Using Partitioned External Harddrive with Bootcamp I tried connecting my external harddrive to my computer while booted in Bootcamp, but it wouldn't recognize the drive. I'm pretty sure this is because it was formatted for Mac computers. If I partition part of the drive and format it in exFat, will I be able to use that formatted partition within Bootcamp?

If you installed the Windows Support Software, then Windows should be able to recognize Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatted volumes. AFAIK, Windows can not recognize APFS volumes without third party software. If an external HDD contains a ExFAT formatted partition, then any version of Windows running on a Mac can access the volume. Although, older versions of Windows may need a to have an update installed. Here, I assume the external HDD is using a Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table or GUID Partition Table (GPT).

Note: There are newer Macs running Windows that can access APFS containers for the purpose of selecting the system to use to start up your computer.


Cannot boot normally or in safe mode, booting to recovery mode results in circle with line through it I opened my Macbook Pro to discover it was off, I pressed the power button and it had the AHH and the apple symbol and loading bar.  However, the screen is covered in alternating bars of pink and blue.  After the loading bar was almost full, the mac suddenly went to a very dark blue (but not black) screen. After 30 seconds, there is a power off click and the screen goes black for a few seconds before rebooting again.  It is trapped in an infinite loop. I reset NVRAM, SMC, no effect.  I shut it down to stop the loop, but the loop just restarts.  Booting to safe mode breaks the loop... by taking me to a blank white screen until I shutdown.  Booting to recovery mode simply traps me on the loading screen, but there is no loading bar or apple logo, just an eternal circle with a line through it.  Please help.
I tried booting to Verbrose Mode, here is a video.  After the text stopped, the screen turned solid gray and the text disappeared, and a few minutes later it rebooted again back into the loop.
https://streamable.com/e/m4xuku
I used option D to run a test, it found nothing wrong.

The graphical anomalies that you're seeing on boot are usually indicative of a GPU failure or logic board failure; for a MacBook Pro the difference between the two is immaterial in terms of what would need to be replaced since the GPU is soldered to the logic board. Booting into safe mode disables the GPU which likely explains your ability to get somewhere without having the machine kernel panic and power off.
The video you posted shows the machine running fsck_hfs, which checks the filesystem for errors, and it lists some issues with the filesystem. There's a possibility that you're dealing with GPU/board failure compounded with filesystem corruption caused by/during the failure of the hardware.
The diagnostics that would be available at an Apple Store (or over the phone as long as your machine is new enough) would be able to determine with a high degree of certainty whether or not you have a hardware issue.


macOS Sierra update can't be installed on this disk.This volume does not meet the requirements for this update I have been updating the macOS from 10.12.4 to 10.12.6 . For this I have downloaded the macOS dmg file from the Apple website. But when I go on for installing the macOS then I see this error.

I have around 100GB of space but its still not updating the OS. What should I do about it. I need to install "Xcode" from the App Store but when I go on for installing it gives me the error that it needs the OS update to be 10.12.6 How can I fix this up?

The version I am working on is 10.12.4

I just bought a reconditioned MacBook Air running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and as I wanted to upgrade to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, I ran into the same problem. I tried everything and was about to give up, until I stumbled the following page:

https://technology.siprep.org/waiting-for-filevault-encryption-to-finish-to-install-macos-updates/

and realized that FileVault was still encrypting my hard disk and that was blocking any macOS update.


How to find just deleted files in Time Machine? I am going through many old photographs on my Mac, deleting duplicates that have occurred for one reason or another.  However, I realise that I may have deleted the wrong duplicate in some cases.  I have deleted several hundred duplicate photos, across multiple folders.

I have my whole hard drive backed up in Time Machine.  However I don't want to simply restore all the files in Time Machine for my photos folder since I have made some changes since doing the deletion that I want to keep.  There are too many files involved to hunt for them in Time Machine individually.

Is there a way I can identify the files in a folder in Time Machine that do not exist in the current filesystem?  And then a way to restore them.

I think the command line tool tmutil may be helpful but I am not experienced with this.

Assuming you deleted the pictures directly in Finder

open (in Finder) the folder which used to contain the pictures
access Time Machine via the menulet
TM will open, showing the different time slices of your folde
Go back in time until before the deletion
Right-click on file(s) in question to restore them


Is there a way to auto spectacle every app / window that I open from different programs upon opening? I recently bought a 2019 mac book pro and am a new user to mac os, it has been quite the learning curve and there are still many quirks and features I don't quite like about mac os understand.

For example, whenever I open any app, its never in a "full-screen" mode, such that there is always some space thats unoccupied, and if you accidentally click outside of the minimized default screen then you lose / hide / minimize that window.

So that is why I downloaded Spectacle. But everytime, I have to use option+command+F to make my current window or all windows I'm using to full screen.

Is there a way I can automatically do this with certain apps and programs but not with others?

For example, I'd like to be able to open full screen but still have my menu bar up top to display without having to hover over it to display like in Word, or Chrome, but in other places such as opening a program installer, I don't need the full window size and a smaller size is better.

Is there a macro or something I do to set this up?
Thanks.

I set my windows to what size I like. Here is how I use my web browser.

You can adjust the windows to what size you like.  The come back to that size the next time you start.

For some reason, Windows seems to want you to work on one app at a time in full screen.  In the mac, I have multiple apps open at once.

One of the great features of macOS for me, is to use a keyboard manager, keyboard maestro.  I have set up F2 to be mail, f5 to be edit html, f4 to be a web browser, f8 to be bbedit and shift f12 to be activity monitor.  The neat thing is you can press these key to start the app or switch to the app.  Thus, there is no worry about whether the app is running or not. Thus, when I press f4, I get my web browser. I can "play" my function keys to quickly move between applications.


Upgrade to Mavericks from an external HDD I have Snow Leopard on and external HDD. Is it possible to boot form the external drive, and install Mavericks on the internal drive via the Mac App Store?

Yes this is entirely possible. Download Mavericks from the Mac App Store and in the install process select your internal disk as the destination for the install.


Defaults documentation for builtin apps? Does Apple supply a list of valid preferences, in terms of key-value pairs found in plist files, for built-in OS X apps?

For example, the Preview app has a user setting for anti-aliasing. One can turn this off from the command line with

defaults write com.apple.Preview PVPDFAntiAliasOption -bool no

This can also be done from the PDF tab of the Preview preferences pane, and if I do the command

defaults read com.apple.Preview

I am able to see all of Preview's stored defaults, and might be able to deduce without foreknowledge that PVPDFAntiAliasOption would be the key-value pair to alter to get the desired behaviour.

But now suppose I would like to modify other behaviours for Preview, which do not have entries in the preferences pane. Say have the sidebar open by default to the table of contents, instead of thumbnails. Or have the sidebar not open at all.

I am unable to find documentation on developer.apple.com which even lists the known PVPDFAntiAliasOption, let alone the (non-)existence of unknown keys. Google will find information about this known key, but I haven't found the right combination of search terms to find the desired list. Does documentation exist for these items? Is it provided by Apple?

Nope. There are many hidden settings that users figure out themselves, as Apple has not published a list showing which preferences are available


Why can't you create/open multiple instances of iTunes? In terminal, the open -n ~/Applications/iTunes doesn't create a new instance of iTunes, just switches to the one already open.  Why?

iTunes uses a database file to maintain a track of all the meta data on the contents of the iTunes library.  Opening multiple instances of iTunes would potentially result in the 2nd instance being unable to gain the correct access to these files as they would be locked by the first instance.

OK, you can have multiple iTunes libraries (hold Option when starting to choose or create a new one), but this is a relatively edge case scenario, and even for users of this functionality, I cannot see many instances where it would be useful to have more than one open simultaneously.  Playing 2 files at once would sound awful, and if you want to copy from one to another, you can still gain access to the files directly through the finder.


Media keys behaviour with iTunes in macOS Mojave Before I upgraded to Mojave, I was on High Sierra and I had an issue with the way the media keys worked with iTunes. Most people complained that whenever they had iTunes playing in the background and they played any sort of media, usually a video in Safari and they tried to pause iTunes so they could watch the video, they found out that the media keys interacted with the video instead of iTunes. Apparently this was a High Sierra feature that enabled the media keys to be used to control any media playing system wide.
In my own case, it was worse, the media keys couldn't control iTunes at all, even while I was in the iTunes application and I tried to pause a song or go to the next one, it wouldn't work AT ALL. Multiple restarts never fixed this. I don't even use Safari usually for browsing, I use other browsers and the media key doesn't control media that plays in them. Anyways I fixed the problem with High Sierra media key enabler application that everyone seemed to be using, unfortunately it couldn't work with bluetooth devices which I use often, only physical media keys, so if I had to interact with iTunes I always had to reach for my computer.
Fast forward to me installing Mojave, I did a clean install to avoid this problem in Mojave. I was delighted at first when I booted up Mojave, pressed the play button, iTunes started up, and I added my songs and found out that the media key controls them fine. I usually use the iTunes widget in the Notification centre a lot and was unhappy to find that it was nowhere to be found in Mojave, only the "Now playing" widget, and I soon discovered that this annoying feature followed me to Mojave. Using quick look (pressing spacebar) to preview a video, if I tried to pause iTunes so I could watch the video, I found that the video instead was being controlled. Usually I would swipe into the Notification Centre and pause iTunes from the widget, but imagine my surprise when I found out that the "Now playing" widget was showing controls for the quick look video. This is quite infuriating.
The situation has now escalated. My media keys no longer control iTunes at all, even when I'm actively in iTunes trying to control a playing song, nothing happens. And even worse, the Now playing widget shows nothing:

It shows that when an iTunes song is actively playing. Now I have to go into iTunes and click the next buttons to change a song. I would have loved for this to work properly as High Sierra media key enabler doesn't work with bluetooth controls.
Now, whenever I restart and I press the play button, iTunes starts up, pressing play again in iTunes does absolutely nothing. I would have to press spacebar to start a song playing. When I leave iTunes and continue doing something else and try to change the song, of course nothing happens and the Now playing widget is empty. But then after using my laptop for a while, I then notice the media buttons start to work again, when I check the notification centre, the Now playing widget shows the playing song.
It almost seems to me as if the Now playing widget determines what the media keys control and what it doesn't and it also seems it takes a while to pick/catch the current playing song. I use iTunes for basically most of the day and if anyone has any solution other than High Sierra media key enabler, I would really appreciate it.
P.S I use a Macbook Air 2014 model.

