Why does AirPlay allow the iPhone 6s to go to sleep? When AirPlaying something on an iPhone 6s the AirPlay stream pauses or dies when the iPhone 6s's screen goes dark or sleeps. AirPlay should prevent the streaming device from sleeping. How do I fix this?

Turning off the LivePhoto wallpaper feature seems to fix the issue.


Delete Sierra installer from Launchpad How do I delete the "half-cooked" Sierra installer?  The App store and "About this mac" show that Sierra is downloaded, but I still have that installer hanging out in my Lauchpad.  How can i get rid of it?  Is it safe to do so?

I think there is one more way of doing it. You just have to go to the Application folder, select the application and press CMD + Delete. Once you do this, the particular application will disappear from your launchpad as well.


Command line program to show contents of memory location? I want to inspect memory. In Linux I can probably just browse through /dev/mem, but how to view system memory at a specific location on the Mac though?

Contrary to your assumption you cannot actually just browse through /dev/mem on a default Linux. A few years ago, the device was made restricted by default on Linux so that only very limited areas of memory are available this way. You can remove the restriction only by recompiling the kernel.

On macOS the device is completely restricted by default for similar security reasons. You can however enable it using a boot time parameter.

Explicitly enable this by rebooting your Mac, holding the Command and R keys to start up in Recovery Mode. Then open the Utilities menu and select Terminal. From the Terminal you need to run the following command:

sudo nvram boot-args="kmem=1"

After rebooting you'll find that you have new /dev/mem and /dev/kmem (kernel memory) device files.

You'll need to use sudo or be root to access the devices. The /dev/mem device is addressed by physical memory address, and /dev/kmem by virtual memory address.


text width in textedit or another program How do you adjust text width?
I am sign writing a sign for a friend into timber,  all i want to do is print out the stencil so i can use it. Everytime   I enlarge the text the width changes ! I want tall skinny letters as I am limited on the sign length

If I understand you correctly, you want your text to increase in height but not in width. The typical text editor/word processor doesn't support this, there are at least two options you could investigate on

Get a proper word processor (Pages, LibreOffice, MS Word) and either pick or install a font which matches your need
Get a drawing app which allows you to stretch images (a lot of them do) from the App Store


Boot Camp failed and reduced Macintosh HD partition from 3TB to 1,46TB What went wrong? I created a new partition with Boot Camp Assistant (OS X 2,25TB | WIN 850GB), but during the partition process, the iMac suddenly restarted. When it got back on the Fusion Drive's (3,12TB) only partition (Macintosh HD) was only 1,46TB.

For the record; This is the first action I did after getting the iMac back from service where the hard drive was swopped with a brand new one.

Short story:
Half of the drive is gone and I don't know how to restore the space that is gone.
I've tried First Aid in Disk Utility on both the Fusion Drive and the partition.

Below is all the disk info i could get. Hope anybody is able to help out.

OS X El Capitan, v10.11.1 (15B38b)
iMac (27", late 2012)

-- Updated diskutil list --

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Internal Drive          121.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *3.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Internal Drive          3.0 TB     disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk1s3
/dev/disk2 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +1.5 TB     disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2
                                 D0738033-EF3B-4A6E-B6C1-5E0D98477F4D
                                 Unencrypted Fusion Drive
/dev/disk4 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +3.0 TB     disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Time Machine-sikkerh... 3.0 TB     disk4s2

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group F38D8AA1-92EE-421E-8DD8-EA44B88870C9
    =========================================================
    Name:         Internal Drive
    Status:       Online
    Size:         3120722075648 B (3.1 TB)
    Free Space:   1651571015680 B (1.7 TB)
    |
    +- Physical Volume D0B41875-348D-459C-B695-E67B7E86928F
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk0s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     120988852224 B (121.0 GB)
    |
    +- Physical Volume 2F916061-4E46-468A-B9AC-BB456BB2392C
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    1
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     2999733223424 B (3.0 TB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family E6B2F74B-9540-4043-92C7-446456885376
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Type:         None
        |
        +-> Logical Volume D0738033-EF3B-4A6E-B6C1-5E0D98477F4D
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk2
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          1463295803392 B (1.5 TB)
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               Macintosh HD
            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS
            LVG Type:              Fusion, Sparse

The first thing I would try is to open Boot Camp Assistant and see if you can remove the partition. Whether Windows was installed or not, this should be possible.

Alternatively, since I'm guessing you haven't repartitioned your drive since you installed El Capitan, you won't be able to resize the partition unless you use a source outside of your computer. Even in recovery mode, you won't be able to repartition. You might be able to resize it in Disk Utility if you use Internet Recovery: CMD + Option + R at boot. Another option would be to boot into recovery mode, install OS X on a USB drive, then from the installation on that USB drive, you would for sure be able to resize your partition.

I have done this many times, so I understand the frustration it can cause when you have space that you can't recover and the only way to get it back involves several hours of your time.

The good news is that if you ever start with a fresh partition in El Capitan, their new partition scheme is resizable even when you're using it live so you wouldn't need to ever even touch Recovery Mode.


How can I sync original photos from iCloud to a non-Apple computer? How can I automatically copy original-quality (e.g. HEIC) photos from iCloud to a non-Apple computer? I have two decades of photos from various cameras I’ve owned over the years organized on my computer and am trying to understand how to reliably add my Apple-held photos to it.

I’ve seen that I can download photos manually by using “Download: Unmodified Original” in the iCloud web interface, but this is tedious.
I tried using the iCloud app for Windows, but that apparently only exposes reduced-quality JPEG exports. My iPhone has a setting for “Transfer to Mac or PC: Keep Originals” but I don’t see an analogous setting in the iCloud app.

I’m ready to do substantial initial work to set this up (e.g. custom scripting, running a VM, etc.) but at this point I’m not sure what to even try next.

There are multiple ways of doing this I suggest the simplest one .
First you need to download iMazing app on your windows .
Download iMazing for PC
Download iMazing for MacOS
Launch iMazing and connect your device to your Mac or PC.
Select your device in the sidebar, then select "Photos".
Click "Import from Folder", and select the music you want to import.
Transfer your Photos.


Disable "natural" scrolling on MacBook with High Sierra I've just updated my 2010 MBP to High Sierra, and I'm struggling to turn off the natural scroll feature for the touchpad (I prefer the old fashioned way).

Whenever I look in system preferences, there appears to be nothing relevant when I search for it:

If I try the Mouse or Trackpad sections, it just tells me that neither are connected:

I've also looked under the 'Mouse & Trackpad' section under 'Accessibility' and tried 'Mouse Options', but still no option for it.

Am I doing something wrong?

System Preferences >  Trackpad > Scroll & Zoom


Does Apple offer a page that lists all versions of published Boot Camp drivers? I realise that the recommended way of obtaining the latest drivers for Boot Camp is via Apple's official Boot Camp Assistant built into macOS, but was wondering if Apple offers an official index that can be used to easily obtain archival versions of the drivers that have been posted to the Apple website. Some simple searching has allowed me to find several different versions - through Boot Camp 2 to version 5, but as far as I can see, there's no "Boot Camp Downloads" page or similar from where these can all be found in a simple list.

Note: A version of this answer, which downloads and extracts the Boot Camp Support Software using a Windows machine, is given here.

There used to be an Apple webpage which provided a table containing information needed to obtain the correct Boot Camp Support Software (Windows Support Software) for the each version of Windows officially supported for a given Mac. The information was either a link to a webpage where the correct Boot Camp Support Software could be downloaded or the name of the DVD containing the desired software. Basically, the DVD was the Snow Leopard installation DVD. Currently, this webpage has be replaced with the Install Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp webpage.

The Snow Leopard DVD contains legacy Boot Camp Support Software for XP SP2 and Vista installations. To access the Boot Camp Support Software on the Snow Leopard DVD, you need to be running Windows. I can no longer find the link where you could purchase a Snow Leopard DVD from Apple. However, a Snow Leopard ISO containing the Boot Camp Support Software can be downloaded. See this link for more information. Again, you will need to Windows to mount and access the Boot Camp Support Software.

The accepted answer to How to download Bootcamp drivers without Bootcamp assistant? explains how to download versions of the Boot Camp Support Software (Windows Support Software) for a particular Mac. However, the answer does not explain how to determine the differences between the available versions. Below is a script which automates steps 1 through 8 given in the answer.

#!/bin/bash
#
#

if [[ $0 != "$BASH_SOURCE" ]]; then
    bash "$BASH_SOURCE" "$@"
    return
fi

GetPkgUrl() {
    local "sucatalog=index-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog"
    while :; do
        case ${1:-} in
        --clean) rm -f *.sucatalog *.dist;;
        --legacy) sucatalog="index-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog";;
        "") return;;
        *) break
        esac
        shift
    done
    local 'sucatalogUrl=http://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/'"$sucatalog"
    local "language=English" "identifier=$1"
    shift
    if [[ ! -e $sucatalog ]]; then
        echo "fetching $sucatalogUrl"
        curl -O "$sucatalogUrl" 2>/dev/null
    fi
    local "matches=$(grep -e "BootCampESD.pkg" -e ".$language.dist" "$sucatalog")"
    local "pkgUrl" "dist" "distUrl"
    local -i "i" "count=0"
    local -a "dists=()" "pkgUrls=()"

    while read "pkgUrl"; do
        if [[ $pkgUrl == *BootCampESD.pkg* ]]; then
#           echo "$pkgUrl"
            read "distUrl"
            distUrl="${distUrl#*<string>}"
            distUrl="${distUrl%</string>*}"
#           echo "$distUrl"
            if [[ ! $distUrl == *"$language.dist"* ]]; then
                echo "Error: URL '$distUrl' did not contain the string '$language.dist'" >&2
                continue # exit "1"
            fi
            dist="${distUrl##*/}"
            dists+=("$dist")
            pkgUrl="${pkgUrl#*<string>}"
            pkgUrl="${pkgUrl%</string>*}"
            pkgUrls+=("$pkgUrl")
            if [[ ! -e "$dist" ]]; then
                echo "fetching $distUrl"
                curl -O "$distUrl" 2>/dev/null
            else
                : # echo "have $distUrl"
            fi
            count="count + 1"
        fi
    done <<< "$matches"
#   echo "found $count .dist files"

    echo
    echo "Matching URL's are listed below."
    for ((i=0; i<${#dists[@]}; ++i)); do
        dist="${dists[i]}"
        if grep "'$identifier'" "$dist" >/dev/null; then
            echo "${pkgUrls[i]}"
        fi
    done
    echo
}

GetPkgUrl "$@"

An anonymous edit was made to this answer, where the variable sucatalog was changed from index-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog to index-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog.

