Auto-tag folders/files dropped into a folder I want to be able to automatically assign a red tag to any folder/file that is dropped into a folder sitting on my desktop. I've done some research about this and it seems like this can't really be done even with Automator or Smart Folders, even though it seems pretty simple.

Option 1: Using Hazel

You can auto-tag folders/files dropped into a folder using the commercial software Hazel, which according to its developer Noodlesoft, "watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create."

Option 2: Using Folder Actions

You can auto-tag folders/files dropped into a folder using the Folder Actions feature of macOS. I wrote the following AppleScript based partly on one of Apple's default Folder Action Scripts and partly on a script provided in a discussion in the Apple Support Communities. I tested this script in Mac OS X 10.6.8, 10.9.5, and 10.11.6 and it worked in all three versions of macOS (but see the Important Caveat section below).

property label_color : {none:0, orange:1, red:2, yellow:3, blue:4, purple:5, green:6, gray:7}
on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
    tell application "Finder"
        try
            repeat with i from 1 to number of items in these_items
                set this_item to item i of these_items
                set label index of this_item to red of label_color
            end repeat
        end try
    end tell
end adding folder items to

The first line of the script, property label_color : {none:0, orange:1, red:2, yellow:3, blue:4, purple:5, green:6, gray:7}, is not really necessary; I just included it to show which label index number corresponds to each color. You could remove the first line and change red of label_color to 2 and the script would have the same effect.

There are a few ways to attach this AppleScript to a folder as a Folder Action Script. One way is to open Automator, create a new Folder Action, add a Run AppleScript action, and replace the content of the Run AppleScript action with this script—but this didn't work in my test. Another way, which worked in my test, is to save the script in either /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/ (for use by any user) or in ~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/ (for use by the current user only), and then do the following steps:

In the Finder, Control+click (or right click) on any folder to show the contextual menu.
From the contextual menu, choose Folder Actions Setup (or Services and then Folder Actions Setup).
From the prompt window, choose the name of the script that you just saved.
Check the Enable Folder Actions option in the upper-left side of the Folder Actions Setup window, if it is not already checked.

Important Caveat

Technically, the previous script only sets the file label, which is not exactly the same as a tag, as John Siracusa explained in his Ars Technica review of tags implementation in OS X 10.9; however, in Finder in OS X 10.9 and later, the result of the previous script will be indistinguishable from a tag. The previous script works in versions of Mac OS X 10.6 or later.

A more robust Folder Action Script that sets a red tag and label instead of only a red label (although, as I said, the results are indistinguishable in the Finder) can be found in the AppleScript given below.

The script given below requires that you first install James Berry's tag tool (which requires OS X 10.9 or later). It can be installed easily with the package manager Homebrew (brew install tag) or MacPorts (sudo port install tag). If you install it with Homebrew, replace /opt/local/bin/tag (which is the MacPorts path) with /usr/local/bin/tag (which is the Homebrew path) in the script below.

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
    tell application "Finder"
        try
            repeat with i from 1 to number of items in these_items
                set this_item to item i of these_items
                do shell script "/opt/local/bin/tag --add Red " & quoted form of POSIX path of this_item
            end repeat
        end try
    end tell
end adding folder items to

A third way to write the AppleScript (in OS X 10.9 and later) would be to install an AppleScript/Objective-C Library written by Shane Stanley called FileTagsLib and then replace the do shell script line in the script above with the appropriate command as described in the FileTagsLib documentation, but I have not tested this third option.


How do I get llvm-gcc to point to gcc instead of clang? When I ask which version of gcc I have, I get the following:

Configured with: --prefix=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple LLVM version 9.1.0 (clang-902.0.39.2)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin17.6.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin

When I try to get information about gcc:
ls -la /usr/bin |grep gcc

I get:

-rwxr-xr-x     1 root   wheel     18288 May 29  2018 gcc
-rwxr-xr-x     1 root   wheel      2043 Sep 26  2016 gccmakedep
lrwxr-xr-x     1 root   wheel         5 Mar 28  2018 llvm-gcc -> clang

I am using MacOS 10.13.5, and the reason that I want to use gcc instead of clang is because I have code I want to run in MATLAB that is in C, but I can't compile the code with clang, because fopenmp is unsupported.

When I try to compile just the matlab part of the program so that I can run it with a matlab interface:

make matlab

I get the following error:

gcc -std=c99 -pedantic -Wall -O3 -fopenmp -DSSHT_VERSION=\"1.2b1\"...

clang: error: unsupported option '-fopenmp'

I used the link: Installed gcc with Homebrew, now how to use that gcc instead of clang?

export PATH=/usr/bin
export CXX=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.2.0/bin/g++-8
export CC=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc/8.2.0/bin/gcc-8

to my code.

Apple and xcode do not provide gcc. Any file called gcc us a link to clang

You need to install gcc from a third party and also check the version has mp enabled.

The easiest way is to install gcc using a package manager like macports, homebrew or fink.


Is there a way of making iPhoto's Photo Stream one-way sharing? Is there a way of making iPhoto's Photo Stream one-way sharing? As I don't want all the pictures I download from my regular camera on iPhoto to be shared with my iPhone or iPad.

Under iPhoto / Preferences / Photo Stream you can disable Automatic Upload. When turned off, you'll have to manually select which photos will be shared on the Photo Stream.

There are several ways of manually adding photos to the photo stream. After selecting the photos you want to share just:

Click the Share button in the toolbar, choose Photo Stream from the pop-up menu, and click My Photo Stream.
Click the Add To button in the toolbar, choose Photo Stream from the pop-up menu, and click My Photo Stream.
Choose Share / Photo Stream, and click My Photo Stream.


What does a .app file actually do? I'm brand new to Mac OS X (coming from Windows), and I'm trying to understand .app files. In Windows, we had executables (.exe files). If you opened one, your program would run, and any other files it needed were located elsewhere. In Mac OS X, as I understand it, these .app "files" are really more like folders that contain not only the executable itself but also other files that the app may need.

My question is, what exactly do these .app files do? How is it different from drilling into them and running the actual executable?

Recently I was trying to get an app to run on OS X. I finally got it to work (seems like JAVA_HOME needed to be set). However, it only works when I drill into the .app folder and run the shell script that starts the app. If I double-click the .app file/folder, the app just bounces in the dock for a while, eventually stops, and nothing happens (other than the fans spinning like crazy). So clearly the OS is doing something different when it tries to run the app from the .app file vs. directly from the executable within.

I'd like to understand what exactly the .app is doing that causes this app to not run so that I can work to fix the issue. FYI the app is Oracle's SQL Developer.

"apps" are "Package Bundles" is Apple jargon, and are treated specially by the OS.
As mentioned above, these are actually Unix directories, in a special format. The actual Unix Executable File is in a subdirectory named MacOS, which you can see using the "Show Package Contents" menu in Finder.
The "app" is analogous to the directory created when you install a Windows program.
You can indeed navigate into the app, and run the Unix Executable File.
For more complete details see the Apple Bundle Programming Guide It is in the archive section but Apple's new documentation does not give the overview
This doesn't solve your problem, but without knowing more about the app it won't be solved by manipulating the package. You will need to contact the developer.
You could also look at the Console app, which will let you examine any error or warning messages.


Second gen nano won't connect to computer I have a second gen nano that will not charge or connect to the computer. I see it charging when the screen is on, but when it goes to sleep, it stops charging. I've left the thing on overnight and it's on half battery life. Usually you'll see the little battery with the lightning bolt over it when it's sleeping and charging. That will come up once in a while but promptly go away again.

So I figure the thing's shot and I need to immediately get the music off of the ipod. I try plugging the thing into my Windows 7 computer and it tells me that the device driver cannot be found. I go through everything that Apple tells me to do (reinstall driver, a whole bunch of USB stuff) to no avail. iTunes won't recognize it unless the computer recognizes it so I can't put it into disk mode to get the songs off.

This is my last step before taking it to an Apple store; any suggestions?

You seem to have done everything you can before resorting to really trying to restore it (which will wipe it). Bear in mind that an Apple store will probably wipe it or (if under warranty) replace it.


How to print .docx attachments from Gmail iPad app? When I open a .docx formatted attachment with the Gmail iPad app, there's no option to print.

I've installed the MS-Office for iPad app, but so far as I can see, there's no way to change default applications to get my attachment to open with MS-Office.

Is there a straightforward way around this?

There's no way to add the printing functionality to Gmail's iOS app (using the share button).

Workarounds

Open the attachment in Mail.app (which allows for printing)
Save/copy the attachment to another app that allows for printing i.e. Files.app, Google Docs, MS Word etc.


Iphone 6 security answers forgotten I have forgotten my apple rescue email address, how can I find it.  Because I have forgotten my security answers I have clicked the email link, but do not recognise the address the resetting is being sent to.
Thanks

Do you have a Recovery Key issued by Apple? I know that when I was updating my security questions or my AppleID that they issued me a Recovery Key which is used to access your account when you forget your password, security questions, etc. If not, I would most likely go to an Apple Store to see if they can help sort this out. Hope this helps and good luck.


Why does my USB hub hide a directly attached drive from the boot menu? (post-Filevault) I recently enabled FileVault on both my mid-2012 Retina MacBook Pro and my external USB drive containing a Carbon Copy Cloner backup.

My external drive is attached directly to the MBP. I also have a powered USB hub attached to the MBP's other USB port (no drives are attached to the hub).

Since enabling FileVault, I've noticed a peculiar behavior on the boot menu (holding option at startup):

If I leave the hub attached during startup, the CCC drive doesn't show up in the boot menu.
If I leave the hub unplugged during startup, the CCC drive shows up.
Swapping the USB ports for the drive and hub changes nothing.

Any ideas what the cause of this might be?

(Side note: I've also noticed that both the internal recovery partition and CCC's recovery partition are missing from the menu. But that's apparently normal from what I've researched.)

Its because the hub is able to connect drives so the hub shows it similar to how an empty optical drive shows up.


Install Win10 x64 on MacBook Pro mid 2011 with Boot Camp I have to install Win 10 onto my mid 2011 MacBook Pro (El Capitan) using Boot Camp.

I have two SSD on my machine (one was switched with the SuperDrive) and they works greatly normally.

