Spotlight crashes when entering a specific query string I have a folder on my mac which I access occasionally, let's say its name is FolderABC.
I usually hit CMD + Space to bring up Spotlight, then type the name into it and it will be the first result.
Recently, Spotlight crashes instead, as soon as I type Folder and before typing any more letters. If I type any other query, it works normally. I can tell it crashes since the Loupe icon briefly disappears from the menu bar (Spotlight restarts immediately) and looking in system.log in Console shows this, whenever the problem occurs:

Oct  4 18:27:21 my-macbook-pro com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.Spotlight[16126]): Service exited due to signal: Illegal instruction: 4 sent by exc handler[0]

I'm currently having Spotlight rebuild its index, but what else could I try?
Specifically, are there any debugging tools available to get a more detailed stack trace of what's causing the app to crash?

My OS version is 10.12.6

Old answer:

My first solution was simply reindexing all folders by running

sudo mdutil -E /

This did not help. I then renamed the folder in question, reindexed again, named it back and reindexed another time. The problem has now disappeared.

Update:

The bug seems to have been introduced with the update to Safari 12. As discussed in the apple product forums, a workaround is to disable Bookmarks & History in the Spotlight system preferences.


Why can't I change a restricted System file after doing csrutil disable? I want to change a file in /System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/Resources/, but even after disabling csrutil in recovery mode, I still get this flags with -ls -lO <filename>:

  -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  restricted, compressed 6365 23 Aug 03:55 Keyboard-de.plist

UPDATE: I just figured out that I can change the ownership, so I should be able to cp and rm the file I want to change.
Still, when I am opening the file with TextEdit, I can't do anything, but I think this should be possible too.

EDIT: To check if SIP is still on, type csrutil status in the terminal. With SIP on it's impossible to change those files as any user.

sudo nano worked just fine. Thanks for all the help!

The restricted flag only applies with System Integrity Protection enabled. It tells SIP which files to protect. If you disable SIP, the restricted flag has no effect.

Disabling SIP doesn't give you permission to the files though. You'll still need sudo or change the permissions yourself to edit the files.


iTunes 11: Sorting albums by year Is there a way of sorting albums for an artist by year in iTunes?

For example: "Coda" is actually Led Zeppelin's last album, but it appears first for me in iTunes. I'd prefer it if it sorted albums by Year, so "Led Zeppelin" was at the top, followed by "Led Zeppelin II", and so on (and "Coda" was at the bottom).

Is this possible?

I've just found the answer! It's kind of hidden away, but it is possible:

Select "Show Menu Bar"...

Then under View select "View Options..."

A new window with View Options appears!


iPhone 5S network query My iPhone 5S cellular network has ceased working. The iPhone is 3.5 years old and has been consistently reliable.  The battery is also working well.  I have tried the usual troubleshooting methods to restart the network, but none have worked.  I can used my mobile on WiFi and the Apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber still.   How can I recover the carrier cellular network?

Unfortunately, it seems that a problem has developed with the LTE Modem portion of your iPhone (orange box).  It's a hardware issue.

You'll want to do a factory reset to see if it fixes it.  However, in my experience with symptoms like this, the only thing you can possibly do is take it in for service to a facility that specializes in this type of repair.


Are there any gotchas with using two Apple IDs for one user in the App Store? To date I have had an Apple ID tied to my personal email address. It uses my personal paypal account for the purchases, and currently it has a credit balance thanks to some Christmas iTunes gift cards.

With the App Store recently being released, I'd like to buy an OS X app for business purposes. I don't want to use the credit balance on my personal Apple ID account, so I was thinking about creating a new Apple ID just for when I buy apps that I use for business. This way I could have the business Apple ID tied to my business paypal account.

However, I'm concerned that there might be some gotchas with using two different Apple IDs on the same MacBook by the same user. Before I just try this blindly, does anyone have any experience or know of any gotchas?

There are a couple of gotchas I'm aware of.

If you buy apps on both iTunes accounts, they all get listed together when updates become available, not just the ones on the account you're currently signed into.  So if you click 'download all free updates' iTunes will only download the updates for the account which is signed in.  This can be confusing because you've told it to download all free updates and it doesn't tell you why it hasn't downloaded the others.
If you have an Apple TV and you want to use Home Sharing, then you can only share the content for one account at a time.


IOS 7 iPad keyboard is unresponsive After downloading IOS 7 on my iPad, there is a 15-20 second delay between touching a keyboard character and the letter appearing on the screen.

Anytime iOS is seeming sluggish to me, I like to place it in Airplane mode to see if it's a network issue slowing things down.  For a delay that long, I would then power down the device and restart it while still in Airplane mode.

At that point you will know if your OS or device has issues to its just doing a lot of work.

From there, I would start at http://support.apple.com/iPad and start the troubleshooting assistant to narrow done the cause.


How to identify CPU and memory usage per process on iPhone? There are many common apps available to show total system RAM usage and free.  However, my understanding is only a jailbroken phone has access to the APIs to access PER PROCESS memory usage on iOS.  How can one do this most effectively?

This link has a few example tools but they all seem outdated and no information if they work on iOS 5 & iOS 6. http://www.ifans.com/forums/threads/troubleshooting-memory-issues.142660/

Xcode has an app called Instruments and you can use it to gather all sorts of CPU and memory statistics both live as the device runs and to save for analysis over time. This use of the tool doesn't require a developer account, any paid software, or a jailbroken device. You do need to set up the devices in Xcode's organizer to indicate you wish to use them for development and connect them via USB - just cancel out of any requests to manage certificates or developer profiles as you add each device to Xcode's organizer.

Above is a one click, capture and you can dive as deep as I could imagine anyone needs by selecting extra data to be sampled and displayed...


How can I mark all emails as 'Read' after IOS Update 5.0 on iPhone? I just updated to iOS 5.0 on my iphone and when it started up for the first time, all of my emails in a POP account are now showing as unread. The total is 79 emails and I don't want to go one at a time marking each one as read. Is there a way to do it in one sweeping motion?

Press the Edit button in the top-right corner.
Select all of the emails you want to mark as "read".
Press the Mark button in the bottom-right corner.
Choose Mark as Read


Support for special Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 hotkeys on OS X 10.11 I'm trying to get the special keys on my Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 working under OS X El Capitan. Officially, Microsoft only offers limited support for this keyboard on Mac.

The multimedia keys (mute/volume/play) work, but the home/search/mail/calculator keys don't. The official IntelliType Pro software also lacks a way to configure the programmable hotkeys.

Are there any unofficial tools to get them working?

You can use ControllerMate by Ordered Bytes (costs $25) to regain control over the special keys of the Natural Ergonomic 4000. It should recognise all keys, even the shortcut keys.

Note: To get the "My Favourites" keys working, download the profile at: http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/compatibility/#microsoft/ergonomic_keyboard_4000


What's a good IE tester for Macs? I just moved to the Mac after years and permanently moved my PC out of my life at home. I am a graphic designer who builds web pages. I code pure XHTML pages with div layouts. But whenever you keep to web standards, you have to check out how it works on the most commonly-used browsers.

On the Mac, my default browser is Firefox (Chrome and Safari are also installed). But I cannot see the result of how my pages look in IE.

On a Mac, is there any way to test web designs on IE?

(IE for Mac is not supported by Microsoft any more, so I didn't download it. I've received several suggestions to use Boot Camp, but I don't want to install Windows.)

I understand you don't want to install Windows. However, thats what all Mac-users at our company do (with vmWare fusion).


How to get specific Times New Roman characters in Mojave If I enter the unicode number for a specific character which is supposedly part of Times New Roman (ex: u+2190) I get the character but not in Times New Roman.  Is there any way to compel this?

U+2190 is Leftwards Arrow.  On my machine the TNR version looks like this:

To have it look like this you will of course have to set the font for that character in your app to TNR.  Whether and how you can do that will depend on the app.


Is there a way to capture part of a screen in full screen mode? I am playing a game that's called Bookworm on the Mac, and it runs in full screen mode.

If I press ⇧ shift+⌘ cmd+4 to capture part of the screen, it won't work.  Usually, I can press space and click to capture the whole window, but that doesn't work, either.

⇧ shift+⌘ cmd+3 works to capture the whole screen, but I'd like to find out how to take a partial screenshot.

Just use commandshift4 as usual. It just won't display its color overlay for the selection frame. The crosshair cursor should still show up and the screenshot should still be of the selected area.


How to disable animation on opening Notification Centre in macOS? I couldn't find it here. Perhaps you can't disable it but if you can I would love to know how.

My preference is for Notification Centre to open instantly.

Absolutely, if you are after a snappier mac by saving those precious seconds here and there, I believe the best option is to go into the System Preferences and turning on Reduce Motion in the Accessibility tab.

Turning on Reduced Motion

This makes the Notification Centre slide-in animation instant. I hope that helps you out, it really makes a difference. Definitely, let me know how you get on.


Any Keychain Access.app documentation? Is there any documentation about the capabilities of the Keychain Access application included with OS X 10.9?

How about WikiPedia? Article is pretty good.

The help many has documentation, which also is published on the web by Apple. Lastly, you can search http://apple.com/support for keychain and get several articles that document the basics and troubleshooting for Keychain Access.


Windows minimizing on their own? I bought an app called "Air Display" which allows me to use my iPad as a second monitor.  I've noticed that while I am on my second monitor whatever is on the other monitor will minimize after about 30 seconds.

Being new to Macs I'm not sure if this is some known behavior or a side effect of the Air Display app.  Is this because of how I have my mac setup?  If so, is there some setting I can change to stop this from happening?

Turns out there was an application called "Spirited Away" installed on my mac that was doing this.  Killed the application and the problem stopped happening.


Cannot create Bootcamp partition on High Sierra APFS SSD disk I am trying to create a Windows Bootcamp partition on High Sierra but when I got to select the target disk it tells me that there is no space left on the macOS container. My SSD has 250 GB free space and it has a single APFS container with a single APFS Volume. How can I fix this?

