How can I recover an unresponding application without quitting? I've just run a very long Matlab simulation on my Mac Book Air. It uses Mac OSX. The simulation has practically finished, but seconds before the end, Matlab appeared in the activity monitor as not responding.

I really do not want to loose all the simulation data that has taken me so long to obtain. Is there a way of relaunching the application without quitting ? Or any way to get the data that has already been calculated ?

Please help!

Regardless of how important the process is, if it’s hung it’s hung. Quitting the finder is one way to see if you can recover it.  Quitting all open applications is anther suggestion.

I would recommend opening up a terminal window and typing the following to see if you get any clues:

sudo lsof | grep matlab

lsof is a Unix command that basically means “list open files”. The | next to that is a pipe command which basically means output should be processed by the command to the immediate right. And grep basically filters out the output based on criteria. In this case, matlab itself.

If you run that it should list all open files which also means connected processes. If you are not used to the terminal output this could be overwhelming, but looking through the output line by line might reveal something.

And if you are up for it, I would recommend installing htop in OS X. It’s a very nice and—in my opinion—more useful version of top which shows all system basics in a live updated screen. Installing in not easy and might require Xcode, but once up and running it will help you further debug things.

For example, if you can start htop and then hit the T key to show all processes in threaded mode.  Meaning you can then see all the child processes connected to matlab and get more clues there.


Does Apple Pay require an internet connection? Do I need an internet connection on my iPhone 6 to use Apple Pay?

No, Apple Pay does not require an internet connection.  Apple Pay uses NFC technology; it does not use Wi-Fi or cellular technology.

According to CNet, Apple Pay will work even if you put your iPhone 6 into Airplane Mode.  Airplane Mode disables both the Wi-Fi and cellular internet.


Create a bootable USB with Windows installer for Yosemite? I'm having trouble creating a bootable USB for my mac.
I have an iMac, and I'm wanting to install a copy of Windows Server 2008 x86 onto it. I've tried BootCamp, but I'm getting errors when selecting the ISO because it is "not Windows 7 or later".

Does anyone have any idea how I could create a USB that I can boot on my Mac, with my Windows Server 2008 ISO?

Here is how to burn a bootable USB stick (taken from the Ubuntu website):

Open the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/ or query Terminal in Spotlight).
Convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option of hdiutil e.g., hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/windows.iso
Note: OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.
Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices.
Insert your flash media.
Run diskutil list again and determine the new device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2).
Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2).
Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m (replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./windows.img or ./ubuntu.dmg). Using /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk may be faster. If you see the error dd: Invalid number '1m', you are using GNU dd. Use the same command but replace bs=1m with bs=1M. If you see the error dd: /dev/diskN: Resource busy, make sure the disk is not in use. Start the 'Disk Utility.app' and unmount (don't eject) the drive.
Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes.
Restart your Mac and press alt/option key while the Mac is restarting to choose the USB stick.


macOS Photos Library size is 700MB but I don't see any picture running Photos? The Photos Library seems to be a directory, but I cannot open it in Finder. I can look into it from terminal bash nd and I see several thumbnails. However, if I open Photos, there are no photos...
Actually, I have also an iPhoto Library, almost of the same size.
But if I click on it I get the error:

Cannot open migrated library. The content of the iPhoto library “iPhoto Library” has already been migrated to Photos.  Open Photos to view your library or use a compatible version of iPhoto to open this iPhoto library.

I'm very very confused, I'd like to recover the photo and/or the wasted space. Could something have happened when I upgraded my Mac to MacOS Catalina?

If you upgraded to macOS Catalina it does a number of conversions during the install and then during the first time some apps are used. In your case that would be the old (iPhoto) .photolibrary would be converted to the different (but similar) Photos Library.photolibrary format.
And yes you can't just open a .photolibrary file in the Finder and yes it is a directory that macOS treats as a file. Apps are the same kind of thing, a directory (or folder) that contains all of the code, images, configurations and other things that an app needs to run.
A .photolibrary can be opened in the Finder. To do so either Ctrl - click on the .photoslibrary file (in your Pictures folder) or, if you have your trackpad set up to right click or have a two button mouse, right-click on the file (called a "package file") and select "Show Package Contents" from the menu that pops-up.
Inside is a bunch more folders that the photos.app uses to keep track of all the pictures it catalogs. But if you look in the "originals" folder your pictures will be there, but with names that only photos.app understands. So you may have to go through any and all photos there to find the one(s) you need.
And if you look for a "Recently Deleted" item in the Photos that will contain any photos that have been deleted in the last 30 days. So if a picture was deleted more than 30 days ago, it's gone.
And if you want to recover all the space that the photoslibrary takes up you can just delete it. When Photos.app launches again it will create a new, empty, library.
Does that answer your question?


Is there any reason a really old iPhone 4 would fail to backup notes? I was just looking at an iPhone 4 from one of my users, and I was unable to turn on the backup for notes because it says that I'm not using an iCloud email address.

The user in question already has an iCloud account, and I can log into it with the using http://www.icloud.com/ (which consequently also gives the same message).

Is there a way to get this working?  I tried creating a new iCloud email account, but it doesn't seem to like that either, stating that the email is not enabled for an iCloud email account.

Notes are still carried over if you have a Microsoft Exchange account and MS Outlook, though you can no longer back them up to the iCloud.  Another option is to backup the phone into iTunes on the local machine and restore it back to the new phone.

I can't really tell which it is that happened because I did both things.  If anybody knows what happened, please be sure to post it here.


Unable to redirect Salesforce links to Salesforce App I'm unable to open the Salesforce links in Salesforce App. The links are directly opening in Safari, but they need to open in the Salesforce App rather than the browser.

Is there some settings involved so that iOS is able to recognise the App by clicking on a link? How do I get this to work?

To open Salesforce links within Salesforce app, you should encode them following the correct scheme.

A request to Salesforce for Android and iOS URL scheme follows this format:

<scheme_name>://sObject/<id>/<action>

Let’s break down each parameter of the URL scheme format:

scheme_name: Supported Salesforce for Android and iOS scheme names.
sObject: Indicates a single instance of a Salesforce object.
id: The unique single instance of a Salesforce object. id lengths of 15 and
18 characters are supported.
action: Supported URL scheme operations

For example, to open Salesforce for Android and iOS and navigate to a specific record, the URL scheme will look similar to:

salesforce1://sObject/001D000000Jwj9v/view

Scheme Names

Salesforce supports the following scheme_name parameters for URL schemes:

salesforce1://

Actions

These are the available action parameters for URL schemes.

view: Navigates the user to the Salesforce app to view a record in detail.
edit: Navigates the user to the edit detail page of a record.
home: Navigates the user to the home page of an object.
download: Download any version of a file.
follow: Follow users to see their posts, comments, and likes in your feed.

Note: The user must have proper permissions to view, edit, download, etc within Salesforce directly, so if it's not opening the correct section of the Salesforce app - first validate they have access to the actions you're attempting to bring them to - otherwise they usually end up on the home screen.

Resource Links:
https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/sfdc/pdf/salesforce1_url_schemes.pdf
https://success.salesforce.com/answers?id=9063A000000l3wlQAA


Teamviewer scrolling speed Back To My Mac recently stopped working for me, so I started using TeamViewer to access my home Mac from the outside world.

It works great, for the most part. One thing that is frustrating me though is scroll speed. Regardless of what I use (magic mouse, track-pad), scrolling in the remote computer is too fast. It just jumps from the top of the list to the bottom instantly. I don't see any speed tuning controls in TeamViewer, and when I'm connected remotely there are no mice or track-pads displayed in System Preferences, so you can't adjust speed there either.

Can I slow down the scroll when my network connection has delays to avoid over shooting?

I have a temporary solution. You can install "Smart Scroll mac" and add specific setting for Teamviewer like follows (all other settings=off).

Then, you can use the trackpad in teamviewer normally. Btw, I recommend you buying this app.


iMac 27" 5K i7 2017 starts to blow like h**l when Chrome Canary is open with just 1 tab When I open Chrome Canary (the latest version) it opens on one of my extensions called 'Papier'
It's a note taking extension that I like.
I don't open any other tab and after like a minute, the iMac starts to blow like it's busy doing...
Doing what!?
I deleted all extensions that I didn't need any more, to a stric minimum, but still.
Anyone having an idea on what it could be?
I closed the 'Papier' tab and now I have StackExchange open, still blows like crazy.
I see 'SystemUIServer' in the processes that ask 180% ?!
I only have this behaviour with Canary.

I resolved this issue by doing the following:

I checked my Wi-Fi and Ethernet connexions to spot if there was a problem there and I noticed that there where more than 5.000 mach thingys active and the number kept on growing on the Ethernet connexion.
I first thought that it was some kind of DDos attack...

To be sure, I reset my switch.
Once the switch was back up, the problem was resolved.
Now the 'SystemUIserver' is running at 0.1% and this with like 10 tabs open in Canary.


RMB menu on document title in Preview gone with Mavericks? One of the greatest features OS X had (inherited from NextStep AFAIK) was the fact that the document name in a window's title could be right-clicked in order to get a drop-down menu with the parent folder hierarchy.  (This is also mentioned in View location of a document open in Preview, but that still refers to the old method that no longer works with Preview 7.0 from Mavericks.)

However, after the update to Mavericks, this is no longer possible at least in the Preview app, which now shows a (much less useful) menu for renaming, tagging, and moving(?).

If you secondary-click the text for the title (and not the arrow next to it), it should still open the menu:


Is there a way to stop macos from changing audio input when new device connects? As in the subject, I've searched for the answer to this online already, but found nothing. I am advanced user myself, but have not found any way to do this.
The gist - I have my preferred audio input device, which is a USB microphone. I also do have my preferred audio output device, which is wireless headphones. These headphones also have built-in mic. The issue is that whenever I connect my headphones (turn them on -> automatic connection via bluetooth), the audio devices on my mac automatically change. I am fine with automatic switching of audio output device, but audio input is annoying one is 100% of time after turning on my wireless headphones I need to open sound preferences and change input device to USB microphone. From what I observed, this happens for any new input device that connects to macos.
The question: Is there any way to disable automatic switching of audio input device whenever new one connects?
PS: I have seen these Qs, but there is no acceptable answer:

Set audio input/ouput device priority
Stop Automatically Switching to Bluetooth Audio

No. This is the prescribed behavior as you've already noticed.

