Need script or app to convert filenames and folder names from day/month/year order to year/month/day I have recently been sent a large number of tif files where for some misguided reason the file names have all been recorded in DD/MM/YY format ie 130307 whereas I need it as YYYY MM DD. The files are also prefixed as shown here:
GC Mins 130307 004.tif (this can stay although the chance to modify it would also be welcome).

The files are sitting in folders themselves also named in similar fashion so:
07 Dec
08 Jan
13 Oct

These too need to be converted to read yyyy mm dd.

Any help appreciated on what to do to overcome this issue as brute force renaming is not really on given the number of files which number in the 000s.

Apart from TJ Luoma's third-party solution (a fine solution for long-term situations, but perhaps not something you wish to pay for if this is a one-time endeavour), no one has yet offered a programmatic solution to your dilemma.

I waited until now because, admittedly, despite your screenshots, I still don't have a clear picture of your folder structure (in general, notwithstanding the two specific examples you supplied), so was hoping someone else would have interpreted what I couldn't, and posted a solution.

However, I then noticed your final comment, which spares me the need to interrogate you further about what's what:

  At the end of the day we wish to consolidate all the files into a single year folder so we need to be able to sort them in order.

This means that, provided all the images in question are located within a single directory tree that doesn't contain other images files that aren't intended to be processed along with them, I can hopefully solve your problem for you:

property this : a reference to current application
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
###USER-DEFINED PROPERTIES
property rootdir : "~/Example"
property imgTypes : ["tif", "tiff", "png", "jpg"]
property moveFiles : no
property moveTo : rootdir
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
###IMPLEMENTATION
#
#
tell the directory to filter by imgTypes
reformatFilenames() of imageFiles

if moveFiles ≠ yes then return
tell the imageFiles to move
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
###SCRIPT OBJECTS & HANDLERS
#
#
script directory
    use framework "Foundation"

    property NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles : a reference to 4
    property NSFileManager : a reference to NSFileManager of this
    property NSPredicate : a reference to NSPredicate of this
    property NSString : a reference to NSString of this
    property NSURL : a reference to NSURL of this
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    property images : null
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    to recurse thru directory
        local directory

        set FileManager to NSFileManager's defaultManager()

        FileManager's enumeratorAtURL:(NSURL's ¬
            URLWithString:((NSString's ¬
                stringWithString:directory)'s ¬
                stringByStandardizingPath())) ¬
            includingPropertiesForKeys:{} ¬
            options:NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles ¬
            errorHandler:(missing value)
    end recurse

    to filter by filetype
        local filetype

        recurse thru rootdir
        set images to (result's allObjects()'s ¬
            filteredArrayUsingPredicate:(NSPredicate's ¬
                predicateWithFormat:("pathExtension IN %@") ¬
                    argumentArray:[filetype])) as list
    end filter
end script

script imageFiles
    use framework "Foundation"

    property NSMutableArray : a reference to NSMutableArray of this
    property NSRegEx : a reference to NSRegularExpression of this
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    to matchString against pattern from str into fmt
        local pattern, str, fmt
        local results

        set results to NSMutableArray's array()

        NSRegEx's regularExpressionWithPattern:pattern ¬
            options:(NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive of this) ¬
            |error|:(missing value)

        set RegEx to the result

        repeat with match in (RegEx's matchesInString:str ¬
            options:0 range:[0, str's length])

            (results's addObject:(RegEx's ¬
                replacementStringForResult:match ¬
                    inString:str ¬
                    offset:0 ¬
                    template:fmt))
        end repeat

        return the results as list
    end matchString

    to reformatFilenames()
        tell application "System Events" to repeat with img in ¬
            (a reference to |images| of the directory)

            set fp to the POSIX path of (img as alias)

            set [fname] to (matchString of imageFiles ¬
                against ("(.+)/(.*?)( )?" & ¬
                "((\\d{2})(\\d{2})(\\d{2}))" & ¬
                "( )?([^/]+)") ¬
                from fp ¬
                into "$1/19$7-$6-$5$3$2$8$9") & {null}

            if fname ≠ null then set ¬
                [name of file fp, fp] to ¬
                [fname, fname]

            set contents of img to file fp
        end repeat
    end reformatFilenames

    to make (dir as text)
        tell application "System Events" to if not (folder named dir in ¬
            folder moveTo exists) then make new folder at ¬
            folder moveTo with properties {name:dir}
    end make

    to move
        tell application "System Events" to repeat with img in ¬
            the directory's |images|

            set y to the first word of (img's name as text)
            tell imageFiles to make y
            move img to the folder named y in folder moveTo
        end repeat
    end move
end script
---------------------------------------------------------------------------❮END❯

System info: AppleScript version: "2.7", system version: "10.13.6"

What This Script Does:  Given a path to a source (root) folder under which all your images are contained somewhere within any subfolder, this script will obtain the entire contents—files, folders, packages, aliases, etc.—of the directory tree whose root is at the source folder specified.  Hidden files are ignored.  It then filters all of these items to isolate only those with a file extension matching a pre-determined list of valid extensions supplied.  The filtered array of files is then iterated through one-by-one to rename each file according to your already-stated specifications (more about this below).  If needed, the renamed files are moved to a new location, organised under a top-level directory specified by the supplied filepath that points to an existing folder on your system.  The files are sorted into subfolders labelled by year, e.g. "1994".  If the subfolder does not exist, it is created.  Pre-existing files were not overwritten in my testing, but this may be dependent on your version of AppleScript and macOS.

Utilising This Script: You can copy and paste this script into Script Editor and run it from there.  There are four user-defined properties near the top of the script that you can (and should) edit to your needs:

rootdir: The top-level folder of the directory tree within which the image files to be processed are located.  The files can be located in the top-level folder itself, or in any sub-directory contained therein.  This should be a posix path (slash notation), and using a tilde (~) to represent the home directory is fine, as would be a full filepath.
imgTypes: A list of file extensions (without the leading period) that will be used to discriminate the types of files to be processed.  The images in your screenshots all have extension "tif", so you can leave this property as it is, or add extra extensions if needed, e.g. "gif".
moveFiles: yes to have files relocated to a single folder after being renamed; no to leave them where they are (don't put quotes around yes or no).
moveTo: The destination directory to where the images will be moved and organised into subfolders after renaming.  If moveFiles is set to no, this property is ignored and won't affect anything in the script.  Otherwise, the path supplied must, once again, be a posix path to an existing folder, which can be the same as rootdir, or any other folder on your system.  The subfolders for the images need not exist beforehand, as these will be created on a per need basis by the script.

A Few Warning Guidelines: Note that this script uses System Events to handle the file renaming and moving.  Therefore, there are no undos.

Unless you're confident with AppleScript (and specifically AppleScriptObjC) and regular expressions (used in reformatting the filenames), I'd advise against editing any other parts of the script yourself.  Doing so would likely just cause the script not to work, which would be fine; but it might instead end up processing and renaming files you didn't intend it to, and you don't want that.

For this reason, I would also suggest you trial this script on a small set of dummy files and folders yourself to ensure it does do what you are wanting before you apply it to your actual files.  It's also worth making a backup of your photographs beforehand, just to be extra safe.

All warnings aside, I don't anticipate any problems if I've understood your needs correctly, and you've understood what this script is designed to do.  If you're not sure, feel free to ask for clarification.

I've tested it on files with file name variations, and various distributions throughout a nested set of folders without no issues.  (But, naturally, this only means there are no issues under the conditions that I was able to think up).

How Files Are Renamed: If a file is to be renamed, it's current filename must contain a six-digit number representing a 20th-century date in the format ddmmyy.  If there are more than one occurrences of a six-digit number pattern in the filename, it is the first occurrence that is assumed to be the date string.  The rest of the filename can be anything, both before and/or after the date string, e.g. "%prefix% %ddmmyy% %suffix%.tif".  Neither the prefix nor suffix part of the filename, nor the spaces, are mandatory, so a filename consisting simply of "%ddmmyy%.tif" is considered valid for processing.  The filename is then reformatted by swapping the positions of the prefix (if present) and the date string, leaving the rest as it is.  The date string is also reformatted into ISO-standard international date format, i.e. yyyy-mm-dd.  This includes the hyphens (let me know if you want the hyphens omitted, as I know this wasn't part of your original specification, but it's standard filenaming practice to have them present).  To summarise the filename change by way of examples:

① "Editorial Com Mins 080594 003.tif" → "1994-05-08 Editorial Com Mins 003.tif"
② "1994-05-08 Editorial Com Mins 123456.tif" → "1956-34-12 1994-05-08 Editorial Com Mins.tif"
③ "080594.tif" → "1994-05-08.tif"
④ "1994-05-08 Editorial Com Mins 02.tif" → "1994-05-08 Editorial Com Mins 02.tif"

Note in the second example that the filename might already have been formatted appropriately to begin with, however the presence of a six-digit number pattern meant that it was processed by the script.  However, in the fourth example, the absence of a six-digit number pattern leaves the filename unchanged.


OS X Can't repair the disk "MyLove HD" Whenever I start up the Macintosh , I get the above mentioned error. I would like to know the cause of it and solve the issue.

I am using El-Capitan

Where do you see this error? In the logs or does it show a dialog once you're logged in?

Either way, I'd probably start with booting from the recovery partition and running Disk Utility. If it still can't repair it then you might need to try another disk repair utility or just backup and erase to see if you can get rid of these errors.


Was Apple menu 'sticking' for certain dual monitor setups removed in Lion? This use case is a bit niche, so I'm not sure if this is something on my end, or an undocumented change. I'm throwing this out there to see if anybody else can help test and report back.

I have a dual monitor setup. Both monitors are set to the same resolution, 1920 × 1200 I have them arranged so that my primary display is on the right, and the desktop extends to the left, like this:

In previous versions of OS X (at least Snow Leopard, possibly earlier), moving the cursor to the Apple menu with enough force would 'stick' it in that corner for a brief moment instead of immediately moving to the next display over. This was done, I believe, to preserve the ability to throw the cursor in the corner without needing to aim to hit a specific target. If you slowed down, you could easily move back and forth without hitting this little snag, and the cursor would keep moving if you kept moving the mouse, so it was an extra little exception case that had to be programmed in.