This morning I woken up and I wanted to install Win 10 onto one of my SSDs. I use yet VirtualBox and tried also Parallel Desktop. But today I want to use Boot Camp.

The situation is:

my Mac doesn't support USB boot to install Win
I have already installed the drivers (via Boot Camp) on a pen drive
I have a beautiful DVD RW (that I burned at least 6 times only today)
I can use the Superdrive externally
I don't know how to burn correctly the Win10.iso

Step 5.: why?

Because Boot Camp doesn't recognize the Win10 DVD (message: "The installer disc could not be found"). I tried many DVD burning formats such as:

HFS+ (okay, this option failed obviously, t's my fault: it's an Apple format)
DVD UTF
PC (Joliet)
ISO9660
Joliet 103 characters (solo)

using Burn.

I tried also to burn the ISO via El Capitan's Disk Utility. Same error.

The destination disk is correctly formatted Ex FAT Master Boot Record.

I don't know to do.

UPDATE

I noticed that the error message The installer disc could not be found was referring to the USB Boot Camp Drivers.

So, it was not a DVD problem. I didn't plug the USB drive with the drivers. My fault. Now I plugged both Superdrive and the USB with the drivers.

Finally Boot Camp Assistant now is happy and left me to continue. After click Continue the Mac rebooted automatically, but... I seen a black screen with a intermittent underscore at top left of the screen (this is a little good sign: it was the Windows boot).

But the BIOS (?) seems to be locked, no messages, no alert, nothing... only this intermittent underscore. I waited 15 - 20 minutes and nothing changed. I tried to press Enter, Space without any result. So I have to reboot the machine.

From the Mac OS X partition I can see:

So I think the DVD results bootable.

What could be the problem now? :(

The correct way to burn the Windows iso file to a DVD using El Capitan would be to do the following.

Find the iso file in the Finder.
Right click on the file and select Burn Disk Image "File name" to
Disc....
Follow the instructions given in the pop up window.

If the Boot Camp Assistant application will not recognize the external DVD drive, then you can try the following.

Insert the burned DVD in the external DVD drive.
Restart type Mac and hold down the option key.
See if the DVD icon appears with the label "Windows" in the Startup
Manager.
Select the icon and see if you can boot from the DVD.

If you can boot from the DVD, you probably can use the external DVD drive to install Windows. First, you will need to create a MSDOS (FAT) formatted partition to install Window on to. This usually is the 4th partition on the drive.

If you can not boot from the external DVD drive, the one possible option would be to install directly from the Windows iso file. See web sites here and here for some examples of how to do this.

By the way, how did you acquire the Boot Camp Support Software? Did you use the Boot Camp Assistant to download or did you download from a web site?


MacBook Pro Heat Indicators I just downloaded a temperature monitor app for my macbook pro. It tells me the following temperatures. I was wondering which ones I should take extra note of and what temperatures of those I should be worried about if it surpasses? Thanks for any enlightenment!

Battery                   91 F
Battery Position 2        91 F
Battery Position 3        90 F
CPU A Proximity          113 F
CPU A Temperature Diode  120 F
Left Palm Rest            86 F
Main Heatsink 2          111 F
Northbridge Chip         133 F
Northbridge Chip         120 F
Northibridge Position 1  106 F
Smart Disk Hitachi        91 F

For the most part, you're interested in the core components because these are the ones that will be damaged by excessive heat:

CPU: The main 'brain' of the computer. This is the part that will usually fluctuate in relationship with the load on your computer. Both sensors are measuring the same thing, but from different places. It's probably a safe bet to average the two.

Northbridge: This is the part of the computer that connects all the other parts together. This chip can get hot, and can (like any component) be damaged by heat. The same applies about the multiple sensors: they're all measuring the same thing; you can average them.

Disk: This is the hard drive, where all your files are stored. Heat can have a significant impact on the health of your drive, so this is definitely worth taking a look at.

In general, I recommend looking up the manufacturer's specs for the component in question  (all components are different) so you know what the acceptable temperature range is for it. Don't be worried unless you exceed that range.

All that said, Macs are pretty smart about managing heat. If it really gets too hot, it will turn off automatically. That doesn't mean that you can't damage your computer with heat at all, but it does mean that you generally shouldn't have to worry too much about heat issues.


Enabling /bin/bash on Catalina - invisible to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Full Disk Access I am having trouble enabling /bin/bash on Catalina - Macos 10.15.1

When I try to enable it using "System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Full Disk Access", the pop-up finder list doesn't show /bin/bash.

As you can see from this screenshot:

The permissions on bash seem OK:

  ls -l /bin/bash
  -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  623344 Oct 24 02:34 /bin/bash

I followed Peter Brooks' suggestion and it worked for me:

system Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Full Disk Access
Click the lock in the lower left corner to allow changes
Separately, Open a finder window
Select Go -> Go to Folder... from the menu bar
Type /bin and click Go.
Drag /bin/bash to the Full Disk Access (right hand side)

Done.
When I Just clicked the + in the Full Disk Access thing, i could not find /bin/bash . It somehow wasn't visible. ¯\(ツ)/¯


Mac terminal prompt's machine name becomes "bogon" after using traceroute I was doing some traceroute test yesterday, and today, my Mac terminal's user prompt becomes

`bogon:~ myUserName$`

Also when I'm doing traceroute like:

traceroute www.google.com

it stops with this log:

bogon (192.168.0.1)  1.158 ms  0.908 ms  0.746 ms

192.168.0.1 is the address of my wireless router.
I still can surf the internet though.

By some searching I found a solution to this problem.

First, change the DNS address in your network configurations to a better one, like google's 8.8.8.8.
Second, run sudo hostname theMachineNameYouWant in terminal.

The reason for this:

They say that when you are doing DNS lookup/reverse lookup, the DNS server can give your machine a host name, this function should be turned off for public DNS servers, but I don't know why the DNS server of my local ISP has it on.

Since my machine uses a router, so it has a IP like 192.168.0.x in LAN, I don't know why but when using traceroute, this IP will be sent to the DNS server for a reverse lookup, and since it is a reserved IP address, the DNS server returns a hostname as bogon, thus, changes my machine's hostname.

So what is bogon? Bogon means the type of IP addresses that should not appear in a traceroute, like a reserved IP address.

bogon on wikipedia.


Notification Center on iOS 6 is not removing deleted emails After upgrading to iOS 6 on my 4S i'm seeing that after I delete an email in the mail app itself, it was SUPPOSED to remove it from notification center.

Now even after i've deleted messages without reading them from the mail app, they are STILL in notification center and I have to clear them OR I wait until another email comes in to clear out the ones that were already previously deleted from the mail app which removes them from the notification center.

If I open them, then they go away from the notification center.

I shouldn't need to open emails to remove them from the notification center.

Then, when I click the previously deleted email within notification center that is no longer in the mail app, it just leads me to the start screen in Mail that shows my inboxes and accounts. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't open anything because the email was deleted.

Why is this happening? Is anyone else having the same problem?

This is a bug that should be fixed, but possibly also a feature request.

The problem is simple. iOS won't remove notification from notification center when the app that post the notification launches. The developer has to tell the app to do it in order to clear all notification at app launch.

While this behavior is expected by user, developer might want finer control over when to clear the notification.

So, Mail doesn't clear the notification, and posted notification cannot be removed by app. And that ultimately result in this weird notification that links to a deleted email.

You should file a bug at Apple Bug Reporter.


Mac OS X Speech Won't Work Let's say i'm reading a book online. I wouldn't want to read i would use the Speech Feature by Apple. I open Safari, read a book, I select all using CMD+A and i right click and start the speech. I updated Safari for some new stuff and i wanted to test out the speech. It won't work for some reason.

Can anyone help me out?

Im using Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3), Updated Safari to 7.0.1

You may want to check out your speech and dictation settings. Ensure that you have the language downloaded and enabled. You can access this through system preferences (Apple on top right > System Preferences > Speech and Dictation)


(Numbers) COUNTIF values from one column match another column? I have a Numbers file containing some rows with machine learning predictions and also what the actual values were. The first column contains an unique ID, the second column contains the actual values, the following columns contain the predicted values.

Per column I would like to count the number of times the predicted value was correct, so the amount of rows where the predicted value matched the actual value from the other column.

I'd like to add a row add the end of the data where I display this amount of correct values per column, and also what the accuracy would be (correct values/total values).

I tried using the COUNTIF function for this, but get errors every time.

This is what I tried e.g. =COUNTIF('Random Forest', '=Echte waarde') or =COUNTIF(C2:C100, '=B2:B100')

Anybody know what the correct syntax would be to achieve such a function? Thanks!

Unfortunately Numbers doesn't support all the functions etc that Excel does, so using a SUMPRODUCT to do this in the same way you would in Excel isn't going to work.

I was hoping someone else may offer you a more elegant solution than the ones I offer here (I much prefer MS Excel and aren't very familiar with using Numbers). However, since you don't have another answer yet, I'll offer a couple of not so elegant ways for you to achieve what you want.

Method 1: Count the number of highlighted cells

Since you're using Conditional Highlighting (as opposed to having just manually shaded your cells), you can actually use a formula to count how many of them are shaded.

Unfortunately, I can't just now think of a way to do this while you have both sets of shading, so you'd need to remove the Conditional Highlighting for the wrong results (i.e. have no red shading).

Once you've done that, then:

Add a row at the end of your data
At the bottom of Column C (i.e. your Random Forest column) enter the formula: =COUNTIF(C2:C29,TRUE) (Note: Change C29 in this example to reflect the last row of Column C containing data.)
Now you should have a numerical value displayed to indicate how many cells in Column C were shaded with your Conditional Highlight
Repeat Step 2 for the bottom of each of your Columns by adapting the formula as necessary

As you can see, the above process counts the number of correct values in your data. Of course, once you have these values, you can then go ahead to add another row to calculate your percentages.

Method 2: Use additional columns to do the grunge work

Another way to do what you want is to first use another column to compare the values between the actual and predicted values and then to count the number of instances you get a TRUE result.

