OS X Firewall blocking external connections to NGinx Docker container I have an Docker container running NGinx on a macOS High Sierra machine behind a corporate firewall that cannot be disabled. The container is unable to be accessed externally from other machines on the corporate network using the host IP. I have tried running the container on a machine not subject to the firewall and everything works fine, so the issue likely lies in the firewall.

Things I have tried:

Running

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --add /Applications/Docker.app/Contents/MacOS/*
sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --unblockapp /Applications/Docker.app/Contents/MacOS/*

and

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --add /Applications/Docker.app/Contents/MacOS/Docker
sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --unblockapp /Applications/Docker.app/Contents/MacOS/Docker

both commands add Docker to the list of apps under Security & Privacy > Firewall Options but the container is still not accessible remotely via the host IP.

This issue is likely nothing to do with your local machine.

If you are behind a corporate firewall, that firewall is designed specifically (amongst other things) to prevent exactly what you are trying to do: set up an externally accessible server on the internal (protected, corporate) LAN

The only way to be able to access your Mac at work (no matter what it is running) is to ask if your IT department will allow it.

Personally if someone asked for something similar where I work, I'd laugh in their face. A corporate intranet (depending on what your company does...) is no place for a personal server of any sort.

They already (likely) have a number of externally accessible servers (EG email, remote access, etc.) that they spend a lot of time on making sure they are secure and safe. It is unlikely they'll let you do this.

Additionally they may block setting up servers like this at the network level. Again contact your IT department and tell them what you are trying to do.


Is there anything like System Restore for Mac OS X? I've been a Mac user for a few years now. Thinking about if it would be a good idea to set up a Mac for my parents, I came to think of the awesome feature of System Restore in Windows where making a System Restore point once a day would make it really easy to roll back any mistakes or installed software that made the computer not work well.

Is there anything like it, perhaps a third party application or some cool github project, for Mac OS X?

So far as I know there isn't a nice automated way to provide the benefits of System Restore as it is implemented on Windows. For all its utility for Windows users, though, System Restore can't be used to backup/restore individual files & whatnot at the whim of the user - that requires a separate backup system.

Time Machine on OS X, on the other hand, can provide for the backup/restore of deleted documents, folders, etc, and can be used to restore an entire hard drive in the event of a crashed or munged drive. I've used this function a few times, twice on a very important server, and once on my own machine, with great success.

My Mom's new Lion iMac is setup with an inexpensive external 500 GB USB hard drive and Time Machine is running like clockwork. My Mom knows to check the Time Machine menu every day to make sure it is backing up. She's even started to recover files on her own now, without needing to call Tech Support (me).

Time Machine was also very helpful in migrating her creaky Leopard Mac mini to the new iMac a few months ago. Instead of hooking the old & new Macs together via Ethernet cable, I simply ran a Time Machine backup on the old machine, shut it down, connected the USB drive to the new iMac, and the Migration Assistant app took care of the rest. Her new iMac was up and running in a little more than an hour.

A non-Time Machine solution would be using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to back up the Mac to an external hard drive on a regular basis. This would allow for a mass restore of the drive's contents.

Another non-Time Machine solution would be to boot from the System Install DVD (pre-Lion)
or an bootable external HD (Lion & after) and create a restorable disk image. After converting the image to ASR format, Disk Utility can be used to restore the disk image.


How would I limit per day usage for user with standard access rights to X minutes on macos 10.15? I have account with administrative access on home computer, naturally.
How would I trim to family member with standard rights usage to 30 minutes per day on macOS 10.15 (in screen time or whatever.)
UPD20210407 I've filed FB9071215 with Apple to untether that functionality
from family sharing setting.

One solution would be to create child iCloud accounts for each of the individual users.


Trouble with Applescript/Xcode setting up VPN Auto Connect with Btguard's Tunnelblick Open VPN I followed all of the all of the steps in this link How to auto connect to VPN upon login/boot?. I tried a number of times, changing the service from "BTGuard VPN" to "Tunnelblick VPN" to "BTGuard", etc., without success. I keep getting this notice from Applescript:

"Can't get <<class svce>> "btguard" of <<class locc>> of <<class netp>> of application "System Events".

I am running Mac 10.8.4 and am using BTGuard's Open VPN service via the Tunnelblick app. Also, my OS can't hide the extension, thus it appears as an app.

"System Events" is an Apple-supplied function. It can only be used to start a VPN that is the type of VPN built into OS X -- an "L2TP over IPSec" or "PPTP", or "Cisco IPSec" VPN.

Tunnelblick is used to start/stop/manage an "OpenVPN" VPN, which is different. (That is why you need Tunnelblick to use the VPN -- OS X does not include software to handle an OpenVPN-based VPN.)

Tunnelblick itself has an option to start when the computer starts -- on the "Settings" tab of the "Configurations" panel of the "VPN Details..." window, there is a setting named "Connect". The default setting is "Manually", but you can set it to connect "When Tunnelblick launches" or "When computer starts".

The "When computer starts" setting will only be available if the configuration is what Tunnelblick calls a "Shared" configuration, or if the version of Tunnelblick you have is what is called a "Deployed" version (with the configurations built into the application).

If you have a "Private" configuration, you can change it to "Shared" (and thus enable the "When computer starts" setting) by selecting the configuration in the list on the left, then clicking the little "gear" icon at the bottom of the list, then clicking "Make Configuration Shared..."

Even with "When computer starts" selected, there is a time during the computer startup when the VPN has not been established but network operations take place (among other things, to start the VPN!), so there is network traffic that is not sent through the VPN. If you are trying to make sure nobody can "eavesdrop" on your network connection, this brief time period is a time when they can.

For that reason, few people use the "When computer starts" option -- and it could be buggy (I speak as the developer/maintainer of Tunnelblick). It is likely that selecting "When Tunnelblick launches" and have Tunnelblick launch when you log in will be sufficient for your needs. Tunnelblick will launch when you log in if it is running when you log out (or shut down or restart). And when it launches, it will start the VPN if it is set to "When Tunnelblick launches".

If you have further questions about using Tunnelblick, please use Tunnelblick's Discussion Group for questions -- https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/tunnelblick-discuss.


How to show more fonts in Preview? Using cmd+t while annotating an image with text in Preview I don't find all the fonts I have installed. For example there is no Verdana or Century Gothic.
How can I view them?

In Preview.app look for the installed font under Collection → All Fonts.


How do I add my Applications folder to the dock? My apps folder, which was located in the bar on the bottom right of my Macbook Air running Catalina, suddenly disappeared.

How to get it back?

It sounds like you want to restore the Applications folder to it's location on the right side of the dock.

Close any open application windows so that you can see the desktop.
Click once on the desktop and the name in the upper left corner of
the screen (on the menu bar, next to the Apple menu...) says
"Finder"
Click on the "File" menu and then select "New Finder Window" A window will open up. Depending on your settings it may or may not show what we need to see, which is the side bar.
If the sidebar is not there select the "View" menu and then "Show Sidebar"
In the sidebar you should see "Applications"
Drag Applications from the sidebar to the right side of the dock. To the right of the
vertical bar and to the left of the trash.
Hover there for a second and a space should open up.
Release the mouse button

Your Applications folder is now back in the dock.


How does H2O Wireless work with the iPhone without needing any unlock? My friend purchased an iPhone 4 that cannot be unlocked so the store sold him a new cell phone service called H2O Wireless. You simply pop in the sim card and it works without needing any unlock or chip. Does anybody have a clue on how it works?

H₂O doesn't provide a network of its own. Instead, it purchases bandwidth in bulk from a carrier, in this case AT&T, and provides prepaid service using the carriers network.

So your friends phone isn't unlocked, but works just fine on the carrier network that its locked to.


Can I use a USB keyboard with an iPad if I use a USB-to-lightning adapter? I know there are bluetooth keyboards and even wired lightning keyboards, but I'd like to get a large mechanical keyboard and it seems the wired ones only come in USB. If I use a USB-to-lightning adapter, should that work with an iPad?

In general: Yes, as this article (and others) suggest.

But it always depends on the exact keyboard. If you can't find results on google for your exact model, you can only find out by testing it.

If you try it, I would recommend using a usb-converter with both a USB & Lightning port, mainly for this reason:

  You’ll want the connection kit I linked above for one main reason – it allows you to both charge your iPad, and supply power to the keyboard you will be using. The majority of USB keyboards draw too much power for the iPad alone to supply, however having the lighting cable plugged into the adapter allows you to use the keyboard as power is supplied to it via the lighting cable.

Check out the mentioned connecton kit.
Read the cited article here.


Reduced data usage when using YouTube in background? As I understand it, it's possible to listen to YouTube audio in the background, by playing it from the safari app, on iOS devices. What I wonder: does doing this reduce the bandwidth, the amount of data because solely audio (and no video) is being output?

No, even though you're only listening to the audio, the video will continue to be streamed to the device.


Yosemite com.apple.xpc.launchd error every 10 seconds Every 10 seconds i get this error in my console:

20/10/14 19:35:56,840 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.viber.osx[9850]) Could not find and/or execute program specified by service: 45: Operation not supported: com.viber.osx
20/10/14 19:35:56,840 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.viber.osx) Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

Brand new MacBook Pro 2014, Yosemite OS X. Viber was installed two days ago. The error occurs even when Viber is running.

Even upon deleting Viber from Applications, an error still occurs:

20/10/14 19:38:37,078 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.viber.osx[9870]) Could not find and/or execute program specified by service: 149: Could not find a bundle of the given identifier through LaunchServices: com.viber.osx

Can anyone tell me what this is and why it happens? Any way to remedy it?

Too bad i was posting before doing my own checking.

The solution was simple and shall be presented here for others who have the same issue: Simply launch Viber and go to Preferences, there, tell Viber not to launch on system startup. It will remove its LaunchDaemon entry and the error will disappear.

Needless to say, Viber should address this issue in their first App release targeted for Yosemite OS X.