After upgrading to Lion, this no longer seems to work. I've not changed any settings, and disabled any third party tweaks that might interfere. Still, it seems weird that such a strange edge case would be specifically removed, so I'm wondering if anybody else can confirm/reproduce this behavior? If you've got dual displays and wouldn't mind testing it out real quick and reporting back whether it works or not and what OS you're on, that will help narrow down what's going on.

As a side note, I know that I can rearrange the displays in the Arrangement tab to have the left one 'sit' a bit lower, which will give me a corner to aim for, but this is non-ideal since then windows will look pretty funky when they span it, as I don't want to have to physically re-arrange the screens.

In addition to testing this out, if anybody has a link/source that documents this behavior for either OS, I'd appreciate it.

Here's another bit of wonky screen edge behavior in Lion.

When you activate Mission Control, your screen edges are suddenly no longer "hard" edges. Hit an edge with enough cursor velocity, and your cursor will pop through the previously cursor-bounding edge and end up on your other monitor.

This occurs on a shared screen edge between multiple monitors. My main screen (on the left) is approximately 100 pixels taller than my laptop screen (on the right). However, when I activate Misson Control and then ram my cursor exactly into the main screen's top-right corner, it then pops out into my laptop display 100 pixels below. Very annoying.

If anyone has any docs or blog posts that explain this change, please post!

I noticed this Lion behavior when developing EdgeCase.

EdgeCase might actually solve your problem. It creates hard edges that your mouse cannot cross on all shared screen edges.

This will allow you to throw your mouse up towards the menu bar and never miss. See screenshot.


Utility like Compost for El Capitan I recently upgraded my Mac from Snow Leopard to El Capitan. I had been using a utility called Compost, which automatically deletes anything that has been in the trash more than a configured amount of time (also there are lots of other options, like if the disk is more than n% full). It doesn't seem to be working any more. The preference pane still works (although it's a 32-bit pane so it requires an annoying reload of System Preferences), and I can see the process running in Activity Monitor, but files aren't getting deleted.

Unfortunately, the developer stopped maintaining it several years ago. Anyone know of something similar that works in El Cap?

After doing a quick google search, a user from MacRumors mentioned Hazel, which has this feature, although pricy at $32
TrashTimer is a free alternative app, works straight from the preference pane.
Or, for the DIY-er, this discussion on the Apple Communities forums has two answers, one by twtwtw, and one by Tony T1.

twtwtw's answer uses an Applescript and a launchd plist file to automatically  execute the script at midnight. The files in trash then gets today's date written into the comments section, and if the date matched is older than x days, deleted. TL;DR: File is deleted depending on the date written in the comments section of file.

Tony T1's answer uses only a plist file in the launchd, and it deletes files based on the created date. Tony T1 also adds this:

  Notes:
       -- I use -mindepth 1 -prune, so that if a FOLDER is in the Trash, every file in the folder is deleted (-R), (even is it is less than 7 days old -- good for App bundles).
       -- Some files might not be deleted if srm has an error (for example, write protected files owned by another user)
       -- This only handles the Users Home Trash.  If you have attached drives, adjust accordingly.

Sidenote for a fix for Tony T1's answer

Alternative to Compost – MacRumors forum

Apple Communities discussion


macOS Sierra : dd to USB is very slow and can't seem to use /dev/rdisk (txs all for your help and suggestions, but suspending this for now while I track down my formatting errors on that SD.  If I can't get that to work, little reason to expect dd to work, even if other people have encountered similar issues doing this on osx).

I'm trying, as root, to write to micro SD to load up a Raspberry Pi's Linux:

W$dd bs=1m if=/Users/jluc/Downloads/2017-01-11-raspbian-jessie.img of=/dev/disk2

This is supremely slow, it's been running for 8-9 hours and hasn't written much when I kill -9 it.

301989888 bytes transferred in 23103.442503 secs (13071 bytes/sec)

Now, in such write ups as Solution: dd too slow on Mac OS X, he advises to use /dev/rdisk, because it's treated differently.

But every time I've used /rdiskN instead of /diskN, I get:

dd: /dev/rdisk2: Input/output error

This is on Sierra, but it worked on Yosemite, if I recall correctly.

INSTALLING OPERATING SYSTEM IMAGES ON MAC OS mentions the possibility that /rdisk won't work and advises you to use /disk instead.

What gives?  Is this something new with Sierra as opposed to earlier versions?

update:  tried suggestion as per @oa and still getting the same error.

Searching `` got me this:  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37232109/how-to-fix-bad-dd-img-write-to-sdcard.  Now, that post is about an img file that is too big for the SD.  I have a 4.1Gb img, and this is a 32Gb file, so that wouldn't apply.

But... what I've noticed is that diskutil list has a number of things for that disk.

jluc@node_modules$ diskutil list /dev/disk2
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE         IDENTIFIER
 0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *32.1 GB    disk2
 1:             Windows_FAT_32 boot                    66.1 MB    disk2s1
 2:                      Linux                         32.0 GB    disk2s2

See how the first partition, the FAT32 boot shows @ 66.MB?

Looking some more:

jluc@node_modules$ df -h | egrep "disk2|Filesystem"
Filesystem                          Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
 /dev/disk2s1                        63Mi   21Mi   42Mi    33%     512          0  100%   /Volumes/boot

So, wondering if it's not that /dev/disk2 is not interpreted as being only 60 MB because of the boot and I am therefore getting a capacity error.  Will try to repartition it first.

I installed the same image last night on a RPi3.

You need to unmount the disk first. Then you can write to the disk using sudo.

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/rdisk2
sudo dd bs=1m if=~/Downloads/your_image.img of=/dev/rdisk2
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2

I'm on macOS Sierra, too.


How do I delete/remove a home screen web link? I recently created two web links using Safari's "Add to Home Screen" and now it seems to be impossible to remove them.

The following has been attempted (from http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1395687&seqNum=9):

  To remove a Web clip, tap-and-hold for a few seconds on it, until all
  the icons start to wiggle. You’ll see a little X in the upper-left
  corner of each Web clip (and app that can be removed). Simply tap the
  little X and then tap Delete from the dialog that appears. The Web
  clip will disappear, and your remaining icons will reshuffle. Tap the
  Home button to stop the icons from wiggling and lock them in place.

That X does not show up on my icons.. I can drag them around, even to other pages, group them in folders and bring them out again, but not delete them.

Web clips added by a profile can be set to not be able to be deleted with the X, therefore hiding the X when in edit mode. To remove a web clip added in this way, you need to remove the profile from Settings → General → Profiles.

You can also try disabling restrictions if they are on. Go to Settings → General → Restrictions and switch it off, then try removing the web clips.


Wi-Fi sync missing from iTunes 10.5 This is really weird. I updated my iPhone to iOS 5 today, along with iTunes to version 10.5. According to Apple's own documentation, I should have an option to "sync with this iPhone over wifi" under the Summary tab when my iPhone is plugged in - but I don't!

Since I can't enable it, my iPhone doesn't "see" my computer when I go to Settings > General > iTunes Wi-Fi Sync on my iPhone, even though both are on the same network.

The only thing I can think of is that it's because I'm running OS X 10.5? But I still have iTunes 10.5 and iOS 5, which is all that Apple says is required (they don't list a minimum required version of OS X itself).

Anyone have any idea how I can enable this?

I believe the minimum requirements are iOS 5 iTunes 10.5 and Snow Leapard 10.6.8. I have Leapard 10.5.8 (and the other requirements) I can't use wifi sync. The option isn't in iTunes. I saw someone say somewhere that they had 10.6.7 and they did have the option until they updated snow leapard to 10.6.8.


Can't connect to AFP shares with 10.10.4 I just updated the Mac Mini that I use as a file server to the 10.10.4 and the Server App to 4.1.3. After I updated I can't connect anymore to the AFP share that I see in the Finder sidebar on the client, a MacBook Pro.

If I restart the sharing service in the Server App, the connection is successful. After a while, if I click again on the Mac Mini in the MBP Finder sidebar, it says "Connecting..." and then "Connection failed".

The web server on the Mac Mini doesn't respond either. I can't connect either with the "Screen Sharing" button and sometimes it just disappears from the sidebar.

On the MBP when the sharing connection fails it says:

14/07/15 14:10:23,438 sharingd[174]: SDSharePointBrowser::handleOpenCallBack returned 65

or:

14/07/15 15:14:36,418 NetAuthSysAgent[318]: DNSAddressResolver:Resolve CFNetServiceResolveWithTimeout failed
14/07/15 15:14:36,418 NetAuthSysAgent[318]: ERROR: AFP_GetServerInfo - connect failed 64
14/07/15 15:14:36,419 sharingd[179]: SDSharePointBrowser::handleOpenCallBack returned 64

I'm not 100% sure this is exactly related to the question at hand, but it might help some with this issue.

  TL;DR: make sure your machine does not include . or \

First. back in OSX 10.9.x Apple changed the default file share service from AFP to SMB2, meaning if you use Finder to connect to a machines file share the machine will try SMB then it should try AFP if SMB fails.

I have just spend far too long looking at Wireshark conversations between a 10.10.5 client and 10.11.3 file server to see what was going on and I think may have found the reason this sometimes fails for some users.

First a setup that seems to work:
The server computer name is configured to Computer 1 (note the space) in the System Preferences > Sharing pane. the netbios name for this machine is different but that does not come into play when connecting via Finder.

This results in Bonjour populating the client machine with a computer 1 in the Shared section of the side bar. when you click on this shared item and then click the Connect As... button the following conversation happens between the client and server:

CLIENT: Tree Connect Request: \\computer 1._smb._tcp.local\IPC$
SERVER: STATUS_SUCCESS
CLIENT: Create Request File: srvsvc
...
CLIENT: Finder receives Directory listing

This works as expected, you click on the server enter your credentials and get access to the resources.

Now a configuration that does not work, same setup as above but this time the server name is changed to computer.1 (using a dot instead of a space), this results in the following client server conversation:

CLIENT: Tree Connect Request: \\computer\.1._smb._tcp.local\IPC$
SERVER: STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_PATH
CLIENT: Tree Connect Request: \\<ip address>\IPC$
SERVER: STATUS_SUCCESS
CLIENT: Finder displays Connection Failed

There are two interesting parts to this:

The client escapes the . to \. causing the server to report back a bad path
As soon as the client notices the bad path error it tries connecting with the server IP address, that succeeds, but the client does not ask for a directory listing and displays the Connection Failed.
The connection does not fall back to AFP when SMB fails.