I am fine with automatic switching of audio output device, but audio input...

How is the OS supposed to differentiate the difference between the one (device) you're OK with and the one you're not?  The way macOS sees this is that you've plugged in two distinct audio devices - input and output.  It then switches to them because  your Mac the assumes you want to use that device now as you've connected it; so it switches to it.
A quick workaround would be to disconnect and reconnect your USB microphone after connecting your headset. You would probably have much better results if you connected the headset via cable to a USB DAC rather than Bluetooth. This way, audio always sees the USB as connected  whether or not a headset is connected - the auto switch won't engage.
I do this with my Bluetooth Sennheiser headset (headphones and mic) effectively turning it into a headset only device.

Audio Recording
I'm adding this in here because the OP mentioned in comments that this was for an "audio recording" setup. This section will attempt to address issues in this context.
Your Bluetooth headset is the wrong tool for the job.
macOS is designed to be (out of the box), something that you plug in an it goes to work.  I'm not saying it can't be used for audio recording.  What I'm saying is that it's architecture for the user to open the lid connect their things and start working.  This includes audio devices and the behavior you're seeing is that philosophy in action.  Why they chose not to do allow you to tweak it is entirely an Apple question.
So, whether Apple intended this behavior or not, you're using the wrong gear to record audio.
Bluetooth headsets are probably the worst thing you can do for audio recording/production.  You have inherent latency (radio signals are slower than electrical signals which travel the speed of light), the DAC inside the Bluetooth headset is nowhere as robust as the DACs of proper equipment and you don't get the necessary, granular, control necessary for proper audio recording. It's also prone to external interference, noise, and general signal quality issues.
Just taking a very simple example - watch the evening news where they interview someone remotely and you can easily see the difference between someone with Airpods (as good as they are) and someone who spent a little bit extra on a proper microphone, a proper headset - and this is before we get into acoustic foam and mixers and gear!
If your goal is to record audio, you need a quality microphone and a quality interface (aka a mixer).  If you're just getting started, you don't need to spend buckets of cash to make this happen.  You can get a proper microphone input for under $50USD.  This will allow you to have a quality DAC, an input that you can control and a monitor port that will allow you to hear your input (your voice) before and after it goes through your Mac.
As you grow and add instruments or more voices to your recordings, your equipment should grow along with you.
Bottom Line
A Bluetooth headset is designed for listening or making phone calls.  Can you do recordings with it?  Sure.  However, it's not designed for it and it will show.  You need the right gear for the job: a quality microphone and a proper interface to capture and/or output that sound.  Short of that, and the quality of your final product will suffer.


Saving a pending print job as PDF I printed an important receipt and quit Safari, only to learn the job never printed because we no longer own the network printer the computer was expecting to find. Thus, the only remaining copy of this information is in the print queue.

How do I salvage the information waiting to be printed so I can use it again?

Note: Dragging the enqueued item from the non-existant printer's queue to an existant printer's queue will print the item. I would like to know how to save the file waiting to be printed so it can be used again.

The CUPS web interface would allow you to direct the print job to another printer.

However it's possible to capture a PDF file from the CUPS queue:

/private/var/spool/cups
total 472
drwx--x---  24 root  _lp      816 Mar  1 14:30 ./
-rw-------   1 root  _lp     4403 Mar  1 14:30 c00025
drwxrwxr-x  13 root  _lp      442 Mar  1 14:30 cache/
-rw-r-----   1 root  _lp    86110 Mar  1 14:28 d00025-001
drwxrwx--T   5 root  _lp      170 Mar  1 14:28 tmp/
-rw-------   1 root  _lp     4391 Feb 25 12:13 c00024
root@Macbook: file d00025-001
d00025-001: PDF document, version 1.3

You can copy (in this example) d00025-001 to somewhere and rename it with a pdf extension (n this case), after fixing permissions, ownership and group you can open it.

The matching file starting with c is the cover sheet.  You should be able to recover the job in the the printers native language from the tmp directory:

/var/spool/cups/tmp
total 288
drwxrwx--T   5 root  _lp     170 Mar  1 14:34 ./
drwx--x---  28 root  _lp     952 Mar  1 14:50 ../
-rw-r-----   1 root  _lp    1234 Mar  1 14:28 17ed254faebef
-rw-r-----   1 root  _lp    1193 Mar  1 14:34 17ed254fece74
-rw-------   1 root  _lp  136512 Mar  1 14:28 17f025500d2e2
david_koontz@Macbook: file *2
17f025500d2e2: PostScript document text conforming DSC level 3.0, Level 2

This all done with an aging HPLJ-5000N LaserJet specified as a PostScript printer, the print job one page out of an ODT file (OpenOffice).

The original (in this case ODT) file isn't kept in the print system, which would force you to format it again.


Is it possible to airplay content from iPhone to another iPhone or iPad? I know that we can AirPlay photos, videos and music from an iOS device to an Apple TV or AirPort Express, or AirPlay enabled speakers. But can we also airplay content from iPhone or iPad to another iPhone/iPad?

There is one way that I personally know of, and that is using Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil for Mac/Windows and Airfoil Satellite for iOS ($29 USD).

How to send between two iOS devices is outlined in this article (from 2012, but the principle is the same).

Brief version of the article:

You first install Airfoil on your computer, and make it act as an Airplay server.
From the iOS device playing the audio source, you then use the normal iOS AirPlay controls to pass audio to your computer.
You then download Airfoil Satellite from the App store to your second iOS device, and use that application to receive audio from your computer. You just need to assign the Satellite app as a "client" and it will stream audio as usual.

If you are thinking of streaming audio from video sources via this method, then audio will obviously not be synced in real-time with video.

I have however used it for playing video on my iPad and then "taking the audio with with me" on my iPhone. The example would be if I'm watching a TV programme on iPad, and I want to go to the bathroom and continue listening…


iCloud Mail Not Deleting - Very Slow - Have to Delete Multiple Times I can't pin this bug to anything specific so I'll try to give as much info as possible.  This bug started about 3 or 4 months ago for me.  But around that time I did enable the "Today" inbox and that is what I use 90% of the time now.  The problem is I'll swipe left to send a handful of e-mails to the trash then leave the app.  Next time I check e-mail most of them are back.  I have to swipe left to delete them all over again.  Usually after two or three deletes they stay gone.  What gives?

I'm running iOS 9.3.4 & OS X El Capitan 10.11.6.

UPDATE: I downloaded Airmail. In Airmail I added my @icloud account and one of my @gmail accounts. @icloud.com e-mails still won't stay deleted, they keep reappearing (not all, just random ones).  @gmail seems to be fine. So it doesn't appear to be the app that I'm using. Is this an issue with @icloud email?

UPDATE: I tried rebuilding the mailbox twice using the default Mac Mail app.  No joy.  After it was rebuilt I selected about 10 emails to delete, press delete, it says in the bottom left "Moving Messages", stays that way for 2-10 minutes, then finally goes away. I switch to my gmail inbox then switch right back to the icloud inbox and they are back again.  I've repeated this many times.  When it says "Moving Messages" in the bottom left it seems to take a very long time.  Very frustrating.  Sometimes I've seen an error message popup saying it couldn't delete because mailbox was busy (something like that).

I also tried accessing mail via www.icloud.com, after selecting a handful then deleting, and waiting a long while, it would throw a message saying it couldn't delete them.  I then tried deleting 1 at a time via the icloud website and they delete but it thinks for a long time before it actually disappears.  So it seems like deleting is veeeeery slow and works 1 at a time via icloud website, but multiples don't delete/timeout or something.

Any help would be appreciated!  I couldn't find any solutions on the Apple forums.

UPDATE: I changed my icloud password just in case it was something malicious.  Didn't help.  I did find these:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6560166?start=0&tstart=0

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/05/21/apples-icloud-services-slow-to-a-crawl/#436a9e8839fd

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7592837?start=0&tstart=0

Do you think icloud is having issues and it's still running slow and that is what is causing my delete issues?

This also occurs in Outlook for iOS.

It's an iOS threading (GCD) issue of one of two kinds, either:

GCD places low-priority on threads to which calls for "delete" are dispatched, and defers to any and all other operations on, like, any other thread; or,
GCD stops waiting for a condition to be met on the mail server side, suspends or kills the thread in favor of others, and then fails to resume or reinstate the thread at a later time.

It could also be improper implementation of GCD in a networking component of iOS, which happens easily enough for programmers with less than 20 years of experience with multi-threading behind them.


Serial Number from Terminal I am trying to find the serial number on my Mac through terminal, but am getting the error seen in the image below. If anyone can help me, that would be great, but I understand if you've never seen this error, as I never have. I am connecting to the Mac via Reflection (the ssh app).

Last login: Tue Oct 25 17:08:24 2016 from 192.168.10.100
$ system_profiler |grep "Serial Number (system)"
2016-10-25 17:11:37.247 system_profiler[37298:1384741] There was an error parsing the Info.plist for the bundle at URL <0x7fb91414ce10>: NSCocoaErrorDomain - 3840
$

Have you tried looking at the I/O Kit Registry?

Here is a link to the man page for ioreg provided by apple.

Try this command to reveal the system's serial number:

ioreg -l | grep IOPlatformSerialNumber


How to enable logging for smbd on macOS? I would like to enable logging on my file sharing service. (It's crashing intermittently and I can't figure out why.)

When I inspect the plist for the file sharing service smbd on my Mac running Mojave, I see:

user@mac:~ $  plutil -p /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server.plist

{
  "AclsEnabled" => 1
  "DOSCodePage" => "437"
  "LocalKerberosRealm" => "LKDC:SHA1..."
  "LogLevel" => 0
  "NetBIOSName" => "transom"
  "ServerDescription" => "Transom"
  "SigningRequired" => 0
}

So, it looks like logging is configured with the parameter "LogLevel".
I've read the smbd man page, and it's not much help, with this parameter.