The computer is a late 2012 Mac Miniand it has a 16GB RAM and a primary SSD (512GB) and a secondary HDD (1TB).

I would like to install Windows 10 to the primary SSD.

The output for

diskutil apfs list

The output for

diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 limits

This answer is not finished. Please do not edit!

This answer is based on the accepted answer to the question "Boot Camp Assistance is stuck on create a partition?". Modifications were made to include improvements suggested by user128216 to this answer.

Based on the lack of posted questions regarding using the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows, I have assumed most users are successfully installing Windows on drives containing APFS partitions. When the Boot Camp Assistant fails, generally the problem is not with the Boot Camp Assistant, but rather with the APFS container. So, the usual solution is to backup your stuff, wipe the drive, and reload everything.

However, if you wish to install Windows without using the Boot Camp Assistant (except for creating the USB installation flash drive), you need to first determine how much space is available for Windows. This can be determined from the output of the command diskutil apfs resizecontainer diskXsY limits, where X is the drive number identifier and Y is the partition number of the APFS container.

These are the basic steps needed to install Windows 10 for an EFI boot.

  Note: To get a better view of the images shown below, either click on an image or open an image in a new window.

Use the Boot Camp Assistant application to copy the Windows 10 installation files and the Boot Camp Support Software to a 16 GB or larger flash drive. A USB 3.0 flash drive would operate considerably faster than a USB 2.0 flash drive.
The command below will create the 70 GB "BOOTCAMP" partition on your internal SSD drive. The space occupied by this partition will be used for installing Windows.

sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  180.8G  FAT32  BOOTCAMP  70G

If you have not already done so, insert the flash drive containing the Windows 10 installation files and the Boot Camp Support Software.
Use the command shown below to rename the AutoUnattend.xml file.

mv  /volumes/WINSTALL/AutoUnattend.xml  /volumes/WINSTALL/NoAutoUnattend.xml

Next, you need to boot from the volume where the Windows installation files reside. Hold down the option key immediately after restarting on your Mac. Release the option when the Startup Manager window appears. Select the icon labeled "EFI boot". Next, select the arrow below the "EFI boot" label.
Open a Windows Command Prompt window, by following the procedure outlined in this step. Below is an image of what is initially displayed by the Windows 10 installer. Select "Next".

In the image shown below, select "Repair your computer".

In the image shown below, select "Troubleshoot".

In the image shown below, select "Command Prompt".

The result should be the image shown below.

Use the command diskpart to finish partitioning disk0. The commands you need to enter are given below.

  Note: Sometimes it can take a while for the diskpart command to produce the first prompt. Be patient.

diskpart
list  volume

From the output of the command list volume, determine the number for the volume with the label "BOOTCAMP". In this example, I will assume the number is 0. Your number could be different. The next command selects this partition.

select  volume  0

The next commands effect the "BOOTCAMP" volume. The format is changed to NTFS. Next, the size is shrunk by 600 MB.

format  fs=ntfs  label=BOOTCAMP  quick
shrink  desired=600

Create a Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) partition. The next commands create and initialize an empty 600 MB WinRE.

create  partition  primary
set  id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt  attributes=0x8000000000000001
format  fs=ntfs  label=Recovery  quick

The next command lists the current volumes. Take note of the drive letter (Ltr) for the volume with label "WINSTALL". In this example, I will assume the letter is D. Your letter could be different.

list  volume

The command below quits the command diskpart.

exit

Enter the command below to start the Windows installation. If the drive letter, for the "WINSTALL" volume, is not D, then make the appropriate substitute when entering the command below.

setup  /unattend:D:\NoAutoUnattend.xml

When a window similar to what is shown below appears, select the "BOOTCAMP" partition, then click on the "Next" button.

Continue with the installation of Windows 10. If the computer boots back to macOS, goto System Preferences and select Windows as your startup disk. Restart the computer to continue initializing Windows 10.
When finished, the Windows Support Software installer should automatically launch. If this does not occur, use the Windows File Explorer to open the Windows Support Software application named "Setup". This application can be found in the "BootCamp" folder on the "WINSTALL" drive. After the installer application completes, allow the computer to restart.

If asked, I can clarify any of the above steps.


External hard drive has 3 partitions, all 3 are about full and appear on desktop but finder shows no content I have an external 3 TB hard drive with 3 partitions. I use 2 partitions for backups with Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner.

Recently the following has started to happen: if I open a partition in Finder it doesn't list any files and says there are 0 items on volume. It lists the remaining disk space accurately but doesn't list the contents. Get Info appears to list the space accurately as well. All three partitions show up in the terminal. Using the terminal I went to these volumes and 'ls' listed nothing there.

I reset the NVRAM and relaunched Finder, the problem was solved for about 15 minutes. The second time I looked at these partitions the problem was back. All 3 partitions list nothing. Any ideas how to fix this? Is my drive hosed? I'm running High Sierra on my older iMac. Whenever I restart my iMac, things are normal first time I check. Second time and then after no contents are shown.

Below is Finder window for one partition.

Did you try looking for hidden folders? You can ⌘ + shift + . to show hidden items, or do ls -lah on the terminal.

If nothing shows, give DaisyDisk a try

Also, if you are using AFP, snapshots may be taking that space.


Use two external hard drive docks to retrieve data from RAID 0 disks Some while ago, I fried the power supply inside of my WD MyBook Pro Edition II, leaving the disks intact but rendering the enclosure itself totally useless. So now I have two 500GB 3.5" SATA drives, configured with RAID 0, that I want to retrieve the data from.

I already have one USB hard disk docking station. If I bought another one, and connected both of my drives to my Mac, would it somehow be possible for me to access the data on them?

Yes - Apple's software RAID works so that once all the drives are present (or in the case of RAID mirroring - enough drives to ensure one copy of the data is present), you can then mount the RAID volume.

Unless you used a third party RAID driver in software or hardware, just getting the drives mounted should work.


Forgot old iCloud account password I have changed my Apple ID (email and password) on my computer.  However, my iPhone 5 still shows the old email address which is grey so I can't change it. I don't remember the password for that email address so can't log on and can't delete it. How do I recover the password ?

If your phone has activation lock, you will have to get control of the old Apple ID to remove the account. The device should keep working, but you won't be able to sign in with the new account until the old is under your control.

You can read the details and what to do with a forgotten password at:

iCloud: Find My iPhone Activation Lock in iOS 7

If you don't have activation lock, then open the settings app, and tap iCloud

Swipe up so you see the bottom of the screen and press "Delete Account" - answer what you want about any content and you'll know if you need the password when it's ready to remove your old account.

Also, it's not very easy or often even possible to bypass Activation Lock since that would defeat the purpose when someone steals the device.

How to bypass iCloud login for iPhone 5 running iOS 7 when email and password was forgotten?
How secure is Activation Lock on iOS 7 (and later)?

If you're not on iOS 7 or later, then please edit that into your question as you might have other options.


Can iCloud help me move iTunes to a new Computer (Mac to PC)? I'm upgrading my wife's laptop from an old MacBook to a newer windows based laptop (thanks for the free laptop, Telus).  I believe you can manually copy everything in the 'iTunes' folder over (I know this works Mac -> Mac, never tried to a PC), but I'm curious if this process can be done by iCloud? or is iCloud purely for synchronization of content for iOS 5 based devices?

The line is a bit blurry to me as pretty much everything in iTunes is just content for the iPhone now.

Short answer: no. Longer answer: maybe, but probably not yet. Most of the iCloud pieces integrated into iTunes are for iTunes/App Store content. You can re-download all your purchased music and TV (not sure about movies yet?), but it doesn't sync playlists, and outside of the US (guessing you're in Canada given the Telus mention) you're out of luck at the moment due to separate content deals. Eventually with iTunes Match, you'll be able to get non-iTunes music from iCloud for a fee ($25/year), but it's not coming until November in the US, and later for the rest of us. It's not clear how iTunes Match will deal with playlists, but if it's like the current system for transferring purchased music, it probably won't sync playlists, just give you all the music in one heap.

Your best bet is to just copy your iTunes directory (~/Music/iTunes on the Mac), including the iTunes Library.itl and .xml files to the default iTunes folder on your new PC. If you don't already have all your media files in the iTunes directory, you'll probably want to do that if you have the space, to make things simpler when transferring. iTunes will do the rearranging for you, just go to File→Library→Organize Library and check Consolidate files.


Brew cask: I would like to check if the package/formula is already installed through brew or other means I am trying to install some softwares using brew cask and I would like to check if the package/formula is already installed through brew or other means
I have a script that installs a list of softwares using brew cask and I dont want it to install a software that is already present on the machine
To achive this I referred to this question: With Homebrew, how to check if a software/package is installed?
This is pointed me in the right direction but I can only avoid installing software that is installed via brew cask.
If the software is installed by downloading the dmg and is already present in the /Applications/ folder then it does not recognize that and it continues to install the software.
Is there a way to figure out if the application is installed via brew or any other means before my script starts installing it

I assume you know the name of the application. Then just test for existence of the application
if [[ ! -d "/Applications/APP-TO-CHECK.app" ]]; then
    # install APP-TO-CHECK
fi


Old songs not showing up on my new iPhone. I recently lost my iPhone 4 so I went and bought a new iPhone 4s. I set up my new phone with the same iTunes ID and password that I have always used. I soon realized that whatever songs I had bought on my old phone were not on my new phone. How do I get those songs back? I thought I had subscribed to the cloud but apparently that didn't include my music? All of my old contacts and pictures showed up on my phone but the only music I could get was what was on my computer. Help please! I have quit a few songs missing!

I don't believe purchased music is automatically downloaded to a new device, since you might not want all of your music on all of your devices. On your new phone, just go to iTunes Store → More → Purchased → Music and you can re-download everything there.


