iTerm2 - Accessibility and Full Disk Access Just installed iTerm2 and it asked me change some settings in Security & Privacy of macOS.
At the moment I gave "Full Disk Access". Under "Accessibility" I see iTerm2 listed but without the checkbox unchecked.

Shall I give iTerm2 both "Full Disk Access" and "Accessibility" permission? Or shall I revoke any permission?

If you want to access special directories/files such as ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook or ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary, yes you need to give Full Disk Access to iTerm2. If don't, you can not access those directories.

For more information, here is the iTerm2 wiki https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/wikis/fulldiskaccess

Here is the screenshot when you don't give Full Disk Access to iTerm2.


Is there a maximum number of files supported/recommended in Photos.app? With the new OS X Photos app released in OS X 10.10.3, is there a hard limit to the maximum number of files (either photos or videos) that the app will support? Or is there a limit to the maximum size of the library? Or are there recommended limits defined by Apple?

Basically, how well will Photos handle large libraries, and is there a certain point where it would be smart to split a library into multiple libraries?

My Photos library has about 60,000 photos and about 1,600 movies. The total size is about 560GB. About 30,000 photos are uploaded to iCloud and can be browsed by all my devices and desktop machines. So far no problems and interaction is fluid. With old iPhotos it was annoyingly slow to view the library in its entirety and had to split it into yearly libraries. New Photos does not seem to slow down with library size. It's face recognition is also quite a bit better.


Will an IOS App get deleted/ Remove itself if Developer's license expires? Similar questions have been asked by Developers in regards to availability on the store. My question is, if i buy an app today, 2 months later, the App's developer decides he's not making enough revenue from his app, and doesn't renew his yearly subscription, what happens to the app i bought?

Thanks.

Your copy of an app will never be taken from you.
This applies to both free and paid apps.   Of course, it will no longer be updated, so if any compatibility issues or bugs arise in the future you will be on your own.
What I don't know, though, is whether or not Apple keeps a copy of the app on its servers for redownload/restore purposes, so if it's an app you really care about I suggest keeping a backup of the .ipa file so that you can restore it manually if you ever need to.
If you have a Mac, here's how to make a manual backup (instructions for iTunes 12.5):

Open iTunes and choose Account → Purchased from the menu bar.
Click the Apps tab on the top-right corner if necessary.
Find the app you want to keep a backup of and click its download button if there is one.  On this screenshot, I have already downloaded a copy of Tiny Wings and do not have a local copy of Super Mario Run.

If you don't see the app in the list, try switching between "All" and "Not In My Library."
There's also a handy "Download All" button in the lower-right corner.
Once it's downloaded, it will be captured and saved in the next Time Machine backup.
If you want to get to the actual .ipa file, it's saved in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications.


Record mac screen + audio + skype call? my friend and I are planning to make minecraft gameplays, but each one from home, so what software I need, I know quicktime records the screen but I need also the recording from the skype call... Please help.

You can choose to record using the quicktime player if you also have sound flower installed, this will record any application audio (you would have to test to see if if captures both the incoming and outgoing sounds via Skype)

You can find Soundflower here.

When installed start a screen recording in quicktime then click on the down arrow as seen below and choose Soundflower

There are a number of paid applications that will do sound and screen recording if you want more control :-

iShowu -- http://www.shinywhitebox.com/ishowu

Camptasia  -- http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html

Voila -- http://www.globaldelight.com/voila/


Mac Mini (2018) 10Gb Port Compatibility Is the 10Gb port on the latest Mac Mini (2018) backwards compatible with 10/100/1000Base-T devices? I ask because the Apple site reports that the upgraded 10Gb port uses NBase-T.

Yes, it is compatible with both 1000Base-T and 100Base-T. I own the Mac Mini 2018 with 10 Gbps option and have tried both configurations in practice.

It doesn’t appear to be compatible with 10Base-T, but you’ll be hard pressed to find such equipment anywhere these days.

You can find Apple’s description of the network support at the following link:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208405

It similarly describes that 100Base-T is a supported configuration, while 10Base-T is not. Look at the included table for instructions on which cable types to use for the various supported speeds.


Apple iPhone screen problem So I’ve noticed when my hand or anything gets close to the little dot on the screen above the speaker my iPhone screen turns off. It’s not the camera on the back or the front. It’s the little dot above the speaker on the screen.

Is there anyway I can stop that from happening?

It sounds like you are referring to the proximity sensor, which is meant to turn the screen off when you are on a call (so that your face doesn't press any buttons). However it shouldn't do it if you're not on a call. Can you clarify when it is doing it?


Built-in MacBook screen recognized as a separate display I have a late 2011 Macbook Pro 13 inch. It was running macOS High Sierra and decided to try installing macOS Mojave using this patcher tool: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/. I successfully installed it with all its' kext files to be able to work with my Mac.
Unfortunately, not everything worked perfectly. My built-in screen is showing up as an external display, which is causing it to always be open, even when it is in sleep mode. I also cannot dim the screen using the buttons on the keyboard.
Another problem is that my internal speakers are not showing up in my sound preferences. I tried plugging in headphones in the headphone jack, but that didn't work either. When I boot up the computer, there is a chime that plays, so that is a good sign that the speakers work.
If there is anyone that can suggest any additional kext files I can download to make the display and audio work properly, that would be appreciated.
Thank you!

Whalro! Unfortunately, I can’t supply any kexts. Most Macs made in 2011 or before aren’t fully compatible with the patcher. My 2011 iMac has all of the same issues. I still haven’t came across any fixes yet. By the way, have you tried using the patch updater? I hope I was helpful! Cheers!


How to access Journals from iCloud.com Is there a way to access Journals publish by iOS iPhoto, directly from icloud.com, without knowing the link already.

Currently I have to "share the link with a friend" before I can access it on icloud.com, even though I have already synced it to icloud.

There is no way to directly access your Journals from iCloud.com, no. However, if you publish a Journal you can choose "Add to Home Page" (iPad and iPhone), that way if you have multiple Journals a visitor can navigate to your "Home Page".

A visitor would still need the unique link for at least one Journal even with that option selected. Alas, there is no "icloud.com/user/" link one could visit directly.

I don't think it's designed to be a landing page. It's more to generate a unique link for sharing said Journal.


Unlocked IPhones 5s Gets locked after inserting SIM Bought iphone 5s and it's previous owner  removed icloud account on it.

I created my own icloud account and associated with it.

Everything is ok, but when i insert a sim card, it requres me OLD icloud credentials (one which was used by previous owner).

If i enter my own credentials it says : "this account could not be used to activate phone".

If i remove sim, turn phone on, and enter my credentials it works fine.

What could i do ? (rather than contacting old owner who is remote)

I'm not searching for any illegal (ticks or hacks) about bypassing Icloud.

If you can visit the check page at https://www.icloud.com/activationlock/ and get a clear status from Apple for your serial / IMEI then the seller is correct that they removed the Activation Lock.

That is but one of the "locks" that can cause you grief. The next lock is carrier lock. Some phones that were sold under contract are locked to a specific cellular carrier's SIM cards. You need to get a card for that carrier (it doesn't need to be active) and insert it and then connect to iTunes or WiFi or cellular (with active data service) to complete that unlock. Depending on your location - you may be able to request an unlock if the original purchaser didn't complete their contract. You may also need the original purchaser to interact with the carrier in some cases to request an unlock of this device.

Lastly are SIM locks - it doesn't seem you have this last issue from the descripton of the error. (My guess is the device is locked to a carrier or an iCloud account per above) Please comment here if you get a screen shot or more details on the exact wording of the error you see on screen or in iTunes when you connect the phone to a computer.


iPhone Configuration Profiles - Creating / Modifying My university has a 'configuration profile' to allow us to connect to the campus secure WiFi - which is great, save for that it forces us to have a passcode (which I neither like nor want). The profile is outdated, as the network now has it's own security on top of the connection, and so it's objective (to stop unauthorised people using the network) is moot.

Is there any way to modify the configuration profile / read it's contents and write my own (it's unsigned anyway) to replace it?

The configuration profiles are normal XML files, you can modify them with any text editor. Also, there is an iPhone Configuration Utility to create new profiles. On the iPhone Support Enterprise site you can get more information about it. Just e-mail the modified config file to your device and install it.

I checked the mobileconfig from my last University and there seems to be no explicit setting to allow people to save their passwords, to I guess there is one to deny it.


AppStore gambling policy As I understand currently Apple allows some kind of gambling apps to be published on AppStore, I just don't know all about this. So, my question is if they would allow a lotto type app with real money of course but also with virtual currency.

If anyone could shed some light on this I would be thankful.

Apples publishes the objective and subjective app review criteria publicly at:

https://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html

I see nothing that currently prohibits gambling apps. Also, open up the App Store and search on the term "gambling" and you'll see there are dozens of apps that appear to be identical in function.


Cant copy because file is too large for format I too was getting the error that I could not copy some files as there were over 4 GB.  I was attempting to transfer .avi files.I reformatted the the thumb drive to Mac OS Extended(journaled) however then when I plugged thumb drive in to television set, the TV did not recognise the thumb drive or the files on it.

Is there another format i can use to t enable me to transfer the bigger files and so the television recognises the drive?

Most non-Apple systems usually only are able to handle FAT32.
Many will handle NTFS or EXFAT as well.

FAT32 is limited to a file size of 4GB max per file. HFS+ (what you used) will hold the files, but it won't be recognized. You concluded this correctly.

Try either NTFS or EXFAT. For NTFS formatting you will need a Windows or a current Linux system which can write to NTFS. Another alternative would be to install NTFS drivers with write permissions in your OS X setup, but I'd consider this the least preferred option.

Long story cut short:

Try formatting the drive as EXFAT and see if that works
Try formatting the drive as NTFS and writing the file within Windows or a modern Linux setup
Try splitting the file without re-encoding with special software. You could Google some programs, as I must admit I cannot recommend any right now

3) wouldn't be a true solution but a workaround, so I'll not do a lot of research now, hoping option 1) or 2) do help.