What are the allowed log levels?
Which level is best for debugging smbd crashes?
What's the preferred method for tweaking a value? (plutil can set, or...)

With macOS 10.15, the only diagnostic logging available for smbd is done by grabbing packets.

Apple Support told me the following:

  To enable elevated logging;

sudo log config --mode level:debug
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server.plist LogLevel -int 1
sudo /usr/libexec/smb-sync-preferences

  To begin packet capture;

sudo tcpdump -Pi BSDname -s 0 -K -w /Library/Logs/smb.pcap

  To end packet capture; Control-C

  Disable elevated Logging:

sudo log config --mode level:default
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server.plist LogLevel -int 0
sudo /usr/libexec/smb-sync-preferences


Monitor Internet traffic flowing via my MacBook? My MacBook is connected to an Internet cable and meanwhile sharing the Internet connection with other devices over Wi-Fi. That is, my MacBook serves as a router, which broadcasts Wi-Fi signals.

Since essentially, all the Internet packets travel through my MacBook, there must be a way whereby I can monitor which device is viewing what contents using my hot spot.

Is there a software (preferably free) or some built-in block that allows me to achieve this?

You might want to look at the terminal command tcpdump as it will show all the traffic passing over your network. You have to run it via sudo but it should give you what you want.

sudo tcpdump -vv -i en0

Should show everything over your ethernet port.


What is the EscrowService keychain item? I was curious what iCloud Keychain (which I haven't explicitly stored any passwords in, yet) was storing, so I headed to Keychain Access.  There I found an item I wasn't familiar with called EscrowService, which appears to have a Date Modified of around the time I was updating to Mavericks:

Key escrow being very concerning (by definition, it is the storage of a key with a trusted third party), I disabled iCloud Keychain.  The item remains in my Local Items keychain, along with other items such as server passwords used by Mail.app and Wi-Fi keys.

Does anyone know what this item is for?  I suspect if com.apple.lakitu can be identified, it might be a step in the right direction, but I'm coming up short on searches.

Well, Lakitu is the turtle that rides in a cloud and throws spiny bombs at the hero of the Super Mario Bros game.

However, I have no such key in any of the Macs which I have enabled iCloud keychain sync, so despite the extremely evocative name of com.apple.lakitu I'm not so sure it's part of the default setup unless it's a placeholder for someone that hasn't yet allowed any keychain items to be stored for syncing?

My only guess is that it holds a key until you establish your syncing or if you do not choose a security code and it stores a self generated code rather than using just your iCloud keychain pin to sync. If you haven't enabled an actual long form security code or added a second device that could be a reason why I'm not seeing this entry and you are.


Cisco Smart Tunnel crashes Safari. Can it be made to work on Mac OS X? I deal with a customer who has provided me a SSL VPN address.  When I log in it downloads a .jnlp file, and then some files are created in /tmp.

The meat of how it works, is it tries to run Safari with a downloaded library included:

DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/tmp/narwhal.dylib /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari

Safari soon crashes with a segfault:

PlugIn Path:       /tmp/narwhal.dylib
Crashed Thread:  3  Dispatch queue: com.apple.networking.connection.0x7fe0d0468fc0
Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000068
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.7.1 (11B26)

(See the full stack trace.)

The only other mention I can find of this error is on the Apple forum, which suggests it worked in 10.5.8 but not 10.6 or later.  I have a colleague that is running 10.6.8 and it works for him.  I am running Lion (10.7.1). Running Safari in 32 bit mode does not seem to make a difference, nor whether I prefer 32- or 64-bit Java.

My end goal is "connect to the SSL VPN".  The administrators of the server aren't able to support Mac users.  I can connect fine with Windows.

Is there a way to fix this, or perhaps take the details from the .jnlp file, and use a different Cisco client, which works on Mac OS X?

As of May 30, 2012, Smart Tunnel on OS X 10.7 is officially not supported by Cisco and it looks like it won't be an easy fix to support it because it shares many attributes of the Flasback Trojan. I use VMware Fusion to run a Windows VM on my Mac for just this sort of thing.


Tracking down Used Disk space with df and du I've been migrating an old MacBook Air (2012) to a new MacBook Pro, and am doing a clean at the same time.

I've been running df -h. to give me an idea of free space:

Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused               ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk1s1  233Gi  207Gi   24Gi    90% 1717781 9223372036853058026    0%   /

To track down where the usage is, I've run du -sh:

bash-3.2$ sudo du -sh * | sort -h
  0B    Network
  0B    User Information
  0B    Volumes
  0B    cores
  0B    etc
  0B    tmp
  0B    var
1.0K    home
1.0K    net
4.0K    installer.failurerequests
4.5K    dev
1.2M    sbin
2.6M    bin
958M    usr
6.7G    Library
6.8G    private
8.0G    opt
8.9G    System
 26G    Applications
 58G    Users

Unless I'm bad at maths (please feel free to correct me), these are some way from adding up.  (du indicates I've got about 120GB in use, df indicates about 207GB).

Any idea why the discrepancy?  Any idea how to track the usage down?

I should note, I've been cleaning up on the command-line with rm -rf (as I deleted several accounts)

I suggest you boot into Safe Mode  and let that process flush out some cache files that may have gotten very, very large. Right now, my ~/Library/Caches folder is > 5Gb in size.

This answer gives more info on where to find and eradicate large local Time Machine backup files.


Prevent Voice Memos from ending up on iPhone when connecting to iTunes I deleted Voice Memos from my iPhone. However, after I connected it to my laptop and open iTunes, it just restored all the Voice Memos again. How do I get rid of this?

I just need all notes on my laptop, but not on my iPhone.

You need to make sure that iTunes is not automatically syncing your iPhone when the latter is connected to your computer. In the iTunes Menu bar, go to iTunes → Preferences... and in the preferences window that opens click on the Devices tab. Now check Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically option.

Also, if you do have to sync your iPhone with your iTunes library, make sure Voice Memos are not selected.


Knowing the format and the protection of a book in iBooks I bought a book on the iBooks Store. Is there any way to know what format it is and what protection if any it has? (PDF/EPUB, type of DRM, etc.)

I use an iPad 3 with iBooks version 3.2 (last update: 2013.11.14).

You can use iTunes to find out the format of the books on your iPad.

Install iTunes on your Windows PC.
Plug your iPad in to your Windows PC, iTunes should detect it and a button should appear in the top right of the iTunes window just under "Search Library". Click on the button for your iPad.
You should be presented with a long horizontal list of options including "Summary", "Info", "Apps", etc. Click on the last option called "On This iPad".
You should then see a list of options down the left called "Music", "Films", "TV Programmes", etc. Click on Books.
Now you should have a list of your books in the centre of the iTunes window. Right-click on the book you want to know the format of and select "Get Info".

The window that appears will tell you the "Kind" of book it is. If I remember correctly they are "Protected book" for IBA or EPUB books with DRM, "Puchased book" for IBA or EPUB without DRM and "Book" for PDF files.


Handling permissions to run a bash script I'm sending a bash script as a .command file to a friend. This person is not very tech savvy which is why I'm sending it in the first place, the goal is for the .command file to run through the shell operations for them. However when the attempt to run the script they get the run.command is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Bin error. I believe this is a new version of the old unsigned developer prompt as apple is blocking out random code from their systems. Anyway I can have this run without too much complexity?
Edit: I'm open to using applescript if this will alleviate the issue.

AppleScript
Wrap the shell script in a do shell script AppleScript command:
do shell script "say \"hello world\""

If your script needs administrator rights, append with administrator privileges to the command:
do shell script "say \"goodbye moon\"" with administrator privileges

Using Script Editor.app in /Applications/Utilities, you can save the AppleScript as a .applescript text file that will launch in Script Editor on the host computer.
The end user will need to select the menu item:

Script (menu) > Run

Alternatively, you can Export as an Application and code sign the resulting application. This assumes you have a code signing certificate available.

Automator
An Automator workflow can also include shell scripts and AppleScripts. Automator can also save as an application, with the Export… menu item also prompting to code sign the result for you.


List of all dates+times when I used my MacBook? I need a list of the periods of times I used my MacBook throughout the last 30 days.

It would be sufficient to have a list of all lid-open and lid-close datetimes (because I close the lid whenever I don't use the MacBook).
A chronological list of all sleep / wakeup / poweroff / poweron (and maybe login) datetimes would help as well.

What didn't help:

Googling
The last command
Filtering /var/log/system.log (which btw only contains one day)
Filtering the console app (but maybe there's a way...)

If it is sufficient to have a list of all sleep/wake cycles (lid-open, lid-close), you can run:

pmset -g log | grep ' Wake '

or

pmset -g log | grep ' sleep '

Play around with the string passed to grep to get the information that you need.


Numbers no longer opens .xls spreadsheet I have very recently converted to a MacBook Air from a PC and have a 1.3mb .xls file which 1 week ago Numbers happily opened, edited and saved in its own format.

Today, when I opened it it was corrupted. So I have been trying to open the original .xls file again and the Numbers message is simply 'the file will not open'. No explanation, no clues as to why.

I can still open another (very much smaller and simpler) .xls file but don't know what to do next...

I would say both files have somehow become corrupted and Numbers cannot recover from the errors.

I would try to restore the original file from a TimeMachine backup if you have one. If not this would be a good time to set up a TimeMachine backup, very very easy to do with a Mac and OS X.

I would also try opening the original xls file in OpenOffice or LibreOffice both of which are free.


Dead battery is replaced and recognized on MacBook Pro – processor speed is still cut Just replaced dead battery on MacBook Pro Late 2011, and it is seen by OS (el Captain) and charging OK.

Though, processor speed is still being cut and ticks only at 0.8 ghz and Apple Hardware test shows 4xxx error with the battery.

