Reinstalling windows 10 on bootcamp I had bootcamp with windows 10 running nicely on my MacBook Pro 2016, until one day a windows 10 update caused the virtual machine to misbehave, freeze, show black screens. Startuprepair, DISM, trying to reinstall windows 10 from inside the OS - all didn't work and were giving me errors.

So I finally decided to start from scratch with a new bootcamp. I wiped the bootcamp partition using disk utility. Then I tried to use Bootcamp assistant to restore to single partition, but it was giving me an error as well. So I went to disk utility and formatted the partition. I wanted to remove it, so that I have only one partition and and start from scratch with Bootcamp, but disk utility isn't allowing me too.

So I'm furthur done the rabbit hole and not sure what to do. I have a 90GB paritition sitting on my disk not doing anything. I just want to get windows through bootcamp installed on it again.

Try this advice as per link:
http://osxdaily.com/2014/05/09/remove-windows-boot-camp-partition-mac/

Before trying out:
1. Please backup your Mac OS X files first as a precaution.


Airdrop or export multiple original quality videos from iOS Photos app My Photos library has a few large videos in it encoded in HEVC. I am trying to export specific videos out of it in original quality, but I can't find a way to do this effectively.

Airdropping seems to convert the videos first no matter what. I couldn't find any settings to make Airdrop transfer original-quality videos, either to another macOS or iOS device, even if they are above macOS High Sierra/iOS 11 (the requirement for HEVC playback).
Using iOS's share sheet will also "Prepare" (or convert) the videos you're trying to share before allowing another app to open them.
I used to put these videos into an album, open the Readdle Documents app, and then move all the videos from the album (which you can view directly from the Documents app) into a folder. I could then transfer this to my computer at my convenience. However, it seems like now when Documents requests the videos from iOS, iOS automatically converts the videos before allowing Documents to access (move) them into its own file system, thereby doubling the file size.
I tried using Image Capture on macOS to import the videos to my Mac, which allows for the importing of originals. However, it's not possible to grab videos from an album this way. It's quite hard to find each video individually from the list to export.

Does anyone know of some smart way to export multiple original-quality videos from the Photos app?

I can transfer HEVC videos perfectly fine via AirDrop (iOS 12 → macOS Mojave).
Please check the transfer settings in the iOS Settings app > Photos (last element). Setting should be "Keep Originals".


Can a third party cloud backup app backup all user accounts on my Mac? I use an app called LiveDrive to backup my Mac running OS X 10.9.5. It provides incremental Cloud backup.

My user account is an administrator and it is under this account that the LiveDrive backup software runs.  I have found that only files in my user account (Desktop, Documents etc) are backed up by this software. There are 3 other user accounts for other family members which I would also like backed up.  I have added folders e.g. /Users/Child1/Documents, /Users/Wife/Documents to the backup software's list of backup locations, but files in these locations never get uploaded to the Cloud. I assume because the backup software (like my user account) does not have permission to view other users' files.

So is there a way to get the backup software to backup all users' files?

Note: I am trying to avoid purchasing 3 more licenses for LiveDrive. I could use Time Machine but I don't have an external HD to set that up and would prefer backups to be stored remotely.

I have the same requirement !  This FAQ seems to indicate Backblaze backsup other user accounts. I have yet to verify it though ..

https://help.backblaze.com/entries/26264869-Does-Backblaze-back-up-my-other-user-accounts-on-my-computer-


Change Mac terminal name after the @ symbol I just bought the new Mac mini, this is my first owned Mac. I decided to use the terminal and it shows my name but also my girlfriends name after the @ symbol. I don't know how this happened and what I can do to change it (harrisonokojie@Aminas-Air) I need to change the @Aminas-Air

Animas-Air is your local hostname. Read Apple Support: Change your computer’s name or local hostname on Mac

If you want to change PROMPT (or PS1), you might some ideas in Removing computer name from terminal


Cannot delete an old iCloud account from my IPhone I am trying to delete an account from my iPnone.  When I go to Settings -iCloud and try to Delete the account, it asks for the Apple ID.  I do not know the Apple ID and this is from a previous email account?

You can remove an iCloud account by restoring the device using iTunes: connect it to iTunes and click Restore.

However, this does not disable the device's Find My iPhone status — if Find My iPhone is enabled on the iCloud account on the device then the device will be under Activation Lock and will require you to enter your Apple ID to use the device.


How to get defined lines from OS X Terminal result? How do I get the first 20 lines of a OS X Terminal result?

The command you want is head

so for a command x and the first 20 lines you enter

x | head -n 20

This runs x and pipes the input into the head command.


Why does free + active + inactive + speculative + wired not equal total RAM? When I run vm_stat on my 10.6.8 MacBook Pro with 2 GB of RAM I get the following:

Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 4096 bytes)
Pages free:                          90518.
Pages active:                       205479.
Pages inactive:                      32417.
Pages speculative:                  134461.
Pages wired down:                    61009.
"Translation faults":             26323651.
Pages copy-on-write:                177180.
Pages zero filled:                15230394.
Pages reactivated:                       3.
Pageins:                            388108.
Pageouts:                                0.
Object cache: 14 hits of 797355 lookups (0% hit rate)

If you add up the free, active, inactive, speculative, and wired memory and multiply by 4096 (to turn the pages into bytes), you get 2,145,828,864 rather than the expected 2,147,483,648.  There are 1,654,784 missing bytes (or 404 pages).  This isn't a constant number though, it fluctuates:

$ vm_stat 1 | perl -MList::Util=sum -nle 'next unless /^\s*\d/; print 524288-sum((split)[0 .. 4])'
193
147
146
60
57
220
215
385
379
285
283
194

Are these missing pages just a reporting inaccuracy because the amount of one type of page has changed by the time vm_stat prints the next type of page?  Or is there some other type of memory that I am missing?

After spending some time looking into this and a SO question coming out of it, I think I've nailed this down.

Before I get started, I want to point out the philosophical debate that Apple must have had when they tried to answer the question What is used memory? If you look at the activity monitor on in OSX Pre-Yosemite (you can see this in my question I link and below) you'll see that Used Memory is made up of four parts; App Memory, File Cache, Wired Memory, and Compressed Memory. Now, if you look at the activity monitor below, from OSX Yosemite, you'll see that File Cache is missing. Not sure why there was a change between OS's, but there is one none-the-less. Since you're using a pre-Yosemite OS in the question, I'll defer to the former definition.

Let's get back to business, calculating the total memory, more specifically Used Memory since Free memory is given to us using vm_stat.

In order to calculate this, we need to map the four parts of Used Memory to the different stats given to us from vm_stat. A few of these are pretty easy.

Activity Monitor to vm_stat Mappings

File Cache:   -> File-backed pages
Wired Memory: -> Pages wired down
Compressed:   -> Pages occupied by compressor
App Memory:   -> Pages Active + Pages Speculative

Figuring out App Memory is the tricky one, and to be honest, I don't quite understand why speculative memory is apart of it, but the math is inarguable.

Inarguable Math (goes with OSX Pre-Yosemtie Activity Monitor)

                  vm_stat       Activity Monitor
------------------------------------------------
Free Mem.         9.97 GB       9.85 GB
Pages Active      2.38 GB       xxx
Pages Speculative 0.57 GB       xxx
App Mem.          xxx           2.95
Cached Files      1.24 GB       1.22 GB
Wired Mem.        1.43 GB       1.41 GB
Compressed        0.57 GB       0.58 GB
------------------------------------------------
Total Mem.       16.16 GB       16.01 GB
                 (keep in mind rounding error)

Activity Monitor OSX Pre-Yosemite

Activity Monitor OSX Yosemite


Can not find the Homebrew in the terminal But in the Mac OS, I use brew to install the setuptools:

aircraftdeMacBook-Pro:~ ldl$ brew install -y setuptools
Updating Homebrew...
==> Auto-updated Homebrew!
Updated 1 tap (homebrew/core).
==> New Formulae
adr-tools                                goad
allure                                   grakn
angular-cli                              iamy                                   zyre
get_iplayer
==> Updated Formulae
aalib                      gspell                     opencore-amr
......
gsl                        opencoarrays
==> Renamed Formulae
grunt -> grunt-cli
==> Deleted Formulae
autotrace  blucat     dvtm       libgc      libtess2   snescom    xplanetfx

Error: No available formula with the name "setuptools"
==> Searching for a previously deleted formula...
Warning: homebrew/core is shallow clone. To get complete history run:
  git -C "$(brew --repo homebrew/core)" fetch --unshallow

Error: No previously deleted formula found.
==> Searching for similarly named formulae...
Error: No similarly named formulae found.
==> Searching taps...
Error: No formulae found in taps.

I want to find the Homebrew, so I use:

whereis homebrew
whereis Homebrew
whereis brew

All find nothing. how to know the homebrew location, why use the whereis can not find it?

you should try locate Homebrew or locate homebrew.  The find command will help too.

type:  locate homebrew
or:    locate Homebrew


Why am I getting "Time Machine is backing up an encrypted disk to an unencrypted disk" when I'm not using encryption? I have a new MacBook Pro 2018 model. It is using APFS but I have not enabled File Vault.

I'm backing up to a Synology NAS, just but when I run my backups, I get the message:

  Time Machine is backing up an encrypted disk to an unencrypted disk

Multiple forum posts suggest that this message shows if you are using File Value and backing up to a non-encrypted drive, which I'm not doing.

I'm running macOS Mojave.

Why do I keep seeing this message and how can I stop it from appearing, as well as be sure I have good backups?

2018 Macs have Apple's T2 chip, which acts as the disk controller for the flash storage on the logic board. The data is encrypted, regardless of whether you've turned on FileVault. So, technically, the message is correct.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208344

  Data on the built-in, solid-state drive (SSD) is encrypted using a
  hardware-accelerated AES engine built into the T2 chip. This
  encryption is performed with 256-bit keys tied to a unique identifier
  within the T2 chip.