So, for example, you could:

Label Column L as Random Forest Check and at cell L2 enter the formula: =C2=B2
Based on your question you should get the result TRUE in that cell
Now copy the formula down Column L so that each cell displays either a TRUE or FALSE value
Add a row at the end of your data
Now at the bottom of Column C (i.e. your Random Forest column) enter the formula: =COUNTIF(L2:L29,"TRUE") (Note: Change L29 in this example to reflect the last row of Column L containing data.)
Now you should have a numerical value displayed to indicate how many times the value TRUE appears in Column L.

As you can see, by using the above process you will be able to count the number of correct values for your Random Forest column. You would then need to repeat the same process for each of your columns (e.g. use Column M for checking your Neural Network results, and so on). Then, once you have your values, you can then go ahead to add another row to calculate your percentages.

Finally, if you wanted to hide the extra columns, you can just go ahead and do that. Doing so will not prevent the COUNTIF formulas from calculating.


Bluetooth headphones are cutting out a lot I have Sony WH-1000XM3 Bluetooth headphones and they are cutting out frequently when I'm more than 1m away from my Mac Mini 2018. Disabling WiFi on Mac helps a little but the problem still persists.

Actually, what helped me was this thread.
I have a USB hub connected to my Mac, after wrapping all the cables in the aluminum foil, the problem was solved!


How to tell if my old Mac supports Sidecar feature in macOS Catalina? This is a useful feature added to macOS Catalina. But how to tell if older hardware will support this new feature?

I found a quick way to distinguish it. macOS Catalina seems to use Intel's HEVC hardware encoding. So as long as your old Mac has the 6th generation (Skylake 6xxx Series) or newer Intel processor, it definitely supports this feature.

HEVC hardware encode on macOS 29:30

Blacklist found by Steve Troughton-Smith

  Sidecar supports iMac 27" (Late 2015) or newer, MacBook Pro (2016) or newer, mac Mini (2018), Mac Pro (2019), MacBook Air (2018) , MacBook (Early 2016 or newer), and blacklists all the devices in the screenshot.


MacPro 2010 adding SSD drive I am looking to gain some performance enhancement by adding an SSD drive to my 2010 MacPro. I can mount it in a hard drive slot or get a PCI card and mount it there.

The SATA speed of the Mac is 3Gb/s, but the PCI shows 'Link Speed:5.0 GT/s' which (I could be wrong) is 5G 'transfers' per second, since the encoding is a 10 to 8 ratio it's really 4Gb/s?

It seems if I'm going to make the effort, it's worth it to gain a bit of speed, and not lose a HDD slot. I've googled quite a bit, and not seeing this discussed anywhere.

I have a 2008 Mac Pro and I swapped the main HDD with an SSD and re-installed OS X and I saw a HUGE performance increase. You'll always see a performance increase when going from HDD to SSD simply because it's a different class of hardware. SSDs are, as their name implies, solid-state. There are no moving parts and there's nothing that physically degrades over time. HDDs start to wear immediately; while it's a slow process it does happen for as long as the drive is in use (that's why most operating systems tend to turn HDDs off when not in use - it prolongs their life).

That's my experience and my recommendation (my recommendation is definitely do it).


Alternative to FaceTime or iMessages to communicate with Android devices? How can I contact my friends that have no Apple products (iOS or OS X) in similar manner to using FaceTime or iMessage?

Well, you cannot use iMessage or FaceTime with non-Apple devices.  With iMessage on the iPhone, the phone will switch to SMS messages when contacting non-iPhone users, but that's it.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to FaceTime and iMessage that are cross-platform.

Alternatives to FaceTime:

Skype (Mac, PC, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone)
Tango (PC, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone)

Alternatives to iMessage:

Kik (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry)
Facebook Messenger (Works on pretty much anything with a web browser)


How are command line commands stored in .bash_history? Command-line commands are collected in .bash_history. Fine! But not all. Often I close a terminal and try a day later to find a command with CtrlR, but bash tells me "command not found". Why are some commands stored in history and some not? How can I prevent lost commands? I use OS X 10.10.5.

The history size is controlled by the variables HISTFILESIZE and HISTSIZE (see man bash). The default value is 500.

You must store these parameters in ~/.bash_profile

Example:

export HISTFILESIZE=5000
export HISTSIZE=5000


Accidentally formatted High Sierra operating system, how to reinstall? A family member has accidentally formatted her High Sierra operating system on her Apple computer. Over the phone, she asked me how to download and reinstall the operating system again. I haven't much experience with Apple ecosystem, can anybody suggest a solution? Sorry if this question looks like a stupid one.

Try using the build in Restore.

As the computer restarts, hold down the Command (⌘) – Option (⌥) – R combination immediately upon hearing the startup chime.

Follow the instructions on the screen.


Selecting a default wi-fi connection I have multiple wifi connections in my campus (XYZ-Open, XYZ-Secure and XYZ-Guest) where XYZ-Secure is a secure connection and asks for authentication. Students use the secure connection which has a better bandwidth than the rest.

The issue is this: When my mac returns from a sleep mode or powers up, it chooses the XYZ-Open all the time by default and I need to manually switch to the secure connection each time. Is there an option to make XYZ-Secure the default connection which my mac should connect?

Thanks.

You can change the preferred network simply by dragging it to the top of the list.

Lion: System Preferences -> Network -> Wi-Fi  -> Advanced

Older OS: System Preferences -> Network -> Airport  -> Advanced


Retrieving opened PDF file(s) from Safari's temporary files I opened a bunch of PDF's that I opened in Safari, but didn't download them. Now the website where I was viewing the PDF's is currently under maintenance, but I need those PDF's.

Does safari store those PDF's somewhere in a temporary location where I could locate and open them from?

I've already looked into /users/library/com.apple.safari but I couldn't find any PDF files there.

Preview stores the temporary files (the ones which are directly opened from within Safari without downloading) within sub-directories in /private/var/folders directory.

To find the one you are after, run the following command in Terminal:

sudo find /private/var/folders -type f -name *.pdf -print 2>/dev/null

The path for all the temporarily cached PDF file(s) is displayed. If you see the file you are after, you can simply open it from the displayed path or copy it to a suitable location.


How to get a list of the installed app on my Mac? How I can parse the list of all Mac applications? I am executing:

ls /Library/Preferences/ > apps.txt

But still there are some apps that are missing from the list. I think it parse only user apps and do not parse common apps

system_profiler

To list all the applications on a Mac, use the system_profiler command:

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType

This will output the command in human readable format:

   Power Manager:

      Version: 4.6.1
      Obtained from: Identified Developer
      Last Modified: 20/01/2018, 6:42 pm
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Developer ID Application: Dragon Systems Software Limited, Developer ID Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
      Location: /Applications/Power Manager.app

This will include every application on the Mac, including many that are hidden within folders.

XML Formatted List

Add the -xml option to the command for a format that can be parsed and analysed by other tools:

system_profiler -xml SPApplicationsDataType

This will output a Property List (XML), such as:

        ...
        <dict>
            <key>_name</key>
            <string>Safari</string>
            <key>has64BitIntelCode</key>
            <string>yes</string>
            <key>info</key>
            <string>11.0.3, Copyright © 2003-2017 Apple Inc.</string>
            <key>lastModified</key>
            <date>2018-01-31T08:33:08Z</date>
            <key>obtained_from</key>
            <string>apple</string>
            <key>path</key>
            <string>/Applications/Safari.app</string>
            <key>runtime_environment</key>
            <string>arch_x86</string>
            <key>signed_by</key>
            <array>
                <string>Software Signing</string>
                <string>Apple Code Signing Certification Authority</string>
                <string>Apple Root CA</string>
            </array>
            <key>version</key>
            <string>11.0.3</string>
        </dict>
        ...


Is there a way to configure password auto-generation in Safari? Is there a way to change the auto-generated passwords Safari generates?  Sometimes, websites don't allow long passwords, and sometimes they don't accept the dash symbol as a valid symbol, and in those cases, I would have to manually input something.  In my case, I would also prefer longer passwords for some websites, e.g., my bank or brokerage account.

If it matters, I'm on the latest MacOS High Sierra.

I'm not aware of any way to do this in Safari, but you can always generate new passwords in System Preferences instead:

Open Users and Groups preferences.
Go as if to change your password.
Click the key button next to the "New password" field. This will open the password generator.
It generates a password for you, but you can edit it or even type in your own password, and it'll give you an estimate of how strong it is.
Drag the password into the text entry field. (You can copy and paste it if you're not concerned about clipboard managers storing it, or clipboard-sniffing malware, but drag-and-dropping isn't any harder anyway.)

You can actually drag and drop text like this in almost any app! You need to click and hold for a moment before you start to drag, or it'll think you're trying to select.

You can also do this in Keychain Access – just hit ⌘N to create a new keychain item and click the key button, and it shows the same password generator.


Unable to set up iCloud email on mail.app after accidentally deleting the ~/Library/Mail/ folder I accidentally deleted the Mail folder (at /Library) that contained a few sub-folders including one called V2. I did that hoping to do a fresh configuration of my iCloud and Live accounts.

However, when I tried reopening mail.app, it wouldn't restore the said folder. It does prompt me to configure a mailbox which I do, selecting iCloud in my System Preferences window but the mailbox still doesn't appear! The preferences menu option of mail.app is also disabled. Please advise if anything can be done to get it back to normal without a system reinstall!

Here are some screenshots to illustrate the problem:

This is the first screen I get when opening Mail.app

Then I select the first option to set up my iCloud account

On the next screen, I check the Mail option and hit Add Account

After all this, my ~/Library/Mail/V2 folder still looks like this (no mailbox created)

And the Preferences menu option in Mail.app is still disabled

Here's a Console dump:

Instead of selecting "iCloud" when adding the account, try "Add Other Mail Account..." and follow the configuration steps. Repost from comment for thread closure.


sfltool add-item (to add Finder favorite) stopped working on High Sierra I just noticed my normal command line command to add an item to Finder's favorites doesn't work anymore.

E.g. to add the Desktop to Finder's sidebar, I used to do:

sfltool add-item com.apple.LSSharedFileList.FavoriteItems file:///Users/MyUserName/Desktop && killall Finder

However, now, it seems it doesn't do anything anymore except showing the output:

Usage: sfltool archive|list-info|list [options]

I also noticed that the file extension of ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/com.apple.LSSharedFileList.FavoriteItems has changed from .sfl to .sfl2.

