Can I Reinstall iBooks? So I accidently removed iBooks from my installation. Is it possible to reinstall that app again without reinstalling Mavericks?

If so, how?

Copy the file from another system or a trusted person's machine

If you have a second machine with a comparable build of OS X installed on it, you can copy the file from it. Feel free to ask for the checksum of a file in chat to compare it to if you wish to make sure that the file is correct (not modified accidentally/purposefully).

Pacifist with OS X install media

If you've got an OS X install media and Pacifist, you can browse the install media and grab the file.

If you have Pacifist but no install media, it will prompt you to download the installer.


How to view home directory with Finder Brand new to Mac OS, coming from Linux.

Almost everything I do is out of my home dir ("~/", or on Mac, "/Users/myuser/"). But when I open up the Finder app, I can't figure out how to view  my home dir:

At first glance, it seems like my only options are Desktop, Documents or Downloads.

So I ask: from this screen shot, how do I get to my home directory?

You need to open finder's preferences and check your username :

You'll be able to find your home directory in finder next.


Launch specific device simulator How can I launch the device simulator on a Mac and specify which specific device I want, for example an iPhone 6s or an iPhone X, without having to launch Xcode (which takes forever on my old Mac)?

You can use simctl command from xcrun. Here's how to do it:

$ xcrun simctl list

Sample output:

(...)
== Devices ==
-- iOS 12.2 --
    iPhone X (AC5DA9BB-2198-4E6B-9CFC-A407730FF853) (Shutdown)
    iPhone Xs (69A34565-5621-419C-8F37-3089FEFA52C1) (Shutdown)
    iPhone Xs Max (8192F2B2-3F3F-49C1-AC36-D88550D48FCA) (Shutdown)
(...)

The string in braces is UUID of the simulator device.

Boot the device with:

$ xcrun simctl boot $UUID

Now launch the simulator with:

$ open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app/

If you do not need to switch the Simulator type, just run the last command.

More info about simctl and how to use it see the NSHipster article.


In mail.app, get list of Previous Recipients for just one of my many email accounts I use mail.app to interact with about a dozen different email accounts, which I use for different purposes. I need to create a list of the Previous Recipients of just on of those email accounts. A forum I was admin for crashed, and we lost the member database.  Luckily, to join they had to email the admin account, and I then sent them a welcome email.  We have restarted it at a new location.  I'd like to notify people who were activated before. Recipients is better than senders so I don't inadvertently invite all the spammers to join!

Since recipient auto-complete functions properly, mail.app must have access to senders/recipients directly and I just want to access that information for a specific single email account - the forum admin account and not my personal or other special purpose accounts.

Buscar웃 provided an AppleScript that solves this for Senders instead of Previous Recipients, but I've never used Applescript so my attempts to modify it were unsuccessful.  See In mail.app, get list of recipients for just one of the many email accounts.

Try:

tell application "Mail" to set previousRecipients to address of every recipient of messages of mailbox "Sent Messages" of account "my account name"


MacBook no longer mirrors audio to external screen when it is closed This problem is driving me absolutely insane. When I connect my Mac to a tv via HDMI, it displays and correctly routes the audio through the TV as expected, with me being able to toggle between the two in system preferences. When the lid is closed however, the video mirrors correctly, but no matter what option I select, audio is played out of the Macbook's speakers. Why would this be happening?

Here's my specs:

This is the dongle I am using.

TV is a Samsung Q70R

I would recommend looking at the System Preferences/Sound/
Look for the available audio sources. If your available audio source is available, you might have to double check all of the volumes associated with the expected output. For example, the volume on my iphone changes if I play from the speakers versus a bluetooth device.

Additionally, you might try connecting with airplay 2, just to see if the audio is actually getting to the television and if there is any latency, or the bluetooth version for this tv.

I run my Macbook Pro's 2017 audio to a Bose S1 Speaker. I don't use an HDMI port to access the speaker but rather my bluetooth. There is no latency as far as I can tell. I have heard the airplay 2 for those televisions is pretty good.


Keyboard shortcut to move Window to next Desktop? I would like a keyboard shortcut to do either of these actions :

Move a 'focused' window to another desktop
Create a new desktop and move the window to it, then change the view to that desktop

How can I achieve this ?

The only application I've found that supports that on 10.8 is SizeUp. It doesn't create new spaces though.

Spacey stopped working in 10.7


How to connect dualshock3 (PS3) controller when it cannot be found I want to connect my PS3 controller to my MBP 2015 however my MBP does not seem to detect that it is there, or at least I cannot view it in the menu.

Does anyone know how to solve this?

If it helps this is what I have done so far.

Plugged my ps3 controller into my MBP 2015 with the cable
Looked in the Bluetooth menu (cannot see it)
I have also tried pressing the 'PS' button while connecting the controller to my Mac. All this does is make the lights blink faster.

I need to connect my PS3 controller by Bluetooth and not USB because I want to sniff the Bluetooth packets so I can make a Python library to control my PS3 with my Raspberry PI.

According to the steps listed here, you have to connect it with a USB cable first, press the PS button until the blinking lights speed up, then disconnect the cable. The faster lights indicate it is trying to pair. Once the cable is disconnected, the Mac should request the pairing passcode which is 0000.

This pairing process should only be a one-time setup, and going forward you should be able to connect simply by turning the controller on.

Note that you may need to reset the DS3 before attempting to connect it to your Mac - to do so, use a paperclip to click the reset button, which is left of the L2 button.

(Image from Sony)


Ideas for reinstalling Mac OS X on a 2009 Macbook Pro whose shift key is constantly stuck down? I have a Macbook Pro 13 inch from 2009 on which I spilt gin a few months ago. As a result the shift key is constantly stuck down.

Initially, the problem was that I couldn't start the machine up, as it automatically went into safe mode, due to it booting with shift stuck down. I could get around this by holding the CMD button and tricking it. When it's started up, I disable the keyboard via command line and use a bluetooth keyboard from there.
Now I want to reinstall Mac OSX on it, but I can't do anything on boot; it won't boot into device selection screen or boot from CD.

Has anyone got a crafty plan on how I could go about getting OSX reinstalled on this machine? I have a 2011 Macbook Pro at my disposal also to help the case.

I was thinking doing a network install, but I still think that needs me to get the broken macbook into the device screen via holding a button right. Is it that correct?

Can you get the broken Mac to start in Target mode? You achieve that by pressing T while booting, it might work with the shift key too.

After that you can use the Mac as an external drive, so you can start the installation using the working MBP, pointing the installation to the broken Mac.


Homebrew, list all packages which are no dependency of other installed packages There is the awesome vanilla list:

$ brew list | cat
[...]
libevent
[...]
net-snmp
[...]
openssl
openssl@1.1
[...]

Let's say I want to check which packages can I remove because I no longer need. I would need a way to forge such list, because if I try to randomly remove a package, e.g. openssl@1.1:

$ brew remove openssl@1.1
Error: Refusing to uninstall /usr/local/Cellar/openssl@1.1/1.1.0f
because it is required by net-snmp, which is currently installed.
You can override this and force removal with:
  brew uninstall --ignore-dependencies openssl@1.1
$ _

So my desired output would be:

$ /PATH/TO/brew_dependency_tree_leaves_list.sh
[...]
libevent
[...]
net-snmp
[...]
$ _

I don't know if net-snmp can be depended by any. It is not in my scenario. libevent is also depended upon by something else, but please abstract that.

How to?

$ brew leaves

Docs:

  List installed formulae that are not dependencies of another installed formula.


I'm not able to re-size a HD Partition to utilize all its free space, how can I fix this? I've seen a couple of questions on the exchange that are similar to the issues I am having. But I haven't been able to get things to work referencing those issues.

I am ultimately looking to install Linux Mint or Ubuntu as a dual boot on my Macbook Pro (2011) which is running Mountain Lion. This is taking some trial and error.

I partitioned my HD into to equal segments about 250 GB each, one for Mountain Lion and one for Linux Mint. The partitioned segment was "free space" originally. I also installed rEFInd boot manager to manage to dual boot.

There were errors with my Mint install. The installation did not complete, but the "free space" was formatted during the install process.

I was worried that if I tried doing the install again, I wouldn't be able to re-format the newly formatted "free-space" the partitions I made for the Mint install. So I removed all my partitions except the HD and recovery. (At least I think they are removed -- i.e. they no longer show up in the partition layout).

What I am left with are two partitions:

The problem is I can't resize the Macintosh HD partition. I still should have 500Gb available. I'd like to just go back to a single partition.

Something else, probably related is that this Recovery Hd is taking up 650Mb (see below). Which is not a problem but I don't recall it being there originally when I started setting this up earlier today.

How do I override whatever is locked here and not allowing me to restore full size to the HD partition?

Theres got to be an easy way to do this.

I've been slamming my head on the wall trying to figure this out. Unfortunately my backup drive got corrupted somehow. So I'm stuck either taking it to an apple store or figuring out how to resize the partition.

As an update:

Thanks to @Buscar웃 I have run the terminal command "defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1". This turns on Debug option for the Disk utility. What I see is the following:

I now see two recovery drives and "disk0s1"(what is this??). I need to delete the recovery drive that remains when I turn off the show all partitions from debug feature.

What is the easiest way to delete this recovery partition?

Thus far I've come across this link to delete a partition.

For completeness when I run "diskutil list" I get:

What is this "disk0s1/EFI"? (Something left over from an installation attempt?)

Do I need to delete "disk0s1/EFI"? and the extra Recovery HD?
How do I do this?

Again this is all in the hope of having a single partition completely filled with the Macintosh HD.

Problem solved:

I erased the Recovery HD. Then went back to the main disk, went to partition and was able to remove the recovery partition.

Then I could expand my Mac HD!

Still what is this "disk0s1"?

The Recovery Partition is created during OS X installation.

Normally that partition is hidden unless you are using the Debug mode in Disk Utility to show all partitions.

In other words, it should not be showing in your system as it is.

Turn off the show all partitions (in Debug menu), and check.

If it is still there back it up (for safety) then delete it.