  Note: The --legacy option substitutes the original file name.

The identifier of my iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) is iMac12,1. Assuming the script has already been saved to the file getpkgurl, the following command can be used to get a list of available downloads.

  Note: The --clean option removes all previous downloaded files.

./getpkgurl --clean --legacy iMac12,1

  Note: A good reference for older Mac computer to identifier translations is given here.

The output from the command is given below.

fetching http://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/24/46/041-91737-A_KOBGOTCIEZ/0b9gnebg3ivdfsd79simxpr60vvx9sy31k/041-91737.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/26/37/041-91736-A_6XKJ6AQL4K/9qene91xdcr1ytzik312zjmbaxyujy0p7j/041-91736.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/24/21/041-88430-A_MH044N1M88/l1tfz2ccakcy7ko79ugzcw0naadra581o3/041-88430.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/62/58/041-98143-A_HN8B941A1T/nknv1gt3xcgylggwc11kl5e0j4296tjfo1/041-98143.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/63/48/041-88436-A_A9JD5TGYOC/9qwbctjgtpqblqv40gl7uwf625j5pe796i/041-88436.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/53/33/041-88396-A_YLDCG32JBG/ehs3p0jphqr5sfk0wh15gqxkua7nndzk8u/041-88396.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/28/47/041-88734-A_Q0SKN07BL0/7knxzec1xmojr5x5t7xnu5a4u6lslmlf9v/041-88734.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/25/38/041-88737-A_IXJZSM8OLV/fq3xy3duoq3xqp9o2sa8dkjtz5wvjaojhq/041-88737.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/09/31/041-88738-A_WMEMEM44HQ/hox9b0vuev029dtitorkp40rsgjdnww4qm/041-88738.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/53/06/041-88735-A_5MC8H30E1T/uzofvyg87dqhkn2qh1ipxy4f1uxduhitsb/041-88735.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/24/61/041-88748/z2zwt4m9xtxt5sf64w9v5bz760cohxc2jc/041-88748.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/36/49/041-98163/n3zau0xy5j0a121vnvud3jac2ahplizknu/BootCampESD.dst/041-98163.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/63/06/041-88804/p3d1dt0il8vi5w3wrzepvrs3992dtmkfwb/041-88804.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/57/55/041-88815/dmx4z5azm5wktzh9qh8kiyrbz874wj9h4d/041-88815.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/47/29/041-89072-A_HZY5QI4LGV/knck1r3qmsw9nliisjjm7vll0zv1u239eu/041-89072.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/32/09/041-89042-A_XVZ2U8XKG2/06ub1qfep6wv3g8bb68smwt3ac25xyng83/041-89042.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/52/10/061-26579-A_7RJL96VW4I/z662ygc05hfe7cukb3itfbc8i1j7boxu95/061-26579.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/35/46/041-87995-A_EWCD1K4CH1/2b5jaj1p2oxqlpzgwat4bdqjpjs8n3mxip/BootCampESD.dst/041-87995.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/23/15/041-91731-A_LBI7Q8UWOG/juk1ng0hm623gxh3jv4qxt190ga1h5p0lw/041-91731.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/35/26/041-88148-A_FV1FQ1MLRG/qyueop2fculv8o6ybt2oq266qo98pqphb9/041-88148.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/41/45/061-26565-A_30YFW2NOY7/mcryv1yqxl8bmiok36kl4tiycf3g72uda5/061-26565.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/04/44/041-84708/yq9w47gthzu8e8fqmad6hx0vs15fuk4540/041-84708.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/45/20/041-85204-A_24VIQ2D28M/3ln1dqstqacwzknssu2fyu3rqhf3y3b94n/BootCampESD.dst/041-85204.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/05/20/041-85201-A_6JI09ZIRDD/sma4jd483vqdug5bqoemfohvvahjd4rewx/BootCampESD.dst/041-85201.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/26/08/041-84821-A_AMCFPC3QDK/4fffs8qgdflw7pn1finqqd40gifh41mvs6/041-84821.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/57/55/041-84868-A_402D0DFI39/6uz8hhgtd4b87t00mrq0uihiop5ivumsbk/BootCampESD.dst/041-84868.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/29/62/041-84859-A_GGUOSJMIGN/sb1apxcjpp358ze2df6bzhwd49m2cqyzy5/BootCampESD.dst/041-84859.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/50/29/041-84869-A_EJ35WAWA75/obofx71e3kcf8aqzukdrzg7hqpv1p06hca/BootCampESD.dst/041-84869.English.dist
fetching http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/25/34/041-93123-A_M7QYPDZ8WH/dhg7w8ixxzaoay8anu1922grngi1sckdbn/041-93123.English.dist

Matching URL's are listed below.
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/04/44/041-84708/yq9w47gthzu8e8fqmad6hx0vs15fuk4540/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/45/20/041-85204-A_24VIQ2D28M/3ln1dqstqacwzknssu2fyu3rqhf3y3b94n/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/26/08/041-84821-A_AMCFPC3QDK/4fffs8qgdflw7pn1finqqd40gifh41mvs6/BootCampESD.pkg
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/57/55/041-84868-A_402D0DFI39/6uz8hhgtd4b87t00mrq0uihiop5ivumsbk/BootCampESD.pkg

The results show there are 4 possible URL's. Entering each URL in Safari will cause a version of the Boot Camp Support Software to download. The correct download would have to be determined by inspection.

  Note: By default, the .pkg installer places a .dmg file in the "/Library/Application Support/BootCamp" folder. The .dmg file contains the Windows Support Software.

This script was tested using GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin17). The version of macOS was High Sierra 10.13.6.

  Hint: You can paste the function GetPkgUrl into a Terminal application window running BASH instead of creating a script file.


ExtremeCap U3, RECentral, and El Capitan I recently upgraded to El Capitan and RECentral, the streaming application I use to play my Wii U on my iMac, no longer starts up reliably. Sometimes it just beachballs for 10 minutes until an image is displayed.

Is there a fix for this?

Looks like they just put up a new firmware for the Extremecap U3. Recentral now launches immediately for me. Also - after I updating the firmware - the beta version stopped working. I went back to version 1.2.15 and all is well.


Repair disk from single user mode (fsck fails) Earlier today my 2009 iMac emitted I/O errors trying to copy files. So I ran disk utility, verify disk to see if anything was amiss. It was. But as it's my startup disk I couldn't repair it, so I tried safe mode. Safe mode worked the very first time, but when I rebooted it shows the progress bar filling up, before halting. Every time I turn it on now, the same progress bar then crash happens. Booting in verbose mode reveals fsck is failing with signal 8.

Using single-user mode, as that's as far as I'm aware the only way I can get any access to the system, I've been running fsck_hfs. However, it always fails. Below is the output from fsck_hfs -d /dev/disk0s2.

** /dev/rdisk0s2
        Using cacheBlockSize=32K cacheTotalBlock=65536 cacheSize=2097152K.
** Root file system
   Executing fsck_hfs (version diskdev_cmds-491.6~3).
** Verifying volume when it is mounted with write access.
** Checking Journaled HFT Plus volume.
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
   Missing thread record (id = 9931104)
   Missing thread record (id = 16434146)
   Missing thread record (id = 19370458)
disk0s2: I/O error
hfs_swap_BTNode: offsets 10 and 11 out of order (0x0000, 0x0000)
   Invalid node structure
(4, 115897)
** The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely.
        volume check failed with error 7
        volume type is pure HFS+
        primary MDB is at block 0 0x00
        alternate MDB is at block 0 0x00
        primary VHB is at block 2 0x02
        alternate VHB is at block 1952491198 0x74622d5e
        sector size = 512 0x200
        VolumeObject flags = 0x07
        total sectors for volume = 1952591200 0x74622d60
        total sectors for embedded volume = 0 0x00

I absolutely need to be able to boot to use it as an external monitor.

You can try to force fsck_hfs to rebuild the catalog by running

fsck_hfs -Rc -d /dev/disk0s2

or (if you want to avoid having to answer the prompts)

fsck_hfs -y -Rc -d /dev/disk0s2

Of course this will only fix logical damages and keep failing if the disk itself is damaged.


How to disable 'Exit Full Screen' with escape on Yosemite If I press Escape by mistake while working, it exits full screen mode.

I could use Ctrl+Cmd+F if I want to exit full screen mode. How can I prevent Escape key in full screen mode?

Now, you could go ahead and brute-force disable the Escape key in
  Safari. But that'd defeat the purpose of still allowing Escape to work
  as a shortcut in the aforementioned places, which I'd rather avoid.

http://patricklenz.co/blog/2014/9/1/dont-escape-full-screen-mode-in-safari

Btw I think that your question is a duplicate : Disable Escape key in Safari for getting out of full screen mode


Disconnecting an iPhone from Exchange while preserving data If an iPhone is configured to sync with Exchange, what's the best way to break that connection while preserving all the contact and note data on the phone? Is it enough to remove the Exchange account and then sync with Outlook directly? Or are there other gotchas with that?

You can't; Exchange is an all-or-nothing deal. The only way to keep the data would be to export it to another service (e.g., MobileMe, Yahoo, Gmail, whichever works), break the connection, and then reimport the data into your regular contacts.