Does anyone yet know how to programmatically add a favorite item to Finder's sidebar in macOS High Sierra?

PS: I did find some solutions using a Swift script, yet I'd rather be able to just use a simple command line tool as before..

Apple officially killed it :(

  Apologies, we do not plan to add back the feature. You will need to write a tool that does what’s needed.

https://openradar.appspot.com/radar?id=4985135170584576


iPad Retrieve a passcode to activate IOS 9 I need a passcode to activate IOS 9. I don't recall acing a passcode. Is there any way I can retrieve an old passcode or set up a new passcode? It has to be 4 digits. I made 1 wrong attempt and may be shut out

The passcode is either an activation locked device or can be restored from iTunes. If you don't need to make a backup or get the data, connect to iTunes and erase and restore.

If you do need the data, be organized trying pass codes until you give up and erase the device.


Why don't I have a camera on my iPod touch? Why do a couple of my friends have a camera on their iPod touch and I don't?

As far as I know, only the 4th gen iPod touch has a camera. Yours is probably older.

As you can see from the specifications published on Apple's site, there are no mention of a camera for the third gen iPod touch, while the fourth gen has detailed information about it.


Format External Western Digital Drive to be used with only Mac I recently ordered Western Digital My PassPort Essential. I will get it by tomorrow evening.

It comes pre-formatted using NTFS file-type.

I need to format it, to be used with My MacBook Pro (i.e., I will be using with OS X only). I don't have Windows/Linux system at my place, and I don't have any intention to be using with Windows/Linux in future.

Should I format it using HFS+ or HFS+ Journaled or something else? Why?

The standard for Lion is GUID partition scheme with one volume HFS+ Journaled.

The journaling is preferred since the filesystem can be checked in moments when the system reboots rather than running an exhaustive fcsk each time the drive is unmounted cleanly.

You don't want a case sensitive file system as some programs are not ready for dealing with fiLe.txt being different than file.txt - you'll need extra time for testing / finding bugs if you work on a filesystem that's different than the majority.

You can refer to another question on when GUID/GPT might be better than APM: When is the GUID partition table (GPT) preferred over Apple partition map (APM) for external drives?


Samsung Easy document Scanner won't communicate with scanner on OS X Catalina 10.15 After upgrading to Catalina OSX 10.15 Easy Document Creator can no longer connect to the remote scanner. It shows up within settings and can be addressed directly but not over the EDC software anymore.

The error reads:

"Scanner device is not responding. Please check that it is turned on and connected to computer".

Easy Printer Manager though shows the printer and its toner level etc.

Is there any fix for this? I know that Scan Assistent is 32 bit but that software was not needed anymore and OSX did not complain about EDC so in theory it should work.

In Samsung Easy Printer Manager also if I try to change the settings I get "Current input language cannot be accepted for device. Please change input language"

That is because Easy Document Creator uses several apps underneath and not all are 64-bit, as required by Catalina.

One of them is Select Scanner.app (in /Applications/Samsung/Samsung Easy Document Creator.app/Contents/Resources/Select Scanner.app), which is 32-bit for Intel and PowerPC (!).

The other one, with the same problem, is ICCUpdater.

There's nothing you can do; only bug HP to publish updated version.

Meanwhile, to be able to scan at all, use Image Capture or Preview (File, Import...). Just make sure that the scanned file is OK, the Apple drivers seem to be broken too; for example, I cannot scan in color into PDF, the resulting PDF is broken (Samsung M2070w). B/W PDF is fine, so is color JPG.


Programs take a long time to load after startup After turning on my computer, logging in, and waiting for the desktop to load, I try to start a program. It takes a really long time to load, no matter which program I try. After about a minute of the icon bouncing stupidly up and down it finally opens. From then on programs start much more quickly. Why is that?

How many items are there on the desktop? How much RAM does your machine has? How much storage are you using?

If you are using lot of storage then try cleaning up your temporary files using cleanmymac or some software from mac app store. That should help.


Is it possible to do a wildcard search in spotlight in iOS 10.X? I want to search for a specific app (example of Instaflash) on my iPhone or iPad but only remember part of its name. In this example 'flash' being the search term inputted into spotlight in iOS 10.X on my iPhone or iPad. Can search terms somehow be used with a wild card option? Something like flash to obtain a list of possible results?

They don't do wildcards, but flash would bring up anything that contains flash including flash at the beginning, end or middle of the word.  If you are talking about mid-wildcards like fl***light, then no, you cannot do that.


How to Check for an Enterprise Provisioning Profile on an iPhone I know that iPhones with enterprise provisioning profiles installed send massive amounts of data back to the company that added the profile.  This includes your text messages, phone records, and internet history.

How do I check if one of these profiles has been installed?  I have an iPhone that I think a profile was installed on, but I see no indication anywhere in settings that this is true.

Go to Settings -> General and scroll all the way to the bottom. At the very bottom is "Reset". Above that is "Regulatory". Above that is "Profiles". If you have no profiles installed, this may not show up. In that case, you're fine. If a profile does come up click on it to get more information. The information page will tell you the name of the profile and who it's licensed to, like this:


"Destination folder access denied" on a partition on MacBook Pro from Windows 8 I have bought a new MacBook Pro. I am from Windows background so I installed Windows 8.1. I wanted to have a partition that can be accessed from both OS so I created a partition using Bootcamp from Mac OS. On Mac, I can use the partition fully but on Windows side, I can only read the new partition. I can't paste any files or change anything on it. The error I am getting is "Destination folder access denied". I have given Admin right to move the files but still failed. I spent a while googling and there are many others getting this error but these are different scenarios mostly accessing networked drive and can't find any solution that would solve my problem. I tried to share the partition (on Windows) but that still doesn't work. Hope someone can help me. Thanks.

Windows cannot write to Apple Journaled partitions.  OS X cannot write to NTFS. So you'll need to choose something FAT-based.

There are third-party solutions to allow writing of course but I've never found the performance hit to be worth versus just going with FAT.

Note that doing three partitions with Bootcamp can be tricky. I recommend so research on that subject.


Apple Setting App Complication When I needed storage I did something under the storage section in settings to undownload the apps I haven’t used in a while and if I want to go back into the app after so many days then I have to redownload it but after so many days it undownloads after I downloaded it. How can I get the to stop since I got a new phone and I dont want this to do this any more? It also shows a cloud next to it every time it undownloads.

On iOS 11, go to Settings > iTunes & App Stores > and deselect Offload Unused Apps. You may have to redownload already offloaded apps, but it should stop doing it automatically after you change this setting.


Is it safe to delete the content of ~/Library/Logs? I would like to know if it is safe to delete the content of my ~/Library/Logs folder, because it is taking quite a lot of space. I have found that it should be save, but if there is someone who can confirm it it would be nice.

Yes, log files can be safely deleted. Next time a log file needs to be appended to and is missing, it will be created (don't delete the actual Logs folder itself though). Log files are always presumed transient. However, before you delete all your log files, it might be worth keeping the most recent content of the most important log files in case you need to troubleshoot any problems.


Can't boot from USB or reset PRAM/NVRAM on mid-2006 iMac I got a free mid-2006 iMac from a friend, and while it boots to the login screen, all the user accounts are password-protected, so I've decided to try reinstalling Mac OS X Leopard.

I created a bootable USB drive and confirmed that it works on another Mac, but I can't access the boot menu by holding Option on startup. I've tried holding option before the chime, during the chime, and immediately after the chime but to no avail, as I ultimately still end up at the login screen.

I read that one fix to this is resetting the PRAM/NVRAM by holding Command-Option-P-R right after pressing the power button but before the gray screen, but this does not seem to be doing anything as I end up at the login screen and stay there rather than rebooting.

How do I force it to boot from a USB drive?

It sounds like your keyboard may have been the culprit. (From the comments)

Using a different wired keyboard can be a good troubleshooting step for iMacs.


What does a 'dotted-line' cloud icon in the iCloud file browser represent? What does this "dotted-line" cloud icon next to a file in the iCloud file browser mean?

This is a plain-text file saved to iCloud from Byword, and it refuses to sync to my iPhone. But I'm having the same problem with subsequently-created files in Byword, and they don't feature this icon.

A dotted-lined iCloud icon means that it is waiting to be uploaded (or it is currently uploading). Although this KB article applies to iTunes Match, it might help you understand this icon better: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4124

As for Byword's syncing issues, if it is not finished uploading, it won't be accessible by your iPhone. Are the subsequent documents also plain-text? This Byword support FAQ says that Byword's iOS app currently does not support RTF files (rich-text).


Can I bind multiple key shortcuts to the same action? I do a lot of pair programming. Some developers that I pair with use Linux as their primary desktop. So none of the keyboard shortcuts they are used to work.

What I would like to be able to do is bind multiple key chords to the same action. For example I want both ctrl-t and cmd-t to open a new tab in chrome.

I know that you can rebind shortcuts in system preferences/keyboard. I just don't know how to set multiple keystrokes to the same action.

It seems like adding a shortcut in the Keyboard preferences will override the built-in defaults. You can use Keyboard Maestro (a paid app) to add such things - easiest would be to add a trigger for the alternative combo which translates into a menu action or into the original keyboard shortcut being sent to the application of choice.


Where can I find good tutorials for an OS X newbie? I am using Mac OSX Snow Leopard.
Now, I am giving my MacBook to my younger brother, who is quite new to OS X and Unix. He is using Windows for thelast 8 months, and is quite familiar with it.

I need your guidance in finding Video Tutorials, that I can give to him so he can learn on his own about different things.

Please suggest some video tutorials from any provider, be it Lynda or Total Training. Even ebooks and books titles are welcome.

Apple has some great short videos on different aspects of using a mac and OS X including coming from windows, video, music, photos, web and iWork and its all over at their 'Find Out How' website.

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/


How do I map a terminal command to a function key? I have a terminal command that can control my external display's brightness. I'm trying to map that command to a key on the keyboard so it works like a "brightness up" and "brightness down" key.