Make a python program an application I would like to make a Python program executable, like in Windows, when you use a program like cx_Freeze to make Python programs become .exe. I would like to do the same for Mac, I would like to make it an app...

I know I can put as first line of the file, a sheebang, or that I can change the mode of the file, but this does not make the program an independent application...

You might want to take a look at Platypus. It is a developer tool for OS X that lets you wrap your Python/Perl/shell/etc script with an application framework that makes your Python script appear and run like it was a native OS X application.

Though I believe you can do the same thing with Automator, there are a few extra nice things about Platypus from what I remember. For example, you can create a custom icon for the application where I think Automator's output would probably have to be modified after the fact.


Postfix in combinaton with MAMP I'm trying to get Postfix working on my mac but I can not get it working.

Operating system is Mojave 10.14.3
MAMP PRO 5.2.2
I use a hostgator smtp which should work. It works anyway in my mail app.

I can not find any usable message and I have tried all kind of solutions which I found on internet but it still does not work.

By starting postfix in the terminal with "sudo postfix start" I get the message "fatal error".

How can I get postfix working on my Mac?

I'm in pretty much the same boat as you. The exception being I'm using mamp 4.5.

I'm yet to find a solution however I can help you to see the mail log.

in terminal you can use:
  log stream --predicate '(process == "smtpd") || (process == "smtp") || (process == "master")' -info

Using smarthost with the default mamp /etc/postfix/main.cf I keep getting:
  master: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/qmgr pid 9687 exit status 1
  master: master exit time has arrived

I also get the same message if I turn mamp postfix off and activate it via terminal. For this I have followed https://benjaminrojas.net/configuring-postfix-to-send-mail-from-mac-os-x-mountain-lion/

with postconf -n I get the message
  postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: mydomain_fallback=localhost

I hope this helps in some way.


What is the MacBook Pro's infrared port used for? I know my macbook has an infrared port, but I don't know what it's used for.

Most typically, it is used for the Apple Remote, which can control iTunes, QuickTime and various other built in software. Additionally, 3rd party software (see Sofa Remote and Remote Buddy) also makes use of the device and can tie in much more functionality.

In the past (prior to Lion), the Apple Remote was an excellent companion to Front Row, a media manager that some call the predecessor to the Apple TV interface.


Upgrade vom 10.8 to 10.9 all of my Macs are running OSX Mavericks right now, except one iMac that is still on OSX 10.8.5
I've tried to find a possibility to upgrade to Mavericks, but can only find Yosemite upgrades in the appStore - is there another possibility up upgrade that machine?

Thanks for your hints and ansers,

Thomas

Update: I just found out from this answer Where can I get a copy of Mavericks after Yosimite has been released? that it is possible to download if you are a member of the Apple Developer Mac program.

I tried the link from the US Store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id675248567?mt=12 but it appears it is not available anymore.

I found this from reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/1oey0b/download_os_x_109_mavericks_gm_final_dmg/

This is the link http://www.techglobex.net/2013/10/download-os-x-109-mavericks-gm-final.html

  Download OS X 10.9 Mavericks GM Final .DMG Setup File (Build: 13A603,
  Latest, V2) - Direct Link | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4 | Torrent Link |Link 2

  Download OS X 10.9 Mavericks Server GM Final .DMG Setup File

  Download Xcode 5.0.1 GM (Build: 5A2034a) Download iPhoto 9.4.7 Seed

  Download Remote Desktop (Build: 370A61) Download .DMG Extractor for
  .IPSW Files - Direct Link

Make sure you check if it is legitimate https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202369

  For OS X Lion or later, locate the lock icon () in the upper-right
  corner of the Installer window’s title bar.

  For Mac OS X Snow Leopard, a certificate icon is shown instead.


There is no process "Touch Bar Agent" My MBP 15" 2018's touch bar died few days back.
I read a lot of people suggesting to kill process "Touch Bar Agent". But, I don't find process "Touch Bar Agent" in the activity monitor, nor via grep in terminal.
Interestingly, my another MBP which has a working touch bar does not show process "Touch Bar Agent" as well.
I am running "macOS Catalina 10.15.6". Did apple change the process name in latest updates?
Edit:
There are numerous post here which suggest to kill that process, suggesting the process used to exist in older releases. Example: this

Have you searched for "TouchBarServer" ? Maybe this is the process you are looking for ?


I have opened a program from a website, has my MBP been infected with a virus? I have opened a file on https://kickass.so/revenge-s04e14-hdtv-x264-lol-ettv-t10127520.html. I was supposed to click on a torrent file but I clicked on the big DOWNLOAD link.

And I had no idea that  I was not supposed to open a dmg file. Anyway, done is done. I opened it, and there was an install file, I double clicked on it. Then I was not asked to do anything, it just directed me to a website.

How do I make sure I do not have a virus or spyware? Running AIR'13 Yosemite.
The file name was macfest. The content looks like this:

I also used Sophos Anti-virus and it detected OSX/FkCodec-A in the dmg file that I trashed.

About the website you visited should give you some idea what you downloaded.

Here is Feb. 2015 Whois Record showing the site was banned (closed) by the Authorities.

So what ever you downloaded, get rid of it, it can not be trusted.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/09/kickasstorrents-goes-down-after-its-domain-is-seized-but-makes-a-quick-return/

http://kickasstorrents.eu/news/kickasstorrents-is-not-shut-down-kat-ph-domain-seized/

As long you only downloaded the dmg and not installed it your should be fine by just deleting that dmg package.


Siera on older (unsupported) Macs Two months ago Collin Mistr shared a patch tool for older, low-end Macs to be able to install macOS Sierra (link). Besides the fact that I do this upgrade, since my Mac Mini is late 2009, I wonder are there any benefits. El Capitan looks good on it, with 4GB of RAM etc. Any advice?

Officially your Mac is not supported by macOS Sierra. However, for whatever reason, the option to upgrade to macOS Sierra is appearing in the App Store for a whole range of unsupported Macs. In fact, a few weeks back I saw this occur on a MacBook Pro (15" Late-2008) model that was running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, even though Apple doesn't officially support upgrading from this hardware or OS.

As to whether you can install it, the answer is yes, even though this isn't officially supported by Apple. If the App Store allows you to download the upgrade, then you could just download it (without installing it) and then make a copy of the installer. Once you've got a copy you could try installing from the original downloaded location to see what happens.

If this doesn't work, the other option as you've already referenced, is to download the macOS Sierra Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs. Make sure you read all the information on this page as it contains important information you should weigh up before proceeding. If it was me I would not proceed without a full backup ready so you could recover your system if all goes bad.

In the end, whether you should download the upgrade is up to you. Do you want macOS Sierra? Many of its new features are not supported even on Macs that are officially supported by the upgrade - so the answer to this will depend on what appeals to you in upgrading to macOS Sierra? To help you decide, go to Upgrade to macOS Sierra and scroll down to the Feature Requirements section.

If what appeals to you isn't likely to work because it's only supported on much newer Mac models, then I wouldn't bother. This is especially so since you've already stated that El Capitan looks good on it.


Is there a way to select Safari's search (Google) bar (top right) with a keyboard shortcut? I'm talking about the field accessible with command+L, then Tab.

I search Google a lot.

On Windows and Linux this is usually accessible with Ctrl+K.

The menu for this is hidden under Edit > Find > Google Search…. The shortcut is Option+Command+F.


how to cancel download of iOS7 on iPhone I started to download iOS7 from my iPhone 4, and then I read about lots of lag and battery issues. I'd love to try iOS7 but since I won't be able downgrade to iOS6 I'd like to cancel the download. The problem is I don't know how.

I've only been able to stop the download by disabling Wi-Fi.

How can I cancel the download of iOS7? Am I doomed to never be able to use Wi-Fi again?

You can probably back up your iPhone with iTunes and then restore that backup, and that should cancel the update.

Restore Back Up and not Restore iPhone

**There is another way too, which just worked for me: your iPhone can't install the update if it doesn't have the free space available, and this is a pretty big update.  You can simply copy a bunch of large files to your iPhone (e.g., lots of music or audiobooks) and the update will stop and you will get a message saying that the download cannot finish installing due to lack of space.  This essentially stops the update (and then you can go back in and immediately remove the big files that you moved on there).


Some native keyboard accent shortcuts not working since OS X 10.11.3 Update I have a Qwerty keyboard on my MacBook Pro late-2015, set to the standard US layout, that I sometime use to write French accentuated characters.

However, since the last OS X update, some accent shortcuts are not working anymore. More specifically, Option6 (+ some vowel), which used to produce circumflex accents now writes §, and Optionc, used for c cedilla, is now used for capitalising the last written word. I can still write these characters using the press and hold method, but it's pretty inefficient.

How can I re-enable these accent shortcuts?

Go to system preferences/keyboard/input sources and make sure that only the item called "US International PC" is on the list, or the item called "ABC Extended" (known as "US Extended" prior to OS X 10.11).

(The standard US layout does not use Option 6 for circumflex, it uses Option i. The US International PC layout uses Shift 6, while ABC Extended uses Option 6. I suspect you were using one of these layouts rather than "US".)


Which Mac models will support continuity and Handoff on OS X 10.10 (Yosemite)? I'm guessing that only the more recent Mac models with Bluetooth 4.0 will be able to use these new features but I can't find any accurate information on this.

Right now I'm using Yosemite and iOS 8.0.2 on a MacBookPro8,1 (without Bluetooth 4.0) and iPhone 5s. I can't seem to use the Handoff features.

On the Mac I've even enabled the feature but still not working

System Requirements

Handoff and Instant Hotspot

Handoff and Instant Hotspot are supported by the following Mac models, and require OS X Yosemite:

MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later)
MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later)
iMac (Late 2012 and later)
Mac mini (Late 2012 and later)
Mac Pro (Late 2013)

Handoff is supported by the following iOS devices and requires iOS 8. Instant Hotspot requires one of these iPhone or iPad devices with cellular connectivity and iOS 8.1. Instant Hotspot also requires Personal Hotspot service through your carrier.