That having been said, I have a 2018 Mac Mini running Mojave and I don't get this error message, using a Seagate 4TB external drive directly connected to the Mac via USB. FileVault is off. There may be some other factor involved in getting the error message (which could still be erroneous).

How can I be sure I have have good backups?

Check if you can browse through the Time Machine interface and see the expected date ranges of backups, and try to restore a variety of files (as copies!).


MacBook abruptly turn off I have a MacBook Model A1278. After a replacement of the battery in a moment of low charge (like 5-7%) the laptop is abruptly shutting down. As far as I remember it should be like a "sleep mode" or something like that.

Additionally, in a process of normal shutting down that I do by myself with any percent of charge, I hear some clicking sounds from the HDD that means that the HDD was turned off incorrectly (in a moment when read head doesn't stop in a parking zone).

For the first try of repair I did reset of PRAM and SMC but it doesn't help. As a result, either PRAM or SMC didn't reset (how I can check it?) or there is something else. Any suggestions?

UPDATE: Thank you everyone for attention! So here is more information:

I Have A1278 Mid-2012 model.
I've using macOS 10.12.2
After the command syslog | grep shutdown I've got the result in only one line

  NOTE:  Most system logs have moved to a new logging system.  See
  log(1) for more information.

I'm trying to fix the abrupt shutdown. There should be a something like sleep/hibernation mode when the battery charge is lower 5% instead
I've tried to calibrate battery with no luck

How did you reset the SMC?

It's not clear exactly what model of MacBook you have, but the process for resetting the SMC can differ. I have included two sets of instructions below that could apply to you - select the one that matches your Battery type.

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

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

For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button


iPhone Status/Overview App Wanted I often have my iPhone connected to my PC and now I have a question about something like a status app.

I thought of something like this information:
- a big clock
- signal strength
- mobile signal technology (2g/3g)
- charge status

I thought of something like an overview/status app because I connect my iPhone through a 6-cm cable and so I could see the infos from about 30-40 cm distance.

I'm not aware of any app that does exactly this. The closest I've seen is System Status, which is an Activity Monitor-style app that has a big battery status display, as well as lots of other info on free memory, device space, running processes, etc.

Something that does exactly what you're looking for is unlikely, as there are no public APIs for getting the device signal strength. Any such app wouldn't be allowed in the App Store. It is conceivable you could make something for a jailbroken device.

Perhaps just position the phone closer on your desk, as all that information is readily available in the standard iOS status bar.


Is it safe to store a mac pro at a tilt? MY daughter is going to college and I have been looking for a safe to store it. Most safes are 12.6 inches wide and her mac pro is slightly less than 13 inches, is it OK to store at a slight tilt?

Yes - the only problems with storing the Mac Pro are exceeding the temperature ranges or very hard drops. It's an amazingly solid machine, but at some point anything will break if dropped or shocked hard enough. Also, the Mac Pro is 9.9 inches tall and 6 inches in diameter, so you might fit it in quite nicely in a 12 inch safe since the longest dimension of the unit is 11.9 inches.

You might also look at the Apple lock for the Mac Pro and leave it anchored with a robust cable to a secure anchor.


How to keep both Mavericks menu bars opaque in two monitor setup Mavericks shows the menu bar in both monitors when you have two. That's great, but the menu bar in the passive desktop turns translucent, which is a bit annoying. Is there a way to keep both menu bars opaque at all times? Setting the menu bar opaque in the desktop settings affects only the active monitor.

I just found a fix for this. Check out this video I made.

Step 1. change the order your displays are in.

Step 2. set to opaque.

Step 3. change back the order, now you have opaque on both bars.


Sleep keyboard shortcut on M1 MacBook Pro The control + shift + power shortcut to put the computer to sleep does not work on the M1 MacBook Pro (assuming that the Touch ID button replaces the power button).
What is the keyboard shortcut to put the M1 MacBook Pro to sleep?

On my M1 MacBook Air, the following works: press Touch ID with any finger not registered with Touch ID to lock the Mac. Then press Esc to Sleep.


Incorrect synchronized time – how do iPhones know what time is it? This year my country decided we no longer needed summer saving time, and since the date when time was supposed to change to summer time, my iPhone has had the wrong time.

I have an iPhone 4. I believe newer phones don't have this problem.

My phone thinks it is summer time and is 1 hour off if I set it to synchronize automatically. I resorted to somewhat convoluted tricks to keep it synchronized correctly. If I fixed the offset time manually, Whatsapp went wrong.

How is it possible? What does it do when I set the time to synchronize automatically? I previously thought it synchornized with the phone service provider but it appears to not be the case.

The phone receives the current time in UTC from the carrier (or from NTP server) and applies current timezone adjustment based on your settings. I assume that the timezone data in your phone is probably outdated and reflects the old rules of applying DST, that's why you have 1 hour difference.


"File Sharing" without Shared Folders still shares folders I have been experimenting with the "File Sharing" settings between two MacBooks. For some reason, unexpectedly when on the Host laptop I remove all "Shared Folders" I can still use "Connect to server" and connect to the user home directory as well as the root of the drive.

Here are screenshots from both macs. Dark mode shots are from the client.

I am simply trying to add some sort of password-protected file sharing, is this possible?

It turns out because I was logged into the same iCloud account on both machines it gave me access to both volumes automatically.

Which is the same functionality as if you log in with Admin access.

Mac folder which is Not Shared is shared and fully accessible from a Windows machine


MacBook Pro sometimes freezes after waking from sleep Since I updated to Yosemite after it was released my MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5) sometimes freezes for several minutes after waking it from sleep mode. It does not happen every time my mac is woken up and I have not noticed any other performance issues. When it does freeze, it gets stuck on the login screen and I cannot type or move the mouse for a few minutes, then it will go back to normal allowing me to enter my password and it works fine from there.

Any ideas on what could be causing this issue and how to fix it? Thanks!

This is an often reported problem (with Yosemite) that has been fixed recently.

As of OS X 10.10.4, released yesterday, Apple reinstated mDNSResponder to handle DNS processes previously assigned to discoveryd since the debut of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

For more information see: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/26/latest-os-x-beta-ditches-buggy-discoveryd-dns-service-replaced-with-mdnsresponder

The best way to fix this problem is to update to 10.10.4.


iCloud won't let me back up, even with full 5.0 GB available I have the new iPhone 5S with 64 GB, which I got so I wouldn't have to be always deleting stuff.

Now I've tried deleting both of the 2 backups that were on my phone iCloud - 2.4 GB &  2.6 GB --- to clear out space. It was saying the next back up would require 3.1 GB.

When I go to Storage > Manage Storage in the Settings app, the only option that shows up is "Change Storage Plan." There is no option to back up. I don't want to have to buy storage. If it was going to need 3.1 GB, why is 5.0 GB of free iCloud space not enough to perform a backup? I did backup to my computer using iTunes before doing the delete of the iCloud backups, but I'd like to back up to iCloud too.

You're supposed to go
Settings -> iCloud -> Backup -> Turn it on


Apple Mail: Move thousands of locally stored mails to IMAP accounts I use Apples Mail.app since – forever. My local Mail-Archive consists of about 130'000 E-Mails from multiple accounts, stored in hundreds of folders, localy on one of my Macs. The archive goes back 18 Years! The oldest E-Mails are from 2002!

Now I finally want to have all of them available all the time from everywhere on every device I own. Therefore I want to migrate those thousands of emails to my IMAP-Accounts (3x GMail, 1x iCloud, 1x private Server; I have multiple accounts 'cause of work, honorary activity, personal etc).

Whats the most efficient way to migrate such a large local archive to a single IMAP-Account? (or if possible even better: multiple Accounts?)

Some notes:

It's OK if I loose the structure of the current local archive (The folder hierarchy)
Since many of the (older) messages are from E-Mail-Accounts not longer active or existing (f.e. old @yahoo.com Mails), it's OK if I have to move many of them to a IMAP-mailbox in another Account (f.e. to my current iCloud-Account)
If there is no easy way to split the local Archive and move some messages to Account X and others to Account Y, it's OK if I have to move all Mails to just one IMAP-Account (yet: Gmail, iCloud, private … which should I choose? Size of Storage is no problem on all accounts ;-) )

I thought about creating a new Smart Mailbox and filter the whole local archive for all E-Mails of OldAccount001, then move them by hand (drag-and-drop) to the «Archive»-Mailbox of my CurrentAccount001 … then edit the Smart Mailbox to filter the whole local archive for all E-Mails of OldAccount002 and move them to the «Archive»-Mailbox of my CurrentAccount002 et cetera parge parge … this way I sure loose all the structure (folder hierarchy), but I can live with that … but will this actually work? Again: I'm speaking about thousands of locally stored E-Mails, some 18 years old, many of them from accounts no longer existing – of course many of them with Attachments etc.

Whats the most efficient way to migrate such a large local archive to a single IMAP-Account?

Unfortunately, the most efficient way to do this is to migrate from one IMAP server to another.  I say unfortunately, because this is something that happens at the server level and not via the user.

In all of the migrations I've been involved with (all from something to Exchange), we kept migration to a minimum and archived everything.  That archive remained "online" for reference only (it didn't accept new mail) and new folders couldn't be created.  After a number of years (3, I believe) it went to permanent archive in which we took it offline and only went to it if there was reason to do so (like legal subpoena).

In the end, migration was simply too costly (time, labor, efficiency, dollars) so it's rarely done.

In your case, unless you have access to the back end of the servers, your service providers are not likely at all to accommodate the request.  So, unfortunately, getting those mails over to your new server is going to be a manual process.

With all that said, my recommendation is to move away from the (dated) IMAP severs and look at Exchange.  It's the gold standard.  You can get a hosted Exchange account from Microsoft for $8 per user per month and it's a much better solution than pretty much anything else offered.


Only my cable can recharge my iPhone My iPhone cable is the only one that can recharge my iPhone 5. I have tested around 5 other iPhone 5/6 cables and none of them work. I am apprehensive of either losing my cable or breaking it.

The cable also doesn't always recharge everyone else's iPhone. But when it does, it's because it has been plugged using the "right" side as only one side works. That behavior applies to my iPhone as well.