Just in case you delete the original Recovery partition, you can get it back using the Internet recovery, or from reinstalling the OS X.

The way it should look like (notice the EFI and Recovery are grayed out but still showing on the side, since I have the Debug show all partition ON).


Back to My Mac - Can people see it? I just enabled "Back to My Mac" so that I can access my Time Capsule when I'm out and about. I'm just curious if other people can see my Time Capsule in their "Shared" tab in Finder (or anywhere else), whether they are within vicinity of my Time Capsule or not (though it seems unlikely if they aren't near it...). I've only added my own iTunes account to Back to My Mac, but I just want to be sure.

Thanks for any help!

Any device that is broadcasting radio signal (in this case the WiFi) can be seen by anyone in the vicinity of the signal range.

They do not see inside of it (your iTunes), just the name it is broadcasting.


Why safari hangs right after installation on Windows XP? I've just installed Safari on Windows XP SP3 and after succesful installation it starts and just hangs up. I also see process Webkit2Webprocess.exe which uses 100% of one core and nothing else happens.

Can you please give me some hints how to fix this?

Safari hangs when it cannot find a network, like when you need to specify proxy settings. Try on a network that doesn't need a proxy; it will not hang there.


Dell external monitor has blurry font I have a Dell S2316H monitor which I connect to my MacBook Pro (early 2015) using the built in HDMI port. The fonts are looking very blurry on the external monitor.

I own the MacBook for about a week. Previously I used my monitor with my Dell laptop which had Ubuntu installed on it. When I plug the monitor with my Ubuntu machine, the fonts are smooth and looks good. But when I plug it with the MacBook, the fonts are very blurry.

I know this is a common issue but I'm unable to find a solution. I do not have any DVI port on my monitor so I can't use the solution from External display has blurry fonts on Dell U2312hm- MacBook Pro Retina. Also tried this script
Force RGB mode in Mac OS X to fix the picture quality of an external monitor, but no changes. I tried with different font smoothing level too. Is there really any solution for this problem?

Unfortunately, that's normal. MacOS cannot display sharp UI when connected to a 23 Inch HD monitor. You have a built-in retina display which is 220 ppi. On the other hand, the monitor you are using is only 95 ppi.

I had a similar experience with a HP ZR 24W, which is a 24 inch 1920x1200 display. I have tried this monitor using both HDMI and DisplayPort (thunderbolt), results were the same. Therefore, I don't believe your problem is related to the interface, since macbook pro 2015 can easily do 60hz 1920x1080 from its HDMI port.

There are some ways to make text sharpness somewhat better by playing with text smoothing parameters (see this article), however you can only go so far with it.

The real solution for you is to switch to a display which has more pixel density. One that will let MacOS to use the HiDPI retina resolutions. For that, a 24 inch or 27 inch 4K display will be an affordable choice.

You can read my answer to a related question for more details.

Hope that helps.


Photos.app shows wrong picture I have a weird bug in the Photos.app, where the wrong picture is shown in the full view and the wrong key photo is shown in the People albums.

For instance, when I browse through a particular album in the detailed view, e.g. using the arrow keys, some pictures are replaced by others from a completely different album. Interestingly, the correct picture is first shown for a second (or so) and then it is replaced by a completely different on. Moreover, the new picture is often cropped and not shown in full size, even if the aspect ratio is the same. I noticed that this only happens if faces have been detected in the pictures, but turning "Show Face Names" off does not help.

A second version of the bug appears in the key photos for people's albums. When I select a key photo from an album, sometimes a completely different one is shown in the People overview page, typically showing a face of a different person.

It seems as if the App messed up the index of the photos, but repairing the Library didn't help. I already searched the internet, but could not find any other bug reports of this kind. Is there anything else I could try?

I ended up deleting the entire Photos Library to create a new one. Luckily, all my photos were stored on iCloud and the recognized faces were still associated with the photos after syncing. I have no idea what the cause of the problem was, though.


Connection to server fails after waking from sleep I connect to my Windows computer with my MBP using Connect to Server (using smb://192.x.x.x).

For a reason I can't explain, it works well when I do it but if I close my laptop (meaning closing the screen, not turning power off) and reopen it, almost 90% of the time, I won't be able to access the remote computer.

The only way to solve the problem and be able to reconnect is to reboot the macbook.  I use Snow Leopard.

Does anyone know a fix for this ?

Update: I forgot to say I see I'm still connected but I can't 'eject' the mount.  I just does nothing.

Sometimes a network device may stay "connected" even though the connection isn't working properly. Try manually ejecting it from the Finder sidebar, if it appears there:

Then try connecting again with ⇧⌘K.

If that doesn't work, this question on Super User suggests some more possible solutions.


Why does syncing pictures take so long (even when there are no new pictures) I have about 20GB of photos (from my external hard drive) to sync with my ipod.  The first sync tooks 11 hours to copy everything over.  That makes sense to me as this is actually moving all of this data.

My issue is that now when i sync it (no new pictures added or deleted) it sits on this view

for over 20 minutes (where it say's Step 7 or 8 - Importing Photos).  Why does itunes take so long to sync my photos where there is nothing new to sync?  Shouldn't this just be some sync algorithm to easily see that nothing has changed and just move on?

Also, is there anyway to "debug" what is taking so long or workaround to try to optimize taking so long?

iTunes actually checks every file for change. That's inefficient and takes time - the only way to optimize this way of doing is either not having that amount of pictures (aka reducing the amount of files) - or putting the files into an own directory on the device and viewing them with iFile (applies to jailbroken devices) +(so that iTunes doesn't check them files..)


How to find out which file triggered an action from spotlight I've created an applescript application (in automator) to open ssh urls. The application is bound to the ssh:// url.

I've got a lot of user@host.inetloc files and search these in spotlight. Selecting the file from spotlight opens the associated application, but i cannot figure out what the filename is which triggered the opening of the application.

It works if i add the "get selected finder items" action and open the .inetloc file from the finder.

I've searched the net and the applescript reference, but it's just too specific.

Would something like this work for you:

on run argv
    set theFile to (item 1 of argv)
    set theFilePath to quoted form of POSIX path of theFile
    -- your script using the parameters follows
end run

You could skip the first line and just pull off the path if you don't need to use the file itself later in the script.

Also, you'll really want to get ASObjC Runner to parse files and paths easily for 10.9 and older or BridgePlus for newer os.


iPhone 4 car kit for sound and video recording, and charging I need a kit that I can mount in my car on the dashboard where I can do the following with my iPhone 4G:

Use GPS
Record Video from the forward facing camera (toward me) or the rear facing camera (away from me / through the front windshield)
Make phone calls hands free (using the speaker phone or the headphones kit that comes with the iPhone or with a Casette Adapter for iPhone)

Is there a mount that I can use for this?

Xtand Go iPhone Car Mount

http://www.xtand.net/xtandgo.html


iPhone 6s Plus calendar not properly syncing to Outlook 2007 My boss has an iPhone 6s Plus + iPad Pro + Win10 PC with Outlook 2007. He set the devices so each has their own default calendar, but all calendars are set to sync in iTunes. He refuses to utilize any cloud services for calendar sync, and use iTunes exclusively to sync everything.

However, some events on iPhone were not synced to PC. Some events that can be seen on PC were not seen on iPad. Months of events go missing on iPad despite having set to sync and show all calendars. AFAIK events on iPhone is the "most updated" version.

Without going for iCloud or any cloud services (which he simply refuse to use), how to have all 3 calendars sync correctly? Is there a way to export calendars from iPhone and import in iPad?

Avoiding cloud in 2016 is strange, especially with Apple devices. However, you can set both devices to properly sync with Outlook 2007 using the software called Akruto. It works like Exchange server on your PC and allows syncing via Wi-Fi and over the Internet (without the cloud, through a 3-rd party DNS service).

Here's the link: http://www.akruto.com/sync-iphone-with-outlook/
What's good is that you don't have to install any apps on your boss' phone, everything will show up in the native calendar app.


Why can't I control environment variables via /etc/environment? Google search reveals that "/etc/environment" can be used in OS X to set global environment variables (like JAVA_HOME etc, in key-value pairs). I have tried to add following string to this file on OS X Lion:

sudo sh -c 'echo "FOO=bar" >> /etc/environment'

But after rebooting OS X, echo $FOO displays empty string.

Am I doing something wrong or is the information on the internet misleading and "/etc/environment" can't be used in OS X, and am I limited to "/etc/launchd.conf"?

/etc/environment may work in Linux but doesn't in OS X. There exist other options to accomplish similar results though.
Additional paths
Additional paths can be added in /etc/paths.d by creating a text file there listing one path component per line (e.g. sudo echo /usr/local/superbin > /etc/paths.d/superbin).
Other environment variables
As more or less everything is controlled by launchd these days global environment variables can be specified directly in /etc/launchd.conf as described in this StackOverflow answer.


Touch ID needed when creating a file in external ssd I recently bought an external ssd to put my files in it for my Macbook Pro 2019, at first I linked it at Time machine but I withdrew my decision.

The problem is that I didn't use it before time machine, and since i unliked it, it keeps asking me to put my Touch ID to create a new folder, i can't create a folder directly in it through a tier app (for example vscode), is that normal ? Is there a way to change it ?
I tried to see if I can reset my SSD or set a format but it doesn't seem possible through Finder.
I appreciate any help or link that can be useful! (I'm new to macOs)

If you don't need the remains Time Machine might have left on the external drive, starting Disk Utility and reformatting the disk (to APFS in case of an SSD) should get you back on track.


Photos section of OSX Yosemite file picker dialog out of date -- any way to force an update? On my MacBook Pro running 10.10.4, just now, I wanted to upload an image to a website that I was browsing in Safari, so I clicked an upload field and got the usual dropdown Finder dialog. I choose "Photos" in the left sidebar to browse my Photos Library.

I open the "Moments" section to look for a photo I took yesterday. The photo's not there. In fact, the whole "moment", comprising 16 photos, is missing. I open the Photos app to confirm that the moment is on my laptop, and it is.