Did reset to all that possible, any ideas how to make Macbook see battery on a hardware level?


MacBook Air occasionally freezes when external monitor is connected I bought an ultra wide monitor (LG 29UM58) the other day. To hook it up to my Air, I convert a mini-DP signal to HDMI. With two different cables, I started noticing occasional latency on the signal where the screen freezes for about a second and then it becomes responsive again.

Some more interesting tidbits:

This happens on my laptop screen as well as the external monitor while I'm connected to the display.
I can use the on-screen menu of my monitor while my screen is frozen.
I never had this issue with my previous screen, a 16:9 Full HD monitor with a DVI port.
I tried an AmazonBasics Mini-DP to HDMI cable (maximum resolution of 1920x1080) as well as a Mini-DP to HDMI adapter from an obscure brand together with an HDMI-to-HDMI cable. Both gave the same results.
I'm using macOS Sierra on a 2015 MacBook Air.
My new monitor's native resolution is 2560x1080.
The issue only seems to manifest while I'm moving my mouse, so there seems to be some interplay with mouse input and display output. I haven't seen it happen while I type yet.
I tried reproducing the issue while a video was playing. Most of the time both the pointer and the video froze, but sometimes only the pointer froze. This makes me believe it's not related to the monitor itself or the cable.

How can I find out what's causing the random freezes and fix the issue?

More than likely, the issue is, in fact,  your Mini DP to HDMI adapter.
The AmazonBasics Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter  adapter that you listed is a passive adapter (notice nowhere do they say "active").    Additionally, is much less expensive than an active converter like the Cable Matters Active Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter
Passive vs. Active
So, what's the big difference?  A lot, actually.  A passive adapter, to make a long story short, basically takes the pin outs of the Mini Display Port and configures them as HDMI.  Most of the time, this works, however there are a lot of limitations.  For example, the signaling of HDMI is 5V while mDP/DP is 3V.  Some monitors don't like this.  Additionally, HDMI has a clock signal where DP doesn't.
An active adapter addresses these issues; there's actually a chip that does the conversion of the DP signal to a "proper" HDMI signal with the correct voltage and clock signaling.
A Microsoft engineer has an excellent blog post on this very subject

Just to address some of the points in your question to reduce confusion...

Your OSD has absolutely nothing to do with the display coming out of your Mac.  It's an "overlay" that comes from the monitor and if you computer hangs, it will continue to work.  It will even work if no video source is connected to your monitor at all.

If it happens on both screens, your computer is hanging because it is probably getting bad signals coming back from the monitor.

You never had issues before because you were going native DP to DP.

There's really no "interplay" between your mouse (or keyboard) and your GPU - one doesn't affect the other.  A video may crash for a number of reasons, none of which will be your mouse.  What you are seeing is your CPU/GPU having to "deal" with the video conversion of two very different signals.


Hard Drive doesn't show in Recovery Mode I was trying to go back to OS X El Capitan with Recovery Mode, but after agreeing to the T&C, it tells me to choose a HD where to install the update, but it doesn't show up. What can I do?
I'm currently running macOS 10.15.6 w/ my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)

EDIT: This is what the disk utility GUI and what the diskutil list shows.

'Going back' & 'update' are mutually exclusive terms.
You will need to re-format the drive to HFS+ first from Disk Utility. El Capitan cannot read or understand the APFS disk format that Catalina uses.
Your edit suggests you are still in Catalina & that your disk is currently APFS.
You will need to start from your external El Capitan boot medium [or from Internet Recovery] in order to be able to format your boot drive [you cannot format the drive you are booted from, for obvious reasons.]
Select the Physical disk in the left column [Apple SSD] & select Erase. Set to GUID/HFS Extended, Journalled.


Wifi doesn't work unless I turn it off then on again I have a MacBook Pro 15" with retina display that I use for work/personal stuff and I always shut down with Wifi having been on. When I startup my Mac the Wifi icon looks like it's searching and never actually connects (most of the time). To get it to connect I have to turn of Wifi (on my MacBook, not the router) and turn it back on, then it connects pretty much right away. What's the issue here? It's very annoying.

Old preferences hanging around after upgrade can cause issues. To force a rebuild of the preferences open Terminal and do:

cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
sudo rm NetworkInterfaces.plist
sudo rm com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
sudo rm preferences.plist

then restart your machine.


Changes to Terminal in El Capitan Can someone please describe the changes made to Terminal.app in El Capitan? I've just noticed that mouse events started working in Tmux, which is awesome!

I had the following set in my tmux.conf:

setw -g mode-mouse on
set -g mouse-select-pane on
set -g mouse-resize-pane on
set -g mouse-select-window on

which did not work because Terminal prior to OS X 10.11 did not pass mouse events to underlying processes. Now it wonderfully works. What other changes are included in new Terminal?

The command lines are now marked with square brackets as in the screen snippet below.


is it safe to key in your password in an iphone? I've got 2 questions regarding password security and IPhone

If say I access the internet and key in my gmail password. Exactly how "safe" is this action?

What about if i install an app and key in my apple id password. How "safe" is this action?

(Btw I'm using IPhone 4 if its useful to the question..)

No matter if you're on encrypted WiFi, unencrypted WiFi, 3G, etc. if the site's title has a lock next to it, you can be sure that your password cannot be captured by anyone snooping the traffic. The lock means that you and the website are using a secure, encrypted connection.

Keep in mind however, that if after you log into the site and the lock no longer appears, you're vulnerable to anyone running a copy of Firefox with Firesheep installed. They won't get your password but will essentially be able to be logged in as you.

For sites that do not keep a secure connection (a lock in the title bar) after logging in you should avoid using them on unencrypted WiFi. As far as I know, Gmail uses a secure connection all of the time.

When you enter your password for App Store purchases, even though there isn't any real indication, your phone is establishing a secure connection between it and Apple. It's very safe.


Why is my Applications window different in OS 10.7 Most of my windows are normal but the root Applications window and some others do not have adjustable columns or triangles to open a folder. Has anyone seen this before and how do I fix it?

I tried deleting the finder preferences; no change.

Abnormal

Normal

I re-installed Lion and that restored normal windows.


Can't enable Apple Two Step Authentication I see from all of the various blogs and news sites that Apple finally has two step authentication with their Apple ID. That's great -- especially with the latest security hole where you can now reset someone's Apple ID password with just the ID and the user's birthday.
However, I don't seem to be able to turn on two step authentication:
Here's what I do:

Go to https://appleid.apple.com/
Click on the Manage Your Apple ID button.
Sign in.
Click on Password and Security.
I'm now asked my security questions.
I answer my security questions.
And, now I can change my password, security questions, my rescue email, and my birthdate.

Why can't I turn on Two-step authentication? Am I not going to the correct place? I'm trying to follow the directions on Apple's website, but I don't get the two-step verification option.

Response:

When I first went to the Password and Security page. I answered the questions. And then got the normal setting page for Password and Security. But I could not see an option for the two-step. What I missed was its above all the settings. You may be doing the same. Thats an actual screen shot of the top of the Password and Security page and show the "Get started"

Nope. I don't see that...

I'm going to see if I can contact Apple tomorrow on this. Maybe take my Macbook to the Apple Store tomorrow.

I missed it the first time. It should be at the top.
of the the Security page.


Permission issue on Yosemite server I have an old Mid 2010 Mac Pro running Yosemite that I am using as a server, and have a shared folder that should be accessible by anyone on the network.  Well, it's accessible, all right...but any file put there can only be opened by the user that put it there.  This is the exact opposite of what I'm looking for with this shared folder.  Is there any way to set the permissions such that anyone with access to the folder has read/write permissions for everything in the folder?

I tried to create a test document on one of my other machines (a Windows 10 Pro desktop) and put it in the shared folder.  This is the error I got when I tried to open the file, logged in as the server administrator.

EDIT: I was asked to put terminal readouts of the permissions for the shared folder as well as its contents.  So, here they are:

Shared folder:

drwxrwxrwx+  6 admin  wheel  -           204 Aug 16 08:29 Share
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
1: user:user1 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit

Contents (test.txt does not work; the two folders do work and are provided for comparison):

drwxrwxrwx+  6 admin  wheel  -       204 Aug 16 08:29 .
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
1: user:user1 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxr-xr-x  33 root   wheel  -      1190 Aug 16 08:24 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 user1  wheel  -      8196 Mar 20 16:18 .DS_Store
com.apple.FinderInfo      32
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow read,execute
1: user:user1 inherited allow read,write,execute,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxr-xr-x+  6 admin  wheel  -       204 Jun 24 18:40 Backups
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
1: user:user1 inherited allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
drwxrwxrwx+ 27 user1  wheel  nodump  918 Jun  9 15:04 Videos
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
1: user:user1 inherited allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
-rw-------+  1 user1  wheel  nodump   20 Aug 16 08:03 test.txt
0: user:_spotlight inherited allow read,execute
1: user:user1 inherited allow read,write,execute,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity

The problem is related to accessing the share with a Windows client via SMB. It doesn't happen accessing it with an OS X client via SMB or AFP.

To quickly solve your problem remove all user1 ACLs with

sudo chmod -R -a "user1 allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /Volumes/vol_name/Share

Replace vol_name by the proper volume name. If "Share" is the volume name omit the part "/vol_name"

Then add:

sudo chmod +a "everyone allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /Volumes/vol_name/Share

You may then modify all stubborn subsequent files' and folders' permissions with:

sudo chmod ...

This is no nice solution and I will further inspect the access problem for Windows clients.


I purchased an app on my iPhone and the app is also on Mac When I looked in the purchased section in the Mac App Store the app was not there. Am I doing something wrong or do app have to be purchased on both iOS App Store and Mac App Store?

Is your question about an iOS app which has an equivalent macOS app?

In this case, they are really two separate apps with the same name.

Purchasing or getting the iOS app on your iPhone does not automatically give you the macOS version on your Mac.

You must go to the macOS App Store and download the macOS version.

