Why is iWork Keynote is suddenly linking images instead of embedding them? I've been using iWork for a while and have created some pretty elaborate designs in Keynote and Pages, but I haven't come across a problem like this before or even an option to link/embed images.

In Keynote, all my images are now linked to an external source on my hard disk, rather than embedded in the file itself. When I attempt to copy media in any manner (alt-drag or cmd+c/v or duplicate a page), a grey "placeholder" box is produced with a question mark in the middle and a diagonal line across it (see top right corner of the image).

It only works when the source image is in the same place on my hard disk.

When I insert an image or other media file (insert -> choose) into Keynote, there doesn't seem to be an option to link or embed like there is in other applications such as Adobe Illustrator or InDesign.

Why is Keynote all of a sudden treating images in this fashion? How can I fix this to re-enable embedding of images?

go to Keynote > Preferences > under general Preferences make sure under Saving: "include Preview in document by default" and "copy auto and Movies into Document" is checked.


Which internal Blu-ray drives are compatible with a unibody Macbook Pro? Dimensions
The (unoffical) dimensions which I found are:

9.5mm slot load

Software
There is free Blu-ray player software available for the Mac and Toast Titanium 11 is able to burn Blu-ray discs.
As it turns out, there are only few Blu-ray drives which are compatible (dimension-wise) with a unibody MacBook Pro and the lack of Apple support for this media makes driver support, associated software and other requirements makes reliable information on using a BlueRay drive with OS X and Macs hard to come by.
Question
How can I know if a specific internal Blu-ray drives will work when installed in the unibody MacBook Pro? (both specific models you know work with specific OS answers and answers to explain this in general would be of use)

The following YouTube video by breakbeet808 confirms that

... It is now possible with the Panasonic/Matshita UJ167 9.5mm slot-loading BD-ROM drive, and/or the UJ-267 BD-Recorder drive, and some extra software: Mac Blu Ray Player from MacGo.

However, these blu-ray drives are not a "100% direct swap out replacement":

There is a slight difference with some mounting points on the top side
of the drive. The problem is solved by swapping the drives' upper
casing out. (see "How to upgrade to the Panasonic/Matshita UJ167 drive")

Once you finish the upgrade, OS X will "recognize blu-ray discs and it will be available to the file system like any other optical disc".

How to upgrade to the Panasonic/Matshita UJ167 drive
This may void your warranty. Try this at your own risk.

Remove the original superdrive. (You can follow instructions by ifixit, for example.)
Remove the top metal shell of the drive itself, by removing its four screws. You'll also have to peel off a strip of silver tape that connects the top shell to the bottom shell. This will expose the internal guts of the superdrive. It's this top metal shell that we need to keep, it has the mounting holes in the right spots, so be very careful not to damage it. Do not touch any components inside of the drive. You may want to look up how to do this, it's a little tricky to free it up successfully.
Now remove the top metal shell of the new blu-ray drive in the same fashion.
Swap out those top metal shells, and screw the drives back together. The top metal shell from the original superdrive should now
be on the new blu-ray drive.
Now also swap out the small Y shaped mounting bracket from the plug-side of the superdrive and screw it to the new blu-ray drive - those two screw holes do match up exactly already.
Carefully unplug the flexible data connection cable from the old superdrive and plug it onto the new blu-ray drive.
Reinstall blu-ray drive.


Apple TV Screen Mirroring not working from iPad Every time I select Screen Mirroring from the Control Center and select my Apple TV from the list, it shows that the screen is being mirrored to my TV (there is a checkmark next to the name of the Apple TV), but nothing happens on the Apple TV. I tried restarting the Apple TV and the iPad, disabling/re-enabling Bluetooth/Wi-Fi on the iPad and AirPlay/Screen Mirroring, nothing helped. What can I do to make Screen Mirroring work again?

Tap on Control Center/Screen Mirroring/Stop Mirroring on the iPad.
Rename your Apple TV by navigating to Settings/General/About/Name.
Try mirroring your iPad's screen again, it should work.
Optionally, you can change your Apple TV's name back to the original name.


I updated Sophos now I am getting these errors popping up repeatedly How can  I get rd of these pop up error messages, I have deleted the Sophos Antivirus but still I am getting these popups, where is it coming from ?

I am using sierra OS on mac book pro 2013 edition.

Golden Rule - don't try to just "delete" an antivirus, they don't like it.

Use the Uninstaller - there is [was] one in the Applications folder. If you deleted that too, then you'll need to re-download it from Sophos

Note: If you have a business install, it will be protected by a Tamper Protection  layer & will need the password, which is not the same as your login/admin password.

Ref: Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac: How to uninstall


Can I use Siri with these apps? Could YouTube, Todoist, myEmail (fill in name app your looking for) be controlled/used with Siri?

Could a third party iOS app be controlled by Siri?

Apple is opening up Siri for third party app developers. It's rolling out slowly in which areas Siri could be used. This to ensure the quality. Every iOS major release Apple adds categories where Siri could be used by third party apps.

Siri works in these categories

iOS 11:

To-do lists
Notes
Reminders
Banking for account transfers and balances
Apps that display QR codes.

iOS 10:

Audio or video calling
Messaging
Payments
Searching photos
Workouts
Ride booking

Recognising

You can recognise which apps support Siri by looking for the Siri icon in the App Store.


command line update of python3 I have both python 2.7 and 3.5.1 installed in my Mac (El Capitan). I left version 2.7 as per this recommendation.

Now I would like to update version 3.5.1 to the latest one but from the command line. Is there a way to do that (preferably from within python itself)?

You can easily switch versions of Python using pyenv.

For example (using Homebrew):

$ brew update
$ brew install pyenv
$ echo 'eval "$(pyenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

$ exec $SHELL

$ pyenv install 2.7.12
$ pyenv install 3.5.2
$ pyenv global 2.7.12 3.5.2

$ python -V
Python 2.7.12

$ python2 -V
Python 2.7.12

$ python2.7 -V
Python 2.7.12

$ python3 -V
Python 3.5.2

$ python3.5 -V
Python 3.5.2


Disable screen lock when in certain location Is there a way to disable the screen lock on my Mac, only when certain conditions are met? I'm looking for a way to have it stop locking when connected my home network (i.e. at home)

How about something like ControlPlane?

  ControlPlane allows you to build configuration profiles, contexts in ControlPlane lingo, for your Mac based on where you are or what you are doing.  ControlPlane determines where you are or what you are doing based on a number of available evidence sources and then automatically reconfigures your Mac based on your preferences.  Evidence sources can include your current location, visible WiFi networks, attached USB devices, running applications and more.

You should be able to build an evidence source, such as being connected to the name (SSID) of your home router, then run an application (like Caffeine) or a script to prevent/turn off the screen lock.


My MacBook Air sometimes doesn't charge when the charger is plugged in Sometimes when I connect my MacBook Air to the charger, the charge light on the MagSafe connector does not come on (and System Information says the power is not connected and the battery is not charging). I tried using a different charger and the MacBook charges fine. What might be the problem?

In my case, the problem was the temperature of the charger. Since it's currently winter in the southern hemisphere, removing the MacBook from charge causes the charger to cool down (since it apparently draws very little mains power when there is no load on the MacBook side). At some point when it is cool enough, it will refuse to supply power when the MacBook is plugged in again.

The workaround is to warm up the charger (for example, by sitting on it) for a few minutes until the charge light comes on. Then the current running through the charger is enough to keep it warm, and it continues charging.

Update: A year later, after returning from being away for six weeks, my charger refused to work again even after sitting on it. Apple was happy to replace it under AppleCare.


How to stop iPad/Safari from treating certain numbers as 'phone numbers'? I've got some pages on an intranet that show numerical rates to 4 decimal places, eg 147.1453. When these pages are viewed on an iPad, some of these rates appear underlined and clicking on them causes the iPad to offer to create a new contact, or add to an existing contact. Clearly it thinks that the text represents a phone number (which it doesn't really, as we're in the UK and phone numbers are not formatted with periods).

Is there a way to stop this happening - either with meta-data we can put in the web pages, or by changing some setting in our iPads?

In the <head> of your web pages, add:

<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no" />

There's lots more where this came from at Apple URL Scheme Reference: Phone Links.


Stuck at the login screen syncing home share It’s stuck at the login screen syncing home share. I have confirmed that it’s connecting to the wireless network. The beach ball just keeps spinning. I’ve tried time machine-no backup, repair permissions and disk-no dice.

Very strange issues with this macbook. In the end bringing it up in Safemode once and then a clean reboot allowed it to work. I didn’t even have to turn off homesharing


Resolve lack of access in Keychain Access I was trying to show a password in Keychain Access, so I put my password in to view it.  It then displayed this message: "The provided password did not unlock this keychain, or access has been limited to a particular user account."  My account is the administrator account, so I don't know what could be causing this.  Thanks.

You can log it out without the password. First press command+space and search activity monitor and press enter, then in the search bar in the corner search "loginwindow" without quotations and double click on the one that has the other users name by it. After that you should see a quit option. click it and it will give you 3 choices. Cancel, force quit, and quit. i recommend only force quitting if it isn't responding or if it doesn't work with regular quit. Also, this deletes any unsaved files and/or open tabs you have without saving them, so you might lose some data. About the Keychain password, i have the same question.


Merging multiple apple ID’s Since getting our first iPad and iPhone and while new to Apple, 3 or 4 iCloud email accounts were setup for at least 2 new Apple ID’s. Is it possible to merge them or should I just delete the least used?They were originally used to manage different users/departments/web pages - etc. I’d like to have 2 ID’s - a personal and one and another for our Not-For-Profit Social Enterprise “Arts4Humanity,” A/K/A “A4H Productions,” “A4HPROS.” Greatly appreciate any light that can be shed on this.

Unfortunately, this is not possible.   It has been requested of apple for more than a decade, and they still do not allow this.   Sorry!


How to install OS using Time Machine backup after hard drive upgrade? I'm looking to upgrade a 120GB SSD in my late 2009 iMac (21.5in) to a 250GB SSD. My mac is running the latest version of MacOS.