So for some reason the Finder dialog lags behind the Photos app. Is there any way to "kick" it and prompt it to update? Or better yet, to eliminate the delay completely?

I just had the same problem. It may seem that the fact that I have my Photos library on an external drive causes it.

In Apple Photos, I saw in the Preferences dialog (tab General) a button "use as System library". Pushing that solved my issue.


Is there an iPhone app to control the volume depending on traveling speed or surrounding sounds? I am searching for an iPhone app that controls the music playback volume depending on traveling speed or surrounding sounds. I want this for optimized listening while traveling in my car.

Does anybody know of such an app?

I do not know of such an app. I have looked extensively, but have not found any that does this specifically.

Apple has a patent for a technology that would, among other things, build in this sort of feature. Think of it as an extension of the proximity sensor on the front of the phone that turns the screen off when your ear is against the receiver. If implemented, the phone would gain much more situational awareness. I say 'if' because I'd expect to hear something about this during a product announcement.

The full text of the patent (#8384684) is available here. EDIT: this is a related patent, but not the one I intended to attach. I'll correct shortly.


How to connect Wireless Keyboard when new hdd on imac 27 I have an iMac 27 emc 2390, i just had a hdd failure, so i bought a new hdd, plug it in and then start my imac with the instal dvd in.
The point is that my keyboard isn't recognize so i can't boot on the cd so i can t reinstal the OS.
Any ideas please?

i bought a USB keyboard, plug it in, but it seems to work only when the folder ? appears. the keyboard isn't responding before that, making it impossible to hold Option or C or anything else.

Since the OS is not installed on the new HDD the Bluetooth is not operational.

Get a USB keyboard.

Push and hold the power button for 5 seconds!

Then release the power button and push and hold the option key to get the select the os to boot from (having the DVD with OS in the drive).

Alternatively press and hold the C key to boot from the DVD.


Prevent Mail.app from sending read receipts? I just recently realised that Mail.app sends out "read receipts" without my knowledge if someone sends an email with a "Disposition-Notification-To" header to my work (MS Exchange) email account. This definitely seems to happen on Mail's side and not on the Exchange server's side where I made sure to turn that functionality off (also in the 'Mobile Devices' settings).

There doesn't seem to be any GUI to turn this behaviour off in Mail.app, but maybe someone out there knows of a hidden preference that can be set? Note that if I read my email using the iOS Mail app, then no read receipt is being sent.

There are two header tags related to receipts:

Return-Receipt-To This is asking for a verification that the mail got to your inbox.  I was surprised that mail responded by sending the original message back to me. macOS 10.10.5  I see this as a minor privacy issue in most circumstances. Could be used to tell if your work computer was powered on and mail app running.
Disposition-Notification-To This asks for what you did with the email. Mojave gives you some options. I'd display what you have then delete it.
To control, Disposition-Notification-To,  you may use terminal comments document on this web page
https://miln.eu/mailreceipt/, see below, or install Mail Receipt which is a free macOS application that adds delivery notification and read receipt requests to your e-mails. https://miln.eu/mailreceipt/

As far as I know, you cannot change how mail responds inbound "Return-Receipt-To". Mail will always echo back your message to the sender. You can control how mail responds to "Disposition-Notification-To" via commands or an app

Terminal commands:

I'd display what you have then delete it. To view existing UserHeaders enter the following Terminal.app command:

defaults read ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist UserHeaders

To set a Disposition-Notification-To header via UserHeaders enter the following Terminal.app command:

defaults write ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist UserHeaders '{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "email@address"; }'

To remove all UserHeaders enter the following Terminal.app command:

defaults delete ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist UserHeaders

Via the free Mail Receipt macOS app.


How can I turn on the browser's cookie functionality? After I changed my Gmail password (on a PC), and try to login (with both the new and old password) on the iPod Touch, the browser shows:

  Your browser's cookie functionality is turned off. Please turn it on.

The mail app is working fine with the new password on the iPod. The problem is just the browser.

Any idea how to solve this?

Cookie settings can be changed in the Preferences app in the Safari topic.


How can I list all user accounts in the terminal? How can I list all local user accounts in Terminal (whether logged in or not?) The commands users or who does not provide this information. OS X version is 10.6.8.

I have seen this suggested command - dscacheutil -q group

But it only lists domain user groups and non-local accounts.

How about

dscacheutil -q user | grep -A 3 -B 2 -e uid:\ 5'[0-9][0-9]'


How can I set a default zoom level in Safari? I've got a Mac Mini that I'm using as a Home Theatre PC, and my only real complaint is that I can't set a default zoom level in Safari. It's hard to read all that tiny text from 7 feet away from my TV set, so I'm always zooming in.

So: is there some extension or hidden hack way to force Safari to zoom in automatically?

According to this post from Apple's Safari Support discussion forum:

  1) Create a file named defaultzoom.css (or any name you like, just make sure it has a css extension.)

  2) Copy and paste in the following:

    body {
      zoom: 130%;
    }

  change 130 to whatever number suits you. >100 means zoom in, <100 means zoom out. Don't forget the % percent sign!

  3) In safari, go to Preferences > Advanced. Under style sheet, select Other... and point to the file you created.

  4) You may need to restart safari for the change to take effect.

[In the above, both the emphasis and code formatting (for non-code-related text) were added to the original quote by Am1rr3zA].


After upgrading Snow Leopard to Lion, can I reinstall the original Snow Leopard to a virtual machine? If I upgrade my Snow Leopard to Lion, is it technically and legally possible to reinstall the original Snow Leopard into a virtual machine, which is inside the same, original, Apple-branded iMac?

From the Snow Leopard software license agreement §2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions:

  A. Single Use License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you have purchased a Family Pack or Upgrade license for the Apple Software, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time.

It would seem to me* that there's nothing wrong: the working operating system is Lion (not Snow Leopard), so I would enable only one copy of Snow Leopard to run. The virtualization software is running under Apple-branded computer. Right?

Is it technically possible?

*) iANAL

Yes - it is technically possible.

The Leopard and Snow Leopard installers look for a file (even if it's empty) named /System/Library/CoreServices/ServerVersion.plist

Armed with this, you should be able to search for many "how-to" articles like this.

Be aware, the comments on the page call out issues that this "hack" causes when running the OS (software updates is confused by this file's presence/absence)

Legal and moral issues aside. (I'm not a lawyer but I too fail to see how the license prevents you from virtualizing your legally purchased Snow Leopard on a legally purchased Mid 2011 MacBook Air)

Think of this as an iOS jailbreak - someone has to stay on top of the things that these changes break, but the payoff may be well worth the hassle.


How can I make this Apple Script shorter? (quitting multiple apps via tell) I want to edit a part of an Apple Script to quit various applications at once:

tell application "TweetDeck"
    quit
end tell
tell application "Google Chrome"
    quit
end tell

Over all there are seven entries just like above.

Is there any way to write this more compact?

You can use a list of apps and a loop. Just add new apps to that first list and they'll be quit automatically.

set apps to {"Google Chrome", "Tweetbot", "ForkLift"}
repeat with thisApp in apps
    tell application thisApp to quit
end repeat


Maximum dimensions of Mobile Safari viewport on iPhone 4 I need to know the maximum width and height of the viewport in Mobile Safari, iPhone 4, without the height of the statusbar on top and the bar with the forward/back/bookmarks bar at the bottom.

The iPhone 4 display is 320 by 480 points in size total.  The status bar is 20 points high, and the tool bar at the bottom in 44 points high.


Apple review process: Penalty for updating an app before it has been reviewed I have submitted an app to the app store about a week ago. As far as I can tell, it wasn't reviewed yet.

Today my team discovered a bug in the app we've sent. It's not critical, but I would be very happy to have it in the store without it.

If I submit a fixed app before my app has been previewed, will my app be moved to the back of the review queue?

I found no direct reference to this question in the app store review process manual.

To submit a new build of an app for review, the current build must be removed from review. This sets the status to Developer Rejected, which is equivalent to a review rejection. Once you have changed the build, you can submit it for review once again, which will put it at the back of the queue.

  Removing a build removes your app version from Apple’s review queue and changes its status to Developer Rejected. When you resubmit your app, the review process starts over from the beginning.

Source: iTunes Connect Developer Guide - Viewing and Changing Your App’s Status and Availability - Removing a Build from Review


Adjusting screen brightness based on application Is there a way to trigger some apple script based on applications/events?

What I want to do is to increase brightness when I am running videos etc. fullscreen, and reduce it when I exit the fullscreen view of the player. I can use key code 113 and key code 107 in loop to adjust brightness I guess, but how to automate it based on application's fullscreen status?

Preferably I'd like to be able to specify the applications (like iTunes, VLC etc.) but just detecting fullscreen would do fine.

I'm using a little menubar program called ControlPlane.

It allows you to create "contexts". You define what evidence sources the program keeps an eye on, and when it detects the activation of some evidence source, it switches to a context and performs a set of actions that you've set it to do. It has a lot of actions to choose from, but if you don't find what you like, you can also set it to run an applescript that you've written, just remember to save the script as an application, for otherwise it will simply open the script as a text in Script Editor. I think you could try something like this:

Create a context and call it "video".
Set the activating trigger for the context to be, when it detects that VLC is frontmost. (Haven't looked but there might be further settings for using fullscreen as the trigger). - Then, add an action to the trigger: On arrival... to the "Video" context.... , no delay.
Create another trigger so that when ControlPlane detects you're no longer in that context (because the evidence source such as a specific open application has become false), Create an action "On departure... to the "Video" context... And set the brightness value back to normal.

I use ControlPlane in concert with a key binding program called BetterTouchTool.

If I wanted to have ControlPlane change the brightness level not whenever VLC is open, but whenever it's in fullscreen, I might first create the ControlPlane brightness action thing described above but set it to never look for evidence and change context spontaneously on its own. Instead, I could write an AppleScript which would command ControlPlane to toggle that context.

In BetterTouchTool, I could then select VLC as the application in question and create a new keyboard shortcut for it to override what it originally has. I think  + F normally toggles fullscreen mode in VLC. In BetterTouchTool, you could assign  + F to do multiple actions of your choice:

Toggle fullscreen AND run the applescript application which commands ControlPlane to change brightness.
Hit +F again with VLC foremost, and it would toggle that action set again.