Karabiner doesn't look like it supports mapping keys to terminal commands

I am using karabiner-elements to do exactly this on a Dell monitor, you can bind keypresses to shell commands:

{
"title": "F5 to dim, F6 to bright",
"rules": [
    {
        "manipulators": [
            {
              "description": "dim",
              "type": "basic",
              "from": {
                "key_code": "f5"
              },
              "to": [
                {
                    "shell_command": "/usr/local/bin/ddcctl -d 1 -b 1"
                }
              ]
            },
            {
                "description": "bright",
                "type": "basic",
                "from": {
                  "key_code": "f6"
                },
                "to": [
                  {
                      "shell_command": "/usr/local/bin/ddcctl -d 1 -b 100"
                  }
                ]
              }
          ]
    }
]

}

(I have ddctl installed, which lets you control the brightness by passing it a percentage value - https://github.com/kfix/ddcctl )

You can check the docs for writing your Complex Modifications like this one: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/json.html


How can I take a larger screenshot on my iPhone? I would like to take a screenshot of an entire web page in Mobile Safari, not just the part that's visible on the screen. I'm running iOS 5 on an iPhone 4, but I'm pretty sure this functionality isn't built in anywhere. What app or trick do I need?

Natively available in iOS 13 and later
This functionality is now built into iOS 13 by Apple. Safari running in iOS 13 lets you screenshot the entire webpage as a single continuous image.
To do that, open the desired webpage in Safari, and simply take a screenshot as you would normally do on your device, and tap on the thumbnail shown immediately shown towards the bottom left.
You'll be presented with two options at the top in a segmented control:

Screen
and

Full Page

With the Full Page item selected, tap on the Share icon in the top right to share the capture via desired medium. AirDropping it for instance, exports a single PDF file, which can be easily exported into a desired image format.


SRM gone in macOS Sierra (10.12) I've just updated to macOS 10.12 and when I try to execute srm in Terminal, it says -bash: srm: command not found.

Is srm removed? How to fix this?

From this comment:

  can you come up with a better idea or safely removing files from SSD
  on newer macs? – Niktin Roman

There's no need for srm; provided that TRIM is enabled on your machine1

TRIM support handles this for you. When you delete a file from your drive, the OS will mark the file space as "not in use" - this applies to  any drive. On an SSD, unlike a HDD,  a TRIM command is sent to wipe any data in that marked space.  This allows your SSD to be able to write data to that marked space as if it was brand new and never used, and  skip the traditional  deletion process.

If you are looking for more security, turn on FileVault.

Per Apple Support:

  Note: With an SSD drive, Secure Erase and Erasing Free Space are not
  available in Disk Utility. These options are not needed for an SSD
  drive because a standard erase makes it difficult to recover data from
  an SSD. For more security, consider turning on FileVault encryption
  when you start using your SSD drive.

I also advise against using srm because it issues more and unnecessary write operations to the SSD, thus shortening it's lifespan.  From the man page:

srm  removes  each  specified file by overwriting, renaming, and
truncating it before unlinking

1 TRIM comes enabled by default if you your Mac came with an SSD preinstalled.  if you added an SSD after the fact, then you must enable TRIM by issuing the command sudo trimforce enable in Terminal.


External display occasionally shows just noise When I'm at work I have my Macbook Air mid-2013 hooked up to a Samsung SyncMaster 2443 display via a ThunderBolt-to-HDMI adapter and then to a HDMI-to-DVI adapter.

Almost every second time I switch the display on, the display is just noise. The resolution is correctly detected but the display is like this:

If this happened only when I first connect the display, it would be no problem, but it happens almost every time I lock my mac, and I have to power cycle the display 2-3 times to fix it.

Note that this behaviour has been present since Maverics, it's not new in Yosemite.

Is there a fix for this?

I have had the same problem with Maverick (in clamshell mode) / external monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 2443) when I lock my screen and use my bluetooth mouse or keyboard to wake up the computer.

I was able to fix the problem in 2 ways:

open the lid, login and unplu, replug the external monitor (pretty annoying)
when the multicolor static shows, press CTRL+SHIFT+Eject as if to lock the computer again, then wake up the computer again and I now have the normal login screen as normal (not ideal but less disruptive solution).

I hope this helps !


Stuck on 'Preparing to partition disk' When I add a new partition it gets stuck on 'Preparing to partition disk'.

The new partition is in some empty space in the middle of the disk. As a result of the partition not being there, Windows won't boot because its looking for it.

No error, nothing. Any ideas?

This, and other similar problems are commonly fixed with these 2 methods:

Method 1

Go to single-user mode CMD+S on boot). Type the following:

/sbin/fsck -fy

Hit enter, and then type

reboot

and then press enter. Now try making your partition again.

Method 2

If Method 1 did not work, you can boot into Recovery mode (CMD+R on boot), selecting disk utility, then HD and repairing disk and disk permissions. This time make your partition in Recovery rather than in normal boot


Console.log filled with "stopping Handoff advertising" My console.log is filled with "stopping Handoff advertising" messages, I counted 29 in the last 3 minutes. I also get the occasional:

  10/24/14 01:21:35.089 lsuseractivityd[245]: -[LSUserActivityClientProcess doUpdateUserActivityInfo:makeCurrent:completionHandler:], refusing to register user activity from client, and returning error Error Domain=LSContinuityErrorDomain Code=-108 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (LSContinuityErrorDomain error -108.)" for item <__NSConcreteUUID 0x7ffe10c1f0a0> [redacted]-[redacted]-[redacted]-[redacted]-[redacted] NSUserActivityTypeBrowsingWeb (LSUserActivityClientProcess.m #1148)

Is this normal or expected behavior?

Update, from my comment below:

  Thanks for the help. Looking at it, my console is full of all sorts of error logs. I've Googled each and every one of them, and most resulted in the same threads about Yosemite. At this point, I prefer to wait for 10.10.1 to see what's fixed as my machine is running mostly fine.

Just to make sure do clear your browser's cookies and history.

But with your limited Console log it could be this.

  Yosemite is designed to handoff integrated app statuses to other Apple
  devices, the "advertising" may simply refer to the fact that my
  Yosemite Mac is advertising that there is stuff to handoff to an iOS 8
  device, but that functionality is not yet implemented


Where are the apache config files stored? I thought the apache config files were stored in /etc/apache2.  Yet if I remove the /etc/apache2 directory and run a sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl start the web server runs and serves up pages.

Is there another set of config files?

At least on my system (OS X 10.9.2), I see that apache is going to use /private/etc/apache2. Note SERVER_CONFIG_FILE below:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl -V
Server version: Apache/2.2.26 (Unix)
Server built:   Dec 10 2013 22:09:38
Server's Module Magic Number: 20051115:33
Server loaded:  APR 1.4.5, APR-Util 1.3.12
Compiled using: APR 1.4.5, APR-Util 1.3.12
Architecture:   64-bit
Server MPM:     Prefork
  threaded:     no
    forked:     yes (variable process count)
Server compiled with....
 -D APACHE_MPM_DIR="server/mpm/prefork"
 -D APR_HAS_SENDFILE
 -D APR_HAS_MMAP
 -D APR_HAVE_IPV6 (IPv4-mapped addresses enabled)
 -D APR_USE_FLOCK_SERIALIZE
 -D APR_USE_PTHREAD_SERIALIZE
 -D SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT
 -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD
 -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS
 -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=128
 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/usr"
 -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/bin/suexec"
 -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="/private/var/run/httpd.pid"
 -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status"
 -D DEFAULT_LOCKFILE="/private/var/run/accept.lock"
 -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log"
 -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/mime.types"
 -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf"

Normally /etc is a symlink to /private/etc, but if it isn't on your system, that may explain the discrepancy.


Unchecking "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps" doesn't work Unchecking "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps" under
System Preferences -> General doesn't work - for example, when I re-open an app (e.g. Preview) it restores a window (call it 'PDF 1') I had open before quitting that app. (At least when I quit it by logging out, even with 'Reopen windows when logging back in' unchecked.) Any pointers?

I've found people describing similar problems, around the web and on StackExchange (in answers/comments, but not dedicated questions). But no answers that work for me. I've tried the solutions suggested at Disable resume for all apps in Daniel's answer (after which ~/Library/Saved Application State/ has stayed empty) and joelseph's comment on his answer.

It's a bug. According to the release notes, it was fixed by 10.7.4 which came out a few days ago:

  The OS X Lion v10.7.4 Update includes fixes that:

  Resolve an issue in which the "Reopen windows when logging back in" setting is always enabled.


How do I find and remove compilers on my Mac? Some time ago, I installed Python, LaTeX, C, Perl, Fortran, etc. on my Mac for some college work. I think I used Homebrew to install at least some of them. Now I am not sure how to remove them as I don't can't find where they are. I went to the Library directory but don't know what to look for.

When I go to the Launchpad, I find all of these things regarding LaTeX. I am not sure if all of them are needed. Besides, I am not sure if they are just front end apps.

Those programs in the image can be removed by moving from Applications to the trash.

If you installed something from homebrew, the way of removing is the following:

brew list

This will show you a list of installed formulas. After the list comes to you, you have to select what you need to remove and use the command:

brew uninstall <formula>


If I buy iCloud storage can I update my phone and other apps as well? like what is it exactly do I get more space for my phone and everything? Also if I decide to cancel will apps or photos delete?

Yes, you do get more space for your iPhone in some sense. Your iPhone uses iCloud for backups (probably; you can choose not to do so), and storing photos and other documents which don't need to be on your iPhone, leaving more 'disk' space there. Note that App Store apps themselves don't take up space on iCloud - they're backed up 'for free', but their settings and document might take up space.

If you downgrade / cancel your subscription, the official Apple support page only mentions you cannot 'upload' anymore to iCloud. While that doesn't mean the photos will stay there forever, it does imply you get the chance to remove certain content in order to get below your new limit, so it is at least kept for a while.


How to remove "get info" sidebar in a finder window? When I open a finder window I have this large side bar on the right hand site that provides some outline file info, size, modified date etc.

How can remove this sidebar?

My mac is running OSX 10.14.x (latest updates installed.)

View Menu > Hide Preview  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   P


Disabled then enabled kext signing; some keys no longer work properly MacOS Sierra MacBook Pro mid2012

I disabled kext signing (to use change some icons in liteicon, which I never got to), and pretty soon some of my keys didn't work like they should. I then enabled it, and rebooted it. As soon as I logged in, some keys no longer did what they should do. The keys that are affected are i, j, k, l, m, o, u, and I don't know if any non-letter keys are affected.