I have an external USB drive which I will be setting up to create a Time Machine backup. My understanding is that once the backup has completed, I swap my internal SSD with the new SSD. Then, with keeping the USB Drive with Time Machine backup on it connected, I boot to it and some sort of Disk Utility software will walk me through restoring the Time Machine backup to my newly installed drive.

This is all good, but I have read mixed information about whether or not the Time Machine backup includes a complete backup of data and OS or if I will need to install the OS onto the new drive and update it before restoring from the Time Machine.

I don't have a physical copy of the OS, so it concerns me a little. It's a second-hand Mac and came with El Capitan installed.

Does a Time Machine backup contain the OS as well so it's as simple as boot to a Disk Utility and tell it to restore from Time Machine to the new SSD?

My first Mac, so thanks for any help!

If you haven‘t defined any exclusions in the Time Machine options then your backup drive will contain a full backup including system, apps, and user data.

To restore, you connect the backup drive to your Mac and press cmd-R when starting up. This will start from the Recovery system invisibly contained on the Time Machine disk. You’ll see an assistant window from which you select the first item, “Restore From Time Machine Backup“. Then you can select which of the saved backups you want to restore.

It’s as easy as that. But please make sure you use this mechanism only to restore a system onto the very same Mac you made the backup of. Don’t use it to restore a backup onto a different machine type as it could break your system if build versions don’t match hardware requirements. Should you want to restore a backup onto another system, Apple recommends you to use Migration Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities).


iPad 2 stopped syncing with my MacBook, how do I fix it? My iPad 2 has simply stopped syncing to iTunes. I can still sync my iPhone, but syncing iPad 2 has no effect at all. It creates a backup and then simply says that the sync is finished without doing any thing at all.

I can still transfer files to different applications . For example, I can transfer some movies to CineXPlayer but cannot remove any app from the iPad 2 or even install any app on it through iTunes.

What can I do to fix this problem?

First reboot the iPad and then try syncing. If still unable to sync, make a backup (make sure your backup is current) and restore the device to it's factory setting and then restore from backup.


How to Recover Data when OSX cannot? There is only one .tex file which I would like to restore in my system.
My system is El-Capitan 10.11.5 in Macbook Air 2013-mid.
Problems

I have Time Machine backup but it is 3 days old and does not have the latest .tex file that I need.
There is no sufficient tools in the Internet recovery mode started by ALT-CMD-R. I cannot mount my normal Mac HD partion. There is FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:... in the type. I can detect its size correctly however. I cannot reach the HD. I cannot even duplicate it to external HD i.e. in the internet recovery mode.
When I start to reinstall the system in Internet recovery, I see no discs in the stage Select the disk where you want to install OS X. So something badly wrong with partitions.
I cannot bypass refind because I cannot choose the startup disk. I contacted the developer but he has not provided yet the exact directories/files which to remove for the uninstallation.

Final move in Linux Live USB

Copy data. Open it in another OS X installation.
Install Debian Linux on the whole SSD disc.
Install OS X on the Internet Recovery.

Find OS X disc by lsblk and do

http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/11264/16920
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/ubuntu/ntfsDisc/sda.hfs.dmg bs=512 status=progress

so it took 64 minutes about for 70 Gb. You do not need status=progress. You can ask the status also by pkill -USR1 -x dd.

I did now full install of Debian for the whole SSD disc. Started internet recovery mode and installed OS X in very small partion of the disc because you cannot resize it easily afterwards. Trying to do any disk partition operations on OS X side etc Disk utility was horrible. Trying to resize also the OSX partition with Ubuntu installation media was horrible, never finished.

How can you recover data when OSX cannot?

You can't recover data directly - in the sense of recovering data lost by accidentally deleting files or formatting a volume - in Internet Recovery Mode/Recovery Mode because no appropriate tools are available in the Base OS X system.

You may clone a disk or volume with dd to an external drive and check the data on a second Mac using a recovery app like Data Rescue/Disk Warrior or Lazesoft Mac Data though. IIRC some of the apps even allow you to create a recovery DVD/thumb drive and by booting from this modified recovery OS X you may check your Mac's disk directly.


All text boxes : The opposite of ctrl+v (like in emacs) I like using ctrl + v on mac for jumping with the cursor to the next screen - something like page down but the cursor moves too.

Do you know any way to do the opposite - jumping to the previous screen - like page up but also with the cursor moving?

I'd love a universal solution - i.e. working in all text boxes.

UPDATE: I've refreshed my mind that there's a key binding in terminals that does exactly what I want and that's meta + v but that doesn't work in all Cocoa text boxes as ctrl + v does.

The Emacs command for page up is Meta-v.  Unfortunately, Cocoa only seems to implement the Control-key commands, not commands with Meta.  (Alt is used for special or international characters.  Alt-v gives me a square root key on my keyboard layout.)


How can you find out if your iPhone ever got wet? I know that iPhone has some internal sensors that can be used to test if the device was got ever wet.

Apple uses them in order to deny your warranty.

The question is how to find out this before sending your device to service?

Those sensors are no electrical sensors, but pieces of paper that change from white to red when they get wet. There are up to two spots you can look at without opening the device. Have a look inside your headphone jacket and your dock connector. (use a torch/flashlight as lint or dim light can make these orangish-pink indicators hard to discern!)

Have a look at this page.

Here's the diagram for an iPhone 4/4S:


Reclaim Free Space Partition in High Sierra I have tried this post Reclaim deleted partition now Free Space after Yosemite removal but it didn’t work. I was still not able to resize after terminal returns no core storage.

OS: High Sierra
model: MacBook Pro 2015

If there is any way to resize it even evolving deleting all the data, I am okay with it.

Thanks in advance.

The easiest way is to reset everything and start over.

In the recovery partition (which you appear to be in, but if you aren't, use that) click the View button (in the window, upper left hand corner) and click "Show all devices."

This should show a hierarchy instead of a flat list in the sidebar. Select the top-level representing your hard drive. Mine says "APPLE SSD SM1024L Media". Your computer will likely say something else.

Click the Erase button. Enter a partition name ("Macintosh HD" being the default). Set it to APFS and GUID Partition Map. (This will remove the Recovery partition, but you will still be able to initiate the recovery process via Internet Recovery, so it shouldn't matter.)

You can now exit Disk Utility and use the macOS installer to reinstall the recovery partition and macOS.

Note: If you experience an issue during the installation phase, I've noticed that sometimes the installer doesn't like the disk being APFS at first. Wipe the disk again and select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)." It will be converted to APFS during installation.


How to disable macbook's mic, but not speakers? I found this informative post about completely disabling audio on OS X by removing/disabling the required audio kernel extensions. The problem is this disables audio-in and audio-out, and I only want to disable audio-in.

I'm looking to completely disable audio-in, in a way which cannot be re-enabled by unprivileged users, not just muting it. How could I accomplish this?

Disabling Input

To disable the input, I'm not entirely sure.  Here's what I thought of:

You can use a internal audio input device like SoundFlower, which basically routes the audio output into the audio input.
You can mute the volume (although you said you don't want to do only that)
You could take a look around the /System/Library/Extensions/ folder and in the IOAudioFamily.ktexts file for anything useful, however that can muck up OS X.

Preventing Changes

Disabling underprivileged users from changing the settings isn't actually too hard:

$ sudo chmod 700 /System.Library/PreferencePanes/Sound.prefPane

Will do the trick.  Loading the preference pane from any user (other than root) will display an error.


Shortcut Keys for Moving Desktops in Mission Control in Mountain Lion 10.8.x? Are there shortcut keys for moving a Desktop in the array of Desktops in Mission Control?

I can now do this manually using the mouse by dragging and dropping, but I would like to do this with shortcut keys. Sometimes they even get re-arranged on their own (not sure how that even happens).

Regrettably I don't believe this is possible. As you've probably noticed, there are no user-accessible options for this in System Preferences' Keyboard Shortcuts. As far as I can determine, there aren't any scriptable interfaces either (plists, Applescript). Options for building your own program seem to be pretty limited as well, according to a mailing list post I found. The most you seem to be able to do programmatically is get the current number of open spaces.

The only way to possibly do this without some serious OS X hacking is to use something like Keyboard Maestro to do some GUI scripting to do the dragging for you. However GUI scripting is always a bit messy, and you'd need to account for the changing positions of the desktops, depending on how many are open, etc. I suspect that's not exactly what you were looking for, but it's probably the closest you'll get, unless someone finds something I didn't. Sorry.


What's wrong with my automounter config? So, i am using automounter to connect some smb shares. It was all ok on Mojave. Yesterday i downgraded os to High Sierra with full reinstall. For some reason my shares not connect at all now.

Here is my config:

#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master        # Use directory service
/net            -hosts      -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home           auto_home   -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers    -fstab
/-          -static

#Sambas
/mnt/server auto_server

And my auto_server:

public -fstype=smbfs,soft ://(user):(password)@server/public
web -fstype=smbfs,soft ://(user):(password)@server/web
projects -fstype=smbfs,soft ://(user):(password)@server/projects
private -fstype=smbfs,soft ://(user):(password)@server/private

If i do something like
mount_smbfs mount_smbfs //(user):(password)@server/public /mnt/server/public
It's all ok if i mkdir folders manually.

If i do Go -> Connect to Server -> smb://(user):(password)@server/public It's all ok

So, the problem is only with automounter.

Ok, i got:

sudo chmod 600 /etc/auto_server


Choosing hexadecimal web colours How can I choose hexadecimal web colours (like #000000 and #fffff) to use in system and third party apps? (e.g. an image editor like GraphicConverter)

Skala Color is another solution, that works very well in the latest versions of Mac OSX.

You can select HEX to appear in place of the RGB code, which appears in the above picture.

I used Hex Color Picker for a long time but finally got tired of it trying to be smarter than me. Frequently I would type a single character and it filled in all 6 values for that same number; other times I would get through 2 characters and Hex Color Picker would repeat that. For whatever reason, I had to constantly copy/paste values into the picker, because it kept thinking it knew what I wanted (it didn't).


How To Resolve Finder Graphical Errors on macOS I've had a very strange Finer error caused by recent macOS High Sierra betas that affected Macs running macOS 10.13 as well as macOS 10.12 Sierra. This error causes an entire Finder window to show visual artifacts when opening certain folders on either an APFS or HFS+ volume.  After moving the cursor or the affected Finder window, the window may look something like this;

Attempting to use Disk Utility to repair the affected volume does not resolve this issue, nor does restarting the affected Mac (even in Safe Mode).  Without formatting this disk, how can I prevent Finder from exhibiting this graphical error when opening particular folders?