Examples of apps I use that meet this criteria:

Evernote, Google Chrome, Firefox, Google Earth, Dropbox, Kindle ... and many, many more.


Speed of Card Readers Speeds of Macs Is there a way to find the read/write speed of the SDXC card readers on Macs?

I've been looking for it in System Information, or some chart on the web, to no avail.

(I'm specifically looking for rMBP Mid-2014 13", however the question is general so it is applicable to more people. However, if you happen to know the answer to this particular computer, please do share. :))

How fast can my Mac read or write to an SD card in the SD card slot?

  Mac notebooks use the USB bus to communicate with the SD card slot. They have a maximum speed of up to 480Mbit/s. Mac desktops use the PCIe bus to communicate with the SD card slot. Desktops can transfer data at a faster rate.

  Check the packaging that came with your SD media to determine the maximum transfer rate that your specific card uses.

  To determine the maximum transfer speed of your Mac, you can use the System Profiler. Go to the Apple () menu > About This Mac and then click System Report.

  If you use a Mac notebook:

  Select Hardware, then select USB.
  Select Internal Memory Card Reader and look for the Speed entry.

  If you use a Mac desktop computer:

  Select Hardware, then select Card Reader.
  Look for the Link Speed entry. Computers that use the PCIe bus express their speed as GT/s.

About the SD and SDXC card slot on your Mac


MacBook stuck in Internet Recovery Mode I managed to wrongly format my SSD into MBR (Master Boot Record), since then my Mac is stuck starting in Internet Recovery Mode over and over again and I also can't run the Terminal command for example (CMD+S) to erase the SSD by hand.

There would not be any problems to recover it with the Internet Recovery Mode, but as soon as I choose my WiFi network, it will run on an endless loop.
Neither I see any progress bar or ETA for the recovery.
The process looks like this:

I once did run it for 24 hours, but except that fans was very loud, there was no process at all. I also used a different WiFi to see if there was a change (which was not).

The only thing I'm able to do is pressing the 'Option' key to boot from my USB but this is not working as well.
It look like this:

As soon as I select the "Install macOS Mojave", it will start again the Internet Recovery Mode and it will run on endless loop, again.

Could be the USB fault for it?
But if so, why the Terminal is not working?

You can try installing Ubuntu (or any other Linux distro) onto a USB. Then, start a live session. Open GParted and reformat your iMac’s HDD or SSD to GUID. After that, try booting into recovery mode again.


Scratch on MacBook Pro LCD screen (not the glass) I was replacing a rather broken piece of glass on my macbook pro 13" and got impatient toward the end, managing to slip and scratch the LCD screen itself.  Before I cover it up with the new piece of glass, I'd like to try to at least reduce the visibility of that scratch, if not repair it.  Is there anything that will work on the LCD screen itself (all the tips I've come across are for the glass)?

You have no good options for repair.

Any mechanical stress you add could sabotage the panel later making it more likely to crack. Any coating you try has worse side effects as it ages.

I would make a judgement call based on the location of the scratch, the depth of the scratch and your temperament. If you can live with it, just continue with the repair.

If you know it will drive you nuts or is on a part of the screen you look at often, bite the bullet and buy a new LCD panel. Sell the scratched one to someone that isn't as picky (you probably know several people that use a phone with broken glass for months and maybe someone that even uses one with chunks of the digitizer missing). You could probably charge someone your costs for the panel to repair their Mac and come out of it even.


My bluetooth keyboard and mouse are choppy Problem

My mouse is choppy as I drag it around the screen. The buttons on my keyboard occasionally get stuck "on", resulting in a bunch of spaces, or periods, or triggering the special character pop-up for other letters, or deleting too many characters.

System

I'm on OS X 10.9.5 on a late-2011 Macbook Pro.

I use a wireless Apple Mighty Mouse and an apple wireless keyboard. Both communicate over Bluetooth.

Battery is reported at 59% for the keyboard and 46% for the mouse. I've previously been able to run these down to 20% and lower without any negative effects.

The devices are approximately 40cm from the Macbook.

What I've tried

I've turned bluetooth on my Macbook on and off. I've disconnected and reconnected from each device. I've turned each device off and on. I've rebooted. Bluetooth on my nearby phone is turned off.

I'm not sure if this is the problem you're having but I was struggling with this for a few months until I realised my mouse was sometimes too far away from the laptop. The laptop was on the left side of the monitor and the mouse on the right. I switched the laptop to the right side and it's working flawlessly :)


How do I delete a previous recipient's email address from Mail? I am trying to delete a friend's old email address so it doesn't automatically pop up when I enter his name while addressing an email. I have removed it manually from the address book, but it still shows up in Mail.

How do I stop this happening?

Fire up a "New Message" from the File menu (or use command + N)
Begin typing the address
When Mail starts to complete the address you want, hit the Return key to tell Mail to go ahead and auto-complete the address
Hover the mouse pointer over the address; a blue arrow will show up on the right hand side.
Click on the arrow, which brings up a drop-down menu. The menu contains several options, one of which is "Remove address." Click it, and it will remove the address from auto-complete.


When ever I press right shift it show Desktop, but in the setting 'Show Desktop' is set to Control Down And when I assign other command to left shift it display error, and when I press the sign it redirect me to the keyboard shortcut, which does not display any conflict...

I just want to use my right shift ToT

I just had the same issue! I am using an external keyboard, btw, but I believe this fix should be the same.

First I just went ahead and restarted, then after my right shift was still acting wonky, I went into the Keyboard Shortcuts preferences, and changed the shortcut to numpad0. I saved it and did a restart again, then it was fixed.

I'm not sure if using the numpad altered the issue, or if all it took was multiple restarts, but before that, even if I disabled "Show Desktop" it would still be active as my Right Shift.

On a weird note, my show desktop used to be a 3 finger swipe down on the trackpad, but now that option isn't even available for me to select. Odd.


Back up an external hard drive with video on it Can I use Time Machine to back up an external hard drive that I use to store video on to another external hard drive without having to back up the Mac Book Pro as well?

Yes you can — when setting up Time Machine, add your internal disk to the exclude list and remove your external disk so that it is backed up.


Always use dark mode, on Mojave I have chosen Dark mode, under System Preferences > General > Appearance. Yet, it seems whenever starting up the computer, it switches back to Light.
I am guessing there is some "switch theme based on time of day" setting but I can't find it.
How can I have Dark mode permanently? Is there a workaround at least?
(To be really clear, the options are just Light and Dark, there is no Auto)
Mojave 10.14.2, mid 2014 MacBook Pro

Create a script to enable dark mode
This shell file will run an AppleScript command to enable Dark Mode. The first time this script is run, it may require permission to modify your system settings.
It is critical to mark the file executable with chmod +x - otherwise, it will not run and you will get a vague 'Load Failed: 5: Input/output error' from the launchctl service.
echo "osascript -e 'tell application \"System Events\" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to true'" > ~/AlwaysDarkMode.sh
chmod +x ~/AlwaysDarkMode.sh

Create a launch agent
Create a new text file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents titled AlwaysDarkMode.plist (or something else, if you'd like). Paste in the following contents, ensuring to change the username to your own. You cannot use relative paths like ~/AlwaysDarkMode.sh - you must write out the full path to the file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>AlwaysDarkMode.sh</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/YourUsername/AlwaysDarkMode.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Test the launch agent
Because the plist is stored in ~/Library/LaunchAgents, it should run automatically when logging in. However, it might request permissions the first time it runs, so you can load it manually with launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/AlwaysDarkMode.plist.


Regenerate OpenSSH Host Keys How should I regenerate ssh keys for OSX? The system is running El Capitan if that is relevant information.

(To clarify, I am not asking for ssh-keygen  remote-server as a USER but to change the keys inside the serverside-sshd). In Ubuntu-Linux you delete  /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* and dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server.

In Mac, you should be able to delete the /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* too and run ssh-keygen -A, which will generate the missing keys.


iTerm2: Difference between preloaded Light and Dark themes I can't seem to spot the difference between the preloaded two themes: Light and Dark.

Background: I was looking for a theme that "inverts" the default color scheme, i.e. dark text and light background, but neither seem to achieve this.

Could someone en-light-en me? (Pun intended.)

That toggle is under the tabs section; it changes the theme of the tab bar, not the actual terminal view itself. To change the terminal theme, choose the Profiles tab, select a profile and edit the colours as you wish.


Start reading movie before file is fully copied Wifi speed in my flat is not that good, and I often have to copy big video files from my nas to my mac.
In these situations I'd like to be able to start playing the file after few seconds and that the transfer ends in the background while I watch the move.

Is there a video viewer app that handles such a use case?

The free and open-source VLC media player is able to do this.

If the video file is an .avi, a dialog saying "The AVI file is broken. Seeking will not work correctly. Do you want to try to fix it?" may pop up. Simply click "Don't repair" and the video will start playing.


Core Graphics or SpriteKit? I'm a junior iOS Developer and I have the requirements for a drawing app I need to build for my employee. I need to be able to add graphic elements on the canvas on different layers. These elements might include a straight line between 2 or more points (where the user is tapping), another type of lines that can be curved by the user when dragging the middle of the line, shapes and graphic elements that can be rotated and resized, ability to change the border color, fill color and so on. Also, I need the ability to zoom into the canvas and scroll left-right, up-down when is zoom in. I need the ability to select an element that is on a lower level layer and edit it or delete it.

My questions:

Do I use Core Graphics SpriteKit?

Can you point me to some tutorials or some resources on how to do this?

Thank you!

As you have described the problem, it would be more natural to use Core Graphics or perhaps SpriteKit (depending on the interactions with your graphics).

UIKit does not strike me as an obvious go-to framework for this problem.


Google chrome app redirects When i try to download the google chrome app on my iphone or ipad, it redirects me to a page that says it will download the app...but jus keeps redirecting and wont load. How do i get it to load?

You most probably are going to the Google Chrome desktop website, which will "download" a .app or .exe. Open the iOS App Store, search "Chrome", then download it from there.


iPhone, is it possible to recover only one app from a backup? The latest release of an app I love is completely buggy.
Can I recover it from a backup without recovering everything else?