Office for Mac 2016, my Outlook can't connect with my company Exchange Server Installed Office for Mac 2016 last night, but after I've setup Outlook with my Exchange account, it did not work! Which previously in Office for Mac 2011 version, it works just fine, any ideas why?

It is very possible that your company is running an Exchange Server that is not compatible with Outlook for Mac 2016.

Check with your company's help desk to find out if this is indeed the issue and if so how you can reinstall Outlook 2011.


How can I get repeat 1 and still skip to next song when clicking next In previous IOS (7), I could have a playlist, shuffle to play the first song, then hit repeat one track and listen to the same music as long as I wanted. When I want another song, I could just hit next and the next song will play in a loop (as it's repeat one) until I ask to play the next song. This was perfect.

Now in IOS 9, if I repeat one, then playing next will play the same song from start again. This is useless. I want to switch to the next song in the list and then loop that song.

I command my music from my headphones when I'm motorbiking, double tap used to play next song, that was perfect, no need to fiddle with the iphone, it stays in the pocket.

How to get this behavior back???

Found 'Beat - Music player' from MonkeyBits, works great. Has strange controls but it's a great replacement to the rubbish apple music app (asking you on each screen to register to their music program).

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beat-music-player/id605037069?mt=8


Reset Safari as if never run How can I reset Safari as if it was never run, so that it opens with a "Welcome to Safari" window?

I've tried removing all traces of Safari in ~/Library without luck.
I am just curious where this information is stored.

I'm running El Capitan 10.11.6.

Did you also go through the subfolders within ~/Library? Safari files are in a number of different places within that folder?

A view examples:

Caches contains com.apple.Safari and com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing

Containers has multiple com.apple.Safari folders (may not exist on 10.11.6, I don't have anything with that OS to compare to)

Preferences, etc.


Why are iPhone4 and iPhone5 (iOS 7) not recognizing bluetooth devices? when I go to Settings -> Bluetooth and turn it on, devices (both iPhone 4 and 5, iOS7) start searching for devices with bluetooth, but never find anything. On the other hand, when I search from Android, iPhones are always found and can be paired, but sometimes not connected because of not supporting some devices (for iPhone 4 is written for me that Xperia Z2 is not supported).

The problem is that I'm trying to discover nearby beacon, but as I've said, I cannot discover anything with iPhones. Android discovers it without problem.

How can I solve it, so my devices find surrounding devices sending bluetooth signals?

iPhone 4 has bluetooth whereas iPhone 5 has AirDrop. So they are not compatible with each other.

That is answer to a part of your question that iPhone doesn't recognise other iPhone (5 and 4).


Where are iOS updates in El Capitan located on Mac Someone posted this question before giving the following location as the directory

 ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

I am downloading the latest version right now and it is NOT in this directory. I've tried a system wide search for the .ipsw extention and checked to make sure it wasn't hidden, nothing has worked. Does anyone know where the files are actually being stored? All software and OS are up to date as of 12-15-15..

The file should be in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates not /Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

The first is your personal User Library, the second is the System Library.
The tilde ~ sign is an abbreviation recognised by the System meaning Boot Drive/Users/Your Name/ & saves having to know the names of the boot drive & current user.
It's kind of the Mac equivalent of using %appdata% in Windows to find the current user's Roaming folder - an environment variable.

By default ~/Library is hidden, so delving down the file hierarchy manually you won't find it.

You can get to ~/Library from the Finder > Go menu if you hold  Opt ⌥  whilst selecting the folder, but if you have a specific destination, I find it easier to Go directly there…

In Finder,  Cmd ⌘   N  for New window
 Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   G  for Go…
Copy/paste ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates including the tilde ~ & hit  Enter ⌅


iPad app recommendation for photo sharing I recently bought an iPad 2 for my parents, and I'm looking for an app that allows me to share photos (JPEGs) on my Windows PC with them. I imagine myself dropping the images somwhere, and they can see the photos by opening the app. I would like something simple to use that doesn't require sending a link or opening a browser, and that the pictures be private. I would also accept an app that only stores pictures temporarily (they are not meant for long-term storage).

The easiest solution I can think of is Dropbox: You can just drop (as the name suggest) some photos in a folder on your PC or Mac (or another mobile device) and they'll automatically be synchronized with the folders and apps on your other devices.

https://www.dropbox.com


iPhone 4S wifi will not turn on How can I fix the gray wifi icon? It will not slide to turn on wifi, it's been happening since the new ios7 update

that is a trick you may tried it out, it's work for me for now.

1) use air dryer heat up your phone at the top part(you can aim on the headphone jack) until you iphone shown up the temperature screen.

2) When the temperature screen show up , turn off you phone (caution! the phone is very HOT).

3)After it is off pit it into a zip lock bag.

4)Let it rest for 1-2min and then put into the freezer for 30Min

5)When you take it out let it remain in zip lock bag and turn on the phone ( it may show battery low screen. If it's happen wait for a while and try turn it on again)

6) You are done!! you fix your wifi.

It will grayed out again whenever you update to a newer version of ios, so if that happen redo this proccess. So far it work for me, you may give it a try..


How to blur the background in photo booth? When using photo booth, I see there is an 'Effects' button with many effects like 'Space Alien' and 'Dizzy'.
But if I want to simply blur the background a little, how do I do that?

Photo Booth in macOS Catalina no longer has the option for custom backgrounds. If you have an older version of macOS, you can add your own background, which you can blur.

Take a picture using Photo Booth without you in it, such that it captures the background.
Blur the image using a photo editing application, such as Photoshop or one from Tool to quickly hide/blur/redact text in screenshot?.
In Photo Booth effects, on the last page for custom backgrounds, drag your image in.


Option-N and Option-P (What are they doing and how do I disable or rebind them?) On Catalina 10.15.6 (and even on High Sierra), typing either Option-N or Option-P pops up a series of "quick looks" at all my current "application windows." But I am unable to find any documentation about what this is called (it only appeared in 10.14, I believe).
I have spent--truly--hours looking up how to understand and change this behavior...shocked this is not mentioned anywhere.
While I can see some value in this behavior, I use those keys in Emacs (as well as Logic Pro), where N/P keys are frequently used as mnemonics for "next/previous." While I have worked around this in Emacs by using ESC as a substitue, I want to free up Option-N and Option-P again.
If I can learn the name of this operation, I will gladly also rebind those functions to non-conflicting shortcuts.

Thanks--the comments made me realize that I was barking up the wrong tree.
This shortcut was not a system shortcut but actually provided by Hammerspoon, specifically a feature (not a bug) of https://github.com/agzam/spacehammer, which is designed to provide convenient shortcuts for an "Spacemacs" workflow:

Other features

Alternative App Switcher Option n/p
Simple tab switcher for Chrome and iTerm Option j/k

Quitting the whole Hammerspoon process gave me back those keys.


I know my battery should be replaced, but is that all of the problem? (Update) Updated:
I am using a MacBookPro8,1 with a non-replaceable battery. Recently that battery charging status was saying,Replace soon. But it was working fine and kept enough charge for my daily works. So I didn't need to take the charger at work.
But when I shut down the laptop for few minutes, then I cannot turn it on without the charger plugged in.
The battery status is now Replace Now.
when I press Battery indicator button at side of the laptop case, all LEDs start blinking at same time (5 times).
The MagSafe LED is also green.
Also Mac OSX shows that 98% of the battery is charged.
But when the laptop is off, pressing the Battery indicator button doesn't turn on any LEDs (Normally it should turn on all LEDs as it is charged 98%)
Also, more importantly when I plug out the charger the computer turns off instantly. Not even with a second delay.
On the other side, when I turn on the laptop the time goes back to 2001.
I tried to rest SMC by holding Shift+crtl+option+power and then releasing them at same time while the computer was off. Then I pressed the turn off/on button.

I had another problem with my MacBook's charging issue few months ago. But I solved it with replacing the charger's capacitors. But I think in this case the problem is with the battery

  I know my battery should be replaced, but is that all of the problem? Or Does it have other issues?

  Did I correctly reset SMC with that approach?

  Is there anything I can do to use this battery a bit longer and
  postpone buying a new one?

Thanks for your reply.

Here are the status images:

You can leave your battery unchanged as long as you want, even it is not recommended by the operating system (i.e. Apple).

From my own experience (2011 MacBook Air with 1178 load cycles), the battery performance will just degrade more.

It may be be months away, but at one point the battery will be so weak that an unplugged Mac will not go to sleep when the battery is empty, but just shut down. Trust me, you will notice.

An Apple Store employee told me that battery replacements can often be done while you wait, or within a few hours if you make a Genius Bar appointment rather early in the morning.

Good luck!


AirPods Poor Siri Voice Quality I recently purchased Apple AirPods, which I use with my iPhone 7. The sound quality is amazing, however, when using Siri through the AirPods, whether invoked on the iPhone or double-tapping the AirPod, Siri's voice quality is very poor. It does not sound too unlike the original low-quality Siri voice you get on a new iMac or iPhone before it downloads the HD version. When I disconnect the AirPods, Siri goes back to speaking in her high quality voice, with the context inflections Apple added not long ago. Is there any way to switch the voice quality for the AirPods?

There isn't such things like upgrading the voice quality available right now as far as I know. If that seems to be an issue, you should visit an Apple Store while it's in the warranty time period.


FileVault2: how do I use the recovery key when asked for a "Disk Password"? I've got a MacBook Pro protected with FileVault 2 (10.9), and can't remember the password to unlock the disk.

When I boot, it asks for the "Disk Password".

What I have is the recovery key that I printed on paper when I activated FileVault.

How do I use it ?

Entering a wrong password multiple times doesn't prompt for the recovery key, and sometimes a '?' appears but it doesn't do anything.

(I've read http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4790, but it doesn't explain how to use the recovery key.)