This unusual error is very easy to resolve:

To resolve the error, first open the affected folder so that a Finder window is exhibiting the unexpected visual errors.
Select Finder's "View" menu, then "Clean Up"
If "Clean Up" is unavailable or does not resolve the issue, hover over "Arrange By" then select "Name"


How do I get a refund of an iTunes gift card with illegible numbers for redeeming the value? When scratching the back of an iTunes gift card to get the numbers to redeem it, the numbers scratched off and now I can't redeem the value of it.  How can I get a refund or a new gift card with the same value?

I was in this situation once. However I went to the Apple support site, followed what they said, and then filled out the email form. From what I remember they will ask you for what you can make out of the code, and then the serial number of the gift card.
This is the link to the email form submission page: http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact.html?form=cards_codes&topic=iTunes%20Cards%20and%20Codes&subtopic=Redemption%20questions
Where it says 'specific request' select 'my code is scratched or unreadable.' Proceed to fill in the form as best you can and send it off. I got a response in less that 48 hours, and the answer they gave me allowed me to redeem my card.
In answer to your original question, I don't actually know, but I hope this assistance means you will no longer have a need to refund the card. Hope this helps.


Make terminal transparent to show wallpaper The opacity option of the Gnome terminal in Ubuntu had a neat behavior, which showed the desktop wallpaper instead of the other windows behind it.

Has anyone been able to make Mac Terminal, or an alternative terminal app, do this?  I know you can set a terminal wallpaper, which squashes and stretches with the terminal window.  Thanks!

This can be done simply by typing this command in the terminal:

" defaults write com.apple.terminal TerminalOpaqueness '0.85' "

Without the quotes of course.

You can adjust the opaqueness level to whatever you like


How to use SoundFonts in GarageBand 10.2? There are many tutorials that show how to use SoundFonts on GarageBand. (Source)

However, when I do step 5 on this page, no dropdown menu appears (and nothing happens).

How can I install SoundFonts to GarageBand 10.2?

Ah yes, this is something Apple's been sent feedback about in terms of their user interface design for GarageBand 10. It's actually a quick fix that will hopefully get addressed in an upcoming update (changing the default setting on installation will probably do the trick for most people).

Using SoundFont (SF2) files in GarageBand v10

To get your SoundFont files to work in GarageBand 10, follow these steps:

Launch GarageBand and open your project
Go to GarageBand > Preferences
Select the Audio/MIDI tab
Within the Effects section, tick the Enable Audio Units checkbox
Exit Preferences
If it's not already, open the Smart Controls window
Now click on the Plug-ins drop down menu and select Instrument > AU Instruments > Apple > DLSMusicDevice > Stereo (see screenshot below):

A DSLMusicDevice window will open (this may take a little while)
Now click on the Sound Bank drop-down menu to select your SF2 file (see image below):

Once you've selected your file, close the DSLMusicDevice window
Now press commandK to open the Musical Typing keyboard (or you can just go to Window > Show Musical Typing).

Now you can play the sounds from the SoundFont (SF2) file you selected.

Installing SoundFont files on macOS

The steps above show how to use SoundFont files within GarageBand 10. However, if you want to download/install additional SoundFont files in macOS to make them available to GarageBand and other apps, follow these steps:

Download  the SoundFont files you want
Within the Finder, press and hold the option key
Keep the option key down and click on Go > Library
This will open your user's Library folder (you can let go of the option key now)
Within the Library folder navigate to Audio > Sounds > Banks
Press shiftcommandN to create a new folder
Move your SoundFont (SF2) files into this folder

Now your SoundFont files will be available to any apps that support them.


How to figure out what a keyboard shortcut is set to For example, I would like to know what Shift-F1 does.

I've looked in the keyboard shortcuts section and couldn't find anything.

Is there a way I can look it up? Either on my Mac, or some reference table somewhere?

I notice in the terminal, it just makes a beep sound, and in safari it does nothing at all.

the reason for it is I want to use this shortcut when I ssh into a linux machine to control byobu.

Is this app specific or in finder?
If its finder, I dont see a shift+f1 shortcut, only control+f1


Prevent Apple Watch face from showing when Do Not Disturb on When Do Not Disturb is on, my Apple Watch still shows the watch face when I turn my wrist. This is a pain at night, because every time I move, I get a bright light shining from the Watch.

When Do Not Disturb is on, I only want the watch to be activated when I press the crown. Is this possible?

In watchOS 3.2, Apple added Theater Mode, accessed by swiping up from the Watch Face and tapping the bottom-left icon.

Theater Mode silences the WATCH and prevents the screen from lighting up on wrist-raise or when receiving notifications. Taptic feedback will still be triggered.

You can combine Theater Mode and Do Not Disturb to silence Taptic feedback, as well. Alarms will still ring as normal.


New Numbers has no Auto-Complete? It would appear that my documents in Numbers (since upgrading to 3.0 with Mavericks) no longer auto-complete cells.

I've Googled for "turn on auto-complete in Numbers" and found plenty of questions on how to turn it off, all of which point to a simple check box in Preferences -> General.  However, that check box no longer seems to be present in the new version.

Is there a way to turn auto-complete back on?

Not right now, but the feature is coming back in a future release within the next six months. Apple has documented the missing features in iWork '13 in a new KB titled About the new iWork for Mac: Features and compatibility, where auto-complete for Numbers is listed as one of the features that will be re-introduced.

The new iWork applications—Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—were released for Mac on October 22nd. These applications were rewritten from the ground up to be fully 64-bit and to support a unified file format between OS X and iOS 7 versions, as well as iWork for iCloud beta.
These apps feature an all-new design with an intelligent format panel and many new features such as easy ways to share documents, Apple-designed styles for objects, interactive charts, new templates, and new animations in Keynote.
In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release. We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis.
Some features in upcoming releases in the next 6 months
Numbers

Customize toolbar
Improvements to zoom and window placement
Multi-column and range sort
Auto-complete text in cells
Page headers and footers
Improvements to AppleScript support

Last Modified: Nov 6, 2013


Should I have to pay for Garage Band if I bought my iMac with OS X 10.8? I've recently started a project that's going to entail using GarageBand. I'd heard it was free, and I searched it in Spotlight. Just to clarify, I am currently running El Capitan. Lo and behold, it did not appear in Spotlight, despite having a reference to the GarageBand app in the App Store. I clicked the App Store link, and it took me to the GarageBand app page where I observed, my confusion growing by the minute, that its price was actually $4.99. I googled it and arrived at an apple site saying that GarageBand is free to all users that have used 10.10. I bought my iMac with OS X Mountain Lion and since then have updated to El Capitan. While I haven't downloaded GarageBand ever I'm pretty sure, I should still have access, no? Every other iApp is there: iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, Pages and Numbers, so why not GarageBand? I've still got the installation apps for Mavericks and Yosemite, and I had a friend recommend I partition my drive and install Mavericks and bring GarageBand over, but I've got no clue how to do that and I've had bad experiences with downgrading OS, so I'd definitely need guidance if that's the way to go.

Garageband used to be free. There was also a $4.99 in-app purchase to get extras. However, Apple changed it to make Garageband $4.99 and not charge for the extras.


When I update my app, does it need to be re-approved? If I have an app on the app store and I want to update it, does it need to go through the approval process again every time I update it?

Yes it does, but the review times are much faster. I just submitted an update and it was reviewed and live within 5 days (counting the weekend).


How to revoke "Always allow" privileges from an application? The application I have in mind is the security command line tool bundled with Macos. The man page describes it as:

security -- Command line interface to keychains and Security framework

At some point recently I wanted to get a password from my keychain using the command-line. Which is done using the following command:

matt@laptop ~ $ security find-generic-password -a 'foobar'

The first time I ran it I saw the usual Always Allow, Deny, and Allow dialogue. I (foolishly) picked Always Allow and now I can't find how/where to undo that.

I've looked using Keychain Access to see if the security tool appears there but it doesn't. The closest thing I could find was an entry for CommCenter but it was last modified before I ever used the security command.

Launch the Keychain Access Utility and find the entry you used that password:

Right click it to bring up its info window
Click the Access Control Tab and there you will see a list of applications that have "Always allow access" enabled
Highlight the application in the list that you want remove and click the [-] button to remove it from Always allowed access.


How to resize partition after failed installation of Windows 10 via boot camp? I have resized my main drive from 250gb to 200gb so I could have 50gb for Windows 10. Installation via boot camp failed and I was left with two partitions.
Somehow I deleted the smaller one (for Windows) and now I can not reclaim that space and resize my main partition to its original size of 250gb.

➜ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         192.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data OSXRESERVED             8.0 GB     disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +192.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            140.0 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.8 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

DiskUtility:

I have tried resizing apfs container:

➜ diskutil apfs resizeContainer /dev/disk0s2 240g
Started APFS operation
Aligning grow delta to 48,000,000,000 bytes and targeting a new physical store size of 240,000,000,000 bytes
Determined the maximum size for the targeted physical store of this APFS Container to be 192,000,536,576 bytes
Error: -69771: The target disk is too small for this operation

Does anybody know how to reclaim that "invisible" free space and how to expand my main partition?

Any help is much appreciated.

Open a Terminal application window and enter the following commands.

sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
sudo diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0


How can I show hidden files on 'choose a file' dialog in 3rd-party apps? I want to choose a file under hidden directories on any application but Finder, but it seems to be not shown. For example, if I put a file called my.terminal under ~/Dropbox/.hidden/, and try to choose the file on Terminal (Preferences -> Profiles -> Import), I could not reach the file because it is, I think, put under a hidden directory. The file is not searchable on the search box.
In this case, I first have to copy the file to other directories that are non-visible, and then choose the file again. This is quite painstaking and I want to avoid it, but is this possible on macOS (Big Sur)?
I already set the Finder such that it shows hidden files, but this has no effect on other applications.