BetterTouchTool also has an action to change the display brightness so you can also just skip ControlPlane, but I explained the whole ControlPlane thing in case that you actually do want to automate something for some apps without having to press any keys yourself.

I'm assuming that you're on a laptop or an iMac, are you? Because these brightness commands don't work for external monitors.


AppleScript : Execute JavaScript on every Safari Tab/Window How to run JavaScript in every safari TAB?
I used to have a script with find a specific tab and run javascript but I have some issue and I was wondering how can I simply run some JavaScript in every tab and window (safari) instead.
tell application "Safari" to tell document 1 to do JavaScript ¬
    "document.getElementsByClassName('Demo')[0].click();"

I though running a script to tell how many tab and create a loops but that doesn't work as I have multiple window of safari

Using the Ask Question button that's in the upper right hand corner of the page, like in this question, and having multiple windows each with multiple tabs to a Ask Different web page, as well as some non-related pages...
The following example AppleScript code clicks the Ask Question button on every page having the button. It doesn't matter what window or tab has focus, the button on all that have it gets clicked.
Example AppleScript code:
tell application "Safari" to tell tabs of windows to ¬
    do JavaScript "document.getElementsByClassName('ws-nowrap s-btn s-btn__primary')[0].click();"


Monitor connection status of VPN and reconnect if disconnected I can connect to my VPN with :

/opt/cisco/anyconnect/bin/vpn connect SERVER

I can check the connection status with:

/opt/cisco/anyconnect/bin/vpn status

That gives a printout of

Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client (version 4.3.03086) .

Copyright (c) 2004 - 2016 Cisco Systems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

  >> state: Connected
  >> state: Connected
  >> state: Connected
  >> notice: Connected to Not Available.
  >> registered with local VPN subsystem.
VPN>

What's the most Mac-tastic way of always monitoring whether the VPN is connected and reconnecting it if it's not?  Don't be bashful.

here's how i did it:

save the following to /usr/local/bin/vpn

if [[ "{$(/opt/cisco/anyconnect/bin/vpn status)[0]}" == *"Disconnected"* ]]; then
    /opt/cisco/anyconnect/bin/vpn connect SERVER
fi

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/vpn

save the following to /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.example.utilities.vpn.plist

<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.example.whatever.vpn</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/vpn</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>30</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

load it into launchd:

launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.example.whatever.vpn.plist

check that it's there:

launchctl list | grep whatever


How to unlock the Dock in macOS Sierra? While using a brand new MacBook Pro, with Touch Bar, somehow the Dock got locked.  I didn't do anything that I know of.  Nothing moves at all, in or out.  I'm trying to remove and add items, apps, and nothing takes.

Try logging out and back in (or, if you're comfortable with the Terminal, try running killall Dock). That will cause the Dock to relaunch and may un-freeze it.


Transfer photos from friends windows 10 pc to my iphone I am wanting to get photos that a friend has on their computer to transfer across to my iPhone. My friend does not use apple products and does not have iTunes, and I don't want to set up iTunes on their computer or wipe my existing information.

any suggestions?

You can try to sign in iCloud.com on your friend's computer, click on Photos icon, and upload photos to iCloud. Hours or days later it will sync with your iPhone if you connect WIFI. Then you can get photos to your iPhone without wiping any existing information.


Why does Steam start when I login in 10.8? "Open at login" in the Dock is disabled, "Run Steam when my computer starts" in Steam options is disabled, and it isn't there in the User "Login Items" tab of the System Preferences.

However it starts at login anyway.

Why does it so, and how do I stop it?

When I logout "Reopen windows when logging back in" (a new feature that wasn't there in 10.6) was ticked.


How do I find out word count in pages 5.2.2 I often write short articles and am limited to 100 words per document.

Can I find word counts in pages 5.2.2?

You can show the word count, character count, and number of paragraphs in a document.
Show word, character, and paragraph count

Click  View in the toolbar, then choose Show Word Count.
The word count appears at the bottom of the page.

Move the pointer over the right side of the word count, then click the arrows to see character and paragraph count.

You can choose one of these counts to display it (instead of word count) at the bottom of the page.

once word count in turned on, you can select a portion of text and it will automatically display the count for that selection.


Why is finder asking to authenticate when copying to my external hard drive? macOS Sierra 10.12.6 (MacBook Air)

I am trying to move a directory/folder from my local disk to an external hard drive. But I get an error that says:

  Modifying "Remote Disk" requires an administrator name and password

  To move "<your-folder>", click Authenticate.

But I do not see any button or link labeled Authenticate. Also, I read here there might be a solution involving right-clicking the destination drive then selecting Get Info button. However, there is nothing there I can click.

So how can I move this folder to my external drive?

Full screen capture movie .gif

Click here to see the full screen capture movie .gif.

Step 1.

Here is where I get the error message after attempting to move the folder.

Step 2.

The 'Get Info' window is no help.

@bret7600 correctly pointed out in a comment that this is not an external hard drive. The external drive showed up in the Finder when I originally installed it but it went away after I clicked what I thought was a dropdown menu. I then proceeded under the assumption that the object that remained was what I was really looking for.

I had to reinstall the external drive by plugging it in to my USB. I could work on it successfully after reinstallation.


Script to delete all groups in contacts I would like to have a script to delete all my groups in my Contacts.
Somehow I got a kind of replication bug resulting in over 500 groups.
Delete them one by one is not an option.

Tried this script, but it does not do the job, I have to enter to many group names and after a while the sript stops even when not all groups have been deleted.

tell application "Contacts"
repeat 50 times
set theGroup to group "MyGroupName"
delete theGroup
end repeat
save
end tell

Any help will be much appreciated.

The reason that script doesn't delete all the bogus groups is that it only repeats 50 times, so it will only delete 50 in one go.

This script will delete every group with the name that you input (it asks you with a dialog box) until it can't find any more:

set counter to 0
display dialog "Name of group to delete?" default answer ""
set theGroupName to text returned of result
tell application "Contacts"
    repeat
        try
            set theGroup to group theGroupName
            delete theGroup
            set counter to counter + 1
        on error
            exit repeat
        end try
    end repeat
    save
    display dialog "Removed " & counter & " instances of the group" with icon caution buttons {"OK"} default button "OK"
end tell


To get Graphical Info reader in El Capitan? Graphical info reader is the reader which colorises links in the info pages. I know there are good options in OS X but I cannot find them.
I do home search info and I get

homebrew/science/clinfo    media-info                 shared-mime-info
ipinfo                     mp3info                    texinfo
jpeginfo                   pinfo
homebrew/emacs/pkg-info                  Caskroom/cask/mac-informer
homebrew/games/inform6                   Caskroom/cask/mediainfo
Caskroom/cask/inform                     Caskroom/cask/pdfinfo

but nothing seems to be a info -pages reader.

How can you get a graphical reader of info -pages in El Capitan?

The obvious one is emacs itself as info is its documentation format

The Apple supplied emacs does do this in the terminal as do more up to date ones

There are graphical versions Emacs.app for pure emacs and Aquamacs trying to be more like a standard OSX app.

If you need this from the command line other make .info files opened by the emacs app and use the command open or use emacsclient


Disable viewing or require password to access Google Chrome History Often, because of various reasons (mostly to show other people a webpage to view or edit on which requires some sort of setup or login), I need to give people physical access to my fully unlocked laptop. That means they can see my browsing history, and I don't want that to happen due to privacy reasons. I already have a script that allows me to stop the Dock process (thereby eliminating the ability to navigate to other applications except the current one), so other application is not a concern. How can I temporarily disable access to view history or protect it with password without having to restart Google Chrome?

The easiest way to keep your browser history (and everything else) to yourself is to either enable the Guest account or setup a "throwaway" account on your Mac and then use Fast User Switching to change accounts whenever somebody wants to use a browser quickly.


To to stop Skype on iPhone & Mac competing for AirPods' connection? I long for the days of 3.5mm connections and headphones that connect directly to the audio source.
Very often (~20%) on a Skype call, my AirPods fail to connect to the correct device. Which leaves me on a conference call that everyone around me can hear.
Here is specifically what happens:

Skype rings (iPhone & Mac)
I answer the call on Mac
I hear that connecting sound on the AirPods
The Mac shows "connected AirPods"
I hear another connecting sound on the AirPods
The Mac shows "moved to nearby device"
The iPhone stops ringing
I select bluetooth/AirPods and/or sound menu/AirPods
I hear another connecting sound on the AirPods
The Mac shows "connected to AirPods"
The audio from the Skype call is playing through the Mac speakers
I open Skype preferences/audio and select AirPods
50/50 the AirPods will play the audio, or I need to restart Skype and start over

Instead this is what I want:

Skype rings (iPhone & Mac)
I answer the call on Mac
I can start talking

Possibly related and more general questions that did not answer this:

How to make AirPods connect automatically to the correct device?
AirPods connect to correct device
Can you answer a call with AirPods faster than EarPods?
Airpods connect to iPhone perfectly but disconnect from MacBook after a few seconds
How do I stop my Mac from ringing when I get a phone call on my iPhone?

Go to System Preferences → Bluetooth and for your AirPods choose Options and set ‘Connect to This Mac’ to ‘When Last Connected to This Mac’.

Now your AirPods won't automatically switch away from your iPhone to your Mac. Make the equivalent change on your iPhone to stop the other way round.
Then your AirPods will always connect to the last device and you can manually select your AirPods from the Bluetooth or Sound menu to connect them to your desired device.


AirPods case flashes orange and doesn’t charge I recently bought a brand new pair of AirPods about 3 weeks ago. 2 days ago I was using them all day until they died (both the case and the AirPods). When I charge them, it blinks amber and doesn’t charge at all. I don't know if they’re broken or not.

Flashing amber light indicates that you may need to set up your AirPods again.

From the Apple Support document, Charge your AirPods with charging case and learn about battery life.