This seems like a bug in the OS's handling of invalid characters to the SMB protocol and proper fallback to either IP or AFP in the case of a failure.

I tested all of the US face special characters are the following characters are cause this problem: . (period) and \ (backslash). Every other character seems to work fine (e.g. !, @, %, ? ...) though I did not do an exhaustive check as the ascii character space.


Apple Mail Mailboxes missing Apple Mail crashed and I rebuilt the database. It now works but my mailboxes are missing. How can missing mailboxes be restored?

The only way this can be restored if you have a Time Machine backup or another backup which included mail.

Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac

This way all MailBox folders and messages will be restored.

  If you set up Time Machine to back up files on your Mac, you can use the backups to restore lost mailboxes and email messages.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mail/restore-mailboxes-and-their-content-mail15172/mac


How can I reduce the mobile data used by the iPhone Mail app? I am on a 200 MB/month plan, and feel that Mail is responsible for most of my mobile data usage, sometimes pushing me over the 200 MB, even if I almost never use the iPhone in places where there is no WiFi. I can either setup the phone:

To use push or pull at a regular interval. In either case, it will sometimes download new mail in the background, while the phone is locked. And this means it will do so over 3G instead of WiFi, even if there is WiFi where I am.
To disable push and and set fetch to "manually". I guess this will reduce my mobile data usage, but I would then have to wait after launching Mail for it to download my mail.

Ideally, I'd like the iPhone to use "push" when over WiFi and "fetch manually" when over 3G, but there doesn't seem to be an option for this.

What would you say is the optimal setup to reduce the use of  mobile data, without going to "fetch manually"?

There is no way to do this in iOS.

For a workaround you could turn off 3G and turn it on when you need it, just before you open up Mail, that way when you are connected to WiFi you will get push, but manually have to get from 3G.

It's not a great situation: I would just increase your data cap, although I know that is not always easy, hence you asking for this workaround.


updatedb error - mktemp: too few X's in template ‘updatedb’ When I run sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb to manually update the locate database, I get this error:

❯ sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb
Password:
mktemp: too few Xs in template ‘updatedb’
chown: missing operand after ‘nobody’
Try 'chown --help' for more information.
/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb: line 102: /var/db/locate.database: Permission denied
rm: missing operand
Try 'rm --help' for more information.

How do I resolve this?

The reason you hit this is because you have the GNU mktemp as the first item in your path.

You can verify this by running, type -a mktemp. If you don't see /usr/bin/mktemp as the first option then that is likely your issue.

For example I have:

❯ type -a mktemp
mktemp is /usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin/mktemp
mktemp is /usr/bin/mktemp

The reason I hit this is that I have run brew install coreutils, and then followed the option in the caveats section:

  Commands also provided by macOS have been installed with the prefix "g".
  If you need to use these commands with their normal names, you
  can add a "gnubin" directory to your PATH from your bashrc like:
     PATH="/usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin:$PATH

This can put the GNU mktemp ahead of the macOS one.

The fix is simply to stop doing that, remove the above line and just use the g-prefixed versions (e.g. gmktemp) when you need GNU tools.


How to check if journaling is enabled or not on my disk? As usual the main internal drive on which macOS gets installed is journaled. I was going through some Ask Different posts in which there was something mentioned as Disk journaling which saves you from file corruptions but each time it registers the status of your file at the present time.These registrations might be having a huge impact on your CPU and Disk (My Assusmption), so is there any way by which I can check if my disk has journaling turned on or not and if it has how to turn it off via terminal?

When I click on File Menu option via the menu bar after selecting my main Disk, this is what I get - Journaling is greyed out (I guess this option lights up if and only you are in recovery mode)

You do not specify which version of macOS you are using. I will assume the current version (macOS 10.13.3).

Open the Disk Utility application and select the volume you wish to check. In the image below, "MyFish" has been selected.

  Note: For a better view of an image, either click on the image or open the image in a new window.

Next, click on "File" in the menu bar. In the pulldown, you will see "Enable Journaling". If "Enable Journaling" is grayed out, then journaling is enabled, otherwise journaling is disabled. Below, the image shows the volume to have journaling enabled.

The older versions of macOS, would allow for journaling to be disabled directly from the Disk Utility application. With macOS 10.13.3, journaling can be disable by using the diskutil command. Below is the command to disable journaling for the "MyFish" volume.

diskutil  disableJournal  MyFish

Similarly, journaling can be enabled by using the command below. As stated earlier, this can also be accomplished from the Disk Utility application.

diskutil  enableJournal  MyFish


Can't install 1.22 Google Drive version on OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 On my iMac, my Google Drive icon in menu bar always says "Not logged in", and files are not synced. I have notice that on my MacBook the version 1.22 is installed, while on the iMac the version installed is 1.21. Hence the problem.

Now, when I download Google Drive to reinstall, the installgoogledrive installer always download 1.21. And when I launch the install, it says: you are using an obsolete version of Google Drive, please download the last available one.
The installer then fails.

Has anyone ever faced this problem and found a solution?

Well, I have found a "solution". First, I guess my problem is that I am among the new testers of the new version of Google Drive.
The solution I have found is brute-force : I copied the application straight from my macbook to my imac, rebooted and I finally able to sync files between my local google drive and the online folder.

It works, but this is not such a clean solution. When you click on the button "download Google drive" from the web interface, the installer script is supposed to determine which version you shall download, and that doesn't take early-adopters into consideration. Hopefully they will soon address this issue.


Can I upgrade from 10.5 to 10.7 without installing 10.6 first? Possible Duplicate:
  Can I upgrade directly from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to 10.7 Lion?

Can I upgrade from 10.5 to 10.7 without installing 10.6 first?

And what is the cheapest way to upgrade?

The cheapest way to upgrade seems to be to buy and install Snow Leopard ($29 here) and then download and install Lion from the App Store ($29.99 [App Store link]). This totals to just under $60.

The other alternative is buying Lion on a USB sick. It's $69 here. According to the page, Apple seems to want you to buy Snow Leopard before using the USB installer (although you should be fine skipping SL technically), making this even more expensive.

If you really want to have a physical USB disk with Lion, you can make your own either before or after you install using instructions you can easily find here (on Ask Different) or elsewhere on the Internet.


how to turn on empty iPad while loading? How do I turn on an iPad (first revision) during it is loading. Or how do I turn it on at all?

When I plug it in, the display shows a battery symbol with a little bit of red juice on the left side (seems to be empty). Then the display turns off after a few seconds.

All iOS devices do that after they have been completely discharged.

If it does not boot up with in 5-10 minutes of being plugged in, then it could be an indication of hardware failure. The battery is likely not accepting a charge.


Unable to re-enable Spotlight on Volume I've been trying to debug a "Waiting for index to be ready" issue with my Time Machine volume, and one piece of advice that I've encountered is re-creating the Spotlight index on the volume.

To do this I ran the following commands (as sudo):

mdutil -i off /Volumes/Backup
rm -R /Volumes/Backup/.Spotlight-V100

However, I'm now trying to re-enable Spotlight with the reverse of the first command, but this is what I'm getting:

mdutil -v -i on /Volumes/Backup
/Volumes/Backup:
    Indexing and searching disabled.

It simply doesn't want to do it, and I can't figure out why. I've tried manually recreating the .Spotlight-V100 with ownership set to root:wheel and mode set to 700 (exactly as the folder on other volumes is configured), and while mdutil has now created a VolumeConfiguration.plist file, it still won't enable indexing.

I can't find anywhere to get more information; the -v option of mdutil doesn't give any additional output, and nothing extra seems to be logged anywhere. There doesn't appear to be any physical problem, as the drive is new and reporting no I/O errors or other issues; aside from the "waiting for index" slow-down, Time Machine is otherwise working perfectly and I can view the contents of its backups without any problems.

Anyway, are there any other steps that can be followed to force Spotlight to re-index the drive, or find out why it's failing to do-so?

There are typically user immutable flags set on Time Machine backup volumes so that even root can't directly chown or chmod. You can look at these with:

ls -laeO /Volumes/*
ls -laeO /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/

Mac:~ me$ ls -laeO /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@  7 root  wheel  -  238 Mar  3 04:40 .
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwxrwxr-x  20 root  wheel  -  748 Mar 25 12:29 ..
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel  -  102 Mar 27 12:04 .RecoverySets
drwx------   7 root  wheel  -  238 Mar  6 10:47 .spotlight_repair
drwx------   2 root  wheel  -   68 Mar 27 14:28 .spotlight_temp
drwxr-xr-x@ 40 root  wheel  - 1360 Mar 27 18:31 Mac
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown

Cross reference with diskutil list to double check your mount points and volume names. My experience is that since Time Machine requires spotlight to make hard links is that if you tamper with the stores where those databases are resident on the filesystem you can't put "humpty dumpty" back together again and should archive off the snapshot backups you need using Finder/rsync or by making a dmg of those instants and then wiping the drive to start with new slate of .dotfiles and .dotdirectories with associated stores.

Clearly, someone with internal knowledge of how Time Machine and spotlight self check might step up and explain things, but I've not seen this level of detail publicly documented by Apple so far. I'd start at http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html if you haven't checked there for any community knowledge on the innards of Time Machine + Spotlight


How do I combine two text values from different cells to equal another cell? Let’s say I always know my row will be 14.

I only know the column by another value above it.

For example, $Q$7 = A

I want to be able to take that value A and add it so that my formula is now $A$14.

I need a formula that finds the value of $Q$7 and places it as $A$14.

Then if I applied that to let’s say $D$5 where $D$5 = R
the same formula would now equal $R$14.

Does that make sense?

I know to use = $A$14 in the cell but I want it to depend on the column.

Thanks for any help.

I would approach this a little differently to (hopefully) simplify things a little!

Let's assume you will use Rows 4, 7, 10, etc to enter the text of your words/sentences (which is the approach in your screenshot).

Let's also assume that you're only going to use Columns C to W to enter your text into (although there's no reason why it can't be more columns, but this is just what I gather from your screenshot).

For this answer, let's assume your Alphabet is in Row 50 and your Substituted letters are in Row 51.