Right now my survivor cable has the same value as my phone. One can't go without the other. This is both magic and exasperating.

I'm curious to know what could be the reason behind that behavior? Would you have any idea how I could fix this or find another way of recharging my phone without replacing my phone dock's connector?

I'm ready to acquire another cable and make experiences on it.

Although it was not exactly the same symptoms, I had many connection problems with my iPhone 5S at some point. I could use only some cables, and only in some positions. It turned out that the connector had gathered a large amount of dust (likely gathered in my pocket) that was "compressed" down the socket by plugging the cable. At some point, the thickness of this dust made it impossible to have a proper connection. This is hardly visible with the naked eye, but I eventually discovered it by looking at the connector with a light and a loupe. I then took away the dust using a sharp pin and the iPhone worked again perfectly.


When should I plug in my MacBook Pro? I have a MacBook Pro, and I want to keep its battery healthy for as long as possible.

I've heard many "myths" about all these, one of them being that the battery will get "hurt" if I plug in the MacBook when its battery is high enough (higher than 75%), let it until it reach 100%, then unplug it.

Is that true? Also, is it good to let the MacBook battery go to 0 then plug it?

You are right lots of myths.

and  more info this "kb/ht1446"

Apple Portables: Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance

The battery has an internal microprocessor that provides an estimate of the amount of energy in the battery as it charges and discharges. The battery needs to be recalibrated from time to time to keep the onscreen battery time and percent display accurate and to keep the battery operating at maximum efficiency. You should perform this procedure when you first use your computer and then every few months after that. If you normally leave your Apple portable computer connected to AC power and very rarely use it on battery power you may want to perform this process once a month.

Portables with built-in batteries (aka MacBook Air)

Current Apple portable computer batteries are pre-calibrated and do not require the calibration procedure outlined in this article.

In summary:

The battery has no memory effect & can be charged whenever you like. You can't overcharge it, & charging automatically stops when your battery is full.
The two biggest killers of Lithium batteries are heat & frequent full discharge/recharge cycles.
For calibration reasons (to make your battery status indicator accurate) you can discard but not less than 20% once in a few months.

Best way to prolong the life is to keep it as cool as possible. That might mean do not take your lap top in your bed, do not keep it in the sun, ect.


How do I delete unwanted Apple ID's? I'm going thru a phone swap, and I now realize that I have multiple ID's

"codename"
"codename@example.com"
"realname@example.com"

I've tested all three, and they all have different login passwords. Not sure how I got here but I'd like to clean the mess up.  Is there any way to delete / remove / erase unwanted ID's so they don't exist anymore?  (Note: their existence creates total havoc with any type of ID edit...)

I see from Frequently asked questions about Apple ID that I can't merge the apple ID's, but can I simply delete the unwanted ID's?

There is no easy way to disable / delete the Apple ID from Apple's servers, but you can delete all the personal data (contacts, calendars, mail) and then change the contact information and security questions / password to ones that you will no longer use or ever enter into a device. I would write them down and file it in a safe just in case you change your mind down the road. If you want to re-use that email with Apple in the future, you may want to change the Apple ID to a disposable email and clear all other emails from that account if you ever want to use those "real" email addresses with your actual AppleID.

How do I remove or delete an @me.com email?
Remove an email address from apple-ID
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5622

In short - you can and should delete the obsolete ID from all your devices. In the past, there's not been a way to delete an account without Apple support speaking with a service engineer to delete an account on the server side.


How can i change and customize the special characters on my keyboard? This is my first post at AskDifferent, hopefully it works out.

My problem:

i want to insert the symbol "λ" aka 'lamda' everytime i use the Option-L key. However, by default my OS Mountain Lion inserts "¬".

My question:

How can i change this permanently and for every application i open (i.e. any browser, MS Word, Finder, etc…). I've never used "¬" but as an
engineering student i very often require "λ."

This post was very informative and in depth:

How can I expand the number of special characters I can type using my keyboard?

However i have no desire to change my overall layout – only a couple keys. It didn't really address the simple question i have.

Is there a way to do this without creating a new keyboard layout? Can i not simply change a single special character from "¬" to "λ" ?
I am currently looking at the "Ukelele" application but i don't want to be creating all sorts of new stuff.

Thank You.

Is there a way to do this without creating a new keyboard layout?

You can do it by defining Service:

Run Automator
Choose a type for your document: Service
Check Text from Library on the left
Double click Get Specified Text
On the right check Output replaces selected text
Paste your character into text editor window of "Get Specified Text"
Run System Preferences and choose Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts
Choose Services
Find your brand new service and assign it a shortcut

Or with key bindings.


No longer able to copy file link in Dropbox after upgrading Mac to Yosemite I upgraded my Mac to OS to 10.10 Yosemite.  Dropbox no longer lets me copy the file link to send someone to let them download files. I don't get the choice anymore in my right click info. Can you tell me if I'm doing something wrong, or is Dropbox not able to do that anymore?

Make sure that you are using a 2.10.4x build of Dropbox. The current latest stable version is 2.10.45 and can be found at

https://forums.dropbox.com

Dropbox's Finder integration in Yosemite is very different because there is now an official way to have Dropbox integrate with Finder, rather than Dropbox having to inject its code into Finder.

(See the “Finder Sync Extensions” section of OS X 10.10 Yosemite: The John Siracusa Review for more details.)


Why am I so short on physical memory? My computer is getting old (almost 6 years old I think) and is becoming increasingly slow. The past few week were pretty bad and I am now realizing that my computer is continuously short on physical memory. Here is a screenshot of the memory activity showing that 3.98GB out of my 4GB of physical memory are used.

This screenshot was taken while I was using my computer as I usually do, not very intensively. I had 2 Safari windows open (gmail and StackExchange), I had two .txt files of about 10kb each opened with Sublime Text 2 and had the R (programming language) console opened but nothing really heavy was running and no particularly big objects were stored. I had 4 terminal (Bash) windows open to manipulate files and some ssh connections but nothing was running at the moment of the screenshot. I also had a 328kb pdf was open in Preview.

Safari is taking much memory (at least more than what I would expect), so I switched to Google Chrome (but Google Chrome is known for taking much CPU) and to Firefox but the problem was not persisted.

Are those applications taking too much memory? If yes, how can I solve this issue? Am I just overestimating the capacities of my computer (but I felt like I didn't such issues before)?

FYI: My machine is a MacBook Pro running on OSX Yosemite (10.10.2) and here are some other screenshot in case it helps!

Your memory and CPU usage are normal. And you don't appear to have anything massive running.

Modern computers utilize as much memory as possible before swapping anything out to the (much slower) disk. If you have more than 1-2 programs open you should expect to see the memory mostly full. The OS will handle swapping / clearing it as needed.

  My computer is getting old (almost 6 years old I think) and is becoming increasingly slow.

Computers do not slow down with age. But they do accumulate stuff. How full is your disk drive? If you have less than 20Gb or 15% free space your disk will take a lot longer to return results.

Or your disk is having issues. Either way, installing an SSD is a simple and cheap way to get a huge performance boost out of an older machine. The drives cost under $200 now, changing one takes 15 minutes but on a macbook Pro will require some special screwdrivers.


Mavericks Internet Sharing Ethernet to Wifi suddenly stopped working I'm using Internet Sharing to convert Ethernet into a wifi hotspot through my Macbook Pro. I'm using the latest version of Mavericks, and today suddenly my internet sharing stopped working. I tried looking for people with similar problems using Google but couldn't find any completely similar stories. Things I tried:

set up Internet Sharing again using a different setup (e.g. different channel)
checked

  sudo launchctl list | grep bootp

in the terminal (found that using Google), but it was set on anonymous already

unplugged my ethernet cable, although my internet on the Macbook works just fine

Maybe something that helps: whenever I try Internet Sharing the corresponding icon very briefly appears but then goes on into a icon indicating looking for wifi.

ifconfig gives me:

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
    options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=10b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_HWTAGGING,AV>
    ether a8:20:66:4b:c1:8d
    inet6 fe80::aa20:66ff:fe4b:c18d%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
    inet 192.168.0.6 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect (100baseTX <half-duplex>)
    status: active
en1: flags=8823<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    ether 5c:96:9d:91:4c:53
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect (<unknown type>)
    status: inactive
en3: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=60<TSO4,TSO6>
    ether d2:00:12:7b:27:00
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
fw0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 4078
    lladdr 10:dd:b1:ff:fe:27:b2:70
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: autoselect <full-duplex>
    status: inactive
p2p0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2304
    ether 0e:96:9d:91:4c:53
    media: autoselect
    status: inactive
bridge0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=63<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,TSO4,TSO6>
    ether aa:20:66:b4:91:00
    Configuration:
        id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0
        maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200
        root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0
        ipfilter disabled flags 0x2
    member: en3 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 6 priority 0 path cost 0
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: <unknown type>
    status: inactive

Please let me know if you need additional information!

Try changing the password for the Internet Sharing WPA2 Personal.  I had the same problem where the Internet Sharing icon (WiFi with arrow) would flash for a moment in the menu bar, and then go back to the usual WiFi icon (signal bars.)  Resetting the settings for the Internet Sharing network fixed it.  (I was messing around with some settings files somewhere inside OS X's directory structure...so serves me right.)


macOS shows missed call notification when answering from iPhone When someone calls me, both my iPhone and MacBook ring.

I always end up answering from my iPhone because people can't hear me when using the Mac.

The problem is, when I get back to the Mac, it shows a missed call notification for that call in Notification Center, from the FaceTime app:

  Missed call - from your iPhone

That's not what I expect to happen. I didn't miss that call; I answered that call on my iPhone.

Is there any way to avoid that notification popping up?

Try turning the feature off and back on again. The easiest thing you could try to see if it solves anything. Sounds dumb but this trick has solved tones off issues I've come across. :)


Safari in a strange mode where pages randomly zoom in and pages slide to the right Recently Safari has gotten into a mode where unwanted events are happening.  Pages I'm viewing will randomly zoom in with no known way to zoom out. Pages will also "slide" off the app by sliding finger across mouse.