In Disk Utility, does Secure Erase include the Erase Free Space option ...or do I need to Erase Free Space as well as Erase with secure option. I'm prepping a Mac for resale.

Secure Erase supersedes Erase Free Space because it zaps the entire disk instead of just zapping a subset of the disk marked 'free space.' If you want to be sure the NSA can't read this disk, do the Most Secure 7-pass erasure.

BTW: The 7-pass job takes lots of time (many hours to days) and gives the disk a good thrashing, too. Its a good stress test.


I can't uninstall Homebrew. How can I find and remove all of my Homebrew files and re-install it again? I've deleted a main Homebrew file and now I can't un-install Homebrew. I want to un-install it and then do a fresh install. This is what I'm getting in the Terminal...

host:~ user$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
It appears Homebrew is already installed. If your intent is to reinstall you should do the following before running this installer again: ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"
host:~ user$  ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"
Failed to locate Homebrew!

I'm bit of a rookie as you can probably tell. How can I sort this?

The main goal is to set up the MEAN stack.

Thanks in advance.

Uninstall Homebrew

From the Homebrew FAQ:

  To uninstall Homebrew, paste the command below in a terminal prompt.

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"


A tech from MacKeeper wishes access to my computer for licensing and activation. Is this a scam? I paid for a version of MacKeeper which may be a mistake. Their tech  wants me to allow them to access my computer as in have access to my desktop files, etc. They say it is to fully license and engage the program . I have not done it as of yet.

Is this typical when activating? I'm not comfortable letting them have control of my computer

Do not do this.
There are exactly zero reasons a tech, or anyone else for that matter, would need remote access to your computer to "fully license and engage a program."
That phrasing alone is more than enough to elicit a high degree of skepticism of the intention and/or competence of the "tech" who is looking to access your computer.
For just a brief (hypothetical) moment; giving the "tech" the benefit of the doubt and assuming his motives are genuine, how good can this software be that it needs special handling to activate?
Bottom line...
You don't need this software, avoid it.


Headings and numbering glitch(es) in MS Word for Mac 2015 Version 15.18 As in the attached screenshot image, my 4th level heading is inexplicably a block of solid black. This only appeared after sending the Word doc file as an Outlook attachment (!) also on the same Mac running El Capitan.

The formatting appears thus only for 4th level numbering - unfortunately I need the numbering to be linked to the heading style and so far the only way I found to get the numbers back is to change numbering / list style for that heading.

This was not added into the style as background/fill/highlight/etc.
It is clearly in the style as the screenshot shows, not in the doc content.

Anyone know where this glitch originates and how to revert?

Update: I managed to copy and paste the affected text into a new blank doc - the black blob remains even when you select "Use Destination Theme" as a Paste option. The field, whatever it is, appears to be recognized as a List Numbering object of some kind.

Finally I found an answer to this question. It appears to affect several versions of Word, because the fix at MS Answers appears to work on Mac Word as well.

Follow-up question: Anyone know if resetting the normal.dotm file on all PCs that need to access the affected docs would help avoid this in future? It's clearly something to do with invalid combinations of styles, formats etc. and maybe just using 1 common baseline would clarify the root causes?

Successor question [should I have asked this here?]

UPDATE: And... the problem returns upon saving (the corrected version) and reloading.


How does Time Machine backup files that have changed? As I understand it Time Machine will create the folder structure and create a copy of all of the files that are to be included in the Time Machine backup during the first backup. After that a hard link is created during every subsequent backup for files that have not been changed.

The question that I have is how files that have been changed since the last backup are backed up in the subsequent backup. I thought that it copied the entire modified file to the TM backup, but it appears that that isn't how TM works and I was hoping for some clarification.

During a recent practice test that I took for ACSP 10.12 it asked if, for a 5MB file if it was modified such that the new version was 6MB, would the TM have a separate 5MB and 6MB file or would it backup the 1MB difference between the two files and just retain the 1MB addition in the most recent TM backup. I figured that, though it may take up additional space to have a separate copy of the 5MB version and the 6MB version, it would provide a safety net in the event that an early version were deleted or corrupted - effectively ruining every subsequent version of that file. But the practice test said that it just saves the 1MB difference.

I was just looking for some clarification to help improve my understanding. Thanks in advance for any help!

After the initial Time Machine backup of the entire volume, sans exclusions, Time Machine always backs up the entire file of each file that has changed or was created since the last backup, not just the changed part.


iTunes stops playing song without reason I'm using Apple Music and I'm still in the evaluation period, but the system isn't working very well:

Either on my iPhone or my Mac (latest OS version), when I'm streaming music, it stops playing in an unexpected way after two minutes.

The playback play fine when the music is local, but connectivity is fine in other application. I wonder why iTunes is so buggy when it comes to distant request...

I managed to fix my problem by calling Apple hotline. They asked me to do a lot of manipulation and I cannot say precisely what was going wrong. We did a test on a new test user I created on the system. I started iTunes, connected my Apple id and Apple Music was working fine.

We removed together some iTunes configuration files and managed to restore Apple Music playback in my session.

Hope it helps!


How to check whether the Mac OS X installation DVD I have is for my MacBook Pro? I just tried to reinstall OS X on my 13" MacBook Pro with the installation DVD that I have (OS is Snow Leopard, I bought around 2010). I followed all the reinstallation steps correctly, but what I got is a "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer" error. I read lots of forums post about the solutions and tried everything, but nothing works. I tried zeroing the partition several times with GUI partition scheme, did PRAM/NVRAM reset. Nothing works.

So there's only one scenario I need to check which is whether the Mac OS X installation DVD that I have is for my MacBook Pro. Can anyone please kindly point out to me how I can check whether the disc is the correct one for my MacBook Pro?

It says so right on the disk.

Please don't pirate OS X.


How to restore no longer available app from iCloud Backup I had to restore my iPhone from iCloud backup. Unfortunately some of my apps are stuck on "Waiting.." stage. One of them is very important for me, it's Stash (http://hedonicsoftware.com/stash.html). It's an application to store documents, photos with password. I tried to find it under App Store -> Purchased tab, but it's not there. I have very important stuff in this app, so I would like to restore the application or the data. I think the app data should be in the cloud, but I can't read/download this data without the app.

What can I do? (I have the latest iOS)

Did you ever sync or backup to iTunes? If you could restore from backup from iTunes that wouldn't be a problem, but short of that you could still see if it has the app you could copy to your phone. Not sure if that would include the documents and data though.

If by any chance that app syncs over iCloud or some other cloud service, the raw files may still be accessible (but still likely encrypted).

I personally would contact the app developers and see if they have any ideas.


Using Managed Preferences to set permissions on a folder Does anyone know how to use MCX to set permissions on a folder for a network folder

nevermind its not needed. I had set the MCX redirection incorrectly.


USB SuperDrive Issue How can I get the USB Super Drive model A1379 to work with my Mac Pro Quad Core computer?  I rebooted my computer, searched for drives - could not locate it on the Apple computer.  Apple support stated bad drive.  I exchanged the drive and started over with reboot.  This operation did not help.

Unfortunately, the Apple USB SuperDrive will not work with a Mac Pro. Check the System Requirements here.

There are hacks you can try - but it may be better in this case to get a different (3rd party) drive.


Can't connect to port 80 on localhost I fire up sudo nc -l 127.0.0.1 80. There's no errors.  I then try telnet 127.0.0.1 80. It won't connect.

Same thing with port 81 works fine.

As far as I know, there's no firewalls running.

https://img.skitch.com/20120228-t8h98sccsde3w1jnf2tb55xdny.png shows the commands I'm using. (the numbers are the order in which the commands are run)

I'm on OS X 10.7.3.

FINALLY figured it out.  I had installed Pow (http://pow.cx). It runs this script: http://get.pow.cx. The script installs some firewall rules. Even though I had disabled pow, the firewall rules were still in place. Running the pow uninstall script fixed it.


Disk utility in command line I'm looking for the CLI equivalent of "Check disk" and "repair disk" in Disk Utility. I think fsck is involved but I don't know with which options, and if it's the only program run.

In fact, Disk Utility does use fsck to check the disk in question.
"Verify Disk" uses

 /sbin/fsck_hfs -fn -x /dev/diskX

while "Repair Disk" runs

/sbin/fsck_hfs -fy -x /dev/diskX

These are the options used:

-f: 'f'orces a check, even if the disk seems to be clean

-n: 'n'ever attempts to repair any found issues

-y: says 'y'es to any question whether an issues should be repaired (as you might have guessed, -n and -y are exact opposites)

-x: generates output in XML format, which is parsed by Disk Utility

/sbin/fsck (as opposed to /sbin/fsck_hfs) is a wrapper that calls /sbin/fsck_XXX for the type of file system in question.
You'll get more information in the man pages for fsck and fsck_hfs, from which I've borrowed a lot of information for my reply.


Recover deleted partition space I am having the exact same issue when it comes to not being able to reclaim space as in the answered question below...

Reclaim hard drive space from deleted partition and reclaim Apple bootloader

I went into terminal and compared my data to the solved and could not figure out which index I need to be focused on while in recovery mode.  And is there a way I can send a message or ask a question to a specific person on this site such as the person who had solved the above issue?  Please any help is really appreciated! Some Terminal info is below.

Though similar to the linked question your partition table has some specific differences: you have a second Recovery HD with a false partition type and your main volume is part of a CoreStorage stack.

First you have to determine the proper system versions of the Recovery HDs and then remove the older or - if identical - remove the one with the wrong partition type (disk0s4). After removing one of the Recovery HDs you have to resize the CoreStorage stack:

Preparation:

Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.

The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan). If you boot to a full system and login as admin you have to prepend sudo to execute some commands like gpt ... or newfs_hfs ...!