In summary, this means:

the formula you need will have to be entered in every cell from C5 to W5, C8 to W8, C11 to W11, and so on
your alphabet will be in Row 50
your substituted letters will be in Row 51.

So, let's build this using the following steps:

In Row 50 add the letters of the alphabet from A50 to Z50
In Row 51 add your substituted letters
Enter the following formula in cell of C5:

=IFERROR(LOOKUP(C4, $A$50:$Z$50,$A$51:$Z$51),"")

(The reason we're using IFERROR in the formula is so Numbers will ignore any spaces in your sentences, rather than displaying an ugly error icon.)

Copy and paste the formula from cell C5 to your other cells (i.e. cells D5:W5, C8:W8, C11:W11, and so on)
Now start entering your text to be ciphered into cells C4:W4, C7:W7, C10:W10 and so on
As you enter the text, the ciphered result should appear in the cell below. If it's a space, the cell below will remain blank

NOTES:

Be careful to only include the letter and nothing else in each cell of your Alphabet row. Having a space or anything else will cause problems. For example, if you entered your E with a space after it, then Numbers will never find the E because it's looking for an 'E' and not a 'E ', if you get what I mean.
If you have the need to have no substitute value for some letters of the alphabet, then the result will be a 0 (i.e. a zero is displayed) instead of a blank cell. If this applies to you, you could create a conditional highlight to hide the result.
Personally, I would actually put your alphabet and substituted values in another worksheet, but this may not be necessary for your purposes.


Find folder on network drive, based on username using bash shell in Automator. I'm new to Automator, but I've had a Mac for quite some time, and I'm not a total noob. :)

Here is my problem:
Users need to make a backup (to desktop) of a folder located on a network drive. The folder name on the network drive is the same as the user's short username.

This is no problem if the user selects the folder themselves; I´ve made a workflow that does this. But I need this script to automatically find the folder on the network drive, based on the username and copy it to the desktop.

Any ideas how to find that folder and pass it on as my inputfolder variable? I assume I need to use a bash shell or applescript command in my workflow?

With the information provided, I think the following should work (screenshot follows):

Run Shell Script
echo "afp://192.168.0.115/foto/"
Ignore input

Get Specified Servers

Connect to Servers

New Folder
Name: Backup
Ignore input

Set Value of Variable
Variable: Destination

Run Shell Script
echo "/Volumes/foto/$USER"
Ignore input

Copy Finder Items
To: Destination variable (drag the "Destination" variable from the variable list to the "To" menu)
Check "Replacing existing files" if needed.

Variation for Incremental Backups

If you want incremental backups, you could replace Copy Finder Items with New Dated Folder, also setting its Destination to the Destination variable, and setting the "Action with passed items" option to "Duplicate passed items to the new folder". Make sure to enter something in the "Name" field, otherwise it won't work. To keep the backups listed in chronological order, you can set the Format to be Year-Month-Day and check the following options: "Leading zero for day", "Leading zero month", and "Month as number".


How to open an Excel workbook that ends with a specific string using Applescript I am new to Applescript and I am trying to open a xlsx file that ends like DK.xlsx. Tried using the following code, but it doesn't work. What am I doing wrong here? Please help.

set sourcefilepath to "Macintosh HD:Users:nprabu:Documents:Work:Project:Q1 2018:"

set sourcefile to name of every file of sourcefilepath whose name ends with "DK.xlsx"

tell application "Microsoft Excel"

    open workbook workbook file name sourcefile

end tell

Because you're new to AppleScript and because the script you gave had myriad rudimentary errors, this answer is quite long as I thought it appropriate to explain how to correct the script and why the errors arose in the first place.

However, for the benefit of any readers for whom this would be TL;DR, here are two three versions of the script in their complete form, each differing in how file(s) are sought and the command sent to Excel in order to open it/them.

Disclaimer:  I haven't been able to fully test the scripts, as I do not own a copy of Microsoft Excel.  I have formulated these snippets based on an online version of the AppleScript dictionary.  If you encounter any script errors, your feedback will help me correct them.

① This version uses the open workbook command as per your original script, which only accepts a single file reference.  Therefore, the search conducted will return whichever single file it finds first with the appropriate filename ending.  Note: See below for why the Excel command might not work, and why I have provided a second version of the script should this be the case:

    set sourcefilepath to "Macintosh HD:Users:nprabu:Documents:Work:Project:Q1 2018:"

    try
        tell application "Finder" to set sourcefile to ¬
            (the first file in the folder sourcefilepath whose ¬
                name ends with "DK.xlsx") as text
    on error
        return display notification ¬
            "No filenames ending in \"DK.xlsx\"" with title "File Not Found"
    end try

    tell application "Microsoft Excel" to ¬
        open workbook workbook file name sourcefile

② This version uses the standard open command that accepts one or more file or alias objects.  Use this version if you need to open multiple files easily or the above version of the script fails to open the file:

    set sourcefilepath to "Macintosh HD:Users:nprabu:Documents:Work:Project:Q1 2018:"

    tell application "Finder" to set sourcefiles to ¬
        (every file in the folder sourcefilepath whose ¬
            name ends with "DK.xlsx") as alias list

    if sourcefiles is {} then return display notification ¬
        "No filenames ending in \"DK.xlsx\"" with title "File Not Found"

    tell application "Microsoft Excel" to open the sourcefiles

③ Addendum: Emergency Script:

Thanks to @user3439894 for testing these scripts and reporting some odd behaviour from Microsoft Excel regarding how it responds to the standard open command (see the comments thread attached to this answer).

Essentially, it behaves as expected if Excel is not already running, and will open multiple files (in the background).  However, if Excel is already open, it will only open one file out of a given file list, and the one it chooses to open is seemingly random.

Therefore, I'm adding this third version of the script as a less graceful approach to opening multiple files, but one that will surely cope with Excel's personality issues:

    set sourcefilepath to "Macintosh HD:Users:nprabu:Documents:Work:Project:Q1 2018:"

    tell application "Finder" to set sourcefiles to ¬
        (every file in the folder sourcefilepath whose ¬
            name ends with "DK.xlsx") as alias list

    if sourcefiles is {} then return display notification ¬
        "No filenames ending in \"DK.xlsx\"" with title "File Not Found"

    tell application "Microsoft Excel"
        activate -- Bring Excel into focus

        -- This loops through the list of files and
        -- opens them one at a time
        repeat with sourcefile in sourcefiles
            open the sourcefile
        end repeat
    end tell

You can, of course, try and replace open the sourcefile with open workbook workbook file name (sourcefile as text), should that command be working in your version, but otherwise you'll be fine just using open.

A Detailed Breakdown

Retrieving your file(s)

The first few errors in your original script arise from this line:

set sourcefile to name of every file of sourcefilepath ¬
    whose name ends with "DK.xlsx"

(I have split the code over two lines for readability; this doesn't affect how AppleScript executes the commands.)

▸ Firstly, this command needs to be sent to an application that can handle file and folder objects.  The two options you have are Finder and System Events.  Finder is suitable and most commonly used for file commands.  To send a command to Finder, you simply add a tell clause at the start of the line:

tell application "Finder" to set sourcefile to ¬
    name of every file of folder sourcefilepath ¬
    whose name ends with "DK.xlsx"

You also need to specify that sourcefilepath is a folder object, which I've done by adding the object specifier folder in front of the variable.

▸ Your question as it is stated, together with your choice of AppleScript variable name, implies you are wanting a single file to be opened.  However, the command we've just been looking at tells Finder to get every file, which will always return a list of items (although it may be a list containing only one item), rather than a single item.  If there are multiple files whose names end with "DK.xlsx", then all of them will be returned in this list.  This will cause problems when it comes to opening the files using Excel's open workbook command, which can only handle one file per command statement.

If you are reasonably sure there's only one filename that ends in "DK.xlsx", then you can change every to first:

tell application "Finder" to set sourcefile to ¬
    the name of the first file of folder sourcefilepath ¬
    whose name ends with "DK.xlsx"

(I prefixed some terms with the to make it more readable; AppleScript happily copes with or without the being present.)

The other consideration is that open workbook requires that the full path to the file be specified.  However, by requesting that Finder returns just the name of the file(s), you will only be given the filenames without the path.  In order to retrieve the full path, remove the request for the file's name property and instead retrieve the file object, which you can then coerce into text:

tell application "Finder" to set sourcefile to ¬
    (the first file of folder sourcefilepath ¬
    whose name ends with "DK.xlsx") as text

▸ If it turns out that you do, indeed, wish to retrieve multiple files that end in the suffix "DK", then its best to coerce the list of file objects into an alias list (which is a list of aliases).  This is so we can use the standard open command instead of open workbook, as the former can accept a list of multiple file aliases, enabling you to open many files with one single command.

tell application "Finder" to set sourcefile to ¬
    (every file of folder sourcefilepath ¬
    whose name ends with "DK.xlsx") as alias list

Opening the file(s) in Excel

You didn't mention which version of Microsoft Excel you're using, which may turn out to be pertinent information.  This forum question from 2009 is from a user who reports running into trouble when using the open workbook command.

▸ BUT...  Let's assume for now that the command will work with your version, and that you only wish to open a single file.  The syntax as you've got it is all correct, and the adjustment I mentioned above to retrieve the full file path will prevent the open workbook command from throwing an error because of a bad file reference.  One stylistic note: you can write the tell statement and the open workbook command on a single line, then delete the end tell line:

tell application "Microsoft Excel" to open workbook workbook file name sourcefile

No one form is better than the other, so it's personal choice.

▸ The forum post I mentioned above that reported a malfunctioning open workbook command also cited the same problem when using the standard open command.  However, this Stack Overflow post provides the likely cause, and reassures me that this open command will work where the open workbook command may not.

Basically, in the same way that the Finder application needs a folder object to be specified explicitly as being a folder, Excel needs the file object to be specified explicitly as being a file (or alias):

tell application "Microsoft Excel" to open file sourcefile

▸ The benefit of this open command is that it can accept lists of aliases to open many files at once.  Therefore, if you decide to keep the version of the Finder command that retrieves multiple files, make sure you coerce it to an alias list, which you can then use like so:

tell application "Microsoft Excel" to open sourcefile

Note here that the file object specifier is absent when opening multiple files, because the variable sourcefile is already of the correct type, namely alias list.