I've tried restarting Safari and I've tried restarting my computer. Neither of these helped.  I have a "Zoom" extension for Safari but I've turned it off.

Sounds like you have system zoom enabled. You can disable it from System Settings > Accessibility > Zoom.

When you have system zoom enabled, you can toogle it with cmd-opt-8, or use your control gesture which is by default the ctrl button in addition with the scroll gesture (i.e. sliding your finger across the mouse as you mention, or using the scroll wheel on a mouse).

Regarding Safari it seems like you're not aware that you have gestures enabled. If you go to System Settings > Trackpad or System Settings > Mouse according to what you use, you can see the gestures that are enabled. Check for "More Gestures" and you'll see that for example "Swipe between pages" will look like pages just "slide off Safari", where you're really just navigating back/forth in the history using gestures.


Mac OS X Mavericks keeps jumping to the first desktop My screen (desktop/spaces) keeps jumping to the first "desktop". There are no running apps on that desktop (except finder). After the first few times this happened I pressed ⌘ Cmd-⌥ Opt-⎋ Esc and restarted finder.

When it continued to happen I quit all open apps and restarted the computer.
(I run a few apps full screen, and usually keep the first desktop open for any quick work or apps I will use, if I will have an app open for a while that doesn't have full screen, I create a desktop/space for it and run it off on the side somewhere).

The screen just keeps taking me back to the first one. It is getting to the point where it is too annoying to ignore. So far typing this I have counted it happening seven times.

What I have tried, besides restarting Finder, and restarting the Mac, in Mission Control settings I disabled Automatically rearrange, and Group windows by applications (to be honest I don't know what Group windows by application means, I assume it has to do with what screens a new window of an already running app will open on), and When switching to an app, switch space.

I tried rearranging spaces, I moved the Desktop to the third space (this must be a Mavericks feature, I don't think I have ever been able to do that before), and it keeps jumping to that Desktop (third space). I have also tried creating a new desktop space and deleting the old one. It keeps jumping.

I also don't think this is finder calling for anything. The menu bar remains the same for the app I was using, and only becomes finder when I click on the desktop.

I could just not use spaces, but what would the point be?

I don't know if this would be an easy thing to help anyone with, but maybe something similar has happened to someone before.

It is Google Drive, it's causing Finder to crash and restart, which is why it keeps jumping back to the first desktop.

It's related to the "Show file sync status icons and right click menu" setting. If you turn this setting off in the Google Drive preferences, the problem should go away.


Are symlinks recognized by iCloud? I would love to keep all of my personal files (docs, photos, videos, music) in my user folder where they're supposed to be, and still have them on iCloud for my mobile devices. I thought of putting symlinks that point to the user folders in the iCloud folder in ~/Library/Mobile Documents. Does anyone have authoritative information to tell if these symlink targets will be synced with iCloud similar to the way symlinks can be used with Dropbox?

Yes, symlinks work fine with iCloud. I have been using them since before the introduction of iCloud Drive using manual manipulation of the Mobile Documents folder and developer.apple.com, and this still works since the introduction of iCloud Drive.


Fix fusion drive partition mess from bootcamp assistant I have a self made fusion drive on a 2009 iMac using a 256gb ssd and a 3tb hard drive. After the 10.8.3 update yesterday I tried to create a bootcamp partition but unfortunately it failed after hours. I had a look at the hard drive manager and the bootcamp partition (I've set it to 303gb) was already there. After having a closer look i noticed that the partition was in the middle of a 1.7 tb partition which was now used for the fusion drive and a 800gb partition that wasn't used anymore. It looks like the bootcamp assistant failed while moving the partition around on the drive.

I started the assistant again to make him remove the partition again which I did but still left the hard drive split into two parts - the 800gb part is still unused and unusable.

Here is what diskutil cs list says:

Does anyone have a hint for me how I can merge these 800gb part into my fusion drive again?

The surefire fix is to format everything and recreate your Fusion Drive, then restore from a backup.

Hopefully someone can help us fix this another way, but my research shows that non-destructively merging content onto a live fusion drive isn't supported by Apple or another tool chain yet.


Using Alt/Cmd + Right/Left Arrow in iTerm Is it possible to move between words in iTerm using Alt + Right/Left Arrows ?
Now if I press Alt+Left I will get '[D' and '[C' if I press Alt+Right.

Go to iTerm Preferences → Profiles, select your profile, then the Keys tab. Click Load Preset... and choose Natural Text Editing.


Can I set a custom address for reminders in El Capitan? I want to get a notification to buy something at store I only rarely go by. "Reminders" doesn't seem to know the store name but I can find the address on Google Maps no problem. But I can't seem to enter that address in the El Capitan "Reminders" app.

Does anybody know how to do that?

Thanks! :-)

Just start typing.
It will search Contacts, recent locations, even what appears to be a Bing/Google search for matching locations.
Click it in the list once you've narrowed it down far enough.


Remove name from macOS Sierra menu bar In previous versions of OS X, you could remove the name from the menu bar. I can no longer find the option for this in the Users & Groups window in System Preferences.

Searching Google and even this site hasn't provided any answers, so how do you do it?

Open System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> click on Home icon (Login Options) -> Show Fast User Switching as icon


Can I control QuickTime Player with the keyboard? I'm trying to transcribe a video in Irish Sign Language. That means lots of pausing and playing, and frequently jumping back five seconds. Using the mouse to achieve this is a complete and utter pain. Unfortunately, I'm using the school's Mac computers, which have QuickTime only.

VLC Media Player on Windows or Ubuntu will take the space bar to pause or play, and the left arrow key to jump back a bit. Can I do anything similar with QuickTime?

Yes, there are certainly ways of achieving this result on QuickTime Player. Here are two ways:

You can use the spacebar to play/pause the video as long as your
active (front) window is QuickTime Player and not another software,
perhaps the one that you use to transcribe.
If you use the left and right arrow keys, you can jump backward and forwards a frame - keep it pressed to speed things up. When used in combination with the Command Key, you can achieve x2 speed rewind/forward, then hit the spacebar to stop at the desired point in the video.

I have to admit that this method requires a little bit of fast keyboard action (compared to other apps) but that is something one can get used to. There is a full list of shortcuts that you can look at in case there is anything else you might find useful. Perhaps slowing the video down is an option.
Anyway, let me know how you make out.


Is it good to keep apps closed on iOS devices? Is it better to keep apps closed (double tap home button, hold the icon, and exit the app), as much as possible on iOS devices? I know the more apps one has open, the more RAM, for example is used, but would that same principle apply, in measurable effect, to iOS?

For example, would my iPhone (4S in this case), or iPad (3rd Gen) run any faster, or have longer battery life, or do better in any particular way if I had only 5 apps open, versus having 50 open?

Side note: I know there are some apps that don't handle multi-tasking very well (possibly due to a lack of programming expertise?) and hence will deplete battery life while running in the background. I'm not necessarily talking about those.

iOS at its core now has its own multitasking API built in. The only way for an app to even go into the background it has to use these API's, so even poor programming experience still can't ruin things too much (and, with the flip side of that, poor developer experience could make the app while its running use more resources than needed).

All in all - this shouldn't be an issue. Those apps in the tray don't mean they are running - it literally is also a recently used app tray. And again, the background tasks they can do are limited by the backgrounding API, so like audio, VOIP, navigation, uploads, etc.

As far as being faster, have longer battery life, etc - no. At least not on an average. You may feel that it runs different, and yes there may be a rouge app doing something odd,  and forcing it closed may help.

But in general, no - this shouldn't affect speed or battery life, unless those apps are currently doing background tasks such as location, audio, uploading files, etc. Otherwise, their RAM state is saved for quicker relaunch, but no processing power is being used.


Why does Dropbox require Accessibility? In System Preferences, Security & Privacy, Accessibility: Dropbox.app is there and it is checked.

Why does Dropbox need access to the OS's accessibility features? Is it safe to uncheck it, will it keep working fine?

July 18, 2019 (update)

Found this related post detailing the behavior and another one from the same author explaining how Dropbox deceives the user into getting accessibility permissions.¹

¹These are both close to two years old, but only found them today.

January 18, 2019 (update)

I installed Dropbox today on Mojave and in settings there is something regarding accessibility I had not seen before. Image follows.

From Dropbox help center:

  Why does Dropbox want to turn on accessibility?

  Accessibility is an Apple setting that allows applications on your Mac to interact with other applications. For example, it allows the Dropbox badge to work in non-Dropbox applications.

  If you don’t turn on accessibility, you won’t get access to Dropbox features like:

  The Dropbox badge
  Seeing who’s viewed your files
  Better prioritization for file syncing

Additional information from the Dropbox help center:

How do I turn the Dropbox badge on or off?, and
What is the Dropbox badge?.

July 12, 2016 (old answer)

I found an answer in the community forum of Dropbox. A user sent a ticket to Dropbox asking about this and he posted the reply there. According to the reply, Dropbox needs to control the computer in order to keep our data safe. I'm copying both the ticket and the answer over here.

Ticket #3172481: DB: Dropbox app listed under "Allow the apps below
to control your computer".

I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation why Dropbox needs
permission to control Mac computers, I'd just quite like to know what it is.

  Thank you for writing in regarding the security of your account
  information. I can certainly understand you wanting to ensure the
  security of data you have entrusted to Dropbox. I will be happy to
  explain the measures taken by Dropbox to ensure the security of
  everyone's account.

  Permission to control the computer is just another way of saying that
  there are certain system permissions Dropbox needs to function, and
  many of those permissions are to establish secure connections in order
  to protect the data contained within your Dropbox folders.

  Operating system permissions prevent files from being viewed or edited
  by unauthorized logins. Permissions can be set any number of ways and
  can be restored manually through a fairly simple process.