I went through almost exactly what you went through. I fully reinstall Mojave with no luck, so just downloaded the Media Key Forwarder (note: it's no longer called Media Key Enabler). I recommend it until Apple fixes their 'unified play'/'Now playing' mess.

Update

Boot into safe mode (hold shift as you press the power button, or click here for instructions). Start iTunes and the play buttons should work, then reboot normally and enjoy life.


improving battery life for macBook Air M1 Given that:

My MacBook Air M1 chip has more than 70% battery
The charging port is nearby and charging my Macbook Air while working does no bother me.

So in order to have prolonged battery life what should be done:

While working with MacBook Air M1 chip, continue charging it whenever possible irrespective of battery level.

OR

Charge battery only when below some threshold say 10%.

Just use the Mac!  But you can help it with:

Make sure "Optimized battery charging" is on.  System Preferences > Battery.
Avoid having power connected all the time, though this is mitigated by macOS and the setting optimise battery charging.
Avoid letting the battery go below 25%, but if needed sometimes don't worry.
If you are going to turn it off for many weeks, let it run down to 60% before turning it off.
Avoid high temperatures by keeping air flow around the MacBook - for example, don't rest it for long on soft bed covers.

Apple don't say, but battery is probably happiest between 40% and 80%.
Edit:
Apple are very reticent about precise advice regarding battery health. The most recent Apple battery support note has no advice on maximising battery health - only about battery life (time usable on battery power).  The only reference to battery health is the tick box for "Optimized battery charging".
How to Prolong Lithium-based batteries is a relatively recent general discussion of strategies to assist battery health. In particular Figure 6 shows the effect on batteries due to to different use and charging strategies with maximum battery lifetime being from keeping the battery between 65% and 75% at all times.  Read this (and some of its links) with interest and to gain some understanding of battery performance - but not to hamper use of the new MacBook Air.


My brand new MacBook Book Pro dies at 30% with no warning I got my MBP earlier today and when I'm using it it works just fine but when it dies it gives me no warning and it dies around 30%, I don't know how to fix this issue as it's supposed to have a 10 hour battery life but when I charge to maybe 60 or 70 it just dies at 30 in an hour and a half or two, and when I charge it it begins at around 30-40, what does this mean and is there any way to fix this?

Firstly, how long your MacBook Pro will last on a charge will depend on a number of factors, including what you're using it for at the time. Most people most of the time will not achieve 10hrs in between charges. Sometimes you will, and sometimes you'll even exceed 10hrs, but usually you'll fall short of that.

However, it also shouldn't just die at 30%, so I would reset the System Management Controller (SMC).

Resetting the SMC on a MacBook Pro (2018 or 2019 models)

NOTE: If your MBP is not a 2018 or 2019 model with the T2 chip, please let me know so these steps can be amended.

Fully shut down your MBP.
Press and hold the power button for at least 10 seconds
Let go of the power button and wait 5 seconds
Power up your MBP again

Once you've reset the SMC fully charge your MBP and see how you go. If it's still misbehaving, reset the SMC again but with the following steps instead:

Fully shut down your MBP.
Press and hold the right shift key and the left option and control keys for 7 seconds before then also pressing and holding the power button (or Touch ID button) down for another 7 seconds (i.e. the keys will end up being held down for 14 seconds, the power button for 7 seconds)
Let go of all three keys and the power button
Wait 5 seconds
Power up your MBP again

Now test your MBP again.


Downgrading from iOS 9.1 Beta to iOS 9 Stable and Keeping Picture Data I'm in a bit of a predicament. I have the iOS 9.1 beta installed, and I'd like to downgrade to iOS 9 stable (released today, 9/16).

I don't have a backup from iOS 8, so I understand that there's no way for me to downgrade without wiping my phone and reinstalling all of my apps and data. That's fine.

What I'm concerned about are my pictures and videos, especially keeping all of the dates intact. I've had a bad experience before importing pictures onto an iPhone and having the dates all be the same.

What backup service or desktop app should I use to best restore my pictures to my phone after I have restored the iOS 9 base image? I have the images on my computer, as well as on OneDrive. I'm running Windows, and do not have easy access to OSX.

You can actually use your whole iOS 9.1 beta backup onto the iOS 9.0 stable release (installing backup made in newer firmware onto older firmware). I'm glad I managed it and I want to share the method.

First you have to backup in iTunes (while still in iOS 9.1 beta). Then, you have to find the directory where your backup is.

On a Mac, go to finder-->go-->go to folder, and input ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
On Windows, go to \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\Windows

Find the latest folder (with lots of weird numbers and alphabets). You can sort by date to do this. Open the folder, and you'll get LOTS of text files. Search for info.plist and open it using a text editor or Xcode. Under "software version", it says 9.1. Change it to 9.0 and close the file.

You restore your device to iOS 9.0 in iTunes (since 9.0 is released it will restore it to 9.0 by default, not 8.4.1 anymore), and then after it's done you can restore from the backup you just made. It was made in iOS 9.1 but the computer thinks it's 9.0.


How do I find out which app is using my location in the background? There is a hollow location icon present at all times in my iPhone's status bar.

How do I find out which app is causing this? There used to be a section called "Location Services" in Settings but I can't find it anymore. I'm running iOS 11.4.

Location Services is under Privacy in Settings. You can scroll through the list to see apps which have used geofences to find the one relating to the icon showing it in use.


How to reach full resolution potential with MacBook Pro 2012? I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) running OS X El Capitan version 10.11.4. I am attempting to use an external display with my Dell U2715Q (has 4k capabilities). I purchased an AmazonBasics  miniDisplayPort to HDMI adapter and I am getting 1920x 1080 as my max resolution.

My question is: how can I obtain the full max resolution with my mac and monitor set up?

According to the official website I should be able to reach 2560 x 1600:

  Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native
  resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors

HDMI is limited to 1920x1080. You will need to connect the monitor with a mini DP to DP cable.


Can I use iMac G5 PowerPC for iOS app development? Can I use iMac G5 PowerPC for iOS app development? If not, why?

Depends how you want to develop, if you want to use the official tools and SDK, then you are out of luck:

What are the requirements for developing with the iOS SDK and Xcode?

To develop with the iOS SDK and Xcode, you must have an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later and you must be registered as an Apple Developer.

Source


How have I got Two identical iCloud accounts? When I look in Internet Accounts, I have two identical iCloud accounts. How can I get rid of 1 of them?

You can delete both - it will let you know if any data needs to sync up and then you can sign in again.

Sometimes the system loses track of a preference, so I recommend a back up of your local data and then perhaps restarting / disk check to be sure the storage is healthy before adding the account and re-syncing data.


Do all editions of OS X use the New Oxford American Dictionary? I know that my US-based MacBook has NOAD as its dictionary reference. Do other parts of the world have the option of other built-in dictionaries? If so, is NOAD still the default? Does Great Britain have the option of the OED instead of NOAD, for instance?

Do other parts of the world have the option of other built-in dictionaries? Does Great Britain have the option of the OED instead of NOAD, for instance?

All parts of the world have options of other dictionaries. To add (or remove) alternate dictionaries, launch the built-in dictionary application and open the app's preferences. From there you can add or subtract as many dictionaries as you'd like - including the Oxford English Dictionary.


Recovering data from a phone stuck in restore mode I have an iphone 4 that is stuck in restore mode after trying to update to ios 6 wirelessly.  Unfortunately, I do not have a recent itunes backup of this phone.

Is there any way to recover my photos from this device before I try to restore it?  Will restoring it wipe all the data on the phone?

Do you have an iCloud backup? Do you have Photo Stream enabled? These each provide convenient ways of getting your recent photos.

If not Dr. Fone is the best option I can think of. It's not cheap ($70) but if the photos are valuable enough it is worth at least downloading the trial to test.


Disable mouse interference in Cmd-Tab overlay? I often use ⌘ Cmd-Tab with my right hand on the mouse. If the cursor happens to be within overlay, then any accidental mouse movement causes OS X to think that I want to switch to whichever window icon the cursor lands on.

Meanwhile, I am used to Windows' behavior, where the mouse has no effect on ⌘ Cmd-Tab.  I don't want to think, pause, check anything, or correct anything when I use ⌘ Cmd-Tab; I press the combo and intend to instantly switch to the previous app.  The mouse simply interferes with this.

Is it possible to turn off this "feature"?

You can prevent mouse interaction with Keyboard Maestro's app switcher:

Demo:

Alternatively, you can lock the mouse position whilst the ⌘ key is still held down:

However, this doesn't appear to be possible without third party tools. You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this on the following page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


Did someone copy files from my Mac? I was away from my MacBook Air (Yosemite) briefly and suspected that someone had copied files from my Mac.  Here is what I can see from the system.log under console /var/log.  Could some experts advise whether this "(non-unique): 000000000820 " log may be sign that some one plugged in an USB drive?  What do I need to search for to find out what directory of files were possibly stolen?