I have noticed that the i key functions as cmd+o, and some of the other keys do stuff too (but I don't know what).

Is there any way that I can fix this? This is my school computer (I'm currently doing this at school), and I really need my computer working.

SIP and root are enabled, and so is kext signing currently.

Also, idk if it matters here but Finder keeps crashing (not responding) when I do minor things like clicking on folders when logged into my user account.

Interestingly enough, this only happens on my user account, not on root.

This is an issue with accessibility settings. The function is called "Enable Mouse keys". It is configured in Settings - Accessibility - Mouse & Trackpad (left pane option), "Enable Mouse Keys" AND ALSO via the "Options..." button.

There is a checkbox setting "Press the Option key five times to toggle Mouse Keys". If this is active then simply pressing the option key 5 times will activate or deactivate this feature thus changing the functional mode of your keyboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxSo1xnxL_k


Upgrade from iOS 12.4.1 to 12.4.7 on an iPhone 6s There's a critical exploit in the iOS Mail app that was just recently patched in iOS versions 13.5 and 12.4.7. (BTW, if you haven't updated your iOS version to either of these builds, you should disable the Mail app on your iPhone as an interim fix to avoid getting pwned.)

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2020/05/21/apple-ios-135-release-should-you-upgrade-new-iphone-update/

iOS 12.4.7 was supposedly pushed out for older devices that are incompatible with iOS 13.

I am using an iPhone 6s, running iOS 12.4.1. Checking for Software Updates via Settings app → General → Software Update only offers to install iOS 13.5.

I assume there must be some sort of download link where I can get an iOS 12.4.7 installer package and load it onto my phone via iTunes, although I wasn't able to find one.

Is there a way to install iOS 12.4.7 on iPhone 6s?

IMPORTANT: For anyone who didn't know, there's a big difference between the iPhone 6s and the original iPhone 6. The 6s has significantly improved hardware specs, most importantly double the RAM (https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/26/9401563/iphone-6s-teardown-ram-confirmed-2gb) which often makes the difference between "running the latest apps properly" and "puzzling, bizarre random crashes".

You are apparently out of luck here. While it's possible to download an iOS firmware (a .ipsw file) and install it onto a device, as long as Apple is signing is, Apple typically stops signing an older release a few days after issuing an update. IPSW is a well regarded website that lets you download all the available firmwares for a device.

However, Apple has not built iOS 12.4.7 for the devices that support running iOS 13 or later. Thus, iOS 12.4.7 was never released in the first place for iPhone 6s.

So technically speaking, there is no way to obtain and/or install iOS 12.4.7 for an iPhone 6s. Your only way to get patched for this particular vulnerability is by installing iOS 13.5 on your iPhone 6s.


iPhone regularly shows "iPhone not activated..." message I got a new iPhone 6 which is tied to a carrier and I currently am still using an old Samsung I have because I don’t want to waste the minutes (as I cannot transfer the plan from the iPhone to the Samsung). They both have different carriers, anyway.

I have set up my iPhone a couple of weeks ago and recently it has been giving me a notification that pops up every 10 minutes saying “iPhone not activated please contact your carrier".

I’ve been using my iPhone's iMessage and FaceTime (because I have an Apple ID and as long as being connected to Wi-Fi, I can use both).
I looked up how to stop it and I’ve tried the airplane mode trick and it didn’t work, some say to take out your SIM card.

My questions

If I take out the SIM card will I still be able to iMessage and FaceTime?
Will my data be reset, what will happen to my storage?

If anyone has an answer it will be highly appreciated.

Have you contacted your carrier, as suggested?
First Question
I believe that this page may help your case. From what I know, iMessage and FaceTime will not work on non-activated devices. You will need to first determine whether your device is really not activated or whether the message is randomly appearing although the iPhone is activated. Follow this guide to check.
Second Question
To address the second question, I am assuming that data refers to your iPhone's internal storage and not the cell carrier/mobile plan related data that allows you to browse the web.

Removing the SIM card does not delete the iPhone's internal storage, thus you do not need to worry about data-loss during the procedure because storage is not related to activation. The only case in which this would occur is if the device is fully reset.
You should have a current backup of your iPhone. You mentioned that iMessage and FaceTime are operable, so I assume you back up to iCloud or at least to your computer via iTunes. No matter what you try, a full backup will always come in handy if everything fails.


Can Numbers save a file as CSV? I'm trying to switch over from Excel to Numbers. Is it possible to save a file as a CSV in Numbers?

The whole idea behind this is I prefer to have my documents on the cloud as well as on Numbers for my iPad and iPhone. I do not do typical data sheets, I manage database files so I do not need any features, I just need to be able to work with CSV files.

Yes, Numbers can export CSV files.

Go to File » Export and click the CSV tab.


What am I going to do with an iMac 27 inch's display 3, 4 years from now? I want to buy a 27 inch iMac, but the monitor cannot be re-used... it cannot be hooked up to any KVM (Keyboard / Video / Mouse) switch to be used with a PC too...

Also, 3, 4 years down the road, I know the iMac will become slow and probably need to buy another computer.  At that time, what am I going to do with the monitor?  Apple is saying they save the "microwatt" between your typing, but what about wasting a good monitor like that?

The display port on the latest iMac's (actually since late 2009) acts as both an output (for an external display) or an input (to make the imac screen a monitor).

See http://smokingapples.com/asides/new-27-imac-doubles-up-as-external-monitor/


Can't use command+space to change input source I have been having an issue regarding keyboard short-cut to change input source between Japanese and English on a new iMac running on Sierra. On my old Mac, I used "command+space" (Fig. 1) to change the input source, but now on Sierra I have to use "control+space" (Fig. 2), which is quite inconvenient. Could someone help me how to set my system so that I can use "command+space" to change the input source?

You are in the right place, but the wrong selection.

Select "Spotlight" from the list on the left. You can then uncheck the shortcut for Command Space allowing you to assign that to the shortcut you want to.


MacBookPro / MacBookAir performance question I plan to replace my old MacBook with a new MacBookPro or Air but I am not exactly sure what I need. I work as a windows software developer so I need to run Windows with Visual Studio 2010. I am very sure this is no problem on any new machine and Bootcamp but I would like to run my windows only in a virtual machine. So I will be working with Visual Studio while still be able to use all the OSX tools the same time.

Is a MacBookAir powerful enough to do that?

With 4GB of RAM max, an Air would work, but you'd get tremendously better performance with 8GB in a Pro (ideally with an SSD).

I upgraded my Mid 2010 2.4GHz i5 to 8GB and an OWC 120GB SSD, and Windows (XP and 7) VMs under VMware Fusion 3 are much, much more responsive, along with the rest of the system.


How do I uninstall the Proxinator Security Agent Plugin? A while ago, using OS X Mavericks, I installed an OS X utility named Proxinator, which was supposed to allow me to lock and unlock my Mac by proximity sensing my iPhone using bluetooth and a companion iPhone app. It didn't work well, but I left it installed.

Recently, and after installing Yosemite, there came a security update which prevented me from logging in. The symptoms were basically the same as described in this question, (black screen, flashing cursor instead of login dialog). The error logs pointed to /Library/Security/SecurityAgentPlugins/proxinator.bundle. Removing it didn't help, and I was eventually forced to restore a backup that took me back to Mavericks.

Then I tried removing the bundle from the SecurityAgentPlugins directory, and I got the same problem with the black screen. Restoring it fixed the problem. So something in the system configuration is evidently expecting a plugin that works, but I can't figure out what.

How can I get rid of a Security Agent Plugin?

Simple answer: If you are able to log in, you can uninstall Proxinator specifically by running it, and selecting "Reset Proxinator" from its menu.

Complicated answer: You have to edit the Authorization DB using security authorizationdb read and security authorizationdb write. See this StackOverflow answer.


What's the fastest way to get data off Time Capsule and onto an external drive? I plugged an external drive into Time Capsule using the USB input on the back.

Then I used Finder to move data from the Time Capsule's drive to the USB drive.

Finder says it'll take over 24 hours to move that data.

There must be a faster way. Do you know how I can do that?

If you want an exact copy of the TC drive, the fastest way is to connect the USB drive directly to the TC and use the archiving option in Airport Utility:

Other things to consider:

Transfering data over wire (ethernet) is faster than over Wi-Fi
Connecting the USB drive directly to the computer (than to the TC) gives better results if you use the Finder to copy data.


App not showing up on the home screen I happened to download an app and it got completely downloaded (yes, its showing “open” next to the app in AppStore) but somehow its not showing up on the Home screen.

Points to consider:-

I have not applied any restrictions to download any of the apps in Settings>General>Restrictions.
The app is accessible from the AppStore and shows up in the spotlight search only the icon doesn’t show up anywhere no the phone’s screen.
Yes I have completely checked in all folders and screen menus, but couldn’t find the app icon.

What steps need to be taken?

This can happen for a number of reasons and you might not know why.

First, do the easy stuff, like you already did.  Search with Spotlight, check for a new Home screen by swiping to the right, and check all your folders.

If those don't work, try a hard reset.  After you restart the iPhone, search for the app again.

If the app is still missing, delete the app and reinstall it from the App Store.  To delete the app (in iOS 11), go to Settings -> General -> iPhone Storage and find the app.

Tap the app and on the next screen select Delete App.

After the app's deleted, go back to the App Store and redownload the app again.  Hopefully, it will install correctly this time and you'll be able to see it on a Home screen.


Pages stuck during opening file I had a crash of my Mac right in the middle of saving a Pages document I was working on. It turned out that SSD broke. I had the computer repaired, the SSD replaced, and I have also recovered the entire computer from my last Time Machine backup (which had a previous version of the critical file, of course, backed up a day before the crash).
And everything seems to be fine, except that I cannot open the very same Pages document:
when I try to open it, Pages gets stuck in the "Opening ..." dialog, showing the progress bar fully filled (100%). In addition, Finder has a difficulty showing the preview of that file - it display the contents with a very, very long delay (minutes).
I tried to remove the ...com.apple.iWork.Pages.savedState directory, as suggested in another answer, without success.