How can I prove my friend stole my iPod w/o a serial number My friend stole my iPod but I can't prove it. But he knows my account information, and I have the device on my Macbook iTunes, and the name is all of a sudden his name. Is there a way to be able to tell if he changed it or if I were to plug it in my computer would I be able to tell if it's mine?

Also is there a way I can get Apple to tell me what my iPod Touch name was in March and to see if it's the same as what he changed it to?

I had to retrieve a serial number from a device which was lost. If you go to https://supportprofile.apple.com/ and login with your iTunes account, then it should show every device you've either bought through the Apple Store, or synced with iTunes, along with the serial numbers. I hadn't known about this before I had to use it.


Does the Mountain Lion installer work on any Mac capable of running Mountain Lion or is it hardware specific? Perhaps this is an obvious question, but will the Mountain Lion installer from the App Store work on any Mac? E.g. if I download it and put it on an SD card on my MacBook Pro can I use that SD card to install Mountain Lion on a family member's white MacBook? I know that the OS discs that the laptops came with were hardware-specific. I'm just trying to avoid downloading and burning the installer again.

Once you have downloaded it from the App Store, but before you run it, you can copy the Install Mountain Lion app into the Applications folder of any Mac you have an Admin account on (and have signed into the App store as you obviously) and run it from there.  If the Mac is not recent enough to install Mountain Lion the installer will tell you, otherwise it will happily install Mountain Lion for you.  That's how I updated all the Macs at my place.

Note that once run the installer will delete itself from the Applications folder.


Driver issue with the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter I have a MacBook (2016) and the first time I plugged in my USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter it prompted me to install an update to the driver - I didn't complete the installation at that point.

Now the (same) driver update prompt pops up every time I plugin the adapter - even though I've installed the update (multiple times).

I suspect that the first (failed) install of the driver update have caused it to prompt on every plugin (?) - is there any way to break this "loop"?

For those searching I am having this issue with a new 2016 MacBook Pro running sierra v10.12.1.  Multiple Install->Reboot cycles with everything still plugged in but the Multiport Update is not being installed.

[RESOLVED]

UPDATE:
Your USB-C Power Cord must be plugged directly into your multiport adapter (which is plugged into your laptop) when doing the reboot.  Having the adapter plugged into one port, while the power cord is plugged into another of your laptop's ports will not work.

NOTE 1: Working Layout

Wall power outlet => USB-C Power Adapter => USB-C Power Cord => Multiport Adapter => Laptop

   (You don't need the external display plugged in.)

NOTE 2: When I first plugged my power cord into the multiport adapter, it displayed some weird behavior where the Driver Install prompt went away and the "charging" icon would show briefly, then disappear.  I restarted my laptop with everything still plugged in and then the Driver Install prompt stayed visible.

You could probably also click the "Install" button before pluggin in the power cord and once the wizard is open, plug in the power cord.  I'd guess the power cord is only required to be plugged into the multiport adapter to give the adapter power during the reboot.

NOTE 3: The time that the install/reboot actually worked, the reboot took a significantly longer time than usual.  Probably about 3 mins.  So if you also experience that then its a good sign.


Can I transfer voice memos and notes from iphone to idrive usb drive? I am a Linux user and do not use iTunes. There are 2 way usb drives around that allow one to attach them to iphone and transfer media using supplied app as well as use them as USB drive on a computer.

Before I commit to buy a usb drive I would like to know if it is possible to transfer text notes and voice memos from iphone to it? Being able to view them in the app is not important.

Also is it possible that any corporate software like wmvare airwatch will block it?

Ok I am using iFalshDevice App and a generic brand idrive.
Cannot transfer voice memos in bulk. But with each individual one- tap on it - "share" and "copy to iFlashDevice". Now this will copy it to "App Storage -> Inbox" which is not really your drive yet, it looks like a clipboard area to transfer things. Select all voice memos there and copy them to the device in iFlashDrive App. This works with ios11 and 12.


How do I only backup data for specific apps on iOS? I want to back up data for some apps on iOS without including several GB of pictures and operating system files. How do I do this?

The option to backup data by app is completely missing from iCloud or I was unable to find it, and it also appears to be missing in iTunes. Where is the option to do selective or partial backup?

Source:

Choose which apps to back up

Many iOS apps automatically back up to iCloud after you install them. You can change which apps back up and remove existing backups from your storage. Use these steps on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

iOS 10.3 or later:

Go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud.
If you use iOS 11, tap Manage Storage > Backups. If you use iOS 10.3, tap iCloud Storage > Manage Storage.
Tap the name of the device that you're using.
Under Choose Data to Back Up, turn off any apps that you don't want to back up.
Choose Turn Off & Delete.

iOS 10.2 or earlier:

Go to Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage.
Tap the name of the device that you're using.
Under Backup Options, turn off any apps that you don't want to back up.
Choose Turn Off & Delete.

When you confirm that you want to Turn Off & Delete an app, it turns off iCloud Backup for that app and removes all of its information from iCloud.

Some apps, like Voice Memos, are always backed up and you can't turn them off.


Exclude files from "central metadata store" I'm fairly familiar with the mdfind utility. I find it's very useful when I can't find a file or when I need to find a file with certain contents. The problem is that I need to exclude some files from mdfind searches. I don't want to exclude the files from a single search (I know you can do this with mdfind -onlyin /path/to/directory/to/exclude) but from all searches. The mdfind man page says this:

  The mdfind command consults the central metadata store and returns a list of files that match the given metadata query.

So I guess I have to exclude/delete the files from the "central metadata store" in order to exclude them from mdfind searches. I'm wondering how I would do this.

The command mdfind uses the Spotlight backing store.   If you go to the Spotlight pane of System Preferences and select the Privacy tab you can exclude files or folders from being indexed.

It is also possible to modify the exclusions list at the Exclusions array of /.Spotlight-V100/VolumeConfiguration.plist but this does not appear to be officially supported.   Current exclusions can be read using the command:

sudo defaults read /.Spotlight-V100/VolumeConfiguration.plist Exclusions

New entries to the Exclusions array can be added using the command:

sudo defaults write /.Spotlight-V100/VolumeConfiguration.plist Exclusions -array-add 'path/to/exclude'

where /path/to/exclude is a path relative to filesystem root.

These entries appear in the System Preferences privacy list but do not appear to actually affect the search results even after running sudo launchctl stop com.apple.metadata.mds && sudo launchctl start com.apple.metadata.mds:


How can I create an installable OS X Leopard DVD from a running system? I need to reinstall Leopard on a computer although I don't have the install disks. Leopard is still installed on the computer. Also the disk drive doesn't work. What options are there? Can I create a bootable USB somehow?

There is no way to create an installation disc from an installed Leopard system.

You can contact Apple for replacement installation discs. If I remember correctly they charge an amount for the service and shipping, at which point you might want to consider buying a more recent version of the OS instead.


How to find out which process eats up memory? My MacBook Pro has 8G RAM. Recently memory leak offen happened. Page outs and swap used kept increasing. The last time it used ~8G swap space.

But in Activity Monitor, I can't find any process has a large value in 'Real Mem', 'Private Mem' nor 'Shared Mem' column.

I checked the %MEM column in output of 'ps -ev', all processes occupied less than 1% of memory. The full output is put in this gist: https://gist.github.com/aleung/4760556

What the way to diagnose OSX memory leak issue?

Check with this command (will show more processes):

sudo ps -awxm -o %mem,rss,comm | sort -nr | head

if won't help, check with fs_usage to display system calls and page faults related to filesystem:

sudo fs_usage -f filesys,diskio

especially page in and out by appending the following to above command:

| egrep -i "page_|pgin|pgout"

Add extra | grep -v kernel to ignore kernel process or | grep -v 0.00 to show these with higher time spent.

If your swap is big, you can force disk cache to be flushed and emptied by: sudo purge.

Based on my experience, OS X have some issues with managing the memory after higher uptime (when it used all of free memory), so sometimes only full restart may help.

Check also sudo iotop or sudo vm_stat 1 commands which may help.

See also: How to investigate high kernel task memory usage?


Remap Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl-X only I know that I can globally swap the Control and Command in Mac OS and this is not what I need. What I would like to do is keep both buttons as they are and only and make Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl-X work as if they were pressed with the Command button. What is the easiest way to do this?

One option would be to use DefaultKeyBinding.dict, but it wouldn't work in all applications or text views.

{
    "^x" = cut:;
    "^c" = copy:;
    "^v" = paste:;
}

KeyRemap4MacBook would work almost everywhere, and it also allows excluding specific applications.

Here's the definition of the remapping selected in the screenshot:

<item>
  <name>Use PC Style Copy/Paste</name>
  <appendix>(Control+C to Command_L+C)</appendix>
  <appendix>(Control+V to Command_L+V)</appendix>
  <appendix>(Control+X to Command_L+X)</appendix>
  <appendix>(Except in Terminal, VM, RDC, Emacs, X11, Eclipse)</appendix>
  <identifier>remap.copy_paste_winstyle_no_term</identifier>
  <not>EMACS, TERMINAL, VIRTUALMACHINE, REMOTEDESKTOPCONNECTION, X11, ECLIPSE</not>
  <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::C, VK_CONTROL, KeyCode::C, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
  <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::V, VK_CONTROL, KeyCode::V, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
  <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::X, VK_CONTROL, KeyCode::X, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
</item>


Catalina partition turns into type FFFFFFF/unbootable and unmountable "disk0s2" after Mavericks install I'm having a similar issue with this (MacOS partition formatted FFFFFFF etc after bootcamp install), but I got confused while reading the comments.
I thought it would be a great idea to dualboot Catalina and Mavericks on my laptop, and I already had a Bootcamp-ed Windows 10 partition that was unused, so I wiped that, installed Mavericks, all went fine until it restarted and my Catalina partition didn't show up in the boot picker.
I assumed it was just simply because Mavericks has no idea what APFS is - it just showed up in Disk Utility as "disk0s2". I created a Catalina installer, booted into its disk utility and it doesn't even show up, until you go to the partition menu.
As I said earlier, I got lost unfortunately with all of the guides. Any help is greatly appreciated, especially for keeping the data in disk0s2 intact.
This is what gpt -rf show disk0 gives me:

It's this classic FFFFFFFFF partition type again.