_____________________BEGIN______________________

Mar 31 21:18:41 This mac kernel[0]: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 000000000820 0x5ac 0x8406 0x820, 3
Mar 31 21:18:41 This mac kernel[0]: en0: channel changed to 1
Mar 31 21:18:41 This mac.local FinderSyncAPIExtension[1051]: Pipe path is a symbolic link, connecting to target.
Mar 31 21:18:41 This mac kernel[0]: IOBluetoothUSBDFU::probe
Mar 31 21:18:41 This mac kernel[0]: IOBluetoothUSBDFU::probe ProductID - 0x828F FirmwareVersion - 0x0103
Mar 31 21:18:41 This mac kernel[0]: **** [IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport][start] -- completed -- result = TRUE -- 0xb000 ****
Mar 31 21:18:41 This mac kernel[0]: **** [BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport][start] -- Completed (matched on Device) -- 0xb000 ****
Mar 31 21:27:27 This mac kernel[0]: USB (XHCI Root Hub USB 2.0 Simulation):Port 12 on bus 0xa connected or disconnected: portSC(0xe4202a0)
Mar 31 21:27:27 This mac kernel[0]: The USB device Card Reader (Port 3 of Hub at 0x15000000) may have caused a wake by being disconnected

Here's the command for generating a list of all files accessed in the last 72 hours:

sudo find / -atime -72h -ls > output.txt

From there, you can run 'stat' on each file to get the access time.

cat output.txt | while read in; do stat; done > accessTimes.txt

You can narrow your search to a specific date/time range via a text editor or grep command.

grep "Mar 31 21:" accessTimes.txt

This may not be sufficient to prove any wrongdoing, but it can disprove it if there were no files accessed during the window of concern. Also, gives an idea of what was possibly accessed.


Can I upgrade to an SSD with the newest macOS from an old HDD with old macOS on MacBook Pro 2012? As per the title, my MBP 2012's hdd with Mavericks installed had recently failed and I am looking to replace it with an SSD.
I also have a MacBook Pro 2017 that I'm going to use to install macOS Catalina on the new SSD, so that I can directly use my MBP 2012 without having to wait for internet recovery.
Question is, can the MBP 2012 recognize the Catalina-installed SSD, even if I assume the firmware is for the old Mavericks? Or do I have to go through internet recovery?

Broadly speaking, any volume with MacOS on it should boot on any Mac that the OS supports.
There are some exceptions to that rule, of course. The newer T2-chip Macs complicate things with their SecureBoot settings. And some Macs require firmware updates on their internal drive before they can use APFS volumes -- though in your case the EFI partition will be created when you install the OS.
So it should work.
The better alternative would be to create an 'installer disk' on a small USB thumb drive, and boot to that, on the 2012 MBP, to install on the SSD once fitted internally.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201372


How can I enable Internet sharing without using the GUI or AppleScript? for some rather strange reason my sharing preferences tab crashes (it's a long story and there seems to be no good solution for it, it's looking for a ui object that no longer exists).

Anyway, I want to enable internet sharing to share my macbook's internet connection with my iPad but I can't find a way to do it without the gui or apple script (which basically calls the gui).

The problem is I need to both (1) set up and (2) run the internet sharing daemon. Running the daemon is easy but I can't configure it.

So far I am thinking I need to 1- enable routing 2- run natd 3- make sure firewall is properly configured 4- make a peer to peer wireless network on wifi.
Another option is to use sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.InternetSharing.plist the problem is I need at least a valid Snow Leopard .plist file for this to work.

Another solution I tried is to use a virtual machine (I use an Ubuntu VM in Parallels) to do the connection sharing. It works but it's too much work.

(In case you are wondering, when I click on shring in the preferences tab it crashes and in console I get an error like "unknown Class 'AppleSharing_NatManager' using 'NSObject' instead")

Any comments?

The plist that others have mentioned (/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.InternetSharing.plist) never seems to change regardless of the state of Internet Sharing -- at least under Snow Leopard.

I think the answer lies somewhere in /usr/libexec/InternetSharing and /etc/boopd.plist.

First, try running:

sudo /usr/libexec/InternetSharing -d

You will probably see messages like the following:

InternetSharing[40307]: InternetSharing starting

/etc/bootpd.plist is empty/missing

InternetSharing[40307]: no primary service specified, exiting

It turns out that /etc/bootpd.plist is created when Internet Sharing is started from the Sharing pref pane, and it is deleted when Internet Sharing is turned off.

If you are feeling adventurous, you could try manually creating the plist file.  I enabled Internet Sharing with Ethernet shared to AirPort and copied the text of the resulting /etc/bootpd.plist file to a pastebin here: http://pastebin.com/gQVzARfa

This plist doesn't contain all the necessary settings (e.g. SSID for the wireless shared connection), so I'm guessing it won't work on its own.  I'm still looking for the other settings and will update this answer if I find them.  (It's possible some are passed in as parameters to /usr/libexec/InternetSharing, but I can't find any documentation on that.)

Once you have created the plist file, try running sudo /usr/libexec/InternetSharing -d again.  We may be able to work through this one error at a time.  At this point it's really an academic exercise, as it would be far easier to reinstall your OS to fix your pref pane issue.  ;]

If by some miracle it does start, I believe /usr/libexec/InternetSharing -q will stop sharing.

Messing with your system files is always somewhat risky, so make sure you have a recent backup of your important files (I recommend Dropbox).


What was the maximum screen resolution in Macs based on 68K CPU's? What was the maximum screen resolution and refresh rate that a 68K-based Macintosh could display?

There are reports of Mac OS 9 going up to 1920 x 1200, but that is, of course, running on a PowerPC CPU.

I'm wondering what the highest resolution was, assuming you were running the most powerful 68K-based Mac with the latest Mac OS 8.1 (which was the last version of Mac OS that ran on 68K chips).

If I recall correctly (happy to be corrected) the most powerful 68K Mac that was actually released commercially was the Macintosh Quadra 840AV. It was launched in July 1993 and discontinued in July 1994 and actually overlapped the period during which Apple transitioned to PowerPC processors.

Now, depending on what you're actually asking, the thing about this model is that it had the ability to support a second display because users could expand it by inserting a NuBus video card. Depending on the card and display being used, the amount of VRAM installed, and the numbers of colours being output, one could achieve a maximum resolution of 1,152 by 870 pixels.

For example, the Macintosh Display Card 24AC and the Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24AC displayed this resolution (1,152 by 870) at 75Hz. However, the 1,024 by 768 resolution used by most was supported at both 60Hz and 75Hz.

Finally, just as an aside, I refer to the following comment in your question:

  There are reports of Mac OS 9 going up to 1920 x 1200, but that is, of course, running on a PowerPC CPU.

I still have PowerPC based Macs that can run macOS 9 natively and display a resolution of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels, but this has nothing to do with the PowerPC CPU per se. Instead the displays are driven by the various NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards you could have it configured with.


Saved preferences resetting on restart I just bought a MacBook Pro with OS X Lion.

I am having a problem with all my saved preferences: for example, in my Finder "General Preferences", the new finder window shows setting keeps resetting each time I turn on my Mac.

I am having the exact same problem with the general system preferences regarding the restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps setting; I disabled it but when I restart my laptop, Lion keeps re-opening the programs that were opened in the previous session.

I am a first time Mac user and I am a bit lost with this problem :)

I think the confusion may be in this dialog:

Unchecking it works for the current restart but the next time it comes up its checked. It has a default state which doesn't seem to have a control in system preferences and may be getting mixed up with this related but different control:

No doubt others here will know more about this than I do but I understand how a new user might be confused.


Can a dedicated GPU use/share system RAM in addition to the VRAM included with it? The Macbook Pro laptop, running OS X, has a AMD GPU which includes graphics memory of 256 MB. Is it possible for the machine to run an application that requires 512 MB video memory by sharing some of the system RAM?

(There is also an integrated graphics card but this has a max (shared) VRAM of around 380 MB. AFAIK it cannot go over this.)

Is there any way an application with video memory requirements of 512MB could be run on this machine?

I believe "NO" is also an answer :(

The physical and design of the discrete (AMD in your case, nVidia in other MBPs) is such that their VRAM is on separate bus connected only to the GPU.

The IGPs (which are part of the CPU's die, ie. physical chip) shared the DRAM of the computer. That is where the term "shared" memory comes in, because the CPU and IGP have a shared access to the "computer's" RAM :)

Thus, if your application needs 512MB display memory, then you are out of luck with your current MBP ;(


Function keys function toggle Is there any shortcut for toggling what funtion keys (F1, F2, F3,…) do? I sometimes want them to do the special operations (eg. brightness) and sometimes use them for toggling things in Pages (you can set shortcut for Style etc.).

I am looking for solution without pressing fn key for one kind of functions. I know I can do some scripting and make little AppleScript app for toggling it but that's the last solution.

I have non Touchbar MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra 10.12.6, if that helps.

This works for me using the latest version of Sierra and 15 inch MBP (non-touch bar)

Using Automator, create a new file and choose “New Service” as your option

Add A “Run AppleScript command” to your workflow, and insert the following AppleScript code

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal anchor "keyboardTab" of pane "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences" to tell window 1
    click checkbox "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" of tab group 1
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"

Save your new Automator service, naming it something like... "Toggle Function Keys"

Next, just open System Preferences/Keyboard/Shortcuts/Services And you should see your new "Toggle Function Keys" service Located in the "General" sub-menu And assign it a Keyboard shortcut.

Your new service can now be activated using the keyboard shortcut you created and in the "Services" menu while using any application.

You also have another option.

You own a Mac! It's a very powerful tool which is supposed to make your life easier.  So make your life easier and let your Mac do your work for you.

If you are crazy lazy like I am, you can save that AppleScript code in my answer, in the script editor app as a script and name it something like “Toggle Function Keys.scpt”.  You can make the action of toggling your function keys on and off “speakable”.  Meaning you can run the script with a dictation command.

Here’s the process...

Enable enhanced dictation and dictation commands in your system preferences.

As you can see in my next image, I set “computer” as my keyword phrase...