  Another possible cause of issues with Dropbox arise when conflicts
  exist between your local network sharing or folder redirection
  preferences setup in folders or files within your Dropbox. Similar
  effects can also happen when your Dropbox folder or its system files
  are located in a mounted network drive or a remote location (like
  roaming profiles) since this could cause Dropbox to not have constant
  access or permissions to operate in those locations. This is
  especially an issue if other people in the network could be accessing
  the same data. For these reasons, I'd suggest that you ensure that
  your setup does not include any of the above scenarios.

  Additional permissions my be required when syncing mobile devices,
  particularly when photos or photo albums are involved. Since there is
  a great deal of personally identifying information stored in the
  metadata for a photo file (yes, people can find you if they know how
  to decrypt this metadata), some of the additional permissions required
  for our Carousel app, for example, include:

  iOS

  -Contacts
  -Photos
  -Camera
  -Notifications
  -Background App Refresh
  -Use Cellular Data

  Android

  -In-app purchases
  -Device & app history
  -Identity
  -Contacts/Calendar
  -Photos/Media/Files
  -Camera/Microphone
  -Wi-Fi connection information
  -Device ID & call information

  Facebook does not offer a large amount of granularity or retroactive
  permissions control, so we need to request all the permissions we need
  or even may need in the future.

  I want to reiterate the point that all these steps are taken in order
  to prevent access to your data, not to facilitate access to your data.
  Dropbox takes great pride in being a company worth of the trust of our
  users, and we would never ask you to allow us access with the intent
  of violating that trust.

  I hope this helps clarify our account security measures regarding
  permissions. Thank you so much for using Dropbox, and please let me
  know if there's anything else I can help with.

Another user asked the following pertinent questions, but he never got any answers for those at least not in that thread.

  "(...) why the need to give up access across the board as opposed to
  an as needed basis? (...) It's hard for me to grasp why giving up OS
  level access to data that Dropbox doesn't need for our use, makes our
  data safer? (...) Syncing data for example seems to work fine without
  the permissions checked. What am I missing? I'm not trying to be
  combative; just hoping to get a better understanding. (...)"


Kernel: "Previous shutdown cause: -62" I have a late 2013 27" iMac running  Yosemite, and it randomly shuts off every now and then. I tried everything Reset SMC. Diagnostics, reformat Macintosh HD but still occurs and running out of options.

If this is new behavior, blame it on Yosemite, file a report, and update whenever available. I'm on Beta 3 or 4, and am just now occasionally logged out at random. Earlier glitches have been fixed, as will this one.


Automator's Finder Actions: "Unable to search with Spotlight" I created a workflow like this after asking another question:

It should delete downloads older than 30 days, and has been working fine until today; today I updated to macOS High Sierra.

Now whenever the Application tries to run I'm getting the error

  The action "Filter Finder Items" encountered an error: "Unable to search with Spotlight"

How can I fix my workflow so that it works with this latest version of macOS?

I think I just figured out the problem and it is laughably stupid.

When filtering by extension, you mustn't include the "." in the filter criteria.

So, in your case, filter by IS NOT: "download" instead of ".download"

I love Automator, but sometimes it is hard to follow its logic.


Should I be worried about a hardware error if my MacBook Pro is running ok? I have recently had some trouble with my MacBook Pro 8.1 (Early 2011). After running tests, installing the old 2x2 GB RAM sticks and basically trying else everything to restore it, it turned out that the SATA cable didn't want to work with my SSD anymore, although with an older mechanical drive it was ok. So I swapped my SATA cable for a new one, installed my 2x4 GB RAM sticks again and it works again like new. Today however, out of curiousity, I ran the Apple Hardware Test again just to see if anything comes up, and I had this error:

Then I checked again using REMBER!

So which is correct?

Should I do something if there are no symptoms? Am I destroying other parts of my Mac if I just do nothing?

Rember only tested less than 1 GB of your 8 GB of RAM, as explained within the screenshot of the Rember application.

  Memory allocated for testing: 947 MB

Apple Hardware Test will test all of the RAM in the system, since it runs outside of macOS.

As also explained in Rember, to be able to test more RAM with the program:

  run memtest (the core of Rember) in single-user mode


My mac will not let me save word documents I have a MacBook Pro from 2016 and as of this morning I have not been able to save my Word documents (Word 2017). I've never had issues before.

When I press save on a new document, a message pops up saying, "Word cannot save this document due to naming or permissions error on the destination volume." Once I press OK to dismiss the message another message pops up and says the "Document 13" cannot be saved as "New Name". Why is this happening?

The hint here is "... naming or permissions error on the destination volume." Word is telling you that it sees corruption/damage where you want to save the document.

And I'll bet you see it even if you try to save it to a USB key as well.

Microsoft is a great provider for those of us who do tech support for a living. What that error likely means is that something in MS Word (and possibly the rest of MS Office) on your system is damaged. The part is most likely in the part of Word that writes to disk.

What I would do is run the MS Word/Office installer and reinstall (or repair if that option is available) MS Word.

Failing that it could be that the temporary (recovery) file that Word creates for every document is damaged or that the preference file for MS Word is also damaged.
The former is here:

 /Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery.

The latter is here:

~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist

Trash all the autorecovery files and trash the .plist file and launch MS Word again. That should fix it.

If not you may actually have file system damage on your HD. In that case boot into Recovery Mode, launch Disk Utility and repair/verify the disk.


MacBook Pro CPU temperature is over 90 degrees while playing video I have MacBook Pro:

13-inch, Late 2011
2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000 384MB
OS X Lion 10.7.4

When it plays a video, the CPU temperature goes over 90 degrees celsius and the fan makes loud noises. Is this normal? Or should I change speed of fan and make it faster for better cooling?

I believe that it is common for the CPU to reach 90°C under heavy load. However a simple video should not bump an i5 into that region. Depending on the footage and format you are playing back you might want to try a different player (vlc mplayerX). If you are playing back flash HD videos in your browser (especially multiple streams simultaneously), that behavior might be common (due to the bad flash performance on os x).

So much for the software.

Secondly you should take care of the outer temperature (e.g.is your computer in a very hot room) and even more importantly where your notebook is placed. e.g. does it sit on a carpet or any other good insulating soft cushiony surface that prevents heat from leaving your computer.

Thirdly you might want to take a look in the activity monitor and see whats using your cpu. (Maybe some background application e.g. spotlight indexing new pdfs)


Anki + Latex not working : I have installed BasicTex + dvipng I'm trying to get Anki to work with Latex. Currently, when I open a flashcard with latex on it I get:
Generated file: /var/folders/41/v5plvhx12wg0qlrj9h_l0g680000gn/T/anki_temp/tmp.tex
Have you installed latex and dvipng?

However, I have already installed BasicTex + dvipng. In fact, when I run which latex and which dvipng on terminal I get:
/Library/TeX/texbin/latex and /Library/TeX/texbin/dvipng.

So I need some help. Would anyone know how to make Anki work with Latex? Thanks for your help!

I found the answer here Anki+Latex.

Basically you have to download this Anki add-on, which allows you to edit the path Anki uses to find latex and dvipng. Then you use which latex and which dvipng (on Mac terminal) to get the full path to each of them, and then you use the add-on to modify Anki's path.


How to repair ~/Library permissions? While migrating to Yosemite, I manually copied some ~/Library files and folders from my old system to my new system. Now some of the affected apps show weird behavior. Often they cannot save their preferences. One example is the iTunes error message when I try to backup my iPhone:

Whenever I check, my user has read & write permissions. Disk Utility Repair permissions unfortunately does not help here.

What are the correct permissions for files and folders in ~/Library and ~/Library/Preferences? And how do I set them?

It's possible that the Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs option in the resetpassword tool will correct those permissions for you, though I'm unsure how 'deep' into your home directory it will reset.

This blog post gives the steps for Lion, which appear to be the same in Yosemite (Note: that last link details instructions for resetting a password, which is obviously not what you are doing here, which is why I linked to the Lion instructions. However, the same tool is used in each process):

  Restart, and before you hear the chime, hold down the Command and R keys.
  You’ll be at the Repair Utilities screen. Click the Utilities item in the Menu Bar, then click Terminal.
  In the Terminal window, type resetpassword and hit Return.
  The password reset utility window launches, but you’re not going to reset the password. Instead, click on icon for your Mac’s hard drive
  at the top. From the dropdown below it, select the user account where
  you’re having issues.
  At the bottom of the window, you’ll see an area labeled Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the Reset button there.

  The reset process takes just a couple of minutes. When it’s done, exit
  the programs you’ve opened and restart your Mac.


Why MBP 13' has only 1280x800 res. when the MBA with the SAME graphic card has 1440x900? I mean, both use Intel HD Graphics 3000, and the MBP actually has a better processor. If they use the same Intel graphic card (and according to the website, the same info "13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display", so they don't say they are different), how come MBP can't have 1440x900? What is the technical limitation of Apple hardware in MBP that justify this difference?

The simple answer is that the MBP doesn't have a screen that can display 1440x900 - it's native resolution is 1280x800 (ie. it only has that many pixels). This is a physical limitation, not a software limitation. There is no point in sending a higher resolution image to the screen, since it can't display any higher detail.

I can't tell you why Apple chose a higher resolution display for the 13" MBA than the 13" MBP, given that I wasn't party to those decisions. The reasoning may be purely historical, however. The white MacBooks had a resolution of 1280x800. Apple introduced an aluminum unibody version of the MacBook with the same display in 2008. By mid-2009, Apple decided to rebrand the unibody MacBook as the 13" MacBook Pro - still keeping the 1280x800 display. My guess is that they just haven't gotten around to changing it yet.


Is it possible to export a specific mail folder from Mail? Is it possible to export a specific mail folder from Mail.app?

For example, I have a folder of mail messages containing invoices that I need to export and hand over to a new accountant.

In my search so far, I've only found a way to export my entire inbox.

In Mail click the button Show which is in the top left of the application window:

After step one you can see all your inboxes and folders. You can export any inbox or folder via the right-click menu dialog.