Use the recovery key to reset the login password

Retrieve the recovery key you copied down when you turned on FileVault disk encryption.
If you cannot find your recovery key, but stored it with Apple, contact Apple Support.
Restart the computer.
On the login screen, click on the account to unlock and reset the login password.
In the password field, click on the Question Mark (?)
If you created a password hint, it is displayed.
If you remember your password then enter it now.

If you still need to reset your password, click the bottom line “reset it using your Recovery Key,” and then enter your recovery key.

Alternative method:

Recovery

If a user forgets their password, and a recovery key was installed before FileVault 2 was turned on, you can use the following steps to unlock an encrypted disk. Note: This procedure only works when the computer is started from OS X Recovery.

Restart the client while holding the Command and R keys.
Connect an external drive containing the FileVaultMaster.keychain file with the private key.
From the Utilities menu, select Terminal.
If the keychain containing the private key is stored in an encrypted disk image, use the following command to mount it:

hdiutil attach /path/to/diskImage

Use the following command to unlock the FileVaultMaster.keychain file; be sure to insert the correct path to your keychain file:

security unlock-keychain <path to Keychain File>

For example, on a volume named ThumbDrive:
security unlock-keychain /Volumes/ThumbDrive/FileVaultMaster.keychain
Enter the master password to unlock the keychain. If the password is accepted the command prompt will return.
Use the following command to list the drives and corestorage volumes:

diskutil cs list

Look for the UUID of Logical Volume, usually the last in the list. Select and copy the UUID for the next command step.
Use the following command to unlock the encrypted disk. Be sure to insert the UUID from the previous step, and the correct path to the keychain file:

diskutil cs unlockVolume <UUID> -recoveryKeychain <path to Keychain File>

For example, you'd use this command if there was a UUID of 2F227AED-1398-42F8-804D-882199ABA66B on a volume named ThumbDrive:
diskutil cs unlockVolume 2F227AED-1398-42F8-804D-882199ABA66B -recoveryKeychain /Volumes/ThumbDrive/FileVaultMaster.keychain

Enter the master password to unlock the keychain. The volume will be mounted. You can now back up data using Disk Utility, or by using command line tools such as ditto.


See history for a specific tab in Safari with right click Like in Chrome or Firefox, I wish to right click on the navigation arrows on the left to display the pages visited before in the current tab in Safari. Is it possible to configure this? I did not find it in the browser's options.

Thank you

You can do this in Safari by regular click and hold on the back arrow key. A right-click allows you to customize toolbar. I don't know if you can make the same option with a right-click.


Upgrade Apps from iPod to iPad I'm considering buying an iPad 2. I already have an iPod Touch and was wondering if there is a way to upgrade apps, either for free or pay the difference, that I have already purchased in order to get the iPad specific version, or do I have to rebuy anything that I would want on the iPad? I know it can run iPhone apps, I'm just looking at the apps that have specific ones for each device.

It depends:

There are a few universal apps (the ones that will have a + icon in their purchase area), which means that they run in a native UI on both devices. Many developers have added this to their apps for free to the user. In this case, you probably even have the updated version already, and it will work just right on your iPad. Some examples may be like Instapaper, NewsRack, 2Do, The Incident, Infinity Blade, etc.
Other apps differentiate between the two versions, usually a normal version and what many call an HD version. Since this is a different app, they usually are priced differently and can not be updated between versions. An example would be Flight Control or Angry Birds, both have a different iPhone and iPad app, where you would have to buy both.

There is no way currently to upgrade to the better version for a discount between devices. So to answer your question, you would have to rebuy anything you want on your iPad (that's specifically made for iPad) that wasn't provided for free from the developer in an upgrade to the app (where the developer made the app universal with an update).


Mavericks and Yosemite marks mails in multiple accounts as read I have 2 accounts configured in my Mac mail. alex@ and orders@

If for example I receive an e-mail with TO: alex@ and CC: orders@ it will go to both e-mail addresses. So far so good, but when I read only one copy (either from alex@ either from orders@) the mail app marks as read both of them.

This is happening even if I have Gmail account or Yahoo it does not matter the server.
Any idea of how to stop this? I just need to mark as read the e-mail I read from the specific email account, not from all of them.

Strictly speaking, You have read it.

I've noticed recently that if I get duplicate emails to 2 accounts, Mail is actually appearing to merge them into one email [at a user-level anyway, idk about behind the scenes]

I know of no way round this, so maybe try using Flags instead of the 'read' indicator. More work, but more reliable.


Recover photos lost by a restore operation? I'm using iOS 11. I had around 5000 photos on my phone. I took the following steps:

Took a local computer (on Mac) backup via iTunes.
Did the factory reset & erased the entire phone.
Restarted the phone with a fresh setup and took around 20 photos.
After a few hours later I reconnected my phone to my Mac and restored the backup took in the 1st step

The fourth step might have overridden those 20 photos and I'm not able to recover those. I tried various softwares but nothing worked. Is there a way I can get back those photos or does iTunes took a backup before the restore?

The main thing to note is...
Restore does not merge old & new data. It replaces one with the other.

At restore, any information currently on the device will be erased.
This applies to any device, phone, computer etc. On a computer with a regular hard disk, forensic software may be able to recover some lost data. On a flash-based storage device, let alone one like an iPhone which uses hardware encryption, this data is gone forever.

This can be something of an issue if you have important data & need to restore from an earlier backup.

For photos etc, the simplest way to be able to re-merge afterwards would be to save them in Photos, or use Image Capture etc before restoring the older backup. You could then use iTunes to re-add them afterwards, in effect as 'new' data.


How to securely erase Apple NVME SSD? I just got one of the new 12-inch MacBooks and would like to wipe the storage drive. With a conventional SATA drive I'd use the "ATA Secure Erase" command which can be sent from a Linux environment using the hdparm utility.

With the new NVME drive this does not work. I found a Linux utility called nvme-cli but even with its format option it fails with an error INVALID_OPCODE(1) (looks like the NVME controller rejects the command).

I've tried multiple permutations of the command and options, including targeting the raw NVME controller /dev/nvme0 or one of its namespaces instead /dev/nvme0n1, different parameters to the -s option, etc. I also bought Parted Magic which claims to be able to secure-erase NVME drives and unfortunately that fails as well.

I'm currently just doing it the old-school way with shred which writes random data to the drive but obviously this isn't ideal as it's slow and shortens the live of the drive, so I'd love to know the proper method to use in the future.

Regards.

The proper / official / thorough way to sanitize an Apple SSD is to enable FileVault before you copy any data to it. When you shred the encryption keys - the data is cryptographically erased instantly.

  Note: With a solid-state drive (SSD), secure erase options are not available in Disk Utility. For more security, consider turning on FileVault encryption when you start using your SSD drive.

Apple’s terse recommendation requires you to read between the lines or know about cryptographic sanitization of data and read up on FIPS / etc...

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207497

That being said, I would just install a new OS and then enable FileVault which will then encrypt each block on the drive with the new keys - a one time erase pass.

Then you can decide if you want to put it back in service or destroy those keys without decrypting the contents of the drive.

Why is a secure erase 'not necessary' for SSD's?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201949
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22241
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837


Converting AIFF to MP3 in iTunes on El Capitain In my MacBook, running El Capitan 10.11.6 with iTunes 12.4.3.1. I'm right clicking on the sound file inside iTunes in order to convert it from an AIFF to a MP3 — I do not see either of the options “Create MP3 Version” or “Convert Selection to MP3,” even after restarting iTunes.

How can I convert the file?

Hold option while selecting the file(s), and then go to File > Convert > Convert to MP3. You should see the option there.


How to put Photos.app main library on an external disk? I am using the new Apple Photos app on Yosemite, but I don't want to use iCloud for my photos, and I don't want to keep all of them on my computer. So I as wondering if it is possible to have my main photo library on an external network drive, and to sync only some of them with my computer.

You can change the library location from the Preferences window on the General tab. Photos > Preferences... and select the General tab.

At the top where it says Library Location: click the Show In Finder button:

In the Finder window that opens, move the Photos Library.photoslibrary to the place where you'd rather it exist. This can take some time if it's a large library.

Once it's moved, double click on it in Finder and your Photos app will update and point to the new location.


How to share and project Powerpoint presentation with ARD I would like to present a Powerpoint 2011 presentation in a classroom with ~20 student machines equipped with Apple Remote Desktop 3.5.1.  There is also a projector and small screen in front.  I have two closely-related questions:

When I project the presentation, I can get the presenter view on the instructor machine, which is great, but, when I share my desktop, students see the presenter view, not the full-screen slide show being projected.  Is there a way to choose which of my displays to share?
Is Share Screen even the right feature to use?  In the Apple forum, users recommended creating a Powerpoint show and pushing that to user machines, rather than using Screen Share; however, I would like to control the pace of the slides (because of animations, etc.)

In answer to the first query - When the students connect they should see both of your displays and then be able to select Display 1 or Display 2 for a closer look at either one. These options appear (or not) depending on the display arrangement setup under Displays in System Preferences.

The bottom line is, ARD is not really suited to this task. There is a piece of software that does exactly what you're after, but it does cost. It's called LANSchool.

The killer LANSchool feature that you're looking for is - 'Show Teacher's Screen'. This overlays your screen onto a selection of student machines. There's a 30 day trial available, I highly recommend you try it out!


Will jailbreaking my iPhone 4s allow me to copy songs manually in iTunes (or other software)? I want to be able to manage my music manually on my iPhone, but it's currently synced with a no longer available computer and won't let me re-sync with another computer without completely erasing my iPhone, apparently.

Is jailbreaking an option or will I still be limited by iTunes and this ridiculous restriction?

I'm not an expert on jail breaking, but AFAIK, that limitation is baked into iTunes - it doesn't really care if your phone is jailbroken, at least for the purposes of your question - it just talks with the music app (or more specifically, the database behind it).