Now with enhanced dictation ready to rock'n roll, I selected the “Toggle Function Keys.scpt” file in Finder and spoke the phrase “computer make this speakable”

Speaking that command opened up this dialog box

Now any time I want to toggle my function keys, I simply say the command “Computer Toggle Function Keys” and it runs  “Toggle Function Keys.scpt” and performs all the actions in that script file


Can I still use the older Airport Utility 5.5.3 if I install the 6.0 version of Airport Utility? I have a simple network setup, and have read some initial reviews that say the new Airport Utility 6 for Mac OS X lacks some of the advanced settings that the older utility provides. I depend on those settings for my network to operate properly.

Can I still keep the old utility around and use either tool or should I wait to upgrade until I'm sure all the bells and whistles I might need are added to the 6.0 version?

I am going to need to keep the older Airport Software around since some of my devices are too old for the new software, but I'm mostly interested in knowing that I won't be forced to abandon my current advanced settings if I try the new firmware or the new client software.

Mavericks has made some changes which means that AirPort Utility 5.x will not work. Specifically, /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Apple80211 has been updated and will break the older versions of AirPort Utility.

There are two ways to get around this:

Get an older version of Apple80211 and replace the one in Mavericks with it, then run the AirPort Utility binary through Terminal.
Use a modified version of AirPort Utility which includes the file in the app bundle.


Fetching upcoming iTunes album releases I would like to track album releases for a group of artists. I could just loop over all of them and check to see if they have any releases since the last one, but it would be much more efficient if I could select future releases.

How can I get anticipated releases via the iTunes API (or another one if this isn't possible)? I was thinking maybe preorders or there would be a list of upcoming releases for that week?

It's a bit obscure, but iTunes actually offers email notifications for new releases by artists you select. To add an artist to the list, go to the artist's page within iTunes, and click the Alert Me link in the right sidebar, then click Manage My Alerts.

You'll see the artist has been added to the list (it may also contain artists you've previously purchased music from). Check the Send me email alerts about artists I've previously downloaded box to (surprise) get email when they release something. To add more artists, click the Alert Me on their page, then click OK.

If you don't want to use email for this, iTunes offers new release RSS feeds. You could filter these with something like Yahoo Pipes to get a feed with only the artists you're interested in.

It's worth noting that these both display new releases when they come out, not upcoming releases. As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't publish any upcoming release data, except for the pre-orders page, which doesn't seem to contain all upcoming releases, just featured ones.


Connecting iPhone to TV What cable do I need to display my iPhone on my TV?

I have a jailbroken iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.2.1.

The Apple Component AV Cable will let you connect from the iPhone's dock connector to RCA jacks on your TV. It won't be HD.

Standard Disclaimer: Since it's jailbroken, neither I or Apple can guarantee full/any support.


How to get Mail.app raw message in the Automator? This is an cross-post, because i'm not sure where it really belonging. It is programming question, but apple specific question too.

Here is the stackoverflow link: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17970080/how-to-get-mail-app-raw-message-in-the-automator

Try:

on run {input, parameters}
    set theSource to {}
    tell application "Mail"
        repeat with aMessage in input
            set end of theSource to aMessage's source & return
        end repeat
    end tell

    return theSource as text
end run


How are Notes Preferences Stored in MacOS? Does the Mac Notes app store its preferences in a plist somewhere, or does it have a different method of storage? It doesn't seem to use ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.notes as most system apps do.
I'm hoping to find a method to script its settings programmatically (i.e. defaults write or similar).
Update
As Alexander noted, Notes is sandboxed, and stores some data accessible via defaults [read|write] com.apple.Notes (case sensitive). However the preference pane settings I'm looking for (specifically the New notes start with setting) don't seem to be saved there. I'm hoping someone else can find where that might be kept.

Notes.app is sandboxed.

Its sandbox is ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/

Its preference list can be found at ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Notes.plist


How can I export drawing from Notes to an image with background on an iPad? When I save drawing from the Notes app to Photos, the saved image has a transparent background instead of the background I see in the Notes app.

You can see the transparent background if you open the image in Google Photos or share the picture to any other app, e.g. opening that in the Preview app on macOS.

It is annoying when I share the image to some people and they couldn't see it clearly because of the transparent background.

Is there any way to export the drawing with the background (grids and lines) I've selected for the note?

A third, more crude method, which you can use if a certain part of your doodle requires background lines/grids is taking  screenshot of the doodle.

Step 1;
Expand the note using the button in the top right of the screen.

Step 2;
Hide the panel showing pens and colors using the “x” at the bottom right of the panel.

Step 3;
Take a screenshot by pressing the home and power buttons at the same time.

Step 4; Crop the screenshot to show only the desired result.

The end result is something like this;


where are python packages installed on Lion? I'm pretty sure before Lion, I was using /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python2.7/site-packages

Although this might have been from a manual install of 2.7 on 10.6 OS X.

Anyway, any idea where standard location is for python packages that are installed?

/Library/Python/x.x/site-packages

(x.x designates the version).


Darwin/Linux/Unix command line email client that supports iCloud? I need to access my iCloud email from a command line.

Is there a command line client for Mac OS X (and/or Linux and/or Unix) that can connect to Apple's (I assume it is IMAP) servers?

A popular command line e-mail clients is Mutt. Use a package manager such as Brew or Macports to install it on MacOS. Have a look at this page for some pointers.

You can find the IMAP settings for iCloud in this Support article.


How to focus parent terminal tab of shell script for input? I have a zsh script where I prompt for user input every 15 minutes. How can I make the tab of Terminal that the script is running in open up / focus? open -a Terminal just opens the whole window.
I'm aware of this trick to get current application and re-open it, is there a way to extend it to tabs/sessions?
term=$(/usr/bin/osascript -e "copy path to frontmost application as text to stdout")
/usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application $term to activate'

Also aware of this trick to go back to an old tab, although (1) I couldn't get it to work and (2) I need the data in stdout so zsh can use it.
osascript \
    -e 'tell application "Terminal" to set oldTab to the selected tab of the front window' \
    -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down' \
    -e 'delay 1' \
    -e 'tell application "Terminal" to set selected of oldTab to true'

This is a little awkward since I can't run this code from within your script (nor within an applescript) but this osascript should allow you to specify a desired tab (tp) and switch to it from any other within the same window.
osascript -e '
tell application "Terminal" to set tp to item 1 of (tabs of window 1 whose selected is true)
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down
delay 1
tell application "Terminal" to set selected of tp to true'

I think your issue was just a syntax one: e.g. selected tab versus tab whose selected is true.
Each line does the following:

Sets variable tp to the active tab
Creates a new tab using system events
(which becomes the active tab)
Delay 1
Makes tp the active tab

The variable tp will resemble this:
--> tab 3 of window id 360 of application "Terminal"

Note, there are some alternatives to setting tp to the active tab but they're more complex.


Access a printer on the network that is connected via USB to a Windows 7 PC I have a Canon PIXMA iP5000 printer that is connected via USB to a Windows 7 PC.  I'm trying to access it via my Mac running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

I've tried the steps in the following article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3049.

I've managed to add the printer and install the required drivers from the list, but on printing from my Mac, nothing happens on the printer!

Any help appreciated, thanks.

Since the mac is sending the job over the network to the PC - it should be easy to tell if the mac has handed off the job to Windows by opening the console app on the mac (/Applications/Utilities).

If the PC accepts the job from the mac, then something should print even if you are using a generic printer driver.

Look at the error_log, access_log and page_log in /private/var/log/cups as you print.

The job should get:

queued on the mac
sent to the PC
cleared from the mac queue
queued on the PC
sent to the printer
cleared from the PC queue

You should be able to know if there is a problem on 1-3 using the console app on the mac. If there are errors, you can post them if they are not obvious to you how to react to them. I would guess you would have seen the jobs backing up on the dock or gotten an error dialog on the mac end if the problem were with your setup on the Mac.


Allow Safari extensions to access files I installed a Safari extension. I need to allow this extension to access files on mu system. Chrome has option looking like this:

I want the same for Safari. Where can I do this?

There is no way to enable this. Safari extensions are restricted to accessing the extensions folder and nowhere else.

  If you need to access local resources, use safari.extension.baseURI + “relative path and filename”. You cannot access resources on the user’s hard drive outside of the extensions folder.

Source: Injecting Scripts - Safari Extensions Development Guide


How long is the duration of exposure on an iPhone 6 in iOS 8? How long is the exposure (not the range) duration on an iPhone 6 camera? I am running iOS 8.

Depending on the lighting conditions the exposure time is between 1/50000 to 1/15 seconds. However with camera apps (other than the default one) you can achieve much longer exposure times (as long as you want).


I Pay for iTunes Match So Why Does iTunes Radio Now Have Ads (iTunes 12.0.1.26) I pay for iTunes Match, account is in good standing, auto-renew is turned on.

I just update to iTunes 12.0.1.26 now I have ads when using iTunes radio.  How do I get rid of them?  I've already tried these recommendations.

UPDATE: I went to Store -> Update iTunes Match, after it updated I skipped through the max (6 songs) on 4 different stations (24 total songs) and have not seen an ad yet.  Maybe that did the trick.  I was skipping through them though, not listening to them.

I have the same problem, and found something that worked. I skipped around 30 songs, listen to 3 on the same station (as I am writing this post) and no ads.

Devices
iPhone 5s - No commercials there
2 PCs: one with Windows 7 (64-bit) and the other Windows 8.1 (64-bit);

Problem:
I have iTunes Match and still here ads

Solution:
Enter iTunes → Store → Deauthorize this computer

After
Store → Authorize this computer
Store → Turn on iTunes match


IOS accessibility: Turn page in iBooks with headphone buttons / bluetooth keyboard? I am trying to help someone with disabilities to turn pages in e.g. iBooks on the iPad. All I need for this is a single button, possibly one that iOS can interpret as an accessibility switch.

I have looked at bluetooth switches that are made for this purpose, but it always seems like I have to purchase at least two devices (that amount to the equivalent of about USD 200) even in this simple use case. We're not aiming to control the whole OS, just to turn pages.