Phone 5 or later
iPhone 4s (sharing iPhone calls only)
iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad Air 2
iPad mini, iPad mini with Retina display, iPad mini 3
iPod touch (5th generation)

Phone calling

Phone calling requires an iPhone with iOS 8 and an activated carrier plan.
Phone calling works with any iOS device that supports iOS 8 and any Mac that supports Yosemite.

SMS

SMS requires an iPhone with iOS 8.1 and an activated carrier plan.
SMS works with any iOS device with iOS 8.1, and any Mac that supports Yosemite.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6337


Bash script for /etc/crontab I want to run after every reboot, with no user logged

kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

I tried to do a bash script here :

#!/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:~/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
echo "Internal Speaker disabled"

however trying the bash script in terminal give me this result "command not found"

What do I do wrong if not everything.

PS : when resolved, do I just leave my script in "/etc/crontab" (so he can be run every time at boot) or do I still have to do env EDITOR=nano crontab -e and add the job

The script errors because you have split the command in two lines. Basically you want to remove the newlines between the PATH and the kextunload lines, so it looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:~/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
echo "Internal Speaker disabled"

But you could also just simplify all that down to a single line you can put in crontab:

/sbin/kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

When you add the cronjob with crontab -e then add it like this to get it run at every boot:

@reboot /sbin/kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext


In Mail app, how can I go (jump) to the folder (mailbox) of a selected message in a search result view or in a Smart Mailbox? In Mail app I work with many smart mailboxes and I and usually need to jump to the mailbox where the message is really filed.

It's the same with search results - I usually need to locate the folder (mailbox) where a message I selected in the result view is filed.

For previous versions of Apple Mail (at least up to Mavericks) I could do the same as I did in many other applications to locate the folder of the opened document in a window.

In the case of Mail.app:

Open the message (double-click)
Right-click the windows title bar where the subject of the message
appear
You will see the path of that message
Select the desired folder

When I moved from Maverick to Sierra I sadly discovered that the previous approach did not work any more.

How can I fix this or achieve the same functionality?

Solution using AppleScript

The solution I found was to create an Automator service and associate it to a shortcut.

Open Automator
New Document
Select "Service" for the type of document
At the top of the window, set the following options:
Service receives selected >> no input
in >> Mail.app
In the Actions library (left pane) find the action "Run AppleScript"
Drag and drop it in the workflow area
Copy the code at the end of this answer and paste it into the action "Run AppleScript"
Save your service (e.g. "Jump to Folder")

Test the service

No need to close automator or relaunch Mail.
Do a search and select a message (preferably a message filed in some custom folder).
Go to Mail >> Services. You should see your new service
Apply the service.

Your selected and active mailbox should be the mailbox of the previously selected message.

Optional

Assign a shortcut (e.g. CONTROL-COMMAND-J) to your service:

System Preferences >> Keyboard >> Shortcuts >> Services.
At the end of the right pane under General you should find your service.
Assign a shortcut to it.

The Code

set theDialogTitle to "Jump to Folder Script"

tell application "Mail"

    -- Get the selected messages and the count of them
    set theMessageList to selected messages of message viewer 1
    set theCount to length of theMessageList

    -- Error if no messages
    if theCount is 0 then
        display dialog ¬
            "No message selected." with title theDialogTitle buttons {"OK"} with icon caution
        return
    end if

    -- Error if more than one message
    if theCount is greater than 1 then
        display dialog ¬
            "Must select only one message." with title theDialogTitle buttons {"OK"} with icon caution
        return
    end if

    -- Get the message
    set theMessage to item 1 of theMessageList

    -- Get the mailbox object
    set theMailbox to mailbox of theMessage

    -- Select the mailbox
    set selected mailboxes of message viewer 1 to theMailbox

end tell


Services submenu disappeared from contextual menu of right click I am using OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 at my office. Last week, I was still able to right click files or folders and choose services from the bottom of contextual menu. However, after I started my Mac this morning and reopen the Finder, I am not able to see the services submenu after right click. I can only choose the services without using the columns view and click Finder > Services from the top left.

I typed this command in the Terminial but it did not solve it:

/System/Library/CoreServices/pbs

Is there another other way to make it what it was? Thanks.

Edit:
After rebooting, the problem still exist, but I noticed one thing: the services shows up only on desktop, but not within the finder window.

Edit 2:
In addition to desktop, it also appears in icon view, but not in column & list view (which previously do).

I have also tried quiting/force quiting Automator Runner, ScriptMonitor and some other background processes which was not responding from the Activity Monitor, but still no good.

Edit 3:
After some observation, it might be caused by the Adobe CS5 / Creative Cloud / Finder conflict. I have uninstalled CC which I don't use much (needed to share with other people). Will observe some more time to see if it is completely resolved.

Later it was accompanied with the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. After uninstalling Adobe Creative Cloud it does resolved all problems.


How can I remove a paused app for my iphone 4? I want to delete that camera 360 app after I paused it but when I long pressed the app, yes the X mark was there but it is not deleting. What should I do? Please help me. I'm new in using an iphone. And another thing, I'm still not jailbreaking it. Thank you

If reboot doesn't work then try troubleshooting, I would do this:

Quit app store
Start app store and go to app and try canceling or re-downloading.
Toggle Airplane Mode and try again
Then reboot


Connect to second Wifi network using dongle I have a Macbook Pro running Yosemite (10.10.1) and an Asus wifi dongle.

I would like to connect to two wifi networks. One is a normal home/office/hotel/conference network with a connection to the outside internet, the other is a local internet with two other machines on it (a windows tablet and a PLC controller).

How do I do this?

(I can't even tell if the wifi dongle is being recognized, but it's supposed to support Mac. When I use it with the windows tablet, I get a "Wifi" and a "Wifi 2" option, and I just set each to different networks)

If you have the USB-AC51 I am afraid it does not work with Yosemite.

In the specs it only shows support up to 10.8 and not for 10.10

source: http://www.asus.com/us/Networking/USBAC51/specifications/

It turns out that someone is claiming that the "Bearextender driver software" works for that, but I can not confirm since I do not have your hardware to test.

http://store.bearextender.com/pages/regarding-yosemite-compatiblity


How do I launch a file with the extension .darwin.amd64? How do I launch or open a file with the extension .darwin.amd64?

Double clicking it results in: "There is no application available to open the document..."

If there is no file extension, then it is most likely Mach-O file format. This kind of files without file extension can be executed within terminal by dragging the file to the terminal window and pressing enter. Another way is to use terminal to cd into the directory containing the file, and executing ./filename.darwin.amd64, of course replace filename with your actual filename.


transfer photos from iPhone to computer **without** importing to Photos Is it possible to transfer photos from iPhone to computer without importing to Photos.

I have iPhone5 running iOS 10 (which I don't want to "upgrade" to iOS11).
My Mac is running macOS 10.13.1 with iTunes 12.6.2, but I could also use a computer running Linux.

Previously I had a number of methods of transferring photos, but none of these seem to work any more on High Sierra.

I DO NOT want to import into Photos, but retain the photos with their original names, metadata etc.

If all else fails, I could use Dropbox, but transferring 1000s of files on a slow upload link, just so I could download them seems slow and inefficient.

Try the Image Capture app. It should allow you to import all your pictures with very little hassle, and comes bundled with macOS.


Not able to login using Apple ID I am trying to login with Apple ID. But it shows an error like in the image. I used to login with a browser and it's working. Also I couldn't update my apps in my Mac. Please help. Not only now... it always shows like this.

I just had the same problem. Here's how I solved it:

Sign out from your Account
Just try to download something from iTunes / AppStore
iTunes will promt you to sign in
Enter your credentials for your account

You're done. Worked for me. I hope it works for you.


Access Saved Searches Command Line I have setup a bunch of saved searched via spotlight.  Is there a way that I can access them from command line?  Ideally I'd like to do an "ls -l [my search name]" but that doesn't really work.

Use the RawQuery key as an argument for mdfind:

mdfind "$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print RawQuery' test.savedSearch)"


How do I roll back updates on my MBP? My MBP has been freezing every day, and extremely slow ever since the last 10.6.8 update. Is there a way to go back to when my laptop was usable? Sort of like in Windows where you can uninstall updates

Mac OS X does not have a feature like Windows System Restore Points. Doing this sort of thing on a Mac is considerably more involved and problematic.

That being said, there are other options and workarounds for troubleshooting your system's performance and how to fix it. I'll have to leave that for another post.

Have you been using Time Machine to make complete backups of your Mac to an external hard drive, every hour, every day?


tell-tale file to know whether Mojave is installed I'd like to revert to High Sierra from Mojave via Time Machine.  I've already wiped the drive and installed a Mojave Time Machine backup, but I'd like to go back even further.  The presence of what directory or file in the Time Machine history will be indicative of whether Mojave or High Sierra is installed?

Thanks

From what the question seems to imply:

the most significant file that the macOS system writes for itself is perhaps its own version number file?

That file is located at

/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

If that file contains, for example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
        <string>16G1618</string>
        <key>ProductCopyright</key>
        <string>1983-2018 Apple Inc.</string>
        <key>ProductName</key>
        <string>Mac OS X</string>
        <key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
        <string>10.12.6</string>
        <key>ProductVersion</key>
        <string>10.12.6</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Then the above is for Sierra 10.12.6.


OS X 10.10.4 Yosemite, has the default PATH changed? Today I had to configure a new macbook, running 10.10.3 out of the box and immediately upgraded to 10.10.4.

After installing homebrew I went to configure the default PATH, and opened /etc/paths.

I found that it contained:

/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin

that is, /usr/local/bin is at the top. This is not what I was expecting, and what I know should be the default.

Has the default changed? I reviewed the Homebrew installation script, and it doesn't seem to change /etc/paths. I also stat'ed the file, and it doesn't seem to have been changed.

So, is this the new default PATH order in OS X?

My /etc/paths has the same content on 10.10.4 and has a timestamp of "Sep  9  2014" so it has been like that for quite some time now.

Basically it makes sense to place /usr/local/bin on top because that way binaries installed locally take precedence over the standard versions.