  When you connect your Wireless Charging Case to a charger, or place it on a Qi-certified charging mat, the status light will stay on for 8 seconds. If the light flashes white, your AirPods are ready to set up with one of your devices. If the light flashes amber, you might need to set up your AirPods again.


Installing system files in home directory? I know that many of the directories in /System/Library/ have analogues in /Library/, and a fewer several have analogues in ~/Library/ as well. I also know that in at least some cases, when the system is looking for something that may be rooted in one of these Library directories, it looks in the analogous locations as well.

For example, an application may install a file in /Library/Application Support/A/B/, but have been just as happy to have installed it in ~/Library/Application Support/A/B/, and though there may be records of the location of every file the application installed, the system may not refer to them when looking for a file. In other words, it knows that any time it checks for anything rooted in System/Library/, it needs to look in the corresponding locations in /Library/ and ~/Library/.

Is that last statement really true? That in all cases, (or in almost all cases, with certain exceptions) when the computer looks in one of the three Library directories it looks in the other two as well? For example, can a user move something that was installed in /System/Libary/Extensions/ to an Extensions directory he creates in his home directory's Library/ and expect it to be loaded from there at login, the way that, say, a property list found in ~/Libary/LaunchAgents/ would have been found just as easily had it been located in /Libary/LaunchAgents/?

Similarly, I notice that some applications store frameworks, plugins, and so forth in directories rooted in those applications' bundles. Can files be moved between there and appropriately-named locations elsewhere without problem? In theory at least, is this the way the filesystem is designed to work?

The answer to all your questions is No

To understand the file system you may like to start with File System Basics.

The three /Library locations are for different purposes though, as you have guessed, there is some overlap.

Briefly, the purpose of each is:

/System/Library:  Files which allow OS X to start and run.
/Library:  Other important system and application support files which are not specific to each user.
~/Library:  System and application support files which are specific to the user.

So files in /Library/Application Support/x are used by all users of application x and those in ~/Library/Application Support/x are specific to the user.  Some applications will only use one or the other, whilst some use both.

Moving folders/files between /Library and ~/Library is likely to cause applications to malfunction or system components to fail.  Moving LaunchAgents or LaunchDaemons is especially dangerous.

Even worse, touching /System/Library is likely to prevent your Mac from booting!

Also, files inside application bundles must remain where they are - moving them will break the application.

So, in conclusion, don't move folders around as OS X expects files to be in their right place.


Ridiculous number of unnecessary empty birthday calendars that can't be deleted I have an iPhone 5 running iOS 8.1.1. My Calendar app is showing me a ridiculous number of birthday calendars ("Friends' Birthdays" under Gmail, "Birthdays" under Facebook, and 8 separate calendars named "Birthdays" under "Other"). This is what the list of calendars looks like:

I have no idea how they got there. I am syncing the Calendar app with Google, Facebook, and Meetup, but I can't imagine how that would produce such a ridiculous number.

What can I do about these? I would like to delete or merge some of them but the app is not giving me the option. Is it possible to delete most of them without losing anyone's birthday?

If I look at the Calendar app on my Mac (which is running Yosemite), I don't see all of these calendars. I only see one under Google that says "Birthdays", another under Google that says "Friends' Birthdays", and one under Other that says "Birthdays".

EDIT: I did some looking around and it seems like the "Birthdays" calendar under Gmail has my contacts' birthdays and the "Friends' Birthdays" calendar has my Facebook Friends' birthdays. But all of those "Other" birthday calendars don't seem to have a single birthday in them. I think I can delete them safely without losing anything. I just need to know how, but I don't see any sort of option to delete them.

I logged into iCloud using the iCloud website. I clicked on the calendar icon and all I saw was two empty calendars called "Home" and "Work". I did not see all the empty birthday calendars. I didn't see anything useful or meaningful, but I wouldn't expect to because I am syncing all of my calendar events with Google, not iCloud.

I noticed that the "Other" birthday calendar I saw on my Mac didn't have any birthdays in it, so I deleted it. But I refreshed the calendars on my iPhone as described here and it didn't seem to do anything. I still see 8 "Other" birthday calendars.

As Insomniac Software mentioned, the Birthday calendars come from the Contacts app.

In the Contacts app, it (confusingly) launches at a page that shows an aggregated view of contacts from different sources.  Tapping the "Groups" button at the top left of the screen takes you to the list of sources.

You mentioned that on your Groups screen, you have two sources of contacts:

Facebook.  Birthdays in this group show up in the Calendars app in the "Facebook" section, not in Other, so that's not the cause of the issue
On My iPhone.  Birthdays in "Other" come from here.

The problem is that, from what you've said, it sounds like your contacts are stored on your iPhone, not in iCloud - otherwise they would show up in an "ICLOUD" group, not an "On My iPhone" group.

To solve your calendar issue and to prevent potentially losing your contacts:

Select a place to store your contacts.  I'll give an example for iCloud because I suspect your contacts were there and got dumped on your phone while changing settings.  If you think you have them stored in gmail, post a comment and I'll update my answer.
Move the contacts to your selected location.  To merge them to iCloud: go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > iCloud, turn on "Contacts".  It should tell you "Your contacts will be merged with iCloud".  Tap ok to allow it.
Go back to the Contacts app, tap "Groups".  You should see an "ICLOUD" group.  It may take several minutes to sync - go get coffee and come back if you don't see it.  You should not see an "On My iPhone" group.

Now, you need to make sure your contacts are there.  In the Contacts app on the Groups page, to see what's in a particular source, tap the boxes under each group heading until the checkbox is only on the one you want to see.  So, to see what's in your iCloud contacts, there should only be a checkmark on the box under the "ICLOUD" group heading.  Then, tap "Done" in the upper right corner to see the contacts - it'll only show the contacts in the selected source (i.e. iCloud).

Then, open your Calendar app, wait a minute for it to sync, and tap Calendars.  If your 8 Birthday calendars are still there:

Close the app, wait 5 minutes, check again.
If they're still there, continue.  If they're gone, you're done!

If your Birthday calendars are still there:

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > iCloud, turn off Contacts.  Tap "Delete contacts from my iPhone" (very important).
Wait a minute for it to sync, then go check your Calendar app.  The Birthday calendars should be gone.  If they're not, give it a couple more minutes.  If they're still not, turn your contacts back on anyway (next step) and comment.
Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > iCloud, turn on Contacts to get your contacts back.
Wait a minute, then go check your Calendar app.  The Birthday calendars should still be gone.


NPM installation issues with MacOS 10.15.2 beta 1 So, I've got an issue that may be related to this question: Can't connect to FTP with Catalina Beta

I've been trying to npm install Bootstrap and Font-Awesome on an Angular application.  Should be a routine job with no problems.  Now, I'm getting errors like this

node-pre-gyp WARN Using request for node-pre-gyp https download
node-pre-gyp WARN Tried to download(404): https://fsevents-binaries.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/v1.2.9/fse-v1.2.9-node-v79-darwin-x64.tar.gz
node-pre-gyp WARN Pre-built binaries not found for fsevents@1.2.9 and node@13.1.0 (node-v79 ABI, unknown) (falling back to source compile with node-gyp)
No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.CLTools_Executables' found at '/'.

No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.DeveloperToolsCLILeo' found at '/'.

No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.DeveloperToolsCLI' found at '/'.

What's bugging me is the '/' part.  This is the same thing I am seeing when I try to access a pre-configured FTP site via multiple FTP clients.  I can access the FTP from other devices [non-Mac] but haven't had a chance to check older MacOS versions.

How can I determine if this is a beta issue, an NPM issue, an FTP issue, or perhaps I'm hitting a new firewall setup by my IT department?

* UPDATE *

It would appear that the root of this issue is centered around the fsevents package that npm is trying to install.  This is indicated in other reports on this issue in other places.

https://github.com/prixe/lindo/issues/48

https://github.com/fsevents/fsevents/issues/278

Update:

Remove most of this:

The root cause of the issue is the updating of the fsevents binaries by the author.  Once they do that, the issue should be resolved.

The fsevents team has provided recommendations to resolve in the meantime via their github issues page.

https://github.com/fsevents/fsevents/issues/291

I went back to the drawing board.  It turns out that when I looked at the github issue closer, someone actually nailed the root cause with this handy little tidbit.

  This is not something to be "fixed". One needs to have XCode
  command-line tools installed in order to install/compile native
  modules.

  There no longer are credentials for AWS. So the installs are actually
  a bit risky. In addition 1.2.x is really deprecated. I've just done a
  release that removes node-pre-gyp dependency and therefore the
  ability/failure to download prebuilt binaries.

I had just re-installed Xcode but had neglected to add the CLT.  Done... Fixed the problem.


How can I update an iOS device using Finder without backing it up? As of macOS Catalina, updating iOS devices is now done using Finder rather than iTunes. Thus, the solution proposed here which uses the command defaults write com.apple.iTunes AutomaticDeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true no longer works.
How can I disable automatic backups when updating an iOS device from Finder (as opposed to iTunes)?

The defaults key still exists. However, the iPhone-related functionality in iTunes was extracted in macOS Catalina, the domain was changed.
The following command is now required:
defaults write com.apple.AMPDevicesAgent AutomaticDeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true


How can I keep settings consistent between Macs? I use multiple Macs (OS X Lion). There are a lot of settings, apps, and files I'd like to keep synced up between them. Files are the easiest of the lot -- Dropbox + symlinks, Mercurial repositories, and standalone Puppet manifests are all well-understood and simplish tools. Apps are slightly more difficult, but I'm experimenting with Puppet + PackageMaker + Dropbox to meet this goal.

That brings us to settings. These are also the most obnoxious since I set some small thing on my iMac, promptly forget, then rediscover the annoyance on my MacBook a couple weeks later and have to comb through Google to figure out what I did to fix it the first time.

I discovered the 'defaults' command today and have been exploring it, but I was wondering how everyone else solves this?

By "settings" I mean OS-level configurations like changing the number of Spaces you have, setting hot corners, modifying mouse behavior, etc. App-level configuration would be great, too, but I'm assuming a lot of different apps do this different ways. Oh, how I miss real Unix and its flat configuration files...