That said, there is software out there that can restore your iTunes library from an iPod or iPhone. iRip works on OS X, there's also DeTune. SharePod seems to be the goto option for Windows. You'll have to use one of those programs to get your library back on your new computer, then re-sync your iPhone from your new library.


In Numbers, how can I show a formula instead of the result? I want selected cells to show the formula instead of the result of the formula, for example cells C4 and D4 here.

If the cell is formatted as text before I enter the formula, then the formula remains text.  However, selecting text format after the formula has been computed has no effect.

If I understand correctly...

Enter the formula in the cell normally.
In the formula box dropdown, select Convert Formula to Text in Cell

This will replace the formula result with the formula.

Warning: This will replace the formula with text so if any other cell's formula is dependent on the converted cell it will break.


iMac and MacBook Air shared monitor I have used a thunderbolt connection and pressed Command F2 to allow my track pad and keyboard on my MBA to run both screens. However, I want to use the wireless track pad and keyboard that comes with the iMac instead of the laptop track/keyboard. In other words, I would like the iMac to be the primary computer and use the laptop as a secondary screen (with all control remaining with the iMac). Is this possible?

Simple answer, no it's not possible. The Target Display Mode is a function specific to the iMac and this functionality isn't incorporated into MacBooks.

You could of course pair the wireless keyboard and trackpad to your MacBook and use TDM on the iMac, but if you're trying to leverage the iMac's CPU power you're out of luck I'm afraid. You'd be better off buying a small cheap monitor if you need a secondary display for use with the iMac.


Is the i7 2.3 Ghz CPU significantly faster than the 2.2 one? I'm shopping for a 17-inch MacBook Pro and trying to figure out my minimum specs.

From the Apple website it appears these are the two procesor options...

  2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 6MB shared L3 cache; or optional 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache

Do the additional .1 Ghz and 2 MB of cache make the 2.3 Ghz model noticeably faster?

(I do understand that HD access is usually the biggest bottleneck, but for my particular tasks CPU speed does make a difference.)

Even in CPU-intensive tasks, the difference is going to be more of the "noticeable in synthetic benchmarks" variety, rather than "I see it in the real world" variety. I'd save the money and put it first towards an SSD option, then more RAM.

Processor speed is almost flat these days, so minor bumps aren't worth the money.

My very aging MacPro got a new lease on life when I replaced the boot disk with an SSD earlier this year. There's nothing better for improving perceived responsiveness.


Is there a utility for mac that shows the information of an SSD like the health etc…? I am wondering if there is a utility for the mac that allows you to see the details of an SSD like the health of the drive, TBW (total bites written), how many running hours etc... In researching for an app of such a kind I found (SSDLife) for windows? It looks like to me that a program like this would be exactly what I would need. The most important information that I need to know about is the TBW (total bites written) on the drive. Because I have heard that once an SSD drive reaches a certain amount of writes it becomes a read only drive, so this information would be invaluable to me.

If you're OK with Command Line utilities, you can always use smartmontools from http://www.smartmontools.org/.

You would need XCode to compile them from source (unless someone here knows binary distribution for Mac OSX), but if I remember correctly I had no issues compiling the package.

I have an OCZ SSD retrofitted into my MBP 15" mid-2010 and I can use smartctl command to monitor various stats, including your Total Bytes Written (called here Lifetime_Writes) as well as Media Wearout Indicator (shown as percentage).

To give you an idea, here's the example output:

MacBook:~  smartctl -a /dev/disk0
smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [x86_64-apple-darwin12.2.0] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Indilinx Everest/Martini based SSDs
Device Model:     OCZ-VERTEX4
Serial Number:    OCZ-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
LU WWN Device Id: 5 e83a97 49c31f44c
Firmware Version: 1.5
User Capacity:    512,110,190,592 bytes [512 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sat Apr 20 23:39:33 2013 IST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      ( 249) Self-test routine in progress...
                    90% of test remaining.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:        (    0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:            (0x1d) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                    No Auto Offline data collection support.
                    Abort Offline collection upon new
                    command.
                    Offline surface scan supported.
                    Self-test supported.
                    No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                    No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                    power-saving mode.
                    Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x00) Error logging NOT supported.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (   0) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (   0) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 18
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x0000   006   000   000    Old_age   Offline      -       6
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       2981
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       417
232 Lifetime_Writes         0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       14566414269
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0000   100   000   000    Old_age   Offline      -       100

SMART Error Log not supported

Warning! SMART Self-Test Log Structure error: invalid SMART checksum.
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

Selective Self-tests/Logging not supported

The exact parameters and stats shown for your SSD might vary, but as it's a free tool, you can try and see for yourself!


How do I move my iPhone contacts to Gmail? I have an iPhone that is already synced with my iMac, but I am away on leave and am using a Windows 7 computer. I need to send the contacts I've created on my iPhone to my Gmail account online, because I am going to update my iPhone's operating system and want to be sure I do not lose the contacts on my phone. I know I will probably lose my music, but that's okay.

Since end of 2012, Google has ended support for the Exchange protocol, so you would not be able to sync your iPhone contacts with your Gmail account via Exchange. Instead use the Gmail account method directly via Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add account... > Gmail, enter your Gmail account credentials and enable contact sync.

You can alternatively export your iPhone contacts to your computer to a single vCard file and then import the contacts file to your Gmail account.


How to download all my Flickr content? Are there any free apps to download my entire photostream from Flickr?

Or at least as much content as possible? I want to quit my Flickr account.

http://www.malarkeysoftware.com/projects_PhotoGrabbr.html

This great piece of software will do it.

Beware though, if don't have a pro account, you can't download the high resolution originals.


How to clear the Photos icon badge For some reason that is not clear to me, the Photos app icon on the dock of my Yosemite OS now displays a badge (the number 1 in a red circle top right corner)

First of all, I have no idea what that badge is suppose to represent.  Second, when I launch the app I have not idea what the thing is that I'm suppose to look at, acknowledge or in some way "touch" so that the badge goes away.

If you haven't already, turn on the sidebar - Option-Command-S - then look towards the top and under Shared, click Activity. Likely there is some activity on a shared album or Photo Stream. It may also be someone inviting you to join a shared album or Photo Stream. (I'm not sure how that would show up in Photos, as I haven't had any invitations since Photos was released.)

Either way I'm guessing once you take a look at that area, the badge will disappear.


Where to find documentation for `whois` command options? macOS has whois command available. Running it without any argument shows the following:

usage: whois [-aAbfgiIklmPQrRS] [-c country-code | -h hostname] [-p port] name ...

Here, the -c, -h, and -p options have description. However, no description is available for the rest of the shown options -aAbfgiIklmPQrRS.

How can I find the documentation for the same?

You can read the man page for whois command by running the following in the Terminal:

man whois

The man page for a command is the all-encompassing document, listing all the available options for the command. Man pages are generally available for all the available external commands. To locate installed man page(s) for a command, run the following:

man -aw <command>

To read a specific man page for a command, (in case more than one are listed on running the above) use the absolute path for the man page.

While viewing the man page for a command, you can use the following keyboard shortcuts to navigate:

j: Scroll down one line at a time.
k: Scroll up one line at a time.
f or Space: Scroll down one page at a time.
b: Scroll up one page at a time.
/search: To search for the keyword search. Use n to navigate to the next match.
q: Quit the man page viewer and return to the shell.


Is it possible to burn a DVD (or usb bootable drive) out of the Mountain Lion app store install? Is it possible to burn a DVD (or usb bootable drive)  out of the Mountain Lion app store install?

Yes it's possible, you can find a couple of useful guides for the steps required. Here is one from Macworld.

The main points are to do it before installing Mountain Lion as the installer will delete the install files, and use the disk image in the application package as the source for your USB key or DVD.

The USB key will generally give you better performance if you need to reinstall OS X later.


Siri repeatedly gives me a wrong response Siri does not voice activate on my iPhone 6. When summoned by the home button & asked to make a call, it repeatedly plays a song from the play list.

For example, when I say "Hey Siri, call my mother" I get a response like, "I do not know who My mother is".

I have rebooted the iPhone, and also reset the settings. Any suggestions?

The issue you have when trying to use Siri to make a call by saying, "Hey Siri, call my mother" is that unless Siri knows who your mother is, how can 'she' call her?

To get around these types of issues you need to populate your Contacts app with the information (metadata) it needs for Siri to action those sorts of requests.

Below are a few examples of what I mean:

If your mum's name is Charlene and that's how it's entered into your contacts, then saying, "Hey Siri, call Charlene" would work. Likewise, if you change her Contact details to Mum instead of Charlene, saying "Hey Siri, call Mum" should work. All of this is because Siri now knows who you're referring to.
If you have your mum's birthday in her Contact details, then saying "Hey Siri, when is Mum's birthday" would work. Of course, if you have no birth date listed, Siri has no way of answering this question.
If you don't have a 'home' address entered in your contact details, then saying "Hey Siri, direct me home" isn't going to work.
If you don't have an 'email' address entered in your Dad's contact details, then saying "Hey Siri, email Dad about dinner" isn't going to work.

In all of the above examples, the only way Siri can action a request accurately is by knowing the necessary information. And the only way Siri can know that information is if you've provided it somewhere to begin with, such as in your Contacts app.

If you specifically want to be able to say the words, "Hey Siri, call my mother" then you'd have to do something like change her contact details so her name was listed as "My Mother".


How can I leave Gmail for Mail? I've decided I want to take the plunge and leave Gmail for Mail, using my iCloud account. Why? I've lost trust in Google (incl. their search bias, how they handle my privacy, and how they treat the end-user as a commodity to sell rather than a customer to serve). I know there are others like me (I just found today: www.leavegooglebehind.com)

I'm looking for answers on how to swap over completely from Gmail to Mail while retaining the functionality I'm accustomed to. I've done a bit of researching and can't seem to nail the answers to my questions. Your answers on any of the items below would be much appreciated. And if you think there's a better way I should be asking the question, please let me know.