How do I restore an iPhone from a backup located on an external drive? I back my iPhone up to my Mac. Since I don't have much space on my Mac, I moved my iTunes backup folder to an external drive (copy and paste), and then created a symlink from the normal backup folder to the location on the external drive where that particular backup folder is located. I backed my iPhone up, and it seems to change the backup on the external drive (I can tell by looking at the date modified of the files in the backup folder).

Now, there are two problems I've noticed with this. Firstly, when I connect my device and look in iTunes, it says "Latest Backup: Your iPhone has never been backed up to this computer" – even though it has been backed up (although to an external drive). The worse part is that the "Restore Backup..." button is grayed out, not allowing me to restore my iPhone from the backup.

Another thing I should mention is that when I go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices, I don't see my iPhone backup in the list. I was under the impression that symlinks worked on a low enough level such that applications like iTunes would be fooled into thinking they were on the main drive itself. That isn't the case though, apparently.

So, how do I restore my iPhone from my backup (other than perhaps buying a new Mac with a larger internal hard drive)? I hardly have enough space to move the device backup folder over to my main drive, so I'd like to leave that as a last option.

I was unable to restore from this backup because I had symlinked the iPhone backup's individual folder,

Volumes/External Drive/iPhone Backups/UF34...

into my Backups folder located at

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backups/.

This causes some issues. What you need to do is to symlink the backup folder into the MobileSync directory in your user folder. In other words, you need to create a symlink for the folder which contains all your iPhone backups (the folders with the weird numbers),

Volumes/External Drive/iPhone Backups/Backups

inside this folder on your disk

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/

I believe you need to rename (or delete) the Backup directory which is already on your hard disk if you want to do this.

I realize that this process might be slightly confusing if one has not used symlinks very often, so feel free to leave a comment here and I will try to make this answer clearer if I can.


Can an .ipsw firmware restore image's origin be verified? Given an .ipsw iOS firmware restore image, can its origin be verified (e.g. through checking a digital signature) to provide assurance that it is actually from Apple and it hasn't been tampered with?

All IPSW SHA1 hashes can be found on The iPhone Wiki - Firmware.

You can get the SHA1 of your downloaded IPSW by running the following Terminal command:

openssl sha1 <path-to-ipsw>

The output can be compared to the relevant SHA1 provided on the wiki.


Google Calendar failing to sync on a specific account I have a late 2012 Macbook Pro that came running Mountain Lion out of the box. I have used  Mail and Messages with my various Google accounts since I purchased it, but never Calendar. When I checked the Calendar option all I got was the header for where the calendars should be.

I cannot see any calendars on that account, create/view/edit events, or anything. My sync settings on the Google side are just fine as it works on other devices. Last night I took it a step further and created a new user account on my laptop and first thing I did was connect my Google account. Everything worked.

I have tried deleting the Calendar cache files, preferences, accounts, and pretty much anything short of the app itself. I even went ahead and cleared out my Keychain of anything relating to that account or Google in general. As a last ditch effort, I did a full clean up and reset of the SyncServices system.

Short of painstakingly comparing the two accounts I have no idea what could be causing this problem. There are no user specific applications or extensions running on my machine, and I've performed no "under the hood" tweaks to Mountain Lion.

Does anyone have any idea where I should be looking for a cause? I haven't found anything like this problem online yet, and I definitely don't want to migrate my stuff to a new account.

Key points:

Google Calendars do not sync at all to my primary user account.
I've tried multiple Google accounts.
Only a new user account in Mountain Lion is able to connect.
All SyncServices files and all Calendar files have been wiped and recreated to no effect.

I actually fixed my problem by deleting and re-creating my user account. I chose to keep the home folder in place and used it as an existing folder when I created the replacement account.

While I was troubleshooting everything I was monitoring the logs and saw no error specific error messages. The only thing that looked suspicious was a message about CalendarAgent returning status 4. I wasn't able to find a reference for that status message.

If I understand it correctly, the problem would had to have been in the /var/db/ directory in order to get fixed by an account deletion.


brew not linking gcc after install? Why does brew not link gcc properly?
What am I missing?

$>brew install gcc49 --without-multilib
==> Installing gcc49 from homebrew/homebrew-versions
==> Downloading http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gcc/gcc-4.9.3/gcc-4.9.3.tar.bz2
==> Downloading from http://gnu.mirror.iweb.com/gcc/gcc-4.9.3/gcc-4.9.3.tar.bz2
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> ../configure --build=x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0 --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc49/4.9.3 --libdir=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc49/4.9.3/lib/gc
==> make bootstrap
==> make install
  /usr/local/Cellar/gcc49/4.9.3: 1079 files, 146M, built in 27.3 minutes
$>which gcc49   // <--------- NOTHING SHOWS UP HERE
$>which gcc  // <--------- NOTHING SHOWS UP HERE
$>

I event tried brew unlink gcc49 && brew link gcc49
What am I missing?

The executables are named gcc-4.9 and not gcc
I fixed it by going to:

$>cd /usr/local/Cellar/gcc49/4.9.3/bin
$>ln -s gcc-4.9 gcc
$>ln -s g++-4.9 g++
$> cd ~
$>brew link gcc


Is there a Byte-By-Byte Duplicate File Removal app for Mac? (not SHA-1 or MD5 hash!) I recently switched to Mac and spent way too many hours on PC trying every duplicate removal app, eventually discovering that byte-by-byte checking was necessary to get accurate (safe) results, and finally then settling on AllDup as the best app for this purpose.

Mac options seem more limited and I have not found any that do byte-by-byte checking, they don't even necessarily state on their website what algorithm(s) they use! Any tips? Must also work on Yosemite.

You could do worse than to try dupeGuru, available from Hardcoded Software, I've had very good results with it. It presents numerous options for fine-tuning your search and will perform byte-checking comparisons.

In addition to the standard dupeGuru there is a music edition as well as a picture edition for more specific media searches. It's free so give it a go with some test files and see what mileage you get.


Failure to install mysql on macOS Mojave I've moved to a new machine and installing MySQL is turning out to be quite an issue (the last time I installed it on a mac it was quite seamless).

I used two approaches to install MySQL: brew and the offical installer

Brew:

I started with brew install mysql. This installed the latest version of MySQL. It initially worked and I could log into the root user without a password. When I tried to set the password for the root account I ended up being locked out of the root account. I proceeded to uninstall that version of MySQL and tried a different version (5.7). When I installed that I got the following error: ERROR 2061 (HY000): Authentication plugin 'sha256_password' reported error: Authentication requires SSL encryption. I ended up uninstalling that version of MySQL as well.

Native Package:

Tried the latest version was asked for a password but could not login to the root user with the password. Received this error: ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock'. Additionally I could not run mysql.server start, received the following error: command not found: mysql.server. I did not add anything to my PATH, should I have done that?

Additionally, this is how the MySQL widget in the System Information looks like. I tried pressing Start MySQL Server a bunch of times, it would start and almost immediately stop.

Can anyone suggest a clean way in which I can remove all these defunct installations and have a clean MySQL install?

MySQL 8 makes big changes compared with previous version 5.7. Downgrading directly to the lower version 5.7 from 8.x won't work.

Solution:

Uninstall all MySQLs you've installed.
Since you're setting up a new machine, there's no existing database. Just clean up the broken database.

# brew-installed mysql
rm -rf /usr/local/var/mysql

# db from the official installed
# should be located at /usr/local/mysql (I'm not very sure)
ls -ald /usr/local/*mysql*
# then delete any folders listed by ls

You'd better remove the conf file /usr/local/etc/my.cnf as well.
Reinstall MySQL.


Add color to custom ls alias I created an alias to display permissions in octet format:

alias lso="ls -l | awk '
{
  k=0;
  for (i=0;i<=8;i++)
    k+=((substr($1,i+2,1)~/[rwx]/)*2^(8-i));
  if (k)
    printf("%0o ",k);
  print
}'

I also set added this code to display ls in a colored format:

export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=GxFxCxDxBxegedabagaced

What I am wondering, is how to make my alias display in a colored format as well?
Also, if anyone could explain the syntax of the alias (after the pipe)? I copied the text and am trying to learn to be able to synthesize commands like it.

The default ls provided with OSX comes from BSD and won't allow you to do what you want.

Using CoreUtils ls (installed with macport it's available with the gls command)

You'll get your colors using --color=always:

ls -l --color=always | awk '
{
  k=0;
  for (i=0;i<=8;i++)
    k+=((substr($1,i+2,1)~/[rwx]/)*2^(8-i));
  if (k)
    printf("%0o ",k);
  print
}'

About the awk part :

ls outputs file permissions as 9 characters. That's why there's a loop.
the substr returns at each step one of the char (incremented index, 1 char-length substring)
~/[rwx] converts the char to 1 if it's a r or a w or a x
the operation behind just does the operation the get the decimal result
print("%0o ", k) just prints the octal result of the decimal value calculated before


"The operation can’t be completed because the item is in use" when deleting from Samba mounted drive I have a USB drive plugged into my Asus RT-N66U router and shared over SMB. I originally formatted this drive on a Mac. I have two Trendnet TV-IP572PI surveillance cameras that records snapshots/video to this drive over SMB. Sometimes when I mount the drive from my Mac ('Connect to server' @ smb://192.168.1.1) and attempt to delete old directories off of it, I get this error:

  The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.

This is extremely frustrating since I have to unplug the USB drive, plug it back into my Mac, and format it to get it working again. I assume this is some kind of permissions problem, and when these permissions are messed up, the cameras aren't writing to the drive. I may not notice this for days if I have been out of town.

Searching Google for this error mostly turns up results about disabling a unix extensions setting in smb.conf on the server you are connecting to. I have no way to do this since the Samba server runs off of the Asus router. Email support from ASUS has not been helpful so far, with recommendations to upgrade the firmware and do a hard reset on the router (have latest firmware already). I believe this problem stems from mounting the drive from my Mac.

Thanks in advance.

There are actually two messages you're referring to:

  "This operation can't be completed because the item is in use"

and

  "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to
  access some of the items."