There really isn't a one size fits all answer, but I can think of four ways to accomplish your task if you care to spend some time setting this up.

Macs are Unix, so simply check in your ~/Library/Preferences and /Library/Preferences into some sort of code control system. You can then do diffs and most plists are text or easily converted into text (using PlistBuddy) so you can isolate exactly what you have changed.

There are numerous tutorials available - Penn's wiki on Manipulating Plist files is particularly nice and directed to people with unix skills.

There are plenty of Managed System software like Apple Remote Desktop or others like Casper if you wish to get software designed explicitly to manage user preferences.

Server accounts would be easy to set up for minimal cost if you have a spare machine (or virtual machine). Again - some work, but mobile accounts do work well for many people.

Lastly, don't overlook simply migrating the user account from the mac that is correct to the other mac periodically and just making a system where you are disciplined about how you record the times you change a setting.


Adobe Illustrator alternative for the Mac? I need to be able to view and edit AI files on OS X.
How can do that without Adobe Illustrator?

You can use Inkscape (Open source/Freeware) to open .AI-Files.


What is wrong when an iPhone ends all calls in failure, texts fail yet the data works? I bought a used iPhone 4, originally from the UK (now in Denmark). The phone has been reset/restored, updated to 5.0.1 and appears to be functional with 4-5 bars and the "3G" icon next to them. The phone worked perfectly with the previous owner's SIM card.

However, all outgoing calls fail immediately with a "call ended" message, incoming calls produce a two-tone at the caller's end and texts can not be sent, yet data works over 3G. Strangely, I have made 1 outgoing call while connected to iTunes, but a second attempt failed. I am experiencing this using a known-to-work SIM card from another iPhone.

In Xcode, the console produces these messages when trying to make a call:

kernel[0]: computeProxBaseline.. This is a negative slope unit
kernel[0]: computeProxBaseline.. This is a negative slope unit
kernel[0]: This is a negative Slope unit. Going to use a fixed power of 3. This will behave like an Apex unit

Googling for this only revealed this unhelpful pastie: http://pastebin.com/q8vMQvpv

So, the phone or text is not working but data over 3G is.

Any suggestions?

The phone was replaced free of charge with no clear explanation of what was wrong. The replacement, however, would indicate that it was not a software/firmware issue.


Why does my iPhone beep with the Messages sound at random intervals? I have an iPhone 4 running iOS 7 latest version.
Several times a day my phone will fire off the tri-tone sound and I will think I have just received an SMS, but there is nothing, and no alerts in the pull-down notifications. I have been through the list of apps in the notifications. My mail apps are in the Do Not Include section of Settings | Notification Center.

Any ideas?

In the Notification Centre settings, you can have an app only play sounds but not show any notifications, or show anything on the lock screen.

Take a look through the list for entries that only show Sound as the notification options, and turn off the sound option.


Is it possible to replicate the Windows 7 'show desktop' behaviour in Mac? I'm fairly new to Mac. In Windows 7 I can easily show the desktop by clicking at the far right bottom corner of the Windows Task Bar. I would like to do the same thing in macOS.

Is it possible for me to do this?

NOTE - I already know I can use the CTRL + RIGHT ARROW keys  or the COMMAND + F3 keys to do this. What I want is to click on the bottom right of the Dock to show my desktop.

The closest to what you want is to use the Hot Corners feature of macOS. More specifically:

Go to Apple > System Preferences...
Select the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane
Click on the Screen Saver tab
Click on the Hot Corners... button
Now choose the "Desktop" option from the drop-down menu for the bottom right Hot Corner
Exit System Preferences

Now all you need to do is move your mouse pointer to the bottom right corner and your Desktop will appear (no need to click like you do in Windows).


Macbook Pro Hangs/Freezes sometimes I don't turn off my MacBook Pro very often, and sometimes it just freezes and restarts itself after a few seconds. Its very annoying, especially when I'm working on something. I contacted support a few times and I did everything they said, and recently I started monitoring my memory usage and I noticed that Safari is taking a lot of memory, so I started to restart Safari when I see that its eating up my memory. My MacBook started acting better until just now. While I was waiting for it to restart it self, I saw that the memory levels were ok. So I'm wondering, is there any way I can see the history of Activity Monitor? Or is there any log I can check to see what the error is?

High memory usage is not a reason for a machine to randomly restart, but if you say the memory usage has an effect on the frequency of it happening, the issue might be a defective RAM. There are several tools to test your RAM, a free example would be MemTest86.


Pink and Blue artefacts appearing in the notification centre Hi I just got the new MacBook and installed Mac OS sierra on it.

I keep coming across an issue whereby there are pink and blue pixelated diagonal lines appearing in the notification centre and when I try to screenshot them they go away.

Attached is an image I took with my iPhone as was not working

I do have exactly the same artefacts on MacBook 2016 1.2 Ghz.
They appearing when there's some window under the notification centre. Can be seen on FaceTime app window sometime as well.

Looks like a software/driver issue so far.

Update:
Tried it with clean install of El Capitan — it's not there, everything is ok. So it is a Sierra bug. Reported it to Apple via Bug Reporter as a 10.12 bug.


New MBP 13 retina late 2013 battery problem I just have bought new MBP 13 retina late 2013 and after installing: adobe photoshop, office for mac 2011, xcode, eclipse, java, and MAMP is battery life too short. 100% charched battery is remaining only 4 hours. If I use guest account it is normal about 8 - 9 hours... After shut down, when I first log in to guest acc (not to my acc) it is really great (8 hours). But if I first log in to my acc and after i logout and log in to guest it is still only 4 hours. It is like some of these programs eat my battery. But in activity monitor is all right... What do you think? Where can be problem?

Thanks for replies
I have OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

MAMP. quit out of MAMP and you will see vast improvement.


Is there a barcode app that works on pictures instead of needing to be connected to wifi for it to work? I've got a couple of barcode apps, but they all require that you have the item, the camera, and the internet connection at the same place.

Are there any barcode apps where you can take a picture of the item's barcode, store the picture, and then feed it into the app when you have an internet connection?

I use RedLaser and it has this capability. If RedLaser can't connect to the internet when you take the picture of the barcode, it will store the number and let you look it up later:


More than 100 GB disappeared on MacBook Pro 250GB SSD I was installing a software on the MacBook Pro of my girlfriend when I have found that in " > About this Mac > Storage", it says that she have 134 GB of space used by "Applications"...

I have then looked at what she installed, and I see that the only apps she installed are Caffeine, Kindle, VLC, Google Chrome and Skype (along with the default applications of OS X).

I've downloaded Disk Inventory X to see what's happening, and it says that the Applications are taking up about 9GB.

The question then is... Where are all these gigabytes gone?

PS: Using the "Disk Utility" app, it says that 130 GB are used by Applications, but it also says that there are 202 GB of free space... I wonder how this can be possible since the SSD is just 250 GB...

Maybe, the Spotlight is not indexing correctly any more.

Open the System Preferences > Spotlight/Privacy and drag the Macintosh HD icon to the window. Click OK. Choose the icon and and click the - sign to remove it, so that the reindexing routine starts. Test when completed.


Font Smoothing PDF text in High Sierra macOS High Sierra appears to treat font smoothing and antialiasing differently in PDF documents in Preview. Text is more blurry and less crisp.

I turned off "Use LCD Font Smoothing When Available" in the System Preferences with no difference.

Is it possible to revert to the way macOS Sierra used to handle PDF text?

There seem to be different issues at work here (judging by the comments.)

Preview is getting buggier. Using an alternative way to display PDFs might be the only option to get a proper display of text, at least for now. Sometimes just using QuickLook will get you better results than Preview.app. To get around this "fubar'ed bugginess", some even go to lengths: "opening the same PDF in the Snow Leopard VM (running on Sierra) is actually the fastest of the three! What did Apple do to the Preview app in Sierra?"
When scrolling macOS now uses an intermediate rendering to conserve CPU cycles that gets updated to its final representation only when no more scrolling action occurs. That behaviour started at least in Sierra and actually that got a bit better (quicker, less noticeable) in High Sierra.
Also already in Sierra the default FontSmoothing settings were altered to a different default. That should not have changed in High Sierra (new OS bugs excluded). If the font display is not to your liking then there are the two checkbox settings in System Preferences to play with.

Solutions

Issue No.1 will only be fixed by faith and prayer and hope in a better future.
Issue No.2 usually should 'fix' itself, once scrolling stops (you may to to release the touch from any touchpad you might use). In all those numerous instances that it doesn't: file more bug-reports (= not with the Feedback.app) (The example in the comments trigger a bug retained from Sierra: slightly substandard PDFs that were assembled including graphics or PDF-files with suboptimal page attributes; might be fixed by reflowing the PDF; has to be done for every PDF triggering that bug, upgrading from Siera-Preview to Adobe Reader is one way to spare the hassle, downgrading to Yosemite the other.) Once the blurriness-stays-after-scrolling-bug is triggered your only workaround option is to quit Preview (really quit: check in Activity Monitor that the process is actually gone) and work with another PDF or use a different Reader.
Issue No. 3 lists the options you have to customise the settings to your liking. If both options from System Preferences are unsatisfactory you might get a more fine grained control with entering the following in Terminal.app:
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2
Where y might experiment with the values for int between 0 and 3. The higher the number the more smoothing (some call it blurring) should be applied.


Battery service and insanely low maximum charge Recently my Macbook Pro Retina Late 2013 has started to shut down unexpectedly while running on battery. I thought it was because of my CPU was too hot but it was not the case. When checking it further, I found that my battery status is "Service Battery". I used coconutBattery to check and found that the Full Charge Capacity of my Mac is insanely low. I could be sure that it was around 90% last week and suddenly now it dropped to 46.9% of the Design Capacity.

I tried resetting SMC like many other said but unfortunately, it did not work for me. One symptom I saw before having this issue is that my Macbook temperature was quite high. I could feel the obvious difference in temperature between my Macbook and others' at the office when touching my hand on it, I guess my Mac was about 10 degree Celsius higher than others.