Here's what I'm looking for especially:

   I use Gmail's labels a lot. How can I get the same
    effect in Mail? Smart folders? (I do wish smart folders synced to
    iCloud.) Note: I am not asking about replicating + maintaining Gmail labels in Mail — I don't need to replicate + maintain: I'm leaving Gmail. I just need a system with a similar functionality. Something I could use on both my Mac and my iPad would be ideal.
   I have a lot of Gmail labels. What's a good way to export
    from Gmail without getting oodles of duplicates? Forwarding folder
    by folder would be time consuming + lossy, and stripping the labels
    would be counterproductive. Are those my only real options? Note: Yes, I know this question does get attention, but a lot of the attention is quite old. Both Gmail and OSX have changed a lot over the last few years. I'd love a good recent resource, based on Lion + Mt Lion.
    I use a lot
    of Gmail filters. Mail rules seem even better, but is there any way
    to automate transferring my filters to Mail?
  I use Gmail 'send mail
    as' with a collection of non-gmail addresses (from my domains). Is
    there any way to use my iCloud account to send from a non-iCloud
    address? Or, is my only option to sign up with a different webmail
    service in order to send from my alternate addresses in Mail?
   Like many people, I
    have my own set of pre-defined Gmail keyboard shortcuts. Do I just
    need to tough it out and learn the Mail shortcuts, or is there a
    good, free/inexpensive app for adding shortcuts to Mail? And no, I
    don't mean through SysPrefs (I know how to do that ;) ). I mean Gmail
    style single-letter shortcuts, like 'r' for reply.
    Tips for
    converting Gmail Contacts to Address Book. Note: This area also gets some attention, but again the attention I keep hitting is old.

If you've made the switch, I'd be especially interested to hear your experience! I'd really like to get Mail up and running sooner and rid myself of Google.

Before you completely ditch GMail and go just with your iCloud account, you'll need to ask yourself this question:

  Will you only access your mail solely from Apple devices?

I for one created an iCloud e-mail account on my Mac just to be disappointed that I couldn't configure my Android phone to access it. Probably Apple is not using standard IMAP for its iCloud e-mail service.

That said, you could upgrade your GMail account to a premium account to get better quality of service (and perhaps not having them selling off your e-mails).


Can the onscreen iPad keyboard move the cursor? One of the oddities of the iPad is that when I activate the screen-based touch keyboard, there are no arrow keys. There are arrow keys on a physical Apple keyboard, but no arrow keys on the touchscreen keyboard. Am I missing something, or some shortcut?

Without arrow keys I end up fumbling around trying to touch with my finger the exact place in the text where the cursor should go, but since my finger is the diameter of 2.5 lines of text, this is a trial and error process.

If you tap and hold with 2 fingers on the software keyboard it turns it into a touchpad-like view which you can drag around on to control the cursor.


How to keep multiple desktops static? I am using multiple desktops on my Mac. Depending on how I use them, the desktops seem to switch around. For instance the place where 'Terminal' is (second from the left) moves one to the right.  Where 'Terminal' used to be is now 'Desktop1'. The screenshots below hopefully clarifies what I mean. How can I keep them static at the same location?

Go to System Preferences → Mission Control and uncheck Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use.


Internet sharing disabling Macbook Wifi So I wanted to share the Ethernet connection through my Wifi to my phone, since it is having problems connecting to my router at home.

My Wifi works fine on it's own. My ethernet connection works fine on it's own.

But when I plug in my Ethernet connection and turn internet sharing on it disables my wifi. When I try to click "Turn on WIFI" nothing happens.

As you can see in the top right corner the Wifi is disabled and I can't enable it.

After the Internet sharing disables my Wifi I need to turn off internet sharing and restart my macbook for the Wifi to switch back on again.

Does anyone know why this is the case?

I have tried looking for alternative hotspot software for mac, maybe this will solve my problems but couldn't find any of those either.

I was also scratching my head just to share my one iPhone internet to tether via my iMac. It was so silly what solved the problem.

Uncheck the internet sharing checkbox in sharing system preferences.

After unchecking the internet fields were enabled.


I can't remove alarms set with old apple mail app I set some alarms using older mail program that came with OS X 10.6. During all upgrades, the alerts were preserved, but now I want to remove them and I can't find where they are defined. They are not in reminders, not in calendar, not on mail program. I'm now running on iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

In Reminders there should be a folder titled 'Notes' where all your old Mail todo's have been moved.  To see your folders you have to click one of the buttons on the bottom right of the side-menu.  There should be a similar folder in the Notes application where all your old Mail notes have been moved.


Mounted drive does not show up on Disk Utility, Desktop, Finder Sidebar I've an external drive that consists of 2 partitions, one NTFS that I use for storing stuff and one Journaled that I use for TimeMachine.

I've connected the drive to my Mac but now the NTFS partition is not showing up on the desktop, finder sidebar or disk util app, while the TimeMachine partition does.

I though that the NTFS partition wasn't being mounted but if I go to /Volumes it's there and I can in fact browse the drive, open the stuff that's saved there and also save new stuff, so the drive is working fine, it's just not showing up where it should..

It even works and shows up on the Terminal when executing the diskutil list command, and I can diskutil unmount disk3s2 and diskutil mount disk3s2 without issues.

What do I need to do for the partition to show on the aforementioned places?

A simple restart fixed the issue for some reason.


How to replace all Finder files with a placeholder file for each I have lots of files from a database which are to be copied to a new database, but the files for these are corrupt (They are zero-byte in size and contain no data). Rather than the new database showing an error when the file is encountered, I want a text file to read "This file is empty".

Making the placeholder text file is easy, but how can the file be renamed for each of the potentially hundreds of files it is to replace?

The source files are numbered like 1234.txt 2345.txt 34455.txt etc

The replacement files need the same name but need all have the exact same content (message) wording I specify.

I thought AppleScript could simply record and repeat my actions of file selecting, name copying, file deleting, duplicating, moving etc but that didn't work (AppleScript didn't even notice me selecting the files).

I thought I could do it with Automator, too, but surprisingly could find no rename function that would replace the file name with text copied to the clipboard, so that didn't work either.

I know Terminal can do this in a flash and have asked a similar question like this about a year ago elsewhere but can't find any record of the answer now.

I am using Mac OS X 10.7.5. Any help using any method is appreciated.

Basically you want to find a bunch of files which are empty (have size 0 bytes) and then change their content to "This file is empty".

cd to/wherever/the/files/are
find . -type f -size 0 -print | while IFS= read -r line; do
    echo "This file is empty" > "$line"
done

If instead you want to remove them, run

cd to/wherever/the/files/are
find . -type f -size 0 -delete


How to "archive" iTunes files with all metadata? I recently decided to do a big cleanup of my iTunes library. I am low on disk space and have quite a bit of music that I haven't listened to since I was a much younger man, but I can't bring myself to get rid of it completely yet. So what I would like to do is move these tracks to another machine or an external drive, but I don't want to lose any of the metadata, (including dates added, play count etc). Any ideas on a safe and efficient way to do this? I'm running 10.9.4 with up to date iTunes.

You can do a manual 'backup' of your existing iTunes library to a separate drive, which then gives you the capacity to restore the library later:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751

It's also possible to leave the library version intact and just move the audio files. iTunes marks missing tracks with an exclamation mark. If you try to play a track that has been moved, iTunes will prompt you to locate the track and enable you to point to it. If you wished, you could eventually manually update all your off-disk music. You can even move your entire media folder, should you wish:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449


MacOS calendar notifications I'm synchronizing my google calendar with macOS and therefore getting holidays in my country which are annoying since I'm alerted about each.
I've unchecked checkbox "Holidays in country", but nonetheless still getting alerts. How could I get rid off these events from calendar? These are not shown in calendar but I get informed about each the day before. On iPhone unchecking corresponding checkbox has helped me but not on the macOS. What do I do?

I don't know whether this would be the same for a Google Calendar, but for an Apple 'public' calendar, you can switch off alerts from the Info panel [right click the calendar on the left]


Are passwords in my keychain readable by enterprises MDM tools? So, our company is starting to push MDM (VMWare Workstation One) around... I understand they want to be safe... But I'm worried about my safety.
Question: Is my keychain still safe after MDM is pushed to my macbook?

You should not be installing work-issued MDM solutions on a personal computer, and you should not keep personal content on a work computer unless you are okay with IT management at the company accessing it. Assume they have the same permissions as an administrator account with screen sharing enabled.
To answer your question, your keychain is protected by your account login password in most cases. In the "assume they have an administrator account" scenario, that does not give them access. However, they probably also have your account password accessible if they use any sort of managed login system (my work requires enterprise passwords to be used for machine accounts) which would allow access.


How to combine files in subdirectories in macOS I have a folder with a lot of subfolders named as dates.
1-1-2013, 1-1-2014, 1-1-2015, ...

I want to combine all the files in subfolders that match the same year into a new folder named after the year. So in this example, all the folders ending in the year 2013 (1-1-2013) would go into a folder named "2013" and so on.
How do I accomplish this with Automator?

An easy way to do it would be use the Terminal, and write command as follows:
mkdir 2013

This create a folder named 2013 after the year.
mv *-2013/* 2013

This moves all the files from the folders those names end with "-2013" into the folder named 2013.
If you have a large number of years to do this for, consider using a simple bash script with a for loop - something like this:
for year in {2000..2020}
do
  mkdir $year
  mv *-$year/* $year
done


iPad typing by itself I have an iPad that I've been using for 9 months or so already. And I was using it just today (reading an article from the Internet) it accidentally flops (forgive my English) over my chest but when I open it up for reading again it starts to type by itself or at least it will not respond when I touch a button on the screen for example.

I tried to turn it off (by pressing the two buttons) but once It shows the slider to finally turn it off. The slider does not badge at all. So, I forced to cancel the shutting down of my iPad and here it is again going back to typing by itself.