As noted, you have found how to show invisibles, in Finder and in file-picker dialogs…
You are going to be hampered, however, by the fact that Spotlight will not index hidden or System locations, so they will not show up in search.
A potential partial workaround would be to open your destination folder in Finder before you need it in an app. Then, when you are presented with any file-picker dialog, you can drag that folder into the dialog & the file-picker will go to that location.


Set default application for filetype I see a file of a particular type and it defaults to opening in the wrong program. I right-clicked the file, held down Option, and selected Always open with and then the correct application. The file opened in the right app, but it did not change the default. How can I set the default for a file's type?

Right-click the file and go to Get info (shortcut: Cmd+I). There will be an option to set that file's default application. Select it and use Change All... to make the default apply to all others of the type.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::


macOS 10.12.6 Sierra keychain has stopped saving passwords, how to repair? Within the last few weeks I have noticed that my system has stopped or cannot save passwords. Outlook, iCloud, and other GUI apps ask for them every single time. Attached is a picture from SequelPro when attempting to save a password.

How can I diagnose / repair the Keychain?

Warning: macOS no longer supports Keychain repair, instead it just creates a new default Keychain, which will result in a loss of all saved passwords.

Quit all open applications that might be using Keychain including Sequel.
To try to repair the Keychain use Finder to go to /Applications/Utilities.

You can also CommandShiftU from Finder to open that folder directly.

Launch Keychain Access.
Then go to the menu bar and select Keychain Access > Preferences.
Click "Reset My Default Keychain"

Follow any instructions beyond this and retest those applications.


What do quotes mean in iOS8 predictive text? In the new iOS8 predictive text feature, three suggested words appear above the traditional keyboard.
The left hand word is frequently, but not always, surrounded by quotes.

What do the quotes mean?

The quotes signify "learn" or "use this word" whether or not it's a recognisable word to the predictive system.

Without quotes it is part of the next word prediction; as soon as you start typing a new word the system then focusses on that current word, offering 2 suggestions & an "accept what I just wrote" option.


Is there a log file for App Nap? I use a piece of specialty software that seems to be dealing badly with App Nap. Is there a way to retroactively list when App Nap acted on a specific process?
The Console log shows symptoms (Spindump reports when an app is throttled for excessive wakelocks or cpu use) but I can't find anything related to the third type of App Nap throttling (priority reduction), quoting from developer docs:

For any app that is not performing important user work, App Nap triggers a number of measures, including:

Priority reduction, which reduces the process priority of an app so that it receives a smaller share of available processor time

Timer throttling, which reduces the frequency with which an app’s timers are fired

I/O throttling, which reduces the rate at which an app can read or write data from a device while foreground apps need the device

app nap events are shown in the system.log (the easiest way to find them is to open up Console.app and look in All Messages).


What kind of adaptor do I need to connect RJ45 / ethernet cable to my Macbook Pro Retina display? There is no RJ45 / ethernet port on my macbook.  Do I need a thunderbolt or USB or HDMI adaptor?

Or should I just buy a mini wireless router?

Your best bet is Apple's Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter.

There are also assorted USB ethernet adapters available from various sources (including Apple), including a few Gigabit ones that use USB 3.0, but the Thunderbolt one will likely have the best performance, so unless you're using both Thunderbolt ports already, that's the better choice.


How do I uninstall the shortcuts that come with Chrome? So I am running OS X El Capitan on my Macbook air. I just installed the chrome browser recently and I noticed it installed a few shortcuts onto launchpad. These shortcuts were to youtube, gmail, and google drive. When clicking on the shortcuts it opens chrome to the correct webpage. I have already gone to chrome://apps and uninstalled all of the apps but the shortcuts still do not go away. I have searched through my application folder but I cannot find the shortcuts and have tried deleting chrome. Rebooting doesn't do a thing either. I installed chrome from google's official website too.

please help me!!! I do not care if I have chrome anymore I just do not want these shortcuts.

I am still on Mavericks, but here it is in the

~/Applications/Chrome Apps.localized

You can do it in Chrome as well.

Go to: (type in chrome browser)

 chrome://apps/

and Delete it


Access to refunded in-app purchases Is it normal that refunded in-app purchases (on the Mac) can still be re-downloaded without charge?


64-bit only future and virtual machines Apple has started the phasing out of 32-bit applications on MacOS. How is this going to impact virtual machines, be it Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox, or Apple own hypervisor? Will it still be possible to run 32-bit OS inside virtual machines?

There’s never been a hard limit running older os in VM so this seems like a safe bet to say, yes - virtualization is a good bet to keep 32 bit os alive like it is for os back to System 1 and the (mostly) 32 bit Motorola 68000 processor.


Is it worth upgrading Macbook mid 2010 I own a Macbook Pro Mid 2010 (Macbook 7,1) which has gone through several upgrades. Before any of the upgrades, the CPU fan was constantly noisy whenever running any application, making it impossible to use. You would need to close all other applications just to make it possible to do a video call, and it still lagged even after that.

I have done the following upgrades so far:

early 2013: added 2GB RAM (4GB + 2GB = 6GB), at the time, this was the maximum, installing 4GB + 4GB didn't work for me
early 2015: replaced the hard drive with SSD 256GB
replaced battery and MagSafe

After each upgrade, it has always worked a bit better, but only until the next OSX version came out and then it would become impossible to use again. I purchased a desktop PC in early 2016 and hasn't been using the Macbook since then.

Recently I found out that OWC has tested that Macbook mid 2010 would work with 16GB, it gave me an idea to try another upgrade. I've always loved my Macbook and hate to leave it collecting dust in the cabinet or even toss it. I'm just not sure if it worths to spend another 100euro just to find out that the whole thing is just not good enough anymore for the current software, regardless of the 16GB. Obviously the bottleneck would be the Core2duo processor which you can't really do anything about it.

So what do you think? Anyone did the same upgrade, can you share if it gave the MacBook a new life?

In the corner of the world where I live there are still plenty of MacBooks Pro 2010 in circulation. But you have already done the main upgrade that I do for my clients: swapped the spinning HD with an SSD.

I get the impression that you really want there to be a path to a good upgrade. But the reality is as you say that it has a C2D CPU which just doesn't cut it anymore.

Also it can only run macOS 10.13.6 max, so software wise it will always be stuck in 2017, and apps and upgrades will slowly leave it in the dust.

I do not personally think it is wort spending much more money on. But, it has a SSD and therefore it should run reasonably ok as it is. Its 6GB of RAM isn't hopelessly little, especially not if you keep at least 20GB free on the SSD so it can swap nicely (it's an SSD, so the swapping will be quite snappy).

Its loud fans do not jive with my experience of everyday use though. Why don't you, if you want to give it another look, try to address just that. I would do two things:

Reinstall it cleanly with macOS 10.13.6, making sure you leave any old OS cruft out of the installation. Note that if it currenlty has a
very old version of macOS, you might have to two-step it through
  10.11, as it is sometimes impossible to upgrade direclty to 10.13. Also note that you might have to backdate the Mac's clock a few years
while the installation is ongoing to allow it.
Open it, check for dust in the fan duct and remove and reapply the thermal grease between CPU and heat sink.

And then in use, make sure you keep at least 20GB free on the SSD so you keep macOS happy and non space-constrained


What the heck is "npvhash=4095"? I've been using Mac for 15 years, and I've had relatively few problems.

Many years ago, I was using a MBP 17" which sometimes was completely freezing: the only way to wake it was to hard-reset it (hold down power button).

This is where I met "npvhash=4095" for the first time, watching in my log files. Back then, I googled it and found a thread in Apple support forums where a kind guy told everyone who had this problem to open the font book, select all the fonts, right click, click "validate fonts" and delete all those which didn't passed the validation. That solved the problem. Now it doesn’t!

I'm on an 27" iMac with Snow Leopard 10.6.8 installed. Whenever I play Halo, after a few minutes, I get "npvhash=4095"—system freeze, until I hold down power button.

Of course, I've validated all the fonts with no result.

Does anyone know what npvhash means? If you don't know how to fix my problem it's not a big deal, I just want to know what is npvhash! I hope anyone can help me.

The boot process usually starts with npvhash=4095 in kernel.log.

And you can find #define NPVHASH 4095   /* MUST BE 2^N - 1 */ in OS X kernel XNU source code pmap_internal.h.


Do I need a router with Mac and these firewall settings? I am single home user in one apartment with no other users, living apartment block house with over hundred apartments.
I have cable internet and one modem.

Mac firewall has "block all incoming connections" and "enable stealth mode" enabled.
All sharing services are disabled.

Do I need a router? All ports are disabled with these settings (I assume at least) so is router needed?

You only need a router if you want to "route" a network connection to more than 1 device.

If you only want to have 1 device connected to your network then you don't need a router. If you add another network-enabled device (TV, printer, another computer, etc), then you will need a router to share & control the network traffic.


Script or App to auto write URL of browser-downloaded files to their respective Comments field (metadata) in the files Get Info sheet? I'm looking for a script or any other way to automatically write the URL of a download file to its "Comments" field, as shown in a files Get Info sheet (Command+I in Finder).

Anyone know if I could make a script to do this, or if browser extensions can do this, etc?

Equally fine, for my needs anyway, would be to simply have the files Get Info sheet show me the URL in a separate field, i.e. one that displays whatever is in com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms

I'm not sure what you mean by 'automatically' but this script will take the 'where froms' URL and stuff it into the Comments of (single) selected file's Finder Info window (i.e. when you type command-i on a file).

property fPath : path to downloads folder
tell application "Finder"
set aFil to selection as alias

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"\""}
try
    set sCom to do shell script "/usr/bin/mdls -name kMDItemWhereFroms " & quoted form of (POSIX path of fPath & (name of aFil))
    set rUrl to second text item of sCom

    set comment of aFil to rUrl
end try
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
end tell

Essentially, this runs the 'mdls' command, greps the result for 'kMDItemWhereFroms'  and then grabs the URL from that key's value, which is then set into the 'comments' field.

Some considerations:

If a file doesn't have 'kMDItemWhereFroms' then nothing happens
If file isn't in 'Downloads' folder then probably nothing happens
Existing 'comments' are replaced. If you want the URL appended or whatever, then more scripting would be required.
It's conceivable that the structure of the mdls output could be different which could break the grep. It works for me on 10.12 using Safari. Not sure if other browsers reliably provide 'where froms'. The text item delimiters separate at the '"' and the text between the first two quote marks is deemed the URL.
If you want it to 'automatically' occur upon the file's download, then you'd need to do something like 'folder actions'.