Boot to the Catalina installer and enter the commands shown below.

Note: The values 409640 and 349609376 were taken from the output posted in the question.

gpt -f remove -i 2 disk0
gpt -f add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 349609376 -t apfs disk0


Set position of secondary screen Mac n00b here. I'm running an iMac (OS X 10.10.4) with a projector attached as secondary display (extended desktop) and I have to set the position of this secondary screen in a way that the two screens align exactly at the center. My primary screen is of resolution 5120x2880, my secondary of 1920x1200, so I would have to place the latter at exactly 5120/840.

Doing this using the GUI in Displays -> Alignment seems to be next to impossible, since there is no snapping at the center. Now I'm thinking, is it possible to to this via scripting somehow? Or by editing some screen setup config files?

Thanks much!

osx-display-positioner is a command line tool which lets you save and restore the position of multiple displays. The description of the tool doesn't discuss using it to set the display position, but if the settings file is readable and editable, you might be able to use it to accomplish your goal.


How do I search Mail.app by country code? I want to look at just the emails sent to me from the .ru (or any other domain code), and I'm not having ay luck. Searching from:.ru orfrom:".ru" doesn't work. A wildcard approach doesn't work either. Anybody out there know the trick?

You can make a smart mailbox where "From" "ends with" "ru".


macOS and File Owner information I'm trying to build a portable user and one of the ways I was thinking of doing is through a symlink in /Users that will point to external flash drive.
If I have two machines and I make a user with a same username, are those users the same when it comes to encoding permissions and owner information of the files?
If not, does anyone have any pointers or ideas on how else I can do it?
Maybe there is a way recreate/migrate existing user to another machine and basically replicating possible IDs used by the system to check permissions.

No, the name is not the crucial factor. Each user account has an ID number (UID). The first-created user account is normally number 501, then next is 502, etc.
If Mac1 has account called "Dave", but has a UID of 502, then files saved on that Mac will be considered a different user account when used on account "Dave" #501 on Mac2. This will cause problems with file ownership and read/write access.
Also, bear in mind that if the OS can't find the user folder at boot, it will recreate a new empty account with that name in the default location.
(If you're looking to sync files between two different Macs, there are better ways of doing it.)


What are services in OS X Server? I've just installed OS X Server. What are services?

What do I enable them for? Lets consider Xcode and Messages. How can I use it?

The Services are the different jobs that the server can do for you and anyone else who uses the server (assuming they have their own computer and a valid password to the server). Many/most of the Services are intended to help groups of people work together. Many/most of the Services can be set up so that people with different OS can work together.

Usually, you won't need or enable all of them but it's worth considering what you might make good use of and experimenting with some of them.

Below is a list of descriptions of the Services that I've shamelessly plagiarized from the book: OS X Server Essentials 10.10 by Arek Dreyer & Ben Greisler (I have a hard copy but you can buy it via itunes and other fine stores - https://itunes.apple.com/book/os-x-server-essentials-10.10/).

Caching - speed up the download of software from Apple

Calendar - share calendars, book resources like meeting rooms, projectors, etc

Contacts - share Contacts information

Filesharing - share files. These mount like hard drives on the user's computer.

Mail - provide email service (needs a domain name, obviously)

Messages - used to be ichat. Think of it like Skype. Users can text each other, video conference, etc.

Profile Manager - manage the different Apple devices you are responsible for from the server

Time Machine - backup the different Macs on your network to the server

VPN - users not physically at the same location as the server can connect to it over the internet and be treated as if they are physically there (so they can use printers, other services, etc).

Websites - a web server

Wiki - a web site that can be easily edited with free-form information. Think Wikipedia but not as sophisticated. Each user can have their own wiki.

Xcode - allows developers of Xcode projects to share code and collaboratively build something


High Sierra freezing all the time I have a Macbook Air 2014 that I updated from Yosemite to High Sierra 10.13.4 just recently, but now the laptop freezes multiple times per day :(

Here are the things that I've tried:

Upgrade softwares/browsers
Reset NVRAM
Reset SMC
Run in Safe Mode (In which Chrome completely glitches. I've tried to cut down my number of extensions, but even a simple Google search doesn't show. Safari is fine.)
Download Onyx and run the maintenance check.

Usually the culprits are Chrome, SimpleNote (a syncing note-taking app), and Microsoft Powerpoint, but the laptop can also freeze anywhere.

Any other tests/methods you would recommend? Thanks so much!

I'm getting the exact same thing on my iMac. Only solution is to hold the power button and do a hard reset. I've tried Onyx, resetting the SMC and system reinstall. Using Onyx doesn't help so the frustrating solution is to live with hard powering off.

I agree - Onyx and tools that try to "clear all the caches" are only a last ditch effort if you have a good backup and are willing to erase and reinstall the OS.

SMC doesn't cause freezes - it causes power transition issues like sleep / wake / blowers)
PRAM saves the volume and boot options - again, not really going to help once the system is running

Now you should do the harder fixes since they take time.

verify that a brand new user account is also freezing and hanging if you just use Chrome or the one app that freezes on your main account without all your settings and other programs.
If the freezing happens in the new account or you can't isolate the freeze, then back up one last time and erase the Mac. reinstall the OS and verify the freeze is gone. Once you're sure the freeze is gone, erase and reinstall - letting Migration Assistant bring back your apps / settings / data.

It's super rare for the freeze to come back after that, but it can happen and then you have to do the hardest of all - pin it to a specific app or a specific set of data you need to remove from the Mac.


How to disable profanity filtering on iOS 7? Recently upgraded from iOS 5 to 7, and noticed that if I receive an email containing a curse word, it's replaced with "(BLOCK)". Any way to disable this behavior and et back my F bombs?

iOS does not do profanity filtering in incoming emails like your example.

Such filtering will be done elsewhere, either by the sender's mail server or your mail server, before the email gets to your device.


MacBook Pro, 15" (Early 2011), not booting I have a MacBook Pro 15" (Early 2011) model which suddenly is not booting correctly.

Symptoms:

Apple logo and loading bar appear.
Loading bar loads part way, freezes for a while.
Screen flashes momentarily, then grey screen appears.
Grey screen stays forever.

Attempted troubleshooting:

Safe mode: symptoms unchanged
Single-user mode: symptoms unchanged
Verbose mode: symptoms unchanged
Clear NVRAM: Apple logo and loading bar appears, freezes, and stays that way forever.  After another reboot returns to original behavior.
Boot from USB memory (with MacOS Sierra install): boot menu appears, and allows me to select the USB memory stick for booting, after starting boot process from memory, returns to original behavior (note that I used same memory stick to load MacOS Sierra onto a Mac Mini with no problems)
Removed Hard Drive completely (and attempted to boot from USB memory): symptoms unchanged
Replaced internal memory: symptoms unchanged
Attempted boot with charger unplugged: symptoms unchanged

Question:

So, I'm thinking that, if it is not the

Hard drive, or
Memory, or
Power Supply

...then it must be the motherboard that is bad.  Before I make that definitive conclusion, I'm wondering if there are any other ideas that I might try?

P.S.

On a side note that might be more relevant than I think, I noticed that this model is one of the models potentially implicated in the MacBook solder scandal (see https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/ which lists the 15" Early 2011 model as one of the model lines with problems).  The symptoms don't exactly match what is listed there.  I haven't noticed any video problems (except for when I was changing out the memory: I got a couple of strange all-blue screens, but that could just be a result of poorly seated memory).  However, is it possible that a failing video adapter could cause problems at boot time?

Try Resetting the  SMC (if you haven't already, and see if that changes any of the mentioned behaviors)

Shut down the Mac.
Plug in the MagSafe or USB-C power adapter to a power source and to your Mac.
Using the built-in keyboard, press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the power button at the same time.
Release all keys, then press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

The SMC or System Management Controller can require a reset and exhibit similar symptoms when malfunctioning. If this doesn't help, I can only suggest there may be hardware damage somewhere or possibly latent water damage side effects manifesting themselves.


Apple Configurator 2: Apply Blueprint one by one I have 48 iPads here and if I apply a blueprint to all of them at once, the network to the MDM server is jammed. If I apply the blueprint one by one to each iPad, every thing goes smoothly.

Is there a way to tell Configurator to apply a blueprint one by one?

No, not with Version 2.1 (3B42) of Apple Configurator. There are some workarounds that come to mind:

You could make smaller groups and keep the same blueprints
You could determine the limiting factor in your MDM responsiveness and address that to handle 50 devices at once.
You could re-implement the blueprint in a script and have that script iterate over the group with delays that resolve the bottleneck.

It really depends on what you are doing. If you cannot add a simple blueprint that adds one Web Clip to all 48 devices, then you might need to rethink your MDM or infrastructure. I'm having a hard time imagining something that saturates a link to MDM since they generally are quite efficient and just transfer configuration data and not loads of document data.


iPhone "Trust this computer": How to re-trust I have just connected my iPhone (4s/iOS 7.1) to my old MacBook. When the "Trust this Computer" message came, I chose accidently No.
Is there a way to trust my mac evev whan I already said No?

Source: http://osxdaily.com/2014/03/24/trust-this-computer-alert-ios/

Try disconnecting/reconnecting the phone;
If that does not work, try going to iTunes, in the Preferences, Advanced, click the “Reset Warnings” button.


Deleting photos from iPhone I have synced my photos from my iPhone to my Mac but now I want to remove the photos from my phone. How do I do this? It won't let me delete the "events" or some of the "albums".