Sleep mode problems with external Monitor After the latest update (10.8.3), I encountered a problem. When my external Acer monitor is connected (via HDMI) while trying to put my MacBook Pro into sleep mode, everything works fine. But suddenly, after a few seconds, the HDD seems to wake up (I think its the HDD because of the noise) and to sleep again and wake up again. This happens all the time in 10-20 sec. time intervals. Furthermore, this only happens when the monitor is in standby. When I turn off the monitor via key or unplug the cable, the HDD stays in sleep mode. It seems like it's sending some data, which prevents the MacBook from going completely into sleep mode. I also connected it to my TV. There were no problems when connected to the TV. It seems like it's only happening with the Acer monitor.

Any suggestions how to fix this?

Can you open console after that and search for "wake"?
There should be something like "kernel: Wake reason: "
I think it may give a hint.

PS sorry, don't have enough rep to post it as comment


How to understand if a customer mac is retina display? A customer of mine is not able to say if she owns a Retina Display. She sent this info:

15-inch (1680 x 1050)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 256 MB graphics

Can I understand from it, if she owns a retina display?

The only Model that came with the following graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 256 MB graphics were the Mid-2010 Macbook Pro's (Non-Retina):

"Core i5" 2.4 15" (Mid-2010)

256 MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
256 MB Intel HD Graphics*

"Core i5" 2.53 15" (Mid-2010)

256 MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
256 MB Intel HD Graphics*

"Core i7" 2.66 15" (Mid-2010)

512 MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
256 MB Intel HD Graphics*

"Core i5" 2.53 17" (Mid-2010)

512 MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
256 MB Intel HD Graphics*

You can check the following link for a complete list: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pro-unibody-faq/macbook-pro-unibody-video-processor-types-nvidia-dedicated-integrated.html


How to show presentations on a standalone billboard using Apple TV? I have a standalone billboard (not connect to any network) onto which I want to show some Keynote presentations from an AppleTV (2k model). How can I set up everything and store everything within the AppleTV so it can show the presentation in an endless loop?

PS: I do have network connectivity while setting up the AppleTV of course.

You can use VLC Player. The UI/UX is awful, but it gets the job done.
The Apple TV and your Mac (with the Keynote file) have to be in the same local network when setting up the Apple TV (Apple TV works w/o network after setup).

Export the Keynote file as a movie (File > Export To > Movie…)
Install VLC player to the Apple TV
https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id650377962#?platform=appleTV
Switch to the "Remote Playback" menu tab in VLC
Activate the "Enable Remote Playback" button

This enables an HTTP connection to the Apple TV via the network address(es) shown in the VLC Remote Play screen on the Apple TV (e.g. your Apple TV IP address or Bonjour address).

You can then open the shown IP or Bonjour address (http://…) in Safari on your Mac and upload the exported presentation movie to the Apple TV via the web interface (drag-and-drop or the "+" icon).

After uploading, the (presentation) movie file appears in the bottom area of the VLC Remote Playback screen and can be selected to play.

Use the playback options (swipe down on Apple TV remote) to enable playback looping.


Macbook Pro no longer connects to wireless network. All other devices do I haven't made a single change to my wireless network over the last few months. However, lately, my macbook pro will NOT connect to either of the 2 SSIDs that I have broadcasting. Both wireless networks are using WPA2 PSK.

The one that it will connect to is using WPA2 PSK as well. I have like 8 devices in my home that are connecting to this wireless network, and I can re-connect all of them just fine. Even disconnecting some and trying to connect the laptop will not work.

Is there any way to do like a hard reset or something with the wireless profile? This is very annoying. No changes have been made on the WLAN, so I see no reason why I'm having issues.

The only thing that I've done on my Macbook Pro lately was delete my old KeyChain profile, but since I'm "forgetting" the wireless network and re-adding it, I don't see why this would have any effect.

I've tried changing the wireless network password to "Password1", bringing the encryption down to WPA instead of WPA2.. Still nothing.

I know you probably already tried this but in an effort to point to the problem being with your Macbook Pro can you connect to a network that is not yours?  (e.g. a friends or someone else's?)

Also, you've probably done this too but sometimes just a reboot may help.


Where can I find resources to learn about the internals of Mac OS X? I want to dive into Mac OS X, but don't know any good sources to learn from.

I found this book: Mac OS X Internals, but it's a bit old, and from the recessions it  discusses the PowerPC, and not the Intel versions of Mac OS X.

Where can I find good books or websites?

And I don't mean the Apple Developer Forum, I want to know everything about from the kernel up to the Mac OS.

Unless you've already found it, how about something like The Mac Hackers Handbook? It seems to have been published in 2009 and references Leopard in the description, so may also be a little out of date, but from the reviews seems to have a reasonable amount of information about security and OS X internals. May be a bit left field for what you want though...?

Or for something newer (due to be publishe June 2012) how about Mac OS X and iOS Internals?


ScreenSharing as VNC client/viewer doesn't work in Yosemite I was using built in ScreenSharing app to connect to a VNC server running on a Linux box.

After upgrading to Yosemite the ScreenSharing icon on my Dock is a question mark now. Does OS X no longer have a built in VNC client?

On OS X Yosemite the Screen Sharing app moved to the applications subfolder:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications


Swapping MacPro 5,1 into 4,1 case Does anyone know if it’s possible to swap a MacPro 5,1 into a 4,1 case. My 5,1s feet are damaged beyond repair. I know they both use the same sleds and iirc same trays of sorts. I believe they also share the same power supply size, etc. Motherboards different?

There is a thread on Apple.com that seems to suggest these are physically identical. I have no personal experience with these specific models but it looks like they may be identical.


Factory Reset macOS Sierra partition greyed out and no drop down This question is just a sanity check.
I wanted to factory reset a MacBook Pro (mid 2014) model.
I first searched the standard tutorials and such, and have the core steps down:

back up stuff
log out of everything
command + R on restart to get to the startup menu
click disk utility
click your partition
erase and reformat (to macOS Extended or APFS)
reinstall macOS (need internet for this)

In the myriad of tutorials for this there are a few images showing each process.

In particular when selecting one's partition it often has the little arrow drop down and the partition is not grey-ed out.

When going on this mac to the same screen, there is no arrow, it just has
"Internal", then Macintosh HD (with no drop down arrow). This partition is greyed out, but I can still erase it...

Before doing so I just want to make sure that this isn't something abnormal.

Unmounted partitions appear greyed out but are still erasable, so you could try mounting the partition.

I believe the partition would not be mounted if it's hidden. I'm not sure whether it's possible to hide your base system partition though, and I don't know why you don't see the usual dropdown.


Bootcamp Windows 10 Fails to Start After Interrupted macOS Update I recently installed the macOS Mojave developer beta on my MacBook Pro. Everything worked fine and I could start both macOS and Windows.

Today, when updating to the beta 2, however, the installation got stuck at 16 minutes remaining for over an hour at which point I force restarted the computer.

macOS still boots fine. Also Windows still appears as an option when I hold down the ⌥ (Option) key on boot. However, when I click on it macOS starts instead.

In Disk Utility a disk is not mounted and I cannot repair it. There is only one 512GB SSD that macOS and Windows share.

diskutil list outputs the following:

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         120.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data                         379.5 GB   disk0s3
   4:           Windows Recovery                         491.8 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +120.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            75.9 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 23.3 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.5 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

How to get Windows 10 to boot again?

A workaround I have discovered is to go to System Preferences -> Startup Disk, and select the OS that you cannot now access from the boot screen as your default startup OS (in my case Boot Camp Windows 10). Then at the boot screen you can access Mojave as normal when you want to. It is not really a fix but an easy workaround until the fix comes out. It worked for me at least.


Is cron command supposed to work like this? I've set up cron to run a script hourly but when I reboot cron does not work. Does this mean that I should run cron whenever I boot into my Mac? The cron command which I use cron 5 * * * * path/to/script.sh. Is there any problem with cron or I this kind of behaviour expected?

You don't need to call cron directly. Any commands you want to run need to be added to the crontab of the user they should run as. You can edit your crontab by running

crontab -e

or, if you are an admin user and want to edit the crontab of another user,

crontab -u USERNAME -e

PS: Run man 5 crontab for details about the format of the file, what kind of special commands you can use, and some samples. 5 * * * * /path/to/script seems to be ok though.


OS X - How to have starting applications (optionally) not take the focus? Is there any way to have starting application not take the focus?  Is there a setting so new windows do not pop over what we are currently working on?  (Perhaps an option to have them pop under, or start minimized?)

Background: I use command line scripts (Terminal) to load my work environment each day, and can't use my computer while the script is running. (No biggy, I can just go do other things for a few minutes).  VirtualBox is mainly the application where I notice this.

open -jga TextEdit opens TextEdit hidden (-j) and without making it frontmost (-g). The -j option was added in 10.8 and it is only shown in the help message and not in the man page. If TextEdit is already running, open -ja TextEdit (without -g) would just make TextEdit frontmost and not hidden. For some applications like TextEdit and Mail, open -jg opens a new visible window if the application is running but has no open windows, but you can use something like pgrep -x TextEdit||open -jga TextEdit as a workaround.

A second option in 10.9 and later is lsappinfo launch launchandhide=true nofront=true /Applications/TextEdit.app.

A third option is osascript -e 'launch app "TextEdit"'. Unlike the open and lsappinfo commands, it is blocked until the application finishes opening. For some applications like TextEdit and Mail, the launch command opens a new visible window if the application is not already running.

Edit: none of the options above seem to work with VirtualBox, but you can hide VirtualBox after opening it:

open -jga VirtualBox;lsappinfo setinfo -app VirtualBox kLSApplicationIsHiddenKey=true

osascript -e 'launch app "VirtualBox"' -e 'delay 1' -e 'tell app "System Events" to set visible of process "VirtualBox" to false'


2012 Macbook Pro (Retina) Heat Issues I have a mid-2012 Retina Pro (loaded: 16GB RAM, 768GB SSD, etc.),  with annoying heat issues.