My last backup is quite old :-(

You can't recover from an iPhone backup, but there is other way.

You can check your apps directory within you iTunes Media Folder Location (under iTunes → Preferences → Advanced). This will tell you where your iTunes are located (example: /Users/username/Music).

If you go to /Users/username/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications you can find that this is the directory where apps are saved.

Check this folder to see if the app you are looking for is there. Apps have version number in it's name. If not exists what you want, or exists the latest version, you must use a backup to recover (If you have it).


AppleScript to 'Bring All Hidden and Minimized Apps to Front'? Have been searching for an hour. I am halfway through, but not getting very far.

Does anyone know what code to use to 'Bring All Hidden and Minimized Apps to Front'?

Regards.

Only one window can be frontmost, at a time, however the following AppleScript code will unhide and un-minimize all windows.

tell application "System Events"
    set the visible of every process to true
    do shell script "killall -HUP Dock"
end tell


2013 MBP unable to see new internal SSD So I have a 2013 MBP that I'm trying to install to give to my friend. I've bee running a 500GB Samsung Evo 850 for a few years. I'm trying to put in a 250GB one in.

I've managed to install macOS High Sierra when in a usb cage I've got. It boots just fine off of my original SSD. So I don't think it's the cable or the ssd.

I've been installing off of a USB installer I made using my new macbook. I've reset the SMC and PRAM.

EDIT:

No idea what's going on. I've given up and left the 500GB drive in the computer while I keep the 250GB with my stuff on it on the side.

Is the new SSD properly formatted?
I’ve had issues before where the drive was still FAT or whatever, but the Mac partition was properly formatted and looked ok.


Password for locking Noted When I try to lock’Notes’ it says ‘wrong password’, although my password unlocks normally. How can I update the password.

If you know your old password, then it is quite straight forward to change your password.

In addition, you can reset your password, but this won’t give you access to your old notes. It will, however, let you password protect any notes that you create from that point forward with the new password. This could lead to you having multiple notes with different passwords.

On your iOS device, tap Settings

Tap Notes

Tap Password

You will see a Changed Password option. You can change your password if you know the original password. The other option is “Reset Password”. Tap Reset Password.

You will have to enter your Apple ID password and tap OK.


Suggestions for a good vector editor I'm new to macOS (Sierra) and am searching a simple vector editing tool.

Previously, on Linux I used Inkscape. However, on Mac the base on XQuartz is hard for me to use.

Does anyone know of a better alternative?

Sketch is my favourite vector editor, providing all the features you could want in a vector editor, supporting import and export of vector content in a variety of formats.


Why is this custom Mac Keyboard Shortcut not working? This is probably a very simple question by someone that has just started using custom keyboard shortcuts on Mac. I want to set up a shortcut for opening a terminal window in a given folder that's being reached by Finder. So I set up the following keyboard shortcut in the Settings app:

I have even set it up both for the Apple Terminal and for iTerm to see if anything changes. However, even after setting the commands, I cannot make them work. I believe that, after browsing to a given folder through Finder, executing the shortcut should bring the terminal window, shouldn't it? Thanks a lot in advance!

It seems you need to have a folder selected in Finder to make it work, it won't if you've got an empty selection or a file selected.

Also make sure that your keyboard shortcut is not used by any other function, it doesn't warn about it. (I tried CMD+CTRL+X, which seemed to work, but had trouble with many other combinations.)


Turning Caps-Lock into Control is not permanent on MacBook Pro Retina I want to act my caps-lock key as control-key.
I'm going to preferences ⇒ keyboard ⇒ modifier keys... and say that caps lock should be acting as control.

This is working fine until I put the MacBookPro to sleep for longer time. When I open the lid again, the caps-lock is again working as caps lock.

Not believing that Apple is fixing this quick I'm posting this here in hope that someone knows how to work around this problem.

One workaround is to get Seil, which is mainly used for remapping the Caps Lock key.

Check the first box, Change Caps Lock, and change the "keycode" on the right to 59 (the code for left control).


Does the iOS app store accept apps that don't work unless the user pays via a subscription or IAP? I'm thinking of making my camera app free to download, and let users take 20 photos, after which a dialog pops up asking for a (auto-renewing) subscription. If the user doesn't pay, the app will refuse to work. The user won't be able to take photos, or look at existing photos. The only thing in the app that will work is the payment UI.

I'm looking to understand what functionality the app needs to have without an active subscription. I do intend to regularly update the app, as the guidelines say.

The goal is to let users see for themselves that the app is useful before I ask them to pay for it.

Where is this documented by Apple?

I read the guidelines, and they don't say that apps are required to have any functionality if the user refuses to pay. Neither do they say the opposite, that apps like mine are okay.

What you ask is exactly what happens in app review. If you are in a place to push a build for test flight review - you can get a preview of how the review team sees your app.

As long as the app is fully functional for the first 20 images, I would imagine you won't get rejected if that's the only issues the reviewer identifies. You could be in thin ice if your app simply monetizes the camera functionality - if an app seeks to make money on what the OS provides, that's grounds for a quick reject.

You can and should have one team member go over the App Review Guidelines. Have them pretend to be picky and seek to reject the app for each of the items.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/

If you are overwhelmed by the amount of guidance - start with the snapshot of common rejection reasons and run through the comic book version of the review guidelines - those highlight the most common and broad issues with app review. Once you're clear of those hurdles - a more detailed review might be good.

Nothing compares to submitting your app for review, though. Also - think of review as a 3 to 6 month process where you get to know the team and they get to know your app. The App Store is big enough now that coding for a weekend or week and then submitting for sale next week or next month is a rare event. All of those class of apps have well explored by thousands of people by now.

I doubt Apple will ever come out and say precisely what is too little functionality. That binds them and their review team. What works for the first app doesn't work for the 100th app in category. There will be gray areas and you certainly are in it. If you have an app that refuses to work at all once the trial is over, my guess is you will be rejected. I could be wrong, but if that happens you could always let the free portion be free forever (the first 20 snaps or whatever) and only lock down people that need a subscription to run it.

I've seen that work very well with low rejection rates - you are clear you need a subscription in that case, so Apple doesn't have to reject your app knowing it might cause some users heartburn if they don't realize what's paid and what's free. Best of luck with your app!


How to simulate 2-finger tap with keyboard modifier? Chrome has introduced a new feature requiring a weird 2-finger tap gesture on a particular button. It's an awkward gesture and difficult to time it right.

Is there any way to make ctrl-tap act as if two fingers had been pressed on the trackpad? Or some other solution that would avoid the need to use 2-finger tap for this.

BetterTouchTool is a great app that can help you with this.

You can install this by going into their website and download or by installing it with homebrew cask here

Now just for an example, I've posted an image of something you could do with it


Power Up Issues with MacBook Pro A1278 First-off, let me preface this question by stating that I know nothing to very little about computers, especially Apple computers. That being said, I have a MacBook Pro A1278 model. About a month ago, smoke started coming out of the top row of keys on the keyboard (not good at all - that much I do know); so, I powered it down. Then it would not power up at all. This morning, I tried plugging in the adapter and, lo and behold, it started to fire up. However, the progress bar only moves about a third of the way across before it shuts down again. It does this whether or not the adapter is plugged in or not, so I am thinking that it is not the adapter or the battery. If I continue to hold down the power button, it was going into my Desktop. However, as soon as I release it, within about 2 seconds, it shuts down again. Also, now when I continue to hold the power button down, it only makes it about halfway and then shuts off again.

Could it be my power supply? something else? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as it is a work computer. Thanks.

The smoke coming out of your Macbook would lead anyone to conclude that the problem system had either an:

Overheating battery (common on some model MBP's)
Overheating CPU (not at all common unless there is a blockage or other external heat.)

As others have suggested, it is definitely time for you to triage and rescue whatever remains on the HDD and take it to the Apple Store for a further diagnosis. Here are some things you can do in the meantime

Verify if the battery is the problem. Take a careful look at the chassis of the aluminum unibody. Does it seem swollen in some areas? If you use one finger to press on an edge of the MBP, does it rock? Swollen batteries are a common indicator of battery malfunction.
If the battery is removable from the bottom of the MBP, go ahead and remove it. Attach the AC adapter and power on your MBP without the battery installed. This should mitigate your device from turning off because of the heat from a malfunctioning battery. Other things you can do is place your device on a cool, dry kitchen counter while running it without the battery. This will further allow you to use the computer without risk of running into the CPU thermal throttling timer (simple function: too hot -> turn off).
Lastly, if the above tip worked, immediately move your HDD contents to a backup location.

Please report back on your findings and mark answered if this helps.


How can I add a font to the Font Book Web Collection I'd like to add Courier New to my Font Book "Web" Collection:

I go to the "All Fonts" Collection and search "Courier New":

After dragging Courier New into the "Web" Collection nothing happens:

How can I add Courier New to the "Web" Collection? I'm running OS X 10.9.4.

This is not really an answer but these questions may help you narrow down the issue and ultimately resolve the issue.

After the Drag & Drop operation is complete, does the font show in Web collection ?
If it shows, does the font have any Yellow Exclamation mark on it ?
If yes, try repair it
If you do not see the font there, Right Click on Web Collection and Click Add fonts, then locate the font in Fonts folder from System Library or Local Library


Is there a way to have something similar to Cygwin on Mac? I'm a web developer using a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.9.3.

Before I started developing in a Mac, I used Cygwin on a Windows machine to see what was happening behind the scene on my web application. I had a Logging system built in PHP which created log files with all the content of the variables I wanted to debug.

Basically, this Logging system creates another PHP file with all the debug needed and through Cygwin, every time I refreshed my web application in the browser it would refresh itself synchronously and outputted a new print with all my recent code updates.

I've searched everywhere but didn't find any close solution.
The one I'm using right now is using the terminal and writhing:

cat /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/BO_V2/data/logs/log-2014-07-10.php

But it is not automatic and I have to press ↑+enter every time I want to see what the log file has to show.