Is there no way to just use $10 earphone controls as a switch instead? Jailbreak or not.

Or can pages be turned in iBooks with a paired Bluetooth keyboard? That would be great.

I found out the hard way (went to a store) that you can use arrow keys on a Bluetooth keyboard to change pages in ePubs, but not in PDFs. At least in iBooks.

The problem now is that it doesn't work in apps that can read Adobe copy protected ePubs.


How can I turn off internet access for Mac apps I'm trying to disable the internet for some apps, specifically Origin because it always requires an update before I can play a game. I tried turning off internet access in the Firewall settings for Security.
I turned off Origin and chrome but both still have internet access. Restarting the computer did not do anything either. I'm still able to access internet sites on Chrome.
Both chrome and Origin are not installed via the App Store.
I'm running MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 and am always using the wifi to connect to the internet. I would like to keep my internet for the rest of the computer.

The firewall settings you have tried to configure apply to incoming connections only - this is why it is not working for you.
Basically a program on your computer can initiate a connection to an external computer, which is known as an "outgoing connection".
Similarly a program on an external computer can initiate a connection to a program on your computer, which is known as an "incoming connection".
In both cases, data can flow both ways as soon as the connection is established. That is a program can initiate an "outgoing connection", and receive lots of data on that "outgoing" connection.
In order to do what you want, you'll want to install a program such as Little Snitch, which can block network connections from programs such as Origin.


Image files organizer for OS X Is there a good image file organizer for OS X?

I'm looking for something with good previews for image files, and that will allow me to tag the files.

I use Adobe Bridge, which comes with lots of Adobe apps (list, starting at $250).
It does all you want, and a lot of other stuff too.

Some of my favorite features, other than those that you mentioned:

Full-screen previews
Powerful batch renaming
Cache export
Configurability / flexibility
Speed

Another option is Adobe Lightroom ($250). It combines a Bridge-like manager with a reasonably-powerful editor.

I realize that Bridge and Lightroom certainly aren't free, but Bridge really is my favorite image manager.
If you want something that's free, the built-in iPhoto app is a good option, although it's far less powerful. It's got some nice features like face recognition and location-based sorting.


LibreOffice vs. LibreOffice Vanilla What is the difference between LibreOffice, as available for download from the LibreOffice web site, and LibreOffice Vanilla, as available from the macOS AppStore? And how do current version numbers compare?

I guess downloading an image from that web site is okay, but then macOS asks me to confirm the image as obtained from a mirror site with an unfamiliar name. This still makes sense on a technical level, but frankly I'd prefer to install via the AppStore, esp. since the admin password is involved.

The Document Foundation Wiki has a page about LibreOffice Vanilla for Mac, which explains the differences.

There are some differences in functionality. LibreOffice Vanilla for Mac omits some Java-based features. The upshot is that Base cannot use the HSQLDB engine, and is lacking some reporting features. Java-based extensions won't work either.

The wiki page includes a detailed list of build flags used to compile the Collabora versions, which provide further detail. (Caveat: it's a wiki, so this may not be up to date.)

Note that Collabora's post LibreOffice Vanilla: Fresh from the community to your Mac does not mention these functional differences.


MacBook Pro 15" Retina Mid 2015 Trackpad Not Clicking The trackpad on my MacBook Pro stopped clicking. I was able to enable the tap to click feature, so I can click around using that, but it's annoying to expect a click and get nothing. It's like the trackpad doesn't depress at all.

I've done some research and some people said it could be a battery issue, with the battery expanding, and other people said maybe it was a software update that could have happened. I haven't done a significant software update in a while, so I don't think that's it.

Any experiences out there with this?

I went in to the Genius Bar and got an answer, so here it is!

Note that this may not work for everyone, but it did work for me.

The first thing the tech did was have me save everything and power off the computer. Wait until the screen is completely off and everything is powered down.
Plug in your MacBook.
Press the following keys in the bottom left of the keyboard: ctrl+option+shift (holding them all at the same time) and then tap the power button key in the very top right.
If the light on the charger is amber, it should flash green and then go back to amber. If it was already green, it will stay green.

This is called an SMC reset, or system management controller.

The way the tech explained it to me, this resets how the computer distributes power, and should make the computer send the correct amount of power back to the trackpad. I don't know if that's exactly how it works, but that's basically how he explained it to me.

After doing this SMC reset, the trackpad started working immediately. Hopefully this works for you as well!


My MacBook won't log me in, asking me to enter a password from August My MacBook is asking me to enter my iCloud password as of 22/08/18. I must have changed it then, but I've tried every password I have ever used and it is still not logging me in.
I tried the Command+R option but my MacBook does not show the Utilities - Terminal option at all.

To access the terminal you must first boot in recovery mode. Immediately after pressing your power button (your mac must be off prior to this) you should press both the Command and R keys together.

As for the password, I presume that you cannot log in at all. You can try to change your password in different ways. This is the official Apple Protocol here:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202860

You can also refer to this post:
Resetting password for Macbook

Best of luck


Lag spikes when playing I have a good internet connection.

The problem comes when I play on Counter Strike: Global offensive. I have stable ping (5-25ms), but each 3-4 seconds i got lag spikes. It's like, I 'teleport' ingame.

I've tested it with just my macbook on my network and with just CS:GO running.

What may cause this problem?

I can only generalise, as I don't know the game at all, but based on experience running helpline for another online structure...

This all assumes your Mac itself is up to the task & that you are running the most up to date OS. Game devs only concentrate on maintaining compatibility for so long, so as your machine or OS gets older, support dwindles.
If your machine only just meets 'minimum spec', then your gameplay is also going to be 'minimum spec' no matter how fast your connection is.

One thing to be very aware of is that most people think their computer is better than it is. The first thing they do is turn up the settings.
Don't do that.
Run at defaults, they're there for a purpose.

You need to find where the game's servers are & repeat that Speedtest. The Game's own support should be able to help you discover that, or you may be able to query from inside the game, Help/About... to find the IP address & track it down from there.
You can often find that even with a solid connection to local, you can see interference across much greater distances. From my own experience with the game host in Phoenix, AZ, anyone playing from Europe is likely to see ping of 150 - 250ms & easily 20-50% of their speed eaten by the distance.

You need to check what assets the game need to load from the remote servers. For some games it is little more than the positions of other players in real-time; everything else is already on your local disk. Some games download quite hefty assets, as the 'view' of your world changes each new 'view' has to be sent to you.
The larger the asset transmission, the more likely it is that this can get bound at your CPU [download/decode] which will cause the game to stutter.

Don't listen to anyone who tells you you need to clear any local asset caches to "speed it up"... it doesn't, it just means you have to re-download all those assets again, wasting time & bandwidth for you & the others sharing the same server.

Check your normal FPS. If you can get over 60 & the game has a frame limiter, cap it at 60. [this might need some testing, sometimes lower is better, 45 or even lower in extreme cases]. The less the GPU has to do, the more likely it will be able to keep up.
Don't believe the hype from people who tell you that astronomical fps figures are needed. Online gaming is far more ping-reliant than fps.
If you see screen-tearing when panning, try to find a v-sync control in the game. v-sync is usually off, enabling it will make the GPU only update between frames. [You will never see this happen whichever way it's set, as it's all done behind the scenes, but it can reduce tearing.]

One that people forget - just because you can achieve good speeds over Speedtest doesn't mean your router isn't getting 'tired'. Domestic have brains the size of peanuts & are easily confused. They leave ports open that they should have closed, so the next time one's needed it has to re-negotiate. their routing tables get full & are constantly being flushed to make room for new data...
So...reboot all your network hardware, router/modem, any WiFi & hubs/switches... then your puter. Power off everything, wait at least 2 minutes, then power up one every 2 minutes, starting from 'nearest the outside word' inwards. Puter last.
If you are on Wifi & you can wire up instead, do so.

On a Mac, at reboot, set it not to reopen everything afterwards.
Run just the game, nothing else. Browsers eat RAM & if you're in a low RAM scenario then you will start to see memory paging. This is good for the computer, but bad for your gaming experience.

[If I can think of more generalisations, I'll come back & add them. I can't do specifics as I don't know the game.]


Set Apple Script App as custom browser on macOS mojave I followed instructions here: Default Browser .plist location

But it does't work. My custom app doesn't show up in the list of browsers to choose from in system settings:

I have tried:

calling /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister on the modified plist file.
moving the custom app to /Applications

What does it take to get this to work on macOS mojave? Thanks

I eventually solved the problem using SwiftDefaultApps command line tool swda. It works. Although, this box now shows up blank in system setting.


Failed MacOS file sharing using wrong user account - how to reset? I have two Macbook Pros:

Mac1 is 16' 2019 running Big Sur 11.2.3
Mac2 is 13' 2017 running Catalina 10.15.7.

I am encountering this weird problem while trying to access file on Mac1 from Mac2 via MacOS's File Sharing. In Mac2's Finder, I use smb://Mac1 to open Mac1, but although occasionally it is successful, most of the time it just times out before popping up saying 'connection failed'. However, I can open Mac1 from my iPad very easily. So I guess something wrong on Mac2.
I checked sys logs in Console app and found something maybe relevant:
KernelEventAgent   tid 657c52ee type 'smbfs', mounted on '/Volumes/mac1', from '//ABCD@ufo20mbp._smb._tcp.local/mac1', not responding
KernelEventAgent   tid 657c52ee type 'smbfs', mounted on '/Volumes/mac1', from '//ABCD@ufo20mbp._smb._tcp.local/mac1', dead

in which ABCD IS NOT the correct account name to login on Mac1. I highly believe this could be the reason why the connection fails, but I cannot find any place to reset the account name. I am not sure if I am correct but I tried smb://XYZ@mac1 in Finder, but no luck, in which XYZ is the right login account name on Mac1.
Please advice what I should be to fix this issue.