Check system versions of Recovery HDs

Open in the menubar Utlities->Terminal
Enter diskutil list and gpt -r show /dev/disk0 to get an overview
Get the product version of the visible Recovery HD:

grep ProductVersion -A 1 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/SystemVersion.plist

depending on the main system version it should yield something like:

<key>ProductVersion</key>
<string>10.11.5</string>

Unmount disk0s4:

diskutil unmount disk0s4

Mount the hidden Recovery HD partition:

diskutil mount disk0s3

Check that only one Recovery HD (disk0s3) is mounted:

df

Get the product version of the invisible Recovery HD:

grep ProductVersion -A 1 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/SystemVersion.plist

depending on the main system version it should yield something like:

<key>ProductVersion</key>
<string>10.11.5</string>

If the product version of the visible is the same or older than the one of the invisible Recovery HD delete the visible Recovery HD partition:

diskutil list
diskutil umount diskX #Unmount the logical volume residing on disk0s2 with X: 1...~16 (e.g. disk1) like shown in the previous command
diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt remove -i 4 disk0

Get the UUID of the logical volume:

diskutil cs list

Resize the CoreStorage stack to fill the whole disk:

diskutil cs resizeStack lvUUID 0 #lvUUID: UUID of the logical volume

The 0 (zero) as magical size sometimes fails. Then use a size ~1g smaller than your disk size (i.e. 250g or 249700m).


Is there a similar functionality of "Get Info" (Cmd+I) from the Mac OS X Terminal.app? I would like to ask if in OS X there is a similar functionality of "Get Info" (Cmd+I) but from the Mac OS X Terminal.app? I mean something like finderGetInfo /path/to/a/file.ext which will output the infos for the file but in the terminal console? Like this:

But from the command line:

Machine:~ antony$ finderGetInfo /Users/antony/file.ext
General:
   Kind: Document
   Size: 29 bytes (4 KB on disk)
   Where: /Users/antony
   Created: Today 08:58
   Modified: Today 08:58
   Stationery pad: NO
   Locked: NO
More Info:
   --
Name & Extension: file.ext
Comments: ...
etc...

It would be very useful when creating some automatic tools that need to extrapolate some useful information from a file of any type.

Is it possible in OS X?

mdls lists file metadata. A sample below for a folder

kMDItemContentCreationDate     = 2011-11-20 04:05:42 +0000
kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2014-10-22 01:52:53 +0000
kMDItemContentType             = "public.folder"
kMDItemContentTypeTree         = (
    "public.folder",
    "public.directory",
    "public.item"
)
kMDItemDateAdded               = 2014-10-17 09:19:38 +0000
kMDItemDisplayName             = "temp"
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate     = 2014-10-22 01:52:53 +0000
kMDItemFSCreationDate          = 2011-11-20 04:05:42 +0000
kMDItemFSCreatorCode           = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags           = 0
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon         = (null)
kMDItemFSInvisible             = 0
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden     = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery          = (null)
kMDItemFSLabel                 = 0
kMDItemFSName                  = "temp"
kMDItemFSNodeCount             = 96
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID          = 80
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID           = 501
kMDItemFSSize                  = (null)
kMDItemFSTypeCode              = ""
kMDItemKind                    = "Folder"
kMDItemLastUsedDate            = 2014-12-03 03:57:48 +0000
kMDItemUseCount                = 2
kMDItemUsedDates               = (
    "2014-10-25 13:00:00 +0000",
    "2014-12-02 13:00:00 +0000"
)


macbook air mid 13 overheating My set up is macbook air mid 13 with i7 processor and 8GB of ram running OS X Yosemite. Which is plenty for my use, at least it has been. I usually have no more than 3 apps running as notes, reminders and safari. I also use statsbar to watch the performance and the usual is 1/3gb of ram free. The problem I started noticing is in the past week the machine has started overheating as I can feel it by touching the laptop and hearing the fan, which only used to happen when I tried to turn on all I could to see if the machine would handle it.

I supposed some would say that it also may depend on the amount of stuff I have open in safari as neither notes nor reminders use up the cpu that makes it overheat. I usually have up to 5 tabs open: youtube, couple of news websites and a couple of wiki tabs. Which the machine used to handle with no problems at all.

So my main question is how come the machine is going crazy and what can I do to prevent it?

Try uninstalling Adobe Flash. Flash doesn't work well on Macs. Flash games and Flash content in the Internet pages require a lot of processing power, which causes the CPU to go to the extremes and as a consequence heat builds up inside the Macbook. MacBooks (especially Air models) are known for poor inside ventilation.


MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2010 is not seeing internal SATA HDD I have a MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2010 that started to not see it's internal SATA HDD.

I can connect the HDD in question to the computer via SATA > USB adapter and it works fine (Mac can even boot from it that way).

What could be the problem and how do I diagnose and fix it properly?

I heard that it could be a problem with the internal SATA connector cable:
Can't see new SSD when connected via internal SATA port, but is it possible to make sure that cable is a culprit without buying the replacement cable yet? What could cause damage to the cable in the first place?

Are there any other possible causes?

You may want to take a look at this answer to a very similar problem affecting 2012 13" MBPs. It's highly unlikely it's your SATA controller - if your MacBook can read DVDs or CDs then it's definitely not your controller as it's the same one that the HDD/SSD will be connected to (Intel Series 7 Platform Controller Hub).

As for why these cables fail I've yet to get to the bottom of the issue, but the ones I've replaced have no visible mechanical damage whatsoever, and replacing them has restored full SATA functionality.

The question/answer I linked to has some information that may make your cable change slightly easier.


What are some Textmate alternatives that have the completion key feature? I am slowly beginning to fear the worst with Textmate and the impending release of Lion and how stable Textmate might be on it.

So my question is, are there any Textmate alternatives out there that supports the completion feature (Esc key autocompleting) in the same way that Textmate does?

It must be as similar as possible to textmate implementation ideally.

Meaning:

It can autocomplete various language keywords, based on existing language
It can autocomplete nearby words.
It doesn't generate a dropdown showing options, you should just keep pressing the key to cycle through the options.

The Cocoa build of Emacs 23 is very good and has a ton of extensions and virtually limitless scope for customisation.

The learning curve can be a bit steep, but it's well worth the investment in time once you get over the initial hump.

If you are comfortable with TextMate, the Terminal and these sorts of things, you will be fine, http://emacswiki.org is a great resource.


AppleScript to find lost Outlook mail and archive them I'm working with a friend who uses Outlook on his Mac (I don't know why). He has several folders that were stored on his computer through Outlook that are now missing. If I run a search on his computer, I can pull up specific emails that were in the folders, but I cannot find the actual folders.

The only thing I can do at this point is try to write an apple script that will look for emails based on a certain criteria and archive them.

How can I go about doing this?
Can I get the system to automatically run this when on boot-up?

Outlook mails are not saved individually as files- under normal uses!

They are  part of the Outlook database located here:

Outlook 2011 (Mac version) saves all data in:

~/Documents/Microsoft User data/Main identity

Database: Microsoft Outlook Database

or the respective Backup folder (if you Backed up emails)

You can open one of those and find your emails there.

An Automator script would not do much here, since using Outlook is faster and better to find emails in Outlook database.


Streaming music from dropbox to iPad Is there really no way to stream music from dropbox to iPad and play MORE THAN ONE song at once and without giving third parties (Boxytunes etc) my dropbox password?

Mc Loud uses oAuth authentication. This means that your password is not seen by the App, but entered on an internet page of Dropbox. Mc Loud only gets an anonymous token from Dropbox that you can revoke at any time in your Dropbox account.

http://mcloud.tunesremote.com

Mc Loud Remote (a free download) can be used in Demo mode to test all features of Mc Loud.

Features are:
- universal (iPod touch, iPhone, iPad)
- stream music and videos directly from Dropbox
- includes a remote that lets you control Mc Loud either from any web browser or from Mc Loud Remote on another iOS device
- fast indexing of all metadata, including title, album, artist, duration, composer, genre and album art
- control from the lock screen


Is there automatic hyphenation in Pages for ios Question is very simple, but my web search skills have not been sufficient: Is there automatic hyphenation in Pages on the iPad (with iOS 13.5.1) and if yes, how to turn it on?
My web search did not show up anything (I always get to websites on Pages on the Mac which looks notably different…).

With the current alignment options in Pages, there is no hyphenation option. You can make all lines align their left borders equal and it will allow gaps on the right at the end of a line to continue onto the next line. You can also align your writing so that every line is flush to both the left and right borders. Pages will vary the spacing between words to fit all words on a line.
I've tried both options many times and there is no hyphenation involved. Another option, flush borders on the right will just allow large gaps at the beginning of a line. Again there is no hyphenation.


Extracting files from partial downloads on Mac I was trying to download my images from a website but got disconnected. Now I have few files sitting on my mac with names as:

  Camera Roll.zip-2.download (150 MB)
  OneDrive-2018-06-07.zip.download (875 MB)

The file kind showing on the File Finder is Safari Download.

I tried moving them to windows and removing the .download extension but it ain't working.
I am unable to change the extensions on the mac. When I hit enter, unlike other files which allow you to edit the name of the file or the extension, these .download files have no impact. Entering enter doesn't allow edit. I then did Get Info. But the field wherein the name is mentioned is uneditable.

Is there anyway I can extract images that were downloaded (if not all) from the above  partial downloads ?

You can't just change the extension on a .download 'file' & expect it to be seen as anything else, because it's not a file, it's a folder - or strictly, Package, like an app or your Photos library etc.

If you right click it & select "Show Package Contents" then you can see inside it - though if it'a a partial file there may simply be nothing to see. tbh, I don't know how it handles the contents internally, but they're not even visible with 'show hidden' switched on.

If you double-click it, or right click, Open, it will attempt to complete the download.


Safari print preview set scale to 95% as default Is there a way to change the safari print preview scale setting to 95% by default? Its set as 100% currently. I have MacOS Cataline 10.15.5.

Set up your Print Page dialog as you would like, then in the Presets drop menu > Save Current Settings as Preset. Name it & OK.
Then in the same drop menu, Show Presets & make sure that the checkbox for Revert to default is un-checked.