Recover Messages content after clean install of El Capitan I've done a clean install of El Capitan. I do have a raw file back up of my home folder, containing the messages archive. This was created when I was in Yosemite.

I grabbed the entire contents of the Home folder (/Users/myusername). This includes the Messages folder in the Library (/Users/myusername/Library/Messages). This was just a direct copy to an external drive. This folder contains three files and a folder

chat.db
chat.db-shm
chat.db-wal
[folder] Attachments

I've attempted to just copy these files from the external drive to the new messages folder on my hard drive, but the structure of new and old messages appears different and the direct copy did not restore my old messages.

I'm not sure what the content of the files is as they're not readily readable, but the new Messages folder in El Capitan has an Archive folder by default, which seems to contain the message content now, instead of whatever way it was being done in Yosemite.

Is there a way to recover the old messages using either the archive I have or iCloud?

By using the items mentioned in my previous comments and creating a symlink to the /Users/myusername/Library/Messages/Archive folder from inside the container (the change in structure created by el capitan) then restarting the machine, I got the messages back.

Container Path: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages/Archive


Does anybody make an adapter to convert a Mac's eSATA port to USB 3 (or later, or Thunderbolt)? When I got my iMac ~10 years ago I had Other World Computing install an eSATA port on it. I've never used it for much, but now I'd like to adapt it if possible to one of the more common ports, like USB 3.x or Thunderbolt.
You can find lots of adapters to convert a computer's USB port to eSATA, but I want to go the other way. Any hope?

There’s no easy fix here. eSATA is older, less power and slower than the items you seek to upgrade, so basically you’re putting a fancy computer in between an old port and a new device which adds cost and delays.
OWC has great support so if you asked them if they had anything they will likely agree with the assessments here.
It’s easier to take a newer, higher speed and power bus and slow it down to the older protocol as you see from your research.
The good news is you can still get eSATA storage at a discount if you are needing more speed but can’t afford a newer Mac.


How do I close a Safari alert that's taller then the screen? Oh, come on! I can't close this stupid alert because it's taller than the screen itself. Pressing enter just re-opens the alert again. How do I close a Safari alert that's taller then the screen?

(I have unsaved work in several other tabs.)

Sorry, but there are very few things you can do:

Force restart safari and hope it doesn't re-open this page.
Try disabling Wi-Fi and keep pressing enter.

Also, I believe the latest Safari updates contain a fix for this type of malware.


How to download previously purchased iTunes songs How do I download purchased songs to my PC?
I am missing songs from several albums.

I cannot get the album or individual songs to download.

Go iTunes → Music → iTunes Store. Then you must see something like this on the right side:

Hit Purchased and you will see and be able to re-download your songs.


iOS: can one pause a screen recording for continuing it later? Can one pause a screen recording and then continue it? There is a related question for macOS. My question is for the default screen-recording of iOS 13. If the answer is negative, is there some free apps which are able to do it?

I have not heard of any way to do that, nor any 3rd-party app that can do it.

Your best bet would be to find an app (or Shortcut, possibly) which can merge multiple videos together, and then you could run that after taking 2 or more.


Does OS X Yosemite support spotlight on network drives? I know in the past OS X did not support indexing network drives.   Has this changed?   Do more recent versions of OS X such as Yosemite support spotlight on network drives?

I am thinking of investing in a NAS storage device such as Synology and spotlight support is a requirement.  Since I have lots of data on my external drives right now.

Indexing of an AFP-network drive isn't a problem:

To enable spotlight indexing on a network drive open Terminal.app and enter:

 mdutil /Volumes/name -i on

To disable the indexing of a connected network drive:

 mdutil /Volumes/name -i off

To check the status of indexing on a connected network drive:

 mdutil /Volumes/name -s

Source

In the comments there, a Synology NAS has been mentioned explicitly:

  MacHouis • a year ago
  Thanks a lot, it works very fine :):):). I had to mount the volume (a Synology Ethernet server) in afp to start the Spotlight Indexing... thanks thanks thanks...

This also works for older Mac OS Xs (in the example below it's Lion). Make sure that you've switched to 'Shared' in the search window:


Would a Displayport-Thunderbolt cable unlock better performance from my external display than an HDMI 2.0 cable? I just bought a new monitor (an Asus XG35VQ), but when I try to use my MacBook (Pro 13", mid-2014) with it, I can only get 30Hz on the native 3440x1440 resolution.
At first I thought there was something wrong either with the monitor or with macOS (running Big Sur), but then I realized the issue is probably with the connection.
I want to avoid using the DisplayPort on the monitor to connect to the Mac because there is only one of them in the monitor and it's being used to connect to a different machine. All I have left is an HDMI 2.0 port. I'm using the cable that was supplied with the monitor.
Would it help me get a better refresh rate if I used a Thunderbolt->HDMI cable instead of an HDMI->HDMI cable? Or would it not make any difference?
And what about a Thunderbolt->DisplayPort? Or a HDMI->DisplayPort?
My monitor supports up to 100Hz, but if I can get it to 60Hz I'll be super happy already.
Thanks!

For this connection you could have four bottlenecks:

Input connector on your monitor
Output connector on your Mac/PC
faulty cable/lower-spec cable
GPU (graphics processing unit) limitation

As you state, the input connector on your monitor is an HDMI 2.0
port, which is capable of 4k@60fps.
A mid 2014 13" MBP does only support 3840x2160@30fps output over the HDMI port. This may be at least one of the reasons you are not getting the higher refresh rate.
You can simply test the cable with another device. I also would not really suspect it, unless you have a reason to believe it is physically damaged.
The MBP specs also state that the output is too limited for your high refresh rate monitor. There has also been a similar question on AD:

Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors

What this means for you
You will not be able to get a higher refresh rate, since you are using an older HDMI port and the MBPs video output is too limited. So even if you would get a Mini-DP → HDMI 2.x cable, you shouldn't  be able to get a higher refresh rate.

Note: On your machine the Thunderbolt 2 connector can act as a Mini-DP connector, which is capable of higher resolution/refresh rates than some older HDMI ports. Yet, this depends on the exact comparison. Have a look at the Wikipedia page about the different HDMI specifications and Display Port connections.
Double check which MacBooks support what monitor resolutions and refresh rates on Everymac.


My macbook pro troubleshoot reset with grey screen My macbook pro is MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012), 8G ram, and run OS 10.10.4.
I have upgraded storage from 500GB HDD to Crucial M550 SSD. I removed dvd drive and use optical bay to keep 500GB HDD as the second storage.
I have reinstalled my OSX after upgraded

After upgraded, my macbook pro temperature alway hot (>70 C degree) when I open a lot of applications and a lot of chrome tab.

Sometime My macbook pro auto reset with grey screen

Please help me. I can work with this situation.
Thank you.

The first rule of computer troubleshooting: "isolate and identify."

Which basically means undo any changes you made recently. If you plugged a new mouse in, remove it. If you installed a new app, remove it, etc.

In your case I would remove the drive in the optical bay and put the Apple optical drive back in and see if the issue repeats.

User "n1000" hints that it might be related to an OS upgrade or your specific model of Mac. If you can go back to the previous version of the OS that would be good (though time consuming).

You could also take the Mac to an Apple store and have a Genius run some diagnostics and see if it is a warranty or known issue. Note, Apple will blame the SSD in the optical bay so you will have to put the optical drive back in for Apple to diagnose the issue beyond blaming the SSD and sending you on your way.


Does FileVault 2 encrypt keys in sleep mode? I have an early 2015 13" MacBook Pro running OS X 10.11.2 and I'm considering enabling FileVault 2. I realize that the disk is always encrypted, even when the machine is in use and only parts of it are decrypted, but the decryption keys are stored in RAM (I believe) when the machine is on. When I close the lid and the machine goes to some sort of sleep state, is it possible for an attacker with physical access to the device to obtain the decryption key granted that they don't know my user login password? User login password is set to be required immediately after waking from sleep. I got the idea that in newer versions of OS X FileVault keys are encrypted with user login keys, but I couldn't get any confirmation on this. I want to avoid enabling destroyfvkeyonstandby if possible as fast and reliable wake-from-sleep is important to me.

I don't believe any extra encryption is specified for the keys and also want to disagree with the statement "only parts of it are decrypted" as the entire volume is either unlocked or locked. For the filesystem to be mounted - all of it is unlocked.

So, you could enable destroyfvkeyonstandby being sure to also disable power nap since that causes restarts if the machine wakes up too many times to find that the filesystem is encrypted while it tries to run.

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/power-nap-power-management-settings-and-filevault-2

For me, the risk that somehow the RAM will be captured from a sleeping Mac isn't worth the delay every wake of having to unlock the volume. My suspicions are that Apple has implemented the unlock in a way to make it highly secure whether the Mac is sleeping or not so that even if the contents of the drive are captured, you still need the proper password to unlock the volume the next time it is locked.


Suppressing an error completely in AppleScript? So I wrote a small service that, when hotkey is pressed, captures a screenshot, uploads it to imgur and copies the link to the buffer. Thing is, if for some reason I decide NOT to capture anything and press Esc (or any other key), it breaks and displays an error. I want the service not to display an error when I manually cancel the procedure. How do I achieve that?

Edit: I have tried wrapping my script in try and adding on error errMsg before closing with end try. It worked but I wonder if there's a more idiomatic solution.

Had to wrap my script with try and end try to suppress errors.


El Capitan issue: Drag-and-Drop to open an image with the Preview.app in the Finder Toolbar not working El Capitan issue: Drag-and-Drop to open an image with the Preview.app in the Finder Toolbar is not working ... dragging an image over the preview.app icon in my finder windows toolbar it results in an forbiden icon an nothing happens ...

Any idea how to fix this?

You have to enable the option with a somewhat misleading name "spring-loading delay". It is now a component of System Preferences → Accessibility → Mouse & Trackpad, see answer at Spring loaded folder settings missing in Yosemite


After a few days, my Macbook's connection to the PC will go bad, how to solve it? I use smb to connect to the PC to look at the files:

In Finder,  Go -> Connect to Server

and I use

smb://mypc      <-- this is my pc's name in the config

to be able to look at the shared folders on my PC from the macbook (wireless).  But after a couple of day or sometimes a few days, the connection goes bad, and reconnect is waiting for 10 minutes and it still tries to connect.