Closing comments

The final versions of the script I supplied at the beginning are slightly different in how I chose to implement the changes I've detailed here.  I also felt it wise to include some basic error-handling in case a file could not be found, which would throw an error and might lead you to wonder if the code was faulty.

If you find that the file successfully opens in Excel, but that it remains in the background concealed behind other applications, you can add this command to the script to bring Excel into the foreground and make it the focussed application:

tell application "Microsoft Excel" to activate

or—combining it with the existing Excel commands:

tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    activate
    open file sourcefile
end tell

If you need any of this clarified or if you have any further minor questions relating to this, leave a comment and I'll get back to you.  If you find this helpful or if it solves your problem, do consider selecting this answer or any other that proves more useful so other forum visitors know this issue has been addressed and can benefit from it if they have a similar problem.


How to get rid of a second CrashPlan icon in the menu bar? Everytime I restart, I get two crashplan icons in the menu bar.

If I close one of them, the other still remains.

How can I get rid of one of them?

This happened to me when I installed CrashPlan Mac menubar app over a year ago, and when a recent version of CrashPlan included its own menubar. If that's the case for you, see if you can find the CrashPlan Menubar app (in your Applications folder?) and just delete it.


Printing from iOS devices to existing printer connected to windows pc? I am aware of AirPrint activator as a great solution for printing from iOS devices using a Mac on the network. Is anyone aware of a solution for someone with only a pc?

The way suggested by @Clayton Jones above, links to a good tutorial.  However, on the same site, I found an installer that will do all of this for you.  Here are the written instructions, for after you have downloaded the installer, via jaXov. You can also find a link with full color step-by-step screenshots in the previous sentence.

If you are facing any difficulties in following the manual procedure to enable AirPrint service on Windows, now you can install AirPrint service through AirPrint installer (by TadGhostal) which is compatible with Windows 7, Windows XP and Windows Vista. For those who don't know, iOS 4.2.1 comes with a unique feature called AirPrint which allows you to print your documents, emails, web-pages and photos over a Wifi connection with your Apple iOS device.

Prerequisites:
Download and install iTunes 10.1 from here
Make sure the printer is setup as a shared printer on your local PC
Printer and iOS device should share the same Wifi connection
Make sure you have full administrator privileges to enable / disable services on your PC
Procedure:
Download AirPrint installer for Windows from here. Once downloaded, right-click on setup.exe and choose Run as administrator from the pop-up menu.

Just follow the on-screen instructions to install AirPrint service on Windows:

Once installation completes, Windows Firewall will prompt you allow or deny AirPrint features to be shared over networks. Click on Allow access button.

Please note that only HP ePrint enabled Photosmart, Officejet and Laserjet printers currently supports Apple's AirPrint service. You don't need any additional network setup if you are using one of these printers and can print any media directly from your iOS 4.2.1 AirPrint enabled iDevice.


OS X: Always have an app open at specific location in the Dock, without permanently keeping it in the Dock? Let's say, I sometimes want to use Application XYZ, but I don't want to set its Dock Option to Keep in Dock so its icon is visible at all time.

When I want to use the application, I open it with Spotlight. It will open and place itself to the right end of the applications in the Dock.

I would prefer it to lie closer to the middle.

Is there a way to place it at a specific location permanently, without having to always keep it there, regardless of whether it's active or not?

No. Apps that are not kept in dock when opened will be positioned at the end of the dock.


How to enable/disable auto AirPod switching on phone call? When my AirPods are connected to my mac and I am listening to music, if I receive a phone call on my iPhone sitting next to me, my AirPods will automatically switch to my iPhone. How can I disable this?

I remember I enabled this feature somehow on my iPhone but I can't figure out how to turn it off.

Finally figured it out. It was an accessibility option.

Navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Call Audio Routing
Select "Automatic". This will only use the AirPods when they are connected to the phone. I had it on "Bluetooth Headset".


Can't successfully download nor resume mac os x mountain lion I'm sorry if this a redundant question but I'm really desperate.

I recently bought a used Macbook (5,1) from ebay that came preloaded with snow leopard, my main goal of this purchase is to start developing for iOS.

it's been a while now and I'm ready to dig in, as I was trying to get the latest OS release from the App Store I've been getting this weird glitch or bug;

the bloody OS won't be downloaded! It shows as it's progressing, but suddenly it will go hay-wire and stop at 50 something mega byte. Sometimes it would show that I reached a giga byte or so but then after I leave it for a while (an hour or two) it would show an error "failed to download or something"

I admit that I live in the middle east, and we might not have the best ISP's in the world, but I successfully downloaded 4 or 5 giga bytes before with no problem whatsoever!

What shall I do? I'm really relying on you to end this for good.

It seemed that the ISP was causing it. I took to an authorized retailer and it did it for me.


iOS 8 Family Sharing on, but not showing shared purchases After my wife and I upgraded our devices to iOS 8, I turned on a family sharing account so we could use those features.

It's on, and shows up on both of our phones as being part of a family. I also see the shared reminders and calendar. Also, her devices show up in my Find my iPhone.

What doesn't show up is purchases. If I go to iTunes or to the App Store, under purchased, I do not see her, nor any area for family purchases. It looks as it always has.

We have two totally separate iTunes accounts, always have.

Also, as a note - I have gone through everything on Apple's support page (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5449) and no changes. Basically, it notes to make sure you are logged into the right accounts, everyone is set up to share, and the apps support it.

Download a new free app & see if it jogs the server.

From http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/18/how-to-start-an-ios-8-family-sharing-account-to-share-apps-music-movies-more


Can't authorise settings change or install new apps 1
Hello,
I have a problem authorising any admin tasks on Yosemite 10.10.5 (like installing new apps, unlocking system settings etc.). I have an admin account with a password, yet the system won't authorise it. The prompt just shakes around as if the password was incorrect. However, I'm able to log into my account without problems, so I assume the login details are fine.
I've noticed that the "Username" field is blank by default (while usualy it's already there when the prompt appears) - please see the attached image file. Even if I type the username manually, it still wouldn't work.

Not sure what to do about it, I've never seen anything like this. Any help would be much appreciated!

Navigate to Macintosh HD->Users and see what your username folder is, and use that when prompted.

Sometimes the username and name you see aren't always the same. As an example, I have profiles named Christian (Work) and Christian (Personal). The actual usernames are christian and christianpersonal, respectively. When prompted for an admin, I have to use christian to gain access. This is because I have changed the profile name after it was first created, giving it a different viewing name than the user folder.


Does Evernote on the iPad have undo functionality? Am i wrong or it is true that the evernote app on iPad doesn't have undo funcionality ?

For example if I delete a line, it is gone for ever ?

As with the iPhone, if you shake the iPad vigorously, you get offered the choice of:

Undo
Cancel

For me, this doesn't feel at all natural on the iPad, and I imagine that's why some iPad applications (e.g. Textastic) provide their own Undo/Redo buttons.

Edit

Thanks to @Lizzan for also pointing out in the comments:

  There's also an Undo button in the bottom left on the numerical keyboard - makes a bit more sense than shaking the iPad.


iOS 11: Voice Control doesn't get turned off completely I recently updated my iPhone 6s from iOS 10 to iOS 11.2.

Together with the update the device started really annoying me by turning on Voice Control on headset button press. It gets turned on approximately in 30% of the cases. May be it reacts on a longer presses, but anyway I'd better turn this off.

I used to use this button to play/pause music and it worked perfectly with iOS 10. I also didn't change my habits - I press it in exactly the same way like I did it before.

Voice Control itself is turned off on my device. I used the "Turn off Voice Control on your iPhone" article from the apple documentation to ensure I did it properly.

There is also quote in the documentation:

  If you're using a headset, and it unexpectedly activates Siri or Voice Control, make sure that your headset is fully inserted into the device.

But it is not my case - the headset is fully inserted. I'm also using the headset provided with the device.

Disable "Siri & Dictation" in restrictions.

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions.
Enable restrictions and set a passcode if you haven't already. Otherwise, enter your restrictions passcode.
Disable "Siri & Dictation".


How to unregister "httpd" after "wfsctl stop"? How does one properly unregister httpd from launching at reboot following a sudo wfsctl start and subsequent sudo wfsctl stop?

Background:

wfsctl is a "WebDAV File Sharing control utility" released with macOS High Sierra. wfsctl is located at /usr/sbin/wfsctl.

In my case, after an initial install of macOS High Sierra, the Apache httpd daemon is not initially serving content. (This was expected.)  The observation that httpd was not serving could observed in various ways, including:

type localhost into a web browser on the same machine
type curl localhost in the terminal on the same machine.

curl localhost
# curl: (7) Failed to connect to localhost port 80: Connection refused

When the wfsctl WebDAV services are started for the first time, then httpd is also started.

sudo wfsctl start
# ...
sudo wfsctl diagnose
# ... snip ...
# All httpd processes:
# COMM             RUSER             PPID   PID STARTED
# httpd            root                 1   885  4:18PM
# httpd            _www               885   890  4:18PM

It was not surprising that an Apache httpd was started.  Although, the baseline Apache httpd configuration also start serviing the contents of /Library/WebServer/Documents in addition to and separate from any WebDAV shares. In particular, index.html content is returned via either localhost in a web browser or curl localhost in the Terminal application.

curl localhost --verbose
# * Connected to localhost (::1) port 80 (#0)
# > GET / HTTP/1.1
# > Host: localhost
# > User-Agent: curl/7.54.0
# > Accept: */*
# >
# < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
# < Server: Apache/2.4.28 (Unix) mod_secure_transport/2.4.27
# < Content-Location: index.html.en
#
It works!

Finally, stop the WebDAV services with sudo wfsctl stop, then reboot. After reboot, httpd is apparently still running:

# after `sudo wfsctl stop` and system reboot ...
curl localhost
#
It works!

sudo wfsctl status
# disabled

sudo wfsctl diagnose
# ...
# WFS is not enabled.
# ...
# All httpd processes:
# COMM   RUSER  PPID   PID STARTED
# httpd  root      1    85  6:12PM
# httpd  _www     85   414  6:13PM

Footnote:
Is it a reasonably expected behaviour that sudo wfsctl stop does not also unregister httpd?