How to update to iOS betas using iTunes I can update to iOS 10 betas with OTA Updates, but I want to update using my computer through iTunes because the it is connected via ethernet so download speeds will be faster.

Is there any way to do this?

Edit: I am not a developer.

As far as I could see it is not possible to download public beta's from iOS to your Mac. The only option Apple gives are OTA updates.

You could register as a developer, but the beta's are only available for paying developers.

If you are a developer, you can download beta's from developer.apple.com/download.

Login
Go to the iOS section
Choose the right device
Download
Open iTunes
Connect iOS device
Click on the update button with alt (option) button pushed.
Select the downloaded beta


How can I retrieve my product key without the disc or case? Is there a way to retrieve my product key on my MacBook Pro?  I purchased it from Amazon on August 19, 2011.

Your Macbook Pro doesn't have a product number; it has a serial number.

You can obtain your serial number by looking at the bottom of your Macbook Pro or by clicking  the "apple" at the top of the screen and selecting About This Mac

Once to select about this Mac, you will get a screen similar to the ones below that will give you your serial number.

For Mavericks or earlier....

For Yosemite and later....


unplug externally plugged HDMI display from MacBook Pro I usually add an external monitor to my MacBook Pro as a second monitor. The only way I've found to unplug it without switching off the MacBook (or putting it to sleep) is by simply unplugging the HDMI cable.

The screen goes dark for a second as the system brings all the open windows over to the one screen (since I'm using the additional display as a second monitor instead of mirroring).

I feel this may result in some problem some day.

Is there a better way of doing this, say from the System Preferences interface?

This shouldn't result in a problem (and well-written apps will go back to their original monitor when it is plugged back in). System Preferences has no utility to disconnect monitors that are still physically connected.

One alternative may be to turn the monitor off: many monitors stop identifying themselves when they're off, so your Mac will think it's been unplugged without it physically being unplugged.


Dictation settings with AppleScript I'm trying to create an an AppleScript to turn dictation on or off (not just make it start listening). My goal is to be able to disable dictation when I am on battery power.

I am new to AppleScript and don't know how to do this. I need this to work on macOS Sierra.

I found my answer!

Here is my code if somebody wants it:

set quitting to 0
delay 1
repeat until quitting is 1
    set PowerSource to (do shell script "pmset -g ps")
    repeat until PowerSource does not contain "AC Power" or quitting is 1
        set PowerSource to (do shell script "pmset -g ps")
    end repeat
    --START
    tell application "System Events"
        set ProcessList to name of every process
        if "System Prefrences" is in ProcessList then
            set ThePID to unix id of process "System Prefrences"
            do shell script "kill -KILL " & ThePID
        end if
    end tell

    tell application "System Preferences"
        activate
        set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
    end tell
    tell application "System Events"
        --Part 1:
        tell process "System Preferences"
            --Part 2:
            delay 1
            --Part 3:
            tell application "System Events" to tell radio button "Dictation" of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard" of application process "System Preferences" of application "System Events" to if exists then click
            tell application "System Events" to tell radio button "Off" of radio group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard" of application process "System Preferences" of application "System Events" to if exists then click
        end tell
    end tell
    tell application "System Preferences" to quit
    display notification "Hey siri is now off."
    --END
    repeat until PowerSource contains "AC Power" or quitting is 1
        set PowerSource to (do shell script "pmset -g ps")
    end repeat
    --START
    tell application "System Events"
        set ProcessList to name of every process
        if "System Prefrences" is in ProcessList then
            set ThePID to unix id of process "System Prefrences"
            do shell script "kill -KILL " & ThePID
        end if
    end tell

    tell application "System Preferences"
        activate
        set the current pane to pane id "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
    end tell
    tell application "System Events"
        --Part 1:
        tell process "System Preferences"
            --Part 2:
            delay 1
            --Part 3:
            tell application "System Events" to tell radio button "Dictation" of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard" of application process "System Preferences" of application "System Events" to if exists then click
            tell application "System Events" to tell radio button "On" of radio group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard" of application process "System Preferences" of application "System Events" to if exists then click
        end tell
    end tell
    tell application "System Preferences" to quit
    display notification "Hey siri is now on."
    --END
end repeat
on quit
    set quitting to 1
    continue quit
end quit

Just open it in script editor and compile it into an application. Then launch the application. Hope this helps!


Change "Third Party Content" answer for app in iTunes Connect I submitted an app to the App Store yesterday, but now realize I should change by answer I checked for the "Third Party" content Yes/No question.

Is there an easy way to do that? I can't find one.

You must reject your binary to change this setting. Remove the build from review using the link at the top of the versions' page, then resubmit a build.


How to delete invisible photos and videos from iPad? MF519LL/A, iOS 8.1.3

General -> About -> Photos = 700 photos

General -> Usage -> Manage Storage -> Photos & Camera = 900 MB

Open Photos app. No photos or videos in any folder (Photos and Albums).

How to clear cache or whatever to free my 900 MB?

Restore it by connecting to a computer with iTunes.  That will fix it.


Mac Pro install disk keeps ejecting itself I am not that savvy with Macintosh computers so I can't figure out why the install disk keeps ejecting when I attempt to boot from disk by holding down the "C" button or the option button.

It is not the optical drive as I was able to boot into Linux using a live CD.

While in Linux I formatted the hard drive I want to install the OS onto as HFS+ and had no problems.

I think I may be using the wrong installation disk since I can't confirm this disk belongs to this machine.

The disc reads:

MAC PRO
MAC OS X INSTALL DVD
VERSION 10.6.2
DISC VERSION 1.0
2009 APPLE INC.

Computer identifies as:

A1186 MAC PRO 2.66QX/2X512/7300GT

How can I determine if this is the right disc and/or which is the latest retail disk I can use on this machine?

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer. From what I am understanding from the responses collectively is that determining which install disk came with my machine is going to be not as straightforward as I thought. Second regardless of what I choose to do I would need to start with Snow Leopard first and then work my way up. I was thinking the along the same lines as in I probably dont have the right disk.

Since I posted this question I have been on the phone with Apple Support as Bmike had suggested for an unbelievable amount of time. The customer service rep was a nice guy I felt that he wanted to help but was ultimately not well versed with apple products from this time period. He told me that the disc I have isn't model specific and that any disc should work, he didnt seem to worried about weather it was the correct one. Also I gave him the serial number and despite this he could not tell me what specific disk I would need to boot, instead he focused on getting the machine to boot with the disc I had on hand. We tried every possible keyboard combination while booting, booting while connected to a network via ethernet, resetting the svram, nothing worked. He ultimately set me up with an appointment to an Authorized Service Center. I am not sure if I will go as I dont want to explain everything and spend time just so that the genius bar can conclude the same thing or worse tell me that this model is no longer supported (which is the most annoying statement) its like taking a 2009 Prius in for service and Toyota saying oh man sorry bro that model has been discontinued we only meant for you to buy our super expensive computer to use for 100k miles then we expect you to trash it and buy another one.

I was lucky to find another drive from another MAC PRO that has the operating system on it and I plugged it into the computer in question and it booted just fine. So before I try and get my hands on Snow Leopard, I am going to attempt to clone the bootable drive and hope that the clone will boot without any issues. Problem is that the bootable drive is 2TB and I only have 250 GB drive as a target drive, so I plan to shrink the partition on the bootable drive and then clone it to the smaller drive that would have the same partition structure. I have never done this and I know its harder than I am making it seem, can anyone give me any tips or advice on how to do this correctly? I read somewhere that I might have to change the blocksize, true? I am planning on using Clonezilla.
Sorry I typed way too much.

link to new related question: I am trying to clone a 2TB drive that has mac os x 10.6.8 onto a smaller drive but dont know what I am doing

According to everymac.com, your Mac is a 2006 model which was discontinued January 8, 2008. (I made the assumption 2.66QX means 2.66 GHz Quad Core Xeon) This model originally was designed to run OS X 10.4.7. Since the
Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update is dated Nov 9, 2009, I doubt the disc you have is the correct one for this model Mac.

The OS X 10.7.5 (Lion) was the last version designed for your Mac model.

  Note: Since this model has a 32 bit EFI, you can only run 32 bit EFI booting operation systems. However, you may be able to run 64 bit BIOS booting operating systems such as Windows and some versions of Linux.

If you were to purchase Lion from Apple, then a requirement to install would be to have Snow Leopard already installed. In other words, the DMG file only offers an upgrade to Lion. You probably can not use the DMG file to create a bootable installer. You can read the requirements from the Apple Lion website given in the above link.

You would not need a Apple ID to install Snow Leopard, but the installer will still ask. You can decline to give an Apple ID if you wish. Snow Leopard was released on a DL DVD. Apple still sells Snow Leopard DVDs, but you can also download an ISO from the internet. Instructions are given below for creating a Snow Leopard USB flash drive installer. If you chose to burn a DVD, then you will need a DL DVD, since the contents of the ISO is over 4.7 GB.

Once you have Snow Leopard installed, you should install all the available Snow Leopard updates. This would update Snow Leopard to OS X 10.6.8. From here, you could upgrade to Lion by using a purchased DMG file.

Creating a USB Flash Drive Installer from a Snow Leopard ISO File.

This was done use an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 with MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6 installed. The flash drive was testing using VirtualBox Version Version 5.2.26 r128414 (Qt5.6.3). The flash drive needs to be at least 8 GB in size.

Use the Finder application to mount the Snow Leopard ISO file.
Use the Disk Utility application to erase the flash drive, as shown below. I chose the default name Untitled. Finally, click on the Erase button.

Highlight the name Untitled, then click on the Restore button on the top of the Disk Utility application window. In the popup window, select restore from Mac OS X Install DVD, as shown below. Finally, click on the Restore button in the popup window.

The flash drive was tested using Virtual Box. Other than selecting the flash drive, I used the default settings for a 64 bit Snow Leopard installation. After booting from the flash drive, you need to use the Disk Utility application to erase the internal drive before installing Snow Leopard. Basically, select the setting shown below, then click on the Erase... button.