Is there a way around this?  Using a different method?  For example, if I set up a webserver on my PC, then the files can be more easily accessible because the macbook has no problem accessing any websites, but i just don't want to need to set up a webserver to do file access.

Just a guess; does you home network use DHCP? I wonder if the address lease is timing out and the Mac isn't looking for the PC via your DNS.

You could try changing the address lease time on your router to never expire (depending on router type), or you might consider giving the PC a fixed address instead of using DHCP.


MacBook Pro with Retina display (Late 2012) not outputting anything above 1080p I know it won't support 4k but it should at least do 1440 right? I can't get higher than 1080p...

UPDATE:
I pressed alt and clicked "scaled" to unlock the extra resolutions as suggested by Buscar웃. It gives me more options but onfortunately still nothing higher than 1080p :(

This macbook is quoted as supporting "up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays" and it does so with the thunderbolt cinema display. Surely it should be able to do the same with my new 4k monitor? If it matters, the display I'm using is the AOC U2868PQU. I'm not using "mirroring" as suggested by LaX.

I managed to get full 3840×2160 @30Hz using mini-displayport cable and an app called SwitchResX. Here are my custom settings, you need to reboot the machine to apply them:

As a word of warning, this does make things eye-bleedingly small. (Pretty cool though - full-size)

Personally, I found the ‘scaled’ resolution of 1920×1200 to be the best for me because it uses HiDPI to give you that retina feel you’re used to. It will look like 1920×1200 but actually use more pixels to paint it. Here are the settings:

This is much more sensible (although I would like it smaller to be honest).
The downside is that you lose some of the screen down the sides. Let me know if you have any better suggestions.

If you find the colours going a bit funny, I used SwitchResX to change the color profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 like this:

For more details, go to my blog post here: http://www.mattburns.co.uk/blog/2014/09/30/running-the-4k-aoc-u2868pqu-and-intel-hd4000-graphics/


How can I disable any external traffic to my port 80? I don't want others on the same network (or any network!) to be able to access my machine at port 80, where I have dev websites.

I've tried adding this rule to ipfw:

deny tcp from any to any dst-port 80 in

which works, but it also stops me from being able to access my web root whenever I get a new IP (switching to a new wireless network, for example) until I refresh my network interface.

Is there a rule that I can add into ipfw or (since it's apparently deprecated) into pfctl that disallows any external traffic to port 80?

Edit: bmike's answer is just perfect. Here's what I've done, for others to see:

sudo ipfw add 00100 allow ip from any to any via lo0
sudo ipfw add 90100 deny tcp from any to any dst-port 80 in
sudo ipfw add 90100 deny tcp from any to any dst-port 443 in
sudo ipfw add 90100 deny tcp from any to any dst-port 3306 in

This allows all ports locally, but disallows any incoming connection to 80 (Apache), 443 (https), and 3306 (MySQL, which I already have restricted to localhost, but I still added this just to ensure it).

You'll want to be sure you have an allow rule with a lower number than the deny rule.

So perhaps:

00100 allow ip from any to any via lo0
90100 deny tcp from any to any dst-port 80 in

This puts the allow very low (make sure you don't have any deny rules in the 0-99 rule number range) and puts the general deny rule at a very high number (presumably you won't be allowing anything on port 80 higher than 90101).

If you are not defining a rule file to load all the commands in one shot, have a look at this answer for a slightly different take on restricting ports: How do I use ipfw to allow LAN access but deny Internet access?


Jailbroken iPhone 3GS shows "No Service" after upgrading to iOS 6.1.6 I used redsn0w to jail break after upgrading to iOS 6.1.6 via iTunes. Now it shows "No service" with or without the SIM. How do I resolve this?

Was the jailbroken phone also unlocked? If so, the phone has probably become locked again, and will only work with a SIM card after it has been unlocked once more.

This is because in some markets, phones are sold locked to a specific carrier, and will only work with a SIM for that carrier. If the phone is unlocked, it can be used with any SIM.

The unlocking process is separate to the jailbreak, and must be done after the phone is jailbroken.


AppleScript to get contents of file in Apple Mail I am attempting to make an auto replier bot. The bot will respond differently (and perform different actions) based on the message that is received. Instead of emailing the bot, I will be texting the bot (with an iPhone). My provider (Verizon) receives the message and sends it as an attachment, in a file named text_0.txt, as plaintext.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to get AppleScript to get the contents of the file.

So my question is as follows, how can I get AppleScript to (writing this non apple script code to make it easier to understand) do this:

if (email contains type["file"]) {

if (email.file[0].name() === "text_0.txt") {

contents = email.file[0].content;

// Do stuff

} else {
// Do some other stuff
}

} else {
content = email.content;
}

I'm a little confused as to exactly what you're trying to achieve.  This is not an exact solution to your question, but maybe this following code will help put you on the right path.

The first part of this following code with the "Mail" commands will take the currently selected message in Mail.app, and save all of the email attachments in that message to your desktop.

The second part of this following code, with the "Finder" commands, will read the contents of any .txt files in the list of files stored in savedFileList and save that information to the variable theContent

set saveFilePath to POSIX path of (path to desktop)
set savedFileList to {}

tell application "Mail"
    set theCount to every mail attachment of item 1 of (get selection)
    repeat with i from 1 to count of theCount
        try -- handles if "downloaded of (get mail attachment id theID of item 1 of (get selection))" is false
            set thisItem to item i of theCount
            set theID to id of thisItem
            set theFile to mail attachment id theID of item 1 of (get selection)
            set isDownloaded to downloaded of (get mail attachment id theID of item 1 of (get selection))
            set theName to name of theFile
            save theFile in POSIX file (saveFilePath & theName)
            set end of savedFileList to (saveFilePath & theName) as POSIX file as alias
        end try
    end repeat
end tell

set nameExtensions to {"txt"}

tell application "Finder"
    repeat with j from 1 to count of savedFileList
        set thisItem2 to item j of savedFileList
        if name extension of thisItem2 is in nameExtensions then
            set theContent to read thisItem2
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

At this point you should be able to send actual files, or content from txt files you have received from the currently selected message in "Mail.app". (As all of the information has been stored in different variables in the code... For you to choose and act upon)


What version of OpenSSH is available on macOS Big Sur (11.0.1)? I am currently running Mojave which has the following
> ssh -V
OpenSSH_7.9p1, LibreSSL 2.7.3

Before moving to macOS Big Sur, I'd like to know the default version of SSH on it.

In Terminal, using a clean install of macOS Big Sur (11.0.1), ssh -V returns:
OpenSSH_8.1p1, LibreSSL 2.7.3


When creating a RAID 1 mirror set, do you need to have both disks available or can one be added later? I'm planning my transition to Mac OS and I have a pair of mirrored drives I would like to move to my future computer. Since they are currently formatted as NTFS they will need to be reformatted during the transition. What I would like to do is create a RAID 1 mirror set with only one of the drives, copy the data from one drive to the other, and then add the remaining drive to the RAID set. Does anyone know if this is possible to do, or will Disk Utility require me to have two drives to create the RAID 1 mirror set?

This can be done from the Disk Utility app or from the diskutil command line.  Be warned that you should definitely make a backup before doing anything.  I had an issue where the diskutil appleraid enable mirror disk1s2  command I ran wrapped the volume in a RAID set but the partition is now called Apple_RAID_Offline and no longer accessible.  Ironically after restoring from backup to a new volume (I'm still trying to figure out if I can recover that original), I was able to create the one-sided mirror just using the Disk Utility.app.  I simply dragged the volume into the RAID window and it gave me a warning that it would be changing the volume to a RAID set but that the data would not be lost.  Not sure what happened with the command line attempt but it's slightly disturbing.  In either case once the one-sided mirror is created you should be able to drag another partition into the Mirrored RAID set to complete the mirror.  or use the diskutil ar add member <disk> <RAIDset> command.

In your case it should be easy to create the one sided mirror first and then transfer your data to the new volume and then format the ntfs disk and add it to the mirror set.


Driver issues Windows 8.1 Pro on Late 2011 MBP I installed Windows 8.1 pro on my late 2011 mbp and now I'm having issues with audio and display drivers. I can't get the audio to work at all. I have tried updating the drivers and reinstalling them, but nothing has worked.I am also having trouble with my display driver because I can't project to an external monitor. I have also tried updating drivers and reinstalling, but nothing has helped. I don't really know what to do now, but open to any suggestions on how to solve this.

Technically speaking this might be best asked on a Windows board but...

How did you update and reinstall the drivers?

I would download the latest BootCamp drivers and then go into device manager, find the devices in question and right-click on them and select uninstall. Simply reinstalling often doesn't fix driver issues, you gotta remove the old ones completely first.

Once the problematic drivers are uninstalled reboot.

Windows will likely detect the missing drivers and reinstall them from it's cache. If it doesn't use the drivers you downloaded from Apple


How can I install a new dictionary on OS X for use with the "Word of the Day" screensaver? The reason is trivial: I am a fan of the "Word of the Day" screen saver and I would like to add dictionaries for languages other than English and Japanese (these are the two that I can select now in screen saver options).

How can I do it?

On a rather obscure comment thread, someone explained where you might find the word list that Apple uses to power the screensaver. It is at /System/Library/Graphics/Quartz\ Composer\ Plug-Ins/WOTD.plugin/Contents/Resources/NOAD_wotd_list.txt. The file looks like this:

m_en_us1282510  quinsy
m_en_us1273791  orbicular
m_en_us1220945  alimony
m_en_us1250517  genome

It is a list of tab-separated entries. On the right you have the word, and on the left, what looks like an ID. But what's it an ID for, and how would you be able to find it for another word not already on the list?

As you might expect, the ID refers to an entry in Apple's default dictionary, the "New Oxford American Dictionary". (That's what "NOAD" stands for in the word-list path above.)

How to find the IDs for other words?