Perhaps wfsctl presumes to not interfere with other services with might be used to start the httpd web server?  (Though, in my use case, httpd was not enabled via any other means than wfsctl.)

As noted in the question, sudo wfsctl stop does not stop and unregister the httpd process. However, the httpd daemons are stopped and restarted. Also, httpd remains registered to start on the next (re)boot.

sudo wfsctl diagnose
# All httpd processes:
# COMM   RUSER   PPID   PID STARTED
# httpd  root       1   325  8:46PM
# httpd  _www     325   331  8:46PM
sudo wfsctl stop
sudo wfsctl diagnose
# All httpd processes:
# COMM    RUSER  PPID   PID STARTED
# httpd   root      1   399 10:19PM
# httpd   _www    399   403 10:19PM

The man wfsctl mentions that the use of httpd-wrapper is preferred to the use of apachectl and httpd (at least for the -t test flag.)

  The Apache config file for WebDAV File Sharing is parameterized, and the httpd server is managed by the httpd-wrapper utility, which passes parameters to httpd. This is normally transparent, but note that to check the Apache config file syntax, do not use apachectl configtest or httpd -t. Instead, use httpd-wrapper -t.

In general, the options shown in the man httpd page can be passed to the /usr/sbin/httpd-wrapper ruby script. Most of the options work as expected.

However, sudo httpd-wrapper -k graceful-stop behaves like a reset which restarts the httpd daemons and leaves httpd registered to start when the system boots again.

Finally, sudo apachectl graceful-stop was found to stop and unregister the httpd processes.

So, the following command sequence will stop both the wfsctl WebDAV sharing and the httpd daemons on the current High Sierra.

sudo wfsctl stop
# Unloaded and removed: org.apache.httpd.webdavfilesharing.username-275.49176.plist
sudo apachectl graceful-stop
# verify
sudo wfsctl diagnose

See "How to set up wfsctl WebDAV to use with an application that uses basic authentication?" for a more complete WebDAV example.


Deleting original photos from iPhone I am out of space on my iPhone, and want to delete photos after moving them to a laptop folder.
I can't do this from the Photos app, because the iCloud update seems to have hung on either a corrupt image file or one that is so big it takes more than ten hours to upload.
I thought the solution would be to Browse them with GraphicConverter but not only is something keeping it from viewing all photos, it is showing the originals of photos that have been edited on the iPhone (along with the edited version.)
I would like for the originals of edited photos to go away.  If I hit "Done" instead of "Cancel," that means I like my edits and have NO reason to waste space on the original.
Is there some arcane secret way to get rid of the pre-edit version?
I cleared out the deleted items on the phone, so that's not where they're coming from.

Use Image Capture to access the photos on your iPhone, move them to your laptop, then delete them. You can even delete the photos from the iPhone from within Image Capture itself.


May I bind Mission Control's next and previous space to ctrl+mousewheel? May I bind Mission Control's next and previous space to ctrl+mousewheelup and ctrl+mousewheeldown?

Using the system settings apparently I can't, so I'm wondering if there's another non-invasive way? (such as manually editing a config file, for instance)

OSX 10.8, in case this matters.

Check out BetterTouchTool. It's a free app that allows you to bind a large number of system actions to the controls on your mouse, including Mission Control and changing spaces. I have a Magic Mouse, so I'm not 100% sure that it will work with a normal mouse scroll wheel, but I'm fairly certain that it will.


Macbook Pro mid-2012 Disk Utility First Aid Results Interpretation Help My MacBook pro mid-2012 has been acting a little odd lately (freezing, losing track of files). I've run first aid in disk utility multiple times, but always get the same notes which suggests it doesn't fix them (see below). I've booted into recovery and disk utility tells me the hard disk is ok and still shows these same results. Are these results anything I should be worried about? Thanks!

  Verifying storage system
  Performing fsck_cs -n -x --lv --uuid 08DE86D5-A3DC-4538-9A11-42C8C06CC8FE
  Checking volume
  disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
  disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
  Logical Volume Group 08DE86D5-A3DC-4538-9A11-42C8C06CC8FE on 1 device
  disk0s2: Scan for Metadata Volume
  Logical Volume Group has a 24 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy
  Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint
  Load and verify Segment Headers
  Load and verify Checkpoint Payload
  Load and verify Transaction Segment
  Incorporate 0 newer non-checkpoint transactions
  Load and verify Virtual Address Table
  Load and verify Segment Usage Table
  Load and verify Metadata Superblock
  Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees
  Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume
  Load and verify AAA6EF91-6B7D-4D6C-806C-B24B184671B9
  Load and verify 0E445AF6-FF17-41CC-BB25-0BCA0B9662C5
  Load and verify Freespace Summary
  Load and verify Block Accounting
  Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses
  Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid
  Load and verify Segment Cleaning
  The volume 08DE86D5-A3DC-4538-9A11-42C8C06CC8FE appears to be OK
  Storage system check exit code is 0.
  Verifying file system.
  Volume could not be unmounted.
  Using live mode.
  Performing fsck_hfs -fn -l -x /dev/rdisk1
  Performing live verification.
  Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
  Checking extents overflow file.
  Checking catalog file.
  Checking multi-linked files.
  Checking catalog hierarchy.
  Checking extended attributes file.
  Checking volume bitmap.
  Checking volume information.
  The volume Macintosh SSD appears to be OK.
  File system check exit code is 0.
  Restoring the original state found as mounted.
  Operation successful.

This output means that the filesystem check has not found any problems with the drive.

If you're worried about "Volume could not be unmounted", it just means that the file system is in use while you're checking it. It does not mean that anything is wrong with the drive or the file system.


Mac OS X Server ignores remote HTTP connections, but accepts local ones I cannot get Mac OS X Server's web server to accept connections from other machines on the same LAN. This is on OS X 10.8.2, running on a Mac mini which originally shipped with Lion Server.

I can connect to it from the server itself, such as by going to http://localhost or http://hostname.example.com in Safari.

Notice that connecting via the box's domain name works. This is because:

$ netstat -na | grep 80.*LISTEN
tcp46      0      0  *.80                   *.*                    LISTEN

That is, Apache is listening on all interfaces, not just lo.

If I telnet server 80 from a client machine while doing a packet capture on both sides, I only see repeated TCP SYN packets. (server perspective, client perspective)

Disabling the firewall in the Security and Privacy settings pane doesn't change the symptom.

The firewall configuration looks harmless to me. (Dumped via pfctl -sa.)

I'm certain the problem isn't on the client side. I've tried accessing it from:

a month old iMac over GigE
a 2 year old MacBook Pro over WiFi
a 5 year old netbook running Ubuntu 12.04 over GigE and WiFi

This server is headless, and I do all my work on it from client machines on the LAN, via both SSH and VNC. This means that while I am failing to connect to this server on TCP port 80, I am successfully using it on TCP ports 22 and 5900. This behavior is what caused me to start looking at the firewall configuration.

Here's what the network looks like:

There are two network switches because this network is spread over two rooms, with one switch in each room and a single cable going between them. I ruled out the managed switch as the problem source with the WiFi test. I exonerated the dumb switch by temporarily running a long cable from the server to the managed switch.

The cable modem and the WiFi router (an AirPort Extreme) each have 4-port switches built in, but only one port on each is used, so no traffic goes through them that doesn't absolutely have to. The DHCP and caching DNS servers are turned off on both routers, since those duties are being done (successfully!) by the server in question. The AirPort is in bridging-only mode.

And yes, I've rebooted the server. And the clients. And the routers. And the switches. :)

My best guess is that the problem stems from having upgraded this box from Lion Server. If so, a complete reinstall will fix this, but that goes against all of my Unix server management training. I want to fix this server in place, if I can.

OS X actually has (at least) 3 firewalls. Since you've turned off the application firewall (in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Firewall) and checked the Berkeley packet filter (pfctl -sa), I'm guessing it's the old ipfw that's doing the blocking. You can check with sudo ipfw show -- that'll list the active rules, along with counts of how many packets and bytes each one has applied to:

$ sudo ipfw show
01000 19228642 23229993542 allow ip from any to any via lo0
01010        0           0 deny ip from any to 127.0.0.0/8
[etc...]
65534    23505     3467352 deny ip from any to any
65535        0           0 allow ip from any to any

If your listing only shows rule #65535 (the allow rule at the end), my guess is wrong and you have to look elsewhere. If it does show other rules, you probably have a third-party firewall config program installed somewhere (I don't think the Apple-supplied ipfw config software is still there in 10.8); take a look in /Library/StartupItems and /Library/LaunchDaemons for things that might be relevant.


Game Center saves my Clash of Clans account? I going to sell my iPhone. I want to know if all my progress in Clash of Clans will be saved within Game Center so that I can recover everything when I buy a new iPhone and login again in Game Center.

Assume I am correctly logged in the Game Center with my Apple ID
Achievements are visible in the Game Center app

I'm level 18 and have 790 trophies and I don't want to lose that progress.

If you have agreed to connect your Game Center account with Clash of Clans then yes, your progress is saved when swapping devices.


How can I tell an Automator action, that the source path of a document should also be the destination path? I'm using the Automator action "Convert to PDF" from ABBYY FineReader Pro. It just does OCR recognition on a given file and saves the output to a new PDF.

It looks like this:

The issue I'm having is the output folder ("Ausgabe speichern in"). I want to tell Automator, that the full path of the input file is also the desired path of the output file (nice to have: and appends "-ocr" to the filename).

I already found out, that this could be done with the AppleScript snippet, that you see on the bottom of the screenshot. Unfortunately, the files will end up in /Applications, because the ABBYY app is in there and so the variable isn't being interpreted as I wanted it to be.

Any insights and hints will be highly appreciated.

Okay, I downloaded the ABBYY_FineReader_Pro_ESD.dmg file from abbyy.com and installed it, then opened it to look at the help file for use with Automator. It didn't have much information so I checked the link in the help file back at abbyy.com and while it had some additional info, it did't have what I was looking for. Namely, documentation on programmatically setting  "Output filename:" to a variable, like can be done with "Save output to:" setting it to a variable.