Tap on the Share button, then select the photos you want to delete by tapping on them and then tap Delete.


RAID 5 options on macOS Big Sur? I'm given to understand that Disk Utility in macOS Big Sur does not support RAID options other than RAID 0 and RAID 1.  I've got a multi-drive enclosure that I'd like to setup for RAID 5.  Are there any other options for doing this?  I could do RAID 1 for multiple 2-drive pairs, but would prefer to have a single, large RAID 5 volume.  Any ideas?

MacOS's built-in RAID handling is limited. For decent RAID support, I recommend SoftRAID, which does RAID 0, 1, 4, 5 and '1+0'.
https://www.softraid.com
(Just a satisfied customer.)


Is there a Quick switch for trackpad mouse pointer MBA 10.9.1 Here is the situation.

When working inside the current mouse pointer is fine on my MBA 10.9.1.

However, when I decide to use my MBA outside in the Sun, I can't see my mouse pointer very well.

Is there a way to use a shortcut or script to switch mouse pointer to something highly visible when working in the Sun light.

Yes, I know Preferences + accessibility + Size change, just wondering if there is a keyboard shortcut or something like it.

To assign the script to a keyboard shortcut, you can assign it an Automator Service.

Open Automator.app and choose Service, and set the "Recieves text" at the top to no input.

Drag in the "Run AppleScript" action from the Library. You can find it by searching for applescript on the left side of the window.

Replace what the action already contains with the script below.

Save, then go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services to add the shortcut keys you want (click add shortcut on the right).

This is the script:

property largeCursorSize : 2.0 --1x to 4x size
tell application "System Preferences" to reveal anchor "Seeing_Display" of pane id "com.apple.preference.universalaccess"
tell application "System Events"
    set theSlider to slider "Cursor Size:" of group 1 of window 1 of application process "System Preferences"
    if value of theSlider is 1.0 then
        set value of theSlider to largeCursorSize
    else
        set value of theSlider to 1.0
    end if
end tell


How do you install playground books on iPad? I found a playground book from Apple online called "Talking To The Live View". It's an updated playground from the 2016 WWDC. I want to install it on my iPad and try it out. Further, I want to experiment with building my own playground books and installing them on my iPad.

I'm a licensed iOS developer, and know how to install apps on iOS devices, but despite searching for a couple of hours I have not been able to figure out how to install playground books onto my iPad other than the ones that magically get listed from Apple.

Ok, it turns out that if you use AirDrop to send the Playground book to yourself, iOS offers to open it in the Swift Playgrounds app.


How can I install a working bluetooth library for Python? I need to access Bluetooth from Python. I have tried installing lightblue via easy_install. It installs properly, but when I try to import it it fails.

User@Mac:codes$ python
Python 2.7.5 (default, Sep 24 2013, 20:58:05)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 4.2 (clang-425.0.28)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import lightblue
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lightblue/__init__.py", line 160, in <module>
from _lightblue import *
File    "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lightblue/_lightblue.py", line 23, in <module>
import Foundation
ImportError: No module named Foundation

That means module called "Foundation" does not exist or python cannot find it.
I continued my research and found this. I followed the instructions:

User@Mac:codes$ export PYTHONPATH="/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/Extras/lib/python/"

And tried again:

Python 2.7.5 (default, Sep 24 2013, 20:58:05)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 4.2 (clang-425.0.28)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>> import lightblue

And got this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File     "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lightblue/__init__.py", line 160, in <module>
from _lightblue import *
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lightblue/_lightblue.py", line 28, in <module>
import _LightAquaBlue
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.5/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lightblue/_LightAquaBlue.py", line 32, in <module>
_FRAMEWORK_PATH)
ImportError: Cannot load LightAquaBlue framework, not found at/Library/Frameworks/LightAquaBlue.framework

And I tried installing python from http://www.python.org.
What can I do anymore?

Why not try python from homebrew. https://brew.sh

This port is very widely updated and has tons of previous versions if you run into a problem or have some modules that break on the latest versions as they do on occasion.


Ascending ringtone volume in iPhone It was driving me crazy that every time someone was calling to my iPhone it started ringing at full volume when most of the times I would even hear it with a simple vibration because I always have it right next to me.

So how can I get a ringtone with ascending volume onto my iPhone?

Requirements

GarageBand application for the iPhone (free)

Solution

Download the ringtone file to iCloud. Just click this link and then "Add to iCloud Drive"

Open GarageBand application in your phone, click the import button and look for the ringtone file in the iCloud folder, don't open it, just long press it and then click on the share option.

Select the ringtone option and then click Export in the top right corner. Finally when exported, click the option "Use sound as..." and then "Standard Ringtone". Done!
Now you can delete GarageBand application if you want, it takes a lot of space (1.77 GB).

Notes:

If you want to make any modification to the fade effect you will need to open this folder in a Mac with GarageBand, change the Master Track, and then go to Share > Project to GarageBand for iOS.

You can inspire in that file to make any ringtone increment the volume gradually.


Yosemite 10.10.1 - ssh - no connection (time-out) and strange redirect I hope I can get some help with a rather strange problem on my late 2013 MacBookPro running Yosemite 10.10.1

Up until 3 days ago, I could ssh into my server without any problems. I then updated to 10.10.1 and started to see some strange behaviour. At first I didn't notice, but it turns out I can not connect to remote ssh-boxes anymore. Local connections (including those via open-vpn tun-interface to a remote host) seem to work fine though.

Looking at a TCP dump when trying to connect to a box via internet revealed the following strange fact:

my.internal.ip.address.50596 > gl02.opentracker.net.ssh: Flags [S], cksum 0x7b7d (correct), seq 4179750266, win 65535, options [mss 1460,nop,wscale 5,nop,nop,TS val 958226379 ecr 0,sackOK,eol], length 0

Doing the same one an up-to-date Mavericks box shows no signs of "gl02.opentracker.net" address and everything works just as it should be.

Since I cannot find a way to prevent (or even change/turn off) this "feature" on my MacBookPro, I consider this to be HARMFUL and an unwanted intrusion / exploitation (go take a look at ww.opentracker.net - I do NOT want to be anal-yzed by those guys!!!).

So here are my questions:

Why is my Mac trying to connect to "gl02.opentracker.net"?
Where does this behavior come from?
How can I turn this off?
Is this a malicious attempt to break my security? (--> thinking "Root-Pipe" exploit I heard about)
If so, where do I find people with proper digital-forensics knowledge and further information about this subject?

If you need more information regarding the configuration of my machine, please tell me which commands to run / config-files to provide to help track down this issue.

Thanks.

opentracker.net is a service provider that offers analytics. My guess is that your redirection happens when you are connected to a network provider that internally uses opentracker.net.

I suggest you try again from another network provider.


Block emails with "This message has no content" Emails that only contain a hyperlink show up in my iPhone email inbox saying "This message has no content" (yet another terse and inaccurate error message, thanks Apple) Every single person who knows anything about computers could tell you that this is 100% certainly a spam/malware/phishing/botnet hyperlink. I don't want them in my inbox. Even if someone I knew sent me just a hyperlink I would never trust it. Do any of the email services offer a way to filter out hyperlink only messages, the ones they don't catch in their spam filtering? Is there a way in iPhone Email to filter these out or send them to a spam folder?

iOS does not support custom Mail rules at the time of writing. You will need to set up a rule like this on the server which is delivering the mail to your device.


Easiest way to create a graphical representation of Application Usage Report? I have several mac users who claim they need all 3 major browsers for testing websites and they need Admin privileges to keep them updated. (My Company doesn't support but Safari.)

I have run an Application Usage report for the last year on these users to pull what applications where used, how long, etc etc..

I have the data in Excel and I am trying to 'pie' chart the data so I can see what application they are really using the most. I have already split each user up into individual sheets. Has anyone else solved this problem (using Excel or even another tool)?

Presuming that you want to have a pie chart for each user, and you want to group by application, and by time spent with each, I would recommend using Excel to do so. In a nutshell:

Create a PivotChart for each user, with the data grouped as you prefer. In my exercise, I selected Application and Time. Highlight the columns, with the top row being the header, and select Insert | PivotChart. Check the fields to add to the report, in this case Application and Time.
You can configure your chart to your liking. I tend to add value labels to my pie chart slices.

You can see my crude, 5 minute example below.


Voice Memos visible on iTunes, but files appear to have been deleted on iPhone. Can I recover? As in title. I am trying to locate old voice memos of interviews from 2015. My backups have been destroyed and I have charged up the old 4S I used to record them, and -- lo and behold -- when I connect the phone to my Mac, iTunes lists the entire playlist of interviews that I need. But when I try to play them on iTunes nothing happens, I just get the little '!' icon appear next to the file.

The Voice Memos app says 'No recordings' -- the recordings aren't visible on the device.

So I have a tiny sliver of hope. A discrepancy between what the device tells me is on the device and what iTunes tells me is on the device.

Does this indicate that it may be possible to recover my Voice Memos?

I have used the tool iFunBox to browse my phone's Raw System Files and found a plist file in the Recordings folder that lists the old filenames. Perhaps this is how iTunes is getting the list. But how can I get the files? They are of interviews with my father, now deceased, and I am quite desperate to find them.

so sorry that this happened to you. Indeed, iTunes is probably listing the voice memos from the plist file - if you haven’t found the recordings themselves with iFunBox (.m4a files), they are probably lost unfortunately. You can have a look again in Media/Recordings and hunt for these if you haven’t already.

Sorry I can’t help more.


What is the X Server equivalent on OSX? What is the X Server equivalent on OSX? I am not looking for XQuartz. What component of the OSX is responsible for rendering graphics? Just as X11 does for *nix.

What I was looking for turns out to be the display server called The Quartz Compositor that along with Quartz 2D forms the Core Graphics framework of the OSX.

X Quartz seems to be the interface that routes requests from applications that use the X11 framework to the Quartz Compositor.