A fellow named Joseph Gentle, in a series of blog posts, shows how to get at the data underlying Apple's dictionaries. In his "Apple dictionaries, part 2" post, he points to code that unpacks the relevant binary file (stored in /Library/Dictionaries) into XML. Using the dedict.c and strip.c files found here, and following Gentle's example, I used the following bash commands to get at the NOAD's XML (these commands are run from the directory where you downloaded the dedict.c and strip.c files):

clang dedict.c -Wall -lz -o dedict
clang strip.c -Wall -lz -o strip
./dedict "New Oxford American Dictionary" | ./strip > dict.xml

When I head-ed the first few lines of the dict.xml file, I saw something promising, with entries that looked like this:

<d:entry xmlns:d="http://www.apple.com/DTDs/DictionaryService-1.0.rng" id="m_en_us1219333" d:title="abode" class="entry">

Notice that id param... it's an identifier that looks exactly like the one in the screensaver word list!

I wrote the following Ruby script to parse the XML, and then, using my own word list, create a new screensaver file that maps my own words to their IDs in the dictionary:

raw = File.open("./dict.xml").read
my_words = File.open("./word_list.csv").readlines.map { |line| line.split(',')[1] }

word_id_map = {}

raw.scan(/<d:entry .*? id="(.*?)" d:title="(.*?)" class="entry">/).each do |entry|
   word_id_map[entry[1]] = entry[0]
end

my_words.each do |word|
  if id = word_id_map[word]
    puts [id, word].join('  ')
  end
end

When I replaced the original screensaver file with this new one, it worked. You can now have a "Word of the Day" screensaver that gives definitions for the words you choose.


how do I restore the Download stack in the iMac Dock? Download stack is missing from the iMac Dock. The Download stack was originally present but may have been removed with the High Sierra update. Presently all downloads go directly to the download file and plus be recovered from the Finder application. I have not been able to find guidance on how to solve this problem in the Safari help.

Open Finder and go to your home folder using the go menu.
Drag the Download folder to the dock to the immediate left of the trash.
Control click the downloads to choose the stack effect if needed.


Utilize "burner" user accounts to sandbox specific "sketchy" apps There's some apps that are sort of irreplaceable for a user, yet at the same time unwanted by them, (due to violating privacy, controversial history etc.)
In my case that is Google's Android File Transfer¹, which is irreplaceable (to me), yet like any Google product, behaves literally like malware when installed on your computer.
When it comes specifically to an app that is:
(i) simply "drag-to-Applications-folder" to install (rather than through a .PKG installer²),
and (ii) on a computer that hasn't already launched/used that "sketchy" app (now or in the past), can I:
(a) Make a burner Standard-type User Account → logout from my Admin acc → login with that burner one → download and use the "sketchy" app there and then, but making sure I don't use my Admin credentials at any time, if/when asked while logged in the burner one → logout and back in with my Admin acc → and just erase the burner one?
Would that leave any traces of the "sketchy" app behind, or is it as if it's never been on this computer?
(b) Instead of deleting that burner acc, can I just keep it for future use, so that it permanently works sort of as a sandbox, for when I need to use "sketchy" apps? (Since I haven't been able to find a built-in or 3rd-party macOS feature which sandboxes apps for you)
Or would it leave my computer susceptible to those apps?

¹ The reference to that specific app is purely indicative; my inquiry applies to any app that one might deem "sketchy".
² i.e., app related files will inevitably be installed in /Library/ (and not just ~/Library/) for the app to work properly, when installed through a .PKG installer. Examples: Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, etc.

I'd be more inclined towards a 'burner' VM macOS install if you're that worried.  Duplicate it before any sketchy install, so you can just delete it after use, keeping the 'master' VM safe.


How to get iTunes to keep downloading podcasts even if I don't listen to them right away? As the owner of a Mac and an iPhone, I've naturally been using iTunes as my podcasting program. It works pretty well, except for one huge problem: if it determines that I haven't been listening to podcasts for a while it stops downloading them. Is there any way to force iTunes to continue downloading podcasts regardless of how often I listen to them? For most it isn't a big deal, but there are some (like "This American Life") that only publish one episode at a time so it's impossible to download the ones that you've missed.

This would also be useful to set up an iTunes server that shares the podcasts over the local network - since the podcasts would be listened to remotely, their "new" status would not be changed.

I poked around com.apple.iTunes.plist to no avail - if there is a setting to disable it, it's not labelled in there.

One idea I had would be possibly trying to fool iTunes into thinking that the podcast was listened to recently, as one of the criteria for automatically unsubscribing is that it hasn't been listened to in 5 days. Would it be possible to periodically set this value to the current time? Or might it even accept a future time so it doesn't have to be periodically set?

Apple covers this feature in their Making a Podcast page.

  Automatic Unsubscribe.

  iTunes automatically unsubscribes from
  a podcast if the following conditions
  are both met:

  The user has not played any episode downloaded in the past 5 updates
  (there may be more than one episode
  downloaded per update.
  More than 5 days have elapsed since an episode was played.

  In addition to minimizing unnecessary
  bandwidth costs for both the user and
  the podcaster, the unsubscribe logic
  built into the iTunes client makes it
  more likely that episode downloads, as
  reported by a podcaster to a sponsor,
  are roughly in line with actual plays
  of the episode

And as far as I am aware, you cannot disable this feature.


Scaling external display text & UI components I have a late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro which drives a Dell P2815Q 28" 4K monitor (at 30Hz). What I would like is to have scaled UI components whilst retaining the resolution of the monitor, rather than having to either:

Use the full resolution with tiny fonts and UI components
Use 1920x1080 scaled HiDPI mode, which doesn't provide enough screen space (although the text is lovely and clear).

The options I currently have for the external monitor are:

What I'd like is to be able to scale the display as I can for the Retina MBP screen:

I've found plenty of posts explaining how to enable all resolutions under the 'Scaled' tab. This is not the solution I'm after because it doesn't make the font/UI components smaller whilst retaining a crisp resolution.

I have found the MacBooks to be rather flakey when it comes to multiple monitors. However, I have found that if you hit the option key while selecting the scale radio button you get more options for the 4k monitors.

Also unplugging the HDMI cable seemed to reset the Mac to recognize that the monitor supported more resolutions.


Is their any way to control or limit mac applications from creating files and directories that aren't necessary or are malicious? Does anybody know if it is possible to stop certain applications from creating files on your computer but still run them? Maybe something similar to pythons venv but for .App files instead. I'm a little ocd with developers leaving behind unused files on my Mac even if they are harmless.

Stuff like this is why I want an option to do this.
https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how-manage-the-secret-software-that-google-chrome-installs-on-your-mac

I know you can view where files are going to be installed if the program uses a .pkg or installer application, but this doesn't really help if you want to use the program. A good answer for this would be to set up a virtual directory where these programs think they are installing to the system files and if the user isn't happy with the program they can easily nuke the virtual environment and start over fresh.

Does anybody know of anything like this?

Thanks so much

You might want to look into macOS’s built-in sandbox-exec. It can be used to run any command in a “sandbox” in which it can be denied access to the network, prevented from writing files in certain locations and so on.

At the bottom of this answer there’s a sandbox profile “firefox-sandbox” that was featured as an example on Mac OS X hints of running Firefox in a sandbox where its ability to write files is (mostly) limited to your Downloads folder. I should note the hint is a few years old, the sandbox profile may require some fiddling for recent versions of macOS and Firefox, I did not try it. The hint says Firefox can be run in the sandbox through:

sandbox-exec -f firefox-sandbox /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin

Some other links you may want to look at that cover sandbox-exec:

How to run your Applications in a Mac OS X sandbox to enhance security
OS X: Run any command in a sandbox
Apple's Sandbox Guide

Here’s the “firefox-sandbox” file:

(version 1)
(deny default)

(allow file-write* file-read-data file-read-metadata
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Downloads")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/Mozilla")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/Firefox")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Preferences")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/PreferencePanes")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Caches/Firefox")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems")
  (regex "^/Applications/Firefox.app")
  (regex "^(/private)?/tmp/"))

(allow file-read-data file-read-metadata
  (regex "^/dev/autofs.*")
  (regex "^/Library/Preferences")
  (regex "^/Library/Internet Plug-Ins")
  (regex "^/Library/PreferencePanes")
  (regex "^/usr/share/icu")
  (regex "^/usr/share/locale")
  (regex "^/System/Library")
  (regex "^/Applications/Firefox.app")
  (regex "^/usr/lib")
  (regex "^/var")
  (regex #"Frameworks/SDL.framework")
; Our Module Directory Services cache
  (regex "^/private/var/tmp/mds/")
  (regex "^/private/var/tmp/mds/[0-9]+(/|$)")
  (regex "^/Users/user_name"))

(allow mach* sysctl-read)

(import "/usr/share/sandbox/bsd.sb")
(deny file-write-data
   (regex #"^(/private)?/etc/localtime$"
     #"^/usr/share/nls/"
     #"^/usr/share/zoneinfo/"))

(allow process-exec
  (regex "^/Applications/Firefox.app"))

(allow network*)


iPhone development on the new MacBook I want to do iPhone development with the MacBook. The MacBook only has one USB-C port, so I may need a USB-C adaptor to load my apps on my iPhone.

Is the USB-C adaptor necessary to load freshly compiled iOS apps on my iPhone?

You really need to make up your mind whether you want the latest and shiniest product, or whether you want a good development machine. Once you use Interface Builder, a 15" MBP is the smallest that is usable without an external monitor. And once you use an external monitor, you are connected to a desk, and the portability doesn't help much.

The new MacBook is targeted at certain use cases. Serious software development isn't one of them.


The new created terminal can not find the file use which in Mac After I installed the mysql in my Mac, it locate in the:

/usr/local/mysql

And after I use export add the PATH to the $PATH, I can use which mysql_config find it:

aircraftdeMacBook-Pro:/ ldl$ which mysql_config
/usr/local/mysql/bin//mysql_config

But however when I use Command+N create a new Terminal, in it can not searched the mysql_config now:

If you modify the PATH variable in a Terminal session by exporting it (e.g. export PATH="/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH" it will be expired in the next session.

So either edit the file ~/.bash_profile or edit /private/etc/paths if you need this PATH for other users also.