And I was looking in the Internet and lo behold I am not alone. There had already been many case like this and it looks it has no solution at all for the moment.

I am living in an island nation (actually group of islands) called Federated States of Micronesia and we bought it from the mainland (USA) and I know probably some of your suggestions would be to ask for replacement. However, it would take very long if ever I will be allowed to return it to them.

So, my question then is, does anybody has this similar experience or at least from someone that they know of? And is there any possible solution to this one?

It has almost the same problem as this video except that mine does not open an application but keeps on typing by itself when the keyboard is up or it just simply freezes that no matter where I touch on the screen it does not respond except if I press the Home button.

Any good advice will be much appreciated.

If you are typing, and it is not responding, but yet it starts typing by itself afterward, this is probably the effect of a slow down of your CPU or running out of RAM. When this happens, the keyboard does not show a key clicked, or a word typed until after you actually tapped the key.

In order to fix it:: try shutting down all open apps by double-pressing the Home button, holding down one of the apps until little red badges pop-up on all of them, and tapping that little red badge on each app until they all disappear.

Then do a hard restart:: Hold down the Sleep and Home buttons until the device turns off, then hold the Sleep button until you get the boot screen to turn it back on.

Test it out. Hope this helps.

UPDATE

In newer versions of iOS, the method to shutting down applications has changed. Instead, your open applications appear as tiles that you may scroll left to right. Swipe each of these up to shut off all of your open apps.


Find my Phone as a shortcut My wife constantly misplaces her phone.
Is there any way to make a shortcut in iOS (or macOS) to enable a one-touch solution to find her iPhone? (I can see her phone in the Find My app).

I have a family iCloud plan, and everyone is on the list. So I saw the option in the Shortcuts app that mentioned that I can add it as a shortcut.
If you go into the Shortcuts app and look under the Gallery tab, you might see an topic to add to "Show the location of" for your wife's phone.
But I think you can also directly just ask Siri to find your Wife's phone. I've done that with my oldest daughter's phone sometime as well.


Charge iOS device through mains whilst using data cable with laptop Take two Apple data sync wires:

Cable 1, which connects the iPad to a laptop USB port, and
Cable 2, only connected by itself to an iOS data charger socket plugged into the mains, ready to charge any iOS device (not connected to an iOS device)

Is it possible to connect (or solder) the 'power' wires of the two cables (responsible for charging an iOS device) so that the mains can charge the iPad whilst the laptop can transfer data as required to the iPad? Is this feasible without any major complications?

Rather than having to deal with a homebrew solution, why not just purchase an externally powered USB hub? For example, the D-Link DUB-H7 USB hub is able to provide 1.2 Amps through 2 of its 7 total ports (labeled as 'fast charging' ports). There may also be other hubs out there that will offer the maximum 2 Amps per port.


Migration Assistant move from Yosemite to Sierra: keyboard and trackpad behaviour different when using Microsoft Remote Desktop I've done a Migration Assistant move of my apps/data/settings from a Yosemite machine to a Sierra machine.

After that I verified that all my "System Preferences" keyboard shortcut settings and trackpad settings had been copied over (they are; I had disabled most of them so Microsoft Remote Desktop gets all keys and mouse events)

On the Sierra machine, somehow these are note forwarded correctly:

Option-Space
Secondary-Click

With "Yosemite", both will get you the Windows "right mouse button" behaviour (firing up the context menu).

On "Sierra", this the resulting behaviour

Option-Space will get a blank space
Secondary-Click will paste the clipboard

How can I force Sierra to forward them as-sis to the Microsoft Remote Desktop session?

I'm using a "US" keyboard on both Yosemite and Sierra.

I've reproduced this issue with:

Microsoft Remote Desktop.8.0.23
Microsoft Remote Desktop.8.0.26
Microsoft Remote Desktop.8.0.29
Microsoft Remote Desktop.8.0.35
Microsoft Remote Desktop.8.0.36

It might be worth trying the latest RDC 8.2 beta from Technet :Remote Desktop Client Preview for Mac supports multiple monitors and more

Even though it is still a beta, it offers several significant improvements over the existing release version. I've been using it for months without seeing any real issues.

Key improvements

Multiple monitor support
Copy and Paste files using Cmd or Ctrl C/X/V
Direct connectivity to desktops as well as connectivity through a Remote Desktop Gateway
A new user interface together with a redesigned user accounts experience that includes unified management
High quality video and audio streaming
Import of .rdp files into the app and export of connections as .rdp files
New features like the ability to group desktops and to copy and paste images and files


How can I reset the admin password without a working screen? I know that there are many threads about resetting/retrieving an admin password, but bear with me please and I'll explain why they don't work for me.

I recently moved in to a property only to find that the previous tenant had left behind a mid 2007 iMac - great, right!? No. The iMac works... as a CPU. The screen has been smashed up and has only a faint light emitting from the lower left corner so I have had to resort to buying a Mini DVI to VGA (which works perfectly as I'm currently on it on a guest account). This is where it gets a bit more complicated though. I wish to reset the iMac, but cannot without using the UIs accessed through reboot - when I access these (CMD+R, CMD+S, etc.) the external display isn't recognised so I go completely blind as to what is happening. I have read a few threads that say resetting an iMac is complicated, so I have thought about just creating myself a new administrator account, deleting the old one and all of the files with it - but without the old admin password, I can't do that - again, all threads resort to UIs accessed via reboot which I can't VISIBLY access...

So how can I reset the admin password without a working screen?

Simply create a new admin account by reinitiating the OS X Setup Assistant:

Boot to Single User Mode by holding ⌘S on startup with the external display attached.

Wait a few minutes and then enter ("blindly"):

mount -uw /

wait a second or two and then enter:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot

In Single User Mode the US-en keyboard layout is used. If you have a non-Apple or a non-US-en Apple keyboard you have to adapt the input.

After the restart the OS X Setup Assistant opens and you can configure your Mac. Go through the steps of creating a new admin account.

After logging in on the new admin account, go to the Users & Groups preference pane. Select the old account(s), press the minus button for each and delete all files associated with them.


How can one get last wakeup from screen saver time on Mac OS One can use pmset -g log to get to the info about Wake and Start events of Mac OS. But pmset doesn't seem to make any special assertions to the log when system goes into screen saver mode, and what particularly of interest to me, when the screen saver quits.

What command or log file I can use to find out when the last wake from screen saver event occurred?

Your two filters to type in the Console log would be:

For screen saver activate: screenshot

For screen saver end: DidWake

Open the Console in the Utility folder and while having selected "all messages" type the above in the filter/search window.


How do I select which city appears in Glances for the Apple Watch World Clock app? When I enable Glances for the World Clock app on my Apple Watch, I see (only) the city that with the largest positive offset from UTC, not the one I want to see.

How do I select which city appears in Glances for the Apple Watch World Clock app?

The city that shows is the one at the top of the list in the World Clock watch app and the World Clock section in the Clock app on my iPhone (which can be set the iPhone app: click Edit and then drag).


How to reimport Live Photos in Apple Photos? I use "My Photo Stream" to sync new photos into the Photos app on macOS. I just learned live photos are synced as still images via the stream.

When I want to reimport those live photos they are hidden under thousands of already imported photos.
Is there a way or a tool to easily reimport those live photos to complete my library on macOS?

I ran into the same problem, luckily I had not deleted the files from the camera roll of my iPhone.

Photos.app will recognize the Live Photos as duplicates when already imported by Photo Stream as still photo.

The good thing is that you can reimport those "duplicate" Live Photos in Photos.app and they will not duplicate but will be replaced with the correct Live Photo version. Use "Import Selected" button.

The problem now is that manual selection of thousands of photos is not an option.... so I reimported the whole camera roll by dragging a frame over all the already imported files, including all duplicates (still photos and Live Photos) into the Photos.app. You will get an error message that "Duplicate bursts are not supported“, if you also have duplicate bursts to import,  but that is even better in this situation avoiding unnecessary dupes. The rest of the duplicate still photos then can be filtered out using third party software like Duplicate Annihilator or PowerPhotos.

It is really stupid that the Photos.app is not giving an option to just replace the still versions of the Live Photos during import... would make our lives easier.

Don't forget to disable Photo Stream to not run into this issue again!
And make backups before messing around with your Photos.app Library!

UPDATE

I yesterday checked my iCloud settings on iPhone running iOS 12.2 and discovered, that somehow Photostream was active again. I am not sure how that happened. Had to go through the whole process again. I will now check after every iOS and macOS update if settings changed...


Convert between FileVault 2 and Disk Utility encryption? I know of two ways to enable full-disk encryption in macOS Sierra:

Turn on FileVault 2, or
Boot to recovery, reformat the disk as encrypted, and reinstall macOS.

I've read in several places around the web that the underlying encryption technology is the same either way, and the difference is just how the decryption key is obtained at boot time.  With FileVault, a user's login password also serves to unlock the disk, but when you encrypt with Disk Utility, you choose a separate password just for the encryption.

I've found that if the disk was encrypted via Disk Utility at install time, you can also enable a user to unlock it via the FileVault preferences window.  Then, at startup, you can unlock the disk using either the disk password or the user's login password.

Having gotten into this hybrid state, though, I don't see a way to get out of it.  What I'd like to know is:

After I've enabled a user to unlock the disk, is there a way to remove the old disk password (that was created with Disk Utility at install time) and replace it with a recovery key, so it's like a normal FileVault setup that just uses user passwords?
Alternatively, is there a way to remove the user from FileVault so that only the disk password will work?

And, on a related note:

If FileVault was enabled in the usual way (starting from an unencrypted Mac), is there a way to add a disk password that's separate from the user login passwords, like what I'd have if I'd encrypted via Disk Utility at install time?

As it turns out, I found the answers to most of this not long after I asked the question.  The command-line fdesetup program offers some additional options.