The result is shown below. Make sure the partition map scheme is GUID Partition Table.

Return to the Mac OS Installer and choose to install to the Macintosh HD disk.

When the installer finishes you should get a Welcome window similar to what is shown below.

The result after answering all the questions is shown below. I selected About This Mac from the menu bar.

Software update includes OS X 10.6.8.


iPhone 4 iOS 6.1.2 Keyboard -> Shortcuts not working properly It was all working fine till I was on 6.1, I upgraded to 6.1.2 and restored my backup from  iTunes after which I noticed that the text-expander is not working. for e.g. when I type "omw" it doesn't get expanded to "On my way!"

I tried a lot, reset (Home + Power), installed Xpander2 from Cydia, etc etc.

I again restored the iOS but did NOT restore old backup this time and started fresh setup. But its still not working.

Any idea guys? what can be done to fix this?

Anyways, I managed to fix it by simply installing "Manual Correct" from Cydia. Configured all the text expander shortcuts into it, and I got what I wanted.

Still the problem with iOS built-in shortcut is not resolved. But I don't need that anymore.


Pipe sound output to file? Is there a way to either pipe the sound output of the computer to a file or record what the computer puts out? I know I could use a headphone to microphone cord, but I was hoping for a more elegant solution. Google doesn't give very good results.

You might want to take a look at Audio Hijack Pro which can record any audio you can hear on your computer. Free to try.

There's also the cheaper, simpler Piezo from the same company.


Is there another place that passwords are saved in for iOS apps vs safari? I log into Wells Fargo's app with Face ID. But when I try to log in via the web, the password I have saved in iOS does not work (an old password, apparently).
I'm assuming that to log into the app, my password must be saved somewhere and transmitted to Wells Fargo. If I changed my password and iOS no longer has it, shouldn't I be unable to log in to the app even if my Face ID recognizes my face?

Your assumption is incorrect - it's not necessary for an app to know nor transmit your password to login to a service.
Usually authentication for these types of apps work by you logging with a password for the first login. The app is then issued a token, which you can think of as being a very long, single purpose password. For all future logins, the apps does not authenticate with your own password, but instead using that token.
This makes it possible for app developers to let you login using FaceID, TouchID and all sorts of other methods specifically without storing your own password on the device. In addition it allows them to give users the benefit that they can track which units are used to login, and to revoke the token (i.e. invalidate it) so that a specific device can no longer login (without further user authentication).


Why does my super sad face emoji change when I send it? When the emoji pack was updated I could send the super sad emoji face

But now every time I try to send it, the emoji that shows up is ☹

Anyone knows why is this happening? My friends with iPhones have the same problem.

Apparently it's a bug a while ago. The text version will only show up if you're using that emoji via the "frequently used" category. If you choose the one from the standard lists, it works. Suggest you update to iOS 9.3.


Recover font antialias on Yosemite I've changed some options related to font rendering by defaults write command in past (I can't recall was it lcdfilter, or something else).
Now when I turn off antialiasing in system preferences font are still looks antialiased, but have less weight (see screenshots).

Note, I have Retina display, so, this could be normal behaviour, but I'm not certain, that's why I decided to ask about it.
If this is not default behaviour (it seems to me, that fonts too heavy when antialiasing turned on), how can I rollback changed values to defaults?

You can change the amount of font smoothing with the following command:

defaults write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int [value]

[value] is a value between 0 and 3 inclusive. Requires log out and log in.

Here's a gif by Lauri showing the difference:


Theme setting missing in iPhone Gmail app I want to turn off dark mode for the gmail app. It turned on yesterday without asking me. I know about the global iPhone dark mode setting and it’s set to dark mode but gmail should have its own setting as well But it’s missing. See attached screenshot. It should be listed under the settings section.
Where is it now?

Indeed there doesn’t seem to be a Gmail setting to turn off syncing to the iOS theme (I also looked within the settings of specific mail accounts). This is something Google would need to implement - you can provide this feedback to them from the Gmail app (“Send feedback” is below “Settings” in the side navigation).
As a workaround, you can add “Dark Mode” to your iOS Control Center in System Preferences. This will allow toggling the global theme quickly.
I also noticed that the Outlook iOS app supports overriding the system theme, if you’re looking for an alternative to Gmail.


Why Isn't the Dock Showing/Hiding Correctly I use two external displays and a MacBook Pro. I'm running Mojave 10.14.6. I've noticed a problem with the Dock. Expected behavior is the dock appears when I bring the mouse to the bottom of either the external displays or the laptop screen. This doesn't work. The dock stays where it was located.

This is where it gets weird.

If I want the dock to move, I have to select a window in the display that I want the dock on, then type text into a text field in that window, then bring the mouse to the bottom of the screen. That makes the dock move.
Any ideas how to fix this?

I am using 10.14.6 also, and have noticed no issues with the dock on my computer, except I just use Auto-Hide for the dock so it disappears until I need it. Whenever I move the mouse to either screen the dock pops up -- but this might because there is still only one visible instance of the dock.

But I noticed something similar to what you describe on a coworker's 27" iMac the other day.

On the second monitor was the Mail app and Finder was the active app on the primary screen. The dock was on the screen with the Mail app. Moving the Mail app to the primary screen the dock moved.

I don't know what the rules are for the dock, but if it gets stuck try toggling on/off hiding. (Right-click on the separator between standard an recent apps, then select "Turn Hiding On/Off").


How do you change the colour of tags? In the new update of Pages, Numbers and Keynote for iOS 11 and in Files you can now add tags. Is there a way to change the colour of tags once you’ve added them?

Sure, on iPad you just hold the document until the options line pops up (copy, rename, move etc.) - the second last on the right should say tags.


Menu title in Keyboard Shortcuts? I recently started using the Mac mail app. I like to keep the inbox clean and so I want to move every message that I read to a Backup folder ( not Archive for some very silly reason! ).

So, I decided to create a shortcut using System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts.

  When I try to add a shortcut, I have to fill a field named Menu Title where I have to write exact name of the menu command but how would I know which commands the Mail app knows about?

So, my question is How to know about menu commands that an app accepts on Mac?

Mac Mail is highly customisable to individual needs.

I like to keep it organized by using Mail Rules.

I created folders in Mail (on my Mac) named Bank, Utility, Phone, and many others.

Then in Mail > Preferences > Rules I set up so that if a mail arrives from one of those, it will be moved to the appropriate folder, and I will not miss it. (It shows in particular folder as unread as long I did not read it.

I also have rules set up to Delete some emails from specific sources. The combinations are almost endless what you can do to keep your Mail organized.

Mail Rules is the way to go, no need to create new keyboard shortcuts.

Example..for Sprint Phone emails..

You do not have to type they email address, just select it in Mail before creating the rule and it will show up.

One more trick. For some of us we want the mail to remain as Unread  till we say so (and do not want the automated mail feature marking them as read as soon we touch it).

To do so just drag the mail "Preview window" down till it disperses and mails will remain Unread till we tell it otherwise.


How can I format my disk to APFS if I can’t boot in Recovery Mode? I am trying to upgrade my 2012 MacBook Pro from Mojave to Catalina. I swapped out the hard drive a few months ago for an SSD.

When I try to go through the updater, I get the warning “This volume is not formatted as APFS.”

I have seen online you can change the partition of the disk by booting into Recovery Mode. But when I do that, I get a spinning globe which then asks me to log into the Wi-Fi. I don’t know why, but it rejects the Wi-Fi password I put in, even though it works on my iPhone.

Is there any way to format the disk as APFS, without going into Recovery Mode? Can I just wipe the whole disk or something and start from scratch, somehow?

If you see the spinning globe icon at boot, and are prompted for an Internet connection, then technically you're in Internet Recovery Mode, which doesn't rely upon any local partition to boot.

If you can get your device connected to your network, either by using an Ethernet adapter or temporarily using a different or open wireless network, you'll be able to format the internal drive to APFS.

You may also wish to investigate using Mac Deploy Stick to create a bootable USB installer.


Multiple instances of the Mumble client I have tried command that I found and it works for second and after that second client closes.

open -na /Applications/Mumble.app

Other command that I tryied with the same resul.

/Applications/Mumble.app/Contents/MacOS/Mumble &
[2] 27307
[1]   Exit 126                /Applications/Mumble.app

What command I must use to have multiple Mumble instances open?

What you and future searchers are looking for is this:

open -n /Applications/Mumble.app --args -m

This is valid as of 11/04/14 on OS X 10.10/Darwin 14.0.0 (Yosemite)


Remove picture compression for Word 2011 for Mac I'm trying to stop Word 2011 from compressing my pictures. In Windows, I can apparently do this by going to File > Options. However, there is no File > Options for Mac in Word 2011. Does anyone know how I can get Word to stop compressing my pictures?

In Word 2011:

Double-click any image to bring up the Format Picture ribbon.
Click the Compress button, then choose "Keep current resolution" from the drop-down menu.
Choose to apply this setting to only the one image you double-clicked, or to all images in the file.


Indexing NAS with "mdutil -i on" with Sierra not working anymore I used to index my NAS with the command line mdutil -i on. Ok, I know it's not perfect, but it worked for me.

But since I updated to macOS Sierra it's not working anymore.
If I type mdutil /Volumes/name -i on I just get the feedback Indexing disabled. It doesn't matter if I use SMB or AFP (SMB was always working for me).

Maybe this information is helpful for a solution, if I mdutil /Volumes/name -E I get the feedback: mdutil disabling Spotlight: /Volumes/archiv -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly. Indexing disabled.

Does anyone has any solution?

According to this support page by Qumulo, there is a fix, which basically consists of the following:

  To fix this issue, create the following directory as root:

  sudo mkdir -p /private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/Volumes/

  And then re-enable Spotlight indexing of that Volume:

  sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/name_of_your_volume

I haven't tried it myself, but I thought it's worthwile to mention it here.