If you see the first one - I sometimes get that message too. Quite often this can be resolved by running: sudo lsof | grep <filename> in Terminal.app - obviously replace <filename> with the actual name of the file you're trying to delete. I typically get this when trying to empty the trash, but if the trash is not supported on the filesystem you have mounted, you may see it when trying to delete.

What lsof does is it lists all open files, and shows which process opened each of them. Quite often this will be a quick look process that opened the file and somehow didn't close it (it will do that when you display a list of movie files in Finder - it will then try to show you the first frame of the movie in the preview, and it's using Quick Look to do that).

Usually after running the lsof the files are closed (that's if lsof doesn't show anything), or I can just kill the quick look process and then empty the trash.

As for the other message - the best thing to do is to run ls -la <filename> or ls -lad <directory> to see the permissions on the file or the folder you're trying to remove. This may give you a better idea where the problem is.


How do I stop sharing call history between two iPhones? My husband and I both just upgraded to iOS 8.3.  Now I notice that if I have a missed call it shows up on his notice screen and all my calls show up in his recent call history (and vice versa).

Both phones don't ring and they don't need to be near each other or connected by Wi-Fi.  We do share an iTunes account.

How do I stop sharing call history between the two phones?

If you are on the same Apple ID that is going to happen.
You can set up your own Apple ID, including @icloud.com email address for free and then link it with your husband's account for the purchasing of apps, music, etc., using Family Sharing

4 people in my household are on iDevices and each one has their own Apple ID or iCloud address...but it is all linked to one account and we use family sharing.

Just make sure your husband doesn't set it so that he has to "approve" every purchase you make! ;)


Split screen app for Mac? I'm aware of applications such as this which allow windows to be "halved", allowing the screen to be divided up. But are there any apps out there that split the Mac screen within applications and within windows? I'm aware that split screen editing is available in Microsoft Word and Excel, but is there an app which is allows a universal split screen across all applications?

Put the same application on both sides, then select the window that you want in the left side and the other window in the right side.


How does iPhone restore so fast? Yesterday, I restored my iPhone in DFU mode. I think iOS is built from source in this mode and there is no way to access old data. My backup size was around 3 GB. Even though my internet speed is fast. Downloading the backup took 1 minute but the actual installation of backup only took under 10 seconds.
I wonder how is backup restored so fast?
I would like to know how the installation of backup works for iOS.

There is no way 3 GB is transferred under 10 secs. It would need >300 MB/s speed. Most probably your backup was already there.


The time using 'Set date and time automatically' differs between OS X and iOS On my OS X Mavericks my time is always a few minutes (about 4 minutes) ahead of my iOS 7.1.2 iPhone. Both devices are set to set the date and time automatically.

On my Mac I can choose from:

Apple Americas/U.S. (time.apple.com.)
Apple Asia (time.asia.apple.com.)
Apple Europe (time.euro.apple.com.)

but these do not differ more than a second or so.

On my iPhone I can only choose 'Set Automatically'.

Why is there a difference between both times? And which one is 'real'?

Screenshot taken with a few seconds in between (believe me ;)

The iPhone does not use NTP to synchronize its clock. It uses a feature of the cellular network. I can't tell you why your Mac's clock is off that far, but I suggest you use nl.pool.ntp.org instead of time.euro.apple.com.


Can I stream any video played with VLC player to Apple TV? Can I stream any video played with VLC player to Apple TV ?

Any additional plug-in for it...?

It's not using VLC (although it uses some of its components and should be able to open anything VLC can open), but it looks like there's a way to do this. It requires on-the-fly transcoding for formats the AppleTV doesn't support (essentially anything not .mp4 or .m4v), which means it may take a fair bit of CPU power on your Mac, especially for HD stuff. It also means that aside from files the AppleTV natively supports, you're not getting bit-perfect renditions of the files, it's a lossy translation, but if you have a decently fast Mac, it should be pretty good.

The main tool you'll want is AirFlick. It's a pretty basic program that sends a URL to the AppleTV that tells it to open a stream from your computer. It also handles transcoding the non-native files. It's not very well documented; it looks like the latest versions use a built-in copy of ffmpeg for transcoding, but some of the resources around the web suggest that it may need VLC installed as well.

Usage is pretty straight forward.

Open up AirFlick
Select your AppleTV from the drop-down in the upper-left
Drag the file you want to play onto the droplet, and hit play.

It should take around 30 seconds to buffer the transcoding, then start playing. It's definitely beta software, so YMMV.

From what I can tell, the transcoding support is pretty simplistic. If you want to configure the transcoding process, you need to use custom VLC or ffmpeg command-line options and pass the output to AirFlick.

This guide from TUAW should give you a starting point for how to do that, but you'll want to consult other VLC or ffmpeg resources for specific configurations - it's beyond my expertise. The basic idea seems to be:

Use VLC or ffmpeg to transcode the source (in the example, that's dvdread:///dev/rdisk5@1:3-, replace that with the path to your file of choice) on-the-fly to an AppleTV compatible format
Pipe that output to mediastreamsegmenter which breaks the video into a streaming playlist the AppleTV can read
Host the streaming playlist on a webserver on your Mac
Use AirFlick to pass the URL of the playlist to your AppleTV


Retina performance much worse than non-retina in Windows on Parallels and VMWare I have been using Windows (8 then 10) in Parallels on a Mac for years. It has always been very fast.

Over 3 MacBook Air 11" with (2 then 4Gb RAM). Over many versions of MacOS and 2 versions of Windows.

I recently got a 12" MacBook (8Gb RAM) - and the VM also ran fine there. That was until I enabled retina mode in the VM. Then Parallels got slow - often locking up for 10 seconds.

So I spoke to Parallels and they couldn't fix it so I tried VMWare. It is a little better but also locks up from time to time in retina mode.

If you look at Geekbench the 12" is around 3000 - which is within 10% the Geekbench score of low-end MacBook i5 Pro 13" 2015 - and on par with Airs.

Is this a driver issue - or does retina just require a lot more speed?

Would a high-end new MacBook Pro likely fix this?

Has anyone had these issues and found a way to overcome them?

I figured this out after a long time.

In MacOS under 'displays' I had 'More Space' selected under resolution - rather than 'Default' or 'Default for display'.

This scales the screen which works OK on MacOS and in the VM in non retina mode - but this is what drastically slows things in Retina mode. Set this to Default (it's actually faster, smoother & more crisp in MacOS like that too as it's pixel perfect not scaled).


Strange network activity virus when Aiport is off / No Wi-Fi So I have this strange issue on my aging MBP (pre-retina generation, running 10.8.5 (need this for Maya 2013 to run), where basically the network is always showing activity even when I am not connected...

I am starting to suspect that there is some kind of virus in play, maybe?

Could someone provide me with some advice. I have captured the activity in a short video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvZp5u1nPfw

Note that there are spikes in packets sent/received at about 0.17 seconds into it and again at 0.30 seconds...

How do I begin to diagnose this issue?

Thanks
- J

First make sure to disable any Sharing, Airplay ect. and turn off your Bluetooth.

Here is a test you could run in Terminal:

Netstat -i

and look who is connected to what, by looking at the en0 (your wifi)


How can I modify the list of Applications under 'Open With...'? I recently went to open an audio file, and wanted to open it in an editor instead of a player. I right-clicked it, hovered over 'Open With...' and was met with a very unsightly list.

I have seen a problem in the past where apps will have previous versions stuck in the /Applications folder with their version number appended, but that is not the case here. Despite the duplicity in this list, no app is duplicated in /Applications nor anywhere else I can find on my system.

What causes this list to become filled with duplicates, and how can I remove them and ensure only the latest (and functional) version is list?

Applications don't have to live in /Applications. If you have a clone of your system mounted, that can account for some duplicates, but certainly not what you are observing. The list of programs for Open with… is maintained in the Launch Services database. If the list contains many duplicates as yours does, the database looks like it needs rebuilding.

Macworld Hints offers a suggestion as to how you can fix this:

The lsregister command, found at System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister, can tell the database to reset. Macworld recommends running the command thusly: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Note that utilities like Onyx or Cocktail can also reset this database for you. Do note that Finder won't re-read the new database so you will either have to log out and in again or issue a killall Finder if you don't mind just killing it for any users on your Mac to avoid a log out and in.


Large text selection doesn't work In macOS, one can select text quickly and precisely using shortcuts.

Pressing SHIFT and the arrow keys will select one character at a time (← →) or one line (↑, ↓) at a time. And pressing ALT and SHIFT in combination with the arrow keys will let you select each word at a time (← →) or from the insertion point to the very beginning or end of a document (↑, ↓).

However, I am having a hard time making it work on a larger document:

Why isn't the shortcut working in the second situation?

⇧ shift ⌥ alt ↓ selects to the end of the paragraph. This works in your first example because the document contains a single paragraph.

The correct combination for selecting to the end of the document is either ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd ↓ or ⇧ shift end, depending on that particular application’s shortcut for scrolling to the end of the document.

Correspondingly, selecting to the beginning of the document is ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd ↑ or ⇧ shift ↖ home.

And finally selecting to the start of the line is ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd ←, and to the end of the line ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd →. Using ⌥ alt instead of ⌘ cmd selects the previous/next word, respectively.


Iphone 4, IOS 7.1.2; Facebook Messenger App I have iPhone 4, ios 7.1.2 and accidently deleted facebook messenger and don't have a backup of the app and now I can't reinstall because of 7.1.2. How can I get it back on my iphone? Please help.

You can download it using iTunes store on your PC using the same iCloud account as your phone. Then, in your iPhone go to App Store click update and view purchased items. From there you can install back acebook messenger. Good luck!!!


What happens when you remove (or lose) the SSD from a Fusion Drive? After storing data on a Fusion Drive, is it possible to downgrade your Mac to use the hard drive (HDD) by just removing the solid state drive (SSD)?

In particular, I was wondering what happens when the SSD fails for one reason or another. Under the hood, is a Fusion Drive's SSD just a clone of operating, system, applications and most used files? If so, are all files safe on the old HDD and can it still boot? Or do I need to format the HDD and reinstall operating system, every application and move files back to HDD?