The following is an example of an Automator workflow, saved as a Service, to take a selected Image file in Finder and convert it to and editable PDF document. You can see in the image below what settings are relevant. Note that the only option in the Variable Options for the current_path variable only has a Name: field, no Script field. And while the image is taken in OS X 10.8.5 nonetheless I tested it in macOS 10.12 and Automator doesn't show Variable Options as in your picture. (So how did you get it like that?)

I set "Save output to:" by drag and drop the current_path variable onto it and then saved the Service. It important that you don't run the Service from within Automator because if done from Automator it changes "Save output to:" the containing folder's path and doesn't reset like it does automatically when it run as a Service from Finder.


Why is WhatsApp and Messenger no longer working on iPhone 5 My sister has an iPhone 5 (iOS 8.1.3). Since some days, it seems to be impossible to open both WhatsApp and (Facebook) Messenger. For both of them, the following applies.

On the home view with all the apps, you can see that there are new messages. But if you open the app, it shows for 1 second, then the screen goes white, and then the home view with all the apps shows again.
After double-clicking on the button (in order to reveal the miniature view of all apps opened), you can see that the app is indeed opened, but if you click on its miniature view, you will again see the scenario with the white screen.

What could cause this and how can she solve it?

Because of the closed nature of IOS, there really are no troubleshooting steps that can be taken, besides deleting app/reinstalling, or wiping the device, setting up as 'new' device, and then trying again.

Unfortunately, though the apps list IOS 7+ and 6+ as requirements in the app store, I have seen this behavior on older iPhones (namely my GF's) and the 'fix' has been to update IOS to a newer version.  Though this is not technically a 'fix', as the apps SHOULD work with 8.1.3, it does (for my GF at least) 'solve' the issue.

Of course, your first step should be deleting the apps and then re-installing them from the app store as I mentioned above.

If that doesn't work, and if you have performed a backup of the phone (either to iCloud or iTunes), you can try simply resetting the phone to factory defaults (keeping IOS at the same version), setting the iPhone up as a 'new' device, and then try to install the apps to see if they work.  If they don't, then you have your answer.  If they DO work, then you can reset the phone once again, restore your backup and hope for the best.

If this STILL doesn't work, you may try to update the IOS version, either via iTunes or the phone's native Over-The-Air update process, but the latter requires there be enough free space on the phone to download the update TO the phone.  Of course, make sure to take a backup first.

At the end of the day, I have personally had to just bit the bullet and start all over, setting the iPhone up as a 'new' device, and NOT restoring from a backup, in order to resolve some issues.  If you elect to take this route, make sure you have your data backed up/saved elsewhere, OUTSIDE of the iPhone backup.  Alternatively, you can use third-party software like PhoneView, iExplorer or iBackupBot to retrieve data from iTunes backups.

To reset phone to factory defaults (only do this after you have taken a backup): Settings>General>Reset (at the bottom) > Erase All Content and Settings.


I got a problem with bootcamp Hey guys I'm using mid 2013 MacBook Pro. I know how to install Windows from bootcamp and I already did last year.

Until now I haven't faced a problem like this: after creating an USB install disc I make a partition and Mac reboots when it reboots it stuck at white screen after I turn off the Mac with power button I start with option key it gives me 4 selection:

After selecting the volume Windows it stuck and I have to turn off with the power button. So does anyone know how to fix it ? Also I tried it with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

I would say start in recovery-mode (hold cmd + R on booting). My english is not the best but I'll try to explain:

You need a internet-connection and a (Time-Machine-)Backup of your whole data.

In the recovery-mode you have different utilities. You need the "Disk Utility". From there you delete your whole data.

Then you install from another utility (don't know the name) a new copy of the actual Mac OS X. Just migrate it with your backup and here you go.

The procedure with Windows you have to do again via Bootcamp, I don't know what you did this time and why it stucks.


View detailed data usage/consumpotion on an iPad (running iOS 11 or later) I want to keep an eye on consumption of the 4 GB data available on a mobile data plan.

All I found thus far is consumption in GB, counting from a certain point in time (which one can easily reset) under Settings app.

What I'd like to see is:

A smaller unit then GB (MB's would be good).
Data consumption on a per day basis.

Is there any way to achieve this?

I'm not sure about iOS 11, but iOS 12 uses MB as the unit if the data consumption is under a GB.

With the cellular data counter in the built-in Settings app, you are limited to the statistics shown and the option to reset counter. There's no way to further breakdown on a day/week/month basis.

You can try searching on the App Store for 3rd-party data monitoring apps. Some service provider provide their own app which tracks data usage over a period of time. If available, it would be best to use it.


Weird mouse issue with OS X 10.7.4 on 21" iMac I'm having some strange problems with my year-old iMac running OS X 10.7.4.
After clicking on a menu item on the top menu bar, the drop down menu that appears disappears instantly. This also happens when right clicking on the desktop or on an application in the dock. It's as if single clicks are getting counted as double clicks.

Sometimes, the cursor just disappears. It reappears when moving the mouse, but keeps flickering.

It's not a problem with my Apple wireless mouse. I also tried a wired Logitech mouse and had the same problem; so, it must be a software bug, not a hardware problem.

I started experiencing the issue after doing a software update to OS X 10.7.4, but I'm not sure if this is the cause of the problem.

I have uploaded a video of the problem here: http://tinypic.com/r/2vxk9af/6

I've occasionally had problems over the years with weird mouse issues, and bar once, they were all fixed by deleting the "com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse" file located in ~user\Library\Preferences. Upon reboot the file will be recreated, and you can bak it up first in case it changes something. Software updates can sometimes change/corrupt plist files, and deleting them to fix issues is fairly common.

Worth a try if you're struggling for a fix.


To-Do List App with Sync, Repeating To-Dos I'm looking for a To-Do list application with with following features:

Due dates
Notes
Sync to a cloud or web-based service where changes can be made
Able to repeat to-dos by due date and last-completed date
Prioritization
Groups / Filters / Folders such as Business, Personal, School
Badge for items due today
Projects (which incorporate other to-do items)

Can anyone recommend a to-do app with this functionality (especially the first 4 bolded items)?

2Do
has all the features that you require (and more):

Due dates ✓
Notes ✓
Sync to a cloud or web-based service where changes can be made ✓ (Dropbox, iCloud and other)
Able to repeat to-dos by due date and last-completed date ✓
Prioritization ✓
Groups / Filters / Folders such as Business, Personal, School ✓
Badge for items due today (tab for today)
Projects (which incorporate other to-do items) ✓

[pictures]


What non-essential directories can I exclude from TimeMachine? I want to have the most # of backups of my actual files, not of temporary files, and easily restorable data.

What can I exclude from a Time Machine backup to get the most efficient backups?

(I use VMs, so tips for Parallels, Virtual Box, etc, are welcome)

In the sample below, I blocked

Backups of all Drive sync technology (Google Drive, One Drive, etc)
Xamarin project output (in the Simulator).  All this is stale cached data
iOS emulators with Xcode.
Stuff in the MacOS app store
Stuff in the iTunes App Store
Backups of my iPhone devices

Most efficient backups would mean leaving Time Machine alone, not twisting knobs randomly.

The only thing you should be excluding are the VM's.


macOS 11: Get system information (GPU, resolution) programmatically (in C) I need to access data about GPU and screen resolution in C, not using system_profiler, because it takes too long(.3s-.5s system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType), and needs greping and cutting, which is not that fast either.
Caching would be answer, but very short-sighted as someone can use different monitors etc.
Unfortunately system_profiler is closed source.
EDIT: I used CGDisplayPixelsWide and CGDisplayPixelsHigh to get resolution. During compilation i had to compile with -framework Cocoa -framework IOKit. Only minus that it gets system resolution rather than screen resolution. So function looks like this.
static char *get_resolution()
{
        int screen_width = CGDisplayPixelsWide(CGMainDisplayID());
        int screen_height = CGDisplayPixelsHigh(CGMainDisplayID());
        ...
}

displayplacer allows to read and write display settings and is open source. I'm not sure about GPU details though.
The API used seems to be defined in IOKit/graphics/IOGraphicsLib.h.


Mimic gestures on iOS and macOS by key codes I want to send BLE key codes to mimic gestures on iOS and OSX such as swipe up and down. Is this possible?

Apple has UI recording for automated build testing, but you get that from Xcode and not necessarily on the device.

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2015/406/
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/testing_with_xcode/chapters/09-ui_testing.html

There is quite a bit of setup, but I would start there and once you’re comfortable with the limitations, you can see about trying to make an app to automate from keyboard triggers.


Why is my MacBook Pro stuck on mute? I cannot hear any audio from my MacBook Pro, running OS X 10.7. Pressing F10/F11/F12 shows the volume overlay, but it stays at max volume with a (/) icon below it. In the Sound control panel or from the sound icon in the menu bar I can adjust the volume, but the Mute checkbox is greyed out. Rebooting does not resolve the problem.

The headphone jack had a red LED glowing inside, which clued me in that it thought there was an optical cable plugged in. Plugging and unplugging a pair of headphones resolved the problem.


Kali Linux on SD card not showing in boot loader I installed Kali Linux on my SD Card. The way I did it was:

Make a bootable USB with the Kali Linux image burned on it
Then use that USB to boot up the Kali Linux installer
By the Kali Linux installer I selected the SD Card.

However, once I go to the boot manager and plug in my SD Card, it's not showing Kali Linux.

The most common way to fix this issue is to go to the Mac Terminal and type in the following:
First, type diskutil list. Find the Kali Linux bootable SD and find the identifier of the EFI partition. This will look something like disk2s1. Once you have that, type sudo diskutil mount disk2s1. Once it is mounted, go to Finder and press Command + Shift + G and type in /Volumes/EFI. Once you are in there, double click on the EFI folder, double click on the Boot folder, and rename grubx64.efi to bootx64.efi. Then, in Terminal, type diskutil unmount EFI. Then restart into the Boot Manager and see if you can find your Kali SD. It should appear as "EFI Boot".
You can also replace the icon of the Kali SD. First, make sure the image you want is in the .icns file format. Then go to the Mac Terminal and type sudo diskutil mount diskidentifier. Replace diskidentifier with the disk identifier from before. Then, type cd /Volumes/EFI and rm .VolumeIcon.icns. Then, type cp /path/to/image.icns /Volumes/EFI/.VolumeIcon.icns. Then, type diskutil unmount EFI.
The Kali Linux installer may not name the EFI partition EFI by default. If that is the case, you will need to use NO\ NAME instead. In the case that neither of those names work, use the disk identifier that you got previously.