How to prevent MacOS Mail autocomplete from inserting new line when accepting its suggestion? When I compose an email in the stock Mail app, it shows potential words via autocomplete.
e.g. typing  larg results in 'large' popping up as a suggestion.
However, when I hit ENTER to select the word, it adds a carriage return/new line.
How can I turn this 'additional newline' behaviour off?

Use SPACE to accept autocorrect suggestion.
If you like to use enter, then you can open dropdown list of suggested words with ⌥ + ESC, navigate to needed word using arrow keys and press Enter (will take cursor at the end of word).
Word you are looking for may or may not be first in list and automatically selected. If this happens to be true then of course no navigation with arrow keys is needed and enter can be pressed right away (⌥+ESC and Enter).
If you use SPACE instead of Enter then space is added between cursor and end of entered word so you can continue writing right away.


Internet recovery mode not working I have got macbook pro early 2011 model. Initially it came with Mac OS X Lion. Later on I upgraded it to Mavericks.
Recently I thought of upgrading it to Yosemite which I did. On successful installation I realised that It is extremely slow and
found out that it is encrypting my whole hard disk. I left it for hours and hours but it looked like it stuck on that process.
And also did not allow me to stop the process. I turned off my macbook using power button kind of hard stop thing. When I tried to
turn it on, it stuck on safe mode and nothing was happening. I could not log back in and I tried all the diifferent methods like PRAM reset,
safe mode, disk utility tool to repair the disk but nothing seemed to work. Luckily I had backup in Time machine from last
year which restored my system back to Mavericks. I started using it and it was working fine. Yesterday while closing my
system I used Power button and did that forced shut down kind of thing again and since then it is not turning back on properly.
it keeps going to safe mode. From safe mode I tried to restart the system but since then it stuck on Grey Barred Circle thing.

I decided  to use Internet recovery method when all other methods failed including safe mode, pram reset, single user command.
It looked like I will be able to restore my mac using my back up on time machine in external hard disk but it stuck on 85%
twice. And now when I am trying to re-install the orignal version of Lion OS X which came with my macbook using internet recovery mode
it is giving me an error, "you cant upgrade this version because newer version is installed". Please help me. thanks

To use internet recovery you will have to format your boot drive using disk utility ⌘r. After you have formatted the drive you will be able to boot into internet recovery ⌘^r. That will allow you to downgrade back to lion. I hope that this helps.


iPhone 4s overheating and suffering from drained battery So I have this iPhone 4s, which has a serious problem: when doing absolutely nothing with it (it just sits in standby mode) the battery drains from 100% to 0% in about 12 hours or less. Also, it appears to be working very actively, as it is constantly warm.

Does anyone know what the cause of this is, and how to fix it? I do have all the latest updates, so that can't be the issue (I think).

I would suggest backing up your phone with iTunes (a whole backup and not only synchronising) and transfer all your purchase. Afterwards, restore the phone with iTunes.

Test it for a couple days and if the issue is solved, bring back your back up. If the issue reappears, restore it again and re-download your content manually. It might be your user data or settings, or an app making your phone work when it's not supposed to.

If the issue persists even after the clean restore (without bringing back your back up), I suggest to get your device checked at a Genius Bar near you.


What key code maps to external USB brightness up/down keys? I am writing a script and I need to figure out current key codes for brightness up and down with an external keyboard.

I know the standard for a MacBook is 107 and 113, though as soon as I connect a different bigger apple keyboard, those changes to 145 and 144.

I need to be able to get this information out of the terminal as I'm scripting things there.

Is this possible?

The 'System keys' don't seem to have a Key Code equivalent, they are actioned below the OS-level. Try Key Codes (freeware)


Macbook WiFi card not working I have a Macbook 1.83ghz.

I installed Snow Leopard and the WiFi crashed (?)

It was barely functioning before, but now all it can do is detect names of routers.

I haven't done anything as I don't know what to do.

How do i run a diagnostic before I have to buy a new WiFi card?

Lets do some information collecting then do some testing.

  Click on the Apple (top left)

  About this Mac

  More Info

  System Report

  Now look for Network and WiFi

There you will see the information about your WiFi card and the status of the connections.

It looks like this:

As next step I suggest to do some Diagnostics.

Than open the Network Diagnostics to test your WiFi connection.

  Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Network.

  Click “Assist me,” click Diagnostics, and then follow the onscreen
  instructions.

This test will tell you about your WiFi card and connections.


How can I record an app in background Due to my poor organization I have 2 simultaneous lectures this semester, at this moment I'm following one on Phone and I record the other one with the Mac (Quicktime and Soundflower)
Is it possible to record Chrome or Safari in the background while doing other things on the screen?
And for my specifical purpose, is it possible to direct the audio of an app on the headphones and the audio of another app to a different output (external speaker or Soundflower to record)?

It is not immediately possible to record the windows of Chrome/Safari when they're not displayed on screen, as they really aren't rendered when not needed.
You could possibly make a more involved setup by running a virtualized operating system with Chrome that you can record indepedently on whether it is shown on the monitor or not.
Similarly you could do something like running Chrome under X11 using x11vnc or similar to enable off-screen recording.
There is also the possibility of using Headless Chrome by way of for example the puppeteer-video-recorder plugin to record a video - however I think it would be quite a hassle to get setup.
As for routing the audio as you wish, you should be able to relatively easily set this up by using the Loopback program.


My phone won't give me Storage no matter what I do So I try to download an app but a thing pops up saying I can't because I don't have enough storage on my phone so I go to my settings and I delete some apps and some pictures on my phone but it didn't do anything it still said I have 0 storage! So I get a flash drive and download all my photos on to it and then go back on my phone and delete them all ( well all most all of them I had 1300 photos  and I deleted like 700 photos)and I go back and there was no change my pictures was still using the same amount of storage and it still said I have 0 space left! It's making me mad! Please help! ( do I need a new phone??)
Ps.i also deleted a bunch of old text messages and group chats but that didn't do anything either!

In terms of the 700 photos you've deleted, have you also deleted them from the Recently Deleted album?

When you delete a photo/video in the iOS Photos app, it does not actually delete that photo immediately. Instead, deleted photos are placed into the Recently Deleted album. These photos will remain there for 30 days at which point they will be deleted by the system. This overall process is designed to give users the chance to recover their photos/videos in the event they change their mind, etc.

If you need to free up space immediately, you can manually go into the Recently Deleted album and select any/all items and delete them from there. This removes them from that point rather than waiting for 30 days to pass. Of course, doing this means that recovering them is almost impossible - so make sure you have a working backup of your photos/videos!


Can I use an unlocked AT&T iPhone with T-Mobile? I'm finally fed up with AT&T's exorbitant cost and ready to switch to T-Mobile.

I'm well past my contract obligation and have maintained my iPhone 5 in near pristine condition.

Can I have this phone unlocked and use it with another provider?

AT&T and T-Mobile both use GSM networks.

So yes, you will be able to use your iPhone with T-Mobile.


How do I change parts of my terminal prompt? In Terminal it says

Last login: Mon Jan 13 00:00:14 on ttys000
Logsdon:~ DomGomez$

How do I change the DomGomez part in Terminal?

If you're familiar with customising your .bashrc, I would suggest customising your prompt(PS1). Here is a tutorial among (a lot of) others about it.


Setting up "HPN-SSH - High Performance SSH/SCP" on Mac OS X As you'd expect from the name,
HPN-SSH - High Performance SSH/SCP
is a "high performance" patch of SSH/SCP.

I've installed a newer version of OpenSSL via Homebrew
(brew install openssl).

I've downloaded the source code (openssh-6.1p1.tar.gz) and applied the patch (openssh-6.1p1-hpn13v14.diff.gz), compiled it, and installed it to /usr/local/.

However, the default version of ssh/sshd seems to be hard-coded into the OS enough that I can't get the new version to work after editing /System/Library/LaunchAgents/org.openbsd.ssh-agent.plist and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist.

I was getting this error:

  ssh_sandbox_child: sandbox_init: dlopen(/usr/lib/libsandbox.1.dylib, 261): image not found [preauth]

I found an answer here which suggested editing /usr/local/etc/sshd_config to change  UsePrivilegeSeparation sandbox to UsePrivilegeSeparation yes but that is apparently not recommended (for reasons I do not entirely understand).

At this point I do not know what to do next.

Can someone explain why UsePrivilegeSeparation yes is such a bad idea?
Is there a way for me to run HPN-SSH and regular SSH at the same time? (I was thinking of setting the new sshd on a different port than the regular sshd but I'm not sure if that is a good idea or if there is something else I should be doing.)

I'll take a stab at #1.

It looks like the sandbox prevents the application from producing new threads.  From what I found online, the sandbox functionality was only recently introduced in OpenSSH 5.8 so if someone finds a bug in OpenSSH that is limited only by the sandbox, they could exploit this attack vector.

The question is, do you have a team of government spooks decided that this would be the easiest attack vector and would willing to dedicate resources to find an obscure bug in OpenSSH which would only be limited by this particular sandbox?

As for #2 ... I can't think of any reason why that wouldn't work.

Oh, and I just figured out that MacPorts has the hpn version: sudo port install openssh +hpn


How can I trouble shoot "Your message could not be sent. #### is not registered with iMessage"? I used to be able to send txt messages from my computer through the native messages app on iOS. I recently updated and now I'm not able to send txt from my computer.

When I updated my OS, it restarted and when the screen came back on, it asked me to log into my apple id. For some reason the internet wasn't working or it wasn't connecting to the network and so I skipped putting in my appleid credentials. I looked online for some answers, but nothing satisfactory. Help?

On your phone, go to Settings -> Messages -> Text Message Forwarding and make sure that "Text Messaging Forwarding" is turned on for your system.


How to make MacPorts reinstall requested ports from a different boot drive? I recently changed workstations and went from OSx 10.7.5 to OSX 10.11! Yay!

I have a lot of installation to do. Nuts.... (But worth it!)