Whenever I'm doing anything GPU-intensive (games or CUDA simulations), after about 30 minutes, the chassis gets extremely hot (enough so that my hands sweat if hovering over the keyboard or typing) and the app in question either crashes with an exception, or silently exits. Of course, before that happens, the fans are running full speed.

(In this case, under Windows 7 via rEFInd.)

The game in question is Portal, which runs fine at full speed and resolution on this machine (not unexpected since the game is several years old), at least until it exits.

I'm guessing this is due to the video driver terminating the application to prevent damage to the machine, but I can't be sure.

Occasionally, even if not running that type of app - say, browsing the web or word processing - the machine will get very hot and the fans will kick in.

Is this typical behavior for this machine, or something wrong with this particular unit?
I've read that the cooling system has been redesigned in the new models. Is it effective enough to prevent these issues?

(Under OSX, I have the same issue on anything that requires the discrete GPU.)

Update

Specs:

Model MacBookPro10,1 (15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display)
Nvidia GT650M
16GB RAM
768GB SSD

I'd recommend you try the exciting new (and free) TurboBoost Switcher, which disables Intel's Turbo Boost. This means your MacBook Pro will overheat far less often. You can also boost fan speed preemptively with SMCMac or iStat menus.


Incredibly High Fan Speed Reading I have a 2014 iMac 5K. I find that the fans seem to have two speeds - slow, or top speed. Using SSD Fan Control, the optical drive seems to sit around 1200 rpm on startup at 43 degrees, and hits 100% max rpm when I launch anything taxing on the CPU. The other fan is the Hard Disk fan, which sits at the same temp of 43, but permanently reads 65,535 rpm, no matter what. It hasn't changed once! What is the reason for this?

There's quite a few possible reasons why fan speeds vary, but as a starting point you're probably best to see whether a reset of the System Management Controller (SMS) changes things for you.

To reset the SMC on your iMac

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from power
Wait 15 seconds
Plug the power cord back in
Wait for an additional 5 seconds
Press the power button to turn it back on


How to remove Apple ID from phone I want to my iPhone to forget my apple Id ?

Reset your phone to factory settings will remove it, but will also reset all the other settings (maybe not what you want ??).

Another solution could be to just "Sign out" of the Store "Settings->Store" - BUT if you have bought apps, and they need to be updated, then you still need to enter your Apple ID.

Can you perhaps tell us why you want to forget your Apple ID ??


What does Apple want for the WWDC Scholarship application uploads? I am trying to submit my app for the 2013 Student Scholarship - form here  (Dev program needed).
However, I am confused about what it is, exactly, that they want: Here's a screenshot of the section of the form I'm concerned about:

App File
For this, I seem to have several possible options - which is correct?
1 - .app file
Found in Xcode at the bottom of the Navigator:

I understand that I would right click and click 'Show in Finder' - then Zip it if I went this way.
Or...
2 - Ad-Hoc Deployment
Found by archiving the app and choosing this option:

If I choose Ad-Hoc, I end up with an .ipa file - is this what Apple wants?:

'Xcode Project'
I'm confused here too:
1: Just zip the entire project:

Or...
'Export as Xcode Archive'
Found by going to the Organizer of an archived app:

I think Apple wants the people that apply to know how the Xcode tool chain works and have invested enough time to be able to submit a real app for review rather than being people that can fill out a web form to apply for a ticket.

Now, since you've found us and asked for help with lots of detail, I think you are very close to qualifying for a chance to win a ticket, but you might need to ask a second question staking out one specific step that you don't quite get.

That will entice someone who is an expert to help you over the one item you have identified as the single biggest obstacle. At that point, you are free to ask again with your next biggest obstacle, but as you have surmised, asking too much of an answerer by submitting a "wall of question" is generally frowned upon on Q&A sites. Your nice pictures do help ameliorate the large amount of text, but it still seems like a three part question (or more) to me as written.

Lots of detail does not imply lots of thinking. We can't do your thinking for you, but we can attempt to help if you've shown clearly what you think and what specifically you need help with.


How can I find out which 21:9 Monitors will charge my MacBook Pro 15"? I know the LG UltraFine 5K monitor has the  ability to supply enough power to charge a 15" MacBook Pro (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207448) but is there a way to tell if a different monitor supports this function?

Your Mac has a power charge requirement (i.e. 85W or 67W).  To properly charge your Mac, you need a monitor that supplies at least this amount of power.
For example, looking at the support page you referenced, they state that

When you connect the display using a single Thunderbolt 3 cable
(included), it provides up to 85W of charging power to your MacBook
Pro with Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports.

87W (watts) is the highest power rating that Apple power supplies will deliver (at the time of this post).  Those power supplies come with the 2015 through 2018 15" MacBook Pros.  Everything else uses a smaller wattage adapter (i.e. MacBook Air uses 30W).
What this means is the LG supplies more than enough power to charge and use pretty much any MacBook notebook with the only exception that it's just 2W shy of providing full power to the 15" model.  In other words, those will charge and work just fine; it just won't charge as fast as the native charger.
What to Look For

...but is there a way to tell if a different monitor supports this function?

If the monitor can deliver approximately 85W of power (or greater) then it will support this function.
If it cannot deliver enough power to both charge and run the MacBook, it will draw power from the battery and discharge it.


Restoring image of Time Machine disk I have a raw image of a Time Machine disk made with ddrescue, now I'd like to know if I can hook it up on the Mac and restore data from it.

You should be able to mount the dd image.

Transfer the file to your Mac, add .dmg as file extension and open the file

or

Transfer the file to your Mac, attach and mount it with hdiutil:

hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount ~/path/to/file

and with the printed device identifier:

hdiutil mount /dev/diskXsY

Then check with tmutil destinationinfo if the now mounted backup volume is associated with the Mac. If a reassociation is necessary check the inheritbackup and associatedisk verbs in man tmutil.


macOS: Finder constantly restores "Desktop" favorite under Sidebar Finder acts weirdly, or I'm unaware of some design or something (like "Enter do not open files by default" thing).

In Finder:

go to Finder Preferences
navigate to "sidebar" tab
uncheck [] Desktop
re-login to macOS and Desktop favorite sill there

Maybe someone can shed a light on this one.  Thanks.

Have you tried using First Aid? If there are problems, you may want to use the Disk Utility Tool from Recovery mode. If you reboot and hold down command⌘+r you will boot into your local repair disk, or if you hold down command⌘+option+r you will boot into the internet recovery mode (you will, of course, need internet access and will want to give it a while to load all the options up.)

Also, try zapping the NVRAM by holding down command⌘ + option + p + r when rebooting?

You may also simply need to trash your sidebar preference files:
/Users/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
...or even the Finder preference file:
/Users/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

Also check /Library/Preferences/ and /System/Library/Preferences/ to see if there are duplicates.

Note: If you are not the owner of the computer, speak to the owner/admin before trying any of this and request permission from your system administrator. If you are the owner you may need to assign this login account admin status.


Mac mini 2011 upgrade SSD question When I watched a  tutorial on YouTube, it showed that I need to unplug fan, and the IR connector. But, I also read some comments that it's not necessary to remove and could be hanging there when I replace my HDD.

Can anyone could confirm that? The less I remove, the less chance of making mistake; I've heard that tons of people mess up the IR connector.

The less I remove, the less chance of making mistake; I've heard that tons of people mess up the IR connector.

While this sentiment is technically true, it's also important to note that if you don't remove what's necessary and you leave things "hanging" you could also damage components because they weren't designed to "just hang;" they are designed to make a connection.

People "mess up" the IR connector because they don't remove it properly. Ifixit.com warns specifically of this:

The bottom line is if you proceed carefully and methodically, you significantly lessen the chance of damaging things.  Most importantly, don't take shortcuts.


How to type in Chinese pinyin tones on Dvorak keyboard on macOS? I want to type in Chinese pinyin and found a website, but it only works for second (é) and fourth (è) tones. The first and third tones don't work on Dvorak, as Option + a and Option + k input å and ˚, respectively.

In Dvorak, how can I type in these remaining Chinese tones?

You can only type 3 tones on Dvorak (or on US for that matter).  To include the 3rd tone you have to use ABC Extended, which is qwerty.  You can make a custom Dvorak layout which adds the missing tone with Ukelele.


How to stop announcing the time on macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 After upgrading to Big Sur, my Mac started announcing the time every hour.
I didn't find a way to disable announcing the time, do I maybe have to run a Terminal command?

You can disable this in System Preferences -> Dock & Menu Bar -> Clock

The setting is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.synthesis.general.prefs.plist:
$ plutil -p com.apple.speech.synthesis.general.prefs.plist
{
  "SpokenUIUseSpeakingHotKeyFlag" => 1
  "TimeAnnouncementPrefs" => {
    "TimeAnnouncementsEnabled" => 1
    "TimeAnnouncementsIntervalIdentifier" => "EveryHourInterval"
    "TimeAnnouncementsPhraseIdentifier" => "ShortTime"
    "TimeAnnouncementsVoiceSettings" => {
      "CustomVolume" => 0.5
    }
  }
}

You can use any Plist editor (or defaults) to change the setting, it may require a restart (or killing the Dock) though to get activated.


If I connect an Ethernet cable, will my Mac automatically select the fastest route for local network traffic? Background

I have a fairly robust network setup at home, but am a little unclear on internal Mac networking. My LAN consists of two bridged AirPort Extremes and a cable modem. Everything is connected using Cat 5e inside the walls, and Cat 6 patch elsewhere. Additionally, I have a Netgear Gigabit switch in my office.

I use my MacBook Pro throughout the house on Wifi. When I bring it in the office, I connect an Ethernet cable for 1000BASE-T awesomeness. Elsewhere on the network I have backups and a media server.

Question

When I connect the MBP to Ethernet, will the Mac software determine the fastest route for local network traffic? I can see by the activity lights on the switch that I have a full Gigabit Ethernet connection, but since Wifi is still on, I'm not clear which network mode is being utilized.