Is anyone here had this issue before? Should I replace my battery completely? Is it possible to replace the battery only on this Mac, I think it is nonremovable?

You need a new battery.

This is confirmed with the following two conditions as stated in the question:

  When checking it further, I found that my battery status is "Service
  Battery"

  I used coconutBattery to check and found that the Full Charge Capacity
  of my Mac is insanely low

Your battery, according to it's manufacture date, is over 3 years old, so it's not out of the norm for it to begin failing at this time.

Replacement batteries are fairly inexpensive and fairly simple to replace ("simple" as in not a complex procedure), but it's considered "difficult" because it's glued into position so it requires diligence to remove.  ifixit.com has an excellent step by step guide if you want to tackle this yourself.


Parental controls and dock modification I have created a user for my roommate on my mac.  I gave her restricted access using Parental Controls.  However, now I am testing out this user, I notice "Prevent the Dock from being modified" under the Apps tab of Parental Controls is checked and grayed out.  I've been looking for a way to uncheck the box, but I think it might be an option that is fixed after you pick it when creating the user.

Does anyone know about this?

I created a test user, using the default settings.  "Prevent the Dock from being modified" was unchecked, and I left it that way.  This was the only way I found to adjust that setting.

My original problem was not being able to create shortcuts on the desktop of the new user and I figured it was due to the dock settings.  I tried to adjust those and found that it was grayed out.

With my test user (created with default settings) I was able to create shortcuts on the desktop like normal.

I hope this helps if anyone has a similar problem.

I haven't tested out this test user much, but I did notice that the new user with "Prevent the Dock from being modified" checked and grayed out had alot of bugs in it.  I might not use that user at all because of this.


How to change a MacBook's "main" login/user? I got a new (reconditioned by Apple) MacBook for my girlfriend. When it arrived, I went through the setup process and created my account, and then created her account afterwards. Both have admin privileges.
If she shuts down and reboots, it only ever asks for my login. She cannot login unless I login first and then we do a switch-user.
She uses it more than me, so my thought is that she should have been the one to run through Setup Assistant.
What is the recommended way to fix this?
I'm a bit chary of simply removing .AppleSetupDone ...

Will that wipe the existing user's home directory (we would want it to have the same name) ?
Will that actually "reset" who the default login is?
Is there some other reason why she cannot login from a reboot, despite being admin?

I've checked the following questions, but it is still not clear to me exactly what I should do:

How to change boot login
How can I create a new macOS user using a pre-existing home directory?
How to change the main user name of a used MacBook on macOS 10.13?

It seems like her user needs to be enabled to unlock FileVault. See this answer on how to add users: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/242749/45492


What does iTunes do while it's "Verifying iPod, iPad, iPhone"? What does iTunes do while it's "Verifying iPod, iPad, iPhone"

I see this most often after an abruptl disconnect and plug it back in but also sometimes when doing a second sync immediately after the last sync completes.

Does it fix any errors that have occurred on the device?

Your computer iTunes is waiting for the iPhone to "fix itself" and clean up from the interrupted sync.

The mobile iTunes database (and I'm sure several others) will need to be rebuilt to clean up after an interrupted sync. You can see/test this by disconnecting your iOS device in the middle of podcast or music syncing. If you then immediately start up iTunes for iOS - you will get an Updating LIbrary screen while it itdbprepserver does its work. You'll get a "verifying message" until these post-sync and interrupted-sync cleanup activities finish. Once iTunes on the desktop has "verified" the phone is ready to start another sync, it commences with the normal backup and sync activities. My timing shows the interrupted recovery to take twice the time of a normal sync completion but usually less than a minute either way.


Where May I (legally) get a Mac OS X .iso File to Virtualize OS X? I want to virtualize a Mac (the latest, 10.9) on my Mac (MacBook Air). I prefer to use VirtualBox. After setting up the OS X guest, I need to provide a .iso file from which VirtualBox will install OS X. Where can I (legally) get such a .iso file? My Mac didn't come with installation media so I can't just create one from a disc.

These steps assume that you already have purchased OS X 10.9 through the Mac App Store.

Open the Mac App Store
Press the Alt Key and hold it during the following steps
Click at the purchased tab
Scroll to OS X Mavericks
Click at the Download button
If you already have OS X Mavericks installed, you will be asked if you want to continue
Click continue
Now, you can release the Alt Key

To get the dmg file:
1. Go to the downloaded install application in the applications folder
2. Control+click on the installer, and choose Show Package Contents, and choose Show Package Contents.
3. Navigate to Contents > Shared Support
4. The file you are looking for is called InstallESD.dmg

If you need a .iso file, you have to convert it using Disk Utility


Does anyone know a decent app to monitor bandwidth usage, ideally from the terminal? I'd like to monitor my bandwidth usage on my Macbook pro, and keep logs of it. Ideally, I'd like to view/monitor them via the Terminal. Can anyone recommend me some applications?

EDIT: To clarify, I want to keep a time-series graph of the bandwidth I/O

I decided to go with ntop following installation guidelines from here.


Time Machine backup format Is the format of Time Machine's backups documented, or standard?  Can I extract the files with a non-Mac system?

Time Machine is documented well at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427 and this discussion goes into sparse bundles and FileVault so it's worth a read http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1447315

Since backups to an attached hard disk are written as plain files - that would be easier to connect to a non-Mac system. Backups to a Time Capsule are stored in a disk image
in sparse bundle format, you will need to have software that knows how to mount those bundles.

Either requires your non-Mac system to be able to read HFS+ volumes - but once over that hurdle, you can simply navigate the Backups.backupdb folder and extract whatever files you need. The folder structure is simply organized by the time the backup completed.


Full screen always enabled when opening app in OS X How can I set my Macbook Air to always open new apps in full screen mode?

Some apps already do it (Mail for example), but others are always opening as a small window, especially Safari when I close (cmd+W) all the tabs.

Is there a setting, a terminal command line, or anything to fix this?

There's an option called resume I think - check out this post. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4140495?tstart=0.  To quote the answer, you can do

  System Preferences > General > Uncheck 'Close windows when quitting an
  application'

Not exactly what you want, but it's a possible alternative maybe?


How do I connect 2 iCloud accounts to a single iCloud Photo Library I am trying to have all the photos from both my iPhone and my wife's iPhone linked to the same iCloud Photo Library so from both of our devices we can have access to the same Photos without needing the same iCloud account on both devices.

Is this at all possible or is there a workable work around that will get the same functionality?

You need to have an iCloud id just for photos - Login on both devices using a (perhaps new) iCloud id which your photos will 'live' in. Turn off mail, contacts, calendars and reminders and notes on both devices for this shared iCloud id. So from now on, to apple's iCloud servers, it appears both iPhones are owned by the same "person".

After this, set up your mail id on your iPhone and your wife's mail on hers so you have access to your individual email accounts (you can also active contacts, calendars and reminders for this account so they appear on your respective iPhones).

Note: You will be sharing the same iCloud photo library, but also the same iCloud Safari passwords and wallet - but if you are sharing with one another all photos taken from your iPhones then this is (perhaps) a moot point...


How does Homebrew no longer need ownership of /usr/local? Today I ran brew update and after migrating the repository, it reported that it no longer needed ownership of /usr/local:

$ brew update
Updated Homebrew from 5371359 to 13f08a2.
...
==> Migrating HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY (please wait)...
==> Migrated HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY to /usr/local/Homebrew!
Homebrew no longer needs to have ownership of /usr/local. If you wish you can
return /usr/local to its default ownership with:
  sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local

This change seems a little dubious. How does brew accomplish this new behavior, apparently bypassing security controls?

According to this ruby script: update-report.rb, they've just moved stuff to /usr/local/Homebrew, which is still owned by you.


Set keyboard shortcut for nested menu selection Say an application has a menu selection Export in the File menu.  On mouse over, a sub-menu extends with the export options.  Is there a way to make a keyboard shortcut for one of those nested selections?

I've already tried implementing the keyboard shortcut for Export, setting it to Command-E.  However, this doesn't work, even though the Command symbol shows up next to Export.

Any help is appreciated

Since Mountain Lion you can assign keyboard shortcuts to nested menu items using the following format:

File->Export->Sub-item

I found the answer in this post on the Apple Support Communities by the user macNtouch.

Please notice:

you have to insert the full path: partial paths will not work
you must not leave any space between the menu title and the arrow


How to un-delete podcast episode in iOS 6 Podcasts app I was deleting some old episodes of a podcast I like—just to get them out of the way in the episode queue—and I accidentally deleted an episode I wanted to keep. Problem is, it seems to be gone forever.

Swiping down on the page to refresh the list doesn't make episodes I've deleted reappear, and there's nothing in the show settings I can see that would allow me to re-download deleted episodes. It's effectively as if deleted episodes no longer exist, as far as my phone is concerned. I've force-closed the app and restarted my phone since discovering this, just in case. It made no difference.

Am I missing something obvious? What, if anything, can be done to un-delete deleted podcast episodes in the iOS 6 Podcasts app?

On the iPhone, tap the podcast in your list, then tap the header of the podcast to access the subscription settings. Simply toggle "off," then "on" for subscription and all the swiped-deleted podcasts will be restored.


How to upgrade firmware and reperform a Samsung 840 Evo on a Mac i got one of these Samsung 840 Evo Basic 500GB on an iMac (used externally in a TB case - standalone, not Fusion).

I know there's a firmware update out which is already available for Mac users too but they only offer an iso image that only seems to work when used on a self burned CD. As i don't have an external CD for my iMac and not planning to have one i wonder what other way would be possible to update the firmware and probably use thise Performance restauration tool from Samsung that they offer for Windows.

I've already tried booting into Bootcamp where this tool runs fine and also recognizes the SSD on the Thunderbolt port but it won't work as it only recognizes NTFS partitions and mine has HFS+ ofcourse.

Any idea how to get that running? I'm on Yosemite with all machines, so rEFInd doesn't seem to be so easy to and i'm not sure if it would be a good idea to use it to get something like freedos running or whatever that Samsung tools need to get running.

Any help?