Just solved the issue by updating Pages to the newest version!
Thaks and excuse to everybody.


How to set default Window position and/or size? Whenever I start an application like Terminal or Preview, they are always opened as a small window on the top left corner of the screen. Is there any way to set them to open in the center of the screen? Preferably maximized too?

In Terminal you can change the default window size from Preferences > Settings > Window:

You can also use window groups to set a default position and size for the window opened when you launch Terminal (but not for new windows opened later).

I use Sequential and Skim as alternatives to Preview and iTerm 2 as an alternative to Terminal. All of them have an option to open windows in full screen by default, and all of them have their own (pre-Lion and actually usable) implementations for full screen windows.

The sizes of Finder windows are saved in .DS_Store files and there are no default window size settings in com.apple.Finder.plist or anything. I use a script like this to reset the properties of windows:

tell application "Finder"
    if number of Finder windows is 0 then return
    tell Finder window 1
        set toolbar visible to false
        set sidebar width to 0
        set statusbar visible to false
        set current view to column view
        set bounds to {960, 44, 1920, 1076}
        tell its column view options
            set shows icon to false
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


How do I mount a network drive based on my IP address or wifi network? When I am at work, I mount a number of shared drives to use during the day. At home, I mount drives on my home network for home use. Is there a way that I can automatically mount the correct drives based on the network I am connected to? Ideally I would do this based on IP address, as I connect via Ethernet cable at work.

Is it necessary to use AppleScript or a shell script? I have tools like Hazel and Keyboard Maestro at my disposal.

Thank you.

set homeip to "Enter Your Home IP Here"
set homedrive to "afp://PlzUpvoteThis.Answer"
set workdrive to "smb://FeelFreeToEdit.This"

set myIP to (do shell script "curl ipinfo.io/ip") // Gets ip

if myIP is homeip then // Checks if your ip matches your home ip
    do shell script "open " & homedrive
else
    do shell script "open " & workdrive
end if


Safari crash on iOS 9.2.1 [Iphone 6s is what I am using]

I have already tried everything on this threat and nothing worked. Its the same problem, I open safari and whenever I try to click on the search bar on the top of the screen, the app crashes and send me back to the homepage. I am using google search engine and I have suggested search turned on and I have tried the following:

Clearing history

changing browsers

Checking for battery saving mode

tried without suggested search

restarted my iphone

None worked.....

I was having the same issue. I turned off the "Search Engine Suggestion" and the "Safari Suggestions" in Settings under Safari. Try and see if that works.. It worked for me!!


What are 'com.apple.access_ssh' and 'com.apple.access_screensharing'; can I delete them? When I examine the list of users and groups on my machine (OSX 10.9) with id I get:

uid=501(Rax)
gid=20(staff)
groups=20(staff)
       103(Rax),
       12(everyone),
       61(localaccounts),
       80(admin),
       98(_lpadmin),
       33(_appstore),
       100(_lpoperator),
       204(_developer),
       398(com.apple.access_screensharing),
       399(com.apple.access_ssh)

I don't (currently) have any sharing enabled. What are the last two groups and where did they come from? Can I delete them; if so how?

Using sudo dscl  . -read /Groups/com.apple.access_ssh I get:

AppleMetaNodeLocation: /Local/Default
Comment:
 SSH Service ACL
GeneratedUID: XXX...
NestedGroups: XXX...
Password: *
PrimaryGroupID: 399
RealName:
 SSH Service ACL
RecordName: com.apple.access_ssh
RecordType: dsRecTypeStandard:Groups

And using sudo dscl  . -read /Groups/com.apple.access_screensharing I get:

AppleMetaNodeLocation: /Local/Default
Comment:
 Screensharing Service ACL
GeneratedUID: XXX...
NestedGroups: XXX...
Password: *
PrimaryGroupID: 398
RealName:
 Screensharing Service ACL
RecordName: com.apple.access_screensharing
RecordType: dsRecTypeStandard:Groups

(Though I'm not sure what any of that means.)

The main admin user on my 10.9 VM is also part of both those groups, so I guess it's normal.

  Tests-Mac:~ test$ id
  uid=501(test) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),12(everyone),61(localaccounts),79(_appserverusr),80(admin),81(_appserveradm),98(_lpadmin),401(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1),33(_appstore),100(_lpoperator),204(_developer),398(com.apple.access_screensharing),399(com.apple.access_ssh)

Membership in the com.apple.access_screensharing group seems to correspond to the user (or a group it's a member of) being included in this list:

When I created a new standard account, it was not a member of the com.apple.access_screensharing group by default, but after I added the account to the list above, it became a member of the group.

Similarly, membership in the com.apple.access_ssh group seems to correspond to the user being included in the list in the Remote Login section.


Do iPhone battery extenders reduce regular battery life? During heavy use periods, my iPhone 6 battery doesn't last the day. I'm looking at the battery cases available and curious if these actually reduce the life of the resident battery?

My understanding of rechargeable batteries was that they should be allowed to run down, and then fully charge. But that belief may be based on NiCad technology, and the newer LiOn may not have this issue.

It seems that if the phone has such a charging case, the case will function the same as just leaving the phone plugged in and 'topping off' the charge.

In theory, no. Battery extenders work just like a charger. The main problem with these extenders, assuming you are not buying some top notch apple certified extender, is the different random voltage they output and that can seriously damage your battery and device.

If you are getting a battery extender I would recommend getting something that is apple certified or at least branded from a known company. Stay away from all the knockoffs AliExpress garbage.


Installing Windows 10 from an ISO Image on my new 15 inch MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch bar Recently I've bought a new 15-inch MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch bar and I tried to install windows 10 using an ISO image and bootcamp. Everything was going well until I got the following error in my laptop's boot area within the Windows 10 installation environment:

Windows cannot locate the disk and partition specified in the unattend answer file's <ImageInstall> setting.

I know that Editing the XML file for the answer system can solve the problem, but how? As you know in this version of MacBook Pro no USB stick is used to install Windows and I cannot find where macOS stores the files created by bootcamp for installing windows.

Please help me fix this issue.

You don't need to do such sophisticated thing. All you need to do is:

After making a second partition for windows:

Provide an external super drive and insert the DVD of windows 10 inside it.
You will find out that your trackpad and keyboard are not functioning in the following steps of windows 10 installation.
Therefore you should use a mouse (I prefer wired mouse) and an external keyboard.
Finally when the installation finished, download bootcamp separately from apple and install it then you'll see that all of the features of you MacBook Pro are greatly working such as trackpad, keyboard, bluetooth, graphic and etc.


How to Replace Misplaced OS Files My Mom accidentally moved some system files on her Macbook Pro and did something so they can't be restored back to where they were and now some apps aren't working anymore. Is there a way to repair the installation of Mac OS or a way to figure out where these files should go? She doesn't have Time Machine set up by the way so that isn't an option.

Here is the list of files that she moved:

ATASMARTLib.h
Conversion.h
glut.h
IOAccelSurfaceConnect.h
IOCDTypes.h
IOFDiskPartitionScheme.h
IOFireWireLib.h
IOGraphicsInterface.h
IOGraphicsInterfaceTypes.h
IOGraphicsTypes.h
IOMacOSVideo.h
LogicAUProperties.h
USB 14-18-03 2.h
USB 14-18-03 3.h
USB 14-18-03 4.h
USB 14-18-03.h
USB.h
vDSP 14-17-08 2.h
vDSP 14-17-08.h
vDSP.h

Yes

Simply take the original installation disc that came with the Mac and re-install OSX, afterwards just do a system update to bring it up to the latest version.

When OSX is installed over an existing installation, all settings and applications are preserved, and this should resolve all issue with the OS.

However, as @Kyle pointed out in the comments, the files moved are only header files used for compiling, and should not be affecting the working OS, and since the actual OS files are not available via the Finder, highly unlikely that she copied actual system files, unless she used Terminal.

If the applications still don't work after doing this, then those specific applications needs to be re-installed individually. The above procedure will work for all applications supplied by Apple as part of the OS.


All windows loses focus every 5 minutes While in Chrome or Sublime Text and mail for sure, my window will lose focus on 5 minute intervals. How do I determine culprit so that I can eliminate it? I've tried a reboot and closing applications that I think might be responsible and can't figure out what's actually causing the problem.

You can use the following Python script which can tell you which app is currently on focus:

#!/usr/bin/python
# Prints current window focus.
# See: https://apple.stackexchange.com/q/169277
from AppKit import NSWorkspace
import time
workspace = NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace()
active_app = workspace.activeApplication()['NSApplicationName']
print('Active focus: ' + active_app)
while True:
    time.sleep(1)
    prev_app = active_app
    active_app = workspace.activeApplication()['NSApplicationName']
    if prev_app != active_app:
        print('Focus changed to: ' + active_app)

It will print active application which has the focus and any change every second.

Related script: Identify which app or process is stealing focus on OSX at Gist

Usage:

Save above script into get_active_focus.py file.
Assign execution attributes by: chmod +x get_active_focus.py command.
Run it as: ./get_active_focus.py.

Output:

$ ./get_active_focus.py
Active focus: Terminal
Focus changed to: Google Chrome

Once you found the affected application, consider uninstalling or killing it (if possible).


nslookup & dig fail; ping, traceroute, and scutil -r work I'm running on 10.8.2.  All of a sudden, traditional nameserver lookups are failing on my machine:

$ nslookup www.att.com
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

$ dig www.att.com

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> www.att.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

But operations that use name services work fine:

$ scutil -r www.att.com
Reachable

$ ping www.att.com
PING e2318.dscb.akamaiedge.net (23.1.57.145): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 23.1.57.145: icmp_seq=0 ttl=55 time=22.862 ms
64 bytes from 23.1.57.145: icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=26.947 ms
^C
--- e2318.dscb.akamaiedge.net ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 22.862/24.904/26.947/2.043 ms

I've tried setting the name server addresses to different destinations via the network system preference (e.g., 4.2.2.2, 208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220, etc.) but that doesn't seem to make any difference.

I'm guessing there is an internal configuration file for the on-board DNS server that isn't getting updated, but I haven't a clue where to look for that.