You want to make sure that your Mac's ethernet device is before the wifi device in the system's network service order. In System Preferences, Go to Network; under the device listing, click the 'gear' icon and select 'Set Service Order.' Drag 'Ethernet' to the top. Per my understanding, all traffic will attempt to be routed through the top-most device, and will only be routed through devices lower in the chain should the above route(s) be unavailable.


iOS Home app notification sound Is there a way to change the sounds for notifications from a HomeKit device? I have a flood device and want to make sure I don't overlook a notice.

No, you cannot change the notification sound unless the app supports it (or it is one of the notification types listed under Settings > Sounds & Haptics), which Home does not (and it is not).


Pushing offline viewable content to iPads for Enterprise We have rolled out a small deployment of iPads to our Enterprise using iPCU and with a little sweat I'd say we were pretty successful. Our company is pretty large and our demand for iOS solutions is growing. We're currently under a trial license with McAfee EMM (MDM), so we're still getting our feet wet with that.

This has naturally generated a lot of questions from our customers, so we'd like to find a solution to push a How-To document to these devices that pertains to our Enterprise. Has anyone found a solution for distributing documents to iOS devices that is viewable offline, without having the user to perform many steps? In a perfect world, we would be able to push a document/app to them w/o any intervention... however this goes against what I know about mobile distribution. The user must manually go into our MDM and download the app. Now I'm looking for the next best solution. Here's how I imagine it working... or other methods I've read:

1) Pushing a Web Clip to the device using a .mobileconfig on initial provisioning (not tested yet). The web clip points to an outward facing site where they grab a PDF. The PDF can then be saved to iBooks for offline viewing. The bad: They're not notified when we make a change to the doc. Or they forget to save the doc to iBooks. Or they don't download iBooks.

2) Develop an Enterprise App with all the content self contained. Contact users via email that the App is available in the Enterprise Store. Any updates to the app are presented as a badge... life is good. The bad: Developer is recompiling and redistributing on every change to the document. Or they don't bother to download the app, when they need it ... it's too late.

3) Drop box - Post the document through drop box for them to grab. The bad: Same as #1

4) Email everyone the doc or post to a website and fend for yourself. This just wont work in our organization.

I know I'm not the only one facing this problem. The key here is: the least amount of effort for the user, the better. Right now option #2 seems like the best solution, I'm just curious to see how others have solved this problem. Thanks

Dropbox shared folders and Dropbox for teams sounds like it would fulfill your needs.


Dual monitor flickering: the secondary monitor does the flicker I am experiencing flickering with my dual monitor setup. The nature of the flicker is "on/off", i.e.  the screen gets completely black for a split second (sometimes a few seconds) and it goes back on. Sometimes it happens when I am not doing anything on that monitor, and sometimes it seems like it is triggered when pixels change on the monitor (opening something, or even just moving the mouse cursor)

I have a dual monitor set up at work with my MacBook Pro 13" 2017 (two thunderbolt 3 ports).

I am using the following to connect these monitors to my Mac:

BenQ BL2780T monitor
AOC I2475PXQU
Kensingon S4600P docking station
Belkin HDMI-USB-C adapter

The docking station connects to the MacBook via a thunderbolt 3 cable. The AOC monitor is connected directly to the docking with DisplayPort. The BenQ is then connected to the remaining Thunderbolt 3 port on my Mac via a HDMI-USB-C adapter. The docking station provides power to the Mac.

It seems random which monitor flickers; sometime it is the BenQ, other times it is the AOC. Also, it is random which port is involved in the flicker. However, I only see flickering when two monitors are connected at once.

I have also used a Satechi slim multiport (as a very simple docking station), and I see the same flickering behavior. I have tried different cables, and the issue persists.

I have also tried another AOC (same model) monitor together with the BenQ, and it still flickers.

I am going to try another MacBook Pro (same model) this week, and will report back.

Is this a software issue with High Sierra? Are the two monitors "incompatible" for some reason? I see no reason why the flickering happens. I really hope someone can help me out. It seems similar issues are common, but I have not yet found a common explanation to fix these things. Needless to say, I have tried the standard things, like various resets etc.

Rebooting my MacBook with both monitors plugged in actually fixed the second monitor flickering issue. Yay.


Splice a 45W MagSafe 2 connector onto an 85W PSU? I have an unused 45W MacBook Air MagSafe 2 PSU, and an 85W MagSafe 1 PSU that my dog chewed the connector off.

I'm wondering if splicing the MagSafe 2 connector onto the 85W PSU would allow a MacBook Pro to draw the full capacity from the 85W PSU, or would it limit itself to the nominal capacity identified by the MagSafe connector's ID chip (i.e. that of the 45W PSU)?

Also, assuming it worked, would it be likely to cause any heat issues etc. - I'm assuming all MagSafe connectors would be electrically capable of handling the higher current, but is that a safe assumption?

The price difference between Apple's 85W and 45W power adapters has always been very small, which one could assume means that they probably use the same high quality components (wiring and connector) for both, with the only difference being the size and output of the adapter. This also makes sense from a manufacturing perspective, but naturally we will never know for sure unless we get a statement from Apple about it (which, of course, we can assume we won't).

Considering the above, I certainly think what you're asking might be possible with the right amount of skill, but the question you need to ask yourself is if it's worth saving a few bucks for a very likely fire hazard in your home (or wherever you would use the adapter).


Remote assistance for Macs What is currently the best remote assistance/remote desktop application for Macs?  I think unattended access (no remote user needed) and file transfer would be useful.  Teamviewer seems to fit the bill, but I am not a Mac guy so I was wondering if there were other/better options for the Mac.

I use TeamViewer since years.

From Mac - to PC or Mac.

From USA to Europe.


Close other user’s app Is there a Terminal command or script that will close an app running under another user?  I’d rather close than kill, but if not possible, kill would work, too.

You cannot control processes you do not own as a non-admin user. If you can run the command as an admin, you can send the quit signal using the killall command for all existing instances of the program and quit the program that way. If you only wish to quit specific program instances you will need a more complex combination of commands.

Granting selective admin rights to non-admin  users is possible, but keep in mind that granting process killing rights is universal and the semi-admin user will be able to kill any process. Shell scripting, AppleScript and Automator all derive their access from the same user privileges controls, so using a different tool won’t grant this right in a different way.


iTunes says this computer is not authorized I have a iPod touch, iOS 4.3, running iTunes 10 on Windows 7. I had an iTunes store without a credit card, because I didn't intend to buy apps anyway. So today I plugged in my iPod and iTunes told me that I should update its OS. I said OK, and it told me that I should transfer my downloaded stuff from the iPod to my iTunes library first. Fair enough, I went to File > Transfer purchases from iPod (rough translation, my iTunes' in Spanish), and it told me that I don't have authorization to use them in this computer.

I went to Store > Give this computer permission (again, rough translation), and got a message that said that I had to validate (or something like that) that account with the iTunes store. I went to do that, and it asked for credit card information. This time I didn't see a "None" option for the credit card, so I just went ahead and gave it the info.

I tried giving authorization again, but iTunes told me that this computer already had permission, so I tried removing and giving authorization again, but iTunes still tells me that it can't transfer my apps because the computer is not authorized.

So, what's up? Why does iTunes keep telling me to authorize this computer if it's already authorized?

I found the issue. Turns out the email address I had used to register with Apple had a dot in it. I do this because to the Gmail it's the same things, and it allows me to filter out stuff that I may not want. So I tried authorizing with that ID, and it worked.


Time Machine hasn't been backing up the full system since before 10.8.3 Look at your hard drive. Now look at me. Now look at a recent snapshot in your Backups.backupdb directory from after the 10.8.3 release (March 14th-ish); now look at mine. Hopefully, your snapshot doesn't look like mine, because if it did, you'd notice that Time Machine hasn't been backing up /Applications, /Developer, /Library, /System, or /private for the past two months.

Um, what??? There's no setting related to this in System Prefs, and I actually have 10 GB still free on the drive, and I'm reasonably certain this started happening after installing the 10.8.3 update. Except for individual user files, Time Machine is completely useless to me right now and all of the backups done in the past two months are invalid for system restore.

Before 10.8.3:

ligeti:Macintosh HD nick$ cd 2013-03-18-003447/Macintosh\ HD/
ligeti:Macintosh HD nick$ ls -a
.               Users
..              Volumes
.DS_Store           bin
.DocumentRevisions-V100     cores
.com.apple.backupd.mvlist.plist etc
.file               lib
.vbt5               mach_kernel
.vol                opt
Applications            pbcl.db
Developer           private
Games               sbin
Library             tmp
Network             usr
System              var

After 10.8.3:

ligeti:Ligeti nick$ cd 2013-03-25-001307/Macintosh\ HD/
ligeti:Macintosh HD nick$ ls -a
.               Users
..              Volumes
.DS_Store           cores
.DocumentRevisions-V100     etc
.com.apple.backupd.mvlist.plist lib
.file               mach_kernel
.vbt5               opt
.vol                pbcl.db
Games               tmp
Network             var

Excuse me while I fire up Carbon Copy Cloner, but does anyone have any light to shed on this? Can anyone comment as to whether they are or aren't experiencing this on 10.8.3?

You aren't supposed to browse the Time Machine directory tree directly. Try entering Time Machine from the Finder and just look for those folders from there.

If you're sure that those folders aren't in the backup, check System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy.
To check all the excluded items, you can execute this command from Terminal:

sudo mdfind "com_apple_backup_excludeItem = 'com.apple.backupd'"

It will display a list of excluded paths.
If you can't identify the source of the issue, I suggest to wipe the backup drive and to make a new backup.


Pale colors on external monitor with MacBook Pro M1 Yesterday I received my new MacBook Pro with the new M1 Chip. So far I'm really amazed! But there is one point: On my external display (LG 27UK850) the colors, especially black, are really pale. Black is more greyish.
My old MacBook Pro (with Intel) never had these color issues with this monitor. Also on the MacBook monitor colors are perfectly fine.
Anybody else have these issues? Or does somebody know how to solve it?
[edit] maybe good to know, I tried Display Port and USB-C

Have you tried to disable "True Tone" for your internal display via display preferences? This setting also impacts external monitors.