Network share credentials are stored in Keychain Access.app. Take a look there. You may search for ABCD to quickly find any credentials containing this login. You can then just delete the wrong items.
Please note, when using ⌘ K in Finder, your connection string needs to look like this:
smb://<ip address> e.g. smb://192.168.0.123
or
smb://<local hostname> e.g. smb://targetMacName.local (how to find/change local hostname)


where are the tap featues of the Airpods on the Airpod Pros? I recently got some Airpod Pro earphones. I'm accustomed to being able to tap my left Airpod to advance to the next track and my right Airpod to toggle pause/play

I can't seem to find similar features on the Airpod Pros. First there appears to be no tap options only squeeze and second the squeeze options are only noise settings and Siri. Further, squeeze  is not nearly as convenient as tap since I can tap my AirPods with my hands full but can’t squeeze.

Is there some way to enable the tap options on AirPods Pros or are these really a downgrade from the functionality of the standard AirPods?

Tap on AirPods is replaced with a press on the stem (squeeze) on AirPods Pro.

On either AirPods Pro stem:

Single press for play/pause
Double press to skip media (next song, etc)
Triple press to play from start, or if at start, previous media (last song, etc)
Hold stem for the custom action in Settings, i.e. switch listening mode or start Siri.


Is there any way to save the order of spaces in Mission Control? Is there any way in Mountain Lion to preserve the order of spaces in Mission Control?

I use four different spaces for four fullscreen apps, and I like to keep them in a certain order so that I know where they all are in relation to each other.

The problem is that once these apps are quit, their spacial arrangement is lost, so I find that I'm always manually reordering them into the arrangement I like (since by default a new fullscreen app is tacked onto the end of the list of spaces).

In Snow Leopard and earlier (before Mission Control), it was possible to "bind" specific apps to specific spaces, so you could do things like always have Safari open in Space 2. With Mission Control, I don't see any way to do something equivalent.

What Jay said in a comment...
Uncheck the second box here:


How can I set Spotlight metadata to files? I am looking for a command line utility (I need to use it in a script) that can set Spotlight metadata to files.

You can always use the command line tool xattr, which lists/reads/writes/erases the filesystem's extended attributes of a file.

That's what spotlight uses to build it's index.

Note that spotlight information keys are prefixed with com.apple.metadata:

As quick example, to change the display name on spotlight of a file:

xattr -w com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDisplayName MyNewFilename.txt ActualFile.txt

to access xattr help, type on t:

xattr -h


Recovering iWork from backup I recently changed my MBP 13" 2009 to the newer MBP 13" 2012.
I decided not to recover from Time Machine and install everything manually as to make a clean start.

  Although I do not have my iWork '09 disk with me. Is there a way to
  recover it from the backups? Simply copying the application does not
  work.

Also I am not able to download it from App Store, because I bought it from a retail store and not online.

You also need to recover library files:

/Library/Application Support/iWork'09
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork09.installer.plist
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork09.plist

In my case, this was the minimum requirement to get Keynote starting again.

Additionally, you might want to recover user-specific files from your user directory:

~/Library/Application Support/iWork
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork.*


System Integrity Protection — Is it implemented in Darwin? Or is it OS X only? The question should be clear from the title. If System Integrity Protection, aka Rootless, is part of Darwin, then I might be interested in inspecting how it is implemented. I would be grateful if someone could point me to the relevant files or packages. I think it definitely should be in xnu, by the way, because it has to be in the kernel, but I'm also interested in how other packages interact with it, e.g., file_cmds.

I guess this question can only be answered on Darwin 15.0.0's source code is released on https://opensource.apple.com/ (it's not yet available as of right now).

SIP is exposed to the file handler code as a new "restricted" class flag ACL as if it were stored in the file system metadata, so the code required to prevent all writes would be fairly transparent to implement so that all other packages would just get an enoperm error if my suspicions are correct.

You are correct that we don't have a source dump yet for 10.11 so I reserve the right to be totally wrong about my suspicions.


iCloud storage in Finder What's the way to use the free iCloud 5GB storage space?
I want to store misc files in there, and access them freely from the Finder/put links to them on my desktop, etc - how do I do it? Couldn't find any intuitive way.

(asking for same functionality like Dropbox/Box.net)

P.S.
Will it be possible to access those files later on from a Windows machine too?

There is a folder, located at ~/Library/Mobile Documents/, that iCloud-enabled apps store their data in. You can trickily use this folder by simply putting any files in there that you want to access from another iCloud-enabled computer. Unfortunately, there's no way to access this folder via the web or on an iOS device, but Macs synced to the same iCloud account will all have your files in that location. I'd recommend creating an alias of some sort as well, to get quick access to it.

In answer to your P.S., there is no way to access this folder on Windows, as it doesn't exist. If you are for some reason only wanting to move iWork files, you can use and access the iCloud web interface on any computer, but I doubt this will help you.


How can I make OSX scan for available WiFi networks now Here is some background:

When I'm on the move, I often have to use my mobile phone as a hotspot. Usually I will realise that after having woken up my MacBook, otherwise how would I see that no WiFi networks are available.

However, OSX does not seem to rescan too often, I don't know the interval, but I usually end up turning off WiFi and turn it on again.

A much better solution for me would be a button / service / ... that I can nudge and that will then Search for available WiFi networks NOW

Any solutions?

WiFi log of a scan:
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.475 Info: <airportd[33]> QUERY SCAN CACHE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.481 Info: <airportd[33]> GET CURRENT TETHER DEVICE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.482 Info: <airportd[33]> QUERY GAS CACHE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.484 Info: <airportd[33]> GET CURRENT TETHER DEVICE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.523 Info: <airportd[33]> START BROWSING TETHER DEVICES request received from pid 413 (com.apple.wifi.proxy)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.524 Info: <WiFiAgent[565]> START BROWSING TETHER DEVICES request received
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.632 Info: <airportd[33]> QUERY SCAN CACHE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.638 Info: <airportd[33]> GET CURRENT TETHER DEVICE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.640 Info: <airportd[33]> QUERY GAS CACHE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:05.642 Info: <airportd[33]> GET CURRENT TETHER DEVICE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:08.660 Info: <airportd[33]> QUERY SCAN CACHE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:08.666 Info: <airportd[33]> GET CURRENT TETHER DEVICE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:08.668 Info: <airportd[33]> QUERY GAS CACHE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:08.669 Info: <airportd[33]> GET CURRENT TETHER DEVICE request received from pid 407 (SystemUIServer)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:08.681 Info: <airportd[33]> START BROWSING TETHER DEVICES request received from pid 413 (com.apple.wifi.proxy)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:08.681 Info: <WiFiAgent[565]> START BROWSING TETHER DEVICES request received
Fri Dec  5 00:52:09.194 Info: <airportd[33]> STOP BROWSING TETHER DEVICES request received from pid 413 (com.apple.wifi.proxy)
Fri Dec  5 00:52:09.195 Info: <WiFiAgent[565]> STOP BROWSING TETHER DEVICES request received

Clicking the AirPort Wi-Fi icon on the menu bar will do a rescan of available networks.


Random songs appearing in my iTunes music library after activating iTunes Match After enabling iTunes match, my library is cluttered with hundreds of tracks which I don't own / haven't downloaded. They have the "cloud" icon on them which makes me think they are either from iTunes Match - or maybe Genius.

How can I get rid of these tracks from my library, they are driving me nuts.

P.S. using iTunes 11

Apple says I should turn off iTunes match everywhere and manually clean these tracks from my library and then turn it on again. I'll report back ...


Local Items keychain recovery after system wipe I recently wiped my Mac and now i need help restoring my old keychain. My website passwords used to be stored in keychain's "Local Items" (no iCloud sync) and I had made a copy of /Library/Keychains folder prior to wiping the Mac. As far as I understand those passwords are saved in /Library/Keychains/UUID/keystore-2.db which should not be accessible on any other system when transferred as it is linked to the original system by the UUID. The "Login" keychain is working fine, it transfers and unlocks without problems.
Found a lot of info online about this topic, but most problems were regarding transferring "Local Items" keychain to a new machine (which is not possible without first exporting to another keychain). My question is whether it is possible to somehow access the old "Local Items" keychain while I still have access to the same machine despite it being wiped and freshly installed? I have the old keychain files and know the unlock passcode.

Seems like the "LocalItems" password database is encrypted with a machine specific key and cannot be opened with any other system. The good news is this key does not change after a complete system wipe (must be some kind of a hardware key). So even if the system is completely wiped, rename the fresh "Keychains" library folder to something like "Keychains_old" and copy your old "Keychains" folder, reboot and voila, everything accessible once again. Might need to input your old keychain unlock code when opening if your current user login code differs from the pre-wipe one.


No output in right channel audio headphones The right channel output cuts off and on when using headphones. The laptop speakers work fine.

I have tried 3 known working headphones, a USB headset (connected via USB not using the audio jack), cleaning out the audio jack, nothing fixes the problem.

The only fix I have discovered so far is twisting and moving the cords for all the headphones I have used, only problem with that is all these headphones work fine with other devices such as a PS3 a different PC ...

It sounds like this is an electronics issue. Its probably a single wire (the one wire that carries the right channel sound).

There is little that you can do about this unless you know how to solder/feel comfortable doing this repair yourself.

I would suggest checking if your computer is still under warranty and if it is having apple take a look at it. That should likely be covered.


Why is there no "Restore" or "put back" button in my trash? There is no restore option when I right click a folder in my trash. Did I do something wrong with my computer to cause it to do away with this option?

From comments, it appears the folder may have been deleted by an app/script.
I general, the only time the Put Back flag is created is if the file/folder is deleted in the 'normal' way, by the user themselves, in Finder.
I'm afraid i don't know how it does this or the spec of the tagging it uses - perhaps someone smarter than me could provide analysis on that - I just know this through empiricism.