On OS X, is there a way to have Terminal or another application refresh the print from my log file every time I refresh my browser window (Chrome, Firefox or Safari)?

On windows, the Cygwin is a Unix-like environment.
OS X (now macOS) is full on UNIX, so there is no need for any additions to get these unix tools.

Open Terminal.app and start with manual pages.

The more and tail -f commands are typical unix commands to page, search, and watch a log file.

For your example, the tail command to watch your log file is:

tail -f /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/BO_V2/data/logs/log-2014-07-10.php


What is /Volumes/firmwaresyncd? I keep seeing this in my logs:

> 10/5/15 3:45:16.532 AM deleted[366]: normalizeUserMountpoint:738
> volRoot failed for /Volumes/firmwaresyncd.G3PNKw

What is it? Is it related to the firmware 0day hack from July?

I'm on 10.11, 2012 mbp.

The firmwaresyncd system is Apple designed and expected to run at all normal boots. Perhaps the system didn't unmount it once the check was complete.

If you restart your Mac, I've not seen it stay mounted twice in a row, and if you get it always sitting, a support call to Apple might be in order to be sure your firmware is updated if you are running OS updates when asked to. I don't think it's cause for concern immediately, but making sure you would be prompted if you were out of date is a good thing to double check that your security and patches are up to date.


Extending Desktop Backgounds Apple already provide gorgeous photos for desktop background. How can i add photos to that collection? like "Desktop Pictures + My Folder"

Type command + shift + g in the Finder and enter "/Library/Desktop Pictures/" and click "Go". Add any pictures you want into this folder, and they'll appear in System Preferences as an option. You'll have to enter your password to add anything. You may have to restart System Preferences to see the changes though.


Automator Get Filename of Selected File I'm trying to create a Service where I can select an individual file, right click, go to Services and tap Perm Delete using Automator - i.e.:

rm <path>

I've looked around and i just can't find how to get the file path of the selected file.

Can anyone help.

Thanks

Use a Run Shell Script action.

Select the /bin/sh shell and select pass input as argument

Add the code

for f in "$@"
do
    rm -rf "$f"
done

I would also suggestion using a Ask for confirmation action before running the script. You know for safety, since rm has no way back.


iCloud Photo Library activation on my phone deleted majority of pictures I recently completed a complete upload of my photo library from my mac's photos app (whose local repository constitutes the complete set of my pictures) to iCloud photo library. Wary of future issues if I had activated iCloud photo library on my phone simultaneously. I let this upload complete before activating iCloud photo library on my iPhone. This turned out to be a well founded precaution, because after turning iCloud photo library on my phone today, about half my photos are no longer accessible on my phone, but they are still on my mac and iCloud.com.

On my collections view in my iPhone's Photos app, I started by having many hundreds to a few thousand photos per year from 2008 to 2018 for all years. After turning on iCloud photo library, I now have no photos from 2008 or 2009, and only a handful remaining from 2010 to 2016. The photos that remain in my photos app might be only the ones that I took on my current phone (which I bought in 2016). How do I get the entire set of photos that are currently stored in iCloud photo library onto my phone again?

Edit:
     A more specific and descriptive timeline of events below:

Let set "A" be all the photos that I want to exist on my mac, my iPhone, and iCloud. 1 week ago, my iPhone had A stored locally and iCloud was off. I then imported A from my iPhone to Photos on my mac. Now A is on my mac and my iPhone locally (iCloud library is still off). I then turned on iCloud library on on my mac and the upload occurred for about a week. As of this morning, A was in iCloud completely.

After I confirmed that, I turned on iCould library on my iPhone, a device that had A stored locally already! Despite this, about 8 years worth of photos (2008-2016) are not accessible on my phone anymore! There should be no deletion / downloading between iCloud and my Phone because the set of pictures in both places was the same!

I'm adding a summary of the discussions the OP and I had when trying to troubleshoot this issue.

This issue was due to how the OP copied the original photos: iPhone -> Mac -> iCloud.  The photos remained on the iPhone and the assumption was that iCloud would not have to do much work at all.  The exact same photos that were uploaded and sitting in iCloud were sitting on the iPhone.

The photos first had to be synced to iCloud from the Mac. With the large number of photos involved, that took several hours to complete.

After that, iCloud then begins to sync the photos back down to the other devices signed-in with that same Apple ID, in this case it was the same iPhone.

The iPhone will only perform iCloud photo syncs when the device is on wifi and plugged-in to power (with iOS 11, you have the option to allow syncing on cellular connection via Settings -> Photos -> Cellular Data and turning on Cellular Data).

iCloud took over 9 hours to sync the photos back down to the iPhone, replacing all the exact same photos that were already stored there.

To avoid this, sync the photos from the iPhone -> iCloud first.  After that, it will sync down to the other devices, like the Mac.  It will still take several hours depending on how many photos are being synced.


How to see library search paths MacOS? There are two Macs and one of them finds a certain dylib when I dlopen it and another one doesn't. Seems like the library search paths are different, but DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH and DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH are empty on both machines.

How can I see what paths dlopen searches?

You'll find the list of paths (i.e. list of variables containing the paths) in the man page for dyld. You can view the man page by running the following command in the Terminal:

man dyld

For example you might have a difference in LC_RPATH or similar. I suggest printing out the environment on both machines and comparing notes.

If you come from a Linux background and expect a file like /etc/ld.so.conf on Linux, then no such file exists on macOS.

Another reason for difference between the code could be one not having an update dyld cache. You can run the following command to update the cache:

update_dyld_shared_cache

Remember to reboot afterwards to actually use the cache.

In general it sounds like the program you have that does dlopen is programmed a bit odd. Typically programs do not dlopen() various dylib at paths not relative to the executable, the loader or the program's built-in rpath in rare cases.


eGPU support in Mac/macOS I'm wondering whether an external GPU can be (almost) as efficient as the same internal GPU? I need to have a fast computer even when I have a lot of windows open on many virtual desktops and when I run resource intensive application on two 4K displays.

Is macOS able to use an eGPU for its own needs (system animations, etc.)?

Yes. Using an external GPU with your Mac (with support for eGPU) can give your computer a performance boost.

Refer to the Apple support article, Use an external graphics processor with your Mac.

  An eGPU can give your Mac additional graphics performance for professional apps, 3D gaming, VR content creation, and more.

  eGPUs are supported by any Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later.

For a list of Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs and to check if your Mac support eGPU, refer to the Apple support article, Adapters for the Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) or USB-C port on your Mac or iPad Pro

These Macs have Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports:

  iMac Pro
  iMac models from 2017
  Mac mini (2018)
  MacBook Pro models from 2016 or later
  MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2018)


Stream video to TV over Apple Composite AV cable? I'm using an iPhone 3GS (iOS 6.1.6) and would like to stream video from the Safari browser or an installed app to my TV over the connected Apple Composite AV cable.
Is that possible?

Yes you can do it. And you have one more option to stream to your TV at $35 or even $30 when on sale and that is chrome cast. And it is wireless!


Is it possible to use an iPhone without data? I recently started at a new job and now work at home four days a week (I only go in to the office once a week for a company meeting). Because I'm no longer commuting regularly and obviously have wifi in my house, I'm using almost no data on my iPhone 4 anymore. I'm already on the cheaper $15/month data plan with AT&T, but I don't even max that out anymore; as of today, which is halfway through my billing period, I've only used 26 MB out of 200.

So what I'm wondering is, is it possible to just get a Tracfone SIM or something and use that for voice, then disable all 3G/data services on my iPhone? I already use almost no voice minutes as it is (I got the iPhone primarily to use data), and I'm now on wifi almost 100% of the time, so I'd lose basically nothing compared to what I have now - it would just be a fraction of the cost.

I'm assuming there's some catch here that prevents me from doing this, otherwise probably lots of people would be doing the same, but I figured I'd ask!

This is most certainly possible. The first few months I had an iPhone, I didn’t have a data plan either.

In Belgium (where I live), iPhones are generally sold separately, without a data plan / SIM — they’re officially unlocked iPhones.

So, the answer to your question is: yes, it’s possible to use an iPhone without a data plan — but you can only change the SIM card if you own a SIM-unlocked iPhone.


Is it possible to block specific websites and only those sites on iOS? I'd like to block just 4 specific websites but AFAICT there is no such option.
There's the option to "Limit Adult Content" but sadly it blocks way too much. For example it blocks stackexchange.com. I searched for restaurants on Google it blocked every single result. There's the option to only allow a whitelist of sites but that's not useful for me either. I'd have to add every result and every link I click on.
Effectively I'm looking for a blacklist option. Is there a way to do it? Maybe install a custom network profile or something?
Update #1
Well so profiles don't solve it. They just do the enable the same features as available from the settings.
Next thing is to look for passthru VPN software or something like that

Yes, this is possible with the use of restrictions. Follow these steps:

Go to Settings
Tap on General
Tap on Restrictions
Tap on Enable Restrictions
Enter a restriction passcode
Swipe up until you see the Allowed Content section
Tap on Websites at bottom of the list
Tap on Limit Adult Content
This provides access to the Never Allow list
Tap on the Add a Website... option located under Never Allow
Add the four websites you want to block
Exit Restrictions / Settings

Now these four websites will be blocked even though they may not be Adult content.


My macbook pro hard drive seems to be corrupted, should I replace it? I have a 2,26GHz  mid-2009 macbook  pro  with 8Gb Ram and mountain  lion (mac os x 10.8.2).  Recently  my  computer doesn' t  stop freezing  and  I have to force the computer to shut down. Then  I cannot boot  at all the computer shows a flashing folder with a question mark. When I run disk utility from the installation cd then I am able to boot from the drive again but it will eventually starts lagging  after a few minutes of utilization with software's such as safari, skype or even the finder. I wanted to get a ssd recently. Will it fix this issue or the problem might lie elsewhere? I tried to boot from different sessions it always freezes at a moment, I have been able to run a virus scan disk and I didn't  find any virus nor trojans .