The Fusion drive is an amalgam of the SSD and HDD. If either piece gets removed or fails, you lose all the data. It might be possible to retrieve some of it, but it would be a job for drive recovery experts.

If you have a Fusion drive, it is possible to split it into the two separate pieces, resulting in a standard two-drive setup. However this is a destructive process, you need to reinstall the OS and all your data afterwards, as well as the recovery partition. On Macs that came with a pre-installed Fusion drive, you'll also run into issues where Disk Utility wants to "fix" the Fusion drive, so disk management needs to be done with the command line tools.

If you really want to split your Fusion drive, make sure you have a backup — this will delete your data; then boot into the Recovery partition (⌘R on boot) and open Terminal.

Run diskutil coreStorage list, and note the long string that appears after Logical Volume Group — that's the UUID. Then run diskutil coreStorage delete UUID, replacing UUID with the actual string. You can then reinstall OS X on the SSD or HDD and restore from a backup.


Why does Safari autofill login information with weird username? That's what Safari autofills in some login forms on different websites:

It looks like a password of kind "Internet password" in Keychain. Safari autofills this information even tho there's a proper "Web form password" saved in my Keychain for each of those websites.

Isn't Safari supposed to only autofill "Web form password" passwords?

It' an old bug. Update safari to last version. Apple has released three updated versions of its Safari Web browser, which commonly address an issue where saved passwords would not be automatically into relevant password fields as expected. In addition to fixing how passwords are managed  Apple issues fix for password autofill bug in Safari | MacIssues


MacBook Pro function keys New to the Mac world (from PC) but really like it so far.
In wanting to understand the operation of the laptop, I was reading about the function keys.  One book listed the "MacBook Pro's Default Function keys.  Went something like this:

F1            Descreases display brightness
F2.           Increases display brightness
.
.
.
F11           Decreases volume
F12           Increases volume

I've omitted some of the F numbers.

My issue is that none of these work for me. Zero.
When I press the "fn" key the F1 thru F12 show up in the Touch Bar and when I press F1 - F10 nothing happens.  When I press F11 the browser screen minimizes, and when I press F12 I go to the dashboard (I actually like this).

In the Touch Bar I notice that I have by default a volume up and volume soft key.

My question is, why doesn't pressing F4 (fn key and the F4 key that shows up in the Touch Bar) open the launchpad (I think this is the default )?  Why doesn't F3 open the Mission Control?

I'm just trying to fully understand this machine and this is a hole in my understanding.

I'm using MacOS 10.14. Mojave.
and it says Kernel version Darwin 18.6.0 (whatever that means).

BTW, I have, under system preferences, keyboard, press fn key to "show F1, F2...".

I have also gone to system preferences an keyboard shortcuts and pressed the restore defaults.

Can anyone assist with what I'm doing wrong here to not be able to get the default function keys to do their default functions.

I believe you are misunderstanding the information you read.

On older MacBook Pros, the top row of function keys double as system settings keys just as they do on PCs, but with one important difference:  On a PC, the top row keys act as function keys primarily, and you use the Fn key to use the secondary setting. Macs default to the exact opposite of this. The top row of keys act as settings keys primarily, and you use the Fn to use them as regular function keys. This can be confusing to newcomers at first.

This also adds ambiguity into the documentation you found. It says that F1/F2 adjust the screen brightness, but F1 and F2 don't actually do anything. The screen brightness controls are just ON the F1/F2 keys.  The documentation knows that the primary and secondary functionality of the function keys is reversed on Macs, so that's why it said to use just F1/F2.

Lastly, I said in my first paragraph that older MacBook pros act this way. Newer MacBook Pros with the Touch Bar do not have a row of function keys. The Touch Bar always displays whatever function will happen when you touch it. When you press the Fn key, it shows the function keys because that's how older models would behave.

Just remember, you're not actually after the F-keys. You're after the functions that used to be on those keys when there was an actual row of function keys instead of a touch bar.

Make sense?


Single byte memtest errors — possible to tell which RAM chip is defective? I'm running memtest on a 2014 MacBook Air 11" with 8 GB memory spread over 4 Hynix chips.

I'm getting errors in the most significant byte of every (eighth) memory address when running memtest. After a while memtest just stops saying "too many errors occurred" (that's a nice line from an error testing utility ) so I don't know the extent of the error, nor do I see how I could find that out with a memory tool that repeatedly stops after ten minutes.

Is it possible to narrow down which hardware component is probably faulty from this information?

Not from that utility.  You’d need to see how the chips were laid out and what the addressing scheme was.  Since Apple doesn’t provide this, you’d be guessing.

Since these chips are soldered, they can’t be (user) replaced unless you take it to a shop that does SMT rework.

Keep in mind it could also be the memory “controller” that handles the addressing of the memory that’s has also failed.  Usually when this work is done, all chips are replaced.


How to deal with duplicate file names when moving files in terminal? So I'm trying to move images of a specific dimension to another folder. But working with a huge number of files, the same filename once and a while presents itself. And I have been using this script:

#!/bin/bash
targetDir="$HOME/Documents/pixx"

find "$targetDir" -iname '*.jpg' -o -iname '*.png' -o -iname '*.bmp' -o -iname '*.jpeg' 2>/dev/null | \
while read -r filename; do
    hw="$(sips -g pixelHeight -g pixelWidth "$filename" 2>/dev/null)"
    h="$(awk '/pixelHeight/{print $2}'<<<"$hw")"
    w="$(awk '/pixelWidth/{print $2}'<<<"$hw")"
    if [[ $h -eq 270 ]] && [[ $w -eq 360 ]]; then
        mv "$filename" "$targetDir/hehe"
    fi
done

I found out that mv had a backup command mv --backup=t but that is just for linux, so I can't use that. But it would be great to have some sort of equal function in this script above.

So how can I add a incremental number if the same filename appears?

If you are already a homebrew user, you could install GNU coreutils and get quick access to GNU mv. This is installed as gmv so that it doesn't break any scripts that rely on BSD mv's syntax.

If you don't use homebrew and do not want to install it, you'll need to do tests with [ -f ${filename} ] etc. (which I expect is what you wanted).

Once you have homebrew installed, run,

brew install fileutils

Then you can gmv --backup=t as you wished to.


Record / playback keystrokes There are 3rd party apps but I'm not interested in those.  I'm a web developer and during testing I find myself entering login credentials over and over again.  If I could quickly "play" these keystorkes it would help my sanity.  I'm assuming Automator can do this?  I've never used Automater so a complete answer for that would be appreciated.  However I would prefer something even more native if it's possible.

Let me start by saying that there are lots of good third party apps for automatically logging in to web forms. I highly recommend using one of those.

To answer your question: Yes, you can do this with a combination of Automator and AppleScript. Here's how.

Open Automator. Go to File-> New. Select Service.
Type applescript into the search bar near the top left.
Drag the Run AppleScript item to the area on the right.
Replace the purple code that starts in the box with this:

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "username"
    keystroke tab
    keystroke "password"
end tell

Now replace the username text with your username, and replace the password text with your password.
This will have the computer type your username, hit tab, and type your password.
Now, at the top of the Automator window, set Service receives to no input and in to the app you need this to happen in.
Automator shoud now look like this:

Save this and give it a name. Now, go to the app you selected at the top right and put your cursor in the username field.

Go to the app's menu (next to the Apple menu) and choose Services-> {what you named your Automator app}.

It should run the Automator workflow and 'play back' the keystrokes.

Again, this is the hard, insecure way. I highly recommend apps like 1Password and LastPass.


iMessage: Receiving at two devices I got a new iPhone 4S, but I had upgraded my old iPhone 4 to iOS 5. On Wi-Fi, I get iMessages on both the phones. I want to receive them only on my 4S and not the 4.

Under Settings > Messages > Receive At, remove your email address, you should then only receive the messages on your iPhone 4S.

You can also, set up a new Apple ID for your brother. He should then be able to receive iMessage on both his phone number and his email address.


"This certificate was signed by an untrusted issuer" problem after updating to El Capitan Most of the https connections returns that. Most of them is signed by Symantec. But not all. I tried to google the problem, but with no luck, seems like I only the one who experiencing this problem.

I checked apple's certificate with https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html and all seem to be correct.

Some of the blocked sites can't be reached by Chrome due to HSTS:

This happens when I open iTunes:
After clicking "continue" there are appears more such windows, most of them on apple.com domain just with different subdomains.

Please, help.

Same issue. It is certificate related on your own mac.
Your machine has expired certificates which can be deleted using: - applications > utilities > keychain Access.
- Select a) Keychain: Login and b) Category: Certificates
- Scroll each certificate and if it has expired delete it.

I found the answer including instruction and images via link
http://tiffanybbrown.com/2015/10/cant-connect-to-itunes-app-store-https-sites-el-capitan-upgrade/


IPhone 6s Apps are not being shown in iTunes on Windows 10 I have a problem since i installed windows 10, i own an IPhone 6s and on iTunes  Apps are not being shown in the apps tab (I mean the box on the left side where apps and its size are listed, it is just blank as if they were undetected although they are shown on the tabs on the right)

I know this only happens on Windows 10 as i have a Laptop with Windows 7 and it is working properly with the same iTunes version.

This is driving me crazy because sometimes i need to clear some space and do not know which apps to remove apart from guessing ...

Can someone help?

If all you're wanting to do is clear space on your iPhone and you want to know how much space each app takes up, you can do this all directly from your iPhone as follows:

Go to Settings
Swipe up and tap on General
Tap on Storage & iCloud Usage
Under the Storage heading (not the iCloud heading), tap on Manage Storage
Give your iPhone a little time to calculate how much space each of your apps is taking up
When finished they'll al be listed from largest to smallest

Now you can tap on any 3rd party app to see a breakdown of its data usage or to actually delete the app altogether.

In the case of Apple's iOS apps, tapping on them will give you various options depending on the app.