No Batteries Available ?-How to Check battery health on MacBook Pro early 2011 A few days ago, I went on vacation and unplugged power cable from my MacBook Pro 13' early 2011 and then I got back home, the battery was not detected by OS and didn't charge.
I then understood that I had automatic startup configured and the laptop did power ON next morning then I was not at home. The battery was discharged completely.

I tried to restart, to power down and unplug power cable, I also tried to did SMC reset, but that didn't work.

What's the most reliable way to check the health status of the battery? - I want to replace it, but I want to be completely sure that this is the battery, and not something else.

Battery is about 3 years old and about 250 cycles.

The battery icon is the same as below:

UPD1:

I did run AHT and it returns the following error code:

4xxx/1/40000000: "Battery"

I plan to perform extended testing as well later today to see if any other errors appear, but it looks like the culprit of the issue is battery.

The battery Condition now is Replace Now.

The status changed after I unplugged power cable for a couple of days and then I plugged the cable and the laptop started, the battery status changed to Replace Now.

I will shortly check it with another battery and perhaps replace the old one.

UPD2:

I've tested my MacBook with similar working battery and it did detected the battery and worked fine and this is the good news.
On the other hand I now need to have the battery replaced.

UPD: Eventually, I now have replaced battery and it all looks OK.

The laptop is running smoothly either connected to AC power or on battery.

All the information you get from fancy 3d party is already in your system (that is where they get it from anyway).

Open your About This Mac, more info, system report and find Power:

It will tell you all about your battery.

It looks like this on my system:

Normally the Battery will keep a small reserve charge to be able to report its status to the computer. In your case somehow it was sucked dry completely :)

The good news is it is the battery, since your SMC is working and everything else is working based on the message "Replace battery". That same message was probably run all the time during your vacation, till the battery was exhausted to the level were the battery build in chip did not have enough power to talk to your OS. As for what caused that drain? did you leave your computer in a sleep mode ?


Show applications in terminal I am a developer and I want to access the applications folder through terminal. After typing in cd Applications and then ls. It doesn't show any of the contents inside the folder. I also tried ls -a to confirm wether they are stored as hidden files. But it didn't show them. I want to know a command or method to view the contents of the Application folder through terminal.

The main Applications directory is in the root directory, so you need to type

cd /Applications
ls -1

to access it (the -1 option to ls will ensure that the applications are listed in a single column only).


launchd startInterval shorter than time taken for the script to complete I'm using launchctl to load/start my python script and it works to a certain degree. It launches ever 120s, but some times my script takes 500s to run and my theory is that is I have a process running it restarts it rather than letting the first one run.

What I think happens:
- launch tester.py (tester.py estimated time to complete 400s)
- after 120s
- launch tester.py again and abandon the first one

What I want:
To finish the first tester.py not restart it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>BuildNotification.py</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/python</string>
        <string>/Users/xcuer/tester.py</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>120</integer>
    <key>TimeOut</key>
    <integer>7200</integer>
    <key>ExitTimeOut</key>
    <integer>7200</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

launchd focuses on launching jobs and keeping jobs running, it does not have a mechanism to handle overlapping jobs.

Lock File

Traditionally in a UNIX environment, a lock file is used to stop processes from being run multiple times.

The core steps are:

On script launch, if the lock file already exists, stop the script.
On script launch, if the lock file does not exist, create the lock file.
On script finish, remove the lock file.

On macOS, create your lock file in /var/tmp for computer wide processes.

Sample Implementation

if ! mkdir /var/tmp/myscript.lock 2>/dev/null; then
    echo "Myscript is already running." >&2
    exit 1
fi

See Quick-and-dirty way to ensure only one instance of a shell script is running at a time and What is the best way to ensure only one instance of a Bash script is running? for sample scripts.

Potential Problems

There are edge cases.

launchd wants jobs to run for at least n seconds before finishing. When the script finds an existing lock file, consider sleeping for n seconds and then exiting.

What happens if your script is killed or exits because of an error? Can you be certain the lock file is removed?

In C, a trick to ensure a file's removal is to create, open, and delete the file – a deleted file held open on UNIX will remain until the opening process exits. The file is deleted even if the process crashes.

In a shell script, catch the terminate signal and ensure the file is removed.

Another potential problem is checking for the file existing. This check could happen factions of second before the previous script finishes. This will be rare but possible. The approach quoted above claims to overcome this.


What’s good about Safe Sleep (hibernation) in Macs if the system will open apps anyway? I’m trying to understand better this hibernation feature in Macs.  However, what’s really the difference between resuming from safe sleep and just to plain old “reopen windows when logging back in”.  I mean, if you have saved all your files, what's the difference?

The system will re-open apps, but it won’t open unsaved documents. If you shut down instead of hibernating you have to decide whether to save or discard every unsaved document.

It’s also quicker to hibernate/wake than it is to shut down/boot.

This is a really bad example, but here it goes:

Hibernate is like Han Solo being frozen in carbonate.
Logging in is making a new baby and growing him up to be Han Solo.

(As if either were possible in a world other than science fiction). Logging in starts a sequence of application starts and not all apps save their state so hibernate generally gets you closer to where you were without keeping the system alive and consuming energy during the rest period.


Bluetooth connection instability with Magic Mouse on El Capitan I'm using a ~3 year old Apple Magic Mouse (1st generation, removable AA batteries, part number: MB829LL/A), and it has started to give me brief disconnection warnings, but always automatically reconnects in .5 to 3 seconds or so. Here's a syslog snippet on gist.github.com. Clues so far:

Started after upgrading to Yosemite / El Capitan (I only ran Yosemite for a week or so before upgrading to El Capitan)
Only happens in cafes or on campus, i.e., where there are other devices around.
Usually only ever disconnects as soon as I use the mouse after not using it for a few minutes. I.e., usually the mouse sits for several minutes and doesn't have any issues when I start to use it again; sometimes it has this disconnect aneurysm while actively using it.

Things I've tried so far:

Removing the mouse, restarting, and pairing with it again via the Bluetooth PreferencePane.
Ensuring the batteries are fresh / completely charged.

Based on #3 and what I gather from the logs, I'm guessing it's going into some sort of sleep / standby mode, and not always waking properly. Perhaps there's some OS X system setting that will let me turn this off or increase the period of time that counts as sleep-worthy inactivity?

In System Preferences for Bluetooth you can check the box to "Show Bluetooth in menu bar." Then, hold down the option key and click the Bluetooth icon when paired with your device. You'll see a new option to "Create Diagnostics Report on the Desktop." This will give you more details to further debug or diagnose what's going on, particularly the files pmset_everything.txt, and com.apple.Bluetooth.plist in the section on BluetoothStats. My system displays 0 for all the stats except 1 for CommandTimeouts.


Would Album Art in an app screenshot be protected by Fair Use? I am submitting an app to the App Store and need to include album art in my screenshots in order to show off my app. The app pulls album art and music from SoundCloud's library so there is really no other way to demo my app without including album art. Here is an example of my screen shots.

So my question is, is this protected by fair use? And if not, is there a work around for somehow being able to display cover art? Like this?

Your best bet would be to contact several bands and ask for written permission to use their art in your promotion.
My expectation on reading all the terms of service of many music streaming services is that they do not grant a commercial license to any of the content they provide, so you would be scraping that content against the terms of service. To my reading this is explicitly prohibited by SoundCloud:

(ii) You must not adapt, copy, republish, make available or otherwise communicate to the public, display, perform, transfer, share, distribute or otherwise use or exploit any Content on or from the Platform, except (i) where such Content is Your Content, or (ii) as permitted under these Terms of Use, and within the parameters set by the Uploader (for example, under the terms of Creative Commons licences selected by the Uploader).
(iii) You must not use any Content (other than Your Content) in any way that is designed to create a separate content service or that replicates any part of the Platform offering.

That alone should land you in hot water with Apple's review team.
If I were submitting an app, I would be forthright and proactive about mentioning that the artwork submitted is authorized in writing by the owners and/or properly licensed. SoundCloud also makes note that you can re-use your owned content or content that you have a license to use (uploaded content with CreativeCommons that is permissive enough for commercial reuse should do the trick if you don't have a more specific license)
If you can't do that, pay an artist to make a fake album cover - perhaps mixing elements you like and paying that artist for the rights to their work. You can upload content to soundcloud quite easily so you could control that image in a manner that Apple could rapidly determine that your company was in fact the original rights holder to the content chosen for the full screen image if not for all of the smaller thumbnails.
Fair Use is only of use in the US as a defense if you are sued in court. Expecting it to get you past Apple's policies seems like an uphill battle as you don't have a right to dispute their policies and they are fairly clear that 3.1 of https://developer.apple.com/app-store/marketing/guidelines/#photography

Show only content you have the legal right to display.

There is some precedent that thumbnail images are allowable under fair use doctrine by internet search engines, but that's a far stretch from you selecting one static image for promoting your work on a third party app store.
Your defense might be you are in fact "Display the app on an Apple product exactly as a customer will experience it when the app is running." but you run the risk of Apple asking you for confirmation that you have licensed that content - either from SoundCloud or the holder of the copyright on the album cover you choose for self-promotion.


MacOS Safari iCloud tabs stop working randomly after some time MacOS: High Sierra 10.13.6

Safari: 11.1.2

After a random amount of time the iCloud tabs button on MacOS Safari becomes disabled, making impossible to rich the iCloud tabs of other devices.

Of course syncing is enabled in System Settings > iCloud > Safari.

I have been able to workaround the problem rebooting MacOS or logging out and logging in the user, which both solved the problem temporarily until the next random block.

Any advice on how to fix it or how to solve it without terminating the user session?

I managed to find an easy workaround which doesn't require to terminate the user session.

Quit Safari
Open Activity Monitor
Type in the search box "safari" to filter the processes list

Quit and Force Quit (where required) every user process matching the "safari" search
When the Activity Monitor list is completely empty, open Safari and wait some seconds

The iCloud tabs button should appear enabled again.


is there an app button for the voice control on an iPhone 4? is there any way besides holding the home button to get to the voice control on the iPhone 4 like an app button or anything?