I have temporarily mounted my old workstation's hard drive to copy over important files. Since I have a different OS, a different version of XCode (and command line tools), and a different version of MacPorts, I'd rather do a fresh install of all my requested ports rather than semi-blindly copy stuff over from the old drive.

MacPorts has a great Migration guide (link) that shows how to create a list of all installed ports, then reinstall them once software has been upgraded — but that's for upgrading on the same boot drive. My new drive has no installed ports because I just installed MacPorts.

Is there a way to list requested ports on the old hard drive in order to upgrade them on my new drive?

Actually, I think you want the results of port -qv installed to restore your installation but I'll show you how to produce both files.
Mount the old hard drive and copy this file into a folder in your home folder- /opt/local/var/macports/registry/registry.db. Now navigate to that folder.
To produce the requested.txt file:
sqlite3 registry.db 'select name, requested from ports' |
awk -F '|' '{ if ( $2 == 1 ) print $1 }' >requested.txt

To produce the myports.txt file:
sqlite3 registry.db \
'select name,  version, revision, state, os_platform, os_major, archs, date from ports' |
sort |
awk -F'|' '{ if ( $4 == "installed") {act="(active)"} else {act=""} }
{ cmd = "date -r" $8 " +%Y-%m-%dT%T%z"; cmd | getline mydate; close(cmd) }
{ printf ("%s @%s_%s %s platform=%s %s archs=%s date=%s\n",
    $1, $2, $3, act,$5, $6, $7, mydate)
}' >myports.txt


How do I make a game controller an active input device on my Mac-mini? How do I make a game controller an active input device on my Mac-mini?

If you have a Playstation 3 controller, your Mac can recognize it as a bluetooth device and if you pair it with your computer you can set it up to be used as a game controller for your Mac.

I have only tried it with SNES9x, and it DOES work with that app. Playing Super Street Fighter with a wireless PS3 remote is pretty bad ass, I must say, haha.

Not sure what else it would work with, but I am sure you could map the buttons and set it up to work with other games and services once you pair it.

Good luck!


Some contacts are missing in iOS Contacts How can I get back (some) missing contacts?  Some contacts are missing in my iPhone's Contacts app.   They are available in my OS X's addressbook, both are linked by iCloud. Strangely, the contact name and information is appearing, when I receive a call or have a missed call. I don't have Facebook linked with my iOS contacts.

iPhone 5s with iOS 7.0.4
MacBook with OS X 10.8.5

solution: in iOS, go to Settings > iCloud, put the contacts-switch off (choose erase from phone) and on again. After doing this, all of your contacts will appear after completing the sync (this can take some time).


MacBook Pro High Sierra changing Standard user to Admin not working When I try to set another standard user (named "Owner") to an Administrator by clicking "Allow user to administer this computer", the box doesn't check, and instead I get a pop up window that reads "You must restart the computer for your changes to Owner's administrator settings to take effect."

All I can do is select OK and the box for making the standard user "Owner" an admin is still blank.

I've attempted to do this from both the Admin account, and the "Owner" account. Logged out of both users and also restarted the computer. None of these steps have made any difference.

I stumbled upon what I think is the answer.

I recently purchased this MacBook as a refurbished unit. The administrator user was sold to me without a password for access purposes.

Once I set up a password, all of the admin operations began to function normally.

I don't have confirmation that this is a particular security feature for Admin users without a password set up, but it seems to have solved the problem.


How do you remove header and footer in Word 2011? I have found the ribbon/menu option where you can work with your header and footer but according to Google there should be a "None" option you should use if you don't want any header or footer at all - and I can't find this option.

This is how it looks when I click the Header button in Header and Footer ribbon:

And this is how my document look like:

How do I get rid of this header?

I don't think I've ever seen the None option you're referring to. Even in Ms Word 2016 there's no such option, but you do get a Remove Header option.

As for MS Word 2011, the only way I've ever been able to remove a header is as follows:

Double-click on the header within your document
Go to Edit > Select All (or just press the command A keyboard shortcut)
Now press the Delete key on your keyboard
Click the Close button on the header (see image below):

Now your Header will be gone.


MacBook Pro external monitors not working So I was just using my MacBook Pro with an external display last night and it was working beautifully. For some reason, though, today it isn't working at all. I have a TB-to-HDMI cable which is hooked up to an HDMI-to-DVI adapter. I have just tried it on an HDMI tv and have gotten nothing except a "Not supported mode" and a mouse flicker. By the way, it's not just the tv and monitors not working. In the System Preferences it doesn't show any other displays or an option to extend or mirror like usual. I will be getting another cable tomorrow to see if that is the problem.

An important question that I have and what I am most concerned about is that I have gfxCardStatus installed and when I tried using my external display today I forgot to turn it off of "Integrated only". Do you think that could have broken something since external displays require the other GPU? Sometimes when I plug in the cord gfxCardStatus shows it going into the AMD GPU but then if I look under dependencies it says "None" (it usually said "Extended Display").

On very very rare occasions when I unplug the cord I will get a blue screen flash like it is changing display settings.

Some things I have tried:

Wiggling cord
Messing around with gfxCardStatus (even turning it off)
Changing settings in Energy Saver PrefPane
Clicked on "Detect Displays" many times
Resetting PRAM
Resetting SMC

Another thing is that I just recently got my logic board replaced so I wouldn't think that would be the case but unfortunately their 30-day repair warranty is up.

One more thing that I have found while scouring the internet is I came across a picture of someones System Report for Graphics and at the bottom of the read-out it says: Display Connector: Status: No Display Connected but mine doesn't say that (I don't know if it used to either).

What are some of your thoughts? I am really hoping it is just the cord.

EDIT: Just tried my Xbox into my HDMI-DVI adapter with the monitor and it worked so that rules that out. It has to either be my cord or my computer

You need to switch to discrete graphics in gfxCardStatus (or dynamic switching) for external display support. Also make sure you're running the latest version by running “Check for Updates…”. (Your cable is likely just fine.)


Invert number and symbol in keypad In french keyboard the number is accessible with shift key. I use British keyboard because I found that's more practical to have access on symbols.

But I like the idea of having access to the number with the shift key.

It's possible to invert the comportment in UK layout ?

You could easily make a custom layout that does what you want with Ukelele. Here is one you can try.


Family sharing - Ask to Buy does not offer in-person approval Have just bought a new iPad (iOS 10.3.1) for my son - our first and only Apple device. Since he's only 10, have been trying to set up Family Sharing with little success.

Once logged in under his profile, he can click Ask to Buy, however on returning to my profile there is no sign of the request. A friend has suggested that there ought to be an 'approve in person' option, but one does not appear.

I don't know whether it's related, or coincidental, however:
1) content restrictions set up on his profile are applied to my profile when I log in
2) there is no ability to add apps to a wishlist (just Twitter, Facebook, Mail etc) on either of our profiles when in the App Store

What you will need to do is make sure your device (s) are on the latest build of iOS. Make sure the app your child would like to download is in full screen (tap on it before you tap GET) Once it's full screen tap get, then Ask, (It will ask for Touch ID first if it is turned on) and at the top select Approve in person from the message displayed.


Mac OS X - Bash script if statement based on system status Creating a bash script and using the if statement, how do I execute a command based on a system status?

if a specific system status is enabled do something, else do something different?

I give you a real example.  Let's say, for example,  I want to execute some commands based on the Mac OS X Gatekeeper status of the system.

Example: the following command line on your Mac OS X spctl --status will give you 2 possible output: assessments disabled or assessments enabled.

Can I do something like that below? Or there is a cleaner and more efficient way to do it? Thank you

#!/usr/bin/env bash

gatekeeper_status=$(spctl --status)

if [[ ${gatekeeper_status} ==  "assessments enabled" ]]
then
    echo "Gatekeeper is enabled do some stuff"
else
    echo "Gatekeeper is disabled do some stuff"
fi

Your example is clear, concise and maintainable but lacks any error checking. This example uses a case statement to parse the status and will exit if neither string is in the variable  ->

status=$(spctl --status)

case $status in
        'assessments enabled') echo "Gatekeeper is enabled."
        #do more stuff
        #and more stuff
        ;;

        'assessments disabled') echo "Gatekeeper is disabled."
        #do more stuff
        #and more stuff
        ;;

        *) echo "An error has occurred- Exiting script"
        exit
        ;;
esac

It could also be written like this ->

if   [[ $status == "assessments enabled" ]]
then
     echo "Gatekeeper is enabled."
     #do more stuff
elif [[  $status == "assessments disabled" ]]
then
     echo "Gatekeeper is disabled"
     #do more stuff
else
     echo "An error has occurred- Exiting script"
     exit
fi


iPhone 6s incoming calls won't start when Apple headphones are connected For a week or so, my iPhone 6s has been unable to start the call properly when I get an incoming call, and the headphones (Apple EarPods, wired) are connected.

I accept the call, and the view transfers to the "call screen", but the call is indefinitely stuck at the call length time 00:00 and nothing can be heard or spoken.

This problem occurred every time when the headphones were connected, regardless of having restarted the iPhone prior.

When accepting calls without the headphones connected, things work as intended. The headphones can then be connected in the midst of the conversation and work fine.

I'm guessing I need to reset my phone. But since I would immediately have to recreate my settings from an iTunes backup – would it actually solve any problems?

You absolutely will want to do some tests or work with AppleCare / support on this. I get the same very seldom, and if yours happens each / every time your diagnostic logs could let Apple fix this for everyone (assuming there are bugs in the code on answering calls).

Almost certainly not battery, but it could be.

I would make a full backup then try in order:

Reset network settings and test.
Make final backup then don't backup next steps.
Erase phone, set up as new and test.
Erase again, restore final backup and test.
Don't forget to set up backups again.