Wireless or bluetooth stero for streaming from imac? Looking for info from mac users who stream audio from imac to a stereo in the home.

after a bit of research, I have narrowd my choices down to
Soundfreaq SFQ-1 (bluetooth) or the Pioneer X-SMC3-S Music Tap AirPlay Music System (airplay)
Can anyone tell me the difference between airplay and bluetooth for streaming audio  (only about 10 feet).

In short, Apple's proprietary version of DLNA, which they call AirPlay, is based on WiFi hardware. Bluetooth speakers, obviously use Bluetooth hardware. WiFi has a far greater bandwidth, so go with that. You shouldn't have any problems.

In theory, Bluetooth could work, but in many implementations bandwidth can be limited, so it's not uncommon for your audio to be decoded from its original format (mp3 aac etc.) by your player (iPod, iPad etc.), then re-encoded to an intermediate format for transfer over BT, and then decoded once again before actual playback.

This extra encoding step obviously degrades the quality. This doesn't happen with AirPlay. Since the bandwidth of WiFi is much larger than any implementation of Bluetooth, even if the audio file is decompressed on the player side, it could be sent to the receiver without any re-compression at all.


Use old Powerbook G4's screen I have a broken Powerbook G4 lying around and I'm wondering if I can re-use the screen, that is still fine. Maybe it's impossible, but is there a way to use it with composite video input?
Thanks

Yes, but it's not worth it.

The screen in that iBook is basically worthless: it's a small, not very good screen. You're better off spending any money on a slightly better display that–if nothing else–is larger.

However, if you really feel like it, you can do so.

First, you'll need to identify what display you have. Run the command ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6. This will output two strings. Copy the first one which should look something like "LP133WX2-TLC1", then search it. This will show you what panel it has. Using that info, search for it's controller. Using the same example here's a VGA controller for that panel.  This will allow you to  use it as a monitor.

Again, let me reiterate: this probably isn't worth it for that panel. You can get a larger, nicer panel for the same amount of money and time you'll invest. But if you feel like doing it, go ahead.


How do I enable the visual menu when changing language inputs? I saw this enabled on my friends Lion MBA, but I couldn't find a way to enable it on my Mountian Lion MBP. Anyone have any ideas?

There's probably something I'm missing, but it seems to be shown only for the shortcut for selecting the previous input source (⌘␣ by default). If the shortcut is an F-key, it is only shown if you hold the key and only for a split second.


Enable OS X Mail editing toolbar Some time ago somebody helped me to know how to display the OS X Mail message editing toolbar. Please note, this is not the main Mail toolbar, but appears on the message window. I did not record the steps, but I recall it is very simple. I would like to know how to enable that on a new computer.

Please look at the screen shot to see the toolbar that I am talking about. It is easy to find a ton of information about customizing the main toolbar. But I cannot find anything about enabling this one.

The toolbar in question is the bottom-most of the three toolbars shown, and has "Helvetica" visible in the first drop down.

Just clic on the A on the top right of your message window.


How can I make earphones with full inline controls work with VLC/Spotify? I have a set of earphones with full inline controls (mic, play/pause, vol up/down) but they only seem to work with iTunes (and I'm not sure the mic works at all).

How can I make them work with VLC/Spotify?

I just wrote a simple Mac app to solve this problem. Give it a try.

(Tested on Mac OS X EI and Sierra. Not working for 10.12.4.)


Intermittent charge on Macbook Pro I have a 2010 Macbook Pro with a MagSafe T Power adapter.

The power adapter makes a buzzing/hissing/fuzzy noise when it is plugged into the wall.

When it is plugged into my mac, my light turns green for about a second, then orange for 5-10 seconds, and then no charge.

I am not sure if the problem is my Macbook Pro battery, or my adapter?

How can I diagnose/troubleshoot, and what are the best recommendations?

If the adapter is making a noise when it is plugged into the wall but not connected to the machine then the adapter is probably faulty.

For fault finding you'd normally have two machines and two adapters and you'd try various combinations to rule out which items are working or not.


How to transfer iTunes library between user accounts on Windows? I have Windows 7 and the latest iTunes. My original user account, where my library is, seems to have contracted a virus so it's sky-rocketing my internet usage. I created a new user account, but I need to transfer my library, since I want to delete my old account to delete the virus. I've tried using an external hard drive, home sharing, and changing the library location to a public file, but nothing seems to work.

Under the old user, launch iTunes, then Preferences, then the Advanced tab and discover the "iTunes Media folder location".

Switch to the new user and launch iTunes. From the advanced tab, verify that the new user location path corresponds to the new user name. If it doesn't, quit iTunes, create the iTunes Music folder (using the path structure of the old location as a guide).

Relaunch iTunes. Set the location to the new folder you just created.

Quit iTunes and use Windows Explorer to copy everything in from the old user folder to the new user folder. Launch iTunes from the new user and your music should be there.


GPU temperature is above 70 C, and CPU fan is above 2400 rpm I've had my iMac for two years now. I play a lot of games and watch a lot of HD videos. In the past week, the computer has gotten a lot hotter than usual and it stutters a lot, and I feel like the two are related.

Today while playing a game I noticed that the GPU Diode reached 70 C (using iStat Pro), which I have never seen before. Therefore, the CPU fan was at 2400 rpm.

I play a lot of games, including this same one, and I have never seen the GPU this hot before, and almost never hear the fans running so loudly and so rapidly. (I can't even recall a time when I could very clearly hear the fans running.)

Could all this be a sign to a more bigger problem?

Yes, it could. Some things that could be happening, in order of probability:

Your computer's innards could be dusty. This is the the most likely cause, and is easily remedied by unplugging your computer, taking it outside or into the garage,  and using a compressed air canister to blow out all of the dust in the vents. (If you have allergies or asthma, I suggest wearing safety goggles and/or a mask. Also, the can will get very cold, so wearing gloves is probably a good idea as well.)
A(n unrelated) background process could be taking up a lot of CPU. What was the CPU percentage? Did you check if any other processes were running? If this is happening often, it could be that some other program (Software Update, Finder, Skype, etc.) is trying to run in the background, and is experiencing errors that cause it to hog memory.
The game and/or media player you use may have recently undergone an update that consumes significantly more CPU and/or memory and/or disk usage that you are used to. If you ran a software update in the last two or three weeks, or if the game and/or media player performs automatic updates, this may explain the problem. (If this is the case, and the issue is very bothersome, you can probably contact the vendor to get the previous version.)
A government entity could be spying on you through your computer.


iOS 4.2 on iPod Touch 2d Gen : is it worth it? Is there any advantage to upgrade the iPod Touch 2d Gen to iOS 4.2 ?

Is the tech specs enough for that new version ?
Does it consume more battery ?
Will it be slower ?

I'd say yes. I just upgraded a pair of 2nd gen iPod Touches to iOS 4.2 and it's been really solid so far - it hasn't slowed down the device or impacted the battery as far as I can tell. If you have an Airport Express or new Apple TV the AirPlay feature is very nice - this Thanksgiving I really enjoyed being able to stream music to a pair of speakers directly from the iPod in my pocket. (this will affect your battery as the device has to keep WiFi active to stream)


Get Custom HiDPI resolution rendering on non-Retina Macs On MacBook Pro with Retina Display, Apple samples image to 2x and then scale it back down. Even for other resolutions found in System Preferences.

However, on other Macs, that doesn't work. They simply provide one default resolution for HiDPI, and then others are all scaled.

Is there any possibilities that this can be configured on a non-Retina Mac?

This forum post answers your question: InsanelyMac - Custom Retina HiDPI Resolution

It's pretty lengthy and complex, and probably not for someone who isn't happy with messing about with the terminal and plists etc.  In essence the steps involve messing with the DisplayProductID and DisplayVendorID values to fool the OS into thinking it's a HiDPI display.

It's not fair to simply plagiarise the OPs post, as this is from another user on another site, rather than a generic "use this program' style suggestion, so you'll have to follow the link rather than have it all pasted in here.


Do I have to use the Apple USB Ethernet Adapter for a MacBook Air? Or can I use a third party one that is half the price? If there will be compatibility issues then I would prefer the Apple, but if it's just the same (like not needing to buy a SuperDrive any USB DVD reader/writer will do) can a third party one be used?

You don't have to but your mileage will vary between the adaptors if they work or not. The Apple ones have drivers built into OS X, most of the others should work but there'll be varying levels of success.


Why cant I go to this path? it says I don't have permission but I am the administrator So I got grand perspective because I wanted to clean the 70gb worth of system and other storage on my Mac but this one file which im pretty sure I deleted long ago still shows up and is taking up a massive 6 gb of space so I decided to go delete it but after I followed the file path It keeps telling me I dont have permission what can I do?
this is the error

and this is the path

Even as an admin, you cannot by default see inside another user's private area. As this particular user is a deleted account, you can just add yourself to the list of users with privileges, without having to worry about any other consequences.
Select the user folder (jayeshghandi) then  Cmd ⌘   i  or right click > Get Info.
At the bottom of the panel, click the lock, then type your admin password.
Click the  +  button bottom left & in the window that pops up, select your own account name & then click Select.
Back in the Info window you will see you name has been added to the list.
Make sure it's set to Read & Write & them from the little 'gear' icon at the bottom, select 'Apply to enclosed items.
After a few seconds you will then have full admin access to the entire jayeshghandi folder.


Enable restrictions on Guest user Our employees are logging into our shared computer using Guest user.

At some point somebody will click on an email address and Mail.app will open. If they put in their Gmail credentials, then it will download GBs of mail onto the computer. This will be deleted later, which is cool, but this whole process can be avoided.

How do I restrict Mail.app from opening in Guest user?

Also, it would be nice if I can restrict access to Facebook and other such websites that we don't want employees to browse.

Under System Preferences → Users & Groups → Guest User after you have allowed Guest user login by checking Allow guests to log in to this computer, you'll get an option to Enable parental controls.

Clicking on Open Parental Controls... button will present the setting for the configurations you are looking for. You can limit Guest user access to select apps, allow access to only a select websites and set other restrictions.


Bluetooth audio streaming from Android to Mac Is there any way I can Stream Audio from my Android device via Bluetooth to my Macbook Pro?