AppleScript 'choose from list'. How can I run a different command if multiple sections are chosen? I have an AppleScript which manages my home made After Effects render farm. The farm is made up of three render machines.

The script asks the user to make a selection of what machine(s) they want to render on. It takes their choice(s) and runs an external AppleScript app depending on what choice(s) they made.

Each external AppleScript app runs a command which starts an After Effects render using ExtendScript like this…

set scriptfile to (POSIX file ("/Applications/Render Farm/Scripts/jsx/render_1.jsx"))
tell application "Adobe After Effects 2020"
    DoScriptFile scriptfile
end tell

The JSX file referenced above tells After Effects to start a render on Render Machine 1. The idea of the master script is that the user can select multiple render machines and start them all rendering at once.

   set Options to {"Render Node 1", "Render Node 2", "Render Node 3"}

        set ListA to (choose from list Options with prompt "Choose items" with title "Select Stuff" with multiple selections allowed)

   if (ListA contains "Render Node 1") then
        tell application "Render Node 1 App" to activate
    end if

    if (ListA contains "Render Node 2") then
        tell application "Render Node 2 App" to activate
    end if

    if (ListA contains "Render Node 3") then
        tell application "Render Node 3 App" to activate
    end if

My script allows multiple choices to accomplish this, but I hate how sequential it is. After Effects has to receive the first AppleScript command, then run the JSX command which ssh's into the render machine, then it opens the aerender command line program multiple times per machine (each instance can take about 10-15 seconds to open). Only after the last aerender instance has opened is After Effects finally ready to listen for another AppleScript command and do it all over again for the second machine.

However, I have a different JSX command that can start a render on all render machines at the same time from within After Effects with no waiting around. I also have other ones that can start a render on Render Node 1 & 2, Render Node 1 & 3, and Render Node 2 & 3 (basically a different script for each combination.

I would like to do the same thing within my AppleScript master script. But I don't want to display a list of every possible combination, I want something that works more elegantly.

What I would like is to modify the master script so that if, for example, two selections are detected then it doesn't run two scripts, it just runs a different script.

Something like this, but with working syntax…

   if (ListA contains "Render Node 1" and "Render Node 2") then
        tell application "Render Node 1 & 2 App" to activate
    end if

When I run that, I get the error "Can’t make "Render Node 2" into type boolean." But surely there's a way to accomplish this?

It also has to work intelligently. If I choose Render Node 1 and Render Node 3 it should ONLY open the application Render Node 1 & 3 App. I don't want it to also open Render Node 1 App, or Render Node 1, 2 & 3 App.

One possible answer:

set choices to {"Render Node 1", "Render Node 2", "Render Node 3"}
set answer to choose from list choices ¬
    with prompt "What would you like to do?" with multiple selections allowed and empty selection allowed
if answer is not false and length of answer is not 0 then
    set delimiter to ""
    set counter to 1
    set value to "Render Node "
    repeat with appitem in choices
        if answer contains appitem then
            set value to value & delimiter & counter
            set delimiter to " & "
        end if
        set counter to counter + 1
    end repeat
    set value to value & " App"
    -- tell application value to activate
    display dialog value
end if

or maybe:

set applist to {¬
    "Render Node 1 App", ¬
    "Render Node 2 App", ¬
    "Render Node 1 & 2 App", ¬
    "Render Node 3 App", ¬
    "Render Node 1 & 3 App", ¬
    "Render Node 2 & 3 App", ¬
    "Render Node 1 & 2 & 3 App"}
set choices to {"Render Node 1", "Render Node 2", "Render Node 3"}
set answer to choose from list choices ¬
    with prompt "What would you like to do?" with multiple selections allowed and empty selection allowed
if answer is not false and length of answer is not 0 then
    set counter to 1
    set value to 0
    repeat with appitem in choices
        if answer contains appitem then
            set value to value + counter
        end if
        set counter to counter * 2
    end repeat
    set value to item value of applist
    -- tell application value to activate
    display dialog value
end if


Is there an app that allows me to use Google Scholar on an iOS device? I'm looking for a native app that allows me to use Google Scholar on my iPhone.

Does such an app exist?

There is no direct(native) application from Google for Google Scholar like Google Authenticator or Google Translator. But, there are some ios apps that supports Google Scholar search.

The best one, I can suggest you is Papers which supports Google Scholar.

You can also go with apps like Easy Search($0.99) and ArticleSearch(Free).


Homebrew Formula for emacs' VM (View Mail) Can anyone help with a homebrew formula to install emacs' VM ("View Mail"), located:

http://www.nongnu.org/viewmail/
https://code.launchpad.net/vm

I can get as far as a script, that should look like this:

bzr get lp:vm
cd vm
./configure --with-emacs=~/.homebrew/bin/emacs --prefix=~/.homebrew
make
make install

This clearly depends on emacs & bzr.  It should also be updated any time emacs is and any time "bzr get" returns a new version.  I have looked at a few example formulae which include a url for wget and a sha1sum of the downloaded file, but since this script doesn't involve these, I'm having trouble knowing where to start.

Here's what I have looking at those example formulae, but as I say, I don't know what to do with the "url" and "sha1" methods:

require "formula"

class ViewMail < Formula
  homepage "http://www.nongnu.org/viewmail/"
  url "what do I do with this when download uses bzr get ...?"
  sha1 "ditto"

 depends_on :emacs
 depends_on :bzr

  def install
    system "bzr", "get", "lp:vm"
    system "cd", "vm"
    system "./configure", "--with-emacs=#{prefix}/bin/emacs", "--prefix=#{prefix}"
    system "make"
    system "make", "install"
  end

end

This works:

class Vm < Formula
  desc "VM is a mail reader that runs under XEmacs and GNU Emacs."
  homepage "https://launchpad.net/vm"
  url "https://launchpad.net/vm/8.2.x/8.1.93a/+download/vm-8.1.93a.tgz"
  version "8.1.93a"
  sha256 "9eab4cca6d8e4f3c5b2ab0293caecda3207b8f7e5d1e620d067898c35204235e"

  depends_on :emacs => ["23", :build]

  def install
    system "./configure", "--with-emacs=#{HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/bin/emacs",
            "--prefix=#{prefix}"
    system "make"
    system "make install"
 end

def caveats; <<-EOS.undent
  To use add to .emacs:
  (add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/Cellar/vm/8.1.93a/share/emacs/site-lisp/vm")
  (require 'vm-autoloads)
  EOS
end

Though I'm not sure how to dynamically list the necessary prefix for the load-path in the caveats.


Is there a way to cancel or disable the minimize animation completely? Is there a way to cancel or disable the minimize animation completely in Mac OSX?

To manage automatic window animations, use the commands below. NOTE THAT you'll have to quit and restart an application for the changes to take effect because it checks these settings on app launch.

Disable

To disable automatic window animations, enter the following Terminal command:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool NO

Enable

To enable window animations:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool YES


Most efficient way to transfer data from a mid-2007 iMac to a 2017 iMac? I have a an old, mid-2007 iMac running 10.11.6 and a new 2017 iMac running the latest 10.12 release.

The old iMac has 800 GB of data on it, spread across three user accounts, that I'd like to migrate to the new iMac. It has an up-to-date Time Machine backup on a USB 2.0 hard drive. FireWire 400 and 800 ports. Gigabit ethernet. I also have an external USB 2.0 hard drive with enough space on it to hold the contents of the old iMac's drive and I own CarbonCopyCloner.

Most of the data is one user account and is generally iTunes media (ripped from CDs, so DRM-free on the hard drive of the old iMac) and Logic/GarageBand project data.

I'm uncertain of my options for transferring the user data from the old iMac to the new iMac.

Can I use migration assistant and attach the Time Machine drive to the new iMac? Can I boot the old iMac into Target Drive mode and mount it, over the network, to the new iMac and rsync the files on to it? Should I clone the the hard drive to an external USB 2.0 drive with CCC and then import that data onto the new iMac?

The data set is sized large enough that I'd like to not have to restart this process several times. What's my most efficient option for transferring everything from one machine to the other in this case?

If the old iMac really has gigabit ethernet you can also connect both Macs to a gigabit switch (which is connected to a router of course) and use the migration assistant. Could be even faster than through USB 2.0 with the external HDD.


How allow only text in iMessage but not pictures or videos? IOS 9.0.2 I've got restrictions set on my son's iPod touch running iOS 9.0.2 but I want to allow him to send/receive texts only, no images nor videos, via iMessage. Is this possible?

I am sure that this is not possible with an iPod Touch. It's not even possible on iOS so unless your carrier allows blocking of MMS and you forgot iMessage entirely, you're not able to control the feed into messages app.

If an iPhone were in play, you could disable iMessage and MMS so allow only SMS text messages, but again, that would require a cellular connection.


How to block an iPhone 4 from calling certain prefixes? I have an iPhone 4 and I need to block certain prefixes between 1-5 digits.

For example, I don't want any outgoing calls to be made with numbers that start with "123", "456", etc, so I want to be able to block those prefixes so that any attempts to call a number that starts with those prefixes does not get placed.  Preferably, this list should be protected with a PIN so only I can alter it.

How can I do that?

There is no way to block outgoing calls on iOS itself, so your only choices would be to find a voip app on the app store that would allow that level of configuration or perhaps jailbreak the phone and see if that community has such a modification to the phone app.


MacBook Pro 2018 no haptic feedback OS Catalina I have a problem with my MacBook Pro 2018. There no haptic feedback on the touchpad. It worked with Catalina well, but only for a few days.
The touchpad works very well with all gestures. There is only no vibration when I klick anything.
What I did:

restart the MacBook
NVRAM reset
SMC reset
I set the MacBook to default configuration and don't logged in with my Apple ID.

Anybody here who has another idea what to do?

For my 2015 MBP, this happened immediately after upgrading to Catalina.

My MBP was no longer under warranty so going to apple wasn't an option.