I changed the sata cable of the drive and it is working fine now.


Create a bootable usb from Yosemite.app So my problem is that my mac is not booting up. Also,the OS X recovery HD is not available. Also, the internet recovery is not detecting my WiFi .. so i intend to clean install Yosemite on my mac. I have the Yosemite.app and a boot-able USB and windows. But i don't know how to install from the .app file . please help

Check if your Windows machine has got a DVD-ROM or not.  If the computer can run Windows, it possibly can run Ubuntu or other Linux Live CD as well.  You cannot do something in Windows does not mean you cannot do so in other operating systems.

Read this:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/550591/create-yosemite-usb-dvd-installer-on-ubuntu

It gives a link to make a bootable USB out of 10.9.  That shall be the same for 10.10.  The trick is: Once you have got the .dmg file, you can make the boot disk as if the USB key is a sizable DVD-ROM.

However, make sure if your USB key has got enough disk space.  The installation file is less than 6GB, but the expanded 10.10.3 files requires 10.34 GB and my 8GB USB key thus failed to install into this morning.

Wish you good luck.


Best way to send Videos from the iPhone? What is the best way to send a video from the iPhone to another iPhone or to a PC - Windows ?

I tried dropbox but it is really slow (probably because of my internet) .. BUMP doesnt send videos, and I tried itunes but it syncs to "Videos" .. I want the video to appear in the camera roll without the need of using iFile from cydia.

Any ideas ?

Regards.

If you have a jailbroken device, you can use AirBlue Sharing to send videos over Bluetooth - see here for the developer's description and here for a Lifehacker post about it.


Backing up Photos library to external hard drive Regarding Photos and its file structure, if I want to back up my photographs to an external hard drive, what files do I identify to be copied over? That is, if I back up the Photos Library, am I actually protecting the pictures themselves (or just links to them)?

If you started a new library from scratch - read: did not convert from a previous iPhoto or Aperture library - then the Your Library Name.photoslibrary bundle contains everything.

Exception: If you are using a referenced library (Photos menu > Preferences > General > Importing: "Copy files" box is not checked) then you need to back up the folder(s) where your actual photos are located as well.

If you did convert from a previous library, and have not removed it, you should back up both to be safe (though theoretically backing up just one should back up everything).


How can I keep Mail.app's archive from becoming too big? I'm trying to reduce my hard drive space used to prepare for a move to an SSD. I've got a wonderful application called DaisyDisk that allows me to visualize data segments on my hard drives.

I have three internal drives, and for the time being I'd just like to slim down the size of my startup disk, so I can move it to a smaller SSD.

By far the largest segment of my hard drive is a section under Macintosh HD/Users/joelglovier/library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes. This directory is over 75GB. You can see the visualization from DaisyDisk here: http://cl.ly/E7OJ

I found this directory before, when trying to slim down my hard drive, and simply deleted it's contents, then changed my settings in Mail.app to not archive attachments, thinking that would resolve the issue.

However, some months later this directory has again creeped up to a ginormous size.

Can anybody please help me understand what this directory is for, and how to permanently reduce it's size - via Mail.app settings, or whatever I need to change to stop it from becoming so huge.

Thank you!

Note: I'm on OSX Lion 10.7.3 using Mail.app ver 5.2.

EDIT: SO I dug through the files in the directory in question. There was one particular mailbox in /Library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes called "Recovered Messages (account name).mbox" which contained a very strange subdirectory structure of a single email duplicated thousands of times under different subdirectory structures. For example, there was a subdirectory in it that had /1, /2, /3, etc., and each one of those directories had /attachments and /messages. The /attachments on each had hundreds of subdirectories each containing this one same attachement from a particular email, and the /messages under each had hundreds of copies of the email all with different numerical file names. But the weird thing is ALL were from the same exact email.

Go ahead and delete that "recovered" folder, and there is also going to be an .OfflineCache folder that needs to be removed.  Note the period at the beginning of the file name; you will either need to show invisible files or use Terminal to delete that folder.

This most often happens when an unsuitable large file is attached to a message.  With GMail for example, any attachment over 20MB will be rejected.  Mail sees the rejection by the mail server and tries to recover from it by sending the message again.  Over time, these half-attempts to send mail stack up and start using all your drive space.

If you want a quick and easy way around the problem, remove the account in Mail's preferences, then re-add it. This will discard the offline cache for the account and free up your mangled space, at the expense of having to re-download the real messages.

And in the future, don't sent huge attachments.  Use a specialized service like Dropbox instead.


Too many activated fonts - identify those in use and remove/archive others Is there a way in Font Book to identify which (non-system) fonts are currently activated and required by Applications AND vice-versa which can be safely disabled (or removed from /Font folders?
Looking to significantly reduce the Font options in dropdown menu for FCPX and other Apps.

MacOS comes with fonts installed in two locations:
/System/Library/Fonts

/Library/Fonts

The fonts in the /System location cannot be disabled**, and are required for the 'safe' rendering of all text that the interface needs.
The fonts in /Library/Fonts can all be disabled in Font Book. This location is also where some applications install fonts that they use. (Though well-behaved apps will store fonts that they need inside their bundle, so they are always available, but not shown in the font menu.)
It is possible to open a document that requires some font which is not currently enabled. Some apps may give you a warning of that fact.
** Catalina introduced a 'Supplementary' folder to the  /System fonts folder, some of whose fonts can be disabled.
There are third-party font managers which offer greater degree of control and 'auto-activation', where fonts can be enabled when requested.


What happens if I edit a duplicate Hosts file? What exactly is a duplicate file?

When I wanted to edit the hosts file (/private/etc/hosts), it says:

  You don't own the file "hosts" and don’t have permission to write to
  it.

  You can duplicate this document and edit the duplicate. Only the duplicate will include your changes.

So, if I do my edits in the duplicate hosts file, is it equivalent to having my hosts file edited?

This is a poorly chosen vocabulary since in a MacOS X file system a duplicate is a serious error meaning that the file-system is deeply corrupted.

The correct term which should have been used here is the term of copy.

If you don't have permission to edit /private/etc/hosts then make a local copy as follows:

cp /private/etc/hosts ~/hosts

If you really need to edit the /private/etc/hosts, I advise you to make first a backup local copy as above. And once you have edited and thoroughly verified it,
put it back into place with sudo to get the admin priviledges:

/usr/bin/sudo cp ~/hosts /private/etc/hosts


Download photos from iCloud Photo Library to an iPhone without uploading everything from this iPhone From time to time I am uploading photos from my PC to my iCloud Photo Library. I would somehow like to set my iPhone XR so it will automatically download those photos to it's Photos app. It seems to me that I can do it only if I allow uploading from it too. I would like to prevent that, if that is possible (I do not want to upload all 10K+ photos from iPhone to iCloud).

iCloud is a syncing service an not a backup service.

That means that every device logged-in with the same Apple ID will have access to the same files, including photos.

There's no way to do the selective download that you're asking for.  Either you sync your photos to your iPhone or you continue to selectively download the photos you need.

Other possibilities include not using iCloud for this and using a 3rd party backup service like Dropbox.


SSD not selectable for Yosemite installation When I try to install Yosemite the SSD is not found. the Disk Utility lists the SSD, but does not give me the possibility to erase the disk.
Any advices?
Thanks

Are you booted from another drive or Internet Recovery and, if so, are you able to repartition instead of erase the disk using Disk Utility?

Select the drive in the Sidebar
Select the "Partition" tab
Change the "Partition Layout" to "1 Volume" (or however many volumes you wish the drive to have)
Click "Options" and change the partition map to "GUID Partition Table" and click "Okay"
Name the partition whatever you would like and set the format to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"
Click "Apply"

If everything went according to plan, you should be able to install Yosemite from the OS X installer. If not, you can try my solution posted here to sort it out via Terminal.


How to add "All my Files" back to Finder sidebar? The "All my Files" icon in my Finder sidebar has disappeared, I may have inadvertently deleted it with an unlucky motion on the trackpad.

This helpful answer shows the following technique, but I have no "All my Files" folder to grab

This helpful answer suggests I could do it in Python, but I'm a little nervous about trying it:

#!/usr/bin/python

from FinderSidebarEditor import FinderSidebar                  # Import the module

sidebar = FinderSidebar()                                      # Create a Finder sidebar instance to act on.

sidebar.add("All My Files")     # EDIT: I'm guessing this will work

I found this tutorial but nothing about "All my Files" that I can see.

Aha, found it!

MacWorld's May 2017 Mac 911 article How to show the All My Files icon in the macOS Sidebar points out that there is a menu in preferences:

click All My Files and it's back:


Will updating OS X Server over VNC kill my VNC connection? I have a Mac Mini sitting in a remote location (another country).  To administer it, I use the screen sharing application.

There is an update for Server, which I would like to install.  However, when I click install, it warns:

  Updating will stop any Server services that are running. Relaunch Server after the update completes to re-enable services.

The issue with that is that VNC is one of the services that Server is providing. My concern is that if Server stops, will I lose my VNC connection, and then be unable to relaunch Server?

How can I "safely" update Server using remote access tools?

(The "it's in a different country" aspect precludes me from being adventurous and just trying it out).

VNC is one of the base OS X services, and is not provided by Server.app. You can safely update Server if VNC is the only service you need to connect. I have updated server many times in the past over VNC.

However, if you are using Server's VPN to make a secure connection and are running VNC on top of that, you may have problems. VPN is one of the services provided by Server.app, and it will be turned off when updating Server.


software update is stuck on "less than a minute" since 10.8 was installed on my mac, when i try to update itunes, or airport utility, it always gets stuck on "installing - less than a minute". then i have to shut the computer from the power button since it wont restart or shut down, and then when i try updating again, it gets stuck again. i tried fresh installing,  and it happens on the next update. i tried repairing disk and disk permissions, same.
why does this happen? am i the only one with this problem? is there a solution?

Anything interesting in console? Have you tried just installing airport and not itunes and vice versa?

Can you try running software update from terminal:

sudo softwareupdate --install --all --verbose