In ~/.bash_profile add the line:

export PATH="/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH"

In /private/etc/paths add the line

/usr/local/mysql/bin

Close your current Terminal session, launch a new one to enable the new PATH and check the result:

echo $PATH
which mysql_config


Aura Pro X SSD Macbook Pro Retina 2015 issues A few weeks ago I upgraded my Macbook Pro Retina 13" Early 2015's SSD to a larger one from OWC: the Aura Pro X. I was pretty happy with the purchase as I was getting 40% higher writing speeds and slightly higher read speeds with the Aura Pro X vs the Apple stock one (might be due to it being almost full when tested).

However, I have noticed several issues recently. Firstly, I noticed that the mouse movement was lagging notably when connected to a certain power outlet in my university, making it unusable. More recently I noticed it overheats a lot (in 3 years I had never heard fan noises), even when it is asleep with the lid down it is notably hot.

Also while asleep, there's a red light on, that can be seen through the air vents. I'm pretty certain this red light was not visible before the upgrade, I even checked with a friend's same model Macbook Pro and we could not see any lights coming through the air vents.

I did a clean install on the new SSD (No Time Machine backup), and I have tried doing an SMC and NVRAM/PRAM reset without any luck.

I was aware of the decrease in battery life that some Aura Pro SSD customers reported , but I was not expecting this. (I have not heard back from OWC after contacting them a couple weeks ago.)

I also recently purchased an Aura Pro X and it has the red LED on as well. Got in touch with their tech support and they informed me that the LED is expected and normal per their engineers. To clarify, this LED is part of the OWC SSD itself (right next to the screw).

Kind of annoying that it's on all the time, but at least it's not a bad thing.

I haven't experienced any of your other issues, but I have yet to use my MacBook Pro extensively since installing it.


How to identify build number of a macOS installer? Today I read:

  Apple today released an updated golden master (GM) version of macOS Sierra to developers… The new GM seed is build 16A323, while the build released last week was 16A320.

After downloading, in the Finder > Get Info of ‘Install macOS Sierra.app’ I see ‘Version: 12.0.49’ but no build number.

How to identifier the build number of a macOS installer?

My goal is to verify what installer I may be using.

The most reliable way of telling the build number is to check the SystemVersion.plist file inside the installer's OS image file (and not the build number of the installer app itself).

Mount /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg
Mount /Volumes/OS X Install ESD/BaseSystem.dmg (hidden file)
Open /Volumes/OS X Base System/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist and examine the build number under <key>ProductBuildVersion</key>


Possible to uninstall OS X apps without admin password? I have a school issued MacBook Air with several apps installed. While they were downloaded from the App Store using my personal Apple ID, I need an administrator password, which I don't have, in order to delete them. Is there a way to do this without adding another account?

No, but you can revoke the computer from your AppleID account.


Do music playlists do live updating on iOS 13 I have 3 playlists synced to my iPhone: The two regular playlists (as matches for the rules in this photo), as well as the smart playlist created by the rules in the photo. In other words, the smart playlist shown is a subset of other music that is synced to my iPhone.
Will the smart playlist with live updating enabled automatically update itself to contain 8 hours of music selected by least recently played without syncing to iTunes?
iOS 13.x

Update:
Seems to be a definite "Maybe".
I ran the playlist defined above 2 days in a row and got multiple repeats on the 2nd day of songs that were played on the 1st day.
The playlist is limited to 8hrs by least recently played of over 24hrs of available music. The playtime each day was less than 90 minutes.
This is what the playlist looked like on iOS 13's Music app. Perhaps the "Updated Yesterday" detail has something to do with it.

While I don't have a smart playlist with a limit of hours, I do have lots of smart playlists with various criteria. In my experience, all of my smart playlists update automatically on my iPhone and iPad.
Performing an action like playing a song which would add the song to the smart playlist makes the song appear in the smart playlist immediately for me as it would on macOS, even though the criteria can't be viewed or modified on iOS.


Improvements in iOS 7.1 for iPad 2 So the whole internet is full of joy for optimization of the new 7.1 update which makes the OS much more usable on good old iPhone 4. I haven't found anything, though, concerning the iPad 2. Are there any improvements for iPad 2 as well?

I've read in many user comments that yes it did improve the UX on iPad 2. It's more fluid than before.

Edit : This french site confirms it.


Modify Global Mac OS X Path What is the best way to permanently change the Mac OS X path variable?  I've tried to add a .profile file in my user home directory with the below path, but that didn't work. Right now I have to run the export command every time I open up a new instance of the console.  Any ideas?

export PATH=/Users/tom/sshfs-binaries:$PATH

If that's for a single user, you can add export PATH=/new/path:${PATH} to ~/.bash_profile. If it's going to be really global (for all users), then add it to /etc/profile and make sure the users have permission to access the path you're including. After that, you need to re-launch the shell, or reload the configurations with source /etc/profile or source ~/.bash_profile.


Best way to import analog video (VHS) to Mac I have some old VHS tapes that I would like to digitize. I have seen some expensive converter boxes, that come with proprietary software, that you can buy that will auto-encode and create a DVD for you, but I'd rather be able to import the video directly to iMovie or Final Cut Pro so I can work with it how I want. Quality isn't critical, so I'm looking for an inexpensive, "do-it-yourself" solution, that would ideally allow me to import the video into my software of choice, rather than paying a company to do it for me.

What is the best way to connect a VCR to my Mac, so that I can import these videos into iMovie or Final Cut Pro?

If you have an older DV video camera such as a Sony DCR-HC96, you can plug the VCR directly into the camera, which will convert the analog signal to a digital signal. The camera will output the video via Firewire, which will be recognizable by iMovie or FCE. This is my preferred option, because I have this camera and it works great.

Another option is something like what Chris Breen has talked about on his Macworld video. He recommends Roxio's Easy VHS to DVD

and Elgato's Video Capture (some similar products)

I don't know how well it works, since I haven't tried it myself.

Yet another option would be to use a DVD recorder with RCA inputs to play the VHS to a DVD.

Once you've burned a DVD of the VHS tape, then you can use conversion software, such as Handbrake to convert the DVD to a usable format. I would also recommend this, since I've done this before, although I prefer the first method, since it is faster.


IPhone 4s Not connecting to wifi at home I just got an Iphone 4s. And I randomly one day got kicked off my wifi at home. I've done everything the internet says to to. I've restarted my phone and the network settings. I've changed the date and time. But my wifi just wont connect to my wifi at home, which is weird because my wifi works literally anywhere else but at home. Somebody please tell me something to fix this problem! Nothing I've searched up has worked and I don't know what to do!!!

Ok, seems your router works fine - this is good. Now can you, pls, check your iPhone settings for your home wi-fi network?

On your iPhone go to Settings -> Wi-Fi -> Click circled (i) against your home network name and make sure that you have 'DHCP' selected (not BootP or Static). Then scroll down to reveal “Renew Lease” and tap on it, confirm to renew the lease when asked.

Also check that 'HTTP Proxy' below is set to Off.


Is the iPhone X still waterproof if the glass over the camera is damaged? Unfortunately I damaged the glass over the camera on my iPhone X

I wonder if it still is waterproof now?

The camera glass is an important part of the barrier that keeps water out of the iPhone. I would have it repaired soon if you can’t keep it scrupulously dry.
The physics of water meeting a small crack mean if you set this phone down on a wet surface, a large amount of water could wick into the case via capillary action.


Safari makes os freeze I have a Mid-2014 MBP retina 15" running OSX 10.11.5. It runs flawlessly except for occasional Safari freezes. It happens only while I'm using Safari, and mostly when I try to close a tab. I've contacted Apple support multiple times, and they advised me to try a few things, none of which worked. I've tried to following:

cleared history
deleted cashes in ~/Library/caches and /Library/caches/

When it freezes, everything freezes with absolutely no response, so I have to do a hard reset every time. What could be the problem? How can I diagnose the problem and fix it?

You can try the following:

In Preferences (cmnd+,)

Privacy:

Check: Allow from websites I visit.
Remove all website data..
Prompt for each website one time only
Ask websites not to track me

Notifications:

Remove all

Extensions:

Disable them all for now.

Search:

Untick all and only tick: Enable quick website search

Quit (cmnd+Q) and re-open the app. Let us know if it happens again? :)


Trying to install Snow Leopard from .cdr but nothing happens after reload I am trying to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard. I'm using a .cdr file on a USB drive to do the install

I'm prompted to restart the machine to continue the install, but nothing happens after the restart.

Any suggestions?

Burn the contents of the .cdr image back to a DVD. To do this, insert blank DVD-R or DVD-RW, launch Disk Utility (located in the folder Applications > Utilities) and press Cmd-B. Then select the .cdr file in the file selection dialog … That's the easiest way.

But if you have no Mac with DVD burner at hand, you will need to create a bootable USB flash drive (at least 8 GB capacity). You will have to use Disk Utility to first re-partition and format the flash drive with the 'GUID partition scheme' and the 'Mac OS X Extended (journaled)' format (HFS+, journaled). This makes the flash drive a bootable medium. Then use the Restore feature of Disk Utility to copy the contents of the .cdr image to the drive.

Alternatively, you can also buy the Snow Leopard DVD which Apple still sells  for $20.

See: Starting from an external USB storage device (Intel-based Macs)


Moving the focused window to the bottom/top monitor with a shortcut Short version:  Is there a program that can move the focused/active window to the bottom/top monitor with a keyboard shortcut?

Long version:

Sometimes I need to move a window to the bottom/top, in my case between monitors 3 and 4 and between monitors 5 and 6:

I use BetterTouchTool to move a window to the left or right monitor:

But it doesn't have the option to move a window to the monitor up or down.

SizeUp has the same limitation:

Moom
You can:

Move & Zoom to Full Screen
Move & Zoom to Left Half
Move & Zoom to Right Half
Move & Zoom to Top Half
Move & Zoom to Bottom Half
Move & Zoom to Top Left Quarter
Move & Zoom to Top Right Quarter
Move & Zoom to Bottom Right Quarter
Move & Zoom to Bottom Left Quarter

Define size and position and assign a shortcut.

Use a predefined shortcut and then use arrow keys to move the window.

Use a shortcut to move the window to another monitor.

For the record, Moom is usually 10$, but now is 5$.