Here is an image of what you might see in the EFI partition if it was called NO NAME. You can ignore all the contents of that partition except those in the EFI folder.
Now, your Kali Linux SD will work on any Intel Based, and maybe even an Apple Silicon based Mac.
Make sure you follow each step carefully or else you may end up ruining the SD and needing to erase it.
Good luck!


Error when connecting USB Drive to VirtualBox virtual machine How can I use external hard drive via USB connection on a virtual machine using VirtualBox?

I ejected the hard disk from OS X host, then the disk becomes available in OS X virtual machine.

Clicking on the disk throws an error:

USB Settings:

Why is that?

EDIT: I added external drive to the USB panel. I am still getting an error `Failed to attach the USB device Seagate Expansion to the virtual machine El Capitan3.

Failed to create a proxy device for the USB device. (Error: VERR_PDM_NO_USB_PORTS).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: ConsoleWrap
Interface: IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}

I assume the you have downloaded and installed the "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack". This enables support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards.

In the Ports window pane, I do not see where you have added a USB Device Filter. Below is where I added a 2 GB USB flash drive.

An alternative to ejecting the USB external drive would be the following:

Unmount the USB drive before starting the virtual machine. The timing is very important, since OS X will try to remount the drive automatically. Use the Terminal application command

diskutil list

to determine the identifier for the external USB drive. For example, say the identifier is disk1, then the command to execute, just before you start the virtual machine, would be

diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1

Update:

Actually, I was able to gain access to the USB flash drive after starting the virtual machine. All I had to do is execute the

diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1

command while the virtual machine was running.

Accessing the External USB Drive as a Virtual SATA Drive

The following Terminal application commands create the file share.vmdk needed to access the external USB drive as a virtual SATA drive. This file will be stored in the folder named Share on the your Desktop. I assume the identifier of the external drive is disk1.

cd ~
cd Desktop
mkdir Share
cd Share
diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1
sudo chmod go+rw /dev/disk1*
diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1
vboxmanage  internalcommands  createrawvmdk  -filename  "$PWD/share.vmdk"  -rawdisk  /dev/disk1

Note: The effects of the sudo chmod go+rw /dev/disk1* command are temporary. The permissions may revert, if you restart the computer or eject the external USB drive.

You can now add the share.vmdk file as a second drive in your virtual machine. Note: Before clicking on the "Open" button, you will need to execute the command diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1.

Before starting the virtual machine, you will be required to execute the command diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1.

  Note: You can stop OS X from automatically mounting the external USB drive by creating/editing the file /etc/fstab. See man fstab for more information.

Accessing a Read/Write .dmg File as a Virtual SATA Drive

Use the Disk Utility application to create a new blank disk image. Below is a example where the share.dmg is created in the ~/Desktop/Share folder. (This was done using Yosemite OS X 10.10) Other types of disk images can also be created and used.

Again you need to create a share.vmdk file. The commands are given below.

cd ~/Desktop/Share
diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk1
vboxmanage  internalcommands  createrawvmdk  -filename  "$PWD/share.vmdk"  -rawdisk  /dev/disk1

Next, execute the same steps already given to access the USB drive.


How to save password for AppStore on mac？ It seems that the setting doesn't work. It's unnecessary and annoying to input the password for free APPs times and times again.

Password settings are in System Preferences > App Store


iMessage, FaceTime, Back to my Mac not working (Mountain Lion clean install) After doing a clean install of Mountain Lion on my MacBook Pro (13" unibody, MacBookPro5,5) and upgrading to 10.8.3 I'm having trouble with iMessage, Facetime and Back to My Mac. I am running Little Snitch (version 3.0.4) though turning it on or off has no effect on these results. My Apple ID works for other services.

System Preferences > iCloud:
Turning on Back to My Mac gives the error "iCloud server not responding." (though it didn't seem to try very hard, looking at the network monitor)

iMessage:
Attempting to sign in yields "Could not sign in to iMessage. Could not sign in. Please check your network connection and try again."

FaceTime:
Attempting to sign in yields "Could not sign in. Please check your network connection and try again."

I've tried the following:

Checked that my time is set, in the correct time zone, and set to
automatically set itself.
I checked Keychain Access > System for any
Back to My Mac keys to delete. None present.
I have no entries in
/private/etc/hosts for *.apple.com or for *.verisign.com.

Of note: the serial number listed in About this Mac/System Information is incorrect and does not match the SN on the case (off by one letter--I think it was serialized incorrectly once after the logic board was replaced once). Would this affect iMessage/iCloud in Mountain Lion? It worked in Lion despite this. Sadly I am out of AppleCare coverage, but maybe a Genius would see the fault is Apple's and re-serialize the board.

The serial number may be an issue. When MacOSX thinks it is running on dodgy (i.e. non-Apple) hardware it usually has far more severe problems. There's no lockdown of an installation of MacOSX to a particular Mac, i.e. no DRM with keys and mandated validation with the vendor as with Windows. Apple cares most about people buying hardware, so the only "piracy" of MacOSX that they interfere with in code is running it on non-Apple hardware. But since my first version of this, I have been pointed at http://www.apple.com/support/icloud/contact/ by someone too polite to call m stupid in public, and that has strong sign of iCloud/SN linkage.

There's nowhere near enough info in the question to provide a sure answer to your problem, but there are clues pointing to possible issues. To figure it out, you should start by shutting off Little Snitch and the built-in firewall. You probably will want them back on eventually, but they should be off while you are trying to get complex services working to assure that they are not able to cause secondary blockage. And because you mentioned it, you get a rant: NEVER add entries to /private/etc/hosts on a modern MacOSX except for the 4 that the system needs for proper loopback initialization at boot time: IPv4 localhost and broadcasthost plus 2 forms of IPv6 localhost. if you have anything else in there, you should remove it. Once you've eliminated the possibility that your system config is explicitly blocking communication, you can look to the outside. All of those services include mechanisms to set up direct connections between 2 machines that may have IP addresses which are temporary and/or may be behind a NAT gateway that translates their traffic between a public and private (unroutable) address. Unfortunately, it is also possible for external network devices like routers and firewalls anywhere between the two ends to thwart those mechanisms. If you are behind a tight firewall, you will have trouble. If you are behind 2 layers of NAT, you will have trouble. Knowing what trouble you have isn't going to be discernible with toys like the Little Snitch network monitor, since the error you're getting probably involves just a handful of packets rather than any ongoing flow. To know what's happening you'd need to use a tool like tcpdump or wireshark and have an understanding of what you're looking at and looking for.


Import Mac Thunderbird into Windows Outlook? I have exported all my data out of Mac Thunderbird, all the emails, contact list and address book entries, as for now I am ketting go off my mac book pro. I have got a new windows laptop that have pre-installed Office 2013 in it. I need to import these files in WIndows Outlook 2013, please can anyone help me with this as I am new to windows environment.

You help will be really appreciated

YOu cannot directly import Mac Thunderbird mail folders in windows outlook. Firstly convert the thunderbird files to pst format using Thunderbird to PST Converter and then follow these steps to import the converted pst file into windows outlook 2013:

Follow these steps to restore, or import, your data into Outlook:

Click the File tab.
In the Open category, click Import.
In the Import and Export Wizard, click Import from another program or file, and then click Next.
Click Outlook Data File (.pst), and then click Next.
Type the path and the name of the .pst file that you want to import, or click Browse to choose the file to import.
Note Under Options, it is recommended that you click Do not import duplicates, unless you want the imported information to replace or duplicate items that are already in Outlook.

Click Next.
Select the folder that you want to import. To import everything in the .pst file, select the top of the hierarchy.
Note The top folder (usually Personal Folders, Outlook Data File or your email address) is selected automatically. Include subfolders is selected by default. All folders under the folder selected will be imported

Click Finish.


Choppy mouse in High Sierra Just did a clean install.
Oddly enough, when booting up, mouse responds immediately.
But after a while it becomes choppy. I am still setting up the machine, so I have no heavy applications running.

MBP-13" 2015

One of those embarrassing problems once you see the fix.
A very heavy iCloud download was the issue. Just let it download it's thing for a few hours then problem resolved by itself.

Hope this helps anybody else.


How can I use Family Sharing for Store purchases if I use a different Apple ID for purchases? A key feature of Apple's iCloud Family Sharing is the ability to share store purchases with invited family members. However, like many people, I use a different Apple ID for iCloud and Store purchases (ironically, primarily for the exact purpose of sharing among family).

Can I use iCloud Family Sharing to share purchases if I use a different Apple ID for Store (iTunes, App Store, etc.) purchases? I understand that if I send invitations from the ID I use for purchases, I can share them; but there seems to be no way to do this, given that I use a different ID for iCloud on all my devices.

This works exactly as one would expect it to: When you share from an iOS 8 device, purchases made with the Apple ID used on that device for purchases (iTunes, iBooks, AppStore) — even if that ID is different from the one used for iCloud (Photos, Mail, Contacts, Calendars) on that device — will be shared.


Using an Apple Keyboard Dock as a keyboard for a computer? Is it possible to use an Apple Keyboard Dock as a keyboard for a computer, rather than an iDevice?

As I can, obviously, connect it to a computer via USB, I think it'd be great if I could as I love Apple's keyboards but I don't really want to fork out for a wired/wireless Apple keyboard if I've just got this sitting here.

It’s not possible to connect it to a Mac. The Apple Store detail page for this product says that it’s only compatible with the iPad. Note that the full product name is “iPad Keyboard Dock”.

Here are some ways you can use the iPad Keyboard Dock, though:

Connect the dock to your computer with the USB cable included with
your iPad to sync iPad and charge its battery.
Connect the dock to an electrical outlet using the iPad 10W USB Power Adapter (included with
your iPad) to charge the iPad battery.
Use the dock to hold your iPad
at the perfect angle to compose email and notes using the keyboard or
to watch your favorite videos or photo slideshows.
Connect the dock
to a TV or video projector using a compatible cable such as the iPad
Dock Connector to VGA Adapter or the Apple Component or Composite AV
Cable.
Connect the dock to a stereo or speakers using an AV cable or
a stereo audio cable to play music from iPad.