it say "USB Power Adapter" without specifying which version of the USB port, why do you think it's 2.0 version ?

Also, the power allowance from USB 2.0 specification is for powering connected devices (mice, keyboards...). For charging, there is Battery Charging Specification

You can read more in here:
https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/technical-documents/tutorials/4/4803.html


How do I enable extended mode with dual monitors in OS X 10.11.6? Equipment: Early 2015 MacBook Pro - Retina 13" with the Intel Iris 6100 graphics. Two Dell U2414H monitors. One MiniDP to DP cable connecting MBP to monitor #1. DP to DP cable connecting monitor #1 to monitor #2. OS X 10.11.6.

History: According to the specs for the Early 2015 13" MBPr the laptop is capable of supporting "Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 3840 by 2160 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors."

According to Apple Support article HT206587 the video card does "support multi-stream transport (MST) displays at 60 Hz".

According to http://www.displayport.org/cables/driving-multiple-displays-from-a-single-displayport-output/ support of MST 1.2 means the laptop should provide "the ability to stream independent video displays from a single desktop or notebook video output".

Lastly, according to https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/quick-reference-guide-to-intel-processor-graphics the video card is in fact capable of supporting DisplayPort 1.2.

Problem: When I connect both monitors to the MBPr and "Enable 1.2" on monitor #1, the screen from #1 is mirrored on monitor #2. After doing some research, it appears that I need to change a setting to switch from mirrored mode to extended mode in order to have two different screens. I did Enable 1.2 on monitor #2 as a test but there was no change.

Support: I called Apple and was told to call Dell. I called Dell and the tech informed me that it was definitely a problem with the source and explained how on a Dell PC you could switch between mirror and extended modes within the graphics settings. I again called Apple and spoke with a senior advisor. I was first told that it could only be done using Thunderbolt cables. I directed his attention to the support article and said the listed Dell monitors did not have Thunderbolt. I was then told my video card didn't support that feature but explained that he was referencing the AMD Radeon R9 M370X card which is not my card. He said he would escalate the issue.

Question: How do I enable extended mode?

The first thing you should try is resetting the PRAM/NVRAM.

Resetting your PRAM/NVRAM

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

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

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

For good measure, you could also reset your SMC.

For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

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

After doing these resets, try again to use your displays in extended mode. Let us know how you go.


If I switch a SIM card from an iPhone to an Android, then back to the same iPhone, will data be lost? I want to take a SIM card out of an iPhone 7, stick it into a Samsung Galaxy A30 for a day in order to make calls from that A30, then switch the SIM card back to the iPhone. Do I need to back up the iPhone's data before doing this, or will it all still be there when I put the SIM card back?

No data is lost on an iPhone when a SIM card is being removed or inserted.
The only thing to keep in mind: You might need the SIM PIN (if there is any set) to use the card in a new phone.


Mac Mini to Apple TV I know how to move YouTube and other material from my iPhone into the Apple TV. But, as I've just purchased a Mac Mini, I'm wondering, how can I move material from the Mac Mini into the Apple TV?

You don't mention which AppleTV you own, so I am going to assume that it's the currently available model, or at least generation, because it's probably more likely, and its easier to answer :)

The answer it that you cannot move stuff onto the AppleTV, it's a streaming only solution.  Whilst it has a small amount of internal storage (I think 4Gb for the 1st version of the 2nd Gen model that I have) this is used to buffer streaming, particularly for movie rentals from iTunes etc.

So to simply view, rather than move, content that is held on your Mac Mini, or any device come to that, is to ensure that it is playable in a player that offers the chance to use AirPlay to wirelessly stream the content.  You'll need to be on the same LAN as the AppleTV to see the device, but assuming you are you should simply see it as an output source when you click the AirPlay symbol in the player.


Downgrade to iTunes with App Store support I was trying to downgrade my iTunes to an earlier version so I can access my App Wishlist and copy it and then upgrade to the latest.

I came across a webpage that suggested navigating to the Applications folder via terminal and deleting the iTunes app via sudo rm -rf iTunes.app/ however many files didn't get deleted and this left me unable to open iTunes anymore and I can't install an earlier version since the install thinks I have a newer version.

Is there a way to fix my iTunes (at least get the newest version fixed/to work again) instead of maybe reseting macOS?

I ended up downloading the official iTunes installer from Apple and reinstalling it. Since it's the newest version, I didn't get any errors saying that I have a newer version.
Works as before now.


Need to find & convert thousands of multi-page TIFFs I have a large collection of documents in various formats (PDF, TIFF, JPEG).

Many of the TIFFs are multi-page, like faxes, and the only way I know to see all the pages is with Preview.

Is there some method or app or shell command (via brew) which can find all the multi-page TIFFs so that I can convert them to multi-page PDFs?

There is a way to find them using a command line in the terminal. This requires you to install a tool which is not part of the default command set.

Download and install exiftool.

exiftool is able to print detailed information about image files, including TIFFs. It can tell the difference between multi-page documents and between FAXes and photographic TIFFs. For example testphoto.tif is a regular TIFF file and testfax.tif is a multi-page FAX:

MacBook-Air:Downloads jamie$ exiftool -s -Format -Compression -SubfileType *.tif
======== testfax.tif
Compression                     : T6/Group 4 Fax
SubfileType                     : Single page of multi-page image
======== testphoto.tif
Format                          : image/tiff
Compression                     : LZW
SubfileType                     : Full-resolution Image
    2 image files read

If we can get the filename and the identifying info on one line, then we can use grep to identify the files we want. The -csv option puts the output on one line in comma seperated value format. So, a command like this would do what you want.

MacBook-Air:Downloads jamie$ exiftool -csv  -SubfileType *.tif | grep multi-page
    2 image files read
testfax.tif,Single page of multi-page image

So, we have correctly identified testfax.tif as the only multi-page TIFF in this directory.