P.S: I've got problems with the SSD getting slow and have serious problems with a freezing finder where i hope the firmware update and the performance restauration help to get it running again. Just to give you a reason why i want to update the firmware.

Adding to my answer as info trickles through on the interweb…

Update June 2015 - 1

It appears that no Mac made before 2012 can use this method, but I discovered yet another method using UNetbootin & a USB key - linked here
 I appreciate this is 'link only' but this answer is turning into a novel ;-)

Update June 2015 - 2

However, I today discovered that you can update the Firmware, though not reperform, by using a Windows PC & the latest Samsung Magician utility [as of today v4.6] without losing any data. It will update on a GUID/Mac Extended drive.
The drive must be attached internal SATA, it doesn't work in an external USB enclosure.

Make sure you always fetch the latest Magician first, otherwise older versions claim the firmware is up to date, even if it is blatantly older than any other SSD in that machine!

As my old 2008 Mac Pro will have nothing to do with any of the CD/USB stick update methods, I thought that might be sufficient.

As it turned out, I still needed to actually clone my boot partition, format to NTFS, reperform on Windows, then clone back - before I got back the drive's speed to as it was when new.

A comment from Cindori [makers of TRIM Enabler] on why there is no 'easy way' on Mac…

  "The reason for Samsung not producing a OSX version of this tool is because they can't.

  Apple does not expose the necessary driver stack for such disk interaction. It's the same thing stopping them from making Trim drivers or firmware upgrade utilities for OS X, and is why you have to use Boot CDs."

To run the Firmware updater, the SSD must be attached directly to an SATA port. It will not work over USB or PCIe, or on RAID or FileVault volumes.
It appears you may have to also remove all attached PCIe cards/devices except graphics cards before the SSD will be recognised by the tool.

I hope it goes without saying that you need a full backup before attempting this.

Neither Samsung's 'bootable' image nor FreeDOS have the necessary EFI boot loader so it's either a lot of typing in Terminal [Google translated from French original] for the brave, or one of the following methods…

For Macs with an internal DVD drive

[Some USB DVD drives have been known to work too]
Guide source - Conrad Chavez

Download the Samsung_Performance_Restoration.iso disk image from Samsung [DOS version for Mac users]
Rename the file to Samsung_Performance_Restoration.dmg
In Disk Utility, choose Images > Burn, select Samsung_Performance_Restoration.dmg and click Burn
Put a blank optical disc in the optical drive and finish burning the disc. When you’re done it should look like this:

For Macs without a DVD drive

The simplest method requires temporary access to Windows - either hardware or VM
Guide Source - Pixelflush and Rufus

Download the Samsung_Performance_Restoration.iso disk image from Samsung [DOS version for Mac users]
Download Rufus
Use Rufus with default settings to copy the .iso to a USB stick.

Running the update

To use the bootable media, insert it and then restart the Mac while holding down the Option key. This displays the list of connected bootable volumes. Select the volume with the update on it (in my case the CD, the USB drive would show as a yellow USB icon titled Windows) and press Return. (You should also be able to boot directly into a CD or DVD by holding down the C key as the Mac starts up.)

From this point on, the Samsung Performance Restoration utility takes over and works pretty much as it says in the Installation Guide. If you haven’t used DOS-based software, be aware that it’s all keyboard-based so forget about the trackpad or mouse, and pay attention for times when it asks you to do things like press the “y” (for Yes) key or press the Enter key.

The tool first installs a firmware update on the drive itself. When the tool says “Downloading Firmware…” I assume it means it’s downloading the firmware from the bootable media into the drive and not actually downloading over an Internet connection, but I’m not sure.

When the firmware update is done, the software goes through a two-step process which includes recalibrating all the data on the drive. This can take a while and it depends on how big your SSD is. For my 1TB SSD, it took about two hours total. Do not interrupt the process.

When it says “Samsung SSD 840 EVO Performance Restoration completed,” it’s safe to restart the Mac. At this point you can just hold down the Power button on your Mac until it turns off, (there appears to be no way to do a soft reboot from this point.) then press the Power button again to start back up.  If you want to eject the optical disc, hold down the mouse or trackpad button during restart and the Mac will pop out the disc before it even gets to the desktop.

Update:
I cannot get my own machine, Mac Pro 3,1 [Early 2008] to work by any of the above methods.
Next will be to just back it up, drop it in a PC, do it there.


How to remove people from search in mail app? How to remove people list when you search in mail app?

Take a look at the picture:

As you can see, there's People section under search box, how can i remove "Service Desk" from appearing here?

I don't think you can remove the people list from search results.
If you search, for instance, for "Service Desk", mail will lookup in any header: From, To, Subject, and other; therefore mail will include previous recipients and contacts.

Solution 1

Be specific about the message header to use in the search.
You can perform the search by adding the keyword "Subject": Subject: Service Desk

Solution 2

Create a smartmailbox like the one in the picture.
In this example the smartmailbox will lookup for all message containing the word "Facebook" excluding this word from sender and recipients.
You will need to double-click the smartmailbox and edit it every time you want to do your custom search.


Mission Control to App Exposé In Snow Leopard you could switch to App Exposé from global Exposé by clicking an icon in the Dock. Doing the same in Lion merely exits you from Mission Control and focuses on that app.

Is there a way to go to a given App Exposé from Mission Control?

Swipe up with 3 fingers = show mission control.
When mission control is shown, move your mouse to the app window, and
Swipe up with 2 fingers

This will show the app's windows.


How to fix the Cydia data problem? My iPad 2 is jailbroken and running iOS 5.0.1. When I open up Cydia, it shows me a message : The package com.teiron.pphelper needs to be reinstalled. But I can't find an archive for it.
How can I fix this problem?

This may work.  Install MobileTerminal and enter:

su (and enter password, alpine by default)

dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq com.teiron.pphelper

dpkg --configure -a

If this doesn't work, let me know, and I'll look for something else... Hope this helps!


Make USB hard disk with OS X bootable as startup disk? Some years ago it was easy to clone the current system partition of a Mac computer to an external firewire hard disk and then use this as a startup disk for the same Mac or even for another Mac.

When I currently tried this with a USB drive (Western Digital Expansion+) and cloned the SSD of my MacBook to it and tried to boot another MacBook (different model) with it (by holding option key while booting), it was not recognized as a possible startup disk.

What could be the reason for it? Are USB drives more difficult than Firewire as startup disks? Or is it more difficult today to use the same system configuration on a different MacBook model?

The source was the SSD of a MacBook mid 2012. I'm not sure and currently can not find out, how old the other MacBook was...

Recently I ran into a similar problem. See
Problem cloning the startup disk of a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan .

Keep an eye on how you cloned your system partition residing on the SSD. I guess your system partition is of type  CoreStorage. If so, the recipe I figured out for cloning the startup disk may be useful to you.


How to edit the hosts to block IP address? I know how to block certain website, like if I want to block google I can use this line in the host

0.0.0.0 www.google.com.hk
        www.google.com.hk

But my question is how can I block certain IP address? Like how can I block certain IP address like 17.154.66.79?

Technically, OS X can make use of /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny files that will  work with standard resolvable hostnames. For blocking IP addresses, using iptables is the usual method but apparently Apple deprecated its use beginning with Lion and switched to pf for this function. Check and read the links in this thread on SuperUser for info on using pf and perhaps a GUI front-end for it.


Disable upgrading of single-word addresses in Safari When entering a single word domain (ie. example/, http://example/ or http://example:8080), in Safari on macOS, Safari will sometimes change it to http://www.example.com. I suspect this is a feature designed to help inapt users, but it kicks in at unwanted times, and I don't want this feature!

It seems like this is dependent on some kind of caching (possibly DNS), so that if Safari first decides to change it, it will keep changing it no matter how many times I type it correctly. But after maybe a few hours, it will do as I expect.

How do I disable this pesky "smart URL conversion" feature?

Here, you are actually searching for a word in your default search engine and go to the first hit. You can either type http:// before your host name or if you have control over that host name, try to change it to example.local or similar which contains a dot (.).

Also, after the first use if http://example to visit that page (putting http:// manually), next time you will be able to use the hostname without the hassle to put `http' first. Till you remove it from history.


Shift+End Combo on OS X Lion How can I change the settings for OS X Lion so that the combination of Shift+End results in the selection of text from the current cursor position to the end of the current line?  Specifically, I would like to be able to do this in Firefox, but if there is a general method that works for most/all applications, that would be ideal.

There is a default key binding to perform this function: shift +  ⌃ (control) + →.

If this won't serve, you may be interesting in Jacob Rus: Customizing the Cocoa Text System which provides instructions for creating your own keybindings dictionary.

See also:
Apple Mac OS X Developer Library:Text System Defaults and Key Bindings
Ask Different: DefaultKeyBinding.dict - old-style NeXT format vs XML plist format


Use the Finder to act on a path, via JXA For a specific example, here’s how to change the name of a specific file via the Finder, in AppleScript:
tell application "Finder" to set name of (POSIX file "/some/file/path" as alias) to "new name"

And here’s how to change the name of the selected file via the Finder, in JavaScript for Automation (JXA):
Application("Finder").selection()[0].name = "new name"

How can one do the last line, but acting on a specific given path rather than being limited to the selection? It’s important to use the Finder, because it allows (via the same mechanism) to do more than change the name (like set a comment).

It's quite odd that Finder would expose no method of converting a Path to a Finder file object, yet one doesn't appear to exist. Instead, it seems (per this question) that System Events' aliases property is the only way to convert a path string to a Finder object, like so:
file = Application('System Events').aliases['/some/file/path']
console.log(file.name()) // --> 'path'
file.name = 'newname'

Finder does allow you to manually drill down through the file hierarchy (see this answer), but it's a pain:
file = Application('Finder').startupDisk.folders['some'].folders['file'].documentFiles['path']
console.log(file.name()) // --> 'path'
file.name = 'newname'

However, only some of the attributes these objects are supposed to expose are actually working for me on Big Sur. (Reading and writing comments, for instance, does not seem to work.) If you need reliable and robust Finder scripting, JXA simply may not be the way to go.