Removing Disk Password

Run sudo fdesetup list -extended and look for the UUID labeled "Disk Passphrase".  Then run sudo fdesetup remove -uuid <UUID> to remove it.

This can be used to remove the disk password that was created via Disk Utility, leaving only user login passwords for unlocking the disk.

Removing User from FileVault

Run sudo fdesetup list (-extended isn't needed) to see what users are authorized to unlock the disk, then use sudo fdesetup remove -user <USER> or sudo fdesetup remove -uuid <UUID>.

This can be used to de-authorize users so that only the disk password can be used.

Adding Recovery Key

Run sudo fdesetup changerecovery -personal.  This will prompt for a password (anything that's currently enabled to unlock the disk), then display the new recovery key.  (Write it down!)

Removing Recovery Key

Run sudo fdesetup removerecovery -personal.  As above, this will prompt for a password.

Adding Disk Password

I couldn't find a way to do this in-place — sudo diskutil cs passwd seems like it ought to work, but it requires there to be an "old" disk password already.

However, you can turn off FileVault using the preferences window (which decrypts the disk), then use sudo diskutil cs encryptLV <UUID> to re-encrypt it with a disk password.  This is slow, since it has to decrypt and re-encrypt all the data, but it works.


Can't download update for iPhoto? Upon attempting to open iPhoto.app, a window in Finder opens "The version on this Mac is not compatible with OS X Yosemite. Download the latest version for free from the Mac App Store."

App Store says "Item Not Available....The item out requested is not currently available in the U.S. store".

I constantly see activity from within this app, same with iCloud, which I've never used, in the console, though.  How/why is it running and how am I supposed to update it so I can see what's going on?

iPhoto.app has been replaced with the Photos.app in OS X 10.10.3 is not supported in Yosemite. Should've done my research before asking, my bad.

I bought my 2011 MacBook Pro new in Dec 2015, though, preloaded with Yosemite.

Any ideas why iPhoto would be on this computer (along with Photos) in the first place?


How can I install hundreds of pkg files? I have a directory full of pkg files that I need to install.  I tried "installer -packages *.pkg" , but that didn't work.  Any ideas on how to do this?  Do I need to make a metapackage?

Use cycle for this. You can type next in your terminal command line:

for f in *.pkg; do installer -packages "$f"; done


Mac Mail App - Lot's of flagged emails: getting rid of it I recently bought a MacBook and now I am trying to understand how to use the native email client. I use only an iCloud and a Gmail account to handle email, and most of my important emails are in Gmail.

After adding both accounts and waiting for the mail app to sync, I ended up with a "Flagged" folder full of messages (~450). There's a count badge on the right side of the folder name.

How do I get rid of the counter for the "Flagged" folder? Am I suppose to de-flag all messages or delete them? Am I using the Flagged folder in a wrong way?

Stars on Gmail are flags on Mail app. You can go ahead and remove the flags if you wish; the Flagged folder is a smart folder and removing the flags or stars will empty it. Or you can just leave them there, it depends on what you used Stars for.

I wouldn't delete them though; while usually items in folders are just tags in Gmail, I'm not sure if deleting mail in folders will result in just removing the tag and keeping other copies on their folders, or deleting them for good; it will probably depend on your settings.


iPhone is dead, will not charge I have an iPhone 4s running on iOS 8.1.3. I've owned it for about 2-3 years now and have taken good care of it physically and hardware wise. But recently my phone had died. I plugged it in to the charger no problem right? I come back about 20 minutes later to see nothing had changed... I tried adjusting the cord, trying to power down the device, rebooting, safe mode, and just letting it sit without the cord and retrying to charge it. Nothing worked; the phone just kept blinking the red battery logo even of 1 entire day of charging. What is there to do?

There are a few possible things that could have happened. I've ordered them (and their solutions) below from most to least likely.

Explanations:

You have a faulty cord.

It has become frayed on the inside.
One of the metallic connectors is dirty.

Dust or dirt has collected in your charging port.
Your wall outlet is not functioning correctly.
You have a hardware problem.

Your charging port has become disconnected internally.
Your battery is defective.

Many of these cause your device not to charge. Thus, powering on your device does nothing.

Solutions:

Get a new cord.

Manually repair the wire by soldering the frayed ends together and using a heat-shrink to put everything back together. (You probably just want to buy a new cord.)
Clean the dirty connectors.

Clean out your charging port with a folded index card, toothpick, plastic card, etc.
Call an electrician.
Take your device in to get fixed. (Hopefully, you have a warranty.)


Can I reduce the time to display the list of running windows when clicking and holding the icon of a running application in the dock? When you click and hold the icon of a running application in the OS X dock you get a list of current app windows that you can pick from.  The list of windows appears after some time interval.  Is there a way to reduce this interval?

If your Mac has a trackpad, you can click with two fingers to bring up that menu without delay. If it has a Magic Mouse, you can click on the right side of the mouse. If it has a standard PC mouse, you can right click, and whatever hardware you have, you can also hold Control while clicking to do the same thing. This also brings up other context menus in all sorts of places in the system! Hope this helps.


Swap key €->$ permanently I have a Macbook Air with a Swedish keyboard and when I type Shift+4 I get this: €. What I would like to get is $ ,now at Alt+4.

How can I swap these two around?

You could try Ukelele that allows you to edit key mappings for free.


How can I find an app on my iPhone? I have not found a way to locate the placement of an app in my many pages of folders on my iPhone home screen, short of looking through every single folder on every single page.

Before you say "use the search feature" let me point out "search" does not actually allow you to find anything—or, if it does, it's very hard to figure out how.  The so-called search feature gives you an alternate launcher, but if it can be used to tell you where your app icon is in the many pages of your home screen, buried in the many folders on each page, I have not figured out how to make it do that.  If all you want to do is launch the app, then "search" is okay.  But if you want to move it to a certain folder, then (as far as I can tell) you're out of luck.

At least as of March 2020, when I'm writing this.  Apple has finally given us the ability to delete things from the App Store, so they're on the right track.  But I am failing to find a way to find things.  Is there a way to do it?

Update:
See my answer below to connect the dots between the problem and jmh's solution.

If you have Open_Term or another app that you can use the command line on, go to that app and cd into your directory. Then type ls -laRt. That will list all the contents of all the folders. You can then search the output for the app you want.

It's a lot to do for what you want. There should be an easy and automatic way to do this.

You can also use the spotlight search which should give you the folder the app is in. From your home screen slide the desktop to the right to get the window where the widgets are are accessible. At the top of that window is a search bar. This is the spotlight search. Type the complete name of the app in the search box and hit return. If there is only one match it will list the folder where the app is stored.


What is the best way to recharge an iPod Touch battery? I wonder how to handle the recharging of my iPod touch ? I've heard that there are some actions to have to be done regularly or actions that arms the battery (like memory effect etc...)

I believe that you’re looking for the info straight from Apple’s iPod Battery’s Page., which contains all the information that you need to keep your battery as healthy as possible.

In any case, as with any other modern battery, avoid excessive heat not only when recharging but also when the device is not in use.


Problem creating a Windows 10 bootable USB on Windows, to work on a MacBook Pro I have a MacBook Pro 2013, now with a clean SSD (no OS).
I have a Windows 10 PC from which I am trying to create a bootable USB from a Windows 10 ISO file.
I tried a lot of combinations and softwares, but when I plug the USB on MacBook Pro, click options and then select UEFI, the screen just stays black, it is not recognizing the installation program.
Can anyone share a method to create this USB on Windows in a manner that the MacBook Pro will recognize it?

I assume you are trying to install Windows 10 on the MacBookPro 2013. Your question does not provide enough information that can be used to generate an exact answer. I would need to know which version of firmware is currently installed on your Mac. This firmware is tied to the latest version of macOS (OS X) that was installed on your Mac. You may need later firmware to boot the Windows 10 installer from an ExFAT formatted volume. Also, I would need to know the Windows 10 ISO version and how the ISO was obtained. The contains of early Windows 10 ISOs would fit on FAT32 formatted volumes. The latest Windows 10 ISOs can contain an install.wim file that exceeds 4 GB file limit of FAT32 formatted volumes. However, the latest Windows 10 ISOs download on a PC using the Media Creation Tool may instead contain a install.esd file that would fit on a FAT32 formatted volume. However, Apple recommends using the Windows 10 ISO directly downloaded from the internet.
Finally, to install Windows 10, you need the correct Windows Support Software for your model Mac. The usual method of acquiring the Windows Support Software is by directing the Boot Camp Assistant to download. This would require first installing the latest macOS compatible with your Mac. After downloading to an external drive, you can erase the internal SSD. Using the Boot Camp Assistant installed on a different Mac will probably result in the wrong Windows Support Software being downloaded. You can also download the Windows Support Software using a PC, but this is a far more complicated process. Therefore, I would recommend using the PC to download the Windows Support Software only as a last resort.


How to map "$" character to "€" on French AZERTY keyboard I'd like to have a direct access to "€" character by pressing the physical "$" key rather than having to do "Alt/Option + $".

I've been searching around and found this article:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2450/_index.html

I try to use it, but "€" key code is not provided. Moreover, the layout is not for AZERTY keyboard. When I followed the provided example, instead of swapping "a" and "b", I ended up swapping "q" and "b".

Could anyone provide me with a solution please? Or the exact key code of "$" and "€" to use with hidutil?

Thanks,

You can easily make a custom input source with the mapping you want with Ukelele.


screen saver and lock not in the same time i want my mac-book (Mojave 10.14.1) to enter screen saver after a certain time but enter lock after longer time.
is it possible?

i tried looking for it in screensaver setting and in energy setting without luck. i could only set the screen saver time.

10x

The setting you want is in preferences -> security and privacy -> general -> require password (some time) after screen sleep or screen saver.

Note that the lock is will happen (some time) after either the screen saver starts or the screen sleeping.