I'm using OS X 10.9.1 and Android 4.4.2.

The AUX-Port on my Android device has stopped working. Is there a way to stream audio to my Mac so that I can play audio on my Android device through my Mac's speakers?

After 6 years, I finally found a solution. Use sndcpy with ADB over TCP.
Ensure that you have USB Debugging on and Install via USB on.
If vlc is not found even though you installed VLC Media Player, then you can set an environment variable in your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc by adding a new line:
export VLC="/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC"

If you encounter this exception:
java.lang.SecurityException: You need the android.permission.INSTALL_GRANT_RUNTIME_PERMISSIONS permission to use the PackageManager.INSTALL_GRANT_RUNTIME_PERMISSIONS flag

then open sndcpy bash script in a code editor and remove the -g flag from the two adb install commands.


USB devices are greyed out in VirtualBox I'm running Windows XP on Virtual Box. I'm trying to write to a USB pen drive. VirtualBox detect the pen drive but its name is greyed our in GUI. And I couldn't pick it from the list. How can I use this pen drive with the virtual machine?

I found the solution myself. All I need was to eject usb pen drive from mac's desktop. When the drive ejected, it became available in VirtualBox.


Podcast ep on iphone 5s will not delete I've moved to the UK and just got a new 5s phone and restored it from my old settings on my US iphone 5. One glitch I've noticed seems to be w/ iTunes music or podcasts showing up on the phone in songs when I didn't move them to the phone. I had 3 on there I didn't want. 2 deleted fine, just like any of the individual songs can delete. 1 podcast ep will not. I hold my finger down on it and slide to the left and no red delete option will show, but it will on any other song. I go to the ep, click the red lines in the top right corner to get me to the individual song again and while other songs will delete that way as well, this again will not. The red delete rectangle won't show. I hook it up to my mac and verify no podcasts are synced. The category is greyed out. The artist is not checked under artists, the individual ep is not checked, it's not in a playlist I've synced nor is it in genre I've synced. This is a complete mystery how this is still on the phone at all. It plays no problem, but I want it deleted off the phone entirely. I've turned the damn thing off/on a few times. How do I remove this? What's going on?

Go to the settings app on iOS. Check podcasts and be sure to disable sync there. At that point a local delete should work properly.


How can I burn a CD with folders containing MP3's to listen to in a car? I have a bunch of podcats that I've downloaded as mp3's. I'd like to burn them to a CD in a single directory, call it "podcasts-1". Next week when I download more I'd like to add them to the CD (if there's space) in a directory called "podcasts-2".

I used to do this on a Windows box using DeepBurner. It super simple but for some reason I've had no luck on my new Macbook Pro. I tried creating a "new image from folder" using the Disk Utility application but that didn't play in the car.

You should use iTunes to burn the MP3 CDs. If I remember correctly, MP3 CDs are very slightly more complicated than just a folder on MP3s on a CD. iTunes does an excellent job. I've also had luck with LiquidCD.


iMac Lion not logging in Possible Duplicate:
  iMac not logging probably due to keychains problem

iMac OS X Lion here.

I have two accounts in the iMac. Both with password.

I'm not sure what happened, but now, when I startup the iMac, when I try to enter the first account, I enter the password, the screen goes blank for a moment, and throws me back to the login screen. No messages pop up.

But I CAN enter my second account.

What am I supposed to do?

Edit: More info
I remember I was messing with that account's keychain stuff (keys/certificates/etc), possibly deleting keys or even replacing them with other keys etc... Maybe that's related.

The first step in troubleshooting this problem is to boot into Safe Mode.

Shut your Mac down, and press the power button. As soon as you hear the startup sound, hold down the left Shift key. Keep holding it down until the spinning clock appears.

Starting up will take longer than normal because the Mac is performing some basic disk repair procedures.

Once startup is complete, and you are back to the Finder, reboot the Mac again.

If this does not solve the problem, it is time to try the next step.


How to remove the loading wheel from iPad home screen? The loading wheel have been showing up for no reason on the home screen of my iPad Air running 7.1.2 that is not jailbroken. It use to only show up when I am downloading apps. Now it is stuck on the top left corner of the iPad home screen, beside the wifi connection strength sign. The only way I know how to remove it is by restarting the iPad, but it showed up again after a while. I also tried the hard restart ( pressing the sleep/wake and home button together and letting go when I see the apple logo) but it only removed it for a while and then it showed up again. Any idea how to fix this?

Possibility 1: Bug in a third-party app

Third-party developers have the ability to turn this icon on and off in their applications. This is a problem when the app does not disable the icon appropriately when it is finished with network operations.

The spinning wheel is set based on the networkActivityIndicatorVisible property and is set like so:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] setNetworkActivityIndicatorVisible:YES];

Restarting the device fixes this until the offending app enables the icon and, once again, does not disable it. Apple apps will handle the icon properly, but iOS leaves it up to the third-party developers to handle it on their own. Sloppy developers can definitely cause the issue you are seeing.

The explanation from Apple's developer page on this topic:

  Specify YES if the app should show network activity and NO if it
  should not. The default value is NO. A spinning indicator in the
  status bar shows network activity. The app may explicitly hide or show
  this indicator.

Because this is explicit, bugs in code may cause this to remain visible long after a network operation finishes. My suggestion to you is to track down the offending app and submit a bug report to the developers.

Possibility 2: Actual networking is happening in the background

The accepted answer from this Apple.SE question suggests that it may be actual network activity causing the spinning wheel to remain visible.

  The network you've connected to needs some more configuration, and it's taking some time to get the configuration information set
  properly from the router (or, more likely, DNS server)
  Your phone is polling for a lot of data to transfer - maybe there are a lot of apps to update, or you have a lot of email to sync, or
  you have a lot of cloud data to download
  Your phone is trying to hit an important server, and is having trouble connecting to it (say, it's trying to poll apple servers to
  check for software updates and the servers in questions are down). The
  spinner is going to stay up for a while, until your phone gives up or
  gets an actual connection.

This is certainly possible. It may not be a bug in anyone's code and reflect actual networking that your phone is doing in the background.


Does anyone have any tips or best practices for using NFS mounted directories? Does anyone have tips for conveniently dealing with a variety of NFS mounted directories in Mac OS X?

When I drag them to the sidebar in finder they can't be renamed.

When I mounted them using "connect to server" they get mounted under /Volumes.
Alternatively I can access them using /net/host/export and they will get automatically mounted.

But there doesn't seem to be any way to visit a /net/host/export directory using the finder GUI.  Although it seems I can use "open" from the command line to visit it and then drag it to the side bar.

So anyway.   Any "best practices" out there?

I seem to have a choice to drag either /net paths to the side bar or to drag /Volume paths to the side bar.  The finder seems to implement the auto-mount functionality when I click on /Volume-based sidebar links.

I could also create symlinks to /net paths and use those symlinks.

One of the core problems I have is that the /net paths (and the /Volume paths) are long and unfriendly.  I'm looking for a way to "manage" these in a way that lets me use shortcuts or aliases of some kind.

I'm still collecting tips.  When I get more, I'll come back here and rewrite this.
Basically /net paths are treated by the finder as local directories.  In some ways it treats them as local (must use 'Goto' to open them) and in some ways it knows they are special (they don't show up in the "Mac HD" location).

If you have any other tips, please add them.

In Finder press:

⇧+⌘+G to go to a directory. Since the automounting of /net is handled by the operating system (via Autofs, see the technical white paper) it will mount the share.
⌘+K to open the Connections window, where you can even save your commonly accessed locations.

(see the Go menu)

But I don't think you can rename connections.


input numbers to navigate 'audio menus' when using phone tethered to your mac via facetime When using facetime tethered to your iphone in Yosemite (not sure if its different in El Capitan, i havnt upgraded yet) is there a way to be able to key in a number in order to navigate phone options the sort of "press 1 for opening times, press 2 for sales.." sort of thing ?

I found the answer to this one, its very simple, just make sure your on the facetime window and then type the number on your keyboard


Could files downloaded from Youtube and Tumblr harm Mac? I'm putting old files to fresh Mac and on one external drive, there is bunch of video files I downloaded from Youtube and Tumblr at one point few months ago.

Would it be safe to put them to fresh Mac or could those files be harmful? There didn't seem to be anything bad with them before, but as this is fresh Mac I'm more careful now.

Should I keep them away from fresh Mac just in case?

Well there are two points to this.

A.) there is a question of whether or not the files themselves contain any malicious code, which is hypothetically possible, but not likely. Owlswipe's comment is not correct in saying you cannot download files from YouTube, you can do so both through YouTube Red, as well as downloader extensions (which by the way are not illegal).

All a YouTube downloader extension does is use a program (often times wget, or something similar) to make a copy of the video file that is referenced in the html for that video's page. While it is possible for a downloader extension to infect that video file, it is quite unlikely for it to happen in practice. As far as files from Tumblr go you can probably safely assume the majority of posters on Tumblr do not have the knowledge how, or a reason to inject malware into a picture they are posting. Also seeing as both of these sites use HTTPS (Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol) it would not be possible for someone else to slip malware into either the file as you were downloading it or the page when you were connecting. Though there is always technically the possibility that their severs could be hijacked, it is very unlikely that it happened during the specific time you were downloading files. Which brings me to the second point.

B.) Macs run macOS, which is built on Unix. Unix is very secure, and generally hard to infect with malware. While this does not mean you should stop caring about keeping your computer safe (because it is still possible for a Mac to get infected), as long as you don't enter your password into random prompts saying a program you didn't launch wants to modify your system you should be fine. Typically it is only Windows that is vulnerable to the type of attacks used by malware that is contained in an image or video file, and it is because of the way Windows handles both security access and multimedia with a connected system.

All in all your Mac should be fine if you move your older files to it. Unless you know for sure that someone had hijacked the YouTube or Tumblr servers on the day you downloaded the files, you don't realistically need to worry about it getting infected by them. With that said always be careful when running programs you download from the internet, even on a Mac, as it is easier for malware in a program to infect any system than it is for malware in a video or image file.