I'm still not sure what was causing the problem, but after suffering from another seemingly unrelated issue, I did a complete re-install of 10.8.  I had originally upgraded from 10.6 -- though the utilities had seemed to work fine for a while after the initial upgrade, my suspicion is that I did something to some unknown-to-me configuration while attempting to diagnose/resolve the other issue (something that apparently disabled some aspects of DNS access).

After the re-install, all DNS-related utilities are now working fine.


How can I change Finder tag name or color? There are some tags in Finder by default. I want rename their name from color. How can I do this?

Go to Finder → Preferences → Tags. You can rename/delete tags by right-clicking and modify the coloured tags with the control at the bottom.


Trouble to boot into OSX after install windows 10 on MacBook pro Before this problem win + OSX  worked fine. But I tried to settings>recovery>Advance Startup from windows. after a restart , there is no two boot option . only windows boot option is appear. But how can I go to my previous duel boot option?
now I'm in windows 10.

Press thealt or option buttons while pressing the power button to select Mac OSX or Windows


Less space after moving files I got the "startup disk full" message so I moved several of my massive folders to an external hard drive, deleted the folders I just moved off my Mac and yes, emptied the Trash bin.

It then said I had 83.14 GB of free space (I previously only had two!) And THEN, I moved another folder full of videos I had previously overlooked, it was 14 GB, deleted the folder from the Mac and emptied the Trash but then when I went to check the space it said 79 GB of free space! 4 GB LESS free space after moving and deleting a 14 GB folder!!!

How is this possible?

The last few times I had issues like you describe, I emptied trash and rebooted. I found that certain video apps left a cache that was gone after rebooting.


Is there a way to encrypt data on iCloud? I currently use Backblaze for online backup. I am thinking of switching to just storing all my documents on my iCloud drive.

With Backblaze, you can set an encryption key. Without this key no one can access your data - not even Backblaze.

I know by default, iCloud does not do this. But is there a 'set-it-and-forget-it` workaround to have files encrypted before they are uploaded?

I don't have anything sensitive in my files. But after all the stories one hears in the media, I would be reluctant to put my files in a place where a rogue Apple employee (or contractor) can just open them up.

If you want set-it-forget-it like BackBlaze, then iCloud is not for you. Your data is safe from a rogue Apple employee, but not safe from a government agency or someone with a legal ability to extract it. When Apple can help you regain access to your iCloud files if you forget your password then they can help a government agency to do that too.

But if you create your own password-encrypted disk image (.sparsebundle file using Disk Utility and encryption in the Finder) then the password is known only to you, and is only stored in RAM on your machine while your disk image is open and mounted; it is destroyed when you unmount and close the encrypted disk image. You can keep copies of that encrypted disk image on your machine or in a cloud service.

If you never store that password in the Keychain iCloud or localitems keychain files, then it will never be uploaded to iCloud. If you store that password in a local-only Keychain file then it is secure but would not necessarily be proof against seizure of your hardware or a malicious remote control.

Regardless of how well you protect the password to your encrypted disk image, you might be forced to decrypt it whilst under arrest. If you 'forget' it, then that may be used against you in court. If you truly forget it, then your data is completely deleted and unrecoverable.


Is there anyway to use an iphone/ipad as a mouse/keyboard locally (with a wire)? In case someone lacks WirelessLAN.

There are apps such as Mobile Mouse Remote available which purport to offer various HID functions over USB. (This is not an endorsement of this specific product, just an example.) Connecting over WiFi seems to be more widely requested, but searching the web still turns up several non-wireless solutions.


Replace logic board on MacBook pro retina early 2013 i have to replace my broken logic board on my MacBook Pro retina display early 2013. I am wondering what alternatives I have: since I have to replace it, can I also speed it up with something from the late 2013 or 2014 series? Where can I order replacements? I tried fixit.com, but they only have a used 8GB board.

Inquire at [Other World Computing].1 They will know which part and why.

The classic resource for complete info on every Apple machine is everymac.com.


Is it safer to use a guest account when streaming from projectfreetv? Hi I stream my tv shows from projectfreetv on my mac, but I was concerned about downloading a virus or something, so I started using my ''guest account'' when I stream, because it says when I logout all history will be deleted. Is this wishful thinking or do you think it helps to do this? Thanks so much!

In this Top 10 list (for Mac Internet security), one recommendation is:

  Special bonus item (for advanced users):

  Consider running your Mac as a non-administrative user most of the time. This is an advanced technique that provides few immediate
  benefits, but, similar to anti-virus applications, acts as "insurance"
  by limiting any damage that could result from a security breach.
  Someone gaining access to your machine would still have access to many
  of your files, but not to most of the underlying machine and OS
  itself. The easiest way to run as a non-admin user is to create a new,
  administrative account and then change your normally used account to a
  non-administrative one.

This step would be part of a layered security approach, and probably could be applied to any OS - one wouldn't normally use an admin/root account in Linux, for example. Other sources endorse this approach as a security best practice (see this forum post and this page from the Stanford Secure Computing site).


ipod classic is not listed under source list in iTune after restore After connect to usb, winXP can open itunes but there is no device on left bar.

I tried re-install iTunes. Reboot iPod, disable anti-virus daemon etc etc, still no go.

Anything else I can do?

Apple's Knowledgebase suggests a multi-step process for troubleshooting this issue.

  Try the iPod troubleshooting assistant: If you have not already done so, try the steps in the iPod Troubleshooting Assistant
  (choose your iPod model from the list).

  If the issue remains after following your iPod's troubleshooting
  assistant, follow the steps below to continue troubleshooting your
  issue.

  Restart the iPod Service
  Restart the Apple Mobile Device Service
  Empty your Temp directory and restart
  Verify that the Apple Mobile Device USB Driver is installed
  Change your iPod's drive letter
  Remove and reinstall iTunes
  Disable conflicting System Services and Startup Items

Apple's iPod: Appears in Windows but not in iTunes contains more details about these steps.


Configuring alot of iPhones? I configured a bunch of iPads at my previous job, and I had to do it one at a time.  Granted, there were only like 6 of them, but I am wondering what I would do if I needed to configure a whole bunch of iDevices.  I know at the Apple Store they apply updates on a bunch of them without taking them out of the package, so there must be some sort of way to do this.

The Apple Configurator was made for this exact reason: easy deployment of iOS devices in large numbers.


Should I get a SATA 3Gb/s or 6Gb/s hard drive for my MBP? If I am planning to upgrade my Macbook Pro 13" (Late 2011) with a 7200RPM Hard drive, should I get a SATA 3Gb/s or SATA 6Gb/s drive?

As a conventional hard drive wouldn't come close to 3GB/s, I say save some money and go for the cheaper 3GB/s one. If you have money to splash then instead I suggest you go for a SSD, because that would really lift your MBP's performance. It doesn't have to be as large and your current drive, because you can use your current drive as a external one by getting a SATA to USB casing somewhere to take some of the load off.


Does Tivoli Storage Manager for backup get the details right? I know that Carbon Copy Cloner, Time Machine, and other Mac-specific software goes to significant lengths to back up Macs correctly, with all the fiddly details right: permissions, file attributes, etc. My company uses Tivoli Storage Manager as the standard backup solution, and there's a Mac version.

Does Tivoli get the details right too? I.e., if I restore, I don't want to hassle with reinstalling apps or discover over a period of months that there's subtle breakage.

I'm on Lion if that's relevant.

I'm not sure that Tivoli gets these finer details absolutley correct.

In terms of backing up files and applications these are fine, but when it comes to passwords, attributes and preferences etc, then no, not always.

I have just spoken to a pal who uses IBM systems in a Mac and PC magazine publishing environment and prefers his staff on Macs to use Time Machine as the standard back-up to their servers, rather than the PC users who use Tivol as standard.


if i get a new phone but same phone number, will i get the sent but undelivered messages people have sent me? Im buying a new iphone and getting a number on it:

Here's the deal, i lost my phone and ever since then when somebody sends me messages it appears as sent but not delivered (only 1 check) now, if i get a new phone and start whatsapp on it with the same phone number, will i get those messages?

Those messages really matter and i would like to know if its worth doing all the process to get back the same number

As long as it hasn't been 30 days since you lost your phone, you will receive all pending messages. But if it has been more then 30 days, you will not receive those messages, as WhatsApp deletes them from their servers.

From WhatsApp's FAQ:

  ...undelivered messages are deleted from our servers after 30 days.

On a side note, if it has been over two months since you lost the phone, then it's as if you're a new user on WhatsApp, and you will be removed from all of your WhatsApp groups.


How to see Spotlight history? Can I see the history of what I've typed into Spotlight?

If not on default macOS, are there third-party apps that will add this?

I want to be able to look back through things I've searched for, I use Spotlight for things like translations and so on and it' since to be able to refer back to past searches to jog my memory.

This isn't possible as far as I can see.

Spotlight does not keep track of your history(in a way that is user accessible anyway).

This might help.


How do I disable Spotlight? How can I disable Spotlight completely on Mac OS X Lion?

It's using up a lot of resources and I never really use it, so I want to disable it.

The only feature I might want to keep is the icon in the status bar which lets me launch applications. The main feature I want to disable is the indexing every single file on my hard drive. I never use Spotlight to access files, I only use it to launch applications.

Are there any risks in disabling it? Is there an Apple recommended way to disabling it?

How would I re-enable it later on if I want to?

To disable, open Terminal and run

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

This disables the Launch Daemon that starts and keeps it running. You can also run:

sudo mdutil -a -i off

but from looking online in a few places, this may give you an error like 'Spotlight server is disabled'

If you disable though, it will continue to use an old cache, or not work at all. Therefore, the launching applications as you mention will no longer work. It also may break other functions related to the OS, like the Mac App Store (to know whats installed, etc), and LaunchPad.

If you still need an application launcher, you can use applications like LaunchBar and Quicksilver.

After seeing your update (espc. on how to stop it indexing so much), there are two things to check:

Are you running something like a virus scanner or other application constantly accessing files on your drive? This will force spotlight to keep indexing. A network share would also be a culprit.
You can also filter what folders Spotlight should index, and by configuring this, can limit how much has to be indexed. Do do this, go to System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy.

Re-enabling would be running

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

or

sudo mdutil -a -i on