What worked for me was:

"It just started working again a few days later"

Most of the advice I found elsewhere, and tried, was:

pram reset
power off and leave it off for a while
check for battery swelling

my battery was swollen a year ago, when it was under warranty, and
Apple replaced a lot of things

send it in under warranty


Syncing iMessage in iCloud on iOS 11 Can we sync iMessages with iCloud on iOS 11 Global Stable Update. Because I can't see any option to do that on iPhone 7 (recently updated to iOS 11.0 )

Messages in the Cloud was removed in iOS 11 beta 5 and wasn't reintroduced for the first release of iOS 11. It will be available in a future update.


Are all iPhone4 apps available for iPhone 5 also? My father in law is considering getting an iPhone 5.  There are some specific apps that he is interested in; are all apps available for iPhone 4 also available for iPhone 5, or do developers have to port them?

All for previous iPhone and iPod touch devices will run, but won't necessarily be optimized for the larger screen. If that's the case, the app will run at the previous (3.5" size) with a black bar above and below the app's content.


Delay when pressing Command-Shift-4 The better way to take a screenshot is Command-Shift-4.
But since switching to Big Sur on an M1 Mac, I am seeing that this key combination produces a delay before seeing the crosshairs.
When a computer doesn't do what I ask right away, I do the same thing again and press harder. So how do I prevent this delay and reduce RSI?

Open the Screenshot app, and in the Screen Recording options, select "None", for the audio input.
I have no idea why, but this will fix the delay before the crosshair appears for Cmd+Shift+4 screenshots.


Change completion key in TextMate? Is it possible to change the completion key (escape) to command for instance? How?

From the same question asked on SO:

To remap the esc key you have to copy

/Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/KeyBindings.dict

to

~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/KeyBindings.dict

and then edit it, preferably using TextMate :) as Property List Editor messes up the codes.

Look for nextCompletion and previousCompletion and replace their values with whatever suits your needs best.

For example, you could replace \033 (code for esc) to ->|tab.


How to change computer name so terminal displays it in OS X? I have a Mac Server 3.1.2, w/ system 10.9.4 that is not being used as DNS Server. Windows Server 2012 is DNS & DHCP server. On the Mac, Terminal cannot ping hostname of mac, however, it does identify itself with it's hostname so I'm concluding this mismatch is the cause of my issues.

Anyone have a suggestion?

sudo scutil --set HostName your-hostname


Do all computers/devices connected to an airport extreme run at the same speed? My mom just bought an Airport Extreme router recently, and she said the salesperson at the Apple Store told her that all devices on a network run at the same connection speed, and that speed is determined by the slowest device on the network. So if you have a shiny new Mac that has the potentential to run at 1 Gbit/second, you'll be slowed down to a 10 Mbit/second speed, just because you have your old phone connected to the wifi, downloading some apps at the same time. This doesn't really make any sense to me.

(Please don't speculate, I can do that myself. Answer if you have experience with this topic).

No - this is demonstrably false for Airport hardware even before the latest generation where 802.11ac is introduced.

Simply connect two or three Mac at different distances (1m, 5m, 10m) and run wireless diagnostic on each.  You will see different transmit rates and MCS index for each device which correlates to how fast the radio link between each device and the base station is based on current interference and signal to noise ratios.


What apps allow me to draw on an iPad and sync it with a Mac? I am wondering whether there is an app that allows me to draw on an iPad and sync it with a Mac. I think doing so is helpful because I can switch between PowerPoint slides and the canvas and do some drawing.

A scenario I can imagine is that I am talking on Zoom and sharing my slides with my audience. Then I want to write on a blackboard to explain a concept with some drawing. I want to be able to switch to an app on Mac that is synced with the canvas on my iPad so that I can write on the iPad while the students can see my shared screen and writing in real-time through Zoom.

In the iPad User Guide, see the section titled “Use iPad as a second display for your Mac”

Excerpt From
iPad User Guide
Apple Inc.
https://books.apple.com/us/book/ipad-user-guide/id1464778568
This material may be protected by copyright.


How do I restore the default Postscript printer? I did a Reset printing system..., thinking it would remove all printers I installed. I didn't think it would remove everything, including the default Postscript printer.

EDIT:

I'm on a MacBook Pro mid-2014, on OS X 10.10.3.

I went to Printers & Scanners
I right-click on the printer list
Then, I chose Reset printing system...

I know I didn't delete "Postscript" itself, just the configured Postscript printer target. Still, I want to bring it back, since I didn't intend to delete it.

Here's a screenshot of the action I'm referring to, although I just found this and it's not a screenshot from my machine.

http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/09/14/ResetPrintSystem.png

I did it like this:

Go to Printers & Scanners
Click on "+" to add a new printer
Click on IP

Address: localhost
Protocol: Line Printer Daemon - LPD
Name: PostScript
Use: Generic PostScript Printer


How to add a timestamp in log files on launchd? In launchd, you can change the path of the log files using StandardOutPath and StandardErrorPath in .plist file, but when I used it to output a log returned by the process, the resultant log files didn't add a timestamp and hence I cannot tell when each line is written nor when the process is run to begin with.

So is it feasible to add the timestamp information to the log files? The minimum requirement is month, day, hour, minute, and second.

The keys you mention don't redirect log files, they redirect the standard output/error streams. It is the responsibility of the program writing to those streams to add timestamp information.


Can I safely delete three icloud drive (archive) folders that take almost 80GB of storage? I know there's already a similar question about this, but the answer "If you don't need their contents, you can delete both of them." is not clear to me because I need the contents, just not three copies of them. So I guess the question is: are these folders like old backups? Is that the reason there is many of them: they are backups from different times?

Here is my situation:

The first screenshot is of the three folders I'd like to delete. The second one is the "true location" of the data on icloud.

Thanks in advance

When you turn off iCloud syncing - everything that was in the location for syncing gets moved here.

When you have syncing enabled - the location where newly created (not yet saved to the cloud) files get written is:

~/Library/Mobile Documents

That location also keeps copies of cloud backed files present locally while you have space on the Mac. Over time, if you start running low on space, they get deleted from the local cache and only exist as stub files that cause the actual files to be downloaded from iCloud.

You have several versions of archive since you have turned off syncing several times. You can merge the contents of the folders or just delete as fits your needs.

I use Kaleidoscope app to compare folders / merge these but there are other tools that work if you don’t want to do it by hand.


Aperture (iPhoto) quick view I’ve put all my photographs into Aperture’s photo library which means that in the Finder they are hidden in a special folder, making it virtually impossible to quickly browse the photos there. On the other hand, starting up Aperture quickly demands more than 1 GB of RAM, which is something I’d really like to avoid.

In ‘Open File’ dialogues there is a ‘Media’ option which more or less does what I’m looking for. Is there a way to add this to the Finder (Snow Leopard) or is there some external program, I could use as a quick viewer?

(As the situation is similar to iPhoto, I’d expect solutions for the iPhoto library to work as well.)

Some options:

Make a Media Browser with Automator - takes about 30 seconds - and you can invoke it in many ways - including with a contextual menu its,
Install an app like http://www.karelia.com/imedia/ which will do the same with some extra bells and whistles.

That said, if you use an app like Aperture or iPhoto to manage your photos then they are the "go-to" apps for anything to do with your photos - including viewing them. What you have there is an argument for getting more Ram ;)

If you really want to you could run either app in Referenced Mode. This would leave your Masters (and note: Masters only) accessible via the Finder. While I am happy recommending Aperture in Referenced Mode, I would have significant reservations about running iPhoto in that way.


How do I get iTunes to play all music from a specific year? How do I select and then play all songs from release year?  e.g. Play all music from 1969.  Even better, play all rock genre music from 1969.

Use a Smart Playlist. These are playlists that are dynamic and can be built off filters on track metadata.

To create a new Smart Playlist select File > New > Smart Playlist... (or Opt-Cmd-N) and then set the following options to build a Smart Playlist that always contains all the tracks that are from 1969 in your library:

If you wanted to limit it to a specific genre from 1696 press the + button to add another filter criteria and pick a genre like so:

You can filter in all kinds of ways -- Smart Playlists are incredibly powerful.


Does iOS download iOS updates when using a hotspot? I can see that iTunes and App Store has in Settings to not automatically download updates.

But what about iOS updates themselves? The recent iOS 11.3 update for example, is near 800MB, and when I use my main phone as a hotspot, then will my other iPhone silently download the iOS update?

The issue is important because the 800MB can cost up to US$12 at $15 per GB such as on Verizon, meaning that to download the update from iOS 11.2.6 to 11.3, it can cost me $12, and if 2 secondary phones, that means US$24 for downloading an update I wasn't aware of.

In short, yes. This is how it works:

By default iOS does not allow the download of any single file above 100MB in size using your device's cellular/mobile data connection
When an iOS device is sharing its cellular/mobile data connection as a Personal Hotspot, that hotspot is seen as just another type of internet connection and not as a cellular/mobile data connection
More specifically, that connection will be seen as either a Wi-Fi interface, Bluetooth interface, or USB interface (depending on your personal hotspot settings)
Since the second device (i.e. the one connecting to the personal hotspot) is not seeing it as a cellular/mobile data connection, it can download files larger than the 100MB cap allowed on its own cellular/mobile data connection

There are a range of settings within iOS settings that you can use to manage what (incl. individual apps) have access to your cellular/mobile data connection, but these settings will not recognise a Personal Hotspot as anything other than another internet connection.


Wifi Won't Connect; Connection Timeout (Mac) I'm having issues with my macbook pro OS X 10.7.5.  It used to connect to the wifi router (D-Link N300, DIR=615) no problems.  But for the past several weeks, I haven't been able to at all.

What pops up when I select my wifi network from the list:

"Failed to join "network"
A connection timeout occured".