The (very) short answer is "No there isn't".


How do I run terminal in sudo mode? I was trying to install npm, and I got

npm ERR! Error: EACCES, Permission denied '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Please use 'sudo' or log in as root to run this command.
npm ERR!
npm ERR!     sudo npm "install" "." "--force" "--global"
npm ERR!
npm ERR! or set the 'unsafe-perm' config var to true.
npm ERR!
npm ERR!     npm config set unsafe-perm true

How can log in as a root?

sudo -s is far easier than enabling the root user since it just starts up a shell with root permissions as a one step, on demand action. Not only is it fast, but it doesn't need to be reconfigured when you don't need the root user and doesn't expose the server to any more risk or vulnerability that adding a root user would entail.

Of course for npm you could just follow the directions and type:

sudo -H npm "install" "." "--force" "--global"

That still makes the npm command "root" and skips the log out step to get back out of root.


Do I need to disable iCloud Storage Plan to change iTunes store? In order to change an iTunes store (switch to another country) I need to cancel my Apple Music subscription. I knew that, but what I didn't know is that after cancelling it I have to wait till the paid period ends, even though I don't care and would like to change the store right now.

But okay, that's water under the bridge, and soon this period will end. However, I have a paid iCloud Storage Plan as well. Should it be reset to default 5 GB as well in order to switch between iTunes stores?

I mean, if after my current Apple Music paid period will finally vanish, is it possible that iTunes will ask me to cancel iCloud Storage Plan too, and then I'll have to wait till the end of its paid period as well? So I better to reset it to default 5 GB right now?

Well, I contacted Apple Support, and they told me this:

  If you have an iCloud Storage subscription, you need to downgrade your
  active storage subscription to its original before you change your
  country or region.

So I did.

However, I am not sure if it was really necessary (because there was no red label about this in country settings like it was with Apple Music), but I didn't want to sacrifice one more month of waiting for that experiment. This is why I don't mark this answer as an accepted solution for the original question.


How to automatically make Mac shutdown after Time Machine Backup How can I make my Macbook automatically shutdown after a Time Machine backup?

I have a 40GB worth backup to do but I keep having to cancel it to go to bed. Would be great if I could leave it on to do it overnight.

Any suggestions of how to do this in ML?

I wanted to be able to leave an existing backup to complete, so my approach is a little different.

The backupd process seems only to be running whilst a backup is underway (and for a minute or two afterwards, from what I've observed) so I logged in as root (so that I can (a) see all users' process and (b) trigger a shutdown) and then polled for the process to finish before shutting down.  So:

sudo -s

and enter your password to become root, then:

while ( ps -ef | grep 'backupd$' ); do echo "Still backing up..."; sleep 60; done; shutdown -h +1

to wait for backupd to finish and then shut down.  (I used shutdown -h +1 instead of shutdown -h now just to be over-cautious and give it an extra minute to tidy up or whatever before shutting down.)


Deleted Exchange Password Prohibiting Access to IPad I had an email account on an Exchange server for a contract I was working on.  The contract ended and my password was deleted from the Exchange server so I could no longer get into the company's email.  Now, when I open my IPad it asks for the Exchange password and when I can't supply it I continue to get the message asking for the password.  I can't cancel out of this error message, it just keeps coming up whether I hit cancel or supply a no longer valid password.  I cannot get into the IPad desktop because I can't get by this message.  I would like to delete the Exchange account from my IPad (I was able to do this on my IPhone) but I can't get to the Settings.  How can I get by this message?  Thanks.

Is it a wifi only iPad? If so, you can try to temporarily shutdown your wifi. If the iPad is not connected to Internet, maybe it won't try to fetch mails.

When you are prompted, have you tried to double click the home button and kill the Mail app? Or maybe try to access Settings from there.

You can also try to connect your iPad to your computer, if it's sync to iTunes. From there, in the Info view of the iPad on iTunes, select that you don't want any email account (I believe there is a overwrite current settings checkbox) and erase your accounts from there.
You'll probably have to re-add your others account manually.


Where can I download/update to OS 10.10? I am looking to update to OS 10.10. I am currently on 10.9.5.
Both the appstore and macupdate.com seem to only have 10.10.1-.5, all of which require already having 10.10 (which, as stated, I am looking for).

I need this update so that I can install a program required for work.

Thanks!

I don't think Yosemite is still available for download, but El Capitan is. El Capitan is basically just Yosemite with some bug fixes, and has the same system requirements as Yosemite, so there's no real reason not to go to El Cap if you're already planning to go to Yosemite. (High Sierra is, obviously, even better if your Mac meets the requirements.)


Unable to browse Image folders through Whatsapp On opening whatsapp, if I want to send any photos via option 'Choose Existing Photo' to any of my contacts, the only thing I can browse is 'Camera Roll' and 'Favorites'. Apart from these two I have many folders in my iphone.

Can someone help me how can I let whatsapp see the rest of the folders? Is there any setting I need to change?

Any help much appreciated. It's becoming very painful to share photos and the only method right now is via copy and paste individually.

I am no longer receiving this error and it seems to have fixed with the whatsapp update.


Bootcamp with Ubuntu Linux Is it possible to use bootcamp to make bootable linux drives for you, or is there a similar boot manager for linux?

Yes you can. Use Boot Camp Assistant normally to create the partition, then boot into your Linux install media and select the new BOOTCAMP partition as the destination for the install.

This will set the default boot disk as the Linux partition, forcing you to alt-boot to boot into OS X. To reverse this, change your startup disk in System Preferences.


Why doesn't my new iPod Touch have a camera? I got a new, 32gb iPod Touch for my birthday in August, and I really love it. It's faster than my old one and holds all my songs, but I thought it would have a camera. I don't know much about the Apple Store (I don't go there often), but I thought that after a new model comes out, they stop selling the old one. This one was bought in summer of 2011, so I was under the impression that it would be a 4th generation with a camera and all. Am I not accessing the camera? Is it there, but I can't see it? Is there an app I need to buy to use it?

Apple sells refurbished models of many of their products, including the iPod Touch. So it's quite possible that you have a previous model (also known as the 3rd generation iPod touch).

To tell, if your iPod Touch looks like this:

you have the 3rd generation (without the camera).

If it looks like this:

you have the 4th generation model, with the camera.

If it doesn't look like either of these, you have an even earlier model, but that is unlikely as Apple rarely sells models two generations old. You can see the full range, and get more help on determining the model from this website. Identifying iPod Models


How to change file icon for macOS native file type? First up, there are several other posts here and on StackOverflow and SuperUser about this, but few of the answers are satisfactory, definitive or up-to-date.
I want to change the file icon for all PostScript files on my system to this:

(Veteran Mac users may recognise the inspiration for my design, to which all are welcome.)
Most solutions suggest hacking the Info.plist and Resources of the application that opens the file type: in this case, Preview, and that's undesirable for several reasons - increased security around app's integrity, re-applying the fix after every update, etc.
The alternative seems to be creating a 'dummy' application, though this does not seem to be fully described. A canonic, detailed, up-to-date solution to the problem is required.
Change Icon/Thumbnail for File Type
How to change file icon based file's extension (.txt, .cpp, .docx, etc)
https://superuser.com/questions/178316/how-to-set-an-icon-for-a-file-type-on-mac
https://superuser.com/questions/1270213/macos-create-an-icon-for-all-of-one-file-type
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28523975/change-all-file-icons-with-same-type-yosemite

My solution to the problem is:

Create a new application in Xcode that contains the icon resources for the file type.
Select that app as the default for the file type.
Substitute the app's binary inside its bundle for a hard link to the binary of the app you want to open the file.

EDIT: This only appears to work in Mojave: in Catalina, there's some code-signing fatal crash. If anyone know how to fix it...
Create a new app in Xcode
This step requires no coding whatsoever. Open a new Project as a Document-based application, using the file extension of the file type you want to change.

Under 'Assets.xcassets' in the sidebar, click on the + icon and under App Icons & Launch Images, select  create a New MacOS Generic Icon.

Add the correctly sized images to the empty squares.

Next, in Targets > Info, define the Document Types fields with the relevant data for your file type. Select the Icon resource, and you should get the icon in the empty square.

You can do the same for Imported UTIs, just to cover all bases.

Your app should build and run without any further effort. Quit it. Back in Xcode, right-click on the app product and select "Show in Finder". Move the app to the Applications folder.

The LaunchServices database may not immediately update with your new app and its icons. One tip to force it to update is to copy and paste an icon into the icon square in Get Info on any file. You can delete the change immediately.
Set your app to be the default app for the file type.
This is done in the usual way in Get Info window. The Finder might not update existing windows: close and reopen to see the icon change.

Substitute the binary
Right-click on your new app. Select Show Package Contents. Navigate to the MacOS folder, and delete the Unix executable file inside, with the name of your app.
In another Finder window, navigate to the similar MacOS folder inside the bundle of the application that you want to open the file. (In my case, BBEdit.)
In the Terminal, type ln (that's lowercase LN) followed by a space. Then drag the Unix executable of the 'destination' app onto the Terminal window. Then drag the the empty Macos folder of your app onto the Terminal window. The completed command should look something like this:
ln /Applications/BBEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/BBEdit /Applications/PostScript.app/Contents/MacOS

Press Enter.
You should now have a hard link to the destination app (BBEdit) in your dummy app.
One important thing left to do: rename this link to the name of your app. (In my case, 'PostScript'.) You could do this in one step as part of the Terminal command above, by appending the name.
ln /Applications/BBEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/BBEdit /Applications/PostScript.app/Contents/MacOS/PostScript

Done.
As long as your dummy app and the destination app are both installed, files will display the custom icons, and launch with the app of your choice, without modifying installed apps. There doesn't seem to be any speed penalty, either.