Upgrade MacbookPro (15' mid 2010), beyond 8G RAM Som there are a couple of past questions with answers on this topic here and the bigger interwebs. My reason for re-opening this issue is that most answers are from around 2013 - 2015 latest. So I am wondering if there has been an update since.

early apple forum that claims success of 16RAM on mid 2010, 15' when booting in safe mode:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2763468?start=105&tstart=0

comments claim that upgrade to 16G RAM was a success (end 2015):
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/148841/16+GB+possible+with+OS+X+Mountain+Lion+or+Mavericks

last answer claims that the only way to do this is by installing linux:
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/151681/I'm+experiencing+random+kernel+panics

Mid 2010 can go up to 12G RAM:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/214900/223701

I would really, REALLY like to use 16Gb RAM since my computing demands are quite high. Anybody have any definitive stories? Thanks!

You're not alone in your confusion, and there's four good reasons for it:

Some MacBooks can only use Apple's "official" maximum RAM
Other MacBooks can actually use more (usually twice as much)
Newer MacBooks have their RAM soldered in and cannot be upgraded after being purchased
The answer differs depending on the model of mid-2010 MacBook Pro!

You were probably aware of the first three reasons, but the last one often catches people out. To clarify this:

13" mid-2010 MacBook Pro models can actually use 16GB RAM
15" mid-2010 MacBook Pro models cannot use 16GB RAM
17" mid-2010 MacBook Pro models cannot use 16GB RAM

Unfortunately, this means for you the answer is no.


Bootcamp Partition Creation Failure I wanted to install Windows on my 2011 Macbook Air running 10.8. I had approximately 40 GB of a 120 GB hard drive free and I set Bootcamp to create a 20 GB partition for Windows. Halfway through the process, the computer completely froze for hours and I had to restart. When I reinspected my Mac partition, the total capacity was only 100 GB and the 20 GB Bootcamp partition was nowhere to be seen.

I've tried verifying using Disk Utility and it says I need to repair the drive after restarting into Disk Utility (via cmd + R on boot). When I do this however it says that everything is okay and there is no damage!

I have absolutely no clue as to what I should do and I really need the space. Could anyone please help out?

First, I would check the command-line diskutil list to see what the partitions look like.  The command-line also shows hidden partitions like your Recovery partition, so there are chances that other non-visible or damaged partitions are shown there as well.

Then, depending on what you see, you can try to either expand the internal partition, merge two (or more) partitions or clone the current partition onto an external hard drive (if you have one available, or at least the disk space), then reformat the internal drive and put the clone back.  The latter two options have a high chance of you losing the local Recovery partition.  While 2011 and later models of computers do have the ability to directly boot from the Internet, some may want to keep a local version as well.  So, use it at your own risk.

To expand the volume, try the following command:

diskutil resizeVolume <disk_slice> 120G

<disk_slice> is the disk you see on the same line of the name of the disk in the list output (e.g. disk0s2).
After you ran this command, you need to visit System Preferences > Startup Disk to make this volume the boot drive again.

To merge partitions, you can use the following command (as stated before, this can result in losing your recovery partition, if it is in the range of to-be-merged partitions):

diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ Macintosh\ HD <1st_disk_slice> <last_disk_slice>

If you have spaces or other non-alphanumeric characters in the name of your partition, escape them using the backslash ("\") character as shown above for Macintosh HD.

For any of those commands, you can get help by typing just the first part(s) in: diskutil (showing the valid "verbs"), diskutil resizeVolume (showing help on how to resize) and diskutil mergePartitions (showing help how to merge).

Finally, if you have a Mac OS Extended-formatted external hard drive (not in use or at least with sufficient disk space) available, you can see about cloning the internal drive over, then re-partition the entire drive and clone it back.  This will, with almost 100% certainty, remove the Recovery partition.  So, again: Use at your own risk.

Here is how:

start Internet Recovery (Cmd+Alt+R at boot)
open Disk Utility
choose the volume (by default named Macintosh HD)
click on New Image at the top of the window and choose the external hard drive as a destination
once done, choose the disk above (not the volume), choose Format from the right-side tabs, provide a name (Apple-default is "Macintosh HD"), then format the drive
choose the volume again (it should now be again 120 GB in size) and choose Restore from the right-side tabs
click on Image and choose the image from the external hard drive
select the image on the left side navigation bar (it should be placed in there now) and choose menu "Images" > "Scan Image for Restore" (this can take some time)
once finished, drag the disk image into the "Source" box to the right and the "Macintosh HD" into the "Destination" box
Double-check that you have it this way and not the other way around
click on Restore and confirm it (I recommend reading that confirmation dialog as well, so that you are sure you do the right thing).
Restart the computer once done


Apple ID page blocking Linux computers Apple ID sign-in is not working from Linux OS browser (Chrome, Firefox...tried both with new session cookies cleared, and incognito). I can browse apple.com without issues. I needed to check Apple ID after getting what appears to be a bogus security alert on my iPhone about a FaceTime sign-in on my table.

I've tried to login to Apple ID page from 3 different public IP addresses (cities) and Linux based desktop & laptop computers with latest updates. Login works fine from a Windows computer.

I spoke with Apple Support and they said:

  we are only trained on Apple products so we are unable to help you with that.

When they said they could escalate it to one of the engineering teams and get back to me, I offered to give the Chrome and Firefox versions along with the OS information and again I was told:

  we are only trained on Apple products. That information will not likely be useful to our team.

I can't imagine telling one of my customers that when questioned about a cross-platform compatible product/service I provide. It's specifically a bad gateway reported by Apple server and only happens when trying to connect from a Linux computer.

This has never been a problem for me in the past. I figure since the error is reported directly from Apple servers, they made a change in their firewall. I'm not sure what else to try with Apple Support. How do you resolve this?

The response from this user post in a related question was helpful. Specifically, apple is blocking the default user-agent string from Chrome and Firefox on Linux (at least Ubuntu based) computers. To confirm this, I did the following.

Change useragent on Chrome:

CTRL + SHIFT + I to open Chrome developer tools.
Click the 3 dots in the bottom right of Chrome developer tools:

Go to More tools > Network conditions
Scroll down to User agent and un-check Select automatically
Enter the following string Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X;
fi-fi) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3
Enter the following in your browser https://appleid.apple.com

Change useragent on Firefox:

Enter about:config in the URL field and press enter (and accept
risk warning).
Enter useragent and press enter.
Look for general.useragent.override

If you see it, right click it and select Modify and go to step 4.
If you don't see it, right click in empty area of page and choose New > String and then enter general.useragent.override as name and go to step 4.

Enter Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; fi-fi) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3 as value
Enter the following in your browser https://appleid.apple.com

Another way to test this in Chrome in Linux is follow steps 1-4 for Chrome useragent change. Next, instead of entering the example string above, select another useragent (Safari - Mac, Chrome - Mac, Chrome - Windows, etc) from the list. All those useragent's allow access to https://appleid.apple.com from Linux.

Chrome on Windows 10 doesn't have a Linux option to choose from, so to test this from Windows, you can enter one of the following strings I pulled from a Linux machine with the latest updates:

Chrome/Linux
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/72.0.3626.109 Safari/537.36

Firefox/Linux
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:65.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/65.0

In my test this morning from a Windows 10 computer, using those useragent's in Chrome, attempts to https://appleid.apple.com resulted in a 502 bad Gateway.  That same test should work from a Mac but I don't have mine with me.

Test from Windows 10:

Some information about browser detection.


Are file permissions on macOS cryptographically enforced? Are permissions set in the 'Get info' screen when right clicking on a file enforced cryptographically? If not, how are they enforced? Could anyone, for example, boot of a live OS on a USB stick and edit file permissions?

The file permissions are only enforced by the operating system. If you boot from another OS (where you have root user access), you can read anything.

Of course, if the disk is encrypted (research Full Disk Encryption), then you would need the key to decrypt it before you could mount it. On a Mac, the disk encryption key is typically protected by the users password and decryption is handled during login.


How can I tell if a directory has APFS Fast Directory Sizing enabled? Apple's technical documentation in the Apple File System Guide describes that some directories like /tmp are not good candidates for the fast directory sizing feature.

  Fast directory sizing works by precomputing the size of directory as content is added and removed. Therefore, it is most appropriate for directories that contain many files and have relatively little churn. For example, a user’s Documents folder is a good candidate for fast directory sizing, whereas the /tmp directory would not.

How can I tell if a given directory has this enabled or disabled so I can choose where to do speed intensive "churn" work and where not to do that sort of work?

We now know the previous answer is a bit off since Apple has recently released more technical details on APFS.  Fast directory sizing is indeed enabled on a per-directory basis and this can be checked by the user (albeit not easily). It can only be enabled when a directory is empty and must also be turned on for every new subdirectory as well. Details: https://developer.apple.com/support/apple-file-system/Apple-File-System-Reference.pdf

Relevant quote

  You cannot enable Fast Directory Sizing on directories containing files or other directories directly; you must instead first create a new directory, enable fast directory sizing on it, and then move the contents of the existing directory to the new directory

We now know that you must set this flag to enable FDS

  INODE_MAINTAIN_DIR_STATS: The inode tracks the size of all of its children

Though still unclear to me if macOS is turning this flag on automatically where appropriate or not, but some initial experimentation makes me think it isn't being used yet. I assume it will be used in forthcoming macOS updates.


How to compress multiple folders into multiple zip files My folder structure is:
YEAR - MONTH - DAY - SUBFOLDERS
I want to compress each subfolder in the [DAY] directories. The solution from  here which is:
for i in */; do zip -r "${i%/}.zip" "$i"; done

works fine as long as I'm doing it from a [DAY] folder. But if I change it to:
for i in */*/; do zip -r "${i%/}.zip" "$i"; done

and run from a [MONTH] folder it still works, but the problem is that the .zip now contains an additional parent folder for each additional '/*' in the command when I unpack.
How can I run the command from a [YEAR] folder with '/* /* /*' while making sure that the .zip only contains the lowest level subfolder when I unpack?

In your case you can combine two loops to accomplish this
cd YEAR
for month in */; do
    (cd "$month";  for i in */; do zip -r "${i%/}.zip" "$i"; done)
done

PS: If MONTH folders can be empty you need to check for this in the inner loop.