What happens when I try to enter my password manually:

"Connection timeout"

What I've tried to do as solutions:

Google
Restart router by pressing reset & refresh button
Delete System & User (Login) Keychain access
Network > Gear symbol by the + and - bottom left of the screen > Set Service Order > Drag Wifi to the top

Been there, done that. I found the source to my problem, but not something that might be a general answer for all with this problem.

After exhausting the other answers here, I just started trying anything. What I discovered was that I have an external HD connected by firewire, and had it running when I rebooted after installing software. With the drive running, no connection. I shut off the drive and it immediately connected. Go figure! It runs fine of I start the drive after startup, but not during. (Mac Mini C2D 2.54, OS X 10.8.3)

Perhaps the wires acted as antenna or otherwise changed the power available to the Wi-Fi chipset, but I'm not seeing these timeouts after changing my connected devices and cables.


From Mac App Store to an external hard drive Is there any way to download and store app bought from the Mac App Store in an external hard drive and also being able to update them?
(I'm especially interested in doing this with Xcode)

You've asked two separate questions, so I'll answer them separately:

  Is there any way to download and store app bought from the App Store in an external hard drive

Yes.

In the case of Xcode (and Lion), what you are downloading is an installer.

If you run the installer from /Applications/ then it is deleted after it finishes installing.

If you want to keep it, move it somewhere else after it finishes downloading (before it finishes downloading it won't appear in /Applications/ anyway) and before it finishes installing.

  and also being able to update them?

No. Apple does not (yet?) support "delta" updates, so when the next version is released, you will have to download the entire thing.

The only purpose for saving the downloads would be if you had another computer you wanted to update, or if you wanted to save it for a potential reinstallation before it is updated.


Remote access to PowerPC Leopard Server I have a PowerMac G4 at my office running Leopard Server that I'd like to be able to access remotely. Normally, I'd just use VNC / SSH, but it's behind a router that I don't have admin access over (it's in the office next door and we're in a piggybacking agreement, I just don't feel like asking him to forward ports, etc). I think "Back To My Mac" generally can take care of this, but it's going away and you can't subscribe to MobileMe anymore anyhow.

Is there any software out there that can either UPnP it's way around this situation or somehow create an outbound connection? I suppose it being a PowerPC throws a wrench into the plan also.

Try PortMap -- it's free, universal binary (PPC and Intel), and supports a variety of routers.  Just have it map ports 22 (SSH) and 5900 (VNC).  Note: I'd recommend  using nonstandard public ports, to cut down on the number of password-guessing scans you'll get, and also making sure you don't have any accounts with easy-to-guess passwords (because you'll still get a few scans, no matter how creative you are with port numbers).


Can someone else sign into my iTunes account to download my purchased apps? I buy many apps and I'd like to let my little cousin use my account to download games I've purchased.

Obviously Apple won't encourage accounts holders to share their accounts with relatives but what's the risk of doing so?

I use my account on my iPhone and my iPad and he's got an iPad 2.

Yes you can. And Apple actually doesn't discourage this behavior. While it's true they do warn users not to share their Apple ID, but that can be taken more as a security concern than one of theft. In the past, Apple has never been one to mince words about piracy (being vocal against music and movie theft).

Apple allows you to register a small number (5) of devices to a single Apple ID. So you can register your little cousins device, your girlfriend's device, or your dad's device without a care.

This helps consolidate purchases and in a lot of cases, helps device management in large households.

The drawbacks aren't many. You can withhold your password from those that you do not wish to make additional purchases using your ID. But this will restrict them from even installing free apps. And if they happen to log out, they will be unable to log in again. The decision how to handle your account's access is left to your discretion. Just note that you will be responsible for any purchases made on any device registered under your account. Typically Apple is quite good with refunds, but I'm not sure how they would handle one in this case. (It's likely that they will issue you a "one-time" refund and warn you that you will be responsible for any additional purchases made in the future.)

Aside from potentially having someone rack up your account, it's totally cool with Apple and a great way to get mileage on your app purchases.


Launch Center Pro URL-scheme syntax for launching an action Recently I've been using the Workflow app to create home screen shortcuts that launch third party apps via their respective URL-schemes. This avoids the annoying initial time it takes LCP to load up its home grid on my iPhone 5. However, I've been unable to move one particular third party URL-scheme onto my home screen because it involves an unfortunately necessary lc-callback, and thus needs to be launched from within LCP in order to work. (Lc-callbacks are LCP's special workaround for when an app doesn't support URL chaining via x-callback-url. One has to manually return to LCP from the third party app, but once done the workflow may continue on.)

Does anyone know LCP's own specific URL scheme syntax for launching an action? I've tried things like 'launch://action={{ACTION_NAME}}' but this only opens LCP and nothing else.

Use a mix of the action ID (the name won't work, but every action has its own ID) and the url action. It will look like this:

launchpro://?url=[action:170]

To find the ID, edit an action and scroll to the bottom, you'll find the action there by the edge of the screen.


How to install and use GNU Grep in macOS I have coreutils but I am not sure if GNU grep is there.
I just want to use the flag -P for Perl regex that is found in GNU grep, but not in BSD grep.

My PATH is /usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/texbin:/Users/masi/.cabal/bin so I have coreutils first in the PATH.

However, grep is BSD when I am using it: grep --version gives grep (BSD grep) 2.5.1-FreeBSD.

Command type -p grep returns /usr/bin/grep

How can you install GNU Grep in macOS?

GNU grep is not part of coreutils. To install, run

brew install grep

As with coreutils, this doesn't automatically replace the existing grep

==> Caveats
All commands 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/grep/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"

So after installing you can either use ggrep, gegrep and gfgrep; or extend PATH as shown above to use grep etc. The second option may confuse some macOS specific scripts though in case the options differ.


Google Drive File Stream keeps enabling it's Finder extension I do not want any Finder extensions and turn I them off in System Preferences. After quitting and reopening Google Drive File Stream, its Finder extension always turns back on.

What can I do to ensure it remains turned off?

Google Drive Stream is defaulted to automatically start at login within the Google Drive Stream preferences.

There are two places it can be set - system (host) wide, or user only.  The locations are as follows:

System Wide: /Library/Preferences/com.google.drivefs.settings
User Only:  ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.drivefs.settings

Check to see settings by using the defaults command to get the AutoStartOnLogin setting.  For example, to see the setting system wide issue the command:

$ sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.google.drivefs.settings AutoStartOnLogin

Do this for both locations by changing the path to the .settings file as described above.

If either come back "true", you've found the cause.  Next, write a new value to turn it off.  System wide example:

$ sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.google.drivefs.settings AutoStartOnLogin -bool false


Macbook Pro really slow since Mavericks I have a 2010 Macbook pro that is running very slowly (Clicking something takes around 4-5 seconds to react even though no graphical lag is observable) on Mac OS X Mavericks but running really fast and sweet on Fedora 20 and Ubuntu Saucy (Both running from a usb stick).

I decided to try to reinstall the OS using the included recovery partition, which is also painfully slow (10+ hours installation slow). I decided to test for hard disk issues but SMART tests show reasonable values:

And there is also this:

Which troubles me as the speed seems to be progressively slowing down. Is Mavericks related or is the disk in need of a replacement?

Did you try Diskwarrior to repair the disk directory? It turned out to be a life saver many times for me.


True Full Screen in Firefox? In OSX, how do I have a true full screen? When I go to full screen mode, the tab and navigation bar are still showing. Those toolbars are annoying when I try to watch a movie, etc.

This is the shot of the top of the screen:

EDIT: I realized this may apply to other browsers such as Safari

On the about:config page search for the following key

full-screen-api.allow-trusted-requests-only

and set it to false

Then you can create a bookmark 'link' with the following 'location':

javascript:document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].mozRequestFullScreen();void(0)


Volume Overlay Displaying Incorrectly/Not Centered So basically my macbook pro (mid 2010) was acting funny (shutting off when left corner was tapped/bumped, high fan when no activity, etc.), nothing helped so  I reset the SMC (I think that's what it's called, I'm a little sleep deprived here) and the PRAM. Now my volume control overlay and brightness overlay are displaying incorrectly. Initially, they were displaying half off the screen, centered on the lower half, so I force-reset Finder, hoping that this would help. Now both the overlays are centered.. on the bottom half of the screen, instead of being centered in the actual middle of the screen.

I know this is a ridiculous thing to be bothered by, but I am wondering if there is maybe some AppleScript command that I can use to reset the settings for the overlay? I know that one of these resets is what caused this, and I don't know how. Please help if you can! Thanks :)

I would try a few things.

Check if BezelUIServer is running constantly (in Activity Monitor). It should only start (for short durations) whenever you display an overlay (called Bezel by Apple). That server is actually located here:
/System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin/Contents/Resources/BezelUI/BezelUIServer
If you can download the OS X Installer, you might be able to extract the specific "LoginPlugin" from the installation disk and overwrite it (with an admin account) under: /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin
There appears to be a configuration file com.apple.BezelServices.plist under /Library/Preferences. You might want to reset this file (just rename it and see if OS X just re-creates it for you).
Attach a secondary monitor and make that your primary screen (with both displays setup side-by-side and not to mirror). This way you might see if the overlay is also misplaced on the secondary screen in the same location. It might have something to do with your graphics card (settings) and you might get a different result if that has to display two monitors.
Also run Disk Utility and to Verify Disk Permissions then Repair Disk Permissions and also Verify Disk and Repair Disk if necessary, but this may require you to log in from a recovery partition.
If nothing works and you really want this fixed, you could reinstall OS X, but you should really backup your files for this one. Well, in your case with the MacBook acting up, I would do that in any case! There is a very simple step-by-step guide from Apple here: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18872 and it goes like this:

  In the menu bar, choose Apple menu > Restart. Once your Mac restarts (and the gray screen appears), hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys.
  Select Reinstall OS X, then click Continue.
  Follow the onscreen instructions. In the pane where you select a disk, select your current OS X disk (in most cases, it’s the only one available).